Chapter 39
A flicker of displeasure flickered in Severus's eyes. He shaped it into a smile and turned to the red-haired girl standing among her friends.
"Morning, Lily. Good to see you."
"Is it? Sounds more like the opposite," the witch beside Evans said, with a look that was anything but friendly.
"Is that what you think?"
"I only wanted to congratulate you on becoming a Master. That is all," Lily said, biting her lip. She produced a strained smile, grabbed her startled friends, and moved past him quickly.
He watched her go, shrugged, and went in. But the moment he sat down and reached for his breakfast, he felt someone watching him. He looked toward it and his eyelid gave a small involuntary twitch. Lily. The moment their eyes met, she dropped her gaze to her plate, not even quite understanding why she had reacted that way.
She is irritating me. He tried to return to his food. She was staring again. "You cannot be serious." As if she'd sensed his annoyance, she stopped. He could use Legilimency, of course, but he wasn't about to go rummaging around in a teenager's head, not a girl's, anyway. He let it go and returned to his breakfast.
The one genuine comfort of school life was the quiet. He didn't have to watch for threats to his life. He could lose himself entirely in research. The hunt through the founders' legacy was nothing but pleasure.
Today was an exception. He went to the library to continue his work, sat down, and Lily came in. Or more precisely, she followed him in and chose the table directly behind his.
She is deliberately trying to get under my skin. He pulled himself back from the irritation. Do not be paranoid. She might simply need to study.
Ten minutes later there was no longer any doubt. She had absolutely decided to get under his skin.
Two minutes later, she started again, peering over her textbook, over and over. Since the ritual, his senses were sharper, and that persistent attention felt like a fly that had decided to use his nose as a landing pad.
He got up, checked the time, returned his books, and left.
Lily followed immediately, and the moment she stepped into the corridor she was pressed back against the wall.
"What do you want?" The irritation was in his voice now. She blinked, coming back to herself. She seemed to notice, for the first time, the angle of the situation and how close his face was, and a strange embarrassment came over her, one that had not been there before. Until quite recently she had only thought of him as a friend.
"I... if someone sees us, they will get the wrong idea. Move back."
"You may be right," he said, and did not move at all. "I'm listening. Why are you following me? Because of you, I cannot concentrate."
"I was not following you. I needed to study."
"Which is why you kept peeking over your book and staring at me at breakfast."
"How did you..."
"It's called magic, Lily. Speak. Or has that notion returned, the one where I'm not really me?"
She drew a slow breath and shook her head, a small, sad smile on her lips.
"Your habits, your love of Potions, your devotion to magic. None of that is something someone else could replicate. I know you're you. But you've changed so much. It's like standing in front of a stranger, and I don't know how to be around you anymore." She paused. "Are we still friends?"
"You were the one who ended all contact that day. So what are you asking me? We're not friends. We're old acquaintances. Nothing more." There was a faint irritation in his voice, but he stood there, letting her hurt show, and turned back toward the library. "Leave me alone."
"Just acquaintances." Evans pressed the back of her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She had known that this answer was coming. She still had not been ready for it.
She had spent a long time thinking about the conversation at his house. Even though she had wanted to push it away, he had been right. She had been selfish, in her own way. She had never been a Slytherin. She had not understood how things worked there. She had not understood that her constant pressure and attempts to correct him had only made everything worse.
She had genuinely thought of him as her best friend. But the thinking her House had spent years drilling into her, that Dark magic was evil and anyone drawn to it was lost, had corroded everything. She could have supported his interests, trusted him, and quietly encouraged him in positive directions. Instead, fear had won: fear of being labeled, of being seen as the girl who stood by a Dark wizard, of being marked as a black sheep in her own House. So she had used that excuse to end it, to create distance where there was no real reason for any.
That conversation had forced her to see herself more clearly, and what she saw was not flattering. She understood she could not get that friendship back.
What a fool I was. She remembered the face of the dark-haired boy who had always helped her, always supported her, who had opened the magical world to a Muggle-born girl who had known nothing. The memory was too much to hold back. A single tear ran down her cheek.
Severus, for his part, was not especially occupied with Lily's regret. That she had ended their friendship was in many respects fortunate. Seven years was enough time to learn someone well, and she had. If they had continued spending time together, she would have found the cracks in his cover quickly, and he had no good explanation for a change that fundamental.
Her decision had also spared him from having her constantly nearby. He was, in a certain dry way, grateful for it, and that was why he had listened instead of sending her away immediately.
He spent the rest of the day in the library as planned, working until evening. He gathered considerably more rumors and legends about the castle. Most were almost certainly fiction. Even fiction usually held a grain of truth.
He closed his research notebook at last, stood, stretched, returned all his books under Madam Pince's approving nod, and left for the dungeons, where Slughorn was already waiting.
The week that followed settled into an ordinary rhythm. Monday to Friday: classes. Saturday and Sunday: Diagon Alley, to inspect the progress of the work and hand Karner bags of potions. He brewed roughly ten percent himself; the rest had been collected from the same gangs. The supply would cover almost five months. He was not planning to release everything at once: small batches, to test the market. Less product meant higher prices, and higher prices meant better margins.
As for his lessons, he had freed up almost another full day. Thursday. He had reached an agreement with the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor: ten Galleons a week, in exchange for looking the other way regarding his attendance.
The Ministry instructor was even easier: the man had no particular desire to be teaching at all. Severus proved he could Apparate, explained the regulations, and cited his Potions work. The teacher waved him off without argument.
Divination presented no difficulty at all, since the elderly fraud was still in St. Mungo's and no replacement had been found.
Ancient Runes he kept. The subject genuinely interested him, and there was only so much a person could extract from books. Sitting in front of someone who had spent their life working with runes was worth considerably more.
He and Lily had not spoken since that day, and there was nothing to speak about. He had put an end to it. He still caught her eye occasionally, but never for more than a second, which suited him fine. One less complication. He could have taken a more drastic approach, but he had no wish to harm the woman the original Severus had loved. That would have felt like a poor way to honor the person who had given him this second life.
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