Lily has noticed that she hasn't exactly been left alone today.

Her roommates had stuck around her for breakfast and on the way Hogsmeade Station.

Fenton Blane has followed her up and down the aisles of the Hogwarts Express, as she's taken her turns at patroling the corridors. And when he wasn't there, she's seen Sheldon Whelan (Hufflepuff, seventh year) and Iphigenia McGraw (Ravenclaw, sixth year) keeping in close proximity.

Lily both finds it kind of reassuring to know that her fellow prefects are keeping a wary eye on things ... and incredibly worrisome that they appear to think it's necessary.

(With a half-dozen notable exceptions, of course. She passes Marcellus Nott, the seventh year Slytherin prefect, at one point and he leers at her in a way that makes Lily very glad her wand is already in her hand. And that Lettie Lewis, the Head Girl, turns up at that moment to ask "All right, Nott?" and he vanishes back into his compartment.)

Lily looks back over her shoulder and sees Sheldon.

"I'm going to take a break," she tells him.

He nods. "You want to come back to the prefects' compartment?"

"Actually, I think I'm going to go find my roommates. But I'll be back in a bit."

"Be careful," he tells her, and Lily nods and starts back down the corridor.

It turns out it's quite difficult to contract dragon pox at Hogwarts.

Which is probably just as well, under ordinary circumstances, but it does mean that at 8:00 on 9 April, Lily has absolutely no viable excuse for skipping Slughorn's Easter party.

(And she can't just pretend to be sick, because Perdita would never let her hear the end of it.)

She meets Severus in the hallway outside Slughorn's office.

"You look very nice," he tells her.

"Thank you," she says. "So do you."

"Shall we, then?"

"Yes, let's," she says, going through the door before he can do something like offer her his arm.

The party is a bit of a disaster from the start. Lily gets the feeling that Professor Slughorn tried to throw it together a little too quickly. The food, of course, is excellent, but there don't seem to be nearly as many dazzling former members of the Slug Club as there had been at Christmas. The band he hired is late, though on the plus side, that means Lily doesn't have to think of a reason not to dance.

She and Severus spend twenty minutes talking to Professor Slughorn about the upcoming Potions OWL, which hardly feels like party talk, but at least it's something easy to talk about. And someone they can both talk to, and there aren't many of those. He doesn't seem anxious to spend time with Cliona and Fenton, and she certainly doesn't want to join the knot of Slytherins in the corner.

Mostly, they just stand around, waiting for something to happen. And while there have been any number of times Lily has talked to Sev for hours and not run out of things to say, tonight no topic quite takes hold, fizzling away to awkward silence after a moment or two.

Twice, she sees his eyes dart away from her to his Housemates and their closed conference in the corner.

After about an hour, Lily is ready for a break.

"Would you excuse me for just a moment, Sev?" she asks.

"Of course," he says.

She tells herself that she does not hear relief in his voice.

Tells herself that she doesn't hear it in hers, either, when she says, "Thanks. I'll be right back."

She lingers longer in the ladies than she planned to, because she can. Because it's easier than going back to the party, which doesn't really deserve the name. 'Gathering,' maybe. Or 'event.' 'Function.'

But not 'party.'

Finally she looks at herself in the mirror. "Hardly acting like a Gryffindor, here, Evans," she tells her reflection, sternly, and then heads back to find Severus.

He's drifted away from where she last saw him, towards the knot of his Housemates in the corner. She isn't really surprised, but she's also not about to go join them. She doesn't want to any more than they want her to. Perhaps, though, if she goes to stand near enough for him to see her, he can excuse himself and come join her. She'll give it a minute, she decides, and then go talk to Cliona.

She's almost reached the spot she picked out when a voice cuts clear across the surrounding murmur.

"Really, Severus, what were you thinking, bringing a Mudblood to our Head of House's party? It's an insult."

Lily, still half-hidden from the group by a palm tree in a gaudy pot, freezes.

