Nth
It was dark and smelled rancid. Her knees ached against the cold stone tile, and she was getting tired of waiting to discover her fate.
Lily Evans was a warrior, sworn in to fight for the Order and defend that which she knew was right. She had a fire like no other- compelled to defend her right to exist in this world of magic and blood status. Yes, she had Muggle parents- but she was witch enough for anyone.
Except those like Severus Snape, who apparently seemed to think she should perish for what they considered filthy sludge in her veins. All over something she couldn’t control.
It had been four years since that ‘incident’, where Lily had lost not only her best friend but her innocent trust in others. The word he spat felt branded on her skin. Dirty and scathing, the malice in which his tone delivered it. ‘Mudblood’. Please. As if her family hadn’t taken him in when he was a boy. Showed him kindness and love and warmth, bought him presents for Christmas and took him along for vacations to the coast of Scotland. They treated him like a son. He treated her like a filthy mudblood.
She didn’t have the time nor space nor energy to feel afraid, though she knew some might think it wise to. Lily had just been wrapped up in a Death Eater raid, throwing spells this way and that way and trying to defend herself and those she held dear… but a rotted old shed she’d taken momentary refuge behind, to help her friend Alice recover from being struck with a nasty spell herself, had combusted into white hot flames. Lily only remembered the searing of malicious pain, and then she woke up here. With a dark, rancid cloth draped over her face, and ropes binding her arms and legs in place.
She had no doubt of where she was. Malfoy Manor. Lily was captured, a prisoner of war, and by the feel of shuffling and muffled cries to either side of her, she wasn’t the only Order member to have been ensnared.
Finally, a hand struck out from the darkness and pulled the cloth from Lily’s face. She blinked into full consciousness, trying to take in the burning brightness of candles littering the space.
The room was disgustingly extravagant. Lily and her fellow captives were kneeling on black tile floor, but the rest of the area was bathed in luxurious green carpets and furniture, each piece probably more expensive than Lily’s entire flat. Her gracious host stood not so far away, clad in blinding white hair and a sneer that could kill.
Lucius fucking Malfoy.
Oh, but he wasn’t the only one. It must’ve been Evan Rosier that stalked down the line of prisoners, ripping off head coverings and casting the tattered fabrics aside. Corban Yaxley was here, too… as well as Fenrir Greyback, Barty Crouch Jr., Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband, Edmund Avery, Bruce Mulciber, and…
Two large black doors, decorated with ornamental snakes with green sheens to them, slid open at once. Inside strode two people.
If you could even call them people.
Voldemort was the most prominently gripping of the two. As much as Lily hated to admit it, rockets of fear traveled through her veins at the sight of him. She was a Gryffindor, unafraid of trivial things such as death or torture… but just the sight of the Dark Lord himself, and she couldn’t help but feel her blood go cold. He had a presence that made her shiver against the tile, sore muscles moaning in protest.
And then beside him stood a man that didn’t evoke a drop of terror, but rage.
Lily’s only satisfaction in this moment was purely the fact that Severus Snape looked like utter and complete shit. Dark, baggy circles hung beneath his eyelids. His skin was pale and sallow, his hair just as greasy as it had been when he was younger. Every inch of him looked hollow, like he was hardly a man anymore. Humanity replaced with subservience. It was clear, the dynamic he shared with the terrifying Dark Lord beside him.
Snape was nothing more than a right-hand mutt. A dog that did as he was told.
Lily’s shaking morphed into that of complete fury. If she could snap out of her binds, it was Snape’s throat she’d go for first.
Every day, she thought she might recover from his betrayal- and every day, thoughts of Severus creeped back into her brain like spiders to a fly in a trap. She dreamt of him, woke up with his name on her tongue, looked in the mirror and sometimes saw him staring right back. Severus was the nightmare that refused to leave her. He haunted her in every aspect of her life.
And now he was here. Standing only a little ways away, inspecting the prisoners along with his Master.
