Chapter 34: Cute Slytherin Boy

Today just wasn't Lily Evans' day.

First, she had arranged to meet her new friends, Draco and Hermione Prince on the train, but her sister, Petunia Evans, had made a fuss earlier in the morning because her savings had gone missing.

Clearly, Petunia was quick to blame the only person who could do magic in the family, which led to an annoying discussion between her and Lily.

But Lily had already learned to tolerate her sister...

When they finally solved the problem, she was able to go to the train, but it was already quite late and the train was about to leave.

She thought about looking for the Prince's Siblings, but when she saw that most of the carriages were already full, she doubted that there would be enough space and besides the train was about to leave, so she decided to go to the prefects' wagon to leave her things and then go and look for her new friends.

Well...

Doing that was a mistake as Remus and the new prefects had a lot of things they wanted to discuss, so she had no choice but to stay with them without being able to go and look for Draco and Hermione.

When she and the other prefects finally got off the train, most of the students had already boarded the carriages, only a few were left laughing at the Slytherin prefects who had been pranked by the marauders.

How Lily was sure it was them?... because the same prank had been played on Severus some time ago.

She still remembered how angry Severus had been.

But as usual, she didn't even have time to be angry with the marauders that time because Severus had sent Sirius and James to the infirmary.

No, it wasn't a magical duel, it was a vicious potion Severus had used to make them suffer.

The marauders might have played a very bad prank on him, but he had made an attempt on their health, which was much more serious.

Lily had tried to reason with him, but he hadn't listened and had defended himself by saying that he was only defending himself.

But it was obvious to Lily that he was just taking revenge and in the worst possible way.

Of course, that wasn't the only situation where something like that happened, the conflicts between the marauders and Severus had been a constant thing at Hogwarts, there wasn't a wizard who didn't know about them and their fights.

Anyway...

Back to Lily, she was out of luck as it seemed that the Prince siblings had already boarded their carriage so she was going to have to meet them at the entrance to Hogwarts.

Finally, when they arrived at Hogwarts, she saw Hermione and Draco, but it was a headache to see them with Potter and his group.

Lily quickly rushed to get the two of them to invite them to join her and her friends at the Gryffindor table, she didn't want the marauders to add another member to their group for anything in the world.

When she arrived at the Prince's side, Potter made an effort to flirt with her or ask her out as usual, but of course, he was unsuccessful and his constant insistence and jokes only annoyed her.

Even though she was angry, she couldn't deny that it was funny, she saw how everyone else was laughing or smiling, but she wasn't in the mood for that kind of thing today, so she quickly grabbed Draco and Hermione and walked away from the marauders.

As Lily walked with the Prince and his friends, Hermione asked her a lot of questions about James, which she found strange, but she supposed that Hermione was probably interested in him, which wasn't surprising since Potter, along with Black, was one of the best looking young wizards in Gryffindor.

Draco on the other hand seemed cautious at all times, even though Lily's friends or their boyfriends wanted to join him, he seemed very tense, as if he felt he was in the wrong place.

Lily could notice this since it used to happen to Severus a lot when he had to be around her and her friends.

He hated having to spend time with other Gryffindors that weren't her.

When they reached the tables in the Great Hall, Draco looked very down, tired, frustrated, and thoughtful, he didn't talk to anyone even though he did answer the occasional question, yet he was strangely cold and dry.

After the first year wizarding house sorting, Lily noticed that Draco kept glancing in the direction of the Slytherin table, she didn't understand why that was.

But Lily didn't think much more about it either, because when she noticed Severus at the Slytherin table, she was completely speechless.

Well...

That wasn't the Severus she remembered, but she was sure it was him.

She had only glanced at the Slytherin table because she was intrigued as to what Draco might be looking at.

Lily had stopped looking at the Slytherin table a long time ago because she knew Severus would be staring at her and she didn't want to make eye contact with him.

Severus had spent the entire fifth year staring at her, which was very uncomfortable, so she decided not to look at him anymore.

And although this time she was curious as to what Draco was looking at, a part of her was also curious to see if Severus was still looking at her, although she wouldn't admit that.

Lily had only planned to take a quick glance in his direction, but when she saw Severus, she couldn't help but stare in his direction like a fool.

Severus had changed and quite a lot, his whole appearance seemed to have made a complete 180-degree turn.

She had constantly told him that he needed to take better care of his body and health.

Severus was a genius at brewing potions, but he had no care for the constant exposure to different magical ingredients or the excessive consumption of potions.

Lily tried many times to reason with him, but as always he would change the subject.

Severus was always the type who preferred to change the subject rather than argue about something he didn't agree with, one of the many reasons why their relationship slowly deteriorated...

They never really solved their problems.

Lily knew that sometimes she acted a little unfair to him and that she could get angry about something or other that she wasn't right about, but it was because she wanted him to listen to her.

Lily just wanted to talk and fix everything, to find a way to sort things out, not put them aside.

Every time they argued and didn't solve anything, she kept accumulating more and more things, and at some point, she knew she was going to explode and let it all out.

And it happened, except that she not only exploded because of everything she had been accumulating but also because she felt really hurt by Severus for the first time, he had broken the only thing that kept their relationship going.

Lily had lost the only thing that gave her the strength to carry on despite all the bad things the two of them were going through.

