3rd year - October 14th

"He is so infuriating!" She rambled, as she paced the dungeon from wall to wall, "I mean 'babe' – who does he think he is!"

Snape glanced up from the fumes of the noxious concoction in front of him, "he's a rodent, Lily, he doesn't deserve to breath your air! Forget him." He checked that she had heard him over the bubbling of the potion, and established that she had due to the satisfied smile that twitched on her face. Snape smiled into the fumes, hoping that she wouldn't see it in the dim light.

"He left lilies in the common room for me in the morning with a stupid little note like: "Lilies for my own Lily" – I think someone told him that I like to get up early," she added with a murderous twinge to her voice, as if she was wondering how to punish the perpetrator. She glanced over at Snape's obscured head and then continued, "of course it might have been very romantic if he had actually bothered to find out that I don't like lilies."

"You don't?" Enquired Snape, trying to sound like he was only vaguely listening, but had actually stopped in the middle of scribbling something in the margin of the instructions to listen.

"No – I mean sure it's my name, so of course I would like lilies. Naturally! – Pfft, give me a br–"

"Right," interrupted Snape in a tone that was slightly sharper than he meant it to be, "but what are your favourites?"

Lily was taken aback, but then replied warily:

"Forget-me-nots."

Snape bent low over his potions book, making a new note in the corner of the page.