Dear Lily *COMPLETE*

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, but Jo's! If they were book 7 would have been out by now.

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Dear Lily

Another sleepless haunted night Lily, I suppose you think that I deserve it and I think you're right I do deserve it.

I cannot shake the image of that drawn, haggard, yet wise face imploring. Anyway not being able to shake the picture out of my head, I went for a little walk in the night. Some part of me was expecting to find a roaming Centaur nibbling at some of the greenery in the night, another part of me was expecting to see a Unicorn mother suckling her golden foal, all beautiful and serene in the moonlight, calm and yet ghostly in its exquisite form.

The midnight stroll in the moonlight only served to haunt me even further with another face, a pretty face of an eighteen year old girl, not classically beautiful but warm, caring and honest, the kind of face any sensible man would go for. The face had lovely eyes and those eyes were honey warm brown, matched by the long flowing hair that went down her back. She looked up at me, haloed in golden light, making her look like she had just stepped out of the sun. Then I looked down and saw her body a lovely feminine body that was in perfect proportion. Her breasts were heaving and I saw that they were… oh stop it Snape… STOP IT! OKAY! Let’s face facts all right. Even if you were her age or she yours she’d never consider you! Never! No woman no matter HOW bloody desperate they were would ever think of you! Even if you had not killed Professor Dumbledore she’d still be disgusted by you.

I went back to the fire and wrapped my robes around me to keep me warm but even the fire bought back memories. Memories of Fawkes, oh that glorious creature, nothing so graceful or as elegant and... oh I suppose he's left Hogwarts now unless he's adopted Potter, in which case I am in trouble!

Then I heard an owl hooting in the sky and I prepared to hide under cover of darkness thinking it might be a pet owl of a Wizard but I realised soon after it was just a wild owl out on it's hunt. I think wickedly of it swooping down on Wormtail and eating him, and that thought warms me more than the blaze of the fire.

This night goes on forever.... her face is now floating in the fire.

"I don't care!" I hear someone shouting, a voice I thankfully do not recognise. "Do you realise our histories!"

"You can't do this to us, why do you like her? She is nothing more than a Dentist's daughter!"

"So, she'll be my wife," this voice says. "She doesn't know it yet but she loves me!"

"Sure right that's why she kicked you in the shins yesterday and told you that blonde bloke she was with was her boyfriend. It was because she actually loves you!" the second voice said rather sarcastically.

“She’s playing hard to get!” the third voice said promptly. “Did you see her in those clothes? Oh man that would be one hot wife! Before she has kids at any rate and put on weight but till then I’ll play the loyal husband!”

You’ll have to speak to me first boy! No one treats a woman like that and gets away with it whilst I’m around! I maybe a low lifer but disrespect towards a marriage mate is completely wrong! If you so much as touch a hair on Miss Granger’s head you might as well have made your grave!

"Can we go home I don't like the forest at night!" the second voice whined.

"Why not? Don't be such a scaredy cat!"

"Am not but don't you get the feeling that somebody is watching us, listening to us?"

"Listen you I want Hermione Granger and nothing is going to stop me!" the other screamed. “And the forest is only full of animals there’s nothing to worry about.”

"Don't you get the feeling that there's something odd about her; I mean you remember her as a kid don't you? Everytime someone angered her or frightened her, something nasty happened to that very someone, I don't know but she gives me the willies, the way her eyes look at you sometimes."

"Exactly she has power and it's that, that I want her for, imagine me having Power on my side."

I don't imagine Miss Granger would want to be controlled, that muggle might have fun trying though! I was partly outraged by that she was not going to suffer my mother’s fate! It would be something to tell her.

“Yeah but it’s not NICE power is it?” the second voice asked.

"Come on let's go home,” the first voice said in an exasperated tone.

"Thank heavens," the friend said. "I swear this forest has eyes!"

