…Drugs can drastically alter relationships.
"Sorry Mrs. Fulton! My boyfriend didn't know not to walk on your lawn. It won't happen again!"
Severus stops dead in his tracks. His brain observes his heart stop, stutter, restart. Eventually he regains enough motor skills to step off the lawn of Lily's screeching neighbor and slip shakily into her passenger seat.
"What did you just call me?"
Lily grins at him, relaxed as you please, as though she didn't just drastically alter all reality and time. "My boyfriend, of course. That's what you are."
Then she puts her car in reverse and pulls out of her driveway while Severus teaches himself how to breathe again.
"Lily, this isn't necessary."
"Don't be stupid, of course it is," she shakes her head (red hair he drinks in like air) and shoves another button-down his way.
Severus clutches the obnoxiously large pile of fabric to his chest. Lily had insisted (Touch me like that Sev!) on coming to this secondhand store and procuring the loudest, most nauseating clothing she possibly could. Now he understands what the Polaroid camera in the backseat will be used for.
Lily is very, very lucky he loves her more than his own life.
"Lily, why don't we just go see a film like a normal couple?" he grumbles and pretends that the words that just escaped his mouth aren't a bloody miracle.
"Hush. It's very early. The cinema isn't even open yet! Besides, I have the whole day planned. It'll be great."
The sleepy cashier gives Severus a pitying, understanding look. Severus rolls his eyes. As though Severus isn't the luckiest bastard on the whole damn planet.
Lily thumbs through several more racks. She adds a skirt with more beads attached than should be legal to the pile, and an orange shirt that Severus will never put upon his person, everlasting love be damned.
And then her eyes (green life-death) cut to the lone rack of slightly higher quality shirts and trousers, the ones in calm neutral colors and socially acceptable cuts.
"No," Severus all but growls. Lily is already moving however, and before he can say much more than several curse words and the term charity tossed in there somewhere, she is throwing several decent articles of clothing onto the pile.
"Don't say a word," she snaps haughtily when she finally turns to face him. He presses his lips together, thinks of the feel of hers under his. Nods once. Tightly.
She smiles, rewards him with a flirty hair toss and a wink. "I want some good pictures too, Sev, not just goofy ones. Besides, if you wear those good clothes, I'll wear…"
She trails off, eyes scanning the dress rack she had avoided before. Lily isn't really a dressy kind of girl, and Severus has often appreciated her practicality. But when her (stunning) eyes find a dress made of silver sequins, he finds himself holding his breath.
She approaches the rack, yanks the dress off the hanger. Severus catches a sparkly glimpse of green, Lily's gasped no freaking way how in Merlin's name?! and watches with growing intrigue as she beams a smile at him and slips into the nearest dressing room.
When she emerges, he promptly drops the outlandish pile of intended purchases and just stares.
The dress is silver, yes, and half a size too loose for her, so while her front is fairly modestly covered, the back droops down to near-scandalous proportions. It hits her mid-thigh and flares out a bit when she twirls around. This is not what has caught most of his attention, however. (Although her bare back is enticing… dear Merlin…) Across her entire torso, from shoulder to hip, is a zig-zag design that could very easily be mistaken for an emerald S.
"Slytherin," Severus breathes.
Lily steps forward boldly, the early morning sun throwing refracted light off the sequins to everywhere. He wonders if she knows this is always how she looks to him, shining and ethereal and beautiful beyond words. (Green red silver death eat the air.)
"No," she whispers back, glancing at the cashier, who is stuffing his face full of sausage, "S for Severus."
And then she pulls him into the dressing room and he is (found) lost.
They sit on the train, munching on junk food Lily bought back at the station. Severus is still tingling (Shhh, Sev, shhh, I'm pretty sure this is illegal) but is now much more amicable toward this asinine photo shoot plan of hers. At least twenty years from now, when he's undoubtedly the most pathetic and boring individual on the planet while James Potter is off being a Ministry spy and Sirius Black is working for a Muggle bomb squad, he'll be able to dust off these terrible photographs to prove that this actually happened.
Perhaps he can even charm them to move once they go back to school so that he can watch Lily (Lily love Lily love) give him kisses (he'll feel) for the rest of his life.
Eventually she stops munching and instead swings her feet up and onto the seat next to her. She lies back until she is sprawled across Severus's lap.
He glares at anyone that comes too close to their compartment.
After a film that Severus insisted they see (like normal people not a freak you're special like me), Lily sighs heavily into her palm, careful not to bash the camera against the picnic table.
"I can't wait to get these developed," she snickers.
"Hush. That orange shirt was very sophisticated on me."
Lily laughs outright this time (music playing in the background, and the lyrics will always sound like her from now on), "Sure, Sev. You looked like a Halloween costume, all that orange and black!"
"Then I'm sure Halloween will be your favorite from now on, then."
