bakerstreet | But you say you're just a friend

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But you say you're just a friend

the best friends to more meme

There's nothing in this world quite like a true, blue best friend that you can rely on. They've been with you through thick and thin, good and bad. You want to have fun? They're the first person you look for, because they always know how to bring the best out in you. You need a shoulder to cry on? Don't worry, they're already here. You need to bury a body? ...you should probably reconsider your priorities, but you know your best friend will be there with a shovel and a smile. You'd never ruin this friendship for ANYTHING in the world.

Something's brewing that may do just that, though. One of you has feelings, has for a long time, and that spells trouble. Unless you keep that to yourself and remain platonic, of course. Repression in this case might be a good thing.

Only it's too late. The cat's out of the bag, whether it's by confession or by accident. What to do, what to do? If feelings aren't returned, can you turn down a friend, or will you force something that isn't there just to make them happy? If feelings are returned, will you risk changing the perfect thing you have?

Comment with your character, canon, preferences, and which side you may want to play. IE, the one with feelings, etc. Also, mention if you'd like things to be more fluffy or more tragic.
Respond to others. Assumed CR and AU it up if need be.

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Lily can't not listen. They're right there, there's nothing else to focus on. She manages all right until Avery mentions Severus' father and--she hadn't known. Something plummets in her a little. She's not sorry he's dead and she knows Severus isn't either, but she still hadn't even known. (Why does she care so much about not knowing? She knows why. It's the same reason she'd felt so suddenly guilty as soon as she saw him. Fuck's sake.

Anyway.

There's little to feel about anything but cold when the conversation turns to - yes, she instantly knows - Voldemort. Severus has to know that she's going to have to relay everything she hears. It's no secret that she's a member of the Order. It never has been. She continues to sit quietly, doesn't look toward Severus in the glass, drinks her coffee and waits.

(She hates that she thinks a moment that Severus didn't know the conversation would turn to this, that she should leave before it finishes.)

Lily hears the word Fenrir and some other choice words but the full breadth of it is lost in the hiss of his statement. Lily doesn't react to any of it. Not at all. The conversation doesn't go on much longer after that - Orin has places he needs to be, which are in fact not war-related in the least, as he's about to meet the girl he's been seeing for a date. Even when he's professing concern for Severus not getting in trouble, he seems so damn laid-back in this place talking about this. What a personality on that guy.

Eventually though, he takes his leave, though he does remind of the offer of going out for a pint whether in mourning or celebratory, which says a lot about the state of things in his head (in both of their heads, since knocking back a drink to that death doesn't sound horrible). In any case, the door swings shut behind him when he leaves.

Lily, for a moment, still doesn't move.

It's very quiet, but she can still probably here his long exhale and utterance of "Fuck."

He knows she's in the Order. Just like she knows he's in with the Dark Lord. But it's one thing to know an another thing to have it shoved in her face-- at least, some frantic part of his mind offers, no one actually knows how to identify a Death Eater, or what they really are. If it were illegal to be associated with a certain crowd it'd be another story, but it isn't yet, just

very tense.

There's also this: Severus could have told her to leave. He could have staged an argument, accused her of following him, made a scene with Orin or dragged his friend elsewhere. He could have stunned her silently at any moment during that conversation, he could be Obliviating her right now. But he's just sitting at his table with his head in one hand, swearing internally.

Lily doesn't move a bit longer. Then she stands, but she doesn't leave. She doesn't run, she doesn't apparate away, doesn't try to stun him. She turns and unwinds her scarf to tuck it away and sits across from Severus, bringing her coffee with her. She knows that he should have done any of those things, that he still should now, but he hasn't and he's not.

She just looks at him and she breathes and then she glances away and takes a sip of her coffee like they've just been sitting here talking like normal people and that they don't know they're on opposite sides of a chasm that's currently filled with unquenchable flames. The silence carries on. "Petunia never told me about your father."

Of all the things she could have said, should have said, that is not really high on the priority list. "So that's why the phone--I'm sorry you've had to deal with her on top of everything else." Not I'm sorry for your loss, not any kind of condolences over his father, just: sorry you got more stress piled on you.

(What is she doing, why is she pretending they're normal people, why is she saying any of this? She doesn't know.)

Severus is rubbing his forehead, staring at the empty space on the table between them. He doesn't want to look at her. A time-turner, he thinks. Twenty minutes, is all.