A bit of a diverting entertainment but still not long enough for the night to go faster, I wish I bought a pack of cards or something, a few games of patience might have rattled away a half hour or so. I regretted letting Malfoy go, at least he was a good distraction for the images. I must have gone to sleep for the next moment I felt myself being roughly shaken.

"Wake up!" I was shaken awake by a woman.

"Where am I?" I asked, hating to be caught of guard.

"In the forest and its morning I've come with food to help you make it through the day," it was Miss Granger. I looked at what she was wearing this morning and it was more sensible. She was wearing a light blue blouse buttoned up and a pair of blue jeans that caressed rather than hugged her figure. She had her hair done up in a plait. Very clumsily.

"Thanks," I said.

"I bought a thermos of coffee I didn't know how you liked it so here's separate milk and sugar, and some bread and butter with a pack of sausages and eggs. It'll be enough for a few days if you ration yourself well."

She handed me over the bag of food and a silver thermos flask. I twisted the cap open and poured some out and started drinking. She set the bags down and brought out a saucepan and some oil and set it over the fire and started cooking some sausages for me. I watched her as she awkwardly spread some bread. I decided to do it for her and our fingers touched. I looked away but I thought I saw her blush.

"Might have known," she said to cover the embarrassment.

"What?" I asked coughing to cover mine.

"Black no sugar!"

I smiled.

"Naturally."

"Anyway good news is a decent nights sleep and some good food seemed to have perked Malfoy up a bit, he even said 'thank you' to me, I thought he lacked the capacity for manners!"

She smirked and there was a strange glint of mischievousness in her eyes which I never saw before, usually it's either Potter or Weasel that have that not her!

"Bad news?" I asked.

"He wants to go home to his mother, I keep trying to tell him that, that is not possible that he is on the run and that once he goes back to his mother it'll be back to Lord Voldemort and you might as well dig a grave for yourself!"

I flinched as she said the Dark Lords name, I didn’t say anything though.

"And?" I asked keeping to the topic in hand.

"Well he's Malfoy isn't he, he sulked!" she rolled her eyes. "Sirius was just as bad at times, he even forgot that he was supposed to be hiding and suggested that he and Harry meet occasionally in Hogsmeade, Harry said no that it would be too risky and Sirius said it would be the risk that would have made it fun for James!"

That shocked me rather, that bit of reason and cool headedness must have come from you Lily dear.

"I have something to tell you by the way," I said. "Last night there were two men discussing you, and one of them is determined to marry you."

"Huh!" she humphed. "I don't understand why he thinks I might have been remotely interested, I know why he wants to marry me, and there is no way I'll be the little woman on his arm whilst he has the pretty mistress in the village!"

"Who says you’re not pretty?” I demanded! She looked at me.

“What do you mean?” she asked in a small whisper.

“Nothing!” I said to recover myself. I coughed again and went back to the conversation. “I thought that is what you would think," I said peering into my coffee. "What are their names?"

"Mark and Jason," she replied quickly.

"One of them said that you frighten him," I said.

"That would be Mark," Herm... Miss Granger said. "He's so cowardly that I swear he’s half jelly."

I tried not to laugh. A vision of a half jelly, half human animal came to mind.

"As for the girl yesterday I'm beginning to think that you're a wannabe Death Eater," I said.

"You mean Jemima, Little Miss Perfect, Teacher's Pet Jemima!"

"What do you mean?" I asked. Shocked that Miss Granger of all people herself scorned a know-it-all.

"The Teacher at my last school didn't really know how to handle me and because of that I was a little mistreated I suppose. I kept asking questions, I was inquisitive a little bit beyond my years and they couldn't cope with that I guess, I wasn't going to be the good little girl taking what they said as fact. Jemima used to listen so hard her ears would fall off but not me, I guess I just didn't like the teachers at Primary School. Like Harry I only listen to people worth listening to, people like Professor McGonnagal, Professor Flitwick and at one time I even found you worth listening to, especially as Potions Master, I loved the first speech. I was so ready not to prove myself a dunderhead!"

