Bright jets of light were flying in every direction, the sound of screams saturated the air, making it hard to think clearly. People were falling all around me, injured, dead.

Someone within the Order, though we weren't sure who, had received information of a Death Eater attack on a small Muggle village just outside of Surrey. Originally, it had only been James, Remus, Sirius, Peter, Alice, Frank, and I who had been sent, but when we had seen the number of Death Eaters pillaging the village, we were quick to call for reinforcements. So what we thought would be a small raid quickly turned into a full-scale battle. And now I was engaged in a fierce duel with Lucius Malfoy, ripping up the quaint backyard of some poor Muggle family. I had always hated Malfoy in school, thought he was a right prick, but I had to admit he was a formidable and talented opponent. I was holding my own alright, but I wasn't sure how long I would be able to last, and I prayed that an Order member or an Auror would see me struggling and come to my aid. Unfortunately, though, things don't always work out that way, and prayers aren't always answered. "Sectumsempra!" Malfoy screeched, moving his wand in a slashing motion towards me.

Before I could react, I felt a heavy weight crash against me from the side, and I found myself tumbling into the bushes lining the yard. I reached out and grabbed onto a branch, stopping myself from careening down the steep hill. However, whatever – rather, whoever – had hit me seemed to be unable to stop, and a dark, limp figure hurtled past me, colliding with bushes along the way. Using the branch to pull myself into a sitting position, I debated whether to rejoin the battle or go after whoever had tumbled down the hill in front of me. I thought I had seen a glimpse of silver flash by as the mystery person had rolled downward – a Death Eater mask? Meaning the person most likely had been stunned, and hit me by chance – fortunately – as he flew back. On the other hand, it could have been an Order member or an Auror protecting me from the curse that had been sent towards me. It could have been James! With that, I slowly began lowering myself down the hill, using branches to steady myself along the way. After a few feet, I reached a sheer drop off, and I bit my lip, feeling my heart beat increasingly faster within my chest. Praying that the drop off was not more than twenty feet or so, I leaned forward, digging my feet into the dirt and tightly gripping a bush behind me, and peered through the bitter darkness over the edge of the drop off.

Unable to see more than a few feet in front of me, I extracted my wand from my cloak and illuminated the drop off with a whispered "Lumos." Below me, at the end of a thirty foot drop, was a man lying face down in the leaves, cloaked in a cape of heavy black. It appeared to be a Death Eater, so I turned and began to climb back up the hill through the thick bushes. However, a guilty stabbing in my chest grew greater and greater with every step I took, compelling me to turn around and help whoever had fallen off the cliff. After all, intentionally or not, the man had saved my life. I sighed and went back, mentally debating how to get down to him – or how to get him up to me. He was too far down for me to levitate him up to me, and I was too high up to jump and land uninjured. I could summon my broom to me; however, a broom flying into the forest would warrant some suspicion, and it would be best not to be found by Death Eaters – assuming they hadn't already seen me hurtling into the bushes. I sighed. The cliff wasn't too steep for me to slide down relatively safely, so, with little to no other option, I slid over the edge of the drop off and, plastering my back to the side of the cliff, plummeted downward, desperately trying to slow myself by digging my hands and feet into the earth. With a heavy thud, my feet suddenly hit something solid, and I lurched forward onto the ground, landing flat on my stomach and knocking the breath out of myself. I pushed myself over onto my back and lay there for a moment, struggling to catch my breath and assess any potential damage. After I was sure I wasn't terribly injured, and I could breathe once more, I lifted myself up onto my knees and crawled over to the man lying mere feet away from me. A Death Eater mask, which must have been launched off of him during his plunge, lay gleaming on the ground near his head. Unsure of what I was going to find – or whether this was a good idea at all – I steeled myself and rolled the man over onto his back.

The pale, sallow skin, the lank black hair splayed across his face, the large hooked nose – which was presently caked in blood - well, shit. Severus Snape.

Anger, fear – concern? – all fought to overpower me, and I lifted my knees to my chest and rested my forehead on top of them for a moment as I struggled to regain my sense of composure. A few tears fought their way out of my eyes, and I furiously wiped them away. This was no time for me to lose my self-control.

