Who: Severus Snape & Lily Potter
What: Awkward un-funtiemz!
Where: Diagon Alley
When: Today!

There were few things Severus Snape hated so much as Diagon Alley.

There were even fewer things that Severus Snape hated so much as Diagon Alley during the holidays, when it was crowded and seemed to be fuller of stupid people than usual. Aside from his work in the apothecary, he avoided the need to step outside the shop as far as possible. There were, unfortunately, a few things that one would be unable to find anywhere else, especially in terms of time and money saved.

On this particular day, Snape was to grace Gringotts with his presence, with the intention of adding a rather hefty deposit to his vault. After having pushed his way through several congregations of people and constantly weaving between twos and threes and their infuriatingly slow paces, Snape was becoming increasingly careless about navigating through the crowd. If people simply stopped coming to socialize, he constantly thought, and merely to finish their business, a trip to Diagon Alley might err on the side of efficient. Now, he looked about annoyedly, it was simply a large hole in his daily schedule.

He knocked shoulders with someone solidly, whipping his head around to glare or snarl for the idiot to be on his or her way, before all thoughts of doing so vanished when he saw whom he had jostled.

"I'm--sorry," Snape's eyes darted to the ground, so as not to actually lay eyes on the redhead before him, "that was... careless."

"Oh no, you're fine, I'm sorry---"

Lily rushed to apologize to whomever she had just knocked into as she dropped to the ground to pick up the book she had been reading. Honestly, she should have known better, reading while she was walking through Diagon Alley. It wasn't even a book she should have had bought or had out anyway, all things considered--a pretty pastel volume on all of the secrets of pregnancy and babies was a rather obnoxious giveaway to the fact that she was pregnant, something that she and James had decided they would not tell anyone about for at least another month. But! She had been in Flourish & Blott's earlier that day looking for Gilderoy Lockhart's new novel and had spotted it out of the corner of her eye next to the counter and one thing lead to another and before she knew it the book was sitting soundly in her bag.

No one would see her, right? And when she just couldn't take the excitement of having a baby book any more and hadn't been able to stop herself from opening it up right in the middle of the cobblestone street, that wasn't her fault, right? Okay, so that was her fault. But really, what were the odds of her seeing someone she knew?

Pretty high, apparently. As Lily stood up and straightened out a couple of bent pages on the book, she happened to look right up into the face of the last person she had ever imagined she'd see. Or run into, as it were. "Oh---Severus... Hello," she said, her voice coming out slow and awkwardly stiff. After all, how did you address someone with whom you'd been best friends but had a huge falling out with and hadn't seen for almost two years, during which time you'd married and were pregnant with the child of the one man he truly wished would jump off a cliff and die a painful, bone-breaking death?

It was a very tricky situation, to be sure.

But no trickier than Severus could handle, of that he was sure. That was a confident and healthy way to regard the situation, was it not? And something that Snape had been accused of not being in past. Whatever the case was, it did not matter, for seeing her after so many, many months did not faze him in the least.

"Lily," Snape bowed his head slightly, dragging his eyes up from the ground unwillingly to look at her face.

Well, what did faze mean, really?

And just what was the proper protocol for greeting the wife of your most treacherous enemy, the same woman with whom you'd fancied yourself in love with for as long as you'd known her?

To put it rather crudely, hell if he knew.

Perhaps if he had a semblance of social grace, he could reminisce about the old days, and how wonderful of a time their days spent in the hallowed halls of Hogwarts were. But you see, Severus Snape possessed no social graces, and the last thing he wished to remember was how he had allowed Lily Evans to be snatched away from him by the one person in the world he could not abide having her.

But this was not Lily Evans, oh no. This was Lily Potter, and, so far as he was concerned, wanted as much to do with him, as he did with her. Nothing.

Alas, perhaps our defiantly reluctant protagonist could have fooled himself into believing that, had his eyes not slid to the book she was clutching in her small hands, the word pregnancy emblazoned on the cover in unbecomingly large print.

Try as hard as Snape might, there was no removing his eyes from the ugly, offending sight. A quick glance at her midsection revealed no telltale evidence, but with the clothing she had on, it was next-to-impossible to discern. He merely raised his eyebrow with a polite sneer on his face, expression expectant (ha…).

"Enjoying your… shopping?" his eyes slid to the book once more.

The question caught her off guard. Lily hadn't been expecting an acknowledgment of who she was, much less an attempt to start up a conversation. After all, hadn't Severus always been rather deficient in the department of social skills? What were the odds that he would want to start up a conversation now, and with her? If she had to recall all that she knew about the man in front of her, she would have thought that outright avoiding her and slinking away would have been the gut reaction at such a time as this.

