Everybody knows
Lily toys with the ring around her neck, running the pad of her finger across the false gold chain. It’s a nervous habit, something she does unconsciously, she’s sure. For a moment, as she waits, she just stares at it. It makes her feel melancholic and strangely pensive.
It’s raining outside the phone booth, tiny droplets racing one another down the glass pane. There’s one on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, covered in thick ivy (the rumor is that it’s unbreakable, hit by a spell that rendered it invincible, but Sirius kicked it once and made a dent. He was a school legend for weeks afterwards). She can hardly see outside of it, everything blending into blurred colors. Like sitting in a box underwater. Lily considers pulling out a book, or her coursework as she waits for Petunia to call.
Eventually, she decides to sit with her anxiety instead. Not even seconds later Lily sighs, frustrated, and picks up the phone. She dials her sister’s number before she can think better of it and run back to her dorm.
It goes like this every week.
“You’re late.” Is the first thing Petunia says to her, her voice a touch lower than usual. Tired, maybe.
“Fashionably.”
“Fashionably late is five minutes. Not fifteen.”
“I got caught up with some friends, I’m very popular you know.” Lily lies easily. Not entirely untrue, she supposes, but not true for the occasion.
She wonders if Petunia can hear the rain outside the booth, she’s not the type to point it out if she did. Petunia snorts on the other line, and despite her original comment being a joke she feels slightly affronted that Petunia took it that way.
“Well. Regardless. Vernon and I are settling into the new house nicely…”
Lily dutifully listens to her sister drag on about placemats and bedsheets, and Oh, there’s going to be two rooms for our little Dudley (who isn’t even in the picture at all, they’ve just already decided they will be having a boy named Dudley. For whatever reason). All the while she tugs at the chain of her necklace. She knows it won’t break, the chain is cheap, but the magic from the ring itself is enough to keep it intact.
Their parents demanded they do a weekly call her first year at Hogwarts. It was a sort of last ditch effort to get them to reconcile after fighting at Kings Cross. It hadn’t worked, of course. Most of the time they spend on the phone they spend arguing. It got a little better after the wedding, but she still dreads it.
“And then– Lily?” She can practically hear Petunia throwing her arms up, snapping Lily out of her half-sleeping state. “Oh, you’re not even listening!”
“I’m listening!” Lily counters, straightening up and smoothing her skirt out.
“What was the last thing I said?”
“Vernon’s parents came for dinner last Sunday.” She cuts her off.
Petunia scoffs. “Last Monday! Christ Lily, if only–”
Lily bangs her head against the glass.
When they were younger, it seemed like Petunia had much more of an interest in Lily’s life. They used to be real sisters, once upon a time. In a way she supposes she chose magic over her sister, and the worst part is that she knows. She knows how it all looks to Petunia, she knows all too well how everything went down in her head.
But she wasn’t there.
How could she understand? How could she really, truly know if she wasn’t in Lily’s head? Lily’s only friend tells her that she can get away, that the world is bigger than the two of them. He tells her that they can go to a better place, and be better people.
The thing that sits between them is that despite Petunia not having been there, they both know that if she was she’d have done the exact same thing.
But, of course, they can’t talk about that.
So instead, Petunia sits on the phone every week and doesn’t let Lily get a word in.
The phone call with Petunia lasts longer than usual, mostly because Lily suspects Vernon isn’t a great conversationalist and her sister genuinely doesn’t have anybody else to talk to. Despite this, she still has some time left to walk around Hogsmeade.
She meets up with Mary and Marlene, who were waiting for her while sharing cigarettes just out of sight. They both give her looks.
“Well I’m alive aren’t I? Come on, let’s go.”
Mary links arms with her, Marlene trailing beside them as she eyes the shops. They chat with her about how they swear there was a stag in the forest while they waited, and how terribly awful she was to keep them waiting. She laughs along, rolling her eyes playfully as Mary pokes fun at her.
The friendship she’s developed with her roommates is relatively new, having grown after fifth year. She remembers the night that Mary had told her Severus was outside the common room, the sympathy on her face. And somehow, for a minute, Lily felt understood. From that day and on, Lily made a point to get closer to them. The two of them have been best friends since first year (eventually a bit more, but that’s none of her business) but they let her in easily.
Marlene drags them into the broom shop, unconsciously reaching for Mary’s hand. Lily of course has no use for brooms, but she stays anyway. There isn’t much she needs from Hogsmade, so she doesn’t mind letting her friends drag her around a bit.
“Wish there was a record place here.” Marlene comments, running the pads of her fingers along a broom handle.
“I told you, I could always take you to the one I go to in London. You’re always welcome over the holidays.” Mary responds, entirely uninterested in the equipment.
Lily partially ignores them, the two of them have a habit of getting absorbed in conversation with one another. She eyes a plant in the corner, taking a leaf between her fingers. It’s dehydrated, She thinks idly, her eyes wandering out the floor-to-ceiling window.
