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Chapter Text

It was the fourteenth of July as Lily Evans lay on the green-green grass under the willow tree, not so far away from the river that divided their town from the forest. 

It was also the first summer since she graduated from school and had very little time for the upcoming important decisions regarding her next few years, yet she found herself ignoring them all, letting the warmth of the sun and the distant hum of the river lull her into a rare moment of peace.

The truth was that Lily had many fields she was good at and also had way too many interests to focus on, so, naturally,the thought of tomorrow made her anxious. Relatively enough, she felt like a mess. A furball of mess. 

She broke up with her boyfriend six weeks before the end of school, realizing her feelings for him had never been steady. Mary had spent most of the year closer to other girls, barely paying Lily any attention, and their friendship had cooled—maybe even faded. She saw less and less of Remus too, but, strangely, none of it bothered her anymore.

She realised how careless and tired she became with anything or anyone. 

It wasn’t bitterness, nor was it indifference—just a quiet sort of exhaustion that settled deep in her bones. The world kept moving, people kept slipping away, and she no longer had the energy to chase after them. Lying there under the willow tree, she wondered if this was just a phase or if she was slowly becoming someone she wouldn’t recognize.

Of course, she knew she couldn’t spend the rest of her days here in Cokeworth, but everything in the magical world seemed so unpredictably dull. With the political instability, and Dumbledore’s whispers here and there; all was just too much. Not to mention bunch of high class young wizards and witches who despised her kin to the core and wished nothing but complete control over them. 

And maybe she was selfish for once not wanting to move from under this tree. 

Yes, she did want to avoid and prevent the crazy sociopathic political leader’s possible future reign over the world she wasn’t very sure she belonged to anymore. And she did want to live peacefully, but it was too draining to try and fight for something that could get you killed as well. Once she graduated from Hogwarts, it seemed that it was no longer about to-be-Death-Eaters and future Order members. It was draining to know that any side in this war used the least bit of humanity as a weapon, twisting it into something strategic, something expendable. It wasn’t just about right and wrong anymore—it was about survival, about who could endure the longest without losing themselves completely.

On her way back home, on the very last ride from Hogwarts to the King’s Cross Station, she remembered the last argument she and Severus once had before that, when he’d tried to apologise to her back at the end of their fifth year.

“Lily, the magic is not black and white. It’s not light and dark–”

Severus . How long it had been since she last spoke to him, Lily wondered. 

She tried to count the months but stopped herself halfway through—what did it matter now? That chapter was closed. She had slammed it shut herself. And yet, lying beneath the willow, the memory of his voice clung to her, insistent and unshakable.

It had been easy, in the beginning, to let anger fill the spaces where he used to be. But now, with the war looming and the world shifting under her feet, she wasn’t so sure anymore. Maybe he had been right, in some twisted way. Maybe magic wasn’t as simple as she had wanted to believe. Maybe nothing was.

The thought unsettled her.

The wind slowly blew, the water in the river flowed, and not so long after, she felt someone moving towards her. 

“Hello, sunshine,” said her father, who wore that awful cap his cousin had brought for him from America.

“Hi, Dad,” Lily brought her arm to her face, to see the man clearly.

He sat next to her, sighing as he stretched his legs out in front of him. “Tuney’s making dinner. Quite excited about this one, she is. It would be nice if you two wouldn’t bicker tonight though.”

“Dad, I am not the one–”

“Yes, yes. You will say you are not the one starting the fight, and she is, but, Lily, be honest, you love railing her up.” He nudged her shoulder lightly. “Tuney’s a lot like your mum. And you are a lot like me. And if I were to be honest, between you and I, back when we were younger, I loved pissing your mum off.”

“It’s not like that,” she sighed. “I don’t want her to be mad or anything. I just want … I want her to say nothing and just let me have my own mess in my own room. Nobody asks her to check if my room is clean, just ‘cause her boyfriend is gonna be by the door.”

Her father chuckled, shaking his head. “Ah, that Oliver lad again?”

Lily groaned, pressing her palms into her eyes. “Yes, whatever his name is. I swear, Dad, Whatever Tuney tells him about me,” or to any of the ones before, she wanted to say, but let it slid. “I swear if he looks at me like I have some mental disease diagnosis, I might hex him right there.”

“Well,” he said, amused, “will you?”

She dropped her hands and gave him a flat look. “I wish.”

He laughed, full and warm, before sighing. “Tuney’s always been particular about things, you know that. She wants everything to be just so–”

Lily plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between her fingers. “Her way,” Lily finished his sentence. “Yeah, well. I don’t care if she polishes the whole house for him. I just wish she’d stop acting like I’m some stain on the carpet.” She wanted to say, she was that way for Johnny, Nick and Trevor too .

Her father hummed, thoughtful. “You and Tuney used to be thick as thieves. Even as kids, you’d play in the playground near here. Remember that one kid? The one with long hair–”

“Yes, Dad, of course, I remember.”

“Yeah, the playground where you met him. You and Tuney would play there for hours. Your mum would always go crazy about you possibly jumping into the river.” He chuckled at the memory of his wife constantly worrying about Lily, “Apparently, Tuney was more responsible and less likely to do so.”

“Dunno, Dad. Life was just,” she looked around as if to gather the courage to admit that right now she wasn’t even sure what life for her was, “much easier than now. Even back when we were kids. She always had to say something very ... mean to me, like I deserved it. It was easier to deal with it before though. Before Tuney discovered what boys were,” she chuckled and then looked up at the leaves of the willow tree they were under. “Even if Severus... was around, she didn't care. She'd still be,” Lily tried to find a word to describe but instead said, “her.”

“Severus?” her dad repeated, his brows pulling together slightly, as if the name had yanked him out of the conversation entirely. “Oh, right. The boy from Spinner’s End. Your old friend.” His voice carried something unreadable—not quite disapproval, but not exactly warmth either.

Lily glanced at him, momentarily thrown by the way he latched onto that instead of anything she’d just said about Tuney. “Yeah,” she muttered. “Him.”

Her dad hummed, thoughtful. “Quiet kid, wasn’t he? Always lurking about. You never really told me what happened between you and him. I remember you were quite … affected by it.”

Even if Lily didn’t like to admit the truth, she knew quite well that nothing had been the same since her and Severus stopped talking. She didn’t talk about Severus. She didn’t discuss it nor did she like doing it.  Not to anyone. Not even to Mary, when they were still close. Once, Remus had brought it up, but the conversation died just as quickly—he hadn’t pushed, hadn’t pried, because he knew he had no right to. He had stood by and watched, done nothing when it mattered, and they both knew it

Of course, the pain had dulled over time, but there was something raw in dragging old wounds into the light.

“He said something very not nice to me,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “And I decided that was it.”

Her father sighed softly and turned his gaze to the horizon for a moment as if collecting his thoughts. Then, he looked back at Lily, his expression pensive.

“I never spoke to the kid, but I do remember how you two were. You’d always come back as bright as a lightbulb when you were little, speaking for hours over dinner of what you and this ‘Sev’ did. And he seemed to be quite happy with your company too,” he nodded to himself, “yeah, lad was always quiet, but you could tell he appreciated having someone there, someone who listened to him. You two, you were always different from the others, but you always had each other.”

He smiled at the memory of little Lily, then proceeded, “I remember you would come home talking about magic this, magic that and Rosie would think you were just dreaming about stuff.”

Lily’s chest tightened at her father’s words. Old memories rising up like a flood she hadn’t been ready to face. She hadn’t thought about those times in years—how easy it had been to spend hours with Severus, how simple things seemed back then. Before everything had changed. 

Her father paused, his gaze far away, as though reminiscing about something long past. “And it was clear, even then, that you both would find a way to make it work, despite how different you were. You two had this... unspoken thing, y'know?” He gave a small shrug, as though dismissing the idea as too complicated to explain. “People change, Lily, but some bonds, they don’t always break so easily.”

Then, after a beat, he glanced at her sideways. “This... does it have to do with those politics things your mum banned you from talking about at the dinner table? About Death Goblins and… what was it?” He let out a short chuckle, shaking his head, but there was something knowing in his eyes. He already had his answer.

Lily exhaled slowly. “Something like that,” she murmured, because how could she even begin to explain?

“I saw him twice, you know,” her father added casually, as if it wasn’t such a big deal. "Once, about two weeks ago, when we were bringing you back from London. He was there, standing at the station, heading somewhere. Just as we passed, he looked up. Same old Severus, like he was waiting for something. And then just the other day, I saw him down by the market, walking alone, like he always does.”

Her eyebrows twitched slightly at the mention of his name, though she kept her expression neutral. Her father, ever observant, continued as if he hadn’t noticed.

Her father chuckled lightly and shook his head. “He’s gotten much taller, that one. Last time I saw him, I thought he was going to outgrow his trousers. Needs a new pair, that’s for sure.” He smiled a little, as if the image of Severus in too-small clothes amused him. “Funny, how time changes people.”

Lily stayed silent, her fingers still twisting the blade of grass in her hand, but her mind raced. She had no idea what to say. The thought of Severus, awkward and lanky in ill-fitting trousers, seemed so distant from the man she’d once known. A part of her wanted to know more—how had he changed? What had happened to him in the time they’d been apart? But she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

Instead, she simply nodded, her voice tight when she finally spoke. “Yeah... time changes everyone.”

People change. Maybe he changed. Maybe she changed. She wasn’t sure who started drifting first, but it was quite late to find out too. Or was it? She had buried so much, shoved it into the deepest corners of her mind.

He got up, offering his hand to her. “I think mum and Tuney already made the table ready for us.”

“Right,” Lily nodded; her mind still on the fact that Severus is very much alive and possibly somewhere on the horizon. 

Lily took her father’s hand, letting him help her to her feet. She brushed the grass off her jeans, still feeling a strange tightness in her chest as the thought of Severus lingered in her mind. There was so much she didn’t know—so much that had been left unsaid between them, and now, after all this time, it felt too late to turn back.

Did she even know what she wanted to do with her life? Once her N.E.W.T. results would be out, Lily would have to decide what she wanted to do with her life. Not so long ago, when she was asked what she wanted to pursue after her studies, she would confidently say how she planned on becoming an Auror. That was also when she dated Potter. Another chapter she shut right before the end of school, freshly before the exams season. 

Now, the idea of becoming an Auror felt distant, like something that had belonged to a version of herself she wasn’t sure existed anymore. Had she truly wanted it, or had it been another expectation she had taken on, another thing that had made sense at the time?

She followed her father toward the house, the familiar creak of the front door echoing as he stepped inside. The warmth of home settled around her, yet she felt oddly detached, as though she were a guest in her own life.

Petunia was already setting plates, her movements precise, efficient. Their mother hummed softly as she adjusted the silverware. It was all so ordinary. So normal. And yet, inside, Lily felt like the world was shifting beneath her feet.

She remembered how she and James would sit together by the Astronomy tower and stare into the dark night sky and talk about the future. Her questions constantly being about the world around and his usually being about just them, their house, their family, their kids–

Maybe that should have been the moment she realized it would never work.

She had loved the idea of a family, of being a mother, ever since she was a child. But that was a dream for a different world, a safer world—not this one, where everything felt like it was teetering on the edge of collapse. How could she think about houses and children when the streets weren’t safe, when names disappeared from the papers when friends left and never came back?

James had spoken about the future like it was something they could carve out for themselves, something they could build together, untouched by everything happening around them. Maybe that was what made him so intoxicating—the way he could make her believe, even for a little while, that love could be enough.

She knew that he loved her. He loved her sickeningly. But he loved her as perfectly as he thought she was, not as she actually was. James had always been so in love with her that he never truly saw the cracks, never let himself acknowledge the flaws, the doubts, the pieces of her that didn’t fit neatly into his vision of them. And maybe, at the time, she had wanted to be that girl for him—the one he saw, the one he adored so completely.

But love like that could be suffocating. It left no room for doubt, no space for questions, no acknowledgement that maybe she wasn’t always kind, that maybe she wasn’t always brave, that maybe she wasn’t sure she wanted the life he imagined for them. Maybe she had never been sure.

And maybe that had been the problem all along.

Maybe sometimes Lily did not want a smug, sarcastic and tryna-keep-it-altogether James Potter, maybe sometimes she wanted a guy who was quiet in the right moments, who didn't always have an answer, who didn’t always need to make things seem lighter than they were. Maybe sometimes she wanted someone who let the silence sit between them without rushing to fill it, who didn’t try to convince her that everything would be okay when maybe it wouldn’t.

Maybe sometimes she wanted someone who saw her not as a girl to be worshipped but as a person—flawed, uncertain, messy. Someone who would sit with her in the dark and let her be unsure.

Sure, she wanted a family one day. The idea of motherhood had always been dear to her. As a little girl, she’d always play with her dolls and imagine the warmth of a home full of life and laughter. But maybe, just maybe, she didn’t need to feel like she had to be perfect to make that happen. Maybe she didn’t need to be the ideal version of herself or the person who had it all figured out, especially when it felt like the world was crumbling into chaos around her.

She hadn’t asked for a life filled with grand gestures, heroic speeches, or the constant pressure to smile through everything. Sometimes, the constant act of performing joy, of pretending that things were fine when they weren’t, was more exhausting than she thought a relationship should be.

She wasn’t even sure what she had felt for James before, and whether the feeling was still there. She wasn’t in love with him, but she did care for him, and perhaps sometimes caring for him too much would tire her. She could never place it exactly—whether it had been admiration, guilt, or some naive hope that if she tried hard enough, she could love him the way he wanted her to. But love wasn’t supposed to be something you tried at, was it? It was meant to be simple, easy, undeniable. And James… James had never felt like that.

As soon as Lily and her dad reached the doorsteps, they found a young man waiting by the door with flowers in his hands. Must be that fella Tuney invited, she thought. 

“Hello, Oli—Oliver?” She said unsure whether his name was Oliver.

“Hi, you must be Lily,” he said, offering his hand to shake and then directly switching his focus to her dad, “uh … and I presume you are Mr Evans. Pardon me, I’m Vernon. Vernon Dursley.” 

Her dad shook his hand in return as well and the tree entered the house. The warmth of the house hit Lily as soon as they stepped inside, the scent of roasted lamb and buttered potatoes hanging in the air. The living room was dimly lit, save for the soft glow of the lamps and the flicker of a candle on the dining table, which her mother had likely placed there in an attempt to make the dinner feel more formal than it actually was.

The warmth of the house hit Lily as soon as they stepped inside, the scent of roasted lamb and buttered potatoes hanging in the air. The living room was dimly lit, save for the soft glow of the lamps and the flicker of a candle on the dining table, which her mother had likely placed there in an attempt to make the dinner feel more formal than it actually was.

“Ah, yes,” her dad suddenly said, clapping a hand against his forehead as they removed their coats. “Right, right. Tuney’s fella. I forgot I told her to bring you around. Well, come on in then, lad, no use standing in the doorway.”

Lily smirked slightly, watching the way her father gave the man a once-over. He was measuring him, she could tell. Vernon seemed a bit stiff, but to his credit, he straightened his posture and cleared his throat.

“Thank you, Mr. Evans. It’s a pleasure to meet you properly.”

Vernon Dursley was younger than Lily had expected—only twenty-one—but there was something about him that made him seem older, like he was already rehearsing for middle age. He had chubby cheeks, though he wasn’t exactly fat, and his face was perpetually red, as if he had just come in from the cold. His light brown hair curled in a funny way at the edges, resisting any attempt to be properly slicked back. Oh, and he had a ridiculous moustache that would fit a prepubescent boy more than it would suit him.

Her mother, meanwhile, was bustling around the dining room, adjusting cutlery that didn’t need adjusting and fussing with a centrepiece of roses. She was a slender woman with tired yet kind eyes, her auburn hair streaked with early silver. There was a perpetual nervous energy about her as if she were always anticipating something to go wrong.

And Petunia was the same. Constantly, fixing her blonde locks that took her an entire night time make; to be fair, she was always organized and very taken-care of, unlike Lily, who much preferred to cut her bangs herself and let her hair dry on its own in summer. 

She looked at Petunia, studying her facial expressions. She wanted to understand if her sister was in love, or whether this was just a gateway to a life Tuney desired at some point. It wasn’t just about impressing him, though that was certainly part of it. No, there was something else, something softer . The way Petunia’s fingers grazed Vernon’s sleeve absentmindedly, the way her face warmed whenever he spoke, the way she laughed—not her usual sharp, practiced laugh, but something real.

“Oh, there you are, dear,” she said, noticing them in the hallway. “Dinner’s ready. Vernon, I do hope you like lamb. Petunia didn’t mention any dietary restrictions.”

“No, no, lamb is perfectly fine,” he said, offering her a polite, if somewhat stiff, smile.

“Good, good. Well, sit, everyone, before it gets cold.”

The table was set neatly, the dishes placed with care. It wasn’t a grand affair, but there was an effort behind it—one that made Lily feel both touched and slightly uncomfortable. Her family wasn’t used to formal guests. They were used to messy weekday dinners, her dad reading the newspaper while eating, her mum fussing over everyone’s portions, and Tuney making disapproving noises when Lily put her elbows on the table.

They settled in, the scrape of chairs against the floor punctuating the brief silence.

“So, Vernon,” her dad started, carving into the lamb. “What do you do?”

Vernon straightened, puffing up a little, as if he had been waiting for this question all night. “I work at Grunnings,” he said. “It’s a drill company. I’m in the junior management program right now, but I have good prospects. Steady work, good people.”

“Drills,” her father echoed, recognising the company's name. “Not the most thrilling business, I imagine.”

“Well,” Vernon chuckled—an awkward, clipped sound. “It’s a stable industry. And there’s room for growth. I plan to climb the ranks, of course.”

Lily glanced at Petunia, who was sitting beside him, hands folded primly in her lap. She looked pleased—more than pleased, actually. There was an almost smug satisfaction on her face, as if she expected their parents to be impressed.

“And what about you, Petunia?” their mother asked, passing the potatoes while trying to include everyone in the conversation. “How’s your work at the office?”

“Oh, quite good,” Tuney said, smoothing down her skirt. “Mr. Thackeray says I’m one of the most efficient employees. He’s considering me for an assistant role.”

“That’s wonderful, dear,” their mum said warmly.

Lily reached for the wine her dad had set on the table, pouring herself a small glass before looking at Vernon again. He was watching Petunia as she spoke, a small, approving nod accompanying her words.

She wasn’t prepared to listen to this unfold soberly. 

Lily had expected Petunia to be anxious about Vernon’s opinion, but strangely enough, it seemed to go both ways. There was something oddly tender in the way she looked at him, as if she actually adored him—an expression Lily had never quite seen on her before.

She hadn’t been like this with any of the guys before, and maybe that was why it felt strange to her. Maybe, after all, the thought of her sister leaving her life for … forever unsettled her for a bit. She had spent years assuming Petunia only wanted a life that was neat, orderly, and respectable, that she would marry someone proper and stable simply because it was the right thing to do. But now, watching her sister glance at Vernon like he had hung the moon, Lily wasn’t sure what to think.

Lily found it unsettling.

”And where are you from originally?” Mr Evans asked, sipping the wine.

“Southampton”

How boring, Lily thought. 

“But I studied at the University of Birmingham, and I figured—well, it’s easier to have a start in a smaller, not-so-overcrowded city, isn’t it?”

Lily was already halfway through her glass. 

Lily’s mum, ever the gracious host, placed a generous spoonful of potatoes on Vernon’s plate, smiling warmly. “You must try these—Petunia makes them with butter and a bit of rosemary.”

Vernon glanced at the food, then forced a polite smile. “Ah, thank you, Mrs. Evans, but I shouldn’t eat too much.”

Petunia’s back straightened, and she shot him a sharp look. “You don’t like it?”

“No, no, it’s not that,” Vernon said quickly. “It’s just—well, I’m, uh, watching what I eat.”

Lily could see the way Tuney’s hands tensed in her lap, her jaw tightening slightly. She’d spent the whole day making sure the house was spotless, fussing over dinner, making sure everything was just right. And now Vernon wasn’t eating much.

Her father, oblivious to the shift in mood, turned to Vernon again. “And what about your family? What do they do?”

Vernon straightened his posture, clearly eager to make a good impression. “My father works in shipping, and my mother runs a small business—home décor, that sort of thing.”

Her mother nodded approvingly. “That sounds lovely.”

The conversation carried on, a mix of polite small talk and Vernon’s enthusiastic—if slightly dull—explanations about his job. Then, as Lily was quietly finishing her meal, Vernon turned his attention to her.

“I also, like Petunia, have a sister,” he turned to look at Lily, who was ready to be buried alive. “Although, she is older than me,” he chuckled nervously, then continued, “Petunia told me you went to a boarding school. Where will you be going this September?”

Lily opened her mouth, but before she could answer, Petunia spoke for her.

“She is taking a gap year.”

Lily took a big sip of her wine glass before setting it down a little too hard.

Vernon nodded, looking interested. “Ah, I see. Some prefer that, I know. I mean it’s fine to do that, especially for a young girl such as you. I, myself, did not want to waste a minute. Time is a precious thing for a man, right?” He looked over at Mr Evans, hoping for a chuckle, but the man just smiled and nodded, unaware of what to say. 

Lily wanted to say that time was just as important for a young girl such as her but preferred to not. Wasn’t worth it, she thought. 

Then he asked again. “What did you study for your A-levels? I mean Petunia told me once but I forgot, you see.”

Again, Petunia cut in before Lily could even form a response. “Sciences, mostly. But she’s still figuring things out.”

Lily, this time, put her fork down and added to her sister’s response, “I took chemistry, biology and mathematics.”

Which was not a lie, technically. 

She had been fine with sitting there, smiling politely, letting the dinner drag on. But there was something about Petunia speaking for her—as if Lily wasn’t present in her own life, as if she was just a quiet little accessory to Petunia’s carefully curated evening—that made her patience snap.

“Lily went to a special boarding school,” her mother added, then realized it might have sounded like something for kids with disabilities. “She was quite bright for her age, so they accepted her on full scholarship.”

Lily hated when her parents spoke about her school like it was some grand accomplishment, as if she had fought tooth and nail for a scholarship rather than simply being born with the ability to do things no one else in this room could. It always sounded like they were trying to translate something untranslatable like they were dressing it up to be more palatable for people like Vernon. But even then, it always came out wrong—like she was some prodigy instead of just different.

And Petunia hated it too.

“That’s nice,” Petunia said quickly, plastering on a tight smile. “But enough about school, let’s not bore Vernon with all that.”

Lily took another sip of wine, letting the taste settle on her tongue as she watched her sister effortlessly steer the conversation elsewhere. It was impressive, really—how smoothly she could redirect attention, how easily she could erase parts of Lily’s life that didn’t fit into whatever neat little world she was trying to build.

Instead, Petunia launched into some story about her office, about how one of the secretaries had worn the wrong color stockings and how improper it had looked, and Vernon nodded along, chuckling at all the right moments. He was clearly enjoying himself now, fitting in perfectly with the version of Petunia that she had crafted for him—efficient, put-together, no-nonsense.

Lily leaned back in her chair, twirling the stem of her wine glass between her fingers. She wasn’t sure what she had expected from tonight, but watching her sister fall into this role so seamlessly—watching her tuck away all the parts of herself that didn’t fit—left an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

And maybe that’s what unsettled her the most. Not that Petunia had brought Vernon home. Not that she clearly adored him. But that she had done what Lily never could—she had chosen a version of herself and committed to it, wholeheartedly, without hesitation.

Lily didn’t know if she envied her for it or pitied her.

Lily set down her glass with a soft clink against the table and cleared her throat.

“May I be excused?” she asked, already pushing her chair back slightly.

Her mother blinked at her. “You’ve hardly finished your plate, dear.”

“I’m not very hungry.”

Petunia shot her a look, but before she could say anything, their father waved a hand dismissively. “Let her go if she wants. The girl’s got legs might as well use them.”

Lily took that as her cue to leave, grabbing a coat from the rack by the door and slipping into it in one fluid motion. As she buttoned it up, she felt Petunia’s gaze on her back—watchful, disapproving.

“Don’t be out too long,” her mother called after her.

Lily didn’t respond. She simply stepped outside while wearing her father’s Barbour jacket, pulled the door shut behind her, and inhaled deeply. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of damp leaves and distant chimney smoke. It was a stark contrast to the warmth of the house, to the weight of that dinner table conversation pressing against her chest.

She set off down the pavement, hands tucked into her pockets, her breath unfurling in soft clouds. The streetlights hummed faintly above her, casting long, golden streaks across the empty sidewalk. She didn’t have a destination in mind—she just needed to move. To be away from all of it, from Vernon’s pompous little comments, from Petunia’s careful curation of her life, from the unspoken things that had sat between them all like an extra guest at the table.

Lily exhaled sharply, shaking her head. Maybe she was being dramatic. Maybe she should’ve just sat there and played along, let Petunia have her perfect evening. But she couldn’t. She never could.

She reached the edge of the neighbourhood, where the houses thinned out and the sky stretched wider above her. A cigarette would’ve been nice right now, but she hadn’t thought to bring one. Instead, she just stood there for a moment, staring up at the dark expanse above, letting the quiet settle around her like a second skin.

She wondered if she’d ever be able to sit through one of those dinners without feeling like an outsider in her own home.

The night was chill, and Lily dreaded how she did not take her Walkman with herself. It was a perfect moment for a Walkman, a cigarette, and maybe some more wine, hence she walked down to the city centre. 

Since her childhood, she never liked the town she lived in. It felt too diminishing, too draining, too empty. Her best memories in this city were only outside in nature. Those had been the days she spent with him—Severus. Back when he was her only real friend before everything got complicated. They’d found solace in the space between them, between the world and their thoughts. Now, even his presence felt distant, like a ghost of what they used to be.

Her steps were slow as she made her way toward the city centre. The glow of the streetlamps seemed too sharp tonight, the shadows too dark. Since her childhood, she never liked the town she lived in. It felt too diminishing, too draining, too empty. She’d never quite fit in with its rhythm, and as much as she tried to pretend she was just like everyone else, she always felt separate from it all.

She pulled her knuckles tighter inside the pockets of the beige coat. Surely, once the sun went down, everywhere would be much colder than expected, even if it was the middle of summer. It was one of those nights where everything felt oddly still, as though time itself had paused. 

The city centre was always different at night. Quieter in some ways, but not in a peaceful way—just emptied out, waiting for something to happen. The few people left were mostly men, some alone, some in groups, lingering outside pubs or sitting on benches with bottles in their hands. Their voices carried through the streets, slurred and careless, laughter cutting through the silence like a jagged blade.

Lily walked past them without a second thought, her gaze fixed ahead. She was used to it. The way men took up space without thinking, how their presence made her aware of her own. But she was too tired to care tonight.

She turned onto a narrower street, one she knew well. The cobblestones were uneven, worn down by time, and the dim orange glow of the streetlamps barely reached the ground. The smell of beer and cigarettes lingered in the air, blending into the dampness of the night.

A sharp whistle cut through the quiet.

"Oi, sweetheart!"

Lily ignored it. Kept walking.

"Where you off to in such a rush?" Another voice, deeper, laughing.

Her shoulders tensed, but she didn’t slow down.

The footsteps behind her did.

"Bit rude, that," one of them slurred. "We’re just being friendly."

She could hear them now, closer than before. Two, maybe three of them.

“Like your boots on those legs of yours.”

She stopped because she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, not from fear, but madness. Yet there she stood, annoyed at everyone and everything. She turned slightly, enough to see them in her periphery. Three of them swayed slightly, eyes glazed over with a drink.

“Piss off, will ya?” 

Silence for a beat. Then, laughter—low, mean.

“That’s not very nice,” one of them drawled, and he took a step closer, his weight shifting forward—

The laughter didn’t stop until it did.

Not because Lily said anything—she knew better than to waste her breath. Not because she moved, because moving would mean they’d follow.

It stopped because the air changed.

Not the way it does when a storm is coming, not the way it does when the wind shifts. This was quieter, something only the body understood before the mind could catch up. A pressure drop. A shiver up the spine.

One of them—broad shoulders, piss-drunk, and grinning like he owned the street—reached for her. Fingers brushing the sleeve of her coat.

And then he lurched back, cursing, shaking out his arm—because his coat was on fire.

A thin, wicked blue flame curled up the fabric before snuffing out just as fast as it had appeared, leaving behind a blackened streak. It hadn’t touched his skin, but he sure as hell felt it.

There he stood. Severus.

He grabbed the man by the half-burned collar, yanking him forward with surprising ease—because pain made people weak, and Severus knew how to use that. His fist cracked against the man’s cheekbone, a solid hit, sending him staggering into the alley wall.

The second one lunged, but Severus was faster. He shifted, side-stepping just enough, and drove his knee straight into the man’s ribs. Something cracked—whether it was bone or just the air being forced from his lungs, Lily didn’t know.

The third hesitated, like his brain was catching up to the fact that things weren’t going as planned.

Severus pulled him back by his collar, and, methodically enough, stepped onto his knee cap as he yanked him down, twisting just enough for the pressure to land where it hurt the most. The man crumpled with a sharp, broken sound—half a scream, half a gasp—his knee buckling under Severus’ weight.

Lily flinched. Not at the sound, but at the sheer precision of it.

It wasn’t like some messy pub brawl, fists thrown just to throw them. It wasn’t even like a fight. It was something quieter, colder. Every move meant something. Every move did exactly what it needed to do.

The man writhed on the pavement, clutching his leg, cursing between ragged breaths.

Severus didn’t even spare him a glance.

Instead, he wiped his bloody knuckles against his coat—calmly, like he’d just taken out the trash—before finally looking at her.

Then he took a pack out of his pocket and started smoking. 

Lily exhaled sharply, shaking her head as she took in the scene—the groaning men on the pavement, the smell of burnt fabric still lingering in the air, and Severus, standing there as none of it had happened, lighting a cigarette with steady hands.

“For fuck’s sake, Severus,” she muttered, half to herself. “Couldn’t just tell them to piss off like a normal person?”

Severus took a slow drag, the ember at the tip glowing in the dim light. His expression didn’t change, but there was something in his eyes—something unreadable, something that made her stomach twist in a way she wasn’t sure she liked.

He exhaled, smoke curling around his face. “Didn’t feel like talking.”

Chapter Text

Severus took another slow drag, the glow of the cigarette illuminating his face for a second before fading back into the dark. Smoke curled lazily from his thin lips, disappearing into the damp night air. Lily stood a few feet away, arms crossed, shifting her weight like she was bored already. But she wasn’t.

He looked on the ground, not making eye contact with her, as if his mind was elsewhere, not with her. It was a very foreign sight to her, to see Severus so … away yet near. 

“Well?” 

His gaze shifted to her, face expression not so empty anymore. 

“Wha’?"

Lily exhaled softly, her voice quiet but sincere. "Thank you."

He didn’t say anything. He just stared at her with confusion. He wasn’t even sure what he was so confused about. She stood there. There, in front of him, alive and well, was no other Lily Evans.

She furrowed her brows and studied his face. “Are you planning on just standing with a drink and a smoke outside, all broody and tragic, or speak sum’thing”

Severus exhaled, a slow curl of smoke unfurling from his lips. “Thought you’d want me to fuck off like a normal person.”

“Normal people don’t set other people on fire,” she looked at the cigarette he smoked, cravingly. “Especially for fun.”

“It wasn’t for fun,” he corrected her plainly, flicking ash from his cigarette. “Pricks deserved it.”

She didn’t say anything. And he didn’t add anything. They both knew they deserved it. Of course, they did. They were called ‘pricks’ for a reason.

Lily looked around to see that the street was relatively empty now. There were less people in the pub, nearly none, and the earlier noises of people in the background had faded away, leaving only two of them the only ones making any sound around. 

It was just the two of them, standing there like a scene from a film neither of them had planned on acting in.

“And what have you lost here? In a pub? In this damned street?”

Severus let out a snicker that was meant to be a chuckle. Merlin, he still couldn’t properly laugh. 

“Nothing.” 

Lily rolled her eyes. “Yeah? Just decided to haunt the pavement outside for no reason?”

He tilted his head slightly, studying her through the haze of smoke between them. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing.” It came too quick. Too sharp. She felt it in her teeth.

She hated how natural this all felt, how familiar. The sharp edges, the bite of his voice against hers. How they could go months, years even, without speaking, yet still fall back into the same pattern. Like they were fifteen again, sneaking cigarettes behind the ol mills, picking apart everything wrong with the world because it had never made space for them anyway.

And maybe that’s what bothered her.

Maybe she did want something from him.

Maybe she wanted him to act like the past wasn’t itching under her skin, burning at the edges of her thoughts. Maybe she wanted him to bring it up first, so she wouldn’t have to.

But Severus just stood there, leaning against the brick wall, unbothered. Detached.

Lily sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. “Give me a fag.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Thought you’d quit.”

She scoffed, holding out a hand. “Since when did you believe in things like quitting?”

For a second, she thought he might refuse. That he might taunt her, say something about how she’d left everything else behind, why not this too? But instead, he fished the pack from his coat pocket, pulled one out, and placed it between her fingers without a word.

“Let me walk you home,” he said, killing the momentary silence, as she lit her cigarette with her fingers as if she wasn’t trying to get at him by mimicking what he just did to the man earlier.

“Why the fuck would I go home, if I came here in the first place to escape from there?”

“What are you now? A rebel?”

“If wanting to just get away from an annoying sister and constant praise regarding the ‘boarding school’ I graduated makes me a rebel, then sure.” 

There was no hesitation in her honesty. She didn’t bother telling him the truth, like she knew he’d keep it to himself. Why would he even tell anyone anything about her? If he was a bitter bitch, he could have told anything about her a long time ago, back in Hogwarts, but he chose not to. And so did Lily. 

The thing they knew about one another never needed any kind of explanation, a remembrance; it was a filling within a void that they witnessed one another build. And maybe that void was the same reason why they fell out in the first place. 

“Okay, where are you heading then?” 

“Ehh, dunno. You can tag along,” she said then looked at the bottle of beer in his hand. “Unless you got other plans, of course.”

Severus didn’t respond or comment on anything, and the two just started going somewhere . 

The night had settled into a quiet hum, the kind that made the air feel heavier, like it carried the weight of unsaid things. The street stretched before them, dimly lit by flickering lamps that buzzed like dying insects. The pavement was uneven, cracks running through it like veins, damp from the earlier drizzle. It smelled of wet stone, cigarette smoke, and the stale remnants of spilled beer.

Lily walked with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her coat, shoulders slightly hunched, cigarette burning between her fingers. She walked like she had nowhere to be, like she was in no rush to leave or stay, like it didn’t matter either way. But she matched his pace.

Severus kept his gaze forward, the bottle swinging loosely from his hand, cigarette still burning between his lips. The silence between them wasn’t heavy. It just was.

The idea of her walking beside him, real and breathing, was something he hadn’t quite come to terms with yet. It wasn’t a nightmare. He knew that. But it didn’t feel like a dream either, because he didn’t have those—not the good ones, at least. He didn’t get dreams where she turned up in the middle of the night, mocking him in that familiar, almost affectionate way. He didn’t get dreams where she took a cigarette from his pack like it was nothing, like they hadn’t spent years apart.

But she was here.

And he didn’t know if it meant anything.

Lily exhaled, watching the smoke swirl up toward the streetlights. “I always forget how dead this place is at night.”

Severus let out a short, dry breath—maybe a laugh, maybe not. “That’s the best part.”

She tilted her head toward him, glancing at his face. The glow of his cigarette caught the sharp angles of his jaw, and the dark hollows under his eyes. He always looked like he hadn’t slept in years. Maybe he hadn’t.

“Didn’t take you for a pub regular,” she muttered.

He shrugged. “I’m not.”

“Then what, just felt like brooding in public tonight?”

He flicked his cigarette, watching the ash scatter before looking at her. “Like you said, just trying to get away.”

She nodded, like she understood, like she wasn’t going to push. The streets stretched before them, empty and waiting, and neither of them had any real direction. But for some reason, neither of them turned away.

They didn’t talk for a while, just walked. Not in sync, not apart—just two people moving through the same night, bound by something neither of them had the guts to name.

Severus was to grab his next cigarette. His fourth cigarette, as Lily recalled. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake, can you stop,” she randomly snapped at him. 

Severus paused mid-motion, fingers curled around the cigarette pack, before slipping it back into his coat pocket instead. He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing just slightly as he studied her.

Yeah, definitely not a dream.

His dreams never felt this sharp, this biting. They never had Lily snapping at him like she actually gave a damn. They never had the way her voice curled around curses or the way her nose scrunched when she got irritated. No, his dreams—if they ever bothered to include her—were much kinder. Or crueler, depending on how one looked at it.

Lily smoked herself. Occasionally. It never bothered her. Sure, she didn’t smoke for a while when she was with James, but it didn’t matter anymore. The scent of cigarettes was somewhat nostalgic for her, especially with him . But now—now, for some reason, it was getting to her. The fourth cigarette was too much. It wasn’t the smell or the smoke curling between them; it was something else, something she couldn’t put her finger on.

Maybe it was the way he did it, so methodically, like he was inhaling something other than nicotine. Like he was inhaling silence. Like every exhale was keeping something locked in.

She crossed her arms, shifting her weight, eyes flicking from his face to the pack he had tucked away. “Good. At this rate, you’re gonna hack up a lung before we even get anywhere.”

Then she looked at him with a sheepish smile as in ‘thank you for not continuing on this awful habit we both have right now’, which made him chuckle . 

Lily hadn’t expected that.

The sound was quiet, barely there, but unmistakable—a chuckle. A real one. Not the dry, humourless scoffs she was used to, not the bitter sneers he threw out like knives. An actual chuckle slipped through his lips like it had been waiting there all along.

Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second before she caught herself. It was ridiculous, really, how something so simple could shock her. She had known him when he used to laugh freely—before life had squeezed it out of him.

Still, seeing it now, hearing it, was different.

And because she had never been good at keeping things to herself, a chuckle of her own bubbled up in response. It was soft, almost hesitant, but it was there.

“What?” Severus asked, raising an eyebrow, but there was no real irritation in his voice.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Just—didn’t know you still had that in you.”

He rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched like he was fighting another smirk.

She took a stone from the ground, for no goddamn reason and asked him, “So, what are you gonna do in September?”

“Are you gonna hit me in the head with that ?” His eyes focused on that little rock in her hands. 

Lily snorted, turning the stone over in her palm. “Tempting,” she mused. “But no. Not yet, at least.”

Severus gave her a dry look, but there was still a trace of amusement lurking at the corners of his mouth. His gaze flicked from the stone back to her face, sharp and assessing, as if he were trying to decipher why she had picked it up in the first place.

She didn’t know either. It was just there, something to hold, something to fiddle with while she waited for him to answer.

He exhaled slowly, shoulders shifting like he was rolling off the weight of the question. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

Lily tilted her head, studying him. “You? Not having some grand plan?”

His expression darkened just slightly, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Right.”

He looked at her, “you?”

Severus watched as Lily lifted her hand, forming a mock gun with her fingers and pressing it to her temple. She rolled her eyes, exhaling dramatically.

“Dunno. Kill me?” she deadpanned, then let her hand drop. “I wanna move to another city.”

He raised an eyebrow, ignoring the way his stomach twisted at the words. “Where?”

She shrugged, kicking at a loose pebble on the ground. “Somewhere that isn’t here.”

Severus studied her, the way her face tilted toward the open sky like she was already looking past this place, like she had already left. He had always known she wanted more, but hearing it out loud was something else entirely.

None of them had ever wanted to stay in this town. But as kids, and maybe even now, Severus never understood why Lily had wanted to leave it. She lived in a quite normal neighbourhood with employed parents, who loved her. 

Maybe her longing wasn’t so different from his own.

Severus didn’t want to move to another town or chase some distant dream. He didn’t even crave adventure or a new place to discover. What he wanted was simpler, yet harder to grasp. He wanted a life where his parents weren’t there. A life where there was nobody he loathed, nor loathed him. He didn’t want to leave the town, not really. He just wanted to be free of the people in the house. To be alone. To be somewhere that wasn’t home —a place that always felt like a cage.

“So.”

He shot a look at her, which said ‘what again?’ 

Lily exhaled, watching the smoke swirl up toward the streetlights. “NEWTs will be out soon,” she said with a hint of dead enthusiasm.

Severus made a noise in the back of his throat. A noncommittal sound, neither interested nor entirely dismissive.

Lily scoffed. “What? Don’t tell me you don’t care.”

“I don’t care,” he said flatly.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure, Severus Snape, the only person who ever actually enjoyed Potions, doesn’t care about the results of the most important exams we ever took. You can lie better than that.”

A ghost of a smirk played on his lips. “I already know I passed.”

“Arrogant prick,” she muttered, but there was no bite to it.

Severus took another slow drag from his cigarette before speaking. “Grades don’t mean anything. Not really.”

Lily raised an eyebrow, side-eyeing him. “Says the bloke who used to correct Slughorn mid-lecture in his first year.”

He exhaled, tilting his head slightly as he looked at her. “Talent isn’t measured in numbers. A mark on a piece of parchment doesn’t mean you know what the hell you’re doing. It just means you know how to do what they want.”

Lily hummed, considering that. “And what, you think you’re above it?”

“No,” Severus said simply, flicking ash to the side. “But I know better than to pretend it matters.”

She stared at him for a moment, then snorted softly. “Yeah, well. Try telling that to everyone else. Especially the employers.”

Severus wanted to tell her how sure he was of getting a job, how Malfoy promised him a job. But he didn’t. He knew that whatever they had now was too fragile to break with such information. 

Severus glanced at her again, and this time, Lily met his gaze fully. There was something unreadable in her expression—thoughtful, maybe, or just amused. Then, to his surprise, she smiled.

And before he even thought about it, before he could stop himself, he did too.

It was small, barely there, but real. A flicker of something unguarded, something that almost felt natural.

Lily’s stomach twisted in a way she didn’t expect. She wasn’t just impressed—she was shocked. She had seen him smirk, sneer, scowl more times than she could count. But this? A real, genuine smile? It was rare. Maybe even new.

Not that she’d let it show.

She cleared her throat, shifting her weight slightly. “Er–do you know the time?”

Severus blinked as if shaking off whatever moment had just passed. He pulled his sleeve back to check his watch, the smile already slipping away.

“Quarter to eleven.”

“Right,” she said, embracing herself with her jacket. It wasn’t that she cared for getting home late anyway. She knew that she was still living with her parents, so she had to care, but adult life, she had to start allowing it to sink in.

Seeing Severus right now made her realize how soon she has to act to be able to find a place to rent by September and hopefully also a job, an internship or anything by that time to be able to function and live. 

Without a word, they fell into step, their strides naturally syncing as they started walking toward her house. There had been no agreement, no question of are you coming with me? —just the quiet understanding that they would move together.

Lily didn’t think too hard about it. Didn’t question why Severus had started walking in the same direction, why she hadn’t even considered saying goodbye yet. It was just how it was— how it had always been.

She had so much to tell him, so much to ask him, but again, she didn’t even understand how. How did they manage to find one another after years of not talking? Lily didn’t even say that she forgave him. He didn’t apologise to her again after two years. For some reason, she didn’t bother to say, but it still lingered in the back of her mind. 

It was strange, this quiet space they had found themselves in. No resentment, no apologies, no grand reconciliation—just this, walking side by side as if nothing had ever gone wrong. As if they hadn’t spent years on opposite sides of something vast and unspeakable. As if the doom of their friendship never was to happen and that day was never to come. 

But it did, Lily thought. It happened, and maybe it was to happen because of the way they were already drifting apart. Everything had gone wrong. And it had been vast. And yet… here they were. 

Fate.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Not unhappy, exactly. But not at peace, either. It unsettled her, how easily they had fallen back into step, how natural it felt to match her stride to his. There was something disorienting about it, like stepping into a memory that had never truly ended.

Lily wasn’t naïve enough to pretend everything had healed. She wasn’t even sure she wanted it to. Some wounds needed to scar over, needed to be seen, to be acknowledged. And yet, for all her lingering questions, for all the things unsaid, she didn’t stop walking.

Neither did he.

Severus kept his gaze fixed ahead, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, fingers curling unconsciously around nothing. He didn’t understand how this had happened. How she had gone from a ghost—something distant, untouchable—to walking beside him again, like all those years hadn’t unravelled into something unfixable.

She hadn’t forgiven him. He knew that.

But she hadn’t left, either.

That should have reassured him, but instead, it twisted inside him, a slow, sick kind of confusion. He didn’t know what she wanted. Didn’t know if she wanted anything at all. Maybe she was just here because it was her way of thanking him. After all, it was easier than just ignoring him after an incident as such. 

He missed her. Of course, he did. He bloody missed having her around, seeing her, talking to her, being near her and completely careless and unaware of the world surrounding them. And that certainly wasn’t what their friendship was like for its last years. A place where the fundamental differentiation, bias, stigmas and whatnot were embedded into children’s minds at the mere age of eleven would never be a perfect place for him and her. Especially when the world had already decided they were meant to stand on opposite sides, no matter how desperately he wished otherwise.

They both changed and there was no denying there, but something clicked in both of them once they saw each other after all these years again. Something that made them to be them – Lily and Sev, just the way they always were when it was the two of them. They were just Lily and Severus, two kids that had once known each other so unspeakably well, before all the noise of the world made them forget what it was like to simply be .

“Will you keep on stayin’ in Spinner’s End?” She asked, not really caring whether he did or not.

“Dunno, depends.” Then he, with a tint of curiosity, asked, “you?”

“Dunno either. I wanna move out though. Somewhere.”

Somewhere. That could mean anywhere, or it could mean nowhere at all.

Lily had always been like that—talking about the future as though it were something she could reach out and touch, like it was hers for the taking. And maybe it was. She was bright, ambitious. The kind of person people naturally gravitated toward. She’d find her way. She always did.

Severus, though? He wasn’t so sure.

“London?” he asked, tapping on the top of the pack in his pocket with a practiced motion.

She shrugged. “Maybe. I just know I can’t stay in Cokeworth forever.”

He hummed, and they walked a few more paces in silence. He could picture Lily in some small flat with a terrible view, books stacked on every available surface, the kettle always on. She’d make a home anywhere, he thought.

But what he couldn’t picture—what he actively tried not to picture—was himself in that version of her life.

He had no illusions about the path he was on. No matter how much he had tried to convince himself that knowledge was power, that his talents would take him further than some Ministry job, he knew the truth: his future was already written in ink.

A future Malfoy had helped arrange for him. A future that meant standing on the side of the war that Lily would never—could never—be part of.

And yet, for all the certainty in that, for all the ways he had steeled himself to accept it, he still felt that pull toward her, that old, familiar thread that had never quite snapped.

“I think you’d like London,” he said at last.

She smiled, though it was small. “Yeah?”

He nodded, shoving his hands deeper into his coat pockets. “Yeah. Too many people, too loud, too much happening at once. You’d fit right in.”

Lily laughed, and for a moment, just a moment, it was like nothing had ever changed.

“What does that mean?!” She asked while laughing heartily.

“Well, don’t get me wrong but you were sorted in Gryffindor for a reason,” he said as his mouth twitched—something almost like a smile, but not quite.  

Lily raised an eyebrow, still grinning. “Oh, come on, just say it.”  

He tilted his head slightly. “It means you’ve always had a way of making yourself heard. Centre of attention, always loud, very… present.”  

Lily scoffed. “Present?”  

Severus glanced at her, and there was something unreadable in his expression. “You fill up a space, Lily. Always have. People look at you, listen to you. You make them care.”  

She blinked at that, her smile faltering just a little. Because she could tell—she knew him well enough to tell—that he hadn’t meant it as an insult. Not really. There was something almost… admiring in the way he said it, like he was speaking a fact he had long since accepted.  

But it wasn’t just that, was it? It wasn’t just admiration. It was something else, something quieter, something sad.  

She tilted her head, bumping her shoulder lightly against his as they walked. “And what about you, then?”  

“What about me?”  

Lily smirked. “You say all that as if you’re not impossible to ignore yourself.”  

He let out a short, dry snicker, but there was no real humour in it. “People notice me for different reasons, Lily.”  

She frowned at that. “That’s not true.”  

“It is.” 

She didn’t argue, didn’t press, but something about the way she fell silent told him she didn’t believe him. That she never had.

“I noticed you down there.” She pointed at the playground that stood where it has always been as the two were already in her neighbourhood.

“Yeah, because I wore a black jacket and trousers that were tight on me at the age of, what, nine? And I also called you a witch, and you took it as an insult,” he looked at her. “It’s quite difficult to ignore someone like that–”

Lily snorted. “Oh, shut up. That’s not why.”

Severus raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.

She sighed, rolling her eyes as if she were reluctant to say it. “You were different. Not just because of the magic. There was something about you—I don’t know. You were… sharp.”

“Sharp?” He echoed, as if testing the word on his tongue.

She nodded. “Like—you saw things other people didn’t. You understood things they didn’t. Even back then.”

Severus didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t used to hearing himself described that way, especially not by her.

Lily tilted her head. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

He exhaled, looking away. “I believe you saw what you wanted to see.”

She rolled her eyes again. “Oh, for Merlin’s sake. You always do that.”

“Do what?”

“Diminish yourself. Act like you’re nothing special when you know damn well you are.”

His mouth twitched again, that almost-smile returning, though this time it was more self-deprecating than anything else. “I don’t think anyone’s ever accused me of that before.”

“Well, someone should,” she muttered. “You’d deserve it.”

They walked a few more paces in silence, the playground now behind them, the familiar houses of her street looming ahead. The air was still, thick with the kind of quiet that only ever existed in the late hours of the night.

It felt weird for Severus to hear her say that. It felt as though she was admitting it to him, admitting that he was special. Not just talented, not just clever, but special . And not in the way others saw him—not in the way Slughorn had, or his housemates did. Not as a means to an end. Not as a resource.

But as a person.

It unsettled him. Made something shift uneasily in his chest. Because it was Lily, and because it was her saying it, and because it felt dangerous to let himself believe her.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She was staring ahead, her expression unreadable, but there was something about the way she held herself that told him she meant every word.

He wanted to scoff, to make some dry remarks, to brush it off like he always did. But for once, he couldn’t. He just let it be; he hasn’t done anything to be her way for too long now, and it would be a lie to say that he hasn’t missed it.

She was his best friend for far more for him to be able to hate her. 

He had no right to hate her anyway, he thought. He was an ugly fuck who hurt her with his foul vile mouth, and she was … her. She was all the seasons at its peak, every sunset and sunrise in summer, every autumn wind that carried the scent of rain, every quiet snowfall that made the world softer. She was the warmth and light and every goodness within him that he managed to lose, and yet she was still there, still talking to him, still looking at him like he was worth knowing.

It made him feel weird in the head.

It made him want to grab his hair and pull his head down to the ground And scream until the feeling left him, until he wasn’t drowning in it nor choking on the weight of what he’d lost and never could have.

But instead, he just walked with her, hands curled into fists, head down and staring on the ground like if his eyes met hers, he’d fall apart completely and painfully.

In the last two years, he had gotten used to his existence without her around. He didn’t quite know how to exist around her anymore. He had lost too much of himself to be able to do so, at least, he thought so right now. 

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

Lily turned her head slightly, looking at him. “Why not?”

“Because”, he hesitated, searching for the words, “you need to mean it. Not pity me.”

She frowned. “But I wouldn’t say anything if they all meant shite and bonkers.”

Merlin, hand him a gun please, he thought. He let out a breath through his nose, sharp and unsteady. 

“That’s the problem,” he muttered.

Lily slowed her steps, her eyes still on him, searching. “What is?”

He shook his head, biting down on the inside of his cheek. It was too much—this, her, the way she was looking at him. He wasn’t built for it. He didn’t know how to stand there and be seen by her, not when he had spent so long convincing himself that he had disappeared from her world entirely.

“You mean it,” he finally said, voice low, almost bitter. “You always do.”

She exhaled, crossing her arms. “And that bothers you?”

He clenched his jaw. Yes. It did. Because if she meant it, then it was real. And if it was real, then he had to accept that she still saw something in him. And he didn’t know if he could live with that.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered instead. “You should hate me.”

“I did,” she admitted, and his stomach twisted. “For some time, I did. And maybe a part of me still does.”

He flinched, but she wasn’t finished.

“But hating you never stopped me from—” She hesitated, but let her words continue. “It never stopped me from remembering who you were before all of this. Before we ruined everything.”

We . Not you.

It should have been a comfort, but it only made his throat feel tighter.

“Lily,” he said, quiet, confused, unsure what he was even asking for.

She gave him a small, sad smile. “You shouldn’t say things like that either.”

But he did, among the many things he had told her before. Among the many other things that hurt her. 

She knew from the way he looked at her, only one question ran through his head. Why? Why was she here next to him after all this time?

Lily smiled weakly yet sincerely, shaking her head. “I’m here because you helped me out, or—whatever you want to call that.”

He frowned, shifting on his feet. “Helped you out?”

“Yes, Severus. Helped. You know, when you threw those guys around in the middle of the street like nobody had asked you to.”

His jaw tightened. “I didn’t throw them.”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “No? Then what would you call it?”

“I handled it.”

She gave a dry laugh. “Oh, you handled it, did you?”

He crossed his arms. “I didn’t overreact.”

“You absolutely did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did .”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

She huffed, rubbing her temples. “Severus, they were already pissed enough, they would’ve left anyway.”

He let out a sharp breath, shaking his head. “You don’t know that.”

She threw her hands up. “And you don’t know that they wouldn’t ! But you went ahead and lost it anyway, like you always do.”

He narrowed his eyes. “So I should’ve just let them—”

“I could’ve handled it,” she snapped, using his own words against him.

He let out a frustrated sound, dragging a hand through his hair. “Right, because you just love handling things on your own.”

“Merlin, you’re impossible.”

Severus scoffed, turning his head to her direction. “And you’re—” He stopped himself, biting his tongue.

She just stared at him for a moment, lips pressing together like she was trying to hold back a smirk. Then, out of nowhere, she tilted her head slightly and said, “You grew out of those jeans.”

Severus blinked.

“What?”

Lily shrugged. “Your jeans. They used to fit you properly. Now they don’t.”

He looked down at himself, utterly thrown off. “What the hell are you on about?”

Her smirk grew. “I’m just saying. You used to drown in them. And now, well…” She gestured vaguely at his legs.

He scowled, utterly bewildered. “Are we seriously talking about my jeans right now?”

She hummed, as if considering it. “Maybe.”

Severus stared at her, utterly at a loss. “You’re mad.”

Lily just grinned. “And you’re still impossible.” Then, before he could argue, she turned on her heel and kept walking, leaving him standing there, frowning down at his damn jeans like they had personally offended him.

He looked at her once again; he wasn’t mad at her, just wanted to laugh at the height of the situation. Hell, he didn’t even understand what the fuck is going on right now.

“What do you want?” He sneered through his teeth, even though he didn’t mean it to. “Lily?” 

Her name slipped out softer, almost like an afterthought, as if whatever he’d said before had been too sharp, too rude to be meant for her.

Lily just shrugged. “Dunno. Just here.”

He raised his gaze from the ground, their eyes meeting one another. They stopped for a minute just to be. Just to be. The night stretched between them, quiet and thick, wrapping around their stillness like a held breath. The air smelled like damp earth and distant smoke, like something lingering just beyond reach. Severus didn’t know what to do with this moment, with her standing there, looking at him like he was someone she still knew. Like he hadn’t become some stranger she barely recognized.

She shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here. And yet, neither of them moved.

Lily tilted her head, expression unreadable. “You always did that.”

He blinked. “Did what?”

She smiled, small and knowing. “Look at me like that. Like you’re trying to figure out if I’m real.”

He forced a scoff. “You say the weirdest things.”

She hummed, rocking back on her heels. “Maybe.”

He exhaled, glancing away. “I still don’t know what you want.”

She shook her head in a silly manner with a smile. “You don’t have to have a reason to do anything” said Lily smilingly. 

But you have to, Severus thought. One has to have a reason to do anything, he believed. An ambition, a will, a drive to wake up every and each morning. His jaw tightened, something prickling uncomfortably in his chest. “That’s ridiculous,” he muttered. “People don’t just—” He gestured vaguely, frustration creeping into his voice. “They don’t just do things for no reason.”  

Lily’s smile didn’t falter. “Sure they do.”  

He stared at her, disbelieving. “Like what?”  

“Like this.” She lifted her arms slightly, palms up, as if to gesture at the whole scene—the two of them standing here, together, after everything. “I’m here. You’re here. No grand reason. No secret motive. Just… because.”  

Severus clenched his fists, nails pressing into his palms. It was such a Lily thing to say, to believe. But it made no sense. It wasn’t how the world worked.  

“You always needed things to mean something,” she continued, softer now. “I liked that about you, you know.”  

He swallowed. His voice, when it came, was low. “And what do I mean now?”  

Lily didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze flickered over his face, searching. Whatever she was looking for, he didn’t know if she found it.  

“Dunno,” she finally admitted. “But does it matter?”  

Of course it mattered. It was the only thing that ever did. But the way she was looking at him, calm and steady, made him feel like maybe, just for tonight, it didn’t have to.  

The silence stretched between them again, softer this time. Less like a held breath, more like an exhale. 

They started to walk again, until Lily shortly after stopped him again to say, “like when you called me Mudblood, do you think it was because you meant the word?”

Oh, she brought this up, he thought, wishing he could bury himself alive at the moment. Disappear into the ground, into the cracks of the pavement beneath them. Anything to avoid standing here, caught beneath her gaze, caught between the truth and whatever answer wouldn’t make this worse.

He didn’t even know how to respond, what to say, how to say. For a passing minute, Severus didn’t even know if what she said was a rhetorical question after all. If she wanted an answer, or if she just wanted to see if he would try to give one. He wet his lips, searching for words that wouldn’t come. His mind felt blank, yet unbearably loud at the same time, filled with echoes of the past, with the weight of that moment, with the sharp, ugly words that had ripped them apart. If she wanted an answer, or if she just wanted to see if he would try to give one.

But she was looking at him now, waiting.

His throat felt tight. “What do you want me to say?”

Lily tilted her head slightly, unreadable. “I just want to know.”

“I said it–” He looked at her once again to make sure he could continue. “Just– Just to make you go away.”  

The words felt strange as they left his mouth, like he wasn’t sure they belonged to him. But they were true. Or at least, the closest thing to it that he could manage.

Lily’s expression didn’t change. She just watched him, waiting, giving him space to go on.

Severus exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “I was angry. And I knew it would hurt you.” His jaw clenched. “That’s all I wanted in that moment.”  

He hated saying it. Hated the way it sounded aloud, the way the words sat between them, heavy and awful and true.  

Lily nodded slowly, like she was taking in every syllable. “And did it?”  

His stomach twisted. “Did it what?”  

“Hurt me.” Her voice was quiet, but not weak. Not accusing. Just… there.  

Severus shut his eyes for a second, willing himself not to fall apart. “I know it did.”  

Lily exhaled through her nose, something almost like a laugh, but it held no amusement. “You don’t know, Sev.”  

He blinked at her, but she didn’t explain.  

“I was just–” She ran a hand through her hair, sighing. “I was just wondering if you ever thought about why it was so easy to say. That word, out of everything else.”  

Severus stiffened.  

His voice grew quieter, like the weight of it all was settling onto his shoulders again. “Because it worked, didn’t it? That word worked the most because it was the last thing you’d expect me to use against you.” He wanted to continue saying how he hadn’t even thought about it—not really—not in the way she meant. How it had been sitting there, buried somewhere in the back of his mind, waiting for the worst possible moment to claw its way out. How it hadn’t felt like a choice at all, but something ugly and instinctive, something meant to wound in the most precise way.

Something flickered in her eyes, like she scanned his thoughts, yet pretended to not see them. “Yeah,” she admitted with a small chuckle. “It did.”

Severus clenched his jaw, forcing himself not to look away. He didn’t know if that was what she wanted to hear, or if it even made a difference now. But it was all he had to give.

Lily sighed through her nose, glancing up at the dark sky. “You ever think about how things could’ve gone differently?”

“Every fucking day.” He admitted painfully, feeling his throat strangely tighten.

She nodded, like she expected that answer. Like she’d thought about it too.

“You see, Severus, I have played that day too many times, and–”, she started playing with her hair to stop the tightness in her throat, “and all I came to realize is that sometimes you don’t have to have a reason to say or do anything. You just do things. Sometimes things happen, but it’s the things before that happened; things that led you to do or say those things.”

She still kept playing with her hair as she continued. “For instance, that incident is what made us be here at this time in such a way. Not directly made it happen, but it happened regardless. But what really, but really, worried me was even if the word you said was unexpected, blah blah, allat, it was the things before that led for it to happen. I felt like that was the final note to our friendship because we were fading away. Involuntarily or not, it happened too, but this time with a reason.”

Severus felt like a child being scolded, like she was peeling him apart layer by layer, exposing something raw and aching beneath. His stomach churned, and for the first time in years, he felt something dangerously close to tears pressing at the back of his throat. It was a strange, unwelcome feeling—one he didn’t know what to do with.

He didn’t speak for a minute. Didn’t even know what to say.

Lily’s words hung in the air, heavier than he could hold. It was the things before. Not just the moment, not just the word, but the slow unraveling of everything they were.

And she was right.

That was the worst part.

He exhaled sharply, looking down at his hands like they would somehow offer him the right words. But they were empty. He was empty.

“I don’t know how to—” He stopped, shaking his head. His voice felt foreign in his own mouth. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Lily gave him a small, sad smile. “I don’t think I want you to say anything, Sev. I just wanted to see if you ever thought about it the same way I did.”

He swallowed hard. He wished he could say no. Wished he could say she was wrong. That it had been a single moment, a single mistake, a single word. But deep down, he knew better.

“You know it hurt a lot, and maybe still does.” She said with a small nostalgic smile at those days. “It hurt even more because even after that I had the urge to defend you against everyone. Against all my friends, because you were my best friend. My only friend who wasn’t friends with any of mine, and that never bothered.” Her voice also started to crack piece by piece, but she gathered herself by exhaling slowly, pressing her lips together as if she could hold back the cracks before they splintered into something irreparable. She tucked her hair behind her ear, a habit she never really outgrew, and blinked up at the sky like it could take away the weight of what she was saying.

