A/N: DH SPOILERS!! Now that that's mentioned, here's the other mention I'd like to make. This fic is based off the movie Vanilla Sky, so… I suppose I'll disclaim that as well. That being said, please enjoy the fic and review!
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of his friends, nor do I own the ideas behind the movie Vanilla Sky.
-X-
Eternal Joy
by crazykitsune17
-X-
The fall didn't seem to end. Severus Snape continued to descend to… who knows where, his eyes closed, his mind still numb to the fact that he was dead.
Perhaps you don't stop falling until you come to terms with your own passing… thought Snape as he felt the wind rush past his face, sending his lank, black hair fluttering past his cheeks. Am I ready to embrace death?
Snape toyed with his emotions. Am I ready to accept the fact that I am dead? What if I don't? Will I simply keep falling forever? Or is there something at the bottom of this long, long fall…? Is it… hell…?
"Just take me there, damn it…" Snape whispered as he could no longer take the tension of not knowing what was happening. He opened his eyes and looked up at the clouds above him, passing him by as he fell through their soft, cottony depths, no moisture in them whatsoever.
Finally, Snape felt himself slowing down. He managed to straighten himself out before he hit the soft ground of… somewhere. He stood, smoothing out the robes that he had been wearing when he was murdered. There was no blood on them, not even on his neck where Nagini had pierced him. He was as clean as he could have ever hoped to be, having just died. Even his hair felt cleaner, his face not so greasy, his fingernails not so dirty…
He stopped admiring his new, clean self and glanced around at his surroundings. A heavy, cloudlike mist was settled around the place, and Snape could see nothing but shadows in the distance. He could feel nothing solid except for the ground beneath his feet, which he noticed was a material resembling tarmac. He took a step forward, his neatly shined shoe cutting through the mist then placing itself a step further on the dull, grey tarmac. Still looking around, Snape waved a slender hand in front of his face, trying to wipe away the mist, but to no avail; the mist was as thick as ever.
Frustrated with the ambiguity of everything in death, Snape's sallow face puckered into a scowl as he mentally cursed this new "world" he was now in. He groped into his robe pockets, pulled out his wand and was about to cast a spell for lifting fog when a figure approached him out of the mist.
The figure seemed to be morphing as it walked, but it was difficult to tell through the thick fog obscuring its face. Snape squinted to get a closer look at, his mind trying to process the rapid changes that the feature was enduring as it continued to walk toward him.
Snape caught a glimpse of a thin, raven-haired effeminate figure, then the appearance changed to a very plump, mustachioed man clad in violet, and in another instant, the figure shot up in height and paled in complexion, red eyes glaring in his direction…
Snape took a step back as he thought he recognized the form of Lord Voldemort, but he stumbled over his own step when the figure had changed once more to that of a red-haired woman with emerald green eyes and an inviting smile.
"Lily…" He reached out a hand to finally touch the woman he had yearned for nearly twenty years to touch again, but the figure changed again. In front of Snape now stood his father, tall, bulky, scowling in a manner not unlike his son's, and again, Snape recoiled.
The figure began to speak, in the loud, booming voice of his father's, "Severus." Snape glared. The figure changed form once again, now turning into that of his mother's. Her soft, quiet voice continued his father's greeting. "It is time…" Eileen Snape rapidly morphed into the form of Lucius Malfoy. His crisp voice rang out with the question, "Certainly you recall what this is about?" A noise like a crack rang out, and Snape suddenly found his mind flooded with his own, repressed memory…
A teenage Snape hovered over a cauldron in the dungeons of Hogwarts, muttering to himself and stirring ingredients into the bubbling fuchsia potion. He had a very old textbook open at his side, the ancient pages curling after years of being stowed in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library. Sweat beaded on the feverish young Snape's forehead, and he brushed his long hair back with the back of his wrist. He leaned over to read the text of the library book and hastily added a few threads of what looked like unicorn hair. He sighed and continued to stir the potion.
And just as suddenly as it came, the memory zipped out of Snape's mind as he found himself facing the morphing figure once again, now in the shape of Bellatrix Lestrange. She grinned wickedly, her crooked teeth sending a shiver down Snape's spine. "Surely you remember?" she asked before she faded into the form of her sister, Narcissa.
Snape said nothing but understood all the same. He did remember making that potion on his last day at Hogwarts, having asked Professor Slughorn for permission to check out Moste Potente Potions one last time before graduating the school of magic. He recalled feverishly adding the final ingredients to a potion he had been working on for nearly the entire year… The Elixir of Eternal Joy…
The last potion in the book, the Elixir of Eternal Joy had been Snape's final act of desperation during his last year at Hogwarts. Having so miserably ruined his chances of being loved by Lily Evans two years previous, the young Severus felt that there was no other way of being happy in life… so he chose death as the scene for true happiness.
