HEYYYYYYYYYY

This is the first chapter of the sequel to Snape's Story: The Code of Flamel (you may want to read that first because this may make no sense to you if you don't… btw). This story is called Snape's Story: The Amethyst Pearl. Thank you so much for continuing to read my stories and I hope this lives up to your expectations!

Gemma xxx

Here is the first chapter!

Chapter 1: Home again

And so I stayed by Lily's bedside until I woke up and found myself in a warm bed with stiff, white sheets and a throbbing pain in my shins and my arm. I turned my head slightly wincing at the pain in my neck and saw needles and chords stuck into the veins in my arm. I tried to scream but I couldn't. Suddenly, it felt like hot liquid was running through my veins, the room around me became blurry and the beeping of the mechanical thing beside me grew distant. I had just enough time to begin to panic and wonder what had happened to me when the world went dark once more.

…

I woke again in a more familiar room. This time, there was no pain anywhere and my joints were simply stiff from lack of movement. I wondered briefly how long I had been out of it. The sheets were soft and used and smelled of home. I brought the covers to my nose and took a deep breath in. Sunlight streamed onto my bed through the hole in the wall. I was home. In my room.

My eyes opened wide in horror. A terrifying thought crossed my mind. What if it was all a dream? What if none of this ever happened and I hadn't even gone to Hogwarts? What if I was still waiting for my acceptance letter? What if I had never met Lily Evans?

This theory was soon put to rest. There was no way that I could have dreamed about a whole year of my life. I would have had to be asleep for…

And the terror was back. The answer was 'for… ages" which is how I felt with my stiff, aching joints and my mind reeling as if it had missed weeks or months of my life. And perhaps I had. What did they call it? A coma? Is that what I had been in?

There was a knock on my door.

I tried to speak but no words came out. I cleared my throat. "Come in." I croaked.

The door opened slowly and my mother's face appeared. She looked uncomfortable and worried and… old.

"I saw you were awake." She said uncomfortably, she smiled as warmly as she could and gestured to a band on her right wrist. She showed me and the word on it clearly glowed 'AWAKE'.

I nodded. Or I spasmed my head up and down.

"How are you?" Mother sat down on the edge of my bed and clapped a hand to my forehead. "Your temperature has dropped. How do you feel?"

"I'm fine. Thank you." I said coldly and I narrowed my eyes in a hostile way.

She took her hand away from my head slowly, glanced at me uncomfortably and then took to staring at the ground. She fiddled absent-mindedly with my covers.

I felt bad and I needed a question answered so… "What's the date, mum?" Her head snapped around and she stared at me wonderingly – a smile played about her lips and her eyes lit up at the sound of the nickname I had never used. Desperate times called for desperate measures… and desperate mothers.

"It's the 15th of July, Sweety."

I fought the urge to throw up… and roll my eyes at the same time. Since when did she call me Sweety?

"But I've been to Hogwarts haven't I? And Voldemort came and…"

"Yes." She frowned.

A huge weight was lifted from my chest and I threw my arms around her neck and hugged her, something I hadn't done in a long, long time. She hesitated before wrapping her arms around me.

I was the one to break the embrace. It was a nice change but my gut was burning with unanswered questions.

"What happened?" I asked her. "Why have I been asleep for so long?" Her happy smile disappeared and her mouth turned down so far it looked like her face was folding in on itself with sadness and angst. "Mum?"

"Severus… I –" She took a deep breath and then seemed to decide something. She turned her mouth up again, "Nothing. Well… nothing interesting. You fell asleep next to Lily and fell off your chair. You broke a few ribs… nothing major. They fixed you up in a muggle hospital," she gushed.

I frowned as I remembered the strange mechanisms in the room and the chords and needles in my arm. I didn't know if I could believe I was asleep for four-and-a-bit weeks because of a few broken ribs. But I smiled confidently anyway. "Wow." And I laughed.

Mum smiled… pleased with her lie. I thought.

I pushed back the covers and got to my feet with difficulty and walked… stumbled to the hole in the wall. I looked out hopefully, wondering if Lily was back and if she was in the park. I took a deep breath and took in the empty playground and the undisturbed sand that was probably baking in the hot sunlight. A cool breeze rustled the trees and the hedges and the swings swayed ominously, but there was no sight of fun and games, no sound of shouting and laughing, no sign of Petunia or Lily. This was going to be an… interesting summer.

…

Summer. That's all it was. Summer. So why was it so invigorating and miserable at the same time? Well it was invigorating because it was summer and miserable because it wasn't.

Ok. I get it. I make no sense. My mind had been so muddled since the beginning of the holidays. Lily was still in hospital and I was all alone. For Summer. Alone.

Rain, sunshine, fog, sunshine, rain, sunshine, storm, sunshine. Summer. And so it continued for two weeks. Two weeks. Insane, I know. But not having Lily here meant it wasn't summer at all.

Exactly. I thought, proud of myself. I'd finally figured out my own thoughts. I just missed Lily.

I didn't know how much of my confession she'd heard or even if she heard it at all but I did hope she didn't. It would mean awkwardness and instability in our friendship. I nodded. Pleased with my grand sacrifice.

I remembered sitting by her bedside as despair and anguish gushed over me.

