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Red Rose a r o u n d (the) Briar

Chapter 1

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People wondered what would have happened had it been different.

"Suppose he had given up…?"

"Suppose she hadn't given him the time of day…?"

And for those who knew them best, "Suppose she hadn't entered that compartment?" But speculation was pointless. Because Lily had entered that fateful compartment, James hadn't given up, and she had given him the time of day. It just didn't happen as expected.

……….

Lily pushed her way through the door trying to stop the tears flowing from her eyes. If only she hadn't listened to Severus. Now her sister would never talk to her again. Maybe she could talk to Dumbledore, maybe… She sat down in the corner by the window, barely registering the unruly boys sharing the compartment with her. They were ignoring her, after all, so why did it matter?

She had her head pressed against the cool glass, watching the hills roll by and letting her tears flow when Severus came in. "I don't want to talk to you," she somehow managed to state firmly, despite her sniff.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Tuney h-hates me. Because we saw that letter from Professor Dumbledore." Another sniffle escaped her.

"So what?" It was obvious this wouldn't matter the least to him if he were her.

"So she's my sister!"

"She's only a-" He was going to say 'muggle,' but he didn't think that would bode well. Fortunately for him, Lily was trying to wipe her eyes inconspicuously, and so didn't notice. "But we're going!" he blurted out excitedly. "This is it! We're off to Hogwarts!"

She wiped away the last tear and half smiled in spite of herself.

He brimmed with confidence at seeing her brighten. "You'd better be in Slytherin," he said complacently.

"Slytherin?"

A boy with messy black hair and glasses looked up at Severus in disgust. He looked well-cared-for, wholesome, next to the scrawny form of Lily's friend. Lily didn't realize it was only a matter of time before she felt a completely different sentiment for him then that which was currently beginning to boil within. "Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" James asked, turning back to the boy opposite.

There was no trace of a smile in his blue eyes. "My whole family has been in Slytherin."

"Blimey, Sirius! And I thought you seemed all right!"

A grin distorted Sirius's features. "Maybe I'll break the tradition. Where're you heading, if you've got the choice?"

James cut an invisible sword through the air, swelling with pride. "Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart! Like my dad."

Severus snorted, causing James to whip back around. "Got a problem with that?" he demanded.

"No," Severus sneered. "If you'd rather be brawny than brainy-"

"Where're you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?" Sirius asked politely, and James roared with laughter.

Lily stood up, her fury overflowing. She glowered at the two in deep dislike.

"Come on, Sev, let's find another compartment."

"Oooooooo…" Sirius and James imitated her, the latter trying to trip Severus as he passed. Lily shot another glare his way before slamming the door.

"See ya, Snivellus!" one of them called.

Lily found her and Severus another compartment, nearly empty besides a sandy haired boy slumped in the corner, and sank into her seat with a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of Sirius and James's disturbances…

………

Lily was placed in a different house then Severus, but that didn't keep them apart any more than the expected Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry. Despite all odds, they stuck together.

Third year found them sitting in the library whispering excitedly about the first Hogsmeade weekend over their homework. It would be the Saturday after next and James had already asked Lily fourteen times; she snubbed him each occasion. It was a habit of his to jump out at the most ridiculous occasions and 'pop the question' as Sirius put it.

As the jokesters of the school, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter found it their duty to create as much bedlam as humanly possible. Being wizards, they discovered they could create even more. Not a day went by without a Slytherin being spotted pink or the suits of armor spontaneously sparring in the halls. Once the side effects and idiocy of it all was properly dealt with, credit was due for how advanced the magic was. Nevertheless, the fact remained that life was no more than a game for the four boys. And Lily was no exception.

She had heard him and his friends talk about it boisterously in the halls without care of everyone hearing. Sirius had been walking James through F.L.O.W.E.R. (Fifteenth Lesson on Winning Evan's Regard) while Peter scampered around taking bets. Well, what did he expect when he was that arrogant? Remus alone had frowned on their behavior as he poured his essay. Lily rather liked Remus.

"Lily?" Severus asked, yanking her out of her reprieve.

"Yeah, Sev?" she sketched idly in the margins of her wolfbane essay.

"I was wondering-" he gulped and turned beet red as he leaned forward.

Lily raised an eyebrow, but he shut his mouth and glared at something behind her. She turned, and immediately wished she hadn't.

