aclandiae

[aclandiae]

New chapter posted!

Chapters: 10/13

Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape Characters: Lily Evans Potter, Severus Snape, Petunia Evans Dursley, Lily Evans Potter's Mother, Lily Evans Potter's Father, Eileen Prince, Tobias Snape Additional Tags: Coming of Age, Lily Evans Potter-centric, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, 1970s, Tagged Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape because the sequel will be, There will be hints of it in this work, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Angst, Family Drama, Rated M for Mature Themes, Dysfunctional Family, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), and before, POV Lily Evans Potter Summary:

June 1969 was when the word found her - witch - delivered by a strange, disheveled and sharp-elbowed boy called Severus.

In the soot-stained heart of Cokeworth, far from enchanted castles and moving staircases, Lily Evans and Severus Snape stole seven summers from time's stubborn march. Between broken bones and mended grudges, between flowers blooming out of season and roots that refused to take, Lily learns that magic has its limits, but still her hands keep reaching, reaching, reaching.

----

The compartment door rattled in its track as the train swayed through a curve. Lily stirred against the window, consciousness finding her through the fog of sleep. Someone was saying her name.

"Lily?"

The voice came from far away, muffled by the dream still clinging to her: platform 9¾, the crowd parting, searching for-

"Lily?"

Louder now. Then something jabbed her shoulder, sharp and insistent.

"Another nap? Really?"

She jerked upright, blinking hard. "What is it?"

The compartment swam into focus, empty except for Severus across from her, their trunks overhead, fields blurring past the window. Her mouth tasted stale. How long had she been asleep? Long enough to drool, apparently. She wiped at her chin with the back of her hand.

Mary's gossip from last night still rang in her ears, the first time all year she'd abandoned her textbooks for dormitory chat. She'd spent months actually showing up to breakfast on time, copying notes while others played Exploding Snap. All for a promise to a father who'd never see her marks.

"Potter's completely mad for you, you know." Mary had leaned forward on her bed, voice dropping like she was sharing state secrets. "He watches you something awful." Nobody had asked about Lily's crushes. They never did. Just assumed she'd eventually cave to James's persistent attention, like her opinion was beside the point.

She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, yawning wide enough to crack her jaw. Severus sat with his arm stretched across their shared armrest, fingers splayed loose against the worn fabric. She followed the line of his arm up to his face, trying to work out what had made him wake her. His expression gave away nothing, that familiar closed-off look that might mean anything or nothing at all.

"Give me your hand."

The words didn't make sense. She must have misheard over the train's rhythmic clatter.

"What?"

"Give me your hand."

He said it like it was obvious, like this was something they did. But they didn't do this. Not anymore. When they were nine, ten, he'd let her braid his hair by the canal, grab his hand to drag him to the swings. But something had shifted these past few years. Now they shared cauldrons and textbooks and occasionally a bench by the lake, but rarely touched.

His hand waited between them. Patient. Open.

Something fluttered in her chest, nervous and eager and terrified all at once. She studied his hand, noting the bitten fingernails, the small burn scar near his thumb from second-year potions. Her own hand moved without permission, fingers sliding between his, fitting into the spaces like pieces of a puzzle she hadn't known existed. Their matching calluses pressed together, rough patches from stirring clockwise for hours, from grinding beetle eyes and slicing ginger root.

She squeezed gently and turned toward him, ready to smile at him-

"Not like that." He yanked his hand free, batting hers away like she'd done something wrong.

She pulled her hand against her chest, cradling it with the other. The rejection stung more than it should have.

"Just give me your hand palm up." He was already flipping through his divination textbook, not even looking at her. "I need to do a palm reading for summer homework."

"Oh."

Of course. Of course it was homework. Heat crept up her neck. She'd teased him mercilessly when he'd signed up for divination, “Since when do you believe in crystal balls and tea leaves?”, but he'd muttered something about her not understanding because she was muggle raised.

She thrust her hand out, palm up, trying to arrange her face into something neutral. Normal. Like she hadn't just completely misread the situation. He leaned in close, close enough that she could see the shadows under his eyes, smell the peppermint from the peppermint toads he'd been eating earlier. His finger traced the lines of her palm, occasionally glancing down at the textbook balanced on his knee.

"Your heart line suggests emotional turmoil," he muttered, more to himself than her. "Typical."

She stared out the window, blinking hard. The embarrassment sat in her chest hot and heavy, burning through her ribs. What had she been thinking? That Severus Snape, who flinched when anyone got too close, who'd spent years building walls higher than Hogwarts' astronomy tower, would suddenly decide to hold her hand just because? Just because what? Because they were alone? Because she wanted him to?

God, she was pathetic.

"I'm done."

She snatched her hand back before he could push it away again. "Right. Well. I need to-“ She gestured vaguely toward the door. Anywhere but here.

“Lily-“

But she was already moving, stumbling over his feet in her haste to escape. The narrow corridor swayed beneath her as she made her way to the loo, her vision blurring. She locked herself in the cramped space that smelled of decades of cleaning charms and old pipes, then pressed her forehead against the mirror.

The tears came hot and sudden. How dead embarrassing. How absolutely mortifying. She'd actually thought, what? That he wanted to hold her hand?

She was an idiot.

The train lurched around another curve. She'd have to stay in here now, sitting on the closed toilet lid for the next two hours rather than face him again. Let him think she had an upset stomach. Let him think anything except the truth, that she'd wanted him to want to hold her hand. That for one stupid, hopeful moment, she'd thought he did.

Her palm still tingled where he'd traced the lines, finding doom in every crease and crosshatch.

The train shuddered to a stop with a final metallic screech. Lily pressed her palms against her thighs, counting to ten in her head. Then twenty. At thirty, she stood up. Five years of friendship. That's what she kept telling herself as she made her way back through the swaying corridor. Five years of shared cauldrons and borrowed quills and terrible jokes about Slughorn's walrus mustache. One misunderstood moment wouldn’t, couldn’t, ruin that.

The compartment door slid open to emptiness.

Of course. Severus never waited for the crowds to thin, always shoving his way off the train the moment it stopped moving, as if staying one second longer might trap him forever. She'd teased him about it once, “What, afraid the train'll kidnap you back to Scotland?”, and he'd given her such a withering look she'd never mentioned it again.

She hauled her trunk down, the weight of it making her shoulders burn. Through the window, platform 9¾ teemed with its usual chaos: owls shrieking, parents waving, first-years looking ready to burst into tears. Somewhere in that mess was her mother. Somewhere was Severus, probably already halfway to the barrier.

The trunk's wheels caught on every uneven board as she wrestled it onto the platform. The crowd pressed in immediately, a third-year Hufflepuff nearly took out her shins with an overenthusiastic trolley, and she stood on tiptoes, scanning for either familiar black hair or her mother's neat dark bob.

There, near the barrier, a flash of sensible navy coat.

But as Lily pushed through the crowd, dragging her trunk behind her, she realized her mother wasn't alone. A figure gestured wildly beside her, and Mum was actually laughing, her head tilted back in a way Lily hadn't seen since-

James bloody Potter.

Lily stopped so abruptly that someone crashed into her from behind. She barely noticed. James had positioned himself at the perfect angle, close enough to seem friendly, not so close as to seem improper. His hands moved as he talked, painting pictures in the air, and her mother watched with the kind of fond attention usually reserved for David Attenborough.

The crowd thinned enough for fragments of conversation to drift over:

“-obviously see where Lily gets her lovely eyes-“

Her mother actually giggled. Giggled.

“-mentioned you were an actress? I've always thought theater was the highest form of magic-”

Oh, he was laying it on thick. Lily's hands clenched around her trunk handle. She had never told him that, he must have overheard.

“-summer estate has extensive grounds, perfect for studying. My parents would be delighted to host the both of you-“

That tore it. Lily shouldered through the remaining crowd.

“Potter.” The name came out sharper than intended. She softened it with, "Fancy seeing you here."

He turned, hazel eyes lighting up like she'd handed him a wrapped present. "Evans! I was just telling your mother about-“

"Yes, I heard." She grabbed her mother's elbow, gentle but insistent. "We should go. The roads will be murder if we wait."

Her mother's brow furrowed. "But we are taking-“

"Traffic. Terrible traffic. Rush hour." Lily was already steering her toward the barrier. "Lovely to see you, Potter."

"But Lily," her mother protested, allowing herself to be pulled along but clearly reluctant, "James was telling me about his family's library. Apparently they have first editions of-“

"That's nice." They were almost at the barrier now. Almost safe.

"It was wonderful meeting you, Mrs Evans!" James called after them. "I hope to see you again soon!"

Her mother actually turned to wave.

Lily didn't stop moving until they were through the barrier, to the regular platforms. Only then did her mother dig in her heels.

"Lily Jane Evans, what on earth-“

"There's a train in three minutes." Lily checked the board without really seeing it. "Platform two."

On the train, her mother settled into her seat with the satisfied air of someone who'd had a perfectly lovely encounter. "Such a well-mannered young man. Looks like he is from a proper family-”

Lily stared out the window as London blurred past. James bloody Potter, ambushing her mother like that. As if she hadn't made her feelings crystal clear when she'd slammed that Transfiguration text on his fingers two weeks ago. He'd played it so well, too, asking for help with the subject he was best at, hanging on her every word as she explained theory he already knew backwards. She'd actually been flattered for about thirty seconds, right up until he'd leaned in with that practiced smile and suggested they continue the discussion in Hogsmeade. Preferably somewhere serving butterbeer. Preferably just the two of them.

The book had made such a satisfying thump.

"His parents have a manor house," her mother continued. "With grounds. Can you imagine?"

The train swayed around a curve, and Lily's stomach dropped.

Severus.

She'd left without even looking for him properly. Without explaining anything, without checking if he needed-

But the train was already picking up speed, London peeling away outside the windows. He'd have to make his own way back to Cokeworth. It wasn't the first time he'd made that journey.

Still. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass and wondered if he'd waited. Even for a minute. Even to see if she'd come looking.

Probably not.

"Are you listening to me?" Her mother's voice cut through her thoughts. "I asked if you’d like to visit. The Potters, I mean. It sounds like a lovely opportunity."

Lily closed her eyes. Thought of Severus alone on platform 2, hunched on a bench. Thought of his hand in hers for just a second.

"Maybe," she said, because it was easier than explaining why the answer would always be no.

Lily stood before her mother's dressing table, the morning light catching the dust motes that floated above the clutter of cosmetics. She uncapped a lipstick, “Coral Dreams", the label read, and leaned toward the freshly tooth paste spotted mirror. Too orange. She wiped it off with the back of her hand and tried another. Blush Rose. Better.

