A/N: Technically a prequel to "Butterfly Wings" and "For the Price of a Soul", but can mostly be read as a stand alone.

Gunpowder …

The potion Severus provided the death squad enacting this particular plan didn't actually have any gunpowder in it, but the general idea was the same.

He didn't like making this potion.

No, that wasn't entirely true. He liked making it. He liked proving his brewing skill by successfully making a potion that was more prone to explosions than a horny erumpent and had claimed the lives of far more experienced potioneers than him.

What he didn't like was being the one that brewed a potion that was used in an attempt to blow up the Ministry of Magic. Not because he liked the Ministry or anything like that—he was perfectly content to see it get blown up—but he had very little expectation that this plan would succeed. The whole thing was inspired by a failed plot as it was.

"We're wizards," Grettle Green had said when Severus pointed this out. "We won't fail like those filthy Muggles."

Severus decided not to bother pointing out that the other side were wizards, too.

Voldemort, displaying more knowledge about Muggle history than Severus would have expected, had noted, "There are no traitors in my ranks, Severus. We will not be betrayed in our plots."

Severus had murmured an agreement, politely not mentioning the traitor Voldemort had discovered passing information to the Ministry just a few months ago. He shuddered just to remember what had been done to Joseph Hayworth.

There was a lot more killing in the Death Eaters than Severus had expected when he first joined. He wasn't one of those fools that went in thinking that 're-establishing pureblood authority' and 'stamping out the Mudblood stain' involved politics and protests; he was fully aware that sometimes they had to cut people down if they wanted things to change, but he'd thought it would only be the people who deserved it. Instead it felt like they were just killing anyone the Dark Lord didn't like, which seemed to range from truly filthy Muggles to people who looked at him funny.

Not that Severus had ever joined for the rhetoric. Yes, he thought it was better that wizards and Muggles didn't mix—he couldn't remember a time his parents' marriage had ever been happy—and he understood where the purebloods were coming from when they said Muggleborns didn't understand their culture, but if that had been all that Voldemort offered then Severus wouldn't have bothered to join.

No, he was in it for the power. His whole life he'd been picked on and beaten down—bullied in primary school for being the poor kid with ill fitting clothes, verbally abused by an alcoholic father who envied and fear his magical wife and son, tormented at Hogwarts by those four pieces of walking shit—so when Voldemort came along offering a place where Severus wouldn't be everyone's Bludger, where he could put his skills in brewing and dark magic to use and they'd be appreciated… how could he possibly turn that down?

Of course, it wasn't all it had looked to be. He still had to prove himself to a few people who thought they could get away with cursing the young half-blood fresh in the ranks, and there was no denying that all the Death Eaters were at the mercy of Voldemort's temper. Severus hadn't been subject to the Dark Lord's displeasure yet, but it'd been close a couple of times when he wasn't sure he could create the potions Voldemort wanted. Close enough to make his heart pound and goosebumps break out on his flesh.

Then there was the risk of prison, a fate almost worse than death. Severus wasn't part of the death squads, the ones that went out to torture and kill people, but he still risked prison every time he went to buy illegal ingredients or brewed forbidden potions. On this day, he felt especially concerned because if any one of the death squad got captured and squealed, he faced a severe prison sentence for being the one who brewed the potions.

There were plenty of reasons to think the plan might fail, besides taking inspiration from failed Muggle plots. The entire Ministry was underground, so the death squad couldn't just pile the potions beneath it and blow it sky high. A few were burrowing through the earth to place the potions in strategic external locations, to blow holes and weaken the walls where the earth itself would then cause the most damage, but many of the Death Eaters were infiltrating the Ministry to cause as much inside damage as possible. Personally Severus thought it was a plan doomed to failure, but Voldemort had agreed to it, though he wasn't sending any of his top lieutenants out.

Potions given out and instructions repeated, Severus was free to leave the house where pre-mission planning occurred. He didn't care to stick around and hear the results; it would be in the morning paper and if there was anything urgent then his mark would burn to call him back in. He'd been up since the early hours of the morning and he just wanted to go home and get some rest.

