Autumn Leaves- marylily

The courtyard

Early July, 1977, about to break up for the summer before 7th year

The weather had gotten significantly warmer in the run up to the summer holidays, so in the heat of this particular Sunday, the students of Hogwarts had flocked together outdoors.

At present, Lily Evans and Severus Snape were sat beneath an oak tree in one of the schools courtyards, hiding away from the sun in the shade that it's branches offered.

"I don't know Sev, they don't seem that bad."

They were speaking about the Prewett twins, who had recently pulled a quite elaborate prank on Snape, who had ended up covered head to toe in slime.

"I'm telling you, Lily, they're completely insufferable!"

"Come on, it was one prank." She laughed.

"They're nearly as bad as Potter and his friends!"

Lily let out a small hum of agreement, knowing that there was no use in trying to argue against him. Severus hated a lot of people, and while Lily could admit that she wouldn't have been very pleased to have slime poured on her head, she actually quite liked the twins. They had always been kind to her, she had no reason to hate them as Severus did.

Severus kept ranting for a while, while Lily unenthusiastically nodded her head every now and again, pretending she was listening. Instead, she was people watching, her eyes flitting from one friend group to another.

A few minutes later, Severus quickly jumped up, saying something about going to ask a classmate about one of the recent assignments they had been set.

Lily nodded, but as the boy had gotten up, he kicked him bag over and onto the grass, a few of his belongings now scattered out beside the girl. "Ah." She murmured, reaching over to start putting them back, but she noticed a few pieces of loose paper. Some drawings, which, quite honestly, were not very good. But they were drawings of... her? She began paying closer attention to some other things in his bag, in his journal even. Sketches of her name in hearts, her favorite pen that she had lost a few weeks ago. A few little belongings of hers that had mysteriously gone missing.

But, what caught her attention the most, was his potions book, that had fallen open to a heavily highlighted page on... amortentia? The page looked like it had been studied over a hundred times, notes scattered all over it and the page was more crumpled that any of the rest in the book. They had yet to cover the potion in class, they were studying it in their next school year. But
Severus had always had a talent for potions, so maybe it was no surprise that he was studying it before everyone else.

But Alice had mentioned that Severus seemed to be getting a little more intense with his suspected crush on her lately. His crush on Lily had never really been confirmed, spoken out loud... but she knew. And since she knew, and he wasn't exactly very subtle about the matter, the two of them sort of danced around the fact, neither of them daring to acknowledge it. Lily did NOT like him like that, that was certain.

Lily saw Severus begin walking back, and quickly shoved his belongings back into his satchel, trying her best to remain casual, trying to look as though she'd just been sat quietly.

She scurried back into place just as he had rounded the corner, but apparently her acting wasn't very convincing. Severus raised his eyebrow questioningly, cautiously slowing his pace.

"Everything okay, Lils?" His eyes darted to his bag, which was quite obviously in a different place to where he had left it.

She pursed her lips, raising her eyebrows. "Hm? Yes, of course." She nodded, a bit frantically.

"...Right, okay." Severus slowly bent down, moving his bag away from Lily and sitting beside her, shoulder to shoulder.

He clutched his satchel protectively to his side, and she pulled her legs up to her chest in a defensive position, wrapping her arms around her tightly, in a silent attempt to create some space between the two.

Perhaps it was nothing, perhaps he was just interested in the potion.

In fact, Slughorn usually did give him assignments before everybody else.

...but why did he steal her stuff? And the sketches?

But she couldn't shake that gut feeling as she tried to come up with all the possibilities.

Why was he so interested in amortentia of all things?

Coming up with a flimsy lie, she gathered her things and stood up. "Oh! Um, I've just remembered, I was meant to meet someone in the library right about now!"

"Oh really? Who?" He eyed her carefully.

"Hm? What?"

"Who are you meeting?"

"Uhhh..."

She looked past Severus and into the corridor next to the courtyard.

Come on Lily, pick anyone. Anybody you see.

"Pandora Rosier!" She saw the Rosier girl sat in one of the archways, a small smile pulling on her face, as her eyes flitted up towards Lily.

No way she could've heard that?!

"...Pandora Rosier?" He tilted his head towards her slightly, clearly unconvinced "Why on earth would you be meeting with her? She's a freak."

Lily ignored his question, not having a good enough answer. "Oh look! There she is now! Goodbye, Severus! I'll see you later." Without waiting for a response she quickly rushed away.

Although, as she turned towards Pandora, she saw that she was now stood up, leaning against the wall and watching her with an amused smile.

Lily turned her head towards Snape, and he was watching her intently.

Looks like she'll have to follow through.

"Hello, Lily." Pandora spoke as Lily neared her, apparently dropping the formalities and going straight for the first name. That was odd for a pureblood but then again, she was an odd girl.

Pandora didn't seem anything like the kids she grew up with. In fact, she didn't seem like she came from that upbringing at all. But then again, neither did Dorcas Meadowes, and she had grown up in that circle as well. As far as Lily knew, Pandora and Dorcas were still close, but Dorcas had left the rest of them behind.

Pandora was a particularly sweet girl, from what Lily knew of her. And she had never showed any prejudice towards her in their past interactions, even though they were admittedly brief. The blonde seemed sort of... airy. She believed in a lot of things that a lot of others didn't, which made her subject to quite a bit of teasing. Not that her twin brother, Evan Rosier ever allowed that. Lily had witnessed him in a lot of fights and duels concerning Pandora.

Lily didn't really know Pandora, and she certainly didn't know her brother, but if there was one thing she knew about them, what everybody knew about them. Evan was fiercely protective of Pandora, and vice versa. They were incredibly close, even if they seemed to be complete opposites. But the Rosier twins would always protect each other, Lily knew that much.

"...Hello Pandora."

"Come, I'll walk you back to the Gryffindor tower, I'm passing it on my way to meet Evan anyway." She said sweetly.

...But how did she know?

Instead of questioning it, Lily just sighed and smiled. "Yes, okay. Thank you."

"Of course, anytime."