So, I'm pretty much in love with Snape's story, and after I read The Prince's Tale I couldn't stop forming plots in my mind.
So here goes, my first fic in quite awhile. I actually spent a lot of time and slaved over this. And I really love it.
I love sentence fragments too.
And I don't own anything. Some of the quotes are directly taken from the books too. I'm a cheater.
The Life and Lies of Severus Snape
"I think I made a new
friend" the first year said conversationally, picking through the
grass beside her.
"Why do you need new friends?" he replied
darkly, casting his eyes over her light figure.
"Because, Sev,
you're in a different house and not in all of my classes." She
explained, tugging on yet another blade, "I don't like sitting by
myself."
"I sit by myself" he retorted, growing restless.
"But you don't have to." She said, frustrated.
"You're
my best friend."
She sighed dramatically, brushing the pieces of
ground off her skirt, "His name is Remus Lupin."
Severus
stood up suddenly and reached down for his satchel, "I don't like
him, Lily."
With a pained expression, she looked up at him,
"You don't like anyone."
"I like you."
-----
"I passed my Defense Against the Dark Arts exam!" the third year
squealed as she hurled herself into the arms of the waiting boy.
"I knew you would." He said confidently, placing her back on her
feet.
She brushed a section of hair that had fallen loose in the
embrace behind her ear, "I never would have without Remus'
help.
His hands fell from her shoulders, "What?"
"I
mentioned that I was struggling, and he offered to help me." She
replied cautiously, through a furrowed brow. "It was really nice of
him."
"I could have helped you."
"I know… but—"
"It's not my best subject or anything."
"Severus—"
"And I'm not your best friend, of course."
"I didn't
mean anything by it!" she huffed, crossing her arms across her
chest. "He offered, and you weren't around. It was nice of him."
"If I'd known, Lily, I would have been around."
"It was
nice of him." She repeated meekly, staring at the cobblestone
ground.
-----
"He loves you" he said, leafing through his
school book.
"What?" she said, caught off guard by the
statement.
"He loves you." He repeated, still without
emotion.
"Who?" she scoffed.
"Remus Lupin."
"How
can you tell?" she asked, shadowing her face.
"By the way he
looks at you" he said, as it was the most obvious thing in the
world.
"How does he look at me?"
"Like he loves you."
She glanced towards him with a confused expression, "And how would
you know how someone looks at someone when they love them?"
He
switched his gaze from the ground to her face, "Why wouldn't I
know?"
-----
He watched them walk towards him with as much loathing
as he thought was possible to feel.
"Where were you?" he
snarled, stepping out of the shadow he'd been concealed in.
"Severus!" Lily exclaimed, jumping back, "What are you talking
about?"
"Where were you?" he asked again, furrowing his
brows even more.
"Where was I supposed to be?" she retorted,
growing angry.
He scoffed, "It's Tuesday. We always meet for
dinner on Tuesdays."She stared at the boy,
"We meet for dinner everyday. Why are Tuesday's any different?"
"Because Tuesday's
the day you decided to run off with him" he sneered, gesturing to
the boy who stood awkwardly beside Lily.
"Maybe I should go?"
Remus offered, quietly to Lily as if Snape wasn't there.
"Maybe
we should both go." She finalized, grabbing Remus' hand and
continuing down the empty corridor.
-----
He was dangling by
his ankle, upside down, and in front of his entire fifth year. The
blood was rushing to his head. He wasn't thinking properly.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" she shouted, and he knew she was his best
friend.
In a heap he fell to the ground, entwined in his own limbs
with a hot temper.
"There you go" the arrogant Potter boy
said proudly, "you're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus-"
He
hated him, and would do anything to prove he would not be so easily
beaten. "I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like
her!"
He struggled to stand, not comprehending his words and
eager to thank Lily secretly.
"Fine," he heard her say as he
patted the dirt off his robes, "I won't bother in the future. And
I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus."
This he
comprehended.
-----
"LILY," he shouted
down the halls at her retreating figure. "LILY!"
"WHAT?"
she turned sharply, not hiding her tear stained face, "WHAT could
you possible want?"
He suddenly forgot what it was he could
possibly want and shuffled towards her, "I'm sorry", he
muttered.
"Did Potter threaten you? Did he make you say
that?", she spat, her green eyes gleaming with tears. "I can't
see what other explanation there is. After all, why would you
apologize to a filthy little Mudblood like me?"
And she was gone
again, and the boy didn't know what to do.
