Lily had got The Note about a week ago for her to meet him at the park at midnight, the very park where it all began for the two. She, of course, arrived there an hour before he had requested, just in case it was an ambush. The two old friends were on opposite sides of the War, and she was a Muggle-Born, which the Other Side hated. They believed her to be less of a witch. Or, rather, not even a witch at all.

"No, Severus! I've chosen my side, and you've chosen yours, along with your wanna-be Death Eater friends. See," she said, motioning at him as he flinched. "You don't even deny that you are going to join up with You-Know-Who after Hogwarts!"

"But—but, Lils, c'mon!" Severus pleaded. "Please, please, let's just put that crappy day in fifth year behind us! Let's move on, go back to how it used to be; back at the Railroad Cove and the park! Please, Lils. I—" he went to grab her arm, but she snatched it away.

"I'm sorry, Severus," she said, "but the Wizarding World is headed to war. And both of us have made our decisions of which side we're on," she grabbed his left arm and ripped back his sleeve, as he didn't even try to pull back. A tattoo of a skull with a snake coming out the mouth was revealed. He flinched again as he noticed the moisture in her eyes. "And we can't be friends anymore. We can't ever go back to the two little kids on the swing-set, like what we were. I'll always treasure those times, though," she said, green eyes meeting blackfor a second. "Maybe, one day, if ever come to your senses, we can remember those times together.

Lily dropped his arm, leaving him to not even care to roll the sleeve back down, and walked away, leaving Severus all alone.

Lily drew her cloak tighter around her as the cold wind howled around her. That had been last year, the last time she had talked to her childhood friend, during their seventh year in Hogwarts. It used to be that they couldn't go a day without talking. But now, he had managed to make con-tact. Something about the desperation in his note had told her that she needed to go. She had been chilled to the bone even though the note had only been a couple sentences long. Please, please, Lily, will you please come see me? I need to see you again. I'll be in our usual place at midnight tomo-row. And, by tomorrow I mean, December 23rd.

She heard a noise a little way away from her and whipped her wand out. She jumped when she heard a voice behind her.

"It's all right, Lils," said a deep, hauntingly familiar voice. Lily spun around, tightening the grip on her wand, to see her old childhood friend, Sev-erus Snape, a few feet in front of her in the almost pitch black. He was wearing a black cloak over his black robes. His coal-black eyes reflected the pale light of the nearly full moon above them. "I promise, I won't hurt you. I could never hurt you. You can lower your wand."

Lily's eyes flashed. "I'll keep it out for now," she hissed, though she did lower her wand ever so slightly. "Why did you want to meet me?"

"To talk," he said simply. In the dark she was able to his vague form shrug.

"To talk," she repeated incredulously. "You write to me in a sort of panic, begging me to meet you here in the middle of the night, when I need to be studying for my Healer exams , being as we're likely as not going to be needing as many fully-trained Healers as possible very soon since we're facing a bloody war, and you want to talk. All right, Severus, what is it that you so desperately want to talk about? Life? Love? Those most likely to be facing life-long Azkaban sentences very, very shortly?"

She saw Severus flinch and hurt flash in his eyes for a brief second. Good, he should be hurt, lousy, bloody Death Eater! Let him be hurt! It's the bloody truth! she thought to herself, though she felt guilty after saying such a stinging comment.

"Please, Lils," he said, that old desperation entering his voice. "Just open your mind. Let me explain. Please. I promise, I'm not here to hurt you; I'm here for another chance. I would..." Snape drooped.

"Would what?" Lily asked, showing no mercy to her old friend.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head. "I would like to be friends again, like the old times. Like we were," he said, motioning to the tiny neighbor-hood park that they were in.

Lily put her head in her hands. I don't remember him being this daft! "Severus, I—"

Severus put his hand over her mouth and she resisted the urge to bite him. Just barely. "Lily, I heard you before when you said that we couldn't be friends. And I thought, if we can't be friends, than can we be more? Please, Lils, I know this sounds cleshe, but I can't live without you. Please, just please, think about it."

Lily snapped her head back. "What the bloody heck do you mean by "more than just friends"? You can't seriously—"

But, Lily was silenced by Severus' lips suddenly crashing down upon her own. He backed away, his pasty white face coloring. Lily looked up at him and gaped. Then, she backed away.

"Severus, no," she said, once she regained her ability to speak. "I—I, NO! We can't. We just can't!"

"And why the bloody heck not?" Severus snarled angrily. Lily tried to say something, but she felt as though her ability to speak had been snatched from her, just as completely as the Silencing Charm. Instead, she just opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. Severus pointed at her. "See? You have no reason not to!"

"I, uh, I, er! Sometimes I really hate you, Severus Snape!" she cried, slapping her old friend on the arm. He smirked at her.

"Well?" he asked in a low voice. "What do you say?"

"It wouldn't work," Lily insisted.

"And just why not?" Severus asked, just as insistent.

"Because," she said, crossing her arms.

"Because why," he said mimicking her.

"Urgh!" Severus went to open his mouth. "Don't you dare!" Lily snarled. He put his hand up in self-defense, knowing how hot this fantastic witch's temper could flare. "You would be in terrible danger, Sev," Severus felt a wave of hope wash over him. That was the first time she had called him "Sev" since their fifth year at Hogwarts. "With who I am, and what you are, it just wouldn't work! One of us would end up dead—or worse." Lily started crying and Severus put an arm around her shoulders.

