My first fanfic! Please read and review. I'd love some early feedback. I haven't read Snape/Lily since before Deathly Hallows came out, so sorry if this features any post-DH clichés.

Thanks to JKR for these characters and books. No copyright infringement intended. :)

His weekly visits to the apothecary were now becoming almost unavoidable. The damages wrought by the various initiations into the Dark Lord's inner circle were now beyond the help of his usual charms. He must return to the simmering cauldron he admired so much while at Hogwarts; he knew its potions could surpass many of the charms he'd invented over the years. He pulled his old Advanced Potionsmaking textbook from his pocket and began marking off the ingredients for a potion that would thoroughly clean the wounds, which were already becoming infected with the remnants of Dark Magic that his charms could not eradicate.

Although not yet known as a Death Eater, Severus Snape kept his head down and eyes hooded while he shopped in Diagon Alley. He hardly looked up when new shoppers entered the apothecary's store, but quickly gathered the ingredients he needed and moved toward the register. His lank hair shielded his eyes as he gazed up for a moment and noticed the red hair of the woman standing in front of him.

He had not seen her for two years. He could still recall the last glimpse he was able to catch of her, as she walked out of King's Cross station on the arm of that arrogant Potter. He focused all his attention on her then, knowing that those would be the last moments he'd ever be able to see her. She quickly looked back at her fellow graduates, but he could've sworn her eyes rested just for a moment on him because she seemed sad all of a sudden. Potter said something to make her laugh shortly thereafter and that was the last he ever saw of her, laughing at one of that idiot's inanities.

She must not have noticed him in the shop because she carried on with the apothecary as if her best friend of so many years ago were not behind her, drinking in the features that had already begun to blur in his mind.

"James asked me to thank you for your recommendations during his last visit. He said they were much more effective than the recipe used in our old textbook."

"Tell him, it was my pleasure," the apothecary beamed back at her effusive thanks. "You'll find that many of those old Potions textbooks are extraordinarily outdated. Unfortunately, so many of the great Potions masters have neither the time nor the interest to edit schoolbooks."

"Yes," Lily replied. "It's sad but true." Then, hesitantly added, "I once knew a boy who had completely rewritten his own Potions textbook. He would always complain about how faulty it was." She let out a small laugh and failed to notice the intake of breath from the man behind her.

"Sounds like a smart lad," the apothecary laughed.

"He was." She pocketed her change, gave a last smile to the apothecary, and swiftly left the shop.

Snape almost threw his ingredients on the counter, rapping his fingers against the wood in a display of impatience that would hopefully hurry along the old apothecary. No banter was exchanged between these two. Just two curt nods, and Snape quickly ducked out of the shop and back into Diagon Alley.

Given his height, he could easily look above most of the crowd that afternoon and see the retreating figure of Lily Potter (still Lily Evans in his mind). After years of roaming through the dark hallways in Hogwarts, many of the early years with her, then alone, he was able to slyly catch up with her without attracting her notice.

Technically, he was stalking her. If you want to put it in those terms, you may, but Snape hardly thought of it in that way. He didn't think of his decision at all, only the fact that he hadn't seen her in years and had to stay close for a few more moments. Then suddenly, she turned into an alleyway right before approaching the Leaky Cauldron. Before realizing that the crowd could no longer hide him, he followed after her and met her outstretched wand.

"Expelli-," she screamed, but didn't finish the curse. He held no wand to disarm and only looked back at her first in shock, then in shame. Neither of them spoke for what seemed like a couple of minutes, but instead just stared back at each other. She could hardly believe that he had been her pursuer, and he could only wonder how she had seen him and if her eyes had become even greener in the years since they graduated. No...memory must have dimmed them. She was the first to speak.

"Why have you followed me?" She asked coldly.

"I-I don't know," he honestly replied. "I saw you at the apothecary's, and my feet just followed you down Diagon Alley. I'm sorry." She stared back at him with eyes as cold as the last time he had said those two words. She wore a nightgown then, as he shivered in the dark of a Hogwarts corridor. Like that last time, she began to walk away.

"No! Please wait!" Unlike that night, she stopped, although her hands were balled into fists. "Won't you tell me how you are?"

