A/N: My first HP fic! I've had this done for a few days, but I touched it up today and decided to post it in honour of our beloved Potions Master's birthday, which is in fact today, January 9th.
This fic's been playing around in my brain for a while, and eventually I just had to write it! Please leave me a review to let me know what you think - I'm definitely considering writing more for this fandom because this was my first fandom ever since I was like five omg and feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Also, if any of you are interested, I've got a book review blog that's been up for three years - I'd love it if you took a look! The address is below, but it's got extra spaces so that the link doesn't get deleted...make sure you remove the spaces before you take a look! Here's the address: thewreviewer . wordpress . com
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and co. I wish - I really, really wish - but life doesn't work out that way. *shrug* FYI, title comes from Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress," which isn't actually about mistresses or affairs or any of that sordid stuff. It's a decent poem, with great imagery.
All right, literature spiel over, let's get started.
It is easier to pretend he's in love with her. Easier to beg the Dark Lord for her life with romance and drama on his side, easier than revealing that she was his best friend and he's turning to the light.
Yes, he loves her – he's loved her for nearly all his life, the girl he first met in the park in Cokeworth. He loves her with every fiber of his being, but he's not in love with her. That honour falls to the one and only James 'arrogant toerag' Potter.
Yes, she's beautiful. Her hair is silky and a deep, rich red, closer to the color of wine than to the Prewett siblings' famous fiery orange. And her eyes are lovely, almond-shaped and framed by long lashes, and her skin is smooth and she's just tall enough and hell, even her feet are graceful, but Severus Snape sees none of it. Or, he does, but he's never seen her like that – never wanted her to be his, never been reduced to a stuttering mess the way James Potter is when she looks at him.
Yes, she's brilliant. She's clever and intelligent and witty, and her insults are legendary (one notorious snap at Potter regarding the giant squid comes to mind), but to him she's always been Lily, his best friend. His Potions rival, the Charms genius of their year, the only girl to repeatedly turn down James Potter. The stubborn, reckless Gryffindor girl that wasn't ashamed of being seen with Slytherin Snape, the brilliant witch that was top of the class at everything save Potions and Transfiguration (because he and Potter always had her beaten, there).
She's all of those things, but there's so much she's not to him – not his lover, not the object of his daydreams (not that he'd ever admit to having them), not the one he pines after. He loves her because she's Lily and he's Sev and things aren't complicated between them (until they're fifteen, anyway), and they're best friends and the world had better watch out because here they come. They snicker over Potter's ridiculous attempts at snagging her attention, argue over Potions homework, and spend hours together in the library researching some arcane tidbit of knowledge just to prove the other wrong.
He loves her even when their friendship is shattered, when he's turned to Avery and Mulciber and Lucius and Voldemort and she's gone straight into the arms of James Potter (even if she doesn't know it yet). She still understands him better than anyone else, they still vie for Slughorn's approval in Potions, but they don't talk and there's no Sev and Lily anymore.
-o-
When they leave Hogwarts, their congratulations are awkward and bitter. They've changed and yet they haven't, growing apart and into Potions geek and Death Eater and Head Girl and Order member respectively, and yet still he loves her, still he longs for her company and the beauty of their friendship. It's what he tells her, that last day, one of the last things he says to her (it's a day for a lot of lasts, that one). He looks into her eyes, those green eyes that are fierce and beautiful and wary like they never used to be, and he tells her exactly how he feels.
"I love you, Lily," he says, voice quiet and hopeless. "And I'm sorry." He's sorry for a lot of things, but the one thing he truly regrets is the loss of their friendship.
Her eyes soften slightly, then, less wary and more like the way she used to look at him when they were Sev and Lily. She smiles slightly. "I love you too. You were my best friend," she says, equally quiet and equally hopeless.
"I don't have a choice," he tells her, willing her to understand that it was the loss of her friendship that made him realize that he hates Voldemort; that being a Death Eater is not what he wants to do with his life any longer.
"There is always a choice," she counters, voice steady and calm the way he wishes he could be.
"If I could do it again, I'd choose you," is his response.
Her smile is wobbly now. "I know, Sev. Goodbye."
His answering smile is just as hesitant, but inside he is warm and a glow of transient happiness spreads through him. Sev, he thinks. She called me Sev. She turns to go and he calls after her, "Goodbye, Lily!" She glances back once more, raises a hand in farewell, and is gone, Disapparating to who-knows-where.