"Careful, Snivellus, I don't want you getting grease stains on my date for Hogsmeade!" James called, stepping out from the bookshelf he and Sirius we're hiding behind. Severus recoiled, his coloring rapidly changing between magenta and a nasty shade of puce.

"Shove off, Potter!" Lily whispered in deadly tones.

"Come on, Evans, one date wouldn't hurt."

The look she gave him suggested just the opposite. "Just because other girls would be thrilled to go around with a pompous toerag doesn't mean I'd make the same mistake. Come on, Sev." She started toward the doors. When she didn't hear footsteps behind her, she looked around to see Severus pointing his wand at James with hatred etched in eyes.

He opened his mouth to curse him but James was faster, "Impedimenta!"

Severus flew backwards into a shelf and crumpled on the ground, struggling to do so much as move as books toppled onto his head.

"HOW DARE YOU?" Lily yelled, not bothering to keep her voice low anymore. "Undo it!" Her wand was pointed at the spot between James's eyes, and it seemed he would prefer if it was directed at something else.

"Well, he was about to curse me, you see," he ran a hand through his hair, eyeing the wand warily.

Several other students in the library had turned to watch now, and Madame Pince rushed over right on cue. "OUT!" she screeched, not bothering to ask what the devil they were doing; not when her precious books had already been involved.

Lily took her chance to mutter the countercurse for Severus and pull him out into the rush of students in the hallway. He still looked livid. She didn't care. As much as she didn't want to admit it, he had started it. Not that there would have been an incentive if it wasn't for that… "Thick, arrogant, pigheaded…" she found herself muttering under her breath, and the look on Severus's face lightened considerably.

……..

A year later, Lily caught Severus more than once coming out of dark corridors with various shady Slytherins. He never bothered giving an explanation. In fact, had she not known better, Lily would have thought he didn't detect her awareness. It wasn't until one morning during one of his break-time rants that she finally got the chance to ask him about it.

"-and there's something strange about Lupin. Have you-"

She cut him off. "Yeah, I've noticed, Sev. I've also noticed the people you hang around with." Severus perceptibly paled; a feat, as his skin could already be mistaken for parchment. "Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about, I've seen you with Mulciber and Avery. Why, Sev? Everyone knows they're into the dark arts."

Severus wilted under her stare. "It's all just a laugh, really, no big deal…" Students began heading back into the castle, leaving the two of them nearly alone.

"Dark arts are not a laugh. Sometimes I just don't get you, Sev." She leaned back against a pillar, the better to measure his expression. Something was telling her she was losing him, something she didn't want to face.

His eyes rested on anything but her. For a brief instant they fell upon on a curious first year girl who watching them, causing her to squeal and disappear inside with her friends. This was clearly not something he wasn't keen on discussing. But Lily was persistent. "Erm, well-" he spluttered.

Thankfully for him, Professor McGonagall chose that moment to tell off the stragglers, proclaiming loudly they'd all be late for class. Lily rushed on to Herbology, leaving Severus to breathe a silent sigh of relief.

…..

Fifth year wrought more devastating disasters, for which Lily tried to convince herself James and his friends were wholly at fault. But one day, after a certain Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L., the nagging suspicion that had taken up residence in the back of her head was forced out into the open. There wasn't even relief at the realization she had been wrong. She wasn't losing Severus, she had lost him.

Tears streaked down her cheeks as she leaned against the window in the common room, much like she had once on the Hogwarts Express. Only this time, Severus, no, Snape couldn't interrupt. The cool glass was soothing, almost as much the rain beginning to batter against it. She sighed, letting the calm fill her, block unwanted thoughts, reach down to her fingertips, ease the beat of her still racing heart…

"Lily?"

The beating sped up.

She kept her eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to see the face that she knew must be feet away. Her previously relaxed fingers wound their way wound around her wand as a list of possible hexes ran off in her mind. Better that then other thoughts…

James furrowed his eyebrows. Why did she have to turn a wand on him every time he tried to make pleasant conversation? "Lily, I-"

"Save it Potter!" Lions were kittens compared to her snarl.

He gathered the thoughts that had been scattered when she opened her eyes- those beautiful, murderous eyes. His mouth opened, but words never had a chance as a jet of light flashed his way.

Lily didn't stop to admire her handiwork as she ran up to her dormitory, but the uproar that met her pounding ears told her she hadn't missed her target. She tossed herself onto her four-poster bed and blasted the hangings shut, not particularly wanting to talk to anyone. The list went on in her mind, so, afraid of casting a nonverbal spell, she threw her wand aside. It wouldn't do to set the room of fire, even if it would make her own fumes less noticeable.