"I think you would agree that it would be very unwise for a member of the Order of the Phoenix to share any personal details with a newly minted Death Eater," Lily whispered to him. He couldn't tell if she said this in sadness or anger. He also wondered how the Order could know so quickly that he was now a Death Eater. Did they possess a spy?

"How do you know I'm a Death Eater?" Snape asked.

"You rubbed your left arm when you said 'I'm sorry.' A habit I've never noticed before." As she turned to face him again, she sighed and added, "Your lack of any denial confirms the fact."

"Can't I ask you how you are...as a friend? As Severus Snape asking Lily Evans?"

She scoffed and replied, "You know that it has been many years since you and I have been friends. I also think you know that it has now been over a year since I have been Lily Potter." He merely looked down, giving her the chance to add, "And once again, we are war enemies. I should have hexed you ages ago, Snape."

"You haven't though," he smirked, although his heart ached after she had called him Snape. He was foolishly hoping for the old Sev. He noticed how her eyes flicked toward his left forearm, and he quickly folded his arms in response.

"Why did you do it?" Lily whispered toward the ground. "Why join him?" The anger bubbling underneath her words unnerved him.

"Well, considering how you were the first person to note how I seemed to get on well with the Dark Lord supporters in my house, I'm surprised that you would find a decision that you practically shoved me toward so startling." Snape didn't think of his words before he said them, a fault that he had tried to rein in ever since that fateful day when he called her...that word. Leave it to this moment for that fatal shortcoming to reveal itself yet again. Her green eyes shot daggers at him in response.

"Don't blame me for your own decisions! You chose your own friends. You chose your own words, and it seems that you've still been unable to shake that temper you acquired from your father." It was now her turn to be angry, then regretful of what her words had turned into as they escaped her mouth.

"Don't bring up my family," he snarled. "Especially him." Lily couldn't see his face, as he turned his gaze downwards and his hair, like a curtain, shut his features away. Her shame only grew after seeing his reaction, and she instinctively reached toward his arm. He immediately jerked away and, in the process, let the bag containing his glasses of potions ingredients slip from his hand.

He cursed under his breath and bent down to "Reparo" the broken pieces and quickly stash them back into his bag. Lily bent down as well to help him, picked up a vial of dittany, and noticed the other ingredients he had purchased.

"These are all ingredients used in healing potions," she said.

"10 points to Gryffindor, Miss Evans. Slughorn would have been very proud," he muttered. Snape snatched the last few ingredients from her hands, threw them in his parcel, and quickly stood up again.

Lily followed suit and began to look at him more closely. Indeed, he did have a sickly pallor to him. He had always been a pale boy, but this was different. She also noticed the marks on his wrists that peaked through the long sleeves of his coat. They were red and looked as if they were once much deeper cuts inflicted perhaps by an Incarcerous spell. Snape noticed where her eyes were trained and quickly pulled his sleeves down further and onto his long hands.

He immediately felt shame. His decision to join the Death Eaters just seemed like the next stop in the steady descent of his life after Lily stopped speaking to him. At first, he blamed her. Every time he cursed a Mudblood to get closer to the Dark Lord, he blamed her. Every time he was forced to torture a weaker recruit than himself, he thought of that night when she refused to forgive him, and his Cruciatus curse became known as one of the most excruciating among Voldemort's young followers. He had even noticed Bellatrix Lestrange look upon him in apparent commendation. Lily Potter became the fire that goaded him closer and closer toward the Dark Lord's inner circle, until finally he became a Death Eater.

Yet, now as she stood before him, all he saw was Lily Evans-the girl who dusted off his robes after he fell off his first broom, the friend who always double checked his Transfiguration homework, the woman he loved. Then, he remembered how he threw it all away on a word and realized, as she had said, that all the blame lied with him. His head sunk lower, and he failed to notice as she began to move toward him again and quickly grasped one of his hands, then pushed his sleeve above the wrist. He didn't pull away this time.

"Are there more?" She asked.

"Yes. These aren't too bad. The others are deeper."

"What spells have you tried to mend them?"

"The usual. Vulnera Sanentur works most of the time, but some wounds are quite deep"-he hesitated before continuing-"and too dark." She stared up into his face then, still grasping his hand.

"Why didn't you try dittany earlier?"

