The Last Night

In the library, darkness had turned the windows into black mirrors. It was one of those exhilarating nights where the atmosphere outside was at once forbidding and inviting. The darkness beyond the window was impenetrable; it seemed thicker than on any other night, and the wind howled plaintively through the unseen branches in the forbidden forest, adding the creaking of trees and whipping of leaves to the wild, but invisible, cacophony.
But everything inside the library was warm and quiet, though the studying students were thrillingly reminded of the cold by the creeping chill that oozed from between the window-panes.   

Severus and Lily were sitting at their favourite table by the window. This would be their last night together for a long time, although neither of them knew it. Tomorrow, their friendship would shudder to a halt down by the lake with the words 'filthy little mudblood'. And, when they found each other again, their relationship would bear little resemblance to the term 'friendship'.

But tonight, they were studying quietly. The noise of the gale outside was generating an air of nervous excitement, and they kept stealing glances at each other over the top of their books, and smiling, though neither of them knew precisely what it was they were smiling about. They were together, indoors, and the night outside was horrible. That was enough.

Neither of them had made any mention of the kiss in Greenhouse Three. In fact, nobody who knew Snape would have noticed any difference in his behaviour, except that he was grinning a lot for no apparent reason, and was suddenly behaving with perfect civility to Janus, who had sought him out at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall the day before:  

"I vas told your mother's name vas Eileen Prince."

"Yeah?" Snape had replied cautiously.

"She came to Durmstrang to play Gobstones in my father's time. He said she vas vonderful. Such poise and concentration!"

Snape had tried to imagine his mother with poise and concentration. These days, she was so absorbed in her own misery that she forgot to brush her hair, or iron her clothes. Last time Snape had seen her she had put lipstick on her bottom lip but not the top one. Her magic, when she was permitted by her husband to attempt it (that is, when her husband was out, or asleep), was clumsy and feeble. Eileen Prince lived wrapped up in the worst moments of her life, and was only really haunting the present.

"Oh," he'd said. "Great."

"You vere still very unkind to Lily," Janus had muttered, but without much conviction, as though this was merely a ceremonial comment that he had to get out of the way before they could talk about Gobstones again.  

Snape gave a dismissive wave of his spoon. "Have you seen much of her lately?"

"No. She is avoiding me, I think. She must like somevone else."  

Snape had shivered with delight, and listened to the talk about Gobstones without a trace of his usual impatience.

Remembering this conversation with Janus, Snape glanced up from his book at Lily. The crashes and creaks of what was unmistakeably a tree being blown over in the forest made her shiver slightly and she looked up, too.

"I hope Hagrid's alright in this weather," she said, glancing pointlessly out of the window.

Snape looked back down at his book, and said, with the barest trace of a sneer, that it would take more than a gale to blow Hagrid over.

Lily recognised that it was in deference to her feelings that he had kept his sneer to a minimum, and she smiled slightly. It was hard for him to be nice, but he was trying. Putting down her book for good, she leaned back in her chair and stretched her legs out.

"I don't think my brain can absorb any more tonight," she said, yawning.  

Snape put his book down too. Lily had closed her eyes and was sitting back in her chair contentedly. Everything was dark beyond their pool of candlelight, as though somebody had set out to paint the scene on a black background, but given up half-way through. The stands behind her extended only a little way, before they dropped off into darkness. Lily's pale, radiant skin and darkly glowing hair seemed to be the only colour left in the world; they were both so intense that they reminded Snape of stained glass, with the sun streaming through it.

As he watched her, all the sharp, resentful lines on his face softened; his habitual frown disappeared; he looked suddenly very young and eager; his eyes seemed to deepen – they no longer resembled hard black stones but bottomless pits. He was strangely transfigured. Nothing about his appearance had changed, but everything was different. Lily did not notice this, however; he dropped his gaze to his book as soon as she opened her eyes, and then his face became sharp, opaque and resentful once more.  

"I've been thinking," Lily began in a low voice, because Madam Pince was looking murderous, "of asking Margot Holloway to Magical Ethics this week. Maybe I can reason her out of her political apathy."

"You just can't resist a lost cause, can you?" Snape murmured.

"One of the reasons I'm friends with you," she replied cheerfully, helping herself to one of the chocolate frogs that were piled beside his books.  

Snape treated her to one of his strange, exasperated smiles. These expressions were a kind of compromise whenever happiness was trying to intrude upon his thoughts, but he couldn't quite give way to it. He was too frightened of being humiliated to let go of his calm, sneering, indifferent manner, even around Lily, but neither could he ignore the pleasure he felt in her presence, so this odd little half-grimace, half-smile was the result.

Once or twice, pure love had overcome his fear of rejection, even his resentment, and he had drawn her into his arms, his contentment too perfect for words. On such occasions, he pitied the Marauders, or even forgot who they were, and let his beautiful Lily fill his whole world. He would be on the verge of telling her how he felt about her, but always some vague fear would intrude – fear of her laughter or, worse, her pity, fear that they couldn't be friends anymore – and instead he would press his face into her red hair, willing her to read his mind, because he couldn't tell her what was in it.

