Summary: You really can't expect him to have told Harry everything!

Ship: Snape/Evans

Disclaimer: JKR is almighty.

"Sev?"

It was just on the tip of his long nose, a feeling just brushing over his skin, making his mouth twitch. He remained silent. A long, sleek feather end of a quill (his quill, in fact) was being used to tickle Severus Snape's gaunt face.

He did not crack open his eyes, though he wanted to. He must have fallen asleep while reading over his Charms essay.

"Severus…" she called out again, and he felt the feather brush over his closed, eyelids. Eyelids that were darkened, bruised from lack of sleep.

When he finally did open his eyes, it was to come face to face with none other than Lily Evans, Griffindor's cherished red head beauty, perhaps the most intelligent girl in all of Hogwarts, and his best friend. The grin on her face was rather cheeky.

"Hoping to catch me unawares, Evans?" he said evenly, serenely almost.

Lily backed off, her broad grin widening even more. "Oh I was just making sure you were properly asleep. You know how I love to steal all of your ideas in Charms and pass them off as my own."

Severus huffed slightly, but his black eyes seemed to glitter in the sun filtering into his corner of the library. Off to the distance through the small window the last of the sunlight was rebounding delightfully off the lake, and the entire world outside was painted in warmth.

He straightened out on his chair, even stretching his arms a little, before settling his eyes on Lily, dressed in her Muggle clothes under her black robe. She was sitting on the table he had been working on, her eyes level with the window, and her eyes were lost somewhere in the dusky sky.

Severus must have realized he was staring, because a pink tint appeared on his face and he looked down, breathing deeply, and shaking his head a little. The movement drew Lily's attention from the window, and she smiled at her friend, eyes trailing over the wooden desk. Lengths and lengths of parchment were unrolled, nearly covering the table, and the textbook lay flat open over some of it. He'd been hard at work.

"Still having trouble with Flitwick's essay?"

His eyes narrowed at her. They met eye to eye in almost every class, but Charms was the one place Lily definitely had the upper hand.

"Sev, let me help."

"No thank you." He said with his jaw clenched. Lily knew better than to take offense.

"That's not fair, Sev." She said, rolling her eyes. She pulled her wand out of the fold of her robes, and her wrist delicately flicked to the other side of the table, where another wooden chair was parked. "Locomotor Chair." She muttered, and the chair moved on its own, teetering slightly from side to side. It came up right in front of her, seat bumping gently into her dangling shins, right next to Severus.

Severus watched this display of wandwork, impressed. "You've been reading ahead."

Lily grinned at him sheepishly, getting off the table and settling into the wooden chair next to him. "Only for the useful ones."

Severus nodded. He then noticed she had just started reading over his assignment, shoulders hunched over the table, her dark locks of red hair trailing along the crisp parchment.

"I told you I didn't want your help." He muttered gruffly as he picked up the long black quill she'd used to wake him up moments ago. The sun had set and the entire library was plunged in darkness momentarily before torches lit up everywhere. This was his corner of the library, and few people ever ventured this far in, especially after sunset, as it was the least lit corner of the library. But Lily was never afraid of how far she had to walk to come find him and put him out of his misery.

"Oh shut it, you grumpy fool." She said good naturedly. "This is rather good, this bit here on the positioning of the fingers and the variations in the wand movement. Now where did you put the paragraphs he wanted on wand composition?" she asked him, barely looking up from his illegible handwriting, squinting in the partial obscurity.

"Lily…" he tried to say, but when she looked up at him, eyebrows raised, he gave up. He motioned to a scroll of parchment sitting on the far corner of the table. He lost his words, just like he always did when confronted with her emerald orbs.

He watched her quietly as she carefully unrolled the scroll. "Its only fair, you know. You constantly tell me what to do in Potions, even though you know I'm quite capable." She shot him a glance, a bemused smile on her face, and looked back at the parchment.

Severus was a bit thankful she wasn't looking at him. "…Thank you."

She smiled and her eyes never left his handwriting. "You're welcome, Sev. You dummy."

