Always

“I’ll be waiting out by the Quidditch field when you finish in the Common Room,” Lily heard one of her friends say to her in an excited tone before she started walking towards the Gryffindor tower later that night. She just sighed and pushed her hand back through her hair before she started to make her way towards the tower.

She had seen Severus earlier this morning and he had looked so heartbroken and lost. It completely tore her apart knowing that she was one of the reasons for that, though he knew that he couldn’t help it.

She wanted to go to him and make him feel a little bit better, but he knew that that wasn’t a possibility right now. She couldn’t make him feel better because she still hadn’t made herself feel better about the fight she’d witnessed break out in between James and Severus. It broke her heart knowing that she was probably the cause of it.

She sighed and pushed her hand back through her hair before she started to work on getting her homework finished. She knew that she wasn’t as fully concentrated on it as she should be, but she couldn’t help the fact that all she was able to think about right now was probably sitting in the Slytherin Common Room.

“Hey, Lily,” James’ voice said from the doorway of the boys’ dorm room. She sighed and bit back a strangled groan, not wanting to discuss anything with him right now.

She had temporarily broken up with him, not wanting to deal with the fact that he was still the same snot-nosed jerk off she had always thought he was before. Severus had in no way instigated that fight; he’d been prepared to walk away, and Lily knew it. And yet James had insisted on starting a fight that had nothing to do with anything important.

She resented the fact that James was still fighting with Severus. Even if she was angry at the Slytherin boy as well—perhaps even more angry with him than James because of the fact that he’d nearly used one of the Unforgiveable Curses—she was furious with James.

“Can you please go away,” she muttered under her breath, not looking up from the scroll of parchment that she was busy writing on.

“We need to talk, Lily,” James sighed before he looked down at her, taking the scroll from her before he tossed it down onto the floor. “You haven’t said so much as two words to me since you—”

“Since I broke things off between us. I know,” she told him between narrowed eyes as she looked up at him. “You knew I wouldn’t like it if you messed with Severus, James. You started that fight for no reason at all.”

“Oh, get off it, Lily,” he muttered under his breath before he sat down on the edge of the desk. “You’re not really breaking up with me because of that scum—”

She didn’t waste any time in reaching her hand up to slap him roughly. She wasn’t typically a very physical person, but she wasn’t going to tolerate James’ rude behavior when it came to Severus anymore.

“Don’t you dare call him anything but his name,” Lily said through gritted teeth. “And yes, I am breaking up with you because of that. How do you sleep at night knowing that you’re causing him torment?”

“He gets what’s coming to him, Lil,” James answered as he pushed his hand back through his hair. “Look, if it means that much to you, I’ll stop. Honestly, this time I mean it.”

Lily shook her head, reaching down to the floor to pick up her scroll before she started making her way towards the girl’s dormitory. “I don’t believe you, James. Leave me alone and don’t talk to me again for awhile,” she told him before disappearing up the stairwell into the dormitory.

Once she was inside and the door was closed, creating a barrier between herself and James, she couldn’t help but wish that she didn’t have to put up with this. It was times like this—times when she was so distant from Severus and so close to James, someone she didn’t want to be around—that she wished the Sorting Hat had placed her in the Slytherin House back in her first year of school.

She and Severus had never fought the way she fought with James, and the Slytherin boy had never made her feel so frustrated, either. She’d always felt perfectly fine and content with him there around her, and he put a smile on her face even when he refused to be a ray of sunshine for anyone else.

She missed him and she was getting tired of putting distance between them. She bit her bottom lip and looked out the window, seeing that the snow was becoming thicker on the grounds of Hogwarts as each day passed by. She knew that it was now one day closer to the upcoming Christmas break, and she knew that when that break came, she’d finally be able to stay away from James completely. He didn’t live near her in Mill Town, and she didn’t want to correspond with him through letters, either.

She didn’t yet know if Severus was returning home to Spinner’s End, but she could only hope that he was. She knew that his parents didn’t offer the same kind of loving environment that she had had when she was growing up, but she knew that if he went home for the break, she might be able to speak with him. And right now, that was definitely something that Lily wanted.

She wanted Severus to know that she wasn’t hateful towards him and that she understood why he had retaliated in the fight, even if she didn’t approve of the way he had handled things. She never would have asked him or told him it was okay to use the Cruciatus Curse like he’d been planning on doing, but on the same hand, she completely understood why he had.

For their entire school careers at Hogwarts, James Potter had tormented Severus Snape. He’d made the Slytherin wish that he wasn’t there, and on many occasions, he’d come to Lily and told her how alone he felt. He’d grown up a loner because of the fact that his parents hadn’t exactly been social butterflies, but when he’d come to Hogwarts, that loneliness had started eating him up even more.

She remembered all of the nights they’d sneak out and sit out underneath of that tree. She remembered the way Severus would rest his head on her knees and tell her how angry he was and how much he resented everyone—everyone but her, he would always tell her. He would always care about her, he had always said. Lily could do nothing wrong in his eyes. And it had always been something that Lily had held close to her heart, knowing that she had such a special place in his.

She felt guilty for pushing him away the last few weeks, and she wanted to put an end to it. She knew that Severus was on a path that would only lead him to destruction, but she also knew that with her in his life, there was a slim chance she might be able to help him avoid all of that. Even if she couldn’t completely keep him out and away from the dark arts and quelch his interests in it, she knew that he would never do something serious if he knew she had his back.

She was afraid that one of these days, she was going to find out that he had become a Death Eater. She didn’t want him to ever be associated with those people. They caused too much pain and hurt to everyone they came across. They stood for evil, and even if Severus was a naturally dark kind of person, even Lily knew he didn’t belong with them. He wasn’t evil, he was pure in his own sort of way. He didn’t want to hurt people, and Lily knew that. But he didn’t, and she knew that in order for him to see it, she needed to be there in his life for him. And that was why she was hoping like hell that he would be at Spinner’s End during the holiday break.