A/N: Thank you for the reviews! I'm happy to hear you all are enjoying this so far. 3

October 1976

"We don't know who did it."

"It must've been a bloody Slytherin!"

"Black, get off of his bed, stop shaking him!"

"Has he woken up yet?"

"Padfoot, cut it out, let him rest."

"I'll kill whoever did this! I'll kill the bastard, just you wait!"

"He's going to be fine, Padfoot."

"Only because some second year was lucky enough to stumble across his cold body in time! What if no one had been there?"

The room grew silent.

Lily rounded the corner and saw Madame Pomfrey, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew all crowded around James Potter's unconscious body in bed.

"Is he alright?" Lily asked, all four of the heads swiftly turning to look at her.

"No," Sirius responded immediately, his eyes filled with rage. "He's not alright! They found his body covered in slashes! Blimey, he was minutes away from bleeding out!"

Remus placed a hand on Sirius's shoulder but Sirius forcefully shrugged it off.

"No, Mooney, don't," Sirius snapped. "I am livid. I am beyond livid. The second James wakes up and tells us who it was I'm going to find that bleeding git and make him wish he was-"

"Enough," Madame Pomfrey cut him off then began to shoo them away from James. "That is quite enough. Yes, what happened to Mr. Potter is horrendous and the perpetrator shall be punished accordingly but you are not to send another body my way Mr. Black! Now leave, all of you! Mr. Potter needs his rest!"

Sirius threw his hands up in the air in anger and muttered something under his breath before turning away and walking towards the exit, Peter trailing behind him. Remus paused and gave Lily a small smile, his eyes giving way to the concern that lay beneath them.

"You may stay for a little while longer, Ms. Evans," Madame Pomfrey said once the boys had cleared away from ear shot. "I reckon you won't be screaming about revenge and you've only just arrived."

She gave Lily a pointed look before grabbing her clipboard and walking towards her office.

Lily took a deep breath then looked James over. The gashes had been healed from his skin but his clothes were cloaked in dried blood and his skin was pale and chalky.

Lily hadn't heard much of the attack but from the whispers going around the Gryffindor tower it seemed like James had been found unconscious in the second floor bathroom, laying in a pool of his own blood covered in slashes. Some swore it was a handful of Slytherins, some say it was only one. Lily's heart sank every time she heard the name of the one person everyone suspected. She couldn't swallow the thought that he would do something like this. Not this far, not this dark.

Lily walked over and took the seat next to James's bed. The only sign of life in him was his chest moving slowly with each breath.

She didn't know what to do or what to feel. A thousand emotions crossed themselves in her heart, each one more muddled then the one before. She settled in on the thought that regardless of what or who James Potter was to her, she couldn't imagine a life where the life and laughter in his eyes bled out of his body slowly, alone, on the cold bathroom floor.

Especially not at the hands of her ex-friend.

Carefully, she reached over and grabbed his hand.

To her surprise, she felt a small squeeze.

"I didn't feel like answering all their questions," James murmured, his eyes still closed. "So I pretended to be asleep."

Lily's heart skipped a beat.

"What happened to you, James?"

He opened his eyes slowly, meeting her green ones. James Potter could spend an eternity looking into her eyes.

He shook his head slowly. "Not now. I don't want to talk about it."

Lily swallowed. She was hesitant, but she couldn't help but let the next words escape her lips. "Was it Snape?"

James was quiet for a moment, looking deeply into her eyes. She felt vulnerable under his gaze and couldn't help but feel a blush creep along her cheeks.

"Like I said," he finally responded. "I'm not in the mood to talk about it right now."

"Someone left you to bleed out," Lily said. "James, you have to say who did it. You have to tell Dumbledore."

"I've already spoken with Dumbledore," he responded. "We've come to an agreement."

"And?" She asked.

James closed his eyes, squeezing her hand. "Another time."

Lily was about to press him further when she heard a voice behind her.

"Oh."

She turned around and saw Emmaline Vance standing behind her, an array of chocolates in her hand, eyes wide. Lily immediately dropped James's hand as if it had burned her and stood up, smoothing her skirt.

"Emmaline," she said. "I was just leaving." She turned to James, who seemed more annoyed than anything else at Emmaline's presence, and gave him a small smile. "Feel better, Potter."

James thanked her as she walked away, leaving only he and Emmaline.

An awkward silenced passed before them before she finally moved towards him and placed the chocolates next to his bed.

"I heard what happened," she mumbled. "Thought I'd bring you a get well present."

"That's sweet of you, thanks Em," he responded back, not meeting her eye.

