699Chapter 21: Ch II,18: To Mend Bridges
A/N: For those who might find it triggering, note that Peter's section contain depictions and talk of long-term drug abuse.
Chapter 18: To Mend Bridges
That first morning of the summer hols, Peter found himself awake at the crack of dawn with practically no will to get out of his bed. Having dragged himself home from the hospital the previous night with little hope for the summer, in the pale light of the rising sun, the prospects didn't look any more favourable to him in the least.
He wished he could just lower the blinds and crawl back into bed under the metaphorical covers (it was too hot for literal ones, unfortunately), but that really was not an option at all. Cleaning awaited, and beyond that, a much more important task, which was getting his mother weaned off the damned heroin and back onto lighter opiates again.
Peter had long ago given up trying to get his mother clean of the drugs. She'd been using since he was roughly four years old – at first it had been sleeping potions, then Muggle pills, and then a bad fall had landed her in the Muggle hospital when he'd been eight or nine, and they'd given her some opiate-based painkillers for the short-term pain management, which she'd jumped on almost like a cat to cream, and that had been that. She was a functioning addict, for the most part, dependent on the emotional currents of her existence – when life wasn't pressuring her too much, she found the strength to keep it to her own minimum, mostly, Peter suspected, because she knew how unhappy her addiction made both him and Enid; when life became hard, though, when she felt out of control, as if she couldn't handle things that came her way, then her use intensified until she had periods of near-total drug haze. Enid and Peter had gotten good in weaning her back to minimal levels, and the hardest part, always, was clearing her thoughts enough to make her work with them. She wanted to, most of the time, and especially if it was Peter asking it of her. She loved him to her best ability, and over the years, Peter had mostly made peace with it. If it meant that she could function enough to hug him and genuinely laugh with him when they watched comedy shows on television, then he didn't feel he had much of a choice.
He dragged himself out of bed, relieved himself in the dirty toilet – that was number one priority, and part of what made him detest opioids so bloody much, because they wreaked havoc with the user's digestive tract, both during use and during withdrawal. After changing into the rattiest shirt and shorts he could find, he dug through the medicine cabinet in search of whatever his mother was currently using for constipation, which he carried to her bed along with a big bottle of water, where she'd see them first thing when she woke up. By the time he'd cleaned the little bathroom, she was starting to move about the kitchen, and the shame on her face when he walked in still wearing the long rubber gloves was of the deepest kind.
She was still rail-thin, but that had been her natural state for years now. She looked exhausted, with deep circles under her eyes and sweat along her brow already, though Peter couldn't tell whether this was because it was time for another hit, or because it was just so bloody hot – he himself was soaked through, and it was barely eight-thirty in the morning. Her light brown hair was stringy, tied back, and he made a note to get her to shower and cut it for her into something more presentable.
More than anything, she looked like his mother, and that always squeezed his heart so tightly in his chest that he sometimes imagined he couldn't draw enough breath into his lungs for having to look at her doing this to herself, even though he hardly knew how she'd looked back before his father had skipped out, when life had – supposedly – been good.
"Petey."
"Hey, Ma," he answered quietly.
"I'm so, so sorry, Petey. I didn't mean for this to happen."
"I know, but we're going to get through it, yeah?"
She nodded, licking her lips. "You don't have to– if you give me an hour, after the, the dose, I can–"
"No," he cut her off firmly. "No magic right after, you know what always happens, and you can't do it when I'm here anyway, we're not registered with the Ministry and I'm still a minor. I'll take care of it, all of it," I always do, don't I, Ma, I've had to do this since I was twelve years old, "and you are going to take the laxative and drink all that water and go to the toilet while I set up your dose, you just have to tell me where you're at now so I know how much you need."
"I've been good with it, careful, took it every day, I promise," she said about the laxative, taking an abortive step towards him. "It's not been so bad."
"Okay," he agreed with a sigh, though personally he wasn't so sure. This was a battle as old as her opiate addiction, and it had just as many ups and downs. "I need you to give me the address of your work, I'll send them an owl to let them know you need a few sick days, and we're going to get you in shape to go back."
"Oh, Merlin, what if they – Petey, I'm so sorry – I tried my hardest – I wanted you to be p-proud of me–"
She dissolved into tears, and Peter sighed again, pulling off the gloves so that he could hug her to himself. He was short – the shortest of his friends – but Lauris was shorter still, and when she shook like the leaf and sobbed into his shoulder, he didn't know how he felt. Ten feet tall, that he could be her support when she needed it the most; infinitely disappointed and disgusted that she was so weak; absolutely resigned to the ever-unchanging status quo; achingly hurt that he was never enough; deeply ashamed for not being able to do more.
He ushered her to her room to start her up on dealing with the necessities, while he put together as healthy a breakfast as he could with the few groceries he'd bought on the way back from the hospital last night, using the motions of it to steel himself for the process ahead. When that was done, he found her paraphernalia and sat down at the kitchen table to prepare the drugs.
He despised knowing this process, despised the fact that at barely fourteen years old, he'd had to be sat down with a drug dealer so that he could learn the proper way of preparing heroin for intravenous use. The man in question – a Muggle or maybe a Squib some years older than Lauris by the name of Jared – was her only true connection to the drug scene, the one who'd taught both her and Peter the safest ways of taking drugs, whom they trusted to sell them acceptable quality stuff, and who was, for all that he was a toughened drug dealer, genuinely understanding to their circumstances. Enid had been the one to put them in touch with the man when it had become obvious that it was either that or risk Lauris getting desperate enough to make some enormously bad judgment calls in search of the numbness and high, just another non-magical floating on the edges of the Wizarding world. In many ways, they'd been lucky not to get taken advantage of; Jared always seemed supportive of Lauris cleaning up, no matter his business. Perhaps they simply brought him too little money for him to worry about one sporadic customer, or maybe it was because of that tangential connection to magic that they all had in common, directly or not. It didn't matter.
