Author's Note: Thank you to my beta, aberrantstrain, for making me describe the Evans kitchen. For those who are interested, I posted a photo of it along with a newspaper clipping on AO3.

Also thank you to yobadself for reviewing again! And thanks to those who have added this story to their alerts. It means a lot to know this story isn't just going into the ether!

Chapter 5: Love at First Sense

When they awoke the next morning, finally sober, Lily was flooded with embarrassment over her decidedly uninhibited behaviour of the night before. She buried her face into her pillow, too ashamed to even look at Severus. God, he'd never want her to be his girlfriend, now that he knew what a tart she was. But if Sev remembered that thing about the hairbrush, he made no mention of it. In fact, he was perfectly sweet, spooning her while he whispered nervous apologies for taking things too far. Nevertheless, Lily had remained mortified, particularly once she had to face Sev in the revealing brightness of the early morning sun glaring through the kitchen windows as they gingerly nibbled on toast and tea (the only thing their roiling stomachs could handle).

Now, three days later, the awkwardness had mostly receded, Lily having nearly convinced herself that Sev must have been too drunk to remember the most sordid of her confessions. In fact, when Sev came over for tea that Saturday, Lily was relieved by how normal it felt listening to Sev and Tuney sniping back and forth at each other over the kitchen table while she played reluctant mediator, and her parents smiled on indulgently, only half listening in.

The subject of today's altercation was censorship: the whole family had tuned into the live radio broadcast of the Greater London Council's debate on film censorship (1). Enid Wistrich, the chairwoman of the council's film viewing board, had argued passionately against the current practice of censoring films for obscene content even for viewers over the age of 18. The heated debate had finally wrapped up four hours later in favour of famed housewife and moral crusader Mary Whitehouse by a margin of six votes; Westrich had vowed to resign.

Petunia, of course, had found in Mary Whitehouse her new idol, and was gloating over the outcome, while Sev disparaged the seventeen Labour councilors who had voted against abolishing film censorship, declaring them to be 'nothing but puritan traitors'. Lily's father sided with Severus, judging him a 'spirited young lad,' while her mother dutifully disappeared to do the washing up, exemplifying her generation's dogma that it was not the place of a working class housewife to mix herself up in the business of politics.

Eventually, Lily's mum and dad retired to the sitting room, leaving the kids to bicker on in the kitchen — a newly renovated avocado and mustard yellow masterpiece of modern design.

Severus still had his hackles up, and as soon as the opening strains of Coronation Street could be heard coming from the telly, he started back in on Petunia, this time in earnest. "I say, fuck censorship! And fuck Mary Whitehouse, too! God knows she needs it."

"Sev!" Lily admonished him.

Severus turned to her, face etched with disbelief and a hint of betrayal. "What? You disagree? You want some stupid stuffed shirts deciding which films fully grown adults are entitled to see in this country?"

"No, I agree with your sentiments regarding censorship, but I would appreciate it if you didn't phrase them in such a way as to sexually objectify the woman whose opinions you are criticizing," Lily countered loftily.

"What? Who'd want to sexually objectify Mary Whitehouse?" Sev's face twisted in disgust. "I wouldn't even objectify her with some other bloke's prick."

Lily rolled her eyes and spoke over Petunia's affronted gasp at Sev's vulgar rejoinder. Count on Tuney to completely miss the point and take offence for all the wrong reasons. "But don't you see, Sev? By implying that she's sexually undesirable, you are sexually objectifying her, because the validity of her argument has nothing to do with her sexual desirability, or lack thereof. If Mary Whitehouse were a man, you wouldn't be attacking his opinion by calling him ugly or saying that he's in need of a good lay, now would you?"

Sev had the good grace to look ashamed, while Petunia still hadn't moved past clutching her metaphorical pearls. "Fine, I concede your point," he muttered.

Petunia's expression had slowly turned to triumph following Lily's rebuke, and she took the opening. "Yeah, Severus. Don't be so sexist," she crowed gleefully.

