When I Helped a Snake

Chapter 1: After the Memory

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.

"Ah, Evans, don't make me hex you," said James earnestly.

"Take the curse off him, then!"

James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the countercurse.

"There you go," he said, as Snape struggled to his feet again, "you're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus - "

"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!"

Lily blinked, "Fine," she said coolly, "I won't bother in future. And I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus."

"Apologize to Evans!" James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.

"I don't want you to make him apologize," Lily shouted, rounding on James. "You're as bad as he is ..."

"What?" yelped James. "I'd NEVER call you a - you-know-what!"

"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can - I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK."

She turned on her heel and hurried away.

"Evans!" James shouted after her, "Hey, EVANS!"

But she didn't look back.

"What is it with her?" said James, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway question of no real importance to him.

"Reading between the lines, I'd say she thinks you're a bit conceited, mate," said Sirius.

"Right," said James, who looked furious now, "right - "

There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside down in the air.

"Who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?"

For all of her show, Lily did not entirely leave the area. She had stopped at the castle, keeping within hearing and seeing distance of the boys. She was absolutely furious with the lot of them, but she wanted to watch and see how things played out, hoping that they would die out and she would get a chance to talk to Snape alone. She could not believe that after the time they spent in the Slug Club that he would have actually had the balls to call her names (especially not that name, she thought) and embarrass her on the spot like that. She thought that he had become a little more amicable towards her than that. On top of that, she could not believe that James had tried to bribe her into going out with him, using her own kind nature against her like that.

She looked out to see what was happening now. Snape was up in the air and Potter was threatening to completely expose him. Most people sniggered, others gasped in mock disgust at the thought of a naked Snape. For a moment she thought that there was no way that James would do something like that, but with horror she watched as he muttered an incantation and flicked his wand. One moment those rather dirty, grey underpants were there, the next they had disappeared, leaving all of his most private areas exposed to the summer air. (At least it's warm out, she thought to herself rather uncharitably).

What happened next was a mess of confusion. In his utter desperation, Snape had managed to summon his wand. James saw what was happening, and raised his. The pair simultaneously disarmed each other with a cry of expelliarmus! Snape fell face-first to the ground, and touched his lip, feeling some blood coming out of a cut. For a moment the enemies realized that neither was armed with his wand. James, perhaps still feeling the sting of Lily's rejection, decided to take full advantage of the fact that Snape was now unarmed. Knowing that in a magic-free fight he had the advantage, he lunged at Snape, who was still recovering from his fall. The hexes had given away to a fistfight. It seemed that everyone else was too stunned, or too smart, to join in on either side. Finally deciding that enough was enough, Lupin tried to reach in to pull James off. This was no easy task. Though James had the definite advantage, Severus was fighting dirty, arms flailing everywhere.

When Lupin had managed to break the two up (having first needed to threaten detentions, promising each would spend them with their least favorite professors), the two fighters stood facing each other, panting. James' eye was black and he felt various bruises starting to form over his body. Severus had his robe sleeve held up to a broken nose and split lip, both of which were bleeding heavily, and his cheek was turning a nasty shade of purple. He grabbed for his wand, summoned his things, and ran as fast as he could to the castle.

Lily never thought it would go this far. She had seen them fight before, but never this badly. They were a bit too far away to really see what was happening, but it had looked very unpleasant. She stood at the entrance, waiting for Severus to pass her. She wasn't even really sure why she was even bothering. He had, after all, made it perfectly clear that he didn't want her help. Maybe it was just out of spite against James and Sirius. She hated how those two pranced about, as if they ruled the school. She felt sorry for Lupin. She was a prefect who wasn't all that well associated with them, and she couldn't keep control. She figured it must be even harder for Lupin, who was a prefect, but also a very close friend to the other two (and, it seemed to her, they were almost all he had in the way of friends).

The pounding of footsteps shook her out of her reverie. She looked up and saw Severus rushing towards her. He didn't even see her, having his sleeve in his way. Before she had time to react, the two had collided.

"Out of the way," he snarled at her, as he grabbed his bag.

"Wait!"

"Why should I?"

"What was that all about back there?"

"What do you think? They were attacking me."

"That's not what I mean. What I meant was..."

At that point Lily noticed the blood leaking from the sleeve of Severus' robe. He moved it for a moment to wipe some of the excess away, revealing the various injuries and a rather swollen face. Lily's eyes narrowed in disgust.

