Hey y'all!

I realized there is a serious lack of Lily/James from Snape's perspective, so I decided I would write one.

Enjoy!

Ten Points From Gryffindor

He says it five times throughout his Hogwarts career, and they are all during seventh year.

He says it five times to Lily Evans.

He says it five times because of James Potter.

I. September

The first time is on a chilly Friday night in late September.

Lily Evans and Marlene McKinnon are sitting up in the Astronomy Tower an hour past curfew. They are seventh years and he is on patrol. As Head Girl she especially should not be out after hours with her hair all blowy in the wind and her eyes all bright in the dark, but he ignores that (even if she looks especially beautiful tonight, under the stars). When he hears the girls talking he pauses in the shadows of the doorway briefly, but not to eavesdrop (or so he tells himself).

"…how's Potter the Head Boy doing?" Marlene is a tall blonde, all legs and arms and elbows, and she stretches them out now, yanking down the hem of her shirt as she yawns.

He waits for a reply, waits for her to roll her eyes and snort out a, "What do you expect? He's Potter," but instead her face slips into a smile. And his stomach drops somewhere near his toes.

"Oh, James?" And he can see by the moonlight that her grin stretches wider at the mention of Potter's name, can sense it by the way she sits up straighter and pulls a lock of hair black under the night sky over her shoulder, twisting it between white fingers. "James is… surprisingly great, actually."

"Really now?" Marlene's intrigued; he wants to melt back the way he came, wants to obliviate himself so he will never have to remember Lily Evans talking about James Potter in such a – a tender tone, but his body won't move and he is stuck to the stone, stuck to the fall breeze and the way Lily speaks of a boy that Severus hates more than any other.

"I never noticed it before, Mar," she continues excitedly, "I never realized – I always hated him so much, you know – I never realized he was… well, a really nice person."

Her friend shoves back her layers of yellow hair as Lily keeps talking. "He works, too. I didn't think he would, but he's always there to help with prefect schedules – he even brings me food when he knows its my turn to do them – he's never slacking, and you wouldn't believe how good he is at keeping the prefects under control at meetings…"

Severus knows, and he hates it: he hates how the minute James Potter walks into the room, the rest of the prefects go all silent, like he's perfect, like he's a god; he hates how the boy flirts with Lily while it's her turn to speak, and watches her like she's his to have; he hates how whenever Potter stumbles while speaking, whatever minute pleasure Sev might derive from that immediately disappears when he rumples his hair nervously and instead of scoffing in annoyance, Lily smiles…

He hates James Potter because he has everything and still covets what should have been his, what Severus should have had, and what he has lost. He hates James Potter because every time he sees Lily and Potter together, she's always happy, laughing beautifully, with that one hint of something that's not just friendship, in the lingering green eyes and black-haired smiles, which tears his heart to pieces like an unwanted valentine. He hates James Potter because he is not arrogant or conceited anymore (anyone with half a brain can see that), and because Lily has noticed, and because Lily likes him, and Potter loves her, but Severus loves her more.

Lily has stopped talking, and Marlene is smirking: "Careful, Lily, you wouldn't want anyone to think you fancy James Potter."

She's expecting an indignant "Of course not, we're just friends," but Lily doesn't deliver.

"Oh-my-Merlin-you-like-him!"

"Marlene!" Lily hits her (but not hard), and she's smiling too widely anyways. "I… how could you…"

"You like him, Lily Evans, don't deny it."

She moves to answer, but Severus can't bear to hear it confirmed in her voice when it's already there in her eyes, so he forces himself to step out of the shadows, to lilt indifference into his tone, and to stop her before she says yes.

"McKinnon… Evans." He trips up slightly on those two syllables, but recovers quickly enough that they don't notice; besides, they're too busy rising guiltily, smothered giggles still painted across their cheeks. "It's an hour past curfew."

Lily's composure ices at his approach – it's the face she reserves for him, not the delight or even anger but just the cold nothingness that freezes him right down to the bone. She doesn't speak, instead the blonde, leggy Marlene defends them both.

"Oh, c'mon, Snape, you wouldn't take points from the Head Gi –"

"Ten points from Gryffindor, and be lucky it's not more. Maybe you should tell your Head Girl that she should exemplify better behavior on school grounds."

