Lily Evans

~ September 2, 1971: First Year
Lily Evans opened her eyes slowly. She rolled onto her back and looked up at the canopy draped over her four-poster bed and smiled. It seemed that her arrival at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry last night hadn’t been a dream. She quietly pushed back the bed curtains, stepped into her slippers and began making her bed. The other girls weren’t awake yet. Lily had always been an early riser. Her dormmates, to Lily’s relief, all seemed agreeable, friendly and—thankfully—just as nervous as she was. Mary MacDonald seemed especially nice. Lily resolved to speak more with her today.
After dressing and brushing her teeth, she made her way down the stairs, through the Gryffindor Common Room and into the maze of Hogwarts corridors. Last night, she had conscientiously looked for landmarks as the Prefects had led them from the Great Hall to Gryffindor Tower and she only got turned around on the way back once.
She wasn’t the first to enter the Great Hall for breakfast, but she was one of a very few. She paused in the doorway and looked over each of the house tables. She was sad that Severus and she hadn’t been Sorted into the same house. For some reason, the houses were supposed to eat all meals together. Last night she had only managed a hurried “good night” to Severus as they passed going in different directions. He had seemed morose about the situation too.
A sudden inkling hit Lily. She walked past the Great Hall and out the huge front doors instead. The panorama of the Hogwarts grounds spread before her nearly took her breath away. A thin morning mist hung over rolling grounds rich with trees. In the distance, the silver lake reflected the just-rising sun. And standing in the middle of the courtyard taking in the morning was Severus Snape.
Lily walked over to stand beside him. He started as he realized he wasn’t alone, but his face lit up when he saw her. She grinned back at him. “We’re here.”
Severus turned and looked up at the castle towering over them with its many mismatched turrets and parapets. “We’re finally here.”

~ March 21, 1974: Third Year
Severus glanced surreptitiously at Lily out of the corner of his eye. They were walking side by side through labyrinthine corridors and staircases to their next classes. Her bag was slung casually over her shoulder and she was toying with a quill between her fingers. As she walked, her dark red hair bounced behind her. For a fraction of a second, without getting caught staring, Severus watched the Spring sunlight from the windows strike veins of gold through the swaying strands.
Lily had Charms and Severus had Transfiguration, so they came to a juncture where they needed to part. As the two friends paused to say goodbye to each other, Severus spotted James Potter over Lily’s shoulder. Since their first day, Potter had plagued them with his incessant teasing and sardonic taunts. It was clear from the first that Potter fancied Lily. Just now, he was glaring at Severus antagonistically, his gaze straying to Lily whose shoulder was inches from his. Severus knew others were puzzled by the unlikely friendship between himself and Lily. Though Lily was universally admired by all their classmates and had many good friends, and though being friends with a member of a different house had certain practical complications, she always sought him out in their free time and loyally considered him her best friend. If she heard the perplexed whispers of those who couldn’t fathom why such a beautiful, confident and amiable witch would choose to spend her time with dark and awkward Severus Snape, she paid them no attention.
Bringing his eyes back from Potter to Lily, Severus impulsively pulled her into a hug.
She was caught by surprise at first; she and Severus didn’t generally hug casually. But she wasn’t averse to it. She willingly put her arms around him and good-humoredly whispered in his ear, “James Potter’s right behind me, isn’t he?”
Severus cringed and pulled back. “Yeah,” he said guiltily.
Lily gave him an impish smile and put two fingers on his chin, tilting his head sideways. She stood on tiptoe and pecked his cheek.
Severus stood frozen with shock.
“Bye, Sev!” she said brightly as she tossed her hair and danced away without looking at James’ stunned expression.
Severus stood planted to the spot, his head spinning. Without feeling his arm move, he reached into his robes and pulled out his wand.
“Protego!” he shouted, casting aside the hex James had thrown at him, almost without taking his eyes from Lily’s retreating figure. He turned to walk to McGonagall’s class as if he were walking on air.

~ July 9, 1974
The bang of the front door was already far behind him, lost in the roar of the storm as Severus raced from his house. The weak streetlights couldn’t penetrate the profound darkness of a London rainstorm at midnight. He was wet through within minutes, his stringy hair plastered to his face. He staggered to a stop when he ran out of breath and stood in the middle of the street with his hands on his knees, gasping for air. Still panting, he looked up at what he could see of the street in front of him, rain dripping off his nose. He walked almost drunkenly in the direction of the park. There would be trees there that would provide some shelter from the rain. Upon stepping onto the park’s grass, he looked over the playground equipment that he had played on in his youth, his eyes lingering on the swings where four years ago he had first got up the courage to speak to Lily.
