Without Warning

CHAPTER FOUR: Snape's Best Memory.

Severus Snape eyed Lily Evans across their desk with the utmost dislike. Not only did he have to attend stupid Divination classes on Dumbledore's orders, but he'd also been unwillingly paired with a Mudblood. The outrage of it all! Fortunately, the feelings seemed to be mutual by the look of loathing she was returning. Well at least that was something. At least she wasn't teasing him constantly, or embarrassing him in front of the entire school, Or, for that matter, following him around like a bad smell like that stupid little Gryffindor Phoebe Parker had been dong recently.

It seemed Lily and Snape had an unofficial agreement of talking as little as possible and getting the job done quickly. She was rather pretty too. Pity that she was a Mudblood Gryffindor.

'Now class, I want you to take turns at reading each other's palms. Look for certain criss-crossing features in the heavily etched lines of the palm, for they are the ones that foretell the future,' Professor Yen said sternly.

If possible, she was even stricter than McGagall. She wasn't your typical Divination professor at all. Climbing into a Divination class one would expect to have their senses assaulted with a heavy aroma of nauseatingly sweet vapours or faint lulling music. But not under Professor Yen's watch. No sir, she was rather partial to calling that the 'namby pamby' side of Divination, and liked to tell the class rather frequently that she was not having anything to do with it.

Lily cleared her throat. 'Shall I go first then, Snape?'

'I'd rather we didn't make bodily contact, Evans.'

'Look, we're going to have to do it if we don't want detention with this wench,' hissed Lily across the table to a sour-looking Snape.

'Fine. Give me your hand ... but - but wipe it clean first.'

'It is clean, Snape.'

'Do you want to do this or not?'

'Fine,' Lily scowled at Snape. Not breaking eye contact with him, she wiped her hand hastily on her robes. She then thrust her hand across the table at an unsuspecting Snape who jumped slightly at her forceful action.

Snape wrinkled his nose at her pale, fine-featured hand that was now sprawled oresting on his half of the desk. He sighed loudly, eyeing it unpleasantly. Lily rolled her eyes at his displeasure; he was acting like Petunia.

Looking over Snape's shoulder, something shimmering caught Lily's attention. She looked closer to see it was Potter's glasses reflecting the light. He was laughing jovially with Sirius Black. No doubt they were making up crazy stories about what lay ahead in their futures. She noticed that they really did look and act similarly.

Almost like brothers.

As Snape reluctantly picked up Lily's hand, he hadn't noticed that she was still watching Potter and Black. Snape stared concentrating at one deeply etched line on her palm while she paid no attention to the task at all. He noticed how two lines came within close proximity of each other yet never touched. Finally they entwined only to come to an abrupt halt after a few centre metres. As one desperate sigh escaped from her lips, Snape felt a jolt of confusion. Then heartache. Love. Joy. Life. Then desperation. Pain. Screaming. Darkness. Finally a deep, saddening deathly silence.

Death.

Snape's head instantly snapped up to look at Lily to see if she'd felt anything of what he'd just experienced. But she wasn't paying attention. Her eyes were fixated somewhere else. He turned his head to see what was so interesting. No, it couldn't be. She hated him possibly more than she hated Snape himself. He looked back to Lily again. Her eyes were still fixated on that same person.

James Potter.

Slowly, her gaze left Potter and focussed back onto Snape.

'See anything interesting?' Lily asked. It was a widely known fact that Snape was extremely good at Divination.

'Only the outcome that one would hope to see for a filthy little Mudblood.'

Lily's eyes widened in shock and she wrenched her hand back towards herself. She wasn't going to let some stupid Slytherin punk and his venomous words get her down. She was stronger than that.

'You know, this whole "Mudblood" thing is getting kinda old. I suggest you come up with some new material, Snivellus.'

Usually, that name alone would have caused a complete uproar and quite a few hexes on Snape's part, but not this time. For he had all the 'new material' he needed. He'd seen it all.

He sneered back at her to see she once again had her gaze fixated over his shoulder.

'Rather fetching, isn't he?'

Lily, stunned at Snape's comment, looked at him again in shock but then raised an eyebrow.

