Wrong Kind of Hero

Chapter 8: Camelot Crumbling

They were in their final year now, and Snape had already contacted Lucius Malfoy about joining the Deatheaters once he graduated. Lucius had said, why wait? He could envision the Dark Mark on his arm through his pajamas. He already regretted the decision, but what else could he do? He had skills Riddle needed, talents few possessed, and he could keep his mouth shut. And the real reason he was joining: he was in a position to know before anyone else if Lily or her family would ever be threatened by the anti-Mudblood campaign. Then he could get help. He could go to Dumbledore. He could make sure Voldemort would never harm her. He was crazy for thinking he could double-cross Voldemort, of course, but it was all to protect her. All for her.

James had stopped hexing the people who annoyed him just because he could. He gave the Snitch back and apologized to Filch. He even stopped messing up his hair in that stupid way. Lily guessed her critiques had really been taken to heart. But all she was thinking about was a pair of dark eyes in a long pale face, yelling words at her she'd never thought him capable of saying. She stared often into the silent two-way mirror, hugging Hep to her chest. Sometimes she almost asked it "just show me what he's doing, please," but she always lost her nerve. She didn't want to know if he was happier without her. It had been a cruel thing to say to anyone, much less his girlfriend, and she didn't want to see the person he was becoming.

Her dreams were of flying, two on a broomstick, arms wrapped around Severus as they sped through the air laughing gleefully. They always ended with her slipping off and reaching for his hand. He'd let go and she'd plummet toward the earth, waking up instants before she ended her fatal fall.

Lily and Severus still took NEWT-level Potions together, and their conversation was limited to "pass the mandrake root" and "mind the puddle". Even such innocuous attempts at engaging Lily as

"Odd weather we're having, isn't it, what with the purple snow and the pears?" garnered only a distracted,

"Oh, is it? I hadn't noticed." They were ever so careful not to touch, or at least, she was, and he respected that for the most part. Once in a blue moon they'd brush shoulders as they reached across the table for ingredients and both of them would momentarily freeze with a kind of pain flaring across their faces before they recovered. Snape would hold his breath until they were no longer in contact, then turn away hastily and busy himself with aggressively chopping up ingredients. Once, he sliced his finger open and Lily noticed it before he did. She calmly announced he was bleeding, and then looked around for something to cauterize the wound with. The particular potion they were working with at that time was volatile, and healing spells might have had adverse affects. Finding nothing at hand, she sighed, took a green ribbon out of her tied-back hair and tied a knot around his finger.

"Can't believe wizards haven't heard of first-aid kits. Or Band-aids," she muttered under her breath.

"Thanks," he started to say, but she cut him off brusquely with a "don't mention it" and went back to work. Severus saved the slightly bloodstained ribbon long after his finger had scabbed over, savoring the faint scent of her shampoo. He kept it tucked inside his robes, close to his heart.

Remus was kind as always, and even Sirius helped try to draw her out of her depression. He'd turn into Padfoot and lay his head on her lap while she and Remus took turns reading Hamlet out loud to each other in funny voices.

She stumbled on Polonius' line to the king: "Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
This must not be." Remus had to take up reading after that, for she refused to go on, but snapped,

"And why the hell not, if they loved each other? What is it with social status anyway? Why are they all so damn shallow?" She stared morosely out the window until long after Polonius exited. She rallied again to play Ophelia to Lupin's Hamlet, and when he (treading carefully indeed) said, "I did love you once," she had heartfelt feeling and accusation in her voice when she replied,

"Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so."

"You should not have believed me," Remus continued, watching some color and fire return to her face in the wake of this pronouncement, "I loved you not."

"I was the more deceived!" Lily felt the utmost sympathy for poor confused Ophelia. All she wanted was Hamlet, and then he went mad on her and said the most hateful, spiteful things for no reason she could discern! No wonder she went mad herself and drowned herself in a lake. When Lily's 'O, what a noble mind' monologue was over, she slumped back in her chair, exhausted, to the sounds of clapping. James stood in the doorway, smiling softly.

"That was brilliant. I had no idea you could act, Ev-" he hesitated, then amended, "Lily."

