Characters/Pairings: this part Severus/Lily, very brief walk-on for Regulus, and a house-elf you may recognize
Rating: this part PG
Words: this part ~3400
Warnings: As stated before, unbetaed, unBritpicked, and WIP. Het.
Part 1
*************
Lily's second owl arrived at the worst possible time, at least as far as Severus's strength of will was concerned. It had been one of those nights when he foolishly allowed himself to step into the mire of self-pity, and like any foul fen, it was difficult to get the stink off once he had touched it.
Come the small hours, Severus found himself sitting on the front step with the last of another bottle from the Blacks' wine selections. He was smoking contemplatively, staring up at what little he could see of the stars given the great blot of light that was London, and thinking to himself that he was really feeling rather morose, or maudlin, or maybe it was melancholy.
He had just been wondering a bit fuzzily whether there were any other m-words that could apply to his mental state when the fog-grey bird drifted silently down to land in front of him and held out its leg. Given the way the parchment was folded, it seemed to be addressed to us Snape, auld Place, ondon, but the meaning of that was clear enough. It was the script itself which caused Severus to drop his cigarette and stare at the proffered letter in surprise: it was Lily's handwriting.
After enduring several seconds of Severus doing nothing but sitting there and blinking, the owl swiveled its head to regard him with stern impatience. It gave a long, low hoot, as if to say, "Any time you wish to rejoin the class will be fine, Mr. Snape," and jiggled its leg awkwardly.
At the sight of the motion, Severus snapped out of his reverie. He opened his mouth to apologize for his lapse of consciousness, and shut it again when he realized how stupid he would feel apologizing to an owl. He reached over and unwound the parchment from the bird's leg, and the owl took off in a bit of a huff as though it certainly had better places to be, better things to do, and better people to see. Severus smirked as he was momentarily reminded of the delivery of some—well, many – all right, just about all the letters he had ever received from Lucius, but the amusement quickly faded:
11 August
Dear Severus,
By now Regulus has probably told you that I wrote to him last week, asking after you. He told me it wasn't his place to say anything and I should just have the courage to reach out to you instead, if it was that important to me. Well, actually, he said I ought to reconsider the logic of asking a near-complete stranger to reveal details of your personal life – does he really talk like that, Severus? Honestly!
But he had a point. So... I can hardly believe I'm doing this, after everything we've said to each other, but... I'd like to see you. We could even do it on your home pitch, if you like, so you can throw me out on my ear when we fight!
Hmm. That was supposed to sound friendly, you know, break the ice a bit, but I think I missed the mark. Sorry.
Anyway, if you're willing, how about... You know what, I'm going to stop now, before I embarrass myself any more. Just let me know, okay?
Lily
He could almost see her brushing the quill on her cheek as she thought of each sentence, the curve of a strand of hair as it touched the corner of her mouth, the shake of her head as she chuckled at the absurdity of what she was writing.
Faint hope awoke in Severus's breast. They were both well on their way to nineteen now; maybe her hot head had cooled a little and she would listen to reason, for once. He imagined a glint in her eyes saying Well, that isn't so bad; I guess maybe I was wrong about you. He thought of the time she couldn't be spending with that Potter if she was meeting with him. He heard her voice calling him "Sev"...
In his moment of weakness he couldn't resist the combined tempation, and left bottle, glass, and ashed-over cigarette to keep their own vigil for dawn as he hurried inside to compose his reply.
*************
(Knock, knock, knock.)
(Creak...)
"Hi," Lily said, a little too brightly.
"Hello." She'd come; she'd actually come. This wasn't just a trick after all.
"You're, uh, looking well; this place must be treating you nicely." Lily shifted uncomfortably. While she was wearing a skirt and blouse, Severus was wearing robes, reasonably well-tailored ones for all that they were plain black. She wondered if they were borrowed, or if Severus had actually bought them for himself. Though quite casual attire by wizarding standards, compared to her Muggle clothing they gave him a rather formal air. On the other hand, this was an all-wizarding household; she supposed he could hardly go about in jeans and a Manchester United t-shirt.
