A/N: Long time no see, eh? Well, not really, I guess. I posted an Elementary fic last weekend. But I haven't been too active in the HP fandom lately. Sorry about that... Anyway, this is basically being written as a giftfic for a lovely person on Tumblr who won a giveaway I hosted a while back, and who gave me her permission to post online. I will forever be grateful to her not only for this permission, but for giving me the prompt in the first place. The prompt itself was basically "Snily AU where Lily forgives Severus for dabbling in the Dark Arts and they fall in love." Of course, being the overachieving author I am, I decided to start from when they were kids so I could have the chance to get used to their voices, and it just kind of spiraled out of my control.

Tbh, I didn't expect the fic to be longer than 5-6k, but it's grown beyond anything I could ever have hoped for. It's being divided into 3 parts: Before, During, and After. I think I'll post all three parts as one huge fic and just denote the part in the chapter title, but be aware that updates will be in chunks. I have the first part written already, so I'll try and get those chapters up once every day or two. Part 2 should come in about a month, with Part 3 a month or so after that.

I think that's all you need to know about the update schedule for this fic. As for my other fics... they're all currently on hold. I'm going to be concentrating on this fic, my NaNoWriMo novel, and a few other giftfics I'm writing for the next several months, and I don't think I'll be able to update ACOMI and Tail until next summer at the earliest. I'll try and get a few one-shots up if I can, but nothing too long, unfortunately. Never fear, though! I will finish them eventually!

Anyway, my A/N's for this fic should be shorter from now on. As always, reviews are loved! Reviewers will be gifted with cookies and hugs! Happy reading! :)

DISCLAIMER: All characters and much of the dialogue belongs to JKR and her affiliates. Only the ideas and eventual canon-divergence are mine.

Before - Part I

He first notices her when he's trying to escape, running away from a shattered household and a broken family. He turned seven just a couple months ago, although the occasion was marked only by his quiet whisper ringing through the night as he congratulated himself on surviving another year. His parents didn't care enough to do anything special, and he's willing to bet they'd completely forgotten.

They're at it again, as they have been for all seven years of his wretched life, his father drunk and angry and his mother meek and weary. He knows it won't be long before his mother barricades herself inside her room, and his father has no one left to direct his anger towards but Severus himself. So he runs. He crawls through the bathroom window, landing in the flower bed with a soft thump, and runs, not knowing where he's going but knowing he has to get away.

He finds an empty playground a few streets away, far enough from his home that neither his mother nor his father will bother looking here, and he takes a moment to catch his breath. The playground looks as though it hasn't been used in years. The chains on the swing are rusting and cobwebs cover the carousel. Severus supposes it makes sense; he hasn't seen a single child anywhere near Spinner's End as long as he can remember. He walks over to the swingset and sits down heavily on one of the sagging swings.

He falls into daydreams as he sits there. He wonders what Hogwarts will be like; from the sparse tidbits his mother has given him, it sounds utterly delightful. He can't imagine having enough food to feed an army, or having time to play games like Quidditch, or practicing magic freely. For all that his mother is a witch, Severus knows almost nothing about his talents. His father hates magic and anything to do with it, and as a result of this, Severus' magical education is sorely lacking.

This, of course, leads him to practice his magic in the playground. He's found if he concentrates hard enough, he can do little things, parlor tricks, that are wholly unimpressive but still something. And anyway, he's off to Hogwarts in four years, and he has to be able to do something by then. Parlor tricks are better than nothing.

He's just managed to get a twig to levitate a few inches off the ground when he hears the patter of feet heading towards the playground, accompanied by two high-pitched voices. In a flash, he's jumped from the swing and dived behind a clump of bushes. He pokes his head up just in time to see two girls, one his age, and one a few years older, enter the playground. The younger one immediately runs to the swings, ignoring the rusted chains, and beings pumping her legs to soar ever higher.

"Be careful!" the older girl calls. "It isn't safe here."

"Come on, Tuney!" the younger girl responds. "Have some fun!"

Tuney, who Severus gathers is the younger girl's sister, curls her lip in disgust. Nevertheless, she marches stiffly to the swings and sits in the one closest to her sister. She pumps her legs halfheartedly. "Let's go home, this is boring," she complains.

The younger girl laughs joyously, stealing Severus' breath away, and swings even higher. "You're boring," she informs Tuney.

Tuney - and really, what a horrible name that is - opens her mouth to reply. Before she can say anything, though, a shrill scream cuts through the air. The younger girl has slipped from the rickety swing and now she's falling, falling, falling, about to crash to the ground and break half her bones. "Lily!" Tuney screams, horrified and in shock, and Severus wishes his magic was stronger so he could save this beautiful, carefree girl whose laugh sounds like sunshine and whose voice is sweeter than honey.

In the end, Severus' magic is entirely unnecessary because Lily floats through the air like a feather on the breeze, landing softly in the gravel without so much as a thump.

Lily and Tuney stand frozen for a minute, unable to process what just happened. Severus is frozen, too, but because the joy buzzing through his veins is something he's never felt before, and he's at a loss as to what it is he's feeling.

"How did you do that?" Tuney breaks the silence, voice ripe with suspicion. "It shouldn't be possible to survive a fall like that without a scratch!"

"I don't know," Lily wonders in awe. "I just thought I'm going to get hurt I don't want to get hurt and I...didn't."

Severus hides in the bushes, vibrating with joy and excitement, and waits for the two girls to figure out what he already has: that Lily has magic. But they remain silent far too long, and he starts to realize that they're Muggles. They can't possibly have any way of knowing magic even exists.

"I'm telling Mummy!" Tuney finally says, her eyes wide with fear and horror. She spins on her heels and races away, her small feet slapping audibly against the pavement.

Lily's eyes widen as well, with anxiety and uncertainty, and she takes off after her sister. "No, Tuney, wait! Come back!"

Severus counts to thirty after Lily disappears around the corner, then slowly appears from his hiding place. "Lily," he says, trying out the name. Even the way it rolls off his tongue gives the impression of the sweetest treat he's ever tasted. He laughs, just once, just for a second, then stops abruptly, because the sound and feeling are so foreign that they scare him a little. But he can't help it, can't help the unadulterated happiness coursing through his body, can't help the small tugging on the corners of his lips that pulls them up into a smile, can't help the laughter that bubbles up from his stomach and out his mouth, can't help feeling that the world is a little brighter and his parents' fighting a little more bearable.

He can't help that his world is full of shadows, and Lily has become his sunshine.