This is a Contest Fic That I wrote. It is a music fic so the lyrics to The Phantom Of The Opera main theme are in it. I do not hold any rights to any of the characters they belong to J.K Rowlin.
In Dreams He Came.
For in the night the music rose. The swirl of the lights that flash before his eyes. In their mist there it was, a beautiful building of stone and glass. Gold that lines the walls and fire sparkled all along the candle lit passages. It was a beautiful place, a magical place, where dreams came true and horrors beyond one's belief were present for judgement. It was here that he found himself, wandering in a mist of perfume and melodies. And then it was gone in a flash of green. A searing pain and the smell of smoke, deep dark and consuming. It was the story of his life. Sadly it was over.
Lily sat silently on the grass as the leaves fell from the trees all around her. She had been at Hogwarts for five years now. She had seen thing and done things she had never imagined and nothing surprised her anymore, nothing that was magical that is, but matters of the heart were far different. She was confused and scared of what she was feeling and for whom she was feeling them.
She spent as much timeavoiding the students she had been friends with and just allowing her mind to wonder. Strange things had been happening all that year and she had hoped that they would stop once she would be back at home but, somehow, they had gotten worse. Far worse. Live voices were calling out to her. She heard them in her mind.
"What is the matter Lily?" Severus asked as he sat down beside her one the grass.
"Nothing," She sighed. She had only wanted to be alone.
"I can tell something is wrong," Snape said, "you've been avoiding me."
"I've been avoiding everyone," Lily snapped.
"Not James," Snape said.
"Especially James," Lily hissed, "you know I don't like him."
"Right," Snape said rolling his eyes, a great anger rising inside him that he tried so hard to subdue, "you say that."
"Fine don't believe me," Lily snapped, "why should I care if you believe me anyway."
"You are still mad at me," Severus sighed.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Lily asked, "I have no reason to forgive you for the things you said."
"I was wrong for saying them and I am sorry," Severus said, "you are the most deserving person I know. The smartest witch I know. You will do great things."
"You say that now, Severus, but as soon as you are with your Slytherin friends you'll change your tune. Why don't you just leave me alone before someone catches you talking to a mudblood and it will save both you and I the aggravation of your indecision."
"My indecision?" he asked angrily.
"Yes," Lily said just as mad.
"And what have I not made a decision on?" he asked.
"What side you are on," she huffed as tears filled her eyes, "I know you are a good person, at least I believe you are. Have I been wrong all along?"
"No," Severus said softly.
"Then why do you converse with those people?" she asked as the tears rolled down her face.
"Please don't cry," he whispered.
"My best friend," she sobbed, "you are supposed to be my best friend and you called me a mudblood."
"I'm sorry," he whispered uncomfortably. He hated himself for what he had done. He hated himself even more for making her cry.
"One day, Severus, you will have to choose a side," she whispered, "you wont forever be able to hide behind your masks."
"I know," he said and a silence fell between them.
Lily yawned as the sun began to set. They had been sitting together on the grass, in the autumn breeze for a good part of the afternoon. Most of it was spent in silence. Neither one knew what to ask the other. There was an awkwardness of secrets that was keeping them apart.
"The suns going down," Snape said after he saw her yawn again, "maybe we should head back. You look really tired."
"I haven't been sleeping well," Lily said as she pulled her cloak around her, "you would think after five years I would get used to the weirdness of this place. But it still hasn't happened. I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me but now I am beginning to wonder."
"Wonder about what?" Snape asked.
"About this strange dream I keep having. It started at the end of last term when we went home and lasted all summer. I thought coming back to Hogwarts would occupy my mind enough to stop it but it hasn't. I am still dreaming this dream and yet I feel more tired then when I went to bed."
"What is it about?" Snape asked nervously.
"Nothing really. Just a man in a mask," Lily said.
"And what happens in the dreams?" Snape asked.
"In sleep, he sang to me," she said, "he is always singing. It is always beautiful and he is always in a mask."
"Singing?" Snape asked, "that's a bit odd."
"Yeah and I never know the songs. At first, in dreams he came, and that was all. Then the music started. Strange melodies and now songs. I don't understand the lyrics. But that voice which calls to me, and speaks my name, never leaves me now. I hear him every night. I am beginning to wonder if it is something that has to do with magic." she said pulling her robes tighter around her as the cool night breeze swept across the grounds and the leaves fell all around them.
"Have you spoken to anyone about this?" He asked.
"No," Lily sighed, "the only person I wanted to talk to I wasn't talking to on a matter of principle and conflict of interest," she whispered.
"Ah, I see," he said lowering his eyes.
"But now you know," she said after another long silence, "my only worry is that this lack of sleep is going to affect my marks. I am so tired and yet I don't want to let the singing go. If ever the voice were to stop and my nights were silent I don't know what I would do. And, do I dream again? Would I ever be fortunate to dream another dream as sweet as these."
"It sounds like you are in love," Snape sighed.
