If a Great Wave Shall Fall (Severus Snape & Lily Evans)

Chapter One

Disclaimer:I don't own anything you recognize! Just the plot!

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He was conflicted, stuck between two roads; he had reached that point in his life where you chose the path that you would take for the rest of your dismal life – and he was only seventeen. Most people didn't reach this point until they were twenty or thirty, but then again Severus Snape wasn't most people.

He was sitting about half way up on the staircase that led up to the bedrooms, his hands resting over his nose and mouth; he was deep in thought when his mother came up from the basement with a load of laundry balanced on her hip. "Sev, what's wrong?" she sounded weary, well anybody would be if they had to take on two jobs just to get food on the table and stay above debt that was always threatening the Snape family. What was left of it. Severus's father had been killed in a major car wreck a year earlier, around the time of O.W.L.s to be exact.

Severus lowered his hands and gave his mother one of his occasional tight lipped smiles, "Nothing that needs to bother you, mother. I can handle it."

She looked skeptical, but knew her son well enough to know that he often didn't share his secrets anybody, not even with his mother or his best friend, "Mm-hmm, but you will come to me if it gets out of hand." She gave him a famous Prince glare to get across to him that she really meant it, and if his little secret did get serious and he didn't come to her, it would be his hide.

Severus threw his hands up in mock defeat, "I will, don't worry, but it won't; besides there's not much that you could do anyways." His voice turned bitter as his mind stumbled across what he had been thinking about afore.

His mother shifted the heavy load of laundry to her other hip and said calmly, sensing that this was a sensitive subject, "That may be true, but I can always lend an ear if you need to say something, and I promise that I won't react too rashly." She smirked lightly and walked off to let her son ponder what she had said. He sat there, having a full blown internal war, debating whether he should tell her or not... no, this was his mess; he had to deal with it on his own.

Severus sat there a moment longer before he stood and jogged up the remaining steps and went to his room, lingering outside the door. He had to decide now. Sighing, he walked into his dreary room and sat down at his toddler sized desk (at least it felt like that to him). From underneath some old books he salvaged a clean sheet of parchment, and after rummaging around his desk a moment longer he found a respectable quill and a half empty inkwell.

Now that he had his supplies, he stopped, quill hovering over the inkwell – what was his decision? The quill and his hand remained there, not moving at all while he thought about this, and what each path could bring. For one thing, the road of Light could really bring Lily into his life, but then again it couldn't – choosing the road of Light would most likely boost his chances in winning Lily's heart – while the road of Dark almost secured his chances of never speaking with her again, along with some of the people he knew.

But the road of Dark would bring power, unimaginable power, which was something Severus craved... but a tiny and irritating voice at the back of his mind kept telling him that there were other ways to gain power.... Most would say that the obvious answer was to go with the Light and get the girl, but was that what he truly wanted? Sure there was certainly something deeper developing in him for Lily – there had been for a while – but if he chose that way he was certain that he would long for the other path, and vice versa.

Severus laid down his quill and sat back in his creaky chair, why did this have to be so hard? Why couldn't he just go for the Light and Lily?

Well, he knew why.