suture
The end of July felt to be no different than any other Julys, at least for Severus Snape. He had gotten every grade he had predicted for himself; the crowning ones being an O in Defence Against the Dark Arts and another O in Potions. He was very content with himself, even if he had earlier claimed how it didn’t matter to him.
He hadn’t seen Lily since that night, and it had been a week and three days. Suffice to say, he believed it to be the best for both of them. There was nothing to discuss anyway, he thought.
But he would be a massive liar if he ever claimed that he did not overplay that day in his head hundreds of times for the past ten days. Maybe a small teeny-tiny part of him even hoped to see her again.
His days had turned unbearably dull in the meantime. There was nothing to do but wait. He wasn’t even sure what he was waiting for. That was what Malfoy told him. He had promised him a job, what kind, how much paying, where and when he wasn’t even aware, and that bothered him even more than he’d like to admit to himself. He needed to not be at home.
His father hadn’t been home since April, according to his mother who had been unsettled ever since. Anytime Severus would come back home, she would ask him bizarre questions, asking him if he had seen any of his father’s ‘mates’. He never quite understood either of them. Not like he ever wanted to anyway.
He had answered all of his own questions without bothering anyone, a long time ago, in his fifth year, when he had heard about his mother’s heritage and family from that sodding Slughorn. But knowing all that made nothing better. In fact, it was a knowledge of no use because his reality outside Hogwarts for the big part of his life had been this miserable and broken, or never even built to be broken, household on the Spinner’s End.
His father was a brute, and an awful kind. The kind that had no clue why he was always so goddamn angry. The kind that came home not for a roof and a meal, but for spitting out the day’s venom on the nearest person he could find.
And most of the time, well, he presumed until he got taller, although he is not so sure since his father hadn’t seen him eye to eye since last year’s September, it would be him who’d get the beating. Who would be the one to take his constant venom onto himself. And the truth was, Tobias Snape never needed a reason, a reason directly linked to Severus.
A sharp answer to his mother, an untied shoe, a look held a second too long. He used to think, back then, that maybe his father hit him because he was defending her in some twisted way. But even that didn’t make sense. They weren’t even functioning like a married couple, who cared for one another. They were just coexisting, at times arguing, at times bickering, and at times even shagging but Severus was too traumatized to admit that he had walked on them once as a kid.
It was revolting enough to consider that they had, at some point, been something close to normal. That there had been a time when his mother, before she became this strange, withdrawn woman, had chosen to be with Tobias Snape. Chosen him, out of all people, with all her intelligence, all her knowledge, all her bloody heritage.
And the worst part was not having any sense of logical explanation for her choice.
Maybe that was why she had lost herself so early.
He had watched her for years, searching for some sign of life in her, something beyond the weary, vacant woman who sat by the window or at the kitchen table. He was nearly certain it had once been there. But when? And for how long?
The last time she had truly seemed alive, not just breathing, but living; he must have been five. Maybe younger. It was a hazy memory, one he wasn’t even sure was real. He had been small enough to stand beside her at the stove, watching as she made soup. And she had explained everything to him—the ingredients, the measurements, how the heat worked. It had all seemed so important then, like she was passing on some great knowledge. Like she actually wanted to teach him something.
After that, she had started slipping away. Or maybe she had already slipped, and he had just been too stupid to see it.
He had never asked her about it. Never asked how she had met Tobias, or how they had ended up here, in this house with its peeling wallpaper and its permanent chill.
He knew better than to ask questions with no answers.
“You’ve got an owl.” She said dismissively, not even using his name, but again, why should she? They were the only people home.
It was late at night, so he wasn’t sure who the owl would be from. Malfoy’s owls would arrive early in the morning, and it would usually be some big fancy-looking owl. A fat, furry, gray owl with an eye missing. Definitely not Malfoy, he thought.
Severus unlatched the window allowing the owl to sweep in with an indignant rustle of feathers, dropping the letter directly onto the table before perching on the back of a chair. As it took off, it hit the wall with a soft thud, leaving a black stain behind. The owl, probably flying through the rain, was dirty anyway, and the mark lingered on the stone wall as the bird disappeared into the night.
His mother didn’t even glance up.
He looked at the envelope in his hand, right after he closed the window.
‘Eugene B. Burke’ with an awful handwriting, but not so much worse than his.
Ah yes, he recognized the name. Gene Burke, the brother of Eustace Burke. Sons of the famous Caractus Burke.
