You took my heart and you held it in your mouth
And with a word all my love came rushing out
And every whisper, it's the worst,
Emptied out by a single word
There is a hollow in me now

So I put my faith in something unknown
I'm living on such sweet nothing
But I'm tired of hope with nothing to hold
I'm living on such sweet nothing

And it's hard to learn
And it's hard to love
When you're giving me such sweet nothing
Sweet nothing, sweet nothing
You're giving me such sweet nothing

~ "Sweet Nothing," Florence Welch

Severus felt the icy dead grass cut into his cheek as his face was shoved into it, rubbed roughly into the dirt until he felt the hot wetness of blood. A heavily-booted foot slammed into his side and he doubled over like an accordion, making a pathetic wheezing sound as all the air shot from his lungs and his ribs crackled. He clutched his side until his knuckles turned white and he locked his eyes shut. If he played dead, they'd go away. He'd just have to die for a minute, that's all.

Grinning with a smile as sour as curdled milk, Boulder, the neighborhood bully stood over Sev, rubbing his gloved hands together. The villain's wiry toady, Willy, stood behind Boulder, his cap snug over his pointy ears. Merlin, Sev hated those two, always coming around to make him all black and blue.

"That's what ye get, freak!" Boulder growled, kicking Sev in his slight side again – Sev's dark eyes bulged in his sockets, and he coughed violently into the dirt, mixing red with the earth-brown. "No wonder ye like snakes s'much…you're so pale, ye probably live under rocks like 'em!"

"Yeah, Big-Nose!" Willy chortled. "Such an idiot – doesn't even know how to put the right clothes on!" Their laughter rose like thick smoke through the air, an awful cloud no one could see in the smoggy grey skies but Sev. Sev rolled on his other side and breathed as best he could.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" he whispered. Shocked silence followed his question – the two boys had never heard Severus Snape utter a word before. He'd just always been silently abused by them.

"What did ye say?" Boulder barked. Boulder's shiny black boot gleamed in front of Sev's face, but he didn't care.

"I said to bug off, Leopold," Boulder's real name made Sev beam inside. But not for too long.

Grasping Sev's jaw and forcing his face up, Boulder gestured for Willy to come closer. "Hit 'im, Will," he ordered. "I'll hold 'im for you. Tha's it, let 'im have it!"

Punches flew at Sev's face, precise and painful, cathing his cheekbone and his left eye. Soon Boulder took over with fists big as hams, and each blow felt like Sev was being slammed with a brick wall continuously. Boulder finally drew his hand back and gave the greatest punch Sev had ever admired from that familiar position; all he could see for a straight thirty seconds was whiteness, followed by the gradual return of color. Agony throbbed in the center of his face, and he felt the burning liquid mess of his cracked nose left. Now Sev, well-practiced, lolled his head back and made himself look defeated. Soon enough, Boulder dropped him, giving his scrawny knees one more kick for good measure.

"Pussy," the bully called back as he walked off. "Maybe your mum can clean ye up, eh?" Despite the stab of shame Sev felt, he did not react to Boulder's comment about his poor mother. No matter why, arguing with the bully was an immensely bad idea. Sev just laid there, watching them walk away behind the curtain of his greasy black hair, panting shallowly, rage curdling in his stomach. Bullies like these had been tormenting him since he was little because he was a good target – lanky frame, uncomely features, very pale skin, poor status, mismatched clothes, and non-existent friend count. Severus did not like to make friends much in the human world, for he had several animal companions, and that's all he needed.

Sev dragged himself upright, pulled his too-small coat tighter around his skeletal frame, took a deep breath, and started trudging to his terraced home, ignoring the pain in his ribs and broken nose and the freezing cold that clamped around him. He tried to get his mind off the discomfort by counting all the cracks in the sidewalk and dreaming of a nice warm house to come home to, one with heating and welcome arms and piping-hot apple cider and creamy fudge waiting for him by the fireplace.

