Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JK Rowling, Like always.

A/N: This fic was originally posted under a different name, but I had posted so few chapters and made so many changes, that I just decided to make it a new story, so here we are.

This *IS* a Snape/Lily and an Snape/OC, you'll see how in due time.

This fic was also heavily influenced by BBC's River (2015).

The first chapter is unusually short because it's a prologue, the chapters following it will be longer. Enjoy!

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"For the guilty, there is nothing that gives more masochistic pleasure than to retrace ones steps, to replay the details of one's most horrific crimes."

-Thomas Cream, River

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May 2nd, 1998

His blood felt thick, even as it spilled through the gaping wound in his neck. The pain he had expected as fangs punctured his throat, tearing away what lay within hadn't been there. He hadn't felt the sharp white of Nagini taking his life since he no longer had anything else to give. He hadn't cared when the vision of the Potter boy flooded his vision completely. There had been nothing but green and he had thought of little else.

The green of the grass he had laid in beside the river, beside Lily. The green of the forbidden forest he and Lily had ventured in too many times. The green stems of lilies themselves. Of the scales covering Nagini. Of noxious potions brewing in the Slytherin dungeon. Of Potter, the boy that had infuriated him for the past seven years, that had disobeyed his every command, defied every wisp of knowledge he had to give. Had disappointed him with just how little he was like Lily after all that Severus had done.

Nothing but green and the memories that came with them.

Beneath the haze, he could hear Potter's voice, nearly indistinguishable from the sound that filled his head. A promise that he'd be Lily's once more. That's what Nagini had brought him. Instead of pain, of fear, she had given him a release, the freedom he'd been tempted to take for himself over the years.

And then the touch was gone, Potter's hand removed from his throat. The warmth of another human being – no matter who – that he had craved for so long, withdrawn, denying him once more of his one simple wish. Severus hadn't fought the black that hung around the edges of his vision, spilling inside like ink, the bleakness. The numbness of death that settled in his bones.

His task had been finished, Potter had been passed the final blow that would win the war. There was no point in scrabbling against the aged, wooden floor of the shack. Death. The lover he had danced beside for years was giving him her final bow.

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"You could have been nicer to him."

Severus snuggled closer into the scent of warm vanilla, his face close to her breast. It rose and fell with each breath and he rode the motions, matching his breathing with hers. "But what would have been the fun of that?"

He had always hated the necessary act of talking, of communication, of human interaction in general. The majority of the time, he was perfectly content to sit beside his bubbling potions and listen to nothing else, but every blasted person he had come upon felt differently. They all had a story to tell and bloody insisted on telling him.

Lily had been the exception to that rule, but then again, she was the exception to most.

Yet, even now, though he hadn't heard her dulcet voice in years, he wished for silence. He just wanted to lie beside her, to feel the curves of his body pressed into his, her thin waist beneath his hand. He wanted to hear her breathing and know that she was alive.

"Severus?" His voice was sounded like something sweet on her tongue, a dessert she had indulged in and craved more of. A request when put like that he could never imagine denying. She ran her fingers through his hair, painted nails scraping softly along his scalp. A gasp of pleasure escaped him. "I mean it. You treated him…"

"Like his father? I'm aware." He should have tasted the bitter bile of regret, but he didn't. he simply didn't have room for guilt when it came to the boy. Not when he had guilt for so much else. "Snape."

He groaned again, this one of exasperation. "Why must you call me that?"

"Severus?" Came the voice again, confused, hesitant, and he realized it wasn't her.

He lifted his hand to his throat, having not realized just how much of a burden it had been to talk. Light from the windows fell infuriatingly on his face, casting orange shadows of morning across it. War, it seemed, had extended into the next day

"Good, you're awake."

He blinked his eyes open, staring into those of Madam Pomfrey. "I'm not sure I'd call it that." He rasped, wanting to close his eyes and return to the bliss that had left him. To return to Lily.

"Don't talk Sev, just…be."

He craned his neck despite the painful warning that zinged across it, the memory of what had happened that night. His eyes fell on Lily and he felt his body melt, the pain dissipating at the sight of her. He did what he could to nod, wincing all the while. He had to give some indication that he had heard her.

He wanted to pull her into the bed beside him, to turn his most recent dream into a reality. His mind was too far gone, to muddled by potion and trauma to think of why she was here beside him, alive.

"Professor."

His lids drifted closed in a learned exasperation, an automatic reaction to the voice of the Potter boy. He kept his silent promise to Lily though, not speaking, instead he stared.

"Your memories."

When Severus opened his eyes again, Potter was there, in the seat Lily had just been. Where had she gone? Why had she left him?

"What about them?" He croaked, his hand coming up. It seemed he was a long way from being healed.

"Is it true? That you…that you…"

"That you left me in the shack to die?" He admonished Potter, remembering how the boy had fled at Severus' most vulnerable. At that thought, he couldn't remember how he had gotten here, who had brought him. "Paralysis is a symptom of snake venom."

Potter's face grew sheepish, red creeping into his pale skin dotted with the occasional freckle. Severus wanted to remind him that had he paid attention in his classes, had read up on such beasts, he might have already been aware. The boy had faced off with a bloody basilisk, he should have known better. Should have…should have done a lot of things. And Severus was tired, so tired. Had this been any other day he would have assigned detention, taken points, although he surmised that was no longer a possibility. He was freed, the shackle that had held him here gone…was it gone? "The Dark Lord…" Severus paused, speech growing impossibly difficult. "Is he…?"

"Yes."

Severus expected the boy's face to be filled with pride. If Lord Voldemort had truly been defeated this time, Potter should be ecstatic. But, he understood the heavy cloud of grey that hung over him. Severus had seen the bodies, there had been so many, so many more than there ever should have been. Even he himself had lost allies on both sides of the war, had lost his final connection with the world, a connection he thought was severed the previous year with his murder of Dumbledore. But, no. Even Lucius had betrayed him in the end.

He didn't know of the victims that piled since, how many Potter was close to. It would be far more than Severus could imagine. So many of the students he had sworn to protect likely extinguished in the early hours of morning.

"Severus Snape." His name was said yet again, this time by a voice heavy with an accent. Never in all his years had he had so much attention, what had garnered it this time?

His eyes threatened to drift shut a final time, his final flicker of energy draining from his body as Kingsley Shacklebolt approached him. He felt the tender fingers of Lily grasp his as more words were uttered. "You're under arrest for collusion with Lord Voldemort and suspicion of murder."