The mascara wand trembled slightly as she coated her lashes. Twice on the top, once on the bottom, the way she'd seen Mary do it in the dormitory. She stepped back to examine the effect, then grabbed her mother's comb and worked through the tangles in her hair until it fell in something approaching waves rather than its usual chaos.

Her best sundress hung in the wardrobe: yellow with tiny flowers, the hem hitting just above her knees. She smoothed it down and slipped on her sandals, the ones without the broken buckle.

The walk to Spinner's End took fifteen minutes on a good day. Today she made it in twelve.

The first wrong thing was the silence. No telly blaring through thin walls, no doors slamming, no shouts from the betting shop on the corner. The second was the plywood board where the Snapes' front door should have been.

She stopped dead in the middle of the street.

The windows gaped empty, their glass long gone. A yellow notice clung to the plywood, its edges curling in the morning damp. "COMPULSORY PURCHASE ORDER" in thick black letters, followed by smaller print she couldn't read from the street. The nameplate “SNAPE” had been pried off, leaving pale wood beneath like a scar.

She climbed the steps. The notice was dated three days ago. Slum clearance programme. All residents to be relocated by order of Cokeworth Borough Council.

Half the street had the same yellow notices. The Patels' house next door stood empty too, their red door replaced with identical plywood. The betting shop owner just shrugged when she asked, “Council came January. Gave everyone 5 months, then started boarding up the empties. Taking down the whole street for some new estate."

She checked the canal path where they'd spent summers reading. Empty. The library where he'd sometimes hidden during his father's worst days. The librarian hadn't seen him. Even the abandoned mill with its broken windows and rust-bleeding walls held nothing but sleeping owls.

By the time she reached the playground, her sandals had rubbed blisters on both heels. The morning had dissolved into afternoon, the sun brutal on her shoulders. She'd sweated through the yellow dress, dark patches spreading under her arms. The lipstick had worn off except for a waxy bitterness on her tongue. Her fingertips came away black when she rubbed at her eyes.

She found him on the playground. Their playground.

He sat on the bench by the swings, his school trunk beside him like a loyal dog. His robes were gone, replaced by Muggle clothes that had seen better days, jeans worn through at the knees and too short due to him growing almost five inches the last year, a t-shirt that might have once been black. His hair hung limp, greasier than usual.

She forced herself to walk, not run.

He looked up when her shadow fell across him. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and there was a smudge of something on his jaw. The bench's wooden slats had left marks on his cheek. He'd slept here. Christ, he'd actually slept here.

"Took you long enough." His voice came out rusty, like he hadn't used it in days.

She dropped onto the bench beside him, careful to leave the same amount of space they always kept. The metal chains of the nearby swing creaked in the breeze.

"I went to the canal first." She picked at a loose thread on her dress. "Thought you might be reading."

"Too many midges this time of year."

"Right."

An empty plastic bag skittered across the tarmac. She watched it dance in the wind, anything to avoid looking at the trunk that held everything he owned, or the way his shoulders curved inward like he was protecting something vital.

"I'm sorry about the train." The words came out sideways. "I should have looked for you."

He shrugged. "I left early."

"Still."

"Potter was there." Not a question.

"Being a prat, as usual. Trying to charm Mum into us visit his manor." She forced a laugh. "Can you imagine? Me in some posh house with probably twenty bedrooms and house-elves?"

"You'd track mud everywhere."

"Definitely."

A mother pushed a pram past the playground, eyeing them with the particular suspicion reserved for teenagers with nowhere proper to be.

Lily's mind raced through possibilities, discarding each one. Her mother would never agree to house him, not after years of "that Snape boy". The spare room sat empty now that Petunia had gone to London for her typist course, but it might as well have been on the moon. And even if by some miracle her mother agreed, Severus would rather sleep on a park bench than accept.

She waited until the house settled into its evening rhythms: her mother in front of Coronation Street with a cup of tea, the theme tune drowning out everything else. Lily slipped into the kitchen and found the council number her father had written in their telephone book a few years ago, after the binmen missed their street twice running.

She couldn't ask Severus to ring round himself. Even if his pride would let him, which it wouldn’t, she'd seen him stare at their telephone like it was some complicated contraption. Which, for him, it probably was. His house had never had one.

"Cokeworth Council, please. Housing department."

Three transfers later, a woman answered. "Emergency housing. How can I help?"

"My friend's been made homeless. The whole street's is getting demolished, Spinner's End, and he's got nowhere-"

"Age?"

"Fourteen.”

“And a half,” she added

"Parents?"

Lily gripped the receiver. "His Mum's... gone. Dad's not fit."

"Not fit how? Prison? Hospital?"

"Just not fit and nowhere to be found.”

A sigh crackled through the line. "Love, we need proper documentation. Care orders, social services reports. Can't just house minors on someone's say-so."

"But he doesn’t have anywhere to go!”

"Then he needs to present himself at the police station. They'll contact social services, do a proper assessment. Might take a few days to process-"

Lily hung up. A few days in care meant Severus locked in with muggle boys who'd go through his things, find his spell books, his wand. She could picture it: some bored delinquent pawing through his trunk, holding up his Potions text, laughing at the moving diagrams. Or worse, staff confiscating anything "unusual”, and how would Severus explain a wand? Dragon-hide gloves? A cauldron? They'd think he'd lost his mind, cart him off to some psychiatric ward.

She tried the YMCA next. Full, not for anyone under eighteen. She called the church, who were of no help at all. The Salvation Army wanted guardian permission.

By the time she gave up, her mother had moved on to Crossroads and Lily's ear hurt from the receiver. She sat at the kitchen table, staring at the phone like it had personally betrayed her.

The canal path squelched under Lily's feet, yesterday's rain turning the dirt to thick paste. She found Severus where she'd left him the day before after their walk, by the canal, hunched on the concrete blocks that passed for a bench, his potions text balanced on his knees.

"You're late." He didn't look up from his calculations.

"Mum needed help moving the furniture back. She's been scrubbing behind the sofa all morning." She dropped beside him, stretching out her legs in front of her. "Found three of Dad's betting slips wedged underneath. Set her off again."

His quill scratched across the parchment. She noticed he was using the back of an old essay, they'd run out of fresh parchment last week.

"I've been thinking about the polyjuice base," he said. "If we reduce the lacewing flies to twenty days of stewing instead of twenty-one, we might achieve the same effect with less brewing time."

"But that would compromise the binding properties." She pulled out her own notes, cramped writing covering every margin. "Unless we compensate with additional bicorn horn."

"Too expensive. The profit margin's already thin if we're selling to students."

They bent over their calculations, the familiar rhythm of academic argument settling between them.

"We could substitute ground moonstone for the bicorn horn in the stabilisation phase," she suggested. "Slughorn mentioned it has similar magical resonance."

"Slughorn says a lot of things." But Severus made a note in the margin. His handwriting had gotten smaller, cramped, preserving space on the precious parchment.

"Have you thought about the absorption rate with what you are proposing? We can't have customers walking around with the wrong eye colour for weeks again.”

"Obviously." He flipped to another page. "Three hours maximum transformation time with proper buffer ingredients. Though if someone's stupid enough to use animal hair instead of human..."

"They deserve what they get."

The sun crept higher, burning the morning mist off the water. His stomach made a sound, quiet, but she heard it. Her fingers twitched toward her bag where she'd stuffed two bacon sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. But he'd refused food yesterday. And the day before.

"The real issue is storage," Severus continued as if nothing had happened. "Polyjuice separates if it's not kept at constant temperature. Dormitories get too cold in winter."

"Stasis charm on the bottles?"

“Won’t last forever. We need something simpler." He rubbed his eyes with ink-stained fingers. "Maybe a self-heating element in the glass itself."

She studied him sideways. His shirt hung looser than last week, the collar gaping at his throat.

"My Mum's working late tonight," she said carefully. "We could use the kitchen table for calculations. More space than-“

"No."

The word came out flat, final. He kept writing, but his knuckles had gone white around the quill.

"Right." She turned back to her notes. "So, self-heating glass. We'd need to research warming charms and how to embed them into…”

They worked until the sun reached its peak, their conversation flowing around everything they couldn't say. When Severus finally packed up his books, she noticed him pocketing a handful of berries from the brambles along the path.

"See you tomorrow then?" she asked.

He nodded, already turning away, trunk dragging behind him. She sat on the bench until he disappeared around the bend, then unwrapped the sandwiches she'd brought. The bacon had gone cold and hard. She threw them to the ducks and walked home.

Lily sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, chewing the end of her pencil as she stared at the polyjuice flask. The plan had seemed brilliant at three in the morning and sent her scrambling towards their stored potions. Now, in daylight, she could count at least twelve ways it could go wrong.

The pearlescent liquid swirled inside, thick as treacle, waiting for the final ingredient. Hair. Which she didn't have.

She couldn't just pluck one from a bus seat or shop counter, they'd need multiple doses, multiple hairs from the same person. And it had to be someone believable. Severus transforming into some forty-year-old factory worker would raise more questions than it answered. They needed someone their age, forgettable, preferably female to avoid the horror of her Mum thinking she had a boyfriend. If Severus so much as wrinkled his nose about being stuck in a girl's body, she'd hex him. She'd managed perfectly well being female for fourteen and a half years, hadn't she? He could suffer through a few hours a day of it while her Mum was home.

The most difficult part was that she'd have to convince Severus to stay with them. These days he rejected even the smallest kindness, as if accepting help would confirm what everyone already knew about his situation.

The door creaked open. Her mother leaned against the frame, already dressed for work in her mint-green uniform, the one that made her look like a surgical nurse rather than a hairdresser.

"I'm off." She studied Lily with that particular maternal radar that detected trouble at fifty paces. "You all right? You've been up here all morning."

"Fine. Just thinking."

"Dangerous, that." But there was no real humor in it. "There's egg salad in the fridge. Don't let it sit out like last time."

She turned to go, and Lily watched the light catch on the scissors holstered at her hip, the spray bottle clipped to her belt.

The thought hit her so hard she nearly smacked herself.

"Mum, wait!"

Her mother paused, one hand on the doorframe.

"I need a haircut."

The words might as well have been "I've decided to join the circus" for the look they earned. Her mother's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline as she took in Lily's more than waist-length hair, currently escaping from a messy plait.

"You need a what?"

"A haircut. At the salon. Today, if that's all right."

"You haven't let me near your hair with scissors since you were eleven.” Her mother's voice carried equal parts suspicion and hope. "You screamed bloody murder last time I suggested a trim."

Lily stood, smoothing down her skirt. "Well, I've been thinking. About being more... practical. Mature. Like Tuney."

The comparison tasted bitter, but it was the right button to push. Her mother's expression softened immediately.

