Lily walked silently out to the grounds. It was almost dusk and she didn't want to waste another day sitting in her dorm doing nothing. What she really anticipated though, was by happen chance meeting someone she knew. She knew pretty much everyone, but nobody wanted to talk to her except that blasted Potter. It was slightly windy outside and her hair was flowing freely behind her back. With her white tank top and black skinny jeans, she must have looked like a school ghost under the moonlight. She tried to concentrate on the task at hand... Get to the lake alive. The wind was starting to kick up and if a flying object didn't kill her, the cold would. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep as much body heat in as possible. She stood there waiting for someone. Anyone! But there were no shadowy figures across the lawns or in the lake. She was all alone. Her green eyes were almost popping out of their sockets; whether from the cold or her anxiousness she knew not. She thought back to a time long ago, well only 7 years ago, when she had left Petunia to die at Lily's muggle home at Spinners End. Thinking of Petunia though, only made her think of Severus. Recently she had been think about him a lot. He seemed to be more lineant to the dark side, which worried Lily a lot. It was unforgivable for him to have said what he did about Lily, but she couldn't help but be worried about him. Lily hummed a song to occupy the empty space in her mind. It was something like the ABC song she had learned in her Muggle Primer School. Lily sat down, with her arms still wrapped around her and looked up at the fluorescent moon that was beginning to appear around the wisps of clouds. It really was beautiful... she must have spent five minutes just staring at it, wondering what was really up there. it was almost as fascinating to her as Animagi was! How could something so small in the sky be so big in real life. Maybe she would take up astronomy besides medicine. It was a thought. She pondered this for anther minute and then felt the wind shift. A change in direction. Once again, like many other things, Lily had felt a change in the atmosphere. It was like a storm was coming, but it wasn't; all at the same time. She hoped it wasn't like- Oh, she didn't know, World War II for the Muggles? How many families had been split apart by it. No matter how upset she was over her relationships, in the darkest corner of her heart always layed Sev. All that would come to him by joining You-Know-Who would be pain and suffering. A small thought flickered through her mind, almost as fast and subtle as a ripple in the Lake. It began to grow until it felt like the tiny voice in her head was screaming, I want to forgive him. She had been thinking that for a long time now, and it was more important now than ever. She couldn't leave a grude in her heart when Sev could die before she finally accepted him. But he wouldn't take it well. She knew that her opposition to the Dark lord would infuriate him, possibly cut the battle scars deeper. Why should she have to suffer bottling up her emotions? It was all that was keeping her together quite simply. A sigh escaped her lips. She would have to resolve this eventually. ~~~~~~ Dusk was quickly approaching and Severus had taken to the grounds clad in a long black muggle trenchcoat that had once been his father's in the days of the man's now distant youth. The stupid coat was really only something he wore at night, when it got far to cold to merely walk outside in a cloak, besides no one was watching him he was sure of that. People were far to busy with their own little insignificant lives to really care about what he was up to lately. In fact the only time that he had actually seen them prying lately was when they had been making way for him in the crowded hallways, his case of cooties had apparently gotten worse now since there were more rumors circumlating. Whispers in every hidden corner, 'Severus Snape is working for You-Know-Who.' The words were no longer harsh in nature, in fact they proved more helpful than a rumor had ever been to Severus because they gave him power. They now feared him for what he was and what he would become - the servant of a powerful dark wizard, not to mention his prior record at Hogwarts. Entering his first year having known more curses than a seventh year, he really did earn a quick reputation as he was the source where all the marauders knowingly got all their new spells from. The thing was everytime he used one of his own blasted spells on the marauders they would learn it and blast it right back in his direction. After a while this got irritating, but once he mastered the silent art of silent spell casting he was all to happy to try out a bucket load on Potter's crew. At the time Severus had had a field day, that was up until the day that the marauder's begun to learn a new trick or two themselves - the silent shield charm. And had that day been hell when one of his own well placed curses had hit that small silent shield charm and backfired right in his face. Needless to say he was in the hospital wing for a good solid week after that one and of course he was the laughing stock of the school for the next month because it just so happened that he had had a huge audience watching too that day. Oh how he despised the marauders. Severus's pace hestanted a bit as he approached the middle of the grounds, nearby his eyes caught sight of a figure clasping it's arms around it's skinny frame. As he squianted a little in the orange colored sky, he could see that the figure was in fact a girl and she looked rather familiar. In fact she looked hauntingly familiar. Severus squinted and merely stood there staring for a good solid five minutes, was it really her? Of course it was her, she still went to the school that was one thing that had never changed, she would always be here until she graduated this year that was. Yes, they would be graduating would they not be? Oh yes, that was a promising change for all of them. At least after that he wouldn't have to see her pretty face anymore, but than again he would miss catching glimpses of that flicking red hair propped up neatly in a pony tail in the corridors between classes. Oh yes, how he would miss her...No, stop it, STOP IT. His mind was trying to ease him out of those cycles, the ones where he begun to admit his ultimate defeat and his inevitable attachment to her, because he shouldn't be attached not after what had happened. She would not forgive him and that did not merit attachment, it did not even