Chapter 17 - Dirty Old Town
Summer meant living with his parents, and working at a mindless job, but it also meant that Severus had Lily all to himself.
His mother was still sour and unpleasant; his father remained angry and defeated. For his part, Severus still spent an inordinate amount of time in his room, although this year he could typically be found reading ahead in his seventh year textbooks rather than wallowing in his sorrows.
Although he was living at home for what was to be the last time, at least he was there much less often, because his mother had insisted that he help earn his keep and had found for him a part-time job as a box boy at the local market before the first week of summer was out. The job was as inane as might have been expected, but it required him to do very little talking to anyone, and it gave him time to think. He thought, for example, that he might have actually been developing tangible biceps from all the lifting. Perhaps. And he thought that it helped considerably that his father had actually found employment at one of the few mills that still operated in the local area. He didn’t appear to be very happy about it, but nothing made the man particularly happy anyway, and it paid the bills, which was an improvement, and left him either too occupied or too exhausted to bother Severus, which was a miracle.
Lily, with her charm, intelligence, beauty, and -- most importantly -- her connections through Professor Slughorn, had actually found herself what initially sounded like a halfway decent job working for a successful local apothecary. Ostensibly she was to be helping with measuring and other such preparations for the mixing of custom potions; in reality, her work was much like Severus’s crap job, except that it involved toting and listing magical items and dolloping on the charm to wealthy and eccentric customers. “There’s only one thing that would pay you for it,” she had informed Severus, “and that’s money.”
But they did have money, and they had each other for company, and so several times a week, Severus went to Lily’s house after work and either sat around talking with her, joined her family for dinner, or took her somewhere cheap and greasy for a meal. Or was taken out by her, as was often the case -- Lily was a bit too fond of women’s lib -- and of making sure that Severus knew he wasn’t her boyfriend -- to allow him to pay every time. Nonetheless, she was all his, possibly for the last time, so he savored it.
It was a summer of relative domestic tranquility. Tobias Snape, when he was actually home, had seemed to keep in the forefront of his mind the fact that Severus could now legally use a wand, and as a result, so far Severus had not even been threatened. Eileen Snape worked late hours for extra pay, and to avoid her husband, presumably. Severus spent as much time as possible at Lily’s house. In other words, as long as the three Snapes avoided each other, an uneasy peace was maintained.
On this particular Friday morning, Severus had to be at the shop for his job at eleven in the morning, so he was still home when his parents were both long gone. He read ahead in his textbooks, made some notes on the book of useful and potentially lucrative potions he had purchased for himself before, and dressed up somewhat convincingly like a Muggle, which was to say, nothing that looked like anyone from a previous decade or century might have worn it. Muggles seemed to be absolutely mad about the newest and the latest. When he finally came downstairs to get a belated breakfast before walking to work, something caught his eye-- his father's tin lunch box, sitting on the kitchen countertop. Both parents had long since left for work, and his father would presumably never have time in his short lunch break to return home to get it. The foreman at the mill was a much harsher master than Mr. Bates at the market, who usually showed up a bit late and slightly hung over. Severus debated back and forth between bringing it to his father and letting him choose between going hungry, walking to the local chippie, or begging food off his co-workers. Finally an impulse of pity won out.
The town was as familiar to him as his own self, and it never seemed to change, even though he knew it was a constantly shifting tableau of decay. There they were, as they had always been -- the gas works, the old fever hospital, crisps wrappers and discarded bottles -- a nightmare vision of some sort of degenerate Victorian world, although perhaps the Victorian world itself had been just as degenerate and not really like something out of a Christmas card, the way it was so often portrayed.
Some benefactor had thought it salutary to provide a public library for the factory workers and their children-- perhaps in the 1870's, since the small, brick building was huddled in a warren of streets with names that came from the Crimean War. Therefore, most of Severus’s early education had come from the public library, Balaclava Street branch. He walked past it and on to the mill where his father spent his days in yet another dead-end job.
When he arrived, it occurred to him that he had no idea how to get into the place. There were high brick walls, the occasional gate, and numerous heavy-looking metal doors, but none looked like an entrance. He finally found something that looked like it might suffice as an entry door, and he knocked. No answer. He pushed, and the door yielded, leading to an empty hallway with dim fluorescent lighting and, at the end of it, a sliding window that looked as though a desk arrangement might be behind it.