Something terrible flashed behind his eyes, when his gaze found her. It was this foul sort of recognition that spoke of his own experience following their split from one another’s lives. It was clear that he’d been thinking of her, too. Only Lily couldn’t imagine it was in any way wholesome.
She remembered the days she spent sobbing in the Gryffindor common room, following Snape’s terrible betrayal. James had assured her time and time again that she never should’ve been friends with him. Specifically, Potter had told her that Snape was obsessed. Infatuated with Lily to almost a disgusting degree. And, considering Severus took the Mark not so long after, it seemed Lily had been lucky to evade him when she did. Godric only knows what he’d have done, had she still been susceptible to his lies.
Indeed, the Snape that stood before Lily now certainly recognized her. It sent chills down her spine.
“Twelve of them, My Lord,” Snape muttered. Lily’s toes curled, and her fists clenched. How dare he. How dare he. “What do you wish to do with them?”
Voldemort paced down the line of Order Members, inspecting various injuries and expressions of terror. His eyes locked on… oh, dear… Lily’s heart dropped down to her gut.
“These two,” Tom Riddle said, smirk etching between his lips. He pointed to Frank and Alice Longbottom, both gravely injured. “They’ll be delirious from their pain. Question them. Do not take no for an answer.” He glanced at Bellatrix, who nodded to Rodolphus and Barty. The three of them dragged off Lily’s friends, hardly strong enough to fight back. “Kill the rest,” the Dark Lord ordered, giving a dismissive wave of his hand.
Oh, fuck. Not like this. Lily still had so much to do! She wanted to see the end of the war, to make it happen with her bare hands, if she had to! She wanted to tell people she loved them, she wanted to have last words, to die here on this floor would be such a fucking waste-
“My Lord?” came the deep baritone voice of Severus Snape, who had stepped forward upon his Master’s order as if in a lurch of last minute thought.
“Yes?” Voldemort prompted, turning to look his disciple in the eye.
“Might you say I did well, commanding this raid?” Snape asked, folding his hands into his robes.
“I would indeed, Severus. Your handling brought upon the Order a depth of losses unfounded so far. Indeed, you did very well. To what, I ask, is your point?”
Severus took another step closer to the line of prisoners- to Lily in specific. Her breath caught in her throat. “I merely wondered, My Lord, if you might permit me to select a prisoner to keep as a… trophy of my success.”
Voldemort’s eyes narrowed, and a creepily pleasant smile spread across his facial features. That gave Lily the shivers, too. Faces like his were not made to smile. “Why do you want a Muggle sympathizer as a trophy, Severus? Wouldn’t you be better suited to ask for gold, or the benefits of my gratitude?”
Severus returned the Dark Lord’s smile with a much tighter one. “Not for me, My Lord. What I desire may be slightly unorthodox, but you see, I require certain attentions only a female can provide.”
The flesh on Lily’s bones was crawling. She knew plenty about the morbid desires of men- especially men like Severus Snape, who apparently thought their only means of attaining such things was through brute force or manipulation. Fuck, just the thought of it. The audacity of his suggestion…
Call her self-centered, but Lily knew it referred to her. Severus didn’t just want a fucktoy to mess around with. He wanted her.
Now, suddenly, she felt she’d rather die than give him the satisfaction.
Voldemort let out a crisp, icy laugh. “I do understand your meaning, Severus. Still, I can’t help but wonder. You’ve denied every attempt I’ve made to match you with a wife. A woman with purer blood and status. What would you want with one of these?” He draped his hand along the row of prisoners, talking about them as if they were merely objects.
“I’ve no intention of taking a wife. For the sort of thing I…” Severus hesitated, almost looking as though this conversation were causing him pain, but pressed on. “For the sort of thing I desire, a mindless cunt to keep under lock and key would be more than satisfactory.”
A mindless cunt.
Lily’s shaking was volatile.
