Chapter 19: Ch 19 bblushing girls and blistering insults
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The day of the Hogsmeade visit arrived warm and bright, the sun shining high in the sky. Even the dourest Slytherin had small smiles on their face in anticipation of a beautiful day. Like most of the students, Lily was no exception...even if she would have preferred better company. Much to her misfortune, Sabrina had chosen to accompany her until they saw their 'companions'.
Although part of Lily wondered how things were going between the blond, wealthy pure-blood and the drab young man who was taking her to Hogsmeade, Sabrina had decided that it would be much better if she instead spent her time haranguing Lily about her choice of friends for the umpteenth time.
"I still don't know what you see in the prat. I mean, he might be someone you've known a long time, but there's a point at which it's best to go your seperate ways, you know?"
"I still don't know why you keep bothering me about it," muttered Lily under her breath.
Sabrina didn't hear though, instead continuing her little rant, "His very existence is a strain on your social life, I just know it. People see him and his attitude and wonder 'If Snape's like this, then how good could Evans be?' Really, they do! I'll bet if it weren't for him you could be going on a date with James Potter right now, instead of being stuck with that nobody from Slytherin..."
Ignoring her roommate's complaints, Lily looked around the great hall, a soft smile replacing the frown on her lips as she saw Severus standing by the door in apparent apathy. His dark robes hung from him awkwardly, seeming far too vast for such a skinny boy, but Lily didn't mind in the slightest.
He was early.
"Oh no, he's here," muttered Sabrina, although in a breathy voice far different than the disappointed tones she had been using. Her eyes instead lay on a different, albeit still shabby figure. "Quick, do I look alright?"
"Yes, you look quite alright, don't worry," replied Lily dryly, not even bothering to glance at her companion. She had already seen the girl putting on copious amounts of make-up, and knew that with Sabrina's skill at the art, every blemish was surely concealed and her best features were surely accented to perfection. "Honestly, if you jumped off a bridge you'd still look gorgeous."
"You're...sure?"
Sighing, Lily glanced at the girl, and then blinked in a double take at the desperate, blushing look on her face. If Lily didn't know any better, she'd have thought that Sabrina had suddenly realized that James Potter had told her that he wanted the snooty pureblood to be 'his girl', so pink her face was. "Sabrina, is something the matter?"
Her eyes darting around, refusing to look Lily in the eye, Sabrina spoke in fake, overly-bright tones. "No, it's nothing, just wanting to make sure that I look good for a stroll around Hogsmeade is all. Can't a girl want to look nice for a stroll?"
Lily raised her eyebrows. "But I thought you were going with Remus..."
Sabrina's pink face went straight to tomato-red as her blush deepened. With her voice even higher than before, she replied, "S-so? It's just a stroll with Remus is all, around Hogsmeade where there's a lot of people who might be looking at me. Is it so bad that I want to look pretty for a silly, meaningless stroll, is it really?"
"So you don't mind if Remus thinks you look hideous?" replied Lily, grinning at the look of sudden horror on Sabrina's face as she pulled a small compact mirror out of one of the pockets to her robes, checking her face frantically. Giggling, Lily laid a comforting hand on the other girl's shoulder. "Relax, you'll knock Remus' socks right off his feet, don't worry."
Severus' cool voice came from behind Lily, a frown audible in his words, "Lily, are you quite ready to go? Our...companion has already left, and I really can't afford to wait for the two of you to finish...talking."
Lily bowed her head apologetically. "Sorry, Sev. Sabrina was worried about something and needed a bit of bolstering."
Severus glanced at Sabrina, who was looking right at him as if he were a particularly ugly wart. A nasty smile playing across his rather-crooked teeth, the Slytherin boy said snidely, "If you're wanting to impress your pathetic worm of a boyfriend, you needn't worry. Looks don't matter all that much for his sort, I think."
"Severus!" Lily gave him a frosty glare. "That was quite uncalled for!"
Severus raised his eyebrows, a strange expression on his face as he returned Lily's glare with a patient look. "It's true though. The likes of Remus Lupin wouldn't care if she came in wearing a burlap sack, so why worry what she looks like?" He paused, turning to Sabrina and saying offhandedly, "You do look nice though. Now Lily, can we get going?"
"Just a min-"
"H-hello, all." It was Remus, who stood a bit off from the rest of them, a hand hesitantly held in the air. "Sabrina...you look really pretty, beautiful even..."
