BFS ENTRY: Lemonade (G; Severus and Lily)
Title: Lemonade
Category: One (1- to 10-years-old)
Characters: Severus and Lily
Author: scarletladyy
Beta Reader: pollyandra
Rating: G
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): None.
Word Count: 1602
Summary: When Lily realises it's Severus' birthday, she gets a sticky idea into her head.
"It's my birthday today." Severus said quietly, sat on the swings next to Lily.
"Really? Happy Birthday!" She smiled at him widely and batted her eyelashes. "Aren't your parents doing anything? Like a party?"
Severus laughed. "Are you kidding, Lil?"
Lily had forgotten what his parents were like. "Yeah, sorry...but that doesn't mean we can't do anything."
"Oh come on, Lily. We can't do anything, we're just kids."
Lily patted Severus on the head lightly. "Of course we can do something. How about you come to mine and I show you how to make lemonade?"
Severus' eyebrows twitched. "Lemonade? What's that?"
Lily pursed her lips before mentioning this, as she knew how he'd react. "It's a muggle drink. It's really nice though, honest."
"No, Lily." Severus shook his head quickly. "I don't want anything muggle. You should know that."
Lily laughed. "Severus, it's your birthday. Trust me - you'll love it!"
Severus pursed his lips, twisting his tongue around in his mouth. He hated anything muggle, for various reasons, but this was for the girl he really cared about, perhaps even loved. "Fine." He decided. He'd do it for her. "But you better appreciate it one day."
"I will, I promise." Lily smiled at him, grabbing his hand and jumping off the swings singing 'Happy Birthday' to him.
Severus was just glad there was nobody else about to hear her; he'd have been humiliated beyond belief and felt overwhelming relief when she finally stopped singing. Alas, it was because they had reached her house which was just opposite the park.
"Ahh, Severus." Lily's mum greeted him with a smile as she was clearing away the breakfast plates.
"Morning, Mrs Evans." He said as he shut the door behind them.
"It's Severus' birthday today, mum!" Lily bounced up and down next to her mother.
"Oh, really? Happy Birthday, young man!" Mrs Evans put the rest of the plates in the washing up bowl and dried her hands. "I'll leave you two alone then."
Severus nodded curtly at her as she left the room, turning to his side to see Lily scrambling around the kitchen cupboards.
"Lemons, lemons..." She muttered to herself as she tore open each and every drawer.
"Have you tried the fridge?" Severus asked, pointing at the large, white object in the corner of the room.
Lily raised her eyebrows cheekily. "Not yet!"
Severus watched her as she made her way over to the fridge, opened it and scanned the shelves. He could tell she had found them on the bottom shelf as she had stopped looking. "Found them?"
Lily shook her head. "No, silly. See! That's why I didn't look in there!" Roughly, she closed the fridge and started to look in the bottom drawers.
"Right." Said Severus, quietly sneaking behind Lily's back to open the fridge and pull out the lemons she had found before. "Are these what you are after?" He said nonchalantly, holding the bag in the air.
Lily was almost speechless. "Well, yeah...they weren't there when I looked!" She protested, folding her arms mockingly. After a few seconds, she swallowed her pride and grabbed the lemons out of Severus' hands, plonking them on the counter and picking two out. "You can put them back now."
Grumbling, he took the bag off her and placed them on the bottom shelf. Turning around, he saw her get out a large, glass plate and start cutting the lemons on it. "What's that?"
"It's called a chopping board." She replied whilst trying not to cut her finger. "Don't you have one at home?"
Severus scoffed. "You really think we can afford one of those? They look expensive."
"Well, this one is but I'm sure you can get cheap ones, too. They're very useful."
Ignoring her last comment, Severus proceeded to inquire about what she was doing. "What are you...?"
"...doing?" She asked before he finished his sentence, and he nodded in agreement. "Cutting the lemons in half - then I'm going to squeeze them."
"Squeeze them?" He asked with an air of confusion in his voice. "Won't you get juice everywhere?"
Lily winked at him and giggled. "Well, the idea is to squeeze them into a jug, silly!"
"Oh." He muttered. "Then what?"
"Well then you get the sugar and pour it in until it seems right." Said Lily, shrugging her shoulders and squeezing the lemons into the jug as hard as she could. Her hands got all sticky as the juice ran down them, but she didn't care. She loved making lemonade and she was sure Severus would love it. "Can you pass me the sugar, please?"