"I suppose, yes."
"Thanks for inviting me over. To be honest I was half doubting you would. I chewed my nails a bit wondering if you might just bin my letter instead of answering it."
"Oh, no."
"So... are you going to ask me in? Or shall I just..." Lily pointed backwards over her shoulder into the summer twilight.
"No!" Severus said, coming suddenly into mental focus. Well, what did she expect, coming over all friendly and interested, without the cool, almost contemptuous pity he had expected to see? He did feel a bit of a fool, though, considering what he was wearing. He should have just gone with the shirt and trousers. What had possessed him? She hadn't been impressed by "hey, guess what, I'm a wizard" since they were eleven years old. Idiot!
"No," he repeated. "I, er." Severus cleared his throat. "Yes. Come in, please." As he closed the door behind her, he wondered what the Blacks would think if they knew what sort of blood had just entered their house. Well, Regulus knew, of course, but that was different. His mother, on the other hand, would probably have a fit.
As they entered the lounge, the house-elf – Severus could never remember its name – came in bearing a silver tea-tray that nearly obscured its small body. "Oh, thank you!" Lily said, and Severus narrowed his eyes as he watched the elf lay out tea, milk, sugar, and a nearly ridiculous array of small things to eat. This had to be Regulus's doing. Severus certainly hadn't asked the elf to do any such thing – as if it would have taken orders from him anyway, since he was not a Black – and, being well-acquainted with the thing's somewhat cranky temperament, it seemed highly unlikely the elf was acting merely out of the goodness of its heart.
In fact, inasmuch as a house-elf could ever consider itself above a wizard, Severus had got the funny impression it had a somewhat disdainful opinion of him. He had sometimes heard it muttering under its breath whilst darting odd looks in his direction. Whenever Regulus caught the thing at it, he'd give it a tolerant "now, now" sort of look, and the elf, bizarrely, would look contrite and slink away mumbling "of course, master Regulus; I's sorry, master Regulus." Clearly it doted on him, although Severus couldn't quite blame it for that; Regulus did tend to inspire a certain urge to take care of him and protect him.
In any event, he was not muttering his quiet elfy insults at Severus now, and he supposed Regulus must have had the forethought to forbid him to do so. He permitted himself a little smile, which he turned in Lily's direction, as he digested the fact. People so rarely did him any favours.
Lily smiled back at him, and the little bit of warmth in his chest grew. As far as he could tell, the smile was genuine, with a hint of amusement. How he'd missed it! How long ago was it, now, since he'd seen that smile? He could hardly remember. They had to have been fourteen, fifteen maybe? Now that he thought of it, something seemed to have been going a bit sour well before their OWLs.
"I think I'm going to send you an etiquette book for your next birthday, Sev," she said, the same amusement creeping into her voice. "It'll tell you you should pay attention to guests, ask them to sit down, and not keep drifting off into outer space. Although I must say the dreamy look isn't bad on you."
"Eh?" Severus said, snapping back for the second time in as many minutes. Lily's smile had gotten bigger, although she was trying to hide it behind her hand. Something niggled in his brain, and then he was silently cursing the fact that he had just mostly missed out on the sound of her voice calling him "Sev". From anyone else he hated the nickname, but from her it was – different. Familiar. It made him feel like she had kept a place in her heart open for him.
Lily sighed. "I think if anyone ever needed a cup of tea it's you right now. Maybe something stronger if you don't stop me from digging around to find it."
"Good idea," agreed Severus, and gestured for her to sit while he scanned the drinks cabinet for a particular whisky he liked. Liquid courage did sound rather agreeable just then.
Lily considered him while he located the bottle he was looking for, unstoppered it, and poured a good slug into each of their cups, following it with the steaming tea. It was strange; the Severus she knew rarely lacked for mental presence, yet he was acting awfully distracted and unsettled. Something must have put him off his game.
Well, he wanted to make a good impression on her; that much was obvious. Lily wondered if that was just in general, or whether he had something particular to hide. Was he a Death Eater? It wasn't the sort of thing you asked in the kind of politely neutral conversation she was hoping to have.
