A.N. The pairing in this particular charter is mainly Severus – Lily, a clearly unrequited love.

I know I said it would be a triangle with the addition of Harry, but when I'll include him, it will be a very different kind of love, and always mainly from Severus' point of view. Written for the ABOARD THE LOVE BOAT CHALLENGE!!

WORDS INCLUDED: gnomes, lace, pink, butterbeer, music, firefly, river, memories, dragonfly, thirteen, secret, opal, parchment, portrait, eyes and silver.

LILIUM CANDIDUM

Chapter 1: Came out from the Deep

Severus slowly sipped at his Firewhisky, grimacing when the intense burning liquid made its way down his throat, slowly descending into his empty stomach, marking everything in its path, until it felt numbed after it passed on. He was slumped on dejectedly on a squashy old armchair in his sitting room that smelled vaguely of rotting cabbage and musty dust, the fabric faded by the years of exposure to daylight, some of it fraying until the stuffing inside the cushion showed through.

In front of him, spread haphazardly on the low coffee table and neighbouring surfaces, stools and foot rests he'd pulled closer to form a crazy circle, were all the mementos and little bits of life that bound him to her. It wasn't everything he needed, not nearly everything … but most of her most prised possessions had been … burned long, long ago.

He sipped at his drink again, with renewed vigour, desperately looking for a means of squashing the choking sensation that was slowly capping the very breaths he took.

The taste was very bitter in his mouth.

Severus' eyes involuntarily, as though they had a will all of heir own that had nothing to do with its mind's will, rested again on his bountiful treasure, lovingly caressing one item then moving onto its neighbour, looking at it in much the same fashion. A bittersweet feeling clogged his throat and his vision became blurry with barely-repressed tears; Severus exhaustedly wiped his hand across his eyes, digging in the knuckles into the soft flesh as though trying to gouge them out for betraying their weakness, and he was glad he was alone.

Then again, he had always been alone.

The loneliness was something he didn't even truly feel anymore, because he had wallowed in it, gone under with it, and eventually drowned in its depths long, long ago. Another lifetime ago. One that hadn't belonged to him anymore the minute she went from him.

His hand crept forward, and he watched, in a strangely detached manner as it neared the things spread on the flat surfaces, almost as though it were someone else's hand, and he was a mere spectator. His fingers found the soft, crumpled lace of a handkerchief, and they swept over the fabric delicately, lovingly, feeling the ridges and holes through his sensitive fingertips, a Potions Master's fingers, his one instrument for creating as close as a perfection he could manage that would somehow bring him in the smallest of ways closer to her, for that was all he had left, that was all he was allowed to have. The choking bitterness returned clogging up his throat again, so he took another healthy measure of Firewhisky, almost in petty respite.

Douse fire with fire.

He drew the handkerchief he was holding close up to his sallow, harsh face, inhaling the delicate scent with his nose. Or rather imagining he inhaled a sweet smell, because in reality, the small square of fabric had stopped smelling of its owner long before. How mocking his life was, Severus reflected. It found and harshly took in dreams what it couldn't wrestle from reality.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light…

Severus's mouth twisted into a pucker of sorrow, the edges trembling with the spasms running along his cheeks, as something entirely different welled up in him.

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

He remembered each and every single little memory tied in with every thing that he now had of hers.

The handkerchief, for example, was given to him when they were no older than thirteen, to bind up his finger when he'd cut himself chopping up lacewings for their potions class. The dexterity of her hands as she quickly tied the handkerchief to his cut after she'd made him was the finger under cold water, despite his vehement protests, annoyed as any thirteen year old boy could be when a girl tried to mother them, trying valiantly to hide the blush staining his sallow cheeks. She'd told him when he tried to return it to her that he could keep it, because her mother made them, and she had lots at home, and noticed that he didn't have one. He'd teased her that flimsy, lacy handkerchiefs were only appropriate for young ladies, not him, but she cut off all his protests when she turned her pointy nose up in the air and sniffed surreptitiously, replying slyly that she should have know better than to be kind to a friend. He'd thanked with a bright smile, and stored the handkerchief safely away, deeply into the pockets of his robes.

