Chapter 66: Embarrassed

"This..., well..., Merlin..., it was Hermione's cousin," said Alice finally.

"What?!" both Marlene and Hermione exclaimed in unison shocked.

"Severus..." muttered Lily with her bright green eyes wide open, instantly she remembered the dream she had and had a bad premonition.

.....

.....

"Wait, whoa, wait a minute Alice, what do you mean Severus?, bloody hell what happened?" asked Marlene completely freaking out, thank Merlin the Muffliato Charm was on, or else her screams would have been heard all over the great hall.

"Don't tell me..., did he threaten you or... or did he try to take advantage of the situation or..." she added.

"Marlene, what have we told you about talking about Hermione's cousin like that!" Alice reprimanded her friend.

It was then that Marlene realised her mistake and gave Hermione an apologetic look.

"Sorry..., I may have overreacted... but I can't imagine what happened with Severus at that moment..., you know, he doesn't have a good relationship with us after all... so I just thought the worst, my mistake," said Marlene ducking her head at Hermione.

The truth was that Hermione was annoyed by what Marlene said and Alice realised it instantly.

"Forgive her Hermione, maybe I' m at odds with Severus, but I know he wouldn't do such a thing to us" Lily interjected with a look of apology and embarrassment as she thought about the dream she had, she now had a slight doubt that some of everything she dreamt might have happened and that worried her a lot.

"I know, knowing Severus I'm pretty sure he wouldn't do such a thing, he would probably just walk away without saying anything without bothering to do anything" Hermione commented a little calmer, she was about to say quite a few things to Marlene, but seeing that the three of them apologized she decided not to complicate things, besides she knew Severus didn't need anyone to defend him or speak up for him.

"Well..., he might not have had the chance to do that...." commented Alice, and instantly Hermione, Marlene, and Lily looked at her intensely wanting to know what the hell happened.

"What do you mean?" asked both Lily and Hermione in unison this time.

One curious to know if any of everything she dreamt was real and the other because she didn't believe Severus had done anything else besides ignore Lily and her friends and walk away like he always used to do.

Marlene was still a little regretful of what she said before so she preferred to keep quiet for now and just listen to what Alice had to say.

"Lily... You... this... well, it could be said that you tripped approaching him and well... I couldn't catch you in time but luckily he did, cough cough, he prevented you from falling and hitting the ground."

"Huh?!, what do you mean she tripped approaching him?" asked Marlene confused, she couldn't understand why her friend would approach Severus.

Hermione who was a little annoyed with Marlene, couldn't help but agree with her question, she also didn't understand the reason why Lily would approach Severus when they were both far out from each other.

Lily who heard this began to vaguely remember what had happened at the time...

"I don't know... we were both quite drunk and..." Alice began to relate everything that happened causing Lily to remember everything perfectly...

Of course, Alice wasn't stupid and she knew why Lily approached Severus and acted the way she did, she already knew that her friend had confused feelings for her former friend and she knew that was also what had been in her head all this time preventing Lily from getting proper rest.

Hearing the whole story about what happened that night, both Hermione and Marlene stared open-mouthed at Lily who was flushed in embarrassment.

But Lily wasn't just embarrassed for how she was clinging to Severus, or her behaviour, or for all the embarrassing things she had said to him, in fact, she was actually thankful that Alice didn't specify much about everything she had done or said to him, because she knew how embarrassing it was, but to make it all worse she was completely embarrassed and nervous because the kiss she thought wasn't something real actually happened, her whole dream was something completely real...

Lily now just wanted to get up, run out of the great hall, stick her head under water ashamed and then stay in her room and not come out for months until she got over everything she had done that night... too bad she knew she wouldn't get that chance and all of this along with the piercing stares from her friends wasn't helping her feel any better.

Although Lily could understand why Hermione and Marlene would look at her like that, one was Severus' cousin and the other felt that Severus was a dark and evil person like all Slytherins.

'At least Alice didn't notice me kissing him and thought it was just a cheek kiss' thought Lily slightly relieved by that thought as she knew that sooner or later she would tell her friend what really happened.

But by now she already had too much to deal with, her head could barely process it all.

After Alice said everything, Hermione remained silently probably thinking about a lot of things, while Alice tried to calm down Marlene who started asking all sorts of questions.

Lily's attention wasn't on any of this at all, after remembering what happened last night her attention didn't stray from that dark figure among the many snakes at the Slytherin table.

Severus...

Lily couldn't help but think that he looked so well today and no, she wasn't saying that because of his appearance, at least not only because of that... rather she noticed that he seemed very animated and happy today, more than usual..., she thought that after what happened last night he would be... I don't know, different..., annoyed maybe, upset, embarrassed, or even pissed off...

'Could it be because of what happened last night?' thought Lily intrigued and embarrassed at the very thought that he might be in a good mood because of what she did last night.

'No, he didn't even look over here once... but maybe...'

'Damn it, Lily, you need to stop thinking about those things, it was just a mistake due to the alcohol, nothing more, yeah that's it, it was just that, you need to stop thinking about it' Lily said to herself, but her red cheeks seemed to be getting more and more flushed.

