A/N: This was originally a piece for McTabby's most recent Drabblethon on LJ. I'm quite proud of it. For the record, before Book 7 comes out: I am a firm believer that Snape is good, and that there was something akin to a romance of sorts between him and Lily. Enjoy... and don't forget to read and review, please!

Prompt/Disclaimer: (from Animamea) "Snape knows that Voldemort is going to kill the Potters and tries to get Lily to run away with him." P.S. HP is not mine.

Note: Inspired by my little brother and baby sister.

An Easy Decision

Severus had come unannounced, with the frantic, terrifying news that the Dark Lord had it in for Lily and her family. But he had also come with a proposition. To run away with him. To escape whatever fate had in store for her. And she would have, too. If it weren't for a small problem.

He wouldn't let her take Harry. Harry, he said, was the reason Voldemort was going to kill them. If Harry was missing from the house, he'd know the culprit. He'd never rest until the boy was dead. And there was no guarantee the Lily would be safe from his wrath. Severus couldn't allow that. Harry would have to stay.

So she refused.

He left soon after that, but not without kissing her. In that tear-streaked kiss was the promise of life, of security, of rekindled love. Everything she could ever want and more.

But she did not want these things without her son. They would be empty, meaningless.

He, being both a man and a bachelor, could not understand the joy in a baby's smile, a baby's laugh, a baby's cry. The grip of a baby's fingers on your own. Even the smell of a baby's unchanged diaper was, in its own way, a joy.

Lily could not live knowing that her baby was dead. That she could have protected him, or at least tried to, but didn't.

She was a mother.

---

When the Dark Lord stood in front of her later that night, his wand pointed at her heart, and her husband lying dead on the floor, she was given a choice.

Stand aside and be spared. Or else die with her son.

Harry wailed in the crib beside her, and Lily smiled. It was an easy decision.

For the second time that night, she refused.

FIN