[Chapter Forty-Six]
Frozen in place for a few moments, Elspeth didn't know how to respond to what Lily called after her when she was trying to leave. It was obviously a moment of desperation on Lily's behalf, trying to make it so that Elspeth didn't walk away from her at the time. And for a minute or so, Elspeth debated her next actions because she wasn't sure what she wanted to do. All summer, she had waited for a response from Lily, she wanted to hear from the girl and at least, working to make amends after what had taken place at the end of the last term. However, even if Elspeth found herself desperate for friendship again, she didn't find herself just willing to go along with what Lily had said.
Mainly because any time that the girls had spoken with each other in recent times, it was normally through arguing. Elspeth wanted friends, there was no doubt about that, but she wanted them in the right way. She wanted them to be there for her, support her, and she wanted to be able to support them and lately, she was finding it difficult to support the people that she wanted to be friends with. James and Sirius, along with Remus and Peter had practically ruined everything because they simply couldn't let their childish bullying go. And as for Lily, she simply couldn't stop defending a bully in a lot of ways. Even if she wasn't friends with Severus, she was still coming up with excuses for him and that made Elspeth extremely uncomfortable.
"Yeah, well, I heard that being bilingual increases your chances of getting the job you want, so good on you, Lily," Elspeth told her finally as she turned and went to head back to her previous compartment.
"Elspeth, please!" Lily called after her, and Elspeth could only be thankful that her back was turned to the girl at the moment or she probably would have caved in right then and there. But Lily seemed just as determined at the time to try and smooth things over.
The red-head started making her way over slowly and only stopped a couple of feet from where Elspeth had stopped again.
"I know...I know that you're right and I'm wrong," Lily sighed, " I know I've been wrong for a long time. I know I shouldn't keep coming up with excuses for Severus, especially after what he did and what he said. But at the same time, I just can't believe that he said it...you know?"
Gritting her teeth, Elspeth had to fight herself from turning around, especially as she heard Lily's voice crack at the end. It didn't help that she was a sympathetic crier. If Lily started up with the waterworks, she was basically doomed to cry herself.
"He was the first friend I made back when I was younger," Lily confessed to her, " you wouldn't know it now, but back then...back then he wasn't like this. He was nicer and he helped me understand that there was nothing wrong with me. When my sister called me a freak, he was right there to tell me that I wasn't. I...I don't know who he is now, but he wasn't like that when we first met. He's changed and maybe...maybe I just didn't want to see that. So yes, that makes me a hypocrite, I get that now."
Her voice was practically on its hands and knees, begging Elspeth to turn around and look at her and while Elspeth wanted to remain strong, she couldn't fight it any longer. What was she fighting anyways? Finally, Lily was opening up her eyes and finally seeing what everyone else had been seeing all along. Was she really going to keep holding a grudge? It wasn't going to solve anything and all Elspeth had ever wanted was for Lily to finally figure out that she deserved better.
She deserved better than Severus Snape and even during those times, she deserved better than James Potter. They were two boys that couldn't understand the concept of the word "no" and it was honestly so disrespectful that just thinking about it made Elspeth's blood boil. The difference was, James only had beautiful things to say about Lily when she wasn't around, he sung songs about her, wrote poems about the colour of her hair, whereas Severus was a snake in the grass. He spoke of horrible things behind Lily's back, using a term that he would never say to her face until he slipped up.
He used it in the company of his "friends" never facing Lily with a true version of himself and then one day, all the anger boiled over in him and that's when it came out. A word that he could use so easily among the others that did, but one that he hid saying it in front of her. It was worse than being called a freak, but Elspeth could understand that it probably hurt Lily just the same.
Now that she thought about it, Lily seemed friendly with people but did she actually have any friends outside of Severus? Sure, she could be seen talking with the likes of Marlene McKinnon but that was usually just inside the dorm. Everywhere else outside of the Gryffindor Common Room and dorms, she had always been in the company of Severus.
But now that she had cut ties with him, Lily almost seemed abandoned. She seemed lost as to what to do and her only reaction seemed to be defending one of the people that had hurt her the most in her life. Someone who she had confided in, had leaned against during tough times with her sister, only to practically have him spit it back in her face.
He told her she wasn't a freak, just to go on and tell her that she was a "mudblood."
