Lily Lives On

Gryffindor This, Slytherin That

“May I ask you for something?”

“Of course, what is it?”

“Can you walk me through all the memories that we share? It obviously helps me remember things.”

Lily smiled at him. “Of course. Let’s start with what happened after that day when that weird weird boy jumped from behind a bush...” she chuckled again and portrayed a jumping boy with her hand, landing on Sev's leg “...into my life.”

That made him smile.

“About five days later, I saw you playing alone on a log near the river. You had bruises on your forearms. When you noticed I was there, you stood up and watched me come closer. I became a bit nervous because I didn’t know what to expect from you but in the end, you turned out to be quite nice. Awkward, yes, but nice. So then you started teaching me about magic and various different magical creatures and to me, it all sounded so surreal but I didn’t want to take your fantasies from you because you looked like you absolutely depended on them.”

“They were not fantasies,” he whispered fondly and Lily noticed how different his face looked when they talked about the memories. His eyes were no longer cold but filled with joy.

“I know that now. But at that time, I really thought you were fantasizing. And I felt so sorry for you because I thought you were fantasizing to escape things from your home. My sister was saying the same. But then, you started bringing books I’ve never seen before. Big, thick, dark books about black magic and I was finally starting to believe you. You looked like you were gonna crumble under them but you kept bringing and showing me all kinds of evidence. It was a bit unnerving because the things that were in the books looked evil and I had a hard time connecting that kind of magic to the kind of magic I was doing. Those books were the weirdest thing I’d ever seen… They… They made me nervous.”

“Those books were my mother’s. They are old family heritage,” he said with so much tenderness in his voice that it sounded like he was madly in love with the books.

“I remember meeting your mother at the grocery store once.”

When she saw Severus scowl in concentration, trying to remember, she quickly added: “You weren’t with her. She was alone. I said hello but she didn’t react, she only looked at me. And her facial expression seemed sour, like she hated me for no reason. I would always ignore her since.”

Severus chuckled, shaking his head. “That was, actually, how she always looked. It was nothing personal. I look a lot like her, in my opinion. Apart from - “

“ - the nose,” Lily finished for him and ran her fingertip gently down his hooked nose. He fell silent, so she continued:

“So here we were, you explaining things to me, me trying to ask you about your family… You were never telling me much about it… And then, suddenly, we found out that Petunia had been watching us.”

“Skip that one.”

She raised an eyebrow but said: “As you wish, Sev. Shortly after that, our Hogwarts letters arrived. I remember seeing you out of my window. You were running toward our house. We went to my room and showed the letters to each other. We wanted to go buy school supplies together but my parents weren’t very fond of you. I think it was because they overheard you talking about them as if they were just mindless, unimportant muggles. They took it hard, you know.”

Severus shut his eyes and told her with certain impatience in his voice: “I only said that they would have difficulties going to the Diagon Alley since they were only muggles.”

Lily pointed at him and exclaimed. “Yes, that’s exactly that, the word ‘only’! You really shouldn't have used that one.”

“I admit it wasn’t a wise thing to do,” he said. 

“It also wasn’t a NICE thing to do, Sev.”

He shrugged. “Well, then, maybe people shouldn’t get immediately offended by just one word.”

Lily gave him the look of a person who just began to think that the other is an idiot. Severus understood: she was referring to the m-word. But before he had the chance to say anything, she - and it was very wise of her - continued remembering.

“So then we were riding on the Hogwarts Express and it was there where we met - “

“ - Potter and Black, yes.”

“Yes, and it just all came to the Hogwarts houses: Gryffindor this, Slytherin that… And it just seemed so silly to argue about such a thing. I didn’t know any of those houses, anyway. You know what I think? I think that if you had actually been sorted into Gryffindor with us, they wouldn’t have bullied you. It all came down to the damn houses and labels: Gryffindors were good, Slytherins were evil and no doubt about that...  Even the teachers were biased. Literally the only one who didn’t see in black and white was Slughorn. Remember whenever a new teacher saw us sitting together? They were always so shocked.“

Severus nodded with a twisted smile on his face. “You just said my thoughts out loud. If I were a Hogwarts teacher, I would always make sure that Slytherin students are appreciated.”

“And then, you probably know what happened… How our friendship was step by step falling apart and all that...”

“Yes, I remember now.”

“Of course this was not all due to the bias… But maybe, just maybe, had you come to Gryffindor with me, maybe…”

“I would’ve hated it,” he stopped her. “Just imagine me having to sleep in one room with Potter.”

Lily laughed. “All right, you’re right, I never thought about that. But maybe you wouldn’t hate each other so much, you know?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, Lily.”

“Well, in the end, James came to his senses and after we started dating, he finally stopped hexing you just because he could. Hurray.”

Lily suddenly felt a sensation of intense hatred coming from her friend. She noticed a slight twitch in Severus’ face, as if he was trying to hide his anger. She looked in his eyes. They were stone-hard. Slowly and carefully, she asked him: “He stopped doing that, didn’t he?”

Severus didn’t answer. The feeling of hatred grew stronger. Lily moved herself closer to his face and forced him to look in her eyes, saying: “He promised me that he wasn’t doing it anymore!”

Severus was staring into her eyes with a blank expression. She shook him gently and moved a curtain of black hair out of his face. “Talk to me, Sev.”

His lips curled up into an ugly sneer. “He was still doing it. He also wanted to add bragging about dating you into his repertoire but I tricked him into thinking I didn’t care about you.”

Lily sighed. “Well, you tricked everyone into thinking that. Me included.”

He shut his eyes firmly. Now he remembered how he nearly got her killed because of his stupidity. How frightened he was that she would die. How he begged the Dark Lord, Dumbledore and then the Dark Lord again. How he found her motionless on the floor. How much he cried because he thought she was dead. How he brought her to Hogwarts. How everyone at Hogwarts stared at him with contempt when he arrived, not that he cared, of course.

Suddenly, he felt this burning sensation in his left forearm. He yelped in agony and clutched it between his fingers. The Dark Lord was calling him.