"Petunia does have lovely hair," she murmured, as if Lily had finally recognized some eternal truth. "That neat little bob, very professional."

"Exactly. So can I come by? When you have time?"

Her mother studied her for a long moment, and Lily fought the urge to fidget. She could practically see the woman cataloguing every strange behavior, filing it away in whatever mental ledger mothers kept of their children's lies.

"After lunch," she said finally. "Three o'clock. Maria's got a cancellation."

She slumped against her desk, heart hammering.

Her mother always knew. Maybe not the specifics, Polyjuice potion and homeless best friends were probably beyond even maternal intuition, but she knew something was off. The question was whether she'd let it slide or start digging.

The potion swirled innocently in its flask, patient as a snake.

The salon door chimed as Lily pushed inside, ten minutes before three. The chemical smell hit her immediately, peroxide and setting lotion and something floral trying to mask it all. She'd never actually been inside Shelly's Hair Fashions, despite her mother working there three days a week. Home haircuts had always been good enough.

Rose petals littered the checked linoleum, pink and white crushed into the grooves. Three bouquets crowded the counter, spilling over between the appointment book and the till, their heads already drooping in the chemical air. A fourth arrangement sat abandoned on the hair-washing station, ribbons trailing into the sink. Someone had left a veil draped over the coat rack, its pearl beading catching the fluorescent lights.

The reception area was cramped, three mismatched chairs squeezed against wood-paneled walls. Two hairdressers stood by the till, their backs to her, voices carrying over the drone of hair dryers.

“-crying in the supply closet after that bride left," the blonde one was saying. She had a Manchester accent, probably new. "Poor thing. Soon as she saw the veil, she just went white and disappeared. Found her sobbing into a towel when I went for the perming solution."

"The wedding talk set her off." The other woman, older, hair teased into a beehive, shook her head. "That bride going on about her fiancé, how he proposed at Christmas, all their plans. You could see Hortense just crumbling. Shame, really. Woman like that shouldn't be alone. Looks just like Princess Grace, doesn't she? That bone structure."

"Could have her pick of blokes if she weren’t so… you know."

"A cow?" Manchester muttered under her breath.

Beehive cackled. "I was gonna say ‘particular,’ but sure. That husband of hers must’ve been a saint."

The words lodged in Lily's throat. How dare they?

The bell above the door chimed again. A woman entered with a girl about Lily's age, maybe fifteen, with mousy brown hair to her shoulders. Ordinary. Forgettable. Perfect.

Lily forced her breathing steady. She wasn't here to defend her mother from petty gossip. She was here to commit theft.

She took a seat in the waiting area, watching as the girl was led to a chair near the window. The stylist, not her mother, thank god, draped a cape around the girl's shoulders and began combing out her hair, asking about holidays and boys and other normal things normal girls worried about.

Lily waited until the first snip of scissors, then made her move. She dug in her pocket for the lipstick tube she'd lifted from her mother's dresser that morning, Blush Rose, the same shade she'd tried on earlier. With practiced clumsiness, she let it slip from her fingers. It hit the lino with a crack that made everyone glance over.

"Sorry!" She dropped to her knees, crawling after the tube as it rolled toward the styling stations.

The floor was littered with hair: blonde wisps, gray curls, and there, fresh brown strands falling from the girl's head like rain. Lily palmed a handful, stuffing it into her pocket while reaching for the lipstick with her other hand.

The brown strands scattered across the tiles waiting for her. Lily dropped to one knee, fingers sweeping across the cold linoleum. The hair was finer than she'd expected, slipping between her fingers like silk thread. She pinched a decent clump between thumb and forefinger, then reached for another-

She knew those shoes that had stepped into her view. Patent leather, worn at the heel but polished until they gleamed. The same shoes that had walked to the salon every morning for fifteen years.

"Get up." Her mother's voice could have etched glass. "And don't forget the lipstick you dropped."

Lily's fingers closed around both the lipstick and the hair strands in one movement. The strands stuck to her damp palm as she straightened, trying to look anywhere but her mother's face.

"Outside. Now."

Her mother's hand wrapped around her upper arm, not painful, but firm enough to steer her past the gawking receptionists and through the door. The bell's chime sounded like an accusation.

The afternoon heat slapped them both. Her mother released her arm only to pluck the lipstick from her grip, turning it over in her fingers.

"This is mine."

“I-“

"Which you knew when you took it from my dresser this morning." Her mother's voice stayed level, but Lily caught the tremor underneath. "Just like you knew the rules. No makeup until you're sixteen."

"Everyone at school wears-“ she lied. No one really wore lipstick at Hogwarts.

"I don't care what everyone at school does." Her mother capped the lipstick with a decisive click. "And you're early. Ten minutes early. You haven't been early for anything since you learned to tell time."

Lily shifted her weight, acutely aware of the stolen hair growing sticky in her clenched fist. "I was eager for the haircut?"

"Were you." Not a question. "You've been acting strange for weeks. Sneaking about, taking things that aren't yours, and now this sudden interest in being practical?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"No?" Her mother's laugh had no humor in it.

Her mother waited another beat, then shook her head. "Get inside. Whatever you're planning, whatever disaster you're courting this time. I haven't got the energy for it."

They pushed back through the door. The gossiping hairdressers straightened like they'd been caught with their hands in the till, professional smiles snapping into place.

"Ladies, this is my daughter, Lily." Her mother's hand found her shoulder again, steering her toward an empty chair. "The one at boarding school."

"Oh!" The nail-filer pressed a hand to her chest. "Look at that gorgeous hair! Like a sunset. Wonder where she got that from.”

"Spitting image," the other agreed, circling Lily's chair like she was appraising a show dog. "Those eyes, that bone structure. Could be twin sisters except for the hair.”

Lily sank into the vinyl chair, meeting her reflection in the mirror. Her mother's sharp cheekbones, her mother's green eyes, the same chin, that jutted out when she was being difficult, which, according to her mother, was always. Nothing of the man who'd called her Lily-flower, who'd made up terrible jokes just to hear her laugh.

Tuney had his smile. That crooked pull to the left when something truly delighted her.

The hairstrands pressed damp against her palm. Someone else's father's brown, nothing like the sandy hair she'd loved to muss when she was small enough to ride on his shoulders.

"Such beautiful coloring," one of the women continued. "Your husband must have been-“ She caught herself, color draining from her face. "I mean, that is-”

Her mother's hands were efficient as she fastened the cape around Lily's neck, the plastic crackling with each adjustment. The salon lights made everything look yellow, including Lily's reflection in the mirror.

"My husband had blonde hair.” Her mother's voice was steady as her hands sectioned Lily's hair. "Petunia favors him. Same eyes, same smile."

Lily watched her mother's reflection, saw the careful way she kept her expression neutral. Professional. Like mentioning him was just another part of the service, nothing that might send her crying into supply closets during lunch breaks.

"So." Her mother's fingers combed through Lily's tangles, gentle despite everything. "How short are we going?"

"Just a trim."

"A trim?" The fingers paused mid-stroke. "You dragged me back from lunch for a trim?"

"Maybe an inch.”

“Even three inches is nothing on hair this long." Her mother lifted the heavy length, letting it fall. "Might as well take six, get rid of these split ends properly."

"Two."

"Four, at least. Look at this damage." She held up the ends for inspection. "What have you been doing to it at that school?"

"Two inches, Mum."

"Lily, for heaven's sake-“

"Two!"

Her mother's mouth went thin. She sectioned the hair with clips, each snap louder than necessary. "Wasting my time. Could have done this yourself.”

The scissors appeared, silver and sharp. Lily watched them hover near her shoulders, her stomach clenching. She'd measured her years by this hair, past her waist now, heavy as a winter coat. When she was seven, it had just touched her shoulder blades. At nine, the small of her back. Now it hung like a red curtain she could hide behind when the world got too much.

The first cut made a sound like tearing silk.

"I haven't seen that boy around lately." Her mother's voice stayed casual, but Lily caught the studied nonchalance. "Severus. You two have a falling out?"

The hair strands in her pocket seemed to pulse. "We don't really talk anymore."

"Oh?" Another section fell. "You were thick as thieves at Christmas."

She remembered her mother cornering her in the kitchen on Boxing Day, voice pitched low so Severus wouldn't hear from the sitting room. "You're not children anymore, Lily. I won't have you two alone in this house." She'd slammed the dishcloth into the sink. "But we're just reading!" Her mother's mouth had gone tight. "I don't care if you're reading the Bible itself. When he comes round, either I'm here or Petunia is. That's final." She'd wanted to die of mortification, especially when Severus asked why her mother kept popping in every twenty minutes with tea neither of them wanted and why she wasn’t allowed to close the door.

"Things change."

"They do." Her mother's approval rang clear. "You're getting older, Lily. Time to start thinking about the choices you make. The company you keep."

Lily's jaw tightened. "Meaning?"

"These friendships, the people we tie ourselves to, they shape our futures." The scissors whispered through another section. "Some people lift us up. Others..." She let the implication hang.

The scissors moved again, more aggressive now. "That boy has prospects. His family has means. He could give you a life where you're not scrubbing floors at dawn or counting pennies for the gas meter."

"If that's what matters-“

"Of course it matters!" The words came out sharp enough to draw looks from the other stations. Her mother lowered her voice. "You think I want you living like this? Worrying every month if there's enough?"

Lily turned in the chair, making her mother step back. "Was Dad a good choice then? He didn't have prospects. He didn’t have a family at all.”

She set the scissors on the counter and touched the empty space on her ring finger where her wedding band used to sit.

"Your father," she said quietly, "was the best choice I ever made."

"But he was poor."

"He still was.” Her mother turned Lily back toward the mirror, her hands gentler now.

“The theatre needed someone for the lights, their regular had broken his wrist in a pub fight. Your Dad was there doing night repairs on the failing heating system. When he heard they were desperate, he said he'd work both jobs. Took me three performances to work out why I was the only actress on stage who never stood in shadow. That spotlight followed me about like a lovesick puppy."

The scissors whispered through Lily's hair as her mother talked, her voice taking on a quality Lily rarely heard anymore.

She sectioned another piece of hair, her movements precise. "Course, he made sure to be waiting by the stage door after every show. With chips, usually. Said actresses needed feeding up."

"He made me laugh. Properly laugh, not the polite kind. And when I told him about expecting, we'd only been courting three months, and that nineteen year old fool, just grabbed my hands and said 'Brilliant. We'll be a family then’. Registry office that Friday, just us and two strangers from the bus stop your father roped in as witnesses. Our honeymoon was one night at that Railview Hotel by the A38. He'd already promised the steelworks he'd start Monday, but he brought me tea in bed and said it was the best morning of his life.”