Tom Riddle nodded his assent, turning on the row of prisoners with that gruesome smile of his. “I see. In that case, you may choose one to commit to your uses. Just don’t get it pregnant… save that for a pureblood mother, would you?”
Severus nodded almost too quickly. He walked down the line of prisoners, inspecting each female, but Lily had a sinking feeling that he was only pretending to look. He’d already made his decision. He’d had it made the moment he walked into the room.
“This one,” Snape said, grabbing a rough hold of Lily’s binds and dragging her up to her feet. She couldn’t stand well, unencumbered by the constrictive rope.
“Very well,” the Dark Lord muttered dismissively. “Yaxley, do kill the rest now.”
That was the last thing Lily heard before a crack of apparition made the room spin, and suddenly, she was standing in a dimly lit bedroom.
She wouldn’t go down like this. She blatantly refused to. Severus could kill her, if he saw that fit, she didn’t care. Lily just wouldn’t be raped. Not her.
The woman was doing her best to struggle, thrashing against her binds in an almost feral manner. It was all she could do to direct the brunt of her offenses bodily toward his groin, hoping she could stop him while she was ahead of herself. Only, to her surprise, the Death Eater now holding her in possession made no move to throw her against the bed and have her like she expected him to.
Waiting almost made it worse. Death Eaters were predictable and easy to handle, usually. But Severus, now? She had no fucking idea what he was planning to do to her and the dread was eating her alive. That was the scariest thing of all.
Their eyes locked in the darkness of his bedroom, onyx on meadow green. Almost a brash combination, considering the scathing fire she was burning into his inky optics. To Lily’s surprise, that malice wasn’t being returned to her. It certainly wasn’t friendly, the expression on Severus Snape’s face. But it didn’t seem like the crazed look of a soon-to-be rapist with his new victim.
And then those eyes trailed down. Lily struggled against him once more, roiling at the thought of him just… fucking inspecting her like this. Like she were nothing more than a little slice of heaven for him to fuck at his leisure, regardless of whether Lily would allow him or not.
“You’re bleeding,” he muttered gruffly. The first words he’d spoken directly to her since they were what, sixteen? Of course, this was different than feverish apologies on the doorstep of the Gryffindor common room. This was frightening and sinister.
Lily made no response, which Snape must have taken as an invitation to deal with it how he pleased. For it was then that the man pressed her down against the bed and bound her arms and legs with a wordless spell. Her eyes flashed wide open, and on instinct, she writhed against the binds.
To her complete and utter horror, Severus wasn’t deterred in the least. His hands were ripping through fabric now, tearing through to the source of her injury. Shit, he was right. She was bleeding. Profusely, at that. Even if his intention was to staunch the flow of blood and wrap up her injury in a pretty little bandage, she still wasn’t keen to see him undress her like this. He didn’t look as though he’d be stopped.
In fact, her struggling seemed to be gradually irritating him more and more.
Eventually, a decision flashed behind the man’s eyes. Within a moment’s time, his wand was at her throat, and the world was rapidly fading to black. Lily could only attempt to scream against her gag before the world fell away.
---
Lily woke with her face pressed against a soft pillow of cotton. It was slow, at first… just as if nothing had happened, and she was living to see another normal morning in her little flat. All before the weight of yesterday came crashing down on the red headed woman, and she was suddenly gasping for breath. Panic was blossoming in her gut as she remembered… all.
That fucker. Severus had taken her out of consciousness, surely he hadn’t– surely– surely Lily wasn't already violated? Surely it wasn’t too late? How could she live, knowing it had been so easy for Snape to just… take what he wanted from her? Oh, Gods…
She wasn’t wearing the clothes she’d been fighting in yesterday, dirty and tattered as they were. No, it was worse. Lily was wearing a t-shirt too large for herself and a pair of sweatpants that rested baggy around her form. The change in clothes itself wasn’t such a bad thing, but the question of just how, exactly, this new set had made its way onto her body…
Instinctually, Lily pried her legs apart and felt down the undersides of her thighs beneath the pants. She didn’t feel different, exactly. Not sore or abused or raw in any way. In fact, she’d been right in her wary assumption he truly intended to mend her wounds- whatever gnashes had been made against her skin last night were wrapped in clean bandages and, judging by her numbness to any pain, she’d been treated with potions to remove her discomfort. Oh shit… was that why she didn’t feel as though she’d been taken by him? Had he fucked her while she was unconscious and merely mended it to make her think she was fine?
