Chapter Seventeen
December, 1976

Severus, the combined scent of Pepper-Up and hangover remedy clinging to his hair, trudged up the laboratory stairs. The week preceding Christmas had, thus far, been an unpleasant one—he'd had to work Cadogan's Monday evening shift, and Jigger had insisted that he spend the following days not putting the last touches onto their submission to Potions Quarterly, but rather shoring up the shop's stocks of those potions and draughts most frequently purchased during the holidays. In the morning, he would have the dubious pleasure of joining Cadogan in the shop for the predicted Christmas Eve rush.

Severus was not fond of Christmas.

He pushed open the door and headed for the rear staircase—

"Not to be rude," Cadogan called after him from behind the counter, "but I was wondering if you were planning to keep giving me the silent treatment all day tomorrow."

Severus turned around. "I was not," he said, "giving you the 'silent treatment.'"

"So it's just a coincidence that you haven't said a word to me since Saturday?"

Severus stared at her impassively. "I simply had nothing to say to you," he replied.

She threw up her hands. "I was just doing what Master Jigger asked me to!"

"As I recall, that particular excuse fell out of favour at Nuremberg," Severus said flatly.

Cadogan blinked and, with commendable sarcasm, said, "Really?"

Severus raised an eyebrow. She raised one back.

Fine.

Severus shrugged and, uninterestedly, asked, "How terrible do you imagine it will be tomorrow?"

Cadogan wrinkled her nose. "A woman already asked me to sell her, quote, 'something to poison my mother-in-law with.'"

Severus, his interest piqued despite himself, asked, "Did you?"

"Like I want to be in the papers as the shop witch who sold the asphodel to the crazy lady," Cadogan said. "I gave her a Calming Draught instead." She rolled her eyes. "I hope you stocked up on that."

"Naturally," Severus replied.

"And Pepper-Up—"

"And Hair of the Dog, and emulsion of bismuth," Severus said drily. "I didn't realise you had been put in charge of the store's stocks, Ms Cadogan."

Cadogan had the grace to seem chagrined. "Sorry," she said. "I just can't imagine the riots if we were to run out tomorrow." She looked faintly ill and added, "You don't think it'll be quite as bad as the Hogwarts rush…?"

Severus' lip curled in response.

"Jaysus," Cadogan said.

"Rather," Severus agreed. "On that cheerful subject, please do excuse me. I've only so many hours in which to finish…" He trailed off, a new horror dawning in his mind. "Ah, Ms Cadogan," he said carefully.

Cadogan, perhaps unconsciously, took one step backwards. "What?" she said warily.

"Given that, ah, it's near Christmas…" Severus trailed off.

Cadogan eyed him.

"I—you—" Severus, frustrated, swallowed. "You didn't…"

At once, Cadogan's expression changed, astoundingly, into one of amusement. "Are you trying to ask if I got you a present?"

Severus glared. "I fail to see how this is amusing," he said.

"Of course it isn't," Cadogan said easily. "It's anything but funny to be terrified at the thought of receiving a Christmas present." She pressed her lips together, obviously stifling laughter.

Clearly, the woman hadn't been forced to spend fifteen years exchanging gifts with near-strangers and barely-tolerated "colleagues." Severus had done his best to discourage such gift-giving, as it rarely resulted in a mutually beneficial exchange and most often involved both parties receiving something for which they had neither use nor storage space. He had, eventually, offered to supervise one of night of detention to each faculty member foolish enough to persist in giving him a present, a gesture that had, fortunately, excused him from the excruciating tedium of holiday shopping. (After all, cauldrons always needed scrubbing.)

Cadogan took a deep breath and said solemnly, "No, I didn't get you a present. I hope you're not disappointed." Her lips twitched.

Severus scowled. "Good evening, Ms Cadogan. Do be sure to lock up properly."

"When do I ever not?" Cadogan retorted, but Severus was already on his way to his flat.

The next day was not, quite, as bad as he had rather anticipated; although the shoppers were many, they generally came in for just one or two items—the apothecary was not, it must be admitted, a popular source for Christmas gifts—and even when harried, which they often were, they still maintained a nonsensical air of indefatigable cheer.

Severus, ringing up one last late afternoon customer—who, like those before her, wished him a "very happy Christmas"—idly calculated how many months of cheer Wizarding Britain had left.

The laboratory door opened, and Severus, out of months-long habit, stepped expertly out of the way. He bid the customer a good evening and turned to greet Master Jigger.

"Will our stores be adequate?" Jigger asked without precursor.

"I believe so," Severus replied with an incline of his head. "Certainly until Monday."

"Excellent."

Cadogan, cloak in hand, walked up from the back of the shop. "If that's the last customer, I'll be heading off then," she said. "Gordon's mum is joining us for dinner and I want to have time to get the takeaway out of the containers before she gets there." She rolled her eyes and added, "Honestly, if that woman expects me to cook a full Christmas dinner tomorrow and dinner tonight she's delusional."

Jigger blinked. "Well." He cleared his throat and said, "Enjoy your holiday, Ms Cadogan. I've taken the liberty of adjusting for…overtime pay for your work today."

