Just The Same

He learns the next day that it was supposed to be a trap. 

He had planned to be in the potions labs, working through the weekend to pay for christmas presents from Hogsmeade and maybe have some extra to save. He made sure everybody knew it so he could work unbothered. That had been the plan anyway, until Lily came down to pull him out of the labs and bring him with her to some study session with her friends. 

She was supposed to be walking alone, she always did because she always came just a little late to study, and she always walked through the same hall to get there because the staircases in the hall were just slightly less violent. She was supposed to be alone, to pass under the mistletoe and be stuck there until some knight in red and gold armour came and rescued her. 

But of course, that’s not what happened. 

He feels like he should have noticed before they passed under, but he was tired and Lily was telling him about these old books she had found in an abandoned classroom and he only noticed something was wrong when they couldn’t move. 

“What the FUCK,” He tried to move, but couldn’t get more that a foot from the space they had both been stopped. The panic was about to set in, at being caught, being vulnerable, not knowing what was going on, when Lily got his attention.

“Look up,” she pulls at his sleeve and they both look up at the arch above them, the bundle of leaves hanging almost innocently over their heads. 

Severus snarls, looking around them for the culprit (though he feels like he already knows who did it), but he can’t see anyone around them. He thinks he hears steps for a moment, but there’s no one around. He resigns himself to sitting under the stupid arch until someone comes to let them out, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. 

Lily came to sit beside him, laying her head against his shoulder. When she opens her mouth, he thinks that she’ll start talking about the old books again or something about her study group. He does not expect her to look up at him with bright green eyes and ask, “So, do we kiss now?”

He chokes on nothing, the words stopping any processes in his brain on impact. He swears he hears someone nearby. It takes him a second to look down at Lily, still watching him calmly, and ask, “What?”

“This is one of those enchanted mistletoes, right?” She looks between him and the offending plant, “All we have to do to get released is kiss and then we can go.”

“B-but-”

“Bu- But- what? It’s not like it’ll be either of our firsts and there's no one around if you're shy,” She turns to face him, their knees knocking against each other,  “So let’s just get it over with.”

Lily is leaning in to him, not to try and force the kiss, but just in instinct to keep his attention. Either way, he feels trapped between his best friend and a wall and- He can’t kiss Lily. He can’t. Like, it’s not as if he didn’t want to, he had for years now, but he wanted a lot of things that never ended up well. 

When he kissed Rosier, it was because they had been drinking and he didn’t know how else to tell him how good he looked in his lightweight haze (and they kissed that night and the morning after and then Rosier never brought it up again). When he kissed Regulus, it was because he had a massive crush on the kid and they had both been dancing around each other for most of fourth year (They had kisses softly and sweet and they’d both wanted to make it work, but having to make sure Regulus’ parents and brother didn’t find out they were even talking had worn them both out). Neither of those kisses had ended in great outcomes and honestly, he didn’t want to add another kiss to the list. 

“Lily, I really don’t think I wanna do this,” His face is hot and he feels some deep sense of shame, from getting so flustered or for turning her down, he’s not sure. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not gonna force you to kiss me, Sev,” She leans back, giving him air to breath, “We can stay here until some noble seventh year comes to free us, give us both an excuse to hang out for a while, I’m not complaining.”

He nods and they both get comfortable, sitting against each other. They talk about the usual nothings, grades and friends and what they’re doing for yule break and somewhere in there Severus gets to tell her a hilarious story about Narcissa dragging Lucius around the common room by the ear and Lily tells him about the time Sirius Black got caught trying to sneak up to the girls dorms and had to sleep on the common room couches for a week. They laugh and Seveus feels like he’s floating. 

They haven't gotten to hang out like this in a long time, he feels like its worth skipping out on a kiss.

It feels like hours before anyone passes them by, Severus is leaning against the wall again, Lily’s head cradled in his lap where she’d decided to take a nap. Every so often, he hears a noise around them, but he can't pinpoint where it's coming from. He perks up when he hears proper steps coming towards them, careful not to wake his friend. An older Ravenclaw comes down the hall, stopping just before the arch to look at them. 

"Any chance you know how to remove enchanted mistletoe?" He asks, gesturing to the bundle.

The Ravenclaw looks at them, then the mistletoe a few times, mouth quirking. "No, I'd have to grab a professor. But..."

"But what?"

"Whoever set this up did it wrong. That's holly, not mistletoe."