Part Two

Severus didn't know what to do. The woman he now had at his mercy, the woman he was threatening, was the woman he had been told wasn't there. Not knowing what else to do, he tightened his grip on her arm and disapparated.

With a thud, his feet made contact with the earth. He threw off his hood and released Lily's arm. His gaze was immediately drawn to the twin appendage and the wound that was there, bleeding profusely.

"My God Lily, you got in the way of my spell."

Before she could protest, he drew his wand and began muttering some incantations under his breath. A couple of minutes, and the wound was gone.

"I wasn't even aiming at you…" He murmured, stowing his wand back in his robes. He looked up and found that Lily had taken a few steps away from him. "I should've thought about polyjuice potion. Somebody should've."

Severus could see Lily struggling to speak. "Then I'm back to… me?"

"No. Just your eyes. Well your hair's turning now too. But your eyes gave you away. I know them."

"Yeah. Yeah I guess you do."

"And you knew me by…?"

"Your voice. And your eyes too. They're the only bit of you that can be seen in that…" She paused, unsure of what to call the unholy garb he was wearing.

"In my attire."

"Right."

An awkward pause ensued in which Severus watched Lily stare at the ground just in front of his feet. "So."

Lily looked up.

"You have a son."

"Harry, yeah."

"How old is he?"

"Almost a year. He looks just like his father."

Severus swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat at the mention of James Potter.

"Except for the eyes. Everyone says he has my eyes."

Severus cleared his throat. "We can all be thankful for that."

He watched the before mentioned feature darken in the face that was steadily turning back to normal.

"I'm not apologizing for that."

Lily glared. "I don't expect you to." She tossed her hair. "Well now that the small talk's out of the way I suppose it's time for you to kill me."

Severus snorted. "Don't be ridiculous."

"How is that ridiculous? You're a Death Eater. I'm an auror. It's your job to eliminate me. Besides, I'm unarmed. I have no way to defend myself. You couldn't ask for a better situation."

Severus was actually getting annoyed. "I'm not going to kill you."

"Your lord and master won't like that very much, will he?"

"Oh don't be dumb Lily! I'm not going to kill my best friend!"

"Excuse me?"

Severus crossed his arms. "You heard me."

"I was afraid of that." Lily paused and mimicked Severus' latest gesture. "I'm not your best friend Severus. We stopped being friends a long time ago. We stopped being friends when you started treating my sister like she wasn't human. We stopped being friends when you began hanging out with those awful people you called your house mates. We stopped being friends when you called me a Mudblood, and we definitely stopped being friends when you got yourself branded with that thing on your arm!"

Severus flinched slightly and grabbed the forearm where the mark could be found. "Well maybe we aren't friends anymore Lily, but it has nothing to do with this."

"Really? How did you ever come to that conclusion?"

Severus sighed in frustration. "I'm the same person I've always been Lily. I didn't go around talking about all the ways I would purify wizarding blood when I was a kid and that's not my purpose now either."

"Then why are you dressed in that get-up? It can't be because you love muggle borns."

"I'm dressed in this get-up," Severus sneered, becoming angry again. "Because it's the only way I've ever been able to get any respect."

"Respect? Are you kidding me?"

"No, Lily, I'm not kidding you! You were around at Hogwarts! I was a joke, fodder for fools like your husband! The Dark Lord respects me! He actually respects my intelligence and my opinions. That's why I'm in this get-up. That's why there's a mark on my arm. Because nobody had ever seen me as anything but worthless until the Dark Lord."

"That's a lie Severus! I respected you! Hell, I was in awe of you! More than that, unlike your stupid commander, I cared about you!"

"But not as much as you cared about Potter, right?"

"Don't bring my husband into this."

"Husband… You know, as much as I hear that I can't bring myself to believe that you married that arrogant, smug, conceited-"

"You know what Severus? He may have been a jerk at school, but at least he turned out to be a decent man! Unlike you, going around, slaughtering people on command just to boost your ego! He's ten times the man-"

"Shut up! Shut up, okay?"

Severus felt his self-control completely snap. He thrust a hand into his pocket, frantic with rage, withdrew his wand and threw it at the ground before Lily's feet.

"Take it! Take the wand!"

"Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?"

Severus rushed forward, grabbed his wand and one of Lily's hands and slammed it into her open palm. "Now kill me!"

"What?"

"Kill me Lily! You have my wand; it may not work as well for you as yours, but it'll do to take my life!"

"Are you insane?"

Severus took a few steps back and spread his arms wide. "Am I a big enough target now?"

