“Oh, dear—I’m terribly sorry, sir! I never meant—“
He stopped her flow of apologies with a thin hand. “It’s quite all right. Severus tells us you were not welcome in the house you were staying at?”
Lily’s cheeks turned faintly pink. “Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, you are welcome here as long as you wish. Severus will show you to your room as soon as we finish replacing the sheets.”
She smiled. “Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.”
Mr. Snape Disapparated to his office, and Severus came into view, carrying a sort of breakfast tray.
“I brought you breakfast. It’s not what you’d get at Lucius’ or Potter’s, but—hey, it’s food.” He set the wooden tray down in front of her, and Lily ravenously started to attack the rolls and marmalade.
He took her up to her room when she had finished; showed her the bathroom, and then left her to herself to change the clothes she had slept in for something else. When the door shut, Lily let her eyes rove around the room.
It was quite obvious that Severus’ parents weren’t half as well off as Eva or James, but their house was large enough for two guest rooms. The guest rooms themselves weren’t too large; white curtains hung from the windows, the cedar daybed had an assortment of different-colored pillows and a handmade afghan over the blue quilt, and the walls were painted a pale sky-blue.
There was a latchhooked rug on the floor in front of the bed, and a desk and chair were placed in front of the window. There was a simple fireplace with a few pictures on the mantel, and a door opened to show a closet with many hangers. All in all, it was a quaint little room, and Lily had the feeling that she enjoyed it more than the almost ridiculous ornamentation of the Versailles replica.
She unpacked her trunk swiftly, hanging up the assortment of robes and Muggle clothing she had brought with her. For herself, after a long, hot bath, she threw on a pair of jeans and a dark green shirt, not as disgustingly tight as some shirts she had seen Serena wear, but then again, not the sleep-shirt length. She pulled her hair into a sort of cross between a ponytail and a bun, slipped into a pair of black house-slippers, and stepped downstairs, where Severus was waiting in his armchair of the night before.
“Hallo. You look—you look nice,” he added lamely as he set the same notebook from the night before on a table.
Lily smiled. “Thanks. I suppose.”
“There’s no ‘I suppose’ about it. You look nice.”
The red mounted her cheeks again. “Please don’t. I hate compliments.”
He pushed his hair out of his face. “That’s right—I’m sorry—you already told me that. I’ve got a suggestion for you, though.”
Lily smiled brightly. “Really?”
“Yes, really. I live next to the ocean.” He watched agreeably as a light kindled the sparks in her eyes. “Like to go there?”
She immediately flung herself at his neck, jumping insanely and rather frightening the white cat on the sofa, along with Severus.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”
Fifteen minutes later, they were both heading for the shore; Lily in the white bathing suit with a pair of black robes thrown over it, was carrying her sketchbook; Severus, who didn’t like swimming much, was taking his own sketching things and what he had admitted to be a journal.
Once there, Lily seemed to have become suddenly and intensely obsessed with the sea, and Severus smiled as he saw her getting a kick out of throwing herself into five-foot waves.
Later, when she was quite tired, she was lying on her back in the sand, trying fruitlessly to shake the clumps of sand from her hair. Frustrated, she sat up just as Severus put his pencil down and handed her his sketchbook.
It was one of her; not done with colored pencil or paints; simply a charcoal sketch. It was of her head, rising in the water, with a wave clashing into her head, and she was laughing. Lily smiled.
“You’re very good.”
“Thanks.” Severus took the book back; at least he held out his hand for it. Lily didn’t hand it to him.
“Mind if I look through it?”
A look of consternation crossed his face. “Lily—I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“No reason—I just wish you wouldn’t.”
Lily was still grinning. “Why not?”
“Lily—I don’t especially like people looking at what I do—“
“Nonsense.”
He could see the point of that; after all, he had just handed her something he’d drawn. Still, he didn’t like giving in. “Lily—please. Pleasepleasepleaseplease!”
This time, Lily looked up. “What’s so terrible about my looking at what you’ve drawn? It’s not as if I’m going to wreck it or give it to the Marauders—not on the best terms with them anyway. You know that.”
Severus gave, sitting back against a boulder and throwing his hands into the air. “Fine. Fine. I give. You know, you can usually charm your way into whatever you want.”
