DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter, its publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made for this. No copyright infringement is intended.
CHAPTER TITLE: Moments 1 - 11
AUTHOR: Relala
BETA: Ocean of Dreams/lady of scarlet
FANDOM STATUS: Fanon/Canon
SHIP(s): Always - (Severus Snape/Lily Evans) / Pride and Prejudice - (Severus Snape/Minerva McGonagall)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a collection of challenges which have (mostly) been issued by the LJ community "snape100". Most are Drabblets, some are longer. There will be exactly 100 moments spaced between chapters when I have completely finished. I've no idea how long this will take me, nor how many chapters there will be. I hope to be finished by November 2009 but no promises since I don't have a Flashdrive anymore. Enjoy. And remember to review if you've read anything. No one likes a lurker.
(1) BEST MEMORY
The pint-sized wizard lay stretched across the night-chilled seats of the Muggle car, half of his mind somewhere off in dreamland and another part seamlessly aware of reality--the feel of the bumpy highway underneath the wheels of the vehicle and the feather softness of his Father's early October jacket draped across his tiny frame from neck to knees. The streetlamps which lined the roads shone as brilliantly as any artificial sun could have ever hoped, seeping through the skin of his eyelids to leave playful images of fiery oranges and reds. He smiled contently at this half-life, pink lips parting and lungs releasing a sigh.
"Sev?" a deep rumble of a voice asked. "You awake, Son?"
Severus raised a chubby fist and knuckled his eyes gently, dimly opening the brownish black windows of his soul for a fleeting second before slipping over the edge of sleep. He tumbled headlong into a world of clouds and happy moments. From far away he heard the thundering laugh of his pleased Father and felt his great paws rumple his greasy hair.
"Love you, Severus."
(2) ENVY
With a snarl threatening to erupt from between his thin lips, and a blinding rage within his heart, Severus watched Hagrid getting redder and redder in the face as he called for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek; Watched from within the shadows as she giggled and blushed, her top hat with immeasurable envy and betrayal, he retreated back to the coldness of his dungeons, slamming the door to his office so hard that the pictures on the walls shivered within their glass panes.
It should have been his lips on hers beneath the mistletoe this Christmas, his fingertips sweeping along the smoothness of her cheekbones to feel the fire of her pinkish blush. The hat had fallen to the floor, forgotten in a moment of intense passion.
But that was only a dream and he was within his room, tangled in the chains of envy, and, once again, all alone with tears staining his face and not a friend in sight.
(3) FIRST DAY AS PROF
Young Severus Snape had on no occasion ever been one for nervousness, had never been a fan of shyness or uncertainty. From the moment these worthless emotions had taken root within his tender boyhood like poisonous weeds, he had abhorred them with the loathing of a man. As he stood once more in a crowded classroom of students at Hogwarts, he realized that the fact that he had grown up had not affected that hatred in any way. He still glared at the nervous twitches of the younger boys, glared at the shy glances from the adolescent girls and sneered at the children who sat in the back rows, unsure if they knew the answers.
"Well? Are you all a bunch of imbeciles?"
It was never a way of teaching for him, it was merely who he had always been. Sometimes we're unable to change something which has been a part of our nature for so long.
(4) KIDS
"Now ... how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?" she asked, her quill poised over her clipboard.
"Fourteen years."
Fourteen years. That statement said it all. Fourteen years of teaching, clean living, brought sunrises and sunsets, trivial gossip, loneliness, timid breath being forcefully dragged into his lungs. And, above all else, fourteen years worth of adolescent faces, shifting like a river between every single student.
Fourteen years. Fourteen years. How many students could one teach within that amount of time? How many were alive and well? How many dead? How many names could he properly recall? How many faces did he see each day, how many had he now forgotten even within the last few hours?
Severus Snape silently began a roll-call within his head: Brocklehurst. Abbott. Weasley. Zabini. Finnigan. Bulstrode. Crabbe. Potter. Brown. Flinch-Fletchley. Granger. Bones. Stebbins. Nott. Parkinson. Malfoy. Perks. Turpin. Fawcett...
(5) THE MEETING
It's been decades, long horrible years stretching the span of eternity, since he has been here last. Odd, though, how it seems to his aching heart like it was only in yesteryear that he and she had frolicked here. If the merry-go-round hadn't been absent or the swing set chains not bronze-coloured with rust...why, it might have seemed like only yesterday that he had been ten-years-old. He could go down the street now, couldn't he, and pound on the Evan's door? And she would appear, as she always did, red hair tussled carelessly with the art of childhood and shoelaces undone. Silly girl never knew how to tie a knot back then.