… Treason …

Cokeworth was damp when Severus appeared with a faint pop on the dirt path running through the smattering of trees that the locals rather generously called the woods. He scowled as the drizzly rain tickled his face, and pulled up the hood of his cloak, glowering out from underneath it. The woods ran along one side of the local playing field, a field currently ablaze with a bonfire at the centre, crowded with half the town, and sporting temporary food and drink stands. Despite the plans he'd been involved in all day, he somehow forgot that the Muggles of Cokeworth would be filling the field behind his house with fire and noise to celebrate Guy Fawkes' night.

He briefly debated going around the field to get home, but dismissed the idea almost immediately. It would mean walking three times further; cutting across the field would take him straight to the back of his house—the other side backed onto his street, nothing more than a low brick wall and a narrow path between it and his back garden. He was hungry, too, and he had a few quid in his pocket. He could stop by one of the stands and get a burger instead of worrying about making something when he got in.

His robes got a few side-long looks as he stalked across the field, but no one said anything about them. The older people probably thought it was some new fashion statement, those his own age most likely recognised him as 'the weird Snape kid who always dressed oddly', and the younger kids didn't have the nerve to say anything after taking one look at his expression.

The food stands were limited to burgers and hot dogs; he bought one of the former, added a generous amount of ketchup, and hesitated a moment before electing to get a beer from the makeshift bar as well. He preferred spirits when it came to his alcohol, but apparently The Boar, the pub who had the honour this year of providing alcohol, had only bothered to lug out the beer and cider barrels and a case of wine.

"Alright there, Severus?" the man behind the bar greeted when Severus came up. "Been a long time. How you doing?"

"Fine," Severus replied tersely. Herbert Smith, affectionately called Herby by most everyone, had been an old friend of his father's.

"Glad to hear it," Herby said after a brief pause, when it became clear Severus intended to offer nothing else. "What can I get you?"

"Half a pint."

"Of…?"

"Anything."

He wished he'd been more specific when Herby picked up a plastic cup and filled it with Stella, the same brand Tobias used to drink, but he said nothing just handed over his payment and took the cup before Herby could try making more small talk with him. He'd done a good job over the past year of passing into obscurity. He'd never made any friends in town—except her—so once his father moved away after Severus put his mother in Roundleaf Residential Facility, Severus had no reason at all to interact with anyone.

He ate as he walked, finishing the burger by the time he reached the edge of the field alongside Spinner's End, avoiding the groups of talking adults and darting around children running about with sparklers. He had planned to go straight inside when he reached home, but the drizzle had stopped and the first of the fireworks whistled into the sky and exploded in a burst of silver and green, and instead he found himself sitting on the wall and tilting his head up to watch.

The fireworks were no match for any magical brand, but they were pretty enough. Guy Fawkes' night was the one holiday Severus actually liked as a child; it was a holiday that required no money so he could enjoy the bonfire and fireworks like every other kid in the neighbourhood. His father usually went to the pub with his mates, but Severus and Eileen would watch the fireworks together and later, in the privacy of their garden, Eileen would cast a spell that made her wand act like a sparkler and let Severus wave it around drawing shapes in the air.

This was the first time he'd seen the celebrations since starting at Hogwarts; wizards didn't celebrate the day and last year he'd been too busy with work. The Death Eater business didn't pay, so he'd got a job making potions for the Knockturn Alley apothecary. It paid enough for him to get by on and provided a sizeable discount on ingredients he needed for personal projects, plus gave him a contact for getting hold of the rarer and illegal ingredients he sometimes needed for the potions Voldemort asked him to make.

Those, at least, he didn't have to pay for himself; Voldemort didn't pay his Death Eaters, but there were funds available for certain things. They even had a bursar, a bastard so grouchy that he made Severus look positively chipper in comparison.

He realised someone was crying five minutes after the fireworks started. At first he thought it was a child and looked around for it, hoping to either point an adult who wasn't him in its direction, or just scare it off so it would cry somewhere else, but then he realised it was coming from a young woman sitting just a couple of metres to his right.

A young woman with red hair spilling out beneath her woollen hat.

"Lily."

He didn't realise he spoke aloud until she lifted her head from her hands and looked at him, blinking through her tears and then wiping hurriedly at her eyes when she realised who he was.

"Oh. Severus. I didn't notice you there."

