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Chapter Text

The late afternoon sun hung low over the rows of terraced houses, staining the pavement a dull orange. Lily Evans walked with her arms wrapped tight around herself, the cuffs of her jumper frayed from years of wear. Behind her, the shouts of children still playing on the rusted swings of the playground faded, replaced by the rhythmic clack of Tuney's sensible shoes against the pavement.

Witch.

The word sat heavy in her stomach, without her having invited it in. The boy had said it like it explained everything: her hair crackling with static when she was angry, the way lost things turned up in her pockets, the rosebush in Mrs. Perkins' garden that had bloomed overnight after she'd kissed its thorns. But it couldn't be true.

Tuney’s shadow cut across the pavement like a knife. Lily’s rippled at the edges, as if even the light couldn’t decide what shape she ought to be.

'He was lying,' Lily said, kicking a bottle cap into the gutter hard. It skittered across the pavement, landing near a crumpled packet of Embassy No. 6. 'Wasn't he?'

Tuney didn't answer right away. She was staring straight ahead, her lips pressed into the same thin line Mum wore when Dad came home too late from the factory smelling of lager and machine oil. The street was quiet except for the distant hum of a telly through an open window, a tinny theme tune.

'Of course he was lying,' Tuney said at last, too quickly.

Lily bit the inside of her cheek.

'But...' Lily hesitated, watching a ladybird crawl across her thumb, its tiny feet tickling her skin like a secret. Go on, Lily thought, and with a rustle of wings, it obeyed, lifting off toward Tuney, a tiny, six-legged messenger.

'The things that happen around me, Tuney. You've seen them.'

A muscle in Tuney’s jaw jumped.

'Coincidence,' she said, turning up her chin. 'Or you're tricking people. You've always been a show-off.'

The words stung, but not as much as the way Tuney's eyes flickered to the hedgerow as it shivered in the still air.

The ladybird landed on Tuney's sleeve. She flicked it aside with a grimace.

'There's no such thing as magic,' she said, her voice too loud for the empty street. A net curtain twitched in the house next to them. 'It's childish. And that horrible boy is messing with you because he's weird, and he'd like that you're falling for it!'

Lily stared at her sister. Tuney's cheeks were flushed, her breath coming too fast.

Tuney straightened her cardigan with quick, sharp tugs. 'If you keep acting like this, people will think you're mad,' she said. 'And then what? Mum'll have to drag you to some doctor, and everyone'll talk, and...'

'You can't tell her,' Lily interrupted, her voice splintering. She knew exactly how Mum's face would look: that particular tight smile, the one that started in the lips but never reached the eyes, where disappointment pooled. The smile reserved for when Lily's hems were muddy, when her hair refused to stay plaited, when the world insisted on bending in ways Mum couldn't quite straighten.

Tuney paused. A slow, calculating look crossed her face.

'Why would I?' she said. 'There's nothing to tell.' She leaned in. 'Because magic isn't real. And if you were clever, you'd stop pretending it is.'

Tuney’s look said it all: Do what I say, or else.

They turned onto their street. The terraced houses stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their red bricks stained with soot from the steelworks. Number 12's front step was scrubbed raw, Mum's doing.

Tuney marched ahead, her back straight with triumph. Lily trailed behind, scuffing her shoes against the pavement. At the end of the day, her heels were always red and tender, the shoes showing her no mercy, acting like they hated her enough to bite, gnawing at her heels with hungry little mouths.

She wasn't a witch, Lily repeated to herself, biting into her cheek. She wasn't.

The front door of their terraced house loomed, its faded green paint peeling in the heat. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of boiled cabbage and gravy, the clatter of cutlery a warning that they were proper late this time.

Their father wouldn't be home until dusk, when the steelworks released him with a worn look behind his smile that he presented to his family. She and Tuney would eat first, her sister perched primly at the table, scolding her for slouching while their mother scrubbed the used pots. Their parents took supper later: a hushed, tired affair over cold potatoes and reheated gravy.

Mum stood at the sink, her spine rigid, scrubbing a pot with the fervour of someone trying to erase a sin. The steam had curled the baby hairs at her temples into a frizzled halo, and her sleeves, rolled past elbows reddened by bleach, twitched with each furious circle of the steel wool. Shoulders hunched from decades of scrubbing floors and stooping to pick up after others, yet her chin jutted forward with stubborn pride: a woman determined to pretend her back didn't ache.

A tea towel hung limp over her shoulder. She didn't turn when the door creaked open, but her knuckles whitened around the pot handle. The silence was worse than shouting. The only sounds were the scrape of metal on metal and the drip of the tap counting out their lateness.

"And what time do you call this, then?"

Lily didn't answer. She stared at the lino, cracked and yellowing near the threshold, worn down from so much cleaning that the pattern (daisies maybe) could only be made out with a dash of imagination.

Tuney, ever the snitch, piped up in that prissy voice sweet as sunshine. "Sorry, Mum! We just..."

"Lost track," Lily cut in, flatly.

Her mum stepped into the hallway, arms crossed, lips pinched tight. "Lost track?" Her eyes raked over them: Lily's tangled hair, her grass-stained hem, before settling on Tuney. "You're older. Can't you mind your sister properly? Look at the state of her!"

Lily blinked. That wasn't fair. Tuney hadn't...

"It's not her fault," Lily started, but Mum wasn't listening.

"Honestly, Petunia. You've got to set an example. Lily's just a child... she doesn't know better."

Just a child. Like they weren't only two years apart. Like Tuney hadn't been the one to stick her tongue out at Mrs. Perkins' cat just that morning and tried to balance a spoon on her nose last week.

"Petunia," Mum sighed, rubbing her temple, "you mustn't let her run wild. What will people think?"

Let her? Lily opened her mouth to protest, but Mum was already waving them off.

Tuney's hands curled into fists at her sides. "Mum," she said, measured, "Lily jumped off the swings again. And there was a boy..."

"Tuney!" Lily whirled, but it was too late.

Lily's throat tightened. She could feel Tuney fidgeting, itching to spill.

Mum's face did that thing: lips pressed together, nostrils flared, that meant trouble. "Lily," she said, too quiet, "were you doing... that again?"

"No," Lily lied, well practiced.

Tuney's eyes gleamed. Lily wanted to kick her.

"She did. She really did. I tried to stop her and there was this boy..." Tuney started, all fake concern. As Lily stomped toward the sink, she caught Tuney's expression: something bitter and triumphant all at once.

"Shut it," Lily hissed.

Too late. Mum's gaze locked onto Tuney. "Just what?"

Tuney twisted her hands. "Well... there was this boy. Said... things."

The air turned stiff. Lily's pulse thudded in her ears.

"I told you not to tell!" she burst out, rounding on her sister.

Mum's voice cut through. "What boy? What did he say?"

Lily swallowed. "Nothin'."

Mum wasn't having it. "Petunia. Spit it out."

Her sister opened her mouth to spill what she was not supposed to, the air rushing in her ears and her hands balled into fists as Tuney gagged, not on saliva, but on the weight of the secret itself. The word "witch" jagged in her throat, too monstrous to dislodge.

"Serves her right," she thought as she watched her mother run to the kitchen sink, filling one of the many empty marmalade jars they used as glasses, slapping her on the back. Tuney, desperate to get her bearings back, glared at her like she knew. Like she had always known, just saw through her skin and still pretended to be blind to what she could do.

Tuney pointed a skinny finger at her, still wracked by coughs.

"And there was the boy. The boy he called her a..." Tuney took a bracing breath. The water splashed all over her, despite her obvious attempt to keep steady, her hand unable to hold still as she brought it to her mouth.

"A..."

"A..." she tried again, trying to force something out that was stuck in her throat.

"Oh dear, you don't have to say it. I don't want profanity in this household anyway," she said, stroking Tuney's hair from her face.

"I don't care what some git thinks!" Lily exploded, voice cracking. "An' I hate that she..." She jabbed a finger at Tuney, measuring her voice again after her outburst. "...can't keep her trap shut for five bleedin' minutes!"

Mum's hand smacked the counter. "Lily! Enough!"

"Enough of this whole thing. We will surely have a word about you jumping off the swings again, but it's enough fighting from you two tonight."

"Tuney, you're meant to be the responsible one. Can't you keep her out of trouble?"

Tuney's jaw hardened.

After the quiet shuffle of her father’s homecoming, the creak of the front door, and the swearing about his missing thumb as he freed himself from his steel-toed boots, Lily crept downstairs. She knew Mum would scold her for being up past bedtime, but sleep was impossible; lying awake staring at the water stains caused by a leaking roof on the ceiling unbearable.

She found her father slumped at the kitchen table, a half-finished beer sweating onto the vinyl tablecloth decorated with hundreds of printed sun-aged lemons and a cigarette dangling from the fingers of his good hand, which had no missing fingers, its ash perilously long. Mum stood at the stove, her back rigid as she reheated the remains of dinner, the scent of overcooked gravy thick in the air.

"-and then Jenkins goes and spills coolant all over bay three," her dad was saying, his voice warm with the kind of laughter that only came after a long shift. "Took us till quitting time to mop the damn." He spotted Lily hovering in the doorway and broke into a grin. "Come here, Lils."

His arms opened wide and sure. Lily didn’t hesitate; she scrambled onto his lap, pressing her face into the crook of his neck where his skin smelled of engine grease, sweat, and the harsh, lemony bar soap from the factory showers. The fabric of his work shirt was so worn it was soft against her cheek, but she burrowed closer anyway, letting the steady thump of his heartbeat drown out the day’s chaos.

The memory flickered behind her eyelids like an old film reel: fragments of her father’s laughter, nicotine stained fingers fanning cards. She’d been six. The ace of spades slithering into his hand without him noticing. The men’s shouts: "Bloody hell, Joe, you’re cheating!"

"Nah," her father had grinned, ruffling her hair. "Got my lucky charm right here."

Lily had glowed under the praise, though even then, she’d known the truth. She hadn’t meant to nudge the cards, just a whisper of want, but the ace of spades had slithered obediently into her dad’s hand all the same. The next day her father went and bought a color television with the winnings and told her, only her, that it was her reward.

"Long day, flower?" he murmured, pulling her back into the present, his breath ruffling her hair.

Lily nodded against his collarbone. His lap was the only place where the world made sense, where Mum’s pinched lips and Tuney’s tattling and the boy’s witch couldn’t reach her.

Across the room, Mum clanged a pot onto the hob with unnecessary force. "She ought to be in bed, Joe. Not underfoot while I’m trying to sort supper."

"Christ, woman, let the kid breathe," His hand, broad and calloused, cradled the back of Lily’s head, his thumb brushing the downy hair at her nape.

For the first time since the playground, Lily breathed.

Across the cramped kitchen, her mother placed dishes into the sink with more gentleness than necessary. "I was just saying to Susan at the grocers,” Mum began, her voice violin-bright, “our girls really ought to be in ballet by now. Or piano. Proper lessons, not just mucking about on playgrounds all summer." Her mother had talked about those lessons for as long as Lily could remember, always with feverish longing, always just beyond reach. They were never next Saturday, never now. Instead, they lingered in some future that wasn’t really theirs to own, a promise that never quite materialised.

"And who's paying for these fancy lessons, Hortense?” He exhaled a stream of smoke, the hand holding his pint glass somehow also managing to keep a firm grip on his fag. The amber liquid moved not sloshed, his grip well trained from years of practice.

Mum’s lips pursed to a point. "I'm saving, aren't I? A little will add up to maybe not a lot, but to something. Our girls need to grow up proper, not wild like…” She cut herself off, but Lily knew what she'd been about to say. Not wild like you.

He snorted into the beer, a fag clutched somehow in the same hand holding his beverage of choice.

Her dad barked a laugh. "Christ, woman, you act like she's going to marry the bleeding Prince of Wales one day." He jabbed his cigarette toward Mum for emphasis, pointing it like a finger, ash drifting onto the table before it was hastily wiped away.

"Do you want to marry a prince, my little flower?" he asked, turning his attention back to Lily. His free hand, the one not holding beer or fags, dug into her ribs, tickling mercilessly. Lily shrieked with laughter, the only reply to his question, a maybe on her mind but unspoken, squirming in his lap, her earlier gloom forgotten in the sudden burst of joy. She wriggled free, sliding to the floor in a heap of giggles, her bare feet slapping against the linoleum as she scrambled away.

"Woodland creature more like," Mum muttered, watching as Lily dropped to all fours and crawled under the table, her cotton dress riding up her knees. "Look at her. Proper little feral thing." But there was no heat in it.

Lily emerged on the other side, grinning, her hair a riot of tangles. Neither parent moved to stop her as she bolted for the stairs, her footsteps thunderous on the narrow steps. Behind her, the familiar rhythm of her parents' bickering followed. Mum’s clipped tones, Dad's rumbling laughter, the clink of his pint glass set down softly onto the coaster her mother had laid out.

Upstairs, the air was stuffy, the last of the day's heat stuck under the eaves. Lily flung herself onto her bed, still breathless from laughter, her sheets sticking to her skin, the sound of her parents' voices muffled but comforting through the floorboards. Across the hallway, Tuney’s nightly ritual unfolded with precision that would make her mother proud. The crisp snap of sheets being straightened, the obsessive pat-pat of pillows fluffed just so. Every movement precise, every fold a silent rebuke to Lily’s sprawl of discarded shoes and tangled bedclothes.

Mum's voice brooked no argument as she thrust a sweaty shilling piece into Lily's palm, folding her fingers around it with a squeeze that lingered half a second too long. “A nice cold fizzy drink. And get along." Her eyes flicked between them, the shadows beneath them bruise-dark. "I can't have you two fighting anymore."

Tuney opened her mouth, likely to protest being paired with her "witch" (the word still itched under her skin) of a sister, but Mum cut her off with a raised hand. "No telly for a week."

The shop's final red bottle glistened in the cooler, its pink hue an exact match for the ribbon Tuney had "borrowed" from Lily's drawer last summer and never returned. Condensation dripped down the glass like tears. She cracked open the seal, eager for just a little sip before she bought it.

Tuney's hand darted out before Lily could bring the bottle to her lips. "I saw it first."

“And you shouldn’t open it before you buying it.” Tuney added.

"You hate red! You said it tastes like cough syrup!" Lily's fingers closed around the neck of the bottle...

Yank.

A sharp tug. The bottle slipped from Lily's grip, and Tuney's elbow jerked back...

...against a jar on the shelf behind them, causing it to explode on the linoleum. Yellow-green sickly liquid, mushy peas between shards of glass, spilled onto the floor along with the red fizz that had slipped Tuney’s her grasp.

The shopkeeper didn't look up from his racing paper, just sighed through his moustache like it wasn't unusual.

"You're paying for those peas and the fizzy drink.”

Before they could start fighting over whose fault it was (and it was clearly Tuney's), the shopkeeper sighed and said, looking at them from behind his newspaper: "And you're cleaning that mess up. Mops behind the door to the right of me."

They groaned in unison. If Tuney weren't here, Lily was sure she could've fixed this with a twitch of her fingers. But Tuney's eyes were already narrowed, waiting for her to slip up, to be odd.

With their remaining coins, they could only afford one bottle. After a hissed debate ("Lemonade’s rank..." "Well, cherryade’s gone, isn't it?"), they settled on lemonade.

Outside, they slumped against the warm brick wall, the bottle between them a contested trophy.

Tuney's jaw worked. "...Halfsies?" The word came out strangled.

Lily studied her sister: the freckles she'd mapped during dull afternoons, the stubborn jut of her chin. She passed the bottle, letting her sister do the honours of opening it.

Tuney took a grudging sip, then gagged. "Ugh. It tastes like toilet cleaner smells."

"Give it here." Lily gulped with greed, lime bursting on her tongue, sharp as needles. She leaned back, eyes closed against the sun, savouring it...

"Quit hogging it." Tuney held out her hand.

Lily handed her the bottle - maybe, just maybe tilting it a bit. Tuney screeched as the fizz spilled down the front of her frilly blouse, trying to somehow bat away the sticky liquid with her hand.

Tuney looked at her in horror and promptly upended the bottle over Lily's shoes.

"Hey!" Lily screeched, trying to shake the liquid off her shoe.

Then Lily's laugh burst out like the fizz they'd wasted.

Tuney's lips twitched. Just once.

"Now we're even," she said, licking some of the spilled fizz from the back of her hand.

She lied to Tuney the day after that, Sunday afternoon, after a day filled with watching telly with her mum. The regular programming had been interrupted by newscasters droning on about the upcoming moon landing. Between segments, she'd braided and unbraided her sister's long blonde hair until Tuney, "Stop it, you're pulling!"

Bored and restless, Lily wandered into the kitchen, where she "helped" their mum by stirring the soup in the closed pot from a comfortable seat at the kitchen table. Then, with well-practised innocence, she announced she was going to Mrs. Perkins to pet her cat.

She didn't go to Mrs. Perkins.

Instead, she walked toward the playground, her heart thumping in time with her sandals slapping against the pavement. Every few steps, she glanced over her shoulder, though there was no reason to; no one would think twice about a girl in a faded sundress walking alone in July. Still, she took unnecessary detours: pausing to inspect a mange-ridden tabby sunning itself on a garden wall, doubling back down Wychall Road as if she'd forgotten something. Her spit had turned to glue. Each swallow clicked in her throat.

When she finally arrived, the playground was not as it was yesterday. It swarmed with shrieking children, their voices rising above the rhythmic thwack of jump ropes slapping tarmac. Mothers clustered on benches like pigeons, pushing prams back and forth without looking while they gossiped.

Lily didn't head for the swings.

She ducked behind the same scraggly bushes where the Snape boy had appeared yesterday, the branches scratching at her bare legs. The ground was littered with stripped twigs, some snapped clean in half, others long and still in the process of being bared. A few feet away, a discarded crisp packet rustled in the breeze, its foil innards glinting.

It was stupid, hiding here.

The afternoon sun beat the back of her neck until it burned red-hot. Damp earth seeped cold through her thin summer dress. From her crouch, she had a perfect view of the playground's chaos: boys playing football with a bald tennis ball, girls chanting clapping rhymes, toddlers eating sand with fierce dedication. Nothing interesting. Nothing useful.

And yet...

She stayed.

Because this was where she guessed, or rather was afraid to admit even to herself, she hoped she would meet the Snape boy.

Lily's attention snapped to the crumbling brick wall separating the playground from the grim industrial estate beyond. Pale hands appeared first, fingers splayed like spider legs against the weathered stone. Then, with a grunt of effort, the strange boy hauled himself up to perch on the wall's edge. Her heart hammered against her ribs, not just from fear.

He gave no sign of noticing her hiding place, yet his downcast head tilted just enough for his eyes, like black shiny beetles wandering on a dull white wall, to fix unerringly on hers through the dense foliage. How he'd spotted her, she couldn't fathom. The intensity of that gaze made her shiver before he looked away, picking at a hangnail with dirty fingers. His nails were bitten to the quick, she noticed, the skin around them raw and inflamed.

For hours they maintained their silent standoff. Lily's legs screamed in protest, pins and needles dancing up her calves. Her bladder ached, but she stayed put. The boy seemed equally determined, alternating between scratching at his thumb (Mum would have smacked her hands for such a habit) and fiddling with the frayed hem of his blouse, a faded floral thing that left no doubt it was not bought with him in mind. The blouse had clearly been meant for someone else. A sister? A charity bin? It hung off him as if it was meant to be a cruel joke, the sleeves rolled unevenly to his wrists.

As evening painted the sky pink, mothers began rounding up their children. Some went willingly, gladly taking their mother's hand; others wailed protests, kicking and screaming. Lily pushed thoughts of her own family aside. She had to know. She knew her family would be waiting at home, no matter what.

Mosquitos had awakened from their slumber, attacking her bare shins, needling at her raw nerves.

When the last child had gone, leaving only the creak of unoiled swings in the spreading dusk, Lily made her move. Stumbling from the bushes, her numb, tingling legs nearly betrayed her. The rustling made the boy's head snap up, his curtain of lank black hair parting to reveal wide, startled eyes. All his earlier intensity had vanished; now he looked almost... shy, unable to look her in the eye despite watching her for hours, legs unsteady as he hopped off the wall.

They met in the centre of the playground, two small figures dwarfed by the lengthening shadows. Lily hugged herself while the boy worried at a loose button on his sleeve.

"Why... why did you call me a witch?" Her voice sounded too loud in the quiet.

"Because you can do magic." His reply came quick, as if he'd been rehearsing it.

"How do you know that?"

"I saw you." His words tumbled out in a rush. "When you waited outside Woolworth's in the rain but didn't get wet. And at school when..."

"You've been following me?" Lily's voice rose with each word. The idea sent an unpleasant prickle down her spine.

"No! Not like that." He shook his head violently. "I just... had to be sure." His fingers twisted together. "We can't tell Muggles about magic. It's called the Statute of Secrecy. My mum says..."

"What is even a Muggle?"

"Someone without magic. Like your sister." He said it matter-of-factly, as if this were common knowledge.

An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant rumble of a passing lorry.

"Just because I can do things doesn't mean I'm a witch," Lily argued. "Sometimes I just... want something to happen, and it does. Sometimes it doesn't work right." The rain wouldn't touch her outside Woolworth's, but her shoes still got muddy. Or when she tried to stop the milk from boiling over and the contents of the pot spilled onto the floor instead. Her mum had a mighty fit about that, because she had been told to watch the milk. Or when she tried to make her seat neighbour move her arm out of the way so she could copy her test answers and she instead yowled in pain.

"But you are a witch," he insisted. "Like I'm a wizard. There's loads of us, a whole hidden world. There's even a school..."

"I don't believe you!" Lily cut him off. "This is some stupid joke, isn't it? Did Diana put you up to this?"

His pale face flushed. "I don't know those Muggles. I wouldn't joke about magic. Never." He pressed a hand to his chest like he was taking some sacred oath.

"Prove it then," Lily challenged. "Do magic."

The boy hesitated, shifting from foot to foot. "It's... not that simple."

"Yes it is! You could..." Her eyes landed on the swings. "Jump off the swings like I did."

She watched as he slouched toward the swing set, glancing back at her every few steps with an expression torn between hope and trepidation. When he climbed onto the swing, he pumped his legs with desperate energy, going higher than she'd ever dared. At the apex of his arc, he squeezed his eyes shut and let go.

For one breathtaking moment, he seemed to hang suspended in the red evening light, his oversized coat flapping behind him like raven wings. Then gravity reasserted itself with cruel inevitability.

The sickening crack of bone echoed across the empty playground. Lily's stomach lurched, a sour taste making her feel like she was going to hurl, as he hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, barely managing to break his fall with outstretched arms. A stream of curses spilled from his lips, words that would have made Mum wash his mouth out with soap.

"Are you okay?" Lily rushed forward, her voice tight with panic.

"What does it look like?" he groaned through gritted teeth.

"Is it your arm? Let me see!"

"Go away!"

But when she reached for him, he didn't pull away. His sleeve was easy to push up; both his jacket and blouse hung loose with unfilled room on his gaunt frame. The skin beneath was already swelling, the arm bent at an uncomfortable angle that made bile rise in Lily's throat. His flesh burned beneath her fingers, each tentative touch drawing a hiss of pain.

She couldn’t let anyone find out. Not just about the broken arm. About her. About the way she’d leaned in, whispering "Prove it,”. If her parents found out she’d been here with him instead of getting an ice cream.

Ignoring his protests, she grasped his forearm with a firm grip. In her mind, she pictured the broken bones knitting together like mended china. "Heal," she wished. "Heal, heal, heal." His arm twisted under her fingers, bones grinding like gravel.

The boy's scream shattered the evening calm. Lily recoiled in horror; his arm wasn't healed at all. Instead, it had twisted further, the bones now jutting at an even more grotesque angle beneath the skin.

"Fuck." The word slipped out before she could stop it. The situation was spiralling beyond her control.

"I will get help. Wait here." She was halfway to her house in her mind until she realised that she had no idea how to explain what happened. What could she tell her parents? That she had found him that way? Tuney the tattletale would surely tell them that they had met yesterday. She would tell about her being a witch and then everyone would find out. Would the town come together to burn her at the stake?

Her breath came in short, panicked gasps as the full weight of consequences crashed over her. Without conscious thought, her legs carried her to the nearby pub, where she babbled in hysterics about her friend being hurt. A kind-faced man with beer on his breath loaded them into his Austin and sped toward the hospital, the boy cursing at her the entire way.

The world narrowed to the pounding of her heart and the terrifying realisation that some doors, once opened, would never close again. She should have never went to the playground again.

Lily was relegated to the waiting area as an afterthought, left to perch on a cracked vinyl chair while the nurses ushered the boy deeper into the bowels of A&E. They’d taken one look at his arm, the unnatural angle, the way the skin stretched taut over the misaligned bone, and whisked him away without a word to her.

The clock on the wall ticked too loud for her to ignore, each second stretching into eternity. A wealth of last year’s magazines fanned across the low table in front of her, Woman’s Weekly with a grinning housewife on the cover, a dog-eared copy of National Geographic, but Lily couldn’t focus on the pages.

The lights hummed like wasps trapped in glass. Somewhere, a faucet dripped, or was it blood? Lily couldn’t tell. Even the air smelled wrong: antiseptic undercut with something spoiled, like meat left in the sun.

But mostly, she steeped in her own dread.

The sound of the boy’s arm breaking played on a loop in her mind, sharp and sickening, a green young branch snapping underfoot. Her own arm throbbed in phantom sympathy, the pain so vivid she had to lace her fingers around her own arm just to be sure it wasn’t her bone that had shattered.

At some point, exhaustion won out. She leaned back, her tired legs stretched in front of her, the back of her head resting against the wall. She closed her eyes, not to sleep, just to rest, just to stop for a moment-

Exhaustion dragged her under. Lily slumped against the wall, legs stiff, head lolling.

The woman swayed, storm-wrecked and unsteady, her body listing sideways as if pulled by unseen currents. Lily barely flinched before a bony hand, knuckles tattooed with jagged, alien script,snatched her arm, wrenching her forward. Her teeth cracked together.

The grip burned. Yellowed nails bit into Lily’s skin, making her wince. Gin and rot choked the air between them, undercut by the copper tang of blood or rust. The woman’s housecoat hung loose, reeking of vinegar and sickness, its fabric stiff with old sweat.

“Was it you?” the woman hissed through gritted teeth, her voice low and rough, as if scraped raw from shouting.

Lily’s pulse hammered in her throat. “I don’t know what you mean,” she lied.

She whipped her head towards the nurses' station.

The counter stood empty, abandoned mid-task: a clipboard dangling precariously over the edge, a half-drunk cup of tea still steaming beside an open patient file. The vinyl stool spun, as if someone had just vaulted off it in haste.

No voices.

No footsteps.

Just the hollow click-click-click of the wall clock and the distant wail of a telex machine spitting out some tragedy in triplicate.

The woman leaned in, her whisper a damp, fevered thing against Lily’s ear: “The arm. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“No.” The denial came out strangled, half-choked with fear.

“I don’t believe you.” The air between them crackled, the scent of ozone cutting through the gin-stink. Lily’s hair stood on end as static danced along her skin.

Lily forced herself to meet the woman’s gaze, eyes glassy, the pupils too wide, sleepwalker-distant. She willed her to believe, to forget she’d ever seen her, to turn and stagger away as if this moment had never happened.

She’d done it before. Just last spring, she’d stopped her mother mid-scold about the state of her room, watched as the words died on her lips, replaced by a dazed murmur, “What was I even doing up here?”, before she wandered back downstairs.

But this? This was different.

The woman’s fingers tightened, her nails biting deeper. Lily’s whole body trembled with effort, sure she was going to feel nauseous very soon.

The slap came before Lily could flinch. A crack like a branch snapping, sharp enough to send a jolt through her skull. Her skin burned, branded by the slap. She stumbled back, trying to get away, clutching her face, her fingers trembling against the heat of the fresh welt. Tears welled instantly, blurring her vision, but she could still see the woman’s lips: chapped, peeling, twisted into a grimace.

"You can try those little tricks on unknowing Muggles," the woman whispered when Lily knew she wanted to shout. She wrenched Lily’s wrist away from her face, forcing her again to meet her eyes, this time on her own terms: blue and glistening, pupils blown wide with fury. "But not on me. Oh no. My son’s found himself a talented one, hasn’t he?" Crisp consonants and rounded vowels clashed with the sway of drunk on her tongue.

“Look at me,” she said, the command curling like a hook in Lily’s ribs. Not a request. A summons.

Lily’s voice frayed to a whisper. "I just wanted to help. He hurt his arm-"

"That’s what your sort always say."

She dug her nails deeper. "You remind me of that head boy I went to school with. The pretty Slytherin one with charm on his tongue and hands full of hurt, he also played with magic like it was a toy,” her voice clear in its contempt.

“My family’s been magical for hundreds if not thousands of years. You don’t get to prance about like you invented it,” she continued, getting louder, stopping whispering as the words fought themselves out of her.

“Your magic is not just there to make flowers bloom. Your will can take lives. Maim your enemies and also your loved ones if you don’t learn good sense,” her fingers with her long nails dug into her arm.

Lily whimpered, her arm burning where it felt like the woman’s nails drew blood. "Please… stop. It hurts-”

"Never speak to my son again."

With a final, contemptuous shove, the woman released her. Lily staggered, her knees buckling, as the woman turned and lurched away, her gait unsteady. She caught herself on the handrail at the last second.

Then, the lights flickered.

Not the gentle pulse of faulty wiring, but a stuttering gasp, one that left the A&E bathed in a jaundiced glow for three heartbeats too long. Lily’s breath hitched.

For the first time, she didn’t know if the disturbance was hers at all.

Lily sat curled in one corner, her knees drawn up to her chest, staring while trying not to think about anything at the scuff marks on the linoleum floor that looked like they could be dried bloodstains.

Then suddenly “Lily!” And then turning around to see her mother rushing towards her.

"Lily. Thank God." Her mother's voice cracked on the words. "We've been out of our minds. Mrs Sheffield saw you on the playground hours ago. I know you get distracted and are prone to wander, but it’s getting so late. Why didn't you tell us?"

The dam broke. Lily buried her face in her hands. She could feel her mother's hands moving over her: checking for injuries, smoothing her hair, the way she'd done since Lily was small enough to be carried on her hip.

"You should have told us you were going to the playground," her mother continued, wrenching Lily’s hands away to cup her face instead. Her thumbs stilled when they brushed the red mark blooming across Lily's cheekbone. "Sweetheart, what happened to your cheek? It’s so red."

"I'm sorry!" The words burst out in a wet sob before the question could be finished. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean-”

"Shhh, it's alright, my girl." Her mother pressed a kiss to her forehead, the kind that always made her feel better, no matter what. "Let's get you home."

But Lily shook her head, fingers digging into her mother's sleeves. "I can't! Not yet. I have to know if he's-" The image of the boy’s arm, bent all wrong, flashed behind her eyes. What if they had to cut it off? What if he bled out on the operating table? The thought sent a fresh wave of regret rolling through her.

Her mother sighed, the sound weary but understanding. "I spoke to the receptionist who called us." She smoothed Lily's hair back from her damp face. "They're still setting the bone, but it’s just a broken bone. It happens.”

There was an unspoken question in her mother's eyes, but Lily couldn't bring herself to explain. The words would sound mad even to her own ears.

"I've told you about flinging yourself from those swings," her mother continued, her voice taking on that familiar note of exasperated worry. "Look what happened to your friend. He will need to stay in the hospital god knows how long.”

The vinyl chair creaked as her mother stood, holding out a hand. Lily took it, her own fingers small and cold in her mother's grasp. Outside, the night air was cool after the stifling hospital, the streetlights casting long shadows across the nearly empty car park.

Her mother didn't let go the entire walk home. Not when they passed the chippy with its neon "CLOSED" sign flickering. Her mother grumbled about rats having their meal in that shop at the moment. Not when they crossed the narrow footbridge over the canal where the water shone black as oil in the moonlight.

Lily held on. Not the way she usually did: squirming, tugging, always angling for escape, but with her hand wrapped tight, her mother’s wedding band biting into her palm. their joined hands swinging, her mother's grip the only steady thing in a world of uneven broken pavement and leering shadows.

After that day, it was as if the well she had been drawing from her entire life, the one that had always brimmed with secret, shimmering things, had dried up overnight. The bucket came up empty. And no matter how deep she reached inside herself, no matter how desperately she scraped her fingers against the stones, she couldn’t reach it anymore.

She knew when the hydrangeas, the great, mop-headed blooms their mum pruned with grim precision every spring, their petals shifting from blue to pink by an unknown force, stayed limp and lifeless under her hands, their giant heads sagging in grief. Before, she could make them shiver awake, when they were suffering from the thirst of summer. Turning their heads to look at her again, making her mother smile at their renewed vigour, when she came home from work sapped and tired like the life was sucked out of her and without a kind word on her lips.

But now, no matter how much she willed it, they remained sad as they were, the world turning its back on her when it should have been at her beck and call.

She tried every morning for a week. A blossom that used to be blue, the crisped edges brown, the former glory of the colour fading into grey. Nothing. The hydrangeas wilted under her fingers unmoved by her will, until they were as pretty as bunched up newspaper, their stems finally hanging their heads under the weight of their formerly bright blooms.

"Odd," her mum said at tea, eyeing the sorry bush through the kitchen window. "Those usually thrive ’til first frost. Hand us the HP sauce, love.”

Chapter Text

“What’s got into you, our Lil?” Her dad’s hand, scratchy with callouses, tilted her chin up. “You’ve been mopier than we’ve ever known you to be since that business with your… friend.” He exchanged a glance with Mum, who hovered in the doorway, a cleaning cloth clutched in her hand as she absentmindedly wiped the doorknob.

Lily dug her bitten nails into her knees. “He’s not my friend,” she told the floor.

Her dad sighed as he sat down beside her on the bed. “D’you wanna tell us what really happened at the playground?”

“No.” How could she even begin to explain?

“Did that little git hurt you?” he asked. “Did you wallop him good?”

“No.”

“No!”

“Christ, girl—did you hurt him on purpose?”

Lily’s throat closed. “No. But it was my fault.” The admission crawled out of her throat, each word costing her like a loose tooth finally pulled. She couldn’t bear to look at Dad’s eyes, ever so soft.

The silence stretched tighter than a clothesline. Then Dad’s warm palm settled on her back, right between the wings of her shoulder blades, where the weird tingles sometimes started.

“Listen, flower,” he said, so quiet she felt it in her bones, “when we do something daft” the daft drawing a snort from her mum, who had now taken to playing with her too-big wedding band “we don’t just sit chewing it over till our teeth ache. We make it right. Not just for them. For us.”

“Thought we might pop by the Royal tomorrow,” Dad continued, casual as suggesting chips for tea. “Take some of them custard creams. What d’you reckon?”

She nodded.

The nurse peered down at Lily, her voice thick with the exhausted cheer of someone on their third NHS shift. Her tortoiseshell glasses caught the fluorescent light, lenses gleaming like milk bottles.

“So you want to visit your friend? Severus Snape, right?” Severus Snape. What a name. It sounded less like a boy and more like some archaic punishment.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lily said, twisting the hem of her polyester dress between her fingers. The fabric was sticky from the bus ride over, the summer heat having turned the Number 27 into a boiling pot. Her father had used the newspaper as a fan rather than reading material, while she stewed in her anxiety.

The nurse let out a sigh that seemed to deflate her entire starched uniform. She began marching, her crepe-soled shoes squeaking against the linoleum.

“Will his arm be okay?” Lily asked.

The nurse’s mouth twisted. “Strangest break the doctors have ever seen. Bones half-healed by the time he arrived, but the tissues fresh as if it had happened that day. Nerve pinched to hell, though—no wonder the lad was screaming bloody murder.”

She paused outside a curtained bay, lowering her voice. “Bones knitted together crooked, had to cut out a wedge, rearrange the lot. Left arm’s a good inch or so shorter now.”

“What an unlucky fall,” the nurse concluded, shaking her head.

Lily swallowed hard. This was it. She’d be burned at the stake before tea-time.

The nurse must have mistaken her horror for concern, because she patted Lily’s shoulder. “Oh, don’t go green, love. He’s right as rain now—no pain, eating like a stray at a chip shop. Be home in a week.”

She yanked the curtain aside with a rattle of rings. “You’re his first visitor, mind. Mum scampered after the first night. Gave us a proper turn the next morning when we found him, IV torn out, trying to rip out his fixtures with a fork.”

Lily blinked. “A fork?”

“Still haven’t worked out how he got one,” the nurse said, straightening her cap. “Been an absolute terror. Refuses his meds, glowers like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle.”

The scene before them could’ve been lifted from a horror comic: the boy, Severus, she had to correct herself, lay propped on pillows, his left arm encased in a monstrous contraption of metal pins. The skin around the fixtures was an angry purple, the fingers stiff as if frozen mid-claw.

“Severus, you’ve a visitor,” the nurse announced, tapping his shoulder with the brisk efficiency steeped in years of her work.

“Leave me alone,” he snarled into his pillow. His attempt to bury his face was thwarted by the arm’s rigid position, leaving him trapped.

“I’ll leave you to it,” the nurse said, already retreating. The curtain swished shut behind her with finality.

“Thanks,” Lily said.

Silence.

At the sound of her voice, Severus whipped his head around. His eyes, the darkest she had ever seen, burned with something unnameable beneath arched and heavy brows drawn together like storm clouds.

“You,” he spat, the word sharp like she had never heard it before.

Lily gripped her tin of custard creams tighter. “I’m Lily.”

No response. Just the ticking of the ward clock.

“And you’re Severus,” she added, when it became clear he wouldn’t dignify her with his name.

“What are you doing here?”

“I brought you biscuits. Custard creams. I hope you like them,” she told him, holding up the tin and waving her hand around to emphasise her gift before setting it down on the table in front of him. She tried to give him her best smile, which was usually described as charming by the recipients.

Which he answered without pause by swiping his healthy arm across the table, bringing down the tin onto the floor with a bang, accompanied by the sound of the lid popping off and scattering golden crumbs across the antiseptic tiles.

Lily’s fingers, now empty, twitched with the profoundly reasonable urge to slam his face into the bedside table.

“That wasn’t very nice,” she said instead.

“Piss. Off.” Each word a nail hammered into her goodwill.

She inhaled, filling her lungs with the sterile hospital air and the faint, stubborn hope that this might yet be salvaged. “I wanted to apologise. For your arm.”

For excruciating minutes, she endured his glare, while radiating what she hoped was the essence of being sorry.

On the way back home from the hospital, Lily stewed in her anger, boiling in it. The sharp set of her jaw, the white-knuckled grip on the seatback in front of her, it should have been enough to warn her father off. Even stomping onto the bus and deliberately choosing a seat two rows away from him should have been the end of it.

Yet, like he always did, he returned. After exchanging pleasantries with the bus driver about the unrelenting July heat ("A real scorcher, eh, Bill?"), he dropped into the seat beside her with a creak of protesting vinyl. His smile was broad, cheerful, and so oblivious it made her teeth ache.

"How dare he," she said, fingers digging into the seatback.

Her dad cocked his head. "Eh?"

"Throwing my apology in my face like that! The absolute-“ She nearly kicked the seat in front of her, but the sight of her nicest patent leather shoes, scuffed though they were, gave her pause. Mum would have her hide if she ruined them.

"He’s just so… awful." The last word crumpled in her mouth.

Her father sighed, rubbing the stubble on his chin. "You know, love," he said, voice low and steady, "saying sorry's like… like tossing a ball. You can throw it proper, but that don't mean they'll catch it."

"He didn't even try!"

He nudged her knee with his own. "Did he at least like the biscuits?"

She groaned. The custard creams had been her favourite, the ones she’d sneak with her tea when Mum wasn’t looking. Now they were scattered across hospital linoleum, crushed underfoot. He could have at least given the tin back.

"But why is he like that?" she burst out, her voice cracking. "I just tried to help!"

Her father studied her for a long moment, his eyes soft but probing. "Do you want to tell me what really happened?" He leaned in, lowering his voice in the almost empty bus. "I’m thirty-three years old. Promise you, nothing a nine-year-old’s done could shock me."

"Hell, when I was your age I was sucking petrol out of cars. Burnt my throat raw. Whatever you’re doing, love, it ain’t half as bad as that," he said and clapped her on her back.

Her stomach twisted. Could she tell him? If she whispered witch, would he laugh or would his face shutter with horror, like he was seeing something monstrous in the daughter he’d swung onto his shoulders just last Sunday? Either possibility made her skin prickle and itch at the thought.

"I don’t want to."

Her father dragged his hands down his face with a muffled groan. "Stubborn like your mum."

It returned to her with a vengeance, having festered inside of her. It was eager to be used, sneaking up on her with just a thought. A brand-new dress, ruffled and crisp, bought for Tuney’s birthday, unspooled at the seams as if invisible fingers had plucked each thread. A happily screeching running toddler in the shop falling and opening his mouth to scream without a sound coming out. A candle flame burning bright and high ignoring the laws of nature, reaching for the dry flowers in the vase next to it, heat licking at the flowers’ edges, their petals curling like frightened fingers, just because she could.

Her mother caught her by the wrist, her hard grip not budging.

“What are you doing?”

In the days afterwards, the house hummed to itself while the smog gathered outside. Her parents whispered in the kitchen, their voices low and urgent, her name sharp in the murmurs, a splinter working deeper. Lily sat alone in the sitting room, the telly flickering - a close-up of a woman's tear-streaked face. Lily turned away, her eyes catching, again, on the framed article...

"Starlet Steals the Show As Titania in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'". The article compared her to Grace Kelly: delicate, sharp and beautiful. She still was. Her eyes were said to be Scheele's green. Like hers. She was quoted as having the ticket to Los Angeles already booked. She never went.

The photo showed a stage frozen mid-curtain call, actors mid-bow, arms raised in triumph. And there, slightly off-centre, stood her mother, twenty years old and luminous, so bright her smile swallowed the stage lights whole.

Lily traced the cold glass with a fingertip, leaving a smudge. She couldn't remember the last time her mother had smiled at her like that.

What if, for the rest of her life, she'd only ever see that smile in yellowed newsprint?

The clatter of dishes being put away filled the quiet kitchen as Lily stacked the last dry plate in the cupboard. Her mother's voice cut through the domestic rhythm, sharp with forced calm: "Go wait in the sitting room, Lily. Your father's already there."

She shuffled into the dim sitting room where the fading afternoon light struggled past lace curtains. Her father sat hunched in his armchair beside the telly, playing with the zipper on an unlucky pillow, his large frame seeming to dissolve into the worn upholstery as if trying to become part of the furniture. Lily mirrored his posture on the sofa, curling her knees to her chest, becoming aware of how her tights itched at the ankles.

Through the thin walls, she heard her mother's tense exchange with Tuney:

"Go keep Mrs Perkins company, Tuney. She's been lonely since Mr Perkins passed."

"But Mum, that was years ago-“

"Not now." The words clicked like a latch locking. "We need to speak with your sister. Go on, she's expecting you."

The front door clicked shut with finality. Ten agonising minutes later, her mother stumbled into the sitting room, her usual crisp demeanour unravelling at the edges. Lily noticed the reddened rims of her eyes, the way her cardigan was buttoned crooked, the tremor in her hands as she pushed a stray hair behind her ear.

"Sit down, Lily." Her mother's voice wavered. "We need to talk about... these last few days."

Lily perched on the edge of the sofa, her stomach twisting. When her mother remained standing, swaying slightly, she bolted for the door, only to be caught. Her mother's hands wrapped around her shoulders, forcing her to face her with desperate strength.

"I love you more than you could ever know," her mother whispered, her voice hoarse like she had been screaming, the words ripped and raw. "But please, please stop with this... strangeness. I can't take it anymore."

Her mother broke away only to drop to her knees, grasping Lily's small hands in her own work-roughened ones. Tears carved shiny tracks through her powder, collecting in the fine lines around her mouth. "Just stop doing this," she begged, her voice cracking. "I know you can control it. I don't know what it is, but it needs to stop."

A pause, sharp as a held breath. Then: "I've spoken to people at church... they know someone who could help you."

"Hortense, no." Her father's voice was quiet but firm. He shook his head, rubbing his thighs. He looked like he was going to cry. She had never seen her father cry. Never, not even in the bitter winter last year, when her mother had been sobbing during their breakfast and fretting herself half to death in a cold house, her father sitting quietly while her mother reminded him at every opportunity that they had turned off the water to the house and they had to choose between feeding their furnace and themselves because he had lost his entire wage betting on a horse race.

Mum's spine straightened. "What would you have me do, Joe? Take her to a doctor?"

"I expect you not to get a fucking bleeding exorcist for our nine-year-old daughter!" The outburst startled even him, his hands flying up in frustrated surrender. "You and your fucking Catholic nonsense when it suits you."

"Then you tell me what to do." Her voice was a blade. "You're the man of this house. Act like it. For once."

"It's like... like when I put that bet on Red Alligator,” her dad muttered, staring at his calloused palms. "Sometimes you just know, yeah? Lily's always had a knack for things going her way. Maybe it's... I dunno. A bit extra."

"That isn't it, Joe. I saw her do it."

"Eyes play tricks when you're knackered." Her father added without meeting her eyes.

"No. It wasn't." Her mother shook her head.

"This isn't normal!" Mum's voice spiralled upward. "I made excuses when it was just little harmless quirks she'd grow out of. But this?" She pressed bony fingers to her eyelids. "This is unnatural."

Lily's mouth filled with the taste of pennies. Her tears were warm, her parents' faces blurred at the edges. No one moved to wipe them away for the first time.

"She's our daughter," Dad said, the words thick.

"You think I don't know that?" Mum's laugh was a broken thing. "I carried her for nine months."

"Then how can you say these things?"

Mum's hands fluttered to her throat. "She could hurt someone, Joe. She's my child. It's my responsibility that she does no harm." The last word came out strangled.

"You are dead sure what you saw? That it was real?" The quiet in the room deepened as her dad spoke, his words slow and deliberate.

A silence. The kind that comes before avalanches.

Her’ mother’s laugh was a broken thing. "Why? You think I'm cracking up like her?" Her fingernails dug into her own arms.

"I never said-“

"You didn't have to." She stepped closer, her shadow swallowing him whole.

He flinched. "Hortense... you know how these things go. In families."

"Oh, I know." Her smile was all teeth. "Pity we'll never know about yours, isn't it?"

The orphanage reference hung between them, rancid and familiar. Her father’s hands flexed, once, twice, before he spoke through gritted teeth. "Leave St Bart's out of this."

"Why?" She advanced, her voice a razor wrapped in lace. "You dragged my mum out of her early grave tonight. Fair's fair."

Guilt pooled in Lily's stomach, thick and sour. She could end this now. One sentence. Yes, it's me, and they would at least stop hurting each other.

"Either you tell me that I'm losing my mind or you admit that it's our daughter who is not normal." She grabbed his wrist. "Tell me you don't see it. The way things happen around her. The way the air goes still right before-“

Her father looked her in her teary eyes. He knew. He knew that her mum wasn't seeing things.

"Stop." He wrenched free, stumbling back. "You're talking like she's some kind of-“

Freak. Monster. Witch. The unspoken words in the air between them.

He shook his head like he was trying to erase the entire conversation without success.

He turned away without a word, without even a glance at her mum, who stood shaking in the centre of the room, her sobs raw and wet. The space between them stretched, vast and uncrossable, filled with the weight of everything they'd just shattered.

In the hall, the familiar sounds of departure: the rustle of his coat, the dull thud of his boots hitting the floorboards, the rough drag of laces being yanked tight. Each noise was deliberate, too loud, as if he wanted her to hear every second of him leaving.

Then silence. A held breath.

The front door slammed hard enough to shake the walls.

Through the window, Lily watched her father's broad back disappear down the street, his stride eating up pavement as if he could outwalk the hurt.

"I'm so sorry," her mother wept, crushing Lily against her in a hug. The wool of her cardigan scratched Lily's cheek, the embrace so tight it stole her breath.

I could show her, Lily thought wildly. Prove she's not going mad. But Mum's grip was already tight enough to crack ribs. What would she do if she knew for sure? So Lily swallowed the truth and let her mother rock her, both of them crying.

Her mother held her tighter, as if she could squeeze the peculiarity right out of her. She could feel herself flattening, edges blurring, until she wondered if there'd be anything left of her.

Her father came home a week later, the front door creaking open like a sigh of relief. Mum wept - not the jagged, angry sobs she'd been choking on since he'd left, but quiet, shuddering tears that soaked through the work shirt he had not changed out of. He hugged them both tight, his rough hands pressing Lily's face into the familiar smell of him. At the foot of the stairs, Tuney stood stiff as a poker, her mouth pinched. She hadn't spoken a single word to Lily since Dad walked out.

After supper her father pulled her onto his lap and told her, low and gentle, out of reach of her mother's sharp ears: "I don't care about the salt shakers, the cutlery, or even the candle, just don't scare your mum like that. Okay?"

She nodded. She could do that.

But the need to understand it gnawed at her. If there were others like her - whole schools, whole worlds of magic - then maybe she wasn't a monster.

That thought led her, moth-to-flame, to Spinner's End.

The street was a graveyard of terraced houses, half of them boarded up, the rest clinging to life behind grimy net curtains. The air stank of the river - thick and green, rotting weeds - and the cracked pavement was littered with cigarette butts and shattered Brown Ale bottles. Mum called it "a disgrace", always warning Lily and Tuney to stay away. "That's where folk end up when they've got nothing left," she'd say, scrubbing their front step raw as if poverty were contagious from just the mention of a place.

Spinner's End wasn't just poor. It was the kind of place that sucked the hope out of you, brick by soot-stained brick. The houses hunched like old men, their windows filmed with grime, their doors scarred by kicked-in panels. Even the river smelled like it had given up and died.

Lily clutched her cardigan tighter. This was where Severus lived?

Lily crept past houses with missing nameplates until she reached the very last one. Her stomach lurched.

SNAPE.

The nameplate clung to the door by one screw, the letters barely visible beneath a crust of grime. The door itself was a patchwork of flaking paint and suspicious stains, the knocker long since stolen, leaving only a scar of rusted metal behind. A crack split the upstairs window, held together with yellowing tape that shuddered in the damp breeze.

Should she knock? Her fingers hovered. What if his mother answered? Who had forbidden her from ever talking to her son again? Who would do God knows what if she saw her at her door? What if...

But did it really matter? Could she go on living like this?

Her finger jabbed the bell before she could chicken out.

Silence. Then...

The scrape of a chair, a movement in a sooty window. Heavy footsteps. A man's voice, thick with sleep despite it being the middle of the day: "What little shit's messin' about?"

Lily's blood turned to ice. That wasn't Severus.

She ran.

Her legs burned as she tore past derelict lots, the man's shouts ("I'll tan your hide, you little pest!") chasing her like a whip cracking at her heels. She didn't stop until she rounded the corner...

...and collided with someone bony and sharp.

Severus Snape stared at her, his good hand flying up to steady himself. His other arm was encased in plaster, held against his chest. For a heartbeat, his black eyes flickered over her. Taking in her scraped knees, her heaving chest. For a fleeting second, something unguarded flashed across his face - surprise? recognition? - before his expression shuttered, his mouth twisting into a sneer so sharp it could've cut glass. He sidestepped her with a stiff shuffle, his shoulders curling inward as if trying to make himself smaller, disappear into the frayed collar of his overlarge coat.

Lily's throat burned with words she couldn't force out - Wait. Tell me how to fix this. Tell me where to find the others like us if you don't want anything to do with me. But her voice had abandoned her, leaving only the taste of copper and the sting of unshed tears. She watched Severus' hunched silhouette recede down the street.

Coward, she thought, though the accusation curled back on herself. What right did she have to call him back? To demand answers when she'd given him nothing but pain?

Forgiveness would require him to un-break his arm, to un-feel the sickening crunch of bone beneath her desperate fingers. It would mean un-meeting, returning to being just a girl on the swings and a boy in the bushes forever watching and never making himself known.

But time only marched forward.

So what could she ever do to make it right?

She awoke in the earliness of the violet hour, just as the birds were starting to sing to welcome the dawn. The cold air clung to her skin, damp with the ghosts of her dreams - fizzy drinks whispering apocalyptic warnings about moon landings and atom bombs, their bubbles popping like distant detonations.

One thought cleaved through the sleep fog as she rubbed her gummy eyes:

For him to forgive her, she needed to get even.

The bedsprings screamed as she threw herself upright, her head swimming with remnants of sleep, heavy as a millstone around her neck. The splintered floorboards threatened to bite her bare feet.

She was nothing if not brave.

The mantra looped in her mind as she crept onto the landing. The stairs yawned before her, treacherously steep; every Evans had tumbled down them at least once. Dad had cracked a rib last winter. Tuney still had a faint scar on her knee from the time she'd managed to miss the last step.

Her fingers flexed around the banister, knuckles whitening.

Then she let go.

The hospital had sent her home with a cast that swallowed her leg from toes to knee, its plaster surface already gathering smudges from curious fingers and the occasional doodle in biro. The X-rays tucked under her arm fascinated her - ghostly images of her own bones, the fracture a jagged lightning bolt frozen in time.

Her father, shoulders straining under the weight of paternal duty, carried her up and down the stairs like a fragile, precious parcel, his breath huffing against her hair but never a word of complaint. Her mother appeared at her bedside with trays of buttered toast and weak tea, each meal accompanied by an extra Rich Tea biscuit. "For good health," she'd murmur.

Tuney, ever the martyr now that she was broken down and in need of help, perched on the edge of the bed for hours, reading aloud from her dog-eared Famous Five books with exaggerated voices. When her memory failed, she improvised dramatic retellings of Crossroads plotlines, lips pursed at the injustice of her sister's telly exile enforced by their mother who demanded complete bed rest.

Weeks passed in a haze of drowning in her own sweat and ceiling-staring. She lay trapped like an upturned beetle, limbs twitching with unused energy. When permission finally came to leave her bed, new humiliations awaited. It took three days of wrestling with the crutches - wooden beasts that pinched her armpits and mocked her balance with every wobbling step - before she could manage more than a humiliating hobble to the toilet. Mum had tied a tea towel around the plaster to "keep the damp out," which did nothing except make her cast smell like stale bread.

On the fourth day, when the house held its breath in post-lunch stupor (Dad snoring in his armchair, Tuney sleeping in his arms, Mum at work at the hair salon), Lily made her escape.

The playground stood abandoned but for a single occupant. Severus slouched on the swings, his cast-encased arm draped across the chains with the stiff formality of a broken flagpole. A twig protruded from beneath the plaster, its jagged end digging uselessly at unreachable skin.

Lily's crutch thumped against the swing's support beam, the sound ricocheting through the empty space.

"I broke my leg for you, you mean toerag," she announced. Her voice bounced off the climbing frame's rusted bars, too loud for the fragile truce of afternoon quiet.

Severus' gaze slid from her plastered leg to her face with glacial slowness. His eyebrows climbed so high they vanished beneath the greasy curtain of his hair - the look reserved for madwomen on buses and dogs that ate their own tails.

She barrelled forward before he could weaponise the silence: "Now we're even. So stop being cross with me and tell me about..."

The words tangled on her tongue. About wizards. About schools. About why her magic felt like holding a struck match to dry kindling. About why he'd watched her for months if he hated her so much.

The swing creaked as he leaned forward, his good hand tightening on the chain. "You," he said, the word dripping with something between awe and horror, "are completely barmy."

He answered all the questions she could think of.

He never answered quickly. There was always that pause - a breath held too long, his dark eyes flickering to some distant point beyond her shoulder as if checking for someone in the empty playground air. Lily found herself holding her breath too, wondering if he was listening for his mother's sharp footsteps. Had his mother forbidden him from speaking to her? She wondered if his mum had slapped him too. If there were matching warnings etched into both their skins.

The silence would stretch, taut as a tripwire. Then, always, his voice would come, low and measured, as if each word were being pulled from some deep, guarded place within him.

The grocery bags had long since etched their complaints into Tuney’s palms, weighed down with dented cans of tinned peaches that were on sale. Lily watched her sister’s back, rigid with determination, as she forged ahead through the damp afternoon. Tuney never looked back—not until the silence behind her grew too loud. Then came the sigh, the muttered insult, the impatient tap of her shoe against the pavement: Hurry. Up. Lily thought her sister’s impatience was ironic, since Tuney had been the one to ask her to come along.

Lily saw her first - Severus's mother, hunched on the curb like a discarded marionette, knees pulled tight against her chest as if trying to contain herself. A half-empty bottle dangled from her fingers, the amber liquid inside catching the dying light. The late sun illuminated the streaks of gray threading through her greasy, mouse-brown hair; flyaways escaped her limp bun, haloing her face in tarnished silver.

Their eyes met. A pause. Then, the barest tilt of Severus' mother’s chin. Not a greeting, but an acknowledgement.

They were both witches after all.

Lily nodded back, then turned toward home, her shadow stretching long and solid ahead of her.

The playground stood empty in the pale morning light, the swings swaying slightly in the breeze like restless ghosts. Lily hobbled forward, her crutches sinking into the damp grass with each step. Her leg ached beneath the plaster cast, a clumsy white weight strapped to her skinny limb, but she gritted her teeth and kept moving.

Her cast itched every waking moment, giving her no peace even in sleep, the skin prickling where the plaster met her knee.

She'd slipped out before Tuney or her parents could notice, the stolen markers, Tuney's prized new set, softly clinking in her pockets with every step.

Severus was already there, perched on the low brick wall like a spider at web's edge. His eyes snapped to her the moment she appeared. He didn't wave, didn't call out. Just watched, silent and waiting, as she struggled toward him.

"Took you long enough," he muttered when she finally reached him, but there was no bite to it.

Lily plopped down onto the grass with a grunt, her crutches clattering beside her, soon followed by Severus sitting himself down in front of her. "Shut up," she said, but she was grinning as she dug into her pocket. "Look what I nicked from Tuney."

The markers spilled onto the grass between them, bright as spilled jewels. Severus' fingers twitched, but he didn't reach for them.

Lily uncapped a pink marker. Before Severus could react, she seized his broken arm, the one still encased in rough plaster, and dragged the marker across its surface in bold, wobbly strokes.

"Oi, what're you..." He jerked back, but her firm grip made escape impossible.

"A unicorn," she announced, tongue poking between her teeth as she carved a lopsided horn. The marker squeaked against the plaster, leaving fluorescent streaks that glowed against the dingy white.

Severus' nose scrunched as if smelling something foul. "So girly."

"Unicorns are real, you know," he said after she was done with the pink mane.

She paused, marker hovering. "What?"

"Real," he repeated, as if she were daft. "They only let nice fair maidens near them, though. Not girl trolls like you."

"Prat."

She nudged his knee with her plastered shin. "Your turn," she declared, thrusting a marker at him. "Fair's fair."

Severus froze, his fingers twitching near her knee. Then with a put-upon sigh that didn't quite mask his interest, he uncapped the marker with his teeth.

The green ink bit into the plaster as he worked, his brow furrowing in concentration. His strokes were precise where hers had been chaotic, each line purposeful.

"What's that supposed to be?" she asked, squinting.

"Dragon," he said, as if it were obvious. His tongue poked out between his teeth as he drew, the way Tuney's did when she plaited her hair just so. The dragon took shape, not a hulking beast, but something sinuous and clever, its tail curling around her ankle.

Lily frowned. "Dragon? Are they real?"

Severus nodded, his thin face alight with something like fervour. And then, impossibly, he smiled.

It was small, all crooked teeth and dimples springing up like long-buried treasures from his hollow cheeks. There and gone in a heartbeat, hidden behind a curtain of black hair, but it sent a giddy rush through Lily's chest, warm as sunlight.

She'd done that. Her.

Severus kept drawing. A cauldron. A wand. An owl with lopsided wings.

Lily hummed "Here Comes the Sun" under her breath and added a clover for luck to his cast, then daisies, violets, marigolds, roses, anything she could think of. Her fingers moved clumsily, the shapes barely recognisable. When she tried to draw a lily, the petals splayed out unevenly, the stem kinked at odd angles, it looked more like an ugly starfish than her namesake flower.

She scowled at it, this latest failure. The margins of her schoolwork were littered with similar attempts: lopsided blossoms that always came out looking like explosions or wounds rather than something delicate. Each time, she'd told herself this one would be right. But the pencil never listened.

"What's that supposed to be?" Severus asked, nose scrunched.

"A lily," she huffed. "Are you blind?"

He didn't look up from his spider drawing on her ankle. "Don't think being blind would make much of a difference."

The markers ran dry as the sun climbed higher, their shared canvas of plaster now a riot of clumsy flowers and jagged wild creatures.

Chapter Text

"Severus," he corrected her after she had tried finding a nickname for him. The name rolled off his tongue, heavy with history, sharp with pride.

Lily had spent the afternoon scouring the Cokeworth Library’s single, sagging shelf of baby-name books, their spines cracked with decades of disinterest. The librarian eyed them as if they were stealing the air. Severus’ chin jutted higher; Lily’s grin widened.

"Apparently, you were named after some Roman emperor," Lily announced at last, slamming the book onto the table between them. She stabbed her finger at the entry.

Notable bearers: Lucius Septimius Severus, Roman emperor who crushed rebellions in Britain. Died in York, 211 AD.

Severus barely glanced at the page. "After my uncle," he’d told her in that gravelly murmur that meant he was reciting something sacred. "He wasn’t an emperor. He is a Prince."

But Lily, with her grass-stained knees and marker-smudged fingers, had no use for dead men’s legacies. She’d taken one look at him, all sharp edges and scowls, like a black cat caught in the rain, and christened him anew.

"Sev," she declared, as if she could peel away the weight of generations with a single syllable.

He’d come to accept it, grudgingly, sometime after they discovered they were born exactly three weeks apart. After they’d shared a Curly Wurly after a snowball fight, sticky-fingered and somehow both triumphant, to celebrate their birthdays. After Lily, newly ten and prone to grand thoughts, had paused one Thursday before the mantelpiece and spotted Severus lurking in the corner of her first-day-of-school photo, half-hidden behind Billy Storkton’s big head, striking her with musings about fate for the first time in her young life.

The flickering blue glow of the television painted Severus’ hollowed face in blue light, carving shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there that morning. He sat stiffly on the Evans’ frayed corduroy sofa, his arms locked around his ribs like they tried to escape. Lily had dragged him here after finding him slumped against their rusted playground swings, his lip split and his left eye swelling shut, making her own eye throb, like hurt could echo.

"It’s just Doctor Who," she’d said, nudging him inside before the neighbors could see. "The monsters are rubbish. You’ll laugh."

On screen, the Doctor brandished a sonic screwdriver at a rubber-suited alien.

He hadn’t laughed. But he’d watched with her and at last curled into the sofa cushions, his eyes fixed on the screen despite proclaiming the television to be a silly imitation of real magic.

"I could… maybe I could fix it. With magic."

Severus flinched back so violently his elbow cracked against the armrest. "Don’t," he hissed, his good eye flashing.

"Sorry," she whispered, pulling her hand back. "Was it-?”

"Who else?" He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, feeling at his split lip. The silence stretched, broken only by the sound of the TARDIS materializing.

"A father shouldn’t do that," Lily said, quiet but firm, the way she’d practiced in the mirror after she had burst out crying seeing bruises on his arms.

The TV buzzed and died as he slapped her hand away when she tried reaching for him again. "Stop fussing."

Static danced across the dead screen, casting ghostly blue shadows. Lily counted the ticks of the mantel clock - one, two, three - each one a pinprick in the fragile quiet between them. The sofa springs creaked as she shifted, but neither spoke. What words could possibly bridge this?

She swallowed the hurt and glanced at the clock barely visible in the dark of the room. "You have to go. Mum’ll be home soon."

She remembered the first, and last, time she’d brought Severus home. Her mother had given him a chipped plate at supper, the one with the hairline crack running through the faded roses. She hadn’t spoken to him, not once, just watched him with tight-lipped disapproval as he hunched over his food, his hair falling into his eyes.

And afterward, after her mother asked her if he had sat on her bed, and she told her yes, her mother had made her change the sheets, as if he’d contaminated them. Lily had done it, her hands shaking with rage.

Now, Severus lingered by the back door, his gaze flickering to the TV where the Doctor was mid-monologue.

"I’m going to Birmingham," he said abruptly. "In three days. You could come."

"Why?" she frowned.

He shrugged, already turning away. "Family."

Lily knew what family meant to him, the way his voice curled around the descriptions of things he only knew from retelling instead of seeing them himself.

“I will,” she said.

Then he was gone, the dusk swallowing him whole, first his face, then the jut of his shoulders, until only the click of the gate remained.

Her father sagged onto the stairs, wincing as he tugged at his steel-toed boots. He cleared his throat, a silent permission.

Magic could do this.

The laces twitched under her gaze, responding to her will.

With a barely-there breath, the knots unravelled. The boots slid free, revealing socks worn thin at the toes, despite her mother’s well-practised darning.

“Cheers, pet.” He ruffled her hair, his thumb brushing the strand that always escaped her braid, the one Mum said looked wild.

Lily hovered by the step, leaning on the banister. She shifted from foot to foot, her shadow stretching long in the amber glow of the standing lamp.

"Dad?" she ventured, fingers plucking at a splinter in the wood.

He peered over the paper, one eyebrow arched. "Mm?"

"Can I have a bit of money? Just for some new pencils. Mine’s all nubs now."

Her father groaned, rubbing his temples with red-raw fingers. "Mercy, girl. Must be nice thinking you have a dad made of money." But even as he grumbled, his hand was already digging into the pocket of his worn trousers. He pulled out a few coins and pressed them into her palm, his thumb brushing her knuckles in a fleeting gesture. "Here. Don’t spend it all on the usual nonsense. I know damn well you’re not going to be buying pencils."

Lily beamed, tucking the money carefully into her pocket with a big show. "I won’t!"

He winked. "Go on, then. Have fun."

The next morning, Lily burst out the front door like a cork from a bottle, her good shoes skidding on the scrubbed step. She had thrown on her nicest dress (the pink one with the lace collar that Mum made her save for special occasions) without explanation. Lily didn’t look back and called to her mother that she was staying at Susan’s for the night, which was only answered with a vague grunt.

The door slammed shut, cutting off the scent of bleach, the rhythmic scrape of steel wool on the wall, and her mother’s muttering about mould somehow thriving in spite of the summer months.

If Mum noticed her disappearing in her almost-best clothes, she would have some explaining to do. The dress flapped around her knees as she ran, its starched fabric already wilting in the damp, already hot air. The lace itched at her neck, but Birmingham awaited, and for once, she wanted to arrive somewhere in style.

Her stomach fluttered as she ran, not from nerves, but from the delicious thrill of getting away with something. The dress was silly for bus rides and city grime, but Severus had said "Birmingham" with such solemn importance that she had wanted to match his gravity. Would he notice she had tried? Would he care?

The answer waited at the stop, already scowling at his watch.

He'd worn his best shirt, the gray one that only had three visible mends, and abandoned his usual man sized coat. Instead, he gripped a strange, weathered satchel that hung off his shoulder like a dead thing. The sight of it made Lily's mouth go sour. Had his father given it to him? Some pathetic apology carved in leather instead of words?

When Lily finally skidded to a halt in front of him, her cheeks flushed and her hair escaping its braid, his scowl deepened.

"You’re late," he snapped.

"The bus isn’t even here yet!" Lily huffed, adjusting the strap of her own bag. "And it’s not my fault. I couldn’t decide whether to wear a dress or trousers."

Severus’ jaw twitched. "I told you to be here at half past."

"You lied," she shot back, rolling her eyes. "I know the bus comes every full hour."

He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, his fingers drumming against his elbow. Lily studied him, the way his gaze darted to the road, the tension in his shoulders. He wasn’t just impatient. He was nervous. The realisation made her bite back her next retort.