The Elixir of Eternal Joy was a potion that came into effect only after the drinker had died. The purpose of the Eternal Joy was to assure the drinker that certainly in death, if not during life, he could experience true bliss. For nonbelievers in the folklore tales of "heaven and hell", the Eternal Joy was a sure way for life after death to exist.
The young Severus, despite being quite possibly one of the cleverest wizards in his entire year, had often experienced thoughts of futility and suicide, usually during his frenzied dreams where Lily was taunting him, tempting him, forcing him to relive the fatal moment where he had shouted at her, "Mudblood!" and thus cursed the rest of his life to be a living hell without friendship or love.
Snape remembered the very night he had decided to make the Eternal Joy potion. He didn't need a sudden flash of memory cast from the mysterious morphing figure in front of him to recall the nightmare of Lily's green eyes morphing to red ones as she turned into the snakelike face of Lord Voldemort and performed the Cruciatus Curse on his dreaming form. Snape had awoken that night, drenched in cold sweat, his dark eyes glistening with the onset of tears as he saw his love turn into his master and curse him, curse him so badly it tore not only at his body but at his heart as well. The young Snape had clutched at his chest through his bedclothes, sure that he would feel the part of him that still felt… completely broken, ripped to shreds.
He knew what he was getting himself into, turning himself over to the Dark Lord. He knew that he would be dealing in darkness – dark magic, cruelty, dark business – and he knew that he had lost the only person he had ever truly cared about because of it. He knew that he could not live like this forever, but he had already dug himself in so deep, that there was only one way to escape… and escape the horrible nightmares of Lily torturing him, killing him, ripping apart his heart as he could do nothing but watch and bleed.
He had needed to give himself something to look forward to. True happiness. Happiness in death.
On his very last day at Hogwarts, Snape had, with a scowl, witness Lily and James Potter wrapped in a tight embrace as they kissed passionately on the east walkway to the grounds. The emotions within his tortured heart had whirled, and Snape remembered the excruciating need for death to finally come overwhelming him at that very moment. And he had run down the steps into the potions dungeon, thrown open the door and pulled out the potion he had been brewing in secret since the beginning of the year when he had had that horrible nightmare.
He added the final ingredient, unicorn hairs, and the potion had turned a bright, bubblegum pink. Without a second thought about the possible consequences following the consumption of the potion, the young Severus drained a flask full of the elixir, and the rest of the day was a blur to him.
He had considered killing himself that very night, as soon as he got off the Hogwarts Express. Or perhaps even on it, right in front of Lily! he had thought with a deluded sort of malice. But the potion was like alcohol; for the entire rest of the day, he could not think straight, and so, the thoughts of death escaped him, and he never committed suicide that night.
For several years after his graduation from Hogwarts, Snape had been too busy with Voldemort to even begin to dream of suicide again. By that time, he had long since forgotten his consumption of the Elixir of Eternal Joy.
But now, in death, it had all flooded back to him. Severus Snape smiled darkly as the morphing figure in front of him was now beckoning with the withered hand of Albus Dumbledore. Snape followed for what seemed like a very long time until the figure finally stopped at the edge of a very tall cliff.
"Your journey into life after death begins here," said the voice of Harry Potter. And finally, the shimmering, pale hand of Harry's mother gently pushed Severus over the edge of the cliff.
-X-
Snape was crying. He had hurt his knee on the coffee table in the sitting room, and he was on the floor, trying to blink tears out of his eyes when his mother crossed into the room, swooped down beside him and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. Severus sniffed and mumbled, "It hurts…"
Eileen Snape smiled and gently touched his knee with her left hand; with her right, she cast a healing spell, and the pain subsided. Little Severus smiled and reached a hand out for his mother's wand. Eileen chuckled and let her son hold the dragon heartstring wand, letting out a gasp of surprise when he managed to elicit a few red sparks from the tip.
"Don't you cry anymore now, Severus," she said as she scooped her child into her arms and held him softly against her chest. "Mummy's got you. Do you want me to make you some breakfast, hun?"
-X-
"And though Death searched for the third brother for many years, he was never able to find him. It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life. The end."
"Mummy, I want an Invisibility Cloak," said Severus, tucked into his bed, his dark eyes half closed, and a half-smile adorning his moonlit face.
Eileen smiled. "Perhaps for your birthday," she joked, and she gave him a swift kiss on the forehead. "Good night, Severus. I love you."
"I love you, Mummy."
