Three times in his life, Severus Snape had to say goodbye to the woman he loved. The only woman he ever had and ever would love. Each time, it was his own doing, and each time he swore would be the last. He vowed he would find a way back to her, and then he would never let go again.

…

"I'm sorry," Severus pleaded, and just for a moment, she looked at him; just for a moment her expression softened and just for a moment he got to look into those sparkling green eyes of hers, drink in their perfect shape and lose himself in their mesmerising colour. Just for a moment, she was his Lily again, his best friend, his companion, his everything and just for a moment, he almost believed she loved him too.

But then her eyes hardened. They no longer sparkled, they were no longer kind and soft, no longer the warm place he longed to lose himself in. They were hard and cold, more like the way James looked at him than Lily did and it was nothing more than he deserved, nothing he could blame her for because he had said it. Said the one word he knew was forbidden to him, the one unforgivable word, the only thing he could ever do to make her hate him. He saw the hurt, glimmering under the anger she drew across it and knew there and then that it was not a fixable spat.

"Don't waste your breath, Severus," she said, coldly, calmly. It was as if she was talking to a stranger, someone she hardly knew. Not the boy she had spent years building a relationship with that he had felt growing into something more and more by the day, the boy she had spent cool, crisp mornings by the lake with, holding piles of toast and sharing just a few snatched moments before they both had to come back to reality. She turned away from him, breaking all contact with their eyes, but Severus was determined that he had not looked into them for the last time.

…

The second goodbye was not like the first. He did not face her, he did not look into her eyes as she told him it was the end of everything. For the second goodbye, she was not even there. She was somewhere far away, somewhere with his rival, somewhere with the boy who had caused everything and it was the night before their wedding. It was then that Severus said goodbye to the last remaining shred of hope that Lily could be his.

He said goodbye even though he knew he loved her far more than James ever could, although the memories they shared together, their favourite spot at the tree by the lake, the tree they had spent evenings under, sometimes simply lying together and looking up at the stars scattered across the night sky, like millions of tiny dreams, placed just out of their reach, still burned in his mind needing no flame to ignite them.

But that night, he thought of her. He did not just skim the surface of how they used to be as he did every moment of his waking life, and often in his dreams too, but he allowed himself to go back. He allowed himself to dream because that was the only time Lily Evans was ever going to be his to hold. He remembered not just the tree, but the summer days in Lily's bedroom, before either of them had received their letter to Hogwarts, and to Lily, it was still just a dream. He remembered the lily he would leave on the desk of her first class each morning, the lilies she would always assume were from James, but he never did correct her. At least if she thought they were from her boyfriend, she would keep them and then Severus could be certain in the knowledge that she would always hold something of his.

…

For the third goodbye, she was not there either. Not his Lily in the way he remembered her.

Severus did not want to go inside. He did not want to approach the destruction he had caused, he did not want to face what was all his fault, and what he would forever bear the burden for, he did not want to see the image that came only in the deepest depths of his nightmares when there was nothing on the Earth that could wake him. He did not want to say the final goodbye.

But something was making him move. Almost against his own will, Severus was being forced up the path, past the gate that hung from its hinges, swinging lightly in the breeze. A gentle wind that lifted his hair, reminding him of the winters spent on the grounds of Hogwarts with Lily by his side. She came to him then, in one image flashing through his mind, her face split into laughter as her long fiery hair whipped around her, a stark contrast to the swirling white flakes of snow that tumbled gently around them, landing on her eyelashes, nestling themselves in her hair.

No snow fell as the broken glass crunched under his feet and Lily's careless laugh vanished from the air, replaced by the cold, merciless sound of silence. The silence was what he dreaded most of all, the sound he could not blot out, the sound that filled every particle around him, the sound that screamed in his ears, falling loud and unbreakable. But to make a noise would be wrong. To disturb the nightmare he was walking in would be to make it a reality.

Severus walked past the dead body of her husband, the man who had tormented him for years. He would only care for his death if Lily had escaped with her life, because she truly loved James, and to lose him would be to lose her world, and her world was what kept Severus' standing. But he already knew she did not live. Harry had been taken, he was with those who would protect him in a way that he had failed to protect Lily.

The walls already seemed haunted with the ghosts of the murdered, Severus heard them whispering to him as he stepped silently through the destruction, they hissed his guilt, screamed his shame and painted the surroundings with what he had done, forcing themselves inside his mind and taking over all rational thought. The silence was long gone and it was then that he realised how very welcome it had been.

The door to Harry's room lay splintered and broken inside it, fragments of wood being all that was left of what should have been the barrier between himself and the last goodbye; the final sight that would be forever scorched into his mind, fresh and waiting for him to see each time he closed his eyes, as unrelenting as his breathless, burning guilt.

She was there. Her hair seeming to flicker as brightly as the slowly dying flame in the embers of her home as it fell across her shoulders, fanning the once soft carpet coated in a layer of dust and debris. She lay where she had fallen, directly in front of her son's cot so even in her death she would have to be passed to reach him.

For the final time, Severus was granted what he had always dreamed of. He could look Lily in the eyes, one last time he could gaze into them. But they were not her eyes. The ones he stared into were so empty, devoured of all light, warmth and sparkle that had made her eyes so mesmerising and beautiful. The magic of Lily's eyes was gone, died along with her.

It was then, in the doorway of Harry's room that the grief hit him. It hit him so hard and so fast, that the force was almost enough to knock him off his feet as he clutched desperately at the frame of the broken doorway, needing something, anything to hold onto or else he would surely fall into the awaiting, teasing darkness that was already falling upon him; a darkness that would take him away from Lily forever.

Without being conscious of his movements, Severus was stumbling towards her, needing to hold her, feel her soft red hair between his fingers, her warm body pressed against his one last time before it turned hard and cold, just as her eyes had done during that first goodbye that they had never come back from.

Severus fell to his knees, collapsing at her side and scooping her body into his arms. He held her so tightly against himself that they were almost one person, one broken person, more dead than alive. Finally, he was holding her again, hugging her far tighter than he ever had before, finally he was holding her as strongly as he had always longed to, but it was too late. Far too late for them, far too late for him.

Outside, the world celebrated the downfall of Lord Voldemort. They drank to the small boy who had ended it all, vanished all the pain, suffering and fear. They cheered for the day it was all over, the happiest day any of them could remember. None of them shed a tear for the Potters, none of them knew of the grieving, broken man cradling a dead girl to him, none of them knew of how he had loved her, how he had longed for her, how he had begged for her life.

To those strangers outside, it was not real. It was a dream, something they had only ever dared hope for. To those stranger outside, Severus Snape was nothing but a death eater, the death eater who had lead his Master to the decision to kill the Potters, a death eater who had been a member of their own school, their own community. To those strangers outside, his love for Lily was not real, to those strangers outside, he was incapable of love. But it was more real than anything Severus had ever known.

It was real for them.

I'm glad I got that out my system, I've just had to write something Snape and Lily related since I saw DH Part 2. I'd like it if you could review :)