Title: Clear As Crystal
Author: TalesOfSnape
Disclaimer: All writing is on a non-profit basis, purely for entertainment purposes. Use of any non-original material within any stories in no way implies ownership, be it from Harry Potter or any other book, film, television, musical or other source.
Pairing: Lily/Severus (one-sided)
Rating: Teen - not because it's smutty but just because it's a bit on the bitter and twisted side.
Summary: A present, a misunderstanding, a turning point.
Warnings (if applicable): Nope, no smut.
Author's Notes: This was the first fic I ever wrote which featured Severus. It was written for Valentine's Day 2007, and predates Deathly Hallows.
Thanks to Bambu345 as well as to my original beta, Geyer. Geyer hadn't been one hundred percent when I wrote this, so I asked for a volunteer to beta and Bambu offered, but as things turned out I got a beta-ed version from each of them within minutes of each other, so I've picked up things from both of them.
And yet more thanks to spike's_lady for her help making everything as canon compliant as it's possible to be when canon seems to vary so much from edition to edition, book to book within the series and even within the same volume.

It was not a true lily, not genus lilium, and the perfectionist in him wished that it could have been, but sacrificing a technicality had been preferable to sacrificing the exotic, graceful lines of the single bloom he and nature had wrought between them. The elegance of the calla lily.

He had tended a dozen bulbs for over two months now in a quiet corner of one of the greenhouses, using a combination of magic and careful cultivation to coax them into bloom half a year before their time. Finally, on a chilly February evening, he had chosen the most perfect of the blooms and begun its transformation from ephemeral beauty to work of art. He could, of course, have chosen any one of the flowers to work from. It would have been no great feat to erase any minor flaw in the course of the flower's transfiguration but it would have made it unworthy, both of him and its eventual recipient. So, instead, he had picked the perfect flower and for the last three nights had hidden away in his dungeon dormitory, ignoring his dorm mates' crude taunts that if he hid behind his bed hangings any longer it would drop off. Laboriously, he changed the silky wax of its petals and crude cellulose of its stem into a sculpture of delicate lead crystal, making it a fitting token of a love that would not fade with the season.

He flicked one edge of the champagne flute blossom with a fingernail and a high constant note as pure as that produced by a tuning fork resonated in the air for seconds before slowly fading to nothing.

It was done.

---

His fingers trembled as he tied the box to the leg of one of the school owls. He did not pretend there was any chance the present would impress Lily so much that she would return the feelings he had for her. At best, he hoped she might see it as a gesture of penitence and forgive him for his words, one word in particular, on that disastrous afternoon nearly two years ago.

He enclosed no note. There was no need. Fewer than half a dozen students in their year could have produced the bloom. One of them was Lily herself, another, her friend, Alice. Black and Potter would never emerge from their mutual admiration society for long enough to actually dedicate the necessary time to anything other than Quidditch, and Longbottom's affections were known to be focused elsewhere. Besides, while Severus hoped that his offering might go some way to bridge the gap between Lily and himself, there was just as much chance that she might reject it out of hand and, if she did so, word was eventually bound to reach the dungeons. Better by far that he should retain some deniability.

If Potter and his bullies could make Severus' life miserable when he ventured out into the rest of the school, it was nothing to the 'accidents' which might happen behind the closed doors of the common room or the dormitory. It wasn't easy to get by as a half-blood in the house of Salazar Slytherin, and it was only the fact that his mother had tutored him early and intensively, not only in Occlumency and Legilimency, but also in duelling, which allowed him to be more than a whipping boy for his pure-blood peers. The fact that, from the first, he had been able to hold his own against much older opponents had meant that, for the most part, they picked other easier targets on whom to vent their ire and even treated him with a grudging respect. It also did no harm that his pure-blood mother had excelled enough in her time at Hogwarts to be noticed by the original followers of the Dark Lord, even though she had been several years his junior, or that Severus had nothing but contempt for his Muggle father. Severus was useful and they tolerated him... but only so far.

A pure-blood like Sirius Black might stray from the fold. Still, he would be welcomed like the prodigal son by his many cousins, aunts and uncles the instant he found a suitable bride. A half-blood had everything to prove. They could barely afford to be seen speaking to someone from another house without their loyalties coming under scrutiny. They certainly couldn't allow a Muggle-born witch to defend them in public. Their affections, should they have the temerity to declare any, should be for the pure-blood princesses who would sooner bathe in acid than allow one as tainted as he to touch them... unless generations of inbreeding made the girls so unappealing that no pure-blood male would have them. Half-bloods had to be seen to toe the line at every turn. This token of his affection broke that line to smithereens.

