Modern Marauders (Jily fanfic)(Completed)

7) Stupid Snape

"THE QUEEN IS BACK!" Marlene sang, stepping down into the common room for the first time since we left for Petunia's party. She still didn't look like a queen as she usually did, but everyone loved Marlene, and that was that. "Why is no one worshipping me at my feet?" She asked.  "HELLO? YOUR QUEEN IS BACK!"

This time, everyone put down anything they were doing and started applauding her. I rolled my eyes and joined in.

"Thank you, thank you!" My best friend said, bowing to her fellow Gryffindors. "I'm sure you all missed me so very much. I'll be accepting all gifts, gold, and sacrifices this morning in the great hall. I expect cookies from you, James Potter! Oh- and Martha, maybe a few of those brownies couldn't do too much harm?" She said, pointing to each person she waved.

"So..." Sirius said, making his way over. "I've missed you," He said, awkwardly leaning on the wall. "But I heard you haven't really missed me?" He said.

I sighed. "Why do you care? You only use her as a shag," I pointed out.

Marlene giggled. "Oh, I missed you, Black" She said flirtatiously. "And that perfect hair!"

Sirius winked at me before returning to normal conversation (or as normal as those two get) with Marlene. No doubt they were discussing which broom closet was the best or what classrooms were empty and when.

Suddenly, I felt someone watching me. James Potter. Dammit! I looked around quickly before deciding to see if I could go find Severus in order to get away. "Oi, Marls," I  whispered to Marlene "I'm going to go find Sev. I'll be back later." She laughed at something Sirius was saying and nodded. I  rolled me eyes at her before crawling out of the portal. Now onto problem #2. If I was Severus Snape, where would I be? I thought back to the last time I had seen him. It was back in the hallway when James and Sev were both being idiots. Nope. Not going back there.

Finally, I decided to search the courtyard. There he was with that gang of his, laughing at some depressing joke or something. Fear filled me. I coudn't go over there if they were with him! No, no I couldn't. Well, I could, but my legs refused to move and I found myself running back into the castle. To... Slughorn's room. Okay.

--

"Lily, what  a pleasant surprise!" Professor Slughorn grinned, clapping his hands together as I entered his classroom. "Just getting a bit of grading done. To what do I owe this pleasure?" He forced a warm mug of something into my hands, which I assumed was tea.

"Nothing, really," I muttered. "Actually, that's not true."

Slughorn leaned against his desk. "And why would that be, my dear?"

I sighed. "Many reasons, I suppose. First being my father's dead and I don't know. It just doesn't seem real to me. He's been... well.... alive all  of my life. This is a foreign concept to me. I don't seem him enough during the school seasons that I actually am able to feel that he's de- gone. To me, he's still getting up every morning and making coffee and going to  work and coming home to my mother and sister and writing to me before he goes to bed. I don't know. I can see his- his body and I know it's dead but the dead man and my father feel like two different people to me," I explained. "And then there's Severus Snape and his friends. They scare me. I can't talk to Sev without seeing them. I almost feel like it was them who killed my father and now they're slowly-" I stopped.

"Go on," Slughorn urged.

"Slowly killing me," I ended. "Sorry, professor, I really shouldn't've gone on like that! I'll be going so you can get back to your work."

"Nonsense, Lily. I'd like to tell you a few things," He said. "What you feel about your father being gone, it's completely normal. You're right. You can't see him hardly enough to notice he's missing now, but this summer, you will feel it. You said he wrote to you every night before bed, are you missing these letters?"