When She Spoke (Marauders Era)

Chapter Nine

Lark trudged through the snow, tightly wrapped in winter garments, Lily Evans at her side, and Severus Snape back at Hogwarts. She wanted to cry. She wanted to lean into Lily and let herself be hugged and soothed. Severus just couldn’t miss a Hogsmeade trip. That wasn’t how it worked.

He was cruel, unknowing and oblivious now, but Lark still wanted him back with her at Hogsmeade. She could tell that Lily wanted him here too, by the way that she looked at the ground with her wavy red hair shielding her face like a curtain.

The sky was grey, and for some odd reason, Lark liked it. She had been looking forward to snow so much lately, but it wasn’t half as fun without Severus chasing after she and Lily, meanwhile  pelting snowballs at them. Without Severus, she looked back up at the sky, almost hopeful that rain would come pouring down, turning the snow to slush and sending tiny droplets of water tumbling down Lark’s cheekbones and wetting her eyelashes, filling her lungs so that maybe she could finally breath, and the fire would go out.

Alas, no rain came. All that was left for the two girls was a wide road running down through the shops of Hogsmeade, filled with the tracks of other students and similar creatures.

As they walked onward, Lark heard a small sniffling sound come from Lily’s direction, and immediately felt bad for not speaking to her. She reached out to her red headed friend and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, cradling her the way she could only wish somebody would do for her.

“Aw, Lark,” sniffed Lily. “Thanks, but I’m fine, really. It’s only a cold.”

Lark only rolled her eyes and hugged her friend tighter, like maybe if she held her tight enough then all the sorrow would ooze out.

“Alright, alright!”, Lily held her hands up in surrender, and Lark let go, putting her hands on her hips with satisfaction. “I know that you’re sad too, don’t deny it. All you’ve been doing for the past thirty minutes is look at the ground and mope!”

Lark gave a small, silent laugh of agreement.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright,” she hip-bumped Lark playfully, though to Lark it sounded as though Lily was only convincing herself. “And you know it. He’ll come around soon enough!”

From behind them, the two girls heard laughs bouncing off the walls of the shops around them, and the soft thumps of snowballs reaching their targets.

“Blimey, Remus! Not the glasses!”

“Sorry, mate.”

“Ouch! Not the hair either!”

“That was Sirius!”

“Oi! I’ll get you for that one, Black!”

The voices and snowballs grew closer, soon right behind Lark and Lily.

“Hey, will you guys start messing around! There are some of us who don’t want to be hit

with snowballs!”, Lily complained as she and Lark turned around to face the four boys behind them, each one covered in powdery white snow. James’s glasses were incredibly crooked, almost hanging off the side of his face. Remus was shielding a knapsack from the other three boys, which Lark presumed held books, while Sirius was in the middle of pelting snow at him. Peter simply stood at the edge of the pathway, gathering snowballs. All four had quirky grins on their faces, and froze at the sound of Lily Evans’s voice.

“HI, LILY!”, James shouted, possibly a bit too loud, and Lark laughed, knowing that however ignorant and irritating he may have been, he could still get nervous, just like every other teenager on the planet.