She had been worried that there would be something obviously off about him, that the tendency to darkness she had sensed in his younger self would have changed for the worse and bloomed into something festering, but that wasn't the case. As she had remarked, he looked well, even a bit striking now that he was growing out of being a gawky teenager and into being a young man. Being a Death Eater couldn't be good for your health and looks – could it?
Rather than adding milk and sugar to her tea as she usually did, Lily picked up her cup and downed it in one. Severus paused, bemused, his own teacup barely touching his lips, as she held hers out towards him with a grin she hoped qualified as winsome. He blinked, then returned it with a shy, lopsided grin of his own as he set down his cup to refill hers. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
*************
He wasn't going to throw her out on her ear, damn it. Lily was no Seer and Severus wasn't going to see that epistolary prophecy of hers fulfilled if he could help it. He was doing his best to phrase things in ways that Lily would find unobjectionable rather than pissing her off by highlighting their differences of opinion, and he could tell that she was softening some of the more critical things that two or three years ago she wouldn't have hesitated to say to him outright. All in all, though, Severus was getting worried that things were precariously close to real argument, just as Lily had humourously suggested might happen. They had unfortunately hit on the ever-sensitive topic of the Dark Lord, and Severus felt he was rapidly running out of appropriate things to say.
He fiddled with the texture of the chair's upholstery as he stared into his third tea with whisky in. They hadn't spiked every cup, but they had drunk nearly the whole pot. He was beginning to feel a serious need to piss, which didn't help matters. Neither did the fact that despite Lily's often strained words, she kept leaning towards him now and again as if she wanted to touch him, although she would catch herself every time and curl back into her chair instead.
"Severus," she said, and he looked up at her. She was leaning towards him once more, her teacup clutched in both hands. She had a little flush in her cheeks, whether from emotion or just from the whisky, he couldn't be sure. "This may not be an appropriate question," she continued quietly, "but I think it's what I've been dancing around all evening. I – I don't want guesses anymore. Will you tell me the truth?"
Severus looked into worried green eyes and swallowed, dreading what she was going to ask. This was going to be a disaster. There was no way he could lie to her like this. If she asked again, like that day so many years ago, if it wasn't true that he wanted to throw his lot in with the Dark Lord—!
Stop, Severus, stop. Say it. You know what you have to say. "Yes."
"Are you a Death Eater?"
Severus felt almost queasy with relief. That was easy; the true answer was also the one she wanted to hear. "No. No, I'm not."
"What about Regulus?"
"He... he's only sixteen. He's too young." Severus put down his teacup and ran his fingers over his forehead. "I'm worried about him, actually," he confessed. Although of course his pure blood was a desirable quality, Severus wasn't sure that Regulus's mostly gentle temperament was suited for the sometimes dirty work of changing the wizarding world from the inside out. One way or another he was likely to get himself hurt. He'd tried to convince Regulus it wasn't a good idea, wasn't necessary, but the boy still had stars in his eyes.
" 'Too young'? Sev, when is anyone ever old enough to be a Death Eater?"
His eyes snapped up to meet hers. "It's never too soon to protect the people you love," he replied, gazing at her intensely. Lily blushed, quickly divining his meaning. "Things are going to happen – I need to be more knowledgeable, skilled, powerful..." Severus faltered, just as unsure now as he had been at sixteen of how to explain himself in a way that wouldn't drive her off.
Lily stood and turned away from him, hugging her arms to herself. "Protect them?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly. "Isn't there another way?"
Severus closed his eyes and shook his head. "Lily, trust me, I know what—" He stopped with a sort of hiccuping sound as Lily brushed her hand against his cheek.
He slowly opened his eyes and tilted his face up to look at her, lips slightly parted in disbelief. Although the look in her eyes was part pity, which didn't thrill him, at least it was warm, bespeaking concern rather than contempt. She – she was worried about him? He could hardly get his head around it. As he remembered it, she had always been angry at him, judgemental even.
