Hey! Thanks for all the reviews, please keep them up! I love hearing everyone's opinions! ESPECIALLY the ones that hate Potter! lol
I enjoyed writing this chapter quite a bit - it has the first writing I've ever done of Lily/Sev's childhood. It was incredibly fun to write. I love them so much. So I'd especially love feedback on that aspect.
Anyway, as said, R&R...and...MADAM POMFREY IS LOVE YET AGAIN!!! lol
Snape and Lily didn't see each other for the remainder of that weekend, until their History of Magic class on Monday morning.
Snape hadn't been in the mood to see anyone, not even Lily. Potter had hexed him upon his soaking wet return to the common room, much to the delight of the surrounding students, and he had been suffering an incredibly painful stomach ache which was making him double up in agony during the intervals of not throwing up slugs. It was Nott who had snapped first, and looking up from his game of gobstones with Avery, had barked that Snape had better go to the hospital wing before their entire bathroom was covered in slime.
So yet again he found himself confined to Madam Pomfrey's company, as she busied herself about the hospital wing, whistling loudly and being almost insufferably content, making Snape wish he could cough up the remaining slugs in his own dormitory.
Of course, at least she wasn't speaking to him. Snape winced at the memory of her shriek of displeasure when he admitted he had not been drinking his nettle tea. He was now being forced to down a sickly mixture of the smelly tea and particular antidote for Potter's hex, to neutralise his stomach lining, or whatever it was that Potter had so joyously upset.
His illness did mean, however, that he had to be excused from his detention under Pomfrey's strictest orders. At 6pm, Sunday evening, Snape was reclining alone on a hospital wing bed, having opted for the curtains to be drawn around him so he didn't have to look at the plump Hufflepuff girl laying opposite him whose eyes had enlarged to the size of quidditch quads, and were swivelling about in a very eerie manner.
His head felt ready to explode, with so many niggling thoughts dashing about inside it.
I hope Lily isn't sore that she's serving detention alone...
A smaller, more hostile voice started ringing through him.
Of course she's sore, it's your fault she got it!
My fault? How is it my fault?! She dragged me into that lake! The Potter Prat gave us up!
You're the one putting your arms around her and being inappropriate!
I am not inappropriate!
Since when do best friends do this stuff?
Snape faltered. Maybe Lily was just that kind of girl.
Don't be stupid, you know she's not. She's not like that with Potter.
Ah, came that voice again, but he's got plans to change that. And what are you going to do about it?
If Snape could have felt sicker, he would have done. Potter had told him, out of earshot, whilst Snape had grabbed onto a suit of armour for support as a festering mess of slugs had shot out of him, to leave Lily alone, because Lily was his.
"And what's more," Potter sneered, "More than just her friendship is going to be my prize at the end of this. I'll win her over, Slugulus, just you wait and see." His voice lowered to nothing more than a hush, out of the earshot of even Black, "And it'll give me more pleasure than anything knowing that I'll get to go where you've never even got close to..."
Snape had realised, at that moment, that Potter was more than just a bully - he was a threat to everything Snape held dear. Which was Lily. He had vowed, (in his head, of course, for the slugs had temporarily paralyzed his speech), that he would, under absolutely no circumstances, allow Potter to corrupt something so pure as Lily.
And he would go to any lengths to keep that promise... For the greater good.
When Lily and Snape sat down on opposite sides of the room for History of Magic, Professor Binns already droning on about the 16th century Goblin uprising of Haysd, they had not spoken since Saturday morning.
Lily allowed herself to cast one concerned look at Severus, who was even paler than usual, but Alice, who she was sitting with, had nudged her harshly and so she had looked away, hoping, despite her annoyance at his snubbing of her the past two days, that he had at least been drinking his nettle tea.
"Alice!" She whispered. "I need you to send Sev - Snape - a note telling him to drink nettle tea, throughout the course of the day, daily, until Friday."
"And would you like that with or without fries?" Alice replied.
Lily smacked her arm and shoved a piece of parchment in front of Alice, who sighed and began scrawling. Lily nodded appreciatively, until she noticed the line, framed with love-hearts at the bottom; "Forever yours and yours alone, Lily Snape."
But it was too late, for Alice had already scrunched it up and hurled it in Snape's general direction - it hit the side of his face, where he still had the faint marks of Nott's bruise, causing his whole body to jump with alarm. Several members of the class sniggered.
"That was not supposed to be sent from me!" Lily hissed.
"Oh. Should've said so." Came the bored reply.
Snape opened up the ball quickly and read it, a blank expression on his face, until Lily saw his eyebrows twitch slightly.
Lily's head dropped onto her desk with a loud thud. Professor Binns, of course, heard nothing - he was almost completely deaf.
