* This short story was written for a fanfic competition.
** I'd like to point out to the judges that single quotation marks are used for dialogue in the original version of the Harry Potter books.

International Wizarding School Championships (season 2)
School: Durmstrang
Theme: Look at beginnings and goodbyes in the wizarding world.
Special rule: Incorporate the colour red and the meaning behind it in your story: passion
Position: exchange student covering for year 7 (AverageFish)
Main prompt: [setting] an empty classroom.
Additional prompts: [word] drama. [genre] romance.
Wordcount: 1717

When the Light turns to Dust

Everything turned red the moment she barged into the empty classroom. From her hair to her eyes to the setting sun behind her, which set the dust particles that were floating through the air on fire like little embers. "There was something poetic about it," Severus thought to himself. In every memory of her, she was somehow surrounded by sunlight. Summers spent by Cokeworth's riverbank. On the Hogwarts' grounds. Through the windows of the library. At the playground. Their playground.

The red light of the setting sun followed her as if she had somehow managed to make the light bend and bow to her will. If Lily had to be described in but a single word; it would be the colour red. Red like the blood she could draw from underneath his nails. Like the river of Moses, when angered, like she was now. Like the great House of Godric Gryffindor, that she so fiercely, so passionately belongs to. Passion. Everything she does, she does with the utmost passion. Fighting for her place in the wizarding world perhaps most of all. It reminded him of the time they went out to buy their wands at Ollivanders at the age of eleven. The sparks from her wand were red.

'You caused a lot of drama, Severus, I'll tell you that!' She stomped her way towards him, her fist firmly clenched around a crumpled-up red envelope. 'A Howler. A bloody Howler, sent directly to the Gryffindor common room at its busiest hour, for everyone to hear!'

The foreign shrillness of her voice turned into nails running down his spine. Severus had sent the Howler in a moment of desperation. She had been avoiding him for days after their falling-out on the grounds. After he had called her a Mudblood. As if she wasn't the purest kind of red he ever had the fortune to meet.

'The whole bloody common room was in turmoil because of your words, Severus,' she spat. His name dripped from her tongue like poison. 'Yelling at me, demanding that I need to come and meet you. Yelling, Severus. Not politely asking me for a casual conversation. No sir. Yelling!'

'I'm sorry,' Severus mumbled. The cold stone wall he was leaning against was the only thing that kept him standing. He wanted to slump down to his knees and beg for her forgiveness. But he couldn't. The wall kept him standing. It was not the physical wall he was leaning against. It was the wall he had built from the inside out.

'Oh, so you're sorry now,' said Lily mockingly, and threw her hands up in the air. 'You're sorry. What am I supposed to do with "I'm sorry", eh? Demanding to meet you here apparently wasn't enough, judging by the string of comments that were vomited up by your Howler. I'm so sorry Lily,' she cited as she tore at the envelope. 'Please forgive me Lily.' She tore up another piece. 'What I said was wrong Lily.' Her voice rose with each passing word. 'I can't go on without you Lily. For once I just wanted to step out of your shadow Lily. I just hate how Potter looks at your Lily.' She had reached the height of her anger. 'I love you Lily!'

Lily fisted the scraps of parchment in her hand and tossed them into Severus's face, causing bits and pieces of his words to dance around him like paper snow. Her eyes were set on murder. Her nostrils flared. 'I love you Lily,' she repeated. Only this time she didn't scream. She sounded timid. 'You called me a Mudblood. A Mudblood, and now you love me? Why do you do this, Severus? Why? Can't you see how much it hurts?' Tears were streaming down her face. 'How could you?' she gritted through her teeth. 'How could you do this to me while I am trying to let you go.'

'I'm sorry,' Severus repeated. He was fumbling with a loose thread on his sleeve. An old familiar sensation was rising in the back of his throat. The kind of feeling where you wanted to say too many things at once and caused your throat to block and your tongue to twist. Leaving a string of words screaming in your mind, but no sound escaping from your mouth. The kind of feeling that arose whenever his father would raise his voice at him – or worse, at his mother.