"Oh, this old thing?" Sabrina laughed in a high-pitched voice, fooling nobody Lily was sure. "I just threw it on before heading down is all... You look very handsome though." And indeed, if Lily didn't know better she'd say that Sabrina hadn't eaten anything for a week and Remus was a nice hunk of prime rib, so hungry was her look...
A cold voice broke the moment, saying cruelly, "Lying to your date to spare his feelings won't help, you know. No point in getting Lupin's hopes up; they'll only be eaten by the fleas." Severus snorted, muttering under his breath, "Love may be blind, but really, even you deserve better than a spineless little turd like him."
Lily glared at Severus, as Remus had done nothing deserving of insults, but someone else interrupted her before she could say anything.
"He's not spineless," retorted Sabrina, blue eyes blazing as her wand whipped out. "You will take that back."
Severus, who had at some point drawn his own wand, held it lazily in his left hand as he gave a bitter smirk at the Gryffindor boy. Remus backed up slowly, wary-eyed with his own wand drawn, a hurt expression upon his face.
Severus only scoffed, "Why should I? He can't stand up to his enemies and won't stand up to his friends. That's spineless in my book." Noticing her wand arm positively shaking with suppressed rage, as if she wanted nothing more than to wipe the smirk off his face, he shrugged. "You can try the pathetic spell-slinging you call hexing if you want, but you're not going to hit-"
"-Severus, for once in your life, shut up!" shouted Lily, causing Severus to break off mid-sentence, turning to stare at her. Breathing heavily, she grabbed Severus by the elbow, before muttering a quick apology to Remus and Sabrina and storming off with her source of aggravation in tow.
"Hey, let go of me!" growled the Slytherin boy, but Lily ignored him, instead dragging him in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. "I said 'let go of me'!"
Lily didn't bother to look at him, instead replying, "Don't like it? Stop acting like a bloody child, Severus!"
"I wasn't acting like a child, and I didn't hex him or anything." responded Severus in a testy tone of voice. An aggravated expression on his face, he muttered in annoyance, "Besides, it was only a Marauder. Now, can we get going?"
Lily rolled her eyes, ignoring his last comment. "If it were James or Black, then maybe you would have had a point, but when has Remus done anything to you anyway?"
"It's not what he did do; it's what he never does. I call him spineless for a reason, as he's probably the only Prefect who doesn't do his job worth a darn. No wonder McGonagall's ticked with him. Besides, we were wasting important-" He paused, interrupting himself while his lips curled in a disgusted frown. "And really, that's got to be the tenth time in the past week you've called Potter 'James'. Care to explain? I mean, with his 'performances' at the dance and your father's funeral..."
"Well...you see..." Lily felt her face flush, Severus' eyes narrowing as his frown deepened. She winced, having a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't going to end well. "It's like this..." However, in the face of Severus' burning gaze, Lily felt herself quailing like a mouse before the proverbial serpent. Unable to say anything under that livid glare, she looked away guiltily.
Several minutes passed in silence, Lily silent while Severus waited with a cold glare.
"Lily," said Severus finally, his voice tired. "I really don't have the energy to deal with your little crush on Potter right now. I've got to... My friend needs my help right now, and I can't be wasting time with you." Lily turned, only to see him shaking his head as he began to walk away. "I'm sure that James or Mary or whoever won't mind if you... I hope you have a good time at Hogsmeade. "
"You're leaving me?" blurted Lily, her eyes widening.
Severus paused, looking back at her with a shrug, saying quietly, "Yes, Lily, I suppose that I am. You may not seem to realize or care, considering how you were wasting time with Sabrina and Lupin, but I have something very important that I have to do today. If you'd rather spend it gadding about Marauders and romance and other useless stuff, then..." He took a deep breath, then snarled, "...then I'd rather that you didn't come at all!"
Lily bowed her head, guilt suffusing her voice as tears started to fill her eyes. "Severus, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that she was...so important to you."
Severus only glared at her. "Lily, Evelyn Matthews might be some stupid slut to you, I realize that. I know you don't care much about what happens to her, you've sure shown that. I am not an idiot, you know, but..." He swallowed, looking back at Lily, his dark eyes flashing with such raw hurt that it felt as if it should scar the red-head's very soul. "...but she's my friend, something which I thought you would understand! I thought you would at least manage to care about it for my sake!"
"I..." She faltered, quailing under the pressure.
"Clearly, I thought wrong." said Severus coolly, before storming off without a second glance, his robes billowing around his scrawny body. "Please, if you have any decency, at least leave me alone."
Lily stood in silence for several minutes, alone in the clearing, tears running down her face.