He knew Eugene. He was a year below, not quite a friend but not an enemy either. One of those rare Slytherins who didn’t fit the mold—not like his brother, Eustace. It wasn’t that Eustace was a purebloodist, maybe he was, but the lad was an utter perv and very greedy, much like his father many claimed. Eugene had none of that in him. If anything, he seemed to be a very silent kid who didn’t mix himself with any of the politics within the house despite being very close to Regulus Black.
He remembered how once the two of them were in the infirmary together. One of the few times Severus had ever agreed to lay there. The boy was there too. He had freshly gotten a scar over his right eye, a nasty thing, given to him through a possible fight or joke that had gone wrong. Or maybe even bullying. The kid didn’t look like he could even hurt a fly let alone join a fight, but surprisingly enough, none other man than Sirius Black loathed the guy quite a lot. Reason was unknown to Severus, but it was a detail hard to miss.
He looked at the letter once again, thinking it can wait another time, and grabbed his jacket.
“Ma, where’s my wand?”
“Check the drawer over there.” She said not lifting her face from the book she was reading.
“I’ll be out.” He said after yanking his wand from the drawer and walking out the door, not really caring if his mother protested this idea.
It wasn’t that dark outside yet. The sky seemed to be fighting the sun at the moment. Yet Severus was determined to go out. Just to be out. He couldn’t stay home. It felt empty to be in a place where you were no longer needed, wanted, and perhaps wished to be seen.
The wind greeted him as he stepped outside, a sharp contrast to the warmth of the house. It carried the scent of damp stone and chimney smoke, the familiar smell of Spinner’s End in the evening. The street was mostly empty, save for an old man walking his dog and a woman closing her curtains across the way. Severus pulled his coat tighter around himself and set off, his wand slipping into the pocket with practiced ease.
He hated the odd moist air that would continue along the streets of the Spinner’s End. There was no hesitation in the fact that the place was even more miserable and, one could say, as dangerous as the Knockturn Alley.
Before the sun went down, the windows would be shut, the doors bolted, and the streets abandoned save for the few who had nowhere else to be. The ones like him.
Severus walked without direction, letting his feet carry him wherever they pleased. He passed by the old mill, its rusting machinery barely visible through the cracked glass of its windows. Further down, the street lights flickered to life, humming softly in the encroaching darkness. A pair of boys, no older than ten, skulked past, muttering in low voices, their faces half-hidden beneath the brims of their caps. He recognized the look in their eyes. He had worn it once, too.
He continued past the last row of houses, reaching the bridge where the town gave way to the river. The water moved sluggishly beneath him, thick and black like oil in the dim light. He leaned against the railing, watching it swirl in slow, aimless currents. The world here felt heavier, as if the weight of the past clung to the stones, to the air itself. He took a breath and let it out slowly.
He had taken a book with himself. Well, it wasn’t a book, it was more like notes he’d taken from a book. At times like these, he would leave home, go somewhere to be alone and work on stuff. It was usually the kind of stuff nobody would have approved of being done by a sulky seventeen year old like him.
The spells, the curses, the incantations, the intent. It all fascinated him beyond the level of mere curiosity. It was an obsession, though he wouldn’t have called it that. Not aloud.
Magic had rules—strict ones, ancient ones—but Severus had never been satisfied with boundaries. There was always something deeper to be uncovered, something more potent waiting beneath the surface. He wanted to know why spells worked the way they did, how intent could shape magic, how a simple shift in pronunciation could alter an entire effect. The Dark Arts, as most called them, were not merely about destruction. They were about control. About power.
And he needed control.
He flipped through his notes, the parchment rough under his fingers, ink smudged where he had written too fast, too urgently. Some of these spells weren’t in any book at Hogwarts. Some he had crafted himself, twisted from half-formed theories and old, forgotten texts. A hex that could cut deeper than a blade. A jinx that left its victim breathless and gasping, as though their own lungs had turned against them.
He wasn’t even sure why he wanted to learn these things anymore. What good was power if it had nowhere to go?
His grip tightened on the edges of the parchment. A gust of wind pulled at his coat, making the pages flutter. He could hear his own breath, steady but hollow, mixing with the sounds of the river and distant traffic.
Then, as if drawn by some invisible thread, his eyes lifted.
And there she was.
Lily Evans.
