I Can't Be The One Who Cares

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

(HPSS) "Some day, Severus Snape, you will fall in love. And boy, then won't you be cross."

TITLE: I Can't Be The One Who Cares 1/1

AUTHOR: Meredith Bronwen Mallory

FEEDBACK: mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com -- I live for it.

WEBSITE:

STATUS: Complete

PAIRING(S): HP/SS, Lily/James

SPOILERS: Through OotP, though quite possibly AU

RATING: R, to be on the safe side.

DISCLAIMER: Do I look like I'm in charge? Didn't think so. Needless to say, I do not own Harry Potter. I don't even own the couch I'm sitting on! Those lovely witches and wizards belong to J. K. Rowling, Warner Bros, and

assorted other companies. All of these groups have some very scary lawyer people in dark suits, so I am not going to mess with them. The only thing I own is the idea for the story itself.

SUMMARY: We have little choice in who we love-- it's that lack of control that makes the emotion so dangerous.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: As always, thank you for reading this piece-- doubly more than usual, seeing as I am very uncertain of the quality. Though Severus Snape is one of my favorite HP characters (I need to get my head checked, I know), I've been hesitant to write my favorite pairing (HP/SS) because I've been afraid I won't handle him correctly. Imagine my surprise when my muse comes bouncing up to me, informing me that she is currently channeling the daunting Potions Professor, and would I care to be a dear and take this all down? So here you have it, my first HP/SS slash. It also contains non-sexual friendship between Snape and Lily Evans-Potter. God willing, it isn't too sucky. My apologies to anyone who gets copies in the cross-post. Please forgive any mistakes. Feedback would make me so happy as to do thoroughly embarrassing things, like jumping up and down and squealing. Come on... ^_^

"You thought I shunned you,

When I, quickly turning,

Hid my face from you,

And would not look again.

Ah!

Being but a man,

How could you know, beloved,

That it was to wipe,

The scalding tears away?"

-Poetess Huang Pien, Tang Dynasty.

===============================

I Can't Be The One Who Cares 1/1

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

===============================

I loved Lily Evans.

Oh, I can just imagine how that sounds, a tone of condemnation, a verdict of 'guilty' to the shallow masses. It hasn't been so long that I have forgotten the looks of disgust and curiosity I received from her Gryffindor house mates, should we be 'caught' browsing a bookstore together, or walking side by side on a Hogsmeade weekend. Of _course_ my interest in her must be carnal, those looks said. How dare I, a Slytherin, allow her to link my arm with hers, when James Potter had been chasing her for as long as any of their puny brains could recall. As if she was territory, something he'd claimed as his with a clumsy 'hands off' sign to everybody else. A Slytherin and a Gryffindor, anyway-- who'd ever heard of such a thing, then? Clearly my designs were nefarious. Foolish, inattentive children who have grown up to be the same people who see the world defined in extremes; here is good and here is evil, and never shall they meet. They see no need to look beneath the surface, either-- something Black has suffered the consequences of, to my morbid amusement. After all, it wasn't too long ago he had me face down in the mud, growling something about leaving Potter's girlfriend alone. I have a long memory, perhaps too long, but there is no changing that.

I loved Lily Evans. Even when, after years gentle refusal, she became-- of all things!-- Lily Potter. The scrawny girl-child, the brilliant young woman, the brave (read, 'reckless') Auror, the radiantly pregnant wife; all of these were still Lily, and thus I could summon no real anger towards her. I loved her.

But if I had been given a choice in the matter, I can assure that I would not have.

I would not have, at all.

It disgusts me, sometimes, when I take a step away from my own existence and consider what the progeny of this current generation will make of our times. I'm sure it will all be so clear cut, the so-called scholars of the next age smug in the knowledge that they can analyze the past. I'm sure motives will be examined and reexamined, each of us cast into a ill-fitting, read-made role. Albus Dumbledore will be the benign, guiding old saint; James Potter a brave martyr; Lily a shallow, background sketch, defined only as a mother who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Harry Potter, of course, will be held up as a shining talisman of what it means to be a wizard.

It's comforting, at least, to know I'll probably be dead by then.

And when the increasing unfamiliarity of my aging body fails to cheer me, I soothe myself with the distinct possibility that my true role in this shall never be known. I have no desire to be picked apart, cast in the mold of some sort of muggle born-again, seeking redemption with face upturned. It's too late for flimsy concepts like 'forgiveness' and 'redemption'. It's far too late for me; I willingly chose one path, then turned towards another. In the most banal sense, I suppose the rightness of my choice can be determined by whether or not I am alive at the end of all this.