When he arrived at the window, there was no one there, but a bell sat on the countertop with a handwritten note ordering him to “Ring for service,” so he rang for service. Nothing happened. He decided to wait a minute, and just when he was about to ring again, an ancient-looking woman opened a door and greeted him.
“I have my father’s lunch,” Severus announced. “He works here, and he forgot it. I would like to leave it for him.”
“Why don’t you bring it to him yourself, then?” the lady asked cheerfully.
Because I avoid him as much as humanly possible, Severus thought, but replied smoothly, “I wouldn’t want to disturb him. His name is Tobias Snape.” He held the lunch box out to her, but she tottered off in the other direction without taking it.
“Oh, there’s nothing they love like being disturbed,” the old lady joked. “Besides, you’d be giving my old back a rest. Just down that hallway and through the door to your left,” she concluded. There was clearly going to be no arguing with her and her old back, so Severus gave up and walked into the mill.
So this was the place his father had to work every day. No wonder the man was always so irritable-- it was utterly depressing. The building was dark, with the darkness occasionally broken by harsh lighting, and the air was close and dank. High above, a few partially obscured windows punctuated the brick with dim, yellowish light. The noise, though, was the thing that impressed itself upon him the most -- the endless whirring and humming and grinding of hundreds of gears and motors and machines. Low sounds, high sounds, the occasional beep or whistle-- he wondered that his father still had any hearing left and realized why he always turned on the television so bloody loud. At the machines were stationed dozens of men, and although some were tall and some were short, some were fat and some were thin, they all looked the same, somehow. He looked up and down several rows, but the employees didn’t even seem to notice him, until about the fifth row, when he heard a voice call his name over the din. The tall figure that was his father pulled a few levers, yelled something to his co-workers, and the machine they were working on came grinding to a halt as several men stepped away from it.
Severus walked over to him and held out the lunch box. “You forgot this,” he began.
Tobias Snape looked tired and, somehow, older than he did at home. "Thanks, son," he said quietly, taking it from Severus. "I'll be needing that." Severus nodded.
“You’re off to work, then,” his father said. It was more of a statement than a question, and Severus realised that his father was probably trying to make small talk with him to look like a decent father in front of his co-workers. Even he must have realised how pathetic it was that they had nothing to say to each other.
“Eleven o’clock until closing,” Severus added, and he was about to leave when the men nearby picked up the conversation.
"So, you must be the great Severus that we never stop hearing about!" one of the other workmen declared. "Brags about you all the time, your old man does."
Brags about you all the time? Did they have the right person? Severus’s father thought he was a good-for-nothing and a freak. Severus flicked a puzzled glance in his father's direction; Tobias Snape’s face had hardened, and he wouldn't meet Severus's eyes.
"Top of your class at your fancy boarding school, we hear," the man went on.
“Severus this, Severus that,” another man mocked. “You don’t look like a genius, lad. More like a teenage boy who needs a haircut.”
“It’s what’s between the ears that counts,” a third man commented sagely.
"Nothing wrong with schooling," a thick-set ruddy-featured man declared firmly, with the air of an expert. "My Kevin's probably the first lad in our family to go to the university. The cousins all take the piss; s'posed to be working in a factory and getting into fights and getting some girl up the builder when you're twenty, not studying architecture. But his mother's of gentler stock than my lot, and she's proud of him. Only thing would suit her better would be if he'd become a priest, but I wouldn't be hearing of that. Someone has to carry on the family name." There were roars of laughter at this one.
“Enough,” the elder Snape growled. “If we don’t work, we won’t get paid.” The others didn’t seem inclined to argue with him -- few did, in Severus’s experience. Saying nothing to Severus, Tobias Snape turned back to the machine in front of him and jammed a lever into place as the thing rumbled to life. The others, looking disappointed, resumed their places. The party was over.
As he walked away, Severus was grateful to the proud father of some unknown architecture student for distracting the crowd's attention from himself. He had no idea what to think about this bit of information about his dad. He had a bad feeling that his father did actually brag about him but that he hadn't wanted his son to know this, and that after his dad returned home from tonight's payday excursion to the pub, Severus might be in for one hell of a beating if he didn't get his wand out first.
At least he could go to Lily's.