Cadogan broke into a smile. "Cheers, Master Jigger. I appreciate it."

Jigger jerked one hand at her in dismissal. "Yes. Well."

"Happy Christmas, both," Cadogan said. When both of them merely nodded at her, she smiled in evident amusement—for whatever reason—and said, "I'll see you Monday then," and headed out of the shop.

Jigger turned to Severus. "As a stipended apprentice, of course, you aren't eligible for overtime, but I thought it appropriate to allow you Saturday next off."

Severus paused, then carefully asked, "That's when the shop is closed for the first of January, correct?"

"And?" Jigger asked blandly.

In all fairness, Severus supposed Jigger could order him to be brewing that day, even if the shop itself were closed, so he elected to be prudent and reply, "Thank you, sir." Then, before Jigger could turn and depart without an additional word—as was, admittedly, his wont— Severus reached under the counter and pulled out a somewhat lengthy roll of parchment. "I finished the submission last night," he said, extending it towards Jigger.

Jigger raised an eyebrow, but accepted the parchment from him. He unfurled it, gave it a cursory glance, and nodded. "Excellent," he said, rolling it up. "I'll naturally examine it further, but it seems to be in order." He tucked it in the pocket of his cloak, said, "I'll leave you to lock up," and turned to leave—and then he stopped in his tracks.

Jigger turned back around to face Severus. "Do, ah," he said, with an uncharacteristic hesitation that made Severus—nearly two decades a spy—somewhat nervous, "Should I need to contact you tomorrow, you'll be…?"

Severus, relieved, replied, "In Manchester, at the home of a…friend."

"Ah," Jigger said. "Good." He cleared his throat, and moved once more as though to depart.

Belatedly, Severus realised that there was, in fact, no potential reason whatsoever for Jigger to need to contact him on 25 December. With a twinge of guilt—not the soul-crushing sort he'd been living with since 1981 (to which he was certainly acclimated), but a new variety altogether—creeping into his chest, Severus asked, "And, ah, yourself, sir?"

Jigger's mouth twisted in the manner Severus had come to recognize as a wry half-smile. "I will be with the Slughorn family," he said.

As Severus didn't blurt, he did not even briefly entertain the notion of blurting, "Voluntarily?" Instead, he nodded and said, "Do pass along my greetings."

Jigger nodded, and, each assured of the other's well-being—although Severus recognised it would take more than Veritaserum to force either of them to admit it—they bid one another good evening.

Severus, once more cursing the fact that his exemption from the Trace surely did not apply to Manchester, fought the urge to cast a quick tempus as he walked briskly towards the Evans home. The Portkey from London to Piccadilly Gardens (he'd landed in a "disused" transport station lavatory, which, regardless of its use or disuse, was disgusting) had been delayed, and the only bus running on Christmas Day—which had arrived twenty minutes after its scheduled time—only came so close to the Evans home. As a result, Severus had been forced to walk over two miles in an early afternoon fog that continually threatened to turn to drizzle, and although he was rapidly approaching his destination, he was almost certainly late.

Bah, humbug, indeed.

Wiping irritably at the condensation on his glasses, he turned up the Evanses' street and traversed the final yards to their front door. He rang the bell, checked the status of his gifts, thanked Merlin he'd thought to apply a weatherproofing charm before leaving his flat, wished he'd thought to do the same to his coat, and attempted to shake his hair into looking tolerably presentable.

The door opened to reveal Mrs Evans, looking as slim and smiling as ever, who had not yet removed the apron from her alarmingly red dress. "Oh, Severus, dear, I'm so glad you've come," she said, opening her arms for a fortunately-brief and awkwardly-executed hug. "Dinner isn't quite ready yet—I'm still putting the finishing touches on—but please, come in out of that dreadful drizzle, your hair must be soaked."

Severus decided not to point out that, in fact, his hair always looked like that, and stepped inside. "Thank you for extending the invitation, Mrs Evans," he said. "I do hope my additional presence hasn't inconvenienced you."

"Honestly!" Mrs Evans said, swatting him on the forearm. "It's no trouble at all. Petunia's young man is here as well." She glanced over her shoulder, in the direction of the living room, and added quietly, "Of course he doesn't know about…"

"Lily's school?" Severus supplied easily. Mrs Evans smiled and nodded. "Not to worry," Severus said. "Having gone to the same 'boarding school in Scotland' I'm rather familiar with it."

Mrs Evans, disturbingly, winked. "And now you're off at university, I hear."

"Indeed," Severus replied. "And it's in my, ah, chemistry studies that I was able to make this." He pulled a glass vase filled with flowers out of his bag and presented it to Mrs Evans, who took it with a confused smile.

For lack of higher inspiration, Severus had charmed a simple vase and filled it with Ever-Blooming Solution, which he hoped made a suitable gift. With a glance towards the living room—where, presumably, Petunia's "young man" lurked—Severus explained quietly, "Any flowers you place into this solution will stay fresh, and the vase will not break even if dropped."

From behind, Severus heard the grating sound of a childish huff. He turned around to see, unsurprisingly, Petunia Evans, looking quite as though Severus were something unpleasant that a guest had tracked onto the rug. (Given the probable state of his clothing and hair, that was admittedly not an unjust comparison.)