Severus watched her, his stomach twisting. He hated this—hated that she still had the instinct to protect him, even in memory. Hated that he had taken something so pure, so unwavering, and crushed it in his own hands.

Lily let out a breathy chuckle, one that held no real amusement. “I remember Marlene saying I was an idiot for still caring. That you wouldn’t have done the same for me.”

His mouth went dry. He wanted to argue—to tell her she was wrong, that of course he would have, that of course he did. But the words stuck to his ribs like tar. Because she wasn’t wrong, not completely. He hadn’t been there in the way she needed. He had chosen the wrong people, made the wrong decisions, let his bitterness build walls where bridges should have been.

Lily shook her head, as if shaking off the thought entirely. “I don’t know why I’m saying this. It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

But it did. It mattered more than anything.

Severus clenched his fists at his sides, staring at the cracks in the pavement beneath them. “I would have.” His voice was rough, barely above a whisper. “I would have defended you.”

Hell, I would have killed for you, he wanted to say, but he knew it would scare her off. Or maybe wouldn’t. But she didn’t have to know that. He hoped she never had to know that. 

Lily turned her head slightly, studying him with those eyes that had always seen through him too easily. “Yeah?”

“Always.”

Severus felt the ghost of a smile tug at the corner of his lips after saying it.

Lily caught it, and for some reason, she smiled too—small, fleeting, but real. Like something unspoken had settled between them, something fragile yet understood.

They walked in silence after that, side by side, the night cool against their skin. The streets were quiet, the world around them dimly lit by streetlamps that flickered every now and then. Neither of them spoke, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was just them, just like it used to be, but with years of distance resting between them like a shadow that neither of them acknowledged.

By the time they reached her home, the clock above the doorway read 00:42. Lily exhaled softly, rocking on her heels for a second before turning to him.

“Well,” she said, voice lighter than before, though her eyes still held remnants of everything unsaid. “This is me.”

Severus nodded.

She hesitated for half a second, then held out her hand. “Truce?”

He blinked at her. For a moment, all he could see was her as a child, grinning wildly, mischief dancing in her green eyes as she spat into her palm and then shoved it toward him. Pirate’s promise, Sev, you have to do it too. Merlin, how he hated it. 

His lips twitched, just slightly. But before he could decide whether to take it, Lily made the choice for him.

She grasped his hand firmly, then without thinking, without really knowing why, she tugged him forward and hugged him. 

It was a quick embrace, barely a few seconds, but it sent a shock through him.

She smelled the same, but now also with a tint of nicotine in her hair. 

“For old times’ sake,” she mumbled against his shoulder.

Severus barely had time to react before she was pulling away, clearing her throat like she hadn’t just done that. Like she didn’t just rewrite the entire night with one simple, impulsive gesture.

“Goodnight, Sev.”

And then she was gone, slipping inside and leaving him standing there, staring at the door like he wasn’t quite sure if any of it had actually happened.

“What the fuck.” He mumbled to himself as he started to head back home.

Chapter Text

The end of July felt to be no different than any other Julys, at least for Severus Snape. He had gotten every grade he had predicted for himself; the crowning ones being an O in Defence Against the Dark Arts and another O in Potions. He was very content with himself, even if he had earlier claimed how it didn’t matter to him. 

He hadn’t seen Lily since that night, and it had been a week and three days. Suffice to say, he believed it to be the best for both of them. There was nothing to discuss anyway, he thought. 

But he would be a massive liar if he ever claimed that he did not overplay that day in his head hundreds of times for the past ten days. Maybe a small teeny-tiny part of him even hoped to see her again. ​​

His days had turned unbearably dull in the meantime. There was nothing to do but wait. He wasn’t even sure what he was waiting for. That was what Malfoy told him. He had promised him a job, what kind, how much paying, where and when he wasn’t even aware, and that bothered him even more than he’d like to admit to himself. He needed to not be at home. 

His father hadn’t been home since April, according to his mother who had been unsettled ever since. Anytime Severus would come back home, she would ask him bizarre questions, asking him if he had seen any of his father’s ‘mates’. He never quite understood either of them. Not like he ever wanted to anyway. 

He had answered all of his own questions without bothering anyone, a long time ago, in his fifth year, when he had heard about his mother’s heritage and family from that sodding Slughorn. But knowing all that made nothing better. In fact, it was a knowledge of no use because his reality outside Hogwarts for the big part of his life had been this miserable and broken, or never even built to be broken, household on the Spinner’s End. 

His father was a brute, and an awful kind. The kind that had no clue why he was always so goddamn angry. The kind that came home not for a roof and a meal, but for spitting out the day’s venom on the nearest person he could find.

And most of the time, well, he presumed until he got taller, although he is not so sure since his father hadn’t seen him eye to eye since last year’s September, it would be him who’d get the beating. Who would be the one to take his constant venom onto himself. And the truth was, Tobias Snape never needed a reason, a reason directly linked to Severus. 

A sharp answer to his mother, an untied shoe, a look held a second too long. He used to think, back then, that maybe his father hit him because he was defending her in some twisted way. But even that didn’t make sense. They weren’t even functioning like a married couple, who cared for one another. They were just coexisting, at times arguing, at times bickering, and at times even shagging but Severus was too traumatized to admit that he had walked on them once as a kid. 

It was revolting enough to consider that they had, at some point, been something close to normal. That there had been a time when his mother, before she became this strange, withdrawn woman, had chosen to be with Tobias Snape. Chosen him, out of all people, with all her intelligence, all her knowledge, all her bloody heritage.

And the worst part was not having any sense of logical explanation for her choice. 

Maybe that was why she had lost herself so early. 

He had watched her for years, searching for some sign of life in her, something beyond the weary, vacant woman who sat by the window or at the kitchen table. He was nearly certain it had once been there. But when? And for how long?

The last time she had truly seemed alive, not just breathing, but living; he must have been five. Maybe younger. It was a hazy memory, one he wasn’t even sure was real. He had been small enough to stand beside her at the stove, watching as she made soup. And she had explained everything to him—the ingredients, the measurements, how the heat worked. It had all seemed so important then, like she was passing on some great knowledge. Like she actually wanted to teach him something.

After that, she had started slipping away. Or maybe she had already slipped, and he had just been too stupid to see it.

He had never asked her about it. Never asked how she had met Tobias, or how they had ended up here, in this house with its peeling wallpaper and its permanent chill.

He knew better than to ask questions with no answers.

“You’ve got an owl.” She said dismissively, not even using his name, but again, why should she? They were the only people home. 

It was late at night, so he wasn’t sure who the owl would be from. Malfoy’s owls would arrive early in the morning, and it would usually be some big fancy-looking owl. A fat, furry, gray owl with an eye missing. Definitely not Malfoy, he thought.

Severus unlatched the window allowing the owl to sweep in with an indignant rustle of feathers, dropping the letter directly onto the table before perching on the back of a chair. As it took off, it hit the wall with a soft thud, leaving a black stain behind. The owl, probably flying through the rain, was dirty anyway, and the mark lingered on the stone wall as the bird disappeared into the night.

His mother didn’t even glance up.

He looked at the envelope in his hand, right after he closed the window.

‘Eugene B. Burke’ with an awful handwriting, but not so much worse than his. 

Ah yes, he recognized the name. Gene Burke, the brother of Eustace Burke. Sons of the famous Caractus Burke. 

He knew Eugene. He was a year below, not quite a friend but not an enemy either. One of those rare Slytherins who didn’t fit the mold—not like his brother, Eustace. It wasn’t that Eustace was a purebloodist, maybe he was, but the lad was an utter perv and very greedy, much like his father many claimed. Eugene had none of that in him. If anything, he seemed to be a very silent kid who didn’t mix himself with any of the politics within the house despite being very close to Regulus Black.

He remembered how once the two of them were in the infirmary together. One of the few times Severus had ever agreed to lay there. The boy was there too. He had freshly gotten a scar over his right eye, a nasty thing, given to him through a possible fight or joke that had gone wrong. Or maybe even bullying. The kid didn’t look like he could even hurt a fly let alone join a fight, but surprisingly enough, none other man than Sirius Black loathed the guy quite a lot. Reason was unknown to Severus, but it was a detail hard to miss. 

He looked at the letter once again, thinking it can wait another time, and grabbed his jacket.

“Ma, where’s my wand?”

“Check the drawer over there.” She said not lifting her face from the book she was reading.

“I’ll be out.” He said after yanking his wand from the drawer and walking out the door, not really caring if his mother protested this idea.

It wasn’t that dark outside yet. The sky seemed to be fighting the sun at the moment. Yet Severus was determined to go out. Just to be out. He couldn’t stay home. It felt empty to be in a place where you were no longer needed, wanted, and perhaps wished to be seen. 

The wind greeted him as he stepped outside, a sharp contrast to the warmth of the house. It carried the scent of damp stone and chimney smoke, the familiar smell of Spinner’s End in the evening. The street was mostly empty, save for an old man walking his dog and a woman closing her curtains across the way. Severus pulled his coat tighter around himself and set off, his wand slipping into the pocket with practiced ease.

He hated the odd moist air that would continue along the streets of the Spinner’s End. There was no hesitation in the fact that the place was even more miserable and, one could say,  as dangerous as the Knockturn Alley. 

Before the sun went down, the windows would be shut, the doors bolted, and the streets abandoned save for the few who had nowhere else to be. The ones like him.

Severus walked without direction, letting his feet carry him wherever they pleased. He passed by the old mill, its rusting machinery barely visible through the cracked glass of its windows. Further down, the street lights flickered to life, humming softly in the encroaching darkness. A pair of boys, no older than ten, skulked past, muttering in low voices, their faces half-hidden beneath the brims of their caps. He recognized the look in their eyes. He had worn it once, too.

He continued past the last row of houses, reaching the bridge where the town gave way to the river. The water moved sluggishly beneath him, thick and black like oil in the dim light. He leaned against the railing, watching it swirl in slow, aimless currents. The world here felt heavier, as if the weight of the past clung to the stones, to the air itself. He took a breath and let it out slowly.

He had taken a book with himself. Well, it wasn’t a book, it was more like notes he’d taken from a book. At times like these, he would leave home, go somewhere to be alone and work on stuff. It was usually the kind of stuff nobody would have approved of being done by a sulky seventeen year old like him. 

The spells, the curses, the incantations, the intent. It all fascinated him beyond the level of mere curiosity. It was an obsession, though he wouldn’t have called it that. Not aloud.

Magic had rules—strict ones, ancient ones—but Severus had never been satisfied with boundaries. There was always something deeper to be uncovered, something more potent waiting beneath the surface. He wanted to know why spells worked the way they did, how intent could shape magic, how a simple shift in pronunciation could alter an entire effect. The Dark Arts, as most called them, were not merely about destruction. They were about control. About power.

And he needed control.

He flipped through his notes, the parchment rough under his fingers, ink smudged where he had written too fast, too urgently. Some of these spells weren’t in any book at Hogwarts. Some he had crafted himself, twisted from half-formed theories and old, forgotten texts. A hex that could cut deeper than a blade. A jinx that left its victim breathless and gasping, as though their own lungs had turned against them.

He wasn’t even sure why he wanted to learn these things anymore. What good was power if it had nowhere to go? 

His grip tightened on the edges of the parchment. A gust of wind pulled at his coat, making the pages flutter. He could hear his own breath, steady but hollow, mixing with the sounds of the river and distant traffic.

Then, as if drawn by some invisible thread, his eyes lifted.

And there she was.

Lily Evans.

Walking along the river’s edge, alone.

“Ah, for fuck’s sake.” Severus muttered under his breath. 

He wasn’t angry, nor sad. He was just unhappily surprised.

It was always like this. Just when he thought he had some semblance of control, the universe found a way to remind him how little of it he actually possessed.

His fingers twitched around the edges of his notes, the inked words blurring as his focus wavered. Ten days. Ten days since he'd last seen her. Since he'd told himself it was better this way. Since he'd resolved— tried to resolve—to let go.

And yet, there she was.

His first instinct was to leave. To slip away before she noticed him, before something in her face—whether it was pity, disappointment, or indifference—could scrape against his already raw nerves. But his feet wouldn’t move.

Instead, he watched.

She was walking with her Walkman, wired in, singing, making weird movements.

Severus hoped that if he’d just not make a noise, pretend like he ceased to exist, maybe she would have not noticed him. But it was still light outside too. 

And, of course, the universe had never been particularly kind to Severus Snape.

Lily turned slightly, mid-step, her head tilting back as if she had sensed something—someone—watching. Her gaze swept over the bridge, the empty stretch of pavement, and then—

Her eyes locked onto his.

Severus felt his stomach drop.

For a second, she just stared, frozen in place, her mouth slightly open as if caught mid-lyric. He could hear the tinny leak of music from her headphones, some Muggle song he didn’t recognize. Then, as if reality clicked back into place, she reached up and yanked the headphones down to her neck.

“Sev?”

His jaw clenched. There it was. That awful, familiar lilt of his name, wrapped in something he couldn’t place. Surprise? Uncertainty?

She took a step toward him.

No, no, no.

He looked away sharply, pretending to be deeply invested in the murky water below. Maybe if he ignored her, she’d just—

“Were you watching me?”

He exhaled sharply through his nose, dragging a hand down his face. “Hard not to when you’re—” He gestured vaguely toward her. “—flailing about like a lunatic.”

Lily scoffed, but she was grinning. “I was dancing .”

“Right.”

Her smile softened, and he hated it. Because it meant she was comfortable. It meant she thought she could just walk up to him after ten days of silence, after everything , and it would be fine .

It wasn’t fine.

But still, when she took another step forward, closing the distance between them, he didn’t move away.

“What are you doin?”

“Observing,” he said and then looked around to find a way to continue his words, “the nature.” 

“Right.” She said while nodding her head, trying to hold her chuckle. 

Severus scowled. “Glad you find it amusing.”

Lily shrugged, her grin unfading. “Just never took you for the type to appreciate nature .”

“Shows how little you know, then.” His tone was flat, but there was an edge to it—something sharp, something self-defensive.

She bit her lip, her gaze flicking to the notes clutched in his hand. “So, are you studying nature, or just brooding at it?”

He let out a dry laugh, shaking his head. “What do you want, Evans?”

Lily hesitated for half a second. Just long enough for him to notice. Just long enough to realize how she is Evans, not Lily. 

And then she shrugged again. “I was just walking. Heard someone muttering to themselves and thought, huh, that sounds miserable enough to be Severus.”

He scoffed. "I wasn't muttering."

“You literally just muttered right now.”

“Brilliant observation,” he deadpanned.

She huffed out a small laugh, but her expression softened again. Her fingers played with the cord of her headphones, twisting and untwisting it. “Sev…”

His stomach clenched.

No. No, he did not want to do this. Not here. Not now.

“You look well,” he said abruptly, his voice colder than he intended.

Lily blinked. “Er—thanks?”

“Seems like you've been enjoying yourself.”

Her brow furrowed. “I—?”

He nodded toward her Walkman, his lip curling slightly. “Dancing around, singing. Must be nice.”

“Severus,” she sighed, “it's just music.”

“Right,” he said, looking away again. “Just music.”

Silence stretched between them, tangled and heavy. The last bits of daylight clung stubbornly to the sky, casting long shadows over the bridge.

Lily shifted, crossing her arms. “Are we gonna do this thing where we pretend we don’t know each other?”

Severus stared at the river, not looking her way. “Maybe we should .”

“But listen–”

“Lily, I have thought a lot about it. In fact, that has been all I was thinking of lately. And I–” He looked at her face, realizing how hesitantly confused she is at the tone of his voice. “And I jus’ thought the best would be for us to just– I dunno. Act nice and jus’ wave to one another at times?”

“Okay.” She said smilingly and sat next to him, not having any of the bullshit he just told her. 

Severus furrowed his brows, trying to understand what was going on and why this Lily agreed so easily. 

“So. You like Bowie?” 

“What?”

“Oh God, Sev, don’t tell me you don’t know Bowie. David Bowie?”

“I’ve heard of Bowie. But– Yeah, no.”

“Well, you should.”

She took her headphones and tried to put them on him. His hair had become sort of wavy, maybe because it was very clean today. Obviously, he saw the attempt to put the headphones on him as a threat and shot with “oi, stoppit,” winging his arms around like she was some bee.

At that moment, Lily saw her Sev. 

The same awkward, fidgety boy who used to flinch at the idea of anything unfamiliar, who had once squinted at a Muggle toaster like it was some kind of cursed artifact. The same Sev who, years ago, had nearly hexed a butterfly out of sheer surprise when it landed on his sleeve.   

She let out a short laugh, shaking her head.  

“Oh, come on, don’t be such a baby,” she said, reaching for him again.  

“I'm not a— Lily, I swear—” He ducked, but she was quicker, and before he could bat her hands away, the headphones were over his ears. His lips parted slightly, an expression of immediate discomfort flickering across his face.   

Lily pressed play.  

A slow, eerie hum. The opening chords of Space Oddity.  

Severus blinked. His hands twitched like he was debating whether to rip the headphones off, but then… he hesitated. The sound changed, shifting into something bigger, something more expansive. Lily could tell he was listening now. His shoulders relaxed, just a little.   

She watched, chin resting on her palm. “Weird, isn’t it?”

Severus exhaled sharply through his nose, which she knew meant he was trying very hard not to admit she was right about something. “Hmph.”  

Lily grinned. “Just wait till the vocals start.”

Lily glanced at Severus. The Severus she was looking at was no longer a boy she reckoned from before. This Severus had broader shoulders, sharper features, prickly facial hair, more manly defined eyebrows, and a presence that seemed to take up more space than he had before. He was still thin, too thin, but the way he stood now, with his back slightly straighter and his shoulders broader, made him look taller, more imposing. Indeed, he had grown taller for only a few inches, but enough to make him seem more elongated. He wasn’t tall by any stretch, but his height was enough to make him be considered an average height in Britain.

His face had become more angular, his jaw sharper, his cheekbones more defined. There was no mistaking the fact that he looked older, more grown-up, and it unsettled Lily. When she thought back to the Severus she used to know, the one she’d avoided and watched from a distance, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly when this shift had happened. It wasn’t like he’d gone to bed one night as a boy and woken up the next morning as a man; it had been gradual, like the slow creep of time itself, and she hadn’t noticed until it was too late.

And that, more than anything, was what unsettled her; the fact that she didn’t know how and when it had happened. 

Lily turned her gaze back to the river, realizing that she probably looked like she was analyzing the poor boy’s entirety and just let the two stay in silence. 

She, herself, was unaware of how much she herself had changed. Of course, she wouldn’t have seen her own changes, not really—because change never announces itself when you’re living inside it. It just happens. In slow, creeping tides. You wake up one day and your hair falls differently, your voice carries weight it never used to, your laughter sounds foreign.

And across from her, Severus was staring.

He hadn’t meant to, not at first. But now he couldn’t look away.

It wasn’t his best friend he was looking at. Not the girl he used to trail after, not the girl who used to press wildflowers into his hands like secrets. No.

It wasn’t her.

Or at least, it wasn’t only her.

Because whatever Lily had become, she wasn’t a child anymore. And it struck him like a slap across the cheek—how utterly, unforgivably grown she looked.

Her mouth had a new firmness to it, her eyes something deeper, unreadable. Her body moved differently now—graceful, sure, the edges of girlhood worn down and reshaped into something too complex for his mind to wrap itself around.

And those eyes— God, those eyes. They had always been green, yes, but he didn’t know what lived behind them anymore. He didn’t know what thoughts or feelings stirred under the calm surface of her gaze. It was like looking at a face you missed so much, but now that it is so close, you don’t recognize the voice behind it. 

It scared him a little, how unfamiliar she felt.

And she must have felt his stare, because her head turned again, slowly.

“You like Bowie, eh?” She said with a smile forming on her lips.

Something tugged at the edge of his mouth—not quite a reaction, not quite restrained. Just a twitch of something soft, reluctant. Then it vanished just as quickly as it came. He pressed his lips into a thin line, glanced up at the sky instead of meeting her gaze, as if the clouds held answers he hadn’t yet earned.

“Ehh, I s’pose.” he said, with a half-lopsided tilt of his head, a cheeky sort of shrug in his voice, like he was pretending not to care when in fact, he really did.

“You know he had this whole persona for this album specifically. Ziggy Stardust. I don’t remember if it was like, erm, how do you call it? A long term thing or jus’ for the tour, but now he is very likely to have a new album by the end of the year, and god knows, I will die if I don’t see it happen. You know ‘cause it is David Bowie, Davy Jones, Ziggy Stardust himself. And I bet this album will also have a bunch of amazing songs there too. Oh Merlin, I can’t fucking wait!”

Severus looked at her like he was talking to a madwoman who was under a love potion that had gone wrong and instead created an obsession with less romantic feelings, although he wasn’t sure if Lily hadn’t considered this Ziggy Bowie or whatever his name was in such manner either. 

“Does he send you love potions occasionally that’ve been brewed wrong—because when a key ingredient is missing, they don’t inspire affection, they cause obsession, fixation, even hallucinations if the brewer’s truly incompetent–”

She started laughing—not politely, not like she was trying to fill the silence, but properly laughing, head tilted back, hair tumbling in a soft arc behind her. Then, in one sudden, familiar movement, she gave him a playful push, and he tipped backward, landing flat on the grass with a quiet oof .

He blinked up at the sky, hands sprawled out beside him like he was surrendering to it all.

“God, I missed having a dramatic arsehole around all the time,” she said, fondly exasperated, shaking her head like he was some ridiculous pet she couldn’t help but love.

Still staring up at the sky, Severus let out a dry little breath through his nose, then turned his head halfway toward her, his voice flat and edged with sarcasm. 

“Well, you have Potter. And in my defense, you are acting like a dramatic madman, not me.”

“Ew, don’t bring him into this.” She said laughingly.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even want to. After all, the toerag was always the one making grand entrances to places he had no entrance ticket to. And Merlin knows how much Severus hated anything regarding him. Even the fact that their last year, Lily chose him, but he didn’t know that he was an ‘ew’ to her anymore. 

Severus thought he, himself, was an ew to her, not James Potter. 

“We are not a” she didn’t even how to say what they were, so instead she proceeded to say ‘-a thing anymore.” 

But now he wanted to say something. He would love to say something sharp, something cutting through the air, something hurtful, but he wouldn’t. He would love to say how much it felt shit for her to walk around the castle snogging James Potter at every corner because you don’t just date people that are privileged bullies, especially a bully that you witnessed tormenting someone you personally knew for years.

Of course, Severus knew how Potter was better than him in every aspect, but academic. Handsome, well-off, social, likeable and whatnot, but it was just the academics Potter could never reach at Severus's level, yet again, it didn’t even matter that much. 

Because girls didn’t fall in love with how well you brewed a potion or how many theories you knew on non-verbal magic. They fell for laughter echoing in hallways, for broad smiles and stupid, arrogant confidence. They fell for charm, not for the boy scribbling ink-stained notes alone in the corner of the library, not for the one who memorised entire books just to feel like he belonged somewhere.

And she had fallen. Of course she had.

So he just nodded slowly, face blank. He didn’t even look at her.

“Right,” he said, voice unreadable. “Well. Good for you.”

She smiled, trying to hold a laugh. “I can tell you are ecstatic. You can say ‘well, I am thrilled, Lils. More than happy!’ I don’t mind.”

He just let out a ‘mhm’ and shifted slightly, his posture rigid. The sarcasm in her voice annoyed him more than he expected, but he wouldn’t let it show. He wasn’t going to look like he was thrilled about their thrillingly amazing relationship ending.

“Of course,” he muttered, keeping his voice flat. “I’m overjoyed.”

Lily’s smile faltered just a little, like she was trying to gauge if he was serious or not. But Severus didn’t give her anything more to work with. He wouldn’t.

She sighed, looking away, eyes on the river again, her smile slowly fading. “You know, you’re impossible sometimes.”

“Am I?” he asked, eyes narrowing just a fraction. “What’s the right answer, then? Should I be thrilled for you, Lils? Should I be dancing around with joy that you’ve chosen someone who... well, you know, fits the part? And then whatever you had with him for whatever reason ended?”

The words were out before he could stop them. He didn’t even realize how bitter they sounded until they left his mouth.

Lily was quiet for a moment, and Severus could feel the weight of the silence. He had said too much. Too sharp, too soon. But he didn’t backtrack. He never did. He meant it.

Instead, he stood up, the anger simmering just beneath the surface now. “I’m glad you’re happy,” he said with an edge to his voice. “Really.”

She shook her head sharply at that “Really” voice edged with disbelief. Her arms were crossed now, shielding herself, not from the chill in the air but from him . From whatever it was he kept pressing like a bruise she thought had healed.

“Wait,” she called him out as he started to walk towards a street. 

Severus didn’t stop. He had learned long ago that leaving the conversation was safer than engaging with her. But then, he heard it. That voice, sharp and insistent.

“Wait,” she called him out as he started to walk toward the street.

The sky was already getting darker, and they had barely begun to talk. He could feel the tension in the air, like something that had been building for years but never quite found the right moment to explode. He didn’t want to look at her, not right now. But he could hear her footsteps behind him, following him, and it was like an unspoken weight dragging at him.

He kept walking. “What do you want, Lily?”

She opened her mouth again, probably to soothe, to explain, but he cut her off—voice shaking now, angry and cracked open.

“You fucking laughed with the rest of them,” he said. “When he literally held me upside down. You fucking laughed! ”

Her whole face twisted, like he’d slapped her. “I didn’t—”

“You did,” he said, biting the words. “Don’t you dare lie to me now. You laughed, Lily. I saw it. It wasn’t just him and Black and the others. It was you.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

He barked out a cold, humourless laugh. “What? You didn’t mean to laugh ? You just slipped and let joy pour out at my humiliation?”

Her jaw tightened. “I was sixteen , Severus—”

“And I was sixteen and hanging upside down my trousers somewhere else.”

She flinched.

The anger was seething now, but it wasn’t rage anymore—it was grief wearing rage’s coat. His voice cracked at the edges. “I could take Potter. I could take Black. But you— you —”

His hand twitched at his side like he might reach out, but he didn’t. He never did.

“You were supposed to be different.”

Her voice, barely above a whisper, trembled with shame. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“You didn’t need to do anything. You could’ve just not laughed. ”

Silence again. The kind that didn’t ache, didn’t burn—it just sat there between them, like a wall that had always existed and now they could finally see it for what it was.

“But then you called me that.”

Severus was on the verge of everything. This all was too sensitive for him to discuss, let alone reminisce in such a manner. 

“You were–” He stopped, turning his head to the side. “I think I should lea–”

“I am sorry.”

And for a second, maybe he almost let it reach him. Almost.

But then something twisted in his gut again. Something ugly, something old.

He shook his head, jaw tightening.

“Then you didn’t just laugh with him,” he said, voice sharp now, rising with every word as if he hadn’t heard her earlier. “You started going out with him. Then snogging in every corner of the bloody castle like it was some—some sort of sick joke—like it wasn’t enough I got hexed daily, you had to go be with him too—”

There was a certain madness in his eyes, a madness that stood to cover her Sev. The Sev that would never have turned out like this. The Sev that would not even imagine they could ever get this ugly. 

The words had started to choke him, sour and hot in his mouth. He clenched his jaw shut so hard it hurt. His eyes were wild, but the rest of him froze, completely still.

He knew—if he said anything more, it would be cruel.

Too cruel.

He turned his head away, lips pressed tight together, shoulders rigid. Breathing heavy.

She was staring at him like she’d just watched a storm hit and leave the trees standing crooked.

Lily didn’t speak right away. She just looked at him—really looked. On the way his throat bobbed when he swallowed back what nearly came out. At the mess of it all in his eyes.

“You know why I called you that? You wanna know why?”

And at that moment Lily expected him to say the most painful reasoning ever.

But instead he looked her in the eye and said, “because only one of us can be a monster, a disappointment, a filth, a greasy git. And I would rather be that in your eyes, than let you be that in mine.”

Her breath caught.

It wasn’t what she had expected. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

Lily’s eyes searched his face, looking for something—anything—to tell her this wasn’t what he really meant. But it was there, clear in his eyes, in the way his lips barely moved when he spoke. There was no lie in it. There was only the truth.

The words cut through her, deeper than she cared to admit.

For a moment, they stood there in silence, the weight of it all pressing down on them. Severus had always been good at silences, but this one felt heavier than anything before. Lily opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out.

She didn’t know how to fix this. She didn’t know how to fix them .

And that thought, the realization that maybe some things couldn’t be fixed, made her chest ache in a way she hadn’t expected. 

“Severus–” 

“And I don’t need any kind of bullshit speech about how–”

“Severus Snape, listen to me.”

He stopped.

“I didn’t know any of that. I didn’t even think of it all. I–” She looked at him. He was standing with his one hand in his jeans, his hair tucked behind his ears, constantly shrugging his nose that was already red from the chill in the air. She felt like she was talking to him, but again she knew that she wasn’t talking to her best friend anymore. 

“Listen, I wanna fix this. I wanna have no bad blood between us–”

  “Lily, there is no bad blood from me to you. I assure you there never will be, but there is a fucking war coming up soon. So, you better prepare yourself for other types of blood. An actual blood, that Merlin hopes you won’t see.”

“Do not decide what kind of blood am I to see. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what you think you’re protecting me from. If it’s coming, I want to be part of it, I want to know, and I don’t want to be left out in the dark, pretending that it’s not happening.” Her eyes burned with intensity as she spoke, her hand moving instinctively to his arm again, the warmth of her fingers contrasting against the sharp cold of the night. “But that will not stop me from regaining my best friend.” 

“We are not even fucking close to friends.”

“Then we will be.”

“Lily, I–” made my choices, he wanted to say. I am too deep in this bullshit to get out, he wanted to say. I am gonna be someone, he wanted to say. But he didn’t, alongside many other things he kept under his tongue. 

“We have a little time till the end of summer. Goodness, it is already twenty-eighth of July, we have got a month till the end of August, and then, Sev, I won’t ask anything from you. But when I do see you, I will hope to say hi to you, see a smile from you.” Her voice was adamant and persistent. “You were my best friend, you still can become one. I wanna be your friend.”

He wanted to scream at her and say that it is not possible, and he is on his way to do something that will change the entire dynamic of whatever the fuck they have now. He wanted to tell her how he is more likely to be her equal in three years, than become her friend– 

“Lily, I don’t–” 

“No, Sev. I will be haunting you till the end of summer. I will find you every single fucking day and fix this.”

His mouth twitched at that. A soundless scoff, almost a laugh—except it wasn’t funny, not really. Nothing about this was. But Merlin, that was so her . So stubborn, so insistent on dragging the light back into places it had long since left. He couldn’t decide if it made his chest hurt or his jaw clench.

“Haunting me?” he said, and the words came out quieter than expected, almost like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to joke anymore. “Is that your brilliant plan, then?”

She nodded, almost defiantly. “Yeah. I’ll be your ghost. With better hair.”

A pause. A beat.

And his eyes flicked over her—her flushed cheeks from the cold, her messy hair curling at the ends, the set of her mouth like she was ready to fight the war and him at the same time. His voice was too tired to argue. His heart was too tired to keep up.

“You’ll be wasting your time,” he muttered.

“That’s my time to waste,” she shot back without missing a beat.

He looked at her now. Properly. His eyes, dark and bruised with all the things unsaid, locked onto hers—and he hated how much hope she still had in them. Like she hadn’t been burned. Like she still believed in him. How foolish . How kind .

“Even if I told you I’ve done things I can’t take back?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

Her reply came just as quiet. “Then tell me. Let me decide if I can forgive them.”

He shook his head slowly, eyes falling to the ground. “You’re acting like a fool. I am not some charity case that needs some help from you.”

“I’m not here to be good,” she said, firm. “I’m here to be your friend . Whether you deserve it or not.”

That did it. His throat tightened, a cruel knot catching at the edge of his voice. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t.

So instead, he just nodded—barely.

Not a yes. Not a no.

Just ... a maybe.

And in the quiet, where apology and anger had already played their parts, Lily reached for his sleeve again, tugged it gently. Like old times.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Severus.”

His heart was pumping loudly from all the anger he just spit around. He couldn’t handle it all. In fact, he hoped he didn’t have to. Couldn’t she just let them stay away from each other. 

Only because it was getting dark, and this town wasn’t the safest when the sun went down—he told himself that. Not because he wanted to keep looking at her silhouette, not because a part of him always waited for her to turn around again. Just to make sure she was safe. Just to be sure she was real.

But hell, he wished—for once—that they didn’t argue. That they could just let it be. That he could let it be.

He didn’t even know why he couldn’t.

His heart was still thudding in his chest like it was trying to punch its way out. Every word he’d spat still echoed around him like a ricochet in a locked room, too loud, too bitter, too much . He couldn’t handle it. He hated it.

He hated himself for it.

And what made it worse, what truly made him feel sick down to the marrow, was that his body had reacted—again. Like it had the last time they’d spoken like this. That awful, tangled response that made no sense. The sheer heat, the rush of blood that didn’t know where to go.

He wished he didn’t know what it meant. But he did. Somewhere in the darkest part of him, he knew.

At times like this, Severus wished he could let his anger out physically —break something, scream into the hollow night, throw a punch at a brick wall until his knuckles cracked. But all of it just funneled inward, trapped inside skin and shame and something far uglier. And his body responded.

A walking sickness. 

He felt like a pervert. Like some sick, twisted thing that had been let loose too young and never taught how to come clean. How could anger twist itself into that kind of tension? And why only with her? Why did it take their arguments, her defiance, her voice rising just to meet his, for this wretched fire to awaken in him? 

He hated himself for a lot of things. Like he hated himself for being this way. For being in a sick way. He was never a proper man, he thought to himself. He was an unlovable, intolerable and an ugly sick fuck. He was determined that even after everything he would have earned himself once joining the Dark Lord’s ranks, he would still just be by himself. He couldn’t fathom the idea of somebody being there witnessing his life by his side. 

He had never felt the need to be indulged with such nonsense. Not because he couldn’t or something, but because he simply could not imagine being desired by anybody.  Not in the way others were, not in the way Lily might have once looked at someone across the Great Hall and blushed into her pumpkin juice. He wasn’t carved for romance, wasn’t stitched together with softness or grace. He was built from spit and grit and rage, from every snide remark and every cold stare he’d learned to weaponize just to survive. Desire, to him, was a foreign language written in the margins of books he wasn’t meant to read. And love—love was something people like him didn’t receive; they were only ever footnotes in someone else’s story.

And that was fine for him. 

They both went to their respectives homes, and just couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened. The sharp edges of their words, the cold air between them, the way their eyes had locked in the silence after, it was all too much. 

Lily lay on her bed, eyes fixed on the cracks in her ceiling, trying to convince herself that she was only bothered because it hurt to lose a friend. That it was the history that lingered, the boy who once knew every corner of her life, not the man he was becoming now. And yet… something about him clung to her skin like smoke. The way he looked at her—not pleading, not apologetic, but there —it unsettled her in a way she couldn’t name. It made her want to be around him, against all reason. His presence didn’t calm her, didn’t soothe—but she needed it. Like scratching an itch. Like the need to finish an unfinished sentence.

And Severus—he told himself he didn’t care. He told himself it was over and done and dusted, that he didn’t need her around just to remind him of what he was not. But her voice still echoed in his ears. That stubborn, maddening voice. And the way her fingers had tugged at his sleeve—gentle, familiar, like years ago under the table in the library when she used to pass him sweets from her bag. It haunted him.

He hated how aware he’d become of her nearness. The shape of her mouth when she said his name. The heat that rose in him—not love, not desire, not in any proper way—but something. Something that twisted inside him like hunger. Like want. Like ruin.

And it was mutual.

Lily felt it too, though she didn’t name it. She couldn’t. She only knew that something in her stirred when he looked at her like that—like he was furious she existed and terrified she might vanish. Like she was the cause and the cure of everything inside him. She shouldn’t want to be near him. She shouldn’t care. But she did. And it was the wrong kind of care—the kind that made her pulse race for all the reasons she’d never admit.

And they did speak to each other the next day. 

And they spoke without all the shouting and dramatics about their NEWTs, like normal people.

And that was it. No mentions of what had passed between them. No glances sharp enough to draw blood. Just… a moment suspended in something lighter than their usual gravity.

They talked about exams and the bloody nightmare that was Arithmancy. She asked if he still brewed and where he did so. He said yes but did not get further into details. She asked if he still hated Slughorn. He rolled his eyes, obviously.

It was normal. Civil. Like two people who might have never shouted at each other in the cold, or felt something twist beneath their skin they didn’t want to name.

When she left, she said, “See you,” soft and quick like a habit.

And for the first time in ages, he let himself say, “Yeah,” without bitterness coating his tongue.

Chapter Text

“And that is what I told her – I said, Tuney , if you really wanna be that wife who prefers to sit at home and watch telly and then serve dinner, sure, marry him tomorrow.”

She exhaled the smoke from her cigarette in a slow, practiced curl, lips pursed just so. They were painted the deep, moody red of beetroot—bold against her pale skin, slightly smudged at the corner as the two sat by the big front window of the half-forgotten café near the train tracks. It was their current usual spot, where the tea was always lukewarm, the chairs never matched, and nobody looked twice if you stayed too long without ordering.

“But you know how it is, nobody really strives to understand how we are soon to be in the most promising age of our time, eh? Like I’d rather marry at thirty, but know that this is the guy with whom I won’t constantly bicker ‘cause I wanna go see stuffs. And plus get to have a life till thirty, y’know.”

Severus just stared blankly, unaware of how to add to the conversation.

“Right.”

“You know like in that song by Fleetwood Mac – Go on your way, or summat.”

“Haven’t heard it.”

“Jesus, Sev, do you even listen to music?”

He shook his head, aligning his lips into a thin line (thinner than it already was). 

“Okay, that’s bad.” She sighed, tossing ash out the open window with a flick. “Listen, once, me and Mary went to London—like during Christmas break. I told Mum and Dad I’d arrive two days later than I actually did. Total lie.”

She grinned, not even a little guilty.

“And we went to this club—well, it wasn’t really a club, I think, more like a bar where some lads were performing. Local band, no name, just music so loud you could feel it in your ribs. And it was the first time I had genuine fun outside of school. Like, real, proper fun. The kind that makes you forget the time and your name and every expectation anyone’s ever had of you.”

She looked over at him, expression softening.

“You ever had that? One of those nights?”

Severus looked down, then out the window, toward nothing in particular.

“No,” he said.

“Anyway, Mary even got to snog or get the number of this bloke who was playing. In all fairness, he was very cute and all, so I could understand her. But I don’t remember if she actually snogged him or just flirted a bit—anyway.” She smirked at the memory, a glint of mischief in her eyes.

“I didn’t even tell James that I went to London. Genuinely didn’t want him and Sirius trailing after our arses, y’know, doing that whole ‘London is very dangerous, Lily’ act. But yeah, it was fun.”

Severus gave a small nod, but didn’t say anything.

“I think you'd like it,” she added after a pause. “Not the snogging musicians bit—unless that's a surprise—but the rest. The lights, the way the whole city hums at night. Nobody knows who you are, and no one gives a toss.”

He didn’t respond right away. Then, almost too quietly, he said, “Sounds… loud.”

“It is,” she grinned. “Loud, and messy, and completely alive. You need that. We both do.”

Her words hung between them like smoke.

Then she laughed suddenly. “You’d hate the crowds, though. You’d scowl the entire time.”

“Probably,” he murmured, but the corner of his mouth curved just slightly, taking out a cigarette out of his pack.

Severus didn’t even remember Lily being so music obsessed, maybe it was something she’d caught up on not so long ago. She used to hum under her breath in the library sometimes, sure, but this was different. Talking about bands, about nights that vibrated with sound and strangers, about disappearing into cities. Maybe he hadn’t noticed because he was too busy disappearing into himself.

She leaned her head back against the window frame, looking up at the black sky where stars were supposed to be. “If I ever live there,” she said suddenly, “I want a flat with windows like this. One you can lean out of, smoke a bit, say stupid things to someone you trust.”

Severus glanced sideways at her, the cigarette hovering near his lips.

“Sounds like you’ve got it already,” he said quietly.

And at that moment, Lily got a spark of an idea, an idea that probably would be something Severus would disregard. 

“Would you wanna split a flat with me in London?” 

A diabolically bad idea, Severus thought the moment it left her lips. Not only would they bicker all the time—about cleaning, noise, potions equipment left to rot in the sink, but they would also start hating each other based on their whereabouts outside home. 

She would meet with those bloody Gryffindors, and even bring them home for a ‘just wine and music’. And then she’d disappear into the city for hours, maybe all night, reappearing with glitter on her cheeks and someone else's laughter still clinging to her hair.

Not that he had to care.

But he knew—he knew —that he wouldn’t be able to help it.

He’d start pacing, checking the clock too often, pretending he was reading. He’d try not to listen for the door, and fail every time.

And then she’d hate him for caring more than he should, causing him to hate himself for doing it anyway.

So he just inhaled the smoke, and didn’t look at her.

“I can tell that you hate the idea, Sev.” She chuckled at his sour face.

“It’s– No, I mean, yeah sure, but like, you know–” 

“It would be too much for us. Plus, we’ve got a long way to go anyway.”

A damn long way for sure, Lily thought. It wasn’t that they couldn’t stand each other, but just because they had left everything off their chests didn’t mean that they were back to the way they were. Right now, all they did was just hang out and smoke together, and maybe drink at times. There was no sincerity in their words because both of them were waiting for each other to say the first words. They didn’t address why they have done the things that have hurt them, and it seemed as though nobody was planning on doing so anyway. 

It was easier this way.

To sit by a cracked window and pretend things were still forming between them, instead of admitting how much had already shattered.

Lily exhaled, the smoke catching in her chest a little more than usual.

“Yeah,” she repeated again as if assuring herself, voice softer now. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

And Severus didn’t disagree. 

He knew, or at least hoped, that once the summer was over, the two wouldn’t see each other as much, thus everything could continue just as he had hoped for himself. After all, he felt like neither of them had to prioritize each other in any way. 

Of course, that didn’t stop him from caring for her anyhow, and now that they were somewhat talking again, he cared even more than before. He could never pretend that he didn’t know her. Maybe to people who would hurt her (and he knew very well that they’d be close to him), but never to himself. Not really.

He could lie to them, wear the mask, keep his mouth shut when her name came up in the wrong tone. But in the quiet of his mind, in the silence of nights like this, she was still Lily. Still the girl who would make small dances when the food tasted good. Still the one who said his name like it mattered.

And that was the worst part of all.

Because the more he cared, the more dangerous it became—for both of them.

So he said nothing. Let the smoke rise. Let the moment pass.

Let her believe, just for now, that he was unmoved.

Even if everything inside him was screaming otherwise all the time. 

Why was he like this? Lily wondered, not all of a sudden. In fact, she had been wondering about it for probably a few weeks now. She thought that initially his spontaneity would be what would bring them to the common ground, but instead, it was exactly what had ruined their chances of having a proper conversation about them. Lily wouldn’t admit it, but even when he was pouring himself out to her that day, he seemed to be so intimidatingly dangerous. 

Like if he could hurt her; like he would want to hurt her. 

And maybe that was unfair—maybe it was just the way the shadows played on his face, or the tightness in his voice. But there was something volatile there. Something coiled.

She’d felt it before. In the way he bristled when cornered, the way he looked at the world like it owed him something, and he was this close to collecting.

It wasn’t that she didn’t care for him. She did. Too much, probably.

But there was a difference between knowing someone and trusting them. And lately, Lily wasn’t sure if those two things lined up anymore.

She brought the cigarette to her lips again, watching the ash at the tip tremble slightly in the breeze. The sky was fighting with the sun, and the day had passed before they could even make anything out of it.

After a bit of rambling, Lily decided that it was time for her to go home. Severus insisted that he’d walk her all the way home, and Lily had nothing against it. 

They didn’t talk much as they walked.

The streets were quiet in that early-morning way—empty, a little cold, like everything was still stretching itself awake. Their footsteps echoed softly on the pavement, side by side but never quite touching.

At one point, their hands brushed. Neither of them mentioned it.

When they reached the corner by her house, Lily slowed.

“This is fine,” she said, nodding toward the familiar gate. “You don’t have to go further.”

Severus stopped, hands buried deep in his coat pockets.

Lily turned to face him, her expression unreadable in the pale light of dawn. For a moment, it felt like one of them should say something—something that might finally crack the silence open.

But they didn’t.

“Thanks,” she said, then scrunched her nose and asked him, “God, I hope I don’t smell of cigarettes, do I?”

He nodded. “Right. Yeah. I mean–”

Then, before either of them could stop it, he leaned in a little. Just a bit. Close enough that she could feel it—not his breath or anything dramatic like that, just... the nearness. The hesitation. The fact that he was looking at her, not past her.

Lily went still, but didn’t move away.

She noticed it. The closeness. The way he seemed to pause right there, like he wasn’t sure what he was checking for anymore. And for a second, she didn’t think anything. She just let it happen.

Then—quietly, and a little stupidly—he backed off.

“You do,” he mumbled, suddenly looking everywhere except at her. “But not in a bad way.”

Lily stared at him for a beat longer than necessary.

Then, with a light laugh—one that didn’t quite reach her eyes—she replied, “Well, let’s hope my mum agrees. She’ll love that I smell like regret and secondhand ash.”

He just gave her a small teeny-tiny smile. It wasn’t an obvious smile to others, but Lily knew that it was a smile. His smile. 

Severus watched her go.

And when she disappeared inside, he stood there a little longer than he needed to—until the door closed and the world felt a little quieter again. 

He didn’t have the words to describe what went through his mind every time they met up to ‘reconstruct’ their friendship, as Lily liked to claim. Because the ineffable wall of whatever stood between them hadn’t really crumbled—it had just shifted, turned semi-transparent in the right lighting, but always there. He could feel it in the way he filtered every word, in the quiet moments when her gaze would flick toward him, half-expectant, and he’d pretend not to notice. And the most frustrating thing was, he didn’t even know when it had started—this aching, maddening pull toward her. He couldn’t pin it to a single moment. There was no thunderclap, no obvious beginning. Just this slow, steady realization that he had always been attached to her, long before he knew what that even meant.

He hated how naturally it came now to act like he didn’t. He’d perfected the detached voice, the idle conversation, the offer of a cigarette passed off as casual. When she talked about London, about music, about some blurry future that didn’t involve war or shadows, he nodded along like none of it touched him. But it did. Every word sank in. Every smile she threw his way—half genuine, half guarded—twisted something in him. And still, he said nothing. Because caring for her had always felt like holding a lit match too close to his skin. Because if he ever made her his , he feared he’d only end up burning her with the weight of who he was becoming.

It was easier to let her believe he was fine with all of this. With just being there. With just being safe . Because maybe if he kept it light, she’d stay. And maybe if she stayed, he wouldn’t fall apart as quickly as he knew he could.

Lily, meanwhile, closed the door behind her with quiet hands and leaned back against it for a moment, her eyes blinking slowly into the dim hallway. She wasn’t sure what to make of the version of Severus who had just walked her home. He was gentle, careful, like he’d been rehearsing this role for weeks—civil, soft around the edges, even a little funny in that dry, Severus sort of way. But that was the thing. It felt like a performance. Not fake, exactly, but practiced. Controlled. Like he was keeping something locked under the surface with so much effort that the tension radiated off him in waves.

It was difficult. Not because she didn’t want to be around him, but because every time she was, it felt like she was learning someone new. Someone with his voice, his face, his tired little smile—but different. Someone harder to read. Someone with quieter anger and louder silence. And the strange thing was, she still trusted him. That hadn’t gone away. Maybe it should have, but it hadn’t. She trusted him with parts of herself that even James had never seen—bits of frustration, of fear, of not knowing what came next. But part of her felt stupid for that trust. Stupid for how fast it came back, like it had just been waiting for the right moment to resurface.

“—There will be a day, I will be a great wizard. I hope you will see it.”

He’d said it the other night, a little tipsy, slouched back in the armchair with a lazy grin, cigarette hanging from one hand. He’d said it like a joke, voice laced with that dry, half-daring sarcasm of his.

But she’d heard it differently.

Because that line wasn’t for the room. It was for her.

And the way he’d looked at her afterward—just briefly, before glancing away again—it made her think he hadn’t meant it as a joke at all. Or at least, not entirely.

It wasn’t arrogance. It was something closer to longing.

It was his way of not slipping into someone worse than he could be. It was his way of existing between her world and his. And maybe that’s why it all felt so difficult—why every moment around him seemed to come with a double edge. Nothing about being with Severus was simple anymore. There was no easy comfort, no clear line between who he had been and who he was now. Every word from him seemed to carry some hidden weight, like it was shaped around what he couldn’t say rather than what he did. And still, she listened. Still, she stayed.

It would be a lie to say Lily wasn’t impressed by the cool and chilly demeanour he had evolved over time. He seemed to be drawing more into himself. He was easily noticed, and not in a bad way, like he’d always assume. It was in the way his eyes seemed to scan the street behind them even when they were just walking, like he was waiting for something to catch up with him. Or maybe someone.

And Lily wanted to catch up with him. She truly did. 

Merlin, only if he let her, she thought. 

But it wasn’t the fact that he didn’t want; it was the fact that she wasn’t sure if he wanted anybody to catch up with him, if he wanted to be pulled back.

Maybe the worst part was knowing he probably didn’t. Not entirely. Maybe he thought he didn’t deserve it. Maybe he was so used to standing near the edge that the idea of anyone pulling him away felt like an interruption rather than a rescue.

But despite all that, Lily knew one thing for sure.

He wanted her to see him.

Not the polite version. Not the dry comments or the passive nods. Him . The version of himself that still believed—barely—that someone might hold on. That someone might care enough to see past the silence and into the mess beneath it.

And maybe that was what scared her the most.

Because it meant she couldn’t look away.

Because it meant she was part of this, whether she liked it or not.

And because some small, vulnerable part of her had always seen him—and she didn’t know how to stop. And now that this new him was so tightly wrapped in layers she hadn’t helped build, she didn’t know how to reach him without tearing something.

She wasn’t even sure he realized how much of himself he still let slip—how, despite everything, he hadn’t hidden the parts of him that mattered most. The little hesitations before answering. The flicker of something vulnerable when she mentioned something from years ago. The way he offered her the last cigarette even when he clearly wanted it. He didn’t say much, but there was meaning in his stillness. And that was the version she was afraid of forgetting.

Because this person he was becoming—it wasn’t a stranger. It wasn’t someone she didn’t recognize. It was just a version of him that had grown up with pain in places she hadn’t been there to see. And now that she was here, now that he was standing just close enough to touch but far enough to leave without saying goodbye, Lily didn’t know what she was supposed to do with the space between them.

“Lily, darling, where have you been?”

The voice floated up from the kitchen, light but edged with a mother’s familiar knowing.

Lily blinked, pulled from her thoughts like someone surfacing too fast from somewhere deep.

“It’s only eight,” she called down, voice still a bit caught in her chest. “I was just out with a friend.”

Another pause.

“I can smell smoke,” her mum replied, not unkindly.

Lily rolled her eyes, more at herself than anything. She padded into the hallway, leaning slightly over the bannister. “It’s not me, it’s Severus. He smokes; I don’t.”

That earned a beat of silence.

“You’re back?” her mum asked, tone unreadable.

Lily stiffened slightly.

“Why did you say it like that?”

Her mother’s voice floated up again, casual. “Say what like what?”

Lily blinked, caught off guard. “Like—like it’s a thing. ”

“I just meant I haven’t seen him around in a while,” her mum replied, slightly puzzled. “Didn’t realise you were speaking again, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Lily looked down at the railing, fingers grazing the chipped wood. “Right.”

Her mum hummed, not pushing further.

Lily turned slowly back toward her room, pulling the door halfway shut behind her. She let out a slow breath, the kind that didn’t really help.

Of course her mum hadn’t meant it that way.

And yet the fact that she’d jumped to that conclusion so quickly—so reflexively—made something tighten in her chest.

Because that meant the thought was already–

“Tuney?”

Her sister was organising their drawers, again. 

“Yes?”

“Are you still with Vernon?”

Her sister turned to look at her abruptly.

“Gosh, you smell like unfiltered smoke.”

Lily smirked. “Like you don’t know what that is.”

“Oh hush!” Her sister tried to hide her smile by turning back to organising.

“Do you love him? Vernon, I mean.”

They both sat in silence for a moment. Then, quietly, Petunia said, “I do.”

Lily blinked. “You do?”

“Yes.” Petunia smoothed a wrinkle in the blanket that absolutely wasn’t there. “I love him.”

There was a beat.

Lily tilted her head. “Do you shag?”

Petunia gasped like she’d been slapped. “Lily! Manners!”

“Oh please, you love him and you reorganise drawers for fun, I need something to remind me you’re still human.”

Petunia narrowed her eyes, but there was a telltale flush creeping up her neck. She looked around the room like someone might be hiding in the wardrobe before lowering her voice.

“Well—he’s… very determined. I’ll say that.”

Lily snorted. “Determined how?”

“He insists on—well, you know —going down on me every time.”

Lily choked on absolutely nothing. “Okay! Christ, alright!”

“I didn’t ask for commentary,” Petunia said primly, but she was smirking now. “It’s just… strange. Sometimes he doesn’t even want to have actual sex. He just says he enjoys that part.”

Lily blinked. “That sounds suspiciously generous. Is Vernon hiding a secret life or just really into customer satisfaction?”

“Jesus fucking Christ–”

“Honestly, Tuney, you might’ve just raised his profile in my mind by, like, 30%.”

Petunia gave her a smug little nod, like she’d just won a silent competition she didn’t know they were having.

“But still,” Lily added, tilting her head, “not shagging is kinda weird, isn’t it?”

Petunia looked mildly offended. “It’s not weird . It’s... considerate.”

“It’s suspicious,” Lily corrected, grinning. “Like—is he saving himself for Queen and country? Or is he just that into foreplay?”

Petunia narrowed her eyes. “Maybe he just likes doing things properly. Which, clearly, you don’t appreciate.”

“I appreciate efficiency.”

“You dated a boy who thought socks were optional.”

“That was a phase. ”

They stared at each other a moment, then burst into laughter again.

Lily leaned her head against the bedpost, still grinning. “Alright, alright. Vernon’s weirdly noble and possibly the most generous man in Britain. You win.”

“I always do.”

“But seriously,” Lily added, more quietly now, “if he ever turns out to be a secret fetish priest or a warlock or something, I reserve the right to say I told you so .”

Petunia sniffed. “And if you ever realize you’re emotionally involved with that awful boy of yours, I reserve the right to say I told you so.”

“He is just a friend!”

Petunia raised a single eyebrow without turning from the drawer. “You say that like you’re trying to convince a jury.”

“I am ,” Lily snapped. “You’re the jury, apparently. The judge. Possibly the executioner.”

Petunia turned, folding a blouse with entirely unnecessary precision. “So that’s why you come home smelling like smoke and looking like someone’s told you the moon’s cancelled.”

“Oh, brilliant. So now I look tragic?”

“You are tragic. It’s your thing.”

Lily threw a sock at her. It bounced harmlessly off her shoulder. Petunia didn’t even flinch.

“It’s not like that,” Lily muttered. “He’s just—he’s Severus.”

“And that’s supposed to clarify something?” Petunia asked, deadpan.

Lily sat up straighter, arms crossed. “We talk. We hang out. We don’t even talk about anything serious half the time.”

“That sounds so emotionally healthy,” Petunia said with a smile so sweet it had to be fatal.

Lily gave her a withering look. “He’s not awful, you know.”

Petunia blinked slowly. “Lily. He only wears black and stares at people like he’s trying to set them on fire with his mind. He once referred to our neighbour as ‘a Muggle with the personality of wet parchment.’”

“He wasn’t wrong ,” Lily muttered.

“That’s not the defence you think it is.”

“I’m just saying,” Lily said, voice edging toward defense, “he’s not who you think he is. He’s… different when it’s just us.”

“Oh no,” Petunia groaned. “You’ve hit the ‘he’s different around me’ stage. I need to call someone. A therapist. An intervention squad.”

Lily buried her face in her hands. “We are not having this conversation.”

“You brought it up!”

“Do you smile when he sends you letters?”

“He doesn’t send letters.”

“Do you want him to send letters?”

Lily glared. “We’re not dating in a Brontë novel, Tuney.”

“That’s not a no .”

“We are not even dating!”

“I never said anything about dating?”

Lily sat up sharply, hair a mess and eyes narrowed. “God, Tuney, I don’t love Severus. It’s not like that.”

Petunia didn’t answer. She just folded a pair of knickers and placed them perfectly beside a stack of identical ones, like she was bracing herself for something.

“I mean it,” Lily said. “He’s—he’s not someone I’d fall for.”

“Because he’s awful?”

“Because it’s not that kind of thing!” Lily threw her arms up. “With James it was different.”

“Oh?” Petunia said, too casually. “The handsome one?”

Lily hesitated. “I don’t know. We laughed. He made me feel like I could be... easy. I didn’t have to try so hard.”

Petunia made a noncommittal sound. “And you shagged.”

“What?”

“You said it like you were about to go there. Just filling in the gaps.”

“I’m not telling you about my sex life with my ex!” Lily snapped, pointing a finger like Petunia had just committed some war crime.

Petunia looked personally affronted. “ You just asked me about Vernon! ”

“That was different!”

“Oh, was it? Because when I say things, I’m offering important insight. When you do, it’s just curious little sister banter?”

“I didn’t know you were going to tell me he’s a bloody— oral saint !”

Petunia looked down at her folded laundry, muttering, “You’re just jealous.”

“I’m going to hex myself next week.”

“Do let me know if it works. I could use the peace.”

Lily grabbed the nearest pillow and flung it at her head. Petunia batted it aside like she’d been training for it.

“God, you’re awful,” Lily muttered.

“And yet,” Petunia said, fluffing the pillow and placing it neatly back on the bed, “you’re still here, talking about the emotionally unavailable boy you’re not in love with.”

Lily lay back with a loud groan, one arm over her eyes. “I hate this family.”

“And Severus is just a friend,” Petunia said sweetly.

“I will hex you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

There was a long pause. Then Lily sat up again, legs swinging over the edge of the bed.

“D’you want to smoke?”

Petunia looked horrified. “Now?”

Lily gave her a look. “Yes, now . Before Mum gets back and starts judging us with her passive-aggressive teacup clinks.”

“I already brushed my teeth,” Petunia muttered, but she didn’t say no.

“Where did you hide that pack we kept? You moved it, didn’t you?”

Petunia sighed, stood up, and went to the bookshelf. She pulled out an old copy of Little Women , opened it like it was a hollowed-out Bible, and revealed the slightly crushed pack of cigarettes inside.

Lily blinked. “You put them in Louisa May Alcott ?”

“She’d understand,” Petunia said dryly, tossing the pack over.

“You are such a closet anarchist.”

“And you are turning into a chimney.”

“Only mildly,” Lily said, already lighting one with her fingertips. She held it out. “Coming?”

Petunia made a noise like she regretted every decision she’d made this evening, but followed her out the window anyway.

They sat on the little overhang outside the bedroom, legs tucked up against the wood, night air curling cool around their sleeves.

Lily exhaled slowly, watching the smoke drift upward. “It’s mad, isn’t it? That this is what we do now?”

Petunia took a long drag. “Honestly, it’s better than talking.”

Lily laughed under her breath. Then, casually: “Have you ever tried weed?”

Petunia turned slowly, eyes narrowed. “Have you ?”

“Answer the question.”

“Is this one of those moments where you try to look cool and end up confessing to a minor crime?”

“Not minor , if Mum finds out.”

Petunia snorted. “No. I haven’t. Have you ?”

“Well, yeah. You can’t expect a bunch of kids in boarding school with no proper adult supervision to not do anything as such.”

Then Lily shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. “Remember, I came two days later for Christmas. Said I got school stuff to sort?”

“Yeah? Oh God–”

“We went to London with Mary, we were staying at her cousin’s. He was so handsome. Anyway, before leaving, we stole weed from James’s friend, Sirius, and well, yeah.”

“You stole weed from a guy named Sirius ?”

“Yeah, he is not so serious himself.”

“Well, I can tell by the fact he had weed just lying around like snacks.”

Lily laughed, flicking ash off the end of her cigarette. “Honestly, I think he wanted someone to take it. He is sort of a hippie, but in a rocker way.”

“And you decided you were the right person to take it?” Petunia looked scandalised. “How did this not end in an arrest?”

“It almost ended with Mary snogging a bartender named Alfie who had a tattoo of a goose smoking a pipe,” Lily said thoughtfully. “So actually, an arrest might’ve been the safer route. But she did end up getting the bassist’s number.”

Petunia stared at her like she was seeing a ghost. “Your life is a disaster novel.”

Lily grinned. “International bestseller, thank you very much.”

“God,” Petunia muttered, dragging on her cigarette, “one day you’ll have kids.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Not this again—”

“I just hope not with Severus ,” Petunia finished, tone bone-dry.

Lily froze, mid-laugh. “Tuney.”

Petunia took another drag, completely unbothered. “I mean it. Can you imagine the absolute state of those children?”

“They’d be fine,” Lily said defensively. “Sharp. Reserved. Possibly unnerving in daylight.”

“They’d hiss at their teachers and carry pocket knives by the time they were five.”

Lily groaned. “God, I am not marrying him. Please stop. Tunes.”

Petunia blinked. “I never said anything about marriage.”

“You implied it!”

“I implied procreation,” Petunia said sweetly. “Don’t twist my words.”

Lily buried her face in her hands. “I’m going to throw myself off this window.”

“If you do, leave me the cigarettes,” Petunia said, not missing a beat.

They both burst out laughing, smoke curling above them in lazy, crooked shapes, as the sky pressed darker around their hunched shoulders. And the entire world stood no chance if the Evans sisters ever decided to stop soaking their feelings in sarcasm long enough to let anyone in.