He'd need to go out and find some other opiate, something cheaper and less euphoric, to transfer her back onto, because she couldn't stay on heroin, not when Enid was not capable of handling her and Peter was back at Hogwarts. But that was for later; for now, he had a different task, to wean her back down to more acceptable levels, levels where she could function without attracting too much attention, levels just enough to keep the withdrawal symptoms away while still letting her think as clearly as possible.
Merlin, he hated being home, alone and isolated from the wizarding world even though there was no real reason for it.
Unbidden, his thoughts turned to Remus, and he wondered how the other boy was doing, if Remus was going to go back to the Shrieking Shack for the next transformation or stay at home. The last transformation had been traumatic for Peter, because being so small next to an enraged werewolf seemingly hell-bent on devouring you would give anyone nightmares. But he didn't regret it, not really. His size had been protection in itself, and they'd made plenty of modifications to the Shack to allow comfortable escapes and safe places for him in the walls, and perhaps a part of him really did believe that the wolf had not truly intended serious harm. It was hard to tell, sometimes, where Remus stopped and the wolf began, but unlike James and Sirius, Peter had done his research in this direction – what did it matter to him in which way a werewolf differed physically from a normal wolf, when he could intuit instinctively from their smell; but knowing whether it was still his friend looking back at him through those yellow eyes or if it was an unknown entity entirely, that was crucial on so many levels. So he'd looked into it, had gone into those books his friends wouldn't touch for the word 'Dark' on the covers, and he knew, maybe the only one who truly did, that when stripped down to their cores, Remus and the wolf were one and the same, and in spite of everything else, Peter trusted Remus, in a way he didn't trust Sirius and James, to have his back, to be a better friend.
James and Sirius – maybe even Remus, most of the time – thought Peter thick, because he got middling grades and had trouble with pointless magic, and couldn't remember things as well as they could. Maybe he was exactly as thick and stupid as they always implied, but in Peter's world, most of those things were useless anyway, so what was the point? No magic could help him know how to prepare just the right dosage of liquid heroin for his mother, or how to properly clean used needles, and certainly no magic had ever helped him win the boys' protection – Remus was the smartest of their group, the brainiac, and where had that gotten him? He was still the outcast in the end.
James and Sirius didn't respect that, and Peter had understood that from the start, so what would have been the point of bending over backwards to get the best grades in the first place? Standing up to them – that was also something they didn't want, they'd made that abundantly clear last month. Hogwarts was in so many ways exactly the same as the London underbelly, no matter what message Dumbledore and the other Gryffindors liked to espouse about it; the weak got picked off, the nails sticking out got hammered back in, and it had been easy to slip into the same sort of behaviour at school that he had for London, to defer to those who could protect him, and keep his head down.
Lauris emerged from the bathroom, looking marginally more presentable, and Peter paused in his internal debate as he served her breakfast and busied himself with cleaning the spoon and those needles he'd collected last night, properly this time.
"Do you know about Enid?" Lauris asked him softly.
"Yeah, Ma," he confirmed. "I went to see her last night."
"Maybe... maybe we could find her a proper healer?"
"She doesn't want that until she's released from the hospital. She'll need our help either way, Ma."
Lauris nodded, swallowing with difficulty. "I know, Petey, and I want to – I just – I'm not well, I – what if I mess it all up, what if I–"
"You won't, Ma," Peter hurried to assure her, placing his hand on her shoulder until she relaxed slightly. "I'll take care of you, and together, we'll take care of her, yeah?"
She leaned against him, resting her cheek on his stomach, and he ran his hand gently through her freshly washed hair. "You always take care of me. My beautiful boy."
"I'll always take care of you, but I need you to be strong, yeah? Just for a little while, until we get you over this bump."
"I'll try, Petey. I'll do my best, and I want to – but I need... I need it. Please."
She'd eaten more than half he'd put in front of her, and though it was still too little for his taste, Peter acquiesced, because he could see how her hands were shaking slightly, and how her face contorted from the craving.
"Let's do it on the couch, so you can lie down afterwards."
She remained passive as he tightened the tubing over her upper arm and ran his fingers over the inside of her elbow, the dark vein bulging slightly under the skin. This was the second worst part, really, having to plunge the needle in, watching the liquid in it stain red as he made sure he'd done it right. The absolute worst was seeing the way her expression morphed from the frown to that of utter ecstasy as the drug hit her and she sighed, almost in bliss.
But Peter was an old pro at this, and he'd long ago stopped feeling that kind of visceral gut reaction to the sight. Instead, he simply rested her down on the couch and turned back to cleaning the rest of the apartment, knowing that his banging and clanking wouldn't even register with her, not for another hour or two at least.
To distract himself, he turned back to the thoughts of his friends, wondering what it was that they truly saw in him, that was the reason why they kept him close. He'd thought, until Remus, that it was because, like most Gryffindors, they thought simply enough in terms of 'friend' and 'enemy', and he fell under the first. He thought that it was enough, no matter that he himself hardly understood it. But that obviously wasn't it, when they'd considered Remus their friend, and yet had rejected and discarded him so easily, so cruelly.