Lily understood more of his feelings than he generally gave her credit for. She knew that he wanted to be close to her but was too frightened of being rejected or betrayed; she knew that he admired her, and thought her clever; they had developed a way of expressing affection through teasing and playful arguments that managed to circumvent all his fears about being close to people; but she couldn't guess that he loved her. He confused her: sometimes he was so distant with her that he seemed positively disdainful. If she tried to sympathise with him about the way the Marauders treated him, he would snap at her, or tell her it was none of her business. The only exception he made to this was when she offered to insult James Potter, and Lily didn't really feel that Snape's resentful obsession with James Potter should be encouraged.  

Besides which, five years of taunting and prejudice had diminished her self-esteem more than anyone would have guessed from her confident manner. She couldn't imagine anybody loving her, least of all Severus, who was so wretched and proud and aggressive and solitary.

Despite her better judgement, however, she liked him; she cherished the teasing insults he lavished upon her, she found the arguments exciting (except when he veered into terrain so morally repugnant to her that she felt slightly sick), she allowed herself to hope that he could learn to be a better person, and even flattered herself that the hope was selfless, just a generous expression of confidence in an old friend. Occasionally, she would tell herself not to lose her head; she couldn't trust him, after all; he was too angry, too cruel. But while these worrying aspects of his personality were only directed towards others, she always found some way to overlook them.

She was later to become very angry with herself for that.

Lily looked at her chocolate frog card and gave an involuntary exclamation of delight that caused Madam Pince to swoop down on them with a deranged fervour in her eyes.

"Quiet!" she hissed, spit flying onto their table.

Lily gave an apologetic little smile, which entirely failed to charm the librarian, and lowered her eyes demurely to her book, trying to look as sorry as possible. This only lasted a few seconds, however, because the moment Madam Pince had stalked away, breathing very hard through her nostrils, Lily turned to Severus and whispered.

"I've got Circe! She's the only one I was missing!"

Snape raised his eyebrows. "And is that any reason to behave like a squealing Hufflepuff?"

She ignored him, too consumed with elation to join in the friendly exchange of insults.

Snape continued to look at her while she greedily read over Circe's various achievements – she was, apparently, a pioneer in the fields of Potions and Transfiguration. When Lily looked back up at him, there was a fathomless expression in his black eyes. She would have called it tenderness, except that it was a bit too fierce. Whatever it was, it made her blush.

"The first magical feminist," Lily said proudly, after a while. "A very clever witch who turned men into beasts." She sighed theatrically and then muttered: "If only it was legal to follow her example!"

"Of course, you realise that, as it was my chocolate frog, the card actually belongs to me?"

Snape couldn't suppress a smile at the appalled, wide-eyed look she now directed at him.  

"You wouldn't…" she began, but then checked herself. Lily was always quick to understand how other people felt, though hopelessly ignorant of her own feelings.  

It wasn't precisely that he didn't want to be kind to her – he was always helping her with spells and potions, and warning her about attacks that his Slytherin friends were planning – it was just that it had to be exasperated kindness, or condescending kindness; otherwise, it made him vulnerable. Lily realised that she could get her chocolate frog card and make him happy at the same time, and all she had to do was compromise her principles a little.

The realisation that she was always compromising her principles for Severus Snape pressed on her slightly, but she brushed it away, impatient to make him smile.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," she said, in a shrewd, business-like voice. "You give me this, and I will assist you in any non-fatal tricks you might be planning to play on James Potter."

She was not disappointed. Snape grinned at her. The slight uneasiness she had felt didn't leave her, however. Although she hated Potter and didn't see anything wrong with defending her friends from his casual cruelty (besides which, she fully considered him too arrogant to be capable of suffering, in any meaningful way), she didn't like to encourage Snape's enmity, or get involved in it herself.

"I'll have to approve them first," she added quickly.

Snape shook his head, still grinning at her. "You wouldn't approve anything. I know you. You'll end up feeling sorry for him."

Lily looked highly affronted. "If there's anyone in the world I couldn't feel sorry for, it's him! After what he did to you in Charms last week - ."

Snape's smile faded instantly. A dull flush suffused his sallow cheeks and he said, a little aggressively, "I don't need your pity."

"I'll remember that," she said, trying to smile. Not for the first time, she wondered whether she was just trying to convince herself that he was her friend. She blushed, miserably confused, and muttered something about getting an early night before the exam tomorrow.  

Snape didn't say anything. He watched her until she was swallowed up by the darkness outside the reach of the candlelight, and then shuddered wretchedly. It was only when the sound of her footsteps had died away that he realised she had left the chocolate frog card behind her. For a few moments, he considered going after her, apologising, forcing her to take the card, but then his thoughts strayed to the Charms lesson she had alluded to and, lost in bitter recollections, he let her go. He would find her tomorrow, and make everything all right.