Nice Long chapter here to make up for the wait. I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update. Most of this chapter will be flash backs like in HP and the Deathly Hallows, the chapter 'The Prince's Tale' my favourite chapter of the whole book. It's so sad! So I own nothing that appears in that chapter.
Let me know what you think! R&R
My dear, darling, friends allowed me to chose which lesson I wanted to mostly die in.
I chose History of Magic.
Wouldn't you?
They even made me help research the curse they were going to use to not-quite-kill me. The stupid thing was though that if they dunked me into a load of water I would heal myself of any of these 'diseases' of my own accord.
So there I was, sitting in History of Magic, stealing furtive glances across at Sirius every few seconds so see when I was to be struck down by a not-quite-fatal disease and simultaneously wondering if Lily was actually going to be so prostrate with grief that she'd magically get over seven years of solid dislike.
Some how I didn't think so.
There was a shift of movement to my left, the raising of an arm, the muttering of a spell, the flash of light. I closed my eye waiting for the world to stop spinning, then I heard Lily's scream and everything went black…
-1963-3-
The cottage was a white-washed, stooped backed, little thing, bending against the howling winds that so often swept inland during winter. There were shutters over each window, painted a cheerful blue, with sea roses growing in the window boxes. Sand was mixed in with the white wash, giving the paint a bumpy, textured feel and shells from the beach surrounding the cottage lined the porch like sentries.
The little girl was sitting on her porch step in the late autumn sunshine staring out at the incoming tide, occasionally rattling the strings of beads and shells that hung on vines, clanking slightly in the light breeze, with one grubby hand. Her chocolate brown hair was tied in a long braid down her back over a red t-shirt with a picture of a unicorn on the front and mud splattered blue shorts. Her feet were bare and covered in sand from a day on the beach and her warm brown eyes darted this way and that, seeing everything with that glowing innocence all children of that age have.
Arty, at just three years of age, was already in love with the sea.
-1964-4-
"And if you go slightly to the right and up you can see the Pole Star."
Arty gazed up at the glistening stars, thumb in mouth. Her mother, Meg, pointed up, past the Big Dipper and the slightly east of the North Star.
"That's Cassiopeia, then there's the Gemini Twins, Castor and Pollex, and that's Aries. Those three faint stars there is Orion, who incidentally was Artemis the Huntress's favourite mortal in the old stories."
It was almost midnight and Arty had been asleep for almost five hours when Meg came in to wake her up, telling her to wrap up warm and come downstairs. Now they were lying in the sprigs of grass that grew part way down the beach, a little way away from the cottage. The beach was cold but the dancing blue flames that Meg had conjured warmed their cold skin.
"And those ones that curve around the Pole Star is Draco's tail and if you follow them round, look, there's his wings and that's his head and drop down there to the horizon and that's Hercules, the strongest of mortal men, who completed the legendary twelve labour in punishment for murdering his wife and children when he was driven mad by a jealous Hera, queen of the gods, after he was born to a mortal women and her husband Zeus."
"Tell me a story Mammy."
Meg rolled onto her side and looked at her little daughter.
"You need to get back to bed Sweetheart, I've got to head off to Romania tomorrow and you need to be awake for me to drop you off at my sisters."
Arty pouted and made her eyes go all big and round, "Please! Just one story!"
She poked her stomach and tickled her until Meg suddenly jumped to her feet, spinning Arty around like she was flying. Artemis let go of her hands at the height of the swing and quite literally soared a few metre before landing lightly on her feet and over balancing and landing on her bottom.
"Please, please, please Mammy, one story!"
Meg caught her hand and pulled her to her feet, laughing slightly,
"Okay, okay, I surrender. Once, in a fertile land of olives and bees called Greece there was a goddess called Artemis who ruled over maidens and swore for all time never to love man. She was born of Zeus and Leto, a mortal, who gave birth to twins, Artemis, goddess of the moon, and Apollo, who shone like the sun and they became the hunters of the sky.
