Severed Strands

"Lily, will you please listen?"

"Oh come on, Lils, he was your first real friend at Hogwarts, even before Hogwarts!"

"You're acting startlingly like Potter."

Alice's cool tone was like a slap on her face and Lily turned around, furious.

"What did you just say?" She asked, her voice dangerously low as her eyes gleamed emerald under the flickering torchlight.

"I don't ever recall you nursing a soft spot for Severus, and I fail to see why you're so concerned in my affairs all of a sudden." She was spitting fire, but Alice refused to be intimidated.

"This isn't me we're talking about, it's you. Go back to the Great Hall and talk to him. I'm not asking you to embrace him and magically forget everything that's happened in the past six months." A vein was throbbing in Alice's forehead and her desperate attempts to keep her temper under control were all too obvious to everyone but Lily, who was fighting a battle of her own with her temper and emotions.

Lily had turned away from her best friend by then but she turned around once more, pulling her into the corner when she heard footsteps approaching.

"I forgave him when his obsession for the dark arts swallowed his common sense, and I forgave him when he decided that Lucius and Bellatrix and the other exceptionally odd Slytherins were his new best friends. I even forgave him when he hexed Potter for being too…I forget what it is he bothered Potter for, but I do remember that he was being a massive hypocrite!" She paused to gulp large volumes of air and Alice noticed that she was shaking violently.

"Lil," she said, concern clouding her pretty chocolate eyes, "Are you alright?"

"It's the last thing I am," Lily replied blankly.

"He called me a mudblood, Alice. Not in private, not softly and not because he was coerced into it. He decided to proclaim it before the entire school just because, what I stopped hating Potter? Is it a crime to be nice these days?"

A flash of fondness crossed her eyes as she remembered a stray memory that involved James and her lips involuntarily curled upwards into a little smile.

Alice's face broke out in a sudden, dazzling grin.

"Having second thoughts about Potter – I mean, James, are we?" She quirked an eyebrow and Lily brushed her away impatiently.

"Rubbish, Alice."

The footsteps grew louder and louder until a pale-faced Severus stood before the two girls with a parchment in hand. Lily took his nervous yet impeccable appearance in and wondered when he'd begun to clean up so well.

"Sev," she acknowledged, unable to get rid of her childhood name for him.

"Lily," he smiled cautiously, wary of her temper and ashamed of all the ways in which he'd wounded her.

"I…I came to give you this," he confessed, extracting a thick sheet of parchment from the pocket of his robes.

Lily looked at it like it was a cursed object. "Are you so afraid of telling me what you truly think, that you find the need to leave me a message?" Her words stung with sarcasm and Severus cringed.

"What is it?" She demanded, her voice growing louder with each syllable she spat out and Severus was losing his mind.

"Enough!" he yelled all of a sudden, and Lily was shocked into silence. Tears prickled at her eyes, the tell-tale signs of injury but she refused to let them show.

"Here," he thrust it towards her and made sure that her fingers curled around the thick parchment before he turned away.

"It's obvious to me that we cannot be friends any more, Lily. But I'll always hold you dear to me, and I cannot walk away from you without an explanation." Because he said the words with his back to her, he didn't get the chance to watch the obstinate tears spill over her eyes. Alice held on to her arm, wishing she'd never have to see Lily go through any of this in the first place.

"Bye, Sev." Lily's tone was final, and she literally ran away before anyone could see her. She wasn't one to expose her wounds to the world.

Lily avoided every single human being as much as she could that day and walked around with her head hung low and her dull eyes downcast. Whispers trailed behind her as she walked out the Great Hall, but no one had the courage to directly ask her if she was okay.

For her part, Lily couldn't care less. All she knew was that there was a gaping hole in her life where her best friend once used to be, and the sheer agony of it all was unbearable.

She curled up beneath the cypress trees that studded the sore of the Black Lake and unfurled the parchment, smiling slightly at Severus' trademark handwriting. She traced the delicate, curling letters mindlessly before she gathered her thoughts and read the letter from the very beginning.

Dearest Lily,

I know that you have a plethora of reasons to hate me by now, just as many as I have to love you. I'm truly sorry for everything I have said and done to hurt you – I know that they comprise a large list that can never be made up for.

I see the disgust in your eyes with every conversation I hold with Crabbe or Lucius, and I see the fear in your eyes with every step that I take towards the Dark Arts. I am not going to sacrifice my passion for the field anymore; do know that the look I your eyes will haunt me till the day I die.

I do not plan on using the Dark Arts in a way that will injure anybody or wreak havoc; my intended mastery in the subject is to be able to defend myself and others against it, should the time come.

And I will always love you.

Severus.

Entered in:

Race to The Top of Mount Potter, prompt: 999 words (I actually hit exactly 999 words, Bexy!) - #1

Collect Them All Challenge, #1 – Severus Snape, message

The Battle of the Houses, prompt #5 (entry 1)