Title: Autumn Lilies
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Established Harry/Severus
Content Notes: Angst, mentions of past canonical character death, AU in that Severus lives
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3100
Summary: Severus shares memories of Lily with Harry as autumn dies.
Author's Note: The first of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics, being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice, written at the request of goddess47. She asked for Severus sharing a story about Lily at Hogwarts during the holidays.

Autumn Lilies

"Why is it that we never visit her grave at the same time?"

Harry paused from unwinding his scarf and hanging it on the hook. A moment ago, he had been thinking about nothing except getting inside out of the snow and warming up in front of the fire. Now his heart was hammering as if he was about to go into battle.

"Who are you talking about?" he asked, turning around to face Severus. The man sat in front of the fire already, a steaming mug of tea cradled in his hands. He was watching Harry with calm, critical eyes. The scars on his throat where Nagini had nearly claimed his life shone dark red and purple.

Harry subtly sniffed the air. Showing the scars and asking that question were both so uncharacteristic of Severus that he had to wonder—

"I am not drunk. The tea contains chamomile, nothing else." Severus put down the mug and stood to eye him. "You returned from laying lilies on your mother's grave a moment ago. I laid lilies there this morning. The same day, and yet we were not together. Why not?"

Harry swallowed. Their relationship only worked, he thought, because they never discussed certain things that lay between them: Harry's father, the Occlumency lessons in fifth year, Dumbledore's death. Severus had told Harry once that he felt like his life had begun again when he opened his eyes in the Shrieking Shack after the battle. Harry was happy to go along with it.

But he had some measure of courage, too, and if Severus wasn't drunk, then there was the chance that neither of them would regret the conversation in the morning. "I don't know," he said quietly, meeting Severus's eyes. "Why don't we?"

Severus nodded, although that was a question, not the answer to one, and sat back down. "I think it is time for us to talk about Lily," he said.

Harry swallowed and moved a little closer to the fire. It was Halloween, but already snowy and cold this far north, just outside Hogsmeade. Harry spent his days as Defense professor at Hogwarts, but he refused to live in the castle. He had set up an alarm outside his quarters that would let him know if he was required during the night, and Minerva, among others, was still grateful enough to him to permit the compromise. "Do we have to?"

"Why would you not want to?"

"I—I don't want to spoil what I have with you," Harry said. "This peace we have between us. I think discussing Mum would."

Severus reached across from his chair and caught Harry's hand in his. Harry jumped a little, and Severus frowned. "You will catch your death of cold," he chided Harry, rubbing roughly back and forth to warm him up. "It is a false peace if words are treated as an act of war."

Harry nodded. "But what are you going to tell me that I don't already know?" He kept his face averted, his gaze fixed on the flames.

"You have some memories of my childhood with Lily in Cokeworth, yes. But do you have any happy memories of her outside of that?"

Harry slowly shook his head. And not even all those memories were happy, given that they included Severus losing her friendship. Harry had sometimes wondered whether she would approve of her son dating the man who had called her a "Mudblood," and then had shoved the thought away so hard it felt as if he had hurt his mind.

"And the memories that you retain of her final moments are hardly happy," Severus said, as if talking to himself. He eyed Harry, then nodded. "I think I should share the memories of our first Christmas at Hogwarts with you."

"You had one?" Harry asked blankly.

"Yes, of course. Why wouldn't we?"

"I—just thought of you as someone who didn't celebrate Christmas," Harry muttered. It was true that Severus put up with the festivities when they came around and the Weasley children and the gifts, but always with a martyred expression on his face. "And I thought Mum would have gone home to her family and you would be at Hogwarts by yourself."

"Not that year," Severus said. He stared into space, and produced a sharp smile. Harry wasn't sure he wanted to know what caused it. An ember fell, and cast Severus's face even more into shadow. "Mr. and Mrs. Evans took Petunia on holiday. She was jealous of Lily for going to Hogwarts, and they thought a holiday might make up for it."

Harry sighed. Something else they didn't discuss was Aunt Petunia. Harry had never seen the Dursleys since the war except for a brief, awkward visit with Dudley, and he had no desire to renew the acquaintance. Severus thought they ought to be punished for what they had done to him.

"And Lily stayed with me," Severus said. He glanced at Harry, and the smile altered. "Do you want to hear this story or not?"

Harry hesitated. Sometimes he thought thinking about the past was just futile. Would his Mum approve of them? Would they ever have got together if Harry hadn't listened to Severus rambling through apologies while drugged on a painkilling potion? All too painful to consider.

But then he met Severus's eyes, and acknowledged something he had throttled in the past few years. Curiosity. He was still curious, he still had questions, and other people had picked up his attitude of not speaking about times before the war since the war. He still didn't know as much about his parents as he'd like.

"All right," he said, and saw Severus smile.

Severus hadn't smiled like that in weeks. Harry reached out to him, enchanted, and Severus took his hand and held it tightly for a moment, turning it over as if he were about to read some kind of future from the life-lines on Harry's palm.

