Chapter Text
James used to worry constantly about his soulmate. On the nights when he was a young child waking up screaming from the mysterious pain inflicted upon his soulmate and finding the faded bruises when an injury was bad enough to show up. There was no doubt that his parents had been worried as well. Without a way to determine who it was, there was nothing anyone could do to help them. He had to sit through the spikes of pain that would fade away after a couple minutes while his soulmate had to suffer the full brunt of the damage.
When he started at Hogwarts and made friends with Sirius Black he thought they could be soulmates. They clicked in a way he hadn’t with anyone before. The pain came to a stop with the exception of minor injuries like paper cuts and bruises, so clearly his soulmate had to have gotten away from their tormentor. Sirius had family problems that stopped when he came to Hogwarts. It fit together and they both figured that having a best friend as a soulmate was a good deal out of the universe. As they got a little older some of the small things didn’t quite add up but not enough to completely disregard their theory. They were all each other needed, especially with Remus and Peter as their friends.
Then Sirius ran away from home and came to live with James the summer before fifth year. If there was ever more clear proof that his best friend wasn’t his soulmate it was that week of him living in Godric’s Hollow without a scratch on him but stinging lashes across his wrists and sharp bruises on his back continued to happen. Someone else was his soulmate and they were stuck in their abusive home. Sirius didn’t have comforting words to say and he didn’t really think they would help anyway. At least his best friend was safe from harm.
In retrospect it was clear they weren’t soulmates. Not when Sirius’ pain matched that of Remus’ and their chemistry had always been through the roof. James let his attention wander to others while his friends danced around each other and found one stunning Lily Evans. Not that he hadn’t noticed her before, he just hadn’t seen her in this light. Her red hair shining like a sunset and her green eyes glittering like dew on grass during sunrise. She was right there in front of him for what felt like the first time. Truly a living masterpiece that made him wish he was better at painting to capture the beauty within her. His eyes were constantly drawn to her in classes or at mealtimes, he hung off her every word even when she wasn’t talking to him.
The only problem was her shadow. Snivellus. That foul-mouthed, bitter git that constantly hung out with Lily despite everyone telling her to drop the Slytherin. James had never liked him. Nothing sparked it, they met on the train on their way to Hogwarts for the first time and immediately butt heads. It was as simple as that, they didn’t like each other. There didn’t always have to be a reason and as Sirius liked to say: ‘he existed’. He liked him even less now that he noticed how amazing Lily was, she would be dragged down by Snivellus.
He was a loathsome little cockroach that wasn’t good for her. It was satisfying to watch their friendship crumble, when he was proven right about Snivellus. No one that used that slur was a good person. The sheer venom in which the word was spit at Lily would have even offended him. His dislike of that greasy Slytherin grew towards hatred at the single flash of pure devastation on Lily’s face before she wiped it away. Clearly that friendship hadn’t meant nearly as much to Snivellus. James could have seriously hurt him at that moment.
The disdain he had for him was still simmering when summer break came around. He did his best to forget about Snivellus for the summer and actually managed to put the entire incident from his mind. Until the morning of August 1st.
Neither he or Sirius were sleeping despite it being four in the morning. They were in the middle of a game of Exploding Snaps and doing their best to stay quiet to avoid waking his parents. A struggle they had been facing since light outs at eleven. Sirius’ bedroom was the farthest away from theirs on the second floor so they had managed to avoid being noticed. Until Sirius shrieked at the silvery doe gliding through the open window. They both scrambled back from the Patronus even as it came to a stop in the center of their abandoned game.
‘James, I need your help.’ Lily’s voice came from the magical creature that had him blinking at it. They hadn’t even learned about the Patronus charm in class yet. ‘Well, someone needs your parents’ help. I know you took in Sirius last summer and I didn’t know who else could help with this situation.’ It was easy to hear the shakiness in her voice and badly hidden panic. ‘Can you please get them to Spinner’s End, Cokeworth? Where I live, please?’
The doe disappeared in a puff of silver mist. James stared at where the exceptional magic had been standing, unable to process what had just happened. Sirius was babbling next to him with a hand clutching his own. Then the bedroom door opened and their heads snapped towards it. His parents were standing there with expectant expressions and the most he could get out was that Lily needed help. He didn’t have a clue what was actually wrong or who she had been referring to but if she was risking being expelled then it had to be something serious.