Meanwhile, Hermione who had been lost in thought looked at the redhead in front of her on the Gryffindor table and noticed that Lily who was getting blushing redder and redder and then realised that she was looking at Severus at the Slytherin table.

'This..., what's going on here?... this... how did all this happen?, it can't be!, can it?, no..., it must just be my imagination... yeah I don't think so, is she...?' Hermione asked herself completely confused as she grudgingly understood what was going on, she may not want to admit it but just like Alice, Hermione also realised that Lily was having confused feelings for Severus.

Suddenly Hermione met Severus' gaze and she knew that he wanted to know if she was ready to catch the train after breakfast...

Despite her surprise along with all her current thoughts and doubts about what was going on, Hermione managed to clear her mind for a moment and nod to Severus to let him know that she was ready and he just nodded in reply with a small smile and then he went back to eating his breakfast.

Hermione couldn't help but think that he really was in a good mood today and that only confused her more after hearing what happened last night between him and Lily.

On the other hand, Lily who was looking at Severus got extremely nervous when she saw that he also "looked at her", she even felt her heart stopped for a moment but she quickly reacted and looked away embarrassed, she pretended not to see him..., by the time she slightly looked back Lily only got to see that Severus had a small smile on his face as he went back to eating his breakfast.

It was then that Lily's head began to unsuccessfully try to process all the different emotions she was feeling at the moment.

Snapping out of these heavy thoughts, Lily quickly got up from the table, she told her friends that she had to go to the bathroom, and then she left the great hall... she needed to clear her head.

Part of Lily kept telling herself that she couldn't think about these things, that she couldn't forgive him, that he had run out of chances after everything that had happened....,

No more chances.

This part kept on feeding Lily's fears, reminding her everything bad that had happened, everything that her friends had said about Severus and ended up being true, this part of her kept telling him that he had no right to be her friend again, not when he had pushed aside every single one of her attempts to solve her problems over all those years.

That now it was too late, that she couldn't afford it anymore...

That he would never change and this was all just a momentary thing.

But the other part of Lily that had remained in silence all this time after Severus told her "mudblood", the part of her that always stood up for her friend seemed to wake up again and stronger than ever, with renewed strength and feeling, so much that now Lily's head was a mess of thoughts and emotions that she didn't know how to deal with.

On the other hand, James Potter who was eating breakfast with Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew noticed that Lily Evans was embarrassed and nervous for some reason while talking to her friends, he hated not being able to hear what the hell they were talking about.

He had always tried to listen to their conversations, but that annoying charm of Evans kept him from doing it, James had tried to get Remus to figure out how to deal with the charm but that had been a complete failure...

Evans wouldn't tell Lupin or anyone else how to do that charm far less how to remove it.

James was dying of curiosity and jealousy, he wanted to know what the bloody hell happened at Slughorn's feast last night, he asked Remus and several other people but no one could tell him anything important besides the fact that Lily looked a bit drunk...

Of course, for him, that was enough to make him imagine every possible scenario and think that something might have happened between Lily and her partner or another man, which worried him, especially seeing her now so flushed.

James cursed Lupin for not paying more attention to Lily during the feast, apparently, Remus was only focused on trying to avoid his partner that day so he neglected the task James had given him of keeping an eye on Evans.

~~~~~~~

At the Slytherin table, Severus was having a relaxed breakfast with Olivia and her group.

He nodded in approval when Hermione confirmed that she was ready to catch the train.

Severus had a lot of things to do during this holiday, both in the Prince family business and in Skywalker Industry and it was good to have Hermione to take care of all the Prince family's most annoying things, things he didn't want to waste his time with and he was very satisfied with how she had been doing her job.

Yes, Hermione was an excellent secretary, she might be a bit excessive with a few things, but she did an excellent job so he didn't mind her being like that as long as she did a good job.

"So... are you going to tell me what happened last night that makes you so happy?" smirked Olivia amused and curious as she watched Severus seem much happier and friendlier than usual.

"Hmm, well, I won't deny that I had a good night, won't you?" asked Severus.

"Oh...I see..., well, I'm intrigued as to what was so good to get you like that, but that's your business," Olivia said lightly as she noticed Lily Evans leave the room completely flushed, something Severus didn't notice.

"And no, my night wasn't as interesting or as good as yours, it seems I picked the wrong partner, otherwise it might have been more interesting" she added smiling and ignoring Evans' state.

" Right, well, I guess it's too late to think about that now, maybe next time you'll be luckier," Severus joked.

"Well, maybe if you're my partner at the next party I'll have a night as good and interesting as the one you had yesterday," she commented jokingly making Severus stare at her for a few seconds thinking about various things.

'Yes..., If only you knew what happened last night with Amelia I don't think you would say that, or is she already imagining what happened last night?' wondered Severus but he shook his head and didn't let those thoughts show on his face.

"Next time then maybe we'll know...," Severus said as he took a drink of water.

"Yeah, I guess we'll just have to wait," Olivia nodded.

"By the way, regarding what I told you during the feast about the reunion between our families, my parents have already confirmed everything," she added, changing the subject.

"Oh... that was rather quick... but it's also a good thing, in that case, we'll be seeing each other in a few days" smiled Severus.

" It seems so," nodded Olivia smiling back at him.