Wrong Kind of Hero

Chapter 11: Confrontations and Consequences

"Lily, what news could possibly be so bad that I'd Crucio you?"

"Well, you asked…

I'm marrying James," she said, pointedly not looking at him. He made a noise that sounded like "Grk." His fists clenched. He stared at her, eyes practically popping out of his head. He twitched a little. She didn't stare back. "It's been decided for a while. I can't back out of it now. Both our families know. I'm so sorry, Sev." She looked utterly miserable at having to tell him this.

"You're sorry," he said flatly. She nodded. "That's all I get?" He snorted. "Some consolation prize. Well you can just take your apology and-" he began furiously, then realized it would be unwise to say things in anger. Look where that had got him last time. A miserable year without Lily by his side, that's where it had got him. He choked back the expletive he was about to say. She'd expected an outburst of temper so strong that glass panes would shatter and debris would fly all over the room. Instead, he stalked over to a vase.

"Tang Dynasty." He said curtly. "Priceless family heirloom, from my mother's side." Her eyes widened in horror as he calmly dropped it on the floor, shattering it into a thousand tiny pieces. It was then that she saw the gauze wrapping his forearm and all the pieces of Tang vase that were now ripping it to shreds. He was bleeding, and her first instinct was to pull the now-useless bandage off so she could try to get the shards out.

"Lily, don't-" He began, but it was too late. She was already unwinding it to inspect his arm; she saw the hideous tattoo of a snake winding out of the skull on his forearm, and her heart stopped.

"YOU!" She shouted furiously, stumbling back, pointing at him. "You lied to me!" His eyes narrowed at her.

"Excuse me? I lied to you? Are you or are you not marrying James Potter?" He spat the name at her.

"You're a Deatheater! You said it wasn't what it looked like; you said you were on our side! But you've got that— that thing on your arm! I was so stupid!" Her sense of betrayal was quickly overwhelmed by her instinctual terror of Voldemort's supporters. "Wait. How do I know you won't kill me for having found out your secret?" He started to step toward her, reassurances on his lips, but she picked up his wand and shouted, "No! Don't come any closer or I swear I'll curse you." She stood trembling with his wand pointed at him, while he held up his hands in surrender, wandless and utterly vulnerable to attack. There was genuine pain on his face for having been put in this position by Lily, of all people.

"How quickly our friends turn against us," he said softly. "How easily they believe the worst of us. How soon love is lost over appearances and misunderstandings. Not once, not twice, but three times was I betrayed by you today, Lily Evans. And still I think the best of you."

"How did I betray you?" She said scornfully.

"First, you seduce me to get me in a vulnerable position." Was that really how it looked to him?

"Second, you tell me you're marrying that piece of pond scum to make me lose my temper. And then, to add insult to injury, you forget everything I have ever told you about my faith and trust in you and how I am not what I seem to be, you come into my home and threaten me with my own wand. I applaud you, Lily Evans. Or should I say Potter? You are far more deceitful and underhanded than I will ever be." His accusations chilled her to the bone. What if he was right? She hadn't meant for things to get so out of hand, but what if he was right? The bottom of her stomach dropped out.

"Oh, no," she moaned quietly.

"If you are going to kill me, for the sake of our friendship, please make it quick." His head was held high and his posture erect. He waited for death or a reprieve. What was she doing? This was Sev, SEV, her childhood friend and the man she… no, she couldn't lie to herself; he was the man she loved. If he said the Dark Mark on his arm wasn't what she thought, she should believe him. She hadn't come here to do this to him. She'd just needed to tell him about James… Lily dropped the wand as if it burned her and collapsed onto the floor, weeping.

"Kill you? I could never… I'm sorry, so sorry, forgive me. This is all wrong, I… I… oh," she whispered. "What have I done?"

"I'm sure I don't know," he said impassively, picking shards of Chinese pottery out of his arm. He'd recovered well from the news that he was not, in fact, going to die.

"The announcement of our engagement goes out in the papers tomorrow," she said from her prone position on the floor. "I wanted you to know before then. You're going to leave now and never come back, aren't you? I knew once I told you that you'd want to leave and never come back."

"I must confess the idea has some appeal. I see no reason to stay for the sake of a woman who claims to be my friend, yet does not trust me and sees fit to marry a man we both despised."

"I do," she pleaded, "I do trust you. I'm just so scared all the time and everyone lies to me, especially James, and I don't know what's going on and I don't even know what's real anymore. I just wish you'd showed me sooner."

"Can you blame me for not choosing to show you, considering your reaction?" He raised an eyebrow in a small effort to disperse the tension.

"No. You were right. You're always right."

"I know," he said, indulging in a smirk.

"Please believe me when I say that I cannot go through with this wedding without knowing we'll still be friends. I don't deserve it, I know. I'm cowardly and weak. But I'm asking anyway."

"So if I refuse, you won't marry him?"

"No, I have to," she said, shaking her head. "I don't have a choice."

"Why?" He wondered if he sounded as anguished as he felt.

"You're going to hate me," she said dully, shaking her head. "You're going to kill me, and then you're going to hate me more than you already do."

