He finished the bottle and threw it into the lit fireplace, relishing the burn and the shatter. He could no longer feel the tears running down his face. If only the alcohol had done as good a job numbing the feelings behind them as it had with his lips and cheeks, perhaps he would be able to stop thinking, to sleep.
"Sev. Severus Augustus Snape. Listen to me," Lily demanded, grabbing his head with both hands and guiding his unsteady feet to the couch that looked uncannily like the one from her parents' front room.
"No'gustus," he slurred. It's Aquinas, he almost said (or tried to say), but stopped himself in time. She could still guess. It had been years, and she hadn't, but he wouldn't ruin their game, even tonight.
Lily ignored him. "Enough, Sev. You know as well as I do that alcohol isn't going to help."
He glared at her, scowled. After… how long now? Eight years? Ten? He had no idea – he hated numbers even when he wasn't pissed. Half their lives and more, in any case. After so long, it seemed she was immune. "Th' 'ell i' won'!"
"It's okay to feel things, you know," Lily said, wrapping her arms around him.
"'S no'," he claimed, belligerently. He couldn't, wouldn't, feel, not for her, not if he could help it – he hated her, for leaving her family for Tobias Snape, for never taking him away from the abusive bastard, for falling to drink and melancholy herself, and now for leaving him, for her stupid, hateful note: waiting until he was old enough to take care of himself – that was fucking rich! As though he hadn't been looking out for himself for fucking years! She had abandoned him long before she committed fucking suicide. He knew he should feel sorry for her, that her life had been so bad that she had chosen death instead, but the only feeling for her in his heart was rage.
"Crucio?" a soothing voice whispered hesitantly. "Imperio? Avada kedavra? Ékstasi kai tréla? Pomilovan? Ignis infernalis?"
Dark magic – all the spells powered by negative emotions. Hate, domination, and disdain, fear, angst, and rage…
There was something to be said for knowing someone half your life and more.
'What are you feeling?' he heard. 'Are you seeking pain? Control? To kill (or die)? To lose yourself in madness?' (Or perhaps 'do you fear you are?') 'Do you wish for oblivion? Destruction?'
She stopped when he stiffened in the circle of her arms. "It's okay," she repeated. "Tell me who, and I'll help you. We'll burn them to the ground."
"Her. But e'en you can' burn the' dead," he muttered into her shoulder – when had he got there? "No' e'en a ghost. Jus' dead."
"Oh, Sev… someday the two of us will rule in Hell, and we shall burn whomever we like – all those who have hurt you and tormented you over the years will fall before us, and she will be first among them. I promise. And you know I keep my promises, Sev."
He finally passed out to the sound of harsh, dark, beautiful words and incongruently gentle fingers working their way through his awful, greasy, too-long hair, as though he was a child again, falling asleep in her bed for the first time.
As though he was wanted.