She doesn't have to see his face to know the speaker is Rafferty Gibbon, a seventh year Slytherin, whose father is well-enough placed at the Ministry to garner his son an invitation to these events.

She can't make out Sev's mumbled reply, but there's no way to miss Gibbon's laughter in response.

"Come on, Severus. Don't kid yourself. The bitch is never going to spread her legs for you." Gibbon turns and looks directly at Lily. "Isn't that right, gorgeous?"

For one moment, Lily feels like she's going to throw up.

The smart move here, she suspects, is just to walk away. Not to dignify that with a response, just to leave.

But then, she's in Gryffindor, not Ravenclaw.

So instead she steps out from behind the palm tree, into full view of Severus and Gibbon and the other half-dozen Slytherins.

She's not sure how she manages to keep her voice completely steady, but she does. "That'll be fifteen points from Slytherin, Gibbon. For language."

"Language?" he drawls, tone amused, falsely inquisitive. "Do you mean 'Mudblood' or 'bitch'?"

"Thirty, then. Do you want to go for forty-five?"

"You filthy little ... "

"Forty-five," she says. "Sixty?"

She's expecting it, when his wand comes up. But Lily learned in second year that being left-handed has certain advantages. And one of them is that if your opponent doesn't know you're left-handed, chances are, he's watching the wrong hand.

"Expelliarmus!"

Gibbon's wand arcs through the air, hits the wall behind Lily, clatters to the floor and rolls until it hits the shoe of Crispin Rivers, Head Boy.

He does not look amused. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Nothing," Gibbon says, smoothly. "Bit of harmless fun."

"Funny, because from where I'm standing, it looks like you just insulted and then tried to curse a prefect." Rivers looks quickly from Gibbon and the other Slytherins over to Lily. "Are you all right, Evans?"

She nods. "I'm fine."

But she's not. She can feel her hands starting to shake.

River picks Gibbon's wand up out of the floor, but does not offer it back to him. "Gibbon, you and I are going to go have a little talk with Professor Slughorn. Blane," he calls.

Fenton Blane comes over to join them, Cliona a few steps behind him. "Yes, Rivers?"

"Would you please see that Evans gets back to Gryffindor Tower without incident?"

Fenton nods. "Of course."

"I can do that," Severus says, quickly. It's the first thing he's said since Lily stepped out from the behind the tree.

"Thank you, Snape," Rivers says, "but I think Blane has this in hand. Gibbon, let's go."

"Lily, please, I -- " Severus says stepping away from his Housemates and toward her.

"Not now," Lily says. "I can't."

She can't even quite bring herself to look at him.

"Come on, Lily," Cliona says, putting her arm across Lily's shoulders. "Let's get out of here, okay?"

Lily nods.

They don't talk on the way back to the dormitory.

What is there to say?

They're not more than forty minutes from King's Cross when Lily finally gets a chance to change into what she still occasionally finds herself thinking of as "real" clothes.

She shoves her robes into her bag and steps back into the corridor, hoping that Mary and Perdita are still saving her a seat in --

"Lily?"

"Sev."

He's standing in the doorway to an otherwise empty compartment, and Lily has no idea just how he managed to get a compartment to himself, given how crowded the train is.

"Can I have a minute?" he asks, jerking his head back towards the compartment.

"Sure," she says, with an easy cheer that even she's not quite aware is coming with an effort.

He waits for her to go into the compartment first, though that means she has to brush past him, which she wouldn't have thought anything of a year ago, but finds makes her slightly uncomfortable now. He takes the seat next to hers, not quite close enough that their knees touch.

"What do you need?" she asks.

"Did you really kiss him? Pettigrew?"

"Yeah," Lily says, deliberately casual. "I did."

"Why?"

Because no one ever had, she thinks, but of course, she can't tell Severus that. She'd be as bad as Potter if she said that.

So she shrugs and says, "It's Christmas and there was mistletoe and I wanted to."

Severus scowls. "One of Potter's mates?"

"Well," Lily says, trying for the same easy cheer of earlier, "at least it wasn't Black."