........................................
There was no way to contact Lily at her job -- the market hardly kept owls for messenger purposes -- so Severus wandered over to her house after finishing work in hopes that she, and not Petunia, would be home. To his surprise, when the door was opened to him by Lily, a gaggle of girls stood in the front hallway already. They turned to look at him as the door opened, with looks on their faces as if he were some creepy crawly thing. The faces were vaguely familiar -- Muggle girls, undoubtedly, probably from Lily’s primary school.
“Sev!” Lily said, clearly surprised. “I wasn’t expecting you!” Then he could feel the change in her mood as she read his face, and her eyes became serious and questioning, but she didn’t wait for questions and answers. “Wait -- of course I was expecting you,” she announced. “What a great arse I am, eh?” she continued, taking his arm and pulling him into the house. He could feel the gratitude welling up in his chest, and at that particular moment, he loved her so much that he could hardly breathe.
“I am so sorry, girls” Lily announced to the group before he could say a word. “I completely forgot that I had already told Sev that we’d do something. I’m also forgetting my manners.” And with that, she promptly introduced him to the slightly disgruntled group, announcing five names that he made absolutely no effort to learn or remember. He nodded and shook hands and muttered he was pleased to meet them, as expected. She went on with her apologies, arranged something for the following weekend, promised not to forget, and escorted them out, while Severus stood awkwardly in the hallway.
When the last of them had said their goodbyes and Lily walked back in, she stopped and looked him over with a quizzical look. “What happened?” she asked, clearly concerned.
He didn’t quite know how to explain. “Nothing, really,” he finally answered, playing with the chain of his pocket-watch. “Well, nothing yet.”
She just stood and waited, her arms crossed, her head tilted, and he could tell that she didn’t quite know what to make of him on this particular occasion.
“My dad,” he finally said. “I took his lunch to the mill because he forgot it. Stupid bloody idea -- last time I’ll do that. Anyway, his mates started going on about how proud of me he was.” He paused, trying to think of how to explain the next bit. It was a premonition more than anything else. It was nothing tangible.
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Lily asked, finally. She looked puzzled. Of course, Lily’s family was normal, and predictable.
“No,” Severus answered decisively. “He looked like thunder. He looked like he wanted to kill me. I don’t think he wanted me to know that.”
“You can’t escape him forever, Sev,” she answered softly. “What will you do tomorrow?”
“I can escape him tonight,” Severus answered. “It’s a Friday. Tonight he’ll be out getting drunk. I don’t want to be there when he gets home. I’ll sleep in the park if I have to -- I’ve done it before. But I thought -- just in case --”
“God, I’d forgotten about that. It’s a payday, isn’t it? Give me a minute,” she said, and dashed off down the hallway. In even less than a minute, she was back from the kitchen, with her mother bustling after her.
“Severus! How nice to see you!” said Mrs. Evans, a slightly shorter, slightly plumper version of Lily with a somewhat faded variant on Lily’s auburn hair. She had blue-grey eyes, though -- the most brilliant of Lily’s features came from her father. Severus soon found himself being whisked into the family room, with a pile of blankets and pillows and towels being deposited into his arms as if he were going on a North Pole expedition.
“Lily’s dad and I going out to the theater with the Abernathys,” Mrs. Evans instructed, “but there’s some of last night’s dinner left in the fridge, and I daresay there’s enough for you if you get to it before Vernon does. There’s plenty of food in the fridge, and there’s the telly, of course--.” A warm hostess, she gestured in the direction of the television as if Severus had never been over there or had never seen the invention before -- he wasn’t sure which. He was painfully familiar with the television, since his father seemed to do little else besides sitting in front of it and watching it when he was home. Severus knew to shut up when the television was on.
He thanked Mrs. Evans, and in response she gave him a pleasant smile, gave his arm a little pat, went on a bit more about how he was always welcome, and then commented on the time and bustled up the stairs to get dressed up for her evening out, leaving Severus and Lily alone.
“Dinner?” Severus asked.
Lily looked thoughtful. “Not here. I was planning on going out, and that’s what I’m in the mood for. Fish and chips?”
“Fish and chips,” Severus concurred. He waited while she pulled a light cardigan off a hanger in the hall closet, slung her handbag over her shoulder, and ushered him out into the front garden. Then she stopped to give him a look.
