Just a short little story I came up with one night while listening to some music. I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: You don't really believe that I own the characters, do you?

You sold your smile

Lily sat alone at her desk in a corner of the transfiguration classroom. Professor McGonagall was telling the sixth years how to partially transfigure humans but Lily was only listening half heartedly, taking notes automatically, her mind elsewhere.

She had seen Severus in the corridor before class. For once, he wasn't surrounded by his new friends but walking alone to his next class. She knew that he had seen her by the way his frown had deepened a bit more. He hadn't looked at her and she had looked away as well, noticing the dark shadows under his eyes and the lines already gathering on his forehead.

Her mind drifted away, back many years. She had desperately tried not to think about him all summer and had almost suceeded. But now, having been back at Hogwarts for almost half a year, just seeing him walking down the corridor all alone pushed away all that self-control and memories of the happy times they spent together came to the surface.

She remembered his face slowly breaking into a smile, the beautiful smile of those who smile too little, when she first told him he was the best friend she had ever had, that day in the park back home, under the beech trees in late spring when he had shyly handed her a greying handkerchief after she had started crying while telling him how Petunia had teased her.

The way he smiled at her to encourage her and tell her that everything would be fine before they broke into a run and broke through the wall leading to platform 9 ¾ for the first time. How his eyes went wide as well when they were suddenly in the middle of the bustle next to the Hogwarts Express and how he had grinned at her happily.

Then there was the day when they had secretly crept a few meters into the Forbidden Forest in third year, daring each other to go just a little further until suddenly a twig had snapped a bit deeper in the forest and they had both started running at the same moment. When they had almost reached the edge of the forest, Lily had slipped on the moist leaves and snapped her ancle. Severus had rushed back and helped her hobble to the hospital wing and stayed by her side for the rest of the afternoon and when the worst pain had subsided, they had laughed about their silliness until their sides ached (much to the dismay of Madam Pomfrey, who worried about the other students staying there waking up).

Lily smiled softly at these childhood memories, at times when everything had seemed simple, even if it hadn't been, not even back then.

And then there had been that one afternoon, in the last days of their summer holiday before their fifth year, when they had been laughing and sitting close together once again and Severus had suddenly fallen quiet and serious.

„Lily…"

„What is it, Sev?" she asked, also almost whispering.

But after looking at her in the most peculiar way, he shook his head and turned his face away.

„It's nothing, nothing at all."

And although she had carefully asked what was on his mind, if something was wrong, he had denied that anything was the matter and left soon after that.

Now, after that day last year that Lily stubbornly refused to think about in hopes that she would finally forget it, she only saw him in the corridors and some classes, usually surrounded by his new friends. More often than not, they were quietly discussing things in a secretive way, sometimes glancing up and sneering at passing people. She saw them on the grounds, cracking nasty jokes about muggle-borns and she knew they hexed them unpleasantly as well, though she had never caught them in the act. And for all of the times she saw Severus with them, she never saw a sincere smile on his face anymore. There was no longer that happy look on his face that she had seen there so many times over the years, regardless to the fact that his life had always been dark in so many ways. Nowadays, everything about Severus seemed dark, sad, close to despair.

And though Lily, for a few moments that she was honest to herself, wished she could make him smile like that again, she knew that he had sold his smile all on his own.

Already sitting at the table in the potions room, Severus glanced up as Lily entered the room. In the moment before he rapidly averted his gaze back to the table in front of him, he saw how Lily looked at him. Today, there wasn't the usual coldness in her eyes that she had shown ever since that fateful afternoon he would always remember. Her eyes were back to the Lily he used to know, the Lily that was compasionate, who didn't hide her feelings behind layers of cold indifference; only that she wasn't smiling, she was looking at him the saddest she ever had.

Keeping his outer composure, Severus took out the ingredients Slughorn had written out on the blackboard and began preparing the potion they were learning that day. Inside, all the emotions he had been pushing aside came boiling up stronger than before.

How could he have let her down like this, betraying their friendship? How could he have caused her all this pain? When she had always been so wonderful to him, been his only friend when he so desperately needed one.

The memory of the first time he had spoken to her flashed through his mind; the cheerful little girl he had been watching for weeks becoming serious and defensive as he tried to explain that she was a witch. Although all the hopes he had placed on this meeting had been destroyed, she had approached him a few weeks later and asked him nervously whether that what he had said was true, if she really was a witch. Amazed by his luck, he had told her about the wizard world, about wands and spells and cauldrons. Even more astonishing was the fact that within a few more weeks, they had become great friends and that she hadn't left him when she found out what his home was like.

