Disclaimer: Once again, I own no characters, ideas, or scenarios from the Harry Potter universe.
"Why am I not surprised to see your room painted in that nauseating, Gryffindor red?" Severus snorted upon entering Lily's bedroom. It had been the first time in over twenty years that he had set foot into it, and obviously the details of the Evans household had grown hazy during that absence. He looked around and saw a room fit for royalty, at least by his humble standards.
Lily owned numerous magical baubles bought from Diagon Alley, enchanted photographs of many of her friends, and her bed was a plush, queen size with vivid green sheets. On her dresser, Severus noticed her Prefect badge, as well as a banner of the proud, Gryffindor lion on her wall. It was as if Lily had done everything in her power to take the magic of Hogwarts back home with her.
"Is that any way to speak to your host, Sev?" Lily quipped back, sitting down on the soft mattress. "Red was one of my favorite colors before I got sorted at Hogwarts, and this room reflected that a long time ago."
"One of?" Severus questioned. "I thought it was your absolute favorite. I can remember, back when we were nine years old. You told me that you wanted to go to Gryffindor because 'it was the red one'.
A smile spread across Lily's lips and she started giggling. "Oh Merlin, I did say that, didn't I? Well...times change. I've grown to like many colors now. Red, blue, green, yellow...and I happen to have developed a fondness for black as well." she added.
After a moment of laughter, the young witch's expression shifted. Obviously, his recollection had a profound effect on her. "I had to be reminded of that...and it hasn't even been seven years. But you...Sev, how can you still remember something so silly after almost thirty years…?"
Black met green once again, and he remained standing, looking down at her seated form. "There's a lot of things about my life that have grown hazy over the years...stress is mostly what causes it. Stress from spying, stress from lying. But when it comes to my time with you...I remember absolutely everything."
Lily broke their eye contact, looking down at the floor and shuffling her bare feet along it nervously. A blush was quickly forming on her cheeks. "I wish you would stop talking like that."
"Why?" he asked simply.
"You know why...it makes me uncomfortable, thinking that seventeen years went by...and I was the only thing on your mind."
"The other you." Severus corrected, raising a finger and making a slight smirk at having turned her phrase around on her.
"No, not the other me, Sev. All of those happy memories that you clung to, they all happened before the moment you arrived back here. It makes my head spin...time travel and all that nonsense...but I know, everything you remember, up until the day at the lake...your worst memory...I remember it too."
"I did what I had to do in order to stay true to the mission." Severus muttered, walking past Lily's bed and looking out the window to the starry, night sky.
"How exactly does obsessing over me accomplish anything?" she sighed with a frown, looking at his back turned to her. "I told you...I'm not some goddess...I'm just Lily."
"I made a promise to protect your son. I did what I had to do...I spent hundreds of hours nearly drowning myself in a Pensieve, refreshing memories from years gone by. Reminding myself of what was lost due to my own, stupid decisions. Seeing all of those conversations and finally hearing the truth in your words...things that I ignored due to being a prideful, idiotic, teenager. I did it all so I could stay the course and bear the burden of protecting Harry Potter. To honor the sacrifice that you...the other Lily, had made."
Slowly, Lily returned to her feet, walking behind Severus and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "But why would you need to envelop yourself in all of those bittersweet memories?"
"Because it was the only way I could stand to tolerate the boy's existence." Severus droned, feeling the floodgates opening, and having the urge to occlude himself from it. This was not the direction he wanted their conversation to take.
Lily's eyes widened slightly, and asked with a quiver in her soft voice. "Wait...you...Sev, did you...did you hate Harry?"
"With every fiber of my being." Severus groaned.
"Why?!" she winced, taking offense to something being said about the son that hadn't even been born yet.
"Why not?!" Severus turned to her, his gaze sharp with silent rage. "He had no respect for authority, just like his father. He was granted favors by Dumbledore, just like his father. If he didn't have your eyes, he would have looked JUST LIKE HIS FATHER."