It was one thing to risk the status quo if there was a chance that she might forgive him. He'd made up his mind. There were only four months left. If he could gain her friendship then he would pay whatever price might be necessary. In six-and-a-half years at Hogwarts she had been the only person to treat him as an equal, as someone who had a right not to be persecuted. She almost made him wish that he'd been sorted into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw instead of his mother's old house, but it had been far too late for such futile regrets by the time that awful day had dawned.

She had sworn that she wouldn't speak for him again and she hadn't, but all through his sixth and seventh years she had been there, in every class. She hadn't needed to speak. Just her presence had kept Potter and his pals on best behaviour... and, though it had taken him the longest time to realise it, him too. Those years had been heaven and hell.

For five years, house was all. There may have been occasional lessons where one might share a class with one of the other houses: Herbology with Hufflepuffs, Potions with Ravenclaw, Care of Magical Creatures with those thrice-damned Gryffindors, but no more than a few hours a week with anyone who wasn't a Slytherin. It wasn't that he hadn't noticed her then, but in such a bi-polar group there was always an abundance of reminders as to why Gryffindors and Slytherins didn't mix.

Then, suddenly, all the houses were mixed together, but in twos and threes and fours rather than them on one side of the room and us on the other and she was everywhere with her quick humour and her equally quick wits, her lustrous russet hair, her easy smile and her impossibly green eyes... and she shone.

Carrying the bird to the window, he launched it into the great beyond. He watched it swoop downward until it disappeared around the side of the building. He swallowed, his mouth dry, and then he set his features into their customary mask of indifference and steeled himself for the walk down to the Great Hall, where he would have to face whatever consequences his actions might bring.

---

The usual influx of owls seemed to have doubled or tripled. They swept into the hall in a wave so dense that it almost blocked the watery early morning sun from the illusory sky. A barn owl separated from the mass and dropped down to the Gryffindor table, landing right between Lily and Alice before side-stepping over to the larger girl and holding out its leg for her to untie the package it carried.

She grinned at her boyfriend Frank, who sat across the table. "Shhh, Tiberius," she said as the bird nibbled affectionately at her busy hands. "I'm going as quickly as I can. I suppose it didn't occur to you not to use your own owl?"

"And upset poor Ti when you'd know they were from me anyway?" Frank asked.

Alice had ripped off enough of the wrapping paper to know that underneath it lay a box of Honeyduke's Premium Chocolate Truffles when the screech owl arrived. It landed awkwardly, gripping the rim of the jug of pumpkin juice which teetered to one side before settling back on its base, the owl flapping its wings to steady itself so that everyone leant back out of its way before it settled on its perch. It twisted its head to hoot dolefully in Lily's direction. The slender package had been attached so that it couldn't simply drop it as it flew by, but tied firmly to its leg with a six inch length of silver ribbon.

Lily had to stand up and bend over to unpick the knots around its ankle. As the last knot came undone, she caught the crimson box just as it began to drop. Straightening up, her eyes met the unfathomable darkness of those belonging to Severus Snape, but it lasted only a fraction of a second before he turned his sneer on a third year Slytherin who had been so uncouth as to yelp her surprise at receiving a card.

Lily looked up and down the table, but James and Sirius were nowhere in sight, only Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin, neither of whom seemed to be paying her any particular attention, so she decided it might be safe to open the parcel. If this had been James' idea of a joke, you could bet that he and his closest friend would have made sure they had ringside seats.

She tugged the ends of the wide, silver-mesh ribbon bow until it melted away and then freed the box from the loops that had held it tightly closed. Carefully she lifted the lid from the box and gasped in surprise at the sight of the fragile bloom resting on a bed of tissue paper. She lifted the flower out, turning it this way and that in the light, and then allowing her fingertips to trace the lines of its petal, almost dropping it in surprise when the stroking motion and the slight sheen of nervous sweat on her hands were enough to coax the crystal to sing.

Frank let out a low whistle and cast an apologetic glance in Alice's direction. "Guess that makes my puny attempt at romance look like the booby prize."

Alice pulled the rest of the gift wrap from her own present and leaned forward to grab Frank's hand and squeeze it in her own. She would have kissed him if the table hadn't been too wide. "Chocolates work just fine for me, love," she answered. "And, besides, it's not like you have to make up for seven years of being a self-obsessed idiot."

"You think so?" Lily sounded unsure. She looked around again, and this time she spotted James and Sirius, strolling into the hall with just enough time to grab a cup of coffee before class. James grinned broadly when he caught her looking and when he reached the Gryffindor table he walked right on past Remus and Peter and kept on coming.

