Summary: On the night before her wedding, Lily has second thoughts.
Categories: Severus/Lily Characters: None
Warnings: Alternate Universe
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 2483
Read: 3494
Published: 09/11/06
Updated: 09/11/06
1. Of Tea and Brandy by Vindictus Viridian
Of Tea and Brandy by Vindictus Viridian
“You shouldn’t stay out too late!” Annie had insisted. “You want to be bright-eyed and beautiful in your wedding pictures!”
And so Lily had found herself all but pushed into her room, in its last night as her room, a little before midnight. Her parents called up their goodnights as her friends hustled her in, and she heard the group laughing their way out again. She leaned against her door, eyes shut, exhausted by her chattering, excited friends. Annie lived with Carter, and Morag had been going on with Fred for ages, but this was their first proper wedding in the group, and they meant to do every bit of it thoroughly and perfectly. They’d tried to get her drunk, and she had resisted, so now they meant to make a doll of her tomorrow instead. She loved them all dearly, but sometimes their manic girlish moments were a little much.
She hit the light switch by habit, opened her eyes, and grabbed for her wand before recognizing the dark form in the chair by the window. “Severus! I nearly killed you, and how would that look the night before the wedding?” she hissed quietly, trying not to alert her parents or her sharp-eared sister.
He smiled a little. “Probably better a dead presumed-Dark wizard in your bedroom than a live one, if you’re troubled about appearances.”
“Keep your voice down and there won’t be any appearances. I thought you were travelling.”
“I am. Tonight I happen to be travelling in Surrey.”
“And I suppose tomorrow you will happen to be travelling in Kenya, or China, or Antarctica, rather than lending moral support to a friend making a big step?” She couldn’t blame him.
He shook his head. “How much support do you really think I could lend while warding off all those hexes from the groom’s side and the evil eye from your sister?”
It did make for an amusing mental picture. “I think they may have matured past that point.”
“Are you willing to bet your cake on it?” her friend asked, one eyebrow lifted.
Lily gestured expansively. “It’s only a cake.”
“There is one other little matter. It is traditional for the person performing the ceremony to ask the congregation whether there is any reason the couple should not be wed. My list might take up a good bit of the afternoon.”
“And in those shoes, I wouldn’t thank you for it." Lily sat on the bed for want of a second chair in the room. “How long is this list?”
“Nineteen reasons.”
He seemed entirely serious. “Look, I know you don’t like James “ ”
Severus looked mildly surprised and tsked at himself. “Twenty.”
“All right, then, stop glaring at me and share a few.” Lily folded her arms and waited.
“Most of them you already know.” No longer joking, he closed himself away from her, eyes and expression revealing nothing.
“One of the ones I don’t know must be important, or why are you here?”
“To wish an old friend some sorely needed luck?” Lily waited, tapping her foot. Severus sighed and gave in as much as he ever did. “Tea leaves.”
“Tea leaves? Oh. You saw something bad that time you read mine and wouldn’t say what made you break the cup. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes.” Severus kept himself perfectly still, seeming not to breathe, eyes glittering.
“And if I don’t marry, it won’t happen?”
“Anything could happen. I don’t know. I do know about this. I’ve known for more than a year now. Before you and Potter had anything civil to do with each other.”
Lily sat staring at him, thinking back. She’d thought, at the time, that once school was finished, she and Severus would be free. They’d be witch and wizard instead of Gryffindor and Slytherin, and they could have a better view of each other, and relax into seeing where that led. He’d visited the summer before seventh year, and read her tea leaves “ and pulled away. She’d dated James just to irk Severus, at first, and both men had surprised her. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Severus began a sentence, shook his head, and tried a different one. “Which would you prefer, a happy life or a long one? Which should I wish for you? Prophecy is unreliable at best.”
“Severus.” Lily stood and offered her arms. He’d turned up uninvited and frightened her, annoyed her with cryptic remarks, belittled her fiancé, and tried to call off her wedding in his roundabout way, but he was her friend. And he was built that way. Lily hugged friends who needed it, even if this one always had to work out what her extended arms were for before he’d step into them. “Come on. Nobody’s going to catch us at it.”
