Disclaimer: Amazing characters all JKRs. All hail to her genius.


"What the fuck do you mean you cleaned it? There is still fucking food left on the fucking plate!"

"I did clean it. For five whole minutes, I worked on that single plate! Why don't you clean around here for once? I spend my whole day, everyday, slaving away, cleaning the mess you made. Can't you help even a –"

SMACK!

The sound of the slap resonated around the house causing the teenage boy attempting to sleep to cringe under his blanket. He had been lying there for an hour trying to ignore the sounds of his parents arguing once again.

It had been like this for as long as he could remember. In fact, one of his earliest memories was of them rowing. He could remember it perfectly:

He had been playing castle under a blanket thrown over the armrests of two chairs. His mother was in the kitchen trying to finish dinner before his father returned home. In classic little boy fashion, he had all the toys he required to play this game spread around the sitting room. As was usual, at six sharp, his mother would rush in telling him to pick up all his toys before his father arrived. Together, they would make sure everything was squared away, then the little boy would go up to his room until it was time for dinner. This time, though, they missed one small toy sword that belonged to his favorite knight. It also happened to be left in the perfect spot to be stepped on by his father on his way to relax on the sofa, bare-foot. The resulting argument caused the little boy to hide behind a chair as he watched his father yelling at his cowering mother.

The boy shifted onto his back with a frustrated sigh. It was always the same thing. His father would find something wrong, his mother would try and defend herself or her son, with not much luck. The violence rarely got out of hand, but it was still present. However, there was only so much one could do about it.

There was also only so much that one can take it.

Quietly, the boy rose out of bed, pulled a robe over his nightshirt, put on his trainers, and climbed out the front window. There was a trellis his mother had placed there at one point, intending on planting climbing flowers in an attempt to make the house more appealing; however, the only thing growing on it were old weeds that never seemed to go away. After reaching the ground, he slowly crossed the back lawn, and jumped the fence.

From there, he casually strolled a couple blocks down to Chochkin Park. The closer to the park he got, the better quality of the houses. Once he arrived at the park, he turned down an alley and jumped another fence into a perfectly manicured back lawn. Climbing onto the old child's playhouse, he was eye to eye with one of the second floor windows. Looking inside, he saw a teenage girl sleeping peacefully in her bed. Looking around to see if anyone was watching, he knocked on her window.

Nothing happened. The girl was still fast asleep. He listened to hear if anyone else had woken up, and knocked again, slightly louder.

This time he had roused the girl from her sleep. She slowly sat up, squinted her eyes in the direction of the window, and slowly, almost mechanically, rose from bed to unlock and open the window. The boy climbed through the open window, then turned around and locked it back. As he was doing this, the girl had grabbed one of the pillows from her bed and a couple of blankets, threw them to the boy, and climbed back into bed.

He put the pillow on the ground beside the bed and curled up underneath the blankets, relief flooding him to be able to lay in quiet.

"Good night, Lily."

"Good night, Sev."


AN: This is roughly based off of a scene I saw in the wonderful movie Love and Basketball. I remember not long after finishing the seventh book, I saw that movie again, I thought of that probably happening between Lily and Severus. This wasn't meant to be romantic in any way. Just two friends that have lived near each other for a while.

Another thing, as of this moment, it is 12:07 at night and just finished the story in just over and hour and a half. There may be mistakes, but I felt like posting tonight. I proofread, but being half asleep, my proofreading isn't all that great. I do plan on going over it again when I'm more awake, but for now this is good.

AN2: Update: I think I finally got the last of the mistakes. 12/31/08