Reluctantly, he grabbed the bag of sugar on the counter and passed it to her. She quickly grabbed the bag and got a spoon out of the drawer underneath her. "You've got to be careful not to get sugar everywhere. It's terrible to clean up."
Severus watched as she carefully managed not to drop any of the sugar off the spoon, though he figured it wouldn't be that hard a job. "And now?"
"Now," she said, mixing the sugar in with the lemon juice. "We add the water." Sparing a glance at Severus, she glided over to the sink and filled up the jug. "We can leave it in the fridge for a while, and then taste it. It's better cold."
Severus looked at the jug of lemonade with disgust in his eyes. "It doesn't look very nice. It looks like frogspawn."
Lily hit him with a tea towel she was wiping her hands on. "Don't be disgusting! Right - what do you want to do for the next half hour?"
He shrugged, looking around the kitchen without any ideas.
Suddenly, an idea popped into Lily's head. "We could wind up Petunia!"
As much as Severus hated Lily's sister, he wasn't too fond of this notion. "I don't know, Lil..."
"Oh come on! She's in her room!" She said eagerly, grabbing his hand and pulling him up the stairs after her. "Petunia! Petunia!"
Severus stood behind Lily with his hands in his pockets, watching Petunia as she turned around, her lips pursed and a hairbrush in her hand.
"Leave me alone, Lily," Petunia said, her tone icy cold. "And get that freak out of here." She added upon seeing Severus.
"Oooh! Petunia's all annoyed!" Lily taunted, pulling faces at her sister. "Are you still upset that the boy down the road doesn't like you?"
Petunia gripped the hairbrush tightly in her hands and threw it hard at Lily, just missing her and hitting the wall the other side of Severus. "Shove off."
"Come on, Lil..." Severus tugged at her arm, but she pushed his hand off. He was feeling very uncomfortable; he hated confrontation. He had enough of that at home. "Lily!"
"What?" Lily grumbled, turning around with the smile fading from her face. "I'm only having a little fun."
"Can we just go taste the lemonade?" He said, using any excuse to get her downstairs and out of Petunia's way.
Lily sighed heavily, casting a nasty look at Petunia. "Fine, fine."
Just as they were on the top step, Lily couldn't help but mutter under her breath, though loud enough for Petunia - who was now watching them leave - to hear her. "It's because you're ugly, you know..."
Petunia screamed and stamped her foot, chasing both Lily and Severus down the stairs. Petunia flew onto Lily at the bottom, just in time for Severus to jump out of her way. He watched distastefully as the two girls battled it out on the floor, but with Lily being stronger, she eventually overpowered her sister.
"Ha!" Said Lily, triumph in her voice. "Give?"
Weakly, Petunia nodded and Lily let up. She grabbed Severus' hand and pulled him towards the kitchen, grabbing the lemonade out of the fridge. "It's not been left as long as I would've liked, but I'm sure it's still good."
Before Severus could even see Lily pour it, Petunia had ran into the kitchen, wrestled the jug out of Lily's hands and poured it all over her sister's head.
"Ha!" Petunia said nastily, dropping the jug and letting it crash to the floor as Severus watched in disbelief, and Lily screeched.
She was utterly fuming and ran out of the room and up the stairs to take a shower. As much as she didn't mind being sticky, this was far too much. It was fifteen minutes later when Lily finally approached from upstairs, her hair dry and in fresh, new clothes.
"Sorry about that," she smiled weakly at him. "Forgive me?"
Severus pursed his lips, but nodded all the same.
"Fancy going back to the park?" Lily didn't much fancy being here, and didn't want to see how her mother would react once she found out about her favourite jug.
"Sure." He said quietly, following her out of the door and across the green to the swings.
"Pity about the lemonade." Lily mused, dragging her feet along as she swung herself backwards and forwards, slowly.
"I'm sure it was lovely." Severus said, though with doubts in his mind. It hadn't looked very nice, and he was almost glad that Petunia had ruined it.
Lily smiled weakly, but her head turned sharply around when she heard a woman call from the other side of the green.
"Severus! Severus! Get in here now!" The woman called, and Lily recognised her as Severus' mother, Eileen. "Severus!"
He knew he had to go, and reluctantly said goodbye to Lily and made his way towards his mother, who had a very cross look on her face. He suspected she had no birthday surprise for him, other than making him do chores she couldn't be bothered to do with magic.
"Happy Birthday, Severus!" Lily called after him, waving and smiling, but he just shrugged at her and went to join his mother. He knew his chores would be worse should he hesitate. 'A birthday like any other day.' He thought.