"Artemis begged her father Zeus for a companion and he sent her the Seven Nymphs to guard her and protect her, and to join her on her hunts. After many years a giant of a man was out in the woods were they lit their fire and saw the seven sisters and Artemis and came forth into the light. Artemis, fearing for her maidens, turned the seven into stars, where they clustered together in the sky, forever to be called the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. From the heavens they look down on maidens to offer them help and guidance and to light the way.
"The hunters name was Orion, a mortal, who became Artemis's hunting companion for all of his life. But Apollo, jealous of his sister's regard for this man, sent a giant scorpion to pierce him through his heart and though Artemis prayed to her uncle, Hades, for him to pardon the soul, Orion passed to the underworld.
"Artemis placed Orion's body among the stars as a tribute of friendship to the greatest mortal hunter she had ever known, and as a reminder that friendship can break all barriers, even one as big as man and goddess. But she also placed the scorpion in the heavens too, behind Orion, to serve as a warning to everyone under the heavens of the treachery of those who place themselves above love and are false, not only to their friends, but to themselves as well."
Meg looked down at Arty who was yawning and trying to hide it. It was obvious that she hadn't understood much of the story but that was alright, they had years ahead. And the stars would light the way.
-1965-5-
Early spring sunlight danced along the waves as Arty, now five lay in the sand with her mother, a picnic spread out between them.
"Mammy," She said suddenly, sitting up. The blond witch pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and smiled at her only daughter.
"Hhmm."
"Why do we live here? On our own. All that's here is sand and sea and gulls." She stuck her thumb into her mouth, gazing down at her mother.
"It's just easier not to live near other people Sweetie."
"Why?"
"Because we're special Arty, we're different. And some Mug- other people don't like different."
"Oh."
She was quiet for a time, then reached out and held her hand for her mother to take. She took it and pulled her back into the golden sand, smiling up at the sun and the circling gulls cawing their swooping sky-dance.
"Don't forget Sweetie there's Aunty Tía and Granny and Grandpa."
"Why do I always have to go to Aunty Tía's? Why can't I come with you?"
"Because I'm working Darling and I can't take you with me."
Arty scowled, yanking her palm out of her mother's one, and clambering to her feet, stalking off back up to the cottage without looking back. Meg di Angelo sighed and packed the picnic away with a flick of her wand, her blond hair turning slight grey with anxiety.
"Oh John," She sighed. "Why did you leave me?"
-1966-6-
"Arty, Ben's here."
Arty bobbed up from the sparkling waves at her mother's call, shaking the water from her long hair and swimming towards the shore. Ben was the youngest son of a Muggle family who were staying in a cottage nearby for the summer and they had become friends over the three weeks he had been here.
Her mother had taken her aside a few days before they arrived:
"Please Sweetie, while they're here, you've got to pretend we're ordinary. Like them. That means no extraordinary feats of magical powers. So no flying, no breathing underwater, no talking about quidditch, broomsticks or magic wands of any kind. Understood?"
Arty rolled her eyes. "Yes Mammy. I'm not stupid. Aunty Tía tells me that every time I go anywhere with her."
"It's worth remembering though."
"Yes Mammy."
"Good girl, now run off and play."
Arty had remembered it and Ben still had no idea that anything was special about his new play mate.
"Hello Arty." He said shyly when she met him half way up the beach a few minutes later. Ben was blonde curled, blue eyes with an upturned nose that was always running, even in summer.
"Hello Ben," She laughed slightly and grabbed his sweaty palms, pulling him into a run, making the seagulls caw indignantly and fly off into the sun, the sea splashed against their ankles and splattered their clothes but neither cared. It was hard to care in summer.
Meg stood with Ben's mother by the gate at the bottom of the cottages garden, watching them play.
"It's hard to watch them grow up isn't it." Mrs Peterson said, sensing the sadness around her friend.
Meg turned slightly, glancing out to sea. "I just wish her father could have been here to see her growing up."
"You still miss him?"
"I've missed him every day since he'd died and I'll carry on missing him until the moment I die too."
