Hey guys! Thanks for stopping by and checking out another one-shot! This one is for Round 5 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition and the theme was Borrowed Inspiration. With my position, Chaser 1, I had to use the title of a story written by your Chaser 2 for inspiration. I chose Carolare Scarletus' story called "Following the Sun" to form a story around. I also used the optional prompts: (object) broomstick, (emotion) apathetic, and (object) candle.

Note: I used a few other prompts without meaning to, and am not claiming them for bonus points.

Story note: This is Severus' perspective on Lily after death, so a bit of a glorified version her.

I hope you enjoy!

Story word count: 2908

"Look… at… me…" Severus whispered.

He just wanted to see her eyes one last time. He wanted them to be the last thing he saw as his life was ending.

The boy's eyes drifted up to meet his, and he felt the last emotion he would ever feel on this earth: love.

Lily.

As the darkness pulled at the edges of his vision, as his body became heavy and numb, he saw her within the eyes of her son.

Lily.

Darkness.

Severus found himself surrounded by a black hole of nothingness and the strange sensation of non-existence. He was still thinking; obviously, he did, in fact, exist. Was he breathing? Severus couldn't quite tell. Did he even have a body? That was also uncertain. All Severus knew was blackness.

He did remember what happened to him, killed at the hands of the Dark Lord. He remembered the pain, the flashing of memories, the love he felt seeing Lily's eyes through the boy she brought into the world.

But still, unrelenting blackness seemed to suck the earthly sensations from his indeterminate body. Was this it? Was this where he would spend eternity, lost in some tunnel abyss, destined to float there in perpetuity.

It should have frightened him. He should have been doing everything in his power to escape this endless fate, but a strange calm seemed to flood his being.

Perhaps he had accepted that this was all he deserved. In fact, with all the monstrous deeds he committed in his life, he supposed this was better than expected.

Nothingness was better than the eternal punishment he thought he had earned himself.

So, he stood there, letting the calm spread, grow, and flourish. He stood and stared into the face of the black, into the darkness.

Suddenly, the dark was broken by a light. It was far away, barely a pinprick, flickering in the distance, but he somehow knew he was supposed to go to it.

Severus slowly walked closer to the dancing light. Gradually, it seemed to grow brighter, and soon he could tell it was a candle.

He stopped.

"Lily," he breathed, so softly it was barely a whisper.

She was holding the candle in her hands with a small smile across her lips. Taking one step forward, her pastel pink dress flowed around her waist, moving gracefully as though touched by a gentle wind.

Severus had wished for this moment for so many years, he wasn't sure what to do now that it was becoming a reality. She was here, with him, filling the darkness around them with a light brighter than any candle, breaking the blackness with the warmth of a sun rising at the end of a cold night.

Just to see her one last time was all he had ever wanted, but how could he face her? After everything he did to her, to her family, how could he possibly stand before her now? It was his own personal torment of Hell, that she would be there, that he would have to face his deepest regrets.

Her smile faded.

"Come to me." Her voice was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard, filled with hope, kindness, but sad.

Who was he to resist her command? Whatever cruel trick the universe was now throwing upon him was the kind of torture he deserved at the end of his miserable life. Who was he to avoid enduring it?

He took one step, followed by another, and with each, another candle appeared in the blackness around them.

All Severus could feel was the complete agony of love and the anguish of knowing he was the reason she was there at all instead of fighting alongside her son and living the life her unwavering goodness should have warranted.

The candles glowed in the sky like stars, glimmering, floating, moving as though circling around Lily. It was as if she were their sun. She was his sun.

He kept moving forward until he stood directly in front of her. Reaching out, he gently brushed one finger down her cheek, barely touching her skin.

She was there. She was really there.

He let his hand drop back to his side.

"Hi, Sev," she said quietly.

Severus didn't know what to say. She was so beautiful, as though in the time apart, all that time she'd spent in death, had only made her more exquisite, her red hair framing her face with a dark flame.

"Say something," she told him.

He was afraid of what he might do if he allowed himself to speak, to make even to softest sound. Severus wasn't sure if he could maintain his stoic composure, his apathetic charade. If he began speaking with her, he might not be able to stop. And it would make everything so much more painful when she was inevitably ripped from his grasp once again.

"Why are you here?" In his effort to keep his emotions in check and the false wall of apathy in tact, the words sounded quite harsh.

Lily didn't seem affected by his tone; in fact, she smiled as though she were expecting it.

"To help you," she replied.

"Help me?" he clarified.

