FIC for alexajohnson "Catalyst"
Title: Catalyst
Author: potionmistressm
Recipient: alexajohnson
Rating: PG
Word count: ~3,000
Warnings: A few naughty words, slightly AU (made them a bit older since this would have taken place before the SWM incident)
Summary: Lily and Petunia have had a fight. About Severus. Again.
Disclaimer: Don't own. No money being made.
Author's Notes: Hope you like it! I know you wanted an R, but you also asked for no smut just for smut's sake, and I couldn't find a way to include it! Beta credit goes to D.
Catalyst
The tears had already stained Lily’s face a violent red even before she stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her. Outside, unseen for the moment, Severus stood and watched in dull horror, the shrill screams still audible from the Evans home.
He supposed he had arrived at a bad time.
At first Lily didn’t see him as she strode determinedly- angrily- toward their spot, and it wasn’t until he made a little coughing sound in the back of his throat that she looked up, apparently startled to see him standing there. Her eyes shone like emeralds as they met his, teardrops causing them to sparkle and shine in the sunlight (Severus would keep the opinion that she was very pretty when she cried to himself). Her breath caught in the peculiar way sobs have of only half realizing themselves. She sniffled. Her bottom lip quivered. And without even knowing he was moving, Severus went to her, and then she was in his arms- in an embrace that felt so completely natural to both of them.
He settled them in the little clearing that had been their favorite spot for six summers now, holding her the whole time. Having been a witness to many fights between Lily and her sister, Severus knew the drill fairly well- hold her until the tears turned to anger, then join in with Lily’s bitter tirade until at last even the fury dissipated and she finally vowed to reconcile with Petunia. “She is my sister, after all,” she would always say, sighing resignedly.
But this time was different; Severus could feel the increased tension brought about by this latest row, and today Lily not only let him hold her- she clung to his shoulders, seemingly racked with a fresh onslaught of tears every time she lifted her eyes and caught the slightest glimpse of him.
An occurrence which did not instill confidence.
Sitting cross-legged on the cool grass with Lily scooped in his lap, Severus tried to wait out the emotion like he normally did, stroking her hair and whispering to her, but this was to be no short-lived tantrum, and before he knew it his legs had gone numb and his neck was soaking and clammy where she nestled against him.
“Lily . . . Lily, what’s wrong?” She tried to stay her sobbing then and raised her head to face him fully. In the hiccupping slur of a child who has been caught misbehaving, she responded.
“No . . . nothing.”
There was no response Severus could make other than silence and the arched eyebrow he cocked at her. She could be telling the truth, he thought. Who knows what girls are crying about all the time? Maybe they don’t even know . . . But Lily was so very rarely girly, he reasoned; besides, he had heard Petunia’s shrieks on his way to meet Lily. She was either embarrassed about her outburst or was trying very hard to be very brave for him. Probably the latter, the annoying Gryffindor.
“Lily . . . ” He added his signature I-don’t-believe-you tone to the already skeptical expression, and Lily, who had been trying (and failing) to look innocent, felt her resolve crack. She sniffled, but mid-hiccup she started to giggle. She bowed her head, shyly ducking against Severus’ neck as the laughter overtook her. Her body shook against his, and even Severus felt himself smile. He may not be handsome, and he certainly had no money to offer her, couldn’t take her out or buy her presents, but he could make her smile. And smiling was only a short way from laughing, and once he had her laughing he could almost pretend that he could make her happy- really happy. Happy in the forever kind of way. Her laughter today was a bit shorter lived than Severus would have liked, but he let her giggle until it ran out of her system. When it was over, she seemed to remember that something had been very, very bad before Severus had distracted her. She stilled, took a deep breath, and wrapped her arms more tightly around his neck. She did not want to do what she knew was coming next. A few silent seconds went by before Severus spoke, trying to lead her into an explanation.
