Hogwarts Castle, 10 June 1976
It's funny how you can be at a school for five years and never properly appreciate things about it, like how cold the floor of the second floor girls' toilets is.
Then again, Lily can't honestly say she's ever been locked in one of the cubicles here without shoes on before, so perhaps it's not funny at all.
Actually, she's pretty sure it's not funny at all.
In exactly -- Lily checks her watch -- in exactly twenty-one minutes, she's going to have to report back to the Great Hall to do the practical half of her Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL, in front of the entire fifth year. And she absolutely refuses to turn up there looking like she's been crying in a lavatory cubicle, like Moaning Myrtle or something.
(Moaning Myrtle has been keeping to her own bit of plumbing so far this afternoon, and Lily thanks God or Merlin or Christmas Past -- whoever looks after these things for ghosts -- that she has.)
Lily focuses on breathing -- slow and controlled -- in and then out -- just breathe -- stay calm -- keep breathing -- don't think about it -- just breathe.
She's just started to wonder if she'll be the first student in the history of Hogwarts to take an OWL barefoot, if they mark off for that or if they'd even notice, when a voice says, "Lily? Are you in here?"
Oh, God.
Mary Macdonald is standing by the sinks when Lily steps out of her cubicle. "Yeah, I'm here."
At least it's Mary. Just about anyone else would find something to say that would make all that breathing and staying calm utterly useless, but Mary just says, "I brought your shoes."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Mary waits while Lily sits on the bench outside the lavatory and puts her shoes back on. They reach the waiting room just off the Great Hall right as Professor McGonagall is closing the door and get stern looks.
Lily tries to tell herself that she's being paranoid, that everyone is far more interested in their upcoming examination than in her, and that it's Potter levels of arrogant to think otherwise. She just doesn't convince herself.
Still, she's ridiculously glad that Mary stands between her and the room and talks about what might come up in the practical until her name is called, ridiculously glad that 'Evans' comes close to the beginning of the alphabet so she can get this over with and go.
It's not until she's done with the exam that she realizes there's really no where to go.
And that, as a Gryffindor, she can't exactly spend the rest of the day hiding in a corner (or a toilet) even if there were.
So Lily spends the rest of the afternoon in the library, where at least people can't talk to her without incurring the wrath of Madam Pince.
And she goes to dinner, sits with her friends the same as always, her back to the Slytherin table. She talks about how she thinks the exam went, tries to assure Glynis that really anyone could have set the examiner's robes on fire, and tries not to hex Perdita when she says 'I told you so' for the first time. Or the second. Or the third.
She pretends, too, that she doesn't notice Severus stand up when she gets up to leave, like he's going to follow her out of the Great Hall. Or that Mulciber and Avery quite literally pull him back down into his seat before he can.
She sits in the common room for two hours after dinner, with her Ancient Runes text open in her lap. She stares at it, and when it seems a reasonable about of time has gone by, she turns another page and stares at it for a while. She might as well be staring at a child's scribbles for all the sense she can make of it, which does not bode well for the OWL she will be taking in the morning.
She accepts the comments, well meant or not, of her housemates -- the horrified, the sympathetic, the supportive, the quietly smug at having been proven right about Severus Snape after all these years. She nods and she thanks them and she doesn't hex anyone, not even Perdita, and then she apologizes and says she has to study.
She escapes to bed as soon as it's even remotely possible to do so, closes the curtains around her bed, and curls up in the small, dark, too warm space that creates. After a few moments, there's a slight thump down by her feet, and then Hesper greets her by nudging Lily's hand with her head and waiting to be petted.
Hesper is just about the only company Lily actually wants this evening, so naturally, after about twenty minutes, the cat takes off in pursuit of mice, cream, or just another place to nap. Such is the way of cats.
Lily's not sure how long she lies there, exhausted and not remotely sleepy, before she hears Mary ask for the second time that day, "Lily, are you in here?"
Oh, God.
Lily sticks her head out from behind the curtains. "What is it?"
