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Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
—GEORGE CARLIN
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"Looking good, Severus," Aeliana greeted as he stormed out of Malfoy Manor, his robes flapping like a bat behind him.
She rose from where she'd been sitting on the stone steps just outside the door, casually brushing herself off, and followed after him. Severus had been looking under the weather for days. If Lia didn't know any better, she'd m say he was going to transform into a werewolf any day now, though he'd always fit better as a Vampire in her imagination.
"Severus," she repeated, grasping his shoulder and forcing him to stop. "What's the matter? You've been acting odd." As an after thought, she added, "Even for you."
To be honest, she wasn't exactly sure if she cared. Her only real friend in this serpentine hellscape was a few weeks dead and she was forced to pretend that nothing had ever happened, forced to make as though her heart were made of stone just to fit in. So what did she care if Severus was upset over something? Maybe it was because Lia was nosy or trying to subconsciously gather information, or perhaps she found it refreshing to see actual emotion amongst these emotionally repressed gargoyles, but she wanted to know what upset him.
"Let me go," he snarled, jerking away.
Lia raised a brow. Perhaps he was slightly more distressed than she originally bargained for.
"Severus, come on. You can tell me what's bothering you. We're friends," she argued, still trailing after him.
"Oh yeah?" he challenged, finally stopping to swing around and face her head to head. "The way you always tell me what's bothering you? Because you've told me why you've been looking so sick these past months? Because you told me why, for weeks, you would just stare off blankly whenever you would walk by?" He poked her, hard, in the chest after each question, forcing her back as he continued walking forward. "Or because you told me when-"
"I get it," Lia interrupted, swatting his hand away.
"Then why should I bother telling you anything?" he asked, breathing heavily, his face perhaps a foot from her own.
"Because you want to, Severus," she reasoned, pulling him down by the hand to sit beside her against a tree, and handing him her hip flask. Even though it was hypocritical, she said, "I've never seen you so upset. It's not good to keep so much to yourself." He didn't say anything for several moments, so she felt inclined to continue. "No matter what it is, Severus, I won't judge you, and maybe I can even help."
Possibly not the best promise to make to a Death Eater, but as far as Death Eaters went, Severus wasn't overly sadistic or cruel. He was merely cold, at times.
He didn't say anything for for what felt like an icy eternity, but didn't leave either. He took a long drought out of the flask, as if it were water given to a dying man in a desert.
"He's going to kill Lily," he finally rasped after what appeared to be some great internal struggle.
Lia froze, disbelief briefly colouring her expression. Seriously? He was going to try and kill Lily again? Voldemort spared an unnecessary amount of his time and resources trying to murder the Potters, in her opinion. They were going to blow her cover if she kept needing to rescue them.
"I thought you hated Lily," Lia said carefully, watching his expression. "After all, you were always quite... well, mean when you spoke to her back at school."
"I could never hate her," he whispered. "Never..."
Even though she knew it was a foolish question, she couldn't help but query, "Did you, I don't know, ask the Dark Lord to spare the Potters lives then?"
Severus laughed, but the sound was devoid of happiness, and he tossed back the ever-so-handy flask with a little more force than really necessary.
"Of course I did! But there's a prophesy. If I had known, I never would have told him."
"A prophesy?" Lia prompted, perhaps a little too eagerly, and then taking a small sip to mask her interest.
"It says that her child will be the one to vanquish the Dark Lord, so Lord Voldemort wants to kill them all while the boy is still young, before he has a chance," Severus said, his voice cracking.
"I suppose that's as good a reason as any to murder someone," she muttered to herself, gazing up at the stars.
The look Severus gave her indicated that he didn't appreciate her feeble foray into humor.
Readying her wand tightly in her hand just in case, Lia took a risk. "I bet Dumbledore could save them, if he knew."
She watched Severus closely out of the corner of her eye, the memory charm already on the tip of her tongue.
He swallowed hard, piercing her with a far too understanding look.
"So it's you then," he breathed, closing his eyes and leaning back.
Lia blinked. Of the reactions she had anticipated, that one hadn't quite made the list, not even the top ten.
"Care to elaborate?"
"You're the traitor." Severus looked Lia over from head to toe, like he was reading a particularly disdainful book. "Of course it's you," he decided. "How obvious."
She grit her teeth. Why did people keep saying that? Regulus, Sirius, and now Severus, too! Was I really so transparent?
"What do you mean by 'the traitor?'" she asked, deflecting. "Is Voldemort looking for one?"
"Of course," he sneered, as if it were obvious. "Far too many things haven't been going as planned. He'd been considering it for awhile, but then someone intervened the last time he sent people after the Potters and..." he sighed, looking as though he'd just finished piecing together a complicated puzzle, but didn't appreciate the final product, "and, of course, that was you, too, was it?"
"Considering you're accusing me of treason against the Dark Lord, you don't seem very upset," Lia noted.
He closed his eyes. "I'm just so tired."
She knew he didn't mean it literally, but rather an emotional exhaustion. It occurred to her that he wouldn't turn her in. He was becoming... disillusioned. A small victory.
"Go to Dumbledore. Help them, if that's what you want," she urged.
"Why don't you?" he countered, narrowing his eyes.
She almost laughed. That was something I'd she'd struggling with for a long while.
"You mistake me, Severus. I may be a traitor," she emphasised 'may' just in case, "but I don't report to Dumbledore, or anybody else. I do this all purely for selfish reasons."
Severus considered her through dark eyes for a moment, before deciding, "I don't think so."
"Well, I do think so, and it's really what I think that matters in this instance," she pointed out, agitated for reasons she didn't understand.
"I don't believe you're here for selfish reasons," he mused, twirling his wand between his fingers. "You wouldn't have helped Lilly the last time if you were." She noted how he didn't mention James or Harry. "But I do think you wish it were that way. You wish you could just forget your old friends and focus wholly on your revenge. You feel it dishonours your family that you can't just let the world burn, so you can avenge them." His words slowed, for emphasis. "You wish you could be as cold as you pretend to be."
"Enough!" Lia snarled, chucking her hip flask at his face for good measure. He caught it, unfortunately. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she continued. "You distract yourself from the real issue here, and you know it! This isn't the time for analysing my conscience."
Although she said one thing, the rest of her wondered if she could really be so easy to read. How could he simply look at her and see her deepest insecurities?
"It wouldn't be possible to go to Dumbledore." He let his face fall despairingly into his hands. "Voldemort is looking for a traitor; he'd notice if I went to see him, and naturally presume I was the traitor all along." In a smaller voice, he continued, "And then Lily would still die."
Lia considered this in silence.
"So, you're saying that, if the coast were clear, you'd be able to go to Dumbledore and try and help them?" she asked, pulling herself resignedly to her feet. "If he thought, without a shadow of the doubt, that you were innocent, you could help them?"
"I would do anything."
Lia paced trails along the dewy grass, chewing furiously on her lip. An idea was beginning to take root in her head, no matter how many times she tried to shut it down. But for Lily and James, not to mention their son... If something happened to Sirius's best friend, he'd be crushed...
Lia stomped her boot angrily on a pile of leaves, spinning around to glare at Severus. He didn't so much as blink.
"Fine! I-" she swallowed, steeling her resolve, "I know what I have to do then."
"Do?" He raised a single thin brow in skepticism, despite his distress.
"Yes, let the record show, this really blows."
"I don't understand what you're talking about."
"You'll know when you see it. Trust me," she assured him. Turning more serious, she added, "I expect you to keep your word, Severus. I don't give up my shots at revenge for just anybody."
Still obviously confused, he nodded, and that was good enough for her.