When Severus brought the tumbler up to his greedy lips again, ready to steel himself against the burning sensation scorching his insides, he felt an overwhelming sense of loss when his lips were just barely whetted by the last drops of the drink.

Angrily, he brought the tumbler crashing towards the general area of the hearth, and felt satisfied when he heard it shatter. With a lunge, he seized the bottle of Ogden's Best Firewhisky resting near his feet, only to hurl it too, towards its companion, when he was thwarted once more, and came up dry. He blindly pulled out his wand and summoned some of the Butterbeer left in his kitchen, which sailed towards him dangerously quickly, threatening to hit his face, but he deftly brought his wand down and caught the falling bottle, already guzzling down the warm liquid, a sharp contrast between his previous choice of beverage.

There were many letters haphazardly unfolded and scattered here and there, correspondence they'd shared, mostly during their earlier school years – some of them were just scraps of parchment that contained her writing – her thoughts, her notes, her scribbles, her theories, gossip, news, commentary, speculation, everything, anything that he could attribute to her, some kind of sign that it hadn't all been just a dream, as everything is for him, that he hadn't dreamt her up like he did all the rest.

He gently set the handkerchief aside and returned to the small wooden chest, where some of the secrets hadn't been laid out in front of him like the other things.

Inside, was a little sketch of Lily's favourite singer, back when they were at Hogwarts, along with the fine scripted lyrics of one of her favourite songs. His face was young and his hair curly and vibrant, there was an innateness to the eyes, as though he was too camera-shy to look up … Severus remembered that when she had finished drawing him, she had sighed contentedly and sat for a while, simply staring dreamily into his face – he'd felt like sniping at her that is she liked him so much, she should join the Honorary Tris Darting Fan Club for Girls, which was famously headed by a duo of silly, giggly, empty headed Gryffindor Fifth year girls who proclaimed they had seen their future in Professor Opal's crystal balls, and both would at some point meet him, and one of them would have his five children … Lily had been too mature and proud to join the throng of screaming girls that met up every Thursday night after Homework Support Circle in one of the unused Transfiguration classrooms.

Firefly, Severus thinks the band was called, but in his rapidly drunken stupor, he couldn't be entirely sure.

She used to be able to play an instrument called the clarinet, though she'd shyly told him that she wasn't a very good player, not like her father.

He'd made her play something for him once, with the pretext that he wanted to hear and see what clarinet would produce, how it worked, but really, he was deeply curious about what she'd look like as she immersed herself in the motions that would weave out sweet melodies; he'd felt beamingly enchanted when she brought the mouthpiece to her lips and her dainty little fingers began weaving an intricate dance upon the shiny instrument, harping the sweetest tune he had ever heard. He'd listened to her play for hours on that afternoon at her parents' house – Petunia, that annoying, useless little Muggle had gone out of the house slamming the door – when Lily had been suddenly brought back to the present, and she blushed (very becomingly) and hurriedly put her instrument into its protective case, stashing it quickly under her bed. Severus had been disappointed that she'd stopped playing, and was about to ask her why she'd stopped, when he followed her gaze and saw that her sister had, after all, come back and was standing on the threshold of their bedroom, glaring at them with a very ugly, malicious look on her horsey face. Lily told him days later, when he asked her to play something, that she couldn't play anymore, because her clarinet had gone mysteriously missing, and that when she'd finally found it, hidden in her sister's wardrobe, it had been mangled and broken horribly – it was beyond repair.

That was when Severus had played that vicious prank on Lily's Muggle sister, when she had ended up tangled in some netting on the bedding of the river near the park, and had almost drowned, though she'd been immersed in waters that were no deeper than seven feet …

Severus gazed off into space as his memories wove and spun out of each other, creating a starkly intrinsic puzzle out of Lily's life – he could almost hear the music she made, softly, hauntingly playing in his ears, in the dark, lonely, cramped little room of his parents' house in Spinner's End.