The woman nodded. "You don't belong here."

"Where am I?" he asked.

Lily smiled. "Walk with me."

With a swish of her red hair, she turned and began walking away. Severus stared after her in confusion.

"What are you waiting for?" she questioned, gesturing for him to follow.

So, he did. He moved beside her as she lead him through candle-filled nothingness.

"There's something you need to do before you can move on and go where you're supposed to be," Lily explained.

"I should be roaming the earth then," he claimed.

She gave him that look saying he didn't know everything, even if he thought he did.

"Not if what you need to do isn't there," she continued.

"What are you on about?"

Lily stopped walking, let the candle float from her hands, and crossed her arms over her chest. "We're not going to get anywhere with an attitude like that."

He stood still, fighting to resist the urge to pull her close, to hold her in his arms, to never let her go again. He had to be strong, cold, distant. It wouldn't be long until she would be back in whatever Heaven she came from, and he would be where he belonged in the depths of Hell.

"Explain it to me then," he said.

"You have to be open with me," she told him. "You have to be open with yourself. No use hiding anymore." She paused. "What do you feel right now?"

How could he possibly tell her that? After all this time, how could he tell her how desperately in love with her he had always been, how that his love was so agonizingly strong at this very moment? How could he tell her how he regretted nearly everything about his life and the things he'd done?

"Are you angry? Disappointed? Relieved?" Lily coaxed.

"About what?"

"Your death, of course. Most people have at least some sort of opinion about it," she replied.

Was he upset, or angry? No. Was it relief? Not that either. Acceptance. His death had been a long time coming.

But, if he was honest, Severus didn't even know how he felt himself. He should have been angry. He was murdered by the Dark Lord, and the man was still alive. Now, somehow existing in the aftermath of fatal defeat, he was left in a state of overwhelming joy, but at the same moment, an indescribable pain of self-loathing.

"Uncertain," he finally replied.

Lily just smiled. "Every cloud has a silver lining. I can see how that would be a little confusing for someone like you."

"Always hated that saying," he told her. "Too optimistic."

She shook her head. "Oh, Sev. I'm sure you'll be able to think of at least one good thing to come out of this."

Seeing her again.

Severus swallowed. He needed to tell her. He needed to say it. It was eating him from the inside, devouring him.

"There's so much I regret," he began. Lily looked at him expectantly. "You were right. About everything. I changed, and was sucked into something I couldn't get myself out of. In school, you told me those boys were no good, told me they were evil, and I became one of them. I'm the reason the Dark Lord hunted you. I told him about the prophecy." The words burned his lips on the way out.

"I know."

He stared at her.

She knew? She knew, and yet, she was still there, helping him?

"I also know that it changed you, Sev. Changed the course of the war. The change in you might even be the reason my son now has the ability to end it all," she explained.

Severus ran one hand through his over-long hair. "I killed you, Lily!"

"No. Voldemort did," she said. Lily didn't blame him?

With those words, it was as though a hundred more candles were added to the dark sky at once, lightening the pitch black surroundings to a dim, smokey grey colour, a hint of warmth glowing from the small flames.

"It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't told him about the prophecy. I may as well have been the one to cast the curse," Severus sneered.

"I also know you would never intentionally put me or my family in harm's way." She looked at him with sad eyes. "Now tell me. If you had the chance to do it all over again, knowing how it would end up, would you do it differently?"

"Of course I would," he answered without hesitation. If he had known it would be because of his following of the Dark Lord that she would be killed, he never would have joined. He never would have done it if he hadn't thought he could somehow prevent them from going after her, that his involvement would solely affect himself.

"You can't change what happened, Severus," she reminded. "You just have to move forward. I was a little disappointed you didn't do that."

How could he have just moved on?

"How was I supposed to do that!" He had to reign it in. What happened to controlling his emotions? The words just kept spewing out at her. "I was the reason the only woman I ever loved was dead!"

Severus stared at her, eyes wide. And that was why he never showed emotion, why he kept it all locked inside. She had this way of bringing everything out of him.

Lily was quiet. "Sev, the moment you gave yourself to the Dark Arts, well, I couldn't be a part of it." She took a breath. "But I cared about you—so much." She shook her head."I wish things could have ended differently between us, and sometimes… sometimes I wonder if everything could have been different." Lily seemed to consider the thought silently for a moment before shrugging her shoulders dismissively and crossing her arms over her chest again. "Oh, I don't know, we were children, and I wouldn't give up Harry for the world. The point is, you're not the only one with thoughts of 'what if'."

