As Lily made her way out of the Hospital Wing, she immediately regretted letting her fiery temper get the better of her as she made her escape. Not necessarily for Severus' sake, though she felt a lingering bit of pity for the serious injury he had suffered at the hands of James Potter's usual grandstanding by the lake that afternoon. But more for the other students staying overnight in the infirmary who had no-doubt been disturbed by her emotional outburst. It was hardly the example that she liked to follow as a Prefect, to be respectful and mindful of everyone at Hogwarts so that the newer students would have a more welcoming impression than the one she had gotten.
"Mary would kill me if she saw that kind of bedside manner…" she shuddered, mortified that she could let something so emotional explode in such a fragile place. It had, after all, been the goal of both Gryffindor Witches to pursue a path towards a Healer Apprenticeship if their O.W.L. results proved favorable enough.
Those requirements were certainly a tall order considering the disaster that had occurred earlier that day.
As she absentmindedly waded through the sea of students navigating the hallways towards their house dormitories, Lily briefly smiled in recollection of her one high point of the exam. Casting a Patronus Charm, regardless of it being incorporeal and misty, had to have earned her some bonus marks, right? The memory of the white wisp that she had created gave her a small measure of comfort. The only question was whether it would be enough to make up for the fact that she had crumbled under the pressure when her proctor unleashed a Boggart from its usual hiding place of a shaking wardrobe.
"Filthy Mudblood…let's see how dirty your blood actually is."
She could still see the hatred in his eyes, the sneer on his lips, as Severus Snape, garbed in robes of blackest night, cut down Lily's whole family...mother, father, and even Petunia with his creation, Sectumsempra. Nowhere in Lily's studies did the notion occur that a Boggart could assume multiple forms at once and act out a whole scene as if it were a Shakespearean tragedy. The redheaded Gryffindor girl lost her voice, unable to recall the incantation of "Riddikulus" to banish the Boggart, and even if she had, the scene was so distracting and real that she doubted her ability to conjure an idea of something to laugh at.
The only saving grace that Lily could find from such a failure was the fact that the Boggart portion of the O.W.L. was conducted privately. Nobody but her proctor had seen it, but that had been embarrassing enough.
Upon arriving at the Grand Staircase, Lily patiently waited at the bottom of the moving stairwell to slowly make her ascent to the seventh floor. Sometimes she envied the Hufflepuffs and, dare she say it, the Slytherins, for not having to bother with the messy way to their dormitories once supper in the Great Hall was finished. There was hardly ever any consistency when the ornate marble stairways decided to change directions, but after five years at Hogwarts, even the Muggle-born girl was used to it by now.
"Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?" Lily could hear her own, naive voice ask her friend curiously, none the wiser to the prejudice and evil views that were shared by many members of a single house. Things were so much simpler as a nine year-old...
Looking back on that memory, she should have noticed the hesitation on the young boy's face as he answered her. "No. It doesn't make any difference."
"Liar." she groaned internally as her feet strode lightly on the first marble step. Why was she still dwelling on this? Why was it so hard for her to cut him off and be done with it like her friends had suggested countless times?
"Oh, Lily!" came the excited voice of a brown-haired witch from two floors up. Lily's emerald-green eyes peered upward to nod and smile in kind. Her best friend in Gryffindor, well...honestly, her best friend entirely since fifth year had gone into full swing on account of Severus' rapidly darkening behavior. Mary Macdonald. A friendly Muggle-born witch who to this day had treated every day at Hogwarts with the same wide-eyed excitement as the day that she was sorted.
"Honestly, if she could find a way to bottle that excitement and turn it into a potion, she wouldn't have any problems whatsoever with her Potions O.W.L. next week." she mused as the stairs changed directions to lead up towards her group of friends.
"Bloody stairs are being a right pain in the ass tonight." sighed Marlene McKinnon, one of the Chasers on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. With a frustrated shake of her head, her curtain of mahogany-colored hair, always kept in a function-over-fashion ponytail, waved from side to side. "Our last practice of the year is tomorrow at dawn. Of course this would happen when I need to get some rest."
Alice Davies, the Head Girl and oldest of the group, turned her gray eyes towards the new arrival with concern. "How's your...erm...your friend, Lily?" she asked with a nervous courtesy, running a hand awkwardly through her golden locks.
"Sweet of you to ask, Alice." Lily thought as she shook her head. After all, she had been the only one of the group to seem to be sensitive to Lily's opinions of Severus. Naturally, as the oldest and by far the most mature of the bunch, it was hardly surprising that Alice was the only one to act like an adult when it came to people she didn't necessarily like.