Severus sneered superciliously at her. "Oh please, Tuney, don't pretend you know anything about feminism, you'll only hurt yourself."

"How dare you!" shrilled Petunia, as Lily suppressed the urge to giggle.

"Sorry Tunes, he's right. If you can name one feminist source of reading material, I'll eat my owl. You don't even have to have read it. And no, Cosmo doesn't count," she continued, anticipating Petunia before she even had a chance to respond, "as much as Helen Gurley Brown (2) may fancy herself that it does." Petunia snapped her mouth shut at that and scowled.

Saturday night found Severus lying in bed by himself at Spinner's End, having just had a spectacular wank. With the events of Near Year's Eve to occupy his fantasies, he didn't even bother breaking out the worn copies of Penthouse (3) anymore. Lily's breathy voice whispering in his ear about all the naughty things she wanted him to do to her…all the naughty things she did to herself… Ohhh God. She was loads better to wank to than the tarts in any top shelf mag. Severus felt his cock start to stir again, and turned over onto his stomach, willing it to go back down. If he kept going at this rate, he was going to need to brew himself some industrial grade chafing ointment.

He still couldn't believe how far they had gone. Oh, physically, they hadn't done much more than a bit of snogging and some funny arm groping. He had gotten a bit carried away there at the end and pulled her hand onto his pecker. He cringed once again, thinking of how he had nearly frightened her off. She had tried to reassure him — giving him some line about having things to look forward to later on — to make him feel less like a bloody perv, bless the girl. But despite the fact that he hadn't even copped a feel of her lovely tits, he still felt like he had walked away that morning with a profound new knowledge of Lily Evans — a carnal knowledge. He knew what she tasted like when she was aroused (even if he hadn't directly tasted her…it still bloody well counted). He knew for a fact that she frigged herself. Hell, he knew that she did it with her hairbrush. He bit his lip and ground his cock into the mattress. This train of thought certainly wasn't helping matters any, just as it hadn't the previous three nights since ringing in the New Year.

The Express was leaving in the morning, and Severus would be getting a lift to King's Cross with Lily and her parents, since his own family didn't own a car. His da had offered to drive, as he always did, happy to have an opportunity to rope Severus into helping him lift a car from the Church car park for the day. His mam was quick on the uptake though, having lived with Tobias through many years and multiple stints in the clink, and she hadn't been best pleased with the plan. So the Evanses it was, as per usual.

He couldn't wait to see in Lily in the morning. He had spent the day with her, of course, but he missed her already. He was starting to realize just how pathetic being in love made a bloke. He had thought that having his feelings reciprocated would make it easier, but so far it had only seemed to make him more obsessed with her.

Severus had not fallen in love with Lily at first sight. No, that was impossible, because in actual fact, he had fallen in love with her before he ever glimpsed her coppery hair and verdant eyes. Casting his mind back to that day six and a half years ago, he recalled the moment when he had first sensed her, that gentle caress of her consciousness against his own. The tendrils of her emotions had reached out to him, warming him like the sun's golden rays. Her mind had been so vibrant. So vital.

At the time, Severus had not known that he was a legilimens. Indeed, he had not known anything about mind magic at all. But that day he had sensed the first living mind apart from his mam's, and he had known that the person to whom this mind belonged must be like them — special. It was only later, when he witnessed the owner of said mind flying from the swings in the playground that he connected the dots and realized that consciousness must be a property of possessing magic. From that, his eight year old self had concluded (incorrectly, of course) that muggles, with their quiet, empty minds, must necessarily lack consciousness, going through life like astonishingly complex automatons. It had made him sad for his da — what must it be like to go through life lacking the cerebral richness of an inner world?

Looking back on it now, it half amused and half horrified him to see how misguided he had been in his childhood conclusions. He hadn't meant anything sinister by it at the time, but he could appreciate how the concept of muggles as mindless automatons could be very dangerous indeed. (That was how the Ministry regarded them, anyway, with their indiscriminate use of memory charms, Severus insisted in his more cynical moments).