“You were arguing with Petunia.” Lily shrugged, but nestled closer against him, making his heart race and his palms sweat. Not for the first time Severus wondered how long he would be able to keep up his just-friends front. In fact, he was always a little surprised that Lily hadn’t seen through him yet. Any idiot could see how he felt about her (and many idiots- mostly his housemates- had seen it and wasted no opportunity to mock him about his lust for a Mudblood), but deep down Severus had a feeling that she knew exactly how he felt and simply did not return the sentiment. After all, she had puzzled out how that twat Potter felt about her and masked her disinterest with a feigned ignorance of the situation. She was too nice to say “no” so she settled for saying nothing at all. She shifted again in his arms, trying to make herself comfortable, and Severus sucked in a silent breath. If she shifted any more there would be no doubt about her knowledge of his feelings for her. Settling (in a safe place), she sighed.
“So, what else is new? I’m always fighting with Tuney these days.”
“But she doesn’t normally make you this upset.” Lily only shrugged again, her fingers twisting in the hem of Severus’ T-shirt absentmindedly. Her fingers brushed against his abdomen occasionally as she fidgeted, and it took everything he had not to show her how it was affecting him. It would do him no good to try to make a move on her while he was trying to be supportive.
“Jealous of the attention your parents are paying you now that you’re home?” he asked, a question designed as much to distract him from her feather light touches as it was to suss out the situation.
Again, Lily’s only response was a shrug. She was rapidly slipping into one of the blackest moods Severus had ever seen her in, and he needed to do anything he could to pull her out of it.
He had never been the funniest person (on purpose, at least), but he had made her laugh once already today, so he tried again.
And failed. Miserably.
“She wanted to one-up you so she told your parents she was abducted by aliens?”
“No. Sev, just leave it.” But he couldn’t leave it. He couldn’t explain it even to himself, the need he felt in himself to protect this girl, to save her, to hold her, to make everything in her life just be okay. She obviously needed to talk about it but wasn’t allowing herself. It was lucky for her that Severus would not be distracted from his strange silent vow to make everything all right for her.
“Was it about Hogwarts?”
“No. Kind of . . . Not really.” And with that, Severus knew exactly what the sisters’ fight had been about. Knew with absolute certainty. Only one thing other her parents and her life as a witch had the ability to make Lily Evans this upset. Only one other thing that was dear enough to her to cause such a commotion in her home.
“It was about me.” Not a question. A statement. And he knew by the way her body went completely stiff, afraid that even motion would betray the truth, that he was right.
“Sev . . . it’s . . . I mean . . . ”
“What did she say?” He was relentless, and she capitulated, a heavy sigh leaving her body and taking with it her last ounce of reserve. She slumped against him again, her head on his shoulder, her arms curled against his chest.
“She was just being herself- telling me I was wasting my life at Hogwarts. And with you.”
“So, the usual.”
“No, it was worse.”
“What did she say?... Lily, what did she say?” There was a silence as Lily put up one last bit of a fight. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she knew it would feel better to get it off her chest. Severus only stroked her hair, burning like a bonfire in the late afternoon sun, and tried to encourage her to continue. Words held little sway over him after all these years, least of all anything Petunia had to say.
“I don’t want to repeat it.”
“Lily . . . ”
“That I shouldn’t hang out with you because people will talk.” Severus rolled his eyes, glad that Lily couldn’t see him. Such a typically vain, shallow, and utterly Petunia-ish thing to be worried about. Because if Lily was seen slumming with the weird poor kid from Spinner’s End, it would reflect very poorly on Petunia indeed.
“And . . . ” he prompted when Lily offered no more. It was obvious that the discussion was making her uncomfortable, but in Severus’ mind there was no such thing as a little bit of truth or little white lies. Besides, he had known her long enough to know that if she didn’t spill everything now she would only keep thinking about it and worrying herself about it until she eventually confessed when the guilt became too much. It was how he’d found out she’d been the one to damage his brass scales first year. Lily was not a secret keeper.
“Oh, Sev, don’t make me say it!”
“Come on, Lily. It can’t be anything I haven’t heard before.”
“But that doesn’t mean you should have to hear it again!” In her mind she saw all of the hateful faces who passed them in the hallways of Hogwarts. Some of them scowled, some looked puzzled as to how such a cute little Gryffindor had found herself in the company of the school’s black sheep, and still others laughed openly in Severus’ face. In those moments she wanted nothing more than to throw her arms out in front of him and declare her intent to fight anyone who wished him ill. She wanted to protect him the way he always protected her. And now that she could protect him by sparing him the details he wouldn’t allow her to. The circles he was rubbing on her back became just a little more insistent, and before he could ask again, she relented. “Fine, but you asked for it. She said your dad was a drunk.”
