Lily

(Severus Snape/Lily Evans)

by

titania_took (Gryffindor)

The flower of funerals, and death. He knows this. He does not care.

Rose, the one they say is for love, stands next to her. They say she is pretty. Some even venture as far as stunning. But Severus cannot understand how anyone could see her that way when she is compared to the beauty that is Lily Evans. He can hardly see her at all.

For him, Lily is synonymous to love.

What life is there without Lily?

She has a sister called Petunia. A plain, boring name for a plain, boring muggle. And that is where his confusion starts. Lily contradicts everything he has been taught. She is a Gryffindor. She is a mudblood, and yet he it pains him to use that name on her, even in just a passing thought. And yet she is brilliant, she is intelligent, she is beautiful, she is the best in their class at most everything, and he practically worships the ground she stands on.

He takes another sip from the glass of Firewhisky he is nursing. Butterbeer is all very well for having a good time, but for drowning your sorrows it is about as effective as fizzy pumpkin juice. And a life with as many sorrows as his calls for something a lot stronger. For he is not the only one who professes to love Lily. There is also James Potter.

James Potter, whose name is to him synonymous to Jerk.

He is sitting over there, across the other side of the Three Broomsticks, laughing raucously with his friends. His partners in crime, and in torturing whoever accidentally happens to look at them the wrong way. He is constantly harassing Lily, even when it has been made quite clearly obvious that she decidedly does not return his affections. He is a jerk to her, and a jerk to everyone he comes across, and a jerk with real passion to him.

Like now, when he is caught staring (and maybe glaring slightly) at him making blatantly obvious and clearly unwanted passes at his Lily. Even if she doesn't like him either.

There is a loud crash, and the glass he is holding shatters into about as many pieces as there are galleons in Gringotts Bank. He looks up in horror, several shards embedded into his face, and many more in his hands.

Lily, his perfect Lily, is screaming at the jerk, and he catches some of her furious rant, screeching about how dangerous it was, and how the glass could have gotten into his eyes, and how there was no actual need for him to do that and how he just goes around needlessly hurting people and how much she hates it and she hates him. And the jerk just sits there gazing nonchalantly back, and he doesn't care. Not even when the woman he claims to love is yelling at him to stop can he think about anything but himself and his over-inflated ego.

Potter is exactly what he has been told Gryffindors are like: arrogant bastards who strut around the school thinking they own it all, and who get away with everything because they're Gryffindors. And they say only Slytherin produces dark wizards. He is truly terrified of the monster Potter is going to become when he grows up. What did any of his victims do that he has the right to continually subject them to such suffering? What did he do for him to torment him so?

And then she is there, and his world goes slightly fuzzy and confusing, because why is she here? Why does she care? He knows she doesn't love him back, will never love him back, and has long given up hope of trying, and that makes even this brief moment tinged with sadness.

She murmurs comforting nothings into his ear, and takes him by the hand and leads him all the way back to the hospital wing. Because this is Lily, and she would do this for anyone, and that thought makes him even sadder. He thinks he is in shock, and not just from the glass.

This is the longest they have ever spoken without him somehow offending her. Mostly because he hasn't yet spoken much. But this is one of the many wonderful things about Lily. She forgives you. Perfect in every way. He truly does not understand why people think of the rose as the symbol of love, when it is quite clearly a lily.

"Don't let that jerk get to you," she whispers as she leaves, having assured that he was safely in the nurse's custody, and he smiles at the knowledge that she thinks the same way as he does. And as he watches her retreating form, he is reminded of why he loves her, and decides that just having someone as amazing as Lily Evans in his life is well worth the pain of loving her. Even if he knows that that love will be forever unrequited.