After of few moments of certain confusion in the common room, Lily heard a pair of feet pad up the stairs. They stopped short of her with a squeak of the floorboards. The feet waited, rested, but definitely didn't hope. Not even feet truly wanted to be by Lily during one of her rages. All was silent until, slowly, they turned, pausing for a few moments before once more navigating the stairs. Lily imagined one of her friends hesitating by the door. It was probably Marlene. A pain clutched Lily as she thought of it; why didn't she ever give people a chance to talk to her? Potter was one thing, but Marlene? A friend? She turned over and let a sigh escape her lips. It was a fool that drove away friends. Silently, she vowed never to be that fool.

Back in the common room, people recognized the feet as belonging to one Marlene McKinnon. They carried her to a small group of girls in the corner, whose looks ranged between grim satisfaction, humor, and resigned disappointment. Alice alone seemed truly concerned for her friend, and the slight shake of Marlene's head could do nothing to curb the feeling. The girls sat in the quiet and listened to the people around them chatter on about Lily's spell work. They didn't even bother discussing it themselves: that sort of thing occurred to often. But Lily didn't usually transfigure her victim into a pincushion.

James, having just been Untrasfigured by his threesome of friends, looked at said friends with a bemused expression.

"Well, Prongs, I think she's finally taken a liking to you," Sirius remarked solemnly.

……..

Lily sat next to her dorm mates on the journey back. They had always been her friends, but, now that Snape had been removed from her hair like the scum he was, she had been spending much more time with them.

"-so then he told me he'd drop by tomorrow. He wants to meet me mum and dad." Marlene, a tall freckled Irish girl, sighed in ecstasy at how perfect her boyfriend, Gideon Prewitt, was. He was a year ahead of the rest of them, and Marlene had already been commenting on how unsatisfactory it would be to spend seventh year without him.

Lily tried to pay attention as the conversation turned to plans for summer holiday. It was difficult, being that she couldn't add much. Surely all she'd have to tell next year were tales of just how much Petunia had begun to hate her. Summer had never looked so unappealing. And so when a prefect came to tell them they had nearly arrived, she changed out of her robes grudgingly.

Once the train lurched to a stop, Lily grabbed her trunk and made her way down the passage behind her four dorm mates. Marlene lead the way, followed by Dorcas, who was searching for her Ravenclaw friend Emmeline Vance, then Elizabeth, and finally Alice Prewitt, who had stayed behind to give Lily a cheery smile. A great well of comfort previously unnoticed swelled up inside Lily at the sight of that smile. Maybe- just maybe…

On the platform everyone exchanged quick hugs, last minute belongings, and promises to write. Through the black haze Lily spotted her mom and dad, standing out of their element amid a sea of swirling cloaks. Petunia was absent as always. "Mum! Dad!" she cried happily, perhaps with just a twinge of regret, as she ran over to them. None of them mentioned Petunia as they shared a quick recap on the year's most prominent events. All had been well at home, but it was going to be better now that Lily's empty space would be filled, and both her parents glowed with pride as she explained how well she thought she had done on her O.W.L.s. (Lily would laugh at this later when her parents would ask just what Ordinary Wizarding levels were).

They chatted lightly as they headed over to the barrier. It was still some distance away when the smoke cleared to reveal two figures deep in discussion. Or rather, one. The other was staring forlornly at Lily, his messy black hair falling into his eyes. When he noticed her gaze, he promptly turned and walked out into the muggle world, leaving a bewildered Sirius in his wake. When he saw Lily, his mouth formed a perfect 'O' before he too took off through the barrier. By that time the threesome were halfway there, two quite unhindered by the odd behavior. Lily, however, had paused momentarily to stare at the space James and Sirius had disapeared. They were the farthest things she had from friends, and yet she couldn't deny the slight pang of guilt that left a lump in her throat. She had finally got what she wanted; James leaving her alone. Why did it upset her?

And so the summer of fifth year passed, and the students of Gryffindor Tower rushed straight through sixth year, until seventh year finally caught up with them.

There. The first chapter of my first fanfiction. I hope you liked it! Review!

Just a warning; I haven't really planned this out and there's a dozen other stories tumbling around in my mind, so it may take a while for me to update. But more is coming- I promise!

Disclaimer: It's all JKR's. I'm just filling in a gap.