A/N: I don't own Harry Potter, not do I own "Disenchanted" by My Chemical Romance. This is not a songfic, but it is inspired by that song. This is for SapphireMoon10 – Merry Christmas!
Disenchanted
As Severus Snape parted with this life to the next, he experienced everything in his life from behind a veil. It was a screen, set up just for him. The lights went out, and he watched.
He saw the day he was born and his mother's tears – tears of joy, an excited smiled directed at him. Tobias wasn't there.
He watched himself as he grew up. Innocence stolen by his abusive father. A drunkard, a braggart… even worse than Voldemort.
As the years wore on he saw his mother smile only a few times – and it was always at him. No matter what happened, she was proud of him. He was her little prince.
All through school he was shoved around, spit on, ignored, bullied, tortured… Most by Black and Potter. As an act of vengeance he himself bullied Potter's son – but he always regretted it.
And Lucius came to him with a proposition. He took it. It meant fitting in, it meant status – it meant respect.
Or so he thought.
It was the roar of the crowd that gave him courage to go on with it. Their smiles were lies, as they stood and told him 'he wouldn't feel a thing'.
Liars, the lot of them. He'd screamed as he was branded, but he soon fell into silent submission. Showing weakness wouldn't do. It would mark him as weak – as not worthy. And he needed friends, since Lily was gone. Their fight was one of the worst things in his life. And she left him alone outside the Gryffindor Tower, where the Fat Lady ranted on about Violet and how bad a friend she was. He snapped at her.
"I don't give a damn about you and your friend! You're not even real!"
She'd looked affronted at him. A small tear formed in the corner of her eye, and she fled. She didn't need reminding that she wasn't real, he knew. It was a pain all portraits lived with. And he just had to rub it in, didn't he?
And now, ironically enough, he didn't exist. He was gone from the world, murdered and masticated by a snake. Both literally and figuratively. Voldemort and Nagini, Nagini and Voldemort. Both snakes, both shite. Both the cause for his untimely death.
They tortured witches, wizards and muggles. Making them kill each other, or turn on another. They evoked fear in the hearts of the innocent, the ignorant and the naïve. It caused some of them to go mad, others hid themselves. While others remained fighting.
The ones that stood fighting, he couldn't face. His high school nemesis had gotten his sweetheart. His Lily. He could never face them. He hated to admit it, but he'd never truly gotten over Lily Evans. And he probably never would.
The others like him ran from them. The Aurors and the Order. They fled, laughing like maniacs, madly, wildly… psychotically. And that was what they were – psychotic individuals with nothing better do than ruin the lives of others.
If he was so wrong, then why did he feel so free in his death?
The scene changed. He had heard the prophecy, and he thought took it to his lord. The dark Lord thought it was Lily – and Severus immediately fled to Dumbledore. Wishing for Lily to be saved. Even then he was pathetic, selfish, searching respect.
Lily died. And he was left alone. Only there was no portrait to insulted the old fool that was supposed to protect them. All of them. Lily, Potter and the boy.
He'd entered the ruin of a house, he saw her body… the boy… the boy was alive…
Dumbledore made him swear to help him. To help Harry Potter conquer the Dark Lord – even if it meant his own death.
To get vengeance on his Lily he would do it. He would give her his life.
The next few years went by rapidly, only short scenes were showed to him, as they were still vivid in his mind he didn't need to relive them.
He was just a sad song. A sad story, a sad love, a sad life. Yet one pitied him – Dumbledore. He sneered at the old coot – he didn't need bloody pity, he needed understanding!
But he was again made the antagonist at the end – only hours earlier, when he was forced to flee through the broken window.
He fled to his death. Murder and mastication… what a way to die. Potter showed up. An array of mixed feelings reflected in his emerald eyes – so vividly like Lily's was in her youth. He gave up his memories, including those of Lily.
"Look at me…"
His final words. He wanted to see Lily alive one last time. When his eyes met Potter's he hated himself. How could he misjudge the caring that was so evident in Harry's as the arrogance of his father?
All these years I'd been disenchanted. Those had been his dying thoughts.
"Shall we?" A voice asked. Severus didn't need to turn around to see who it was. He nodded, following $the other presence. The presence wasn't mortal, it wasn't human… it was Light personified.
He gathered his signature black cloak around his ankles, and he parted with the Being from this life to the next.
He'd done well in this life.