But they didn’t. Not really.

Instead, they stayed like that—two silhouettes pressed against the quiet hum of a suburban night, flicking ash off the edge of the world like it didn’t matter, like they weren’t teetering on some emotional ledge neither of them wanted to name.

“I’m serious, though,” Petunia said after a while, softer now. “Don’t marry anyone who makes you cry more than you laugh.”

Lily didn’t answer. She just stared at the ember of her cigarette as it burned closer to her fingers.

Then, quietly, “I’ll try.”

The silence returned. But this time, it felt like a shared coat.

And just below them, the wind shifted. Somewhere in Cokeworth, someone was walking too fast down a quiet street. Someone who hadn’t laughed in a long time. Someone who once promised the world he’d be great, and only half believed it. 

Too many things were happening at once, Severus thought. Even if there was nothing happening under his nose, he knew quite well how he had to do something before summer finished because things were happening behind his back. 

It had been days since he got Burke’s letter, and he was still unaware if he should take the offer. Brewing was never something he doubted himself at, but he wasn’t sure if he should agree to brew something for lifting an unknown curse. 

The thought seemed attractively challenging, but again—it wasn’t the brewing that unsettled him. That part he could do blindfolded, hands steady over flame and glass, every measurement a second instinct. It was everything around it that made his jaw tighten. The vagueness. The implications. The fact that it had come at all.

He didn’t even know Eugene Burke that well.

Just a handful of glances across classrooms, a shared silence at the back of the Potions lab, both of them watching the rest of the world unfold like something mildly offensive. Burke wasn’t the kind to make casual connections. He was private, selective, razor-sharp with who he kept close. And Severus wasn’t on that list.

So why write to him?

And more than that— how ?

The letter hadn’t been owl-posted like anything else from school. No envelope with the Hogwarts crest. No clear sender. Just a folded page, delivered by a clumsy owl that left a stain on the wall. It wasn’t enchanted, as far as he could tell. No charms, no wards. Just paper. Ink. But still—it had found him. 

But the fact that they’d thought of him —that was the part he couldn’t shake. Not just because it felt like an opportunity, but because it didn’t make sense.

If he accepted, Regulus Black—someone he didn’t even know—was meant to pass him the rest of the details. Possibly during a gathering. Possibly at Malfoy Manor. Possibly not at all.

And Severus? He wasn’t even sure if he’d be invited .

He didn’t own the kind of robes required for an evening in that place—nothing silk-lined, nothing custom-stitched. Nothing that said he belonged . He could already imagine how it would feel, standing in some marbled corner, fingers stained with ink and potion residue, surrounded by sharp-cut smiles and sharper words.

But he hadn’t thrown the letter away.

It was still folded neatly into the lining of his coat. Still sitting there like it might catch fire at any moment and demand an answer.

Because he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Not just the challenge. Not just the spell.

But the fact that they’d thought of him .

And that—more than anything—unsettled him.

Because Malfoy had told him, not even that long ago, to stay precise. Don’t stretch yourself thin , he’d said. Don’t work with anyone else until you’re certain of your own standing. Be loyal to the cause. Keep your work—our work—clean.

So why, then?

Why would Malfoy hand him over so easily? Why give his name to Burke at all?

It didn’t track. Lucius wasn’t careless. If anything, he was too careful—deliberate to a fault. He didn’t pass along recommendations unless he had something to gain, or someone to test. So if he’d given Severus’s name to Burke, it wasn’t out of goodwill.

It was a move.

A pressure point.

And Severus—walking briskly now past shuttered windows and leaning lamp-posts—couldn’t help but feel like he was already halfway into something, even without saying yes.

He wasn’t sure what was worse; the fact that Lucius might be manipulating him, or the fact that it might be working . And if it was neither, he could lose Malfoy’s trust at all, which he couldn’t afford. 

Regardless of his decision, he kept walking home, his head down, shoelaces tied and mind unravelling. He was already close to home, and for some reason, he felt like being home now was the best he could do. The silence of Spinner’s End wasn’t comforting, but it was familiar. The brickwork didn’t ask questions. The worn carpet didn’t flinch at the weight he carried. There was nothing warm waiting for him behind the door—no fire, no scent of supper—but there was privacy. Stillness. A place to sit down without being looked at.

“Leen! Where’s the boy?”

Fuck, Severus muttered under his breath.

He tried to get upstairs without being seen, slipping through the front door as quietly as his boots would allow, steps practiced and silent on the warped wood. The house smelled faintly of damp books and rusted pipes. No light came from the sitting room—just the low hum of the wireless left on too long or turned down too low to catch the words.

“Leen!” the voice bellowed again from the kitchen, sharper now, slurred at the edges. “Did he run off again?”

Severus gritted his teeth, hand already on the banister.

“Severus.”

His mother’s voice—calmer, tired—floated out from the narrow gap of the kitchen doorway.

He froze. She hadn’t even raised it. She never needed to.

The stairs creaked under him anyway, an accidental betrayal.

“Thought I heard something,” Tobias Snape muttered, voice dragging behind her like the sound of a knife against glass.

Severus didn’t respond. One more step. Two. If he could just reach the landing—

“Don’t be rude, boy,” Tobias called, suddenly louder, nearer. “You come in this house and don’t even say ‘ello?”

Severus turned, barely, enough to glance over his shoulder and see the shape of his father leaning against the kitchen door frame. His coat was too heavy for August, and he stank of old rain and cheap whiskey.

“Hello,” Severus said flatly.

“You’re looking skinny,” Tobias said, eyes squinting as though trying to find fault and succeeding by principle. “Still got that sour little face, I see.”

Eileen stepped between them—not protectively, just habitually. “Leave it, Toby.”

He ignored her, of course. “Where’ve you been all summer? Lurking about like a stray?”

“I was home, unlike you.”

“Got taller, this one, eh?”

Tobias’ jaw twitched, just a flicker, but Severus caught it. He always did. It was the sort of twitch that came before something cruel, before the mouth curled and the voice dipped into something pointed.

Eileen shot her son a look—sharp, warning, weary. But Severus didn’t back down. He didn’t move at all.

“I see the attitude’s gotten worse,” Tobias muttered, reaching for a chipped glass on the counter. “She let you run wild, didn’t she, Leen? Bet he thinks he’s too good for this place now.”

“I’ve always thought that,” Severus said before he could stop himself.

A beat of silence. Thick. Still.

Then the clink of glass against the sink, not hard enough to shatter but enough to rattle.

“You’d better watch that mouth, boy.”

“Yeah?” Severus stepped back from the stairs, just one foot, just enough. “Or what? You’ll vanish for another four months?”

Tobias took a step forward, but Eileen moved faster—her hand out, flat across his chest.

“Stop it. Both of you.”

“Are you happy now, Ma? He is back. Are we a nice family now? Should I thank him for being my father?”

Eileen didn’t answer. Not to him. Not to either of them, while Tobias’s eyes were burning with fury.

Her hand stayed firm on Tobias’ chest, but her eyes—those unreadable eyes—shifted to Severus. Not soft. Not hard. Just... tired. And tired was enough to make something twist in his gut.

She turned back to her husband. “Go sit down. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“I dun’ want tea.”

“You will,” she said. Not a suggestion.

Tobias muttered something like a curse under his breath, but he moved. He always did. Not out of respect. Just routine. Something in him still recognized that Eileen Snape was his missus, and even if he didn’t say it, even if he hadn’t said much of anything decent in years, he knew when not to push her. Not because he feared her magic—he never truly respected that part of her, not openly—but because somewhere, buried under the piss and bitterness, Tobias remembered she used to be someone else. And maybe, sometimes, that memory made him hesitate.

He slumped into the kitchen chair with a grunt, the kind that said he’d already made himself the victim—and Severus hated it. That sound. That slow, performative sigh of a man who thought the world owed him something just for existing in it. It wasn’t guilt that burned in Severus’s chest—it was irritation, hot and crawling. The audacity of vanishing for months only to come home and claim the role of the wounded party. Like he'd ever earned it.

Eileen didn’t flinch. Just turned toward the kettle with mechanical grace.

Severus stood still another second, watching the back of his mother’s shoulders. There was a tension in them he didn’t remember from last summer—or maybe he’d just stopped noticing. He felt something bitter rise in his throat. Not guilt, not quite. But something close. Something like uselessness.

“Upstairs,” she said again, this time more gently. Still not looking at him.

He didn’t argue.

He went.

The creak of the old floorboards followed him up, groaning like the house itself disapproved of everyone inside it. He pushed open the door to his room with a knuckle, quiet and deliberate. The hinges didn’t squeal—they’d learned, same as him.

Once inside, Severus let out a breath that sounded more like defeat than relief. He leaned back against the closed door, just for a second. Just to feel the weight of something solid against his spine.

The desk was still there, still holding the same old ink stains and burn marks and that one corner that warped when he spilled Essence of Dittany in fourth year. It hadn’t changed. Nothing in here had.

Except maybe him.

He opened the drawer with a flick of his fingers, pulling out the book on Occlumency he’d nicked from the restricted section last year. The leather binding cracked faintly as he flipped through it—he’d read most of it already, some parts until the ink practically echoed in his dreams—but tonight he wasn’t looking to read.

He was looking to rewrite.

False memories, the book had said, must be believable . They must feel like home to the mind that houses them. They must be laced with enough emotion to pass inspection.

It was a kind of art, really. The quietest kind of rebellion.

Severus sat down, dragged the candle closer, and let the wax drip onto a blank scrap of parchment. He needed to ground himself—something physical to do while he let the rest of him dissolve into the space between truth and fabrication.

He picked a memory that felt familiar. The summer after third year. The one where Lily had still sent him letters. Where they’d still walked along the riverbank and she’d braided grass into his hair just to annoy him.

He blinked.

Then he erased her from it.

Instead, he wrote himself alone. Sitting by the river. A book on curses open across his lap. Silence stretching around him like an old jumper, worn and soft and completely his.

It didn’t feel right. But that was the point.

He closed his eyes, tried again.

This time, he made it colder. The river frozen. A storm overhead. He sat there anyway. Same book. Same silence. But no laughter. No Lily.

Still wrong. Too hollow. Too obviously curated.

He leaned back, scowling.

The thing was—he didn’t know who he was without her in those years. Not really. All the best parts of him had happened in the space beside her. She was woven in . So removing her meant removing himself. Rebuilding something from scratch. Like memory surgery, but without anaesthetic.

He ran a hand through his hair, dragged his nails lightly across his scalp just to feel something sharp and real.

He could do this. He had to do this.

Because Malfoy had already named him once. And Burke had written. And if any of them ever decided to press further—if anyone, even Dumbledore, ever tried to push into his mind—

They couldn’t see her .

They couldn’t see Lily, not the way he remembered her. Not the freckles across her collarbone or the way her hands danced when she got excited about something stupid, like Arithmancy patterns in crystal grids. They couldn’t see her saying his name like it meant something . They couldn’t see the way she used to look at him like he wasn’t broken yet.

They couldn’t have that .

Severus set his jaw, opened to a clean page in the notebook beside him, and began again.

This time, he made it rain. Made the ground muddy. Made the book too soaked to read. And still, he sat there, pretending not to care. Alone. Silent. Unmoved.

It wasn’t the truth.

But it would be.

Soon. 

Chapter Text

Lily Evans wasn’t good at confrontations. And she definitely wasn’t good at confronting her closest friend, Mary, that not searching somebody for nearly a month and over is not how friendships work—no matter how casual she tried to make it sound. 

Mr Evans, still in his slippers and dressing gown, nursing a mug of too-strong tea, called up the stairs and handed her the receiver. She took the call into the hallway, curled the phone cord around her wrist, and tried to sound casual.

“Oh Mary, hi.”

“Hey Lils,” came Mary’s voice, bright and familiar like no time had passed at all. “How are you, love?”

This felt oddly close. Maybe Lily wasn’t so comfortable being close after having ten thousand arguments with Mary in her head, but she picked up the phone anyway, like her hands knew better than her pride.

“I’m alright,” Lily said, feigning lightness. “You?”

“I’m a wreck; went to sleep at four in the morning because, well, we all were in Order-ly spirit” Mary said cheerfully. “I mean yesterday was my first full Order meeting.”

Lily blinked. “You joined?”

“Mmhm,” Mary hummed. “No trial period either. Straight into the chaos. I thought Moody was going to hex someone just for blinking too loud.”

Lily laughed, but it came out small. “Sounds intense.”

“Oh, it was. Guess who else showed up?”

“Ah for fuck’s–”

“James bloody Potter.”

“Glad, he is doing well without me.”

“Oh God, is Lily Evans really but really glowing with indifference right now?”

“I will hang up.”

“I’m just saying,” Mary said innocently, “he kept looking around like he expected you to walk in at any second.”

Lily didn’t respond to that. Mary moved on, mercifully.

“Sirius was there too. Same leather jacket. Same arrogance. Told me I looked ‘shockingly kissable for a resistance recruit.’”

“You’re joking.”

“Dead serious.”

“What did you say?”

“That I may be a gorgeous northern queen, but I’m not a slag.”

Lily laughed—loud, honest. “Merlin.”

“He looked like he might propose.”

They both burst into laughter. It felt easy—dangerously easy.

Lily leaned her head against the wall, grinning. “You’re going to end up snogging him, aren’t you?”

Mary sighed. “If this turns into a real real war? Maybe. Might as well. Man's got cheekbones like divine punishment. Who am I to not admire God’s art on Earth?”

Then Mary added, more softly, “Remus was there too.”

Lily quieted. “Yeah?”

“He looked ghastly, per usual. But he is keeping it together, I reckon. He became quieter too. Moved in with Peter.”

“Oh—and you’ll scream,” Mary said suddenly, like she couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Alice and Frank got married.”

Lily sat up straighter. “ What?! ”

“Yup. Rings. Vows. Magical ones. She’s changed her name and everything.”

“But they’re only nineteen!”

“I know ,” Mary said, exasperated. “But Alice said something like, ‘When the world feels like it might explode, you hold on to the best thing in it.’”

Lily made a face. “That’s either beautiful or nauseating.”

“Both,” Mary agreed. “But I guess war does make you do stupid things. I mean they were also the prefects who shagged like crazy in their perfect prefect privileged bathrooms. I guess we joked too much about Frank lasting long enough.” Mary chuckled at the memory of girls giggling at Alice’s stories before sleeping. “Crazy stuff happening. Like falling in love fast. Or joining resistance groups before breakfast.”

“I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast.”

“I can–it was stress and a buttered crumpet,” Mary said. “Anyway, Marlene’s seeing someone.”

“What?”

“Blonde. Really fit. Shows up in her jumpers and stands way too close for it to be just ‘mates.’”

Lily raised an eyebrow, though Mary couldn’t see it. “Does Marlene know she’s dating her?”

“I don’t think so. I asked her directly, and she said the girl was ‘doing observational stuff.’ Plus, I don’t think everybody knows Marlene is going both ways too. But again, the wizarding world is not the same as Muggle-folk.”

“Oh my God.” Lily was trying to take in all this information. 

“I know. Fifth date’s tonight.”

“She’d better kiss her before she writes a bloody report,” Lily muttered.

Mary laughed. “Honestly.”

“But what about your soon-to-begin classes in St. Mungo’s for that healer traineeship or whatever?” Lily asked, slowly fading the laughter with reality.

“Oh, I’ll manage. Anyway, the Order will need healers sooner or later.”

Sooner or later – did not sit right with Lily. It sounded too casual for something so enormous. Like the inevitability of war was something you could pencil into a calendar, plan your future around, as if there would even be a future to plan. It made her stomach twist in that quiet, creeping way—the way it did when the radio stuttered about disappearances, or when Mum paused too long after reading the headlines. Mary said it like it was nothing. Like she’d already accepted it. Like they all had, and Lily was the only one still pretending that maybe they didn’t have to.

“Right, yeah.” She said, like she was still intaking her realization.

“Anyway, Mary, I’ve got to go, get ready for the evening.”

“What evening?” Mary said almost squeakily.

“I have a date at the cinema.”

There was a beat of absolute silence on the line.

“A what ?”

“A date,” Lily repeated, too quickly. “Nothing serious. Just some Muggle I met near the café.”

Mary made a noise like she was trying very hard not to shriek. “Since when do you casually date Muggles?”

“I don’t know,” Lily said, already regretting it. “It just sort of… happened.”

Which wasn’t even close to true. 

Because she didn’t have a date. Not in the way Mary thought.

She was going to the cinema later. But it wasn’t with some charming stranger. It wasn’t wine and arm-touching and awkward popcorn sharing.

It was Severus.

And it wasn’t a date. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t anything.

Just a plan made at half-past midnight when they were both a little tipsy and too tired to say no. An excuse to get out of the house. To pretend things were simple again, like they were fifteen and the only rebellion they had was sneaking into Muggle films.

But Lily didn’t want to explain that. Didn’t want to say his name. Not now. Not when Mary’s voice still carried the weight of war and resistance and people who had already chosen sides.

So she lied.

Because it was easier. Cleaner.

Because pretending to have a stranger to meet felt safer than admitting she was still tangled up in someone who never really left.

“Well,” Mary said finally, suspicion curling at the edge of her words. “Wear something sexy or cute, just in case he’s too fit. Gotta humble them early.”

Lily laughed—too fast, too light.

“I’ll let you know if I survive.”

“You’d better.”

They said their goodbyes after that, casual and easy again. But when Lily hung up the phone, she stayed in the hallway for a while, staring at the wall like it might tell her what, exactly, she thought she was doing.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Why the fuck would she say that, Lily wondered to herself. What kind of impulsive self-destructive reflex made her blurt date like it was the most normal thing in the world? And with a Muggle, no less. As if that somehow made it cleaner. Safer. Further away from what it actually was.

It wasn’t a date. 

It was Severus. 

And it wasn’t supposed to be complicated , yet for some reason it felt like telling it was meant to be complicated. Like there was no simple way to tell Mary, “Oh, I’m off to see Jaws 2 with the boy who used to be my childhood best friend and might now be, possibly, hopefully not currently, a Death Eater.”

Lily really, really hoped it wasn’t in the present tense.

Because how do you explain that ?

How do you make that sound normal?

You don’t.

So instead, you invent a Muggle boy who smells nice and drinks tea and has never once used the term “mudblood.”

And then you pretend that’s safer. Even when you know it’s not because lying to your bestfriend is wrong .

 She got up to put on that lavender light dress she had reserved for chilly summer evenings. She wasn’t even going out yet. It was twelve o’clock in the afternoon. But she took out the lavender dress from her wardrobe anyway, just to let it chill. Clothing might need some fresh air, right? You can’t just let it stay among many other things all the time. 

Like she was getting prepared for something five-six hours beforehand. The truth was, Lily wasn’t sure what to call whatever had been happening between her and Severus these past two weeks. They’d spent nearly every day together. Not by design. It just kept happening. He’d show up outside her house with something half-said on his lips and nowhere to be. Or she’d find herself wandering toward Spinner’s End, pretending she needed air when really, she just wanted someone to get it.

She tried to convince herself that walking around the most dreadful part of the city was nothing but ‘getting some fresh air’, when in fact, she always ended up by the same rowdy road. The one outside his house. And somehow, he’d always be there, not waiting, not expecting, but with that same look in his eyes. Like he knew she’d come. Like she always would.

It wasn’t planned. None of it was. But the days had started folding into each other, quiet and steady. A walk, a cigarette, a drink stolen from her dad’s cupboard, a film they barely watched, conversations that started with the weather and drifted into things neither of them would’ve said aloud a year ago.

What unsettled Lily most was the honesty of it.

Not the confessional kind. Not deep, bleeding truths with shaking hands and teary eyes. Just small honesty. The kind that slipped in when you weren’t trying. The kind that made you realise how much had changed.

She could shove his shoulder when he teased her about her tea-making. He could roll his eyes when she mocked his ponytail, which she secretly liked, and pretend not to hear her, just to let her get away with it.

There was something easy there now. Something real . It scared her. But it also made her stay. And that was the worst of it. Because if it had been tense, if it had been awkward— if it had been what it was supposed to be —she would’ve known what to do. But instead, it was warm. And that was harder to walk away from. 

Sometimes Lily would wonder if he felt the same change in their relationship, if it also felt this weirdly relieving for him too. Because Lily could swear that sometimes she felt his gaze stay at her longer than intended; his voice becoming softer than usual; his smile appearing out of thin air when she did something so in-character for herself, and the realization of it all made her wonder what if she just never paid attention to all that before. Maybe, just maybe, Lily could never face the truth that her childhood best friend had–

“Lily, darling, cousin Eric will be staying at ours tonight.”

Fuck, she thought, not him. 

“The one from Vermont?” she called, halfway down the stairs now.

“Well, it’s not like I’ve got a whole army of cousins scattered across New England,” Mr Evans replied, appearing at the foot of the stairs with his mug of tea and raised eyebrows. Lily didn’t only inherit her father’s ginger hair and strikingly mesmerizing green eyes, but also his amazing ability to deliver dry comebacks without so much as blinking.

She reached the last step, already rubbing at her temple. “I’ll be out tonight.”

“Oh?” he asked, tilting his head. “Where?”

“Cinema.”

“With who?”

“Severus.”

There was a pause. “And is it a…?”

“No,” she said flatly. “It’s not  that .”

“Okay, okay,” he said, raising one hand in surrender. “Just asked. It’s just– you’ve been going out a lot with him lately. And not long ago, you said you two weren’t even speaking.”

Lily paused for a second, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. We weren’t.”

Mr Evans gave her a look, one of those gentle, quiet ones that said he wasn’t prying, not really, just trying to piece together the changing orbit of his daughter’s life.

“Well,” he said, with a small shrug, “guess things change.”

She didn’t say anything. Just turned back toward the hallway, murmuring, “Yeah. I suppose they do.” 

Her dad had wanted to move the place of the piano for weeks now, and now that his cousin, Eric, was to be here tonight, he was determined to put the damned piano downstairs or else they’d be serenaded with off-key jazz and continuous (the very same cousin did the same remarks four years ago) complaints about how everything was better in America. The coffee. The cars. Even the bloody couches. Last time he’d stayed, he’d spent a solid twenty minutes explaining the superior lumbar support of Vermont upholstery. Lily had barely survived it then she doubted she’d last the evening now.

She stood at the threshold for a beat longer, hand hovering near the wall like it might steady her. Then, quietly, “I’ll be home late.”

“Are you leaving now?” He asked, lowering my reading glasses.

“No. Not now.” 

Mr Evans sighed, setting down his mug on the windowsill as if preparing for battle. “Give me a hand with the piano, will you?”

Lily blinked. “Now?”

“Well, before my charming cousin arrives and starts whining about the death of jazz and the superiority of American understanding of whatever rubbish he might come up with.” He rubbed his back. “Figured I’d move it down to the laundry room, keep the noise levels survivable. Or lie to him that we sold it?”

She made a face. “You’re really going to lug that thing down the stairs?”

He looked at her, hopeful. “Can you magic it out of here for the night?”

Lily snorted. “What, and break the Statute of Secrecy because of Eric’s taste in jazz?”

He shrugged. “If there’s ever been a justifiable cause...”

“Sorry, Dad. You’ll have to wrestle it the Muggle way.”

He groaned dramatically, muttering something about how she was a witch when it suited her , and disappeared toward the hallway muttering, “Bloody Americans.” 

“I can call Tuney, and we can wrestle it downstairs together?”

“Eh, no don’t worry, I’ll call Tom.”

“Right.” And with that Lily went upstairs back to her room, to lay on her bed and think for the next four hours because she thought maybe she leaves an hour early. She also wondered if she should do her make-up. She rarely did it when she went out, and today, maybe, just maybe, she felt like doing it. 

For her, doing make-up wasn’t about looking better than usual, but rather being in charge of her appearance. Of her face. Of her mood. It was like choosing your own expression before the world had the chance to assign you one. A quiet sort of rebellion. Or maybe armor. She wasn’t sure which.

She didn’t even own many. Most of the stuff she used were Petunia’s, and, hopefully, her sister wouldn’t mind her using a bit of whatever she had. A flick of mascara, a smudge of brown pencil beneath her lashes—nothing loud. Just enough to make her feel like she’d drawn a line between herself and the rest of the day.

And then she sat on the edge of her bed again, elbows resting on her knees, chin in her palm. It was a strange feeling, knowing that all of your friends from school had suddenly gone to fight for the ‘better’ cause when you can’t even get your shit together. Suddenly, it felt like Lily was holding onto nothing that had been what she would expect of herself. And she had so much talent within her. Talent entangled with bold bravery. The kind of bravery that Severus would have called stupidity, she thought. 

Again, it wasn’t that she was scared; she just didn’t quite understand what was the difference in methods between the Order and You-Know-Who’s little death group or whatever because in retrospective, the Order right now was just Gryffindor common room whilst the other side was Slytherin’s—only with darker robes and less curfews. Everyone kept saying it was about values. About protection. About love versus fear. But what did that mean when spells flew the same way from either wand? When both sides were willing to kill for their truths?

Not even mentioning the fact that both sides were an option (kind of an obligatory choice even) once you were to graduate. And that was what made it worse, wasn’t it? That it was expected. That growing up meant picking a side, not questioning if there should’ve been sides at all. As if you turned seventeen and someone handed you a wand and a pamphlet: Join or disappear.

The war didn’t wait for clarity. It didn’t care if you were still figuring out who you were. Lily had barely even caught her breath after school and suddenly everyone she knew was in it, up to their necks, wand arm steady and jaw clenched like that was enough to mean they were right. 

After all, she was from a muggle family with no reliance within the wizarding world. It wasn’t even the reliance she needed. She never liked relying on people anyway. Sure, her friends were her friends, and she never doubted their relationship. But if this is the world she wanted to live in, she wanted to work in, one day have a family in, then she might have as well left her wand in a drawer and apply to some higher education institution, pretending to be fine. 

But she wasn’t. 

Lily Evans was a muggleborn witch, and that meant that there was no privilege of pretending forever. 

There was no option of neutrality. There was an option of fighting or sitting in the silence of her own cowardice. And if there was anything Lily Evans could never accept nor take up her chin, that was cowardice. She would rather die in cold blood, knowing she had stood for something, anything, than live a long life shaped by silence and shrinking. Cowardice wasn’t in her bones. It wasn’t stitched into her voice or her wand arm. And even when her doubts clawed louder than her convictions, even when everything inside her wanted to pause and breathe and think—it didn’t matter.

Everything in her life felt like an illusion. A weird but real illusion. The kind that was aware of its own existence and brought nothing but future uncertainty with itself. Nothing was certain for her anymore, at least she thought. Maybe joining the Order had been the right option. Deep down, Lily knew it was. Knew that doing nothing wasn’t a path she could walk. But still—a part of her was scared. Not of fighting, not of dying even, but of losing something else. Something quieter. The version of herself she used to dream of becoming.

Because once, not that long ago, she had so many hopes for her future as a young witch. Hopes that had nothing to do with war and sides and watching people you knew disappear.

Maybe it was the illusion of growing up in a Muggle household, she thought. The way magic had dazzled her when she first learned she had it. The way it had felt like an escape from everything dull and expected. Suddenly, she was someone . She had power . A world cracked open for her, endless and strange and filled with promise. And she’d believed in that promise. She’d expected it to mean more than this.

Now, it felt like magic wasn’t a gift. It was a weapon. A burden. A reason to choose between dying for something and dying for nothing.

Maybe that was what scared her the most—not the war, not even the weight of fighting for the "better" side—but the death of that hope. That belief in something greater than this constant ache in her chest.

She had wanted to do something extraordinary with her life, but the longer summer felt, the more she learnt that right now extraordinary was fighting for the greater cause. 

And now, extraordinary certainly meant staying alive long enough to make it through the week. Or wait a week, like in the case of Severus, who had gotten a letter this morning from Lucius Malfoy, an invitation to one of those ever-so-exclusive gatherings, masked in civility, soaked in implication. A crisp envelope, pale grey, wax-sealed, expensive in its silence.

The invitation letter came with a parcel. Robes with a charcoal black twist, impossibly smooth, the kind that whispered wealth just by hanging still. The shirt that was meant to be worn underneath it was off-white with buttons made of mother-of-pearl, the kind of thing that would look effortlessly elegant on anybody who was to wear it. They were tailored in a way that made it impossible to tell whether they were newly made or just something that gathered dust in somebody’s, presumably Malfoy’s, wardrobe. 

After trying them on, he realized that they fit too well, and yet not well enough. The sleeves hung a bit long. The shoulders didn’t quite match his frame. It was elegant in that clinical, Malfoy kind of way—handsome, polished, but designed for someone who didn’t flinch when entering a room. 

He wanted to ask his mother to adjust them. Just a little. Bring them in at the waist. Leave the sleeves long—long enough to cover half his hands, like most of the things he wore. There was something about that length that felt right, like it belonged to the way he moved. Severus didn’t know if they were new or a hand-me-down—just that they were expensive and meant to impress. Regardless, he couldn’t afford to get this wrong. Not this invitation. Not in a week, for sure.

“Ma?”

She didn’t respond, but he was sure she was home, in the kitchen reading something.

“I’ll leave these here, can you fix ‘em for me?” He said as he went down the stairs.

Eileen didn’t say much, just looked up from the table where she was ash-flicking her cigarette and gave a small nod. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment longer than usual. He didn’t push it.

“Fanks,” he muttered, laying the parcel down.

The front door burst open behind him.

“HA! Bastards won, Leen!” Tobias’s voice came first, loud, ragged, already drunk on adrenaline. “Three to one, and I bloody knew it. Put a tenner on ‘em and now look at me!”

He stormed in, eyes wild, slapping the narrow doorframe like it owed him a medal. And then he froze.

“What the hell is that?” he barked, pointing at the fabric on the armrest. “Another dress?”

Severus didn’t respond.

Tobias stomped forward. “That what we’re doing now? Getting bloody hand-delivered gowns from your little owl friends? If one more bird flies into this house, I swear to God up there, I’ll skin it and sell it down by the mill.”

“They’re just robes,” Severus muttered through his teeth.

He jerked at the fine material clutched in Severus’s hand, shaking it once. “You think robes are gonna feed us? You gonna show off to your rich friends while your mother scrounges for coppers to keep the lights on?”

“I–” Severus tried, jaw tight, but his father spoke right over him.

“You’re almost twenty, and you still float around like some prince with his nose in the air. You think you’re too good for a proper job? For working? For bringing money to the table?”

Tobias’s grip tightened on the robes, crumpling the fine fabric like it was something vile.

“Go on then,” he spat. “Go work. Provide for this house. Put something on this table, you ungrateful fuck.”

And before Severus could blink, Tobias shoved him back, hard, enough to knock him off balance. His spine hit the edge of the stairs. The world jostled for a breath.

For a moment, it was like being ten again, small, cornered, breath stuck somewhere between ribs. That same pulse of fear. The belt. The ringing in his ears. The way the floor always seemed colder when you hit it with your pride still clutched in your throat.

But Severus didn’t curl this time. He didn’t flinch. He just pushed himself back up, slow, steady, shoulders straight.

Tobias stood there, sneering. “You’re not special. Don’t forget that.” He said as he threw the robes at him. 

“Fucking faggot,” he muttered under his breath with bitterness and hatred entangled on his tongue.

The robes hit Severus’s chest with a crumpled thud, slipping through his fingers as they fell to the floor. The word hung in the air like smoke, thick, sour, poisoning everything it touched. Eileen didn’t move. Her eyes flicked up, then down again, like she'd already resigned herself to silence years ago.

Severus stood still. Too still.

He didn’t pick up the robes right away. Just stared at them for a beat, at the folds of expensive fabric now sprawled over cracked linoleum. If there was any poetry to it, he didn’t want to hear it.

“I’m not staying here tonight,” he said, voice flat. Not a question. Not even a decision, really. Just a statement dragged out from somewhere deep in his chest. He didn’t even think of where he’d be going, but who cares anyway?

Tobias scoffed behind him, already moving toward the kitchen for another bottle, muttering about "pretty little fairies and their fucking bird post."

Severus turned, carefully. Bent down and lifted the robes, shaking them out once. His hands didn’t tremble. Not outwardly. He wouldn’t give Tobias the satisfaction. But something inside him had cinched tight, like a thread pulled too hard. He folded the fabric over his arm with more care than it probably deserved.

Eileen exhaled smoke.

“Leave them over here.”

And so he did, before going upstairs to take a shower. Because nothing in this house made sense to him. 

The water pipes groaned like they were choking on rust. It always took too long to warm, so he stepped in while it was still cold. Let it hit his back like a slap. Better that way. Cold cleared the head.

He leaned both palms against the tile, breathing in steam that hadn't yet arrived, head bowed like he was praying to the peeling grout. Water dripped down his spine, sharp and unfriendly. The kind of cold that kept your skin tight and thoughts sharper.

It felt like everything was staged against him in a way, he hadn’t expected it. Maybe it was his paranoia getting in the way. Surely, Burke had nothing to do with the invitation Malfoy had handed to Severus, but did Black have anything to do with it? After all, famous Regulus Black, the current sole heir to the house of Black, was Narcissa’s cousin, and Narcissa had only just married Lucius Malfoy a few months ago in what could only be described as a performance masked as a wedding. The papers called it elegant; Severus called it inevitable. Power marrying power, charm courting charm. The sort of thing you read about in pureblood history books, all glittering spells and rehearsed smiles.

It wouldn’t be strange if Regulus had mentioned him. Quietly. Casually. Like, “You know my friend Eugene. Eugene Burke. And you know Snape, right?” Because that’s how they operated; names dropped in the right rooms, at the right moments, without any real intention or accountability. Just enough to plant a seed. A seed of consequent events.

So maybe it wasn’t paranoia. Maybe it was the slow, deliberate machinery of people who knew how to use others like chess pieces. And if Regulus or Burke had a hand in this, whatever this was, then it meant one thing – someone had plans for him. 

He was ready. He was always prepared for a challenge. For him, preparedness was an instinct of survival. It was an armor sewn into his ribs, forged through years of scarcity and silence and trying not to flinch. Preparedness was why he brewed better than most, why he kept to himself, why he never let anyone see the full map of his thoughts.

But there were cracks, and he knew it. There had always been one. A red-haired, sharp-tongued, goddamn brilliant crack in his foundation that made him falter.

Lily.

He scrubbed a hand up and down his scalp, the cold water cutting through the heat behind his eyes. Tonight wasn’t about her. It couldn’t be. And yet – he knew he’d see her. He’d already said yes to the cinema. They’d drink something cheap, laugh at something stupid, pretend they weren’t on the edge of a war or the verge of something neither of them could name. 

They shared a blind normalcy towards the world that was not going to be okay with it. And he’d pretend that he didn’t notice the way her voice softened when she spoke to him now, or how she never mentioned him anymore. He’d pretend he didn’t care. That he wasn’t holding his breath around her. That this, whatever this was, wasn’t already the most dangerous thing in his life.

True, Severus did think until the end of sixth year that she was worth the danger; that whatever he did with his life was all for her in the end. But as time went on, the hope of – whatever – just simmered down. He himself lost all the hope for himself to even have any hope for them . 

He wasn’t worth the life of glory, recognition and richness, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t achieve it. Even if he’d accepted long ago that he wasn’t made for glory— not really —he’d clawed his way toward it anyway. Not because he believed he deserved it, but because he knew he could be useful. Valuable. He didn’t want power for the sake of it. He wanted power because it meant control. And control meant never having to sleep with one eye open in your own house. Never having to wait for footsteps on the stairs or the crash of fists on wood. It meant choices. It meant safety. And maybe, in some impossible future, it meant freedom.

But freedom wasn’t something he could think about now.

Not when Lucius was watching. Not when Regulus was circling. Not when Lily was still somehow on his calendar tonight.

Because he hadn’t reached the step to fall.

Not yet.

Falling meant surrender. Letting go. And Severus didn’t do that. He hovered. He observed. He resisted the pull of things he couldn’t afford to want. He lingered at the edge of it, of her, carefully balancing on the rim, telling himself that desire was manageable so long as it was never named.

So long as it never asked anything of him he couldn’t give.

But that wasn’t entirely true either. Because she didn’t have to ask.

She just had to look at him like she had the night they shared that bottle of cheap red, laughter dripping between them like water through cupped hands, and he’d think maybe. Maybe the world could pause for just one night. Maybe, if he were another man, born of a better name and a cleaner house, he could’ve let himself want her properly. Out loud.

But he wasn’t. He wasn’t for now. And even if he was sooner or later, he hoped she’d never be anywhere near him, yet still safe and sound as ever. Because if there was one thing Severus Snape knew with sickening clarity, it was that wanting something didn’t mean you got to keep it. And loving something didn’t mean it loved you back in a way that lasted. Not in a way that survived war. Or grief. Or a name whispered too close to a mark that burned beneath the skin.

He rinsed the last of the soap from his arms, watching it spiral down the drain like something worth mourning. And when he stepped out, dripping and cold and no closer to anything real, he pulled his towel tight, stared at the cracked mirror, and practiced his face for later.

A face that would hopefully scare her off, and bring others closer to him. Closer to power. Stronger Occluded. And utterly unreachable.

He dressed slowly. Slacks a bit too short. Shirt with sleeves a little too long, so he folded the sleeves in quarters. Anyway if there were to be any wind, it would be unpleasantly warm, he thought. It was the kind of day that couldn’t make up its mind, grey but not cool, heavy but not raining. A stillness that made his skin itch. 

He couldn’t find his bloody trousers. In fact, he couldn’t find any of his that weren’t either stained or still drying by the sink from the night before. Eventually, he found a pair of shorts that had once belonged to Tobias. And of course, precisely, he hated them since they were too loose on the waist; and not even mentioning how he hated having his ankles exposed this much. (They weren’t even that short on him.)

Still, he wore them. Because he had to. Because dignity came second to not wearing yesterday’s mud-streaked trousers to see her.

And he told himself it didn’t matter. That she wouldn’t notice. That it wasn’t like he was trying to impress her. (Even though he folded the sleeves of his shirt again, neater this time.)

The off-license was two streets over, tucked between a laundrette and a shuttered bakery. A bell above the door clanged when he walked in, sharp and nasal, the sort of noise that made him want to hex it into silence. The shopkeeper didn’t look up.

Good.

He wandered slowly. Too slowly. Picked up a packet of crisps he had no intention of buying, scanned the dusty rows of cans and bottles until he found the one that didn’t look like it would rot your stomach in a single swig. The wine wasn’t expensive—none of it was—but it was the closest thing they had to something drinkable.

He hesitated.

Then he remembered the way Lily had wrinkled her nose at the beer his dad used to keep under the sink. “Tastes like disappointment,” she’d muttered once, pushing the bottle back into his hand. She never liked the stuff. But he also remembered her sighing with the sort of comfort that only came from a Hogsmeade butterbeer. And wine doesn’t sound like common ground, but he knew that she would never ever say no to red wine. 

He slid it under his jacket. Smooth, easy. Years of long sleeves and long fingers made shoplifting less of a crime, more of a necessity. It didn’t make him proud. It wasn’t that he planned on bringing something. Lily had told him to bring some snacks. Wine was kind of a snack, at least, he thought. 

He dropped the crisps by the crisps again and walked out like he hadn’t done a thing. The bell clanged again behind him. Still no one looked up.

Outside, he exhaled, thumb tapping against the neck of the bottle through his coat.

He didn’t check the time, but he was sure he was gonna be a bit late. Not late to the movie, but late to the time Lily had told him to be there, which was fine, he assumed. Not a big deal. 

The cinema was only a few streets away, one of those small independent ones that smelled like dust and toffee and ambition. The kind that always had last year’s movie posters still on the marquee, letters hanging off at wonky angles like they were too tired to pretend they belonged there.

He saw her before she saw him.

Lily was standing near the entrance, fiddling with the strap of her bag, shifting her weight from foot to foot like she was trying to stay casual and not look like she’d been waiting too long. Her hair was half up, little wisps blowing loose around her cheekbones. She looked like summer. Like something unbothered by the heat. Like someone who didn’t know he’d just stolen cheap wine and folded his sleeves three times just to look like he hadn’t tried too hard.

Severus paused, half-hidden by the corner of the building. For just a second.

And then he exhaled, ran a hand through his hair like it might settle something inside him, and walked toward her.

“Got the snacks,” he said, lifting the wine bottle with a flick of his wrist.

She turned. Her eyes dropped to his legs instantly. Then rose, slowly, like she was physically restraining a laugh.

“Merlin’s knees,” she said, deadpan. “Who let your shins out in public?”

“I couldn’t find my trousers.”

“Right,” she said, biting back a grin. “And the shorts? Vintage Tobias?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t start.”

“I’m not judging,” Lily said, even though she very much was. “Just– unexpected. That’s all. I thought you didn’t believe in knees.”

Severus handed her the bottle in silence.

She took it, inspected the label like she knew anything about wine. “At least you make up for the fashion crime with acceptable alcohol.”

“Put it into your … purse” he muttered unsure what to call her bag.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, ‘cause it is just the right size for this bottle.” She hid the bottle inside her coat’s inner pocket instead.

He narrowed his eyes, but she was already stepping toward the ticket line, like the argument was over before it started.

“Come on, Legs. I’m not standing so you would commit a crime against humanity in your shorts.”

When they reached the front of the queue, Lily was already reaching for her coin purse, but Severus cut in, low and quick.

“I’ll pay.”

She blinked, surprised. “You sure?”

He nodded, already pulling out a crumpled note from his pocket. For some reason, normal muggle money, pounds, still felt foreign in his fingers—too soft, too easy to tear—but it had been sitting folded behind a cracked bus pass in his wallet for weeks now. Leftover from the last time he’d turned a few galleons into pounds, right after stepping off the Hogwarts Express for what might’ve been the last time.

It wasn’t much. But enough for two tickets and the illusion of something simple.

“Alright, then,” she said, watching him with a quiet sort of curiosity. “Didn’t know you were in your generous era.”

“I have my moments.”

The woman behind the counter didn’t even glance at them as she ripped the tickets and handed them over.

They stepped into the cool dark of the cinema lobby, lights flickering faintly overhead, the buzz of distant music and buttered popcorn pressing into the air.

“I’ll get the crisps,” Lily offered, already veering toward the tiny snack bar. “Unless you’re still pretending wine counts as dinner.”

They found their seats near the back—second-to-last row, cornered enough to feel hidden but not so tucked away as to seem suspicious. The cinema was barely half full. A few scattered couples. A group of teens already giggling too loud. Some bloke eating popcorn like it owed him money.

Lily flopped into her seat with the crisps in one hand and the wine in the other, smirking like she was proud of herself.

Then she turned to him, bottle in lap. “How will we open it?”

Severus blinked. “I… didn’t think that far.”

“Brilliant,” she said, already rolling her eyes. And then, without warning, she lifted the bottle to her mouth, wedged the cork between her teeth, and somehow pulled it loose with a small, satisfyingly vulgar pop.

“Gross,” he muttered.

“Effective,” she replied, mouth full of cork and mischief. She spat the cork into her palm, wiped it on her sleeve, and took the first sip like she’d just won a duel. Then she handed it over, her lips still glinting red from the wine.

And so the two were having crisps and wine halfway through the movie, although they weren’t really watching it but rather commenting on everything within the frames.

Their legs were kicked up on the sticky rail in front of them, the bottle wedged loosely between Lily’s knees, passed back and forth like some sacred relic of rebellion.

“Okay,” Lily whispered, halfway through a scene with too much splashing and not enough logic, “why is this shark so angry? Like, truly. What is his damage?”

“Isn’t it a new shark?,” Severus whispered back, eyes narrowed.

“It is!” she hissed, gesturing at the screen with a crisp. “Which means this one’s just… vengeful on principle.”

“I haven’t even seen the first one.”

Lily turned to him with the kind of scandalized face she usually reserved for people who said they didn’t like dogs. “You’ve never seen Jaws ?”

He shrugged. “Not like I ever watch telly.”

“Well,” she said, sitting up straighter with mock seriousness, “This Greg–.”

“…Who?”

“Greg. Let me finish,” she said, holding up a finger, eyes alight. “Greg is the second shark. He’s best friends with the first shark, Joan, and now he’s here to avenge her.”

“Joan?”

“Yes.”

“So, the first shark was Joan.”

“No,” she said, offended. “Joan is me. Obviously. She was the shark-ess that got killed. She was a bit of a bad bitch and, well, he’s fueled by loss.”

Severus blinked at her. “So the shark’s best mate died and now he’s out for blood?”

“Exactly. Tell me that’s not more emotionally grounded than anything the Ministry’s ever done.”

He took the bottle back, snorted. “Honestly? Greg’s got a better moral compass than half the wizards I know.”

“Greg’s a legend.”

“Greg’s a socialist icon.”

“Greg is tired of capitalism and bad holiday towns.”

Severus laughed, an actual, shoulder-shaking laugh, and Lily clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Sssh, you’re gonna get us–”

“Hey!” A torchlight beam sliced through the dark. The usher, unimpressed and clearly overworked, pointed straight at them. “Out. Now.”

Lily crammed the crisps under her arm like contraband, still giggling. Severus, red-faced and still a bit tipsy, ducked his head and followed her down the aisle, muttering something about Greg being misunderstood.

“Jesus, mate.” Lily muttered, holding her laughter while clinging onto Severus’s arm.

“Greg wouldn’t have liked it.” Severus muttered into Lily’s ear as the two left the cinema.

“He would bite them all.” She laughed as the two now left.

Outside, the air hit them like a laugh they hadn’t finished. It was cooler now, not cold, just brisk enough to make Lily pull her coat tighter and Severus instinctively tug at his too-thin sleeves. The wine bottle, half-drunk and slightly warm, swung from her hand like a reward for surviving the week.

“Greg would’ve sunk the whole bloody theatre,” Severus said, tone grim but eyes still lit with amusement.

“Oh, absolutely,” Lily nodded, her curls bouncing as they turned the corner. “They wouldn’t even have time to scream. Just one bite—bam—ticket booth gone.”

“Popcorn flying everywhere. Carnage.”

“The usher’s severed leg floating in the butter vat.”

Severus chuckled, and it wasn’t forced. It wasn’t masked or cautious. It just… happened.

Lily glanced sideways, bumping his shoulder with hers. “So, what now, O Shark Prophet?”

He shrugged. “You’re the one carrying the wine. I assumed you had a plan.”

“Hmm.” She looked around at the empty street, considering the soft orange glow of the streetlamps, the silence that had fallen now that the cinema was behind them. “Reckon it’s still early.”

“You saying you want to get drunk on a park bench like pensioners?”

“I’m saying,” Lily said, tugging him by the wrist toward the opposite street, “that if we don’t finish this bottle, Greg’s death will have been in vain.”

Severus groaned. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You like it.”

He didn’t answer. She was just as tipsy as he was anyway, at this point.

“Do you think he gets killed?”

“Who? Greg?” Lily asked, holding a bottle in her right hand.

“Well, who else?”

“I bloody hope not. He deserves that good peaceful swim. But like I think kids jus’ piss him off. It’s not his fault he lives somewhere so sodding … kids-full.” Then she raises her bottle. “To Greg the shark, who was true to his friendship or maybe even love for Joan.” 

She afterwards passed the bottle to him, and he took a big sip, after saying, “to Greg.”

Severus handed the bottle back with a soft grunt, settling back into the bench like he was trying not to seem too comfortable beside her.

Lily leaned her head back and stared up at the sky, which was doing that heavy, humming thing it always did before rain.

“You think sharks ever get headaches?” she asked suddenly.

He side-eyed her. “…What?”

“You know, like when they swim too fast or go too deep and the pressure gets all weird. Like, boom. Migraine. But ocean style.”

He blinked once. “I don’t think sharks have migraines.”

“That’s tragic,” she mumbled. “I think Greg deserves a hot water bottle and a bubble bath.”

Severus shook his head, biting back a smile. “You’re drunk.”

“Not really,” she said, sitting up straighter with mock offense. “I’m just…creatively liberated.”

“That’s worse.”

She pointed at him. “You just don’t want to admit you’re enjoying this.”

“I’m enduring it,” he corrected, voice dry as ever.

She smiled blankly into the sky and let out a ‘mhm’ as they both sat on a bench, quitely.  Lily tilted her head, watching the clouds smudge against the sky like wet chalk. Her voice came a little quieter now, slowed by thought or maybe just the wine. “Mary called. A few days ago.”

Severus didn’t look at her, just let the words hang, legs stretched long in front of him, arms folded. He knew better than to interrupt when she sounded like that–soft and unsure.

“She was talking about .. her stuff,” Lily went on, absently wiping the bottle’s neck with her sleeve. “Soon, she’d start her training in the St. Mungo’s.”

A pause.

“I always wanted to be a healer,” she admitted, almost laughing through it. “But I’m so fucking stupid.”

“You’re not,” he said, too quickly, too flatly.

“I am,” she insisted, voice wobbling just once. “I never even tried. Got it into my head I should be an Auror or something. Thought it sounded braver. Thought it’d impress people.” She hesitated, then added, “Thought it’d impress James.”

That earned her a sideways glance.

“I didn’t even like the idea of it,” she muttered. “It was just… it felt like the right kind of ambition, you know? The acceptable kind.”

Severus shifted. “If you got an apprenticeship,” he said, after a beat, “with a Potions master… you could still do it.”

She blinked, brows lifting.

“Most healers start there anyway,” he added. “You’re probably too drunk to remember, but—”

“No I’m not,” Lily snapped, sitting up straighter. “I’m not.”

“Then talk to Slughorn. He’s still teaching. Might be his last year. He’d trip over himself to help if you gave him a smile and a reason.”

She stared at him, squinting like she was trying to see something in his face that wasn’t obvious.

“You think I could actually do it?”

He didn’t flinch. “I think you’re one of the only people I know who could do it and not make it about herself.”

Lily went quiet, then raised the bottle again, but soon enough Severus grabbed it from her hands and took a big gulp.

“Oii?!”

He didn’t respond, just added that smug smirk to his face.

“No manners, whatsoever!”

“None worth keeping,” he muttered, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Besides, you’re already emotionally compromised. I’m doing you a favour.”

Lily gaped at him, mock-offended. “Emotionally compromised? I’ll have you know, I am extremely well-balanced.”

She lunged for the bottle with mock outrage, but he twisted just enough to keep it out of her reach, one elbow resting lazily on the back of the bench like he was lounging in some kind of pub rather than a questionable park corner.

“You’re a menace,” she grumbled, crossing her arms.

He finally handed the bottle back, not quite meeting her eyes. “You’d be a good one, you know. A healer.”

She took the bottle, but didn’t drink. “You’re only saying that because I didn’t laugh at your shorts.”

He let out a low snort. “You absolutely laughed at my shorts.”

She grinned. “Fine. But only internally.”

“I mean it. You’d make a decent healer.”

Lily didn’t smile this time.

She just looked at him. The wine sat forgotten between her hands, fingers loose around the neck. Her gaze flicked over his face like she was memorising something, trying to bottle it up alongside the alcohol. A little crooked, a little tired. Unreadable, but real.

“Thanks,” she said, and it wasn’t casual. Not the way most things between them pretended to be.

And then the first raindrop fell. Right onto Lily’s nose. Severus shifted, elbow sliding off the bench rail, eyes on the far end of the park where the rain had started falling in sheets. Slowly at first. Then heavier. 

She looked up at the sky and groaned. “Oh, man.”

Severus raised a brow. “What?”

“I don’t want to go home.” Her voice was small. Honest. And then she got her jacket off, took him by his hand and started running. Severus unexpectedly found himself pulled up from the bench, stumbling after her as she tugged him across the park like they were thirteen again and late for curfew. Her fingers were warm, gripping his without hesitation, rain already beginning to soak through her shirt. He didn’t resist.

“Lily–” he started, but she just laughed, throwing a look over her shoulder that shut him up completely.

“Just shut up and run!”

So he did.

Severus held the bottle tight against his chest as they ran, shielding it more out of instinct than care. His other hand stayed in hers—firm, grounding. She kept glancing back at him, her laughter rising above the slap of their feet on wet grass.

Now that he was taller, she didn’t so much drag him as she leaned toward him, tugging him close whenever he slipped too far to the side. Her jacket, still barely covering their heads, dipped between them like a fragile roof they were both ducking under. She bumped her shoulder into his every few strides, like a reminder that she was still there, still laughing, still leading.

The rain hit harder now, soaking their arms, their clothes, but Lily didn’t slow. If anything, she moved faster, and Severus, taller and lankier now than he’d ever been during their school years, had to match her pace, half led by her hand, half pulled by momentum.

She didn’t let go until they were under the willow, until the world hushed and everything stilled. Only then did she let their hands fall apart, and the space between them returned like a curtain slowly pulling shut.

Lily collapsed into the damp grass, laughing, wild strands of her hair catching in the trailing leaves.

“Your shorts are even worse when wet,” she said between gasps.

Lily reached for the bottle and sat up halfway, swaying a bit before raising it in the air.

“To Greg,” she said again, quieter this time. “And to willow trees. And to not being anywhere else.”

She tipped the bottle back, took the last mouthful, then frowned and offered it to Severus with a triumphant little smile.

He took it, tilted it once, twice, then turned it upside down.

Nothing.

“Do you always have to have a reason to drink?” he asked dryly. “Or to finish the bottle before handing it off?”

“Stop complaining,” she said, leaning back on her elbows.

“I’m not complaining,” he muttered, then after a pause added, “I stole it for you.”

She blinked, then snorted. “Oh no. A criminal in my midst. Guess I’m a wanted woman now.”

“Don’t joke,” he said, but there wasn’t any real edge to it.

“Stop complaining,” she said again, this time softer, and shifted until her head found his shoulder. Her hair was damp against his shirt. He tensed instinctively.

For a moment, it felt like the life around had stopped, and only they were existing in this time. To Severus, it was the kind of alive that didn’t happen to people like him. Like not eating for days and suddenly having a whole feast placed in front of you only for an hour. An hour that wasn’t promised, and certainly not meant to last. But it was there. And that was enough.

His face didn’t show it, of course, it didn’t. But something in him softened. Let go. He felt weirdly happy, and the strangeness of it didn’t scare him as much as it should have. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he let himself relax. Fully. Without checking over his shoulder. Without bracing for the moment to end. And the world kept raining just outside the willow, like it had no idea it was missing something.

“I will never forget you.” She said with a hint of nostalgia that was just starting to build up. “It’s not that you are too weird to forget—though you are,” she added with a crooked smile, trying to lighten it, but it didn’t stick.

Severus let out a dry, almost amused breath. Not quite a laugh. Just the ghost of one.

“Don’t be stupid,” he murmured. “You’ll forget me eventually.”

He said it like it was fact. Like it didn’t matter. Like it wasn’t already killing him. He tilted his head back, eyes tracing the drooping weave of willow branches like he was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere easier. 

But Lily didn’t laugh.

She didn’t correct him.

She just went still because his dismissive response, regardless of how ‘un-sober’ she was, bothered her. It bothered her that he didn’t think she’d carry him into her future, not even a small, quiet version of him tucked somewhere safe. And as much as Lily tended to overthink when it wasn’t asked of her, this time she wasn’t sure if he meant she didn’t belong in his future… or if he didn’t believe he’d have one at all.

Severus felt her sudden discomfort at his words. He realized that he might have said something too honest, too raw. Something that cracked the softness of the moment open just enough for the cold to sweep in. But he didn’t take it back. He never did. Instead, he shifted slightly, the bottle still forgotten somewhere near their feet, and without looking at her, he draped his arm over her shoulders.

Not out of affection. Not even comfort, exactly. But because it felt like the right thing to do. Because it felt like the kind of gesture that might not be available to do so tomorrow. Because whatever this moment was right now, it would stay here today, under this exact tree. His gesture was like tucking in a blanket you knew would be pulled off by morning. Like preparing someone for winter when you knew you wouldn’t be there for spring.

Lily didn’t speak. She didn’t pull away. She just let the silence wrap around them, let his arm settle, and then slowly reached up to find his hand where it rested near her shoulder. She held it, not tightly, but with the kind of familiarity that said she wanted him to know she was still here. That she hadn’t forgotten him yet. That maybe she never would. 

None of them knew what was the state of their friendship, if it could even be called that. They were so lost, and yet so unaware of it. The quiet stretched between them, soft and endless, like the space under the willow had folded time in on itself. No past, no future. Just the weight of a hand in another, the warmth of a shoulder, the shared silence of two people who once knew each other so loudly and now barely knew how to speak at all.

Lily’s eyes had drifted shut at some point, her head a little heavier against him, curls damp against his sleeve. And for a while, Severus didn’t move. Didn’t breathe too hard. He just let it happen.

Eventually, though, he glanced up at the faint smear of grey along the horizon. He hadn’t noticed how late it had gotten. Or how early.

“It’s four,” he murmured, surprising even himself with the sound of his own voice. “We should go.”

Lily stirred beside him, blinking as if surfacing from somewhere far away. “Is it really?”

He didn’t answer, not that he needed to. The sky was already shifting above them, and the stillness had turned to a kind of humming anticipation, like the world was waiting to start over.

They stood slowly. He brushed grass off his back. She gathered the bottle, now just a prop. No one said a word until they were walking again, gravel crunching under their shoes.

She glanced sideways. “How are you?” she asked, almost too quietly. “I mean... really. At home.”

He didn’t look at her. “Fine.”

The lie tasted flat in his mouth. The truth was uglier than it was useful. He hadn’t eaten in a day, nor had smoked since he couldn’t risk buying a new pack. The last bit of money from his May commissions was nearly gone, and the potions he used to sell had stopped being a source of income the second his customers stopped being students, or since he stopped being one. The summer stretched long and hungry. But he was fine. That was what you said. That was what people wanted to hear.

Lily didn’t push. But she didn’t believe him, either.

“Well,” she said, trying to sound light, “my parents might kill me when I get back. Or they’ll be too busy entertaining Eric. Or worse—Mum’s waiting by the door with that terrifying tight-lipped smile.”

Severus glanced sideways. “She’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because your mum always goes to bed early, and your dad falls asleep on the couch trying to wait up for you.”

Lily blinked. “How do you–?”

He shrugged. “You talk.”

Something about that made her fall quiet. Not sad, just thoughtful.

Then, “you should come over for dinner sometime.”

Severus let out a small, dry laugh. “I doubt Petunia would like that.”

“She brought Vernon over.”

“She should,” he said, tone clipped. “She’s probably going to marry him.”

Lily didn’t reply. Just stuffed her hands deeper into her pockets.

“Marriage is overrated anyway,” she said, finally.

He raised an eyebrow. “What is?”

“Marriage,” she repeated. “Overrated.”

He smirked. “Big words from someone who would talk about her grand wedding at the age of twelve.”

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did.”

She shoved him lightly with her shoulder. “Well, a girl can dream,” and then she added. “Frank and Alice got married.”

Severus wrinkled his nose. “Can’t imagine them as married. Or happy. Or... functional.”

Lily snorted. “Oh, come on, they always snogged wherever they went.” After what seemed like a pause, she asked, “you don’t think you’ll ever get married?”

“Merlin, no.”

She tilted her head, grinning. “I can picture it, though. You—married to someone oddly normal. Someone who seems very together until she’s around you.”

“Oh, hell no.”

“She’d be weird. Quiet in public but absolutely unhinged in private. Probably owns a collection of frogs or something.”

“Please stop.”

“You’d scare your kids.”

He paused.

“I’ll make sure it never gets to kids in the first place.”

She laughed. “When it happens, it happens.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Not even funny,” he muttered, but there was no bite in it.

“I’ll make sure to laugh when it comes to that.”

He didn’t protest, just shook his head. It would never come to that, he was certain of that. He wasn’t intending to even have a relationship of some sort. He never believed it was something to seek; it had to be something that just happened . And it wasn’t like he was ever going to be seeked out or chosen for it. Regardless, the thought terrified him. Not even the commitment part, that in fact was not something he was worried for, but the part where he meant to be him . 

Severus watched her walk ahead a few steps, her words hanging in the space between them like a thread he wasn’t sure he wanted to pull.

Then she said it softly, almost like she didn’t mean to.

“One day I will get married. But not soon enough anyway.”

It wasn’t wistful. It wasn’t bitter either. It was just there. A truth she’d been carrying around like a stone in her pocket,something she knew would happen eventually, whether she was ready for it or not. Not a dream, not a plan. Just a quiet inevitability. Not that it was a nightmare for her; quite the opposite, it felt like a weird dream that was engraved in her head since … forever .

Severus looked at her. Really looked at her this time.

The girl who used to scribble hearts around made-up last names in the margins of her Arithmancy notes. The girl who used to say things like “I want love to feel like flying.” 

Now she said things like this. Now she spoke of the future like it was a passing train she might catch if she ran fast enough. And in a way it was; they were legally adults. Adults that could make a lot of adult-y decisions. 

He didn’t say anything.

Not “congratulations.” Not “why not sooner?” Not even “and what poor soul is the victim of such occasion?”

Because the truth was, the moment she said it, he felt like something had been settled. Not lost. Just… acknowledged.

That one day, someone else would get to see her come home and laugh about what movie she saw or a ridiculous muggle book she read. Someone else would get her tired 2am confessions and the curl of her hair sticking to her temple when it rained. Someone else would hold her tightly even when there was no reason to. Someone would have her eyes, her smile, her laughter, all of it, just smaller. In another face. Someone else would look into a child’s face and see her, exactly as she was right now, and call it family.

And it wouldn’t be him.

So he did what he always did when something cracked. He smiled. Barely. 

And in a world where she is happy, alive, and safe. He always would. Even from a long distance, he’d still be glad to see her smile because that’s all he ever really wanted.

And after she got home, he really wished he had a cigarette to smoke, but he was getting short on money, so instead he just sat in the very same playground where they met and watched the sun rise up again like any other day it does. 

