Spring

The grass was plush, newly born from the earth. The trees had buds again, flowers pushed up with strong stems from the dirt and the birds chirped away happily above, back from their long migrations. The chill of winter was finally gone, cold withdrawing into the earth once more and revealing the ground, fresh in its annual rebirth. Lily sat crossed legged in her yard; tending to a small violet, her hands wrapped around it carefully as she tucked it in under the folds of dirt. Under a long curtain of red hair, Lily smiled, cupping a rosebud in her hand, the small flower unfurling and closing again as if it were a lung, filling with air. She reached up brush away a fly as she stood up gingerly, gathering her tools and leisurely singing a song under her breath. Lily turned towards her home just in time to see her husband slip inside, his hair ruffling under the lithe touch of spring air as he shut the door and ambled deeper into seclusion. His wife followed, dropping her gardening tools onto the fresh bed of grass and hurrying indoors, her red hair billowing out in sheets behind.

"Hello, James," Lily cooed when she found her husband, already bent over a stack of papers and news clippings, his hands tugging at the ends of his jet black hair, "I missed you." The woman watched silently as James continued to sift through the Order's paperwork, documents that had been increasingly present during the past few weeks, murders and torturing growing more frequent as the Death Eater Rebellion blazed on. "James?" Lily urged when he did not respond, her dirtied feet shifting on the white carpet flooring below.

"What is it, Lily?" James replied, looking up at his wife's eager face, his own soured under strain and tiredness, "I'm really quite busy right now." Lily's grin sagged somewhat as she reached down and brushed the dark hair from her husband's lined brow,

"Hard day, love?" James sighed deeply and lifted his glasses up, rubbing his exhausted eyes with his free hand.

"Yes," James pressed his fingers to his temple as Lily placed her hand on his back, "I've really got to get back to work, Lily."

"Surely you can spare a moment or two for me?" The woman murmured, taking a seat in her husband's lap, a keen smirk playing on her lips. She let her fingers trace James' blunt jaw line; her movements unhurried as she attempted to entice her prey, lure him into the game they had shared in so many times before. Without waiting for her husband's response, Lily lassoed her arms around his sturdy neck and drew him close, enthusiastically kissing his lips through her smile. She savored the gritty feel of his stubble against her cheek, the warmth of his chest against hers after their time apart. James' lips remained motionless as Lily continued on, her hands roaming to his tie, beginning to undo the silken knot until her husband's hand brushed hers away like an irritating fly. Lily's freckled cheeks flamed in frustration, in embarrassment at James' blatant rejection while he stared back at her, dark circles hanging below his hazel eyes.

"Lily, you've got to understand," He explained, gently nudging the redheaded woman from his lap, "I need to finish the work Albus has assigned me. These are urgent matters for the Order-" Lily nodded briskly, cutting her husband off mid sentence,

"I know, I know." She folded her arms against her chest limply, glancing over at the pile of work on their dining table, "But I miss you. I've barely seen you in days," James wiped a hand over his mouth as Lily continued on, his patience drawing thin, "It just doesn't seem fair." The lean man bent forward over his work like a lion stooping over its fresh kill,

"This is war Lily, how can you expect fairness?" Lily's gaze did not waver from her husband's even as his tone hardened with exasperation, "I can't worry about doting over you when there are people suffering Lily, people dying." Regret tainted Lily's pink lips as she stared back, sighing dejectedly as she embraced the truth in James' words, watching as her husband curled back into his work. There was a silence in which Lily was not sure what to do, she felt misplaced in her own home, next to her own husband. "I'm sorry, Lily." James amended after several moments, his eyes squeezing shut as he soaked in his own stress, begging to go through through his papers once more.

"I understand." Lily muttered in reply, reaching out her hand and carefully stroking his black hair, watching as the dark folds rippled in contrast to her own creamy skin. Soon the woman left her husband staring down at his work, absentmindedly buttoning and unbuttoning his cuffs, an unsettled feeling tightening in his chest. He cast a sidelong glance at the door, finding that her dirty footprints remained on the carpet, painting her path long after she'd gone.

Summer

Lily opened a book on ancient runes, the spine snapping slightly as she looked inside. Her fingers delicately flipped the page, browsing the secrets of the book, breathing in the musty smell of the aged paper. She set down the volume again, walking idly down the rows of books, the path she had walked many times, every shelf in Flourish and Blotts well-known. She gathered her selected hardback tightly to her chest and took it up to the front of the store, handing the clerk a gold galleon and refusing the change politely. She left the store and made her way down the bustling paths of Diagon Alley, her shoes clicking against the cobble stone street. Suddenly, Lily's attention was caught as she passed a large display window; a beautiful periwinkle blue dress robe hovered in the window of Twilfitt and Tattings. The woman admired the fine robes, a longing smile twisting onto the curve of her mouth.

