Chapter Text
You can’t blame Lily’s parents.
Lily had been driven mad by Vernon after just two months; they’d suffered his presence for nearly a year. They were desperate for a little fun, particularly if it came as comeuppance for the man who emptied their shelves and souls after every visit. And Mr. Evans did have a point - I’ve always thought it ridiculous that the Wizarding world try to police Muggleborns over the summer. Wizardborn children have Wizarding parents to guide them, to keep them and others safe from their burgeoning powers. Who did Lily have?
Well, Lily had Severus. One of my favorite people, if no one else’s.
I sensed his presence before I even saw him. I wish there was something to compare his scent to; a quietly rotting forest floor? Petrol? And yet I know these are not inviting to human noses. Saying I could smell anything is as close as I can get to describing the sensation of detecting human misery.
The scent of misery clung to Severus Snape like carrion to a festering corpse.
Lily knocked on the drawn window of his childhood bedroom. She had learned long ago to avoid the front door. “Sev,” she called softly.
The curtain twitched, and not a moment later Severus had fled out the back door. “Lily,” he said. He hung back even as his black eyes reached hungrily towards her. I felt his misery both alleviate and intensify as his eyes drank her in. (You mortals are funny that way. Full of contradictions. How I love you.) “How - how are -”
Lily burst into tears.
I cannot laugh, but I came very close to achieving the physically impossible at the look on Severus’ face. Shock, yearning, and terror carouseled across his features: he seemed as if he wanted to both flee and hug her, and the competing desires rooted him to the spot. As he vacillated, Lily catapulted herself onto his shoulder.
All his dreams were coming true in the most nightmarish way. Severus held her awkwardly and glanced behind him nervously at the house. “Here,” he muttered. “Let’s go this way…”
He led her down a side street to a decrepit old playground that hadn’t hosted a child in years, settling her down on a bench. The rusty swings creaked as she continued sobbing. The poor boy had no idea what to do with his hands; they fluttered around him like broken birds, towards her and away again.
“It’s all right,” he mumbled. “Er…want to tell me..”
“It’s awful,” she bawled. “He’s completely taken over the house and Petunia still isn’t speaking to me and he just makes her worse and he ate all my mum’s biscuits and he saw my book and made fun of me and now I’m going to be - expelled.” The last word burst out of her with near concussive force.
“Who?”
“Vernon!”
“Oh,” said Severus in dim recognition. Lily had vented her spleen regarding her unwelcome houseguest several times that summer, but truth be told, he had a hard time focusing on anything but her mouth when it was moving.Then the last part hit him. His eyes widened in alarm. “But what do you mean, you’re getting expelled?”
“I made the books eat him,” she whimpered.
“You - you what?”
“He was making fun of my textbook. And then it grew teeth, and it ate him.”
“But…where did he go?” (Severus must be forgiven here for the emotional lag. As he had shut himself up in his bedroom to avoid his parents all summer, Lily was the first person he’d seen this week. It was a bit like never feeling the wind and then getting tossed into a hurricane.)
“He was gone and he’s back, he’s fine I think but so confused and upset and Petunia is going to hate me forever - "
“Well, she was probably already going to.” She glared at him, and he winced. “They’re not going to expel you. They’ll just send one of their stupid Ministry people to tell you off a bit. It happened to my friend - ”
He cut off hastily, and she pretended not to notice. Severus had other friends. Friends Lily had learned not to talk about if she wanted to stay on good terms.
“How did your parents take it?” he tried to change the subject.
She sighed. “They thought it was funny.”
(They were right, thought Severus and I.)
“Oh,” he said, trying and failing to look as if he understood why it wasn’t. “That’s…insensitive?”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into them,” she sighed. “I know Marlene’s parents aren’t crazy about Hogwarts, and mine are nothing but supportive. And they write me all the time when I’m gone, and they’ve at least endured Vernon so far. I know I’m lucky. They’re lovely people, really, I mean - you know, you liked them when you came round, right?”
Severus hesitated. “Er, yeah,” he said. Lily’s parents had been kind to him, true enough. But it was the kind of niceness born of sympathy - the kind that made their eyes linger on his frayed clothing, the kind that made their voices just a touch too gentle. (The kind that turned his soul a faded blue). He knew pity when he saw it, and it was a burr rather than a balm. He hadn’t been round the Evans home at all this summer. Lily thought it was because of Vernon, but it was that pity that kept him away. Pity, and the lack of it from his new friends. Lily had no idea how often he’d seen them recently, and he was planning to keep it that way.