But then… no, not really. Even with the injuries from the raid that he had treated, she could still feel that they were there. Actively healing, but still in the skin. There was absolutely nothing to suggest anything sinister had happened between her legs or otherwise.
What the fuck was his game?
It wasn’t that Lily was upset he hadn’t violated her- she was very much relieved to find herself still marginally intact, save for battle scars and emotional panic- it was just the vagueness that made her throat tighten in honest fear. She may not have been compromised yet, but it seemed she’d slept the night in the bed, in the clothes, of a man who she knew to be wrongfully obsessed with her to the point of… well, something entirely unholy and evil.
She could smell him on the sheets. On the collar of the shirt she wore. Even if he wasn’t in the room, he was everywhere. It made her sick.
Lily had to simply take some time to appreciate that, for now, the worst hadn’t seemed to happen. While it was certainly disgusting to think he’d undressed her, it didn’t seem he’d touched. It was after acknowledging this small victory that Lily turned her feet off the side of the bed, wondering what context clues she could gather as to exactly where she was, what his purpose was in having her, and if she could escape easily.
Instead of finding any answers to questions, it seemed Lily only found substance for more.
On the nightstand beside her legs sat a clean glass of water and a plate with just… plain crackers.
What the fuck?
Nobody lied to the Dark Lord. He was known to be a skilled legilimens, and hated liars. Severus, his loyal dog, had told him he wanted Lily to satisfy certain needs that didn’t require naming. Surely that must be true then, right? That he wanted a ‘mindless cunt’ to play with? But all he’d done since Lily was brought here was… fulfill her needs, it seemed like. He’d mended her wounds and left her food and water, given her spare clothes, and let her rest in a giant bed presumably to herself.
It was a trick. A trap of some kind. He was likely banking on the idea she’d soften and let him in naturally. Maybe he had some sick fantasy of her actually choosing him, instead of dating James like she had after school. Surely that was it, right? That he wanted to pretend she wanted him? Please, as if.
The punch line to this whole joke was that Lily had wanted him once. When she was younger- twelve, thirteen, fourteen- she’d considered herself quite lucky to have him as a friend. She’d even considered what it would be like to be… more. With him. Lily had thought him so sweet and handsome and misunderstood. She’d thought that, perhaps, if people could get over the prejudices between Gryffindor and Slytherin, he’d actually be well liked. Every teenager hits a point where they start to think of kissing and holding hands and having a partner they could give themselves away to happily for the rest of their lives. And for Lily, she thought that person had been him. Severus Snape.
Then they turned fifteen and he turned on her and she never forgave him.
Case closed. Story over. Right?
The door between Snape’s bedroom and the rest of his house suddenly creaked open. Lily’s toes curled where they sat against the wooden floorboards, and her entire body went as rigid as a board.
Severus stepped inside the room, face as hauntingly cold as ever.
Nope. Not today. Lily was a fighter.
Quicker than you could say ‘bombarda’, Lily had her fist wrapped around the neck of an old, dusty lamp and was flinging it Snape’s direction. He dodged it, but only by a narrow margin.
“What the fuck!” He hissed, dark eyes blazing in a way she hadn’t seen in a while. How dare he! How dare he have the gall to be angry at her for throwing a lamp when less than twenty four hours ago, he promised in front of a room full of people that he fully intended to drag her home and have his way with her. Disgusting toe rag of a man. She felt no remorse for preemptively defending herself. “Get back in the bed,” Severus snapped at her, wielding the same tone one might use on a dog to get it to ‘sit’.