She rapped him softly on the knuckles, in the style of a old-maidish schoolteacher. “None of that!”
Lily pulled the sketchbook towards her, flipping to the first page. It opened to reveal a portrait of a rather kindly-looking lady, with shoulder-length hair and dark wizard robes. Done in black-and-white, it nevertheless could not be mistaken for Severus’ mother—he had her nose and eyes.
The next one was also in charcoal as they had seen it first; riding in boats as the great castle loomed up before them. Lily was amazed.
“How old were you when you did this?”
Severus shrugged. “Eleven. I did it my first night in the Great Hall. I didn’t draw much—quit for about three years, and then only in the past year or so did I start it again.
Her eyebrows went up. “You did all this when you were eleven?”
“Yeah.”
She flipped through. There were about seven more of scenes in the castle; a greenhouse, Professor McGonagall senior, the dungeons, a potion bubbling inside a cauldron, a wand emitting several sparks in the Charms classroom, the Great Hall with the floating candles, the Slytherin common room, and a portrait of Lucius.
Then the style changed, along with the style of the signature at the bottom left corner and the dates; they moved forward three years, and the drawings were more advanced. Lily nodded appreciatively at one of Professor Trelawney; this one had oversized the usual glasses, the head filled almost the entire page, and the body was the size of a match. It was a very nice and rather amusing caricature.
The next one she flipped to was one of her, head bent over a book and her hair falling in her face in a classroom. He still stuck with charcoal and lead pencil; it seemed to be his favorite medium. She turned the page, and there she was again; only standing in a corridor, books clasped to her chest and her schoolbag hanging from her shoulder.
She turned another page; there she was again; in the center of the picture, set at breakfast in the Great Hall; Eva and Amanda were talking to her on either side. Then, another scene was put down on paper; she was clapping wildly at a Quidditch game.
The next few she went through were all of her; some with friends, some without—but she was always the centerpoint. Lily looked up at Severus, who by now was slouching down so far that his knees were effectively hiding his face.
“I asked you not to look…”
Matter-of-factly, Lily turned another page. “They’re very good. I like them. You’re very good.”
She didn’t notice the pink tinge that came to his cheeks.
The next one she had to laugh at. She was having a blazing row with Serena in front of the doors to the Great Hall, and from the look on Serena’s face, it looked like Lily was winning.
Lily went through every drawing he’d done till she got to the back of the book; the rest were all of her; with an occasional giant squid or Grey Lady thrown in every ten pages. When she came to the picture of her in the sea, she shut the book and handed it back, tactfully avoiding his rather embarrassed glance.
“Lily—I guess you might not want to stay with us anymore, but—“
“Nonsense.” Her crisp tone jerked him more into reality. He sat up. “You took me in kindly when I’d just been shut out of someone’s house I thought was my friend. I’m not going to leave abruptly. Besides, I wish you’d give me drawing lessons.”
He brightened at that, then his half-smile plummeted. “You get Potter to do that for you. I’m not teaching the same lesson twice.”
Lily looked up. “You taught him how to draw?”
“Yes,” his simple answer was. “He came to me one day, saying that he knew I was good at it, and that he needed to learn. I don’t know why I did, though.”
She smiled. “That explains it.”
“What?” he frowned.
“James gave me an extremely elaborate painting for my birthday—I didn’t know he could draw. That explains it.”
“Oh—right, he said he wanted to do something for you.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Only reason I taught him, I think. Otherwise I probably would have done something else, most likely in the nature of a hex.”
“Severus!”
“I can’t help it. My wand has a bad habit of attracting my hand to it and making me pull it out of my robes.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Boys.”
“Hey! You say that like it’s a bad thing!”
She grinned mischievously. “And it isn’t?”
She stayed at Severus’ house for a week; then her father wanted her back home; Petunia had had several disasters that included dumping used bleach onto a bed of flowers. So, when she received the command to come back home, it wasn’t really expected, but she could understand it.
She packed her things quickly, and within ten minutes, she was downstairs in the Snapes’ living room, where Severus was waiting for her.
He still wrote in the journal every chance he got, and he was extremely thankful that Lily wasn’t the nosy type—like that group of idiots—what did they call themselves?—Oh, right,--Marauders. If she were like them…
He looked up as Lily walked in the door, trying to drag her trunk inside. Immediately, he jumped up, lending a hand with it.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
She dropped down in the nearest chair, as did he. Both of them were wondering if their backs had broken.
