((Very raw, only a bit fleshed out. Had to show how he was coping with his situation after Hogwarts, as well as his musings on what love is. Apologies.))

Chapter 13

All I've Ever Learned Of Love Is This: It Brought Me to Life, And It Will Surely Be The Death of Me.

Sev's thoughts about life, love and Lily Evans, intermixed with wedding plans, interactions with the lady herself and her fiancée, and his mates. Sev's job and another subplot highlight his loneliness.

Severus grew up resenting his mother, vowing not to live as she did, and yet somehow, he also fell for perhaps the one person who would hurt him the most in this world. Or was it the other way around, where whomever he fell in love with would hurt him the most in this world?

Interesting parallel between him and his mother.

This chapter illustrates the differences between himself and Potter, about the nature of Love.

Love, he decided, must surely be a greedy emotion. It must be selfish. It must demand attention.

Potter had ruined her night on many occasions after she had hurt him in some way. He had hurt her for hurting him. He had hurt her for not paying attention to him. He had hexed her, laughed at her, hurt her... And he had done it all because of a feeling he had inside of him, something that said Lily Evans's opinion mattered more than anyone else's.

There must have been something inside of him that made him force Lily to pay attention to him, even if he had to hurt her to do it. That desperate need for her attention, for her affection, was that love?

Severus shuddered at the very thought of causing Lily pain, no matter how much she hurt him. If she wanted to pay attention to someone else, he could deal with it. Because it made her happy. Even if she ignored him and neglected him, if she was smiling and laughing then he was satisfied.

What could he call that strange, powerful feeling, then, if not love?

Obviously, he did not love her properly. He couldn't have loved her the right way, if she had chosen someone else. So logically, what he felt for her couldn't have been love.

Even though he 'loved' her so much that his heart ached at the thought, he must've done something wrong. He never made her choose, never forced her to make up her mind one way or another. He simply trusted her blindly, trusted her to know what she wanted. He trusted that no matter what happened, she and he would be together in the end.

And perhaps that was the problem. He never asked her about any of this. He just assumed that if he could feel this deeply for her, she must know about it, and more, she must feel just as deeply for him. What's worse, his obstinate resolve to never make her choose between things that she liked had likely cost him everything.

He had assumed that telling her he loved her would force her to choose between loving him back or leaving him alone. He had assumed that she would eventually choose him without any pressure from him one way or the other.

Only now could he see how foolish that had been. She had never considered him because he had never asked to be considered. He'd just understood that she must know.

Instead of letting her choose him freely, he hadn't told her that he was a choice at all. Choosing, then, should not have been something to be feared. It should have been embraced.

It probably wouldn't have changed anything, of course, but it couldn't have hurt any worse than this.

What had he felt for her all this time, if he could watch her walk away? Potter certainly hadn't been able to watch her walk away, and now they were two months away from publicly declaring their undying love for each other.

So their actions must have signified a deeper emotion than his actions had signified. He must feel something less than love, if he could allow her to marry someone else. Potter certainly would not sit idly by if she were marrying me.

But how could anything possibly hurt more than this?

How could he not love her, if she could hurt him this badly?

Or, conversely, perhaps it was because it hurt him so badly... that it couldn't possibly be love he felt?

What could he call it, then, if not love? What name could he give to such fevered, intense pain?

Severus's dilemma, after Hogwarts, was that he could no longer stand to be in her company for more than a few hours at a time, and it would inevitably be followed by an intensely painful migraine. But if he stayed away from Lily, if he didn't answer her owls and didn't speak to her and didn't see her, then the ache in his chest grew so incredibly painful that a migraine would be a relief.

So it was an endless cycle of enduring her presence or absence for as long as possible, and suffering with and without her. There was no respite, save that split second when he saw her eyes again after a long while. Every ounce of pressure disappeared, and he could breathe easy. For just that one moment in time, the world was right again.

And then he remembered why it took him so long to come back around. Why he wasn't at her house every day, looking forward to forever. He'd glance down and see her engagement ring.

And that's when the pressure started building again.

Severus helps Lily do the wedding invitations in this chapter.

There weren't many, perhaps fifty people or so. James wouldn't help, and I volunteered my services. It had been eight days since I saw her last, and the ache in my chest was heavy and labored. I needed to see her.

I showed up at her door as calmly as possible, when inside I was trembling with anticipation. She was so close... The door opened, and Potter stared out at me curiously.

"Oh, if that's Sev, tell him to come in! He said he'd help with the wedding invitations tonight, since you're busy with Sirius," Lily called from the sitting room.

James searched me with that curious glare of his. "Why are you here?" he whispered quietly, not wanting to let his fiancée overhear him.

"I'm here to help Lily."

"With the wedding invitations? Even though you... ?" He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.

I shrugged, unable to muster any fury. I hadn't been able to get angry at Potter since that enlightening 16-day lock-in at my cottage. "Of course, Potter. What else can I do?"

Pushing my way past him before he could do something stupid, like actually answer that question, I entered the sitting room and saw her propped up against the couch, hundreds of pieces of multi- colored paper strewn around her. Her eyes met mine, and with a relieved sigh I felt that deep, suffocating pressure suddenly release me. I could finally breathe again, looking into those eyes...

We spent the night catching up on the latest, I smiled and she laughed. I could feel that throbbing ache returning, like a bruise on my heart that had finally gotten some blood flow.