"What's wrong?" he asked, because damnit, it was Lily and he was pathetic.

"Nothing," she answered quickly, looking up at the fireworks instead, but the purple and gold sparks only made it easier to see her biting hard at her lip as fresh tears spilt down her face.

Feeling a bubble of panic in his chest and not sure what else to do, Severus shifted to sit closer to her and asked, "Where's your dad?"

Lily and her father had always come to the Guy Fawkes celebrations together; she loved the bonfire and fireworks, enjoyed the mix of cold weather and bonfire warmth, but neither Petunia nor Mrs Evans had liked it much so Lily and her dad usually went alone.

But to his horror, his words only made her sob, chin dropping to her chest and hands covering her face again.

"I'm sorry," he blurted, lifting a hand as if to touch her, wanting to comfort her, then stopping short. "I'm sorry, Lily, please don't cry. What's wrong?"

"H-he's dead," she sobbed.

"Oh." Now Severus felt like a complete wanker. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't know. What… what happened?"

He really, really hoped it hadn't been Death Eaters. It was selfish, he knew, but he didn't care about strangers being killed and Muggles who probably deserved it, but Henry Evans had been a wonderful man and something deep inside of Severus twinged with something that might be guilt at the thought of the people he worked with hurting Lily's family.

Guilt, and a little bit of fear, because he knew they would hurt Lily as well; to them, she was as good as a Muggle even if she could do magic. If he thought about it, which he generally didn't, he would betray Voldemort and the Death Eaters in an instant to protect Lily.

Lily hiccupped, and said, "Heart attack."

Relief, then guilt, flooded through Severus, but he kept both off his face and just adopted an expression of regret. "I'm sorry, Lily."

She sniffed, wiping at her face then digging in her pocket for a tissue to blow her nose on. "Thanks," she said after, stuffing the tissue back in her pocket. "It actually happened back in May."

"Oh."

"I just… I always came here with him."

"I remember."

"I could have gone to the bonfire in Godric's Hollow," she went on, apparently just wanting to talk, forgetting or ignoring that they weren't really friends anymore and hadn't been for a few years. Severus didn't mind. "But I wanted to come back here. James was supposed to come with me—" Severus looked away with a scowl "—but Sirius called and he had to go."

Severus couldn't help himself. "Of course he did," he drawled. "I'm sure Black's butt absolutely needed kissing again."

"Sev," Lily scolded, just like she used to, and Severus felt a brief flicker of the same sulky resentment he always used to, before reminding himself that he was nineteen years old and a practised Occlumens, and he shoved the emotion down and turned his scowl on her.

"What?" he said challengingly. "I don't have to be nice about them just because you're married to Potter."

Rather than get defensive or angry, she just looked at him coolly. "You know, James has changed since we were in school."

"It's only been a year!"

"A year where we're fighting a war. Something that clearly hasn't changed you."

"I've changed," he muttered, but he didn't really want to tell her how. There was nothing like being faced with an old friend—an old Muggleborn friend—to make him think about all the less pleasant aspects of the life he chose to live and the people he surrounded himself with. It was harder to justify what the Death Eaters did when a pair of bright green eyes were staring disapprovingly at him, so he didn't try, just said, "Potter clearly hasn't changed that much. He's still running off after Black whenever he calls."

Lily, to his surprise and pleasure, didn't sound all that certain when she responded, "I'm sure he had a good reason."

"Is any reason good enough excuse to run out on you?"

"Yes," she said, rather more firmly than he liked. "We're at war, Sev. Sometimes things just need to be done."

"And sometimes people need to be looked after."

She shot him a withering look. "You think I can't look after myself?"

He wasn't stupid enough not to see the trap in that. "You're perfectly capable of looking after yourself. But he's your…" he couldn't bring himself to say it, and settled for saying, "He should know how important today is to you and how much it would hurt to come here. He should have been with you."

It almost made him sick to say it, but he forced the words out and felt it was just about worth it when she gave a small smile and replied, "Maybe you have changed a bit, Sev."

She looked away again, staring up at the fireworks. Severus didn't, keeping his gaze on her profile instead, watching her face change colour with each whistle and bang.

God, he really was pathetic.

He only looked away when it was over and she lowered her gaze to look at him. "I should probably go."