Both his parents left the house five minutes after the Patronus showed up. James sat in the living room waiting for them to come back and tell him what had been wrong, to tell him that Lily was alright. Sirius paced back and forth, too jittery to sit still. It hadn’t been something he noticed during the excitement of their card game but as he sat with nothing else to focus on, he could feel the sting of bruises on his back and a dull throbbing behind his eyes. There was a prickle on the bottoms of his feet and stiff feeling in his left hand that meant his soulmate had been hurt. That was the cherry on top of this shitty morning. Lily might be hurt, whoever she was worried about definitely was, and so was his soulmate.
The sun was just starting to rise when his parents walked through the front door. His relief was immediately dashed at the sight of who was with them. Snivellus. Dressed in ratty black jeans and a threadbare t-shirt with some Muggle band name printed on the front. No shoes, no socks, feet covered in what looked like dirt and blood. Once long greasy black hair was cut to his chin and was mussed like someone had constantly been grabbing it. Pale arms were tucked in close to his stomach. His head was ducked with the short curtain of hair trying to hide his face but nothing could hide blooming bruises on the entire left side of his face. It was easy to see that he was shaking and there was an unnatural sway to his body. He looked…dreadful.
“What’s he doing here?” Sirius sneered, coming to a stop at the edge of the coffee table. “We thought you were helping Lily.”
“Your friend sent help for Severus,” his mother explained carefully, “and I want you both to be nice.” The stern look given to them both was enough to have them backing off for the moment.
“Boys,” his father caught their attention, “set up the guest room. He’ll be staying with us for the rest of the summer.”
“Dad…” James wanted nothing to do with Snivellus outside of the school.
“Now, James.”
He bit his tongue and shared a dark look with Sirius before turning to head for the stairs, where he caught Mum saying something to the Slytherin boy. “It’s alright, honey, I’m just gonna clean away the blood,” she was saying, “then you can sleep off what’s in your system.”
Sometimes he hated how good his parents were. Snivellus didn’t need to be taken care of like Sirius, he had probably brought on whatever happened to him. No doubt picked a fight with someone. He grumbled as he set up the guest room with Sirius muttering curses alongside him. Of course that weasel dipped in grease had to ruin their summer. Apparently going to the same school wasn’t good enough so he had to bother them at home too. Whatever was wrong with him wasn’t enough to garner the kindness of his parents.
When the room was made up, James went back downstairs to get the full story about what made Lily risk everything for Snivellus. Bandages and balms were sitting on the island counter in the kitchen. His mother was trying to get Snivellus to show her his arms but they were tucked in close to his chest. Drops of blood stained the pristine white tile beneath the barstool the boy was sitting on along with what looked like footprints leading to that point. It wasn’t hard to see the bandages wrapped around his feet where they were resting hanging off the edge of the stool. He didn’t look any better a second time. As he went to step closer he was hit with a pungent smell of some sort of smoke and the telltale burn of alcohol. Great, Snivellus was plastered as well.
“What happened to him?” James asked while moving around the island to reach the icebox.
“It’s not quite our place to tell you,” Mum said without looking up from where she had managed to get one of Snivellus’ arms. “Just be gentle with him if you plan on asking him later.”
“Why?”
“James, you know why.”
A look was given to him that twisted something in his chest. It was the same one she gave him when Sirius showed up on their doorstep in the pouring rain last summer. They all knew what had happened to his best friend, was it so far-fetched to believe that it was something Snivellus was dealing with? And if his mother had that look then it was definitely bad. Fuck, the boy hadn’t even said anything despite them talking about him and James knew he would have gone for the throat if he was alright.
“Your father’s bringing Severus’ things,” his mother said as she went back to wrapping Snivellus’ wrist, “I’m sure he’ll have more to tell you about Lily when he gets back.”
“She was okay, right?”
“A little shaken up but she was fine.” She first gave him a smile across the kitchen then gave one to Snivellus when his head lifted at Lily’s name. “You’ve got a good friend. She really cares for you, as I’m sure she’s told you.”
All Snivellus did was duck his head and hunch his shoulders with a shudder, as if crying but without the tears or sound. James shifted uncomfortably and returned to fixing himself a glass of orange juice. This was undoubtedly going to be the longest and hardest summer of his life.
