A/N: Credit for adding the part about Harry and Hermione at the graveyard goes to an extremely cool Potterhead friend of mine who i will call Bloody-Brilliant-7. She isn't on fanfiction, that's her code name.
Always
It was a cold, snowy evening when a cloaked figure appeared at the end of Godric's Hollow. This wanderer may have not seemed like much to an outsider but had come with an objective etched in stone.
Our wanderer walked swiftly and silently, as though not wanting to be noticed through the large groups of people, all who were either discussing plans for Christmas, which was the next day, or complaining about the large amount of Christmas shopping to be done.
However, this wanderer walked along the row of houses, all of which were decked with Christmas decorations. All but one. He walked to the very end of the lane, his feet feeling heavier by the moment as aching memories flooded back to him. He stopped in front of this particular house, contemplating whether to cause himself once again the pain he did every year when he visited this place.
He placed a hand on the gate which caused a sign to rise on the side of the compound wall. It had been scribbled and scratched on several times by people who thought they were showing their faith in that Potter boy. Vandals, he thought to himself.
"Severus?" said a voice that seemed to belong to an old woman said from somewhere behind him.
Severus spun around and found himself facing Bathilda Bagshot. They just stood there for a second, staring at each other in silence, saying nothing.
"Severus Snape, is that really you?" she said disbelievingly.
"Bathilda," he said in a choked voice which he hoped she wouldn't discern.
Severus had feared this. What he wouldn't give to be alone at the moment. He glanced at the snow-covered ground and turned once again to face the house.
Bathilda walked up and stood next to him. Severus felt the sudden urge to push her away, but couldn't bring himself to.
"You still miss her, don't you?" she said, as they both stood there in the cold.
Severus answered her question with silence. Bathilda seemed to understand.
"But Severus, after all this time?" she said.
As though an electric current had passed through him, the day Dumbledore had asked him the very same question flashed before his eyes. He doubted if it was even a question.
"Always." He said, the sense of déjà vu he felt overwhelming him.
But Bathilda wasn't there anymore, not making Severus feel any better. He thought for the third time whether it was a good idea to go ahead with this ritual, as Dumbledore liked to call it, which he had been performing since the time the Potters were murdered. Then he chose not to think anymore.
He pushed open the old gate, which made an eerie creaking noise. Severus had another disturbing flashback of his troubled childhood, when his heart would skip a beat when the door of the house opened, indicating that his father was home, most definitely drunk, waiting to thrash. The door would make the very same creaking noise.
Returning to the present, Severus moved forward, muscle by muscle, as though each step causing him pain. He pushed open the door, now hanging precariously on only one of its hinges.
Except for the fact that it was dusty, most of the house was the same as he remembered it. Not that he had visited the house very much, James Potter would never let him.
How he loathed that James Potter. Even after being a complete SWINE, he had always been the favourite of many teachers, the most popular one at school and had also managed to soften up Lily Evans enough to marry him. How anyone could posess the slightest trace of love for that absolute PIG, Severus failed to understand. Sure, he had saved his life once, but that was only so he could make Severus feel indebted to him. But over all this loathing he felt for that Potter, he knew, heart of hearts that he was still Lily Evans' chosen one. And that was that.
The floor was still carpeted sky blue, the family pictures still plastered the walls. There lay a toy broomstick on the floor, snapped in half like a twig.
The living room was strewn with paper and stuffing from the now destroyed armchair. There was a large but faded ink stain and the remains of the shattered ink bottle it came from lay next to it. The showcase had fallen over and James Potter's medals and prizes lay on the floor. It was surprising that nobody had tried to steal them yet. It showed that people still had respect for the dead. Not that that Potter deserved any.
He knew it was unsafe to be lingering in the carcass of the broken-down house but he stayed nevertheless. He walked around the lower parts of the house again and again, wondering whether he should just leave right then or dare to go up the stairs.
He stood at the foot of the stairs, with his hand on the partly broken railing. The stairs looked like they would collapse any moment, but, taking the risk, he placed a foot on the first one, not exerting his complete weight on it. It made a noise that signified that it was unstable, but Severus could still go up with a little caution.
Ascending slowly and carefully, Severus managed to reach the first floor. He could see a room at the far end that he knew instantly was the Potter boy's when he was a child. As soon as he was about to step forward, he thought. Did he dare?
The sound of each step he took echoed down the corridor. After what seemed like hours, he reached the door of the room. Not that there was a door at all. It had been blasted open by…by…
Severus couldn't bring himself to think the name even though he had no fear of the monster it belonged to.
He stepped over the broken door, into the small room. It was still the room of an infant, since the Potter boy had barely stayed in it for a year. His crib stood in the far corner of the room. For some unfathomable reason, it was as he remembered it, on that terrible night.