“Fuck. You.”
“Do you not understand your position?” Severus snarled, stepping forward in a way that- although Lily hated to admit it- made her flinch. “It would serve you very well to do as I say.”
“Why?” She asked, an edge in her voice. It was hard to stare him down, but she made a point to do it anyway. Lily wouldn’t be the submissive little pet Severus likely wanted. She’d thrash and scream and struggle, even if he killed her for it.
Death was better than the alternative.
“Why?” He echoed, incredulous.
“Why do I stay in the fucking bed? What, you expect me to lie here and keep my bloody cunt warm? What am I meant to do? Be raped or starve to death? Wait to see what happens first?”
“You won’t starve,” Severus countered. If Lily didn’t know any better, she might say his voice weakened a bit there. Like his resolve was cracking bit by bit. She hoped that didn’t mean he’d lose whatever restraint he was practicing and just… rip into her. “Salazar’s sake, woman, there’s a plate of crackers on your bedside. Shut up and eat if you’re bloody hungry.”
Oh, so that was it. Food and water. Lily knew better than to trust a man like Snape– a man she’d personally seen excel in potionscraft. Like hell she was about to be poisoned or worse– drugged. “No,” she spat.
Annoyance flashed behind the man’s cold, hard, onyx eyes. It was evident he didn’t know what to do with her. Lily could work with that, but it would only be so long before he realized she was rather vulnerable to his whims. A position she detested being in. “Fine.” The man gave a shrug, indifferent. She could starve herself all she liked. “You don’t have to eat or stay in the fucking bed. If you want food, the kitchen is downstairs- and the loo is the next door on the left.” Just like that, Lily’s kidnapper turned on his heels and was gone from the room.
Curse her for it, but Lily couldn’t help the tears that balanced beneath her heavy eyelids. He’d once been her friend. Severus Snape had once been her friend. She used to think they could weather any storm together– used to feel like he could make her feel safe in such a world of uncertainty. How could she have predicted this? That Severus would be her storm now? That she couldn’t even bear to think of him as ‘Severus’?
‘Severus’, as far as Lily was concerned, died when he was fifteen.
The house she was trapped in now belonged to Snape, an incorrigible monster and branded Death Eater.
That regrettably did nothing to stop her from mourning.
---
She spent the day wrapped up within the sheets of the bed or pacing up and down the room. Considering… everything. Escape, suicide, murder. Lily truly had no idea what the right thing to do in this kind of situation was, she just knew her options were running thin with every second that ticked by. In a creepy, eerie sort of way, the house was completely quiet until the late evening– it was then that her door creaked open once again. But instead of being filled by a man in dark robes and greasy hair, the doorway was donned with a floating dish containing what looked like a bowl of tomato soup, grilled cheese, and a can of Coca Cola.
The tray set itself on the bed at Lily’s feet, and the door shut behind it without any incident with the man that had clearly sent it.
This was a familiar meal. One she’d had so, so many times as a younger girl. It was the sort of thing Mrs. Evans would make for everyone when she knew Severus was coming over for a relaxed evening, one in which Lily would force him to watch all of her favorite Muggle films or mess around with the record player and pretty new vinyls she got for christmas. She vividly remembered drinking her can dry and tossing it at his head whenever he made a silly, sarcastic comment about the acting in the film or the completely unscary plot of the horror movie. Lily always giggled when it made that distinctly ‘tin’ sound as it ricocheted off his forehead. For Snape to make this meal for her now, it was clear he was trying to manipulate her. Make her feel safe and familiar. It was all probably laced with date rape potions or something else vile…
She didn’t know what to think, not really. But in that moment, Lily’s chest bubbled with an indefinable anger. It was with a tight vengeance that she grabbed the can of coke by its neck and tossed it across the room, where it exploded against the door. It was torture enough on its own, being completely starving and having to deny something that made her mouth water. All the more fuel to her rage. Lily kicked the tray off the bed, completely unfeeling as the slightly burnt sandwich and bowl of watery tomato soup struck the floor and spilled everywhere.