Severus knows he sounds like a stuck-up prick and Marlene does too; she raises an eyebrow, and Lily glares. They brush past him and down the steps, back into the warm castle. Severus doesn't move.

The ten points was too much, even he knows that, but he still wishes it was enough to pay back for the hole Lily Evans has just slammed through his heart.

II. October

It's October the thirty-first, Halloween, and he's patrolling again.

He left the feast early because he can't bear festivities (he tries to convince himself that's true), and spent the rest of the evening up in his room trying not to think about how those damn "Marauders" rigged the pumpkins to explode with sweets and little enchanted animals and all other sorts of disgustingly festive paraphernalia, which the rest of the students evidently found amusing, and how he just happened to look over at Lily right when Potter, with a couple candies stuck in that moppy hair, presented her with a small bundle of black fur which unrolled itself into a little bat, and how she laughed and petted it and looked up him and fixed his glasses and pulled a chocolate frog out of his hair and pecked him on the cheek, and he looked as though he might die right then and there, and if he needed any help with the whole dying business, Severus could definitely have helped him out there, oh yes indeed.

He clenches his fists and drives his mind away, and that's right when he hears the laughter coming from the next corridor over.

It must be almost midnight, and Sev lengthens his strides, shoving his hand in his pocket to grope for his wand; he knows it's probably just another couple, drunk from an afterparty and most likely snogging gratuitously (he grimaces), but it's better to be safe than sorry, and anyways –

He rounds the corner and it's like he's at the end of a string that's just been yanked tight, strangling all the air out of him.

Lily Evans and James Potter are sitting against the rightmost wall, shoulders almost touching, his leg propped up at a right angle against the ground, and her ankles crossed. Her hair, which flickers reddish-orange like the torches around her, is splayed across her shoulders above the too-big cloak she wears (Severus can only assume it's Potter's, and the thought drives him mad), and the two of them are sharing what seems to be a small strawberry cake. Potter holds it and she breaks off pieces, and he watches while she eats, like she's the center of his universe – Potter isn't allowed to look at her like that, only Severus, only Severus should be able to look at her like that – and they are both talking loudly, the Head Boy and Girl out after curfew, basically begging to be caught.

Sev can't decide whether to hex Potter, run away, or do both. He chooses the worst possible option and stays where he is (but he's not snooping).

Potter must have said something especially funny, because Lily laughs, the torchlight making her eyes seem even more radiant while she tugs the cloak more securely around herself. And then, hesitating only slightly, Potter slides a hand to cup her neck and tilts his head towards hers and captures her smiling lips with his own.

It's like a punch right in the chest and Severus has to fight to stay upright. His vision blurs at the edges and he tries to tear his gaze away but he can't do anything but watch as Potter kisses Lily (his Lily) and she kisses him back.

Potter drops the remains of the cake he was holding (it would be almost funny if Severus didn't want to kill him, wanted more than anything to throttle him, at that moment) to snake his other arm around Lily's waist, turning her towards him and deepening the kiss. She in turn brushes his cheek with her fingertips and threads her small hands through his hair, the cloak (Potter's cloak) slipping off one shoulder, reciprocating so thoroughly Sev wants to hit something, just to be able to feel through the pain slamming into him like tidal waves, over and over and over and over again.

He should leave, but he can't. When they break apart, and Potter beams and Lily glows and Potter takes her into his arms, he is frozen in time, a statue who cannot tear himself away from the past thirty seconds, a ice cast of Severus Snape who has never more wished he could make himself forget something he wasn't supposed to see. He wants to walk away. He should walk away.

Instead he drops into the disdain that is his safeguard and starts forward. The first steps are the hardest until Potter raises his head and sees him. He stiffens and Lily turns. They both rise.

"Snape," she says. Potter tightens his arm around her, and Severus wants to punch him. Wants to curse him to the ground, kick him and stomp him into dust. But he lets not a glimmer of emotion show and makes himself raise an eyebrow, like he's unimpressed (but secretly he knows, and it's worse because he can see that Potter knows).

"Evans. Potter."

"What do you want?" It's Potter this time. "We're not doing anything wrong –"

"It's past curfew, Potter, or can you not tell time yet –"

"Snape." Lily puts a comforting hand on Potter's chest as he starts forward. "Give it up. We were just leaving."

