A/N: So, firstly, I'm terribly sorry that I haven't updated in forever, and secondly, I'm terribly sorry that I left poor Snape just lying there on the floor outside the Gryffindor Common Room, all bloody and tortured. Hopefully this super long (for me, at least) chapter makes up for it!

Snape in the Grass

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. The scrape of Madam Pomfrey's quill reverberated in the nearly-silent Hospital Wing; and even though Lily was hunched in a chair next to Sev's bed, and Madam Pomfrey was sitting in her office with the door partially closed, the scratch of the quill still sounded louder than Sev's whispery breathing. But, maybe it only sounded this way because Lily was concentrating so fiercely on willing Sev to keep on taking his short, silent breaths, was wishing so desperately for him to open his eyes and speak to her, that the scrape of the quill was somewhat magnified in her frantically-worried imagination.

It's not like I haven't sat here before, she mused dryly to herself, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the white bandages wrapped around Sev's thin chest, and he always does seem to wake up, not that much worse for the wear. Gently, she reached out and stroked Sev's motionless fingers. He didn't react at all. Normally, if she'd surprised him, he would have flinched at her touch; or, when he saw that a touch was coming, he would look at her with a mixture of resignation and longing in his eyes, as if he both desperately wanted her to put her hands on him, and yet also, was maybe afraid that she might hurt him in doing it.

Lily made sure that she hugged and petted and mock-punched and held hands with Sev mostly because he needed someone who touched him as a casual thing; someone to show him that not all touching had to be a prelude to anger or fear or pain or humiliation. He needed someone to make touch a normal, mundane thing- an expected, un-scary thing, that wouldn't cause him to curl up into a little mental ball of anxiety.

She really had to think about it sometimes, to judge when it would just be too much for Sev, when her hugging him or grabbing his hand was too much for him to handle; when he needed to just bein his own skin. When he needed to feel like the only person who could touch him was Sev himself. Lily smiled tiredly down at the pale, bandaged boy stretched out on the narrow Hospital Wing bed. Sometimes, she thought, hating herself a little bit for this thought, even as the boy was laying unconscious in front of her, it was quite a lot of work to be Severus Snape's best friend.

(And, she knew, it was absolutely not quite a lot of work to be Lily Evans' best friend; it was very easy and enjoyable and uncomplicated to be her friend, because Firstly, she didn't have all this dark emotional baggage and Secondly, she wasn't an abrasive bastard.)

Sometimes, it was toomuch work to be Severus Snape's best friend, but Lily did it anyway, because she had this idea (and maybe it was naive but it was hers, anyway): that children are stellar judges of character. And, her nine-year-old self had decided that the scrawny, untidy Sev was a wonderful person, and was worth it, come what fucking may.

People change, Lily, her 15-year-old self often wanted to scream at the little girl she had been. People fucking change. They become friends with boys who think you are too 'dirty' to be allowed at Hogwarts, and they might not ever call you a 'Mudblood' but that doesn't mean that they don't call other people that. People change, and sometimes it's for the worse, and sometimes you can't do a single thing about it.

But, Lily hadn't changed- or rather, she hadn't changed very much, which is why she sat by Sev's bed in the Hospital Wing after a prank or a fight put him there, and made sure that the first face he saw when he struggled back to consciousness was her own. And, she imagined, sitting by his hospital bed waiting for him to wake up, might compel him to wake up in other, metaphorical ways. He might wake up to the fact that his Slytherin friends were cruel and bigoted and Death Eaters by destiny and by choice. He might wake up to the fact that he was also headed down that dark path, for no other reason than they were the first group of people who had accepted him, had welcomed him, even, for his skills with spells and curses.

I welcomed you, too, Lily wanted to scream at him sometimes. I welcomed you too, and I welcomed you first and I cherished you and loved you and was loyal to you, and all that shit, and you're throwing me away. You're throwing me away because a bunch of bullies in black cloaks and stupid masks are telling you to. You're throwing me away because you can't be my friend and be a Death Eater, you can't walk with Voldemort and also walk with me.

So, Lily Evans sat by Severus Snape's hospital bed because he was her oldest friend, and because she thought maybe she could save him from himself, if she held on to him hard enough, and also because he was the first person to tell her about Magic, about Hogwarts and the Wizarding world and how her new life would be there. He'd given her the gift of Magic, and that was more than she could ever give him, so each time she sat by his bed and held his hand and waited for him to wake up.