Severus sighed. Suddenly, he found he no longer cared about keeping the rain off. Let me get soaked, he said to the black clouds. They’ll find me tomorrow half alive with a fatal case of pneumonia. That would show them all. Severus kicked a puddle irritably, water flooding his shoe through a small hole in the toe. No, he wouldn’t die of pneumonia. It was summer and perfectly warm. Besides, his father wouldn’t regret his death. Indeed, if he hadn’t run tonight…
Severus kicked the puddle again with more venom. Water streaming off of him now, he began to walk, not paying attention to the direction. The torrential rain seemed to be a waterfall he walked through, but he disregarded it. He could get neither wetter nor sadder.
For nearly two hours—though Severus judged it to be most of the night—he walked the streets of his neighborhood, lost in dark thoughts. But the sudden realization that he was splashing through calf-high water brought them back to practical subjects. He stopped and looked around him. The street was completely submerged in rushing water several inches deep. He jumped up onto the sidewalk, but it was little better. The roar of the rain pounding Juniper Court was so loud, it made Severus think of being in a tempest on the sea. He stood a moment, water running over his shoes, looking up at the sky with the rain pouring into his eyes. At last, reason made itself heard. I have to get out of this storm. He sighed, spitting water and turned his steps back the way he had come.
A quarter of an hour later, Severus found himself standing outside a house very different from his own. He couldn’t go back there. He just couldn’t. This house was where he wanted to be. Other than Hogwarts, it was the only place he ever wanted to be.
Severus splashed across the yard, walked around the house and looked up at the window he knew to belong to Lily. Reaching into the lake that was her yard, he came up with some gravel. Selecting pebbles that were big enough to make a sound she would hear over the raindrops slamming against her window but small enough not to do any damage to the glass, he proceeded to throw them against her window until a light clicked on inside.
With the light came the panicked realization that Severus had no idea what he was going to say to her.
Lily’s silhouette became visible through her window and then she drew aside the curtains and looked down at him. Her eyes flew open and she turned and dashed away from the window. Severus assumed she meant to meet him at the front door. He splashed back around the house.
“Severus!” Lily exclaimed the moment she’d torn the door open. “What on earth are you doing out in the rain?”
Severus stood awkwardly, dripping onto the Evanses’ porch, taking in Lily’s worried frown and blue pajamas. He didn’t have to reply. Apparently, his swollen face answered for him. Lily’s hand flew to her mouth in shock. He looked away from her, ashamed. In a moment, he found himself seized and dragged inside. In a whirl of activity, Lily ordered Severus out of his shoes which she placed outside and pushed him in the direction of the bathroom where she threw towels around his shoulders and one over his head which she proceeded to rumple in order to dry his hair.
Severus extracted himself from this terrycloth assault well enough to say, “Lily, this isn’t…”
He was cut off by the resolute look in her eyes. Lily’s eyes were an extraordinary green and he had always been powerless when confronted with them. They were rather close to him now. Through his trance, he also noted that one of Lily’s hands was on his arm. The other was tenderly drying his face.
His face.
He slowly turned to the mirror. A great, C-shaped welt stained his cheek purple and red under his left eye. He squeezed his eyes shut. It wasn’t a great face under the best of circumstances.
“Sev, I want you to get out of those wet clothes.”
Severus looked up to make sure he’d heard correctly. Lily was leaving the bathroom.
“I’m going to get you something dry to wear.” She closed the door behind her.
Lily walked in a daze to the laundry room. She had always known that Severus’ home life was unhappy, but… she frowned. She would not allow Mr. Snape to hurt Severus again. She gathered a pair of her father’s corduroys and a shirt and returned to the bathroom. She knocked and turned around. “Sev, I have some clothes. I’m turned around.” The door opened hesitantly behind her. The clothes were taken from her hand and it clicked closed again. She left to pace agitatedly in the living room. Her cat, John Lennon leaped onto the back of the sofa and followed her with his eyes. In a few minutes Severus emerged, his damp, stringy hair the only indicator that not long ago, he had been completely soaked. Lily’s father’s clothes were very big on him, but thankfully the corduroys remained hitched in place.
