I'd never meant to become this. Hiding in corners, listening at doorways. But this is what I've been reduced to without Lily in my life.

I wish at least a thousand times a day that I had never uttered that cursed word: "Mudblood". And a thousand times a day I think of her and wonder if it had gone differently, would she love me the way she now loves Potter?

I wish today that I hadn't been sitting in that bar. I wish I hadn't noticed Dumbledore trying to be inconspicuous as he swept through and up the back stairs. I wish I hadn't thought it was a good idea to follow him. I wish I hadn't listened to an insane conversation and then an obvious prophecy. But more than all of that I wish I hadn't then run to my master to tell him the good news.

How was I to know that he would interpret that in such a way as to destroy the only light in my life?

But that's no excuse. If not her, then another mother. Another child. Selfishly, I wish it were so though. Someone unknown is easier to betray than someone loved, after all.

It's too late though. I've killed her, and there's nothing I can do about it. I can only try.

I need to see her though. Now. Before anything else happens. Which is why I'm lurking in her garden, watching the happy couple through their kitchen window. I have no doubt that if he saw me, Potter would kill me. But Lily, my beautiful Lily is so much more than that. So much more heart to her.

It takes too long for Potter to leave the room so that I can rush to the window. I tap, scaring the life out of her. I watch her jump, watch her cheeks flush in fright. Watch the hand fly protectively to her swelled stomach, watch her eyes widen as she sees me. And with dread watch the suspicion enter those soulful green eyes I love so much.

She still comes to the door though, cautiously. She opens it and waits for me to say something. I know she's waiting. She has her eyebrow cocked and the look on her face makes me want to break down. If only she knew. She would kill me too.

"I needed to see you. I need to ask you something." My tone doesn't disguise my desperation or urgency. There's no point now.

She seems taken aback by it though, not used to seeing me loose control. Only around her, only for her could I ever loose it like this. But of course she doesn't know that.

"What, Severus. What's going on?" I close my eyes briefly, savouring hearing my name spoken from her lips. Still Severus, never Snape to Lily.

"I need to know. If it had been different; if I had chosen differently, could you have loved me?" I should be horrified that I'm asking this. I'd been so careful through school to not let her know how I feel. But now, what's the point? It is too likely that we're both going to be dead within the year, at most. Why waste time mincing words now. I need to know.

She steps outside now. She takes my freezing hand in her warm one and I look up at her. Her hair against the dark night sky seems to glow.

"I always loved you, Severus. It was always going to be you. If I had been more important than your quest for recognition, for greatness, then yes, it would have all been different."

I can't take this. This was a mistake. A complete mistake. So I kiss her. Completing the insanity of everything happening to us both at this moment. And savour it.

And then before she can say another word to break my already shattered heart, I disapparate.

Right outside Hogwarts. Where Dumbledore stands waiting.

"What is it, Severus? What can a Death Eater have to say to me?"

And then the tears come.


a study, I suppose, of how Severus could torture himself even further for all those years, knowing he could have had Lily after all.
it's a tad melodramatic, I think.. but I'm all about the melodrama in writing these days.