merit friendship anymore, for that was something that he knew would never change. He had begged her. BEGGED, yet she still refused with a grudging heart and a narrow mind. He still couldn't believe to this day that she had turned him down so harshly, and for what? Because he called all of her bloodlines mudbloods? Well, then she really hadn't taken into consideration who she was talking to! His bloody father was a muggle. Yes, a muggle, a nonmagic folk just like the lot of them. Hadn't she considered that?! No. She hadn't and perhaps that was why he was paying for it so dearly now with the friendship that they had once shared. He watched her thin frame from no far distance as she appeared to be shivering against the orange sky. She looked so miniscule compared to all the forces around her, so weak and slender against the elements, yet he knew she was strong. There was fire inside and she definitely had a snap to her, and if one wasn't careful than they would see this side of her and find out what really happened when you got her going - neither was a good thing. He wondered briefly what she was thinking of, and what she was doing out here but he had a feeling it was for no good reason. Probably meeting that Potter prat, or maybe she's gone out for some fresh air. She's probably finished all her homework now. Maybe she is..... No she never would. The thoughts were erased from his mind before they even had a moment to spawn, the impossible would not work itself here tonight, it never would and that was the inevitable option that he had to deal with. A sigh escaped Sev's own lips as his black eyes dipped across the thin frame of Lily Evans who stood before him with her back to him. What a sad sight it really was. ~~~~~ Lily was lost in thought. She stood up and turned around, only to see Sev. Her former best friend. A servant to the Dark Lord. She stared into his black eyes and tried to comprehend what could have made him do it. "Sev-" She began to say, but she rethought her words and decided being quite for a moment would serve the gradual force to forte. The stupid voices were screaming in her mind. Tell him. She felt a tear escape her eye. She could never be friends with him again. His allegiances made him too vulnerable if he hung out with her. She began talking in a whisper to herself and towards him. "Please forgive me for being such a witch." [was going to put other word but then I would be busted, because my sister goes on this site, even if she hasn't made an account. lol.] Lily restrained herself from anything more than that. She had been terrible to Sev. Could her friendship saved his desicion about the Dark Lord? She knew that this went so far off what she had been saying all along to him, but she went with her heart and she knew it was the right thing. "Please forgive me." She said, this time really meaning it with none of the whispering. "I shouldn't have grudges, but what you did, truley was unforgivable. You have apologized so many times..." she lost her thought process. What she had been planning to say at the beginning was swept away from her mind; her epihany lost. She muttered under her breath, "I hate that toe rag Potter." He was after all the cause of all of this. If she hadn't met him, she wouldn't be thinking about Gryffindor when the Sorting Hat was on her head. If she hadn't met James, he wouldn't have made so much fun of Sev, just because Lily hung out with him. If she hadn't met James, she would be friends with Sev still. If she hadn't met James- Oh she could write a book about her encounters with James that were unpleasant. I hope he will accept my apology after what I put him through with the apologies. She thought. She didn't want her seventh year to be the year of unfun. She stood there, her blood pulsing. At least the forte part worked. It would take a miracle for anything else to. She tried to smile, only getting the corners of her lips to move upwards. She looked, once again, into Sev's charcoal black eyes, and remembered how similar he looked to when he was younger. Same hair; longer and shiny, not as greasy as the Potter crew supposed. Same eyes; black, seemingly endless to her. But she knew deep down that it was not the same Severus she knew. The supporter of the Dark Lord, knower of loads of curses, friends with students that were creepy beyond repair. She could not in all of her years of stupid divination, have seen this coming. Her heart beat sped up. Dum-Dum-Dum. Severus reminded her of a shell. A shell of what he used to be. Even though he had power running through his veins, he was still empty inside. What kind of a life was that? Lily had no answer so she stood in silence waiting for more conversation to sprout up. It was just then that she relized the stream of tears that were flowing down her face. All of her emotions that had been bottled up were free. It felt so good to release them, at least there was another weight off her shoulders. She brought up her hands to her face and wiped her emotions away, never to see them again. At least the same kinds of emotions. Her pale hand ran through her hair. "It doesn't have to be this way." She said, whispering again. Was it fate that whispered to you, making your choices? Lily wanted to change what was coming. She had to. You-Know-Who was getting stronger in numbers and knowledge. "Power isn't everything. Sev, what about love?" she spoke in a faint tone that was almost unheard, but she knew Severus would hear it. "He has no love for you or any of his followers that he calls his friends. He'd kill you off in an instant." Emotion over took her body as her point seeped through her blood. "It doesn't have to be that way." She said again. Lily didn't want Sev's life to be in danger just because she wouldn't accept his apology. Even if she had a slight feeling before he called her a mudblood that he was veering to Dark Magic. Her green eyes flickered back to the sky. There was a crow. The sign of death and a bad omen. But of course she didn't believe in that nonsense. A fire within her started to build up. She would have protected Sev if it meant giving her life away. It was her natural instinct that always got her into trouble. She wouldn't let Voldemort kill a person that had a life. At least he used to. No matter how she tried, every couple of second she would sniff and wipe a tear away. She hated crying in front of people; It made her feel vulnerable. [Thank you so much to the people of HPA. Especially RAC who played out a wonderful Snape for me. The Lily bits are mine, other than that I owe it to him.]