Friday January 3rd, 1975
As it had turned out, Slughorn had both a vial of rattlesnake venom and a jar of tears that had been cried by a faithful lover. The only ingredient left that they needed was the hair of a married woman and Professor Slughorn promised he would have it for them by the next day. Slughorn was also terribly impressed with the quickness in which they had come across the instructions, and he beamed as he told them how certain he was that they would do an outstanding job at brewing it.
"I wonder who's tears these are.." Lily had said off-handedly, examining the little jar of clear liquid Slughorn had set before her.
They would begin brewing the potion the following day, but Lily wasn't thinking of Amorestmorta or Slughorn, she was thinking of what Severus might want for his birthday, which was only six days away.
She had considered all the usual things, but none of them seemed fitting for a boy who had all the books he could want to read, disliked candy, and took little joy in the usual types of presents. She thought maybe a bit of magic might be better- maybe another potion.
She had been careful not to mention his birthday to him, for whatever she ended up giving him, she wanted it to be a surprise, and he hadn't said anything about the impending day to her, either. He would be fifteen, and her birthday would follow twenty-two days later on the 30th. The thoughtfulness of his Christmas gift made her determined to match it, to present him with something equally useful, considerate, and clever. 'Radical Potionmaking' had put her Sugar Quills to shame.
Spending time together daily had become something of a routine, and after their last shared class, History of Magic, they drifted to the library when the weather was bad, or out by the lake under a particular tree when it wasn't too cold or raining. While they waited for the book on Amorestmorta to arrive in the post from Severus' mum, Severus told her what he could remember about what the book had said.
"It's only poisonous if just one person drinks it, or if the two people who drink it don't really love each other, which why it was also known as the suicide potion. Even the name derives from the Latin motto-"
"Love is death," Lily said, finishing his sentence for him.
"'Love is suicide,'" He corrected. "People who had been betrayed in love drank it to off themselves," Severus explained.
"I couldn't imagine wanting to kill myself because someone didn't love me." Lily said, somewhat wonderingly.
"Well, of course you couldn't. Everyone loves you. You're the best girl in our year."
Lily laughed. "You're just saying that."
They were sitting under their particular tree by the lake. The sky above was covered in a mass of steely gray clouds, flat and expansive. The cold waters of the lake slipped up and down the pebbled shore with a quiet sloshing sound. They sat on Severus' cloak which he had spread out over the damp, rotting leaves.
"You're right, I am just saying that. You're the worst." He said evenly, teasing, and Lily laughed, louder than the first time.
"Hey!" She said, and whacked him playfully on the arm. He grinned. "I'm only joking."
"What do you think it tastes like?" Lily asked suddenly, stretching her stockinged legs out before her and pulling up her black socks up over her knees.
"What does what taste like?" Severus asked. He drew his robes closer around him and shivered a bit in his jumper- it was cold.
"The potion. Amorestmorta."
"Good, hopefully." Severus said.
"All this death and love mixed up together.. The whole thing seems a bit grim to me, instead of romantic. Whose to say that you'd survive? There's no guarantee." Lily said, and shuddered.
"I think that's the point." Severus said. "The people who drank it were idealistic. They were willing to
risk their lives for true love."
"I suppose it just goes to show how much cultural standards in the wizarding world have shifted since then. Today people would think you were crazy to do something like that. You couldn't get me to drink it, that's for sure. No matter how certain I was that I was in love."
Severus wasn't eager to share with her his own thoughts on the potion, because he knew they contrasted so differently from her own. From a practical standpoint, he could see perfectly how silly it was to gamble your life on the chance that someone truly loved you, but the aspect that they might risk death to prove it appealed to his dark and hungry heart. When it had been popular, drinking Amorestmorta had been an unparalleled gesture, a gallant gesture.
"I'd drink it." He said suddenly, as if he were confessing some truth that didn't want to be spoken aloud. He twirled a decayed leaf in his fingers by its brown, withered stem.
Lily looked shocked. He said nothing and stared at her seriously for a few seconds, keeping his face set long enough to make her consider that he might not be joking, and then he laughed.
"Sev!" She said, and laughed too.
"I would, though." He said with a quick smile, and dropped the brown soggy leaf to the ground.
"I don't believe you!" Lily said, amused.
"Well, why not? If I was sure the person loved me, really, and I loved them, there'd be no chance of death, would there? Not that that's likely to happen," Severus added sarcastically before he could help himself.
Lily looked at him and made a small dismissive noise in her throat, but said nothing.
