What if I tell you all that Eileen used to give Lily and Severus lessons on Gobstones? That Severus found them ridiculous, but Lily delighted in the foul smelling liquid the stones spat out? That Eileen and Lily would gang up against Sev on those very rare quiet moments and snigger as he sputtered with the nasty smell all over him?
Severus scowls at the back, rubbing his face even though it was finally free of the putrid smell of that stupid game. Lily grins at him from across the board, seemingly proud of her own smelly face and he sticks out his tongue at her, unnoticed by his mother who is looking at the board in concentration.
“Come girl. Think! Which step would help you avoid another nasty one in the face?”
“As if she wants that,” Severus mutters and immediately gets a sharp “Quiet boy!” from his mother.
Lily looks back at the board and loses a point.
Eileen leans back looking amused as Lily’s cackles fill the empty playground, as delighted by the mess she created as Severus knows she is at deliberately sabotaging her potions to make them blow up in her own face.
“Girl, do you wish to learn or not?” Eileen laughingly demands.
“But you already taught me the other versions so well! How difficult can Snake Pit be?” Lily asks, somehow managing to look both sheepish and cheeky.
“More difficult than one might assume,” comes Eileen’s warning.
What if I told you that Lily never grew impressed with Quidditch like James and Sev because she had already fallen in love with Gobstones? Inherited Eileen's greatest love, the sign of her happy girlhood, her school days, her freedom. James once curiously asked her how she was so good at it and she told him about Sev's mother teaching her.
"Oh," James had said, unable to form a reply as Lily's face closed off at accidentally letting any tidbits about her ex-best friend slip. She seemed to hoard those away, unwilling to speak of them as much as she was unwilling to make new friends, forever scarred by the prejudices of Petunia and Severus.
What if I told you Eileen and her still corresponded even after everything, that Eileen apologized to Lily for failing to teach her son... everything, it seems. That she asked Lily to, if not protect, then to at least not kill Severus, should they come face to face on the battlefield.
“I have failed him. I.. in raising him, I have-“
“Don’t blame yourself. His choices are his own. His views are his own. There’s only so much we can do, but everyone ultimately walks their own path.”
What if I told you that Lily promised Eileen this, but wondered if Sev would afford her the same consideration? And Eileen laughed at even the thought of her son hurting that sweet girl (and isn't that what she thought about Tobias and oh how that backfired).
“My son has chosen the fool’s path, but he wouldn’t raise his wand against you.”
“He doesn’t have to. Every time he partakes in killing one of my kind, my parents’ kind, he chips away at my freedom, comes one step closer to killing me. And if not him, someone else will, Eileen. I am a soldier in a war being fought so the other side can take away my rights. Sev sparing me means nothing when he has not spared my fellows. I have died every time one of them has and he knows it. Still he chooses to do it and so forgive me for having my doubts.”
What if I told you that Severus confessed to his mother what he did as she was still absorbing the news of Lily's death whose words come back to haunt her amidst his pleadings.
“I did not mean to mother, I swear it!"
But Severus remains unheard for Eileen is deaf to his words the way he has been deaf to his mother and best friend since forever. She's gone blind to the grey world bleached of all color as the flower departed.
And she looks around the silent house, absent of the tyrant that used to haunt it thanks to the brave mad girl who smashed his head in, half pregnant and still trying to stop him from hitting Eileen.
"Don't tell Sev, please! Just say he ran away or something!" Lily pleaded as she frantically swirled the potion she had whipped up in minutes using the ingredients Eileen had lying about.. to dissolve Tobias's body.
"You do this a lot, dear?" Eileen asked dryly, face away from the broken head of her tormentor lying in the bathroom, dead and yet still terrifying in the consequences that he could bring upon their heads.
Lily let out a hysterical laugh as the potion seemed to settle into an odorless blend. Perfection.. as expected from the girl who loved Potions since she was a little girl, mixing her shampoos, pretending to be Sabrina's Aunties over their large cauldrons, looking at Eileen and her black cauldron with hero worship like Eileen was her comics come to life while Severus stood beside her with a wide grin looking so proud.
"Well, it's um.. more of my husband doing the cleanup after me, though the potion is of my own making," Lily confessed. "He seems to worry the Aurors would send me to Azkaban for war crimes."
"I see," Eileen replied. Lily glanced at her, the absence of judgment making her frown. "Oh dear, if anyone deserves to off some blood supremacists, it's muggleborns."
"Tell that to James," Lily muttered as she heaved Tobias into the bathtub and Eileen wondered for a moment if she should offer her help. After all, a pregnant woman should not be lifting such a heavy burden, but just the thought of touching the man had her sagging against the wall.
She watches her husband bubble away to nothing, carried away by the drain. Lily tells her to consider it a gift in return for the marvelous set of Gobstones Eileen had gifted her. The women look at each other and burst out into hysterical laughter.
She tells Severus nothing.
And she looks at her son, the boy who killed the girl he should have cherished, and for the first time she sees only his father.
“Mother, I-,”
“You are no son of mine.”
What if I tell you Eileen leaves Cokeworth that day, leaves Severus because she cannot look at him without seeing Lily Evans in whom she knew the wish for reconciliation. Reconciliation that was stopped only by the bare minimum dignity that every being deserved, dignity that Voldemort and his death eaters would strip away and cast into the fire burning in their Snake Pit. She leaves the country where prejudice seeps in every corner, corrupting and killing her son and her daughter.
"The house is yours."
It is the last thing she ever says to her son.
What if I tell you years pass and Severus dies, but Eileen lives on in Japan, making a home for herself among the mountains where she plays Shogi with muggle men and women, and Gobstones with the magical folk, running her little vegetable noodle shop. Her son is gone, finally reunited with his friend and four decades have passed where Eileen has healed from the scars of her marriage, from the endless wars, from the family that couldn't accept her views, from the loss of the children she loved so very much.
What if I tell you a couple stumbles into her shop, the blonde among them looking worse for wear, yet on the path of healing, just like her. What if I tell you his husband tells her of finding a cure for the family curse ailing his love. What if I tell you she congratulates the exhausted men on their successful adventures? What if I tell you as the men leave, the dark haired man introduces himself to her, abashed at having forgotten his manners in his exuberance to share his happiness.
"Albus Severus Potter, ma'am," he shakes her hand with a wide grin.
Eileen looks into Lily's eyes, at the last vestiges of Severus and smiles.
"Nice to meet you, son."