Lily

It was on one long February day, when the wind howled blustery and cold through the Whomping Willow to the lake beyond, that Professor Sprout was approached with a most peculiar request. Classes had finished for the day, allowing her some much-needed time to deal with a particularly troublesome weed that was threatening to take over Greenhouse Three. The plant, a variation of clover that had apparently bred with a variation of Devil’s Snare, curled up and around the greenhouse, strangling other plants, and managing to crack a piece of glass. The breeze from the lake whistled in through the hole like a dying cat; already, several mandrakes had shrivelled up in their pots, exhausted from the unnaturally cold temperature that was threatening their home.

“Off,” Sprout said hotly, her chubby cheeks going red as she gave a hard tug at one of the vines. The plant fought, then yielded with a snap; more glass shattered, and the Herbology professor tumbled backwards. Rather unexpectedly, she felt a steadying grip on her back, enough to keep her on her feet.

Catching her breath, the young woman turned around, and found herself looking into a pair of dark pits; eyes, she wondered, of a student she had never expected to see in her greenhouse outside of glass hours. He had never showed more than a passing interest in Herbology; he seemed more suited to use the herbs and plants that she grew rather than grow them himself.

“Thank you, Mr. Snape,” she said with a smile, pulling off dirt encrusted gloves and setting them aside. “I believe you just saved me from a rather tight situation. Now, what can I do for you?”

The gangly teen – fourth year now, wasn’t it? – gazed at her for a long moment, a thin strand of greasy black hair hanging in front of one eye. He was rather like a plant, Sprout thought, one that needed to see more sunlight and water. And perhaps, a little more care and attention from its keeper.

What he did not lack in the least was the ability to confound most of his professors, to say nothing of his fellow students.

Sighing under her breath, Sprout kept the smile on her face and turned her attention to the window in the greenhouse. The glass had shattered in uneven segments all along one of the panes; the harsh winter wind was now completely unobstructed, and rushed into the greenhouse with no end.

Sprout tossed the remaining vine, which seemed to have retreated back into its pot, a dirty look. “Repairo!” A flash of light came from her wand, and the glass, with a little direction, flowed like thick milk and melted back into place. All that was left was to rid the greenhouse of the plant itself.

Donning a heavier pair of gloves in hopes that it would give a better grip, Sprout took one end of the thick green vine and began to pull. The plant stayed put in the pot, several dozen kilograms of dirt and ceramic holding it in place.

Then there was the sound of someone walking behind her, and a pair of wiry fingers closed about the vine just in front of hers. Pale flesh tightened, and she heard Snape grunt to her back left.

The plant shifted; Sprout smiled even wider.

“Almost there,” she said a touch merrily, watching as the vine attempted to claw its way back into the soil. “Keep it going, now.”

Dirt dribbled over the edges of the pot, peat moss gave, and with a fantastic noise the vine and its roots can free. Satisfied, Sprout watched as the vine writhed in her hands, then finally fell silent, brown and rotted already.

“Magical plants require more nutrients,” she said, in a half-hearted attempt to garner some conversation from her most puzzling student. “They die quickly after they’re removed from pots, especially crossed breeds that aren’t suited for further proliferation.”

Snape appeared at her side. He absently dusted off his hands, taking no notice of several reddish cuts on his palms. The same blank expression painted his face, mouth a tight thin line, eyes sharp and yet completely opaque.

Sprout winced at the wounds on his hands, but said nothing. It never seemed to do well to say anything at all with that boy. He spoke when he wanted to, and listened all the time. If something was said and he didn’t respond, it was not for bad hearing. It was for interest, and for care.

For all she could tell, he didn’t care about anyone. And if Horrace Slughorn hadn’t sworn by his favourite whisky that the boy was a prodigy at Potions, and if she hadn’t marked his last Herbology test and saw that he did indeed absorb at least some of what she said every day in class, she would have guessed that he really didn’t care about anything at all.

She never knew what was behind those eyes of his. They seemed to hide in the hair, behind the nose that was a tad bit too large for someone of his small size.

And in some way that she didn’t quite fathom, his constant melancholy worried her.

He’s just different, she finally decided, pausing in her clean up to glance again at her student. He’s not like me, or most of the students his age.

It was as if he had the soul of someone much older; it was as if he had seen something, too much, for someone his age.

“Professor.”

Sprout blinked, the boy’s voice breaking her thoughts. “Yes?”

“I-” And then, quite unusual for him, Snape lowered his head as if sheepish about something. “I’d like it if you could help me with something.”

Startled by the request, it took several moments before Sprout managed to comprehend his words. “Oh! Help.” A quick wave of her wand had the pot covered and the vine pushed under a table; the mess could be cleaned up another time. “Of course, dear. What do you need?”