We folded and stuffed announcements, and then addressed them. Dear Mr. and Mrs. _: Lily Evans isn't marrying Severus Snape on _. Dear Mr. _; Lily Evans isn't marrying Severus Snape on _.

I took it all with a practiced grace, knowing that I'd pay for it later. I would boil away every last ounce of me, every drop I had to offer, making Lily Evans happy. And when she was finally through with me, when I was finally wasted and spent, then I'd gladly let Hell have whatever scraps were left.

She complimented me on how my invitations turned out; they were much straighter, evener and more uniform than hers. "It's just a matter of being deliberate, Lily. Knowing precisely what you mean to say, and how many letters it will take to say it. Then you simply place each letter where it is meant to go. You just need to be a bit more purposeful. Like this..."

I demonstrated on the opposite side of an envelope that she'd already messed up on. I drew lines for her to write on, and vertical lines for spacing. I counted the letters and centered the text based on the length of the name involved, and showed her how to space her letters more evenly.

"Merlin. Is there anything you're not good at, Sev?" Lily huffed, blowing a stray strand of her brilliant red hair out of her face.

"Singing. I'm absolute rubbish at singing, remember?" I smiled at the memory.

"Hm? When did I ever hear you sing? I'm really glad to hear you're not brilliant at everything, though. It makes me feel a bit better about myself. How mad is that..." She chuckled to herself, studying the spacing diagram I'd drawn.

I buried my face in my work again, so she wouldn't see the very real bitterness that was engraving itself on my features.

Memories of her, sweet and nostalgic, were the only thing in my life that I truly cherished. The memory of the Yule Ball in 5th year, where we shared that strange and incredible intimacy. . .it was something I could never forget. I had replayed that night countless times, ensuring that it remained as clear and defined in my mind as it was the moment it happened.

And she'd forgotten.

I suppose that was the real reason why she always hurt me so much.

If she just cared... if she looked at me and felt the same sort of warmth that I did... Even though she hadn't fallen in love with me, I think I could be satisfied with the endless tragedy of my life if she just cared enough.

But she didn't.

The best night of my entire life wasn't memorable enough for her to remember it. All the things we'd discussed, forgotten. My serenading, which she'd found so humorous back then, wasn't memorable to her. She'd even described the same sense of relief that I wasn't brilliant at everything, as if she hadn't ever thought that before now.

Did I make it so easy to forget me, Lily?

That timid, terrified question seethed and rolled in my stomach like fire and acid, boiling and popping inside of me. I felt sick with fury. I was so angry with myself. I had tried so hard, but I couldn't make her see me.

I remembered everything she said, I committed it all to memory as a precious gift. I hoarded every part of her jealously, greedily.

And she'd forgotten my words. I realized at once why the thought cut me so deeply.

She'd forgotten because remembering such a mundane and trivial occurrence meant little to her. Because these terrifyingly powerful emotions had caused only my own mind to label anything and everything about her as critically important. Her mind had dismissed that night as irrelevant. By association, that meant that I myself was irrelevant. My steady, focused presence was not important enough to her to remember in detail, only in outline.

"I'm not that brilliant," I whispered, afraid to speak any louder for fear that she would hear the hurt in my voice.

All that pain, all that effort... and it still wasn't worth the effort of remembering. The heat bloomed in me like razor-edged roses, stretching along the inside of my skin.

"Of course you are, Sev! Speaking of brilliant, when are you going to find a nice young witch and settle down?" Her eyes were playful and curious. She loved to play the matchmaker with her friends. Especially with me, to my unending horror. She considered me her number-one project, and devoted far too much of our precious time together to breaking me from my lonely ways.

It never crossed her mind that I was alone for a reason. I was alone because I knew I was too damaged. I was broken and wasted, shamefully so. I was somehow deficient; not worth loving.

I hadn't the foggiest idea how to love anyone who wasn't Lily Evans.

But she wanted me to find a nice young witch that wasn't her. She wanted me to give the ashes of my wasted heart to someone else, to give them the power to hurt me every bit as fully as Lily already had.

It was times like these that I wondered if she still remembered my clumsy and stumbling declaration of love that I'd made so long ago at Hogwarts. She'd forgotten so much of me, surely she wouldn't remember something so trivial?

Perhaps seeing me in love with someone else would give her peace of mind. Because she would know that I hadn't truly meant it when I said I would never love another. And if I married someone else, then she wouldn't have to wonder if I was still in love with her.

But even though my dating and marrying someone else would probably make Lily happy, I found that it was a price I was not willing to pay. Perhaps the only price I was unwilling to pay.

I had to lie to Lily, of course; I had to tell her in words and deeds that I wasn't in love with her. But that lie only affected me. If I dated someone else, if I allowed someone to attempt to love me even though I knew full well I could never love them in return, then wouldn't I be subjecting them to the same agony that Lily had subjected me to?

Knowing precisely how deep that pain could cut, I couldn't possibly be that cruel. I wasn't cruel enough to allow someone else to love me. The thought calmed me, pulsing warmly against the growing pressure in my head.

I tied the red and gold ribbons in a festive bow around the wedding invitation, snipping the edges at an angle and setting the envelope in the 'completed' pile.

I was as honest and sincere as I'd ever been in my life when I answered her, "Why on Earth would I do a thing like that?"