He put the little sketch aside and dug into the chest again, this time pulling several things at once, his fingers roughly clutching at the delicate items before he realised he was creasing them, and he gently set them on his lap, once more gulping down some butterbeer, his eyes broodingly dark with a far-away look as he cast his mind back to remember all the little things about each. He'd pulled out a few portraits of Lily and other people, a couple of her Gnarly Gnomes (little figurines of gnomes she had charmed herself to help her when she was putting her hair into more elaborate twists and such), and a pink crystal stone she used to tie as a pendulum to a silver chain when she scryed on a map, hr fingers held aloft as her beautiful face tightened in mild concentration … she used to spend hours doing this, because she was convinced that one day, she would find the ultimate –

Severus got distracted from his train of thoughts as his eyes comprehended that they had looked down into the portrait of one particular photo, and unwittingly, into her lovely, youthful face, as though conjured from the darkest, deepest recesses of his heart.

It was a still photograph, therefore taken with a Muggle camera, but it was probably his favourite photo of her that he had.

Lily had looked wholesome and young, and vibrantly alive all the time, as she gracefully glided in the stone corridors of the castle, but here … there was a completely different mood, aura surrounding her, in this photo. She wasn't looking straight into the camera, so his eyes never met hers, rather, she was staring to some point towards her right, absently playing with a lock of her hair, by the looks of it.

Severus' breath came out in a rasping whoosh. He studied her face hungrily, savagely trying to remember what could have made her look so … wistful, so sad, so … quietly hopeful. He did not remember seeing her like this. Then his eyes, which had been desperately raking the photo for any clue to the mystery, zeroed in on one spot, and he felt his heart plummet.

On her wrist was a delicate chain, barely visible in the photo because of the contrast between her muslin ecru, floral dress, but it was there nonetheless.

He remembered that bracelet, and the circumstances surrounding her receiving it. It had been a gift, he recalled, his face twisted into a dark mask of the utmost loathing while his eyes fairly snapped with bright pain. A gift from Potter.

That was what made her look so … soft, so wistful, so young, hopeful and so, so, so painfully lovely. She was in love.

With a harsh cry, Severus slapped the photo on the footrest away from his sharp eyes and mindlessly dug through the chest again. His fingers found something that dug into the soft flesh, bitingly and he momentarily clutched the object, grimacing fiercely as though it was his heart that it was piercing, instead of his palm. When he opened it in front of his face so that he could see what he'd taken out, his face crumpled in agony once more. He'd pulled out a dragonfly barrette she'd used to wear everyday in her hair, another present of Potter's he had given her, during their time at Hogwarts … from Head Boy to Head Girl. It seemed that Potter had liked giving her paltry, garish items of jewellery. And yet, his mind grudgingly admitted, it was always very pretty jewellery that was thought-out, not some random thing chosen because it was clichéd – Potter truly thought she was a beautiful flower, that needed no kind of prettying up, but she'd loved the clip when she'd seen it in some catalogue or other, and he had surprised her with it for Valentine's Day … on that last year at school. That was one more reason for Severus to loathe Potter so much; because he'd wanted him to be undeserving of Lily, had prayed for it with the darkest might every night, but whenever he saw them together, on the grounds, alone, walking in an intimate embrace, he noticed with deep-seated hatred and jealousy that he made her smile in a way that she'd never smiled at Severus, ever – and though usually cheery all the time, Lily had never quite looked as happy as she was when she was in Potter's arms, and she cuddled against his chest, looking blissfully as though she'd always belonged there. When Severus chanced spotting them in the courtyard that lead into the main gardens, as Potter applied the clip to her hair, then brought the same lock to his face, nuzzling it, he had cracked a potions phial he'd been holding, when Lily raised herself up on her tiptoes and drew Potter's head down to hers and they locked in a passionate, heated kiss, he spun round and fled.

With a sharp growl of rage, Severus stashed the clip back into the chest again, quickly shoving everything back inside, and sweeping all the rest off the table, stools and footrest into an old, battered-looking mini trunk that his mother had used at school to keep all her valuables in her dormitory, he stashed the two safely away and tore out of the house into the dreadfully miserable, wet, cold night, his dark cloak billowing behind him, flaring out as the wind picked it up and carried it twisting like a live thing in the trailing path of the embittered, broken man who, step after step, lost more and more of his soul, solitary tears coursing down his sallow cheeks biting his face in the bitter cold wind, as he walked into the awaiting darkness.

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