Peter had understood why Remus had been so hurt by Sirius' actions. No matter how Peter himself had seen that situation with Snape back in February – in terms of cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis – Sirius had obviously not thought anything of it past hurting someone he hated, even if it meant losing one of his friends over it. It made Peter wonder who the cold one of the two of them was in that situation – because Peter had known, oh, he'd known very well, what the consequence was of their action, even as Sirius had done it, had let Snape overhear them and then gone and told him point-blank how to get past the Whomping Willow in a jeer that he'd known the greasy-haired boy wouldn't have been able to resist. And Peter hadn't encouraged him, not really, but then he'd not stopped him either, had he, because there had been no need for him to do either of those things, no benefit for him when the cost would have been too high for him to pay.
But if they could do this to Remus, whom they loved and considered one of their own, whom they didn't belittle and put down, then what chance was there for Peter, who was just a tag-along?
There was something like disappointment curdling his stomach at the thought, something tasting of bile in the same way that seeing his mother high did. He'd thought he could rely on their loyalty to their friends – Sirius' was certainly the fiercest Peter had ever seen in his life – but now it seemed so much clearer to him that their particular brand of loyalty, Sirius' and James', was reserved only for each other. He could no longer trust it, else he'd get burned like Remus had, and he couldn't afford that, not with the way things were going.
Well, if he couldn't count on them, a rebellious, proud part of him thought snidely, then why should he follow their lead in everything? Remus was his friend, too, and he'd not signed up for kicking him out of the group. Frankly, even if he had thought the other boy was completely overreacting, he understood Remus' hurt far more than any of the others could ever imagine – being responsible for the destruction of another's life was a heavy burden, even if it was in the process of helping them, let alone without your own control, and for a malicious purpose. And helping Remus with his transformations, that had made Peter finally feel good about himself for once, feel like this time, he was helping, only helping.
Taking out the rubbish, he began composing a conciliatory letter to Remus in his mind, and trying to figure out if there was any way that he could meet up with Remus over the summer during the transformation – not even a little bit likely, with their financial situation and how things currently were at home, but it wasn't a bad idea to toss around one's head nonetheless; Remus deserved it more than James and Sirius ever had, anyway. Remus, at least, genuinely cared.
Mid-afternoon on the last day of June, Lily finally found herself walking to the old spot that she and Severus had claimed for themselves years before. It was going on late afternoon, almost six, and the heat did not appear to be waning in the least. She'd already had two short, cold showers today – though by the looks of the news, the draught was starting to grow into a true concern, so who knew how much longer she'd have that option – and half a block away from her home, she was already sweating uncomfortably, though she was dressed in an airy spaghetti-strap pale green shirt and high-cut short white shorts that she'd bought last year despite Petunia's grumbling. She'd tied her hair back, hating its damn volume, and had stuffed her wide-brimmed hat on to try and shield her face at least a little. She'd even remembered to put suntan lotion on her exposed arms and legs, but she had a nasty suspicion she'd end up burning anyway.
Perhaps Severus would be willing to make her some of that sunburn salve he'd specialised for himself. She'd have to ask him for it.
She saw him sitting in the shade of their tree from quite a distance, and just the sight of him made her feel faint from heat – his only concession to the relentless temperature were rolled up sleeves of a white button-down shirt, and he even had socks on, peeking out from below the bottom of his dress trousers. A stray thought floated through her mind, that the first thing she was going to do when he could earn some money of his own was take him clothes shopping.
She thought she caught his eyes sweeping up and down her frame as she walked up to him, and when they met hers, they looked a little glazed, making her thankful for the fact that her face was already flaming from the physical exertion and heat, and would thus hide her blush when it came to her that he'd most likely ogled her a bit.
For her part, Lily mostly felt a bubbly kind of elation at the fact that even though she'd not been able to come before, he was nonetheless waiting for her. It was tinged with guilt, because a part of her knew that it probably meant he'd been coming here every day, but she didn't allow herself to feel bad about it. They'd not agreed on anything concrete, almost on purpose, and Severus had known that all he actually had to do to see her was knock on her door.
It was one of the resolutions she'd made since deciding she needed to re-evaluate her own actions towards others, this one a resolution to herself – she was not going to lay claim to actions of others, be they good or bad, and she was not going to use that claim to warp her own perceptions of others, or, worse still, use it to manipulate them to suit her purposes. Severus' actions were his own, no matter his motives, and, at least in his case, Lily was determined to try very, very hard to take them as they were, without immediate assumptions about what those actions meant in any specific context. She'd made far too many wrong assumptions about his actions in the last six months, and she'd acted on too many false beliefs when it came to Severus for years, to be willing to risk their fledgling connection by repeating her own mistakes.
It was, after all, what she was trying to do with Petunia, as well.
A bit out of breath from the sweltering heat, Lily plopped down onto the grass next to him and groaned, closing her eyes for a moment. "Merlin, must be thirty-five degrees today." She wiped her sweaty forehead with the heel of her hand, dislodging her hat a bit, and gave him a contented smile, feeling the tension drain out of her own frame at his proximity. "Hello, Sev."
"Hi, Lily," he answered quietly, with more emotion on his face than she knew what to do with. Instead, she looked away, stretching her legs in front of her and toeing off her flats so that she could air out her toes.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come before," she found herself compelled to say. "Home has been... not what I'd been expecting."
"How so?"