She leaned back in her chair next to him, reading his essay quietly, and all Severus could do was observe her sitting so at ease by his side. She was quite beautiful, with the flickering shadows of the nearby lamps dancing over her hair and pale skin.

Finally, he pulled his gaze away and busied himself with discarding some useless rolls of parchment he wouldn't need anymore, cleaning up his messy table. Soon they would have to return to their respective dormitories and he didn't want to have to rush to clean up a mess. Hopefully there would be enough time to walk Lily back to the corridor where the Fat Lady hung in her overly lavish surroundings. It was not a secret to him where the Gryffindors slept, just as Lily knew where to find the Slytherin common room if she ever needed him and he so happened to be there.

Once everything was placed in his leather bag, he proceeded to roll the parchments Lily approved of, waiting for her to finish.

He was mildly shocked when her palm shot out in front of his face, thin fingers stretched out. "Severus Snape, I have found a mistake."

"What!" growled the teenaged boy, grimacing. "That's not possible. Give me that." He tried to wrench his paper from her, but she quickly extended her arm out to her side, and he didn't dare reach over her on the chair to get it. She was smirking slightly, green eyes sparkling. "Its very minor. You miscalculated a date, that's all. It's 1428, not 1429 that the first dragon heartstrings were used, eventually replacing the use of mermen tail scales as the three most common sources of wand cores."

She was still outstretching her hand, her fingers dancing in front of his narrowed eyes. "Your quill, if you please, Sev."

He was looking at her grumpily, annoyed, but fished his quill back out of his satchel and handed it to her. She smiled and corrected his mistake. "All done," she smiled, handing him both the roll of parchment and the quill. "Why did Flitwick assign you such a long report on the history of wand making? Our class simply had to study and master a few of his latest Charms for next class."

Snape shook his head, eyes focused on rolling his essay perfectly, and was thankful a curtain of long hair was hiding his eyes from her. "It was an assignment for the Slytherins."

Lily nodded. "Mulciber and Avery? Being gits to the Hufflepuff girls again?"

Snape sighed, packed everything away and glanced around, making sure he did not miss anything. "Shall we return? I'll escort you back to the tower."

He met her green eyes, and Lily smiled.

"How gallant. Let's."

They left the library and made their way to the Great Staircase, and he listened to her talk about the latest Muggle album her sister had written to her about. Petunia Evans almost never wrote Lily, but when she did it would only be to talk of the Muggle world, to impress upon Lily everything she was missing out on.

"- everyone is going crazy about it, apparently. Over the holidays, you'll have to come over and listen to it with me. Would you like to?" she asked him, her arm brushing his as she walked along excitedly.

Severus Snape wasn't particularly fond of music. In fact, listening to Muggle records was definitely on the low side of his list of pastimes. But Severus Snape knew he'd be a fool to pass up the opportunity to go to her house, maybe steal a few of her mother's Christmas brownies…

"I would love to," he forced as they marched up the stairs, robes fluttering behind them. Lily and him locked eyes for a split second, and he realized his face must be very stern looking right now, and he tried to relax his jaw and brow a little.

Lily rolled her eyes and smiled. "I know you're lying. Thanks, Sev. It will be fun, I promise."

They weren't the only ones rushing back to the Gryffindor dormitories before the hour was up, and Lily stood in front of her best friend and smiled that same cheeky smile he'd woken to less than an hour ago in the library.

"S'been a pleasure, Snape." Her voice was laughing, and two first-year's passing next to them shot them both curious looks, or suspicious ones, in Severus' case.

"All mine, Evans." He was able to say in that even tone he liked to use when he was being serious.

"Thanks for letting me help." She said, turning around and walking to the portrait of the Fat Lady. "Good night Sev. See you at Potions tomorrow afternoon?" she looked back, and he nodded. She was going to be late if she didn't hurry up.

The Fat Lady swung close, eclipsing the last glimpse of her jeans and robe and dark red curls of hair, and Severus realized the Fat Lady was chuckling at Severus, standing alone in the hallway with his bag about to rip off his left shoulder, it was so heavy.