“What?” Severus asked.
“Nice outfit,” Lily commented archly.
“What’s wrong with it?” he continued, knowing perfectly well what was wrong with it.
“It’s entirely black,” she responded.
“Like my heart,” he smirked, giving her a sidelong glance to enjoy her reaction as they walked along. He had prepared that one. She grinned, swatted him lightly, then looped her arm in his. “It could be worse,” he added, “I could have worn the one with the Sex Pistols logo on it. Your mother would love that.” He immediately felt slightly guilty, since he actually rather liked Lily’s mother once he got past the Muggle bit, which he was trying heroically to do. She was… motherly. There was much to be said for that.
“My mother has no idea who the Sex Pistols are,” Lily answered, continuing, “In fact, I’m surprised that you do. You’re more of a Muggle than you let on. But anyway, all she would care about is a boy walking into the house to pick up her daughter with a shirt that said something about sex. I think that would be enough -- she’d never let me leave the house. With any boy. Ever again.”
“Remind me to wear that one, then,” he said.
“You wouldn’t,” she said firmly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.
“You’re right, I wouldn’t. I don’t even own one. I just wanted to see whether you believed me.” This time she smacked him harder, but her laughter was worth it.
“I did believe you. You actually do a good job dressing like a Muggle,” she said, clearly impressed, as they walked on.
“I know,” he responded. “Useful in avoiding getting my arse kicked at work. Even Petunia might approve.”
“You could be dressed like the Prime Minister and Petunia wouldn’t approve,” Lily said dryly, but with a hint of sadness. “We are who we are, and she doesn’t like it. Shall we go here?” He nodded and followed her into the small, greasy establishment which seemed to be their favorite locale for dining out. It was nearby, it was cheap, and it was open.
“Mary says hello,” Lily informed him as they stood in the early evening queue. Apparently on this particular balmy Friday evening, no one felt like cooking.
“Can Mary actually send owls?” he asked, curious about how exactly Mary would get in touch given her family situation and the International Statute of Secrecy.
Lily looked at him like he had grown a second head on his shoulders. “The telephone, Severus,” she answered with an amazed look. “You’ve heard of it -- it’s a black device with a dial on it with numbers and it rings and you pick it up and someone can talk to you from far away. Your dad has one in your front hallway.” She was smirking, but then she cheerily asked, “Shall I pay for dinner? After work and all that babyminding last weekend, I’m positively flush.”
“Only if I can pay next time,” he answered. He had some money saved up not only from his job, but also from his black-market business in potions that were technically perfectly legal but usually difficult for underage students to procure, and he had been looking forward to doing the lion’s share of paying for meals and pictures for the summer. Fish and chips and ice-cream could be twisted in his mind to seem surprisingly like a date when they involved him pulling out his father’s castoff billfold that he kept for summer use.
“So, still hearing from James Potter?” he asked as casually as possible as they sat down with their trays.
“Just that once,” she responded with a sigh that Severus deeply hoped was not a sign of pining for the aforementioned. “He’s a nice enough fellow, Sev -- he’s decent to most of the Gryffindors, anyway, and probably to most people except you. You two got off on the wrong foot and somehow never moved on.”
She tucked into some battered plaice, obviously ready to end the conversation, but he felt an inexorable pull to keep it going. He knew she hated the topic, but he also knew he couldn’t stop himself. “Would you ever go out with him?” he asked, shaking vinegar over his fried fish somewhat more violently than necessary. “I mean, he’s asked you enough times.”
She sighed again. “Fine. I thought about it,” she said. “Just to get him to leave me alone -- and to go out on a date, quite honestly. It might be nice now and again. But then you and I became friends again, which means I get to see up close and personally what a berk he is. So, that was rather off-putting. In short, no, I never did go out with him -- not even when you and I weren’t talking. Satisfied?”
No, he wasn’t satisfied. “You’d think about it, though,” Severus could hear his own voice saying, even as some other, wiser part of his mind wished to retract the stupid, masochistic comment. He was being petulant now, and he knew it.
“Don’t be a jealous git again, Sev,” she said quietly, but her eyes were angry. “We’ve been doing so well. You’re my best friend, and I don’t want to lose you again. And that’s not a threat -- but I don’t know how we could call it friendship if all we do is fight. Which is what happens whenever James Potter comes up.”
