Severus and Lily and any other characters you recognize are, of course, creations of JKR, not me.
Thanks to my beta, iphooqui.
Chapter 2— Morning Glory
Lily slowly began to stir as the sun rose higher in the sky. Severus was the first thing she thought of once her mind cleared of sleep. "Sev?" she called out quietly before sitting up. She quickly realized that he had gone and wondered why it made her feel so sad. She snuggled back up in her blankets and looked to her window to finish watching the sun come up. She saw the vine Severus found hanging there and smiled. She hadn't noticed the little flower buds before. As the sun continued to rise, the little buds began to open up, exposing cute blue flowers— like magic. That's when Lily saw the bit of folded parchment sitting on the windowsill. She felt slight embarrassment at the way she sprung out of bed to see what it was but that faded away as soon as she started reading: "Since beautiful Lily already has beautiful lilies, I thought she could use some morning glories for a glorious morning. –Sev." Lily laughed out loud. She knew Severus was trying to make her laugh at Hilbert's expense but the gesture was pretty thoughtful and that made her blush. It was just nice that he'd actually been listening to her rambling and knew she would be awake to see them bloom.
Lily felt a strong temptation to go over to Severus's house. She didn't go there much. She could tell Severus was a little embarrassed by the condition of his house and the lack of food and nice things. About a year and a half ago his father took a job on a fishing boat and wasn't home very often. There was usually trouble whenever he did make it back to town but things were better than when he was home every night. Severus's mother was pretty much a recluse and stayed in her bedroom almost all of the time. Lily also realized that Severus was likely to be asleep and she'd also considered that he might have left in attempt to get a little space. She couldn't help herself though. She made a plan to go see him in a couple of hours. If it was awkward she could always make up some excuse for showing up— maybe something potion related.
Lily stripped her bed coverings and put them in the wash before taking a long shower and analyzing her feelings. She was unable to deny that within the course of 24 hours, her feelings toward Severus had transitioned to more than friendly. It was like a light had been turned on. It felt so simple and natural and familiar and necessary and comfortable and right. The only questionable thing she could really see in the whole situation was whether or not Severus felt the same. One time a few years back she had gotten the idea that Severus had a crush on her but she could hardly remember the details that led her to that. She did remember it was around the time that he started giving her these random ambiguous looks. Mary had noticed it first actually (and has ever since held tight to her belief that Severus is madly in love with Lily). He would look at her for a long time, just barely short of staring, but his face was always unreadable— one of those blank yet filled with a thousand words at the same time kind of faces. Most people would probably just find it awkward but Lily had come to accept it as one of Severus's quirks, pushing Mary's insistence that it was something more aside.
Lily had breakfast with her family. She was surprised her parents didn't have a lot of questions about where she was most of the day and night yesterday— she'd forgotten to check in with them— but then again, they were preoccupied with Petunia's recent announcement of her engagement to Vernon Dursley. After breakfast Lily hurried upstairs to get dressed. If she'd known she would be forced to go out to lunch with her family she would have skipped out on breakfast. She wanted to spend a little time with Severus before then. Lily searched through her closet for something to wear. She was a bit embarrassed by her very deliberate pick of her favorite dark green sundress but it just so happened that Severus's favorite color looked really good with her skin and hair and matched her eyes too. She shook off a passing thought of make-up. She didn't want to look like she was trying to look good, if that made any sense. She wore her old converses on her feet, threw her colorful beat up knapsack over her shoulder and left her long air dried curls loose which gave her the more effortless look she was going for. She laughed at herself as she headed for Severus's place.
The Snape household sat on a relatively large piece of isolated land. The yard was full of weeds, patchy grass, and rocks. The bushes by the front door were very overgrown. Lily had only ever known the family to use the back entrance to the small wooden house, which was in desperate need of a paint job. The creek that Lily and Severus spent so much time by ran right through his backyard but the trees were rather thick and the banks were much higher than the part of it that was closer to Lily's house. The back door to the house was open, aside from the holey screen door. You could see directly into Severus's room from there. Lily was happy to see that he was awake and dressed. He was just sitting quietly on the end of his bed fiddling with what appeared to be an old radio. Lily powerfully banged on the doorframe. Severus dropped the radio on the floor and it began to play music. "Sorry! Sorry!" Lily shouted feeling ridiculous and loud. "I didn't mean to startle you," she said as he approached the door.