As he limped up the steps to his home, he knew this could never be – His father would be home much later, full of alcohol and anger, and all Mum could do was stand there and take his yelling while Sev watched from the corner. Severus hated it there at his house on Spinner's End, but he surely could never go anywhere else. He knew, with several reinforcements of this from his violent father, that a boy like himself never went places.

Sometimes, Sev thought, I'd like to have a long silver sword, like the knights in fairytales. Then maybe none of these bullies would ever want to fight me.

Sev rang the doorbell and stood there, clutching his bruised ribs, waiting to enter into Hell again.

Lily Evans sat on the swing set seat, rocking her scrawny, stockinged legs back and forth and watching the clouds scud along above, colored a comforting grey, like the shade of soft fleece blankets. A breeze wrapped itself around her wrist loosely, but then released its grasp, a silk ribbon of air. She watched the wind drift to the corner of the playground where something moved beneath a bush. To her surprise, it was a sparrow that had fallen from a tree. Lily stood from the swing set, the rusty squeak of hinges groaning as she did. This little green-eyed Evans girl was from a stoic, serious family of wealth, but she held her unique personality like a precious gem inside of her, a jewel as vibrant and fiery as her copper-colored hair. Standing at 4'3 with long red hair, emerald eyes, a skinny, knobbly-kneed form, a noble air, and a slender, heart-shaped face, Lily was a fire-cracker, who, though spare of form and with kind features, had a mind sharp as a tack and a wild, open heart. When she was littler, not too long ago, a boy at school had called her friend a nasty name, and the next day the bully was found flat against the schoolyard ground, the little Evans girl straddling him while her fists played a beat on the bully's face.

Lily was most unlike her elder sister, Petunia, who played alone on the metal slide across the way. Tuney, with her blonde hair and horsey teeth, was a good person at heart, even if she was always jealous of Lily, how pretty she grew to be, how smart she was. Tuney scowled at Lily now. "Don't look at me like that, Lil," she griped. "If you want to play, come with me on the slide. Lil – what are you doing?"

"Nothing. Just play on your own, Tuney, it's ok."

"But Lily!"

"Hush, Tuney, or when we get home, I'll tell Mum you ate all her sweets," Lily retorted; she smiled to herself once she saw the frightened reaction on her sister's face. "Good, I knew it was the sweets that would scare you."

Head bent, Lily ignored her pouting sibling and wandered over to the bush, bending over. Feebly flapping its good wing against the ground, a tiny brown sparrow tried to fly away but couldn't – fresh feline wounds and bites had warped its left wing, as if a bramble bush had grabbed the wing and wrung it about. Sinking to a kneel, Lily got her stockinged knees all covered in dirt, but she didn't care. Instead, she scooped the bird up in the cup of her hands and cradled it close, letting its warm blood seep onto her hands. Small breaths hiccupped from the creature, and as Lily was intent on watching the bird, Petunia had come up behind her.

"Lil!" the older sister gasped. "Is that a bird? Put it down this moment! You haven't even gotten your shots!"

"Hush up, Tuney…I think….I think he's dying." A black mask of feather surrounded the sparrow's eyes, suggesting it was a male.

"All the more reason to put him down! He's probably crawling with parasites!" Gripping her dress with whitened knuckles, Petunia squirmed. "That's so disgusting, Lil."

Irritated, Lily held the sparrow closer and whirled around to face Petunia. "If you were sick and on your death bed, Tuney, I'd come see you, even if you were covered with diseases. It's what friends do for the people they care about. It is an awful thing to die alone, I imagine, so I'll be good to everyone I see so it doesn't happen to them. Then I pray it won't happen to me either. Now hush. Please."

Petunia huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, but her quirky sister was too absorbed in the sparrow to care. She traced the bloody mess of the wing. Perhaps, Lily thought, if she could wish hard enough, with all of her heart, this little beastie would not die. Closing her eyes, Lily took a deep breath, and wished with every fiber of her being.