He shrugged, because he wasn't going to agree but he wasn't about to ask her to stay, either. It wasn't like she'd say yes if he did.

But rather than get up, she gestured at his beer and said, "Are you actually going to drink that?"

He looked down at the still nearly full cup and shook his head. "Tastes like crap," he admitted.

"Why'd you buy it then?"

"I was thirsty."

"Not that thirsty, apparently."

"Guess not," he said, then tipped it out on the grass and tossed the cup away.

"Sev."

"What?"

"You're littering."

He shrugged again. "There isn't a bin nearby and I can't vanish it right now."

She sighed, got up, and went to pick up the cup. "I'll throw it away on my way out."

"How are you getting home?"

"Apparating."

He nodded. Lily stood there, fiddling with the cup. Around them, the field was emptying as people headed home. Some groups weren't moving, clearly planning to stay until the bonfire burnt out or just wanting to stick around to talk and drink. Lily watched some of them and Severus watched Lily, wondering what to say.

She seemed reluctant to go home and while he wasn't sure why, he did want to take advantage of it. This was the longest conversation they'd had since he called her a Mudblood; he didn't want it to end, but he also wasn't sure what to say to her. What could they even talk about? He could hardly tell her about his days and he didn't particularly want to hear about her life with Potter and company.

She sighed again. "Well… bye, I guess. I'll see you around, Sev."

"Yeah," he agreed, though they probably wouldn't. They hadn't until now, after all. "Goodbye."

She turned away, her reluctance evident even in her movement, and Severus got to his feet. "Lily, wait."

She stopped, turning to face him again. "What is it?"

"Um…" He briefly considered inviting her in for tea, then remembered the state of his kitchen and thought better of it. "Let me walk you to the apparition point."

"Oh." She clearly hadn't expected that, but she didn't immediately say no. She glanced across the wall to the houses on the other side. "Isn't that your home? You'd have to come back."

He shrugged.

"What about your parents?"

"They don't live there anymore." He stopped, but she was looking at him with obvious question in her eyes, so he reluctantly admitted, "Mum developed dementia. I put her in a home. It's better for her. They can look after her there."

He knew he sounded defensive, but he couldn't help it. It hid the guilt he felt. Not guilt at putting his mother in a care home, but guilt that it'd been so easy and unregrettable.

"I'm sorry," Lily said with genuine sympathy. "What about your dad?"

Severus scowled, looking away. "He moved in with Gracie Willows."

Lily grimaced sympathetically. Tobias Snape's affair had been the worst kept secret in town, but everyone agreed it was disgraceful how fast he'd moved in with her after Eileen was put into the care home.

"You're living on your own then? Don't you get lonely?"

"Not really."

"Oh."

"So?" he said.

"What?"

"Do you want me to walk with you?"

"Oh. Um… sure."

He gestured and they started across the field towards the woods.

"You know, I'm surprised," Lily said quietly. "I always thought you'd leave here as soon as possible once we finished school."

"I planned to," he admitted. "But Mum needed help and when I moved her, it left me the house and I didn't see much point in finding somewhere new to live. It's not so bad now I'm an adult and I'm not actually stuck here. I only really come home to sleep."

"What do you do for work?"

"I make potions, for the apothecary." No need to mention which one.

Lily frowned, nose wrinkling. "Why?"

"Because I need money. That's generally why people work."

She rolled her eyes. "Why are you making potions for probably not a lot of money when you could be earning more by working for the Ministry or something in potion research. You're The Man at potions, Sev; you can do a lot better than brewing Pepper-Up and Quick Cut Heals."

He shrugged. It wasn't like he could mention the work he did for Voldemort, work that pushed his knowledge and skills far more than any Ministry position could. "I don't like the idea of working for the government. I won't do it forever," he added, a little defensively. "It's only until I invent my masterpiece potion so I can retire young and live off the proceeds. Or, well, I'll probably still invent more potions to become even richer because I don't want to become like the wonder wankers."

She snorted with laughter then covered her mouth. "I forgot you used to call them that. I shouldn't laugh."

"Why not? I do."

"James is my husband."

"He couldn't even manage to accompany you here today."

"I told you, he had something important to do, or he would have."