She shrugged. "I feel like I've missed something, some big event that everyone else had gone through and now refuse to talk about. I think a big part of it is that I'm not the same anymore. I don't know; I keep trying to remember how things were in the previous years, keep trying to find some indication that it wasn't like this all along, and I keep failing." She twisted a strand of grass between two fingers and sighed. "I spoke with Petunia yesterday, a bit more honestly than usual, and for all that she blames me for so many ridiculous things, I suppose... I sort of am starting to see that some of the things she says aren't exactly baseless."
"You mean, her accusations of you being a freak?"
His tone of voice reminded her why she rarely told him anything about Petunia; those two hated each other, and Lily had learned early on that it was the safest for everyone if they didn't have much contact.
"I mean her accusations of our parents always favouring me."
He pulled back slightly, looking almost enraged for a moment. "You cannot be telling me that there's actual truth–"
"But that's the point," she interrupted him. "There is... just not intentional. I honestly don't think either of them realise what they're doing. Mum keeps bringing our conversations back to me and Hogwarts, and now that I don't actually want to talk about it, I see just how much she does it. And she has this way of making the wizarding world seem, I don't know, exotic or something, by calling everything Muggle ordinary, and in the process, she's accidentally dismissing Petunia's interests and accomplishments without really doing it. That's got to be what Tuney's been picking up on all this time."
"You are giving her too much credit," he said derisively. "Tuney is petty and vindictive, and she's been jealous of you for years for being magical. She'd invent whatever suited her to make you the villain in her narrow little world."
Some part of her reared up in protest at his words, the part of her that still constantly insisted that Petunia was different from everyone else, no matter how she behaved.
"She's my sister, Severus! The very least I owe her is to try and see things from her point of view."
"I don't see why; she'd never do the same thing for you."
It figured that he'd see things in this way; not only was he a Slytherin, he also evaluated relationships differently than she did. He'd told her himself, after all, hadn't he, that for him, friendship was mutual exploitation between two individuals. No doubt this extended to detrimental actions, as well as beneficial.
"Relationships aren't supposed to work that way, Severus," she tried to explain. "It's not about whether or not she'd do the same for me, it's about the fact that I want to have some sort of relationship with her, and if I don't find a way to do so now, then I risk having things go so wrong that we'd never manage to repair it."
And when she said it, it sounded so much like her friendship with him, that it gave her the chills.
"So, you'll just keep trying to pacify her and ignore the fact that she won't do the same for you?"
"No, not–" She wasn't sure how to explain, exactly, but she wanted to be honest with him about it. "I know that wouldn't work either, not if I want it to be anything but superficial, and perhaps my relationship with her can't be anything but superficial when you come right down to it, but at least I can try to make it honest in its superficiality. And it's not about her, even, so much as about myself." She looked at him, at the tense line of his shoulders and the hunch that indicated he wasn't relaxed, even here, in their childhood spot, with just her to see; it made her heart clench painfully at the reminder of just how much she'd screwed things up with him. "I was unfair to you about Potter and his group, and I don't want to repeat that mistake with her. I want to be better than I've been to all the people important to me, and that includes her. And sometimes, if you want a relationship to survive, then you have to sacrifice for it."
"It's a pointless sacrifice," Severus said, shaking his head. "There is nothing to say that she'd ever change her mind about you."
"She's my sister," was all Lily could say, having resigned herself to that illogicality of her own emotions. "That's all the reason I need."
"I... can't understand that."
Of course he couldn't; he didn't have siblings, and his relationship with his parents was abysmal. She found herself, to some surprise, utterly devoid of blame or judgment of him for it. Just sadness.
"I know you can't." She sighed and leaned back on her arms to stare at the sunlight shining through the tree leaves, squinting at the glare. "How are things at your home?"
"Same."
She peered sideways at him, at the sullen way he'd said the word, at the tension in his shoulders.
"Severus, you don't have to lie to me," she said quietly. "If you'd rather not talk about it, that's fine. I don't... want to make you feel like I'm interrogating you about it every time I ask."
His answer was a great exhalation, even as he slumped further into himself, a bead of sweat sliding past his ear, catching against the coarse, unevenly spread bristles of facial hair. Lily wondered how often he had to shave these days; they'd never talked about that before, about being a teenager and going through puberty. She wanted to, suddenly, though now wasn't the time.
"It's... harder. It's not any better or worse, they're the same, but it's still different."
"Because you're different," she finished for him with a nod. "I suppose... we have about the same problem." It was a comforting thought.
"What's the point, though?" he asked, resting his chin on his knees as he stared at the little river flowing through Cokeworth, its level lower now than Lily could remember ever seeing it. "We both wish to change so that our friendship endures; they won't change, so what's the point of even trying with them?"
"I suppose... perhaps, if we change, then all our relationships will change too, not just yours and my friendship," Lily mused. "Perhaps that's enough."
"Unless she pushes you to become someone who suits her, just because you're desperate enough to keep your relationship with her," he warned, voice sharpening in clear displeasure.
Lily swallowed. "Do you think I would?"
"I don't know, Lily," Severus replied, uncoiling and letting his spine straighten; a different kind of tension, different kind of closing from the world and her. "I just know that she doesn't deserve it."
"I'm sure she'd say the same thing about you," Lily replied, snorting sardonically.
"Except I'm willing to try," he snapped.
"Maybe she'll be, too; how would you know?"
"That's wishful thinking, Lily, and you know it perfectly well. If you delude yourself on this, she'll just–"
Sitting up, Lily turned her head sharply to him, feeling her own spine stiffen.
