Lily Evans Potter does Manhattan. (lilspotter) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-10-23 22:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, lily evans, severus snape |
RP Log; Severus Snape & Lily Potter
Who: Severus Snape & Lily Potter
When: 17 October, Thursday Morning
Where: Severus Snape’s apartment in Potts Tower
What: Questions and answers and potions.
Rating: Low.
Status: COMPLETE.
It had taken Lily more days than she would have cared to admit to work up the courage to go see Severus Snape. It was possibly embarrassing to call herself a Gryffindor, and take that long to visit him, but there were… reasons. Or at least that was what she told herself as she pushed the button in the lift so that she could go down to his flat. She still didn’t know what she’d say to him when she arrived there. She supposed it might depend upon whether or not he was younger or older, and whether or not she could easily tell what he knew. Perhaps it ought make no difference, but she couldn’t help but feel that if he were younger than her, she’d be less likely to say half of what she wanted to say. Not that she knew exactly what she wanted to say either. To thank him, certainly - after all, whatever reasons he’d had, he’d looked out for Harry, or would look out for Harry from her perspective - but part of her still wanted to yell at him for being so stupid: For not seeing through the Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort. Although who was to say it would have changed things? But no. No, Lily couldn’t lie and pretend that it wouldn’t have changed things. Severus’ insistence on joining the Death Eaters and in overlooking his housemates behaviour had altered something in their friendship. She’d been unable to see him as a safe person and that meant she’d had to stop talking to him completely. That had led her in a different direction, as certainly as it had led him in a different direction and she could only imagine what might have been had Severus respected her over those friends. It was a moot point, but it would likely play into how she might say hello, or forgive, or speak to him at all. The lift doors opened and Lily stepped out, closed her eyes for a moment and then begin to make her way down the hall looking for the room number that had been on the refugee list. When she reached it she hesitated for a moment and then she knocked. She would not lose her nerve now. Severus had not been hiding. He was a grown man, a highly skilled wizard and a former spy of some repute. A man such as that did not hide. He had simply been busy, with his work at the restaurant, with the commission for essential oils for his colleagues, brewing potions and with determining how well Klara Prast could grow the plants he needed. He had many things demanding his time and attention and thus he could hardly be expected to keep an eye on the network to see what Lily was doing or saying. However when the knock came on the door, he knew that his… not-hiding had come to an end. He had no idea who was on the other side of the door and yet at the same time, he knew who it was without a doubt. While he’d made a few friends in his time here, who else would actually come and knock on his door without warning? It was true that it might be Albus but the former Headmaster had been unaware of who he actually was until recently and since his memory upgrade, Severus had only had a short email from the man. He strongly suspected that Albus was giving him his space and his chance to live as he wanted. That left only Lily who would be willing to beard the serpent in his den. Because Lily, unless she had read the books, only knew him as he had been back when they were young and she’d never had any reason to fear him. Hate him, certainly. Fear him? Well, they’d been children together. She knew things others didn’t. He set aside the stirrer he’d been holding as he’d waited for the potion he was brewing to turn green… if it was going to turn green at all. It was another of experiments in brewing a potion without the requisite magical ingredients and he had no idea if it was going to work. He wiped his hands on a small cloth and walked over to the door, hesitating only the barest of moments before opening it. He had been right. There was Lily, standing in the corridor and looking exactly as she had the last time he’d seen her - a brief glimpse of her in the street in Diagon Alley before she went into hiding. Something thumped, sharp and hard, in his chest as he looked at her. Had she come to yell at him? To hex him? He deserved that. “Lily,” he said, only the barest hint of hoarseness in his voice. He stopped short, not knowing what else to say. It had been a long time since she’d seen Severus, and Lily wasn’t certain what she’d been expecting. The man in front of her was older and more mature looking - striking even - if not handsome in the traditional sense of the word. The answer to the question of whether or not he’d lived the books she’d read seemed likely to be ‘at least some of them’. She swallowed, glancing up and trying to read him, and realizing she had no idea. She wondered if he was reading her and found that the possibility of it didn’t make her quite as uncomfortable as it maybe ought to have. Perhaps of all of the uncomfortable things she’d discovered in the past few weeks, this didn’t even make the list. “Sev,” she said finally and faced with his lack of verbage, Lily seemed ready to overcompensate. “I’m sorry, I could have written, or called, or something - that thing where you write things - texting, right? I’m still getting used to it all.” But the truth was that she hadn’t been certain he would want to see her. Certainly he hadn’t tried to contact her at all, and perhaps that had been because he didn’t want to see her. Perhaps it was for some other reason too, however, and Lily supposed that if she was faced with the reality that he didn’t want to have any contact with her, then she’d respect that - after all, hadn’t she given him that choice once herself? - but under the circumstances and with everything she knew, she had to at least try to tell him… Still she didn’t know what she wanted to tell him. How disappointing the truth had been, and yet also how she had cried tears when she’d read the chapter with his memories, and