"It must be hard for you, living out here, just you and Arty."
"Yes and no, Sometimes I wish I could go back to living in London, with my friends from school, how it used to be and yet I could never leave here now either. And Arty would never leave, this is her home and to go from running wild to the busy streets of London would just kill her. But we get around a lot, with my job, so we meet lots of people."
"What do you do?"
"I'm a writer, but I also work for a zoology magazine, travelling round from country to country. When Arty was little she stayed with my sister but now I take her with me."
"Isn't that hard, taking her with you?"
"It's better than leaving her behind."
"I suppose."
They watched the pair rolling around in the sand, their echoing laughter reaching them from the shoreline.
"What do you do about school? I mean if you're always moving around."
"I home school her. She…She doesn't really fit in with other children. Stuff happens, other children don't see her as like them, probably because she is so different. I mean, how many children do you know that couldn't read or write 'til their sixth birthday but could name every star constellation in our milky way? She could swim before she could walk and we've never had electricity so she's never watched television or listened to the radio or used a dishwasher."
"You live without electricity?"
"Uhuh, we have a wireless and gas lamps. I write on a type writer that belonged to my mother."
Meg's hair lightened a few shades then reverted back to it's original shade when she scowled at it.
"Well, I'd better go, Michael's barbecuing tonight and I have to go shopping. Pick him up about four okay?"
"Sure that's okay. Have a nice time.
She pulled a face, "Shopping, oh the joy. See you later."
Meg watched her walk away, then sat down in the garden. Was she hurting Arty by staying here? She practically ran wild and she did little to stop her. Mrs Peterson hadn't said anything but it had been clear that she thought Arty's upbringing was a little unorthodox. No scratch that, a lot unorthodox. Oh john, she thought, for maybe the hundredth time that day, what should I do?
-1968-8-
"ARTY COME OUT OF THAT ROOM THIS INSTANT!"
"NO!"
"ARTY!"
"It wasn't my fault, they're all freaks, every one of them, they laugh at me and throw sticks at me and call me the freak but THEY'RE THE FREAKS!"
"Oh, Arty."
"I was scared and then the art trolley fell on one them and the paint grabbed them."
Meg sighed. She should have known that school would've have been a bad idea.
"Alohamora."
The door swung open to reveal a tearstained Arty who, when seeing the door was open, slipped through it and ran towards the kitchen and out the backdoor.
"ARTY COME BACK HERE!"
But she didn't answer so Meg followed her down the garden to where she was sitting on her swing, trying hard not to cry.
"Why did you make me go?"
"Because I thought you needed to be around other children."
"By sticking me in SCHOOL?"
"I thought it was best."
"NO, YOU JUST WANTED TO GET RID OF ME DIDN'T YOU? YOU NEVER WANTED ME, ALL YOU DO IS TALK TO DADDY AND WRITE. YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING WITH ME ANYMORE!"
"I never meant for you to feel that wa-"
"WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME WE HAD A PICNIC OR LOOKED AT THE STARS OR YOU TOLD ME A STORY?"
"I'm sorry but-"
"YOU NEVER WANTED ME!" Arty screamed at her, then, so suddenly it almost hurt, there was a tug in her stomach, just behind her naval and she was blasted back, landing on her back and elbows, the ten foot wide crater she'd just made ripping the garden in half.
One of her elbows was bleeding and she took one look at her mum's face and burst into tears.
-1969-9-
"And then he was all, like, blushing and-"
"Can a fish blush?" asked Arty. The gringylow looked slightly confused but carried on anyway.
"So I was all like 'I'm not just doing one date and-Hey! Where you going?"
"Sorry, gotta go, mum's there."
Arty kicked up and surfaced to see her mother standing with a mug of hot chocolate in each hand.
"Hello Sweetie, nice swim?"
Arty looked down at the crater she had created and then at the darting fish. Turning it into a pond was the best sorry present her mum had ever given her.
"Yeah, though Elsa ambushed me again."