"Come on, did you think that I'd leave you to do the right thing all by yourself? Give me some credit at least!"
That couldn't have possibly gone worse.
It wasn't until he had reached the town that she managed to catch up to him, red-faced and gasping for breath, having run the whole way there. Hiding in the bushes behind Zonko's, he seemed quite out of place, surely about to be found out at any moment...well, he would have seemed as such if it weren't for the Disillusionment charm on him. If it hadn't been for her greater expertise in Charms and the fact that she had a general idea of where Severus was, she probably would have never found him.
Under his cold, furious gaze though, she realized that finding him would likely be the easy part. She put an identical (although superior) Disillusionment charm on herself and slipped over to where he was hiding, hoping that no-one would notice. Luckily, in spite of the multitude of students milling around the area, not one of them seemed to be aware of her presence as she squatted down beside him.
Biting her lip, Lily said nothing for several seconds, merely watching the boy as he sat beside her. His eyes seemed rather red for a change... Perhaps he had been crying too?
Swallowing, Lily tried to force a smile."So...how is the spying going?"
Silence was the only response, Severus pointedly looking away, his gaze clearly centered on Evelyn. Said young woman was standing by herself a few feet away from the doors to Zonko's, standing on her tip-toes as she tried to peer through the crowd, nervously biting her lip the whole time. A nervous, near-desperate look played across her face, and Lily felt a strange feeling cross through her. It seemed wrong somehow that Evelyn Matthews seemed just as worried as she prepared for her date as Sabrina had when dealing with Remus...
Shaking her head, Lily tried again to get her angry friend to respond, keeping her voice low as she spoke, "I guess that Mr. Marvin hasn't arrived yet then. What time did Evelyn say that she was meeting him?"
Again, there was no verbal reaction on the part of the dark-haired Slytherin. His eyes swept the crowd once though, before returning to focus on the slim young blonde. It seemed he was listening, even if he wasn't saying a word.
Somewhat buoyed by this, Lily tried again, laying a hand on Severus' back as she said, "So...anything? Anything at all?"
In response though, Severus shook her hand off as if it were a particularly annoying bug, deserving nothing more than a fast squashing. Giving her another dirty look, he returned his attention to Evelyn, a cold and obvious snubbing.
Lily stared at him in hurt, pleading in a whisper, "Severus, please talk to me, please!"
He didn't say a word, but he did turn to look at her emotionlessly, save for a single eyebrow which had been raised as if to say 'Why should I?'
Lily sighed; she could easily understand the sentiment, even if it hurt her. Evelyn was obviously very important to him...and she had let him down, badly. Knowing this didn't make apologizing any easier, as even if she knew she owed him one for how she had acted...she really didn't like Evelyn.
"Sev..." Severus watched her with a strange look in his eyes. "...I just wanted to say that..." Lily swallowed, feeling a sort of dryness in her throat. "...I really didn't mean to do something like that. I got...caught up in stuff, and completely forgot what I had been planning. I wasn't trying to distract you, or sabotage you, or anything like that. I really-"
"Apology accepted," interrupted Severus coolly, returning his gaze to Evelyn, who was now in the process of surreptitiously checking her watch.
"That's it?" asked Lily, blinking in surprise. "Apology accepted?"
Severus raised his eyebrows again, his eyes still fixated on the lonely figure at the joke shop's entrance. "Were you hoping for trumpets? I'm afraid that that will have to wait until this 'date' is over with."
"No, it's only that..." Lily floundered, part of her wondering why she was pressing him on this when he had already forgiven her. "It's...why did you forgive me? It doesn't make sense..." She bowed her head, muttering stupidly, "I wasn't even finished apologizing..."
Severus shrugged, his dark eyes as cold as black stone. "I realized that I was wasting my time getting angry with you over this, as I have far more important things to take care of. Besides..." He sighed, shaking his head. "...it's not like Evelyn is as important to you as she is to me. I mean...she isn't the kind of person you would ever want to associate with, so why should you care as much? Really, I was being quite foolish to expect such a thing of you."
"Because you care about her," replied Lily quietly, staring at her feet. "Really, that should be all the reason I need..." Lily bit her lip, letting her gaze rise to the thin boy's covered stomach. "It's all the reason I do need..."
Severus turned and gazed at her for several seconds, pink in the face, finally responding, "Thank you, but it's hardly necessary..." He looked back at Evelyn again. "It is much appreciated though..."