Walking along the river’s edge, alone.
“Ah, for fuck’s sake.” Severus muttered under his breath.
He wasn’t angry, nor sad. He was just unhappily surprised.
It was always like this. Just when he thought he had some semblance of control, the universe found a way to remind him how little of it he actually possessed.
His fingers twitched around the edges of his notes, the inked words blurring as his focus wavered. Ten days. Ten days since he'd last seen her. Since he'd told himself it was better this way. Since he'd resolved— tried to resolve—to let go.
And yet, there she was.
His first instinct was to leave. To slip away before she noticed him, before something in her face—whether it was pity, disappointment, or indifference—could scrape against his already raw nerves. But his feet wouldn’t move.
Instead, he watched.
She was walking with her Walkman, wired in, singing, making weird movements.
Severus hoped that if he’d just not make a noise, pretend like he ceased to exist, maybe she would have not noticed him. But it was still light outside too.
And, of course, the universe had never been particularly kind to Severus Snape.
Lily turned slightly, mid-step, her head tilting back as if she had sensed something—someone—watching. Her gaze swept over the bridge, the empty stretch of pavement, and then—
Her eyes locked onto his.
Severus felt his stomach drop.
For a second, she just stared, frozen in place, her mouth slightly open as if caught mid-lyric. He could hear the tinny leak of music from her headphones, some Muggle song he didn’t recognize. Then, as if reality clicked back into place, she reached up and yanked the headphones down to her neck.
“Sev?”
His jaw clenched. There it was. That awful, familiar lilt of his name, wrapped in something he couldn’t place. Surprise? Uncertainty?
She took a step toward him.
No, no, no.
He looked away sharply, pretending to be deeply invested in the murky water below. Maybe if he ignored her, she’d just—
“Were you watching me?”
He exhaled sharply through his nose, dragging a hand down his face. “Hard not to when you’re—” He gestured vaguely toward her. “—flailing about like a lunatic.”
Lily scoffed, but she was grinning. “I was dancing .”
“Right.”
Her smile softened, and he hated it. Because it meant she was comfortable. It meant she thought she could just walk up to him after ten days of silence, after everything , and it would be fine .
It wasn’t fine.
But still, when she took another step forward, closing the distance between them, he didn’t move away.
“What are you doin?”
“Observing,” he said and then looked around to find a way to continue his words, “the nature.”
“Right.” She said while nodding her head, trying to hold her chuckle.
Severus scowled. “Glad you find it amusing.”
Lily shrugged, her grin unfading. “Just never took you for the type to appreciate nature .”
“Shows how little you know, then.” His tone was flat, but there was an edge to it—something sharp, something self-defensive.
She bit her lip, her gaze flicking to the notes clutched in his hand. “So, are you studying nature, or just brooding at it?”
He let out a dry laugh, shaking his head. “What do you want, Evans?”
Lily hesitated for half a second. Just long enough for him to notice. Just long enough to realize how she is Evans, not Lily.
And then she shrugged again. “I was just walking. Heard someone muttering to themselves and thought, huh, that sounds miserable enough to be Severus.”
He scoffed. "I wasn't muttering."
“You literally just muttered right now.”
“Brilliant observation,” he deadpanned.
She huffed out a small laugh, but her expression softened again. Her fingers played with the cord of her headphones, twisting and untwisting it. “Sev…”
His stomach clenched.
No. No, he did not want to do this. Not here. Not now.
“You look well,” he said abruptly, his voice colder than he intended.
Lily blinked. “Er—thanks?”
“Seems like you've been enjoying yourself.”
Her brow furrowed. “I—?”
He nodded toward her Walkman, his lip curling slightly. “Dancing around, singing. Must be nice.”
“Severus,” she sighed, “it's just music.”
“Right,” he said, looking away again. “Just music.”
Silence stretched between them, tangled and heavy. The last bits of daylight clung stubbornly to the sky, casting long shadows over the bridge.
Lily shifted, crossing her arms. “Are we gonna do this thing where we pretend we don’t know each other?”
Severus stared at the river, not looking her way. “Maybe we should .”
“But listen–”
“Lily, I have thought a lot about it. In fact, that has been all I was thinking of lately. And I–” He looked at her face, realizing how hesitantly confused she is at the tone of his voice. “And I jus’ thought the best would be for us to just– I dunno. Act nice and jus’ wave to one another at times?”
