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Snape stood among the bushes, watching Lily in the distance.
His heart was full of resentment and confusion.
Lily, the girl who had once walked through those tender, unripe years alongside him, was going to marry Potter.
Potter.
The bastard she had once despised with every fiber of her being.
He had become the other half of her life.
Snape could not understand it.
Could not accept it.
Yet he knew, deep down, that these questions would sleep forever in some dark corner.
They would never receive an answer.
Once, a single word had slipped from his lips — “Mudblood”, and it had cut like a blade, severing the last bond between them in an instant.
That word had become an invisible wall standing between him and the person he had once cared for so deeply.
It left him without even the standing to step forward and demand an explanation.
So he could only stand here, at a distance, his gaze cutting through the crowd until it locked onto Lily.
His memory drifted back to those early years, when he used to steal away and hide in corners, watching Lily and her sister share their moments of happiness.
Her laughter.
Her conversations.
Even the small unconscious gestures she let slip.
All of it had been carved into him.
He remembered Lily’s smile, brilliant as sunlight, capable of reaching the darkest corners inside him.
But that pure feeling had grown complicated with time.
The differences between them, the arguments, they had led, in the end, to a rift that could not be undone.
A rustling came from within the bushes.
Like whispered voices, or a small animal slipping quietly through the undergrowth.
Snape stood in the shadows, eyes fixed on the direction of the sound.
His grip tightened around his wand, the jet-black tip barely peeking from his sleeve.
His nerves pulled taut.
Every cell in his body sharpened into alertness.
Then he relaxed.
He recognized the figure stepping out from the bushes.
It was Lily’s sister.
He could identify her at a single glance, that was simply the nature of his memory.
Even for someone who had never once warranted his attention.
Miss Evans had not changed much since their younger years.
Still tall and slender.
Still wearing that particular sharp expression, as if it had been branded into her brow and never quite faded.
Snape stood where he was, his gaze cold.
He had little interest in this Miss Evans who had materialized so unexpectedly.
No thought of hiding.
No thought of slipping away.
He simply waited for her to leave.
He assumed she would ignore him and hurry off, consistent with how she had always behaved.
She didn’t.
Instead, she slowly drew closer.
“Hello.
I’m so sorry to bother you.” A pause.
“I was hoping you could tell me the way to the Potter family’s home.” Lost?
Wandering around in wizard territory like that.
What reckless behavior.
Snape raised a hand and pointed in the right direction.
He had no intention of subjecting her to any cutting remarks.
This Miss Evans clearly didn’t remember him, there was no need to speak and invite unnecessary trouble.
When Evans thanked him, Snape felt a flicker of surprise.
The sharpness he remembered was gone.
The gratitude came across as reasonably sincere.
His lips twitched.
He said nothing.
Exposing the pretense would have been entertaining enough, watching Evans’ expression shift would have been satisfying, but there was no need to become entangled.
If it drew other people over, the cost would far outweigh any satisfaction.
But even without Snape revealing himself, Evans recognized him anyway.
The color drained from his face the moment he heard the provocative words.
His brow pulled into a deep furrow, two hard lines carved into an already gloomy face.
As expected.
A person’s nature never changes.
Evans was exactly the same as back then: that fiery temper, that smug look of someone savoring a petty triumph.
Retaliate?
Or retaliate?
He hadn’t even finished preparing his remarks.
Evans backed down and ran.
“Tsk, tsk.
So our dear Mr.
Snape has been keeping a Mudblood close to his heart.” An insufferable person had appeared.
Why were these people always watching him?
Did they have nothing better to do?
“The figure’s a bit thin, and the face isn’t as pretty as that Mudblood’s — but those eyes are quite the match.
She could work as a substitute.
Take the edge off.” The eyes?
Snape had never thought to look.
Turning it over in his mind now, yes, the eyes of Lily and her sister were remarkably similar.
Both of them the same beautiful green, like two brilliant stars shimmering with their own particular light.
“Are you certain you really don’t want her?” He saw Evans seized.
Snape hesitated for a moment.
Then he moved.
If something happened to Evans here, it would alarm Lily.
That was something Snape had no desire to see.
He understood clearly that Evans’ safety was tied directly to Lily’s state of mind.
He had seen it once, the anger and worry in Lily’s eyes when a dormitory mate was being bullied.
That look had been burned into him.
He could not imagine what kind of pain Lily would fall into if word of this reached her.
Snape swiftly brought down the wrongdoers and freed Petunia.
“Thank you.” Evans sobbed.
Snape frowned.
Crying.
Just sitting there crying.
What good does that do?
If this were the Wizarding World, she would have died a dozen times over by now.
In the end he couldn’t hold back.
“Miss Evans at eighteen — it seems these years have only taught her how to expand the volume of her person.
That mind of hers, however, remains as hollow and empty as ever.
Not a single sign of improvement.” Miss Evans certainly had some nerve, still daring to glare at him.
Did she still believe he would never hurt her?
This person was beyond saving.
“Tsk, tsk.
It appears that Miss Evans, sitting there crying on the ground, has not yet received a sufficient lesson.” Snape crouched down to her level.
He deliberately slowed his speech, as though he wanted to carve each word directly into her forehead.
The words went nowhere.
They passed over Evans like a breeze, brushing past the ears and leaving nothing behind in that barren mind.
Snape’s frustration burned.
No matter how much effort he put in, this Muggle simply could not be reached.
Her thinking was a stretch of desolate wasteland, incapable of nurturing any seed of wisdom.
He felt his energy being squandered, like scattering pearls across a beach only to watch them sink into the sand.
And now Evans was sitting there staring blankly at him on top of everything else.
A Muggle was a Muggle.
Completely unreasonable.
“At a time like this, you should be spending your energy thinking about how to get back to the safety of familiar ground.
Not wasting it here.” He drove Evans away and watched her disappear back into the crowd.
After that, Snape had no more desire to stay.
As for that final glance Evans sent back his way, it seemed to carry a thousand tangled things.
Like a still pool suddenly swept by a gust of wind, ripples folding over ripples, impossible to read.
To Snape it meant nothing.
Some invisible wall stood between him and whatever it was Evans had meant.
He could make nothing of it.
There are many things in this world that don’t need to be understood, and don’t need to be examined.
Evans wouldn’t care whether Snape had read anything into that look.
And Snape, he wouldn’t spare it a second thought.
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