Review? Pwease? doggy face


Severus closed his book when he saw Lily and one of her fellow Gryffindors come out into the open sunlight. Lily, however, didn't seem to notice him – she was in deep conversation with the other girl. Disappointed, he watched her walk to a near tree, her red hair shining beautifully, swaying with the soft breeze. At that moment, the girl glanced at his position, and immediately beamed and, after a few words with her friend, she hurried to sit by Severus' side.

'How was it?' she asked him, her green eyes sparkling with excitement.

'How was what?' he asked rather rudely; he still hadn't got over the loss of his best friend.

'Your first day,' Lily said impatiently. Severus shrugged.

''T was okay.'

Lily frowned.

'What's up with you?' she asked, kneeling nearer to him. The boy felt a shiver that had nothing to do with cold expand through his back.

'Nothing,' he replied defensively, but Lily crossed her arms over her chest.

'You haven't talked to me in all afternoon, haven't reached for me at lunch or anything, and now that I'm here with you, you talk to me as if you – as if you despised me.'

'I don't despise you!' Severus shot too quickly, and he felt himself blush.

'Then tell me what all of this is about!' Lily exclaimed, sitting down normally again. Severus sighed and avoided her gaze.

'I – hate being – you know – not with you,' he mumbled, staring at the castle's door, 'I'm in Slytherin and you're in – Gryffindor –'

'I don't see how that stops us from being friends,' Lily said coldly, 'All that house enmity pish posh is getting over you, I see.'

''Course not,' Severus said, leaving his closed Transfiguration book aside and staring at Lily fully in her face, 'It's just – I don't like some of the people that are with you –'

'We just started school! You don't know any of them! And in any case, I haven't heard myself complain about your company, even when I heard some of your nasty friends making horrible remarks about me!'

'I – what?'

'You heard me! Making fun of my family and myself because they're – Muggles!'

Severus stared at her.

'Well, Slytherins have this obsession with the purity of blood,' he explained, but Lily was on the charge again.

'You're a Slytherin, Severus! So don't complain about my friends when yours –'

'Yours are just as bad! How about Potter and Black?'

Lily stared coldly at him before replying slowly, 'Potter and Black are not my friends, Severus. But I'd rather have them than those disgusting Slytherins you hang out with.'

'They think a day is wasted if they haven't bullied someone – especially me!' Severus shouted, jumping to his feet. Lily copied him and moved closer to him, so close he felt himself blush again.

'Potter and Black are not my friends. I remember how they treated you in the train and how they laughed at you in the Sorting and between classes. I'm on your side, Sev. But if you're not going to come to my side with those Slytherins of yours, fine.'

She turned around and started marching away. Severus watched her back as she strode across the garden, her red hair swaying furiously...

'Better luck next time, Snivellus!'

Severus turned around to see none other than James Potter and Sirius Black roaring with laughter behind a bush, and it reminded him of the many times he had spied on Lily in the deserted playground...

'Lily!' he shouted back at her, ignoring the laughing Gryffindors. She stopped and turned around on the spot, her arms crossed across her chest. 'I'm – I'm sorry!' he said as he ran towards her, forgetting his Transfiguration book. 'I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I – I can't stop them from saying those things, but that does not mean I'm on their side, Lily, I swear, I don't care you're a Muggle-born. I don't.'

Lily glared at him for a minute, and then her expression relaxed a bit.

'So, how was your first day?' she asked, and he sighed and smiled, blushing again, happy to be friends again.

'Terrible,' he said, omitting that it had been so not because of the homework, but because he had not been close to her at all. To get his message across, however, he added, 'It's much better now, though.'

Lily beamed and kept on asking him questions about his classes that he, gratefully and happily, would answer with scowls and laughs, as they strolled together under the afternoon sunlight.

'What does he have?' James asked Sirius incredulously as he watched, disappointed, Lily Evans and the boy he disliked so much on speaking terms again.

'Well,' Sirius hesitated, 'Greasy hair and ugly faces do seem to make quite an impression on Evans.'

'He's a disgusting Slytherin!' James exclaimed, and Sirius patted him on the back.

'You and I, we have luck with most of the women,' he said fatherly, 'but Snivellus – he has luck with Evans, the only girl we haven't been able to reach.'

'I promise I'll make a hell of his life,' James muttered.

'I'm in,' Sirius said maliciously and, after an enthusiastic high-five, they ran to meet their friends Remus and Peter under a tree several meters away from them and tell them what had just happened, disguising James' disappointment with amusement and with attraction the love and tenderness he felt for the red-haired young Lily Evans.