For Good, This Time
A/N: I don't support SSLE (or LESS, depending on how you look at it…) normally, but I felt the need to write one, somehow. Not my best effort, but in my defense it IS 2 AM.
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She fastened the buckle of her coat around her ivory white throat, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to fall down her perfect nose, marred only by the freckles that dusted across the bridge of her nose and onto her cheeks.
Her husbands barely muffled howling became louder as he threw open what was their bedroom door, and ran down the stairs. Their son began to wail, the commotion and noise waking him up from what would be his last slumber with his mother home.
"You can't leave me; I love you," he begged, nearly falling to his knees. "Think of us; think of our son!"
She shook her head, a few tears escaping. She allowed her emerald eyes to meet his, and balked at what she saw.
He was a wreck, his face bright red and distorted from sobbing. His normally messy hair was in an even worse state, and his glasses were crooked and tear-stained. Her heart broke at the sight of him, but only just; it belonged to someone else. It always had been.
"James, let me go."
He fell to the floor this time, and clutched his hair as if he was going to rip it out.
"I can't believe you're leaving me for him. For Snivellus, for Snape. He's evil, Lily! Evil!"
Her eyes flashed in anger. "Severus is not evil! He was misled, but he is back on the side of the light. For good, this time; I'm sure of it."
She strode to the front door, and pocketed her wand.
"I'll be back for Harry in a few days. I need to see if Severus would want a stepson so soon. In the meantime Goodbye, James."
And with that, the Lily Potter stepped into the snow, where an overjoyed Snape stood, and closed the door to muffle her husband's new howls of grief.
Snape smiled at her, and wiped a tear away, leaning in…
Taptaptaptap…
Snape woke with a start to the sound of wings tapping loudly at his bedroom window. He shook sleep from his eyes, and went to the window, cursing under his breath.
"There ware no windows in the effing dungeons," he mumbled through gritted teeth. "But no, I just have to be at Spinner's End this summer to be a spy for Dumbledore. Doddery old fool. Sometimes, it would be so much simpler if I was just an evil henchman."
He mentally kicked himself as soon he thought that. No. Lily and her son were worth everything, no matter how troublesome and goddamn irritating helping the Order was.
He opened the window and let in the owl, taking in the night air. It gave a hoot and flew away, leaving Snape alone.
His dream crept back into his mind, enticing him back to bed to finish it. He shook his head; it was not worth dreaming of things that could have never happened. The dream was always the same, but it was never finished. Even in his dreams, Severus knew that Lily would never have done that. She had never loved him as he had loved her; he would never know her lips on his.
She was gone, and would never know that he had indeed joined the Light, although sometimes he doubted the worth of his actions. Who was to say that deep in him, he wasn't still evil? Who was to say that he was truly good?
With a scowl, he opened the scroll the owl had delivered, and almost dropped it out of shock. Written there were the words,
"For good, this time. I'm sure of it."
In Lily's handwriting, no less.
He looked out the window to what was now his yard, and nearly fell out of it. A pure white doe was looking up at him. She bowed her elegant head when he looked at her, and then cantered into the night.
Snape's eyes remained on her until she disappeared. He then turned and crept back into bed, a smile small on his face.
No matter how bad it got, no matter how many times he flirted with death by manipulating the Dark Lord, he was sure of it, too.