I have descended far further than even I ever guessed.

I don't want to love _him_ either, you understand. If it were in my power, I would rip this embarrassingly overwhelming emotion-- love is such a stupid, _useless_ word-- from me with almost savage satisfaction, to the degree that perhaps even Lupin might flinch. Better to feel nothing at all. It was true with Lily than, and it is true with Harry presently-- though the affections are vastly different. It irritates me that, at my age, I am still subject to such feelings, such an uncontrollable force within my own, well-ordered being.

It gives me little satisfaction, either, to tell myself that this all Lily's fault.

I never looked at her with desire, though she was, objectively, very beautiful. That beauty, however, was a hopeless sort of thing, somehow lopsided or out of fashion. She was so bright, so blazing, that it was hard to see past the fact she was so striking, and striking things are not always pretty. What I remember most are her hands; her white, blushed ivory hands, very thin and so deceptively fragile in appearance. I recall her chopping ingredients, stirring potions, bending over her text in charms. I recall the way she held her willow-bark wand-- incorrectly, despite all attempts to correct her-- in the simple, balled up fist that was most comfortable to her. Most people, her husband included, praised her summer-green eyes, but I watched her hands, their very silent indication of all that she felt.

The presence of her features in her son seems dimmed, at least superficially-- I have often heard it remarked that young Potter is almost a carbon copy of his father, save for 'his mother's eyes', and I have never once corrected that opinion. But _his_ eyes are not hers, far too intense in color and in glance, not matter what incompetence I may accuse him of verbally. Behind those repulsive glasses, his eyes change his face, making him not a reincarnation of the vengeful dead, but a person wholly individual. And his hands-- like hers, though wider in the palms and roughened with scars-- betray his secrets, clenching, shaking, such small fists. Lily's influence in him is subtle and hard to see; perhaps I find this something of a relief.

Once, Lily told me I would one day fall in love, and thus come to understand her helplessness, both in the face of the elder Potter's affections, and in regards to the ghostly porcelain memory of Narcissa Black-- though _her_ name was thankfully beyond utterance, by then. Love is a weakness, Lily knew that and admitted it freely. Against your better judgment, despite the truth laying bare as flayed bones for all to see-- that's the sort of thing this reckless feeling involves.

"Someday, Severus," she murmured, meeting my gaze with the stance of a swords woman, "you'll fall in love. And boy, then won't you be cross!"

We must have been having an argument when she said this-- though we fought on occasion, it was never with raised voices. It is that soft, sure tone she used when debating that I associate with those words. She did not intend to threaten me (indeed, I do not think it would have occurred to her to do so), but the words came to me with that fine bladed feel. I knew then, though Veritaserum could not force me to to admit it, that what she said would one day come to pass.

Lily was a strong, gentle and determined girl; too focused on the inner world to consider things like pride and arrogance, which belonged to the without-- but, never the less, I found her insufferable, _absolutely_ insufferable, when she was right.

Perhaps you regret it now, my dear? The thoughts I have about your son, Lily! Lily, my little sister in all but blood; the foolish first year girl who stood between childish hatred and someone she didn't even know. A Slytherin at that; her own House was horrified. My companion, who understood the delicate secrets of potions-making, an intellectual equal. There was a time, when I was young enough to believe such things, that I almost believed she really was my sister, separated by some accident, born to the wrong people, and that was certainly true. I had the wrong father and she was a family irregularity-- like some sort of side show in the living room. I kissed her- once, maybe twice-- on the forehead, struck unawares y a protectiveness, a tenderness I never anticipated. I never really did anything to merit her kindness or understanding, in my consideration. But she gave it all the same.

She loved James and Narcissa; Lupin, even Black, and-- perhaps, for a time-- Pettigrew. She loved me, depended on me to pull her out of scrapes that always grew far beyond her expectations, and she loved Harry-- in the end, most of all.

I see Harry, running about with Weasley and that Granger girl; I think, 'she _died_ for you', and I tell myself I hate him. Hate the blithe, mother-given way he flirts with danger; hate the near-careless, father-given way he floats through school. All potential and nearly no application. I _should_ hate him. I know I have within me the capacity for such all-consuming loathing, undoubtedly far more than I have to love. Lucius Malfoy's death, for example, would bring me a satisfaction I can almost taste, like the dim lingering bite of one's dreams.

He's sixteen this year, Lily, your son. He's grown beyond the image of his father, though the Wizarding World still binds him, painfully, to the half-obscene, plastic image of The Boy Who Lived. They believe in that mirage with all the selfishness of cowards, determined to thrust countless centuries of problems onto his slim, pale shoulders. I can see, though, in his distracted visage, in the way he grips his wand, that _he_ does not believe. He must be frightened-- but all I will ever give him is harsh words, and more fear.

