My name is Lily Potter. I am twenty-one, married with a one year old baby and I am in love with two different men. This is who I am now.
Sometimes, late at night, when James is asleep with Harry curled across his chest I wish that it was a different black-haired man by my side. Longer, straight hair that didn't stick up in odd directions no matter what you did to it. I love my husband, I really do. But sometimes I can't help but wonder, what if..?
In the beginning it was easy and simple. In the beginning I didn't believe in magic and me and my sister, Petunia, would spend weekend after weekend fooling about in the park just across the road from our house. Mum would cook dinners and make summer-sweet crumbles and cakes. My Dad would ruffle my hair and complain good-naturedly about being the only male in the family.
Then Severus saw me jump.
I loved doing it, a little trick that Tunie didn't like, but I loved. I'd swing high and fast on the swings in the park and imagine I could fly. Then I would let go, right at the peek and, for a few split seconds I really would be flying through the air. My sister and I never wondered how I always landed on my feet. We never thought to question, until Severus saw and told me that I was a witch.
In a way it was magic that made things complicated.
I loved Severus. He started telling me stories about magic and fantastical things that should only be allowed to happen in fairy stories. He became another sibling to me. I'd pretend, for his sake, not to notice the bruises on his arms and legs. I'd pretend I didn't worry every time he went home each night. I'd pretend that it was perfectly normal for him to spend every meal with me, mum, dad and Tunie. I pretended Tunie and I had never been best friends and not just sisters.
I'd pretend because I loved him and I didn't want to hurt him. I never dreamed that, in the end, I'd hurt him so badly he'd break.
One day I received a letter. It was from Hogwarts, the magical school that Severus had told me all about. I was over the moon with joy, and didn't see Petunia storm off to her room. All I saw was the pride in my parents eyes.
The next day I didn't see Severus. Or the day after that, or the day after that. My the third day I was worried, but I was terrified of what went on in his house, so I didn't dare knock. I just waited, my joy disappearing completely in those few days. Then, after a week, he appeared again and the joy was back, ten fold. I never asked what happened in that week.
We teased Petunia and got ready for school, all books and wands and cloaks and talk, talk, talk. Then he showed my the station and I said goodbye to my parents and sister, finally starting off on that grand adventure I'd always wanted. I met lot's of other people, including my future husband. It was hate at first sight. Him and his new best friend, Sirius. I hated them from the beginning.
From there things only got worse. James and Sirius constantly picked on Severus and there was nothing I could do. Severus pushed me away, again and again until I realised that I was holding on to a lost dream.
Fifth year changed everything. James had long since decided he was in love with me and, despite his callous, marauding nature I didn't doubt it, I just hated it. But Severus came back to me.
During the Christmas holidays I, as always, asked him to stay over. And he said yes, for the first time. On New Year's Eve, just as the clocks struck midnight, Severus kissed me. My first ever kiss. His first ever kiss. And it was everything it should have been - I was over the moon.
We escaped out of the house that weekend and travelled to the nearby beach. It was cold and wet in the middle of winter, but he bought us fish and chips wrapped up in newspaper and we ate them, dangling our feet over the edge of the peer and he kissed me again and told me he loved me.
That holiday was perfect, and when we returned to Hogwarts it would have taken a titan to get rid of my good mood. Unfortunately such a titan presented itself in the way of Voldemort. James looked pathetic that first week, and it took all my will not to go to him. His parents were killed, murdered, before his very eyes. He and Sirius were as good as orphaned. That was when I realised that James wasn't so bad.
That year passed so slowly. People were disappearing left right and centre and the Slytherins were, one by one, being converted to Voldemort's way of thinking. But I know - or hoped - that Severus would never changed. Not my Severus, who would take me to Hogsmeade and kiss me and make me feel like I was the most beautiful, special person on Earth.
But then James went too far. And Severus snapped. It wasn't anything he hadn't dealt with before, but apparently that was all it took. When I jumped to his rescue he yelled at me, too. Then he called me something I'd never thought I'd have to hear - not coming from him.
Mudblood.
Filthy Mudblood.
As he picked himself up and ran off I could do nothing but stare after him. I was in shock for the rest of that day, not talking to anyone. James tried to console me, apologise for his actions. Sirius admitted that they'd gone too far. Remus comforted me, hugging an arm around my shoulder like the best friend he was. Peter watched me pityingly. Everyone in Gryffindor tower skirted around me. I knew what they were waiting for. They were waiting for my temper to break.
