50 Song Challenge- Harry Potter

2. How to Save a Life- The Fray

      2. How to Save a Life- The Fray

         Pairing: Unrequited Snape/Lily   

Where did I go wrong?

I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness

Lily is fifteen years old, and her world is falling to pieces around her. That shining new wonder of a world full of magic has slowly worn off. Her sister’s letters have grown shorter and shorter, and now they don’t come at all.

James Potter and his idiotic friends continue to taunt her, pull her long red plaits and call her Lilyflower. It’s not a cruel name, but it annoys her even so. It makes her feel young, and goodness knows she wants to be grown up.

To top off everything, Severus is changing. Her once so dependable best friend is drifting away from her, and there seems to be nothing she can do to bring him back.

Mary and Marlene and Alice don’t understand why she wants to. They tell her it’s for the best. That he’s just a Slytherin Slimeball. That it’s okay, because they’re her best friends now. It’s true, in a way.

Lily knows that they would do anything for her, and she for them. But it’s Dorcas Meadowes, the shy bookish best friend of Marlene McKinnon, who seems to understand most. She squeezes Lily’s hand across the common room coffee table, after Severus snubbed her for Mulciber and Evan Rosier.

Lily had been blinking back tears, and trying not to meet James Potter’s eye from across the room.

      “Maybe you should talk to him,” she says, her long curly hair the colour of applesauce curtaining the side of her face. She smiles, warm and reassuring, and the other girls fall silent.

      “No, you shouldn’t!” Marlene McKinnon exclaims, her large dark eyes widening. “He’s an idiot! He’s not good enough for you, Lil.”

      “Actually, I think that’s a good idea,” Lily says, looking directly at her friends. “I have to stop him from hanging out with those guys, they’re not good for him.”

      Marlene sighs, but places an olive hand on Lily’s knee.

 “Alright,” she says begrudgingly. “But do be careful, Lils. Though why you want to be friends with him, I don’t know…”

      “Maybe he’s nice deep down,” Alice Longbottom adds, smiling at Lily reassuringly.

      “Yeah, and he’s always been lovely to Lily,” Mary McDonald chimes in, nodding enthusiastically.

Lily grins, wiping the unwelcome tears from her eyes. She stands up, swiftly and determinedly, and waves goodbye to her friends.

      “I won’t be long, promise!” she calls, before bounding out of the portrait hole, winking discreetly at lovely Dorcas Meadowes.

         Step one

You say we need to talk

He walks

You say sit down it’s just a talk

He smiles politely back at you

You stare politely right on through

 Lily finds him by the lake, sitting on the dry grass with his Slytherin friends. His wand is in his hand, and she watches as he uses it to split individual blades of grass. She isn’t afraid, and she doesn’t back down.