you didn't know me when you were a kid {CLOSED}

[fishpetals]

Who: Lily and Severus.
What: A witch and a wizard dicking around working.
When: Over the weekend.
Where: Hogwarts.
Warnings: Swearing, smoking, shit-talking, the usual. Harry, don't look.

Lily hasn't been back to Hogwarts since graduating. She's had no reason to be—her correspondence with the young potionsmaster is shaky at best and before that there had simply been no reason for it whatsoever. In fact, without the need for her assistance in a professional capacity, her presence at Hogwarts would be very suspect indeed. LUCKILY, she is there to work! Needing an escort is strange but traveling with Severus has some kind of calm associated with it even if it shouldn't; maybe it's the fact that this is a different Severus that gives a rat's ass, maybe it's not. The why doesn't matter so much.

Getting settled is easy—she has one small bag and she'll be taking it with her to her accommodations when curfew rolls around. Mostly it just winds up with Lily squinting up at Severus with her hands on her hips, looking expectant. "Well, we should get to work." Yes they should. But what is the real work, you ask? It is a mystery.

Comments

[darkart]

"I may not have thought every detail of this through," is the kind of admission Severus would die before making in front of anyone else, "because whenever I practice dueling it's with-- the Headmaster," Severus is half in the habit of calling him Albus after years of nagging, but this world makes it feel strange, "and I haven't the faintest idea how to get into the labyrinthine corners he finds when he leads the way. And my thought of going deeper into the dungeons is straight out thanks to that prick Riddle's letting lurk around."

You'd think Severus would have more respect for the founder of his own house, but no. Salazar abandoned the school and left every student sorted into Slytherin for the rest of fucking time to deal with the stigma of it, giving the other three a moral righteousness dumping ground on a silver platter. Full of children.

[fishpetals]

"Mm," is all Lily says at first, though she's genuinely surprised by the admission—the Severus (she's stopped thinking of him as her Severus) native to this timeline would never have admitted something like that even to her. Even if it's a roadblock she dips her head on a little smile before looking at him again, serious and contemplating. Then: "he'd throw a fit if he knew I was here," in the dungeons, getting her cooties everywhere. "Just like he threw a little fit via miavi." Because of course Lily has pieced together who it was asking about Hogwarts that was tone-policing her argument about muggle-borns. Imagine that.

Anyway, shit-talking Salazar aside, Lily takes a moment to think. A couple of moments to think. "Oh." Oh? "Oh, I know a place we can go." Oh. Lily's not about to tell Severus how she knows about it (dating James Potter in seventh year was a wild ride and private places were in high demand with low supply), but... "any student you teach that knows about this is going to hate me for it, but can you get us to the seventh floor without being seen? You know where..." A pause as she thinks about it; it's been three years, after all. "Barnabas the Barmy is?"

[darkart]

Severus just makes a dismissive noise about fit-throwing. Muggle-borns and half-bloods are sorted into Slytherin House all the bloody time. Should have founded your own school when you left, buddy.

"Oh?"

(Oh.)

He raises a skeptical eyebrow about the seventh floor-- and has to think about the specific statue, but he knows the castle well enough, and has an uncanny memory, so: "Yes."

Off they go, then, and Severus feels something pricking in his subconscious that links mysterious activity on the seventh floor and Gryffindor students being complete shits. He'd complain about this but in truth doesn't want to endanger the possibility of having whatever-it-is revealed.

[fishpetals]

Cry them a river, honestly. And stop being a prick via miavi. Anyway.

It's for the best that Severus doesn't complain because that would open a can of worms and let's not with that, okay? Okay. Let's just with this, which is heading up to the seventh floor and walking back and forth in front of Barnabas three times looking like a lunatic while thinking very hard about rooms that are appropriate for practicing dueling in.

Slowly, helpfully, a door appears in the stone and Lily pauses in front of it while Will Smith gesturing doing her best Vanna White impression gesturing helpfully toward it. "Ta da."

Moving toward the door, she opens it and peers inside. Well-lit, enough space, firm-but-giving floors in case someone were to be knocked back onto it, so on and so forth.

Dueling space.