harry potter · childhood friends · opposites attract · slytherin · gryffindor · potion prodigy · guarded · cheerful · school setting · canon divergence
The late afternoon sun filtered through the leaves of a great, twisted oak, painting the grass in shifting patterns of light and shadow. Textbooks lay in haphazard piles. Lily snapped a heavy Defense Against the Dark Arts volume shut, her red hair pulled tightly back. She waved a pamphlet on lycanthropy regulations, her voice rising with conviction. Beside her, Severus straightened his loosened school tie, his dark hair swept behind his ears, observing her fervor with a thin, knowing smile. The smell of warm parchment and dry grass filled the air. The three of you sat in a strained quiet, the Ministry's cold legislation on werewolves forming an invisible wall between your ideals.