Lily was still talking. “And I just don’t want to deal with this anymore, you know? Boyfriends and parents and the rest. I don’t want to be home. I just want to go back to school, does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” he said, this time with feeling.
She noticed. “How’s your dad?” she asked. It was not a social inquiry.
He shrugged one narrow shoulder.
“Sev,” she said sharply. “You told me you’d say if things got bad again.”
“It’s fine,” he said. His soul was reddening - flushing with embarrassment or anger, perhaps. Sometimes they look the same to me.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t. Just don’t. You know I know when you lie.”(She did, and I’m always fascinated at how humans can do this without soulsight.)
“Just more of the same,” he muttered.
“Listen,” she began.”
“Don’t.”
“I can call the police - "
He laughed, a short, sharp staccato. She continued unflinchingly.
“ - they can get you both out, and you could come live with me. With us.”
“What are Muggles going to do? What could they do that a full-grown witch couldn’t?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But your dad’s a Muggle…” She pretended not to notice his face twitch at that. Lily was doing more and more pretending these days. “They could, I don’t know, get him sorted.”
“He’s not the problem.”
Lily paused. “Sev, you can’t blame her.”
“She could hex him. She could modify his memory. She could leave. ”
“I know.”
“But she doesn’t.”
“I know.”
There was silence for a moment.
“I need to get back,” she said. “No use delaying my Azkaban sentencing, right?” Lily’s attempt at humor was weak, but Severus gave her the ghost of a smile. It was enough. They fell back into their regular rhythm.
“I’ll send you my bread crusts from the feasts,” he told her.
She smiled. “Unswervingly generous as always. Any chance at some treacle tart?”
“Naturally.”
“I’ve missed Hogwarts food,” she sighed. “Even if it’s bad for the figure. I’m sure I looked as large as Vernon at the end of June.”
“You look great,” said Severus with unnecessary enthusiasm. He cleared his throat. “I mean, for - for being in withdrawal.”
Lily laughed, and he drank in the sound.
“My poor mother,” she said. “She burns everything she touches. My stomach is about 30% charcoal at this point. I’ve had to get really creative with my compliments. ‘I’ve never had potatoes like this, Mum.’ ‘No one cooks like you, Mum’. Both true, and both for the best. Don’t tell her.”
“I won’t.”
They continued along the road to Lily’s house, Lily talking, Severus mostly listening. I had been watching them all summer, and I knew things hadn’t been this good in a while. Lately the tension had felt like a bending bridge beneath them - barely holding their weight, threatening to give way at the slightest added stress. Severus’ green soul was nearly black every time I saw him. Today, it was the color of a meadow. The color of her eyes.
Finally, they reached the Evans house. It looked unchanged; Lily felt there ought to be some sort of sign that Vernon was still there or that the Ministry had sent their notice of expulsion. But the house sat there innocently in the bright sunlight.
“What if I’m expelled?” Lily said nervously. “They snap your wand, right? So you can’t do magic?”
“Yeah,” said Severus, then immediately regretted it as the blood drained from her face. “You’ll be fine, though. This was pretty minor. One Memory Charm’ll set it all right.”
“Minor?” Lily looked unconvinced. “He was eaten.”
“In the grand scheme of things, it was,” he assured her. “Mulci - er, someone I know did something - er - way worse and they still go to Hogwarts.”
Severus’ awkward omissions did nothing to conceal his friend’s identity and even less to settle Lily’s nerves.
“Well, knowing ‘someone’, it almost certainly was worse,” she muttered. She shook herself and straightened up. “Well - time to face the music, I suppose. I’d invite you in, but…”
“I’ll see you later,” he said. “At school,” he added emphatically, and she smiled wanly.
“At school,” she echoed. “Definitely. Bye, Sev.”
He watched as she walked slowly up the drive and into the house, soul turning the murky green of a stagnating pond.
I won’t describe what happened in the Evans home; I didn’t go in myself. I could feel the cheer and goodwill radiating from it like a beacon. Vernon had gone home (likely with a Memory Charm as a souvenir), Petunia had gone with him, and I could sense that the Ministry man waiting inside would give Lily a kindly, paternal talking-to. I tend to avoid happiness, when I can - not very typical of my kind, I know, but it’s safer this way.
I only find sanity in misery.