DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter and its characters.
The 'Memory' that Snape sees in the Pensieve is taken from 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' by JK Rowling
Chapter 1
Snape sighed dramatically, whilst a myriad of tears coursed down his face. His heart had been taken, crushed, and returned to him shattered by the one woman he had thought to love. 'I still love her…'
He lay on his bed as he had for the past week, alone in the dark, and surrounded by his painful memories. He knew he needed to get up, do something, anything; but his body remained immobilised. His mind just wouldn't connect with his body. His grip tightened around a bottle of butterbeer as his mind wandered, bringing memories of him with Lily, fresh into his tortured mind; her laughing, smiling, eyes twinkling with delight. He needed to think about something else, anything; even if it was just thirty seconds of peace. He managed to pull himself upright; trotting between the littered darkened floor of butterbeer and taking a halt when he reached his Pensieve.
He watched as his dark and painful memories rushed by; one by one. His eyes froze at the sight of the women he so wanted to forget. She was walking alongside Snape across Hogwarts' courtyard. Snape reached for his wand perched on a table nearby and lightly touched the end of the memory. His swollen eyes focused on the memory, even as he felt himself being sucked into the memory.
Lily and Snape were walking across the castle courtyard, evidently arguing.
'… thought we were supposed to be friends?' Snape was saying. 'Best friends?'
'We are, Sev, but I don't like some of the people you're hanging around with! I'm sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev? He's creepy! D'you know what he tried to do to Mary McDonald the other day?'
Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face.
'That was nothing,' said Snape. 'It was a laugh, that's all –'
'It was Dark Magic, and if you think that's funny –'
'What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?' demanded Snape. His colour rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment.
'What's Potter got to do with anything?' said Lily.
'They sneak out at night. There's something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?'
'He's ill,' said Lily. 'They say he's ill –'
'Every month at the full moon?' said Snape.
'I know your theory,' said Lily, and she sounded cold. 'Why are you so obsessed with them, anyway? Why do you care what they're doing at night?
I'm just trying to show they're not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.'
The intensity of his gaze made her blush.
'They don't use Dark Magic, though.' She dropped her voice. 'And you're being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow and James Potter saved you from whatever's down there –'
Snape's whole face contorted and he spluttered, 'Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends' too! You're not going to – I wont let you –'
'Let me? Let me?'
Lily's bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once.
'I didn't mean – I just don't want to see you made a fool of – he fancies you, James Potter fancies you!' The words seemed wrenched from him against his will. 'And he's not … Everyone thinks … Big Quidditch hero –' Snape's bitterness and dislike were rendering him incoherent, and Lily's eyebrows were travelling further and further up her forehead.
'I know James Potter's an arrogant toerag,' she said, cutting across Snape. 'I don't need you to tell me that. But Mulciber and Avery's idea of humour is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don't understand how you can be friends with them.'
The moment she had insulted James Potter, his whole body had relaxed, and as they walked away there was a new spring in Snape's step…
Snape rose out of the Pensieve, and moments later he lay on the carpeted floor from where he had left earlier. The words ringing in his ears: 'I know James Potter's an arrogant toerag'.
#
'I do'
Lily looked down at James, her husband, who was on his knees, holding her hands, as he rose to kiss her. He kissed her tenderly, adoringly; but broke off at the sound of the crowd erupting into applause.
Lily took James' outstretched hand willingly, as they walked down the aisle as husband and wife, into the crowd of guests who looked upon them with adoring smiles.
Lily Potter; the sound of that made her smile.
Lily took her eyes of her husband, as they (her eyes) looked into the crowd; searching. She swarmed over the faces of the familiar; Sirius Black, her husbands' best friend and best man; Remus Lupin, his glowing, very intense, soulful amber eyes looked upon them; and Peter Pettigrew, as he grinned at a secret joke, looking the same as ever.
But these familiar faces were not the ones that her eyes searched for. Where was he? Her eyes searched and searched for the memorable black lightless eyes, the long hooked nose, greasy black hair, and sallow skin that altogether spelt Severus Snape, her best friend.
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