A part of her wanted to tell him that he would find someone, someday; everyone would eventually, but it didn't feel right to her to say those things to him somehow. She wasn't so sure that she didn't want to be that person that he found eventually- she'd certainly thought of it before, it was impossible not to when all of her friends teased her about it constantly. Though she liked him well, and knew that she might come to feel more for him than friendship if things were to go that way, there were also things about him that gave her serious pause, even caused her sometimes to think decisively that he was not a good match for her, after all.
He had atrocious friends who despised her even more than her friends despised him, he hardly took care of himself, had poor hygiene and was sometimes extremely moody with unexpressed emotion.
His knowledge of the dark arts was undeniably prolific, almost bordering on reverence (he was the best by far in Defense Against the Dark Arts), and there were, of course, all the stupid rumors that he and his Slytherin friends wanted to join up with You-Know-Who. Lily knew these tales were rubbish, but it still bothered her that so many people seemed to think that Sev was up to no good. Was there something about him that she, being too close to him, couldn't see?
Despite all of that, there were lots of things she liked about him, too, from his slightly crooked smile to the way he gently teased her, to the way his hands moved when brewing a potion and his unique turn of mind. He was a brilliant potioneer, exacting and precise, who saw the artfulness of potion brewing and who was aware of the mystique of a softly simmering cauldron. Lily enjoyed brewing and working with him just as much as he did with her. When they worked together, they became a solid unit, the perfect mix of intuition and skill. He was so unlike the other boys in their year that sometimes they seemed somewhat disappointing to her after talking all afternoon with Severus about history, potions, books, magical theory and philosophy.
Aside from Lily, no girl had ever exhibited even the smallest response to him aside from one of contempt or vague disgust, and she knew that, and was aware that Sev knew it, too. Sometimes, he had made Lily angry over the course of their friendship, but she had always forgiven him, or come round to see his side of things.
"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, Sev." Lily said finally, and reached out to tug gently on his tie.
"You're going to strangle me one day, if you keep doing that," Severus said, but he was smiling broadly. It was easy to feel happy around Lily. She had a way of making Severus feel as though anything might be possible, as though there was a life out there waiting for him that contained things that he had only just dared to imagine for himself.
Severus knew it was pure cowardice that prevented him from telling her how he felt, cowardice and a fear of losing her friendship if she didn't feel the same. Their time spent together was precious to Severus, and he did not want to see it go down like a shipwreck in a sea of awkward silences and un-returned affection. She was his only real friend.
"So tomorrow we're meeting after breakfast," She said, and pulled her copied instructions for brewing Amorestmorta out of her pocket. "I think we should use a standard size two. The instructions call for iron, luckily, and not brass."
Severus took the paper and looked at its tidily written lines, studying her handwriting rather than the words. "Let's use a three, I want to hold some of it back for my own stores."
"You want to brew that much?" She asked in surprise.
"Well, if we use a two, that's fifteen standard vials for Slughorn and only five for me. If we use a three, that's twenty for Slughorn and ten for me."
"You're planning on selling it, just like Slughorn!" Lily said, not disapprovingly.
Severus smiled but said nothing.
Eventually it got dark and cold, and they went inside to hang around idly before dinner. When they entered the great hall together and went to their separate house tables, Severus noted with satisfaction that Potter in particular looked miserable when he saw them.
"I see you've been spending time with your boyfriend," Mary Macdonald said when Lily sat beside her at the Gryffindor table.
"Jealous, Mary?" Lily asked, helping herself to chicken and potatoes, carrots, green beans, and a roll.
"Not if it's Snape you're dating. You could do so much better, he's nothing to look at."
"Severus isn't that bad looking." Lily heard herself say. "He's just unkempt. And why should it matter if someone isn't traditionally good looking, if they're already smart and talented?"
Sirius Black looked up interestedly from a few seats down the table at these words, and he and James exchanged a dark look between themselves.
Mary shrugged. "I guess I just have higher standards than some people."
Lily narrowed her eyes. "It's not about that, Mary, don't be superficial. And anyway, we aren't dating."
"Yet." Mary said.
Lily sighed and took a big bite of carrots and potatoes to prevent herself from saying something nasty. Mary Macdonald was infamously surface, terribly catty, and Lily knew she couldn't expect Mary to understand any kind of relationship that was based on mutual interest instead of physical attraction. Mary went through boys like days of the week.
As she ate, she noticed uncomfortably that James Potter was staring at her, his usually even features seemingly twisted with both anger and sadness. Eventually Sirius Black elbowed James not-so-gently in the ribs, and he finally looked away.
Lily finished her dinner as quick as she could, stuffed a roll or two in her pocket, and headed for Gryffindor tower.