On the day that news of Harry Potter's long-awaited arrival reached the halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Severus Snape was locked in his office, dreading the ever-nearing feast and cursing Dumbledore in all the languages he knew, furiously scribbling nonsense thoughts onto the partially crumpled piece of parchment splayed atop his oak desk.
It had become a soothing practice for him, to write out his thoughts and look upon them freely, as if releasing them could lessen the weight of his burdens.
James Potter. Git.
Harry Potter. Likely git.
Lily Potter.
He found that he could never quite place a label on the last name, no matter how many times he copied it down, and felt the familiar burn in his eyes, the lump in his throat, the ache in his heart that made it seem as if it was being torn asunder. He balled the paper into his fist and set it on fire, tossing it carelessly into the trash bin as he let out a quiet sigh.
Ten years it had been, one long, ongoing, horrible decade void of a certain redhead, so many years spent wasting away in a classroom filled with disrespectful students completely unwilling to learn or listen, ten years of waiting and planning and waiting some more, all for one Harry Potter to pass through those great double doors so that the true trial, the true hardship, could commence.
And now the day was upon him, the morning just as unmerciful and cruel as each one before it, and Snape was left counting down the minutes until the moment he would look upon Harry's small face and see those wonderful, lovely green eyes staring back at him, the moment he would be reminded of his greatest sin, the moment that could very possibly break him entirely.
"You won't like him, you know," said a soft voice to his right, and he turned to see a twenty-one year old Lily reclining in a chair propped against the wall, dark curtains of her fiery hair falling around her shoulders, her eyes just as vivid as he remembered, "He's the son of James Potter; how could you possibly like him?"
Although her point was immensely valid, Snape felt the need to argue with her.
"He might be like you, though," he countered plainly, and she blinked at him, thoughtfully tilting her head.
"I suppose, but he isn't. You know that already. You'll hate him, we both know that."
Severus stared at her for minutes, knowing that this vision, this image come alive in his mind, could never truly be the Lily he'd once known so many years ago, and yet she seemed so real, her chest rising and falling with each breath she took, proof of how well she was, her eyes gleaming with that knowing sparkle that he'd grown to adore as a child.
His inner clock, something he'd acquired after a decade of staying at the school and going through the motions, told him that the feast was just about to begin, and so he stood, his cloak billowing behind him as he swept past his desk and to the door, ignoring her prediction.
"Leave me be," he called to her as he opened the heavy door of his office.
"I'll always be with you, Sev," she returned forlornly, and he pretended not to see the sad, hopeless fall of her previously pleasant expression, a frown blossoming where it definitely did not belong.
...
After saving Potter's spawn more times than he could count and risking his own life every second of each passing day for the past six years, Severus was growing weary, and the exhaustion seemed to seep into his bones, into his soul, and it all grew harder to bear as time went on.
With such an insufferable know-it-all like Harry to guard day and night, it was nearly impossible to keep his temper in check, and he would only admit the fact to Dumbledore and, on occasion, the lingering figment of his imagination that looked and sounded exactly as Lily had. He would admit that, some days, it was all simply too much, that he couldn't possibly keep up the façade forever, that there would come a day when he could not continue his deceitful endeavors.
Albus would merely send him a kind, wise smile, patience shining in his wizened gaze, and murmur monotonous reassurances, urging him to soldier on, reminding him of the deal they'd made on that fateful day in the aftermath of such loss.
Lily, her face just as young and her voice just as happy as it had been on the day she'd died, would only stay silent, her own attempts to talk with him deadened through the years, her emerald eyes shining as she trained those mossy depths on him.
He'd stare at her for a few solemn moments and turn away, not wanting to tell her how hopeless he was becoming, not wanting to say how futile her passing was turning out to be, not wanting her to know that Voldemort would win and everyone would perish and he would fail her in the last and final way he ever possibly could. He didn't want to voice it all, fearing that if he did, it would turn to reality even sooner. He could almost feel it slipping through his fingers.
Behind him, she appeared, as if the single thought had beckoned her, and heaved a very great and loud sigh, leaning her back against a wall with her arms crossed over her chest.
"So, Dumbledore's just told you the plan, and you're really going to go through with it? You're going to kill him?"
Nodding because he didn't think he could manage a simple 'yes', Severus shuffled the newly graded essays into a pile at the corner of his desk and sighed inwardly, realizing the full scale of what he was about to do once it was said aloud.
Draco would be spared, Albus would be dead, Voldemort and the rest of the Death Eaters would fully trust him, the school and all its inhabitants would never forgive him, and Harry and his friends would hate him even more.
All in all, it didn't sound as bad as he thought it could have, save for the fact that he would never be able to tell Harry what he was supposed to do if the boy was far too distracted by his fierce hatred of his former teacher. That part was just a bit annoying.
"And everyone will always hate you," Lily murmured from her designated corner of the room. Snape shrugged half-heartedly at her; as long as Voldemort was truly destroyed, once and for all, his own reputation was hardly of any import.
But then again, it really did seem like nothing was going according to plan, and that the Dark Lord would reign, triumphant, and Severus felt that familiar pang of sorrowful hopelessness tug at him.
Lily appeared before him, sitting on the one empty corner of his desk and glancing down at him with a knowing, sad look in her deep eyes.
"You have no clue what you're doing, do you?" He averted his gaze shamefully.
"I'm protecting your son." She tilted her head, and out of the corner of his eye he traced the way the light strands shimmered in the dim lighting as they fell past her shoulders.
"And yet, he will die," she reminded him distantly, and he grimaced at the words (hearing them poured from her lips, in her sweet voice, sounded far too much like the utmost betrayal, and he closed his eyes so that he wouldn't see the proof of that on her face), "and you will have failed, and everyone else will die."
He shook his head, envisioning in the darkness behind his closed eyelids the way she might have looked if she'd gotten the chance to grow older, if she'd lived, if he hadn't endangered her and her family, if he hadn't committed the worst crime of all. She might have had a streak or two of gray in her hair by now, might have had a wise glint in her forest-colored eyes, might have sported a few laugh lines.
She might have been happy, had it not been for him.
He opened his eyes to see her staring accusingly at him from her balanced perch on his desk, and his gut wrenched with both grief and overpowering guilt.
"You're right," he returned shakily, steeling his nerves against the wave of sorrow threatening to overtake him, and feeling, despite himself, somewhat confident in his next words," but I won't fail."
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