Fifteen Years
By Misha
Disclaimer- Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling and is not mine, however much I might wish differently. However, I am not making any money off of this, so please do not sue me!
Author's Notes- This is sort of the sequal to "A Year Ago", but can be read on it's own. This is Severus' reflections on the fifteenth anniversary of James and Lily's deaths. So, this is set at the beginning of the sixth book, but there aren't that many OotP spoilers, if any at all. This is just reflective angst, because it's my favourite. That's all for now, enjoy!
Pairing- Severus/Lily, minor James/Lily, a brief mention of Harry/Hermione
Summery- Fifteen years had passed since he lost her.
Rating- PG-13
Spoilers- All five books.
Fifteen years.
It had been fifteen years since that night at Godric's Hollow. Fifteen years since Lily and James Potter had lost their lives.
So much had happened since then.
Voldemort had been defeated and then come back. There had been thirteen years of peace and now another war raged. Other lives had been lost since then.
The son who had been just a baby that night, was now sixteen and on the verge of manhood.
So many changes.
Yet, as Severus sat alone in his quarters, it didn't seem real.
To him, they were still real. Still alive in his mind.
Potter was still arrogant and obnoxious. Still the tormentor of his youth.
Lily was still beautiful and compassionate. Still the impossible dream.
Except not totally. For a moment she had been his. For a moment he had known heaven and then, then it had all fallen apart.
But that had been a long time ago, as hard as it was to imagine at times.
The years had passed and they had not been easy ones for Severus. He was no longer the boy he had been when he loved Lily, nor even the young man he had been when he had lost her.
The years had left their mark on him, both mentally and physically.
In his mind, Lily was forever young and beautiful, but he was so much older now. Time had kept passing, even though Lily was no longer there and the result was that much had changed.
The feelings remained the same, but everything else was different.
All one had to do to remember that was look at the Potter brat. No longer a baby, instead he was almost an adult.
Though, sometimes Severus felt that looking at Harry Potter was one way to forget that any time at all had passed. It was just like looking at the father twenty years earlier.
Except the eyes.
It was only when Severus looked into they boy's eyes that he was able to separate father and son in his mind, for the eyes were all Lily.
Every once in a while, he'd catch a glimpse of Harry Potter's eyes and be thrown back in time, as the memories of Lily's eyes washed over him.
That was, perhaps, much more terrible than the memory of James Potter. He had despised Potter, still did in fact, but the memory of his rival was not as painful as the memory of LIly.
Beautiful, smart, charming, funny Lily. With her green eyes and long red-hair. Lily with her protective nature and fierce temper.
She had been one-of-a-kind and it hurt him to think of her. To look into eyes that mirrored hers, but were not hers and remember all that passed. That was torture.
It was much worse than seeing a living reminder of James Potter.
To have to both at once was impossible.
So he hated the Potter boy. For being like his father, but having his mother's eyes. For forcing Severus to remember things he'd rather not.
Like just how much time had passed.
In his head, his anger and his sorrow were still so new that it felt like only yesterday. Only yesterday that he had heard Potter's mocking voice or the sound of Lily's laughter.
Yet it had been much longer than that.
Fifteen long years had passed since they had last taken breath and his memories were older than that.
It wasn't James and Lily as they had been on that Halloween night that haunted him. No, they had been out of his life for a few years at that point, it was the teenage versions that he remembered so clearly.
Potter remained in his mind the nemesis of his school years and Lily was his school-day love.
He had only been a boy when he had loved her. The love should have faded, he should have moved on with his life, yet he had not been able to.
The part of him that could think about it rationally assumed it was because of the circumstances. His relationship with Lily didn't end naturally, it was shattered into a million pieces by the events going on around them.
Maybe if the war hadn't come, if they hadn't been divided by blood and House loyalties things would have been different. Perhaps the feelings would have faded, as the bloom of first love ended. Perhaps, Lily would just be a footnote in his life, instead of the great lost love to always be mourned.
But that was not to be. Because they were ripped apart and then she was lost, not just to him, but to the world. At the age of twenty-two Lillith Zara Evans ceased to exist.
Just like that. Beautiful, passionate Lily was gone forever and nothing could bring her back.
But a part of her lived on in the emerald eyes of her son. Through him, she was never really gone.
That thought haunted Severus.
It was both a blessing and the curse.
Part of him was glad that a part of Lily still existed in the world. But he hated the idea that she existed through James Potter's son.
The woman he loved and the man he hated bound forever in one boy. Fate certainly had a sense of humor.
Looking at Harry Potter was hard for other reasons besides the memories.
When he looked at Harry Potter, he was reminded of how many years had passed.
For Lily's son was no longer an infant. He was a young man. A living testament to how many years had passed.
Enough so that the child who was just a baby that fateful night was now on the verge of adulthood. Old enough to be in love himself.
Severus saw the looks, the timid touches exchanged by Potter and Granger and found it hard to believe that he had once been that young and in love.
Many, many years ago.
Too many years to properly recall, he thought sometimes.
He hated the knowledge that fifteen years had passed and he was still stuck in the same place. He had not moved on with his life, nothing productive had happened.
All he had was his hate and his bitterness. And his memories.
His oh-so bittersweet memories.
They were his only company on nights like this. Nights when he thought about the past and mourned.
Mourned for lost youth and forsaken love. Mourned for Lily. For beautiful Lily who he had loved so long ago.
He had been young then, no older than Harry Potter was now, and so had she. So many years had passed since then. Too many.
In his mind, Lily was still young and beautiful, never to grow old. But, he... He grew older every day, more in spirit than in body.
Sometimes, he wondered if he had ever been young. Oh, the years only added to thirty-seven, but in spirit he felt much older.
He felt like he was a thousand years old. Like he had never been young or happy or in love. Those things were all so foreign to him now.
They were as dead as Lily was.
So much had been lost. And for so long.
The years has passed until almost noting remained the same. The only thing left were his memories and he usually managed to bury them, at lest a little. It was only nights like tongiht which he allowed himself to truly reflect and mourn all that was lost.
In the darkness of his quarters, Severus shook his head. He still couldn't believe that that night marked fifteen years.
Deep inside, it still only felt like yesterday.
The End