"Then why-“

"Because I want more for you." Her mother met her eyes in the mirror. "I want you to have someone who makes you laugh and gives you adventures and doesn't leave you wondering how to pay for your daughter's school supplies. Your father gave me sixteen beautiful years. But Lily, I want you to have fifty. Sixty. A lifetime."

The last snip fell to the floor. Her mother ran her fingers through the barelyshortened length, checking for evenness.

"There." She unfastened the cape. "Two inches, as ordered. Complete waste of both our time."

Lily stood, her head feeling strangely light. In the mirror, her mother's face stared back at her, tired and fierce and full of a love that felt too heavy to carry.

"Thanks, Mum."

"Go on." Her mother was already reaching for the broom.

[aclandiae]

S U M M E R ! !

[aclandiae]

you thought you'd seen the last of my x files studies huh?

[aclandiae]

Chapters: 9/13 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape Characters: Lily Evans Potter, Severus Snape, Petunia Evans Dursley, Lily Evans Potter's Mother, Lily Evans Potter's Father, Eileen Prince, Tobias Snape Additional Tags: Coming of Age, Lily Evans Potter-centric, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, 1970s, Tagged Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape because the sequel will be, There will be hints of it in this work, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Angst, Family Drama, Rated M for Mature Themes, Dysfunctional Family, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), and before, POV Lily Evans Potter Summary:

June 1969 was when the word found her - witch - delivered by a strange, disheveled and sharp-elbowed boy called Severus.

In the soot-stained heart of Cokeworth, far from enchanted castles and moving staircases, Lily Evans and Severus Snape stole seven summers from time's stubborn march. Between broken bones and mended grudges, between flowers blooming out of season and roots that refused to take, Lily learns that magic has its limits, but still her hands keep reaching, reaching, reaching.

The ruin of their friendship was guaranteed. The miracle was the before.

------------

Chapter 9: 1973 - manibus date lilia plenis

-

Lily's face lit up as she spotted her family near the barrier. Dad bounced on his toes like an overgrown schoolboy, while her mother smoothed down her sensible skirt with one hand and waved with the other. Petunia hung back slightly, her expression already sour, making her stomach drop.

"There's my witch!" Dad's voice boomed across the platform, scattering pigeons. He crushed Lily in a hug that squeezed the breath from her lungs, his thick arms lifting her clean off the platform. His hand hovered over Severus' shoulder before landing with the cautious pat one might give a nervous dog. "Survived another term, then?"

Severus gave the smallest possible nod, his mouth a thin line.

"My brilliant girl," he said, setting her down but keeping his hands on her shoulders. "I've got a surprise for you."

Lily's face fell slightly. "Oh, Dad, Mum already told me about your promotion. Congratulations, really, but..."

"No, no!" His eyes sparkled with mischief. "This is loads better than any promotion. This'll sort us right out!" He rubbed his hands together. "Come on then, all of you. To the car park!"

Dad was already herding them forward like an overexcited sheepdog, one arm around Lily and the other gesturing wildly for the others to follow. Severus trailed behind, looking increasingly uncomfortable as curious Muggles stared at their odd procession.

When they reached the car park, Dad stopped in front of what could generously be called a car. It was a faded green Austin that had clearly seen better days, possibly better decades. One door was a slightly different shade than the rest, suggesting a recent collision, and the bumper hung at an angle that defied both physics and aesthetics.

Petunia leaned close to Lily's ear. "It's the ghastliest car I've ever seen in my entire life," she whispered, as if she had been holding that observation in for weeks, her voice dripping with horror.

Mum folded her arms and fixed her husband with a look that could have frozen the Thames. "You just love that monstrosity more than you love me. You haven't looked at me properly since you got it."

Dad was grinning. "That's only 'cause you're too busy snogging that new washing machine I've bought you. I've seen you do it."

"The washing machine," Mum replied primly, "is a marvel of modern technology. It doesn't leak oil on the driveway or make sounds like a dying animal."

"She's got character!" Dad protested, patting the car's roof with affection. A small shower of rust flakes fell to the ground. "And more importantly, she only drinks four gallons to get us to Cokeworth. With petrol at 50p a gallon now, that matters!"

Mum folded her arms. "If there's even petrol to buy next month."

Despite herself, Lily found herself smiling. Her father's enthusiasm was infectious, even when it was directed at what appeared to be a mobile scrap heap. Dad made a grand show of opening the doors, bowing low as he invited "the ladies" to sit.

"After you, my dear," he said to Mum, who sniffed but climbed into the passenger seat with as much dignity as she could muster.

Severus moved toward the back door, but Dad's hand shot out, grabbing him by the collar of his still too-large coat, which he was now slowly growing into.

"Hold on there, lad. A man needs to understand his machine." He steered Severus to the front of the car and popped the bonnet with a flourish as she watched, leaning out of the window, only catching glimpses because her mother was fixing her lipstick in the broken rear-view mirror. "Now, this here's the combustion chamber. Lovely bit of kit, this is."

Severus stared at the collection of metal parts with the same expression he used to observe her experiments of harnessing the glitter potion into cosmetics. His dark eyes glazed over as Dad launched into an enthusiastic explanation of carburettors and spark plugs.

Lily caught his gaze and mimed strangling herself behind her father's back. When Severus’ lips twitched, she narrowed her eyes and jerked her chin toward the engine. With visible effort, he managed to nod at appropriate intervals and even asked a question about the radiator that made Dad beam with pride.

When the mechanical lecture finally ended, they faced their next challenge: fitting everyone into a car clearly designed for a smaller family that didn't need one extra person to bring home.

The car door creaked like a tortured hinge as the three approached the narrow back seat. Lily's fingers twitched toward her wand pocket before she remembered, again, the damned Decree. The leather upholstery exhaled a puff of hot, stale air as she glared at the cramped space that would imprison them for hours.

"Merlin's saggy left..." she began and stopped herself since her mother was within earshot.

"This is impossible," Petunia declared after she'd hissed "Don't breathe on me" when Severus squeezed past, and he'd muttered something that made Lily kick his shin. "There's simply no room."

"I could sit on Severus." The suggestion was out of her mouth before she could think better of it. Severus turned a shade of red that would have made a Gryffindor banner proud. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again without managing to produce any sound. "Or he could sit on me," she added, also blushing furiously.

Lily's fingers twitched at her side. She could have pinched him for making it worse, for twisting an offhand remark into something mortifying.

"Lily!" Her mother's voice climbed two octaves. She lunged forward and swatted her with her handbag. "Absolutely not! What sort of ideas are they putting in your head at that school? I'll be having words with your teachers if you think that's appropriate behaviour for a young lady."

"It's just practical, Mum..."

"You'll sit on Petunia's lap and that's final."

And so Lily found herself perched awkwardly on her sister's knees, leaning against the door while Severus folded his newly long limbs into the remaining space like a particularly uncomfortable crane. The situation became even more dire when they discovered that only one school trunk would fit in the car's modest boot.

"Right then," Dad said cheerfully, as if this was all part of his grand plan. "Severus, my boy, you'll have to hold onto that other school trunk."

Severus' school trunk was lifted into his arms, where it settled against his chest like a wooden boulder. His face, already flushed from earlier embarrassment, now took on an expression of profound misery.

Dad turned the key. "Right then, Evans family adventure begins!"

As the engine coughed to life, Lily caught Severus' eye in the rear-view mirror. His long-suffering glare communicated precisely what she was thinking: they should have taken the train.

They'd barely made it out of the busy car park when Petunia let out a scream that could have raised the dead.

"Something's wet! Something's leaking on me!" She twisted around, trying to escape whatever was dripping onto her lap.

Lily looked down to see a small, greenish puddle spreading across Petunia's white skirt from one of her robe pockets. "Oh no. The frog spawn."

"The what?" Mum's voice reached a pitch that threatened to crack the windscreen.

"It's for Potions class," Lily explained as she fumbled for the jar in her enlarged trouser pocket.

"We're supposed to collect specimens over the summer, and I found some lovely spawn near the lake, so I thought I might as well collect it, but I suppose the jar wasn't sealed properly..."

Petunia's scream reached new heights as more gelatinous liquid seeped through the fabric as she took the jar out of her pocket. Severus, trapped under his school trunk, could only watch the chaos unfold with the weary resignation of someone who had long since accepted that his life was destined to be a series of increasingly bizarre catastrophes.

Dad, oblivious to the drama unfolding behind him, began to whistle as he navigated the London traffic in his beloved automotive disaster, while Mum muttered prayers under her breath and clutched the dashboard.

------

The petrol station appeared like an oasis after twenty minutes of Petunia's increasingly hysterical complaints about the frog spawn that had now soaked through her blouse and into her cardigan. Dad pulled the wheezing Austin into the forecourt with visible relief, the engine giving one final, dramatic shudder before falling silent.

"Right then," he announced, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. "Everyone out. Fresh air and loo."

Severus didn't need to be told twice. The moment the car door opened, he unfolded himself from the cramped back seat like a released spring, leaving his heavy trunk behind without a backward glance. He stalked across the tarmac toward the wheat field that stretched beyond the petrol station, his black hair whipping in the wind, shoulders rigid with barely contained frustration.

"Severus!" Lily called after him, but he either didn't hear or chose not to respond. She watched him disappear into the field, understanding his need to escape.

Petunia emerged from the car looking like she'd been involved in a particularly messy Potions accident, which, Lily supposed, wasn't far from the truth. Green slime clung to her blouse and skirt in uneven patches, and her usually pristine hair hung in sweaty strands around her face.

"I smell like a swamp," she wailed, holding her arms away from her body as if the contamination might spread further.

"Come on, love," Mum said, taking charge with the efficiency that had seen her through two daughters and countless domestic crises. "Let's get you cleaned up properly. The facilities here look decent enough."

"I'm fine!" Lily called out as her mother shepherded Petunia toward the station building. "The frog spawn doesn't bother me at all!"

"Of course it doesn't," Petunia shot back venomously. "You probably roll around in worse things at that freak school of yours."

"Petunia!" Mum's sharp rebuke echoed across the forecourt, but they were already disappearing into the building, leaving Lily alone with her father.

Dad was examining his beloved car with tender attention, running his hands along the bonnet and checking the radiator with professional concern. "She's running a bit hot," he murmured. "Might need to let her cool down a minute."

"Think she'll make it to Cokeworth?" Lily asked.

Dad mopped his forehead with a grease-stained handkerchief. "She's got heart, this one. Just needs a breather." His eyes flicked to the station's flickering neon sign. "Fancy an ice cream while we wait?"

Ten minutes later, they were walking along the edge of the field, Dad with a rocket lolly that was already melting down his fingers, and Lily with a 99 Flake.