not just because of the truth for her grown-up nearly a man little boy, but for the friend she’d once had as well and for everything he’d lived. Everything the man in front of her likely had lived. When was he from? How much had he lived? “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I don’t really know what I - I just saw your name on the list and they had your room number there and so many of the people here I don’t know, just Dorcas really, and Professor Dumbledore of course, and then you. I mean, at least we did, and I thought I should say hello.” Ugh. Lily, stop. She had entered full-on babble mode, partly nerves, and at least partially an attempt to avoid any extreme emotions right off the get-go. Lily stopped, swallowed, and offered a smile: “I think you look older than I do, so you must be from what would be my future, aren’t you? Are you busy? I just wanted to say hello, but if you’re busy I can come back later.” Or not at all if you’d rather… she selfishly left the phrase unsaid because when it came down to it, she wanted to make the decision herself and she couldn’t help but think - particularly now as they stood face-to-face - that she wasn’t going to want to ignore his presence here. For a moment it seemed as though Lily was a tongue-tied as he was and then a flood of words flowed out. It was shatteringly familiar. Lily’s nervous babble mode. He’d been on the receiving end a few times. Platform 9¾ and the train being two of the most memorable examples. He couldn’t help the tiny smile that curved his lips as just for a moment he was thrown back to better happier times. She’d come to a halt before he’d managed to collect himself and he saw the flash of uncertainty in her eyes. He was certain he knew what had prompted it. He hadn’t tried to contact her. He hadn’t really known how or what to say. And a small part of him had wanted to wait. Let her be pointed towards the books. See all of what was in there. Because that would tell him a great deal. If she read the books and still wanted to see him, talk to him, then perhaps she didn’t hate him. The books made no bones about what he’d done. “I… no,” he said suddenly. “I mean… I’m not busy. Come in.” He stepped aside and gestured for her to enter. It only occurred to him then to wonder how she would view the place where he lived. The kitchen was full of the implements of his new profession - the utensils and equipment of a chef. It was utterly spotless except for the loaf of herb bread cooling on a rack. There was a cauldron simmering in the living room and a bench on one side of the room that held an alembic slowly bubbling away over a flame and filling the air with the scent of lavender that was competing with the smell of slightly burnt toast coming from the potion in the cauldron as well as the scent of the herb bread. The couch and armchair were tucked away closest to the window with the almost unused television not far away. Most surfaces, unless they were too close to the cauldron or alembic, were covered in books. And yet the place wasn’t messy. It was clear there was sense of meticulous organisation in everything. He then recalled the first question she’d asked. It wasn’t a huge leap to know that he was from her future. He looked older. “I… If you have read the books, then I’m from the period of time detailed in the last one…” He hesitated for a moment. “I had just been summoned by the Dark Lord and was on my way to the Shrieking Shack.” If she had read the books then she would know that he had been brought here mere minutes before his own death. Lily stepped into his flat and her eyes took in the entire space, suddenly curious about how the adult Severus would choose to live when it was his choice. Not that anything about this place was entirely their choice, but at the same time they didn’t have the pressures of the war - and for Severus the pressures of spying, or reporting back to anyone. The flat was not entirely different from the one she was in as far as set-up went, but it was so much more lived in than hers. The books, the kitchen, the cauldron. For half an instant she was about to launch into a thousand questions about the potion he was clearly working on and the mechanics of how magic worked here or didn’t, when his words sunk into her consciousness a bit more clearly. I had just been summoned by the Dark Lord and was on my way to the Shrieking Shack. Lily had stepped further into the living area but now she turned back, sobering slightly and uncertain exactly what to say. It seemed from the way he stated it that he had read the books as she had, and he knew he was coming from moments before his own death, like she was as well. Lily felt her throat tighten up as it had so many times over the past few weeks. She hadn’t come here to burst into tears, she was fairly confident that Severus would not appreciate that sort of emotional outburst, but what were the odds that they would both have been brought here from only moments before their deaths. She took a deep breath and was quiet for a moment until she could trust herself enough to not fall apart when she spoke. “So you’re what, 15-16 years older than I am right now?” She turned around and offered him a shaky smile. “I read the books,” she added, because she realized that he might want to know that – know how much she knew. “Dorcas told me a bit, and Ginny told me a bit, and then Professor Dumbledore said I could borrow his copies, although to be honest I was about to go out to a library and find them myself because everyone seemed to know more about my son than I did, and I guess I –“ for all her resolve to not get emotional her voice cracked and it took her a moment’s hesitation before she felt she could push on without it cracking further. “I ever will, but I couldn’t not read them, you know?” Lily offered him a smile as if by smiling she could pretend that knowledge had not completely broken her heart and that her arms didn’t ache for her little boy, perhaps ten-fold over, knowing the last time she cuddled Harry before she came here, was likely the last time she ever would. Her throat felt dry and constricted and she was beginning to think this had been a very bad idea. The proximity of Severus to his own death was only reminding her of how close she’d been to her own. “It’s