"Who said I was acting?" She looked askance at his gentle demeanor. Normally his smile would be cocky or mocking, but today and right now it was full of understanding.

"Is this seat taken?" He motioned to the empty space beside her on the couch. She thought about it for a moment.

"No, it's all yours."

"Thanks," he said, and sat. Their knees brushed together as she stared into the darkness and he stared at her, and when he put an arm around her shoulder, she didn't move away. She was long past caring what James Potter did or didn't do with his hands.

"Lily," Remus motioned her over quietly, his voice barely a whisper in the library's sanctified quiet. For once, he wasn't with Sirius, Peter and James. They were alone. "You should know- about that day by the lake… How do I put this? James is one of my best mates, and I don't want you thinking any ill of him, especially not when he's finally got you, and Merlin knows that's been his dream for six years now." Remus looked at her steadily as he whispered, "He'll go to any lengths to keep you, just like he did to get you. Do you understand?"

"Not really." He tried again.

"When did you fall out with Snape?"

"After he called me a Mudblood, don't be ridiculous."

"Yes," he said patiently, "but when did he do that?"

"That day by the lake when James- oh." Her eyes widened in horror. "You're not saying James set us up?" Remus chewed on his thumbnail, a sure sign he was nervous.

"I'm just saying that sometimes you have to hurt the people you love in order to prevent them from getting hurt worse by someone else."

"That's not an excuse," she said angrily. "If there was something else going on, he should have trusted me with the truth. Some friend he turned out to be."

That was the week she accepted Potter's invitation to go to Paris with him on hols. Hurt and betrayed by her best friend, vulnerable and wanting someone who valued her for who she was, who didn't care who her parents were, she accepted. Rather listlessly, she went on dates with him, distractedly she returned his smiles and accepted his friends. Remus looked at her pityingly, like he understood. She'd always liked him the best of James's gang. Moony knew how to keep secrets.

Sirius was a prat and an incredible ponce, but he was funny and good-looking and a friendly drunk at the pub where Lily had become a regular. His renditions of Queen were particularly amusing, and his interpretive disco was just as ridiculous as the outfits he wore while doing it. Remus just let her be, in peace, without saying much, and she appreciated that.

When James kissed her so voraciously, it made her forget why she was hurting, and at whom. So she let him. She just wanted to feel something that didn't hurt, and his scorching kisses burned, but not in a bad way. He told her he loved her and that she was beautiful, and she listened to the words and tried to pretend that the voice saying them was someone else's and that he knew how many smiles she had. That he cared enough to find out. When he asked her if she wanted to come inside with him, she felt nothing but numb when she agreed. "I feel so cold," she'd said, and he'd offered to warm her up. She hoped he could. This boy who claimed to love her- perhaps she could be content with him, even happy. She could like him, never love him, but that would have to be enough. Enough for both of them. Yet the night she let him worship her body as he'd wished to do for years— the night that he held her close to him afterward as he fell asleep and she lay awake with tears in her eyes, holding a stuffed tiger from her childhood that smelled like a different boy than the one she was laying next to— she yearned for so much more than liking.

Avery and Mulciber noticed Severus's sudden devotion to the Dark Arts following the Marauder incident and the subsequent mysterious death of Snape's father, and as a reward they gave him a pure-blood girl Avery had been shagging. "To test your loyalty," Avery had said, "think of our friend here as you would think of me." To make it more enjoyable for Snape, knowing what he'd felt for Lily Evans, the girl even drank a Polyjuice potion the two had brewed from a stray hair of hers. Avery and Mulciber didn't understand how it was torture to see her face again, smiling up at him and saying she'd do whatever he pleased, knowing it wasn't really her. He tried to kiss her and pretend the lips were Lily's, tangling his fingers in her long red hair, pressing her against him at last. But he couldn't go through with it. The girl's kissing style was all wrong; the way she clung greedily to him, none of it was the same. Lily was just another of last summer's dreams, slipping through his fingers like her silken hair used to, back when he could call her his own. This girl in his arms now was only a nightmare and a poor consolation at that. He'd had to push her away; he paid her good money not to tell anyone he hadn't violated her.
Lily knew it had been a mistake born out of weakness and loneliness to have slept with James, especially so soon before her graduation from Hogwarts. That wasn't how she'd wanted to lose her virginity. She invented reasons why she wouldn't repeat the experience, though she couldn't hold him off forever: she was too tired, she had too much work to do. So the occasions were rare, though they seemed to make James happy. She even told him she was indisposed in a feminine way one week, even though she'd missed her period that month. She didn't think anything of it, too preoccupied with other worries, until it happened again the second time, and by then it was too late. She bought a Muggle pregnancy test from the drugstore and was unsurprised when it turned up pink. The universe was punishing her for acquiescing to James. Now they were going to have a child together, and he didn't even know. They were going to be stuck together. Great. He'd resent her for taking away his freedom, and he'd want her to abort it, but she knew she wouldn't. That would require a reason to want to disentangle herself from James Potter, and since she had no other options, she supposed he'd be a decent father: kind, if a bit clueless.

