The summer air is thick and humid, making her palms and her forehead sweat. She lays on her stomach in the grass, the sun beating on the backs of her legs. She will have a sunburn tomorrow, but she is eleven and she can afford not to care.
Her red hair is tied up out of her face and off of her neck in the heat, but as she glances sideways at the boy next to her, she can see that his black hair still falls limply around his face. She is sure he must be roasting in the sun, but his hand holds hers gently and it feels quite cool. He turns a page of the book between them, and the brightly colored pictures seem to assault her eyes as the sun reflects off of them. She has to blink a few times before she can continue to read.
Now is the time in their lives to read comic books, because they are both afraid to speak, even though their friendship is easy and their trust given freely. They’ve never asked for each other, but they belong where they are all the same. Tomorrow it could all change, for the better or the worse, and neither one wants to be the one to unearth the topic that could destroy this simple love between them that has had this summer for freedom.
They agreed weeks before that eleven is a difficult age. There is so much that is very new to them, and so much that is so familiar it is worn thin. They both want and fear change simultaneously. Tomorrow they start a new school, and a new life. They are expecting magic and adventure, but they cannot seem to tear their minds from the peace of being together. It is not a romance; it is expecting nothing and receiving everything.
The dark green blades of her lawn tickle her face gently. The earth is hot and still, as if, right now, it could stop turning. Somehow they both wish it would. She knows there is something incredible coming to her sometime soon; she expects it, but she wishes it would wait just a while. Right now, all she wants is this.
Lily Evans grew up expectant, waiting for the beautiful and wonderful things she was sure life had to offer. When they went to the lake, she always paddled her boat around every bend, so that the setting sun would blind her eyes with brilliant pink and gold. She would eat dozens of strawberries after she picked them, always sure that the next one would taste better than the one before it. Somehow they always did, even when her belly ached and her mouth was sticky, and Petunia had washed her hands ages ago.
She saw every person in her world as a possibility; everyone she met, she wondered. Who are you, really? Will you mean something to me? Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn’t, but she never stopped hoping. When people weren’t what she thought they were, which happened sometimes, it left her wobbly and unsure. Sometimes this was in a good way; other times it meant heartbreak.
Severus seemed to mean something the moment she saw him, for all he looked like an overgrown bat. She sensed something awkward and clumsy, but fundamentally good inside him. It seemed crazy to her at the time, but his sallow face seemed to hover in her mind until she gave him a chance at meaning something.
He stands off on the edge of the playground, alone, save for a scrawny bush. He hopes to see her, but he doesn’t think he will. It is the kind of hope he can’t fully let inside himself, because that could hurt him, and he’s been hurt too much already. Her twirls a wilted flower in his fingers, the sticky juice from the crushed petals staining his fingers. It is fall. There is one year left to endure, and then he will be gone from this home that never really felt that way.
He sees her the moment she appears at the gate to the playground. He thinks he can almost feel a change in the atmosphere as she unlatches the gate with a rusty squeak, but he’s only ten years old, and he doesn’t make a habit of delving too deeply into things. Her sister is not with her, and he wonders if it is because of him. Why did she come alone today?
She sits on the swings, scuffing her sandals on the asphalt. It doesn’t matter if the soles turn black today; she’ll soon put them in the closet to wait for next summer. He slides out of his coat, hoping he will look less batlike that way. He drops it behind the bush, suffocating the brownish weeds underneath.
He sits next to her on the swings and she doesn’t leave. When she speaks to him, his heart leaps and he allows himself to truly feel the happiness that seems to push against the turtle shell he’s built up around him for protection, in the world where she seems like the only one who doesn’t hate him.
When they leave the playground, they are side by side. Her green eyes follow his with rapt attention, and he finds himself speaking about more than he’s ever said to anyone. It is as if they have exchanged a vow of trust without actually speaking. He has information about a world she’s just discovering, but she can improve the world he is already in.