"I'm sorry, Lily. I wouldn't have ... I went out for a few minutes, just to get out of the common room, you know, and I didn't want to come up here and bother you and ... "
"Mary, please. What is it?"
"It's Severus Snape. He wants to see you."
"Well, I don't want to see him," Lily says, and starts to vanish back behind her curtains.
"I know," Mary says. "It's just ... well, he said he would just sleep in the corridor and wait for you. I didn't think you'd want him to do that."
"No," Lily says. "No, I don't."
That's all she needs. Severus sleeping in front of the Fat Lady, where any of her housemates can find him.
So she gets up, and she pulls her dressing gown on over her nightdress, and she goes back downstairs (barefoot again), with Mary following her. The common room is less than half as full as it was when she went upstairs, but she doesn't take the time to see who is and isn't there.
He's waiting, on the other side of the portrait. Lily waits until it has closed behind her, and stands in front of it, arms crossed. Neither of them says anything for a moment. It's like being stuck a photograph.
"I'm sorry," Severus says, and she'll give him this much; he truly does sound sorry.
But she doubts he's sorry for the right things.
"I'm not interested," Lily says.
"I'm sorry!" he says, more insistent, now, and just the tiniest bit ... annoyed?
"Save your breath," Lily tells him. "I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here."
"I was," Severus says. "I would have done. I never meant to call you 'Mudblood,' it just -- "
"Slipped out?" Lily suggests.
It's not the sort of that just slips out.
Surely they both know that.
"It's too late," she says. "I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends." Lily meets his eye, and he looks away, quickly. "You see? You don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be. You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"
Severus opens his mouth, then closes it without speaking.
Silence really can say a lot, can't it?
"I can't pretend anymore," Lily says. And God knows she has tried. "You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."
"No," Severus says, reaching one hand toward her, just a few inches. "Listen, I didn't mean -- "
"To call me 'Mudblood'? But you call everyone of my birth 'Mudblood,' Severus. Why should I be any different?"
He opens and closes his mouth again, and then once more, but nothing else 'slips out.'
Lily turns and climbs back through the portrait hole and into Gryffindor Tower.
Then again, Lily can't honestly say she's ever been locked in one of the cubicles here without shoes on before, so perhaps it's not funny at all.
Actually, she's pretty sure it's not funny at all.
In exactly -- Lily checks her watch -- in exactly twenty-one minutes, she's going to have to report back to the Great Hall to do the practical half of her Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL, in front of the entire fifth year. And she absolutely refuses to turn up there looking like she's been crying in a lavatory cubicle, like Moaning Myrtle or something.
(Moaning Myrtle has been keeping to her own bit of plumbing so far this afternoon, and Lily thanks God or Merlin or Christmas Past -- whoever looks after these things for ghosts -- that she has.)
Lily focuses on breathing -- slow and controlled -- in and then out -- just breathe -- stay calm -- keep breathing -- don't think about it -- just breathe.
She's just started to wonder if she'll be the first student in the history of Hogwarts to take an OWL barefoot, if they mark off for that or if they'd even notice, when a voice says, "Lily? Are you in here?"
Oh, God.
Mary Macdonald is standing by the sinks when Lily steps out of her cubicle. "Yeah, I'm here."
At least it's Mary. Just about anyone else would find something to say that would make all that breathing and staying calm utterly useless, but Mary just says, "I brought your shoes."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Mary waits while Lily sits on the bench outside the lavatory and puts her shoes back on. They reach the waiting room just off the Great Hall right as Professor McGonagall is closing the door and get stern looks.
Lily tries to tell herself that she's being paranoid, that everyone is far more interested in their upcoming examination than in her, and that it's Potter levels of arrogant to think otherwise. She just doesn't convince herself.
Still, she's ridiculously glad that Mary stands between her and the room and talks about what might come up in the practical until her name is called, ridiculously glad that 'Evans' comes close to the beginning of the alphabet so she can get this over with and go.
It's not until she's done with the exam that she realizes there's really no where to go.