Putting aside my emotions, I reached out with my hand and held two fingers under his nose to check that he was breathing. Warm breath met my skin, and I let out a breath of relief I hadn't even realized I had been holding. Next, I gingerly touched his quickly bruising nose to feel for the break I was certain was there. As I suspected, my touch met with the feel of a very badly cracked bone. I held my wand over it and whispered "Episkey!" and, with a crack, his nose reassembled itself. At the same moment that his nose snapped, his eyes shot open and he let out a gasp of pain. Startled, I myself shot back and fell awkwardly onto the forest floor. Propping himself up onto one arm, he seemed to be taking in his surroundings, seemingly disoriented. Uncertainly, I crept back toward him and reached out a hand to touch his shoulder. He blinked a few times at me, adjusting his vision, and then, incredulously, said, "Lily?"

I didn't know what to say, so I simply nodded. He leaned back to put pressure onto his other arm, but it buckled beneath him and he fell onto his back, hissing in pain. "I-Is it broken?" I stammered.

"It would appear so," he sneered.

"You'll need a bone repairing potion," I said, "I don't have one with me, but –"

He cut me off. "I'm a Potions Master, Lily, I think I can handle myself."

"Oh. Right." We sat there awkwardly for a moment, two enemies on opposing sides of a rapidly growing war.

"I-Is anything else broken?" I asked, my trembling voice claiming the vicious silence.

He attempted to flex both of his feet, but grimaced and was unable to move one. "My ankle," he said, and then, after gingerly testing the rest of his body, concluded, "And at least a few ribs." Reaching up with his uninjured arm to rub a growing bump on his head, he added, "And I must have hit my head pretty damn hard, because it feels as if I were beaten by twenty bludgers."

"I already fixed your nose," I stated as he moved to touch the blood still covering his face.

"Thanks," he muttered uncomfortably.

Again, we sat there in discomfited silence until I once again broke it with an uncertain question. "Do you need help standing? Or I could always levitate you if you're comfortable…"

He glared at me and for a moment I thought he was going to tell me off, but his voice was surprisingly soft when he replied. "If you wouldn't mind helping me up, it would be appreciated," he said.

"Oh – of course," I agreed, and moved behind him to take his arms. "Let me know if I'm hurting you very badly."

He grunted in response, and I tentatively lifted him from his armpits. He let out a soft moan of pain as I shifted him to lean against me for support, leading me to apologize profusely.

"Lily," he hissed, "It's fine. We need to get out of here."

I nodded in agreement. "I'll summon my broom to us – but I'd like to move a bit further into the forest before doing so. The last thing we need is for a Death – well, anyone – to follow it to us."

"Right," he muttered, nodding his concurrence.

Just because he had saved my life – and now I had saved his, so it would seem – the fact that we were enemies in battle remained unchanged, and this knowledge hung over the both of us like an anvil. However, neither of us was ready to bring up the topic. So, instead of speaking, I waved my wand and conjured a stretcher, which I helped him climb onto. "Just…lie there and be quiet, okay?" I said. I took his silence as agreement, and with that I began walking further into the forest, levitating his floating stretcher in front of me.

After about the fifth tree I knocked him into, he finally snapped. "Could you be just a bit more careful?" he hissed at me, "I'm broken enough as it is."

"Sorry!" I snapped back at him, "But my wand is currently occupied in holding up your stretcher. I can hardly produce a Lumos right now."

He turned his head slightly to shoot me a withering glare. "Just try to watch where you're going, alright?" he said after a moment.

"Fine," I said, feeling slightly guilty at my lack of compassion. He was pretty battered up, and he didn't exactly need me smashing him into a tree every other minute.

After walking for about fifteen minutes – or so I assumed, it really felt like an eternity – I stopped. "I think we've gone far enough. Even if anyone tried to follow the broom they'd never reach us in time."

"Your call," Severus said, his voice uncharacteristically weak. He must have been in a great deal of pain. The sooner I got him home, and to some potions, the better.

Gently lowering his stretcher to the ground, I raised my wand and said firmly, "Accio Nimbus!" We waited for a few agonizingly slow minutes before my thin, nimble broom finally flew into my waiting, outstretched hand. I had never particularly enjoyed flying, and honestly I would have preferred a thicker, sturdier build, but James, ever the Quidditch enthusiast, insisted on getting me the best. I knew Severus was not exactly an avid flyer either – or at least, he hadn't been during our years at Hogwarts – and I was sure an injured, irritable Death-Eater-Severus wouldn't exactly be a pleasure to fly with. But, what could one do? So I gave my broom the motion to stay put, and knelt down beside Severus. "Flying will be our only way out of here. I mean, side-along Apparition is always an option, but I don't think that would be a good idea in your condition. Plus, that would mean leaving my broom here in the woods, and I'd rather not do that."

