Wrong Kind of Hero

Chapter 3: Five Kinds of Smiles

"Er. I'm pretty sure the potion isn't supposed to turn all purple and glorpy like that."

"I'm also confident that your teacup wasn't supposed to turn into a furry hat, but I never said a word."

"You just did, Sev." He sighed.

"Why do I tolerate your continued presence?"

"Because you luurve me," Lily teased, batting her eyelashes at him and clasping her hands to her breast.

"Nonsense," Snape hissed at her, but his shaking hands dropped the mandrake root into the bubbling cauldron and there was a red, foul-smelling explosion that knocked them both off their feet. Lily lay sprawled on top of him, giggling.

"You will never tell a soul about this," Severus told her, "on pain of death."

"What, that you exploded a potion?" She turned to face him, and her thigh shifted against his hip as she propped herself up on her elbows with a wry grin on her face. "Your hair's red."

"So's yours, but I don't make a fuss about it." Lily rolled her eyes at him and pushed his hair back from his face. He looked up at her, startled. She made no move to roll off him, so he held still, barely breathing as she touched his face, wiping away red soot.

"No, I mean it turned red, silly. From the powder that shot out of that cauldron just now. What were you making in there anyway, the draught of living death?" But he could not answer, because oh, her thumb was brushing his lower lip, and she stared at his face as if fascinated, and he could not get enough of her stare, of her touch. He froze, panicked, unsure of what to do next. Should he shove her away? Should he pull her closer? What was the protocol for this situation? His body was taking over his mind, which was screaming that this was wrong, all wrong, and he didn't deserve to be touched like this. His treacherous body wanted to invite her to continue for as long as she liked. He knew, then, as he had dreaded knowing before, that this Muggleborn girl was going to mean to him much more than simple friendship. His lips parted, and he could not get them to close again. He gazed at her long lashes, feeling her hands exploring the contours of his face and he daren't ask what she was doing or why. One of those Gryffindor idiots would barge in and then this moment would be over all too soon. On impulse, he sucked her finger into his mouth and licked the remnants of potion off it. She gasped a little at that, pulled her finger back out of his mouth, feigning indignation.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Severus put on his most scholarly face.

"Highly interesting. I detect a hint of peppermint. A most unexpected side effect. Does anything magical appear to be happening?"

"Er, your tongue just turned blue," she said, grabbing his tongue between her forefinger and her thumb and examining it. "Yep," she said, grinning. "Definitely blue. I'm sure it'll wear off, though. What was it we were meant to be making again?" He scowled at her as menacingly as he could with his tongue still in her possession.

"-ive 'e 'ack 'y 'ongh, 'oo ebil 'ich." She burst into peals of laughter like tinkling bells.

"Make me."

Then it was James, damnable cocky bastard James, who burst through the door, probably looking to steal one of the Professor's ingredients for his nefarious purposes. He caught them, stopped dead on the spot and blurted out, "Bloody hell, Evans, what do you think you and Snivellus are doing?" Lily colored prettily, Severus could see it from his vantage point on the ground. She quickly let go of his blue tongue and wiped her hand on her robes.

"He was helping me with my homework and the potion got away from me. I was trying to clean him up, not that it's any of your information, Potter," she said snidely, brushing herself off and standing up, then offering her hand to Snape who took it gratefully. "I don't remember making a summoning potion for arrogant gits, though," she said, folding her arms. Snape choked back a laugh.

"Make a note of it, Lily," he said, feigning alarm. "We won't wish to attempt that particular combination again any time soon."

James stood there, shaking in anger, raising his wand to hex him, probably, but Snape got there first. "Expelliarmus!"

"Please do try to grow up, Potter," Lily said as she tossed her hair, took Severus by the arm and flounced out.

It was at dinner that evening that Snape discovered just what, exactly, the disastrous potion had done, besides turning his tongue blue and getting his hair dirty. He waved Lily over to the Slytherin table, ignoring the glares all around him. Gryffindors and Slytherins, friends? It was unthinkable. Unheard of, even unprecedented, as far as anyone knew. But then, Lily hardly cared for their poor opinions of her. She sat down next to her friend and looked at him expectantly.

"It amplifies and enhances flavours!" He was munching enthusiastically on an apple, the light of discovery in his eyes.

"Oh? Is that useful at all?" Lily asked doubtfully.

"Who cares? It's a new potion discovery, and I made it!" Caught up in his enthusiasm, Lily couldn't help but smile.

"Good on you, Sev. Good on you." She leaned in closer. "And wash your hair more often, will you? It looks nice when you bother."

"Meddling girl," he said, but he sounded secretly pleased.

"Arrogant prodigy," she shot back. "I should go sit at my House table before the Marauding terrors drag me back by my nose hair- not," she added quickly, "that I have nose hair long enough to drag by." Snape shook his head.

"I never said you did."

To tell the absolute truth, he preferred her this way, furious and wild and out of control as she raged against their close-minded classmates who disapproved of their friendship, or sweaty from Quidditch and smelling like earth and adrenaline. Not the perfect untouchable sugary-sweet confection she pretended to be in front of smarmy Potter and his idiotic friends, or the innocent smart-as-a-whip honor student she showed to the Professors, or even the loyal dutiful daughter and sister she was at home. None of those things were really Lily. The real Lily didn't giggle and bat her eyelashes as she sweetly told Potter to fuck off; the real Lily knew what the word Mudblood meant; the real Lily felt the burden of her heritage on her shoulders like a dead weight she lugged around, but she pretended it didn't matter so that maybe it wouldn't. He'd seen her at her worst, crying and gritting her teeth in frustration and swearing a blue streak but unwilling to give up or in… and he liked her better that way. At least it was honest. When she was angry, or just not thinking as she poured herself into flight and the game, she was beautiful, and more importantly, she was real. She wasn't some untouchable goddess on a pedestal when she was with him. She said things like "those fuckers just don't get it" and "who cares about them anyway when I have you" and "my blood was red, not brown, last time I checked". James Potter didn't know the real Lily Evans, he just idolized her for something she wasn't. Snape had told Potter as much once, catching him mooning after her again.