Halloween, I mean it was.” She felt dangerously light headed and she stepped closer to the arm-chair so she could put a hand on its back. “And I’m here now, where it’s almost Halloween again forty years in a future in an alternate reality, and I don’t have my husband and I don’t have my son, and I know nobody except for Dorcas and Professor Dumbledore and you…” She turned her gaze to him trying to read him, but she wasn’t a legilimens and even had she been Severus could have blocked her easily. But while the books had given her some idea of who Severus Snape had been, and the things he’d been capable of, the things he’d had to do, and the war he’d battled with himself and with the Death Eaters she knew it had only been part of the picture. “And I don’t know if I know you,” she finished, part accusation, part apology, with a dash of anguish thrown into stir up the emotional brew well and proper. Severus saw Lily look at the cauldron. He half-expected a flood of questions about what he was brewing but they didn’t come. Instead the meaning behind what he’d said seemed to sink in, judging by the expression on her face. Which meant that she had read the books, just as he had, and knew what was going to happen to him. It wasn’t something he dwelled on too much. He doubted he’d be able to change it when or if he was sent back so there was no point in dwelling on it. “I’m thirty-eight.” Possibly he should say thirty-nine since a birthday had passed since he’d been here but given that birthday had come so soon after his arrival, he preferred to discount it and pick up from… well, from May. When he’d left off, so to speak. Saying his age out loud reminded him of how young Lily was. Older than she’d been the last couple of times she’d been here but still young. He didn’t like to think about that. “I think most of us read them eventually,” he offered. “It’s certainly better than relying on the internet for information about us. In fact, I recommend you do not look up any of us. I know that is just asking for you to do it but I still suggest you don’t.” He rolled his eyes, looking briefly exasperated. Etienne had cornered him a week ago and confronted him about his poor mood of late. He’d finally admitted to the man that Lily was here and he was uncertain where he stood with her. The young waitress who was such a fan had overheard this and he’d been forced to endure a week of her sighing and making what she clearly thought were subtle allusions to the wealth of things on the internet regarding the two of them. He tended to avoid that particular part of the internet like the plague, other than obtaining a single piece of artwork that he both despised and yet couldn’t stay away from. Then a flood of words again from Lily, words that made him wince. Halloween. So she could only count her life in minutes like he could. He did his best to ignore the reference to her husband and son though it made him flinch slightly nonetheless. “I… You’ve read the books…” He broked off and snorted. No, not even he was fool enough to claim that reading the books meant that you knew anything about him than the superficial. The books were from Potter’s perspective after all. His narrow point of view and for once he did not mean that as an insult. Potter’s point of view had been narrow. He’d been a schoolboy, sheltered in many ways and unaware of the vast wealth of information that lay as the background to everything he saw. He tried again. “People change as they grow but the fundamentals remain the same. I’m here. You’re here. I’ll answer any question you have. I won’t lie to you.” And oddly enough for a Slytherin and a spy, he meant that. He might lie to Albus or to anyone else but not Lily. He might try to avoid telling her about something but if she nailed his foot to the floor, he wouldn’t lie. It was at this possibly inopportune moment that he remembered the manners that Narcissa had so patiently and so primly taught him. He rarely used them but every now and then they surfaced and he paid attention to them. “...Would you like some tea?” “So seventeen years then,” Lily said after doing the math quickly in her head. The statement was followed by half-hysterical giggle. “This place, I just -” She took in a breath and focused in on his last question. It was directed to her, and it offered tea, which at the current moment felt absolutely like solace in a cup. She could hold onto it, sip it, and it would give her something that felt normal in the midst of all of this terribly abnormal. Lily nodded her head and then added: “Please, Sev. I would very much like some tea.” She took that moment to gather her thoughts up again. She hadn’t been certain whether or not to expect younger Severus, or older, and she’d gotten older - much, much older. When she looked at him, it felt odd to call him ‘Sev’, and not ‘Severus’, or possibly even Mr. Snape - but no, that would never work in her head and she suspected Severus would roundly complain if she tried it and she wouldn’t have been able to blame him for it. Mr Snape was Severus’ father, after all, and whatever faults and flaws the man in front of her might have Lily knew he was not Tobias Snape. And yes, she’d read the books, but Severus seemed to know, as she did, that it was only part of the picture and certainly large portions of her own life had been left untouched. So who was this man who had nearly two decades on her? - merlin she could hardly believe that was the case - Yes, he looked older than the last time she’d seen him, but there were still aspects of the man, or perhaps the boy, she’d known so well. Or she thought she had, but was now not certain she’d known at all. Questions. She had a hundred, and she wasn’t certain all of them had answers. Whatever life he’d lived, she believed that he would tell her the truth now and that certainty made her hesitate. The giant elephant in the room made her cheeks feel warm, and she suddenly wondered what had made her think it was a good idea to come and visit. What had she expected? Knowing how he felt? That they might be able to somehow be friends in this reality once again? And hadn’t she missed that friendship over the past few years? Or at the very least the idea of that friendship? She’d ignored it, considered it a flight of fancy, and a dose of nostalgia