Soon enough, the growl of the approaching bus cut through the tension. As the Midland Red coach wheezed to a stop, Severus hesitated, his hand tightening around the strap of his satchel. Lily, sensing his unease, stepped forward first.

The driver, a heavyset man with a thin moustache that still swallowed his upper lip, eyed them as they climbed aboard. "Where d’you two think you’re off to, then?"

Severus stiffened, his hand tightening around his satchel as he stared at the bus driver. Lily tried giving him a shove to get him to answer, since the trip was his idea, before she stepped forward, her voice bright.

"Birmingham! Our gran’s meeting us at the station. She’s got ever such a nice flat. Carpets everywhere, and a telly and a telephone, and she promised us ice cream!"

The driver’s frown deepened. "You’re too young to be travelling alone, and you don’t look like brother and sister."

"Oh, we’re not. We are cousins, you see. And we are not alone." Lily chirped, nudging Severus. "Our other cousin’s meeting us at the next stop. He’s fifteen. Practically a grown-up!"

"Alright, alright," the driver grumbled, waving them through. "Just don’t cause trouble." He muttered something about kids these days as Lily beamed and dragged Severus down the aisle.

The back seat was cracked vinyl and stale air, but it was theirs. Lily flopped into the window seat, pressing her palms to the glass as the engine shuddered to life. Severus sank down beside her, his knee bouncing.

"You didn’t have to lay it on so thick," he muttered.

"Well, at least I said something." She grinned, then turned back to the window as Cokeworth blurred past, the soot-stained chimneys, the corner shop where she’d nicked sweets last summer, the playground where she’d first seen Severus bursting from the bushes. All of it shrinking, finally, in the rear-view mirror.

The bus lurched forward, carrying them toward the smoke and sprawl of the city, toward the day that lay before them, ripe for picking. Lily kicked her heels against the seat in front of her, grinning when Severus hissed at her to stop.

She didn’t.

"The Prince house has gardens that rearrange themselves for every season," he said. "Hedges that bloom black roses in summer change to spruce trees every winter so that they can be decorated for Christmas. And the portraits... they don't just talk, they argue and remember you."

Lily listened, her chin propped on her hands, the bus seat vinyl sticking to her thighs. In her mind, the Prince house rose like a castle, turrets gleaming, its doors opening just for her. She could almost smell the enchanted roses, hear the portraits bickering.

Then the memory hit: Eileen Snape's hand cracking across her cheek, the sour gin breath as she hissed, "Never speak to my son again."

Lily's stomach twisted. "Sev..." She picked at a thread on her jumper. "Your mum. D'you think she's told them? About me?"

Severus went very still. Outside, another town like theirs blurred past.

"She hasn't spoken to them in twenty-five years," he said flatly.

Lily gaped. "But that's ages! Why not?" Lily thought of her own parents, her mum's tired smile when Dad kissed her cheek. The way Tuney scowled but still shared her Jackie magazines.

He shrugged, a sharp jerk of his shoulders. "Dunno."

She kicked his shoe. "You do know."

For a moment, she thought he'd snap. But his voice, when it came, was quieter than she was used to.

"I don't."

Afterwards he still continued on. The details came easily: the spinning ballroom, the talking suits of armour, the house-elves' silver polish. But never the people who might have walked those grand rooms. No "My grandfather tended the roses" or "My grandmother decorated the trees with my mum." Just empty rooms full of magical things, like a museum after closing time.

The bus wheezed to a stop. An old woman boarded, her umbrella dripping onto the floor. Severus turned back to the window, his reflection a pale smudge framed by his black hair as he kept talking.

The bus shuddered to a halt in the shadow of the Birmingham bus station, its exhaust rattling loose teeth over the potholed curb. Lily pressed her face against the grimy window, her breath fogging the glass as the city unfolded before her, a sprawling land of brick and steel.

"Blimey," she whispered, her fingers tightening around the edge of the seat.

Cokeworth could have fit into a single corner of this place. The station alone was a maze of platforms and echoing announcements, its high ceiling swallowing the clamour of voices, footsteps, and the hiss of arriving buses. Women fanned themselves with folded newspapers while men mopped their necks with handkerchiefs.

Severus surged up suddenly, his second-hand shirt dark with sweat between the shoulder blades. "Move," he hissed, jerking his chin toward the exit. "Before that driver remembers our imaginary cousin's still imaginary."

Lily scrambled after him, her shoes slipping on the steps as she disembarked. The noise hit her like she had walked into a wall: shouting, laughter, the metallic screech of brakes. The pavement burned around her as they joined the river of bodies: office workers shedding jackets, kids licking melting 99 Flakes, a drunk snoring in a patch of shade. A man in a flat cap bumped into her, muttering an apology, the sound swallowed by the buzz of a thousand flies circling the overflowing bins.

"It's..." She turned in a slow circle, her braid whipping over her shoulder. "It's huge."

Severus snorted, but even he looked unnerved, his gaze darting from the departure boards to the exits. "It's a city. What did you expect?"

"I dunno." She grinned, giddy. "Not this."

A group of teenagers jostled past, their radios blaring a pop song. Lily flinched at the sudden burst of sound, then laughed, her pulse racing. This was alive. This was where things happened.

Severus grabbed her wrist, his fingers cold. "Stay close," he said, pulling her toward the station's arched entrance. "And don't gawk."

The corner shop was quiet compared to the buzz of noise from the streets outside, its narrow aisles crammed with dusty tins and yellowing newspapers. A bell jangled as they stepped inside, and the shopkeeper, a balding man with a soup-stained vest and a moustache that looked like a mangled toothbrush, looked up from his racing forms. His eyes locked onto Severus immediately, tracking him like a hawk spotting a mouse.

Severus met his gaze with a sneer, his lip curling.

She wished that he would just smile, or nod... anything but that sullen glare. But Severus had never really learned the art of blending in, despite always reminding her not to be strange or loud in public.

"We need a map," he muttered, jerking his chin toward a spinning rack near the counter.

Lily let the rack whirr before picking one up and eyeing the price tag. "Did you bring money?"

"Just bus fare," Severus said, shrugging. "I was going to nick it."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Let me do it." Before he could protest, she plucked at his shirt, wrenching a loose button free. Severus was about to curse at her, but she was already turning toward the counter, the button pressed between her thumb and forefinger.

Her heart pounded. Intent. Focus.

She imagined it heavy in her palm, larger than it was, cool as metal, shining...

"Here," she said brightly, slapping it onto the counter. The shopkeeper blinked at it, his pupils dilating for just a second as she gently tried nudging his mind into not looking too closely at the shining button.

"Ta, love," the man mumbled finally, already turning back to his papers.

Lily snatched the map and bolted, Severus already turned towards the door. The bell jangled again...

Then, behind her, a roar.

"Oi! What's this?"

She risked a glance back. The shopkeeper was brandishing the button, his face purpling. "You trying to pull one over on me, girl?"

Oh, bugger. She took off, the shopkeeper right behind her.

Lily whirled, looking at his feet. If she could just...

Trip him. Just a little.

He did, but they were too close. His weight collided with hers, sending them both crashing onto the pavement in a tangle of limbs. Lily's elbow scraped raw against concrete, the impact shuddering through her teeth.

"Christ alive!" he howled, clutching his knee. "What the hell's wrong with you? Why'd you turn around like that?"

Lily's cheeks burned. "I... I'm sorry..."

Lily stumbled as the shopkeeper wrenched her back inside, his grip like a manacle, his muttered "damned knee" twisting her shame tighter than his fingers ever could. The bell above the door chimed mockingly as they passed beneath it. Through the smudged glass, she caught a glimpse of Severus lingering outside. Their eyes met, just for a second, and he gave the barest nod.

He'll get me out, she thought, and let her shoulders slump in false defeat.

The office was a cramped closet of a room, smelling of stale cigarette smoke. The shopkeeper shoved her into a rickety chair that groaned under even her weight. A telephone sat on the desk like a threat, its coiled cord twisted many ways.

"Right," the man growled, mopping his sweaty brow with a stained handkerchief. "You're going to call your mum and dad, girlie. And then we'll see what they have to say about their little thief."

Lily's mouth went dry. Her parents, her mother, would surely skin her alive, especially since it was not her first time stealing. She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could speak, a sharp crack echoed from the shop beyond.

Then... smoke.

Thin tendrils of it curled under the office door, followed by the sharp tang of burning paper. The shopkeeper's head snapped up.

"What in the...?"

A crash. The sound of tins scattering across the floor. A customer's shrill scream: "Fire!"

The shopkeeper cursed. He hesitated for one agonising second before bolting from the room, slamming the door behind him.

Lily didn't wait. She was on her feet in an instant, her fingers scrabbling at the window latch. It gave with a rusty shriek, and she tumbled out into the alley beyond, her knees scraping against the pavement. She barely felt the pain.

She'd only taken two stumbling steps when a hand shot out from the shadows, yanking her into the narrow gap between two buildings. Her heart leapt into her throat.

"Shut up," Severus hissed, clapping a hand over her mouth before her scream could escape. His eyes were wild in the dim light, and he was breathing like he had just run. "It's just me."

She wrenched free, gasping. "You set fire to the shop?"

"A small fire," he corrected, as if that made it better. "Just the newspaper rack outside."

Lily stared at him. Somewhere behind them, the wail of sirens began to rise.

"Come on," he snapped, pulling her deeper into the web of streets.

The stolen map of Birmingham lay spread across a soot-stained bench, its corners fluttering in the damp city breeze. Lily plopped down beside it, the paper crinkling under her thigh as she dug into her pocket. With a triumphant grin, she produced a crumpled bag of pick-and-mix sweets, the colourful candies glistening like stolen jewels in the afternoon light.

"Cola cube?" she offered, shaking the bag toward Severus.

"No," he said, too quickly. The refusal was strange; he'd fought her about the last cola cube at Woolworth's just a few weeks ago.

Lily popped a cube into her mouth, the sweet tang making her cheeks ache. "So," she said around the candy, "where's this posh Prince palace we're meant to be finding?"

Severus' shoulders stiffened. His finger froze over the map, hovering too long before he flicked away sugar granules from her cola cubes absentmindedly. "It... it stands before the bull," he said, hesitating at each word.

Lily waited for more, but nothing came. The words hung between them, less a clue and more like something pulled from a half-remembered bedtime story.

"Your mum tell you that?" Lily asked.

A muscle jumped in Severus' jaw. "She said... the Princes would know. That the house calls to its own." His fingers curled slightly against the map. "Her brother, my uncle, he got lost once in a crowd of muggles. Found his way back without thinking."

Lily studied Severus' harsh profile, the way his dark eyes avoided hers, the flush creeping up his pale neck.

"Have you... felt anything?" she ventured.

Severus shook his head. The movement sent his lank hair swinging, hiding his expression.

Lily turned back to the map, her finger finding his rhythm as they navigated the countless streets. The paper whispered under their hands, every intersection a decision, every alleyway a possibility. Her finger moved in tandem with his approaching from the opposite direction, past Westside, along Gas Street Basin.

"Bull Ring Market. That must be it, right?"

Severus leaned in, his breath stirring the paper. For a moment, hope flickered across his face, then vanished, replaced by familiar scepticism. "Must be," he agreed flatly. But his eyes kept searching the map, as if "Prince" might suddenly appear in magical ink.

The bench creaked as Lily shifted closer. The map's lines blurred before her eyes, the candy turning to chalk in her mouth. Somewhere in this maze of streets was Severus' promised land, if only they could decipher the clues.

"Then let's go find your bull," she said, and crumpled the empty sweet bag in her fist.

The paper crackled in Severus' hands as they turned onto Lancaster Street, its creases deepened by his impatient grip. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the pavement, making the streets bleed together in the fading light. Severus' dark, harshly arched eyebrows knit together as he squinted at the tiny print, his lips moving silently as he traced their route.

"Lily," he snapped without looking up, "keep up."

Lily lagged three paces behind, her neck craned upward at a wrought-iron balcony where flower boxes overflowed with crimson geraniums. "But look at..."

"Left here," Severus interrupted, pivoting sharply. His worn shoe scuffed against the pavement as he disappeared around the corner.

Lily jogged to catch up, her cardigan snagging on a protruding brick as she rounded the bend. The map snapped taut between Severus' hands as he stopped abruptly before a confusing intersection.

"Are we lost?" Lily breathed, peering over his shoulder.

Severus jerked the map higher. "We're not lost. The people who built this city were clearly incompetent." His voice dripped with disdain. "This street isn't... Lily?"

She'd drifted toward a shop window where mechanical toys danced behind glass: a tin soldier marching, a wind-up bird flapping stiff wings. Her reflection shimmered across the display, freckled nose nearly pressed to the pane.

There, between a jack-in-the-box and a set of wooden skittles, sat a music box with tiny ballerinas that pirouetted when wound. Tuney would hate it. Lily could already hear her sneer: "It's cheap" or "The paint's chipped", but for one mad second, she imagined buying it anyway. She'd present it after supper, maybe when Mum was in one of her rare soft moods, and for once Tuney wouldn't find fault. For once, they'd laugh together as the tinny melody played.

Her fingers found the sweaty coin in her pocket that was reserved for the bus fare home. The ballerina's pink tutu had a fleck of gold paint missing near the hem.

"Lily!" Severus' voice cracked across the busy street. A woman carrying a string bag of oranges gave him a disapproving look. He flushed but stood his ground, the map trembling slightly in his clenched fists. "We don't have time for this."

Lily turned reluctantly, her shoes scraping against the pavement. "You're no fun," she called, but her smile took the sting from the words. She fell into step beside him, though her gaze kept darting to intriguing storefronts and colourful posters plastered on brick walls.

Severus exhaled through his nose. He folded the map with quick, precise movements, creating a smaller rectangle that showed only their immediate surroundings. "Just... stay close."

The unspoken please clung as they plunged deeper into the city's maze.

They found themselves in front of the bull by chance just before they turned into the street it was named after, its massive shoulders gleaming dully. Frozen mid-charge, one leg lifted off the ground, muscles taut beneath its metal hide, it looked less like a landmark and more like a creature about to shake itself free of its pedestal. Lily craned her neck, taking in the way its horns pointed at them almost in accusation.

Severus stood rigid beside her, the stolen map clenched in his grip. "This is it," he muttered, though his voice lacked conviction. "It has to be."

Lily squinted at the surrounding buildings: glass-fronted shops, bustling market stalls, the constant flow of shoppers weaving around them. No hidden alleys. No mysterious magical townhouses tucked between the modern storefronts. Just the bull, standing guard over a world that seemed determined to stay stubbornly, disappointingly muggle.

"Well," Lily said, bouncing on her toes, "maybe it's under the bull. Or... or inside it! Maybe there is a button." She darted forward before Severus could protest, running her hands along the bull's flank. The metal was warm beneath her fingers from the sun, worn smooth by countless touches like hers. She knocked experimentally against its side.

Severus made a strangled noise. "Lily, stop. People are looking."

She ignored him, dropping to her knees to peer beneath the bull's belly. "Maybe there's a button or a... oh! What if we pull its tail?"

"Shit," Severus hissed, glancing around at the passersby. A woman pushing a pram gave them a wary look.

Severus exhaled sharply through his nose. For a moment, she thought he might actually stomp off. Then, with a groan that suggested he was deeply, personally offended by the entire situation, he stepped forward and gave the bull's nearest horn an irritable pull.

Nothing happened.

Lily chewed her lip. "Maybe the house is invisible," she said. "Or... or maybe you have to say a password! Open sesame? Alohomora?"

Severus shot her a withering look.

"Or," Lily pressed on, undeterred, "maybe it only appears on Thursdays. Or if you walk backward. Or..."

"Do you hear yourself?" Severus snapped.

Lily crossed her arms. "Well, you're the one who said it was here!"

Severus' jaw worked yet again. She knew right from the start that he was in a foul mood. He glared at the bull as if it had personally betrayed him. The statue stared blankly back.

After a long moment, Lily sank onto the edge of the pedestal. The stone was cold through her dress. "Do you... feel anything?" she asked quietly.

Severus didn't answer right away. His gaze flickered over the bull's face: its blank metal eyes, its flared nostrils. Then he looked away. "No," he said, and the word was sharp, final.

Lily nudged his shin with her shoe. "Maybe it's on a different street," she offered.

Severus' shoulders slumped. "...Must be."

The air inside the market hung thick with the scent of overripe fruit and fresh-baked bread, a cacophony of shouts and clattering carts echoing under the open sky. Lily inhaled deeply, the mingled scents of food making her stomach growl.

She turned to find Severus standing like a rusted nail driven into the marketplace: rigid, out of place, and threatening to snag on everything. His too-sharp elbows were tucked tight against his ribs, as if the market's noise might bruise him. The sausage-scented air, the flower seller's bellowing, the sticky-fingered children darting between stalls... all of it rolled off him like rain on a factory roof.

Lily watched his eyes skim over pyramids of overripe peaches and racks of second-hand coats without stopping.

"We should ask around," Lily declared, already scanning the crowd for friendly faces.

Severus rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful. "No muggle would know about the Prince family."

Lily planted her hands on her hips. "Wizards have to eat too, don't they? Food doesn't just appear out of thin air."

"Actually," Severus said, "house elves-“

"Oh, stuff your house elves," Lily interrupted, grabbing his sleeve. She had heard enough about those dratted beings without ever getting to see one. "Come on, before you turn into a complete git."

Their inquiries proved as productive as Severus had predicted.

The florist blinked blankly when Lily asked about "a grand old family named Prince." The baker laughed and suggested they try the library. An elderly woman selling knitted scarves eyed Severus and muttered something about "poor, underfed children".

After the fifth dead end, Severus' patience snapped like a twig. "This is pointless," he hissed, jerking his arm away when Lily tried to steer him toward another potential question. "I'm going to look at the map again."

Before Lily could protest, he had vanished into the crowd, his dark head disappearing between stalls of gleaming fish and pyramids of oranges.

Left to her own devices, Lily wandered, her fingers trailing over bolts of fabric and baskets of spices. Then something in a cluttered toy stall caught her eye: a stuffed toy looking at her.

Lily's fingertips hovered, then lightly traced the brown curve of its ear. The stuffed toy sat slightly apart from the others, its black, glossy eyes gleaming with quiet dignity and something like intelligence, its fur slightly matted at the seams. Something about the way its lashes shadowed those watchful eyes made her throat tighten. Noble but fraying, misplaced among the shop's gaudy tin robots and pink plush ponies. Like someone else she knew.

"See something you like, love?" The shopkeeper's voice startled her. Her smile crinkled the corners of eyes that had seen too many sticky-fingered children linger at this very shelf.

Lily hesitated. "It's lovely, but I..."

"Here." The woman plucked the stuffed toy from the shelf and pressed it into Lily's hands. "Take it. Looks like it's been waiting for you. Husband will be mad at giving things away, but that's about every second day."

Lily's throat tightened. "Thank you, but I couldn't..."

"Nonsense. Every creature deserves a home." The woman winked and shooed her away before Lily could argue further.

As Lily turned to leave, her fingers brushed the shop's rusted bell above the door. A strange impulse prickled in her chest, the same fizzy feeling that made the impossible happen for her. Before she could second-guess it, she flicked the bell lightly with her thumb and wished, hard, for something like luck or kindness or please let her not get in trouble for this.

The bell gave a bright, clear chime, cleaner than it had any right to sound, and the shopkeeper glanced up, startled. For a heartbeat, the tired lines around her eyes softened, as if she'd heard a long-forgotten tune. Then Lily was out the door, the stuffed toy tucked under her arm.

Behind her, the bell jingled again in the breeze, its usual dull clatter restored.

She was still staring into the eyes of the toy when Severus materialised beside her, his expression thunderous.

"There you are," he snapped. "I've been looking everywhere..." His eyes dropped to the stuffed animal in her arms, and his lip curled. "What is that?"

Lily hugged it closer. "It's just a toy."

Severus looked at the stuffed animal like it was charmed to bite him. "We're not babies, Lily."

The sharpness in his voice made her pause. He'd sneered at plenty of things before... stupid people, stupid rules, stupid everything... but never like this. Never at something small and harmless. Never at her. At least not since they'd become friends.

"It was a gift, Sev," Lily said.

"From some sentimental muggle, no doubt." Severus made a motion to leave. "Come on. We're wasting time."

"I don't know why you act like we can't have any fun." The words tasted bitter, having grown the whole day.

"If we don't find it today, we'll come back next week. It's just bus fare... it's not like we're spending a lot of money." She nudged his shoulder, forcing lightness into her voice. "Or take the map home. Ask your mum..."

Severus stood silent, staring at the sinking sun. The orange light cut across his face, sharpening the hollows under his eyes, the tight line of his mouth.

"I'm not going back."

Lily's breath hitched. "What?" The syllable barely made it past her lips.

"Ever." His fingers curled into fists. "I will never set foot in that damn muggle's house again."

"But your mum..."

"She made her choices." The words landed like a coffin lid slamming shut. "I will no longer suffer from them."

He turned sharply, the dying sun catching the sharp planes of his face. When his eyes met hers, they burned with conviction. "I'll sleep in these streets. I'll search every damn alley, every sewer, until..."

The truth hit her like a slap.

He had never planned to return.

The air left her lungs in a rush. The marketplace noise faded into a dull roar, her pulse loud in her ears. All this time, she had thought this was an adventure: a day trip, a secret mission, an adventure before the inevitable return home. But he had been running. And he hadn't told her.

"And you..." Her voice cracked. "You were just going to leave me the whole time?"

The words hung between them, ugly and accusing. All those afternoons she'd spent dodging the offers from the girls at school: birthday parties, visiting their homes, skipping ropes with them, all foregone. She'd let her friendships with the other girls wither like untended plants. She'd chosen him, over and over, without hesitation. And he'd been planning to vanish into the dusk without so much as a backwards glance, never to be seen again.

"You could come with me. You don't have to return either," he said, as if it were that simple. "If you wanted to. It's your choice."

Lily's hands trembled. "That's not the point!" Her voice rose, sharp enough that a passing couple glanced over. "You lied to me!"

"I never said I was going back!" he shot back, his own temper flaring. "You just assumed!"

"Because we are supposed to tell each other things!" she nearly shouted. "You should've said something!"

Severus scoffed, his lip curling. "I never promised you anything."

The words stung worse than a hex. Lily's vision blurred, her throat burning. "You don't have to promise!" she cried. "It's just what you do! I tell you everything..."

"Then maybe you shouldn't!" he snapped.

For a heartbeat, they just stared at each other, chests heaving. Then Severus spun on his heel and stalked away.

Lily stood frozen.

Then, before she could think better of it, she ran after him.

The city lights flickered to life around them as evening settled over Birmingham, casting long shadows that stretched like grasping fingers across the pavement. Severus marched ahead, his shoulders hunched, his dark eyes scanning every street sign, every shop front, with a desperation that made Lily's chest ache. She'd lost count of the streets they'd trudged down, the shop windows they'd peered into, the way Severus' shadow grew longer and sharper with every step. She trailed behind him, her feet dragging, the once-exciting adventure now a slow march towards watching him leave her.

The afternoon sun had baked the pavement into a griddle, and now, hours later, the heat still rose in waves, shimmering like waves over the asphalt. Her head throbbed, a slow drumbeat of pain behind her eyes, and her tongue sat thick and cottony in her mouth.

She wanted to scream at him to stop. To sit. To look at her. But his silence was a wall, and she was too tired to climb it.

The crowds had thinned, leaving the streets quieter, the air cooler. Lily wrapped her arms around herself. She was tired... tired of walking, tired of searching, tired of watching Severus' hope fray at the edges with every wrong turn.

Then she saw it.

From the corner of her eye, where fate always seemed to lurk, a faded sign creaked on rusted hinges. "The Bull Est. 1745" proclaimed peeling green letters above a butcher shop window streaked with decades of grime. The glass reflected the merciless sun in blood-orange streaks across hanging carcasses within.

That had to be it.

Lily's mouth opened... "Sev, look"... then snapped shut, her teeth clicking together.

Severus marched ahead, his worn boots scuffing the pavement with every impatient step. She could almost see the map burning in his mind, his obsession with the Prince house narrowing his world until he could hardly see anything.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

If she told him now, he might find what he was looking for... a family, a legacy, a place where no one hurt him, where he was wanted and loved.

The image struck her like a blow... Severus framed in some grand wizarding doorway, the door swinging shut behind him, leaving her on the step with nothing but the long ride back to Cokeworth alone.

Alone.

The word lodged in her throat, sharp as a fishbone. Who would she whisper about magic to in the park? Who would understand her? Be her best friend?

If he left now... if he found what he was searching for... would he even look at her at Hogwarts? If he discovered proper magical friends, what use was she? Annoying, loud Lily, who chewed with her mouth open, couldn't write in a straight line and couldn't, no matter how hard she tried, be what anyone actually needed.

What was she, really? Just some muggle-born he'd put up with because there were no other options in their rubbish town. A placeholder friend until real wizards came along.

They passed the shop. The sign's shadow stretched long over Severus' back as he strode ahead, oblivious.

Lily slowed. Stopped.

Guilt coiled hot and sour in her stomach. This isn't about you, she scolded herself. If you're really his friend, you'll...

But the thought of that empty bus seat beside her, of Tuney's smug "I told you so", of her mother's relieved sigh when she realised the awful Snape boy was gone for good...

She swallowed hard.

Then turned.

"Sev. Wait."

He stopped, glancing back with a frown. "What?"

"I... I think I saw something." She pointed behind them, her voice unsteady. "Back there. The butcher's shop. It was called 'The Bull.'"

Severus' eyes widened. For a heartbeat, he just stared at her, his expression unreadable. Then, without a word, he broke into a run.

Lily chased after him. They skidded to a halt in front of the shop... but Severus didn't look at the butcher's. His gaze locked onto the building in front of it.

The house, or rather, its corpse, stood wedged between the garish neon glow of a 24-hour betting shop and a boarded-up pub reeking of stale lager.

What remained of the Prince family home was a blackened carcass of once-proud brickwork, its ribs of charred beams exposed to the night sky where the roof had surrendered to some long-ago inferno. The upper floor had collapsed inward, leaving only the ground floor walls standing. The windows gaped empty, their glass long since melted away, staring blindly at the bustling city that had grown around this wound without healing it.

Severus froze mid-step. For a terrifying moment Lily thought he might collapse, his entire body locking in rigid denial.

"No," he whispered, the word barely audible over the distant honking of taxis. His fingers twitched at his sides as if grasping for a wand he didn't yet possess. "This isn't it. This can't be it."

Lily's gaze was drawn to the twisted remains of what had once been an ornate front door, now hanging drunkenly from one hinge. A tarnished brass plaque swung gently in the night breeze, catching the orange glow of streetlights just enough to reveal the engraved letters that spelled out their dashed hopes:

PRINCE

The sight seemed to break whatever spell had held Severus still. He lunged forward with a sound halfway between a sob and a snarl, kicking through the rubble with violent, jerky movements. Clouds of ash billowed around his ankles like malevolent spirits as he disturbed decades of accumulated decay.

"It's wrong!" His voice cracked with the strain of holding back tears. "My mother said... she told me..." A chunk of plaster crumbled under his foot with a sound like bones breaking. "They had house elves. A garden. The name meant something!"

Lily watched helplessly, the knot in her stomach tightening with each ragged breath Severus took. "Maybe it's a glamour?" she offered weakly, grasping at the thinnest of straws.

"Of course it is!" The brick left his hand...

And the world split.

The beam didn't just fall; it vomited itself from the ceiling, taking chunks of plaster and decades-old cobwebs with it. Lily's scream was lost in the roar of collapsing wood. She lunged, her fingers hooking in his collar, but Severus didn't budge. He was a stone. A statue. A boy made of no and never and why not me.

But the ruins remained stubbornly, mundanely ruined. No hidden manor revealed itself through peeling layers of enchantment. No house-elves came scurrying to greet the long-lost heir. There was only ash, and silence, and the distant hum of a city that didn't care about broken children or broken lineages.

Lily hugged herself tightly, the night air suddenly colder against her skin. "Sev..." His name came out as barely more than a breath, laden with all the things she couldn't bring herself to say.

Severus moved like a ghost through what remained of the Prince house without rest, inspecting everything about the nothing that remained of the house. His boots kicked up ash with every step, the lingering scent of old smoke clinging to the air like a bitter memory. Then... a crack. Something shattered beneath his heel.

He froze. Slowly, as if pulled by invisible strings, he knelt in the debris. His fingers closed around a jagged piece of porcelain, its edges dulled by time. Lily watched as he turned it over in his palm, revealing delicate blue initials, SP, still visible beneath a century of grime.

For one breathless moment, his face went utterly still. The teacup fragment trembled in his grip as recognition flashed across his features: another boy named Severus, his mother's brother, had stood where he stood, had once held the cup in his hand, had drunk from it, had grown up in the ruins they were standing in.

Then, his expression hardened.

With a sudden, violent jerk of his arm, he hurled the shard against the nearest wall. It exploded into dust against the brick, the ping of porcelain fragments raining down on stone the only sound in the heavy silence.

He whirled on her so suddenly she stumbled back a step, his eyes wild and glittering. "This was supposed to be..." His voice broke. "Home."

Her fingers found the strap of her satchel, gripping it like an anchor. "You can stay if you want," she said softly, already backing toward the street where a bus stop's fluorescent glow offered a path back to something familiar. "But I'm going back."

Severus didn't move to stop her as she turned away. He remained standing amidst the ruins of his inheritance, his silhouette framed by the broken outline of everything he'd dreamed of, reduced now to nothing more than soot and crumbling mortar.

Lily made it exactly thirty-seven paces down the street before her chest caved in. She spun around, soles screeching against pavement. Idiot. Stubborn, miserable idiot. She knew with terrible certainty that Severus would try to sleep in those ruins tonight, curled up like a stray cat in the ashes of his mother's stories.

If she left now, she might never find him again. Not on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, not anywhere. He'd disappear into the cracks of the world, and she'd spend first year scanning every corridor for a head of black hair that might never appear.

Not happening.

She found him exactly where she'd left him, perched on a blackened beam, knees drawn to his chest.

When her shadow fell across him, his head jerked up.

"You forgot something?" he said, his voice scraped raw as the bricks around them.

Each word cost her something to speak: "I can't go back alone." A pause, then the fragile truth she'd been clutching tight in her chest all day broke free. "I need you to come back with me. You're my best friend."

"Always." The word left her in a rush, desperate and defiant at once. It left an ache behind her ribs, heavy as a vow.

The silence that followed was absolute. Somewhere in the ruins, water dripped like a ticking clock.

Stupid. Too much. She'd never said it aloud before. She thrust out her palm, half-expecting him to slap it away, to spit "We're only friends because we're the only freaks in that dump. I don't even like you."

Instead, he turned his face toward the skeletal remains of the house.

Lily's arm dropped. The rejection stung like salt in an open wound. She blinked hard, willing the tears to stay put until she was safely on the bus.

She didn't look back this time.

The bus smelled of stale cigarettes and orange peel. The driver, a walrus of a man with nicotine-stained fingers, eyed her suspiciously as she mumbled something about "visiting my aunt."

Then, just as the doors hissed shut-

"WAIT!"

Severus's voice, ragged and desperate, slicing through the engine's thunder.

Lily launched herself down the aisle. "Stop! That's my-“

The driver swore as she grabbed the wheel. Tires screeched. Someone's shopping bags toppled.

"Off!" the driver roared, jabbing a thumb at the door.

They stood on the kerb, shoulders brushing, breathing hard. Severus' sleeve was torn at the elbow, the frayed threads catching the neon glow of a nearby chip shop. Lily's braid had come completely undone, wisps of red hair sticking to her tear-streaked cheeks.

For three ragged breaths, neither moved.

Then...

Her pinky finger brushed his. A question.

He didn't pull away. An answer.

And just like that, without apologies or explanations, without promises or lies, they were okay.

Severus nudged her. Not gently, this was still Severus, but with deliberate weight, like he was testing the solidity of this truce. Lily bumped him back, harder than necessary, and felt the ghost of a smile tug at her lips when he huffed.

The night bus lurched into view, all grinding gears and exhaust fumes. The fluorescent lights inside flickered erratically, casting yellow pulses across the cracked pavement.

"Two to Cokeworth," Lily announced, her voice artificially bright as she piled their combined change into the driver's meaty palm.

The man squinted at them through cigarette smoke, his forehead creasing like old leather. "Ain't my business what kids are doing out at this hour," he grumbled, the glowing tip of his fag bobbing between his lips. "Long as you've got fare."

The vinyl seats were sticky with decades of spilled drinks and melted gum. As the bus lurched forward, Lily's shoulder bumped against his. Through the thin fabric of his threadbare shirt, she could feel him trembling, whether from exhaustion, adrenaline, or the lingering shock of the ruined house, she couldn't tell.

Lily sat stiffly beside Severus, her hands folded in her lap, fingers knotted together like she was holding herself back from reaching out. The stuffed toy, a doe, lay between them, its eyes catching the flicker of passing streetlights.

She didn't look at him. Didn't say a word. Just nudged the toy toward him with the side of her knee.

"It’s stupid.”

“It’s just a toy, Sev. It doesn’t have to be smart.”

Severus stared at it for a long moment, his throat working. Then, slowly, he picked it up. His fingers curled into the soft fur, gripping it like an anchor. His shoulders hunched, his dark hair falling forward to shield his face, but Lily saw it anyway. The way his breath hitched. The silent tremble of his hands.

Lily kept her gaze fixed on the window, on the blur of darkened towns and glowing streetlamps racing past. She didn't speak. Didn't offer empty words. Just let the quiet hum of the engine fill the space between them.

The bus carried them back to Cokeworth, back to the places he'd tried, and failed, to escape.

When their stop came, the predawn air hung heavy with factory smog and the faint metallic tang of the nearby river. Lily's legs nearly buckled as she stepped onto the pavement, her muscles finally registering the miles they'd walked.

"Tomorrow," Severus said abruptly. "Midday. By the broken fence near the river." His eyes darted toward the horizon where the first pale streaks of morning were just appearing.

Lily nodded, reaching out to pluck a piece of charred plaster from his hair. "No matter what," she agreed, the words forming a silent pact between them.

For a moment, neither moved. Then Severus turned sharply and disappeared into the maze of terraced houses.

The front door creaked as Lily slipped inside, the sound unnaturally loud in the already sleeping house. She winced, freezing with one foot still on the threshold, listening for any sign that her parents had woken. The only sound was the steady tick-tick-tick of the hallway clock and the distant rumble of her father's snoring.

She eased the door shut behind her, the click of the latch barely audible. Her socks whispered against the wooden stairs as she was about to creep up, already planning on avoiding the third step... the one that always groaned underfoot.

At the stairs, she hesitated. The door to the sitting room, where her parents slept on a mattress between the television and sofa, the coffee table leaned against the wall, stood slightly ajar. A sliver of golden light from the streetlamp outside cut across the worn carpet. She could just make out the rise and fall of her father's broad back beneath the blankets, her mother's arm curled by her face.

Lily bit her lip. She should go to her own room. She should.

But the thought of lying alone in the dark, with only the memory of Severus' grief for company, was unbearable.

She padded forward and slipped between her parents like she had when she was small, tucking herself into the warm space between them. Her mother stirred, murmuring something unintelligible, but didn't wake. Her father's arm, heavy with sleep, draped over both of them, pulling them closer.

Lily exhaled, the tension seeping from her limbs. She curled onto her side and closed her eyes.

The soot.

Her eyes flew open. She'd forgotten... her clothes were still smudged with ash. She lifted her head, peering down at the grey streaks her fingers had left on the white cotton.

Her stomach twisted. Her mother would notice. Her mother always noticed.

For a wild moment, she considered fleeing back to her own bed, but her father's arm tightened around her, anchoring her in place.

Tomorrow, she thought, pressing her face into her mother's shoulder. I'll worry about it tomorrow.

Chapter Text

She floated in the hazy space between a world of dreams and morning's clarity, cocooned in the warmth of her blankets, when the sharp clack-clack-clack of stone against glass yanked her rudely into the waking world. For a bleary moment, she stared at the ceiling, listening to the rhythmic patter of rain against the roof, before another volley of pebbles confirmed it wasn't some trick of the wind or the leftovers of sleep.

Severus.

She'd told him, dozens of times she was sure, to just ring the bloody doorbell like a normal person and just endure the terrifying ordeal of looking her mother in the eye and asking politely. But no. Of course he'd rather risk her mum's actual wrath by pelting her window with stones.

Groaning, she stumbled to the window, her bare feet sticking to the flooring. The hinges protested as she shoved the sash upward, letting in a gust of wind and rain. Below, a shadowy figure lurked in the predawn gloom, his upturned face pale in the weak light.

"What?" she hissed, rubbing her eyes and running her hand over the glass of the window. "If you've cracked the glass, I swear I'll..."

"Come down." His voice sounded like he had been running.

She narrowed her eyes at the slate-grey sky, where rain fell in a steady drizzle. "It's barely dawn and pissing rain. Whatever it is, it can wait till..."

"The letter," he interrupted, two simple words. The days of chasing the postman's shadow, they would be over. "It's come."

All at once, the chill seeping through her nightgown, the leaden weight of interrupted sleep, the irritation at his dramatics; all of it dissolved like sugar in hot tea.

"Don't move," she said, and slammed the window shut, not caring if it broke.

She didn't bother with slippers or a dressing gown. The stairs groaned beneath her frantic descent, and the front door's hinges wailed as she flung it open, barely registering the bite of cold rainwater on her bare feet as she hurtled herself into the downpour.

He stood exactly where she'd seen him from the window, drenched and shivering, his lank hair plastered to his skull like a solid shadow. But it wasn't the rain or the chill that struck her, it was his smile. Not the thin twist she was used to, but the rare one, the one that was bright, stretching his usually sallow face until his dimples showed.

"You're a complete nutter, d'you know that?" she gasped, seizing his sleeve, the fabric was sodden, water dripping down her fingers, and yanking him into the shallow alcove of the stoop. The space was cramped, forcing them shoulder-to-shoulder, knees knocking together, their breath fogging in the damp air. Water dripped from his coat hem onto her toes.

"Show me," she demanded.

With trembling fingers, he reached into his coat. The lining, she noticed, was more patch than original fabric, but it had served its purpose: the envelope he produced was pristine, untouched by the rain. The thick parchment felt otherworldly in her fingers, nothing like the flimsy post her parents received.

Her thumb traced the wax seal, a lion, an eagle, a badger, a snake, all circling a grandiose H, before she turned it around and carefully pried it open. The green gleamed on the page, as though someone had penned it moments ago:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

"It's real," she whispered.

"I told you," he said, this time his smile was almost insufferable, snatching his letter back like his hands couldn't be without it for too long.

The rain kept falling, but neither of them moved. They stood together in their small haven. The ordinary world almost behind them, the magic ahead, and the line between the two blurring with every breath.

They spent the day heavy with restless anticipation. Mum had grumbled about unannounced guests and wet floors when Severus dripped rainwater across her clean linoleum, relenting only when Lily dropped to her knees in a theatrical plea, hands clasped, lip trembling, asking for Severus to stay for breakfast, until her mother swatted her away with a dishcloth.

"Get up, you ridiculous girl," Mum snapped, though the corner of her mouth betrayed the slightest softening. She thrust a frayed towel at Severus as if she were handing over a family heirloom. "Dry that hair before you drip all over my kitchen."

The porridge came later, thick and lumpen, served only after Lily's pointed cough. Severus didn't seem to mind. He hunched over the bowl like a stray over scraps, shovelling it down with a speed that made Lily's stomach twist.

"Slow down," she whispered, kicking him under the table so the berk wouldn't choke.

He didn't. If anything, he seemed to accelerate, as if it was to spite her.

Petunia had long since retreated upstairs, her disdain for Severus distilled into practised indifference. The occasional thump of a textbook or squeak of bedsprings were the only signs she hadn't vanished entirely.

"She's studying," Lily told her when her mother eyed the ceiling. "Sev and I got loads of summer work too."

"He goes to school?" He didn't, but her mother didn't have to know that. He had confided in her, after she had remarked how lovely it would have been for them to attend Muggle school together, that he simply couldn't see the point of it and had stopped going within weeks, long before she could have possibly noticed his existence in her classes. Her mother's lips pursed. "His sort usually skip school altogether."

Severus pretended not to hear. He'd perfected that when it came to her mother's at times unkind words.

The moment the door clicked shut, they dragged the overstuffed sofa across the living room to position it squarely before the window, its wooden legs protesting with an ungodly screech against the floorboards.

Outside, the sky hung low and sullen, offering no owls yet.

"Mine came at dawn," Severus said, plucking at a stuffing tuft poking through the fabric. "Big tawny owl, didn't want to leave, so I threw a shoe at it before my father could complain about it."

Lily grinned. "Bet it hated that."

"Hissed at me," he recalled fondly.

"What did your dad say?" Lily asked, then immediately regretted the question. "When he saw the letter?"

Severus turned away, shoulders tightening. She knew this dance; his words would skitter sideways now, landing somewhere safer. "Slytherin's the best house, you know. My mother said they've produced more Ministers of Magic than..."

"Oh, not this again," Lily groaned, but she let the subject die.

By afternoon, they'd abandoned the vigilant window-watch and slumped in front of the telly, where a grainy episode of Crown Court flickered, some stuffy courtroom drama Petunia adored for its posh barristers in wigs.

As if summoned by the thought, Petunia materialised, her nostrils flaring as she took in Severus' presence. She claimed the armchair with a martyred sigh loud enough to drown out the prosecutor's impassioned opening statement. The conversation withered mid-sentence.

Severus stood abruptly. "I should go."

"But the letter," Lily protested, half-rising.

"It'll come tomorrow." He shrugged, but his eyes darted to Petunia, then away. That branch had never really stopped lying between them, no matter how many times she had forced Severus to say that he was sorry. "I'll be back."

Her hand shot out, clutching at his elbow as if she could anchor him there. "I'll run to yours the second it arrives. Promise."

He hesitated, then nodded.

The days were hard to separate from each other, as if time itself had congealed. Lily kept her vigil by the window, her chin propped on her crossed arms, fingers numb, eyes fixed on the empty stretch of sky beyond the pane that was somehow always slightly dirty with soot despite her mother; the industrial breath of Cokeworth always won. The world outside moved on without her. Tuney flitted about with her newfound entourage, Fiona and Anna trailing behind like dutiful handmaidens, their laughter as raucous as magpies as they departed for Woolies or the lake or wherever Petunia's whims took them.

Severus came when he could, slipping into the Evans' cramped sitting room with the practised stealth of a creature accustomed to making itself invisible when necessary. His voice filled the silence, a low, eager rasp as he went over everything he knew about magic. Again.

"My mother says wandless magic is nearly impossible before training," he said for what felt like the hundredth time, his fingers drumming an uneven rhythm against his knee. "Not that you'd understand, natural talent like yours makes people lazy about fundamentals. She told me all about the misuse and misapplication that lacking fundamentals cause. All proper wizards need a wand..."

"Hmm," Lily replied, the sound worn thin from overuse. She watched him finger his coat pocket, where she knew he carried his letter like a talisman. His ticket out, she thought. His proof that Cokeworth wasn't forever. She was sure that he had not been without it since he had received it; the thought made her want to pinch him. He undoubtedly knew every word by heart, probably recited it to himself at night instead of a prayer.

She closed her eyes, letting his words wash over her as she summoned the memories like little charms on a bracelet: the broken bottle fort by the canal where they'd mixed pretend potions that made the weeds smoke and the stray cats that Severus usually fed arch their backs and hiss; the abandoned mill they'd explored last winter, its massive rusted iron gears frozen mid-revolution, their breath appearing and disappearing in the frigid air; the riverbank in the spring where Severus had crouched in the reeds, his hands cupped around a toad's warty bulk as he lectured her on their uses.

"Ugly things, but brilliant for potions. Wizards keep them as pets too. Just like cats or owls, but..."

She'd stopped listening halfway through, already kicking off her sandals. The memory of her own attempt played out like a cruel joke: her fingers closing on empty water while the toad slipped away with a mocking plop. The cold had been searing against her skin, so painful that each second she persisted felt like an hour.

She fell out of the memory, in the sitting room again, her legs hurting from sitting too long instead of ice cold water.

"But we're not proper wizards or witches yet, are we?" Lily hadn't meant to snap, but the words slithered out anyway.

Severus flinched, then drew his eyebrows together. "You are. It's just..."

"Just what, Sev? There is no owl coming for me." She jabbed a finger at the window. "Nothing. Not a feather."

"Maybe... maybe someone from the school will come to visit instead?" The suggestion wavered in the air between them, thin as the steam rising from their abandoned tea mugs.

Lily whirled on him so fast her braid slapped her own cheek. "But you swore a letter would come first! You said..." She bit down until her jaw ached, as if she could gnaw through the lie he'd sold her. "They always send owls, Lily."

Severus' face flushed an uneven, mottled red. "My mum told me that," he muttered, defensive. "But she's pureblood. No one ever had to explain magic to her family like we're..." He cut himself off, but some unspoken word hung between them.

Lily didn't appreciate how that sounded. Not one bit.

"Ugh!" She kicked out violently, her toes connecting with the coffee table leg with enough force to send pain shooting up to her knee. One of the ceramic figurines her sister had made on one of the excursions to the pottery, tottered precariously. "Why is it taking so long? It's not fair that you got yours first!"

Severus' expression shuttered, his dark eyes going flat and cold.

"If you say so," he said tonelessly. The restraint in his voice somehow worse than the sneer she had become familiar with.

Her parents' worry hung thick in the air. Mum hovered in the doorway, expression hardened like porcelain. "For heaven's sake, Lily, if you're going to mope, at least make yourself useful. The laundry won't fold itself."

Dad tried gentler tactics: ice cream cones dripping down his wrists carried to her place of endless vigil, promises of a day trip to Stourbridge, even a reckless offer to borrow Mr. Dawson's Morris Minor and teach her how to drive in the steel works' empty lot. "Come on, Lily flower. The world's not ending even if you feel like it for reasons you won't share."

By the fourth week, Lily's patience snapped like a whip cracking.

"Don't come tomorrow," she told Severus abruptly as he turned to leave at dusk.

He froze mid-step, one foot suspended above a cracked paving stone. "What?"

"I'm done waiting here." She didn't look at him directly, but fixed her gaze on a point just past his left ear, where a spider had spun an intricate web between the porch light and the drainpipe. Her voice wavered only slightly. "If... if it comes, it'll find me."

"Lily..."

"I mean it, Sev." She finally met his gaze. "There's a whole world out there. Even if yours won't have me."

He slipped away without another word. His footsteps faded down the path, a hesitant rhythm swallowed by distance.

Outside, the first stars prickled to life overhead. Somewhere beyond them, Hogwarts waited, or didn't. Either way, Lily refused to let it chain her to this windowsill another day.

Severus hadn’t come by after that day. She told herself she didn’t care, that his absence was what she’d asked for, even if some stubborn part of her had hoped he’d ignore her and come anyway, scowling and relentless.

Faced with a loneliness she hasn’t experienced for years, Lily accepted her father's offer to go to Stourbridge. The car, some rusted thing her dad had probably promised to fix for free, smelled of petrol and grim. Lily cranked down the window and let the wind steal her too-loud laughs, leaving her mouth full of the taste of exhaust. What stung most was realising ordinary happiness still fit her like a hand-me-down dress, loose at the seams and smelling faintly of someone else’s sweat.

The sign for the Crystal Mile loomed ahead, its cheerful paint fading to something not quite blue.

“Look sharp, flower,” Dad said, nudging her knee. “Glassblowers here made chandeliers for kings. Might even see ’em working.”

The street was a gauntlet of tiny shops, their windows crammed with vases, ashtrays and figurines that caught the thin July light. Lily trailed her father past Thomas Webb & Sons, where a stooped man inside a furnace-lit studio twisted molten glass like toffee. The heat pulsed through the glass door in waves.

As they left, Lily glanced back at the glassblower’s furnace. The man pulled a glowing orb from the flames, shaping it with tools that hissed against the heat. For a second, she imagined it was a miniature sun, something she could hold in her palm if only she dared grip fire.

“Your mum’d kill me if I brought home more breakables,” Dad joked, eyeing a cut-crystal decanter.

Lily forced a smile. She touched a fingertip to a snowflake paperweight, its trapped swirls like a frozen spell.

Her stomach growled, loud enough to make Dad chuckle.

“Right then. Let’s get summat proper to eat.”

Dad bought a greasy paper cone of chips from the corner kiosk, vinegar soaking through the newsprint. They ate on a bench by the canal, watching barges inch through the murky water, their hulls streaked with disrepair.

Dad grinned as she fed chips to pigeons that had gathered. The birds fought over scraps at her feet as the sunset painted everything in improbable golds. For those hours, she let herself believe nothing existed beyond this: the much-coveted greasy chips in her hand, the pigeons' iridescent throats, her father beside her.

Lily had reached into one of the pigeon's tiny minds with fingers of thought, finding it soft and malleable as warm butter, and gently pressed, just enough to make it forget its fear of humans. She bit her lip to hide her grin as Dad startled, then burst into laughter when the bird sat perched on his shoulder.

"I don’t have any chips for you lot!" he protested, but his voice carried delight.

Before he could finish the sentence, three more pigeons fluttered down: one landing on each outstretched arm, another balancing precariously atop his thinning hair.

"Bloody hell, Lily! Look at this!" Dad's laughter boomed across the square, drawing glances from passing shoppers. He stood statue-still, arms extended like a scarecrow, his work-roughened hands trembling slightly. "They like me so much better I don’t even need to feed them!"

Then the pigeon in his hair shat down his collar.

"Christ almighty!" Dad yelped, but he was still laughing: really laughing, the kind that made his shoulders shake and his eyes water. Lily doubled over, clutching her stomach as her concentration broke and the pigeons scattered in a flurry of wings.

The shout came from downstairs, crisp as an egg cracking.

"Lily! Post for you!"

Her heart stuttered. For one wild, breathless moment, the sound of her own pulse roared in her ears. Hogwarts. It had to be…

She nearly tripped on the landing in her rush, her socks slipping on the stairs as she skidded into the kitchen. Mum stood by the icebox, holding out an envelope between two fingers, as though it might bite.

"Don’t tear the house down next time," Mum muttered, but Lily barely heard her.

The envelope was all wrong.

Too thin. Too pale. No wax seal: just a cheap print of the Cokeworth Secondary logo, a prissy-looking owl mocking her from atop a book. Her fingers trembled as she ripped it open, the paper splitting open.

Dear Miss Evans,
We are pleased to welcome you to Year 7 at Lyndon Secondary School...

Somewhere behind her, the back door creaked almost shut. Through the grimy kitchen window, she could see her mother hunched over the washtub in the yard. Mum’s hands were raw from scrubbing, her knuckles straining against the thin skin as she wrung out a shirt with violent twists. The slap-slap of wet fabric hitting the tub’s rim punctuated the silence.

Lily’s throat tightened. Mum hadn’t even waited for her reaction, just vanished back into the rhythm of work, as if this letter were any other piece of post.

The words blurred. Somewhere behind her, Mum was talking, but the voice seemed to come from very far away.

"Lily?"

Something warm and wet hit the back of her hand. Once, then again.

"Oh, for-“ Mum’s sigh was heard from the backyard before she came back into the kitchen. "It’s just school, girl. Not a death sentence."

“If you hadn't failed your eleven-plus, you could have gone to grammar school." Mum's voice was like the scrape of a knife against burnt toast. "You did this to yourself."

The words landed like a slap. She scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand, but the tears came anyway: hot, shameful rivulets that traced the curve of her jaw before falling onto the crumpled letter below.

If only she'd known. If only she'd understood last spring that this ordinary envelope would be her future instead of that magical parchment. She remembered the way Dad's shoulders had slumped when her test results came, how Mum had bitten her lip when telling Mrs. Dawson's daughter that no, Lily wouldn't be joining her at St. Mary's come September. At the time, she'd shrugged it off, secure in the knowledge that she would be off to Hogwarts where silly muggle grades didn’t matter one bit.

Now the memory burned worse than the tears. She could taste the salt of them on her lips, could feel the damp patch spreading down the bottom of her cheek where they'd fallen. All those afternoons wasted lying in the grass beside Severus talking about a future that would never be her own when she should have been studying, all those homework assignments half-done because "none of this will matter next year." The bitterness rose in her throat like bile.

"I thought-“ Her voice cracked. "I thought it might be-”

The clock ticked on. Lily stared at her reflection in the window: a red-eyed girl with tangled hair and a crumpled jumper.

"The teacher is coming at four on Monday," Mum said finally, shoving the letter into a drawer. "Didn’t know that teachers were now doing house visits even before the school year starts."

"Bleakhouse must have told them about your... overactive imagination," Mum continued, the pause heavy with all the things she couldn’t say.

Then, with forced lightness, she flicked a tea towel toward Lily’s tangled hair. "Try not to look like something the cat dragged in, eh?"

Mum went on about how she needed a visitor who wanted to be wined and dined like she wanted another child to worry over. One daughter vanishing into daydreams was trouble enough.

Who needed Hogwarts anyway? Magic had lived in her bones long before some mouldy old school decided that she wasn’t worthy of its halls. Next summer, she would corner Severus and demand the unvarnished truth: how many rules there were, how many dull lectures stood between the sparks of real magic. He would scowl, of course, about "the importance of theory" and "proper technique", but she would know the truth. Even enchanted castles had chalk dust and detention slips.

That night, she slammed her school binder open with enough force to rattle her little desk.

Miss Pembrooke’s admonishments haunted her: "Lily Evans, you could be a perfectly adequate student if you simply applied yourself!"

Maybe she wouldn’t be catching criminals with a wand in hand, or inventing potions and spells to win awards, but she could be a nurse, a hair stylist, a typist, or just a housewife.

The pages remained mostly blank, abandoned since Severus had walked into her life and shown her glimpses of a world she apparently couldn’t fully enter after all. The only thing of importance to her in that little booklet were her careless doodles of fluttering pixies with gossamer wings, a hulking troll with warty skin, and a haughty hippogriff spending their lives in the margins. The hippogriff she had even managed to animate. It took flight, circling the entire page before seeming ready to soar beyond the paper’s edge, only to be forced to return to the margin that he had to call his home.

“Stay,” she whispered, and he did, frozen forever in his little corner.

She turned the page.

The next morning, she intercepted Petunia at the door.

"I'm coming with you."

Tuney's hand froze on the doorknob. "I'm meeting Fiona at the chippy."

"Then we'll meet Fiona." Lily grabbed her cardigan before courage failed her and temptation could draw her back to Severus.

Petunia's nostrils flared. "Doesn’t that greasy little goblin wait for you by the river? Go bother him with your..." Her voice dropped to a hiss. "Unnatural nonsense."

Lily rolled her eyes so hard it ached. "Maybe I grew out of it." The lie slipped out smoother than expected. Before Tuney could protest, she linked arms with her startled sister with ease, like she hadn’t ever flown off the swings.

At the chippy, Fiona’s squeal could have shattered glass. "Lily! Oh Tuney, you should have told me how pretty your sister is."

Petunia’s grip tightened on her cherryade. By the fifth "adorable", and a second "your eyes are just stunning, they don’t even look real", and the first "you could be an actress one day", Tuney yanked her makeup case from her purse with enough force to spill tampons across the linoleum. She herded them back into her bag with a quickness, an ugly blush starting at her neck.

"Hold still," she commanded, swiping foundation across Lily’s cheeks with the precision of someone plastering a wall. The powder cloyed; the mascara wand made her eyes water, each blink leaving black smudges she could feel but not see. Lily endured it, catching glimpses of herself in the napkin dispenser.

"There." Petunia finally snapped the compact shut. "Now you look normal."

She was a slick mask, cracking with every forced smile. Lily ate until her stomach rebelled, until the queasiness drowned out everything else.

It’s fine, she told herself as Fiona prattled about some boy. But who knew that being fine felt like she was wearing Petunia’s ill-fitting skin?

Thursday afternoon found Lily sprawled across her bed, martyr-like, fully entombed in what Mum insisted was her "best" frock. Mum had chosen it last summer, declaring it "brought out the redness of her hair." Its skirt fanned out around her in rigid pleats that refused to soften, no matter how violently she kicked her legs against the mattress.

The white ribbon was the final indignity; its oversized bow perched atop her riotous red hair like a flag of surrender tied to a wild creature.

"Lily! Get down here! Your teacher's come!"

Mum's voice carried up the stairs, sharp with the particular edge she reserved for company, that perfect alchemy of cheer and warning that meant mind your manners and don't embarrass me. Through the banister slats, Lily could see her standing at the foot of the stairs, transformed from her usual exhausted self into someone alarmingly polished. Her Sunday dress, the navy polka-dot one that hadn't seen daylight since she'd stopped attending masses two years ago, had been pressed within an inch of its life, the collar starched stiff enough to graze her chin when she turned her head.

A faint cloud of perfume from the familiar green bottle, one she'd been sneaking spritzes from for as long as she could remember, lingered around her, just strong enough to mask the constant sting of bleach. A hand kept darting up to pat her hair, which had been tortured into submission with enough hairspray to withstand a hurricane.

Lily dragged herself upright, taking her time as she descended: one deliberate step at a time, her patent shoes clicking against the wood. At the landing, she gripped the banister and swung herself around in a lazy arc, momentum carrying her through the sitting-room doorway where Mum had been scrubbing at invisible stains all morning.

The man standing beside their threadbare sofa might as well have been a lion loose in their sitting room.

He was impossible: a moustached, bulgy-eyed relic wrapped in a white suit so crisp it seemed to glow against their faded wallpaper. His emerald waistcoat strained over a comfortable belly, the fabric embroidered with subtle silver vines. One polished Oxford tapped impatiently against the linoleum, its toe scuffing Mum's freshly waxed floor.

"Ah! The elusive Miss Evans!"

His voice boomed like a cannon in the cramped room, too large, too loud for their quiet, shabby world.

"Uh. Hello, Mr Dugborn," Lily muttered. Dad coughed into his fist, shoulders shaking suspiciously, while Mum's eye twitched.

The man threw back his head and roared with laughter, the sound so sudden it made the teacups rattle. Before she could dodge, a meaty hand clapped her between the shoulder blades, sending her stumbling forward.

"Professor Slughorn, my dear girl! But today isn't about this humble pedagogue; no, no, today is all about you!"

He gestured grandly to the sofa where her parents sat ramrod straight, their knees pressed tight together to make space. Lily wedged herself between them, acutely aware of Dad's elbow digging into her ribs and Mum having to uncross her legs to allow her room to sit down. Slughorn settled into the armchair like a king claiming his throne, steepling his fingers beneath his chin.

"What I'm about to say may shock you," he began, eyes glinting with theatrical gravity. Lily braced for the usual lecture: discipline, diligence, the importance of proper penmanship, delivered in a flamboyant manner for once.

"You, Miss Lily Jane Evans, are a witch."

Silence.

Lily blinked. Well.

Slughorn misread her blank stare, leaning forward with a consoling look. "This must be quite the shock-“

"Not really?"

"Oh dear." His bushy eyebrows knitted together. "Did someone else already come 'round? I'm splitting Muggle-borns with Minerva this year; thought we had it all sorted." His voice dropped to a horrified whisper. "Last June, a poor child in Cardiff slipped through the cracks and got a visit from neither of us. Maybe this year we were a bit overeager?"

Students. The word struck her. He's here about Hogwarts.

Joy surged through her, bright and buoyant. Severus was right. The letter would never have come, was never supposed to come. It was going to be a visit the whole time.

"Oh!" She forced her voice into something resembling calm. "You're from Hogwarts."

Slughorn's panic evaporated. "Yes, of course! So you do know! Splendid. This simplifies matters immensely."

Lily swallowed hard. This was the moment she'd rehearsed in her head a hundred times, yet now the words tumbled out in a rush. “I-I’ve known I was a witch for years," she confessed, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I've been waiting for my letter. I was starting to think..." Her gaze dropped until she found it again. "Severus. He's a wizard too. His mum is a witch. That's how I knew."

Slughorn's bushy eyebrows shot up at that. "A witch living in Cokeworth? My dear girl, you must introduce us!"

"Eileen Snape," Lily offered. "Well, she used to be Eileen Prince-“

The change was instantaneous. Slughorn's jovial mask slipped, just for a heartbeat, his plump face draining of colour before he forced another smile. "Ah. Little Miss Prince." His fingers fluttered to his cravat, adjusting the already-perfect knot. "She attended Hogwarts. A shame, what..."

"Excuse me."

Mum’s voice cut through the room like a blade, sharp enough to make Slughorn pause mid-sentence. Dad, meanwhile, had retreated into himself, staring fixedly at his hands as if they might offer an escape from the surreal conversation unfolding in their own sitting room.

"Would you please explain what you're both talking about?" Mum demanded, her voice taut with the kind of forced calm that meant she was two breaths away from snapping.

Slughorn’s jovial demeanor faltered for only a second before he recovered, puffing out his chest like a lecturer about to deliver a particularly fascinating lesson. "My dear Mrs. Evans, your daughter is a witch. A perfectly normal one, I assure you! There’s an entire world of magic beyond this one, hidden in plain sight. Wizards, witches, enchanted castles, why, Hogwarts has been educating young magical minds for over a thousand years!"

Mum’s expression didn’t soften. If anything, her lips thinned further, her fingers tightening around the edge of her apron like she was resisting the urge to strangle the very idea.

Slughorn hesitated, his mustache twitching. He’d clearly expected awe, or at least curiosity, not withering skepticism.

"Allow me to demonstrate," he said with a flourish, seizing the moment before her disbelief could harden into outright dismissal.

His wand slid from his sleeve like a living thing; polished oak with a spiral handle that caught the lamplight. Lily's fingers twitched. She'd never held a wand, but this one seemed to hum, begging to be in her hand.

With a flourish, he intoned, "Verto Vera!” The Latin rolled off his tongue effortless and warm.

The teacup, Mum's very best Wedgwood with the forget-me-not pattern, shivered. For one heart-stopping second, the painted flowers writhed as if caught in a gale. Then-

Pop.

A rat sat on the coaster.

Not just any rat. A perfect rat, its whiskers quivering with rodent curiosity, beady eyes blinking up at them as if to say, Well, this is new. Its fur was the exact dusky pink of the teacup's interior.

Lily's hands flew to her mouth. Mum had gone statue-still, her fingers digging into the armrests like she wanted to snap the wood clean in half. Lily knew that look: the same wild-eyed terror she'd had years ago when a field mouse had sent her vaulting onto the kitchen table, screaming "RAT!" loud enough to rattle the china. Dad still teased her about it, how she'd mistaken a creature barely bigger than a fifty-pence piece for some sewer-dwelling monster.

Now here she was, face blanched whiter than laundry starch, staring down an actual transformed teacup. A rat. A real one, whiskers twitching, beady eyes blinking up from the floral saucer like this was perfectly normal.

"Blimey!" Dad whooped, rocking forward to get a closer look. The rat startled, darting a few inches before pausing to sniff the air.

"Teacup into rat. A classic." Slughorn beamed, as if they ought to applaud the miracle of vermin loose in their sitting room.

He winked at Lily. She winked back, already calculating. How hard could it be to turn a teacup into a rat? She would soon find that out.

The rat sneezed. Mum muffled a scream in her apron.

After regaining her bearings to some degree, she hissed, "That creature better be gone soon."

Slughorn chuckled, unperturbed. "There you go, Mrs. Evans!" With a soft plop, the living, breathing rat shimmered and compressed, its whiskers vanishing into porcelain as it reformed into a teacup once more. It sat primly on the saucer, looking none the worse for wear, if anything, a touch shinier than before.

Lily’s parents stared at the teacup as if it might sprout legs again. Her father reached out, hesitated, then tapped the rim.

"Well," he said, rubbing his chin, "reckon that solves our rat problem right enough."

Dad then cleared his throat. “Professor Slughorn, we’ve always known our Lily was… special.” The word hung in the air, weighted with years of the impossible happening.

“Oh, entirely normal!” Slughorn boomed. “Magical children often exhibit what we call accidental magic. Little bursts of power when emotions run high.”

Lily bit her tongue. Accidental. As if she hadn’t spent years doing what she wanted. But the wide-eyed terror on her mother’s face kept her silent. Easier to let her think it was all some wild, untamable force.

Slughorn, oblivious to the tension, barreled on. "I assure you, at Hogwarts, she’ll learn to control it all. Why, by her third year, she’ll be charming teacups into rats and back again with hardly a second thought!" He leaned in conspiratorially. "And between you and me, Mrs. Evans. You’ll never fret over dishes again. A simple flick of the wrist, and poof! Spots vanish, stains dissolve. Marvelous, isn’t it?"

"Marvelous," she echoed faintly.

Mrs. Evans' fingers fluttered to her throat. "But does she really need to go?" The question came out half-plea. “Couldn’t she just learn to stop doing that?” The “that” was a heavy thing in Lily’s throat, she knew what it meant to her mother.

"This isn't a matter of preference.“ Professor Slughorn interjected gently.

“Magic like your daughter’s,“ he nodded at Lily, “isn't safe untrained. Why, just last month in Manchester, an untended child accidentally transfigured his baby brother into a- well, never mind that." He cleared his throat, at her mothers shocked expression. "The point is, she needs to be among people who understand her... gifts."

Lily felt her mother's hand suddenly crush hers, the familiar callouses pressing like braille against her knuckles, each ridge and groove spelling out a lifetime of holding on too tight.

"I just-“ Mrs Evans' voice broke, and for one terrifying moment, Lily thought she might tell the Professor to leave, damning her to remain stuck in Cokeworth forever. "I only want what's best for my girl." Her thumb stroked Lily's knuckle once, quick and desperate.

"Well, Mrs Evans," Slughorn said, puffing up like a well-fed pigeon, "I can assure you Hogwarts is the finest wizarding institution in Britain. And I'm afraid," he added with a tone of faux regret that didn't quite mask his authority, "that it is not your choice to make." His moustache twitched meaningfully towards Lily.

"Mum, I want to go." The words tumbled out of her.

A chair scraped as her father stood, his hands flattening against the table. "Then she'll go." His voice carried finality. "If our Lily wants this, she's got our blessing."

Her mother exhaled sharply through her nose. Then her shoulders slumped, the starch going out of her just like that awful polka-dot dress at the end of a long day. "If this is truly what you want," she said softly, "then I won't stand in your way.”

Professor Slughorn cleared his throat loudly, abruptly straightening his papers. "Let us discuss your school supplies."

He produced a parchment scroll with a flourish and unfurled it across the coffee table, where it promptly rolled itself back up. He tapped it with his wand until it lay flat. "Now, I would be delighted to escort you to Diagon Alley."

"I do not need a guide," Lily interrupted, then flushed at her own boldness. "Severus knows where Diagon Alley is."

Professor Slughorn's mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. "Of course. Though I should mention," he lowered his voice conspiratorially, "there is a special fund for students of limited means."

"We do not need charity," Mum cut in, her voice sharp again. Her spine had gone rigid, her chin jutting in that way which meant no force on earth would move her.

"Naturally not." Slughorn backtracked, tucking the scroll away with practised ease. He rose abruptly, his belly brushing the tea tray. "I shall not impose further. I have a Portkey stashed in Essex that will take me to Majorca, and it is better to get to it sooner rather than later."

His laugh rang hollow as he edged toward the door, though his gaze lingered on Lily. "Until September, Miss Evans. We are delighted to have you attend our school. Do give my regards to Mrs Snape."

"Sure." She certainly wouldn’t.

Slughorn turned toward the door, then hesitated, his plump fingers fluttering about his waistcoat pockets. "Ah, nearly forgot. Your letter." With a theatrical flourish, he produced a thick envelope from some hidden recess of his emerald waistcoat. The fabric strained audibly as he twisted.

The parchment seemed to glow in the dim Evans sitting room, its creamy surface impossibly pristine. Her name sprawled across the front in elegant green ink - Lily J. Evans.