Lily taught Severus things that many other children took for granted. He might have known more about the world of wizards, but Lily was good at being happy. They ate ice cream at a worn out picnic table at the park. They played tag and checkers and card games with naughty names. They baked cookies in Lily’s kitchen, and ate them, even though they’d forgotten the baking powder. They read comic books and had swordfights, and ran around until they lay groaning and gasping in the grass.
Much of the time, they just talked. Severus’ sallow skin and dark hair and eyes couldn’t have been more different from Lily’s flaming red hair and bright green eyes, but they found that they both laughed at the same jokes, and that made them not so different after all. It was as if they had created a bubble that only they could truly understand.
Severus reveled in this newfound friendship. It was something new and foreign and wonderful. While he taught Lily words like “dementor” and “Muggle”, she taught him the meaning of trust and companionship. The night she first whispered “best friends” to him, he thought his heart would burst.
She closes the comic book and wipes a thin coating of sweat from her brow. She decides that now is the time to say what they both know they need to, but are too afraid, as though not admitting a possibility will stop it from coming true.
The now setting sun shines through the trees, lighting up the ground in a dappled pattern of gold and green. The air has turned cooler. The adventure in the comic book is over, but the adventure of their lives is about to begin. She squeezes his slim fingers in hers and he takes a breath.
When she speaks, her words comfort him, and he cannot be so afraid. They will stay friends, she knows it. No matter what happens at their new school, it can’t change the way they feel about each other. They have shared experiences now that hold them together in a bond they are sure can never break.
The last words on her soft pink lips are the best: “Best friends,” she whispers.
He stares at her in the dimming light. The gold of the sun lights up her eyes and her cheeks seem as smooth as petals. The first gentle breeze of the whole evening rustles through the trees, and a few strands of her auburn hair tickle his chest. She has shown him the stars and beyond; only just now has he realized that he’s fallen truly in love.
Severus was only eleven when he realized the depth of his feelings for Lily. He had never truly known what love was” at least not the forever kind that most people were waiting for. Eleven was too young to grasp the reason for his feelings, but not too young to feel them. He was suddenly lost, unsure of how to cope with these strange new emotions.
Instead of allowing him to open up and become a better person because of Lily, he withdrew. He took shelter in the callous, ambitious society of his new Slytherin friends at Hogwarts, and tried to pretend that they meant as much to him as Lily did. On the outside, he was emotionless, but on the inside, he burned, hating himself for his cowardice and his spite. He knew that Lily deserved more than him, and he wanted to give it to her, but he could never find it within himself.
Hogwarts became simultaneously heaven and hell for Severus the moment he stepped onto the train his first day. He loved his classes; there was so much to learn, and he was eager for it all. The hallway, the library, and the grounds were different. Whispers and names followed him everywhere he went. Sometimes he threw curses. Sometimes he pretended he was deaf. No matter what, every hateful mutter was a dagger in his carefully constructed armor.
He sits alone among stacks of dusty books in the very back section of the library. She knows she will find him there, and she does, but it is not the way she expected to see him. His robes are wet with ink, and he sits crumpled on the ground against the shelf. Dust has settled on the floor around him; instead of a thin coating on all the shelves, it has fallen to the floor in swirls and piles.
They both like this spot because no one else does. The books whisper to them in a soft and very private way that they are sure only they understand. The musty scent from the shelves seems to act as aromatherapy when either of them has had a bad day, as it is clear he has.
Although she dutifully asks what’s wrong, it is almost as though he can tell that she’s pleading him not to say anything. Deep down, she already knows, and cannot face it. He doesn’t tell her what happened to him, because he doesn’t want to admit to himself that he’s not as strong as he wants to be. This is what their friendship has become: an elusive dance of speaking and keeping quiet. There are a thousand shades of meaning hidden in what they cannot say.
She wipes the ink from his clothes, and gently brushes the dust from his hair. They bow their heads over potions essays, and pretend that there is nothing more important than the proper use of moonstones. They let the soft smell of parchment and ink wash over them, and for an hour, they are content. Before they depart for their respective common rooms, she gives him a new bottle of ink. For some reason, this makes him want to cry.