"What? She'll hurt me? Break my heart? Not like I don't have experience with that already."
He jerked away from her as if she'd struck him, and she shut her eyes, immediately regretting her harsh words. She'd thought she'd gotten over the pain, but perhaps she wasn't quite there yet, at least not to the point where she could stomach his hypocrisy in this.
"I didn't mean – I only meant – Lily, I'm sorry, it's–"
"What did you mean?" she interrupted him, unwilling to re-tread that old ground. They'd put this to rest before the holidays, and Lily was more than eager to let it lie there.
Not to mention that she detested his usual stumbling over his own words when he was flustered.
"I meant that..." he licked his lips and bit the lower one for a moment, clearly trying to construct his sentence in a satisfactory way, "that I'm just wondering... where your line with her is."
Lily's shoulders dropped. For all that they hated each other, Severus and Petunia shared some rather similar priorities.
"I suppose I'll know when I reach it. And if I do, and there's no going back from that, I will have at least done everything I could to stop it from happening." Like she knew she had not done with Severus. She was not going to let that happen again, with anyone, and certainly not with her only sibling. "I told you, it doesn't matter if it's unequal; so long as I remember that it is and keep my expectations at appropriate levels to that, I don't see why it shouldn't work. It won't be a fulfilling relationship, but, well... it's better than nothing to me, even if it isn't for you."
"That's not fair, Lily," he shot back. "You said yourself that her being your sister makes everything different."
"Perhaps, but you tell me if anything's changed in your relationship with your mother since your meetings with Dumbledore started."
His expression shuttering, he turned away from her, curling back into himself, making Lily realise she'd stepped into it in some way she had no true grasp on.
It was only their second conversation since they'd decided to fundamentally rebuild their friendship, and as much as Lily forgot in some moments – as much as she didn't feel any unease about sharing her inner thoughts with him, not when they were on the topic of something predating Hogwarts, something untainted by the wizarding world – there were also moments like this one, serving to remind her painfully of the fact that she didn't know Severus the way that she'd thought she did, that there was a reason why they were in this uncertain position, and why she needed to measure and guard all her words, instead of simply falling into old patterns of saying things with only her momentary emotions to guide them.
"You're probably right about what friendships are supposed to be like," he said after a protracted, uncomfortable silence in which Lily picked at the edge of her shirt and tried to think of something to say, "but if you risk getting hurt every time, then I think the Slytherin way is better."
"Safer," Lily corrected, "does not always mean better."
"Michael and Stacie don't think that relationships built on favours can't also be genuine," he pointed out defensively.
"But that's not... mutually exploiting one another isn't the same as granting each other favours."
"Isn't it?" he asked, raising his eyebrow as he pulled a greasy strand of hair away from his sweaty face. "If a relationship is based on favours given and taken, then wouldn't there be an expectation of it in any future interactions, too? How is that not exploitation?"
Lily licked her lips, then pursed them as she thought his words over, and Severus gave her the time she needed, dark, dark eyes alight with genuine, if mild, curiosity. She had no doubt that to him, it was the same thing, whichever wording was being used – that it came down to what the other person could do for you and vice versa.
"I suppose when you put it that way," she allowed. "But to me, favours are something you do without expecting anything in return, or at least not doing it knowing you'd be getting some form of payment, and it's something that you grant to others, or it's granted to you. Exploitation is, is about taking from the other person, and it even implies covert or manipulative actions towards them. I guess I feel that when it's about exploitation, there's no room for genuineness because the motive itself is insidious, whereas favours imply a degree of true emotion involved."
"Very gryffindor of you," was Severus' murmured comment, one that never failed to rankle her, because it always felt like an insult on his part, a condescending dismissal.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You think that being guided primarily by your expectation of gaining some benefit from the relationship cannot also mean you like the other person, and that one cannot wield favours as tools or even weapons, because one may not be hundred percent certain the effort will bear fruit. That's a very gryffindorish way of thinking; it's surface thinking, and no one in Slytherin would agree with you."
"Are you saying that for you, 'exploitation' bears no connotation of insidiousness at all?" she asked, tone just this edge of too combative. "Are you saying that if you were friends with someone for mutual exploitation, you'd not sacrifice your connection to them if you could get an enormous gain out of it, or that you don't imagine the other person might do that to you?"
"No, I'm not–" He frowned, shook his head, as if not quite understanding what she was saying. "Do you truly believe you'd never put your friendship with anyone in jeopardy if the potential benefit is enormous?"
"But that's not the point," she disagreed. "The point is that in a true, close friendship, this thought shouldn't even cross your mind, because you value the other person too much to risk them or your relationship with them, no matter the potential benefit."
"In a close friendship; but how many of those do you have? You're the social one of the two of us, you've certainly had much more chance of forming friendships of various degrees."
Lily opened her mouth, then closed it, feeling wrong-footed, and Severus smirked, clearly counting it as a point scored for his side of the debate.
"See? Most of any person's relationships are actually about personal benefit or gain, rather than any deep emotion. That's also what Michael and his friends thought, when I spoke with them; that these kinds of friendships are not the same as your kind of friendships, but that they're just as valid. And I think I agree with them."
"So where does that leave us?" she felt compelled to ask. "You said we were also mutually exploiting one another, didn't you? You gave me examples. Is our friendship–"
"No," he cut her off sharply, uncoiling from his position almost explosively as he reached for her hand. "No, Lily; you're my best friend. I'd never willingly sacrifice our relationship for anything."
