My first attempt at writing something about Severus Snape. I've written bits of him in my stories, but nothing like this before. I hope you enjoy it.

The story is centred around the quote - "Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate." -Thomas Jones.

I own nothing. Challenges/Competitions at the bottom.

It all started the moment he uttered that foul word. A word he thought he'd never call Lily Evans.

Mudblood.

The word tasted foul on his lips, it was like a poison. A slow acting poison that was eating him from the inside, taking away everything that was important to him, everything that mattered to him, but he hadn't meant it.

It wasn't him, it was them. It was those self-proclaimed Marauders. They had set out to turn her against him from day one. From the moment they joined Lily and him in their carriage, James Potter had planned to turn Lily against him, and he finally provoked Severus into doing the one thing he never wanted to do. He forced Severus into hurting Lily enough to drive her away.

All he wanted to do was protect her from scum like Potter and Black. Lupin and Pettigrew too, as those spineless cowards stood back, allowing their friends to torment him.

Potter would only hurt her. He couldn't care for her. He would just keep her around his dangerous friends. Lupin the Werewolf, who could lose control of that animalistic nature inside of him, and hurt her, or Sirius Black who would lose his grip on his sanity, a boy who would send another into a tunnel with a Werewolf was clearly already unstable.

Lily wasn't safe around them.

Severus could still hear the laughter in his ears, years later. Laughter as he was lifted into the air and tormented, and the shocked sounds and the anger at the name he had called Lily.

His precious Lily, his only true friend. He had lost her.

That was the day that he was approached properly about the Death Eaters, the day where he had 'proven himself' as the others had said, showing that a Mudblood wasn't worth his time. Putting her in her place, which was below them.

Even the students that had tolerated him in the past stopped speaking to him, but he had his Slytherin friends. The other Death Eaters, Regulus and Barty Crouch.

Until he didn't have them anymore. Until Regulus vanished, until he realised that he was about to lose Lily to Voldemort. She was marked for death, and he begged for her life.

That was the day even the Death Eaters turned from him. He had begged for the life of a lowly Mudblood. A Mudblood whose son would one day defeat the Dark Lord.

...oOo...

Years later, when the green-eyed boy walked into that school, he remembered how he held her body, never having told her how much she truly meant to him. He had lost his chance, and lost his Lily. Others like Regulus and Barty had died too. He was alone, and as the war approached, his enemies grew and grew. Death Eaters didn't trust him and the Order didn't either.

During his last moments, his gaze fell on Harry Potter, the son of both the only person he had ever truly cared for, and one of the men he hated most in the world, and for the first time since he first set his eyes on him, he could see Lily Evans staring back. He could see that Harry was truly his mother's son, and he was glad to see her eyes one last time, before he took his last breath.

He had done it for Lily, to protect this boy. He may die a hated man, in a world with only enemies, but wherever he ended up next, Lily would finally forgive him.

Word Count - 591

Review Please.

Challenges/Competitions Entered.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - Muggle Studies. Write a story incorporating the quote, or centre it's themes around it. Quote: "Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate." -Thomas Jones

The Flower Language Challenge - Write about a Slytherin

The Star Challenge - Shaula - Write about Death Eaters (or any from the group)

Fanfiction Scavanger Hunt - A fic about a Half-Blood.

The Birthday Challenge/Competition - January - Character. Write about Severus Snape.