Severus snorted. Nothing new there.
“He is.”
“And that your mum is a witch.”
“Well spotted,” he said, very nearly smiling. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that that was the worst Petunia could have offered up. The girl never had been very imaginative. It was Lily who was worrying him now. Lily who was now still so still and silent. “Lily. There’s more. I know there’s more.”
“Sev, does it really matter?”
“It upset you, so yes, it matters to me.”
“But it’s horrible! If you must hear it . . . she said that you were mean, spiteful, stupid, ugly, unkempt, and the most Petunia-ish thing you could possibly be- not normal!” This time Severus did smile. Still no new material in the Petunia repertoire.
“Is that all? Lily, you hear people at school say those things all the time. You never let it affect you like this.”
“This is different. She’s my sister, and even thinking about her saying those things . . . it hurts. I love her so much, and she acts like I’m some sort of leper just because I’m a witch. I think it started out as her own perverse way of trying to get me to give it up and come home and just be her sister again, but by now it’s just hatred, plain and simple. And it’s just . . . I mean . . . it’s always about . . . ” Lily let the statement hang in the air unfinished, but Severus knew exactly what she was saying. Petunia had taken to blaming him for her sister’s betrayal of normalcy from the very first day she had met him, and now she was using him as an excuse to drive a wedge between herself and Lily.
“I’m the catalyst.” He said it slowly, with little inflection. Leave it to the potions expert to come up with the technical term- the unemotional one- to sum up the situation neatly. Catalyst- his potions text book had defined it as an ingredient that when added to a potion either caused or hastened the end result. Lily Evans’ life was just one big chemical reaction when he really sat back and thought about it, and even though she still would have received a Hogwarts letter if she had never met him, he had indeed speeded up the reaction, had introduced her to the world of witchcraft early so that by the time her letter did arrive she was already excited and prepared to head off on the Hogwarts Express. And what if she had been reticent and reluctant to leave her family and her attachment to him as a person had only strengthened her resolve to go? Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if one of these days Lily would decide that what she had lost was too great a price to pay and abandon her magical life all together. He wondered if one day she wouldn’t care about him enough to stay.
Slowly, Lily lifted her face away from Severus’ neck and looked into his eyes. Her expression was deadly serious, though Severus was pleased to notice that it was not altogether despondent as it had been before. She stared at him, not speaking and barely breathing. Severus was about to ask if she was all right when she took his face in shaking hands and pulled him toward her. She didn’t break eye contact until the exact moment her lips touched his.
At first Severus didn’t know what to do and could only sit very still as her lips moved against his. But a teenaged boy’s body is not designed to decline so warm and genuine an offer, and before he knew what he was doing, his hands had tangled in her hair and he was kissing her back with all of the untrained enthusiasm in the world. They came apart slowly, and for a moment they simply stared at each other. Lily dropped her eyes first, blushing a deep red. Severus could only keep watching her, stunned by what had just occurred between them and that she had initiated it. His shock was close to wearing off into disappointment as she continued to look down, but before he could lose hope, her head lifted.
And she smiled at him.
Not a nervous smile, not a sad smile . . . a real, honest-to-goodness smile. The kind of smile he had seen girls in the common room give their boyfriends. A decidedly more-than-friends kind of smile.
“There’s another reason why she upset me so much today,” Lily said, the smile faltering only a little as her gaze darted nervously to Severus’ lips and then back to his eyes before she finally gave up eye contact and began to fiddle with the shoulder of his shirt instead. “I... um . . . well. I like you, Sev. I guess I have for a while. And so when she started saying all those things . . . I just . . . I wanted . . . ”
She never had a chance to finish the explanation- if she had been able to gather her thoughts efficiently enough to finish anyway; a thin, pale finger gently lifted her chin, and Severus kissed her again, with all of the tenderness and love he had been keeping locked up inside of him ever since that very first day at the playground. The day he had fallen in love with Lily Evans.