"Whatever. Do wha'you wan'" he said, and I noticed how his words were beginning to slur – whether from pain or exhaustion I wasn't sure. Either way, flying would probably prove to be a bit of a problem. But it really was our best way out, so I reached under his arms once again and gently pulled him to his feet. Immediately, he fell heavily onto me, nearly knocking me to the floor. "Sev, come on," I said, barely even registering how easily I slipped into the use of my old nickname for him. "Just stay with me for a little while longer. When we get you back home, you can pass out as soon as you want."

Thankfully, he seemed to respond to my plea, straightening himself up as best as he could. I motioned my broom closer to the two of us and said, "I'm going to need you to climb on this broom. I'll help you."

It was a painfully slow process, getting him up onto the broomstick, and once he was on it he nearly slid right off the side, and I had to throw my weight against him to steady him. But after that he seemed to regain a bit of his sense of awareness and he used his good foot to keep himself upright while I climbed on the broom behind him. Normally, the person in control of the broom would ride in front, but this was hardly a normal circumstance. Wrapping my arms around him to hold onto the broom handle, I instructed him, "Hold onto my arms. Don't let go. I promise I won't let you fall."

As I sent out a desperate prayer to any deity that might be watching us, I kicked up off the ground. The broom wobbled for a moment under our combined weight – I really should have insisted on a sturdier model – but it quickly accustomed itself to its extra passenger and straightened itself out. Once I was certain the broom wasn't going to collapse beneath us, we gradually rose higher and higher into the air. At about fifty feet over the treetops, I stopped the ascent and gave the command to move ahead. Severus teetered dangerously in front of me as our speed rapidly increased, and I tightened my arms around him, all the while struggling to see over his mess of black hair. If the two of us made it out of this situation unharmed – well, no more harmed than we already were – it would be a miracle.

"Where are you living now, Severus?" I asked the semi-conscious man as we soared over a row of Muggle apartments.

"Spinner's End," he said, almost unintelligibly, "Inherited the house."

Well, at least I knew how to get there – I had flown to my parents' house enough times to know my way by sky. And once I was at my childhood home, I could get to Spinner's End with my eyes closed.

Somehow, unbelievably, we both made the journey alive. Soon I was arcing over my parents' rooftop, and from there I followed the familiar route to Severus' home on Spinner's End. I landed in his backyard and half-dragged him off the broom, and then proceeded to haul him up to the back door. Hopefully he was conscious enough to unlock it for us. After all, if the man beside me was anything like the Severus I remembered, there would be a series of locks and charms keeping away any unwanted intruders. Fortunately, Severus raised his wand and waved it routinely before I even had to ask, and the door swung open with a click. A look of relief passed over his eyes as he took in his familiar surroundings, and he unceremoniously fell over the threshold, unconscious. I threw my arms around his torso and caught him before he could hit the ground and break another bone or two, and then I pointed my wand to him, wearily said, "Mobilicorpus," and walked up the stairs, levitating his eerily floating body in front of me to the second floor where I quickly found his old bedroom. It seemed as though this was the bedroom he still used; the bed was unmade and a heap of clothes rose from the floor in the corner. Other than a new coat of paint and a larger bed, the room looked much as I remembered it, and a feeling of cold nostalgia swept over me. If I could ignore the fact that Severus was wearing Death Eater robes and hanging limply in the air in front of me, I could almost imagine we were still fifteen, simply hanging around and talking in his bedroom the summer before our falling out. Shaking my head as if to dislodge those thoughts, I lowered Severus onto his bed and took the spell off of him. He looked peaceful just lying there, untroubled, and I felt a stab of guilt as I pointed my wand at him once more and said, "Ennervate." Moaning, he blinked and stared at me through unfocused, pain-filled eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to just let him go back to sleep. Instead, I sat down gently on the bed beside him and asked, "Sev, where do you keep your potions supplies?"

He blinked at me a few more times before seeming to recall the events of the evening, and he replied, "In the basement, I have a lab down there. The door is in the kitchen, right next to – "

"I remember how to get into your basement," I cut him off, "We used to play down there when we were children, remember?"