Either way, however, he had surprised her. Enough, at least, that she forgot for a crucial moment what she was holding in her hands at the time. That was, until she noticed the man's eyes stop at her hands.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Was there some deity up there trying to teach her a lesson?

"Yes, I was just... picking up a few books," she answered, somewhat uncertainly. One of her hands moved to cover the title of the book, and then withdrew again. Who was she kidding, of course he'd seen it already. He was staring enough at it, and the look on his face told her all she needed to know. So the question was... should she admit to it first, or ignore it? Lily smiled, a smidge awkwardly, and gave a small shrug. "You know me, I'm not happy without a book to read."

Ignore it, apparently.

Had he no self-restraint, Snape might have looked at her with eyes the size of saucers and demanded to know whether or not she thought him to be one of the daftest beings on the planet. Being that he did have a very firm handle on censoring himself, he merely raised one eyebrow and nodded. "I don't seem to recall that... specific genre being quite to your taste."

In his defense, not that he needed one, he had no desire to know of this information, not even a slight hint of it. He had made peace with the tyrannical maneuvering Potter had done in order to gain the favor of Lily and subsequently push him out of the picture, he'd ceased any effort to retain Lily's friendship once she'd given in to said tyrant, and couldn't have been happier once he'd been allowed to leave the nauseating sight of the two far, far behind.

So that he was passive-aggressively interrogating Lily Potter about certain aspects of her marital life that practically made his blood boil was actually mildly acceptable. Even, some may say, expected. Perhaps, still more would encourage, deserved.

Well, no, no one said that besides he and others who had been spurned just like him, but it was truth.

"Am I to understand that you remain happily married?" And expanding.

He really had gained no social skills since the last time she had seen him. In fact, Lily might have ventured to say that what few he did have had deteriorated over their time apart. Did he not see that she was pointedly attempting to avoid this topic of discussion? Who went after a subject when it was obvious that the other person wished not to---for Merlin's sake!

Maybe he was just trying to annoy her. To say they had parted on bad terms was an understatement, and maybe, maybe he was attempting to make her uncomfortable now that he had caught her in something that she clearly was trying to keep a secret. It made sense, didn't it? Lily couldn't think of a single other reason why Severus Snape of all people would ask about her married life with James Potter.

Well, wasn't that just mature of him.

Fine then. If he wanted to know about it, then she would just tell him and see what he thought of that. Brushing aside for a moment the nagging James voice in the back of her head that was very unhappy with her and her sudden decision to share their secret with 'Snivelly', Lily dropped the book back in her bag and smiled again, this time finding it much easier.

"Couldn't be happier," she answered. "I suppose you already assumed, but James and I are having a baby. A boy, due late July."

Snape had to fold his arms behind his back to keep from doing something horribly childish and deranged like snatching the book out from the bag and tossing it away. His social skills had certainly deteriorated, but he wasn't a savage, for heaven's sake. He tried to dispel the urge as soon as he thought of it.

He couldn't, however, quite contain the snarl that released itself from his throat as soon as she mentioned the name James. A creature such as that didn't deserve to have a first name—Potter was, in Snape's opinion, a term used to describe only the lowest creature in existence that he could think of. He politely made an effort to sound as though he were clearing his throat, as his clasped hands spasmed behind his back.

"How joyous for you," he said, teeth clenched.

Not to mention how—incredibly stupid, not that Snape ever credited that foolish husband of hers with actually possessing brains. Oh, what a splendid idea! What a perfect time to bear children, in the midst of a war which targeted those exactly like Lily, who, along with her mate, were the targets of some very, very nasty people.

And what was he even supposed to say? Have you double-checked to ensure that you are not, in fact, bearing the spawn of Satan?

Have you proof that the thing which you are about to give birth to doesn't already have an ego so enormous that it—, no. No, the more Snape thought about this, the worst he was going to feel and the more mortifying whatever he was about to say next would be.

"Congratulations."

That had to be a safe choice of words.

There was no missing the snarl that emanated from Severus at the mention of James, and it was all Lily could do to not smirk in victory. Yes, maybe that phrasing had been intentional, what of it? As she'd said before, if he wanted to ask, he was going to know. So it only made sense that if he didn't want to hear about James, he shouldn't venture to find out about how happily married she was and why she was in Diagon Alley buying books on the topic of motherhood. That was just common logic; it wasn't cruel or underhanded of her at all.

"Yes, we're both very excited," Lily responded. "The Healers told us we couldn't conceive, so it was quite a surprise---and since there are risks involved, we've decided to try and not let anyone know about it until the first trimester is up. So don't say a word of it, especially if James" --there it was again, honestly now she was just calling him by first name for the hell of it-- "might find out I told you."

