DISCLAIMER: Anything that you recognize and have read before belongs to our beloved JKR, and I do not intend to use it for my profit except for scores in QLFC.

Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 3 (Truth or Dare) as Beater 1 of Puddlemere United.

PROMPT: Write about a Truth that is hatred.

Optional Prompts:

# (dialogue) "You don't have a choice. It's do or die."
# (emotion) regret
# (dialogue) "Can we please turn back time and go back to how things used to be?"

WORD COUNT: 1930

Note: A few of the incidents might not exactly match canon timeline, so I'd say this fic is partially an AU!

Lost in those Eyes

"The Shrieking Shack!"

Severus wondered why he had even bothered asking that question. Lily was a Gryffindor, and he had heard they had a norm to visit the haunted building first thing on their first Hogsmeade visit. He nodded, but Lily, who was already jumping out of the carriage, didn't see him.

A few minutes later, the pair found themselves standing in front of the aforementioned haunted building. Severus couldn't find anything remarkable about the shack—in all honesty, he thought it looked a lot like his house at the Snipper's End with its boarded windows, dank overgrown garden, and the creepy look it held.

His gaze turned to his companion, whose excitement was physically palpable. As if on cue, she started speaking: "This is supposed to be the most severely haunted building in Britain. I heard some older girls say that it has been around for a long time, but earlier it was just an abandoned house." Severus couldn't help but smile as he watched her talk, her hands gesturing wildly and her speech picking up pace. "Oh Sev, they said it actually was declared haunted a few months before we came to Hogwarts! Can you believe it?"

She then leaned in conspiratorially, her hair almost flying into his face. "Nick told me even Peeves is too scared to come in here." She laughed then, and Severus' lips twitched involuntarily. Lily saw this and poked him in the side. "C'mon, Sev, you have to admit it's funny!"

He started to reply, but Lily clenched her jaw from where she was standing opposite him, looking at someone over his shoulder. "Wha—"

"Hey Evans"—of course it was Potter—"what're you doing with Sniv—"

Lily grabbed Severus by the arm, then. "Let's go, Sev."

He could hear Potter asking his gang of loons what he did wrong this time, and Severus was very much tempted to answer, but he let himself get dragged away by his best friend.

—oOo—

In their subsequent Hogsmeade visits, Severus often found himself trudging up the slope to the shack once they had stocked up on their supplies. Lily would flop down on the grass and then look up at him while shading her eyes from the sun, grin wildly, and pat the spot beside her.

He would often find himself shaking his head, and he would stand instead for hours, leaning against the fence that surrounded the shack and torturing his already exhausted legs.

It had become a tradition for them—one which Severus had come to love—and they would spend hours there until it was time to head back, unless Potter and his crew decided to pay them a visit, whereupon Lily would stand up with a huff and drag Severus away.

It was one such October weekend in their fourth year, and somehow Lily had actually managed to get him sit on the grass, when that annoying squabble reached up to them. Severus willed for the voices to go away as he was actually enjoying basking in the sun with Lily at his side, but no such luck. The sounds grew louder until they stopped, and then Potter spoke: "Hey Snivellus, ever dared to go inside the shack over there?"

Severus clenched his jaw, determined not to rise up to anything he said, when Lily replied, "If you actually had a working brain in that big-head of yours, you would have known we can't go in there. The house's boarded up!"

The four halfwits laughed at that, as if sharing an inside joke. Potter then had the gall to wink at Lily. "I promise I'll propose to you inside the Shrieking Shack."

Severus side-glanced at Lily; her face was turning red with anger. Before she could speak, though, Potter and his gang waved at them and trotted away.

"Ugh, the nerve of him!" she said once they were out of sight. He took one of her balled fists in his hand, gently prying it open before giving her hand a squeeze. "As if I would go out with a boy like him, let alone even think of marriage."

Severus smiled; that was an impossibility he was certain would never happen. "Of course you wouldn't."

Lily then sat up, frowning. "Though I admit I would love to go inside the shack. Do you think he's actually been in there?"

He shook his head. "No, it's all boarded up, like you said." She nodded, but the frown didn't leave her face.

—oOo—

He knew his eyes showed all the regret he felt at that moment, but hers were full of hurt, anger, and dare he say it, contempt.

'Can we please turn back time and go back to how things used to be?' he wanted to say, though he knew very well what her answer would be. Before he could speak, though, she turned around and walked back into her Common Room, leaving Severus standing there alone. And Merlin, he knew she would never forgive him for what he had done, regardless of how much he regretted his mistake.