She stood there for a moment before she bent down and kissed him softly on the cheek. As she lifted up, she let her lips dangle across his skin for a moment, her hair tickling his face. When she stood up, she couldn't place the expression on his face.

"Look, whatever's going on with you and Lily," she started, her voice nervous. "It's none of my business. I'm sorry I was pissy with you. You were right. You've always told me exactly how you feel and what we are and I guess I just always hoped you'd change your mind. That's not your fault, that's mine. And when I heard about what happened to you I just… I dunno. I'm sorry James. I care about you. That's all."

James took in her words, his head spinning.

Could everyone just leave him alone for half a day? He'd only just woken up after nearly bleeding to death, his head still hurt, and everyone was taking this opportunity to demand things from him as soon as his eyes opened.

Blimey, couldn't a bloke just rest in peace after a near death incident?

But looking at Emmaline standing there, nervously biting her lip, her speech, the chocolates she brought him… he felt something. He felt something he hadn't felt in a long time.

He felt safe.

Like he knew with absolute certainty that here was someone who wasn't going to break his heart, that wasn't going to be complicated, who's ex-best mate wouldn't run around trying to kill him.

Maybe it was the near death incident, maybe it was the fresh memory of Lily rejecting him, maybe it was the way that she had nervously eyed him knowing that it was Snape who had done this to him and yet how he pleaded with Dumbledore to not expel him for her sake because he knew that she would be devastated if he were kicked out… maybe it was all these things that added up and made him realize that for Merlin's sake he was only 16 and his life shouldn't be this complicated and here was this beautiful girl standing nervously in front of him that genuinely cared for him.

"Can you stay with me for a bit?"

Lily couldn't stop thinking about Severus Snape.

She knew, she knew with absolute certainty, that it had to have been him.

Who else hated James Potter enough to leave him almost dead in a bathroom? Who else felt snubbed after their friendship with her ended at what he presumed was the hands of James Potter? Who else did she know who liked to create his own spells?

He had an affinity for the dark arts. But this was too much, even for him.

She couldn't stop thinking about the boy she once knew. The Severus Snape that she would sit under the tree in that old park near their home, who would spend hours trying to teach Lily all he knew about magic so that she wouldn't show up to Hogwarts on her first day with no knowledge of the wizarding world. The Severus Snape who comforted her after she'd flee her house crying because Petunia was being nasty to her again. The Severus Snape that would sit with her in the library, nose buried deep in books but always ready to offer her help any time she needed it.

"Severus I need to speak with you," she said, startling him. She'd been standing outside the Great Hall for 20 minutes now, trying her best to keep her temper at bay as she waited for him to leave.

He turned around slowly, eyeing her carefully. Beside him, Avery shot Lily a dirty look.

"Well if it isn't your old Mudblood girlfriend, Sev," Avery drawled. "Thought she got the hint by now that you don't want anything to do with someone as filthy as her."

Lily clenched her fist.

Snape's lips were pressed into a thin line. "Go ahead, Avery, I'll catch up with you."

Avery gave Lily another glance over before nodding and walking away.

Lily's anger was bubbling inside her. She wanted to believe the best in him. He'd been her friend for so many years. The Severus that wiped her tears away on the patchy grass of their neighborhood park after she'd had a nasty fight with Petunia couldn't have been the same Severus that so cold heartedly snapped his wand and left James Potter for the dead.

But looking at him now, she could barely recognize him. His face was sunken in, his skin paler than usual with the skin underneath his eyes thin and dark. His hair had gotten longer and he wore it messily in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck, a few oily strands framing his face. Her stomach turned at the sight of him. He looked like the living dead.

"Did you do it?" She asked.

Snape gave her a hard look. "Do what?"

"Don't be daft, Severus," she responded, eyes narrowed. "Everyone's heard by now."

"Ah," he said, taking a step closer to her. "You're accusing me of attacking James Potter. I should've known that the first time you'd grace me with your presence again would be on his account."

She shook her head at him. "Don't you start with that again. I haven't spoken to you in months because of that foul word you called me in front of everyone!"

"At the hands of James Potter," Snape spat back.

"No!" Lily yelled at him, her own tone of voice catching her by surprise as Snape shifted back. "No one forced you to say that to me! I was sticking up for you, Sev! I was being a good friend to you! This is not about him! For years I made excuses for you because I thought I knew who you really were. I turned a blind eye when it came to the company you kept because I told myself you were a Slytherin and they were in your house. I knew they were vile human beings, but I thought I knew you better than to be one of them. Time after time you made excuses for them after they would taunt me, call me that nasty word… I should have known that one day you'd call me the same."