Severus spoke first. “Lily?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll miss you.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you again when school starts, remember?”
”Yeah…”
“Well, then!”
Any further conversation they might have had was terminated, as Mr. Snape Apparated into the room, looking rather tired.
“Lily, ready? Your fireplace was connected to the Floo network for about an hour, so we’d better go.”
”Yes, sir.” She jumped up and took her trunk handle; he took the other one. Throwing a pinch of Floo powder in the fireplace, he took a deep breath.
“The Evans home.”
The only highlights of the rest of Lily’s summer were two letters; one she recieved from Eva, whose owl (from the Potters’ owlery) had been waiting at her house for several days.
Lily,
You left us! Just like that! Okay, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but from the yelling that went on in Mrs. Potter’s study after she called James in there, I got the impression that you two got into a fight and then he kicked you out of the house.
I am now scarred for life. It’s a marvel that James doesn’t already have ten different shades of poop kicked out of him by either his mother or Sirius. I never want to see his mother that mad again, and definitely not at me.
Sirius is being a nice little angel who’s fed up with his two friends fighting all the time, but we know better than that.
Where’d you go, by the way? James said he saw you vanishing into the fireplace, but he didn’t know where you said to go. This is a quote unquote from him:
“I don’t know or care where she went. I’m glad she’s gone. Most likely she went and got herself blown up. Oh, dear God! What if she accidentally pronounced the place wrong and ended up somewhere like Greenland? Or what if she went to Snape’s house or Malfoy’s, and then they abused her or something? What if…”--here he had to be silenced by Sirius and me. We sat on him, that is. Lora was the one who tickled his feet.
Lily, I get the impression that he’s pretty depressed that you left, anyway. And, come on, it can’t have been that bad a fight. We miss you! And Lora, too. It seems that she’s extremely angry that there isn’t another insane girl around here who will do things like carve trees into the shape of a lightningbolt or something mad like that. So. Yeah. But we want you to come baaack!!
--Eva
P.S.: Amanda says to add her name to the signature.
--Eva and Amanda
P.P.S.: Lora says to add her name to the signature.
--Eva, Amanda, and Lora
P.P.P.S: Now the rest of the world and his wife wants me to add their names.
--The world and his wife.
Lily smiled a bit, but she knew what her answer was going to be without even asking her father. She pulled out a roll of parchment and dipped her quill in the ink.
The world and his wife:
No, I can’t come back. In the first place, my father won’t let me; in the second place, I don’t want to. Shove that up Mr. Potter’s nose along with Peter’s toes.
Yes, I’m still angry. It was only a burst of temper on both our parts, but I’m still angry. Tell him that I hold grudges longer than he can imagine. Tell him I will hold this one as long as I feel like holding it. He knows I will.
--Lily
She sent that off with Alisande, disdaining the owl that had been sent her. Not even bothering to watch it fly away, she slammed the door of her room loudly as she went downstairs, down to face a father that was hardly ever home and a sister that detested magic. Fun, fun, fun.
When there was only a month of the summer holidays left, a Hogwarts owl flew in her window at seven in the morning, dropping its letter on the foot of Lily’s bed and flying off with a screech. Lily, recognizing the Hogwarts crest, instantly slit it open.
It was about the size of last year’s letter, the one that had had her prefect appointment on it. She pulled out the first sheet.
Dear Miss Evans,
We are pleased to inform you of your scores for the Ordinary Wizarding Levels (O.W.L.s). We would like to remind you that these are internationally standardized exams and that your score reflects your progress in comparison to other young wizards and witches of your age.
The amount of Ordinary Wizarding Levels you may hope to obtain is thirty; though hardly five wizards and witches per magical school obtain above twelve.
Your placement is, out of the fifth year Hogwarts examinees: 1 out of 151
Your placement is, out of the fifth year European examinees: 1 out of 18,954
Your placement is, out of the fifth years attending magical schools, excluding homeschools: 1 out of 10,984,853
You have earned the honorable degree of twenty-two (22) Ordinary Wizarding Levels (O.W.L.s).