Sev's scowl deepens, and he turns to face the window.

"Hey," Lily says, nudging him in the arm with her elbow, "that was a joke. Not a very good one, maybe, but still a joke. And it was just a kiss. It wasn't ... I'm not looking for a boyfriend or anything."

Sev turns back to face her, that same odd intensity in his eyes that she'd seen in the courtyard, right after Mary got hexed, and it feels like half the air in the compartment has suddenly gone.

And then the door slides open, and there's a rush of colder air and Fenton Blane, sixth year Gryffindor prefect, sticks his head into their compartment. "Sorry," he says, "but I need your help, Evans."

She stands up very quickly. "What's happened?" She looks at him more closely. "And is your hair dark green?"

"Dueling in the corridors," he says, which Lily suspects answers both questions.

"Potter?" Severus asks.

Fenton nods. "And Black. And Mulciber and Avery. Rivers and I have them in hand, though."

"Is his hair green, too?" Lily asks.

"No, but he's broken out in a lot of spots."

Severus snorts what might be a laugh. Lily almost feels sorry for the duelers. Crispin Rivers, Ravenclaw, is a good Head Boy and Lily likes him well enough, but he's a bit vain about his looks.

"Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones caught in the crossfire," Fenton says. "Elinor Perks was there, too."

"Oh, dear."

Elinor Perks is an incredibly excitable second year. Lily has to assume she has hidden reserves of bravery, because she's in Gryffindor, but the girl screamed when a spider landed on her parchment like the thing had performed the Cruciatus Curse on her.

"Her ears are on back-to-front, and she's hysterical. Cliona's looking for her brother, but I don't how much use Laurence is going to be. Can you please get her to stop crying?"

"I can try," Lily says. "I'll see you later, Sev, all right?"

Severus nods, and turns again to look out the window. Lily follows Fenton down the corridor, and then spends the rest of the trip trying to get Elinor to calm down. Her older brother is, as Fenton expected, not much use, but at least his being there means that Lily doesn't have to stay with her while until Mr. and Mrs. Perks can be found at King's Cross.

The students spill out onto the platform and through the barrier, meeting parents and contributing to the general bustle of the station. Severus, however, is standing still, craning his neck, looking at the passing crowds.

His parents forgot to meet the train once, when they were second years. Her parents had given him a ride, and Lily had sat squashed in the backseat between Petunia and Severus, both furiously unhappy.

It had been a terribly uncomfortable trip home.

Now she stops next to him. "Sev?"

"Lily!" her mother cries, and the next moment she's swept up in a hug. "Your father has a pile of essays to grade, and Petunia was, er, busy, so it's just me, I'm afraid. Hello, Severus," she adds.

"Hello, Mrs. Evans."

Lily's mother looks around. "Are your parents--? Do you need a lift?"

Severus moves away from them abruptly, without answering. Lily follows his gaze to see Mulciber and Avery, and Lily sincerely hopes they lost the duel, because if that's what the winners look like, Potter and Black will be indistinguishable from giant slugs.

Mrs. Evans turns to her daughter. "Did I say something I shouldn't have?"

"He just doesn't want his friends to know," Lily says.

And he doesn't want them to see him accept help from a Muggle, she thinks, and then shoves the thought from her head.

"Well," her mother says, "we'll just get a cup of tea then and see if they arrive before we go, shall we?"

So Lily and her mother sit in King's Cross, and drink tea, and Lily tells her about school, and her mother catches her up on the news from home.

Twenty minutes later, Lily and Severus are the only two Hogwarts students left, and she goes back over to him. "Come on, Sev. Let us give you a lift, all right?"

He looks from Lily to her mother and back, and then nods, once. "Thank you."

They wind up a few steps behind her mother as they walk to the car. "Don't tell anyone. At school. About this," Severus says, not looking at her.

"I won't," she says, because of course she won't, but she doesn't like that his request makes her feel oddly ashamed.

Doesn't like that her answer makes her feel that way even more.

It's another terribly uncomfortable trip home.