Something Lily had always known was that Severus was her soulmate. They found each other at nine years old and all it took was a couple months to learn that when he got hurt, she felt some of it. Of course at that age they didn’t understand what soulmates truly were but they knew they were going to be best friends for the rest of their lives. Even when they got into the same school and they went to different Houses they weren’t going to let that stop them from being friends. What put a fissure between them was Severus’ Slytherin friends and his obsession with the Dark Arts. It wasn’t something that could tear them apart. But what could was him calling her a filthy mudblood with enough venom that she knew he meant it in that moment.
It hurt like nothing else had before. She completely cut him out of her life and refused to accept his apology even though it sounded genuine. If living with Petunia had taught her anything it was that she didn’t have to put up with someone hurting her just because they were family or friends. It wasn’t until the start of summer that she went back through that day and tried to see it from an objective point of view. Severus had never had an easy life, not at home and not at school, and while she was still genuinely hurt by what he had said she had a clear enough head now to see that that day had simply been his breaking point. He had lashed out at everyone, not just her. It was something she had seen from him several times in the past; it just had never been directed at her before. He constantly shoved people away, snapped and bit at helping hands, spit bitter things when he was hurting but it had never been towards her.
Sitting all alone in her bedroom during summer break when she would usually be out pestering Severus at his summer job put it into perspective. He had apologized and meant it. Hadn’t bothered her again after she told him to leave her alone and was still absent from her life. The things he said hurt more than anything had before but he hadn’t meant them. She knew that those spiteful, biting curses and words that he would say when he was hurting were never what he truly felt. It was a defensive mechanism that she knew he learned from his no-good father. This was their first summer apart since they became friends and as she did her homework, she knew that Severus didn’t have anyone else in his corner except his mother. He had hurt her but hadn’t meant to. And now she didn’t know how to approach him to mend the crack put in their friendship.
She knew that Severus had fallen into the wrong crowd in Cokeworth. The few times she caught glimpses of him, he was hanging out with the eighteen to twenty-year olds that smoked at the corner by the convenience store and behind the movie theatre. He would be there smoking alongside them with his hair tied back or sharing a bottle of something that she knew wasn’t good for him. That healthy weight he had put on at Hogwarts always disappeared over the summer but it was happening faster than usual and even from a distance she could see the bruises around his throat. It twisted her up to see him sinking down when she couldn’t seem to find the right time to talk to him. He was slipping further and further away from her.
Then she was woken up at three-forty in the morning on August 1st by the burning pain in her left hand. She scrambled out of bed and barely slipped on her shoes before she was running out of the house. It was dark even with the street lamps but she knew the way to Spinner’s End by heart. Mr. Walden’s dog started barking as she raced past his fence. The noise was completely blocked out as she tripped over a rise in the sidewalk and barely managed to catch herself before she face planted. Her eyes caught sight of the hunched figure sitting on the doorstep of Severus’ house then the strewn items on the sidewalk and rolling into the empty street. It was all his stuff.
“Severus!” Lily fell to her knees in front of the boy and had to refrain from touching him. His hands were gripping his knees despite the darkening bruises on his left hand and what looked like blood staining his skin. It was easy to see that he was shaking. “Sev, what happened?”
Her friend lifted his head and she couldn’t help gasping at the bruises coming to the surface on the entire left side of his face. His hair was cut shorter than she had ever seen it and thoroughly tangled. But it was his glassy black eyes that had her chest aching. She could smell it now, the alcohol and smoke clinging to him like a second skin. Even the artificial sweetness of perfume that she knew he would never be caught dead near if he was in the right frame of mind. A ring of bruises circled his throat that were smudged with what looked to be pink or red lipstick.
“Oh…” She hesitantly lifted her hand to brush back the strands of hair on his forehead and paused when he flinched. “It’ll be okay, Sev, I’ll…I’ll get someone that can help. I promise.”
Her wand had been left back on her dresser so she turned to look through all of Severus’ stuff carelessly thrown out of the house for his. It wouldn’t be the first time she used it for a spell or two. What she found instead was an unfamiliar red wood wand sitting next to him. She hesitated for a moment before picking it up. There was a soft buzz beneath her fingertips like the wand seemed to sense that she truly needed it. Her own parents would take Severus in without a doubt but she could see that he shouldn’t be in Cokeworth if this was where his life was headed. She could only think of one family that would know what to do in this situation. The Potters had taken in Sirius Black last summer and while she knew James and Severus were the farthest thing from friends, his parents would know how to care for him better than her own.
