Just a Boy

by The Other Dobby

When Severus Snape first met Lily Evans, he was just a boy. When Severus Snape was at school, he wanted to be a man. When Severus Snape died, he wished he was still just a boy. A songfic.

AN: The song is 'Just a Boy' by Angus and Julia Stone. I recommend it :D Please R&R

I bit my tongue in the ark of conversation.
I don't know why.
I don't know why.I met you once and I'd fallen for your notions.
I don't know why.
I don't know why.
Do you believe that there's treasures in the ocean
Did I say I'm just a boy?

Hidden amongst the bushes a young boy crouched. He wore an oversized coat and baggy trousers, but he was not worried about his clothing at that point. His long, dark hair flopped over his face but his eyes could still be seen glinting in the mild sunlight. He was staring at the younger of two girls on a set of swings. She was swinging higher and higher than the other girl, despite her warnings. Her red hair streamed behind her in the wind she created and her bright green eyes sparkled. At the very peak of her swing, she let go. The other girl let out a small shriek, but it wasn't necessary. She flew gracefully through the air, lingering in the air just a little bit higher, landing just a little bit lighter than what would be considered normal.

"Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!" The older girl had stopped herself from swinging and sprang off with her hands on her hips.

The girl called Lily giggled. "But I'm fine. Tuney, look at this."

She said more, but the boy wasn't listening. Instead he watched the flower in her hand, curiously opening and closing, with an almost greedy look on his face. He had been watching her for weeks. Every time he spotted her going to the playground from his bedroom window he would dash out the backdoor and sneak into his bush. He had been transfixed from the first moment he saw her. She did everything with a youthful joy that he had never been able to have. Her laugh filled him with happiness. When she talked about something she truly loved, her face became more animated than ever. But he still did not have the courage to go and talk to her himself.

He stopped his inner pondering when he saw 'Tuney' shudder in disgust. He definitely didn't like that girl. She had a face like a horse and an attitude to match. Actually, that was an insult to horses. He sniggered softly at his own joke.

"How do you do it?" he heard her ask. There was a hint of longing in her voice.

Lily didn't look as though she had any idea. Perhaps this was his moment to shine. It was now or never.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" he said as he burst forth from the bushes.

The two girls spun around at the noise. Tuney shrieked and ran back to the swings, but Lily stayed where she was. He thanked his lucky stars for that. If she had been frightened of him as well then there was no way he could have stayed there. Although, maybe running away wasn't such a bad idea...

"What's obvious?" she asked. Too late to run now.

He glanced at the nervous Tuney a short distance away and lowered his voice. "I know what you are," he said mysteriously.

"What do you mean?"

He leaned in as though to tell her a terrible secret. "You're...you're a witch," he whispered. There, he'd done. Surely she would thank him for filling in this gap in her life, for explaining what it was that made her stand out amongst muggles.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to someone!"

She turned, nose in the air, and marched back to her sister. This wasn't turning out as he'd imagined it at all. He ran after her, feeling the colour rise up his cheeks. He tried to explain it to her. She might have believed it too, if it wasn't for her stupid sister. She laughed at him! How dare she? How dare she try and take away the moment that he had been looking forward to for weeks? He had been waiting to do this since he first realised Lily was magical. He could have a friend, a friend that would know everything he did, that would come to Hogwarts with him. Before he first saw Lily, his life at home was drowning him, but she was a treasure chest he found at the bottom of the ocean. Now he had to survive, for her. But he couldn't do that if her damn sister kept pushing him away!

"I wouldn't spy on you, anyway," he said hotly. "You're a muggle!"

He saw the confusion cross her face, then she recognised the tone of voice.

"Come on Lily. We're leaving." She stormed off. Lily followed immediately.

He could have lived with that. Rejection wasn't that unusual for him. But it was all he could do to keep from running away and crying when Lily shot a final glare at him.

One kiss from you and I'm drunk up on your potion.
That big old smile is all you wore.
Girl you make me want to feel,
Things I've never felt before.
Girl you make me want to feel,
Did I say I'm just a boy,
Did I say I'm just a boy,
You can hold me to that.

Thankfully, Lily had become his friend in the end. In fact, by the time they were to go to their first year at Hogwarts, they were the best of friends. Severus found that he could confide in her things that had never come out of the safety of his mind before. Even after all this time, he couldn't believe his luck. Although they had only been friends for a few short years, they had a bond that would take a lot to break. Unfortunately, 'a lot' would be coming down on them like a ton of bricks in the not-so-distant future.

Severus and Lily burst through the barrier of Platform 9 3/4 and hurriedly stepped away so that Lily's parents could get through behind them. Severus left Lily with her parents so he could go and say goodbye to his own. Severus's mother was already at the platform and glanced at Lily's delighted parents with slight disdain. His father was hadn't been bothered to come.

Mrs Snape's formidable figure, topped with a beak-like nose not unlike her son's, caused the crowd to subconsciously break and flow a small distance around her. She stiffly handed Severus a few coins, swooped down to kiss his cheek and warned him against misbehaving. He took all of this in with barely any reaction before saying a quick goodbye. The second she saw that he had put his luggage on the train, she spun around on the spot and disapparated. Severus thought he heard a nose being blown as she left, but dismissed the notion immediately.

He stepped down off the train to help Lily put her trunk on the train. Judging by the state of her eyes, she had clearly been crying. Severus wanted to ask what was wrong, but he didn't know how. The moment they managed to get the trunk on board, she dragged it as fast as she could down the corridor and didn't look at Severus at all. Perhaps it had been the wrong thing not to ask? He decided to just get changed and let her cool down a bit.