Fearful of breaking the spell, Severus rose slowly from his own seat. Lily's hand came to rest warmly on his chest, and he tentatively put his hands on her shoulders. He stroked one thumb back and forth over the end of her collarbone, and she smiled sadly. He thought he could probably stand here like this forever, content just to touch her and look at her face. To him she was the most beautiful thing in the world; he felt like might do anything for her if she only asked properly.
Severus was just beginning to wonder if he could get away with kissing her chastely on the forehead when he felt Lily's lips softly press against his own. Startled, but elated, he kissed her back. Never, in his wildest dreams – well, actually, he had dreamed about a moment like this quite a lot, but that wasn't the same as thinking it could really happen, which was definitely not something he'd done lately.
He slid his arms down to encircle her waist, and Lily pulled back and opened her eyes. The way Severus was looking at her was so tender, even shy, that she could hardly believe it. She felt confused. Where had this come from? James never looked at her like this. But then, James was never less than a hundred percent confident about anything he did, even when he was wrong.
Lily felt Severus's lips brush against her cheek, near the corner of her mouth. It was a touch filled with such sweet yearning reverence that she couldn't help but turn her face and kiss him again, harder this time, one hand touching the side of his neck and behind his ear. Severus made a noise in his throat and shifted his lower half, a bit of an awkward move with his arms around her as they were. Lily wondered with alarm if it were possible she could have got him aroused with just a couple of kisses.
Feeling suddenly guilty – surely she ought not to be doing this sort of thing with her boyfriend's top school rival, even if he used to be her best friend? – she abruptly broke the kiss and pressed her forehead against Severus's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Sev," she said into his robes. "I shouldn't have done that. It's just – just, you looked... I'm sorry," she repeated, not wanting to finish the thought. You looked like you needed it would sound so patronizing; you looked like I used to dream you might one day look at me made her teeth hurt just thinking about it; and you looked really sexy somehow, well, now that was just asking for trouble, even if it was true.
"I understand," Severus said as he let go of her, although really he felt rather lost at the moment.
"I should go," Lily said. "Thank you for the tea and everything."
"Wasn't my idea, actually," Severus said, and winced. Smooth. That sure makes me sound thoughtful. "It seems I had help."
Lily smiled indulgently. She'd forgotten how it was almost cute the way he stuck his foot in his mouth sometimes. "Two books, then, I think – etiquette, and hostessing." Severus scowled and she chuckled. "Oh, relax," she said, punching him playfully on the arm. "I'm only joking."
Severus's scowl took on a confused cast, and Lily looked away. Oops. Too familiar, I guess. Not really the nature of our relationship now, is it?
"Did you need to Floo someplace?" Severus said, taking a couple of steps away from her and towards the fireplace.
"No, I'll just Apparate," Lily replied. "I'm... glad we did this, Severus, really."
He only nodded. Lily looked at him a moment longer, wondering how he could manage to look graceful just standing there in obvious discomfort, and trying to fathom the carefully controlled look in his dark eyes. When he didn't seem about to say anything else, she took a breath, said "Well, good night, then," and disappeared with a pop.
"Good night, Lily," Severus said to the empty air. He looked at the table and sighed. Plenty to clean up, as they'd barely eaten any of the food, just a few of the sandwiches and some little bits of cake. Severus had hardly been able to stomach anything because of his nerves, and wondered if Lily had felt the same way. He quirked one corner of his mouth on spotting the small pile of crumbs on a plate where Lily had been crushing and re-crushing the same corner of a hapless biscuit. Perhaps she had.
It occurred to Severus then that the same house-elf that had brought all this unnecessary food could bloody well take it away again, too. He decided he might be better off just going to bed, maybe reading a little bit, and then trying to sleep and hopefully not having nightmares about this whole business. He poured a swallow or two of the whisky into his teacup and downed it as a nightcap, then headed upstairs.
Elsewhere in the house, Regulus smiled to himself, and carefully stowed the charmed mirror in which he had watched the whole thing.
Rating: this part PG
Words: this part ~3400
Warnings: As stated before, unbetaed, unBritpicked, and WIP. Het.
