*Quotes in this chapter taken from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. I own nothing.*
Lily wasn't sure how long she'd stood there in the dark under her husband's Invisibility Cloak waiting for Severus Snape to come home, but she knew as soon as she saw him Apparate in front of his house that it was time worth spending. Sixteen years had not been kind to the poor wizard; he looked emaciated and his shoulders sagged as if he was carrying the weight of the world on them. She supposed that having most of the wizarding world ostracizing him for a murder he didn't even want to commit in the first place didn't exactly give him a reason to smile; being the pawn of both a psychotic dark wizard and a brilliant friend and mentor couldn't have done much for him either. Lily had released Severus from her life believing him to despise her because of her lineage, but now she realized that he truly had misspoken out of anger. After all, she was fully aware of how he'd felt about her husband.
She had grown to love James Potter, despite his mistreatment of Severus, and had never regretted her decision to marry him. James had always been surrounded by friends, and was intensely loyal to them all. He'd been a wonderful husband and a loving father while he had the opportunity, but now that life was over. She realized that as much as she'd loved him, her life had now brought her full circle, and living in the past wouldn't make this war any easier to get through. Dumbledore had convinced her that without the help of Severus Snape, the war would be difficult – if not impossible – to win. She'd also believed him capable of truly loving nothing but the Dark Arts, but clearly his attachment to them had waned with time. She saw that without her in it, his life had been meaningless and empty; now she just hoped that coming back into it would make a difference. As he walked inside the house, she took a deep breath and approached the rundown cottage slowly; she still had no idea what she was going to say to him.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take." Severus thought to himself as he shut himself safely behind his bedroom doors.
He was grateful that Wormtail had been reassigned and was no longer hovering over his shoulder on a constant basis; now if only someone would do him the favor of obliterating Bellatrix, he might be able to get some sleep at night...
Things had begun to spiral so out of control that Severus could hardly maintain his cool façade anymore. Trying to explain to the Dark Lord why he'd stepped in and done Draco's job for him had been harder than he'd thought, and although he'd managed to narrowly escape death once again, he'd still paid the price for crossing the Dark Lord. The lashes on his back still stung despite the spell he'd long ago written to relieve himself from his occasional punishments. They'd gotten more frequent as of late, which he took to mean that the old psycho was getting more and more frustrated about Potter's continuing to allude his grasp. Regardless of who the boy's father was, Severus had to admit that Harry Potter had grown to be an extraordinary young man; reckless... but extraordinary all the same.
Not for the first time, Severus found himself wondering how much different his life would've been if he'd been chosen to be the boy's father. Secretly, he'd been watching over Harry and protecting him from Voldemort ever since he'd first crossed the threshold of Hogwarts. It hadn't been easy though; the constant visual reminder that James Potter had succeeded in slithering his way into Lily Evans's bed made him sick to his stomach, and he found himself wondering on occasion if he wouldn't be better off just throwing in the towel.
He longed for the ability to relive his past; to be the kind of man Lily Evans would've been proud to marry. He'd contemplated for years the idea of procuring a Time Turner by any means necessary, but he knew that it would make no difference; even if he did succeed in winning Lily's heart, he'd have to live the rest of his life with the constant fear that time would revert itself and tear her away from him again.
He walked over, sat down on the edge of his bed, and retrieved from his end table the picture he kept hidden in the back of an old Potions journal. It was of he and Lily on the Hogwarts Express on their way to their first year of school together. He looked so scrawny and pathetic, wearing clothes he'd had to mend with magic that very morning. Lily sat beside him as radiant as ever, smiling and waving at the camera. She'd asked a fellow student to take the picture in commemoration of the occasion, and had sent it to him the day he'd informed her of his decision to join the Death Eaters. "May it always serve as a reminder of better days" she'd written on the back. Oh, how he longed now for those days...
He curled up in bed on his side and stood the picture on top of the end table. All around him were reminders of just how far he'd fallen. His curtains were dusty and unwashed, spider webs draped themselves from the corners of the room, and there was a layer of dust on the warped, grey wooden floor. His blankets were old and grey with patches scattered across them like bullet holes. He remembered with fondness the warmth and comfort of his four-poster bed at Hogwarts. As an eleven year old boy, he'd never slept in something so comfortable before. Although his mother's family had come from nobility, she'd married a Muggle, and their lifestyle reflected his father's disdain. He'd always hated this house, but had so far been unable to find a practical reason to look for anything better. He had yet to convince himself that he deserved any better. He'd pushed away the only woman he'd ever loved, failed in his attempt to protect her, and had spent the past sixteen years protecting a boy who would never feel anything for him but loathing.
At first he'd thought Potter was as arrogant and pompous as his affluent father had been, but over time, he'd begun to realize that the boy was just trapped in a life he hadn't asked for and now had to live out as long as he could. He remembered his last conversation with Albus Dumbledore and his heart sank.
"…a part of Voldemort's soul latched itself onto the only living thing it could find. Harry himself. There's a reason Harry can speak with snakes. There's a reason he can look into Lord Voldemort's mind. A part of Voldemort lives inside him."
"So when the time comes... the boy must die? … You've kept him alive so that he can die at the proper moment. You've been raising him like a pig for slaughter!"
His words echoed in his mind, bringing forth the tears he'd worked so hard to hide. He felt so pathetic and worthless that there was nothing more that he could do but lay there and sob into his pillow like a child and wait until it was time to play his next part, whatever that might be.
Through his sobs, he heard a soft knock on his front door and he froze. He couldn't afford for anyone to see him like this. He got up off his bed and walked into his small, cramped bathroom. He splashed his face with cool water and dried it with an old, musty towel. His eyes were red and puffy and deep dark circles indicated his lack of sleep. He took a deep breath, straightened himself up to his tallest and most imposing, and painted on the stoniest face he could muster. He walked through the house as the knocking repeated itself a little louder, and as he turned the knob and swung the door open, he felt his stomach drop out and his knees buckle. As he collapsed into a ball on the floor, Lily caught him in her arms and guided him to a nearby moth-eaten musty armchair and closed the door behind them.