for an easier time, but perhaps she’d never quite stopped hoping that someday they’d be friends again. “What are you brewing?” she finally asked, stepping across to look at the cauldron. It was taking the easy way out - avoiding the decades of things she didn’t know about, and the question or questions she really wanted to ask him, but she both couldn’t bring herself to ask those questions yet, and was genuinely curious about the cauldron, and it was a neutral zone where they could walk for a moment until she figured out how to ask him everything else. Severus was almost relieved to go into the kitchen and start pulling out cups and teapots and the like. It gave him something to do. He set the kettle to boil with a flick of a finger as he assembled everything else that was needed. He still had no idea how Lily felt about everything she had learned in the books. He was adept at reading people but somehow reading Lily seemed impossible. Perhaps it was because he didn’t want to know. That seemed most likely. For the same reason the idea of using legilimancy on her was equally abhorrent. He was almost surprised when she asked about the potion but realised it made sense. She had always been as interested in potions as he was and it was a neutral topic, even a way to sidle gently into other, less comfortable topics. “Felix Felicis,” he said as the kettle boiled and he prepared the teapot. “Or at least attempting to brew it. Several of the ingredients are, as you know, magical in nature and I am attempting to find a way to brew the potion without them.” He levitated the teapot and cups out into the living room, sparing a sour look for the cauldron. “If I have been successful in the first stage, that should turn green in the next few hours. I am not holding out much hope. It has been very hit and miss in finding replacement ingredients for the magical ones.” He rarely brewed Felix Felicis but Agent Hill’s mention of unpleasant things coming through the tesseract and her worries about the Dark Lord being brought through had prompted him to start trying. If the Dark Lord was brought through, they would need some luck in order to defeat him and given the length of time it took to brew this one, the sooner he managed it, the better. “Felix Felicis?” Lily’s surprise was evident in her voice as she stepped across the room and towards the cauldron. She peered into the cauldron and looked at the mixture, which did look for the moment as a Felix Felicis potion might look. It wasn’t the sort of potion she would have expected, but maybe he was hoping for a bit of extra luck to get back - although why would he? “Have you brewed any potion successfully?” She asked him, gazing down at the mixture in the cauldron. “I was under the impression that there wasn’t magic here, at least, not how we know it, although there was someone who was advertising magical supplies, and it seems there are a fair number of people who use magic - even some that aren’t from our world.” She turned away from the cauldron and looked over at Severus as he sat the tea things out. When she’d first seen that he was older she’d half wanted to smack him. She had certainly felt overly emotional, and that moment might return again, but at the moment, curiosity had taken over and she’d been too long away now from someone who understood potions as well as Severus did, and no doubt he knew even more at this stage. It was a thought that was slightly depressing as it served to remind her of the years that were between them. She looked at Severus carefully, as if she were looking for some clue. Truthfully she was such a mix of emotions and had been since the day she’d arrived. The very real fact that she desperately missed her baby boy, adding to that the fact that she knew now that she probably wouldn’t get to rock him good-night again, and she was in turn sad, furious, and despairing - and she felt the despairing wasn’t natural. It was the sort of feeling she’d had on and off while in the months after she’d given birth, but not for a long time, and she didn’t much welcome its return. For better or worse, Severus sat in the middle of all of that. In a way it was his fault, but in another way it wasn’t - he had tried, for her at least, although that led to some anger as well, that he would have given Harry up so easily. How could he not have understood that he would give up anything, including herself, for her baby boy, and would not want to save herself at the cost of Harry? She moistened her lips. The all over the place emotions were not serving her well this afternoon. “Why?” she finally managed, the more difficult questions remaining despite her original intention to avoid them for a while longer. “I mean, what I mean, is why join them?” Severus decided not to tell her that he was preparing for the day when the Dark Lord or Bellatrix or one of his former cohorts came through the tesseract. He had no idea how likely it was to occur and given that most of them had been in the Order or Potter’s little group at school, they were far more likely to uselessly meddle than wait patiently and prepare. “I have,” he said with a nod, preparing the tea as he remembered she liked it. “Potions that do not require any magical ingredients work as well here as they do at home. I have been able to work out some substitutes for some non-magical but not many.” He frowned slightly. “On the whole, magic works as well here as at home however long-distance apparition is… uncomfortable.” He remembered the trip to San Francisco. He was powerful enough to have made it easily but the apparition had felt odd. A little like he was apparating through treacle. He wondered if any of the others had noticed but suspected they may not have. Not many people were powerful enough to apparate in one jump from one end of the country to the other and smaller jumps didn’t seem to have the same effect. He winced when Lily asked her first substantive question. He should have known it would be that one. The one question no one else ever asked because in their minds, well, he was a Slytherin so of course he joined the Death Eaters because that’s what Slytherins do. And to think they accused Slytherins of being prejudiced. But he’d said he would answer any question she had and he wouldn’t lie. “A lot of reasons. The