Anyone walking by at that moment would have thought that the two of them were the best of friends, no different than they had been in their younger years, with the conspiratorial way Lily grinned at Severus. It was really too bad, she thought for a split second, that that wasn't the case. But then again, if that meant that she was still friends with someone who called her a mudblood, then maybe it wasn't so sad after all.

There would always be affection somewhere in her heart for the man in front of her, but she was different now. He was different now than as she'd known him as a child. She had no desire now to act in order to have Severus Snape back in her life, and that had nothing to do with James.

Alright, well, maybe the passive aggressive taunting was a little bit of James rubbing off on her.

He wasn't actually sure if he was suffering from an aneurysm, heart failure, or having a conniption.

Perhaps it was all three. Well, hadn't Potter been schooling his wife most carefully.

All Snape managed to do was stare at her with whatever expression he had on previously—and hope to it hadn't been comical or leering. How did—he had absolutely no desire to learn of her difficulties in conception (although, let it be said, he did have a brief moment in which he smugly thought that if she were with him, there'd certainly be no--), or anything involving the word "trimester." These were—unnecessary words. Very—unnecessary.

Clearing his throat while still in a state of facial-expression paralysis, he took as discretely large a breath as possible, and exhaled through his nose. This was simply unacceptable. He was not going to allow James Potter to torment and bully him through his wife all these years later.

"I assure you," he emphasized, still unable to will his facial muscles to do much other than move his mouth, "your secret is safe with me."

In fact, he promised to forget all about it once he woke up the following day. And perhaps try to scourgify his brain into permanently forgetting the incident.

Ah, memory modification. That was an idea that held some promise.

Snape looked at her for the first time since their awkward little encounter, really looked at her, and had to look away almost as quickly, not trusting himself to speak while she remained his sole focus. A feeling tugged at him, something he fancied having been long dormant, though that was a far, far cry from the truth.

He didn't find more words to say, anyway. He merely glared.

Lily watched Severus look to and away from her with that glare on his face, and something in her heart went out to him a little. Suddenly, the taunting wasn't so funny as it had been just seconds earlier, and her smile melted into a troubled frown, laced with a small ounce of pity. This was not okay for her to be doing, to be teasing him about how she'd settled down with the man he despised most in the world--because she was teasing, she couldn't deny it, even if she was just telling him the truth.

How many times had she defended Severus against James since she'd known them? How many times even after her marriage had she frowned upon something James or Sirius said about him? It wasn't because she still considered him to be a good friend, or because she thought he would do the same for her (no, she wasn't deluded like that anymore), but--he didn't deserve it. He'd had a harder life than she could have imagined, at least back in school. And now, what better was she than the rude, egotistical, cruel boy that her husband had been as a kid? As a certain scene by the Lake played itself over in her mind, Lily felt almost sick.

"Look, Severus..." she began, her frown growing deeper. What did she say to him? It had used to be so easy to talk to him, and now she was feeling at a loss for words. People really did change, she supposed, even when they didn't realize they were doing it. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that all, so--bluntly. I shouldn't have said any of that, just now."

He stared back, blankly. It began to hurt, to look at her, focus on her. That their conversation (not to mention the blatant evidence that had begun this awkward encounter) could go nowhere but her unfortunate decision to wed Potter in holy matrimony was a clear sign of how incompatible they had become. Snape had no desire to relive the gory days of Hogwarts, and though he could not fool himself into believing he no longer cared for her, this was simply too much to bear.

"It's of no matter," he coughed, waving his hand about dismally, eyes glued at the space on the floor next to her feet, as looking at her feet and knowing they were hers, even that was a ridiculous amount of pain. What a sorry state to be reduced to, as if all the lucky months he had spent not seeing this woman meant that he was making up for that with this one chance encounter.

"In any case, I apologize, I had no intention of delaying your," Snape found his eyes glaring once again at her general midsection and bag, trying to find a delicate enough word that expressed all his venomous thoughts, "shopping."

Lily's eyes followed his to her bag happily, because right now having to look in his face and feel the guilt of her words again was the last thing she wanted. She shifted just slightly, so that the book completely disappeared from sight within the canvas--no need to make that any more glaring than it already was--and pursed her lips, nodding once.

"Right, my--shopping. I had better get back to that," she began, not even caring how obvious that it was that she was looking for an out. It wasn't as if he was going to stop her in her attempts to escape this very difficult situation; or at least she would be very, very surprised if he did. He wanted out of this as well, so--yes, this was enough of skipping down memory lane with Severus Snape for one day. "I need to get back before---" James comes home "---well, I just need to get back soon."

"Goodbye, Severus." One last time now she forced herself to look up, and offered him a strange, slightly pained smile, before slipping past him and down the road. Once she was sure she was out of sight, she quickly Apparated away, no intention of continuing her shopping trip. Suddenly, she didn't so much feel like it anymore.