"Let me look at that," she said, while moving her hand to push aside his arm.

"Don't touch me," he snapped, drawing away and moving to get past her. But she moved too quickly for him. She grabbed his wrist with her left hand and pushed his hair aside with her right. He struggled for a moment but soon gave up, perhaps weakened by the struggle and subsequent blood loss. His face looked awful, though it mostly because of the blood that was smeared all over it. His nose was set at a funny angle, and when she touched it, he sucked air in through his mouth and yanked back. He was also very surprised at the fact that she was so easily touching his face, though it was covered in his blood.

"Well, you have two choices. You can let me take a crack at healing this mess up, though I can't guarantee anything on how the nose will look afterwards, or you can go to Madame Pomfrey. She'll do a better job but there may be some uncomfortable questions afterwards."

Snape's face held a mix of surprise and suspicion and also appeared to be a bit dazed. Lily wasn't all that sure that he hadn't been hit harder in the head than she thought. She held his eyes in hers, though, not letting herself blink. She might be willing to help him, but his words earlier had put him into the category of enemy.

"Fine," he said in a rather nasally voice, "I'd rather not have another detention because of that git."

"Alright, then, follow me. And here," she said as she reached into her bag for a handkerchief, "use this to keep steady pressure on that nose, it'll help staunch the bleeding."

Snape reluctantly followed Lily into the school, unsure of where they were going. When they stopped in front of a girls' bathroom, he looked at her like she was crazy.

"Don't worry. This is Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Everyone avoids it because she is always so very depressing and has a tendency to flood the whole thing when she's feeling moody."

Snape was about to ask her who Moaning Myrtle was but decided to refrain from speech until he was healed. When they stepped in he could see why anyone who spent any decent amount of time in here would be given the nickname "Moaning." The whole place was gloomy and rather wet looking. It had a distinct air of neglect, and true to Lily's word, there was not another soul in there, or at least not another living soul. A rather heavyset and mournful looking ghost had just peaked her head out of one of the stalls.

"What's he doing in here? He's a boy. Boy's aren't allowed in here."

"Hullo Myrtle. I'm afraid he's gotten into a bit of a scrape and we needed somewhere where teachers won't be poking their heads. You don't mind, do you?"

"Oh yes, he looks quite bad," she said almost gleefully. "No. I don't mind. You're always rather nice to me anyway, Lily. Go ahead, I shan't say anything."

"Thank you so much, Myrtle."

She gave another unhappy look at Snape and then floated back into the stall. Lily withdrew her wand and muttered a spell. Snape felt the bones in his nose shift back into place, an odd sensation that he would never quite get used to. He touched it gingerly. The surrounding area was still swollen and sore. She walked over to the taps and ran some cool water and a little soap onto some napkins. She walked back and began to gently wash off the dried blood that had gotten all over his face, run down his neck, gotten on his hand, and soaked through the sleeve of his robe onto his arm. All the while she muttered darkly about the constant fights that James, Sirius, and Severus managed to get into.

"I know that this time they provoked you, and that it was most certainly not for anything that you had done at the moment, but you're not entirely without fault yourself. Though this time he seems to have outdone himself."
"You saw what happened then?"

Lily paused her ministrations for a moment, looking into the eyes of the boy sitting in front of her. Then she whispered quietly, "Yes."

"I can't believe they did that," she said hotly. "I didn't think they would go that far. There was absolutely no reason to embarrass you like that. If it wasn't for the fact that you would get into a lot of trouble as well, and probably more trouble than them, I would turn them in for that. I'm so sorry. I don't know how much that means coming from me. I'm sure you won't ever get any hint of an apology from them, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Severus' pale face turned a funny shade of pink. Then it suddenly took on a green tinge. He rushed for the nearest stall and threw up into the toilet. His nervousness about the O.W.L.s that day had meant he had not eaten much for breakfast that morning, so there was very little to bring up. A small bit of undigested food came, followed by some dry heaving. Lily had followed him into the stall and was holding his long hair back for him, trying to keep any stray particles from joining the blood and dirt that had already matted it.

"Alright?"

"Yeah, I think it was just residual nervousness combined with stress."

"Okay, come on back out and I'll finishing taking care of your face."

