Quidditch League Season 10

Round 8, Eras

Team: Wigtown Wanderers

Position: Chaser 3

Prompt: "Never be so clever, you forget to be kind." - Marjorie

Additional Prompts: 7. [dialogue] "Do you regret it?"; 13. (plot point) standing under a street lamp; 15. (emotion) insulted

Title: (I Remember It) All Too Well

Summary: Lily Evans and Severus Snape meet up one snowy evening after leaving Hogwarts to air grievances.

Warnings: Sympathy for Snape, mild cursing

Topics/Tags: Everyone sucks here; Marauders Post-Hogwarts; Lily Evans & Remus Lupin; past Lily Evans & Severus Snape

Author's Note/Word Count: Written with an ESH perspective. Personal challenge to include Taylor Swift song titles throughout. Word Count 1594


She could see him at the end of the street, standing under a streetlamp, as he said he would be when they had agreed to this meeting. The starlight and the glow of the streetlamp was the only bit of light on the otherwise dark and quiet corner and with the freshly fallen snow on the ground. His silhouette almost reminded her of one of her favorite childhood stories. When Edmund had first entered Narnia, he'd been a rather unpleasant character. But over the course of the novel, he matured and grew to be a well-respected king. Lily Evans could only hope her friend might have the same change in heart. Edmund and his actions were a work of fiction after all; Severus Snape was very real, and his actions would have consequences.

When he saw her approaching, he nodded curtly but then sneered at the man with her. "What's he doing here?"

Lily's temper flared. Not off to a great start. "He's here so I don't say something stupid I'll live to regret. And you're lucky he is. I'm only speaking to you because he said I should. This is me trying to fix what you messed up."

Remus Lupin cleared his throat. "Never mind me. But we should move into the café before any one of us catches cold."

Lily nodded her agreement before leading the way a little farther down Cornelia Street to the coffee shop. The only indication that it was even open for business was a small sign in the dark window that read Open 24 hours a day.

She sat down at a table in the farthest corner of the café, with Remus sitting next to her and Severus sitting across. They placed an order and waited for their drinks in silence. Once the beverages had arrived and Lily was sure the lone employee was occupied, she cast a Muffliato charm around their table.

"Do you regret it?" Lily finally asked when the awkward silence had become unbearable.

"Regret what?"

"What happened that afternoon after our O.W.L.s." There was no need for further clarification. Everyone knew what she was talking about all too well.

Severus answered slowly and carefully. "I regret what I called you every damn day. But I only regret using the slur. I will not apologize for feeling angry at you nor anyone else."

Lily folded her arms in front of her chest. "Well, you should. All I was trying to do was help you out and you responded by calling me a filthy blooded witch."

Severus rolled his eyes. "Sure, Evans. Tell me why I'm horrible for not acting the perfect gentleman while strung up by my ankles. How much you cared about me. Obviously, it had nothing to do with Potter's incessant flirting and your desire to show him up."

His accusations were insulting. "Why would it have anything to do with James? I saw you suspended in the air upside down and I intervened." Hot tears started streaking down her face, a sign that she was furious. "When I started Hogwarts, I never believed that I was less worthy of my place there. And do you know why that is, Snape?"

His tone was cold. "Enlighten me."

"Because you told me it didn't matter. At nine years old, when my mean and vindictive sister made sure I knew I was a freak, you were the one who told me it made no difference if I was muggle-born or not." She hadn't realized she was screaming at him until Remus grabbed her hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "So, what the hell changed that?" she whispered.

Severus contemplated her outburst for a moment. He had longed for a chance to explain himself, to seek forgiveness for that day. Here he had the opportunity and all he felt was anger. Maybe Lupin contributed to that, but it was hard to say. But here was his opportunity; he needed to try.

He spoke slowly. "It's nice to have a friend and you were my first and my most important. But the moment you were sorted into Gryffindor, I knew it would never be the same. The thing you don't understand, and nobody ever tries to understand, is that being in Slytherin, you make friends with your housemates, or you have none. Because everybody else hates you, even before they know a damn thing about you."