"Oh, sure. I'll make you dress up like a mad Muggle scientist this year, always fiddling about with chemicals-"
"Hey!" Severus lunges at her, and she shrieks, skips away (stones skipping on water at their spot, skimming slightly above when they're meant to sink, hopping hopping hopping then tragedy), and of course Severus chases.
Lily runs right past it, and then she stops, eyes wide, and backtracks. Severus waits for her at the entrance. She looks from him to the door and then back (Sev should we… I mean, can I… please. I just need you so badly Sev-).
"Should we go?"
Severus shrugs. "Well we need to get the pictures developed don't we?"
Lily takes a deep breath and accompanies him to Diagon Alley.
Up until the first explosion, Severus had been having the best day of his entire existence. (There are a lot of those with her.)
He had followed Lily into Diagon Alley, intent on letting her see the end of her shopping goals, and had hoped to persuade her into an apothecary or two.
Instead, not a half hour into the alley, while holding hands (where everyone could see oh Sev we shouldn't I'm fairly sure it's illegal but oh) and perusing a rather strange species of owl on the sidewalk in front of the magical pet shop, the (second) worst had happened.
Potter and Black (PotterBlackboth) had appeared with a cry of "Evans!" and she had turned away.
"Oh! Sirius. James. I didn't expect to see you here. School doesn't start for three weeks yet."
"Perhaps we just wanted to see all the finest sights… such as yourself," Black winked, and Severus held back bile.
Lily had rolled her eyes.
"Don't mind Padfoot, Lily," Potter had said quietly, most unlike his usual arrogant self. "He's… barking, you know."
Black seemed as though he didn't know whether to snicker or frown at that. It was a most moronic expression.
"Er, yes, of course," Lily had said, most perplexed.
Severus had arched one eyebrow at Potter. Just what was he playing at? (Let's all look at Snivellus's trousers!)
Severus was just about to open his mouth to tell them both in no uncertain terms to fuck off, when instead of his nasty retort, a nasty curse was cried quite loudly only six shops down, on the opposite side of the street.
Severus, it seemed, had been the only one to react, and even he did not register at first that he'd responded at all.
The blast blew him several feet away even as he instinctively dodged to the side, thoroughly decimating the entire next block and half of the one he'd just been standing on. Screams sounded, and breaking glass, but all he could hear was Lily's gasped "Sev!" as she was thrown backwards, into the glass window with Potter and Black.
Her red hair disappeared into the smoke (he chokes no air to eat Death everywhere) and that had been the last he'd seen of her.
Two more explosions had gone off, one inside the apothecary he'd wanted to visit, and another even further down the alley, closer to Gringotts.
In the minutes between, the real battle broke out, confused Aurors Apparating far too late onto the scene, two or three being struck down immediately. Hexes, more curses, jinxes, all flew through the air, and Severus could not see, could not think.
Until, somewhere between the second and third blast, he had one thought, and one thought only.
He had to find Lily.
Now, running through a battlefield and not entirely able to see where he is going, he runs over and over the words she'd spoken on the train.
Listen, Sev… I owled Marleen a week ago.
No, of course not Sev. It's not dangerous. Really.
Well, it's a bit like Muggle acid I suppose, except safer. It's a potion with an antidote. It's not even illegal! Yet.
Well. Of course we don't have to take any of it Sev! It's just that, well, I'm a bit stressed lately. There are rumors… horrible rumors, Sev… and I think something big is going to happen next year. Our last year. And something is always happening at home, either with your parents or my sister. I just thought we could both use a night away. A miniature vacation of sorts. So I told Mum I was staying with Marlene tonight.
I had planned on staying in the Muggle World, but I suppose the Leaky would do just as fine, if we happened to go. I'm not sure we should.
It is his only chance of finding her in this mess.
Severus takes out his wand, and begins casting.
Lily feels the blast, and only just has time to reach out and grab Sirius by his shirt and James by his hand. It is more instinctive than anything, a way to feel in control as her body hurtles through the air and smashes through glass that cuts into her back and arms and head.
Smoke fills her vision instantly, turning the world around and inside out; it is entirely impossible to distinguish any one direction from another.
She lies on the floor of the owlry for a moment, glass and feathers flying everywhere, and she closes her eyes, dazed. What had just happened? What had she been doing only moments ago? (Smoke and feathers. Feathers and smoke.)
After seconds, or perhaps hours, or perhaps days, a voice comes through. "Lily?! Lily! EVANS!"
It is James. Lily looks at him (What do you see in greasy old Snivellus anyway?) and gasps for air and clarity. "James? What happened? What-"
The second explosion goes off. Lily flinches as more dust flies into the window she just hurtled through, and she curls onto her side, into James. His arms fold themselves around her. Sirius presses himself against her back, tucking his face into her hair. Together they shield her from the worst of it, but nothing can block out the screaming.