"Petunia, dear, look who's here," Mrs Evans said brightly. "You remember Lily's friend Severus, of course."

Petunia, lips pursed, nodded shortly. Mrs Evans beamed. "I'll just go put these on the table, Severus, it really was too thoughtful of you. Petunia, be a lamb and tell your sister her friend is here?" And with that, Mrs Evans departed in a cloud of perfume.

"She's upstairs," Petunia said. "You can go get her yourself."

"Petunia, charming as always," Severus said with a sneer. He headed towards the staircase.

"I don't know what Lily could possibly see in you," Petunia said as he passed her. "Then again, I really couldn't say what's appealing to…people," she emphasized," like you."

"Do be clear, Petunia," Severus said, turning around. "I'm not entirely certain if you are, in fact, referring to wizards, or—"

Petunia's eyes flew open. "Shut up!" she hissed.

"Your gentleman doesn't know about your sister, I take it?" Severus prodded.

"Mother and Father claim that Lily goes to a school," Petunia said distastefully, "for the gifted. Don't you dare imply otherwise."

"Why would I?" Severus said. "That is, after all, the truth."

Petunia, gratifyingly, reddened and flounced off into the kitchen. Severus, smirking, mounted the stairs.

The Evans home was much like the other houses on the "proper" side of town—that is, two floors, with three bedrooms and two baths on the first floor and the other rooms below. Severus reached the top of the stairs and, long-buried instinct guiding him, turned right and headed for the open door at the end of the hall.

It had been some years since he'd been inside Lily's bedroom (specifically, it had been twenty-four, or perhaps two), but very little had changed; the furniture was white, the walls cream, and the bedding blue-green. There was a cork board above a small, white desk; tacked to it were two missives from Hogwarts: an acceptance letter and a notification of Prefecture, the only indication that this bedroom was slept in not by an 11-year-old Muggle girl, but by the 16-year-old witch currently curled up on the bed with a copy of Advancements in Charming.

He supposed she couldn't very well plaster her room with Wizarding photographs, after all, so there was no reason for him to expect—

Severus' breath caught as he stopped his inspection. There, on Lily's bedside table, was a framed, Muggle photograph of an 11-year-old Severus and Lily, standing together at the entrance to Diagon Alley.

James Potter simply didn't have a chance.

Severus rapped his knuckles lightly on the doorframe, and Lily looked up on response, her expression immediately brightening into a smile. "Sev!" she said, tossing the journal onto the floor next to a discarded pair of socks and bounding off the bed to greet him with an embrace.

"I missed you," she breathed into his collarbone, her body pressed tightly against his. Severus prepared himself to say something eloquent and charming in response—"Er, ah" came to mind—when Lily withdrew slightly and, her hands still on his hips, smiled and said, "What's all this, then?"

Severus raised an eyebrow. "To what are you referring?"

"Well," Lily said, "I was referring to the bag, since I suspect it's got a present in it, but come to think of it I do like your new coat, even if it is…moist." She withdrew her hands and, wrinkling her nose, looked down at her now-damp jumper and skirt.

Severus wished, again, that he could cast a Drying Charm without activating the Trace on Lily's neighbourhood. "I'm terribly sorry," he said.

Lily shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Just take it off, yeah? You can put it on the chair." She sat back on the edge of her bed and, as Severus removed his coat, asked, "When did you buy a Muggle coat?"

Severus smirked and replied, "I didn't. It's Transfigured." He hung the aforementioned garment on the back of Lily's desk chair.

"Impressive," Lily said appreciatively. "Did you do the jumper and the trousers too?"

Severus looked down at the garments in question and, eyebrow raised, looked back at Lily. "Although I believe that to be within my capabilities, you do realise the ease with which I may enter Muggle London, yes?"

Lily pressed her lips together for a moment before replying, "So that's a no?"

Severus crossed his arms over his chest. "Did I select poorly?" he demanded.

"No," Lily said immediately. "No. They're lovely." Her lips quirked, and she added, "Though I should probably point out that black isn't the most festive colour."

Severus looked down at Lily, who smiled disarmingly back up at him. He looked at the bed next to her. He looked back at her young face.

"I do hope you aren't disappointed," he said, handing her the brown paper sack he'd spent the last several hours transporting from London, and then he sat down in her desk chair.

Lily hesitated only a moment before smiling, reaching into the bag, and pulling out the carefully-wrapped bottle within. Her nimble fingers made short work of the paper, and she was soon holding the amber glass, atomiser-topped bottle he'd procured from an overly-crowded and dusty Diagon Alley shop. She held it up to the light and gave the liquid within a swirl.

"It's…thin," she mused aloud, "possibly—is that—no." She swirled it again. "And yet it's meant to be diffused, so…" She glanced back at him, pursed her lips, and warned, "This had better not be Sluggy's 'recreational potion.'"

Severus smirked. "Please."

Lily warily returned her gaze to the bottle, which she experimentally tilted back and forth. "We haven't studied many behavioural potions, so I can't rule most of them out…"

Severus, who was of course not the slightest bit nervous as to how Lily would receive his gift, said, "Do you give up?"

