(Author's Notes: Please overlook my terrible excuses for spells. Whenever I try to write a spell, I use the Spanish word for it. Probably doesn't work. :) Sorry this is so short, but it is a prologue, after all. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, only borrowing them for story purposes. No money is being made off this. No copyright infringement is intended.
Prologue: Into the Pensieve
Today was the sixteenth anniversary of her death. Lily's death. So many years had passed. Severus opened the door to his classroom. It was empty now. It had been the classroom where he and Lily had spent hours talking; for yes, they had been taught in this very room.
Hogwarts was so completely alive with Lily. Severus saw her in the young red-haired girls. He saw her in the stars. He saw her in every classroom. It was the sweetest kind of torture. He stayed here not only because it paid well, but because it was the only place where Lily still dwelt. Her being was here, even though she had left Hogwarts before her death. Here she had flourished and become a woman. Severus had helped make her a woman, helped make her into the woman she had been. He was never credited, nor mentioned.
Severus went to a secret drawer on his desk. He opened it. It contained dozens of letters, from Lily to Severus. All dated back to 1974, when Lily was a sixth year.
Severus ran his fingers across the yellowed parchment, across the spidery handwriting. The letters were full of simple love. He had kept all of them. He wondered now if Lily kept hers. Probably not. She had James.
James. The name burned his heart full of rage. James, the all-perfect, who had taken Lily from Severus. James, who with Lily bore the last painful reminder of their love: Harry.
Harry. Severus should have counted him as a blessing, because he looked like Lily and he was her blood. Except he was not a blessing. He was a curse, because he was just like James. And Severus hated the hero worship of Harry's father. James was not perfect. Lily knew that, Severus certainly knew that.
Severus remembered when he had met Lily. It was a chance meeting; she had been wandering around school when they had met. He expected to forget the meeting, but it burned in his heart, strong and proud, after all these years.
Lily had taken his heart in that moment. There had been no chance for him.
Lily was Severus' soulmate. There was no denying that. Dumbledore and McGonagall, who were their teachers, still remembered Lily and Severus, inseparable, whole, one. They said nothing, however. They knew of Severus' grief. They let him bear it in silence, respectfully.
Sixteen years since her death. When Severus had gotten the news, his grief was too much for tears. He hadn't cried for Lily. Because he mourned every day since she had left him for James.
Her death was no different.
But each year, accordingly, Severus crept down to his Pensieve to remember Lily in reverence. The Pensieve was reserved only for memories of Lily. No other memories dwelt in there. Lily was a heavy load, Severus needed to take the load off his mind.
And yet it was still there.
There in the Pensieve he could see swirls of red. He saw Hogwarts as it was in 1974. He saw all the portraits, towers, halls.
All of the portraits remembered her, remembered her laugh, her frankness, her beauty.
Hardly any of them remembered when Severus had been Lily's heart.
And with a deep breath, Severus dove into the Pensieve, ready, as always, to remember Lily.