Let’s switch, said Rosier, and handed him a diagnostics paper and rattled off a list of instructions. Severus looked at the bed and rocked back on his heels, suddenly, like taking a physical blow. He’d fallen from a tree once, when he was young, twenty feet down and it knocked all the air from his lungs. The memory resurfaced unprompted, an echo of this moment, and he tried to take a deep breath. Then he took one step, two steps, and stood by Lily’s bedside.
His hand reached out carefully to touch her wrist, felt the faint pulse in her veins, and watched the air expand and expel from her lungs. For what felt like eternity, Severus stood like this, still as a statue. Waiting for signs she was getting worse. Bruised lungs. Internal bleeding. Broken collarbone. The list of diagnostics went on an endless loop in his mind —
Potter burst into the infirmary, a whirlwind of self important rage and childish animosity. Severus was yanked away by his bloody collar, and it was a testament to his current state of mind that it took him a moment to return to the present. To feel the anger light a fire in his gut. To think, who the fuck do you think you are?! Before he grabbed the front of Potter’s robes and slammed him against the wall of the infirmary, hard enough to rattle the shelves. ‘ Be quiet, ’ Severus said, a soft, quiet tone that belied the violence simmering underneath. ‘ Or get out. This is an infirmary, you fucking delinquent. Who do you think you are? ’
@healerrosier
Date: June 24th, 1984, just after leaving the Entry Room Location: The Prewett Estate, infirmary @wrongdeor & @healerrosier
James moved quickly from his argument - possible argument? - with Jones down the corridor to the infirmary. Lily, fuck, Lily. She could be dead. She could be dying. He couldn’t fucking believe that he’d let her end them when he knew it might end up like this between them and they’d be left with nothing but tainted memories. He could’ve had four more months with her. Damn it, Lily.
He was angry and tired and so, so fucking terrified. But he was also keeping his cool, Hestia’s words about how blowing up wouldn’t help him - how Evan wouldn’t let him stay - ringing through his ears. And, by the time he made it to the infirmary, he was almost calm. Almost ready to sit by her bedside and stay out of Rosier’s way.
Until -
Fucking Severus Snape. As though he was the dragon he’d conjured earlier that morning, James roared with life, a sudden energy renewed in him. Because Snape was standing over Lily’s bedside. Snape was watching her, making sure she had an even rise and fall of her chest. “You!” James snarled, that simmering rage rearing it’s ugly head as he moved over to Severus and yanked on the collar of his shirt, pulling him back, away from Lily. “Get the fuck away from her!”