When Severus appeared at the portrait hole and wouldn't leave I told him that it was over. That I'd had enough of the lies and the pretences. I told him to go and I broke my heart. Was I too harsh? Not to give him another chance? But I was tired of giving out chances. Ever since we'd joined Hogwarts he'd changed. He'd call my friends filthy names and hark on about Voldemort. He'd made some friends that were even worse. He'd become one of them. One of the Death Eaters.
When I went back into the common room I knew he was still standing on the other side of the portrait hole. I knew that, when I collapsed into tears as soon as the portrait was shut, leaning heavily on this side of the canvas, I knew that he could hear me. But that just made me cry harder.
James went to me then. He wrapped me up in his strong, quidditch-player arms and let me soak his shirt with my salt water tears.
'I'm still angry with you,' I told him then, loudly enough for Sirius and Remus, who were standing right behind us to hear and chuckle lightly.
'I know, Lils,' he replied. 'My Lily flower, when haven't you been angry with me?' And he bowled me over.
The next week Severus avoided me. I spent more and more time around the 'Marauders'. I found that, beneath their stupid, trouble maker masks were four intelligent young men who, contrary to their careless attitudes cared: cared far too much in many cases.
Two weeks after 'The Incident' James asked me out. It wasn't unusual, he'd been asking me out on a regular basis for the past three years. But this time was different because I said yes.
Severus came to me the next day and shouted at me, asking how I could be such an idiot.
'I don't know, Severus,' I replied. 'How could I be such an idiot? I loved you and you broke my heart. All I'm doing now is giving James the pieces and hoping he can put them back together again. Because if he doesn't? Well nothing will change, will it?'
'I'm sorry,' he said.
'So am I.'
Then I left him, again, standing in the corridor as if his world had collapsed around him. Looking back, now, I suppose it had.
For all of sixth and seventh year I didn't see much of Severus. Eventually James and I managed to find most of the pieces of my heart and he put it back together for me, keeping it in exchange for his whole, complete one that I cherished better than I had my own. I became the fifth, unofficial Marauder. They didn't cause as much trouble any more, but they became my best friends, they didn't try to understand me, just accepted the way I was. That was one of the many, many differences between them and Severus.
Occasionally we'd catch eyes in the corridors and James would have to give me a box of chocolates or flowers to make me feel better again. His eyes were always so dark and sad. I never stopped loving him and I knew that he never stopped loving me.
We spoke one last time before we parted ways after out seventh year graduation.
'Lily,' he said, walking up to me for the first time in I forgot how long.
'Sev,' I greeted with a small smile.
Then he produced a lily from nowhere and tucked it behind my ear. 'For you,' he told me.
'Thank you,' I couldn't look him in the eye.
'This is goodbye forever, Lily,' he told me, voice shaking a bit. 'I don't think we'll see each other again, not until we're very, very old.'
'What - what do you mean?'
He peeled back his shirt sleeve to reveal an ugly tattoo that writhed slightly as I watched it. 'I'm one of them now, Lily. You always thought I was stubborn, but without you I just wasn't stubborn enough, I think. He's shown me some amazing things and offered me so much, Lils.'
'Will it be worth it?' I asked, barely above a whisper.
'I don't know. But if it means I can protect you, I'll do it. Never doubt that. I love you. I always loved you.'
He turned to leave, but I grabbed his sleeve before he could go. 'Sev… Sev what happened? I love you. Was it… not enough? To hold you? He's a killer, a murderer,' I said, tears starting to overflow down my cheeks.
'No. It was too much. I just didn't know how to be loved that much.'
Then he was gone. Disappearing in the crowd of weeping friends saying their last goodbyes I never, never imagined that it would come to that. I never thought I'd say goodbye to Severus - not forever.
James found me, and held me the way I loved, hands cupping my should and my waist as he held me tightly, letting me sob it out as I told him that Severus was gone forever. Once he would have said good riddance. Once he would have been glad to see the back of his childhood enemy. Now it hurt him because it hurt me.
Years passed. I got engaged, I got married, I had a baby boy and every year, a couple of days after New Year's a package of newspaper-wrapped fish and chips would appear on the doorstep and I'd take them to my room and try not to cry as I ate them.
My name is Lily Potter. I am twenty-one, married with a one year old baby and I am in love with two different men. This is who I am now.
A/N Sorry! Sorry, I know, I'm trying to write fluff story to make for all the angst and I give you more! But dammit I asked which characters you wanted me to write about and you said Severus and Lily. I love the pair of them, I really do, but they are not fluff! No fluff at all!! So you get angst. Silly people. Now read Sev's side of the story...