Lily glared at him in mock-offense. "Certainly not," she said. "It's—is it a variation on a Calming Draught, meant to keep me from strangling my terrible sister?"

Severus shook his head, reached over, and squeezed the atomiser's bulb.

Lily sat in silence for a moment. "Is it…" she said at last, "a…?"

Severus, who was not Occluding away a flush, explained, "It's an, ah, eau de parfum."

"A perfume?" Lily repeated—and then she laughed.

Affronted, Severus moved to retrieve his spurned gift, but Lily quickly pulled it out of his reach. "I'm sorry," she said, "it's—it's lovely. I love it. I was just surprised. I was expecting some kind of—impressive Potions—thing, but this is—" She sniffed the air and asked, "That's not—it's not lilies."

Severus scoffed. "Overdone, I'm sure," he said. "The scent blend is, primarily, honeysuckle and vanilla."

Lily's eyes brightened. "Honeysuckle," she said. "Like…"

"In the park," Severus supplied inanely. Lily smiled at him.

"I love it," she said. "And now I feel stupid, because here you've gone and made me such a lovely—I mean, I love it, Sev—and—well." She gestured helplessly at a wrapped rectangular object sitting on her desk, which Severus took in hand and deftly unwrapped. It was a plain, black Scrivenshaft's notebook, unlined.

He looked back at Lily, who appeared flustered as she said, "I know, I know. Wait." She slid down off the bed to sit on the floor, where she extracted a Muggle pen and an identical black notebook from underneath the Charms revue. "Open yours," she instructed him, "and look at the first page."

Severus obeyed. The notebook's pages were cream-coloured, smooth, and utterly blank—

—until Lily's familiar round writing suddenly appeared: Happy Christmas.

Severus looked up from the page; Lily was smiling up at him from the floor, where she had, clearly, just written the greeting in her own notebook. "It's no perfume," she said, "but I thought it would be nice to communicate, you know, more immediately—" She waved her hand vaguely in a direction that Severus understood to be meant towards Scotland when she continued, "—while I'm at school." She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and asked, charmingly, "What do you think?"

Severus closed the journal. "It's really quite impressive," he said, examining the notebook. "To combine charm work and Transfiguration in this way—and this modification of a Protean Charm is very well executed; I don't know that I've seen it used in this way before." He opened the journal, flipped through the pages, and added, "Truly, it's very well done." He glanced up at Lily, who, oddly, was looking up at him with evident mirth in her eyes. Severus frowned. "Yes?" he asked.

"Thank you, Professor," she said, laughing. Severus blinked, and Lily laughed again. "I'm sorry," she said, "you just sound so very like a Hogwarts professor—or maybe an OWL administrator—but in a good way! Really."

"I was attempting to compliment your excellent spellwork," Severus said wryly.

"I know, I know," Lily said. "And I'm flattered. Really."

Severus raised an eyebrow at her. She gazed up at him, an amused half-smile on her face.

Severus felt his face heat.

Lily, wonderfully, bit her lower lip and shifted so that she was kneeling, resting on the balls of her feet—Severus, sitting a mere foot away, shifted in his chair—the door to Lily's bedroom opened—

Severus, whose heart was absolutely not racing, caught his breath and looked up at Lily's father, the face—so to speak—of innocence. "Hello, Mr Evans," he said.

Mr Evans was, as Severus had remembered, a slightly paunchy man with light brown, greying hair. He glanced back and forth between Lily and Severus and, at last, said, "Severus. I haven't seen you in a while."

Lily, now sitting firmly on the floor, blew an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. "He's left school, Dad," she said.

"Right, right," Mr Evans said, again looking back and forth between the two of them. "Well." He gave them a tight-lipped smile. "Your mum's almost done with dinner," he said, "so…come down soon." He smiled and, pointedly, left the door wide open.

Lily rolled her eyes. "I guess we've got to go down and join Petunia and the dreaded Vernon."

Severus swallowed once more and calmly asked, "You're not fond of him, I take it?"

"He's just a dreadful stuck-up bore is all," Lily said breezily. "And it's ridiculous that he's even here. I mean, they've only known each other for four months, I don't know what possessed Tuney to ask him for Christmas. It's pretty obvious that she only invited him when Mum told her you were coming."

"The possibility of an odd number of diners alarmed her?" Severus asked mildly.

Lily rolled her eyes. "She's jealous, of course."

"Of…" Severus raised an eyebrow. "Surely not because of me."

"Oh, because you're so horrible," Lily said, throwing one of the errant floor socks at him. He caught it. After a brief negotiation—in which Lily was returned her sock and Severus was given a rather tactile demonstration of her gratitude—Lily donned her shoes and the two of them headed downstairs, Lily's hand resting charmingly in the crook of his elbow.