Death Eaters… a lot of them were the fathers of the boys at school… they had what I wanted. Money, power, influence. And they offered to help me. With an apprenticeship. With getting a good position. Getting ahead in the world. They were… paternal in a way that helped.” Which was a damn sight better than he’d ever got from Tobias Snape and his teenage self had been very vulnerable to it. He knew that now. But back then when Mulciber and Avery seniors had shown paternal interest in him and offered their help, well, it had felt good to have someone… an adult… think he was worth something. He hesitated for a long moment before continuing. “And the Dark Lord… back then he’d been experimenting on himself but he didn’t look like he did at the end. He was still relatively handsome and charismatic. And he…” He broke off and walked over to the window and looked out though his eyes were seeing a moment from two decades ago, not the view of the city. “He seemed sympathetic. He was a skilled legilimens so he’d worked out what I’d managed to hide from the other - that my father was a Muggle. But the Dark Lord didn’t think that was bad. He… sympathised.” He knew why now, of course. After Albus had told him all, he knew why the Dark Lord had seemed sympathetic. Perhaps even had been somewhat sympathetic. In the books, he’d found that Potter wailed and moaned about being like the Dark Lord but that just made Severus snort. Severus was far closer to being like the Dark Lord than Potter could ever be. A Muggle father, a pureblood mother, a Muggle/magical marriage that did not work, an interest in the Dark Arts. “He sympathised,” he repeated. “He suggested I could move on from that. Be great. Be powerful. No one ever need know of my heritage. It was everything I wanted to hear and I was eighteen and stupid. So I joined.” He snorted. “It didn’t take long to see the truth of the matter but by then I was Marked and no one leaves the Death Eaters. Not alive anyway.” There were some other reasons but that was the bulk of it. He’d wanted to get ahead in the world and people had offered to helped him… with strings attached. He’d been young enough, naive enough and angry enough to think those strings wouldn’t be so bad. Lily didn’t know what she’d been expecting, exactly. Perhaps some part of her had hoped for some magic explanation that wasn’t what she thought it would be - that there had been some compelling push, some reason he’d had to join, something that would make it not about money, or power, or prestige - something decidedly un-Slytherin, perhaps. And as he spoke she found herself getting angry at him. Severus was so smart - a genius at potions and he always had been - if he’d just taken another route he could have easily had influence and done amazingly great things - created potions that could have helped people. As he continued, the anger tempered, but only slightly and that left her feeling only confused. She knew Severus’ father had not been a nice person. She’d known that for years, and perhaps she’d misunderstood at the time just how much that had affected him and how nice it might have been to have someone older pay attention to him. Excuses bubbled up - professors at Hogwarts as possible Father figures, but if she were honest would Professor Slughorn have been that person to Severus? She tried to sort back through memories of times that were really many years past, and tried to really view them from what might have been Severus’ perspective, but she found it impossible to really do. As she’d read the books she’d found herself wondering if Severus ought to have been sorted into Gryffindor perhaps - certainly he’d had a bravery that someone like Pettigrew had clearly never had - but right now she couldn’t see him in her house. She was having a difficult time seeing things from his perspective at all. What did being accepted matter if one was accepted for the wrong reasons? What was power if one had to hurt people along the way? Lily opened her mouth to speak, but realised she didn’t know what to say and so she closed it again. She had thought this might be easier. That somehow at twenty-one, and knowing what she knew, that she’d be able to see his reasons when they were presented from him and not filtered through the view of her son, but she couldn’t. Confused did not even begin to describe how she felt. She both wanted to thank Severus for what he had done for Harry, and to smack him for what he hadn’t done. She knew it wasn’t exactly his fault that she was counting her life in minutes. He’d done what he could - to save her at any rate - It had been Pettigrew truthfully. And James had been so certain that no one would ever suspect Pettigrew as the secret keeper. That was its own brand of anger, but Pettigrew wasn’t here, and Severus was. She wanted desperately to have the friend she’d once had, but she didn’t know if she could put away everything she’d learned. “Sev,” she started. “Did you think it would never touch me? Did you honestly think that they would let me alone? And even if it wasn’t me, if it was another muggle-born, and it was, it has been so many times - and how could you be okay with that? Did you honestly not know before? Did you think it wouldn’t lead to hurting others?” How could you be okay with him killing my Harry?” Her voice faltered and broke, but she pushed on, one question seemingly having led to another. “What if it had been your son? It could have been, you know?” As soon as the words exited her mouth, she wished she hadn’t said it. It was unfair, and considering that she knew how he felt still, it was cruel. “I’m sorry, Sev,” she said instantly. “I shouldn’t have come. I can’t - I just don’t know how - I’m sorry.” When Lily threw that at him - What if it had been your son? - he flinched and went chalk-white. She knew then. She’d read the books and seen it and knew how he felt. Then, just as abruptly, anger flared within him, washing away the burgeoning mortification. She knew how he felt and now she was trying to use it to manipulate him. Just as she had done years ago when she’d made their friendship conditional on doing what she wanted. Just as Mulciber and Avery had told she would because Gryffindors always wanted things their way and no other way was valid. He struggled with the anger, aware that