The day had come. He knew it had been coming, for ages he'd known it was coming. For so long, he'd been dreading it…
He had it marked on his calendar. It wasn't as though he'd forget to attend if he didn't mark it down, or as if he was excitedly counting down the days till its arrival, it was just there. It had always been there. Always there in the back of his mind, threatening to break through his barrier of cold bitterness and non-feeling. He wouldn't let it, though, he wouldn't…
Did he have a choice? Would he be able to prevent it? Prevent the emotions from boiling over and causing him pain beyond words? Of course he would, he was one of the most skilled Occlumens alive, of course he could block out pointless, insignificant feelings with great ease, and the thought of him being unable was, quite frankly, laughable.
It was made more difficult, of course, by the fact that he couldn't fully convince himself that these feeling were as insignificant as he so wished they were.
The time was drawing nearer and nearer, he'd shut his eyes tight and wish with all his heart for time to slow down. It was useless, he knew. It's common knowledge that when you're dreading something it'll appear to come one hundred times faster than any normal occasion. With great difficulty, he blocked it from his mind.
It was 5pm now. With a look of forced curiosity and obvious knowing, Professor Dumbledore asked him if he was well. Dumbledore knew, and thankfully he was the only one that did, the exact reason why today was going to be excruciatingly painful. It wasn't hard to notice that his face, though usually pale and ill looking, was a very sickly white.
The boy would be marching up to the castle right now. Probably full of the same humungous sense of self-worth and over-powering arrogance his father arrived at Hogwarts with. He was probably messing his hair up and squinting up his glasses slightly, and showing off his scar to some pretty girl who would be smiling and giggling at him in adoration.
'You know that's not true…' a voice inside him said.
'You know he's been raised by muggles who loath magic, who loathed his parents, who most likely loath every aspect of the boy…' the voice continued.
"Just like I do," he told himself, "just like I must."
Oh, and in they come. He focussed on his dinner plate, apparently very fascinated by it all of a sudden. There were slight gasps, whispers. His name was very clearly among those whispers. He tried to pay attention to the conversation Quirrel and Burbage were having, but to no avail. It was too difficult to ignore the constant murmuring of the name 'Harry Potter'.
He didn't look up, he was determined. He wouldn't look up. He would not. He managed to keep his head down the whole way through Dumbledore's speech and the Sorting (although his stomach gave a hugely undesirable lurch when 'Potter, Harry' was called, and then he felt an unprecedented sense of being taunted when the Hat yelled 'Gryffindor!'.) A pang of jealousy. How he had begged to be in Gryffindor during his sorting, how he had so desperately wanted to be in the same house as...her.
He kept his head down as the feast began. It wasn't difficult, he was feeling much too sick to even contemplate eating more than a few spoons of soup. All was going relatively smoothly, until…
"W-w-would you p-pass the gravy, p-p-p-please, S-Severus?" Came Quirrel's twitchy, anxious voice.
But Severus was too preoccupied by his determination not to look in the direction of a certain child to notice he was being spoken to.
"S-S-Severus?"
"Of course, yes."
And then it happened. He had only let his defences slack for a mere few seconds to locate the gravy bowl, when the inevitable happened.
He remembered Dumbledore's words from around a decade ago:
"Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and color or Lily Evans's eyes, I am sure?"
But nothing could have prepared him for just how similar his eyes could be to hers. Looking directly into his eyes that so resembled chips of coal, were an emerald green, almond shaped pair hidden behind broken, round glasses. Lily Potter's captivating, stunning, entrancing...
No. No. No.
The eyes belonged to Harry Potter. Harry Potter. James Potter's son. He must remind himself of this. He couldn't let himself dwell for even a moment on the fact that this was the last piece of Lily Potter.
Within seconds of their eyes meeting, Harry clapped a hand swiftly to the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead and gasped in shock.
Pain and fear flashed across his eyes. Her eyes. Lily Potter's eyes were swimming with confusion and fear…
Did those gorgeous, warm and comforting pupils hold that same pained expression when He showed up at her house that Halloween eve? Did terror get a chance to sink in, or was her precious life unceremoniously torn from under her feet before she could accept her fate?
He hoped above hope for the latter, but knew in his heart that it was most likely that she went through horrors no woman so good and pure should have to endure.
He'd done it now. There was no going back.
This child wasn't Harry Potter.
The child was a reincarnation of James Potter. James Potter with Lily Potter's mesmerising eyes, oh how he loathed seeing them upon a face so undeserving.
The face, the hair, and the glasses. They told him the boy was nothing to him, nothing but an arrogant, spoiled little child who had to be put in his place.
but the eyes, the expression, and the way he held himself. They told him the boy was special, he was hers, and that was a quality in itself. He knew he'd do everything in his power to protect the child, even if it meant laying his own worthless life down for him.
He had been so tangled in a web of his own thoughts, he hadn't noticed the Hall begin to clear out. Among the last twenty or so people to leave, he done so swiftly.
He marched along the corridors and down the steps to his room in the dungeons.
He knew he'd be getting no sleep. No amount of Occlumency was going to keep out the dreams tonight. The horrific dreams he couldn't block from his mind. The nightmares.
The nightmares where he listened, watched, helpless...as she cried and cried, there was no consoling her, the terror and pain had taken over…she screamed a blood curdling, pain ridden scream…she pleaded, begged, but in vain, all of it in vain, because he'd destroy her in the end…he'd destroy everything in the end. It was all too much for him to bare.
His conscience told him he deserved to suffer through it. It didn't need to. He already knew.
But he wouldn't succumb to tiredness, into a nightmare riddled slumber.
After all, he knew it took ten times longer to pull himself back together than it took to fall apart.