Author: potionmistressm
Recipient: alexajohnson
Rating: PG
Word count: ~3,000
Warnings: A few naughty words, slightly AU (made them a bit older since this would have taken place before the SWM incident)
Summary: Lily and Petunia have had a fight. About Severus. Again.
Disclaimer: Don't own. No money being made.
Author's Notes: Hope you like it! I know you wanted an R, but you also asked for no smut just for smut's sake, and I couldn't find a way to include it! Beta credit goes to D.
Catalyst
The tears had already stained Lily’s face a violent red even before she stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her. Outside, unseen for the moment, Severus stood and watched in dull horror, the shrill screams still audible from the Evans home.
He supposed he had arrived at a bad time.
At first Lily didn’t see him as she strode determinedly- angrily- toward their spot, and it wasn’t until he made a little coughing sound in the back of his throat that she looked up, apparently startled to see him standing there. Her eyes shone like emeralds as they met his, teardrops causing them to sparkle and shine in the sunlight (Severus would keep the opinion that she was very pretty when she cried to himself). Her breath caught in the peculiar way sobs have of only half realizing themselves. She sniffled. Her bottom lip quivered. And without even knowing he was moving, Severus went to her, and then she was in his arms- in an embrace that felt so completely natural to both of them.
He settled them in the little clearing that had been their favorite spot for six summers now, holding her the whole time. Having been a witness to many fights between Lily and her sister, Severus knew the drill fairly well- hold her until the tears turned to anger, then join in with Lily’s bitter tirade until at last even the fury dissipated and she finally vowed to reconcile with Petunia. “She is my sister, after all,” she would always say, sighing resignedly.
But this time was different; Severus could feel the increased tension brought about by this latest row, and today Lily not only let him hold her- she clung to his shoulders, seemingly racked with a fresh onslaught of tears every time she lifted her eyes and caught the slightest glimpse of him.
An occurrence which did not instill confidence.
Sitting cross-legged on the cool grass with Lily scooped in his lap, Severus tried to wait out the emotion like he normally did, stroking her hair and whispering to her, but this was to be no short-lived tantrum, and before he knew it his legs had gone numb and his neck was soaking and clammy where she nestled against him.
“Lily . . . Lily, what’s wrong?” She tried to stay her sobbing then and raised her head to face him fully. In the hiccupping slur of a child who has been caught misbehaving, she responded.
“No . . . nothing.”
There was no response Severus could make other than silence and the arched eyebrow he cocked at her. She could be telling the truth, he thought. Who knows what girls are crying about all the time? Maybe they don’t even know . . . But Lily was so very rarely girly, he reasoned; besides, he had heard Petunia’s shrieks on his way to meet Lily. She was either embarrassed about her outburst or was trying very hard to be very brave for him. Probably the latter, the annoying Gryffindor.
“Lily . . . ” He added his signature I-don’t-believe-you tone to the already skeptical expression, and Lily, who had been trying (and failing) to look innocent, felt her resolve crack. She sniffled, but mid-hiccup she started to giggle. She bowed her head, shyly ducking against Severus’ neck as the laughter overtook her. Her body shook against his, and even Severus felt himself smile. He may not be handsome, and he certainly had no money to offer her, couldn’t take her out or buy her presents, but he could make her smile. And smiling was only a short way from laughing, and once he had her laughing he could almost pretend that he could make her happy- really happy. Happy in the forever kind of way. Her laughter today was a bit shorter lived than Severus would have liked, but he let her giggle until it ran out of her system. When it was over, she seemed to remember that something had been very, very bad before Severus had distracted her. She stilled, took a deep breath, and wrapped her arms more tightly around his neck. She did not want to do what she knew was coming next. A few silent seconds went by before Severus spoke, trying to lead her into an explanation.
