Author's note:

thanks for taking the time to read my new story. This story bunny wouldn't leave my mind for some days now, so I have decided to give it a try and write a fanfiction about it. I'm currently battling a severe case of writer's block with my other stories and hope that this new story will help me to get new inspiration for my other stories. I hope that you will like my story outline. As I'm a non-native English speaker, constructive criticism regarding my grammar and/or spelling mistakes or my writing style is always appreciated. I try to improve my writing skills due to writing stories, so everything will be helpful. Therefore, just leave me a review or PM with some pointers of what I should improve. Positive reviews or PMs are naturally also appreciated ;-). As this is a "work-in-progress" and I post right after writing a chapter, I don't know where this story idea takes me and when I will finish it. Hence, any suggestions for my plot, character development or writing topics are greatly appreciated. If you come up with something, please leave me a review or PM.

I will try to post new chapters weekly. I guess it would have been more intelligent of me to finish my other stories first, but this plot bunny somehow wouldn't leave me alone. Sorry ;).

This story is rated M because it contains adult language, themes, and suggestions. It is non-canon, AU and plays in the Marauders Time.

I don't own any characters, they all belong to J.K. Rowling.

Have a nice day,

Vani12

Prologue – Ice Cream can't heal all heartbreaks!

Lily's flat, Kensington, Muggle London, December 1978

Lily Evans stared angrily at the front page of the Daily Prophet. Normally, she could only laugh about the insane head-lines and false gossip stories that this yellow press paper produced. But despite the lies and bad journalism, she read it every day to keep up to date with the going-ons in the Wizarding world. Although the insane maniac Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters were currently terrorizing the Magical world with their attacks on Muggle-borns, raidings of Muggle villages and destroying of shops in Diagon Alley, the Daily Prophet played these attacks down and wanted to reassure their readers of the strength of the Ministry of Magic and their law enforcement. Instead of reporting every life lost and every newly developed dark spell and poison so that the magical citizens could raise their vigilance and protect themselves with countercurses and antidotes against the Death Eaters, they wrote stories about the Wizarding upper-class and the bureaucratic new laws of the Ministry. Lily shook her head. No wonder that the Order hadn't enough supporters and members when the majority of the wizards and witches closed their eyes to the beginning war in their world.

But Lily's ire wasn't directed at the dreadful journalism of the Daily Prophet today. If she could burn a hole into the paper with her eyes, it would have already combusted into ashes. The headline read in big bold letters "Love match of the decade – Prince heir and Fawley heiress wed" and featured a beautiful black-and-white picture of a stunning bride and a handsome groom. In the moving picture, they were embracing each other tightly and laughing in the camera. From time to time, they caressed each other's arms and faces. The bride, Olivia Fawley, looked breathtaking in a cream-colored, lace, mermaid wedding dress that fitted her figure like a second skin and emphasized her super-model curves. Her diamond jewelry sparkled in the winter sun and her beautiful flower bouquet of roses, chrysanthemums, and belladonnas looked freshly picked. But the most stunning feature of the bride wasn't her dress, jewelry or huge diamond wedding ring, it was her beaming smile and looks of absolute happiness and love. She looked so in love with her husband that it broke Lily's heart. For the handsome groom in his fitted black suit, white dress shirt, and grey waistcoat that beamed at his wife in pure bliss and love was her ex-best friend, Severus Tobias Prince.

Seeing him caressing the rosy face of his supermodel bride, putting a loose honey-blonde curl behind her ear, whispering sweet nothingness in her ear and embracing her tightly around her waist, shattered her heart into million pieces. She would have never expected to see him looking so in love and carefree in front of a camera. If she didn't know for sure that this handsome, happy groom was the angry, socially awkward, gangly, teen Severus Snape, she wouldn't have believed it. His normally unkempt, greasy black locks looked glossy and smooth, his pasty spot-littered skin porcelain and spot free and his yellow crooked teeth pearly white and straight. He had trained his gangly svelte form into a muscular figure in their sixth year and dressed in fashionable clothes ever since. He looked so far away from the neglected boy of Spinner's End with the lonely obsidian eyes, pitted clothes and low self-esteem, that it nearly blew Lily's mind.

Some part of her was proud that he had managed to defeat his dark inner demons, escape the poverty and abuse of Spinner's End and battle his self-confidence issues. He had been devastated after their fall-out in their fifth year, begging her to be his friend again and to not leave him to a world of despair and loneliness. Although his huge puppy eyes, tear-stricken face and anguished voice had nearly compelled her to forgive him, she couldn't forget his insult. Mudblood. It was the vilest name to call someone of Muggle heritage in the Magical world, for it abased a human being based on their blood status and classified her as some lesser human being even inside the Magical world. This insult had cut her to the quick and combined with his dark friends and his obsessive studies in the Dark Arts she couldn't accept his apology and be his friend anymore. In the meadows down by the park so many years ago, he had promised her that having non-magical parents wasn't an issue in the Magical world. He had discouraged her fears of being not fully accepted in both worlds with a simple "It makes no difference" and given her the feeling that he was the only one who understood her fully.

