A/N I don't own Harry Potter. This was written for Tangooooo14's challenge, "The Album Challenge".

Severus Snape POV:

I woke up to the sound of concerned voices muttering to each other hurriedly. They were talking too quietly for me to understand what they were saying. After a second, my other senses began to return. The scent of a hospital filled my nostrils: the sickly scent of peroxide and cleaning agent. Then, I could feel pain. It wasn't as acute as when I was being attacked by the cat monster, but it still ached a dull, nonspecific pain. And it wasn't exactly pleasant. I moaned a little bit, my neck aching when I tried to move it to the side. The voices ceased immediately, and I assumed that they were looking at me, whoever they were.

My eyelids fluttered open and the bright light coming from the ceiling instantly blinded me. The light was piercing my eyes like tiny daggers, but I soon grew used to the brightness. There were two figures leaning over me, one I could make out was Madam Pomfrey, the warden of the hospital wing who had been working here for who-knows-how-long. The other was the familiar face of Lily Evans, her brow creased with worry.

"Severus? Are you okay?" Lily asked, reaching down and placing one cold, thin hand on my cheek. Her touch sent electricity up and down my spine, jolting me out of my previous sleepy state.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I told her. I hated to see Lily worry, especially if she was worrying about me. When I attempted to sit upright, a searing pain in my neck flared up and I needed to lie back down again.

"Well, you had a broken nose, a sprained wrist, huge gashes on your face and stomach, along with tremendous blood loss." Madam Pomfrey informed me, glancing down at a bit of parchment she had in her hand, "You needed to get seven stitches on your forehead, four on your neck, and eighteen on your abdomen. You should be ready to leave the hospital wing by tomorrow morning, though."

"Yeah, thanks." I tell the professor.

"Well, I'm off. There's a girl who's been attacked by grindylows from the Black Lake. There's a reason we don't let students swim in the lake, you know." And with that, Madam Pomfrey rushed off to take care of another patient.

"Are you sure that you're okay?" asked Lily, eyeing the stitches on my neck.

"Yeah, I'm fine I guess." I said.

"You guess?"

"Well, what I can't figure out is why that cat changed."

"Yeah, that really was weird. I guess it wasn't really Maxwell after all, but just a cat that looked like him." She drifted off, consumed by thought.

After a few minutes of silence, I said, "Well I'm really sorry. About putting you through this, I mean."

She looked at me strangely. "What do you mean, sorry? It's no problem at all. I just hate to see you hurt. And it was partly my fault after all, so I do feel badly. If I hadn't ever picked up that cat or whatever it was, none of this would have happened." Her eyes narrowed like she was thinking about something. I just don't understand…" She trailed off mid-sentence, staring off into space.

"You alright?" I asked her concernedly.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just a bit confused." she explained. "I'm sorry. I think I need to be somewhere. See you soon hopefully?"

For some reason, I really didn't want her to leave. I felt like if she left then I wouldn't be able to handle anything. Like I would break down. "Wait, can you please stay for just a little while longer?" My voice sounded so pathetic to my own ears. I sounded like a dependant child who couldn't stand to be alone. Who knows, maybe I am? But all I knew then was that she couldn't leave me just yet. Lily needed to stay.

"Oh, um, well," Lily glanced at a piece of paper that must've been her schedule, "I think I can stay for a little bit longer." She smiled warmly, and placed her frail hand on top of my larger one. In that moment, I felt so connected to her. Like we shared a special bond that couldn't be broken. I know it was probably so stupid to think that, but right then I felt the safest I had been in a long time.

During those minutes that we sat together in silence, I just felt so calm and at peace. It was as if the world outside had disappeared and it was just the two of us in the whole world. We were in our own little bubble, shielded from the harshness and cruelty of the outside world.

Through the tall window, the sun was just setting, painting the sky a bloody red, dripping down into hues of pink and purple before melting into a sky the color of midnight. The two of us sat there in a comfortable silence, just watching the outside spectacle. As soon as the blazing sun dipped down behind the line of shadowy trees in the distance, Lily stood up slowly.

"I really need to go now. Get well soon, I can't stand to see you in pain." Then, without any precedent, she quickly leaned down and brushed her lips against my forehead. Without a word, she then walked out of the hospital wing, closing the door gently behind her.

I sat there in shock for a moment. She had kissed me. Lily Evans had kissed me. A smile slowly crept onto my lips, until I was beaming in spite of myself.

My hand reached up towards my face, laying my first two fingers on the place where her lips had been just seconds ago. I lay there, smiling like an idiot, when Madam Pomfrey came into the room again.

"You should really get some sleep now. If you're to be well in the morning, sleep will help a lot. Do you want any anesthetics to help you sleep through the night?" the nurse asked me.

"Um, yes, please. That'd be great." When I was with Lily, the pain throughout my body was completely forgotten, but now that she had left feeling began to come back.

Madam Pomfrey took a needle full of some strange clear liquid and brought it to my arm. "It'll only be a pinch, I promise." she told me, and I nodded. She pushed the needle into my arm, while injecting the medicine into my bloodstream.

I immediately felt a bit tired, but nothing that would be too bad. "It'll take effect in about ten minutes," she said, and then hurried off again, dropping the lance into a garbage can next to my hospital bed.

A few minutes later, I felt my eyelids beginning to grow heavy. I struggled to keep them open, but the medicine was just too effective. Slowly, I could feel some of my systems shut down. I began to take deep, even breaths as I sunk into the reaches of sleep. The aching and pain from my injuries were forgotten, and the feeling of warmth and safety overwhelmed me.

Soon I went limp, completely overtaken by the anesthetics rushing through my bloodstream, ordering my body to shut down and rest. The last thing that I thought of before I fell asleep was Lily, and I drifted off to sleep smiling.