Part 1
Lily's second owl arrived at the worst possible time, at least as far as Severus's strength of will was concerned. It had been one of those nights when he foolishly allowed himself to step into the mire of self-pity, and like any foul fen, it was difficult to get the stink off once he had touched it.
Come the small hours, Severus found himself sitting on the front step with the last of another bottle from the Blacks' wine selections. He was smoking contemplatively, staring up at what little he could see of the stars given the great blot of light that was London, and thinking to himself that he was really feeling rather morose, or maudlin, or maybe it was melancholy.
He had just been wondering a bit fuzzily whether there were any other m-words that could apply to his mental state when the fog-grey bird drifted silently down to land in front of him and held out its leg. Given the way the parchment was folded, it seemed to be addressed to us Snape, auld Place, ondon, but the meaning of that was clear enough. It was the script itself which caused Severus to drop his cigarette and stare at the proffered letter in surprise: it was Lily's handwriting.
After enduring several seconds of Severus doing nothing but sitting there and blinking, the owl swiveled its head to regard him with stern impatience. It gave a long, low hoot, as if to say, "Any time you wish to rejoin the class will be fine, Mr. Snape," and jiggled its leg awkwardly.
At the sight of the motion, Severus snapped out of his reverie. He opened his mouth to apologize for his lapse of consciousness, and shut it again when he realized how stupid he would feel apologizing to an owl. He reached over and unwound the parchment from the bird's leg, and the owl took off in a bit of a huff as though it certainly had better places to be, better things to do, and better people to see. Severus smirked as he was momentarily reminded of the delivery of some—well, many – all right, just about all the letters he had ever received from Lucius, but the amusement quickly faded:
11 August
Dear Severus,
By now Regulus has probably told you that I wrote to him last week, asking after you. He told me it wasn't his place to say anything and I should just have the courage to reach out to you instead, if it was that important to me. Well, actually, he said I ought to reconsider the logic of asking a near-complete stranger to reveal details of your personal life – does he really talk like that, Severus? Honestly!
But he had a point. So... I can hardly believe I'm doing this, after everything we've said to each other, but... I'd like to see you. We could even do it on your home pitch, if you like, so you can throw me out on my ear when we fight!
Hmm. That was supposed to sound friendly, you know, break the ice a bit, but I think I missed the mark. Sorry.
Anyway, if you're willing, how about... You know what, I'm going to stop now, before I embarrass myself any more. Just let me know, okay?
Lily
He could almost see her brushing the quill on her cheek as she thought of each sentence, the curve of a strand of hair as it touched the corner of her mouth, the shake of her head as she chuckled at the absurdity of what she was writing.
Faint hope awoke in Severus's breast. They were both well on their way to nineteen now; maybe her hot head had cooled a little and she would listen to reason, for once. He imagined a glint in her eyes saying Well, that isn't so bad; I guess maybe I was wrong about you. He thought of the time she couldn't be spending with that Potter if she was meeting with him. He heard her voice calling him "Sev"...
In his moment of weakness he couldn't resist the combined tempation, and left bottle, glass, and ashed-over cigarette to keep their own vigil for dawn as he hurried inside to compose his reply.
(Knock, knock, knock.)
(Creak...)
"Hi," Lily said, a little too brightly.
"Hello." She'd come; she'd actually come. This wasn't just a trick after all.
"You're, uh, looking well; this place must be treating you nicely." Lily shifted uncomfortably. While she was wearing a skirt and blouse, Severus was wearing robes, reasonably well-tailored ones for all that they were plain black. She wondered if they were borrowed, or if Severus had actually bought them for himself. Though quite casual attire by wizarding standards, compared to her Muggle clothing they gave him a rather formal air. On the other hand, this was an all-wizarding household; she supposed he could hardly go about in jeans and a Manchester United t-shirt.
"I suppose, yes."
"Thanks for inviting me over. To be honest I was half doubting you would. I chewed my nails a bit wondering if you might just bin my letter instead of answering it."
"Oh, no."
