Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, Snape wouldn't have been such a horrifically tortured soul.
Dearest Severus,
How are you? Are you well? Stupid questions I know, but normalcy is something I'm trying to keep hold of by my nails, if you know what I mean. I'm so sick and tired of the constant worry, the jumping at every creak and groan. The laying awake, staring at the ceiling, at the window, anywhere, just so that I don't sleep. Just so that the nightmares don't come. It's exhausting, being constantly on edge, constantly frantic. My mum always used to say I was too calm. She said it was eerie, that I should be more like Petunia, shrieking and hollering and banging her fists. But since when has a tantrum ever changed anything? It doesn't matter if I cry or don't cry, scream or don't scream, rage or don't rage. He's still coming after me. He's still coming after James. He's still coming after Harry. Oh God, Harry.
It's a terrible thing to do, to give up hope, but I've gone and done it anyway. Being accepting makes everything so much easier. James just doesn't seem to see things the way they are. He never really has. He thinks in ideals, and I, as you know, have always been more of a realist, so I'll tell you this now. I'll write it and maybe then I'll feel better for it.
We're not going to escape, Sev. There's no magical, mystical rescue for us. Whether it's tomorrow or the next day or next week, or whenever, sooner or later, he will find us. Sooner or later, we'll lose. It's a miracle we've won three times over. Three times doesn't seem so much really, does it? But Voldemort was and is a force to be reckoned with, and so three times, to me, seems far too many, just looking at the odds. The end is near, because whatever luck we've had before, it just can't stretch again. I hate to write it. It feels like I'm signing my own death warrant and James' too. But it's true and truth is the one absolute in this whole crazy, messed-up situation. I've given up on me and, in a way, I've given up on James. We're expendable, in the end, because we'll fight to keep what little we have left. He will defend me, or I will defend him, and one or the other will be struck down. But the one that's left...the one that's left, still won't have a chance. He wants Harry. And by God while there is blood in my body and breath in my lungs, he will not have my son.
I wish so much that you were here with me, Sev. I know you, with your goddamned negative attitude, would force me to face the truth and somehow that would make it so much more bearable. He will kill him. He will kill my son, because when he has killed me and killed James, there will be no defence. No last line to turn to.
I would never ask you to risk your life for me old friend. I don't have the right to, not after all these years. But if there is something in you, a sliver, an ounce of the boy I called my best friend, I beg of you to save my son. Your Dark Lord thinks that Harry will destroy him. No-one can persuade him otherwise and even if they do, that only leaves Frank and Alice's boy, Neville, to turn to. And I would never wish what hangs over us on anyone else, let alone friends and their child.
There is no hope. I can hardly allow myself to think it. But, Severus, if there is...if for one second I dare to think that my son could survive, I ask you this. For the friendship we had and the times we shared. For all the things we left unsaid and all the things that could have been: protect my son. No matter what comes, if you have the chance, seize it. I pray that there is something in you, I know there is. Remember how we were the best friends in the whole wide world. Remember how we looked out for one another and do not remember that one, stupid day. That one stupid word that ruined it all.
I wish I could go back and rewrite the lines, but I can't. All I can ask is that you remember how much I loved you, Severus Snape, and that you look after my son as though he were me. He has my eyes, Sev. He looks so like James, but he has my eyes. When you look at him, when you look into his eyes, never forget that, even now, I love you. With all my heart, I. Love. You.
Ever yours,
Lily
As he cradles her to his chest, this beautiful, phenomenal woman, the only true friend he ever really had, he can feel his heart break. He can feel it shatter into a million pieces, never to be recovered or regained. She's gone. And with her, it seems, every piece of his heart. But he remembers her words, the words scrawled in haste and sent in haste and read in haste, tucked in the pocket of his cloak. 'He has my eyes, Sev.' She had written that. He can hardly bear to look, but when he does, when he looks at this replica of James Potter, he sees his Lily's eyes. He lays her on the floor and wants to press a kiss to her brow or her cheek, but in the end decides he won't take advantage of her death to do that. He could never. He spares one last glance to Lily's son and bows his head, unable to look after all. He'll do what she asked of him, what Dumbledore will no doubt ask. He won't do it for Dumbledore though. He won't even do it for the boy. That one, quickly written message of love is all he has left. But the boy is a piece of her too and no matter his hate for Potter, her eyes overwhelm his other features. And so he'll do it. He'll do it for the one woman, the one being, in all the world, he loved without rest and now without reprieve. For Lily, he'll do anything.