AN: So, simple enough premise. You give me a letter-writer and letter-recipient, and I'll write it. You can also add details, like time it was written, subject of letter, reason for writing, and so on. Either party may, at the time of writing, be dead.

Warning: All (or most) letters will be as IC as I can contrive.

To Severus Snape from Lily Potter, dated October 27, 1981

Dear Sev,

Of all the things I regret, I regret losing you the most.

You were a big part of my life. You were my dearest friend. For years and years I always went to you with my problems, my questions, my jokes, and you were always there. I used to spend my free time trying to think of ways to make you smile. Sometimes—not very often, but sometimes—I wonder whether I gave all that up for a foolish reason. You made some mistakes, but so does everyone, and we can't get mad at everyone. Of course, it's also true that not everyone's mistakes include embracing fanatically genocidal elitist ideologies.

But in light of recent revelations, I find myself wondering whether it wouldn't be possible to forgive you even that. I know you spend your life protecting me and people like me, now. And I hear from Dumbledore—oftener and oftener, it seems—just how much you are doing to protect Harry. He says that your life is in constant danger, that one mistake could mean your death. Please believe me, I'm grateful for that.

But now I know why you do it. None of it's for Harry or those other people at all, is it? It's just for me.

Dumbledore told me. I don't know why; maybe he wanted me to understand. I haven't told James. I wish I knew whether it were true. For years my clearest memory of you has been that day in fifth year, so sometimes I think it can't be true…and then I remember the way you used to look at me. I remember how desperately you clung to my friendship—me, a mudblood—even after I told you to get lost. So maybe it is true.

But I remember other things, too, about that day. I remember that you didn't care about whether what you'd said was right or wrong; all you cared about was that it had hurt my feelings, and that I didn't want to be your friend anymore. You never apologised for thinking in that derogatory way; you apologised for saying it, to me.

Dumbledore keeps telling me how much you've changed. I wonder if you've really changed at all. You still don't care about right and wrong—you just care about me. I'm different, I'm special, I'm no ordinary mudblood. But Sev…that doesn't make you a better person. You don't think killing Muggles is wrong, you just think that it offends and endangers me. You wouldn't care what happened to Harry or James, as long as I got out of it all right. In the end, even when you finally, finally make the right choice, it's still for an essentially selfish reason.

If all this is just for me, you can forget it. Go back to your precious Voldemort and your precious pureblood supremacy. If you want to kill Muggles, kill Muggles; in the end it won't make a difference, after all. I'm never going to love you and I don't want anything you give me.

I wrote that last night and then went to bed, and when I woke up I just stared at it for a long time. I thought about crumpling this whole letter and starting again, but I decided to leave it.

You have to understand how I feel. I've spent my whole life trying to do the right thing, trying to be good to everyone, trying to make the world better. And now I find out you've spent your whole life trying to be good to me. Can you see how that would seem kind of petty?

Not that I'm not flattered. I am. But why couldn't you have made the right decision for something other than me?

Maybe I'm just being silly, splitting hairs. I mean, what does it matter, really, why you do what you do? Maybe it's the same, as long as you're doing the right thing. And maybe the fact that you're doing it for me should mean…more. To be honest, in some ways I just can't believe that you would put yourself in danger for me. It's such a weird feeling, like I have power over someone's life. I'm not sure whether it's romantic or terrifying or both.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make through all this is that…I am trying to forgive you. I would like nothing better than to be friends again, to try to make you smile again. Dumbledore says he's never seen you smile—that's a miserable thing to say of any man. I don't know if a complete reconciliation is possible right now, but maybe someday? Maybe we could see each other sometime, and talk.

You could come see little Harry. I'll send James away, if you like. Sometimes I could just kill him when I think about the way he used to treat you. He's changed, he really has, but of course I couldn't expect you to realise that, you always could hold a grudge.

I left off again there for a few days. I've been doing a lot of thinking, and talking to James. I'm beginning to realise that if loving me is all you're doing, then maybe that's enough. I mean, that's quite a lot, to love another person. I've loved a lot of people and all of them—including you, especially you—were hard work. And if it brings you back to right and good, if it maybe helps you to be better…well, there's not much that's purer than love, is there?

I'm sorry, I just realised how that must sound, like I'm using your love to make you do things. I don't want to use you. I just so badly want us to be on the same side again. If this change is honest—if you've really left the Dark Lord—I think I can forgive you.

Do you think you could make it for dinner sometime next week? You really should meet the child you're protecting. I think I may be forgiven for finding him the most charming baby in the world. And maybe…maybe we could just have a talk. There are some things I want to tell you, and something I—we—want to ask.

Love (still)

Lily

Note: this letter was presumably complete on or around October 31, shortly before the writer was killed and the house in which she lived partially destroyed. In June 1998, the abovementioned Harry returned to his parents' house to live and discovered the unsent letter while cleaning.