"So... are you going to ask me in? Or shall I just..." Lily pointed backwards over her shoulder into the summer twilight.
"No!" Severus said, coming suddenly into mental focus. Well, what did she expect, coming over all friendly and interested, without the cool, almost contemptuous pity he had expected to see? He did feel a bit of a fool, though, considering what he was wearing. He should have just gone with the shirt and trousers. What had possessed him? She hadn't been impressed by "hey, guess what, I'm a wizard" since they were eleven years old. Idiot!
"No," he repeated. "I, er." Severus cleared his throat. "Yes. Come in, please." As he closed the door behind her, he wondered what the Blacks would think if they knew what sort of blood had just entered their house. Well, Regulus knew, of course, but that was different. His mother, on the other hand, would probably have a fit.
As they entered the lounge, the house-elf – Severus could never remember its name – came in bearing a silver tea-tray that nearly obscured its small body. "Oh, thank you!" Lily said, and Severus narrowed his eyes as he watched the elf lay out tea, milk, sugar, and a nearly ridiculous array of small things to eat. This had to be Regulus's doing. Severus certainly hadn't asked the elf to do any such thing – as if it would have taken orders from him anyway, since he was not a Black – and, being well-acquainted with the thing's somewhat cranky temperament, it seemed highly unlikely the elf was acting merely out of the goodness of its heart.
In fact, inasmuch as a house-elf could ever consider itself above a wizard, Severus had got the funny impression it had a somewhat disdainful opinion of him. He had sometimes heard it muttering under its breath whilst darting odd looks in his direction. Whenever Regulus caught the thing at it, he'd give it a tolerant "now, now" sort of look, and the elf, bizarrely, would look contrite and slink away mumbling "of course, master Regulus; I's sorry, master Regulus." Clearly it doted on him, although Severus couldn't quite blame it for that; Regulus did tend to inspire a certain urge to take care of him and protect him.
In any event, he was not muttering his quiet elfy insults at Severus now, and he supposed Regulus must have had the forethought to forbid him to do so. He permitted himself a little smile, which he turned in Lily's direction, as he digested the fact. People so rarely did him any favours.
Lily smiled back at him, and the little bit of warmth in his chest grew. As far as he could tell, the smile was genuine, with a hint of amusement. How he'd missed it! How long ago was it, now, since he'd seen that smile? He could hardly remember. They had to have been fourteen, fifteen maybe? Now that he thought of it, something seemed to have been going a bit sour well before their OWLs.
"I think I'm going to send you an etiquette book for your next birthday, Sev," she said, the same amusement creeping into her voice. "It'll tell you you should pay attention to guests, ask them to sit down, and not keep drifting off into outer space. Although I must say the dreamy look isn't bad on you."
"Eh?" Severus said, snapping back for the second time in as many minutes. Lily's smile had gotten bigger, although she was trying to hide it behind her hand. Something niggled in his brain, and then he was silently cursing the fact that he had just mostly missed out on the sound of her voice calling him "Sev". From anyone else he hated the nickname, but from her it was – different. Familiar. It made him feel like she had kept a place in her heart open for him.
Lily sighed. "I think if anyone ever needed a cup of tea it's you right now. Maybe something stronger if you don't stop me from digging around to find it."
"Good idea," agreed Severus, and gestured for her to sit while he scanned the drinks cabinet for a particular whisky he liked. Liquid courage did sound rather agreeable just then.
Lily considered him while he located the bottle he was looking for, unstoppered it, and poured a good slug into each of their cups, following it with the steaming tea. It was strange; the Severus she knew rarely lacked for mental presence, yet he was acting awfully distracted and unsettled. Something must have put him off his game.
Well, he wanted to make a good impression on her; that much was obvious. Lily wondered if that was just in general, or whether he had something particular to hide. Was he a Death Eater? It wasn't the sort of thing you asked in the kind of politely neutral conversation she was hoping to have.