Underneath her fingers, Lily suddenly felt a strange movement. Still wishing, she opened her green eyes and saw the broken muscle mending and interweaving again. Veins reconnected, and the blood stopped spurting out. Delicate bird bones aligned themselves properly. Finally, fresh goose-pimpled skin spread out like water, and new brown feathers sprouted out of the new flesh. The sparrow, with this newly healed wing, stood up and perched on Lily's index finger lightly, cocking its tiny head and giving a curious chirp. Its mirthful beady eyes thanked her.

Petunia took in a great amount of breath, but Lily turned before she could scream.

"Tuney, don't you dare tell Mum!" Lily squealed. A cold sweat already beaded on her smooth forehead. "If you do I'll…I'll put you in the ground! I can heal a wing, I'm sure I can dig a hole or something." Lily meant it to be funny, but when she said it, she even scared herself.

Petunia narrowed her light blue eyes like chips of ice at her sister and pursed her thin lips in a most unsettling way, trembling like a leaf. Then, out of her mouth slipped one word in the most bitter tone imaginable:

"Freak."

Crouching, paralyzed, Lily watched Petunia storm off, all sixty, skinny pounds of her, and she felt something in her stomach drop like a stone. Iciness bit at her bones, some strange feeling of power and weakness all at once. A foreign energy lurked in her blood, separating her from Petunia and all the others. Lily began to feel the rift between freaks and people who called others that.

"You're different."

Surprised at the sound of a boy's voice, Lily spun around, and the sparrow flew off her hand into the sky. There stood a lanky boy of about her age with a thin face, a hooked and crooked nose, a mop of greasy black hair, and all mismatched clothes covered with a threadbare light-brown coat. Lily thought the angles and outlines of the bones underneath his clothes were intriguing, as if he were a living skeleton, but what she liked most were his eyes. The boy's eyes were so swarthy that she would like to enter them, which she imagined would be like going into a dark cave, cold and strange, but secure. Stable. Always there. Always.

Lily sputtered out, "What was that?"

"You're different than all the other girls and boys," the boy replied, looking down – The shadow of a smile crossed over his mouth without him actually smiling, but Lily assumed the boy didn't smile much anyways. "I – I mean you're different…in a good way. You're unique. The way you healed that bird, I mean."

Lily paled. "You saw it too?"

"Yes. I like to hang around here, and…you seem to come here a lot. But don't worry about the sparrow – I know what it's like to feel outcast just because you're a bit odd."

Such words shouldn't come from such a small boy's mouth, Lily thought. "What's your name?"

"Severus. Severus Snape. But I like to be called Sev."

She stood before Sev, three inches taller, and extended a proud hand, excited to meet a new friend. "I'm Lily Evans. I liked to be called Lily." She laughed at this and saw Sev's lips slide up, giving a little chuckle.

"Well, Lily," Sev said. "I hope we will always be best friends."

For years, Sev and Lily met every day afterschool on the playground to explore, to play and talk. They found company in each other, and they would practice their abilities together, using a twig as a wand, they stunned bugs, levitated leaves, and burst open rocks. It was wonderful, and they spent these days in a childhood haze with each other, dreamy and comforted. Lily found a companion for her adventures and obstacles, and Sev found in Lily someone who would listen to him when he had problems at home. She was a light for him, a beacon, pulling him to shore out of his black loneliness.

School days passed by without a second glance back at them. The school days were dull. They were sorted through with sighs and doodles in margins, holding of breath and taking punches. Afternoons were when they could escape from dull reality together, diving into a youthful bliss of wonder and connection. On one memorable occasion, Lily cried to Sev when she didn't get one single card on Valentine's Day, so the boy brought his mother's old copy of Tales of Beetle the Bard and read it to Lily, refraining from telling his sob story that he had never ever gotten a card on Valentine's himself, instead telling her how she and he were special like all the witches and wizards in the book. Sev told her all he knew about the wizarding world he heard about from his mother. And Lily listened to him and dried her tears, so he was happy.

Days, months, years passed. Lily grew, and so did Sev. But when Lily and Sev turned eleven, they both got the letters that they had longed and waited for all their lives, letters that would change everything forever.