Still feeling as if she needed to say something, Lily blurted out, "It's just...you never seemed that close to any of your other friends, never going so far to take care of them. I mean, why Evelyn? Why not...Mulciber or Avery? Hell, why not me?" Unable to keep bitterness from coursing through her voice, she spat out, "I mean, why not ever do something like this for me? It's like you only seem to care about your dear Evelyn?"
Severus whirled around, staring at her as if she had grown a second head, then another one to boot. A darkly smooth edge in his voice, he replied in silky tones, his eyebrows twitching nonetheless, "And what would you have me do for you, Lily? What grave danger has befallen you that you need some...'knight in shining armor' to rescue you?" He snorted derisively. "Hell, what small, little thing could you require my assistance with?"
"I...err..." Come to think of it, when was the last time she had really needed Severus' help? "I dunno."
A sneer on his pallid face, Severus continued in the same, silky tones, waving an arm vaguely as he spoke, "Then would you have me perform some grand gesture, some clever little trick, merely for the sake of appearances? To declare to the highest heavens that you are important to me?" His voice gained a sudden, almost-bitter edge. "Would you have me act like Potter, loudly proclaiming my greatness and offering to cater with my vast fortune to your slightest whim, in a hopefully-vain attempt to get into your knickers? I certainly hope that that is not the case!"
"It's not that! I don't want you to do something like that at all...not that that's what James does. He just-"
"He performs grand, meaningless gestures for the sake of getting into your knickers, that is the beginning and the end of it," interrupted Severus in a tone of utter finality. He then looked down, his face flushing as his voice softened. "I really hope that your recent agreeing to have him tutor you isn't a sign that his foolishness has somehow bamboozled you, Lily. I...I don't want to see you do anything stupid."
Lily sat down beside the dark-haired young man, then replied quietly, not able to look at him either, as her cheeks burned with embarrassment, "And if he was doing it all because he thought that it would somehow...win me over, would it really be that bad? He'd be doing those grand, meaningless gestures because he loved me, because he thinks that I am someone he finds lovely and beautiful, because he wanted to be with me. Since when was that bad?"
Severus mumbled something unintelligible, causing Lily to poke him in an effort to get him to speak up. His voice still low, he muttered, "That's not so bad I guess, that he's trying to do things for you because he wants to win you over, leaving me alone, coming to your father's funeral, tutoring you, but..." His tone grew darker, etched with a cold, raw anger, "...but that's not love, and calling it by that name...I hate it. It makes my very skin crawl to hear those idiotic girls and their giggling gossip about how 'James Potter loves Lily Evans'!"
Taken aback at his sudden virulence, even greater than it had been back in the clearing, Lily could only whisper his name, "Severus?"
He didn't even seem to notice, his voice shook with barely-contained hatred, seeming somehow out of place as the two of them sat concealed in the bushes under the bright, mid-day sun. He spoke in a low growl now, the last traces of silkiness gone in his great fury. "It's notlove, it's not! Love isn't about whether the person wants to kiss you, hold hands with you or dunderheaded silliness of that nature, it's not about who you want to take to some bloody weekend at Hogsmeade, or whether this smile means that or that smirk means this! It's..."
He paused, apparently searching for the words as Lily simply stood there, submerged in his passionate diatribe. "It's something...more than that, it's got to be, or it's just foolishness. Whatever it is though...Potter doesn't have it... Maybe he never will. Whatever it is though...don't, just don't call it love!"
There was stunned silence, Lily's lips opening and closing as she tried to find words to speak. Finally, she said feebly, "Severus, don't you think you're asking a bit much of the guy?"
"I'd say it's hardly enough," replied the young man dryly, panting as if he had just finished running some great race. "Now could we drop it, we've got better things to take care of than this...talk."
Lily nodded slowly, turning to look at Severus out of the corner of her eyes when she remembered something he had said before his rant. "Alright, but Severus, I didn't mean to say that you do nothing for me. I don't think that, really I don't... I was just, I don't know...something about Evelyn makes me just so mad when I think about-"
Severus interrupted her though, cursing loudly as he pointed where Evelyn had been. "Bloody hell, Evelyn's must've given us the slip while we were talking. Come on!"
Seeing Severus sprinting off in the direction of the Hog's Head, the favored place to go when a student wanted to spend 'quality time' with a significant other, Lily realized that the time to talk about that sort of thing had passed, at least for now.
Making a mental note to bring the subject up later, as she definitely needed to apologize for her earlier words, Lily followed.