"Well uh. Well we don't get too many visitors you know."
"Yes I know. I hope it's alright I'm here…"
"Of course it's alright, Lily," Severus said plainly as he opened the screen door.
Lily felt a surge a butterflies. Listening to Severus's voice was like taking her eardrums to a spa. It sounded so smooth and effortless. Somehow it managed to be casual, eloquent, relaxing and exciting all at the same time. It was just… sexy.
"May—May I come in?" Lily asked with a smile as Severus was completely blocking the doorway.
"Right. Of course," he said moving a bit.
"Sev…" she laughed at the tiny space he had made. It was very obvious he didn't welcome guests very often. Lily squeezed by him. She liked the way he smelled. It was just light and simple, cool and clean like a fresh shower. Being so close to him also made her really recognize his height, "I never realized you were so tall, Severus." He gave a facial expression she'd never seen him wear before. It was like bashful mixed with flattered and perhaps a bit guilt? Whatever it was, Lily was happy to have got it out of him, Severus was stingy with those sorts of things.
"Well I guess I don't really stand up as straight as I should most of the time," he said scratching the back of his neck and looking down. After a moment he slowly looked back up and then gave Lily that same slightly awkward ambiguous look she was thinking about earlier. "I like your dress Lily, you look nice," he said before gently fixing the thin spaghetti strap that had slipped off her shoulder.
She could feel the heat flush her face when his fingertips made contact with her skin. Lily gave him a great big smile, "Thank you, Severus! I figured I could wear your favorite color for you since you don't like to. And thank you for the flowers! It was so pretty— they bloomed just after I woke up. Oh and the card gave me a great laugh. Ha! You are a witty one, you." Lily felt incredibly lame and clumsily tried to laugh off her comments as she entered his bedroom which was very neat and tidy compared to the rest of the house.
Severus's mind was racing. Was it in his head or had Lily turned into a giddy, nervous mess around him?
She sat on his bed and he sat on his chair. This disappointed her. "Sit by me, Sev." That ambiguous look appeared again. "Why do you look at me that way? What are you thinking about?"
"I'm sorry," he said quickly redirecting his gaze. "I realize I do that often. I just find you… intriguing, Lily," he said joining her on the bed.
"What does that even mean Sev? Is that good or bad?"
"It's good," he said simply, looking straight ahead.
Lily smiled and nudged him with her shoulder before diving in to a long spiel about Vernon and Petunia, which eventually transitioned into a talk about school.
Severus and Lily had been going back and forth naming different stereotypes about each of the Hogwarts houses that get passed around the school by students.
"Gryffindors are the best athletes," Lily said.
"Oh I dunno, maybe for men but I've always heard that Ravenclaw has the best female athletes." Severus replied.
"Hm well maybe that's why people say that Ravenclaw girls are overachievers. They are good at everything they do."
"Yea, maybe so. … Hufflepuffs like to party," Severus stated.
"Yesss. And anyone can get into a Hufflepuff party but everyone knows that Slytherins throw the best, and of course, most exclusive, parties," Lily added.
"So I've heard as well. I certainly wouldn't know first hand," Severus said with a smile. Lily laughed out loud.
"How about dating stereotypes," she said still giggling.
"Dating? What do you mean? What is dating?" Severus said with a perfect poker face. Lily fell back onto Severus's bed in a fit of laughter. "I certainly wouldn't know anything about that first hand either," he added. Lily continued to laugh. Severus watched her with a half smile, enjoying the look of her on his bed "Gryffindor girls have the best sense of humor."
"Hufflepuff girls are sensitive," Lily said trying to catch her breath.
"Oh, I heard they were crybabies."
Lily sat up and playfully punched his arm, "Be nice!"
"What? I didn't come up with it! I didn't even come up with this game. You did and you called it 'name the stereotype' not 'sugarcoat the stereotype,'" He said teasingly.
"Ha. Ha. Okay, Sev. Mr. follow-all-the-rules. Slytherin boys are heartbreaking douche bags." Severus looked stunned for a moment before starting to laugh, "D-did you say douche bags, Lily?" Lily nodded with a rebellious grin on her face.
Severus smiled, "Well unfortunately, with few exceptions, I think that one is largely true."
