{ Mockingjay Starters }

Was that her attempt to be funny? It was difficult to tell if she was mocking him – though Severus didn’t think her to be the type for such petty endeavors, it had been years since they had last spoken to one another. That she would find him here with a bottle in hand looking as disgusted by it’s existence as he felt with his own felt somehow karmic. As though she deserved to see for herself how far he had fallen since that fateful day when he’d lashed out at her to defend the tattered remnants of his own pride. 

“Oh yeah,” The words tasted as bitter as his drink, “Sure.” He didn’t add anything bitingly sarcastic, opting instead to just leave it at that. If she was mocking him – which he did doubt – then she was welcome to leave content in the knowledge that whatever he was drinking for, it wasn’t because things were going well. And if she wasn’t – well, far be it from he to lash out at her twice in one lifetime. 

Instead he lifted his bottle with something like an old respect and inclined his head, before returning his attention again to the bustle of the town outside the window, letting himself return to his own thoughts as though she had never interrupted them, but for one parting remark that was as genuine as he dared make it. “I hope you have too.” 

{ Mockingjay Starters }

The attack was tonight – of course it was. The Dark Lord’s thirst for dramatics would naturally be inclined to choose the eve of Samhain – the darker of the two liminal nights – to mark his rise to immortality. Severus had not been informed, not until the Mark flared and fell strangely flat. A flurry of events followed, none of which caught his attention as he raced against the grain of his fellows to apparate himself to Godric’s Hollow. There was none he could turn to if what he feared was true – none but himself he could fault. 

Approaching the house warily, horror settled into his bones as he found the door open. Stepping inside boldly had been his first error – to see for himself a body he had not anticipated, had not deigned to care for either way – leaving him with a strange and sickening sense of guilt. He had never liked James Potter and he never would – but to see him dead had been enough to halt his advance, long enough for Lily to find him still frozen in the wreckage. 

She was alive. Relief washed through him as confusion welled up in it’s wake. How was she alive? The question swirled, and he made no move. She could have struck him down then, easily. He was vulnerable and lost, at fault for all of this, but instead all she did was speak words that granted further credence to a prophesy made true by actions made through superstition and fear. 

“It never should have been like this,” Whether he meant the prophesy and consequent attack itself or the war as a whole, or everything that had caused the estrangement between himself and the woman whose home he had, for all intents and purposes, just broken into, it was difficult to tell. His own voice drew him from his thoughts enough to register this wasn’t over yet.

“It won’t be safe here. You should go.” She needed to gather her son, find someplace safe until this night was at it’s end. His eyes fell to James’ body again, remembering all too readily that same stillness in Destin. Once again the permanence, the futility of this damaging and utterly pointless war struck, and he found himself shifting in the wake of it. The Dark Lord was gone – but his followers were not.

How many would be taken down tonight? How many would flee and hide? How many would lie? Was this truly the dawn of peace, or was this just the calm before a bigger, deadlier storm under a new figurehead yet to rise from the ashes? There was no way to tell. All he knew was Albus had failed as surely as he had – and Lily wasn’t safe here, nor was her son. In the wake of so many unknown variables, it only made sense to focus on the one thing that could truly be affected, and that was insisting Lily leave and sequester herself and her child among friends until the worst had settled.

Though for her, he supposed it already had.