She realizes she is still clutching both of them.
She sits up as soon as she can, only to see the bodies of owls and cats and kneazles and lizards and ferrets all around her. The bodies of witches and wizards scatter the ground outside. Spells are flying everywhere. To leave would be suicide, but Lily Evans will not sit goddamnit she has to get up and move to find Severus oh Severus, sweet Severus, you cannot be dead Severus Death cannot have you today or tomorrow you must stay here.
"Lily-"
"I have to go, James, Severus is-"
Sirius cuts her off as another explosion goes off down the alley, closer to Gringotts. She winces as the ground rumbles, but the smoke and dirt is starting to clear somewhat, enough for her to distinguish the colors of the spells being thrown on the street. She wants to scream when she sees bright green, but the sound never becomes more than a thought (memory) in her throat.
She lets go of Sirius's shirt.
"Are you insane, Evans?! Just leave Snivellus, I'm sure his Death Eater pals will spare him-"
Lily ignores Sirius, and instead glares at James, expecting him to tighten his grasp on her hand. Instead, his eyes roam over her face, and she has the sudden, unbidden thought that he truly has lovely dark eyes that would look perfect in the face of a child. Only, they are not children anymore, and there is no more time to contemplate what it means to be grown.
James lets go of her hand.
"Lily, please-" he tries to say, and a part of her that could have belonged with him breaks inside her and stays next to him with the glass on the floor, but she is gone before she can search for it.
Lily Evans whips out her wand and dives headfirst into war.
Someone wrenched her away from Severus. And for that, there will be hell to pay.
The body count totaled thirty-two.
In all, there were six explosions. (Ollivander's would have been the seventh, but after hearing the first, he had enacted ancient family wards and the shop had been spared.)
Severus thinks it is rather unfortunate that PotterBlackboth lived. However, Lily tells him instantly of how they held her through the worst of it, and as annoyed as it makes him, he can muster up more than a little (grudging) gratitude.
She has a cut the shape of a crescent moon on her forehead that will undoubtedly leave a Dark scar. Blood streaks her hair, dripping from the ends. Head wounds bleed a lot, and she received plenty of them when she went through the window.
Severus apologizes for separating them. Profusely. He cannot believe he almost lost his light, his life, his meaning and soul and-
The worst had been the Dementors.
But in the end, they had met on a side street, halfway to the Leaky, crowds pushing and shoving, trying to escape the chaos. And there she had seen, finally, the depth of his devotion.
The Dementors had come for her, and even though he knew she knew the Patronus charm, her face had gone ashen and she'd swayed amidst all the panic and the pain and the noise. (Severus, I could have sworn I heard a woman screaming… only a woman… but there were so many others!)
Severus had cast his Patronus, and she had seen, and there was no going back.
"A doe?! A doe, Severus Snape? Why the hell didn't you tell me?! What in Merlin's saggy ball-"
He is pushing her up the stairs, into their recently acquired (free, Merlin bless Tom) room, trying to curb her hysterics. Nearly two hundred witches and wizards are in the lounges and the pub, crowded around wizarding radios, trying to remain in the safe wards of the Leaky Cauldron and remain close to endangered family members still out on the streets. One woman is wailing. One of the fallen had been her son.
"Lily love, please calm down-"
"DO NOT TELL ANY WOMAN TO CALM DOWN SEVERU-"
He slams the door and silences the room and flings the shutters closed to escape the carnage, and with the light streaming in through the slants it's almost like they can pretend that the whole world is the same.
It is almost like they can pretend that they will ever know peace again.
She hyperventilates and she cries, and when the names Dorea and Charlus Potter are released among the thirty-two dead, she wails. (Apparently, she had gotten to know Potter's parents well, over an undisclosed number of holiday visits.)
And then Severus draws her a bath and washes the blood from her hair and tries very hard not to think of all that red all over his hands.
Lily takes what Marlene gave, and when she does, the visions come; she murmurs very quietly to the slain Potters.
Over and over, when she could not bear to go home to Petunia and her scorn and her parents' misunderstandings, they had welcomed her.
Her room across from Sirius's. Gone are the walls of the Leaky. Instead, the beautiful cream of her room at the Potter's. The sheer curtains surrounding the bed. The vanity mirror. The reflection that winks at her when she rants to herself about James.
Sirius's room, his Muggle posters, his motorcycle magazines piled high, sweet wrappers in the bin by the door. Hushed conversations at night, about his parents and his name and his star waiting on him somewhere in the sky.
She kisses him and when she opens her eyes it is James. She reaches for his hand. He lets hers go. "Lily please-"
Her Yule ball dress, the Potters' ballroom. Silver. She tries to convince herself she didn't pick it because of it reminds her of Severus. Silver threaded through his green tie.
Remus, dancing with her. Lips pressed against her ear. "You can't fool a werewolf, love. It's alright to miss him."