"She's not spun from moonbeams and stardust, you idiot! She's made of better things, real things, like chocolate chip cookies and how the air smells right after it rains and smudged pinkie fingers because she's left-handed and always gets her hand in the ink before it dries when she writes, and-" Oh, fuck. He loved her.

Potter had said, bewildered,

"Evans is left-handed?"

"You just proved my point. You can have her when you can tell me how many smiles she has, and what they all mean," he challenged Potter and left him standing there with a furrowed brow, furiously muttering "smiles… she's got more than one smile?" Severus knew then that Potter would never be good enough for her. Lily had overheard the whole conversation, and she slung an arm around Snape's shoulder as they walked away.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're wonderful?"

"I'm observant," he corrected her. "Unlike Potter."

"No, really. That was brilliant. You just get me, Sev. Like nobody else does." He'd flushed red and ducked his head down, embarrassed by her praise but pleased because she'd noticed. "So tell me, how many smiles do I have?" He tried to laugh it off and distract her with talk of professors and even, when he ran out of anything else to say, juicy school gossip, but she persisted. "How many?"

"Five," he said almost inaudibly. She considered this for a while.

"You'll have to tell me what they all mean sometime."

"Sure," he said, not really meaning it.

"I think you've got three. You don't smile very much," she added apologetically. "You've got your 'I'm-better-than-you' smirk, which you use a lot, but I don't know if it counts because it's sort of sadistic, really. And you've got your surprised smile, when something catches you off-guard and you have no choice but to be happy about it."

"Sounds about right," he said dryly. "So what's my third smile?"

"Well, sometimes I'll catch you with this really genuine smile on your face. It's small and close-lipped, but there's this light behind your eyes when you do it that makes it look like you're thinking about the thing you love most in the whole world. That one's my favorite, actually," she confided. Oh, bugger. She'd noticed his 'Lily-smile'. Reflexively he covered his mouth with his hand, just in case he was doing it now. Lily rolled her eyes and took his hand away.

"I said I liked it, you dolt. I just wish I was-" the cause, she thought. Then her eyes widened with horror at almost having said that out loud. "I wish you'd do it more often, I mean. Heh." Nervous laughter, check. Twitchy eyes, check. She was lying, and it showed. "Igottagoseeyoulater," she said, and bolted before she could make a further fool out of herself.

They practiced Quidditch together sometimes and shared team secrets and the keys to a locker room they'd nicked from their Captains- they traded every other week as to whose locker room it was. The sharing of secrets, they figured, was fair since it worked both ways, and both teams' strategies improved as a result of their communication, since both thought they had exclusive information on the other. It made things more interesting, anyway. Severus was starting to get tongue-tied around Lily, though, when from the other side of the locker she'd call to ask if he'd seen her other sock around anywhere, standing there in a sports bra and low slung Muggle pants. She seemed relatively unconcerned by her new curves, but it was all Snape could think about sometimes when they were flying around. He let one of his own Bludgers come back and hit him in the shin because he was too busy staring after her and how her Quidditch uniform fit her more tightly than it had two months ago.

Lily, of course, was noticing the changes in Sev as well- his voice had dropped from its nasal quality when they were kids to a pleasant baritone. He was much taller than he'd been before, and when he was changing shirts she noticed he'd grown a line of dark hair from right above his belly button before she quickly averted her eyes, blushing. She didn't dare speculate on how far down it continued, but it was certainly a new development.

James Potter was the youngest Seeker in years. It was absolutely unheard of to put a first or even second year on the team, but he was really good. Lily had to give him that. However, he'd been bragging about it to anyone who would listen for the past three years now, and she happened to be an excellent Chaser for a third-year. Who didn't brag. He kept asking her out every match, and it was really getting annoying. The first time he did it she almost fell off her broom.

"Don't you have a Snitch to catch?" She yelled at him. "And Hufflepuffs to beat into submission?"

"Well, yeah, but will you go with me?"

"When hell freezes over, Potter."

"Always nice talking to you, Evans." And on and on it went. He started cornering her in the library when she was studying. He'd moon about outside the girl's dormitory window at night wailing,

"Evans… lovely Evans, put me out of my misery and come to Hogsmeade with me." She'd always try to hex him; he'd always dodge away.

"How many smiles do I have," she taunted him, and he'd frown and shrug and ask,

"Does it matter?"

"Yes!"

"62."

"Thank you for playing, but you are not a winner. Please, don't try again soon."

Once he flew her broom up to her window and started warbling away, the dolt, with Sirius and Peter humming along on the ground like some kind of barbershop quartet minus one. Remus had put his foot down and refused to take part in this particular brand of idiocy.

"L, is for the way you look at me…"

"You mean with utter loathing?"

"O, is for the only one I see…"

"Wonderful, now he's gone blind."

"V, is very very extraordinary…"

"It's extraordinary that none of my hexes have hit you yet, yes. You're barking mad!"

"E, is for Evans. You. Me. Hogsmeade. A butterbeer built for two."

"Thanks, but I'd rather date the Giant Squid. Try your act out on Delia over there. I'm sure she'd love it."

"Just one date!"

"How many smiles?"

"17?"

"Go away, James." It never seemed to deter him.