He doesn't say anything for a while.

Eventually,

"He got drunk and pushed Eileen down the stairs last year." Severus puts out the last of his cigarette with the hand not holding his head up, having found he's lost his taste for anything and everything, at the moment. "Killed her. Constable wouldn't look into it."

And now he's dead, so. Good fucking riddance.

"I should have just lent Petunia an owl. I'm sorry."

Twenty minutes would about do it, yeah. If only.

"I'm sorry," she finally says, "about Eileen." There's something there that's very clear that isn't being said, but Tobias deserved whatever he got and sainted Lily Potter is not actually a saint at all. Good fucking riddance indeed.

Instead of staring down at the table, Lily is staring studiously out of the very slightly dingy window. There's not much to see outside, but it's less awkward than this table is right now.

Eventually: "no you shouldn't have. Vernon probably would have tried to kill it and talking to me wasn't Petunia's goal anyway, she still would have found ways to bother you." Dry. "I offered to call her every day so she could stop bothering you, she said she was fine with things then kept going on with it anyway."

Basically: they both got played really hard by Petunia and now it's got them ... here, awkwardly.

He makes a low noise of acknowledgement about her condolences - which he knows are sincere, despite the years of silence between them. Severus didn't love either of his parents, but Eileen, for all her enabling and for as much as she failed to protect her child, was as much of a victim as he was. She deserved more than what life dealt her, no matter she picked half the cards herself.

Lily doesn't ask how Tobias went. He's grateful.

Another long pause.

"Reckon we can go shove her in a lake," he deadpans, because he can't think of anything but the threat they used to levy at her when they were children and Petunia wouldn't lay off.

The silence is... not soothing, that's not the word for it, but it is... just, it is. There's no other way to put it. It's there unassuming and with no need to twist around or figure out what to say. Quietly sitting together. How strange.

And then--honestly, Lily almost laughs. Almost. It would have been a fluttering, nervous laugh that he wouldn't have recognized, so perhaps it's for the better this way. "I think," she settles on, "I've never felt more like it than I have now. She used to just want to join in so she didn't miss anything, now she's just meddling."

Hell of a place to meddle, Petunia.

"She's angry and doesn't know how to feel better," he says quietly.

Severus dislikes Petunia to an extreme degree - her behavior is on the list of reasons he hates muggles so much - but he understands why she stooped to taking her rage out on her sister like this. Much more effective to try and screw up her marriage and force her to open old wounds than to say something cruel. Awfully Slytherin of her. Severus should be impressed.

He doesn't want to look at Lily. If he looks at her she's going to think about everything Petunia said about her marriage to Potter, he's going to think about how hurt he is still. He's fought bitterly to amputate feelings for her from himself, but he's weak and she's every weakness; he doesn't want to give it an inch. He should leave. He can't, though, because she's heard what she's heard and they have to - they have to.

Something.

"I know," Lily finally says, softly. "I know."

(It hurts more than she'd like to admit, honestly. She doesn't need to admit it though, since Severus knows her well enough even now to know how much she's hurt by Petunia's actions. Dragging her husband and--someone she still cares about very much, even estranged and guilty--Severus into it just makes it all the worse.)

She knows they have to do something. But part of her is trying to say it likes sitting here and the rest of her is desperately trying to smash it down because their friendship has sailed off into the damn distance and, unlike what she'd liked to have believed as a teenager when she was vicious and angry, it's not all his fault. It's a lot her fault too. It stings but it should, and for a long time she just sits.

Eventually when she speaks again, her voice is still low.

"Where do we go from here?" Their situation. They should be fighting. Or. Something.

They hurt each other. Badly. Severus should have been a stronger person, able to withstand more abuse and not need the sanctuary of everything dark and wrong. Lily should have been a stronger person, stood fortified for herself and not craved the attention from-- well. Her husband.

All in all her sins are lesser by far. Severus thinks of her trying not to laugh that day but he knows what he did was worse, he knows he deserved it. All of it. That doesn't mean he isn't hurt and bitter about everything, but humans are funny like that. Emotional multitasking. (I know, but)

"I don't know."

Severus' coffee is cold.

"They got me out of it," he says at last, and finally risks looking at her. "They got me out of it. I know who they are and what I'm doing but the first person to ever tell me 'it's wrong and you aren't staying there anymore' was Lucius's mother."