"The past cannot be a barrier if we do not let it," Severus said, and began to speak before Harry had time to think fully about what the words meant.

Severus had no idea why Lily had chosen to stay at Hogwarts for the holiday until she told him. He thought her parents were brilliant. He would have spent every chance with them that he could, if it were his family.

Then Lily did tell him, and he was indignant. "Petunia gets a holiday and you get nothing?"

Lily snorted and licked the melting ice she held. Her parents had given her enough money for sweets, feeling guilty, and Professor Slughorn was willing to look the other way when two first-years sneaked into Hogsmeade, provided they didn't get caught. Likewise, Lily was welcome in the Slytherin common room in front of the fire as long as no other Slytherin students caught her there.

And there were no other Slytherin students staying this year, a fact Severus was still grateful for.

"I thought I was getting a holiday with my best friend," Lily said, and nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. "I reckon not."

"Of course you get a holiday!" Severus said, and realized it sounded inane. His mum was always telling him he sounded inane. But Eileen Prince wasn't here now, was she?

Pleased with himself, Severus licked his own ice, and lay on his stomach in front of the fire, and looked at Lily.

She had a streak of chocolate on her cheek, and she was grinning at him. Her hair tumbled around her, long and wild and red. Severus hoped that he always got to remember her just like this, green eyes sparkling with mischief and fun.

"I know something that would be even more fun than sneaking off to Hogsmeade," said Lily. She was trying to lick melting chocolate from the side of her hand.

"More is dripping down your face," Severus pointed out.

Lily stuck out her tongue towards her cheek, then laughed. The sound always made Severus smile. People didn't laugh like that in his family. "Do you want to hear my idea, or do you want to make fun of my mess?"

"I can't do both?"

"You sound haughty," said Lily, something Severus didn't know was true, but he always let her talk when she said it. "Anyway. Some of the older Gryffindors were saying that there's a secret passage up on the seventh floor. Wouldn't it be fun to see if it was true?"

Severus frowned. "Where on the seventh floor, though? It's big. We could be searching for hours."

"That's part of what makes it fun, Severus."

And Severus let himself be lured along. If it was older Slytherin students that he'd overheard talking about the secret seventh-floor passage, he would have assumed that it was a joke. But Gryffindors were probably telling the truth.

And of all people in the world, he trusted Lily alone never to play a joke on him.

Lily ran in front of him, chattering, as they made their way up the sliding staircases and some that tried to turn slippery beneath their feet. Lily danced past as if she didn't notice. Severus wished he could have whatever it was. That grace, or that power of not letting little things strike him.

Then they reached the seventh floor, and had to duck out of the way as they saw a Hufflepuff prefect strolling along.

"What is he doing here?" Lily sounded indignant as she whispered to him behind the cover of a tapestry with dancing trolls on it. "Doesn't he know it's the duty of all good Hufflepuffs to go home to their families on holidays?"

Severus had to muffle wild laughter in his sleeve, and the Hufflepuff prefect halted and looked around suspiciously. But Lily helped him to muffle the laughter by practically sitting on his head, and in the end the prefect went on his way (after one more suspicious look around, of course).

"Geroff, Lily," Severus muttered, and shoved her.

"Look! It's the right tapestry! That's where the older blokes said the secret passage was!" Lily sang, bouncing out from behind the tapestry. And of course Severus wasn't angry at her any longer, because it was basically impossible to stay angry at her.

Still, after they had searched the wall under the tapestry and the wall opposite and the threads of the tapestry itself and the portraits nearby, Severus had to admit the adventure might not turn out the way they thought it would. There didn't seem to be a secret passage here. He glanced at Lily. "Are you sure you heard right?"

"Of course I am! Oh, wait! They said you had to think of something and walk back and forth in front of the tapestry three times!"

"Think of what?"

"Something!" Lily rolled her eyes at him and began prancing back and forth. Severus leaned on the wall and watched her. He knew that sometimes things she did got results, but he also knew more about the magical world than she did, and he'd never heard of any passage that had to be opened this way.

Of course, he had to eat his words when a wooden door appeared behind Lily. It looked made of real wood, with bark on it and everything. Severus stared at Lily and then at the door. Lily winked at him and ran over to open it.

"What did you think of?" Severus asked, as he ran to join her.

"A forest like the Forbidden Forest, but safe! Look, Sev!"

Severus gaped as he saw the trees that loomed beyond the door. They couldn't possibly have fit into the space of a room underneath the roof of the school, but there they were, the kind of trees he imagined when his mother (sometimes) read stories to him, looming above his head, spreading out canopies of sun-touched emerald leaves. Their bark looked as dark as chocolate. Severus put out a trembling hand.

It wasn't made of chocolate, but it did feel warm and real and rough under his fingers.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Lily ran in front of him, her arms extended upwards. A small blue bird flew down and hovered above her hand. Lily smiled at it, then at him. "A whole place we can explore!"