-----
She rushed towards him
from across the room, and for a moment he thought things would get
better. Then he saw the hatred that still lingered in her eyes. He
wanted to turn and run in the opposite direction, but he knew that
wouldn't help.
"What did you do to him?" she demanded
angrily.
"Who?" he asked, gathering his items together for a
quick exit.
"The person who you did it too!" Lily glared.
"I'd know whom you were talking about if you told me what I
supposedly did to them" he reasoned.
She sniffed indignantly,
"Why isn't Remus talking to me. Why won't he even look at me?
What did you do to him?"
He almost wished he could take credit,
and steal her back, "Nothing."
"I don't believe you!"
she whispered hysterically, ignoring the glances of others.
"I'm sorry" he
tried, hoping somehow, it would fix something.
It was supposed
to fix something.
-----
"Is she not good
enough for you?" he hissed across his cauldron in Potions class at
the boy opposite him.
Remus looked up from his own simmering
cauldron, "Yes, Severus?"
"Why won't you talk to Lily"
he asked, making sure the girl in question was out of earshot.
"What?" he said, trying to concentrate on his potion.
"She's
too good for you." Snape quipped, stirring his own concoction.
Remus didn't look up, "I know."
"What?"
"I should
have helped you. I should have stopped James. Lily's too good for
me."
"Well" Severus said, lowering his head out of guilt at
the turn around of the conversation, "It's hard to be good
enough. Lily's perfect"
Remus swallowed hard, "I guess
that's what James figured."
"James?"
"He loves
her."
"He loves every girl," Snape said confidently, "I've
seen him."
"This one is different. I can tell by the way he
looks at her."
-----
He wanted to ask
her why. He wanted to take her shoulders in his pale hands and shake
her. Shake the reasons out of her. Shake the sane thoughts back into
her head.
He wanted to know
how she could walk down the halls so casually, his fingers interlaced
with hers. His fingers. The fingers she would have hexed off, had she
the chance, a few months previously.
When they passed in the
corridors, nothing more than acquaintances, he tried to ask her. He
would send her an obviously questioned look, and she would only smile
in response.
As if a smile was the answer to everything.
-----
He thought it was
cold enough on the grounds. No one in their right mind would be out,
so no one would notice the boy sitting there as the snow fell around
him. He liked the snow. It reflected how he left.
Lily always
liked the snow too. It reflected the world.
He heard her bright
laughter before he saw her. She was running down the hill, her hands
clutching at the collar of her jacket, jovial. He wanted to stand up
and catch her before she lost control and tumbled into the snow, but
someone got there first.
Obviously James Potter liked snow
too.
Luckily, they were much too in love to notice the boy
sitting there alone as the snow fell around him, in the exact same
spot he sat several years earlier, discussing how reflective snow was
with an optimistic young girl.
And he had already thought it
was cold enough on the grounds.
-----
Graduation was meant
to be a celebratory time. A time to look back on all of the years and
smile.
He didn't smile, but Lily was. She was standing
proud, her arm linked with Potter's, laughing at something,
probably idiotic, that Black had just said.
He had no idea why
he approached them, only to tap meekly on Lily's shoulder and ask
if they could talk. She looked up to Potter, as if she needed
permission, before nodding and reclaiming her arm.
"Yes?"
she asked, not allowing him the pleasure of eye contact.
"I'm
sorry," he said, trying to ignore the possessive staring of James.
She scuffed her heels against the ground, "I know."
"Good."
"And I'm sorry things had to end this way."
She finished, before giving him once last painful glance and hurrying
off to rejoin her group.
If she was really sorry, he thought,
she wouldn't have accepted the proposal Potter offered her that
night.
-----
It came by owl one afternoon, dressed in elaborate
emerald trim. He was naturally curious, until he glanced at the
front.
"Announcing the engagement of James Potter and Lily
Evans"
And he thought that this was the end. The long,
unnecessarily, drawn out end.
-----
Another letter followed
soon after, very similarly decorated, inviting him to the wedding.
RSVP, the invitation said.
He knew this was Lily's doing.
James would never have a slime ball like him at his wedding.
RVSP, the invitation mocked.
-----
He chose a seat in
the back, away from the joyous crowd hugging and sharing tears. It
was a time to celebrate, and he would let them. He glanced only once
at James, standing proudly and anxiously at the alter, with Sirius by
his side. Of course he won. Severus never stood a chance.
He knew she wouldn't notice him, a skulking figure in the corner.
