Always

Severus grinned to himself when he saw Lily’s neatly scrawled answer on the piece of parchment that she had responded to his short letter on. Baldric had just brought the letter back to him before returning to the owlery for the night, and he was more than pleased with the redhead’s answer. He had been worried for the last several hours that he wasn’t going to receive an answer from her; that she really had moved on from their friendship and wanted nothing to do with her.

He knew that he could win her over from Potter. He might not be as popular or as good looking, but he knew that Lily had seen his heart. He didn’t know if she had ever guessed at just how much he loved her, or if she even knew that part of it. But either way, he knew that she had seen his true self; the part of him that he kept locked away and hidden from the rest of the world. And that was his secret weapon. That was going to be how he won Lily Evans’ heart.

He put the scrap of parchment into a small box underneath his bunk before he pulled his blankets down, getting ready to sleep. He knew that he would have a long day tomorrow, but none of the classes and homework mattered anything to him right now.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face for the first time in awhile; a true smile. His heart beat erratically against the cage of his chest at just the thought of being able to hold her hand in his; to feel her skin against his lips and to hold her tight against his body. He was determined to make it happen, he thought to himself. He was determined to help Lily Evans fall in love with him, and that was something that made him feel happy.

The next morning when Severus awoke, his smile was still on his face. He knew it was uncharacteristic of himself to smile like this, but he couldn’t help it. The thought of Lily Evans could always put a smile on his face, even if they were no longer on good terms with one another. Today, hopefully that could change. She had already agreed to let him send letters to her through Baldric, and he wanted to make sure that she got the first one tonight.

He knew that he wouldn’t have time later on to write the letter. He would have homework, and since he had some left from the day before, he knew that it would be something he needed to spend his time focused on tonight. He decided he would skip breakfast in the Great Hall and write out a short letter for her first, and then would give the letter to Baldric later this evening when he knew she had retired to the Gryffindor Common Room for the evening.

The first letter he had written had been hard for him to get out in words, and he knew this second one—the first ‘official’ letter, was going to be even harder for him to write because he’d already established the fact that he knew he was unworthy of having contact with Lily. He wanted to come up with just the right words, and he’d never been the best at describing his feelings and emotions.

Dearest Lily, he started out before scrunching his crooked nose, shaking his head as he crumpled the parchment before tossing it into the nearby waste bin. That seemed far too personal, especially since she probably wouldn’t really be reading his letters anyway. Perhaps she was only allowing him this small favor to ease his heart since she already knew how lonely life got for him. Either way, however, he was going to be honest with her. She had never lied to him, and he saw no reason to start lying to her now.

I wasn’t sure how to start this letter out, so I’ll start with a simple thank you. I know that you probably don’t care to hear from me or see these letters. I understand that, Lily. With that being out of the way, I’m unsure of what I actually want to say in these letters. You’ve always been better at writing out your thoughts than I. That is something I have always admired about you, Lily; you’ve always been the kind of person who can make a person’s black days colorful. I don’t understand how I ever made a friend like you when you gave far much more than you received from me. I want to change that, in time.
Always your friend, Severus

He smiled as he reread over the small letter carefully before he put it in a small parchment envelope, sealing it with black wax from a candle near his bed before tucking it into his pocket. He would drop it off later this evening, but for now, he knew that he needed to get to Potions.

“James, stop,” Lily murmured as the dark-haired man pressed her up against a tree near to where she knew Severus spent a lot of time sitting and reading. She didn’t want her former friend to see her here with James. She knew it would upset the Slytherin boy, and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings no matter how badly he had hurt her.

She thought back to the note that he had written her the night before, and she couldn’t stop a small smile from tugging at the corners of her lips when she recalled the way her heart had felt when she’d seen that he was making an effort to repair the damage he’d done. Of course, it would never completely solve everything he had done to her. She didn’t know if she could ever forgive him for calling her a mudblood. It was a painful term for her, especially since Petunia already thought she was such a freak. It was bad enough that her own flesh and blood thought her strange; she didn’t want Severus to hate her for it, too.

“Hey, what’s going through that pretty little head of yours, eh?” James’ voice pulled her out of her thoughts long enough to pay attention to what her boyfriend was saying before she looked down at the grass, her face flushing when he kissed the corner of her mouth.

She liked it when James kissed her, she thought to herself. She liked having someone to give her attention and affection in a boyfriend / girlfriend sort of way. James had never been something she’d really seen herself dating, especially with how he had treated Severus. But that had been before the incident, and she could tell he was changing. He wasn’t perfect—no one was, so she couldn’t expect him to be. But he had a good heart, and he was helping her to overcome her sadness about not having contact with Severus Snape right now.

“Can I kiss you again? This time on the lips?” James whispered against her ear, one of his hands snaked around her waist and his free hand holding hers. She looked up at his eyes, wondering what his intentions were before she nodded, her face tinting another shade darker.

“Yeah,” she mumbled out, nervous for what was about to happen. She hadn’t thought she’d be kissing James on their second day of dating, but she knew she wanted to. She felt his lips slowly press against hers, and then groaned in surprise when he pulled her closer against him, deepening the kiss.

She was too concentrated on her boyfriend and the way his chapped lips felt on her smooth ones to realize that Severus had seen them. She was paying too much attention to her boyfriend to see the hurt locked behind Severus’ dark eyes, and she didn’t see the way his hands clenched into tight fists. She was too busy to realize that she had just broken Severus’ heart even worse than it already was.

James, however, noticed everything. He noticed the fact that Severus had seen the pair kissing, and he realized that Severus’ heart was being broken piece by piece. And he reveled in that. While he really did feel some sort of attraction for Lily, his goal wasn’t to fall in love with her. After all, he was only in his fifth year at Hogwarts. He still had two more years left, and another several years after that before he wanted to even think about finding a woman to fall in love with. His only goal right now was to put Snivellus in as much pain as he could, he thought to himself. And he knew the best way to do that was to get Lily to care for him and abandon the Slytherin boy who’d been her best friend since before Hogwarts had become her home.