When Mrs Evans called out from the kitchen, "Lily, dear, you can go ahead and join Vernon at the table, we're almost ready," and Severus found his elbow unpleasantly squeezed—and himself forcibly steered into the dining room—he was suddenly unsure if he was there as escort, as support, or as sacrifice. Regardless, he fulfilled Lily's obvious wish that he take the seat opposite the "dreaded Vernon," who turned out to be a thickset young Muggle with a ruddy face and an unpleasant moustache. "Vernon Dursley," he said, shaking Severus' hand

Severus' face remained neutral as he took a closer look at the man who, in another time, had become the guardian of Lily's son. Having never bothered to acquaint himself with Dursley's first name, he hadn't before realised that the "dreaded Vernon" was, in fact, Petunia's future husband. As Lily had described, Dursley was a dreadful bore; a passing glance at the uppermost contents of his small mind revealed him to be the very sort of mundane Muggle that Lucius and his ilk had always railed against. His lack of regard for the boy himself notwithstanding, Severus felt an inkling of disgust that this man had been trusted with the wellbeing of any Wizarding child, let alone—

"Severus Snape," he said, taking his seat and nodding at the man who, in fact, would never be given trust over a Wizarding child who didn't exist.

Lily took that moment to disappear into the kitchen under the guise of "helping," leaving Severus alone with her sister's unimpressive beau. Dursley drummed his thick fingers on the cream-coloured tablecloth and said, "So. You're in school with Pet's sister, is that right?"

Severus elected to keep his face a safe, Occluded neutral at the mention of "Pet," and simply replied, "I was, yes."

"Lucky break for you, I take it?" Dursley said.

"I beg your pardon?" Severus replied.

"Well," Dursley said, leaning back in his chair, "the scholarship, and all. Pet told me, ah, you didn't grow up on this side of town so to speak, so. I figured."

Severus blinked.

"Of course there's nothing wrong with that," Dursley continued. "I went to Smeltings, myself, but not everyone has the background for an exclusive public school like her. Lucky you had the marks for, ah, Saint Whatsits, yeah?"

Before Severus could respond to this unique series of assumptions, Mr Evans entered the dining room with a bottle of wine, which he poured into the glasses of four of the six place settings, Severus' and Lily's, of course, not included. Mr Evans took his seat at the head of the table, smiled, and said, "So, you boys getting to know each other?"

Dursley chuckled and replied, "Well, it's been some time since I was in school like young Sylvester here."

Lily, who had been entering the room with some sort of casserole, evidently heard the end of Dursley's proclamation, as she then snorted, set the dish heavily on the table, said, "Excuse me," and proceeded to hurry back into the kitchen, from whence the unmistakable sound of laughter shortly emanated.

"Kids, eh?" Dursley, who was at most 25, said conspiratorially to Mr Evans. Severus silently cursed the various laws and statutes preventing him from Transfiguring his water into whiskey.

Fortunately, the Evans women shortly finished transporting various steaming dishes into the dining room and took their seats; Lily sat to Severus' left, across from her sister, and Mrs Evans sat at the foot of the table to Severus' right. After a brief blessing—upon which Petunia insisted and about which no one else seemed to care—the Evans family (and guests) commenced please-passing the sundry dishes (which, upon tasting, revealed themselves to be somewhat better than his own essentials-only cooking, if nowhere near the level of the Hogwarts elves').

"Do you like the Brussels sprouts?" Petunia asked Dursley. "I made those."

The Brussels sprouts were, in fact, boiled beyond belief. "Sure, for vegetables they're all right," Dursley replied as he dug into a sausage.

"Dinner is delicious, Mrs Evans," Severus said obligingly.

"Oh," Mrs Evans said, waving a hand, "it wasn't nearly all my doing. I couldn't have done it without help."

"Yes," Petunia said, looking pointedly across the table at Lily, "I was happy to help, Mum."

Lily, clearly annoyed, narrowed her eyes and said, "I hope you haven't forgotten about the fruit salad I got up to make this morning, Tuney."

A flash of a scowl appeared on Petunia's face before she smiled and said, saccharinely, "I'm sorry, Lils, I guess I forgot about your fruit salad while I was making the pudding last month."

"How does that even make sense?" Lily exclaimed.

Mrs Evans cleared her throat loudly before Petunia could retort and said, "What time is your, ah, train back to London, Severus?"

"At eight," Severus replied. "I should probably leave to catch the bus by six-thirty or so."

"Nonsense, dear," Mrs Evans said. "We've already agreed that Harold will drive you back to the train station. I simply don't trust that bus at night, and on a holiday to boot."

"Thought you lived around here," Dursley said to Severus.

"Severus is at university," Mrs Evans supplied.

Dursley's piggy eyes narrowed almost perceptibly. "Bit young for it, aren't you?"

"I think it's impressive," Lily said, laying a hand on Severus' forearm.

"I thought he worked in a shop," Petunia said snidely.

"Really, Petunia?" Severus said mildly. "Please, share with us the type of shop in which you believe me to work."

Mrs Evans, who had been in the midst of sipping her wine, sputtered ever so elegantly into her glass. Lily's fingers dug into Severus' knee, and Dursley's eyes flicked back and forth between Severus and Petunia, who, eventually, bit out, "A chemist's."

"Well," Dursley said, chortling into the silence, "there's nothing wrong with honest labour. I know I couldn't do my job without the boys on the floor."