Her vibrant eyes were focused only on James, in any matter.
It was killing him.
She finished her walk, and Remus
passed her over, receiving a delicate kiss on the cheek as thanks,
and Snape knew it was killing him just as much.
-----
"How did you do
it?" he asked quietly over the excitement after the ceremony.
"Do what?", Remus asked, standing with his back against the
wall, watching the merriment with his pained expression masked.
"Walk her down the aisle. You loved her."
"Exactly."
-----
They all say if you
love someone enough, you only really want to see them happy, but he
disagreed. He believed that if you love someone enough, you'll only
really be happy if they're happy. Happy with you.
Because he
certainly wasn't happy when he thought about her and her new life
in his lonely flat.
She haunted him, everywhere he went.
When he slept, he remembered the innocent nights they spent together
as children. Then his mind would wander to the not-so-innocent nights
she was probably spending with her new husband. As he washed dishes
by himself after his meal for one, he formed images in his mind of the lovely couple doing
their chores together. Perhaps they'd be humming. Perhaps they'd
take a break to show their affection to one another through soft
kisses.
The thoughts alone made him throw his cutlery against
the wall in spite
No. He wasn't happy. He was bitter.
-----
He didn't enjoy
their company. He never did. Even back at school.
Maybe it was
her fault he was here. It was her fault that he had to seek out this
companionship.
But he knew that he couldn't blame her for
this. He couldn't blame her for looking for something better.
Something better than the pale and greasy boy who held too deep an
interest in dark magic.
And she did look for something more,
but he couldn't blame her.
But he certainly could blame James
Potter, maybe even the innocent child that happened to be the center
of that night's meeting.
-----
Desperation brought
him to the hilltop. Desperation and an extreme feeling of pain. More
pain than he had ever felt. The old wizard interrogated him heavily,
as he should, trying to get to the real meaning of the impromptu
arrangement.
"The prophecy" Snape heaved, "He thinks it
means Lily!"
That boy. That boy was
the root of the problems, and that boy found it's way into the
conversation.
"You disgust me" the man spat with contempt,
"You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child?
They can die, as long as you have what you want?"
And for the
first moment, Severus thought he truly understood love. He forgot
about his selfish want, and he thought only of Lily. His Lily. His
love.
"Hide them all. Keep her---them--- safe. Please"
And thus he wished away his last connection to the world that tore
them apart. He immersed himself in the newly discovered emotion.
He would drown in that newly discovered emotion.
-----
He was supposed to
protect her. He promised he would protect her. And he didn't.
She was gone. He had done his part. He pleaded with the Dark Lord. He
pleaded with Dumbledore. He had assurance on both sides. Neither did
their part.
The boy. That dratted boy survived. He had been
told she had given her life for that boy. He had also been told that
Potter had given his life for both of them.
Maybe he was not
always the prick Severus assumed him to be.
Love. It was
something he was still struggling to understand.
And still
Dumbledore felt as though he could manipulate his feelings.
"Protect the boy" he told him, as if it was the only path
forward.
And he knew that he
was right. He hated that he was right.
-----
It had been years.
11 years. He had finally come to terms with it.
Lily Evans was
dead.
And then that boy decided to waltz into the school and
turn his sanity upside down. He hated the boy. Hated him more than he
ever hated Potter back in his own school days. This boy, Harry, was
the result of a love that never should have been. It wouldn't have
been, if Snape had only kept his tongue.
He never meant to make
his life miserable, but it was the only way that he could make it
through the day. Concentrating on that black hair made it easier.
Then he could forget that Lily even existed.
But if he should
ever get a glance of those eyes, he knew his carefully constructed
plan would be lost. Dumbledore was right. The boy had Lily's eyes
exactly. Eyes that would quickly spurn Snape into a whirlpool of
painful memories and questions of what could have been.
And it
was his job to keep those eyes glowing with life.
-----
This was the end. The
end he had wished for for so long. Finally. No more spying. No more
secrets. No more pain.
Snape lay withering on the floor of the
Shrieking Shack, clutching at the wound on his neck. He wished to see
no more. He wished to feel no more.
But that boy had to come
and make the dying process more difficult. Snape knew what the boy
had to do. Knew it would be harder than anything he himself had to go
through. And he knew that he wouldn't need his memories any longer.
And the boy had to learn. He had to understand.
"Look
at me"
He had to understand love.
Review and stuff!
Plus there was an indenting issue that I just gave up on. Anyone know how to fix?