Severus blinked his eyes. He could just be imagining things, but no, this was no dream, he really did fall asleep next to Lily Evans! He allowed his eyes to wander about the room. He had never seen her room before. Last night, when he climbed up the trellis of her house, was the first time he had been into her room, into something so close to her. But now he slept with her-er-um, next to her.

Lily's room was decorated a light shade of pink, which surprised him because Lily was not a pink girl. Her favorite color was green. On one wall was pictures of her and her other friends. There they were at a fair and in another one Lily and a few other girls Severus had seen her with before were laying in the grass laughing. He let his eyes continue to wander, but then realized that he was on her wall. In a picture, right in the middle of all the other pictures was one of Lily and himself at the playground. Both of them were on swings, turned facing each other. Lily was laughing and her cheeks flushed red, her head thrown back and her hair, her lovely red hair was windblown all over, it was curly and loose about her shoulders. He was sitting there watching her like an artist capturing the subject of his next painting. He couldn't believe that Lily had put a picture of him on her wall. It almost seemed sacred.

Carefully, trying not to stir the blankets too much, he slowly got out of bed and started to look at the other walls. Another wall had shelves full of books and knick knacks and things and another wall had awards that Lily had won. Her dresser had brightly colored woven mats on it and had bottles of perfume and hair accessories randomly set askew. Her desk was neat; it had just three drawers in which he dared not open in case it squeaked. On top of her desk sat several notebooks, a container with pens and some pencils and a highlighter as well as a pencil sharpener, and some newspaper clippings that he had given her from the Daily Prophet, along with some pictures of Dumbledore, all of which he is smiling in and waving.

Something stirred. He turned around and saw Lily stretching her legs above the blankets on her bed. He tiptoed across the room and leaned over the bed looking at her face.

"Good morning."

"Mmmm, good morning. What are you doing here?" Lily asked.

"I fell asleep."

"Yes, but why are you still here? Don't you need to get ready and besides if my parents see you climbing down the trellis or if your parents find out that you were out-"

"They won't care."

"Hm. What time is it anyway?" asked Lily.

"I was looking for your clock. I don't know." Replied Severus.

"It's on my nightstand…it's, oh, its only 4:32 a.m. I could go back to bed."

"I could still sneak out. "



"Yes, you probably should. Funny, it's so light outside. You'd think it'd be more like 8." Said Lily, yawning and stretching her legs again.

"Yes. Well. I think I'm going to go home now. I guess I will see you in a few more hours." Said Severus.

"Okay."

Severus turned around to leave and started walking to the window, looking outside Lily was right, it did look a lot later than what it was. The birds were chirping in a nearby tree, the outside lamps were turned off. No one was about outside. "Good" he thought.

"Severus?" A small whisper came from behind him. Severus turned around and nodded, acknowledging that he had heard her.

"Thanks for staying with me and everything." Lily said as she pulled the covers over her stomach and up to her nose. She turned her head on the pillow and faced the other direction and soon enough a soft hum came from her and Severus knew she had gone back to sleep. "I could stay here and listen to that forever." Severus thought to himself, and proceeded climbing back down the trellis.