"I know; Severus, I know," she promised, squeezing his moist fingers back. Her heart fluttered at the fact that he'd reached out for her so swiftly, when it was usually she who had to initiate any and all physical contact between them. "And maybe you're right, and there are degrees of friendship, but I still say that there's a difference between favours and exploitation. Going out looking to meet people who fulfil your specific needs... that's not friendship, that's business. I agree that you can have superficial relationships that are by all definitions 'friendly', but to me, those aren't friendships in the true spirit of such a connection between two people."
"But you admit that friendships can also be primarily about the exchange of favours?" he challenged her.
Lily opened her mouth, words catching in her throat; exhaling, she shrugged. "I suppose the definition of the word 'genuine' to describe friendship needs rethinking."
He leaned back on his palms and extended his feet out, in a mirror position of her own from the beginning of their conversation, and Lily realised belatedly that their fingers were still touching. The sight made her smile.
"I still think friendships without exploitation or favours or anything else before genuine emotion are the more worthy kind, and it's the one I want us to have, even if they are riskier."
"Safer doesn't mean better," he parroted her words, inclining his head to offer a somewhat shy smile that made warmth unfurl in her chest. "I guess I see what you mean."
The Potters' guests arrived about ten days later, and the moment Athenora Adelmann walked into the foyer, James was pretty much blind to the two older women, because the girl was stunning. She had rich strawberry blonde hair set into an alluring peekaboo hairstyle, and her blue eyes were accentuated by elegantly applied kohl makeup. Her full lips were stained a dark burgundy bordering on purple that matched the colour of her robes, and James was willing to bet that she fit that Muggle beauty standard of 90-60-90 in proportions.
"Athenora, darling, this is my son James," Euphemia introduced them, gently patting the girl's hand.
"Lovely to meet you," the girl said, and James gave her his best winsome smile, reminding himself firmly not to do something stupid such as trip over his own feet. Her voice was pleasantly rich, and though her accent was distinctly American, he thought it suited her perfectly.
"The pleasure is all mine, Miss Adelmann."
"Athenora is fine, or Athens."
"Athens," he repeated, giving her a gracious bow over the hand he was holding gently with her own. He knew his mother would be ever so pleased that he was putting all those etiquette lessons to good use, but he made sure to exaggerate them just enough to draw an amused smile from the girl. "Would you like me to show you around the estate?"
"Actually, I heard from reliable sources that you own winged horses?"
"Yes, a couple of Aethonans and a Granian."
"Then I'd be far more interested in flying, rather than sightseeing."
James grinned; this was a girl after his own heart.
"Let me show you to your room so you can change, and we can go; it'll certainly be cooler up in the air than here on the ground."
"Yes, this heat is horrible," Athenora agreed as they walked away from the tittering middle-aged witches towards the guest section of the house. "Honestly, I was expecting much rainier weather, given how gloomy all movies happening on this side of the pond seem to be."
"Oh, this really isn't very normal at all; we're having an unusual heat wave this year. Are you asking for future reference?"
"Perhaps; I'll be taking over my father's company eventually, of course, though I've not yet decided where I'll continue my education in the meantime; I suppose I might even end up here if Mom moves."
"So you've finished school?" he asked, trying to judge her age without outright asking. In answer, Athenora laughed.
"Quite; I graduated from Ilvermorny this spring, which means I'm free to do as I want. I was actually thinking of travelling for a while, but that would depend on my potential travelling companions, and they've not yet made up their mind."
So she had to be at least eighteen, possibly nineteen. It was older than James' usual crowd, but it did promise something pretty new for the summer.
"Are they Muggle-borns? My experience is that most Pure-bloods wouldn't know about Muggle cinema."
"Some of them are, yes," she confirmed, lips tugging into a smirk. "But in my case, I've always been fascinated by the No-Maj world on its own merits, especially all the revolutionary things that are happening in the No-Maj States now."
"Really? Like what?"
"Free Love movement and Feminism, the Sexual Revolution, those kinds of social changes. They're far more dynamic in their social constructs than we are in ours, so it's a far more exciting world to live in than ours is."
James had never heard of any of that stuff, but the way she spoke of it made her sound like rather a progressive young woman, and he found himself not only attracted to her physically, but also thoroughly intrigued on an intellectual level, as well, a pretty rare thing in his experience.
"Speaking of the wizarding," he asked, trying to get the subject to a firmer ground; there'd be time to come back to the Muggle topics in the coming days and months, "what is your favourite kind of magic?"
"I have a special interest in wards; I've been debating on whether or not I should send a letter to the Hogwarts Headmaster and ask if I could perhaps study your school's wards for a semester or so. They are, after all, far older than Ilvermorny's, and my Geomancy professor suggested that I look into them as a possible focus for my further education. What about you, Jimmy? I can call you Jimmy?"
"Yes, of course," James flashed her a smile. "I'm partial to transfiguration magic, myself, though I don't see myself pursuing it to mastery level. Of course, I have two more years of schooling before then, but I'm far more interested in more exciting professions."
"Such as being an Auror?" she asked, perceptively enough that James was momentarily quite impressed.
"Well, with the political situation as it is..."
"Yes, Mom and Gerald have been going back and forth for months on whether they should stay here or in Boston; I can't say that the situation here is looking very bright for the immediate future."
"You can say that again," he agreed, opening the door to the guest suite his mother had assigned for their guests. "I'll meet you in the back garden in half an hour, then? Is that enough time?"