“Okay.” She said smilingly and sat next to him, not having any of the bullshit he just told her.
Severus furrowed his brows, trying to understand what was going on and why this Lily agreed so easily.
“So. You like Bowie?”
“What?”
“Oh God, Sev, don’t tell me you don’t know Bowie. David Bowie?”
“I’ve heard of Bowie. But– Yeah, no.”
“Well, you should.”
She took her headphones and tried to put them on him. His hair had become sort of wavy, maybe because it was very clean today. Obviously, he saw the attempt to put the headphones on him as a threat and shot with “oi, stoppit,” winging his arms around like she was some bee.
At that moment, Lily saw her Sev.
The same awkward, fidgety boy who used to flinch at the idea of anything unfamiliar, who had once squinted at a Muggle toaster like it was some kind of cursed artifact. The same Sev who, years ago, had nearly hexed a butterfly out of sheer surprise when it landed on his sleeve.
She let out a short laugh, shaking her head.
“Oh, come on, don’t be such a baby,” she said, reaching for him again.
“I'm not a— Lily, I swear—” He ducked, but she was quicker, and before he could bat her hands away, the headphones were over his ears. His lips parted slightly, an expression of immediate discomfort flickering across his face.
Lily pressed play.
A slow, eerie hum. The opening chords of Space Oddity.
Severus blinked. His hands twitched like he was debating whether to rip the headphones off, but then… he hesitated. The sound changed, shifting into something bigger, something more expansive. Lily could tell he was listening now. His shoulders relaxed, just a little.
She watched, chin resting on her palm. “Weird, isn’t it?”
Severus exhaled sharply through his nose, which she knew meant he was trying very hard not to admit she was right about something. “Hmph.”
Lily grinned. “Just wait till the vocals start.”
Lily glanced at Severus. The Severus she was looking at was no longer a boy she reckoned from before. This Severus had broader shoulders, sharper features, prickly facial hair, more manly defined eyebrows, and a presence that seemed to take up more space than he had before. He was still thin, too thin, but the way he stood now, with his back slightly straighter and his shoulders broader, made him look taller, more imposing. Indeed, he had grown taller for only a few inches, but enough to make him seem more elongated. He wasn’t tall by any stretch, but his height was enough to make him be considered an average height in Britain.
His face had become more angular, his jaw sharper, his cheekbones more defined. There was no mistaking the fact that he looked older, more grown-up, and it unsettled Lily. When she thought back to the Severus she used to know, the one she’d avoided and watched from a distance, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly when this shift had happened. It wasn’t like he’d gone to bed one night as a boy and woken up the next morning as a man; it had been gradual, like the slow creep of time itself, and she hadn’t noticed until it was too late.
And that, more than anything, was what unsettled her; the fact that she didn’t know how and when it had happened.
Lily turned her gaze back to the river, realizing that she probably looked like she was analyzing the poor boy’s entirety and just let the two stay in silence.
She, herself, was unaware of how much she herself had changed. Of course, she wouldn’t have seen her own changes, not really—because change never announces itself when you’re living inside it. It just happens. In slow, creeping tides. You wake up one day and your hair falls differently, your voice carries weight it never used to, your laughter sounds foreign.
And across from her, Severus was staring.
He hadn’t meant to, not at first. But now he couldn’t look away.
It wasn’t his best friend he was looking at. Not the girl he used to trail after, not the girl who used to press wildflowers into his hands like secrets. No.
It wasn’t her.
Or at least, it wasn’t only her.
Because whatever Lily had become, she wasn’t a child anymore. And it struck him like a slap across the cheek—how utterly, unforgivably grown she looked.
Her mouth had a new firmness to it, her eyes something deeper, unreadable. Her body moved differently now—graceful, sure, the edges of girlhood worn down and reshaped into something too complex for his mind to wrap itself around.
And those eyes— God, those eyes. They had always been green, yes, but he didn’t know what lived behind them anymore. He didn’t know what thoughts or feelings stirred under the calm surface of her gaze. It was like looking at a face you missed so much, but now that it is so close, you don’t recognize the voice behind it.
It scared him a little, how unfamiliar she felt.
And she must have felt his stare, because her head turned again, slowly.
“You like Bowie, eh?” She said with a smile forming on her lips.