at least part of it was juvenile at best but it didn’t stop his reply from being harsh. “There was nothing I could have said that could have stopped him from going after your son. It was all I could do to beg for your life and the risk I took there was astronomical,” he snapped. “There was not a force under the sun that could have stopped him, especially once he had Wormtail under his thumb.” He drew in a breath and then the one question he had never been able to fathom an answer for burst out. “Why? Why Pettigrew? He was always the weakest. Everyone could see that. The pathetic sycophant who trailed after Potter and Black like a sad little lapdog seeking whatever crumbs of approval were dropped to the ground. Everyone wondered why he was friends with them and he wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t know it. He was a ripe plum ready for the picking and he was plucked from the tree with ease. It was resentment probably. There you all were swanning around at your leisure with all your wealth while poor little Peter had to work for a living. There you all were diving headlong into danger as though you were all invincible while no doubt he could see how dangerous it was and you all ignored his concerns because who listens to Peter Pettigrew? I don’t know who among the Death Eaters recruited him but they surely didn’t have to work too hard.” Irritation now showed on his face. “And did you think that they recruited us by telling us that the Death Eaters were all about killing people? Come and join the Death Eaters and kill people! Of course not. They were manipulating eighteen year olds. It was all about opportunities and potential and the future. It was only once you were in and couldn’t get out that they brought out the other side.” He gave her a withering look. “Did you never see how Albus manipulated all of you into joining the Order? Come and join the Order and save the world! You’ll do good things, be noble and proud. Oh, it’ll be dangerous but we’ll keep you safe. It’s entirely voluntary but really how can you sit there and not join? You’d be a poor Gryffindor if you didn’t.” He snorted. “Albus would have made an excellent Slytherin. I was probably one of the few who joined the Order with my eyes wide open though even I was manipulated into it.” His anger faded somewhat now that it had been vented and he turned to look out the window. “I am not a Gryffindor, Lily. I never was and never would have been, no matter what thoughts might have been going around in Albus’ head. If things had been different, if my father hadn’t been what he was, I might have been Sorted into Ravenclaw. As it was, I ended up in Slytherin. I am proud to be a Slytherin. It is who I am. Only a Slytherin could have fooled the Dark Lord for twenty years. Only a Slytherin could have done what I did.” He snorted then said darkly, “And if the tesseract ever brings him here, I will die slowly and painfully for what I have done.” Lily flinched under Severus’ tone although part of her knew she’d pushed too far and she shouldn’t have been surprised by it. What possibly surprised her the most, though, was the realisation settling in as she lifted her eyes to look at him, that he was older. Yes, she’d seen it in his face, yes he’d said he was thirty-eight, but with the tirade, the anger, the questions, the way he was responding to her - the experiences he’d had were driving those questions. Lily opened her mouth to say something and then stopped, reaching her hand back for the chair and backing up to sit down in it for a moment. She could have pointed out that Remus had never been wealthy, and for that matter nor had she, and did Severus really think Sirius had any access to the Black family fortune at that point? But it was an argument that, like the question regarding the cauldron in the room before it, was simply a diversion from the reality that perhaps the worst part of everything that Severus had just said were the incredibly uncomfortable questions that Lily had asked herself as she’d read the books. She’d never been one to dwell, or be particularly maudlin for any length of time, but this place, the lack of Harry and James, the realization that her moments were quite literally numbered upon her return, and everything that came along with that… She had read the books, all of them, even the last. She’d never believed the rumors that Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald could have been friends, but they apparently had been. She’d never thought of Professor Dumbledore, kindly Professor Dumbledore, as someone who would manipulate, but she’d read the books, and read Severus’ own protestations regarding her son’s fate, if not for Harry’s sake, for hers. She had never believed that Peter would turn against them in that way - yes, he’d never had quite the charisma of Sirius, or the soft-spoken kindness of Remus, but she’d never disliked him and she’d always tried to treat him kindly. She had known that defying Voldemort was dangerous, but she hadn’t ever really believed that they’d be found and even if she had, she would have had to have done it anyway because she couldn’t have lived in the world that Voldemort wanted to build. The final book was proof of that. And the Fidelius was supposed to be fool-proof, and it would have been had she only… “I didn’t want to use Sirius,” Lily said, her voice just barely above a whisper. She stopped, moistened her lips and drew in a breath continuing a bit more loudly. “I wanted to use Remus. James didn’t trust Remus, he thought - he believed that Remus’ condition made him susceptible to blackmailing, I think. Ironically, I’m certain he was thinking about the fact that you knew the truth. Sirius had been, well, he’d been himself mostly, but sometimes he was so irresponsible, I didn’t think he should be trusted with so much,” she felt like her sentences were coming out fragmented, but she had asked Severus for a response, and then berated him for the truth. Perhaps she felt that she owed him the truth in return. He could tell her how stupid she had been, he already had, really, and from where she was sitting Lily found she couldn’t disagree with him. “Sirius suggested using Peter and James said Peter would be better any way - everyone would suspect Sirius or Remus and go after them