Lily loved Severus's warm dark eyes when he opened up this way and just had a good time. People at school never understood how they could be friends but they didn't know. They've never seen the Severus she sees. Lily suddenly felt greedy and selfish. She felt special that Severus only opened himself up to her. She didn't want other girls to see how amazing he was. She didn't want to share him.
"Hufflepuff boys are cheesy," he said.
"Oh that must be how the boys hear it. All the girls say Hufflepuff boys are perfectly charming and romantic."
"Lily," Severus said with a smirk, "do I really need to remind you about Hilbert's little gift yesterday?" Once again Lily found herself lost in laughter before throwing out another stereotype, "Ravenclaw girls are emotionally unavailable. I just suppose their priorities are in a different order."
"Slytherin girls are… well, never mind," Severus said.
Lily laughed, "Yes I've heard that one as well. Hmm, let's see… Gryffindor boys are arrogant."
Severus was happy that Lily brought that one up first. He felt he preached that topic a little too much during the school year— of course not from a romantic perspective, but he was all too familiar with the arrogance of a few select Gryffindor boys at least.
"…Gryffindor girls are the prettiest," he said boldly looking at the side her face. Lily looked at him. She could feel that courageous Gryffindor inside, pushing her to say the only other big stereotype she could think of, "Syltherin boys are the best… lovers. And by lovers of course I mean se—"
"Since we've already established that Slytherins are heartbreakers I can figure what you must mean by lovers," he said with a stiff laugh, color rising in his neck. He didn't think he could bear to listen to Lily directly talk about sex and keep his composure.
"Well. Is it true?" she prodded. Severus was extremely flushed and it didn't help that Lily was just staring at him. This wasn't the first time sex had come up in one of their conversations— Lily was dating a very pushy guy at some point and often vented her frustrations about the whole issue to Severus, which was difficult for him to listen to but he was glad Lily ended up dumping him before anything happened.
"I—I wouldn't know, would I?"
"Oh, I suppose not. Well, you know. I mean what about the girls?" Severus just looked at her for a moment.
"Lily. If you haven't noticed, I don't have many friends. Other than you, I think there are maybe three people at Hogwarts that I regularly hold conversations with and I hardly even think you can count talking to Professor Slughorn about potions. So do you really think I'd know anythingabout that first hand?"
Lily looked down at her lap. It was silent for almost 30 seconds before she spoke, "I think… if people got to see you the way I do, you would. You'd know, I mean."
Severus's heart was beginning to race. "The way you see me?"
"…Yea."
There was another long pause before Severus spoke again. "I—I really don't want to misconstrue what you're trying say, Lily."
"…I don't think you will, Sev," she said staring directly into his eyes. Severus could have melted and exploded at the same time but all he felt was confidence as he leaned in towards Lily. He stopped mere centimeters away from contact, allowing Lily the opportunity to protest.
"Do it," she breathed. And Severus's lips were immediately on hers. She reveled in the fullness of his lips and the fervent way he moved them against hers. She'd only been kissing him for a few seconds but she was starting to think that that one stereotype just might be true.
Severus pulled away first. Lily left her eyes closed for a few seconds, holding on to the moment. Severus thought about how freaking pretty her face was and how perfect it felt to finally have kissed her. It felt amazingly surreal and wonderful but not quite how he'd thought it would feel. When he had allowed himself to imagine what it would be like, he'd always expected it to feel hugely momentous— stars, hearts and fireworks style. But it didn't feel like a big ordeal or even anything they needed to have a serious conversation about— it just felt natural, easy. That's not to say that Severus didn't feel completely and utterly in love and elated about what had happened, it was just different— a very good different.
Lily smiled brightly before kissing him again, a quick peck on the lips. "I've got to go meet my family for lunch," she said, still smiling. Severus just looked at her the way he often did. Lily blushed, "'Kay. Well I—I guess I'll see you later? Is that alright? Can I come back tonight?"
"My father is supposed to be coming home tonight. I'll go to you."
"Okay," Lily said standing, "You sure?"
"Well it's not as if I am particularly interested in spending quality time with my dad. I'd actually rather not be here." Lily took Severus's hands and pulled him off the bed.
"Well you can stay me with me if you want," she said giving him a hug, her arms around his waist and her head on his chest.
As always, thanks for reading and I'll be posting more soon!