“Thanks, Lily,” Severus muttered, standing uncomfortably in the doorway.
“Oh,” Lily fretted, looking sadly at the purpling bruise under her friend’s eye. Impulsively, she threw her arms around his waist, squeezing him in a hug.
Severus was so surprised by her sudden attack that he couldn’t conceal a cringe and gasp of pain that came when she squeezed his ribs.
Lily gasped and drew back, looking wide-eyed into Severus’ panicky face.
“Severus…?”
“It’s nothing. You just… hug really tight. It’s okay though, I can handle it.” He lifted his arms hopefully.
Lily didn’t respond to his attempt at humor at all. In fact, she barely heard it. “Severus,” she mouthed, nearly no sound escaping. Lightning-fast, she snatched the hem of his t-shirt.
“No!” He grasped her wrists, but she twisted around him and had soon pulled up his shirt to see his back.
A sob escaped her throat as Lily saw skin marked at least six times with C-shaped, purple bruises. She recognized now the odd shape of the mark under Severus’ eye. It hadn’t been made by a fist. It had been made by a buckle. She saw it all as though she had been there. The first blow had been to Severus’ face and that had brought him to his knees. Mr. Snape had then hit him again and again…
Severus twisted away, tugging down his shirt. He turned a humiliated face away from Lily. Tears in her eyes, Lily stammered, “Severus, I’m so… can’t anything…? Maybe we should call the police?”
“No!”
“Or the Ministry! I’ll bet…”
“No, Lily! You know I don’t…” Severus began pacing around in agitation, looking everywhere but at her. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not ‘nothing,’ Sev…”
“Just forget it!”
His harsh tone and desperate manner only troubled her more. She nearly made another attempt in the same vein, but realized that if she wanted to help him, she’d have to take a different tack.
“I wish I had some proper dittany.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Severus muttered, leaning against the back of the sofa, his back to her.
“I don’t have anything for bruises. I could make a bruise potion, but I’m all out of peaseblossom.”
Severus turned so his unblemished profile was in view. “You don’t need peaseblossom if you’ve got shrivelfig stones and fluxweed.”
A slow smile spread across Lily’s face. “I think I do.” In a minute, she had flown upstairs and come down again carrying all of her potions books in her smallest cauldron, her kit with its clinking bottles hanging from her free hand.
“I’m out of a couple things…” Lily said, dropping cross-legged onto the rug and shooing John Lennon who was sniffing curiously at her supplies. “I was going to replace them when we go to Diagon Alley. But maybe we could jury-rig something.”
Lily’s books were soon cracked open to their “Curative” sections and all listed bruise potions were discarded due to lack of materials. They then turned to One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi to look up the properties of individual ingredients and piece together a potion from scratch.
Severus reminded Lily that they’d need a fire. She offered to light a magical fire in the fireplace and get her first warning from Hogwarts for using magic outside of school, but Severus absolutely refused to allow her to tarnish her perfect record. “Besides,” Lily mused, “the letter’d get delivered to Mum and Dad and wake them up. Well, we’ll have to make a fire the way the cavemen did—you know, using matches.”
Soon, books and notes were scattered all over the living room and all of Lily’s potions kit was emptied onto the coffee table. Various pestles, measuring spoons, knives and droppers joined the strewn mess. Lily left for the kitchen briefly and came back with tea and every kind of biscuit in the Evanses’ cupboard. The two friends had a pleasant time measuring this, stewing that, looking something else up, debating about potions theory and in the interim, talking merrily of other topics. It was lucky that the storm was still raging outside; Lily’s family could never hear them over the noise and they were free to talk without whispering and even turned on the radio. They joked and laughed happily together, gladly forgetting—or at least mutually agreeing to forget for a time—the reason they were making the potion.
“Okay, take it off the fire now,” Lily said, folding a mat over to make a safe place to set the hot mixture on the coffee table.
Severus gingerly picked up the small cauldron and placed it where Lily indicated.
“All right,” Lily said, peering into the cauldron. “There isn’t much, but it should be enough.”
The spell of the past couple hours was broken. The two friends looked at each other for a few moments, neither wanting to say anything.
Finally, Lily pressed her lips together and began, “It’s not a lack of faith in our potion or anything, but perhaps we shouldn’t try it out first thing on your face. To be prudent.”