Not her house. Not her food. Not her problem.
She tried to sleep, fighting away the rumbling low in her stomach. She could survive this. She was a warrior, damnit.
---
When Lily woke the next morning, the bags beneath her eyes were criminal. Fuck, she’d hardly rested at all– due to a complete mix of fear and hunger and thirst and sadness and anger and–
“FUCK!” Lily cried, jumping out of her bones at the sight she’d blinked awake to.
Severus Snape was standing in the doorway, arms crossed and looking unforgivably pissed. A few cleaning tools were silently working away, no doubt enchanted to clean up the foul mess she’d made the night prior. Gods, he was just… standing there, what, watching her sleep?
“You’re hungry,” he muttered, his naturally deep voice coming from low in his throat, “so why the fuck won’t you eat?”
Lily’s brows knitted, and there must have been flames in her eyes for all the rage she felt then. “Do you think I’m stupid?” she rasped, throat raw from scratchy dehydration and poor sleep.
“Yes, if you refuse to eat.”
“I’m not ‘eating’ anything you have to give me.”
Snape’s head tilted back, just a little, his eyes narrowing. It seemed to click to him, what Lily’s strong aversion to his food was. “So that’s it, then?” His voice was uncharacteristically even. Out of everything he’d said to her in the past couple of days, this was the least dripping with malice. “You think I’m trying to drug you? I don’t need to go out of my way to drug you. If I wanted you dead or tied down naked it would only take one simple wand movement.”
Godric Gryffindor. That was fucking charming, wasn’t it?
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Lily countered hoarsely.
Severus was considerably silent, just for a moment. But he didn’t answer her question. “Pizza, then,” he said finally. “You can watch the delivery man hand it to me. Regardless, you need to eat.”
‘You need to eat’. Such a sweet sentiment— something someone would say to you when they cared. Not him. He was probably only saying it because she was too skinny for his liking or something. In any case, any preservation he practiced with her would only be to keep her alive so he could continue to torture her. That was for certain.
“Fuck you.”
It wasn’t enough to be angry anymore. She was trying so hard not to be scared– Lily was a bloody Gryffindor, after all. Courageous to a fault. Unafraid of danger or violation or death. Yet what gripped her soul now was a different kind of fear. This was a panic that, like a cobra, had slithered its way into her rib cage, coiled around it, and was squeezing very hard. Her lungs felt short of breath, and her mind was dumb to all but the danger. The terrifying notion that if she gave in to her hunger and ate anything that Severus Snape gave her, she could end up enslaved and pregnant and brain damaged. She could see that future so clearly. One where he stripped her of her clothes and her dignity alike and left nothing but a sore body and a swollen belly behind. The legs she was clutching to her chest were trembling in her hold, her face scrunching up with dry tears that wouldn’t fall in her dehydration.
Then Snape was opening his mouth. Surely to say something foul and to commit all of Lily’s deranged expectations to truth, something dehumanizing and terrifying, something grotesque and befitting of the mouth of a monster.
“Do you still like cats?”
… Did she still like cats? What kind of question was that, falling from his lips? Did she still like cats? Still, because once, Severus had known that she did? Because they were familiar, because they’d been friends, because she had loved him? Because there once existed a time when Lily didn’t worry about poison. There was a time when it was just Lily and just Severus and she liked cats and he knew that. A time when it was just… innocent. And she wasn’t trembling under thoughts of rape and murder. When the worst Lily would do to the boy was force him to play ‘House’ with her, and he let her, because he let her get away with everything.
Yes, she still liked cats. But all at once, Lily’s tongue felt fat in her mouth and there was a sizable lump in her throat, condemning her from speech. Lily still liked cats. She just couldn’t admit that they had history enough for him to know.
