Night was falling. The evening breeze swept the branches of the willow into the air, and the first stars were appearing against the darkening sky. As another wave from the lake lapped gently against the shore, a soft snap broke through the easy silence.

Lily Potter scrambled to her feet, her long red hair whipping around her shoulders, and her bright eyes narrowing in search of the source of noise.

“Lumos.” The emitted glow fell across the wide trunk of the willow, and then upon the dark-haired boy who stepped out from behind it.

“Oh,” Lily scowled, lowering her wand. “It’s you. Nox.”

She pocketed the wand and turned her back on the boy, sitting down again at the base of the willow.

Undeterred, the boy made his way around Lily until he was standing in front of her, right up against the water’s edge. “Lily, I-”

“Why are you here? I’m really not in the mood to deal with you right now.”

“You can’t expect me to keep this a secret forever,” he told her quietly.

“Well, if you hadn’t been snooping around my business, you never would have had to know in the first place,” Lily retorted angrily. She stood up again, brushing past the boy in the direction of the castle.

“Where are you going?” he demanded, rushing after her.

“I’m going to meet Sev,” she replied, her tone challenging.

“Ah. How is dear Scorpius?”

Lily stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around. “Don’t call him that!” she snarled, poking the boy in the chest.

“It is his name,” countered the boy as she took off again.

“You know very well that he goes by his middle name,” she growled over her shoulder.

“Ah, but his middle name is Severus. Same as mine, unfortunately.”

“I’m well aware of your middle name, Albus,” she sneered, her brown eyes flashing dangerously.

“Lily, you can’t possibly think that it’s a good idea to-”

“It’s really none of your or anyone else’s business what I think is or isn’t a good idea!” she screeched, rounding on him again. “I don’t understand why it seems to be your goal in life to keep me under your thumb!”

“Oh, come off it. Someone has to keep an eye on you. You’re wicked enough to be in Slytherin as it is.”

“Like Mum and Dad don’t already know that,” she scoffed.

“Yeah,” Albus said desperately, hurrying to keep up as Lily tore across the grounds again,” but imagine if they found out that you were dating a Malfoy.” Anxiety churned in his emerald eyes.

“I imagine Mum might be okay with it,” Lily said coolly. “I always thought she had a bit of a thing for Draco.”

Albus gave a weird sort of spasm of disgust. “You are wicked,” he said weakly.

“Thank you,” she replied with a smile, slowing to a stop as they arrived at the castle doors. “Listen, Al, I’m thankful that you’re keeping this a secret for me. I really am. But I know what I’m doing, okay? Can you just trust me on that?”

Her brother smiled weakly. “You know I don’t like it.”

“I would never expect anything different.”

He nodded. “Just…be careful, okay?”

“Yeah,” she answered as she slipped into the darkness.

The castle was so dark that Ginny could barely see her hand in front of her face. There was no moon and only the weak light of a few stars graced the silent corridors of Hogwarts.

Snow fell outside the windows, hanging heavy in the air and frosting the grounds, looking much less beautiful than it had before the Christmas holidays.

Ginny crept along slowly, running her sweaty hands over her robes, careful not to bump into the stray suit of armor, or, even worse, one of the Carrows. She brushed a stray lock of fiery hair behind her ear. She would usually braid it into submission, but he seemed to like it when she left her hair down.

They never met in the same place or at the same time, which made enough sense to Ginny. But it set her on edge to creep along the deathly quiet corridors, trying to find exactly the right statue.

A hand reached out in the darkness and grasped her arm, pulling her behind a faceless statue. She bit her lip to fight the reflex to scream, but her heart was pounding just the same.

His hands were threaded through her long, tangled hair, his lips devouring her own, and his body pressed up against hers, making her own body ache and pound. She gasped as his lips trailed down her neck, moving her own fingers into his soft blond hair.

“Draco,” she hissed into the crook of his neck, and she could feel him smiling against her skin. She fumbled with his tie, and he pulled off her cloak, backing her up against the cold, stone wall.

She clung to him, so glad to have someone to touch again after the weepy Christmas holidays. Her mother had sobbed about Ron and Percy, and her father had taken Ginny aside to tell her that she might not be returning after the Easter holidays.

“I missed you,” she whispered, feeling oddly vulnerable at saying it. It was something she wouldn’t have a problem saying to Harry. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if he was thinking about her…

Draco nodded against her shoulder, too proud to say the same, but she knew he had missed her as well. She didn’t know what they were doing exactly, except that on most days it was nice to spite Harry, and it was always nice to have someone who wanted her.

The castle was so deathly quiet that only the sound of her own ragged breath filled Lily’s ears. Both her hands were steady, one tightly gripping her wand, the other the map she had nicked from James before she left for Hogwarts last summer. She would have felt guilty for taking it, except that James had stolen it from their father, and he really didn’t need it anymore anyway.

Kripe was patrolling the second floor, Peeves was in the kitchens, and the Head Boy, her git of a brother, was heading back to his room.

Over the course of the year, she had become more relaxed in slipping through the darkened corridors and staircases, but each close call made her heart pound erratically and set her nerves on edge.

Not that it wasn’t worth it. Sev always made it worth it.

She knew, even with only her brief experiences from last year, that he was different. His kisses and touches made her ache with something frightening, so unlike her awkward sessions with and Eddie Jordan, a family friend forced on her by her brothers.