-X-
"I've been watching you, and I know what you are," Severus said to a young girl about nine years old with red hair and a pink frock. "You're a witch."
"Well that's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!" said the girl with a pout. Her sister nodded disdainfully behind her.
"No, no, I mean… you can do magic!" Severus quickly amended his statement. "It's magic, what you can do. And I can do it too! Watch!" Severus picked up a nearby toad and watched the girls' faces turn from ones of disgust to faces of awe when he made the toad sing.
"Wow!" cried the red-haired girl. "That's amazing!"
"We're going to be witches and wizards together at Hogwarts in a couple years," breathed Severus quietly, his eyes meeting with the young red-head's sparkling green ones.
The girl's sister snorted and ran off, shouting, "You're both a couple of freaks! I'm telling mum!"
Severus and the red-head ignored her. "My name's Severus," he said, smiling a loose-tooth smile.
"I'm Lily," said the girl. "Is that really what we can do… it's magic?"
"Yeah," said Severus. "Magic."
-X-
Severus was standing on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, his father's hand clamped on his shoulder, and his mother holding his right hand. His trunk was behind his father, the three of them all waiting for eleven o'clock, when the time had come for the Hogwarts Express to leave for the castle Severus had dreamed so much about.
"I'm so proud of you, son," said Tobias Snape, bending down to look his son in the eye. Severus was clean, freshly washed for the trip to a new school, and the smile on his face was giddy, impatient. "Be sure to write home every now and then, all right?"
"I will."
"Have a wonderful time at Hogwarts," said his mother. "I had a blast, and I'm sure you will too, dear."
"Good-bye."
Severus embraced both his parents and proceeded to find a seat on the now-boarding Hogwarts Express.
-X-
"Evans, Lily!"
Lily stepped forward to cross the threshold of the Great Hall, looking so much more grown-up in her witch's robes and uniform. Severus couldn't help but smile as he gave her hand a squeeze before she stepped up to the stool upon which the Sorting Hat sat, looking old and forlorn.
The Sorting Hat was placed atop Lily's shimmering red curls, and seconds later, it cried, its voice ringing across the Great Hall, "Slytherin!"
-X-
The Prefects' bathroom had enough space to hide a small army, and Lily and Severus were sitting on the ledges of the sinks near the back of the lavatory. Severus held Lily about her waist, cuddling her, and she giggled, leaning forward to kiss him.
"I love you, Sev," she whispered, her shiny prefects' badge glinting as brightly as her emerald eyes.
"I love you too, Lily."
-X-
"Do you swear to devote yourselves fully to me, Lord Voldemort?" a chilling, raspy voice called out.
"Yes, master," a chorus of two replied back.
Lord Voldemort smiled. He handed them masks. "Welcome," he said.
Severus and Lily took their Death Eater masks and secured them about their faces. They turned to each other and shared a private moment of glee before turning to their master and bowing deeply.
-X-
"Severus…" Lily breathed, her face exhausted, her scarlet hair limp and plastered to her sweaty face. "What… should we name her…?"
Severus thought for a moment. "We could name her Charlotte…"
"Charlotte…" Lily touched their child's face, light as the moon with a fluffy patch of dark, ebony hair. Charlotte Snape opened her tiny eyes, and Severus beamed, noting that they were as a stunning green as her mother's…
-X-
"Severus…" an old woman reached down to touch his pallid cheek. Tears were streaming down her face, pooling in the wrinkles around her lips.
Barely able to breathe, Severus tried to calm his frightened wife. "Lily… it's time… for me… to go… I've lived a good life…" His voice was raspy and punctured by the sharp sounds of his jagged, difficult breathing. His now grey hair sat limply across his bare shoulders, and he felt Lily's withered old hands grasp his.
"I love you, Severus," she whispered gently. "Forever."
"And I… love… you…" Severus coughed weakly. Lily dabbed at his mouth with a tissue, wiping up specks of phlegm. Severus's eyes crinkled, and his heart pounded with a feeling that had nothing to do with his illness. It was as if a burst of warm, golden light was flowing through him. It was the same sort of feeling he had felt on the very first day that he met her… It was love…
The warmth seemed to overpower him, and Severus felt himself slipping into the inviting hands of death. But this time, he did not feel alone, nor did he feel afraid or remorseful. Severus Snape died knowing what love left like.
-X-
Severus Snape, an aged old man now, fell through the cloudy mist of the afterlife and found himself at the bottom of the long descent much quicker now that he was finally able to accept the end of his life – one that had finally been worth living – and he laid himself to rest, his reward reaped, his soul free, and totally at peace.
-X-
-crazykitsune17