"Oh, plenty; I only need fifteen minutes to dig up my riding clothes and change."
"Fifteen minutes it is," James agreed, saluting a bit dramatically as the girl entered her rooms. Then, spinning on his heels, he strutted back to his own room to change, his mind momentarily filled with intense blue eyes and gorgeous, darkly-coloured lips.
Thursday morning after breakfast, Petunia approached Lily with crossed arms and a raised eyebrow, and exasperatedly said: "Well, are you going to go through the latest catalogues with me or not?"
Grinning, Lily hurried after her sister, making sure that Petunia's back was fully turned to her before she indulged herself in rolling her eyes at her sister's ridiculous incapability of being genuinely nice to Lily, even when it was obvious she wanted to be. At least she was keeping to her word – in the last few days, Petunia had, while clearly keeping to her current habit of taciturn behaviour towards everyone in the house, nonetheless toned down those incendiary comments directed at Lily's schooling. Lily's thoughts were that this must have been a consequence of her curiosity, if not her belief, that Lily was as uninterested in speaking about Hogwarts as Petunia was, and it was clear from it that for once, her elder sister was willing to see beyond her own petty grievances, because she'd gradually shifted her conversation just enough that she was actually assisting Lily in evading the subject, which in turn led to the calming of hostilities between the two of them, though it meant that the topics of conversation with their parents were surprisingly starting to run out, at least when they were all together – Lily and her father were capable of talking for hours on end about academic matters of all kinds, and that, at least, was still comfortingly familiar and safe.
Well, between cordial relations with Petunia and not being able to speak about much with her parents during family time, Lily found it very easy to choose Petunia, and decided not to worry about it overmuch. She'd catch her dad in his study over the weekend and spend a few hours talking to him about politics and history, extremely useful for her in light of that conversation she'd had with the seventh-years that had made her realise she was rather uneducated on the basics of these topics, and on top of that the bonding activity that was only ever for her and her father. In the meantime, she decided to thoroughly enjoy herself on the shopping trip tomorrow, and told herself sternly that she was to let Petunia lead in this, at least insofar as which clothing stores to visit and what was or wasn't in style of the things Lily found that she liked for herself.
Walking into Petunia's room after her, Lily dropped herself on the bed, letting the older girl rummage through her desk and pull out catalogues and magazines to dump on Lily's lap. When she was done, Petunia settled the fan so that it was blowing in both their faces – and wasn't that breeze a bloody relief – and seated herself primly next to Lily so that she could begin flipping the pages, pointing to clothing articles and bossily explaining the latest trends.
Lily didn't consider herself unfashionable – she quite liked nice blouses and dresses and robes – but she felt utterly out of her depth with this: peasant look and Moroccan style and crop tops (which horrified Lily and disgusted Petunia) and kimonos and high-waisted jeans and gauchos (those Lily actually liked quite a bit) and platform shoes and tee-shirts (which were apparently not considered underwear any more, but were glittery and printed and altogether beyond practical in Lily's opinion, making her bemoan not having figured this out sooner) and bloody jumpsuits of all things.
"This has been the fashion for years, Lily," Petunia said with a roll of her eyes when Lily expressed her surprise, and suddenly, Lily felt hot shame flash through her, burning her cheeks. Had she been so out of touch with the Muggle world that she'd had no clue about all of this?
The truth was, she rarely wore much Muggle clothing at all – only when she was at home and couldn't wear her robes. Her casual and fancy wizarding wardrobes both were on point with the current styles and trends, and she wore them as often as possible – whenever school robes weren't obligatory, which was in the evenings during the work week and on weekends – but there were very few items of Muggle clothing that carried over. Lily had drawn the line at wearing wizarding underwear, because it was frankly ridiculously outdated in every way, but beyond her brassieres and panties and stockings, she rarely needed much else, and certainly not tight pants and tube tops. Even shoes – she had gotten so used to the low-cut leather boots that were so widespread in the Wizarding world, that she'd not gotten a new pair of sneakers since her foot had stopped exponentially growing two years or so back.
She'd gone shopping for Muggle clothing in the last years, of course; her body had changed shape between the ages of thirteen and sixteen far too much for her to be able to continue wearing her old things. But it had been perfunctory shopping at best – going into stores and finding cheap yet nice-looking classical blouses and pants that she'd worn for years, knowing that it was mostly a waste of money to buy higher-end products simply because she was going to outgrow them by the time she next got a chance to wear them. She'd taken her favourite pieces with her to Hogwarts, and worn them when she felt too bothered by the swishy fabric around her feet – and because sometimes the thing she was most desperate for were her comfortable, ratty house clothes and the freedom of sitting with her legs akimbo without worrying if someone might see her underwear – but she'd never really given a single thought to the fashion trends of the Muggle world – just like she'd stopped giving much thought to the Muggle world in general.
So the answer was yes. Yes, she was just that much out of touch with the Muggle world.
But, as much as it shamed her to realise it, there was one good thing in it – Petunia seemed to be quite on top of things, at least fashion-wise, and probably in a lot of other ways as well. It presented an excellent avenue for Lily to continue chipping away at her resentment and re-establish some good connections between them, however superficial (because in light of what was going on politically in the wizarding world, fashion did seem superficial, and Lily being sixteen years old and enjoying fashionable clothes didn't seem to make any difference in her opinion of it).
"I think I want a one-piece and a bikini both," Lily told Petunia when they finally reached the bathing suits pictures.
"A bikini?" Petunia repeated, wrinkling her nose as she looked sideways at the younger girl.
