Severus stopped and stared at the woman, just as she stared at him. It seemed like it had been ages since he had run into her and fallen to the sidewalk in a slow, hesitant arch.
Could I ever love you like I did?
His thoughts were incoherent, jumbled, more so than usual. He had always known that the greatest gift to humans was speech. Words of the mind were so unclear and would be misinterpreted. He hated mental dialogue.
I remember that summer after Lily left for James and I was seventeen she was older but that didn't matter Vernon was gone and she was in the house and I was in that house I still don't remember why I was in that house it was good and fair back then that's what I remember most that and the smell of jasmine that was her scent her signature scent the scent that was left on my robes when we danced though there was no music and I still remember her taste not bitter as most how strange that sounds but it was the truth and then their parents were dead but the Ministry hadn't acted and Lily trusted me dammit she trusted me but it didn't matter none of it mattered because I loved Petunia and she left me for James.
All of it in his head was a vicious whispering, the book of memories flying open and the pages flapping in a mysterious wind. His memories of that summer were bittersweet. He lost one love and found another, and they had been sisters. He never really knew which one he had wanted to keep.
He had loved Petunia so dearly. He couldn't even remember exactly why he had loved her. Perhaps it was because they had both been stung by her, the red-head that did so much damage without ever meaning to and only hurt the people that loved her. She never knew they loved her. People like Petunia and Severus never showed it.
Where to go from here?
"Severus Snape." She gasped, breathless. She looked older now, much different than she had. In fact, Severus (for nothing more than a moment) wondered how he had recognized her.
The jasmine perfume. It was the jasmine perfume.
"Petunia Dursley." He nodded. He felt winded as well.
They gaped at each other.
Finally coming to his senses, he picked himself up off the ground and helped her up. Her hand felt weathered, but soft and still possessing love. He loved the way it felt on his, and the way her eyes, watery with tears now, rested with his gaze. He had missed her so much after all these years.
"You never came to visit." She said quietly. Every bit of her was shaking, including her voice. She was so hurt, so wounded by his negligence. His heart ached horribly. "You never called for me. After all these years."
"Vernon was there, and so was Potter." Severus told her, his eyes lowered. So ashamed he was. His eyes were wet with tears.
"That is no excuse." She was almost pleading for a better one.
"I'm sorry." He whispered. "Is that or is not that good enough?"
"I wouldn't know. I don't know if I know you any more." She crossed her arms over her chest. She was so beautiful. She was beautiful in a way that most people can't see, a color too vibrant to be noticed, hot blood under skin and diamond under coal. A precious necessity to mankind, even if they can't see it. It's the things you can't see, can't notice that make more of a difference.
"I really haven't changed. Is that sufficient enough for you?" He inquired coolly. He was calmer now, serene with the knowledge of her being close to him. He hadn't seen her in what was forever, a horrible lifetime of dull and dreary existence to which he had no debt. Life was in his debt.
She nodded and slowly began to cry. Wordlessly, he took her in his arms and cradled her there, and slowly lowered them both to the bench in the park where their lives had miraculously collided once again. He was bizarrely aware of his heart beat, the movements of his eyes, the sounds of the birds in the trees, singing to the beat of the weakly pulsing sunlight of the late evening.
When the tears had ceased he looked down at her. She was playing with his limp fingers, feeling them and letting them rest on hers. He liked that. It eased him even more into her emotional aura.
"Harry is out of the house. He's in London now." She finally said.
Severus really didn't know how to reply to that, so he said, "Oh."
"I kind of miss the boy. Vernon was much too hard on him. I never really hated Lily…I loved her in a way no one could really understand."
"So did I." he sighed. "She couldn't understand that either."
They sat for a bit as the sun went down, the clouds streaked pink with a beautiful, dying light. The birds still sung, and Severus knew it was just symbolism for his past and present. He hated when Nature taught him things like this.
For a long time they talked of what they had been doing in the past twenty-two years, what had changed and what never would, both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds, the people that had died and the people that were still thriving, and the people they both wished dead. It was captivating, this talk, but exhausting and somewhat depressing except for the dry humor that was intertwined with it.
"I can't go on with Vernon, Severus," Petunia soon cried, wiping tears from her tired eyes. "I can't love him anymore. It's killing me."
"Come with me." Severus pleaded quietly, in a rationally irrational way. "Come with me and we can be happy. I have enough Galleons stashed away for us to live together happily for the rest of our lives. That's what you want, isn't it? Happiness, a house in the forest?"
"This is crazy." She stared at him, her eyes disbelieving and wide. "I can't run away with you. We are not children anymore, Severus. This is so unlike you."
Severus' eyes narrowed with anger and fear. "I don't want to have to wait another twenty-two years to see you, Petunia. I don't want to have to sneak around your husband to be with you. I want to go somewhere where we don't have to deal with any of this. It isn't fair that we've had to deal with all of this so far."
"Life's not fair, Severus. It's not kind and it's not just. But we live it as we will and then we're done." Her voice broke at the last word. "You'll hold me tonight and you won't think about it after. You'll go and then it's over."
"You can bend life like hot metal, melt it down and start over. It's not impossible. Can't you learn what I'm trying to teach you?" he asked with a strange sort of urgency hanging in his voice. "You can make life be what it will. It doesn't do it for you. You must work for happiness and contentment. I've spent my whole life working, but at the wrong practice. You have to work with others to mold life into the shape that you want it."
"I can't go with you." Petunia shook her head. "I just can't."
"Then we'll leave it here, in this park, at this? We'll leave it at a bitter compromise?"
"I suppose we will." She started to cry. He hated that.
"Come closer, Petunia, and stop your crying. You may cry when you're alone. If you cry now, you know we both can never let go." He scolded. She choked back her tears almost immediately. "Now look at me." He lifted her chin and she complied.
Slowly, he leaned in and kissed her. The wistful sadness but complete and utter passion radiated from both of them until it seemed to have acquired a glow brighter than the streetlight above. It was hardly superficial, and it thawed their frozen hearts.
When his lips parted from hers, Severus picked himself up and walked away from Petunia, hating every part of himself and wishing it all to be damned. But there was something brighter inside, something that might be bright enough to make the birds sing once again.
Twenty-two years, he thought.
I shall not wait that long.