Something tugged at the edge of his mouth—not quite a reaction, not quite restrained. Just a twitch of something soft, reluctant. Then it vanished just as quickly as it came. He pressed his lips into a thin line, glanced up at the sky instead of meeting her gaze, as if the clouds held answers he hadn’t yet earned.
“Ehh, I s’pose.” he said, with a half-lopsided tilt of his head, a cheeky sort of shrug in his voice, like he was pretending not to care when in fact, he really did.
“You know he had this whole persona for this album specifically. Ziggy Stardust. I don’t remember if it was like, erm, how do you call it? A long term thing or jus’ for the tour, but now he is very likely to have a new album by the end of the year, and god knows, I will die if I don’t see it happen. You know ‘cause it is David Bowie, Davy Jones, Ziggy Stardust himself. And I bet this album will also have a bunch of amazing songs there too. Oh Merlin, I can’t fucking wait!”
Severus looked at her like he was talking to a madwoman who was under a love potion that had gone wrong and instead created an obsession with less romantic feelings, although he wasn’t sure if Lily hadn’t considered this Ziggy Bowie or whatever his name was in such manner either.
“Does he send you love potions occasionally that’ve been brewed wrong—because when a key ingredient is missing, they don’t inspire affection, they cause obsession, fixation, even hallucinations if the brewer’s truly incompetent–”
She started laughing—not politely, not like she was trying to fill the silence, but properly laughing, head tilted back, hair tumbling in a soft arc behind her. Then, in one sudden, familiar movement, she gave him a playful push, and he tipped backward, landing flat on the grass with a quiet oof .
He blinked up at the sky, hands sprawled out beside him like he was surrendering to it all.
“God, I missed having a dramatic arsehole around all the time,” she said, fondly exasperated, shaking her head like he was some ridiculous pet she couldn’t help but love.
Still staring up at the sky, Severus let out a dry little breath through his nose, then turned his head halfway toward her, his voice flat and edged with sarcasm.
“Well, you have Potter. And in my defense, you are acting like a dramatic madman, not me.”
“Ew, don’t bring him into this.” She said laughingly.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even want to. After all, the toerag was always the one making grand entrances to places he had no entrance ticket to. And Merlin knows how much Severus hated anything regarding him. Even the fact that their last year, Lily chose him, but he didn’t know that he was an ‘ew’ to her anymore.
Severus thought he, himself, was an ew to her, not James Potter.
“We are not a” she didn’t even how to say what they were, so instead she proceeded to say ‘-a thing anymore.”
But now he wanted to say something. He would love to say something sharp, something cutting through the air, something hurtful, but he wouldn’t. He would love to say how much it felt shit for her to walk around the castle snogging James Potter at every corner because you don’t just date people that are privileged bullies, especially a bully that you witnessed tormenting someone you personally knew for years.
Of course, Severus knew how Potter was better than him in every aspect, but academic. Handsome, well-off, social, likeable and whatnot, but it was just the academics Potter could never reach at Severus's level, yet again, it didn’t even matter that much.
Because girls didn’t fall in love with how well you brewed a potion or how many theories you knew on non-verbal magic. They fell for laughter echoing in hallways, for broad smiles and stupid, arrogant confidence. They fell for charm, not for the boy scribbling ink-stained notes alone in the corner of the library, not for the one who memorised entire books just to feel like he belonged somewhere.
And she had fallen. Of course she had.
So he just nodded slowly, face blank. He didn’t even look at her.
“Right,” he said, voice unreadable. “Well. Good for you.”
She smiled, trying to hold a laugh. “I can tell you are ecstatic. You can say ‘well, I am thrilled, Lils. More than happy!’ I don’t mind.”
He just let out a ‘mhm’ and shifted slightly, his posture rigid. The sarcasm in her voice annoyed him more than he expected, but he wouldn’t let it show. He wasn’t going to look like he was thrilled about their thrillingly amazing relationship ending.
“Of course,” he muttered, keeping his voice flat. “I’m overjoyed.”
Lily’s smile faltered just a little, like she was trying to gauge if he was serious or not. But Severus didn’t give her anything more to work with. He wouldn’t.
She sighed, looking away, eyes on the river again, her smile slowly fading. “You know, you’re impossible sometimes.”
“Am I?” he asked, eyes narrowing just a fraction. “What’s the right answer, then? Should I be thrilled for you, Lils? Should I be dancing around with joy that you’ve chosen someone who... well, you know, fits the part? And then whatever you had with him for whatever reason ended?”