Chapter Text

The sound of glass constantly clicking somewhere deeper in the hall as the server floated past with a silver tray too large for one hand, and the goblets clinked faintly against their stands. The noise repeated itself, rhythmic and hollow, threading through the heavy, honey-lit room like an itch Severus couldn’t scratch. Surely, it wouldn’t matter much to him if he contributed to the noise himself, but as he stood there in his presumably new robes, there was something in him that resisted even that — the idea of participating, of being seen.

He had no drink in hand. His arms hung too loosely at his sides, and though he’d adopted a posture that vaguely resembled composure, every part of him felt coiled and unfinished — like a sketch someone had forgotten to shade in. The collar at his throat rested just a little too perfectly, and he was aware of the fabric in a way that made it impossible to forget he was wearing someone else’s idea of what he should look like.

He hadn’t spoken in several minutes.

He wasn’t sure, exactly, what the man beside him was saying — some middling member of the Wizengamot, not high-ranking but full of self-importance, his words inflated by the warmth of too much wine and the presence of even more forgettable men. Names had been exchanged earlier in the evening, but they had already drifted from Severus’s mind, untethered and unnecessary. They all spoke in the same tone: practiced, low, a murmur of political predictions and half-meant praise.

He had passed his Apparition test not so long ago. The memory was faint but brittle, like something folded and tucked away too quickly. He hadn’t thought about it until now, until he caught the outline of a man’s profile — severe brow, liver-spotted hand cupped around a glass — and realized, with a distant sort of recognition, that he had been one of the examiners. The same one who’d barely looked up as Severus reappeared two inches off-target with a dry crack . No comment then. No recognition now. Just another shape in the blur.

The words around him blurred too. He couldn’t tell if they were talking about funding or bloodlines or broom regulation, only that the syllables dripped with polished indifference, always circling back to themselves like water draining too slowly from a shallow sink. The voices all started to sound the same — educated, self-satisfied, boring in a way that required wealth to sustain.

And Severus was zoning out.

Not in the obvious way — he knew better than to let his expression go slack — but in the way where the golden light started to feel thick around the edges, and the sound of glasses clinking became a metronome to nowhere. He shifted just slightly, itching beneath his collar, regretting everything from the sleeves to the shoes. Anyway, places like this were a perfect opportunity for him to practice Occlumency in public. 

The man beside him let out a rich, nasal chuckle. Severus didn’t react.

“Mind if I steal Snape for a moment?” came a voice behind him — not loud, but perfectly timed to cut through. Smooth. Over-pronounced. Painfully posh. Every vowel sharpened, every consonant crisp and theatrical.

Lucius.

The men all turned. The examiner gave a half nod. The others stepped aside.

Lucius didn’t wait for agreement — just placed a hand lightly on Severus’s shoulder, fingers like permission. He tilted his head toward the rest, offering a smirk that barely qualified as courteous. “Who were you even standing with?” he asked in a lower voice as he guided Severus across the room. “You look like you’ve been trapped beside a department memo.”

Severus didn’t answer.

Lucius clicked his tongue, amused. “Come,” he said. “Let me introduce you to someone with a bit of relevance.”

Lucius led him to another room nearby. A smaller room with not so few wizards in it. The light here was lower, richer — hanging from an iron fixture shaped like something ornamental and medieval. A pool table sat at the center of the room, its deep green felt glowing faintly in the amber light, and around it stood half a dozen men — all dressed in understated but clearly expensive robes, all deep in conversation or in the kind of calculated silence that made them seem more powerful than they probably were.

All of them were men. All of them older. Except one.

Regulus Black was posted casually against the table’s edge, cue in one hand, watching the slow arc of someone’s aim with the disinterested posture of someone used to rooms like this. He looked over when Severus entered — not in surprise, not in recognition — just quiet calculation. That same pureblood calm that always looked like judgement even when it wasn’t.

But Lucius wasn’t here for him.

“Severus,” Lucius announced, in that same smooth, overly enunciated drawl that sounded like it had been raised on tailored vowels. “I’d like to introduce you to someone of particular interest.”

He didn’t wait for Severus to nod — just guided him toward two men standing near a polished sideboard.

Thee Henry Dagworth-Granger barely turned his head.

He was a man carved from pedigree — straight-backed, silver-templed, and dressed in robes so precisely tailored it looked like he’d been born in them. His expression barely shifted as Lucius approached, and when he extended a hand to Severus, it was out of obligation more than courtesy. He looked at Severus like one might look at a broom with the potential to be a wand — functional, not interesting .

“This is him?” Henry asked Lucius, voice clipped and unimpressed.

Lucius’s lips twitched. “The same. Excellent results in school, particularly in Potions.”

“I see.”

“Severus,” Lucius said smoothly, voice low and curated, “may I present Henry Dagworth-Granger, and his son, Hector. I trust you’ve heard of them — or at the very least read the name on half the Potioneer journals in circulation.”

Henry extended a hand — firm, dry, not cold. “Ah,” he said, with the kind of smile that was used to being remembered. “The boy Lucius has been going on about. An aspiring brewer, yes?”

Severus nodded, muttering something polite — though it caught in his throat slightly. Being spoken about always made him feel like the floor had shifted half an inch beneath his feet.

Hector, a man in his late thirties with a sharper haircut and slightly more flair to his robes, gave a nod of acknowledgment and a small smirk. “He’s underselling it, of course. We’ve read your summaries from Slughorn’s sessions. Lucius sent a few samples your way.”

Severus blinked. He hadn’t known that. He hadn’t known that Slughorn would even do such a gesture. Nor that Lucius would ask them from Slughorn personally.

“We’ve recently established a new institution,” Hector went on, gesturing subtly, “called the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers. Ministry-backed, for once, and looking to expand. We’re seeking fresh minds, the sort who aren’t afraid to innovate beyond textbook tinctures.”

He tilted his head.

“And, of course, we pay properly for contributions of real merit.”

There it was.

Severus's hand found his sleeve hem. Rubbed. Nodded again — not too eager, but not dismissive. He could feel Regulus’s eyes still on him from the side, still watching, still measuring.

Henry stepped forward slightly, his gaze more unreadable. “And you’re not yet aligned with any particular establishment?”

Lucius, before Severus could even respond, gave a smile that teetered on indulgence. “No — not yet. That’s why I brought him here.”

“Well,” Hector said, holding out a card — thick, pressed parchment, the emblem of a bubbling cauldron engraved into its top corner. “Consider this an open door.”

Severus took it with careful fingers.

“We have a very young Potioneer, well, he is actually a Potions-Master at, what, twenty six, I reckon?” Hector looked at his father, who wasn’t much invested in conversation. “He is working on research for werewolves. To be quite frank with you, I do not remember the last time I saw such aggressive dedication to a single cause,” Hector continued, offering a polite, rehearsed laugh. “His name’s Belby. Damocles Belby.”

The idea of doing anything for werewolves seemed very unattractively disdainful for Severus, regardless of what the cause was for. Of course, this Belby would not be working on the cure. The lot of Potioneers like the Dagworth-Granger would try to milk the profit out of any innovation that would result in constant purchase. 

“We soon plan on entering the market with this new invention,” said the young Dagworth-Granger to Malfoy with enthusiasm that his father definitely lacked. 

Lucius gave a knowing hum, swirling his drink. “Naturally. A monthly brew, I assume?”

“Precisely,” Hector replied, pleased. “We’ve projected a steady cycle of demand. It will need regulation, of course. Monitored distribution. But imagine what it could do for our standing abroad.”

Severus said nothing.

Henry finally turned his full gaze on him, dry and unimpressed. “Of course, to be part of such work, one has to have more than raw skill. Temperament. Alignment. Discretion.”

The subtext lingered in the air like cigar smoke.

Severus met his eyes just long enough. “Fortunately, I don’t suffer from overexposure.”

It wasn’t a compliment. It wasn’t even clear if it was a jab. But it was enough to earn the smallest flicker of amusement from Regulus, who remained silent at the edge of the room, his cue now resting against his shoulder.

“Well,” Lucius cut in smoothly, “Severus here is exceptionally gifted. He just hasn’t been… properly placed yet.”

“Then let’s hope he doesn’t waste his efforts where they’ll be ignored,” Henry muttered.

The conversation shifted then, as Hector launched into another summary of a brewing consortium meeting in Bruges, and Severus let the voices fade, his thumb grazing the card in his pocket. 

“Oi, Snape.” 

Severus turned slightly, finding Black a few feet away, cue resting lazily against his shoulder, half-smirk tugging at his mouth. He jerked his chin toward the billiards table, where a fresh game was being racked up.

Regulus leaned one elbow against the side of the table, cue balanced lightly between his fingers. “Come on then,” he said, with a glance at Severus that was both inviting and smug. “Let’s show these old men what it’s like to be relevant.”

A few of the older wizards chuckled — not quite insulted, but not entirely sure if they were being mocked. One of them muttered something about youthful arrogance under his breath.

Severus stepped forward, cue in hand. His grip was tense at first — unfamiliar — but he adjusted quickly, watching Regulus with quiet calculation. The break had been clean, and the setup wasn’t bad. Not enough to be impressive, but enough to make him want to wipe the smirk off Black’s face by sinking three balls in a row.

Regulus played like someone who’d grown up with this table — fluid, practiced, unfairly graceful. The kind of player who didn’t think much before making a shot because he didn’t need to. His movements were confident without being showy, smooth without being rehearsed. And for some reason, Severus hated how much he noticed.

“Merlin,” one of the onlookers muttered with a soft chuckle as Regulus bent low for a shot. “That wrist. Just like Alphard’s used to be.”

Regulus didn’t pause, didn’t even glance up. He took the shot,  perfect, then straightened slowly, turning toward the speaker with a smile that was just short of polite.

“I didn’t know you watched Uncle Alphard that closely,” he said, tone light. “How did he grip it, exactly?”

There was a beat of awkward laughter, quickly swallowed. 

“Heard you got talent for brewing, Snape.” Regulus said, leaning lazily against the table again, his tone annoyingly casual, like he was just chatting about the weather, not poking into something that mattered.

Another shot. Another clean hit. This time, Severus’s aim clipped the corner pocket too closely and the ball rimmed out. Regulus clicked his tongue in mock disappointment as he stepped forward again.

The moment it missed, the table gave a soft mechanical click — not from the pockets, but from somewhere deep within the wood. Before Severus could reset his stance, the remaining balls shifted. Gently. Precisely. Every one of them slid into new positions across the felt, as if guided by an invisible hand. Only the cue ball remained untouched, staying exactly where it was.

The cue struck clean, and the ball rolled forward, just slightly too wide.

Regulus made a soft sound, not quite a laugh, but close. “Right. Brewing. Not billiards.”

Severus straightened, wiping his hand along the edge of his sleeve. “You’d be surprised how much overlap there is. Patience. Precision.”

“Confidence,” Regulus added, tapping the cue against his palm. “And unpredictability of how she will want the game to flow.”

Regulus watched him sink a ball cleanly before strolling a little closer, the cue tapping lightly against his shoulder. “Funny thing,” he added, voice low and easy, “a mate of mine was just talking about that. About brewing.” Then he added, “Burke. Gene Burke.”

Severus’s cue paused mid-line, the tip hovering just above the green felt for a breath too long.

Regulus noticed. Of course he did. He smiled — slow, knowing — like a cat watching a mouse notice the trap.

“Said he was interested in a few… rearrangements. Private work. Proper payment too. No school commissions or under-the-table rubbish.”

Severus straightened, casually enough that only someone paying very close attention would notice the tension in his shoulders.

“What sort of work?” he asked, keeping his voice even.

Regulus shrugged, the motion loose, dismissive. “Dunno all the details. Just that it’s the kind of thing where skill matters more than family name.” His mouth quirked. “Rare, that.”

Another shot lined up, another ball down.

“It is … quite personal, you could say.” He added with hesitance to speak more. “Burke is like a brother I never had.” 

What an irony, Severus thought. He loved how the existence of Sirius Black was completely forgotten or even purposefully ignored in the moment.

Not that he said anything. He just repositioned himself near the table, lining up a corner shot as if Regulus’s words hadn’t made something quietly shift behind his ribs.

The cue struck clean — a sharp, satisfying clack — and a stripe rolled into the pocket with the kind of precision that felt like control. Temporary, but control nonetheless.

Regulus watched the ball disappear, then flicked his gaze back toward Severus, brows lifted just slightly. “Not bad,” he said, which in Black-speak probably meant something like I’m watching.

Severus didn’t thank him. He just returned to his side of the table, gripping the cue a little tighter than before.

“Anyway,” Regulus went on, casually leaning against the wood, fingers tapping an idle rhythm, “Burke said he might reach out. Probably prefers letters. Cryptic type. You could say he is not so different from you in that sense.”

“I do not send my mates to talk on my behalf in a room full of Ministry ears.”

“Oh, Snape, mate,” Regulus murmured, amusement dripping from each syllable, “I am the Ministry. Sooner or later.”

Severus didn’t reply. Didn’t give him the satisfaction. He just lined up the shot and let the ball fly — a little too hard this time — and heard it crack against the corner pocket with a sound that echoed more sharply than it should have.

“Well, then.” Severus fixed his posture to face him properly. “I hope with the time given we could see how the future goes and who ends up doing whatever was intended or needed to do.”

Regulus let out a soft, amused hum. He leaned forward, elbows resting against the cue, his smile tilting toward conspiratorial.

“I don’t seek ownership,” he said, voice light, almost mock-thoughtful. “I seek… an arm.”

Severus raised an eyebrow.

“A strong arm,” Regulus clarified, swirling the firewhiskey in his glass. “To lean on when the Ministry’s sniffing around too much. Or when the press decides I’m next year’s tragic heir.”

He smirked. “Or when darker tides start choosing sides.”

He raised his glass with a lazy clink. “That’s what they call it now, don’t they?”

Regulus straightened just slightly, that lazy half-smile still ghosting his face as a waiter floated by, balancing a silver tray lined with polished glasses — crystal clear, amber firewhiskey sloshing gently with every step. Without breaking eye contact, Regulus plucked two from the tray, offering one toward Severus with an easy flick of his wrist.

“Don’t worry,” he said, tone too smooth to be innocent, “I’ve not laced it. Not yet.”

Severus hesitated a fraction of a second too long — long enough for Regulus to notice — but eventually took the glass, fingers brushing briefly as the weight shifted between them.

Regulus’s grin twitched, sharp and amused. “Cheers, Snape,” he said simply, raising his own glass just enough before taking a slow sip.

Regulus took another sip, leaned his hip against the edge of the table, and glanced sideways. “Back to Hogwarts for me, unfortunately. One last year of being told what to do by people who think twelve N.E.W.T.s makes them gods.”

Severus didn’t look up from the table. “Tragic.”

“Oh, don’t weep for me, Snape. I’ll survive the trauma.”

Severus chalked the cue, slow and measured. “Didn’t think you’d mind the attention.”

“I don’t. Just not from professors who smell like burnt ink and old pipe smoke.”

Severus huffed through his nose. “Heartbreaking.”

Regulus grinned. “You’re excellent at pretending to care. Tell me, is that part of your brewing process?”

Severus glanced at him, eyes flat. “No. That part’s just instinct.”

“Well, your instincts must be very tidy. Burke thinks so, anyway.”

Severus’s hand paused mid-movement. “Burke?”

“Gene,” Regulus clarified, flicking his wrist. “He’s not returning to Hogwarts.”

Severus tilted his head, but didn’t bite. “Didn’t think he’d be the type to drop out.”

“Oh, he is not. He’s got amazing brains, you know.” Regulus said, a bit quieter now. “He just… can’t focus. The scar gets in the way.”

“What scar?”

Regulus’s smile faded, only slightly. “Right side of his face. Over his eye. Nasty thing. Headaches. Sometimes it bleeds again for no reason. Like it wants to remind him.”

“Right.” Severus said with a clear lack of empathy in his voice. “Did he get it in his third year?” Severus asked with quick calculations in his head.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I remember seeing him once,” Severus said, slowly. “Pomfrey’s. My Fourth year. I’d cracked something. He was already there. Didn’t talk.”

“Sounds like Gene,” Regulus muttered. “You didn’t ask?”

“I was bleeding out of my mouth. Didn’t seem like a social moment.”

Regulus let out a small laugh. “Merlin, you’re charming.”

Severus returned to the table. “So what’s this got to do with me?”

“He thinks you could help.” Regulus said it like it was obvious. “Brew something that actually works.”

“There are hundreds of potions for scar tissue. He needs a healer, not a brewer.”

Regulus swirled his glass. “Well, Gene is a bit paranoid. I mean anybody is, you know what I mean, pureblood families tend to make us be that way.”

There was a beat of quiet. Severus didn’t move.

“Who gave it to him?”

“My brother,” Regulus said, and the words were surprisingly flat. “Dearest Sirius. I’m sure you’re familiar with his excellent temper and legendary impulse control.”

Severus’s expression didn’t shift. But something behind his eyes darkened, just a little.

Regulus noticed.

“It wasn’t a duel,” he added. “Wasn’t fair. Gene didn’t fight back. He was third year, I think.”

“And you want me to fix it.”

“Gene wants you to fix it. I just think it’s… poetic.”

Severus scoffed. “You’re terrible at poetry.”

“And you’re terrible at pretending you’re not interested.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m considering.”

Regulus’s smirk faded into something quieter. He glanced away for the first time, the drink in his hand tilting just slightly.

“He’s a Slytherin, like us,” he said after a pause. “But his ambitions are… different.”

Severus tilted his head. “Different how?”

“No judgements,” Regulus said quickly — too quickly, like he was used to defending it. “I love him like my own blood. Maybe even more than it. Yeah,” he added, eyes flicking back to Severus, “actually more than it.”

Severus didn’t speak. Just watched him with that same unreadable stillness.

Regulus let out a breath, rubbing his thumb along the rim of his glass. “The scar gives him… episodes. Can’t sleep. Can’t concentrate. Sometimes it gets so bad, he can’t even manage a wand. Just—” he tapped his temple once, lightly, “nothing. Like the magic won’t come. It’s not just physical. It’s in his head now too.”

“And he thinks a potion will solve that?”

“I think,” Regulus said, voice steady but no longer light, “he wants a reason to believe it can get better.”

Severus was quiet for a long moment.

Then, finally, with typical dryness; “And you’re recruiting me with billiards and whiskey.”

Regulus chuckled, short and real. “Well, subtlety isn’t my best quality.”

“You don’t say.”

“I had a feeling you’d appreciate the honesty.”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Regulus raised his glass again, just slightly. “Then decide later. But read the letter when it comes.”

Meanwhile, Lucius Malfoy, who seemed to be rather preoccupied with the discussion regarding the potion consortium’s overseas expansion plans, appeared beside them again — too silent in his approach for it to be casual.

He didn’t look at Severus directly. Not at first. His gaze lingered on Regulus instead, as though amused.

“Snape,” Lucius said, tone still smooth but now laced with something cooler, silkier. “You’ve made quite the social leap. Didn’t realize you and Regulus were on such familiar terms.”

Severus met his eye with emptiness on his own. “We share a House.”

“So do hundred others in this very same exact room,” he said, taking a sight of their shared firewhiskey. “But not all of them … become so instinctively comfortable with my blood relatives,” Lucius finished, voice soft but threaded with something harder underneath — not anger, exactly, but the suggestion of ownership.

Regulus’s eyebrow twitched. He took a slow sip of his drink, then leaned forward just slightly, eyes gleaming.

“Oh, do relax,” he said, tone teasing but firm. “We are family, are we not, Luce ?”

That nickname — too casual, too pointed — landed like a slap wrapped in velvet.

Lucius didn’t flinch, but his smile thinned. “Of course we are. Which is why I find it so curious how quickly you’ve begun offering… introductions.”

Regulus shrugged, all lazy grace and cool disdain. “I thought you liked initiative.”

“In the right hands,” Lucius replied. He turned to Severus then, his gaze deliberate. “And with the right loyalties.”

Merlin, Severus had no interest in being torn apart by purebloods on his very first networking attempt. But here he was — caught between veiled possessiveness and cousinly sabotage, with a half-drunk firewhiskey in his hand and the creeping sense that someone was already tallying the value of his silence.

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just lifted the glass slowly to his lips, letting the fire settle behind his teeth before speaking.

“I didn’t realize proximity was such a political statement,” he said, tone flat. “Perhaps I should start charting my steps.”

Lucius’s smile stayed fixed, but his eyes cooled. “You’ll find, in certain circles, every step is a statement.”

Regulus let out a soft hum. “That explains the choreography,” he said, gaze flicking to Lucius’s tailored robes. “I was starting to wonder if we were dancing or just orbiting each other in increasing pettiness.”

“Be careful who you orbit,” Lucius said, not looking at him. “Gravity tends to collapse around unstable centers.”

Regulus’s grin widened, all teeth now. “You calling me unstable, Luce ?”

“I’m saying you tend to pull people into things they can’t get out of.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Regulus mused, sipping again. “Better than floating around alone in your own gravitational ego.”

Lucius turned then, just slightly — enough to deliver the final line like a signature on parchment.

“Some stars burn out faster when they forget who handed them the match.”

And with that, he walked off, polished and cold and perfectly composed.

Regulus watched him go, jaw flexing faintly. Then he glanced sideways at Severus.

Regulus’s smile faded almost entirely, leaving something colder in its place — not quite anger, but the bruised edge of knowing exactly where to land a blow.

“Funny, isn’t it,” he went on, quieter now, voice threading with steel. “You orbit someone long enough, and suddenly you think you’re the light.”

Severus didn’t speak. Just watched the space Lucius had occupied, now filled with soft conversation and colder undertones.

Regulus drained the last of his firewhiskey and set the glass down with a decisive click . Then he turned, slow and deliberate, until he was face to face with Severus — and, just behind him, within perfect earshot, Lucius Malfoy.

He leaned in, all faux camaraderie and too-close mischief, and said loud enough to carry:

“For someone so supposedly respectable , Lucius — you’ve got the personality of a gifted wall sconce.”

A few heads turned. Severus didn’t move.

Regulus straightened, still smiling — but now the grin was razor-thin.

“Honestly,” he continued, voice dripping with posh mockery, “even Aunt Cassiopeia — you know, the one grandfather’s sister who never married and lives in Wiltshire with fourteen Kneazles and a cursed hat stand — she has more character. And that woman hasn't left her manor since the Goblin Rebellion re-enactment of '57.”

Lucius blinked — and that was all it took to register the offense.

Regulus’s tone sharpened like a broken crystal. “Because you don’t have character, Luce. You have performance. You’ve spent so long dressing up misery in silk and etiquette you’ve started to believe that’s who you are.”

He stepped in, gaze steady, lips still quirked with just enough cruelty to make it theatrical .

“And truth is?” Regulus said, quiet now. “You are so fucking miserable you’ve gone blind to it.”

A pause.

“Poor Cissy,” he added, shaking his head as if genuinely pitying her. “What a honeymoon.”

There was a beat of silence that split the room like a hairline fracture.

Lucius’s nostrils flared — ever so slightly. His jaw ticked once. But he didn’t speak. He just adjusted the cuff of his left sleeve with such poise it nearly looked casual.

There was a beat of silence that split the room like a hairline fracture.

And then, slowly, it started — a ripple at first.

A few people nearby turned their heads, pretending not to listen but clearly leaning in. Someone near the billiards table let out a choked snort. A witch in violet robes gasped audibly behind her gloved hand. Another man near the brandy decanter gave a low, appreciative whistle, barely muffling his laugh.

Even Dagworth-Granger — the elder — glanced over with the faintest glimmer of amusement breaking through his otherwise fossilized expression.

A cluster of younger wizards murmured to each other, heads ducked, smirking.

Lucius stood statue-still for a heartbeat, eyes flicking from Regulus to the gathering glances and back again. His nostrils flared. His jaw ticked once.

But he didn’t speak.

He just adjusted the cuff of his left sleeve — a little too precisely — and turned away, walking with the practiced poise of someone pretending not to bleed.

Regulus exhaled as if he’d just parried a particularly dull hex, then ran a hand through his hair like nothing had happened.

“Anyway,” he muttered to Severus, smirking as the room slowly resumed its hum, “how’s that for your first night in polite society?”

Severus didn’t answer. His fingers tightened around the cue. And despite the firewhiskey, the invitation, the opportunity, he suddenly felt like he’d walked into a game he wasn’t sure he wanted to win. Or even play. 

Then Black turned, walked away with the grace of someone pretending not to bleed.

Regulus knew that sometimes such public displays of opinions were not so favorable by the society and the word would go around. What word though was up to the ears of others some would call it arrogance, others recklessness. A few might whisper something sharper. Something truer. But Regulus never gave them the courtesy of knowing which whispers struck closest.

Severus remained by the table, cue still in hand, as if any movement now might betray him. There was something about the way Regulus had walked off — back straight, shoulders loose, like nothing in the world could bruise him — that made Severus want to hurl the glass at the floor and see if it cracked the illusion.

He didn’t stay long after.

Lucius had already disappeared into another corner of the manor, caught in some thread of conversation too delicate to interrupt, and Severus took the moment for what it was — an exit.

He didn’t Apparate home right away. Instead, he walked.

Down cobbled alleys slick with the scent of late-night damp, past flickering gas lamps and the distant hush of a world winding down. The further he got from the Malfoy estate, the lighter the air seemed to feel.

Two streets over from a mostly quiet pub, he found a tucked-away shop still open — a miracle of timing or just a gift from whatever patron saint watched over smokers. He bought a pack without speaking more than he had to, fingers already itching for the weight of it.

Outside, beneath the carved overhang of an apothecary that had closed for the night, he lit one with hands that barely trembled. The first inhale felt like something tearing loose — not violently, but with that slow relief of unbuckling armor. He let go of his Occlumency.

And gods, the relief.

The mental silence that followed was raw and aching, like he’d forgotten how loud things had been inside his head until the noise stopped. He wasn’t used to holding it so long. Wasn’t used to needing to.

He didn’t want to go home, for no reason whatsoever. He just wanted to be alone for the rest of the night in his own mind, in his own skin. Somewhere unobserved. Somewhere unspoken for.

The cigarette burned slowly between his fingers, ember flaring with every breath like a warning or a heartbeat — he wasn’t sure which. It grounded him. Reminded him that for all the performances, for all the carefully measured silences and curated responses, there was still something real here. Something scorched at the edges, but his.

Because regardless of what future beheld for him, there were very few things that Severus Snape had owned, and dare he say, sometimes that made him feel really, but really, small. 

The things he owned were within him only. His thoughts, his opinions, his magic, his longing, his emotions. The things he owned were within him only. His thoughts, his opinions, his magic, his longing, his emotions.

And his love.

That, too, belonged solely to him. Not shared. Not spoken for. Not even witnessed, really. Just his — in the quiet way something lives inside your ribs and dares to stay.

You could never own a person. He knew that. Not their time, not their affection, not even the version of themselves they gave to the world. People were choices — mutable, shifting, fickle. But what you felt for them… that was something else entirely. That was carved from inside, built from memory, stubbornness, and soft foolishness.

He didn't own Lily. Never had. Never would.

But he owned the way he loved her — hopelessly, fruitlessly, and with such stupid sincerity that it almost hurt to admit.

And he would make sure that nobody had ever known about it. Because everything he ever believed to own publicly had later been taken away from him, one way or another. And once she had been too. 

He was so confusingly exhausted — not tired, not sleepy, but worn thin in that quiet, invisible way — that he decided to sit. Just for a minute. The bench tucked outside the closed apothecary near the library offered just enough shade to feel like permission. He didn’t know the time anymore. Could’ve been three, could’ve been nearly sunrise. It didn’t matter. He let his eyes slip shut, head tilted slightly back, the cigarette still faintly smoldering between his fingers, smoke curling into the still air.

And then — warmth.

That late August light, soft but insistent, pressed against his skin like a slow exhale. The stone beneath him was warming, and the hush of the street was beginning to shift — the flutter of an open shop curtain, the soft scrape of a cart wheel. His coat felt too heavy now, and his face, he realized, was warm to the touch — flushed pink across the bridge of his nose, kissed by sun he hadn’t meant to stay long enough to meet.

And then a voice.

“Severus?”

He opened his eyes to see Lily Evans standing a few feet away, a book clutched loosely in one hand, auburn hair gathered up messily as if she hadn’t quite planned her day yet. She looked like summer. And she looked at him like he didn’t belong in that light — or maybe like she hadn’t expected him to still be here, crumpled in the corner of a day that had already started without him.

“What.” 

He wasn’t sure how he had managed to fall asleep on a bench, but his neck did hurt a ton now. 

“Are you okay?”

He nodded, still not fully awake, maybe also a little confused on whether he was still dreaming.

Lily looked at him up and down, not quite understanding his outfit for such awfully hot end of summer days. 

“Did they invite you to some fancy wizarding wedding or summat?,” she asked, blinking against the sun as she stepped closer.

Severus ran a hand through his hair, feeling the stiffness in his neck protest. “I was at something,” he muttered.

“Something?” Her brow arched. “Was it a funeral-themed wedding?”

He gave her a dry look, which he surprisingly still had in himself despite feeling like he had been hit by a bus. ““Networking. Job-hunting.”

“Oh,” she said, and that one syllable managed to contain both pity and an uncomfortable understanding. She let the silence stretch, then sat beside him, crossing one leg over the other. “Did you walk straight here after?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want to go home.”

Lily didn’t answer right away. The air between them felt soft, like everything might collapse if either of them spoke too loud. She glanced down at his half-crushed cigarette packet still resting by his thigh. He had no cigarettes last time on himself, she reckoned. 

“Didn’t know you smoked again.”

“I never stopped? I mean I don’t,” he said. “Except when I do.”

That made her laugh — not loudly, but genuinely, like she hadn’t meant to. It sounded like something shaking loose.

She sat next to him on the bench, brushing hair off her cheek. “You always did look out of place in daylight.”

His head was buzzing, so he decided to let his hair loose tugging the tie free with a lazy flick of his wrist. The strands fell in dark, uneven sheets, sticking slightly to the side of his neck where sweat hadn't yet dried. He exhaled like it helped somehow. Like he needed one less thing pulling at his scalp.

Lily glanced over, and before she could stop it, the thought flickered across her mind like static.

That’s … magnetic? she admitted to herself — not with fondness, but with the startled awareness that something in him pulled the eye when it shouldn’t. Like smoke curling into sunlight, or the hush just before a storm. He didn’t fit in the soft blur of morning, but he didn’t look wrong either.

She didn’t say anything. But she shifted the book in her lap like it might steady her.

And Severus, though still heavy with sleep and silence, caught the shift. Not the thought — never the thought — but the way her breath dipped before she spoke again. 

“What?” He asked, unsure on why she was staring at him like he had something written on his face.

“Nothing.” She said quickly, looking away.

“Fucking hell.”

“What is it?”

“The sun.”

Lily snorted. “It’s summer.”

“I know what it is,” he muttered, rubbing his temple like the daylight itself had insulted him. “Feels like a bloody interrogation.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you sleep on a bench.”

He gave a tired shrug. “Didn’t think I’d end up spending the night on a bench.”

“Clearly.” Her tone was dry, but not unkind. She studied him a little longer, brow knitting. “You look like someone tried to sketch you from memory and gave up halfway.”

“Delightful.”

She dropped her gaze briefly, then sat beside him, tucking her skirt beneath her knees. “You could’ve just said you needed a place to stay.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know,” she said. “But you could’ve.”

The weight of that hung between them like the thick morning air, warm and heavy. Neither of them said anything for a beat.

He took off that silvery, stupid scarf-like whatever it was that hung on his collar — he was thankful it wasn’t a bowtie, at least — and folded it once between his fingers, then again, like muscle memory rather than intention. It felt absurdly ceremonial now, far too delicate for this bench, this hour, this version of himself half-melted into sun and sweat and whatever quiet thing Lily Evans had just offered him without fully meaning to.

She watched him fold it with something caught between amusement and curiosity. “So,” she said, slowly, like the words weren’t sure how to arrive, “was it awful?”

“The event?” he asked, voice flat.

She nodded.

He stared ahead for a moment, then tossed the scarf aside onto the bench with a small scoff. “It was... like playing chess with someone who wants you to smile every time you move a piece.”

Lily squinted. “So… awful, but polite?”

“Awful, but polished,” he muttered. “Like they were trying to sell me back my own life, but prepackaged.”

“That sounds like hell.”

“Worse,” he said. “It was flattering.”

She huffed a soft laugh, then turned just enough so her shoulder brushed his. Neither of them acknowledged it, but they didn’t move apart, either. The sun was climbing higher now, and somewhere behind them, the first sign of true morning — a bakery door opening, the clatter of trays, the smell of something warm and sweet — drifted in.

“You didn’t ask how my night was,” Lily said eventually.

“I assumed it was better than mine.”

“You shouldn’t assume. I got into an argument with Mary. Something dumb.”

“About?”

“She says I don’t ask for help,” Lily muttered. “That I offer it too often, but don’t take it when I need it.”

Severus turned his head slightly. “She’s right.”

Lily looked at him, surprised. “You didn’t even hesitate.”

“You just told me you argued with her. That means she knows you well enough to get under your skin.”

She exhaled through her nose. “You’re very annoying when you’re right.”

“I’m very annoying, full stop.”

That made her smile — slow, quiet. Not wide, but real.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” she said suddenly. “If you’d shown up.”

“I didn’t want to be a problem.”

“You’re not,” she said. “You’re just… you. And I know how hard that is for you.”

“So, why were you offering Mary help?”

Lily furrowed her brows with a small smile still lingering on her face. It was strange to have Severus ask such things, like he cared to listen to her talk about stupid little things that happen to her.

“It was about the flat.”

Severus turned his head her way.

“I’ll move to London in a few weeks. Well, I was supposed to do so with Mary, but … yeah.”

He nodded, not adding anything, then looked up to see how the sun would continue to beam over their heads if they were not to change their place.

Lily followed his gaze, squinting slightly. “You’re going to melt if you sit here much longer.”

“You say that like it’d be a tragedy.”

“Mm,” she said, thoughtful. “Might be. A shame to lose the only person I know who smokes like a noir detective and folds silk like it insulted him.”

He let out something between a scoff and a breath — not quite laughter, but close enough for her to count it.

“I’m serious,” she added, nudging him lightly with her elbow. “Come on. There’s a bakery around the corner that sells the flakiest pain au chocolat. I’ll even let you pretend you discovered it first.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re always not hungry until you are.”

She stood, brushing off the back of her skirt, and didn’t say anything else — just looked at him, expectant but not pressing.

He watched her for a beat, then finally stood, slow and reluctant, like gravity hadn’t quite made up its mind about him.

The scarf slipped from his hand, half-forgotten on the bench, but Lily caught it before it hit the ground. She looked at it for a moment — soft silver, faintly creased, still warm where he’d been holding it — and without saying anything, folded it once and tucked it into her bag.

When he noticed, he didn’t ask why. And she didn’t explain.

They started walking — not quickly, not slowly, just enough for the silence to follow without catching up. The streets were quiet still, the city not yet fully awake, and the only sound between them was the soft tap of her sandals and the occasional rasp of his shoes against the stone.

About a block later, Lily finally spoke again, without looking at him. “You know,” she said, “I meant it.”

“What.”

“The robes. They looked good on you.”

He didn’t respond right away. Then, dryly; “Bit extravagant for a bench, though.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But you wore them like they were meant to be worn by you, you get what I mean?”

That stopped him — not in his steps, but in something quieter. Something under the ribs.

“…They weren’t mine,” he said after a moment.

She nodded once. “But you still made them look like they could’ve been. Wait, whose were they—?”

They reached the bakery just then, and the door creaked open with a soft chime. He held it open for her without thinking. She stepped inside, head already turning toward the counter. A wave of sugar and warm butter curled out into the street, wrapping around them like a spell. 

Lily paused mid-thought, eyes going soft. “Merlin, that smell,” she muttered, stepping over the threshold without finishing her question, already distracted by the clatter of trays and the rows of fresh pastries behind the glass.

And just like that, the question was gone — left somewhere in the sunlight outside, half-asked and half-forgotten.

“Two,” she told the boy behind the till, pointing. “And a coffee. Black.”

She didn’t ask if that was what he wanted. And he didn’t correct her.

They took the window seat. She tore a piece of pastry, flaky layers scattering like dust, and pushed half toward him. “Eat,” she said, like it was an order he’d agreed to without realizing.

And he did.

The moment was quiet. Ordinary. The kind of moment that didn’t ask anything of him. The kind that let him just be. The ordinary that had layers of complex dynamics wrapped underneath it. The ordinary that required a truthful discussion where the two of them would look each other in the eye and confess the thoughts regarding their each separate futures without 

without stalling behind the safe habits of sarcasm and sidelong glances.

But neither of them did.

Instead, Lily brushed the crumbs from her fingers with quiet concentration, like the act might buy her more time to not say something. Severus stared out the window, coffee cooling between his hands, as if the world outside might offer a simpler version of everything he was holding inside.

“I’ll send you letters.”

He looked at her like she just threatened him because he truthfully did not want himself to need them. Letters. Promises on paper. Things that could be reread and misread and clutched too tightly in the dark.

“You don’t have to,” he said, careful not to sound too careful.

Lily tilted her head, lips twitching like she almost wanted to smile but didn’t quite let herself. “I want to.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“No,” she agreed, brushing a flake of pastry off the table, “but it’s what matters.”

He didn’t answer right away. Just turned his cup slightly, watched the swirl of dark coffee settle. The word letters echoed back in his mind with the weight of something he’d always refused to ask for.

“You’ll be busy,” he said eventually, low. “London. The move. The Order.”

She didn’t flinch, but she did go still for a moment.

“I’ll make time,” she replied. “If you want me to.”

He exhaled slowly, eyes still fixed somewhere just beyond the window glass. “Yeah, sure.” 

She smiled at his ‘sure’ because for her it sounded like a flicker of hope. He wanted to say ‘oh, don’t ponder upon it too much’ or ‘don’t have very high hopes for my responses.’, but he didn’t.

Because part of him — the part he usually kept buried beneath sarcasm and survival instincts — didn’t want to ruin it.

Didn’t want to warn her off.

Didn’t want to give her the same worn-out version of himself that always came with disclaimers.

So instead, he just took another bite of pastry, slower this time. Less like habit, more like permission.

Lily leaned back in her seat, watching him with something gentler now — not pity, not amusement, but that quiet curiosity she got when she was reading something difficult she didn’t want to put down.

Because she knew that it would take months for him to respond. 

Because she knew how hesitant he could get.

Because she knew that even answering a letter would mean admitting he wanted the connection — and that, for Severus Snape, was always the hardest part.

But she also knew he would . Eventually. In his own way. In his own time. Probably scribbled in the margins of some recycled parchment, with a blot of ink where he’d paused too long, debating whether to say anything at all.

“You know,” she said after a moment, “if you ever do write back, you don’t have to say much. I’d settle for illegible sarcasm and tea stains.”

“That’s the working title of my memoir,” he muttered, which earned him another small laugh.

She looked at him and then chuckled. 

“I bet Mr. Tyler thinks you’ve gone looney.” 

He furrowed his brows and then realized what she meant.

“Ah, yes, the robes..”

She nodded, grinning. “You, dressed like a villain in a Victorian opera, half-asleep on a public bench outside a pharmacy? He probably thinks you’re in some underground theater society.”

Severus let out a slow sigh. “Brilliant. Now I’m a community actor with a nicotine problem.”

“He’s a Muggle,” Lily said, shrugging. “He probably thinks you’re just very committed to the arts.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you? What’s your excuse for sitting next to me?”

She gave him a look that was all challenging. “Pity. Obviously.”

“Clearly.”

But his voice had softened. And the way he looked at her — well. That wasn't a pity at all.

She smiled again, the kind of smile where she scrunched her nose and her freckles bunched together like constellations shifting — familiar, chaotic, impossible to map.

He hated to pretend he never missed her because he did. And he knew he would continue to miss her even if they’d be at the other sides of the war. Was she even wanting to participate in this damned conflict? What a silly question, he thought to himself once. Of course, she’d want to. 

But before his mind could spiral further, Lily broke the silence with something unexpected.

“So,” she said, picking at the edge of the paper bag between them, “did you manage to land a job?”

He blinked. “What?”

“You said you were job-hunting,” she clarified, glancing sideways at him. “Networking, remember? All those charming conversations and sparkling small talk?”

He snorted. “If that’s what you think went on, you clearly underestimate how thrilling it is to be evaluated like a cauldron someone’s thinking of renting.”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “So… no?”

He sighed, leaning back on the bench, closing his eyes briefly against the sunlight. “Nothing formal. Just more talk. Promises dressed up in silk and business cards.”

“You sound thrilled.”

“I sound realistic.”

She nudged his foot lightly with hers. “Any of them decent?”

“One,” he muttered. “A brewing society. They said they’d be in touch.”

Lily perked up. “That’s something.”

He looked at her, skeptical. “It’s something in the way catching a cold is something.”

“You’re such a ray of sunshine,” she deadpanned.

He gave a dry half-smile. “They liked my samples. Apparently Lucius sent some in advance.”

“Without telling you?”

“Of course.”

Her expression flickered with reluctant admiration. “That’s... controlling.”

“That’s Malfoy.”

Lily tapped her fingers on her knee thoughtfully. “Still. It means someone’s talking about you.”

Severus tilted his head slightly. “Is that good?”

“In your case?” she said, smiling just a little. “Probably.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the city slowly waking up around them. A soft breeze tugged at the ends of Lily’s sleeves, and somewhere down the road, someone rolled open a shutter with a clang.

“You’ll get something,” she said, almost absently. “They’d be stupid not to hire you.”

“Plenty of people are stupid,” he said.

“But not all of them are in charge,” she countered. “Some of them are just loud.”

Severus let out a silent ‘mhm’, then Lily reluctantly asked again. “Remember that one time under the willow tree we were hanging out?”

He looked at her, nodding, unsure where this was going.

“You mentioned how I could still become a healer.”

“I did? Oh., yeah about–”

“I was wondering how I could still, you know, ask Slughorn about the … erm–”

“Apprenticeship.” Severus finished her sentence. 

“Yes, that,” she said, looking down for a moment like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to say it aloud.

Severus turned toward her, brows drawn slightly. “You’re thinking about actually going for it?”

Lily nodded. “I mean… yeah. Sometimes. More often lately.”

He didn’t say anything at first. Just tilted his head, studying her like she was a potion he hadn’t quite identified the ingredients of. “You always could’ve,” he said at last.

“I know,” she replied. “But back then it felt… distant. Like something future-Lily might do if the world stayed still long enough.”

“It didn’t,” he said simply.

She shook her head. “No. But I still want to try. I was wondering if Slughorn would even remember me.”

Severus gave her a look. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

“He practically canonized your Draught of Peace write-up. Said you made it ‘readable for the common mind.’”

Lily laughed lightly. “I forgot about that.”

“I didn’t,” he said. “He used it as a benchmark in classes after. Annoying and lazy, if you ask me.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I struggled with the theory behind the Elixir of Euphoria.”

“That does make me feel better.”

She glanced at him then. “If I apply... would you help? I mean, if I get accepted. It’s just an apprenticeship, but—”

“I’d help,” he said before she could finish. It came out quieter than expected, but with zero hesitation.

Lily blinked. “Really?”

He gave a half-shrug. “You’re not terrible to work with. When you’re not correcting my handwriting.”

“That was once.”

“It was twice .”

She grinned, then softened. “Thank you.”

He gave a nod — small, almost like he wasn’t used to being thanked without suspicion attached.

“You’ll be good at it,” he added, after a beat. “Not just the brewing. The… part where you care too much.”

She looked at him, surprised. Not by the compliment itself, but the way he said it — without bitterness, without defense.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me since third year.”

He deadpanned, “Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t,” she said, bumping her knee lightly against his. “But I’ll remember.”

Then she turned back. “Hey! Actually you once said I look tolerable in fourth year!” 

“Must have been the wind.”

“Sev! I remember I was really sad about that one zit under my nose and I was crying over it– Yes! You told me I look above average decent with or without the zit!”

He groaned softly, dragging a hand down his face. “Merlin, don’t repeat it like that. You make it sound like I read it off a prescription label.”

Lily’s grin widened. “So you admit it?”

“I admit I was clearly under duress,” he muttered. “Possibly concussed.”

“You were stirring potion samples for Slughorn.”

“A volatile environment.”

“You told me I looked above average decent , Sev,” she said, grinning. “That’s practically poetry coming from you.”

“I don’t recall that,” he muttered.

“Liar.” She slapped his arm. “Arse.”

He didn’t flinch this time — just looked at her.

Hair messy in the morning sun, freckles bright across her nose, eyes lit up like she knew exactly how to get under his skin.

“Maybe I said something like that,” he admitted, voice low.

She softened, just slightly. “You did. It helped.”

He didn’t say anything more, but he didn’t look away either. And that was enough.

To anyone else, he might’ve looked tired. Closed-off. Like someone still peeling themselves out of the night before — pale skin drawn tight over sharp cheekbones, shadows under his eyes like he hadn't meant to sleep, or hadn’t managed to. His hair had come loose again, strands sticking to the side of his neck, and the collar of his shirt had folded awkwardly where he'd tugged at it.

But to her, it was something else entirely.

There was a kind of gravity to him — the way he sat so still, coffee cupped loosely in his hands, like movement would cost too much. The way his expression hovered just this side of unreadable, as if every thought was being measured twice before it passed his lips. It made her want to lean in. Not because of softness, exactly. But because of the depth. The kind that felt earned.

His presence wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It just filled the space in a way that made the world quieter around him.

And she couldn’t help it — she looked. Like maybe if she studied him long enough, she’d understand why she always did. Since it was hard not to reach for that version of him. Harder not to let him know she wanted to.

“Erm, right.”

“Right.” Lily uncontrollably reddened, realizing how she must have been staring at his soul right now. 

Her way back home, obviously with Severus accompanying her, was unreasonably awkward. And neither of them was sure why. 

They reached the edge of her street. She stopped.

So did he.

There was a pause — not heavy, not light. Just one of those pauses that seemed to stretch because neither of them wanted to end it.

And then, without a word, Lily opened her arms.

It was a strange gesture. Stiff at first. Uncertain.

Like she was offering something and bracing for it to be refused.

Severus froze.

She looked like she might take it back, like she was already regretting it—

But he stepped forward.

Not all at once. Just enough.

And that was all she needed.

She wrapped her arms around him. Tight. No hesitation now.

Her cheek pressed near his collar, her fingers fisting slightly in the fabric of his coat.

He stood there, tense — not from discomfort, but from something deeper. Like he didn’t know how to be held without undoing.

Then, slowly, one of his arms came around her. Careful. Crooked at the elbow. Awkward in the way that meant it mattered.

He didn’t say anything. Neither did she.

The street was quiet.

So they just stayed like that.

For a moment that shouldn’t have meant as much as it did.

Chapter Text

Nobody ever told Lily that moving into a new apartment could be so much pain in the arse. She was grateful that her parents had decided and agreed to pay for the first six months of the rent. For them, it was a compensation for her not pursuing a muggle higher education. They never said it like that, of course. But Lily could read between the lines, in her mother’s too-bright smile when they signed the lease, in her father’s quiet “You’ll make it work” as he handed her the keys. They didn’t understand the world she’d chosen, not really. But they were trying to support it in the only way they knew how, by making sure she had a place to sleep and pretending that was enough.

Obviously, she was glad they helped her in with the entire process, and she did regret it at some point when her mum started questioning her about every single item she was unpacking — “Do you really need three types of shirts?” and “Is this robe clean or just folded?”. But still, it had meant something. It made the whole terrifying leap into adulthood feel a little less like a free fall and a little more like a cautious step.

The flat itself was tiny, drafty, and smelled faintly of cinnamon and dust. The kind of place that made her feel both entirely grown and embarrassingly unprepared. She'd already broken a shelf charm, misplaced her wand twice, and seriously questioned whether buying the cheap kettle had been a mistake.

But it was hers.

Which, for now, was enough. At least, she presumed. 

There was a bedroom with a bed enough to fit in the girls for a sleepover, even if Lily doubted there’d be any in this economy. The kitchen barely qualified as such, more a collection of cupboards pretending to be useful, but the kettle fit on the stove, and the tap ran hot, so she counted it as a win. Her books were stacked in uneven towers by the wall, and her plants were barely fitting altogether by the window sill. But regardless, there was a silence of her own. A room of her own. 

It gave her a sense of belonging alongside with responsibilities that only she was beholding. And after her parents went back to Cokeworth, she just sat on the floor with her back to the kitchen counter, legs stretched out across the scuffed tiles, and let it all settle in. The quiet. The stillness. The strange, electric hum of independence that was equal parts thrilling and terrifying. A dust mote drifted past in a streak of afternoon light. Somewhere, a neighbour was listening to the radio — something muffled and jazzy that made the moment feel almost cinematic.

She knew what she would do. Well, what she would do in a few weeks, or months, hopefully. But as of now, she had no clue what to do in between these four walls. Who was even living in London? Whom could she meet? 

Mary still, as of now, lived in Leeds. Her family had moved there from Liverpool just last year. She never asked where Marlene lived, which she only realized now, as she sat in this flat alone, thinking of names without addresses. And to say she knew where anyone ever lived would also be an absolute blatant lie because somehow Lily had never bothered asking her peers back in Hogwarts where the hell each one of them had lived. While glancing at the picture on the desk from fifth year, she realized how she had known so many people yet kept contact with nearly none of them.

For some time before graduating, it would have been an ecstasy for that Lily to know that once she graduated none of the people around would be anywhere near her, but the current Lily was slowly sinking in into the strange, aching quiet of it all. The kind of quiet that didn’t just fill the room; it settled in her chest, between her ribs, where the noise of friends used to be. It all made her wonder whether she was a good friend after all.

The names of people were popping in her head as she glanced at the very actively moving picture on her desk. Funny how Lily was standing right in the middle of such active picture simply standing next to Remus, who was rubbing the back of his head.  

Mary stood beside Peter, arms crossed, caught mid-eye-roll as he said something that clearly didn’t warrant a reaction. Typical. Marlene had her arms draped over both Emmeline Vance and Johanna Spencer like a queen surveying her court, grinning wide like she owned the sunset. Emmeline was laughing at something Frank had said probably, though her gaze kept flickering toward him even after he turned to Alice. And Frank, for his part, looked caught between saying something to Emmeline and pretending he wasn’t thinking about it at all. It was a look Lily recognized — one she’d seen more than once that year, in late-night walks back from patrols and glances that lasted a bit too long to be casual.

Alice was standing just a few steps away with Marlene, her arms loosely crossed, listening to something Marlene was saying while Johanna nodded along beside her. The three of them had grown close toward the end of fifth year, bound together by something quiet and easy — the kind of friendship that didn’t need to announce itself to be solid.

Terry Bolton was off to the side, mid-sentence in what looked like an extremely passionate retelling of some hallway catastrophe, all wide eyes and expressive hands. He always had a way of commanding attention, even if it was just from the handful of boys he made a point of standing closer to. Looking back, Lily wasn’t surprised, not really, just a little ashamed she hadn’t noticed sooner.

Next to him, Ric Aquino was laughing, head tilted slightly, glasses slipping, one hand lazily shoving them back up as he snorted at something only he seemed to find funny. Lily’s eyes landed on him with the ghost of a smile. Ric had been her first almost-something. A brief, easy sort of thing — a few late-night library sessions, a walk back to the common room that ended with a kiss behind the tapestry near the Charms corridor. It fizzled out quickly, like it had never meant to last in the first place. No mess, no real heartbreak. Just a memory that still lived somewhere soft.

And in the center of it all stood Lily herself, barely moving despite the chaos around her, her shoulder brushing Remus’s as he rubbed the back of his neck in that familiar, sheepish way. He looked like he’d just said something self-deprecating and half-true, and she was mid-laugh — not full-blown, but that kind of caught breath before amusement really hit.

Off to the right, James stood slightly behind Sirius, angled just enough to make it clear he wasn’t paying attention to whatever Sirius was saying. His eyes were on her — not staring, exactly, but watching. Like he couldn’t quite help himself. There was a smile tugging at his mouth, small and private, meant only for him.

And he never looked away.

James wasn’t looking at anything but her. That smile tugging at the corner of his mouth — quiet, patient, and entirely hers — stayed with her long after the moment looped again. She lingered on it. Let herself remember it. She didn’t even know if it was truly her fault, the way things had unraveled afterward. The silence. The distance.

Looking at the picture, she realized how she didn’t have just a friendgroup of people, she connected various people, mixing group of friends altogether. She always had that charms, managing to never make anyone left out.  She had a way of making people feel like they belonged. Not through loudness, but through presence. Through noticing. 

And maybe that was why the silence felt so sharp now. Because there was no one else to notice. No one to loop in. And for the first time in years, Lily Evans was entirely, unquestionably by herself . It wasn’t even sad, just empty. 

And for everything it had been, maybe a part of her expected them all to still be close. Yet despite how the fifth year had ended, the last person she had spoken to this summer was literally her only friend that wasn’t in this picture, Severus. 

And it was self-explanatory given the time this picture was taken on why Severus wasn’t included. Yes, he’d rather walk over fuming coal than stand with this particular group of people, but him and Lily had very few pictures together at all, not because there hadn’t been opportunity, but because, as the years went on, there had been a growing hesitance, from both sides, to be seen. 

It hadn’t started that way. First year, second year — there were a handful of snapshots, mostly taken by her parents. Non-magical film snaps by the Kings Cross, before leaving Cokeworth, in the car, then coming back from Hogwarts – all somewhere scattered in a cupboard in some box forgotten and already curling by the edges. 

By the second year, Lily started charming the taken photos to be magical — by the lakeside, in the library, in the stretch of corridor near the greenhouse where the afternoon light always hit the floor just right. Just plenty of small moments with her and Severus that were nothing special at the time. Him tossing a pebble into the water. Her bent over her notes, mouthing something silently before glancing up. Both of them in focus, then blurring out as if the magic itself wasn’t quite sure how to hold them steady.

She had a shoebox full of those somewhere, buried deep in her closet back home. She never showed them to anyone. Not because they were secret, but because they didn’t feel like something that needed witnessing. They had been hers. Theirs. And even if they weren’t smiling in every frame, even if some of them caught Severus mid-glare or Lily mid-eye-roll, they were real.

Then came fourth year. And something shifted.

It wasn’t dramatic — no definitive break, no cut-the-camera moment. Just a slow drift. They stopped sitting so close in the library. They stopped walking together after lessons. They still talked, still exchanged notes, still met up behind the greenhouse like clockwork — but if someone else was around, they’d stand further apart. Speak quieter. Look at anything but each other.

Lily didn’t think either of them planned it. But they both felt it.

By fifth year, the idea of pulling out a camera in his presence would’ve felt… ridiculous. Like acknowledging something they’d both been working so hard not to name. And if he ever noticed the absence, he never said anything. Just as she never said anything when she noticed him loitering less near Gryffindor Tower. Just as he never asked what she was doing spending more time with Marlene and Mary. Just as she never asked about the boys in the darker corners of the Slytherin common room whose names she had stopped trying to learn.

The distance hadn’t begun with a betrayal. It had begun with restraint.

And ironically, he was the one who'd written. Still the one she’d spoken to this summer. Not often. Not tenderly. But plainly. As if they were still standing behind the greenhouse, backs to the wind, saying everything except the thing that actually mattered.

She looked at the picture again. Everyone looped in endless motion. Smiling. Talking. So much movement. And yet none of it reached her.

Somewhere, outside the frame, she imagined Severus — arms crossed, expression unreadable, already walking away.

And she hated how easily she could picture it.

Did he even feel the drift they had contributed to by the fifth year? Or was Lily just too oblivious to it all? Too busy with her other friends? Too content to accept the shift as natural, inevitable — the way people just grow apart, without meaning to, without malice?

Or maybe she’d told herself that because it hurt less than the alternative.

Maybe it was easier to pretend that time had done the damage, not choice.

She’d been busy, yes. With Marlene and Mary and Prefect meetings and study groups and all the rest. But she hadn’t been too busy to notice. She’d noticed. Every time he left the Great Hall without looking her way. Every time their eyes met across the courtyard and he blinked first, turning toward Rosier or Mulciber or whoever else he’d started lingering near. She noticed the shift in his handwriting, too — sharper, more hurried. Like he was rushing to distance even his words (in his defence, his handwriting was never that comprehensible anyway). 

But maybe, it just had to happen. Because when they both hung out with people that were very much against your friendships, something had to give. You can’t keep splitting your life in half without the seams starting to fray.

It wasn’t dramatic. There were no fights, no ultimatums. Just… small things. Mary’s discontent face when Lily mentioned she’d seen Severus. The way Mulciber’s laugh always got louder when Lily passed by. The quiet suspicion. The constant need to defend something she couldn’t quite explain anymore. 

So eventually, she stopped explaining.

Eventually, she stopped bringing him up at all.

And he, in turn, stopped lingering by the library door. Stopped waiting for her after Potions. Stopped looking surprised when she didn’t sit next to him. They both made room for the silence. Allowed it. Fed it.

Because what was the alternative? Constant negotiation? Constant apology?

She still doesn’t know if she regrets it.

That’s the worst part.

It was difficult to feel anything towards anyone when you weren’t so sure of yourself anymore. When you didn’t know whether you’d become a healer or another witch on the first frontier. And maybe Severus had been the only one who didn’t expect anything from her at all. Not really. He never asked her to choose. Never pulled at her sleeve or made her explain why she wasn’t sitting next to him or laughing quite as much. He didn’t ask her to stay, but he didn’t make it easy to leave either.

He just… let her drift.

And she let him do the same.

Whatever hurt they carried from that — if there was hurt at all — it had been wordless. Passive. The kind that builds up not because someone demands too much, but because no one says a thing.

Because nothing is asked for. Nothing is clarified.

So everything is misunderstood.

That was the shape of them by the end of fifth year — not a fracture, not a fire. Just a long, quiet dissolving. A friendship that eroded like shoreline under tide. Bit by bit, until she didn’t know when exactly he’d stopped waiting for her after Potions, and when exactly she’d stopped turning around to see if he was there.

Maybe that’s why it still lingered — because there was never anything definite to mourn. And even if Lily pretended to be optimistic about anything regarding them at all, deep down, she knew pretty well that there’d be nothing to mourn or cherish for a quite long time now too. Not between them. Not really.

Just distance. Familiar, practiced distance. Worn-in like an old jumper. Still warm, but not quite comforting.

She pressed the heel of her palm into her eye and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The flat was still. The kettle sat cold on the stove. The picture on the desk kept looping, endless and unchanged. 

She had to go out and walk a bit, no? She hadn’t really gotten out of the flat since her parents left on Friday. Just a few steps down to collect the post. Twice to take the bins out, though she wasn’t entirely sure which days she’d done that.

The light outside was thinning now, stretched gold and too-warm across the windowsill. One of her plants — the fern she hadn’t named yet — was curling a bit at the edges. She should water it. She should do a lot of things.

Instead, she stood.

Her legs ached from sitting too long in the same position, and her back cracked softly when she stretched her arms overhead. She didn’t even bother changing out of the long shirt she’d slept in — just pulled on the first pair of jeans she could find and shoved her wand into her pocket out of habit.  

Right, outside, she reminded herself. 

Lily, out, she kept mumbling to herself, trying to keep her sanity in tact by keeping some contact with the outside world. As if saying it aloud might root her body in the act, keep her legs moving forward. She didn’t want to turn this flat into a cocoon. Not yet. Not already.

She took the stairs two at a time — not out of energy, just impatience — and pushed the door open with more force than necessary. The air hit her instantly. A bit warm, a bit damp. Early September clinging on by its nails.

“Out,” she muttered again, stepping onto the pavement like it might vanish beneath her. 

She didn’t have her bag, no idea where she was heading, and her hair was probably a mess, but none of that mattered. There was something strangely intimate about moving through the world in a half-present state — like watching someone else’s life through glass.

A shopkeeper was closing up. A couple crossed the street without speaking. Someone’s dog barked twice and then fell quiet. It was all happening without her, and maybe that was the relief of it. She didn’t have to participate. Just witness.

A breeze tugged at the hem of her shirt and made her blink hard. She kept walking. Past a row of houses she didn’t recognize. Past the post office. Past the pub that was still open even though no one ever seemed to be inside.

She didn’t know where she was going.

But at least she was moving.

And for now, that counted.

A store, a restaurant, a hotel – a street full of people continuing on with their lives. Surely, London was nowhere familiar to Cokeworth. A bigger city, more people, and even more less space. Moving along the flow of the crowd was not an option since the crowd itself moved like it had a map she hadn’t been given. Everyone seemed to know where they were going — briefcases tucked under arms, phones pressed to ears, heels clicking like punctuation marks. No one looked up. No one looked lost.

Except her.

She stepped aside when someone brushed too close, muttered a quiet sorry even though they didn’t turn around. The city didn’t make room for hesitation. It barely made room at all.

And yet, somehow, the narrowness of it felt… honest. At least here, she wasn’t expected to perform comfort. No one cared if she didn’t smile. No one noticed that she kept touching her pocket to make sure her wand was still there, as if she might lose it just by walking too long in the wrong direction.

She kept walking. No destination in mind, only a vague promise to herself that she’d make it back before dark. Maybe.

The streets shifted — less polished, less hurried. A few narrow shopfronts, a cracked bench, a mural peeling off the side of a corner building. A small bell chimed as someone exited a café behind her.

And then, a bookshop.

Tucked in between a laundrette and a locksmith. Dusty windows. Tilted lettering on the sign. It looked like the kind of place that hadn’t changed since before she was born. Lily paused outside, pressing her hand against the glass to peer in.

Books. Wooden floor. Warm light.

She stepped inside.

The air smelled like old paper and cinnamon. A fan whirred lazily in the corner. Somewhere near the back, someone was humming under their breath.

She didn’t know why she was there. Maybe it was the quiet. Or the fact that it didn’t feel like the rest of the city — this place didn’t move like it was being timed.

She rounded a corner between shelves—

—and collided, softly, into someone.

“Oh, so sorry–”

“Bloody—Evans?!”

She froze.

