Beauty is in...
"Oh, Lily!" The pale skinned, dark-eyed youth watched from afar as his secret childhood love bestowed her kisses on an insanely grinning moron. What on earth did she see in him? He was messy, uncouth and completely not Severus. Snape sighed again, they were just about to finish their final year and there had been rumours- recently confirmed- that James Potter was going to ask Lily Evans to marry him. Severus would never see her again. But really what was it about him she liked? He huffed sardonically, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." He muttered, not as alone as he had thought.
"I hate that saying!" Severus spun around to be faced with the six Slytherin girls in the year below him. The speaker had brown hair pulled back from her face with a silver clip and plain brown eyes. Whenever he saw her she was always hand in hand with one of the other girls who now stood around her, several nasty rumours had gone around all of the houses about them and their relationship with each other. However she never shied away or hid. In fact, he let his eyes trail over all of the six girls, none of them appeared to react to anything including being pressured into anything they didn't want to do, including the blood purity war. None of them supported the Dark Lord and were powerful enough to protect themselves from - or ignore- the bullying of future Death Eaters as well as those who had already joined (like himself), they made him feel weak and ashamed occasionally.
"Who cares what you think." Severus turned to go- his robes made a rather impressively intimidating billow, something he'd have to work on- before the same girl spoke again.
"What makes her beautiful to you?" It was rather a personal question but as he was leaving in a matter of weeks , and he was a gentleman- no matter what the Marauders thought- he felt he should answer.
"She's an English Rose; pure, sweet and innocent of the darkness. She's always nice to people and would never turn her back on anyone."
"Like she did with you?" Severus whipped around a glared at the blonde who had spoken. She was not cowed and continued. "I may be a snake but we all believe that no one deserves the treatment she gave you."
"Come on! He called her a mublood."
"But clearly he didn't mean it." The group fell onto a calm debate amongst themselves all adding views or ideas but, to Severus' surprise, very little that was not true- they must have a spying network around the school. A quiet presence at his side jolted him from the girls only to see that the girl who had commented first was by his side looking towards the young couple. Severus racked his brain, he did know who she was...
"What about him?"
"Pardon?"
"What makes him beautiful?" Severus started.
"Taylors!" He stopped short, how did he explain to this girl, who obviously had no idea of boundaries, that James Potter was an ugly toe rag?
"What do you see that makes him beautiful to her?" That question was much better. He shrugged nonchalantly.
"I'm not going to see him in the same way she does, so to me he still looks like an ugly moron." A frown crossed her face but she still didn't turn to face him. He sighed and looked back at Potter. "He is always cheerful, loyal and has never found a comb." She gave a faint smile.
"Do you know what I see? I see... nothing." His head snapped round to her and he faintly noticed her friends had stopped talking. "I am a half-blood, muggle father like you. When I was eight my father wanted to teach me my accidental magic was bad and not funny like I had been seeing it. All I learnt was that bleach directly applied to eyes causes' blindness. However I can feel those to, and hear them, and they may be beautiful of cheerful apart but they are more beautiful than you would ever imagine together. The love between them is bright and warm, something that cannot be seen, only felt or heard. And that, Snape, is why I don't like that saying.
Severus could only stare at her in awe and se slowly, uncertainly, turned back to the lovers on the lawn and taking a deep breath he closed his eyes and reached out with his magic. The power and bond between Evans and Potter was... truly inspiring and definitely worth protecting. His breath caught in his throat, he was hardly aware of the Slytherin girls begging to leave. "What else is there?" He slowly opened his eyes.
"Many things, not all good. It would take a very long acquaintance between us to help you find it all." Severus nodded slowly and swept past the gaggle of girls down the hill.
"Then I'll find you when you and I have the time Taylors."
The hospital room was blank to see but with closed eyes Severus could feel the pain, anguish, joy and relief of its former occupants, the room was painted with those feelings. The pain he was in throwing itself to add to the feelings of the room. The war was over, and somehow he managed to survive Nagini's poisonous bite, but his voice... How would he ever be able to return to Megan – the one he used to call by her family name, Taylors until she shouted at him- the one who patched him up after his meetings with either of his 'masters'. She often told hi that his silky voice was one of the most powerful and beautiful things she had heard and felt ever, and now with his throat ripped up by a snake his voice was changed and disfigured.
Lying in his bed, waiting to be released and dreading the time when he had to face his only friend, Severus closed his eyes. He focused on his memory of the last time he had seen her when they said farewell before the battle. Just thinking about the beautiful picture she had made promising to wait for him at his home painted the feel of longing onto the blank walls. A tear sopped from under his dark lashed and trailed sown his sallow cheek. He loved her and cared deeply what she thought, he would do and let her know and then would leave to ensure his death. Yes, he would not force his mangled voice or ugly face( although she could not see it) on her.
SSSSS
She felt his intent before he even got through the door to the house and was weeping into her hands when he reached the sturdy where she was. Distressed at her grief that he did not understand he crossed the room quickly, feeling totally helpless, and knelt at her feet. His hands wavered between them, the discovery of his feelings making him feel like an awkward teenager with his first crush, unknowing of where or how to touch her now without incurring her wrath.
"You are up and healthy, Severus. Why would you wish to end your life? She sniffed. Not wanting her to hear his destroyed voice, he reluctantly too one of her hands and lifted it to his mouth so he could mouth the words.
'Not sick in body Meg, but distraught in mind. War makes one think thinks that they should not think about.' Severus had not missed the small sigh that she had given as he placed her small fingers on his thin lips.
"War merely makes us think things that we normally would not have thought to face during peace." Severus attempted to turn his face from her and leave but her dainty hands gripped him and kept him facing her. "Why Severus? Why so you feel the need to leave because of me? Your voice may be beautiful but do not demean you life because it is gone! When we first met do you remember what we argued over?" He nodded into her hands with his eyes closed, revelling in the contact. "Then you understand that beauty isn't just in the 'eye of the beholder'?"
"To you it is in the sound." He rasped as he felt her hands slip up to then run through his hair to the base of his neck as he opened his eyes in time to see her shake her head.
"To me, Severus, beauty is in sound but not just that.. It is in touch." Her hands slipped down to clutch at the robes covering his chest. "Smell." She put her nose to the sensitive hollow of his throat and breathed in deeply. "Taste." She moved up and as her lips brushed his, dragged her tongue across them, making them instinctively open them. "However more than any of that your beauty to me is that you finally love me as I love you." She had barley finished speaking before Severus claimed her lips as totally as he had her heart.
SSSSS
FINI