He ignores her because frankly he hates her, he hates how she's touching Potter when she used to despise him and he hates how she's beautiful, all mussed from kissing that bastard and most of all he hates her for making him love her and he hates how that she's capable of so easily breaking his heart. "Ten points from Gryffindor, Evans."

Potter's jaw drops: "You can't take points from us, you little – !" Lily elbows him and he shuts up. Sev's hand twitches for his wand.

"James." She says it all low and soft and pleading, and he can almost – almost – remember her saying his name in the same tone: Sev. Sev Sev Sev. But it's Potter's name and he's all 'James' now and Severus wants to smash something hard, like maybe pretty little James' head, right on that perfect nose. "Let's just go, okay?"

Severus should feel triumphant when Lily drags Potter off, an entreating hand on his shirtsleeve – and he does, for a moment – until she trails her fingers to intertwine them with his.

He doesn't turn away when they get to the end of the corridor and regrets it immediately when Potter leans down and steals another kiss from Lily's lips, and she links her arms around his neck to kiss him back. They disappear around the corner and he pivots on his heel and runs as fast as he can.

III. December

There's mistletoe everywhere and it disgusts him and Lily Evans and James Potter are dating and it disgusts him even more.

He sees them everywhere together – a short kiss on the lips before class, another after, holding hands in the corridors between, sitting together and passing notes and laughing and being so damn happy and she's always mussing up his hair when she used to hate it (hell, she used to hate him) and he's always hugging her, touching her – he can't get his hands off her – and he's louder and more joyous and more full of energy than ever before. And Sev always sees her with those bloody Marauders, who she swore she hated – with the werewolf and Pettigrew and even Black, who she promised up-and-down fourth year she would always despise.

(Not that he's paying attention or anything. No, not at all)

He's on patrol, and it's drafty enough in the castle that he's shivering while he walks – not much, just enough to wish he'd brought his cloak (to be honest, it wouldn't do much good anyways). He's passing the Head Offices when he hears a giggle that can only belong to Lily, and he doesn't want to look inside, but it's past curfew and he's hoping – maybe, just maybe – that she's with a friend, so he can let them off with a warning, and not with blasted Potter.

He should learn not to hope, but when it comes to Lily, he can do nothing but keep hoping. She does that to him – she makes him hope, it's always hoping when it comes to Lily because he knows he will never have more than that when it comes to her.

When he peers inside the door, which is cracked open, he wants to be sick all over the ground.

He hates Potter and he hates Lily and he hates himself for loving her.

Lily is sitting on the desk and Potter is standing in front of her, and they're kissing. No, beyond kissing, they're full on snogging. Her legs are wrapped around his waist and his shirt is unbuttoned. As Severus watches, numb and, incredibly, devoid of all feeling, Potter's hands find the hem of her jumper and shuck it over her head, and begin to make quick work of the buttons underneath. Meanwhile she shoves the shirt off his shoulders with one arm and pulls him impossibly closer with the other, and he finally succeeds in divesting her of her own top, pushing it away and leaning forward into her lips, pushing her backwards, his hands finding her bare waist.

Sev realizes he's shaking – the anger, the jealousy, the unfairness of the entire situation – he finds himself gripping his wand so tightly his knuckles might burst, wanting to hex Potter, to kill Potter; and all in his head he can't forget that she swore she hated him. And yet here she is letting James Potter run his hands up and down her skin and kissing him like there's no tomorrow, and Severus has never had his heart torn apart like this, never felt so absolutely powerless and alone as he watches Potter take away what should have been his; he is painfully voyeuristic because his soul is shattering while he can't tear his eyes away because she is just so beautiful and Potter makes her smile and Sev hates that Potter makes her smile, he hates that Potter is allowed to brush away her tears and kiss away her failures when all he can do is stand there.

Lily is running her hands down Potter's back, murmuring appreciatively, while his hands inch closer and closer to her chest, circling their way slowly upwards.

He can't take it anymore.