A wisp of black outside the window catches her eye like a shadow in her peripheral. She’s only a little surprised to see Severus outside Florean’s, hands in the pockets of his coat, scowling at people. Lily feels a small smile tug at her lips, because he looks so miserable for it being so early in the morning.
She wonders what kind of morning he had, if he had coffee at breakfast, or if he slept well. It pangs at her, just a bit. Then she remembers that she’s upset with him, and looks down. It’s easy to forget sometimes. That things aren’t how they used to be.
They fought all the time when they were younger, relentlessly. The two of them have strong personalities, and they’re always painfully sure that they’re right. They quarreled about small things, mostly. Whether charms was better than transfiguration (it definitely is, by the way), if summer was the better season instead of winter. When they grew older, however, it became more than that. It turned into something bigger. They’d argue over her sister, and then the dark arts.
In truth, she was scared for him. Sometimes he’d get this look in his eye, and it’s like he had this fixation. It wasn’t necessarily the dark magic that scared her, it was the idea that he could hurt himself in the process. Though, she didn’t much fancy the dark arts either. She’d seen the statistics, she’d read up on it. Dark magic hurts the soul.
Lily worried for him before anything else.
Then, of course, the anger. The ‘could you just try to listen?’. They never saw eye to eye, he wouldn’t listen to her. She understood him, probably more than anybody. And in a way, Lily knew why he couldn’t let it go. She knew what having a means of defense meant to him, why it was important. But it was more than that. Spending all her time worrying about him was hard, but seeing him in pain was harder.
She knew Seveus knew what he was doing.
Maybe she could’ve let it go, maybe they could’ve been fine.
Lily just wishes he hadn’t said it. And she doesn’t know if, above all, she’ll ever really forgive him for ruining what they could’ve had. Because she remembers. She remembers all of it.
She continues to observe him, after a moment, unable to stop herself. He upsets her, makes her feel off kilter and out of control. The weather clears with an early summer heat, though she can see dark clouds above. He looks up, seemingly noticing it as well, frowning at the sky.
When he looks back down there’s a small cat circling his feet, pawing at his pointed shoe. It’s a cute one with dark black fur and big green eyes. Severus looks from side to side wearily, before deciding that nobody is watching him. Carefully, he leans down and pets the cat, smoothing back its ears and scratching behind them softly. It’s such a simple thing to do, such a human thing. Petting a cat. It makes the conversation behind her drown out entirely, leaving her focus entirely on him.
That girl– Charity– walks out of Floreans, carrying two ice cream cones in her hands, the tips of her fingers reddened from the cold. Her hair is ridiculously shiny, falling in blonde ringlets down her back and bouncing as she walks. She’s wearing an entirely pink outfit that somehow still looks put together.
Lily watches her walk waltz her way to Severus, a clear smile on her glossed lips. She hands Severus one of the cones, and he rolls his eyes, a smaller smile creeping up on him. It’s clear they have some kind of inside joke going on. Lily feels the urge to go up to them, and ask what’s so funny.
It hurts her heart a little, for a reason that she isn’t sure of.
Part of her thought– hoped, even, that Severus would stay miserable in her absence. That he’d never move on, find new friends, live a new life. She was supposed to be the one who found happiness after they separated.
It occurs to her that she has, but she still wants him to be miserable after what he said. Sue her.
The clouds part from above, leaving streaks of sunlight pouring through, along with sprinkles of soft rain.
Her attention is swiftly pulled away when she feels Mary’s head on her shoulder from behind.
“What are you looking at?” She asks innocently.
Lily doesn’t have an answer. She looks back, and Severus is gone.
The next morning James is waiting outside her dorm.
It’s the weekend, Friday having bled into Saturday quicker than she’d expected. So, luckily, she was able to wait him out. It took him until lunch time to saunter away, tale between his legs. She supposes she could’ve done something to make him leave, but really, what could she have done? She couldn’t say anything to anybody, Marlene might’ve been able to chase him away, but he was literally outside her dorm. What’s she to have done, write to the Gryffindor tower like some kind of damsel in distress?
No! Obviously! She did the reasonable thing by sitting in her dorm until he left.
It’s also possible that maybe she just didn’t want to confront him herself, but that’s besides the point!
Lily knows she’ll have to speak to him eventually, they’re in the same friend group after all. But she just simply doesn’t want to.
The thing is, Lily’s not entirely sure why she dated him. Well. She knows, it’s just complicated.
He was nice to her, he seemed stable, he was obviously friends with all of her friends. But that’s not really how it happened. It was all so jumbled. She wasn’t really thinking.
Despite what Sirius would say, she really did hate James. Especially after what happened. She blamed him for it, in a way. She resented him for what happened, because if he’d just left Severus alone–
But then her mum got sick.
And James– he was there for her. And he could be, in ways that her other friends couldn’t. His parents both have dragonpox, and only a few years left in them. It helped her to have someone else who knew what it was like. That fear– the feeling that never goes away. She never even meant to become his friend, but he made it hard not to. He was always there. Around, wherever, trying to get her attention.
