Sevens ✓

Y E A R T H R E E

— before you start reading; please can i just say, ignore the current song you're playing from the playlist in part one, and change it instead to the song drift by daughter. i happened to be listening to it as i was writing this and at a certain moment it hit a point in the music and idk man it made me feel something. just go change it now, quickly!! —
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Her hair was an autumnal orange fat plait down her back at the start of this year.

At thirteen now, five spots and counting had popped up on the surface of her chin and nose, and she was feeling more and more lousy each day.

On the train as Sev tried to include her in a game of wizard chess, she couldn't concentrate properly, and after her fifth loss, Severus had lost his patience.

"Lily, what's wrong with you today?"

Lily rubbed her forehead and wished she could answer.

"Have a chocolate frog," he attempted, against his usual sour self. "Go on."

Lily wordlessly grabbed the box and ate it in one.

"We could —"

There was a sound of sliding doors at the front of the carriage just then, in which both Lily and Severus looked up to the door.

Regulus Black stood there, flanked by two younger Slytherins who stood still by his side.

His eyes slid both past Severus and Lily, only seemingly focussed on something that was not there.

"Sorry," he spoke coldly, and ignored Lily as she looked at him for a sign of recognition. "Looking for someone else."

They left; and the door shut back closed.

Lily couldn't help but frown.

Six weeks, she had not seen him, true. But a little sign that he had actually seen her would be nice.

For, had he forgotten their meet-ups in the library last year?

So, yes, they had only studied; discussed history of magic and potions and charms and helped each other with homework, but they had gotten to know each other in the sense that only a good few evenings in a dusty library could.

He had also seemed colder. His grey eyes had slid past her like she was invisible.

Lily slumped further down the seat and wondered if it was going to be like this all year.

"We could open the Bertie Botts?" Severus said after a while, as if he had only just remembered where he'd left off.

He was very sweet in trying; but Lily merely shrugged him off again, closing her eyes.

Why did sleep only come at the most inconvenient of times?

She thought about what could've changed.

They had started off when a smaller and less spotty Lily with shorter hair had cursed audibly, looking wildly for her lesson in peril.

Since then, there had almost been an unspoken link. He had been there when she needed him. And perhaps the mother speech about her telling him to be a gentleman was not enough now; because if she knew of Lily and her awfully dirty blood, Lily was not sure she would approve all too much.

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"Did you hear?"

"Heard it was only in practise. Not even in a game. Done by someone from his own house, like."

"Marlene," Lily Evans leaned over to the girl sat opposite her curiously. "What's everyone whispering about?"