Petunia simpered and interjected, "Vernon has been offered a management position at Grunnings' new plant in Surrey."

"Really?" Mr Evans said. "Congratulations, Vern."

Dursley waved a thick hand in false modesty and said, "Thanks, Harold, but, it's not official just yet—the new plant is still under construction, after all, but I've been told by some pretty V. I. P.s that I'm at the top of the list for upper management candidates."

"When would you start?" Mrs Evans asked politely.

"They're shooting to open up next summer, so they'll probably start me with management training come fall," Dursley said, "conferences and workshops and so forth."

Petunia crossed her arms and, inexplicably, smirked at Lily.

"That's very nice," Lily said charitably. "Of course, Severus isn't going to be at the shop forever. He's just working his way through university. Did I mention he finished school two years early, and set the national record for the A-level exam in chemistry?"

"Lily," Mrs Evans said warningly.

"What?" Lily said. "I thought we were sharing our boyfriends' accomplishments."

Mr Evans set his fork down with a clank. "Boyfriends?" he repeated.

"Yes?" Lily said, blinking.

"Tell me more about the new plant, Vernon," Mrs Evans said hurriedly.

"Well, it'll be twice the size of the Kent plant," said the oblivious Dursley, "and while someone else might feel intimidated, I'm confident that I'll be able to handle it."

"I'd like to speak with you after dinner," Mr Evans said quietly.

"Why?" Lily said. "What's—what's the matter?

"I'm sure you will," Mrs Evans said.

"Naturally," Petunia added. "He's been in a supervisory position for several months now and he's been simply brilliant at it."

"Later, young lady," Mr Evans insisted.

"I wouldn't go so far as all that," Dursley said, "although that is what the big bosses have implied, yes."

"Don't be so modest," Petunia said. "It's perfectly all right to talk about perfectly creditable achievements like yours, darling."

Severus glanced to his left, where Lily was glaring wordlessly at her sister. Beyond Lily, Mr Evans was looking back at Severus with an unusual expression that Severus had most recently seen on Jigger's face as the potions master regarded a potentially rancid delivery of dead mice—gauging, but not (yet) disgusted.

Severus, who enjoyed neither insipid Muggle braggarts nor feeling like a batch of mouse corpses, stood up. "I beg your pardon," he said. "I believe I'm still suffering from a spot of motion sickness from the bus. I need to get some air."

There was a moment of silence, and then Lily said, "I'll show you outside," and practically dragged him through the kitchen and out the back door into the garden.

The door slammed behind them without physical assistance, leaving Severus to hope that Lily's unintentional Banishing Charm wasn't picked up by her Trace. Lily stalked nigh on halfway across the Evans' yard—apparently uncaring of the weather, despite wearing only a jumper against the drizzle and chill—before she stopped, turned around, and said, "Vernon is an—is an arse, and Petunia's a bitch, and I don't blame you if you want to leave right now."

"You may be in more danger of that than I," Severus replied, amused.

Lily, obviously frustrated, pulled at the end of her hair. "She's just so obnoxious. She's supposed to be the adult, but she keeps on saying these insulting things, and she knows I can't properly respond because of stupid bloody Vernon—"

"He truly is," Severus interrupted. Lily fell silent, question in her eyes, so Severus clarified, "Stupid, that is. I've never met a duller person in my life."

Lily's expression changed into one of absolute amusement and she began to laugh. "Thank you," she said. "It—it's really incredible, isn't it? She really found the single most boring person in the world."

"Beyond description," Severus affirmed, and Lily erupted into lovely peals of laughter once more. After a moment, she drew several long breaths, appeared to steel herself, and said, "All right. Thank you—I needed that." She nodded. "Let's go back inside. I'll behave, and I won't let it get to me, and I won't provoke the Dreaded Vernon or Petunia."

Severus nodded and reasonably added, "Or your father."

Lily, who had been about to head back into the house, turned around to peer at him. "What about him?"

Blast. "Just—I wouldn't again bring up my relationship to you," he said.

Lily, surprisingly, laughed. "Wasn't that strange?" she said. "I thought I'd been clear enough in my letters, and when I asked if you could come to dinner, but I guess I should've spelled it out for him."

"It probably wouldn't have gone any better," Severus remarked.

Lily frowned. "What do you mean?"

"He's clearly…uncomfortable with our relationship," Severus replied cautiously.

"What?" Lily said. "No. My parents always been fine with our friendship."

"Exactly," Severus said. "They surely have no problem with our being merely friends." Seeing the confusion in Lily's eyes, Severus clarified, "I don't believe either of your parents previously considered me as a potential…boyfriend."

"What, because you're a—a wizard?" Lily asked, lowering her voice slightly. "That's ridiculous. Why wouldn't I have a wizarding boyfriend?"

Severus, who had never been one to purposefully bring up his own background—the Pureblood Slytherins and autre-day Death Eaters had done so rather enough—shook his head. "I'm speaking of a rather more mundane objection," he said.

"My parents don't object to you," Lily said, grinning as though Severus were being quite ridiculous. "Mum used to encourage me to bring you around, especially during the summers. How many times did she tell me to bring you for dinner?"

