Just a short oneshot. Slightly AU and OOC.
It'd been years since she'd even seen his face. In fact, she couldn't even rightly recall the last time they'd spoken. There'd been a letter or two, those were tucked away in the back of a drawer, a place James would never look anyway. She should throw them out, they were just a reminder of a person--of a life--she didn't have anymore. Besides, the confrontation with James would be a nightmare. But as she stands over the crackling fire in the lounge of their too-large house, her hands are shaking and Lily knows she can't toss them in. She falls to the plush couch, one hand pressed against her swelling stomach, cradling the life that was flourishing inside of her, the other clamped like a vice around the crumpled and worn papers.
"Don't, Sev. This isn't about Potter. It's about me and you." Lily is looking up into the onyx eyes of her best friend, of the boy she has come to love and think of as her own and doesn't want to give up, especially not to a crazed lunatic preaching prejudices and world domination.
Severus reaches down and runs a strand of Lily's ever soft hair through his index and middle finger. "I can't stand the way he watches you, the way he obsesses over you, it's like he's an animal and you're something to eat." Severus is staring down into emerald eyes of his love, of the girl he has loved since he was a little boy spying on her and her sister at a play ground. She has become a part of him, woven her way into him, and every moment apart form her is like a splintered piece of glass piercing through him.
"Just make me a promise that you won't choose him over me," Lily says, stepping into Sev's arms.
Severus smiles. "Likewise."
That memory hurts her every time, taking her breath away and closing off her lungs and making her head spin. She misses him--God how she misses him. The smell of him, all treacle tart and wine, and the feel of his hand, strong and pale, clasped around hers. She rips off the gold band that James had placed on her finger what seems like a lifetime ago, but then at the same time it could only be yesterday, and slams it down on the coffee table, hating the way it merrily gleams off of the orange flames.
The dream was vibrant and soso real and his touch still lingers on her cheek, on her lips, her hair. She hates the dreams that pregnancy brings, because they are so vivid she sometimes doesn't know if they happened or not, and the fact that she knows this was not real just makes it worse, because she knows she would give it all--the ring and the name Potter and the full vault at Gringotts--for the dream to be a reality.
She closes her eyes, allowing the dream/memory to wash over her.
"I think I'm falling in love with you." His breath is like smoke, exhaling into the cold, endless night. The sky above them is midnight black and draped with thousands, maybe millions, of stars. They are alone, on Prefect duty, patrolling the castle perimeter.
Lily smiles. They are the most important and the dearest (and the most heart-breaking) words anybody has ever said to her and she is nothing but grateful they are coming from Sev. He means everything to her, he is her.
"You're beautiful, Lily." He says, and they are holding each other now, and Lily, who hears that she is beautiful more times than she can count, thinks that out of anybody else's mouth the words are in themselves ugly and false and vain, but when he, when Severus says them, they are nothing but sincere and she thinks that maybe, one day, she could believe she is beautiful.
"I love you." He says, and their lips meet and it is all fireworks and bells and waves crashing on sandy, rocky shores. It's cliche and maybe a little sickening, but it is the most romantic moment of Lily's life and she grips at Severus like he is her saving grace, like he's the thread from which she is dangling. They kiss again, lost in their own perfect world, and Lily's heart skips a beat and her stomach is fluttering.
"What are you doing to me?" She whispers to the dark, empty room, and she's nothing but the heart-broken girl who watched her best friend walk away. It wasn't that night, but later--it could've been days or weeks or years, Lily doesn't remember, doesn't want to remember.
She will never forget how he chose something that wasn't her, how he left her with no other option than James Potter. It isn't that James is a bad husband, and she has no doubt that he'll be a good father. But he isn't Severus, he isn't her best friend, and he isn't the one she dreamed about when she was a small girl hoping for her prince. James is too light, too exuberant. He doesn't understand her, doesn't get her like Severus did and though he tries, it only pains her further because Severus never had to try. They were two pieces of a whole, and being together and loving each other was as natural as breathing.
There's something out of place with James, something that comes down to chemistry and make up, and it can't be created out of thin air or faked. She has a very comfortable life with James, and she never goes without anything. Severus, she is sure, lives quite frugally, and focuses on what book he can next buy or what thickness of cauldron he'll be needing for this potion or that one. She longs for that kind of life, where they would work hard and come home to each other, even if it is a small flat without the country view and marble counters. She longs for her best friend.
She sits on the couch, staring into the depleting flames until after dawn, when James comes down the stairs, his hair messy and his glasses askew. She takes a sharp intake of breath, because she still can't believe her life has turned out like this, can't believe it isn't Severus that walks down the stairs to her and kisses her cheek and rubs her belly. She can't believe that it isn't his child she carries, that it isn't him making her breakfast.
She can't believe a lot of things, most of all the love of her existence showing her the black skull with a snake protruding from its mouth, etched on the inside his firm, pale forearm.
"You made your choice, and it wasn't me." Lily says, but she's a stupid little girl playing in a world of magic and monsters and blood and has no idea what happens when hearts break and lives shatter. She walks away from him, from the tall boy, and she doesn't look back.
What she hates the most is that she didn't tell him she loved him.