He wanders over to the swings and throws himself into one, closing his eyes and falling into a world of memories and hopefulness. Maybe she will be alive when he wakes up. Maybe she will come and knock on his door.
But the knock never comes and the only sound is that of another body sitting down within the swing beside him.
"Go away, stranger."
"I'm not leaving, Snape!"
Glancing up in mild shock, he finds the face of a Muggle sister, somewhat changed and half forgotten. He struggles to think of something worthwhile to say to her but can find nothing of importance that needs to be voiced. I hate you,are the only words he would be able to form and the atmosphere speaks for itself: I miss her.
They both do.
(6) DEATH or IT'S YOUR WORLD NOW (Song by The Eagles)
Severus Snape is lying on the dirty floor of the Shrieking Shack within a soaking puddle of his own crimson blood. He is dying. The fragments of his life--the memories--are flowing out of his mind like water with gentle ease, seeping out like silver mist, almost as if to make it seem like everything had all been so meaningless. You'd think, wouldn't you, that a lifetime of memories so full of pain and love would be thicker?
Severus lets it go. It doesn't matter and he cannot really hold on to coherent thoughts anymore. All he is truly aware of is the fact that he is leaving his worlds behind--the worlds of good and evil which he so accidentally melded together. He takes his last breath, acknowledging peacefully that those worlds will never again belong to him. Perhaps, he thinks, it is his world now.
Good luck, Lily's son.
(7) THANK YOU
He is twelve, huddled in a corner and weeping. There are no friends in sight to lend him a comforting hand and her heart is touched by his helplessness and vulnerability. The world outside Hogwarts is a cruel place. The world of children is torture.
She walks with crisp steps over to his side and smiles hesitantly at his wide-eyed, curious, expression when she magic's a cloth and a cup of water into existence. She drenches one tip of the cloth in water and begins to dab the tears of his face so that the salty tears are washed away by lukewarm liquid. It always used to comfort her as a girl, and she hopes it will aid this little child somehow.
"T-t-thank you, Professor McGonagall."
(8) TURN BACK TIME (Song by Cher) FOR Song Title Shuffle
All of the soon-to-be Death Eaters, every last one, agree that Severus Snape is better off without that Mudblood Lily Evans. They joke and laugh and say, "did you see the look of pain on her face!" and, "moving up in the ranks of the world, eh, Severus? No more Mudblood whores?" But Severus does not join in the fun. He is consumed by the twin beasts of sorrow and regret. Withering in physical remorse. His apologies are worthless...and he cannot turn back time.
(9) GREEN
There's a thin line between love and hate, Severus knows, because he has contemplated that quote every single year since her death, straining so desperately to resolve whether he hates or loves this time of year. It's so gorgeous in these spring days that words like "dazzling" and "magnificent" leave him with the taste of bitter dirt in his mouth, they are nice words, decent words, pretty words. But how could words alone ever be enough?
The Earth has exploded into thousands of variations of green. The leaves on the trees are lush and shiny, lime-coloured in the sparkling noonday drops of sunlight. The grass underneath his feet has gone from being brown and withered under mounds of whiteness, to darkened emerald green from all the rainwater. Roots from misshapen tress have taken to bursting straight out from under the flagstones of the courtyards, as healthy and as green as a newborn child cradled in the arms of its mother. Spring has come to call upon Hogwarts.
It's heart-wrenching, it's breathtaking. It's a bit of both those things combined.
(10) MIRRORS
Sometimes an individual doesn't have to be looking into a flat piece of polished glass to see themselves reflected. There are moments--rare ones--in which a person sees themselves within the soul of another individual, staring out at them from different coloured eyes within a different set of skin. Yet the reflection is there, so clear and undeniable that one might feel to the need to reach out foolishly with words or hands to make sure it is not themselves recreated in the flesh, come back to haunt their waking moments.
(11) RED AND GREEN or SHADOW DANCING (Song by Andy Gibb.)
Squinting his black eyes to see through the crowded Great Hall, which had been transformed into a splendidly lit Ball Room, Severus spied the twirling form of Minerva McGonagall within the arms of Ludo Bagman, and snarled with bitter envy. How he knew this feeling! How well he was acquainted to the snobbery of love. It burned within the chest, made the eyes see shades of red and green. It did no good to wear one's heart on their sleeves--especially when one's sleeves were of the finest browns and glittering gold, picked especially for this event to please the woman of his dreams. But as Ludo swirled elegantly with Minerva across the floor, Severus wondered how he could hold her when she wasn't even his.
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First draft: 06-10-09
Revisions: 1-5-2010