Written for Hogwarts: Potions Assignment 6 - Summy from Ravenclaw
I'm rather proud of this one, to be honest. I hope you enjoy!
As soon as dinner was over, Severus Snape stalked up to the headmaster's office, ignoring the Carrows' invites to watch more students get tortured as punishment. He had not had a very good day, and he did not want to emphasize that by watching pitiful students writhe on the floor, their screams bouncing off the walls. His day had been terrible enough, thanks.
It had been terrible because the Carrows were really stupid and quite daft, and they didn't at all seem like they could do anything for themselves without personal consent from the Dark Lord. It had been terrible because Ginny Weasley was going to get seriously tortured if she continued her stupid acts of impulsive idiocy, or "bravery", as Gryffindors called it, and there was no way that the Hogwarts students could be of any use in the impending war if one of their reckless ringleaders became a mangled, ruined martyr in front of everyone's eyes.
It had been terrible because the Carrows had tortured a girl with red hair in front of the entire Great Hall, a girl who looked remarkably like her when Severus saw her out of the corner of his eye.
As the door slammed shut behind him, the portraits on the wall bristled despite their neverending disguise of sleeping whenever he entered the room.
"Severus," said Albus Dumbledore, the exception - always the exception - to the rule. But Severus made his way to his desk with a certain forwardness that could not be broken by sound nor force.
"Headmaster," mocked Phineas Nigellus Black, the other infuriating exception to the rule.
Severus continued to his desk, walking very quickly. He pointed his wand at the last drawer of his desk and hesitated.
"What are you doing?" Phineas drawled. "Vandalising property?"
Severus did not answer. Instead, he focused on the bubbling emotion inside of him. He needed to open it. He needed it like he had needed it when she - when he -
He made his decision. Ignoring the pounding force in his ears, the rush of fear, joy, apprehension, longing, in one swift motion, Severus jabbed at the lock of the drawer, a desperate jab, a desperate gesture.
The lock clicked.
"Oh, what's that?" asked Phineas as Severus threw the drawer open - the drawer that he had never once opened before in his time as headmaster, so naturally it would interest Phineas - and slowly pulled out a vial of pearly potion corked very tightly at the top.
Severus did not speak or so much as breathe as he held the glass vial with an emotion close to reverence and sorrow. The glass was cool in his hands - her hands had always been cool, always been smooth. He traced the dusty edge of the vial, his breath hitching as he stared into the pearly depths within. He had not touched this vial since - since sixteen years ago. Since...
"Severus," said Dumbledore again.
Severus closed his eyes, suddenly feeling very dizzy. "How do you ever expect to find out what this is if you keep on interrupting me?" he asked coldly, but even as he spoke, he fingered the cork. Did he need this? Did he really need this?
Yes.
In a fluid motion, Severus pulled the cork and breathed in. And for the first time since - hell, he didn't know when - since forever, maybe - he felt himself relax and he collapsed into the chair wondering how he could have survived sixteen years without breathing air.
Upon entering the Room of Requirement, Severus realized it was very difficult to differentiate between Lily and the potion she was brewing.
Lily Evans smelled of books and parchment, grass and winter air. She smelled of sunrise, nightfall, water, and air. She smelled of apples. She smelled of cucumbers, and so did the Amortentia potion that sat on the table in front of her.
She didn't hear him come in, but did hear him as he stopped in his tracks, inhaling her scent.
"Hey, Sev." She smiled and turned to him. She was perspiring a little from the potion's warm steam.
"Hey," he said. He felt a smile creeping towards his face. It was a feat only she could accomplish, and she could accomplish it quite easily. "Amortentia?"
She nodded, returning her gaze to the bubbling potion. "Professor Slughorn knew that I wanted extra credit in Potions, so he told me I could brew this to get fifteen points."
Severus snorted. "And why you would want extra credit is beyond me. You're almost at the top of the class."
