This fic is inspired by the "Snape's Memories" scene in Deathly Hallows Part 2. I literally cried while writing this. As always, Read and Review, please! I do not own Harry Potter, sadly, but I love it with all my heart just the same.
Always
The night was quiet, the air cool, a light breeze pushing leaves across the ground. The children that had ran through the streets with bags of sweets and grotesque masks on their faces mere hours ago had long since returned home, and the only source of illumination other than the moon itself was a dull streetlamp that stood on the far corner.
Severus Snape walked slowly up to the gate of the little cottage, his black eyes taking in the details of the demolished structure: the front door had been blasted off its hinges and fallen onto the porch; a window near the left side was completely shattered; and, most obviously, a large section of the left side of the roof had been blown apart, shattered bits of wood and stone littering the yard. Dread in his heart, Severus opened the gate, barely hearing the faint creek of the old, rusted hinges as he tentatively strode up the walkway towards the broken front door.
He stepped over it and through the doorway just as he heard a distant roar of thunder and a fork of lightning pierced the sky. Very slowly, Severus walked over to the staircase at the end of the hall and looked up. It went up most of the way before going sharply left for a handful of steps. At the top of the stairs, he could see a body lying on the floor, its lower half draped onto the staircase.
After a moment's hesitation, Severus began climbing the stairs, careful to move as slow as he possibly could, not wanting to get to the top. As he made the turn left he looked down at the broken, lifeless body of James Potter, his hazel eyes staring up without seeing. Severus looked down at the body, not sure what to feel, in the end discarding Potter from his mind, moving even more tentatively down the hallway towards the room at the far end that he knew served as the nursery for their son….
The door stood slightly ajar, and Severus walked towards it with fear in his heart. He knew what he would find inside, he knew it in his gut, but still he prayed to every god he had ever heard of that he was wrong, that she would be there with the child in her arms, crying for her husband but not harmed herself…. And he stood just in behind the doorway, fear and dread filling his entire being… he turned into the nursery…. And his heart broke and he fell to his knees, sobbing, as Lily Potter lay motionless on the floor, her hair around her face in an angelic halo, her eyes closed. She might have been sleeping. Severus crawled over to her and cried into her cold, lifeless shoulder, begging her to wake up, please, just so he could hear her voice again, so he could see her eyes one last time, the eyes he had loved since he was nine years old…. But Lily did not wake, and Severus picked her up in his arms, holding her as if he would die if he were to let go of her, half-believing that he would, and he howled in pain and agony like a wounded animal, tears rolling down his cheeks and staining her shirt. He felt as if part of him had died with her, and he sobbed uncontrollably into her shoulder, his very soul shattered from the unbearable pain that he would have taken a thousand Cruciatus Curses to rid himself of….
Through all of the pain, Severus realized that some of the cries and sobs were not his own, and with tears still falling down his sallow cheeks and hooked nose, he looked over to where a wooden crib stood in the center of the room, a mobile hanging above it. A young child stood inside, and he too was crying, although if it was for the loss of his mother or simply because the noise of Severus' own sobbing had disturbed him he didn't know. Without even realizing it he set down Lily's body and crawled over to the crib. At once, the boy stopped crying and looked at the strange man in front of him. Severus looked through the wooden bars at the child and realized, with a fresh rush of pain, that he had her eyes, her eyes exactly, and oh, how well he knew those eyes….
"Harry," he whispered softly, and the child looked back at him. Severus noticed then the thin, lightning bolt-shaped scar on the boy's forehead, and he looked at it for a long moment before he got to his feet, tears still falling. For several minutes, he stood in the same spot, his mind filled with memories of flaming red hair and almond-shaped green eyes, and of everything he had done wrong. Then, suddenly coming to his senses, Severus Snape glanced once more at the child before turning on the spot and walking out of the room.