She had been worried that there would be something obviously off about him, that the tendency to darkness she had sensed in his younger self would have changed for the worse and bloomed into something festering, but that wasn't the case. As she had remarked, he looked well, even a bit striking now that he was growing out of being a gawky teenager and into being a young man. Being a Death Eater couldn't be good for your health and looks – could it?
Rather than adding milk and sugar to her tea as she usually did, Lily picked up her cup and downed it in one. Severus paused, bemused, his own teacup barely touching his lips, as she held hers out towards him with a grin she hoped qualified as winsome. He blinked, then returned it with a shy, lopsided grin of his own as he set down his cup to refill hers. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
He wasn't going to throw her out on her ear, damn it. Lily was no Seer and Severus wasn't going to see that epistolary prophecy of hers fulfilled if he could help it. He was doing his best to phrase things in ways that Lily would find unobjectionable rather than pissing her off by highlighting their differences of opinion, and he could tell that she was softening some of the more critical things that two or three years ago she wouldn't have hesitated to say to him outright. All in all, though, Severus was getting worried that things were precariously close to real argument, just as Lily had humourously suggested might happen. They had unfortunately hit on the ever-sensitive topic of the Dark Lord, and Severus felt he was rapidly running out of appropriate things to say.
He fiddled with the texture of the chair's upholstery as he stared into his third tea with whisky in. They hadn't spiked every cup, but they had drunk nearly the whole pot. He was beginning to feel a serious need to piss, which didn't help matters. Neither did the fact that despite Lily's often strained words, she kept leaning towards him now and again as if she wanted to touch him, although she would catch herself every time and curl back into her chair instead.
"Severus," she said, and he looked up at her. She was leaning towards him once more, her teacup clutched in both hands. She had a little flush in her cheeks, whether from emotion or just from the whisky, he couldn't be sure. "This may not be an appropriate question," she continued quietly, "but I think it's what I've been dancing around all evening. I – I don't want guesses anymore. Will you tell me the truth?"
Severus looked into worried green eyes and swallowed, dreading what she was going to ask. This was going to be a disaster. There was no way he could lie to her like this. If she asked again, like that day so many years ago, if it wasn't true that he wanted to throw his lot in with the Dark Lord—!
Stop, Severus, stop. Say it. You know what you have to say. "Yes."
"Are you a Death Eater?"
Severus felt almost queasy with relief. That was easy; the true answer was also the one she wanted to hear. "No. No, I'm not."
"What about Regulus?"
"He... he's only sixteen. He's too young." Severus put down his teacup and ran his fingers over his forehead. "I'm worried about him, actually," he confessed. Although of course his pure blood was a desirable quality, Severus wasn't sure that Regulus's mostly gentle temperament was suited for the sometimes dirty work of changing the wizarding world from the inside out. One way or another he was likely to get himself hurt. He'd tried to convince Regulus it wasn't a good idea, wasn't necessary, but the boy still had stars in his eyes.
" 'Too young'? Sev, when is anyone ever old enough to be a Death Eater?"
His eyes snapped up to meet hers. "It's never too soon to protect the people you love," he replied, gazing at her intensely. Lily blushed, quickly divining his meaning. "Things are going to happen – I need to be more knowledgeable, skilled, powerful..." Severus faltered, just as unsure now as he had been at sixteen of how to explain himself in a way that wouldn't drive her off.
Lily stood and turned away from him, hugging her arms to herself. "Protect them?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly. "Isn't there another way?"
Severus closed his eyes and shook his head. "Lily, trust me, I know what—" He stopped with a sort of hiccuping sound as Lily brushed her hand against his cheek.
He slowly opened his eyes and tilted his face up to look at her, lips slightly parted in disbelief. Although the look in her eyes was part pity, which didn't thrill him, at least it was warm, bespeaking concern rather than contempt. She – she was worried about him? He could hardly get his head around it. As he remembered it, she had always been angry at him, judgemental even.
Fearful of breaking the spell, Severus rose slowly from his own seat. Lily's hand came to rest warmly on his chest, and he tentatively put his hands on her shoulders. He stroked one thumb back and forth over the end of her collarbone, and she smiled sadly. He thought he could probably stand here like this forever, content just to touch her and look at her face. To him she was the most beautiful thing in the world; he felt like might do anything for her if she only asked properly.
