A/N: Betaed by who_la_hoop on Livejournal.

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Eyes Are Blind

But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

Lily stole a look at Severus as he wrote his exam. She found the tiny, scratching movements of his hand strangely fascinating. He paused, stroking his thin forefinger up and down and around the quill shaft as he had a habit of doing. When he bent slightly forward to continue, a lock of hair fell forward across his cheek, its luster dull and oily in the grey light filtering into the room from the cloudy sky tucked it behind his ear with a quick, irritated motion of his quill hand, almost striping ink across his face in the process. Lily had a sudden silly image of him painted up for battle like some wild Pict, and just barely turned her laughter into a brief snort, which she quickly hid behind her hand.

Several of the other students looked up at her, including Severus. She felt her cheeks grow warm as their eyes met and a frown creased his brow. Lily tried to turn her eyes back to her desk with casual slowness, but she couldn't make them move. A flicker of anger twitched his lips as he turned back to his own exam parchment. Heart racing, Lily ducked her head and let her hair fall to curtain her face as his hair so often did around his.

She stared at the answer she had been writing, trying to pick up the thread of her thoughts, but all she could think of was the annoyed and – disappointed? – look in his eyes. Did Severus think she had been trying to copy from him? Lily frowned in turn at that thought. That was a strange conclusion for him to run to. They might not be best friends anymore, but after six years he should know she wouldn't do that even if she did need answers.

And she wouldn't – why would she? Lily knew Runes at least as well as Severus did. Better, possibly. What about that day they were doing timed translations, and in his scribbling haste he'd forgotten that final cebrin should be written as corbre, and neglected the proper use of the tirat ligature? Oh, the words were still readable but, as Professor Broxbourne had said, "Details like that definitely affect the flow of power through a mystical inscription, and you would do well to remember you are not merely writing in a child's imaginary secret code, Mr. Snape."

Now that Lily thought back to it, though, she remembered feeling annoyed on his behalf. Yes, he had made an error, but not one of behaviour. Surely it wasn't appropriate to scold him for it like a naughty young boy who had been fooling about in class?Lily had to suppress another giggle at the idea of Severus fooling about at anythingand, shaking her head, forced herself to focus on the task before her.

Fifteen minutes later, Professor Broxbourne cleared her throat and clapped her hands quietly. Everyone put down their quills and she collected the parchments with a silent wave of her wand. As they floated to land on her desk, the students packed away quills and ink. Lily's thoughts were becoming desperate; she had only a few more moments to think of something to say to Severus. Or should she say anything at all? Her stomach clenched, but she gathered her courage and quickly followed him into the hallway.

"Hey, wait! Severus, wait!" Lily called, hoping her voice didn't sound too loud. She couldn't bring herself to call him "Sev" as she so often used to; it seemed too familiar. If Severus had heard her, he made no indication of that fact, and just kept walking.

Lily quickened her pace a little and reached out to touch him on the elbow. He stopped dead and whirled to face her, causing a moment's scuffle as a few other people barely dodged them. Confusion and indignation warred on his face. Lily hastily removed her hand from his arm and swallowed, meeting his eyes as steadily as she could. "I wasn't looking—"

"Oh, certainly not," he said, cutting her off with a sneer. "My sincerest apologies, then, as I must have misunderstood the concept when I learnt that 'looking' had something to do with the direction in which one's eyes are pointed."

Lily narrowed her eyes slightly as he said this and barreled right over his last few words. "—Wasn't looking at your parchment, Severus."

The widening of his eyes was almost imperceptible, but Lily was familiar enough with his subtle expressions to notice it. Clearly, she had surprised him. She didn't hang about to find out whether it was a pleasant kind of surprise, or whether the only reason she hadn't been hexed out of sheer how-dare-she was that he hardly knew where to start. Instead, Lily beat a hasty retreat in the other direction, seeking either a secluded corner of the library where she could berate herself in peace, or perhaps a convenient passing gallows.

Her thoughts were wild as she fled down the hallway. Did she dare hope that that look of surprise had been accompanied by oddly pleasant flutter like the one she had felt, as she so often did when she looked at him? She had felt funny enough about those when they were fourteen, but they felt even stranger now, after – after everything. Lily kept telling herself she wasn't supposed to let that happen anymore, that he wasn't allowed to steal half her breath every time he got within ten feet of her, but some part of her just didn't want to stop.