"I don't want to talk about him anymore. You ladies had the right of it." Lily muttered with disappointment.
The tension on Marlene's annoyed face evaporated into sudden relief. "Really? You're finally leaving that creep to his den of vipers? Gods, Lily...took you long enough, but I'm proud of you anyway."
Mary's demeanor seemed to lose some of its vitality at the mention of Slytherin House, but nonetheless nodded in approval as well. "Y-yeah. Me too."
At last, the waiting Gryffindor girls had been rewarded for their patience. The staircase leading up to the seventh floor corridor finally made the correct shift into position, and in a rush to make sure that the staircase didn't change its mind, the group of four sprinted up the steps as quickly as possible. A few winding turns and hallways later, the girls stood in front of the Fat Lady's Portrait whose bored face greeted the familiar students. "Password, ladies?"
"Yes, ma'am. Philosopher's Stone." Lily politely offered before the portrait swung open like a door, missing Marlene's eager face by mere inches. As with most advanced magical treasures, as soon as the words left her lips, Lily glanced to the floor and thought about Severus. How certain she'd been in her younger days that the Slytherin boy would break out of his meager means and contribute something truly great to the world of wizardry. Perhaps creating another magical artifact, or even something grand like solving the age-old riddle of how to fly unaided.
"Stop it. Stop thinking about him." she demanded her mutinous stray thoughts.
As the girls made their way to the inside of Gryffindor Tower, a trio of obnoxious, laughing voices accompanied the warm light of the fireplace.
"-shoulda seen his face! One second Snivelly's gurgling soap suds out of that rotten mouth of his, and the next he's looking around trying to figure out what bloody planet he was on!" came the ever-so-charming gloating of James Potter, telling his latest story of triumph over a Slytherin. As was often the case, this story was about Snape and the incident at the lake earlier that afternoon.
"And then down he goes! Splat!" Sirius Black bellowed in a hearty laughter, always joined by the hip with James in front of a rapt audience of fellow Gryffindors in the common room. Standing awkwardly behind the duo of plush armchairs was Peter Pettigrew, who cackled along with his friends.
"So much for not thinking about him. Thanks, Potter."
"Oh, Evans!" James' ever-watchful eye turned towards her with a dashing smile and a quick ruffle of his hair. "Come to listen in?"
"I was there, you idiot." Lily narrowed her eyes, annoyed, though her fury from earlier in the day when Severus had gone unconscious had more or less faded after finding out that he'd escaped with just a concussion. "Watched as you nearly killed him by dropping him on his head. Could have broken his neck, or worse."
"Alas...lady luck was not on our side, gents. Snivellus lives to grease another page." James lowered his head in mock sorrow to a chorus of laughs from many of the younger onlookers
Lily folded her arms, clearly near her limit of headaches for the day. "Sad that you didn't kill someone? Honestly Potter, that's low, even for you." she spat.
"Forgive us for not caring too much if a future Death Eater gets what's coming to him a bit sooner, Evans." Sirius jeered. "Lest you forget, my whole family have been in Slytherin, so I know what they're like. Not to mention what his mate, Mulciber, did to Mary last year."
At Sirius mentioning her, Mary's fair complexion instantly turned beet red and caused the chocolate-haired Muggle-born to shrink at the words of her ex-boyfriend. Even after a year following their breakup, they were clearly still hung-up on one another.
"He's right, Lily." Marlene shrugged. "Besides. You said you were done with Snape. What's it matter if they talk about the greasy bloke?"
"Done with Snape?!" James' eyes lit up bright as the sun with his fellow Chaser's revelation. "Finally, Evans! Looks like you might be coming around after all!"
Lily's cheeks, always rosy and freckled, warmed ever-so-slightly at the attention James was paying her in front of their entire house. "Not if you were the last boy on Earth, Potter." she chided, remaining steadfast in spite of her subtle reaction. "You also don't seem to be mentioning when Remus and I made you pick up the pieces and help him to the hospital wing. Or that we took a hell of a lot of points away from Gryffindor for your behavior. But I guess that doesn't mesh well with your arrogant little story."
Remus Lupin's soft expression turned sheepish at the mention of having to force James to do anything. Lily's fellow prefect wasn't nearly as big on discipline as she was, but at least when she was around, he seemed to find more of his backbone.