In the distance, they could see Severus moving through the tall grass like a scarecrow, his arms swinging as he cut a path through the tall stalks. Occasionally, he would stop and kick at something: a stone, a clump of weeds, perhaps just the air itself, working out frustrations that had been building during the cramped journey.

"Bit intense, isn't he?" Dad observed, licking ice cream from his thumb.

"He's had a difficult year," Lily said diplomatically. His new wand, his mother's unicorn hair core in new wood, had been fighting him all term. Spells fizzled or exploded. He'd set his desk on fire trying to cast a simple cooling charm. Some of the Slytherins called him Snivellus now. When Flitwick asked why he couldn't manage spells he'd mastered last year, Severus just stared at his desk. He'd stopped raising his hand altogether, refusing to demonstrate spells altogether.

They walked in comfortable silence, filled only by the distant whine of a lorry changing gears on the motorway, before Dad cleared his throat in the way that meant he had something important to discuss.

"We 'ad a letter from that teacher of yours," he said carefully. "Professor McGonagall."

Lily's ice cream suddenly tasted like chalk. She'd been expecting this conversation, dreading it really, ever since she'd seen McGonagall's stern expression after she'd sauntered into Transfiguration fifteen minutes late, her hair still damp from an impromptu lake swim.

"Oh."

"She wrote to let us know you're not applying yourself properly." Dad's voice carried the careful neutrality of a man who had practised this speech. "Says you're late to every bleeding class. Quite a feat that, she reckons. You hand in assignments whenever you please without even an apology, and spend more time staring out windows than at your textbooks."

Lily kicked at a dandelion in the little edge of green that bordered the field of dry wheat, sending its seeds floating into the warm air. "I can do the magic just fine. That should be what matters."

"She also said," Dad continued, his voice growing gentler, "that you're supremely talented. But being clever won't do you no good if you don't knuckle down, Lily-love."

McGonagall would say that, Lily thought. She pictured her stern Head of House with her tight bun and tighter lips, always going on about punctuality and proper procedure. How different things were in Slughorn's Potions class, where creativity was encouraged and she could experiment with ingredients and techniques without being told to stick rigidly to the textbook. If only Slughorn were her Head of House instead; he understood that magic was an art, not just a series of rules to follow.

"The magic comes easily to me," she said aloud. "It's all the other stuff, the essays and the scheduling and sitting still in stuffy classrooms, that's the problem."

Dad stopped walking and turned to face her. "Now then, love, this teacher knows what she's on about. You best pay attention. Maybe you should take a leaf from Petunia's book; she's always been good at buckling down and doing what needs doing."

Lily rolled her eyes so hard it felt like a wonder they didn't fall out of her head. "Mum put you up to this conversation, didn't she?"

A guilty flush crept up Dad's neck. "She might've... told me to 'ave a word with you. Made me go over it a few times, if I'm being 'onest."

"I knew it!"

"But I agree with her, Lily." His voice grew serious. "You've got something special, you 'ave. Proper magic! Most folk would give their right arm for that. Can't go wasting it, can you?"

The weight of his words settled on her shoulders like a heavy cloak. She thought of McGonagall's disapproving frown, of the other students who struggled with spells that came naturally to her.

"I'll try harder next year," she said quietly, and meant it. "I promise, Dad."

Dad's face lit up with relief and pride. "That's my girl." He glanced back toward the petrol station, where Mum and Petunia were emerging from the building, Petunia looking significantly cleaner but no less disgruntled. "Right then, better head back before your mother sends out a search party."

Dad studied her for a moment, then grinned. "Race you to the car."

"What? Now?"

He was already running, not along the paved path like a sane person, but straight through the field, his shoes kicking up clods of dirt.

"Cheater!" Lily yelled, but she was laughing as she sprinted after him, the tall grass whipping at her legs.

The tall wheat whipped at their legs as they ran, Dad's laughter mixing with Lily's as they stumbled over hidden rabbit holes and crashed through patches of nettles. Ahead of them, Severus looked up in surprise as two figures came barrelling through his private sanctuary, Dad's arms windmilling as he tried to keep his balance, Lily's red hair streaming behind her or getting in her face, forcing her to pause to swat it out of her face.

------

Lily grabbed her cardigan from the hook by the door, trying not to look at her father crawling on hands and knees beside the sofa, tossing cushions aside with increasing desperation.

"It's got to be here somewhere," he muttered, running his hand along the gap between the armrest and seat. "Bleeding 'ell, where's it got to?"

"Maybe if you didn't leave your things everywhere like a child," Petunia said, holding up the coffee table's glass top while he swept his arm underneath. "Honestly, Dad, you're worse than Lily."

"It's my lucky charm, Tuney. Can't work without it." He moved to the armchair, grunting as he wedged himself between it and the wall. "Haven't taken it off for almost twenty years except to shower."

She pulled the door shut quickly, cutting off Petunia's "And where do you think..."

------

The air in Spinner's End clung to the back of Lily's throat: bleach biting through layers of mildew, a losing battle against the rot seeping into the walls. She'd rolled her jumper sleeves past her elbows, exposing forearms streaked with greyish grime from scraping decades of grease off the kitchen tiles. The water in her bucket had turned opaque an hour ago. She'd already changed it three times, watching the same brown stain reappear as if it was growing back from underneath.

Severus worked beside her, knees pressing into the warped floorboards as he attacked a blackened stain near the stove. A muscle twitched near his temple with each scrape of his brush.

The front door groaned open without knocking.

Severus went rigid, his hands freezing mid-scrub. Lily looked up just in time to see Tobias Snape step inside, his work boots tracking dirt across the freshly mopped floor. He looked exhausted; his shoulders slumped, his knuckles raw and reddened from the slaughterhouse. His eyes, dark and sharp like Severus', flicked between them with a weariness that bordered on disinterest.

"Didn't expect you back so early," Severus said to the floorboards.

Lily wiped her hands on her jeans and forced a smile, afraid of being kicked out. "Hello, Mr Snape."

Tobias exhaled through his nose, rubbing his temple. "Feel like shit. Went home early." He jerked his chin toward Lily. "She can stay. But keep it down. My head's poundin', and if you wake your mother..." He didn't finish the sentence, rubbing his face. The house hadn't heard Eileen Snape's voice in over a year.

Before retreating down the hall, he tossed a crumpled Players pack and a dented Zippo onto the table. The lighter skidded to a stop near Lily's elbow. Tobias paused, his shadow stretching long across the kitchen, before he disappeared up the stairs, the bedroom door clicking shut behind him.

The moment he was gone, Lily's fingers twitched toward the cigarettes.

Severus' eyes narrowed and he started scrubbing the floor as noisily as one could, banging it against the counter. "How do you know my father?"

Lily hesitated, her hand hovering over the packet. "What? I don't... I mean, I've seen him around, obviously..."

"Don't lie."

She swallowed, then snatched the cigarettes up with a defiant flick of her wrist. "Merlin, that's good." Way better than those awful herbal cigarettes the seventh-years passed around behind the greenhouses.

Severus stood so fast his knees cracked. The bucket tipped, soapy water rushing across the floor to dissolve their hours of work. "You're unbelievable."

She exhaled through her nose, smoke curling around her face like a veil. "Why?"

"Because you're stupid," he snapped. "If he changes his mind, which he does about every hour, and finds you smoking his cigarettes, I'm not defending you."

She smirked, tapping ash into a chipped saucer. "You should know, Sev. I'm not just in the stupid house; I'm also in the brave one."

His jaw clenched. "Cigarettes are nasty. Disgusting Muggle things. And your mother's going to blame me if you show up smelling like an ashtray."

"I'll tell her it was your bad influence."

Severus looked as if he wanted to strangle her. Instead, he snatched the cigarette from her fingers, stubbing it out with unnecessary force on the Formica that looked as if it might have been white at some point. "Go home."

Lily sighed, watching the last wisp of smoke curl toward the ceiling. "Fine. But you're replacing that."

He didn't answer. The house was silent again, save for the distant, rhythmic creak of the bedroom floorboards: Tobias, pacing.

------

The moment she stepped through the front door, Mum's nose wrinkled.

"You smell like a pub floor," she said flatly.

Lily bent to untie her shoes, letting her hair curtain her face. "I was at the canal. Some sixth-formers were smoking by the bridge. Wind kept blowing it right at me."

"Just got your dad to stop smoking and now you are coming home smelling like you fell into an ashtray."

Mum stood, circling Lily like a hawk inspecting dubious prey. Her fingers plucked at Lily's jumper, flipped her collar, even lifted a lock of hair to sniff it. Lily stiffened, her face burning.

"Take that jumper off before you sit anywhere."

Lily yanked the wool over her head, the static from the fabric crackling in her ears like a reprimand. She chucked it toward the laundry basket, missing, of course, where it slumped half-over the rim like a deflated ghost of her defiance.

"I'm missing enough of you already," Mum muttered, more to herself than to Lily. "Boarding school, strange magic, and now you come home stinking of tobacco?"

When her mother stepped back, Lily caught the glance. Just a flicker downward, there and gone, but her arms crossed over her chest before she could stop them.

"You'll need a proper bra," Mum said matter-of-factly. "I'll take you to Marks & Spencer next week."

Lily's ears burned. "Witches don't wear bras!" The words burst out louder than she'd intended.

Across the kitchen, Petunia, perched primly on the sofa with a library book, snorted.

"What's so funny?" Lily snapped.

Petunia set her copy of Good Housekeeping aside with deliberate precision, each movement calculated for maximum effect. "You could just be normal for once in your life."

Lily's fingers twitched toward her pocket. "Normal girls don't spend hours practising their 'refined' smile in mirrors either."

"I'm cultivating poise," Petunia sniffed. "While you're out there cultivating whatever that is." Her nose wrinkled as she gestured at Lily's stained jeans. "Does it ever occur to you that people talk?"

"People only talk because you feed them lies about me." The memory stung: catching Petunia at the corner shop during the Christmas holidays, surrounded by girls from the comprehensive, her voice carrying across the aisles as she spun tales about Lily attending "a special school for disturbed children."

The sympathetic murmurs and barely concealed giggles had followed Lily all the way home, where she'd locked herself in the bathroom and sobbed until her eyes were red and swollen. Then she'd had to sit across from Petunia at dinner, watching her sister delicately cut her roast beef while discussing her perfectly normal day.

"Tell me, Tuney, does your new boyfriend know you wrote..."

The unfinished sentence hung between the sisters like an unexploded bomb. Petunia's face had gone pale, then flushed pink with humiliation and rage. Lily opened her mouth to continue, but Mum cut her off with a sharp shake of the head, her eyes pleading.

Petunia stood, adjusting her cardigan. "I'll be upstairs. Don't hex the potatoes at dinner.”