At the speed Severus was running, it had soon become all Lily could do to stay within eyesight of him, his longer legs proving their worth as he quickly outdistanced her. Luckily, the Hog's Head hadn't been too far away, but still Lily had had to spend several minutes trying to catch her breath when she finally arrived. Panting, she asked Severus, who was surveying the area frantically, "Any...any sign...of her?'
His eyes dark with worry, he whipped his head around again and again, terror visible in his visage as he tried to catch sight of the elusive blond. Several seconds passed with no response, Severus' nervousness proving contagious as Lily started to fidget herself, until finally his shoulders slumped. His voice tight, seeming unaffected by the hard run, he spoke, "Not a one. I can't believe I let myself get distracted talking with you... I'm such an idiot. Where could she...wait..." He tilted his head, squinting, then pointed with a whispered, "There! It's that Marvin fellow; he's standing by the counter inside!"
Squinting, Lily was taken aback momentarily by the seeming normalness of the Hufflepuff boy: a tall, stocky boy of probably sixth or seventh year, he had long, golden hair and a small, quiet little smile, wearing a set of Muggle jeans and an orange t-shirt. Lily had a hard time believing that a young man such as that could be the person Severus was worried about. Doubtfully, she asked, "That's him? Are you sure?"
"Yes, of course I'm sure," replied Severus irritably. "Mind keeping an eye out for Evelyn while I go have a few words with him?"
"What?"
Severus gave her an impatient look, replying in biting tones, "If I do this right, then maybe I can get him to head home on my own; just keep Evelyn busy while I'm doing it, alright?"
Giving him a quick glare to show him she didn't care for his rudeness, Lily thought about it a moment, then nodded. "Fine, I'll keep her from bothering the two of you."
"Thanks. Now, allow me..." Without a further word, Severus swept into the Hog's Head, leaving Lily alone in the muggy Spring weather.
"Hope this doesn't take too long," muttered the red-head to herself, muttering a quick cooling charm as she stood outside the door. "I still need to bloody apologize to him."
"Have you been following me around all day, or is it just a coincidence that I keep seeing you?" came a suspicious drawl from behind Lily, who managed to resist the instinct to jump, instead turning to stare right into the pale, annoyed face of Evelyn Matthews.
"Err, no?" Lily fibbed , wishing that she had developed some skill at lying as Evelyn gave her a look, raising her eyebrows skeptically. "Really, I wasn't following you, I was just-"
"Whatever you were just," interrupted Evelyn, her voice cold. "Make sure that you and Severus don't do it again. I've been trying to have a date with Darwinnus, and it's bad enough that he couldn't-" She halted mid-speech, instead sighing. "Look, I've been having a trying day and I don't need anything else bothering me."
"Sure." Lily winced though as Evelyn started to walk away, as she remembered that she had told Severus she'd keep Evelyn busy, so she quickly spoke, "So...why do you like this guy?"
Evelyn blinked, looking at her strangely. "Excuse me?"
"Err...I was just...curious?" Waving her hands, Lily tried to fake sincerity...she wasn't sure she did too well.
"Really..." The blond deadpanned, before smirking in a rather malicious manner. "Well, I heard he has a big todger and was hoping he'd give me a hot, sweaty ride as we eat dinner. Did you want to watch?"
"I...ew! That's disgusting!" Lily shuddered in disgust.
Evelyn's smirk widened, and she said idly, picking her fingernails. "What? He's hot, and I'm sure that the sex is divine! Just imagine his strong arms wrapped around me as I go up and down, up and down..."
"You really are a slut, aren't you?" Lily's hands found their way to her hips as she retorted, her promise to Severus all but forgotten in her disgust. "Do you think about anything other than that? Anything at all? I mean, what would your mother say if she could hear you? I can't believe that Severus wants to be friends with such a disgusting whore as you! If I had my way, he'd drop you, now!"
Evelyn paused, emotions flickering across her face as her smile faded, her lips set into a thin, angry line. Lily braced herself for shouting, only to get a bad feeling when the other woman started smiling again. Quickly, Lily let her hand drop to her wand in preparation for...whatever. However, the blonde merely chuckled, placing a finger on her lips as her smile widened in a manner that Lily would find friendly...if she wasn't afraid that the Ravenclaw was about to remove her head from her shoulders. In a confiding sort of tone, she spoke, "You know Lily, I've got a little theory..."
"Err...what kind of theory?" replied Lily in a whisper, drawing her wand from her pocket surreptitiously as she did so.
"My theory is that Severus would be much better off if I got rid of the riff-raff that keeps bothering him, hanging him around him all the time and taking up time that really should be for more...deserving people, you know?" She laughed mirthlessly, smirking at Lily. "Doesn't it sound like a perfect plan?