"What are you looking at." He spat at the portrait. Irate, he turned around and made his way down tons of corridors and stairs, hauling his bag along, until he made it, only three minutes late, to the Slytherin dungeons.

* * *

Unlike rainfall, snowfall was absolutely silent. Snape loved it, from afar, when he observed it through the window, or when briskly walking through a courtyard to get to class on time, but he was not enjoying just standing in one place, being slowly buried under the falling whiteness. His arms were crossed as he walked, trying to conserve warmth in his slowly freezing digits, and he was not wearing the appropriate footwear to be in the snow. Lily was ahead of him, slightly, bounding around joyfully like a child, laughing and twirling in the flurry of white.

Afar, down by the lake, there was a big snowball fight going on, the first massive one of the season, according to Lily. The lake's calm surface had just begun to freeze. The Forbidden Forest, still a ways off, wasn't looking so forbidden covered beneath the blanket of snow, and suddenly he noticed that Lily had fallen to the ground.

"Lily?" he asked, his nose feeling stuffy and red from the cold and somehow affecting his voice.

Her mane of red locks was sprawled out on the snow, and she looked up at him with an elated gleam in her eyes. "I'm making a snow angel!" she told him.

Severus rolled his eyes. He stood over her until she decided she was done, and when she stood she shook snowflakes out of her hair, grinning at him, "Look!"

He did, and saw the imprint, but soon brought his gaze back to Lily, who was shaking her hair and smiling and all along the back of her was covered in snow and he couldn't help the thought that she was a snow angel. He blushed, but it didn't matter, because his usually sallow skin was pinkish from the cold air anyways. At least there was no wind, and the snowflakes were dropping from the sky lazily, taking their time to reach the earth.

He was snapped from his slight reverie by the knowledge that Lily was still giggling, and it seemed to be because of him. "What, may I ask, is so funny?"

Lily's giggles seem to increase, but thankfully she calmed after a moment, walking over to him. "I have never seen anybody look so miserable under falling snowflakes, Sev." She reached out to his crossed arms and fished out one of his hands, which he gave up without proper thought, and she smiled. "Do you want to keep walking for a bit?"

He looked at her through his black bangs, vividly aware of her hand, and the sensation of its soft, smooth texture against his own, rougher hands. If it meant she would hold his hand, he'd go anywhere.

They walked, and mostly she discussed their latest potions project, which he found eased him mind a little bit and brought him to his senses.

They walked all the way to Hagrid's hut, pausing every now and then to look at a snowflake that caught Lily's eye. His feet were freezing and his nose was horrendously stuffy and he wanted to return to the castle soon before his free hand fell off from the frost but she was there, holding his other hand instead of playing in the snowball fight down by the lake and Severus couldn't possibly think of a reason to end this moment.

The snowflakes fell in larger bunches, the world around them appearing increasingly white as they meandered the Hogwarts grounds, until finally they could not see further than four or five meters in either direction and Lily was silent and watching the snowfall with the enthralling bewilderment of a small child.

"If she saw me right now, Mum would be so mad. She would force me inside underneath tons of quilted blankets and force a hot cup of chocolate down my throat if she found me standing in the middle of a small blizzard." Lily said, smiling up at him for a brief moment before walking ahead.

There were close to the forest now, Severus knew, and soon they would have to turn around. He was cold and drenched and his black hair was surely frozen with snow, but Lily looked so very content in the absolutely silent snowfall.

"I'm getting cold," she looked at him sheepishly, and Severus frowned, rolling his eyes once more.

"Well we better get you inside before you die from the cold."

As they walked back along their footsteps in the snow, which Severus noted made it slightly easier to walk swiftly, Lily huddled closer against him, biting her lip in apology. Severus had to force himself not to look pleased, but the fact that he was freezing to death as well made Lily's proximity all the more welcome.

She was sick for a week in bed with a cold, and he was also sneezing and sniffling for a few days. He missed her greatly, but all week all he could think was the feel of her fingers curled around his, and all those little white snowflakes peppered on her red hair.

* * *