There was only one spell that she knew of that could contain delayed messages for specific people and that could get where she needed it to go in seconds. Lily had never managed a corporeal Patronus in her practice with Severus but it was now or never. It took her three tries before the well-worn unfamiliar wand in her hand produced a silvery doe in the dark night. The moment her message had been imparted on the creature it took off in a glittering path until it disappeared from sight. She turned the wand over in her hand before it was carefully plucked from her fingers from Severus.
“Whose is this?” She couldn’t help asking as the boy clutched it for dear life to his chest. All she got in response was a jerky shake of his head. “Alright…” She didn’t know what to do other than wait for someone to show up to help. Whether it be someone from the Ministry for underage magic or James’ parents or anyone in between. “It’ll be okay.”
A flutter of wings came with an owl dropping a letter next to them five minutes later. Lily picked up with trepidation when she read that it was from the Ministry and addressed to Severus instead of herself. The boy was still clutching the wand to his chest and staring down at his knees. She opened the letter and read through it to find that the Ministry was blaming Severus for the Patronus but considering this was ‘his first’ use of underage magic he was only getting a warning. It was rubbish and had her tossing it to the side. The parchment hit the sidewalk just as a loud popping noise filled the quiet night. Severus flinched at the sound and she turned her head to see two people rushing towards them. A man and woman that she knew immediately were Mr and Mrs Potter.
“I-I didn’t know what else to do,” Lily said without moving from in front of her friend. “He’s never been this bad before and I think his father kicked him out for good this time.”
“It’s okay, dear,” Mrs Potter said soothingly, “you did the right thing.” The dark haired woman moved to crouch next to Severus but didn’t reach out to touch him. “What’s his name?”
“Severus Snape.”
“Okay, Lily, I’m gonna try to get him to talk to me,” the woman said, “would you be a dear and explain the situation to my husband?”
Lily gave her a short nod and got to her feet to let someone else try to get through to Severus. She moved over to where the tall, brown haired man wearing glasses was carefully moving the strewn out items from the middle of the road to the sidewalk. “Mr Potter?” The man gave her a kind smile when she joined his side. “You can help him, right?” She asked while leaning down to pick up one of Severus’ band tees. They had been a recent development that she could see.
“We’ll do what we can, you have my word,” Mr Potter said. “There’ve been a couple kids we’ve helped in the past when James was really little.”
“It’s just…” Lily glanced over her shoulder at where Mrs Potter was making no progress with the wordless boy. “I don’t know what happened. His mum would never leave him out here like this and he’s been mixing with kids much older than us.” For the first time she noticed the blood and dirt on his feet. “His dad’s always been…awful and I think this was the last straw.”
“Is he usually this quiet?” Mr Potter asked.
“He’s never exactly loud,” she replied while returning to packing Severus’ strewn out clothes into his trunk, “but he almost always has something to say. It scares me seeing him like this.”
“I bet,” the man said, “it’s not an easy situation to be in.”
Lily didn’t know what to say in reply so she simply continued to put away Severus’ things. Mr Potter handed over the boy’s black wand and she wrapped it in one of his school robes to keep it safe. All of his books were packed away along with the completed homework they were assigned for the summer break. There was something said about Mr Potter helping Mrs Potter get Severus to their home in Godric’s Hollow that had her twisting her hands in her pajamas. She promised to finish finding all of his things before tripping over her feet to say goodbye. A harsh flinch had her stopping in front of Severus. It surprised her when he pressed the red wand into her hand but not nearly as much as the single tear that fell down his cheek. In the seven years she had known him he had never cried.
It broke her heart to see him quickly wipe it away and wrap his arms around himself in a tight hug. She could clearly see that he wasn’t himself but there was nothing she could do to help. Tears stung her eyes as she watched the Potters apparate away with Severus between them that she scrubbed away to continue finding his things. The second wand was carefully put next to his in the trunk. It was clear his father had thrown out everything in his room but the furniture so she wasn’t sure if everything would fit. But she would do what she could until one of the Potters came back for it.