Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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Severus was very glad the following day was Saturday, that meant he was free to give Lily his undivided attention without the burden of teaching classes.
For him, the previous night had been mostly restless.
Although he had a pillow and a blanket on the sofa, he was too worried about his guest to sleep.
Every hour or so, Severus poked his head through the cracked door to the bedroom, compelled to make sure that Lily was alright.
When dawn finally broke, Severus's eyes opened for the tenth time since he had laid down and he abandoned his futile pursuit of slumber.
Severus rose, quickly washed up for the day, cleaned his robes with a hasty spell, and then silently entered the room to sit down beside Lily.
He watched her sleep for a while as the sun climbed higher in the sky.
As the light gradually drifted over her, he took advantage of the unhindered moment he had to admire her beauty.
Perhaps it was her condition, but her cheeks were pleasantly blushed, her feathery lashes brushed along the tops of her elegant cheeks while she laid there sleeping with her lustrous, red hair sprawled behind her head on the pillow.
Severus tried very hard not to let his gaze wander down to the ample swells of Lily's breasts that heaved with each rise and fall of her chest, tucked away in her clothes, but their outline remained unmistakably visible over the top of the duvet, which concealed the evidence of her union with his enemy.
Severus lost track of time as he sat there and looked at Lily.
He could very well have been there forever if she had stayed in her deep slumber.
Severus felt his heart skip a beat when her green eyes finally cracked open and she blinked at him groggily.
"Good morning." Severus rumbled.
".......Good morning." Lily replied.
Madam Pomfrey's words echoed back to him as Lily tried to fight off her sleepiness.
When she wakes in the morning, make sure she has her wits about her.
"What's your name?" Severus asked flatly.
Lily stared at him for a moment and then she replied, "My name is Lily Potter, er.......Lily Evans."
Severus ignored her edited answer although it secretly filled him with glee.
Instead of dwelling on the matter, he moved on to his next question, "What's my name?"
"Severus Snape." Lily replied.
"And where are you?" Severus asked.
"........Hogwarts." Lily answered after she glanced around at the stone walls.
Severus was relieved that her mind seemed to be unharmed, but he asked one final question to test her ability to think, "Very good......Is the mascot of Ravenclaw a horse or a bear?"
"A......." Lily started to answer, then her lips twisted into a smile of amusement at Severus's cunning, ".....A bird, an eagle!"
"Excellent work, Ms. Evans, full marks on your exam this morning." Severus replied in his low drawl.
Lily smiled up at him for a moment and he could tell that she was trying to rouse herself fully so he stood from his seat and added, "I'll let you......prepare yourself for the day. When you're ready, there'll be tea waiting in the living room. Is there anything I can get for you? Anything that you'd like?..... Or need?"
Severus's eyes moved down to Lily's belly, which remained hidden by the covers.
As much as he hated to acknowledge James's child, he understood that pregnancy was a delicate state for both mother and baby.
"No, thank you, I'm fine." Lily said quietly, "I'll be there in a moment."
"Take your time." Severus replied in his low voice before he turned and stalked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind himself.
Lily sat up in bed a few seconds later and sighed to herself while she looked over at her trunk that Severus had placed in the corner of the room.
She was amazed at her own audacity.
After her emotional display last night, how had she found the courage to look Severus in the eyes again?
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Severus ordered a few of Hogwarts' house elves to bring up two plates of breakfast directly to his personal chambers, a service not often utilized by Hogwarts' faculty, but one that could be at any time.
When Lily finally opened the bedroom door and stepped out, she found Severus waiting for her in the living room, sitting at the small table in the room, on which sat two plates of food and two steaming cups of tea.
Severus saw the way Lily's eyes widened hungrily as she looked at the full plates.
Once she came close enough, Severus left his seat and chivalrously pulled her chair out for her.
"Thank you, Sev." She murmured politely as she sat down and pulled herself up to the table.
Severus sat back down across from Lily and while they began to eat, he eagerly anticipated what she would say.
Considering the circumstances, Severus imagined that Lily would be speaking first.
"I'm sorry about last night.... that was....um, humiliating." Lily said in a quiet voice.
Severus couldn't help but notice that she ate the cinnamon biscuits on her plate first, hurriedly munching them down.
"There's no need to apologize." Severus replied, "However, I was......quite confused."