“You were arguing with Petunia.” Lily shrugged, but nestled closer against him, making his heart race and his palms sweat. Not for the first time Severus wondered how long he would be able to keep up his just-friends front. In fact, he was always a little surprised that Lily hadn’t seen through him yet. Any idiot could see how he felt about her (and many idiots- mostly his housemates- had seen it and wasted no opportunity to mock him about his lust for a Mudblood), but deep down Severus had a feeling that she knew exactly how he felt and simply did not return the sentiment. After all, she had puzzled out how that twat Potter felt about her and masked her disinterest with a feigned ignorance of the situation. She was too nice to say “no” so she settled for saying nothing at all. She shifted again in his arms, trying to make herself comfortable, and Severus sucked in a silent breath. If she shifted any more there would be no doubt about her knowledge of his feelings for her. Settling (in a safe place), she sighed.
“So, what else is new? I’m always fighting with Tuney these days.”
“But she doesn’t normally make you this upset.” Lily only shrugged again, her fingers twisting in the hem of Severus’ T-shirt absentmindedly. Her fingers brushed against his abdomen occasionally as she fidgeted, and it took everything he had not to show her how it was affecting him. It would do him no good to try to make a move on her while he was trying to be supportive.
“Jealous of the attention your parents are paying you now that you’re home?” he asked, a question designed as much to distract him from her feather light touches as it was to suss out the situation.
Again, Lily’s only response was a shrug. She was rapidly slipping into one of the blackest moods Severus had ever seen her in, and he needed to do anything he could to pull her out of it.
He had never been the funniest person (on purpose, at least), but he had made her laugh once already today, so he tried again.
And failed. Miserably.
“She wanted to one-up you so she told your parents she was abducted by aliens?”
“No. Sev, just leave it.” But he couldn’t leave it. He couldn’t explain it even to himself, the need he felt in himself to protect this girl, to save her, to hold her, to make everything in her life just be okay. She obviously needed to talk about it but wasn’t allowing herself. It was lucky for her that Severus would not be distracted from his strange silent vow to make everything all right for her.
“Was it about Hogwarts?”
“No. Kind of . . . Not really.” And with that, Severus knew exactly what the sisters’ fight had been about. Knew with absolute certainty. Only one thing other her parents and her life as a witch had the ability to make Lily Evans this upset. Only one other thing that was dear enough to her to cause such a commotion in her home.
“It was about me.” Not a question. A statement. And he knew by the way her body went completely stiff, afraid that even motion would betray the truth, that he was right.
“Sev . . . it’s . . . I mean . . . ”
“What did she say?” He was relentless, and she capitulated, a heavy sigh leaving her body and taking with it her last ounce of reserve. She slumped against him again, her head on his shoulder, her arms curled against his chest.
“She was just being herself- telling me I was wasting my life at Hogwarts. And with you.”
“So, the usual.”
“No, it was worse.”
“What did she say?... Lily, what did she say?” There was a silence as Lily put up one last bit of a fight. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she knew it would feel better to get it off her chest. Severus only stroked her hair, burning like a bonfire in the late afternoon sun, and tried to encourage her to continue. Words held little sway over him after all these years, least of all anything Petunia had to say.
“I don’t want to repeat it.”
“Lily . . . ”
“That I shouldn’t hang out with you because people will talk.” Severus rolled his eyes, glad that Lily couldn’t see him. Such a typically vain, shallow, and utterly Petunia-ish thing to be worried about. Because if Lily was seen slumming with the weird poor kid from Spinner’s End, it would reflect very poorly on Petunia indeed.
“And . . . ” he prompted when Lily offered no more. It was obvious that the discussion was making her uncomfortable, but in Severus’ mind there was no such thing as a little bit of truth or little white lies. Besides, he had known her long enough to know that if she didn’t spill everything now she would only keep thinking about it and worrying herself about it until she eventually confessed when the guilt became too much. It was how he’d found out she’d been the one to damage his brass scales first year. Lily was not a secret keeper.
“Oh, Sev, don’t make me say it!”
“Come on, Lily. It can’t be anything I haven’t heard before.”
“But that doesn’t mean you should have to hear it again!” In her mind she saw all of the hateful faces who passed them in the hallways of Hogwarts. Some of them scowled, some looked puzzled as to how such a cute little Gryffindor had found herself in the company of the school’s black sheep, and still others laughed openly in Severus’ face. In those moments she wanted nothing more than to throw her arms out in front of him and declare her intent to fight anyone who wished him ill. She wanted to protect him the way he always protected her. And now that she could protect him by sparing him the details he wouldn’t allow her to. The circles he was rubbing on her back became just a little more insistent, and before he could ask again, she relented. “Fine, but you asked for it. She said your dad was a drunk.”