"I...err...I..." Lily stuttered in reply.
Evelyn didn't even seem to notice, instead continuing with that same, falsely-friendly tone as she slowly walked forward, forcing Lily to take a step back, then another, "If I pulled the strings just right, if I kept bugging him about it enough, he'd probably be willing to forgo those annoying Slytherin leeches, perhaps even you? Then I could replace them all with some hand-picked friends of mine. Sounds brilliant, doesn't it?"
"Uh..." Lily looked around for some distraction from this truly terrifying conversation. "I think I heard someone callin-"
"Doesn't it?" Evelyn had her backed against the wall, still possessing that terrifying grin.
"I...well..." Lily took a deep breath, then replied determinedly, the wand in her hand giving her the strength to speak, "No, it doesn't! It sounds disgusting and appalling, and like you're positively insane for even thinking it." Forcing the words out, she poked her wand into the other woman's ribs and pushed her back. "They have an expression that describes people like people like that actually, 'control freak'. Your 'theory' is absurd!"
Evelyn's grin only turned shark-like, even with the wand pressed against her stomach, and she replied in conversational tones, "You know what? I completely agree with you. It's a truly disturbing idea..." She then leaned over Lily's wand and whispered into her ear, chuckling as she spoke, "...which is why I wonder why you seem to think it's such a great idea, so long as you're the one 'pulling the strings'."
"What the hell are you talki-"
"Does it appeal to you I wonder, Severus' friends only being the ones you want? Or is it just that you don't want him to do anything without having your prior say-so?" Now Evelyn's voice was positively frigid, any trace of friendliness having fled from it. "Do you really think that it's your choice of who his friends are, who he hangs out with, do you?"
Lily faltered, tripping over her words as she defended herself. "I...it's not like that! I...I was just...I only wanted what was best for him!"
"What was best for him?" replied the woman softly, hatred filling her voice. "You have no idea how alike the two of you are, do you? It took me forever for me to get him to stop trying to 'help' me with my boyfriends. The two of you are just so overprotective, so controlling that it really makes me sick."
"It's because we're-"
"So leave me the hell alone so I can go on my bloody date, alright!" shouted Evelyn, loud enough that Lily caught some stares from some of the bar's patrons inside. Luckily perhaps, Severus hadn't heard, although he was smiling now that Lily noticed. Perhaps things were going well with him and that Marvin guy?
Noticing Lily's sudden distraction, Evelyn followed her gaze to where Severus was talking to the Hufflepuff and froze, her eyes widening with horror as she whispered, "No...no, no, no...don't tell me...not again!" Shoving the hot-headed Gryffindor aside, the grey-eyed girl ran inside at top speed and...
"I was only trying to help," whispered Severus mutely, staring at his reflection in the lake's surface, wincing as his fingers came into contact with the black eye covering the right side of his face. "She shouldn't have hit me..."
Lily simply watched him, saying nothing even as she wrapped an arm around the morose young man.
Finally, he sighed and shook his head. "I...I guess you were right, Lily."
"I...what?" Lily cocked her head, confused. "About what?"
Still shaking his head, he muttered, his voice tired but still forceful, "About...her. I shouldn't have been wasting my time...not if she's just going to turn around and repay it like this, not if she's going to call me that. Really, I'm well shot of her, aren't I?"
"Right...I suppose..." replied Lily reluctantly, trying to avoid thinking about the whispers of her mind, reminding her of Evelyn's words with torturing, mocking laughter. Continuing weakly, she spoke, "I mean, she insulted you horribly and didn't even seem to care..."
"Yeah..." said Severus quietly, staring again at the lake-water. Suddenly, he spoke up though, glancing at her, "I meant to tell you something earlier, before we got all distracted by our talk of...him." He scowled minutely, as if some disgusting smell had wafted its way into his nostrils. "I just wanted to say that...if there was ever anything you really, truly needed, anything at all..." His voice dropped to a whisper as he tilted his head away, only one solitary coal-black eye peeking through the messy hair. "...I'd do it."
Lily swallowed, her tongue feeling thick in her throat as she replied, staring into his dark eyes, "Thank you, Severus...and I'd do the same for you. You're my best friend, after all..."
He nodded slowly, turning back to the lake as he whispered his reply, "And you're my best friend too...and my only real one, I suppose... Thank you."
This time, the inability to speak wasn't from emotion...
...but rather from guilt.
"Does it appeal to you I wonder, Severus' friends only being the ones you want?"
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