"Oh with a masked man who sings to me at night," Lily laughed, "yeah right."
"Why would you not fall in love with someone like that. Some one of such mystery?" Snape asked.
"Oh I don't know, but I don't think I am in love with him. For now, I am just enjoying the soothing songs. But I find that I am falling behind and I can't get lost in my work. I nearly dozed off in history of magic today while Professor Binns was talking about... oh I can't remember now."
"He was talking about the Phantom of the Opera,"Snape said.
"Oh right," Lily said dreamily, "maybe that is who is there, inside my mind, as I dream about the music."
"He was a french wizard and architect and composer, why would you be dreaming about him?" Snape asked with a chuckle.
"Who knows," Lily sighed, "any ways I am cold and hungry and tired and so I am going back inside now. Good night Severus."
"Good Night Lily," he answered and watched as she walked back to the castle, "sweet dreams, mon belle amour." he whispered.
"Sing once again with me," a beautiful voice whispered in the darkness, "you know what you are seeking. So find it. You must find it now or forever be lost. It is the time to make your choice. To really chose what you have long been avoiding. You must make your final stand. Face your judgement and choose."
It was dark, hot, frightening in the darkness. All around was a thick pressing feeling but nothing, nothing but darkness for ever. And the voice an sweet, mysterious voice. It was soothing and yet it was foreboding. How could he choose what he did not know what was there.
"What must I choose?" he yelled into the darkness as he felt a cold sweat cover his body, "tell me and I will walk the right path, I will sing our strange duet. Just tell me."
"My power over you grows stronger, yet you are lost in mind and I cannot lead you until your thought are clear. What is it you want most. Was is the bane of your existence. Tell me." the voice said in a sickly sweet way.
"Show yourself, do not torture me so with your riddles," he cried, "you mock me. I am powerful. Much more powerful then this. Show yourself!" he said frantically as he spun on the spot and yet there was nothing. He walked in the direction of the voice that was ringing in his ears, "do not be a coward, show yourself to me now!"
"Your powers mean nothing here, in short, you are weak and powerless and though you turn from me, as you have in the past by your own choose, you must find your way back if you want this nightmare to end. For that is where you are stuck. You are trapped in a realm of your own dark design. You turn to glance behind and what do you find?" the voice whispered as if close enough to be touched.
He reached, he grasped, he ran and he spun and yet there was nothing but blackness all around him, "who are you? I don't understand? What is here?"
"The phantom of the opera is here, inside your mind," the voice whispered and he felt it. The breath upon his cheek. It was there all around him and yet he was along and the words of the sweet voice whispered ever louder in his ear.
Lily sat on the platform. He eyes were as red as the blush that rose in her cheeks. The summer had come and the term had ended and now she was leaving Hogwarts again. Top of her class as she had been for years and so she had a very great prospect as a witch and yet she was tired. Something had been troubling her for days, weeks, months and she did not know what. The voice inside her head had sung loudly, softly, forcefully, lovingly, for as long as she seemed to remember. Her schooling was wrapped up in it and yet she had done so well. She had learned things that she never remembered learning. They were taught to her without her knowing it. But now it was over. Another year had come and gone and she was going back to where she was an outsider.
"You dare seem me in a place as open as this?" she asked as he walked up to her.
"Those who have seen your face, as I have, would know something is wrong and I am worried about you," Severus said as he sat down beside you.
"Sure, just as worried as you were when at one look at my terrible mudblood face you draw back in fear!" she said the tears glistening in her eyes, "you've done it again and again. How dare you even pretend to be my friend now."
"Lily try to understand. I have to if I want to succeed." Snape said.
"You could be a good man, but no, I am the mask you wear, is that it? I have to see past it and put up a face that oh Snape and that mudblood she is the one he hates the most and yet you can come here, in the open, and ask me what is wrong. I will tell you what is wrong, Severus, you are what is wrong. You and your cruelty and your darkness. It's me they hear screaming and crying because of your actions and your words and it is building you up to be such a great dark wizard. Well I can't do it anymore you terrible traitor. I hate you and I don't ever want to talk to you again." she said her tears freely flowing now. "Please, be nothing but a shadow in a door way to me now and I will never trouble you as a filthy mudblood again." and with this she stormed off down to where the train had arrived.
Cold settled in. A cold that chilled not only the physical but the spirit as well. He shivered in the darkness as he ran his hands through his greasy hair. "How did this happen to me?" he asked the darkness, "where did I go wrong?"
"Your spirit was conflicted. Your voice spoke only evil. And yet your heart remained with one thing."
"With Lily, my spirit was her's, my voice was not, and my heart ever will be."
"Are you so certain of that?" the voice asked, "she moved on. You're betrayal, and his compassion, in one combined, with the arising darkness pushed you from her mind."
"To what?" he said angrily, "to that show off, that know it all. How his son is like him. How I hate them all."
"Do you really hate them?" the voice asked, "or do you hate yourself?"
"I hate them." he said and the cold grew colder. It chilled right to his heart.