Severus drew back. Clearly he hadn’t thought as far ahead as applying the potion. “Right,” he glanced at the bathroom. “I’ll just…”
She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t be stupid, Severus, you can’t reach your own back.”
He frowned and turned away. Lily gently took a strand of hair that had fallen into his eyes and tucked it behind his ear. He turned back around, clearly liking the contact. Lily smiled reassuringly at him and then seized the hem of his shirt once more. Though his eyes were apprehensive, Severus did not fight. Lily gently lifted the shirt up and Severus raised his arms so she could pull it over his head. When he reemerged with his hair tousled, Severus was hunch-shouldered and nervous-looking. His torso had clearly never seen sunlight, nor had it ever been filled with a rich meal. Lily smiled tenderly and motioned for him to turn around. As he settled cross-legged with his back to her, Lily dipped a horse-hair brush into the warm potion. A little would go a long way, she knew. She only had to brush the salve over each bruise and, if their calculations were correct, the bruises would fade. If they were incorrect, they would likely make a trip to St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries tonight. Lily picked out the faintest bruise to try first. She held her breath and bit down on her lip as she applied the amber-colored potion. Nothing happened immediately, but Lily was not so green that she had expected it. Privately thankful that Severus’ skin hadn’t erupted in boils or begun to disintegrate, she waited patiently to see what the result would be. The first effects of the salve were invisible to the eye, but under Severus’ skin, the broken blood vessels began to heal and the blood course through them as normal. Deep in Severus’ sinew, the ache brought on by blunt trauma slowly relaxed away. At eye level, very slowly, the edges of the bruise began to change color. Lily smiled.
Once their potion was applied carefully to every bruise, Lily indicated for Severus to turn and she applied it to the one under his eye. When the potion’s effects were complete, she took a warm wash cloth and began to clean her friend up. As she swiped the cloth over Severus’ cheek, she smiled and said, “You can hardly see it was there.”
He caught her wrist. “Thank you, Lily,” he said quietly. Her smile seemed to make him realize his uncharacteristic forwardness and he dropped his eyes. He snatched up his shirt and pulled it over his head before Lily’s hand had quite dropped to her lap. Severus breathed a sigh of relief at being clothed again.
Lily smiled in response. She rose from the rug and pulled a clip out of her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders. “Come on,” she said, smiling down at Severus. She threw herself onto the couch and tucked her feet under her. Severus slowly joined her, setting himself down on the opposite side of the sofa as though he were sitting on pins. When he dared to look at Lily, her expression was very serious.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to do now?”
He cringed terribly, squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t want to think about it just now.”
Lily nearly pointed out that the sky was getting gray, that morning would be there before long, and that any liberty he had had to not think about anything would be taken away by her parents’ discovering him, but turned out to be glad she had not spoken.
“I’ll have to go back. There’s no talking about anything else. I don’t have anywhere to go, and I can’t leave my mother.”
Lily winced when she thought of Eileen Snape crazed with worry.
“It was selfish to leave her at all.”
Only someone in possession of the finest character could consider running from a grown man who was beating him selfish. Lily couldn’t find the words to reassure her friend. Instead, she leaned toward him, taking both his shoulders. “This shouldn’t hurt so much this time, if we did everything right.” She wrapped her arms around him.
Severus was stunned motionless for a moment, but then melted easily into Lily’s arms as though they had been formed especially to fit him. He rested his head on her shoulder and there was not even room in his happiness to wonder what was going to happen to him tomorrow. There was nothing but right now.

When Petunia woke up the next morning, it was to find her sister asleep on the sofa with Severus Snape’s head resting on a pillow on her lap. The contented picture they made made no impression on her.
“Mum!”
Severus was a light sleeper. He had already begun to stir when Petunia’s footsteps entered the room, and now he awoke at once. He raised himself from the pillow he was surprised to find his head upon and swiped a hand over his face. “Petunia,” he began groggily. “Don’t…”
She was already gone.
Damn, he thought. Yawning and rubbing his eyes, he looked over at Lily who was beginning to wake. She’s so beautiful, he thought with wonder. I’m so lucky. She had sacrificed an entire night to help him, had not only relentlessly searched for a way to make the potion from the limited ingredients they had but, now he thought about it, had conscientiously calmed him, and turned his mind to things he enjoyed to distract and cheer him up.
