Something to Celebrate

Something to Celebrate

Severus Snape was not looking forward to coming of age. He was most certainly not in the mood for celebrating. Lily Evans would have known exactly how best to spend one's seventeenth birthday. Every year, Lily had taken it upon herself to show him that, somehow, his birthday was worth honouring. But, in his sixth year, he knew that Lily would not bother to remember his birthday. Severus and Lily had not spoken in months. Yet, Severus could not stop himself from remembering all the birthdays he had had in the past five years. Each one had been marked not by the fact that he was a year older, but by his relationship with Lily.

*

In his first year, Severus had not expected anything from Lily. He was eating breakfast alone at the Slytherin table when she slid gracefully into the seat opposite him.

"I remembered a week ago that your birthday was coming up," she said cheerfully. "I had no idea what to get you, but I had to do something, so...happy birthday, Severus."

She extended her arm across the table, offering him a hand-made card. Severus blinked at her, unsure of what to say. She had remembered his birthday. A week ago.

That night, he sat up in bed studying every detail of Lily's birthday card. She had carefully drawn a picture of herself carrying a stack of presents and offering Severus a large bunch of balloons. She had charmed the card so that the drawings moved around the parchment, apparently trying to find a suitable place to begin unwrapping the gifts. Inside the card, Lily had written a simple message:

Severus,

Happy birthday! I hope you have a great day and a great year.

Your friend,

Lily

Severus stared, transfixed, at the card for hours, reading Lily's brief words over and over, more times than he could count. His eyes always lingered on the word "friend". Lily Evans was his friend. His. She sat with him when he was alone, talked to him, remembered his birthday. Severus placed the card on his nightstand, where it stayed for weeks. Eventually, he tucked it away in his trunk. Six years later, he still knew exactly where it could be found.

In his second year, Severus eagerly anticipated his birthday, hoping that Lily would present him with another card inscribed with perhaps a slightly longer message for him to examine and devour. Instead, she gave him a large box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. He found himself briefly disappointed that she had neglected to give him a card. But, it was hard to feel anything except happiness as he walked with her across the Hogwarts grounds. Severus and Lily sat by the lake, resting their backs against a grouping of rocks near the shore. Lily suggested that Severus pull out the box of every flavour beans. They spent hours laughing and talking as they carefully examined every bean, sorting them into three groups: Probably Delicious, Safe to Sample, and Avoid at All Costs. Lily dared him to try a particularly questionable pale brown bean. It turned out to be a mouth-watering maple fudge flavour. Lily laughed and said that this clearly meant that things were not always as they seemed.

In his third year, Severus had nearly forgotten his own birthday. He hurried down the corridor trying to distance himself as much as possible from Potter and Black who clearly had no idea that it was his birthday, not that it would have made much of a difference.

"Sev! Hey, Sev! Slow down!"

He turned around to see Lily hurrying toward him, clutching a package in her arms.

"Honestly. It's your birthday. You deserve to take it slow. Where were you going in such a hurry?"

"Potter."

"Ah."

She understood instantly and hastened to change the subject.

"Well. Happy birthday," she said as she handed him his present. She had carefully covered his gift in shiny green wrapping paper. He supposed that this was meant to represent Slytherin but his first thought was that it matched her eyes. He began to carefully peal away the green wrapping but Lily grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

"Not now. I'll tell you when. Later," she said with a mischievous smile.

Later turned out to be later that same day. She came up behind him as he sat eating alone at the Slytherin table. She grabbed the back of his robes, tugging him off the bench and away from his plate.

"Lily, wha-" he stammered.

She did not reply but continued to lead him out of the great hall, through the castle. They were headed for the dungeons and the empty potions classroom.

"Alright," she began when they reached their destination, "you can open your gift now."

Severus reached for his book bag and extracted the package that had been waiting there all day. Gently, he eased off the wrapper to reveal a thick, leather bound book entitled, 100 Potions to Brew at Your Own Risk. Severus looked up, inquiringly, at Lily, who was beaming at him. She took the book from his hands and began flipping through it rapidly, her eyes closed. She allowed the book to fall open on one particular page and then held it in front of his face so that the writing was at eye level.

"That one!"

Severus stared at her blankly.

"But- we shouldn't. Professor Slughorn..." Severus trailed off. Lily wasn't usually one to defy the rules but she seemed positively delighted to be in the dungeons, unsupervised, late at night.