'I didn't know you were the type to go for athletic Gryffindor jocks Snape, but by all means be my guest.'

Snape just smirked.

James Potter and Lily Evans did sound rather catchy, he decided. Yes, there would be love - an extreme, undying and very powerful love. But there would also be great pain, despair and death.

It was all so clear to him now.

The powerful connection that would become James and Lily Potter would also be their downfall.

********************

'Indigo, I'm telling you it was so weird! I mean we all know that Snape can be a malevolent little twerp, but seriously, it was more than that this time. It was like he had some sort of ... sort of satisfaction dancing in his eyes,' Lily explained anxiously to Indigo while they were sitting in their dorm room later that night.

'Did he call you a Mudblood again, because serio -'

'I don't care about that! Indigo, I think he actually saw into my future. We all know that he's really good at Divination. Dumbledore wouldn't have made him take the class if he hadn't wanted to, otherwise.'

'Lil, I think you're over reacting just a smidgen. I mean, did you see or feel anything weird happen to him when he was reading your palm?'

'Well uh, actually... I wasn't paying attention.'

'What were you doing?'

'Just watchi - I mean, I was just day dreaming.'

'Oh. Well I guess that's understandable when you have Snape as your partner.'

'What's so wrong with Severus?' A voice rang out through the dorm.

Lily and Indigo both turned to see that Phoebe had just walked into the room and was now standing in front of them with her hands on her hips and an expectant look on her face. Lily thought she distinctively looked like a miniature McGonagall but thought better to tell her so. Phoebe wasn't really known for her humour, more her lack there of. Her twin Grace was the more the carefree, humorous type. Sometimes, Lily found it hard to believe they were even related, let alone twins. They looked nothing alike. Grace had bouncy curls of light brown and fascinatingly sparkly blue eyes. Phoebe, on the other hand, had dead straight long dark hair and dark piercing eyes.

'Well?' She scowled.

'It's just that, uh...' Lily began, but couldn't think of a good explanation.

Thankfully, Indigo being the type to not let anyone intimidate her, jumped in.

'Oh, come on Phoebe, everyone knows that Snape is a basket case.'

'Severus is not a basket case! He is a highly intelligent individual that is just misunderstood!'

Indigo scoffed while Lily let out a snort of laughter.

'Misunderstood? You're kidding me, right? And I'm not even going to get into that 'highly intelligent' comment with you,' said Indigo, finding it hard to hold back the laughter now.

'From what I'm hearing I'd say you may be jealous of our relationship, Indigo,' said Phoebe indifferently.

'Okay one, if I was jealous you'd know about it. Two, there's no way in Hell I'd be jealous of Snape or you for that matter in any way at all and three, what relationship?'

'The relationship we started when he said 'yes' when I asked him to come to the Celebratory Ball with me.'

'You asked Snape?' Lily asked astonished.

'And what of it? He's a nice guy.'

'No he's not! He's an absolute idiot, not to mention a Slytherin!'

'I'm not going to put up with this abuse a minute longer! You know, sometimes I think I was sorted into the wrong house!' Phoebe shrieked in a high-pitched manner as she mard out of the dormitory.

'I wish she wasn't in this house,' muttered Indigo as she and Lily looked on in awe at the now closed dormitory door. It was the second time that week that one of the Parker twins had left them standing in amazement.

'How...Why...Ew!' was all Lily could muster.

'What are we celebrating, anyway?' Indigo asked suddenly.

'What do you mean?'

'Well, it's called the 'Celebratory Ball'. What are we celebrating? The dark times?'

'I don't know,' said Lily softly, sitting back down on her bed. She liked to avoid talking about the dark times and this new dark wizard Voldemort at any cost. It seemed to hit her especially hard as she and her whole family were muggles, and that seemed to be whom he was targeting.

'Anyway, about this Snape problem,' began Indigo. Lily snapped out of her train of thought at the mention of this subject. She knew something definitely had been strange about that lesson. Snape had seen something, whether he was letting on about it or not. She'd felt his hand jerk away just a bit too suddenly, even for him and she'd seen that look in his eyes - a cold, satisfied look.

He knew something.

And she was going to find out.