“Tuney…?” Lily muttered, her eyes fluttering.
“You’re too late,” Severus replied, smiling crookedly.
Lily blinked sleep away and ran a hand through her hair. “Oh.” Suddenly, she seemed to wake up all at once. “Severus! What do you want me to say to my parents? I mean, do you want me to tell them your dad…?”
“No,” Severus blurted, the frightened and hunted look coming back into his eyes.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered with a glance at the stairs where the sounds of her parents’ rising at Petunia’s insistence could be heard. “I won’t tell them if you don’t want me to.” She smiled such a sweet, caring smile that Severus’ heart nearly broke.
“No,” he said looking down. “You can’t lie to your parents. I’ve cost you a night of sleep, I’ve been here all night without their knowing… I can’t make you lie to them on top of that.”
Lily smiled at her friend. “If you’re sure.”
He nodded.
“…And bottles all around. I don’t know what they’ve been doing!” Petunia’s shrill voice preceded her down the stairs. She appeared, dragging her mother by the hand. May Evans was a tall, graceful sort of woman with long, blonde hair that even though she had just awoken fell around her shoulders in pretty waves. She lifted the wrist that was not being tugged by her eldest daughter to her mouth and yawned. Behind her, her husband Roger trudged downstairs, tying the knot of his dressing gown.
“Morning, Mum.” Lily said, trying not to sound either guilty or nonchalant. “Morning, Dad.”
“Good morning dear,” May returned, smiling indulgently. “Good morning, Severus.”
Severus had much more difficulty not looking guilty than Lily, but he managed a “Good morning, Mrs. Evans.”
“Mum, Severus…” Lily looked sideways at her sister who was not bothering to contain her look of vindictive glee. “Petunia, could I speak with Mum and Dad alone?”
Petunia looked outraged.
“Lily, you are in no position to order your sister around,” May told her with a raised eyebrow. “Petunia, leave us a moment, will you?”
Petunia’s smug expression had returned only long enough for it to drop back into outraged shock. With a huff, she turned and stalked from the living room.
Lily didn’t waste any more time. “Mum, Severus’ dad… hit him. He ran away, but it was raining and he was soaked through, and he came here and I got him some dry clothes—hope you don’t mind, Dad.” Roger shook his head. “And we stayed up all night making a salve to heal bruises. It wasn’t easy with the limited ingredients I had,” she gestured to the mess on the coffee table. “But we managed a pretty good one. Oh, and we used some of the ginger from the spice cabinet. Also, we’re out of biscuits.”
An hour later, Roger Evans was walking Severus home. He was wearing the clothes he had arrived at Lily’s doorstep in, but freshly laundered. He had joined the Evanses for breakfast—much to Petunia’s chagrin—and had pretended not to notice when Mrs. Evans slipped out of the kitchen to call his mother. Now his stomach was contentedly full of blintzes and he was bracing himself well enough for his return to his own house.

~ November 20, 1974: Fourth Year
The Gryffindor Quidditch team was especially rowdy that afternoon in The Three Broomsticks celebrating their victory over Slytherin.
The team captain Patrick Wood was carrying his broom over his shoulder, unable to bear parting from it. He felt it had played a significant part in their triumph and he wanted it to enjoy the celebration along with him. Everyone knew and accepted that Wood was a nutter, but he was an excellent captain who led them to many victories and the Gryffindors chose to see his eccentricities as genius and not insanity.
“Hey Evans!”
Lily turned involuntarily, but regretted it immediately as she spotted James Potter. Like his teammates, he was still wearing his scarlet Quidditch robes. His hair looked interestingly windswept—an effect he enhanced by running his hands through it often. She sighed. She wished he would just leave her alone. Still, it was a party and she was a Gryffindor. “Hi, Potter. Good game.”
James chose to take this comment—coming from Lily Evans—as extravagant praise. “Thanks, Evans.” It was noisy in the pub and he took the opportunity to move closer. “Did you see that volley between Longbottom and me? The one in the hawkshead formation? Yaxley couldn’t even see the quaffle!”
Lily nodded in what she hoped was an unenthusiastic way, but James was undiscouraged. He may have gone on indefinitely, but Severus walked up just then clutching two butterbeers.
“Snivellus?” James sneered in some surprise. “What are you doing here? Your team lost. I know; I beat them.”