" Is she still going on about Trevor?"
"Uhuh, so I asked if fish can blush and she sorta got really confused. It was quite funny really."
"You shouldn't tease her." Meg tried to sound firm but failed, breaking into smile. "Come on, lessons."
"Do I have to?"
"Yes, be thankful I haven't stopped you swimming this winter, it's freezing!"
"Not for me it's not."
She kissed her forehead. "My little water baby. Now scoot!"
Arty saluted. "Aye Aye Captain!"
-1971-11-
"IT'S HERE!"
"What's here Sweetie."
Meg yawned and flicked her wand at the coffee pot which started brewing. Arty, in a too-short pair of tatty jeans and shirt which showed a gap of stomach from where it didn't quite fit after a sudden growth spurt adding a couple of inches to Arty's bony frame.
"MY LETTER!" Meg's eyes widened, "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards. Dear Miss Di Angelo, we are pleased to inform you that you have been ACCEPTED INTO HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY!" Arty was so excited she didn't notice her other wipe a single tear away from one eye.-1971-11-
The first year stood slightly apart from her parents; obviously arguing with a slightly older girl with short blond hair while trying to hold back tears. A few paces away a young boy with greasy black hair stood with a sallow faced women who was scowling at an older couple hugging their son and trying to slip him last minute galleons. The swaggered slightly as he walked and looked well cared for despite the spellotape that was holding his round glasses together, making them slightly lopsided which seemed to add to his charm. His mother attempted to flatten his unruly hair one last time, then pecked him on the cheek as he bounded onto the Hogwarts Express.
Almost half way down the platform, hidden from the scowling women by the bustling crowds, softly hooting owls and mewling kittens Arty, now eleven, was sitting on the floor crying as blood ran down her shin from her scraped knee. Her mother sat down beside her and cast a healing charm before pulling her into hug, smoothing her hair and murmuring comforting words into her ear 'till Arty sat back with a hiccup, wiping a wrist across her eyes.
"Come on Sweetie, it'll be okay."
"I don't want to go, want to stay with you."
"Arty Sweetie, it's be fantastic. You have so much magic, just remember that hole."
Arty sniffed and clambered to her feet.
"Come on, let's go and find a compartment."
They walked along the platform, pushing the trolley between them and Meg loaded her daughter and her luggage into an empty compartment.
Steam billowed from the scarlet engine and Arty leaned out of the window waving until the train was out of sight, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening again.
There was a commotion outside her compartment and the door slid open to reveal a small boy in second hand school robes and a stunningly beautiful girl with a mane of scarlet hair. She too, looked s though she'd been crying.
"Can we come in please, everywhere else is full and the compartment we were in has just been invaded by gorillas."
"Sure," Arty managed a shaky smile, "I'm Arty."
"Lily, and this is Severus."
"Hello."
Arty looked back over to the boy but it was clear that he had no eyes but for Lily. His dark eyes filled with love, and maybe a little greed.
That couldn't end well.
-1971-11-
The stern faced Professor, McGonagall, picked up the Sorting Hat with one hand and read, "Di Angelo, Artemis' off the parchment from her other hand. Arty went slightly green and stumbled up the steps, sliding down onto the stool as the world was obscured by the over-large brim of the Hat.
"Hmm, difficult, more practical than academic, procrastinator?"
Arty nodded slightly.
"Not to worry, you're incredibly loyal so maybe Hufflepuff...But a non hard worker? No Hufflepuff doesn't fit, and neither does Ravenclaw. And Oooh, you're brave to carry that secret though there's nothing wrong with being a halfer...What about Slytherin?"
Arty shook her head so fast the Hat almost fell off.
"No? Slytherin's nothing to be ashamed of, your father was one...Your mother, the loyalist Gryffindor. I never would have expected that to work. But there you have it, anyway, Slytherin or Gryffindor?"
Arty thought of the moving photo of her father that was kept on her mother's dressing table. "Gryffindor."
"So be it...GRYFFINDOR!"