She often thought about what life would be like if he had never said that terrible word to her, but really, it wasn't even that. Gryffindors had a certain grasp of the fine art of making foolish decisions in the heat of the moment, after all. He was humiliated, he was furious, and he had said the worst thing that came to mind. Lily thought she could have forgiven him that. When it came down to it, the pain of losing Severus was worse than the pain of being called a foul name one time.

But that was just the point, wasn't it? She had been losing him, and the fact that he of all people would ever call her Mudblood only went to prove how he was on a knife's edge. And Severus wouldn't listen, he wouldn't try to pull himself out of that trap she could see him falling into with those despicable "friends" of his.

Then again, what had she expected him to do, really? It wasn't Lily that had to live with people like Mulciber day in and day out. But Severus had refused to acknowledge the trap was there in the first place. He wouldn't even say that if there were a trap, that he would want to avoid it! He had merely closed his mouth as if the matter itself were similarly closed. Why on Earth could he possibly want—what use did he think there was—

Lily sighed and blinked tears from her eyes to stop them from falling. She had been down this path of thought many times since last June and she knew from experience that it only went round and round in ever more frustrating curves, a hedge-labyrinth spiraling inevitably towards a cold and lonely stone bench at its center:

She missed him.

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The following Tuesday, as Lily entered the classroom, she took care to carefully study the chalkboard, the windows, the bookcases along one wall – anything to avoid even looking to see if Severus was sitting there. As she slid into her seat, Lily felt something slip under her fingers on the desk, and heard a soft rustle from the motion. Puzzled, Lily felt around the surface. There seemed to be a piece of parchment about eight inches square, but invisible. Lily looked around at her neighbours, but none of them showed any suspicious interest as they settled into their own seats. She slipped the sheet into her school bag as Professor Broxbourne began to describe the day's lesson.

As the class set to reading about the effects of naturally grown versus Transfigured woods on various inscriptions, Lily's skin prickled like she was being watched. Each time she glanced around, however, all she saw was bowed heads, turning pages, and the occasional movement of a quill taking notes or drawing a diagram. She must have been fidgeting quite a bit, because finally the professor herself fixed Lily with a quelling look.

She told herself to relax and hold still, but at last gave in to her curiosity and chanced a peek at Severus. Was she imagining things, or was his hair swinging slightly as though he had just moved his head? Not that it would mean anything either way; he was a warm, living, breathing boy, not a statue. Living people did tend to move now and again.

Lily attended as well as she could to the text and the following practice with slips of birch and elder, but couldn't shake the near-constant feeling someone was looking at her. Why was she was so fixed on the idea that it was Severus? There was no evidence at all. Every time she tried to catch him at it, he happened to be just looking away, but neither his pace nor his posture betrayed anything but coincidence. She even tried staring directly at several people, willing them to look at her and give the game away, but all the ones that did only gave her confused looks, and half of them didn't look up or turn around at all.

Was she going crazy? She was certainly being paranoid, Lily told herself, taking a few deep breaths. Perhaps she should just ask Severus what, if anything, was going on. What was the worst he could say? "What on Earth are you talking about, you daft Mudblood?" Lily smiled ruefully. It was foolish, surely, to hope that word would never pass his lips again, but she didn't think it at all likely Severus would say it directly to her a second time.

When everyone began to file out at the end of class, Lily looked around for Severus, but was surprised to find him already gone. It was like he had Disapparated, although she knew that wasn't possible. Where could he possibly have had to go so quickly? It was lunch after this, not another class, and she'd never known him to be particularly eager about food. He was Severus, after all, not James bloody Potter who ate like a horse and pranced around twice as much.

Thwarted in her chosen plan, Lily hung back and withdrew the parchment from her bag, allowing the rest of the class to pass her up as well. She left the room last of all, leaned against the wall by a suit of armor, and passed her wand over the invisible sheet, whispering "Finite Incantatem." It shimmered gently as the Disillusionment Charm was dispelled, revealing two sentences followed by one initial, all written in a cramped and spidery hand:

You will no doubt have noticed that this parchment was not visible.

It therefore seems unlikely I was gazing at it, does it not?

-S.