Lily shrugged. "I find potions fascinating, and I'm sure you know how I feel." She gave him a grin with the corner of her mouth. "And besides, you're the one who's at the top of the class, so that's not making me feel any better."
Severus smirked, but didn't trust himself to do anything else. Her scent was simply too wonderful, too intoxicating. And he didn't want to do anything other than breathe her in.
"Severus?"
"Severus?"
Severus's grip tightened on the vial and he gave a small, desperate gasp as she, after all these years, invaded his nostrils, his mind, his soul.
"Severus?"
"Shut up," he said, but it came out feeble and weak. She'd always made him weak in the knees.
He needed her. How was it possible that he had survived so long without her scent? He felt the day's, month's, year's troubles slip away as he crumpled to the floor.
Lily. Lily. Lily.
Dumbledore knew not to speak anymore, but Phineas Nigellus did not. "Hey you! Have you always had that?"
Severus didn't reply. He simply clutched the vial and breathed through his mouth so he could taste her on his tongue as well as smell her.
"Lily," he said abruptly as she paused to fan herself. "Are you giving the entire cauldron's worth to Slughorn?"
She shook her head. "No, he's got this large flask he wants me to put it in, but he said not to expect to fit more than two-thirds."
"So what are you going to do with the rest?"
Lily shrugged as she picked up her wand again. "I don't know. Vanish it, I suppose. Not much use I could have with it."
"Could I have some?" The words fell from his mouth very quickly, and he turned a dark shade of red as she whipped around to look at him in shock.
"You want Amortentia, Sev?" she asked incredulously. "What ever for?"
He fidgeted and avoided her gaze. "I - well, you know -"
Lily bounded over to him, leaning in very conspiratorially, giving him a good waft of apples and sunshine. "Ooh," she breathed out, "is there someone you like, Sev?" she asked eagerly.
He stepped back, not trusting himself when she was so close, so close that if he leaned in two inches, just two measly inches - "No!" he said quickly. "No, don't be silly."
"Are you sure? You can tell me anything, I won't tell her, I promise."
She looked so earnest that Severus almost considered telling her that she was the one he desired, she was the one who was always in his mind, she was the one he smelled in the Amortentia.
He cleared his throat nervously. "I know you wouldn't. I just - it's not like that, no. I just want to… do some tests."
"Tests?"
"Yeah," he said, milking his lie for all it was worth. "Just some tests with the potion's properties and all. Amortentia takes a long time to make, and if you're going to have extra…"
"Well, of course you can have some of the extra!" Lily furrowed her brow. "But are you sure that's it…?"
"Yes," he said, trying very hard not to be obvious as he breathed her in.
"Well, alright," Lily said, resuming her position in front of the cauldron. "If you're sure."
"Yes," he said to her back. "I'm sure."
And the vial he had kept for years. At the beginning, he would always take it out to get a whiff of her just before he fell asleep. He must have opened it at least three times a day in their seventh year. But after school, he locked up the Amortentia in his flat, only opening it two times until the present and that was when she had gotten married and when she had died.
He had cried both times, but he wasn't crying this time. Severus Snape simply sat on the floor next to his desk and stared at the pearly liquid - he remembered she'd been wearing a string of pearls on her wedding day, a string of pearls that resembled the potion's colour - and tried his very best not to hurl the vial across the room because it wasn't the same as her.
And he needed her.
Only her.
And this potion - it was nowhere close to being her, it was nowhere close to feeling her in his arms, her warmth, her smile, her everything - Lily -
The vial slipped from his hands - but maybe it hadn't slipped, maybe he had made it slip - and dropped to the floor, falling to the side as its contents dripped to the floor that began to sop up the last remnants of Lily mercilessly -
And Albus Dumbledore and Phineas Nigellus Black and the rest of the sleeping portraits watched as Severus Snape reached out a placed a finger in the disappearing puddle of Amortentia
and watched his love twist out of his grasp once more.