Arty clambered down off the stool and gave the hat back to the Professor who scanned down her list to the next name and called "Evans, Lily."
Arty watched her friend walk forward on trembling legs and sit down on the rickety stool. Professor McGonagall dropped the hat onto her head and barely a second after it touched the dark red hair the hat cried "GRYFFINDOR!"
Lily took off the Hat, handed it back to Professor McGonagall, then hurried off towards the cheering Gryffindor, but as she went she glanced back at Snape, and there was a sad little smile on her face...
-1971-11-
"Hey, HEY LILY! WAIT UP!"
Lily glanced around from where she stood with Arty waiting for the Prefects to lead the first years to the dormitory after the welcome feast had finished and scowled slightly.
James was running towards them, the handsome boy from the train strolling behind him at a more leisurely pace, hands in pockets. A pale, slightly unwell looking boy with sandy coloured hair, was trailing slightly behind him, tucking a well thumbed book into a pocket in his robes.
Lily had met both James and Sirius on the train and recognised the third from the Sorting but Arty didn't recognise any of them so stopped, much to Lily's chagrin, though she seemed to recognise her mistake when she saw Lily's narrowed eyes.
"Hey!" Sirius leaned against a nearby pillar and looked at Arty while James, still panting slightly from his run, bent over, hands on his knees.
"Do I know you?" Arty raised her eyebrows.
"No, I guess, but you should, so here I am. Sirius Black, womanizer extraordinaire at your service!" He grabbed her hand and kissed it before she managed to snatch it away, blushing furiously.
Lily and James were already arguing and, unseen by either of them, Severus slipped up behind Lily, trying to pull her away.
"Snivillus!"
Severus threw Sirius a look of pure dislike and tugged Lily away. James grabbed her other hand and she lost her footing, landing on the floor, hair covering most of her face. Arty shoved Sirius in the stomach who fell back into Remus, who caught him and set him on his feet, sighing as if he could tell this was going to happen for most of the rest of his time at Hogwarts.
Both boys were staring at Lily, sitting on the floor. But, Arty noticed almost immediately, their expressions were almost comical in their sharp contrast. Severus's face showed desire, pure and plain, greed for the girl who sat in front of him, even at the childish age of eleven, his love for her in his own, extreme, way.
James's hazel eyes were twinkling as he reached down to pull Lily to her feet, the hand was refused, but his face was glowing with undisguised love. That couldn't end well, could it?
Arty elbowed the two boys out of the way and hauled Lily to her feet, before rejoining the trailing end of the line of first years heading for the staircases, leaving the four boys behind. But even so she wasn't fast enough to stop the drifting voice of the Potter boy reaching them.
"Merlin, she had nice legs."
Lily flushed bright red and Arty glanced behind her, catching sight of James and Sirius on the floor below. Sirius nodded and laughed slightly with his new best friend.
"Yeah," he agreed.
But he wasn't looking at Lily.
-1971-11-
It was almost midnight on a cool Saturday night in early October when Arty slipped out of the dormitory, making sure that the six first year inside were still asleep. After almost a month and a half of Hogwarts, Arty was almost being physically pulled towards the Black Lake. Used to being free to swim almost every day, Arty was finding the routine and schedule of following hundreds of other students around incredibly difficult but this was the first night she was actually going to break the rules.
She didn't notice as she slipped down the stairs that a wand was lit in the silent dorm behind her...
"So, " Lily asked, next morning , when Arty finally emerged from her bed around lunchtime. "Nice swim?"
"Uh?" Arty rubbed most of the sleep out of her eyes and tried to focus on her friend.
"Managed to get back okay then?"
"Wha-?"
"Oh, come on Arty, I'm not stupid, I know where you went last night."
Arty looked confused and still half asleep. "Las' nigh'. Last night? LAST NIGHT? Merlin's most baggy-sorry, I, em, can explain..."
"That is so amazing, I wish I could breathe underwater! Does anyone else know?"
"Just Professor Dumbledore...And you I guess now."