Summer was here. A miserable, dark, kind of brightness that only being back in the muggle world could bring. It was hot in their little village. The sun was always out. The streets were dusty and the grass had turned brown and all Lily wanted was for it to be over. She wanted more then everything to be back at Hogwarts and yet the phantom of the opera was always there.
"Inside my mind," she whispered to herself as she sat on the curb of the street and stared off toward the banks of the river.
"Freak, mother wants you back in the house for tea. She is having more of her friends over to stare at you or some such nonsense," Petunia said with a evil smirk, "I dare say you will get more sweet is you smile prettily and wave that wand of yours." she giggled maliciously.
"Why must you be so cruel?" Lily asked as she stood before her sister, "is it because you are jealous that I am doing, very, very well at school and all you seem to be able to excel at is cooking and cleaning."
"Why would you ever thing I was jealous of you!" Petunia screamed, "I am what women aught to be. Not a freak like you!" she said and turning on her heals she marched off down the street.
Tears poured from Lily's eyes as she ran to the bank of the river, "he there, the phantom of the opera," a voiced whispered somewhere behind her eyes.
"Shut up!" she screamed through her tears, "stop tormenting me so." she sobbed, "maybe it would be best if I went in the way of Ophelia, I shall throw myself into this river along with my haunted dreams and mad ravings and maybe the world will be better off without me!" she cried to the darkening woods as she collapsed to the ground and sobbed.
Severus could do nothing but watch, horror struck from behind a tree. A deep pain struck his heart. Lily didn't fit in at home thanks to her sister and he made her the outcast as school. What a cruel person he had turned out to be, "beware, the phantom of the opera," he whispered somewhere deep inside his mind.
"Oh, I really am going mad," Lily sobbed into her filthy hands, "I am hearing you now while awake. Why must you torment me? Can't you see I am tormented enough?"
"Make it stop," He yelled as the cold flashed to hot, and angry, stinging heat. The same he had felt many times before when the evil that was within him overflowed.
"In all your fantasies, you always knew that you were being lead astray didn't you Snape?" a voice that he had not been expecting to hear answered him.
"Dumbledore, help me away from here," Snape pleaded with the darkness as he fell to his knees, "I've done everything you entrusted me with. I have been a good friend to you. You who knew my secrets. Help me be free of this misery."
The half moon spectacles appeared before him in the darkness, but nothing more, "you tried for too long to live a double life, Severus, that man and mystery were both in you, and where did it get you? Here?" Dumbledore asked.
"You talked me into playing both sides," Snape said angrily.
"No, you had been playing both sides when you decided to love Lily and be a death eater all at the same time. It was you who are forced to be one in the same with all the damage you have done. Do you deny it?"
"No, I did what I did because I believed it to be my path," he answered into the darkness.
"Then it was not James, or Harry or anyone tied to Lily in any way it was you?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes," Snape said with a whisper and the spectacles faded away from him and he was left in a calmness that he had yet to feel.
Lily lay in a mound on the floor. Her body twisted at an inconceivable angle, and yet she was still beautiful. He stood and stared at her, unable to move, unable to think. It was like he had been plunged into a dark abyss. Nothing else was there in that house but darkness. A darkness that was never ending and in this labyrinth, where night is blind, he sobbed standing over her body and her baby cried as the smell of burnt skin rose around the room.
"I am sorry," he said into the darkness as the tears welled up in his eyes once more, "I am sorry to have haunted her in such a ways."
"The phantom of the opera is there inside your mind," the sweet voice whispered.
"Always in my mind, the only place anything ever made sense. I see the folly of my ways. I am a retch and a cheat and she may have never died had it not been for me," he whispered.
"My destiny was written in the stars long ago," the sweet voice said as she touched him on the cheek.
And there before him as clear as day itself, she stood, a radiant figure in white.
"You understand what this means, Severus?" she asked as she stood over him and the darkness began to life.
"Sing, my angel of music," He whispered as he looked up at her.
"It is time for you to move on. He's there waiting to take you onward," she said as she reached out to him and helped him to stand once more.
"I am dead," he stated.
"Yes," she said as the darkness lifted and he stood over his dead body on the floor. The blood pooled around him and Harry knelt by his side, "it is time for the phantom of the opera to move on." she said and turned away.
"But wait, is that all I am to know? All I am to receive?" he asked as he rushed after her.
"You have come to terms with all you have done. You are forgiven by those you ask forgiveness from and you were, in your heart of hearts a good man. What more can you wish for?"
"The same thing I had wished for, for ever," he said shyly as he looked into her beautiful green eyes.
"Then it shall be done," Lily said as she walked with him out of the darkness of his death arena and into the light of the hear after, "it is from here that we must go our separate ways, as I am sure you have always known. But I want you to know that I am grateful for what you have done and there has always been a love in my heart for you."
"You do not hate me?" he asked sadly.
"No, never," she smiled and with that she kissed him. One last parting kiss. The one thing he had always dreamed about.
The End.