And that, as a Gryffindor, she can't exactly spend the rest of the day hiding in a corner (or a toilet) even if there were.
So Lily spends the rest of the afternoon in the library, where at least people can't talk to her without incurring the wrath of Madam Pince.
And she goes to dinner, sits with her friends the same as always, her back to the Slytherin table. She talks about how she thinks the exam went, tries to assure Glynis that really anyone could have set the examiner's robes on fire, and tries not to hex Perdita when she says 'I told you so' for the first time. Or the second. Or the third.
She pretends, too, that she doesn't notice Severus stand up when she gets up to leave, like he's going to follow her out of the Great Hall. Or that Mulciber and Avery quite literally pull him back down into his seat before he can.
She sits in the common room for two hours after dinner, with her Ancient Runes text open in her lap. She stares at it, and when it seems a reasonable about of time has gone by, she turns another page and stares at it for a while. She might as well be staring at a child's scribbles for all the sense she can make of it, which does not bode well for the OWL she will be taking in the morning.
She accepts the comments, well meant or not, of her housemates -- the horrified, the sympathetic, the supportive, the quietly smug at having been proven right about Severus Snape after all these years. She nods and she thanks them and she doesn't hex anyone, not even Perdita, and then she apologizes and says she has to study.
She escapes to bed as soon as it's even remotely possible to do so, closes the curtains around her bed, and curls up in the small, dark, too warm space that creates. After a few moments, there's a slight thump down by her feet, and then Hesper greets her by nudging Lily's hand with her head and waiting to be petted.
Hesper is just about the only company Lily actually wants this evening, so naturally, after about twenty minutes, the cat takes off in pursuit of mice, cream, or just another place to nap. Such is the way of cats.
Lily's not sure how long she lies there, exhausted and not remotely sleepy, before she hears Mary ask for the second time that day, "Lily, are you in here?"
Oh, God.
Lily sticks her head out from behind the curtains. "What is it?"
"I'm sorry, Lily. I wouldn't have ... I went out for a few minutes, just to get out of the common room, you know, and I didn't want to come up here and bother you and ... "
"Mary, please. What is it?"
"It's Severus Snape. He wants to see you."
"Well, I don't want to see him," Lily says, and starts to vanish back behind her curtains.
"I know," Mary says. "It's just ... well, he said he would just sleep in the corridor and wait for you. I didn't think you'd want him to do that."
"No," Lily says. "No, I don't."
That's all she needs. Severus sleeping in front of the Fat Lady, where any of her housemates can find him.
So she gets up, and she pulls her dressing gown on over her nightdress, and she goes back downstairs (barefoot again), with Mary following her. The common room is less than half as full as it was when she went upstairs, but she doesn't take the time to see who is and isn't there.
He's waiting, on the other side of the portrait. Lily waits until it has closed behind her, and stands in front of it, arms crossed. Neither of them says anything for a moment. It's like being stuck a photograph.
"I'm sorry," Severus says, and she'll give him this much; he truly does sound sorry.
But she doubts he's sorry for the right things.
"I'm not interested," Lily says.
"I'm sorry!" he says, more insistent, now, and just the tiniest bit ... annoyed?
"Save your breath," Lily tells him. "I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here."
"I was," Severus says. "I would have done. I never meant to call you 'Mudblood,' it just -- "
"Slipped out?" Lily suggests.
It's not the sort of that just slips out.
Surely they both know that.
"It's too late," she says. "I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends." Lily meets his eye, and he looks away, quickly. "You see? You don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be. You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"
Severus opens his mouth, then closes it without speaking.
Silence really can say a lot, can't it?
"I can't pretend anymore," Lily says. And God knows she has tried. "You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."
"No," Severus says, reaching one hand toward her, just a few inches. "Listen, I didn't mean -- "
"To call me 'Mudblood'? But you call everyone of my birth 'Mudblood,' Severus. Why should I be any different?"
He opens and closes his mouth again, and then once more, but nothing else 'slips out.'
Lily turns and climbs back through the portrait hole and into Gryffindor Tower.