The words were out before he could stop them. He didn’t even realize how bitter they sounded until they left his mouth.
Lily was quiet for a moment, and Severus could feel the weight of the silence. He had said too much. Too sharp, too soon. But he didn’t backtrack. He never did. He meant it.
Instead, he stood up, the anger simmering just beneath the surface now. “I’m glad you’re happy,” he said with an edge to his voice. “Really.”
She shook her head sharply at that “Really” voice edged with disbelief. Her arms were crossed now, shielding herself, not from the chill in the air but from him . From whatever it was he kept pressing like a bruise she thought had healed.
“Wait,” she called him out as he started to walk towards a street.
Severus didn’t stop. He had learned long ago that leaving the conversation was safer than engaging with her. But then, he heard it. That voice, sharp and insistent.
“Wait,” she called him out as he started to walk toward the street.
The sky was already getting darker, and they had barely begun to talk. He could feel the tension in the air, like something that had been building for years but never quite found the right moment to explode. He didn’t want to look at her, not right now. But he could hear her footsteps behind him, following him, and it was like an unspoken weight dragging at him.
He kept walking. “What do you want, Lily?”
She opened her mouth again, probably to soothe, to explain, but he cut her off—voice shaking now, angry and cracked open.
“You fucking laughed with the rest of them,” he said. “When he literally held me upside down. You fucking laughed! ”
Her whole face twisted, like he’d slapped her. “I didn’t—”
“You did,” he said, biting the words. “Don’t you dare lie to me now. You laughed, Lily. I saw it. It wasn’t just him and Black and the others. It was you.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
He barked out a cold, humourless laugh. “What? You didn’t mean to laugh ? You just slipped and let joy pour out at my humiliation?”
Her jaw tightened. “I was sixteen , Severus—”
“And I was sixteen and hanging upside down my trousers somewhere else.”
She flinched.
The anger was seething now, but it wasn’t rage anymore—it was grief wearing rage’s coat. His voice cracked at the edges. “I could take Potter. I could take Black. But you— you —”
His hand twitched at his side like he might reach out, but he didn’t. He never did.
“You were supposed to be different.”
Her voice, barely above a whisper, trembled with shame. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“You didn’t need to do anything. You could’ve just not laughed. ”
Silence again. The kind that didn’t ache, didn’t burn—it just sat there between them, like a wall that had always existed and now they could finally see it for what it was.
“But then you called me that.”
Severus was on the verge of everything. This all was too sensitive for him to discuss, let alone reminisce in such a manner.
“You were–” He stopped, turning his head to the side. “I think I should lea–”
“I am sorry.”
And for a second, maybe he almost let it reach him. Almost.
But then something twisted in his gut again. Something ugly, something old.
He shook his head, jaw tightening.
“Then you didn’t just laugh with him,” he said, voice sharp now, rising with every word as if he hadn’t heard her earlier. “You started going out with him. Then snogging in every corner of the bloody castle like it was some—some sort of sick joke—like it wasn’t enough I got hexed daily, you had to go be with him too—”
There was a certain madness in his eyes, a madness that stood to cover her Sev. The Sev that would never have turned out like this. The Sev that would not even imagine they could ever get this ugly.
The words had started to choke him, sour and hot in his mouth. He clenched his jaw shut so hard it hurt. His eyes were wild, but the rest of him froze, completely still.
He knew—if he said anything more, it would be cruel.
Too cruel.
He turned his head away, lips pressed tight together, shoulders rigid. Breathing heavy.
She was staring at him like she’d just watched a storm hit and leave the trees standing crooked.
Lily didn’t speak right away. She just looked at him—really looked. On the way his throat bobbed when he swallowed back what nearly came out. At the mess of it all in his eyes.
“You know why I called you that? You wanna know why?”
And at that moment Lily expected him to say the most painful reasoning ever.
But instead he looked her in the eye and said, “because only one of us can be a monster, a disappointment, a filth, a greasy git. And I would rather be that in your eyes, than let you be that in mine.”
Her breath caught.
It wasn’t what she had expected. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
Lily’s eyes searched his face, looking for something—anything—to tell her this wasn’t what he really meant. But it was there, clear in his eyes, in the way his lips barely moved when he spoke. There was no lie in it. There was only the truth.
The words cut through her, deeper than she cared to admit.