Turning around, Elspeth finally came face to face with the watery gaze as Lily couldn't contain her emotions any longer. All the pain she had bottled up over the summer, trying to push that aside to deal with her own family problems, it was all bubbling at the surface with Elspeth as her witness. Back when Elspeth had first called Lily out on her nonsense, she thought when the day came and Lily finally figured out that she was in the wrong, that the feeling would be a victorious one. That she would feel a sense of "I-told-you-so" entitlement, however, she didn't feel any of that at the moment.
Instead, she was only left with a sympathetic pain that panged her chest as Lily covered her face with her hands. It didn't matter that they were standing in the centre of the train because during those times, it was as if no one was around except the two of them.
"I'm really sorry, Elspeth," Lily whispered to her as she lowered her hands again after wiping her face. "I didn't want to make a scene or anything. I just wanted to let you know that you were right. You were right about me being a hypocrite, you were right about Severus...I was just too stupid to realise it-"
Lily was cut off at one point as Elspeth swallowed the lump that developed in her throat over the course of time and pulled her right into a hug. For a few seconds, Lily was cut off guard that she didn't know what to do, but shortly after, she wrapped her arms around Elspeth and held onto her just as tight.
"I'm so sorry," she continued with her apology, "you were right...you were right..."
"Yeah, but it doesn't mean that I wanted to be," Elspeth muttered to her, bringing Lily to pull away and look at her in confusion.
"Wh-what? What do y-you mean?"
Elspeth looked down at the floor, rubbing her foot into the carpeting. "So what if I was right about Severus? Wouldn't it have been better if I was wrong about all of it? If I was, you would still have your best friend from childhood, you know? Look at you, you're crying...and you almost got me going here and for what? Just for the sake of me being right? Back when I called you a hypocrite I...I'll admit, I was angry. I was angry because of how you treated you James, even though he's a total git too. But I told you all those things to defend him...and that was wrong of me. "
"Yes, but you were right, El-"
"Yeah, I know!" she raised her voice. "I know I was right! But I could have been nicer about it, I could have...I could have approached it differently, but I didn't. You know, in a way, when you had this realisation, I wanted it to hurt back then, but now, now that I see you hurting like this...I feel like a total arse-"
"But you didn't hurt me, El," Lily sniffed, " in fact, you were trying to protect me. Even if you were harsh, it was the truth and maybe the hard truth was what I needed because I was trying so hard to ignore it all. Eventually, it was all going to boil down to something like that happening. I was dreading it from the moment when I told you the first time that I heard him use the word and you told me to wake up and I just...I couldn't. I didn't wake up until it was too late. I guess I deserved how it went down-"
"No!" Elspeth placed her hands up, stopping Lily from going any further. "No, you didn't deserve that. Not at all. What happened that day was just a...a...clusterfuck of things. It was terrible and yes, it was a good thing that you learned what type of person Severus was, but you didn't have to find out in that way. You shouldn't have been hurt by your discovery. So I'm sorry-"
"It sounds like neither one of us should be sorry at this point," Lily told her. "James and the others hurt you, Severus hurt me...I mean, why are we the ones apologising to each other."
Elspeth let out a small laugh. "That's a good question. It's always been a battle between those boys, I guess we just got caught up in the crosshairs of a battle."
"Well, we did want to jump in, didn't we? To protect...well, I wanted to protect Severus and you wanted to protect James...and Sirius, I mean, you are...were...dating him. I could understand you wanting to defend him and since James is his best friend-"
"Let's not talk about that right now," Elspeth pleaded for the time being, " I don't want to talk about them. If you don't mind."
"Right, sorry."
It was quiet for a few moments as the two girls awkwardly stood in front of each other, unsure of what to say next. They looked around as if a conversation topic would come out of nowhere and it seemed Lily was hoping that Elspeth would say something to confirm the idea that they were on good terms again.
"Do you really know Spanish?" Elspeth eventually asked peering up at her.
"Well, not fluently. But I learned some of it over the summer after I got your letter. It's how I spent most of the time in my room. I figured that even if you didn't want to talk to me when we met up again, it was a good skill to have. Like you said, being bilingual isn't a bad thing for a job."
They stared at each other for a couple of seconds before they burst into laughter, Elspeth shaking her head before looking up at her with a smile.
"Well done, Lily, well done."
"Gracias."