sevsnpe:
he’d briefly considered skipping this event.
he’s had quite enough of the ostentatiously extravagant displays of wealth the pureblood elite called parties. he’s been dragged to enough of them by lucius over the years — often kicking and screaming and rarely ever with his dignity still intact — and this particular celebration’s true purpose is hardly a puzzle worth solving. nott estate. really. the political motivation is so thinly veiled he’d wondered how elizabeth thought she’d fool anyone — then again, considering the number of people in attendance, the transparency of their purpose may not have been a concern either way.
in the end, it was the silent auction that lured him out from the depths of his deep and dark dungeons. whatever nott’s motives were, this money would go to st. mungos. ( well, some of it. he wouldn’t be surprised if the notts kept a portion of the proceeds as interest. ) and he is rather curious what items they’d brought out for this.
he was steadily making his way through the crowds and towards the auction hall when she bumped into him.
the thing is, if he’d given it a moment of thought, he’d have expected — perhaps even hoped — she’d be in attendance. the last he’s heard of her years ago she was on her way to becoming a Healer. of course she’d be a Mungos Healer by now. of course she’d been invited. and of course they’d bump into one another in a ballroom as immoderately large as the nott estates’.
he isn’t sure if the knowledge of her attendance would’ve made him want to come more, or if it would’ve nailed him to the stone floor of his private study until october 18th got on with it.
his face remains impassive. stony visage gazes down upon her as pink champagne drips down his cheeks and the dark fabric of his robes. in his mind, occlumency shields weave tighter together, lest a stray thought or emotion slip through the cracks and undo his composure.
‘ Lily, ’ he starts. head cants to the side. thoughtful. considering. he wants to say a million things, ask a million questions. but everything suddenly seems too forward and presumptuous, too intimate to ask someone who was no longer really a friend. they’re not as close as they once were. walls must be put up and adhered to. in the end, he says, ‘ this is a surprise. ’ but that sounds too clipped, so he adds, ‘ though perhaps not, all things considered. ’ that, too, is clipped — distant. but that’s perhaps for the best, so he refrains from saying anything more.
champagne drips down his hair and to the floor. occlumency shields tighten together. he doesn’t blink.
•
Lily feels a wave of shock roll over her as she recognizes the person she bumped into. Sev. Snape. Professor? What even should she call him anymore? How did one refer to someone who had once been their closest friend, like family, and now was nothing more than a stranger?
She isn’t sure what to say, how to react. Of all the people she had considered bumping into at this lavish event (hosted at Elizabeth Nott’s home, no less, what a ironic twist of fate that was), Severus hadn’t even made the list. Lily isn’t sure the last time she’d laid eyes on him –– surely not since the end of the war, and if she did before that, it was because he was under a mask and she wouldn’t have recognized him anyway.
Lily pushed the thought away. She still wondered, of course, whether he had followed in the footsteps of all of his Slytherin friends at Hogwarts in joining the Dark Lord, but it’s not as if she has any right to that information any more. And as fervently as Sirius swears he did, Lily can’t help but hope that her boys are all wrong about Sev. After all, they had all been wrong about Peter. Who’s to say they were right about her former best friend?
Tilting her head to the side, Lily wonders briefly why he’s here. When she knew him, this would be the last place he’d want to find himself, and she can’t help but be suspicious that a dislike for parties and large crowds hadn’t changed in the last however many years. If it had, he might just have changed to the point of being unrecognizable.
Lily can’t help but give way to a traitorous train of thought –– or what once would have been traitorous. Is he only here because he’s old friends with the hostess? Of course, no one’s ever been able to prove that Elizabeth Nott was a Death Eater like her husband, and the public sure seemed to buy the whole innocent pregnant wife routine she played up after Voldemort’s fall, but Lily knows better. She recognizes the haughty voice from a battle that still haunts her nightmares.
As Severus speaks, Lily bites her lip. His tone is cold, his face impassive. He treats her the same way she watched him treat so many others when they were yet children, only there’s more confidence and self-assurance in the way he carries himself now. He’s no longer the bullied little boy wearing shabby clothes. He’s a man now, and by the way he carries himself, one who’s come into his own.
He says her name, and that’s a good sign, right? He didn’t call her Mrs. Potter. Lily winces slightly, imagining those words leaving her former best friend’s lips. She hasn’t felt guilty for her marriage in years, but standing here now in front of the boy who had once meant everything to her, Lily feels a wave of shame knowing that she married his worst enemy.
Still, he’s talking to her, and that’s a good sign, right? It’s about time she opens her mouth to actually say something, she realizes. She’s been standing here like a gaping idiot for far too long. “I’d say it’s a surprise,” she responds, her tone far more open than his, though it doesn’t contain the laughter that it would have if things hadn’t changed so irreparably between them. “I don’t remember you being all that enthusiastic about events like this.” Was it too presumptuous of her, to act like she knew him? Could she really even say that anymore?