"Confused?" Lily asked as she looked over at Severus with the familiar light in her green eyes that he recognized so fondly, "Sorry, I didn't mean for it to come out of nowhere like that. I've just had a lot of time to think and last night....I...I blurted out a thought."
"......I was under the impression that you hated me for......that day, since that day." Severus frowned.
"I never hated you, Sev." Lily sighed, "I was angry for a time, but I've come to understand why you said it. That word........I don't like it, of course, and it wasn't the right thing to do, but at least I understand why you did it now. Your friends were watching, his people were watching, if you hadn't done something, they would have hurt you later. They may have even hurt me too."
Severus stared at Lily for a long moment with an unreadable expression before she looked up from her plate, met his gaze, and went on, "I was telling you the truth last night, though. I'm sorry for the way that I acted. That wasn't right either, I never should have laughed. I should have supported you and stood beside you, that's what good friends do. I was....frightened of where you were headed, of the movement you were joining. I thought you were lost."
Severus remained silent but a forlorn frown planted itself on his face before Lily looked at him and asked, "Can you forgive me, Sev? For being a bad friend?"
Severus kept his frown as he swallowed and replied, "Lily, you were never a bad-"
"Can you forgive me?" Lily pressed.
"Yes." Severus answered with his brow furrowed, "Yes, Lily, of course I can forgive you."
"Good." Lily nodded and smiled, "That makes me feel much better then."
"Are you not frightened of me now?" Severus asked curiously.
"No." Lily replied honestly.
Severus dared to inquire, "........Why?"
"Because if you really were loyal to.....you-know-who, then why would you help rescue me?" Lily blinked, "Why wouldn't you have killed me or taken me directly to.......him?"
Severus frowned at Lily again as he watched her look down at her plate.
He saw the despair in her green eyes when she saw that she had eaten all of her cinnamon biscuits.
"You can have mine." Severus said graciously as he pushed his plate towards Lily, which bore several of the morsels she seemed to favor.
"Oh no, I don't want to take those away from you! Those are yours!" Lily said quickly, but Severus could sense her true desire.
"No, really, I don't want them." He nodded reassuringly.
"Thanks, Sev." Lily smiled.
She plucked the cinnamon biscuits off of Severus's plate and onto hers as he continued, "I'm sorry that things aren't going well between you and Potter."
He repeated the same lie he had uttered the previous night, but Lily didn't seem to care if he spoke truthfully or not as she shrugged her shoulders and asked sarcastically, "......Was it that obvious?"
"If I may speak honestly with you, Lily, I never understood why you went with him to begin with, you despised him for years." Severus bravely mentioned, hoping to learn more about Lily's situation.
"I never understood it either, at least, not at first." Lily admitted as she already finished the last of Severus's cinnamon biscuits. She scowled into the distance as she mused out loud, "But I've learned that I wasn't really in love with James and he wasn't really in love with me. I was in love with being in love. I'm not sure what he was in love with, himself, I suppose, or the notion of being with the girl who never wanted him."
Severus was quiet while he carefully considered what to say next, but Lily's emerald gaze snapped over towards him and she spoke, "Would you like to know what it's like to be married to James Potter?"
Severus didn't want to be rude and he certainly didn't want to offend Lily, so he waited for a moment and she again jumped in before he had the chance.
"I have no idea what it's like!" Lily exclaimed, "I think I've seen him a handful of times since our wedding day!"
".........Where is he, then?" Severus asked, "He was there last night."
"Right." Lily said, "He was there last night because we were squabbling over all of our things. He stays gone most times, between Sirius Remus, and Peter, he stays gone."
Lily sipped her tea while Severus frowned sympathetically at her.
He desperately wanted to hear more of his darling's plight.
Severus let Lily sit her cup back down on the table and then he gathered the courage to ask, "How bad are things with Potter?"
"How much do you want to know?" Lily asked with a bitter smile as she looked at Severus.
"Has he struck you?" Severus asked with narrowed eyes and the edge of anger in his voice that even his great restraint couldn't fully conceal, "Was last night really an accident?"
Lily laughed and took another sip of her tea before she looked away and answered, "No, James has never laid a hand on me, Sev. If he's had any affairs, I haven't managed to catch him, not that I care what he does now......Yes, last night was a true accident. I slipped, it was my fault. But," Lily said with a bitter tone in her voice that Severus barely recognized, "If you ask James, he'll tell you the baby is my fault as well."
Severus watched Lily lay a hand on the side of her belly and she looked over at him as he pledged, "You know you can tell me anything, Lily......"