Peter Pettigrew was blinking at her, arms full of books, one nearly slipping to the floor.

Her mouth opened, closed, then curved without thinking. “Pete-Pettigrew?”

“You—you’re here? What are you doing here?” he asked, voice cracking halfway between disbelief and delight.

“I—just…walking,” she said, breath catching a little, in that strange way it does when something unexpectedly kind happens after a day that’s been quietly hard.

Peter laughed. “Of course you are. Merlin, you scared the life out of me.”

He shifted the books to one arm and reached out like he wasn’t sure if a hug was allowed. Lily didn’t even hesitate. She stepped in. It was brief, slightly awkward, warm.

“You look the same,” she said as they pulled apart.

“I absolutely don’t,” he replied, grinning. “But thanks.”

She laughed, and it felt like the first real sound she’d made all day.

Then he looked past her, eyes scanning the shelves. “Oi—Remus! You’ll never guess who I just ran into!”

And Lily’s smile froze, but only slightly.

Remus was here too?

Somewhere deeper in the shop, a familiar voice responded — low, steady, a little worn:

“Is this going to be like the time you ‘ran into’ a Dementor that turned out to be your laundry?”

And just like that, the world tilted a little.

Not in a bad way. Just enough to feel like something was about to happen. Like maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t completely on the outside anymore.

“Lily. Hi.”

“‘Ello Remus.” She chuckled at his flustered face. 

He stepped forward, offering a quick nod in greeting, hands shoved awkwardly into the pockets of his coat. “Didn’t expect to see you here. But I suppose that’s London for you.”

She glanced around again — at the softly shifting book titles, the faint hum of protective charms under her fingertips. “This place is… magical?”

Remus smiled. “Plenty of shops like this, actually. More than you’d think. I mean—how could a city like London fit everything magical just in Diagon Alley?”

Lily raised an eyebrow, and he continued, gesturing loosely to the room. “Most places like this are scattered across the city. Charmed to blend in. Charmed to keep Muggles from questioning why a book called A Field Guide to Flesh-Eating Shrubs is sitting in a window next to a broken toaster.”

She snorted. “Fair enough.”

“Shops like these are everywhere if you know what to look for,” he added. “Bit messy. Bit hidden. But useful.”

“Like you two?” she said, grinning as Peter reappeared from behind the next aisle with another precarious stack of books.

“Exactly like us,” Peter said, grinning back. “Messy, hidden, and useful. Emphasis on useful , in my case.”

Remus rolled his eyes fondly. “We come here sometimes after work. Peter gets too excited and insists he needs ‘just one more’ book. I supervise.”

“Supervise, my arse,” Peter muttered. “He’s the one who found the annotated werewolf law book and started cross-referencing for fun.”

Lily looked between them, warmth blooming quietly in her chest. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this. Not the noise, not the school chatter — just this — being seen by someone who didn’t expect anything from her.

She glanced once more at the shelves, the dust motes caught in warm light, the soft creak of wood beneath their feet.

“Feels like the kind of place you end up in when you need it,” she said, half to herself.

Remus nodded once, like he understood that perfectly. It felt so strangely familiar to meet the two. So sense of warmth, yet not really. Like muscle memory — the echo of comfort, but not the comfort itself. Like a scent you remember from childhood but can’t quite place.

There they were. Peter, still beaming with that easy openness she remembered. Remus, quietly steady, like he’d never stopped watching the room even when no one was watching him.

But she wasn’t who she’d been the last time they’d all stood in the same space. And something in her recoiled at how easily she could slip back into that version of herself. The Lily who smoothed things over, who laughed on cue, who knew how to belong in their orbit.

She didn’t know if she still wanted to belong.

And yet—here they were. Familiar voices. Familiar rhythm. A part of her, long unused, stirred like it remembered how to move in sync with theirs. How to fill silences, how to nudge Peter into laughing, how to look at Remus and know when he was about to deflect something too vulnerable.

But it felt like watching her own memory play out in real time, and she wasn’t in it.

Not really.

Just adjacent to it.

Still, it settled in her chest differently than anything had for days. Not exactly comfort, but a reminder. Of what used to be easy. Of what hadn’t asked her to work so hard just to stay upright.

“Will we keep on standing here or I get the book and we go for pint?” Peter asked, already turning toward the counter without waiting for an answer.

It hung in the air for a second — the way his words cut straight through something softer, something not yet named. For a breath or two, it was awkward. Not outwardly, not spoken. But Lily felt it, sharp and sudden, like she'd been jerked back into her body too fast.

Remus glanced at her, then away, polite enough not to acknowledge it.

Peter, of course, noticed none of it.

“Back in a sec,” he called, already bouncing toward the counter with the book tucked under his arm, launching into a ramble about margin notes and bad binding as if nothing in the world had ever weighed on him.

Lily blinked, exhaling through her nose.

“I didn’t know he was a reader,” she said, half to herself.

Remus smiled, one side of his mouth curling slightly. “He wasn’t. Not at Hogwarts, anyway.”

She glanced sideways at him, and he shrugged, thoughtful.

“I think living with me made him less… active,” he said. “More reading. Less running about.”

Something about the way he said it made her pause — not quite fond, not regretful either. Just aware . Like someone who knew what it meant to watch people shift and never name it aloud.

“Well,” she said softly, “it suits him.”

“Yeah,” Remus murmured. “It kind of does.”

Peter reappeared a moment later, holding his purchase like it might fly away. “Right. Pint?”

Before either of them could answer, he was already halfway out the door, waving them along as if none of it was up for debate.

Lily followed, the door jingling closed behind her.

It was jarring, a bit — being pulled into movement when her whole world had been so still. But maybe that was okay. Maybe she didn’t need comfort yet. Just momentum.

And for now, Peter Pettigrew and a bookshop on a Muggle street were enough to offer her exactly that. Oh, and Remus. Although she was still in shock from casually running into him as well, just on her third day in London. 

Peter didn’t walk—he bounced. Always had, but it struck Lily now how much more present he seemed. Like he wasn’t trying to catch up anymore, like he’d stopped pretending to be someone else’s echo and just settled into his own tempo. It suited him.

Remus, on the other hand, moved slow. Not tired, but measured. Like someone who had learned not to rush unless it was necessary.

They crossed the narrow street, shoes clicking against wet pavement, and Peter launched into a commentary about the pub's dodgy carpet and how once, two summers ago, someone brought a ferret in and no one questioned it.

“Only in Camden,” he added proudly, as if the chaos reflected well on his taste in pubs.

“So, what brings you to London?” he asked again, swinging the door open and holding it without fanfare.

Lily chuckled, not awkwardly but rather surprisingly because whoever this Peter was, he was surely talkative and very much so lively.

“Life,” she said. “Wanted a change and all, you know?”

“You make it sound dramatic,” Remus said, holding out his hand automatically to catch a matchbook someone tossed from behind the bar. He raised an eyebrow. “Should we be bracing for a tragic monologue?”

“Only if you’re offering drinks,” Lily replied.

Peter pointed at her, mock-serious. “Oho. Still got the Evans bite.”

They sat by the bar; Peter tried to place himself on the barstool comfortably as he muttered some curses here and there. 

Remus leaned back, shrugging off his coat, revealing a threadbare jumper and a pack of cigarettes tucked into the sleeve.

Lily stared at it, amused. “You smoke now?”

He shrugged, pulling one out, lighting it with a flick of his fingers and an old matchbook charm.

“Picked it up after school. Don’t start.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said, grinning. “But… I haven’t had one in days.”

He passed the pack to her, and Lily took one without any hesitation. Definitely not new to it all, Remus thought.

“You don’t …?” Lily asked Peter, who was tapping continuously like the tapping would bring the server faster.

“He’d die.” Remus answered for him since Peter was not paying attention, and then tapped on his shoulder to get him into the conversation.

“Oh, yes, yes. I mean— Yes?”

“Lily asked if you smoke, and I said you’d die if you did.”

“Oh. Right. Yes, yes, I’ve got asthma. Coughing and all the moment— Yes, he is right.”

Peter coughed once, like the word itself summoned it, then returned to his anxious beer-waiting posture.

Lily raised an eyebrow, amused. “Right. Good to know I shouldn’t blow smoke in your direction.”

Peter held up a hand without turning around. “Please don’t. I’m fragile.”

Remus leaned slightly toward her, voice low. “He’s not. But he likes to be dramatic when there’s an audience.”

Peter turned halfway, clearly catching that. “I heard that.”

“You were meant to,” Remus replied, flicking ash off the end of his cigarette with irritating elegance.

Lily took a long drag from hers, letting the smoke curl lazily around her words. “So. Guinness?”

“Of course,” Remus said without hesitation.

Peter let out a gagging sound. “Mud water. Absolute mud.”

He turned again, pointing a stern finger at Lily like she already had to answer to the question he hadn’t said yet,

Lily blinked innocently, then said in a defensive tone. “I prefer wine on unusual occasions.”

“Middle class shit. But respect. I myself became a wine-guy this summer with Pads.”

Lily shrugged. “Do they have peach ale?”

Peter looked wounded. “What kind of question is that?”

She grinned. “A hopeful one.”

“Guinness, lager, and… the most disgracefully non-threatening ale they’ve got,” he muttered, waving to the bartender like this whole ordeal had aged him ten years.

As Peter negotiated with the bartender—complete with vague hand gestures and a warning about “sensitive lungs”—Lily and Remus smoked in relative silence.

He looked over at her once, just briefly.

“You’ve changed,” he said, not unkindly.

She didn’t blink. “So have you.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Then, with a little twist of a smile:

“Looks better on you.”

She smiled back, crooked and knowing. “You haven’t seen the rest yet.”

“Ohhh, a threat, Rem, you heard that?”

“Sure, did.” He smiled as he took the drink from the bartender.

It was so warmly funny to see these two. Lily had never seen the two of them without the rest (meaning: without Potter and Black). Peter sort of moulded into someone who seemed to be more socially confident, even grew a beard and nailed a vague mullet. He had more to say and comment, which was something new considering how he would just say a joke here and there during his time in Hogwarts. He was quite funny, Lily thought (funnier than James and Sirius). 

Peter passed out the drinks with a proud little flourish, as if he’d brewed them himself. He handed Lily her pale ale, Remus his Guinness, and took his own lager with the reverence of a man who believed he had earned it.

They clinked glasses, Peter muttering something about the smell of the mould that they have inside the storage. Lily laughed. Remus didn’t argue; he said he was used to it by now.

For a while, it was easy.

And then Peter said, tipping his glass slightly toward her.

“So, Evans. Why don’t you join the Order?”

Lily looked at him over the rim of her drink, expression unreadable.

“Why does it narrow down to just one choice, eh?” She said playfully, not really digging into the question.

“It’s really selfish to call it a choice when it’s really all about your future and of many others.”

She furrowed her brows, the smile from earlier still on. “I never said I wouldn’t join.”

“Right,” Peter said. “But you’re not.”

“And what exactly would I be doing?” she asked, too casually. “There’s not much left for the Order to do right now.”

Remus, quite until now, looked at her with something restrained and sharp in his eyes.

“There was a raid last week,” he said. “In Wandsworth. Family of five. Only three made it out. I mean new members– All we do is practice for the next time to– to not fuck it all up, but … yeah.”

The air stilled.

Lily’s fingers tightened around her glass

“Oh,” she said quietly.

Peter leaned forward, elbows on the sticky bar top.

“See?” he said, too brightly. “We do something useful. At least.”

There was something sharp in his voice. Not aggressive—just tight. Like the words were pinched off too close to the bone. He smiled as he said it, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Lily looked down at her drink. Her shoulders tensed, just barely.

Remus didn’t move. He just watched Peter for a long, steady moment. And Peter felt it, visibly recoiled a bit—not from guilt, but from being seen .

“Didn’t mean it like that,” he added quickly, too quickly.

“Didn’t you?” Remus asked, voice even.

Peter shrugged, tossing back another sip. “I mean, come on. Some of us are trying. Not all of us can wander Shepherd’s Bush having identity crises.”

Lily blinked, surprised. But it wasn’t the words that got her—it was the tone .

The edge.

The tiniest bit of envy woven through the sarcasm.

Remus gave him a look. “Pete.”

“What?” he said, smiling like it was still a joke. “I’m just saying. Not all of us can afford to figure ourselves out first.”

There it was again. Not bitterness, exactly. But something older. Something twisted up inside him—like he'd always been waiting for a moment to say, I'm still here too, even if you didn’t notice.

Lily didn’t answer.

Peter took another long sip, then leaned back and grinned, lighter now. “But hey—at least we’ve got good beer. Well. You’ve got peach sadness, but I’m not judging.”

And just like that, he wrapped himself back up in the joke. The way he always did.

But the sharpness stayed. Just under the surface. Like a seed, waiting.

“Why would you even be sad, Evans? Is it still about the break-up because as far as I remember you were the one–”

“The Guinness actually doesn’t taste so bad, eh?” Said Remus, who tried to save Lily from Peter’s sudden interrogation. 

Lily set her glass down, carefully. Too carefully.

Peter’s words were still hanging in the air—sticky, mean, the kind of thing you say when you want to hurt without looking like you meant to.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, but his grin didn’t match it. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, you did,” Remus said quietly.

Peter blinked at him. His mouth opened, but whatever defense he had died in the back of his throat. He looked… caught. Like a child who’d knocked over something expensive and hoped no one had seen.

Lily didn’t say anything. She was looking at her fingers on the rim of her glass, thumb pressing into the condensation like it gave her something to hold onto.

“It’s been a weird few months, alright?” Peter muttered, voice lower now. “I didn’t mean to— You just disappeared, Lily. Like freaking left.”

“I moved,” she said, finally. Calm. Distant. “People do that.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Peter.” Remus’s voice was firmer now. Still soft, but sharper at the edges. “That’s enough.”

Peter fell quiet. Not angry. Just... small. His fingers drummed the table again. This time slower.

The tension between them sat like a fourth glass.

Lily took a breath. Then stood.

“I’ll get some air.”

She didn’t wait for a reply—just grabbed her coat and walked toward the door, the bell above it chiming faintly as she stepped out into the night.

Remus watched her go. Then looked back at Peter.

“You alright?” Peter asked after a moment, too casual.

Remus tilted his head. “Are you ?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Sure. Always. Cheers to functional adulthood.”

He raised his half-empty glass in a mock toast. But his hand trembled slightly.

“She’s not the same, is she?”

Remus took a long sip of his Guinness before replying.

“Neither are you.”

“Guess none of us are.”

“No,” Remus said. “But some of us are trying not to take it out on people who you just meet after not seeing them– well, since fucking graduating, Pete.”

Peter went quiet.

Outside, the door jingled again as Lily leaned against the railing, arms crossed, staring out into the blur of streetlights—like she wasn’t looking for clarity, just something that didn’t expect her to answer back.

Peter came out less than a minute later. The door swung shut behind him with a soft thud, and for a moment, he just stood there. Awkward, out of place. Like he hadn’t expected the night to end up under fluorescent streetlamps and tension instead of banter and beer.

Lily didn’t look at him.

He cleared his throat.

“Hey. I— Look, I didn’t mean to be a prat back there.”

Still, she said nothing. Her eyes stayed on the street, where a bus rumbled past without stopping.

“I had enough of beer there, so … I better get going. I’ll leave you two to it. I’ve got to get up early. Bye. See you around, I guess.” 

Peter gave a small wave, barely more than a motion, and started down the street, his footsteps fading into the night. And with that, Lily went back in. Surely, she couldn’t leave Remus all alone.

“Don’t mind him.”

Lily gave a weak smile. “Yeah, I don’t.”

Remus returned the smile with a same downward weak curve of the mouth — like they both understood that not minding still meant feeling it anyway .

He gestured toward their mostly-full glasses. “Want to sit a bit longer?”

Lily nodded. “Yeah. I could use… just not going home yet.”

They slid back into the booth, the weight of Peter’s absence hanging like condensation on the glass — not loud, just leftover.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t quite easy either. It was shared.

Finally, Lily said, “He’s changed.”

Remus nodded once, eyes on the ring of his glass. “Yeah. He’s been good to me in all honesty.”

“Yeah, yeah I didn’t mean in a bad way,” she added, quickly. “It’s just… there’s something under it now. Like he’s waiting to be disappointed?”

Remus hummed. “Yeah, managed to get a sharp tongue, that one.”

They fell quiet again. The pub had settled into its own rhythm — low music, murmurs, the occasional clink of glass.

Lily leaned back slightly. “Is it weird that this feels more familiar than anything has in weeks?”

“No,” Remus said. “Familiar isn’t always comfortable. But it reminds you of something you used to be.”

She looked over at him, studying his face for a long second. The same tired kindness. The same thoughtful pause between words. And something else, too — something a bit sharper, like the war had left a permanent mark just behind his eyes.

“You alright?” she asked softly.

Remus smiled, this time a bit more real. “I think so. But I’m glad you came back in.”

Lily nodded. “Me too.”

Remus rubbed his thumb along the rim of his glass, then looked up at her — not quite meeting her eyes at first, like he was weighing the words.

“If you ever feel lonely,” he began, slow, deliberate, “not saying you should… but you could come to an Order meeting. After, I mean. Just to sit in, if you wanted.”

Lily looked at him, surprised — not by the offer, but by how gently it was given.

“You don’t have to sign anything in blood,” he added, mouth quirking. “We’re not that dramatic. Most of the time.”

She huffed a quiet laugh, the kind that didn’t quite reach her chest. “That’s… kind of you.”

“It’s not kindness,” he said, then softened. “Alright, maybe a little. But mostly it’s just — you don’t have to do this alone, Lily. Even if you’re not sure where you stand yet.”

She nodded slowly, gaze dropping to the table, then lifting again. “I might come. One of these times.”

“Good,” Remus said, voice warm but measured, like he didn’t want to press too hard. “We’d like having you around.”

And he meant we . Not the Order, not Dumbledore, not a cause. We . As in him . As in someone who noticed when she vanished and meant it when he said she didn’t have to.

Remus leaned back slightly, fishing around in the inner pocket of his coat until he pulled out a folded scrap of parchment. He smoothed it out with the side of his palm and slid it toward her.

“Just—call me before you do,” he said. “The meeting spot changes a lot. Security measures.”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “Changes how?”

“Different houses. Shops. Even different countries, sometimes,” he said casually, like he hadn’t just dropped a logistical bomb on her.

“Countries?” she echoed, blinking. “Like—”

“There used to be a portkey,” Remus nodded, “set up just for London members. Took us to the meeting spot if it was, say… Ireland. Or wherever else Dumbledore thought was safest that week.”

Lily stared. “You’ve just casually popped over to Ireland for meetings?”

He shrugged, amused by her shock. “Well. Sometimes the kettle doesn’t work, sometimes you end up in Galway. It’s a very experimental process.”

She let out a stunned laugh, half incredulous. “Bloody hell.”

“Yeah,” Remus said, smiling now. “So. Just owl or ring first, alright? The number’s there — it’s my flat, but either Pete or I will pick up if we’re in.”

She glanced down at the parchment. His handwriting was careful, neat — probably charmed to not smudge. For a second, she just looked at it. At the idea of being connected again.

“Alright,” she said. “Thanks, Remus.”

He nodded once. “Anytime.”

The two had a share of nice talk. Lily didn’t share much of her summer, just how silently out of touch it was. On the other hand, Remus had quite a lot to share. He spent some of his time in Swansea because of his mother’s cousin’s wedding, and, as it turned out, his mother’s cousin was a Muggleborn marrying a witch, which made for “an interesting seating arrangement,” as Remus put it. “Half the guests thought the cake floated because it was a trendy new baking technique. The other half were charmed it didn’t explode.”

Lily laughed, a real one this time. “Sounds like my kind of event.”

“It was surprisingly warm,” Remus said, smiling faintly at the memory. “And nobody hexed anyone, which, you know, low bar for our circles these days.”

There was something easy in the way they spoke now — not quite like old friends, not like strangers either. Just two people sitting in a dim pub, nursing the edges of their lives back into shape.

Then Lily’s fingers traced back to the edge of the parchment again. “I just… it happened the day I arrived,” she said. “The Ministry letter. Asking if I’d be registering the flat as my magical residence.”

Remus looked over. “Already? That’s fast.”

“Right?” she said. “It felt so weird — I’d barely put my stuff down, and I already had government mail asking where I’d sleep. I confirmed it yesterday, not really knowing what it meant.”

“Honestly? Nothing major,” Remus said with a small shrug. “Is your landlord a Muggle?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then it’s mostly just to keep your owlpost from being rerouted or flagged. Helps make sure your mail actually shows up here and not, you know, at your mum’s kitchen window or some random fireplace in Cokeworth.”

“Oh,” Lily said, sounding slightly relieved. “Right. That… makes sense.”

Remus leaned back. “It’s all bureaucratic now. For now.”

She paused at that. “For now?”

He met her eyes, not unkindly. “Just saying — as long as the Ministry stays clean. If things turn… if the wrong people get too much say, those records? They’re not just admin. They’re maps.”

Lily went quiet, staring at her glass. “That’s what I was afraid of. It’s like… it shouldn’t feel like anything. But it does.”

“It does,” Remus agreed. “And that’s not a mistake on your part. That’s your instinct working. Doesn’t mean you made the wrong call.”

Lily nodded slowly. Then, with a small breath, she said, “Still feels like someone’s watching.”

He didn’t deny it.

Instead, he said, “You’re not alone in it, though. If anything, we are all here for you. Merlin, if they ever, you know, put some laws against Muggleborns, which technically they could, and I’m not tryna worry you, then–”

“What a joy, Remus.” Lily said with a chuckle.

“Oh, I’m trying.” And Remus responded with an eye roll.

“Don’t worry. If anything, I can do something– Sort something out for myself.”

As they stepped outside, the pub’s warmth gave way to the cool, damp hush of late London evening. Streetlamps glowed in blurry halos, their light bouncing off the slick pavement. The air smelled faintly of rain, coal, and fried food from the chip shop two doors down.

“I’ll walk you,” Remus said, adjusting the collar of his coat.

“You don’t have to,” Lily replied automatically, even though a part of her was relieved.

“It’s London,” he said, half-grinning. “Not Hogsmeade.”

They walked in silence at first, past shuttered storefronts and flickering neon signs. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. The occasional car passed, headlights sweeping across the street like lazy searchlights.

“Thanks again,” Lily said quietly.

“For the beer or the company?” Remus asked, mock-serious.

She smiled. “Bit of both.”

They reached her block, and she pointed toward the narrow building. “That one. With the window box that’s barely surviving.”

“I see it. Very... bohemian.”

“Very drafty.”

He chuckled. “Alright, whatever you say.”

She turned to him as they reached the building’s entrance. “Night, Remus.”

“Night, Lily.”

He waited until she was inside before he turned to go, shoulders hunched slightly against the mist curling through the air.

Upstairs, Lily moved automatically — lock the door, kick off her shoes, hang up the coat. The flat greeted her with the same quiet she had left behind: soft, unmoving, faintly cinnamon-scented. She didn’t turn on the lights right away. Instead, she stood in the middle of the room, letting the quiet wrap around her again.

She thought of the pub. Of Peter’s words. Of Remus’s steadiness. Of the war creeping further into the cracks of daily life.

She couldn’t just hope no one would bother her little cocoon of a life. She couldn’t pretend her safety was a natural state — not when others, people like her, didn’t get to sleep in peace. Families that didn’t get warning letters. Kids that didn’t get second chances.

She’d always thought of the world in terms of better . Better than before. Better than expected. Better than nothing. But maybe that wasn’t enough anymore. It was surely easy to say for Lily. She could do so much, only if she had some guidance, which, she felt like, she did not.

The Order wasn’t the better choice.

It was the right one. It was a choice that would later guide many others to be free of the burdens the future might behold if it ever got into the hands of a madman.

Of a wrong madman.

And Lily Evans had never been one to sit still when the right thing was in front of her.

She moved toward the hallway and paused by the mailbox built into the wall just beside her door — a narrow brass flap, the kind that clicked too loudly every time it delivered something unimportant.

Inside, a single envelope waited.

She slid it free.

Her name, neat and sweeping across the front. A seal she recognized instantly.

Slughorn.

She opened it, unfolding the parchment with hands that suddenly felt warmer.

My dearest Miss Evans,

I must confess, I had hoped — truly hoped — that you might write. I received a small mountain of owls from your peers after term ended, most of them clamoring for recommendations, apprenticeships, and the like. I turned nearly all of them away. Not out of cruelty, of course, but because… well, I had one particular letter I was waiting for. Yours.

And here it is.

Yes, yes, I would be delighted to take you on as an apprentice. In fact, I would be honored. You were one of the sharpest minds to pass through my classroom in years, and frankly, one of the most promising potioneers I’ve ever taught.

This will be my final year at Hogwarts. Yes, the rumors are true. And I cannot think of a finer way to finish my teaching career than with a student like you by my side. My last apprentice, if you’ll have me. If you do truly consider this path as an option, well, then I am sure this will be a year to remember for me.

I shall owl you again shortly with some materials and a few schedules I’d like you to consider. But for now, welcome back, my dear girl. I’ve saved this place for you. 

Warmest regards,

Horace E. F. Slughorn

P.S. Do not tell anybody yet. I’ve declined quite a few hopefuls from your year — truthfully, I’d been waiting to hear from you. I’d rather not have certain… connections breathing down my neck about favoritism. Let’s keep this between us for now, shall we?

She read it twice.

Then again.

And for the first time in weeks, maybe longer, she let herself feel it.

Hope — small, sharp-edged, and real.

She set the letter down gently, like it meant more than parchment and ink. It wasn’t just an opportunity — it was someone choosing her, believing in her, without needing her to explain why she’d waited. Without needing her to justify the gap between potential and decision.

Slughorn had waited — and so, perhaps, had a part of her. For the right reason. The right moment. The right kind of yes.

The world was shifting.

And she was ready to move with it.

Chapter Text

“What the actual fuck.” Severus exclaimed in unpredicted terror, letting his accent slip away for a passing minute.

“Well, Snapey, one way or another, I told you the I wouldn’t greet you with a box of choccies and a bouqet. Stop whining.”

“Greet me?! When the fuck is this called greeting–”

He broke off, nearly stumbling backward into the stairwell as the figure before him stepped into view. Tall. Too tall. Broad-shouldered like someone built for collision rather than subtlety. He took up space in the doorway like he’d been carved into it, sun-bleached and too solid to be accidental.

Eugene Burke didn’t look like what Severus had imagined. He didn’t look like the Burke family name at all. Dressed in rough Muggle clothes — work trousers, thick-soled boots, and a checked flannel shirt faded at the collar — he looked like someone who should be fixing tractors in the background of an American film. There was even a faint streak of something dark near his jaw, as if he’d just stepped out of a garage or a field.

And the face.

His face was serious, oddly still — like someone who didn't quite know how to look relaxed even when nothing was wrong. One eye was pale blue, almost silver in the light. The other, a deep, near-black brown. Between them, a scar ran clean through his right brow, dragging down across the lid and ending just shy of his cheekbone — a pale gash that had healed ugly, but somehow worked on him. Like punctuation.

He didn’t look like his older brother, Eustace. Eustace had the smooth-skinned, marble-cut aura of someone who belonged in a bank vault or a dark art gallery — darker skin, aquiline nose, the kind of face that drew bloodlines into question. Eustace had his mother’s Ghanian pureblood charm written all over his face. He was very difficult to ignore, casually being called the ‘catch’ of the house of Slytherin.

It was very clear that the brothers looked nothing alike. The whisper going around for years was that Eugene was the result of one of the infamous Mr. Burke’s trade expeditions, specifically, a long-haul trip to the Northern Hemisphere where he had been sourcing rare magical items from the Scandinavian region, in search of the remnants of the first magical societies — druidic relics buried in permafrost, rune stones so old they hummed when touched. The story went that he returned with enchanted bones, frost-hexed antlers, and one illegitimate child — and Mrs. Burke, for reasons no one dared probe too far into, agreed to raise the boy as her own. 

Obviously, it was just a whisper, most presumed to be false, since Eugene was unmistakably a Burke in the old way — the way their grandfather looked in oil portraits: that squared-off jaw, that heavy-lidded stare, the uncomfortable intensity. 

He was, in a weird way, handsome — but not like Black or Potter, not like someone born photogenic. Eugene’s looks needed a bit of effort. He had to shape his scruff, probably tie his shoulder-length hair back to avoid looking like a vagabond. But there was a symmetry there, if you knew how to look. A weight to his presence. Even if he looked like he hadn’t showered at times (which is not true, but again).

“You're Burke?” Severus asked, more statement than question, arms still tensed like he wasn’t convinced this wasn’t a joke.

The boy blinked. “Usually, yeah.”

Severus didn’t say anything. He wasn’t here to make a remark about the customer’s looks. He wasn’t even sure what this transaction was meant to be labeled as. This was meant to be done as simple as ever. An analysis of the scar, a few more questions. For fuck’s sake, he is not a bloody healer, he had to remind himself the more he stared at the boy.

“Nice place, you’ve got,” and after a pause he added. “I really liked the hall.”

Severus didn’t say anything. Still standing by the door, barefoot, in ankle length trousers that he seemed to drown in, and a shirt. All black (not like he wore any other color much.) He looked like he’d been caught mid-miserable, which, to be fair, he probably had. Hair still damp at the ends, face pale and drawn from too many nights with too little rest. There was a sharpness about him that hadn’t dulled since school — that same feral tension in his shoulders, the kind that made people hesitate before asking him anything at all.

He gestured wordlessly for Eugene to sit, like this was a routine house call and not some bizarre invasion of the only space he could halfway stand existing in.

Eugene dropped onto the armchair — the one not buried in books and half-scorched scrolls — with the heavy nonchalance of someone who really needed to sit down. He rested his arms on his knees, elbows sticking out at sharp angles, and gave the place another once-over.

“Didn’t peg you for the minimalist type,” he muttered. “S’got character, though. Books everywhere. Smells like ash and dried lavender. Not bad.”

Severus gave him a flat look, then turned away to rummage through a drawer for parchment and ink. “You didn’t come here for interior design critique.”

“True,” Eugene said, his voice looser now, but not unserious. “Still. You invite a bloke over, least you could do is offer tea.”

“I didn’t invite you.”

“Regulus said you wouldn’t mind.”

Severus stilled. His jaw clenched, barely noticeable unless you were looking. “Did he.”

“Mhm.” Eugene leaned back. “Said you’d act like you hated it, but you’d still help. Said you might even insult me, which — fair, so far.”

Severus turned slowly. “If Regulus thinks he can send strays to my door without warning, he’s out of his mind.”

“You know, I think that might be exactly what he thinks.”

There was a beat of silence, thick and taut.

Eugene stiffened a little with a late realization at the earlier comment. “I’m not a stray,” he said, more sharply this time, the joking edge peeled off.

Severus raised an eyebrow, tone dry as ever. “Is that so?”

That landed wrong. Eugene’s mouth pulled into something closer to a frown now. His eyes, mismatched and narrowed, flicked briefly to the door like he was considering leaving. Or maybe just reminding himself he wouldn’t.

Severus didn’t bother softening. Instead, his gaze dropped to the heavy-soled boots Eugene had stomped in with, still caked faintly in something that didn’t look like London at all.

“Can you not walk in your shoes here?” he said flatly, already turning away. “Leave them at the door. Nobody here’s a giant who needs such clean boots.”

Eugene looked down, then back at Severus.

“They are clean,” he muttered, pulling them off anyway with a few grunts of effort. “I don’t go dragging shit in people’s houses like some—”

“Stray?” Severus supplied without looking at him, flipping open a notebook.

Eugene clicked his tongue. “Right. Forget I said anything.” He left the boots neatly by the door, mismatched socks padding against the worn floorboards.

The air between them turned quiet again, heavier than before — not hostile, not quite — just strained with the kind of tension that builds when two people realize they were not raised with the same definitions of politeness, or privacy, or anything at all.

Severus hadn't planned on renting the room. Not really.

It had happened the way most inconvenient things in his life happened — through persistence, eventual need of a better location, and, well, Lucius bloody Malfoy.

Severus was needed in London more and more by the end of August, so instead of constantly apparating from there to here, Malfoy suggested him to find a room in London instead. Of course, Severus didn’t mutter a word about the expenses that would have brought him, but Malfoy being himself already had also insisted on covering the costs of rent as long as Severus was more present in whatever occasions he was needed.

Of course, Malfoy hadn’t said what those occasions would be. Just “occasions.” A word too smooth to pin down, too polished to question. It could mean anything — a Ministry gathering, a backroom exchange, a last-minute brewing emergency for a person whose name couldn’t be spoken above a whisper.

So, Severus found a room. Cheap, narrow, above a shop that sold spell-damaged books and counterfeit cauldrons. The landlady was a Squib who minded her business and accepted gold without asking where it came from. The plumbing made ghostly groans at night. The window barely latched. It was horrible. He took it immediately.

He told no one. No one, that is, until a week ago, when he and Regulus had been out in the courtyard behind the Lestrange property during a lull in conversation — a rare, soft-edged moment where the conversation had thinned and the whisky had settled warm in their throats.

Regulus had said something like, “You look ghastly. Where’re you sleeping these days, a sack of nails?”

And Severus, stupidly, had replied: “Rented a room in London.”

That was it. That’s all it took.

Of course, Regulus would pass that on offhandedly, probably, like he was talking about the weather. To Burke, of all people. Of course Burke would show up with boots that looked like they’d survived a war and a scar that looked like it started one. Of course he would say something utterly useless like “Nice place you’ve got” and then sit down like they were old mates catching up over coffee.

It wasn’t that Severus hadn’t agreed to not assisting with the Burke’s scar case, but he never initiated or declared that he was willing to begin now . Malfoy wanted him to indulge in his original spellwork (more like experimental forbidden self-defense formulation). 

Malfoy wanted him visible — polishing his talent for the right audience, the kind that wore silver snake-head rings and whispered their oaths into the mouths of fire. That was the whole point. Severus's spellcraft had become a sort of currency in those circles. The subtle kind of cruelty. The clever kind. Hexes with restraint, curses that bled slow.

Malfoy loved that. Called it “elegant violence.” Said it was exactly the kind of mind the cause needed — as if Severus was some expensive tool they were just now sharpening for full use.

But this — having someone knock on his door like this was some back-alley apothecary — this was not part of the deal.

“Let me see it,” Severus said sharply, pulling him back into the moment. He reached into the drawer for a small enchanted lens, then glanced at Eugene, who was already sitting up straighter, fingers twitching like he knew what was coming.

“The scar,” Severus clarified. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to draw your blood. Yet.”

Eugene exhaled, a humorless laugh. “So warm.”

He leaned forward slightly, tilting his head under the lamplight. The scar caught immediately — even in dull glow, it shimmered faintly, like something had melted into the skin and cooled into place. It was jagged, but not careless. Too linear to be random. Too consistent to be accident. A mark made with intent.

“Did Black really cast this one?” Severus asked, narrowing his eyes as he adjusted the lens over his own. The way the scar caught the light wasn’t natural — it wasn’t just scar tissue, but something tangled. Embedded. Intentional.

Eugene hesitated. “Either him or Potter,” he muttered. “Not so sure which one. It was a double hit. I think one panicked after the other cast.”

“Charming,” Severus said, letting go of his face. He stepped back slightly, gaze still sharp and calculating. “I do not think either one of them was capable of creating something that would last like this.”

Severus furrowed his brows, his mind elsewhere, searching for an explanation.

“Does your family have any kind of history with blood curses? Perhaps?”

Burke didn’t say anything. He was staring at the candle wax that seemed to drip at some point all over his drawers. He didn’t really know what to respond with. He never really spoke with his father to know about a ‘curse’ or anything as such. Hell, he didn’t even get to meet his father as much. Old man would always be anywhere but home. If he was to be in London, then he’d be in his usual place — the infamous Borgin and Burke’s. 

“I asked you a question,” Severus said, a note of impatience curling under his voice. “Blood magic isn’t something that just crops up. It leaves roots.”

Eugene blinked, as if coming back into his body. He scratched his jaw, slowly. “Not that I know of,” he said finally. “My mother never mentioned anything, and my father… well. He was more interested in trade routes than bedtime stories.”

Severus gave him a long, unreadable look. “You’ve never asked.”

“Didn’t seem worth asking,” Eugene muttered, then added, “He wasn’t exactly the sit-down-and-share-the-dark-family-history type. If he wasn’t in Scandinavia or St. Petersburg or Istanbul looking for cursed heirlooms, he was locked up in Borgin and Burke’s backroom haggling over plague masks and goblets that hissed.”

There was a pause.

Severus blinked once. Then looked at him — flat, unimpressed.

“…Why are you giving me background information on your father.”

Eugene’s lips twitched into something like a grin. “Thought you liked context.”

“I like relevant context,” Severus replied, dry as dust. “Not some tragic backstory about an emotionally constipated antiques dealer.”

“Wow,” Eugene muttered. “That hit a little hard.”

Severus raised an eyebrow, expression somewhere between stop talking and I can’t believe I’m actually listening to this. The kind of look that said I’ve spent enough time around Malfoy to build immunity to dramatic family legacies, thank you very much.

“So you don’t know, you say.”

“I could ask my mother.”

Severus wanted to say something along the lines ‘well, how could she know?’ or ‘I don’t think that’d be helpful,’ but instead he just took out a book that was laying under his bed on blood curses and dropped it with a dull thud onto the table between them.

Eugene jumped slightly. “Merlin. Dramatic.”

“I’m compensating for your lack of information,” Severus said, already flipping through the pages with sharp, practiced fingers. “If you’re not going to be useful, then at least be quiet.”

Eugene leaned back, lips twitching again like he was trying not to laugh. “This the part where you start chanting in Latin and my face bursts into flames?”

“No,” Severus said, not looking up. “That’s tomorrow.”

He found the page he was looking for — an illustrated diagram of facial curse residues across bloodlines, the margins annotated in narrow, angular handwriting. Some of the ink had bled into the parchment. Some of it was his. Some of it was probably older than the room they were sitting in.

“Your scar pulses under certain spells,” Severus muttered. “Which means it’s reactive. That narrows things down. But it doesn’t tell me why it’s responding like this.”

Eugene watched him, quieter now. “And the book does?”

Severus glanced at him, almost insulted. “The book provides theories. I do the actual thinking.”

He pulled his wand again, tapping the edge of the scar lightly — not enough to sting, but enough to test resistance. The skin twitched. The shimmer beneath it flared again, faint but alive.

“There,” Severus murmured. “That’s not just lingering magic. That’s embedded.”

“So I am cursed.”

“Possibly. Or someone wanted you to think so. Could be a tether. Could be a marker. Could be a latent trigger waiting for the right conditions.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Eugene muttered.

Severus shut the book with a sharp snap and stood.

“Well?” Burke asked with dead enthusiasm.

“What, well? Nothing is well about that.” Severus said, pointing at his face.

“I know I am not the prettiest, I meant–”

“Merlin, Burke, I meant your scar. I do not care for your looks.”

Eugene gave a slow blink, then grinned, sharp and unbothered. “Could’ve fooled me, with how long you’ve been staring at my face.”

Severus exhaled through his nose — not quite a sigh, not quite tolerance. Just done .

“You’re twitchy,” he said flatly, “not dashing .”

“Fair,” Eugene replied, with the kind of shrug that belonged to someone who’d long since given up defending his charm. “So? What now?”

Severus didn’t answer immediately. He moved across the room, picking up a small vial from a cluttered tray — its contents thick and iridescent, like melted steel. He held it to the light, watching it swirl. Then he placed it back to where he took it from and grabbed a cigarette with a lighter.

“Now I have got errands to run,” opening the window as he lit the cigarette.

“So…?”

“Well, Burke, I didn’t offer you to join me in my errands, did I?”

Severus took one last drag from the cigarette, flicked the ash out the window, and exhaled slowly. Then, without turning around:

“We’re done for today.”

Eugene blinked. “Wait—what? That’s it?”

“Yes,” Severus said flatly. “Even if there was nothing scheduled to be ‘done.’” He closed the window with a decisive click , then turned to face him, already shrugging on a black coat that had clearly seen better days.

“I’ll owl you when I’m willing to look at it again.”

“You’re kicking me out?”

“I’m telling you we’re done,” Severus said, adjusting the collar like this was a formal exit. “What you do with that information is entirely up to your self-respect.”

Eugene opened his mouth. Closed it again.

“And before you wander off thinking I’m offering charity,” Severus added, already moving toward the desk, “there will be charges. I may not be a Healer, but my time is worth more than flattery and tragic anecdotes about absentee fathers.”

Eugene snorted. “Right. And what do you charge? By the scar? By the emotional damage?”

Severus glanced over his shoulder. “By the hour. Plus materials. Plus hazard pay.”

“Hazard pay?”

“You talk a lot, Burke.”

There was a pause. Eugene stood, stretching just enough to annoy, and stepped toward the door, grabbing his boots.

“Well,” he muttered. “It was enlightening. Traumatic. Borderline illegal. Five stars.”

Severus didn’t respond. He was already making a note in his journal with a cigarette in his mouth.

Eugene turned back at the threshold. “Jesus, why is the smoke so–” He coughed like a toddler. “So, deadly.”

Severus didn’t even look up. “Nicotine fueled muggle shite.”

“Shite? You don’t say,” Eugene wheezed, waving a hand dramatically in front of his face as if he were being exorcised.

“Stop jabbing your mab,” Severus muttered, still scribbling. “If it bothers you that much, I suggest breathing elsewhere.”

Eugene stuffed a boot on with more force than necessary, mumbling, “You need a warning sign. Or a gas mask. Or a mind-healer.”

“I’m charging you extra for that last one.”

A beat. Then Severus did glance up—just briefly—as Eugene yanked the second boot on.

“You’ll get an owl,” he said, tone final.

Eugene nodded once, then reached for the doorknob. “Don’t miss me too much.”

“I’ll try my absolute hardest.”

And with that, the door creaked shut behind him, leaving Severus alone with the smoke, the notes, and the faintest echo of someone who talked too much and might have just, against all odds, made the place feel a little less unbearable for half an hour.

But he was very used to the life in utterly unbearable circumstances. Of course, once nine-year-old Severus Snape after a dinner at Evanses realized how he’d give anything live in house like theirs — cozy, warm, homely and most important of all, full of lively love. Something his crumbling house never had and, surely, will not do so for ever again (not like it had a chance).

He had to be back there today. The burial was not meant to be colossal. There just needed to be someone who’d drop the goddamn grave into the soil. It wasn’t even anything planned. Who the hell planned a sudden death by probably very predicted liver failure … …and who the hell was supposed to organize mourning for a man no one quite liked, feared, or loved — just endured ?

There was no formal ceremony. No priest. No official speech. Just the bitter stench of overripe weeds and a weather-stained shovel leaning against a crooked headstone that didn’t even have a name carved into it yet. The kind the council gave out when no one paid.

Tobias Snape was never a family man. Maybe he once was, but Severus was too young to remember that. He wasn’t a bad man outside his house. The neighbours liked him well enough. The old lady two doors down said he always waved — even when he reeked of gin and bitterness. The blokes from the mill, all just as out of work and stuck in place as him, called him Tobey , and said the pub was quieter without him. They meant it like a compliment.

He wasn’t charming, not really. But he did tell stories well. Could string together a half-decent joke when he wasn’t slurring, and sometimes, if the night was quiet and the drink hadn’t turned him mean yet, he’d say something funny enough to make Eileen snort into her tea.

He could play all dumb and funny, but beneath all that was a man who never showed any good passed the front door of his own house.

And that was the thing. Tobias Snape was only miserable because he failed to see anything good in his own family due to his own personal failures, as a man, as a provider, even as a husband (not even describing him as a father).

He was the kind of man who resented the mirror for what it reflected, and resented his family even more for witnessing it.

Nothing was ever enough for him — not the meals, not the quiet, not the woman who stayed or the boy who tried to disappear just to keep things calm. Everything in that house became a reminder of what he hadn’t become. Every scraped-together supper, every patch on Eileen’s sleeves, every book Severus read in silence — it all pointed back at him like an accusation.

And when a man like Tobias Snape died, the big old planet did not loose anything. A man like Tobias Snape never contributed much to the big flow of whirling smoke. Men like him gave others a reason to become much more than the definitions given by people like him — bitter, brittle men who mistook control for love and silence for safety. Men like Tobias Snape didn’t build legacies; they built caution. Caution in footsteps, in volume, in how much space others dared to take up in a room.

So when he died, the world did not pause. It did not mourn.

It simply exhaled. And moved on.

But Severus was not simply moving on; he was quite glad that the bastard was out forever. He was simply unable to express how much he loathed that useless man. Because what else was there to feel towards a father that was never needed, never never present , and never good for anything other than reminding him what not to become.

There was no aching hole left behind, no phantom limb of grief. Just the dull confirmation of a truth long understood: that Tobias Snape had taken up space, and now he didn’t.

After a walk back home, his mother, who rarely spoke of anything regarding their marriage, said “funny how life can dim out a person.” 

Severus didn’t comment obviously. He was born used to the dimness of his parents. Whatever light they had was long gone when he started showing his first magic. And to him, it was difficult to believe that either of them had any kind of light to their miserable lives. 

There were somewhere pictures of his parents — younger, happier, livelier. Pictures that him and Lily found sometime after during the summer of their First Year. He remembered how he felt embarrassed even that Lily saw these pictures. Even if, thinking now, there was nothing to be embarrassed about. He’d felt a heat crawl up his neck, inexplicable and sour. As if she’d seen something she shouldn’t. As if he had. Now, years later, the memory lingered like static. He didn’t know what was more absurd — the idea that his parents were ever happy, or the fact that part of him still felt humiliated about it.

And, of course, there were many things little Severus would feel humiliated for, but that — that was a different kind of humiliation. It felt like a kind of truth he did not want to unravel, purely because of how unjust it could have felt. It felt like admitting to the fact that he was the misery that crumbled their marriage. And his little heart was too young to face that kind of accusation, even if it was only whispered in the corners of his own mind. Too young to separate circumstance from self, to understand that people fall apart for reasons that have nothing to do with children born in the middle of it. So instead, he buried it — the photo, the feeling, the flush of shame — somewhere deep, in that same mental cellar where he kept every other thing he wasn’t ready to carry.

Maybe he never had to belong anywhere because a part of him had always believed he was the reason things broke — that if he stayed small enough, quiet enough, clever enough, maybe nothing else would shatter. But things shattered anyway. And that belief clung to him like smoke, long after the fire was out. And the same smoke had a smell that would bring him the kind of comfort only one person ever did — Lily. 

Not because she fixed anything, not because she told him it wasn’t his fault, but because she looked at him like there was something worth saving underneath all the ash. And for a while, that had been enough. Enough to make him believe he wasn’t cursed to ruin every room he stepped into. Enough to make the silence at home feel a little less like punishment and a little more like pause. But even that didn’t last. Even she couldn’t outrun the wreckage forever.

That damned dull day of a funeral was unmistakenly useless. Severus only came to Spinner’s End with the purpose of sorting out the legalities. His mother had asked him to help her out with Tobias’ death certificate and whatnot. He wasn’t even really keen on being involved in any of this, but who else would have done it, if not him? 

It took four days for the authorities to finalize the paperwork. The hospital passed it to the coroner, who, after a brief post-mortem, signed it off without an inquest. No foul play, no real questions. Just another man hit by a bus—drunk, liver rotting, bleeding out from the inside before the impact even finished him.

The clerk didn’t look up at first — just rustled through the stack of forms like she was digging through rubbish. Her hair was up in a crooked clip, roots showing, lipstick faded to the corners of her mouth.

“Yer mam were in earlier,” she said, voice rough like sandpaper and tired as hell. “Asked if I could slip her the burial slip ahead o’ time.”

She glanced at him then, only briefly, like she was checking to see if he’d get the message without her having to spell it.

There was a pause. She glanced up at him — not quite accusing, just expectant. Waiting.

Severus blinked slowly. “Right. S’pose she did.”

The woman’s hand lingered near the form, fingers drumming faintly.

He let out the quietest exhale, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a crumpled five-pound note. Laid it on the counter with zero ceremony.

She took it like she’d never doubted he would. Stamped the certificate with a clunk.

“That’s all sorted then. You can tell yer mam it’s ready.”

“Mm.” He didn’t say thank you. Just picked up the certificate like it was a receipt for something he never asked for and barely looked at her again.

The door clicked shut behind him before she could get another word in.

At the reeking age of eighteen, death seemed like something unrealistically far from him. Alright, maybe not as far, but definitely not pictures for another twenty years . He had to get things right , he thought. It wasn’t grief that weighed on him. It was the absurdity of it. The bureaucratic ordinariness of loss. The way someone’s life — however miserable — could be filed, stamped, and folded away in a matter of minutes. As if the years of shouting and slammed doors and secondhand smoke had all just been footnotes in a report. As if a man could rot in more ways than one, and still be reduced to cause of death: blunt force trauma, liver failure, pedestrian negligence.

On the walk back, he kept the slip of paper folded tight in his palm, not looking at it. Not because it held weight — but because it didn’t. Because this, all of it, was routine. Bureaucracy dressed up as closure. Stamps instead of sentiment. He wondered vaguely, dully, of how many more of these would go unfiled in the years to come. How many deaths wouldn’t even get a certificate. How many bodies would vanish between cracks, never properly buried, never named. 

Because there were many whispers. Whispers of possible war. Whispers of possible war that the minister was so avoidant of. Surely, yes, Minchum did place more Dementors around Azkaban, but whom would they taunt, if the real soul-sucking monsters were soon to move more freely around Britain. 

He thought of that — of monsters. Not the kind with fangs and cloaks, but the polished ones. The ones who shook your hand with one and cast with the other. The ones who made war look like policy. Who made disappearance look like justice.

He knew what kind of spells they needed now. Not the flashbang glamour duels taught at school, not even the vicious, jagged-edge hexes he used to scribble into notebooks like curses were a form of poetry. No, what they needed now were spells with purpose. Silence. Subtlety. Spells that bled through wards like water. Spells that left no traces on the body, but cracked something inside. Defensive, Lucius called it. Preventive.

Severus knew better. Defensive meant nothing if it left someone breathless on the floor.

Lucius had been pressing him again. “Refine the last batch,” he said. “Too conspicuous. We need spells that vanish after use. We need results. Discretion.”

Discretion. There was a word for it. Clean violence.

The world was starting to hum with it. That uncanny static in the air before a storm — the way nothing looked wrong but everything felt off. People walked quicker. Spoke quieter. Watched the sky too often, like the clouds might spill something they shouldn’t.

Even the magic felt different lately. Too sharp. Like every wand was on edge. Like every incantation carried more weight than it used to.

Although his mother was never so active with her magical heritage, she could feel the change around as well. There weren’t any discussions once he got home. She did ask him about his whereabouts and informed him about her future departure to Northern Ireland to live with some great-aunt of hers, but there was no ceremony to it. No heartfelt goodbyes or long confessions. Just a kettle on the stove, a folded newspaper, and her voice cutting through the kitchen’s heavy silence like it always had.

“She’s got room,” Eileen said plainly, not looking up from her mug. “And I’ve got nothing to do here anymore.”

Severus didn’t answer. He was still standing in the doorway, wind-chilled and silent. Something inside him ticked, but not loud enough to name.

She took a sip, then added — almost like an afterthought, but not really:
“And don’t wash up to those pureblood lot. I know what kind of shit they are. I was one once.”

That made him look up. Just for a moment.

“They’ll praise you ‘til you’re dizzy, then pull the floor out from under you. Humble you like it’s tradition.” Her tone was clipped, tired, like it had been sitting in her mouth for years, waiting for the right moment to fall out. “You think you’re special ‘cause they let you in. You’re not. Just useful.”

Silence again. Then she stood up, slow and steady, and nodded toward the sitting room — toward the rest of the house.

“It’s all yours now,” she said. “Whatever that’s worth.”

And she left it at that. No ceremony. Just Eileen Snape slipping out of her own life like it was a coat she’d worn too long.

Severus remained still. Not out of shock, or even sadness. But because the truth of it settled too quickly. The house was his now. Every stained wall, every creaking step, every cracked windowpane. The wallpaper peeling at the seams, the closet door that never closed right, the air that still smelled faintly of old smoke and cheap liquor.

It wasn’t a home. It was a possession. A legacy of rot.

And now it belonged to him, as unsettling as it sounded, this was his supposed home .

After staying the night, he went back to London. He wasn’t planning on touching the rotting house on the Spinner’s End for some time, since he didn’t have much of financial earnings to be able to magically (and quite literally) remove the rot of the house — make it habitable. 

The flat in London, at least, didn’t smell like mildew and ghosts. He took the stairs two at a time, key already in his palm — but before he reached the landing, he slowed. Upon going up the stairs, he heard a discussion between two very familiar voices. Very, but deeply familiar voices.

Sharp vowels. Drawled consonants. Polished pronunciation with just enough venom to make it feel like charm.

Lucius Malfoy. And — Severus narrowed his eyes — Mulciber. Which was odd. Deeply odd.

Two purebloods standing in front of his rented Muggle-adjacent staircase? That was either comedy or a warning.

Malfoy turned when he caught Severus’s steps, his smile thin and bright like silver under moonlight.

“There you are,” he said smoothly. “Mulciber and I were knocking for quite some time. You don’t answer doors anymore?”

“I was at a funeral,” Severus replied curtly, brushing past them toward the flat.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow but said nothing for a moment. Mulciber, however, grinned — wide, like he’d heard a joke no one else caught.

“Heard the Dark Lord was impressed,” he said, following them in without an invitation. “With those defense spells of yours. Said you had a knack for precision.”

Severus kicked the door shut behind him. “They’re not defensive,” he said. “They’re meant to immobilize. Or worse.”

“Even better,” Mulciber said with a chuckle, dropping onto the one half-broken armchair like he owned it.

Malfoy, meanwhile, stayed standing, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve.

“We’ve been thinking,” he said after a pause. “Mulciber and I. Sooner or later, you ought to be one of us.”

Severus didn’t look up from where he was hanging his coat.
“One of you?”

“Yes, I suppose you understand,” Lucius clarified with that same unbothered tone, “ by purpose. By intention. That counts for something.”

Severus didn’t answer right away. The room felt smaller. The window too far. The air too thick.

He turned. “And what would I be intending, exactly?”

Mulciber leaned back, legs sprawled, hands laced behind his head. 

“Come now, Snape. You know the answer to that.”

Of course he did. He was waiting for it. 

“But before that, there will be a small task. Well, not really small, dare I say, but you won’t be alone. Do not worry.” Lucius said with a bore that hid calculation — the kind of calm only people born with a safety net could afford to speak in.

Severus didn’t move. “What kind of task?”

“Oh nothing big, just a raid.” Malfoy added with not so reassuring assurance. 

“Yeah, just a bit of shake, to those bunch of cunts.” Mulciber grinned, eyes gleaming with something that wasn’t quite excitement — more like anticipation laced with cruelty. “One of their hideouts. Or sympathizers, at least. The usual lot — mudblood-friendly, Order-sniffing parasites. Thought we’d remind them they’re not as hidden as they think.”

Severus didn’t flinch, but something behind his eyes shuttered. He had heard of these so-called “reminders.” They weren’t warnings. They were punishments. Destruction dressed up as message-sending. And the worst part was how easily everyone around the table pretended it was strategy, not slaughter.

“You want me to brew for it?” he asked, tone flat, clinical.

Mulciber laughed. “Oh, Sev. Brewing’s just foreplay. We want you in the room.”

“Frontline,” Lucius added, smoothing a nonexistent crease on his cuff. “There’s talk you can cast hexes that unravel faster than Auror wards can re-seal. That kind of precision is rare. It’d be a shame to waste it hiding behind a cauldron.”

“And what if I refuse?” Severus asked, not with defiance, but with curiosity of a ‘what-if’ scenario. What was in it afterall?

Mulciber just smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You won’t. You’re not stupid.”

And that was that.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward — it was confirming. They’d already decided. Severus was already in it, whether he’d said the words or not. All that was left was the performance.

Lucius reached the door, one pale hand on the knob. “You’ll receive the owl tomorrow. Dress accordingly.”

Then they left, cloaks trailing the stale air of the corridor.

Lucius paused at the door, as if remembering something trivial — but his tone was anything but.

“Oh, and Severus,” he said, glancing over his shoulder, voice light but sharp enough to cut. “Do remember not to be seen.”

A beat. His eyes flicked upward, pointedly — face, not presence.

“Recognition complicates things. For everyone.”

Then he stepped out, leaving behind a silence thick with implication. The door clicked shut like a gavel.

Severus didn’t follow. He stood in the middle of his half-lived-in flat — still unpacked boxes, cold fireplace, a window that didn’t quite shut all the way — and stared at the spot they’d just occupied. As if their presence had changed the temperature.

He lit a cigarette. Something about the way the smoke curled reminded him of Lily. Which made everything worse.

Because he was going to show up. Not because he wanted to — but because there were only so many roads left. And this one was paved, offered safety, purpose, and the kind of power that made fear feel optional.

He stared out the window a long time after, until even the cigarette gave up and burned itself out. Eventually, he crossed the room — not to follow, not to prepare, but to open the drawer he never used.

Inside was a letter. Unopened. The parchment slightly creased, the handwriting unmistakable.

From her, who else?

He hadn’t read it. Hadn’t dared. It had arrived days ago, right after the funeral. No return owl, no explanation. Just the neat, looping script with his name on it and nothing else.

He’d meant to burn it as soon as they left. That was the plan. Just toss it in the grate and be done with it. But now, holding it between his fingers, the weight of it felt … different.

He stared at it a moment longer. Then, without thinking, slid it back into the drawer.

Chapter Text

The screams had stopped long before the silence settled.

Severus stood with his back to the ruin — a wand still warm in his hand, and the faint smell of ash clinging to his coat. A few meters behind him, Yaxley was acting bigger than his shadow, Mulciber was laughing, and someone else was dragging a body across gravel like luggage.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t speak. His mind had gone quiet the moment the last spell landed — a clean hit, two ribs cracked, wand shattered on impact.

Occlusion helped. But it wasn’t doing all the work. 

He wasn’t even so sure why he suddenly started to Occlude his mind since the violence inflicted onto those wizards was somewhat … calming. There was nothing to hide. Not really. The violence hadn’t rattled him — if anything, it had steadied him. Every cracked rib, thrown spell, inflicted unimaginable mind torture of pain across their faces had left him quieter. Sharper. Like some jagged piece of himself had finally been put to use.

It was supposed to feel sickening. It didn’t. Not guilt. Not pride. Just a cold, distilled kind of calm. Like spilling all that violence out of himself had left him steadier than before. Balanced. 

There were five of them involved, including him. There was no plan of raid, no certain discussion of what to do. Just a location and a name, passed down like a whisper laced with authority with anonymity. There had been no strategy discussed — only a general understanding: go in, make a statement, leave a memory.

The house was quiet when they arrived. Muggle-adjacent, half-protected. Severus didn’t even bother breaking the wards — just snapped them off like twigs, while the others started to disrupt the silence with their cackles and threats.

It wasn’t just a raid of message; it was more like an irreversible glimpse of fate rather than a warning to all those who were to go against the Dark Lord. 

Not a lesson. A preview. A promise.

Inside, they found them — two men. Mid-thirties, maybe. Not fighters. No preparation in their eyes, no backup plans stitched into their walls. One managed to raise a wand. The other barely spoke.

Only one of them was an Order member. The other didn’t matter much. They weren’t even armed with anything more than poor instincts and bad timing.

Of course, none of it mattered.

Yaxley was first — throwing a Disarming Charm like it was a sledgehammer. The first man hit the wall so hard his nose shattered on impact. Rosier followed, throwing up a ward just in time to keep the sound from leaking out the windows. The second tried to run — Severus got to him before he made it out of the room.

No hesitation. No second spell.

One strike — clean, calculated — straight to the nervous system. The man dropped, twitching like a puppet with a snapped string.

It was over in less than thirty seconds.

Then came the rest.

The skull was branded onto the first man’s chest. Rosier had volunteered, but it was Mulciber who carved it — wandtip pressed to skin, pushing slowly, precisely, until the shape burned itself into memory. The man didn’t scream until it was nearly finished. It was Severus’ invention, yet Severus was only watching — arms loosely folded, breath even, as they tested it like a new weapon pulled off the shelf.

Mulciber pressed the wand into the man’s chest with mechanical patience, dragging the tip across bone and tendon as if he were etching stone instead of burning flesh. The magic hummed low — not violent, not loud — but alive , pulsing with the specific kind of cruelty Severus had designed it for: delayed ignition, slow integration, long aftershocks.

The man writhed only near the end, when the pain caught up. When the nerves began to recognize the shape seared into them.

A skull. Crude. Crooked. But unmistakable.

It wasn’t just a mark — it was a signature. One that would not heal. Not by spell or potion. Not without tearing something deeper.

Rosier stood over him, grinning like a man admiring his own reflection. “Beautiful,” he said, voice edged with fascination. “The way it pulses — how’d you even get that effect?”

Severus didn’t answer.

Because it hadn’t been designed to impress. It had been designed to remind. And despite the success of his work, he felt absolutely no pride in it. If anything, he felt like he disappointed somebody specific, which made him Occlude. Swiftly. Sharply. As if his own mind had betrayed him by even approaching that thought.

He drew the boundary tight, sealing off the crack before it widened. No room for sentiment here. No space for ghosts.

Mulciber smiled widely as he looked closer at the pulsating skull on the wizard’s chest. 

“Fucking magnificent, Snape.” He grinned with the whites of his eyes brighter than ever. “Absolutely beautiful.” 

The brand was still glowing faintly, the raw skin around it twitching with each beat of the man’s heart. It shimmered just beneath the surface — not like magic, not even like pain, but something alive . A stain that wouldn’t fade.

Severus didn’t reply. Just stared, gaze cool and detached, as if observing a potion reaching its final phase.

“It breathes with him,” Mulciber murmured, kneeling slightly for a better look. “Like it knows he’s still alive.”