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses and, eyes closed, finally explicated, "An upstanding businessman might encourage his daughter to befriend the boy from the 'wrong side of the tracks,' as it were, but approving his advance into her—" He thought better of his line of reasoning. "—into a romantic dalliance with her is another matter entirely."

He opened his eyes. Lily was looking at him as though he'd sprouted Hippogriff wings.

"Daddy's not a snob," she said at last.

"I'm sure he's not consciously choosing to disapprove of me based on…my upbringing," Severus said, "but I very strongly suspect that the 'talk' he wishes to have with you after my departure is to discourage you from spending further time with me."

Lily shook her head. "He wouldn't," she said. "I'm sure he's just ticked that I've been goading Tuney. I'll knock it off and nothing will come of it."

Severus, who had not Lily's optimism, replied, "Very well—but if the subject should arise at a later date, don't be surprised if he thinks rather more highly of Dursley the Future Plant Manager than of me."

Lily's lip curled. "Daddy has better taste than that, I hope," she said.

"Let's both," Severus replied. Lily smiled and took a deep breath; Severus followed her back into the house for mediocre food, forced conversation, and the grating ebullience of crackers.

Severus, who had been in the midst of scribbling notes in the margins of the alchemical paper Jigger had procured for him to read—old habits, as it were, refusing to die—glanced up sharply at the alarming noise emanating from the vicinity of his small bed.

With relief—and a dash of chagrin—Severus realised the source of the chirping; it was the small book Lily had given him for Christmas. Leaning over, Severus retrieved the item from and opened it on his desk. Where before it had been blank, the book now read:

Hey, so, you don't have to go if you don't want to, but since my parents are going to some swank party for New Year's—and Tuney's going off with the Dreaded Vernon—I was thinking about going with Marlene to the Hobgoblin show in Manchester. Marlene says it would be fine if you came so I thought we could make a group of it?

Severus blinked. More words formed on the page.

I mean, you really don't have to. And maybe you have plans. It's okay if you have plans.

Severus scoffed, grabbed up his quill, and scrawled:

Of course I don't have plans. It would be my pleasure to escort you to this Hobgoblin show.

He watched, feeling rather foolish, as Lily's rounded handwriting quickly reappeared.

I'm so glad! I was hoping you could. It wouldn't be the same, counting down to midnight without you.

Severus smiled, which was inane, and scrawled:

I felt rather the same.

…which was, if possible, even worse. He slammed the book closed and tossed it back on the bed, resuming his labour and ignoring the warm feeling in his cheeks.

By the time Severus finished in the laboratory, went upstairs to wash the potions residue off his skin, and finally caught the (late, again) Portkey into the same (disgusting) disused lavatory in Piccadilly Gardens, it was becoming rather late in the evening. Fortunately, as Lily had repeatedly reassured him, the concert—or "show," as she was wont to call it—would be running quite late in the evening, due to its being on the occasion of New Year's Eve. Severus exited the unpleasant lavatory, thought fondly of his upcoming birthday and its accompanying Apparition license, and headed north.

He threaded his way through throngs of merry-makers in the narrow streets—many of whom were dressed in a style that he vaguely recognised as early punk, a trend he had been indistinctly aware of as a teen in a "filthy Muggle excuse for 'culture' that, like all its ilk, must be obliterated" sort of way—until he reached his destination, which turned out to be a door guarded by a large man who glanced at him, snorted, and said, "Don't try to order anything at the bar, kid," before he collected Severus' five pounds and allowed him to enter.

Severus stepped into a crowded and extremely loud, smoke-filled room, with a bar at one end and a stage at another. A motley assortment of musicians onstage were filling the room with music that seemed to be in a predominantly Muggle style, with only the occasional discordant chime of a triangle giving it the air of whimsy-at-all-costs so often found in Wizarding music.

Looking around, he saw that the crowd also reflected what Lily had meant by "it's a mixed venue, so wear Muggle clothes"; although the majority of the young people in attendance were most likely Muggles, Severus vaguely recognised more than a few faces from Hogwarts or Diagon Alley. This type of gathering had seen a brief heyday in the mid- to late-70s—until, of course, they had become easy targets for followers and sympathisers of the Dark Lord. Severus estimated there to be a matter of months before "mixed crowds" fell out of favour, but for the time being—

"Severus!" Lily's unmistakable voice cut through the noise. Severus turned to see Lily, accompanied by her friend McKinnon, making her way towards him. Lily greeted him with a brief kiss and, as McKinnon rolled her eyes, said something to the effect of, "You've not good rhyming. The Hoproplins rest slarded their wet."

Severus stared at her. "What?"

Lily laughed and leaned up, so that she could shout into his ear. "I said, you've got good timing—the Hobgoblins just started their set."

"Excellent," Severus said to this completely befuddling pronouncement. He glanced at Lily's friend and, pitching his voice to a volume rather greater than usual, added, "Miss McKinnon, Happy New Year."

McKinnon sipped her beer—evidently, she either was eighteen or passed for it much better than Severus did—and said, "Cheers, Snape."

"How was work?" Lily asked in his ear.

Severus raised an eyebrow and, with a jerk of his head toward their Muggle surroundings, said, "At the chemical lab?"

