Note: I'm so sorry for the year-long delay! Junior year in high school was hell, so I hadn't been able to pick this back up until now. I'm currently on vacation so I'll have A LOT more time to spend on writing and getting back into the groove. Reviews would be amazing, especially from my past reviewers. :D

Chapter #8: Severus's Secret

Lily was walking in the opposite direction of where she had seen Gwen. She was on her way back to Hogwarts. Her mind was still full of confusion about what she had just spent two hours doing, of actually enjoying. In her hand was The Practical Potioneer, the magazine she had ended up not reading.

Since when had she ever been in debt to James Potter? Better question, since when did she ever owe a favor to him, let alone decide to have a butterbeer with the prat?

But Lily didn't think of him as a selfish, arrogant prat like before. He was more of an annoying kid, and this decrease in hate disappointed herself. She wanted to keep on hating James and think of him as a slug and want nothing to do with him.

She still felt that way, but her feelings had changed somewhat; her afternoon had begun to make her think that he might actually have a heart, might actually be funny.

Don't be stupid, Lily, she thought to herself. It's Potter, the one who's always teased you from day one; it's the selfish wizard who thinks of nothing but himself, who you wished you could obliterate from your life.

All right, she had to admit that her afternoon hadn't been unpleasant. And there were things she learned about James that she never knew before. Who would've known he was unable to feel his pinky?

Not that it mattered much, but Lily wondered if anyone else had taken notice of her unusual companion in Hogsmeade. If so, what did they think? What did it look like, seeing Lily Evans and James Potter having a butterbeer together and making conversation at the local pub?

Lily shook her head, trying to clear her mind of these incomprehensible labyrinths. She wasn't really sure why she was even brooding over this at all. She had returned to the school for a purpose. She wanted to find Severus.

Severus had said that he wasn't really feeling up to a Hogsmeade trip, that he felt almost sick, so Lily had advised him to go to Madame Pomfrey. At first she wanted to stay with him, but he had firmly turned down the offer. Refused. Forbade, almost.

"No, you can't!" he had said fiercely. Then, with a softer tone, "you shouldn't let me interfere with your weekend plans, Lily. Trust me, I'll be fine. I'll just hang out in the library and do homework or something."

That was all very well, but hadn't Sev said he wasn't feeling good? Why the library? It didn't make sense at all to Lily. Severus had never lied to her before, as far as she was concerned. However, something about the way he had urged her to go to Hogsmeade, to not stay with him, made her feel uneasy.

She wanted to go see him right now and find out what he was up to, if anything.

Severus was getting impatient. Worried, too. It had been at least a couple hours, and he knew that the students, third years and older, would be returning from Hogsmeade sometime soon.

There weren't many people roaming on the seventh floor. Most of the students were all either in their dormitories, at Hogsmeade or enjoying the sunshine out on the school courtyards. And, on the weekends, the teachers enjoyed both solitude and casual teacher gatherings in the confinements of their cozy offices.

In fact, there was currently nobody to be seen on the corridors of the seventh floor except for Severus Snape.

"One more time," Severus breathed out quietly. He closed his eyes once and opened them again, just as he slowly began to walk towards a blank wall. Right before hitting it, Severus gingerly shifted his foot and continued on his right side. He kept his eyes looking down, staring at the stone-cold floor with such intensity that he was sweating. He only looked up briefly to avoid hitting the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, who was trying and failing to teach three trolls how to dance ballet.

Barnabas hesitated for a couple seconds, just long enough to glance at Severus with a sort of desperate exasperation.

"Shut up, I know what you're going to say," Severus muttered through gritted teeth. "This is going to work, I know it will. It's got to." He continued to walk in a circular direction until he ended right where he'd started. But Severus didn't stop there. He retraced the same circle with the same steps at the same pace for another round, concentrating hard on some visual in his mind, and was just a quarter complete with his third circle when…

"Severus!"

Startled, he wheeled at the shrill cry of a very familiar voice. There she was, Lily Evans, looking up at Severus with an accusatory look and her hands on her hips. One of her hands clutched The Practical Potioneer.

"Sev, what­­—are you—doing?" she managed, approaching him. Too close. "Do you realize how possessed you look when you go around in circles like that? And why are you here? You told me you were going to be in the library." An eyebrow shot up.

"Lily!" Severus croaked helplessly. No! Not yet! I'm not ready, it's not time. "Um, well I did stop by the library but I got bored so I decided to explore the castle more and—and sort of ended up on this floor. How did you find me?"

