In The Halls of the Half-Blood Prince
Severus felt himself being drawn down into deep darkness. It frightened him but just as his heart began to beat sharply, the darkness became grey then faded, and he found himself in trousers rolled up to his knees, a cotton shirt with long sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and walking along a sandy beach barefoot. Just at the edge of his perception the waves rolled gently back and forth.
He stopped when he felt a tug on his trousers. "Hey, mithter, help me bui'd a san'castle?"
A small child with unruly dark hair, and a smile that echoed the one in his black eyes smiled up at him. The child wore a little Royal Navy suit with the cap and jacket missing. His feet were bare and crusted with sand. Severus also noticed that the little boy's smile was disturbed by a prominent snaggletooth that caused the lisp he affected. Severus had once had such a snaggletooth that Madame Pomfrey had dealt with using a little bit of magic. The lisp he once had was gone.
"Pwease help?" he begged again. "I wan' to make da bestest san'castle evuh fo' my daddy."
Severus knelt in the sand by the child, "What is your name, little one?" he asked as the boy gave him a small plastic bucket in which to scoop up sand.
"Sev'wus. Daddy calls me Sevvie but mum calls me Sev'wus 'cuz she thays dat I gots an… homourable… name an' I thould be proud of it." The boy smiled and using his blue plastic bucket he ran to the water's edge, scooped up some heavy, wet sand, ran back, and plopped himself down by his adult self.
For awhile they worked to construct the sand into the vague shape of a castle. When adult-Severus brought out his wand to strengthen the walls little Sevvie clapped.
"You a withard, mithter! Yay!" Sevvie clapped his chubby hands together, and they kept working.
"How old are you, Sevvie?" asked Severus.
"I'm fouh. My daddy thays dat means I'se a big man, now. I gets to vithit him at da factory an' get to watch him orderth ever'body around cuz he'th good at dat an' I wanna be jutht like my daddy thomeday. How old ith you, Mithter?"
"I am thirty-two," replied Severus. Little Sevvie blinked up at him owlishly.
"Ah you mah'eed? My parenth wath mah'eed long time ago. Daddy ith old."
Severus slowly shook his head, "No, I have not married but I did adopt a little boy."
"Like me?" asked Little Sevvie hopefully.
"Harry is older, but yes, he does remind me of you. Perhaps you and he might play together someday," mused Severus.
"I'd like dat," Little Sevvie dug a moat around their castle with his fingers. "We could pway king of da san'castle cuz mum to'ad me I'm a… Prince." The child said the last word carefully, and with the same gravity his mother had always spoken her own maiden name; something noble, and not deserved.
Suddenly the boy's head lifted. "She'th coming." He scrambled to his feet. Severus stood as well wondering what the 'she' was that disturbed the child. "I gotta go, mithter. I can't thee her cuz I don't know her, yet. Thanks for pwaying with me. Bye!"
Severus watched as the child ran down the sandy beach. The ocean water was creeping closer to the sandcastle eroding its foundations. He looked around expecting to see someone but there was no one else on the beach. As he turned to walk he nearly ran right into a little girl of about eight years of age in a blue polka dotted sundress laying out a towel on the sand.
"Lily…" Severus felt his knees wobble as he recognised the red haired girl he had not seen as anything other than an adult spirit for so long.
"Hi," she greeted. "I'm Lily." She produced a picnic basket. "My mum made some chicken salad sandwiches. Would you like one, mister?"
Once more Severus sat down on the sand, and took the sandwich offered to him. He bit into it and was treated to the tastes of light spices, and moist chicken, and homemade bread. Lily's mother always had made the best sandwiches.
"It is very good, Lily. Thank you," he said softly.
"You're welcome," she replied graciously. "I love the ocean. I wish we could come here more often but Toonie hates the saltwater in the air and puts up such a terrible fuss." Lily giggled, "She's afraid of freckles!"