It is with a heavy heart that he turns toward his Death Eater companions, steps unwilling as he thinks of red hair and green eyes and small noses and best friends. They ask him about her, ask what he's doing talking to 'that jumped up Mudblood' because didn't he get rid of her fifth year? But he is silent, pinning them with the glare usually reserved for Potter and Black, saying nothing but scowling so fiercely that they leave him alone.
-o-
The next few years are…different. He's different, different from how he thought he'd be when Lucius Malfoy was filling his head with tales of greatness and the Dark Arts and Pureblood supremacy. He studies Potions and practices them and brews them and it would be a good existence except for the nights that he spends in long black robes and a silver mask before the man he fears most in the world.
He knows they'll cross paths again, feels it in his bones with a sort of certainty he's rarely had about anything, and he knows that when they do meet again they're going to be standing on opposite sides of the battlefield, but for now he experiments with potions and earns his Mastery and waits.
-o-
The day he hears the prophecy is the beginning of the end. He's moved through the Dark Lord's ranks, becoming one of his master's most valued spies – this is why he's been chosen to spy on Dumbledore himself. It still doesn't feel right, being a Death Eater – it feels like regret and betrayal and sadness, but he chose this path when he was fifteen and there's nothing he can do about it. So he crouches outside a room in the Hog's Head, Dark Mark stinging on his skin even though the Lord he serves so reluctantly now is silent. He listens to one of the only true seers in the world begin her prediction, and takes the partial prophecy to his master like the good little spy he is.
-o-
He's regretted becoming a Death Eater for years, but it's only when the Dark Lord sets his sights on her that he truly repents. Remorse fills him, aching and painful and bitter, and he's so desperate and haunted that he turns to Dumbledore without a second thought. He's willing to pay any price, willing to give up his life for one of spying and lies in order to save hers because they grew up together and dammit, he loves her.
In a last bid to save her, he sinks to his knees before his Lord and pleads for her life, weaving a tale of romance and love, painting himself as the unrequited lover who cannot bear to think of her in pain. He uses every trick he knows, calling on his years of faithful service and experience to aid him in his desperate quest.
He hates himself for his pretense, hates himself because their friendship is real and beautiful and pure and so far removed from romantic love that the thought of even kissing her would be like kissing a sister, if he had one. But he does love her, his best friend, and so he lies to the Dark Lord and prays the way he's never prayed before, wishing more than ever that he hadn't broken away from her and turned to the dark.
-o-
She's dead – both of them are dead, their son is an orphan, and he's so choked with anguish that he wants to die. He's in Dumbledore's office, sobs wracking his frame and great tears dripping down his long nose.
"You were in love with her," the old man says, and now he's filled with fury and rage at this man who knows so much and yet so little.
"No!" he cries, railing at his once-mentor. "I wasn't in love with her! She was my best friend, my only friend. She was my counterpart, my better half, and now she's g-gone…"
The tears come again, and he lowers his face to his hands, unable to look at the understanding that is spreading across the headmaster's face.
"There is still a way to be with her, to honour her memory," the old man tells him, and a spark of hope flickers into being within him.
"Her son," he whispers, remembering the solemn child who was so very like both of his parents, the child he had last seen crying over his mother's body as his father lay dead in the hall outside.
"He is so very like her," Dumbledore whispers, blue eyes slightly misty.
"Like them," Severus corrects, hatred for James Potter overcome by the magnitude of the man's sacrifice (he died trying to save his wife and child – trying to save Snape's best friend – how can he hate the man now?)
Severus' thoughts turn again to the boy that is alone due to what he can only see as his mistakes and closes his eyes.
"Those eyes," Severus moans, "her eyes in his face…how can I look at the boy, Professor? How can I live with what I did? She's dead – they're both dead – I wish I were dead…"
"You can protect Harry, Severus. Become a spy for the Order, turn away from Voldemort and join the light side once again. You will have to hide, and feign loyalty to Voldemort much the way I suspect you've been doing for the last few years…honour her memory, Severus. Protect her son when he comes to Hogwarts, protect him from harm." Dumbledore's eyes are piercing blue over the tops of his half-moon spectacles, and Severus breathes deeply, tucking his emotions away inside him with a skill in Occlumency he's had no choice but to develop.
"I will." The young Potions Master felt the power of the vow flow through him, cemented by his love for Lily and his life-debt to James (whom he found he couldn't hate quite so much anymore). "I will protect Harry Potter."
And although she's dead and his world is shattered, a weight lifts off his shoulders as he pledges himself to the light and to the cause of the boy for whom he can't help but feel responsible.
(because I ship Lily and James so hard it hurts and because somehow Snape the best friend makes me cry a little, even more so than Snape the unrequited lover)
Feedback is, as always, met with wild applause and cinnamon rolls.