For a moment, they stood there in silence, the weight of it all pressing down on them. Severus had always been good at silences, but this one felt heavier than anything before. Lily opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out.
She didn’t know how to fix this. She didn’t know how to fix them .
And that thought, the realization that maybe some things couldn’t be fixed, made her chest ache in a way she hadn’t expected.
“Severus–”
“And I don’t need any kind of bullshit speech about how–”
“Severus Snape, listen to me.”
He stopped.
“I didn’t know any of that. I didn’t even think of it all. I–” She looked at him. He was standing with his one hand in his jeans, his hair tucked behind his ears, constantly shrugging his nose that was already red from the chill in the air. She felt like she was talking to him, but again she knew that she wasn’t talking to her best friend anymore.
“Listen, I wanna fix this. I wanna have no bad blood between us–”
“Lily, there is no bad blood from me to you. I assure you there never will be, but there is a fucking war coming up soon. So, you better prepare yourself for other types of blood. An actual blood, that Merlin hopes you won’t see.”
“Do not decide what kind of blood am I to see. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what you think you’re protecting me from. If it’s coming, I want to be part of it, I want to know, and I don’t want to be left out in the dark, pretending that it’s not happening.” Her eyes burned with intensity as she spoke, her hand moving instinctively to his arm again, the warmth of her fingers contrasting against the sharp cold of the night. “But that will not stop me from regaining my best friend.”
“We are not even fucking close to friends.”
“Then we will be.”
“Lily, I–” made my choices, he wanted to say. I am too deep in this bullshit to get out, he wanted to say. I am gonna be someone, he wanted to say. But he didn’t, alongside many other things he kept under his tongue.
“We have a little time till the end of summer. Goodness, it is already twenty-eighth of July, we have got a month till the end of August, and then, Sev, I won’t ask anything from you. But when I do see you, I will hope to say hi to you, see a smile from you.” Her voice was adamant and persistent. “You were my best friend, you still can become one. I wanna be your friend.”
He wanted to scream at her and say that it is not possible, and he is on his way to do something that will change the entire dynamic of whatever the fuck they have now. He wanted to tell her how he is more likely to be her equal in three years, than become her friend–
“Lily, I don’t–”
“No, Sev. I will be haunting you till the end of summer. I will find you every single fucking day and fix this.”
His mouth twitched at that. A soundless scoff, almost a laugh—except it wasn’t funny, not really. Nothing about this was. But Merlin, that was so her . So stubborn, so insistent on dragging the light back into places it had long since left. He couldn’t decide if it made his chest hurt or his jaw clench.
“Haunting me?” he said, and the words came out quieter than expected, almost like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to joke anymore. “Is that your brilliant plan, then?”
She nodded, almost defiantly. “Yeah. I’ll be your ghost. With better hair.”
A pause. A beat.
And his eyes flicked over her—her flushed cheeks from the cold, her messy hair curling at the ends, the set of her mouth like she was ready to fight the war and him at the same time. His voice was too tired to argue. His heart was too tired to keep up.
“You’ll be wasting your time,” he muttered.
“That’s my time to waste,” she shot back without missing a beat.
He looked at her now. Properly. His eyes, dark and bruised with all the things unsaid, locked onto hers—and he hated how much hope she still had in them. Like she hadn’t been burned. Like she still believed in him. How foolish . How kind .
“Even if I told you I’ve done things I can’t take back?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
Her reply came just as quiet. “Then tell me. Let me decide if I can forgive them.”
He shook his head slowly, eyes falling to the ground. “You’re acting like a fool. I am not some charity case that needs some help from you.”
“I’m not here to be good,” she said, firm. “I’m here to be your friend . Whether you deserve it or not.”
That did it. His throat tightened, a cruel knot catching at the edge of his voice. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t.
So instead, he just nodded—barely.
Not a yes. Not a no.
Just ... a maybe.
And in the quiet, where apology and anger had already played their parts, Lily reached for his sleeve again, tugged it gently. Like old times.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Severus.”
His heart was pumping loudly from all the anger he just spit around. He couldn’t handle it all. In fact, he hoped he didn’t have to. Couldn’t she just let them stay away from each other.
Only because it was getting dark, and this town wasn’t the safest when the sun went down—he told himself that. Not because he wanted to keep looking at her silhouette, not because a part of him always waited for her to turn around again. Just to make sure she was safe. Just to be sure she was real.
But hell, he wished—for once—that they didn’t argue. That they could just let it be. That he could let it be.