"It's fine," nothing will happen to us, I promise," Severus said, holding the weeping young woman to his heart. "And, even if it does, wasn't your favorite Muggle writer that said "It is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all"?" Severus pointed out gently. "So, please, Lils, give me a chance. Give us a chance, please!"

Lily looked up at him, hardly daring to breath. She knew that at that point she couldn't trust her voice. She took a deep breath. "Alright, Sev," she said nodding. "I'll try. But, at the first sign that you're in danger, or that you're just trying to lure me into revealing Order secrets, then we're not going to try it again, at least not until after the War is over, if it's the former, not the latter. Fair enough?"she asked the black-haired man.

"Alright," Severus replied, nodding. "That's good by me. And, don't worry, the latter won't happen."

"I want to believe that, Severus, I really do, but we'll just have to wait and see. I'm sorry, I wish I could give you more, you deserve it, what, with you've gone through," Lily said, hanging her head in shame. She was almost positive that trickery was not the way her old friend worked. But, she wasn't so sure about his master. She had to play it careful.

The two settled into a long silence as the sun began to rise. Severus warily threaded his fingers between her's. She didn't oppose. He rememb-ered how much he'd wanted to be able to do that as a teenager in Hogwarts. Of course, then Lily probably wouldn't have let him, neither would the Marauders, nor his SLytherin friends. But at that moment, he had her all to himself, as more than really good childhood friends. She was his, and he was hers. Things seemed to finally be looking up for Severus Lee Snape, almost too good to be true.

But, he didn't remember the lesson he'd learned a long time ago: Oftentimes if it seemed too good to be true, then it most likely was. But, for that one night, things were still good.

"Lils, please," Severus begged the fiesty red-head girl. She was standing in her stubborn-mode a few feet from him. Her arms were crossed, her face set, and she was shaking her beautiful head back and forth, tears silently trickling down her face.

"We can't!" she repeated, yet again. "It's too dangerous, for both of us. It' one thing to date, but completely diferent to... to... Ugh! I can't even say it!!"

"To get married," Severus said again. "Please, Lily, I want to be with you for every day of the rest of my life! Please, Lils, just think about it for a second! It's really not as bad as you think. You've always seemed to look at the worse side of things," he put an arm around her, and she, sur-prisingly, didn't shrug it off. "It's true that in this War that there is no certainty that we'll be here tomorrow, so we must livelike that! Don't you want to know what it's like to be my wife? I sure as heck want to know what being your husband is like!" Severus said to the stubborn woman. She turned and buried her face against him, away from the rising sun that meant that they'd have to go their separate ways very shortly. It was for that reason that both lived for the coming night that meant they could see each other again, yet dreaded the morning that they might have to fight against each other.

"Look," Severus said, gently lifting her shoulders to face him. Her cheeks were tear-stained. "I promise that nothing bad will come of us getting married. We will still be the only ones that know, we could even think up our own ceremony, so that we won't have to risk going to the wedding chapel. And, as soon as this is all over, we'll have a proper ceremony. Okay?"

Black met green in an unspoken question and search. "Please," Severus said again. Lily looked into the black depths of his eyes and had to turn away. She had always been able to read his real feelings through his eyes.

Lily took a deep breath. "Alright. But I'm writing the ceremony without your help."

"Why?" Severus asked, thoroughly confused.

"Because," Lily said, a huge grin spreading across the face. "We have to keep one tradition at least. When Severus still looked at her question-ingly, she added, "The bride does all the work in planning the ceremony. All the groom is supposed to do is show up!" Severus began laughing with his beautiful Lily and kissed her sweetly.

It had been a little while since his 'wedding' and Severus was coming to Lily with good news. He had found a place where they could live after the War. The young couple still met in the place it all had started. The park. It was Severus' favorite place in the world. (Lily's was most likely a Muggle mall, but, for obvious reasons, they couldn't meet there.) but, Severus reasoned, she liked the park as well.

For the past few days, it seemed, Lily had been acting odd. She seemed sick, and didn't talk as much. She looked worried about something or other, and it was worrying Severus. He hoped that his news would help.

Severus looked around the park, trying to figure out where his precious Lily was. "Lils?" he whispered/shouted. Immediately, a flower bud that was right in front of him opened. It was an Easter lily. Severus felt something in him grow nervous, as if he could have already known what it was going to say. He picked it, noticing a tiny scroll in it instead of a stamen, unlike most flowers. Severus cautiously reached out his hand cautiously to grab it.

Amazingly, nothing dangerous happened. Severus smirked to himself, realizes how incredibly Lily-like that thought had been."Lumos," he mutter-ed. He unrolled the tiny piece of parchment, and he nearly dropped it when he recognized the flowing, neat script. It was Lily's

Dear Severus,

I am terribly sorry for writing this letter. I hope you're able to maybe one day forgive me for what I'm about to tell you.

I can't do this anymore. I don't like these secrets, and even more than that, I am going to marry someone else. James Potter and I will be properly mar-ried and well past our honeymoon by the time you are able to find me. I guess that we were just not meant to be. If we were, then we would have got together long before the War, on the same side, and be properly married, maybe with a small family. I wish that I didn't have to tell you this, what, with all we've been through, but this is just the way it has to be.

Goodbye Severus Snape. Please don't come looking for me, nothing will change. It will make things more painful for us both if you do.

Lily

Severus felt like curling up and dying right then and there. What was life without Lily by his side? But, he did not have that option.

He had to go on. He would one day win her back. He had to.