Regrets
I leave James in the kitchen downstairs (dead and never going to smile again), and retreat up the narrow staircase with Harry in my arms. There must be something I can to do protect us – protect Harry – from what I know is following close behind.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named treading purposefully up the stairs, hissing threats all the while. I told James – who is downstairs and never going to smile again – that we should never have trusted Peter. We should have left Sirius as our Secret-Keeper. Maybe even thought of naming Severus at the Secret-Keeper if the Order thought Sirius was going to betray us. Even if James could never see past the Slytherin house and their unenviable reputation for betrayal, I knew that Severus would have sooner died than tell my Secret. But it's too late for regrets and might-have-beens. Too late to escape from the Dark Lord and his Unforgivable Curses.
I hug Harry to me tightly, backing into his bedroom, and shutting the door behind us. He lets out a squawk of protest at the sudden pressure on his ribs, and I soothe him quickly and put him in the crib. My darling baby boy, so much like James (dead so quickly, barely a chance to raise his wand), I regret that he's been caught in a war that he knows nothing about, and that James will never know how he is going to grow up.
I briefly lay my free hand on his head, gently smoothing down his perpetually-messy hair. "Remember Harry, we love you very much," I whisper.
I point my wand to the door, where Voldemort (speak his name, he holds no power over me any longer) was gently pushing it open and gliding through, his own wand raised in anticipation.
A green flash…
(James beckons to me, glasses intact and smiling like we have no cares in the world any more).
Be safe Harry, and know we love you more than anything.
Too late, I'm too late. Snape slumped against the door-jamb, ignoring the hysterical sobbing from the brat in the crib. Lily lay on the floor, eyes closed, red hair spread out around her. If he hadn't been privy to the conversation the Dark Lord had had with the traitor Pettigrew, he could have believed she had just fallen asleep, she looked so peaceful.
"Shut up!" he hissed, unable to bear the wailing any longer. "This is all your fault, you know. If you hadn't been born, she would still be alive. The Dark Lord would have had no reason to seek out this house, and she wouldn't have died to save you. Why didn't you die too?"
His eyes narrowed in thought. "Why didn't you die too? There's nothing that can save you from the Killing Curse." He loomed over the edge of the crib, scowling intently at the boy, who had thankfully ceased the wailing and was now hiccupping quietly. His gaze flicked up to the photograph of the young family hanging above the crib. The grinning child in the photo didn't have a zig-zag scar in the middle of his forehead like the boy in the crib did. Snape stretched out a hand to touch the scar, and snatched it back again when he was assaulted by a series of sensations – pain, anger, blood, anger, pain, loss, pain, pain, pain.
"How did you do that?" He asked, before his attention was caught by the low growl of a motorbike engine coming closer. He had to leave before someone arrived and asked him awkward questions that he had no way of answering.
One last look at Lily Potter, fixing a last memory of her in his mind, before going down the stairs and out the back door, just as someone came crashing through the front, shouting for James and Lily.Hh