“It does,” Severus said finally, his voice low. “It’s tied to his nervous system. It pulsates because at the moment of fear.”

Rosier let out a soft whistle. “Merlin. That’s sadistic.”

“No,” Mulciber said, straightening again, eyes still fixed on the trembling figure. “That’s elegant .”

And then, without warning, he turned to the second wizard — the one Severus had dropped.

There was no announcement. No theatrics. Just movement. He raised his wand, reversed the grip in his hand — and struck.

The dull crack of wood meeting bone rang through the small room.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Not frenzied. Not wild.Just relentless.

The man yelped at first, a sharp, wet sound that turned quickly into coughing. His arm twitched up instinctively to shield his head, but Mulciber kicked it aside without pause and continued. Wand to shoulder. Wand to ribs. Wand to back of the thigh. The body didn’t resist anymore; it just absorbed .

Rosier chuckled, shaking his head. “You’ll shatter the wand at this rate.”

Mulciber didn’t respond. His jaw was tight, expression unreadable. Every motion of his arm was deliberate — not the rage of someone who hated, but the discipline of someone who had learned how to break without mess.

“You’re going to kill him,” Rosier said mildly.

“No,” Mulciber replied. “Anyway. I’m done. Let's dust a bit.”

“Jugson, your place.” Rosier added looking for something in his bag as the five of them left.

“I’ll call Smithwych to join us as well, eh?”

“No,” Mulciber said without turning. “Let it be just us.”

There was no protest. Not from Rosier, not from anyone. When Mulciber decided, things moved accordingly.

They Apparated with cracks that echoed too cleanly down the alley.

Jugson’s flat was a warded walk-up near the edge of East End, a place that reeked of damp carpets and old furniture but had enough privacy to host whatever they wanted. He muttered a spell under his breath and the door creaked open into shadow.

Inside, Rosier tossed his bag onto the table like it belonged there. The pouch came out first — soft black velvet, tied with twine — and he loosened it with a flourish.

“Gentlemen,” he said, voice syrupy with delight, “tonight’s flavour is the classic. Green Pixie’s Dust. Cuts right through the nostril and leaves you in an euphoric state of of hallucinated brilliance and absolute moral detachment.”

Yaxley and Jugson both leaned in immediately. Rosier began tapping out lines with the flat edge of his wand, precise and practiced.

Severus remained near the far wall, still standing. He watched the way they reached for the powder — hands trembling, eyes already dilating.

He didn’t move.

Rosier offered the dust with a look over his shoulder. “No?”

Severus shook his head once.

“Suit yourself,” Rosier muttered, before ducking down to inhale a line so sharp it made his shoulders twitch. He let out a choked cough, then a grin.

“Beautiful,” he gasped. “My brain’s melting in the best way.”

Within minutes, the room blurred. Words slurred. Laughter sloshed.

Yaxley was bragging about someone he hexed in Diagon. Jugson had started reminiscing about his fifth year at Hogwarts, loudly and inaccurately.

Mulciber didn’t join the noise. He sat in the armchair that was facing Severus, one boot resting over the opposite knee, watching the room like someone who was only half inside it.

They were discussing the possible fate of the muggleborns if the Dark Lord’s plan came to happen. Not if , more like when it came to realisation. The way they spoke about it, it wasn’t theory. It was the inevitability.

“And what do we even do with them all?” Yaxley slurred, sprawled across the couch with his legs half-off the armrest. “You can’t just kill every one. That’s... inefficient.”

Rosier chuckled through his sleeve. “Not if we get clever about it. Strip their wands, sterilise the lot, turn them into workers. Magicless mud-mules.” He giggled at his own phrasing. “That’s catchy, isn’t it?”

Jugson was laughing too hard to breathe, until he hiccuped dust. “Put ‘em in wards. Make ‘em useful. Merlin knows they’ve been leeching off our world for decades.”

“What about breeding?” Yaxley cut in. “Like … dunno, breed the muggle-ness out of them? Use the pureblood seed to... fix it?”

Severus didn’t flinch. He didn’t speak. He sat firmly, fingers digging into the arms of the armchair. He wasn’t adding much to the conversation once it switched to a sensitive topic like this .

“Sounds like a good night to me,” Rosier said, stretching. “They’d probably be grateful. First decent thing to happen to them.” He looked around with mock innocence. “What? It’s merciful . Better than dying.”

Someone snorted. “Some of them’re decent-looking, at least.”

“There should be Ministry regulated brothels filled with those Mudblood whores.” Yaxley chuckled as if he just made a very funny joke.

“Fuck ’em till the blood is magical enough,” Mulciber murmured, not even smiling. Just stating it flat, like fact.

The others howled .

Rosier nearly fell sideways with laughter, wiping tears from the corner of his eye with the edge of his sleeve. “Merlin, that’s poetic,” he gasped. “You should put that on a fucking banner.”

Jugson was pounding the table now, half-laughing, half-choking on the remnants of his line. “Could you imagine? Legalised! Like... official policy!”

Yaxley leaned back against the windowsill, arms wide, grinning. “Ministry-certified purification centres. Sounds dignified, doesn’t it?”

“Bunch of half-blood babies. All happy to come out of us, lot.” Jugson cradled a hypothetical baby in his arms. “Grateful small bastards.” He muttered again, rocking the imaginary bundle in his arms before miming a toss over his shoulder.

Rosier barked a laugh. “Only thing better than a half-blood is a half-blood that knows where it came from — under our boots.”

Yaxley, still reclined, waved a hand. “We should just draft them. Make it a service. Every house gets one. Or two, if you’ve got status.”

“Like elves,” Jugson offered.

“Don’t insult the elves,” Mulciber said coldly.

That shut them up for a beat. Just a second of silence — not guilt, but recalibration. Then Rosier picked it up again, voice lighter.

“Well, if it’s purification we’re after,” he said, “might as well make it proper. Regulate the bloodlines. Assign matches. You know the old wizarding lines do that already.”

“Right,” Yaxley agreed, lifting his head slightly. “Controlled breeding. Like what they do with dragons.”

That drew another round of chuckles, some of them uglier than before.

“Thing is,” Jugson said, blinking slowly, “they’d have to volunteer. Can’t breed a witch if she’s screaming.”

“You’d be surprised,” someone muttered from the side. It wasn’t clear who. Rosier gave a slow, mocking grin.

“Not if she’s spell-bound. Not if it’s policy .”

They all laughed, and all Severus did was a half-smirk. He clearly felt out of place. Severus gave the barest half-smirk — the kind that passed for agreement in rooms like this. But even as it settled on his face, it didn’t feel like it fit . Like he’d borrowed someone else’s expression and it had come back warped.

He’d tried, in his own way, to blend in — let the silence speak for him, let a well-timed smirk or sardonic glance take the place of words. But the longer the conversation spiraled, the harder it became to pretend. The laughter scratched at the inside of his skull, not because it was loud, but because it meant something — something they were too far gone to question.

“Snape,” Yaxley turned to him. “Why so silent? I bet they’d give you two of those, given your addition to the greater cause, eh?”

“Oh, they wouldn’t.” Jugson cut through, his mouth speaking before his thoughts. “Half-bloods make quarter-bloods. Isn’t his dad a muggle scum?” 

Silence shifted uncomfortably.

“I mean—he is half, isn’t he?” Jugson went on, too slow to notice the tension he’d just pulled taut in the room. “One squirt of that scum father’s blood, and boom — lineage ruined. Not that the Mudbloods would care. One less gene to waste.”

A beat passed.

Severus’s expression didn’t shift. But something behind his dark eyes turned black.  He leaned forward with a twitch in the corner of his mouth like he was about to tell the drug-fueled idiot a secret.

“You’re right,” he said softly. “Which is exactly why your sister didn’t bother asking who I got it from when she was gasping back in sixth year.”

A pause.

“She had her mouth full anyway.”

Even Rosier winced.

Yaxley let out a low, impressed whistle. “Fucking hell.”

Jugson stood — quick, sloppy, too late. His hand twitched toward his wand, but Mulciber’s voice cut through the room, cool and iron-sharp:

“Sit down.” Mulciber said with a wide smile. 

Mulciber did not move his head, yet his eyes stayed on Severus, who was still sitting as if nothing had happened — hands steady on the armrests, expression cool, even bored. But there was something coiled just beneath it. Not rage. Not pride. Something quieter. Controlled.

Mulciber let the silence stretch, just a little too long, before finally speaking again.

“You lot forget,” he said, voice low but carrying, “that blood’s only useful if the head it runs through knows how to use it.”

He looked at Jugson, then back to Severus. “And Snape — well. He knows things the some of us here don’t.”

It wasn’t a compliment. It was a warning.

Rosier, ever the opportunist, clapped his hands together with mock cheer. “Right! Let’s not turn this into a fucking duel, boys. We’ve got powder, we’ve got liquor, we’ve got… whatever’s left of our sanity. Let’s enjoy it while we can, yeah?”

But the mood had shifted. Slightly. Like the air had cooled by a few degrees.

Blood was only useful if the head it pumped through knew how to use it. And Severus knew that he only sat where he was only because of the head above his shoulders. He had absolutely nothing in common with these wizards. Maybe one day he would, but he hoped it wasn’t the brain that would have to change.

The irony of it settled in his mouth like copper. He wasn’t like them. Not really. But he was here, wasn’t he? Sitting in the smoke-thick air of Jugson’s filthy flat, listening to half-laughs about systemic rape and magical eugenics like they were jokes told at a pub. He was here. And he hadn’t left. 

And he wasn’t so sure for a minute why he stayed, but it would be weird to stand up and leave now.

He’d forgotten, for a moment, what had brought him here in the first place. Back in Hogwarts, it had sounded so simple — transactional, almost. The whispers in the shadows, the promises murmured beneath the dormitory buzz: power, recognition, a place among those who mattered. Mulciber had told him there’d be money. Rosier had promised influence. Even the Dark Lord, from a distance, had offered something Severus had never had — not love, not friendship, but value . A use.

Not the kind you had to beg for. The kind you earned.

And Severus — cold-eyed, threadbare, brilliant, bitter — had believed them.

But sitting here, in a room thick with drug sweat and the stench of cruelty dressed up as camaraderie, he realised none of them had ever said what the price would feel like. That the cost wouldn’t be paid all at once, but in small, sickening increments — a silence here, a smirk there, until the person you were became the punchline at a table full of monsters you once admired.

He hadn’t stood up. He hadn’t left. But he wasn’t sure if that was discipline — or decay. Yet, he knew that if he just stayed through it all, it would pay off eventually . Like many things he had grown to swallow and not question. Sometimes life would put him through rooms like this — smoke-choked, soulless, humming with the laughter of men who had traded their humanity for hierarchy — and expect him to sit still. To endure. Because endurance was the currency he’d always paid in.

He only couldn’t understand why the rich and the elite young wizards would ever go the same path as him. Once in his sixth year, he pondered upon a what-if. What if it was him instead of them? What if he was the one who lived in riche and status? Would he have followed another man’s ideology and vision of a different future? Would he have still felt the pull — that need to belong somewhere, to matter to someone, to become something?
Or would comfort have quieted the ache that ambition sharpened?

He’d never had the luxury of not needing more. They had homes lined with portraits and silver. Vaults that sang their surnames. Bloodlines so old they were practically spellwork themselves. And yet they were here too, in rooms like this — laughing through ash and sin, throwing spells like dice, breaking the world for the promise of reshaping it in their image.

Maybe that was the truth of it. That it wasn’t desperation that made monsters. It was emptiness . And that emptiness didn’t care if you came from a slum or a manor. It just needed space to root in.

Severus leaned back in the chair, spine too straight for someone trying to relax. Across the room, Yaxley was snorting another line. Rosier had gone quiet, blinking too slowly. Mulciber hadn’t moved for minutes — still watching him with that unreadable expression, like he was waiting for something. Or weighing something.

And maybe, Severus thought, this was how loyalty was built in circles like these. Not with belief. But with complicity.

The longer you stayed, the harder it became to walk out — because then you’d have to admit what you’d already allowed.

And Severus knew very well that if he were to own all the vaults and goblets and manors like they did, he would only seek out one thing, one thing that he would never dare to reach for in his lifetime. Something he would never reach regardless of how much his reputation sharpened, how many spells he mastered, or how many bodies he stepped over.

Her.

Not in the way these men spoke about witches. Not as possession, or prize, or proof. But as an equal. As someone he could stand beside without shrinking, without the ever-present stain of less than whispering beneath his collar. He’d try to just stand beside her without shame bleeding through his sleeves. Speak without shrinking. Hold her gaze without flinching at what she might see in him.

But that version of him — the one she could look at without pity or fear — required more than power. It required wholeness . And he wasn’t sure he’d have any of that left if he kept sitting in rooms like this. All of this only made him better at pretending he didn’t care. 

And as Jugson fell asleep on the couch, and as Yaxley put his drooling face over his shoulder, Severus decided, alongside with the rest, that it was time for them all to leave to whatever other pit they had to leave for. 

Before he could Disapparate, Severus felt a hand close lightly around his upper arm.

“Wait,” Mulciber said.

Severus turned, slowly. The others were either too gone or too disinterested to notice. Jugson had half-slid off the couch, still mumbling in his sleep. Yaxley was muttering into a wall. Rosier was outside, probably pissing against the ward line.

Mulciber stood still, eyes unusually clear despite the haze of everything they'd done. He wasn’t smiling now — not in the way he usually did, all crooked teeth and swagger. No, this was something quieter. Intent.

“You did well tonight,” he said.

Severus didn’t respond. Not with words. Just a tilt of the head — half-acknowledgment, half-waiting.

Mulciber continued, voice low, deliberate. “He knows, you know. The Dark Lord. About you.”

That got Severus’s attention, if not his expression. A flicker — there and gone — in his gaze.

“Lucius talks,” Mulciber said. “More than he should, half the time. But he’s spoken of you. Your talents. Your focus. How clean your work is.”

A pause.

“Not just the spells. The way you think. Like you’ve already seen the end of it.”

Severus shifted his weight slightly, uncertain whether this was a threat, a compliment, or a recruitment tactic laced in praise.

“And I’ll speak to him too,” Mulciber added. “Personally. Through my father. You’ve earned that, at least. It’s time someone gave you a proper place. Not scraps. Not promises. A real seat.”

His hand lingered for a second longer on Severus’s arm, then dropped.

“You’re needed, Snape. Whether you believe in the rest of us or not — he believes in results. And you? You’re very, very good at getting those.”

There was no sincere warmth in the words. He might have sounded believing or even amazed, but in the end it was just him, a predator, seeing another predator in cleaner skin.

He nodded once, unsure how to respond, and Mulciber added. “This is for the greater cause of the Wizarding World, Snape,” placing a hand on his shoulder, as though he was trying to resell the idea to him. 

“You will be seen for this. You will earn well for this.”

Severus didn’t answer.

Because the truth was — he didn’t know what “seen” meant anymore. Or what “earning” looked like. He only knew that every time someone like Mulciber made a promise, it came with blood underneath. Some spilled. Some still drying.

And maybe, in the right light, that didn’t look so different from recognition.

So he gave the smallest nod. Enough to satisfy. Enough to be left alone.

Mulciber’s hand dropped from his shoulder. “You’ll go far,” he said, stepping back. “Just make sure you don’t stop.”

Severus Disapparated without a word, leaving behind the ash, the laughter, the rot of men who had forgotten how to feel anything but power intertwined with violence. He arrived home with a crack — not loud, not sharp. Just a breath displaced into stillness. Spinner’s End welcomed him with its usual chill, the kind that settled in the walls, in the bones of the place. Dim. Dusty. Quiet in the most suffocating way.

Severus stood in the entryway for a long second, disoriented by the silence that didn’t press, didn’t smirk, didn’t demand a reaction. Just was .

He exhaled slowly, unbuttoning his coat with stiff fingers. The scent of smoke still clung to the lining. Blood too, faint, but there. He shrugged it off and let it fall across the back of the nearest chair.

Then, with a subtle shift of breath — a mental flick he’d grown used to by habit, not ease — he dropped his Occlusion.

It hit him like the backlash of a spell miscast.

Like he had been hit in the back of his head with a blindfold over his eyes. Unpredictable, unknown, yet numbingly painful. Emotions raged through him at a broken jagged rate with wild intensity. A kaleidoscope of reactions that didn’t fit into names.

His knees nearly gave way.

He staggered once, catching himself on the edge of the bedside table, gripping hard enough to make the wood creak. His throat burned. His eyes stung. His chest tightened like a lungful of water refusing to be exhaled. It wasn’t crying. It wasn’t rage. It was a collapse without a sound. His own mind, suddenly unsheathed, flung itself against every wall it had built to survive that night.

He braced himself, forehead leaning against the cold tile. The feeling kept coming — pulses of wrongness, of horror, of loneliness so dense it felt like a second spine. He tried to breathe, but the breath came shallow. Fast. Then uneven. 

It wasn’t shame. That was too moral.

It wasn’t fear. That was too human.

It was like grief — if grief had no anchor. Like pain — if you couldn’t tell where you’d been hurt.

And worst of all, it was familiar. Like being nine again, pressed against the hallway wall, knowing something had just broken inside the house but not being brave enough to look.

He wasn’t scared of what the future held for him. He couldn’t even be bothered to worry for himself.
Because he — the person beneath the spells, beneath the mask, beneath the coiled silence — didn’t feel quite real anymore. Just a string of reactions stitched together by obligation and memory.

He slid down to the floor, back against the cupboard, knees drawn up loosely like the scaffolding of a collapsed figure. The tile chilled through his shirt. It grounded him. Barely.

The Occlusion had kept everything at bay — but without it, his thoughts were too loud. Not in words. In flashes. In flickers of sound, colour, flesh, breath. A wand carving bone. Laughter in smoke. The way the brand pulsed. Mulciber’s hand on his shoulder, like a crown and a collar at once.

He pressed the heel of his palm into his eye until stars burst behind his eyelids. It didn’t help.

It wasn’t even about what they’d done. Not entirely. It was that he’d done it too. With no flinch. No hesitation. No cost .

And that left something loose in him — a thread pulled free he couldn’t tuck back in.

He wasn’t scared of what the future held.

He was scared that this wasn’t the worst of it. That there was still so much more to come — and that he’d meet it the same way. Silent. Unchanged. Efficient.

He dragged a shaking breath into his chest and let it stutter out through clenched teeth.

He didn’t cry. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

But he did sit there for a long time, waiting for the feeling to pass.

Because what if there is a cost to it all? Maybe one day he would have had to pay for it all? And not at the cost of himself, but at the cost of her . Even if she was somewhere in the distant world. Even if she might have had a circle of people who might have protected her. But he knew that men like them didn’t ask permission to ruin someone.

They didn’t care about circles. Or shields. Or how bright someone’s magic burned. If anything, that made her more of a target. A statement. A challenge.

Severus pressed his forehead harder against the tile and clenched his jaw; his veins visible all the way from his forehead down his jawline. What if, in the end, it wasn’t even about him?

What if the path he’d chosen — for power, for recognition, for some broken version of safety — was never going to end with just his hands bloodied? 

He knew that first stages of constant Occlusion would have such effects on him, but why would his mind betray his peace with thoughts as such. With thoughts of her .

It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t longing. It was liability . The memory of her — her voice, her name, the way she once looked at him like he could be good — it felt like an open window in a house built to withstand war. And still, his mind found her, like a wound remembers the shape of the blade. Maybe because she was the last real thing he hadn’t tarnished with these hands. Not yet. Not directly. But every step he took down this road carved the line closer to her — until eventually, there would be no distance at all between his choices and her name.

He gritted his teeth. If they ever came for her — not for strategy, not for information, but simply because she mattered to him — it would be his fault. Not because he’d spoken. But because they could smell weakness like blood. And love, unspoken , was the loudest kind.

So he stayed on the floor. Unmoving. Unspeaking. Letting that truth settle in his bones like rot.

It should have taken minutes, and then he’d go back to normal. Well, he’d hoped to as he stood up, trying to change his clothes into something comfortable. His hands unsteady, head pulsating, and palms sweaty, yet he tried to convince himself it would be all right. 

He should’ve been fine by now.

That was the lie he told himself as he pulled a sweatshirt over his head — one of the soft, threadbare ones he kept for nights he couldn’t name the ache in his body. But the fabric clung too tight around the neck. The sleeves twisted wrong. He was trembling too much to straighten them.

“Mate, Snape, hiya!” He heard outside his door. 

“Oh fuck no,” he murmured under his breath. Not him.

“I’m here too, Snape.” And certainly not him.

He’d completely forgotten.

Of course he had. He’d told Eugene — clearly , at that — to stop by Saturday after nine. Only for the research. Just to go over a few notes on the potion, maybe check the scar’s reaction to the last batch. It was meant to be brief. Clinical. No lingering. No visitors.

But apparently, Eugene had interpreted that with all the discipline of a stray dog invited indoors once.

“Snape, open up!” came the unmistakable voice, too bright for the hour, too cheerful for the neighbourhood. “I brought biscuits. And Reg brought—well. Reg.”

Severus froze, one sleeve still halfway twisted down his arm. Biscuits? Reg?

“I brought wine,” Regulus called from behind him, tone casual and cutting, “and the sheer joy of my presence.”

Severus didn’t even groan. He seethed silently — hand still hovering midair as if trying to decide whether to punch the wall or himself. He’d said no social visits. No bloody detours. Strictly the potion. Eugene had agreed. Nodded. Smiled. Even repeated it back, the smug bastard.

And yet here he was. With a bottle of wine and Regulus fucking Black.

He could almost taste the regret rising like bile.

Another knock. Not even aggressive — just confident. Eugene, again. “You said after nine. It’s 9:12. Technically, I’m being responsible.”

“You said you’d come alone,” Severus muttered to the wall, as if it could rewind time. He could not do this tonight. Not with the aftertaste of Jugson’s flat still clinging to the back of his throat. Not when the floor of his flat still remembered the shape of his collapse.

“Woah, mate, you look … What happened?” Burke asked, a flicker of concern on the walking wardrobe’s face. 

“Come on in. Why is he here?” He asked sharply, pointing at Black like he had come with Dragon Pox.

“He was lonely.” 

Regulus raised a brow at the tone, entirely unbothered. He stepped past the threshold like he owned the floorboards. “I was. Very.”

Severus didn’t bother with a reply. Instead, he looked Eugene dead in the eye, voice flat. “Why is your inbred imbecile of a boyfriend standing in my hallway?”

Eugene blinked. “First of all, he’s not my—”

“Absolutely not,” Regulus cut in at the same time, already draping his coat over the nearest chair like he hadn’t just been slandered. “I don’t bum.”

“And he certainly can’t be bummed by me,” he added, with the grim finality of someone issuing a royal decree.

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Merlin. You two sound like the punchline to a hexed limerick.”

Eugene gave an unbothered shrug and ambled in, setting down a battered tin of biscuits on the cluttered counter. “We came for the potion check-in, remember? You said Saturday after nine. It’s Saturday. After nine.”

“You were supposed to come alone.”

“I did,” Eugene said, jerking a thumb toward Regulus. “And then I brought him.”

“That’s not how alone works.”

Regulus made himself perfectly at home, uncorking the wine with an elegant twist of his wand. “You should be grateful,” he said. “I elevate the atmosphere.”

“You elevate the rent,” Severus muttered.

“And yet you always let us in.” Regulus handed him a glass, smug. “So who’s the real masochist here?”

Severus took the glass only because it was easier than arguing. He didn’t sip. He just stared at them both — Eugene, who was already clearing space on the table with the subtle grace of a bull; and Regulus, lounging like he’d personally redecorated the place.

He exhaled. Long. Tired. Deep.

“This is strictly research,” he said.

Eugene gave a mock salute. “Aye, sir. Scar check, potion notes, no feelings, no cuddles.”

“And no fucking wine-fueled debates about House Elf economics,” Severus added pointedly, glaring at Regulus.

Regulus looked positively wounded. “That happened one time. And I was right.”

Merlin help him, Severus thought. What a great day. 

He took out his cauldrons, utensils, notes and whatnot, then abruptly pointed at the armchair for Burke to sit on it.

“Dominant, how exciting.” 

“Merlin’s saggy left ball, Reg! I told you to not piss him the fuck off.” then Gene added, “I can’t afford blindness.”

Severus didn’t respond. He just shot a look sharp enough to slice through the clatter of Eugene’s oversized limbs crashing into the armchair.

“Sit,” he repeated, voice clipped. “You are a bloody giant. I’m not craning my neck every time I need to check your face.”

Eugene settled with a grunt, his legs sprawled like they hadn’t been informed about the concept of personal space. The armchair creaked beneath him like it was reevaluating its will to live.

Severus flicked his wand toward the table, summoning a clipboard, two jars of balm, and the last annotated version of the salve formula — all of which floated neatly beside him.

He lit a cigarette with a flick — half ritual, half necessity — and leaned in.

“Head up,” he said, already rolling his sleeves. “Tilt to the left.”

Eugene obeyed, jaw flexing as Severus inspected the line of the scar. Still faintly pink in places, but less inflamed than last time. Until—

The smoke wafted close.

The moment it did, the healed edge twitched. Then flushed. Then flared — angry red veins spidering outward in a sudden bloom.

Severus froze. “Don’t move.”

“Not planning to,” Eugene muttered, though his voice had tensed. “What the fuck was that?”

“Reaction,” Severus muttered, eyes narrowing. “To the smoke. Or the balm. Or both.”

Regulus perked up from where he’d been sipping wine like it was theatre night. “That’s new.”

“No shit,” Eugene hissed as the edge of the scar pulsed again. Not painful, exactly, but hot — like a sunburn stirred with a needle.

Severus leaned closer, breath held. “It shouldn’t do that. Not unless…”

He trailed off. The formula had been correct. He’d double-checked it. Triple-checked it.

Unless something in the smoke had catalyzed a dormant property.

Or — worse — the scar itself was adapting.

Regulus, annoyingly calm, leaned forward. “Do I need to fetch a mirror or a Healer?”

“No,” Severus said sharply. “Just shut up.”

He flicked his wand again, this time scanning the flare. A faint glow rippled beneath Eugene’s skin — like something was responding. Not to magic. But to presence. To stress. To intent.

He drew back, slowly.

“That’s not natural,” he muttered.

“I could’ve told you that,” Eugene grunted. “It’s on my bloody face.”

“No,” Severus said, voice low. “I mean what’s underneath it.”

He took his notes from the bedside table and started to page through them, looking for past annotations — anything about smoke interactions, latent enchantments, or ingredient instability under duress. His fingers moved quickly, but his mind moved faster.

“No… no, this doesn’t make sense,” he murmured to himself. “There’s nothing here about responsiveness to environmental stimuli, let alone combustion agents.”

Regulus leaned forward, elbow on knee. “You’re saying it’s sentient?”

“I’m saying it’s behaving like a curse that isn’t finished yet,” Severus snapped. He paused, eyes flicking back to the scar. “Or like something that was never meant to be contained.”

Eugene tensed. “It’s on my face, mate. Can we skip the cryptic?”

Severus rubbed at his temple, the smoke from his cigarette curling toward the ceiling. “There’s a magical imprint here that reacts to external conditions. I assumed it was residual — a scar from trauma, infused with hostile intent. But it’s not fading. It’s learning.”

“Learning?” Eugene echoed, brow furrowed. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means,” Severus said, voice now tight, “that every time I try to treat it, it adapts. Adjusts. Counters. Like it’s testing me.”

Regulus stood now, wine glass abandoned. “So it’s not just a cursed scar. It’s a fucking challenge.”

Severus turned his head to look at him like it said idiot on his forehead. “It’s a scar, not a living creature. Whatever that came from, it already existed way earlier.” Then he brought Gene’s head closer to the lamp with his hands like he was holding a bludger. “It is embedded within his magic. And his brother” pointing at Regulus, “or his idiot brother’s idiot friend just ignited the … whatever underneath your skin.”

Regulus crossed his arms, frown deepening. “How do we stop it?”

“We don’t,” Severus said, voice flat. “Not until I understand what it wants .”

“Wants?” Eugene echoed. “You said it’s not alive.”

“It isn’t,” Severus replied, turning sharply. “Not in the way you’re thinking. But it’s old. It’s anchored. This isn’t just some cursed mark slapped on you by a wand-happy lunatic. It’s ancestral — buried deep in your bloodline. Not designed to kill you. Designed to remind you.”

Eugene blinked, stunned into stillness. “Remind me of what?”

Severus leaned in again, dragging the lamplight closer to the side of Eugene’s face. The scar pulsed faintly now, reacting to the heat, the attention, maybe even the presence of certain magical auras in the room. His voice dropped to a near-whisper.

“Of what you are. Or what your family once did. Or what it pledged to.”

He stepped back, jaw tight. “Someone in your line — not you — bound this into the blood. It’s not a curse. It’s a reminder of sort . And the moment we interfered — touched it, triggered it with the wrong smoke, the wrong pressure, the wrong spell — it reacted. Like memory surfacing.”

Regulus looked genuinely disturbed for once. “So you’re saying it’s not learning — it’s remembering .”

Severus gave a sharp nod.

“And now,” he added, eyes flicking between the two of them, “we’ve just woken up something that’s been waiting in your blood for generations.”

Eugene swallowed. “Brilliant. So I’m haunted by my own genetics.”

“Not haunted,” Severus muttered. “Claimed.”

He took three steps back, barely, given the size of his place, and looked at Eugene once more. 

“How tall are you?”

“Dunno, like six seven? Six five? I stopped–”

“Is your mam a giant?”

“What?! No!”

“I think he means biological mam .”

“Oh, I mean– I never asked?”

Regulus, still lingering near the wine like it might offer him emotional support, raised an eyebrow and said with mock sincerity, “Mam? Merlin, Snape, what is this — Yorkshire or a bloody folktale?”

Severus didn’t even flinch. “Piss off, Black.”

“Maaaaam,” Regulus repeated in an exaggerated northern lilt, one hand to his chest like he was a Dickensian orphan begging for porridge. “Please tell me if I’m half ogre, mam.”

Regulus was still halfway through his performance, nose scrunched and posture hunched like a chimney sweep, when Severus finally cut in with the driest voice known to wizardkind:

“It’s Midlands. Not North. If you’re going to mock someone, at least get the bloody geography right.”

Regulus gave Eugene a flat look. “He’s insufferable.”

“Mate,” Eugene said, still poking the edge of the lamp with mild concern, “you’re lucky he hasn’t used you as a testing subject yet.”

“Midlands,” Regulus muttered again under his breath, shaking his head like it was a personal insult. “Honestly. Could’ve sworn he grew up in a mine.”

Severus’s quill froze in place. “Finish that sentence and I’ll find a curse for your inbred curly hair to grow out of your mouth.”

Regulus blinked. Then blinked again. “Touché,” he murmured, adjusting a nonexistent cuff with mock elegance. “But I have to say, Snape, you are truly full of surprises, Snape.”

“Can we focus?” Severus snapped, turning his notes toward Eugene now. “Before your markings of ancestral horror start to leak through your face.”

Eugene, still slouched in the armchair like it might swallow him whole, raised a hand. “Right, quick recap. I might be cursed, possessed, genetically haunted or — what was it again?”

“Claimed,” Severus and Regulus said in unison. Then glared at each other.

“Charming,” Eugene muttered. “Next thing you’ll tell me I’ve got goblin ancestry.”

“You’d be shorter,” Regulus said, eyes flicking pointedly to Eugene’s knees, which were nearly at chin level even while sitting.

“Not helpful,” Severus hissed.

“Neither is your flat,” Regulus replied, wrinkling his nose at the cracked walls. “Honestly, it’s like depression got a mortgage.”

Severus shot him a glare that could melt glass. “The next person to comment on my interior design is bound to never enter these four walls ever again, both magically and physically.”

Eugene raised both hands, palms up. “So... where do we start, then?”

Severus’s eyes narrowed. “First, we need to know exactly what reacted. And second, I need to figure out if the scar is activating on intent... or blood.”

Regulus lifted his wine glass again. “Cheers to … whatever this is.”

“Shut up and hold the basin,” Severus muttered, already reaching for his wand.

“Why am I holding the basin?” Black asked with ennui.

“Because you insisted you’d be helpful, Reg,” responded Eugene with his head tilted to the side.

Regulus made a face but didn’t argue, only shifted the basin like it offended his bloodline to touch something that practical. Of course. Everything was beneath Regulus Black unless he decided it wasn’t, and even then, he wore usefulness like an accessory — just long enough to feel noble, never long enough to sweat.

Severus didn’t respond. He just lit the tip of his wand and leaned toward Eugene’s face, but the flicker of flame was a distraction at best. His mind was moving somewhere else. Somewhere uglier.

He hadn’t wanted to take this job. That was the truth. He’d dreaded the very idea of it from the start — not just because it was difficult magic, not just because it was tied to some long-forgotten curse buried in a family tree that bled arrogance, but because of who was asking. Regulus Black. With his polished vowels and inherited cheekbones and quiet smirk like he already knew how every room would bend around him. The first time he brought it up, Severus had shut him down without hesitation. The second time, he hadn’t even let him finish the pitch. He didn’t do healing work. He didn’t do diagnostics. He certainly didn’t do bespoke curse treatment for pureblood scions whose faces were already gilded by legacy. He’d said no like it was instinct. Reflexive. Final.

And then Regulus had returned a third time, silent, alone, and dropped that pouch onto Severus’s table. Velvet. Soft. Heavy. No words. Just gold. So much of it that it made Severus feel nauseous. A bribe disguised as gratitude. Payment disguised as respect. And he’d stared at it — at the way it slumped, dense and full — and hated that his hands had twitched. Hated how quickly the calculation began in his mind: how many galleons it would take to fix the boiler, how many to restock on fresh mandrake, how many to finally replace the cauldron with the cursed crack in the base. Five hundred in total, Regulus had said. Two hundred up front. More than anything Severus had ever earned in his life for a single task. And it was all there, waiting. For him.

He took the job. Of course he did. Not because he wanted it. Not because he cared about the scar or the magic or Regulus. But because poverty softened your spine in places pride couldn’t reach. Because when your entire life is a collection of patched robes and broken spells and damp floorboards, you stop pretending that saying no is a kind of power. Sometimes, you say yes because you have nothing else to hold up against hunger. And that was what this was. A quiet kind of hunger. Not just for money, but for something to work for once. Something to solve. Something to make sense of.

But even now — even with the coin tucked away and the salves half-brewed — he still didn’t understand why he had been asked. Why Regulus had come to him . Not Lucius. Not a qualified private healer. Not one of the curse experts who practically faced dozens of cases as such all over the world. Severus. A half-blood with bad posture and no title. It didn’t add up. Unless it wasn’t about trust. Unless it was about knowing exactly where the desperation lived and pressing on it until it opened like a door.

Maybe that was the part that stung most. That Regulus had looked at him and seen someone who would fold. Not easily. Not loudly. But inevitably. Someone who would say no, and mean it, and then say yes because the world gave him no other choice.

Severus didn’t say any of that. Didn’t let a single syllable of it near his mouth. He just reached forward, the salve warm in his palm, and said flatly:

“Tilt left.”

“Is anyone getting sleepy?” Regulus asked. Hearing no response, he added, “no? Just me?”

Eugene looked at Severus with the corner of his eye, just to make sure he wasn’t annoyed enough to hex something or, worse, someone in this room. Then Burke looked at his mate, gesturing for him to stop talking. 

“Wha’?” Regulus sat on the bed. “Maybe we have a sleep–”

“Absolutely not.” Severus cut him off before he finished his sentence. 

“Oh, come on, Sev.”

Severus glared at him with a possibly what was supposed to be a death stare but given how drained he looked — jaw tight, temples tense, eyes hollowed out by whatever hell he’d been dragging through before they arrived — it came off more like the death before the death stare.

Regulus blinked. “You look like a corpse. A slightly judgmental corpse.”

“I swear to Merlin, Black,” Severus hissed, dabbing the salve on Eugene’s scar with surgical precision, “if you make another noise or breathe too loud, I will turn your lungs inside out and hang them like bunting.”

Eugene winced — not from the salve, but from secondhand embarrassment. “Can you not— not, like, threaten— like on my face?”

“Then hold still,” Severus snapped.

Regulus held up his hands, all faux-innocence. “I’m just saying, you bring two devastatingly handsome men into your flat past nine, start lighting things, muttering incantations, and telling people to tilt — sounds like the start of a very niche novel.”

Severus didn't dignify it with a response. He pressed a little too hard near the temple, and Eugene grunted.

“Oi! That felt targeted.”

“It was.”

“Alright, alright, ” Regulus said, flopping backward onto the bed like a Victorian damsel, “I’ll shut up. But if anyone starts chanting, I’m hexing my way through the window.”

“You break my window,” Severus said without looking up, “and I’ll stitch it shut with your hair.”

“I’ll help,” Eugene offered.

“Traitor.”

“What are you? My boyfriend?”

Regulus let out a theatrical sigh. “This is mental abuse.”

Severus dabbed the final bit of salve along the scar’s edge, and for a brief moment — no banter, no sarcasm — there was a soft glow beneath Eugene’s skin. It pulsed once. Then again. Almost rhythmic. Almost alive.

All three of them stilled.

“...That’s new,” Eugene said, voice quiet.

Severus narrowed his eyes, fingers frozen mid-air.

“Gene, mate,” he looked almost in amazement, “you are a fairy.”

“Shut it, Reg.”

Severus didn’t move. Not at first. His fingers hovered above the glowing mark, eyes narrowing like the light itself was personally insulting him.

“Why the fuck would it glow?” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

“Maybe I’m, like, part Veela or something?” Eugene offered weakly.

“Shut up,” Severus and Regulus said in unison.

Severus pushed away from the armchair with a frustrated exhale, already reaching for a small vial on the cluttered counter. He passed it to Eugene without ceremony.

“Drink. Painkiller. Your face’ll be numb for an hour.”

“Reassuring,” Eugene said, eyeing the potion like it might bite. “Side effects?”

“Yes,” Severus said flatly. “Shut up and hold still.”

Eugene downed it with a wince. The taste was immediate and vile. “Oh, that’s horrendous. What’s in this—”

“Silence,” Severus snapped, already sliding a silver blade from its case. It was thin, surgical, gleaming in the lamplight. He leaned forward, pressing Eugene’s temple gently to the side with one hand, positioning the blade with the other.

“Wait—are you cutting it?” Regulus asked, finally sitting up from the bed.

“A shallow slit,” Severus muttered, tone tight. “To see what it reacts to. You want answers or not?”

“I wanted biscuits,” Regulus said, then added, “but sure, barbaric methods of manslaughter are just fine.”

Severus ignored him. The blade kissed Eugene’s skin—just barely, just enough to breach surface tension.

And then the room ignited in flashing lights all over.

Not in heat. Not in flames. But in color.

From the scar burst a swirl of deep indigo and radiant violet, blooming outward like smoke underwater, curling around the room in soft, shifting tendrils. The air shimmered — as though someone had pulled down the night sky and cracked it open.

Regulus stumbled backward, half-falling onto the bed again. “Bloody—! What the fuck is that?!”

Eugene didn’t speak. Couldn’t. His face had gone pale, bathed in the strange, ethereal light that now painted every surface of the room in tones of twilight.

Severus just stared.

The light didn’t burn. It didn’t pulse with malice. But it filled the space entirely, humming low, like some ancient, buried thing had been waiting.

And now, it had been found.

Severus lowered the blade. “This… this isn’t a scar.”

Regulus’s voice came low, from behind his raised forearm. “Then what the hell is it?”

Severus didn’t answer.

Because he didn’t know.

“I think that has something to do with his magic?” Severus said unsurely, his left brow raised as he stared at the burnt blade.

“Well, thank Merlin, I brought wine.”

Chapter Text

Life never asked Lily what pace should it flow with, which fucking bothered her. Because days had gone in haze, and hours passed in minutes, and she still couldn’t get used to the streets around her place. 

Once she just kept spinning around the same streets over and over until she realized she had to simply turn to the left. When she finally made it back, she didn’t bother turning on the light. Just kicked the door shut behind her and sat. Right there on the floor. Groceries still in the bag, scarf still twisted tight around her throat.

Everything felt all over the place, yet nothing was happening to her. 

Order meetings were fine, she thought. She went there twice with Remus, and it was plausible. Nothing out of the ordinary. As though she was back in the Gryffindor dormitory, just the boys had facial hair and girls wore colorful fashionable robes. Maybe less screaming, but still screaming. 

Oh, and was she not trying. Lily tried to attend Moody’s every… not even class, since he refused to call it that, “session of practical bloody survival,” as he barked — at least once a week. She showed up early, cast her Shield Charms with proper wand form, even volunteered to duel when the rest shuffled their feet and stared at the floor.

She was trying.

Really, truly trying — to care, to connect, to anchor herself to the cause everyone else seemed to wear like a second skin.

But every time she left those meetings, her hands felt too clean. Her voice too loud. Like she hadn’t done enough or had said too much — like the war was a party she’d shown up late to, and everyone else already knew the rules.

And Merlin help her, sometimes she looked around and didn’t see fighters.

She saw boys and girls who weren’t really aware that throwing a hex here and there was not going to get them through. She saw young people who weren’t quite aware that knowing how to cast a Patronus was not going to save them when someone pointed a wand at their chest and meant it.

She saw smiles that cracked too easily. Jokes made too fast. Confidence worn like a costume stitched out of school pride and secondhand courage. They talked about strategy over mugs of tea. Whispered names like spells — Mulciber, Yaxley, Travers — as if naming the dark would somehow make it less sharp.

But Lily knew. Even if she never witnessed it as of now, she knew that the other boys will not laugh over the same things they’d laugh about now. And in fact, they’d hush down all the laughter within a matter of minutes — not because someone asked them to, but because something would change. Someone wouldn’t come back. A mission would go wrong. A name they whispered today would be the cause of someone else's silence tomorrow.

And just like that, the room would shift. The laughter would dry in their throats. The tea would go cold in their hands.

One of the older ones, Arthur Weasley was retelling his last time during their planned rescue mission. There was a predicted raid. Both of the victims were alive, yet at what state. They were found in pain, both physically and emotionally — one of them with a striking skull mark across his chest. 

Mary saw the man with the scar across his chest and repeated several times how she’d never seen such a thing in St. Mungo’s. Of course she hadn’t. She’d only just started her apprenticeship there — a mediwitch-in-training stationed in the public trauma ward, where the worst thing they’d let her near was a splinched teenager or an overcooked cauldron burn. Of course she wouldn’t see something like that in a public civil hospital. 

Because scars like that didn’t get brought through the front doors. They weren’t documented in files or discussed in staff meetings. They were hidden. Whispered about. Erased.

Lily remembered the way Mary had gone quiet halfway through her sentence, as if the image had caught up to her words — as if the realization bloomed only after she’d said it aloud. That it wasn’t just a scar. It was a message. Burned into a living body like punctuation. And even then, Lily had felt her throat close too — not from fear, but from something worse. Because what kind of a monster was out there to even think of such horrible spell to be casted on someone’s bare chest — not to kill, not even to torture in the usual sense, but to mark . To brand pain into permanence. To make sure that long after the screaming stopped, long after the skin healed as much as it could, the message stayed.

The scar kept burning only when the wizard was in distress, which meant that till the day he died: a sudden jumpscare, a panicking reaction, a lost bet causing anger — all would burn on his chest like a constant reminder of his political choices. 

It was a punishment designed not to end, but to echo. A curse wrapped in intention, tied to the nervous system, feeding off instinct. You didn’t even have to believe in anything anymore for it to hurt — your own body would betray you, flare up under pressure, remind you in the quietest, cruelest ways that you had once been on the wrong side.

Lily had asked Mary later — gently, carefully — whether the man remembered who cast it.
Mary had only shaken her head, and said he wouldn’t speak. Wouldn’t meet her eyes. Said he screamed once, but only once, and then not again. Not even when she changed his bandages.

Both of the wizards had their memories touched. There was nothing to tell and certainly nothing clear to see. Only fear after and before the pain. 

They couldn’t remember the moment the spells landed, only the dread that preceded it and the silence that followed. Someone — or more likely, several someones — had tampered with their thoughts so precisely that even the trauma felt vague. What lingered wasn’t image or voice, but impression: the weight of power, the smell of smoke, the cold certainty that they had been marked not as a warning to others, but as an example.

Mary said one of them flinched every time someone stood behind him. The other wouldn’t let anyone touch his wand, even for healing. They didn’t sleep. Barely ate. And yet neither of them could recall who had done it.

Which, of course, only made it worse.

Because someone out there was not only capable of creating that kind of spell — of engineering it with such surgical cruelty — but also careful enough to erase every trace of themselves after. No signature. No flair. Just the mark left behind, burning with purpose.

And Lily couldn’t help but wonder: was that restraint? Or practice?

She thought about it long after Mary stopped talking. Long after she left the flat.

Because what haunted her wasn’t the mark itself.

It was how familiar it sounded.

Not in the spellwork — though that too. But in the design. In the intent. In the brilliance required to twist a body into remembering what the mind no longer could.

She prayed to God, she hesitantly believed in, and hoped that it wasn’t him . 

Anyway, it wasn’t like she could do anything if it were him. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t just show up to Spinner’s End, hoping Severus still lived there and told him to stop doing genius stuff for the ‘bad’ guys. 

She had to plan out enough of her own stuff anyway. Obviously, she couldn’t bother herself with him. Or at least, she presumed although that was way harder than actually planning her life ahead. 

She’d never been particularly good at planning. Not in the traditional sense. She was decisive, sure — quick to act, sharp when it counted — but long-term visions made her nervous. They always felt too much like expectations in disguise. And expectations had a way of disappointing you when the world refused to cooperate.

Still, she tried. Drew up little schedules on scraps of parchment. Circled job listings in both wizarding and Muggle papers. Made lists. Lists of things to do, to buy, to learn, to forget.

She was thinking about applying to the apothecary near Diagon — the small one, tucked between the robe shop and that grim little book stall no one ever seemed to enter. They needed help, apparently. The pay wasn’t good, but it was quiet work. Repetitive. Root-measuring. Vial-sorting.

The flat was already hers — too late to cancel the deal she signed in late August. Back then, she hadn’t thought twice about it. Hadn’t planned for the apprenticeship to be delayed, hadn’t considered the price of solitude. She was supposed to be busy by now. She thought the flat would be a halfway point — a quiet space before the rush of learning, of brewing, of something resembling purpose.

Back in August, he had pushed her to take the apprenticeship. Said she was wasting her talent. Said Slughorn liked her — or more accurately, tolerated her enough to take her on. Said it would open doors. That she could make something of herself, something real. And someone she wanted to be.

Part of her was still trying to make that happen. She started going to various libraries across the corners of magical London that never failed to amaze her. Continuously applied to part-time, and even full-time now, jobs in various apothecaries, all just to give her some experience — even if not directly what she wanted, still something . Something to keep her hands moving. Something to put on parchment when Slughorn eventually asked what she’d been doing with her time. Something to make her feel like she was inching, however slowly, toward a future that hadn’t fully formed yet. 

She kept a notebook in her bag — one of those soft-covered Muggle ones with a cracked spine and ink smudges on the edges. It had job leads, brewing notes, a few sketched-out potion ideas she hadn’t dared test. She’d underlined ingredients she couldn’t afford yet and circled shops that might be hiring. There were pressed petals stuck between pages, bits of labels peeled off bottles, a half-written letter to her mother she would never send.

It made her feel organised (yet the notebook was very much not organised.) Or like she was trying.

She told herself this was the work. Not glamorous, not noble — but necessary. Quiet steps toward the person she told him she'd be. The one she promised herself she’d become when she walked away.

And some mornings, it almost worked.

She’d put her hair up, throw on a jacket, and walk with purpose down the cobbled streets. She’d smile at the owl post vendor, stop for tea, scribble in her notebook on the steps outside Flourish and Blotts. She’d pretend this was a chapter in some larger story. One where she figured things out. One where the war didn’t eat everything before it had a chance to grow.

But other days — most days — she felt like a ghost in her own life. Present, but not living. Planning, but not moving. Rooted in place by the weight of a past she couldn’t name aloud, and a future she couldn’t quite see yet.

The Order meetings were fun, even if the context of the meetings were usually quite devastating. Maybe that was why most members were just people who wanted to have a belonging, a place they could rely on — a scattered fraying patchwork of old schoolmates, estranged relatives, and war-wounded idealists pretending not to be afraid.

“Yes, but if we start treating every pureblood kid like they’re already a risk, what are we doing, really? We're not the side that's supposed to judge people by birth.” Frank leaned forward, his brow furrowed in that thoughtful way he always got when he was trying to be fair.

Lily didn’t flinch, but her arms crossed. “I’m not saying we check their blood status at the door, Frank. I’m saying we stop pretending that their silence is neutral.”

James, from across the table, gave a low exhale. “That’s a bit harsh.”

“Oh, is it?” she said, tone sharper than she meant. “Because from where I stand, I see a lot of people who know exactly what’s happening — and say nothing. And when the worst finally comes, they’ll blink and say they didn’t know.”

“They’re scared,” Frank offered gently. “Fear does things to people. It’s not always about loyalty. Sometimes it’s just self-preservation.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Lily replied, voice steadier now. “They use their privilege for protection. Not for resistance. And then they get to walk around after all this pretending they never had a choice.”

James shifted. “You don’t think I’m trying?”

Emmeline, who had been quiet until now, gave a dry laugh. “She didn’t say you weren’t. But come on, James — you’re not exactly the control group here.”

Lily glanced at her, grateful. Then turned to James. “You’re trying. I know that. But how many aren’t?”

Frank raised a hand, not defensive, just calm. “Look, I grew up in that world too, remember? I know what it looks like. I also know Alice, and Vance, Prewett twins and even Sirius —”

“Exactly,” Lily cut in. “You know them because they stepped out of that world. And look what it cost them. Look what it’s still costing them.”

James looked caught — not angry, but something tangled in his throat, unsure of how to respond.

“I’m not talking about purging every pureblood from the Order,” Lily added, her voice quieter now, measured. “I’m talking about not giving them a pass when they stay quiet out of fear of losing dinner invites and family heirlooms.”

James’s jaw tightened. “You think I had it easy at school?”

Lily, almost laughingly, responded. “And what did you have difficulty at school? Not being liked by some of the Slytherin’s pureblood posho lot? You had it above ground, ” she said, not cruelly — but plainly. “You didn’t have to learn spells just to make people stop looking at you like you didn’t belong. You were always going to be somebody, James. The war just gave you a reason to decide who. ”

The silence stretched. Emmeline let out a slow breath. “She’s not wrong,” she said, glancing at Frank. “We all know kids who’ll say in private they don’t agree with You-Know-Who — but won’t speak up if it risks their father’s place in the Wizengamot.”

Frank nodded slowly. “I do. I just hate the idea that we’re giving up on them before they’ve even chosen.”

“And I hate the idea,” Lily said, “that some of them already have, and it’s just comfort.”

James ran a hand through his hair, eyes down for once. “It’s not that simple.”

“No,” Lily agreed. “But it should’ve been.”

Lily genuinely always believed that the privileged were more meant to participate in such societal issues. In fact, everybody had to — but some were also given the option not to. The luxury of disengagement. The freedom to keep quiet without consequence. She hadn’t had that.

The silence thickened again, until Lily spoke — quieter now, but no less firm.

“I didn’t even want to join at first,” she admitted. “Not because I didn’t care, but because I was scared. Because I don’t have anyone in this world who could protect me if it went wrong. No uncle at the Ministry. No family vault. No cottage in the country to hide in if I needed to disappear.”

She looked up then, her eyes not angry — just tired. Honest.

“That’s why I think the ones who do have all that? The ones who grew up knowing the world was already built with them in mind? They should be the first to show up. Because they can afford to. Because they’ll survive it longer. Because they had the option to stay out of it — and people like me never did.”

Emmeline nodded slowly, arms crossed now. “She’s right. It’s not about guilt. It’s about weight. And who can carry more of it without breaking.”

Frank exhaled, leaning back in his chair. “I get it,” he said. “I do. I just wish we didn’t have to keep proving who deserves to fight.”

Lily offered him a small, weary smile. “Me too. But I didn’t make the rules. I just see who benefits from pretending they don’t exist. And I’m here because I believe that me being who I am—me being the way I am— can’t live under the ignorance that my rights, my safety, my existence can just be stripped away from the norm. I can’t just let it be.”

She looked around the table, her voice low but unwavering. “Maybe some of you will always be allowed back into the world, no matter what happens. But I won’t. People like me—we don’t get to un-choose this. We don’t get to stay neutral. So if I have to risk everything just to exist freely, then the least the rest of you can do is stop treating action like it's optional.”

That landed hard. No one spoke for a moment. The silence wasn’t tense anymore—just thoughtful. Heavy.

James looked at her, something softening in his expression — eyes too open, gaze too steady, like he’d just realized the depth of something he hadn’t seen before.

And Lily looked away. Quickly. The weight of his face — his care — made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t name.

“Then tell me what to do better.” He said with the softest ever voice, and a sincerity so raw it almost embarrassed everybody in the room.

Oh, James, she thought, you daft idiot. 

She let out a breath, not quite a laugh. “I dunno,” she said, voice thinner now, unsure, awkward. “I wasn’t born into magical privilege like you. I didn’t grow up knowing how this world works — I just kept crashing into the parts that weren’t made for me.”

She looked down at her hands. “I’m still figuring it out. So you’ll have to do the same. Without waiting for someone like me to spell it out for you.”

The air filled up with incoherently very predictable awkwardness that Emmaline and Frank had to sit through. Emmeline shifted in her seat, giving Frank a fleeting look that clearly said, well, this again . Frank, ever the diplomat, busied himself with reorganizing the tea mugs on the table, like that might somehow smooth the tension from the room.

Because usually, after the Order meetings, everybody would stay.

They’d talk, linger, argue about logistics or joke about how Moody’s latest drill nearly set someone’s eyebrows on fire. There’d be someone refilling the kettle, someone else digging through the biscuit tin. Someone would start humming, or slinging an arm over someone else’s shoulder like war wasn’t a breath away.

And Lily always had to go through the same cycle when she was left alone with James without any of her or his friends. They’d talk, throw around a remark and then James would try to look at her without his ears turning red, while Lily would wrap herself with her arms and try to not disappear very vibrantly. 

And tonight was no exception.

She could already feel it starting — that unbearable awareness of him watching her from the corner of his eye, not quite brave enough to meet her gaze fully, not quite foolish enough to look away entirely. And she, in turn, folded in on herself with quiet precision, arms crossed tight, spine stiff, every breath deliberate. Like if she moved too quickly, the memory of them might reappear in full color.

It was stupid, really. The way silence between them carried more weight than their loudest arguments ever had. The way even now — after months apart, after different beds and colder mornings — it still felt like something unresolved was sitting between them, quietly sharpening its claws.

James cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh… I’ll walk you home if you want.”

Lily didn’t look at him. “It’s not far.”

“I know,” he said quickly. “I just—still. It’s late.”

Frank and Emmeline both froze, like woodland creatures sensing a storm about to break. Emmeline busied herself with a scroll she clearly wasn’t reading. Frank picked up a mug and set it back down, twice.

Lily didn’t say anything.

Which was, frankly, unlike her — and James noticed. Her usual sharp-edged wit, her steady stance, the way she never left a room without the last word — all of it was gone now, folded under a quiet sort of hesitation he wasn’t used to seeing on her face.

She just stood, nodded to Frank and Emmeline in a way that wasn’t quite a goodbye, and pulled on her coat without meeting anyone’s eyes.

James followed.

He didn’t ask. Just fell into step beside her as she stepped out into the cold, the streetlamps buzzing faintly above them, their boots tapping out a quiet rhythm on the stone.

They didn’t speak.

Not at first.

The silence wasn’t heavy like before — just… strange. Not comfortable, not awkward. Just that soft, brittle kind that happens when two people know too much and aren’t sure where to start.

They walked a full block before she finally said, “You don’t have to come the whole way. It’s not far.”

James shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “Well, I’ve come this far already. Wouldn’t it be a bit stupid to turn back now?”

She gave a weak not so brave smile, and he saw it. He smiled back in the same manner. What were they supposed to do anyway? 

Lily was clear about her feelings towards him. They were not as strong as his feelings were. She could reciprocate those feelings back to him, and she didn’t know how far that would go. Maybe she would never be able to love him as fiercely as he did. Maybe she didn’t love him romantically in the first place. But, surely, there were times when they’d lay in his bed, he would slowly fall asleep before telling her how much she meant to him and maybe then, she would smile, thinking that she did love him after all. 

He’d do things — stupid, tender, absurd things — that made her think she did love him, after all.

Like the way he used to press her glasses up her nose when she was reading in bed, claiming she looked too serious, then giggling sheepishly. Or how he’d scribble her initials in the margins of his notes during in the library and pretend he hadn’t when she caught him. Or how after every match, even if he didn’t score the final goal, he’d scan the stands for her face first. And if she was there — arms crossed or half-smiling or pretending not to be impressed — he’d still shoot up into the sky, do that ridiculous loop just below the sun, then land too close to her and say, “That one was for you, Evans.” 

In those moments — fleeting, golden, disarming — she believed it. Or wanted to. Wanted to believe that love could be something simple, something offered, something she could just choose to accept like a jacket passed across her shoulders.

She hoped that this would become a constant feeling. She wouldn’t forget that she was in fact with someone. She would look for him out of loving care, not out of guilt, or habit, or the aching fear of being alone in a world that was turning darker by the week.

She hoped she’d miss him when he wasn’t there — not because she was supposed to, but because something real inside her would tug in his absence. That she’d smile when she heard his laugh across a room, not because it was familiar, but because it was his.

But it never settled that way.

What came instead was that dull hum of awareness — that she was supposed to feel more, and didn’t. That she was holding something fragile between them, not out of fear of breaking it, but out of fear that it was already broken and neither of them wanted to be the first to admit it.

And at some point, Lily Evans started to fear that maybe she would be always loved in her lifetime, but never love anyone as fierce and deep as she was loved, which, eventually, haunted her. Because what did it mean, really — to be adored so thoroughly and still feel that cold space inside her, untouched?

She wondered if it made her ungrateful. Or unkind. Or worse — incapable.

James loved her like she was inevitable. Like no version of the future made sense without her in it. She knew it very well, and that alone was enough to let her feel bad about herself. Because she also understood that James might not be able to love somebody the same way he loved her. Because she understood that James felt something Lily only thought of towards her hypothetical soulmate-partner-and-everything-altogether. 

Lily never meant to hurt him. That was the part that dug under her ribs most. She didn’t lie. She didn’t lead him on. But she also didn’t stop him when he looked at her like that — like she was a spell he’d been born to cast. Like if he said her name often enough, she might finally become his.

She wanted to want him like that. She did. Merlin, it would have been easier. Safer. James was steady, loyal, earnest in ways that cracked her open sometimes. But every time she thought she’d caught the current, something in her slipped sideways. Something in her paused.

She wasn’t sure if it was the image of him from their earlier years at school — all smug grins and hexes flying, trying to torment her friend just to impress whoever was watching — or the way he used to date people like it was a sport. Quick flings, pretty faces, laughter too loud in hallways. And yet, every time he had a girlfriend, he’d stop asking Lily out. As if he needed to prove something. As if the moment he wasn't chasing, he didn't know what to do with her.

It wasn’t just immaturity. It was the pattern. The knowing he could have anyone — and somehow, that made her feel less like a choice and more like a prize. And she hated that feeling. Hated how it chipped at the idea of love being mutual, being built. Because James could stop chasing other people. But he never stopped chasing her.

And part of her — the part she hated a little — didn’t want to be caught unless the chase had ended for good. Not because he’d won, but because he’d grown. Because he’d stopped needing to chase at all.

Maybe in another lifetime, she did love him back. Maybe she did forgive him for the little boy with never ending hexing escapades that he was. But now even if she could see him past all that, she still couldn't get herself to love him the way he did. 

“That’s my … door.” 

“Yes, right, yes.” 

James rocked back on his heels slightly, hands still deep in his pockets, like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to stay or step back, or maybe vanish altogether. Lily stood with one hand on the knob, the other curled loosely at her side, heart thudding a little too loud for the stillness around them.

She didn’t open it yet.

Instead, she glanced sideways at him — quick, cautious. Like looking at a bruise to see if it still hurt.

“Thanks for walking me,” she said, and her voice was softer than she meant it to be. Not regretful. Not exactly. Just… tired.

James nodded, eyes fixed somewhere near her shoes. “Of course.”

She hesitated, then added, “You don’t have to keep doing this.”

His head lifted at that. “Doing what?”

“Being—” Her throat tightened. She tried again. “You don’t have to keep being the version of yourself that’s trying to earn something from me.”

James blinked. The streetlamp above them flickered once.

“I’m not—” he started, but the protest fell flat. Because they both knew he was.

“I know you care,” she said gently. “I do. And I care about you too. But this—” she motioned vaguely between them, “—it’s not going to shift just because we walk home together enough times.”

James didn’t flinch. But he did go still in that very James way — like a statue made of nerves and old habits.

“So what, then?” he asked. Not bitter. Just… quiet. Like he already knew the answer but needed to hear her say it.

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “That’s the worst part. I wish I could wrap it up in something easier, like, certain?” She was unsure of how to explain, because how does one explain something as complicated as that. “I wish I could want this the way you do.”

A pause. Wind swept the corner of the street. Her scarf rustled, and still she didn’t open the door.

James looked at her, finally meeting her eyes full-on. “I never wanted to make you feel like you owed me anything.”

“I know,” she said, and she did. That was what made it harder. “But sometimes… sometimes just being loved that much feels like a debt that I— Yeah.”

That one landed. James exhaled, sharp and low, like the wind had reached his ribs. He had guessed what she meant. He could feel it at some point before too. In many ways, just like her, he hoped she would reciprocate things in the same (or maybe at least closer) manner like him, at some point. 

Lily turned to the door, lifted her wand to unlock it. The click echoed too loudly in the silence.

As she stepped inside, she didn’t look back, but before the door shut, she murmured, just loud enough for him to hear. 