"Wish I could swim like that."
"No you don't. No you really don't."
-1973-13-
The newspaper was delivered by a screech owl who dropped the paper into Arty's coffee that morning.
'He Who Must Not Be Named Still Gathering Followers!' screamed the headline.
Arty scanned the first paragraph, then threw the paper to Lily who began to read it.
"An un-named witch and wizard found dead in their house in Bristol, source of death, Avada Kedavra. Dark mark set above house." Lily paused to read again.
"Oh how horrible, there was an attack on a family of Muggles down in Cornwall, the parents tried to protect their thirteen year old son and were tortured with the cruciatus. The boy was a tennis champion in the local region. The Muggle police think it was murder but have nothing to go on. Oh that poor kid."
"What was he called?"
Lily scanned down to the bottom of the page,
"Ben.
Ben Peterson."
-1974-14-
"Oh crap," Arty muttered as she hurriedly dived for the water as the footsteps echoed up from the edge of the Forbidden Forest. She could just make out two figures in the distance and a lump, nearer to the ground. The first figure seemed to be leaning slightly against the latter and their voices drifted over the calm waves.
"That was so close, another few minutes and he would have seen Moony then who knows what would have happened?"
Another figure suddenly appeared from nowhere, almost growing from the ground.
"Hey, Prongs," the voice came again. "You gonna change back anytime soon?"
The three figures came closer, into a patch of dawn sunlight and Arty could just make out their faces. Very familiar face.
"I wasn't planning too but if you insist Pads." The lump near the ground had spoken but it wasn't a lump, now it was a tall boy of maybe fourteen with messy black hair, lopsided glasses and a cheeky expression that Arty knew only too well.
"James Potter." She breathed. Then sank another few inches into the water as he turned to look out over the water.
"Come on, we need to get Moony back to Madam Pomphrey without being seen, got the cloak James?"
"Of course." James produced a silvery sheet of cloth with a flourish and threw it over all four of them, obscuring them from Arty as the castle door opened, a small figure hurrying down the steps, leaving the light from the castle to light the way.
-1974-14-
Lily and Snape were walking across the castle courtyard, evidentially arguing while Arty stood a few paces away, doodling on an old piece of parchment while she waited for her friend.
"…Thought we were supposed to be friends?" Snape was saying, "Best friends."
"We are, Sev, but I don't like some of the people you're hanging around with! I'm sorry but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev? He's creepy! D'you know what he tried to do to Mary Mcdonald the other day? If Arty hadn't turned up that second she would have been in the Hospital Wing for a month!"
Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face.
"That was nothing," said Snape. "It was a laugh, that's all-"
"It was Dark Magic, and if you think that's funny-"
"What about that stuff Potter and his mates get up to?" demanded Snape, as Arty, sensing the argument was escalating, walked over. His colour rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment .
"What's Potter got anything to do with it?" said Arty
"They sneak out at night. There's something weird about that Lupin. Where's he keep going?"
"He's ill," said Lily. "They say he's ill-"
Arty didn't say anything, but shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.
"Every month at the full moon?"
"I know you're theory," said Lily, and she sounded cold. "Why are you so obsessed with them anyway? Why do you care what they're doing at night?"
"I'm just trying to show you they're not as wonderful as everyone thinks they are."
The intensity of his gave made her blush but Arty squared up to him, her bony legs making her tower above him.
"They don't use Dark Magic, though."
Lily lowered her voice, "I think you're being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow and James Potter saved you from whatever's down there-"
Snape's whole face contorted and he spluttered, "How did you find out about that?"
Lily betrayed herself by glancing slightly at Arty who went red.
"You've been sneaking around again haven't you? I'm gonna find out where you go-!"
Lily scowled, green eyes narrowed, "Leave her alone! James Potter did save you and you're just too-"
"Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his own neck and his friend's too! You're not going too- I wont let you-"
"Let me? Letme?"
Lily's green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once.
"I didn't mean- I just don't want to see you made a fool of- he fancies you, James Potter fancies you!"