Severus throws the door open. The couple starts; Potter looks up – get off her, you bastard – and his eyes narrow. Lily, as if just realizing her half-naked state, gasps (she didn't care much when it was Potter touching her, and now she does, and the realization is a knife blade) and reaches blindly behind her for a shirt; Potter picks his up off the floor and drapes it around her in a blatantly possessive gesture – Sev tries to act like he doesn't care but it's hard, so hard. She clutches it around herself like a lifeline, and he's not affected by the fact that she'll so readily expose herself for Potter, but not for him (he really ought to stop lying to himself, though).

"Snape, what the bloody hell do you want?" Potter's still shirtless, but he doesn't seem to give a damn – he tries to push Lily behind him, but she just shoots him a look (how Severus misses that look) and wraps his hand in hers silently. Sev arches an eyebrow.

"It's past midnight and the Head Boy and Girl are engaging in inappropriate activities in a public area."

"Bullshit, it's the Head Offices! Pretty fucking private till you came around!"

"Careful, Potter, I could give you detention for that." How gratifying it would be to put Potter into detention, he ponders, before realizing that Lily would probably join him, and scowling darkly at the thought of what the two might do there, if they're so comfortable with basically shagging on a desk in the Head Offices. The thought makes him ill.

"You can't give me detention, you son of a –" Lily squeezes his hand, and Potter stops, anger rippling across his face as he runs his fingers through his hair exasperatedly.

"What do you want, Snape?" The harshness that blends Lily's voice clashes with its naturally graceful inflection and makes it grate harder somehow, and Severus can barely stand it because it's the way she used to talk to (and about) the shirtless boy who now holds her close – and now she's using it with him.

The irony is nauseating.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Evans, for improper conduct of the Head students." He spins on his heel and walks away before she can see the expression on his face – it's these things, he muses, that one might call tragedy.

IV. February

There is snow falling.

The castle is cold, but the Slytherin common rooms are even more so, and he's glad (well, as glad as possible) to be patrolling. He's remembered his cloak this time (even though it's so old it barely even qualifies as a cloak anymore) and it helps some, but it can't keep out exhaustion, and it's late.

He glances briefly out a window as he slogs past it with tired feet, and the snow still cascades from the sky, but the white world outside is not enough to cheer his spirits, because today is (was, almost) Valentine's Day.

Potter kissed Lily twelve times today (not that he was counting).

He brought her a necklace and a box of Strawberry Softs (her favorites – not that he cared).

They worked in the library until just before curfew, and he helped her in Arithmancy (it was always her worst subject) and she helped him in Charms, and they stole butterfly kisses and leg nudges, and he tickled her and she shrieked and they were almost kicked out by the librarian. When he walked past a stack of shelves at one point he saw Potter reach up for a book too high for her to grasp, and then she smiled up at him and leaned in and he dashed away before he could see the rest.

(Not that he was watching).

Severus walks on.

He's reaching the end of his patrol when he hears the voices – quiet, almost imperceptible. He listens briefly, and from just a couple words he knows it's her; there's no one else whose voice pitches like that, whose laugh echoes in his ears and makes them ring with red hair and green eyes.

He tries to steer himself in the opposite direction. He doesn't want to see her.

(But he does).

And he knows she always had a hold over him that tightened the more she tried to let go. And he can't help but move magnetically towards the sound of her happiness.

She's drunk.

It's the first thing that registers as she stammers down the corridor with her cheeks flushed and her eyelids slumping and her limbs askew. Potter's got his arm around her, holding her upright, while she staggers and totters and stumbles like a child, and yet he looks down at her as if she's the most magnificent girl to ever walk the earth (which is true) and Severus is hit by it all of a sudden, that Potter really loves her. And he's so stunned by it that he just stands there dumbly while Lily collapses to the ground in a heap and starts to giggle madly in the alcohol-induced state that she's in, and Potter kneels by her and bundles her into his arms and picks her up like a bride.

And Potter loves her.

Potter loves her, and so does Severus, but she hasn't chosen him, and somehow this is even more agonizing, because she has chosen Potter over Severus, even if Sev loves her more.

Potter straightens and sees him silhouetted at the end of the hall.

"Snape."

There's no emotion in his voice besides hardened resignation, but Lily is curled up against his chest, and she hears, and then she blinks like a cat and her eyes focus in on him.

"Sev?"