It was in front of this very crib that Lily Evans(he used her maiden name. He hated the idea of calling her a Potter.) had sacrificed her life to protect her son. He had killed her, but couldn't touch her child. Dumbledore had told him about how Lily's sacrifice had acted as the equivalent of a powerful shield charm.
Oh, he remembered that day. All too well. He remembered sitting there,sobbing like a child for hours, holding her hand, though he knew it contained no life. Not anymore.
And then Severus Snape felt himself falling apart, which, according to him was another epitome of his idiocy, since most people who had lost their loved ones would move on after a while. But calling Lily Evans a "loved one" of Severus Snape would be an understatement. She had been his reason to not give up on life, and to appreciate what was there.
He knelt down near the crib, at the very same spot where he had sat next to Lily Evans' lifeless body. For a moment, he felt like he had caught her scent. A gentle one, which smelled like lavender. He quickly pushed the thought to the back of his mind, deciding that it was all in his head, a result of all the sleepless nights he'd been spending worrying over the school. Death Eaters in the school, and he had to pretend to like it.
How clearly he remembered the first time he met Lily Evans. He, after all, was the one who had told her she was special. Lily Evans was loved by everyone who met her and very much different from what she had for a sister. That muggle, Petunia. She had called Lily a freak. He would have liked nothing better than to have wrung her neck.
All of a sudden, he realised that it had gotten dark. He knew he'd been sitting there for long, for his legs were numb, due to the cold floor or his fixed position, he could not tell. But he had much more important matters to attend to. Hogwarts, for one. He was needed at the school. It was hard to think about the kind of havoc the Carrows would be wreaking.
Taking one last look around, he swept out of the room and hurried down the stairs. Thinking it better to escape through the back door, he threw the hood of his cloak over his head and was about to go back in the direction he'd come from but something made him stop. He felt a sudden urge to visit her grave. Lily Evans' grave.
He turned at once and hurried off in the other direction. When he reached the gates of the graveyard, he stopped for a moment. He even considered sparing himself more pain by leaving, but he walked through the gates in any case.
He still knew where the grave was, surprisingly. He didn't even have to stop a moment to try and remember the exact location. He was just at the end of the row where the Potters' were when he spotted an old couple laying flowers on their grave. Why did he have a feeling that he knew them?
He quickly got behind a bush so he could find out more.
After laying the flowers on the graves, the old man got up and immediately put his arm around the old lady, as if he was unstable. The old woman put her arm securely around his waist and they were about to leave through the gate when the old lady noticed something.
"Harry, stop." She said.
So he did know them. It was the Potter boy, and it was obvious that the old lady next to him was that Granger in disguise. But what were they doing here, at Godric's Hollow?
Most Probably the same thing you are, Severus, said a small voice at the back of his mind.
"What's wrong?" said Potter.
"There's someone there. Someone watching us. I can tell. There, over by the bushes." Said the Granger girl.
Severus froze where he was. He had been found out. Then he scolded himself for fearing the fact even for a second. What harm could a wizard and a witch, not even completely trained, barely of age, do to him?
Potter, in any case didn't seem to notice anything.
"Are you sure?" he said.
"I saw something move, I could have sworn I did…"
"We look like muggles."
"Muggles who've just been laying flowers on your parents' grave! Harry, I'm sure there's someone over there!"
The Potter boy thought for a second or two.
"It's a cat," he said. "or a bird. If it was a Death Eater, we'd be dead by now. But lets get out of here, and we can put the Cloak back on." He said.
And so they left the graveyard, glancing back repeatedly as they did so. Severus remained hidden in the bush till both of them were out of sight.
He heaved a sigh of relief, though he saw no reason to be afraid at all. He still considered it lucky that the Potter boy had taken after his father when it came to being dense.
Once he had paid his respects to Lily's grave, he decided to depart as well. It was getting late, the school needed him and he did not want any more close calls. Heaving himself off the cold ground in front of Lily's grave, he was about to leave when he remembered something.
"Orchideous," he said, and a bouquet of lilies appeared out of nowhere. He laid them d0wn gently on the grave. He stood there in silence for a minute or so and then made his way back to the gate.
Throwing the hood of his cloak over his head, which had come off, Severus Snape began to walk slowly to the entrance. Then he stopped for the very last time.
A large war memorial stood in front of him. It consisted not of an obelisk covered in names, but of sculptures of the Potter family. And there she was. Lily Evans. Her pretty, kind face was just the way he remembered it. In her arms, she carried a baby boy. He tried not to think much about the sculpture of that Potter next to her.
Staring at the stone of the war memorial, he felt his eyes sting, and a single tear trickled down his cheek and fell to the ground, disappearing into the snow. He had allowed himself a tear for the first time since that horrible night and he didn't care.
Somehow, managing to lift his feet that had sunk into the snow, he trudged back to the entrance. He walked and walked till he was, to the people at Godric's Hollow, but a distant form clad in black.