His lips quirked up into something resembling a smile, which I returned warmly before exiting the room. I did remember how to find his basement; though, unlike his bedroom, it looked nothing like I remembered from the time we were kids. Before going off to Hogwarts, we used to make pretend potions down here, stealing pots from his kitchen to act as our makeshift cauldrons and mixing together random ingredients we found in the house and the yard. Now the room was filled with real potions ingredients lining the walls on shelves which spanned the perimeter of the entire room, and in the center of the room was a large silver cauldron perched upon a wide wooden table. The potent smell of potions permeated the room, but instead of making me gag, it filled me with a sense of longing more powerful than I had experienced in a long while. I had wanted to be a Potions Mistress once, or a Healer. Potions had been my favorite subject in school and one of my best. Since leaving Hogwarts, I hadn't realized just how much I missed making potions; now it hit me full force. I did feel very strongly about the work I did in the Order, but just how much can one enjoy dueling, injuring, sometimes even killing other people?

A glass cabinet at the back of the room which reached nearly to the ceiling suddenly caught my eye, and I figured it must be where Severus kept his completed potions. I walked to the cabinet and peered inside, scanning the rows of potions filling its shelves. I found a bottle of bone repairing potion, a bottle of something that would heal concussions, and one Dreamless Sleep. With those three bottles cradled carefully in my arms, I turned and exited the basement, leaving my longing behind me.

I hurried back up to Severus's bedroom, where, thankfully, I found him still awake. I sat back down beside him and placed the bottles on his nightstand. First, I picked up the bone repairer and handed it to him. It was a good thing that he knew how much to take; I had forgotten rather a lot during my three years out of Hogwarts, and I wasn't sure I would have been able to administer it to him correctly. Next, I gave him the bottle for the concussion I was certain he had acquired, and he downed nearly the whole thing. But just as I was handing him the bottle of Dreamless Sleep, he stopped me. "Wait," he said, taking hold of my arm, "I want to talk to you first."

"Alright," I said, surprised, "What is it you'd like to talk about?"

"Why?" he asked simply.

"Why what?" I questioned, though I already knew.

"Why did you help me?"

"Because you saved me!" I exclaimed, "You couldn't have expected me to just leave you there after you saved me!"

"But I'm a Death Eater." He ignored that his words made me cringe. "You work for the Order of the Phoenix. You want people like me dead."

"I don't want anyone dead, Sev," I said pleadingly, hoping he would understand, "This is a war, and sometimes there are casualties. But I don't want anyone dead, least of all you."

Silence filled the room as we stared at each other. I briefly wondered if he was using Legilimency on me, but then realized that I didn't care. Let him.

"I'm sorry, you know," I said, "I'm so sorry…for everything. If only I had forgiven you…maybe you wouldn't be here right now." I didn't even have to tell him what incident I was referring to. He knew.

"My choices were entirely my own," he said offhandedly, "Besides, it is I who should be apologizing to you. For – for…calling you that."

"I forgive you," I whispered, "I forgave you a long time ago."

We were silent again. It felt strange; everything about this situation was as if we were young again, sitting on his bed, having a late-night conversation as the stars sparkled outside. And yet, the awkwardness of the years spent apart was like a heavy weight on the both of us.

"You'll always be my best friend, you know," I said breathily, so softly I wasn't entirely certain he had heard me. It certainly didn't seem like he had, the way he stared straight past me. That is, until he whispered, "You'll always be my best friend, too."

Unconsciously, I took his hand in mine and laced my fingers through his. We sat like that for a while, perfectly still, barely breathing, afraid to let the moment go.

But all moments have to end eventually, whether we want them to or not. Prying my hand from his, I reached back for the bottle of Dreamless Sleep potion and handed it to him silently. He took it. He understood; we were going back to our own lives now, our real lives. We would be enemies again. It would be like this night never happened.

I waited for him to fall asleep before leaving. Tenderly, I brushed the hair from his face and leaned down to kiss his forehead, letting my eyes linger on him a moment longer than they should have. After all, once I walked out that door, I would never come back.

I turned and walked out of his bedroom, back down the stairs, back out of the door in the kitchen. I felt whole, yet detached. Happy, yet unbearably sad.

And I never saw him again.