One moment he filled the doorway, his shadow stretching across the scuffed linoleum. The next, there was empty air. No flash of light, no puff of smoke. Just a sound like a cork being pulled from a wine bottle, and then... nothing. The only evidence he had ever been there at all was the letter in her hands.

Lily gaped at the spot where her professor had stood, her pulse thundering in her ears.

I absolutely have to learn that trick, she thought, her fingers tightening around the parchment.

Then, louder, in the echoing space of her mind: I'm going. I'm really going.

Lily had long since learned to breathe through her mouth near Spinner's End, where the abandoned mill exhaled its last rancid breaths into the hollow between terraces. But today she barely noticed, as she picked her way through the scrubby undergrowth, her footsteps whisper-soft against the sodden earth, as she imagined telling Severus the grand news.

She spotted him crouched by a stagnant ditch, his lank hair curtaining his face as he swiped a glass jar through the air. The afternoon sun caught the jar at odd angles, sending prisms dancing across his patched coat.

“Any success with the lacewings?”

Severus jerked upright, nearly dropping the jar. "I was," he said. His eyes darted to her eyes, then away.

Lily opened her mouth, but Severus barreled on, suddenly animated.

"I’ve been researching owls. Wild ones nest in the mill’s rafters. If we can catch one-“

"Sev, you can’t just tame an owl,” she interrupted.

“And train it to carry letters," he continued, utterly undeterred. "We’ll write to the headmaster. Explain that they missed you.”

Lily pressed her lips together. The image of Severus, balanced precariously on rotting wood, bribing a furious barn owl with stolen bacon, was almost too much. A laugh bubbled up her throat.

Severus stiffened. "You think it’s stupid."

"No! It’s just…” She waved a hand helplessly, searching for words that wouldn't wound. “Very you."

"Meaning?"

“I don’t know. Just very you.” She shrugged her shoulders.

Severus scowled at the jar. "It’s not helpful to just… do nothing.” The lacewings had settled at the bottom, their tiny legs twitching. "Besides," he muttered, "owls are clever. They can be persuaded."

Lily’s chest ached. He was trying so hard, in his own prickly way. She swung her arms behind her back, fingers brushing the parchment tucked into her waistband. "What if… we had something better than an owl?"

"Like what?" Severus sneered. "A pigeon?"

"Like this." She whipped out the letter, grinning as his eyes locked onto the emerald-green ink. "Tada!"

For a heartbeat, Severus didn’t move. Then-“You swine," he breathed, snatching the letter. "You had it the whole time?"

"Mmhmm." Lily rocked onto her toes.

Severus’ gaze flicked between the letter and her face. For one exhilarating second, he leaned forward, was he going to hug her? She leaned into that rare opportunity. It would be the first time.

Then he jerked back, shoving the letter at her. "You’re insufferable," he grumbled, but the corner of his mouth twitched.

"You’re stuck with me," Lily sing-songed, tucking the letter safely away like the treasure it was. "Seven years, Sev.”

"Ugh." He groaned with theatrical exaggeration, the sound so deliberately overplayed that it transformed his usual bitterness into something that bordered on playfulness. "Just help me catch these damned flies."

Chapter Text

The rising sun stretched through the window, granting brief magnificence to the humble dust spiralling above the Golden Shred jar. Lily perched on the edge of her chair, her fingers curled around her father’s forgotten teacup. With a flick of her wrist, just a tiny one, barely noticeable, the liquid inside swirled, steam rising in lazy curls, staying far longer than it should.

"Voilà!" she announced, sliding the cup toward her father with a grin. "No more lukewarm misery."

Dad took an obliging sip and promptly choked. "Christ, Lils!" He fanned his mouth. "I could’ve managed that without magic. Just leave it on the stove ’til it’s molten."

Across the table, Mum hummed thoughtfully, stirring sugar into her own tea. "Convenient, though, isn’t it? Professor Slughorn says domestic spells are a godsend." She shot a pointed look at the pile of unpeeled potatoes languishing in the sink. "Claims he doesn’t know how Muggles manage without. Lighting a fireplace with just a quick tap and dishes clean with just a swish of a wand..."

Petunia stabbed at her breakfast, carving careful patterns while her lips moved in wordless preparation: pressing, parting, pressing again, like she was testing different shapes for the same unspoken thought. Lily caught her sister’s eyes lingering on the steaming cup.

The doorbell rang.

Mum stiffened. “Joe,” she said. "Could you..."

Dad was already halfway to the hall, wiping his hands on his trousers. Lily and Petunia exchanged a glance, a rare, fleeting truce, and scrambled for the window, elbows jabbing, breaths fogging up the glass in competing clouds.

"Move your enormous head..."

"You’re squashing me against the frame..."

Outside, Eileen Snape stood on the front step, her posture rigid as a broomstick. She’d made an effort; her hair was scraped back into a tight bun, her drab coat brushed free of lint. The shadows beneath her eyes remained, indelible as bruises. She rubbed absently at the faded tattoos on her hands that Lily now recognised as ancient runes, her fingers moving in nervous patterns while she spoke.

When those hollow, shadowed eyes lingered on the window where they lurked, Lily’s breath hitched. She nearly threw herself to the floor, as if sheer force of will could make her invisible.

She knows. The thought slithered through her mind, cold and unwelcome. She’s come to remind me that I should have nothing to do with him.

Those eyes, she had made acquaintance with them. The memory made her nauseous. The hospital waiting room. The slap. The bone-deep fear that followed her home from the hospital and lingered.

"Ugh," Petunia whispered, her breath clouding the glass in quick, disgusted puffs. "She looks like someone stretched Severus’ face over a woman."

Lily’s stomach knotted. "Don’t be horrible..."

"I always thought that ugly little troll got his enormous nose from being a witch’s son," Petunia continued, pressing closer to the window. "But now I see... that’s clearly his father’s contribution. Probably got the rest of his looks from him too."

"Bet he’s beyond horrible. Probably why Severus is always..."

"That’s enough!" Lily hissed, her fingers curling into fists at her sides.

In the doorway, Dad was deploying his special smile, the one that usually charmed debt collectors and bank tellers into forgetting infractions. Eileen remained unmoved, her mouth a flat, unimpressed line. She spoke quietly, handing Mum a small drawstring bag that clinked ominously.

Lily strained to hear but caught only fragments: "...appreciate it... London... behave himself..."

Then, Dad, ever the peacemaker, stepped forward with his best "trust me, I’m harmless" smile, his broad hand extended.

Eileen didn’t even glance at it. Dad’s hand hovered awkwardly in the air before retreating to scratch his own neck.

The door clicked shut. Mum exhaled through her nose, the bag vanishing into her apron pocket with a clink.

"Well!" Dad declared, reclaiming his seat with forced cheer. He lifted his tea, now perfectly drinkable, and winked at Lily. "Timing’s impeccable, flower."

Petunia was already pouncing. "What did she want?"

Mum’s spoon clattered against her saucer. "Just a chat about the London trip to get Lily’s school supplies." Petunia’s spoon almost bent in her grip.

"She can’t go," Dad added, his voice casual but eyes watchful. "Asked if we’d take Severus along."

Why would Eileen ask this? Why trust a Muggle family with taking her child to a magical district? And why couldn’t she go herself? Was this some cruel test, or had something happened that even proud Eileen Snape couldn’t control?

The relief twisted in Lily’s chest. If Eileen was letting this happen, did it mean...

"Your father said yes, of course," Mum said, her voice brittle.

Lily’s pulse thundered in her ears, drowning out Petunia’s inevitable mutterings about her best friend.

Severus. In London. With them. It couldn’t get any better.

The wait stretched before Lily like the moment before dice hit the table. Lily claimed the discarded calendar from the steelworks, the one her father had waved off with a gruff, "What do I need this for?", and made it her own. Each morning, she attacked a new square with her teeth-marked pencil, scratching away the days with such fervour that the paper grew thin and ragged at the edges, like a map worn from too much handling.

She’d lie awake at night, imagining the cobbled streets of Diagon Alley, cauldrons bubbling with rainbow potions in crooked shop windows, the wands humming in their velvet-lined boxes like bees.

On the morning of the trip, sleep finally claimed her just as the first birds began their predawn chorus. Her dreams swirled with jumping chocolate frogs that left golden footprints across her palms and spellbooks that whispered ancient secrets as they fanned their pages like exotic birds.

A wet washcloth smacked her square in the face. She bolted upright, spluttering, to find her mother looming over her, still dressed in her housecoat, hair up in rollers, lips pursed.

"Third time I’ve called you," Mum said, yanking back the curtains. Sunlight stabbed Lily’s eyes. "You’ll miss the train, and then what? Shall I pigeon this headmaster of yours and explain you don’t have your school supplies because you couldn’t drag yourself out of bed?"

Lily scrambled out from under the covers, nearly tripping over last night’s discarded socks that lay defeated on the floorboards. Her hasty attempt to charm them into dancing had resulted only in pathetic twitching, as if they were dying insects rather than enchanted footwear.

Mum supervised her morning routine with military precision, checking her teeth and fingernails with narrowed eyes before helping her into a starched pinafore that crackled with newness.

"There," Mum said, stepping back to survey her work. Her hands lingered on Lily’s shoulders, thumbs pressing into the delicate bones as if testing their soundness. "You look... proper."

Severus arrived twenty minutes early, hovering at the garden gate like a nervous shadow. His hair hung suspiciously less lank than usual, combed into severe submission that suggested Mrs. Snape had attacked him with soap and water for the occasion. When Lily reached up to ruffle it playfully, he batted her hand away with reflexive quickness.

"Don’t," he hissed, though the familiar scowl couldn’t mask the anticipation brightening his dark eyes. His gaze darted past her to the house, where Dad was still clattering around by the door, turning out pockets in his perpetual quest for misplaced keys.

Lily rolled her eyes but retreated up the stairs, her bare feet silent on the worn carpet. Through the window, she caught sight of Severus pacing the narrow garden path. Every few steps, he’d pause to scuff his shoe against the ground or pluck at the peeling paint of the garden fence... restless movements that betrayed his impatience.

She steeled herself before the first knock. Even the ones after that on Petunia’s door yielded no response, though Lily knew she was awake: Tuney had the uncanny ability to rise at dawn, just like Mum, her alarm clock set by some internal mechanism of spite. Through the painted wood, Lily caught the muffled rustle of fabric and the scratch of pen on paper: Petunia organising her new school supplies, arranging everything in crisp, magical-free normality.

The door remained shut, a silent verdict. Maybe it was better this way: what could Lily possibly say that would help? "Sorry" would wither in the air between them... hollow, when Lily wasn’t sorry for being what she was, and "I’ll miss you" would only earn her disdain. So she stood there, palm pressed to the painted wood, listening to her sister.

"She’s making a list for her own shopping," Mum explained, materialising behind Lily. "We’re getting her new skirts and blouses after we drop you off. Oxford shoes, too, if we can find her size at the shops."

“We'll pop by the post office after," Mum added, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. "Got to tell that secondary school you won't be coming, and our Tuney's got something to post as well.”

At the front door, Mum pulled Lily into a light embrace.

"Behave," she whispered, her lips brushing Lily’s ear. "Don’t let them think we’re..." She trailed off, but Lily heard the unspoken words as clearly as if they’d been shouted: poor.

She saw her dad finally emerging from the kitchen, red-faced and triumphant, brandishing his keys like he’d excavated ancient treasure. His cheerful expression faltered when Mum went down the stairs and grabbed his wrist and pulled him back into the shadows of the doorway. Their urgent whispers slithered out despite their efforts at secrecy... "Don’t let her buy anything ridiculous," and "Keep an eye on that Snape boy"... before Mum stepped back into the light, a smile plastered across her face as she waved them off with fluttering fingers.

Lily felt Severus tense beside her as they walked down the garden path. Neither of them looked back at the house, where Petunia’s pale face had finally appeared at her bedroom window, watching their departure with eyes that held neither farewell nor good wishes.

The Muggle world stretched before them, dull and grey as tarnished silver. She no longer had any love or desire for the city of Birmingham, not since last summer. The air clung to Lily’s skin, thick with diesel fumes and the sour tang of sweat from commuters packed shoulder to shoulder.

No enchanted lanterns floated overhead to stir the stifling heat; no cooling charms lingered in the corners. Just the rattle of trolley wheels and the staticky drone of the loudspeaker announcing delays in a voice scraped raw by cigarettes.

Dad’s shirt darkened under the arms, the fabric sticking to his back like a second skin. Lily’s carefully blow-dried hair, Mum had borrowed the salon’s dryer, "just this once, and don’t you dare tell Mrs Griggs when you see her”, frizzed into a halo of rebellion, curls spiralling free of their ribbons as if rejecting the very idea of neatness.

And Severus, of course, looked as though he were melting inside his oversized coat, the black swallowing his scrawny frame whole. His hair clung to his forehead in streaks, his sallow skin flushed an unhealthy pink. But his eyes burned with certainty: the smug certainty that soon, all this: the grime, the noise, the Muggle-ness of it, would be left behind.

On the train, blessed with at least the illusion of air circulation from rattling overhead fans, Lily and Severus hunched over his tattered map, drawn from memory.

"Ollivander’s first," Severus insisted, jabbing the paper with uncharacteristic animation. "A wand's the most important thing. Everything else is just... accessories."

"No, robes!" Lily countered. "What if they measure us wrong and I end up with sleeves down to my knees?"

Dad, wedged awkwardly into the seat opposite, leaned into their conversation. "So, Severus, these wizards… they’ve got their own football leagues, or…?"

Severus stiffened, his shoulders climbing towards his ears. "No."

"Cricket?"

"No."

"Ah. Well, what about-“

"They play Quidditch," Severus muttered, staring fixedly at his map. "On broomsticks."

Dad blinked, his smile faltering only for a microsecond before recovering. "Right. Suppose that's... interesting? Bit like polo, but up in the clouds, eh?"

Lily turned to look at Severus, her eyes narrowing. Why are you like this? her glare demanded, the silent communication perfected over years of friendship. He returned it with a shrug so infinitesimal only she would notice, a barely perceptible rise and fall of one thin shoulder that conveyed volumes: This is who I am. I'm not changing for him.

Dad, who deserved animated stories and enthusiastic smiles just like her, received only monosyllabic grunts for his trouble. Yet Severus tolerated her mother’s pinched looks of disdain without complaint.

The train rattled onward, the countryside blurring into smudges of green and gold. Somewhere ahead, London waited, and beyond that, a world of wonders. She caught Severus watching her reflection in the window, his dark eyes softer than they had been all morning, the corners of his mouth tilting upward in the ghost of a smile meant only for her. For one brief moment, the awkwardness in the compartment faded into insignificance.

"Not long now," Dad said, checking his watch, oblivious to the silent exchange. "Better get your things together."

The Leaky Cauldron proved elusive. Severus' vague directions, “on Charing Cross Road" and "you'll know it when you see it”, sent them circling London's maze-like streets for hours.

Dad, ever the optimist, asked directions from a broad collection of strangers: a postal worker who eyed them suspiciously, a strange smelling hippy who laughed outright, and finally a stern-faced woman carrying shopping bags who informed them quite firmly that they should "stop wasting people's time with nonsense." Through it all, Severus maintained an unusual patience, methodically scanning every storefront with the concentration of a bomb disposal expert.

"Are you absolutely sure it's this way?" Lily whispered after their third circuit of the same block, her feet aching in her Sunday shoes.

Severus did not answer. His dark eyes scanned the storefronts with single-minded intensity, his nose twitching slightly as if he could smell the magic hidden beneath layers of city grime.

Lily clung to her father's sweaty hand, partly to avoid getting separated in the crowd, partly because Severus had muttered something about "magical proximity" making the entrance more visible. Dad's palm was slick with sweat, as he muttered about needing "a cold pint and possibly a new pair of feet."

Then, between one heartbeat and the next, she saw it.

Wedged improbably between the bright red awning of a pristine bookshop and the garish neon glare of a record shop advertising "SUMMER HITS!", a dingy building seemed to... shimmer into existence. One moment there was nothing but a nondescript wall plastered with concert posters, and the next it stood plain as day, a crooked, half-timbered structure that looked as though it had been transported intact from Shakespeare's London and deposited unceremoniously between its modern neighbours.

"Sev!" Lily called across the bustling street, her voice pitched higher than normal with excitement. "Sev, I think I-“

Severus was already dodging traffic with the reckless grace of someone used to avoiding worse things than double-decker buses. He materialised at her side, breathless, his usually sallow cheeks flushed with excitement. "That's it," he confirmed, his eyes gleaming as they traced the leaning timber frame and grimy windows. "The Leaky Cauldron."

Dad reappeared behind them, clutching three sweating bottles of water purchased from a nearby kiosk. "Christ!" he exclaimed, water sloshing over his hands as he stopped short. "That wasn't there before! I'd swear on my last fiver it wasn't there when we passed five minutes ago."

"You can see it?" Lily whirled to face Severus. "But I thought-“

"Of course he can see it," Severus sniffed. "The enchantment weakens when wizards are present. Doesn't mean he could have found it without us."

The creaking sign showed a leaking cauldron. As they stepped forward, the city's noise peeled away layer by layer, leaving only the creak of the Leaky Cauldron's sign and the smell of centuries-old ale.

The moment they stepped inside, darkness wrapped around Lily like cool silk, soothing her sun-dazzled eyes. As her vision adjusted to the tavern's gloom, the pub revealed itself in flickering torchlight, more vibrantly alive than any place she had ever encountered.

Witches and wizards crowded every shadowed corner, their robes a riotous kaleidoscope that defied the dingy surroundings: emerald velvets trimmed with golden thread that shifted patterns as the wearers moved; midnight-blue silks that shimmered with actual constellations, winking and realigning themselves; even one witch whose entire outfit seemed composed of living butterflies that occasionally took flight before settling back into the semblance of fabric. Hats perched at impossible angles on heads of every description, some towering three feet high with miniature gardens blooming at their summits, others sporting tiny, chattering faces that scowled at passers-by and made snide comments about fashion choices.

Severus stood frozen beside her, his thin frame trembling. She had seen that look before, when stray cats pressed their noses against the fishmonger's window, ribs visible beneath their matted fur. That same feral yearning, except these wizards did not throw scraps. They did not even see him standing there.

"Blimey," Dad breathed, already elbowing his way to the bar. "These folks make the Carnival look downright dull!" He launched into an animated explanation to the bartender about Lily's Hogwarts letter, gesturing expansively while the wizard polished glasses with casual flicks of his wand, barely acknowledging the Muggle man's enthusiasm. The glasses cleaned themselves in mid-air, stacking into precarious pyramids that defied not only gravity but several other fundamental laws of physics.

Meanwhile, Severus had taken to darting about like a trapped moth, yanking open cupboard doors and peering behind tapestries. "It's got to be here somewhere," he muttered.

"The entrance is over there, boy!" croaked a wizened old man hunched in the corner. Shrunken heads dangled from his belt, their sewn-shut mouths twitching as if trying to speak. One winked at Lily, making her stomach lurch.

Severus scrambled towards the indicated door, plain wood, utterly unremarkable among the tavern's eccentricities, with Lily close behind. One moment they stood in the pub's smoky embrace, the next...

Sunlight. A dead-end courtyard. A brick wall stretched impossibly high, the mortar between its stones so ancient it had faded to the colour of bone.

Severus immediately began tapping stones, his finger jabbing in a frantic pattern. "“Three up . . . two across . . .four left-“

"Shouldn't it-“

"Quiet! I'm concentrating!"

The bricks remained stubbornly solid. Severus kicked the wall with a snarl. "Fuck!"

Lily flinched.

"It's not working," he spat. "Mum said the pattern would… she said…” His voice cracked, the carefully constructed facade of mysterious knowledge crumbling before her eyes.

"I'll ask inside," Lily offered, reaching towards him before thinking better of it and letting her hand fall back to her side.

Severus nodded stiffly, shoulders hunched against his humiliation.

Back at the bar, the bartender did not look up from his dancing bottles as Lily approached. The liquor performed an intricate waltz, ruby-red whisky pouring itself into waiting glasses while a peppermint-smoking pipe hovered nearby like an attentive servant.

"We can't get into Diagon Alley," Lily said, rapping her knuckles on the sticky counter with more confidence than she felt. "My friend tried the pattern on the wall, but…”

"Memory like a sieve, has he?" The bartender sighed, as if this conversation wearied his very soul. "Happens ten times a day. Wall's fine. Brains aren't."

Lily's frown deepened. Severus could remember something she had mentioned once in passing two years ago. Forgetting was not his problem.

The door banged open as Severus burst back in. "I just remembered-“

"Told you!" The bartender rolled his eyes and shuffled off towards a gill-necked witch.

Severus' jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the sallow skin. "We need a wand," he muttered, voice barely audible above the tavern's cacophony. "The pattern's useless without one."

"But we're here to buy wands," Lily pointed out, logic splintering against frustration. "That's the whole point of-“

"You could... borrow one?" His voice dipped into unfamiliar pleading. When Lily arched a brow, he crossed his arms tightly over his chest, that telltale gesture meaning “You know why I can't ask”.

She did know. People gave Lily things: smiles, sweets, second chances, the benefit of the doubt. They gave Severus scowls and suspicious glances, shoulders turning instinctively away when he approached. Even here, among magical folk who supposedly valued different sorts of power, that fundamental truth seemed to hold firm.

Scanning the room with newfound purpose, her gaze skipped over the gill-necked witch (definitely not), the drunken warlock snoring with flames occasionally spurting from his nostrils (absolutely not), the shrunken-head collector still watching her with unsettling interest (emphatically not)... then landed on a plump, motherly woman cooing at a toddler in an alcove. The cherub-faced child giggled delightedly as a miniature dragon flapped around his platinum curls, puffing harmless smoke rings that transformed into butterflies.

Perfect.

Lily pasted on her sunniest smile, the one that got her extra biscuits at tea. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

The woman turned, revealing a pleasant, apple-cheeked face beneath an elaborate hat festooned with what appeared to be singing daisies. Her smile seemed genuine. "Yes, dear?"

Encouraged, Lily plunged ahead. "Could we possibly borrow your wand? Just for a moment, to open the wall to Diagon Alley? We're first-years, you see, and-“ The request tumbled out in an eager rush.

Her eyes flickered over Lily, having to squint because of the dim light. "Are you Muggleborn?" The question hit Lily like a bucket of ice water.

Lily's "Yes?" emerged smaller than she intended, more question than statement, suddenly aware she had miscalculated something fundamental.

The transformation was instant. The witch recoiled as if Lily had spat in her tea, clutching her wand to her chest like a holy relic. "I don't want filth touching my silver lime!" she hissed, voice dripping with venom.

"Ask someone else!" With a dramatic swish of her plum robes that sent the singing daisies into a discordant wail, she turned away from her, pulling the giggling child closer as if Lily's very presence might contaminate him with some invisible disease.

The words didn’t leave her alone, filth, thick and rancid as the tavern's stale ale. Lily's hands trembled at her sides, her cheeks burning with a humiliation so acute it seemed to scorch her from within. She suddenly became acutely aware of every stare in the room, every whispered comment that might be about her.

She could not bear to look at Severus. He had promised the wizarding world would welcome her, that her blood status did not matter. Another pretty lie, like the ones he told about his father's "accidents." The bitterness rose in her throat like bile.

When she finally dared to glance his way, he stood by the grimy windows, seemingly fascinated by the tattered curtain tassels. Too fascinated. He had heard. Of course he had heard, the witch had made no effort to moderate her contempt.

"Did she let you borrow her wand?" His voice was carefully neutral, but he did not stop fiddling with the tassels.

Lily caught Severus' eyes. His gaze was not quite guilt, not quite shame, but something adjacent to both, complicated by a desperate plea for understanding. She looked away first, unable to grant the absolution he silently sought.

"No luck," Lily muttered, staring at a particularly interesting stain on the floorboards rather than meet his eyes.

Just then, her father's familiar bulk appeared between them. "Sorry, I was detained," Dad said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. "That was quite the experience. The toilet seat kept trying to bite my-“ He broke off, noticing their expressions. "What's happened?"

Lily opened her mouth, but Severus spoke first. "We need a wizard to open the passage. The pattern's no good without a wand."

Dad’s eyes darted between their tense faces, but he simply nodded. "Right then." He turned on his heel and marched towards a wizard in peacock-blue robes just exiting the loo. "Excuse me, sir! My daughter here's just got her Hogwarts letter, first in the family, proud as punch we are, and we seem to be a bit stuck on the technical bits-“

To Lily's relief, the peacock wizard listened with genuine interest, his face lighting up with unexpected warmth. "Muggleborn! Marvellous! Always bringing fresh perspectives to our rather stagnant little world." Then, with a flourish of his mahogany wand, he led them back to the courtyard. "Watch closely now," he instructed, tapping the bricks in a precise pattern that Lily tried her best to commit to memory and made Severus roll his eyes from the suggestion that he did not already know. "Three up, two across..."

The archway dissolved behind them, and Lily stumbled forward into impossibility, leaving behind the witch and her insult. Diagon Alley stretched ahead like something torn from a fever dream: buildings that defied every law of architecture she had ever known, their timber frames twisted into spirals, their rooflines sagging and soaring in cheerful defiance of gravity. Shop signs creaked and swayed on chains that seemed to move of their own accord, while golden script rewrote itself across windows as she watched.

The air itself felt alive. Roasted chestnuts and crystallised ginger warred with the sharp ozone scent of magic, punctuated by something that tasted of copper pennies and starlight. Overhead, lanterns bobbed without strings, their warm glow painting the cobblestones in shifting amber pools. Witches swept past in robes that shimmered between colours, their conversations a symphony of laughter, incantations, and the sharp crack of disappearing into thin air, like Professor Slughorn.

Severus had gone statue-still beside her, his pale face tilted upward like a sunflower seeking light. His mouth hung slightly open, and for the first time since she had known him, words seemed to have abandoned him entirely.

"Severus," Lily breathed, her fingers finding his wrist. "Look at it all."

He blinked slowly, as if waking. "I thought I knew," he whispered. "From the stories my mum told me. But this..." His voice cracked. "It's like..." Words failed him.

At the street's far end, Gringotts Bank rose like a marble monument to ancient power. Its bronze doors gleamed between towering columns, while figures in elaborate uniforms stood guard, not quite human, their faces sharp and calculating, their eyes following every passer-by with predatory interest.

"Right then," Dad muttered, tugging his cap lower over his eyes. The sight of the goblins had clearly unsettled him. "I'll handle the money business. You two keep close and stay close.”

But Lily was already moving, drawn by an irresistible curiosity towards the nearest shopfront.

The pet shop assaulted them with a symphony of the wild: piercing shrieks from unseen birds, the rhythmic plop of something large moving through water, and an underlying chorus of squeaks, chirps, and rustles that seemed to emanate from every shadow. The air hung thick with the musk of feathers and fur, tinged with something acrid that made Lily's nose wrinkle.

Cages climbed the walls like entire cities, their occupants ranging from the mundane to the miraculous. Purple toads sat stacked in glass pyramids, their jewelled eyes blinking in lazy synchronisation while their throats pulsed with bioluminescent light. Somewhere overhead, a raven with three heads argued with itself in what sounded like an ancient version of gibberish.

But it was the corner that stole her breath entirely.

Lily gasped. "Sev, look!"

The owl perched on its gilded stand like a small emperor holding court. Its tawny feathers caught the lamplight, each one edged with gold, while amber eyes regarded the world with the patient wisdom of centuries. When it turned its head, that impossible, nearly complete rotation, those eyes fixed on Lily with an intelligence that made her stomach flutter.

"A real owl," she breathed, and reached out to pet.

The beak struck faster than thought itself: a sharp, precise reprimand that drew a perfect bead of crimson from her fingertip.

"Bloody hell!" Lily jerked backward, cradling her hand while the owl settled its feathers with what could only be described as satisfaction.

Severus snorted. "You don’t just grab them, you idiot."

"I wasn’t grabbing-“

"You were. Like a muggle." He said it without malice, but Lily still bristled.

He moved forward with deliberate slowness, his pale hand extended palm-down. The owl considered him with those molten eyes, head tilting in assessment. After a moment that stretched like held breath, the magnificent creature lowered its head in what might have been a bow.

Severus' fingers found the soft down between the owl's eyes. "See?" he muttered. "You’re too pushy sometimes."

Lily stuck out her tongue but watched carefully. Before she could shove him aside to try again, however-

"There you are!" Dad’s voice boomed across the shop as he squeezed between displays. "Damn weird midgets nearly had me convinced a Galleon was worth half a quid. Kept going on about purity standards and mint dates."

"Did you get the money?" Lily interrupted, unable to keep the eagerness from her voice.

"Aye, but not as much as I’d hoped." He patted his pocket, where the coins jingled. "Now, what’ve you two been-“

His gaze fell on the owl, which had fixed him with a stare that seemed to weigh his net worth. "Oh no. Absolutely not."

Lily pointed eagerly at the owl. "But Dad-“

Dad hesitated. The owl blinked at him, as if judging his worth.

"Your mother would have my hide nailed to the front door," he said finally. "Says the house’ll smell like a chicken coop."

Lily groaned. "But everyone at Hogwarts has one!"

Severus shifted uncomfortably beside her. He wouldn’t ask, Lily knew he wouldn’t, but his fingers lingered on the owl's feathers with the careful touch of someone memorising a moment he couldn't keep.

Dad sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Tell you what, love. If you still want one after your first year, we’ll talk. But for now-“ He jerked a thumb towards the door. "Let’s go."

Lily sighed but allowed herself to be herded out, casting one last, longing glance at the owl.

Severus, though, lingered just a moment longer, his fingers brushing the feathers in silent farewell.

The moment they stepped into Ollivander's, she felt suddenly very small, as if she'd stepped into the pages of some storied tome. Towering shelves stretched into shadowy recesses, each crammed with thousands of oblong boxes, some pristine, others furred with dust that made her fingers twitch with Mum's phantom scolding about cleanliness.

"Rock, paper, scissors for who goes first," Lily declared, already forming a fist.

Severus' smirk was sharp. "You'll lose."

She did. His scissors cut her paper with no mercy.

"Two out of three?" Lily wheedled.

"No." Severus tucked his victory close.

"Lily-flower, your turn will come," Dad rumbled, steering her towards a spindly chair that groaned under her weight.

Severus approached the counter like a soldier marching to battle, shoulders rigid, hands clenched at his sides. The empty space before him seemed to hum with anticipation.

Then, like magic itself, a man materialised between the shelves. Moon-pale, with hair that defied gravity and eyes like molten silver, Mr Ollivander loomed over them. "Good afternoon," he murmured.

"I want to buy a wand." Severus' tone was all challenge.

Ollivander leaned closer, his gaze piercing. "And who are you?"

"Severus Snape, sir." The politeness sat strangely on him, not quite fitting.

"Snape... Snape..." Ollivander tapped a long finger against his temple. "No Snapes have graced my shop. Not in my memory."

"My mother is a witch. A Prince." Severus drew himself up, the name a banner unfurled.

"Ah!" Ollivander's eyes lit like struck flint. "The Princes! Fine magical lineage... though it's been decades since I've received one in my shop." His gaze turned distant. "Thought the line might have ended, like so many pure-blood houses these days..."

Lily's mind flashed to the Prince manor's charred ruins in Birmingham: nothing but rotten wood and blackened stones. A family erased.

"Your mother, Eileen, yes? Cypress and unicorn hair. Nine inches, reasonably supple." Ollivander's fingers twitched as if recalling the wand's weight. "She still has the pieces, doesn’t she? They always do, even if it’s useless."

Severus shrugged, but Lily saw a flinch. Ollivander's expression softened briefly before clapping his hands. "No matter! Every wizard finds their match here. Arms out, please."

A measuring tape sprang to life, whirling around Severus with manic energy. It paused at his left arm, hovering curiously. "How peculiar. Your left arm is more than an inch shorter. Or maybe your right is too long."

"Muggle accident," Severus muttered to his shoes. Lily studied the cracked floorboards, cheeks burning with second-hand shame and first-hand guilt, stroking her own leg.

Ollivander scrunched his nose as the tape measured Severus' nostrils. "Wands adapt to their wizards, scars and all."

With a flick of his wrist, Ollivander vanished into the shadows. They heard him muttering, boxes shuffling, until…”Aha!" he emerged cradling a single box like a holy relic.

"Fir and dragon heartstring. Eleven inches. Rigid." The wand gleamed pale as bone against velvet. "From an Antipodean Opaleye, fiery temperament, that one."

Severus snatched it up, brandishing it like a sword. "I'll take it."

Ollivander moved faster than his years suggested, fingers darting to reclaim his merchandise. "Oh no, no. This isn't yours." He tutted as Severus curled protectively around it. "The wand chooses the wizard, Mr Snape. And this one... disagrees."

The second wand, ebony with a spiral groove, barely grazed Severus' palm before Ollivander whisked it away. "Unicorn hair prefers you, I think. But not this pairing..."

Then came the third. Blackthorn, dark as a starless night, its surface gleaming like oil. "Unicorn hair. Twelve inches. Stiff, perfect for duelling." Ollivander's voice lifted. "A warrior's wand."

Severus' fingers barely touched the wand when silver sparks exploded outward, snapping through the air like live wires. His hair whipped back from the force, standing on end as the magic crackled around him. The air buzzed against Lily's skin, raising the hairs on her arms. Across the counter, Ollivander leaned forward, his usual calm replaced by sharp interest.

Dad's applause boomed through the shop. "Bravo, lad!"

Severus turned towards Lily, eyes alight with vindication, perhaps, or simple joy at being chosen by something magical. The wand still sparkled faintly in his grip, as if reluctant to dim its celebration. She flashed him her brightest smile, the one reserved for Christmas mornings and birthday surprises, and thrust both thumbs skyward in triumphant approval.

As Dad counted out galleons, and after he had rubbed his neck like it was burning, he aimed a hearty clap at Severus' back. "Twelve inches? Jesus Christ, lad, are you planning to swordfight with it?" At the last second, Severus twisted away, leaving Dad's hand to glance off his shoulder. Still, the coins changed hands, and Severus cradled his box.

Then Ollivander's moonlit gaze settled on Lily. "And now," he said, his voice carrying the weight of ceremony, "for our young witch."

As she rose from her chair, her heart pounded.

"I'm Lily Evans, sir." The words tumbled out too quickly. Ollivander's piercing silver gaze seemed to peel back layers of her skin, leaving her cheeks burning. The silence stretched like the measuring tape still hovering near her elbow.

She swallowed hard. "I'm Muggle-born." The admission tasted bitter, like she was confessing to some crime rather than stating a simple fact. Her fingers twisted in the fabric of her dress, bracing for rejection.

Ollivander merely blinked, his wild eyebrows twitching. "That doesn't matter to wands, Miss Evans. Magic is magic." The measuring tape responded to his casual gesture, spiralling around her with renewed enthusiasm. "Arms out."

The tape whirled with a life of its own, brushing against her nose as it measured the distance between her ears before darting down to span her fingers. Lily's shoulders relaxed as the tension seeped from her muscles, until the tape suddenly cinched tight around her ribcage like an overeager corset, forcing an undignified squeak from her lips.

"Interesting," Ollivander murmured, vanishing into the shadowy shelves. The shop echoed with the sounds of shuffling boxes and muttered calculations, the occasional satisfied grunt. When he reappeared, he carried a teetering stack of wand boxes nearly obscuring his face.

"Let's begin with this one." He presented the first wand with gravity. "Dogwood and unicorn hair. Ten inches. Springy." His voice took on a lecturing tone. "Dogwood wands often choose owners with playful natures and-“

Lily barely heard him. The moment her fingers brushed the warm wood, Ollivander had already snatched it back with surprising speed. "Decidedly not." He thrust another into her hands before the disappointment could settle. "Fir and unicorn. Ten inches. Remarkably pliant."

This time, only a faint hum travelled up her arm, pleasant but fleeting, like hearing a familiar tune from another room. The wand was gently pried from her grasp.

"Maple and unicorn," Ollivander announced, presenting a wand with rich amber grain.

The moment her skin touched the wood, warmth bloomed in her palm, then surged into a searing heat. "Ow!" Lily dropped it with a clatter, shaking her stinging fingers.

"Ah!" Ollivander's eyes crinkled with barely suppressed amusement. "That one certainly had opinions. Not to worry, it happens more often than you'd think."

What followed felt like torture by degrees. Wand after wand passed through her increasingly desperate hands. Some emitted acrid smoke when she attempted to wave them; one produced a sound like a dying animal in profound distress; another turned to ice in her grip, numbing her fingers to the bone. The vast majority simply sat there, beautiful but lifeless as carved sticks.

With each failure, Lily's movements grew more frantic. Her initially graceful flourishes devolved into jerky, desperate flicks that spoke of mounting panic.

"What if none of them choose me?" The whispered fear escaped before she could cage it properly. Her vision blurred treacherously as she stared at her lap, unwilling to witness pity in her father's weathered face or disappointment in Severus' dark eyes.

Ollivander studied her with unexpected gentleness, his hawkish features softening around the edges. "Not an easy customer, eh?"

"I guess," Lily mumbled, swiping at her eyes with her sleeve.

"Patience, Miss Evans. The best matches often take-“ He broke off as her fingers closed around the next wand.

Heat flooded through her, not the scorching burn of before, but a golden warmth that spread from her fingertips to her chest. The wand seemed to sigh in her grasp, settling into her hand like it had always waited for her in the dusty shop. A cascade of golden sparks erupted like captured starlight, dancing around her in lazy spirals before settling to the floor and making the ancient wood planks glow with soft radiance.

Ollivander's face split into a beatific smile. "There we are! Willow and dragon heartstring. Ten and a quarter inches, nice and swishy." His voice took on a reverent quality. "That particular heartstring came from a Hungarian Horntail, viciously protective of its young. Took three wizards to collect it after she died defending her clutch."

Lily barely heard him. She cradled the wand in both hands, marvelling at how the pale wood caught the light. It hummed softly against her skin, a quiet song only she could hear.

"Willow wands invariably choose owners of great potential," Ollivander continued as Lily spun to show her father. "Particularly talented in Charms work, I've found. This is a wand for a witch who will go far indeed."

Her father's proud grin stretched from ear to ear as he counted out the galleons. "That's my girl!"

A loud bang interrupted the moment, followed by Severus' hissed, "Shit!" from behind a towering shelf. While Ollivander had been distracted, Severus had slipped away, drawn to the wands displayed along the back wall like a compass needle to north.

"Severus, we're leaving!" Dad called, pocketing the change. "Lily's got her wand now."

A dark head popped up from behind a stack of boxes, black hair falling into suspiciously guilty eyes. "Took long enough," Severus muttered, though his fingers strayed to his own wand pocket that she was sure would soon become a nervous habit.

As they stepped into the sunlight, Lily couldn't stop babbling. "It felt like coming home, Sev! Like it was made just for me! And Ollivander said willow is brilliant for Charms, and-“

Severus listened with uncharacteristic patience, his thumb rubbing absent circles over his own wand through the fabric of his coat. When she paused for breath, he offered a smile. "Told you you'd get one, didn't I?"

And as Diagon Alley bustled around them, her wand warm in her hand, she knew Severus was right. Some things, it seemed, were simply always waiting just for her.

The robe shop assaulted them with robes as far as the eye could see as soon as they entered, akin to the Muggle charity shops her mother called her hunting grounds. Cramped and dimly lit, every inch of wall space was hung with racks of pre-owned Hogwarts uniforms in varying states of dignified decay. Black fabric rustled like conspiring ghosts whenever the door disturbed the musty air. A tarnished bell jingled overhead as they entered, announcing their intrusion to a seamstress whose mouth puckered like a drawstring purse pulled too tight.

"Second-hand for the lot of you, is it?" she sniffed, eyeing Dad's threadbare shirt, nearly transparent at the elbows where the fabric had surrendered to countless washings. Her measuring tape slithered around her neck like a lazy serpent, occasionally flicking its tongue-like end towards them as if tasting their financial situation on the air.

Severus stiffened as she approached him, his shoulders hiking towards his ears. When her fingers brushed his collar to adjust the tape, he recoiled as if scalded. "I can measure myself," he hissed, snatching the tape. The woman's eyebrows disappeared into her frizzy hairline.

"Suit yourself, young man," she said with the brittle dignity of the chronically underappreciated.

Lily bit back a laugh, twirling in front of a tarnished mirror. The robes: patched at the elbows but charmed to fit perfectly, felt like being wrapped in cloud. "Sev, look! No itchy tags or waistbands!" She stretched her arms wide, sleeves flapping. "It's like wearing pyjamas to school!"

For a moment, Severus' scowl softened. Her triumph, however, dissolved as she caught her reflection again, seeing herself through her mother's absent eyes. Hortense Evans should be here, Lily thought with a sudden hollow ache, adjusting the collar, insisting that even second-hand robes needed proper hemming. She would have bullied this pinch-faced woman within minutes, would have somehow secured both a discount and perfect alterations through sheer force of maternal determination.

Dad, meanwhile, was engaged in battle. "Five Galleons for used robes? They've got someone else's initials embroidered on the sleeve." He jabbed a calloused finger at the fading ‘NB’ stitched in silver thread. "Can’t you undo that at least?"

"It’s a permanent sticking charm," the seamstress snapped. "Unlike Muggle embroidery, magical stitchwork cannot simply be removed without compromising the entire garment."

"Could we at least get a discount for that? This is daylight robbery."

"You’re buying second-hand. If you want new ones, you will have to pay for new ones."

"Dad," Lily groaned, tugging him away. "It's fine. Everyone will be wearing robes anyway. No one will care about someone else's initials."

The bookshop hit them like a tidal wave of parchment and ink. Lily gasped as colours shimmered from enchanted covers. A Monster Book of Monsters gnashed its teeth at passers-by, while Magical Water Plants: Mermaid Insight on Uses and Properties dripped real seawater onto the floorboards.

"Can we get Hogwarts: A History? Ooh, look at this one about Animagi!" Lily piled volumes into Dad's arms until he staggered.

Meanwhile, Severus had gone very still before a shelf labelled Defensive Magical Theory. His fingers lingered on Curses & Counter-Curses, its cover embossed with a fanged serpent. When he noticed Lily watching, he shoved it behind Magical Drafts & Potions with a cough.

"Find anything good?" she asked, voice deliberately light, pretending she hadn't seen the hunger in his eyes when he had touched that particular spine.

"Just browsing," he mumbled, suddenly fascinated by a display of self-inking quills.

Dad's sigh cut through their browsing. "Kids... we're down to twelve Galleons." He showed them the limp coin purse. "New books are out."

Lily's stomach dropped. The pristine Hogwarts: A History, with its gold-embossed castle illustration, would remain on the shelf. But Severus just shrugged, already pulling dog-eared copies of the required books from the discount bin. Their spines were cracked, margins filled with generations of scribbled notes.

"Look," he said, showing her a page where some past student had drawn caricatures of professors. One in particular showed a professor with mouth downturned and eyebrows drawn together in a severe pinch, complete with cat ears.

Lily smiled. "This one's got better illustrations than the new one."

She traced the faded ink with a fingertip, imagining the witch who had once owned these pages. Had she been top of her class? Did she doodle during boring lessons just like Lily did? Had she made friends, found her place in that strange castle waiting for them beyond the summer's end? For a moment, the ghost of a girl with ink-stained fingers seemed to smile back at her from across the decades, passing down not just knowledge but a kind of inheritance.

"Plus," Severus added, with a rare, genuine smile that transformed his sallow face, "we can add our own notes. Make them even better for whoever gets them next."

The instrument shop reeked of copper. She had never realised that a place could even do that. The walls and floors were lined with brass, pewter, and rare glimpses of gold, all seemingly thrown together without order. The only commonality was that they were all metal.

Dad's face drained of colour as he examined the price tag dangling from an elegant brass telescope inlaid with mother-of-pearl markers for the celestial houses.

"One telescope," he said firmly, voice pitched low so only Lily and Severus could hear. "You'll share."

"But what if we're in the same class?" Lily protested, already imagining the logistical nightmare of shuttling the instrument between them.

Her dad sighed. "Then you'll take turns. That's what friends do."

Severus, who had been circling a solid gold cauldron, said, "We'll be in Slytherin together. Obviously." His reflection distorted across the cauldron's burnished surface as his fingers hovered millimetres from the rim, never quite touching, as if the very proximity to such splendour might leave fingerprints.

"Obviously," Lily echoed, grinning as she knocked her shoulder against his.

Through windows so grimy they looked deliberate, jars of luminescent fungi pulsed like captive stars, their ghostly light painting the cobblestones in shifting pools of green and gold. The smell hit them in waves: dried herbs sharp enough to make her eyes water, and something pickled that spoke of long-dead creatures.

"Dad, please," Lily begged, fingers already on the doorknob. "We'll be quick!"

While she pleaded, Severus had already drifted towards the collection of weathered barrels clustered outside the apothecary like wooden sentinels. One barrel's lid sat slightly askew, revealing a glimpse of what looked like desiccated fruit, though the shapes were wrong somehow, too red and angular to be apples.

Dad sighed, checking his near-empty coin purse. "Five minutes. And no touching anything that looks like it might bite back."

Inside, the shop swallowed them in shadows and strange hums. Severus moved like a sleepwalker towards the back wall where roots dangled like hanged men.

"Look," he breathed, pointing at a twisted blob that looked like chewed-on leather. "Boomslang skin."

Meanwhile, Lily found herself mesmerised by a display case filled with crystalline vials that caught the light like trapped rainbows. Each bottle held liquid that seemed to move with its own internal weather, some swirling like miniature storms, others perfectly still but glowing with inner fire.

"This one says 'Phoenix Tears'," she breathed, leaning closer to read the impossibly elegant script. "One thousand Galleons."

Curiosity overrode caution as she reached out to brush dust from the vial's surface. The moment her fingertip made contact, sharp pain lanced through her hand like touching a live wire.

“Bloody hell!” She jerked backward, cradling her stinging finger against her chest. How much more stinging and hurt would her hand have to endure in the magical world? It already seemed unreasonable.

"Protective enchantments," Severus observed with the satisfied air of someone who had avoided making the same mistake. "Phoenix tears are beyond precious. Each drop represents centuries of accumulated power."

"If I had enough money," Severus mused, his gaze drawn to a jar of powdered moonstone, its shine so pure it made everything else appear tainted by comparison, "I'd brew Felix Felicis first."

"If I had any money to spend," Lily countered, "I'd buy this whole shelf and bathe in it." She gestured to the rainbow of crystallised liquids.

Severus snorted. "You'd turn yourself into a walking potions accident."

The shop's cramped aisles pressed close around them, every surface crowded with specimens that seemed to watch their movements. Ancient shelves groaned under the weight of centuries-old ingredients, while the air grew thick with the competing aromas of dried beetle shells and crystallised unicorn horn.

Lily's fingers found a gnarled wormwood root, its surface rough as old leather but warm to the touch. Across the aisle, Severus examined dried flowers that used to be white. Their eyes met, a silent dare passed between them.

Lily palmed the root while pretending to search her book bag. Severus turned sideways, his oversized sleeves swallowing the flowers.

"Kids."

Dad’s voice cut through their conspiracy. He nodded towards the rafters, where a stone gargoyle watched with glittering eyes.

"Don't get caught." His tone was light, but his grip on their shoulders spoke volumes. "This isn't the sort of place that forgives mistakes."

The almost stolen items returned to their jars with quiet rustles.

Outside, the sun dipped low over Diagon Alley, gilding their mismatched parcels in gold. Lily's second-hand robes, which she had already put on, flapped in the breeze as Severus adjusted his grip on their shared cauldron.

The ice cream parlour's enchanted ceiling swirled with clouds that occasionally rained sprinkles, vanishing before they hit the tables. Dad counted out the remaining silver Sickles into his palm. "Right then," he said, lips quirking at Lily's barely contained bouncing. "One last treat before the train. Something to remember today by."

Lily almost pressed her nose against the glass case, fogging it with her breath. "Chocolate nut sundae... ooh, can I get the exploding topping? The one that makes sparkles as it melts?"

The server, a young wizard who looked like he was still a student, smiled indulgently.

Severus stood a half-step behind, as if reluctant to claim equal status in this ritual. His eyes darted between the dizzying array of options: pearl-white peppermint, wholly black liquorice, even a violently purple concoction of berries. The chalkboard menu might as well have been written in runes for how still he'd gone.

Dad noticed. "Take your time, lad."

"I..." Severus' throat worked. "I don't know?"

Lily blinked and bit her lip.

Dad cleared his throat. "Not hungry myself," he lied, patting his stomach. "You two enjoy."

Her father's pronouncement made her heart ache.

Eventually Severus pointed to a modest scoop of vanilla.

The Evans' front door creaked shut behind them, sealing away the damp evening air. Lily’s arms ached from carrying her parcels, refusing her father's offer of help: the weight of second-hand books, the shared dented cauldron (still warm from Severus' grip where he’d refused to let go, ending in a silly tug of war), the robes with their stubborn stains, but her excitement would not stop fizzing.

In the sitting room, the flickering blue glow of the television painted her mother and sister in ghostly light. Mum's fingers moved deftly over a pile of Petunia's freshly ironed blouses, her mouth pinched around some gossip about the neighbour's gaudy new curtains. Petunia perched on the sofa edge, her knees pressed together, nodding along with practised attention, until she spotted Lily in the doorway, and her expression froze.

"Look what I got!" Lily burst in, dumping her bags onto the carpet with a thud.

Mum’s hands stilled. Her gaze swept over the battered copies of Magical Drafts and Potions (its margins crammed with a previous owner's frantic notes), the robes, the cauldron... all undeniably shabby under the lamplight like they had lost their magic in the Muggle house.

"Oh," Mum said, very quietly. Then, with forced brightness: "Well. They'll... do, won't they?"

Lily's grin faltered. She'd expected... well, she wasn't sure what. A gasp of wonder, perhaps. A grudging admission that yes, this magic business might be extraordinary after all. Not this careful neutrality, like her mother was swallowing a sigh along with her true thoughts.

Petunia, surprisingly, said nothing at first. She leaned forward slightly, her sharp eyes fixed on the parchment where a sketched diagram of a mandrake root writhed faintly against the paper. Her thin fingers twitched in her lap, as if fighting the urge to reach out and touch it.

"Tuney?" Lily ventured, holding out Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the most intact of her books. "You can look, if you want. It's got moving pictures inside."

For a heartbeat, Petunia's face did something complicated. Then she sniffed, retreating back into the cushions. "It's probably got spells on it," she muttered, but without her usual venom. Her gaze lingered on the cover.

"At least they're... sturdy," Mum offered, but the words sagged between them.

A commercial jingle blared from the telly.

Lily swallowed. The magic had bled out of her purchases, leaving behind scratched cauldrons and dog-eared pages. Here, in this ordinary living room with its floral wallpaper and fading newspaper articles, her treasures were just things: used, imperfect, mundane.

Then...

"Does it..." Petunia's voice was barely audible over the television. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Does that book really talk about... monsters?"

With careful movements, as if approaching a skittish cat, she settled beside her sister and flipped to the chapter on fairies, their iridescent wings shimmering on the page. “Not quite monsters. See for yourself," she whispered, pushing the book halfway onto Petunia's lap. "These ones live in the Forbidden Forest – they'll steal your buttons if you're not careful."

Petunia hesitated before tracing the wings. Across from her, Mum's mouth tightened, but she didn't intervene.

And for the first time in a long time, Lily dared to hope that she wouldn't have to leave her sister behind.

Chapter Text

Lily lay rigid beneath her thin summer quilt, her eyes wide open against the dark. Every time she blinked, fireworks of memory burst behind her eyelids: the hiss of the enchanted tape measure, the woody scent of her willow wand now lying next to her pillow, the way Diagon Alley’s endless wall had given way for them. Her toes curled into the mattress with remembered excitement.

A murmur of voices seeped through the floorboards, her parents' familiar tones warped into strange new shapes by the late hour and Lily’s straining ears. She held her breath, catching only fragments: “...galleons...” “...that boy...” The refrigerator’s mechanical hum swallowed the rest, but the underlying current of discord was unmistakable, setting her teeth on edge.

Before she could think better of it, Lily found herself slipping from beneath the covers, padding onto the landing. Through the slats, she could see the kitchen's glow painting tiger stripes of light across the hallway walls below. She settled onto the third step from the bottom, her childhood listening post, the one board in the entire house that had never learned to betray with creaks, and pulled her knees tight against her chest, making herself small enough to disappear.

“She didn’t give you enough money?” The rhythmic clatter of washing up ceased abruptly. Lily could picture her perfectly: that familiar stance of barely contained fury.

Dad’s sigh seemed to rise from somewhere deep in his chest, weighted with the exhaustion of a man who had tried to do right and somehow made everything wrong. “When we were done in that magical stick shop, I just had enough of those small bronze things... I can’t remember the name right now, but they were like pennies.”

“Knuts,” Lily whispered to herself.

“Why do you care about what that awful boy gets or doesn’t get?” Mum’s tone was brittle, like ice cracking underfoot.

Lily flinched.

A chair scraped against the linoleum as Dad shifted forward. She could see him without looking: elbows planted on their scarred kitchen table, shoulders bowed under the familiar weight of marital discord. “Was I supposed to let Severus stand there watching while Lily got everything her heart desired? That would have been-”

“Fair,” Mum cut him off. “It would have been fair, Harold. When you haven’t got money, you can’t buy things. That’s how the world works. That’s the lesson you should be teaching our daughter.”

“It would have been cruel,” Dad said quietly. “It wouldn’t have been right.”

A plate clattered into the drying rack with too much force. “So what is right is that you waste half the money we had saved up for Lily’s school supplies on someone else’s child? So our Lily has to make do with second-hand everything? So she’ll arrive at that magical school looking like a charity case, learning from books held together with sellotape, all so that boy doesn’t have to go without?”

Lily’s throat constricted painfully. She hadn’t minded the pre-owned robes with their lingering scent of mothballs and foreign perfume, had like inheriting clothes from some brilliant witch who had walked these same corridors before her. The copy of The Standard Book of Spells with missing pages seemed to withhold surprises from her that she would uncover during her lessons.

“It’s not the worst thing in the world,” Dad’s voice was firm. “She won’t be the only one making do.”

“Oh, so I should be fine with this because that grimy little boy from Spinner’s End is going to be looking ratty as well?” Mum’s laugh was bitter. “It’s bad enough having him round the house. You know Susan and Nelly ask me all the time how I can let my daughter play with his sort. How I can let one of them into my home. Ask if I’m not worried about Lily!”

Heat flooded Lily’s cheeks as she pressed her forehead against the banister’s cool wood.

“Now, Hortense,” Dad said, a warning in his tone. “That’s not nice.”

“Oh, stop scolding me like a child for just telling the truth!” Mum’s voice cracked. “I’ve had enough of your righteousness for the evening.”

A long silence. Then-

“He’s Lily’s best friend,” Dad said softly. “Just a child. A boy who’s excited to be leaving for boarding school, a magical boarding school at that. You should have seen him when he picked his wand... I mean, when his wand picked him. Maybe you wouldn’t be so harsh on him.”

Lily pressed her palm to her mouth. She had seen it.

“You know exactly what his father is,” Mum hissed, her voice dropping to a whisper as if speaking the truth too loudly might summon misfortune itself. “That murderer. That convict.”

She knew about his father. Everyone did.

“Severus isn’t his father.”

“Yet.” Mum’s voice dropped, cold and deliberate. “Give him a decade or a few. He may just grow up to be just like Tobias Snape, and our daughter might as well end up black and blue and drinking herself to death like his wife.”

“Hortense-” Dad’s voice was strained. “They’re just eleven years old. Let’s just calm down and not go off the rails here.”

“You’re the one who made everything go off the rails!” Mum’s voice rose, raw and shaking. “This is all your fault. Lily was supposed to have nice things, new things. We swore that we would give them the world that they would have better chances than we did!”

A choked pause. Then, quieter, her voice breaking-

“I work myself into the ground at that salon, standing on my feet until my back screams, just to save every pound for our daughters. I sleep on the sitting room sofa so they can each have their own space, their own little piece of the world that belongs to them alone.”

“I know,” Dad said softly.

“And you still gave it away. You gave away the money I saved for our daughters.”

A long, terrible silence.

“I’m sorry,” Dad murmured.

“Do you feel pleased with yourself now that you’ve done your charity? You always find something to waste money on, don’t you? Should I be pleased that it’s charity this time instead of a horse race?”

Another stretch of loaded quiet. Then Mum’s voice, drained of everything but exhaustion-

“Just go to bed. I’ll finish this, and then I’ll join.”

“I’ll stay here until you’re done.”

“It’ll take hours.”

“I don’t mind,” Dad said, his voice quiet but unyielding. “I’ll stay with you as long as it takes.”

Lily pressed her fist against her mouth, tears burning behind her eyes.

The first pale light of dawn had barely begun to seep through the curtains when Lily abandoned all pretense of sleep. The memory of her mother’s words, that boy, his kind, murderer like his father, clung to her like smoke from a fire, souring the quiet of her bedroom. She kicked off the tangled sheets and padded downstairs, her bare feet loud against the worn wooden steps.

The kitchen light burned brighter than expected for five in the morning. Lily paused in the doorway, her fingers curling against the frame.

Lily's second-hand robes lay spread before her like a patient on an operating table, still damp to the touch. The sharp scent of fabric dye hung thick in the air, her mother's stubborn attempt to coax the faded black into something deeper, something that might pass for new. It hadn't quite worked. The results were uneven, patchy in places, and the hem still bore those telltale iridescent splotches where some long-ago student's potion experiments had left permanent scars that even her mother's determination could not erase.

Lily watched as her mother’s fingers traced the embroidered initials on the cuff, N.B., picking at the stubborn threads with a seam ripper. Lily had already waged her own war against those letters, of course. She had scraped at the letters with her nails, then with the tip of her precious wand, willing them to unfurl. Nothing. The monogram remained, as immovable as her mother’s distrust of Severus.

The needle flashed silver in the lamplight like a star as she worked, her stitches small and sure. Slowly, the harsh, impersonal letters dissolved beneath a garden of thread: a lily, bold and bright, its white petals unfurling along the cuff; a pink petunia, neat and prim, beside it; a hydrangea, Hortensia, its blue clusters full and soft. And winding through them all, a looping J in her father's favourite green.

The lamplight suddenly felt too warm against Lily's cheeks.

Her mother sat back with the careful movement of someone whose body ached in places that could not be seen. The smile she offered was barely there.

"So that you’ll remember us." Her voice trembled.

Petunia lingered at the edges of it all, a ghost in her own home. She stood in doorways but rarely entered rooms where Lily practised, her body angled as if ready for a quick retreat. She no longer flinched when a teacup drifted an inch above the table during breakfast, but she didn't lean in, either.

Once, Lily caught her staring at A History of Magic, her long fingers hovering over the moving illustrations of mediaeval wizards who bow and brandish their wands on the page.

For a heartbeat, Petunia's face softened, her lips parting into something gentler. Lily saw a flash of the sister who once braided her hair and taught her to skip stones across the river, before the word "witch”.

That evening, as Lily passed her sister's bedroom, she noticed Petunia hunched over her desk, shoulders rigid with frustration. Scattered around her were fragments of her favourite china ballerina, the one that had occupied pride of place on her nightstand since her twelfth birthday. The delicate figure lay in pieces, one arm completely severed, the porcelain skirt shattered into jagged shards.

"Stupid thing," Petunia muttered, attempting to fit the pieces together with trembling fingers. A tube of clear adhesive sat open beside her, its contents smeared uselessly across the ballerina's broken form. "Stupid, fragile, useless thing."

Before she could think better of it, Lily stepped into the room. Petunia's head snapped up, her expression hardening into practiced disdain.

"What do you want?" she demanded, but there was something beneath the hostility, embarrassment, perhaps, at being caught in a moment of vulnerability.

Lily hesitated, then drew her wand from the pocket of her jumper. Petunia's eyes widened, fixing on the slender piece of willow.

"I could try to fix it," Lily offered quietly. "There's a spell-"

She pointed her wand at the shattered ballerina, focusing on how it should be: whole, perfect, like she could dance on Petunia's nightstand in the afternoon light.

"Reparo," she whispered, and for a breathless moment, nothing happened.

Then, with a soft tinkling sound like distant wind chimes, the pieces began to move. They skittered across the desktop as if pulled by invisible threads, finding their proper places, edges melding seamlessly together. The ballerina reformed, first the delicate base, then the slender legs, the outstretched arms, and finally the serene porcelain face with its painted smile.

Petunia's sharp intake of breath broke the silence. The repaired ballerina stood between them, perfect and unblemished.

"I didn't-" Tuney started, then stopped. She reached out with cautious fingers, touching the mended skirt as if expecting it to crumble beneath her touch. When it remained solid, she swallowed hard. "How does it know how to go back together?"

It was the first real question she had asked about magic, without scorn or dismissal.

"I think it remembers what it's supposed to be," Lily answered softly.

Tuney's fingers lingered on the ballerina for a moment longer. Then she withdrew her hand and straightened. "Well. That's... convenient, I suppose." She didn't say thank you, but she placed the ballerina carefully back on her nightstand rather than hiding it away. There was a warmth in her eyes for just a brief second as she looked at Lily.

That night, Lily added another item to her trunk: a photograph of herself and Tuney from a few summers ago, holding hands as they fed ducks at the park.

She tucked it between the pages of A History of Magic.

The weeks stretched and contracted like a slow-burning fuse, each day marked by the ritual of Lily packing and unpacking her trunk. The contents shifted restlessly: textbooks rearranged by subject, then by size; robes refolded along razor-sharp creases; her cauldron polished to an unnatural shine that caught the sunlight. Her wand, however, had a mind of its own. One moment it rested neatly atop Magical Drafts and Potions, the next it vanished, only to reappear tucked beneath her pillow or slipped into the pocket of a discarded jumper. She pressed her fingers to the willow wood, half-convinced she could feel a pulse beneath the grain, a steady, whispering rhythm, as if the wand was counting down the days alongside her, equally eager to leave Cokeworth behind.

She and Severus spent their dwindling summer days sprawled in the patchy grass by the riverbank, their books spread between them like a scattered hand of cards. The August sun beat down, turning the polluted water to a shimmering ribbon of pewter, while factory smoke hung like distant storm clouds on the horizon. He read aloud in his low, precise voice, tracing the lines of spellwork with a fingertip, while she memorised the cadence of incantations.

When he demonstrated Incendio for the first time, the flame burst from his wand with a sharp crack, igniting a rusted bin with unnatural hunger. The fire licked at the peeling paint, twisting into shapes like grasping fingers before Severus smothered it with a hissed counter-charm. Lily laughed and gave it a try herself, swallowing down the fact that she could have done that without a wand or incantation.

Afterwards, they took to combing the weedy edges of Cokeworth, their Herbology textbook clutched between them like a treasure map. Severus pointed out knotgrass tangled in chain-link fences, dandelion roots perfect for shrinking solutions, and once, his voice dropping to a reverent hush, a clutch of poisonous nightshade lurking behind the abandoned mill. His mother told him it could kill a man. Lily plucked a handful of blackberries from the brambles and tried to transfigure them into purple buttons, but they melted in her palm, leaving dark marks. Severus did not laugh. He only watched, dark eyes unreadable, before nudging her with his elbow and flipping to the next page.

The moment Lily shouldered open the front door, a wall of heat struck her like a physical blow. The grocery bags slipped from her fingers, potatoes rolling across the hall tiles. Every window in the house was shut tight, the air thick enough to choke.

Why is there...?

Through the sitting room doorway, an unnatural glow pulsed against the wallpaper, casting feverish shadows where there should have been none on this cloudless afternoon. The fireplace roared despite the sweltering August day, flames licking greedily at the blackened bricks as if they were starving.

Then she saw it.

A scrap of parchment, half-curled at the hearth's edge like a wounded creature. Her stomach plummeted to somewhere beneath the floorboards. She knew that creamy paper, the precise inked illustrations with their moving components now eerily stilled: The Standard Book of Spells. Her fingers trembled as she lifted the fragment, feeling the residual magic tingle against her skin. The edge was charred black, words disappearing into nothingness mid-sentence.

The rest was ash, grey and powdery amongst the grate.

A floorboard creaked behind her.

Petunia stood in the doorway, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her eyes were pink-rimmed, her cheeks blotchy, and her lips chapped, bitten raw in places.

"What did you do?" Lily’s voice wavered over each syllable.

Petunia shrugged, a single sharp jerk of her shoulders. "Well? Can’t you just magic them back?" Her tone was light, almost conversational.

Lily’s breath hitched. The torn page crumpled in her fist. "What?"

"I burned them." Petunia’s gaze flicked to the fire, where embers glowed. "All of them. I ripped out the pages one by one, watched them curl up and turn black. That one must’ve... fallen." She nodded to the scrap in Lily’s hand, as if discussing a misplaced hairpin.

"How could you...?" It surged hot under her skin, the air around her warping like a heat mirage. The fire roared higher, fed by her rage.

Petunia didn’t flinch. "You’re a witch." She spat the word like a rotten seed. "Use your freakish powers. That’s what they’re good for, aren’t they?"

"It doesn’t work like that!" Lily shouted. "What’s destroyed by fire can’t be… why? I thought we were…” Her voice broke.

Petunia’s face might as well have been carved from ice. She turned on her heel, her cardigan snagging on the doorframe as she stormed out. Then the heavy thud of footsteps on the stairs, followed by the sharp slam of a bedroom door overhead.

Lily didn’t move.

The hearth’s heat blistered her face as she scrabbled through the ashes with the fire poker. One scrap, one word, but the flames had been thorough. All that remained was that single half-page, its edges brittle.

As she stirred the grey remains, something clinked against the metal poker, something that wasn't ash, wasn't paper. She frowned and carefully extracted the object from the grate.

A small porcelain ballerina, unblemished and pristine amid the destruction. The same one she had repaired for Petunia just weeks ago.

The ballerina stared up at Lily with her painted eyes, her arms forever frozen in a perfect arabesque. Untouched by the flames that had devoured everything else.

The front door burst open with its usual cheerful jangle of keys. She didn't lift her gaze from the fire. The flames cast wavering orange light across the half-crumpled page in her lap, all that remained of her Charms textbook.

"Lily flower?" Dad's voice came from somewhere far away, his usual booming tone gone thin with concern. "Why's there a fire going, love? You could fry an egg on the floorboards!"

Lily's throat clenched around the words. She watched as a spark leapt onto the parchment fragment, threatening to devour another letter of the Levitation Charm instructions before she batted it away.

Mum's shoes clicked sharply. "Have you lost your mind, lighting a fire in this heat?" The poker clanged against the grate. Then silence. Lily could feel Mum's gaze like physical pressure on her hunched shoulders. "What's that in your hand?"

"My books," Lily whispered to the flames. "They're gone."

Mum's shadow stretched long across the carpet as she stepped closer. "What do you mean? Did they sprout legs and run away because you keep dog-earing them?" There was that familiar teasing lilt to her voice, but when Lily finally looked up, she saw Mum's lips pressed in a way that meant she was considering, really considering, that magic might have made her textbooks walk away.

"Tuney burned them!" The words tore out of her, raw as the blisters she'd got poking through the ashes. A hot tear splashed onto the parchment, making the inked diagram of a floating feather blur and run.

Mum went perfectly still. The poker trembled slightly in her grip. "By accident?" she asked.

Lily shook her head so hard her braid whipped against her neck. "She hates me, Mum."

"She told me she ripped out every page first. Every. Single. One."

She hurled the fragment into the fire. For one heartbeat, she could still see the words Wingardium Leviosa glowing through the flames. Then they were gone.

Mum's face transformed, all colour retreating until only her eyes remained alive, green as Lily's own and burning with something terrible. "Where is Petunia?" The words came out quiet and deadly. "Is she in her room?"

