Work Text:
On the whole, Lily was quite proud of herself. Even her brother James had taken almost an entire term to end up in front of the Headmaster – and his first year had been under McGonagall, supposedly a much tougher Headmistress than Flitwick was. And she'd managed it in less than a week!
Not that she'd set out to get in trouble, of course. It was just, that Macmillan girl was so annoying, always talking about the DA, and about Lily's dad and her dad being friends (even though Lily had never heard her dad mention a Macmillan), and always trying to suck up to Lily, and her stupid jokes in her stupid snobbish voice and her... well, her everything. Lily just had to do something about it. Sure, maybe jinxing Macmillan's pigtails to slam her face into her pudding had been a little unkind, but come on – who ever heard of an 11-year-old with pigtails? Time to grow up. Besides, it was funny.
Lily's dreamy recollection of her prank was interrupted by a hoarse, disbelieving voice from her left. “Lily...?”
Lily looked at the source; a portrait of a man with long, greasy black hair and a large, hooked nose. The portrait was labelled “SEVERUS SNAPE: HEADMASTER 1997-1998”
“How do you know my name, mister?” Lily asked, looking at the man.
The man – Snape – smiled as though he had never tried it before. “I'm... sorry. You resemble someone I once... knew. Her name was Lily Evans.” A look of incredible pain crossed his long face.
“Who was she?” Lily asked, surprised. She knew who Lily Evans was, of course, but had never heard that Severus Snape knew her grandmother.
“She was someone I knew, as a child. She was a witch, but a... muggle-born.” Snape hesitated, then added, “Not that it mattered, much. I lived nearby, and taught her about our world before we came to Hogwarts together. Unfortunately, she was sorted into Gryffindor, but I still helped her as much as I could.”
“So what happened to her?”
“I... made a mistake. Said a stupid, terrible thing. And she decided she couldn't forgive me, despite everything I had done for her. She refused to talk to me again, and married a selfish, idiotic bully named James Potter.” Here Snape's face twisted with hate, and he spat the name as though it burned his tongue to even say it. “And, well, you probably know what happened to him.”
“Yeah, I think I've heard about it,” said Lily Potter without a hint of irony.
“I am... sorry, to have burdened you with this. You just look so much like her. Even your hair, it's exactly the same colour and style as hers... I always loved her hair.” Snape said wistfully. “Just as I always loved her, even after she chose Potter. I did my best to watch over her, to keep her safe, but I... I was not able to save her.”
Lily simply stared at Snape for a moment, then said, “So you're saying, even though she chose someone else, you still kept following the other Lily around and being in love with her and everything?”
“Always.” Snape replied fervently.
“Did you ever ask her how she felt about it? Or about you?”
“I... no. No, she had made her choice and I had to just love her from afar. I had hoped to have the Dark Lord spare her, but... he did not.”
Lily was silent, thinking for a moment. Then, slowly and deliberately, she drew her wand. She hesitated slightly, then looked Snape directly in the eyes as she flicked it up to point at her hair, saying as she did so, “Colovaria!” Instantly, her hair went from her grandmother's deep red to a vivid green – her house colour. As the door opened and Professor Flitwick finally shuffled in, Lily stuck her tongue out at Snape.
“Now, Miss Potter, what do you have to say for – Oh dear, Potter, what did you do to your hair?”
Lily laughed happily at the look of horror on both Flitwick's and Snape's faces. “Just felt like a change, Professor.”