Lily was dozing lightly in her chair, her fingers still loosely wrapped around Sev's, when she first heard him stir. He shifted himself amidst the crisp white sheets, clearly itching from the skin-regrowth creams Madam Pomfrey had massaged into his wounds, and slowly opened his eyes. He stared blearily at her for a second, and then relaxed, his shoulders and neck dropping back onto the pillow, clearly pleased to see her. He didn't remove his hand from hers, and when Lily tightened her fingers, a faint flush crept up his bare chest.

"Fancy meeting you here, Diamond Lil," he croaked and Lily grinned at him. He called her Diamond Lil after an American gangster woman, or something, and Lily loved the nickname, because here was a nickname with some creativity! (In contrast, for example, 'Evans' wasn't much of a nickname at all.)

"I know, Sev. It is quite the surprise to find ourselves in the Hospital Wing. I've not been here since I got lost looking for the Astronomy Tower in 1st Year. You?"

Sev smirked at her, stretched out in the bed that over the past 5 years they'd both come to think of as 'his.' "My first time, actually. But, I've no idea why I don't come up here more often. It's delightful." On the last word, he made his voice go all high-pitched and breathy, a perfect imitation of the inane Zinnia Parkinson, and Lily snorted.

"There's just the problem of how to get up here, without getting one's chest all sliced up." He lifted his hands and let them flutter back down to the coverlet, and Lily could see the strain and humiliation of his injuries reflected in his slitted eyes. She swallowed, and it burned, going down her throat.

"Sev, I, I can't... I'm so incredibly sorry that they did this to you, that Sirius hurt you like that." She flinched, remembering the jagged red letters carved into Sev's bare chest. "You think, you know, that every time is the worst thing he's done, and then, it just keeps getting worse. Seriously, as much as I despise him, I just can't believe he'd be so heartless."

Sev smiled happily at her, and Lily felt her brow furrow. Sev was taking this whole horrific experience surprisingly well. Typically, when he ended up in the Hospital Wing, he raged against the Marauders and their bullying tendencies, and how everyone seemed to forgive them, and Lily had to reassure him over and over that not everyone hero-worshipped them. That she certainly didn't.

But today, he seemed calm. And not resigned or simmering or silently frustrated, but just...calm.

She inched her chair closer to his bed. "Sev, what happened?" She rushed her next sentence, as if she believed his lack of immediate response to her question to be a result of humiliation, rather than this strange calm. "If you, don't want to tell me, that's alright. I just want you to know that I'm so sorry, and that I'm here for you, for anything you need. And," she grinned at him, knowing this would compel a reaction but unsure exactly what kind of reaction this might be, "James is probably never going to speak to Sirius again."

The smile that spread across Sev's thin face was poisonous and bitter, and Lily leaned away from the furious glee that glinted in his dark eyes. She gulped. She'd never seen his face look like this before.

He burrowed back into his pillows, and closed his eyes. "Perfect," he murmured. "This was absolutely worth it, then."

Lily's eyes narrowed. "It was worth it, to get tortured by Sirius? Worth it to be in pain and be hurt, just so they all keep fighting?" She shook her head slowly. That's a little sick, Sev, she wanted to tell him. That's a little sick, that you think getting hurt so badly is worth something that's actually so fucking petty.

Maybe Sev misconstrued the confusion in her eyes for eagerness, or something, because he slowly, groaningly, lifted himself into a half-hunched position, so he could speak right next to her ear. He turned his face towards hers, and Lily heard him inhale the scent of her hair as he leaned his mouth towards her.

"I've got a secret, Diamond Lil," he whispered, and Lily forced herself to stay exactly where she was, to not draw back from Sev, and his secret. He tapped his fingers against his breastbone. "Black didn't do this. A bunch of us-" his Slytherin friends, Lily knew, her dread of this secret increasing- "well, we heard about the lover's quarrel between Potter and Black. And, we decided it was time to, break up the dream team."

Lily's body felt weak and trembly, and her eyelids fluttered under the weight of Sev's admission. So, Sirius Black hadn't carved that irreverently-awful message into Sev's chest. Someone else had. And Sev had let them do it.

She shoved her chair backwards, and drew in great gulps of air, trying desperately to prevent herself from being sick all over the Hospital Wing's floor. Sev was staring at her, clearly puzzled by her reaction, but Lily didn't have time to assuage his fucking bewilderment. She was too busy trying to not throw up on him.

"Who."

"Who d'you think," he muttered. "Malfoy, obviously. And, before you get all equal rights-y on me, it had to be me. Nobody else would have been believable..."

Lily started laughing. It felt shrill and scratchy in her mouth, and Sev's whole face creased in concern. He was finally starting to see how upset she was. And, he wasn't sure whyshe was so upset. And, that was the worst part.