(staring into those cold green eyes who had previously always held warmth from him, for just one second that stretched too long before she turned away, Severus Snape lost his hope)

—oOo—

He hadn't been to the Shrieking Shack in almost a year, but today his feet led him up the slope to the place which he had come to love—it had almost been a symbol of his friendship with Lily, a place that seemed to belong to them. He hated that place now, but he had wanted to see it one more time to reminisce about what he had lost, to let regret reawaken him and possibly help him turn away from the path he had blindly turned to.

It didn't go that way. The moment he reached the place, his eyes were drawn to the couple leaning against the fence in the very same place he had stood at so many times before. They had their arms wrapped around each other and were lost to the world, busy snogging.

The fiery-red hair of the girl seemed even brighter against the boy's jet-black. Severus wanted to turn and run away, but his legs seemed to have jammed, and he couldn't draw his gaze away from the couple.

The couple broke from their kiss a few seconds later, smiling slowly at each other, before they realised they had an audience.

Severus' gaze locked with the girl's for a fleeting second before she took the boy's wrist and dragged him away, and Severus could feel himself slipping back into that black abyss he had resolved to escape.

(in that one millisecond that he looked into those green orbs, Severus Snape lost his heart)

—oOo—

Severus Snape hated his life. He hated pushing away the one person he had loved; he hated delving into the Dark Arts she had no love for; he hated going down a path she was so against.

He hated the person he had become.

And he was ready to end it all.

When Black dared him to follow the tunnel Severus knew led to the werewolf Lupin (he was sure that was the big secret Lupin had been hiding), he agreed. That night, he ditched dinner to prepare for his last adventure. He wrote letters, one for his mother and other for Lily, and laid them atop the few belongings his trunk held, hoping they would reach their recipients. He kept his potions notes on his bed, a note to pass them to Lily attached. He hoped she would accept them. He then squared his shoulders and marched down the path to his doom.

Getting into the tunnel was easy enough. The tunnel itself was low, and Severus had to bend almost double to move forward. When he heard the first howl, it became real, and a chill went down Severus' spine. He was scared out of his wits—he was no Gryffindor—but he moved on. He was going to go through what he had planned.

Despite his resolve, his pace was slowing down as he moved on, and with every step he wanted nothing more than to turn back and run to the safety. Each time, he would think of the disapproving look Lily's face had held when she talked of the Dark Arts, and the memory of that would give him courage to take the next step.

All was okay, and Severus was going to die today.

Then suddenly Potter burst out of nowhere, grabbed him by the arm, and almost hauled him the way back. He was screaming about Lupin being a werewolf, and Severus wanted to yell back that he knew, that he knew and he had still wanted to go there, that he wanted to die, but he wasn't able to utter a single word all the way up to Dumbledore's office.

The said Headmaster had shooed Black and Potter out and had given him that reproving look, as if he knew what Severus had been trying to do.

Dumbledore didn't say anything about it, though, just threatened to expel him if Severus told anyone of Lupin's condition.

Severus had wanted to shout that he had known Lupin was a werewolf for months now, if he wanted, he could have done that ages ago. Yet, he listened, he nodded, he walked away, not uttering a single word.

He had never hated Potter as much as he did in that moment.

—oOo—

He cradled her face in his lap as he cried, his tears slipping down his cheeks and falling onto hers. He had tried the best he could have, had pleaded both sides of the war to let her be, yet he was still alive, and she was gone.

(gazing into the green eyes that looked on without looking, Severus Snape lost his soul)

—oOo—

Severus Snape hated death. He had seen too much of it in the past year, it all starting from when his own wand had took away the life of the only father-figure in his life.

He also knew that he didn't want to succumb to death just yet.

He was almost certain, though, that death was what awaited him when Lucius Malfoy found him in the Forbidden Forest—where he had taken shelter after fleeing Minerva—and told him that the Dark Lord was waiting for him in the Shrieking Shack. Knowing his fate, he still made his way to the place he hated so much.

The will to live arose once again, and against his character, he tried to plead, to beg even, hoping against hope that he would live through the day and get to freely live in a world without the chains he had been bound in dragging him down. For one moment, he even thought of fighting back, but he knew he couldn't give up on his facade until the very last moment if the Potter boy were to emerge victorious. 'You don't have a choice," he told himself. 'It's do or die.' And he knew, in this case, him dying was the better option for the good of the world.

So when Nagini attacked, he had been ready to fall to his fate, in the same place where he had tried to chase it down years ago when father of the boy he was trying to protect had saved him.

The boy appeared then, and Severus Snape did his final duty of passing on the message from Dumbledore.

"Look … at … me …"

(and looking into the green eyes he loved so much, Severus Snape lost his life)

—oOo—