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Good or Evil


Severus drew his palm over the small of Lily’s back as they stood on the front steps of the castle… They’d stepped outside under the light of the stars. They’d been dancing and Lily’s face was flush from the heat of the room and Severus had suggested some fresh air. She hugged her arms, staring up at the sky and Severus slipped the outer later of his robes off, putting it over her shoulders, and she pulled the hems close around her, turning to look at him with a smile. Their breath hung in crystalized form between them, little puffs of clouds in the cold December air. She leaned gently against a great statue of a flying boar that adorned the top of the very first step on the wide stone wall that wrapped ‘round the curve of the staircase to the ground below. She ran her fingers across the stone, studying the grain of it. Severus stood just a foot away, watching her fingertips…

“Lily,” he said, his voice low.

She looked at him, her green eyes bright and still sparkling from the magic of the Great Hall and the laughter she’d had dancing with him… A smile rested on her pretty pink lips, which glistened with the gloss she’d painted on them at the start of the evening. “Yeah, Sev?” she asked.

He reached out his hands for hers and held them, staring down at them. Her hands were small compared to his. He stared at how they rested in his palms and he carefully laced his fingers between hers, taking a deep breath. “You’ve known me for a very long time.”

“About five years now,” she said.

“Am I good?” he asked, his voice shook with the question.

“Good?” she looked at him, confused, “What do you mean?”

Severus flapped his arms nervously, carrying her hands with him as he did, making her arms flap, too. The air was so cold without his robe that she was wearing, and his lips were turning a bit blue from it… but he wanted to ask her what he had to say while they were here, outside of the school, away from distractions so that he could keep a part of his mind concentrated very carefully on keeping his mind closed to Voldemort, especially now during this conversation… It was of vital importance, he felt, that Voldemort never know that the conversation he was about to hold had ever taken place.

“I mean… am I a good person?”

Lily studied him a moment. His dark eyes stared up at her with an anxiousness about them that did not usually live there. He looked almost afraid. “Severus, is something the matter?” she asked, suddenly nervous.

He squeezed her hands and she could feel the shiver in his skin. “C’mon, let’s go inside, you’re freezing half to death out here and --”

“No. Wait, please.” He held her fast where she was. “Lily, am I a good person or a bad person?”

“I think you try very hard, and I think sometimes you’ve made bad choices, but that overall you’re a good person,” Lily answered. “I think you have some bad friends, that maybe you get pressured into some questionable choices by them, but when you’re alone, when you’re just you and there’s nobody you’re trying to impress, I think you try to be a good person.”

Severus stared into her eyes, “I want to be a good person for you.”

Lily cast her eyes to one side, the stare he was giving her was too intense to hold.

“Do you ever feel like… like the world’s pressing you into stuff you don’t want to be a part of, and you can’t get out of it because… because there’s no way out without…” he shook his head.

Lily put a hand on his elbow. “Severus? What’s happening? Who is forcing you into things?”

Severus struggled with words, “I’m not good enough for anyone, Lily, on either side, and I’m stuck in the middle and I feel like I’m being tug-of-wared between good and evil, between light and dark, like I’m being torn into two pieces…”

Lily whispered, “Has this got to do with… with You-Know-Who?”

Severus didn’t dare confirm it.

“I don’t like those boys you’ve been hanging about with in Slytherin,” she said firmly, “They’re bad. They’re bad for you. They make you act less like yourself. That’s why you’re feeling torn. You should never have been put into Slytherin house. You don’t belong with that horrible lot.”

Severus clutched her hands, “Lily, you make me want to rise above it. You make me me think that there’s a way… a way out. When I look in your eyes, I feel stronger than Him.”

She stared up at him and he stared into her eyes.

“Voldemort?” she whispered.

Severus stiffened at the name, for saying it made him think it and he worried that his defense against letting his bit of memory free might weaken…. He nodded, though, in response to her.

“Sev,” she said, “You need to talk to Dumbledore and get yourself away from those boys.”

“I can’t Lily, it’s not just them. It’s -- there’s so much to it. But…” he swallowed back his fear, “Lily, we could run away.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Right now, you and I. We could runaway. We could just… go… somewhere far off, away from all this rubbish… leave the Dark Lord and the Slytherins and that bloody lot of yours… and just… We could go see the world. You and I, together Lily.”

“Severus, don’t be absurd. We’re fourteen.”

