The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

A Proper Goodbye

A Proper Goodbye

Lily was standing outside, bundled up, watching her mum pack up the car with presents for cousins. They were going for a holiday party and she was dressed up pretty in a green dress and her hair was done just so and when she turned around and saw James Potter standing at the end of the driveway, with his hands in his pockets, her heart skipped a beat. She handed the last of the presents they were packing into the car.

"Is that James?" Mrs. Evans asked.

"Yes," Lily answered. "I'll be right back mum."

"Invite him along," Mrs. Evans suggested, smiling.

Lily nodded and walked down the driveway to where he was standing, right on the corner by the street. His air came out in clouds before his face and he looked nervous as she neared him, his eyes cast downward. He paused just before she got to him to take a sip of something he had in a bottle in his pocket before he hurriedly slid it back into his cloak and stood up right as she came.

"Potter," she said by way of greeting him.

She'd expected the usual reply of Evans, but instead, he skipped a greeting altogether and said, "I just came to apologize, for how I acted the other day at Diagon Alley, on our... date."

"All controlling and weird?" Lily asked. She raised her eyebrow, "And I'm not counting that as a date, Potter, for the same reason I didn't count that last one. That's not how I'd fancy a date to go." She shivered and rubbed her arms.

James sighed and looked away, "Yes, neither would I." After a long pause, he said, "I'm sorry, at any rate."

"I'm sorry, too." Lily hesitated, then glanced over her shoulder at the Morris Mini, spluttering exhaust while it waited for her to go and join her mum inside. She turned back to James. "Would you like to come to a Christmas dinner, Potter?"

He shook his head, "I better not. I have to go, actually." He stared down at his feet, "I already stayed longer than I should've..." He looked at her and there was something haunting about the way he was doing it, something eerie and strange that set her on edge.

"Are you alright?" she asked, giving him a bit of the side-eye. "You've been acting quite funny, Potter. I'm not going to lie, I'm rather worried for you. Ever since that night on the dock... I've worried that perhaps you might've been more hurt than you're letting on."

He stared at her a moment. "More hurt than I let on?"

Lily looked nervous, "Well. I mean. You did hit your head rather hard."

Severus Snape stared at Lily Evans through James Potter's eyes and he felt sick to his stomach.

She was thinking that he wasn't himself - that he was acting mental, that he might've been damaged somehow. Lily Evans thought Severus Snape was nothing but a brain damaged versionof James Potter, he realized and he felt a twist inside of himself. That was how it'd always been, though, really. He'd never been enough for her, and he never would be.

He'd never get the chance to be.

Voldemort was sure to be angry with him, sure to be coming for him the moment that word got back to him what had happened, that word was out that Snape was an imposter and the real James Potter was missing - taken by the Dark Lord. Voldemort was going to hunt him and kill him for sure.

And he didn't intend to allow Lily to be caught in the crosshairs.

He probably shouldn't have come at all, but Snape had to see her one last time. To say goodbye.