Severus didn't know what to say. He had thought those same things constantly, of what their life could have looked like, if only he had made better choices.

"Come on," Lily said, and continued walking.

Severus swallowed the lump growing in his throat and followed.

"Have you figured it out yet?" she asked.

"What?" His mind was still pulled in so many conflicting directions.

"Why I'm the one who needs to help you? What do you still need to do?" Lily gestured to the air around them, which, only moments before, had become slightly brighter.

He stayed silent, thinking. What couldn't he move on without?

Then it hit him: "Forgive me Lily," he said, quickly and quietly. "I lived my life for all the wrong reasons, and I didn't know it until I destroyed everything I cared about, everything you cared about. Forgive me."

"Severus, I forgave you a while ago. I've had a few years now to think about it, to watch. And this really doesn't have as much to do with me as you think," she told him.

Another sudden addition of glowing candles caused the world around them to lighten even more as they walked.

She already forgave him?

"So, what is it that you need to do?" she asked again.

How was he supposed to know? Wasn't she the one who was there to help him? Shouldn't she be the one to tell him? Severus took a conscious breath to solidify the crumbling of his protective, apathetic wall.

"Is this some sort of game?" he asked in smooth monotone to hide his frustration. "A riddle?"

Lily sighed. "No. It's just something you need to figure out for yourself."

There was something about the emphasis on the word that filled him with dread. Asking her forgiveness had been a challenge in itself, though one he had wished he could attempt during his life. But forgiving himself was something completely different.

"Myself," he nearly whispered. "That's it, isn't it? I must forgive myself."

"Yes," she confirmed.

He stayed silent, his face a cold mask revealing nothing of the emotional torment within.

It seemed he would be stuck there for a while. How could he possibly forgive himself for practically killing her?

No. Voldemort did. Lily's words came back to him as though speaking for a second time.

He cast the final curse, but Severus, he had initiated the hunt.

Would you do it differently?

Yes, but that was no excuse! No amount of rethinking would allow him to change his actions.

"No," he spoke suddenly. "I may not have known the outcome of my actions then, but that does not make them any less unforgivable."

"Forgiving doesn't mean that it didn't happen, that it wasn't bad, that it can be changed in any way," Lily told him. "It means moving forward like you should have a long time ago. It means not spending your existence dwelling on what happened in the past and focusing on what's happening now. It means letting yourself be happy."

The world lightened once more, a wall filled with glimmering candles. With that fading of the darkness in which they strode, a weight was lifted from his chest. Could he really allow himself to move on, to be happy? Severus could see it in her pleading eyes as she walked beside him, that it was what she had always wanted for him. It was what he wanted for himself.

All this time he had thought he was beyond forgiving, but she had forgiven him. He had thought his actions too horrid to for that gift, but he had misunderstood forgiveness to mean condoning the choices he had made, saying that he wasn't guilty of the crimes when he surely was.

His heart changed from the cold role he had played most of his life. Could he finally leave it all behind? Could he finally move beyond the broken life of pain and death?

Her eyes, her beautiful green eyes, told him yes.

With that revelation, the world glowed, and it took a moment to realize that there were no added candles to the sky, but the additional luminous light seemed to shine from Lily herself. She became brighter, her hair a living flame, warming every inch of his cold soul, until there was no more darkness. There was only her. She was blinding, beautiful, and guiding him home. Lily was his sun.

She smiled and stood still, ceasing in her seemingly pointless walk.

"We've arrived," she said.

"Where? Where have we been going?"

"It's time now. You can move forward," Lily replied and gestured for him to look beside them.

A broomstick floated in the brilliant white surroundings and Severus knew he needed to get on.

It was their dream as children. They were together, two misfits who sought the day when they would belong, where they would be able to wield the abilities they held. Two children, lying side by side in the grass and staring at the clear blue sky. Lily had just learned that broomsticks really do fly, and they had made a promise to learn together, to ride together.

That moment had never come. Could it be that only in death would their silly childhood dream become a reality?

"Will you be there?" he found himself asking.

She continued smiling as she motioned once again toward the broom.

He wanted an answer, but she wanted him to get on the floating stick.

A little uncertain, he swung one leg over and sat on the smooth wood. As he was about to repeat his question, he felt Lily climb onto the broom behind him, wrap her arms around his waist, and felt the warmth of her breath on his ear as she whispered: "Always."

A huge thanks to lun27 and Carolare Scaretus who helped beta this story!