"You're crazy!"

"No, actually I'm not. You see what I've done with my life! You've just told me what a lousy human being I am! End my existence now, you'd be doing the world a favor!"

Lily didn't move.

"Get on with it already!"

"No!" Lily threw the wand away. "I'm not killing you Severus!"

"And why not?"

"Because you used to mean something to me!"

"There! You're trying to show mercy, but you know what, you're being crueler this way than if you would run me through with a sword! Every time you open your mouth and say how much I used to mean to you or how much you hate me now you're putting me through slow torture!"

"How? I don't mean anything to you! I doubt I ever did!"

"Please, just stop talking! You have no idea what you meant to me! What you still mean to me!"

"Nothing! If you can wear those robes and serve Voldemort then I must mean nothing to you!"

"For God's sake, I'm in love with you Lily! Don't tell me you mean nothing to me because I've never cared about anybody more- anybody else- in my life! I've been in love with you since I was nine years old!"

"Oh shut up! You're not in love with me! You're lying!"

"Why would I lie about that?"

"I don't know! I don't know how your mind works now! I don't know anything about you now!"

"Well you know this! I've worshipped you for over ten years! You're the only person who has ever looked at me and seen a human being with feelings. Did you expect me to be on the receiving end of your friendship and not fall in love with you? Can't you understand that everything I've done since we met had something to do with you? I never wanted you to think of me as a sniveling coward. That's why I became friends with a gang of idiotic, but intimidating Slytherins. It made me part of something powerful. That's also why I called you a Mudblood. Don't you get it, Lily? I never thought of you as inferior or worthless. I was humiliated that I had to be rescued from a demeaning situation by the girl I loved. Can't you understand?"

"That's ridiculous! Why would you ever think that being a bully would impress me? I didn't think any less of you because you were a victim, Severus!"

"I realized that when you turned your back on me! But at that point, why shouldn't I join the ranks of the Dark Lord? You, the only person who had had any level of respect for me had deserted me and, even worse, had begun dating the man I loathed more than anybody else in the world. I knew my talent could be useful to the Dark Lord. I knew that all I was getting from the "good folk" of the wizarding world was ridicule. It made perfect sense to join the Death Eaters."

Lily stood in silence.

"Well," She pursed her lips. "As long as it made sense."

The sting of the words was not lost on Severus. He felt the air rush from his chest and his shoulders begin to sag involuntarily. Suddenly, avoiding Lily's eyes seemed absolutely necessary.

He pushed a hand through his long, limp locks of hair as he surveyed the land around him, not knowing where he had disapparated to and not caring until that particular moment. It seemed vaguely familiar, even in the dark. Of course it had to be, or he wouldn't have sought refuge there. "There," however, wasn't much. "There" looked more like the middle of nowhere.

He glanced down and noticed that the grass beneath his feet was more brown than green. Glancing back up, a tumbledown chimney belching ribbons of grey smoke loomed on the horizon, the only indication of life beyond the virtual wasteland Severus had landed them in. He started slightly and turned to peer just over Lily's shoulder. Nothing was there.

Lily watched as Severus scanned the ground, eventually finding and snatching up his wand. She followed him with her eyes as he brushed past her up a grassy slope towards an objective known only to him. He was almost out of sight when curiosity got the better of her and she followed.

"Lumos."

Lily drew up beside Severus just after the word was murmured and the wand was stowed safely away.

"Do you know it?"

Lily opened her mouth to respond, but closed it and decided to take a closer look at the area instead. Unique it was not. There was no immediately apparent reason why Severus would assign special significance to that particular spot. They were on higher ground perhaps, but the evening air was still close and unseasonably warm, the only thing in sight not composed of plant material was still a thin stream of smoke, and the grass was still an unpleasant shade of brown. How should she know it?

She cast Severus a skeptical look before taking a couple of steps forward.

"I suppose you don't fancy giving me a hint, do you Sev? I suppose my intellect should be a match for yours, and I should be able to discern one unattractive location from another. I suppose-"

Lily stopped dead in her tracks as she noticed an imprint in the parched turf ahead of her. Two long, narrow lines ran parallel to one another just before her, both of them more dirt than grass. Between the lines were two ruts, neither one very deep nor very wide, but clearly there.

"Oh."

More should have followed, but she hadn't the faintest idea what to say.

"I don't really believe in fate or destiny or any of that. I always thought Divination was a waste of my time. You know that."

Lily listened, her cheeks reddening, but she said nothing, and she didn't turn around.