Lily started to speak but Snape cut her off. "Even if you start off as friends before being sorted.

"That day at the end of fifth year has haunted me ever since. I got angry and I did something bad, said something stupid. But did you ever stop to think about how I was feeling in that moment? How humiliating it was to be hung upside down and disrobed with all my classmates around?"

"I get that. But I tried to stand up for you. And you called me a horrible name."

"You weren't standing up for me, Lily. You were picking a fight with James. He and his idiot friends," he glared pointedly at Lupin, "were doing what they always do. Which is funny, because if Potter and Black hadn't taken you in as a charity project, you would have been just as much of an outcast as the lot of us, wolf. You were the lucky one."

Lily gasped. "How do you know about that?!"

It wasn't Snape who answered. "I almost killed him when phased. Sirius thought it would be funny to lure Snape out to the Whomping Willow. He's alive because James transformed into his animagus form and fought me back. That's why I said you needed to hear Severus out. I thought the teasing was harmless. But they sexually harassed him and almost killed him. They went too far. I'm the anti-hero in this."

Remus turned to Snape now. "And I'm sorry I never said anything. But like you said, I would have been an outcast if not for them. I was scared to lose that."

"So, you did what everyone else does; steer clear of the Slytherins. And I did what you did; allowed the people who took me in as a charity project to influence me."

Offended, Lily spoke up again. "I never treated you differently because you were a Slytherin. But I certainly wasn't going to interact with any of your purity-loving friends."

"Yes, because my Slytherin friends were the ones sexually assaulting other students." The sarcasm in his tone was heavy.

"They were bullies in their own right. Don't try to paint them as innocent," she sneered back.

He ignored this. "Tell me this; if Slytherins are evil and outcasts the moment we're sorted, why bother trying to be anything else?"

"Because the lot of you think you're so much better than everyone else. You think you're so clever, you forget to be kind."

"Because our kindness is viewed as manipulative, our ambition viewed as selfishness, our cleverness viewed as arrogance. I became what everyone expected me to. And never in my wildest dreams did I think you would abandon me. You dropped me so quickly as a friend, it's difficult to believe you cared about me all that much to begin with."

Out of everything Lily expected to hear at this meeting, these words had never crossed her mind. "Sev, I…" She scrambled for words. "Of course, I cared about you as a friend. But as the years passed, I watched you change. You started spending more time with Avery and Mulciber, you let your hair grow out, started making up weird spells… it scared me."

"So, you distanced yourself further, left me on the outside. You didn't want me to become one of them, but you weren't willing to accept me as I was either. You wanted me to be like one of you. Like a bloody Gryffindor."

The trio remained silent for a moment; the tension thick enough it was almost palpable. "And in a moment of terrible weakness for me, your Gryffindor desire for attention and chivalry was more important to you than the trauma I was experiencing. You are just as guilty of being so clever you forget to be kind. And you're not sorry for dropping me as fast as you did."

Lily fumbled with the mug in front of her, for once at a loss for words. "So how do we move forward from this? Can we move forward from this? I mean, we've graduated now and…" she hesitated. "everything has changed. And I fear it's going to change even more. You can be yourself without following the false god so many," she resisted the urge to say Slytherins, "people have taken interest in."

Severus shrugged. "You've taken my ability to make such a choice away from me by not accepting my apology when I first tried. I would happily move forward somehow; I don't want there to be bad blood between us. But it's not my choice anymore."

He turned his attention to Remus. "I begrudgingly accept your apology. Only because you've attempted to make amends."

He stood from the table and pulled his cloak tighter around him, a habit he'd only taken up in the past several years, as if anticipating something bad might happen otherwise. "Can we move forward from this?" he threw the question back to Lily. "I wish you would. But it's not up to me."

Lily felt the charm she had set around the table fade away as Snape left the café without looking back.