It's not an excuse. The fact that child protective services in the UK wouldn't bother with complaints from the neighborhood he grew up in, and the fact that the Ministry defaulted to the muggle government because the man of the house wasn't a wizard, and the fact that not a single teacher or nurse ever so much as batted an eye at the bruises he'd show up to term with-- none of these things erase what Voldemort and his followers want. But it goes a hell of a long way to explain why Severus has never been deaf to it, on top of everything else. It's wrong, he knows it's wrong, but it's the only place he belongs and he hates all the alternatives anyway.

(I know, but)

They both should have done things, should have been things that they didn't or weren't. No matter whose sins were (are?) worse, the fact remains they're both at fault and Lily regrets so much. (No one deserves what James Potter and co. did to Severus. No one.)

Lily looks back at Severus quiet and unflinching, not searching but somber and listening to Severus' explanation. (Not excuses. They both know that's not what Severus is doing though, and she can appreciate that much.) For a long time she just nods once, processing and trying to unpack her emotions as her gaze dips down to her coffee cup. "I should have--" Should have what? What could a young teenager have done? Instead she settles on: "I'm sorry. For everything," everything that was her, the way she hurt him, the way she'd acted and contributed and everything that rests sour in her throat now. It's not an excuse and it doesn't make things better, but the sincere regret is there. For a moment it looks almost like she wants to grasp for one of his hands but then thinks better of it, fingers flexing uselessly against the flat surface of the table. "I'm glad someone finally did get you out of it."

Even if it was who it was. (Is who it is.)

Eventually she looks up at him again, her whisper so soft that it's barely audible. "I've been asked," she begins, "twice."

That's all she says. Whether Severus knew or not, something interesting is she doesn't include James for reasons other than his treatment of Severus: while they'd both been asked, the fact of the matter remains that were it about James, they would have only asked him. But asking both of them means it's about Lily, the muggle-born witch, and asking James, the pure-blood wizard, is only to hide the fact that it is about her and to make her more likely to accept.

She hadn't.

Severus doesn't blame her. He did, when he was younger, less inclined to think rationally and so unable to control himself emotionally that he'd blame the fall of the Roman Empire on a westerly breeze. (It's something he'll think of in years to come, though, why Mr and Mrs Evans would look at him and sigh and gossip with the neighbors, why they'd move away, but never say anything. Is that a muggle thing or a human thing, the way people care enough to hiss behind each other's backs but never do anything.)

"I know."

Well. Cat's out of the bag, so to speak, there's no reason to be coy about it. Severus shouldn't give this much away, he knows - he should let everyone believe he's just some fringe sycophant, an errand boy, and not... what he is. A young man in the immediate, personal confidence of Lord Voldemort, a young man who knows about Tom Riddle's muggle father. Of course the Dark Lord would find Lily Evans, muggle-born witch of renowned power that that fairy-tale red hair, the more appealing potential servant than her spoilt pureblood husband.

"I told him not to bother, but I guess there's something about you that makes the worst of us pay attention."

I know. It sticks in her mind and she says nothing for a few moments.

Knowing and knowing are utterly different things. Lily nods, just a little. She wouldn't believe he were just some fringe sycophant anyway, but the sheer closeness required that makes a fresh wave of nausea rise up in her briefly that she squashes down. When she looks across at him now it's not accusing or disgusted, it's... difficult to read. Lily's always been so expressive but it's been closed off lately with the war and with stress and quite honestly just existing in the current climate.

Then again it's like that for most everyone these days.

"Told him not to bother." Dry. "Yes, clearly that hasn't worked." The rules of their existence dictate that she should never let her guard down around him but she slumps slightly in her seat, head tipping back toward the ceiling as she briefly closes her eyes. "I'm bloody tired, Severus." She tips her head forward again and looks at him. "Do you know if he's going to ask me again? Because my answer won't change. No matter what."

It's so surreal in a horrible way to be asking her childhood best friend if he knows whether the Dark Lord is going to ask her again to friend him on wizard facebook.

He's not going to get into it more-- of course, the exchange wasn't akin to I think you shouldn't bother, anyway, are we ordering out for supper. The discussion of Lily Potter, like discussions of anyone and everyone, was long and difficult and involved Severus not saying she's too much of a saint, but that she's too stubborn and has chosen her line in the sand already. It's the look of a saint that appeals to her, Severus had told Voldemort. If it were just social power and wealth, it'd be easy to turn away from the likes of James Potter, but she's stubborn, she's smart, and she's not giving up her cultivated position of moral authority for anything. She wouldn't buckle for her best friend, she won't now.

