Note: Again, the toss-out. I suppose this, er, 20-or-so word drabbles is somewhat understandable is you've read "Guilt" before this. BTW, I still support this pair, and still think James is a jerk for getting the girl. But that's just my opinion.
"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world that I keep walking around in daytime and falling into at night." – Author known, but forgotten.
Lily regrets James, regrets Harry, but most of all she regrets Severus.
James knows better than to push it when Lily acts like this.
Lily sometimes pretends that it had all been a dream. That Hogwarts was still a fairytale and Severus still her friend, that life didn't play dice with their friendship.
Harry knows his mother had been loved by a legend, for wasn't that what the stories said? "He betrayed the Dark Lord to his death for her." He wonders why Lily hates the stories.
And Lily hated Dumbledore for using Severus as a symbol of redemption when God knows he didn't give Severus an inch when he was still alive. And Lily hated that Severus was bared open for the world to look over.
Lily didn't want Severus to be a hero. She wanted him to be alive.
Wasn't it enough that she felt his absence every moment? Wasn't it enough to have those relentlessly cruel dreams of her greatest mistake? Wasn't it enough that she was constantly reminded of how she threw her bestfriend to the wolves for a single word spoken in rage and humiliation?
She would always feel that she was responsible for Severus' fate. She knows that if she'd only been a little more forgiving, a little more understanding,
Severus would be alive.
It was her fault that Severus felt the need to be a martyr. Wasn't that what she wanted back in Hogwarts a long time ago? She wanted him to give up all he'd ever achieved in Slytherin for her, to be her white knight in shining armor. How naive she'd been. Severus didn't have a choice . But how could she have known that? She'd gone into the house of valor and righteousness, not in Slytherin where one slip-up could mean fierce retribution.
She realizes now that her efforts in defending Severus from her friends were probably nothing to what severus had to do to keep her as his.
These were times and places where she could think of nothing but Severus, where she'd get lost in a world that had been infinitely better. Mermories were all she had left of him.
From time to time she wishes she was dead as well. She should've died during the war, after all. If Severus didn't get his second chance, who the hell decided she deserved hers?
End.