Severus glared, but it was Lily who spoke up, her cheeks flushing. “This pub is open to everyone, Potter! The Gryffindors don’t get it just because we won a Quidditch game.”
“As a matter of fact,” Severus interjected, handing Lily a butterbeer, “I’m here precisely because we did lose. Lily and I agreed the loser would buy drinks.” He clinked his bottle against Lily’s and smiled warmly at her, reminding James who was here with Lily Evans and who was not.
With the same swift motion he had recently used to swipe the quaffle from the Slytherin chasers, James seized Lily’s butterbeer. Before she could protest, James twisted the cap off with a hiss and presented it back to her with a little bow. “Chivalry,” he said, looking snidely at Severus. “A Gryffindor trait.”
Severus looked over James’ shoulder. “Oy, Wood.”
Wood turned at the sound of his name and his broomstick cracked James smartly on the head.
“Ow!”
“Cunning. A Slytherin trait.”

~ March 18, 1976: Fifth Year
“Potter! Stop it! Leave him alone!”
Once again, Lily had come upon James and Severus dueling. Both boys looked worse for wear.
“He started it!” James shouted indignantly as he dodged a curse hurled by his opponent.
“That’s not true,” Lily said fiercely. “Severus would never attack you first.”
“You’re such a liar, Potter,” Severus sneered triumphantly.
“You always take his side, Evans! What do you see in him?”
“Shut up, Potter.”
“No really, is it his oily hair, sunken eyes, big nose… give me some insight into your taste… watch it!”
A truly dangerous curse had exploded from Severus’ wand in his fury.
Lily shielded her eyes against the flash, startled at the power of the spell. “Severus, stop!” she cried, striding forward.
Severus silently pointed a restraining jinx at her.
James was livid. “Don’t you attack her!” He threw another curse which grazed Severus’ shoulder.
Severus rebounded at once and cast a battering hex back at James.
Lily hastily muttered the countercurse to the jinx that held her and staggered free of its restraint. She turned her attention back to the two boys’ duel just in time to see a curse of James’ hit Severus with a brutal slash. Furious, Lily retaliated against James. All at once, the duel was a chaos of light. James sent hexes at Severus while blocking Lily’s attempts to stop or disarm him, Severus threw curses at James with all his might while trying to keep Lily back, and Lily cast blocking spells at both of the boys. Each combatant was highly skilled and they may have been deadlocked indefinitely, but Lily was finally disarmed by Severus. Her wand flew far past the boys on the other side of the duel and she couldn’t recover it without the risk of being hit by a stray curse. She stomped her foot in temper and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.
In the meantime, Severus and James were dueling unhindered, their wands flashing, increasingly dangerous spells flying through the air. Severus’ robes were torn at the extremities and James’ face was bleeding from a wound that was purpling unpleasantly. They had both completely ignored Lily since she had lost her wand but, she thought, clenching her fists, a wandless witch is not the same as a helpless witch. Unnoticed by either, she edged closer to James under the cover of a spell’s bright flash. As James parried it, Lily broke into a run and kicked his wand out of his hand. With a crackling of sparks, it flew up and bounced into the grass.
“There!” Lily sighed, glaring at James. “That’s enough! I’m sick of you both always fighting! It ends now. Sev, let’s go.”
Severus had a dangerous look on his face and he was shaking. “Thank you so much, Lily, for disarming Potter for me.” He pointed his wand between James’ eyes. The other boy glared furiously back.
“Severus, that’s not funny. Cut it out!” Lily made to move in front of James, but without a word, Severus flicked his wand at the ground behind her. A grass root sprang from the soil, wrapped around her wrist and retracted back into the earth. With a shriek, she fell to the ground, trapped. She looked up imploringly. “Sev, you can’t attack an unarmed opponent. Everyone knows that. It’s dishonorable and it’s beneath you.”
Severus scoffed. “No it isn’t!”
James nodded, grimacing. “It’s true. It isn’t.”
Lily stared at him. “How is that helping?”
“Quiet, Lily! I’m going to make him pay for all the…!”
“You’re going to become who he thinks you are?”
“I don’t care who he thinks I am.”
“Put your wand down, Severus. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me.”
