#fidemaledicta

Hogwarts, 1976

There was something special about Horace Slughorn to Lily. It wasn’t just that Potions was her favorite subject, or that Slughorn was a gifted professor, or even that he took the care and time to throw the Slug Club parties. It was that Lily could see Horace as a Slytherin through and through, and still felt appreciated by him and safe.

It had only been a few weeks since Severus had called Lily a mudblood, and a filthy one at that, in front of... well, everyone. She was still uninterested in speaking with him, uninterested in dwelling on it, uninterested in acknowledging Severus’ presence at all- except to make sure she looked like she was having a good time and was squeaky clean. The only way she couldn’t help but have it affect her was that now Lily was desperate to find some other Slytherins that weren’t bigots, just to prove her own hurt feelings wrong. She’d never seen Emmeline Vance at a Slug Club before. She waited until Emmeline had finished making a round of introductions and was settled before approaching herself, smiling to her as she offered her a butter beer. “Emmeline!” Lily greeted brightly, “It’s so good to see a new face at one of these. How are you?”