Severus snorted. Nothing new there.
“He is.”
“And that your mum is a witch.”
“Well spotted,” he said, very nearly smiling. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that that was the worst Petunia could have offered up. The girl never had been very imaginative. It was Lily who was worrying him now. Lily who was now still so still and silent. “Lily. There’s more. I know there’s more.”
“Sev, does it really matter?”
“It upset you, so yes, it matters to me.”
“But it’s horrible! If you must hear it . . . she said that you were mean, spiteful, stupid, ugly, unkempt, and the most Petunia-ish thing you could possibly be- not normal!” This time Severus did smile. Still no new material in the Petunia repertoire.
“Is that all? Lily, you hear people at school say those things all the time. You never let it affect you like this.”
“This is different. She’s my sister, and even thinking about her saying those things . . . it hurts. I love her so much, and she acts like I’m some sort of leper just because I’m a witch. I think it started out as her own perverse way of trying to get me to give it up and come home and just be her sister again, but by now it’s just hatred, plain and simple. And it’s just . . . I mean . . . it’s always about . . . ” Lily let the statement hang in the air unfinished, but Severus knew exactly what she was saying. Petunia had taken to blaming him for her sister’s betrayal of normalcy from the very first day she had met him, and now she was using him as an excuse to drive a wedge between herself and Lily.
“I’m the catalyst.” He said it slowly, with little inflection. Leave it to the potions expert to come up with the technical term- the unemotional one- to sum up the situation neatly. Catalyst- his potions text book had defined it as an ingredient that when added to a potion either caused or hastened the end result. Lily Evans’ life was just one big chemical reaction when he really sat back and thought about it, and even though she still would have received a Hogwarts letter if she had never met him, he had indeed speeded up the reaction, had introduced her to the world of witchcraft early so that by the time her letter did arrive she was already excited and prepared to head off on the Hogwarts Express. And what if she had been reticent and reluctant to leave her family and her attachment to him as a person had only strengthened her resolve to go? Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if one of these days Lily would decide that what she had lost was too great a price to pay and abandon her magical life all together. He wondered if one day she wouldn’t care about him enough to stay.
Slowly, Lily lifted her face away from Severus’ neck and looked into his eyes. Her expression was deadly serious, though Severus was pleased to notice that it was not altogether despondent as it had been before. She stared at him, not speaking and barely breathing. Severus was about to ask if she was all right when she took his face in shaking hands and pulled him toward her. She didn’t break eye contact until the exact moment her lips touched his.
At first Severus didn’t know what to do and could only sit very still as her lips moved against his. But a teenaged boy’s body is not designed to decline so warm and genuine an offer, and before he knew what he was doing, his hands had tangled in her hair and he was kissing her back with all of the untrained enthusiasm in the world. They came apart slowly, and for a moment they simply stared at each other. Lily dropped her eyes first, blushing a deep red. Severus could only keep watching her, stunned by what had just occurred between them and that she had initiated it. His shock was close to wearing off into disappointment as she continued to look down, but before he could lose hope, her head lifted.
And she smiled at him.
Not a nervous smile, not a sad smile . . . a real, honest-to-goodness smile. The kind of smile he had seen girls in the common room give their boyfriends. A decidedly more-than-friends kind of smile.
“There’s another reason why she upset me so much today,” Lily said, the smile faltering only a little as her gaze darted nervously to Severus’ lips and then back to his eyes before she finally gave up eye contact and began to fiddle with the shoulder of his shirt instead. “I... um . . . well. I like you, Sev. I guess I have for a while. And so when she started saying all those things . . . I just . . . I wanted . . . ”
She never had a chance to finish the explanation- if she had been able to gather her thoughts efficiently enough to finish anyway; a thin, pale finger gently lifted her chin, and Severus kissed her again, with all of the tenderness and love he had been keeping locked up inside of him ever since that very first day at the playground. The day he had fallen in love with Lily Evans.