It was easy, and safe. And– he was nothing like Severus. His polar opposite.
It made it easier to forget. Sometimes, she’d lay in his arms and for a moment she could pretend that it was okay. That Severus Snape wasn’t what he was to her, that she was over it and that it wasn’t a big deal.
But, of course, most of the arguments she had with James were her fault. And they argued– a lot. Over everything.
And somehow, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t like it was with Severus. It was boring, almost. Her heart just wasn’t in it.
So she broke up with him.
She supposes that’s why he won’t leave her alone, because they’d argued before and they were fine. But breaking up with someone and arguing with them aren’t interchangeable. And she needs him to let her go.
It’s kind of making her sad, at this point. She never meant to hurt him, she never really even meant to date him in the first place. She supposes she fancied him, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Lily makes her way out of her dorm once he leaves, double checking that he's not around the corner before making her way outside. She hopes that after today James won’t show up at all, but honestly she can’t be sure. She thought he already stopped, but apparently not.
Her shoes click on the ground as she walks, waving ‘hi’ to bright-eyed first years. Once she’s outside, a smile is brought to her face. Nearly everybody is outside lingering by the lake, watching as the sun cascades off the water. The weather is nicer than it’s been in weeks, and everybody is eager to enjoy it.
She feels the sun on her skin, basking in the feeling. There’s laughter– distant, all around her. It makes her excited, the feeling strumming in her bones. Summer won’t be the same after she’s graduated, but she still plans on going back to Cokeworth until she can find a place to live. It’s coming up faster than she’d planned.
Which means that eventually, her plan with Severus won’t matter.
Lily won’t really see much of James when she graduates, will she? She’s not sure. They’ll probably see each other sometimes, right? The wizarding world is small, smaller than the real world. She shakes her head, not wanting to think about it. For some reason, the thought of the plan ending makes her head hurt, something she hadn’t really thought through.
All things considered, Lily didn’t plan much of this.
She usually has a plan for everything. Lily Evans is meticulous, she’s a mastermind, if you will. Nothing goes untouched. People have told her that she’d make a great detective, because she literally doesn’t miss a single thing.
But she never quite knew what to do with Severus. She never saw him coming, and she didn’t see him doing what he did, either. It completely blindsided her. And for the first time in her life, she really didn’t understand how to handle it.
Lily frowns, she can see him across the courtyard. He walks like he’s anticipating an attack, one hand wrapped tightly around his wand like someones going to walk up to him and take it from his hands. It occurs to her that it’s happened to him before, and the thought leaves a bad taste on her tongue.
She hates how cautious he is now, because it makes that small, weak part of her wish that he didn’t have to be.
Like a flame, Lily smothers that feeling. She balls her hands into fists. James and the rest of the boys are by the lake, and his eyes are fixated on her like he’s going to walk over.
Everybody’s here.
She takes a moment to compose herself, to organize her thoughts. And then she takes a step forward, and then two, and she walks up to Severus.
He stops in his tracks, his hand that’s not on his wand going to his leather bag like a clutch. Severus’s nails are painted black, the polish chipped. For some reason it’s that little detail that gives her the courage to open her mouth, it’s such a familiar thing. She doesn’t waste any time.
“Can I kiss you?” And then, because they’re in public and she’s not a monster, she adds: “You can say no.”
Everybody else is out of earshot, but for the sake of James’s prying eyes she says it through a smile.
“Now?” He asks, confused.
Lily steps closer, “James is at the lake. He’s watching us.” Her smile widens dramatically as she says it, hoping Severus gets the memo.
And then the strangest thing happens, a flicker of pain crosses Severus’s face before it’s wiped completely clean. He takes a step forward and places a hand on her cheek. The gesture feels cold.
He kisses her.
She makes sure to respond in accord, but her body forgets how to work for a solid minute or two. Her hand wraps around his wrist. It’s slow, and she makes sure to drag the kiss out just in case James looks away. There isn’t a single thought in her brain the entire time, everything melting into static, the feeling in her lips and the sun on her skin.
For a moment, it's easy to just feel it. Severus Snape is a habit of hers. Loving him, falling back into it, it’s something that comes as naturally to her as breathing. She can swear on her grave that she hates him, and that she never wants to see him again. And that may be true. But at the end of the day, every song is still about him, and every word that she writes has Severus written in between the lines. And she feels it now, just a little bit.
The feeling scares her half to death, but that might just be the eyes on them. Everything is much easier when it's just the two of them.
Lily pulls away ever so slightly and Severus chases her lips, placing a chase kiss on the corner of her mouth before pulling away fully, like he'd forgotten himself.
For a moment they do nothing but stare at each other before Severus drops his hand, she lets out a shaky breath and looks around.
And there’s only one thing she’s sure they’re both thinking as they take in the wide eyes of their surroundings:
Everybody knows.