Snape read over the last line again, too nervous to even look Lily's way.
Lily Snape, he mused.
The words had once been joined together in the past, and Snape reminisced, wondering if Lily still remembered too.
"Severus..." Lily began, whilst twiddling a little daisy between her fingers.
A little smile twisted Snape's mouth as she said his name. He looked up at her little figure sitting cross-legged in their own little private spot, in a small thicket of trees, a sunlit river gleaming through their trunks. Snape felt like it was their place, their only place, where he and his only friend could not be disturbed by the world and its trivialities.
"What happens if I get a kiss from a Dementor? Are they boys or girls? Do you die?"
He considered this.
"I don't know if they're boys or girls. And you don't die, it just takes away your soul."
"Oh." Said Lily. She stole a glance at Snape. He was slightly taller than she was, skinnier, although Lily hoped that didn't mean she was fat - sometimes Tuney called her that as a joke, though. In the cool, green shade, even with his dirty hair and odd clothes, she thought he was the most interesting boy she had ever met.
Snape took out a little pen-knife from his pocket, and opened it up.
"Where'd you get that?" She asked, eyeing the knife suspiciously, slightly scared of its sharp edge which he was running his finger over. She'd never admit it to him, though.
"Found it in my house." He said, quietly. Suddenly, he stood up, and made his way over to a large tree. He began carving something out, his tongue sticking out in concentration as he did it. Lily giggled and skipped over to the tree too.
She watched him cutting the bark on the tree until he stepped back and admired his work.
It read Lily & Severus.
Lily didn't say anything, just looked at the words thoughtfully.
"Just to - to say we're friends." Snape mumbled quickly.
Lily nodded. "I saw this on TV once." She said. "But the lady doing it was doing it in celebration of her wedding day, for her and her husband!"
Snape somehow doubted his mother had done that on her wedding day. But then again, there were little moments that barely ever happened at his house that did make Snape believe that, once upon a time, his mother and his father must have been happy, someplace.
Lily giggled.
"What's so funny?" Snape asked, smiling.
"Can you imagine if we ever got married?" Lily laughed, before moving in front of Snape and putting her daisy through one of the buttons of his large, white smock.
"There, now you look like the broom!"
"What broom?" Snape asked, puzzled.
"I meant the groom, of course!" Lily admitted, annoyed.
Snape thought about the idea of one day marrying this little, freckled, redhead girl. And it gave him a warm feeling inside.
It was his turn to laugh.
"What?" Lily's eyes narrowed.
"Your name would be Lily Snape!" He chuckled.
"It sounds fine, thank-you-very-much!" She crossed her arms.
"It sounds OK." He lied. It sounded absolutely magical to him.
But as he finished saying it, she had grabbed the pen-knife sneakily, and was already attempting to carve something else.
"Lily! Be careful with that!" He said. Well, if she was going to be his wife, he may as well start looking after her already, he thought.
When she was finished, they both looked proudly at the new carving, directly underneath the Lily & Severus.
And on every evening before a new year of Hogwarts began, Snape had gone to look at their tree, running his fingers over Lily Snape - over what had been their past, and wondering whether it could ever hold some truth for their future.
He raised his head, tearing his eyes away from the words on the crumpled parchment.
He looked over at Lily, who was apparently sleeping, her head laying on her desk facing away from him, and at Alice, who smirked at him.
He scribbled a note back, charmed it, and it flew over to their desk.
Alice,
Thanks for the note. Please tell Lily that the tea is being sadly neglected for the fact that its scent alone might have killed someone's pet rat in my common room last night. Tell her not to worry, it's no tragedy. The rat had it coming.
Severus
PS. Lily, you'd have more luck working the moves on Binns. I'm not sure he's even spoken to a woman since the clubbing of Gondoline Oliphant by trolls in 1799.
PPS. It should now be perilously clear to you both that I will be receiving a well deserved Outstanding in this O.W.L.
Alice read the message, smiling, then prodded Lily, who grabbed the message; read it, scowling, and finally looked at Snape.
"You're supposed to be drinking the tea! I don't care about some rat!"
"Tell that to Potter." He replied back snidely. A few classmates were shaking their heads at Lily and Snape's blatant disregard for the fact that they were supposed to be learning in what, Snape had to admit, however loosely, was a class. Binns, on the other hand, was completely oblivious.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Fine. I will no longer enquire after your health."
"Good." Snape said.
"I am going to get a Troll in this O.W.L." Rosier snapped, from behind Snape. "So I would be much obliged if you two lovebirds could save this fascinating conversation for after class."
Snape lowered his head and tried to focus on whatever it was that Binns was saying. Lily did so too. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he could have sworn she was smiling.