"I did. Used all that was in my own stores. It closed the wounds, but they still ache terribly. Some have become quite discolored, and I knew that only potions could help me now." He smirked at her. While she was the best at potions in Gryffindor, she would still spend many evenings arguing with Severus over his insistence that potions was by far the greatest form of magic. Lily looked back up at him, also recalling the same memories. Then she realized how close they'd moved toward one another and how his hand began to feel warmer against her skin. She pulled his sleeve back down, noticing the bottom edges of the Dark Mark against his forearm, and moved away from him again.

Before he could stop himself, he asked, "Why didn't you forgive me that day?" She looked her surprise and opened her mouth a couple times, but it took a few moments before she could articulate a response.

"You were the first person to tell me it didn't matter that I was Muggleborn. I trusted you more than anyone, then I saw you begin to change. You started hanging around with a group of people who believed that it did matter that I was Muggleborn. Of course, like any human being, their bad behavior and foul language rubbed off on you." She stopped to gaze at him for a moment. Snape stayed perfectly still, looking at her as if she held the key to a great mystery that he was never able to figure out. "When you called me a 'Mudblood' that day, I knew you were in a compromised position. Looking back, I understand that you must have been embarrassed when a girl stood up for you...even if it was me. Yet, when that word left your lips, I knew they had a hold on you, and I knew it was the last straw."

"Then why leave me to them?"

Snape could tell, as her eyes glittered, that she was about to rail off again about how his current disaster of a life was not her fault. He quickly launched into, "You're not to blame! I'm not saying that. I was a grown man then and even more so now. I make my own decisions." He paused for a moment to make sure she had grown calm again. Although Lily's hands were still balled into fists, her face seemed to have drained of its previous rush of blood. Then, he continued.

"It's just...if there was anyone who could've helped me out of it all, it was you. I-you-you were my best friend, but after our fifth year, we never spoke to each other again. You wouldn't even ask me to pass you something when we were partnered up in Potions."

Lily couldn't help but smirk at this memory. She remembered her almost perverse vow to never say a single word to him while they were partnered up, which became a problem when her cauldron began to bubble over too quickly and she needed the ingredient on the other side of the table to equalize it. Snape focused on his own work, seemingly none the wiser, while she idiotically ran around their table and threw the missing boomslang skin or valerian root into her cauldron. Sometimes, she wanted to say something to him, especially when she noticed he was having a particularly bad day. More than once, she bit her tongue before defending him against the still constant jibes Sirius and James aimed his way. His words may have killed their relationship, but her silence made sure that it was buried six feet deep.

"I'm sorry for my later actions...for those last two years at Hogwarts. It was wrong of me." After Lily said these words, she noticed the sickly aspect of Snape's customary pallor disappear slightly. He gave her a small smile and the green eyes that once glittered began to overflow. Before letting her tears show, she quickly stepped forward and embraced him. They both closed their eyes and felt ten again, before blood status, and Voldemort, and this war.

While they were pressed against each other, Snape felt a certain swell from her body and looked down at her stomach, raising an eyebrow. She gave him a watery smile and said, "I'm pregnant, Sev."

Lily stepped back, but he still managed to keep hold of one of her hands. She parted her robes with the other, and he could then clearly see her growing belly tightening the T-shirt she wore underneath. He managed to offer her a weak smile. Noticing the pain behind it, Lily moved toward him again.

This time he grasped her tighter, and she could feel his shuddering breaths against her. She turned her face toward his, moved some of his black hair behind his ear, and whispered, "I know it'll be a boy. And..."-her voice broke before she continued-"I promise I'll always protect him from any evil. I-I'll never give up on him. I'm promising you that, Sev."

Lily felt his fingers clasp a bit of her hair and his other hand held her tighter. With a deep intake of breath, he whispered back, "Go, Lily." Her eyes looked into his one last time. The green boring deep into the black.

Tearing herself from his grasp, she walked past him and back toward Diagon Alley. She took one final glance back at him before turning toward the Leaky Cauldron. Severus still looked in the opposite direction, but she noticed him rub his forearm as he had previously done. Only this time, it seemed as if he wished he could rub the Dark Mark completely off.

He spun his head around, and she saw the regret painted not only in his eyes but in every line of his face. Unable to bear anymore, she sped toward her Apparition point, back to Godric's Hollow, back to the life she had chosen.