He followed her back into the main part of the bathroom, this time sitting next to the sinks so he could lean his head on the cool porcelain. Lily kept getting fresh napkins until all of the blood had been cleared away from his face. Then she pulled a jar of ointment from her bag and spread it on his lip and cheek. Immediately the pain seemed to be sucked away, leaving in its stead the feeling of a cool spring breeze. Lily looked closely at the boy before her. His skin had returned to its normal color, if such a pallid tone could be considered normal. His hair fell in greasy, dirty curtains around and over his face. The swelling had not begun to go down in his nose, causing the already large appendage to appear even more disproportionate to his face. To help bring down the swelling she applied a very mild ice charm to it. Then she dug around in her purse some more and took out a plastic bottle of pills, took out two, and handed them to Severus.

"Muggle anti-inflammatories?"

"Yes. I find ibuprofen to be very effective. Though how do you know about muggle medicines?"
"How do you think?" he growled.

"Oh, that's right. I'm sorry, I'm just so used to thinking of all Slytherins as being pure-blooded. Which reminds me of my question earlier. Why the insult? It was rather stupid, calling one of the few people who know that you are a half-blood a mudblood. Especially when that person is only trying to help you. I can't believe it. The truth is, I'm not even entirely sure why I'm helping you now, except that I am actually angrier at Potter than you at the moment."

"Because it was embarrassing, having someone else come to try and fight my fight for me. I'm used to taking care of myself. And besides, how would it look to my fellow Slytherins if I accepted help from a Mud... uh, Muggleborn? There are certain standards to be upheld."

"So insulting the only person who stood up for you is one of those standards?" she spat out.

He looked as if he were carefully choosing his words, trying to not stick his foot in his mouth.

"Look, is it an apology that you want, Evans? Because I'm afraid I won't give you one. If I had it to do over again, I would do the same thing. I don't expect you to understand. You don't know what it's like, being among them and trying to convince them that you're family and that your blood is the same as all of theirs. Or what it was it is like growing up convinced that perhaps there really is something to this blood thing, that maybe they've got it right and the Muggles are all really terrible."

Those last words were spoken with heatedly and loudly. Suddenly he got a lot quieter. He looked at the floor, as if it were interesting, as he spoke again. "But I will thank you for your time here. I will thank you for healing my nose and helping me just now when I got sick."

Lily looked up into the eyes of the taller boy. They had gotten shiny, and she realized that there were tears in them. No, she did not really understand, but it didn't matter anymore. She couldn't explain why she did what she did, but the next thing she knew, she was holding him tightly. And he was crying. Severus Snape, the boy who never cried or showed any emotion other than anger, no matter what his enemies threw at him, was crying. And she just held him there, waiting for the storm to blow itself out.

It seemed a long time, but finally he could cry no more. He gave a few dry sobs and then just sat there, his head against her shoulder. Finally he managed to pull his head up. She looked at his face. Crying had certainly not improved his looks. His eyes were now red and puffy and ugly splotches had formed on his cheeks. The cut on his lip had split open again and there was blood on her own robes where it had bled a little. The swelling had gone down a bit on his nose, though it now had the puffiness of crying. She could tell that it had not been set quite perfectly, giving a bit of extra crookedness at the top.

"I'm afraid I didn't do too good of a job with that broken nose of yours."

"That's okay, it wasn't that great of a nose to begin with."

And they both laughed a little. Lily stood up, helping Severus get to his feet. They both gathered their things, pushing their books into their overflowing bags. Then they stood for a moment, looking at each other uncomfortably.

"Come on, I'll walk you to your common room."

"Isn't that supposed to be the man's job?"

"A sense of humor. Who knew? And normally, yes. But in this case I just want to make sure you make it there without passing out."

"No, I'm serious. Don't bother. I've made it through much worse than this, trust me. I'd really rather that I just go back alone."

Lily looked at him, unsure of what to say. She didn't want to go against his wishes, but at the same time she was worried that he wouldn't make it back without getting sick again or passing out. But she saw how much it meant to him, so she let it go.

"Alright. I'll see you around then. In classes or at the Slug Club. Oh wait, let me take care of that robe. Scourgify."

She reached up and pushed some of his hair out of his face. He looked down at her, a curious look of wonder on his face. Then he pulled back into his normal scowl and stalked down the hall, his gangly legs looking as if they were moving a bit to fast for themselves. Lily gave a sigh, looked at the messy state of her own robes, and proceeded to the Gryfindor tower.