"It was an accident," Snape said, his jaw clenched. His eyes softened for a moment and he took a step forward. "Please, Lily, if you had just heard me out. If you had only talked to me even once all those months."

"Why?" Lily spat at him, her eyes blazing with anger. "So I could hear your excuses? Did you really think I'd forgive you for that? Our friendship was over the day you decided to call me that filthy word, no apology could undo that. But this? Performing dark magic on James and leaving him for the dead? I'm disgusted by you. You nearly killed him! You just left him there… you left him there to bleed to death! How could you? How could you be so cruel? You're not the person I once called my best friend."

"Why do you care so much for him?" Snape yelled angrily, so much so that Lily took a step back. She became acutely aware that the bustle in the Great Hall had dimmed considerably and she knew that a hundred curious ears were tuning into every word they were saying but she didn't care. There was an anger that boiled in her that she couldn't place at the thought of James's cold body in the bathroom floor.

"STOP MAKING THIS ABOUT HIM!" Lily screamed, the range of her own voice surprising her.

"But it's always been about him!" Snape yelled back. "That arrogant tosser has been torturing me for years on account of his feelings for you! Did you forget that all that you used to say about him? The way you'd laugh at the stupid way he'd mess up his hair for you? How you wanted to hex him every time he publicly humiliated you with the ways he'd ask you? Did you forget all the times you'd held patch up my wounds because he and his mates had decided that it was a good day to go around hexing me? Did you forget Lily or are you too busy cozying up to him in Hogsmeade to care anymore?"

Lily felt the blood drain from her face. Her worst suspicions were confirmed. James had suffered because of her. Snape had gone after him in a fit of rage after seeing the two of them together in Hogsmeade.

"I don't know what James said to Dumbledore about the incident," she finally said, her voice cold and hard. "But I wish you'd gotten expelled."

Snape's face softened as he took in the change of emotion on her face. Gone was the anger, the disgust, the rage. Instead, all he saw was sadness masked by a bitter desire to seem uncaring. He could see her broken heart reflected in her emerald eyes. She was hurting.

"Lily, I-"

"No," she said, taking a step back and blinking away the tears. "What happened last term was awful. But maybe… maybe we could have fixed things over time. Maybe you could have proved yourself to me and changed the course you were on. But this? I can never forgive you for this."

With one final look, she turned around and left.

Snape felt the darkness enclose him. Whatever light had still been left he couldn't see anymore.

"Did you hear about their fight? She was screaming at him!"

"I heard he confessed to doing it."

"No, I heard it was a lot of them. Avery, Mulciber, Black. The whole gang was there. Cornered him. Poor bloke didn't stand a chance."

"I heard Dumbledore performed this complex charm to bring him back to life, he was on the brink of death."

"That's not true, Madame Pomfrey gave him some sort of potion. Rare one, I heard. Used a feather from Dumbledore's phoenix to make it."

"Did you hear that he and Lily Evans had finally gotten together and that's why Snape did it? Sodding bastard was jealous of the whole thing, been in love with Lily since first year."

"No, no, no, James and Emmaline Vance are together. I saw her cozying up to him at in The Hospital Wing while he was recovering!"

"I heard he's been cheating on her with Lily Evans, they've been sneaking around since the beginning of term."

"I heard that too, maybe that's why Snape did him in like that."

"I'm telling you, it wasn't Snape, it was the whole lot of them!"

"Well I heard Snape wasn't even there, it was Avery in a bad mood that got to him."

All week everywhere Lily went eyes were on her, whispers following her around every step of the way. The rumors were flying around at three times the speed they usually did and each time, Lily found herself in the center of them.

Guilt plagued her as she slowly came to terms with the fact that it was indeed Snape who did this to James and most likely he did it due to his anger at her.

What was worse, the Slytherins were giddy. Snape was being praised by the whole lot of them, putting a "blood traitor" like James in his place like that. He was a hero amongst the Slytherins and a villain to the rest.

Through it all, Lily felt wretched.

She was the reason that James Potter had nearly gotten killed and she didn't know what to do with that feeling.

"Why do you think he didn't tell Dumbledore who it was?" Marlene asked one night, laying on her bed with a box of chocolates perched on her chest. Whenever she did this, Lily knew something or another was up with her and Sirius. "You'd think he'd want that bastard gone after he almost killed him."

"I reckon it's on account of Lily," Alice said point blank. "He doesn't want to cause more issues with her and Snape."