Lily swiped at her nose with her sleeve. "Yes."

Dad moved suddenly from where he'd been frozen in the doorway. His hand raked through his hair, leaving it standing in wild tufts. "I'll go to her," he said. "We'll... we'll have a good long talk." The door clicked shut with unnatural softness behind him.

Mum didn't move for a long moment. Then her knees hit the carpet with a thump Lily felt in her own bones. The hug came softly. Lily stiffened, eleven years old and too grown for this, until it undid her completely. When the tears came, they were silent, until her breath hitched, and the dam broke.

Her mother appeared in the hallway, her posture rigid, her arms full of folded fabric: Petunia's new school clothes, the ones she had worn around the house and twirled and preened in just last week. The blouses still bore their price tags, swinging like tiny pendulums. The pleats still bore their store-bought perfection.

Mum burned them, tossing the clothes into the glowing embers. Thick, acrid smoke filled the house; the stench of melting plastic clung to the air until she doubled over, coughing into her sleeve.

She made her watch from the doorway as she listed Petunia’s punishments: grounded, allowance cut, no new clothes. The click of the lock turning was deafening. The doorframe creaked under Mum's leaning weight, her blanched fingers locked around the knob like she might wrench it clean off.

"You'll stay here," she said, each word measured carefully. "Until you can speak one decent apology. I will let you out to use the toilet; that's your world now. No food. Only water. Nothing but your own mind to keep you company."

Her father watched from the staircase, saying nothing.

Lily waited until she could hear her mother cry in the kitchen accompanied by her father whispers, before creeping to Petunia’s door. Pressing her palm to the wood, she strained to hear.

No sobbing. No angry muttering. Just a low, steady murmur, the words too soft to make out but the tone deliberate, almost rehearsed. As if Petunia were reciting something to herself, over and over, as if she could remake the world with the right combination of words.

Downstairs, a pot clattered too loudly against the sink. The sharp scent of burned food curled up the staircase. Lily exhaled shakily and stepped back.

The words tumbled out of Lily before she could stop them, her voice cracking like dry parchment. “Petunia burned them. All my books. Ripped out every page first, like she wanted to make sure nothing could be salvaged." Her fingers found the raised scar on her knee from last summer's fall, pressing hard against the toughened skin like a worry stone. “She just stood there watching the flames like it was... like it was nothing."

Severus went still. The afternoon sunlight streaming through the Evans' sitting room window turned his sallow skin translucent, highlighting the sharp angles of his face as his expression darkened. His fingers, which had been carefully turning a page in Magical Drafts and Potions, now curled into fists, nearly crumpling the parchment.

"That miserable little..." He cut himself off with a sharp inhale. When he spoke again, his voice was low. "It doesn't matter. On the first of September, you'll be gone. You'll only have to see that jealous bitch during the summer holidays."

Lily flinched at the crude word. "Sev-“

"You think this is the worst she'll do?" He leaned forward, his lank hair falling like a curtain between them and the rest of the world. "She'll keep finding ways to punish you for being what you are. For being more."

Lily stared at the worn carpet between them, tracing the faded floral pattern with her toe. Severus' anger should have comforted her, it was the first time anyone had truly been furious on her behalf, but it settled like a stone in her stomach.

"You don't understand," she whispered. "She's my sister."

Severus made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. "And my father is my father."

A chill ran down Lily's spine. Outside, a sudden gust of wind rattled the windowpane, making them both glance up. The sunny afternoon had darkened without warning, clouds scudding across the sky like spilled ink.

"You'll be at Hogwarts soon," Severus said again, softer now. He reached out as if to touch her hand, then thought better of it, his fingers twitching back. "Where you belong."

Lily swallowed hard. The words should have been a comfort. So why did they make her chest ache?

The hunger strike ended on the third evening, when Lily's parents found Petunia swaying at the top of the stairs, her pallor grey as old newspaper. No apologies were exchanged, only silent concessions. Meals were eaten. Doors were closed. Petunia moved through the house like a vengeful spirit haunting familiar corridors, her eyes sliding past Lily as if she were made of air. Their parents said nothing, their weary expressions speaking volumes: this is how it will be now.

Severus arrived at her doorstep clutching his Magical Theory textbook to his chest like a shield. The leather binding was cracked with use, some pages wrinkled from being held too long. When he thrust it into her hands, she noticed immediately how every margin had been transformed. The previous owner’s scribbles had been violently blacked out, replaced by Severus’s cramped but surprisingly elegant script. Questions, dozens of them, spiralled around diagrams like vines.

Lily traced a finger over the ink. “Someday your books will be nothing but black ink,” she mused before she could stop herself.

Severus stiffened, his sallow cheeks flushing. “Just read,” he muttered, collapsing onto her bedroom floor with his back against her bedframe.

For hours, they bent over the book together, their shoulders nearly touching. Lily lost herself in the rhythm of it, the dry whisper of pages turning, Severus’s occasional grunt of understanding. She could almost pretend the fireplace incident had never happened. Almost.

Then Severus jerked upright, checking the fading light through her curtains. “I have to go.”

“You can leave the book,” Lily said casually, flipping another page. “I’ll give it back tomorrow.”

She waited for his reply, but nothing came. When she glanced up, Severus was staring at her with that peculiar intensity of his, his fingers twitching at his sides. “No. I need it tonight.”

Lily’s grip tightened on the spine. “Why?”

His lip curled. “Just give it back.”

Something hot and ugly burned in Lily’s chest. After everything, after Tuney, after the ashes, after sitting here like a beggar borrowing knowledge, he could not spare one bloody book for a single night? She snapped the cover shut with deliberate slowness and slid it into her nightstand drawer.

“You’ll get it tomorrow,” she said, meeting his black glare with one of her own. “Like I said.”

For a heartbeat, Severus looked positively feral. His nostrils flared, his hands half-lifted as if to wrench the drawer open himself. Lily did not blink. Try it, her icy stare challenged. Just try.

He didn’t. With a sound halfway between a snarl and a sigh, he whirled and slammed her bedroom door hard enough to rattle the framed family picture on her nightstand.

Lily’s own fists clenched in her lap. The words “My parents’ money paid for that book, it’s not even really yours!” burned her tongue, but she swallowed them at the last second. They were bitter.

She yanked the book back out and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall with a satisfying thud, pages fluttering. Rude. Selfish. Inconsiderate. Mean. She kicked her desk chair for good measure. Who was she thinking about: Severus or herself?

Lily woke with guilt lodged in her throat. The morning light filtering through her curtains felt accusatory, highlighting Severus's book on her nightstand. She dressed quickly and waited by the riverbank with the book in her hands until her knees ached from the damp ground, but he never came. She had become good at waiting, but it still felt like walking around with a rotten tooth.

The hollow space beneath their usual willow tree yawned wide, swallowing her whispered apologies whole.

By noon, she had retreated back to her room. She read until her eyes burned, tracing each inky annotation with her finger, memorising the text as if perfect recall could stitch their friendship back together. If she could just master every spell, every theory, maybe she would not fall behind at Hogwarts without books. Maybe he would forgive her.

As dusk painted Spinner’s End in greasy yellows, Lily slipped past her mother’s watchful neighbours. Here, the terraced houses slumped against each other like drunks, their windows opaque with grime. No gossiping old women, just the occasional shadow moving behind drawn curtains, people too worn down to care about a red-headed girl clutching a book to her chest.

Then she saw him. A pale smudge in an upstairs window, Severus's face appearing and vanishing like a ghost. Her heart leapt. She scooped up a handful of pebbles and pinged them against the glass until the front door cracked open, revealing one dark eye and the glint of a chain lock.

"I brought your book back," Lily said, thrusting it through the gap. The leather cover was warm from being pressed against her all day. "Can I... come in?"

Severus’s fingers twitched around the doorframe. "You shouldn’t." His voice was hoarse, as if he had not spoken all day.

"Please?"

A long pause. Then the chain rattled. "My mother’s asleep. Don’t know where my father is," he muttered, yanking her inside so fast her elbow bumped the wall. "And don’t – don’t touch anything."

The smell hit first, sour and unwashed. Lily’s eyes adjusted to the gloom: peeling wallpaper, a staircase with two missing banisters, a single armchair haemorrhaging stuffing like a gutted animal. Her patent shoes stuck slightly to the floorboards as she followed him upstairs.

His room was worse. Mould feathered the corners where the roof leaked. A nest of threadbare cushions served as a bed, wedged between a broken dresser. But in the centre, arranged with ritual care on a clean tea towel, sat his school things: quills aligned by size, telescope polished to a shine, books arranged meticulously.

Lily’s chest ached. The first things that had ever been truly his. The only things he really had.

They sank onto the cushions, their backs brushing the damp wall. Lily pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth, the pressure building behind her eyes like a dam about to burst. Crying would shame him. Then she spotted it on his windowsill, the familiar biscuit tin she had brought to the hospital back when they were not friends yet.

"You kept it," she whispered.

Severus flushed scarlet, then snatched up a lamp from the floor ignoring what she said. "Lucerna Lumos," he pronounced, his wand pointing at the broken bulb. It flickered to life, casting shaky light over his proud smirk. "Mastered it last night."

The glow revealed what the dim light of his house had hidden, the purple shadow along his jawline, the way he used his left hand despite being right-handed. Lily swallowed her pity and mustered a grin. "Your room's got character! And look at that window repair! Is that chewing gum and...?"

"Stop lying," Severus snapped, but the lamp’s light did not waver. "Just... read with me. Before the bulb burns out."

And so they did, heartbeats syncing in the circle of light that should not have been possible, except for magic.

That Saturday, Petunia vanished in a whirl of strawberry-scented hairspray and performative giggles, her new friends’ voices trilling like over-tuned wind chimes as the front door shuddered in its frame, not so much closed as sealed shut between them.

Upstairs, Lily flopped onto her bed with a groan. "I'm bored," she announced. Across the room, Severus muttered something unkind to the enchanted telescope, which remained obstinately mundane. Its promised star charts and planetary tracking spells were still locked away by their collective ignorance.

"Braid my hair?"

Severus scowled. "I'd rather wrestle a manticore."

"Come on, you're getting good at it! And my arms hurt if I try to do it myself." She tossed him her hairbrush.

"And don’t make it lopsided on purpose. I will know." He muttered under his breath, but caught the brush anyway.

"I’ll do yours after."

"No."

"Oh come on. Why have long hair if you don’t want a nice French braid?"

"I’d rather be bald."

His fingers were surprisingly deft as they separated her thick red strands into sections, the repetitive motion smoothing the perpetual crease between his brows.

They lapsed into comfortable silence, broken only by the whisper of hair against hair and the distant chatter of the television downstairs.

"Tie," he demanded.

Lily scrambled to her desk, clutching the half-finished braid with one hand while shoving through the landslide of parchment and quills with the other. After three fruitless seconds of digging, knocking over an inkpot she miraculously caught mid-air, she huffed. Petunia will have a dozen hair ties neatly organised in her drawer. Why dig through her disaster when her sister’s room was a shrine to perfection?

The moment she crossed the threshold into Petunia's room, the memory struck like a hex to the ribs. The lingering scent of scorched paper. The empty space in her packed trunk where her books were supposed to be.

Her fingers went slack. The braid unravelled down her back like a retreating tide.

She was about to shut the door behind her when she froze mid-step. On Petunia's desk, something glinted between her sister's neatly stacked schoolbooks, a flash of creamy parchment entirely out of place among the lined notebooks and maths primers.

"How hard can it be to find a hair tie?" Severus asked as Lily drifted towards the desk.

"Just a second."

Severus appeared at her shoulder, peering over her head. "Is that parchment?" He pointed to the unmistakable corner peeking out from beneath Advanced Algebra.

Lily bit her lip. "She wouldn’t want us going through her things."

"You're the one standing in her room," Severus countered, already slipping past her with the grace of someone used to taking what was not offered.

The parchment slid free with a dry rattle, unfolding in Severus’s hands to reveal elegant green script. His eyebrows shot towards his hairline. Without a word, he thrust it at Lily.

The Hogwarts crest gleamed at the top. Below it, in sweeping letters:

Dear Miss Evans,

I regret to inform you that, after careful consideration, we are unable to offer you a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. While your enthusiasm for the magical world is commendable, our records indicate that you lack the ability to perform magic. It is with sincere regret that we must decline your request...

Severus was watching her carefully, his eyes not leaving hers. "She wrote to the headmaster," Lily whispered. The realisation settled heavily in her chest. "She asked."

The words blurred. Lily’s fingers trembled against the parchment. All those barbed comments, the stolen glances at her spellbooks, the way Petunia's hands had lingered over that moving illustration. She had wanted it too, that was why.

The sun clung to the horizon with unnatural tenacity, as if some careless wizard had cast a Permanent Sticking Charm on the daylight. When evening finally seeped in, Lily's spine cracked audibly as she uncurled from the windowsill. After hours of bickering, Severus insisting the telescope was defective, Lily swearing they just had not cracked its enchantment, they finally agreed there was no harm in waiting for nightfall.

"Absolutely not, Lily! That boy will not set foot in this house past eight o'clock!" Mum had declared earlier.

So Severus wandered; Lily imagined him haunting the shadowy lanes between terraced houses, kicking stones along the canal path. When the last light finally bled from the sky, she slipped out the back door, the telescope clutched to her chest like contraband.

He was already waiting in their yard, the crumbly brick wall separating it from the back streets no real obstacle, between the hydrangea bushes where the blooms glowed faintly blue in the moonlight. Without a word, she handed him the telescope, a secondhand scratched brass contraption that whirred and adjusted itself with a will of its own whenever they touched the dials.

The telescope came alive with a soft click, its brass fittings sighing as the lens focused. Suddenly, the stars were not distant pinpricks but swirling galaxies. Saturn's rings were sharp and blurry at the same time, its icy fragments catching light that had travelled millennia to reach Lily's eye. She gasped as a shooting star fractured the view, its tail sparking emerald green in what was definitely not a natural phenomenon.

"Your turn," she whispered after taking her time travelling through the night sky.

Severus took it gingerly, his pale fingers stark against the tarnished metal. The telescope gave an excited shudder, the lens zooming in sharply on some distant star cluster without him touching it.

"I will become a teacher. Professor Evans has quite a ring to it," Lily announced suddenly, not quite sure what made her tell him this. "A potions teacher, I think." She closed her eyes, breathing in the imagined scent of the apothecary. "I'll live at Hogwarts forever and ever." She grinned up at the stars, her voice taking on a singsong quality.

Severus snorted, not lowering the telescope. "We haven't even started at Hogwarts yet."

"But we know all about it," she countered. "You've told me everything."

A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the mechanical whirring of the telescope and the distant hoot of an owl.

"So tell me... what will you be?"

"I want to be powerful." When Severus finally spoke, his voice was like gravel underfoot. "I want to wear the finest robes and live in a real wizarding house. I want people to kneel before me. I want there to be a statue of me." The telescope lens fogged slightly with his breath. "I want them to know my name, to have it written in history books."

Lily turned her head to study his profile, the sharp jut of his nose, the way his ears had reddened. There was something hungry in his expression that made her stomach clench.

"Do you think that will make you happy?" she asked softly.

He never replied.

The telescope stopped its automatic adjustments. For a moment, the night itself seemed to hold its breath. Then Severus exhaled sharply through his nose and passed the instrument back to her, his fingers brushing hers for the briefest second, long enough for Lily to feel how cold they were, despite the summer warmth.

The question lingered between them as the stars wheeled overhead. In the distance, beyond the little yard, a door slammed shut.

Chapter Text

Platform 9¾ was a symphony of chaos: the screech of owl claws on brass cages, the thud of trunks hitting the cobbles, the occasional yelp as someone tripped over a stray cat. She shifted from foot to foot, her trunk hovering obediently beside her, still charmed feather-light, though the enchantment would fade by nightfall.

She glanced at Severus, who stood stiffly against a pillar, his sallow face pinched in a scowl. A faint "bwok”, which to her sounded like his usual “it’s not funny”, escaped his lips, and he clenched his jaw so hard she heard his molars grinding.

Sirius Black’s cackle had echoed through the compartment as Severus clutched his throat, his furious diatribe about Slytherin’s superiority, fuelled by them winning the House Cup, dissolving into indignant squawks. Now, two hours later, his silence was less amusing and more... heavy.

She nudged him with her elbow. "You could write me notes, you know, instead of glaring like a disgruntled owl." The jab was deliberate. Severus had spent the year dealing with her owls sent to her family after she’d given up; each bird seemed to hold a personal grudge against her.

Now, his glare deepened. Exactly like an owl. One of the bitey ones.

Severus exhaled sharply through his nose and turned towards the fogged station window. With one bony finger, he scrawled in the condensation:

NO.

Lily rolled her eyes. "You’re impossible."

A voice cut through the crowd. "Lily Jane Evans! There you are."

Hortense Evans barrelled towards them, her pink raincoat flapping like battle flags. She seized Lily’s face, kissing her cheek with a loud smack before rounding on Severus. Her voice hit that particular pitch mothers used when they were trying too hard, the one that made Lily's teeth ache.

"You’re here too, I see."

"Well of course he is, Mum." Lily rolled her eyes.

"Not even a hello?"

"Mum, he can’t talk," Lily interjected. "Someone hexed him on the train."

Mum’s lips pursed. "Of course they did." Her gaze flicked over Severus’s rumpled robes, the dark circles under his eyes.

Lily protested as her mother reached for the trunk, then nearly stumbled when the weightless wood floated upward in her grip. “Oh. That’s… handy." She hefted it again, marvelling. "Suppose I shouldn’t complain about magic when it saves my back."

"Where's Tuney?" Lily asked, scanning the platform. Petunia had promised, well, Lily had forced her to promise, to be here. Lily had been trying harder with her sister during the holidays, making an effort to include her in conversations about school, to ask about her friends, to listen when Petunia complained about teachers. She'd started to understand that the sharp words and cold silences weren’t really about magic at all, they were about being left behind.

Mum’s grip tightened on the trunk handle. "Gone to Skegness with Fiona’s family. They left yesterday."

"For... the whole summer?"

"Most of it."

Lily’s stomach dropped. "Because of me."

Her mother’s throat worked. A lie perched on her lips, Lily could see it, but then she sighed. "Probably."

The honesty stung more than the silence of those unanswered letters. Lily had written every day at first, pages crammed with tales of the Black Lake and enchanted ceilings. But after weeks of scanning the morning owls in vain, her heart leaping at every speck of brown against the Great Hall’s enchanted sky, only to sink when nothing landed at her plate, she’d changed tactics: no magic, just gossip about her roommates and the love lives of the older girls, as if they were still sisters whispering under the covers. Still nothing.

The decidedly Muggle whistle screamed, and suddenly everyone was moving too fast. Bodies jostled, windows slammed open, strangers’ goodbyes ("Write me!" "Be safe!") pressed against the glass like moths battering a lantern. Lily watched her mother disappear down the corridor wordlessly, probably to the loo, but she would rather shave her head than mention that in front of Severus.

The moment the door clicked shut, Lily turned to Severus. His long fingers were drumming an uneven rhythm against his knee, his dark eyes fixed on the platform outside where families reunited in warm embraces.

"You could stay with us," Lily whispered, scooting closer on the plush seat. "Just for the summer. Dad would say yes."

Severus didn’t look at her. He exhaled slowly, deliberately, misting the window before him. Then, blunt and crisp, his finger etched a word into the glass, each of the two letters crisp:

NO.

The letters wept downward like fresh wounds.

Lily studied his profile, really studied him. The past year at Hogwarts had softened his sharp edges. His cheeks had lost their sickly hollows; his wrists no longer looked like they might snap under a heavy book’s weight. Just last week, when he’d mocked her Charms essay, she’d pinched his arm in retaliation, and there had been actual flesh between her fingers, not just thin skin stretched over bone.

"Tuney’s room will be empty all summer," she pressed, voice dropping to match the train’s rhythmic clatter. "Or you could have mine, and I’ll-“

His palm hit the glass again with a crack, rewriting his answer before his first one had fully dissolved:

NO.

"Sev, please." Lily reached for his sleeve, but he recoiled as if her touch had burned him.

Lily pressed her forehead against the cool glass, watching King’s Cross fade into the distance, wondering why magic could transfigure teacups into rats but couldn’t fix this.

The house smelled different now, not worse, just unmistakably Muggle. No polish for broomsticks, no tang of potions ingredients, just lemon cleaner and her mother’s rose soap. Mornings began with windows thrown open to summer’s breath, the radio crackling through static to deliver the weather report. Afternoons stretched lazily in the back garden, where her dad would read the Daily Mirror with his shirtsleeves rolled up, occasionally reading aloud bits of trivia to Lily as she scratched runes in the dirt with a stick. Evenings ended with the wireless humming old Beatles tunes while her mum’s needle danced between sock holes.

It was peaceful.

Except for the way every creak of the house sounded like footsteps that never came.

Lily saw her everywhere, in the empty chair at breakfast that no one had the heart to move, in the single pink hair ribbon left forgotten on the bathroom sink, in the way her mother’s hands would still mid-scrub at the kitchen sink, staring blankly at the space where Tuney used to sit, meticulously dissecting her toast into perfect squares.

Tonight, though, the melancholy had lifted, or at least drowned itself in drink.

"Pass the peas, love," Dad said, his words soft around the edges as he waved his fork in the general direction of the serving dish. His cheeks glowed from the three pints he’d nursed since supper started, his shirt unbuttoned to almost his belly button.

Mum, normally rigid about table manners, giggled as she slopped peas onto his plate, half of them rolling onto the tablecloth. "Oops," she said, not sounding sorry at all. The wineglass in her other hand, her second, maybe third, swayed precariously.

Lily hid a smile behind her napkin. Her mother rarely drank. "Alcohol turns me into a floozy," she’d always claimed, whispering as if the word itself might summon some scandalous Victorian spirit.

Dad winked at Lily and nudged his beer in her direction. "Go on, just a sip. Your mum’s too pissed to notice."

Mum gasped in theatrical outrage. "Joseph Evans! Don’t you dare-“ But she was already hiccuping, which sent her into another fit of laughter.

The warmth in Lily’s chest had nothing to do with the stolen sip of bitter ale. She’d missed this, missed them, the way her father’s laugh crinkled his eyes, the way her mother’s forced posh accent slipped into something looser, more like herself, when she was tipsy.

Then, like a cloud swallowing the sun, Mum’s smile crumbled. She stared into her wineglass, her finger tracing the chipped rim. "We should’ve gone to Skegness too," she murmured. "It’s not right, her being gone all summer."

Dad reached across the table to squeeze her hand. "Well, we can’t afford it, love." His tone was light, but Lily saw the way his thumb rubbed over her mother’s wedding band: a nervous habit. "Should have married someone with deeper pockets."

Then-

Mum snorted, the sound so abrupt Lily jumped. "If I hadn’t married you," she declared, pointing an unsteady finger at Dad, "I’d be in California right now. Making pictures. Swimming in the Pacific Ocean."

Dad arched an eyebrow. "You can’t even swim, last I checked."

"Hush, you."

"It’s true, Lily." Dad turned to her, grinning. "Your mother complains about missing beach holidays, but she’s terrified of water deeper than a bathtub."

Mum burst into drunk giggles, the sound bright and unguarded. "And you married me anyway."

Dad’s expression melted. He lifted Mum’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles with a theatrical flourish. "Would’ve been a fool to say no to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen asking me to marry her."

"Oh, shut up." But Mum was blushing, her earlier melancholy forgotten as she swatted at him half-heartedly with her free hand.

He hadn't come to see her once.

Lily had tried to respect his wishes. She really had. But after two weeks of silence, her imagination conjured horrors: Severus lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs; Severus locked in a cupboard; Severus bleeding out in some dank corner while his father raged.

She couldn't stand it anymore.

Spinner's End was even grimier than she remembered (it always was), the row houses hunched like old men with bad knees. The Snape residence was the worst of the lot: peeling paint, a broken gutter spewing rainwater onto the cracked steps, curtains drawn tight against the daylight.

She knocked.

When the door creaked open, Severus stood there, pale as a bone, his eyes widening in alarm.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed, glancing over his shoulder into the dim interior.

"You haven't come round," Lily said, crossing her arms. "You promised you would."

"I've been busy."

"Doing what? Perfecting your impression of a hermit?"

His jaw tightened. For a moment, she thought he might slam the door in her face. Then, with a resigned sigh, he stepped aside. "Come in, then. But be quiet. My mother's... indisposed."

The stench hit her first: rotten food, cigarettes and alcohol. The hallway was so dark Lily stumbled on the first step, her hand flying out to brace against the wall.

"Merlin's beard, Sev, can't you turn on a light?"

He turned, his expression unreadable in the gloom. "Electricity's been cut off. Again."

Upstairs, Eileen Snape's room was a study of surrender. The woman lay sprawled across the bed, her dark hair matted, one arm dangling limply over the side. The stench of misery concentrated.

Lily's throat closed. "Shouldn't we... shouldn't someone call a doctor?"

Severus didn't look at his mother. "She's been like this since I got back. Won't eat. I can barely get her to drink water. Just... that." He nudged a bottle lying in the dark hallway with his toe. "Come on."

He led her to his room, unchanged from last year, just now with the clutter of homework spread on the floor. And in the corner, bubbling ominously over a magically heated plate cutting through the darkness with a warm glow, was a cauldron.

Lily blinked. "You're brewing?"

Severus stiffened, then knelt beside the cauldron, stirring counterclockwise with sharp, precise movements. "Slughorn lent me the burner."

"And the ingredients?" She eyed the neat rows of jars: rat spleens, frog hearts, leech juice; all expensive, all impeccably organised.

He didn't answer.

"Sev," she pressed, "where did you get these?"

A shrug.

"Borrowed," he said. "I'll replace them. Some day."

The ladle clattered against the cauldron's rim. "What do you want, Lily?"

"I want to know what you're making." She stepped closer, kneeling down to peer into the murky depths. It wasn't any potion they'd learned in class: the colour was wrong, the consistency thicker, the scent oddly floral beneath the bite of acid.

"It's none of your business," he said.

They had always been partners in this: in the thrill of creation, the quiet understanding of how ingredients reacted and transformed under pressure. Slughorn had recognised it early, granting them access to the school's storeroom and an empty classroom on weekends. "Talent like yours must be nurtured," he'd say, beaming at Lily before adding, almost as an afterthought, "And do bring Mr Snape along, won't you?"

Not that Severus needed the invitation. He moved through potions like they were meant just for him: his hands quick as he diced impossibly tiny lacewing flies, his knife strokes precise enough to shave mandrake root into translucent curls. She could always count on his deft hands, no matter the time pressure. Lily admired that about him, even envied it sometimes. When they worked together, she could rely on him completely.

But now, with the steam curling between them and his jaw set in that stubborn line, she wondered if trust only flowed one way.

She trusted him with her life. But his secrets were never the good kind.

"Is it poison?" The question slipped out before she could stop it. Would she blame him if it was?

Severus went very still. "What?"

"Are you brewing something for your father?"

"Don't be stupid."

"Then tell me!"

When he didn't answer, Lily acted. She shoved past him, taking his seat in front of the cauldron, grabbing the ladle and scooping up a measure of the potion.

"What are you...?"

"I'll drink it," she said, lifting it to her lips. "Unless you tell me what it is."

Severus moved like a striking adder, knocking the ladle around in her hand but not able to make her let go. The potion splattered across the floorboards, hissing where it landed. "You're completely mad!"

"Then talk!" she told him, almost raising her voice to a shout.

Lily's fingers tightened around the ladle, the metal biting into her palm as she raised it closer toward her lips. The potion's surface shimmered with an oily iridescence, throwing green reflections across her face. She could smell the acrid tang of crushed doxy eggs.

"I'll drink it," she said, her voice steadier than her racing pulse. "Right now. You better have the ingredients for an antidote here with you, because Merlin help you if I drop dead, because I'll haunt you so thoroughly you'll be screaming answers to questions you haven't even heard yet."

The ladle hovered just centimetres from her mouth.

For a long moment, they stared at each other, chests heaving. Then, with a defeated exhale, Severus sank next to her.

"It's for her," he muttered, jerking his chin toward the hallway. "It'll stop the alcohol from affecting her. No matter how much she drinks, she won't get drunk."

Lily's breath caught. "Did she ask for this? Does she know?"

"I'm saving her."

For a beat Lily's heart wavered. What if it worked? What if Eileen woke up clear-eyed, embraced Severus, made him tea? But the potion wasn't a cure; it was a cage. And cages, no matter who forged them or why, always rusted shut.

"Does she want to be saved?"

His hands clenched into fists. "She wouldn't want this. Not if she could think clearly."

The potion's implications settled like lead in Lily's stomach: desperate hands grasping at control.

Lily stepped back. "I won't help you with this."

"I didn't ask you to."

"It's wrong, Sev."

"You don't understand," he snapped, his voice cracking. "You'll never understand."

For one dizzying moment, she saw double: the grinning boy with the cast on his arm superimposed over this gaunt stranger, both images refusing to align.

"Good luck," she said, and left.

The sharp ping of pebbles against glass startled Lily from sleep. Before she was fully awake, a second volley hit her window with enough force to make her worry about cracks yet again. She bolted upright, heart pounding, and yanked back the curtains to see Severus standing in the moonlight below, his chest heaving as if he’d run all the way from Spinner’s End.

"Come down!" His voice cut through the quiet street, too loud, too urgent. Lily winced, thinking about the logistics of sneaking out in the middle of the night.

“Keep your voice down!” she hissed, leaning out the window. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?”

"You need to come. Now."

Lily hesitated. She hadn’t seen him in a week, not since their fight about the potion. Part of her was still angry, still certain his plan to "fix" his mother was dangerously misguided. But the moonlight caught the tracks of tears on his cheeks, and the sight sent a jolt through her chest.

"It’s the middle of the night, Sev. I can’t just-“

"It’s my mum." His voice cracked. "Please."

That single word, one Severus Snape almost never used, decided it. Lily ducked back inside, moving with frantic efficiency. She yanked on jeans beneath her nightgown, shoved bare feet into scuffed trainers, and grabbed her wand from the bedside table. Her fingers trembled as she tried to tie back her hair, always getting in the way, finally giving up and letting it tumble free.

When she slipped out the front door, Severus was already reaching for her. His fingers closed around her wrist with bruising force, pulling her down the street before she’d fully closed the door behind her.

"Wait!" Lily dug in her heels, wrenching free. "Stop dragging me like a sack of potatoes and tell me what’s wrong!"

In the yellow glow of the streetlamp, she saw how his hands shook. How his pupils were blown wide with panic. The collar of his shirt was damp with sweat, and when he spoke, his breath came in short, sharp gasps.

"The potion. It’s… not working like it should." A single drop of sweat traced the tense cord of his neck despite the night chill. "She’s worse. Much worse."

Lily’s stomach dropped. She’d warned him. She knew it was dangerous, that it was wrong, that forcing wasn’t saving. She’d told him. But the look in his eyes now, raw, desperate terror, stopped any I told you so from passing her lips.

"I need your help." The words seemed to cost him dearly, each one dragged from some deep, wounded place. "I don’t… I can’t…"

The unspoken admission, that he was scared, that he was in over his head, hung between them. Lily exhaled sharply through her nose and nodded.

The moment they burst through the front door, she heard a rhythmic thud-thud-thud coming from upstairs, accompanied by ragged, animalistic moans. The house reeked of sweat and vomit, making her gag.

Lily didn't have time to process what was happening before they were running up the stairs, stumbling on some steps in the darkness. The banging grew louder with each step, the wood beneath their feet vibrating with each impact.

When Severus threw open the bedroom door, the scene froze Lily's blood. Eileen Snape knelt before the wall, her forehead a ruin of torn flesh and matted hair, smearing dark streaks of blood across the peeling wallpaper with each violent thrust of her head. Her nightdress was soaked through, her fingers clawed into the floorboards until her nails bled.

For one terrible second, Severus stood paralysed in the doorway, his face drained of all colour. Then Lily sprang forward, shoving past him with more strength than she knew she possessed.

She launched herself at Eileen's back, wrapping her arms around the woman's torso and heaving with all her might. The force of Eileen's thrashing nearly threw Lily off, but she clung on like a burr, her bare knees scraping across the rough floorboards as she fought to drag his mother away from the wall.

Eileen threw her head back with a guttural scream, the back of her skull cracking against Lily's nose with a sickening crunch. White-hot pain exploded behind Lily's eyes, her body's warning systems screaming retreat before conscious thought could form. Warm blood gushed over her lips as she nearly lost her grip.

Through the haze of pain, Lily saw Severus still rooted in place, his eyes wide and unblinking.

"SEVERUS!" she shrieked, spitting blood. "Grab her legs! What are you waiting for!"

Something in her voice snapped him from his trance. He lunged forward, seizing his mother's ankles, hesitating for just a moment before he reached her, hands shaking, just as Lily regained her footing and threw herself at Eileen again. This time she wrapped her legs around Eileen's waist from behind, locking her ankles together as she wrestled the thrashing woman toward a rickety chair in the corner.

"Hold her!" Lily gasped as she and Severus managed to manoeuvre Eileen onto the chair. The woman's struggles were weakening now, her movements becoming jerky and uncoordinated. Lily pressed her full weight against Eileen's torso while Severus pinned her legs, his face a mask of grim determination.

"Get something to tie her!" Lily ordered, her voice raw. "Now!"

Severus scrambled to a battered dresser, yanking messy, overfilled drawers open with such force that one came completely free, spilling its contents across the floor. He snatched up a worn leather belt and loose clothing, his fingers trembling as he worked to secure his mother's wrists to the chair arms.

Lily collapsed to the floor as soon as the knots were tight, her body wracked with tremors. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth, and she retched, thankfully only a bit of bile dripping onto the floor. Her nose throbbed in time with her racing heartbeat, each pulse sending fresh waves of pain through her skull.

Beside her, Severus slid down to sit at his mother's feet, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Eileen had stopped struggling now, her body sagging against the restraints as quiet sobs wracked her frame. In the dim light, Lily could see the whites of Eileen's eyes, wide and unseeing, her pupils contracted to pinpricks.

The belt creaked as Eileen shifted, a thin line of drool escaping her lips as she mumbled nonsense words. Lily watched, horrified, as the woman's head lolled to one side, her blood-matted hair sticking to the chair's back.

Neither child spoke. The only sounds were Eileen's whimpers, the creak of the chair, and their own uneven breathing. Lily's hands wouldn't stop shaking, whether from adrenaline or fear or something else entirely, she couldn't tell. She pressed them between her knees, willing them to be still, but the tremors ran too deep.

When Severus slipped away without a word, Lily found herself alone with Eileen's laboured breathing and the creak of restraints. Exhaustion and adrenaline warred in her limbs as she swayed on her feet.

Eileen stirred, her head lolling sideways, lips moving in a slurred whisper. Lily leaned closer, catching the faint, broken murmur:

"Leave... leave... leave..."

The word dissolved into a whimper, a chant more than speech, as if Eileen's mind had whittled itself down to that single, desperate plea. The repetition curled under Lily's skin, sharp and inescapable. Leave. Not help me. Just leave.

Her legs trembled as she stood. The journey to the kitchen felt endless, each step echoing in the deathly quiet house. Halfway there, her legs gave out entirely, forcing her to sit on the stairs until they remembered how to hold her weight.

The kitchen was a battlefield, dishes piled like crumbling towers in the sink, grease coating every surface, the remains of meals long gone to rot. Lily's stomach turned again as she reached over the mess, her fingers brushing something sticky as she grabbed a tea towel from a hook. The faucet groaned when she turned it, spitting brown water before running clear.

Back in the bedroom, the water in the bowl had turned red by the time she'd cleaned Eileen's face. The woman's forehead bore a deep gash, the edges ragged where she'd smashed it repeatedly against the wall. Lily's own nose throbbed in sympathy, the bridge swollen and tender beneath her careful fingers. She'd have to come up with a story for her parents.

As she parted Eileen's matted hair to check for other wounds, the woman's head snapped up with sudden, terrifying clarity. Her eyes, so like Severus' in shape but unlike in colour and hollow where his burned, locked onto Lily's.

"He will be your death." The rasp slithered between Eileen's cracked lips, each word like a curse.

Lily recoiled, the damp cloth slipping from her fingers. Before she could demand an explanation, the moment passed. Eileen's head lolled forward, her breathing evening out into something resembling sleep.

Hands shaking, Lily busied herself with righting the room. The fallen drawer went back into the dresser with a thud that made Eileen twitch. She gathered scattered clothes and folded them, anything to avoid looking at the woman in the chair or dwelling on her words.

Severus appeared in the doorway after all, his face bloodless in the dim light. She knew that the look he gave her would haunt her for years, defying all categorisation.

"She needs to go to the hospital," Lily said, not looking up from the shirt she was folding.

"She can't. The Statute of Secrecy can't..."

Lily whirled on him then, the shirt crumpling in her fist, stopping herself before she could throw it in his face. "What are you going to do? Leave your mother tied to a chair until she comes to her senses?"

"I'll take care of her." His voice was flat.

"You can't even look at her!" Lily's whisper was fierce. "What would you have done if I hadn't come? Let her bash her brains out against the wall?"

Severus leaned heavily against the doorframe, his knees locking. "She just needs sleep. Two days without rest, it's a side effect of the potion. By morning..."

"By morning she could be dead!" Lily's voice broke. "St Mungo's, then. They have wards for potion accidents..."

"No."

"Because you might get in trouble?" Lily spat. "Of course. Always thinking of yourself..."

"I'm doing this for her!" he snarled.

"Did she ask for this?" She thought, without voicing it.

"And I can't take her to St Mungo's. It's not possible. She's exiled." The words burst from him like a dam breaking. "Banished from magical spaces. No St Mungo's, no Diagon Alley, no houses registered as magical households. Slughorn told me... after I asked about her. He was a witness for her trial. He spoke for her as her head of house, since she was still at Hogwarts. He told me why she lives like this. Why her wand... she is forbidden from ever buying or holding one again." He trailed off, rubbing at his arms as if cold.

"If there had been a way, they would have taken her magic and made her a Muggle."

Lily's anger faltered. "What did she do?"

Severus shook his head. "A Muggle. He died."

"She killed someone?" The words came out as a whisper.

"She said it was an accident. A spell gone wrong." He wouldn't meet her eyes. "But the Wizengamot didn't see it that way."

"Then could you brew her an antidote?" Lily's voice cracked, her throat dry. She gestured to Eileen's limp form, the woman's breath coming in wet, uneven rasps. No matter what she did, she needed help. Something had to be done. "Undo what you did?"

Severus stared at his mother, his fingers twitching at his sides as if itching for a knife, a stirrer, anything to fix this. When he finally spoke, his words were ground glass.

"I don't have the ingredients." His jaw tightened. "And I wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because then it would've all been for nothing." His voice frayed on the last word. "The madness, the tremors, the sleeplessness, she has to push through. It's the only way it works..."

Lily's hands balled into fists so tight her nails bit her palms. She wanted to scream until her throat bled, until the walls of this rotting house shook with the force of her fury. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until his teeth rattled, until he understood...

"My father comes home soon." Severus's voice dropped to a whisper. "You need to leave."

The message was clear: This is where your help ends.

Lily opened her mouth to argue, but the look in his eyes stopped her.

"Could he help? Your father?"

A bitter laugh. "He will make it worse."

Lily glanced at Eileen, at the blood still seeping slowly from her forehead. "I don't see how this could get worse."

"He has talent."

Severus moved toward the door, and their goodbye was wordless, a nod, a glance. The night air was cool on Lily's skin as she stepped outside, her nightgown fluttering around her legs.

She walked slowly, her body aching, Eileen's warning echoing in her skull with each step. The sky was beginning to lighten at the edges, the black fading to bruised purple. Dawn was coming, but it brought no comfort. Only questions. Only dread.

Behind her, the house looked smaller in the growing light.

The latch yielded with barely a whisper as Lily slipped through the front door, her bare feet ghosting over the familiar groans of the staircase. She had stripped off her jeans and hurled them, along with her shoes, into the back garden; retrieval would be tomorrow’s problem. If caught, she was ready to claim sleepwalking. The last of the moonlight bled through the window of Tuney’s room, painting her path in silver-bright as she crept up the stairs, holding her breath when the floorboard groaned beneath her weight.

By morning, the damage was undeniable.

"Jesus Christ, Lily!" The sharp clatter of china punctuated her mother's gasp as she took in Lily’s face: the bridge of her nose swollen to twice its size, twin bruises blooming under her eyes.

"It’s nothing," Lily said too quickly, forcing a laugh that made her entire face throb. "My school trunk… I was trying to get it on top of the wardrobe, and the latch broke. Everything just... cascaded down. My cauldron..." She mimed the impact with her hands, wincing as her fingers brushed tender flesh.

Mum was already bustling to the icebox. "Honestly, girl, sometimes I wonder how you manage to dress yourself." Her fingers, cool and sure, tilted Lily’s chin upwards. "Does it still hurt?"

The truth sat sharp on Lily’s tongue. But her mother’s eyes were wide with worry, so she swallowed the pain and mustered a grin. "Barely notice it now."

Her father chuckled around a mouthful of toast. "Do that again and you’ll end up looking like Severus: all nose."

The name struck her.

Severus.

Suddenly, she was back in that airless room: the stench of sweat and potion fumes, the crack of bone against her face, the way Eileen’s wrists had strained against the belts like a creature possessed. Her stomach lurched.

"I’m not hungry," she muttered, pushing away from the table so abruptly her chair screeched. Upstairs, she locked her bedroom door and pressed her forehead to the cool windowpane, watching her breath fog the glass.

Her potions textbook lay open on the bed, their shared notes crammed in the margins: Severus's precise script wound around her messy, sprawling notes like ivy, his thoughts completing hers in ways that made her chest tight. One of her annotations he had drawn little stars around. She traced each star with her finger.

The days stretched out like a held breath, each one emptier than the last. No pebbles at her window, no shadowy figure lurking by the canal. During her morning chores, Lily's eyes would drift towards the grimy mouth of Spinner's End, half-convinced she would glimpse that familiar slouch emerging from the mist. When the street remained stubbornly empty, she would catch herself composing letters to Petunia in Skegness, as if trading one heartache for another might somehow balance the scales of misery.

The doorbell's sudden chime made her jump so violently that the potato flew from her fingers, disappearing beneath the kitchen table with a dull thud. She wiped her hands on her apron, already rehearsing polite excuses for whichever neighbour had run out of milk or sugar this time.

Severus stood on her doorstep like something conjured from her own restless thoughts.

The sight of him drove the air from her lungs. He looked hollowed out, carved down to bone and sinew by sleepless nights. His black hair hung in unwashed curtains around a face so gaunt it belonged in a medical textbook. The shadows beneath his eyes were not mere tiredness; they were bruises of exhaustion, purple-black and deep enough to swim in.

They stared at each other across the threshold.

"I can't help you any more," Lily blurted out, her voice cracking. "I won't."

Severus flinched as if struck, but did not argue. "Can I come in?" he asked hoarsely, the words scraping out of him as if they cost him dearly.

The plea in his bloodshot eyes undid her. Lily stepped aside wordlessly, her stomach churning.

Her bedroom felt absurdly small with him in it, the floral bedspread and cheerful Herbology charts suddenly childish and inadequate. Severus perched on the edge of her bed as though he expected to be thrown out at any moment, his shoulders hunched nearly to his ears.

"She was improving," he said abruptly, pressing his thumbnail into the web of skin between his forefinger and thumb. "Eating again. Speaking clearly. I thought..." His throat worked. "This morning I went to wake her and she was just... gone."

Lily's hands flew to her mouth. "Gone?"

"Everything she owned was still there." The words came out broken, each one a struggle. "But my wand..." His voice cracked in two. "She took my wand with her."

"She’s just gone."

The dam inside Lily burst. The sob that tore from her throat seemed to come from somewhere deeper than her lungs, followed by another and another until she was drowning in them. She wept for Eileen's fractured mind, for Severus's hollow cheeks, for the way life kept taking from empty hands.

To her shock, it was Severus who reached for her. His arms came around her stiffly, his hand patting her back in awkward, measured taps, as though he was following instructions he had memorised but never used. When she buried her face in his shoulder, his whole body went rigid. Then, slowly, his muscles unknotted.

"It's all right," he murmured, his voice wavering. One bony hand came up to stroke her hair, his fingers catching in the tangles.

But she could not stop. His shirt grew sodden beneath her cheek as he held her, his chest rising and falling in sharp, irregular bursts, though no tears came. They stayed like that until her sobs cracked into hiccups, until shadows swallowed the room and her mother's key rattled in the front door.

Chapter Text

After that day, Eileen's name became forbidden territory between them; a landmine buried so deep that even thinking too hard in her direction felt dangerous. They slipped back into their old patterns like sleepwalkers, going through motions that had once brought them joy.

Severus scribbled corrections in the margins of her essays with his usual precision, muttering to himself about her atrocious spelling under his breath, while she stared out the window and imagined herself as a swallow, wings cutting through Mediterranean sky. They debated the properties of salamander blood versus dragon blood, argued over the best counter-jinx for a Tickling Charm, anything to pretend his world had not cracked open around him.

One sweltering afternoon, sprawled on the sun-baked stones beside the sluggish river, Lily rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin on her hands.

"Let's go to the seaside. Just for a day."

Severus did not look up from his dog-eared book. "Why?"

"Because Tuney keeps sending postcards from Skegness," she admitted, not mentioning that her neat handwriting always read "To Mum and Dad" on the back. She plucked out some blades of grass and sprinkled them on his chest, which he took without complaint. "She says the water's actually blue there, Sev. Not like this." She gestured at the canal's oil-slicked surface.

He finally glanced at her, his eyebrow arched. "Do I look like someone who enjoys blistering in the sun while Muggles shriek at seagulls?"

"I'm the redhead here, you'd tan before I'd even stop peeling." She flicked a dandelion head at his nose.

She threw more grass at him, this time at his face. "You’d rather rot in this stinking town?"

For a heartbeat, something flickered in his gaze, then vanished. "Yes."

As August crawled into their lives, Severus withdrew like a tide receding from shore.

August crawled by on its belly, each day hotter and more oppressive than the last. Severus seemed to shrink before her eyes. He stopped bothering with homework assignments. His clothes began to hang on his frame even more than before. When she nudged her half-finished Charms essay towards him, the way she had a hundred times before, he snapped, "What’s the point?"

The sharp words hung between them for the rest of the day.

Still, she came back. Every time.

When Severus failed to appear at their river meeting for the third time that week, Lily found herself marching towards Spinner's End with grim determination, a chipped ceramic pot cradled against her ribs. Inside were leftovers scraped together from the Evanses’ icebox when her mother was not looking.

She pressed the doorbell four times before footsteps shuffled towards her through the gloom.

Severus appeared in the doorway like something dragged from sleep, his lank hair hanging in unwashed curtains around a face gone waxy with exhaustion. The afternoon light seemed to pain him.

"What?" His voice came out rusty from disuse.

"You were supposed to meet me," she said simply.

"I was sleeping."

"It's three o'clock."

His gaze dropped to the pot in her hands. "What's that?"

"Leftovers." She thrust it towards him before her courage could falter. "Mum overcooked. Again."

A lie. Mum had stopped cooking for four the day Petunia left. It was supposed to be their dinner.

Severus hesitated, then stepped aside, wordlessly granting her entry to his private hell.

Lily rescued two spoons from the ongoing disaster of the kitchen, one bent beyond repair, and cleaned them as best she could, while Severus perched on the steps of the stairway, the pot balanced between them. She made a show of digging out potatoes, leaving the sausages, his favourite, for him.

He ate like a man condemned, pushing around chunks of carrot, each bite seeming to require tremendous effort.

When the silence grew unbearable, Lily cleared her throat. "Sev... have you thought about filing a missing person report? About your mother?"

His spoon stilled. "No."

"But if she's out there somewhere, confused or-“

"She left because she wanted to leave," he said. "If she'd wanted to stay, she would have."

Lily pressed on. "Your wand, then. If you report it stolen, the Ministry could-“

"They’ll put her into Azkaban." The spoon bowed in his grip. "Or worse."

Ah. So that was it.

Lily forced brightness into her voice. "Ollivanders has hundreds of wands in stock. When we go to Diagon Alley for school supplies, we could visit, maybe find-“

"I don’t have the galleons for a bloody wand, Lily!" The pot rattled as he slammed his spoon down.

She flinched.

Severus exhaled sharply, rubbing his eyes. "Just... go."

Lily set down her spoon with exaggerated motion and rose without a word, leaving him to his self-imposed exile.

Lily hovered in the doorway, her weight shifting from foot to foot. The kitchen smelled of yesterday's fry-up; the lingering grease of cheap sausages and burnt toast. Her dad sat slumped at the Formica table, its yellowed surface sticky with decades of use, frowning at the electricity bill like it had personally wronged him. The muggy summer heat made his vest cling to his broad, tired shoulders, the fabric darkened with sweat around the collar.

"Dad?"

He looked up, the deep lines around his eyes softening as he forced a smile. "How are you doing, Lily flower?" The warmth in his voice was at odds with the weary way his thumb rubbed at the red-inked numbers on the bill.

The question stuck in her throat stubbornly. She wanted, no, needed, to ask him for money. For Sev. Enough for a new wand from Ollivanders. She remembered how Severus' eyes had lit up in that shop last summer, how his long fingers had trembled with excitement as he tested the blackthorn wand that finally chose him. That version of Severus seemed buried now under layers of grief and anger, but maybe, just maybe...

Nothing else had worked. Not her clumsy attempts at comfort, not leaving food on his doorstep after he had told her to leave him alone. His name on her lips, furiously ringing the doorbell, but no response. But this? Asking her already-stretched father for more money, after everything, after Mum's sharp words last winter about him spending too much for Christmas? It was ridiculous. Selfish.

"What if I got a job?" The words tumbled out before she could stop them. She could work. How bad could it be? Lily bit the inside of her cheek. The image of Severus: all pallid skin and sharp angles, that permanent sneer twisting his lips, trying to take orders from some factory foreman was as absurd as picturing a feral cat working the tills at Tesco.

Her dad's laugh was more of a sharp exhale through his nose. "Doing what? Making a mess of what was once tidy?"

"I could do... something." She gestured vaguely.

Dad sighed; that long, slow exhale of a man who'd had this conversation more times than he'd had hot dinners. "I was welding exhausts at your age," he said, wiping imaginary grease on his jeans in that universal mechanic's gesture.

"Look, flower, I know this place ain't no Hogwarts. It’s not a castle." His hand swept round the kitchen, taking in the wobbly table leg propped up with a beer mat, the kettle that only worked when you jiggled the plug. "But we'll get your books and that come September. We just need to shuffle things around a bit, eh?"

"It's not that." The words came out sharper than she intended. She avoided looking at the tiny kitchen that seemed to shrink every summer.

"Then what's it for?" His voice had gone quiet in that particular way that meant real concern, not anger.

"I can't tell you." The lie tasted bitter on her tongue.

Her father groaned, the sound muffled as he dragged his rough hands down his face. The fluorescent light overhead flickered, casting shadows under his eyes that made him look ten years older.

Joe studied her. "I'll ask down the social," he said finally, resignation weighing down every word. He tapped the bill again, the paper wrinkling under his hands. "If you get caught, I suppose you'll pay the fine with the money meant for your school things." There was no malice in it, just the quiet acceptance of a man who knew his daughter's stubbornness all too well.

The Number 23 bus wheezed to its final stop, its pistons labouring like an asthmatic fighting for breath. Lily thought about what her mother would say about her job if they hadn’t enacted a cover story of long walks to collect rare plants by the river. As the vehicle lurched, she watched the slaughterhouse materialise through the grimy glass: a sagging, rust-streaked building hunched at the end of the deserted industrial road. The setting sun bled orange behind its crooked entrance, staining the cracked tarmac in greasy, fading light.

"End of the line, flower," her dad murmured, heaving himself up from the cracked vinyl seat that smelled of stale chewing gum. The bus doors gasped open, releasing them into air heavy with grease and the sour reek of meat left too long in the heat.

Lily's trainers hit the pavement just as the bus pulled away in a cloud of exhaust, leaving them stranded before the chain-link fence. A sign hung crookedly from its post: “W. BLAMINGTON & SON MEAT PROCESSORS", though someone had long ago spray-painted over the "& SON" with a single furious slash. Beyond the fence, something dark and unidentifiable clung to the wires, swaying slightly in the evening breeze.

No birds sang here. The only sound was the distant clang of metal from within the slaughterhouse and the nervous click of Lily's tongue against her teeth as she gripped the strap of her rucksack, already regretting the extra jumper she’d worn, now sweating in the lingering heat.

"You sure about this place?" Lily asked, eyeing the chain-link fence.

"Gary’s worked here twenty years. Says they’re always needing lasses for clean-up."

"Clean-up," Lily repeated flatly.

"Blood. Guts. The odd hoof." He shrugged. "Can’t be worse than Potions, from what you told me, eh?"

Gary, a barrel-chested man with a beard that looked like it had been trimmed with a blunt knife, emerged from a back room, wiping his hands on a stained apron. "Joe Evans! Here for cards to lose your wages the old-fashioned way?" His grin revealed a missing incisor.

Behind him, laughter erupted from a dimly lit room where shadowy figures hunched over a table, the clink of glasses and the slap of cards audible even over the radio’s static-filled warbling.

Lily shot her father a withering look. "Mum’ll murder you if she finds out you’re gambling again."

A gaunt worker with a sneer on his face staggered out of what she guessed was the slaughter chamber, his boots leaving dark, sticky prints on the concrete. "Blasted thing stood on my foot," he grumbled, shaking out his leg. "Four feet. How’m I s’posed to watch ’em all?"

Gary clapped him on the back. "That’s why God made steel-toe caps. Better get you some."

The reply was just a rude gesture and a “fuck off”.

Then, noticing Lily, Gary added, "Christ, you’re Hortense in miniature and in red. Thank your lucky stars you didn’t get your dad’s face."

Lily folded her arms. "Yeah. Never heard that one before."

Joe cleared his throat. "She’s here for the cleaning job."

Gary chuckled and jerked his thumb towards a shadowed doorway. "Boots and supplies in there. Try not to slip, figure this idiot didn’t hose proper after the last batch."

As he ambled back to his card game, Lily shot her father a look that could have melted lead.

"You asked for a job, love."

She barely made it three steps into the tiled abattoir before her body rebelled. The smell hit first, not just blood, but something deeper, more primal: the metallic tang of fear soaked into decades-old grout. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting jumpy shadows across walls streaked with rust-coloured stains that no amount of scrubbing could erase.

Her breath came in short, sharp gasps as her eyes fixed on the drain in the centre of the floor, its iron grate clogged with... she didn’t want to know what. Something stringy and pale. The air itself felt thick, coating her tongue with the coppery taste of slaughter.

Before she could process the wave of nausea, her legs were moving of their own accord, trainers squeaking on the slick tiles as she scrambled backwards. Her shoulder blades hit the doorframe with a thud that sent pain shooting up her spine, but she barely registered it over the pounding of her heart.

Fingers trembling, she fumbled with the door handle, cold, sticky metal resisting her grip. When it finally gave way, she practically fell through the doorway, the door slamming shut behind her with a bang that echoed through the empty corridor.

Leaning against the wall, she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, willing herself not to be sick. This wasn’t just disgust, it was something deeper, more instinctual. Some ancient part of her brain was screaming that this place was wrong.

Lily sat on the concrete steps outside the slaughterhouse, knees drawn to her chest, wiping angrily at her cheeks. The late summer dusk had settled around her, the air still thick with the stench of blood and bleach. Pathetic, she thought, digging her nails into her palms. You begged for this job. Now act like you can handle it.

A shadow fell across her. The gaunt worker from earlier, the one who had complained about the cow, dropped onto the step beside her with a grunt. Up close, he was even more imposing: shoulders like a draught horse, his forearms thick with years of work. His black hair was so short it must have been shaved not too long ago, doing nothing to hide that his left ear was a cauliflowered mess, and the sour-milk scent of unwashed clothes baked by three days' wear hung around him.

For a long moment, he said nothing. He just fished out a crumpled pack of Embassy Reds, lit one with a beat-up lighter, and exhaled a stream of smoke towards the flickering security light. Then, wordlessly, he offered her a cigarette.

Lily hesitated. Mum would kill me. But her hands were still shaking. She took it.

The first drag scorched her throat like acid. She coughed violently, eyes streaming, but stubbornly took another pull.

"Looked like you needed it," the man rumbled, his voice gravelly from years of shouting over machinery.

"Yeah," she croaked, surprised to find it was true. The nicotine buzzed through her, dulling the edges of her panic.

He studied her through the haze. "You're Evans' girl, ain't you?"

She nodded.

"Beat up your da once," he said, almost conversationally. "Caught him cheating at poker in here.” Why was he telling her this?

He flexed his right hand; the knuckles were permanently scarred. "You're Severus' friend."

Oh.

The realisation hit her fast. The exact same hooked nose. The black eyes, sharp as flint. Severus' father.

She tensed, suddenly hyper-aware of how alone they were. The cigarette burned between her fingers. "I am," she said carefully, ready to bolt.

He sneered. Severus' sneer. "Figured. Not many ginger kids in Cokeworth." A pause. "Why're you here?"

"Working."

"Don't look like it."

"Taking a break," she snapped.

"You're one of them witches, ain't you?"

She nodded.

"Never understood all that," he muttered, looking towards the sky. "Eileen, my wife, she'd do these... things. Made me hurt when she was angry. Scared the shit outta me." He took a long drag. "Makes sense you're friends with my boy. Ain't no other reason to bother with him, the way he is."

Lily's grip tightened on the cigarette. "Your son's brilliant," she said fiercely. The word felt inadequate, but it was the first thing that had come to mind. She could list a hundred reasons why he was her best friend and why he deserved the world, but she knew Tobias wouldn't understand any of them.

"If you say so."

The silence stretched. A moth batted itself against the security light.

"You heard about Eileen, then," he said finally.

Lily's stomach twisted. I was there. "Yeah," she lied.

"Always knew she'd vanish one day." He flicked ash onto the pavement. "She told me that she wanted to leave and she tried a few times before the drink held her down. She never belonged here. Couldn't even work a bloody radio." A bitter shrug. "Severus will leave one day too, for the same reasons."

Like hell he can, Lily thought, remembering the hollow-eyed boy who forgot to eat unless she shoved food into his hands. Who stayed up brewing potions until he collapsed over his cauldron.

They smoked in silence until the embers burned down to the filters.

Severus' father stood, joints popping. "Come on. I'll help you with the clean-up."

He rolled up his sleeve, revealing more tattoos beneath the faded prison ink, a crooked hangman's noose, a dagger through a heart. Lily thought of Severus' carefully worded explanation about his mother's exile, about a Muggle who had died. Had Tobias taken the fall in the non-magical world for something Eileen had done with her wand? Had he spent years locked up for a death he didn’t commit and couldn’t explain? Did he once love her enough for that?

Inside, he worked with brutal efficiency, hosing down the tiles, scrubbing the drains with practised strokes. Lily watched his hands, the same long fingers as Severus’, and wondered how they could be so gentle with a mop and so cruel with a belt.

The question slipped out before she could stop it. "Why do you hit them?"

The scrubbing paused. For a heartbeat, the only sound was the drip of water echoing off the tiles.

"It's the drink," he said at last, and kept cleaning.

The casual dismissal made Lily's chest burn with rage. She thought of Severus' split lips, explained away as "walking into doors." His careful way of moving, like his ribs still remembered old breaks. The way he never, ever wanted to talk about home unless he was pushed to the brink. It's the drink. Like it was weather. Like it was fate. Like it wasn't his own hands doing the damage.

The next week at the slaughterhouse, Lily worked alone.

The task was grueling; blood clung stubbornly to the tiles, congealed in the grooves where the grout had darkened with age. The scent of iron and bleach burned her nose, but she did not stop, scrubbing until her fingers ached and her nails were rimmed with pink. She told herself she was getting used to it, that the nausea did not rise as sharply as before, but the lie tasted bitter.

When she was almost finished, she stepped outside, gulping in the damp evening air. The rain had turned the pavement slick, reflecting the dim glow of the security lights in oily streaks. She leaned against the brick wall, exhaustion settling into her bones, and fished out a cigarette from the crumpled pack she had started carrying. The first drag was harsh, but the burn in her lungs was something she could control.

She did not hear him approach, but suddenly he was there; Tobias Snape, looming in the periphery. He did not speak, just lit his own cigarette, the flare of the lighter briefly illuminating the hard lines of his face.

They stood like that, side by side, watching the rain sheet down in silent curtains.

The cigarette burned down to the filter, the ember dying in the damp. Tobias flicked his into a puddle, where it hissed out like a sigh. He did not look at her as he turned to leave, just grunted something that might have been acknowledgement or dismissal.

Lily stayed a moment longer, listening to the distant hum of the refrigerated trucks and the steady drum of rain on metal. She thought of Severus, holed up in that dark house with nothing but his potions and his pride. She thought of Petunia, who had chosen Skegness and distance over this place, over her.

Then she stubbed out her own cigarette and went back inside. There was always more to clean.

The canal was still, its murky water reflecting the dull grey of the overcast sky. Lily sat on the grassy bank, her fingers nervously plucking at the weeds beside her. The weight in her pockets was unfamiliar: coins and crumpled bills, every penny she had scraped together from the slaughterhouse. She had counted it twice on the walk here, just to be sure.

She knew Severus would not like it.

He had never been able to accept help, not truly. Not from her, not from anyone. Even when they were younger, when she had offered him half her sandwich, he had taken it with a scowl, as if the act of kindness were an insult. But this was different. He needed a wand. How could he face another year at Hogwarts without one? The thought of them, of Black, of Potter and the other gits, mocking him for it made her stomach twist.

A sharp clack of stone against pavement made her look up. Severus was approaching, kicking a rock ahead of him with deliberate, jerky movements. His hands were stained with ink, the dark smudges creeping up to his knuckles. He had been working, then. Writing, maybe even brewing. That was a good sign.

He dropped onto the grass beside her with a huff, his shoulders hunched forward as if carrying an invisible weight.

Lily swallowed. She did not speak, just reached over and took his hand, prising open his clenched fingers. His skin was warm, rough with calluses that they shared from potion making. Before he could pull away, she pressed the money into his palm and folded his fingers back over it.

For a moment, he did not move. He just stared at his closed fist, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, his gaze lifted to hers.

She braced herself.

"What is it for?" His voice was low, dangerous.

She kept hers steady. "It’s so you can buy yourself a new wand."

His reaction was immediate. He seized her wrist and shoved the money back into her hand, his grip tight enough to bruise.

"I don’t want your charity."

"It’s not charity," she said, careful, measured. "It’s a gift. From me to you."

His lip curled. "Do you think I’m so pathetic that I would take your money?"

"You can give it back next year. Or the year after. I don’t care." Her patience was fraying. "I just care that you won’t be starting school without a wand."

His eyes darkened. "That’s all it is?"

She did not flinch. "That’s all it is."

For a heartbeat, he just looked at her, as if she had struck him. Then his face twisted, something ugly and raw flashing across it.

"I will never take a single knut from you." The emphasis on you was deliberate, vicious.

Something in her snapped.

She shoved her outstretched hand with the money back in her pocket, hastily spilling a few coins, the anger of working that terrible job flooding into her.

"This is your doing," she spat, still seated in the grass, her voice trembling with fury. "All of it. I told you it was wrong to force her like that. I told you, and you ignored me!"

He did not respond. Did not even look at her. His face was turned away, his shoulders rigid.

Lily scrambled to her feet, snatching up the scattered coins from the grass. Her hands shook. She wanted to scream. To shake him until he understood. That she wanted to help him. That he needed help.

But there was no point.

She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving him sitting there, silent and alone.

They showed up the next day.

Lily arrived first, settling onto the damp grass beside the canal, its waters sluggish under the weight of yesterday’s rain. She did not question whether he would come, she knew. Severus had always been predictable in this way: stubborn enough to reject her, but never enough to stay gone after a fight.

And sure enough, he appeared, his footsteps deliberate, his shoulders hunched as if bracing for another argument. The shadows under his eyes were darker today, the ink stains on his fingers smudged from restless work. He did not speak as he lowered himself beside her, the space between them tense with unspoken thoughts.

For a long moment, there was only the distant murmur of the water and the rustle of wind through the weeds. Then:

"I’m sorry."

Her voice was quiet, frayed at the edges. Not just for the money, but for the words she could not take back. This is all your fault.

Severus exhaled, slow and measured. His fingers twitched against his knees, then stilled.

"Me too."

Two words, but they covered everything.

The Evans’ kitchen was still dark, the first pale light of dawn barely creeping through the curtains. Lily moved silently, her socked feet whispering against the floor as she crouched in front of the cupboard beneath the sink. She already had the bottle of bleach and a sponge tucked under her arm, her fingers closing around a half-empty bottle of industrial-strength disinfectant when-

"And just where do you think you’re going with my good cleaning supplies?"

Lily froze. Slowly, she turned to see her mother standing in the doorway, arms crossed, her dressing gown cinched tight around her waist. Her mother’s sharp green eyes, exactly what she saw in the mirror, narrowed in suspicion.

Lily swallowed. "I... I was just borrowing them."

"Borrowing?" Her mother arched a brow. "At five in the morning? For what, exactly?"

There was no point lying. Lily straightened, clutching the supplies to her chest like a shield. "Severus’ house is... bad, Mum. Really bad. I want to help him clean it."

Mum’s expression flickered. She sighed, rubbing her temple. "That boy’s father is a piece of work. And his mother... well." She didn’t finish the thought. Instead, she stepped forward and took the disinfectant from Lily’s hands.

Lily braced for a lecture, but her mother simply turned back to the cupboard, rummaging through it with purpose. "You can’t mix that with the bleach," she muttered, pulling out a different bottle with a yellow hazard label. "And you’ll need proper gloves, the thick ones, unless you want your hands peeling off by noon."

Lily blinked. "You’re... not stopping me?"

Hortense paused, then turned to face her fully. "You’re going to do what you want no matter what I say, aren’t you?"

Lily didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

Her mother exhaled, shaking her head. "Just be careful. And for God’s sake, take the steel wool for the stove. Nothing else will touch burned-in grime."

They met by the canal, the air between them stiff with unspoken words. Severus stood with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the morning chill. He didn’t look at her when she approached, just gave a curt nod and started walking.

Lily matched his pace, the bag of cleaning supplies bumping against her leg with every step. "So," she said, too brightly, "ready to wage war on filth?"

Severus grunted. "Absolutely thrilled."

The house was worse in daylight. The front door groaned as Severus pushed it open. What little sunlight managed to penetrate the filthy windows only highlighted the decay within.

Severus lingered in the doorway, his jaw tight. "You don’t have to do this."

Lily rolled up her sleeves. "I know."

Severus was, predictably, hopeless at it.

He scrubbed at the kitchen counter with all the finesse of a troll wielding a toothbrush, his movements stiff and inefficient. Lily bit back a laugh as he nearly upended the bucket of soapy water trying to wring out a sponge.

"You’ve... never done this before, have you?"

"I clean my cauldron," he muttered defensively.

"That’s not the same thing."

"It’s practically identical."

Lily snorted. "Not even remotely." She tossed him a fresh sponge filled with dish washing-up liquid. "Here. Less elbow grease, more actual grease removal."

He scowled but took it, and for a while, they worked in companionable silence: Lily attacking the floors with a vigour that would have made her mother proud, Severus grudgingly following her lead.

The kitchen began to emerge from under years of grime. Countertops revealed their original colour. The sink, freed from its coating of rust stains, gleamed dully in the growing light.

It was when Lily climbed onto a chair to tackle the top shelves that her fingers brushed against something unexpected, smooth wood interrupted by carvings, tucked behind a row of dusty jars.

She went very still.