The words seemed wrenched from him against his will, "And he's not…Everyone thinks…Big Quidditch hero-" Snape's bitterness and dislike were rendering him incoherent, and Lily's eyebrows were travelling further and further up her forehead.
"I know James Potter's an arrogant toe rag," She said, cutting across Snape. "I don't need you to tell me that. But Mulciber and Avery's sense of humour is just evil. Evil Sev. I don't understand how you can be friends with them."
Arty glanced at Snape's face and doubted he had even heard Lily's strictures on Mulciber and Avery. The moment she had insulted James Potter his whole body had relaxed, and as Lily waved him goodbye and walked off with Arty there was a new spring in his step.
-1975-16-
The last of the sand in the tall hour glass in the Great Hall trickled out and the students began to steam out of their OWL into the summer sunshine. Beneath the beech tree sat the four Marauders, and a little way away, Snape.
Arty watched silently as James taunted Snape, not quite daring to stand up to him, even when Lily did. It made her feel guilty that she couldn't be brave enough to live up to her Gryffindor name and even more ashamed when she remembered what her mother always said, "That no-one person had the right to take away another's dignity."
But then she heard Snape snarl, in his humiliation and fury, that unforgivable word, "Mudblood" she saw Lily's pain and any empathy she had had vanished like sand on a breeze.
-1975-16-
"It's okay Lily," Even though it wasn't. Lily hiccupped and fresh tears began to stream down her face. The girl's dormitory was deserted, everyone else still being outside enjoying the sunshine. Arty wrapped her arm around her friends shoulder and pulled her close, letting Lily just let it all out, all the pain and humiliation and betrayal.
Lily and Severus's relationship had always been complicated, most of her other friends couldn't understand why she ever even spoke to him, the greasy haired freak up to his long nose in the Dark Arts. But Arty knew better, she knew that Snape had been the first real friend Lily had had, that he was the one who made her feel different when her sister called her a freak, made her feel special in a world she didn't recognise at all.
And now, she thought dismally, you've gone and ruined it haven't you Snape, you've broken her heart and I will never, ever forgive you for that...
-1975-16-
"I hope you're happy." Arty spat, staring into the yellow face, "You've broken her heart with your stupid little stunt!"
"I never meant-"
"It doesn't matter what you say to me. I'll hate you for eternity for hurting her."
"But I-"
"I don't care! She trusted you, loved you like a brother," Arty saw pain flash across his face but it was quickly hidden by his usual curt blankness, "And you destroyed that."
"Please, " He begged, "Just ask her to come out her, I won't move 'til I see her. I'll even sleep here!"
Arty threw him a disgusted look and turned on her heel, trying to ignore the rising pity in her stomach, and walked though the portrait hole.
Lily was waiting behind it.
"Well?"
"He wants to see you. He's even threatening to sleep out there."
Lily swallowed slightly, then brushed past Arty to the portrait hole. Arty didn't say anything, just watched her go and settled down to wait.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not interested."
"I'm sorry."
"Save your breath."
It was night time, Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, all vestiges of tears washed away, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.
"I only came out here because Arty said you were threatening to sleep here."
"I was. I would have. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just-"
"Slipped out?" There was no pity in Lily's voice. "It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you, even Arty hates you, though she pretends otherwise. You and your precious little Deatheater friends- you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"
He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.
"I-" Her voice cracked slightly, but she shook back her hair and continued. "I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way and I've chosen mine."
"No- listen, I never meant-"
"-to call me Mudblood." The pain in Lily's voice was hidden by carefully applied contempt. "But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"
He struggled on the verge of speech but Lily was already turning away, back to her separate world, so different to his.
"I'm sorry Sev. I wish it could've been different, I really wish it could have been. "
She looked back at him one last time, eyes bright with tears, and lightly brushed her fingers across his cheek...And was gone.
Leaving Snape alone in the dark hallway.
Coulda...
Shoulda...
Woulda...
It was so easy in past tense.