It's as if someone is twisting his insides – she hasn't used that nickname for him since fifth year, and he has to remind himself: she's drunk, she's drunk, she's drunk. Still, he has to struggle not to wince outwardly.

"Shh." Potter tucks her closer to him. "C'mon Lily, let me take you back to the common room…"

"Sev." She's sure now, and through the firewhiskey haze she squints. "James, look. It's Sev."

"Yeah, I see him." He strokes her hair softly, lovingly. "Are you all right, Lily?"

"Fine, James, I'm fine…" She laughs, but her gaiety is smothered quickly. "James. Why is Sev here?"

Potter's gaze flashes upwards, but only for a second. He can't keep his eyes off of the girl in his arms – just like Severus can't – "I'm not sure, Lil."

"I'm on patrol." Severus finds his voice; his words cut bitingly through the affection-laced air. "And it's after hours. Need I remind you, Potter, that I could give you deten –"

"James, why is Sev talking to us like that?"

Severus wishes he could put a hold on heartbreak; he wishes she would stop saying the things that patch him up but at the same time rip the seams further. "Ten points from Gryffindor, Evans, for intoxication on school grounds and being out of the dormitories past curfew. Potter – this is your last warning."

It is still snowing when he returns to his common room. He thinks so, anyways – there's no moon, and it's too dark to tell.

V. May

They say April showers bring May flowers, and yet it pours to drown the blossoms. It's just after supper and the torches cast watery light over the grounds, and grey clouds hide the sunset.

Severus sits right at the edge of the rain as it sheets down in droplet curtains, obscured under the shadow of the overhang. He toes his shoe across into the downpour and lets it seep into his socks.

Less than a month left… less than a month until he's out of this wretched place, until he's out into the world, and most importantly until Potter is out of his life…

He could almost be happy about it.

There are voices to his right.

He thinks he is hidden enough and quiet enough that he will not be seen; when he turns his head to observe, he knows he will not be noticed.

James Potter stands in the deluge, his robes sopping heavily off his body and his glasses and hair plastered to him by rain. Lily hesitates under the shelter of the stone and covers her mouth to hide her smile as he extends a sodden hand and yells over the sound of water pounding the earth.

"Come on, Lil! It's just a little rain!"

She's bright-eyed enough that Severus knows she's holding back laughter, but she resists anyways: "Just a little rain? You're mad, Potter. Completely mad!"

"You love it!" he counters with a cheeky grin. "Now come on!"

She rolls her eyes, but she's only teasing, because a second later she's shed her robe, letting it tousle to the ground, and she's taken his outstretched hand, and she's out there with him.

Sev watches as rain saturates through her white shirt, smearing it to her skin like a second layer of her soul, as her hair dampens and lengthens and tangles in wet locks, as raindrops run down her forehead and catch on her eyelashes like the tears of a fairy.

He watches as she and Potter dance, leaping and jumping and giggling like two-year-old children, and as he grabs her hands and spins her around and she squeals with the kind of little-kid happiness that only comes from waltzing in thunderstorms. He keeps watching, even when Potter pulls her close, and she doesn't even seem to care about his soaked-through everything when she pushes up his foggy glasses so she can see him better and presses her lips to his while the heavens sluice down around them, like there's nowhere else in the world she would rather be.

When they break apart, Potter says something too quiet for him to hear, and evidently for Lily too, because she shakes her head and shouts:

"What did you say?"

Potter beams down at her.

"I love you, Lily Evans!"

She curls her fingers in his hair.

Don't say it back.

"I love you, James Potter!"

His heart snaps.

The boy and the girl kiss in the rain.

Potter pulls his mouth from hers suddenly.

"Marry me," he gasps out, brushing his thumbs over her cheeks like she is the most valuable, the most breakable porcelain.

She is stunned, rakes her scarlet hair back. "What?"

"Marry me, Lily."

Don't say it.

Lily Evans does not pause. Her face breaks out into a smile so brilliant it dulls the stars.

"I would do it a million times over if it made you happy."

Potter kisses her again, and pulls her off her feet, twirling her around. The rain begins to slow. Dripping wet and exuberant, the couple falls in love as evening nestles in the sky around them.

Ten points from Gryffindor for breaking a Slytherin prefect's heart.