Author's Note: Thanks again to aberrantstrain, who reminds me that my characters do not, in fact, live in a physical vacuum.

A White Christmas

It was Christmas day, and the Evanses had invited Severus over, much to Petunia's chagrin. For Lily's sake, Severus had tried his utmost to be polite with her, and had even volunteered to help out in the kitchen under Petunia's watchful eye. She had been mollified somewhat when she had seen the precision with which he had sliced the carrots, each identical piece exactly one eighth of an inch thick and on the same forty-five degree angle. He had been careful to do everything to Petunia's exact specifications, and when she couldn't find a single thing to complain about, they eventually settled into a reluctant sort of peace. When Severus glimpsed the look of delight and gratitude on Lily's face, he knew it had been worth holding his tongue.

Dinner had been a warm and friendly affair. The Evanses had always liked Severus, although he privately thought it was due to a mixture of pity as well as relief that someone they knew was looking after their daughter both while she was away at Hogwarts and when she was walking the increasingly unsafe streets of Cokeworth. Severus's upbringing didn't work against him. On the contrary, the Evanses trusted their daughter's safety in his hands even more, knowing that a boy needed to be street smart, tough, and wary of his surroundings in order to escape Spinner's End unscathed.

This should have been a relaxing meal for Severus — would have been a relaxing meal, except that his stomach was roiling with butterflies over what was determined to do tonight at some point before he returned home. He had resolved to finally bite the bullet and kiss Lily Evans tonight. And it had to be tonight. When Severus set his mind to something, he was bound to accomplish it one way or another. He had been waiting for the perfect moment to do it ever since term had started, and he was now tired of dragging it out. It would be better just get it over and done with, even if the unthinkable happened and Lily rejected his advances.

But Severus was fairly confident that she wouldn't reject him. In fact, he never would have worked up the nerve to make a move if he hadn't been nearly sure that she felt the same way as he did. Merlin knew why or how, but Lily Evans did indeed fancy him — he knew it because he had seen and felt it in her mind. And what's more, he knew that the reason that he was seeing it in her mind was because Lily was deliberately letting down her mental shields and letting him see it. Years of honing his legilimency by practising on Lily had turned her into a superb occlumens, even more so when it came to blocking Severus, specifically. He had invaded her mind so many hundreds of times over the past four and a half years that she had come to instinctually recognize the unique signature of his mental presence, and effortlessly occlude against it. And shut him out she had, increasingly, ever since the start of third year. It was subtle, but Severus had begun noticing a distinct absence of thoughts and feelings regarding himself. It was a glaring omission, given how much a part of her life (and, previously, a part of her mental landscape) Severus had been. Severus, too, had pulled back, making fewer and fewer cerebral overtures, and ensuring that there was not a trace of his feelings for her in the impressions that did he did provide her. So it had gone on, and with Severus inhabiting Lily's mind less and less often, they had started to gradually grow apart. Even grown apart, they were still closer than best friends ought to be. But they had lost that enmeshment that had characterized their friendship from the beginning, and each had set up some boundaries, some privacy. Severus had wondered at Lily's retreat, and at first he had assumed that she suspected that he fancied her, and was blocking him to spare his (unrequited) feelings. So he had resigned himself to the mental distance, and renegotiated the rules of their friendship.

This had gone on until the start of term in September, when something remarkable had taken place. Lily's mind had started tentatively reaching out to him, and this time she was offering scraps of romantic thoughts — romantic thoughts about him. Severus would return each overture with a mental offering of his own, and his invasions had softened into something like a playful caress. And over the past couple months, a game of cerebral flirtation had developed between them — without a single word or touch. All of their feelings for each other remained strictly unspoken, as keeping it to a flirtatious game of legilimency allowed them both to hide behind the safety of plausible deniability.

But these mental exchanges had started to imbue every single look between them — every single accidental brush of the hand or awkward moment of silence — with an almost unbearable sexual tension. And it was driving him mad. Driving him even more mad because Lily was gradually allowing him to feel her own sexual tension as well. Experiencing her desire on top of his own was so intense that Severus was unable to focus in any of the classes they shared or get any work done sitting beside her in the library. To cope with the nearly constant sexual frustration, he had taken to wearing his loosest set of robes, keeping books open on his lap instead of the desk in front, and showering at least twice a day. His hair had never been so clean. He knew that Lily was just as badly off — he could feel the frustration radiating off her in waves when it overwhelmed her mental barriers — but at least, being a girl, she could hide it better.

He had been sensing it coming off her all throughout dinner as they sat together. Lily's foot had accidentally bumped his under the table, but she had not moved it away. The top of her foot was instead ever so slightly brushing against his Achilles tendon. It was such an innocent gesture under regular circumstances, but Lily had quite deliberately lowered her barriers, and the knowledge that she was desiring him at this very moment was his own undoing.

"Sev, can you pass the gravy?"

"…huh?"

"The gravy, Sev…can you pass it to me?"

"Oh right, sorry. Here you go." As he passed it to her, their hands brushed together at the base of the gravy boat. At that very moment, their eyes met, and he saw an image of himself kissing her, hands tangled in her hair. It was over in a flash, and he suddenly realized that they were both still holding onto the gravy boat, and her thumb was — was — Merlin, there was no other name for it — her thumb was caressing his. Severus almost dropped the boat. He hastily tore his eyes away from hers, trying to steady the wild beating of his heart. That image — it had been Lily's, from some fantasy or dream. He was sure of it. Or — or could it have been a product of his own feverish mind, and he had mistaken it for hers? Was he imaging things? Was he reading into her touches and glances something that wasn't there? He might have assumed so, if it hadn't been for the gentle caress of her thumb, and the footsie under the table. No, it couldn't be a coincidence. She had to have done it on purpose.