"Sev," her voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of a revelation. "Come here."

Severus crossed the room, his brows furrowed. When he reached her, she turned, holding out the wooden box. The carvings were worn with age, the edges softened by years of handling.

He opened it.

Gobstones.

A choked sound escaped him. Lily watched as his fingers traced the familiar grooves of the stones, their polished surfaces catching the light.

"She was on the school team," he said, his voice rough. "Captain, even." A pause. Then, softer: "She used to play these with her little brother. His name was Severus too."

The stones clacked together as he rolled them in his palm, the sound absurdly cheerful in the gloom.

"Maybe she’s with him now," he murmured. "With her family."

Then his fingers stilled. Beneath the gobstones, half-hidden by the faded green velvet lining-

His mother’s wand. Snapped cleanly in two.

He lifted it out of the box, his fingers trembling as they traced the jagged break. The wood was beautiful even destroyed: pale and smooth, with a grain like flowing water. For a long moment, he didn’t speak, just stared at the pieces as if willing them whole again.

Lily didn’t know what to say.

Severus closed his hand around the fragments, his grip tight.

Then all he said was:

"We should finish cleaning."

And Lily, understanding, simply nodded.

The slaughterhouse was quieter than usual, the usual clamour of workers dulled by the heavy summer air. The scent of blood clung stubbornly to Lily’s clothes, even after weeks of scrubbing, but today, she didn’t mind. Today was her last shift.

She found Tobias Snape in the back, hunched over a rusted sink as he scrubbed the gore from his forearms. Water sluiced in pink-tinged rivulets down the drain, and the sharp tang of industrial soap mixed with the ever-present metallic stench of the place.

Lily hesitated, then stepped forward. "Mr Snape?"

His shoulders locked beneath the grimy undershirt, but he didn't turn. Just a grunt of acknowledgement, as if her presence was both expected and unwelcome.

She steadied herself. "I’m leaving today."

He straightened, wiping his hands on a rag that had long since lost its original colour, and fixed her with a look, those dark, sharp eyes so much like Severus’, but colder. Harder.

"Finally had enough, did you?" The words scraped out like boots on gravel.

"Something like that." She shifted her weight, the coins in her pocket suddenly heavy. "I... I need to ask you for a favour."

His eyebrow arched, just like Severus’ did when he was sceptical. "What?"

Lily reached into her pocket and pulled out the money, every little bit she had earned from weeks of mopping blood and bile from slaughterhouse floors that would never truly come clean. She held it out, her palm upturned.

"I need you to give this to Severus."

Tobias studied the offering, then her face, his expression carved from stone. "Why?"

"Because he won’t take it from me."

The distant sound of a cleaver striking wood echoed through the building.

Tobias exhaled through his nose, a sound almost like a laugh, but not quite. "You think he’ll take it if I hand him your money?"

"No," Lily admitted. "But if you don't tell him where it came from... maybe he'll think it's from you."

Tobias’s lips twisted. "And why the hell would I do that?"

"You know I could just go down to the pub with this." She could only explain the little bit of trust she had in that terrible man by the trust she had in his son.

Lily met his gaze squarely. "Because he needs a new wand. He can’t return to school without a wand."

He looked down at the money again, then reached out and took it. He tested the weight in his palm as if calculating not just its value, but the cost of the gesture itself.

Finally, he shrugged. "Fine. I’ll give it to him. He is owed at least this."

Relief washed through her. "Thank you."

He pocketed the money with a grunt. "Don’t thank me."

Lily turned to leave, then paused. "He’s brilliant, you know."

"Yeah. You’ve told me that before." Tobias didn’t look up, but she could tell just from the way he said it that he was rolling his eyes.

She left him there, standing in the dim light of the slaughterhouse, the echoes of her footsteps fading behind her.

For three merciless days, Lily had waged a campaign of attrition against her parents: dramatic entreaties over shepherd’s pie, strategic tears while her father hunched over the kitchen radio’s tangled innards, and calculated vulnerability deployed whenever her mother’s hands grew still over her endless mending.

"We’re twelve, Mum, not five!" she’d argued, flinging her arms wide enough to knock over a teacup. "And we can use our wands if there’s an emergency."

That morning, Mum had finally surrendered, though victory came shackled with conditions. The embroidery hoop trembled in her grip as she drove the needle through fabric with the precision of someone threading together her own fraying nerves.

"Straight to Diagon Alley and back. No detours. And stick together." Her fingers, rough from years of scrubbing and sewing, restored the unraveling "J" on Lily’s school robes. The emerald thread had begun its slow surrender after one too many magical cleanings, while somehow the embroidered flowers beneath remained pristine, their colours as vivid as the day they’d been sewn. The repetitive motion, pull, prick, pull, was as much a warning as her words.

Petunia, sun-kissed and salt-touched from Skegness, offered nothing but pressed lips and a deliberate turning away. But at twilight after dinner, Lily found a scattering of seashells on her windowsill, arranged in a neat, perfect row. Nine fragile seashells her sister had collected from the beach and brought to her. She held the one that was chipped, a part of it lost.

The bell above the door chimed as they stepped inside. Dust motes still danced in shafts of golden light that slanted through the high windows, illuminating towers of wand boxes stacked precariously to the ceiling that had not grown fewer since their visit last year.

Severus hesitated just inside the threshold, his fingers twitching towards his pocket where the fragments of his mother’s wand lay wrapped in cloth.

"Ah," murmured Ollivander, sliding out from behind the shelves silently. "Severus Snape. Twelve inches, blackthorn, unicorn hair. A difficult wand, if I recall; it had spent quite some time on my shelves before finding you."

His shoulders stiffened, bracing against the words. "It’s gone."

Lily pretended sudden fascination with a display of ebony wands, though her ears strained to catch every word.

Ollivander’s silvery eyes gleamed as Severus unwrapped the broken pieces of his mother’s wand. The old wandmaker lifted the fragments gently, turning them over with long, spidery fingers.

"The wood is beyond repair," he said at last. "But the core... yes, the unicorn hair is intact. A loyal thing, unicorn hair, but it might just work for you, since you came from her after all."

Severus’ chest seemed to unlock, his shoulders dropping by degrees as if he had been holding his breath for weeks. "How much is it if you use the old hair to make a new wand?"

Ollivander waved a hand. "The core was yours already. Call it seven galleons for the wood and craftsmanship."

Seven galleons. Lily’s stomach clenched as she watched Severus count out the coins. Tobias must have kept his word. Severus parted with the gold without hesitation, his expression carved from marble, betraying nothing of what this transaction might cost him beyond mere money.

Lily’s arms ached under the weight of her purchases: a new cauldron, stacks of parchment, and three books she had absolutely needed: Advanced Potion-Making for reading ahead, a dog-eared copy of Magical Water Plants of the British Isles, and a lurid wizard romance novel she had tucked discreetly beneath the others that she would have to hide from her mother.

Severus, by contrast, carried only the bare essentials in a single, half-empty bag with just the necessities. She knew that he must have some money left over.

"You know," Lily said, pausing to shift her burden and immediately regretting it as everything threatened to cascade onto the cobblestones, "you could have bought just one thing purely for the joy of it. A chocolate frog. A joke quill. Something that serves no purpose except making you smile."

"Joy is a luxury," he replied.

She rolled her eyes with theatrical exasperation, then stopped mid-motion, her head tilting.

"Sev. Do you hear that?"

He paused, frowning as he strained to catch whatever phantom sound had captured her attention. "Hear what, exactly?"

"Waves." The word came out breathless, wondering. "Like... proper ocean waves. Like how they sound on the telly."

His frown deepened into something approaching medical concern. "You're losing your mind. It's probably heatstroke from hauling half of Flourish and Blotts through London in August. There's no ocean within a hundred miles of-“

But Lily was already moving, her packages forgotten as she doubled back toward a sliver of shadow she had somehow missed before: a passage so narrow it seemed designed to be overlooked, squeezed between Slug & Jiggers and a dusty shop selling what appeared to be crystallised dragon tears. The moment she stepped into that ribbon of darkness, the city smell of soot and sweat gave way to something impossible: the clean, wild scent of salt spray and sun-warmed sand.

"Lily, we do not have time for one of your adventures," Severus called. He grabbed for her sleeve after he had caught up with her, but she was already slipping away from him like water through fingers.

"Oh, shut up," she hissed, shaking him off, and then gasped.

The narrow alley had opened, impossibly, onto paradise.

A crescent of beach curved away from them in both directions, sand so white it hurt to look at directly, lapped by water that shifted from turquoise to sapphire to emerald with each rolling wave. Seabirds she could not name wheeled overhead in a sky that belonged to postcards and dreams, their cries mixing with the eternal conversation between tide and shore.

"What the actual fuck?" Severus breathed as she threw down the packages she held into the sand.

Instead, she grinned with the particular wickedness that had been getting her into trouble since she was old enough to walk. "Magic," she said simply, as if that explained everything, and perhaps it did.

Then, before his rational mind could construct the walls that would keep him safe and miserable, she planted both hands against his chest and shoved him straight into the shallows.

He went down with a spectacular splash. Water filled his shoes and soaked through to his skin, and for a moment his face went through a series of expressions that would have been comical if they had not been so genuine.

"You absolute menace!" he sputtered, struggling to find his footing on the shifting sand.

But then something miraculous happened. The laughter started small, just a crack in his carefully constructed composure, but once it began it seemed to take on a life of its own. It bubbled up from some deep place she had thought he had lost access to years ago, bright and startled and completely, utterly free.

Then he grabbed her ankle and she went down with him into the water. After the shock, Lily flopped backward into the waves, letting the salt water tug at her hair and soak through her clothes until she felt more like a mermaid than a witch. The sun painted everything gold: the water, the sand, the impossibility of everything.

"We're going to miss the train back," he said eventually, but he was still smiling, water dripping from his hair and making his dark eyes shine.

"Worth it."

Chapter Text

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.

Chapter Text

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 on 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.

Chapter Text

The hydrangeas, thick with new growth where she'd hacked them down to stumps last summer, their leaves fat and glossy like they were mocking her, cast long shadows across the back garden as evening settled over their tiny backyard. Lily paced, her stomach sitting heavy and wrong despite not having eaten anything due to nerves. Through the kitchen window, she could see the light was on, but no movement.

Her mother would be catching a quick nap before her evening shift at the pub, she always did on Thursdays. Twenty minutes, maybe thirty, before she'd wake. Then the bathroom door would slam, the taps would run too hard, and she'd come downstairs with her lipstick on crooked, the way she always did when she was about to smile at men who called her 'love' and left their change in puddles of beer.

Please let this work. Please.

The gate creaked. Severus slipped through like a shadow, shoulders hunched, his school trunk left outside the gate.

"Your mother's at work?" His eyes darted to the unlit window.

"Evening shift at the pub." The lie burned her tongue. "Won't be back till after midnight."

He relaxed visibly. "Good."

I'm sorry, she thought, but you'd never agree otherwise.

She pulled out a flask, her hands trembling slightly. "Eighteen-day lacewing flies with moonstone stabilizer.”

The smell hit her first—that particular stink of stewed lacewings that had lived in their dormitory for months. She'd kept the cauldrons under her bed, spelled against Prefects but not against Marlene’s complaining. They'd tested it on themselves first, obviously—her becoming him, him becoming her for an hour, both of them sick as dogs afterward until he'd adjusted the belladonna ratio. By Easter they'd had forty more or less perfect doses hidden in shampoo bottles, ready to flog them next year to seventh-years who used it to sit in OWL exams for fifth-years.

Lily's heart hammered as she produced a tarnished sickle. If the coin landed wrong, if she had to transform instead, she'd have to watch him shuffle off to another night of-

"Heads," Severus called.

The coin spun. Please be tails. Please.

It landed tails. Her legs went loose, like they might not hold her. She'd won. He'd lost.

His black eyes were steady on hers, that same look he always gave her before tipping the flask. “I’ll haunt you.”

“You better,” she answered, like she always did.

He drank it in one gulp. The transformation was smooth, fifteen seconds of shifting features until an unremarkable girl in Severus’ clothes stood before her. Brown hair, brown eyes, forgettable.

Nothing like Severus, with his sharp nose that cut through any room, his black hair that fell into his face no matter how often he pushed it back. This girl's face was soft, ordinary, the kind that blurred into backgrounds. Severus had edges, cheekbones that caught shadows, eyes so dark they seemed to pull light in. Even when he tried to disappear, hunched over a cauldron or pressed against corridor walls, something about him snagged attention. Made people look twice, usually to sneer, sometimes to stare. She always found him in a crowd, always looked towards him, could never look away, no matter what.

This brown-haired girl could walk past a hundred people and not one would remember her face.

"The moonstone worked." Even pitched higher, his voice carried that analytical tone. Then he shifted, grimacing. His shirt strained across a different chest. The seams at his shoulders looked ready to split. "This is deeply uncomfortable."

"Here." Lily dug into her bag, pulling out clothes she'd carefully selected to fit the pudgy girl she barely remembered. "Change before you burst those."

He took the blouse with deep suspicion and affront. "Pink flowers?"

"Just change. No one can see."

She turned her back to him as he changed. She heard muttering, then frustrated rustling. Her mind raced. She needed to get him inside. Get him comfortable. Then when Mum wakes up, it'll be too late to send "Susan" away.

When she turned back, Severus stood with his elbows locked against his ribs, shoulders hunched forward like he was trying to fold into himself. His fingers plucked at the hem of the borrowed blouse, pulling it away from his stomach, letting it fall, pulling again. He kept shifting his weight, knees pressed together, then apart, then together again, like he couldn't work out how this body was meant to stand.

"Stop that," Lily hissed. "You look like you're about to be sick."

"Everything’s wrong,” he muttered, voice higher than his own but still carrying his familiar disdain.

She straightened her blouse on his body, her fingers shaking. "Now let's go inside. I want to check the potion's stability in proper light."

"Inside?" He frowned acting like they had not spend uncountable in it together. "Your house?"

"Where else? Can't examine the transformation properly out here."

"Maybe we should stay outside. Test duration first."

"Sev, it's getting dark. We need proper light to check for partial transformation."

"The street lamp's bright enough."

Twenty minutes of this, Lily inventing increasingly desperate reasons to go inside, Severus finding excuses to stay in the garden. Each refusal felt like watching him choose pride over survival. He kept tearing at the clothes he was wearing like he was trying to rip of the skin under it.

Just come inside, she wanted to scream. Let me help you. Stop being so bloody stubborn.

"This is ridiculous," she finally snapped. "It's just my empty house."

"I'm fine here." He wrapped his arms around his middle, then dropped them with a frustrated noise.

"You're being paranoid."

"I'm being practical."

Lily wanted to cry. Or shake him. Or both. The transformation would only last another hour, and here he was, refusing to enter her home like he did countless time before even when he thought no one was home.

"Fine." She stalked toward the privy, her mind racing. She needed to think. "I need the loo."

Inside the tiny bathroom, the crooked mirror reflected her flushed skin, blotched from the evening chill and frustration. She pressed her palms flat against the sink's cold porcelain edge.

The soap dish sat there, chipped green ceramic. Mum's rose-scented bar perched on top like it belonged somewhere nicer.

She flicked the soap away and closed her hand around the soap dish. She weighed it once, twice. Then drew her arm back and let it fly.

Seven years of bad luck exploded outward in a spider's web of cracks. The mirror held for one impossible second, her face multiplied into a dozen fractured Lilys, before the shards began dropping into the sink with bright, musical notes. The largest piece clung stubbornly to the frame before surrendering with a final crash that echoed through the entire house.

"What was that?" Severus called.

Please, Mum. Please wake up. Please come outside.

Then, faster than she'd dared hope, another voice.

"Lily!" The back door flew open as she threw open the privy door. Her mother emerged, hair mussed from sleep, still in her house robe. "What on earth-“

She stopped dead, catching sight of the strange girl by the hydrangeas.

Severus stared at Lily's mother in horror. His borrowed face had gone pale.

"You said-“ he started, then clamped his mouth shut as her mother's attention swung to him.

"Oh!" Lily scrambled out of the doorway. "Mum, this is Susan Serpent. From Hogwarts."

Her mother's exhaustion evaporated. "A school friend? Here?" She smoothed her hair and pulling her robe tight against her body, suddenly self-conscious. "Lily, why didn't you say that someone was visiting?”

"She just arrived. Her parents apparated her."

Severus shot Lily a look of pure betrayal that cut straight through her. But she couldn't acknowledge it. Not with her mother watching. Not when she was so close to succeeding.

"Apparated." Her mother tested the magical word. "That's the... appearing thing?"

"Yeah. They dropped her at the corner shop."

"Without checking we were home?" Her mother's tone sharpened, but her focus stayed on the borrowed face that looked on in terror which she probably interpreted as shyness. "Come here, dear. Let me see you properly."

Severus emerged from the shadows like a condemned prisoner, still tugging at the hem of her blouse. Lily's chest ached watching him, proud, dignified Severus forced into this deception because she'd left him no choice.

"Susan, is it?" The delight in her voice was painful. She's so happy, Lily thought miserably. "From Lily's school? An actual friend?"

"Yes, Mrs Evans." Severus' borrowed voice came out strangled.

"Oh, this is wonderful!" Her mother practically glowed. "I've been hoping… That is, Lily doesn't bring friends home. Well, except-“ She cut herself off. "Come inside immediately. Excuse my state. Have you eaten?"

She herded them both toward the house. Severus stumbled, unused to his short legs, shooting Lily furious glances when her mother wasn't looking. Each look was a knife between her ribs.

Inside, her mother bustled about pulling the everyday plates back into the cupboard and reaching for the ones with the faded blue flowers that only came out for Christmas, funerals and visitors. She lifted the lid on yesterday's shepherd's pie, prodding it with a fork before sliding it back into the oven. The kitchen filled with the smell of reheated lamb and onions.

On the table sat a rose bouquet she recognized from her visit to the hair salon, their petals already going brown at the edges, stems crammed into a jam jar. “Gloria was throwing them out," her mother said, catching Lily's glance.

"Said they'd only last another day anyway. Shame to waste them." She adjusted one drooping bloom, trying to make it stand straighter.

"Sit, Susan dear. When did you get to be friends? What house are you in?"

"Ravenclaw," Severus managed through gritted teeth.

"How lovely! And your parents just... left you here?"

"They're picking her up tomorrow evening,” Lily said quickly, the lies coming easier now.

"Tomorrow?" Her mother looked thrilled. "Then you must stay the night. Petunia's room is free. Oh, it's so nice to have Lily's friends here. I was starting to think she didn't have any."

The words stung more than they should have. Because Mum wasn't wrong, was she? Lily shared a dormitory with four other girls, sat with them at meals, copied Mary's astronomy notes when required. But friendship? Real friendship? She thought of the gap between her bed and the others, how their chatter about Hogsmeade weekends washed over her without ever quite including her. They were kind enough, but when the lights went out, she was the one staring at the canopy alone while they whispered across the divide. The only person who'd ever looked at her and seen someone worth knowing, really knowing, was currently wearing a stranger's face at her kitchen table.

She looked towards him, The girl’s, Severus’, shoulders rigid. That particular stillness Lily knew meant he was biting the inside of his cheek, except now it was some stranger's cheek, some stranger's mouth pressed thin. The brown eyes narrowed just like his black ones would have, and for a disorienting second Lily saw both faces at once, the real Severus bleeding through this borrowed skin.

She forced herself to look at those wrong-colored eyes, to see him in there. It was like trying to spot a familiar constellation through clouds. The shape was there if she squinted: the way he tilted his head when insulted, how his left eyebrow twitched before he said something cutting. All his tells translated perfectly into this new face, making it somehow more unsettling than if he'd become someone completely different.

How could her mother not recognize him?

Lily pushed food around her plate and avoided Severus' accusing stare. She'd explain later.

The clatter of plates being stacked punctuated the evening's uneasy quiet.

"Right then, Susan," she said, addressing the mousy-haired girl, arms crossed over an unfamiliar chest, who was definitely not glowering at her plate with Severus' exact expression of barely contained fury. "Let's get you sorted for the night."

Lily watched her mother bustle away, presumably to wrestle with the ancient mattress in Tuney's room, and risked a glance at Severus.

"Sev-“

"Don't." The word came out sharp enough to cut. He still wouldn't look at her, focusing instead on folding his napkin again and again.

The scraping and thumping from upstairs suggested her mother was winning her battle with the mattress. Lily stood, began gathering plates just to have something to do with her hands that wasn't reaching across the table to shake some sense into him.

"You needed somewhere safe to sleep," she said quietly.

"I needed-“ He bit off whatever he'd been about to say as Mum reappeared, slightly flushed from dragging Petunia's old mattress down the narrow hallway.

“You two! Come upstairs!” her mother called downstairs.

They climbed the stairs in quiet procession. The familiar creak of her bedroom door had never sounded so ominous.

Mum was still puffing, surveying the cramped arrangement with satisfaction. The mattress lay parallel to Lily's bed, desk chair blocking her dresser to make space. Her childhood room, already small, now felt catastrophically cramped. Her mother surveyed the arrangement with satisfaction.

"There we are!" Mum’s smile was bright with the particular air of being pleased.

"All set up nice and cozy. About time you had a proper sleepover anyway. You girls can whisper about boys all night.”

Lily wanted to die. Or disappear. Or possibly both.

"Though I must say, Susan, you're rather quiet. Not like those chatty things Petunia brings round, well used to bring around.” Mum studied Severus with the kind of attention that made Lily's stomach clench. "You seem like a sensible girl. I do hope you'll be a good influence on my Lily.”

If Severus' jaw clenched any tighter, Lily was genuinely concerned he might crack a tooth.

"Perfect. Now, Susan, Lily will show you where the bathroom is and give you one of your nightgowns. I will be off to work now. We're early risers in this house, so don't be alarmed if you hear movement around six." She paused in the doorway, fixing Lily with a meaningful look. Lily wasn’t an early riser.

"But Mum-“

"No arguments." The door clicked shut.

The silence that followed was suffocating. Severus stood rigid beside the mattress, still in Susan's form but radiating his particular brand of furious dignity.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low and venomous despite the higher pitch. “I need to use the loo.”

Oh. Right. Of course. In all her planning, the clothes, the cover story, the timing, she'd somehow overlooked this basic humiliation.

"Take your time." She kept her voice carefully neutral, turning to study the wall calendar like April's dates were suddenly fascinating.

She had already changed into her nightgown, the white one with faded strawberries that she'd worn thoughtlessly a hundred times before, but now felt as revealing as tissue paper, when he returned. The door opened so quietly she might have missed it if she hadn't been straining for the sound.

She sat up. Even in the dim light from the hallway, she could see the flush spreading across Susan's features, so deep it was almost purple. “Everything okay?”

"Shut up." He practically dove onto the mattress, yanking the covers up to his chin. "Just... shut up, Lily."

Despite everything, his fury, her guilt, the absurdity of their situation, she found herself biting her lip to keep from laughing.

"I said shut up." He'd rolled to face the door, his higher pitched voice muffled by the pillow.

"I didn't say anything."

She laid back down, listening to his breathing in the darkness. It was still ragged with embarrassment and anger, but gradually, it began to even out. Slower. Deeper. Within ten minutes, the telltale rhythm of sleep had taken over.

Of course he'd fallen asleep quickly. When had he last slept in an actual bed? When had he last felt safe enough to properly rest? Even furious with her, even trapped in a form that wasn't his, this was still the safest he'd been in weeks.

If he hated her forever, if this broke something between them that could never be repaired, at least he was alive and whole to do the hating. At least he'd survive long enough to end their friendship properly, with clean sheets, regular meals and a roof over his head.

She'd take his hatred over his absence.

"I'd do it again," she whispered to his sleeping form. "Every time."

The mattress lay empty the next morning, covers neatly folded. Lily stared at the blanket, remembering how she'd stumbled over him in the dark hours before dawn, her toe catching his hip, his "Fucking hell, Lily” in his own deep voice telling her the transformation had worn off.

Lily's hand found the hollow where he'd slept, still faintly warm, but cooling fast.

Gone.

Of course he'd gone.

She was sure she was waking up her mother as she roughly shoved the desk chair out of the way to get to the dresser and yanked on yesterday's cardigan, not bothering with buttons. The stairs groaned under her thundering descent. If he thought he could just vanish back to whatever bridge or abandoned building he'd been haunting, if he thought she'd let him-

The kitchen door stood ajar, letting out a ribbon of warm light, the smell of porridge, and the incongruous sound of her mother's laughter.

“-never seen anyone so baffled by a washing machine," Mum was saying. "Like it might bite! Though I suppose if you've grown up with magic doing everything..."

Lily froze in the doorway.

Severus, Susan, stood at the cooker, stirring porridge with the focused intensity he found hard to turn off.

He took the potion again. The realization hit her like cold water.

Her mother sat at the table, polishing the good teacups they never used, radiating the kind of maternal satisfaction usually reserved for Petunia's achievements.

"Morning, lazybones," Mum called without looking up. "Your friend here's been up since dawn. Found her with the washing machine trying to do her sheets."

"Proper little puzzle for her, our machine," her mother continued, voice warm with amusement. "All those buttons and dials when you're used to waving a wand at dirty laundry, I suppose."

Severus' shoulders tightened as he reached for bowls, having to stretch in a way his own body never would.

"These magical families. Can apparate across the country but can't operate a simple washing machine. Mind you, she's a quick learner. Already mastered the settings."

The porridge bubbled. Severus divided it between three bowls with mathematical precision, then hesitated at the table, clearly trying to work out where "Susan" should sit.

Lily solved the seating dilemma by dropping into her usual chair, leaving him to take Petunia's spot.

They ate in strange domesticity. Lily watched, bewildered, as Severus navigated breakfast in this foreign body, movements still careful but less rigid than yesterday.

Without looking at her, Severus pushed the salt shaker across the table. She could see him watching from the corner of his eye as she tipped the shaker over her porridge, once, twice, three times. His left eye twitched. The same twitch from many years ago when she'd done this at the very same table and he'd leaned over to inform her that she was "ruining perfectly adequate food."

"Thank you," she managed.

He nodded once, still not meeting her eyes.

"Aren't you two sweet," her mother observed. "Like you've known each other forever."

Please don't notice, Lily thought desperately.

"Such nice manners," Mum beamed. "I was just telling Susan earlier, it's so lovely to see Lily with a proper friend."

The spoon shook slightly in Severus' grip. Lily's chest tightened with a familiar cocktail of fury and guilt. Here was proof, that her mother would welcome Severus with open arms if only he'd been born someone else. Someone acceptable. Someone who wasn't the son of a violent drunk from Spinner's End.

"All those years," her mother continued, "watching her run wild with that Snape boy. But here's proof she can make better choices."

"Mum-“

"I'm only saying, it's nice to see you growing up. Making friends who won't drag you into dark alleys or dangerous situations." She patted Severus' hand. The hand that had stirred potions in those same dark alleys, that had helped Lily dig her up father's grave.

Severus withdrew his hand carefully, reaching for his tea with studied calm.

The front door clicked shut followed with the sounds of keys jangling, heels clacking down the path, the gate's squeak cutting off as her mother turned toward the bus stop. Lily counted to thirty, then to sixty for good measure, before exhaling the breath she'd been holding since her mother started listing instructions, since Susan was set to turn back into Severus any minute.

"Right then, Susan, you just relax. Our Lily will see to everything, won't you, love?" Her mother had fixed her with that look, the one that meant don't you dare shirk this. "Washing up, sweeping the front room, and the bathroom needs a proper scrub. Our guest shouldn't lift a finger."

Now, in the sudden quiet, Lily watched Severus, still trapped in Susan's form, rise from his chair without a word. He was already heading for the stairs.

Lily moved to the front window first, tugging the nets closed properly, not just draped but overlapped in the middle where Mrs. Perkins liked to peer through when she walked her terrier. The sitting room next, where the Johnson’s kitchen window had a direct view if you stood at the right angle. She'd seen Mr. Dalton there often enough, smoking his morning cigarette while pretending not to watch the street.

The stairs creaked under her feet as she followed him up, still yanking curtains as she went. Even the landing window got the treatment, though it only looked out on the Robinsons' roof.

She opened the airing cupboard, pulling out the stack she'd hidden there yesterday, her father's old jeans, worn soft at the knees, and a flannel shirt that she was sure he would swim in. She stopped herself from smelling them, shoved down the longing as far down as she could.

“You can wear these.” She held them out, not quite meeting his eyes. They both knew his own clothes were still in the garden, probably stiff with more than just dew by now. She'd seen the state of them when she'd retrieved them, making her really look since wasn’t wearing them—the collar dark with old sweat, mysterious stains on the sleeves, that particular griminess that came from wearing the same thing for weeks.

His borrowed fingers closed around the bundle. For a second she thought he might say something about the charity, throw it back in her face. But he just tucked them under his arm, Susan’s soft jaw working like he was swallowing words.

No dramatics. Just the soft click of her bedroom door afterwards.

Lily returned to the kitchen and filled the sink, letting the hot water run over the breakfast dishes. Through the ceiling, she could hear careful footsteps, a drawer opening. Then nothing.

The stairs creaked under his real weight, lighter than Susan's but somehow more present. He appeared in the doorway, her father's flannel shirt hanging off his shoulders, missing the pot belly that could fill it out. The sleeves swallowed his hands entirely until he rolled them up, revealing his thin wrists. The trousers sat low on his hips despite the belt cinched to its last hole.

Without a word, he walked past her to the back door. She watched through the window as he retrieved his trunk from behind the hydrangeas, dragging it across the grass with both hands. The morning sun caught the black of his hair, still tangled from sleep.

He hauled the trunk through the kitchen door, letting it thud onto the linoleum. The latches snapped open under his fingers. Out came the usual collection: Advanced Potion-Making, his dog-eared Transfiguration text, who he would never admit to but she knew he struggled with, rolls of parchment already covered in his cramped writing.

Lily turned back to the dishes, scrubbing harder than necessary. The only sounds were the scratch of his quill and the splash of water. He was doing his summer work. While she washed up. Like this was normal. Like he belonged here at her kitchen table in her father's clothes.

She dried her hands on the tea towel, watching him scratch out what looked like Transfiguration equations. The quill moved in sharp, aggressive strokes.

"That's not going to work."

He didn't look up. "The washing up? I wasn't planning to help."

"You know what I mean." She pulled open the drawer where her mother kept some of Tuney’s magazines she denied reading herself despite getting caught numerous times, grabbed a stack of Jackies with their bright covers promising "How to Get Your Summer Glow" and "Is He Shy or Just Not Into You?" And dropped them on top of his Transfiguration essay. "Study these instead."

His quill stopped mid-word, a blob of ink spreading across his calculations. "I'd rather drink bubotuber pus."

Despite his declaration he picked up the top magazine between thumb and forefinger, lip curled. "'How to Know If He's Using You,'" he read in a monotone. "Fascinating. Really captures the depth of teenage female existence."

"Just read it."

Then, with the kind of theatrical suffering he usually reserved for Gryffindor Quidditch victories, he swept his homework aside and opened one of the magazines. She could identify him blindfolded just by the sound of him turning pages, that particular impatient snap.

"'Your ideal career based on star signs.'" A pause. Then, with deep resentment: “Teacher.”

"Could be worse."

"Could it?" He snapped the magazine shut and reached for the second one.

"'Ten ways to tell he likes you,'" he read in a monotone. "Groundbreaking journalism."

"What are they?"

"Does it matter?" But he kept reading, his expression growing more disgusted with each page turn. "'Wallflower Wendy needs to bloom.' Apparently I'm a failed flower."

"Based on?"

"My tendency to 'hover near the snacks at parties.'" He turned another page with sharp precision. She scrubbed a plate, hiding her smile. Even his disgust was better when it was on the right face.

The rhythm of deception had become second nature after two weeks. Each morning, Lily would wake up to Severus gone, he always woke before, drinking the potion she knew he detested, transforming while she was still sleeping to slip downstairs. By the time she emerged for her morning tea, Susan would be at the kitchen table, hands folded primly, wearing one of Petunia's abandoned dresses.

The transformations themselves had become smoother, faster. But Lily still caught the tiny tells of his discomfort: the way he'd forget and sit with his knees apart until her mother cleared her throat, how his hand would drift to his chest when he moved too quickly, startled by the unfamiliar weight. Once, she'd found him staring at Susan's reflection in the hallway mirror with such naked revulsion that she'd had to look away.

"Pass the jam, would you, Susan dear?" Mum reached across the breakfast table, humming something from the radio.

Severus complied with mechanical precision, his movements still too careful, too considered. But he'd learned to smile, a thin approximation that satisfied her mother's need for pleasant female company.

"Such a helpful girl," Mum beamed. "Not like some people who leave wet towels on the bathroom floor."

"I said I was sorry," Lily muttered around her toast.

"Sorry doesn't dry the floor, does it?" But her mother's scolding lacked heat. These past two weeks had been the most cheerful Lily had seen her since, well. Since before.

The moment Mum left for work, Severus would retreat upstairs, emerging minutes later in her father’s clothes, the transformation already beginning to reverse. They'd spend the day on homework, their homework spread across the kitchen table, Severus occasionally reading out particularly complex calculations as if she understood Arithmancy.

He'd even started making lunch, simple things, sandwiches and tea, but the gesture itself spoke volumes. The boy who'd spent years accepting nothing from anyone now moved around her kitchen with quiet familiarity, knowing which cupboard held the good plates, which drawer stuck and needed wiggling.

"Your penmanship's atrocious," he said one afternoon, glancing at her half-hearted Transfiguration essay. He'd positioned himself at the far end of the table, but their work had gradually sprawled until their parchments nearly touched, his notes on advanced potions theory mingling with her scattered attempts at understanding object-to-animal transformation principles.

"You've told me that a thousand times already." She didn't look up, but she could feel him studying her work with that particular frown that meant he was personally offended by imperfection.

"Because it's true." He reached across, his sleeve brushing her arm as he pointed to a particularly egregious example. "What's this even supposed to say? 'Transformative' or 'transmitted’?”

"It's perfectly legible. You’re reading them.”

He made that sound in the back of his throat, part snort, part sigh, that she'd heard a thousand times before as well.

Then evenings meant the return of Susan. Lily would watch him trudge upstairs at half-past five, shoulders set with resignation. The transformation back always seemed harder, as if his body protested the return to wrong proportions. He'd emerge in whichever dress seemed least offensive, his face carefully blank.

"How was your day, girls?" Mum would chirp over dinner, and Severus would offer noncommittal sounds while Lily chattered enough for both of them. Then soon enough it was time to get ready for bed.

"Night," they whispered to each other. He always fell asleep first, turned away from her, and she'd learned to recognize when the transformation wore off even in complete darkness, she knew when it happened because the snoring would stop, replaced by Severus’ lighter breathing. Sometimes she'd steal glances at his sleeping form in the moonlight, wondering if his face looked peaceful, but he always stayed turned towards the door, and she never dared look long enough to find out.

They had their close calls, moments that sent her heart slamming against her ribs. Once, her mother came home early with a migraine, and Lily had to shout a warning up the stairs while fumbling with the kettle, manufacturing enough noise to cover Severus' transformation. She could hear him moving above, the floorboards creaking under his real weight as the potion wore off two hours ahead of schedule.

"Susan's just getting changed!" she called, her voice pitched too high, hands shaking as she overfilled the kettle. Water splashed across the counter, pooling around the bread bin.

"Tell her there's no rush," her mother replied weakly from the sitting room, but Lily could hear the question beneath the words. Why was Susan always getting changed? Why did she spend so much time upstairs?

Another time, Mrs. Johnson from down the street, an elementary school teacher, cornered them at the shops, her sharp eyes taking in 'Susan's' borrowed dress, the way Severus held himself wrong, slouching in that familiar way.

"Funny," Mrs. Johnson mused, tilting her head. "You remind me of someone.”

Lily's mind went blank with panic, then raced in two directions at once. Did she recognize Severus beneath the disguise, that particular way he hunched his shoulders, the defensive angle of his jaw even in a different face? Or worse, did she know the real girl, the brown-haired stranger from the salon whose appearance they'd stolen? Lily couldn't remember if the girl had been local. What if she lived three streets over? What if she was Mrs. Johnson's former pupil’s, her neighbor's daughter, her-

Severus managed a thin smile, pitching his voice higher. "I must have one of those faces."

"Hmm." Mrs. Johnson’s gaze lingered on Susan. "Perhaps."

It couldn't last.

"Two weeks is quite a visit," Mum said one evening, setting down her fork with deliberate care.

The bathroom door hung half-open, the bare bulb inside throwing a harsh rectangle of light across the dark garden path. Lily stopped on her way back from dumping the washing-up water, hearing the distinct scrape of metal on porcelain from inside the small bathroom. Through the gap, she could see Severus bent over the sink, gripping her father's safety razor with both hands, turning it this way and that like he was trying to work out which end was which.

No mirror. Of course. She'd smashed it that night, desperate to wake her mother, and they'd never replaced it, her mother telling her that she would learn to do without if she continued being careless. Now he was trying to shave by touch alone, his jaw already sporting two thin lines of blood.

She pushed the door wider, the hinges groaning. "You're making a mess of it."

He jerked violently, the razor clattering into the sink with a metallic clang. “Get out."

"You're bleeding."

"How remarkably observant." He retrieved the razor with stiff movements, angling his face toward where the mirror should be. "Now leave."

But she could see the disaster he was making, patches of missed stubble creating an almost comical patchwork, uneven lines where he'd pressed too hard in frustration, the way his hand shook slightly as he tried to find the right angle without visual guidance. A second nick appeared on his jaw, blood beading bright, the cuts appearing like snake bites against the pale skin of throat.

"Oh, for-“ She stepped inside the tiny bathroom. "Let me help before you slit your own throat."

"Absolutely not." He backed against the sink, clutching the razor like a weapon. "I'm perfectly capable of-“

"Of what? Bleeding to death in my bathroom?" She reached for the razor. He jerked it away, nearly catching his ear with the blade. "Severus, you can't see what you're doing and you obviously don’t know what you’re doing.”

"There's a charm," he said through gritted teeth. "Simple charm. Every wizard uses it." Last spring, he'd shown up to Potions with the faintest shadow above his upper lip, barely there, more suggestion than substance, but she'd noticed immediately. "Growing a mustache, Sev?" she'd whispered while Slughorn demonstrated the proper way to juice sopophorous beans. The next morning, his upper lip was completely smooth.

She folded her arms. "Unless you’re been exempt from the laws forbidding underage magic, it’s not helping you right now.”

His jaw worked, the muscle jumping beneath the uneven stubble.

"My dad used to let me help," she said quietly. "When I was little. I'd stand on the toilet lid and he'd guide my hand. Taught me to be careful. Gentle."

"I'm not your father."

"No, you aren’t,” she agreed.

He glared at the blank wall where the mirror should be, blood still trickling from the newest cut. She watched him dab at it with toilet paper which he placed next to the sink, his movements sharp with frustration.

"It's just shaving, Sev. Not surrender."

A long, tense silence. Then: "Fine." The word came out like it cost him. "But if you cut me-“

"I won't." She held out her hand for the razor, keeping her voice steady despite the way her pulse had picked up.

He passed it over with obvious reluctance, then turned to face her. The bathroom had never felt smaller. They were forced close, her back nearly against the door, him pressed against the sink's edge. She had to stand on tiptoe to see properly, one hand braced on the counter for balance.

"You'll have to-“ She gestured vaguely. They'd need to be closer. Much closer.

His whole body went rigid. "This is ridiculous."

"Hold still." She placed her free hand on his shoulder, feeling the tension coiled there. Through the thin material of his shirt, she could feel heat, the subtle shift of breathing.

"Tilt your head back."

He resisted for a moment, jaw set in that stubborn line she knew too well, then obeyed with obvious reluctance. The gesture exposed the long line of his throat, hard and vulnerable. The tendons stood out when he swallowed. A strand of his hair had fallen forward, black against his temple. Without thinking, her fingers moved to brush it back.

Her hand trembled slightly as she brought the razor to his skin, metal catching the light.

"Don't," he warned, though she hadn't said anything.

"Don't what?"

"Just... do it quickly."

She bit back a response and focused on the task. The razor scraped along his jaw with careful precision, the sound of hair being cut giving her goosebumps.

"You have to pull the skin taut," she murmured, demonstrating with her fingers against his cheek. He flinched at the contact but didn't pull away. "Like this."

His breathing had gone very shallow. She could feel it, warm against her face in the scant inches between them. Each exhale ghosted across her cheek, and she found herself matching his rhythm without meaning to, breathing when he breathed, pausing when he paused.

"Stay still," she whispered, though he'd gone statue-still already.

The bathroom light flickered, the bulb was old, always threatening to die, and in that split second of dimness, something shifted. When the light steadied, his face was different. Not the boy from the playground anymore.

This was wrong. She shouldn't be noticing the way his throat moved when he swallowed, shouldn't be fighting the urge to trace that movement with her fingers trailing down to the hollow of his throat, a shadowed indent that the tip of her finger could fit into perfectly. She shouldn’t want this.

He's your friend. Your best friend. And you're being-

"Almost done," she lied. She wasn't even halfway through, but the closeness was suffocating her. This is torture. For both of you. End it now.

"This is-“ He swallowed, the movement fascinating under the blade. "Unnecessary. I could finish-”

"Shut up." Her free hand steadied against his jaw, thumb accidentally brushing the corner of his mouth. He went completely still, not even breathing now. She could feel his pulse racing under her fingers where they rested against his throat, matching the wild rhythm of her own heart.

"Lily." Her name came out broken.

She was close enough to see the exact texture of his lips, chapped from the summer heat, the bottom one bitten raw at one corner where he worried it when he was thinking. The split went deep enough to show pink underneath.

The front door slammed.

They froze, the razor still pressed to his skin. Her mother's voice, tired and irritated: "Lily? Why are all the lights on? Do you think electricity is free?"

"Just a minute!" Her voice came out strangled.

The laundry lines stretched across the back garden like telegraph wires between two distant towns. Lily pegged up another of her mother's work blouses, the fabric still damp and heavy.

She'd already made one trip to the line when she'd frozen, staring at the tangle of her underthings mixed in with the tea towels and socks. Without thinking, she'd stuffed them back into the washing machine, her face burning. They could wait.

Severus worked at the other end, hanging pillowcases. Between the sheets, she caught glimpses of him, a flash of black hair, pale fingers on wooden pegs. Then the wind would shift, white cotton billowing between them, and he'd vanish like he'd never existed at all.

Three doses left.

She'd counted them again this morning while he transformed in Petunia's room. Her hands had shaken as she held the flask to the light, measuring the pearlescent liquid. Sunday. Then nothing.

"Pass the pegs," Severus said from behind a wall of tea towels.

She handed them over, their fingers brushing briefly. His were steady. Hers weren't.

I'm a liar. The thought came sharp as a peg digging into her palm. Every morning her mother smiled at Susan over breakfast. Every evening she praised Susan's manners, Susan's help, Susan's good influence. And every day Lily smiled back and let the lie grow deeper, roots spreading through their little house until she couldn't imagine how to tear them out without destroying everything.

"These are still sopping," Severus complained, wrestling with a sheet. "Your mother's washing machine is vindictive."

"You didn't spin them properly."

"I followed the instructions exactly."

He muttered something that was probably profane, disappearing again behind the sheet. The September wind caught it, revealing him for a moment, scowling at Susan’s jeans like they had personally offended him. Then gone again.

Where will he go?

The question gnawed at her. The abandoned mill leaked. Spinner's End was boarded up. She pictured him huddled in doorways as the rain started, that proud spine finally bent by necessity.

"Stop fretting," he said from somewhere near the sock basket. "I can hear you thinking from here."

"I'm not-“

"You're using four pegs for one blouse.”

She looked down. He was right. Her mother's blue uniform hung before her, already sufficiently pegged and still dripping.

"She'll say no." His voice came flat through the barrier of laundry. "Stop torturing yourself."

"You don't know that."

She grabbed another pillowcase, shaking it out with unnecessary violence. He was right. Of course he was right.

"I'll tell her everything," she said to the laundry. "About your mum leaving. About you helping with, with Dad. About your Dad. About Spinner’s End. About how you've nowhere else-“

"Don't."

He appeared suddenly at her elbow, a basket of pegs balanced on his hip. This close, she could see what two weeks of transformations had cost him. The shadows under his eyes had deepened, despite getting plenty sleep.

"I won't be your mother's charity case," he said quietly. "Or yours."

They worked in silence after that, appearing and disappearing through the maze of drying clothes. The last flask sat in her pocket, heavy as guilt. Three more transformations.

She thought of her mother's face when she would learn the truth. The betrayal. The fury. The way trust, once broken, never quite mended the same way.

I'm sorry, she thought, though she wasn't sure who she was apologizing to anymore.

The wind picked up, sending the laundry dancing. For a moment, she lost sight of Severus entirely behind the swirl of white cotton and floral prints. When the clothes settled, he was gone, vanished back into the house or simply ceased to exist, she couldn't tell.

Sunday afternoon. Then nothing.

She pegged up the last sock with numb fingers and tried not to think about how empty the house would feel without him in it.

Chapter Text

The cottage pie sat between them on the table, congealing grease forming pale islands on its surface. Lily counted the peas on her plate, seventeen, then pushed them into a small mountain, then flattened it. Build, destroy, rebuild.

"Actually, Mum," Lily interrupted, the words tumbling out just like she practiced in her head. "Susan got a letter today. Her parents are coming back."

Her mother's fork stopped its journey. "Oh."

Lily's chest tightened. Three weeks of lies, and it would end with another one. Susan's parents returning from their Romanian adventure, collecting their daughter who'd never existed.

"Tomorrow afternoon," Severus added quietly and Lily heard the exhaustion underneath. She wondered if her mother noticed how Susan's fingers sometimes pressed against her temples, fighting the headaches that came from forcing his body into the wrong shape day after day. "They've finished in Romania."

"Tomorrow?" The fork was placed down with a clink. "But that's so sudden! After three weeks?"

"They're... eager to see her."

"Well. Of course they are." She reached across to pat Susan's hand. Lily watched Severus force himself not to flinch at the contact. "We'll miss you terribly, dear. Won't we, Lily?"

Lily nodded. Her throat had closed up, words trapped behind the knot of guilt and dread. Tomorrow.

"You know what?" Her mother's brightness took on a desperate edge. "We should do something special. A proper send-off." Her gaze snagged on Susan's hair, and her expression shifted to professional horror. "Oh my word, what's happened here?"

Lily's stomach plummeted. The hair had always been uneven because she had taken the strands in the middle of the hair cut, but today was especially bad.

"I tried cutting it myself," he said carefully.

"With what, garden shears?" Her mother was already rising, slipping into the comfortable authority of her profession. "Absolutely not. You're not leaving my house looking like that. I'm a hair dresser, for heaven's sake."

No. No no no. Lily's mind raced. "Mum, Susan probably wants to pack-“

"Nonsense. It's the least I can do." She was already moving to fetch her kit from the bathroom cupboard, her steps quick with purpose. "All those weeks of leaving you with Lily as your host, and I haven't done a thing for you, Susan. Let me fix this disaster."

"Mum, Susan gets travel sick, she should rest before-“

"Packing can wait. Just a proper trim to even things out."

Lily caught Severus' arm as her mother bustled about. His muscle tensed under her grip, and she could feel the tremor running through him. "How long since you took it?"

"Two hours," he whispered back, barely moving his lips. "Maybe less. I was going to head upstairs to pack immediately after dinner and take the last dose.”

The room tilted. Two hours fifteen minutes, that's all they'd managed to extend it. Twenty if the universe decided to be kind, which it never did. Her mind scrambled through possibilities, fake an injury, start a fire, anything to stop this disaster unfurling.

Her mother positioned a kitchen chair in the sitting room with practiced efficiency, angling it to catch the overhead light. "Sit still, dear. Let's see what we're working with."

Severus moved like a condemned prisoner, each step measured. He lowered himself onto the chair, spine rigid. The towel her mother draped around his shoulders might as well have been a noose. His eyes found Lily's in the mantel mirror.

"These split ends!" Her mother's fingers combed through the uneven strands with professional disapproval. "What are they doing to your hair at that school? It’s like you both been sweeping the corridors with your hair. Don't worry, we'll sort you out."

The overhead bulb cast harsh shadows, turning Susan's soft features sharp in the mirror. Or was that the transformation already beginning? Lily couldn't tell anymore.

"Actually, I'm not feeling well," she tried, pressing a hand to her stomach. "That cottage pie-“

“The cottage pie was perfectly fine.” Her mother didn't glance up, already sectioning the hair with clips. "Sit down and stop fussing or go to the loo.”

The scissors emerged from the kit, blades catching the light. Severus' knuckles blanched where they gripped the chair arms, tendons standing out like rope.

"Mum, I think I broke the washing machine earlier-“

Her mother's hand stilled, scissors frozen mid-air. "What do you mean, broke?"

"It's making that grinding noise again, the one Dad used to-“

"Don't." The word came out sharp enough to cut. "Just... don't, Lily."

Severus sat perfectly still as her mother stood there, trembling slightly. The silence stretched until Lily thought it might snap.

"Do you have any idea," her mother said quietly, "how much a repair man costs? How long it takes to save for one when-“ She stopped, composed herself with visible effort. "Your father kept that machine running with wire and prayers. Without him-”

"Mum, I'm sorry-“

"It can wait." Snip. A lock of brown hair drifted to the carpet.

"But if it gets worse-“

"Lily, enough." The maternal finality in her mother's voice brooked no argument. "Let me do this nice thing for Susan before she goes. Let me have one thing that I can actually fix."

Ten minutes. Lily's heartbeat counted the seconds. Maybe twelve if-

She saw it in the mirror first. The subtle lengthening of Severus' nose, still Susan's nose but wrong, like a photograph being stretched. His fingers where they gripped the chair were extending, knuckles becoming more prominent. The borrowed face was melting from the inside out.

"You're very quiet, dear," her mother observed, focused on her work. "Nervous about haircuts?"

"Something like that." The words came out deeper than they should have. Severus' real voice bleeding through.

Lily watched her mother's hands, steady and sure, trimming the back sections. Any second now his hair would turn back to black and she'd notice. Any second now she'd see what her daughter had done, the enormity of the deception, the weeks of lies served with breakfast and tucked into bed each night.

"Mum-“

"There!" Her mother stepped back to admire her work, still oblivious. "Much better. Just let me neaten the back-“

The transformation accelerated like a dam breaking. Brown darkened to black between one snip and the next, lengthening even as her mother cut. The soft jaw sharpened into familiar angles. Shoulders broadened, filling out the cardigan until Lily heard a stitch pop. Susan's small hands became Severus', with their bitten nails and scars.

Her mother's scream ripped through the house.

The scissors hit the linoleum point-first, embedding themselves in the worn fibers. Bottles from the kit scattered as her mother stumbled backward, her hip catching the side table. The ceramic lily Petunia had made in first grade wobbled but didn't fall. Small mercies.

"You-that’s-“ Her mother's hand scrabbled behind her, finding nothing but wall. Her face had gone the color of old porridge, eyes so wide Lily could see white all around the green.

Severus sat perfectly still as stone. The towel still draped his shoulders, making him look absurdly like a half-finished sculpture. His expression had gone carefully blank, but Lily knew that particular stillness. Absent. Elsewhere. Protecting whatever small part of himself he could.

Her mother's second scream came out strangled. She wrenched at the door handle with both hands, nearly falling when it finally gave. The door banged against the wall hard enough to leave a mark as she fled into the garden.

"Sev-“

"Go." He still hadn't moved, hadn't even turned his head. In the mirror, his reflection studied something in the middle distance. "Talk to her. Explain."

Explain. As if there were words for this. As if she could make her mother understand why she'd harbored Severus Snape in their home for three weeks, serving him breakfast, treating him like-

"Tell her whatever story might make this acceptable." His voice held nothing. Flat as February slush.

He stood with deliberate calm, removing the towel and folding it and laying it over the back of the chair. His hands moved to gather the scattered bottles, returning each to its proper place in the kit.

"What about you?"

He picked up the scissors, closed them carefully, and placed them in their designated slot. "I'll pack."

The words dropped into her stomach like stones. Pack. Leave. Disappear back to whatever corner of Cokeworth would have him.

"You can't just-“

"What would you have me do?" He asked her. "Wait here for when she comes back? Have tea while she processes that you've been lying to her for three weeks? That you've had me in her house, in her daughter's clothes, eating at her table?"

He was right. Of course he was right. Her mother would come back eventually, and then what? The betrayal in her mother's eyes would be nothing compared to what came next. The accusations. The demands for explanation. The horrible understanding that her daughter had orchestrated this entire deception.

Lily pushed through the back door into the garden. The washing still hung on the line, sheets snapping in the wind like a slap. No sign of her mother anywhere.

Where would she go? The neighbors barely nodded to her in the street. Mrs. Perkins only spoke to her when she needed flour, and then it was all tight smiles and comments about "some people thinking they're too good." The other women whispered about her mother, who put on airs at the shops, who still walked like she expected applause.

The gate stood open to the alley beyond, hanging crooked on its hinges, another thing her father would have fixed. Lily moved toward it, already picturing her mother walking the streets in her house slippers, no coat, no handbag, just needing to get away from the daughter. Would she go to church? They would be preparing for evening mass, would let her sit in the back pew and cry about her unnatural daughter.

A sound stopped her. Muffled, coming from the outdoor privy.

Of course. Where else would she hide? The only door in their small kingdom that locked from the inside, the place they all pretended didn't exist except when necessity demanded.

"Mum?"

Nothing. Then a wet, ragged breath from inside.

"Mum, I know you're in there."

"Was it funny?" Her mother's voice came thick through the door, muffled by wood and grief. "Watching me fuss over that-that person?"

The words hit Lily like cold water. All those mornings, her mother humming as she served Susan toast, looking happier than she'd been in months. The careful way she'd set out the good plates, used the nice jam, put the sugar in the bowl instead of leaving it in the bag. How she'd practically glowed when neighbors saw her with Lily's "proper friend."

Mrs. Henderson from two doors down: "How lovely to see Lily with such a nice girl." Her mother had smiled so wide it must have hurt. "Yes, Susan's been such a good influence." The pride in her voice had made Lily's stomach turn even then.

"It wasn't like that."

"Laughing at your stupid Muggle mother who can't tell real from fake? Who can't understand anything about that world of yours?”

The accusation burned because it held a grain of truth. Not the laughing, never that, but the rest. How many times had she and Severus exchanged glances over her mother's head when she'd asked about "wand practice" or wondered if they learned "normal subjects like arithmetic" at Hogwarts? How many magical references had sailed right past her while they bit back explanations?

"No one was laughing at you."

"Don't lie to me. Not again." A bitter sound, maybe a laugh, maybe something worse. The door creaked as if she'd leaned against it. "You know I wouldn't let him stay. You both knew."

Lily pressed her palm flat against the door. splinters threatened at the edges of her fingers.

"He doesn't have a home anymore. The council boarded up Spinner's End. He's been sleeping on park benches, in doorways-“

"Not my problem."

"You always told us," Lily said, pressing harder against the door, "every winter when we complained about the cold. Every time I whined about wearing Tuney’s cast offs. 'Be grateful for your beds. Be grateful for your walls and roof. I didn't always have that.'"

Silence from inside.

"Remember?" Lily continued, her voice gaining strength. "How you'd go on about the boarding house after your uncle kicked you out. Being thirteen and sleeping three to a bed with girls who stole your stockings. How you had to hide your shoes under the mattress or they'd be gone by morning. You made us say grace for our own beds every night for a month after Tuney complained about her mattress.”

A sharp intake of breath through the door.

"You'd tell us about auditions in winter. Walking for miles because you couldn't afford the bus, arriving with your feet so numb you couldn't feel the stage. Sleeping in theatre dressing rooms when the landlady locked you out. You said-“ Lily's voice caught.

"That was different." Her mother's voice came out raw.

"How?" The word exploded from Lily, months of frustration finally finding voice. "How is it different?”

"Stop." Her voice cracked. "You don't understand."

"Then explain it. Explain how you deserved better but he doesn't. Did you deserve better when you were his age?”

The door rattled, her mother's fist hitting wood. "It's him, Lily. That boy is the problem."

The words hung in the air like a curse. That boy. Always that boy, never Severus, never her friend.

"Funny," Lily said, making her voice light and sharp as glass. "You didn't seem to have any problems with Susan."

"Three weeks, Mum. Three weeks of Susan at your table, and you were practically glowing. Telling Mrs. Henderson how polite she was. How helpful. What a good influence on difficult Lily." Each word tasted bitter. "You gave Susan your pearl hairclip to wear. You never even let me touch that."

"Susan was lovely," Lily pressed on, relentless now. "Susan made you happy. Susan was exactly the friend you wanted me to have. Quiet, well-mannered, grateful for every little kindness. And Susan was Severus. Every moment of her. Every please and thank you, every folded napkin and washed dish, that was him."

"Stop it."

"The girl you wanted to visit again. The girl you were so sad to see go. That was-“

"I said STOP!"

The door flew open with such force it bounced off the wall. Her mother stood there, mascara streaking her cheeks in black rivers, still in her dressing gown. The careful armor of respectability she wore like a second skin had cracked completely. Her hair, usually pinned neat, hung limp around her face. She looked wild, desperate, nothing like the woman who checked her lipstick in shop windows.

"It was my idea. All of it. He didn't want to, I forced him. Whatever punishment you want, ground me forever, take away my wand, as long as he can stay-“

The words tumbled out desperate and too fast, each one a small betrayal of Severus' pride. She knew he'd hate her for this, for painting him as her victim, for stripping away what little dignity he had left. But what else could she do? Her mother needed someone to blame, and better Lily than him.

"You can't ask that of me."

"Anything," Lily repeated, and she meant it. "Anything so he can stay."

"I won't allow it. Can't allow it. I don't want him here."

"Then I'll go with him." The words came out steady, certain. She could see it clearly, her few belongings stuffed into her school trunk, walking beside Severus into whatever came next. Better the uncertainty of the streets than the certainty of watching him disappear alone. Better to share a cold bench than lie warm in her bed wondering if he'd survived the night. "I'll leave. Sleep on the same bench if I have to."

"You will not-“

"Locks don't work on me." Lily kept her voice level, though something wild was building in her chest. "Whatever you do, whatever muggle obstacles you try, they're meaningless."

The word 'Muggle' tasted wrong, thrown at her mother like a weapon.

Her mother's hand twitched at her side. For a moment, Lily could see it, the slap her mother wanted to deliver, the sharp crack that would make them both feel something simpler than this. Her mother's fingers actually curled, lifted an inch, before dropping back. They'd never been a hitting family, but Lily almost wished for it now. A slap would be easier than this careful devastation, this surgical removal of illusions.

"Is he worth it? That boy? Is he worth throwing away everything?"

The question should have been harder. Should have made her pause, consider, weigh consequences. Instead, the answer rose up immediate and absolute, like recognizing her own name.

"Yes."

"Why?" The word came out raw, torn from somewhere deep.

"Because I love him."

Lily's chest felt cracked open, her heart visible and beating too fast. She loved him. Had loved him since that summer when she was nine and he'd told her she was magic, loved him through every sneer and every kindness.

Her mother's face crumpled like tissue paper in rain. Fresh tears spilled over, mixing with the already-ruined mascara until she looked like a watercolor painting left in the rain. "You're fourteen."

"Fourteen and a half."

As if six months made a difference. As if it had been any different sx months ago.

"Lily." Her mother sagged against the doorframe like her strings had been cut. "I hope to God you don't regret this. The choices you're making right now, they'll follow you-“

"I know."

Her mother opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. Whatever words she'd meant to say died unspoken. Instead, she turned and walked back into the house, leaving the door standing open like a question.

Her mother walked back through the garden with sharp, purposeful steps, not the defeated shuffle Lily had expected. Each footfall on the paving stones rang out like a verdict. The kitchen door banged against the wall as her mother pushed through.

What would come next? The police? The inevitable call to social services? Lily had seen her mother's temper before, plates thrown during arguments with Dad and doors slammed hard enough to crack the frame.

Kitchen to hallway, hallway to sitting room, then stopping at the front window. Then stopping at the front window, one hand pressed flat against the glass. Through it, Severus stood on the front step in his own clothes, the grey shirt with the careful mend at the collar, trousers that actually fit his long legs again. His trunk sat beside him on the concrete, ready. He'd already accepted the ending before it arrived.

"Still here then," her mother said flatly.

She yanked open the front door with enough force to make the letterbox rattle. Severus straightened but didn't step back, didn't scramble for excuses or explanations. His fingers rested light on his trunk's handle, ready to drag it back to nowhere.

"You'll sleep in Petunia's room." The words came out clipped, each one costing her. "The mattress needs moving back. Lily will help you."

Lily watched the words hit him, saw the minute widening of his eyes before he controlled it. She could count on one hand the times she'd seen Severus truly caught off-guard. Now she'd need another finger.

"Mrs. Evans-“

"Petunia's room." Her mother turned on her heel, not waiting for response or thanks. The sitting room door shut with enough force to rattle the pictures on the wall, Petunia's school photo jumped in its frame, Dad's smile trembled behind glass.

Her mind scrambled to process what had just happened. Her mother, who'd spent years treating Severus like something scraped off her shoe, had just offered him Petunia's room.

"Come on then," Lily said finally, because someone had to move first, and Severus looked like he'd been cursed into stone.

They climbed to her room where the spare mattress still lay on the floor, sheets twisted from his restless sleep.

"Grab that end," she said, bending to lift the mattress.

The thing weighed more than it had any right to, stuffed with whatever cheap filling made it lumpy in all the wrong places. They maneuvered it through her doorway, the mattress flopping awkwardly, catching on the doorframe with a sound like tearing. Lily's fingers cramped around the edge, the fabric rough and smelling of the lavender sachets her mother tucked everywhere. In the narrow hallway, they had to stand it vertical, Severus steadying it while she guided from below.

"Tilt left," she muttered, the mattress pressing into her face, filling her nose with dust and old dreams. "No, your left."

"This is my left."

"That's right."

"You just said-“

"Just follow me."

The mattress chose that moment to fold in half, nearly taking them both down. Severus swore creatively, words she didn't recognize but understood from tone. They wrestled it back vertical, her shoulders burning, his knuckles white where he gripped the fabric.

Inside everything screamed Tuney, the matching white furniture with gold trim like something from a catalog about "Young Ladies' Bedrooms," the pink roses climbing the walls in regimented rows, each bloom identical to its neighbor, the ruffled curtains that looked like party dresses no one would actually wear. The whole room smelled of the violet talcum powder Tuney had discovered last year and applied to everything like she was marking territory.

Severus stopped in the doorway, still holding his end of the mattress, his face cycling through expressions she'd never seen before.

"In here?" His voice held the particular horror of someone asked to sleep in a dollhouse.

They wrestled the mattress onto the bed frame, where it settled with a reproachful groan, as if it too was horrified by its surroundings. Severus stood in the center of the room like he was afraid to contaminate anything with his presence. His black clothes and sharp angles looked wrong against all that pink and white, like finding a raven in a jewelry box.

"What did you say to her?" His voice was quiet, controlled in the way that meant he was barely holding something back.

Lily busied herself smoothing the already-smooth mattress, her fingers finding every lump and valley. The memory of her confession burned in her throat like she'd swallowed fire. The raw desperation in her mother's face when she'd said it. How could she explain that she'd cracked herself open like an egg, spilled her insides on the garden grass for him?

"Does it matter?"

"Yes." He hadn't moved from his spot, as if the roses might attack if he got too close.

"She's not adopting you, she’s just letting you stay for a while.” At least Lily guessed so.

"Then what? What possible argument could you have made?" His eyes narrowed. "What did you promise?"

"Nothing." The word came out too fast, too defensive.

"Lily."

"I told her the truth," she said finally, yanking open drawers to find sheets. The lavender scent bloomed out, making her sneeze. "That you needed somewhere to stay. That I’d-that it mattered to me."

"Mattered." He tested the word like it might cut him. "And that was enough?"

"Apparently."

"She won't actually expect me to..." He gestured helplessly at the room, encompassing all its pink horror in one movement.

"To what? Sleep surrounded by pink?” Lily couldn't help the smile. "Afraid they'll compromise your image?"

"This room looks like someone vomited roses.”

"It's just wallpaper."

"It's an assault." He opened the wardrobe with visible trepidation, revealing more pink, sachets of dried flowers hanging from the rail, Tuney's abandoned arranged by color. A jewelry box sat on the shelf, covered in shells Petunia had collected on holiday to Brighton. "Christ."

He picked up a crocheted doily from the dresser, holding it between thumb and forefinger. The delicate pattern caught the light, throwing shadows of flowers across his palm. "Your sister actually chose to live like this?"

"She found it refined."

"I find it disturbing." He set the doily down carefully, precisely where it had been, as if Petunia might notice its displacement from London. "There are ruffles on the ruffles."

"Tuney believed in emphasis."

They stood there in Petunia's abandoned sanctuary, him looking profoundly uncomfortable among the delicate things, her trying not to laugh at his horror.

"Night, Sev."

"Goodnight." He glanced around once more, resignation settling over his features like dust. "If I'm found dead in the morning, the roses did it."

The morning arrived with her mother's sharp rap on Severus' door, Petunia's door. Three decisive knocks, the same rhythm her mother used when Lily had overslept for school before she had went off to Hogwarts. "Breakfast in ten minutes. Don't make me wait."

Lily heard Severus' door open, the careful click of someone who'd learned not to make unnecessary noise. She pulled her pillow over her head, not ready to face whatever brittle peace the morning would bring.

But the smell of tea eventually drove her downstairs, bare feet cold on each step. Her mother stood at the cooker, back rigid, stirring porridge with mechanical precision. The scrape of wood against metal filled the silence. A third bowl waited on the counter, for her, Lily realized. Set out despite everything.

She slid into her usual chair, Severus beside her, the wood creaking in the quiet.

"You'll come to work with me today." Her mother moved to the kettle, her back to them both. The set of her shoulders said everything, rigid control holding back whatever storm threatened.

"Can't have you here unsupervised."

The idea of Severus in a hair salon, surrounded by perms and gossip and chemical smells, struck Lily with such absurd clarity that she had to bite her cheek. She could picture it perfectly: him standing among the pink dryers like a crow at a garden party, holding someone's curlers with the expression of someone handling flobberworms. Half-laugh, half-snort, quickly smothered but not quickly enough.

He caught her suppressed reaction immediately, his eyes narrowing to dangerous slits. She looked away, focusing on her toast with sudden intensity, but the damage was done. He knew exactly what she was thinking, could probably picture it as clearly as she could.

"Is there a problem?" her mother asked, though her tone suggested any answer but 'no' would be unacceptable. The voice that had made Lily and Petunia confess to broken vases and stolen biscuits without hope of mercy.

"No, Mrs. Evans."

The words came out steady, controlled. Lily marveled at how he did it, swallowed whatever cutting response wanted to emerge, filed it away for later.

"Good. We leave in thirty minutes."

Her mother studied him once, quickly, then turned away. "Eat something. It's a long day."

The door clicked shut, leaving her to herself. Through the window, she watched them navigate the front path, her mother's quick, efficient steps, Severus' careful ones, maintaining exactly three feet between them. Mrs. Perkins was in her garden, pretending to water roses that didn't need it. Her eyes tracked them with the avidity of someone who'd have the whole street informed by noon. Hortense Evans, taking in lodgers now. That Snape boy, imagine.

The house felt cavernous without them. Lily wandered from room to room, unable to settle. In the kitchen, she opened the window wide and dug through the drawer where she kept things neither her mother nor Severus approved of. The packet of Embassy was half-empty, hidden behind expired coupons and rubber bands. She lit one with shaking fingers, inhaling deeply. The smoke hit her lungs with familiar comfort, not quite the same as magic, but its own kind of escape.