I love you, he wanted to say, you can't love Potter, and he's not good enough for you. But I am, because I know you, I understand you! He doesn't know your hopes and dreams and secret fears that you told me when we snuck out at night and looked at the stars. Don't leave me. All he got out was,

"Lily, please-"

He had never begged for anything in his life before. He had never wanted anything so desperately before now. But he would strip away all his pride if only she would stay. She looked back at him, just as desperate, and started to reel off her excuses.

"James needs me, he's hopeless without me."

"Do you love him?"

"It's what's expected of me, and you're with the Deatheaters now, so this will never work," she continued, ignoring his question.

"Do you love him? Tell me you love him more than you love me, and I'll let you go." She tried to choke the words out several times, but each time she looked at him first, and the lie just wouldn't come.

"I can't tell you that," she said, shaking her head. Snape was ready to thank whatever supernatural powers were up there. Those words taught him to hope as he had never hoped before. He pulled her to him and kissed her, not bothering to give warning, and she kissed him back for a few seconds before she remembered herself and stopped. The connection, the pull between them, was as strong as ever and they were both left breathless and dazed in its wake.

"We really can't," she tried again weakly, "we shouldn't-" But he saw the pleading in her eyes: tell me I'm wrong. Tell me it can work. So he did the only thing he could think of, which was to kiss her again, as softly and sweetly as he knew how. He invoked all the experiences they shared, all the budding romance and passion that had been cut short by James's scheme, and all the promises of a future together.

"That was nice," she said breathlessly, "but you don't have to kiss me like I'll break. I hate it when James does that. Demand something of me, won't you?" Well, he thought, she asked for it. He did not bother to be gentle when he placed a hand on the back of her head and pushed their lips together with almost painful force. He bent her backward as he demanded she surrender to him, open to him, respond to him, and she bloomed for him like the flower she was named after. Lily was so grateful to be kissed this way, like he needed their lips to be touching in order to exist, that she did more than just surrender: she fought back. She took the flavor from his lips and the strength from his tongue for her own while he was claiming and branding and sucking at her skin. She was pretty sure she was going to have bite marks- bite marks!- and swollen lips when she next saw James, but oh, she didn't regret anything.

She looks beautiful, all flushed and breathing heavily, Severus thought. And I did this to her. She looks like that because of me. Not Potter. Me.

"You don't have to marry him," he said, persuasive and soothing as always. Under the hypnotic spell of his voice, she almost believed it was true. "You can say it was a mistake. People change their minds all the time in engagements, get cold feet and back out. I'm here now. You don't have to settle for James Potter. What is so important that you have to marry a man you don't love?"

"Unexpected pregnancy?" She hid her face in her hands. "I know it was a stupid thing to do, but I can't— and you were gone and I'll have to marry him. He needs me. The baby needs me. It wouldn't be so bad if I'd never met you, but-"

"Has it ever occurred to you," he said through clenched teeth, "that I might also need you?" It was all she needed to hear.

"Oh," she said, sagging into him.

"Marry him if you must," he said curtly. Only stay with me, he thought at her, willing her to understand the things his pride would not allow him to speak.

"You're not angry?"

"Not with you. Potter, I'm livid with. Potter, I'd murder in cold blood for taking advantage of you and feel no regret for the deed, except that I know the child needs a father and his sudden death might look suspicious."

"You'd kill James for me? Well, a girl can't really ask for more than that," she said, only half-joking. "Uh- you do know I didn't mean that, right?"

"Lily, I'm really not the monster you make me-" She cut him off by placing a finger to his lips.

"I love you, Severus," she breathed in his ear. "Just tell me— tell me we'll make it out of this war okay, and everything will sort itself out after that."

"Lily, you know I can't honestly-"

"Then lie." He looked alarmed. "Please, Sev," she said, and she was begging. "Just hold me and tell me everything will be alright." So he put his arms around her and stroked her hair and murmured,
"Of course we'll both make it, and we'll get through this somehow, we always do. You're brave, Lily, you're strong, and when all of this is over I will come and visit you and James and the child as much as you want."

"No. Leave him out of it. I mean, you can see the kid if you want. I'd make you godfather if James wasn't already insisting on Sirius, but- oh, hell. Just kiss me and tell me you love me."

"Look at me, Lily." She held his dark gaze with her green eyes, brimming with tears, and he cupped her face tenderly in both of his hands and said, "you know how I-" He stopped, sounding choked with emotion he was more accustomed to hiding than displaying. "You know I do. More than anything. You give my life meaning." Then she was crying for real, and he started to back off when she said

"Don't you dare. These are happy tears. I'm crying because my heart hurts because I love you so much. Don't ever leave me."

"You have my word."
Then she kissed him, and he was unsure if they were still pretending everything will be alright and she wasn't marrying Potter or if she just didn't care anymore, but it didn't matter to him. He was sure of it: this night she would let him take her home, because she might never see him again. He would not press the issue; she would make the first move, and like the coward he is, he would let her. One or both of them might die before they ever reached that happy ending he spoke of. So this would be the night on which he would use up all his remaining happiness, and though he did not relish the thought of the dismal years surely to come once his store was empty, he knew it would be worth it; his withered heart would surely love her until the day he died.

She did not let him take her home then. She would have. She was about to propose it when the Dark Mark flared on his arm, which cut all plans to a halt. He had no choice but to answer its call. During the next several weeks, Lily was kept busy with preparations for the nuptials and Severus with business of his own (namely, joining the Order of the Phoenix). They were unable to meet again before the wedding.