He stood stiffly, expression still impassive. His arms folded gently around her and settled in to stay. His head was tilted away from hers, hiding his face. “Tomorrow I mean to be at the Leaky Cauldron. The wedding is at three-thirty?”
Lily nodded.
“At four, I will switch from coffee to brandy. For now…” He started to pull away after all, and Lily locked her hold, forcing him to look her in the eye. “For now…” And he kissed her.
When she was thirteen, she’d wondered about kissing Severus. At fifteen, she’d dreamed about kissing Severus. At seventeen, she’d quite given up on kissing Severus. Now she was eighteen, and about to be married in a matter of rapidly-vanishing hours, and the man had the bloody nerve to be good at it. Telling him what she thought of him would mean breaking the kiss, though, so she didn’t. Instead she smiled slightly against his lips and gave him a sample lick. It was very convenient, being the same height.
“Reason twenty-one,” he whispered into her ear sometime later. “An arrogant berk such as James Potter doesn’t deserve a woman who can give a kiss like that.”
Lily chuckled softly. “Lead the list with that one, and you won’t need the other twenty.”
‘Nor would I reach them. You should get your beauty rest. I promise not to turn up with my list tomorrow. You know all of them now, and may take or leave them.”
“I suppose your timing could be worse.” She let him go reluctantly.
He left his hands on her shoulders, keeping her at arms’ length for a moment, staring into her eyes. As a boy he’d needed someone to be kind to him, and perhaps a scant few people had been. As a man, now “ Lily pulled him back to her in a fierce hug. Being Mrs. James Potter would make her friendship with Severus difficult, and they’d had so much difficulty already. He clung to her for another moment, then pulled away. “I really should be going,” he told her, looking out the window as if it offered anything but reflection.
“Students mustn’t be in the halls after lights-out,” she said in passable imitation of Filch. It earned her a half-smile from behind a curtain of hair. “How did you plan to leave? Apparition is awfully noisy.”
“The same way I entered “ through the back door when your parents aren’t looking. Your sister let me in.”
Lily sat hard on the bed again. “Petunia? Or have I another one hiding around here somewhere?”
Severus snorted. “She really doesn’t like James either, you know.”
“That interfering… Oh, well. At least it was you she let in, and at least she let you in. It was good to see you again.” How did one end a conversation like this? She could promise nothing about her suddenly blurry future.
He slipped past her, opened the door a crack, and listened. Silence from below suggested her parents had gone to bed. He paused in the middle of stepping out, whispering, “Make tomorrow a good day.” The door closed with a soft click behind him.
Lily listened, though there was nothing to hear. Did Severus have a secret life as a cat burglar? And what was she going to do about him?
She readied herself for bed, brushing wine and kisses from her teeth with relief for the former and regret for the latter. She told herself kisses didn’t wash off, but that wasn’t how it felt. It felt as though she was making herself ready for James by clearing away a past that she had given up too soon. Severus had forecast marriage and a child for her, and then something bad happening. Without the first two, who was to say what could happen next? It seemed the choice was not between a short, happy life and a long one, but between a short, happy life and the utterly unknown.
She loved James. She truly did love James. But what cost was that worth, and to whom? Severus had been unwilling to tell her, refusing to direct her life; her choice, though, would change the direction of his, and of James’, and how many others? Nobody lived in isolation, not even Severus, who tried so hard. She put on flannel pyjamas and settled in for sleep that wouldn’t come.
The next day was a flurry of activity with Lily at its centre, groomed and made up, dressed and primped, while she stood stiffly ignoring it all. Her bridesmaids had a wonderful time chasing James away every few minutes with shrieks about bad luck if he saw the bride too soon. Sirius tried to sneak a peek himself and was soundly menaced by Annie. “Nervous?” Morag asked, then accidentally poked Lily with a hairpin. “Sorry.”