Her mother would smell it later, make that disappointed face. Severus would wrinkle his nose and mutter about "purposefully inhaling poison." But they weren't here, were they?

She climbed to her room but couldn't focus on the summer homework spread across her desk. Transfiguration theory swam before her eyes, the words rearranging themselves into questions she couldn't answer. How long could this arrangement last? Days? Weeks? Her mother's tolerance balanced on a knife's edge, and Severus' pride would only bend so far before it snapped entirely.

She curled on the sofa with her third cigarette, trying to read, but the words swam like fish refusing to be caught. Instead, she found herself calculating, how many ways this could shatter. Her mother deciding enough was enough, some small infraction tipping the balance. Severus taking offense at some perceived slight, storming out rather than endure another moment of charity.

The afternoon sun crawled across the carpet in slow increments. She dozed fitfully, the cigarette burning down to the filter in the ashtray, dreaming of Severus drowning in a sea of perm solution while her mother watched with cold satisfaction. She dozed fitfully, dreaming of Severus drowning in a sea of perm solution while her mother watched with cold satisfaction.

Four o'clock. They'd been gone six hours. What did one do for six hours in a hair salon? She lit another cigarette, then stubbed it out after two drags. Even rebellion felt hollow when there was no one around to disapprove.

She made tea she didn't drink. Straightened cushions that didn't need straightening.

Five o'clock. The sun slanted lower, painting long shadows across the garden. She'd hidden the evidence, aired out the rooms, cleaned the tea cup, chewed mint gum until her jaw ached. How was it possible for time to move so slowly?

The front door's slam jolted her awake. Her neck ached from sleeping curled on the sofa, and for a moment she couldn't remember why she was downstairs at all.

Her mother entered first, looking more exhausted than a Saturday at the salon usually left her. Her uniform had new stains, dark splashes near the hem that looked like hair dye. She moved like her feet hurt, that particular flat-footed walk that came after standing on salon tiles for hours. Her face had the blank quality of someone who'd smiled at customers all day and had nothing left for home.

Severus followed like someone who'd survived a natural disaster but wasn't quite ready to talk about it.

"How was-“

"Fine." The word came out clipped. He moved past her toward the stairs, not quite meeting her eyes.

Her mother had retreated to the sitting room with her tea before Lily dared climb the stairs. She knocked softly on Petunia's door, she had to stop thinking of it that way. Severus' door now, strange as that seemed.

"Come in."

"So," she ventured, closing the door behind her. "The salon."

"Your mother's storage system defies all logic." His voice carried the tone of someone personally offended by organizational inefficiency. "Twenty-seven separate arrangements for muggle hair potions. Twenty-seven. Because apparently permanent wave solution must be stored according to both date of purchase and manufacturer preference, subdivided by volume and frequency of use."

She could picture it perfectly, the cluttered back room of the salon with its shelves of bottles and boxes, her mother's byzantine system that only she understood. And Severus, used to the precise organization of potions ingredients, trying to make sense of why Tuesday's deliveries couldn't mix with Thursday's.

"And the hairdressers?"

His expression darkened further. "Marjorie spent two hours telling me about her nephew who 'went off the rails' but got sorted out with a proper trade." He pronounced each word like it physically pained him. "While having me hold foil squares for Mrs. Patterson's highlights. At precisely the angle she required, which changed every three minutes depending on which section she was working on."

His fingers flexed now as if still cramped from the position.

“The other one told me about her divorce, her ungrateful children, her bunions. Four hours of bunions, Lily.”

Despite everything, Lily felt her lips twitch. "Did you learn anything useful about foot care?"

"The only thing I learned was how many ways someone can describe toe pain."

"The perming solution gave me a headache that still hasn't faded. One customer asked if I was 'simple' because I didn't respond quickly enough to her request for a magazine,” he continued.

"Tomorrow's Sunday," she offered. "Salon's closed."

The Co-op smelled of floor polish and yesterday's cabbages, that particular combination of disinfectant and decay that marked every grocery in Cokeworth. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow that made the meat look grey and the vegetables look exhausted. Lily pushed the trolley while her mother scrutinized tins of beans like they held state secrets, comparing prices with the concentration of someone defusing a bomb.

"Nineteen pence for the own brand," her mother muttered, pencil scratching against her list, the back of an old envelope, because why waste proper paper? “Daylight robbery. Seventeen pence last month."

She reached for a packet of custard creams, Severus liked them, though he'd never admit it, always taking exactly two with his tea, when she saw him.

Tobias Snape stood by the bread shelf, still in his work clothes from the slaughterhouse. The evidence of his trade marked him, dark stains on his shirtsleeves that could have been blood or rust or both. His face had the greyish cast of someone who worked nights and drank through days, so pronounced they looked painful. He was studying the reduced items with the same intensity her mother brought to tinned goods, turning over a package of bread that was probably already hard and stale.

The packet crumpled in Lily's grip, biscuits cracking inside their wrapper. Here was the man who'd left Severus to fend for himself. The man who should have been providing, protecting, doing whatever fathers were meant to do. Now buying discount bread like any other Saturday shopper, as if his son wasn't living in a stranger's house wearing a dead man's clothes.

Rage flooded through her, hot and sudden. She could see it perfectly, marching over there, grabbing his stained sleeve, demanding answers. Where were you when he needed you? How could you just leave him? Do you even care?

She abandoned the trolley, already moving. The words formed themselves, coward, bastard, how could you leave him-

Her mother's hand caught her collar, yanking her backward with surprising strength. The fabric cut into her throat. "Don't you dare."

"But he-“

"I know who he is." Her mother's grip didn't loosen. Her fingers were cold through Lily's shirt, holding her in place like a child about to do something catastrophically stupid. Which, perhaps, she was. "Stay here."

"Mum-“

"Stay. Here."

The command brooked no argument. It was the voice that had made Lily confess to drawing on the sitting room wall behind the sofa, to stealing pound notes from the emergency jar, to every childhood crime she'd thought cleverly hidden. Her mother released her collar but pointed at the floor like she was a disobedient dog. The message was clear: move from this spot and face consequences.

Her mother straightened her blouse and examined her reflection in the biscuit tin's surface, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, adjusting her expression into something Lily recognized from years of watching her prepare for difficult scenes. The actress emerging from the housewife, armor made of proper posture and careful vowels.

Then she walked toward the bread shelf with the measured steps of someone approaching a dangerous animal. Or a stage. Each footfall deliberate, calculated to draw the eye without seeming to try. Other shoppers moved aside without quite knowing why, responding to that invisible force field of intention.

Lily pressed against the cereal boxes, trying to become invisible while keeping them in view. The Corn Flakes boxes made a wall she could peer around, their cheerful rooster logos absurdly bright against the drama unfolding by the discount mince.

Tobias noticed her mother's approach. His shoulders hunched, defensive, the posture of someone used to accusations. But he didn't flee. Maybe he was tired of running. Maybe he recognized something in her mother's bearing that said running would be pointless. Her mother said something, too quiet to hear over the shop's music. The Carpenters warbled about rainy days and Mondays while her mother spoke words that made Tobias's head jerk up, eyes narrowing to slits.

Whatever she said made him step back. His work boots scraped against the lino, leaving marks. Then forward again, leaning in with the aggression of someone used to intimidating others into silence. The kind of man who solved problems with fists and shouting, who'd raised Severus in a house where violence was punctuation. Her mother didn't budge. Didn't even blink. Just continued speaking in that same measured tone, as if a man who reeked of dead animals wasn't looming over her.

A woman with a pushchair forced Lily to move, tutting at the teenager blocking the cereal aisle. "Excuse me, love. Some of us have shopping to do."

By the time Lily had repositioned herself by the tea and coffee, Tobias was shaking his head, gesturing sharply with one hand.

They were too far away, the words lost in the ambient noise of Saturday shopping. The Carpenters had given way to something peppy about sunshine, mixing with the clatter of trolleys and the mechanical announcements about offers on fresh fish. Lily caught fragments of movement instead, her mother's hand cutting through air for emphasis, Tobias's jaw working like he was chewing words before spitting them out. At one point he laughed, harsh and short, the sound carrying even if the words didn't. The laugh of someone who'd just heard a particularly bitter joke.

Her mother reached into her handbag. Lily tensed, stupidly imagining weapons, but she only pulled out a small notepad, the one she used for shopping lists and phone messages. Her pencil moved quickly, efficient strokes that spoke of urgency. She tore off the page with a decisive rip, the sound somehow audible over the music, and held it out.

Tobias stared at it like it might bite. Or explode. Or transform into something worse than paper. His hand hovered, pulled back, reached out again.

He snatched it from her fingers eventually, crumpling it immediately in his fist as if to hide its contents from watching eyes.

Then her mother turned on her heel and walked back, leaving him standing there with the paper crumpled in his fist and his discount bread forgotten on the counter.

"Get the custard creams," her mother said, sailing past with the same unruffled grace she'd used on stage. "And stop gawping."

Lily fumbled with the biscuits, adding three packets instead of one. Questions pressed against her teeth: What did you say? What did you write? Why did he look like that? But her mother had already moved on to the dairy section, examining yogurt dates like the last five minutes hadn't happened.

They finished shopping in silence. Her mother moved through her list with efficiency, adding items to the trolley while Lily burned with unasked questions.

The queue at checkout stretched forever. Mrs. Henderson from three doors down stood ahead of them, her trolley full of proper brands and fresh vegetables that didn't come from the reduced section. She glanced at their purchases with the particular expression of someone tallying up the neighbors' circumstances.

"Hortense," she said, smile sharp as scissors. "Doing the big shop?"

"The usual," her mother replied, matching the smile tooth for tooth.

"I heard you've taken in a lodger." Mrs. Henderson's eyes glittered with the hunger of someone who lived on gossip. "Didn't think you would need the money after-"

"Christian charity," her mother said smoothly. "We do what we can."

They loaded groceries onto the belt while Lily watched Tobias through the window. He stood outside now, smoking, the paper still clutched in his other hand. He'd smoothed it out, was reading it again. His face had gone blank, careful, the expression of someone processing information they didn't want to understand.

"Mum-“

"Not here."

They walked home with carrier bags cutting into their palms, the weight of groceries and unsaid words equally heavy. The handles left red marks that would linger for hours.

The afternoon had turned grey while they shopped, clouds gathering like spectators to a coming storm. The smell of rain mixed with the lingering exhaust from the buses, creating Cokeworth's particular perfume of industrial decline. Lily's mind raced through possibilities. What could her mother have said to make Tobias Snape, violent, drunk, prideful Tobias, stand there like he'd been slapped with truth?

Back home, Severus was bent over his Potions text at the kitchen table, making notes in the margins, new ideas for them to test out.

"Help unpack," her mother said, already moving to start dinner.

They formed an efficient chain, Severus unpacking, Lily putting away, her mother starting the potatoes. No one spoke beyond the necessary directions. "Cupboard above the sink." "Fridge door, not the shelf." "Mind the eggs."

Dinner was cabbage soup, same as every Saturday. Her mother had tried to make something nicer when Susan had been there, but promptly went back to it after Susan was no more. The routine of it should have been comforting, the same movements, the same smells, the same plates set in the same places. But when her mother set the table, something had changed.

The cracked plate, the one with the hairline fracture across its center that they'd been meaning to throw away for months, the one that leaked if you put soup in it, the one that sang a tiny note if you ran your finger along the break, sat at Lily's place instead of Severus'.

Such a small thing. A plate was a plate. But Severus had gotten that plate every meal since he'd first eaten at her house, a subtle reminder of everything that her mother thought was wrong about him. The unwanted guest eating off the damaged goods. The boy who got the broken things because beggars couldn't be choosers.

Now it sat in front of Lily, and Severus had one of the good plates.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.

"Anything interesting at the shops?" Severus asked carefully, testing the new waters.

"The usual," her mother replied.

Lily stared at her cracked plate, tracing the fracture with her eyes. It started at the rim, near where the largest blue rose bloomed, and traveled down like a river on a map, splitting the plate into unequal continents. Such a small change.

The kitchen smelled of roses and something sharper, the bitter almonds Severus was crushing with the back of a spoon, his movements precise despite using her mother's battered cutlery instead of a proper pestle. They'd commandeered the largest pot, the one usually reserved for Sunday roasts, and set it on the cooker's back burner where it bubbled with suspicious contentment.

"Those roses are too old," Lily said, fingering the brittle petals. They'd been sitting in the jam jar for weeks now, water long evaporated, stems brown and crispy. Her mother had muttered about throwing them out this morning, but here they were, about to become potion ingredients.

"Old is better for this. The magical properties concentrate as they desiccate." He measured out three petals exactly, holding them to the light to check for... something. She wasn't sure what.

“Might make it too volatile,” she commented.

She watched him work, the familiar rhythm of it. Chop, measure, stir counterclockwise. The mundane cooker struggled with the magical brew, flames sputtering occasionally as if confused by what they were being asked to heat. He adjusted the temperature, muttering about inconsistent heat distribution and muggle technology.

Twenty minutes of careful tending, adding ingredients she'd smuggled from school, adjusting and readjusting. The potion turned the proper shade of pearl-grey eventually, though it took longer than it would have with a proper cauldron and magical flame.

“Might as well have lunch now," Severus said, eyeing the other pots spread on the kitchen table.

Lily's stomach growled in agreement. They'd skipped it, too absorbed in the brewing process to notice the time passing. "Mum bought some corned beef and potatoes."

"Can't be that hard to make something edible,” he said.

"Right," Lily said, surveying the contents of the larder with newfound confidence. After successfully brewing a moderately complex potion on her mother's temperamental cooker, how difficult could lunch be? "Just following instructions and not letting things burn."

She pulled out the tin of corned beef, studying the key attached to the side. The picture on the label showed neat pink slices, nothing like the compressed meat-paste she knew waited inside.

"How different can it be from potions?" She brandished the tin like evidence. "Besides, we've already got the cooker figured out. Mostly."

They fumbled through together, Lily reading instructions from her mother's battered cookbook while Severus heated oil.

"Medium-high heat," she read, squinting at the faded type. "What's medium-high?"

"More than we used for the simmering phase, less than the initial boil." He adjusted the flame with practiced ease now, familiar with the cooker's quirks after their potion-making. "Probably."

The kitchen filled with the smell of frying onions and cooking potatoes, mingling with the scent of roses and bitter almonds from the potion. Windows fogged from the steam until the garden became a green blur beyond the glass.

"You're going to burn them," she said, watching him frown at the pan with the same intensity he'd shown the potion.

"I'm crisping them. There's a difference." But he stirred more vigorously, clearly applying potion-making principles to cooking. "Your cookbook is frustratingly vague about optimal crispness levels."

She reached for the salt, giving the potatoes what she considered proper seasoning. Severus made a strangled noise.

"What are you doing?"

"Salting it."

"You've already salted it twice." He tried to pull the container from her hands, the same way he'd guard volatile ingredients during brewing. "Are you trying to preserve a corpse?”

"It needs more."

"It needs to be edible." He wrestled the salt away, holding it above his head. "This isn't pickling potion ingredients, Lily."

She lunged for the salt, standing on tiptoes. He twisted away, and she ended up pressed against his side, laughing despite herself. "Give it back, you git."

"Absolutely not. I'm saving this meal from your addiction,” he said, but was almost smiling.

They added the corned beef in chunks, watching it sizzle and crisp at the edges. The whole mess came together in the pot, potatoes golden (more or less), onions translucent (mostly), corned beef creating crispy bits that stuck to the bottom.

The hash was actually edible, crispy in parts, mushy in others, but somehow better than either had expected.

"It's not terrible," Severus conceded, poking at a particularly crispy bit.

"High praise from you."

"I'm just surprised we didn't poison ourselves. Again."

"Night's still young," she said, thinking of their second-year disaster.

"Wash or dry?" Severus asked once they had finished, already rolling up his sleeves in that familiar gesture.

They worked side by side at the sink, shoulders bumping as she passed him dishes. The easy rhythm of it, wash, rinse, dry, stack, felt like something they'd been doing forever.

She let herself imagine it, just for a moment. Coming home to this. Not this exact kitchen, but some kitchen, some house. Where he'd be sarcastic over breakfast. Where they'd have sixty years of dinners, sixty years of sharing terrible days and better ones, sixty years of telling each other goodnight, ninety, a hundred if they were lucky.

"You've washed that plate three times," Severus said.

She blinked, looking down at the dish in her hands. "Just making sure it's clean."

Then soapy water hit her blouse in a perfect arc, soaking through the thin cotton immediately. Lily gasped at the cold, then felt heat rush to her face as she looked down. The pale pink fabric had gone translucent, showing the fabric of her bra in mortifying detail.

"Sorry, I didn't mean-“ Severus started, then his eyes followed hers down and then averted his eyes. "I'll just-the potion needs-five more minutes-”

"It's fine," she said quickly, crossing her arms over her chest. The movement made more water squeeze from the fabric, dripping onto the floor. "I'll just go change."

She fled upstairs, face burning. Her hands shook as she yanked open her wardrobe, rifling through the contents. School robes, winter jumpers, the dress she'd worn to Dad's funeral, no clean shirts.

How had she forgotten? She'd been so focused on keeping Severus fed and hidden and alive that she'd neglected the basic task of giving her mother the washing. The laundry basket sat in the corner, overflowing with week's worth of clothes she'd been too distracted to deal with.

She couldn't go back downstairs like this. The wet fabric clung to her skin, cold and revealing and absolutely mortifying. The girl who couldn't cook, couldn't do laundry, couldn't even wash dishes without making it awkward.

Petunia's room, Severus' room, stood across the hall. He was downstairs with the potion. She could borrow something quickly, just until her mother came home and she could sort the washing. Tuney had left half her wardrobe behind when she'd fled to London and secretarial school and a life that didn't include magical sisters.

She opened Tuney's wardrobe, past Severus' few hanging things, her father's shirts looking strange among the pastels, to Petunia's abandoned clothes. Blouses in white and cream and powder blue, each one pressed and perfect and exactly what Petunia thought a proper young lady should wear. Lily pulled out a white one with pearl buttons, shaking it out.

Something fluttered to the floor. Parchment, not paper. The yellowed edge and distinctive weight of wizard correspondence.

Lily's heart clenched. Had Tuney been writing to the headmaster again?

She knelt, reaching for the parchment with gentle fingers. Whatever words had made Tuney hide this in the back of her wardrobe, whatever connection to the magical world she'd tried to create for herself-

The writing was blue ink, elaborate loops and swirls that screamed pretension. Her eyes caught on the signature first. L. Malfoy.

Everything inside her went very still.

Dear Severus,

While I sympathize with your current predicament regarding accommodations, I regret that we cannot offer you a room at the manor.

I trust you'll find suitable arrangements elsewhere.

Your friend,
L. Malfoy

The parchment crumpled in her fist before she realized she was moving. Red hazed her vision. Blood roared in her ears, drowning out everything except the thundering of her own heartbeat. All this time. All this bloody time she'd been fighting to keep him here, lying to her mother, turning their lives upside down, and he'd been writing to Lucius fucking Malfoy. Begging for scraps from someone who looked at her like she was an unfortunate smell in a clean room.

She tore the letters with savage efficiency, each rip a small scream. The parchment gave way easily, Malfoy's words scattered in her hands. How many others had he written to? How many rejections had he collected while she degraded herself keeping him by her?

She was already moving, forgetting the wet blouse, forgetting everything except the betrayal burning in her chest. He'd rather sleep in Malfoy's cellar than accept her help. Rather take charity from people who saw him as barely better than her, half of him almost good enough, if only he'd distance himself from mudbloods like her.

The stairs blurred past.

"You bastard," she gasped, throwing the torn pieces at his face. They fluttered between them, blue ink catching the light. "You absolute bastard."

He stood perfectly still as the pieces settled around him, one catching on his shoulder. His face had gone blank, that careful nothing that meant everything. "What did you do?"

"What did I do?" Her voice cracked upward. "What did I DO? I took you in. I lied for you. I fought for you. And you were writing to him-“

"You went through my things." Not a question.

"Your things? Those are Tuney's things. In Tuney's wardrobe. In Tuney's room that my mother gave you because I begged-“ She couldn't breathe properly. Her chest throbbed with each heartbeat. "You're ungrateful. After everything-”

"I never asked for your help." The words came out precise, each one placed like a knife between ribs.

"No, you just asked Malfoy instead!" She laughed, ugly and bitter.

"Yes." Simple. Devastating.

The kitchen tilted. She gripped the doorframe, wanting to rip it out. "Why? What is it about my help that's so unbearable?" She couldn't say it. The word stuck in her throat like glass.

"Because you're you." He still hadn't moved, hadn't picked up the scattered pieces of his humiliation. “Because taking from you means- means something different than-”

"Don't." She shook her head hard enough to hurt. "Don't you dare try to make this noble. You think I'm lesser. Just like they do. Admit it."

"I think you're-“ He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "I don’t- I can’t-” He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "I don't want your pity."

"But you'll take Malfoy's?"

His voice finally cracked, something raw showing through. "Yours means-“

The timer shrieked, cutting through his words. The potion. Thirty-five minutes exactly. Rose petals to be added at precisely the right moment, stirred three times clockwise.

The ringing drilled into her skull, mixing with the rage in her chest. She lurched toward the counter where they'd laid out the ingredients. Her hands shook as she grabbed the dried petals, crushing them in her fist.

"Lily, wait-“

She wrenched the lid off the cauldron. Steam billowed up, bitter, sweet and hot. "I'm done waiting. Done being patient while you decide if I'm worthy of helping you." She threw the petals with all the force of her anger.

The potion splattered, molten amber droplets catching her wrist and forearm. She screamed, jerking back, sending more potion sloshing. Her sleeve had melted into the wound in places, fabric and flesh merged in a way that made her stomach turn.

"You would have been fine sleeping outside?" The words tore from her throat. "Is that what you tell yourself?"

"I would have managed." He moved then, reaching for her burned arm, but she jerked away. The motion sent more potion splattering, droplets of molten amber catching the light as they flew. Each one that hit the floor hissed and left a small scorch mark.

"Lily, let me see-“

"Don't touch me." She cradled her arm against her chest, the burns already blistering, spreading in angry red branches across her skin.

Behind them, the potion's color shifted from amber to something more sinister, a sickly yellow that shouldn't happen until the final phase. The surface began to roil rather than bubble, forming a thick skin that puckered and stretched like something alive trying to escape. The pot itself groaned, metal expanding under pressure it was never meant to contain.

"This needs to be stirred." His voice had gone sharp with panic. He reached for the ladle, arm stretching past her.

She shoved him away from the cooker with her good arm, fury overriding everything else, pain, sense, the basic instinct for self-preservation. He stumbled backward, catching himself on the table.

"I said don’t-“

"It's going to explode!" He lunged forward again, desperate now, trying to get around her to the cauldron. “Lily, MOVE!"

The explosion lifted her off her feet. Sound became a physical thing, pressing against her eardrums until they felt ready to burst. Light seared her retinas, too bright to process.

Her head cracked against something hard, the table edge, the floor, she couldn't tell. Black crept in from the edges of her vision. Her last coherent thought was absurd, her mother would be furious about the state of the kitchen.

Then nothing.

Consciousness returned in fragments. First the pain, a dull throb radiating from her temple and down her burned arm. Then the sheets felt wrong, too crisp, too starched, enchanted to stay perfectly smooth. Not her sheets. Not her bed.

St. Mungo's. Even unconscious, her body remembered this place, the way the beds sat too high, the particular squeak of Healer shoes on spelled floors. At least this time she hadn't poisoned herself.

Memory slammed back, the explosion, the white-hot pain, Severus' horrified expression as the kitchen disappeared in light and fury. She tried to sit up, needing to know if he was alright, if the house still stood, if her mother had forgiven-

Weight on her legs. Warm, solid, utterly still.

Severus lay slumped across her lap, the lime green hospital gown not doing him any favors, his head pillowed on his folded arms, face turned toward her hip. A spectacular bruise colored his temple purple green, and she could see bandages peeking from beneath his collar. He looked younger in sleep, all the sharp edges softened, the perpetual wariness dissolved into something that might have been peace.

Her throat tightened. He was here. After everything, the letters, the accusations, the way she'd thrown his humiliation in his face, he was here.

The door opened with a soft whisper of magic. A nurse bustled in, her robes rustling with starch and efficiency. She took in the scene, Severus draped across Lily's bed like a collapsed guard dog, and her expression shifted from professional to exasperation.

"Awake at last, Miss Evans." She waved her wand, and a chart materialized, quill scratching notes independently. "You gave us quite a fright. Experimental potion accidents are always tricky."

"Is he-“ Lily's voice came out raw, throat scorched from screaming or smoke or both.

"Mr. Snape? Stubborn as a crup, that one." The nurse moved closer, checking Lily's pupils with a lit wand tip. "Wouldn't let the Healers treat him properly until he knew you were stable. Kept insisting he needed to see you." She shook her head. "We finally agreed to let him sit with you if he'd let us treat the worst of his burns."

"Burns?"

"Nothing that we can’t heal. Though he'll have some interesting scars on his back where he shielded you from the worst of it." The nurse's expression softened further. "Threw himself over you, according to his wounds. Took the brunt of the explosion. Quite heroic, really."

"We gave him a mild sleeping draught about an hour ago," the nurse continued, making notes in the air. "He was getting quite agitated, insisting he had to tell you something before- well. Young men and their dramatics. The draught hit harder than expected, poor thing was exhausted. Dead on his feet but wouldn't admit it."

"Before what?" Lily asked.

"Is he bothering you, dear?" The nurse's voice became a whisper. "I can have him moved to his own bed. He really should be resting properly, not draped over-“

"No." The word came out sharper than intended. Lily softened it with, "No, it's fine. Let him sleep."

The nurse smiled knowingly. "Very well. Ring if you need anything. The healer will be round in an hour to check those burns." She paused at the door, shaking her head with amused affection. "Young love. Always so dramatic."

She left before Lily could correct her. Young love. If only it were that simple.

Her arm ached where the potion had splattered, healing skin tight and tender under the bandages. She shifted carefully, not wanting to wake Severus but needing to ease the pressure on her hip. The movement made him stir slightly, murmuring something that might have been her name.

That's when she saw it.

Her palm, the one closest to where he slept, bore marks that weren't from the explosion. Ink, black ink, carefully applied with what must have been a borrowed quill. His cramped, precise handwriting covered her palm, small enough to fit but large enough to read:

“I’m sorry.”

Two words. Seven letters. That was all. But she knew him well enough to read the volumes contained in those seven letters.

The tears came sudden and overwhelming. She pressed her free hand to her mouth, trying to muffle the sobs that wanted to tear free.

She turned her marked hand palm-up and carefully, so carefully, slipped her fingers between his where they rested on her blanket. Their calluses still matched, would always match. She squeezed gently, remembering another time, another place.

But now, unconscious and unguarded, his fingers curled reflexively around hers.

"I'm sorry too," she whispered to his sleeping form.

The ink on her palm would fade. His fingers would pull away when he woke. But right now, they held on.

Chapter Text

The snow had soaked through her boots by the time they reached the clearing, ice water seeping between her toes with each step. Lily kept glancing back toward the castle, half-expecting to see Filch's lantern bobbing through the trees like some malevolent will-o'-the-wisp, or the gamekeeper's dog bursting at them through the undergrowth with its deep, carrying bark that would bring every authority figure running. January wind cut through her wool cloak like it was tissue paper, finding every gap in her defenses, the space between glove and sleeve, the hollow of her throat, where her scarf had loosened, the small of her back where her jumper had ridden up.

The cauldron sat nestled between two ancient oaks, its surface catching what little light filtered through the canopy. Snow had been falling for hours now, dusting everything in white except for the small circle of bare earth around their brewing spot, kept clear by the heat radiating from the potion. The contrast was stark, death-white snow and that patch of living earth, like the potion was protecting its own territory. Lily pulled her cloak tighter and checked her watch, angling it to catch the emerging sun. Seven thirty-seven. They had twenty-three minutes before they needed to head back for breakfast.

"Colour's good," he said, crouching beside it. The potion glowed gold even in the darkness, like they had captured sunlight. "No separation."

Lily fumbled in her bag for the stirring rod, silver, naturally, since gold would react with the ashwinder eggs they'd added last month.

"Clockwise?" she asked, though she knew the answer. They'd memorized every step, every ingredient, every stir. The recipe lived behind her eyelids now, appearing whenever she closed her eyes. More than six months of brewing, each drop an hour of perfect luck. All for this. All for one perfect potion that the weren’t even sure what to use it for. If they even got to use. If they didn't poison themselves with fumes. If no one found it and destroyed their hard work. If, if, if. So many ways this could go wrong, and only one way it could go right.

"Obviously." He was already checking the temperature with his wand, frowning at the reading. His concentrating face, she'd named it, one of her favorites . "Two degrees too cold. The snow's too much, but-“

"I'll adjust the warming stones." She dug them out of her bag, the enchanted rocks still faintly warm from yesterday's charging. They'd spent their last galleons on these, money scraped together from their under-the-table potion business: pepperup to anxious Ravenclaws who started revising for end-of-year exams in December, swelling solution a best seller amongst seventh and six years for reasons she did not quite understand, wit-sharpening potion at a few sickles a vial to anyone desperate enough before a test.

But when he'd shown her the Felix Felicis recipe in that battered copy of Moste Potente Potions, his eyes had lit up in a way they rarely did anymore. "We could actually do it," he'd said, calculations already spinning behind his eyes. "If we're careful with the measurements, if we brew it outside to avoid the fumes-“

She hadn't been able to say no to that rare enthusiasm. Like nothing else existed while they worked together. Like the world beyond this clearing had dissolved, leaving only him and the potion and the precise movements of brewing. She loved him like this. Loved him always, but especially like this, when he forgot to be defensive, forgot to be angry, forgot everything but the work.

"Three stirs," he said. "No more."

She stirred slowly, feeling the potion's resistance. One. The surface rippled, sending gold waves to the edges. Two. Something shifted in the depths, a darker current she couldn't quite see. Three. The surface rippled and settled, gold deepening to amber for a moment before returning to its dawn color.

"Perfect,” he said. He recorded the temperature again, adding notes in that cramped handwriting she knew better than her own. "If it holds steady-“

"It will." She pulled her cloak tighter, watching him work.

"We should test the fume displacement," he said, not looking up from his notes. "Make sure the wind patterns haven't shifted."

"Sev."

"The murtlap blood needs checking too. If the proportions are off by even-“

"It can wait five minutes."

"We're on a schedule, Lily. The next phase-“

“Will happen in weeks.” She sat on one of the logs, the bark rough even through her cloak, ice crystals crunching under her weight. She patted the space beside her, trying to make it look casual, like her heart wasn't racing. "Sit."

"The snow’s-“

"Sit."

He sat, leaving careful inches between them. Always careful now two feet minimum in public, one foot in private, never touching unless absolutely necessary. She remembered when they used to huddle together for warmth, back before Hogwarts made everything complicated. When he'd wrap his too-big coat around both of them, when she'd tuck her frozen fingers into his pockets without asking. It was when the world was still whole and not tumbling faster into the darkness like a stone down a hill, every day punctuated by articles in the Prophet about another disappearance, or another dead body, but unable to name the person behind it, the name itself a curse.

"Happy birthday," she said quietly.

His shoulders hunched. "Don't."

"I'm just saying-“

"Well don't." He picked up a stick, stabbing at the snow between his feet. "It's not... I don't need-“

"I know." She did know. The memory of first year burned bright and bitter. Mary McDonald somehow finding out, had she overhead them in the library? Had someone else? And announcing it at breakfast in that carrying voice of hers. "Did everyone know it's Snape's birthday?"

The Marauders had made that day spectacular, each prank more elaborate than the last. Severus' cauldron exploding in Potions, sprouting tentacles that grabbed at him while Slughorn fumbled for the counter-curse. His bag splitting in the corridor, textbooks tumbling while a massive banner followed him around that sang "Happy Birthday Snivellus" in Potter's ugly voice, getting louder each time they had tried to remove it.

He'd spent the rest of that January 9th hidden from everyone, missing classes, missing meals. Missing the cake she'd bought from Honeydukes, chocolate and cherries, his favorite. She'd eaten it alone in her dormitory that night, forcing down each too-sweet bite while her roommates slept, barely tasting it.

Each year after that they celebrated in secret, when they celebrated at all. The Marauders hadn't found it worth remembering, his birthday just another date among hundreds, not important enough to mark for annual torment. But the damage was already done. Even without hexes or humiliating banners, the day had been drained of whatever joy it once held.

"I have something for you," she said, reaching into her bag. Her fingers brushed the magically enlarged shoe box, she had brought with her. "Don't make that face."

"We agreed-“

"I know what we agreed." No money spent on gifts. "This didn't cost anything."

That was almost true. The deworming potion and the drops necessary to treat the eye infection had required careful brewing with pilfered ingredients. But finding the kitten hadn't cost anything except frozen fingers and scratches up both arms and a piece of her heart.

She pulled out the box, spelled to keep it shut and punctured with air holes she'd carefully added. Warming charms layered three deep because she'd been paranoid about it getting cold. Silencing charms to make her gift a surprise, though she could hear faint hissing from inside now that she'd taken the box out of the bag.

"What-“

"Just look." She set the box between them on the log, the wood damp and cold under her fingers even through her gloves. She lifted the lid carefully, ready to grab if it tried to escape.

The kitten was tiny, all bones and matted pure black fur and pure fury. Yellow eyes glared up at them with unmistakable malice, pupils contracted to slits despite the low light. It opened its mouth in a silent hiss, too weak still to make proper sound. Its pink tongue was visible, small as a rose petal and just as delicate looking. The contrast with its obvious rage was almost funny. Almost.

"Where did you find it?" His voice had gone flat, but she saw how his eyes didn’t leave the kitten.

"Behind Zonkos. A few days ago." She didn't mention the three hours she'd spent coaxing it out from under the rubbish bins, speaking nonsense in a soft voice until her throat was raw. Or how it had been so weak that she'd tucked it inside her robes despite the claws, feeling its tiny heartbeat against her ribs as she ran back to the castle. How she'd been certain it would die before she could get it somewhere warm. “Someone had abandoned it, I think."

The kitten tried to climb out of the box, claws scrabbling against the smooth sides. Severus' hand moved forward an inch, stopped.

"I don't want it,” he said.

"You haven't even held it." She lifted the kitten out herself, ignoring its attempts to shred her gloves. "Look, it's not friendly, it'll probably never be properly tame. But I thought..."

I thought you'd understand each other, she didn't say.

The kitten writhed in her grip, hissing.

She watched him watch the kitten. Remembered summer evenings in Cokeworth, him leading her through back alleys to the abandoned lots where the strays lived. How he'd sit perfectly still until they came to him, suspicious but curious. How they'd wind around his legs while she sat three feet away, ignored or scratched if she had tried to pet one of them, like all animals tended to do. Tell her stories about their personalities, their territories, their complicated social hierarchies.

“Are you sure?" She tried to keep her voice light. “It seems to like you."

It was true. The cat was leaning toward Severus now, straining against her hold. When Severus shifted slightly, the cat's eyes tracked the movement with laser focus. The kitten stretched toward him, curious despite itself. The kitten mewed, a sound so small that Lily's throat tightened.

"Yes." The word came out sharp enough to cut. "I said I don't want it."

"Take it back to wherever you found it. It will be better off than with me,” he continued.

"Someone would-“ He stopped, jaw working. The muscle jumping again. "It wouldn't be safe."

"Keep it yourself," he said, not looking at her. "You found it."

"It hates me."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"We should head back," Severus said. “We are running out of time.”

She stayed seated, closing the box. Inside, the kitten scrabbled and hissed, the sounds muffled but clearly furious. Caring for it, for nothing. Planning this moment, imagining his face when he saw it, the way he might smile, might let her see him happy for just a moment.

Last year he would have taken it. Would have named it before she finished explaining, would have tucked it inside his robes and damn the consequences. But now-

She stood, box tucked under her arm. The kitten had gone quiet, probably plotting escape. Or murder. Possibly both. Just like its almost-owner.

They finished their checks in silence. Temperature holding steady. Color consistent. No contamination. She watched him work, cataloguing each movement, storing them up like she was preparing for a drought. The way he tucked his hair behind his ear when he bent over the cauldron. The careful precision of his wand movements. The small pleased sound he made when a reading came back exactly right.

"July 21st," he said as they covered the cauldron again, pulling the tarp tight. "That's when it'll be ready."

Six more months of dawn meetings, of sneaking through snow and mud and rain. Six more months of watching him pull further away, building walls she couldn't climb. Six more months of pretending that having him like this was enough for her. Her chest felt too small, at the thought.

The kitten scratched at the box the entire way back, fury in every movement. She tucked the box under her cloak, shielding it from the wind, and headed back to the castle. Behind her, the sun crept over the horizon, painting the snow pink and gold.

The kitten mewed once, tiny and lost.

"You're stuck with me now," she told it. "Hope you're happy."

Chapter Text

At last. Cokeworth. The bus doors clattered open, and they stumbled out into the familiar stink of home. Lily stumbled down the steps first, her arms screaming from the weight of the cauldron she'd carried for the last three miles. The Felix Felicis was quiet now, but she could sense it there, aware and waiting. It recognized them, its creators, in ways the textbooks never mentioned.

"Careful," Severus muttered behind her, though he looked ready to collapse himself. His school robes hung off him like wet laundry, soaked through with sweat from their trek across half of England. They'd walked from Hogsmeade to the nearest Muggle road, three hours through Highland bracken, then caught a bus to Fort William that smelled of sheep and stale chips. Another to Glasgow, then Birmingham, each ticket eating away at their carefully hoarded Muggle money. They'd need every Knut of their wizarding funds for the London trips ahead, so by the time they reached Cokeworth, they were down to their last fifty pence.

All because of that bloody cat.

The cat carrier swung from Severus' left hand, emanating a low, continuous growl that hadn't stopped since Dufftown. Through the wire mesh, two yellow eyes glared at Lily with pure hatred.

"I still can't believe you missed the train for that thing," Severus said, setting down his end of the trunk they'd been sharing between them. His fingers went immediately to his wand, muttering the stasis charm renewal under his breath. The cauldron's surface shimmered, holding its contents in perfect suspension for another six hours.

"I didn't miss it on purpose." Lily rubbed her scratched forearms where fresh wounds crossed the old ones. "He wedged himself under my bed and wouldn't come out. I tried everything, summoning charms, cat treats, even that tuna sandwich I was saving for the journey."

"Besides, you waited,” she said.

He didn't answer, just hefted her trunk down the steps.

The broken glass crunched under their feet like fresh snow, each step a small gamble. Spinner's End stretched before them. The council had been thorough, windows boarded, doors marked with red X's, the whole street waiting for the wrecking ball that would finish what poverty had started.

“Are you nervous?" Lily asked, though she could already see the answer in the way he kept swallowing, in his hesitation at every piece of broken glass.

"No." But he was already looking away.

She didn't call him on the lie. Three months they'd spent on this spell, three months of watching him pour over texts until his eyes went red-rimmed and unfocused. She'd found him once at three in the morning in the library. He'd been copying the same passage over and over, his handwriting degrading with each repetition until it looked like the desperate scratching of someone trying to claw their way out of something.

Complex didn't begin to cover it. The Latin alone had taken weeks to perfect, each syllable needing precise weight, precise intention. She'd practiced with him in empty classrooms, watching his mouth shape sounds that predated Christ, watching his face tighten with concentration until she worried he'd crack his teeth from clenching his jaw. Then came the wand movements, a symphony of gestures that had to flow like water while your mind held the shape of what you wanted to hide.

It had stung when her pear vanished on the first proper try, lost to the world forever, winking out of existence like it had never been. The fruit had been there, solid and real with its brown spots and bruised flesh, and then, nothing. Not even a whisper of where it had gone. Severus had stared at the empty space where it sat, his whole body rigid, as if the vanished pear had taken something from him.

He needed this to work. Needed it with a desperation that went beyond their usual friendly competition, beyond even his typical perfectionism. This wasn't about grades or impressing professors. About having somewhere that was his, even if it was just ruins and bad memories made invisible to the rest of the world.

They turned the corner onto his street proper. Lily had prepared herself, but the sight still made her falter. Half the terrace was already gone, leaving rubble-filled gaps. . What remained looked contagious: black mold creeping up walls, roofs half-collapsed, doors kicked in. The council's red 'CONDEMNED' notices were everywhere, pasted over windows, spray-painted on walls, stapled to rotting fence posts.

The Snape house terminated the row, darker than its neighbors, as if it had been rotting longer. Worse than its neighbors because it had been falling apart even when people lived there. The front door stood ajar, darkness visible through the gap. Every window was smashed, jagged glass teeth in rotting frames. The roof had partially caved in where the chimney used to be. She could see straight through to the sky in places, stars visible through the skeleton of rafters.

"Home sweet home," Severus said, but his voice cracked on the last word.

"You sure about this?" she asked. "We could use the backyard and you just come live with us. You know I asked mum and she told me that it’s fine for-“

"No." He pulled out his wand, the yew wood dark as old blood in the moonlight. "I have to be here."

She understood. But why her as Secret Keeper? The question had been burning in her chest for weeks, ever since he'd asked. Not asked, informed her, really, in that way he had of making requests sound like statements of fact. "You'll be the secret keeper," he'd said.

He raised his wand and began.

The Latin started as whispers, barely louder than breathing. "Fidelius integumentum..."

Lily found herself holding her breath, watching the precise arc of his wand, the way his whole body aligned with the magic. His face had gone blank, not empty but focused beyond expression. She'd seen him brew like this, seen him duel like this, everything unnecessary stripped away until only intention remained. The air grew thick, making the hair on her arms stand up, her skin prickling with proximity to power.

"...occultare ab imo pectore..."

Not just to hide something, but to place it inside another person. To make them the living lock to your most precious secret.

His whispers became normal speech, then something louder. The magic responded, pulling at the edges of her vision. The abandoned houses began to shimmer, as if seen through heat waves. She blinked hard, but reality was going soft around the edges.

"...sigillum secretum..."

He was shouting now, the words echoing off empty buildings, filling the whole street with his voice. The pronunciation perfect, each syllable a hammer blow reshaping reality. She wondered if the Muggles in the next street over could hear it, or if the spell was already taking effect.

Light erupted from his wand, but not the harsh glare of lumos. It spread, coating the decrepit houses, seeping into broken bricks and shattered glass. For a moment, Spinner's End transformed. The condemned terrace became something beautiful, something worth protecting.

The light pulsed once, twice, then began to fade, drawing inward like a tide retreating. Inward toward...

Oh.

Her.

Knowledge flooded her mind. Not gentle, not gradual: a torrent, a flood, a drowning. The house's location seared itself behind her eyes. Every measurement, every angle, every brick and board and broken window. She knew it all, every secret the house had ever held, and it was too much, too heavy.

The kitchen light was too bright after the darkness of Spinner's End. Lily blinked against it, her chest still thrumming with the secret locked behind her ribs. The Fidelius had left her feeling hollowed out and overfull at once, like she'd swallowed something too large for her body to contain.

She'd stood at the edge of the property, whispering the secret back into his ear, Number 7 Spinner's End exists at the end of the terrace, watching him as his childhood home materialized around him again. Then she'd left him there, in that ruin that only they could see, with their cauldron of Felix Felicis that would need tending through the night. Her mother had banned all brewing after last summer's spectacular explosion that had taken out the kitchen ceiling. The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes’ reconstruction team had done beautiful work, but her mother's new rule was absolute: no cauldrons in her house, no exceptions, not even for homework.

Her mother stood at the sink in their kitchen, unchanged except for the absence of decades of stains above the cooker, attacking the dishes like someone who'd been waiting up to have words. The radio played low, some talk show about the weird weather, voices droning about unseasonable temperatures.

"You're late," her mother said without turning around. A pan went into the drying rack with more force than necessary. The sound rang through the kitchen like an accusation.

"Sorry, Mum. The journey took longer than-“

The cat carrier chose that moment to emit a sound like someone strangling a bagpipe. Her mother's shoulders went rigid, the dish cloth freezing mid-swipe.

"Lily Jane Evans, you did not bring an animal into my house."

Lily set the carrier on the lino with shaking arms, her muscles screaming from hauling it across half of Britain.

"It's for school," she said. "Practically mandatory, actually. Part of wizarding culture." She crouched to peer through the wire mesh at two yellow eyes that promised murder. "What kind of witch doesn't have a black cat?"

Her mother finally turned, dish towel twisted between her hands like she was considering using it as a weapon.

"Don't you take that tone with me, young lady. And don't think you can just make up rules. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about-“

She fumbled with the latch, exhaustion making her fingers clumsy and stupid. Three attempts before the mechanism finally gave way. The door swung open and a black streak shot out, all fury and claws, diving straight under the sofa in the front room with the unerring instinct of a creature who knew exactly where it would be hardest to extract.

"My upholstery!" Her mother abandoned the dishes, following the cat's path with the expression of someone watching their worst fears materialize. "If that thing so much as looks at my furniture wrong-“

"I can fix it all with magic." With a flick, the remaining dishes leaped to life, scrubbing themselves with enthusiastic little circles. "See?”

"You put that away right now. You know the rules."

"I have an exemption for the trace-“

"That I had to sign a thousand forms for." Her mother returned to the sink, glaring at the self-washing dishes like they personally offended her. Which, Lily supposed, they probably did. "Internship at the Ministry, they said. Exceptional opportunity, they said. As if I don't know you pulled strings to get around the underage restrictions."

Lily bit her tongue. The internships had been Severus' idea, brilliant in its simplicity. They'd spent weeks researching the legal framework, finding the loopholes. Educational exemptions for approved Ministry programs. He'd needed it for the Fidelius Charm, to cast something that complex without triggering the Trace. The fact that they could also tend their Felix Felicis legally was just good fortune.

She'd gotten herself one too even if it wasn’t strictly needed. The thought of Severus doing magic all summer while she sat helpless had been unbearable.

"You'd better use that magic responsibly," her mother continued. "They made me sign papers saying I understood the consequences. As if I understand any of this madness."

The dishes finished washing themselves and settled primly in the rack. Her mother eyed them with deep suspicion, like they might spring back to life and attack.

"I'm not waking you up tomorrow," her mother said, hanging the dish towel on its hook. "You're old enough to get yourself up for your first day. Intern at the Ministry of Magic."

Lily slumped against the counter, feeling the cool formica through her thin shirt. Her internship. Now she had to spend six weeks filing papers or brewing tea or whatever tedious work they gave to teenage interns. The thought made her want to crawl into bed and not emerge until September. She'd have to wake up at six to catch the Knight Bus to London with Severus, spend all day without him, while pretending to care about whatever menial tasks they assigned her, then come home and work on the Felix Felicis. Six weeks of pretending enthusiasm for a job she'd only taken as a cover story.

She'd made Severus write her application essays, three feet on "Why I Wish to Serve the Wizarding Community" and another two on “The Importance of Magical Governance.” She'd caught him smirking as he wrote about her 'deep commitment to maintaining the International Statute of Secrecy through careful records management.' The acceptance letter in June had been almost anticlimactic, of course they'd want the swot Severus had invented.

"Where's Severus, then?" Her mother dried her hands, movements sharp with old disapproval. "Don't tell me you let him sleep wherever.”

"He's back at Spinner's End." She couldn't exactly say he was there but not there, hidden behind magic she now carried in her chest like a second heart. How did you explain that a house existed only where you allowed it to exist?

Her mother's expression softened slightly. The past summer had worn down some of her edges where Severus was concerned. The grudging kind that came from seeing someone at your breakfast table enough times that they became part of the landscape.

"That whole street's meant for demolition," her mother said, attacking an invisible spot on the counter with her cloth. "Council finally getting round to it. About time, too."

Lily made a noncommittal sound, the secret pulsing harder. The council could plan all they wanted. They'd never find Spinner's End now, would walk past it a hundred times without seeing.

"My bones are killing me," her mother continued, rubbing her lower back with a grimace. "This weather's not natural. Snow in June, and now it's like living in a furnace. That's your lot's doing, isn't it? All this magic disturbing the proper order of things."

From under the sofa came a low growl, as if the cat agreed with the sentiment.

"I should go check on..." She gestured vaguely toward the front room.

"You'll do no such thing. You'll march yourself upstairs and get ready for bed. Early start tomorrow, remember? And that cat better not wake me up, or it's going straight back where you found it."

Lily trudged toward the stairs, each step an effort. Her body felt too heavy, like the secret had actual weight that she now had to carry everywhere.

The cat hair clung to her new robes and wouldn't budge. Lily stood in front of her bedroom mirror, using her wand to cast cleaning charms that only seemed to make the black fur more visible against the deep plum fabric. She should have hung the robes up last night at Hogwarts instead of putting them into the open suitcase where the cat had apparently claimed them as a bed.

“Tergeo," she muttered again, watching a few hairs vanish only for her to spot more on the sleeve. First day at the Ministry of Magic and she'd walk in looking like she'd been wrestling cats.

The robes themselves were beautiful, at least she thought so. She'd spent forty Galleons on them, a fortune for something she'd wear to a job she didn't want.

The shop in Hogsmeade had smelled nothing like moth balls, unlike the musty second-hand robe shop in Diagon Alley where they'd bought their school things. Madam Malkin's northern cousin, apparently, though with prices that had made Lily's eyes water.

She'd dragged Severus with her, of course. He'd looked spectacularly out of place among the shop's pastel elegance, his patched school robes making him look like a crow among peacocks. Made him sit in the comfortable chair while she tried on robe after robe, spinning in front of the three-way mirror and fishing for something, anything that might constitute a compliment.

What about this one?" she'd asked, desperation creeping into her voice after even the green robes, his house colors, for Merlin's sake, had failed to get a proper reaction.

"It's purple,” he'd said, not looking up from the potions text he'd brought along. Of course he'd brought homework to a shopping trip.

“Plum. And that's not what I meant."

"It appears to be a robe, yes.”

"Sev."

He'd finally glanced up, his dark eyes taking in the robe."The color suits you better than the blue."

Which was the closest thing to a compliment she was going to get, and she'd taken it, practically glowing as she'd handed over her galleons to the shop assistant.

Now, picking another cat hair off the hem, she wondered why she'd bothered. Why she'd spent money she didn't really have on robes for a job that was just a side effect of an elaborate plan. It wasn't like anyone at the Ministry would care what some teenage intern wore.

Her feet were already protesting the thought of shoes. She eyed the box on her dresser, sensible black pumps her mother had presented her with last night as she had gone up to her room to say goodnight. The box proclaimed itself to be from Timpson's on the high street, tissue paper carefully preserved from some previous purchase. "For your first day," her mother had said, pride and worry mixing in her voice. "You'll want to look professional."

Her feet, still sore from yesterday's trek across Britain, throbbed in protest at the mere thought. Blisters from her comfortable shoes rubbing wrong during all those miles, a blood blister on her left heel that made even standing uncomfortable. She set the shoe back in its tissue paper nest, pristine and untouched.

The pendant caught the light as she started to button her robes. Saint Hedwig wearing thin in places from her fingers worrying it during exams, during fights with Severus, during long nights when missing her father felt like she was dying herself.

She held it up, watching the morning light play across the saint's patient face. Hedwig of Silesia, she'd actually been listening that day in Binns's class, for once. The ghost had been droning about medieval magical integration when he'd mentioned her offhand. A witch who'd married Duke Henry I of Silesia, performed miracles the Muggles attributed to God while secretly practicing magic. Patron saint of orphans and the poor, using her magic to multiply what was dearly needed and heal the sick.

The irony wasn't lost on her. A witch became a Catholic saint, and now her image marked Lily as irredeemably muggle born. She'd learned enough about wizarding culture to know how they viewed ‘muggle superstitions’, the way conversations stopped when she said 'bless you' after someone sneezed, the raised eyebrows when 'Christ' slipped out during a difficult exam."

She tucked the pendant under her robes, the silver cold against her skin.

The sound stopped her halfway down the stairs, made her want to skip the last few steps. Severus' voice, low and measured, drifting from the kitchen.

She'd grown used to waking to find him already in the kitchen, nursing tea and reading while her mother banged about making breakfast. The careful dance they'd performed around each other, two people who'd rather be anywhere else but forced into proximity by their shared connection to her.

The house had felt wrong during the Christmas holidays without it. Without him. Like a piano with keys missing, everything slightly off-tune. She'd written three times asking him to come stay, even for a few days. His responses had been prompt but brief, his handwriting more cramped than usual. The thoughts of him had kept her awake some nights, imagining him in the empty Slytherin dormitory while she sat through Petunia's painful attempts at normal family dinners.

“-and you should see the state of her room," her mother was saying as Lily crept down the last few steps. "One night home and it looks like a bomb's gone off. Clothes everywhere, that trunk still unpacked in the middle of the floor."

“Hmm.” Severus punctuated.

Who would have thought that her tendency to leave dishes in the sink and cigarette butts in teacups would be what finally united them?

Lily paused at the doorway, pressing her eye to the crack. The kitchen swam into view in slices, her mother's leaning back on the sink, the morning light through the window turning the steam into gold, Severus at the table in his school robes (he hadn’t bothered with new ones), and-

Her heart stopped.

The cat, her cat, the one that had tried to flay her alive, sat perfectly content in Severus' lap. Not just tolerating his presence but actively purring, that rusty motor sound she'd heard exactly once before. Its eyes were half-closed in bliss as his long fingers stroked behind its ears, along its jaw, all the places Lily had tried to touch and nearly lost fingers for the attempt.

“Oh, Lily. Finally up, are we?" her mother said as she saw her in the doorway. "Shot out from under the sofa like a rocket the moment he walked in."

Severus' hand paused in its stroking, and Lily saw something flicker across his face, pleasure quickly suppressed, like he was embarrassed to be caught enjoying anything.

She pushed into the kitchen, trying not to stare at the tableau of domestic betrayal before her. The cat didn't even acknowledge her entrance, too busy purring under Severus' attention. Its tail curved in a perfect arc of contentment.

"Morning," she managed.

"Your robes are covered in fur," her mother observed with a satisfaction that suggested this proved several points at once about Lily's general incompetence.

"I used the lint roller."

"Clearly not enough." Her mother's eyes narrowed, taking in every imperfection like she was cataloguing evidence. "And are those your old shoes? What happened to the ones I bought?"

"They need… breaking in. I'll wear them tomorrow."

"Typical," her mother muttered. "Spend good money on proper shoes and she'd rather wear those tatty things held together with spellotape."

"Not spellotape," Lily protested weakly. "Regular tape."

"We should go," Severus said, but made no move to dislodge the cat. If anything, his hand moved more gently, like he was memorizing the feel of its fur. His fingers traced the torn ear with particular care. "Knight Bus takes twenty minutes to get to London, and registration starts at eight."

"Have a good first day," her mother said, not turning from the sink. "Try not to embarrass yourself."

"I'll do my best to bring shame upon the family name," Lily promised, which earned her a snort from Severus and made her mother roll her eyes.

They were almost out the door when her mother called, "Severus?"

He paused, wariness creeping into his posture. His shoulders drew up slightly, prepared for attack even here. Even now. "Yes?"

"Thank you for getting her there on time. Lord knows she'd never manage it on her own."

Severus nodded once, formally, like accepting a commission. Like he'd been appointed her keeper, responsible for delivering her to adulthood in one piece.

The Knight Bus arrived with its a bang, the purple monstrosity materializing out of thin air. The conductor, a spotty youth with unfortunate teeth, leered at them. “Where to?”

"Ministry of Magic.” they said in unison.

Then the Knight Bus interior assaulted her senses immediately, a riot of mismatched furniture bolted haphazardly to the floor, brass beds sliding on rails, and the overwhelming smell of metal polish mixed with something that might be last week's kipper. Lily gripped the nearest pole as the bus lurched forward, her stomach already protesting the motion.

"Blimey," she breathed, watching an elderly witch's bed slide past with her still in it, needles clicking as she knitted. "Is it always like this?"

Severus' face had gone slightly green. "How should I know?"

Of course. He'd never taken it either.

The bus was packed with what seemed the morning Ministry crowd, witches and wizards in professional robes reading newspapers that refolded themselves, a goblin clutching a briefcase that occasionally growled, two men having a heated argument about Quidditch games while their chairs spun in lazy circles. No empty seats anywhere, just a sea of swaying bodies and sliding furniture. The floor beneath her feet seemed to ripple, and she wasn't entirely sure that was just the motion.

"'Ow long to the Ministry?" Lily called to the conductor over the general chaos, trying not to notice how her voice had gone up an octave.

"Twenty minutes if we don't 'it nuffin!" He grinned, showing those unfortunate teeth. "Thirty if we do!"

Hit something? What did he mean hit something?

Wonderful. This purple monstrosity with its complete disregard for physics felt like being trapped inside a magical blender designed by someone with a sadistic sense of humor.

"The potion seems to have survived the trip home,” Severus said quietly, his knuckles white where he gripped his pole. "Checked it this morning before I left."

"Good." She wanted to ask instead how he was managing it. Did the electricity company still supply power to a building they couldn't find? And where was he sleeping? On that moldy nest of cushions from years ago? The questions burned on her tongue, but the words wouldn't come. Too public. Too many ears that might embarrass him, even if they were all pretending not to listen.

"The thyme should-“

The bus disappeared from under them.

One moment Lily was standing, the next she was airborne as the Knight Bus made a turn that defied several laws of physics and possibly some theological ones as well. She crashed into Severus, who crashed into the wall, who somehow managed to keep them both upright through sheer bloody-mindedness and a death grip on a ceiling rail she hadn't even noticed he'd grabbed.

They were pressed together from shoulder to hip, her face buried in his chest, his arm around her waist in a parody of an embrace. His heart hammered against her cheek, quick and startled, and she realized hers was doing the same.

"Sorry," she gasped, trying to pull back, but the bus chose that moment to leap what felt like a small building. They slammed together again, his fingers digging into her waist to keep her steady. She could feel each individual finger through her robes, burning like brands.

"Stop apologizing and hold on," he gritted out, and she could feel his voice rumble through his chest.

She grabbed his robes with both fists, abandoning dignity for survival. Around them, the other passengers swayed with practiced ease, barely glancing up from their newspapers.

The bus made another impossible turn, she swore they went briefly vertical, and she had to bite back a sound that might have been a scream. This was madness. Complete and utter madness. Who had thought this was an acceptable form of public transport? Severus' arm tightened around her, and for a moment she let herself lean into it. Into him. Pretended this was something other than necessity, that he was holding her because he wanted to and not because the alternative was them both ending up in a heap on the floor.

She could feel the tension in every line of his body, the way he was holding himself still despite the chaos. Uncomfortable, clearly. Possibly dying of mortification.

But he didn't let go. Even when the bus settled into what passed for normal motion (only mildly nauseating rather than actively traumatic), his arm stayed around her waist. She didn't pull away either. They stood there, swaying together, pretending it was still necessary.

"Seats!" The conductor bellowed. "Two seats in the back!"

They practically ran for them, sliding into a violently purple loveseat that immediately tried to fold them into its depths like some sort of furniture-based carnivorous plant. Lily fought her way to a sitting position, smoothing her robes and trying to pretend the last five minutes hadn't happened. Beside her, Severus had assumed his usual rigid posture, staring straight ahead like the fabric of the seat personally offended him.

"So," she said, desperate for normal conversation. "Department of Records?"

His shoulders tensed. "Yes."

"But why?" She shifted to look at him properly, tucking one leg under her. "I mean, I picked Mysteries because it sounded the least boring, but Records? That's just... filing things, isn't it?"

“Yes.” He still wouldn't look at her, his gaze fixed on a chocolate frog card stuck to the window that showed Circe winking repeatedly.

His jaw worked, and she could see him choosing his words, discarding options. "Does it matter? It's just an internship. Six weeks of filing papers, like you said."

But it wasn't, she could see that clear as day. There was something else here, something he wasn't telling her.

"Sev-“

"What about you?" he interrupted, turning to face her fully for the first time since they'd sat down. "Planning to actually show up to Mysteries, or just use the exemption to skive off?"

The deflection was so obvious it made her more suspicious, not less. A plea for her to let this go, at least for now. And because she was weak where he was concerned, because she still remembered the feeling of his heartbeat against her cheek, she did.

"Oh, definitely skiving," she said, forcing lightness into her voice. "

The bus chose that moment to screech to a halt, throwing them both forward. Her hand landed on his knee for balance, and they both froze. The touch burned through his robes, through her gloves, straight to her bones. She snatched her hand back like she'd been scalded.

"MINISTRY OF MAGIC!" the conductor shouted. "ALL OUT FOR THE MINISTRY!"

The London street swallowed the morning rush of Ministry workers like a force of habit, leaving Lily and Severus standing on the pavement like rocks in a suddenly dry riverbed. She tugged at her robes, hyperaware of how they marked them as different. Muggles flowed around them in suits and sensible shoes, their eyes sliding past as if repelled by Notice-Me-Not charms. Which, she realized, might actually have been the case since the ministry was near.

"We look like complete pillocks," she muttered, catching sight of their reflection in a shop window. Two teenagers in flowing robes. Like they'd wandered out of a Renaissance fair and gotten catastrophically lost.

"The letter said Whitehall," Severus said, already walking. His robes billowed behind him, and he somehow managed to make it look intentional rather than ridiculous. "Corner of Great Scotland Yard."

She hurried to keep up, her comfortable shoes slapping against the pavement. Of course he'd memorized the directions. She'd barely skimmed the letter, too focused on the horror of having to actually show up to process the details. Something about alternative entrances for those without Floo access or Apparition licenses. She'd assumed they'd use the visitor's entrance, that dignified phone box she was escorted to for her hearing regarding her use of underage magic.

"Here," Severus stopped beside a grotty public toilet.

Lily stared at the sign. Public Conveniences. The letters were faded, rust bleeding through white paint like old wounds. "You're joking."

"'Employees and interns without Floo access should use the facilities at Whitehall,'" he quoted. "'Simply stand in the leftmost cubicle and pull the chain.'"

"Stand. In the toilet." She could hear her voice climbing toward a register only dogs should hear. "They want us to stand in a public toilet and flush ourselves down it like we're-“

"Waste matter?" Severus suggested dryly. "Yes, the metaphor isn't lost on me."

Her father would have found it hilarious, probably. Made some joke about giving the phrase "spending a penny" a whole new meaning.

Lily looked to the two entrances. Ladies. Gents.

"Well?" She gestured between them. "Which one? The letter didn't specify, and I'm not standing in a toilet alone like some sort of... toilet-standing nutter.”

Bad enough to debase herself via public plumbing, but to do it without even Severus there to share the humiliation? No. Some things required a witness, if only to confirm later that yes, it really was that awful.

"I suppose we-“

"Rock paper scissors?" She was already positioning her hand. It was how they'd settled disputes since they were nine and couldn't agree on which abandoned house to explore.

He sighed but mirrored her stance.

"One, two, three-“

Her paper fell flat. His fingers formed scissors with decisive precision.

"Gents it is," he said, but he looked about as thrilled as she felt.

The men's room was everything she feared and worse, but thankfully empty. The smell hit her like a physical wall, piss and bleach and something sweetly rotting that made her breakfast contemplate a reappearance. One stall door hung at an angle that defied physics. Another was covered in graffiti that ranged from crude to cruder, including several creative interpretations of human anatomy and someone's treatise on why Margaret Thatcher was apparently Satan.

Her eyes watered. She breathed through her mouth, which was worse because now she could taste it.

"Leftmost," Severus said unnecessarily, pointing to the end stall.

At least it was bigger. That was the only positive thing she could say as they squeezed inside, careful not to touch anything.

"I am not-“ Lily began.

"You have to stand in it, not lick it," Severus snapped, but his face had gone the particular shade of green that suggested he was fighting his own revulsion.

They stood there, two almost-adults in their best robes, contemplating a toilet with deep suspicion. This was insane. This was completely, utterly insane. She'd spent forty Galleons on robes to stand in a public toilet.

"How does it even work?" Lily demanded, her voice bouncing off the grimy tiles. "Do we stand in it together? Take turns? What if we end up in different places? What if we get stuck in the pipes? What if-“

Her mind raced through increasingly horrible possibilities. Stuck in the Ministry's plumbing forever, a cautionary tale for future interns. "Did you hear about that Evans girl? Flushed herself down the wrong toilet, ended up in the Thames." Or worse, arriving somewhere mortifying. The Wizengamot chambers during a session. Oh God, what if the toilets were connected? What if she ended up in someone else's toilet while they were-

Severus pulled out his wand, casting a series of cleaning charms that did absolutely nothing to improve the situation. The toilet remained militantly disgusting, possibly more so now that the magic had disturbed whatever ecosystem was thriving in there.

"Right then. Who goes first?"

They positioned for rock paper scissors again. She threw paper again, certain he'd expect her to switch patterns. He threw scissors. Of course he did.

"I hate you," she informed him.

"I'll be right behind you." He stepped back as far as the stall allowed, which wasn't far.

Lily approached the toilet like it was a poorly-socialized dragon. Her beautiful plum robes, forty Galleons worth of fabric, swept dangerously close to unspeakable stains on the floor. She hitched them up, bunching the material in her fists, and stepped onto the rim.

The porcelain was cold even through her shoes. Slippery. She wobbled, arms windmilling for balance, and had a vision of falling backward, cracking her head on the tiles.

She stepped down into the bowl. The water, god, she didn't want to think about what was in this water, immediately soaked through her shoes.

"Pull the chain, Lily."

How many other desperate witches and wizards had stood exactly where she was standing, questioning all their life choices?

Took a breath. Tasted toilet air. Gagged. Closed her eyes.

Pulled.

The world dropped out from under her. She was falling, spinning, water rushing past in a roar that filled her ears and nose and mouth. Her stomach relocated somewhere near her throat. Her robes tangled around her legs. It was like being inside a water slide designed by someone with a poor grasp of human anatomy and a worse grasp of human dignity.

Then, suddenly, she was flying out of a fireplace.

A fireplace.

She had exactly one second to process this impossibility, before she hit the polished floor of the Ministry Atrium at speed, skidding across marble like a wet cat on ice. Her robes were soaked. Her hair was plastered to her head. She tasted toilet water and wanted to die.

"What the f-“

The fireplace whooshed again, and Severus came shooting out like a cork from a bottle. She had just enough time to think “oh no” before he slammed into her, sending them both sliding another few feet across the floor in a tangle of wet robes and sharp elbows.

His knee found her kidney. Her elbow found his solar plexus. They were a knot of limbs and dignity-free zones, gasping and dripping while the Ministry of Magic stepped politely around them like they were an unfortunately placed piece of furniture.

They lay there for a moment, dripping and stunned, while Ministry workers stepped politely around them. No one offered to help. This was, apparently, normal enough not to warrant concern. The Atrium soared above them, all black tile and golden symbols, peacock blue ceiling twinkling with stars. It was beautiful, majestic, exactly the kind of entrance that should inspire awe and reverence.

"A fireplace," Lily said from somewhere under Severus' shoulder. The words came out muffled, filtered through wet wool and existential crisis. "We flushed ourselves down a toilet and came out a fireplace."

"Magic," he wheezed, trying to extract his elbow from her ribs.

The Ministry workers flowed around them like water around stones, not a single glance spared for the two dripping teenagers creating puddles on the pristine marble. Lily caught glimpses of important-looking people in important-looking robes, all purposeful strides and floating memos, and felt approximately three inches tall. A pair of witches in lime green Healer robes actually stepped over the water trail they were leaving without breaking conversation about someone's explosive boils.

Her robes clung to her back, cold and miserable, and she could feel her hair already frizzing from the moisture. She'd spent twenty minutes this morning trying to charm it smooth, and now she probably looked like she'd been electrocuted. The witch beside her shifted away another inch, clutching her files like Lily might contaminate them with her dampness.

"Level Seven," the cool female voice announced. "Department of Magical Games and Sports, British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club."

