Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters. All rights belong to JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. Unfortunately.

Author's Note- Sorry it's taken me so long to update guys, I wanted to wait until I had inspiration, rather than writing something for the sake of it, which would have turned out rubbish. What do you think? Please R&R (and recommend if you think it's any good), I want to know if I'm any good at this before I steam ahead with it! Enjoy!

One Chance

Severus Snape

I sat alone in my dorm, wallowing in my own self-hatred. Everybody else was at dinner, laughing and enjoying themselves as usual. How I wished I could have been down there, without a care in the world, eating pumpkin pasties with the rest of the school. I knew my friends, if you could call them that, would be wondering where I was. I often skipped meals; I just had no appetite anymore. I just felt sick, all the time. Sick with guilt, sick with hatred, sick with betrayal.

Sighing, I picked up the book on my bed-side table and attempted to read it. After about 30 minutes of reading and re-reading the same page over and over again, and still having no idea what I had read, I gave up and contented myself by staring blankly at the ceiling. What a mess I had made.
I heard a muffled voice shouting my name from downstairs. It was impossible, but I would recognise that voice anywhere. Lily. I rushed downstairs into the Slytherin common room and pulled open the door. There, like a vision, stood Lily before me, pale, beautiful and, oh, so angry. Putting on an air of indifference, I studied her and waited for her to speak. Of course, my heart was leaping through my chest. Why was she here? Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of staring, she spoke.

"YOU. What do you want?"

Her voice was shaking with anger; I saw her take a breath in an attempt to calm herself.

I stood in the doorway and raised my eyebrow cockily. "What do I want? I believe it is you who has come to me, not the other way around." I drawled coldly. I was sure my arrogance would anger her further, but I didn't know any other way to react, it had been so long since we'd spoken, I'd forgotten how to be pleasant. She was the only person I'd ever had reason to be nice to.

"You...You're unbelievable!" She exploded. "You stand there, day after day, staring at me, and expect me to be okay with it? It's wrong, Severus! You're really freaking me out, and people are starting to make comments. What am I supposed to say? 'Oh, don't mind him; he's just this crazy stalker guy who watches me from the shadows.' I've had enough. I try to ignore you, but you just won't quit, will you? So, I'm here now. what could you possibly want so desperately that gives you this constant urge to watch me?"

She finished her rant, slightly out of breath, watching me expectantly. It took me a few minutes to realise that she expected a reply.

"I... Uh..." I hesitated, not sure of what I wanted to say. This was my chance, possibly my only chance, to reconcile with her. I couldn't blow it. I'd spent so many nights lying awake, dreaming of the moment she was willing to listen to me again, reciting over and over again exactly what I would say, but now the moment had arrived, my mind had gone blank, and I had no idea what to do or say to her.

"No. I thought not." she cut harshly into my desperate thoughts, still clutching around for the right words. "So, if you'll be so kind as to leave me alone, I would appreciate the privacy. Goodnight." She swiftly turned on her heel, her copper hair flicking out behind her, and started to stalk away.

"STOP!"

My mouth called out to her before my mind had approved the idea. She furiously whirled around and glared at me, impatiently, expectantly, waiting for me to speak.

"Well?"

It was now or never. Suddenly, an unexpected rush of emotion flooded through me.

"Lily. I'm so sorry. I know what I did was wrong, and I never meant to hurt you. You have to know how much you mean to me, even after all this time. It kills me every day when I see you, but I just can't stop myself from watching you. You're so beautiful. I never meant to say what I said, you must understand, I was angry, hurt, I didn't mean it. Please don't punish me any longer, Lily; I can't bear another day without you. I... I need you."

As I stopped gabbling, I realised just how much I had confessed to her, and I felt suddenly ashamed. What would she think of my weakness?

Her eyes, steadily watching me the whole time, flickered through a myriad of emotion. Anger, sadness, embarrassment, defiance, and... Did I see forgiveness? I sorely hoped so. As her eyes continued to pierce into me, her face formed into a somewhat confused scowl.

"I... Severus. You can't just expect me to forgive you like that. I'm not sure... How dare you! It's just... But you said... It just doesn't excuse..."