"Sugar!" Lily swore, as she realised he and Sirius were heading right for them. "Do you really think it's from him?" she hissed to Frank.

"Who else would it be?" Frank whispered back. "He's been besotted—" He stopped abruptly and nodded to the two new arrivals.

"Lily was just admiring her Valentine's gift," Alice said to James and Sirius in a conversational tone that only sounded slightly false.

Lily ducked her head and developed a sudden interest in her cereal as James and Sirius dropped into the empty seats next to Frank.

"Merlin's beard!" Sirius exclaimed, scooping up the flower from the table, and examining it with the efficiency of someone used to handling porcelain and crystal the way some people handle plastic picnic sets. "You sly old dog!" He punched James on the shoulder hard enough to knock him a couple of inches to one side. "This must have taken days. When did you find time to do that, Prongs?"

James looked down at the table, his hand crushing the card he'd been carrying in his robe pocket, mangling it.

"I was saying to Frank that someone must feel they've got an awful lot to make up for to go to that sort of effort." Alice looked pointedly at James, who was still staring at the table. "Say a certain Quidditch player?"

"What? Huh?" James looked up, first at Alice, and then at Lily, who had lifted her head enough to watch him through the curtain of her hair, her eyes curious and just a hint of a smile touching the corner of her mouth.

His breath caught in his chest as Lily slowly raised her head, her smile slowly broadening, and even as he hated himself for it, it was obvious what he had to do. "What did you think I was going to give you?" he asked in an ironic tone. "Some crappy card with a tacky poem inside? Roses are red. Violets are blue. I want to go to Hogsmeade with you. Like Alice said, that was hardly going to cut it."

Lily smiled broadly. "Yep, actually, I did think that would be more your type of thing," she admitted, "...if you actually bothered at all rather than just expecting me to get in line to fall at your feet."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," exclaimed Sirius, waving his cup of black coffee around. "The poor git's done his penance. Just put him out of his misery and tell him you'll go to Hogsmeade with him tomorrow!"

Lily swiped the flower back from Sirius and returned it to its box before placing the package safely in her book bag and getting to her feet. She flicked her hair back over one shoulder and picked up her bag while she waited for Alice and Frank. It was only as she was walking away that she looked back at James' hangdog expression and told him, "Alright."

---

Severus had the dormitory to himself. Everyone else had already gone to Hogsmeade. He had watched them leave from the library window, Potter and Lily walking hand-in-hand. He couldn't help feeling a total fool. She'd never even given him so much as a look. There had been no forgiveness for him, no gesture of friendship that might somehow eventually have led to something deeper. No, as always, though he'd done nothing to deserve it as far as Severus could see, Potter had won the prize.

He kicked open the lid of his trunk and with one flick of his wand the thick sheath of parchment that had been his application for a post in the Department of Mysteries floated up into the air. A second flick turned it first into a ball of flame and then a drift of ashes floating softly down onto the stone-flagged floor.

His path was clear now. As clear as the fact that Lily had been just as easily fooled as the rest of them. As clear as the fact that Slytherin and Gryffindor really couldn't meet. As clear as a crystal flower. There was no point in choosing a career that might keep her close, no need to worry about whether she'd approve, just every need to ensure that when he left this place he'd never need to see her again.

And, if he ever thought again of that day by the lake, his regrets would be that he'd been so caught up in his exam revision that he'd neglected his laundry until the only clean underpants he'd had left were the ones which had been washed with his black robes by mistake, or that he'd been so focused on his exam paper that he'd let Potter and his friends catch him unawares. He'd never again think that the worst thing about that day was the instant that he called Lily Evans a Mudblood. He would quite simply forget Lily Evans had ever existed.

No doubt the scholarship that Abraxas Malfoy had offered him would come with hefty strings attached, but it also came with a three-year sojourn in Eastern Europe. He picked up everything he needed from his bedside table and made his way to the common room where he claimed a table and began work on his letter of acceptance.

Additional note: Tom Riddle began his Hogwarts career fifty-three years before Harry began his. In HBP, Harry's book is 'almost fifty years old'. If we assume that it was bought new by Eileen Prince at the beginning of her sixth year this might place her as little as four years behind Riddle, which certainly makes it possible for her to have been contemporary with some of the younger siblings of Tom Riddle's followers and makes it more than possible with Slughorn's propensity to invite returning alumni to his parties that she would have known of and be known by the original Death Eaters.