McKinnon snorted into her beer, and Lily pressed a hand to her cheek, clearly chagrined. "Yes," she said, rolling her eyes, "at the chemical lab."

"It was fine." Severus shrugged. "Now that we've submitted our completed research to the…journal, Jigger has insisted that I resume preparing for the…exams. It's tedious, but not entirely objectionable."

Lily smiled. "I don't know why you feel like you have to rush through everything, anyway," she said. "You're already so well ahead of the typical schedule."

"Hmm," McKinnon put in loudly. "Yeah. I need another beer." She drained the last quarter-inch of liquid from her glass and headed off towards the bar; Lily, for some reason, followed, leaving Severus to trail along in her wake. As McKinnon squeezed between two leather-clad gentlemen in order to flag down the bartender, Severus noticed an especially familiar-looking face walking away from the bar. Due to the incongruous setting, he was just putting that face together with a set of uniform shop robes when—

"Hullo, Snape," Cadogan said with a smile as she walked toward him, a drink in her hand and her husband in tow.

"What are you doing here?" Severus asked Cadogan, forcing the volume of his voice above the din.

"It's nice to see you, too," Cadogan replied. "Hello, Lily. I'm impressed—you managed to get him out of the laboratory."

Lily laughed; Severus glowered. "Oh, it wasn't that hard," Lily said. "It's nice to see you, Sheridan." She glanced at Cadogan's husband and smiled tentatively.

"Oh," Cadogan said, "this is my husband, Gordon. Gordon, this is Snape's, ah—"

"Redheaded lady friend," Graves supplied easily, as Cadogan sputtered into her drink and Lily, fortunately, let out a single bark of laughter.

"I'm Lily," she said to Graves, "though 'redheaded lady friend' seems to work as well."

"It's nice to meet you, Lily," Graves said, nodding. "I understand you're still in school, is that right?"

Severus glanced pointedly at Cadogan, who made a show of innocently sipping her beer. "Yes," Lily said, "sixth-year, like Severus would still be if he weren't such a genius. What do you do?"

"I'm a musician," Graves replied.

"What, like…?" Lily indicated the band on stage.

Gordon chuckled. "Nothing so exciting," he said. "We're only here because Sherry knows one of the lads in the band."

"Really?" Lily said, turning to Cadogan. "Which one?"

"See the drummer?" Cadogan pointed out the youngest musician onstage, a weedy man with a partially-shaved head. "He was a Ravenclaw, a few years above me. I wanted to see him play before the Goblins get so big that I can't afford to see them anymore."

"I have to say," Graves mused, "that this is not how I pictured your music."

"Don't blame me for…this," Cadogan said, gesturing toward the stage. "I've no idea what they're thinking with that triangle."

McKinnon manoeuvred through the crowd surrounding the bar, beer finally in hand, and rejoined the group. "That took for bloody ever," she said. "Let's try for a spot up front, yeah?"

"Sure." Lily smiled apologetically at Cadogan and her husband. "It was good seeing you, Sheridan, and nice to meet you, Gordon."

"Yeah, nice to meet you," McKinnon echoed, even though she hadn't. Severus exchanged pleasantries with his employee and her husband, and then he and Lily followed the impatient McKinnon through the beer-scented, smoky throng until they reached a slightly less-crowded section of the floor (it was less crowded, Severus shortly discovered, because it was directly in front of an enormously loud speaker; McKinnon didn't seem to care).

The music continued; it wasn't necessarily what Severus would seek out of his own accord, but with the exception of the much-abused triangle, it wasn't especially unpleasant (just obscenely loud). When Lily prodded him, he joined the others in the crowd in the rhythmic, head-bobbing quasi-dance, which felt ridiculous but not nearly as ridiculous as standing stock-still in the middle of a moving crowd.

The subsequent hour passed quickly; McKinnon, like those around her, went back to the bar a time or two more (leading Lily to inform her that under no circumstances would she be Apparating back to London that evening), and between the smoke from cigarettes (and other substances), the smell of spirits, and the pounding music, Severus felt quite as though he'd been transported to another universe entirely—and, amazingly, this universe included Lily Evans, who spent the bulk of the evening pressed up against his side, one arm wrapped around his waist.

As midnight drew near, the band's front man set his mandolin aside in order to lead the audience in "counting down to bloody nineteen seventy fucking seven, yeah!" The crowd cheered inebriatedly and proceeded to join him: "Ten…nine..."

Severus looked down at Lily. Her green eyes still managed to shine in the dim lighting as she looked back at him, taking his hands in hers. The din of a hundred drunken young people crashed in his ears as the multitude chanted: "Five…four…three…"

Lily's lips formed the words. "Two…one…"

And then, just as the revellers turned to toast one another's good luck and good fortune—and Lily leaned up to kiss Severus—he stumbled, knocked to his knees, as an explosion rocked the club.

Cheers turned to screams, and black smoke filled the room.

A/N: Happy 1977, everybody! Er. In any case, thank you so much for your reviews, which are gratifying, helpful, and inspiring.

Coming up: An exploded club, and the birthdays I promised previously.