Severus took his eyes from James for the first time. He looked at Lily lying with one hand pinned to the ground—his doing! She was his best friend… what had he done? They locked eyes and Severus knew he would do anything she asked. He magically unwound the root from Lily’s wrist and she stood up, rubbing the red indentation it had left. He sighed and mumbled, “Accio wands,” desultorily and Lily’s and James’ wands zoomed toward him. He made a grab at them but missed.
“A Seeker, you are not,” James muttered nonchalantly.
Lily threw him a filthy look and turned her back on him, walking to her friend and picking up her wand on the way. She put a hand reassuringly on his arm and smiled up at him. He sighed and looked away, ashamed. She wrapped her arm around him and led him up to the castle.

“What was that you used on Potter?” Lily mused out loud.
Severus raised an eyebrow. “Which one?”
Lily stopped and glared at him. “The one that made him bleed, Sev.”
Severus flushed and looked away. “Oh that. Just… an invention of my own.”
Lily’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve invented your own spells?”
Severus looked at her in some surprise. Her tone was not accusatory but curious. And impressed. “Er, yeah.” He stood a little straighter. “It’s Sectumsempra, a nonverbal spell. I got the idea from a book I checked out from the… what are you doing?”
Lily was pointing her wand at a little rat hunched by the castle wall, munching on a tidbit it had found. “Just wondering what would happen. How did it go? Sectum—“
Severus’ voice was panicked as he said, “Lily, you mustn’t use that spell!”
“Why. You used it.”
“That was… different.”
“How?”
Severus stammered on the edge of speech but couldn’t find words.
“It’s just a rat after all,” Lily shrugged and adjusted her grip on her wand.
“No!” Severus grabbed her wand hand.
Lily didn’t resist, but turned to Severus with fire in her eyes. “Then tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“Be…because… it’s…” He stammered into silence and squeezed his eyes shut. Lily covered his hand with hers and he slowly opened them again. He had made a study of Legilimency and was already accomplished at interpreting thoughts. Lily’s green eyes told him that she already knew what he was trying not to say and wanted him to say it. He did. “Because it’s Dark Magic.” He hung his head. “You’re too… good, too pure to be tainted by that.”
Lily smiled kindly. “Sev, you think too little of yourself. You have no business using Dark Magic any more than I do.” They began walking again across the castle courtyard. “I suppose your Slytherin friends…”
“Here we go,” Severus muttered, grinning sideways.
“They’re corrupting you, Sev!” Lily exclaimed. “Listen, if I see you dueling using Dark Magic again, I’ll join in on the other side.”
Severus’ eyebrows shot up. “You’ll what?”
“I mean it!”
Severus grimaced at her. “Lily, I thought we were supposed to be friends? Best friends?”

~ June 15, 1976
Severus sat on the Hogwarts Express in an empty compartment with his head in his hands, not paying attention to the sunlit countryside racing by out the window. “Why did you leave me, Lily?” he whispered. He knew the answer. Though he would tell himself that Lily had overreacted, that she had dropped their friendship over a single incident, and that an insignificant one, he knew it wasn’t true. If he were to pinpoint the moment everything had begun to go wrong, if he were really honest with himself, it was when she had warned him about Avery and Mulciber’s influence… and he hadn’t taken her seriously. Avery had encouraged his study of the Dark Arts and Mulciber’s sadistic nature had fostered an exploration deeper and deeper into the sinister nature of certain kinds of magic until any reservations he had had were silenced and he had become as adept at causing pain as he was at Transfiguration.
His Slytherin friends’ conversations about the Dark Lord and his views and endeavors had found a receptive listener. Some of his ideas struck Severus as good ones even if his methods were…
He shook his head and leaned back in his seat, looking at the ceiling. He and Avery had had many talks on wizarding birth status. Avery was of a long line of wizards and believed that the purer a wizard’s blood—that is, the more magic in his history—the better his rank ought to be in wizarding society. Severus squeezed his eyes shut. When had he begun to subscribe to such thought?
“Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?”
“No. It doesn’t make any difference.”
He stood up in agitation and, hunched over in the low compartment, leaned against the window frame. Lily had been so nervous back then, worried that her magic would be inferior to those who came from magic families. But although to Lily’s knowledge, there had never been any wizards in her family, she was just as magical as anyone in the class pureblood or not, and a better student than many. And he had contradicted himself by spitefully calling her “mudblood.”
A thousand trees flashed by outside. Severus took a deep breath.
He had lost her.