Severus could only recall one trip to the oceanside, and that had been when he was four. It had been a marvelous time, and it was one he recalled his parents had been at their most loving. He then smiled at the splash of freckles over Lily's nose and her cheeks. He had forgotten about those. They had faded over the years but never completely vanished. Harry had the faintest brush of freckles that only appeared in the summer when he played in the sunshine.
"You do not seem worried about freckles," commented Severus as he finished his sandwich.
"Does Harry have any freckles?" Lily's voice had matured, and Severus was startled to see sitting before him the grown Lily he had only ever seen at the Order of the Phoenix meetings. She still sat upon the towel and looked out over the ocean.
"He does but I have seen them only in Summer," he replied softly, almost shyly.
Lily turned her eyes upon him, "What worries you, Severus?"
"I promised Harry I would return, Lily, but this is a delicate process the re-growing of my lungs… he does not know the dangers," whispered Severus.
Lily pressed her hand upon his that was digging worriedly into the sand. "That's why I've come, Severus. James is here, too."
Severus lifted his head, and glanced around. He felt suddenly unsure about whether he should duck for a jinxing, or if he should welcome the dead man.
Lily laughed, and patted his hand. "Severus, you goose! James only cares about Harry, and if you recall, he wanted you to take care of Harry."
Severus snorted softly, "Yes, about that… I… James never liked me, Lily. I know here…" he tapped the temple of his head, "that James approves of me. Here, though…" He placed his hand over his heart, and sighed. "We hated each other, Lily. I kept that hate, and nursed it like an old friend."
Lily sighed, "Severus, you are so hard on yourself. You never let anything go. People change when they grow, and even moreso after death. Death strips away all the negativity that we owned when we were alive, and bares the Soul."
"Even you, Lily? You seem not changed to me," his voice was certain as he looked upon her. Lily was still as he remembered her.
"Even me!" she moved until she was seated in a graceful Lotus-position on the towel. "Severus, look at me. Look at me as if you had never seen me before. Don't see me as that idealised creature you have in your mind." She placed the tips of her fingers upon each of his cheeks. "Now. Look. At….. me."
Lily's hair shortened to a bob, her eyes once a brilliant emerald faded until the colour was no more than a hint of summery grey-green. Her freckles were still splashed across nose and cheek but the skin, once so fair and free of blemish was dry, and there was a scar upon her cheek she had sustained during a duel with a dark witch. Severus touched her hair and watched as it faded to a more subdued, strawberry shade that had some of the brown in it that had come from her own mother. Her figure was also more filled out, womanly, gone was the willowy child of youth.
"As I was alive…" whispered Lily, and she changed again but there was a softness to her hair she did not have in life, and the scar on her cheek was gone. The bob-cut remained, as did the curves of an older woman. "And so I am now in death."
Severus pulled away from Lily's touch, and kept studying her as the past swam intrusively before his mind. He shut his eyes against the images, the words, but they remained, and reminded him of the past.
...Lily gossipping about him to her friends… "it's so greasy!" Lily's laughter cut as any knife might… "bathe? Severus?" More of her laughter. "His family can't even afford water they're so poor!"
…"Severus, I have friends!" Lily pulled away from him in third year. "Study later?" but she never did. Lily forgot him so many times.
"You forgot me!" his eyes opened swiftly, and pierced Lily's. "How could you?"
"I was a child, Severus. A thoughtless child to whom the friends I made mattered."
"And me? I never mattered?" Severus demanded.
Lily shook her head, "No, you didn't. And, you knew it, Severus. Deep down you knew that I cared more about my friends in Gryffindor. I could not be seen continually hanging around you."
"You condoned what the Marauders did to me," he stated darkly as hurt radiated in his blood.
Lily hung her head in shame, "You know I did, Severus. How many times did you catch me with them, or laughing along with everyone else?"
"You…" his voice choked, but he forced his voice through the old, old pain, "...you mattered to me, Lily. You were my friend."
"And, I did not deserve you, Severus."
"No, you did not!" snapped the Potions Master. "I remember now how you used my words, my secrets, my shame to giggle over with your girlfriends!"
"But the worst I did, was to marry James Potter," Lily said quietly.
