this is my imagining of the last meeting between Lily and Severus before the first wizarding war commenced.
hope you like it!
reviews are appreciated
Walk a mile in my shoes, someone had said. Walk a minute, walk a mile. Then talk, and figure, and judge.
Severus couldn't ever do that. He never had the raw, boisterous empathy, that connection with people around him. Maybe that's why he works so hard at occlumency. Maybe it never was a weapon of choice, it was a cry for help.
He walks, in his shoes, the only ones he'd ever wear or figure. He walks to his father's house in the bleak wet weather, he thinks back to the memory of a few hours ago. Of Lily, of their last conversation, maybe. The very last. It was all good and spiteful and resentful. It was all he'll have to live on, the sound of her, the sight of her—transformed and changed but still, her— for the rest of his life.
Lily had charmed her appearance as a brunette, with a stout figure, bloated hands and—
Severus coiled in disbelief at her obviously pregnant state, spat, "Is that—"
Lily rolled her eyes, only partially annoyed. " Yes, I am pregnant."
"Did he— was he—?"
She chuckled. "He didn't infect me with a virus, Sev."A red flush covered her cheeks. She added with the blissful joy of a someone who didn't have a care in the world, "James refused to do a charm on the sex, though I think it's a girl. It was… unplanned. But we're happy. I'm happy."
Severus bleated, "Oh well. It was all fine and dandy, then. Because happiness is what matters. Not rationality. Or logic. Do you know how absolutely, incredibly stupid it is? How—very much like you. You with your optimism and fantasy . And him too. It's illogical and dangerous. Do you realize how dangerous it all was? The Order is losing and—"
"We didn't come here to talk about that," she snapped.
And Severus scowled, he leaned back. He turned around the muggle cafe, a place they used to visit when they were young and stupid. They still hadn't changed the decor. All blue and pink and pastels. The smell was the same too, vanilla and caffeine. It smelled like childhood, it smelled like happiness. He felt an uncomfortable shiver at the back of his head, he felt beads of sweat prickle at his hairline. They went for small talk, the letter said, signed with a nickname he hasn't used to call her in half a decade.
So they did that. Small talk. Unnecessary, cramped words. She didn't mention the disillusioned tattoo on his wrist, he didn't mention that she and her new husband were hunted that very moment by people he calls friends . Partners. Acquaintances.
It was almost time to leave, time to get on and do some hunting by himself, time to go back to his house and put on a silencing charm on the walls and scream till he bled. It was when he said—
"I love you," and it came out like a choked breath, like a plea. He didn't know exactly what he meant by that, because words have consequences. And he can't be wasteful with them anymore. But still, they bled out of his trachea like a curse. He stayed still and watched Lily as if it caught onto her, finally, all those years. The pent up intensity and the pining the plea he always had draped under everything he's ever said to her. It's always been there, the cursed love. Fluttering like a trapped bird and rotting like a fruit, like something infested with bacteria. He knows the nooks and corners of the labyrinth of his emotions for her because it wasn't just love. For Severus it was wonder and admiration and jealousy, too. And sadness. Intense sadness because Severus always, always knew that she didn't love him, not like that. He always knew their ending was a tragedy.
He was glad Lily hadn't charmed her eyes into some new color. He could stare and see her, that insipid kindness, that familiarity.
"I love you too," she says. And what she didn't say hung between them like dead meat. As a friend. Just as a friend.
"I know."
"It's just we've taken such different paths."
"I am sorry." He took a breath, his nose burned. "For everything. For letting you down. For calling you...that."
"You know, I am so glad you agreed to meet. This time. Because— everything is moving so fast… we are so different people now. I sometimes fear that one day, when we're older… you and I will seem like history. Far back in the past. I try to remind myself of the little boy who was the first one to not—not sneer at me for having magic. You made me feel so special. And I cherished that for the longest time. But, with everything that's going on, I fear one day I'll forget and when someone says your name I would just have to answer that 'Yes, we were friends. I knew him. I don't anymore.'"
He didn't have any answer to that. Or maybe he did, but they were too large, too magnanimous for language, for a cafe conversation. For small talk which was all that seemed to be left for them. He gulped a dry breath and let out a sigh, half strangled, barely there. But Lily heard it, saw it, and he saw her leaning forward, with kind, sympathetic eyes. Her eyes.
"You were a good person. You can be a good person, Sev."
Severus wanted to scoff. But she was so sincere, always had been so. Lovely. Like a bright forget-me-not in a pile of ashes, the rest of the world always seemed bleak when she's around.
"That's not an universal quality of me," he replied briskly. "I've only ever been good to you… and now I've ruined that too."
And he remembers how her face fell, further into the shadow that was not her, not his Lily's. But her lips trembled as anger and resignation and realization flushed over her face and when she didn't correct him—as she's done so many times before—he realized, with a sodden thump to his chest, that she believes this too.
As he walks back to his home, the cold, empty house haunted with ghosts of childhood, of cruel words splattered on the walls—the walls slimy with moss and dead plants, of regrets and biles that simmer on the back of his throat every time he says, hisses, spits the word mudblood again. It's the only home he's known, it's the only home he'll ever know.
Somewhere far far away, a hundred lightyears, a thousand aching miles away, he pictures Lily Evans curled up in James Potter's arms, her hands in her belly, imagining up her daughter, their daughter. Her eyes and his smile and a thousand different pieces of both their ancestors. He imagines her planning a life where he's a distant shadow, a dark memory, nothing. Nothing.
This is what he repeats inside his head. Nothing. That's what he'll be boiled down to. And nothing else matters, the Dark Lord can win, or lose and crawl into the same darkness he came from. It never mattered. What he wouldn't give to be on the receiving end of Lily's smile, a little life in itself, it was his home for the briefest moment in his life. Oh. What he wouldn't give to turn back time. And as he thinks, as he turns to the last corner to reach his empty house, he is crushed by a feeling, too large, too visceral to be sadness or regret or guilt that he feels at home. At himself.
He flicks his wand over the lock of his house, the door clicks open. A heavy, molden air welcomes him.
He is home.