"Is it even real, though?" Severus glanced anxiously over his shoulder, relieved to see that the door still existed, although it had shut. "What if the door closes forever and leaves us trapped in this horrid place?"

"It's not horrid!"

"You know what I mean, Lily."

"I know." Lily nodded, her hair bouncing again. "But I can just feel that that's not going to happen, you know? Can't you feel it, too, Severus?"

When he convinced himself to relax and think about it, Severus supposed that he could. Yes, all right, he definitely could. The whole atmosphere of the forest sang softly around him, thick and heavy, like the sunlight that filtered through the branches, like the green moss that bent beneath their feet without taking a print. This was a safe place. Severus hadn't recognized it because he hadn't seen very many of them in his life.

"Lead on, Lily," he said, waving a hand at her. "This was the adventure that you wanted to have."

"You followed me," Lily said, but her smile was soft. "Don't worry, Sev, I'll keep you safe." She walked back and put her arm around his shoulders instead of running ahead the way Severus knew she'd probably like to. "Come on, let's go on and see what adventures are waiting for us."

So on they walked, and although Severus knew it wouldn't (and couldn't) last forever, he did his best to memorize everything anyway: the scent of the forest around them, the feel of Lily's arm on his shoulders, her squeals when she caught sight of delicate, jewel-toned butterflies dancing in the distance. So that he could remember it forever.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

Harry turned his head hastily away from Severus, wiping at his tears. He nodded. "I'm all right," he whispered. "I just—I never heard you speak about anything like that before."

"I know. We were ignoring the past. But I woke up remembering that today, and remembering that it's less than two months until the holiday I shared with Lily." There was a long silence, and then Severus added, "I'd like to share it with you."

Harry swallowed and slowly turned back around. Severus was looking at him in silence, eyes lingering on his tears, on his mouth, on his eyes. But nothing mocking followed, which Harry had been half-braced for no matter how many times he told himself that Severus had changed.

Severus was right. They did need to think about what kind of things lay between them, if Harry was still expecting harshness after years of being together.

Harry came over and reached out his hands. Severus tensed, but allowed Harry to touch the scars on the side of his throat, the most visible reminder of the war he carried. The Dark Mark was a blurred grey thing now, but these were real.

I haven't touched them before, Harry was thinking. He didn't touch my scar, either. Were we really doing that much hiding?

Apparently, they had been.

Harry met Severus's eyes, and tried out a tentative smile. "I think I know the reason we never went to her grave at the same time," he said.

"Yes?"

Severus was tense, watching, the way Harry remembered so well before the war when Severus anticipated a blow from some unknown direction. Harry took a deep breath and said, "Because we thought it would tear us apart. You thought I would start remembering the prophecy and that you—betrayed it and blame you for her death. And I thought you would start remembering how much you loved her and choose her memory over me."

"I am no longer in the habit of choosing the dead over the living," Severus said, his voice low but passionate.

Harry nodded. "I know. But—I didn't let myself know that until today. I was too frightened."

"And you a Gryffindor." But Severus's voice was soft, although he wore no smile. He reached up and raked a hand through Harry's hair, exposing the old scar on his forehead and pausing over it a moment, although Severus still didn't touch it. "And now?"

"Now, I think there's still enough twilight left." Harry held Severus's eyes as he took up his wand with one hand and conjured a bunch of orange tiger lilies.

Severus closed his eyes for a moment. Then he conjured his own flower, the single pure white lily that he always left at the grave. Harry had known without asking that Severus thought the orange ones too bold and wild. Lily had become a symbol of pure love for him for so long.

But the girl in Severus's story had been bold and wild. He had mentioned more than once how her hair bounced as she raced through the forest in the Room of Requirement. And he'd said that, when they came out of the room, she was still trying to lick chocolate off one hand.

That was the woman Harry wanted to know. The imperfect, laughing, adventurous one, not only the loving perfect mother who had died to save him.

"Will you tell me other stories of her?" Harry asked as Severus stood up and straightened out his back with a grunt.

Severus said only, as he threaded the white lily into Harry's blazing bouquet, "You know I will."

Lily Evans Potter's grave bore the one bunch of tiger lilies already, partially withered by the rain and scattered by the wind since Harry had left them there earlier that evening. Harry felt Severus lean heavily on him for a second as he put down their bouquet, and followed Severus's gaze to the grave on the left, his father's.

Harry reached out and squeezed Severus's hand. "We don't have to rebuild Rome in a day," he murmured.

After a long moment, Severus nodded and let his eyes linger solely on Lily's grave. His lips moved, but Harry didn't hear what Severus said, and he didn't have to hear. Some things could remain private.

He leaned on Severus in turn, so they were supporting each other instead of one of them holding the other up, and watched the lilies shining back their radiant reflections to the stars and the moon.

It wasn't perfect, but that was what he wanted. It wasn't completely wild or completely calm, completely dead or completely alive.

It was, for the first time since Harry had first seen his parents' graves, at peace.

The End.