But now, Severus seemed to have listened to her for the first time, or maybe it was for another reason his sudden change, but there was no doubt that Severus looked completely different.

Even her two best friends, Marlene McKinnon and Alice Scott who noticed that she was looking towards the Slytherin table, whispered some jokes to her.

"Hey Lily, if you keep staring at him like that it could be trouble," Alice whispered to her with a smile.

"Yeah, although I admit he looks good, he's still a Slytherin, plus look at who he's with, it's Regulus, Mulciber, Avery, and Rosier," added Marlene quietly so the rest of the Gryffindors wouldn't overhear their conversation.

Lily, who was distracted, was taken aback by her friends' comments and her cheeks turned pink.

Despite the embarrassment she felt at her friends' comments, she was smart and cast a quick charm that allowed her to talk quietly to her friends without the rest of Gryffindor overhearing their conversation.

'Muffliato Charm' Lily silently cast a charm that Severus had taught her, of course, it was with the promise that she would not teach it to anyone else.

And she kept her promise despite how much her friends insisted that she teach them the charm.

"Alice, Marlene, stop teasing, don't you know who he is?" complained Lily more calmly now that she knew no one could hear them.

"Hmm, no, I think I've seen him before...but I don't know who he is," Alice replied honestly, trying to remember where she thought she had seen the young Slytherin Lily was looking at.

"And you Marlene?" asked Lily again.

"I feel like I know him too, but I couldn't tell you who he is, which is weird since I usually notice cute boys, even if they are Slytherin" joked Marlene.

It was then that Lily's eyes widened in surprise and she knew that they didn't recognise that this young man they were talking about was Severus.

"Look Lily, it's not that I have any particular problem with you being interested in a Slytherin, but I'm worried about the group he's with, you know Mulciber and Abery's humour is pretty evil, much worse than the marauders," Alice clarified.

Alice didn't particularly like the marauders as she disagreed with their heavy pranks, but she knew they were good guys, just very annoying and lacking in manners.

She thought they were still acting like children and just needed to grow up to properly understand everything.

"Yes, those two are only out to torture and hurt others," Marlene nodded with disgust in her voice.

Both Alice and Marlene's families were magical and their families were quite important in the magical community, so they didn't usually have much trouble with the Slytherins, but many of their friends were from Muggle families and knew how much they were bullied by the Slytherins.

Lily was one of the few exceptions as they never saw any Slytherin bothering her.

"But if he's different from the other Slytherins and you want to go out with him, you have our support," she added with an amused smile.

"Girls, he is Severus..." said Lily quietly even though she didn't need to since the charm was there.

"What did you say?" asked Alice who didn't quite hear or thought she misheard.

"Something about Severus," said Marlene.

Lily just sighed defeatedly and stared at the two of them.

"The Slytherin boy you are talking about is Severus," said Lily now firmly.

"Severus?" they both shouted in unison incredulously.

Instantly Marlene and Alice's faces changed completely, their eyes were wide with surprise and their mouths made a 0.

They both quickly turned their heads to look again at the young man Lily was looking at.

Occasionally they both turned their heads to look at Lily to see if she was playing some kind of joke on them, but she seemed very serious about it, so they could only try to find the similarities between that young man and Severus.

They were surprised to see that despite how different this young man was from Severus, it was definitely him.

And if there was one thing that confirmed Lily's words and their suspicions... it was the young man's deep, cold, dark, black eyes.

Yes... they had only seen eyes like that once before and it was none other than Severus Snape.

"Impossible..." they both muttered in complete shock.

While Lily could only look at them and shook her head.

She told Alice and Marlene everything, she even told them about what happened in Diagon Alley with Severus...

So she already knew that today the three of them would spend a long time talking before they could sleep peacefully.

It was going to be a long night...

A few hours later, the little wizards were finishing their meal and then a glow illuminated the tables making all the food on the table disappear and different desserts such as chocolate bars, cakes, sweets, candies, cookies, etc., appeared.

Moments later Dumbledore spoke again, he stood up looking at everyone, and said:

"And now, students, if I may test your patience one more time, some important announcements for the start of this new term and I hope you will all bear them in mind..."

"The Forbidden Forest is off limits to all students and there will be serious consequences for anyone who enters..."

After Albus said a few more things, the banquet finally ended.

And after the Hogwarts opening banquet was over, all the students went to their respective houses while the first years were guided by their respective prefects.

"Now, all first-year students follow me from behind," said the Slytherin Prefect as he stood up to leave for their dormitories along with the prefects of Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor.

The little first-year wizards in Slytherin were not happy to follow behind this prefect as he was one of those affected by Potter and his group's prank, and even though all of those affected had changed into new clothes, the nasty smell on them still lingered.

Severus didn't bother to wait for his classmates who were still chatting and telling the other Slytherins about the "interesting breaking news".

He went straight to his Slytherin dormitory and when he arrived he found a surprise on his bed.

There was a white scroll of folded parchment that caught his attention, this scroll was sitting on a pillow next to his belongings.

'Looks like someone asked the Elves to deliver this to me personally' Severus thought as he grabbed the scroll.

Severus unfolded it, feeling the weight of the quality parchment, knowing it was a parchment that could not belong to simply any wizard.

His eyes met an elegant, slanted handwriting, and even without a signature, he knew exactly whose it was.