With our congratulations, we are
The International Board of School Directors
Here followed a rather long list of signatures; one hundred and fifteen, if Lily had bothered to count. She didn’t bother. She was, quite frankly, and for once, stunned and speechless.
Her father was so proud of her when she showed him the letter, she thought she’d need to gag him and tie him up before the day was over if he kept emitting sounds like “Oh, honey, we’re so proud of you! That’s wonderful!” and hugging her till her bones were to the point of cracking. Her father and Petunia made a cake for her, and they threw a smallish party for her that evening; ending with seventy-five pounds to spend at Diagon Alley. All in all, Lily reflected, it was a wonderful day.
Still, the excitement wore off after a while, and after putting her new prefect badge—which had come with the letter, along with her list of school supplies—away from the mischievous child Petunia was babysitting nowadays, she couldn’t wait for school to start—life was quickly getting extremely uninteresting, and she was looking forward to days when she had to quickly jump away from explosions or skip bak from moving staircases.
Lily was rather relieved when the time came to return to Diagon Alley and stock up on her school supplies, and she went there alone, as her father had to drop her off on her way to work and Petunia gave summer schoolwork as an excuse. Lily rather liked it this way; she could think more when she was alone.
She was getting to be quite well-known in the Leaky Cauldron; the familiar redhead was greeted with waves from the people at the tables and from behind the counter. Smiling back, she made her way to the alley behind the pub, pulled out her wand, and entered the alley.
Crowded as usual, Lily had a rather hard time making her way to Madam Malkin’s robes for All Occasions; she had shot up so much in the past year that her old school ones were hanging above her ankles.
Madam Malkin still was terribly talkative, but Lily didn’t mind as much as she had in her first year. She emerged with four sets instead of the required three; she knew that she usually tore up at least one pair while in the Alendoren Cove every year.
The only thing she didn’t have out of her Potions supply was armadillo bile, and it was relatively easy to find. The friendly brunette that worked at the apothecary was relieved to find someone that wouldn’t try to get dragon liver at ten Sickles instead of fifteen, so she was quite helpful and Lily made it out quickly.
Her wand was in tip-top condition; no hairs were poking out or anything, but she purchased a small bottle of polish, just in case. In case of what, she didn’t know, but she had money to spend.
Books—Flourish and Blotts was packed with as many Hogwarts students as it was legal to hold—if there was any such thing as a legal limitation on occupants of the store.
Controlling Feelings, Emotions, and Actions was rather easy to find; it was near the front of the store. Professor Cauldwell was obviously advancing rather faster than he was last year; not that Lily minded, of course not; she was almost the only one that applauded him for doing so.
An Advanced Guide to Transfiguration was in the back of the store, and Lily had the luck to grab the last one there was on the shelf. As it was, she came close to getting strangled by a large, burly seventeen-year-old dressed in the brightest red she had ever seen.
The rest of her books were stacked in the back; they were almost covered with a tarpaulin that hadn’t been removed and a Sale sign that had fallen down.
Lily caught them up quickly, dumped them in the slightly larger cauldron she had been assigned to buy, and left the store as soon as possible, almost staggering under the weight.
It was all the shopping she needed to do, and with difficulty, she threaded her way past the students ogling the new Myriad Centennial, a broom on display in Quality Quidditch Supplies and the elderly witches in large red hats blocking the alley with their demonstration banner against the Azkaban dementors.
Lily had almost made it to the Leaky Cauldron, but just as she was a step before entering the dusty alley, two boys bounced out at her, somewhat wet and more than somewhat energetic.
Remus smiled at her shyly. “Hello, Lily.”
Lily’s wand polish slipped from her hand. “Hello.”
Sirius clapped her on the back. “Oh, good, you’re speaking to us! We were kind of worried there for a moment.”
She smiled. “James is still angry, isn’t he?”
At this, both Sirius and Remus’ gaze dropped to their scuffed toes.
Lily dropped to one knee to pick up her wand polish. “Well? He is, isn’t he.”
She said this as more of a statement, and, none to her surprise, neither of the boys answered directly. Remus took her cauldron from her, while Sirius dumped the polish inside it.
“Well, you see, the way it went is this. He told us that you two got into a fight and that he hadn’t done anything, that it was all your fault, and that he kicked you out of the house.”