"Oh, well it wasn't easy, mind you," Lily replied, clearly still reproachful. "All I did was stop by the Hospital Wing twice—the second time, Madame Pomfrey assured me that Mister Snape had not stopped by—and the library three times. Then, I tried the Slytherin common room but nobody trusted me with the password. Finally, I just gave up after Slughorn tried to lure me into his office for 'a nice chat and cup of tea.' I said I was on my way back to the dormitory because I was really tired. I had no choice but to come back here. And here you are after all this time." She shook her head. "Sev, you still haven't answered. Why are you here? What are you doing? And why did you lie to me?" There was a sliver of disappointment—sadness, confusion, disbelief— in Lily's voice.

"Don't be mad, Lily," Severus pleaded. "I didn't know you'd be coming back early. If I had, I would've come down to meet you."

"But what are you doing here?" Lily asked again, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion as she looked around, trying to find some sort of evidence that would give her an answer.

"Nothing…" Severus said guiltily, and then sighed. He was terrible at lying to Lily and never seemed to be able to pull it off.

"Yeah right." Then, a disturbing possibility, a trembling thought, traveled through Lily's mind. "Sev…Severus Snape, are you doing some sort of Dark Arts project or experiment that you don't want me to know about?"

"What, no!" Severus said automatically and defensively. "Merlin's beard, Lily, trust you to think up of a crazy idea like that!"

"Crazy? Yes, it is crazy. To me. But not to you and your little Dark Arts gang. Oh Severus, your friends are so mean! Right before we were released to go to Hogsmeade, Malfoy harassed me. Badly. Worse than usual."

"What?" Severus was momentarily distracted. He took a misstep outside of his continuous and almost-completed third circle. "What did he do, Lily?!"

"He called me names—as usual—and then tore my magazine in shreds!" Lily accused. "If it weren't for James—Potter, I mean—then who knows Malfoy would've done next. See how terribly mean your friends are? Malfoy, at least?"

"Wait—what? Potter was there?"

"Yes," said Lily. "He stood up for me and got detention for it along with Malfoy."

"Oh Lily," Severus began, hating himself for not being there for her. "I'm really sorry. I should've come along; maybe then Malfoy wouldn't have done that to you. I'm going to have a word with him later."

"Oh don't. Please, I hate confrontations! I'll only forgive you if you'll just tell me what you're doing. Severus, please tell me you're not up to some Dark Arts tricks, because if so, we've got a serious problem." With that, Lily crossed her arms and waited.

"Come now, Lily, the Dark Arts isn't that bad. If it was, the staff wouldn't even have a class for it. It's an important subject."

Lily gasped. "So you are here doing some Dark Arts magic?" she cried in horror.

"No, Lily!" Severus sighed. There was no way around now, he could see that. It wasn't that bad, telling her what he was up to. He only wished he'd had just a little more time. He wasn't even sure if this was going to work out in the end. He heaved a deep sigh of resignation and said, "Okay, Lil, I'll tell you. I just really wish I could've had more time before I showed you, but I don't want you to go thinking that I'm breaking rules or doing creepy stuff." He paused, and Lily waited some more. He took another breath.

"Okay Lily," he repeated. "Can you keep a secret?"

Lily's eyebrow rose, but he could see the faint curl of her mouth. "Depends on the secret, Sev. I promise to seriously consider keeping it after you tell me what it is."

"You are unfunny," Severus said, pouting. "Well, I know you will keep it because if you don't, you won't get to enjoy your surprise." He suddenly pressed his hand to his mouth. "Oops."

Lily's arms unfolded and she took several steps towards Severus. "A surprise? For me? Oh Severus! You're kidding, right?"

"Nope."

"What kind of surprise?" There was a suspicious look on her face now.

Severus had already broken his continuous pattern so there was no point in staying where he was. His disappointment in Lily's sudden discovery and his own defeat was waning fast; excitement was building up inside of him. He was eager to share his secret now after all this time.

He took Lily by the shoulders and lured her away from prying paintings, statues and any other potential eavesdroppers. As quietly as he could,

"A couple months ago, I found something absolutely amazing, Lily," Severus whispered enthusiastically. "You see that wall there?"

He pointed.

Lily glanced towards that direction and nodded. "Yeah?"

"A couple months ago, I was trying to find Professor Trelawney because I had to give her something. But I'd never been to her classroom before and all I knew was that it was in the North Tower on the seventh floor." Severus paused to catch his breath.

"Go on," said Lily, feeling curious now.

"Well, I got lost and stopped by this corridor to figure out exactly how I was supposed to go from here. And I found…I found the Room of Requirement, Lily!"