He took a deep breath. He knew he was being a fool, but James Potter still seemed to goad him into making an ass of himself even from many miles away. He wondered whether his possessiveness of Lily would ever end -- if she agreed to go out with him, if she married him, both of which seemed highly unlikely -- or if things never worked out between them and she wound up with someone else. Would he be one of those men who wouldn’t let anyone else near his girlfriend? Would he still be jealous if he lost her, embarrassing himself by haunting someone else’s wife and hating some other wizard for his good fortune? He knew he had changed a great deal over the past year, but these impulses still kept pushing up like weeds. It was the holding onto her, he had long since realized, that made him most likely to lose her. The original plan had been to become someone she would want to be with. Letting go of his need to possess her seemed impossible, but it was clearly the next step.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It would be -- unreasonable to think you’d have continued turning down James Potter over someone you weren’t even friends with anymore. I’m surprised you did.”
She looked surprised herself, probably because none of their many conversations on this topic had ever ended with a concession on his part. “I would never go out with a fathead who treats you the way he does,” she said decisively. “It’s not just the Hufflepuffs who are loyal.”
“Then I’ll just have to hope he keeps being such a git,” Severus said, much more lightly than he actually felt, “because if he ever started behaving normally, you might actually go out with him, and then I’d be stuck putting up with him.” He would put up with Potter if he were Lily’s boyfriend, he realized -- whatever it took to stay near her. But he would never stop trying to undermine the pompous git, however subtly, even if that just meant being better than James at everything she needed. And he would never stop hoping.
As a final concession, he even changed the topic, bringing up the question of who would be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts during their seventh year. They both planned on taking it -- Lily because she was considering becoming an Auror, and Severus because he had no idea what he wanted to do but the class certainly seemed a sensible choice, not to mention one that he was good at -- and for a few minutes they reviewed the litany of Defense teachers who had instructed them during their six years at Hogwarts. The conversation had drifted in this comfortable direction for a few minutes when the restaurant’s door slammed open and a noisy crowd of young men shoved in, headed by the inevitable Vernon Dursley.
Vernon Dursley was an eminently boring young man, but Severus managed to find interesting things about him every time they met. How easily he got red in the face. The complete and utter lack of anything even resembling a neck. Or the fact that he did not seem to have in his wardrobe any article of clothing that contained natural fibers. Severus was not the type to notice people’s clothes, but Vernon’s clothes were outstanding in their content of all things artificial. They positively glowed with chemical goodness. On this particular occasion, his ample girth was straining against what appeared to be a shiny blue polyester polo shirt and brown polyester trousers with their own built-in belt. His hair was slicked back with some sort of product that caused it to completely defy the second law of thermodynamics, being completely and utterly immobile. There was no entropy in Vernon Dursley’s hair.
Vernon and his friends seemed to draw their sense of self-esteem from attracting notice from other people -- in this case, the other patrons of the restaurant, who turned with annoyed glances at the noisy banter. In return, the crowd of young men looked brazenly around the restaurant, as if they dared anyone to ask them to shut up. Of course Vernon’s gaze fell upon Lily.
“Well,” he announced to his gang. “Look who it is. Petunia’s oddball sister and her freakish friend.” His companions laughed.
“Say that to my face, Dursley,” Lily challenged, standing up and slipping out of the booth seat that she occupied.
“Excuse me?” Vernon asked, his pallid, doughy features starting to darken with anger.
“I said, say that to my face,” she repeated. Her voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking her mood.
In response, Vernon ordered his friends, “Get the Captain’s Special for me, with extra chips,” and then lumbered over toward Lily and Severus. “What was that you said?” he asked nastily. “Or was that your boyfriend? Maybe he sounds like a girl. Looks enough like one with that long hair.”
As Vernon approached the table, Lily glanced quickly at Severus, who had been the object of the Marauders’ enmity long enough to know when a fight was going to start. Her eyes pleaded don’t, and she almost imperceptibly shook her head. Severus stowed his wand again, but kept playing with the handle, ready to use it if needed.
“Now,” Vernon said, standing over Lily, but keeping a careful distance. “What was that you were saying? It sounded like you were trying to embarrass me in a public place.”