…

He relished the feeling of not having to wear his ridiculous muggle clothes as he wandered down the corridor. He peered through the glass of each compartment door, looking for Lily. Finally he found her in a compartment with a group of distastefully rowdy boys. He quietly pushed the door open and made to sit next to her.

She cut him off. "I don't want to talk to you," she hissed, remarkably well considering there wasn't an s in the sentence and she was fighting back more tears.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Tuney h-hates me. Because we saw that letter from Dumbledore." A few tears made a bid for escape down her cheek before they were caught by an already damp sleeve.

"So what?" he said, trying to put a light tone in his voice. It didn't work, judging by the look he received.

"So she's my sister!"

"She's only a -," he caught himself just in time. Luckily Lily hadn't noticed his slip.

He attempted to turn the conversation around again. "But we're going! This is it! We're off to Hogwarts!"

The tiny smile he got lit up his day.

"You'd better be in Slytherin," he added, suppressing a shudder at the idea that he might be in a different house from Lily.

One of the other boys in the compartment heard him, leading to a minor argument. They had made him look bad in front of Lily. He shook with rage and regretted the fact that his wand was in his trunk in another compartment. He was very just attack them with his bare hands when Lily jumped to his defence.

"Come on, Severus, let's find another compartment."

"Ooooo," mocked the others as they left, and one of them tried to trip Severus up.

Severus showed Lily to the compartment he had put his own trunk in earlier. Miraculously it was still empty. Lily sat down with a huff.

"Sev," she said in a soft voice. Severus looked up at once. "I'm sorry for being mad at you. I just hate the thought of Tuney being angry at me." She looked down at her feet as teardrops splashed down on them..

"Er.." Once again, he had no idea what to do. "There, there," he tried, awkwardly leaning over to pat her shoulder.

"You're terrible at this," she giggled, glancing at him through wet lashes.

Severus dropped his hand and flushed. Lily laughed again. It was the laugh that had transfixed Severus the first time he had heard it. He sat down next to her with a thump and looked out the window. Suddenly he felt a slight pressure on his cheek. Eyes wide, he turned to see an extremely red Lily smiling shyly at him.

"I just wanted to say thanks. I don't think I could survive at Hogwarts without you. Actually, I probably would have thought it was all a joke."

Severus was still gawping at her with his mouth slightly he open. She blushed again and swatted his arm. "Stop looking at me like that, or I'll take it back!"

He stopped staring straight away, but his hand reached up to touch where she had kissed him. It still tingled. He'd never felt like this before. And he wanted to keep feeling like this. He smiled at her, and she grinned right back. These next seven years would be the best of his life. How could they not be if he had Lily with him?

No lonely hands grab my suitcase full of nothing
I don't know why
I don't know why
You took me in gave me something to believe in
That big old smile is all you wore
Girl you make me want to feel
Things I never felt before
Girl you make me want to feel
Did I say I'm just a boy
Did I say I'm just a boy
You can hold me to that

Severus sat on the train, tuning out the voices of his housemates. He had aged beyond his years, the occasional harsh line looking out of place on his sixteen year old face. His fifth year at Hogwarts had just ended, but it couldn't have come sooner to Severus. Maybe it would be easier to avoid that scowling face, those betrayed green eyes, if he could lock himself away for the summer. That way he wouldn't have to deal with the real thing, only the one that sidled into his mind every time he closed his eyes.

He could feel the train slowing down now. Finally. He vaguely registered someone saying something to him before he swept out of the compartment, leaving them standing somewhat bewildered. He pulled his trunk after him, and listened to it plonk down the stairs. That probably wasn't very good for its contents, but they weren't worth much anyway. He distantly remembered his and Lily's old tradition of helping each other carefully lift the trunks down the stairs. It refused to be pushed out of his head. Maybe she might still need help with hers…?

He set his trunk down and went back to wait at the train door. Soon enough he spotted the familiar red hair. Lily grunted as she tried to maneuver her trunk down the stairs. He brushed past her and stepped over the trunk to lift one end. She looked up and saw who it was, then glared at him. She was about to refuse his help when she noticed a rather annoyed queue waiting to get off the train. She reluctantly picked up the other end and they hauled it down together.

The second it was free of its restrictions she hoisted it up onto an available trolley and made to leave. Severus couldn't bear her being angry at him. He reached out and grabbed her arm, and she spun around angrily.

"What is it Snape?" The use of his surname stung him like a whip.

"I – Lily, please, forgive me," Severus pleaded. Her face softened slightly and he gained hope.

"I can't do that Sev," she whispered. "I asked you, so many times, to stop hanging around those Death Eater wannabe friends of yours. But you wouldn't listen to me, would you?"

Severus was quite willing to beg. "Lily, I can change. Please."

She shook her head. "Change? Change? Sev, you've had years to change. Maybe in another life, we could still be friends. But you're trying to grow up too fast, trying to do really dark things. If I was in your shoes, if I could feel the pressure you're feeling from your 'friends', maybe I'd understand. But I'm not in your shoes. I'm in these ones, looking at you. And at the moment, Sev, you make me feel sick."

She turned back to her trolley and began to push it towards the barrier. Severus stood there, unfeeling.

She looked back over her shoulder, and green eyes found black. His heart leapt, but to no avail.

"You might think you're a man, Sev. But you're not. You're just a boy."

And with that, she left him.

He stood there for almost an hour, staring at the gate between two worlds. He wasn't sure which one he belonged in. It used to be whichever one she was in. But now, he didn't know. She had made him feel; he didn't want to feel anymore. There was nothing he could do about it though. After all, he was just a boy.