Chapter Eight: Lily's Kiss

The next time James saw her was in the NEWT Potions class, dashing into the dungeons a split second before Professor Mescolare stalked inside. Lily walked to her seat with her head held high, avoiding eye contact. As she passed by, he reached out to tap her arm, catch her attention…and she flung him a withering glance before continuing on her way.

"Evans," he called out, exasperation in his voice. When he looked up again, a pair of flashing dark eyes stared down at him. A leather boot clicked against the hard stone floor, ominous as the snap of a scorpion's tail, many of which rested in jars around the room. The class was silent, waiting, tense in anticipation.

He saw her brows raise before she turned to the class with lips curved into a crisply broken slash of a smile. Then she strode to the front of the room and stood there, straight and lean and full of mockery as a student would be, rather than a full professor. The fabric of her robes fell about her with a certain formality, but one somewhat marred by the mottled fade of the black cloth unlike that of the polished Potions master James had seen last year. Odd to say the least, he thought with a returned expression of nonchalance. He vaguely recalled his parents mentioning something about the family of Mescolare, yet likely as not about some Potions master of Hogwarts. Still…he wouldn't mind all the gossip, if things were different.

"…And finally, many of us would greatly appreciate if Mr. Potter attempted to reconcile his personal life in his dormitories instead."

Slouching comfortably in his seat, James shrugged. "Of course, Professor." He glanced at Lily and whispered, "I'll see you then."

By then, she had begun to outline the procedure for the day's lesson, but that particular formality could wait. Abruptly her head jerked up, her eyes flashed again before the expression turned into a very Slytherin amusement. "After class. By the way…perhaps it would be prudent for you to avoid such crass comments in the near future, no?" The class snickered, even his friends, and James flicked a glance at Sirius, first nodding lightly. At that, she seemed satisfied and proceeded with the potion they were to be brewing that day. One disaster averted.

His partner was none other than Sirius Black, conveniently enough. As James stood to procure the various ingredients, he noticed a shock of flaming hair by the bat-like figure in the back. He nearly threw up.

After a few minutes, they had a bubbling concoction in the cauldron, and it changed colors sporadically from turquoise to lime to the deepest shade of vermillion. An odorless smoke drifted lazily over the edge of the pot, effectively obscuring their view of the slimy vampire getting his hands all over their Lily.

But it couldn't shield James from the small, quick steps as she passed by, nor the light cloud of fragrance that penetrated the yellowing vapors. His nose twitched, and he breathed in the scent of floral nights, the clean juxtaposition of white gardenia and white jasmine; the gardenias dominated, but they were beautiful and hopelessly sweet and pure; he knew it well after seven years, but he could not help but desire it, desire ­her even more. And he heard her walking away, but he did not want to think of it more than was necessary.

"James!" muttered Sirius, eyeing the potion. When that elicited no response, he flicked his friend on the shoulder and shouted, "James, what the hell are you doing…plan on adding the ginger root? Y'know, only five minutes of class left, Mescolare wants a sample by the end…say, even feel like answering me today?"

Blinking, James shook his head. "Oh, of course…and no ginger root in this," he added, checking the instructions. He wiped the droplets of sweat from his forehead and he ladled some of the now-clear potion into a small glass vial. Sirius rolled his eyes and set it onto the professor's desk, mumbling about lovesick Prongsies. But James couldn't care less, because Snape was already walking out the door…and he had an arm around Lily's waist.

The bastard. He didn't deserve to live…

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That night Lily Evans stood at the top of the Astronomy Tower, pacing from side to side. It was conveniently deserted, since the nip in the air convinced the snoggers to find a warmer place for their erm, activities. She blushed even as she shivered. She had never touched a bloke, not like that, and once in a while she wished she had. After all, she couldn't well spend the rest of her life being "too good for you," could she?

And honestly, no matter what Potter thought, she saw threads of shining goodness flashing through the bottomless shadow that was Severus Snape. He made sense to her, and during the past few weeks he had never tried to push her too far, too fast. Maybe, by all conventional standards, she should be able to snag someone better. But she had never held much stock by what the girl down the street thought of her hair when her own hair looked like a wet dog's tail.

Bottom line, she liked Severus for who he was. The world could reckon with that while she got her first kiss.

"Evans."