Again so uncharacteristic of his normal cold façade, Snape shifted on his feet slightly as if unsure of himself. “Uh . . .” Fingers, still dirty, yet worn, she saw, from other things she couldn’t guess at, tightened around the book bag that he carried across his shoulder. He grasped at something inside of it, indecision splayed briefly across his sharp features.

“I’d like to know how to grow a plant.”

“Is that all?” Sprout said, trying to push down surprise from her voice. More gently, she added, “The way you started, I thought perhaps you would ask for the moon, and that’s not really in my area of expertise.”

For all she knew then from the look of embarrassment that etched its way permanently onto Snape’s face, Sprout decided that whatever it was he wanted was probably more important than any body in the heavens. But what an odd request! A simple plant. A plant for a potion, perhaps, but that yielded no explanation for why such a request would make him so uncomfortable.

She was suddenly assaulted with a very uncomfortable sensation, as though someone were boring into her mind. Snape’s dark eyes were on her, she noted, and she wondered briefly what kinds of things were being taught in the other classes. Blinking failed to remove the sensation. It seemed that there was only one other option available.

“Well then, come on,” she said, walking towards the nearest table where she kept empty pots. “Plants don’t grow overnight. We’d best get started.” And as she had suspected, the sensation in her mind faded immediately. Chalking up another mystery in the book of Snape that needed to be mentioned to the Headmaster, she took a light wood pot from the table, a book from underneath it, and handed them to her student.

His brow furrowed slightly, and he looked into the matted mess of peat and dirt with some disdain.

“Now,” Sprout said, ignoring the look that she had seen far too often during her five years of teaching, “what is it that you want to grow?”

* * *

“What’s he think he’s doing?”

Shrugging at the query, Sirius Black shook a head of mangy hair and grinned. “Maybe he thinks he can hit it off with Sprout in time for Valentine’s Day tomorrow. It might be the only chance he’ll ever get to hit up a girl.”

“That’s disgusting,” said James Potter with a dark look from underneath dark, untidy hair. “Just disgusting. It’s not enough that he has to walk around and be in our classes, now we have to see him when we’re walking to classes that he’s not even in.”

“I didn’t think he particularly liked Herbology to begin with,” added Remus Lupin, hands in pockets, head tilted towards the ground. “I thought you scored higher than him on the last paper.”

“I did,” Sirius said with a growl, still smiling happily like a puppy. “And what makes me mad is that I never saw him put pen to paper in the study hall at all, and he almost matched me.”

“You didn’t either.”

“Shut up.” The other boys laughed as Sirius took a swat at Peter Pettigrew. The shorter boy yelped and ducked out of the way, narrowly missing a hit to the head. “Still, though . . .”

All four of them turned slowly so that they could peak through the glass walls of the greenhouse. Inside, they could just make out the figure of Severus Snape, Slytherin grease ball extraordinaire, leaning over a small pot. He snipped at whatever it was growing with a pair of small sheers, which looked ridiculous next to the large brown works gloves he wore on his hands.

“It’s like in Potions class,” Sirius snorted, breaking away from the group to continue walking. The other boys caught up with him quickly. “That passionate intensity. I’m waiting for him to start stroking his cauldron . . .”

James’ face wrinkled into an expression of utter loathing. “Disgusting,” he said again, shaking his head. The moment passed, however, and soon the conversation turned to other matters.

“So,” Sirius said with an even more profound grin than before, “Is you-know-who going to get a you-know-what tomorrow?”

“And a you-know-which?” Remus added in with a tiny smile.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” James said nonchalantly. He reached into a pocket and withdrew a glittering old orb about the size of a walnut. Throwing it in the air, he watched as the snitch darted from side to side. Several onlookers in the hallway pointed and laughed as he expertly caught it again. “Unless you mean Evans. Then yeah, I’ve got things all ready.”

* * *

It took a great deal of will power to keep from laughing at the expression on her companion’s face. Settling for a giggle, Lily Evans took a box of chocolates from her bag, opened the lid, and waved it in Severus’ direction. He wrinkled his nose at first, drawing more giggles from Lily, then tentatively snatched up a particularly dark chocolate from a corner of the box.

Lily watched, amused, as he chewed it, his expression neutral.

“How unfortunate,” he finally said dryly. “Potter has good taste.”

She couldn’t help it. Peels of laughter burst from Lily’s mouth, echoing around the upper floor classroom until it sounded like a meeting of banshees.

Severus folded his arms, and fixed her with what she knew to be his least intimidating glare. “Hilarious, I’m sure.”