Her thoughts trailed off, and she looked at her feet, obviously distressed at my confession. Had it worked? I searched desperately for any sort of compassion in her eyes. When she slowly raised her face to meet my gaze once more, I saw... A hint, a glimmer, of something that I couldn't place. What was it, so deeply hidden away? I couldn't tell.

"You... I shouldn't have come here. I'm sorry."

With that, she sadly turned away from me and left, head down. I watched her leave, and I felt the desperation returning. What had I just done? That was my only chance, and I blew it. Didn't I? I wasn't sure, but I certainly wasn't going to hope. I had spent too much of my life hoping, in vain, for things that I could never have, and that had taught me a tough lesson. Hope for nothing, never be disappointed. I only wished my heart had learned the same lesson, as it yearned desperately for the girl who had, not minutes before, been standing before me, speaking to me for the first time in two years.

Dejectedly, I closed the door to the still empty common room, trudged up the stairs, and collapsed on my bed. It was going to be a long, tough night.

I drearily watched the sun rise over the hills surrounding the castle, knowing that soon I was going to have to get up and face another day. What joys lay in store, I wondered? At least I had potions to look forward to that afternoon. Nothing and nobody could distract me in potions, I was a natural. I had even written some improvements in my Advanced Potions Making textbook, because I was fairly sure that I knew what I was doing better than it did, and I had never made an error of judgement so far. Who knows, I wondered, some day that book with my modifications in may help somebody.

Slowly I rose out of my bed, my head swimming from lack of sleep. I wasn't sure if I had slept at all the night before. It didn't feel like it.

Mulciber walked into the dorm from the bathroom, already in his robes, emerald green tie untied and thrown around his shoulders.

"What's up Sev? You look shattered!"

"Mmm. Didn't sleep well." I wasn't in the mood to talk, so I quickly grabbed my robes from the end of my bed and scurried past Mulciber into the bathroom, which was thankfully empty. I slowly got ready, and stopped to look at myself in the mirror. With disgust, I viewed the greasy- haired, sad eyed creature in front of me. I wasn't so bothered about my physical appearance; that had never been of any consequence to me; but the emptiness I saw in my eyes scared me. Breathing deeply, I used my newly acquired skills as an Occlumens to shield my thoughts, and instantly my eyes grew hard and unfeeling. That was better. It was more efficient for people to think I didn't have emotions, so they couldn't use them against me. I was NOT going to be seen as weak.

Putting on an air of arrogance, as was expected by my peers, I strode out of the door and down the stairs without so much as a glance at my roommates, my robes billowing behind me. If I hurried, I thought, I could spend some time in the library before breakfast. The library was my personal sanctuary, nobody I knew wanted anything to do with it, except Lily, and I often watched her study in there. Apparently she knew I was watching… I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment at the thought, and quickly covered it up by shielding my emotions before anyone could notice. Would she be in there that morning? I hoped she would be, and also that she wouldn't. Maybe I could try to explain things to her? Because it had worked so well the last time I tried that. Banishing the thought to the ever growing cupboard of things not to think about in my mind, I pushed my way into the library and sat down in my favourite spot in the corner, furthest from the window.

Desperately trying not to look around me for the mass of soft, coppery hair and large, almond shaped emerald eyes, I kept my head down and concentrated fiercely on blending in.

"Accio book." I quietly summoned a book I was part-way through reading down off the shelf and settled in. It was nice to finally be able to escape from the world, if only for a few minutes.

After what seemed like only seconds, my charmed wrist watch politely told me it was time to go down to breakfast. Sighing heavily, I stood and placed the book back on the shelf. Time to face another day.

Author's Note- I know it's still quite short, but I'm working up to longer chapters as I'm developing my writing style, I'm still just getting into the swing of things at the moment.

Oh, and if anyone has any storyline suggestions, they would be more than welcome, I love to take inspiration from people, and I'm sure a lot of your ideas are better than mine. I have a general gist of where I want it to go, but I don't yet know how I'm going to get there, so any help would be greatly appreciated