Summary: At the beginning of their sixth year Lily Evans makes a deal with James Potter, a deal that could alter the course of their lives forever, or at least, the course of Slughorn's annual Christmas party. Though Lily herself is willing to let fate dictate her choices, when all is said and done there is one man who can't help but wonder if her life could have followed a different path. Severus/Lily James/Lily

Updates are posted every 1-2 days, chapters will be around 1,000 words long, and What Reason Cannot Heal follows canon. I do not own Harry Potter. I Hope you enjoy.

"Time heals what reason cannot." -Seneca

Chapter 1

Lily stared hard at her potions book, pointedly ignoring the volley of notes James Potter was sending to rain down on her desk. She took a deep breath and brushed them aside before turning the page; though, after reading the same line several times and still not processing the words, she gave up. It had been like this all day. She couldn't remember any of her lessons, just the constant stream of folded, crumpled, and rolled up parchment that followed her like a cloud and increasingly added to her sour mood. Sighing Lily settled on staring blankly at the edge of her table, but even that was disrupted by a rogue note soaring through the air to land right in her line of vision.

She huffed and eyed the parchment menacingly. It wasn't that she was curious; she knew what the notes would say – or at least had a general idea seeing as Potter was the sender – but she had half a mind to open one just to make it all stop. Her fingers reached for the note but at the last moment she changed her mind and swept her hand across the table, intending to send it fluttering to the floor with the others.

The neatly folded message remained in place. She tugged at its corners and tried to slide her fingernails under an edge to pry it up. It wouldn't budge. Lily glared at the parchment.

Then the note began to wiggle, slowly pulling its corners untucked and opening itself on the table in front of her. Lily scowled at the messy scrawl:

Dearest Lily Evans,

As you are a prefect and a fellow member of the 'Slug Club' it has occurred to me that
you will be attending Slughorn's annual Christmas party this December. If you have yet
to find a suitable escort, would you care to accompany me?

Love,
James Potter

Rolling her eyes Lily made to crumple the note but it swiftly folded itself back into a neat square and skittered off her desk, landing in the safety of her schoolbag. She glared at the other notes on the floor as they tried to inconspicuously slip into her bag as well. No, she most certainly did not care to accompany James Potter to Slughorn's Christmas party, or anywhere else for that matter.

As Slughorn began to conclude his lesson Lily pulled a blank piece of parchment from her bag and, in her most elegant script, wrote a short reply:

Potter,

I will consider going with you under one condition: you and your friends may never
harass Severus Snape ever again.

Lily

She fought a smile as she folded the note and tossed it over her shoulder onto Potter's desk. This would end it. There was no way Potter could think he had the self control to leave Severus alone, and even if he did there was no controlling Sirius. Lily was home free.

A small gasp from the row behind her was enough to cause Lily to break out into a full grin. Lily: 1 Potter: 0

Cheers and the sharp slap of high-fives accompanied the gasp and Lily froze, feeling momentarily uncertain. She hadn't left any loopholes so there was no escaping from her terms, and there was no way Potter would be cheering about that-

"She said YES!"

Lily whipped around in her seat, her ears ringing and her face beginning to heat up, "I most certainly did not!" she retorted. "I said I would consider going with you if," she locked her steely gaze on the dark-haired boy, "you leave Severus alone. That means no pranks, no teasing, no insulting, and absolutely no touching. And, even if you manage that, it's still up to me to decide."

Potter's grin grew intolerably wide, "We won't touch him, we won't even look at him." He promised, practically bouncing with joy.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed, "we won't harm a hair on his greas-"

James elbowed him hard in the ribs. "Perfect little head," he finished, nodding slightly in affirmation.

Lily felt a small smile tugging at her lips and pressed them together so it wouldn't show. It was comical, they wouldn't last the rest of the week, let alone 'forever'. Maybe it would put Severus in a better mood though, having his tormentors off his back for a while.

James and Sirius gathered their things and were about to meet their friends at the door when James walked over to Lily's desk and picked up her potions book. She reached for the book, planning to jerk it out of his hands, but then he picked her bag up from the floor and tucked her book in carefully with her other things. "Thank you," he said, smiling shyly at her, "for giving me a chance."

"You're welcome," Lily said curtly, for she couldn't think of a more cutting response fast enough. She took her bag as he offered it to her and quickly exited the dungeons.

A/N: Because I have a dreadful habit of beginning stories and never finishing them, I'm going to use this story as a trial run of a new method. Every day I will post a new chapter, just a few paragraphs long. Though reading this story as it is written will be a little slow pacing-wise, the updates will come quickly and the brevity of each chapter will allow me to update consistently. As always I do not own anything. And I'm still a little iffy on the length. Should it be a bit longer? Shorter? If you have an opinion or just want to comment on the story please drop me a review, otherwise I'll keep all of the chapters about this length.

Also, I'm a little concerned about the flow, so if it stops making sense and it's obviously because I'm writing little disconnected shorts PLEASE TELL ME. I might not notice it myself so I need you, my readers, to be completely honest with me and let me know if and when I should scrap the project.