"Well. It's your birthday," she explained matter-of-factly, as if this was a valid excuse for potentially dangerous rule breaking. She had her back to him now, bending over Slughorn's cabinet, rummaging for ingredients. He watched her dark red hair fall over her shoulders to conceal her face.

Like every other potion in the book, the one Lily had chosen had no title or description. The page merely listed ingredients and brief, rather vague instructions that would have thoroughly confused the average third year potions student; however, it was absolutely no trouble for Lily and Severus who casually tossed ingredients into the cauldron, confident that they knew exactly how to prepare this unknown potion. When they finished, they both peered cautiously over the rim of the cauldron.

"Is it supposed to look like boiling water?" Severus asked.

"No idea. There's no description, remember? Perhaps we made a mistake?"

"Mistake? Potions? Us?" Severus inquired. He couldn't help but smile at his own joke. Each potions class, he and Lily effortlessly achieved flawless results. Professor Slughorn had taken to calling them the Dream Team, something that annoyed James Potter to no end.

"We aren't drinking it," Lily warned.

"Obviously."

Suddenly, the cauldron full of the seemingly innocent hot water began to bubble and shake. Severus and Lily simultaneously backed away from the potion. The cauldron erupted like a volcano, except that, instead of molten lava and hot ash, the explosion consisted entirely of-

"Sev! It's snow! Oh alright, I was actually worried for a moment."

She was right. Large, fluffy flakes coated all visible surfaces, rapidly consuming the classroom.

"This isn't a potion! It's more like a practical joke," Severus muttered. "If you wanted to make it snow you could use a charm. And at least that you could control, this is just...everywhere."

"I think that's the point of the brew at your own risk part," said Lily as she flipped to the very last page of the book. "Oh here- right. Well, it will disappear on its own when it melts, so...so...that's it, then. Unless..."

Her voice trailed off but she was looking at him carefully, her eyes shining beneath the snowflakes that were now resting on her eyelashes. She slowly bent down, picking up a handful of snow. She turned her back from him as if she was going to walk away and then whipped around suddenly. The snowball hit him squarely in the chest, covering the front of his robes in glittering, white dust.

Severus Snape had never imagined himself taking part in a snowball fight, least of all one that took place in a dungeon classroom. He never thought that it could be something he would enjoy. He was wrong.

In his fourth year, Severus sat by the lake, staring at the calm, black water for any sign of the giant squid. He momentarily glanced towards the castle and caught sight of the red headed figure making her way across the grounds. He turned swiftly towards the lake, trying very hard to appear as if he had not seen Lily and was not eagerly waiting for her to find him. Indeed, it was always Lily who found him when he was alone.

"Hey you! No hiding on your birthday!"

He got to his feet when he heard her call. She was already very near to the rocks. He stood facing her but she did not make eye contact. He followed her gaze to the object folded neatly in her hands.

"I wasn't really all that sure about this," she began. "I- I didn't know if you would ever want to wear a scarf and I haven't seen you with one, but I saw this in a Muggle shop and it really reminded me of you."

He looked down at the scarf, watching her fingers trace the pattern stitched onto the charcoal coloured wool.

"I know red and green remind most people of Christmas, but when I saw this I thought of Gryffindor and Slytherin and...and," she opened and closed her mouth several times as if she wanted to say something else. The fine red and green lines ran diagonally across the scarf, intersecting.

She stood on her tiptoes, draping the scarf around his shoulders. Her fingers gently brushed his neck as her elbows came to rest against his chest. Lily looked at him with what could only be described as a shy, tentative smile. Without warning, she threw her arms around his shoulders, pulling him towards her, hugging him tightly. He was not sure how to react, but he slowly lifted his arms to wrap them around her waist. His heart hammered against his ribs with such force that he was positive she could feel it as he slowly slid his right arm upwards until her hair brushed his fingertips.

"Happy birthday, Sev," she whispered. He could feel her warm breath against his neck. He expected her words to end the hug but she continued to hold on to him. He gently rested his chin against her forehead, closing his eyes.

In his fifth year, Severus sat alone in the library, convinced that this would be the year that Lily would fail to recognize his birthday. Their relationship had changed; it simply felt different. Severus new it had everything to do with his growing friendship with Avery and Mulciber. He wished he could explain to her how it felt to finally be included in a group, to be part of something greater than he was. Yet, over the past few weeks it felt as if they had barely spoken. Although they still walked together, studied together, there was an odd formality to their conversations.

"Hey!"

Severus jumped violently, upending a bottle of ink onto the table. Embarrassed, he reached for his wand to clean up the mess but Lily was already aiming her wand at the table, siphoning the ink away from his books and parchment.