As they often did, Lily's green eyes panned upward to the painting over the mantle of the fireplace, featuring the proud visage of the Gryffindor Lion. "Aslan...I love you, I love this school, and I love this house. But sometimes I wish I had been sorted as a Hufflepuff…" she pondered silently.
Later that evening...
Under the cover of night, Lily tossed and turned in her crimson bedsheets, the curly ends of her copper hair strewn messily about after repeated attempts to find a comfortable position. A nagging thought that simply would not go away as she failed to drift off to sleep.
"Is that why you smiled?"
Merlin...she had smiled, hadn't she? For the briefest of moments, her lips curled at the attention James had been giving her by the lake. How had Severus even noticed that in his fit of rage and embarrassment? He had never done that before. Once his fury was in motion, he was like a force of nature with no mind to the difference between friend and foe...
Furthermore...why did it seem like she had such little focus on him that entire time? She told him that she had come to his defense, but how believable was that when she didn't actually talk to him the entire time at the lake? Didn't ask him if he was okay, didn't check on him until after he fell on his head, didn't do anything that a friend would really do. She just partook in James Potter's little show like a willing participant. It was only after Severus was dropped onto his head and scared her half to death that she had finally started acting like a Prefect should.
Had she been smiling because of that attention? Or had it been, for just a moment, she had been hoping that embarrassment might take Severus down a peg? That was preposterous, looking back. The boy had been stripped of his trousers and had his mouth washed out by a soap-scouring charm for Merlin's sake...of course he was going to get worse and fester. Severus was always a slave to his negative emotions, always stewed in anger, always looked forward to getting his revenge...and wrote off the rest of the world when he thought he was right.
Quite like she herself had done to him. Someone who today, she had visited in the Hospital Wing, only to give him an earful as he lay there defenseless and concussed, and she had the nerve to actually smile at his torment..? She recalled those deep, black eyes of his locked onto her own the entire time. Severus never had been able to focus so intently on her during a conversation, often hearing something he liked before switching his brain off to no longer listen to her.
But this time, those black pools kept focused on her, saw how she was feeling, and before she had left...Lily noticed a genuine sorrow in those eyes. Something she hadn't seen since they were small, wide-eyed children.
The silence of the night and Lily's contemplation was pierced by the loud snoring of Marlene, causing her and another in the room to yelp simultaneously.
"Can't sleep, Lily?" came the soft whisper from Mary, whose four-poster bed was located directly next to Lily's.
"Not really." Lily's heart leapt once she realized that she could finally put these persistent doubts out to a friend, regardless of where she already knew that friend stood on the matter.
"Nervous about O.W.L.s like me?" her friend's honey-sweet voice asked.
"A little...but y'know me, Mary. Can't let go of anything...I was thinking more about what happened at the lake today."
"Oh...Snape then?" The disappointment in Mary's voice was impossible to miss.
"I wish it were so easy to just let it go like you and Marlene keep telling me to, but…"
"I know, Lily. You've said it over and over again...he's your childhood friend, we don't know him like you do."
Lily held back a giggle. "Am I that predictable?"
"More like you just can't seem to give any new arguments about why you think we're wrong. Especially with what Mulciber did to me last year, while your 'friend' just sat by and let it happen. And when you confronted him, he said it was nothing...no big deal."
Indeed. Lily nodded to herself, hidden from Mary's sight by darkness in the room. Perhaps the worst argument that she and Severus shared was late in fourth year. Mary had been alone, running late to Potions class before being cornered by Mulciber. The next thing Mary remembered, she had been dressed only in her underwear, having apparently snogged every male student who passed by.
The events had been stumbled upon by Mary's boyfriend at the time, Sirius, who got the wrong impression and immediately made the decision to end their relationship. By the time he had gotten around to believing Mary's side of the story, that she had been under the influence of the Imperius Curse, he had already been with three other girls, and his reputation of promiscuity had come into its own. The remains of their relationship had been smoldering, dying embers ever since then.
Lily could only assume that Mary was targeted because of her status as a Muggle-born witch, as well as her romantic ties to a 'blood-traitor' like Sirius. When she tried to ask Severus for answers, it just seemed to be played off as a joke that he apparently was in on. Nobody in Slytherin seemed to deny what happened, yet when Mulciber's wand was inspected by the staff, the history of spells cast did not seem to include any manner of Unforgivable Curses. And without the proper evidence of wrongdoing, it was very difficult to have a staff member pursue accusations this severe towards the child of a distinguished Pureblood Family.