Lily reached up to wipe a few stray tears from her eyes.
As she sniffed and put her hand down, Severus was bold enough to catch it with his own and gently rub his fingers soothingly over the back of her palm.
If Lily wanted comfort, she had come to the right man.
Severus bore her no grudge, she had made a mistake, and she realized it.
She needed him and he would absolutely, unquestioningly be there to stand beside her.
"It was a warm day, a warm evening for October." Lily sniffed, holding Severus's hand and taking her other off of her belly to wipe away a couple more pesky tears, "James had been pressuring me for months and I kept telling him I wanted to wait......But that's one of his strategies, he just pushes and pushes and pushes a person until they just......break!"
Lily's voice hitched in such a melancholy way that Severus blanched as if he had been slapped.
Lily was right.
James had traumatized Severus with his repeated, unmerciful bullying during their school days.
No one had seen the tears that had poured from Severus's eyes in the boys' bathroom or the anguish he had suffered at the hands of his nemesis.
James Potter had nearly broken him.
Severus was starting to wonder if that's how he had managed to turn Lily to his side?
Had James asked her out until she got so tired of hearing him that she reluctantly said yes?
"Anyway," Lily sniffed as she went on, "I just.....I gave in.....He said we wouldn't need a contraception charm for one, single time and I thought I knew my cycle. That was a stupid idea."
Severus glanced down to her belly and as he did, he felt her squeeze his hand.
A scowl came over his face when he met her gaze and the number of her tears increased.
He realized then that she was ashamed, deeply ashamed.
"Lily, that's nothing to be......embarrassed of.....that....happens to a lot of people." Severus reassured her.
"My parents were.....disgusted with me, when they found out. Petunia was thrilled, as I'm sure you can imagine. The perfect daughter, knocked off her high horse......" Lily went on, "Mum and Dad insisted that James make it right, and his parents were elated. We got married so quickly, I didn't really even think about it that much, my mother convinced me that I needed someone to care for me.....that's not true, but I listened to her and now I'm going from being up the duff and single to being up the duff and divorced."
"Lily," Severus frowned in sympathy as he continued to stroke the back of her hand, "That's not true."
"You're right, Sev." Lily said with a bitter laugh, "That's not true! I'll never be rid of him! James is going to drag me through the courts until he wins. He'll drag this on forever, even to the day I die."
"What do you mean 'until he wins'?" Severus asked with narrowed eyes.
"I've been alone for the majority of the time since this happened." Lily explained as she patted her belly, "All of James's splendid promises never came true. He doesn't seem very interested in a family, because he's not........so I filed for divorce."
Severus listened with his brow furrowed.
"I haven't asked him for any alimony, but I have asked him for child support. I don't want his money, I don't need his money, but it's the principle of the matter. He helped in this, he should have to pay for a few nappies." Lily said with that bristly bitterness resurging in her voice.
"..........I agree." Severus replied in his low, rumbling drawl as he assessed the situation.
Lily flashed him a small smile through her tears as she continued, "Not long after I served James with legal papers, he served me with my own."
Severus scowled, "What kind of legal papers?"
"James' parents have claimed this was all an elaborate scheme on my part, that I'm some wayward, evil temptress who seduced their son in hopes of gaining their family fortune. James is going along with them, and he's counter-sued me for full custody of our baby, from the moment it arrives, on the grounds that I'm an unfit mother." Lily sniffed.
"He's.......what?!?!" Severus asked incredulously.
"Yes." Lily nodded with another bitter smile, "I made a mistake, Sev, and I've paid for it dearly. Believe me, I'm still paying."
"There's no reason why you can't be a mother! Potter has no grounds for that ridiculous claim." Severus said with a furious grimace on his face.
"No, he doesn't, but he's been trying desperately to find some." Lily sniffed, "I can't even go to the market without being followed by his team of private investigators. I've been ordered to turn over all of my receipts from the previous year, all of my health records, even my disciplinary file from Hogwarts."
"That's illegal! According to magical law, they can't request that information." Severus hissed with his eyes narrowed to slits.
"They can if you can hire the kind of attorneys the Potters have." Lily humorlessly chuckled, "I've come home several times to find my drawers gone through. They've looked through my drawers! He isn't even willing to give me the privacy of......of........"
Lily swallowed a sob and Severus leaned towards her empathetically, clutching her hand as he glowered, "I should have killed Potter last night when I had the chance."
