A Second Chance

“I love you.”

Three words that changed everything.

Lily stood there, mouth agape, and Severus could feel himself flushing furiously. He hadn’t meant to say it, but she had been leaving. He could feel her pulling away even as she had dared him seconds ago to tell her why; why when he kept friends like Mulciber and Avery, friends who hated everyone of her blood, should she believe a word he said? She had tried to interrupt him, to walk away, but then he had blurted out those three words in a fit of desperation, and now she stood before him looking as though she had just been slapped. Her cheeks were as flush as his.

“What!?” There was disbelief and the clinging threads of frustration and anger in her voice, but underneath of that there was something…something that gave him the strength to mumble them one more time.

“You can believe me because…because I love you.” Merlin, how he felt the fool. He couldn’t even bring himself to look her in the eye. This was not how he had wanted to tell her. Truth be told he hadn’t even been sure that there was anything to tell. It wasn’t until the moment that the words left his mouth that he realized how right they were. Now he wondered how he could have ever been in doubt.

He was going to have to look up if she didn’t say something soon. Perhaps he should just turn and walk away, but then that was why he had interrupted her in the first place, wasn’t it, so that she wouldn’t walk away. It would be ridiculous for him to do that now.

“You…you… Severus, for god sake, look at me!”

His eyes snapped up. Her cheeks were as flush as ever, and her eyes…her eyes were full.”

He shook his head. “I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he stated flatly.

Everything was a blur. Nothing seemed to be going according to how he had imagined it. And he had imagined it many times. Sometimes he imagined kissing her down by the river on summer hols. Other times he reaching out for her hand in the library while their heads were pressed close together studying. Once he had even imagined whispering the words themselves to her over a simmering cauldron while they brewed, but this…well, he could never have imagined it like this in a million years.

“You…you what?” she stammered. The tears spilled over and she wiped them away angrily.

“Lily,” he begged wearily. “Please don’t make me say it again. I…I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just…I just needed you to know. I’ll go.”

His mouth had said the words, and his mind was set, but his feet seemed disinclined to follow. He realized after a moment that he was still standing there, staring down at her slipper clad feet. The slippers were fluffy and pink like her dressing gown. It looked like she had jammed her feet into the corpses of two oversize pygmy puffs. It struck him as odd. He never would have figured Lily for a ‘fluffy pink’ sort of a girl.

“Since when?”

He looked up to meet her eyes again. She seemed to be recovering from the initial shock, and she had her arms crossed in front of her chest in an attempt to look defiant and commanding, but with the flush to her cheeks and the dampness still sparkling in her eyes, it just made her look petulant.

“What?”

“You say you love me. Since when?”

“Since…since always…” She opened her mouth to reply, and the look in her eyes told him she wasn’t buying it in the least. “I don’t’ know Lily, okay!” he interrupted before any sound could escape her. “Since always. Since a moment ago. I don’t know!”

Her mouth clamped shut, and for some reason she seemed momentarily satisfied with his pathetic attempt at an answer. But instead of relaxing, her arms tightened around herself, her knuckles almost white with the force of her grip. The flush was fading and she was starting to look a little pale.

“And…well…what does that mean, exactly?”

“What do you mean, ‘what does that mean’?”

She sighed heavily. “What does ‘I love you’ mean to you? You say you love me, but this afternoon you called me…” her eyes began to fill again, but she fought against the tears valiantly, swallowing them back before continuing. “You called me that name. If you…how could you call me that?” She didn’t sound angry anymore, just terribly weary and terribly sad. It was worse than her anger.

“I’m sorry, okay!” His voice cracked and he silently cursed it. “I don’t know what more to say. I never meant to say it. I…I didn’t mean it. I…I don’t think of you like that. I’m half muggle myself, for god sake! You know that!”

The color rushed back into her face, and the self sustained hug she had been maintaining for the last several minutes released. She brought a hand to her hip. “Oh yes, but then I suppose that half blood is fine with them. As long as there’s some wizarding blood in you, but a mudblood well that’s something altogether different, isn’t it! Who would want to talk to a mudblood, who would want to touch a mudblood, who would want to share the same bloody airspace with a filthy mudbl…”

But she never got a chance to finish. He couldn’t bear to hear that noxious word drop from her lips one more time, and so he shut her up the only way he knew how. He kissed her. In fact he was kissing her before his brain really caught up to the fact, and when it finally did he winced, expecting a sound slap to come at any moment. But it didn’t. Instead something miraculous happened.

She started to kiss him back. She had gasped at first, but it had been muffled against his mouth, and followed swiftly by a sound that, though he wasn’t entirely sure, had sounded somewhat like a moan. It had been close enough to send all the blood in his head rushing instantly southward. She leaned into him, seemed to melt into him, and now she was kissing him back with a passion and dedication that was swiftly rendering him dizzy and helpless.

He would wake up soon, of that he was certain, but he intended to enjoy this dream as long as it lasted. It might not be the most salacious dream he had ever had with Lily, but it was certainly the most vivid. If he didn’t know better he would swear he was awake. Every movement of her lips against his, every tender, probing stroke of her tongue, every beat of her heart against his chest, seemed heightened somehow. He knew he would remember this for the rest of his life.

After what seemed like an eternity she finally pulled away. He had to fight back a whimper of protest, but he was pleased that he somehow found the strength to let his eyes slide open and meet hers unwaveringly. She was looking at him with a look of revelation. He wondered what it meant.

The longer he held her gaze, the more color rose to her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. She stared back with equal courage. “I…” but she didn’t finish. She just shook her head as though she didn’t know what to say. “You kissed me…” she finally whispered.

“Yes.” His heart felt lighter already. “And I’m not entirely certain, not being very experienced at these sorts of things, but I’m fairly certain that you kissed me back.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment, and then her face lit up in a gloriously indulgent smile. She punched him playfully in the arm. “Shut it, Sev. This doesn’t mean you’re forgiven you know…”

He smiled back, and it felt tight, almost unnatural. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time he had done so - the year before, possibly? “Not even a little?”

She tried to wipe the smile off her face, but failed miserably. “Well…maybe a little…” Reaching out she straightened his school tie, and then tucked a wayward lock of limp hair behind his ear. “A very little.”

Something in that smile had made it clear. She could say what she wanted, but disaster had been averted, he knew that at least, and for the time being that was all that mattered.

He’d somehow been given a second chance, and he had no intention of wasting it.