"I'm not allowed to do magic during my holidays," Lily called after her retreating figure, but Petunia was already halfway up the stairs.

The moment Petunia slammed her door, Mum exhaled. "Must you provoke her?"

"Me? She started it!"

"And you're the one with magic," Mum said quietly. "You've already won, Lily. Let her have this."

"I guess." Lily traced the rim of her mug and shrugged her shoulders. She thought of Petunia's fingers hovering over the moving illustrations in her textbook, never quite touching. And then she burned them one by one. Before she'd torn the book apart and burned it page by page.

"Right then." Mum folded the towel into neat squares. "How was term?”

So Lily talked. About Slughorn's absurd collection of crystallised pineapple: glistening, tacky things he doled out like rare treasures. She'd taken to slipping hers to Severus under the table, only to discover with horror that he actually liked them. About the mysterious carriages that appeared to roll up to the castle doors pulled by nothing but air itself, though older students whispered about invisible creatures she couldn't see, no matter how desperately she squinted into the empty space between the traces. Mum listened with rapt attention, so absorbed in tales of bowtruckles guarding the treetops and Peeves's latest chandelier sabotage. Her mother listened to her with rapt attention, letting one of the pots boil over.

They ate in strained silence by candlelight. The third power cut this week had struck just as Lily reached for the light switch, plunging them into the familiar dance of fumbling for matches and the good candles. Dad dozed in his chair before his double shift while Petunia ate almost silently, offering only clipped responses before excusing herself to prepare for an early morning date with Simon. Lily bit her tongue to keep from asking what sort of lunatic scheduled romance before breakfast, watching her sister glide upstairs with the satisfaction of someone who'd won a battle simply by refusing to fight it.

After seeing Dad off to work, Lily let herself be tucked in like a child. Mum smoothed the covers, straightened the nightstand, and settled on the bed's edge for a last hug.

------

Lily jolted awake, tangled in her sheets, her heart hammering against her ribs. For one disoriented second, she thought it was a nightmare; then she heard it again. A raw, guttural sound she'd never heard before but knew, deep in her bones, could only be her mother.

Her knees hit the floorboards before she fully registered moving. The doorknob slipped under her sweaty palm, the hallway light stinging her sleep-blurred eyes.

Petunia was already at the foot of the stairs, her white nightdress glowing in the dimness. Lily followed, her bare feet slapping against wood worn smooth by years of Evans footsteps.

The scene at the foot of the stairs froze her in place.

Mum knelt on the rug, her fingers tearing at the fibres. Petunia tugged at her shoulders, but their mother's body sagged like a sack of flour. Two men in blue overalls stood framed in the doorway, their work boots leaving greasy prints on the welcome mat. Lily knew their faces, but not their names: the bald one had given her liquorice when she was small, the taller one always called her "Firecracker" for her hair.

"He's dead, Lily. Dad."

Petunia's voice cut through the wailing. Lily hadn't realised she'd descended the stairs.

"No. He isn't." The words left her mouth before she could think them.

Because he couldn't be. He'd kissed her mum's forehead just this evening. "Don't wait up for me, love," he'd said to her mother, winking. "Long shift tonight."

If she closed her eyes, she could still hear him humming as he tied his boots.

"Lily, please." Petunia's voice cracked, her fingers digging into Lily's arm. "Please."

"No, it isn't true." Lily shook her head, her vision tunnelling. The men in the doorway shifted awkwardly.

"Lily, please don't make a scene," Petunia begged, and that, that was what made Lily's stomach drop. Because Petunia never cried. Petunia never pleaded.

Lily turned to the men, her voice trembling. "Is he hurt?"

The taller one, Davey, she was sure his name was Davey, swallowed hard. "I'm sorry, love. He's had a work accident, and he's..."

"No." Lily cut him off, her hands balling into fists. "Bring me to him. I can try. I need to try. Just tell me where he is."

"Lily, stop it," her mother gasped from the floor, her voice ragged.

"No. No. Where is he?"

Petunia grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard. "He's dead, Lily. He's gone. Please stop it with your..."

The rest of the sentence drowned in the noise that tore from Lily's throat and the shatter of glass, of what sounded like hundreds of windows. It ripped through her chest, and then she was on the floor too, her knees giving way, her fingers scrabbling at the rug just like her mother's.

Distantly, as if she wasn't standing right beside her, she heard Petunia sob.

------

The days blurred together, each one heavier than the last. The letter from the Ministry lay untouched on the hallway table, its red seal glaring against the dull varnish. She walked past it every morning, her bare feet whispering against the floorboards, her eyes fixed straight ahead, as if looking at it for too long might make the world start turning again.

Then came the pebbles against her already cracked window after midnight. First tentative, then insistent, finally furious. When the doorbell started its shrill assault, she didn't need to look to know who stood on their front step.

Severus.

She didn't move.

She wanted, needed, to see him. To fling open the door and collapse into the familiar, awkward safety of his presence. To let his clumsy, stilted attempts at comfort wash over her, even if they were as graceless as could be.

The bed held her like a spell she couldn't counter, its sheets twisted around her legs like chains.

So she stayed. And Severus, faithful, frustrating Severus, her best friend, kept knocking.

Downstairs, the house breathed wrong. Her mother had migrated to Petunia's bed, clinging to her eldest daughter like ivy to a wall. Petunia endured it stiff-backed, her sacrifice written in the rigid line of her shoulders. Lily kept to her room, the open doorway a silent plea no one answered.

Petunia took over the cooking. Oatmeal formed a cement-like crust in the pot. Toast emerged blackened at the edges. Eggs turned to rubber before reaching the table. They pushed the food around their plates until Petunia dumped the congealed mess without a word.

Afterwards, a shatter of porcelain, angry, discordant, split the silence. By the time Lily stumbled downstairs, Petunia was already on her knees, fingers trembling as they gathered jagged shards. Blood smeared the tiles in uneven smears where she stepped, barefoot and careless.

Dawn always found Lily's pillow damp, her throat raw from the tears she refused to shed during the day.

Her father was still there.

In his worn-out house slippers, left by the door as if he might slide them on any minute.

In his hairbrush, strands of his sandy, wiry hair still tangled in the bristles.

In his keys, forgotten on the hook by the door; he would have rung the doorbell in the early morning had he returned to be let in by her mum.

But he was gone.

The house echoed without his off-key humming in the shower. No large hands ruffled her hair at breakfast. No deep voice called her "flower" in that way that made her feel like the sun itself had kissed the top of her head.

And the world spun on. Dawn broke without permission. The milkman left bottles on the step; the postman whistled past their door. Newspapers piled up, unread, their headlines shifting from one tragedy to another, as if life, relentless, demanded they somehow keep breathing.

------

The afternoon was too beautiful: golden light pooling across the linoleum, dust motes dancing in the slats of the kitchen blinds. It felt like a mockery.

Lily sat at the table turning her father's cigarette pack over in her hands, the cellophane crackling under her fingers. She'd found it in its usual hiding spot, wedged under the sofa cushions with the racing forms still wrapped around it. The toast on her plate had hardened into something resembling cardboard, its edges warped upward. She pressed a half-smoked cigarette into the surface, watching the bread blacken and curl.

Upstairs, her mother's muffled sobs seeped through the ceiling. Again. Petunia had escaped to the shops an hour ago, though the refrigerator already held three days' worth of uneaten food about to spoil.

The kitchen door's whine made her shoulders tense.

"Lily."

The voice, rasping, familiar, sent the last lungful of smoke down the wrong pipe. She coughed, eyes watering, but didn't turn. She didn't need to.

Severus. Standing in her doorway, his shadow stretching across the sunlit floor.

"Severus?" Her voice emerged rough from disuse. She hadn't spoken in days.

A beat. Then words tumbled out like falling rocks: "I know you don't want to see me. But I... I lied." His breath hitched. "I would defend you. Stand by you. Against my father. Against anyone. Even if you were wrong. Even if you were being stupid. Even if..."

"It's not about that." She threw the crushed cigarette on the table. "You idiot."

When she finally turned, he flinched. She knew what he saw: the hollows under her eyes, the nails chewed raw.

"My dad's dead." The words dissolved like ash on her tongue. She fixed her gaze on his left eyebrow, where a scar from some long-ago potions accident jagged toward his hairline. Focus there. Don't blink. Don't...

"How?" His voice was barely audible.

"Work accident." The men in overalls had told her mother how he died; she couldn't bear thinking about it.

Severus didn't offer condolences. Didn't reach for her. Just stood there swallowing hard, his fingers flexing at his sides.

"I don't know what to say," he admitted at last.

"Me neither."

Then...

A chair scraped against the linoleum as he pulled it out and lowered himself beside her with careful, deliberate movements, as if he were approaching a wounded animal that might bolt.

They sat like that as the afternoon light grew heavier.

------

The grass was too green.

That was the first thing Lily noticed: how alive everything looked. Lily's shoes sank into the spongy earth as she walked away from the muffled sounds of the burial service. The low drone of the vicar's voice, the occasional choked sob from her mother, the shuffle of mourners' feet carried on, but Lily couldn't bring herself to turn around. Couldn't bear to watch.

So she walked.

Her fingers trailed along the edges of weathered headstones, the moss-slick marble cold against her skin. She could feel her mother's gaze burning into the back of her skull, a silent plea for her to come back, to stand with them, to say goodbye properly, but Lily kept moving, her black dress clinging to her legs in the humid air.

Then she saw it.

A small, unremarkable grave, half-hidden beneath the drooping branches of a willow. The dates carved into the stone sent a jolt through her:

Jonathan Whitby Born: August 31, 1937 Died: April 3, 1973

Thirty-five years old.

The same as her dad.

Lily crouched, brushing her fingertips over the fresh letters. Who had Jonathan Whitby been? Had he woken up on the day he died expecting nothing more than another ordinary Tuesday? Had he kissed someone goodbye that morning, a wife, a child, thinking he'd see them again by supper? Had he laughed that day? Had he been happy?

A sharp, sudden anger twisted in her chest.

It wasn't fair.

The two digits burned in her. Thirty-five years: that was all he'd been given. Thirty-five springs, thirty-five winters, and now no more. He would never blow out candles on a thirty-sixth birthday cake. Never groan about turning forty, never laugh at his first grey hair, never bounce a grandchild on his knee while pretending to complain about old bones.

All those ordinary moments, the ones that should have been his right, his due, stolen. The graduations he wouldn't attend, the Christmases he wouldn't ruin by singing too loudly, the father-daughter dances at her wedding that would now go undanced. A lifetime of memories that would never be made, reduced to a single devastating truth:

One moment, the man had been alive. And now? Now he was a thing in a box. A body to be hidden away in the dirt, as if he were nothing more than a broken tool, a used-up rag that needed to be gone.