He didn’t even know why he couldn’t.
His heart was still thudding in his chest like it was trying to punch its way out. Every word he’d spat still echoed around him like a ricochet in a locked room, too loud, too bitter, too much . He couldn’t handle it. He hated it.
He hated himself for it.
And what made it worse, what truly made him feel sick down to the marrow, was that his body had reacted—again. Like it had the last time they’d spoken like this. That awful, tangled response that made no sense. The sheer heat, the rush of blood that didn’t know where to go.
He wished he didn’t know what it meant. But he did. Somewhere in the darkest part of him, he knew.
At times like this, Severus wished he could let his anger out physically —break something, scream into the hollow night, throw a punch at a brick wall until his knuckles cracked. But all of it just funneled inward, trapped inside skin and shame and something far uglier. And his body responded.
A walking sickness.
He felt like a pervert. Like some sick, twisted thing that had been let loose too young and never taught how to come clean. How could anger twist itself into that kind of tension? And why only with her? Why did it take their arguments, her defiance, her voice rising just to meet his, for this wretched fire to awaken in him?
He hated himself for a lot of things. Like he hated himself for being this way. For being in a sick way. He was never a proper man, he thought to himself. He was an unlovable, intolerable and an ugly sick fuck. He was determined that even after everything he would have earned himself once joining the Dark Lord’s ranks, he would still just be by himself. He couldn’t fathom the idea of somebody being there witnessing his life by his side.
He had never felt the need to be indulged with such nonsense. Not because he couldn’t or something, but because he simply could not imagine being desired by anybody. Not in the way others were, not in the way Lily might have once looked at someone across the Great Hall and blushed into her pumpkin juice. He wasn’t carved for romance, wasn’t stitched together with softness or grace. He was built from spit and grit and rage, from every snide remark and every cold stare he’d learned to weaponize just to survive. Desire, to him, was a foreign language written in the margins of books he wasn’t meant to read. And love—love was something people like him didn’t receive; they were only ever footnotes in someone else’s story.
And that was fine for him.
They both went to their respectives homes, and just couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened. The sharp edges of their words, the cold air between them, the way their eyes had locked in the silence after, it was all too much.
Lily lay on her bed, eyes fixed on the cracks in her ceiling, trying to convince herself that she was only bothered because it hurt to lose a friend. That it was the history that lingered, the boy who once knew every corner of her life, not the man he was becoming now. And yet… something about him clung to her skin like smoke. The way he looked at her—not pleading, not apologetic, but there —it unsettled her in a way she couldn’t name. It made her want to be around him, against all reason. His presence didn’t calm her, didn’t soothe—but she needed it. Like scratching an itch. Like the need to finish an unfinished sentence.
And Severus—he told himself he didn’t care. He told himself it was over and done and dusted, that he didn’t need her around just to remind him of what he was not. But her voice still echoed in his ears. That stubborn, maddening voice. And the way her fingers had tugged at his sleeve—gentle, familiar, like years ago under the table in the library when she used to pass him sweets from her bag. It haunted him.
He hated how aware he’d become of her nearness. The shape of her mouth when she said his name. The heat that rose in him—not love, not desire, not in any proper way—but something. Something that twisted inside him like hunger. Like want. Like ruin.
And it was mutual.
Lily felt it too, though she didn’t name it. She couldn’t. She only knew that something in her stirred when he looked at her like that—like he was furious she existed and terrified she might vanish. Like she was the cause and the cure of everything inside him. She shouldn’t want to be near him. She shouldn’t care. But she did. And it was the wrong kind of care—the kind that made her pulse race for all the reasons she’d never admit.
And they did speak to each other the next day.
And they spoke without all the shouting and dramatics about their NEWTs, like normal people.
And that was it. No mentions of what had passed between them. No glances sharp enough to draw blood. Just… a moment suspended in something lighter than their usual gravity.
They talked about exams and the bloody nightmare that was Arithmancy. She asked if he still brewed and where he did so. He said yes but did not get further into details. She asked if he still hated Slughorn. He rolled his eyes, obviously.
It was normal. Civil. Like two people who might have never shouted at each other in the cold, or felt something twist beneath their skin they didn’t want to name.
When she left, she said, “See you,” soft and quick like a habit.
And for the first time in ages, he let himself say, “Yeah,” without bitterness coating his tongue.