Chapter 1

He saw her form from a distance, a long, even skinnier shadow cast by the glow of a setting sun traced on the earth. Summer was ending, and they'd be on the train to Hogwarts tomorrow. It hurt him to think of the evening as the mark of a beginning to an ending. But this is how it would remain in his memory forever after.

"Um, hi, Lily." He said, approaching the girl crouched at the edge of the long gravel driveway that led up to her house. He paused. "What are you looking at?"

"There was a snake."

"Oh." He looked. "I don't see it."

"No, it went into the grass an half hour ago."

"Oh. You've been out here that long?"

"Just since after dinner. Tuney threw a fit at the table and so I'm trying to avoid her."

"Aren't you excited to be going to Hogwarts?" He tried to sound excited, but that just wasn't the way he was. "It's the proper place for you. Away from your horrible sister."

"She isn't horrible. Mum says she's just jealous. She really wants to go too."

"But she calls you a freak when she should be worshipping you."

Lily turned to look at him, "Why should she worship me?"

"We're better than all of them. We have something they don't have—and instead of fearing you like your parents do, she calls you a freak. Wait till next summer. Then maybe even we'll be able to kill her."

"My parents don't fear me. And it's wrong to kill anyone."

"Even the most evil person in the world? Even," he tried to think of someone really bad who she would know, "even Hitler?"

"Okay, maybe Hitler."

"You have a lot to learn at Hogwarts, Lily."

"I don't need to learn what's right and wrong, Sev. I can judge for myself."

"You don't even realize how afraid your parents are of you."

"How are they afraid of me, Sev?"

"You said they don't even come and kiss you goodnight anymore."

"Because they think I'm too old. Your parents don't either."

"And you don't have a bedtime anymore."

"So?"

"You can eat whatever you want, go wherever you want—even your sister can't stop you."

"Not really. They don't really care. They did try to stop me from seeing you though."

"That's because they know we can grow powerful together. We're full of magic. We can do stuff. I could blow up the whole neighborhood if I really wanted to."

"You're silly. If that were true, they wouldn't be sending me to Hogwarts. My parents just don't think you're a good friend for me because you're so melancholy and brooding and you don't treat them with any respect and take advantage of the fact you're the only wizard I know, my only link to the wizardry world. You and your mum."

"They're muggles. They're boring and stupid. They don't understand me, and they are beginning to misunderstand you. They thought you needed therapy, remember? Before they found out you were a witch. Now they think you're dangerous and, although of course they should be proud of having a witch in the family, they're also afraid because you're different. They can't relate to you. They'd never tell you they're afraid, but they are. They're afraid to hurt you because when you get upset…well, we both know what can happen then. They're afraid to tell you, but they don't love you. They're glad Hogwarts will take you away."

"My parents love me!" Lily said, tears welling up in her eyes. She got up off the ground, wiping her eyes angrily. "You're so mean. How can you say they don't? Just because your parents bicker all the time and your father hates you for what you are."

"You'd be smarter not to love them! They're weak! Just like my father! My father is a fool! I hate him. And my mum was stupid enough to marry him. I wish they'd let me live with my aunt and uncle. They're the only true wizards I really have, except for you Lily."

"Fine, go live with them then! Then I'd never have to see you ever again!" Lily said, stomping off towards the house.

Severus wanted to run after her. Severus wanted to go to school tomorrow reconciled, riding in the same car in the train all the long way to Hogwarts, being sorted into the same house, competing in the same classes…. They'd had many spats like this throughout the years they'd grown up. But there was always tomorrow to reconcile. There was always tomorrow to go back over to Lily's house, a glowering and morose curtain of reluctance to sweep away with her small smile ,the way he slender pale fingers brushed back the strands of his jet black hair when she wanted to see his face and he purposely hid it, pretending to be angry, just so she would reach out her hand to touch him.

Severus had never been as close to anyone as he was to Lily. He could not remember his life before Lily. There had been life and there had been Lily, and it had simultaneously began then. A burst of sunshine and red hair swirled into his earliest childhood memories—and then his whole world had expanded like a balloon, like the universe after the big bang. Before the sky was gray and the ground gray and his skin ashen and his eyes washed out and watery as mud puddles. And he knew he was important to her too—he was her sanity, her logic. He had banished the chaos from her life and had restored sense and order—he was nearly a god. He had explained to her magic as soon as he sensed its presence in her.