"Mary, I know. And I'm sorry if it comes across like I don't care about what happened to you, because nothing could be further from the truth, but-"
"Lily." Mary cut her friend off, an uncharacteristic move by the very polite and well-mannered girl. "The boy you met as a child? I don't think he exists anymore. He spends too much time with very evil people, and eventually that will rub off on anyone.
"That's not even going into the creepy way he looks at you. Like a ravenous animal and you're a piece of meat that he's starving for. He doesn't respect the fact that you have other friends and wants to keep you all to himself. I'm asking you, not for me, but as a favor to yourself. Don't change your mind about him. You're just going to cry yourself to sleep at night again, and it breaks my heart every time you do that. I can only imagine how painful it must be for you."
The redheaded witch smiled gloomily. Even in the face of people she should, by all rights, despise, Mary still rationalized the situation for Lily's own well-being. She knew full-well how toxic her friendship with Severus had become over the last few years. How their conversations seemed to revolve more around his grudge with James Potter, his possessiveness and paranoia about who she spent her time with, and his seemingly endless fascination with the dark arts and increasingly violent spells.
Sectumsempra, his own creation, being chief among them. A blade of wind, created specifically for his enemies. Which translated to James Potter and the other Marauders. Potter's antics, while teasing, bullying, and downright nasty at times, could not hold a candle to the notion that Severus created a weapon and almost seemed to relish in the idea of using it to inflict serious harm upon other people, if not kill them as slowly and painfully as possible..
Of course, that was when he wasn't lying to her about its purpose. At first, he tried to play it off as something that could help him quickly and efficiently cut ingredients to put into a potion cauldron. The idea had seemed preposterous at first given how a much smaller, more precise cutting spell like Diffindo already existed, but the reason she believed him was the fact that Severus was always so proud of his creations. He was equally furious when some of them got found out and stolen by Potter in order to further bully Lily's best friend.
To cap it all off was that pesky Boggart that had capitalized on all of her recently brewing fears that her best friend was gone for good, that none of his better qualities remained. The sight of his malevolent face, his pale cheeks stained by the blood of her parents and sister…
There had been persistent rumors that Lord Voldemort, the dark wizard who had grown so notorious to the Ministry of Magic that to speak his very name became an unwritten taboo, had been known to put his new recruits through disturbing and evil tests as a way to prove their loyalty to him. Family members and close friendships ripped away by the poison he was spreading to divide the wizarding world in two.
And in the center of that divide was the fate of witches and wizards like her. Those extraordinary anomalies that were born from ordinary Muggle parents. People like Mary, who were so sweet, so excited, to be a part of this magical school and the endless possibilities of what lay beyond. Possibilities like the fantasy books that Lily's own father had written to give his family a wonderful life that wanted for nothing.
All of that positivity and love for a world that was threatening to destroy them if the scales of power tilted the wrong direction. And for what? For being new to the world of magic? For daring to treat this place and this world like it was a fairy-tale and appreciate it more than those who had grown up and accepted everything in it as the norm?
"Please, Lily…" Mary's voice broke Lily out of her reverie.
"I'll try to let him go, Mary." Lily sniffled, wondering when she had started to cry again. "I'll try. That's the best I can do."
"That's the best anyone can ask, Lily. Because I know you. You can do anything that you put your mind to…" Mary reassured her with a compliment.
"You're the greatest, Mary…" Lily grinned, unseen in the darkness but hoping that Mary could sense the warmth in her voice. Her fellow Muggle-born was truly a sweetheart who was always looking out for her. The type of best friend that she had needed for several years now.
As Lily began to yawn and finally nod off, her thoughts and anxieties vented out by her late-night conversation, she thought back to the evening's argument with Severus. How quickly he said that it didn't matter if she was a Muggle-born witch or not. Almost like he truly felt that way after all, when he couldn't even do that as a child. Alas...all she could think that meant was that Severus had become much better at lying to her.
"I wish I could believe you…" Lily pleaded silently, her last conscious thought before, at last, she felt the peace of sleep claim her for the night.
Author's Note: Finally, a completely new chapter that's not stuff patched together from my previous work! As I mentioned previously in Viridi, I wanted to have equal parts focusing on Severus and Lily's perspectives. Whether that means I alternate chapters or do batches at a time I'm still not certain, but Lily needs just as much attention as our reborn protagonist.
As always, please leave your thoughts and feedback in the review section, and hopefully my character work has improved since the last time I worked on this story. I'm also trying to paint a more vivid picture of the surroundings in Hogwarts and set the scenes more clearly.