"Lily?" A voice muttered from behind, causing Lily's eyes to widen, she knew that voice; she knew that voice too well. Lily turned on her heel, her stomach twisting in nervousness as she tasted metal, her lip was bleeding. The woman dipped into her reserve of memories, lounging beneath the leafy bows of a tree, the grass soft, books tossed aside, shoulder to shoulder, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin, that voice telling her stories, drawing laughter from deep within her lungs. Perhaps it had been her imagination, a recollection echoing in her ears, a mistake. "Lily Evans?" Again the voice greeted her ears, low and beseeching. Hesitantly, Lily turned toward the sound, her hands pulling her traveling cloak tighter around her thin shoulders, wrapping her in the material, its color like the early hours of night, enveloping her like moth folding its fatigued wings. There he stood, as if it were a trick of the light, a memory projected before her, his features the same as long ago, his hair reaching his shoulders now, straight as a pin and black as a starless night. Snape took an uncertain step closer, his eyes warily surveying her as if she were an apparition, likely to disappear at any moment. "It's been so long." He murmured, his fist clenching at his side as his sentence trailed off awkwardly. Lily tore her eyes from his and swallowed forcefully, her heartbeat feeling as if it were snared in her throat.

"It has." Snape's mouth opened and then shut it again, his lips pressing into a thin line as he found he did not know what to say to her. He thought this strange, that he should be at a loss for words when he had so often dreamed of what he would say if they ever met again. After a moment of silence Lily lifted a hand in farewell and began to hurry down the street again, her hood sliding from her head as she departed, red hair glinting in the bright afternoon sun. Snape hurried after her, dodging idle shoppers in the crowed street of Diagon Alley, his gaze never wavering from the red curtain of hair before him, afraid if he lost her in the crowd he might awaken from this dream. Snape's hand floated out to the woman's shoulder, his sallow skin glowing white as a waning moon against her dark cloak. "Wait." Lily twisted around to face him, her green eyes squinting against sun; there they played like two gleaming emeralds, shocking Snape into another silence.

"What do you want from me, Severus?" Lily stared up into his face, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion, her tongue feeling heavy as it formed the question, reluctant to add the tint of impatience. Snape awoke from him stupor, she had said his name, after so many years, she had said it.

"Another chance," He whispered, his voice cracking in desperation, "Forgive me, Lily."

"You speak about forgiveness as if it were easy." Lily replied crossly as she began walking again, Snape hurrying behind her through the crowd.

"I was wrong," The pallid man admitted, trailing behind Lily like an abandoned pup, "There isn't a day I don't regret what I said to you. But it was so long ago; surely you can forgive me now." Lily turned into onto a side street, the sun blocked out by the tall buildings on either side; the two stepped further into the dim alley, "Lily?"

"I've forgiven you for that long ago," Lily stammered, her eyes surveying the man suspiciously, "But that doesn't change what you are, Sev. What you've become." Snape's mouth opened in desperation as the woman backed away toward the entrance,

"I'm not what you think I am," He lied, his jaw tensing as he spat out his caustic dishonesty, "I'm not a Death Eater." Lily stared at him in disbelief for a moment and then strode forward, her eyes determinedly locked on his,

"Do you swear that's the truth, Sev?" Snape swallowed forcefully, his brows furrowing together as he considered telling her the truth. But he could not find the courage, he did not have the strength to watch her leave him again, have her torn from him like awakening from a heavenly dream into reality.

"Yes." He sputtered, his gut lurching as Lily's eyes softened in acceptance of his lie, as her hand reached out to his, brushing his waxy palm for a hesitant moment and then falling away. "Things can go back to the way they were now," Snape offered, his desperate hope swirling into a muddy mixture with guilt, his hand blindly stretching out and taking hers within it, folding around her delicate fingers like a sunflower closing against the moon's rays.

"I've married him, Sev," Lily withdrew her hand from Snape, her voice unexpectedly sopping with remorse, "I've married James." Snape's face fell into an abrupt frown as he processed what she had said. She'd married him; after all she'd seen him do, after the many years of his chastising and pranks.

"Potter?" Severus scoffed resentfully, stepping away from Lily somewhat, his voice burdened with a pained bitterness, "I always thought you had better taste, Lily." Lily's cheeks blushed with anger at Snape's mocking tone, with humiliation at how her heart still leapt with every word expelled from his lips.