“No need -- you do a good enough job embarrassing yourself,” Lily snapped.
“I know about you,” Vernon hissed in an angry whisper, stepping far too close to her. “And I know about your lot. The authorities might be interested in knowing also. Decent, normal people shouldn’t have to--”
At this, Lily stood up to her full height to better look into Vernon’s piggy eyes. “And I know about you,” she challenged him, chin up, eyes flashing.
Vernon looked almost afraid, then angry. Without another word, he backed away a few steps and said, with a jerk of his head toward his friends, “Right, mates, let’s stay away from these two before we catch something.” They left in a murmur of grunts and laughter, and Severus felt himself relaxing.
Lily sat down, looking limp and relieved, into the booth. “Where were we?”
“You know what about him?”
“Nothing,” Lily said brightly. “I just made it up. I wonder what on earth he thinks I know?” She looked delighted with herself. “We need to find out what it is,” she went on, clearly plotting something. “You!” she announced. “You can do Legilimency!”
“I can do Occlumency,” Severus corrected her. “Prof-- Davis hasn’t taught me an Legilimency.” The first name bit was going to take some getting used to.
“Then that’s your next step, isn’t it?” Lily replied with an impish grin. “Vernon seems so dreadfully boring,” she mused, “I wonder what on earth he could be hiding.”
“I’m not sure I want to think about that,” Severus answered, continuing, “Petunia was stupid enough to tell him?”
“Petunia is stupid enough for any number of things. And think about it -- do you actually think the police would believe him?”
Severus thought about it briefly, and agreed with her. “Fair enough. We were talking about Professor Llewellyn.”
“Of course. Professor Llewellyn. I’m sorry, Sev-- I know you got on well with him. I wish he could have stayed, too -- he was brilliant and adorable at the same time, and don’t get jealous on me again. I’m allowed to say that he was objectively rather attractive in an intellectual sort of way, and in a too-old-for-me-and-married-to-someone-else sort of way. Why did he leave, exactly?”
She moved on too quickly for Severus to make the necessary sarcastic remark. Instead he just answered, “He has to find out what curse he has and how to break it. I suppose it would have been too much to ask for any decent Defence professor to last more than a year.”
“So it’s a curse, then? I just thought he was rather sickly. How did it happen?”
“Well, he thinks it’s a curse, anyway, and I suppose he’d be the one to know. I’m guessing Africa, since something similar happened to his friend.” Severus decided to skip the fact that whatever had happened to Professor Llewellyn’s friend Jonathan had killed the man, since it was a depressing and altogether too real possibility. “By the way,” he added, changing the subject, “do you want to visit him? If you don’t mind the fact that he might be cursed, I suppose.”
“Visit a professor? I would love to visit a professor. Even a cursed one. Especially him. Why -- did you get an invitation?”
“Yes.”
“And I didn’t?”
“Apparently.”
“Fascinating.”
“Isn’t it, though,” Severus replied dryly. “But you do get to be in the Slug Club.”
“Lucky me,” Lily mused, sipping on her soda.
Severus raised one eyebrow and was unable to keep himself from smiling at her. “Lucky you.”
………………………………………..
When he woke up the next day, he first had to figure out where he was. Lily’s parents’ sofa. Of course. The sofa wasn’t long enough for him, so he had slept curled up a bit unnaturally and felt stiff as a poker. He seemed to have awakened before the rest of the household, so he used magic to brush his teeth and straighten his hair -- his usual implements being back at Spinner’s End -- straightened his clothes, made a mental note that after sleeping all night in the same outfit he’d worn the day before, he definitely needed to bathe, and returned to the front room where he had spent the night. The Evans family woke up one by one not long thereafter -- Petunia chose not to stay in his company, but the others greeted him cheerily and sat down, with heads fuzzy and housecoats on, to breakfast. The Evanses, with the notable exception of Petunia, were all so bloody fond of each other -- if he hadn’t envied it so much, he would undoubtedly have found it disgusting.
Severus and Lily were at the breakfast table with her dad as the older man pored over the sports section of the local paper, when the two owls arrived.
“Two owls,” Mr. Evans commented, puzzled. “Interesting.”
“Professor Dumbledore,” Mrs. Evans said proudly from her spot at the stove scrambling eggs. “The man is a genius. He must know you’re visiting with us, Severus. I take it this is your list of supplies for the fall term?”