I love him most of all, you see, and thus it is he I fight against most ferociously.

I saw that knobby-kneed, underfed boy standing in the Great Hall and, though desire came later (not late enough, however, for what passes as my conscience!), and his earnest face recalled Lily's words to my mind. That day had all the sickening finality of a lock clicking into place. Ironically, before I ever saw him, I entertained the thought that perhaps... well, the idea was never that concrete, even in my own mind. Suffice to say that he was Lily's son, and I was prepared to, in my own way, offer a slight guiding hand. By Hagrid's oft-told accounts, Harry was eager to learn and starved for knowledge of the parents he could not remember. Tales of James would be easy enough to come by-- this was proved to me the day McGonagall chose the boy for Gryffindor seeker-- but Lily... Lily was by turns strange and wonderful, often at the same time, and there weren't many that knew her the way I did. I believe Mr. and Ms. Weasley have told Harry something of her, but they were two grades ahead, and Molly too focused on mothering Lily to be her friend. You would think the woman would be occupied enough with her own seven children, but she seems to have adopted Lily's child as well. After over ten years of teaching, I can only thank Merlin that the woman is now past childbearing age.

Whatever small, half-kindnesses I was prepared to offer the boy withered and died when he entered my sight. His placement into Gryffindor, the very thing I disapproved of, became a blessing. Lily should have been a Slytherin, for all her kindness and well-meaning, headlong dives-- though I suppose I am somewhat prejudiced on the matter-- and I fully expected Potter to be placed in my own house, where I could keep an eye on him. Better, now, that he be high in Gryffindor Tower, safely away from his depraved Potion's Master and my growing awareness of just to what extent I care. I will _not_ stoop so low, ridiculous as it is for one such as I to have standards.

Regardless, I have fought to protect him when I had firmly told myself I would stay uninvolved. I have plucked him-- with an ease that can only be learned-- out of harms way many times personally, and by manipulation of others many more. I suppose the pattern was set during that very first Quidditch game. Things have only worsened from there. I have allowed Dumbledore to con me into training Harry in Occlumency -- the boy's presence in my mind is delicious as it is disconcerting, making me grateful for my own prowess in the field.

I hate this as much as I love him-- and damnit, Lily, this is all your fault. My dear, foolish girl-- you should have known better than to say those words to me, to tempt time to bind. Even if you loved me, even if you sometimes turned your little-sister face towards me in trusting adoration, you should have been able to see that I am not someone you would want to wish on anyone. Let alone your son! I want him, underneath me, on top of me, in my bed; beside me with the ease he feels in battle, which we have become accustomed to as of late. Why have you done this to me? I imagine no malice from your end-- you just aren't capable of it-- so there must be some well meaning, dunder-headed scheme. I will watch over and protect Harry; I would give my life for this, and I would have done these things because he is your son, even without loving him. But doing so, feeling this much, makes it all the worse, and I am not made to bare such things. If I were to touch him, if he were to somehow return my affection, how could I ever hope for your forgiveness? I shun such things from the rest of the world, but I would like it, I would have it from a special few, and that includes you.

The Christmas Holidays are here, you understand-- tonight was the final feast before most of the little _things_ run home to Mummy and Daddy. I watched Harry, as usual, from my place at the staff's table, knowing full well that he will remain in the castle over the break, to wander around and stumble into things he has no business in. He has grown to be everything I feared he would become, foolishly brave, hopelessly loyal, and more than willing to look past the initial impression of things. With more and more regularity, to my distaste, I find that this includes even me. What would you have me do, Lily? I have had my hand on his elbow, on the small of his back, correcting his dueling stance. I have even received his smile-- brief though it lasted in the face of my sneer-- when he discovered the 'horrors' I 'brave' as a spy. And this evening, I had a sly glance and a coloring of cheeks, even he returned my gaze.

As adverse as I am to excess, this is obviously one of those nights that calls for a drink-- secure in the knowledge that the train loads tomorrow, and I have no classes to teach. A little scotch and a vial of dreamless-sleep go a long-way, thank Merlin. Somewhere, in the after life I don't believe in, I know that you can hear me. I know you are smiling, playfully frustrated with me. I have an empty chair, Lily, and am not prejudiced against the company of ghosts. I'll pour two drinks.

Come, little sister-- this one's for you.

#(#)#(#)#

*hopeful look* Feedback brings good karma. mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com