“Which he did,” Lily intercepted.
“I’m coming to that.” Remus held up a quieting hand. “His mother started screaming at him when she found out—and she’s got to have some banshee blood in her somewhere—but there’s something that he didn’t tell her, and he told her that he couldn’t tell her that, so…well, it more or less went downhill from there.”
Lily bit her lip. “I see.”
Frowning, Sirius took her arm. “You all right?”
”Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh—no reason. But he told us that he was absolutely through with your temper, so—so—well—“ Remus stopped.
“So what?” Lily prompted.
Sirius sighed. “Come with us. You’re not going to make a scene, though.”
Lily gave him a look.
“Never mind.”
”I don’t make scenes.”
”I know, I know. ‘Many a red sun will set—“
“Many a blue moon will shine before I do. Good. You know your musicals. If you want to tell me this, by all means, proceed.”
Remus smiled. “Good, then.” He steered her towards the Leaky Cauldron’s tables, where he bought her some lemonade and some sort of cream pie for all of them. They made for a table near the stairwell that led to the rooms, and Remus made her sit down before he let her continue. Frankly, Lily thought this was quite a waste of time, but she gave in, thinking that if he had such an active imagination, he’d better get his way, unless he were driven completely insane by the delusional complications.
Sirius smiled at her, rolling his eyes at Remus, who was taking several deep breaths before pointing his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing for Lily to look that way.
She saw a familiar black, tousled head two tables away, with his Hogwarts supplies in a cauldron next to him. Lily almost stared at Remus in disbelief, as if he was mad to think that she would throw a tantrum over James Potter sitting by himself at a table in a pub—but then she realized that he wasn’t alone.
A face she knew was sitting across from him, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. With a sympathizing look on her face, she was listening to something he was bitterly relating to her with his forehead in his palm; not even bothering to touch the drink he had ordered.
Lily recognized the blue eyes and retroussee nose before she had thought she would. It rather unnerved her; she hadn’t even given one thought to Serena for—months, it seemed. Yet there she was, listening intently to something James was telling her with the sincerest compassionate look she had ever seen her use.
Something cold slashed across the red-head’s chest, and involuntarily she flinched. Confusedly, she looked over at her companions, but they were watching her face for a reaction. Raising her eyebrow at them, as much as to say “Well?”, she glanced back over at the couple, an analyzing glint in her eye.
It confused her, bewildered and baffled her. There was something wrong; she couldn’t pinpoint it, but it was there. For heaven’s sake, only last night she had thought of how much pleasure it would give her to scratch his eyes out with her nails and watch the blood run down his face. And now, now--she was trying to convince herself that she hated him. Lily hated this. Hated and detested it more than anything she’d ever come in contact with—she had always despised idiots that made fools out of themselves over prats.
And now she seemed close to joining their ranks.
As soon as those thoughts had flashed across her mind, they vanished again, and she tossed her hair over one shoulder, pulling a strand out from her mouth.
“What? You two are staring at me as if I just sprouted a fountain of dice from my head.”
Remus smiled. “So you’re not angry?”
”Angry? What for? I haven’t been given a reason to.”
”That’s true. But still.”
“But still what?”
”Never mind.”
Both of them watched her leave the pub to the busy London street, and when they had gone, they stared at each other.
“Well,” Sirius commented, “that was lucky.”
“You’re telling me!”
“I believe so.”
“Sirius!”
“Oh, all right, all right. You’re right, we are lucky.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Remus admonished as he stood up and set off for his own supplies.
The night before Lily left for Hogwarts, she couldn’t sleep. For the first time in weeks, she found herself unable to sleep. Restless and uncomfortable, she swung herself out of bed and went over to her window, seating herself on the sill. Her eyes first took in the faint moonbeams, then, roving around her room, they caught sight of the painting James had given her. She caught her breath sharply.
The brush that had outlined her face had given something more to it than she believed it really possessed—a kindly, beautiful, loving nature. She couldn’t tell where the idea came from—unless he had seen something about her that she hadn’t. And now, reflecting on what she had told him, the cold snake of despair constricted around her lungs and something else, making it hard to breathe. She dropped her head onto her arms, then, leaning her face against the glass, let a tear run down her cheek.