Dorea opening the door to her room, after a particularly nasty exchange of letters between herself and Petunia and her parents; they cannot understand why she can't be more sensitive to Tuny's jealousy. Just ignore it. Come home. Be ripped to shreds while you're at it.
Dorea's soft smile. Charlus's sarcastic jokes. "It's alright, dear. You can stay as long as you like."
The next morning. Lily's eyes open. Sirius is flying outside, hovering by her balcony. She blinks, and the broom turns to a motorcycle. He's carrying a child. She blinks again, and the image is gone.
Instead, Dorea is stroking her hair back.
"Not you," Lily sobs. "Not you."
"All of us, someday. After all, the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
"But- but James- I chose Se- He won't have me, he won't have anyone-"
Dorea rolls her eyes. "Oh Lily love. If you honestly think that, you're not nearly as intelligent as I thought you to be. Besides. I think James's fate lies with another. This time."
"Rest," Charlus advises from the doorway.
And Lily, entirely lost, closes her eyes.
When the drugs wear off, and her eyes open, he is all that is left. (She knows this is the last time she will take…anything. The visions are painful now.)
Lily blinks lazily, rolling onto her side to stare at him. Severus is not conventionally handsome, and that is precisely what turns her on so much.
She has spent what seems like weeks in this room with him, shut off from the rest of the world, but in reality it is only now the depths of night. The Aurors are still outside collecting statements, patrolling the area. Occasionally beams of light from their spells slide past the closed shutters, sending streaks scuttling across Severus's skin.
Hooked nose that reminds her of Roman coins (Rome wasn't built in a day but it burned in one please Severus won't you come in and reduce yourself to ashes too). Pale, pale skin that seems almost incandescent in the shining light of night. Black hair fanned out across the pillow, hair she can tug on.
And eyes that stare right back at her, taking in her own bare skin, her own hair and eyes and nose and mouth. (Dark masterpiece of a soul.)
Gods, his mouth. It's the most perfect part of him, the only expressive feature. It sneers, it smirks, and it smiles (for her), and the kisses…
She could have lost him this day. The thought makes her feel numbed and agonized all at once.
Lily leans over, and traces that beautiful mouth with her tongue. She licks and coaxes, and Severus puts up no barriers. No Occlumency, no walls. He only groans and blinks the haze out of his eyes and threads his fingers through her hair.
The heat is unbearable. It is August, and some of the explosion fires had raged long into the night. Lily is so tired she thinks she might die. She doesn't have the presence of mind for subtleties or the patience for her own subconscious, really. Instead. Instead. She is all sensation, all feel, all want, all need. Her body feels raw. It aches. It has been flung about and abused. Now it craves and demands.
What would have happened, if he had been number thirty-three?
She cannot bear the thought.
Mudblood. (Red mixed with the brown of the dust and debris, infected wounds.) She wants to split herself open one last time. Give him the last of it so no (unholy) terrorist group can take it ever again.
Lily gasps for air that she'll never have enough of, and she rolls until she is on top of Severus.
(We're special, you and I.)
The light sweeps through the room again, and she sees his eyes widen when she slides what little clothing he's wearing right off of him. She smiles at him. They are somewhere outside of time, outside of reality. Nothing can touch her here. Nothing except him.
Had it only been this morning when she'd assured her neighbor that he wouldn't walk on the lawn? Had it really been this afternoon when they had joked and exchanged sweet kisses and taken silly pictures?
Had they really been innocent when they woke up? Had the extra words and the extra thoughts and the extra angst and the extra drugs and the extra teasing and and and- had it really been real? Considered a necessary part of this process of belonging to him?
She's fairly certain Severus took the life of a Death Eater. Lily knows she herself must have fatally wounded someone trying to fight her way here, but she did not, could not stop to check. She had to get to him.
And now he is hers, and she is his, and she has no more use for petty innocence or eloquence.
His fingers find her nipples, then her clit. She moans and whimpers and cries out for him. Echoes of this place in (outside of) time have been reverberating through her (his) mind for weeks, months, years, waiting to escape. In the mundane moments, this place had slipped through. There is not a second where she does not exist right here.
Beams of light stream through, and Severus watches as his witch shatters in a way windows never can.
And when their bodies finally join, Severus looks up at her, expecting her grimace and her discomfort.
It is there; but only an undertone. A parenthesis. (Blood dripping, offered, a sacrifice and a protection, a ward in and of itself, Merlin, how could he have ever thought her blood anything less?)
The rest of her is love.
Severus looks at her, her sweaty shoulders and red hair and green eyes and the crescent cut on her forehead that will never fully heal.
Severus looks at her, and he understands, and no matter how time reasserts itself later, he will remain here. With her.
Always.
A/N: If you're reading this, PLEASE REVIEW. Thanks so much!