Round Robin: The Post-Grad Prince: Part 2
"Maybe that was my failure in fifth year!" Lily thundered back at the red-faced Potter, and Severus' eyes flicked in her direction for a second. "Instead of listening to you and your Gryffindor fan club, I should have just listened to my best friend!"
"We were only trying to help you!" Spit flew from Potter's mouth as he shouted the words.
"Help me?" Severus noticed that Lily's voice had suddenly gone quiet. "You thought it would help me if you made me abandon my best friend? Instead of leaving him alone, as I asked you several times, you tortured him and tried to force me to go out with you under the pretext that he would be safe afterwards..."
It was hard to concentrate on Black when he could almost feel Lily's magic in the air.
"If you wanted to help me, you would have tried to understand why Severus and I are best friends. You would have even tried to become his friend!"
Severus noticed that even Black's attention was more on Lily than on him, but the boy remained silent.
"You couldn't see this, could you?" Severus felt Lily's hand slip into his and took hold of it. "You couldn't stand the thought of a Gryffindor and a Slytherin being best friends, of them maybe ending up together... No, that just wasn't acceptable to you, that's why you wanted me, just so Severus wouldn't have me."
He could feel her squeeze his hand at that moment.
"I paid for all the times we out," Potter said to her in reminder. "I was there for when Petunia argued with you, when you lost your parents--"
"HOW DARE YOU?!" Lily screamed. "You're not using my family to get me back!"
Severus watched as Potter blanched, but the anger in his eyes hadn't gone away; it almost seemed like he was outraged by Lily's outrage. He glanced back at Black, who too was eyeing Potter, and then at Pettigrew, who had moved far enough away from the confrontation that he seemed unaffiliated.
"Don't you ever accuse me of being manipulative," Potter said in a disturbingly calm, low voice. "We're leaving together, and we'll continue this conversation--"
"No," Lily said. "We're done. I'm breaking up with--"
"We are not breaking up." Potter's voice was firm. "You are not leaving."
"... your friend knows how to treat his girlfriend, Black," Severus said sarcastically to the taller man. "Did you teach him, or is that all instinct?"
Black had just opened his mouth to reply when the other boy was heard.
"Shut up, Snivellus!" The bespectacled man snapped at him. "At least my instincts got me the girl you always wanted! And it kept me out of the friend zone you were in even before we started Hogwarts!"
"Friend zone?" Severus asked, his eyes darting to Lily for a second before returning to Potter.
"Yes! You've never been more than a friend, Snivellus, because you don't have the balls to be more!" A grin appeared on Black's lips, the boy clearly proud of the retort he had come up with before Potter.
"Yeah... Unlike me, you don't have what it needs to get what you want." Potter took a step towards him, his attention focused on him. "And soon I'm going to get... To take something very special."
"You know what he means, don't you?" Black asked in a cheerful tone.
"I'm not so sure Padfoot..." Potter said with an ugly grin.
Part of Severus was happy that he had been able to draw Potter's attention away from Lily, but another part was simply confused by the other man's words and so he raised an eyebrow as he looked at Lily.
"He doesn't know, does he?" He asked in his deep voice.
