Okay! First of all I would like to say that I do NOT own any of this! The characters and story and everything else that has to do with Harry Potter (which is everything in this story) belongs to the one and only J.K. Rowling Also the Severitus Challenge (of course) is all thanks to Severitus.

And so starts the story:

The Secret

Prologue

The shadows danced off the wall of the dark alley eerily as a young woman leaned against it heavily. Her damp red hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, her green eyes dulled with sadness instead of the sparkle that once shone there. Lily Potter shivered amongst the cool October air. She had done something unforgivable. Yes, the once prefect and Head-Girl at Hogwarts had done something wrong…very wrong.

She had cheated on her husband.

Lily still didn't know why exactly she had done it, she just had. One moment she had been at the Three Broomsticks with her old school-friend, Severus Snape and next, she had woken up in bed, naked.

At first, she had thought that Severus had drugged her or something due to her memory-lose of the previous night but…but.. She shook her head to clear it, her red hair flying in a mass of curls. Why wouldn't Severus do that? She hadn't seen him since graduation, after all. Lily mentally chided herself. How could she even think of Severus doing something like that?

Lily had known Severus for nine years, ever since she had been eleven. They hadn't really been that good of friends, him being a Slytherin and her being a muggle-born but in their sixth and seventh year, they had taken a liking to one another. Lily knew that Severus wasn't a bad person; he had just made a mistake. An, unfortunately, rather big mistake driven by pressure from his friends and family, but a mistake that he wished he could take back. She knew how much her old friend had so regretted the horrible choice to become a Death Eater.

But Severus had been only sixteen and with the persuasion of his parents, with their threat to disown him (or kill him) and the worry of his housemates abandoning him (or kill him), what else would he have done?

Of course, his family then got rather mad at Severus for conversing with Lily in their later years, even if she was a Ravenclaw, the only house Slytherins even remotely got along with, she was still a 'filthy mudblood.'

She could clearly remember the endless nights after her friend's initiation; he would meet her in the dead of night, when his other 'friends' weren't around, pale and shaken after a recent Death Eater meeting. He'd been so closed up after the first meeting, having endured a Cruciatus Curse for the very first time, and Lily had had to brew a Post-Cruciatus Potion, since he outright refused to believe that Dumbledore wouldn't turn him into the Ministry. And after all the meetings he had in his last two years at Hogwarts, well, she could brew a Post-Cruciatus in her sleep. Her lips twitched despite the circumstances as she remembered her Hogwarts days; how stubborn Severus had been! Even after he had become a spy for Dumbledore, he never went to Poppy.

But finally, after being forced to kill a muggle boy, he had poured his heart out to her, and slowly, slowly began to trust Dumbledore enough to turn himself in.

Lily really didn't know the true reason as to why Severus had finally turned himself in, except that whatever he had been forced to do, it had scared the shit out of him, and made him violently ill. She could remember that night so clearly.

Severus had stumbled blindly into their usual meeting place, the Room of Requirement, over an hour late and more ashen then she had ever seen him. But before she could have welcomed him, he had shoved her aside and headed for the toilet, which had appeared only moments before, to empty his stomach. She remembered the flutter of fear she had felt in the pit of her stomach as she had stared at her usually indifferent and collected friend. And Severus had cried that night. It was the first time she had ever seen him cry before, and probably the first time he ever had cried.

Lily shivered. In her last years at Hogwarts, she had somehow felt connected to Severus, even when she had fallen in love with James Potter, and had known that whenever Severus was concerned or afraid, that she should be too. He had been her best friend, something as a mix between a twin and a soul mate, though not in a romantic sort of way.

But, why? Why did Severus have to hurt her so?

What had happened that night? James had been on an assignment for the Order at that time and she had been left alone when Severus had owled her, asking her to meet him at the Three Broomsticks for dinner. He had been…….strange, almost as if he had just walked out of a muggle cinema with that dazed, confused look on his face. She should have known something was wrong with him, and Lily frantically searched her memory in any recollection of leaving Severus alone for him to slip something in her drink. She couldn't recall…..no, wait! She had went to the lavatory that one time…

Lily took a deep breath and put her face in her heads, trying to fight the sobs that were rising up from within her. 'Oh, why, Severus, why?' Carefully, she slide down into sitting position and tried to collect her thoughts.

There had to have been something wrong with him. Severus wouldn't have….would he? What if he had tricked Dumbledore and was really for the dark side?

She shook her head furiously. 'Get it together Lily!' her inner voice snapped, and she took a deep breath, struggling to control her trembling. 'You have a baby to think about now, even if it isn't James's.'

Her thoughts reverberated through her head and she let out a frustrated scream, collapsing to the ground and sinking her nails into the hard soil, scratching vainly at it, searching for something, anything, to take her frustration out on.

'Life is tough, Lily,' she remembered her mother telling her on her graduation day. But back then she had been so flushed with happiness, glowing with pride at receiving valedictorian and a special award for Charms as well as being voted the kindest girl in her class. And she had been in love, fresh with ideas of how she was going to spend the rest of her life with James. Oh, the dreams she had had back then! To lead a successful career alongside her husband and then to settle down and raise children together, watching them mature, growing old together.

