A/N: So I was listening to the song Love Me by JJ Heller and I immediately thought of this pair. It's definitely AU at one point but I still hope you'll like it.
Disclaimer:I don't own the song or any of the lyrics, all of that goes to JJ Heller the AMAZING musician. I don't own any of these characters either, or my name would be J.K. Rowling, and its not :)
Love You For You
A young Severus Snape sat on top of his bed, his legs pulled to his chest as silent tears fell down his face. His parents were fighting again, and this time it seemed to him like the worst fight they'd had yet. They were arguing over whether or not Severus would be attending Hogwarts in the fall. He had known all his life about magic that was the one and probably the only thing his mother had insisted upon in raising him. This would have been fine if his father hadn't been a muggle who absolutely loathed magic. Severus hoped his mother would win the fight in the end, after eleven years of misery Hogwarts seemed like heaven, a place where he would finally belong and could make friends.
That was what Severus desired most, a friend. Someone to talk to, to share secrets with, someone who was different like him. But living and going to school in the muggle world limited finding another wizard or witch like himself. If he was being truthful he wouldn't have cared if he made a muggle friend, but at school when he had tried to make friends he undoubtedly had some sort of magical outburst and people ended up thinking he was a freak.
He cries in the corner where nobody sees
He's the kid with the story no one would believe
He prays every night "Dear God won't you please,
Could you send someone here who will love me for me?"
Who will love me for me?
Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me?
Cause nobody has shown me what love
What love really means
Severus peered through the bushes in the playground and watched as a girl with fiery red hair and bright green eyes picked up a flower petal in her hand. Another girl, maybe her friend or her sister, with shoulder-length brown hair looked into her hand and Severus too watched in amazement as the single petal bloomed into a beautiful flower. He grinned widely from his hiding place, 'She's a witch! She's just like me!' he thought.
"You're a freak!" gasped the brunette. "You're a freak Lily! I'm telling Mummy!"
The girl ran off, "Tuney! Tuney, wait!" cried Lily.
Severus emerged from his hiding place and walked up to her, "You're a witch." He stated simply.
She turned to him startled at his sudden appearance, "What?"
"I said, you're a witch."
She looked at him offended, "That's not a very nice thing to say."
Lily began to walk off but Severus grabbed her wrist stopping her. "Wait. I'm a wizard, I can do magic too like what you just did with that flower."
She raised an eyebrow at him, "Really? Well why should I believe you?"
"Watch this." He stared intently at the line of trees just behind the swings and suddenly the leaves were fluttering off the trees. They flew around there heads, and Lily gasped turning to Severus grinning from ear to ear.
Lily Potter, well actually now it was Evans again, sat in her office at home with her one year old son sitting in her lap. She was trying to pay the bills and with everything that had happened in just the past week she was having a hard time focusing. James had left her earlier that week, and she couldn't really say that she hadn't seen it coming. He'd come home late from work every couple of days and at first she believed him when he told her that there had been extra raids at work, there was a war going on it didn't sound out of the ordinary. But after they were forced to go into hiding and he would take the invisibility cloak to supposedly go and visit Sirius and be gone for hours on end, sometimes even over night, she started to suspect.
Lily didn't want to believe her suspicions, she loved James with all her heart and she had believed that he had felt the same way about her. But then he had left her, confirming her faint suspicions and breaking her heart. What made it worse was that he had left her, left his son at a time when they needed him most. When they had gotten married she had thought that she had found her true love her, her soul mate but it looked like she had been wrong. He'd left her for some other woman, who was probably younger and prettier. Maybe if she would've been more interesting, worked out maybe gotten rid of the little belly fat that she had from her pregnancy, then maybe he wouldn't have left.
Her office is shrinking a little each day
She's the woman whose husband has run away
She'll go to the gym after working today
Maybe if she was thinner
Then he would've stayed
And she says...
Who will love me for me?
Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me?
Cause nobody has shown me what love,
What love really means
Lily shook these thoughts from her head. There's no use in dwelling on what might've happened, because truth was that she probably couldn't have changed his mind either way. Lily brushed Harry's hair off his forehead absentmindedly and pushed some papers around trying to find a blank piece of paper when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. On the far left corner of the desk a dark corner of something poked out from under a paper. Lily gingerly moved the paper off of the object and drew in a quick breath. It was a picture of her and Severus, it was in third year on their first trip to Hogsmeade. Snow was falling down around them and Severus was twirling Lily in a circle while she laughed and he beamed widely at her. She looked at her former best friend and there was something in his eyes when he looked at the younger Lily that she had never noticed before. Then it hit her and tears welled up in her eyes, all those years he had loved her. Loved her even though she couldn't see it, loved her when she was angry with him, loved her even when she had ended there friendship and started dating James. He probably even loved her to this very day and it made Lily feel like a complete idiot for not seeing it sooner.
Severus Snape stood in the old boat shack feeling imprisoned. He'd felt this way for years, ever since the man who was standing across from him had killed the only love in his life. He knew he was going to die, and he didn't care because he deserved it. Severus hadn't been able to protect her, hadn't been able to save her from death, from the evil man who raised his and in one fluid motion slit his throat. Severus fell against the wall and he couldn't even feel the pain, he'd been in pain all of his life and not even the strikes from that vicious snake could measure up to that pain. He sat there on the floor covered in blood, his own blood, his vision blurring, but still he saw her son approach. A single tear fell down his face, a tear containing his every last memory. The boy collected them with a vial and Severus choked out three words and her son was looking into his eyes. Looking with her eyes.
He's waiting to die as he sits all alone
He's a man in a cell who regrets what he's done
He utters a cry from the depths of his soul
"Oh Lord, forgive me, I want to go home."
Then for the first time in years Severus felt peaceful. There was no pain, no sorrow just peace. He opened his eyes and found himself in a land of complete white. Severus looked at himself and was surprised to find the black robes gone to be replaced with a plain white shirt and a pair of tan trousers. He looked around once more and noticed a swing set off to his right that he was sure hadn't been there before. He walked over to it anyway and sat down on one of the swings. Severus blinked, only once and then he was no longer surrounded by blank white space, but he was sitting on the swings from his childhood playground. He hadn't seen this place in years and the sudden appearance of it flooded his mind with all the memories of what had taken place here.
Then something in the air changed and he looked straight ahead and there she was. His Lily, walking towards him. Severus stood and began walking, the two met in the middle. Before Severus could utter a word of apology, Lily had jumped into his arms. He rested his head on her shoulder and breathed in her scent, something that he had not been able to do in an eternity.
They pulled apart, something he was reluctant to do, "Lily I…"
"I know." She interrupted with a smile. "I know everything, I've been watching and I can't thank you enough for what you've done for Harry."
"By everything do you mean…." He asked hesitantly.
"Yes." Lily answered, placing a hand on the side of his face, "And I am sorry I never saw it before. I love you Sev, and I'm sorry it's taken me a life time to figure that out."
"Don't be." Severus kissed her. It was something he'd imagined doing all his life and was only able to accomplish in death. "I love you Lily."
"I love you too, Sev."
Then he heard a voice somewhere deep inside
And it said
"I know you've murdered and I know you've lied
I have watched you suffer all your life
And now that you'll listen, I'll tell you that I..."
I will love you for you
Not for what you have done or what you will become
I will love you for you
I will give you the love
The love that you never knew
She took his hand and led him off into the distance, past the playground, past everything. Severus didn't know where they were going but now that he finally had her, he would go anywhere with Lily.
Love you for you
Not for what you have done or what you will become
I will love you for you
I will give you the love
The love that you never knew
A/N: Well I hoped you liked it, please review!
-SmallTownGirl