"No." Lily whispered as she fought to keep what she had left of her composure, "I don't want him dead. I.....I just wanted to be happy....I just.....I just want to keep my baby....I just....I...."
Lily knew that Severus thought it was weak to cry, but she didn't care what he or anyone else thought as she covered her eyes with her hand and let her fearful, mournful sobs overtake her.
"Lily......." Severus breathed. He kept hold of her hand while he turned his chair so he sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulder to let her cry on his.
Lily leaned her head over and buried her face in the crook of Severus's neck.
"Lily, listen to me." Severus commanded in a deep, smooth rumble of a whisper while he held her close, "We're still friends, aren't we? You're not angry with me and I'm not angry with you. We're still Severus and Lily."
Lily looked at the top of the Dark Mark she could see peeking over the pushed back edge of Severus's sleeve, then down at her belly, and she wept all over again at how badly wrong things had ended up.
"Lily?" Severus asked over her weeping, "Didn't I always look after you when we were children?"
"Yes." Lily replied. "You were a good friend and I never was, Sev! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
"Calm yourself. We're still friends and I'm still looking after you." Severus replied, "You'll be safe here. You and your child will be safe from the Dark Lord and from Potter. This can be your new home."
Here with me~. Severus thought.
Lily sniffed her way out of her sobs for a moment and she sat up straight to dry the last of her tears before she looked at Severus and wrapped her arms around him in a grateful hug.
He flinched at the contact at first.
It wasn't that Severus didn't welcome Lily's hug, no, the opposite was true, but he was rarely touched by anyone else.
........And it felt so very good to have someone touching him, especially in a caring way, especially his beloved Lily.
"That's very sweet, Sev." Lily whispered before she looked at him with the last shred of dignity she had left and informed him, "But I can't impose on you. I've already figured it out, I'm moving back in with my parents and after the baby's born, I'll find work. It'll be fine. I'll be fine."
"Lily, you could never impose on me." Severus answered quickly, "Besides, you can't go back to your parents' now, it's too dangerous. Dumbledore's orders are for you to stay safely within the castle walls until the war's over or the threat passes. With class in session, there's a shortage of empty rooms, however, I'm sure he can find somewhere else for you if you'd prefer not to stay here?"
"No, I'd like to stay with you, Sev." Lily smiled, then she quickly added, "I'd rather not be by myself."
Lily didn't want to seem overly excited about their reunion.
She didn't know how much Severus's heart leapt when he heard her say she wanted to be with him.
"I'd like that very much." Severus nodded.
Lily laughed and dried the last of her tears as she replied, "I'm....I'm sorry, I didn't intend to burden you with all of my problems. I have very few people to talk to these days."
"Lily," Severus said very seriously as he looked deeply into her green eyes, "You can always talk to me."
"You're very sweet, Sev." Lily complimented Severus again with an honest smile.
"Now, there's another ridiculous claim." Severus replied sarcastically.
"I've missed you." Lily smiled.
The pout on her plush, pink lips and the sadness that shone in her bright, green eyes made Severus frown forlornly.
"Not as much as I've missed you." Severus countered.
"Sev!" Lily laughed, "That's the real ridiculous claim!"
If Severus and Lily knew how each other truly felt, their lips would have met then and there.
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That afternoon, to take Lily's mind off of the unpleasantness bearing down upon her, Severus took her on a walk through his section of Professor Sprouts' garden, which he used to grow potion ingredients.
In the early spring, many flowers were just starting to bloom and Lily really enjoyed looking at all of the blossoms with Severus.
He was happy to see a smile on her face instead of tears and after their tour of the garden concluded, he ordered the house elves of Hogwarts to bring Lily an entire plate of those cinnamon biscuits she enjoyed so much while they chatted by the fireplace before dinner.
Lily laughed at his sarcasm and it was all Severus could do not to pull her into his arms as they sat together on the sofa, chatting about more pleasant topics than those they had discussed that morning.
Severus had no real reason to be so joyful, his friend was pregnant with another man's child, he was dangerously working as a double agent, and the next few months of his life would be spent perilously trying to protect Lily, her little one, and himself.
Although, with his beautiful flower next to him, all that darkness faded from Severus's world.
In fact, with Lily next to him, feeding him smiles, giggles, and whispers of her gratitude, Severus's world hadn't seemed so bright in a very, very long time.