She might have also felt guilty, she recognized, for being involved with a Malfoy, especially now that her brother had caught them, if it weren’t for the slightly disturbing entries she had found in her mother’s diary last summer – the entries that had piqued her interest in the Malfoy family to begin with.

They had been dated to her mother’s sixth year, around the time that she was stuck at Hogwarts while Lily’s father was off saving the world, and Ginny hadn’t hesitated to write every bitter sentiment on the subject in that diary. But around Christmas, the entries had changed.

Her mother had never written down his name, and each entry seemed skittish, as if the writer couldn’t actually believe what she was doing. But she spoke of the mark on his arm, and how he understood what it was like to be ignored, and his eerie gray eyes…Sev’s eyes.

And then, as abruptly as they’d started, the entries stopped. Her mother left Hogwarts to go into hiding with her family, and the diary then only mentioned Voldemort, Dumbledore’s Army, and what she would do to Harry Potter once she got her hands on him. And the one phrase that her mother had often written in the diary after then still haunted Lily…I feel cold.

Lily hadn’t worked up the courage to ask her mother about the boy in the diary, because she suspected the answer she received wouldn’t tell her anything she couldn’t guess, and might stir up yet another argument between her parents.

But as she neared the classroom, and her heartbeat sped up at the mere thought of those eyes, Lily thought she might understand her mother’s mysterious diary entries better than Ginny could ever imagine.

Still, Ginny might have given up her own love to marry the boy her family had picked out for her, but Lily sure as hell wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

“You’re what?” he blanched, staring at her with hardening eyes.

She stared at the ceiling, her feet, the wall behind him…anything but those eyes. “We’re going into hiding,” she repeated softly.

“But why?”

Ginny finally raised her eyes to meet his. “Draco, you know why,” she answered sadly.

“But what about…” He gestured, seemingly unable to say the words.

“What about us?” she finished for him. He nodded, swallowing.

“I don’t think…” she trailed off, looking around the room again.

“What?”

“I don’t think there will be an us.”

He stared blankly at her.

“Draco,” she pleaded, “don’t you see how hard this is? My family-”

“Your family?” He laughed coldly, making her cringe. “Your family, Ginny? Can you imagine how my family would feel about this?”

“Exactly,” Ginny said, her eyes welling up with tears. Draco looked away, unable to watch her cry. “Your family always wanted you to end up with someone like Pansy, and mine-”

“I would never marry Pansy,” he spat. “But your family? They still think you’re going to end up with Potter. If he survives.”

“Don’t,” Ginny cried. “Don’t say that.”

Draco kicked at one of the broken chairs that littered the empty classroom, making her wince again. “You’re still in love with him.” It wasn’t a question.

“Draco, I-”

“Don’t, Ginny. Just don’t.”

“Draco, please. Who knows what’s going to happen? Who knows where everyone will be in a few months? We’re in the middle of a war.”

“I’m aware, thanks.”

A few tears had escaped to streak down her porcelain cheeks and she swiped at them angrily. “We can’t…we didn’t expect this to last…” She gestured hopelessly.

“Then go. Go back to Potter,” he snapped, turning his back on her.

She nodded, swallowing tearfully, and crossed the room. She put a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. Nodding again, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

“Goodbye, Draco.” And she slipped out of the room as quietly as she had come.

He turned and looked as the door gave a quiet creak, his heart lurching suddenly at the sight of her slipping through the doorway and into the empty classroom.

Her long, dark red hair caught some of the moonlight spilling through the windows and it made his breath catch in his throat.

“Sev,” she breathed, her smile lighting up her face as she rushed across the room.

He buried his hands in that hair, pulled her up against his body, and kissed her. Their time always seemed too quick, their hours too short, and he could never get enough of her. She was fiery and passionate, and she brought out the best in him. What they had was nothing like what he saw between his parents or anyone else he had ever seen. Lily was feisty and wicked, but so undeniably good.

She laughed roughly against his lips. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you too,” he growled, nipping at her lower lip. She pressed up against him more firmly, arching her back, and he moaned. “You should have been in Slytherin.”

She laughed again; it was something he said so often. “It’s so much easier to get away with things if people think you’re innocent. That green tie is a dead giveaway for being up to no good,” she added, tugging at the garment around his neck.

“You love it,” he hissed.

“You know I do.”

He backed her up against a desk, kissing her hungrily for a while, until they broke apart, breathing deeply and grinning widely.

“Did you talk to your brother?” he asked, straightening his now very loose tie.

She smirked. “Yeah. He’ll leave us alone for a while.”

“Good,” Sev replied. “I was really tired of him threatening to hex me. And since I’m not allowed to curse him back-”

“Of course not,” Lily cut in smoothly. “How would I ever be able to bring you home if you had cursed my brother?”

Sev rolled his eyes, lying back on the desk. He smiled as Lily followed suit, curling up against him. “Our parents will be difficult…”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think my dad kind of respected your mum. He told me that story of when she hexed him-”

“-But then she went and married ‘the Chosen One’ and lost all her merit,” Lily finished, grinning. “Yeah, you’ve told me.”

“And I’m glad she did,” he growled, “because I’ve got you.”

“Well,” Lily said, laying her her head on his chest. “Thank Merlin for that.”