~ With Me, Into The Dark ~
When Severus Snape showed up on the doorstep at half past midnight, Gilbert Goyle was (to say the least) not pleased.
"It's the middle of the night, Snape. This had better be important," he snarled.
Severus fought down his urge to just hex the brute, and replied as calmly as he could, "I need to speak with your sister."
Goyle gave him an odd look and seemed about ready to tell him off, when Lilith appeared at her brother's shoulder and said, "Don't be an ass, Gil. He probably needs to borrow some potion ingredients."
It was a plausible assumption, as Severus was known for his skill in potion-making, and had in fact been partially (if inadvertently) responsible for helping Lilith invent a ridiculously dangerous new potion which she would likely end up in prison over the use of, if she had indeed created it with the intention of actually using it rather than out of pure empirical curiosity.
Still, it took extra prodding from his sister to get the dumb lump to move out of the doorway enough to allow Severus through.
"For Merlin's sake, you bloody neanderthal, if we were having a tryst we'd have been more fucking careful about setting it up. Let the boy in, already." As Goyle stepped aside to let their guest in, his sister continued to berate him. "And don't slam the door, because if you wake up the baby, your pet harpy - excuse me, I mean your lovely wife - will surely blame me and then I'll never fucking hear the end of it."
Boy, Severus thought sourly to himself as he stepped over the threshold. She thinks of me as a mere boy. True, she was nearly ten years older than him, but he had been of age for several years now, and had risen farther in the Death Eater ranks than Lilith had even though she had two years more experience than him in that arena. And still she thought of him as a child?
Out loud, he said, "For a lady of good breeding, you certainly swear a lot."
Lilith shrugged.
"I am an adult, and I'll speak how I want in my own home," she said. "Follow me down to my atelier and we'll get the ingredients you needed."
He had forgotten that she was particularly difficult to offend, because she had been raised in near-isolation and had never learned to properly understand social cues. He followed her through a maze of corridors to a heavily-warded room in the basement which served as her workshop.
Once they had passed through the first layer of wards, she turned to him and asked, "What did you really come here for?"
"You have your full Diviner's credentials, correct?" Severus inquired.
"Ah... yes. You want a reading?"
"If you don't mind."
"And it couldn't have waited until morning?" Lilith asked, frowning.
Severus explained about the prophecy he'd overhead, and how there were two children to which it could refer. "So I was wondering if you could divine which of the two children it means," he concluded.
"I don't deal in minutiae."
"...what?"
"I said I don't deal in minutiae," Lilith snapped, not bothering to hide her irritation. "The future is not set in stone, Snape. There are many possible paths, and if you wish a prophecy to remain unfulfilled, then what you must do is not tell anyone what you've heard, so that they have no choice but to continue acting without foreknowledge of that particular possible future."
But it was too late for that; he had already informed the Dark Lord of it.
~end of scene~
A/N: The bit about Lilith having an interest in Divination hasn't really been mentioned anywhere except in "Temperance" which was published outside this collection (and is an AU to it, as her death plays out differently in that story than it does here), but Lilith earned her NEWT in Divination and is partial to the Tarot deck.