My emotions began to overflow and I gripped her hand tighter. "I didn't know what to do, Lily! Everyone was dying and killing each other! There was so much death! And – and – and the code! Nicholas Flamel has this pyramid that controls everything! Voldemort's going to try to rule it. And I'm the only one who knows about it! I think Dumbledore expects me to stop him! But I can't! I'm too little! I just… can't."

I was sobbing hysterically and the tears were in free flow down my cheeks. There was no controlling it. They gushed and gushed down my face as I sobbed, but Lily still didn't wake up. "I was crushed underneath a banister… watching everything… out of sight. The pain. The pain, Lily! You cannot even imagine!" A tear ran down my cheek and I wiped it away with my free hand and placed it over our hands. I sobbed and turned my face into my shoulder. Then I spoke again, but I said it softly and into my shoulder. I don't even know if anyone could have understood what I said except me. "But it was nothing compared with the pain of losing you."

I shook my head and continued down the street. I glanced left then right and crossed to the left side of the road where the familiar, dense tree line stood waiting, offering its cool shade. I disappeared into the trees and weaved in and out of the trunks as I made my way to my favourite clearing by the river. The sound of the water rushing over the rocks was growing louder as I picked my way down the slope, careful to use roots as footholds so I didn't slip.

I had nearly made it to the edge of the tree line and I shielded my eyes from the glare of the sun on the water. I squinted against it and made to enter the clearing when I noticed that I wasn't alone. There was someone else sitting cross-legged in the middle of the clearing.

The girl's long red hair waved in the breeze that came from the river. Her perfect skin gleamed in the sunlight and her green eyes were glowing unnaturally. There were tiny dapples of sunlight on her cheeks and nose. She reached down and picked a small blue flower from the ground. Then she smiled and picked two more. She wrenched a couple of grass stalks from the ground and tied them around the flowers, bonding them as one. She smiled to herself, her cheeks flushed red with happiness and perfect little dimples appeared on her cheeks. Lily was home.

I took a step and yelped loudly as my foot slipped out from under me. I slid on my bottom the rest of the way down the slope and I think I managed to fit a forward roll in there somewhere but the next thing I knew I was sprawled on my back in the clearing. I groaned and pushed myself up off the ground and propped myself up on my elbows. I looked over to where Lily had been sitting… but she was gone. Disappointment and anger flowed through me. How could I have imagined something so real? I hit the ground with my fist in fury.

A quiet giggle from behind me caused me to turn onto my back and scramble backwards as fast as I could but it was Lily and she was kneeling in front of me smiling. She pushed her hair back behind her ear and blushed. Then she giggled again and my heart soared as I felt a giggle fit coming on. I started to laugh and I struggled up onto my knees and 'walked' awkwardly towards her. She giggled again and I pulled her into a tight hug. I buried my face into her hair and took another deep breath. The pleasurable pain of missing her for so long and then finally having her back rushed over me and I screwed up my eyes against it… happy crying. I laughed and cried at the same time as I pulled away and looked at her face. She looked straight back and smiled as a tear ran down her face.

"I missed you." She said sincerely though she was smiling.

"I missed you too." I said and tried to make her see that I meant it.

"I know." She told me cheekily.

For a heart stopping moment I thought she must have been pretending to be asleep in the hospital.

She must have seen my puzzled look because she explained. "I felt it. I could tell you were missing me even though you were miles away. But I missed you more." She wrinkled her nose and grinned at me.

"No way! I missed you heaps more! Like to the moon and back!" I said and smiling just as widely, I wiped some tears away from my cheeks.

She laughed. "Well I missed you so much that it hurt and I had trouble sleeping at night. I missed you to the end of the universe and back."

I laughed too. "Well I missed you so much that my chest hurt all the time and I cried and cried for ages and ages and I even cried when I saw you in the hospital!"

"You saw me when I was in the hospital?" Lily said, her eyes widening.

"Well – yes. You were asleep so we only got to say hello and see you sleeping and stuff." I could tell I was crimson coloured but Lily was satisfied with my answer.

"Well I missed you so much that nothing and no one could cheer me up. No one could fill the void and I felt like I was going to die all the time. I miss you infinity miles away and back and there's nothing that can beat that." She told me.

"Alright! You win." I said exasperatedly.

But she didn't. She couldn't. There was no way anyone could miss or love anyone as much or more than I loved Lily Evans. And that's when I realised that I loved her... and even if it were some childish love that just counts as a crush or attraction I knew that I loved her and no one could ever change that. Only I knew how much I missed her and how much I loved her and I knew that I would surely die without her and sacrifice my own life for hers. So… she didn't win. Hahaha.

We lay down on the grass and the flowers and stared up at the canopy of leaves above us. Flowers brushed her cheeks and she bat them away with her fingers and shifted to get comfortable. She moved closer to me secretly but I noticed. I smiled. I thought about how much Lily had missed in her time away from Hogwarts so I took a deep breath and turned to look at her –and I told her… everything.

Amen.

Lol I know it was a cute chapter that seems like it was just all lovey dovey but nothing really exciting happens in the first chapter really... does it? :D Oh and there are parts at the start that are really important for later on in the series! FUN AS! And you don't know what they are! HA HA! No but seriously. Make sure you remember the start of this chapter. It is very very important. Read it again if you want. :)

So… yeah! As always remember to review and the review button and box is down there \/

Reviews mean a lot!

Gemma xxx

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