“Yes,” Lily answered honestly, and “Ouch,” came to mind to add. “It’s all right.”
“You seem a little distracted.”
“I guess I am.”
“Looking forward to having it all over?”
One way or another, Lily was. She had made the commitment. James had earned it. “I guess.”
“You guess,” Morag scoffed. “Your wedding night? You’re supposed to look forward to that. It’s nothing to be afraid of, you know.”
“I know. You told me.” In fact, Morag had spared her few details. Both of them agreed that education was a fine thing. Lily wondered if the wedding night would be what sealed her fate, though, and it left her afraid after all. She wanted a child; she wanted James Potter’s child, to her surprise, though that could only be a challenge. Did she want that child enough to leave her solitary friend Severus behind?
And in another blur, there was organ music, and an aisle, and a set of smiling faces at the end. James looked so pleased, and so proud, as she stepped carefully up to him. Everyone looked pleased and proud except Petunia, second bridesmaid, who was probably not capable of either expression where Lily was concerned. The minister began the ceremony. The rehearsal had had only a few small disasters, just enough to make sure they were all used up, and the ceremony looked to be going as it should. Lily watched it as though from the outside.
“If any who are gathered here today have any reason this man and this woman should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
Lily jolted to attention, half-expecting an interruption. Silence. “I do,” she said.
James smiled at her, thinking she’d had a lapse in attention, instead of that she had finally lapsed into it. “Too soon,” he whispered.
The minister was smiling, too, and so was Sirius. “No, I mean I have a reason. Several. Twenty-two.” James had three friends standing behind him now, and a full half the church pews full. James had everything, and always had. And James had taken enough from Severus over the years, too much, without taking her as well. She could not make the choice to leave the Prince so utterly alone. She had to gamble that she would not. “I’m sorry, James,” she added, before he’d quite realized she meant it, and she fled, Apparating away before anyone could stop her.
The brilliant sun on the sidewalk dazzled her, and the dimness inside the pub made her blink. Her wedding robes were hardly the standard fashion for the Leaky Cauldron, and she gathered several stares as she made her way to the corner table where Severus stared into a snifter of dark-amber fluid as if it, too, might foretell the future. “How’s the brandy?” she asked, not knowing where to start.
“The ritual is nice,” he answered, not looking at her. “Holding the glass just so, warming the liquid with the heat of your hand, savouring the aroma, preparing for just the right sip. Then there is the small matter of tasting the stuff. The preparation is proving better than the experience.”
“I didn’t realize you don’t drink.”
“It seemed the thing to do, today.” He did look up then. “No husband in tow?”
“No husband.” She took the chair across from him. The ceremony, incomplete, had still been too long for high heels with cutting straps.
“What now?”
“I haven’t the foggiest notion. Kenya, or China, or Antarctica, perhaps. After I get out of these shoes.” She gathered in his free hand, clasping it in both of hers. “Wherever it is, and whatever it is, I don’t mean to leave you behind.”
He placed the glass carefully on the table, brushed back his hair to give her a more direct view of him, and added that hand to the pile, gripping her fingers tightly. “James will be missing you.”
“I know. And I feel terrible…” Her voice broke a little. “I feel terrible about that, but… As you said, many reasons. One of them right here.”
He shifted his hold to free one of her hands. “Brandy?”
“Such sacrifices you offer. But “ thanks.” She tried the ritual, taking the stem of the glass between her fingers, swirling, sniffing, sipping. Then she tossed the remainder back; it was anaesthesia and didn’t have to taste good. “You may have chosen an off brand.”
“Would you care to try again, from another bottle?”
Lily shook her head. “Dinner. In all the dressing of the dolly today, nobody thought to feed me. One brandy will make me terribly entertaining company as it is. But feel free to drink if you wish.”
He studied the marks on the tabletop for far longer than they were worth. “I consider that a failed experiment. Dinner, however, seems a good idea. Perhaps…” He glanced up at her then, sidelong, furtive, but fond. “Perhaps a pot of tea.”
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