Lily had held to him ever since, trying to protect him from the taunts that he had to suffer at school. As embarrassed as he had been by this, he was still grateful, at least at first. As they got older and he realised more and more what his feelings toward her really meant, the less he wanted her to see this weakness, becoming more and more distant after these episodes.

He listened to her advice to find friends in Slytherin, although he felt the only friend, the only person he would ever truly need was Lily. He did find friends and with time, they accepted him and he was glad in a way. They included him and as their jokes and hexes got rougher, he went along, contributing to their tricks and unpleasantness towards muggle-borns, mud-bloods.

He hardly realised how he was slowly slipping away from Lily, spending less time with her in the library, no longer sitting with her in potions. He only realised just how distant they had become when it was too late, when he had uttered that word.

And now, when he passed her in the corridors, he looked away before she noticed he was there, before she could see him staring. He didn't want to see the hatred, the disappointment in her eyes again.

Adding the last ingredient to his potion, he stirred it clockwise twice and counter-clockwise once. Severus then bottled some of the potion and, after packing his things, took his potion to Slughorn's desk, seeing a familiar shock of red hair leaving the classroom as he walked to the front of the room.

As he set his potion on the desk, Severus thought back to the look he had seen in Lily's eyes at the beginning of the lesson. With a jolt, he realised that there had been no more disappointment or hatred in her eyes, no disgust. She had only looked sad, so endlessly sad.

And in a fraction of a second, Severus realised that maybe not everything was lost, that maybe he might still have a last chance to make things right, a chance to find his smile again.

"LILY!!" He shouted, running out of the classroom as fast as he could.

He didn't care that he sounded like a wounded animal, didn't care who could hear him, if only she could forgive him.

But the corridor was deserted. Severus sank down against the wall, knowing it was too late, knowing he had only imagined having one last chance. He hid his face in his hands, his voice only a whisper.

"Lily… Lily…"

That evening Lily was sitting in the common room, trying to distract herself by doing homework, regardless of the fact that it was Friday. Her mind pondering might-have-beens, not taking in anything going on in the room or understanding anything on the page of the charms book before her.

She was slightly startled to see James standing over her, grinning.

"So what are you up to, Evans? Doing homework on a Friday evening? Why don't you go out with me instead?"

To Lily's own surprise, she burst out in tears and ran out of the common room, leaving a startled James behind.

Several minutes later, she was huddled in the corner of the library where she and Severus had spent so many hours when she heard the door to the library opening softly. She didn't look up until she heard somebody sit down next to her and a soft voice asking: "Lily? Are you alright?"

And before she knew it, she was sobbing on the shoulder of Remus, who didn't ask any more questions but just held her and tried reassuring her. Finally, Lily looked up at Remus with puffy eyes.

"I think I gave James quite the shock, didn't I?"

Remus chuckled softly. "I think you did but the fact that he made his Lily burst into tears might help deflating his ego."

They sat there just a bit longer for Lily to regain her composure before they made their way back to the common room, Lily's feeling of loss made just a bit more bearable by having acquired a new friend.

Severus was sitting in his own common room staring into the flames in the fireplace when Mulciber approached him.

"Snape, I have news from the Dark Lord," Mulciber said in a quiet but excited voice. "We are to meet one of his Death Eaters in the Forbidden Forest in half an hour and the Death Eater will take us to Him to receive our Dark Marks."

Severus slowly turned his head away from the fireplace and nodded.

"I'm coming. I'll just get my winter clothes."

A few minutes later, Severus was entering the Forbidden Forest, already chilled by the February wind as snow crunched softly beneath his feet. He thought of the sunny afternoon when Lily and he had walked beneath the same trees, an afternoon that now seemed a lifetime ago.

The last thought that crossed Severus' mind before he carefully pushed all thoughts away was that he had betrayed Lily, betrayed the only person that had ever mattered to him and there was no way to ever find her forgiveness.

Severus curtly greeted the waiting Death Eater and they apparated to their destination, where Severus bowed deeply.

"My Lord."

AN: As you can probaly guess, I don't mind getting reviews. Quite the contrary, actually...