Evans, not Lily. She turned slowly and nodded as the cloaked figure stood motionless and expressionless behind her. The twinkling light of the stars caught his profile in sharp relief, and for a moment she thought that he looked like the son of a Roman senator, with his hooked nose and strong, craggy features. The black sheep, perhaps, but a senator's son nonetheless, came to meet his girl by the light of the stars.

"Severus."

Without another word Lily threw her arms around him in a deep, concerned embrace. It took a few seconds before he moved, as though woken from a dream, and stiffly brought his arms around her. Then he stepped back, and his glittering black eyes roved over her fair face. For some reason, Lily knew that she would have to wait some more before being kissed for the first time.

"We can't really go on like this, can we now?" He smirked and gestured down the flight of stairs. "Sooner or later, someone somewhere will say something."

She shrugged. "You don't believe in Slytherin's mystics or Potter's threats any more than I do. Let them say whatever they want, I don't care. I mean, I don't care as long as you don't, and—"

"No, I'm quite serious. We can't go on if we both want to save our skins."

"And why is that?" she demanded hotly. She refused to believe the words coming out of his mouth. Surely he didn't mean it anyway, and if he did, she could change his mind. They were some of the best witches and wizards of the past decade, someone had said. They could handle anyone, anything together…even James Potter.

"Evans," he drawled, "you don't seem to realize there's a war going on, and some of us aren't so lucky to have the…liberty to do whatever we so choose." He ran a hand under her chin, caressing the smooth elegant lines of her neck, tilting her head up so that her eyes met his. "What some people would do to stand in my shoes," he muttered.

"Besides, you forget that I'm an evil Slytherin, like your friends say, and you apparently deserve better than that slimy git Snivellus," he said more loudly, his hand still resting on her neck. "Honestly you do. You'll be a better witch than half the rabble running around the school these days. You deserve better than me, better than Potter."

"No," she protested, "I've never thought that I'd rather have someone else." Even though the words sounded empty in her head, she barreled on anyway. "I, I…"

Her words were lost as he lowered his head to brusquely press his mouth onto hers. He stayed there for only a second before he straightened, looking at her with an expression inscrutable in the darkness.

"It's been good times, Evans, so take care." A cruel smile that did not quite reach his eyes, and he wrapped his cloak around himself with a flourish as he began to descend the stairs. Then he stopped and turned his head over his shoulder. "With any luck, we might even see each other alive again…" The open sentence hung in the air. "Mudblood."

In all the trashy romance novels her sister read, the lover's words always echoed in the room or on the wind for minutes afterwards, reverberating through the once-lover's head. Lily, however, felt nothing, just a little numb and a little cold. She heard nothing except the gentle rasp of her own breathing, and she knew she was truly alone. The grounds lay below her like a desolate ocean, and the skies above exactly the same.

Until she thought that he had disappeared into some forgotten corridor, she gazed out over the lawns and woods and lake. Then she dashed down the spiral staircase, past five or so open doors, and ran outside as far as she could. Her breath came out in ragged puffs of vapor, and she bent over, hands on knees, trying to get in that elusive last gasp of air. Oblivious to the dew, Lily collapsed against a tree trunk and slid to a sitting position, huddled with her legs drawn up to her chest. Under the shade of the great beech tree, itself underneath a great canopy of a sky, she had never felt so insignificant, so alone, so little.

Her green eyes blank, she stared at the lapping waves with a dogged determination. One Lily Evans would not mope, sulk, or otherwise make a fool of herself over some…some slimy Slytherin git. She no longer had any idea of the "way of things," as he used to refer to life. Did he really think that? Was he just talking? Was she fooling herself all along? Everything seemed possible, and at the same time none of it made any bloody sense to her, even if it did to him in some twisted way. Was this what it was like to have a broken heart? She laughed weakly at the thought. Then the tears came. They swelled up in the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks one by one in silence, like a procession of mourners at a funeral. A funeral for her first love was marching by.

A wolf howled in the distance, followed by a deep, gruff bark. Lily shivered and pulled herself to her feet. A quick walk around the grounds would do her good, she decided, and then it would be off to bed for the night. She had had enough of this standing around, stuck-to-the-spot business.

AN: Wow it's been a while. I'm going to college in the fall, so I'd like to finish this by then…I hope. There's a good amount more to go. Reviews are appreciated.