Drying her eyes, Lily reached over the cauldron that sat on the floor between them and grasped Severus’ shoulder. He flinched under her touch, but made no move to remove her hand. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just, well . . .”

“You expected it of me?” The boy tilted his head slightly and lifted an eyebrow. “Or do you really think that little of him?”

“Maybe a little of both,” Lily admitted, finding enough composure to set down the chocolates and lift up her potions book again. When he said nothing, she gave him a curious look over and concluded that something indeed amiss. “You expected me to side with James?”

Severus held her gaze steady, eyes unreadable. “Perhaps.”

Shaking her head, Lily smiled and marvelled at her friend’s unlimited capacity for suspicion. His lack of trust worried her often, though she had seen him smile, if only slightly, often enough to know that there was indeed a soul underneath his mask.

“Well,” she said, drawing her finger down the cover of her book, “I’d think of it this way – I’m not sharing the chocolates with him, am I? Besides,” she continued before Severus could respond, “your remark was quite ironic. You should have seen his face this morning after he gave them to me.”

The continually raised eyebrow asked, “How so?”

Dropping to a serious tone, Lily raised her eyebrow back. “Well, right after James handed me the chocolates at breakfast, a lovely tawny owl – I think it belongs to the school – landed at our table and crawled over to me! It had a package, so I opened it. And do you know what was in it?”

“No idea,” Severus said as he flipped through his own book, his attention having wavered. “More chocolates from Potter?”

“No! That’s the funny part.” Lily paused and tried to collect her thoughts. “In fact, it was rather confusing.”

Severus glanced up at her. “And?”

“Well, in the package was a box. And in the box, when I opened it, was an absolutely lovely white Lily, freshly cut.” She set the book on her knees and folded her hands on top of it. “I put it in a vase in my room. Naturally, James was furious, especially when he realised there was no note in the package!”

“I would imagine. He would have no one to abuse for the damage it likely caused his ego.”

“I know!” Lily said with a snort. “That’s exactly what I thought. It was so nice, though. Someone must have taken a lot of time to cultivate it, especially with the weather the way it is now . . .” She trailed off, and watched as a most curious thing unfolded before her.

For the shortest of moments, a strange expression crossed Severus’ face. It was gone as quick as it came, and he covered it up expertly by snapping shut his book and turning his head down towards the cauldron. There was, however, no covering up the smallest of blushes that had crept onto his pale cheeks.

“I think the potion is finished,” he muttered, using his finger to stir the shimmering liquid around.

“Is it close to being right?” Lily said, faking ignorance a while longer so she could marvel at his reaction.

“You’d have to smell it.”

Wishing that she had paid more attention to the write-up of the potion’s effects (though pleased that Severus thought it had came out okay all the same), Lily leaned over the cauldron, careful to not drop a lock of hair into the vat. Her head brushed Severus’, and he pulled back, startled.

A mirage of smells wafted up into Lily’s nostrils. Surprised at the variety, she took a deep breath. It was a marvel, she thought, how a potion created out of such rancid material could create such a wonderful sensation.

“What am I supposed to smell?”

Severus didn’t answer. Instead, he flipped open his book again, and began to search through the pages. He seemed agitated as though he was searching for an answer that he knew in order to buy time.

Buy time for what?

“Well,” Lily said quietly, “I smell fresh air, like from the foothills, away from London. And oranges - the little kinds you can find at Christmas in muggle shops. And . . .” She stopped suddenly.

And it hit her.

It’s the smell of a cauldron when it boils. That strange, awkward smell, that’s horrid sometimes, and other times bliss.

Lily looked up from the boiling mass, and saw that Severus was now watching her closely. He had a strange look on his face again, uncertainty or something remarkably similar. It was if he were trying to pry into her mind through her eyes, but was unable to.

A kind of lived-in smell, like a person that’s been worn through by life.

She tried to speak, and found her words caught in her throat by a lump that she’d never even considered. “I-”

And it never was considered, for at that moment there was a banging on the door. Furious voices rang out in the hallway, angry and loud. The wooden door buckled once under impact, then twice, then was thrown open.

Lily shrieked and jumped backward, knocking the cauldron over and spilling the Amortentia onto the stone floor. The liquid hissed and sputtered, running into cracks and disappearing into nothingness.

Time seemed to stop.

There in the doorway were James and Sirius, as angry as she had ever seen them.

There on the floor was Severus, shaking with a terror that she had never thought him capable of displaying.

And there suddenly in her mind’s eye was a single white lily, its petals disintegrating and falling to the earth, its dust blown away by a cold winter breeze into the darkness of night, as if it had never existed at all.

FIN