Her voice was shaky, and she couldn't look at Sev when she spoke. "You let Malfoy torture you, because you thought it would hurt Sirius and James? You just let him hurt you?"

"Shit, Lily." Sev threw himself backwards into his bed, wincing as his wounds stretched and stung. "Fuck me, it's not like Black wouldn't have done something like this. So, why are you so mad about this?"

His eyes narrowed, and his lip curled up. "You just mad that I lied to you? That I made your precious Gryffin-queers fight?" Bitterness flashed in his voice, and pain coiled in the compressed corners of his lips. "Why do you care so much about them, Evans?"

He used James' nickname for her, instead of one of his own, and it made Lily's skin crawl, to hear James' joke in Sev's voice. She'd never before been utterly disgusted by her best friend, and she couldn't believe that he had done this to himself.

"I don't give a flying fuck about them, Severus Snape!" she nearly screamed, keeping her voice just low enough to keep Madam Pomfrey safely ensconced in her office. Sev inched backwards from the fury in her face and the shakiness of her voice; he looked horrified, as if this wasn't at all the way this was supposed to go.

"I couldn't care less if they all jumped off the Astronomy Tower, Sev," she whispered fiercely, shoving her face directly into his space. "I care about you. I cannot understand why you let yourself be hurt so fucking badly, just to prove something! I bet Malfoy didn't jump up and volunteer to have his chest be carved up!" She scrubbed her hands across her face and left them there, so she wouldn't have to look at Sev. "You let them hurt you. You let yourself be the, sacrificial lamb, or whatever. It's like you never think that you're worth it, that you are worth keeping safe." She rubbed the tears out of her eyes, and still didn't look at Sev. She could hear him breathing, hear him frantically forcing words together inside of his mind to combat her assertion, to make her calm down and stay with him. "We've been friends since we were nine years old, Sev. And still, I guess I just don't understand you."

Slowly, she leaned down and picked up her bag. Carefully, she slung it over her shoulder. Her whole body ached from her anger at Sev, from her horror at realizing just how little he actually thought of himself. She turned away from him, for the first time since they had come to Hogwarts; she turned away and left him in the Hospital Wing by himself. "I'm glad you're awake," she told the foot of his bed, and walked out of the room.

It took Lily nearly an hour to wander back to the Gryffindor Common Room, mostly because she kept losing track of where she was in the castle, and ended up staring at portraits and out windows for whole cloudy minutes.

When she did arrive back at the Portrait Hole, and hoisted herself through, she nearly broke into hysterical laughter at the clear lines of demarcation that had been drawn throughout the room. James and Peter sat on one side of the Common Room, playing Exploding Snap and absolutely not looking at Sirius. Sirius sat on the other side of the Room, flirting with Marlene McKinnon and turning every few minutes to make sure that James was still not looking at him. Remus sat in the exact middle of his two best friends, and fiercely read his Transfiguration text. The Room was quiet, as if a lightning storm had just rolled through, and as Lily surveyed the Common Room, she wondered if she just shouldn't tell. If it would be easier on her, on Sev, on Filch and the Prefects and the 1st Years, if the Marauders never healed themselves.

She looked at each of them in turn. Sirius wasn't worth it, maybe. She hated to admit this, but both Sirius and Sev might be lost to the influences of their families, might be too far gone to ever be pulled back. Lily wasn't sure that Peter was worth it, either, because he was so clearly enjoying his new, far more important position as James' best friend, and that was kind of..wormy, of him, to be glorifying in his friend's ruin.

But, she realized, Remus was worth it, maybe; as much as he hated some of the Marauder's antics, they loved him, and he loved him, and it was clear that he needed them.

And...she looked at James, whose face was drawn with this new integrity he'd suddenly decided to wear. He was worth it, she decided, because James Potter was nothing if not worthy, and assured of his own worth. And, as much as she raged at him for his insufferable cockiness, maybe it wasn't a bad thing, that he did value himself. That he did believe that he was worth something. Maybe, that was a very good thing.

She sighed, then forced a smile on to her face. "Oi, Potter!" she called across the Common Room, and James' head snapped up. He nearly threw himself out of his chair in her direction, and Lily laughed to see him look so silly. She beckoned at him, and he immediately started across the Room towards her. The whole House watched as he reached her, and then clearly panicked as he realized he had no idea what to do with his hands.

Lily smiled at him, and pointed out the still-open Portrait. "C'mon James," she murmured. "Let's go for a walk."

A/N: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it! I'd love to hear what you think!