But Lily was possessed with a mental landscape as rich as any he had ever encountered apart from his own. What had stumped him initially was why she couldn't sense him. After all, he and his mam could sense each other, and Lily was a witch. Shouldn't she be able to read his thoughts, his feelings, as he could do with her? When he had talked it over with Lily, her beautiful green eyes had filled with tears, and her voice quavering, she had wondered whether that meant that she wasn't fully magical after all. That maybe it did make a difference that her parents were Muggles. He hadn't brought it up again, unwilling to upset her. Not until they arrived at Hogwarts 3 years later. For the first time, they were surrounded by other magical people, and things started to fall into place.

Lily had found him after the Welcome feast rocking back and forth in a broom cupboard, hands over his ears, recovering from the mental cacophony that the unfiltered thoughts of hundreds of students had wrought on his unshielded mind. Lily had been distraught at being separated into a different house, and so they had curled up together and settled in for the night in that musty old broom cupboard, using their school robes as makeshift blankets. That's where Filch had found them in the early hours of the morning, and when they had been brought before the Headmaster and their Heads of House, Severus had noticed a most peculiar thing — Dumbledore's mind was quiet, like his da's, while McGonagall's and Slughorn's were not.

Then, the next evening in the Slytherin common room, he had noticed that head girl Bellatrix Black's mind was similarly silent, and in desperation, he had pulled her aside and asked her about it. Her eyes had immediately widened in excitement, and she had explained everything — how he was a legilimens, just like her, just like Dumbledore. How a legilimens would go mad if they didn't learn to control their gift and close their mind to stray thoughts and feelings. How some legilimenses had left the Wizarding world behind altogether to get some peace and quiet, since muggles lacked the magic to project their thoughts and feelings (not mindless automatons after all).

It had been Bellatrix who had taught him to close his mind, and he, in turn, had taught Lily. Bellatrix herself had been trained over the course of a summer by a friend of the family who came over from the Continent for the task when Bellatrix had a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized briefly in St. Mungos (4). His own mother's behaviour — leaving the Wizarding World behind to marry a muggle, her life long struggle with insanity — started to make sense for the first time. But why hadn't she taught him occlumency? Why hadn't she given him the books that Bellatrix loaned him from the Black family library. Books that had helped him to hone his rough passive legilimency into a practised, intent-driven magical art whereby he could purposely enter Lily's mind and they could exchange images at will.

Learning occlumency had allowed Severus to tune down the noise and go about his day. Of course, keeping his shields up 16 hours a day, 7 days a week was enormously draining and when Lily had realized this, she had begged him to teach her occlumency. Now, when it was just the two of them, he could relax his shields, since she often took over the burden of occluding so that he didn't have to, giving him a much needed respite.

That was one of the main reasons he loved staying in Cokeworth over the holidays. Returning to the castle was always a bit of a shock to his system, the adjustment even more difficult after a long, lazy summer with a relaxed, open mind. And then there was Potter and Black and all their shit to deal with.

But when they returned to Hogwarts tomorrow, everything would be different. Because this time around, Lily Evans, Gryffindor Princess, would be his — Severus Snape's — girlfriend. And everyone would know it.

1 – This was a real broadcasted debate, although it took place on January 28, not January 4.

2 – Helen Gurley Brown was actually the editor of Cosmopolitan U.S. in the 1970s, not Cosmo UK. However, she is rather notorious for fancying herself a feminist, and coming under fire for doing so.

3 – Penthouse was one of 3 popular soft-porn mags in Britain in the 70s. The other two were Mayfair and Men's Own. I picked Penthouse for Sev, because it was the first to show pubic hair, and also it had more serious, hard-hitting journalism than the other two.

4 – Can anyone guess who this 'family friend' was?