Title: Five Times Severus Snape Almost Told Lily Evans He Loved Her

Disclaimer: The wonderful world of Harry Potter, and everything that goes with it, belongs to the brilliant J.K. Rowling. I am making no money off of this.

Author's Note: I've had this written for a while and finally decided to upload it. I took a few of the scenes (as you're about to see) from DH and expanded them, or added to them. I hope to write a full-length Lily/Severus fic one day, but not right now. Gotta concentrate on Therapy Sessions! Hope you like this sampling though.

I.

They were sitting on the grass in the playground in the shade of a small thicket of trees. It was where they always met, now that he had finally talked to her. She was eager to learn all about the magical world, and he was just as eager to tell her all about it.

"Tell me about the dementors again."

"What d'you want to know about them for?" he asked, shocked.

"If I use magic outside school-"

He almost laughed. "They wouldn't give you to the dementors for that!" It amazed him, sometimes, all the things she didn't know, but of course she didn't know them, she'd been brought up by muggles, after all.

"Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff," he continued. "They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. You're not going to end up in Azkaban, you're too-"

He stopped himself and turned red in the face. He almost said she was too good, and she was. She was looking at him excitedly, drinking up everything he was saying. He wanted her to look at him like that for the rest of time. She was like an angel, with a small beam of sunlight filtering in through the trees behind her, framing her red hair and making it appear as if it was on fire. Her green eyes were bright, filled with wonder and joy. She was always like that, though, with everyone and everything, and he never was.

He hated his stupid father, and his stupid mother for putting up with him. He couldn't wait to leave and go to Hogwarts and get away from them both, finally, but he was also scared. Scared that when Lily was able to meet other wizards and witches, she would like them better and she would leave him all alone. He couldn't let that happen.

He opened his mouth to tell her, because if he told her she would never leave him alone, Lily would never do that-

The trees behind them rustled, and Lily's muggle sister fell into view.

"Tuney!" said Lily happily. He looked at Lily's sister angrily. She had interrupted him. He had just been about to tell her…he didn't remember what happened next. Lily's sister said something to him, and he snapped back, and the anger at her for taking Lily's attention away from him boiled up inside him and he couldn't control it. A branch broke and fell onto her sister's shoulder, and she ran away crying.

"Did you make that happen?" Lily demanded of him.

"No," he said quickly. He hadn't meant to do it, after all, but Petunia had been bothering them…

"You did!" Lily said angrily. She started backing away from him. "You did! You hurt her!"

"No - no I didn't!" he said desperately, but she had glared at him started running away. He stood there in the thicket of the trees, miserable and alone, as he had feared he would be, and did not go home until long after darkness had fallen.

II.

"See ya, Snivellus!" said one of the boys, as the compartment door slammed closed behind them. His heart was beating very fast; those stupid boys, they didn't know him, he'd show them…

"Sev? Are you coming?" Lily asked, looking at him curiously over her shoulder. He turned toward her, and he was so relieved they were speaking again, so relieved she was going to be his friend, and not someone else's, especially not those stupid boy's, he almost blurted the words out.

But he didn't. He felt his throat close up in fear, and his heart began to beat even faster, and he just nodded, following her down the hallway and into a different compartment.

III.

Her hair was billowing out behind her as she skated in front of him, making figure eights gracefully and laughing merrily at his discomfort. He was balancing precariously on a set of old wooden skates, arms raised out to his sides in an effort to keep himself from falling over, scared to move away from the bank's edge.

"Come on, Sev, it's easy!" She called out to him.

He thrust out one leg bravely, willing himself to be able to join her, but this jerky movement caught the rest of his body off-guard and he tumbled into a heap on top of the ice.

Peals of her laughter rang out in the open air as she made her way over to him. He glared at her grumpily, but saw how prettily her green eyes danced when she laughed and he thought of how silly he must look and he couldn't help himself, he started laughing too, and he could feel the words building up inside of him, bubbling warm and to the surface and he almost said it out loud-

But no. He was content to just laugh with her in the snow, and as she held her hand out to him to help him up, he felt his heart rise up into his throat and was glad that the icy wind had already turned his cheeks pink, because he certainly was blushing.

IV.

"No - listen, I didn't mean -"

"- to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"

Here was his chance. The perfect opportunity. He had known it was true for years, from almost the first day he had met her. And here was his chance to tell her, finally. He had dreamed about it, imagined what it would be like, what she would say, how she would react. How would she react now? She was certainly furious with him, and rightly so. He had wanted to take the word back the moment he had said it, he had cursed his idiocy afterwards…but what would she do if he told her now? Would her face soften? Would her eyes, her beautiful, almond-shaped green eyes, stop staring daggers at him and show some other emotion? Would she look at him with disgust and scorn, or perhaps pity, or…dare he hope it…

He struggled to say the words. He opened his mouth, but they wouldn't come out, he was too scared, he had always been too scared, scared that she would leave him forever if he told her, and she was glaring at him and had turned her back on him and was walking through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor Common Room, nononono he needed to call her back and tell her-

But the portrait swung shut, and she was gone.

V.

He watched her pack through her window. She was folding up a pair of emerald green robes. He was sitting in a tree beside her parent's house, Disillusioned to match the pattern of the oak tree's bark. He had heard she was moving in with James Potter, that they had a house, that they were getting married…

A tree branch one of his feet had been resting on cracked and fell to the ground. Lily's head whipped around and she walked over to the window, leaning out and squinting her eyes, looking at the tree, trying to see…

He thought about taking off the charm. He thought about jumping in through her open window and telling her that he was sorry, so sorry, that he would leave the Death Eaters, that he would hide with her, or fight with her, and that - that he -

That he loved her.

But as he thought this, as he almost worked up the nerve to do it, she had turned away and resumed packing.

With one last look at her, he Disapparated with a tiny pop.