It Doesn't Matter

By Katie Sullivan

Rating: G
Pairings:  Severus/Lily
Spoilers:  HBP & DH
Disclaimer:  Severus, Lily and all related characters and concepts belong to the very talented and very rich J.K. Rowling.   Alas, I own no one.

Lily sat next to Severus, their feet stretched out in front of them as they looked out over the lake. Their essays for Professor Binns lay half-finished and forgotten beside them in the grass. They had been assigned to write on the issue of blood purity and its impact on wizarding history, but the subject hit a bit too close to home and Lily was finding it difficult to concentrate.

"So, being Muggleborn does matter," she said softly.

"To some," Severus said.

"To a lot of Slytherins, judging by the comments I get in the corridors," she muttered, clicking her shoes together with a scowl.

"Not to this Slytherin," he said earnestly.

She gave him a grateful, slightly shy smile.

"Besides," he continued, picking at a loose bit of rubber on the sole of his shoe to avoid eye contact, "I'm only half-blood anyway."

"Your mum was in Slytherin, too, right?"

"Yeah. It sort of...runs in families sometimes. I'm dreadful at Gobstones, though, so I guess I didn't inherit that from her."

"I never got the hang of it, myself," Lily said.

"But you're better than I am at Charms," Severus said, casting a frustrated look at the parchment sticking out of his bag with a very mediocre grade on it. "So that's proof that blood doesn't matter. At least, not as much as some people seem to think. I... I do wonder, sometimes, if my mum had married a wizard instead... I mean, no Prince had married a Muggle in at least seven generations. My grandparents weren't all that happy about it, but they wanted her to be happy, so..." His voice trailed off with an ironic sort of laugh.

Lily was silent. She knew all too well what Tobias Snape was like.

Severus picked a pebble out of the grass and flung it out over the lake, skipping it twice before it sank.

Sensing the somber turn the conversation had taken, Lily leaned so her arm was against his, and tilted her head so her temple was against his ear. "You may be a Half-Blood Prince, but you're a Whole Best Friend and that's much more important."

He smiled shyly and scratched the side of his nose to conceal the growing flush in his cheeks. "Th-thanks, Lily."

"You know, I like that!" she said suddenly, pulling back and sitting up on her knees.

Startled, he merely gave her a questioning look. "Like what?"

"Half-Blood Prince! It's like a secret identity. Wouldn't it be great to secretly be a Prince?"

"You mean... But there's no such thing as wizarding royalty."

"I know that," she said with a dismissive wave. "But if there was, you should be it."

"Me? You're joking. I'm too..." He screwed up his face, searching for an epithet that was self-deprecating enough.

"Too what, Sev? Give yourself a little credit. You'd make a good Prince." She dropped her voice an octave and stiffened her posture to the point of parody, imitating a pompous courtier. "Make way, make way for his majesty, Prince Severus of Snape!"

He laughed in spite of himself. "Well, all right...but only if you get to be a Princess."

"Deal!"

"I bet Princes don't have to do homework..." he said wistfully, picking up the scroll of parchment they were supposed to be finishing.

"Probably not. But Half-Blood Princes do. And so do Muggleborn Evanses." She sighed and reached for her quill. "Come on, let's get this finished before supper."

He reluctantly agreed and they spent the next half-hour in an easy silence, sharing an ink pot as they wrote about the history of a world neither one yet fully understood.