Severus wanted to hit her, to break something, but Lily, the Shade of now was laying bare all that he truly knew of the girl she had been; those terrible flaws he had hidden away. He paced, and damned the sand that made his step unsure.
"Severus," Lily called. He did stop pacing but he was further away from her. Lily rose from the towel, and went racing after him. She was soon walking beside him. "Severus, I was an awful child. I wanted to be known and treated well by everyone in Gryffindor, and I wanted the eye of the handsomest boy in my House." She caught his hand, and stopped him walking. "I grew up, though, Severus. I buried all those things, and terrible words I said to you, and about you, and kept in mind the one awful thing you ever said to me…"
Severus dropped his head, and in the angry voice of that young teenager he shouted, "I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" He yanked away from Lily.
"I was mad, then, Severus, when you called me that. I used it as a shield as I grew to keep you away from me," Lily insisted. "I knew what you were and that Albus trusted you but I was sure by then you would have loathed me as much as you did James."
"I did not, though," Severus asserted softly.
Lily smiled as she lifted his chin so she could see his eyes. "Oh, but you did, Severus. Every time you saw me with James, and all during my pregnancy with Harry you hated me because you still saw that foolish, little girl who trod on every feeling you ever had for her."
"No, Lily," reiterated Severus. "That is what you saw not I. I watched you grow into a beautiful woman that loved her husband, and looked forward to being the mother of his children. I knew then that you would never look upon me in the way you did James." He lifted her hands, and lightly brushed his lips to the knuckles of her fingers. His smile was melancholy but truthful. "We had our time, Lily, and it was in an abandoned park between our houses when we were children."
"You didn't hate me, Severus?" inquired Lily as she cocked her head to the right. "Not even when I made fun of you, or married James?"
Severus shook his head slowly, "You disappointed me. Your words hurt me but never did I ever hate you, Lily. As a child I saw you through a veil of silk that was without stigmata or lacunae, but when I grew up I chose to keep seeing you as a creature I could worship."
Lily giggled, "Oh, Severus, if I weren't dead I'd have a head the size of a watermelon! I'm nothing to worship!"
"Lily, you were my friend," he spoke resolutely, "and it is that which I keep in my heart," said Severus as he touched her cheek, and then bowed her head so her forehead was before his lips. Chastely he brushed his lips to the smooth skin. "Allow me my veiled vision."
Lily nodded, and she changed. The colour of her eyes were once more a bejeweled green, her hair was rich red without a hint of her mother's colour, and her skin was as smooth as it had been when she was eight and first met Severus.
Together they walked side-by-side and the beach and ocean faded to be replaced by the grounds of Hogwarts. "Severus, would you forgive James? At least for the child he was?"
"I can, Lily, but I would do so only for Harry. I still do not like James," he replied stiffly.
Lily chuckled, "I would not expect you to, Severus."
"Snape!" waved a grown-up James Potter near the Black Lake. "Come look what my son is doing now!"
Severus frowned but then increased his step until he was beside the shorter wizard who took that moment to crouch down at the water's edge. "This is too fascinating! Come along, Lily, you'll want to see this, too!" Lily ran over, and then fell to her knees beside James.
James waved his hand over the black mirror of the water, and it rippled. As they all watched Harry was ascending the spiral staircase to the office of the Headmistress.
"Mr. Snape! How are you? Come in," welcomed Minerva.
"I'm okay, ma'am… uhm...professor… er, Headmistress," Harry stumbled.
"Professor is fine, dear. How are you faring?" she directed the boy towards a chair in front of her fireplace.
"I miss my dad," he said simply.
"I was sorry to hear about Severus' cancer. I am pleased that in our world we are able to do something about it." The Headmistress smiled and sat across from Harry who was clutching at his robe nervously. "What may I do for you, Mr. Snape?"
"I have to quit Quidditch…"
a/n: So as to not confuse you, dear readers: all of the above with the exception of the dialogue between Harry and Minerva is happening in Severus' dreaming mind. As for Lily & James? Well, they're ghosts; they can go anywhere they like.