A sallow-faced man walked briskly through the night, his pale complexion, the air of danger and purpose he exuded as he walked, and the black, billowing cloak he wore around his shoulders sharply contrasting the bright yellow daffodils he clutched close to his chest.
He brought daffodils because she'd always hated it when boys brought her lilies. When they were at school, every single boy she ever dated bought her lilies before the first date. It was as if each of those poor saps thought they were the first to dream up the idea, the first to think to give Lily Evans lilies. Every time a boy brought her lilies she would send him a pained look from across the Great Hall, and he would smirk, reveling in the fact that he, and he alone it appeared, realized that Lily Evans hated lilies.
Severus remembered the day she'd stopped hating lilies. It had been during sixth year, and at that point, they were no longer on speaking terms because he was a stupid, stupid boy with illusions of grandeur and power, big hopes and dreams fooled into thinking that the cloaked man with the cold eyes would hand him his dreams. James Potter had brought her lilies, ironic smile plastered across his face, and Severus had wanted to strangle him, scream at him that Lily Evans didn't like lilies, and that no, he hadn't been the first guy to attempt to win her heart with a batch of the flowers that bore the same name as she. He had watched stone-faced as she accepted the flowers with a fond smile and a shake of her head, and he'd watched the way her red hair had shimmered under the lights of the Great Hall and wondered why he was giving her up. James Potter had given her lilies, just like every other guy in the world, just like every other guy she had ever turned down as Severus watched in pleasure as she broke their hearts because it meant he still had a chance, however slim, but when she took those damn flowers from James Potter he had known it was done, that James Potter had her heart and that he, Severus Snape would never be able to worm his way back in.
He set the yellow flowers against the grey tombstone, looking at the daffodils as they seemingly lit up the dark night and brushed his fingers against the cold stone where her dates of birth and death were inscribed and knew that this was all his fault. That there was no going back.