Regret. Lily did not frequently find herself feeling it, she had no need to. She praised herself on her decisions; going to Hogwarts, prioritizing her studies, being sorted into Gryffindor, never dying her hair, and the list goes on. In fact, Lily would, and often did, go as far as to say that she did not believe in regret. She would tell anyone who asked that regret was foolish, that what’s done is done, and living in the past is pointless. Sure, not every choice she made was a good one, but she always found a way to learn from it, and in the end it made her who she was.
Until today.
She didn’t know what made today so different. Why she suddenly found herself tucked away between a large tree and a brick wall, staring at the Quidditch pitch of all places. Why she couldn’t bring herself to move or even cast a heating spell, despite it being the middle of November with snow expected to fall within the coming weeks. Why despite her efforts to convince herself that she had done the best she could, she had finally succumbed to the debilitating regret that she had been pushing back for months. Because now, with every minute that she stared at that darn Quidditch pitch, it became clear to her that she had been wrong. Really, really, really wrong.
She felt like a fool. She was a fool.
She supposed manipulation worked like that. Remus told her so at least, when she had confided in him only hours ago. They had been patrolling the hauls after he picked up James’ shift (for some unknown reason James was busy, and Remus’ previous experience made for an easy switch), and she had accidentally let her thoughts spill. It was almost irritating how easy the boy was to talk too. He had listened to her, and gave her insight, but unfortunately for Lily it forced her to think about what she had been avoiding for months. He told her about some common ways that manipulators work; isolating, gaslighting, making you pity them. The more they had talked, the more Lily realized.
Severus was not who she thought he was.
It hurt her to think about him like that. Like a bad person, someone who had never truly cared about her and kept her around because she was easy to control. If she was being honest with herself, she realized that a part of her never could see him that way. He had introduced her to the magical world, supported her when her own sister turned away, and for so many years been the one she talked to about everything. She didn’t know a wizarding world without him in it, she didn’t even know herself without him by her side. They had been growing apart during the past couple years, Lily couldn’t deny that, but she had known that if she needed him he would be there.
That wasn’t true anymore. She was realizing that maybe it never was.
That fateful spring day had been months ago. The day where her best friend called her that horrid word. She knew that she was being completely honest with herself when she claimed she had never seen it coming. When he started hanging around that awful crowd, she told herself and anyone who said otherwise that he wasn’t like them. She was truly convinced that he was just doing what he needed to to survive being in Slytherin. When he told her that he respected her just as much as any pureblood, she believed him. When he stood by and allowed his friends to hex, bully, and harm every muggleborn and half blood student that got in their way (even ones out of their way), she convinced herself that he was just trying to stay safe. She convinced herself that Potter and his friends weren’t any better. She had even felt sorry for Severus, and yelled at Potter’s group countless times for bullying him. Lily Evans, the girl who prided herself on her clear thinking, had watched as Severus went after her own muggleborn friends and had done nothing. Sure, she told him not too, but even she didn’t really expect him to listen. And she had been ok with it. Even after he had called her that word, she planned to forgive him. Her original plan was to give him the silent treatment for a few weeks, the way he had done when she became friends with anyone he didn’t approve of, and then forgive him in time for summer.
That hadn’t happened though.
Something changed inside Lily, after she spent a few weeks away from him. She wasn’t sure what, as back then she had pushed it deeply inside her. But something. She pushed him out of her head, and spent her summer reading and studying for sixth year. When she came back from the summer, she still didn’t seek him out, and tried to avoid him as best she could, even when he tried to follow her. Lily didn’t know why exactly, but she understood that she had needed to stay away.
Her friends had been nothing but supportive. Marlene, Mary, Dorcas, had assured her that she was doing the right thing by staying away. She didn’t believe she deserved their support, after she had spent so much time defending Severus after he did horrible things to them. But they didn’t waver, even when she refused to talk about it. After all, it had taken until tonight for her to fully grasp the level of his manipulation. Surprisingly, the marauders had become more apart of her life. She had decided that they weren’t half bad, and she now realized that her change of heart may have been influenced by Severus’ threat to give her the silent treatment if she even talked to them in a non angry way. James was actually pretty funny, Sirius was easy talk too and certainly livened up the Slug Club meetings, Peter was very sweet (when he wasn’t crushing her at wizard’s chess), and well Remus was easy to confide in and his advice was nothing if not eye opening. The first couple months of sixth year had helped her realize that she didn’t need it forgive Severus to have people in her live.
It wasn’t until tonight that she realized it wasn’t about forgiveness.
Sitting there in the icy air, practically numb to the cold, Lily realized there was nothing left to forgive. No relationship left to mend. Maybe at some point, Severus had been her friend. But that hadn’t been true in a long time. He spent years gaslighting her, isolating her from people who truly cared about her, all the while hurting people just like her. She hadn’t been seeing him clearly, but now that she was, she couldn’t go back. She couldn’t “forgive” Severus, because their “friendship” was long gone. It wasn’t her responsibility to fix him, or to change his mind about muggleborns. Shivering to herself, she realized that her mind felt clearer then it had in years. She despised herself for not seeing it sooner. She hated how many years she had wasted bending over backwards for someone who could’t care less about her. Clearly, regret from when she first sat down was still strong. However, something else was there too. Fight. She thought that was what had filled her for years, but she now realized that that was not true. What she may have previously confused as fight for years was her own repressed anger due to being stuck in a toxic friendship. While the effects of how Severus had treated her couldn’t disappear in one night, tonight, Lily Evans stood up from her spot and finally began to feel like herself again.