"No, you said Black called him and he ran off like he always does. You don't know what for and for all you know it could be nothing important at all. It's probably not."

He tried not to think about whether they'd been called out to deal with the attack on the Ministry. He couldn't think about how happy he'd be if they died tonight, not while Lily was standing next to him.

"You don't know that," she objected, but she didn't look certain.

"Neither do you know it is."

"He loves me."

Severus stopped as they reached the woods. A chill wind had picked up and the drizzle was back, and even the lingerers in the field were leaving now, the organisers and stall owners hurrying to pack up so they could get back to their homes.

He thought about his response, knowing that his instinctive reply would only piss her off or upset her, but not wanting—not able—to say the kind of reassuring things that a friend was meant to say in this situation. For one, he didn't believe them, and for another, he wasn't even a friend anymore.

Eventually he settled for saying diplomatically, "You would know that better than me."

"He does, Sev. It's just… things are hard right now."

"Isn't that when people are supposed to support each other the most? Or so I hear."

"He has other people to support as well."

"You should be the most important."

"I am."

"Then why isn't he here?"

She sighed, shrugged, and forced a smile that wouldn't have fooled a baby. "Well, you're here, so I'm not completely alone."

"I'll always be here for you, Lily."

Oh good god, did he actually just say that? He was even more pathetic than he thought.

But her smile turned genuine, if a little sad still. "That's really sweet, Sev."

He flushed and scowled, embarrassed, and looked away. He glanced back when she stepped closer, eyes widening as she leant in and pressed a kiss to his cheek. His breath caught and it was a genuine effort not to lift his hand and touch his face.

"Really, Sev, I appreciate you saying that."

"It's true," he said, voice a little croaked, staring at her and trying to get his brain back under control because, holy crap Lily had kissed him.

"I believe you." She drew back a bit, looking at him more intently than she had all night. It made him feel like one of the lab rats he used for testing potions on. "Sev, are you… did you ever…"

"What?"

She swallowed then shook her head and stepped back, leaning against a tree. "Nothing. Nevermind. You should get home."

"I'm not leaving you alone in a dark wood. I'll go when you've gone."

"Sev, it's the woods. Cokeworth's woods. The scariest thing this place has ever seen is Jimmy Smith's naked butt."

He goggled at her. "What?"

"You remember Jimmy Smith, right? Herby's son? He's a couple of years older than us? During the summer after sixth year he went missing one night and they found him out here the next morning, stark naked and tied to a tree. Apparently he cheated on Nikki Wilcox with Ella Conrad so she and her mates got revenge."

"I don't pay attention to the town gossip," he told her, "but you're right that is a terrifying thought. Thank you, I'll be scarred for life."

She laughed and he managed a faint smile in return, but her humour was short lived, soon fading to a frown. She looked down at her feet, toeing the dirt with her boot.

"You don't want to go home, do you?"

She glanced up, then away again. "I don't want to go back to an empty home," she admitted reluctantly. "I don't know when James is due back. I just don't want to sit there, worrying. It feels like I spend half my life worrying about people these days. And if I'm not worrying then I'm fighting, or talking about fighting, or thinking about people who have died fighting." She looked at him again. "Did you know Marlene McKinnon and her family died last month?"

"I heard." In rather more detail than he'd have liked.

"What they did to them…"

"I'm sorry."

"You weren't the one that did it."

There was something in her tone, something almost questioning. He wondered if she didn't ask about him and the Death Eaters because she was afraid of the answer or because she already knew, but he was just glad she didn't. He didn't want to lie to her, but he also couldn't tell the truth.

"I know I didn't," he settled for saying, "but I'm sorry you lost your friend."

She nodded, but there were tears in her eyes again. Lily wasn't that much of a weepy woman except every few weeks for some reason, and he guessed this was one of those times, which sucked but at least she wasn't yelling. That was something.

"I've lost a lot of friends lately," she said quietly. "I'm probably going to lose more. I just wish it would end."

"It'll end eventually. It has to."

"I wish it would end soon," she amended, inhaling a shuddering breath. "I don't want to lose more friends. I don't want to lose James, or Mary or Sirius or Remus or Peter or Alice or Emily or anyone." She looked at him, and added softly, "I don't want to lose you."