He surprised her by being thrilled about the baby after he'd got over the initial shock of the announcement. All the color had drained from his face and he'd sat down abruptly, murmuring "a father? Me? I'm going to be a father?" Lily had worried he was angry with her, though as she was about to remind him, it took two to make a child so it was hardly her fault alone. He wasn't angry; he leapt up and threw his arms around her and rained kisses on her face, saying it was amazing news. She begged him to keep quiet about it, at least until she started to show. She didn't want to be one of those tacky unwed mothers. He assured her she wouldn't have to be; he'd step up and do the right thing, of course. "I'll love being married to you," James had said, "and I'll love being a father. I'd expected we'd wait a few years first, but this is fine too. I didn't want to rush you… Oh, Lil, you don't know how happy this makes me. We should think of baby names! How does Chudley sound?"

"We are not naming the baby after a Quidditch team, James."

"What about Godric?"

"Absolutely not."

"Harold? We could call him Harry."

"Maybe, but what if it's a girl?"

"Rose. Another flower in the family."

"Don't I get a say?"

"Oh. Right. Well, how do you feel about Rose?"

He was endearing, Lily thought, he really was. It was such a shame she didn't love him. Still, people had gotten married with far less to go by than endearing enthusiasm. She couldn't complain. She just wished… well, there was no point in wishing for things that would never come true, now. At least she'd loved at all; at least she knew she could. So it ended badly. So what? Suck it up, Lily Evans, you're a big girl now. You have people depending on you. Including a baby. You don't get to make selfish choices. No, let it never be said that Lily was selfish. She could ignore the screaming of her heart that said marrying James was all wrong. She could even ignore the dreams she still had of Severus. What she couldn't ignore was the fact that she and James were going to have this baby, and in the wizarding world it was still frowned upon to be an unwed mother. She would be brave. She would not cry. Well, not where anyone could see her, anyway, and that's what counted. She took a deep breath and prepared to face the rest of her life.

"Rose would be lovely," she said sweetly, and kissed her fiancé on the lips. All things considered, it was a good kiss. Not spine-tingling and soul-shattering, perhaps, but good. Gentle. Sweet. A good omen. They were going to be okay. Somehow, Lily couldn't quite bring herself to believe it.

Snape tried and tried to eradicate Lily Evans from his system, yet failed spectacularly to do so. Even after he had the more physical pain of the Dark Mark flaring on his arm to distract him, the ache of losing her never went away. He tried to burn his love out, to scrub it out, to curse it out of himself however he could. Yet he found himself wandering the halls of Hogwarts castle late at night, not sure what he should be searching for. One night he found the Mirror of Erised completely by accident, and knew it for what it was, yet stayed anyway. Lily looked as beautiful as an angel, and the Severus in the mirror was the happiest he'd ever been as his bride flung her arms around him and kissed him soundly on the mouth. He wore a lily in the lapel of his coat, and Snape sat mesmerized as they took their vows in front of family and friends who released doves and gold sparkles into the air. Erised-Severus whispered something into Lily's ear and she laughed and looked sly, and then they slipped off by themselves when no one was looking. He watched for hours as visions of his wedding day flashed in front of him, a wedding day he would probably never see now, and a single tear ran down his cheek for the life he could have known.

AN: Well, that was another chapter of angst, but there are reconciliations ahead. Really.