"Well not to worry there," Lily responded. "I never want to speak to that evil arse for as long as I live. I still can't believe he'd stoop so low."

Alice and Marlene gave her a pointed look.

"He's never been this evil!" Lily shot back. "Not when I was friends with him."

"Because he's always been too in love with you to do anything that would risk losing you," Alice responded. "Now he has nothing holding him back from being the monster that he is."

"I feel awful," Lily confessed. "And I don't know what to do. I don't think James wants to see me, he's still pissy with me from the way I reacted at Hogsmeade. Sirius, Peter, and Remus won't talk to me because they partially blame me for their best mate nearly dying. And I feel like half the school hates me because they think I've been sleeping with James behind Emmaline's back and that's why Snape attacked him!"

"It's really only the 7th year girls that hate you," Marlene chimed in, trying to be helpful. Lily shot her a dark look.

"I couldn't even go near James to apologize to him if I wanted to," Lily huffed. "Or else Emmaline or one of her friends would hex me into oblivion."

"You can damn well talk to whoever you please, Lil," Alice responded. "But I do think you should give James some space. He cares about you, he always will. But right now he's been hurt pretty bad. Emotionally by you, physically by Snape. Give him a chance to breathe, to sort through his head."

Lily's heart twisted in her chest.

Sirius was pacing back and forth across their dormitory.

"I'm going to kill him!" He yelled.

"No," James sighed, watching the snitch that he'd knicked last year zoom back and forth in front of him before snatching it, only to let it go a second later. "You're not Padfoot. You're not going to Azkaban on my account."

Sirius stopped in his tracks and narrowed his eyes at James. "He nearly killed you, Prongs."

James sat up, running a hand through his hair. "I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Barely," Sirius spat back. "Merlin, I can't believe you didn't tell Dumbledore that it was him!"

"Leave it, Padfoot," James responded, his voice hard.

Sirius stormed over to James's bed, ripping the snitch from the air and throwing it across the room, his eyes blazing. "'Leave it, Padfoot?' How can I just leave it? How can you just leave it?"

James shrugged, trying his best to keep his reaction neutral.

"You're doing this because of her," he finally said. He looked James up and down, a knowing look cast across his eyes. The corner of his mouth was turned up like a dog waiting to growl. "For fuck's sake tell me you aren't doing this because of her."

James kept his eyes locked with Sirius's, refusing to say a word.

"You're a bloody fucking idiot," Sirius finally breathes before he storms out of the room.

James laid down on his bed, closing his eyes before he let in a deep breath. His head was throbbing and all he could think about was maybe he was an idiot indeed. He could have easily told Dumbledore that it was Snape who had hexed him but he didn't. The thought hadn't really crossed his mind much because when he'd opened his eyes and he saw Lily he knew he couldn't do it. He knew that he couldn't be the reason Snape got kicked out.

He wasn't worried that Snape would come back after him. The way he'd been whimpering in fear all week anytime he'd seen James told him enough to know that Snape would not be crossing paths with him for a very long time. A part of him felt deeply satisfied to know that for his remaining time at Hogwarts, Snape would keep looking over his shoulder wondering if James was going to retaliate or worse, if he'd finally told Dumbledore.

But no, James thought to himself bitterly as he retrieved his snitch from the corner of the room that Sirius had chucked it to, he wasn't interested in either of those things.

He was only interested in moving on from this spell that Lily Evans had him under.

Sirius couldn't believe James Potter. He stood outside the castle, pacing back and forth by the Great Lake. He wondered bitterly to himself if he should've stunned dear old Snivellous and dragged his body to the Great Lake where he could've fed him to the Giant Squid.

No, Sirius Black could not believe how absolutely big of a bloody moronic wanker his best friend James Potter was being.

Years after years of enduring the presence of that slimeball and all they'd ever wished was for him to disappear and here was the perfect opportunity for it to happen and nothing.

James Potter had nothing to say about it.

He knew it was because of Lily Evans. James was in love with her, that much was clear. And somehow in his little twisted head he probably fancied that if he told on Snape and got him expelled that would be the final kiss of death for whatever future he envisioned with Lily.

But Lily was angry too, he had to know that. Sirius had heard all about her confrontation with Snape, the way she had yelled at him and finally saw him for who he's really been after all these years. Hell, Sirius was actually proud of her for finally standing up to him and telling him off. Took her 6 years and James almost dying but she finally saw him for what he is.

A spineless git.

A spineless git who had almost gotten his best friend, his brother, killed.

And if James Potter wasn't going to do anything about him, then he would. He had the perfect plan concocted in his mind to finally put Severus Snape in his place.