Severus... Reformed / SNILY (COMPLETE)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Severus, as a truly observant person, did understand very quickly what was going on. Somebody was trying to almost frame Severus and Natalie as being a couple, but to what aim? Who would it hurt? Lily? He hadn't seen her since studying with her and Maisie, and that had been two days ago. He decided to seek out Natalie, first, to work out if she knew what was going on. He found her in an empty classroom.

"Natalie?" He asked, seeing her curled-up figure against the far wall.

"Go away, I don't want to see you," her muffled voice came.

"I want to understand what's going on as surely as you do," Severus persisted. "We are the victims of somebody's poorly thought-out prank."

"I know that." Irritation seeped into the girl's tone. "And it's not poorly thought-out. Everybody knows, and nobody is thinking that it's not true."

"Presumably because I was helping you out with Charms," Severus mused.

"Or maybe," Natalie said bitterly, "because we are actually friends, Severus, no matter how much you hate admitting it."

"That may be true," Severus confessed quietly.

Natalie stood up tentatively.

"Of course it's true," she told him.

"Friend of a friend," Severus stated. "You're Lily's friend, and I'm hers."

"Not just a 'friend of a friend'," Natalie said irritably. "We are friends. Do you think I'd be crying if you were simply a 'friend of a friend'? I'm crying because it's hurt you as well; hurt your relationship with Lily, and mine too."

She stepped into the light.

Tears silently tracked down her face, and her cheeks were wet and blotchy. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but they still retained her usual confidence.

"Oh Natalie," he sighed, reaching forwards a hand to gently brush away her tears. "I can think of a song for this situation."

"Sing it," she pleaded.

He sighed again, and looked up at the ceiling.

"Don't cry-ee, don't sigh-ee,there's a silver lining in the sky-ee'," he murmured, and while he was not a born singer, he was tuneful in his performance.

"That's a funny song," she commented.

"It's a song much older than both of us," he told her, and that said something. Severus was forty after all. "To liven the spirits of those participating in the Great War."

"Which war?" Questioned Natalie naïvely. She was a Pureblood and therefore unused to such things.

Severus sighed for the third time in the last ten minutes.

"A war Muggles fought against each other. My father used to sing that song. He fought in the second world war of Muggles."

Natalie detected bitterness in his tone, and refrained from continuing on the same vein.

"I suppose I'll have to take Muggle Studies, then?" She said, grinning.

"Yes," he answered, "but first, we need to work out who did this."

They ran through some ideas.