Disclaimer: I own nothing, but my thoughts of AU and OC, the rest all belong to J K Rowling.
Chapter 41
"Lil, oh, my Lil, I…" Severus Snape clasped the case, picked up one of the globes with a small white baby's breath secured within it and held it together with the letter which he had just read. He brought all three of them close to his heart and engulfed them in a hug. If only these could bring her back. This was more painful than the time he had held her dead body in Harry's nursery. "Lil, if only I knew, Lil, if I knew just once if I just got one hint…oh, Merlin…"
Raving in guilt and self-mortification, he staggered up, still holding those three items close to his chest, he wailed. His voice made the glass panes of the bay window rattle mercilessly. His magic yet again threatened to raise to destroy anything in the vicinity.
"Lil, I got to see Lil, she must allow me to explain…" he threw himself against the glass panes of the bay window. Using the Dark Lord's gift of the flight, he rushed off in billowing smoke of black haze. He did hear Hagrid yelling and Fang barking from somewhere below, as he flew over the grounds but he was past caring.
It was raining hard at Godric's Hollow. As if the world knew of the pain the potion master was struggling with. So, when he arrived, the sky cracked open. A flash of blinding lightning had opened up several pregnant dark clouds, giving birth to mother nature's fresh tears. The miserable man supported himself against the famous statue of the celebrated Potter family. His Lily was encased and immortalized through a stone. What did the world know of love? Windbags all of them.
He tried to hug her statue and slipped in the paddle at its foot. He snarled at James Potter's statue. Even in death, that swine that managed to usurp his Lily. Crawling back, still managing to hold those three dear memories of his lily and his newfound daughter, he rushed through the empty street. He didn't realize that a lone figure had been following him, ever since he had left Hogwarts.
As he trudged on, finding his way through the heavy shower, muddy lanes, his moist eyes tried to recall the last time, he had seen the only love of his life. They were young, already fighting against each other. And to see her appear so suddenly in front of him, in that dingy motel room, was a dream come true. Instead of his given name, she had called him by their secret code, "Sage". How many times in all these years, on his cold bed at his Hogwarts chambers or in his dilapidated room at Spinner's end had he twirled that pendant in his fingers, recalling her scent, her smile and her embrace? That warmth alone had seen him through the first war. And later its memory had helped him survive in those interim years, deal with Potter, deal with Dumbledore's requests, deal with Voldemort's torture and whims and fancies.
When he finally managed to reach the graves of James and Lily Potter, he crawled up to the latter's gravesite. Curling his long frame above it, he hugged the earth and cried his heart out. Nursed within his now soaked body, and the quiet wet earth, the case, the globe and the 'letter' still held on to the slowly awaking warmth of love.
The raindrops continued splashing around him. Like poetry, constant beat of the rhyme, and the sense of belonging, like a beating heart, alive, an echo of life. There was a time he would hunt for poems and the joy he got from it when he would read them out to Lily. And when she would recite them back to him...Her voice like a siren would make him forget the miseries he was forced to live in. His voice she would say, made her dream of Phantom of the Opera. He had never got the chance to see that play. But Lily had got hold of a screenplay and together they had read it out in her attic. Away from Petunia's vindictive repartees.
He had also memorized her favorite part of that musical. Now here prone over her grave, Severus Snape sang in hushed whispers, in the memory of his lost love. If only she would wake up from the dead…if only…
Night time sharpens, heightens each sensation
Darkness wakes and stirs imagination
Silently, the senses abandon their defenses
Helpless to resist the notes I write
For I compose the music of the night
Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendor
Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender
Hearing is believing, music is deceiving
Hard as lightening, soft as candlelight
Dare you trust the music of the night?
Close your eyes for your eyes will only tell the truth
And the truth isn't what you want to see
In the dark it is easy to pretend
That the truth is what it ought to be
Softly, deftly, music shall caress you
Hear it, feel it secretly possess you
Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind
In this darkness which you know you cannot fight
The darkness of the music of the night
Close your eyes
Start a journey to a strange new world
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before
Close your eyes and let music set you free
Only then can you belong to me
Floating, falling, sweet intoxication
Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation
Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in
To the power of the music that I write
The power of the music of the night
You alone can make my song take flight
Help me make the music of the night
It was perhaps the very first time he had tickled her. And when she had tickled him back, in order to fend off her attacks, he had pulled at her hair. How sorry he was to make her scream. He had plucked just three strands of red hair, but he had been persistent to make her realize he was truly sorry. She had laughed and giggled, "Oh! Sev, you are silly, it's just hair, they grow back! Silly!" but he had made her tug at his hair, and had given a reason for it. Lil! Tic for tac, I plucked three of yours, you pluck three of mine!" Silly, childish, innocent games. When he laughed, it sounded like a choked spatter, it unsettled the wet earth, and wet muddy bits of earth made its way into his mouth. How fitting! He should be eating dirt! Fate was just!
Coughing off some more, he whispered, praying that the remains of his long-dead love could hear his heartfelt plea, "Lily, our Baby's Breath was right in front of my eyes all this while, but I never knew she was ours, and she is bloody brilliant, marvelous, they call her the Brightest Witch of the age, our Baby's Breath!"
If all this had happened before the war, he would have been angry and might have thrown a tantrum. Hell! He would have prayed that the Headmaster could go and toss himself off some cliff, he wouldn't give it a thought! But the war had made Harry Potter far more sensible. For the first time, after Griphook had succeeded in uprooting each one of them from their known world into some parallel dimension where Hermione was Snape's daughter, his mother was hers as well, Hermione was truly his half-sister, Snape or not, she was his own half-sister…Harry had decided to think and speak in a sense.
Hermione was depending on him and so was the distraught Headmaster of Hogwarts. It was remarkable to see how easily Minerva, Lupin and Molly could be convinced to listen to him for once. But this joy of unquestioned loyalty lasted till they were running across the Hogwarts fields with Hagrid following them closely.
When they are nearly at the gates, Molly asked Lupin, "Where are we going?"
Lupin had time to think over the incidents, and he had heard through Snape's closed quarter door, the man was raving about Lily. The werewolf knew how deeply those two loved each other. He was rather put out when Snape had joined the Dark Lord's rank. He was happy for James when the boisterous man had declared his engagement with the ever-ethereal Lily Evans, but in his mind, he knew James would fail to compete with Snape. That James was perhaps an alternative that Lily had to choose given the harsh times they were living in.
The small party was shocked when the two men yelled back, "Godric's Hollow." Minerva asked further, "Why there? Why would Severus…"
Harry half turned to speak to the baffled Deputy Headmistress, "Because, Severus loved my mom, always had, and always will, because, for Hermione, my Mom's grave will be the first place he will go, he will want to say sorry, for the way he has been treated her, in particular!"
Molly looked apologetic and aggrieved, "Oh dear! Poor, poor man!"
Lupin by then, unlocked the gate and gestured the others to hurry up, "Come along, can't waste a moment, I just wish he doesn't do something stupid…."
Harry gravely mumbled, "Stupid, might…but I don't think he would try to harm himself; I wish he does not, He would rather wish to save Hermione now, more than ever!"
A/N: Tried hard to make this chapter Snape worthy! And those who are not aware, the lyrics above are from the movie The Phantom of the Opera. Well, on second thoughts, there are times, when I would feel like giving the song a skip. But I am still keeping it because there are moments when I am too sentimental and I am thinking of melancholic romanticism.