This is my first ever fanfic. Please be gentle I still have no idea what I'm doing. Many thanks to my wonderful Beta ArtImitatesSex and of course the amazing Ms. Rowling without whom, I would most definitely be a different person. Everything you recognize is Jo's.

Please review =)

Severus:

"Lily, please! Please talk to me."

She was walking to Study Hall with the pack of Gryffindor girls that always surrounded her. She hadn't even looked back when he called her name. He hadn't really expected her to anyways. He knew it was going to be like this. He had known it ever since the moment he had let that inexcusable word slip for his mouth. How many nights had he stayed up wishing he had a Time-Turner so he could go back and change everything?

All her stuck up friends were throwing him dirty looks as they walked on. Suddenly he rushed forward through the group and grasped her by the hand, spinning her around to face him. Her face was full of rage as he released her hand and raised both of his in supplication. Before she could start shouting at him he spoke,

"Please Lily just talk to me! We need to talk about this!"

All her friends had rounded on him furious. They were all shouting "How dare you!" "Keep your hands off of her! "Do you want us to take care of him for you Lil?"

Lily:

She knew he was right. They really did need to talk about it. About everything. Putting off this conversation any longer was not going to do any good.

"No guys, it's fine. I'll meet up with you in a bit ok?" She replied.

"You sure?" Mary had come defensively to her side.

"I'm positive. I'll catch up with you guys."

She had been avoiding him since the disaster by the lake last week. They had finished their O.W.L's and she was about to walk over to him so they could have this talk when Potter and his friends had started tormenting him. She half felt guilty about the whole situation. If she hadn't been a coward and had gone over to talk to him before the popular group of boys from her house had found him by himself the whole situation could have been avoided. And then he had called her that horrible word and she had been so furious with him she had refused to speak to him ever since. She knew he didn't mean it. And she knew that she had probably gone to hard on him when he had tried to apologize. The fact he apologized at all spoke volumes. In the almost seven years she had known him she had never known Severus Snape to apologize to anyone. She knew he deserved her forgiveness.

In fact, she owed him so much more than that. This whole situation was her fault. She should have never let him make love to her that night in March. She had know how he felt about her and she had known then that she didn't feel the same way. She was wrong.

It took everything inside her to fix her face into a mask of cold indifference as she turned to face him.

"Okay Sev, you have my attention."

"What about the baby?" It was almost a whisper.

"What about the baby?" she replied "I'm going to put it up for adoption. We're just kids. I'm….I'm not ready for this." The look on his face made her want to scream, and break everything in sight, and then hold him and tell him it would be ok. But she knew she had to play this part. This cold-hearted bitch. She had already hurt him so much, she couldn't let him hope for anything more.

She went on, "Did you really think I would say anything else? I want to finish school! I want to have a career, and I want to get married and do this whole thing the proper way!"

"I'll marry you! You can finish school! We can do this, we can make it work! Please Lily….I love you. I always have, and I always will. Let me take care of you." She knew he was telling the truth. She had expected him to say just that, but it didn't make her hate herself any less for what came next.

"I don't love you Sev. Not in that way."

"I don't care!" he said fiercely grasping bother hands in his and looking into her eyes. "We're best friends, we can make this work. I know we can."

"No Sev, I don't think we can…You deserve someone who loves you with her whole heart. Someone better than me." Suddenly she couldn't stand there and hurt him anymore. "I have to go." She said and she rushed off down the hall after her friends leaving him there with his heart breaking in the middle of the corridor.

" Damn you Lily Evans!" she thought bitterly to herself. "Damn you for what you've just done to your best friend."

Later that night she couldn't stop playing the past few months over and over in her head. Starting with that significant night back in March. He had asked her to join him for lunch on their last Hogsmeade trip. If she was at all honest with herself she had had an amazing time. He was so different when it was just the two of them. She found his snarky sarcastic sense of humor rather charming. They often times just sat for hours doing homework and laughing over nonsense. She wished that he could learn to let his guard down a little around other people instead of alienating himself from everyone except for her. It would be nice to be able to have him around with the rest of her friends.

After Hogsmead they had walked back to the castle together and she felt for the very first time a desire to hold his hand. She was so nervous and she could tell that he was too, but she snuck her hand into his and instead of feeling awkward and clammy like she thought it would her small hand felt perfect interlaced with his. They made for one of their favorite archways that overlooked the court-yard. It was partially hidden by a huge camellia bush and was at the end of a walkway so it was reasonably secluded which is probably why Severus liked it in the first place. They often came to sit in this very spot and review homework and quiz each other. He had cast a Disillusionment Charm on them so nobody coming into the castle from their Hogsmeade trip wouuld notice them, should the Camellia bush fail to conceal them from view, and there in their favorite hidden archway he had kissed her for the very first time.

It started off unhurried and deliberate and built up to an all consuming passionate expression of how he felt for her. She had known right then and there that she should not let it go any further. That she should just tell him thank you for the amazing day they had spent together and rush to her dormitory before they did anything rash. But she frankly could not stop herself. Could not break their embrace or pull her fingers out of his hair which was not greasy like everyone said, but rather soft and sleek under her fingers.

They had crept their way to the Room of Requirement, and as the door closed behind them he gathered her into his arms and planted sweet soft kissed from just below her ear all the way down her neck, across her collar bone to her shoulder. She shuddered and gasped and he caught her mouth with his again, deepening his kisses.

When he had finished making love to her they lie in the bed that the room had provided for them, intertwined in each others arms. His gaze hadn't left her eyes and she would've loved to have stayed in that moment forever. One leg between both of his and his hand wrapped in her hair, her hand caressing his face. She had loved him in that moment. And while they were here in this place she thought that maybe they could build a life together.

But of course that was not an option. He was Severus Snape. Yes he was her best friend, but he had grown into someone she barely knew. She had known that was why he had asked her to lunch that Hogsmeade weekend. They had been growing apart for ages and he was trying to secure his place in her life for just a little longer. But how could Lily ignore his choice of companions outside of her company? The group that despised her and her friends with a hostility that went much deeper than house rivalry. She couldn't. She wouldn't. It would have to be her or them, and she knew that he wouldn't choose her. Not when her own friends were no better. They despised him, and it was too late for everyone to kiss and make up now. No, Lily knew that night when she returned to her dormitory that what she had just done was the biggest mistake of her teenage life so far. And not only because she was fairly certain she wasn't ready to have sex, no matter how good it was. It was because she knew her best friend was so deeply in love with her that when he realized that she had no intention of continuing a romantic or sexual relationship with him he would be crushed. She hated herself for allowing that night to happen.

And now she hated herself even more because of the fact that a child was going to be born who would be given up for adoption and who might one day feel that his (or her) parents hadn't wanted him. It couldn't be further from the truth. She did love this baby already. It hadn't even started to moved in her womb and yet she felt it alive. She loved him, and she loved the baby and regardless of that love she knew she had to give them both up.

She had never been so heartbroken in all her life.