Voldemort thinks rather highly of himself, however, to no-one's surprise. He's going to try, being more dynamic than Severus (especially then-teenage Severus), and he's going to be distracted by the sheer potential Lily holds.

"I don't know. I don't have his day planner," he says, somewhat bitterly. Like Severus set You-Know-Who on her, or something.

"Life is tiring, Lily. You could go on vacation to Bermuda if you'd rather."

No one forced her to join up with Dumbledore. She's muggle-born but she's not a soldier. She has options, she has money. She's always had a thousand doors just waiting for her.

"That's not what I meant," she says, and it's tight but not sharp. Barely. She sits up straight again too, arms folding on the table. There's a flicker of old fire in her, but it's more controlled than it ever was. Which is for the best - wild and all-consuming fire is beautiful on her but she can't consume herself from the inside-out. Perhaps she's meant to die young but not like this. Never like this.

Lily's not a saint - no one is, sainthood is a damned lie - but people thinking she is isn't something she's cultivated. She cares too much, but she's still fucking exhausted.

"Being tired doesn't mean not being dedicated. It's all shit but it's not going to go away just because someone leaves off on holiday, maybe puts their head in the sand a while at a nice beach. Drinks a mimosa with grit in their teeth pretending everything is fine."

Both sides are full of shit. The side he's ended up on may hate muggles and muggle-borns but the side she's on treats them like curiosities and are endlessly surprised by how smart people like her are. surprised she could be as smart as she is, as good at magic as she is. You're such a strong witch is only a compliment when it's not said with blatant surprise.

She does have options. This is the one she chose and she's not a quitter.

"Isn't it fine?" --and Severus is sharp, by comparison. He always was. Neither of them are soft, kind people, never have been, but if she's fire then Severus is a fucking knife. Together they could make a Youtube channel about hot knives cutting through everyday household objects, and annoy literally every internet user.

"The pureblood line is to keep the old money interested," he says, matter-of-fact. "With his aims it'd be foolish not to weaponize the ancient cult, the Knights of Walpurgis and all that rubbish, because without the fanatical it's over. You're walking, breathing proof he doesn't actually care about where anyone comes from. It's the end result, it's the--"

Severus cuts himself off, almost tangibly frustrated, looking away to collect himself before meeting her eyes again.

"This world is awful. Tell me Dumbledore's going to change it for better, that he's not putting you all in front of a firing squad to die for the way things are. If you tell me I'll believe you."

"Nothing is fine." And it's the damn truth. They'd be better off with their annoying youtube channel, honestly. "And I'm not stupid. There's always been too much posturing for it to have been about that. It's performative but that doesn't change anything." Someone who gave a shit about blood would just kill her, not try to recruit her. This is about power and--well, power isn't all.

She breathes out and it's angry, though not necessarily at him. "You know how I feel about this world already. That hasn't changed." This world is outdated, and stilted, and refuses to come to terms with the fact that time moves on and advancements must be made. This world forces them to channel their magic tighter and restricted because they're afraid of people like Lily and Severus, who breathe and existence changes.

"Stop telling me to lie to you," Lily finally snaps, "I know we're cannon fodder. I know."

It's a cover in both directions; well of course they can't want to kill everyone with a drop of muggle blood don't be ridiculous, well of course they still hate muggles and mudbloods why else would they be doing this don't be ridiculous. All politics are horseshit. Surprise. At the same time, Severus isn't a fool - he can see the visionary giving way more and more to pure, selfish megalomania, but he's in too deep and if he hates the idea of being someone's lackey he truly loathes the idea of going back into the fold.

(He'd been so sure, growing up, that the magical world would save him.)

"Then why do you want him to stop asking?"

There's a silence and Lily just looks at him, observing and searching. Her jaw is set and it looks for a moment like she's going to just get up and leave, so offended by the mere suggestion that she can't stand to be here. Or--it would look like that to someone else. Because even with all the years apart, some things never change.

Eventually, Lily smiles and it's sharp like those knives we talked about. "He stops asking, I'm cannon fodder. He keeps asking and I say no, I'm still canon fodder. He keeps asking and I say yes, I'm cannon fodder somewhere else."

(Sainted Lily Potter knows the bloody score.)

