Across the Quidditch Pitch

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Chapter Eight: By the Portrait Hole




“And tell Lily I’m going to sleep here! I’ll stay here all through the bloody night, and if I am expelled, so be it!” Snape sounded angry, and also unusually daring. Almost like in his self-hatred, he’d started acting like a twisted version of his opposite, James Potter.

Mary looked a little surprised to see Snape raise his voice. He was usually quite reticient, and when he did speak, his voice, usually heard by her only in classes, was low and controlled.

Snape became a bit surprised by the way Mary looked so frightened of him. Snape thought she was looking at him as if he was some sort of a sick, disgusting freak. It was ironic Mary looked at him like this when she didn’t even know he’d been there that day in the girls’ showers. Snape softened his demeanor, and with his usual reserve restored, murmured, “Just bring her out whenever you can.”

Mary sighed. “I guess I can try to get her to come out, Snape.”

And Snape turned around with a huff, arms crossed defensively, as he waited outside Gryffindor tower.

When Lily emerged from the portrait hole and they had spoken, Snape felt worse than ever. If Mary thought of him as a monster, Lily thought of him as nothing at all. Nothing worth knowing anymore. The fact that she practically admitted she wanted him out of her life drove him mad. ‘…None of my friends can even understand why I talk to you anymore.’ These words stabbed like icicles, piercing his conscience and destroying the heart of such a young man, a vulnerable and wounded one. His infatuation and passion for Lily was the only thing that cured Severus’s ailing heart. She was the only thing that could, or ever would give him the experience he yearned for: love. He must find another chance to speak to her again. He would never give up.

But for the time being, there were distractions. Snape would focus instead on other things, no matter how hard that was. And maybe, just maybe in the future Lily would change her mind about him, and about everything. He recalled her mentioning just now, ‘…You and your precious little Death Eater friends….You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?’ If only there was a way to change her opinions. But Snape already knew she’d never listen to that kind of rhetoric. ‘But still’, he thought determinedly. ‘There must be another way.’

“….Why should I be any different?” Tears pricked the corners of Snape’s eyes at these words. They lingered like a continuous, lonely echo. As Snape went down to the Slytherin common room, he felt his throat constrict, choking up with emotion. ‘Because I love you…’ If only he had had the guts to say it! But he had feared Lily’s rejection too much.

‘Oh, Lily must really think me pathetic!” ruminated Severus. But Severus had it all wrong in his head. Not pathetic because he loved her and would do anything for it. But pathetic because of the way Snape dealt with his image. He was alone as the Halfblood, a pariah amidst his Pureblood friends and his Pureblood enemies. That included both the likes of Avery and Mulciber, and James, Sirius, and even Remus, and Peter were really in the same category and all the others who supported humiliating him like what happened by the lake today. For Lily had not been the true target, the real victim. Even after he used that unforgivable word, “mudblood.” She was a mudblood yet despite this, she had all the friends and admirers. It was he who stood alone now.

And Snape remembered something else Lily had said while they went walking in the courtyard a few days ago. ‘Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?’ Snape had called it nothing. Nothing but a laugh. He wished he hadn’t said that now. It must be part of the reason Lily couldn’t stand him anymore. It hadn’t been funny at all. But how else was Snape going to conceal his guilt over the event? And besides, that had been before Dumbledore had punished him. It felt like ages had past since, but he still couldn’t get past his pride to admit his guilt to Lily over what happened to Mary. But he certainly deserved all the consequences for the trouble he’d caused. “That was a laugh…” Maybe he had thought that way then. But now, Snape realized acting this way was only a mask of his true feelings. But one he should wear well if he was to become a Death Eater…. Lily was right. It was exactly what he and his friends were aiming to be. They wanted it, even if it was the worst choice they could make for themselves.

And Snape felt like the guilt he hid from the world was an explosive inside him, a double-edge sword both good and bad. But he didn’t understand it could also be a weapon, one that could show the best of him. If only Lily had seen his heart on this fated evening: so full of pain and love. He could not distinguish one from the other. ‘Were the two meant to be fused together?’ He mused this as he came to the conclusion that yes he was in love with Lily Evans. And always had been. But admitting guilt over the part he played with what happened to Macdonald would have been the only thing that might have kept them closer longer. But Severus was oblivious to the impact his guilt could have. This guilt could have been a weapon, the only one that could have been infallible, even up against James and his Quidditch.

It was the worst day of Snape’s sixteen years. Yet the future would be dark. His darkest hour would mean losing his Lily forever….The worst was yet to come…


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