Just after this . . .


The uproar in the Great Hall is starting to subside only because most of the students there have already grabbed whatever part of lunch they could carry and fled for less malodorous climes.

Except, of course, for Potter and his friends, who stay in their seats watching events unfold with ridiculously smug expressions. (Well, except maybe for Lupin. Sometimes, Lily really does wonder what mysterious hold the others have on him, because he seems far too smart to be mixed up in at least half of what they get him mixed up in.)

Over at the Slytherin table, Severus is at the center of a knot of people that includes Professors Slughorn and McGonagall, Crispin Rivers and Lettie Lewis (Head Boy and Girl), three Slytherin prefects and Fenton Blane.

It might be Fenton's arrival that prompts the 'Marauders' to stop gloating and start clearing out, too, before anyone takes too much notice of them. Lily watches them go, through narrowed eyes. If looks could hex, they'd all have just broken out in incredibly painful boils.

And then there's the sound of wooden bench legs scraping across the floor -- startlingly loud in the mostly empty, echoing room -- and Severus is all but running for the door.

Lily gets up, too, rather more quietly, and starts after him. She reaches the door just in time to spot him on the far side of entrance hall.

"Sev!" Lily calls, and he slows down just enough that she manages to catch up to him.

Then she almost chokes on the smell of the dungbombs still clinging to his clothes and his skin. Severus catches the change in her expression and scowls, storming off before she can apologize, back to his original pace.

"Are you really going to make me run after you, Sev?" she calls, and when he doesn't answer, she lifts the front of her robe a few inches off the floor and does just that, down the corridor and out into the courtyard.

It's cold. It's very cold, and they're neither of them really dressed for it, but the fresh air helps with the smell and at least they're alone.

Severus has stopped next to a pillar, just where the shadows from the building start. Lily stops in the sun, facing him. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he says, not meeting her eyes.

Lily hesitates for a second, and then says, "Can I help?"

"How?" Severus asks, finally turning to face her. "Tell Potter you'll go out with him if he leaves me alone or something?"

Lily feels like she's been slapped, or had cold water thrown into her face.

"And what exactly did I do to deserve that question, Severus?"

"Nothing," he says. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Lily says. Though she's not sure it is. Still, allowances have to be made for circumstances. "Um, I meant something more like, well, I think we could probably charm away what's left of the dungbombs on your hands and all before you go back inside."

Severus nods. "Thank you."

"Sure."

It's slow work, and tedious, banishing as much of it as she can, specks and particles swirling away in the wind. And she's almost done before Severus speaks again.

"He fancies you. Potter."

"I know he does," Lily says. "God, that makes me sound vain, doesn't it? But he hasn't exactly made a secret of it, has he?"

"I don't want to see you--you know what he's like," Severus says.

"Yeah, I do. Look, Sev, I don't know why you seem to worry about this so much. I don't fancy James Potter."

"Promise," he says, gazing at her intently.

"Promise what?" Lily asks. "That I don't fancy him? I promise. I don't fancy him."

"Promise that you never will."

Lily opens her mouth to answer and then closes it again.

James's son. Yeah. Yeah, I am. And yours.

"No answer, Lily?" Severus asks, softly, and there's an almost cruel twist in the way he says her name.

And then she's angry.

"This is ridiculous, Sev. We're supposed to be best friends, right? You really have that little faith in my judgment? Why stop with Potter? Why don't you give me your opinion on the suitability of every boy in our year? Shall we go alphabetically or by House? Should I take notes?"

"I just don't want to see you get hurt," Severus says.

So stop hurting me, Lily thinks.

"I know," she says. "But you have to trust me. I'm not going to date someone who is as much of an arrogant and insufferable git as Potter is. And you know that."

Severus smiles at her, and for a moment she can see the little boy who used to sit with her under the trees by the river at home, telling her about magic and Hogwarts. "Yeah, I do," he says.

"Good," Lily says. "And I can't really feel my fingers any more, so do you think we could go back in, now?"

"You go ahead," Severus says. "I'll see you in Potions."

"Sure," Lily says. She starts to go, then stops, and almost on impulse, throws her arms around him in a quick hug. She feels him startle, and then his arms come up and across her back, just for a second. And then she lets him go and steps back. "Don't stay out here too long, okay?" she says. "It's too cold."

"I won't," he says.

"All right," she says. "See you, Sev."

She blames the cold for the fact that she spends fifteen minutes locked in one of the cubicles in the girls' lavatory, waiting to stop shaking ever so slightly.

She knows it's not really the cold's fault.