Love of Mine, Someday You Will Die
Warning: Spoilers for The Deathly Hallows
Rating: K+
Category: Tragedy/Hurt-Comfort
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own "I Will Follow You Into the Dark." Death Cab for Cutie does. (See title)
Severus Snape loved her.
Everything about her, even when she was gone.
He walked amongst the ancient graves. The weather was becoming frightful and crisp. It became chilly and unpleasant, yet magical beings stood in a gigantic crowd for the huge memorial service. Still, the sun hung over them, mockingly, yet appropriately, reflecting a sense of hope that the becasketed would have appreciated.
Snape blended quietly into the crowd of Aurors. They hated him for joining the Dark Lord's side. He hated himself for that, and he hated Voldemort for not keeping his promise to spare Lily. But he easily blended in like a slick chameleon. With his stringy black hair, and pale face, no one noticed him. No one noticed the remorse in his coal black eyes or the tears falling down his pallid face. No one noticed him in his weakest state, fully vulnerable to by his own shortcomings.
They had twenty-one years to live, each. But together, James and Lily conceived a child, giving it more love than some people gave their own children over long, healthy lifetimes. With only a flashing green light and an unforgivable phrase, they were gone. But they protected their child. The Potters had courage, unlike him, a despicable, pity-worthy coward.
His wistfulness for her were meaningless. Famous witches and wizards all lined up to James' and Lily's funeral. But there was a serene moment of silence soon into the middle of the service after Dumbledore cleared all sounds from the crowd.
"Let us take this time to remember James and Lily Potter, not for their deaths, but for their lives. Let us take a silent moment and contemplate on the good they have done in their twenty-one years alive," Dumbledore's voice boomed amongst the crowd as he raised his slender wand, with the flesh and blood of the Potters in his arm.
And everyone mimicked Dumbledore, each wand raised in respect and tribute to the late persons. Their caskets were in front of the whole crowd, unmoved and silent. Yet a raw homely air of sentiments filled the space between every sad heart. A peaceful silence extended over Godric's Hollow.
But when everyone else found a closing gap of peace in their hearts, Severus Snape felt a rush of uncontrollable emotions, everything he repressed down the abyss of his mind. He relived every neurotic breakdown, every argument, every beating. He saw her there with him, in the Muggle playground adjacent to their homes. The pranks of James Potter's cruel jokes pulled on him again. He relived the moment when the very same James Potter rescued him from Remus Lupin's werewolf form. Snape saw the terror in his sick mother's eyes. The greasy-haired man touched Lily's hand for the first and last time before he slipped the dirty word and cut off their friendship forever. All these crushing moments, both desirable and unpleasant haunted him, called him back facetiously, nastily, and indifferently, incessantly torturing him like an endless cycle.
He was surprised they even called him. He lived the life of a selfish bastard.
But then a voice came to him.
A voice he had not heard in over six years. Sweet and pure, it spoke softly to him, reconciling a broken friendship. A woman's voice.
"Severus, you have to forgive yourself."
And that was all it said. Snape did not hear anything else, not in years, no matter how hard he tried to find her voice somewhere, out there in the world. But he always kept a sweet voice inside of him. The voice diminished to an aggravating silence, and a calming peace flushed out everything in Snape's mind. He was not sure if his love for her truly became one-sided.
Everyone began lining up solemnly to say final goodbyes to the becasketed. On James' mahogany casket were a handful of roses, the lover's red rose. On Lily's were neatly arranged white lilies, pure even in death, preserved by love and love only. People came up, some merely to touch the coffins, some to place kisses, and others to whisper a final goodbye. It felt odd, and a little sad, but they all knew time came when the dead should stay the dead and bury their secrets away in peace.
Snape merely paid tribute to James. James was not a bad man. He provided Lily with a selfless and faithful love; he rescued Snape from dying, but more importantly from hurting Lily. Snape sobbed, and kissed Lily's coffin regretfully, hoping that somehow his unrequited love for her would do something. Nothing happened the longest five minutes he stayed there. In tears, Snape stole a single lily from his love and kept it with him forever.
A calming silence imbued the entire cemetery. Snape did not bother to repress his falling tears, or fill the bullet wound tearing the tissue of his heart. The holes were dug; the only thing left to was to bury the dead.
Fifteen Years Later
Severus sat in his dingy office grading sloppy papers. Morning showed her face, and he let his mind drift away. Emptiness filled the space in his brain, and he cleared all emotions out. Ink words went into his eyes and floated out his ears in a continuous cycle.
Perhaps that explained why students he graded got horrible marks.
He thought about Lily a little, though by this point a permenant footprint of hopelessness sank in his head. He saw students pile in his classroom. But he did not bother to get up.
Every day, even when they stopped talking altogether, he felt her kindness embrace his body. Just when Dawn's rosy finger touched the surface of the Earth, there was a side Severus Snape revealed in secret. And nobody knew this, not even Dumbledore, the man he courageously threw his loyalty to.
Her kindness stopped him from killing any man. Her kindness kept him soft at heart. Her kindness saved him.
He remembered his childhood. He lost sight of humanity when he saw his cruel father violate his mother, sometimes verbally, mostly physically. He remembered walking into the Muggle ER, his eyes tracing upon horribly hurt victims. From the first time he stepped into the ER, a jaded cynicism stole him away forever, only allowing Snape to believe in himself and nobody else. But he also remembered Lily; the first time he met Lily, she picked his heart open with her charm and pleasant demeanor. He believed for the very first time, that good people did exist.
And she was gone, and their love unrequited by a fatal mistake. But he always kept her with him. On a rare nice day, he felt her love, his heart beating as if he were fifteen once more. But he knew the battle of the heart was not over. Not yet, at least.
The door creaked and a stocky, bespectacled young man entered the room. Snape stared off in space, his hands off the sticky parchment and his thumbs not brushing the ink. He sat straight up, his mind bursting into poetic verses and schoolboy crushes. The greasy, pale man was someplace away, someplace far, far away from all the troubles in the world. He watched the boy come up to him, opening his fair-chiseled mouth.
"Professor Snape," Harry felt himself asking, every bone of his body surprised and reluctant, "Are you okay? Class started…"
"Yes," Snape curtly replied, curling his lips and hiding behind a cold façade. Harry turned to leave, but before he turned Snape took a good look at him. Snape's coal black eyes looked into Harry's bright green eyes and he saw her once more. He bore the spitting image of his father but his eyes lacked the murky combination of a muddy color. No, they were clear and bright…Lily's eyes. She lived within her son, and he must protect her blood, no matter how he felt about James Potter.
Harry walked out his office and Snape returned his eyes behind his mahogany desk. He opened a drawer that he had abandoned opening since the day she died. Slowly, carefully, the drawer creaked open with an elegant wave of Snape's wand. Broken parts and knickknacks from his childhood lay randomly in the dusty compartment.
But underneath the heaving mess, there laid a flower, a lily, respectively. It gnarled and became brittle with age, yet when the stringy-haired man barely hovered his hand over its petal, the lily bloomed out quite pleasantly. Yet it was not magic that won the battle of the heart and opened the flower.
It was love.
A/N: Okay, I couldn't have saved it from corniness. But I could have spared it with more of a story plot and better writing. This, I think, may be my least favorite story to edit. Anywho, I'm psyched today! It's my first day of school and the release of Ingrid Michaelson's new album, whose music I've become quite fond of lately!
I appreciate anyone stopping by to read.