Drowning Lessons
SPOILERS. I'M SERIOUS. I'M REALLY SERIOUS. It amazes you that you couldn't even hear your own heart break. SnapeLily.
A/N: If you're reading this, you should already have read Deathly Hallows. Oh my gawd, I never thought I'd ever be a Snape fangirl. Times change.
Inspired by the My Chemical Romance song, Drowning Lessons.
Disclaimer: In no way does any of this material belong to me. Except the story itself. Yeah.
And lifeless cold into this well
I stared as this moment was held for me
You hide in the shadow of a majestic elder, and watch your world silently shatter around you.
She is radiant in white; her eyes are like emerald stars captured in the sea of auburn that is her hair. You have never before noticed how many different shades of copper-gold-sunlight-scarlet-tawny-ginger-bronze-red-brown sparkle out from those tresses when the light hits them correctly. She smiles beatifically today, more beautifully than she has ever smiled in your direction, and though the fact causes you pain, you are nevertheless awed and somewhat fulfilled that you have now seen that smile in its full bloom, even if it is not for you.
At her side stands the man you hate, the man who has stolen so much from you—your pride, her favor, and now her love. The hated man does not know who lurks in the shadows (as you have all your life), and so he is smiling too, filled with happiness and joy and pride and excitement and not bitter and cold and jealousy and sadness like you.
You hadn't even wanted to come, and yet you could not stop yourself, any more than you could stop yourself from lashing out at her in your moment of pain and humiliation, like a wounded animal biting the hand of one that comes to aid it—the way you could not stop yourself from loving her in the first place.
And the moment comes, and they kiss and the throng of friends cheers and laughs and cries and hugs and you are standing there and you cannot even cry but just stand there numbly as the world falls down in sharp sparkling shards of glass that cut you and cut you and cut you while the bitterness rises in your throat to drown you while rice grains and roses fall at their feet. The rush and the sound is so great that you can't even hear your own heart breaking inside you; the only way you know is when the wish that you could be that man standing beside her feeling her radiance and kissing her sweetness collides with the wish that you had never seen her and never known her and never had to feel pain this acute even for the sake of seeing that smile.
You realize now that you will always be the one who stands in the shadows. You realize now that that smile will never be for you. You realize now that you'll probably never see her emerald eyes again.
And without a sound, you sweep up the shattered remains of your heart and walk away.
Let's say goodbye, the hundredth time
And then tomorrow we'll do it again
A/N: Melodrama. Sigh.