"I'll try my best not to die."

"I mean it, Sev." She stepped forward, close enough that his hem brushed against her boots, and she took his hands in hers, making his heart skip a beat and then pound twice as fast. "Whatever went wrong between us, the way things went… I would still hate for anything to happen to you."

She was so close. He hadn't been this close to her in years, not since before their OWLs. He missed her. It was his own fault, he knew, for all that he liked to blame Potter and Black. He was the one who'd called her a Mudblood.

Sometimes he felt so angry at her for refusing to forgive him over that one word, and other times he saw the things he did at Voldemort's command, the things his fellow Death Eaters did as they sneered Mudblood and filth at the people they maimed and killed, and he realised that she was right, she'd always been right, and he didn't deserve her forgiveness.

Sometimes he wondered: if she had forgiven him, would he never have joined the Death Eaters? Would he have stayed true to her and joined that motley gang of do gooders that Albus Dumbledore called the Order of the Phoenix, fighting against the very people he currently worked for? Or would Voldemort's promise of power still have drawn him in?

He honestly didn't know. In any case, what ifs and might have beens didn't stop him missing her, and they didn't change how things were right now. Right now, they were…

They were standing close enough for him to feel the heat of her, warming him in ways no fire ever did, and he fucking missed her.

So he kissed her.

He didn't know what made him do it, didn't know what he was thinking. More likely he wasn't thinking at all. He couldn't blame the beer, because he'd hardly drank any and he could hold his liquor better than that anyway. Maybe he was jinxed. Maybe it wasn't Lily, but a shape-shifting lust demon who just looked like her. Hell, maybe it was all a dream.

Maybe he was just a complete fucking idiot.

But she kissed him back.

His brain didn't register that until he was already pulling away, by which point it was too late because as soon as their mouths separated he opened his to say, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that, I'm so sorry, I—please don't hate me. I'll go. I should go."

"Sev."

They hadn't moved, despite his words. He should leave, but she was still holding his hands and he wasn't about to let go first.

"Sev," she murmured again, and then she kissed him, and Severus…

He'd read a book once where the author described the female protagonist, upon being kissed by her love interest, as melting at the feel of his lips. Severus didn't care much for the phrasing, being of a logical mind and having never actually kissed anyone himself, and he spent the rest of the book imagining the heroine as a vaguely humanoid blob of semi-melted flesh.

But he got it now, what the author had been talking about. When Lily wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, melting was a fairly accurate description of how he felt. And wasn't that just fucking pathetic. Not only was he getting his first kiss at nineteen years old, but he was reacting like a cheap storybook heroine. He was a boy—a man, for Merlin's sake; men didn't melt, they… actually he wasn't sure what they did because he didn't read those kind of books, but he was certain it didn't involve metaphorical melting.

It did have the advantage of leaving him too stunned and awed to worry about his skills, at least until his brain finally fired back to life, but by then Lily was clinging to him and kissing him like her life depended on it, and he wasn't going to stop her just because he didn't know what he was doing and wanted to check he wasn't doing it badly. It couldn't be awful or she would have stopped, he reasoned.

She should have stopped, he thought suddenly, even as she backed up to lean against a tree, pulling him after her. He stumbled, forcing them to stop kissing, but she still tugged him against her when he straightened up. He had a moment to stare into her eyes, glinting slightly in the fading light of the bonfire still spilling through the trees, but she didn't give him chance to speak, crushing their mouths together again.

Not that he was sure he would have said anything. This was wrong, he knew that. Lily was married, much that he hated it, and she shouldn't be kissing him. She should be back home, waiting for…

But if she wasn't going to stop, then Severus certainly wasn't. It wasn't his duty to remind her she had a husband. It wasn't like he'd seduced, tricked, or forced her into kissing him, and if she wanted to be disloyal to James fucking Potter… well, Severus wasn't about to be considerate to the man. Besides, if Lily felt the need to snog him—him—in the woods of her hometown while Potter was busy galavanting off with his shitbag friends, things obviously weren't as perfect as the magical grapevine would have everyone believe.