But reality had given her a hard smack no matter how well she had prepared, starting with her parents' murder not even a week after graduation, leading up to her sister's eternal hatred with the blame of their parents' death weighing heavily upon her…

'They're dead, Lily! Dead! All because you had to be a freak! All because you had to go to that freakish school!' Petunia's voice echoed through her ears. 'You stay away from me, freak! I hate you! And you're not going to get Vernon and I killed like you did our parents!'

She hadn't seen Petunia since then. While they hadn't been the closest of sisters, they certainly hadn't hated each other. Lily knew she had been jealous but Petunia's true hatred was fueled by the fact that their parents had been attacked by Death Eaters because Lily was supposed to have visited them that day, but had canceled plans at the last minute.

Petunia hadn't even come to her wedding.

But she was right, it was all Lily's fault. Her fault that she just had to go to Hogwarts, just had to experience the wonderful world of magic, just had to get engaged to James Potter, whose family were well-known activists in the war….

Lily scrubbed furiously at her swollen cheeks. 'You don't regret it,' her inner voice said, and she agreed, hating herself for it. 'Your parents would have gladly given their lives to give you this opportunity.'

Lily took out an emerald green handkerchief and dabbed her eyes carefully.

'Life is tough, Lily.' She thought of the full-blown war that she had stepped into the moment her and her classmates had left the safety of Hogwarts, of the confusion with Severus, of James's hatred of her old best friend and what her husband would do if he found out she was pregnant with 'Snivellus's' child, and most of all, she thought of her future baby she now carried.

What would become of him? Would it even be a him? Would he be great? Would he make the same mistakes his parents had made? Would his mother's husband hate him?

So very many questions about the baby she carried, so many complications. But….she couldn't help but feel awed, amazed that there was a little someone growing inside of her. There was a person in her! Someone who was going to grow up and make himself/herself a somebody. She had life inside of her.

Would his own father want him?

Lily paused at the last question as she recalled a conversation she had shared with Severus years ago.

"Tons of children. Tons! With a big house and a large yard for them to run around in," Lily had said toward the end of their seventh year, her eyes glazed with dreams of living a wonderful, flawless life with James. Severus snorted. "Sentimental woman," he had muttered under his breath. "If I ever have a child," he paused to take a breath. "It better not be a girl." "And what if it is?" Lily had countered. "Are you just going to give her up? Plus, little boys can be a handful too." Severus had fallen into silence and Lily had known that he was reminiscing of his own neglectful father before admitting finally. "I will be lucky if I even have a child."

Somehow she felt confidant, a rush of tranquility. Yes. Severus will want this child. He would make a good father, giving his son or daughter everything that his father never gave him. Including love.

Lily's lips managed to curl into a small, hopeful smile, before it faded as a shadow of thought filtered into her mind.

Voldemort.

Severus was a Death Eater, a spy. He couldn't have a child with a muggle-born. He'd be killed for sure.

Voldemort.

She hated that name! Hated it! The name that brought such hopelessness and sadness to a world of people, just hoping to survive with their family.

'This is what happens when someone is unloved,' she thought bitterly though her bitterness was directed not at the Dark Lord, but at the world itself. The world had morphed Tom Riddle into Lord Voldemort, the world was a cruel, cold place, something that a little orphan boy who was abnormally powerful but regretfully discriminated against because of his blood, could never hope to find his way in.

Voldemort.

She felt pity for the monster. This was the product of the wonderful world they lived in. And because of the cold, uncaring government they had, millions of people, muggle and magical alike, had been brutally killed.

Lily sighed and slowly stood up, regaining her composure, her hand now wrapped around her abdomen. As much as it pained her to do this, she couldn't tell Severus. Not now at least. Not until he was safe enough for him. She would tell him, maybe once he was relieved of his spying duties or the war died down a bit. But not now. She had a child to think about now.

James….

'I have to tell him,' was her first thought. James would understand……eventually. He loved her. He always had. It was just Severus that she was worried about him killing.

She'd tell James, but not everything. One day, once the war died down a bit and Severus knew, she'd tell him everything, but not now.

She had a child to think about now.

Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had to protect her baby. Somehow, someway, she had to. 'He can be James's child,' her inner voice said. 'He is, after all, your husband and you two can have children together. It would make sense.'

Swallowing, Lily stared down at her still flat stomach.

Life.

'I have to do this.'

"Well, then, baby," Lily whispered to her stomach, tears forming in her eyes once again. "How'd you like to be James's child for a while? Just a little while, and then you'll meet your real daddy." She swiped at the tears and rasped in a choked voice, "Just for a little while, baby, I promise, only a little while."

'Life is tough, Lily.'

Lily stared up into the heavens as a soft rumbling of thunder broke the silence followed by the gentle pattering of rain starting to fall. Lily stood there, out in the open street and closed her eyes as the rain soaked her, savoring the cool precipitation that numbed her entire body.

'I know, Momma.'

A/N Okay, so this is the revised version because the original wasn't really that good. Tell me how it is. R&R