Ooooooh!

Brilliant talk overall. It's not bad that they couldn't discuss everything. These things take time to proceed further. I actually love how Lily is giving Severus the reigns, so to speak.

She knows that he's been following her lead before. So she's giving him her trust and making sure that she won't force him into anything.

Brilliant characterization! Very well done!

This chapter was so well done.

You've matured Severus' character and you showed how much he's learned after he was forced to take step back and see the full picture.

The way he's had a hard time to accept everything he's seen is realistic. Of course, every revelation he's suddenly realized goes against some of his views. Lily being the light in his life, for example.

It's actually good that he's accepting it all.

Very well done!

Oooooooh, I like the twist in Petunia essentially reconciling with Lily. I do not know if this will last since anything could happen but I'm hoping for the best.

I actually love how Petunia notice all these things her sister doesn't because she's aware. It just gives more to her character. I've always found her to be an interesting character, especially from the deleted scene in the Deathly Hallows Part 1 where Petunia basically told Harry that she still cared for his mother.

"You didn't just lose a mother that night. I lost a sister." I don't know if that's the exact phrase but I think you get the idea.

I really love the way we get more details of how Lily is finally noticing the prejudice in Gryffindor.

Very well done!

Oooooooh, a very interesting beginning.

I actually like the way you've established the characters here. Lily and Severus are completely well written here. You've made a level of maturity into Severus that's very interesting to see. You even showed it with Lily noticing the mature feel of him.

I also like how Lily is beginning to see the gray world. Not everything will go the way she wants it to. She's beginning to let go and just do what feels right.

I like how Severus adviced her to make the choice that she feels is right. I honestly believe he's so well trained to contain his feelings that he's also reached a maturity since Lily didn't accept his apology. He accepts her choice and is giving her the complete control on how it's gonna go.

Very well done!

Well, I guess you're not continuing this; but it's clear that Severus is still Lily's doormat.

Well, Lucius is dead on. At this point, Severus really doesn't have anything to lose, because Lily is likely to drift back to James if Severus doesn't make any kind of move. Oh, she might be upset at first-there's a song called "Friends" with the phrase about not looking at her that way, and they're just friends-but this particular Lily 'drifts' without really knowing what she wants.

And it's about time that Sev stops being the eternal doormat. We all saw how well that worked for him.

Ah. As Severus backs off, Lily moves in...maybe he should keep on being cold and detached a while longer.

Oh, who are we kidding? He's going to be her doormat forever, we all know that.

Wonderful story! Please don't abandon this one! I really love it. Hope you update soon.

Whoa. This is some deep conversation. Notice that Lily sees the girls who look at Sev, and they do exists (though Severus doesn't believe it, what Lily sees is true), while Sev notices the boys who talk to Lily.

And yes, I always wondered if Lily was only the thrill of the chase to James, and once he'd had her, he'd leave off if she made it clear she wasn't serious about him. In fact, I wonder if James thinks that Lily only pretended to hate him to lure him in. But that being done, it's clear that Lily isn't in love with James the way she was in canon.

Severus has really grown up during this year without Lily, and I hope Lily understands that. But it looks like Lily has grown up, too.

This was a good conversation, except Lily never did address why it's ok for her to hang around the Marauders and why it's bad for Sev to have friends in Slytherin; Lily always gets the good end of the double standard, and Sev the bad end, and that pretty much has to stop. Because the Marauders almost *did* kill Sev, and she refuses to acknowledge that.

And if she dumps him for James, Severus isn't going to forgive her or stay in perpetual love with her. He's already more connected to Slytherin than he was before because of her dumping him the first time. He won't forgive a second one.

Of course Severus expects to be rejected. His father abuses him and his mother allows it-she rejects Severus herself rather than face what her life has become. She rejects life itself, it would seem at times.

But at least he sees Lily more clearly, and is less likely to let him trample him the way she has in the past. He's grown that much strength. If she rejects him again, it won't break him like it nearly broke him before.

He's still nervous going to see her, though, because the basic and enduring trust he had in her is gone.

I really love this scene between Lily and Petunia. Lily has to realize that if she hurts Snape too much, he really will be gone and won't be back-in fact, he really shouldn't give her this much of a chance, except of course he will. Petunia has also seen that Lily uses Sev as a scapegoat for things, especially like when both of them invaded her room and found that letter-and Lily blamed Sev alone for it.

Petunia did Lily a service, though-Lily was likely to go back to her old patterns of treating Snape like a doormat. It is nice that Lily finally realized that Sev got flack from Slytherin for being with her-though she probably won't admit that Sev probably gets it worse.

Touching moment with her mother

Listening for more than half a decade to James saying he was worthless, and having his friend chose him, couldn't have been a good thing for his personality. That doesn't mean that it was not a good plot device for a fic, however.

I laughed a little while reading Snape's reaction to Lily telling him about James. My mind went to Harry and Ron's reactions to Hermione and Krum/Harry and Ginny and Dean, respectively. Thinking about them losing their virginity to Draco Malfoy (we don't have really an equivalent to the Marauders, arguably in term of viciousness, and certainly in terms of effectiveness) made me think that, well, they always called Snape the spiteful one who couldn't let go of things, wonder how they would react to him taking the news in stride like this ;)

Regarding his reaction, it was much more collected than what one would expect given his traditional depiction (much more than Harry's or Ron's). Maybe even a bit too self deprecating. I don't really to call it personal/private, if that is meant to imply that he should deal with it on his own and keep those emotions bottled up. Then again, being outspoken about your feelings is not something one is obliged to do, either, and he was a tad reserved.

Besides the pride thing, which would naturally be there, I think that there would be other aspects to the question. He was there for most important experiences in Lily's life: discovering she was a witch, first day in school, etc. He was not by her side for her first time, and to make matter worse the one that shared that important moment with her was his worst enemy, someone who abused him and made a point to make him feel as if his existence was insignificant. An important part of Lily's life, and someone he would like to have never met was between them like a shadow.

Then there is the golden boy/one on top. James Potter was a golden boy, I don't think Snape ever wanted to be. On the other hand, he was never resigned to be seen as his inferior in canon, despite James doing everything to convince him of that fact. In practice, the rich kid was able to easily get everything Snape could have wanted easily, and in the end even Lily, the love of his life, chose him. He was able to get everything Snape would have given his life for, and then discarded it -Snape's dreams were just a stepping stone for him-. In practice, Snape always lost to him, and yet never thought that, him being on the bottom, was something that he should just accept: he realized that it was not his problem, that he was not worth less than James, but that those around them had a problem: that a rich, privileged kid had such a huge advantage over a poor, disadvantaged one, and chose to destroy the one less fortunate, to boot. That society decided to reward the former giving him everything he wanted nonetheless in a tragedy, the universe kicking him in the nuts -and something to be angry about-.