first. Not Peter. We could both agree on Peter,” she said, and her mouth felt so very dry suddenly. Peter had been the compromise. They’d compromised... and it had cost them everything. Lily was suddenly thinking back, trying to think if there had been signs she’d just missed - whether or not she’d just been so dense, so stupid with pregnancy, and exhausted with new motherhood, that she’d missed all the things that should have somehow let them know Peter wasn’t a safe person. It had always seemed Professor Dumbledore had been pushing them towards Sirius, and perhaps he’d known or suspected, she couldn’t have said. Sirius had been reckless, yes, but he’d always been loyal, always and why hadn’t she seen that? If she’d just been willing to see that - “You’re right, Severus.” They were words she would have never seen herself saying, but as she looked at the man that had with both eyes open willingly stepped forward to both figuratively and literally give up his life to the fight against Voldemort she couldn’t deny what he’d said. Well, she could have, and another day she might have, but right now she was so heart-sick and soul weary she couldn’t find the energy. Lily realised she could hardly see through the tears that had formed. She didn’t feel much like a Gryffindor at the moment, she felt small and foolish and so very young and naive and she choked back a sob suddenly very afraid that he would think she was trying to manipulate him and why shouldn’t he? Because hadn’t she just unfairly played on his feelings? Feelings she should never have known about from a book, and feelings she didn’t reciprocate, even if she could honestly say she’d never stopped hoping for him to be a man she could be friends with once again. She took a deep breath hoping to stop the sob, but it only seemed to produce half a sob and trembling shoulders that she wrapped her arms over her chest in an attempt to still them. The choked sobs from behind Severus made most of the sudden rush of anger fade away. He had a brief thought that maybe she was trying to manipulate him again but… no. She was a Gryffindor and they might do something like that once, inadvertently, as surely that comment had been. But they lacked the skill to do it consistently unless they’d practiced, as Albus had. Lily had not. He’d cut too deep with his words, far deeper than he’d intended. He wanted to go to her, to say something but he didn’t know how, didn’t know what, wasn’t even sure it would be welcome. And the apology. If that had come from James Potter or Sirius Black, he’d be feeling triumphant right now. He’d be sneering and lording it over them, rubbing their faces in their mistakes. It hadn’t come from them though. It had come from Lily and it just made him feel weary. She was the one person he’d never wanted hurt out of all of this and yet she was the one he kept hurting. All he’d ever wanted was his friend back. He’d always known she would never love him the way he loved her. He would have settled for the friendship. The funny thing was, he could see the logic in the decision they’d made. Their respective objections to Black and Lupin were at least logical, especially given their ages and experience at the time. Black was irresponsible and reckless and he’d eventually died because of it. At the time, it was reasonable to think that Lupin might be swayed by offers that gave him the chance at living a normal life. In hindsight, from his perspective, Black was still a bad choice but Lupin would no more have been tempted by any offers from the Death Eaters than a goblin could fly. His shoulders slumped where he stood and he leaned against the wall next to the window, his head falling forward enough to cause his hair to fall around his face. An old automatic reaction to shield him from view. One he’d never really broken though he usually had better control over it. “Was there any part of this that wasn’t caused by a mistake?” he said hollowly, his eyes looking out at the city but not seeing any of it. Mistakes. There was a whole litany of them, inexorably leading up to the inevitable end. Lily said nothing for a moment, her mind too much a tangled web of ideas and thoughts and emotions to come up with any actual words. It took her a few moments, some breaths in, and a dose of determination, but she managed to pull herself together and slow the tears. She couldn’t help but wonder if the mistakes went all the way back to Hogwarts, but it was a thought train she didn’t want to entertain too completely at the moment. Lily drew in a shaky breath and turned her full attention onto Severus. It occurred to her as she sat watching him, that he looked as lonely as she felt at that particular moment. He’d dedicated everything to protecting Harry, for her, and she knew that the books had not begun to cover what that had likely cost him. She watched him for a moment while she gathered up her courage once again. And then she stood, before the courage was fully gathered, but before it would have the opportunity to slip away and out of grasp again. Lily stepped over to the window across from Severus. “I’ve invaded your private place without any warning Severus, I’m sorry.” She said, her voice still a bit raw from the tears. “But I want to say thank you. For everything you did do for Harry. I have to be honest and say that at times as I was reading I was so furious and I just wanted to yell at you. He’s - my little boy, Severus. Regardless of who he looks like, or who his father is, Harry is my baby boy, and I love him so very much. And I miss him so very much, right now.” She sighed, raising fingertips to the window pane and pressing them against the glass. She pressed it a second and then dropped her hand and turned to look at Severus. “I know that hurts you but I can’t apologise for that, because it’s me, Sev. It’s such a tremendous part of me. But my point was that I believe you gave him the best you could and I think you for that offering. “And I’ve missed you, Sev.” She took a deep breath and turned her gaze on his face, determined to get this thought out. “We’d disagree a hundred times. We’d argue, no doubt, and miscommunicate, and misunderstand each other. We have all of our school day prejudices, our history, and you’ll realize I’m far from perfect if you haven’t already