“I hope you grow out of chasing. I really do. Good night. Bye.”

The door closed with a soft click.

And then told herself, leaving James blinking on the doorstep, whispered to the empty air, “I really was trying to grow into staying.”

She went to the kitchen and turned on the stove. She had gotten a new Moka pot, so that became a habit now. The hiss of flame was the only sound in the flat now, soft and steady. She moved on autopilot — grinding the beans, filling the Moka pot, twisting it closed like it required more strength than she had tonight.

The coffee started to bubble. That smell — bitter, familiar, grounding — should’ve helped. It didn’t.

Lily tugged off her coat, then her sweater, and by the time she sat down at the kitchen table, she was in nothing but her underwear and the worn-out socks that never quite matched. She didn’t bother turning on any more lights. Just the glow from the overhead lamp above the stove, and the faint hum of city silence beyond her window.

She curled into the chair and stared at the table. The coffee steamed beside her, untouched.

Her skin felt tight, like she was still holding in too much from earlier — from James’s voice, his eyes, his softness. All of it made her want to apologize and scream and hide at once. She didn’t even know what she wanted forgiveness for. But it clung to her anyway — guilt, in its quietest and most unbearable form.

She should have. Guilt, maybe. Or clarity. But what she actually felt was something closer to nausea. An awful, dragging unease. Like she had just managed to disappoint someone — again — and for what?

He’d looked at her like she was worth the wait. And she couldn’t even look back properly.

She poured the coffee. Didn’t touch it.

She sat there, arms wrapped around her own torso, stomach tight with something she couldn’t name. She hated this feeling — this gross in-between, where nothing hurt enough to cry and nothing felt good enough to matter.

And still, beneath everything, she knew what was sitting there. The name she didn’t want to say.

She missed Severus.

Not in a poetic, tragic way. Not even in a useful way. Just... missed him . The absence was stupid and frustrating. It made her feel childish.

She wanted him to tell her she looked miserable. She wanted him to get all stiff when she’d make an awful joke about anything . She just wanted him to fill in the space that felt so empty. And the truth was, she knew that Severus was one of the few people she could tolerate the presence of for longer times. She couldn’t bear her mother nor father as much, neither could she even think of having Tuney for longer than eight hours a day. 

She would get irritated from her girl friends randomly whenever they’d be just too much in the dormitory. Too loud, too cheerful, too full of plans and drama and questions she didn’t want to answer. Even with Mary — dear, patient Mary — Lily had limits. She got tired of nodding. Tired of pretending. Tired of being the one people looked to for sense, for stability, for the right thing to say.

But Severus had never asked that of her. Never needed her to be digestible or comforting or kind. With him, she could sit in silence and not be polite. She could be angry and not explain it. She could say nothing for a whole hour and still feel like she’d spent time with someone.

It wasn’t peace. Not really. But it was something . Some middle place where she didn’t have to try so hard to be good.

Why was she so easily irritable, she wondered. Would she forever be irritated by everybody around her? When would she finally stop? 

It wasn’t that she didn’t love people. She did. She cared, deeply — too deeply, maybe. But everything felt like too much lately. Too many expectations, too many voices, too many people trying to be loud enough to drown out the fear in their own chests.

And she — she couldn’t fake it the way they did. Couldn’t drink and laugh and flirt and talk strategy in the same breath. Couldn’t keep up the performance of resilience when she felt like she was unraveling from the inside out.

So she snapped. She withdrew. She got quiet in a way that people didn’t quite know how to respond to. And they would tilt their heads, say “you okay?” in that tone that meant “why aren’t you being useful right now?” or “you’re not like this usually.”

But maybe she was like this, and everyone else just hadn’t noticed yet.

And Severus… he’d noticed. He always noticed. He’d see the way her jaw clenched and just shove a book her way. He wouldn’t talk unless she did. He wouldn’t try to cheer her up. He’d just be there — solid, inconvenient, infuriating, but still there . Present in a way that didn’t require her to translate her feelings into palatable pieces.

And that — that unbearable ease — was what she missed the most.

Because even when he was unbearable himself, even when he said the wrong things or shut down completely or got that bitter glint in his eye, Severus had this way of existing beside her without asking for anything she didn’t already have. No performance. No masks. No constant reassurance that she was still the Lily they all thought her to be — clever, composed, capable.

He just knew when she wasn’t. He knew that she could easily snap at anything and argue about it like it had insulted her entire existence. He knew that she only used her reading glasses at home, specifically before she went to sleep, because she hated the way she looked with them on. He knew that she was competitive but only when it came to knowledge, and her competition could get out of hand but she’d never admit it. 

He knew that she hated being asked if she was okay — not because she wasn’t, but because the question made her feel like she had to be. Like she owed people neat answers, packaged emotions, clarity she didn’t possess. He knew she needed to fidget when anxious, that her fingers sought out threads, quills, cracked edges of wood — anything to ground her. That she kept her tea too hot to drink right away and never finished a single cup.

He knew that sometimes, when she laughed too loud, it wasn’t because something was funny — and she’d never explain why, even as her lungs ached from the effort. He just knew.

Not the version everyone else held onto — not Lily the Head Girl, Lily the moral compass, Lily the shining example of Muggleborn brilliance. No, Severus had known the parts that didn’t shine. The parts she didn’t show in public. The sharp, messy, petty, overthinking, too-much-and-not-enough-at-once version of her.

And he never asked her to be. Not because he was selfless or saintly, Merlin knew he wasn’t, but because he didn’t expect her to be anything else. Because he lived in the unspoken, the unsaid, the sidelong glances and shared silences where performance died and something else, something more honest, existed.

He never asked her to explain the roughness of her edges or sand them down. Never demanded softness where it didn’t live. With him, she didn’t have to be palatable. She could just be.

Because somewhere in that space, Lily had once allowed herself to wonder if maybe — maybe — he saw her the way no one else did. Not as something beautiful or exceptional, but as something real. And maybe, for a flicker of a second, that meant he felt something. Maybe he did have feelings for her, even if he never said it, even if she never wanted to say she wanted him to.

But she used to lie about it. She’d tell Mary, tell Esther, tell herself — No. He doesn’t like me. He is my friend, my best mate. She’d shake her head and laugh it off. “Severus? No. He’s known me since we were, like, nine. He’s not like that.”

And she believed it. Mostly.

Except she didn’t. Not really.

Because there were moments. Fleeting, charged, uncomfortable moments. When his eyes lingered too long. When his voice dipped in a way it didn’t for others. When she said something biting and he didn't flinch, just looked at her like he saw her, and chose to stay anyway.

But then summer came. They spoke too much again. Too much of everything and nothing at all at once. He was different. The very same Severus was more uninterested in what she had to say, or at least looked like it. Yet sometimes, he still looked at her that way. And clinging onto those not really important thoughts, she sent a real one — a letter, not a moment, not a maybe — and he didn’t write back. It was just a simple, hey-I-am-in-London-let’s-meet.

Not a word. Not a sign. Nothing.

Did he even get it? She had cast the charm herself, made sure the spell would track it to his hands. Repeated it three times under her breath. Made it so it would only open for him. And still — nothing.

She told herself he was busy. Or angry. Or away. She told herself a dozen things just to keep from admitting the one truth that refused to be quiet.

He didn’t want to answer.

And maybe that was her answer after all. Yet again—

The telephone rang suddenly.

Lily blinked at it. For the record, she didn’t even pay for the line — it came with the lease, barely functional, barely used. No one ever called. Not really. Which meant—

It had to be one of those spells. The ones wizarding folk had just started experimenting with — cross-connection charms that let a magical voice ride through Muggle wiring. Not entirely legal, as Remus had mentioned once, half-amused and half-wary. “They’re fiddling with boundaries they barely understand,” he’d said. “It won’t be Ministry-sanctioned until someone blows up a switchboard.”

And yet.

She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Lily?” Peter’s voice, breathless and crackling at the edges like it had been strained through static and spellwork. “Are you free right now?”

Her stomach tightened. “What happened?”

“There was—well, not huge—but a small ambush. The boys were on their way back from a drop, and they got hit.”

“Is anyone hurt?”

“James took a bad cut. Frank’s rattled. We’re at mine and Remus’s. Can you come?” His voice dipped. 

“Did you call Mary?” Lily asked, since she was the only one with proper healing experience.

“Yes, she is on her way with Marls.”

Peter’s voice crackled again through the line. “They could really use you.”

Lily blinked, already halfway to grabbing her coat. “Wait—what’s the address again? I forgot where you two ended up.”

There was a shuffle, maybe of him covering the receiver, then; “Uh—Rosewell Lane, Number 12. You know after that shut down old pub on the road by the—”

She paused. “That’s on the way to Egham, Pete.” Then after a pause, “how do you guys even afford that—”

“Yeah, well,” he said, a little sheepish, “it’s convenient for Remus. Don’t ask me.”

Lily exhaled through her nose, not quite annoyed, not quite amused. “Fine. I’ll be there soon.”

“Thanks, Lily,” he said, softer now. “Really.”

And she apparated there in exactly ten minutes to find five idiots laying with their backs to the wall in the supposed living room that wasn’t so livable. 

James was slouched against the base of a bookshelf with his shirt half-unbuttoned and a poorly wrapped bandage around his shoulder. Frank sat nearby with his head tilted back, staring at the ceiling like it held the answers to every mistake made that night. Gideon Prewett was nursing a split lip and quietly trying not to bleed on the rug, while Fabian—remarkably less wrecked—leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed, muttering something sarcastic about amateur tactics. A fifth boy, Evan Mulhern — new to all this and looking it — was cradling his wand hand like it had been hexed to sleep.

Mary was kneeling beside James, helping out Frank who kept saying how much he missed his wife, already pulling out a fresh roll of gauze. Marlene, meanwhile, was perched on the windowsill beside Sirius, who was casually smoking like the night hadn’t just nearly ended in a bloodbath. The cigarette hung between his fingers, the smoke curling into the weak lamplight while he murmured something that made Marlene smirk.

“Nice to see the cavalry survived,” Lily said, letting her bag fall to the ground with a soft thump.

James lifted his eyes to her and smiled, a little crooked. “You always show up after the fun part’s over.”

“That depends,” she replied, surveying the room. “Was the fun part when you got hexed in the ribs, or when you tried to patch it yourself with duct tape?”

“Duct tape is versatile,” he muttered.

Marlene raised her eyebrows. “He did, actually.”

Lily sighed. “Of course he did.”

She crouched down beside him. “Hold still.”

“I’m always still for you,” James murmured.

“Bleeding doesn’t count as still, Potter,” Lily said, and pressed the gauze into his side. He winced. She didn’t apologize.

“I’m also bleeding. My meat can be seen—” Gideon declared dramatically from the other end of the room, lifting his shirt to reveal a nasty gash across his side.

“Lemme see,” Sirius said, stubbing out his cigarette on the windowsill as he moved toward him, all mock concern. “Where exactly is the meat, Gid? Gotta know if we’re talking butcher’s quality or just overcooked sausage.”

“There,” Gideon said, pointing as he grimaced. “It’s practically a steak.”

“More like a paper cut with delusions of grandeur,” Fabian muttered, not looking up from the kettle he was now attempting to charm into boiling.

“Hey, I bleed like everyone else,” Gideon shot back.

“No,” Lily said dryly, not looking up from James. “You bleed louder.”

Sirius barked a laugh, then gestured at the growing stain on Gideon’s shirt. “Still, better have Mary look at it before it starts falling out of you”

Mary, already halfway over with her kit, gave a tight smile. “Honestly, I’m thinking of charging you all by the pint.”

“Switch to galleons, love. You’d be rich by next month,” Marlene said, still perched by the window, her voice wry. “They’re bleeding and reckless. It’s like being friends with particularly arrogant livestock.”

“Hey!” James protested.

Lily just pressed down harder on the bandage. “Don’t move.”

“Sorry, Evans.” He looked at her with a half smile half smirk. “After you left, I went to Pads’ and, well, I am wounded now.”

“Wait, where is Remus?” Lily had asked suddenly, realizing he was not in his own apartment.

Peter glanced over from where he was helping Fabian with something burn-related. His face tightened. “Basement.”

Lily blinked. “He’s alone?”

“Didn’t want company,” Sirius said, not looking up. He was still flicking ash near the open window, jaw tense in a way that made the whole room quieter for a second.

“He said it was easier that way,” James added after a moment, voice quieter now. “Didn’t want anyone getting hurt. Locked himself in earlier. We checked—he reinforced everything. Even charmed the floorboards.”

Lily’s stomach twisted. “Still,” she said, standing, wiping her hands on her jeans. “It’s not right.”

“Oh, Evans—” James started.

Lily cut him off. “I’m not going in,” she said. “I just—he shouldn’t be alone. Not like that.”

“Save the theatrics, Evans,” Sirius muttered, flicking ash a little too sharply out the window. His voice was tight, casual in the way people get when they’re trying very hard not to sound nervous. “Not everything needs your dramatic touch.”

“Excuse you?” Lily snapped, turning toward Sirius with her hands now planted firmly on her hips.

The room froze for a moment — James glanced between them, mouth half-open, while Fabian actually stopped mid-sip of tea. Even Gideon raised an eyebrow, which was rare.

Lily didn’t lower her voice. “You’re all out here, wounded and whining, acting like you’ve survived something monumental — when the one person who actually needed someone tonight is locked up and alone.”

Sirius’s jaw clenched. “It’s not that simple—”

“It is,” she cut in. “Instead of wandering around like a bunch of idiots looking for trouble, maybe you should have considered that today — of all days — wasn’t about looking brave. It was about being there for him. With him. Not here. Not like this.”

Nobody spoke.

Lily exhaled, sharper this time. “But no, of course not. Because you’d rather fight curses and brag about duct tape than sit with someone who’s scared of himself.”

James finally said, gently, “Lily—”

“I’m not mad,” she interrupted, voice lower now, but still burning. “I just think… if you love him as much as you say you do, start acting like it on the nights that matter.”

“Oh, piss off–”

“Pads.” James cleared his throat.

“No, James, respectfully,” he stood up, his hands pointing around. “I have been — we all, four of us — have been there for Moony since we’ve known him, Evans. You don’t even have the slightest idea—”

“I don’t have the slightest idea?” Lily rose up, anger rising within her voice. “Shall I remind you what happened at the Whomping Willow , Black?” 

Sirius’s eyes darkened. “Snape deserved his greasy nose to get ripped off that night, and you know it.”

Lily stepped forward before she could stop herself, her voice cutting like ice. “How dare you speak like that? He could have died , Sirius.”

“Oh, come off it,” Sirius snapped. “Why do you even care? Or wait—don’t tell me you still think he’s some poor misunderstood genius. Need I remind you what he used to call you?”

James muttered sharply, “Padfoot, don’t—”

“A mudblood, Evans. A fucking mudblood.” Sirius reminded Lily with pure maddening anger in his voice.

“Okay, Pads, I think that’s—”

“No, go ahead, repeat it ten times more” Lily said, lips tight. “Because I remember. Better than you. But funny, isn’t it—how one slur from someone like him turns your stomach, and you think it makes him vile for life, but you—”

“Evans—” James tried again.

“—you think throwing ‘Mudblood’ back in my face, like you’re allowed to measure who’s better at cruelty? Like you’ve earned the right?”

“You think I’m like him ?” he barked. “You think I said that to hurt you? I am trying to remind you, who you are defending, you stupid damned witch!”

James’s face flinched at the word witch , not because it was wrong (technically, Lily was a witch, just not stupid or damned), but because Sirius spat it with the same venom he used for words like greasy git , Snivellus or you lunatic cunt (his creativity in swear words never failed). And Lily—Lily didn’t flinch at all.

“Jesus, what is wrong with you—” Fabian muttered.

“Oh, please ,” Sirius laughed bitterly, practically screaming. “I’ve been fighting against people like him since I was born . I left everything—my name, my home—because I’m not like them.” Sirius’s fists curled, trembling slightly, but it wasn’t fear. It was fury—misplaced and swelling, like a dam ready to break. 

“You think just because you turned your back on your parents, it makes you good?” Lily shot back.

James stood abruptly, his ribs still in pain. “Alright—enough.”

Sirius turned toward her, eyes wild, as if daring her to keep going. “You don’t know a bloody thing about what runs in my family, blood, all that.”

Lily didn’t back down. “Don’t I? Because it’s written all over you, Black. The temper. The pride. The way you light matches just to watch who burns. You think being angry makes you different from them? You’re not. You’re exactly what your cousin Bellatrix wants to see in the mirror — all fire and violence, no control, no thought.”

Sirius’s face went white. Not pale— white , drained and tight with a quiet, shaking rage.

“Take that back.”

“No,” Lily said, stepping forward now, voice deadly quiet. “Because you needed to hear it. You think you’re better than them because you scream louder. But you still think the only way to prove something is by hurting someone.”

“You think I haven’t bled for this war?” Sirius snarled. “You think I haven’t paid for it—”

“Oh, you’ve bled,” Lily snapped, “but you bleed only when it gets you a story to tell. You’d rather storm a Ministry building with your ribs half-broken than sit in a room with someone and ask them how they’re doing.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Sirius bit back. “You’ve done what, exactly? Cried about boys that you broke up with?”

James moved between them, more firmly this time. “That’s enough, both of you.”

But Lily’s voice sliced through the room. “You want to measure pain, Sirius? Fine. But don’t forget—Remus never needed your fists. He needed your presence. And tonight, you gave him your absence instead by simply choosing to ‘accidentally’ pick a fight with a pack of wannabe Death Eaters.”

Sirius opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Then she looked back at Sirius, and her voice dropped, but it only made it land harder. “You keep acting like you hate your brother so much, but the truth is, the lines between you and him are starting to blur. You don’t have to wear a Mark to forget how to show up for someone.”

The silence hit like a body blow.

And then quietly, from the back of the room, Marlene said with very little understanding of why everybody was so pestered about Remus’s ill health, “She’s right.” 

It landed with a thud.

Even James didn’t argue.

Sirius dropped his cigarette, crushed it under his boot, and walked out the room. No words. Just the sound of the door slamming hard enough to shake the frame.

“What a fucking bitch!” He screamed outside the room, loud enough for everybody to hear.

“And I was the one who needed to save the theatrics.” Lily chuckled bitterly.

“Did he—?” 

“Yep, you all heard it.” Mary tiredly, wrapped the bandage on Gideon’s thigh, then took a glance at Lily. “Don’t pay attention to him, Lils. You know how stupid blokes can sound when they are angry.”

Marlene added, her voice dry and laced with disdain. “Right. Because that’s the adult man’s response.”

“Don’t,” James said, but it came out weak. Automatic.

“No, Potter, I will,” Mary snapped. “Because someone needed to say it hours ago. If Sirius Black can’t handle being told the truth without setting the house on fire, maybe he’s not the martyr he thinks he is.”

Peter mumbled, “He didn’t mean it like that—”

“Yes, he did,” Lily said, finally turning back to the room. Her voice wasn’t raised. It didn’t need to be. “He meant every syllable. Because he needed to feel like the most wounded person in the room again. And just as soon as the attention was given to somebody else, who, let me remind you, is very much currently absent within this room, he got irritated.”

Mary had paused in the middle of wrapping Gideon’s shoulder, the bandage held limp in her hands. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look that angry before.”

“That wasn’t anger,” Lily said. “That was shame.”

James took a breath as though he aged ten years more after this argument.

“Well,” Fabian muttered, still holding the now-boiled kettle, “looks like that was the real bloodbath tonight.”

A short, bitter laugh bubbled from Marlene. “We really know how to throw a war council.”

James ran a hand through his hair, defeated. “He’ll come back.”

“Of course he will,” Lily said without looking at him. “He always comes back. Doesn’t mean he’ll say sorry.”

Fabian poured tea into mismatched mugs. “He won’t.”

“I know.” Lily took the cup offered to her and stared into it. “But I didn’t say it for him.”

James raised his head, watching her now, something unreadable in his expression.

Lily exhaled, curling her fingers around the mug. “I said it for Remus.”

They all looked toward the basement door. Still shut. Still silent (more likely silenced.)

And in that moment, the noise outside — Sirius’s boots crunching down the walk, the sharp crack of his Disapparition — felt small compared to the quiet weight that remained.

Chapter Text

“I hate it when you do it.”

“Do what?” 

“You know the ‘proper’ English thing.”

Mary chuckled. “I only do it because sometimes people just do not understand what I’m saying.” Then added after a pause, “But that only happens in London, you know.”

“You did it back in school too.” Lily exhaled the smoke as Mary painted her nails on her feet. 

“You would suddenly sound all proper and … posh. Especially when you spoke to guys!” Lily laughed, raising her foot to poke Mary.

“I did not ,” Mary huffed, waving her hand, smudging a toe. “Bloody hell, look what you made me do!”

Lily snorted. “That’s what you get for faking accents.”

“It’s not faking,” Mary said indignantly, reaching for a cotton pad. “It’s adapting. I’m a woman of the world.”

“You are from Liverpool!”

“Yes, but was born in Manchester. And my family now lives in Leeds.”

“Basically, the same thing. You are from the north!”

Mary gasped. “You take that back. That’s blasphemy. You might as well say Yorkshire’s the same as Lancashire.”

“Isn’t it?” Lily grinned, wicked.

“ I will hex you where you sit, Evans.”

Lily raised her hands in mock surrender, the cigarette wobbling between her fingers. “Alright, alright. Merlin, the pride.”

“I have layers,” Mary said, smudging another toe but pretending she didn’t notice. “Northern, yes. But cosmopolitan. Sophisticated. Occasionally intelligible.”

Lily burst out laughing. “You once called the Astronomy Tower ‘dead high, that.’”

“Well, it was ! And I was cold ! And it was mid-January! ” Mary flailed, nearly knocking over the nail polish bottle.

“God, I missed you,” Lily said suddenly, softer this time.

Mary looked up, her grin softening at the edges. “I missed you too. Even though you used to nick my socks and pretend the wind took them.”

“It did ,” Lily insisted, trying to keep a straight face. “Wind’s very particular about socks, especially mismatched ones.”

“Oh, shut up,” Mary laughed, tossing a cushion at her. “I found one stuffed behind your Charms textbook.”

“Wind has excellent aim.”

They both broke into giggles again, the kind that shook shoulders and made your stomach ache a bit after. For a moment, it felt like nothing had changed—no war, no silence between letters, no goodbyes said too soon.

“I still think you fake your accent when boys are around,” Lily said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

Mary gave her a scandalised look. “ You dated a boy who said ‘quidditch’ with a ‘ch’ like a sneeze. You don’t get to judge.”

Lily fell over laughing. “I forgot about that!”

“I haven’t,” Mary said solemnly. “I still hear it in my nightmares. ‘Quidditchhh.’ Like he’s trying to summon a dragon with hay fever.”

“He was Irish, I think?”

“So what? My dad’s Jamaican, yet sounds pretty Scouser to me.”

They laughed until the smoke faded and the nail polish dried a little too patchy. Just girls being girls again, in a world trying too hard to make them anything but.

Mary leaned back on her hands, squinting at her toes like they’d betrayed her. “These look like I dipped them in strawberry jam and gave up halfway.”

“They look charmingly tragic,” Lily said, flicking ash into an empty mug. “Very on brand.”

“Thanks. I’ll start a trend. War-time chic. Smudged toes, definitely all over your toes.”

Lily hummed. “We’d sell out by morning.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the kind that wasn’t heavy, just… full. The kind that didn’t need filling.

Mary finally sighed. “Can we just stay like this forever?”

“No boys, no missions, no weird Order meetings where Moody throws knives at fruit?”

“Exactly,” Mary nodded. “Just cigarettes, bad pedicures, and you bullying my accent.”

Lily smiled, soft and lopsided. “Deal.”

“It’s so unfair that you don’t have an accent. Like you know thick Midlands would look so funny on you.”

“Not my fault my mum’s a teacher. Literature teacher.”

“Last time I asked your father about his origins, he said he was born in Sheffield, soooooo …. Basically you are just as northern as me.”

“Aye, bu’ me mum’s from London.” Lily said with a northern accent in a mid-half-laugh.

Mary nearly dropped the nail polish. “ What was that?! ”

Lily burst out laughing. “That was me being you!”

“No, that was you being possessed by a ghost from Coronation Street. Don’t ever do that again.”

“Oh come on,” Lily grinned, still giggling. “It was quite good!”

“You sounded like a chimney sweep in a school play.”

“That’s rich coming from someone who asked if Sirius Black has any ‘chuddy’!’”

Mary clutched her chest. “You promised never to bring that up!”

Lily cackled. “You did ! Right in front of Potter too—”

“I was nervous! And I wanted gum!”

“You called it chuddy !”

“That’s what it’s called where I’m from!”

“It is called gum in the whole entirety of Britain, what do you mean?! And not to mention, you keep bringing up my awful exes.”

“Fine. Truce, but I did not mention James till now.” Mary waved her brush like a white flag. “But only if you promise not to butcher the North again.”

Lily raised three fingers. “Scout’s honour, and fuck you.”

“You weren’t in Scouts. And I love you too.”

“No, but I dated one. Briefly. He cried when I beat him at Gobstones.”

Mary cackled. “God, we’re tragic.”

“The most tragic,” Lily agreed, kicking her foot up again. “But at least we’ve got nice—well, passably painted —toes.”

“And bad habits,” Mary added, lighting another cigarette.

They clinked their nail polish bottles together like wine glasses.

“To being properly unfit for society.”

“To never learning better.”

And they sat like that in Lily’s awfully long and very tight kitchen — Lily’s legs practically on Mary’s lap, and Mary’s feet crossed right on the very same chair she sat on. 

It was so easy being just a girl with no care within the walls of your apartment with your girl best friend. Suddenly, life felt so much less demanding, and so much less depreciating, so much less confusing, yet very numbing. 

until the ticking of the old clock above the stove reminded them that time, unlike nail polish, didn’t wait to dry.

The hour had grown late without either of them noticing. Somewhere in the distance, a car door slammed, followed by a barking dog, and the muffled rattle of sirens several streets away. London never really slept — it just turned its lights down low and let the static hum.

Mary nudged Lily’s knee with her toe. “You alright?”

Lily blinked. “Yeah. Just thinking.”

Mary didn’t push. She never had to. That was the thing about old friends — they knew when to ask and when not to.

“It’s weird,” Lily said after a moment, reaching to stub out the cigarette. “How sometimes I forget there’s a war. Like—” she waved vaguely at the cramped kitchen, “—like this could be it. Just… this. You, me, banter, and nail polish in mugs.”

Mary smiled faintly. “It is it. For tonight. That’s the point, innit?”

Lily nodded, but there was something distant in her eyes, like the kind of fog that clings just above the ground. “I worry that we’re gonna look back at these moments and realise they were the last normal ones.”

“Maybe.” Mary shrugged. “But I’d rather have them than not. I’d rather remember laughing till my stomach hurt than counting how many of our friends didn’t make it.”

That hit like a quiet thud in the chest.

Lily looked down at her hands, chipped polish, ink stains from earlier, a scar from something in third year she couldn’t quite recall anymore. “I keep thinking I should be doing more.”

“You already are,” Mary said. “You exist. You care. You fight in the ways you know how.”

Lily looked up, her expression unsure. “But is it enough?”

“For now,” Mary said gently. “And when it’s not, you’ll do more. That’s just who you are.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward — it was thick, a balm, shared and held like old photos in a fireproof box.

“I had sex with someone.” Mary said abruptly, like she had to get it out of her chest.

Lily blinked. “You—you what?”

Mary still didn’t look at her. She kept her eyes on her patchy toenails, lips pressed together, voice lighter than it had any right to be. “Couple weeks ago. He was older. Not like ancient or anything. Maybe ten years? Maybe less. Or more. I didn’t ask. Didn’t care.”

Lily sat up straighter, gauging her. “Was it… okay?”

Mary gave a small shrug. “Yeah. Actually. It was—really good.” She paused, then added with an awkward laugh, “Hurt a bit at first. But then it was nice. Like… I could actually feel my body again. Like it was mine.”

Lily didn’t know what to say. She nodded, too quickly, trying to match Mary’s tone, unsure whether to joke or listen or both.

“I hadn’t done anything since sixth year,” Mary continued, more to her toenails than to Lily. “Not even snogged anyone. Not properly.”

And then, quieter; “You remember sixth year, don’t you?”

Lily did. She remembered the whispers. The parties. The boys. The changing hair colours and smudged eyeliner. The way Mary started laughing louder, dressing bolder, kissing strangers like she was proving something none of them could name. And before that—

Mulciber.

Fifth year.

Lily’s stomach tightened.

“Yeah,” Lily said gently. “I remember.”

Mary nodded, jaw working like she was trying not to cry and failing anyway. “I went completely off the rails. Like—I was either angry or fiesty or pretending I was both. And then someone—some girl, I don’t even remember who—asked if I was sure about Mulciber. Like, if I was sure it even happened. And suddenly I was a slag with a story. And not even a believable one.”

“Mary—”

“So I stopped.” She exhaled, voice cracking at the end. “Just… cold turkey. Didn’t touch anyone. Didn’t want to. I hated everyone. Including me.”

Lily reached over, hand on hers without asking. Warm and steady.

“I’m sorry,” Lily said. “I should’ve said more. Or done more.”

“You did,” Mary said. “You stayed. That’s more than most people.”

They sat with that for a moment. Not the silence from before — this one had edges. This one hurt.

“So,” Mary sniffed, wiping under her nose with the back of her hand, “this guy — he didn’t know any of that. About school. About Mulciber. About sixth year. About me, really. And for once, I didn’t have to prove I wasn’t broken.”

Lily squeezed her hand. “You’re not.”

“I know. But back then I thought I was. I thought if I dressed a certain way or acted a certain way or let boys treat me like a joke, I could get ahead of it. You know? Make it my choice.”

“I know.”

Mary finally looked at her, eyes rimmed red but steady. “But this time was good. Just good. And that felt revolutionary.”

Lily smiled, a little brokenly. “You deserve good.”

“I hope he wasn’t married or anything.”

“Gosh, Mary.” Lily tried to not laugh. 

“What? That would be a shame. First shag in three years and with a married man. I mean to be fair he wasn’t that old—”

“Mary–”

“And he did look fit, y’know–”

“Mary MacDonald.”

“What, Lils, I was just saying–”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, you know that, right?”

Mary paused mid-ramble, lips parted like she had one more joke to throw — but it never landed. Her expression shifted, something quieter settling over her face. “Yeah,” she said, blinking down at their hands. “I know. I just… I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like I do.”

Lily squeezed her fingers again. “You don’t. Not to me.”

Silence again, softer now. Not heavy. Just honest.

Mary let out a breath, half a laugh, half a sigh. “It’s mad, isn’t it? That I still get scared of someone’s gonna twist it. That it’s all gonna be another story they get to own.”

Lily’s voice was steady. “Then let it be yours. Every part. The bad, the good. The sexy older maybe -married man.”

“Okay, okay, nuff’ about men. Tell me how is your work thing? The apothecary down the Diagon Alley, right? I should pay you a visit once when it’s your shift.”

“Please, do not.” 

She chuckled with a tint of anxiety in her voice slowly dimming the tone of her voice. The work at Apothecary wasn’t the hardest, sure, yet it being located somewhere on the Diagon Alley made it less and less tolerable. 

The owner of the shop was from the prominent family of the potioneers, who had specialized in healing potions and whatnot for centuries, and even they were considering shutting the store for some time with all the uncertainties happening around the magical London. It surely was alarming. There was nothing peaceful about this, and it had worried many shop owners around the alley. 

Obviously, Lily couldn’t afford being unemployed, but neither could she afford her safety. It was just the fact that simply going to work everyday felt like the most tense and worrisome part of the day. She would clutch her bag closer to herself, walk faster, and have her ears perked up at any sound. Nobody would enjoy that, especially Lily Evans who was never in her own head half the time she was walking anywhere.

“Lily?” Mary asked, seeing her friend fade in her own thoughts.

“Yes, Mary?” Lily turned her gaze on Mary, who suddenly looked concerned.

“Are you alright?”

“Of course, I am, what kind of a question is that?” Lily chuckled nervously at the absurdity of the question.

“Well, be alright.” Mary smiled. “You seemed a bit lost to me tha’s all.” Then with a  hint of mischief in her eyes, she asked. “Any man on the horizon? Is there someone who should be blamed for this gloomy Lily?” Mary nudged her knee again, teasing grin curling her lip.

Lily huffed, playing it off. “Nothing’s going on. I told you — there’s no one.”

Mary squinted at her like she was reading a map she knew by heart. “No one now, maybe. But last summer — remember that Muggle boy you went out with? Simon, was it?”

“I never even told you his name!” Lily said, her voice getting pitched higher and higher.

“I don’t know why I thought his name was Simon– Anyway, he exists! That’s more than enough!” Mary exclaimed enthusiastically, like a boyfriend or anything similar to that would be helpful to Lily.

“His name is John if that helps.” She added to the not so perfectly carved lie. The idea that Mary named this non-existent muggle with a name that starts with S creeped her out for no rational reason. 

“Well, is this Johnny-boy fit?” 

“Ehh, he is alright.” She scrunched her nose, trying to find a right depiction. “A bit too skinny.”

“Well, you never liked them sporty anyway. I remember how we, girls, were shocked when you said Jamie is just ‘alright, I guess.’” Mary chuckled at the memory. “You liked that American actor, what’s his name … the one who played a gangster in that long never ending movie.”

“Mary, I have liked too many of them.”

Mary let out a roll of laughter, pointing the nail brush at her like a wand. “Ha! Exactly. See, that’s the problem with you. Too many pretend men, not enough real ones.”

Lily rolled her eyes so hard it nearly hurt. “Thank you for that stellar analysis of my romantic failings.”

“I’m just saying—” Mary leaned forward conspiratorially, lowering her voice like the kitchen walls might gossip — “you could use something real . Even if it’s just a bit of fun. Especially now. Makes the rest of it feel less… you know. Endless.”

Lily busied herself picking at a smudge of polish on her toe. “And ‘Johnny-boy’ is your solution to the endless war ?”

Mary snorted. “If he’s got nice hands and a working mouth—might help.”

Lily let out a loud laughter, the one that hurt in the ribs. It covered the tight coil in her chest just fine. “You’re vile.”

“Practical,” Mary corrected primly. “Anyway, what happened with him? This John. The skinny Muggle.”

Lily hesitated just a beat too long. “He… we drifted.” She shrugged, trying to sound offhand. “Two different worlds. Too different.” then added silently. “I don’t even think he liked me. I may have romanticized the bloody shark movie too much.”

Mary’s face softened, and for a second Lily hated it — that soft pity in her friend’s eyes. “His loss.”

“Obviously,” Lily agreed, too fast, too bright. She forced her mouth into a grin that felt thin as parchment. “Next time I’ll try for someone with a bit more substance. Maybe I’ll run away with that American actor.”

Mary rolled her eyes, reaching for the cigarette pack again. “You’d run away and then get bored halfway through France.”

“Oh, if it’s Al Pacino, he is not getting rid of me.”

“Is it the short one? Lils, you will have short tiny kids.”

“Well, great. I don’t like the whole carrying a ten pound thing between my ribs anyway.”

Mary burst out laughing so suddenly she nearly flicked ash onto Lily’s knee. “You’re awful . Merlin, remind me never to let you near my future children. You’ll terrify them out of ever reproducing.”

“Good,” Lily shot back, grinning wide enough that it almost felt real. “The world’s too full anyway.”

Mary hummed, half-amused, half-thoughtful, tapping ash into the mug. “Still. Imagine you — Mrs Pacino. Living in New York. Drinking bad coffee in some dingy diner. Wearing sunglasses indoors like an arse.”

Lily leaned her head back against the cupboard door, eyelids fluttering shut for a second. “Sounds nice. Better than this.”

Mary made a small sound in her throat, not quite a laugh. “You’d hate it after a week. You’d miss the rain. And your mum. And your da’s weird toast.”

“I would,” Lily admitted, voice a touch softer. She cracked one eye open just in time to catch Mary watching her again — that look, too gentle, too knowing.

Mary caught eye contact and smirked to break it. “Anyway. If you do find your gangster husband, promise me cake at the wedding.”

“You’d spike it with Firewhisky.”

“Obviously,” Mary sniffed. “What else are best friends for?”

They both laughed — a quieter laugh this time, rolling around the cramped kitchen like they could bottle it for later. For a moment it felt fine — silly, harmless, two girls spinning lies and daydreams to patch over the cracks.

When it faded, Lily looked back down at her toes, the polish smudged and half-dry. Too different. Two different worlds. She didn’t mean John. Not really. Not ever.

She reached for the cigarette pack, just to have something to hold. “Pass me the lighter?”

Mary slid it over without a word, her fingers brushing Lily’s for half a second too long.

Neither of them said it — but both felt the ghost of it hovering, just past the kitchen door.

“Are you staying the night?” Lily asked, with a flicker of hope that her best friend would stay.

“Can I?”

“Are you mental?”

“Okay, I planned to stay until you asked anyway.” Mary kicked her heel against Lily’s shin, just enough to make her yelp. “Rude way to ask, by the way. I expect tea and your dreadful spare pillow. Besides — tomorrow’s a meeting anyway. We can go together.”

Lily groaned, tipping her head back against the cupboard door. “Why is it half the bloody country this time again? Last time it was all London, the time before that was Sheffield, and for the record I nearly splinched myself twice back then, now it’s—”

“It’s just a small place in Coventry, don’t whine,” Mary cut in, rolling her eyes as she reached for the tea tin. “Not even an hour on the train.”

“Still,” Lily muttered, drawing circles in the cigarette ash with her fingertip, “nothing good ever happens in Coventry.”

Mary snorted as she set the kettle on the hob. “Nothing good ever happens anywhere these days. Might as well complain about the sandwiches while you’re at it.”

Lily cracked a grin despite herself. “Those sandwiches were an abomination. Who puts tinned ham next to pickled eggs?”

“Mad-Eye Moody, that’s who. ‘Protein,’ he said.” Mary mimicked his gruff bark, dropping her voice two octaves. “‘Protein and vinegar keep you sharp, Evans.’”

Lily barked out a laugh that made her ribs hurt in the best possible way. “We’re all going to die of food poisoning before the Death Eaters even get to us.”

Mary shrugged, rummaging through the chipped mugs. “Eh. Better than a Cruciatus.”

“Comforting,” Lily deadpanned, flicking ash into the mug that was now just as much an ashtray as a cup.

Mary grinned at her over her shoulder. “Go get your tragic spare pillow. And your spare socks. And your spare blanket that smells like your mum’s dog.”

Lily pushed herself up with a sigh, cigarette bobbing between her lips. “Only if you promise to make the tea properly.”

“Bossy cow.”

“Your favourite bossy cow.”

Lily went to get the additional pillows for her as Mary made the tea for them. It was the comforting presence of somebody that made Lily motivated to not just take care of herself but also care enough to move, to fuss, to pretend this cramped kitchen was a fortress against the rest of it.

She tugged the old spare pillow from the top shelf, a lopsided thing she’d meant to replace ages ago. The blanket was next, folded under an old winter coat that still smelled faintly of her mum’s laundry powder. She tucked the whole bundle under one arm, flicked ash into the hallway bin with the other, and nudged the door to the living room open with her hip.

She heard the faint clink of mugs and the kettle hiss as Mary fussed at the stove. The big ginger cat, lazy king of the flat, appeared out of nowhere to weave between Lily’s ankles, tail flicking impatiently.

“Oh, now you’re awake,” Lily muttered around the cigarette, bending to rub his head with her free hand. “You only love me when there’s warm laps and warm mugs, you fraud.”

“Oh, hi, what was his name?” 

“Conney. As in Connery. I call him both.” Lily said, her head underneath the shelf.

Mary let out a short laugh, loud enough to rattle the spoons in the mug she was stirring. “ Connery ? You named your cat after Sean bloody Connery ?”

Lily pulled her head out from under the shelf, pillow half slipping from under her arm. She gave Mary a look — the kind that was half dare, half caught-off-guard confession. “It suits him.”

“He’s fat and ginger!” Mary grinned, pouring the tea like she was about to spill more than milk. “What’s so Bond about that?”

“First of all, he is just big boned. He is just a few months old. Second of all, I didn’t expect him to fatten up this young. And what’s wrong with gingers?”

Mary snorted into the steam rising from her mug. “Whatever. I always said I like gingers. No problem with gingers.”

Lily raised an eyebrow as she wrangled the blanket onto the sofa, Conney immediately hopping up to claim his patch like he’d been summoned. “Since when?”

“Since always.” Mary shrugged, grinning like a cat herself. “You know that.”

Lily clicked her tongue, dropping the pillow next to Conney’s smug coil of fur. “Well, you can’t have this one. He’s mine.”

“Tragic,” Mary said, pretending to sigh as she set the mugs down with a soft clink. “Stuck with the only ginger in London who doesn’t pay rent.”

Lily scratched Conney’s head, letting him nuzzle her knuckles. “He pays in his helpful presence, well not like helpful, but emotionally supportive if you will. Oh, and they literally gave him to me for free when I was leaving from work. He was way smaller though. He is like five month now.”

“Five months and already living like an old man.” Mary took a sip of her tea, eyes twinkling over the rim. “Honestly, Evans, naming your cat after your secret crush. Tragic.”

“It’s not —” Lily started, too quick, then caught herself, pressing her lips together in a crooked half-smile. “It’s not a secret . And I always fancied Sean Connery.”

Mary barked out another laugh, sharper this time. “Right. Sorry, can’t keep up with the list.” She set the mugs on the tiny table, the steam curling between them like a promise. “Next you’ll get another cat and call him Redford.”

Lily rolled her eyes so hard she almost saw the back of her head. “Over my dead body. His blue eyes always creeped me out, love.”

“Well, you love Conney.” Mary reached out to rub Conney’s head, earning a lazy swat of a tail in reply.

Lily looked at the cat — all smug orange fur and slow blink — and sighed. “Yeah, well. He’s all I’ve got.”

Mary’s grin softened into something smaller, kinder. “You’ve got me too, idiot.”

After a while they both ran their homely errands, they fell asleep with Mary ending up with a dead arm, mouths drooling and make-up from earlier definitely not taken. Entangled on a small single sized bed, the girls felt like they were again thirteen, falling asleep in what usually happened to be Mary’s bed, after an hour of giggles and fiery discussions about boys and girls. 

For a night, it was easier to breathe. 

When morning came, it crept in soft and gray through the thin curtain, bringing the smell of the city with it — damp brick, distant toast burning somewhere three floors down, the faint rattle of the bin lorry outside.

Mary woke first, her dead arm pinned under Lily’s shoulder. Conney was sprawled across both their legs like a smug ginger stone, purring so loudly it almost covered Lily’s sleepy mumble when she turned her face into Mary’s collarbone.

Mary stayed still for a moment, blinking at the ceiling — the crack above the window, the peeling paint where Lily once tried to stick glow-in-the-dark stars that never stuck. She could feel her hair stuck to her cheek, her mascara ghosted under her eyes, and Lily’s breath warm where it shouldn’t be.

“Evans,” she whispered, but Lily just snuffled and burrowed closer, still half under the threadbare blanket that smelled faintly of laundry powder and cat.

“Evans, wake up, you’re breathing on me tit.” 

Lily let out a half-coherent grunt against Mary’s collarbone. “M’not. S’warm.”

Mary snorted, trying to wriggle her shoulder free without tipping both of them onto the floor. “Your bloody cat’s got half my foot and you’ve got the rest of me, so unless you plan on carrying me to Coventry, shift over.”

Lily only hummed in reply, her voice muffled and scratchy with sleep. “Five more minutes.”

“Merlin’s balls, Evans,” Mary sighed, but she didn’t push her off — just let her lie there a beat longer, her fingers brushing a knot of Lily’s hair where it fanned across her chest.

Conney chose that exact moment to stretch, claws flexing against Mary’s shin, rumbling louder as if he knew he was the real king of this cold little flat.

Outside, the lorry rattled away. Somewhere down the street, a shop shutter banged open. Another ordinary day pretending not to be war.

“Five minutes, then you’re up,” Mary murmured, tapping Lily’s shoulder with two fingers. “And you’re making the tea. I’m not your maid.”

“My maid of honor.”

“I am honored, but I refuse to be your maid. Now get the fuck up.”

Lily groaned as Mary hit the extra gracious pillow Lily had left for her for the night onto her head. 

“Oi.” Lily got up, her curls all over her head and face.

The two started to walk around the house — Lily trying to look humane, while Mary making breakfast like they got plenty of time.

“Where’s ham?”

“Wha’?” Lily asked, toothbrush in her mouth mid-motion.

“Ham. Where.”

Lily gave a small shrug, the universal answer for ‘no idea,’ which led to Mary panicking even more as though ham is a very important factor of the morning. 

Mary flung open the fridge door like it had personally insulted her. “No ham, no eggs — Evans, what exactly do you feed yourself on? Air and cigarettes?”

Lily spat toothpaste into the sink, her voice muffled as she rinsed. “Well, you are not that wrong.”

“Pathetic,” Mary muttered, rummaging through half-empty jars and a suspicious-looking bag of spinach that had definitely seen better days. “I’m telling you, one of these days you’ll shrivel up like Moody’s sandwiches.”

“Which,” Lily said, voice clearer now as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, “would be a mercy, considering the state of those sandwiches.”

Mary slammed the fridge shut with her hip. “Right, forget it. You’re buying me something on the way. And none of that dry station toast, Evans. I want an actual breakfast roll this time.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lily flicked a hand at her, stepping over to the small bowl by the door. She bent to scoop Connery’s food into it, the lazy ginger beast winding around her ankles like he hadn’t been fed in centuries.

“You, at least, have no standards,” Lily told him, ruffling his ears as he immediately buried his face in the bowl. “Good boy. Guard the flat while we’re gone.”

Connery didn’t even look up — his tail flicked once, dismissive.

Mary grabbed her coat from the hook, rolling her eyes at the mess of it all. “Forty-seven minutes to leave the flat. World’s slowest Gryffindor, that’s what you are.”

“Shut it,” Lily shot back, yanking her boots on, curls still half sticking up like a startled cat’s. “Ready now, aren’t I?”

Mary opened the door, a blast of cold London air sweeping in. “You’d better be. Coventry’s not going to wait for your tragic hair.”

Lily flicked the light off behind them, the last thing she saw before the door clicked shut was Connery — smug, fed, tail curling around his dish like he knew he owned the place.

Forty-seven minutes late and a bit breathless, they stepped into the gray morning, shoulders bumping as they made for the station — half awake, half bracing for whatever waited for them down the tracks.

“Why do we have to go from a Muggle train–”

“Lily, it is faster.”

“But this is London Euston–”

“C’mere, we’ll be late!”

The train ride was fine, even though Lily considered it a waste of time since they could ‘do it the witch way.’  She was glad she took a magazine with herself, and Mary, well, Mary was figuring out where to go next by using a muggle map. Very impractical, Lily thought, but Mary dismissed every single commentary on the utilized ‘tactics’ to keep the radar low. 

Mary was muttering stuff to herself as Lily had absolutely no clue what the entire fuss was about. Lily stayed clueless the whole ride — she flipped through her magazine, glanced out the window, threw Mary a few side-eyes when she started turning the map this way and that, muttering coordinates like she was plotting a war. Lily asked once — what exactly are we doing, anyway? — but got a half-mumbled you’ll see in return. So she didn’t ask again.

When they finally got off at a half-forgotten stop somewhere just outside the city, Lily realized immediately that the air smelled wrong — heavy, sharp, like the aftermath of fireworks. She barely had time to open her mouth when she spotted it: a circle of figures up ahead, wands drawn, voices raised.

“Oh, fucking cunts,” Mary hissed, tossing the crumpled map into a bin before she broke into a run.

“Wait— where’s the—” Lily started, fumbling with her bag, eyes darting to the growing mess down the street.

“Oh.”

Apparently, Lily missed out on the lecture Moody gave last week about a possible planned ambush. They were planning to lure the Death Eaters into this whatever-this-place-is-considered, so that some undercover Ministry officials could catch and relocate some imposters. Sounded simple in plan, maybe that was why Lily didn’t really consider the scale of the plan. 

The ‘small’ ambush was nowhere near small. The Order members were gravely outnumbered. It seemed as though the trap was set by the opposing side, not them, which didn’t really frighten Lily. She immediately got into the war zone spirit. Casting defenses here, there, everywhere.

She felt how a man apparated from behind and tried to grab her by her shoulders — she didn’t even flinch.

Lily pivoted on her heel, wand already up, the world around her narrowing to the crackle of magic and the slam of her heartbeat in her ears. The man barely had time to open his mouth — maybe a threat, maybe a spell — before Lily’s wand flicked sharp and clean.

“Expelliarmus!”

His wand flew out of his grip so fast it smacked against the brick wall behind her with a dull clack. She didn’t bother to watch where he fell — already spinning on her toes because she could feel, not hear, the next one.

Another one lunged from the side — dark cloak, mask half-slipping — wand aimed at her ribs. Lily’s teeth bared in something close to a grin.

“Stupefy!” she snapped, but at the last second twisted her wrist — the bolt of red light smashed into his wand hand instead. The wand skittered across the wet pavement, the man cursing as he stumbled back into a rubbish bin with a clang.

She barely had time to catch her breath — a third figure was charging at her, shouting something guttural, wand raised overhead like he thought brute force would help his aim. Idiot. Lily’s eyes narrowed, her grip tightening.

She flicked her wrist low — “Expelliarmus!” — and his wand spun into the air in a lazy arc before she caught it with her free hand like it was nothing more than a snitch on a spring afternoon.

Three down. Her hair was half out of its tie, wand steady as a knife. She turned, breath misting in the cold air, and caught Mary’s eye just as her friend hexed someone into a hedge.

“Good girl!” Mary yelled, breathless, wiping a trickle of blood from her lip. “Now do it again!”

Lily only smirked, tossing the extra wand behind her into the gutter. Come on then, she thought, turning back to the street full of shadows and sparks. Let’s see who’s next.

She looked around to see an only man without a mask. A boy pretending to be a man. Conrad Fay — the son of Barrett Fay, who was the author of “Mudbloods and How to Spot Them.” She looked around, eyes sweeping over the chaos — broken hedges, hexes ricocheting off garden walls — until they landed on him. The only one with his mask down, standing cocky at the edge of the fray like he owned the street.

Their eyes met — hers cold, his glittering with something ugly. He tilted his head, raised his wand just a fraction, and grinned at her like he’d found a game he knew he’d win.

“Well, look who we’ve got,” he called out, voice slicing through the thrum of hexes and yells. He started toward her — casual at first, then breaking into a run, boots crunching glass and gravel.

Lily’s heart hammered once, sharp and clear — but her expression didn’t flicker. She felt the magic pulse at her fingertips, the street yawning wide for just an instant.

He was almost on her when she vanished — a sharp twist of her wrist and a crack that snapped the air in two. Apparated clean out of his reach.

Conrad snarled, stumbled over where she’d been — then Disapparated after her, the echo of his crack folding into hers like a bad chord.

Lily felt her heartbeat in her throat. It was the nasty hunger in his eyes that scared her. And all she could think, dizzy with the stink of his breath, was how the masks on the others almost made it easier — how the anonymity of hoods and hexes felt fairer somehow. Cleaner. She could fight a mask. She could disarm a faceless enemy and pretend they were just another part of the rot they were all fighting. 

It made her feel smaller than the street. Smaller than her wand. Smaller than her own damn breath. For a split second she hated herself for it — hated that sharp twist of fear she’d thought she’d burned out of herself ages ago. She’d done everything right — learned every spell, every hex, every shield. She’d learned how to stand her ground.

His breath hit her ear — hot, wet, so close it made her jaw clench. The wand pressed against the soft hollow of her throat, just beneath her jawline. She could feel the cold bite of his rings digging through her coat where his other hand squeezed her shoulder — possessive, claiming, as if she were something he’d found under glass.

“Hiya, Evans,” Conrad sneered, low and gleeful, the words curling around her spine like barbed wire. She could hear the scrape of his teeth when he grinned — that grin she’d seen in the Prophet, cleaned up for cameras, now dripping filth in the dark behind her ear.

“Scream and I’ll make sure that’s the last sound you make,” he hissed. His fingers slid down, rough at her collarbone, thumb pressing just above her pulse like he was measuring it. Her stomach turned.

“Been waiting for this,” he whispered, voice thick with that same ugly thrill she’d heard behind the dorm curtains years ago — boys daring each other to say the worst thing they could imagine. “Little Mudblood prefect, all high and mighty. Think you’re special? Think you’re untouchable?”

His grip tightened. She felt the wand’s tip dig deeper — a promise.

“Should see you now, Evans. I could bend you over this car and show you what your filthy blood’s good for.” He laughed, breath puffing hot against her cheek as her knees locked, every nerve braced to run — but she couldn’t. Not yet.

“That’s all your lot can do anyway, eh?” Lily snared with hatred slipping through her teeth.

“That’s all your lot is useful for.” He snickered nastily. “Bet you’d beg for it. Bet you’d—”

CRACK.

It was so sudden she almost thought she’d imagined it — the sharp, brutal sound of air splitting behind Conrad’s back. His words caught half-formed in his throat. Lily felt him stiffen against her, felt his grip falter.

A shape materialized in the thin gap of streetlight behind Conrad’s shoulder — black robes, a mask pulled down low, rain dripping off the curve of it like a second skin. For half a second she thought she’d choke — another Death Eater — but this one didn’t speak. He just raised his wand, precise and steady, the tip aimed clean at Conrad’s temple.

Conrad whipped around halfway, confusion breaking across his face — “Wha—?”

A flash — green, merciless.

Avada Kedavra.

The words never spoken, but she felt them in the crackle of the air, the way the rain hissed on the flash of green. Conrad’s eyes froze wide, his sneer turned glassy, mouth still half-open like the filth in it was waiting to crawl out. His knees buckled. He crumpled against her shoulder, dead weight and dead silence as his body hit the cold tarmac with a dull, wet slap.

Lily staggered back, hand flying to her throat where Conrad’s grip had been. She stared at him — at the body that wasn’t even a man anymore — then up at the masked figure who’d killed him.

The Death Eater’s wand lowered an inch, rain sliding down the blank mask. He didn’t move closer — just stood there, wand still raised like he might hex the rest of the world for daring to breathe near her. For a heartbeat — two — she thought she felt something through that mask. A flicker of something she couldn’t name.

The cold settled into her bones then. The rain hit harder.

She didn’t wait for him to speak. Didn’t care to know. Didn’t care to ask . Her hand tightened on her own wand — the crack of her Apparition slicing through the night just as sharp as the one that had ended Conrad’s filth.

She landed in Cokeworth. Cold, rain slicing sideways down empty streets, the gutters overflowing under broken lamps. The old familiar smell of damp brick and coal fires. She doubled over in the alley behind her mother’s old corner shop, palms braced to the slick wall, breath fogging white in the downpour.

She stayed bent over, hands pressed to the cold, rain-slick wall, lungs heaving steam into the storm. Cokeworth wrapped around her like a wet shroud — the smell of coal, the gutters spilling over, the hum of a streetlight flickering above the corner shop sign.

Alive. Alone.

CRACK.

The sound punched her gut before she even turned — another crack of air, another presence slamming into the rain-heavy alley like a ghost from the tracks. She spun on instinct, wand up, rain dripping from her hair into her eyes.

He was there — the Death Eater. The same black cloak, the same blank mask gleaming under the yellow streetlight. His wand lowered an inch, like he might speak — or come closer — or do anything.

Lily’s fear turned so fast it scorched her throat raw. She didn’t even think — she just moved.

“Depulso! ”

She dragged him up by the collar first — half of her wanted to drop him right there in the gutter, let the rain have him. But his eyes cracked open just enough for her to see it — the ruin of him. The stupid, broken, bloody ruin of him.

“Oh you dumb-fuck,” she hissed again, like it might keep her arms from giving out.

When he’d slammed back, he’d caught the iron fence, then the streetlight — she could see the fresh gash on his temple, rain and blood mixing in a line down his cheek. His breath rattled against her shoulder as she threw his arm over her back, knees nearly buckling under his dead weight.

They Disapparated together — a slip, a crack, and the cold of Cokeworth closing around them again when they reappeared at Spinner’s End. The sky above was heavy with thunder, the streets so dark she almost slipped twice on the slick, uneven stones.

She half-dragged, half-carried him up the front steps — fumbling with the latch, shoulder slamming the warped door open. Inside, the old house smelled of stale smoke and mildew — like it hadn’t been lived in properly for weeks. Maybe months.

She didn’t bother with lights. She kicked the door shut with her heel, breath harsh in her chest, her coat dripping water all over the scuffed floorboards.

She hauled him to the old armchair by the cold hearth — the same chair she’d sat in once, years ago, when they’d still talked like friends. She let him drop into it with a grunt, his head lolling back against the worn fabric, black hair sticking to his brow.

Lily stood there, rainwater pooling at her boots, wand still clutched in her fist like she didn’t trust herself not to hex him again. She didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just stared at him — this stupid boy in a Death Eater’s cloak — while the storm rattled the broken window panes around them.

Chapter Text

Severus was not awake for the first forty minutes of Lily trying to heal his wounds in the most professional, yet also awkwardly clumsy way. 

She unbuttoned his shirt carefully to heal some of the wounds that stopped bleeding long ago, and found old bruises layered under the fresh ones — a map of violence half-familiar, half-new. Her fingers hesitated at the edge of his collarbone, wand tip hovering, breath catching at the ugly purple that bloomed beneath skin she’d once known in softer places — elbows knocked together in potions class, the brush of his shoulder in the library aisle. Now he was all sharp angles and flinching bones.

“Hold still,” she muttered to no one, really — he was out cold, rain-matted hair sticking to his forehead, mouth slack in a way that made him look stupidly young and stupidly breakable. Like he hadn’t just killed a man for her. Like he hadn’t just worn a mask .

The spell was basic — a low, steady Vulnera Sanentur , the tip of her wand tracing the bruises like she was trying to erase a memory. Sometimes she pressed too hard, anger and pity all tangled in her throat until the soft blue glow sputtered at her wand’s end.

“Idiot,” she hissed at him when the gash at his temple knitted a little too slowly for her liking. “Absolute bloody idiot.”

She conjured a damp cloth next, pressing it to the half-dried blood on his jaw. The contact made him twitch, just once — a reflex more than anything. She froze, heart banging stupidly hard, but he didn’t wake. Just breathed. Just stayed there in her old armchair, dripping rain and betrayal into her threadbare carpet.

Suddenly, he gasped like he came back to life with widened eyes and a jolt of cold wrapping his bare chest. The Spinner’s End was empty when Lily entered it with him somewhat draped over her shoulders. She had no clue why, and it did leave her a bit uneasy. The place was never cosy, but his mum would be there once the sky would get dark. 

“Don’t you even dare say something.”

He looked at her then at himself, and got the sudden urge to cover his chest with his arms, which made Lily chuckle. A sharp, breathless laugh slipped out of her before she could swallow it — too loud for the cracked silence of Spinner’s End. She bit it back just as quickly, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand like she could shove the heat of it away.

Severus glared at her through the strands of hair plastered to his forehead, eyes dark and dazed but very much awake now — the kind of awake that burned at the edges, like he was trying to stitch the world back together through the haze of pain and whatever the hell he’d done tonight.

He tried to sit up straighter, arms still folded across his chest like he could shield himself from her, from this, from the absurdity of her fussing at all. It made him look like a half-drowned cat, defensive and cornered.

Lily raised an eyebrow, dropping the bloody cloth into the washbasin she’d conjured at her side. “Oh, don’t get modest on me now, Severus Snape. I just dragged your half-dead arse through three streets of rain.”

He opened his mouth, probably to spit something sharp and stupid, but it only came out as a cough — raw and wet. He winced, shoulders curling in, and Lily hated herself a little for how quickly her hands twitched to reach for him again.

“Save it,” she snapped before he could try again. She picked up her wand, flicked it at the old kettle by the hearth — steam unfurled with a low hiss that almost drowned out the rain on the window. 

“Are you okay?” He asked, his voice groggy like he swallowed smoke.

Lily let out a soft mhm, like she wasn’t appalled by the scene. 

“I’d ask you the same but the answer is very visual.”

Severus huffed out something that might have been a laugh — sharp, broken at the edges — and immediately regretted it when it caught in his chest, twisting his ribs tight. He winced again, fingers flexing where they clutched the frayed edge of the blanket she’d draped around his shoulders. He looked ridiculous. Small and sharp and soft in all the wrong places.

He tried to glare at her, but it didn’t hold. His eyes flicked over her face instead — the wet strands of hair stuck to her temples, the smudged edge of ash on her sleeve, the faint tremble in her hands when she fussed with the kettle.

“Suppose you think this is funny,” he rasped, shifting like he might pull the blanket tighter but gave up halfway through.

Lily didn’t look at him — just poured hot water over the leaves in the chipped mug he’d left on the mantel months ago. “Suppose I think it’s tragic,” she said, too calm for how her throat felt like glass.

She set the mug down on the rickety table beside him — just out of his reach, on purpose. Her eyes met his finally, flat and steady, daring him to move.

“Drink it when you can sit up straight,” she said. Then, softer, almost to herself; “Stupid, stupid boy.”

His eyes followed her face as she muttered to herself. Even with her hair damp wet, and eyes deeply exhausted, Lily Evans looked absolutely stunningly breathtaking. It irritated him — that was the worst part. How she could stand there, soaked to the bone, freckles dark against her pale skin, fury simmering behind her eyes like a storm not yet spent — and still look like every stupid dream he’d ever let himself have when he was young enough to think dreams meant something.

He swallowed, the inside of his throat scraping raw. His fingers twitched against the blanket, wanting — needing — something to do other than grip the stupid frayed edges.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he croaked out finally, voice thinner than he meant it to be. Useless. Pathetic.

Lily didn’t even flinch. Just arched an eyebrow, arms crossing tight over her chest like armour. “Neither should you.”

