A/N: This may be the chapter many of you are waiting for. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks as always for the lovely reviews.
Chapter 12: Push
Hermione hadn't come that day as she always did. Severus paced for hours, worried that she was hurt somewhere, that she'd come across a memory so terrible it made her never wish to speak with him again.
When he began to feel weak and dizzy, he resigned himself to sitting by the window. He sat there for hours as the sky turned black, waiting for her, praying his swallow would fly back into his world.
Severus was staring unfocused at the darkness, his left temple resting against the glass, when he finally saw Hermione make her way across the lawn towards him. As relief flooded him, he noticed that she was shaking and unsteady as she walked quickly towards the tomb. She kept wiping her eyes with her sleeves, and he realized she was crying.
"Oh, Severus," she cried, and he watched her fall forward against the stone. His body instinctively reached out to catch her, but was stopped by the wall of glass, his fingers splaying across the windows.
"Everything is so screwed up," she choked out between sobs. "Please, please, help me."
His breath stopped as though someone had turned it off with a tap. He looked sideways at the doorway at the top of the spiral stairs, but looked back at her as she began to speak like a waterfall in a spring flood.
"Ron… I… we're over. I turned him down, and then—he was so angry. I thought of you as I Apparated—the Shrieking Shack—your blood was all over the walls, the floor—you're really gone. Last night, one of my nightmares… and then… I felt you. I think I love you, Severus—except you're dead and it makes no sense and—oh Merlin, you're really gone."
The words tumbled out of her so fast she was practically incoherent, and then she broke down into wretched sobs. Severus watched her put her arms around her head and rock forward against the tomb as her body shook with another deep wail, and he quickly pieced together her words into sense: her relationship with Weasley was over; she'd Apparated to where he'd died; she had nightmares—he knew that; he was dead—he knew that; and she thought… no… that can't be. How could she possibly love me? Perhaps she meant as a teacher, a mentor, a friend even, but those didn't make sense either.
Below him, Hermione raised her eyes to the sky, tears sparkling like jewels across her face in the starlight. "How is this supposed to be, damn it!" she shouted. "How can I love a dead man instead of the man who loves me back?! Tell me how that makes sense! Tell me what it means!" She roared into the air and pulled at her hair with her fingers, her magic crackling around her like lightening. "Why is everything so wrong?! Why am I so wrong?! Why do you keep taking everyone away from me?! Tell me! Tell me, damn you!"
Behind the glass, Severus Snape stood stock still, his mind swirling in confusion, despair, and a growing, desperate feeling of wanting to rush to her side.
"What are you waiting for, Sev?" a soft voice said in his ear, and Severus jumped as a pair of green eyes materialized to his right, followed by the rest of his childhood friend.
"Lily… what?" he stammered.
What the hell is going on?
Lily looked out the window at Hermione, who sobs were so deep it sounded as if her emotions were trying to escape through her skin. "Please," she whimpered, her body crumpling against the stone once again. "Severus, come back. Please come back. You can't be gone."
"Are you listening?" asked Lily, looking at him out of the corner of her eye as she watched the scene below.
"Of course I'm listening!" snapped Severus. "I'm not bloody deaf!" He was about to hiss an additional acerbic comment when he abruptly remembered his promise to Hermione. He wrenched his eyes away from her shaking form and towards Lily. "I have a message about Harry," he said, and Lily raised her eyebrows at him.
"What about Harry?" she asked quietly.
"He's doing fine. He's going to be an Auror. She wanted me to tell you," he said gruffly, his eyes flicking towards Hermione.
Lily smiled at him. "Thank you for helping Harry."
"Do not thank me, Lily. Curse me, hit me, but do not thank me," said Severus quietly, turning his head to the side, still fully aware of Hermione's soft cries from outside the windows.
"Why would I act so cruelly to the man who protected and helped my son for so many years, who gave him the knowledge he so desperately needed at the end?" Lily said.
"I did it for you. It was all for you," said Severus, chancing to look into her soft emerald eyes. "Lily…"
"Isn't it time you did something for someone else? For yourself?" asked Lily, looking at him sadly.
"But I betrayed you. I killed you, Lily—and James, and almost Harry too," he choked out, refusing to believe her words. "I don't deserve—"
"Shhh," said Lily, putting her fingers against his lips. He looked down, too ashamed to look in her eyes, her bright green eyes.
Hermione's pleas echoed in his ears, tugged at his heart. He wanted to look out the window once more, but his eyes remained glued to his fists, which were white-knuckled in his lap.
"Your heart is capable of so much more love than you give it credit for, Sev," said Lily. "You just have to learn to listen to it."
Severus shook his head and shut his eyes, his eyebrows scrunching into knots. "My heart is broken, irreparable," he whispered. "Whatever is left is yours."
"You know that's not true," said Lily, and she reached out and touched his chest with her right hand, placing it over his heart. "You can feel it, can't you? It's not for me. It may have been once, but not anymore. Let me go, Sev. You deserve happiness. Your mistakes are paid for ten times over. Listen to your heart. Feel it."
Feeling the warmth of Lily's hand spreading over chest, Severus turned his perception inward and felt his heart beating wildly, the same as it had before. But this time there was something more, something growing inside him, deep in his ribcage, swelling like a balloon, making his chest ache. And the person it ached for was sitting three floors below crying for him, pleading for him to return.
"But I have nothing to help her," he whispered mournfully. "How could she possibly want me?"
"Listen," said Lily simply.
"Severus, please, come back to me," moaned Hermione. "I know it makes no sense, but I need you. I can't do this without you. Please. Please…"
"You've been given a chance, Sev," said Lily. "You can have something I could never give you: you can love, and be loved in return. Your life can be different."
She pushed him gently backwards, and Severus raised his gaze. He looked at Lily's face, into her beautiful green eyes, kind and forgiving and sure.
"Go to her," she said firmly.
Severus let the balloon in his chest expand outwards, fill his body and his mind. He looked at Hermione below him, her face glistening with tears.
And then he ran.
He flew up the marble stairs, his robes fluttering behind him like black wings. He threw the door open, and a white light, bright beyond anything he had seen before, radiated from the space beyond, enveloping him in light, and then he felt himself falling.