People flowed out, flowed in. Severus shifted closer to avoid a wizard with an enormous stack of papers that kept rearranging themselves. His shoulder brushed hers, and she wanted to grab his arm, tell him not to leave her alone in this place where everyone seemed to know exactly where they were going except them. How pathetic was she, treasuring accidental touches like a miser hoarding Knuts?

"Level Six. Department of Magical Transport, Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, Portkey Office, Apparition Test Centre."

More shuffling. The lift was getting emptier now, just a handful of people who all looked like they'd rather be anywhere else. Monday morning faces, her father would have called them. The thought made her chest tight. He'd have been so proud, his Lily working at the Ministry.

"Level Two," the voice announced with mechanical cheer. "Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services."

Severus straightened, and she knew this was it. He was leaving. They'd done everything together since they were nine. Now he was going to Records to hunt for whatever secret he wouldn't tell her about, and she was going to... what? Sort through mysterious objects in a department she chose because the name sounded cool?

The thought of the day stretching ahead without him made her stomach clench.

"See you at lunch?" she asked, hating how small her voice sounded.

He nodded, already moving toward the doors. Then paused, turned back slightly. "You'll be fine, Lily. You always are."

The grille shut between them and the lift dropped, her stomach dropping with it, and she was alone with two ancient wizards who smelled of mothballs and disappointment. One of them was reading a newspaper where the photographs kept shooting her disapproving looks, as if even the printed figures knew she didn't belong here.

"Level Nine," the voice announced with what Lily swore was malicious pleasure. "Department of Mysteries."

The doors opened onto darkness.

Not complete darkness, blue flames flickered in torches along black-tiled walls, casting everything in underwater shadows. The effect was immediate and visceral, like stepping from the normal world into the spaces between stars.

She forced herself to step out. The grille clanged shut behind her with horrible finality, and she was alone.

The anteroom was small, circular, designed to intimidate. It was working. The black tiles reflected the blue flames in endless repetitions, making her feel like she was standing in the night sky.

There was only one door, unmarked, unremarkable except for being the only way forward. No handle, because of course there wasn't.

"Right then," she said to the empty room, her voice swallowed by the oppressive silence. "Department of Mysteries. Very mysterious. Ten points for living up to the name."

She pushed, and it swung open silently, revealing-

"Oh, bollocks."

A circular room, walls identical to the anteroom, but with twelve handleless doors evenly spaced around the perimeter. No signs. No helpful portraits. No indication whatsoever of where she was meant to go. The doors were black, reflecting the blue light like dark mirrors, and she could see twelve distorted versions of herself staring back, wet, bedraggled, and completely out of her depth.

The ceiling was domed here, the tiles creating a spiral pattern that drew the eye inward and made her dizzy if she looked too long. The floor had a pattern too, she realized, concentric circles that might be decoration or might be part of some massive spell circle. The thought that she might be standing in the middle of active magic made her want to step back, but there was nowhere to go except through one of those doors.

Think, Lily. There had to be logic here. The Department of Mysteries wouldn't just throw new interns into a puzzle room. Would they? This was the same bureaucracy that thought flushing people through toilets was reasonable transportation. Maybe they would.

She stood in the center of the room, turning slowly, looking for any difference between the doors. Nothing. They were identical down to the grain of the wood. The blue flames flickered, no, they didn't flicker, that was the thing. They burned steady and cold, but shadows moved anyway, suggesting movement where there was none. It was deeply unsettling, like the room itself was breathing.

Her wet robes were growing cold now, chilling her skin. She could feel water still dripping from her hair, running down her neck in icy trails.

"When in doubt," she muttered, "leave it to chance."

She closed her eyes, spread her arms, and spun. Once, twice, three times, fast enough that her wet robes flared out around her. The world tilted, her inner ear protested, and when she staggered to a stop, she was facing... a door. One of twelve identical doors.

"Good enough."

She pushed through before she could second-guess herself and found, an office. A tiny, cramped office that was somehow even more dramatically lit than the entrance, all blue flames and black tiles and absolutely no warmth whatsoever. The atmosphere pressed against her like a physical weight, thick with magic so old it had its own opinions. Behind a severe desk sat an equally severe witch, her robes so black they seemed to absorb light, her face all angles and disapproval.

The witch was maybe forty, maybe four hundred, it was impossible to tell. Her face had that ageless quality some witches achieved, like they'd decided aging was beneath them and simply opted out.

"Lily Evans," the witch said. Not a question. "The new intern."

"Yes, I-“ Lily became acutely aware that she was still dripping. "Sorry, the entrance was a bit-”

She reached for her wand, thinking a quick drying charm would salvage some dignity, but the witch made a sound like a stepped-on cat.

"No." The word cracked like a whip. "No magic in the Department of Mysteries unless specifically authorized. You could disturb centuries of delicate experimental work with one careless spell."

Lily's hand froze halfway to her wand pocket. "But it's just a drying-“

"No. Exceptions."

Right. Brilliant. The witch watched each drop fall with apparent satisfaction, like Lily's discomfort was part of some elaborate test.

The office was small enough that Lily could feel the walls pressing in, made smaller by the complete absence of personal touches. No photographs, no books beyond what looked like regulation manuals, no hint that a human being actually worked here.

The witch's dark eyes studied her with the intensity of someone cataloguing specimens. "You found your way here. That's something, at least. The doors only open to those who belong." A pause, weighted with meaning. "Or those too stupid to turn back."

"The Department's magic is... particular," the witch continued, rising from her desk with movements so smooth she might be gliding. No, not gliding, Lily caught a glimpse of feet moving beneath the robes. Just perfect posture and practiced grace, the kind that made normal human movement look clumsy in comparison. "Each door leads where you need to go, where you're permitted to go. You, Miss Evans, are permitted only in the storage areas. The actual experimental chambers are forbidden. Attempting to enter them would be... inadvisable."

The way she said 'inadvisable' made Lily think of screaming portraits and flesh-eating curses.

"Follow me."

The witch moved to one of the office's three doors, when had those appeared? Lily could have sworn there was only one when she entered. The Department's geometry was fluid, apparently, reshaping itself according to need or whim. The thought made her stomach turn. How did you navigate a department that wouldn't stay still?

She followed the witch through the door, her shoes announcing her presence with embarrassing squelches.

"Merlin's saggy pants."

The words escaped before she could stop them, but the witch didn't even twitch.

The room was enormous, stretching up into shadows the blue flames couldn't reach. Every wall was lined with shelves, cabinets, cases, all crammed with objects that made her fingers itch to touch. Crystal spheres that pulsed with inner light, like captured hearts still beating. Books that whispered when you passed, their voices just below the threshold of understanding. Bottles full of everything undefinable. Instruments of brass and silver whose purpose she couldn't even guess at, all curves and angles that hurt to look at directly.

The air smelled of old magic, like the Restricted Section crossed with Ollivander's crossed with every fairy tale she'd ever read.

Her eyes couldn't settle on any one thing. There, a skull that turned to track their movement, gems where its eyes should be. There, a plant that grew backwards, shedding flowers that aged into buds that shrank into seeds that expanded into flowers again, an endless loop of impossible botany.

"The Department's storage facility," the witch said, unmoved by the magnificence. She'd probably seen it a thousand times, watched hundreds of wide-eyed interns gape at wonders that had become mundane to her. "Centuries of experimental materials, artifacts both created and collected, ingredients rare and common. Your task is simple: know where everything is."

Lily tore her gaze away from what appeared to be a cage full of miniature thunderstorms. The lightning was real, she could smell the ozone, but it had been shrunk down to fit in a space no bigger than a shoebox. Each tiny bolt illuminated crystals that might be frozen rain or might be something far stranger. "Everything?"

"Everything." The witch's smile was sharp as winter. "Researchers are busy. When they need something, they need it immediately. You will learn this collection, organize it, maintain it."

Her mind raced, calculating, there had to be thousands of items here. Tens of thousands. How was one person supposed to catalogue all this? Some of these things probably killed you if you touched them wrong. Some probably did worse than kill you. And she was meant to just... learn where they all were? With what, a checklist and good intentions?

"Here." The witch stopped at a table that was trying very hard to be invisible among all the wonders. Plain wood, no ornamentation, the kind of table you'd find in any Muggle office. On it sat a crate. A very large crate. Full of vials. Empty vials. Perfectly ordinary, thoroughly boring, empty glass vials.

Lily stared at them. Hundreds of little glass bottles, some clear, some clouded, some with cracks so fine you'd need to squint to see them. After all the magnificent impossibilities she'd just walked past, they were aggressively mundane. Like finding a heap of turnips in a dragon's hoard.

"Sort them," the witch said. "Remove the damaged ones. The Ministry can’t use imperfect containers."

"But-“ Lily gestured helplessly at the wonders surrounding them. "What about all the-”

"Did you think you'd be handling irreplaceable artifacts on your first day?" The witch's tone could have frosted windows. Each word precisely chosen to cut. "You're fifteen. Prove you can manage glass without breaking it, and perhaps we'll trust you with something more interesting."

She swept away, leaving Lily alone with her crate of disappointment.

Around her, the storage room hummed with magic. It wasn't a sound exactly, more a feeling, like standing next to a hive of invisible bees. Somewhere in the shadows, something roared softly, hopefully caged, hopefully secure. On a shelf to her left, what appeared to be a human heart made of clockwork beat steadily in a jar. Each tick echoed in her chest, making her own heart skip to match its rhythm. She looked away quickly.

And here she stood, dripping wet, tasked with sorting bottles like she was working in a muggle factory.

She picked up a vial, held it to the light. There was a hairline crack near the rim, barely visible. The blue flames made it hard to see properly, everything looked flawed in this light, including her. Into the reject pile it went with a soft clink. Another. This one was clouded with age, but intact. Keep pile. The glass was cold under her fingers, colder than glass should be, like it had been stored in winter.

All of it just out of reach, all of it infinitely more interesting than-

Another vial. Cracked. Reject pile.

This was what she'd given up her summer for. This was what all those forms and recommendations and lies had bought her, the privilege of quality control in a magical warehouse.

Another vial. Another. Another.

Cracked near the base, hairline fracture that would leak whatever poor soul tried to store in it. Reject pile. The clink of glass on glass had become a rhythm now, like working on the factory line her dad used to joke about. "Could be worse, love," he'd say. "Could be screwing caps on bottles of brown sauce for eight hours straight."

Well. She was sorting bottles for eight hours straight, just magical ones. The irony would've killed him.

She'd been at it for, she checked her watch, two hours. Two hours of mind-numbing glass inspection while around her the greatest collection of magical artifacts in Britain hummed and whispered and demanded attention.

Another vial. This one had a film of something dried inside, possibly centuries old, possibly deadly. Keep pile anyway, let someone else decide if ancient residue disqualified it.

Her back ached from hunching over the crate. Her robes had dried into stiff wrinkles that scratched when she moved. The blue flames made everything look diseased, including her hands, which had gone pale and strange in the light.

Just a quick walk. Stretch her legs. Who would know? The severe witch hadn't returned, probably had better things to do than babysit the intern. And it wasn't like Lily was going to touch anything. Just... look.

She stood, knees protesting, and immediately knocked three vials off the table. They shattered on the stone floor with a sound like breaking teeth.

"Shit." Then, louder, "Shit, shit, bollocking shit."

She grabbed for her wand, then remembered. No magic. She'd have to clean this the Muggle way, except she had nothing to clean with. The glass shards winked at her, malevolent in the blue light. Evidence of her incompetence after barely two hours.

Well. If she was already in trouble...

She stepped over the broken glass and started walking. Not touching, definitely not touching, just... observing. Like a student. An intern should know what the department stored, shouldn't she? It was practically professional development.

The shelves went on forever, each one crammed with impossibilities. Here, a collection of what looked like soap bubbles, except they never popped and something moved inside each one. There, a row of identical books that each cast different shadows.

The deeper she went, the stranger things became. The proportions felt wrong back here, like the room was bigger than the building that contained it. Her footsteps echoed oddly, sometimes too loud, sometimes swallowed entirely. The blue flames were spaced farther apart, creating pools of shadow that seemed solid enough to touch.

She turned a corner and found a section that felt older than the rest. The shelves here were stone, not wood, carved with symbols that hurt to read. The objects were less carefully catalogued, some just piled together like someone had dumped them and run.

No. Definitely not looking at the doll.

She hurried past, and that's when she saw it. Tucked between two shelves like an afterthought, something tall covered by a white sheet. The fabric was pristine despite the dust on everything else, practically glowing in the blue light.

Just a peek. What harm could looking do?

The sheet pooled at her feet like water, revealing...

"A mirror?" She almost laughed. After all the magnificent terrors, a mirror. Admittedly, a spectacular one, gold frame worked into swirling curves, clawed feet that looked ready to walk, something written across the top in letters that seemed to shift when she tried to read them. But still. A mirror.

“Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi,” said the inscription above it. Latin letters, not runes. How quaint.

Her reflection moved wrong.

Not the usual half-second delay of mirrors. This was... different. Her reflection smiled, and Lily hadn't smiled. Her reflection's robes weren't wrinkled and wet. They were perfect, pristine, the deep plum bringing out colors in her skin she didn't know existed. Her reflection's hair fell in waves, not the awful frizz but proper waves like Petunia spent hours achieving with her curling iron.

And her reflection wasn't alone.

The world tilted. She grabbed the mirror's frame to steady herself.

Her father stood beside her reflection, solid and real and whole. He had his hand on her reflection's shoulder, and he was smiling that crooked smile that meant he was about to say something that would make Mum roll her eyes.

Her mother was there too, but not the mother of the last years or ever. This was a mother she'd never seen, radiant, glowing, looking at Lily like she was something precious instead of strange.

Petunia. Oh God, Petunia stood on her other side, and she wasn’t, she didn’t-

Her sister held a wand. Aspen, from the look of it, firm like Tuney herself. She wore Hogwarts robes with a Slytherin tie, because of course she'd be Slytherin even though it should be impossible, and she was laughing at something Lily had said. Not the bitter laugh Lily knew, but real laughter. Sister laughter. The kind they'd shared before the word witch had come into their lives.

And Severus.

She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but stare at the way he held her reflection, arms wrapped around her from behind, chin resting on her shoulder. He looked... soft. That was the only word for it. Every sharp edge smoothed away, every defense abandoned. He was looking at her reflection the way she'd dreamed he'd look at her.

"What are you?" she whispered to the mirror, and her reflection mouthed the words back mockingly.

This was some kind of trick. Had to be. The Department of Mysteries was full of experimental magic, things that played with your mind, showed what would destroy you. Every single thing in that mirror was impossible.

Her father was dead. Years in the ground, and she still woke up sometimes forgetting, still turned to tell him things.

Her mother would never be that happy again. Lily had broken something in her by being magical, and Dad's death had shattered the rest.

Petunia with a wand was the almost cruelest joke of all. Her sister who'd rather be dead than magical, her exact words, spat across the breakfast table that one terrible Christmas, the first one since her father had died, while their mother wept into her eggs.

And Severus. Severus who looked through her when she tried to catch his eye in certain ways, who wanted her magic and her mind and her friendship but never, ever her body. All the wanting was hers alone, burning in her chest like swallowed fire while he remained oblivious or, worse, too kind to acknowledge what he couldn't return. She'd tried everything short of throwing herself at him, not ready for that sort of humiliation.

"You're cruel,” she told the mirror, but her voice cracked.

The reflection-Severus pressed a kiss to reflection-Lily's temple, casual and tender and everything real-Severus would never do. Reflection-Lily leaned back into him like it was normal, like she had the right to that kind of touch.

She hated it. Hated this thing that showed her everything she couldn't have wrapped up in a neat bow. What was the point? What possible purpose could showing her this serve except to hurt?

But she couldn't look away.

Her father was telling some story, hands moving in the way that meant he was getting to the good bit. Her mother was laughing already, anticipating the punchline. Petunia was rolling her eyes but fondly, the way sisters were supposed to. And Severus was watching her, not the reflection, but her, like even in this impossible fantasy, she was the only thing worth looking at.

She reached out, not meaning to, and her fingers met glass. Cold, ordinary glass that showed her the impossible and offered nothing.

"I could stay here," she said to no one. "Sort vials and stare at this. Sounds like a career plan."

Reflection-Lily smiled at something Reflection-Severus whispered in her ear. The kind of smile Lily had never worn, could never wear, because it required being loved like that.

Time stretched, became unmeasurable. Minutes or hours, she couldn't tell.

Chapter Text

The blue flames never flickered, never changed. That should have been her first warning. Real flames moved, even magical ones. These stayed perfectly steady, eternal and cold, like they'd been burning since the Ministry was built and would keep burning long after she was dust. The thought should have unsettled her, but the mirror kept showing her things, and she kept watching, like picking at a scab that wouldn't heal.

Her legs had gone numb. When had she sat down?

Her stomach made a sound, hollow and angry, a proper growl that echoed in the empty room. When had she last eaten? How many hours had she been sitting? The blue flames gave no clue.

In the mirror, the family was having Christmas dinner. A proper feast, the kind they'd had when her father was alive and working overtime. Turkey glistening with fat, roast potatoes crispy and golden, brussels sprouts that somehow looked appetizing. Her mother was pulling a cracker with Petunia, both of them wearing paper crowns. Her father was carving, making a show of sharpening the knife first. And Severus, he was holding reflection-Lily's hand under the table, their fingers intertwined, hidden but there.

"This isn't real," she told the mirror, but her voice came out wrong. Cracked and dry, like she hadn't spoken in years. How long had she been silent? The words felt strange in her mouth, her tongue thick and clumsy.

"Bollocks to this," she said to the mirror, but the words felt like they were coming from very far away.

The reflection-family waved goodbye. Her father blew her a kiss, pressing his fingers to his lips then flinging his hand out like he was throwing love at her. Petunia paused to wave as the knife cut the turkey by itself under the guidance of her wand. Her mother pressed a hand to her heart, eyes bright with tears that looked like joy.

And Severus, reflection-Severus, mouthed something that looked like "come back."

Or maybe "don't go."

Or maybe "I love you."

She turned away before she could decode it properly.

The storage room had gone wrong. The blue flames were dimmer, or maybe her eyes had adjusted too much to the mirror's golden glow. Everything looked underwater, wavering and uncertain. Several of the objects that had been humming before had gone silent. The clockwork heart had stopped beating, and somehow that felt like an omen.

Where was the exit? She'd come through a door, there had definitely been a door, but the walls showed only smooth stone.

"Hello?" Her voice disappeared into the darkness. "Anyone? I need to leave. My shift's over. I need to go home."

Nothing. Not even an echo.

She picked a direction and walked, trying not to run. Running felt dangerous here, like it might trigger something.

She found it eventually, or maybe it found her. One moment she was passing another shelf of unspeakable things, the next she turned a corner and there it was.

A door stood in the wall that had definitely been solid stone a moment ago. It swung onto a lift.

No, not a lift. The lift. The same one from this morning.

"Level Nine, Department of Mysteries," the cool female voice announced.

The journey took forever and no time at all, she couldn't tell anymore, time had gone slippery, and when the doors finally opened onto the Atrium, her stomach dropped.

Empty.

The vast space that had been chaos this morning was now a mausoleum. The Fountain of Magical Brethren still burbled, but the sound was too loud in the silence, like it was trying to fill the space where hundreds of people should be. The floo fireplaces were cold, not even embers remaining.

"I need to leave," she said to the empty space. "Please. I don't know how to get out. I'm just an intern. I'm fifteen. I'm not supposed to be here after hours. My mum's going to kill me. I need to get out."

For a moment, nothing. Then, with a grinding sound like stone being forced to move against its will, like the building itself was having to reshape its bones, a section of the wall she hadn't even noticed split open. Not a door, exactly, but a gap just wide enough for a person to squeeze through if they didn't mind the stone scraping skin. Beyond it, she could see orange streetlight and hear the distant sound of London traffic.

She squeezed through the gap, the stone scraping against her back, catching on her robes, pulling hair. For one terrible moment she thought she was stuck, that the building had changed its mind and was going to keep her. Then she was through, stumbling onto a pavement she didn't recognise, gasping the dirty London air like it was perfume.

A clock. She needed to find a clock. The Underground station across the street would have one, they always did. She gripped the railing as she descended, her knees threatening to buckle on each step. The platform was nearly empty, just a few late-night stragglers who didn't look at her twice. The clock above the platform made her stomach drop all over again.

11:47 PM.

Almost midnight. She'd been in the Department of Mysteries for over fifteen hours. How was that possible? How had looking in a mirror eaten an entire day? The numbers stared back at her, ordinary and damning. 11:47. She'd missed lunch. Missed dinner. Missed everything.

Severus. Oh God, Severus.

They were meant to meet for lunch in the canteen.

The Felix Felicis. Tonight was critical, the rue needed to be added at exactly the right temperature, and he'd been so precise about the timing. She'd promised. Sworn she'd be there. "I know you think I'm always late, but not for this. Never for this,” she told him.

He'd think she'd forgotten him.

And her mother. Christ, her mother would be building to a proper rage by now. Evening shift at the pub ended at eleven, she'd be home any minute, finding Lily's bed empty. She'd assume the worst, assume Lily was with Severus doing... whatever it was her mother thought teenagers did when they disappeared together. There'd be words. Lots of words. Sharp ones that knew exactly where to cut.

She needed to get home.

She climbed back to street level and raised her wand. The bang was immediate, loud enough to make her ears ring, and the Bus materialised from nothing like it had been waiting just around the corner of reality. Just out of sight, ready to collect the desperate and the lost.

The walk home was muscle memory. Past the playground where the swings creaked in the wind, chains rusty, seats cracked.

The house was dark. Thank Merlin for small favors. She didn't turn on any lights. Didn't want to see her reflection in the dark windows, didn't want any mirrors at all, actually. Would happily never look in another mirror as long as she lived.

She climbed the stairs to her room, each step an effort. Her legs felt like they belonged to someone else, too heavy, too slow. She fell into bed fully clothed, not bothering to remove even her shoes.

But sleep was a distant country Lily couldn't find the map to. At quarter to six, she gave up.

She dressed quickly and strapped her father's watch around her wrist, the leather band worn soft from years against his skin, still indented where his wrist had been thicker than hers. 7:47.

Downstairs the morning light had already found its way inside. Her mother sat at the table in her dressing gown, the polyester one with roses that had gone grey in the wash. She didn't look up when Lily entered, just continued staring at the wall where the calendar still hung, many months out of date, forever frozen on July 1973.

"Mum, I-“

"Don’t,” her mother warned. “Whatever lie you've prepared, I'd rather not hear it."

Lily's throat closed. She could taste the lie, actually taste it like it when she swallowed it. “I was working late. I needed to stay. I had no choice.”

"You'll do what you want regardless." Her mother finally looked at her, and Lily wished she hadn't. "Always have done."

The kettle sat cold on the hob. No breakfast laid out, usually her mother at least went through the motions, a bit of marge on bread, maybe a scraping of jam. This morning, nothing. Lily's stomach cramped with more than hunger.

"Severus came by," her mother said, returning to her study of the wall. "Half seven last night. Worried sick, he was. Kept asking if you had come home at all, if something had happened."

She left Lily alone in the kitchen, her footsteps heavy. A door slammed. Then silence.

The knock came at exactly eight. Of course it did.

She opened the door to find him standing on the doorstep with all the warmth of a January funeral. The sun was behind him, turning him into a dark cutout against the brightness, all sharp angles and shadows. His school robes again and his hair fell forward, hiding his expression, but she could read the set of his shoulders.

"Ready?" The word came out clipped, like he'd rationed himself one syllable and no more.

He was already walking, not waiting to see if she followed.

The Knight Bus materialsed with its usual bang at the corner of Canal Street. Different conductor this morning, a middle-aged witch with a lazy eye who took their money without comment.

They found seats immediately, a small mercy. Severus sat as far from her as the seat allowed, his body angled away, staring at nothing through the window.

The bus lurched into motion. The world tilted, her stomach following a heartbeat behind.

"About yesterday-“ she started.

"You don't need to explain." His said sharply. "You found something more interesting to do."

"That's not-“ she stopped herself. “I lost track of time," she said to his profile. Weak, pathetic, but better than the truth. The she had spent fifteen hours watching him love her in a mirror. How would that sound? "The Department, it's easy to get turned around, and there's no natural light, and-”

"I said it's fine."

But it wasn't. This wasn't his normal anger, the hot kind that burned out quickly, leaving them both singed but able to continue. This was the cold kind, the kind that built walls brick by brick, mortared with disappointment.

"I thought-“ He stopped, jaw working like he was chewing the words, tasting them before deciding they were too bitter to speak. "It doesn't matter what I thought."

Tell me, she wanted to beg. Tell me what you thought. Tell me you were worried. Tell me you care about me the way I care about you. But the words stayed trapped behind her teeth, too dangerous to release.

"The rue," he said instead, changing the subject like he tended to do when he was hurt. "We'll need to add it during lunch break since we didn’t manage to yesterday. The window is twelve-thirty-seven to twelve-forty-one. The temperature needs to be exactly seventy-three degrees."

Back to the potion. Always back to the potion. She wondered sometimes if that's all she was to him, a competent lab partner, someone who could read his cramped notes and anticipate what ingredient he'd need next. If she disappeared tomorrow, would he mourn her or just the loss of an extra pair of hands for stirring?

"I can meet you at-“

"I'll come to your department.” Not a question. Not trusting her to show up on her own. The doubt in it was like a slap. "Level Nine at twelve-thirty."

She nodded, though he wasn't looking at her.

Don't think about it.

But not thinking about it was like not thinking about breathing, the moment you tried, it was all you could focus on. The mirror lived in her peripheral vision even when she couldn't see it, like a bruise you couldn't stop pressing

She busied herself by sorting through the endless stacks of interesting things the storeroom held. Better to be thorough. Better to have something to do with her hands that didn't involve reaching for things she couldn't have.

She'd gotten lost in the rhythm of it: pick up, examine, categorise, set down when footsteps echoed from the main chamber. Not the sharp clicks of the severe witch from yesterday, but something more irregular. Multiple sets of feet moving without much coordination, like a three-legged race where no one had agreed on the rhythm.

The first was an impossibly tall, awkward wizard wearing his robes backwards; the second, a round witch with painfully tight hair who consulted her clipboard obsessively, even her ink stains precisely placed. The third figure defied focus entirely, shifting between contradictory states of height, age, and presence, making Lily's teeth ache and inner ear protest as her eyes struggled to perceive them, like trying to look through water.

"You're the new intern," the severe witch said. Not a question. "Evans."

"Yes, I-“

"Bronwyn Blackstone," she interrupted, not offering her hand. "Senior Unspeakable. This is Alastair Lovegood" she indicated the backwards-robed wizard, who gave a cheerful wave with both hands simultaneously, fingers wiggling like little animals. “and that's..." She gestured vaguely at the unfocusable figure. "Well. They're here."

"Pleased to meet you," Lily managed, though pleased wasn't quite right.

"We need supplies," Bronwyn said, consulting her clipboard with the kind of intensity usually reserved for defusing explosive runes. “Fifteen glass vials, exactly three inches in diameter. Four pounds of powdered moonstone, the Tuesday batch, not the Thursday. And..." She frowned at her list, her thin lips disappearing entirely. "A left-handed corkscrew that's never been used to open wine."

Alastair had wandered over to Lily's sorting station, picking up vials seemingly at random. "Oh, you're doing the glass! Meditative, isn't it? I once spent three weeks sorting sand grains by size. Learned tremendous things about patience."

"Put those down," Bronwyn snapped. "They're not sorted yet."

"Everything's already sorted though, isn't it?" Alastair said dreamily, still juggling three vials. "By the universe, I mean. We just haven't noticed the pattern yet."

The third figure made a sound that might have been laughter or might have been time itself creaking.

"I can help find those things. I mean, I don't know where everything is yet, but-“

"You're the Evans girl," the maybe-there figure said suddenly. Their voice was like listening to an echo before the original sound, or like hearing yourself speak from another room. "The one Slughorn wrote about. And McGonagall. And that headmaster what's his name."

"Professor Dumbledore?”

"That's the one. Said you had an 'unusual instinctive grasp of magical principles.'" The figure solidified slightly, revealing what might have been a smile. Or might have been teeth. Or might have been the absence of teeth, which was somehow worse. "Not often we get unanimous recommendations."

Heat crawled up Lily's neck. They'd all written about her? All of them? Even Dumbledore, who she had never spoken a word to? "I didn't know they’d-“

"Oh yes," Alastair said. ”Slughorn practically wrote a novel. Something about 'natural talent that appears once in a generation' and 'an intuitive understanding that cannot be taught.' Made you sound like Merlin's second coming."

"That's..." she struggled for words, mortified. "They're exaggerating."

Bronwyn made a sound that might generously be called a snort. “Whatever. It’s not like it’s going to help you in here as an intern.”

They set off through the maze of shelves, Lily trailing behind like a lost puppy.

"How long have you worked here?" Lily asked, mainly to fill the silence.

"Time's a bit flexible in the Department," Alastair said, executing a perfect backwards pirouette around a stack of crates that hadn't been there a second ago. Or had always been there. Hard to tell.

Lily's head was beginning to hurt in a very specific way, like her brain was trying to parse impossible grammar. She thought of Severus, probably filing things in Records, where papers stayed where you put them and time moved in one direction. Lucky bastard.

Even with all three of them helping, or in Alastair's case, "helping" by providing running commentary on the philosophical implications of emptiness, it took twenty minutes to locate seventeen spheres of the exact right size. Lily's arms ached from reaching, her shoulders burning.

“Fifty one exactly," Lily said, then risked adding, "Seems specific. What needs that many empty vials?”

Bronwyn's expression could have curdled milk. Could have curdled time itself, probably. "We don't discuss operational procedures with interns."

"Oh, come off it, Bronny," Alastair said, now doing a handstand against a shelf for no discernible reason. A jar of something viscous and purple dripped upward near his left foot. "It's not like it's a secret that the secrets are secret. Rather the point, really."

"We leave our memories of classified work in the Pensieve before we exit each day," Bronwyn said stiffly, as if the words were being pulled out of her with pliers. Or maybe pulled out of her backwards, effect preceding cause. "Security protocol. What we research in the main chambers can't leave the Department, not even in our minds."

"But how do you know if you're making progress?" Lily asked, her voice smaller than intended. They just shrugged their shoulders.

They continued gathering supplies, the left-handed corkscrew proving surprisingly elusive.

As they searched, Lily found herself thinking about what it would be like, leaving pieces of yourself behind each day. Walking out lighter, emptier. Would the hurt go too? If she could extract yesterday, pull it out like a rotten tooth, would the infection spread or heal?

"Does it hurt?" she asked suddenly. "Removing memories?"

Bronwyn paused in her examination of a potentially left-handed corkscrew. The metal gleamed blue in the eternal flames, making it look like deep water. "No. It's like... pulling a thread from fabric. The fabric remains, just with a gap where the thread was."

Bronwyn packed everything loudly into a crate interrupting their conversation.

"Thank you for your assistance," she said formally.

"I just followed you around," Lily protested, her cheeks burning.

"Exactly. Most interns get lost following us. Simply walking through the Department requires a certain... flexibility of thinking." She paused at the threshold between sections, and the air around her seemed to thicken, like reality was paying attention, the feeling holding as she sat down again with her vials.

Level Two should have been entirely grand, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Auror Headquarters, all those impressive titles, but the corridor Lily found herself in looked more like the forgotten corner of a municipal building. Flaking paint curled away from the walls like sunburned skin, revealing older paint beneath, and beneath that, something that might have been the original Victorian wallpaper, gone brown with age.

The brass nameplates grew increasingly desperate as she walked, trying to make tedium sound important: "Magical Misdemeanor Archive," "Statute Violation Repository," "Incident Report Consolidation." Each title longer than the last, as if syllables could substitute for significance. The Department of Records was at the very end, its nameplate gone green with neglect, the letters barely legible under the patina.

She pushed through the door at 12:01, being early on purpose. Coming to his department instead of him coming to get her.

"Bloody hell."

Paper. Mountains of it. Himalayas of parchment rising from the floor like some administrative volcano had erupted and never been cleaned up. Scrolls unfurled across every surface, their ends trailing onto the floor where they'd been trodden into illegibility, boot prints preserved on paper like fossils.

In the corner, an ancient wizard slumped over what might have been a desk, though it was hard to tell under the geological layers of paperwork. His snores rattled the nearest stack of files, sending little avalanches of memoranda sliding to the floor with whispers like dying moths. A nameplate barely visible read "Mr. Thrittle." His beard had grown into the papers, actually grown into them, strands of grey hair weaving between documents like he'd been there so long he was becoming part of the furniture.

"He's been like that since I came,” Severus said from somewhere in the paper ocean.

She followed his voice, picking her way through valleys of volumes, trying not to disturb the precarious architecture of neglect.

She found him in a small clearing he'd made, surrounded by walls of documents that rose above his head. Like a paper fortress, or a prison, or maybe a nest. The cleared space around him was maybe three feet square, just enough room for him to sit cross-legged with documents spread in a semicircle.

"Can't you wake him?" She nodded toward the sleeping Thrittle, whose snores had taken on a whistling quality, like a kettle about to boil.

"Tried. He's either deaf, dead, or deliberately obtuse." Severus set down the file he'd been reading. "Probably all three."

"What are you even doing?" Lily asked.

“Nothing.” He shut the folder he’s been holding with a harsh snap, putting it back into the mess of paper probably never to be found again.

"Why stay here?" She pretended to examine a stack of papers, not looking at him directly. "You could change departments. I could put in a word so you could be with me-“

"No." The word came out sharp. His fingers drummed against the closed folder, that nervous tell he'd never quite broken. "It's fine."

“I can't access anything useful. Only Thrittle can call up specific records from the archives. The actual archives are..." he continued and waved vaguely downward, "somewhere below. Miles of them, apparently. Self-organizing, but only if you have the proper clearance."

"Which you don't have."

"Which I'll never have, since Thrittle needs to authorise it, and Thrittle-“ Another thunderous snore punctuated his point, this one ending in a snort that sounded almost like words.

"We need to go," she said, checking her father's watch. 12:05. "The rue-“

"I know." He was already standing, not bothering to straighten the papers he'd been sorting and just kicking them out of his way.

They hurried through the Ministry corridors, earning glares from the witches and wizards forced to dodge them.

The lift took forever, stopping at every floor, each ding marking another lost second.

The Knight Bus materialised before Lily had properly raised her wand, like it had been lurking just outside reality, waiting for desperate teenagers with impossible deadlines.

"Cokeworth," Severus said, already pushing coins at the same witch from this morning. She noticed his hands shaking slightly, from running or fear of failure, she couldn't tell. "Fast as you can."

"It's the Knight Bus, love. We only do fast." But the witch's smile was mean, like she knew they were desperate and enjoyed it.

The journey was torture. Every stop, picking up a witch in Croydon who brought three caged Kneazles that wouldn't stop yowling, dropping off a wizard in Reading who tried to pay in buttons, ate into their narrow window. Lily kept checking her watch. 12:42. 12:47. 12:51. The numbers blurred as the bus threw them around like dice in a cup.

"Can't you drop us at Spinner's End?" Lily asked the conductor as Cokeworth's skyline appeared, all chimneys and disappointment, the chimneys rising like concrete fingers giving the world a two-fingered salute.

"Never heard of it," the witch said, checking her list. The parchment was covered in locations, some crossed out, some written in different hands, some in languages that might not have been human. "Got High Street, Victoria Road, or the old mill."

Of course. The Fidelius Charm didn't just hide the house; it erased the entire street from collective memory. Only she and Severus knew it existed now.

"Victoria Road," Severus said tightly. Three streets over. They'd have to run.

The bus deposited them with its usual violence, and then they were running, properly running, through the maze of terraced houses. The sun beat down merciless, the air thick with dust from the demolition. Half of Mulberry Close was already gone, reduced to rubble and regret. The wrecking ball sat idle in the noon heat, yellow paint peeling like diseased skin, waiting to continue its meal. Someone had graffitied a cross in dripping red letters that looked like blood.

Lily's robes tangled around her legs, too heavy for running, for July, for anything but sitting very still in a cold room.

Behind her, or maybe beside her, she could hear Severus breathing hard, the sound ragged and desperate. When she glanced over, his pale skin had gone patchy red and white, like badly mixed paint, like he was literally burning in the sun.

"Almost there," Severus panted, though he looked no better. A stitch was developing in her side, sharp as a knife between her ribs.

And then there it was, manifesting like a photograph developing, the grim terrace solidifying from nothing. Still standing while its neighbors fell.

They crashed through the front door, it hadn't been locked, who would rob a house that didn't exist, and straight through to the back garden. Garden was generous. It was a patch of dirt with pretensions, weeds growing through cracked concrete, the fence leaning drunkenly. But even this was different from before. The weeds had been partially cleared, or at least beaten into submission. The worst of the glass and rubble had been removed.

The cauldron sat in the middle of it, covered with a tarp that Severus ripped away with desperate fingers. The Felix Felicis glowed gold in the sunlight, more beautiful than anything had a right to be in this wreck of a garden.

"Temperature," Lily gasped, still fighting for breath. Her vision was going funny at the edges, grey creeping in like fog.

Severus already had his wand out, hand trembling so badly she thought he might drop it. "Seventy-one point five. We need to raise it-“ He cast a heating charm, precise despite his shaking hands. The wand movement was perfect, practiced, the kind of muscle memory that survived panic. "Seventy-two. Seventy-two point five."

"Time?"

"Twelve fifty-eight."

"Merlin's saggy-“

"Seventy-three." He grabbed the vial of filled with rue from his pocket. "Now."

She held the stirring rod steady while he poured, three petals exactly. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, when had he done that? And she found herself watching the flex of muscle in his forearms as he tilted the vial with precise control. His skin was pale as always, but she could see the definition there, the tendons standing out as he gripped the glass.

"Stir," he commanded.

She forced herself to focus on the rod, not on how close he was standing, not on the way the torchlight caught the fine dark hair on his arms, not on how careful and deliberate each of his movements was.

Three times counterclockwise. Once clockwise. Hold for five seconds. Three more counterclockwise. The rod moved through the liquid like it was pushing against honey, thick and resistant, but also somehow eager, like it wanted to be stirred, had been waiting for this moment.

Four minutes over. They stood frozen, watching the potion for any sign of failure, separation, color change, the explosion that would mean six months wasted. But it continued its lazy swirl, gold as a summer afternoon, perfect as anything they'd ever made. Better, maybe. The books said Felix Felicis should be gold, but this was something beyond gold, this was the color of her father's watch in sunlight, of the buttons on her mother's best coat, of every precious thing she'd ever seen compressed into liquid form.

"It worked," Lily breathed. The relief was physical, her knees actually buckled, and she had to catch herself on the wall of the privy.

Severus sank onto the back step, head in his hands. He just sat there, breathing hard, the tension slowly bleeding out of his shoulders.

She looked around properly for the first time in two years. The house should have been worse, abandoned, condemned, forgotten by everyone but them. While the bones of it remained grim, small changes caught her eye. The back door had been mended, the broken glass replaced with solid wood that didn't quite match the frame. The step Severus sat on was new, transfigured from something else by the look of it, the grain wrong for natural wood, too uniform, too perfect. Magic trying to imitate nature and not quite succeeding.

A movement in the corner of her eye made her turn. Just a flicker of black disappearing behind the tall weeds that choked the narrow space between the garden wall and next door's fence. Too quick to be sure, but the right size, the right color. Then she saw it, a plastic margarine tub sitting on top of the crumbling brick wall, half-hidden by bindweed but clearly placed there deliberately. Water glinted in it, fresh despite the dust on everything else.

Her chest went tight. The cat. Her cat, no, the cat that wasn't anybody’s, had been coming here. Of course it would.

"You've been busy," she said. The understatement of it was almost funny.

He looked up, followed her gaze. His face was still flushed from running, but still took on a more splotchy red. "Couldn't sleep in rubble."

Through the kitchen window, she could see more evidence of his work. The table that had been his father's domain, scarred with cigarette burns and ring marks from bottles was gone. In its place stood something that might have started as a door, transfigured into furniture. The surface was smooth but the proportions were off, too narrow for a proper table, too wide for a desk. The chairs didn't match, one might have been a crate, another possibly a barrel, their original forms still visible if you knew how to look. Magic could change shape but not essence; they remained what they'd been, just convinced to be something else for a while.

"Show me," she said. She needed to see it, all of it, this place that only existed for the both of them.

He stood slowly. His robes stuck to his back with sweat, and she could see the sharp wings of his shoulder blades through the fabric.

Led her through the kitchen, clean now, cleaner than it had ever been when his parents lived here. The sink gleamed, actually gleamed, like he'd scrubbed it with something harsh enough to strip skin.

The sitting room stopped her short.

The entire wall, floor to ceiling, rough shelves that looked like they'd been conjured from floorboards and good intentions. The wood was mismatched, some planks lighter, some darker, some with nail holes still visible. He'd made brackets from what might have been pipe, bent into shape with magic that had left scorch marks on the metal. Only a fraction of the shelves were filled, maybe thirty or forty volumes, but in this house that had never had books anywhere beyond his room, it looked like a library.

The books themselves were a mix, some obviously from school, textbooks with broken spines and pages coming loose. Others looked older, leather covers gone soft with age, titles in languages she didn't recognize.

"Where did you get the wood?"

"The houses they knocked down. Seemed a waste." He shrugged, but she could see the pride in it, the way his fingers traced the edge of a shelf. "Transfiguration's not perfect. It'll probably collapse in a year."

"It's brilliant." The word came out more fervent than she'd intended, and she saw him flinch slightly, like praise was something that could hurt.

"I'm starving," she said to break the moment. Her stomach chose that moment to growl, loudly, comedically, and she saw the corner of his mouth twitch. "Please tell me you have food."

"Define food."

He led her back to the kitchen, opening a cupboard that held the saddest grocery shop she'd ever seen. A loaf of bread that had seen better days, the crust starting to curl. A jar of pickles, the cheap kind, more vinegar than cucumber, the label peeling off. And cheese that, when he unwrapped it, was sweating like it had run a marathon.

"I tried a stasis charm," he said defensively, holding the cheese like it might explode. "Must have worn off."

She noticed the plates he pulled down, ones from her house, without chips but mismatched, the ones her mother had been meaning to put away for years. Blue flowers on one, faded from a thousand washings. Roses on another, the kind of pattern nobody made anymore. The weight of that small kindness from her mother sat heavy in her chest. These plates had held hundreds of their family dinners, and now they were here, in this impossible house, holding Severus' sad cheese sandwiches.

"She made me take them," he said, not looking at her. "Your mother. When I came by yesterday. Said she had too many, but I think she felt..." He trailed off.

They made sandwiches in the small kitchen, forced to work around each other in the tight space. When she reached for the bread, he was reaching for a knife, their hands nearly colliding.

They made sandwiches in silence, the bread slightly stale, the cheese definitely past its prime, the pickles the only thing that tasted like it was supposed to. But she was hungry enough that it didn't matter.

He had to lean past her to get them from the counter, his chest almost touching hers. She could feel the heat of him, and when he straightened, their eyes met and held for a second too long before he stepped back, clearing his throat.

"How is it?" she asked finally. "Living alone?"

He chewed slowly, considering. She could see him weighing words, discarding the true ones for safer alternatives. "Quiet."

"The plumbing doesn't work," he added, apropos of nothing. "I've tried every water-conjuring charm I know, but the pipes..." He gestured helplessly. "I think they need actual water pressure, not just water. Been using the public baths on Victoria Road."

She tried to imagine him there, among the old men and the shift workers, his towel and soap in a plastic bag, pretending this was normal. The humiliation of it, when he'd worked so hard to leave this all behind.

"And your father?"

"Can't find what doesn't exist." His voice was flat. "Even if he came looking, which he won't, the house isn't here for him anymore.."

There was something peaceful in that. Tobias Snape could never stumble in drunk again, never raise his hand again, never exist in this space again. She watched Severus relax slightly at the thought, his shoulders dropping, and had to resist the urge to touch him there too, where the tension lived.

She let her eyes wander while they ate, trying not to notice how his hair fell forward when he looked down, how he still bit his lip when thinking. The way he'd scrubbed the walls but couldn't quite remove the ghost of old stains. There was a shadow near the door that might have been blood, painted over but still visible if you knew where to look.

Her gaze kept returning to the books visible through the open door. From here, she could make out some titles, and her stomach clenched with each one. But there, amongst the dark spines, she spotted the books she'd once borrowed from him on that terrible day only made better by him being with her through the worst of it.

There were others too, must have been gifted to him or bought since then, partially visible: "Magick Most Evile," "The Book of Cruel Curses”. These weren't textbooks. These weren't even the kind of questionable books older students passed around.

"New reading material?" She said keeping her voice casual.

He followed her gaze. "Research."

"For what?"

"Spells." He took another bite of sandwich, like this was a normal conversation. "Creation requires understanding what already exists."

She knew about his spell creation, had helped him test some of the tamer ones. Muffliato, to keep conversations private, she'd been the first person he'd cast it on, sitting by the lake, the world going pleasantly fuzzy around them. That toe nail-growing hex he was particularly proud of, though she'd made him swear never to use it on her again in fear of losing another pair of shoes. But these books... these weren't about schoolyard hexes. These were about the kind that left marks on your magic like oil on paper.

"What kind of spells?"

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and she saw something shift in his eyes. A door closing. Or maybe it had been closing for a while, and she was only now noticing the click of the lock. "Useful ones."

The silence stretched, filled with everything they weren't saying. She could feel him pulling away, not physically but in all the ways that mattered. Into those books, into magic she didn't understand and wasn't sure she wanted to.

She thought about the Death Eaters, the attacks that were becoming more frequent, the way some of the older Slytherins talked in hushed, excited voices about the Dark Lord. She thought about how Severus' eyes lit up when he talked about power, about being recognised, about making them all pay. Them. Always them, never specifically defined but she knew.

"Sev," she started, but didn't know how to finish. Don't read those books? Don't become what I'm afraid you're becoming? Don't leave me behind?

"We should head back," she said finally, though checking her watch showed they still had twenty minutes of lunch break.

"Yes," he agreed, already wrapping the sweating cheese, saving it despite its state. "We should."

Don't even think about the mirror. But not thinking about the mirror was like not thinking about the sun when you were burning. She'd managed two hours in the loneliness of the storeroom.

She pulled the sheet away.

The mirror stood there, innocent as a weapon waiting to be used. Her reflection looked back, but it was just her today. Alone. Sweating through ugly robes that had gone dark under the arms with perspiration, hair frizzed from the heat into something that resembled a thicket more than anything human hair should be. Looking exactly as pathetic as she felt. Her face was blotchy from the heat, red patches on her cheeks that made her look like she'd been slapped.

Then the image shifted, rippled like water disturbed, and-

Footsteps. Sharp ones, echoing wrong in the strange acoustics of the storage room. She dropped the sheet, her heart hammering so hard she could taste copper. Her hands shook as she tried to arrange the fabric to look undisturbed, but silk had memory, and she could see the wrinkles where she'd gripped it.

She dove behind a cabinet of something that might have been cursed music boxes, pressing herself into the shadows between shelves.

"Bloody hell!"

The voice cracked through the storage room like a whip. Lily spun, her heart attempting to exit through her throat.

“-gave us completely the wrong bleeding moonstone." The voice was familiar, the other Unspeakable from earlier, the one who'd been there but not-there. They sounded more solid when irritated. "Tuesday's batch, she said. This is clearly Thursday's."

“I told her that explicitly." another voice said, and Lily's stomach dropped. Bronwyn. Of course.

"Well, she's not at her station." A third voice, male, posh in that particular way that suggested money and breeding and casual cruelty. "Probably wandered off. You know how interns are. Last one got lost in Section Q and we didn't find him for three days."

"Was that the one who came out speaking backwards?"

"No, that was the one before. This one just thought he was a teacup."

They were getting closer. Lily could see them now through gaps in the shelves, Bronwyn with her clipboard, the shifting figure of the third Unspeakable, and a wizard she didn't recognise. Tall, good-looking in that sharp way, with blond hair slicked back so severely it looked painful. The pockmarks on his face almost a contradiction.

"Check the moonstone again, Rookwood," Bronwyn said, and Lily filed the name away. Augustus Rookwood, from the way he carried himself. One of those pure-blood names that got carved on buildings and whispered in certain circles.

"I know what Thursday's batch looks like," Rookwood said, his voice like cut glass.

"Better than nothing," the third figure contributed. "Remember when we accidentally used Sunday's batch?"

"We don't talk about Sunday's batch," Bronwyn said sharply.

They were right on the other side of the shelf now. Lily held her breath, pressing harder against the wood. One of the bottles started glowing, because of course it did, casting her shadow on the floor like a beacon.

"What's that light?" Rookwood asked.

"Probably the Essence of Insomnia," Bronwyn said. "It does that when it senses someone who should be sleeping."

"It's two in the afternoon."

They moved past, and Lily allowed herself to breathe. Very quietly. Through her nose. The air tasted of dust and old magic and her own fear-sweat.

"Where's the Evans girl anyway?" Rookwood continued. "Wasn't she supposed to be sorting?"

"Probably lost," the third figure said. "This place eats interns. Remember that Hufflepuff who wandered into the Time Room?"

"Still technically hasn't been born yet," Bronwyn said. "Very awkward for his parents."

"Speaking of awkward," the third figure said, and their voice had gone sly, "what's this I hear about you spending time at the Black summer house, Rookwood?"

There was a pause.

"I don't see how that's relevant," Rookwood said, his voice gone colder.

"Just seems unlike you. All those politics and parties. Weren't you the one who said pure-blood gatherings were, what was it, 'breeding exhibitions for the terminally inbred'?"

"That was before I realised the value of connections."

"Connections." The third figure made the word sound dirty. "Is that what we're calling it now?"

"What are you implying?" Dangerous now. The kind of tone that preceded curses in the corridors at school.

"Nothing at all. Just noting that you've been spending a lot of time with people who have very specific ideas about the future of wizarding society. The kind of ideas that involve..." They paused. "Let's say restructuring."

"Every political movement involves restructuring," Rookwood said smoothly. "That's rather the point of politics."

"Some restructuring more than others," Bronwyn said quietly. She'd been silent during the exchange, but now her voice cut through like a blade.

Another pause. Longer this time. Lily found herself holding her breath again, not from fear of discovery but because the air had gone thick with something else. Something that felt like the moment before a storm.

"My personal associations," Rookwood said finally, "are exactly that. Personal."

They were near her vial station now. Lily watched Rookwood scan the sorted piles, his fingers trailing along the reject pile like a pianist considering which keys to press. Her broken vials, the ones she'd tried to fix with Sellotape and glue when no one was looking because she couldn't bear to throw away more evidence of her incompetence. The glue had yellowed already, making them look diseased.

"Shoddy work," Rookwood murmured, picking up one of her disasters. The vial had a crack running from rim to base, barely held together with glue that was already yellowing.

"Leave it," the third one said, but he was examining something in another box, not looking. Something that chinked like chains made of glass.

Lily watched Rookwood palm the broken vial, smooth as a card sharp, and slip it into his pocket. The movement was so quick she almost thought she'd imagined it. But no, she could see the slight bulge in his expensive robes where the vial rested. Why would anyone steal a broken vial? They were literally worthless, headed for the bin. Unless...

Unless you needed something that looked innocent. Something no one would miss or question. Something you could claim you'd found anywhere if someone asked why you had it. Something perfect for smuggling. But smuggling what? The vial was empty, had always been empty. She'd checked it herself this morning, held it to the light, seen nothing but glass and that damning crack.

He turned then, and their eyes met through the gap in the shelves.

His eyes were dark brown, almost black in the blue light, and completely unsurprised. His expression didn't change. No shock, no anger. Just a slight raise of one eyebrow.

He knew she was there. Had probably known the whole time.

She could call out, reveal herself, admit she'd been hiding like a child. Admit she'd been sneaking back to the mirror instead of working. Admit she was exactly the disappointment he'd already decided she was. Or she could stay silent, pretend she hadn't seen him pocket that vial, become complicit in whatever small strange crime this was.

Are you going to say something? his look had said.

Then he turned away, casual as anything.

"Nothing useful here," he said to the third one. "We'll have to request new ones from Manufacturing."

"Bloody inconvenient." The third one was still rummaging through boxes. "That'll take weeks. Blackstone will have our heads."

Lily stayed frozen for another five minutes, her legs screaming, her heart still racing. When she finally crawled out from her hiding spot, her knees nearly buckled. Her left foot had gone completely dead, and she had to lean against the shelf, waiting for feeling to return in explosive pins and needles that made her eyes water..

The broken vial's absence stared at her from the reject pile. Such a small thing to disappear. Such a small thing to matter. But small things had a way of becoming big things in places like this. A crack in glass could become a shattered window. A stolen vial could becomewhat?

"Right then," the severe witch from the Department of Mysteries foreroom announced at half past three, materializing in the storage room like smoke. "Friday early closing. Ministry tradition. Off you go."

"But it's only-“

"Out." The witch's tone brooked no argument. "The Department needs its solitude to... recalibrate."

Whatever that meant. Lily didn't ask. She'd learned that questions in the Department of Mysteries led to answers that made less sense than ignorance.

She found Severus already waiting in the atrium for her.

"Thrittle woke up long enough to dismiss me," he said. "Apparently even he observes Friday early closing."

"Diagon Alley?" Severus suggested as they emerged into the afternoon sunlight. London in July was sweltering, the heat rising from the pavement in visible waves. "I need more quills."

"You always need more quills." But she fell into step beside him, grateful for anything that didn't involve going home yet and leaving her to ponder about stolen glass vials. The afternoon stretched ahead, empty and full of possibility. Her mother wouldn't be home until late, Friday meant drinking with the regulars, coming home glazed and sentimental, talking to herself.

The Leaky Cauldron was already filling with the Friday crowd, wizards loosening their robes, witches kicking off uncomfortable shoes under tables. The air was thick with pipe smoke and the smell of cooking meat, Tom's famous steak and kidney pie, probably, though famous was generous. Tom the barman barely glanced at them as they passed through to the back courtyard.

Diagon Alley on a Friday afternoon was chaos. The Hogwarts letters had gone out earlier that week, and the street teemed with families doing their school shopping. Lily watched a harried-looking mother dragging twin boys away from Quality Quidditch Supplies while they wailed about needing new brooms. Their robes were pristine, tailored, the kind that cost more than her entire school shopping budget. The mother's voice was crisp, educated, the kind of accent Lily’s mother had tried her best to make her put on, which Lily thought made her sound like she was taking the piss.

It was the two sisters outside Flourish and Blotts that stopped her cold.

They were obviously Muggleborn, the parents stood slightly apart, that particular combination of proud and bewildered and clothes in muggle clothes them in Diagon Alley. The father kept taking photos with a camera that would never work here, the magic would fog all the film, but no one had told him. The mother clutched her handbag like it might fly away, eyes darting between the floating books in the shop window and her daughters.

But the sisters themselves were bent over a booklist together, the older one pointing out which books were essential and which the younger could borrow. The younger girl, first year, had to be, that unmistakable shine of someone about to start Hogwarts, hung on every word, eyes bright with hero worship.

"You can have my copy of Bathilda Bagshot," the older one was saying. "It's got notes in the margins that'll help with Binns's essays. He uses the same questions every year."

"But won't you need it?"

"Nah, it’s no use. Going to fail History no matter what.”

That should have been us, Lily thought, and the wanting hit her so hard she almost had to catch herself against a lamppost. The metal was warm under her palm, almost fevered in the July heat, and for a moment she was back in the mirror, watching Petunia in Ravenclaw blue, laughing at something Lily had said, their parents whole and proud behind them.

She could feel it so viscerally it was like losing them all over again, the sister she should have had, the one who would've helped her pick out robes, who would've explained about not using Muggle cameras, who would've shared the wonder instead of hating her for it. They could've been those sisters, comparing notes, sharing books, protecting each other from the strangeness of straddling two worlds.

"You alright?" Severus asked, following her gaze. His expression darkened when he saw what she was looking at, that particular tightness around his eyes that meant he was about to say something cutting. "Come on."

"Lily." Severus' hand on her elbow, gentle but insistent. "Don't torture yourself."

"They get to have each other," she said, hating how her voice cracked. "They get to share this."

She let him lead her away, but the image stayed burned behind her eyelids. They wandered without purpose, or at least without any purpose Lily could identify. Severus had his hunting look, the one that meant he was searching for something specific, but he bought his quills without much examination, barely haggling with the shopkeeper. Black raven feathers, because of course they were.

She found herself drawn to the cheaper shops, the ones down the side alleys where the paint was peeling and the shop windows were clouded with grime. Places that sold nearly-expired potion ingredients and second-hand spell books with suspicious stains. This was where people like them shopped, she and Severus, picking through the remnants of other people's magical lives.

It was in Dealus and Barges that she saw it. The teapot sat on a dusty shelf between a dancing tea spoon and teacup. It was nothing special to look at, white china with painted violets, the kind of thing you'd find in any Muggle shop, maybe even a charity shop. The violets were hand-painted, she could see the brushstrokes, slightly uneven like someone had done it at home. It looked like something someone's grandmother might own, probably did own once.

But when she picked it up, it began to play.

Not sing, exactly, but play music. Tinny and sweet, like a music box, the melody something between a waltz and a lullaby. The notes seemed to come from inside the china itself, resonating through the porcelain. The violets on the china seemed to sway slightly with the rhythm, though that might have been her imagination.

Lily clutched it tighter. An idea was forming, stupid and desperate and absolutely necessary. Petunia loved tea. Properly loved it, the way other people loved chocolate or firewhisky. She had collected teapots, for as long as Lily remembered, maybe she still did and they stood in neat rows in her apartment in Surrey where she lived now. Lily had never been there, never been invited, never been allowed.

And here was a magical teapot that didn't require magic to use. That would work for anyone, witch or Muggle. A piece of Lily's world that Petunia could have without being magical herself. A peace offering. An apology. A desperate attempt to say “I still want to be your sister” in china and melody.

The weight of it in her hands was perfect, somehow. Not too heavy, not too light, just substantial enough to feel real. The handle fit her grip like it had been waiting for her. Which was mad, absolutely mad, but she couldn't shake the feeling that this teapot was meant to be held by her, meant to be given by her, meant to bridge the gap between worlds.

"Sonic Teapot," the shop assistant said, appearing at her elbow like he'd been summoned. "Plays different tunes depending on what tea you brew. Earl Grey gets you a waltz, English Breakfast is more of a march, chamomile's a lullaby and when you’re not brewing tea it’s-“

"How much?" Lily interrupted, already knowing she couldn't afford it but unable to put it down. The teapot continued its melody, shifting now to something that sounded like a sea shanty.

"Fifteen Galleons."

She nearly dropped it. "Fifteen? For a teapot?"

"It's artisan-crafted," the assistant said defensively, clearly used to this reaction. "The charm work alone took weeks. And it's self-heating, never over-steeps, and can hold up to a gallon of tea under expansion charms."

"I don't have fifteen Galleons." She had exactly eight Galleons, two Sickles, and seven Knuts to last until her next Ministry payment in two weeks.

"Then perhaps you should put it down," the assistant suggested, reaching for it.

"Ten Galleons," she said.

“Fine. Twelve.”

“Okay.” She emptied her money pouch on the counter. Then, with as much dignity as she could muster, she pulled off her shoe and retrieved the emergency Galleon, slightly warm and damp from being pressed against her foot all day.

The assistant looked disgusted. "That's nine Galleons."

"Sev," she said, not looking at him. She could feel his disapproval radiating like heat, knew exactly what expression he was wearing without having to see it.

"Absolutely not." His voice was flat. "I'm not spending three Galleons on a singing teapot for your sister who will hate it.”

"Please," Lily said quietly, turning to look at Severus properly. "I'll pay you back."

"This is idiotic," he muttered, but he was already pulling out three Galleons. His money pouch was as sad as hers, she noticed. Three Galleons was probably all he had. "She won't want it. She won't want anything from you."

The words stung, but the teapot was humming in her hands, playing something that sounded like hope.

"Wrap it up," Lily told the assistant, ignoring Severus.

"That's extra," the assistant said, vindictive now. "Two Sickles for wrapping."

"Forget it." She grabbed the teapot, cradling it against her chest.

They emerged onto the street, Lily clutching her ridiculous purchase, Severus radiating disapproval.

"I need to see her," Lily said suddenly. The words came out rushed, desperate, pulled from somewhere deeper than thought. "Now. Today. I need to give this to her."

“Is she even still living in London?” Severus' voice was carefully patient, the tone you'd use with someone potentially hysterical.

"No, she's working. She got a job at Grunnings a few months ago. In Guildford.” She'd overheard her mother on the phone, wine-loose and indiscreet, telling someone (Sandra? Maureen?) about how well Petunia was doing, how professional, how normal. Her mother had been standing in the kitchen, thinking Lily was upstairs, speaking loud enough that she couldn't not hear. Maybe on purpose. Maybe wanting Lily to know that one daughter, at least, was succeeding at something. "They make drills."

"Drills," Severus repeated flatly. "Your sister is working at a drill factory."

"It's an office job." The need to see her sister was like a hook in her chest, pulling. She could feel it, physical and urgent, the way she'd felt pulled to the mirror yesterday.

"Come with me."

"To Surrey? To see Petunia? Have you been Confunded?"

"Please." She was already walking toward the Leaky Cauldron, toward London proper, toward regular trains and the regular world where her sister was doing her regular job. The teapot played something urgent against her chest. "I can't explain it, I just... I need to try."

One more try, she thought.

But even as she thought it, she knew it was a lie. She'd never stop trying to reach Petunia, just like she'd never stop wanting Severus to look at her the way she wanted him to. Some hungers were too deep to starve.

He followed, because he always did, even when she was being stupid. Especially when she was being stupid. She could hear him muttering under his breath, probably calculating how many potion ingredients three Galleons could have bought.

The Victoria line platform was packed with the Friday exodus, everyone eager to escape London for their suburban paradises. Or suburban purgatories, depending on your perspective. The heat underground was worse than above, trapped and thick with the smell of too many bodies. Someone had been sick near the stairs, she could smell it, sweet and sour, making her stomach turn.

The train to Surrey was a commuter special, full of men in identical suits reading identical newspapers. They found seats in the corner, trying to be invisible as best as possible in robes, but the teapot had other ideas.

It started as a hum, barely audible over the train noise. Then it grew, the melody becoming clearer, sweeter. Some kind of Renaissance dance, maybe, or a folk song from a country that had never existed. People started looking around, trying to identify the source. A man across from them lowered his Times, peering over his glasses.

"Radio," Lily said loudly. “In the teapot. New Japanese model. Very small."

The man humphed and returned to his paper, but others were still staring. A mother pulled her child closer, as if weird music might be contagious. The teapot, as if sensing an audience, shifted into what sounded like a jazz number, syncopated and rebellious.

"Make it stop," Severus hissed.

"I don't know how!" She tried covering it with her robes and stabbing it with her wand that she hid with her sleeve, but that just muffled the sound, making it eerier. Like something was trying to sing its way out of her chest. "Maybe if I-“ She shook it gently. The music changed to what might have been a funeral march.

"Brilliant," Severus said. "Much better."

An old woman across the aisle was openly staring now, her knitting forgotten in her lap. She had the look of someone who'd lived through the war, who'd seen stranger things than singing teapots. But still.

By the time they reached Surrey, the entire carriage was pretending very hard not to notice the girl in strange clothes with the possessed teapot. The businessman nearest them had actually constructed a wall of newspaper, holding his Times so high his arms must have been aching.

Grunnings was exactly what Lily had expected, a grey building that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated joy. Square and functional, with windows that reflected the sky without revealing anything inside. The car park was full of identical cars in varying shades of beige and brown. Ford Cortinas and Austin Allegros, the vehicles of middle management and modest ambition. Even the air felt beige, filtered through some invisible suburban field that leached out anything interesting.

This was Petunia's world now.

"I'll wait here," Severus said, stopping at the entrance. He looked even more out of place than usual, his black robes like a raven among pigeons. "Tuney sees me, she'll just-“

"I know." They both remembered the Christmas dinner where Petunia had called him a greasy freak and he'd made her teacup explode. Not their finest moment. Though to be fair, she'd started it by suggesting his mother had run off because she couldn't stand looking at him anymore.

The receptionist was everything Petunia aspired to be, neat, pretty in that conventional way that meant nothing and everything. Blonde hair in a perfect flip, nails painted the exact shade of pink that matched her lipstick.

"Can I... help you?" She asked looking up from her crossword.

Lily put on her brightest smile, the one that usually worked on adults. The one that had got her out of trouble more times than she could count. "Hello! I'm Petunia Evans's sister. I've come to surprise her. I've brought her a present because I haven't seen her in ages and I miss her terribly and it's Friday and I thought wouldn't it be nice to surprise her-“

The receptionist's expression shifted from hostile to confused. Her penciled eyebrows drew together, creating a deep furrow. "Petunia has a sister?"

"Yes! Me. Lily. Lily Evans. We don't see each other much… I’m away at school… boarding school… in Scotland… very reclusive… hardly ever home… but I'm in the area and thought…”

The words tumbled out, too fast, too many. She could hear herself babbling but couldn't stop too caught up in just moving her mouth.

"Right." The receptionist cut her off, looking slightly stunned by the verbal onslaught. The teapot chose that moment to switch to what sounded like a Victorian music hall number, all tinkling piano and implied bawdiness.

The receptionist stared. "Is that... is your tea pot singing?"

“Yes!” Lily said brightly before thinking. “I mean no. It isn’t. It’s a radio”

"Right," the receptionist said again, clearly deciding this was above her pay grade. "Follow me."

The receptionist stood as far from her as the lift allowed, which wasn't far. The lift rose slowly, incrementally, past floors of aggressive normality.

Fifth floor. Clerical. The doors opened onto an open-plan office that smelled of typewriter ribbon and disappointment. Rows of desks, each with its own identical lamp, identical chair, identical person bent over identical work. The sound of typing was like rain, constant and rhythmic. The fluorescent lights hummed, casting everything in that particular shade of office pale that made everyone look slightly ill.

This was where Petunia spent her days. By choice.

"PETUNIA EVANS?" the receptionist called out, apparently having given up on professionalism. "VISITOR!"

Heads turned. A sea of curious faces, and then, at a desk by the window, Petunia.

She was wearing a twinset. Pale pink, with pearls, fake, but good fakes, the kind you had to look closely to know weren't real. Her hair was pinned back in a style that added five years to her age, deliberately mature. She looked perfect. Normal. Everything she'd always wanted to be.

Seeing her happened in stages, Lily could see each one. First: recognition, immediate and undeniable. Second: shock, the kind that made her face go white under her carefully applied powder. Third: a quick glance around at her colleagues, calculating the damage. Fourth: decision.

She walked over slowly, like she was approaching an unexploded bomb. Which, Lily supposed, she was.

"Hello," the receptionist said to Petunia, clearly enjoying the drama now. "This young lady says she's your sister?"

Petunia looked at Lily. Then she looked at her colleagues, all watching with the kind of interest usually reserved for traffic accidents.

"I don't have a sister," Petunia said clearly.

Lily's hands trembled around the teapot. She actually stepped back, the teapot's music turning discordant, like someone had dropped it down stairs.

"Tuney-“ The childhood nickname came out cracked, desperate.

"I don't know this person," Petunia continued, addressing the receptionist. "I'd like her removed, please."

"Tuney, please, I just wanted-“ Wanted what? To give you a singing teapot? To pretend we could still be sisters? To force you to acknowledge me in front of all these normal people with their normal lives?

"Security," Petunia said, and walked back to her desk.

She sat down, picked up her pen, and began writing like Lily had already vanished. Her hand was steady now, forming perfect letters on whatever form she was filling out. The set of her shoulders said this interruption was already forgotten, already erased, like Lily herself.

