"I'm sorry"
"I'm not interested, Severus."
The last words Lily would be wanting to say to Snape for quite a long time.
After she swept into the Gryffindor common room, she was ambushed by James and the Marauders.
"Hey Evans! EVANS!"
She turned her head, having a row with Potter and his friends was the last thing she needed after loosing her best friend.
"What do you need Potter? I've already told you, I would rather go in a date with the giant squid than with y-"
"No Evans! Just... just asking how you managed to piss dear old Snivelly so much, that's a quite hard thing to do, I mean..."
"Not your business Potter, thank you" and she turned towards her dormitory.
"Cheers Evans!" said James with an evil grin on his face.
"You did it, then?" asked Sirius behind him.
"It costed me a freaking lot, but yeah, I did." answered James, a hint of proudness on his face.
"And you sure it will work?" asked Remus, catching up.
"Of course! If James did it, of course it will!" called another voice, wheezy.
"Jeez Peter... thanks, I guess."
Not an instant later, a shriek was heard from the floor below.
"I guess she's found it then." said James.
"JAMES POTTER! How you dare- why did you- after what- what is this?" came Lily's really angry voice from the staircaise.
The whole common room had gone quiet, Lily appeared, clutching a red envelope tightly on her hand, but not nearly as red as her face, the worst a Hogwarts student could recieve: a Howler.
James was staring speechlessly at her. He had forgotten how cute she really was when she was that angry.
"Er... Evans... it's just... a joke, I mean..."
"What a joke! What a joke if you managed to smuggle all the way to my dormitory to just make a joke! And believe me, I know it's hard, having put extra enchantments myself. Yeah, because of you, insufferable arrogant toerag. After those singing gnomes at Christmas, I didn't want any more surprises."
Suddenly, the Howler she was holding fell and burst into flames.
" I KNEW IT EVANS! I KNEW IT ALL ALONG! YOU'D BE SENDING SNIVELLUS TO HELL, AND FALLING IN FOR ME, OR AM I WRONG?" came James' voice, loads louder than usual.
Lily's eyes were in tears; she went straight into her dormitory without a second glance at the Marauders.
"You upset her mate." said Sirius.
"Oh, did I really?" snorted James.
"Yeah, I'm Sirius, I mean serious."
"Not funny." without another word he, too, went to his dormitory. He shut his four-poster bed hangings but lay awake for a long time. He heard Remus, Sirius, Peter and his other unfortunate rommate, a big, Hispanic guy named Max Alvarez come up. He had never hung around with them really, but he was a nice guy, somewhat lonely, but knew about Remus' greatest secret.
James stayed awake for hours and hours, thinking. Now that Lily's closest pretendant was off the board, he felt that she should fall for him instead. But that was a really stupid thought. He had never been entirely nice to Lily, but he had shown her that he's got feelings, and even given her a gift on every Christmas since their first year, always signed: Truly yours, James Potter. He realized how hard it had been to him to see Snape and Lily hanging out together, chatting in the corridors, helping each other with their homework. He wanted that girl. She was perfect in everything he could think, she was- wait! That's not me, that's not me... he kept reminding himself, as if to willing to get rid of a sickening virus. But nevertheless, an image of her face made him fall asleep with a grin on his face.
On the other side of the tower, Lily was sobbing uncontrolably into her pillow.
"Hey Lily, you alright?" asked Laura Fawcett, her best friend in the world.
"You seem pretty upset." said Tiffany Alexander, her other best friend.
"Leave her, though all of us will go tomorrow to beat up that insufferable moron-Potter" said the always cheerful Mary Macdonald. She had known Lily the longest, they were childhood friends.
"Cheerful meeting are we having, then?" said the other girl, Sophie Moody, known for being the little sister of the well known Auror, Alastor Moody. She was alone with her brother; her mother and father had been murdered by the Death Eaters. But she still got along extremely well with the other girls of the dormitory, in fact, they were all really close, and really good friends.
"Lily, are you in the mood for telling us how you feel, or you want to wait 'till tomorrow, we understand, but it is not nice to see you turned into a human hosepipe." said Laura in a somehow consoling tone.
"And, are you sure the Howler is the only reason you're like that, or it's merely the other, er, issue?" asked Sophie in an undertone.
Lily looked up, her face puffy and her eyes bloodshot. "What d'you mean?"
Tiffany smiled shrewdly and said, "Oh, you well know what she means."
Lily blushed, but it was hard to tell because the rest of her face was just as red.
The girls knew what she was thinking. That nasty little incident back on their third year, well, the last day of term, actually leaving Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. They remembered it just as well as Lily. They had just came out of the barrier that separated them all from the Muggle world and spotted James' parents in the distance, awkwardly enough standing next to Mr. an Mrs. Evans, accompained by none other than Petunia, but Lily hadn't noticed that. She reached her parents happily, already having said good-bye to her friends, and running to hug her sister. She hadn't noticed the Potters standing next. Then he came.
"Evans! Hey Evans! I forgot to say good bye in the train."
And he kissed her full in the mouth.
She was stunned, to surprised to react. It was not her first kiss, she had kissed Severus Snape on a Truth-or-Dare game once, but it was the first time that it was a real kiss, with no one expecting it. Luckily for her, her surprised look was spotted by her parents, whom laughed. When they broke apart, he only said, "See you in September!" and vanished into thin air with his mom and dad. The only thing her mum had said afterwards was,
"That young man's very good looking! Why didn't you introduce us, Lily?"
Lily had just blushed and swore never speak of it again. But naturally, it was a complete secret, so the Marauders and Lily's friends had seen everything.
That memory still made the hairs on Lily's neck stand up and her stomach to have butterflies everytime she thought about it. Not that she did think about it, but from time to time when it crossed her mind.
Anyway, after Sophie had mentioned the issue, Lily had stopped crying and managed a small smile.
"From where the blazes did that smile came from?" asked Mary "Is our all-powerful Lily falling for the charm of the chief Marauder?"
(Note: the boys didn't know the girls knew their little gang was called the Marauders)
"Never in the life!" she said, really surprised, and thought for a moment that the girls had been reading her thoughts, but that was impossible for a fifth-year.
"You're tricking no one dear" called Laura, "I think I know when my best friend has an strange crush, honestly. Either way, you are not so discreet."
Lily blushed, if it was possible, even redder.
"I'm not going out with him, specially after Sev-" And she broke down to cry again.
"Holy crap" muttered Sophie "She finally gave in."
