The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Run Ins

Run Ins

Sirius Black was not the only student at Hogwarts who didn't fancy the idea of the end of term. Severus Snape was also dreading it. It was months away yet, but the gears were shifting in the atmosphere at Hogwarts, the teachers getting more serious in their lessons, dropping hints of which bits of information would be most important on their end of year exams. Many of the students who were excited for the summer began talking about the plans they were making for when they got home, and even Lily couldn't be stopped reminding Severus that there wasn't much time before they would be going home.

"We'll get to see each other more," she said happily, "I can't wait. I've missed you so much, and it's such a pain having to spend all our time together in odd places." They were huddled that day close against the far side of the greenhouses, sitting on an overturned wheelbarrow, watching rain fall, protected by the overhanging roof.

Severus hesitated, "Well... I'm not so sure how much I'll be at home, to be honest," he said, carefully not looking Lily in the eyes.

"Not home? Where are going going?" Lily asked.

Severus hesitated.

He would be with the Dark Lord for the legilimency lessons and he feared seeing too much of Lily Evans might keep her on his mind and ruin his plans of protecting his thoughts of her from Voldemort. It would be hard enough already to keep the image of those green eyes from showing up in his thoughts.... He looked at her now to see them, as the strangest feeling that he only had so long to look at them came over him. Don't be silly, he told himself, but the feeling stirred about in him as he stared at her. They seemed even greener than usual against the dismal rain.

"My mum's made some friends we may be visiting," he said, "And Lucius has asked me 'round..." he shrugged.

Lily made a face. "Lucius Malfoy is a bully. I don't know why you would want to be around him. After what he did to Bilius Weasley --"

"Bilius is a thief," replied Severus quickly.

"Bilius isn't a thief," Lily said with conviction.

Severus's trance at the beauty of her eyes was disturbed by the strength of the words. "He is, though," he said, "I told you, Malfoy's things were stolen just before the fight. He's a thief. He's no good, just like all of the other Weasleys."

"Bilius didn't have anything to do with Malfoy's things being stolen," said Lily hotly.

Severus said, "How do you know? You don't know anything about it."

Lily wanted so much to tell Severus why she knew it wasn't Bilius. She imagined how shocked his face would be if she told him it was her that stole the blast mirror from Lucius's room. He'd probably keel right over in front of her from the surprise of it. But she'd promised Sirius not to tell. Lily searched Severus's eyes for a moment, but he turned away and looked out at the lake. "He was at dinner. In the Great Hall," she said, "He was sitting with me and Alice and Derek. He didn't have time to go down to the dungeons and steal anything from Lucius."

She felt awful, lying to Severus like that, but she didn't have a choice. There'd been a time she would have trusted him to keep the secret, too, when she would've told him everything that happened in the dungeons that night and he would have never told anyone else... but there was something holding her back.

Severus felt a twinge of sickness in his stomach. Lily was right, now she said it, he did remember seeing Bilius over at the Gryffindor table, and he had indeed been sitting with Derek and Alice Bell. But - and this was the part that made him the sickest - he'd been looking for Lily when he saw them and she, Lily, had not been at the table herself. Neither, he realized, had any of the other Gryffindor first years.