Severus was just beginning to wonder if he could get away with kissing her chastely on the forehead when he felt Lily's lips softly press against his own. Startled, but elated, he kissed her back. Never, in his wildest dreams – well, actually, he had dreamed about a moment like this quite a lot, but that wasn't the same as thinking it could really happen, which was definitely not something he'd done lately.
He slid his arms down to encircle her waist, and Lily pulled back and opened her eyes. The way Severus was looking at her was so tender, even shy, that she could hardly believe it. She felt confused. Where had this come from? James never looked at her like this. But then, James was never less than a hundred percent confident about anything he did, even when he was wrong.
Lily felt Severus's lips brush against her cheek, near the corner of her mouth. It was a touch filled with such sweet yearning reverence that she couldn't help but turn her face and kiss him again, harder this time, one hand touching the side of his neck and behind his ear. Severus made a noise in his throat and shifted his lower half, a bit of an awkward move with his arms around her as they were. Lily wondered with alarm if it were possible she could have got him aroused with just a couple of kisses.
Feeling suddenly guilty – surely she ought not to be doing this sort of thing with her boyfriend's top school rival, even if he used to be her best friend? – she abruptly broke the kiss and pressed her forehead against Severus's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Sev," she said into his robes. "I shouldn't have done that. It's just – just, you looked... I'm sorry," she repeated, not wanting to finish the thought. You looked like you needed it would sound so patronizing; you looked like I used to dream you might one day look at me made her teeth hurt just thinking about it; and you looked really sexy somehow, well, now that was just asking for trouble, even if it was true.
"I understand," Severus said as he let go of her, although really he felt rather lost at the moment.
"I should go," Lily said. "Thank you for the tea and everything."
"Wasn't my idea, actually," Severus said, and winced. Smooth. That sure makes me sound thoughtful. "It seems I had help."
Lily smiled indulgently. She'd forgotten how it was almost cute the way he stuck his foot in his mouth sometimes. "Two books, then, I think – etiquette, and hostessing." Severus scowled and she chuckled. "Oh, relax," she said, punching him playfully on the arm. "I'm only joking."
Severus's scowl took on a confused cast, and Lily looked away. Oops. Too familiar, I guess. Not really the nature of our relationship now, is it?
"Did you need to Floo someplace?" Severus said, taking a couple of steps away from her and towards the fireplace.
"No, I'll just Apparate," Lily replied. "I'm... glad we did this, Severus, really."
He only nodded. Lily looked at him a moment longer, wondering how he could manage to look graceful just standing there in obvious discomfort, and trying to fathom the carefully controlled look in his dark eyes. When he didn't seem about to say anything else, she took a breath, said "Well, good night, then," and disappeared with a pop.
"Good night, Lily," Severus said to the empty air. He looked at the table and sighed. Plenty to clean up, as they'd barely eaten any of the food, just a few of the sandwiches and some little bits of cake. Severus had hardly been able to stomach anything because of his nerves, and wondered if Lily had felt the same way. He quirked one corner of his mouth on spotting the small pile of crumbs on a plate where Lily had been crushing and re-crushing the same corner of a hapless biscuit. Perhaps she had.
It occurred to Severus then that the same house-elf that had brought all this unnecessary food could bloody well take it away again, too. He decided he might be better off just going to bed, maybe reading a little bit, and then trying to sleep and hopefully not having nightmares about this whole business. He poured a swallow or two of the whisky into his teacup and downed it as a nightcap, then headed upstairs.
Elsewhere in the house, Regulus smiled to himself, and carefully stowed the charmed mirror in which he had watched the whole thing.
Re: More?
Date: February 17th, 2009 08:49 pm (UTC)From:I do have some stuff which gets Severus and Lily togther (although nothing like sweeping AUs where they actually get married or whatnot). You can click the "severus/lily" tag on this post, although since I also post stuff other than stories with such tags, you might find it faster to click "my fic".
Thanks for reading!