Hence, this betrayal out of shame, humiliation, and anger destroyed her trust in him and turned her image of her best male friend upside down. She knew that Severus could be impulsive, bad-tempered and proud, but she hadn't known that he could be cruel to her. He obviously had wanted to cut her the deepest and he had succeeded with it. Merlin, she knew that she should have defended him more against the Marauders' who had bullied him relentlessly four on one and her Gryffindor girlfriends who had looked at him as if he was scum on their shoes, but she had desperately wanted to be popular and fit in at Hogwarts. If distancing herself from her childhood friend, questioning his obsession with the Dark Arts and laughing at some jokes of the Marauders' was the way to achieve it, she had gone along. Replaying this terrible day by the lake again in her mind, she realized that she had stepped in after it was too late and after the beginning of a smile had graced her lips. In Severus's eyes, it must have seemed like she was laughing at him, tormenting him with his bullies and letting her closest friend suffer in humiliation.

She could understand that he needed to lash out at her now. She hadn't been an innocent shinning angel on this day and she wished that she could take the uplifting of her lips back. Hell, she wished that she had accepted his apology and became his friend again, for Severus had been the most important person in her life. Seeing him so devasted and in pain because of her unforgivable nature, let a thousand pieces break inside of her heart. But she had been a stupid shallow schoolgirl whose girlfriends adviced her to cut all ties with her childhood friend. They had warned her that he would only pull her onto a dark path with his dark curses, desperately seek for approval and abusive family background. She was so naïve to listen to them, believe in James's and Sirius's accusations of him being a Death Eater in the making and write him off as a lost cause. Although she had missed him like mad and cried into her pillow every night for several weeks, hidden under a Silencing Spell so that nobody could hear her heart-wrenching sobs, she had learned to live without him. But the hole inside of her heart, the memories of their silly childhood games and juvenile adventures, hunted her till today. She even wore his gift to her sixteenth birthday, a delicate silver necklace with a doe charm, hidden under a glamour every day.

She knew that she had nearly broken Severus, for he had been depressed and aggressive for some weeks following their friendship break-up. He hadn't bothered to show up in many classes, started more fights with the Marauders and broadcasted an "I don't care"-attitude. Only the intervention of Madame Pomfrey and Olivia Fawley had saved him from getting addicted to the Dark Arts and throwing away his life. Ironically enough, his break-down after their failed friendship had been the starting point of the great love story between him and Olivia. Olivia Fawley, a rich pure-blooded Ravenclaw mastermind, had been his godsend. She had helped Madame Pomfrey in the hospital wing, founded a Debate Club at Hogwarts and been a genius in Charms and Herbology. Besides her kind nature and keen mind, she looked like a supermodel – honey-blond long beach weaves, captivating chocolate brown eyes, luscious rosy lips, Greek goddess-like facial features, and an hour-glass body to kill for. She had been the wet dream of many boys at Hogwarts and the envy of many girls because she dressed in fashionable, expensive clothes and traveled around the world during the hols. She was Mother Teresa and Venus in one strong witch's body and had had a secret crush on Severus Snape since their fourth year.

Lily had noticed how she would blush pink at him whenever she helped Madame Pomfrey treat his injuries, tried to cheer him up with a funny story and complimented him during their study sessions in the library for his quick wit and brilliant mind. Merlin, she had been so obvious when she glanced in awe at him with her huge doe eyes, tried to move closer to him while studying a Charms tome and even gifted him a new Slytherin scarf for Christmas. Naturally, Severus had been oblivious to her subtle attempts at flirting and cut off her personal questions with snarky remarks. He had only had eyes for his books and his best friend, although he had included Olivia in his close-knitted group of friends and even gifted her a self-brewed Laughing Potion for Christmas after he had shyly accepted her present. Lily had been aware that Olivia wrote to him during the hols and spend some Hogsmeade visits with him in Hogwarts debating the merits of Herbology and talking about the useful knowledge of the Dark Arts.