That thought was enough to destroy his hesitations. He still didn't know exactly what he was doing, practically; he knew the theory involved, but he'd never actually been intimate with another person. Fortunately, Lily was taking command, yanking him close, hand tugging at his robes. His masculine pride bristled enough to remind him he could get involved in the process, his own hands awkwardly feeling their way under her jumper until he reached her breasts and his brain almost short-circuited, but he didn't try to take control.

He had a brief moment of clear panic when Lily palmed his crotch. He jerked, gasping, mind stumbling on a woman touching my dick, and that thought was quickly followed by LILY is touching my dick. It was such a fantasy situation, something he'd imagined repeatedly but never once believed would actually come true, that it shocked him into clear thought.

We shouldn't be doing this.

She would regret it later and it would ruin the whole thing for him. She was clearly just upset and seeking physical comfort wherever she could and he should do the decent thing and stop it and—

Lily hitched his robes up. With only the fabric of his underwear between him and her hand, his thoughts stuttered. His hands froze, one on her waist and one cupping her breast, and his breath hitched. Lily shifted her hand and rolled her hips against him instead, and he groaned.

"This is going to take two of us, Sev."

"What? Oh." Her skirt. They wouldn't get much further if he didn't help shift the rest of the clothing between them.

This was his last opportunity, he realised. He could step back now, before things went any further. He should…

But he was greedy and opportunistic and this chance would never come again. He wasn't selfless enough to turn it down. Lily needed comfort and he was there to provide it. And if he took some pleasure in cuckolding James Potter… well, what harm was there in that, really?

He fumbled at her skirt, a calf-length woollen thing, hoisting it up to bunch about her waist. After that, it all seemed to go very fast. He was already hard and she pushed aside her knickers, hitched a leg up, and then—

It was a lot different to what he'd imagined. Better and worse. More physically enjoyable—the sensations more delightful, more intense than he could have thought—but the emotion was lacking.

He'd often fantasised about Lily coming to him, hurt by some slight from James and seeking Severus as an old familiar friend. They would make love and all their old issues would be forgiven and forgotten and Lily would say she was leaving James for him and it would be sweet and loving and…

This was nothing like that. There was no emotion. Severus felt like little more than a body, suddenly aware that he could have been anyone, that Lily was just using him. This wasn't making love, this was just sex. Not even the hot, exciting kind of sex he'd heard about other people having. They were just two people banging their bodies together in drizzling rain in a bunch of trees that hardly qualified as a wood.

Not that any of that stopped him from climaxing. He was a nineteen year old virgin; lack of emotion wasn't enough to stop him getting off the first time he finally got laid.

Afterwards, Lily gently pushed him away. She straightened her clothes and he did the same. Neither of them met the other's eyes.

"Severus, I—"

He'd known it was coming. She didn't even need to say it, just using his full name was indication enough; she almost never did that.

"This was a mistake. We shouldn't—I shouldn't—"

Even expecting it, his pride still stung. This thing—it hardly warranted being called an affair or even a fling—had destroyed his fantasies. He could never wank to the thought of her leaving James for him again, could never conjure the image of a steamy hot love affair, not when the cold reality of this night was there to ruin it. He almost wanted to hate her for spoiling that, wanted to lash out with a sharp word, to deride and degrade her for using him like she had.

But he'd learnt his lesson on that, back in fifth year. Whatever he felt right now, he'd later regret anything he said. Maybe it was a mark of just how pathetic he was, but he loved her even now and beneath his wounded pride he didn't really want to hurt her. He had just enough self-control to hold his tongue and bite back the cruel words.

"Sev, we can't see each other again," she whispered, sounding on the edge of tears.

He nodded. "You should go home."

She opened her mouth, closed it again, looked down at her feet and tugged on her jumper sleeves. She made an uncertain noise, as if to speak, then sighed and finally, with a crack, vanished.

Severus turned away from where she'd been. He looked across the field, now empty of everyone but a couple of people clearing up the bonfire and firework remains, despaired at the thought of another moment outside when he just wanted to shut himself away with a bottle of vodka, and Disapparated the short distance home.

… and Plot

In a cave in the mountains at the south of Hogsmeade, a young man appeared in a burst of pink mist, flickering sparks, and the faint scent of singed flesh. He was seventeen years old, had dark hair and brilliant green eyes, and his forehead was marked by a scar shaped like a lightning bolt.