It's a wildly unfair question, Severus knows it and she knows he knows-- she can't join him because no matter what, she'd be a mudblood sitting at a table surrounded by pureblood supremacists and nothing about that will ever work, no matter the heart of Voldemort's aims. Just like he can't join her, because it'd mean working to further the lives and well-being of everyone who's abused and tormented him his entire life. He's just trying to piss her off, because he isn't nice.

"I'm not."

Really isn't nice. Rubbing it in. He may be the Dark Lord's servant as a Death Eater, but he knows the score. He's not laboring under the delusion of an idealized moral view, and he's not on the front lines - that happy duty is being foisted on idiots and nonhumans. It's better this way.

"We're at an impasse."

Like they have been for years.

Well, she's been pissed off for a while now so it's more icing on the cake than anything, but it works and she hates that it works and that just makes her more mad. She should leave. She should get up and she should leave and she should never talk to him again and she should go home to her husband and pretend she had a nice lunch with her sister.

She doesn't. She stays sitting across from him, staring him down, unflinching no matter how furious he's made her. "Good. Stay alive."

—and as angry as she is, despite everything, despite Severus only saying it to rub it in, despite the fact she snaps it out in annoyance, she means it. Stay alive, you stupid prick.

"It looks like that trend will continue, yes." I don't like fighting with you. But it's not like there are many other options between them. "As neither of us seem to have any ideas that can actually be implemented." It's almost challenging.

It's definitely challenging.

Stay alive wins her a sharp, honestly surprised look. It's one thing for Severus to be pining over her in some deep dark corner of his heart but he's the one who begged on his knees. Lily giving a fuck, genuinely, enough to say something about it in the face of Severus being (yes) a stupid prick, is surprising.

"Guess we can't rule the world after all."

He doesn't know why he says it. Idiotic childhood callbacks; shoving Petunia in a lake is incidental, referencing the private daydreams and fantasies they played with in the summertime is ... another world. Severus looks at his coffee, and silently heats it back up. Fuck you. (Who?) He takes a drink.

"How are your parents?"

Again, Lily doesn't flinch. She means it and the fact that he's surprised in the face of it... well, she can't call it hurtful because it's her fault he's shocked by it. It's hurtful in a way that's not Severus' fault is a better way of putting it.

He's definitely being a stupid prick.

Somehow he drags a laugh out of her anyway even if it sounds breathy and half choked like she almost wants to cry. She's fine. (No one is fine.)

"I guess we can't."

It had felt like they could. Asking about her parents is surreal but she shrugs, looking down at her coffee but not drinking it or heating it up or anything. Just staring into it. Read the future in your coffee dregs.

"They're all right. I haven't seen them as much lately but dad's sick so I'm trying to get to them more." She shrugs with one shoulder. It's not great, but. Then, blandly: "you know how Petunia is already, so she's sorted at least."

It's only surreal because it's normal; normal people who are friends, who aren't on either side of a cold war, ask each other about their lives and their families, because they're civilized human beings. Severus and Lily are none of these things, not normal or friends or even very civilized. Pretending, for a moment, to be real people.

"I'm sorry to hear that." About her father. Severus never disliked the Evanses personally, and they tolerated his presence well enough, considering he was some weird borderline-homeless unwashed weird kid from the bad side of the village. Even if they never intervened where they could, they were never unkind, and it wasn't their responsibility anyway.

But then there's Petunia. Severus rolls his eyes. "I wouldn't ask anyway. And I won't be speaking to her again, so you don't have to worry about running into me in the future."

It must be strange to be a real person. Safe, boring, and, yes, civilized. Neither of them would actually function that way: they're not normal, not people. Human, but not people. They could pretend because both of them are good at that: pretending. In some ways. In others, maybe not. They'd still end up being strange and stilted and fringe around regular, normal people.

Lily nods her appreciation for the comment - sick is a bit of an understatement. He's not doing too well, but she'd rather not touch on it too deeply even if they did grow up together. She's still processing it herself. (Sometimes, she'd been afraid of the worst when Petunia had wanted to talk with her. Knowing now, it makes her trickery hurt even more.)

"She long-conned the hell out of us, Severus." At some point she's started doodling tiny runes on the table with her finger: they're not doing anything really, just existing and not in a way that any of the muggles around would notice. She's not even really paying attention to them, still looking at him. "I wouldn't call it a worry," she says, because it's not really. "More a startle."

But you say you're just a friend

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