Lily, who had opened her parchment more quickly than Severus, was staring in shock at the page in front of her. “I’m Head Girl,” she said, standing up slowly. “They’re asking me to be Head Girl.”
“Well, of course they are,” Mrs. Evans responded, dropping her spatula and giving Lily a big, motherly hug. “Because you’re smart, and kind, and a natural leader. Our Lily!”
“Our Lily, Head Girl,” Mr. Evans said. He had put down the paper and was grinning madly, glowing with pride over his daughter.
“Well, I suppose now I can get away with whatever I want, then, can’t I?” Severus joked. Lily grinned and shook her head.
In the excitement over Lily’s announcement, Severus had stopped opening his own parchment, but when he did, the words were so unexpected that he had to re-read them several times.
“What did they send to you, Sev?” Lily asked inelegantly, through a mouthful of cereal. In the background, her mother made a comment about talking with one’s mouth full.
Severus paused, unsure whether he should say.
“They’ve asked me to be a prefect,” he finally announced.
“Very funny,” Lily laughed, too caught up in her joy and her breakfast to realise that he was deadly serious.
“Not funny at all,” he responded.
“You’re not serious,” she continued.
“Unfortunately, I am,” he said. The Evanses looked puzzled by the exchange.
“Let me look at that,” Lily ordered, exercising her Head Girl privileges already, and grabbed the page away from him. “A prefect!” she shouted. “They’ve asked you to be a prefect! Oh, Sev! We can work together! How brilliant! Well, it’s about time they asked you, I mean really--”
“I’m not going to do it,” he announced. “Apparently they're in for a minor disappointment. Which I’m sure they’ll get past quickly, because obviously they’re completely mental."
“Why wouldn’t you want to do it, Severus?” Mrs. Evans asked with cheerful concern. “Such an honour!”
“Slytherin isn’t like Gryffindor,” he explained simply. “It’s not the same. No one in his right mind wants to be the prefect in Slytherin.” The Evanses looked confused, but not inclined to keep pestering on the subject of something they didn’t understand.
“That’s because all the courage is in Gryffindor, apparently,” Lily replied. “Coward.”
“Lily. Behave,” her mother admonished her. Lily was tucking into her eggs, and Severus couldn’t tell whether Lily was teasing him or genuinely angry. The “coward” comment stung, but even so, Lily had no idea what a Slytherin seventh year prefect would be up against. He could either do absolutely nothing and tacitly side with the Voldemort Youth, like Nott, or he could set himself up for a year of hell. Being friends with Lily, Severus clearly couldn’t pick the first option -- once again, after achieving a hard-won semblance of relative neutrality, he was being forced to openly take sides. The only logical thing to do was not to accept the position at all. Lily’s parents didn’t understand this, but they did understand being polite to a guest.
Lily, however, was clearly not going to let it go so lightly. An hour later, when Severus had said his thanks and was about to leave, she cornered him and started questioning him again.
“I’m sorry I called you a coward,” she began.
“You should be,” Severus responded dryly. He wasn’t going to get angry, but he wasn’t going to just let her off the hook.
“So,” she asked, moving on, “You’re absolutely sure you won’t do it. Sev, we’d get to work together.”
“Absolutely sure,” Severus replied. “You know how badly it would go. And we can work together in class. Besides, as we know from last year, I’d be much more useful if I’m not part of the establishment.”
“It’s too late for that. You’re my friend, Sev. Your utility is over in that capacity. You may as well serve as a prefect. Nott was worse than useless -- no wonder they asked you.”
“What, and enforce the rules all the time? With that lot to contend with? You can count me out. They already hate me enough because I won’t join them. I’m not doing it,” he said with finality.
“Fine,” Lily replied, holding out her own parchment for him to read. “I didn’t want to do this. But what if I told you that they’ve made James Potter Head Boy?”
“What the hell?!”
And thus began the leadership career of Severus Snape, quite possibly the most reluctant prefect in the long and illustrious history of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Snivellus and the Head Girl by SeverusSempra
Chapter Notes: Back home for the summer-- but with Lily this time.
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you so much to Colores (Fresca), for her patience and enthusiasm as a beta-- and to everyone who keeps reading this despite how long it's taking me to complete it. :)