"Don't make that face, bikinis are in, and you'd be quick enough to choose it over a wizarding bathing suit, trust me."
Petunia blinked. "Really?" She tried to do bored, but Lily saw through her – she was absolutely curious. "What are they like?"
"Remember that picture of grandmother Ophelia we found when we were cleaning out her attic right after she died? With the frilly sleeves?"
"No!" Petunia gasped, horrified.
Lily nodded emphatically. "Yeah, those."
"It's the nineteen-seventies, for God's sake, not the nineteen-hundreds! Don't wizards to anything modern?! Writing with quills and parchment, ridiculous-looking clothes, and turn of the century bathing suits!"
"You know, it's not even that bad for women as it is for men – they have to wear the full-piece suits, too!"
"No!"
"Yeah! I swear, I am absolutely getting Severus normal swim trunks just for kicks, because I daren't even think of what he's got now."
Petunia snorted. "If he even has any swim clothes."
Though it was meant snidely, Lily chose to interpret it as an agreement. "He probably hasn't, at that. He used to have one of those, though, when we were children – remember?"
Petunia released a very un-lady-like snort and nodded her head.
"How could I have forgotten?" Then she gasped, as the dots connected. "Oh, God, is that why he wore that thing?!"
"What did you think?"
"That his mother was weirdly obsessed with sun protection."
Lily shrugged. "Well, I'm sure there was that, too; for someone with such dark hair, he's got surprisingly light skin. He burns almost as much as you and I do. I really have got to get him out more; maybe go swimming, if there's any bodies of water left by the time I manage to convince him of it. "
Petunia narrowed her eyes and hummed discouragingly.
"You're ignoring what he's done to you, then?"
Sighing, Lily tugged on the front of her damp shirt to unstick it from her skin. She remembered, surprisingly vividly, that letter she'd sent to Petunia a few months back, about the darkening political situation and the hatred and intolerance that she was faced with as a Muggle-born in the Wizarding world. She'd written so much about the word 'Mudblood' in it, that she was not the least bit surprised that her sister had almost intuitively grasped just how much that word had hurt her, coming out of Severus' mouth in front of half of the school while she was trying to protect him.
But to explain to Petunia everything else... no, that was impossible.
"I didn't, Petunia. I'm not... it's complicated. The situation itself, the, the events behind it, our relationship... it's too big for me to just draw a line and not consider anything but my own hurt. I can't, and I don't want to. But it's going to be different this time; our friendship isn't what it used to be, and maybe that's actually a good thing. Lord knows we've buried so much, ignored so much, been dishonest with each other so much."
"Like his obsession with you, as an example?"
"It's not... I'm not a foolish twelve-year-old, Tuney, that I don't understand what you and Mary and Clo mean when you constantly bring that up, but it's not like that, okay? Whatever his feelings for me are, they're genuine, and he's never made me uncomfortable with his actions in the way that you constantly imply. He's never even said anything about it, and I'm not going to put him down for, for looking at me, for Merlin's sake! If I did, I'd have to put down Potter and Browning and a dozen other blokes who are, frankly, far more inappropriate than Severus. At least he's not lecherous about it, and trust me, I know how that feels."
"You'd know," Petunia muttered, before raising her voice. "And what's to stop him from hurting you again?"
"Nothing, probably," Lily answered with a shrug. "But that's the point of trusting people, Petunia; it's a risk, and I've decided that Severus is worth the risk," she added pointedly, not exactly wanting to say 'our situation isn't any different on that front', but wanting Petunia to make the connection nonetheless.
"All right, but don't come crying to me when he hurts you again," her sister answered, lifting her nose in the air as if Lily had insulted her.
"Wasn't planning on it."
"Good."
The awkward silence stretched between them for several long moments, as they both stewed in the unpleasant thoughts the exchange brought up.
"Look, can we agree to disagree on this?" Lily asked in the end.
"It's your life, Lily. You get to live it however you want."
"I do appreciate your concern, Tuney, and not agreeing with you does not mean that I'm summarily dismissing you. But this is something that is too important to me to do as you'd want me to. He is too important to me, whether you like it or not."
Petunia eyed her in a critical, closed-off sort of way, before finally nodding once, and pointedly returning them to the subject of fashion. Lily let it go, finding herself genuinely pleased with how the exchanged had ended up going, because the topic of Severus was a sticky one between them, and it meant a lot to her, that Petunia could hold herself from expressing her dislike of Lily's best friend to the point where it felt like condemnation of Lily for even having him as a friend, especially after she'd so stupidly blurted out about the incident by the lake.
It did seem that Petunia too wanted them to improve their relations, at least to the point of being easily cordial with each other. That meant Lily's work was already cut in half, because as big of an uphill battle as it promised to be, it would still be nothing to the Sisyphean task of trying to win an unwilling Petunia over. But, as Lily was starting to understand, none of the best things in life ever came easy, and the red-haired witch was no slouch; she would do what needed to be done to earn them.
Dear Remus,
I hope you're doing better than you were right before the hols. I'm sorry I didn't come visit you at the hospital wing, and that I haven't written until now. Home has been very busy – my aunt had a car accident – so I've only now found some time to go to the owl post in Diagon Alley.
I imagine you're still upset with us, but when we get back to school, I'll still do my best to help you during that time of the month. I would come and help you out over the summer, too, if I could. Please let me know how you are as soon as you feel up to writing after the 11th.
I wish we could remain friends when school picks up again.
Peter