It started as innocent fun for Severus” a new spell here, a foolish jinx there. He siphoned off his frustration with the Marauders and his unrequited love for Lily by poking fun at other lowlifes like himself. Somehow, this seemed to satisfy him. He was accepted by the most formidable types in Hogwarts; Avery, Mulciber and even older students like Malfoy were approving and even impressed by his knowledge and talent in the Dark Arts.
Before he truly realized it had happened, things had changed. Encouraged and assisted by his new friends, Severus had delved deeper into the Slytherin legacy, and left behind his only true friend. Lily tried to bring him back and help him see sense, but with James Potter wooing her every chance he got, Lily’s true love seemed less and less likely. Lily’s friendship had subconsciously been pushed aside in favor of revenge for his constant misery.
As it had been almost since they began at Hogwarts, both Lily and Severus were afraid to talk about what was going on. Neither one wanted to admit that their easy and trusting friendship was crumbling before their eyes. Lily finally told Severus of her concerns, only because she was sick of resenting him, but they both continued to cling to the thin thread connecting them… until they day when it could hold on no longer.
He sits with his skinny back pressed against the cool stone of the castle wall. Night air blows gently through the window a few yards away; the corridor has a hint of summer to it now. His spinal cord is starting to hurt from prolonged contact with the rough wall, but he will wait forever if only in the hope of saving what he doesn’t want to admit is gone.
He twists his hands nervously and impatiently. He’s sure that she knows he is outside her dormitory, but he isn’t sure she’ll come down. He peers down at his school robes and hopes they don’t smell. He wishes he could have changed, but he was determined not to miss her.
When she sees him there, sitting exactly where she was told he would be, her heart leaps in spite of itself. She forces herself to say what she knows is necessary. He’s made his choice, and she can see that now. Their friendship cannot survive in two people that have changed and chosen so differently they hardly know each other.
He argues against her, but he doesn’t deny his allegiance to those she cannot be loyal to. They can’t serve their friendship and their choices.
She feels the tears rising behind her eyes, but she pushes them back, and begins to hate him for doing this to her; for keeping her so close and then betraying her. When she speaks, everything he ever told her echoes in her head. The pain of losing this friendship that she never understood hurts more than she could ever have imagined. She bites her lip and barely breathes, pretending she doesn’t care.
He watches her, seeing her struggle, and his self-loathing seems to reach the breaking point. In a minute he’s going to scream and scream and run and jump through the window and throw himself to the ground. He doesn’t, and the pain doesn’t hurt any less either. He tries to convince her otherwise, but it is useless because he believes she deserves better. Never has he felt so trapped inside his own skin. He grips his fists and shifts around subconsciously, as if by moving, he can hold off whatever seems to be clawing around in his stomach.
When she leaves through the portrait hole, they are both sure the other holds a tiny piece of their hearts, because their emptiness is consuming. She walks upstairs to her bed, still holding her breath. She doesn’t relax until she is behind the protection of her red velvet curtains, and then she lets the tears come.
Back outside the portrait hole, he falls to his knees, breathing heavily. He stays there for several minutes, willing himself, even though he is alone, not to cry. He steels himself and stands up, trying to mend the bitter wound she’s left in him. He has friends. He has a master. He’ll be all right in the end.
This is what he tells himself, but he doesn’t believe it. Never will he forgive himself for having loved, and having lost it all.
They both fall asleep slowly that night; the air seems to oppress them. They are older and wiser, tougher and deeper than they were when they met. At least they have left each other with that much gained. The rest that is left to their friendship is an aching heart, a salty tear and an echo of what never could have been.
Echoes by smiley10792
Chapter Notes: I want to thank every single person who I met at summer theater this year for showing me a friendship that "expects nothing and recieves everything". You are all incredible and a big inspiration!
To Kasey, if you ever read this, I will always wonder what could have been if we were still friends. Thanks for inspiring this story.
And another thank you to Ennalee for writing such great stories and insightful reviews. This story was inspired by your unique writing style!
Lily and Snape, alas, belong to the outrageously talented JK Rowling, not me.