Author's Note: This story was inspired by Coheed and Cambria's song 'Far'. I was listening to the song and it popped into my head how fitting it was for Severus and his pain about losing Lily. He would've done anything to show her how much he cared, how much pain he suffered from calling her a 'Mudblood'. He made his mistakes, he became something that she hated and it caused her to run from him, which added to his pain. So it would help to listen to this song while reading this, it sets the mood I think.
Disclaimer: I do not own the song, that's property to Coheed and Cambria, it was just my muse for this story. Severus, Harry, Peeves, James, and Lily are all property of J.K Rowling
"I don't need the help of a Mudblood"
It was done. In those mere moments, I lost everything. If only I hadn't spoken that venomous word, if only I hadn't became what I had, if only I hadn't been sorted in Slytherin. All my years of friendship with her, they had been cast aside in those moments of foolishness. As I watched her storm away, her rage and hurt shining brillently in her eyes, I felt my heart be ripped out of my chest. The ghostly hand grasped my organ and proceeded to crush it in its iron grasp before slowly and agonizingly ripping it out. I knew that I had messed up, the pain was too immense to think otherwise, but it was too late.
Time stood still as I watched her walk away, knowing that it would be the last time she and I would ever speak. All because of my fascination with the dark arts I lost the one person I ever loved. As much as the pained burned like a flame trying to consume my very being, I welcomed it. It wore me down, beating on me, but I still held my head strong. But her eyes, they chose not to see my pain, how much it ripped my soul apart to have called her such an atrocious word. All the things I would do for her, if only she would know...I had given her all my trust, even when it was hard for me to even wish to trust anyone after what I had to see at home.
I caught her eyes in the hall and she peered right through me, as if I were one of the ghosts at Hogwarts. What's worse is she looked at me with more contempt then one would hold towards Peeves, that pestering Poltergeist. Despite the pain, I still loved her and I knew that this was all I could give her. With my eyes, I pleaded for her to tell me what else could she need from me, me who was a sick, broken, torn to pieces young man. I came from a drunkard Muggle who hated what my mother was, what I am. He loathed us, beat us and scorned us. So, here I stand, this thing that I have become. She hates it so much, she runs from me and no matter the distance, no matter how far, I cannot reach her. I am not who she used to know.
It was September 1st, 1991 when I saw those eyes I loved so much again. They came from the face of the man I hated, resented, and despised. Hiding the pain behind my eyes, I buried it so deep that I closed off my heart to the boy. My eyes locked onto his and I faltered for a bit in my concealment of my heartbreak. This cold heart would warm if I kept my eyes on him, and I couldn't have that. Not when everything else about him screamed 'James'. It was those eyes who brought me back to my sixteen year old self, the self that had destroyed his own life. She defended me from the very man she married later in life, the man whose genetics ran with hers in the form of Harry Potter.
Everytime I met his eyes, I fought to remind myself that all I could do was protect the young Boy Who Lived. The constant struggle of pain and heartbreak, longing after the woman I loved, and the man I despised for taking her away from me wore me down. At times it became too much to bare, and while I despised the boy, I loved him for his eyes. Those precious eyes that made me silently ask what could she need from me, those eyes that made me plead my case to the woman who originally held those eyes. This thing that now I've become, this heartless and cruel Potions master who tormented her son every chance he got as revenge towards his father, the very same man who teased me and brought me to my boiling point all because I was a Slytherin, the man who pushed me into saying that filthy word. She hated it so much, she ran. And ran. And ran. No matter how far, she would always be unreachable to me, even if she were right next to me.
And so when I heard that prophacy, the one depicting the Dark Lord's downfall to the hands of a child born at the end of July, I foolishly alerted him to her and James. And when she had died, that pain I had felt all those years ago was tenfold. Holding onto the wall for support, I struggled to stand. My lungs stopped breathing, my heart stopped beating, my world was crushed to oblivion. There was no light, nothing but the darkest abyss before me. Nothing but pain awaited me, for I lived while she died. No tears fell, they couldn't because my heart wept for my eyes. The unseen tears added to the pain, the needles of despair puncturing my already wounded heart and leaving its phantom venom behind for years of suffering.
When it was time for me to die, I feared nothing. I had lost everything dear to me, everything that ever mattered and brought me joy was ripped away by the cruel hands of fate. As Nagini's fangs pierced my neck, I closed my eyes and let the venom take over. The person I had become died as the person I had always been in my heart took his stead. Everything I did, I had done for Lily Evans. My love never faltered and I lived with my pain, with my regrets, and my mistakes for thirty-seven years. I paid my dues, I made amends, and as I slowly felt myself drift away, I clutched onto the robes of her son. "Look...at...me" were the last words to escape my dying lips. He turned his gaze onto me, and I met the gaze of the woman I loved, had always loved, and always will love. I felt peace wash over me knowing that I had died with the forgiveness of her son. He knew my courage, my story, and he forgave me.