Title: The Birthday Kiss
Author:
Maidoforange
Rating: PG
Length: Short vignette
Genre:
General, humor
Pairing: LE/SS
The teenager with lank black hair watched the sky, both hoping and fearing to see an owl on today of all days. He cursed himself for the weakness of desiring some kind message or even just a verbal well-wishing. He decided to forget about it and the resolve felt like a crust of ice hardening around his heart. If no one cared for him, he would care for nobody. The scowl that would terrify many a student in years to come formed on his face.
Why should he expect today to be different from any other day? The Great Hall, the classrooms, the Slytherin Common Room, and everything else was just the same. No, he should not expect mail or a conversation. The best he could hope for was to avoid Potter and Black.
He turned his attention to his Potions Textbooks and barely picked at the piles of pancakes, strawberries, chocolate muffins, and other breakfast delicacies arranged in elaborate geometric shapes on the tables in the Great Hall.
His scowl deepened when his concentration was broken by a rowdy group of second-year Gryffindor indulging in horseplay in the aisles. He thought how satisfying it would be to make those grins disappear.
Then something surprising happened. He felt soft lips brush against his ear before planting a kiss on his cheek and a heard a whispered, "Happy Birthday, Severus."
He nearly fell off the bench and squawked, "Evans?"
"I'll see you in Potions Class," she said and, smiling, walked away.
How had the Muggle-born redhead found out his birthday? He hadn't told her. Well, she was a clever Witch. He had an impulse to be angry with her for taking such liberties and call her a Mudblood but he just sat there blinking for awhile as Lily Evans left the room, her red hair sparkling in a shaft of sunlight.
"Yes," he thought, "maybe a birthday isn't such a terrible thing after all."