Just as he had managed to get himself back under control, Severus felt something brush against his outer thigh under the table. It was the back of Lily's hand, and he shivered as she gently trailed her fingertips down to his knee, and then back up again, agonizingly slowly. He was mortified as his body responded to her touch, and he gave thanks to the long tablecloth obscuring his lap. Merlin! What was she doing to him? Was she enjoying it? Teasing him while he was trapped at the dinner table with her parents, grandparents, sister, aunts, and uncles? Severus's entire body flushed and trembled with need, and if she kept this up, he would need to excuse himself to the bathroom and quickly take care of himself, something he had never wanted to do in the Evans' bathroom. Just when Severus thought he couldn't take any more of this, Lily's hand moved away, and he felt equal parts relieved and bereft without her touch.

After dinner, Mrs. Evans sent Severus and Lily out to the yard to look for tinder for the fireplace while she and Petunia cleared the table. It was a clear night, and with the new moon, the only light came from the stars and from inside the house. The weather was brisk, but it had not yet snowed this year. Lily grabbed his hand and pulled him behind the large oak tree, saying something about how they could find more tinder back there. But Severus couldn't help but notice that they were now in total seclusion. Had she brought him back here for the tinder, or for something else?

"I wish we had a white Christmas this year," Lily sighed, looking up at the sky. Severus closed the distance between them, until he was standing right in front of her.

"Close your eyes," he said, and she complied. He took a moment to just stare at her in a way that he didn't dare to do if her eyes were open.

"Sev…what's this about?" she whined in that way of hers that he should have found annoying, but found hopelessly endearing instead.

"Just keep them closed." He looked up at the night sky and gathered all the magic within himself. He concentrated as hard as he could, visualizing what he wanted, willing it to happen. A few seconds later, a small flurry of snowflakes started coming down. He had made it snow, in a column that was just large enough to contain the both of them. Outside that small circle it wasn't snowing at all. It was as if they were in their own private winter wonderland. As the first few snowflakes touched down on the tip of Lily's nose, she gasped in delight and opened her eyes to look at him.

"Sev, you made it snow! How on Earth did you do that? You didn't use your wand did you? You know we can't outside of school –"

"Don't worry, no wand," he said quickly.

"You made it snow without even using your wand? How?!" Lily's eyes were wide with astonishment and wonder, and he knew that he had truly impressed her. He resolved to do whatever he could to see that look directed at him again in the future.

"I, er, just sort of willed it to happen."

"You just willed it to happen?" she asked with a touch of disbelief, eyes narrowing.

"I've been practicing that one for a while," he admitted. He was good, but he wasn't that good. She smiled at him then, an absolutely radiant smile that made his knees weak, and reached for the ends of his Slytherin scarf, taking a step toward him. Then she turned her face upward and stuck her tongue out, and every time she caught a snowflake with it, she giggled a little bit. Within moments, Lily's eyelashes, face, and hair were all peppered with snowflakes. She was mesmerizing.

"Oh look, Sev! It's a shooting star!"

Severus reluctantly tore his eyes away from her face and looked up to where she was pointing. She was right, there was a shooting star. "Quick, make a wish!" He obliged. They both looked back down, and Severus realized just how close they were to each other. Their feet were nearly touching, and he could feel her breath warming his face. Lily must have noticed their proximity as well, for she suddenly looked down at the ground and fidgeted with his scarf, wrapping the ends around her hands. The silence was heavy between them, and his stomach flipped with anticipation. He had to do it now. He had been waiting for the right moment for months, and this was it. It was almost nauseatingly perfect.

"Lily." He whispered her name, and for a second he thought she hadn't heard, but then she looked up and caught his eye. And what he saw in those eyes nearly took his breath away. Her barriers were fully down now, and he sensed her anticipation and nervousness…and something else. Something different from the sexual desire she had been emanating during dinner. He felt something tender…something akin to love. Was it possible that what Lily felt for him went beyond mere infatuation? Could it be that she felt as strongly for him as he did for her? Severus gathered up all the love he felt for her, all the love he had always felt for her, ever since he was a boy, and pushed it through to Lily, so that she would know exactly what she meant to him.

"Sev." Her voice was something between a gasp and a sigh, and her eyes were brimming with tears. They stood that way for several long minutes, neither of them moving an inch, their eyes still locked upon one another, their minds connected within a whirlwind of emotion. He didn't even know anymore which feelings were hers and which were his own — where he ended and she began. He knew this was it; he knew he had to do it now, but he felt frozen in time, unable to close the distance between them. Just as the tension between them was becoming unbearable, she broke the silence again with a soft whisper: "What did you wish for?"

Severus's heart was hammering in his chest now, and he had become light headed. He was terrified, but the eggnog and the darkness had given him just the little push of courage he needed, and he knew if he didn't do it now, he would always regret it. There would never be another moment as perfect as this one. With his left hand, he grabbed the end of her red and gold scarf and wound it around his hand the way she had done with his. With his right, he gently caressed her cheek, catching the snowflakes on her face with the backs of his fingers. His hand was trembling now, but he continued to slowly trail it down past her shoulder and down her scarf, winding it around to match his other hand and both of her own.

"This," he said. Then gripping her scarf tightly in both of his hands, he pulled her in toward him and met her lips with his own. It was tentative and a little bit clumsy, and both their lips were wet with the snow. But she didn't pull away from him, and in that moment, he felt his heart bursting with a joy he hadn't known was possible. When they finally did pull apart from each other, she looked up at him, and there were tears in her eyes once again. Her lip trembled.

"Me too," she said, and the tears trailed down her cheeks, mixing with the snowflakes, but Severus knew that they were tears of joy.