'I know you can't help it,' said Lily. There was nothing pretty about the way she cried. He had seen her cry quite often over the years. She cried on all sorts of occasions. After receiving her first letter from Hogwarts, confirming that she was indeed a witch. After fighting with her sister, whom she loved so dearly despite their magical rift. After receiving Christmas gifts from him, however small they were in gesture. After seeing him arrive bruised up on her doorstep, when his father had gone too far once more. And perhaps the most painful one of all, after her father died. On every single one of these moments, and many more, she would wrap her arms tightly around him – and she would cry until her face turned red. Perhaps that is what red is. Feeling. All of it. And he had cried along with her, too. Only with her.

'I know you can't help it. Since the very beginning of us I know that it is hard for you to speak, Severus.' Lily breathed deeply into her nose and exhaled through her mouth, trying to calm herself down. Her father had taught her that. Her father had taught him that, too.

'I crossed a line I never should've crossed, Lily.' Her name was a hammer to the anvil of his soul.

'I just don't understand,' said Lily. She brought her voice down to a whisper. She didn't look at him. She looked at the tapestries on the wall behind him. 'Last summer, after our fourth year, everything was fine – like it's always been.'

'More than fine,' said Severus. The lump in his throat was losing the battle against the rising tears. Their last summer in Cokeworth had indeed been that. More than fine. The setting sun by the riverbank had set her curly red hair ablaze. She had kissed him, then. He was in her light.

I can't hold your hand while we're at school, Lily. (As much as it aches me not to feel you.)

It's better if we weren't seen together. For your own good. (It's hard to see in the dark without your light.)

They're not my friends, Lily. Not really. (They don't know friendship in the way that we do.)

I can't sit with you during Potions. Avery might grow suspicious. (Please don't work with Potter.)

Please, leave me alone! (I need you to be safe.)

We'll figure it out once we get home for Christmas. (I'm so sorry I cowered out on coming home with you.)

I'M NOT USING DARK MAGIC ON PEOPLE, LILY! (You were right. I am a coward.)

(Mudblood.)

'I wish we could go back to that place in time,' said Lily. 'Before all of – this. The empty promises. The lies. The words. Dad was right, you know? There is a lot of power in the words that we choose to speak.'

'He was,' Severus confirmed. 'He was right about a lot of things.'

'Severus. Sev – I need you to listen very carefully to what I am about to say.' She was looking straight at him. 'As of this moment, because of the rising war, I have to prioritise my own safety. I must prioritise it above my education, my friends, my family, and perhaps most painful of all – from you. I care about you, but I can no longer trust you. I need you to let me go. I need you to let me go, Sev.'

He could feel the stream of tears dripping down to the tip of his nose. 'I know I do.'

Her warm hand reached out for his cold fingers. 'I don't hate you. Know that. Really know that.'

'Can't we just leave?' Severus felt his lips tremble as he said it. 'Leave the country and wait for it all to pass.' He felt her other hand wipe a tear from his cheek. (Don't let go.)

'It's not that simple, Sev. And you know it.'

'I know that I don't want to lose you.'

'You won't. Not really.'

'Then why does it feel that way?'

'Because you let it,' she said, firmly. 'It is time for me to go. I still need to pack my things before we take the train back home tomorrow.'

The warmth of her hands left a lingering imprint on his body. Through the blur of his vision, he saw her heading for the door. Before closing the door of the classroom behind her she looked up at him, kindly, with her red-rimmed eyes. 'Sev, I'm positive we'll connect again, one way or another, when all of this is over.'

'You promise?'

'I promise.'

With the closing of the door, the light vanished, leaving him in a room filled with his own shadow.

…o0o…

Professor Snape found himself back on the fourth floor. Most of the classrooms along the corridor were empty and abandoned. Why? No-one really had the answer other than that they were deemed useless. Still, many valuable lessons were learnt in this forgotten place.

The echo of his steps bounced around the walls as he made his way down to the end of the corridor. The sun had nearly set once he reached the place where he and Lily had gone their separate ways. He had returned to the same abandoned classroom, year after year after year, on the day before he'd return to Cokeworth. Lily had been gone longer than they had been together – and yet her presence still lingered like the dust on that day.

He stopped in front of the heavy wooden door. He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath – and exhaled. With a heavy push he opened the door, the light from behind him illuminating the tapestries on the walls.

It was in that moment that he locked eyes with Lily's son, his hands filled with paper scraps.