Lily looked back at her sister one last time and saw a thick-necked and bellied man in a decent suit moving toward Petunia's desk, his hand going immediately to her back in small, practiced circles. Petunia leaned into the touch without looking up, accepting this stranger's comfort with the ease of long familiarity, and Lily understood with perfect clarity that her sister had built a whole life, a whole world, that had no space for her in it.

Around them, the office slowly returned to its typing, but Lily could feel the weight of continued attention. This would be gossip for weeks. “Did you hear about Evans? Some nutter claimed to be her sister. Probably on drugs.”

The receptionist looked between them, clearly out of her depth. "Perhaps you should-“

"I'll go," Lily whispered.

The journey back down with the lift felt endless. Every mirror showed her what Petunia had seen, a freak in fancy dress, disrupting the normal world with her abnormality. Her reflection multiplied into infinity, each one slightly wrong, slightly worse. The receptionist walked her all the way to the door, probably to make sure she actually left.

Outside, the July heat hit her like a wall. The teapot was heavy in her arms, dead weight now, its music silenced.

Severus was sitting on a bench outside, looking miserable in the sun.

He didn't ask what happened. Didn't say "I told you so." Just stood up and started walking toward the train station. After a moment, Lily followed.

The train back to London was a different animal than the commuter special. This was the slow service, stopping at every godforsaken platform between Surrey and Liverpool, Esher, Hersham, Walton-on-Thames, stations that sounded like places where nothing had ever happened and nothing ever would. The carriage smelled of chips and stale beer, someone's Friday night had started early. A group of lads at the far end were passing around a bottle in a paper bag, their laughter giving her a headache.

The teapot hadn't stopped playing. It had cycled through what might have been a military march, a sailor's hornpipe, and now something that sounded suspiciously like a funeral dirge played on kazoos. Every note felt like it was drilling into her skull, but worse was the way people kept looking.

"She said she didn't have a sister." The words came out as flat as she could manage. "Not 'I don't know why she's here' or 'She's confused.' She said I don't exist."

Severus shifted beside her, that particular discomfort he got when emotions happened in public. His leg bounced against the seat, nervous energy with nowhere to go.

“Fucking hell, make it stop," he muttered, grabbing the teapot from her lap. His hands were careful at first, turning it over, examining the bottom where faint runes were etched into the china.

"There's got to be-“ He shook it, not gently. The music got louder, more aggressive, like it was fighting back. She could see him reaching for his wand, his hand going automatically to his pocket before he caught himself, glancing around at the Muggles.

An elderly man across the aisle lowered his Evening Standard, peer over his reading glasses with the kind of disapproval that could freeze blood. "Would you mind?"

"Sorry," Severus said, not sounding sorry at all. He pulled his hand away from his pocket, but Lily could see him mouthing what might have been a Silencing Charm, his fingers twitching in the wand movement. Nothing happened, of course. The teapot, as if sensing his attempted magic, launched into what was definitely "God Save the Queen" at double speed.

"For fuck's sake!" The words exploded from him, loud enough that the entire carriage turned to stare.

The teapot switched to bagpipes. Actual bagpipes, somewhere between "Scotland the Brave" and a cat being strangled.

Lily watched him struggle with it, this stupid, expensive piece of china that had cost them their last money.

She grabbed it from Severus' hands. The weight of it, the warmth from where he'd been holding it, the way the violets still swayed despite everything, it was all too much. Too much hope, too much trying, too much of everything that would never work. The teapot was playing what might have been a waltz now, sweet and mocking, like it was dancing on the grave of her relationship with Petunia.

She stood up, swaying with the train's motion. She yanked open the window. It resisted at first, but then gave way with a screech. Hot July air rushed in, carrying the smell of diesel and countryside, hay being cut somewhere, the thick green smell of summer.

"Lily, what are you-“

She threw it. Hard as she could, like she was throwing a ball, like she was throwing away everything stupid and hopeful and pathetic about herself. The teapot flew through the air, still playing, she swore she could hear it, growing fainter, a disappointed soprano, before disappearing into a field of wheat.

“You’re insane.” Severus was on his feet now, staring at the open window. The wind was whipping his hair back, making him look even more dramatic than usual. "That was twelve Galleons! We could've taken it back, could've-“

"I don't care." She slumped back into her seat. The sudden silence felt wrong, like her ears were ringing with phantom music. Her hands were shaking, she noticed. When had that started? "I don't bloody care about the money."

"Easy for you to say when three of those Galleons were mine." His voice was sharp now, properly angry. The kind of angry he usually saved for Potter and Black.

They sat in tense silence as the train pulled into Banbury, neither moving until the last possible moment. Around them, normal people gathered normal things for their normal Friday nights. The lads with their bottle had gotten louder, one of them eyeing Lily in a way that made her pull her robes tighter.

"I wish I'd been born a Muggle."

She said it to the window, to her own reflection superimposed on the darkening countryside. Her ghost-self stared back, transparent and wavering with the train's motion, overlaid on fields that could have been anywhere in middle England. Hedgerows and telephone poles and the occasional cluster of houses sliding past, the ordinary world that Petunia got to inhabit without question.

"Don't say that."

The words came out sharp, almost violent. She felt him shift beside her, the whole bench vibrating with his tension.

"Why not? It's true." She turned to look at him properly. She could see a muscle jumping in his jaw, the one that meant he was biting the inside of his cheek. "If I'd been normal, Tuney wouldn't hate me. And-“ She stopped, swallowed. The words stuck in her throat like fishbones. "Everything would be easier. Better.”

"Everything would be nothing." His voice was low, intense, the way it got when he talked about things that mattered. "You'd be another boring Muggle girl in Cokeworth, working in a shop or a factory. You'd never know there was anything more than that grey, small, pathetic existence."

"Maybe I'd be happier not knowing."

“Don’t say that. You don’t mean it.”

"It's made everything worse," she said instead.

His voice had gone quiet now, but there was something fierce in it, something raw. "It's the only good thing in my life, Lily. The only thing that makes any of it bearable."

The only good thing? The thought hit her like cold water. Not me? Not our friendship? Not six years of summers by the river, sharing everything? But she couldn't ask that, couldn't bear to hear the answer.

She stared at him, this boy she'd loved since she was nine, and realized she wasn't even a footnote in his list of good things. She was what: convenient? A study partner? Someone who happened to be there while he pursued what actually mattered?

The train rattled over points, throwing them slightly sideways. Her shoulder knocked against his, and he immediately shifted away.

"Magic is the only good thing," she repeated, tasting the words, feeling how they cut. "Right. Of course."

He must have heard something in her voice because his expression shifted, became wary. "I didn't mean-“

“Do you think we would have been friends if I had been a muggle?”

"No," he said finally, and the honesty of it was worse than any lie would have been. "I don't think we would have been."

She turned back to the window, not wanting him to see her face. Of course not. What would Severus Snape, desperate for power and recognition, want with a normal girl from the better side of Cokeworth? Without magic, she was just another Petunia: ordinary, unremarkable, beneath notice.

"But that's not-“ he started, then stopped. She could see him in the reflection, struggling with words. "That doesn't mean-”

"It's fine," she said, though it wasn't. Nothing was fine. "At least you're honest."

The train rolled on through the darkness. Past industrial towns that looked like Cokeworth's cousins, all chimneys and terraced houses. Past fields that had probably looked the same for centuries. Past the England that existed beneath the magical one, solid and dull and real.

The rest of the journey passed in exhausted silence. Birmingham New Street was chaos, even at this hour, people heading for night shifts, others ending their weeks with drinks that would lead to regret.

They walked together as far as the corner where their paths split. The street lamp there had been broken for months, leaving a pool of darkness that felt appropriate. Severus paused, looking like he wanted to say something. She could see him working up to it, the way he'd take a breath and then stop, reconsider, start again.

"I didn't mean-“ he started, then stopped. Another stop. Finally: "Magic is the only good thing, but you're... you're part of that. The magical part. Obviously. And if you had been… we would have-“

"Right," she said. "Obviously."

He nodded and walked away toward the gap where Spinner's End existed only for them.

The house was dark when she got home. The stairs creaked under her feet, each sound too loud in the empty house.

She made it to her bed before the tears came.

Not pretty tears, not the kind that slid delicately down cheeks in films. These were ugly, body-shaking sobs that felt like they were being ripped from her chest. She pressed her face into her pillow, trying to muffle the sound even though no one was home to hear.

A sound at the door made her look up through her tears. The cat sat in the doorway, yellow eyes catching the light from the street lamp outside. Its tail twitched once, twice, that particular feline calculation of whether to approach. It had filled out some in the weeks she'd been feeding it, its coat less patchy, but it still looked like what it was, an alley cat playing at being a pet.

"Go away," she told it, her voice thick with tears and snot. "I can't handle being rejected by you too. Not tonight."

The cat tilted its head, as if considering. Its ear, the torn one, flicked at some sound she couldn't hear. She waited for it to turn and leave, to maintain its usual disdain. Instead, it padded into the room, silent on its paws.

It jumped onto the bed with surprising grace for something that had barely been able to stand when she'd first brought it to her dorms. She could feel the mattress dip slightly under its weight-not much, it was still too thin, but more than before.

"I said go away. I don't want to be scratched up and hated by you right now."

But the cat was already settling beside her, a warm weight against her ribs. She could feel its heartbeat, quick and light. When she didn't immediately push it away, it began to purr, that rusty, unpracticed sound, like it was remembering how.

The cat pressed its head against her hand, demanding attention. For the first time since she'd brought it home, it seemed to actually want to be there.

The cat made that crying sound again, pressing closer. Its body was warm against hers, solid and real in a way that nothing else felt anymore. At least something wanted her company, even if it was just a half-feral cat that probably only loved her for the food. She'd take it. She'd take any scrap of affection she could get, because beggars couldn't be choosers, and she was definitely a beggar now.

"At least you came around," she told it, scratching behind its ears where the fur was softest. "Even if nobody else will."

She lay there in the dark with the cat, she should name it, really, but that felt like admitting Severus was never going to take it, and thought about the teapot lying in a wheat field somewhere between Surrey and London. By morning, the dew would get into its workings. The magic would probably fail, leaving it just another piece of broken china. Some farmer would find it during harvest, wonder why anyone would throw away a perfectly good teapot. Or maybe it would be crushed under the combine, ground into the earth, the violets on its surface becoming part of the soil.

Maybe it would keep playing, though. Maybe somewhere in that field, it was still singing its ridiculous songs to the wheat and the crows and the stars. A magical thing in the Muggle world, bridging nothing, connecting no one, just existing in the wrong place like she did.

Chapter Text

The Monday commute to London was its own particular hell.

Lily stood on the platform at New Street Station, watching the 7:23 arrive late again, diesel fumes mixing with the smell of wet wool from all the commuters packed under the inadequate shelter. Rain hammered the corrugated roof, drowning out the tannoy announcements. She'd already been waiting twenty-three minutes, her feet going numb in her cheap shoes that let water in through the split where the sole met the upper.

No Knight Bus for her anymore. That had required wizarding money, and she had exactly none. Zero galleons, zero sickles, just a bent knut or two rattling in her pocket. Her mother had made that clear Sunday evening, counting out the exact change for a week's worth of British Rail tickets with the precision of someone portioning out medicine.

“Two pounds each way," her mother had said, laying the coins in neat stacks on the kitchen table. “Twenty for the week. That's what you get. Not a penny more."

Lily had stared at the meager pile.

"Mum, couldn't you drive me? Just some days? The car's just sitting there-“

Her mother had looked up from her ironing, the steam hissing like something angry. "Drive you? To London? Have you lost your mind completely?"

"Just to Birmingham. I could get the train from there, it would save-“

"Save what? My petrol? My time?" The iron slammed down on one of her work blouses, the polyester fabric flattening under the weight. “I’m not going to chauffeur you about like I'm your personal driver."

Three times. Lily remembered those weeks that easter, her mother coming home from lessons in a terrible mood. The way she'd practiced three-point turns in the Tesco car park on Sundays, gripping the wheel of Dad's old car like she was afraid it would suddenly develop a mind on it’s own and surprise her. She'd never wanted to learn, had been perfectly content with buses and walking. But after the funeral, the car had sat there under its tarpaulin like and something about watching it gather dust had changed her mother's mind.

"Dad would have-“

The words were out before she could stop them. Her mother's face went sour, the iron hovering an inch above the board.

"Your father," her mother said slowly, "isn't here. And if he were, he'd tell you the same thing I'm telling you now. You waste money, you face the consequences."

"I'm not asking for every day, just-“

"You could stay with Petunia." Her mother said. "Her flat's in Surrey. Much closer to London. She might let you have her sofa.”

The words caught in Lily's throat. She couldn't tell her mother that Petunia had her escorted out like she was some mad stranger off the street That particular humiliation was hers alone to carry.

"I'll manage with the train," she'd said instead.

"Course you will," her mother had replied, returning to her ironing.

Now, pressed between a man whose umbrella dripped steadily onto her shoes and a woman eating egg sandwiches at half past seven in the morning, she thought about the Felix Felicis brewing alone in that hidden garden. The next phase required two people, one to lower the temperature while the other had to stir in a sequence so precise that being off by three seconds could ruin everything.

Severus would be trying to do it alone. She could picture him, jaw clenched with concentration, trying to hold his wand steady for the temperature charm while stirring with his other hand. It was possible, technically. Everything was possible if you were desperate enough. But one tremor, one moment's lapse in concentration, and six months of work would be so much expensive slag.

He hadn't asked for help. Hadn't thrown pebbles at her window or come by her house. Nothing. No attempt to contact her beyond that day.

Good. Fine. If he wanted to ruin the potion out of pride, that was his choice. She had her own problems.

Saturday's rain was the miserable sort that couldn't decide between drizzle and downpour, so it did both, alternating without warning. Lily trudged back from the Co-op, her mother's shopping list crumpled in her pocket: white bread (cheapest), margarine (not butter, too dear), eggs (six, check for cracks), milk (one pint, not two). The plastic carrier bag cut into her fingers, the eggs threatening to break through the thin material with every step.

The rain picked up as she turned onto Victoria Road, the narrow street that connected the shops to the residential terraces. It came down properly now, soaking through her jacket in seconds, making the carrier bag slippery in her grip. She shifted it to her other hand, flexing her fingers to get feeling back. The eggs clinked together ominously.

She saw him before he saw her. Black hair plastered to his skull by the rain, his coat not right for the weather, walking with that particular hunch that meant he was protecting something under his jacket.

Their eyes met across the width of Victoria lane.

For three heartbeats that lasted forever, they were the only two people in Cokeworth. She could see everything: the water dripping from his hair into his eyes, the way his fingers tightened on whatever he was carrying, the slight parting of his lips like he was about to speak. She could see the shadows under his eyes, darker than usual, the kind that came from not sleeping for days. Could see a burn on the back of his right hand, the kind you got from a cauldron spitting when the temperature wasn't properly maintained by one person trying to do the work of two.

I should have been there, she thought, and hated herself for thinking it. I should have helped with the potion. But then another voice, harder and hurt: He should have asked.

She looked away first, fixing her gaze on the pavement where oil made rainbow patterns in the puddles. Her shoes splashed through them, ruining the colors. They passed each other without a word, the space between them might as well have been an ocean.

The urge to turn back, to call his name, to say something, anything, was so strong she had to bite her tongue. But what would she say? "I'm sorry"? For which part? For the teapot? For trying to remain in his life when didn’t care for her to?

She didn't look back. Neither did he. She knew because she listened for the sound of his footsteps stopping, but they just continued, steady and sure, until the rain swallowed them completely.

The mattress that he used to sleep on was still in Petunia's old room, still on the bed. The room itself had been turned into storage after she had told her mother that Severus wasn’t staying with them anymore, boxes of Christmas decorations and old clothes neither donated nor discarded.

She dragged it to her room, her mother already at the pub for her Saturday shift. The mattress was more unruly to move than she remembered, or maybe she was just weaker. It took ten minutes of shoving and pulling to get it positioned beside her bed, another five to find sheets that would fit.

When she finally lay down on it, the springs creaked in a pattern she recognized. He'd slept in her room for three weeks, the longest they'd ever spent in constant proximity. She'd gotten used to the sound of his breathing in the dark, the way he muttered in his sleep.

The cat found her there an hour later, arriving with its usual lack of ceremony and a dead sparrow clamped in its jaws. It deposited the bird at the foot of the mattress with something that might have been pride, then sat back to watch her reaction.

"Thank you," she told it, because what else did you say? "That's... very thoughtful."

The cat blinked its yellow eyes slowly, then began licking its paws. The sparrow lay there between them, small and still, its wings spread at wrong angles.

“I can’t eat those,” she told it. The cat paused in its washing to give her a look that suggested otherwise, then returned to cleaning between its toes.

Three dead birds this week. She couldn't bring herself to vanish them, felt wrong somehow, disrespectful to both the cat’s gift and the sparrow's small death. She wrapped each one in kitchen roll and buried them along the back fence, where the bindweed grew thick enough to hide the disturbed earth. She'd even found herself making little markers from lolly sticks saved from the few times she'd treated herself to a Zoom or a Fab, eating them out of boredom rather than want, writing the date on the sticks in pencil that would fade by next week.

She'd have to deal with the sparrow before her mother came home, but for now she just lay there, on Severus' mattress, watching the cat clean blood from its claws.

Wednesday night, or technically Thursday morning, 2:47 AM according to her alarm clock, she woke to a sound that made her heart slam against her ribs.

Pebbles against glass. That specific rhythm: two quick taps, pause, three more.

She was at the window before fully awake, hands fumbling with the latch, her breath fogging the glass. The streetlamp had been repaired last week, casting its orange sodium glare over the empty road. She could see everything clearly: the pavement still wet from earlier rain, the bins lined up for tomorrow's collection, Mrs. Perkins' cat and maybe her own stalking something in the hedge.

No one there.

She pressed her forehead against the cold glass, her rapid breath fogging it up again immediately. Had she dreamed it? But no, she could still hear the echo of it, that particular sound that meant "I need you" or "come see this" or sometimes just "I'm here."

A movement caught her eye. Just the wind picking up a carrier bag, sending it dancing down the street like a ghost. But for a moment, just a moment, she could have sworn she saw a figure at the corner, tall and thin and dark, shoulders hunched against more than the cold.

She grabbed her jumper, not bothering with shoes, and crept downstairs. The front door opened with its familiar creak, and then she was outside, the pavement cold and wet under her bare feet.

"Sev?" She whispered it into the darkness, feeling foolish but unable to stop herself. "Severus?"

Nothing. She walked to the corner where she thought she'd seen the figure, her feet already numb. There was nothing there except a puddle reflecting the streetlight, and in it, a distortion that might have been a footprint or might have been nothing at all.

By the time she'd made it back to the house, her feet were so cold they burned. She left wet footprints all the way up the stairs, evidence of her pathetic midnight wandering that she'd have to clean before her mother woke.

She stayed at the window until her legs cramped from standing, watching nothing happen over and over again. The cat found her there when the sky started going grey at the edges, dawn creeping in like a guilty thing. It wound around her ankles, and she realized she was crying only when a tear dropped onto its head, making its ear twitch.

"He's not coming," she told the cat.

Thursday morning, and Lily stood in the Department of Mysteries' storage room, counting down her final three days like a prisoner marking time. The blue flames had stopped bothering her eyes somewhere around day ten, and now everything in the real world looked wrong, too bright, too warm, too alive.

She'd given up pretending to sort properly. The crystalized memories went into boxes based on nothing more than instinct and exhaustion. This one felt like regret, that one like false hope. Into their boxes they went, labeled with her increasingly sloppy handwriting that Bronwyn would probably make her redo tomorrow.

“Miss Evans."

She didn't jump, had learned not to show surprise in this place where surprises were common, but her spine straightened involuntarily.

"Mr. Rookwood." She kept her voice neutral, professional.

"Augustus, please." His smile was the practiced kind, all surface. "I hear you're considering joining our department permanently."

"I'm considering many things,” she said. “The year before the OWLs tends to require that."

"Indeed." He moved closer. "I wonder if you'd be interested in meeting some people. Connections of mine. They're always interested in talented young wizards and witches.”

"What kind of connections?"

"The kind that matter,” he told her. “Small private gathering, next Tuesday. Nothing formal. Just interesting people having interesting conversations about the future of magical Britain."

She should say no. But then she thought of the train journey that morning, counting scraping together change for her ticket. Thought of Severus walking past her like he didn’t know her. Thought of Petunia's "I don't have a sister." Thought of her mother at the kitchen table with that expression of perpetual disappointment.

What was left to lose? She'd already bet everything on being loved and lost every hand. Maybe it was time to play a different game entirely with a new hand.

"Yes," she said, pocketing the card before she could reconsider. "I'll come."

His smile widened, showing too many teeth. "Excellent.”

He was gone before she could ask who exactly those connections were, leaving her with her own growing certainty that she'd just made either the best or worst decision of her life.

The storage room felt smaller after he left, the blue flames pressing closer, making shadows dance in the corners where things that shouldn't move sometimes did. She returned to her sorting, but her hands moved without her brain's involvement, mechanically placing memories into boxes while her thoughts churned.

That's when the knowledge that it was there just waiting for her snuck upon her again, beckoning her to make another visit.

The mirror was free of its shroud, the white sheet twisted on the floor as if someone had torn it away in desperation.

Someone had been here. Someone had looked.

Her reflection assembled itself as she approached: damaged shoes, shapeless robes, and a face that had forgotten what proper sleep looked like.

But this time, it showed her nothing but truth. Just Lily Evans, sixteen and alone, surrounded by artifacts that would outlive her by centuries.

"You're cruel," she told it, her voice echoing in the empty room. "Showing me lies, then showing me truth. Which is worse?"

The mirror didn't answer. Mirrors never did.

The thought came unbidden and violent: break it. Shatter this thing that had stolen fifteen hours of her life, that had shown her everything she couldn't have wrapped in golden light. If she couldn't have those dreams, why should anyone else?

She pulled out her wand and before she could reconsider, before her brain could supply all the reasons this was stupid and dangerous and very much forbidden, she fired a Reducto at the glass.

The spell hit dead center. The mirror exploded in a shower of silver-gold fragments, each shard singing a different note as it flew. For one glorious second, she felt the satisfaction of destruction, of taking something whole and unmaking it.

Then the pieces stopped mid-air.

They hung there, a constellation of fractured glass, each piece rotating slowly like they were considering their options. She could see herself reflected in every shard, an eye here, a portion of mouth there, her hand holding her wand dismembered across a hundred angles.

The fragments began to move. Not falling, but flowing, pulled by some force that had nothing to do with gravity. They spiraled back toward the frame, a reversed explosion, each piece finding its home with a soft chiming sound.

Within seconds, the mirror stood whole again, showing her again what could never be.

"Can't even break things properly," she said to herself.

She pulled the sheet back over it, her hands smoothing it down.

Friday morning arrived like an unwanted relative, too early and demanding attention. Lily woke to her alarm at six, the mechanical ringing drilling into her skull, and reached out to slam it quiet. Her hand hit something else first: smooth glass, cool to the touch, definitely not there when she'd gone to bed.

She sat up, blinking in the grey pre-dawn light filtering through her curtains. On her nightstand, where last night there'd been nothing but the alarm clock and a glass of water, sat a crystal vial no bigger than her thumb. The liquid inside caught what little light there was, turning it gold, making it seem like she'd trapped a piece of sun.

Felix Felicis.

Her heart did something complicated in her chest, part leap, part plummet. She knew without questioning that it was the real thing: six months of work reduced to this single dose, it’s twin probably still with Severus if he had not sold it yet.

There was a note beneath the vial, his handwriting cramped and careful: ”Use it wisely.”

That was all. No "I'm sorry we haven't talked in two weeks" or "I needed your help after all" or "This is my way of saying goodbye."

She held the vial up to the growing light. They'd brewed this together, every dawn meeting, every precise measurement, every held breath as they waited to see if they'd ruined it. Six months of working side by side, and now she held twelve hours of perfect luck in her hands, according to the texts. Twelve hours of everything going right.

She pulled out the stopper. It came free with a soft pop that seemed too loud in the morning quiet. The smell hit her immediately: peppermint and something metallic, like clean coins, and underneath that something that reminded her of the first day of term, all possibility and fresh parchment.

“Use it wisely.”

She should save it. Should keep it for something important, N.E.W.T.s or a job interview or some crucial moment that hadn't arrived yet. That would be the wise thing.

Instead, she knocked it back, the whole vial in one go.

It tasted like nothing and went down easy, no burn, no aftertaste, just a spreading warmth that started in her chest and radiated outward.

Then... nothing.

She sat there for a full minute, waiting to feel different. Lucky. Special. Something. But she just felt like herself: tired, heart-sore, facing another day of spending her time in a storage room in the bowels of the ministry.

"Brilliant," she told the empty vial. "It's probably gone off."

Or Severus had ruined it trying to finish it alone. The temperature control in the final stages needed to be held absolutely steady while adding the last ingredients. One tremor, one degree of variation, and you'd have very expensive nothing.

Or maybe she'd ruined it, one of those early mornings when she'd been distracted by how his hair fell across his face when he concentrated, stirring three times counterclockwise instead of clockwise. Such a small mistake.

She got dressed quickly the plum robes again for her last day, presentable but forgettable. Her hair refused to cooperate, frizzing despite her attempts to charm it smooth. So much for liquid luck.

Her mother was in the kitchen, dressed for her morning shift at the salon. The morning news on the radio, talking about the marathon of rain finally stopping, chance of a heatwave rising.

Lily stood in the doorway, watching her mother's back, the set of her shoulders that said she was tired before the day had even started. She thought about all the mornings they'd moved around each other like ghosts, all the words they didn't say, all the distance that had grown between them since magic entered their lives.

Her body was moving again without her permission. Three steps across the worn lino, arms going around her mother's waist from behind, her face pressing into the space between her shoulder blades that smelled of Yardley's lavender water and the chips from last night's dinner.

"I love you, Mum."

The words came out without planning, without thought, pulled from somewhere deep inside of her.

"Lily?" Her voice was strange, uncertain. "What's brought this on?"

"Nothing. I just... I wanted you to know."

Her mother turned in her arms, and Lily saw her face properly for the first time in weeks. Really saw it. How thin she had since she had last seen her on Christmas. The grey threading through her hair that she'd stopped bothering to dye. The way her mouth had forgotten how to smile.

"Love you too, you daft thing." Her mother's voice was rough, and her eyes were bright, too bright. "Always have, even when you drive me up the wall."

She pulled Lily close, properly close, the kind of hug they hadn't shared since that terrible day when she was nine years old. Lily could feel her mother trembling slightly, could hear her breathing catch.

When they pulled apart, her mother's eyes were definitely wet. She swiped at them with the back of her hand, pretending it was nothing.

"Good luck today," her mother said, straightening Lily's collar with hands that shook slightly. "Your last day at that place, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Good luck," she said again, like the words meant more than they should.

Lily stumbled out of the kitchen, her chest too tight, her throat closing around words she didn't understand. Why had she done that? She never hugged her mother anymore, but her body had done it anyway, like it knew something her mind didn't.

The front door closed behind her with a final sound, and she was halfway down the street before she realized she'd forgotten her lunch money. Her stomach would be screaming by noon, but she couldn't go back.

She'd made it three streets over, practically jogging to make the 7:23, when the first twinge hit. A sharp pinch at her little toe, familiar and horrible. She looked down, still walking, and her stomach dropped.

The black pumps. Her mother's gift shoes. The ones that had left her avoiding walking after she had tried to break them in.

"No, no, no-“ She actually stopped dead in the middle of the pavement, staring at her feet like they'd betrayed her. Which they had. Or her hands had, when they'd reached for these instruments of torture instead of her comfortable ones.

A man behind her tutted loudly, having to step around her. "Some of us have jobs to get to, love."

She started walking again, but every step confirmed the disaster. The left shoe was already cutting into her heel, that special spot where she'd had a blister before, where the skin was still tender. The right one was somehow both too tight across the toes and too loose at the ankle, a combination that defied physics but achieved maximum discomfort.

Why had she put them on?

Perfect.

The bus came to a stop at New Street, and she joined the stream of commuters heading for their various purgatories. Her feet screamed with every step, the shoes like vices, and she had eight more hours to survive in them.

Liquid luck. What a joke.

The lift doors closed with their usual grinding reluctance, and Lily slumped against the back wall, her feet screaming in the patent leather torture devices. The indignity of having to flush herself into the ministry had already out her in a bad mood no need for anything else to go wrong. The brass was cool through her robes, a small mercy. She stood there, waiting, while the lift... did nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

"Bollocks," she muttered, realizing she hadn't pressed a button. Any button.

Before she could reach for Level Nine, the lift lurched upward. Someone else had called it. Of course. The Felix Felicis was really working overtime.

The doors opened at Level Two. A young wizard with violently red hair stepped in, cradling something yellow in his hands like it was precious. He had the kind of eager face that probably got him in trouble, all freckles and enthusiasm. His robes were shabby but clean and patched at the elbows.

"Morning!" he said cheerfully, then looked down at his hands with pure delight. "Sorry, just… look at this little fellow!"

It was a rubber duck. A perfectly ordinary rubber duck, the kind you'd get at Woolworths for fifty pence. This grown man in Ministry robes was holding it like he'd discovered buried treasure.

"That's..." Lily paused, her brain trying to process this. "You've brought a rubber duck to the Ministry of Magic."

"Found it!" His whole face lit up. "In a box of confiscated items from a raid. Can you imagine? Been trying to figure out what it's called all morning. Rubber duck, you said?" He turned it over in his hands, examining it from every angle. "Fascinating. And the function? What exactly is the purpose of a rubber duck?"

The lift had started moving again, down, thankfully, while Lily stared at this man who apparently needed the purpose of a rubber duck explained to him. The patent leather was cutting into her heels with each slight shift of weight.

"It's... you put it in the bath," she said slowly, like explaining to a child.

"The bath!" He was practically vibrating with excitement now. "But why? Does it help with cleaning? Is it a measuring device? Some sort of temperature gauge?"

"It... floats." The words came out uncertain. How did you explain play to someone who'd never seen it? How did you explain something pointless but joyful?

"Just for fun. Nothing else?"

"It squeaks if you squeeze it," she offered, then wondered why she was having this conversation. The lift display showed Level Seven, then Six. She needed to press Nine, needed to get to her misery and her pretense of working.

"Level Nine," the cool voice announced.

"This is me," Lily said, grateful for the escape.

She stepped out before he could respond, but heard him as the doors closed: "Wait until I tell Molly-“

The morning slipped away in a haze of blue light and other people's memories, none of them as vivid as her own growing certainty that accepting Rookwood's invitation had been spectacularly stupid.

The Ministry Atrium at noon was a study in organized chaos. Lily stood near the Fountain of Magical Brethren, trying to look like she belonged there rather than like someone waiting to be collected. The golden statues gleamed in the enchanted sunlight: witch, wizard, centaur, goblin, and house-elf, all gazing adoringly at the magical humans. She'd never noticed before how the goblin's expression looked more like a grimace if you caught it at the right angle.

She shifted her weight, her feet screaming in the awful shoes. Why had she worn them? Every step from the lift had been agony, but somehow she'd made it without limping too obviously. Around her, Ministry workers flowed past on their lunch breaks, conversations about reports and regulations mixing with the splash of water from the fountain.

Her stomach was eating itself. She'd forgotten her lunch money in the morning's strange confusion, and breakfast felt like something from another lifetime. The Felix Felicis, if it was even working, hadn't seen fit to manifest a sandwich.

“Stop it”, she told herself. “You've done this before.”

And she had, hadn't she? Since first year, Slughorn had been parading her in front of his collection of important people. Ministers and authors and Quidditch stars, all of them trying their best to show polite interest in her at Slughorn's behest.

"My dear friends, this is Lily Evans," Slughorn would say, one hand on her shoulder, so proud of her. "Muggle-born, you know, but you'd never guess it! Natural talent like I've rarely seen! And oh so charming and witty!”

And she'd smile and curtsey (she'd actually curtsied that first time, God help her) and answer their questions about how marvelous it must be to discover magic, how grateful she must feel for the opportunity that the magical world presented to a person like her.

She could do this. Whatever Rookwood's connections were, they couldn't be worse than that ancient wizard from the Wizengamot who'd spent an entire dinner explaining why Muggle-borns had thinner blood that made them more susceptible to curses.

A memo airplane dove at her head. She ducked instinctively, and it soared past to crash into the fountain with a small splash. Nobody else seemed to notice. Lucky, that. If it had hit her, she'd have looked like an idiot.

“Miss Evans."

She spun. Rookwood stood behind her.

"Mr. Rookwood. I was starting to think-“

"That I'd forgotten?" His smile was all teeth, no warmth. "Hardly. I was merely ensuring our lunch venue was... properly chosen.”

"Shall we?" He gestured toward the exit that had just appeared.

Diagon Alley at noon was chaos. The lunch crowd mixed with the ongoing Hogwarts shopping, creating a river of pointed hats and shopping bags that Rookwood navigated with irritating ease while Lily just followed and tried to not get lost in the crowd. She kept having to dodge around harried parents and excited children, nearly colliding with a witch carrying a tower of cauldrons that defied several laws of physics.

"Keep up. He doesn’t take kindly to lateness,“ Rookwood called back.

He turned sharply at Gringotts, leading her down a side street she'd never noticed before despite coming to Diagon Alley for four years. How had she missed it? The entrance was right there, between the quality quill shop and the place that sold silver instruments, but her eyes had always slid past it like water off glass. The noise of the alley faded immediately and the very quality of the air changed, became thinner, cleaner, like they'd stepped into a different altitude. The buildings here were different: older, grander, with that particular pure-blood shimmer that meant old magic and older money. Windows that showed nothing but darkness from outside, doors that looked carved from single pieces of wood that shouldn't exist in trees that large. Even the cobblestones were different, worn smooth by centuries of wealthy feet, arranged in patterns that might have been decorative or might have been runic.

The café had no sign, just a door of white wood with silver fixtures that opened before Rookwood could touch it.

“Christ,” Lily breathed, then caught herself.

Everything was white marble shot through with gold veins that caught the light and threw it back multiplied. Not just white: aggressively white, the kind of white that made you aware of every speck of dirt on yourself. The ceiling was glass, but not normal glass, it showed a sky that wasn't today's cloudy London but something Mediterranean, autumn-gold and endless.

And it was completely empty except for one occupied table in the farthest corner.

The man in the corner didn't stand as they approached.

Her first thought was that he was he certainly unwell to the point of dying not too far into the future. Not dramatically, not obviously, but in a way that made her ache to look at him. He must have been handsome once. She could see it in the bone structure, the shape of his face, like looking at ruins and imagining the palace that had stood there. High cheekbones, strong jaw, the kind of features that would have made girls giggle behind their hands. Now his skin had that waxy quality of funeral home cosmetics, too perfect to be real, like someone had painted flesh tones over something that wasn't quite flesh anymore.

“My Lord,” Rookwood said. My lord. Was he nobility or was the title chosen by himself? "May I present Lily Evans, the promising young witch I mentioned. Recommended to the Department by Dumbledore himself, actually. Glowing terms."

The man's face did something that might have been a twitch or might have been an attempted expression. The muscles moved but not quite in sync, like a bad stop-motion animation. The lips pulled back into something akin to a smile, but the eyes stayed in their place.

He didn't offer his hand. Didn't stand. Didn't even give his name. Just sat there, studying her with eyes that-

Red. She'd seen eyes like that once, on an albino rabbit Petunia had been given for Easter. It had died within a week, too fragile for the world, its heart giving out from the stress of existing.

"Sit," he said. Not a request. The word had weight to it pushing her into the chair.

“Rookwood.” Voldemort didn't raise his voice, didn't even look at Rookwood, but the name cracked like a whip. "Leave us."

Rookwood's face went through several expressions in rapid succession, before settling on careful blankness. "My Lord, I brought her here. Perhaps I should-“

"Leave." Still soft, still conversational, but Rookwood flinched as if struck. "Now."

His mouth opened slightly, as if he wanted to say something to her, some last-minute advice or absolution. But Voldemort shifted slightly, just a fraction of movement, and Rookwood's mouth snapped shut. He gave her one last look, definitely warning now, before turning on his heel and walking away with as much dignity as he could salvage.

The silence stretched, horrible and waiting. She could hear her own breathing, too loud in the empty restaurant. The lord, apparently, continued his examination of her, unblinking. Did he even need to blink? The waxy skin around his eyes didn't seem capable of it, stretched too tight, like whatever was underneath had grown and the skin hadn't kept up.

Her hands wanted to fidget, to pluck at her robes, to do something. She reached for a lily petal, needing something to do with her hands. Three petals fell onto her palm, velvet-soft and warm from the strange sunlight. Without her wand, without even really thinking, she shaped them into tiny fish.

It was one of the first bits of wandless transfiguration she'd mastered, age thirteen in the Gryffindor common room, showing off for the older students.

The fish swam through the water as she let them go into the fountain, scales catching the light, circling the fountain in a small school. They were perfect, she knew, she'd had years to perfect them.

"Charming," The man didn't move. Just watched the fish with those red-threaded eyes until they dissolved back into petals, rising to the top of the surface to be carried away by the fountain.

One moment they were alone, the next this young man stood beside their table like he'd been born there. "What would you like?" he asked her.

No menu. Of course there was no menu. Her mind went completely blank. What did rich people eat? Her mouth was dry, her palms wet. She could feel both men watching her, waiting for her to reveal herself to be as low class as she was.

"I'll have what you’re having," she said, trying for casual and landing somewhere around desperate.

"I don't eat," The lord said. First words since telling her to sit.

"Perhaps... perhaps the young lady would like to see a menu?" His voice had gone up half an octave.

"Leave us,” the man said and the waiter scampered away.

“Rookwood tells me," he said, and she noticed he was perfectly still between words, no breathing nor fidgeting, "that you plan to join the Department after school."

"Maybe." The word came out before she could dress it up properly. "I mean, it would be nice.”

Something flickered across his face. She felt it then, gentle as cobwebs against her thoughts. Legilimency, so subtle she might have missed it if Severus hadn't been practicing on her all third year, trying to perfect it. He'd been clumsy at first, crashing into her mind like a drunk into furniture, leaving her with headaches that lasted days.

By summer, he'd gotten better at it, slipping into her mind while they sat by the river, making it a game: “What number am I thinking?" or “What am I remembering?" But then came that afternoon in August before fourth year, when he'd pushed too deep and seen her memory of crying in the school bathroom after getting her period unexpectedly during Transfiguration, blood on her robes, having to ask Moaning Myrtle, if she had any supplies before realizing how stupid that question was.

This was different. The man was in her mind like smoke, seeping in through the cracks. She could feel him leafing through her surface thoughts like they were a magazine in a waiting room, casual and entitled.

She looked directly at him for the first time, meeting those almost-red eyes.

"The food's taking rather long," she said, just to say something, to fill the horrible silence with words that weren't “get out of my head” or “what are you?”

"Patience is a virtue, Miss Evans,” he said and pulled back from her mind, leaving her feeling violated and embarrassed. Like he'd rifled through her drawers and found nothing worth stealing.

She noticed his hands then, really noticed them, resting on the white tablecloth like arranged props. Long fingers, elegant, but with that same waxy quality as his face. The nails gleamed like wet porcelain, too smooth, too white, as though they belonged on a mannequin in a shop window rather than a living hand. And on his right hand, a ring. Heavy gold, almost crude compared to everything else about him, with a black stone that seemed to eat light rather than reflect it.

She stared at it, and for a moment, just a moment, she could have sworn she heard whistling. Not any whistling: her father's whistle, specific as a fingerprint. The tune he'd whistle while shaving, while washing the car, while putting on his shoes for work and never coming back. The stone seemed to pulse with it, or maybe that was just her heartbeat in her eyes, and she wanted-

What did she want? To reach out and touch it? To run? To cry? The feeling was enormous and nameless, like grief but older, like loss but not hers.

"Do you like it?" He asked, and his voice had changed, become almost gentle. "It's quite old. A family heirloom."

"No." The word shot out of her like a sneeze, surprising everyone, especially her. "I mean… it's lovely, but it's not, it doesn't seem-“ She was babbling, could hear herself babbling, but couldn't stop. "It's not meant for me."

"How perceptive," he said. "Tell me about your parents."

The change of subject was so abrupt she got whiplash. "They're- they're muggles. Ordinary muggles with ordinary jobs. My mother works in a hair salon and in a pub, my father-“ she had to pause. “-worked at the steel works. Nothing you'd know about."

"I know about factories." His tone was mild, but also sharp and clear. "I know about ordinary muggles and their ordinary lives. Blood matters, of course, but ability matters more."

The food arrived then, the waiter materializing with a plate that he set down with a flourish that seemed excessive for salmon. She didn’t have an appetite.

"What do you want, Miss Evans?" He asked suddenly. "Not what you've been told to want, not what seems achievable, but what you truly desire?"

This was a test, she realized. The interview had been happening all along, and this was the only question that mattered.

She thought of the mirror, of what it had shown her. She could say power. He'd probably like that. Or knowledge. Or revenge on everyone who'd made her feel small.

The truth was pathetic, really. After everything, the magic, the possibilities, the whole vast wizarding world opening before her, what she wanted was embarrassingly small. Not power over others or ancient knowledge or even respect, though she'd take that if it was on offer. Just the absence of this constant ache in her chest.

Maybe that's what the Felix Felicis was for. One perfect day before she accepted that some people were meant to be useful, not loved. One last chance to see if anything could change, if she tried hard enough, wanted it badly enough. If she didn't try now, with liquid luck running through her veins, she'd spend the rest of her life wondering.

After tonight, after whatever this was, she could stop. Stop hoping. Stop reaching. Stop bloodying her knuckles on doors that would never open.

"I want to be happy," she said. The words came out small, almost embarrassed. Like admitting you still believed in Father Christmas.

The silence that followed was deafening. Like she'd given the wrong answer to a simple question. Like she'd disappointed him in some fundamental way.

"How remarkably... modest," he said finally. The word 'modest' came out like an insult, like 'small,' like 'pathetic.' "You may go."

Just like that. She stood too quickly, nearly knocking over her water glass, crystal, of course, worth more than her mother's entire set of dishes. Whatever this had been, job interview, recruitment, assessment, she'd failed it spectacularly.

"Thank you for lunch," she managed, though she'd barely eaten anything.

He didn't respond.

She walked out through the white marble, through the door that opened without touch like it couldn't wait to be rid of her, into the hidden street where the air felt heavier and then fleeing into Diagon Alley with real London air, full of exhaust and rain and life, not the manufactured atmosphere of wherever that restaurant really existed.

But stronger than all of that was the sudden, fierce certainty that she needed to see Severus. Now. Today.

She couldn't let him disappear from her life without trying. Without telling him the truth, even if it destroyed everything. Even if he laughed at her, rejected her, confirmed every fear she'd ever had. At least then she'd know. At least then she could stop hoping.

Lily ran for reasons she did not quite understand apart from the bone splitting need to get to the ministry as fast as she could. Oxford Street blurred past, tourists with their cameras, businessmen with their briefcases, all of them stepping aside as she barreled through like something possessed. Her lungs burned, each breath scraping raw, tasting of car exhaust and hot tarmac. But she couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. Every instinct she had, magical and mundane, was shrieking that she needed to get to Severus now.

She'd tell him. Today. Now. No more waiting for the right moment that would never come. No more cowardice dressed up as friendship. She'd march into Records and say it straight out: “I love you, you impossible git, and I don't care if you never love me back the same way, I just need you to know.”

The journey back to the ministry passed in a blur. Her feet moved without her conscious direction, the awful shoes somehow not hurting anymore, or maybe they were and she just couldn't feel it through the electric certainty coursing through her veins. The Felix Felicis, it had to be the Felix Felicis, made everything crystal clear. Every wasted moment, every swallowed word, every time she'd chosen silence over truth because she was afraid of losing what little she had.

Well, she'd already lost it, hadn't she? They weren't even speaking. What was left to protect?

She half-ran to the lifts, her robes billowing behind her, probably looking deranged but not caring. A memo airplane tried to follow her into the lift but she batted it away. Not now. Nothing else mattered now.

Second floor. She jabbed the button hard enough to hurt, her finger throbbing. The lift seemed to sense her urgency and responded by moving with theatrical slowness, stopping at Level Four though no one got on, just to torment her. She wanted to scream, to grab the bars and shake them, to use magic to force the lift to move faster. By the time the doors opened at Level Two, she was practically vibrating with need to move, to find him, to finally say the words that had been eating her alive for years.

The corridor to Records stretched endlessly and when she finally burst through the door to be greeted again by mountains of paper, just to to see that-

Severus wasn't at his usual spot.

The clearing he'd made in the paper chaos sat empty, documents scattered as if abandoned mid-thought. No Severus. Just the ghost of his presence, the indent in papers where he'd been sitting.

She started searching, stumbling through the valleys of volumes, calling his name. Paper avalanched around her as she knocked into precarious stacks, decades of records scattering like dead leaves.

"Sev?" Her voice bounced off the mountains of files, coming back distorted, mocking her.

She turned too quickly, desperate, graceless, her foot slipping on something and went down hard. Her elbow cracked against what turned out to be a massive pot of ink that had been hidden behind a tower of files, probably since before her parents were born.

The crash was spectacular. Glass exploded across the floor and black ink spread messily on the floor like motor oil. The sound echoed through the chamber, impossibly loud and echoing.

She turned too quickly, desperate, graceless, her foot slipping on something and went down hard. Her elbow cracked against what turned out to be a massive pot of ink that had been hidden behind a tower of files, probably since before her parents were born.

The crash was spectacular. Glass exploded across the floor and black ink spread messily on the floor like motor oil. The sound echoed through the chamber, impossibly loud and echoing.

"Fuck!" The word ripped out of her as she scrambled up, ink already soaking through her robes, her hands black to the wrists. "Fucking hell, fucking-“

"Wha… what in Merlin? Who's there?"

Thrittle jerked awake from his desk. She had forgotten about him being there. How humiliating. His tired eyes struggled to focus on her, then on the spreading lake of ink that was steadily devouring what might have been irreplaceable records.

"I'm looking for Severus," Lily gasped, trying to stand. "Please, where is he?"

"Who?" Thrittle's voice was thick with sleep and his eyes weren't quite focusing on the same point, one looking at her, one at something slightly to her left.

"Severus. Your intern." The words tumbled fast and desperate. "Tall, skinny, black hair to here-“ she gestured frantically at her shoulders, “Big nose, always scowling, looks like he wants to hex everyone-”

"Oh. That one." Thrittle yawned and swung his wand vanishing the ink. “Downstairs. In the archives. Shouldn't be there, restricted access, but..." Another yawn, his eyes already closing. "Not paid enough to care. Door is over there.”

Archives. Downstairs. Her heart hammered so hard she could feel it in her head, in her throat and in her wrists. Lily didn't wait for more, just ran for the door she hadn't noticed before.

The stairs descended into darkness. No windows here, just torches that flickered with a grimy warm flame. The temperature dropped with each step down, and she realized she was going underground, properly underground, below the tube lines and the sewers.

The archives were vast. Impossibly vast. They were packed with scrolls and files, boxes and shelves. The scale of it made her dizzy, made her feel tiny, insignificant. How many births were catalogued here? How many deaths?

She found him twenty rows in, and the relief nearly dropped her to her knees.

He stood with his back to her at a table drowning in paper, because of course it would be in the archives. The table apart from the parchment littering it was a disaster. Tea cups, at least four, all cold and forgotten. A half-eaten sandwich that looked days old. Candle wax dripped onto centuries-old records because he'd let them burn too low. His hair was worse than she'd ever seen it, not just greasy but matted, like he'd been running his hands through it for hours. Days maybe.

This was it. This was the moment. The words had lived so long at the bottom of her heart that she'd built everything else on top of them, they were the foundation now, and speaking them might bring it all crashing down.

"Sev."

He turned, and her confession died unborn.

His face looked destroyed. His eyes were wild, red-rimmed, the whites shot through with broken vessels like he'd been crying or screaming or both. The skin around them was raw, chafed, like he'd been rubbing at them with his fists. His hands shook so badly that papers fluttered to the floor around him like dying moths, like snow, like all the things that fall when the world ends. How hadn’t she noticed before?

"What's wrong?" The words came out small, scared, nothing like the declaration of love she'd planned. "What's happened?"

"Nothing." His voice cracked on the word and suddenly he lashed out, violent, desperate. His foot connected with a stack of papers that exploded across the floor in a white cascade. "It's nothing, I'm just… FUCK!"

"It's not nothing," she said carefully. "You're not nothing. Never nothing to me." The words came out fierce despite her caution. "Whatever it is, I'll help. Just tell me."

His laugh was bitter as burnt coffee, as the dregs of potions gone wrong. "Help? You want to help?" He gestured at the chaos around them, papers still floating down from his kick like snow in a snow globe someone had shaken too hard. "I'm looking for her."

Of course he was. Eileen. How did she not realize?

"The Felix Felicis," he continued, his voice hollow. "Our Felix Felicis. Thought it would help me find the right file. Guide me to it, you know? Like how it's supposed to make everything work out." His laugh was broken glass. "But there are millions of them, Lily. Millions. And I can feel it wearing off. I just can’t find her.”

She didn't waste time on platitudes, on "I'm sorry" or "It'll be okay" or any of the useless things people just said and didn’t mean. Instead, she dropped to her knees beside him, not caring that the floor was dusty like it had never ever been cleaned, that there was still ink on her robes, that her mother would kill her for ruining her clothes. She started searching.

They worked in desperate silence, tearing through files with increasing fervor. Her fingers turned black with old ink, dust, the oils from papers touched by thousands of hands over centuries. Paper cuts opened across her palms, thin lines of red that stung when she grabbed the next file. She could taste the dust now, thick on her tongue, could feel it in her lungs with each breath.

Then, a sound like he'd been punched in the stomach, all the air leaving him at once.

She scrambled over to him, her knees sliding on loose papers that scattered like frightened birds. "Did you find it?"

He held out the file with hands that shook so badly she could hear the parchment rattling.

She opened it with careful fingers, afraid of what she'd find. Please don't let her be dead, please not that. The parchment was worn soft from handling, passed through who knew how many hands over the years. "Eileen Snape née Prince" headed the page, followed by the bare facts of a life: birth, Hogwarts enrollment, then her crime, her exile. Fifteen years later, a marriage registered. The birth of one child, who now stood beside her reading his mother's life reduced to dates and official stamps.

And then... nothing. No current address, no record of her whereabouts or occupation. No arrest warrant fulfilled, no transfer to Azkaban logged. No death certificate filed.

Lily turned the parchment over, hoping for something on the back, some addendum or update. Nothing. Just the watermark of the Ministry, that pretentious M visible when held to the light.

"She's nowhere," he said finally. "She's literally nowhere they can find."

The unfairness of it burned in Lily's throat. All this searching, their precious Felix Felicis wasted, and for what? For confirmation that his mother was so thoroughly gone that not even luck could find her?

She wanted to say she was sorry, but she knew him well enough to know that it would be worse than not saying anything.

She set the file down gently, her eyes caught two other files that had been beneath it, as if her eyes were pulled in the direction by strings. The names leaped out at her in faded ink: “Constantine Prince. Irene Prince.”

His grandparents. The ones who'd owned that grand house with the enchanted gardens that rearranged themselves each season, the ones Eileen hadn't spoken to in decades, the ones from all Severus' stories about what the Princes used to be.

"Sev." Her voice came out strangled, like the words were choking her. "Sev, look."

He raised his head slowly, like it weighed too much, and saw what she was holding. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, with hands that trembled worse than before, he took the files from her.

She didn't take them from him, didn't read them first, though her fingers itched to know. This was his family. She read over his shoulder, close enough to feel him trembling and to smell the sharp scent of fear-sweat.

The parchment was older, more yellowed at the edges. The handwriting was different, more formal, the kind they didn't teach anymore, all loops and flourishes like someone was trying to make something beautiful. She hurried through the mundane of their lives to arrive at the bottom to know what became of them.

“Constantine Prince, arrested 15th November 1962 for violation of exile parameters regarding Eileen Prince (née Prince). Attempted illegal contact with exiled family member. Previous warnings disregarded. Sentenced to Azkaban, indefinite term.”

“Irene Prince née Avery, arrested 15th November 1962 for violation of exile parameters regarding Eileen Prince (née Prince). Attempted illegal contact with exiled family member, attempted visit to known Muggle residence. Sentenced to Azkaban, indefinite term.”

And then, in smaller text, like an afterthought:

“Constantine Prince - Deceased, Azkaban, 4th February 1963. Cause: Unknown.”
“Irene Prince - Deceased, Azkaban, 7th February 1963. Cause: Despair.”

She thought of the ruins in Birmingham, the blackened walls that looked like they'd burned from the inside out. Had the house burned when they were arrested? Or had it been left to rot, dying slowly like its owners?

"They must have loved her," Lily whispered, because what else was there to say? Because someone should say it, should acknowledge that love had existed here, even if it hadn't been enough. She thought of Eileen Snape as she'd last seen her, sharp-boned and hollow-eyed, reeking so much of misery that it could fill a room. That woman had once been someone's cherished daughter. Someone's baby girl, carried through through a grand house, rocked to sleep in what was now no more. ”To risk Azkaban just to-“

"They must have," he said, his voice completely flat.

She wanted to touch him, to offer some comfort, but her hands felt too heavy, too useless. What was the point of being magic if you couldn't fix this? What was the point of love if it only gave you more to lose?

The silence pressed down on them, thick as the dust in the air. But Lily couldn't bear it. There had to be something else, someone else. The uncle. Severus Prince, the one who'd drunk from that teacup with the SP initials, the one Eileen had played gobstones with as a child.

Without thinking, she turned back to the shelves, her fingers already moving through the files with desperate purpose. The papers whispered against each other as she searched, dust rising in small clouds that made her eyes water.

"There has to be something about your uncle," she said, her voice too loud in the archive's silence. "Severus Prince, the other one. Maybe he got away, maybe he's still-“

There had to be something good here, something that wasn't death and exile and abandonment. One surviving Prince who could tell Severus about the black roses again, about the gobstones, about what his family had been before it all went wrong.

"He has to be here somewhere-“

"Stop."

Severus' voice cut through her frenzy, quiet and absolute. She turned to find him watching her with those hollow eyes, the files still in his hands.

"Stop looking,” he told her. "I don't want to know."

"But he might be-“

“He might be dead.” Severus' fingers tightened on the files.

Severus pulled out his wand, his mother's core in new wood, and pointed it at the three files. They folded in on themselves, smaller and smaller, until they were no bigger than playing cards and slipped them into his pocket

"We should leave," he said, already turning toward the stairs.

They walked to King's Cross in silence, Lily having to occasionally grab Severus' elbow to stop him walking directly into traffic. He seemed to have forgotten that muggle vehicles wouldn't automatically swerve around him, that he had to look, had to care about living long enough to cross the street.

The ticket queue at King’s cross was enormous, full of overheated people fanning themselves with newspapers, children whining about the wait. Severus pulled out a crumpled ten-pound note from somewhere deep in his robes. “Two to Birmingham," he said.

The train was packed with Friday evening commuters and weekend travelers, all of them normal, all of them whole. He was staring at nothing, or maybe at everything, his fingers occasionally moving to the spot where the files rested in his pocket.

"Next stop Birmingham,” the conductor eventually called, and Lily felt Severus tense like a strung bow.

He was up before the train fully stopped, moving with sudden, terrible purpose. Lily scrambled after him, nearly tripping over someone's luggage in her haste, mumbling apologies to the family who watched them go with the kind of concern reserved for people clearly having a terrible day.

The platform was crowded with Friday night revelers, groups heading out for drinks, couples going to dinner, normal people doing normal things. But Severus moved through them like Moses through the Red Sea, people unconsciously stepping aside for him while she had to follow him through the little gaps they left.

She followed without question, half-running to keep up with his long strides.

She knew where they were going before they arrived. The same route they'd taken as children, that horrible day when hope had died the first time in their lives. Past the betting shop with its neon promises of fortune, the lights flickering like they were dying. Past the boarded-up pub that still reeked of stale beer and broken dreams, where broken glass still littered the doorway from whatever fight had finally shut it down, catching the streetlight like worthless diamonds.

The Prince house stood exactly as they'd left it, a black wound in the street, untouched by muggles, the muggle repellent charms still holding, the brass nameplate still somehow hanging on, PRINCE visible in the dying light like a curse that wouldn't break. The only thing changed by six years were that weeds had started growing through the floor, that kind of aggressive urban plant that could crack stone could grow through anything, making a life where before there had only been ash.

Severus stood at the threshold of the entrance hall for a long moment. Lily could see him remembering not the ruin but what should have been, what had been, before the fire. Then he pulled out the files and extended his hand toward her, palm up, waiting. She knew exactly what he wanted and placed her lighter in his hand without a word.

The parchment writhed as it burned, curling in on itself like something alive and in pain, then crumbled to nothing. Just ash joining ash.

Lily grabbed him. Not gently, not carefully. She fisted her hands in his robes and yanked him toward her with enough force that they both stumbled.

"Don’t-“ he said into her shoulder, but his hands were already clutching at her back, fingers twisted in her robes.

"Shut up." She pulled him closer, if that was even possible. One hand went to the back of his head, fingers tangling in his hair, holding him against her.

"Don’t-“ he said again into her hair, but his arms tightened even as he said it.

“I’m not going to stop.” she interrupted him mumbling into his chest.

"Don't let go."

He made another sound and then he was holding her back with matching desperation. His arms wrapped around her so tightly she felt her spine crack, her ribs protesting, but she didn't care. He was shaking hard enough that she shook with him, the two of them swaying slightly in the ruins.

His fingers dug into her shoulder blades hard enough to bruise. Her face pressed against his collarbone hard enough to leave marks.

His breath hitched. His hands tightened impossibly further, and she felt something in her back protest, but she pulled him closer in response. She held on until her arms went numb, until her back ached from the angle, until she couldn't tell whose heartbeat she was feeling through their pressed chests.

“She’s gone.”

“Yes.”

“They’re really gone.”

“Yes.”

The ashes of the files had blown away completely now, indistinguishable from the older ash of the burned house, from the dirt, from nothing.

They reached the coach station just in time to watch the 9:15 to Cokeworth pull away, its red taillights disappearing into the Birmingham traffic. The driver hadn't even waited the full minute past departure.

"Next one's at half ten," the station attendant said, not looking up from his racing form. "Unless you want to go via Walsall, but that'll take you twice as long."

An hour and fifteen minutes. Lily steered Severus to the waiting area, plastic chairs bolted to the floor, which she'd never been so grateful to see. Her feet throbbed in the patent leather disasters she'd grabbed that morning, each step since the archives adding to the collection of blisters she could feel forming. She lowered herself onto the cracked plastic carefully, trying not to whimper at the relief of finally being off her feet.

When the 10:30 finally arrived in the form of a Midland Red double-decker that had seen better decades, they climbed to the upper level. Found seats facing each other by a window, squeezed in with a family clearly returning from a day trip: shopping bags from Lewis's department store, the father already nodding off, the mother trying to contain two young children who'd clearly had too much sugar.

The little girl, maybe six, had red fizz stains down her blouse, cherryade from the look of it, and kept staring at their robes with the unashamed curiosity of the young. Her brother, older by a year or two, was absorbed in a comic, but she was fascinated by them.

"Mummy," she stage-whispered, pointing directly at Severus with a sticky finger. "That man's dressed like a wizard."

"Iris!" Her mother's voice sharpened with embarrassment. "That's not a very nice thing to say. We don't point at people."

"But he is," Iris insisted, lower but not low enough. "Look at his clothes. Like in my book about Merlin."

Despite everything, Severus' mouth twitched. A smile. He caught Lily's eye, and she saw it there too: the absurd humor of it. After the day they'd had, after everything, to be identified as a wizard by a six-year-old with fizz stains.

The mother shot them an apologetic look, the kind that said “children, what can you do?” while trying to turn Iris's attention to the window. "Look, love, you can see the Bull Ring from here."

But Iris wasn't interested in the Bull Ring. She kept stealing glances at them, her small face scrunched in concentration like she was trying to work out the shape of the world.

The bus rumbled through the Midlands darkness, past industrial estates and rows of terraced houses just like theirs. Iris eventually gave up her vigil, the rhythm of the bus and the lateness of the hour catching up with her. She fell asleep against her mother's shoulder, thumb in her mouth, chocolate smears around her lips from the bribe had kept her quiet since Birmingham.

Their stop was coming up. Lily stood first, steadying herself on the seat back as the bus swayed. Severus followed, and they squeezed past the sleeping kids carefully, trying not to wake anyone.

That's when she saw it.

Iris's shoelaces, which had been undone and trailing when she'd fallen asleep, were tying themselves. Slowly, clumsily, like invisible fingers were remembering how the loops went. The red laces crossed, twisted, pulled themselves into a barely-there bow.

"Come on," Severus murmured, his hand brushing her elbow.

They climbed down the stairs carefully, the bus already slowing for their stop. As they stepped off into the Cokeworth night, all industrial smog and distant factory sounds, Lily looked back at the lit upper windows of the bus pulling away.

The next morning arrived grey and humid, the kind of July day that promised storms but never delivered. Lily stood outside Spinner's End with a covered dish that was already sweating condensation through the tea towel, her mother's voice still ringing in her ears: “Severus needs proper food. God knows what he's been eating in that condemned house."

Her mother hadn't looked at her when she'd said it, too busy scrubbing the already-clean counter. But she'd packed enough shepherd's pie for three people and added a loaf of yesterday's bread wrapped in brown paper. "Don't dawdle," she'd added, still not meeting Lily's eyes. "And don't let him think this is charity."

The house materialized for her, only for her and the front door stood ajar. He'd left it open for her, knowing she'd come.

"Sev?" She pushed through into the dim hallway, the floorboards groaning under her weight.

"Kitchen," came his voice.

She found him surrounded by books and parchment, the transfigured table covered in calculations. He'd cleaned more since she had last been there weeks ago, the floor was still wet from recent mopping, the surfaces cleared of dust, though nothing could hide the water stains on the walls or the way the ceiling sagged in the corner.

"Mum sent food," she said, setting the dish down carefully between two towers of notes. “Her famous shepherd's pie."

He glanced at it, then at her. “Put it on the counter.”

"I've been thinking about the Felix recipe," he said. "The moonstone powder, we added it too early last time. Should go in during the seventh lunar phase, not the sixth."

"That's not what Budge says-“

"Budge was working with Mediterranean moonstones. Different mineral composition. The ones we can afford from Diagon Alley are probably Bulgarian, lower quality, need longer to dissolve properly."

She pulled his nearest pile of calculations toward her, squinting at his cramped writing. He'd been working on this for some time already, she could tell from the way the handwriting degraded toward the bottom of the page, letters running together like he'd been too exhausted to lift the pencil properly.

"If we adjust for the lower quality ingredients throughout," she said slowly, following his logic, "we'd need to extend the brewing time by-“

"Three weeks." He was already pulling another book from the stack beside him. "Hand me Advanced Potion-Making."

Lily rolled her eyes. The book was right there, barely a foot from his reach, and besides, he knew the entire thing by memory. She'd watched him recite whole passages while brewing, not even glancing at the pages. But he always needed it nearby, like a child with a favored blanket.

She passed him the battered book, its spine held together with Spellotape, pages soft from constant handling. As she handed it over, the cover slipped around from the binding being too worn to reveal the back page.

There, in his careful script it said: “This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince”

The words were underlined three times, the ink pressed so hard it had nearly torn through the parchment.

Severus' hand shot out, but too late. She'd seen.

"Don't," he said, voice sharp with warning. "Just don't."

"The Half-Blood Prince?" She kept her voice neutral, but something warm bloomed in her chest at this glimpse of whimsy from someone who usually treated everything with so much seriousness.

"I like it," she said simply.

He looked up sharply, searching her face for mockery. Finding none, his shoulders relaxed fractionally. "It's stupid."

"It's not." She traced the words with her finger, careful not to smudge the ink. "It's yours."

The corner shop's freezer hummed like something dying, but it kept the ice lollies cold enough. Lily chose a Zoom, the three-colored rocket that turned your tongue rainbow. Severus went for vanilla, because of course he did, even his ice cream choices were austere.

The shopkeeper barely looked up from his racing form as they paid, used to odd teenagers wandering through at all hours.

Outside, the afternoon had grown heavier, clouds pressing down like a lid on the town. They walked without discussing direction, falling into the old pattern of wandering they'd perfected over summers, past the condemned terraces, the empty lot where the Hendersons' house had burned down, the canal where shopping trolleys went to die.

Lily's feet began complaining before they'd made it two streets. The patent leather disasters she'd inexplicably put on that morning, had flayed her feet throughly.. Each step sent sharp pains through her heels where blisters had formed, burst, and formed again.

"Can we-“ She stopped, gritting her teeth. "I need to sit."

Severus looked around. They'd ended up near the playground, because of course they had. All roads in their shared geography led back here eventually. The benches had been vandalized beyond use, boards missing or broken, but the swings remained, chains rusty but solid.

Lily dropped onto one with a groan, immediately kicking off her shoes. Her feet were a disaster: angry red welts, skin rubbed raw, a blood blister on her left heel that looked ready to burst.

“God,” Severus said, actually sounding shocked. "Did you stick your feet in a hippogriff's mouth?"

"Shut up." But she was laughing despite everything.

They then sat in comfortable silence, the chains creaking gently. The playground was empty, had been for years really. Parents didn't let their children play here anymore, not since the area became what her mother called "rough."

"Do you remember?" she asked suddenly. "That first day?"

"Of course I do." His voice was soft and low. "You flew."

He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a thin white line along his forearm, barely visible against his pale skin. She remembered the bone jutting wrong, the sound of his scream. She remembered it all.

Then something shifted in his posture, a decision made without words. He grabbed the chains, and settled onto the swing with the same sense of determination he'd had at nine, except this time his feet could properly reach the ground.

He was already pumping his legs, building momentum. Higher than he'd gone that first time, higher than was safe, the ancient chains protesting with each arc. At the peak of his swing, he let go.

For a moment, a perfect, crystallized moment, he hung in the air like he had years ago. Arms spread, black hair flying, face turned toward the sky. But this time, instead of falling, he floated. Actually floated, suspended in the bit golden afternoon light that had broken through the clouds, like he'd forgotten gravity existed. His shirt, her father’s, billowed around him, and he was fifteen and ancient and brand new all at once, as he slowly spiraled down like a dandelion seed, landing soft as a cat on the packed dirt.

Lily didn't realize she was crying until she tasted salt. She launched herself off the swing, not caring about her bandaged feet, and threw her arms around him. He staggered but didn't pull away, his hands coming up to steady her.

"You flew," she said into his shoulder. "You actually flew."

"Technically, I floated," he corrected, but she could hear the pride in his voice. "Flying requires more control. One day I will figure it out-“

"Shut up." She pulled back to look at him. "You flew."

Tell him, her heart screamed. Tell him now while he's smiling, while the morning's soft, while you're alone.

But looking at him there, victorious over gravity and history, she thought: Not yet.

They walked home slowly, her leaning on him when the pain got too bad, him complaining about her unfortunate choice in footwear but never letting go.

We have so much time, Lily thought, watching their shadows stretch ahead of them on the pavement, twisted together into something inseparable. All the time in the world.

She was fifteen. He was fifteen. They had their O.W.L.s ahead, and sixth year, and seventh year, and whatever came after. She could wait to tell him. Could wait until the right moment, the perfect moment, when they were older and wiser and ready for what that meant.

There was no rush.

They had time.

(They had no time at all.)

Chapter Text

I know a lot of people wanted them to just tell each other how they feel, so I wrote an alternate ending where they do exactly that.

You can read it here:

https://ao3-rd-8.onrender.com/works/72777181/chapters/189574911

(One chapter is already posted, the second and last chapter following soon)