In Lily’s surprise at his question, her shaking had stopped– and as far as Severus was concerned, that was all the answer he needed. He was gone from the room and returned minutes later with a very poofy black cat in arm. Her eyes were wide and sunflower yellow. Bless the little thing, her gaze immediately locked on the huddled woman in the corner and the moment Severus set her paws on the ground she was padding up to sniff at Lily’s leg.
“She wandered in, one evening,” Severus explained stiffly. He knew how it looked. Knew how odd it must be to see some scary supposed rapist Death Eater owning… a godforsaken kitten, of all things. “Her name is Black Cat. For… for the moment. I know it’s not very imaginative, but I didn’t expect her to stick around.”
He lingered in the doorway a moment, just watching the two of them. Lily, though she didn’t quite realize it, had relaxed almost entirely the moment ‘Black Cat’ had climbed up between her knees and her chest. The little fluffy creature gave a satisfied ‘mrow’, tilting her head to rub against Lily’s chin.
“Right. Well,” Severus muttered, slowly closing the door, “she’ll stay with you, then. Food will be here soon.”
Then it was just Lily and a cat.
---
Severus loudly announced, about half an hour later, that the pizza had arrived and that if she wanted to see it accepted she had better come downstairs now. Lily didn’t bother. She heard the voices through the little vent on the floor by where she sat huddled in the corner with Black Cat, some pitchy teenager and Severus handing over the required pounds. The hostage woman listened as Severus shut the door– as he turned and immediately came up the stairs, taking no detour to presumably poison the food. Nevertheless Lily didn’t trust it. She didn’t trust him, cute cat or not. The poor little creature was probably just a diversion, to get Lily’s guard down…
The hunger had gotten to the point where Lily thought it might be easy. She’d come this far, might as well go ahead and starve herself off. Then she could die at her own hands. A massive mercy, in this sort of war.
A creak filled the room and the door was pushed open. Severus knelt down in its frame, set the pizza box against the floorboards, and pushed it to where Lily was hugging her knees to her chest. She only pressed the back of her head against the wall, shooting a weak glare in the man’s direction.
“You going to eat it?” Severus asked her. His tone was pensive this time. Funny, the Death Eater couldn’t seem to make up his bloody mind about what he was feeling. Did he want to rape her or did he want to give her a kitten and send her on her way? Did he want her imprisoned and starved or did she ‘need to eat’?
Lily gave no response. Who was he? Who was he to demand she eat? Her rights may have been stripped from her the moment she was dragged into the Malfoy’s tile floor, but she could damn well refuse to eat.
It may have been the only little piece of control she had left.
“Alright. Fine. I will eat a piece first. If it’s poisoned I’ll drop dead right in front of you.”
Oh. Now that was an interesting twist. Lily really didn’t expect him to do it, and she actually liked the idea of calling him on his bluff— so she kicked the box and listened to it slide until it hit his leather shoes. If he wanted to make silly offers to be her poison tester, let him eat his fucking words. Literally. As promised, the dark haired man flipped the box open, tore out a single slice of pizza, and awkwardly began to eat it. Lily watched him with an intense sort of scrutiny until the food was gone and Severus had nothing to do but stare back at her. He kicked it back, and the pizza box slid to Lily’s leg.
She was completely still for all of one minute before her resolve shattered in her very hands. Her stomach was empty. With the cat now jumping from her lap, it was with complete ravenous nature that she savagely began to tear into the warm, cheesy food. Lily was eating as if it would be her last meal. That was… certainly a possibility.
Lily didn’t notice that Black Cat fondly went to rub against Snape’s legs, meowing up at him with the familiarity and love of a cozy little pet. She didn’t notice as Severus gently directed the cat around to face Lily again. She didn’t notice as Snape rose from the floor and exited the room, nor did she catch the somewhat relieved expression on his face. He was back moments later, only to set a refilled glass of water beside her legs.
Lily did nothing to acknowledge him. So he let her be and quietly exited the room.