His mouth twitched, like he might argue. Might spit back some cutting thing about choices and sides and all the reasons he’d stood in that alley wearing that mask. But he didn’t. He just sat there, rain-damp and shivering in the corner of his mother’s house, glaring at her like it might stitch him back together.

Lily took a step closer, eyes flicking to the mug, then to him again — measuring, weighing.

“You gonna drink it?” she asked, voice so soft it almost undid him.

He looked at the mug, then back at her — and something in his eyes flickered. Reluctant. Tired. Grateful, maybe, if she squinted hard enough through the wreckage.

“Only if you shut up,” he muttered.

“Being nice is an option, you know?”

He glared at her again, like she said something utterly dim. 

“An option.” He muttered. 

An option he’d never been taught. He’d never been exposed to. Not by his parents, not by his peers, not by anyone, but her. Maybe kindness wasn’t an emotion, but a choice for him. A choice he had always been scared to use. Kind people didn’t make it out forward the way he could have. It sat between them like a ghost — that half-buried truth he’d never say out loud. Kindness was a risk. Kindness was an open wound.

And Lily — Lily was standing there with her arms crossed, daring him to risk it anyway.

She didn’t push him this time. Didn’t press or scold. Just watched him like she always had — with that same exasperating, infuriating patience that made him want to bare his teeth and bury his face in her collarbone all at once.

He shifted under her stare, grip tightening around the mug so hard the handle creaked. His mouth twitched — almost a smile, but not quite, more like a flinch disguised as something else.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he rasped, lifting the mug just enough to hide behind the steam.

“Like what?” Lily asked, too soft, too sharp.

“Like you expect me to be—” he started, but the words tripped over the raw edge of his throat. He swallowed them back, tasting copper and old bitterness and her damn tea. “Forget it.”

Lily’s eyes softened anyway, traitor that she was. She reached out, not quite touching him, fingertips brushing the air by his sleeve before she pulled back again.

“Drink it,” she said instead. “Be a decent patient for once in your life.”

He huffed, as if the laugh was scraping loose behind his teeth. He drank — sweetening bitter and too hot, just the way she made it. And for the first time all night, he didn’t spit it out. Didn’t spit her out, either.

“Is it–”

“Lemon, honey, and a bit of tea?” She said with hesitation, unsure of why she was even doing it. 

“And that is gonna …?”

“Make you feel better.” She said with a smile. “My mum always does it for me. Well, did when I was smaller.”

He paused, letting the mug hover half an inch from his mouth. The steam curled into the hollow beneath his eyes, stung a little — good. It made him blink so he didn’t have to look directly at her.

“She still does that?” he asked, and instantly hated himself for asking, for trying to make some normal small talk.

Lily’s smile faltered at the corners — not quite gone, but softened by something older than either of them had any business carrying. She shook her head once, small. “Not for a while now.”

He made a noise — something like a hum, something like a sorry that wouldn’t fit in his mouth. He drank again instead, scalded his tongue on purpose.

Lily tucked her hands under her arms, like if she didn’t she’d do something reckless, like brush the hair out of his eyes. “Does it help?”

He shrugged, the blanket slipping off one bony shoulder before he tugged it back up like a child hiding from a draft. “Too sweet.”

“You’re too sour,” she shot back, but there was no bite in it. Just relief that he was here, alive, upright enough to insult her tea.

He stared at the mug like it might answer for him. “Don’t know why you bother.”

Lily didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. “Yeah. Anyway, why did you kill that guy?”

Severus didn’t expect the sudden shift in the conversation, so, pretending to be like any of this is normal, he sipped on his too sweet tea and then responded almost too casually.

“Did you want him to — I dunno — unalive you, Lily?”

Her eyes flared, that sharp, brilliant green narrowing on him like a hex he half-deserved. “Don’t twist it,” she bit out, arms crossing tighter, jaw working like she was chewing down words that would slice them both open.

He tilted the mug back, let the hot sweetness burn the back of his tongue just so he wouldn’t say something crueler. The warmth settled heavy in his chest — an anchor or a weight, he couldn’t tell.

“You didn’t answer,” she pressed, leaning in just enough that he could feel the heat of her through the cold damp air between them. “You didn’t have to—”

“He was going to—” His voice cracked before he could stop it. He forced the next word out through gritted teeth, low and flat. “—touch you.”

Lily’s mouth opened, then closed. He watched her throat work around a reply she didn’t have.

“So?” he rasped, forcing himself to look straight at her, even as it made his chest pull tight. “Next time, should I let them?”

Her fingers twitched, like she might slap him, or pull the mug right out of his hands. She did neither.

“There shouldn’t be a next time.” Her voice broke just a hair, but she caught it quickly. “Don’t pretend you did it for me . You did it because you wanted to.”

Severus let out a brittle laugh, ugly around the edges. “Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know what to think!” she hissed, louder now, the storm outside rattling in through the cracked window behind her.

“Why the fucking hell are you even a Death Eater?” It slipped out — not like an accusation, more like something that had been collecting dust on her tongue.

Severus made a sound. Somewhere between a scoff and a breath. Somewhere between what did you expect? and don’t start this now.

And yeah. Yeah, that was about right. That was always going to be the answer, wasn’t it? 

Everybody had expected him to become one. Peers, housemates, even the bloody professors. They probably thought about it like it was weather. Like it was logical. Like it made sense. That no one— not Slughorn, not Dumbledore, not a single person who claimed to “keep an eye on troubled boys”— ever gave enough of a shit to wonder how the hell it got this far. 

No single adult ever wondered how a boy who could brew a Draught of Living Death in third year always looked like he was running out of air, how he showed up to class with bruises half-faded and essays perfect, how he flinched at raised voices and still kept getting detentions like it was part of a routine. They just called it potential. Or attitude. Or Slytherin. Like he was meant to end up this way.

“Sorry.” She muttered, realizing she was sort of raising her voice at him.

He didn’t say anything, tried to stand up, but his back hurt since she threw him kind of against the fence and then he clumsily tried to hold onto the street light but failed at it miserably as well. 

“To your luck, I happen to have that Chinese soothing back cream in my bag.”

She said, rather aggressively taking the tube out of her not so big bag and placing it on what was meant to be a coffee table with one missing wooden leg.

“Take off your shirt, I’ll–”

“That’s not gonna help me, thank you.”

“Severus–”

“You are very kind, Lily, but I can— I am fine.”

She stared at him — really stared, like she could peel him open with her eyes alone. The old anger flickered, but so did something else — that same stubborn softness that always made him feel raw and reckless at the same time.

“Fine?” she echoed, flat and incredulous. “You look like you lost a fight with a chimney and the chimney won .”

He made a sound, part scoff, part hiss of pain as he shifted too quickly in the chair. His knuckles whitened around the mug. “Don’t fuss. I’m not your—”

“My what ?” she cut in, a sharp slice of steel under the softness. She stepped closer, close enough that he could see the rain still drying in the flyaway strands at her temples. Close enough that if he leaned forward, just a little, they’d be back in the corridor outside the Potions classroom — shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, the world blurry and easy for a moment.

But they weren’t fifteen anymore, and it wasn't easy. Not with the mark on his arm, not with the mask on the floor, not with her still here.

“Not your problem ,” he forced out, voice like gravel.

“Then why did you kill that guy? Because that makes me pretty much your problem. What will your friends say, huh? Lily Evans surely couldn’t kill that guy in their eyes.”

His eyes darkened at the realization of the height of his actions. With an influential wizard’s son now dead because of him, the entire thing could be seen from a whole different angle. If they do truly believe that Lily killed that Fay boy, then that would put her in even more danger — that would make her a target. 

“You didn’t think that far ahead, did you?” Lily pushed, voice sharper now, but it cracked at the edges — not anger, not really. Fear. Frustration. “Didn’t think how deep you’re in now. What they’ll do to you . You just — Merlin, Severus — you just did it—”

“Stop.” His voice was hoarse, low — but firm enough to cut her off. He shook his head, hair still dripping onto his collarbones. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Lily blinked, taken aback by how flat his tone was — how certain.

He leaned forward just enough that the steam from the mug drifted between them, something bitter on his breath. “They won’t come for me .” His lip curled at the truth of it. “They’ll believe it was you.”

She stared, stunned. “What—”

“They didn’t see me go to him.” His words were a quiet, deliberate cut — no venom, just fact. “But they saw you . They saw you leave with him. They know you hexed three of them before he went running after you like a dog.”

He laughed — one short, broken breath that sounded too much like a cough. “Your precious Hogwarts reputation, Lily — all that fire, all that pride — they’ll twist it right over your head. “You think they’ll believe Severus Snape killed him? Snape, who happens to be one of them? On their side?”

He dropped his gaze to the mug, hands tightening around the handle like it might anchor him to the floorboards.

“They’ll believe it was you ,” he said again, quieter. “They’ll want to.”

Lily felt it, then — the floor tilt just a little under her boots. The heat that had kept her spine stiff turned to something cold and sour in her chest.

“They’ll want to,” Severus repeated, voice scraping out of him like it cost him blood. “They’ll say you provoked him. That you— that you used me , maybe, but only if my name ever appears anywhere there. Or that you hexed him so bad he choked on his own spit. They’ll make it fit.”

He gave a bitter, humourless huff that didn’t reach his eyes. “And they’ll love it, too. The prefect who also happens to be Mug–Muggleborn. Muggleborn with bloody muddy hands. Look what she did. Look what she always was .”

He looked up at her then — properly, fully — and the hollowness in his eyes nearly knocked the breath from her lungs. Not anger. Not pity. Just a sort of wretched knowing.

“You are not safe anymore.” He said it, nodding to himself, like she already hadn’t realized it. 

“No way, Severus.” She said bitterly.

“Do you see me laugh, Lily? Do you think I find any of this funny? Entertaining, perhaps?” He put the mug aside. “I do not care for that boy’s life. He was rotten from birth. He would put his hand on you and take pride in it. That’s how these people are.” 

His voice was sharper now, scraping out from somewhere deeper than his bruised ribs — raw, cold truth shaped like a curse. “They’d stand beside him while he did it, too. Laugh about it after. And you—” He cut himself off, the words snagging like barbed wire in his throat.

Lily’s eyes shone in the dim room — not wet, not yet, but something in them shimmered all the same. She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe, it seemed.

He pressed on, because stopping was worse. “I did what I did because he deserved worse. Because you shouldn’t—” His hand twitched over his knee, a small, vicious gesture. “You shouldn’t have to stand there with his filth on your skin and his wand at your throat. Not you.”

The old kettle hissed behind them, steam curling into the heavy air like something that wanted to say enough . But he wasn’t done.

“And if they want to believe you did it, they will. Because it’s clean for them. Because it’s neat . A Mudblo-Muggleborn with blood on her hands. Makes the story easy to swallow. Makes the rest of us look righteous for hunting you down.”

He spat the last words out like poison — then went quiet, breathing ragged.

When he looked at her again, something cracked at the edges of his glare. A plea buried in glass.

“I apologize for not thinking that far ahead, but nor did you.” He took the mug back and finished whatever of it was left on the bottom. “You didn’t think that far ahead,” he repeated, softer, almost tired. “So now you have to.”

Lily let out a laugh then — brittle and sharp enough to splinter through the stale warmth between them. It wasn’t funny, not even close, but the sound of it cracked through her chest like it needed to get out before the tears did.

“Oh, brilliant,” she bit, tossing her hands up like she could fling the whole mess at the cracked ceiling. “So now I have to? Now I have to what , exactly, Severus? Write a polite note to the Prophet — Hello, yes, sorry for the corpse, terribly sorry for bleeding on your perfect little war —”

Her voice caught, sharp as a hex in her throat. She folded in on herself a fraction, arms crossed so tight her nails dug crescents into her sleeves.

“You don’t get it,” she said, quieter now, and it made him flinch because of course she’d say that — like he hadn’t lived his whole damned life understanding exactly what it meant to be marked for slaughter the second you breathed wrong.

She stepped forward until the tips of her boots brushed the leg of his chair. Her eyes — too green, too bright, too bloody soft in all the worst places — pinned him there harder than any hex ever could.

“You can talk about how they will twist it all you want,” she said, voice low and steady and shaking like a tower ready to fall. “But they don’t get to write this story alone. You don’t get to write it alone. And I am not —” Her hand shot out, caught his wrist where it gripped the empty mug so hard his knuckles gleamed bone-white. “I am not just going to stand there and let them make me into something I’m not.”

Her fingers trembled around his wrist. He didn’t pull away. Couldn’t.

“You didn’t think that far ahead?” she said, softer now, every word a blade laid gently across his throat. “Fine. Then think further. With me . Or what the fuck was the point?”

She stood up, letting go of his wrist. “I hope you have Earl Grey at home. To be fair, I expected somebody to be home at least.” 

Her sudden pivot — the casual edge of it — nearly made him laugh, if his ribs weren’t a mess of splinters under his skin. He watched her straighten up like she hadn’t just pressed his pulse flat beneath her thumb, like she hadn’t carved the air between them into something raw and unspoken.

“Earl Grey?” he rasped, voice scraping up around the broken place in his throat. “I have dust and half a jar of something that might once have been tea.”

He shifted, winced. “And no milk.”

Lily snorted — an ugly, tired sound that shouldn’t have made his chest loosen, but did. She glanced at the tiny kitchen like it might grow something useful if she glared hard enough.

“Brilliant. Dust and stale leaves,” she muttered. “Very comforting for a death sentence.”

She turned back to him, arms folding again — defensive, stubborn, herself . “Does your mum come back in the evenings, or she decided to take a break from all this?”

The question sat there, brittle and barbed. He didn’t answer straight away — didn’t know how. He just looked at her, really looked: the red at the tip of her nose from the rain, the smear of old soot at her temple where she’d wiped at her hair.

“It’s just me,” he said at last. Simple. Small. True.

Lily’s mouth twitched — not quite pity, not quite forgiveness. Just something that hurt worse than either.

“Well then,” she said, like they hadn’t just torn each other open for the hundredth time. “Dust it is.”

And before he could stop her, she turned on her heel, stalking past the battered armchair toward the kitchen — her boots leaving wet prints on the scuffed floor, like proof that she was still here.

Still his problem. And he, apparently, still hers. 

He never thought this — whatever was happening — could have a possibility of even taking place. Maybe that was because he never foresaw the depth of the war. Or the length both sides could take just for the failure of the other. But thinking now, Severus realized that The Order began its existence just to lead to the failure of the Dark Lord’s political plan. It was simple when said aloud — just politics, just lines drawn in old blood on older maps. But here, in the dim rot of Spinner’s End, with rain whispering at the cracked window and Lily Evans clattering around his mother’s miserable excuse for a kitchen, it felt like something else entirely.

He shifted in the chair, bones protesting, the blanket slipping off one shoulder again. He didn’t bother pulling it back up this time. He watched her silhouette through the half-open kitchen door — sleeves pushed up, hair scraped back with the careless edge of someone who never cared about impressing him and somehow always did.

The Order. The Death Eaters. Words that once felt like shields and spears. Now they just sounded like excuses for what they’d both become — tired children wrapped in borrowed causes, all that righteous fury spent on keeping each other alive in stupid, petty ways.

He let his head fall back against the chair, the ceiling swimming above him. He could hear her rummaging in the old cupboards, muttering to herself about bloody bachelors and mouldy tins and how hard it is to keep tea somewhere sensible.

And for a fleeting, impossible moment — beneath the storm, the ruin, the ruin he’d made of himself — he let himself believe that maybe there was a version of the story where she’d always been here. Boots tracking rain across his floor. Swearing at his lack of milk. Acting like he was worth the trouble of fighting for.

“Lily,” he rasped, loud enough for her to hear over the clink of chipped mugs.

She didn’t answer right away, but he saw her shape pause in the doorway, backlit by the single bare bulb above the sink.

He swallowed, feeling the words splinter on his tongue before they could form right. He wanted to tell her thank you, maybe. Or don’t. Or stay.

What scraped out instead was as stupid as it was true: “There’s sugar in the second drawer. If it hasn’t gone to rot.”

She snorted — sharp and fond all at once. “Revolutionary,” she called back. And then, softer, like a promise he hadn’t earned, “I’ll make do.”

He wasn’t even sure what was happening. He realized he had been walking with an unbuttoned shirt for as long as they have been here, and reddened at that realization to walk himself back to his bedroom and get a change of clothes. 

He only had a sleeveless vest shirt. He had an only sleeveless vest shirt left that was clean — if you could even call it that. Thin cotton gone slack at the edges, a small hole near the hem where a cigarette ember had burned through sometime last winter. He stared at it for a long moment, thumb worrying the frayed patch, jaw tight.

He hated this — hated the way his skin felt under the bare bulb, too pale, too sharp where bones pressed too close to the surface. Hated the constellation of old bruises, the scattered marks he never bothered to heal right, the half-faded outlines of fights no one asked about. Hated, most of all, the idea of her seeing it — the places the world had gotten its teeth into him.

But he’d left his old shirt by the chair, half-open, damp with rain and blood and her stupid healing charms. He could hear her out there now, clinking mugs, muttering under her breath like she owned the place. Like she belonged there.

He tugged the vest on anyway — fingers fussing with the hem as if it made a difference. It didn’t. The fabric clung to him, thin and loose all at once, doing nothing to hide the jut of his collarbones or the stark line of his shoulders. There was a time he’d have buttoned every layer to the throat just to feel a barrier between himself and the room. Now — now he just stood there for a second, teeth sunk into the inside of his cheek, feeling too big and too breakable in his own house.

When he stepped back out, he kept his eyes low. Pretended not to see the way hers flicked down, just for a second — over the sharp cut of his shoulder, the old bruise near his ribs he’d missed with the spell. He crossed his arms over his chest, a poor shield, but better than nothing. Better than letting her see just how much of him there was to see — and just how little of it he could stand.

“Look, I made you tea and you had some—” She saw him — really saw him — and the rest of her sentence caught somewhere behind her teeth. The chipped mug in her hand stayed hovering half-forgotten over the battered counter.

She hadn’t meant to look. Not like that. But it was impossible not to, the way the thin cotton clung to the hard lines of him — collarbones sharp as a knife edge, shoulders narrow but roped with muscle in that wiry way that spoke of spells and stress more than any plan to look like this. He was all angles and shadows and pale skin drawn tight over old fights that had never quite healed right.

Fit, she thought before she could stop herself. Too fit. She knew better than anyone that it wasn’t a vanity — it was survival, in the worst sense. A body hardened by the constant tremor of danger and the cruel tutoring of curses that left your nerves screaming long after the pain stopped. Moody had joked about it once — the way prolonged Cruciatus left you lean and coiled and half-starved of softness. War carves its own shape, he’d said, half a sneer, half a warning. She hated how true it looked now.

Heat crawled up her neck, uninvited. She snapped her eyes back up to his face, but not fast enough — he’d seen her look. She knew it. She could feel it burning between them, quiet and stupid and so bloody alive for half a second it made her want to scream.

“I made you tea and you had some—” she forced out and repeated once more, gesturing lamely at the cup like it could cover the flush creeping up her throat. Not even sure what she made some of what anymore.

He raised an eyebrow, just one, mouth twitching like he could have torn into her for staring — if he wasn’t so mortified by standing there half-bared himself.

“Thanks,” he rasped, dry as parchment. His arms crossed tighter, muscle and bone shifting under the thin fabric, the faint shape of a mark she didn’t want to think about just hidden under the skin of his inner left forearm. “I’m not drinking any more of your bloody honey water, though.”

She tried to laugh. It came out strangled and too soft. Focus, Evans, she told herself. Focus on the tea. The war. Anything but the fact that you just thought he looked—

“Oh, no, no. This is tea. You had some left.” She chuckled awkwardly, then added. “Apparently.”

She snatched the mug with her tea off the table just to do something with her hands — something to keep her eyes off the thin stretch of his collar, the way his ribs shifted when he breathed. She didn’t look at him when she took a sip. Didn’t trust herself to.

Severus shifted his weight, arms still crossed like he could will himself smaller, shoulders curling in just enough to make it worse somehow — like he’d been carved down to the minimum a person could be and still stand there in front of her, breathing. The poor shield of crossed arms only made it more obvious: the lean cut of muscle on his bicep, the subtle tremor where it met old bruises he hadn’t bothered to glamour away.

She hated that she noticed. Hated more that she felt it — that traitorous flicker of heat curling under her ribs when she was meant to be so bloody righteous and sharp-edged. Get a grip, Evans, she scolded herself. It’s Severus. It’s war. He’s—

She caught him looking at her — properly looking. Not the half-glance he did when he needed to measure how close she’d stand or how loud she’d snap. This was steadier, heavier. It pinned her worse than the doorway. As though he was tryna study her utterly bizarre (at least to him) (or even to herself) behaviour. 

“Do you want something else?” she asked, too fast, words tripping over themselves. She set the mug down a little too hard, the clink echoing stupidly in the cramped kitchen. “I mean— tea, sugar, actual food if you have any. Which you probably don’t because you live like a bloody ghost—”

He snorted, the sound half a cough, half a laugh, and she hated that too — that it eased something in her chest even as it scraped at her throat.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, but his eyes flicked away when he said it — to the stained bit of counter behind her shoulder, anywhere but the stretch of space between them where her stare had just been.

Silence dropped between them, thicker than steam, louder than the rain rattling the warped window above the sink. She didn’t know what to do with her hands now. Or her eyes. Or the memory of that thin cotton clinging to old secrets and new scars.

So she did what she always did with him: she pushed the edge of her hip against the counter, crossed her arms to match his, and held his gaze whether he liked it or not.

“Next time,” she said, voice low but steady — a promise, a warning, a confession she didn’t have the courage to name, “put on a proper shirt.”

“Oh, I– Yeah, this was–”

“Jesus, Sev. I’m just messing witcha.” She chuckled, and then moved to the other side, embarrassed at her own words.

Fuck, why would she say that, Lily already was scolding herself in her own mind.

“You should not go back to your … place.” He said as she was about to leave the kitchen.

“Oh? Why’s that?” She stopped halfway by the doorframes. 

“They will look for you in twenty four hours. Not Aurors.” 

“Not Aurors?” she repeated, voice catching halfway between a scoff and a shiver. She set the mug down again — softer this time — fingers tapping once against the chipped rim as if it might steady her pulse. “Then who, Severus? Your— friends ?”

He didn’t flinch at the edge in her voice — didn’t look away either. He just uncrossed his arms, letting one hand curl around the back of the chair instead, like bracing himself for impact.

“They’ll come,” he said, too calm for how it curdled her stomach. “They’ll come because you’re a loose thread now. A question mark. They’ll want to tie it off — neat.”

A muscle twitched in her jaw. “And you?”

His mouth twitched. Not a smile — not anything close. Just that flicker of something old and jagged behind his teeth. “What me? I’m here. Aren’t I?”

She let out a laugh — sharp, too bright, the kind that cracked when it hit the walls. “Fantastic. So I’m meant to just squat in your miserable little tomb until they forget I exist?”

“Better here than out there,” he said. Quiet. Final. His eyes flicked up, met hers, held them — and for a heartbeat she hated how true it sounded. How small the room felt around the truth of it.

She stepped closer again, just once — enough that her knee brushed the leg of the chair, enough that if he breathed out too hard they’d be back to that stupid half-space between fight and something softer.

“And what about you?” she asked, low, tired, furious in a way that made her voice almost gentle. “What happens when they realize you—”

“They won’t,” he cut in. Not loud, but sharp enough to slice the question dead. He swallowed, the line of his throat working under that thin fabric she still couldn’t quite look away from. “They won’t. They’d rather believe you did it.”

She shook her head — slow, disbelieving — then let out a breath that was almost a laugh again. “Brilliant plan.”

His mouth twitched again. “You’re welcome.”

And that — stupidly, impossibly — almost made her smile. Almost.

“So?” she asked, chin tilting just enough to look braver than she felt. “What do we do, then? You gonna hide me in your mother’s wardrobe?”

He huffed. “It’s too small.”

The silence that settled between them was peaceful, yet disturbingly unspoken. Lily was not sure what awaited her as of now, nor was Severus so sure of what any of the happenstances within the earlier twelve hours had really cost them — or what they’d cost tomorrow. The kettle hissed again behind her, the last rattle of warmth in a house that had never quite held enough of it. The rain against the window turned softer, more insistent, like even the storm didn’t want to leave them alone.

Lily shifted her weight, hip still braced against the counter, eyes flicking from his shoulder to the empty mug to the ruin of his shirt on the chair by the hearth. He looked too solid and too fragile all at once — that same impossible mix that made her want to shake him and shelter him in the same breath.

She drew in a breath, pushing her palm flat against the chipped counter. Think, Lily. “I can’t— I can’t go back to my parents’,” she said finally, voice quiet but firm. “I can’t risk them getting dragged into— into this .”

He gave a small, dry nod, eyes dark but unsurprised. “Fair enough.”

She let out a weak laugh, rubbed her fingers over her brow. “And I can’t go back to my place, obviously. Not with half of London waiting to see if I turn up. Brilliant. ” She huffed a sharp breath, then snapped her fingers like it might fix something. “I need to feed Connery. He’s going to lose his mind.”

Severus just stared. “Connery?”

“Yes, my cat!” she shot back, a little too loud, a little too desperate to not think about the fact that she was cornered in a damp kitchen with a Death Eater she half trusted, well, the only one she believed she could trust. “He’ll claw the bloody wallpaper down if he’s not fed— I should— I should call my neighbour—”

“Are you mental ?” Severus snapped, that hoarse bark of disbelief back in his throat. “Call your neighbour? You want to let someone know you’re alive? And where ?”

Lily’s mouth clicked shut, her eyes narrowing into that old familiar spark of annoyance that had kept him alive in school more times than he’d admit. “Well, what do you suggest, then? He’s a cat, Severus, not a bloody secret—”

“Everything’s a secret now,” he cut in, low and cold. “You go calling neighbours, you might as well leave your door open and invite them all in for tea.”

She huffed, glaring at the floor, then back at him. “Fine. Then I’ll go to Mary’s. She’ll cover for me. She always—”

He didn’t even let her finish. “No.”

Lily’s eyes flared. “No?”

“She’s watched,” he ground out, jaw ticking. “She’s been watched since before you, lot, figured out how to throw hexes at lampposts for practice and then fix it up without the muggles noticing. You show up there, might as well hex a sign over her house saying “Mug us now.””

Lily stared at him, his eyes tired and hair falling into his face with sweat all over his forehead, at the ruin of the storm outside the window, at the steam curling between them like a thread tying her to the one place she didn’t want to admit felt safer than anywhere else.

She let out a breath through her nose. Then squared her shoulders. Then said, too calm to be a bluff, “Well then, I’m staying here.”

Severus just blinked at her. He looked like he’d been hexed mid-word. “What? ”

She crossed her arms, chin tilting up like she’d hex him if he said no. “You heard me. I’m staying here. You don’t get to kill someone for me and then kick me out, Severus Snape.”

“Well– I, uh– Sure, but–” He was unsure how to react, what to say, and how to even respond. 

He floundered — actually floundered — mouth opening, shutting, shoulders hunching like he might fold himself in half just to vanish from the corner she’d backed him into. The steam from the kettle drifted between them, mocking him for every half-word stuck on his tongue.

“You can’t just—” he tried, voice cracking like old floorboards. “Lily, this isn’t— it’s not —”

She arched one eyebrow, that Gryffindor edge glinting beneath all the exhaustion and the rain in her hair. “Not what? Safe? Neither is out there. Convenient? It’s war, Severus — nothing’s convenient.”

He snapped his mouth shut again, arms crossing tighter over his chest like he could barricade the words she kept tossing at him. It didn’t help — it only made the sharp line of his collarbones stand out worse, the faint bruise on his bicep catching the bare bulb’s light.

“Look at you,” she added, softer now, but no gentler for it. “You can barely stand up without coughing up half your lungs. Where exactly were you going to send me? Back out the door?”

He glared at the window over her shoulder — anywhere but her. “You can’t just— move in.”

She scoffed, stepping in closer, so close he had to look at her or stare at the hollow of his own throat reflected in her eyes. “I’m not moving in, Severus. I’m surviving. We’re surviving. Get over it.”

She went to the battered armchair by the hearth where she’d dropped her bag hours — lifetimes — ago. The rain still rattled the window like it wanted to get in, to drown out whatever this ridiculous arrangement was turning into.

Lily rummaged through the depths of the canvas satchel like she could magic up a hospital wing from half a packet of fags and a tin of mints. Her fingers closed around something small and crumpled — an old half-empty pot of Murtlap Essence she’d nicked from the apothecary weeks back when she’d burnt her hand on the cauldron. Not exactly life-saving, but better than nothing.

She turned, brandishing it at him like a wand. “Sit the fuck down.”

Severus eyed the tiny pot with the same disdain he usually reserved for incompetent first-years and certain Gryffindors in Charms. “What is that supposed to do?” His voice cracked around the sarcasm — half hoarse, half bitter disbelief. “You planning to drown my bruises in that?”

“Sit.” She stabbed a finger at the armchair. “Now.”

He looked from the chair to her to the pathetic tin of Murtlap, then back again — like he was trying to find the loophole in her logic that would let him escape this without actually obeying .

There wasn’t one.

So, with all the grace of a cat shoved off a windowsill, he muttered something foul under his breath and sank back down into the chair. The old springs wheezed under his weight. His arms crossed tighter, shoulders pulled in like he could fold the bruises away before she got to them.

Lily just rolled her eyes, kneeling in front of him anyway, unscrewing the lid with a stubborn twist that said don’t test me . “Hold still. This is going to do more good than you being a stubborn arse, I promise.”

He snorted — but he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch when her fingers hovered too close to skin he still hated showing. Didn’t breathe when the first dab of cool, useless salve touched the ugly bruise blooming dark across his ribs.

“Stupid,” he muttered, softer this time, not sure if he meant the Murtlap or himself or her or all of it at once.

“Watch whom you’re calling stupid.” She said not really meaning it.

“Or what? You will threaten my life with Murtlap?” He snickered. 

“I might as well pour it in your drink, y’know.” She mumbled loud enough for him to hear.

She dipped her fingers back into the tin, scooping up more of the sharp-smelling salve, and nudged his arm up — firm, certain. No room for argument, no room for him to fold back in on himself like he wanted to.

“Hold still,” she said — soft, but final.

He made a sound, too dry to be a laugh, too rough to be anything else. His eyes stayed fixed past her shoulder — the cracked line in the plaster, the corner where the damp crept in — anywhere but the place where her hands pressed warmth into bruises he’d never wanted seen.

She worked in silence, smoothing the Murtlap over the worst of it. Old bruises layered under new, skin too thin over sharp lines that should’ve looked breakable — but didn’t. Not with the way his body held itself coiled and half-hardened, every bit of softness starved out of him by the kind of pain that trained you to stay lean, stay ready.

Her thumb traced the edge of a fading scar just under his ribs. She didn’t mean to pause — but she did. Just a moment. Long enough to feel him flinch under her touch, the muscles there clenching, tight enough to make her mouth go dry for reasons she didn’t want to name.

He didn’t look at her. Not once. His jaw worked like he was grinding down every word that wanted to come out instead. His breath caught when her palm skimmed too high, but he didn’t pull back — he just braced, like he could vanish into the old armchair if he held still enough.

“This stuff won’t fix you overnight, you know,” she said, half to fill the quiet, half to ground herself.

He huffed — a sound that might’ve been agreement, might’ve been nothing. “I know.”

She wiped the last of the salve along the darkest bloom of purple near his side. Her fingers lingered, not on purpose — but she didn’t rush to pull them away either.

Before he stood, he buttoned his shirt and pushed himself upright, bracing his hands on the arms of the old armchair. 

“You can sleep in Mam’s room.” He said softly. “Although I believe it to be dusty, it is habitable, you could say.”

She almost laughed at that — not because it was funny, but because the way he said habitable made it sound like he was offering her some grand castle instead of a back bedroom that probably smelled like moist.

“Dust’s fine,” she murmured, wiping her hands on the hem of her jumper. She didn’t step back right away, though. Just stood there in front of him, too close, her knees nearly brushing his.

For a moment neither of them moved. The quiet pressed in again — the hiss of the rain, the tick of the kettle cooling behind them, the hush of a house that hadn’t seen this much life in years.

He showed her around the house as though she had never been here. Well, although she had, Lily remembered how some of the rooms were forbidden from entrance, including his parents’ old bedroom, the dungeons, and the balcony that was crippling on the second floor. The house on the Spinner’s End was a dreadfully miserable house. The air there smelt just awful. The walls could get damp seasonally. And what would make it so dreadfully miserable for the most times would be the people that lived on that very same street with had two rivers running from its sides.. 

“Don’t touch the dresser,” he muttered, almost unsure whether to warn her about that awful dresser that was falling apart after Tobias’ very last lash out on something very unimportant. “I just charmed it to stay together.” Then he added, “you know I am no good at that.” 

She almost smiled at that — almost. The way he said it, all stiff and half-buried under his usual bite, like he was admitting to patching holes he’d rather pretend weren’t there.

“Okay, I shan’t touch it, Master Severus. Your place, your rules,” she said, her voice threading warmth into the spaces his couldn’t quite reach.

He snorted, quiet, half an exhale more than a laugh. His fingers flexed at his side like he wanted to tuck them away, like he might break something if he let them just hang loose.

At the door to the old bedroom, he paused — shoulder braced against the frame, head tipped just enough to glance back at her. In the low light, his eyes looked dark, unreadable, but not unkind.

“If it… if you need anything,” he muttered, the words brittle as old chalk, “I’ll be — I’ll be up.”

She nodded, swallowing around the ache that always came when he gave more than he meant to. When he let her see how much he couldn’t say outright. Or more like didn't know how to give without actually coming off in any harmful way.

“Alright,” she murmured, brushing her fingertips along the edge of the door as she stepped past him. “Oh, and Severus?”

The way she said his name cracked something in his chest. He didn’t answer, didn’t trust himself to. He just looked at her — really looked — and there it was again: that stupid flicker of something warm and ruinous that neither of them could name without tearing it apart in the same breath.

“Thank you,” she said, softer than she meant it to be. The word settled between them, awkward and too heavy for how small it was.

He didn’t know what to say. He had never been thanked for killing anybody before. After all, she was meant to be here only because she had not really many other safe options to choose from. He swallowed, throat tight enough to hurt. For a second, he thought about saying: don’t thank me. Or It wasn’t for you. Or It’s nothing — all the sharp, stupid things that would put the world back in its neat, miserable place. But none of them fit. None of them sounded right when she was standing there in his dim hallway, barefoot now, her hair still damp and curling at the ends making it clear that she belonged in places softer than this. 

So he just nodded — once, stiff, like it might hold the words in.

Lily slept in his parents’ narrow cramped old bedroom, waking up to a morning that was meant to be the first of more at least for now. The room smelt like mothballs and burnt paper, and the bed itself took most of the space in this room. Well, technically, the bed was touching all three walls except for the door wall, but that bit was probably the most comfortable part. Lily regardless of the smell felt like she was in an oddly strange cocoon, and maybe that brought her some sense of comfort. 

Before doing anything else, she took a shower — which, in hindsight, was a mistake. The water came out lukewarm at best and metallic at worst, and the soap left behind in the caddy smelled like something between expired rosewater and moldy talc. She scrubbed fast, trying not to gag, half-worried the smell would cling to her hair and betray her to some lurking enemy — not that anyone was around to sniff her out in this forgotten bit of Cokeworth. Still, by the time she was done, she felt more human. Barely.

The next morning, they walked to the nearest corner shop — or more accurately, Severus trudged beside her, grumbling the entire way about how “this is a terrible idea” and “you do realise the longer you’re outside the higher the odds of someone noticing your very distinct hair, right?” and “you could’ve stayed in, you know, instead of risking both our lives for bloody beans.”

She didn’t say much. Just smiled now and then and kept walking. Let him get it out of his system.

They returned with bags of nearly dented tins, salt, pepper, a bit of cheese, canned beans, eggs (loads of eggs), half-stale bread, four packs of the cheapest cigarettes they found and the cheapest chicken sausages in the shop — “because it’s still protein,” she said when he raised a brow. And then, somehow, she was in his kitchen. Frying pan in one hand, cracked egg yolk running gold down the side of the hob, the kettle hissing behind her. The whole house smelled like salt and grease and something better than silence.

Severus hovered at the threshold, shirt sleeves rolled, eyes narrowed like he couldn’t quite believe she was real. Like she might vanish if he blinked too long.

“You gonna stand there the whole time?” she asked, over her shoulder.

He sniffed. “I’m monitoring.”

“For what, burnt toast?”

“For imminent disaster.”

She snorted and slid two plates onto the table, not quite chipped in the same places, but close. “Sit down. You saved my life. Least I can do is feed you, Sev.”

He did sit — eventually — though he made a show of poking suspiciously at the sausage.

They ate in a quiet that wasn’t awkward, for once. Just… quiet. Shared. Her hair was still damp from the early morning shower. His collarbone still shadowed the bruise she’d touched. But the kettle boiled again, the cheap sausage crackled in the pan, and the floor didn’t collapse beneath them.

It wasn’t safety. It wasn’t peace.

Their mornings would continue with cigarettes and the reheated coffee pot from last night, burnt at the bottom but somewhat familiar now.

“I still need to get Connery, y’know,” Lily said through a slow exhale of smoke.

Severus didn’t look up. “Bring that cat here, and I might as well hand him to the Dark Lord as Alastor Moody in disguise, Lily.”

But for a flicker of morning, it was something warm. And that was enough. Teabags and classic English breakfast by Lily were supposed to be enough. 

Chapter Text

Severus Snape abso-fucking-lutely despised animals, including cats. He found them to be quite unimportant and very unpleasant, thus owning one never came to be an option. Quite the opposite, he never ever would even think of having one. 

For him, it was something similar to children. Intolerable. Unwanted. Loud. Something you were expected to feel affection toward just because society had collectively decided they were sweet . He didn’t buy it. He never had. And nor, was he ever going to. 

Lily, on the other hand, had felt empathy for every tiny creature that so much as looked like it needed help. (Yes, including house-elves, which Severus found to be both morally questionable and visually abhorrent.) And of course, she had owned cats. Many.

Her first ever cat was a big tabby cat, who quite literally grew up with her. Winslou — originally named Winslow, until three-year-old Lily insisted on renaming her (“Winslou sounds nicer, Daddy, she’s a girl ”) — had even gone to Hogwarts with her. 

The cat tragically passed away at the age of thirteen in her fourth year, and Severus even could recall the stupid little funeral the Evanses had held for the four-legged family member. Of course, he was there too. He remembered standing awkwardly near the garden bed, arms crossed and trying very hard to not scowl while Petunia tried very hard to seem just as emotionally astute as him (Severus could have sworn he saw her try to dry her tears). Lily had cried like someone had hexed her lungs out. Her dad had said something painfully sentimental about loyalty and the circle of life. Her mum had brought out a plate of biscuits like it was a wake. The whole thing was, in Severus’s opinion, utterly deranged.

But she’d looked at that box in the ground — wrapped in an old tea towel, mind you — like it was sacred. Like the world had lost something irreplaceable. And when she hugged him after, tears soaking through the shoulder of his jumper, he’d said nothing. Just stood there, thirteen and confused and quietly furious at the universe for giving her a heart big enough to break over things that weren’t even human.

And then, a few months later, she adopted another.

Of course she did.

But that one turned out to actually belong to someone in the neighbourhood, so Lily, ever so sentimental about separations, had cried another round over that small skinny gray kitten, that in Severus’s opinion was not even close to being worth the noise. It had only lived with her for five days — five bloody days — before its real owner knocked on their front door, some ten-year-old boy from two streets over with missing front teeth and a laminated flyer. And yet, Lily had acted like she was handing over a limb. She kissed the kitten on the head, whispered some nonsense about being brave, and then cried herself stupid on the staircase for an hour straight.

And after forty six minutes long argument, and one miserable yet successful polyjuice-infused attempt, Lily and Severus had managed to get inside her flat in London, grab the ever so big not even a year old cat and disappear again before anyone could spot them.

The cat, of course, had made the whole operation infinitely more difficult. Connery — because Lily, in her infinite chaos, had decided to name him after some old Muggle spy who “looked handsome enough to be honored" — was not only massive, but fully convinced he was royalty. He hissed when the Polyjuice wore off early, clawed at the sleeves of Severus’s borrowed coat, and then meowed so loudly in the alley behind her flat that Severus was certain the entire street had heard.

Lily had stuffed him into a duffel bag lined with a charm-warmed blanket. Connery had willingly climbed in. Of course he had. Probably mistook it for a throne. The look on Severus’s face when she zipped it up was the kind of resigned horror usually reserved for cursed objects and magical contracts.

They’d Apparated straight back to Spinner’s End, cat and all, and it wasn’t until Connery had strutted out of the bag, tail high and eyes narrowed at the gloomy, unfamiliar walls, that Severus realised what had just happened.

He had willingly — voluntarily — become an accomplice in the relocation of a cat .

Not just any cat, but Lily Evans’s cat. A cat with a name and opinions and a tail that flicked with enough contempt to rival Severus’s own. A cat was now inside his house. His house, where he had once placed a permanent Silencing Charm on the chimney because the birds outside were too loud in the mornings.

And there Connery was. Casually leaping onto the armchair like he’d claimed squatter’s rights, sniffing around the fireplace with calculated disdain, and then, to Severus’s complete horror, proceeding to sharpen his claws on the leg of the chair .

“Absolutely not,” Severus said, flatly.

Lily didn’t even look up. She was taking off her boots by the door, muttering a cleaning charm under her breath as mud vanished from the soles. “He’s just getting comfortable.”

“He’s destroying my furniture.”

“That chair’s been falling apart since fifth year.”

“That’s not the point . ”

Connery flicked his tail in smug agreement and proceeded to curl up in the exact center of the chair cushion, where he promptly closed his eyes — but not before letting out the most exaggerated, slow-motion sigh Severus had ever heard a living being make.

It was official.

He had lost control of his own house.

“I’ll make coffee!” Lily said excitingly, holding up her Moka pot that she also successfully smuggled out of her own flat. 

Severus blinked at it. Then at her. Then at the smug cat still sinking his claws into his cushion like it was a personal vendetta.

“You brought that too?” he asked, voice tight.

“Of course I did,” she said, as if this were obvious. “It’s Italian. I don’t trust British brews anymore.”

“Of course you don’t,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose while Lily made her way to the pitiful excuse for a kitchen.

Within seconds she was clattering about like she owned the place — opening cupboards, sighing dramatically at the lack of proper mugs, making appalled noises over the state of his sugar jar. Connery, fully settled now, gave a throaty little trill as if to say get used to it .

Severus stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching her fill the kettle with water that barely qualified as drinkable.

“I was under the impression,” he said dryly, “that you were hiding here. Not redecorating.”

Lily turned, flicked on the stovetop, and smirked. “Oh, I can multitask.”

He stared at her — the Moka pot now perched like a crown on the stove, her sleeves shoved up to her elbows, Connery purring like a bloody diesel engine behind her. And in the middle of it all, he realized something terrible.

This wasn’t just an invasion.

It was an occupation.

“Do you not have work?” Lily asked, tying her hair up with a scrunchie that looked like it had been through three wars and a shampoo bottle.

Severus, who was leaning against the doorframe in his usual cross-armed misery, shrugged. “Not right now.”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “Really? Thought you were all doom and Potioneering.”

“I am,” he said, shifting his weight. “Just… haven’t been taking anything lately.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not avoiding it, are you?”

“No,” he lied, way too fast.

Truth was, he was kind of avoiding Burke right now. On one of the last meet-ups of theirs, Regulus Black might have popped up and the word might have gone sideways — something about sourcing, something about secrecy — and they’d argued, properly argued, sharp and low and mean. Burke had been caught in the middle, trying to smooth things over, until Severus, frayed and furious, had finally snapped and told them both to fuck off. Literally — “fuck off” — no flourishes, no finesse. Just the kind of ugly, final thing you can’t walk back, even if you wanted to.

“You?” he asked, his deep, dark eyes suddenly softening — not in a way that begged for vulnerability, but in that rare, hesitant flicker he never quite knew what to do with. Like the word had slipped out before he could coat it in sarcasm. Like maybe, just maybe, he cared.

Lily blinked, caught off guard by the shift, but recovered quickly. “Me what?”

He shrugged, casual in that way he did when he absolutely wasn’t. “Still in touch with your apothecary lot?” 

She leaned back against the counter, arms folding slow, lips twitching into something between a frown and a smirk. “Sort of. They’ve been sending letters. Asking when I’ll be back. If I’ll be back.”

His eyes didn’t move off her.

“I obviously did not respond, so I bet they think I am a scoundrel or sum’thing.”

“Scoundrel?” Severus snickered at the word. 

“Yeah, scoundrel.” She smiled, lazy and unapologetic, like the word tasted funnier than it should. “You know, the type who vanishes in the middle of a shift and never writes back. Classic criminal behaviour.”

He tried to offer her a smile. A Severus-esque smile, to be precise. 

“Are you staying under this roof because of me? Because if you have any errands to run, Sev, do not—”

“Oh, no, I don’t. Do not worry. Yeah. It’s just—” he hesitated, blinked, blinked again, like he’d walked into a sentence without knowing how to exit. His fingers twitched at his side, useless, then stilled. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

She tilted her head. “Nothing. Just making sure you’re not on house arrest for my benefit.”

His eyes darted to hers, then immediately dropped to the floor like it might offer him a line. “No,” he said quickly, too quickly. Then softer, fumbling with the syllables like they weighed something: “I— I didn’t mean to suggest that you were the reason I… I simply…” He exhaled, jaw clenching once, sharp. “I haven’t wanted to leave.”

There was a beat. A beat where he clearly realized how it sounded, and another where he visibly tried to fix it. Failed.

“I mean. Not because of you. Not— not in a way that implies anything. Just.” A shrug. Useless. Helpless. “I heard you liked talking.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I— That came out wrong.”

“Did it?”

He looked pained. “Yes. No. Possibly.”

She was already grinning, but now it turned criminal. “Severus Snape,” she said, slow, like the syllables were a threat. “Did you just say you stayed home because I talk too much?”

“No,” he said, then immediately added, “Not like that. I meant— I meant I don’t mind it. The talking. Yours. Specifically.”

“Oh, I feel so special.”

He bristled. “Don’t,” he warned, pointing a vaguely accusatory finger at her like she was a jinx about to go off.

But Lily just leaned her hip against the counter, still smiling far too wide for his comfort. “You don’t mind my talking. Got it.”

“I don’t,” he muttered, then, disastrously: “Nor your sleeping.”

Her head tilted again, slower this time. “My… sleeping?”

“Under. My roof.”

He froze. 

Absolutely, entirely, unequivocally froze.

“I didn’t— That is—” He cut himself off with a noise of sheer regret. “I mean to say I don’t mind when you’re—when you stay.”

“Oh?” She was grinning again, all teeth. “This better be going somewhere decent, Severus.”

“I’ve had people over before,” he said, somehow digging deeper. “Not— not often. But sometimes. They stayed the night.”

And then, because his brain was apparently hell-bent on his own social execution, he added, “Only the night.”

Lily blinked once. Then once more. Then promptly burst out laughing.

He recoiled. “That’s not what I meant . ”

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Severus Snape. I didn’t know you had such a bustling lodging service .”

“I—” He looked like he was actively debating hexing himself. “It wasn’t— I was referring to— I don’t conduct—” He groaned. “Never mind.”

She wiped a tear from her cheek, giggling. “No, no, please continue. Conduct what? Business? Carnal transactions? Illegal alchemical affairs?”

He dragged a hand over his face, crimson from ear to collar. “You are insufferable.”

“And you’re absolutely mortified,” she said, practically glowing. “Which makes this the best morning I’ve had in weeks.”

Severus opened the drawer and grabbed a new pack of cigarettes, automatically offering one to Lily.

Their tenth day together so far already felt like a month. Very in sync. Very domestic. Although, neither of them would ever admit to that. 

Lily took the cigarette with a smile, lit it with a casual flick of her wand, and leaned against the windowsill while Connery purred obnoxiously in the background like some smug little demon they’d summoned during a blood ritual of bickering and reluctant affection.

It was the quiet kind of peace that only would be natural when you were with someone, who could be your home. Maybe who was already home. 

He watched her in the faint morning light, the cigarette resting easy between her fingers, one foot crossed over the other like she’d lived in this kitchen her whole life. And maybe she had — not this one, specifically, but ones like it. Places she made her own just by breathing in them.

Severus took a slow drag from his own and exhaled like it might hold back the thought pressing against his ribs.

Because yes, it was peace.

But it was scary , too.

Not the kind that startled or screamed. The kind that crept in quietly. The kind you didn’t notice until it was already rearranging your furniture, softening your sharp edges, and planting herbs on your windowsill.

The kind that made you believe — if only for a second — that you were allowed to want things.

It was that kind of peace.

And he didn’t trust it. Not fully. Not yet.

But he also didn’t want it to go.

“You were quiet,” Lily said suddenly, her voice soft and not quite teasing anymore.

He looked over, slightly startled. “When?”

“That night,” she said, eyes fixed on the street outside. “Three days ago. When you came back.” She didn’t say what from. She didn’t have to. “You didn’t say a word. Barely looked at me.”

Severus blinked. His cigarette burned low between his fingers.

She didn’t turn to look at him. “I thought you were angry. Thought you were ignoring me on purpose. Like some weird … I don’t even know what. My mum would do that to us when we were small. Just reminded me of that.”

“I wasn’t doing anything on purpose,” he said, low. Immediate.

“I know.” Her smile was small now. “I know that now.”

He exhaled through his nose, leaned back against the counter. “I didn’t know how to talk. Not then.”

Lily nodded once, slowly. “I figured that out, eventually. You looked like…” She paused, trying to find the shape of the thing. “Like your mouth had forgotten how to make human sounds.”

He huffed a dry laugh. “That’s not far off.”

She lit her cigarette, and looked at him. Remembering how he had looked the very first night, it kind of burnt-out. It kind of startled her — the contrast. The version of him that had been maybe unintentionally thrown against a fence by Lily, soaked in rain and silence, like he’d been carved out of stone and left to erode. His eyes had been dull, haunted in that quiet, aching way that spoke of things he’d seen but never spoken aloud. His skin had looked stretched too tight over sharp cheekbones, and his hands — Merlin, his hands had trembled so subtly that she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been watching like she was bracing for a collapse.

He’d looked like a man halfway through falling apart. Like someone who hadn’t been touched kindly in months. Or maybe ever. 

Looking at him now, she realised how different this Severus had looked. 

Obviously, he still was sulkingly pale. That could never be taken away from him. But there was some kind of humanity to him. Some color that made him Sev .

It was in the faint pink that bloomed on his cheekbones when she teased him too hard. In the way his shoulders no longer sat permanently hunched, like he expected to be struck for existing. In the dry wit that returned, sharper and quicker with every day she stayed. In the little huffs of breath he made when Connery claimed his pillow, and he pretended — pretended — to be annoyed.

And sometimes, Lily would stare at the whole scene and wonder, when was the end to this all? Was there even an end? Because part of her knew very well that this was not gonna last anyhow. And it wasn’t that there was anything for there to last. 

Sev was still Sev to her. Just that. There were no names for whatever this was. No promises wrapped up in the warmth of shared mornings or cigarettes lit with the same match. No declarations or definitions. Just proximity. Just breath and sarcasm and occasional silence that didn’t feel like punishment anymore.

She didn’t kid herself. Didn’t paint over it with softness or lies.

She just saw him.

And maybe that was the worst part — or the best — that despite everything, despite all the blood between them, despite the war, the fear, the nights they didn’t speak, the mornings they didn’t want to leave the kitchen — he let her.

He let her see.

And she kept looking.

“I thought maybe we could fix my mother’s old wardrobe,” he said, already regretting the words halfway through them. “The one in your room that is nearly falling apart.”

Lily looked up from where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, Connery snoring dramatically beside her like he’d been personally offended by the conversation.

“What do we have to… fix it with? How, I mean.”

He blinked at her. The way she said how, I mean , like this was something foreign, something suspicious, like he was about to suggest they transfigure it into a dragon or hex it into obedience.

And maybe that was fair.

She was still wearing his jumper. Slightly oversized, sleeves shoved halfway up her arms, collar slipping just enough to show the freckle near her shoulder that he definitely hadn’t memorised. Her hair was tied up with some ridiculous ribbon that used to be a shoelace. 

There were mornings when she’d go into the kitchen and Severus would be completely mesmerized at the ability of how she managed to look so effortlessly ethereal. The way her hair would fall loose from its knot in delicate strands, catching the early light like copper wire. The way her bare feet padded softly against the warped wooden floor, her sleeves slipping down as she reached for a mug far too high. The curve of her neck, the slope of her shoulders, the way she moved like she had always belonged in his space — like she didn’t realize she’d made it hers , too.

 Like war had never touched her. Or maybe she was the war. She was the war worth fighting for. But how could he be going into a war that continuously tried to end her . 

The thought sat in his chest like a stone. Heavy. Inarguable.

Because it wasn’t just about sides anymore — not about purity or promises or any of the lies they all kept swallowing to make the blood taste less like guilt. It was about this: her, cross-legged on the floor in his jumper, smiling at him like he wasn’t already a little ruined. Like she didn’t see it, or worse — like she did , and still stayed.

Truth was, Severus didn’t want to fix a bloody thing in the house. He wanted to sell the goddamn house if he were to be honest. He had been thinking for quite some time (although the price offered for the place was not suitable in his opinion), and a thought of fixing anything seemed quite useless to him. 

The goddamn thing had been broken for years, hinges squealing like a banshee every time he opened it, the wood bowing in a way that suggested it would collapse from one more sock being shoved inside. He remembered times when he was thrown into one of those bloody wardrobes, and since then he avoided entering those rooms. 

But now it was in her room. And she was here. And for some reason, the thought of her storing her things in something that barely held together made him irrationally annoyed. Irrationally possessive . Like the furniture she used should at least not mock her every time she opened a drawer.

And maybe — if he was honest about his feelings, which he rarely was — he just wanted to do something with her. Something small. Something mundane. Something that could pass for normal if they didn’t look at it too hard. 

Oh, and Merlin knew how he wanted to offer her the comfort in his house, but he needed her to leave. Go away, further than the entire continent, change her name, and never be seen or heard anywhere in Britain. 

Because every time she left a mug on the table or tossed her jumper over the back of a chair, it made something in his chest ache with the sharp, slow certainty that she wouldn’t be able to do that forever. That someday — maybe tomorrow, maybe next week — someone would knock on the door, and it wouldn’t be him standing there.

And it would be someone who would threaten, hurt— 

Take her voice. Her name. The heat of her presence that somehow softened even the damp chill of Spinner’s End. The socks she left draped over the radiator. The way she’d whine every time she’d have to dry her hair, and then stop halfway through, leaving stains at the back of her shirt. The scent of rosemary on her jumper from whatever nonsense she’d burned the night before.

Take it all.

And the thing that made his stomach twist violently—the thing that made his breath catch low in his throat—was knowing she would fight.

Of course she would. She’d fight like she always had, not just with spells, but with the full weight of who she was. With her stubbornness. Her rage. Her goddamn brightness. She’d look them in the eye and tell them they’d have to kill her first.

And maybe they wouldn’t kill her on the first try. Nor the second (he believed that her stubbornness would not give up that fast.) But each attack, he would be less and less likely to slit the throat of those who dared to threaten her life. 

Harder to remember what part of the war he was supposed to be on when the only thing he was truly protecting was standing barefoot in his jumper, scolding a cat for chewing on parchment.

Harder to slit the throat of someone who threatened her when he could barely breathe at the thought of her name said in past tense. 

“Have you read the newspaper?” Lily asked rather too casually, lowering her reading glasses in the chill of the evening as they sat on the settee.

Severus — eyes still on the book — murmured a quiet no, shaking his head once. 

“They wrote about that Fay fella.” Lily let the figurative cat out of the bag.

“Oh.” Severus placed the book on his lap. “The younger one, I suppose?”

“Yeah. The one that–” She said, gesturing at the act of slitting one’s throat.

Severus didn’t speak for a moment. Just stared down at the closed book on his lap, thumb pressed against the spine like he was debating reopening it, disappearing into something fictional and quiet. But Lily’s tone was too sharp, too deliberate.

“They said he was attacked while walking home ,” she continued, voice brittle with disbelief. “Claimed he was just some poor lad caught in the crossfire. No affiliations. No politics. Just... a tragedy. Genuinely though, he ‘died’ in Coventry. Everybody knows the pureblood families as Fays do not live anywhere in the Midlands. ”

Severus snorted, low and humourless. “Fay’s father wrote half the pamphlets in circulation last year about ‘preserving magical lineage.’”

“Doesn’t he also have a book ‘bout it?”

“Of course, he does. It’s speculated that the book was written after he had met the Dark Lord, and supposedly, got inspired. But they do not — never had — advertised it that way. Only a mere whisper back when we were in school.”

Lily let out a sharp exhale. “Right. And now they’re pretending the son of that man just happened to be ‘caught in crossfire’ while doing his evening walk in fucking Coventry.”

“They’re softening it,” Severus muttered. “Diluting the truth so no one asks questions that reach the Ministry floor.”

“More like rewriting it,” she said, folding the corner of the newspaper with a frustrated flick. “They’re framing it like some rogue act of rebellion against the status quo — some ‘dangerous, escalating movement’ that’s supposedly targeting innocent purebloods.”

Severus nodded once, slow. “They’re trying to paint him as a victim of the anti-You-Know-Who fringe. A consequence of civil unrest. Which conveniently implies the Dark Lord’s followers are the ones under siege.”

“And not the ones running half the bloody government,” Lily said, voice sharp now.

There was a long silence after that. The kind that settled like dust between them — thick, knowing, bitter.

“It’s working, though,” she said after a while. “People at the apothecary used to whisper about Death Eaters like they were monsters hiding in forests. Now they talk about them like they’re just... a political party. A stance.”

Severus didn’t respond. Not right away. His jaw had tensed again — the way it did when he was thinking of too many things at once and none of them safe to say.

“Do you think,” Lily asked quietly, “there’ll come a time when no one even remembers what side Fay was really on?”

“That’s the point,” he said. “That’s always been the point.” He said it rather casually, like it was not some sad truth, but instead, a fact that was simply inevitable. Like gravity. Like rot.

Lily turned to look at him, brows drawn — not because she didn’t understand, but because he did. Too well.

“So you think, I’m still in danger?”

“Pff, of course.” He placed the book on the floor. “Jus’ ‘cause the paper says otherwise doesn’t mean they think that way.”

Lily shifted, unfolding her crossed legs and tucking them beneath her as she settled onto her knees.

“So, does that mean? I mean what does it mean— When can I leave?”

Severus looked at her then. Really looked. The way her voice hesitated on leave , like the word itself didn’t know what tone it wanted to take. Like she didn’t know if she meant it.

He didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked down to her hands.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, and it came out rougher than he meant it to. “When it’s safe. When they stop watching the alleys near your flat. When the name Evans doesn’t pull reactions in rooms it shouldn’t be in.”

She didn’t speak, so he kept going—because it felt easier to talk than to sit in the silence.

“I’ll not lie to you,” he said, his gaze shifting onto Connery who was sleeping between them. “Last time I was summoned, your name … Your name had been mentioned. And I had been asked if,” Severus gulped, like dust had been gathering in his throat. “If I know anything about you since Hogwarts. And the questions were asked by him .”

The weight of it settled in the room like fog.

Lily’s breath hitched, but still, she said nothing.

“And when he didn’t like the answer,” Severus continued, voice hollow now, “he used the Cruciatus.”

He didn’t look at her when he said it. Couldn’t.

“Not long. Not the worst. Just long enough to make a point. Just long enough to remember what silence costs.”

His hands curled into fists on his knees. Quiet. Controlled. Shame blooming in the hollows of his shoulders.

“I told him I hadn’t seen you. That we’d not spoken in years. That I didn’t even know if you were in the country.”

His voice cracked, barely, and then steadied.

“And he believed me.”

“Sev, is that— You should have told me—”

“Lily,” he said, and her name landed like a stone. Heavy. Final. Not unkind, but immovable.

He didn’t look at her, didn’t need to. His jaw was set, his eyes fixed on a crack in the floorboards like it might splinter into something safer than this conversation.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to know what that felt like. I didn’t want you to picture it. I didn’t want you to—”

He stopped. Swallowed. Started again.

“I didn’t want you to think it was your fault. Or worse—mine, for keeping you here.”

Lily blinked, stunned into silence.

“It’s not just danger anymore,” he said, softer now, like it was leaking out of him. “It’s proximity. To you. To the idea of you. That’s what gets noticed.”

He finally looked at her.

“And I couldn’t risk you carrying the weight of that. And for many days, I was thinking. Trying to think how to get a way around it. How to—”

“You don’t have to save me, Sev. It’s—”

“No, this is all my fault.”

“Are you insane?” She snapped, half-rising from where she sat. “You saved me!”

He stood up abruptly, like the thought itself had pushed him to his feet. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just looked at her with that awful stillness he wore like a second skin. The one that meant something was already unraveling inside him.

“You should leave the country.”

That stopped her cold.

“What?”

“I mean it.” His voice was too even, too quiet. “You need to go. Disappear. Somewhere far. Somewhere where they won’t look. They’re watching names now. Watching bloodlines. You—”

“Now you’re insane ,” she said, her tone laced with disbelief. “What are you even saying?”

“I’m saying it for you ,” he ground out. “Not for me. For once, I’m not thinking like—like someone who’s already damned. I’m thinking like someone who wants you alive .”

She stared at him, breath shallow. “Sev, stop acting like you have any obligation to even keep me around here.”

“I—”

His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again as if his thoughts couldn’t find a door to escape through. It was maddening to not be able to articulate his anger, his thoughts, his feelings in a way that didn’t sound like a confession or a threat.

“Argh, fuck! ”

He ran a hand through his hair with such force it looked like he wanted to tear it out. He turned away from her, paced a step, then pivoted back with a fury that wasn’t aimed at her but still burned.