Olivia's plus as a friend to Severus was that she didn't judge him for his interest in the Dark Arts, encouraged him to train his Potions and Mind Magic abilities and even comforted him without asking questions when he had been in a bad temper or depressed. Lily had regarded their slowly forming bond with jealousy, for she had been the center of Severus's universe before Olivia had decided to make a move on him. Naturally, Olivia hadn't really been approaching Severus on a romantical level, for she was quite shy and hadn't wanted to risk their tentative friendship by blurting out her feelings to him. With ire and envy, Lily had noticed how she wormed her way into Severus's heart. She had gifted him a new Potions set to his sixteenth birthday or asked him for tutelage in Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts in exchange for galleons because she wanted to become an excellent Healer and needed high grades in these courses. By quitting her friendship with Severus, Lily had basically cleared the field for her. Although she could nowadays acknowledge in the deepest hidden places of her heart that she loved Severus, she had written him off as her awkward best friend turned first kiss in her teenaged years that had chosen the wrong path and hadn't been worth fighting for. He had hurt her deeply and she hadn't been able to see the gentle soul of the boy in the angry teen. How wrong she had been to ban him of her life.

She would have never guessed that he could become this self-confident, strong and happy wizard that worked as a strategist for the Order and had cut all ties with his Slytherin friends. Especially not after she had dealt him the blow of ending their friendship. But Severus had risen out of the ashes like a true phoenix with the help of his mum, his girlfriend, and his brilliant mind. Lily didn't know the details of his romance with Olivia, but she suspected that she must have encouraged him to distance himself from the bigotted Slytherin Pure-bloods who had only looked down at him and wanted to use him in their evil plans for the Wizarding world, appealed to his thirst for knowledge and academic brilliance so that he advanced his studies more than ever and focused all his energies on creating new potions and spells and suggested a physical and emotional make-over for him that resulted in a glossy-haired, white teeth sporting and spotless Severus walking back into Hogwarts in their sixth year. Suddenly, he had walked through Hogwarts with a confident regal walk instead of shuffling through the corridor with hunched shoulders, kept his temper in check whenever the Marauders attacked him instead of lashing out at them and integrated himself in a mixed-houses group of friends instead of hiding lonely under a tree.

Several students had rubbed their eyes in disbelief when he had helped bullied underclassmen, laughed carefree with his friends and had even gone to Hogsmeade wearing stylish black slacks and a dark green dress shirt. After the winter hols, it had become obvious that he was dating Olivia. They walked hand-in-hand through the corridors, pecked each other on the lips and searched the closeness of each other. They became the most gossiped about couple at Hogwarts and their love for each other was a topic that made many girls swoon and many boys roll their eyes. The first time she had seen them kissing behind an armor, she had felt a deep stab in her heart, for she couldn't chase away her romantic feelings for her ex-best friend. In a way, seeing him with another girl opened up her eyes for what a catch he truly was and how much he meant to her, but Lily knew that she couldn't win his love at Hogwarts and destroy his happiness. She had never before seen him so happy, self-confident and in love that she decided to not intervene with his happiness. She had squashed her feelings for him, got closer to the Marauders and developed a crush on James Potter. Severus and Olivia had floored her when they announced their department to the United States to study at the Merlin University in New York City. They had achieved their N.E.W.T.'s with flying colors one year early and had both received a studentship in the USA. While Severus took a degree in Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts, Olivia studied at the medical school to become a Healer.

Lily had tried to part with Severus on good terms, but she had been too cowardly to write him a letter or request a meeting. Besides that, her mum had informed her that Tobias Snape had moved away to Leeds and Eileen had returned with Severus to her pure-blooded parents in their sixth year. Hence, she hadn't been able to encounter him at his home in Cokeworth and say goodbye. Therefore, she had bid farewell to him in her mind, focussed herself on gaining supreme N.E.W.T.'s in Charms and thrown herself in a whirlwind romance with James Potter. Merlin, she had even accepted his marriage proposal in front of the whole school on their graduation day at Hogwarts, because she hadn't wanted to embarrass him with a "no" and thought that he was the ideal husband for her. Perhaps, the fact that she had read about the engagement of Severus and Olivia two months before, had played a role in her decision.

She had nearly crumbled the Daily Prophet, spilled her orange juice over the Gryffindor table and let out a shocked scream. Thankfully, she had distracted the curious onlooking students by citing that she had misread the headlines and thought that there had been a Death Eater attack in Cokeworth. Her excellent acting skills had helped her out on that, albeit she had felt like crying her eyes out and cursing Merlin for her missed chance at love. Seeing Severus and Olivia smiling at her as newlyweds, Lily realized that the pain in her heart hadn't gone away. Her heart broke all over again, for she had built a dream world in her mind where Olivia and Severus wouldn't walk down the aisle and live happily ever after. She hoped that her broken heart could be healed by her favorite walnut ice cream and fetched one cup from her freezer. Gulping it down in big spoons, it began to dawn on her that ice cream couldn't heal all heartbreaks.