"Come on. We're going to Hogsmeade," she said simply, without taking her eyes away from the inky table.

Severus stared at her. They had skipped all other Hogsmeade weekends this year in favour of getting a head start on their O.W.L. revision. Studying aside, Severus had been certain that Lily was growing progressively uninterested in being around him.

"It's your birthday. I'll buy you lunch," she said, smiling at him for what felt like the first time in several long weeks.

"I-I need to finish reading this," he said pulling a random book towards him.

"Yes, Sev. I'd forgotten how terrible you are at potions," Lily replied sarcastically, wrenching his copy of Advanced Potion-Making from his grasp.

The walk to Hogsmeade was fairly pleasant and Severus was just glad that Lily made no mention of his Slytherin friends. She seemed determined to keep the conversation neutral; however, by the time they reached the village they had already exhausted the topics of potions, O.W.L.s, and the weather and had then lapsed into an awkward silence.

Lily led the way to a small restaurant that was rather off the beaten path and thus less frequented by Hogwarts students. They sat in a booth near the back wall. Severus expected Lily to sit opposite him and was quite surprised when she slid in beside him.

"It's j-just that, that..." she trailed off. He looked at her, her green eyes brighter than normal. "I don't want, I-I...Sev. I'm so, so worried about you. I don't want you to be involved in this, in something that just seems, well, flat out dangerous!"

He wanted to reassure her, tell her that he knew what he was doing and that, in time, she would understand; yet, he could not say anything at all. Lily had taken hold of his hand, under the table. She slowly intertwined her fingers with his, giving his palm a gentle squeeze. Severus had lost his ability to speak.

They held hands until the first course came.

*

Severus lay curled up under the blankets in the Slytherin dormitory. He had drawn the hangings around his bed, not wanting to speak to anyone. Severus was trying very, very hard not to imagine exactly how he wanted his seventeenth birthday to unfold. Nevertheless, it was almost impossible for Severus to keep Lily from his mind on a regular day, and the word birthday had grown to be almost synonymous with her name. Severus shut his eyes tightly, no longer forcing Lily from his mind. After all, tomorrow was his birthday.

He would be sitting by the lake, his back against the usual group of rocks near the shore. Lily's arrival would be a surprise. She would silently kneel beside him.

"I remembered a week ago that your birthday was coming up," she would say softly. "I had no idea what to get you, but I had to do something, so..."

Her voice would trail off as she moved closer, slowly reaching out, placing a hand on his forearm. She would smile and catch his eye, raising her eyebrows as if daring him to imagine what would happen next. She would lean closer still, lowering her gaze from his eyes to his mouth. Instinctively, he would pull back ever so slightly, unsure of what to do and more than slightly afraid. She would be very close now, inches away, and he would take a deep breath and close his eyes. Her lips would touch his ever so gently and he would remain perfectly still until she pulled back just enough to read his expression. She would be able to tell, just by looking at him for a moment, how very much he wanted her to continue kissing him.

"Happy birthday, Sev."

She would lean towards him once again, and he would eagerly close his eyes in anticipation of the warm pressure of her lips against his. They would be kissing in earnest now, touching noses, foreheads, her hands slowly tracing his arms and coming to rest on his shoulders. Without warning, he would feel her tongue on his bottom lip as she parted his lips with her own. Finally, their tongues would meet. Summoning courage he did not know he possessed, he would wrap his arms around her back, lifting her gently onto his lap. She would smile and sigh against his lips, and he would hold her as tightly as he could, positive that she was the best possible birthday present.

On his seventeenth birthday, Severus Snape hurried along the corridor hoping to reach Transfiguration without having to speak to anyone. He kept his eyes fixed on his shoes, ignoring the rush of students around him as surely as they were ignoring him. Suddenly, he felt his left elbow connect with someone moving past him in the opposite direction. Reluctantly, he looked over his shoulder at the person whose path he had been obstructing.

He was face to face with Lily. She carried an armful of textbooks and Severus knew that she must be on her way to Charms. The Gryffindors had first period Charms every Wednesday. He had memorized Lily's schedule every year and, despite almost eight months of silence between them, sixth year had been no different. Severus was about to continue towards Transfiguration, sure that Lily would have nothing to say to him, yet, something in her green eyes prevented him from turning away. She stared at him for what felt like an eternity before smiling politely, yet earnestly.

"Happy birthday, Severus."

She had remembered. Given the circumstances, it was the best he could have hoped for.