This is just some weird thing I thought of, which really has no connection to anything. It may portray Snape as a bit out of character at the very end, and one can only imagine what action he takes because of what he sees...

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything in this. But then, you all knew that...

Encounters with Boggarts

Severus groaned quietly at his misfortune. A boggart had been discovered on the seventh floor and he'd been lumped with the arduous task of dispelling it. Alas, if only the wolf was still teaching here... no. He didn't mean that. Well, he had thought, it would be better to get it over and done with.

So there he was, making his way up to the abandoned classrooms, deducting points as he went, and inflicting his mood onto unsuspecting students who simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He walked into the room and pointed his wand at the cupboard which was now vibrating ominously.

"Alohomora."

And out it came. For a moment, it became a dark swirly mess, but then it started to form into a human figure, a woman, with bright red hair and the eyes that still haunted him... he closed his eyes. It was a boggart. Something was going to happen to her. Something terrible. And he couldn't take it.

Suddenly he flinched as he felt fingers gently touching his cheek, and then she spoke.

"Severus, open your eyes." How could he deny her such a simple request? Indeed, how could he deny her anything? He opened his eyes and noticed that she was standing a lot closer now.

"I am here, Severus, with you. You were so alone, but not anymore. You needed me, and I'm here, Severus. I'm always here."

And Severus no longer cared that she was a boggart, a figment of his imagination. As she embraced him, he embraced her back, putting all of his love in that embrace. They stayed that way for what seemed like eternity, but was in reality only a few minutes.

When he finally released her, he smiled for the first time in years, wondering why a boggart would take such a shape, but feeling too light headed to care.

But as she returned his smile, he knew that something was not quite right, and when he looked into those stunning green eyes, he realised what it was. On the outside, she may be standing before him, and smiling, but he knew Lily.

He saw the locket around her neck which had been a birthday gift from James Potter all those years ago (and which she had been so delighted with that his own gift, a copy of Hogwarts, a History which she had wanted for so long, and which he had spent all of his savings on, had lay abandoned).

He saw her wedding ring on her left hand, which she was twirling around with her right hand as if she never wanted to let it go. As if she was unwilling to accept that she would ever have to let it go. As if she would rather die than be parted from it.

He saw that... was that sadness in her eyes? He felt the struggle she felt, in deciding whether to stay with a friend or follow her heart.

He realised what she had said. "You were so alone. You needed me." She did not return his affections. The emotions in her eyes became all too clear. She pitied him. She had seen him pine away for her and known that she was the only person that could change it, so being Lily, she had come to him, when her heart belonged elsewhere.

He had to do it. It was a boggart, it wasn't real, but it was Lily, and to him, there was only one way forward. He knew what to do.

"Riddikulus!"

The boggart transformed into James Potter , in his twenties, smiling.

"Riddikulus!"

This time it became a young Sirius Black, in a tight leather biker's outfit, smiling. But now it was confused, because it switched to a young Lupin, with that wolfish grin on his face. And Severus knew that one more spell could get rid of it, so he pictured Lily and James, on the day they were getting married, expressions of perfect joy on their faces. Severus smirked in anticipation.

"Riddikulus."

And as he had predicted, this proved to be too much for the boggart, which appeared to implode (but he knew of course from his extensive study of the dark arts that it was still there but had simply become a visualisation of 'no fear').

Severus didn't recognise the significance of his encounter with the boggart until later that night, when he sat in his office. He loved Lily, that much was for certain, but the more he thought about it, the clearer it became to him that he had never expected her to return his love, nor was that what he wanted. All he had ever wanted was for her to be happy. The only difference was that until today, he had thought that no one could make her happier than him, but now he understood that maybe if things had been different at the very beginning, he could have a chance, but since she had met James, there really was only one person who could make her happy.

That night, for the first time in 20 years, Severus went to sleep, not cursing his own fate, not wishing Lily was there to kiss him goodnight, not wanting a world of evil to descend upon Harry Potter, but simply content.

Ah well, at least that had a happy ending... or sad, I suppose. Depends on how you look at it. Yeah, I've always pictured Severus' love as being more centered on Lily and what she wants, whereas James' would be more making Lily fall in love with him. Not saying either of them loves her more, just in different ways...

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