"Anyway, maybe if I did- maybe if I had- maybe I would have recognized our meeting as some kind of an omen. I wouldn't have tried so hard for so long. I would've known it was no use."

Lily glanced back at him to find him staring fixedly, almost wistfully at a little clump of bushes off to his left. He was frowning slightly.

"I watched you for so long. Even before I knew you were a witch I watched you. You know what Spinner's End is. There isn't much life there- or warmth, or beauty. When I wandered down here and saw you... I was this grubby thing, and you were so perfect. I loved you then."

Lily swallowed and turned fully around. Severus was staring at the ground. He wasn't crying, but he looked as if he could have been- would have been perhaps- if the impulse hadn't been all but wiped out by his life as a Death Eater.

"When you flew off that swing I needed you to love me too."

Lily felt her heart stop. Severus had locked eyes with her.

"I spoke. You know how well that went."

"Sev..."

He turned his back and didn't let her finish. "I need to take you home."

"Severus, please."

"Or perhaps it's best if I didn't. I don't think I should have that information. If the Dark Lord had that..."

Lily walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, tired of being dismissed. "Severus, please look at me." She bit her lip and and mastered the urge to brush away his hair as he turned. "I'm so sorry. If I'd only known-"

She heard him take a deep breath. "What then Lily? What would you have done?"

She couldn't answer that.

"Besides, I thought you knew."

Tears began to sting her eyes. How could she have missed it?

"Is there anywhere else I can take you? Somewhere the Order would know where to find you?"

Lily let her hand fall from his shoulder. She sighed. "Hogsmeade I suppose."

"What? No! They- we could still be there."

"Then take me to a back corner of it or something, I'll be fine. In fact, I'm more worried about you. What if they're not still there? How are you supposed to explain leaving in the middle of a battle?"

He shrugged. "I won't. If his mood is good I won't be examined too closely. If it isn't then an explanation won't make any difference."

Lily shuddered. She clasped his left forearm in both hands and stared at the mark upon it before looking back up. "I wish things were different Sev."

"Yeah." Came the clipped response. "So do I.

There was a pause. Neither of them broke eye contact, but Lily still felt tears threatening her vision.

"Hogsmeade then?"

"Yeah. Hogsmeade."

Lily braced herself. In a second she felt stone beneath her feet and looked up. Turning, she noticed that they were in front of one of the smaller stores in the village. The closest streetlight was four shopfronts away, but in the relative darkness Lily could still see that the walkway before them was tidy, untouched by the chaos that had apparently reached an end. Their immediate surroundings were quiet, still, but not far in the distance chatter could be heard.

"That'll be Ministry. Any Auror that isn't already in with your lot and half of the village. Hogwarts staff too probably. All dealing with the fallout."

Lily nodded, torn between relief at finding herself returned to an atmosphere of peace and quiet and apprehension on Severus's behalf.

"I'm sorry about your wand. If I find it somehow, I'll make sure it gets back to you."

She nodded again, absently, wondering how he could be concerned about the loss of her wand when he was likely moments away from torture at the hands of the most evil wizard of all time.

"And Lily-"

He broke off and Lily looked up. "What? What?"

"Don't do this anymore." He paused. "I don't want to see you hurt- or dead. As long as I know you're alive and happy- then it's alright."

The tears slipped away at last. Lily turned to wipe her eyes, but was given away by an involuntary sniff.

"So. Good-bye Lily."

Hastily, impulsively, suddenly, wanting nothing more than to keep him from disapparating, Lily threw her arms around Severus's neck and kissed him. It was hard and feverish, and she felt her mind cloud and clear in turn. Her logic shut down as she made a frantic attempt to get all she could of him as her nerves blazed. Severus responded instantly, snaking his tongue through every corner of her mouth as if he knew she was soon to vanish, as if he knew he had seconds to sear the moment into his memory. Equally abruptly, Lily broke the kiss, her body still on fire, tears sliding down her cheeks.

She choked down a sob and leaned forward, slowly this time, pressing her lips instead against his jaw line as she worked her way up to his ear. She paused to take a shaky breath. "I think I loved you too."

Before she could move again, Severus had swooped down and caught her mouth with his, breathed "Lily" into her own ear, and disapparted.

Lily stood for a moment, waiting for her breathing to stabilize and listening for another crack that she knew wouldn't come, one that she couldn't decide whether she wanted to hear or not. Finally, with a sigh, she murmured a faint good-bye to nothing in particular and started a slow walk towards the sound of conversation.