(A/N- I apologize for the morbidity of this story. I drew inspiration from "Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera and "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. I hope you enjoy.)

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-Heartbeat-

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Light of the rising sun peered cautiously over the edge of the window and a single streak of brightness illuminated the closed eyes of a sleeping man. Bloodshot eyes surrounded by dark circles opened drearily before taking on a crazed, bitter glint. Today was the day. Lily Evans was murdered so many years ago today. The man sat up, no longer brightened in the sun's reach, and held his head in his hands with eyelids shut tight.

He didn't cry anymore, it didn't help.

His chest tightened as the familiar tingling sense of despair welled into an all-encompassing grief, and that into a horrible rage. He wanted to scream at the world for taking her away. He wanted everyone else to feel the same pain. No one could possibly know what this felt like unless he showed them. He wanted to rip his chest open and relieve the terrible pressure. He wanted his mind to stop spinning. He wanted so many things.

He wanted the sun to stop shining.

In a swift decision, he ran to the curtains and pulled them together, forcing a blanket of darkness upon the room. His heavy breathing eased and he slid down against the course, heavy fabric. He didn't want the celestial sun of the sky. He wanted his own sun to emerge from the darkness. Her radiance was comparable only to the blinding heavens. All other light was blasphemous to her name.

"Lily…"

The rage dissipated instantly. The grief ebbed away with every pounding heartbeat. The despair lingered a while longer until he was left with only a heightened sense of reality. He tasted the sleep in his mouth, felt the cold stone floor throbbing in time to the morning bells, saw the gleaming blackness surrounding him, heard the silence that was impossibly loud. It was overwhelming, the silence. So heavy in the air he couldn't breathe.

He didn't know how long he stayed in the dark room. Perhaps hours had passed. There was no time in this madness, these raw senses. Insanity should have made him numb, not painfully aware. Maybe he wasn't going insane yet, but he would have sworn to anybody that he had been headed there for years. Ever since she died, he was going crazy.

"I loved you. I love you still..." His soft words fell flat and the silence consumed them, not to be spoken again until a year's time had passed again.

Then he heard it. Something was trying to break the silence, to ruin his day of tribute. His heart raged against his chest, his calloused hands desperate to bring pain to whoever dared make their way to this part of the castle. He believed his heart was going to explode; it beat so fast and so irregularly. His hand clutched his chest until he realized with a curious fear that he heard two heartbeats. One was his own racing and the other was soft and steady.

The sound of Lily's heart.

It was her, he just knew, but spirit or crazed imagination, he'd never be sure. The perfect thumping grew louder until he felt it through his bones as his own heart strived to match. Both life metronomes sped forward, quickening their pace.

Faster…faster…

It wasn't healthy and he didn't care. He was with her now and in a state of morbid ecstasy. Sweat ran down his feverish skin. His muscles tensed and convulsed. A fatal pain burst like fire from his heart and everything was silent.

"Lily…" He whispered and a voice answered him. "Severus."

A smile spread across his tormented face and looked like it didn't belong. Severus Snape believed to have heard his true love's voice after so many years, but in truth it was still only his.

Insanity was bliss.

That night he was found sprawled on the floor by the curtains, murdered by his own body. A heart attack.

Fin.