done so. I don’t want to have to avoid talking about things around you, and as difficult as it might be for me I wouldn’t want you to either. That alone may be insurmountable. You’re so much older than I am, and you’ve lived things I don’t even want to imagine, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that I would like to try to understand you. I can make no promises. I’m rubbish at grace, I have a dozen opinions for everything, and a terrible temper, but I believe we could do it. “But I also do not want to cause you more pain at all. It is the last thing in the world I would want to do,” Lily hadn’t stopped watching his face and now she tried a smile. “If you would rather me walk out that door and leave you alone, I’ll respect that. You’ve earned that much at the very least.” “No!” The word burst out before Severus even had time to think. He wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea or whether it was just leading him into a world of continuous pain but when it came down to is, he couldn’t bear the idea of not having Lily in his life when she was here. His grand plans of moving on were apparently no match for this. He did twitch a little when she thanked him because none of what he’d done had been for Harry. He might lie to himself and others about many things but it was true enough that he would not have mourned the boy’s loss had that night gone differently, had James and Harry died and Lily been left alive. He had not protected the boy out of any concern but because protecting him would lead to his main goal of destroying the Dark Lord. Not that he intended to say any of that to Lily. He was not that much of a fool. And yes, he had taken a great deal of his anger and bitterness and frustration out on the boy but… “I could not like the boy, Lily,” he said with a hint of exasperation. “I could not even be neutral. Albus was adamant that the Dark Lord was not dead and would return. It was important that there be no indications that I was not absolutely loyal to him. It was difficult enough explaining away my actions during your son’s first year and at least there I could subtly shift things back onto the Dark Lord himself for not indicating in any way that he was involved and make my actions seem entirely logical.” He gave a flick of his fingers. “Using my… opinions of his father and godfather were simply… convenient. And useful because the Dark Lord knew of them as did some of the other Death Eaters. As did anyone who knew us at school.” He snorted wryly. “Which was exceedingly useful even beyond the Death Eaters. I was able to use that for my own purposes, knowing that people would only see what they wanted to see.” All of which was a truth, if not the entire truth. “I’ve missed you as well,” he said, trying to keep it mild though how much he succeeded wasn’t something he could determine. A small smile curved his lips and his hand twitched as though he wanted to to touch her but didn’t dare. “I will even attempt to tolerate Potter if he should appear… as long as he does the same.” He arched an eyebrow. “I make no promises about Black.” Lily blinked at Severus’ proclamation, but she didn’t move yet. And as he continued talking, she relaxed a bit. She wasn’t a complete fool, and she’d been able to read enough between the lines to know that he hadn’t really liked Harry. And she was also, despite being utterly and completely predisposed to think Harry was the most brilliant little boy in the world, not so emotionally immature as to realize that asking Severus to like Harry was a lot to ask. If he loved her then how could he have liked Harry who was a permanent reminder that she’d chosen another man who had been his worst enemy at school. It was not impossible, but not being able to do so was something she felt she could understand. Lily might be idealistic and ridiculously optimistic, but she wasn’t stupid. It was a good deal to ask, and of all the things she might struggle to understand, this one was the most intuitive and the thing she understood the most - perhaps she had a bit of a romantic streak. So she didn’t press beyond his statement that it had been an easy cover for the Dark Lord, and she didn’t think she ever would. As much as had been revealed to her, and to the entirety of this world via the books she would allow him the privacy to explain it as he would. Perhaps selfishly, it allowed her to believe that perhaps it was more true than the explanation that she suspected was more true: that he had been cruel to Harry partially because Harry looked like James and because Severus had never liked James. On impulse she reached over for his hand. “I think that’s good enough for me at the moment,” she offered him a smile and squeezed his hand gently. “Tell me about your potions, Sev, let’s not talk about the past any more. I want to know what you’ve been able to brew successfully and where are you getting your ingredients, and do they have magic shops here? Or any magic at all?” Severus’ smile widened a little… and contained just the slightest hint of wonder and surprise… when Lily took his hand. He was more than happy to let the conversation to shift to potions and magic. He had no real desire to talk about James or Harry Potter though he was sure he had only delayed further conversations, not avoided them altogether. “There’s no magic as we know it, though our magic works well enough.” He frowned slightly. “Not entirely as it ought to but I’m not sure how much others would have noticed.” He knew he was more powerful than most of the others here. Albus was, of course, more powerful than him but if the older man had noticed the issues with things such as long distance apparition and other high level powerful spells, he hadn’t said anything. “The biggest problem is there are no magical ingredients.” He grimaced. “I’ve been able to replace a few but not as many as I’d like. Sometimes its just a case of infusing a close cousin with magic but in one case, I was able to replace a single magical ingredient with three mundane ones.” He gestured towards the cauldron with his free hand. “I’ve tried the former with the Felix Felicis.” He pushed away from the wall and drew Lily over to the cauldron, explaining what he had done with a level of detail that few other than he and Lily would appreciate. |