"I never called you a dunderhead Miss Granger, just a silly little girl, an interfering know-it-all, which I'm sure you heard before from other people."

"Yeah but it hurt coming from you!"

The silence after that was awkward. She went pensive on me and then sighed deeply, smacked herself lightly on the legs I turned at the sound.

"I've got to go back to His Royal Highness before he wakes up!" She exclaimed sourly.

"You mean he's still asleep?"

"On my sofa, he needs to take his medicine. By the way one of the Potions I don't have enough ingredients for. Will it make a difference?"

"Which one?"

She told me and I reassured her that it shouldn't.

"So back to the wannabe Death Eater," I said panicking slightly, I wanted to keep her here a little longer, I was craving company and it turned out she wasn't bad company. Besides she was better to look at than trees. "Are you a muggle hater?"

"No I find most of them all right like in the Wizarding world, you get your bad ones, your good ones, your okay ones and the downright annoying ones. I suppose I hate Jemima a little more than I do others, but you'd hate someone who tried to flush your head down a toilet and then swear to a teacher that it wasn't her, and it wasn't even a private affair it was public humiliation there were plenty of witnesses all ready to gang up on the bushy haired freak who was lonely and friendless!" she sighed again.

I went very quiet, I once yelled at her for not being able to understand and yet it seems she would have understood me more so than some of my fellow Slytherins, I suppose that is what you'd call a faux pas on my part. A part of me could understand why I was bullied, a freaky, greasy, long nosed git. Yes I practically wore a sign around my neck going “Bully Me!” But Miss Granger did NOT! She was pleasant, helpful, kind, warm, and sensitive, in short a lovely human being yet she was bullied… like WHY? ‘You bullied her too Snape!’ a nasty voice said. ‘You made her miserable did you know that!’ SHUT UP!

"So..." I said eventually. Anything to stop the sneering horrid comments against self.

"Harry and Ron are the only two people in the world ready to accept me for who I am, they were my first ever friends in the whole world!"

I am so surprised she doesn't hate me! I should have understood her. Perhaps I did understand her, perhaps that's why I treated her the way that I did. Because everytime I looked at her I was reminded of me and that was the last thing I wanted to be reminded of. We locked gazes for a second, a heat burned inside of me, I tried looking into her mind but it was still blocked. There were things she didn’t want me to see, not wanted anyone to see.

"Anyway goodbye sir," she said looking away.

"Um Miss Granger," I said quietly.

"Yes," she said as she was getting up. Her gaze back on my face. I got up to and walked up to her.

"I feel I ought to apologise for that rather um! stupid kiss yesterday evening!"

"Rather you than Jason," she said with a little twist in her lips. She moved over next to me she placed a light hand on my chest and looked up at me. “I probably should not do this but I just want to see,” she stuttered out rather awkwardly. She pulled the front of my robes and kissed me on the lips, I let her in only slightly and she pulled me in deeper, I was about to explore her but she broke the kiss and then kissed her middle finger and planted it on my lips.

"Miss..."

But she'd apparated, leaving me alone with my thoughts another day and night alone with my demons.

I got the feeling that she told me more this morning than she had ever told her friends, haven't they ever asked her the sort of questions I did or do they assume too much on her? Potter the ever ungrateful selfish prat just like his father! Taking that girl for granted. I put a hand to my lips and her sweet subtle taste lingered in my mouth for a while.

Now a new voice entered into my brain, a new thing that twanged at the strings of my conscience. A voice to go with the face.

'I used to think you were worth listening to,' echoed round inside my head Merlin how can I redeem myself.

And is Miss Granger trying to say to me that all hope is not lost! Is Dumbledore who even in his death, still wants to bring me back to the Order by sending her to me?

Or have you Lily sent her?

Or am I just being paranoid in thinking that dead people are still watching over me and still hoping in me.

Yours ever

Severus

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