The Marauders: Year Two | #Wattys2016

The Cinema

Petunia stared at Severus as he approached the house, a sneer curling across her mouth and her nose bunching up as though she'd smelled something horrid.

"Lily about?" he asked her without saying hi. She didn't deserve the courtesy.

"She's inside," Petunia replied shortly.

Severus turned at the walkway, headed for the door.

"Who is that?" whispered one of her friends.

"Nobody. He's just an awful boy that Lily insists on hanging around with," he heard Petunia reply. "He's a freak from Spinner's End." This apparently was all that the others needed to hear to agree with Petunia that he was awful and a freak and they all were sneering at him when he glanced back.

Lily answered the door when he knocked and she looked surprised to see him - that's how infrequently he visited this far from Spinner's End. "Sev," she said, "Hi." She spotted Petunia and her friends laughing and could tell just by the way they were doing it that they were laughing at him. She made a face, "Bully on you lot!" she yelled and ushered Severus in. "C'mon, we'll go up to my room."

In all the time that Severus and Lily had been hanging around together, he'd never been invited up to Lily's room before. He felt odd following her up the stairs and down the hallway to the bedroom. It was larger than it ought have been for one person, and he could see all the space that had once been taken up by Petunia's things, where Lily had never bothered to put her own things. Half the room seemed as void of life as the streets of Spinner's End. He looked around nervously at the half that did have things - cluttered together and stacked upon one another, in some places rather haphazardly, so that it seemed absurd that she didn't use the full space available.

Lily sat down on the edge of the bed and Severus nervously pulled out her desk chair to sit on. He noticed on her desk was a half-finished letter addressed to Remus Lupin and he swallowed back the urge to make some comment about it. He was on Lily's good side at the moment and he would rather stay there. He pulled the chair 'round and settled himself down facing her. "Quite the storm this morning, wasn't it?"

"I didn't really notice," Lily said. She was running her fingers through her hair, which was something she did when she was bothered about something or she was uncomfortable. Severus recognized the action from two years prior, when she and Petunia had first started fighting.

"Something the matter?" he asked her.

Lily shook her head, "Not really, no."

Severus looked about, trying to find something to talk about, he hadn't really had a purpose for coming other than just laying eyes on her. Even the greyest days were brighter for the sight of Lily Evans. He spotted her broomstick leaning against the closet door. "Are you going to play for Gryffindor again this term?"

"I'll try out. I don't know who the new captain is yet, but it'll be up to them, I s'pose," she murmured.

Severus nodded. He realized that quidditch probably hadn't been the best topic - it would bring up Derek Bell and the last thing he wanted to talk about was Derek Bell. Well maybe not the last thing, but he was pretty close to the last thing. After all, how would he ever be able to explain to Lily that it had been his auntie Bella that had murdered Bell and that she'd been lorded about the Malfoy mansion as a heroine for having done it? That she'd bragged about it to Narcissa, even? How could he explain to Lily that Derek Bell's death was one of many that simply had to happen for the Good of All? If the people in the resistance didn't die, then Voldemort's whole cause would tanker down and if that happened - well, then, wizards would never gain power, would they? Wizards like Dumbledore were too eager to lay the power down.