Behind her, a shovel struck earth.

Lily squeezed her eyes shut.

The streets blurred together: pavement too bright, sunlight too sharp. Lily walked alone, her black dress sticking to her back with sweat, the hem brushing against her calves just below her knees. She couldn't face the hushed voices and casseroles waiting at home. Not yet.

By the time she pushed open the front door, the house was already thick with silence. Her mother sat motionless in the sitting room, a cold cup of tea untouched in front of her, staring at the framed news article. Tuney hovered in the kitchen, wiping down the same spot on the counter over and over. Neither looked up when Lily slipped past.

------

The back door stuck in its frame. Lily shouldered it open and stepped into the garden. The hydrangeas drooped in the afternoon heat, their blue heads turned towards the sun. Her father had planted them the year her sister was born: one bush for each daughter, he'd said. Now they had multiplied, despite no more children being born in their family, the possibility gone now, but they still sprawled wild and overgrown, choking out everything that was around them.

She grabbed the nearest stem, the one she was sure was planted for her, and pulled. The woody base resisted, leaves shaking loose onto her shoes. She pulled harder. The roots held firm in the packed earth.

Lily dropped to her knees and dug her fingers into the soil around the base. Dirt wedged under her nails. She yanked again: nothing. She found a trowel leaning against the fence and stabbed it into the ground, working it back and forth to loosen the roots. Sweat ran down her temples. A blister formed on her palm where the wooden handle rubbed.

The first bush came free with a sudden release that sent her stumbling backward. She tossed it aside and attacked the next one, digging faster, dirt flying. Her dress was ruined now, knees caked with mud, but she kept going.

The trowel hit something hard. Not a root: metal. She scraped away the soil with her fingers, the hydrangeas forgotten. A chain emerged first, then a small oval pendant. She rubbed the dirt off with her thumb. A woman's face appeared in relief, crowned and amongst children, one on crutches.

St Hedwig.

She knew that face. Her father wore it under his shirt every day, tucked against his chest next to his heart. Called it his lucky charm. Said the nuns gave it to him when he left St Bart's at sixteen. "Patron saint of orphans," he'd told her once, letting her hold it in her small palm. "So I'd have someone looking after me."

He'd tucked it back under his collar then, patted it twice through the fabric. "Course, I've got you now, Lily-flower. Better than any saint."

The chain must have broken. He'd been out here just last week, fussing with these same bushes, complaining about their size. Must have snagged it on a branch and not noticed.

She sat back on her heels, the pendant, no bigger than a penny, heavy in her fist. He'd never find it now.

"Lily?"

Tuney stood at the back door, still wearing her apron from the kitchen. She took in the destruction: uprooted bushes scattered across the lawn, holes gaping in the flower bed, her sister covered in dirt.

"I found it." Lily held up the pendant. Her voice came out strange, as if someone else was using her throat.

Tuney crossed the garden in quick steps. She crouched beside Lily, not caring about the mud on her good skirt. "Oh, Lily."

"He kept checking his neck during breakfast. Like he couldn't believe it was gone." The words tumbled out faster now. "I should have helped him look. I said I would after my show ended, but then I forgot, and then I went to Sev's, and now..."

Tuney pulled her close. Lily's hands found her sister's sleeves, gripping the fabric hard enough to wrinkle. The pendant dug into her palm as she pressed her face against Tuney's shoulder.

They sank together onto the ruined lawn, knees bumping, mud smearing across their funeral clothes. Lily's shoulders shook. Tuney held on tighter, her own breath hitching. The garden around them lay in ruins, blue petals scattered like confetti across the grass, roots exposed to the burning sun.

------

Lily sat on the edge of her bed, the pendant cold between her fingers. The chain had snapped clean through: a weak link near the clasp. She pinched the broken ends together and let the magic do her will.

The metal grew warm. Silver threads of light wound around the break, pulling the links tight until the seam vanished. She held it up to the window. Perfect. Like it had never broken at all.

She closed her fist around the pendant, squeezing until the edges bit into her palm. The metal stayed cold. She tried to remember how it felt when he wore it: sun-warmed from working in the garden, damp with sweat after hauling groceries up the stairs, feeling it through his shirt when she hugged him goodnight.

Nothing came. Just cold metal against cold skin.

She tried harder. Pressed it between both palms like he'd taught her to warm coins in winter. The pendant remained stubbornly itself: tarnished silver, nothing more.

She fastened it around her neck. The pendant settled against her chest, settling at the bottom of her ribcage. Through her dress, she pressed it flat the way he used to: two quick pats through the fabric.

Somewhere in London, Ministry officials would be drafting another warning about underage sorcery. Improper Use of Magic Office, Severity Level One, Paragraph Something-or-Other. They'd threaten expulsion again. Add it to her file.

She touched the pendant through her dress. Let them write their letters. Let them count her infractions. What mattered Hogwarts now?

------

The back door gave way under her shoulder; she hadn't bothered knocking. The hallway swallowed her footsteps as she headed straight for his room. Yesterday's mourning dress still clung to her, wrinkled now, mud dried stiff at the hem.

She'd spent the night on her bedroom floor, working through half a pack of cigarettes while the pendant left marks in her palm. The metal had gone warm, then cold, then warm again as she turned it over and over. Dawn came. The ashtray filled. Nothing settled.

"You didn't come," she accused, throwing open his bedroom door hard enough to dislodge a flake of plaster.

Severus hunched over his desk, his nose almost touching the paper, quill scratching across parchment. He didn't lift his head. "I had nothing to offer."

"Neither did I!" Lily brushed past him to the teetering stacks of books on his nightstand. "But at least I was there!"

Severus moved, his chair scraping violently against the floorboards. "Stop this." He grabbed her wrist, his fingers digging into the tender skin. "What are you looking for?"

She wrenched free, sending an inkpot crashing to the floor. "You know what! There has to be a way..."

"There isn't." His voice was flat, final.

Lily whirled on him. "Equivalent exchange, Severus! Tuney's blouse for my shoes when we spilled soda. My broken leg for your broken arm..."

"That's childhood nonsense!"

"...burning her clothes for my books, your mother taking your wand for you to find her old one!" She advanced on him, her eyes wild. "If I can give part of my life, a piece of my soul for his..."

"You're raving." Severus caught her shoulders, shaking her once, hard. "Listen to what you're saying!"

Her palm connected with his cheekbone before she'd decided to swing. The slap echoed off the slanted ceiling.

Severus' head snapped sideways. A handprint bloomed on his sallow skin.

For a heartbeat, the only sound was their ragged breathing. Then Lily dropped to her knees, nails digging at the warped floorboard she'd watched him leverage open last July. Her index finger split on a splinter.

"Stop!" Severus tackled her sideways. They crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs, elbows knocking wood, her knee catching his ribs. "God damn you, stop!"

They struggled, Lily's nails leaving angry red trails down his arms until suddenly, Severus went limp beneath her.

"Fine," he rasped. "Fine."

He crawled to the wardrobe on hands and knees, throwing open the doors with enough force to make the wood splinter. From behind a false panel, he pulled out volumes bound in what looked like human skin. He hurled them at her feet, sending up a cloud of dust.

"Take them! But it won't work. Centuries of fools have tried. The attempt alone gets you Azkaban." His throat worked. "I've read enough to know, even a first year would know, what comes back... it's never really what you want it to be. At best, a ghost. At worst..."

"At worst what?" Lily gathered the books, their covers slick with decades of handling.

Severus looked away. "Horror."

Lily's fingers trembled against the covers. "It's better than nothing."

Outside, the first drops of rain began to patter against the grimy window, like tiny fingers tapping out a warning.

------

The doorframe shuddered as Lily slammed her shoulder against the wood, the deadbolt clicking into place with a sharp snap.

His books, Severus' precious, forbidden books, lay scattered across her bed. She fell upon them with a scholar's hunger and a mourner's desperation, fingers smudging ink as she tore through pages. The text slithered under her gaze: accounts of wizards who'd traded firstborns for power, witches who'd boiled their own blood in copper cauldrons, rituals that treated human souls like bargaining chips in some celestial marketplace. Each passage turned her stomach, bile rising hot and bitter in her throat.

Useless. All useless.

Yet she combed through them again. And again.

Moonlight bled through her curtains as she hunched over the texts, memorising every diagram, every incantation, until the letters swam before her eyes. She hunched until her spine ached, memorising every twisted illustration, every blasphemous incantation, until the words blurred into senseless squiggles. She hit her open palm against the page when it yielded nothing. No incantation to restart a stilled heart. No potion to force breath back into still lungs. No charm to rekindle the warmth of a hand grown cold.

She pressed her knuckles against her mouth. If no spell existed, she'd forge one herself. That raw, untamed magic that had once bent the world to her childish whims. She'd wrestled it into obedience when she learned proper spells. Now she'd set it loose again.

Dawn's first pallid fingers crept across the floorboards when she finally rose. Her joints popped like an old woman's as she straightened, her muscles trembling from hours of unnatural stillness.

Tuney's door creaked under her hesitant touch. Inside, the two remaining Evans women lay entwined: her mother's work-roughened hand splayed across Petunia's ribcage, Petunia's face buried in the hollow where Mum's collarbone met throat. A tangle of limbs and shared breath, clinging to each other, their faces turned away from the doorway.

The willow wand in her pocket seared her thigh through the fabric.

This is why, she thought, fingers tightening around the wood until it groaned. This is what magic should be for. Not turning teacups into rats, not making flowers bloom: this. Mending what was broken.

Her mother stirred, murmuring something into Tuney's hair. Lily held her breath.

She could trade herself: her magic, her years, whatever the universe demanded, to hear her father's laugh again.

------

The graveyard held its breath. Dawn hadn't yet broken, but the moon hung low and bloated, casting long shadows from the headstones. Lily's gaze swept the empty rows: no grieving widows, no groundskeepers, just the occasional shudder of yew branches overhead. Good. She'd have hated to Confundus some poor mourner. Not that it mattered too much now. The Ministry would send her to Azkaban for what she was about to do regardless.

Her fingers dug into the damp earth before she could second-guess herself. The soil was colder than she'd expected, clinging to her skin like wet ash. She focused on the burn spreading up her forearms, the hot prickle of blisters forming on her palms: anything to avoid looking at the polished granite marker beside her.

She knew what was written on it anyway.

A twig snapped behind her.

"Took you long enough."

Lily spun. Severus stood there, pale as the moonlight, one shovel in each hand. His sleeves were pushed past his elbows, forearms already streaked with grave dirt.

"You..." Her throat closed around the words. "How long have you been here?"

"All night." He tossed a shovel at her feet. "Knew you'd do something monumentally idiotic by sunrise."

