It wasn't hard to imagine her there, to imagine that she was sitting just across from him in the very same Potions classroom they'd known so many years ago, to imagine that she was hunched over her textbook determinedly while trying to research a particularly nasty poison.
It wasn't hard to imagine that she was glancing up at him every now and then, the smile in those emerald eyes of hers just as bright and genuine as the one spread across her pale features, the soft, scarlet waves of her hair falling around her face as she cast a look back at the worn pages of her book.
It was all too easy to picture in his mind, to pretend that the year was 1972 again and all the world was just beginning to become uneasy, to pretend that everything was fine and that Lily still loved him like the friend she'd been, to pretend that he hadn't colossally ruined it all with a few angry words.
He could hear her intake of breath as she laughed at something he'd said, could see the gleam in her gaze as he leaned over to point something out to her, to just barely make out the low murmur of casual gratitude, the constellation of freckles dusting the tops of her cheeks crinkling as her grin widened. It all seemed so real, so intensely believable, that Severus had to take a moment and let reality sink in, had to close his eyes as he sat alone in his classroom and take a deep breath.
He had to ignore the echo of her cherished laughter, had to act like it didn't affect him whatsoever to temporarily forget the sparkle of her eyes, and for a moment the frantic pounding of his heart calmed. It was a mercy short-lived, and he opened his eyes again to find her brewing a potion, lazily stirring the mixture in her cauldron, smirking over at him like she knew the greatest secret in the world as he stared, mesmerized, back at her.
She tilted her head, frowning, and he mourned the absence of such happiness overwhelming her features, missed that smile as soon as it had fallen, and felt almost as if it was crucial that he revive the life in her dimming eyes. Her shoulders lowered, and she stopped stirring for a brief moment to level him with a severe, sober glance, sighing sadly.
"It seems so lonely here, Sev," she whispered, and he could do nothing but silently agree, knowing full well that when next he blinked, when he allowed his mind to forget for the smallest second that she was before him in all her ghostly beauty and painful innocence, she would be gone, lost to him just as she had been for almost two decades.
He made the decision to let her go, if momentarily, when he finally closed his eyes, opening them again to greet an empty classroom. He caught the scent of Lily's hair, drifting around him and coating his senses, and if he'd been younger, if certain mistakes didn't cloud his mind and poison his outlook, then he just might have smiled.
Amortentia, he thought, turning to see no cauldron and no textbook and no Lily, but knowing, regardless, that his memories lived on.
Please R&R! Feedback of any kind is always appreciated! ;)
All rights go to their respective owners.