This is a short story on young Severus and Lily after the fight during their fifth year. I want to make a fanfiction that explains how they make up and become friends again, but I can't. I don't normally have trouble messing with others' stories, but if I were to change this one, it would throw so many things out of balance that I can't bring myself to do it. I think that it could have only happened this way, or everything else would have played out so differently. So this is completely canon; it's simply an elaboration.
Though, Still
He watches her, from a safe distance; narrowed, slanting, obsidian eyes burning with defiance, and wanting, and despair. He's a contradiction now. He didn't used to be, but as their friendship was torn apart from the inside, he became one, always saying something and thinking something different. He hates her; he hates her for hating him. He hates her for giving up. He loves her, though, still. He loves her for her warmth, her compassion, her glow. He loves her for being Lily. He just wishes she were his.
She lies, sprawled, in the shining jade grass beneath an old oak, the sunlight filtering from the leaves above her and casting dancing shadows upon that pale, snowy face- that crimson, fiery hair. He hears her distant laugh, tingling and light, like chocolate as it melts on the tongue. He hates that laugh. He hates how it makes his heart clench. He misses that laugh, though, still. Her rosebud lips are stretched into a warm smile and she looks up at Potter, who is sitting beside her, one arm around her shoulders.
Fury festers within his thin chest, smolders behind the coal black eyes. He is supposed to be the one beside her, laughing with her, their shoulders touching ever-so-slightly. Not Potter. Potter, who smiles kindly and gently holds her hand, and then turns around and mocks Severus without so much as a second thought. Potter is contradiction, too. Lily is simply too blind to notice it.
Potter looks up and lazily surveys the grounds for a moment before his eyes pause on Severus' obscured form. His lips twitch upward into a mocking smile, and he leans to whisper something in Lily's ear. He sees her pause for a second, uncertainty flashing beneath the striking emerald eyes, before she laughs and turns in his direction. Severus is gone before she can glimpse him.
Lily thinks of him, more often than she would ever admit. She watches him, too, from afar, obviously.
She sits by the lake, a red, checkered blanket stretched out over the glistening grass, one of her hands enveloped by James', who is beside her. Her eyes are drawn, fixed, on the slight, raven haired figure a small distance away, stretched underneath a lilting willow. Their willow. She shakes her head at that thought, closing her eyes briefly before returning them again to the boy under the tree. She doesn't want to watch him; she doesn't want to see him any longer, now that their friendship has ended. It's more of a habit, now. She's used to his comforting presence, his soft, melodious voice, his pale, slender fingers, and his easy, but rare smile. She needs his presence, even though she can't have it anymore.
He's reading a thick, hard-cover spell book, his limbs stretched out ahead of him, coal black hair falling over his face. A pale, slender hand comes up quickly to swipe the black strands away before returning to the neat pages of the book, one long, trim finger tracing the words as he reads them. The other hand is held to his face, tapping his lower lip absently as it always did when he was concentrating. He was not smiling; he never seemed to these days, his thin lips were always controlled, held in a firm straight line. He had grown, over the year that had passed since their fight. He was much taller, his limbs slim and lanky. His face and sharpened, his cheek bones were angular, his nose long and sharp. It was fitting for him, as he had always looked strangely out of place as a child.
She constantly feels at odds with herself, ever since he had shouted that filthy word in all his embarrassment and fury. She wants to forgive him, but she knows that they are choosing two different paths. Too different paths. She loves him, though, still. He was her best friend-he saw her in a way that others could not. He still sees her, even when they are supposed to despise each other.
At the sound of a loud laugh from a passing fourth-year Ravenclaw, Severus glances upward, eyes flicking around the grounds slowly, languidly. Lily's lips tug upward involuntarily as she glimpses the brief flashing of the black eyes, first in annoyance at the noisy outburst, and then quickly back to indifference. His eyes had changed from before, too. They were sharper, narrower, colder, lifeless. They bother Lily, because though they had always had that distant, melancholy look, they were always been warm. Now, they are like deep, ebony tombs. Glacial and dark.
His gaze flickers over to her area, before looking away again. He seems to realize that she had been staring, however, because he quickly looks toward her once more, his eyes slightly wider than before.
She turns away before he can catch her gaze again.