“We’ll both be fifteen in a month, Lily, and it’ll take the whole of holiday before anyone would ever notice we’re missing officially, and we could get pretty far in a month…” He looked at her desperately.

“Sev. Listen to yourself.”

“Lily. If I stay… if I stay here and I have no hope of getting away… I can’t take it much more, I can’t stay on this line between good and evil much longer. You don’t understand how much pressure I’m under. I can’t sleep at night, Lily. I sit up at night in the common room, staring into a fireplace, trying to remind myself of what I really believe in… trying to remember why... and that’s easier to do when I’m with you. I don’t want to be a bad guy, and you’re the only thing that keeps me hanging on to good.”

Lily shook with frustration and she pulled away, pacing. “Severus, you can’t… you can’t put this load of pressure on me. You have to be good because you are good, because that’s what’s in your heart, not because I tell you to be.”

He caught her, put his hands on her shoulders, stopping the pacing, “I could be a good man, Lily. I could take care of you. I know loads of good spells, I’ve even made up ones of my own. We could get on board a ship, Lil, or an aeroplane. We could run away somewhere far off, somewhere nobody knows us, where You-Know-Who can’t find us… I’ll protect you, always, and have long lives together.”

“Severus,” Lily shook her head. “I love you, you know that, I’ve always loved you… as a friend.”

Tears filled his eyes, “Lily.”

“You knew that’s what we were tonight.”

“But Lily, don’t you understand what I’m saying?” he begged, “I want to be good for you!”

“You have to be good for yourself first, Severus!” she said. Lily shrugged off the robes and handed them over to him. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

“Lily -- please --” he begged. “Lily…” Severus followed her to the door as she pushed her way in and she ran for the stairs. “Lily, wait. Please.”

“Sev, no,” Lily said, “Don’t follow me, alright? I’m allowed to leave if I want to.”

“But I need you.” His hand was closed around her wrist.

“And I need to go.”

He stared at her, eyes filled with tears… and then he opened his hand and released her and she ran away, up the stairs, leaving him there. She never saw it, but the moment she was out of eyesight, Severus knelt down on the stairs, curling around himself.

Lily ran up the staircase to Gryffindor Tower, tear in her eyes, too. She felt horrible leaving Severus Snape there like that, felt horrible hurting him. But she had no feelings for him like that. She didn’t want to run away, she liked Hogwarts, she liked her friends here, liked the teachers. She wished she’d never reawakened that spark of Severus Snape’s fantasy world about what she was to him. She loved him as a friend only, that’s all Severus Snape would ever, ever be. She couldn’t be the one responsible to make him be good, that was up to him and choices that he made… it couldn’t be on her shoulders, he couldn’t be dependant on her.

“Bowtruckles,” Lily told the Fat Lady heavily, her heart breaking for Severus.

The Fat Lady swung open and Lily stepped inside and as she did there came a great commotion on the couch - a shout, a blur of motion, a thud, a grunt, and Sirius Black sat up, his hair a mess, staring over the back of the couch. “LILY EVANS,” he said loudly, too loudly, uncomfortably loud, “WHAT’RE YOU DOING BACK ALREADY?”

“She’s alright, you blighter,” came Remus’s voice… and then his head popped up over the side of the couch, too, his cheeks bright red and his voice a bit funny, his hair messed up, too, “Hey Lily.”

She stared at their two heads a moment....

“OH MY GOD.” She shrieked, and her palms went to her cheeks, as every thought of Severus Snape simply flew out of her head. “REMUS! ….SIRIUS!.... Are you… Did you… ARE YOU?”

Remus looked at Sirius, smiled, then looked back at Lily and said, “Lily Evans, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend - Sirius Black. He’s a really great bloke, I think you’ll rather like him and ---”

Lily let out a scream and she ran across the room and leaped at the couch, flinging her arms out so that she caught Remus with one elbow and Sirius with the other and she pulled them into a crushing hug. “OH MY GOD YES. I AM SO BLOODY HAPPY FOR YOU!!!” she was crying suddenly for a whole different reason than she had been before. “OH BLOODY HELL!” She let go of them and Sirius rubbed the back of his neck as he sat back where he’d been. “Tell me absolutely everything,” she commanded. “How? When? TELL ME EVERYTHING!”

“Blimmmmey,” said Sirius, smirking, “Pull yourself together, Evans…”

Remus laughed.