She stared at the shovel, then at him. "You're helping me dig up my father's grave."

"If you're going to Azkaban," he said, driving his shovel into the earth with a grunt, "you'll damn well share a cell with me. I hear the dementors make for dreadful conversation." A pause. "You'd last approximately three minutes alone without talking somebody's ear off."

Any other day, she would have swung it at his shins for that comment.

Instead, her throat closed up. He was here. He was here. Had been here all night, preparing to commit an unforgivable crime just so she wouldn't face it alone. Making terrible jokes about the wizarding prison they would inevitably inhabit, acting like sharing a cell with her and spending his life with soul-sucking demons was just another Tuesday afternoon.

She turned away and drove her shovel deep into the earth, blinking hard at the disturbed soil that blurred and swam before her eyes.

They fell into rhythm, the only sounds their laboured breathing and the wet schick of blades through soil. Severus moved with brutal efficiency, each motion precise and relentless, as if he'd done this before, or had thought about it enough to perfect the technique. Lily's muscles screamed in protest, her soft hands splitting and bleeding, but she welcomed the agony.

The hole deepened. Three feet. Four. The walls of their excavation closed in, and the smell of earth became overwhelming: rich and dark and somehow alive despite surrounding so much death. Worms writhed away from their blades. A beetle scuttled over Lily's boot, and she had to bite back a scream.

Then: a hollow thud.

Her shovel bounced off something unyielding, the impact jarring up her arms and into her teeth.

Both froze.

Lily's hands shook as she brushed dirt from the coffin's lid. Her father lay beneath that wood. The man who'd kissed her forehead every morning without fail. Would he recognise the daughter who came digging for him in the dead of night?

Would he understand that she needed him? That she couldn't comprehend a life without him?

Would he want this?

The last question slithered through her, cold and unwelcome. She could see him so clearly: not the waxen thing they'd buried, but her father as he'd been.

Was this what he would want?

No.

"Stop," she whispered.

Severus dropped his shovel like it burned.

She clawed her way from the grave, her knees buckling as she hit the grass. Severus hauled himself up beside her, his breathing ragged, face streaked with sweat and dirt.

Joseph Evans Born 31 October 1937 Died 1 July 1973 Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.

Without a word, they began refilling the hole. The dirt was heavier now, or maybe it was just her hands shaking.

Lily flicked her wand. A single white lily bloomed atop the disturbed soil, its petals glowing faintly in the predawn light.

------

That night she dreamt of the wheat fields from the petrol station, but now they stretched forever. Her father was ahead, his outline blurring like heat shimmer on tarmac. She ran as she had that last afternoon, laughing at first, then desperate as the gap widened. When she was finally close enough to catch his sleeve, her hand never quite reached. He turned, his face kind as always, breathing hard.

"Not yet, Lily-flower. Not yet."

She tried to hold on, counting her own thundering heartbeat, only making it to seven, before the dream tore apart at the edges in green light.

She woke to find the pendant on her nightstand where she'd left it. When she picked it up to fasten the chain, it was warm again.

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The Black Sisters

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Chapters: 8/13 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape Characters: Lily Evans Potter, Severus Snape, Petunia Evans Dursley, Lily Evans Potter's Mother, Lily Evans Potter's Father, Eileen Prince, Tobias Snape Additional Tags: Coming of Age, Lily Evans Potter-centric, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, 1970s, Tagged Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape because the sequel will be, There will be hints of it in this work, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Angst, Family Drama, Rated M for Mature Themes, Dysfunctional Family, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), and before, POV Lily Evans Potter Summary:

June 1969 was when the word found her - witch - delivered by a strange, disheveled and sharp-elbowed boy called Severus.

In the soot-stained heart of Cokeworth, far from enchanted castles and moving staircases, Lily Evans and Severus Snape stole seven summers from time's stubborn march. Between broken bones and mended grudges, between flowers blooming out of season and roots that refused to take, Lily learns that magic has its limits, but still her hands keep reaching, reaching, reaching.

The ruin of their friendship was guaranteed. The miracle was the before.

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Harry, whose attention had been focused entirely on the two beside the window, saw his father: slight, black-haired like Snape, but with that indefinable air of having been well-cared-for, even adored, that Snape so conspicuously lacked.

(DH, ch33)

Thinking a lot about this recently. How much it says about his family. Because you can be frightfully poor - and still cared for. Still loved.

Contrast to Remus, who was also incredibly poor (he was an adult here, and likely did all this himself, but still):

The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard's robes which had been darned in several places. [...] ... there was a small, battered case held together with a large quantity of neatly knotted string. The name 'Professor R. J. Lupin' was stamped across one corner in peeling letters.

(PoA, ch5)

He is shabby. His clothes and things are threadbare and faded. But they aren't unloved. The holes in his clothes are darned. He hasn't fought with his case to keep it shut with string - he has carefully, neatly knotted every string. His name is stamped on it.

Severus isn't ever described with that level of care. Like Harry, he is described as wearing clothes that aren't even his - for Harry it's Dudley's too-big hand-me-downs, for Snape its his (probably) fathers coat and mothers smocklike blouse. (DH, ch33)

Harry's guardians didn't care for him. Through this parallel - neither did Severus'.

His grey, shabby, threadbare hand-me-downs weren't carefully darned, patched or taken in to fit his body. His name wasn't stitched into his collar or stamped on his bags - his things were not his.

Harry had his parents' love in the form of their money left behind, so he could start fresh with his own things, his own identity. Severus did not have this love, either. No matter the state of his robes, whether money had been scrounged to get him a set all his own, he carried his lack of care on his being.

...that indefinable air of having been well-cared-for, even adored, that Snape so conspicuously lacked.

It's a powerfully descriptive sentence. As cute as the image of his mother giving a shit about him is - it's quite clear he was neglected by both parents, not just because of poverty. Poverty doesn't cause a lack of love. His mother at least spoke to him about the Magical world, but she never imprinted 'being adored' into his heart, his being.

Even Tom had that love. His mother poured her love into him with her dying breath, named him and made sure he would be cared for. He rejected that love - a powerful image, especially in this series. An image Snape once again both defies and parallels.

He was not loved by his mother yet took pride in her, stamping his book with his self-chosen title and name based on her lineage - a little like Remus' stamping his bag with his new title and name, and a little like Tom picking a new identity.

Excuse this tangent: he gives me Morgott (Elden Ring) energy - who was basically scorned by his mother for being born with horns, literally thrown in the trash by her and her 'religion' - yet dedicated his life to them, doing what he thought was right, worshiping at the alter that scorned him, wearing their name with misplaced pride. Meanwhile his twin brother, Mohg, shed his mother's name and found his own love. Made his own title. Started his own cult family, with blackjack, hookers and a LOT of blood. Lord of Blood, making his own alter to be worshiped at. Tom-like.

Uh yeah anyway - Severus wasn't loved and it's very sad, yet he dedicates his life to doing loving things even as a grumpy pants.

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You’re not ready for this edit

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bro your whimsy. you forgot your fucking whimsy. your solemn and somber attitude is scaring the hoes

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two ppl with shared history is the bestest most delicious compelling dynamic in the world... exes. old friends. childhood friends. old friends who are no longer friends. decade long slowburns. multi decade slowburns. etc

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Toni Morrison at Howard University as Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare’s “Richard III."

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this tiktok trend immediately made me think of them

not necessarily a ship art but the canon situationship is definitely there

im sure i could’ve done some more work on it BUT i really dont want to and OH WELL

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as someone who do tarot readings as a hobby i think it's such a missed opportunity that divination class in HP doesn't feature that (but it's unsurprising really, considering how much of that class is made to be kinda clowned by the narrative) 😔 i can just imagine how fun that would be because we already have the concept of "the soul of a deck" where each deck have their own personality and their own way of telling you thing irl, imagine adding magic on top of that! the images on the cards would definitely be moving, and maybe when they come out as a spread, they move together to form a big picture/a story. and maybe a deck would respond to different people differently, maybe they would absolutely despise someone but would be angels to someone else. different decks have different personality, some decks may insult you straight up and pointing fingers at you (lol) but other decks resort to shaking their heads disapprovingly instead.

i reckon they wouldn't be talking like the paintings but rather just silently animated, everything in the images can move to symbolise something

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There are many reasons why I think Draco is so interesting, but if I had to choose one that is most compelling to me, it would be his contradictory nature. He is an emotional and sensitive person, yet he is good at occlumency. He is mean-spirited and loves to antagonize people, but he is also averse to violence. He wants to seem cool and aloof, but his natural personality is expressive and reactive. There are so many layers to his character, which makes him really fun to explore.

But I also think his contradictions make him quite difficult to understand, even for those close to him. In a drarry context, I don’t think Harry would ever fully understand him either, and there would always be sides of Draco that surprise him, even after years of knowing each other. But that might be a good thing for them because Harry thrives on curiosity, and Draco being a puzzle would keep things interesting for him.

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Chapters: 6/13 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape Characters: Lily Evans Potter, Severus Snape, Petunia Evans Dursley, Lily Evans Potter's Mother, Lily Evans Potter's Father, Eileen Prince, Tobias Snape Additional Tags: Coming of Age, Lily Evans Potter-centric, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, 1970s, Tagged Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape because the sequel will be, There will be hints of it in this work, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Angst, Family Drama, Rated M for Mature Themes, Dysfunctional Family, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), and before, POV Lily Evans Potter Summary:

June 1969 was when the word found her - witch - delivered by a strange, disheveled and sharp-elbowed boy called Severus.

In the soot-stained heart of Cokeworth, far from enchanted castles and moving staircases, Lily Evans and Severus Snape stole seven summers from time's stubborn march. Between broken bones and mended grudges, between flowers blooming out of season and roots that refused to take, Lily learns that magic has its limits, but still her hands keep reaching, reaching, reaching.

The ruin of their friendship was guaranteed. The miracle was the before.

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Chapters: 3/13 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape Characters: Lily Evans Potter, Severus Snape, Petunia Evans Dursley, Lily Evans Potter's Mother, Lily Evans Potter's Father, Eileen Prince, Tobias Snape Additional Tags: Coming of Age, Lily Evans Potter-centric, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, 1970s, Tagged Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape because the sequel will be, There will be hints of it in this work, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Angst, Family Drama, Rated M for Mature Themes, Dysfunctional Family, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), and before, POV Lily Evans Potter Summary:

June 1969 was when the word found her - witch - delivered by a strange, disheveled and sharp-elbowed boy called Severus.

In Cokeworth's industrial belly, far from the magic of Hogwarts, they spent seven summers together.

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The fragile thing between Lily Evans and Severus Snape: how it grew before it broke.

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