"You can't place your hatred at the things James has done to you on an innocent child, Severus!" Lily snapped.
By now, Severus could feel his blood pumping, the infuriating laundry list of reasons why he loathed Harry Potter once again coming to the forefront of his mind.
"If it were just his resemblance to Potter, I would merely have been annoyed by him. But no...If I hadn't died so young, that boy would have taken years off my life from the stress of how much trouble he caused! Always marching off, trying to get himself killed. Despite everything that people were doing to protect him from danger, he would just rush headfirst into it. He was always, ALWAYS fed the story of the Boy Who Lived. And he thought he'd live again and again, chasing after trouble, going to fight the Dark Lord without a clue as to what he was up against, never respecting what you died for!"
After several moments of letting his anger overwhelm him, he took a few breaths, desperately trying to keep his cool and not say something he might regret. "It wasn't his disrespect for me or for authority that I hated. It was his disrespect for you. And not just HIS disrespect, but the disrespect that the ENTIRE WIZARDING WORLD subjected your memory to. I couldn't go two weeks without hearing another spineless imbecile raving about the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the Savior of the Wizarding World, Saint Potter. Where was the respect for the real hero...The Mother Who Died? Why was I the only one who tried to honor the memory of Lily Evans?!"
Lily's hostility softened, seeing the pain on his face as as the real truth of his anger came to the forefront. Looking into the shattered mirrors that were his obsidian eyes, she could see that this was not something he had ever admitted to anyone. Probably not even Dumbledore. Once again, she pulled him into a hug, hearing him choking back tears as he poured his heart out to her.
"Sev...You have to stop...please...stop letting the baggage from that other life carry over into this one. You're here...and so am I. This is your life...you don't have to go spying, or dying, in the memory of some woman's ghost again…I rather prefer you alive, if it's all the same to you." she laughed sadly, kissing his cheek, feeling the wetness of his tears as she did so.
Severus, on the other hand, felt a comforting warmth, and his own cheeks started to blush after Lily's loving gesture.
"You really should be spending less time lamenting about your old life and start planning what you want to do with this one. Do you know what you want your career path to be?" she asked, trying to change the subject.
"No...and it honestly doesn't matter." he mumbled.
"Doesn't matter?" Lily gasped, almost repulsed by his answer. "And why not?"
"My only goal right now is ensuring that history doesn't repeat itself." Severus' tone hardened, as did the expression on his face. "I have to keep working...until my original mission is finished."
"Your original mission? Sev, I'm safe. I'm right here...you're not bound to anyone or anything anymore." Lily pleaded.
"My mission and the motivations I have for embarking on it are two different things, Lily. Keeping you safe was my motivation. But my mission is...and has always been, the fall of the Dark Lord."
He took a deep breath, still clutching Lily closely, before turning to look out the window once more. "More and more, there will be times when those skies light up with a green glow and a dark mark. People will die. Others will suffer. I failed last time, when he killed me. And maybe...when I thought I had nothing left, I welcomed that end. But I will see it happen this time around...I'll finish it myself if that's what it comes down to. I cannot live while Voldemort survives." he echoed the words of Trelawney's prophecy.
As Lily listened to Severus' vow, she felt his protective embrace around her tightening. It was as if an armor was forming around her, an armor forged by the sheer will of his words. And she felt safe, believing every word he uttered as the absolute truth…
Severus had never been a heavy sleeper, even in the best of times. Growing up, his father's tirades throughout the house, coming in after last call at the local tavern had long ended, ensured that even the most mild of noises alerted him. So when the gentle gong of the grandfather clock downstairs in the living room announced it was three o'clock in the morning, his eyes opened sleepily to examine the moonlit bedroom.
The guest bedroom was situated upstairs, next door to Lily's room and across the hall from Jasper and Dahlie's master bedroom. The walls were a more plain, urban gray, a rather neutral color compared to the red in Lily's room.
When their talk earlier that night had concluded, Severus was astounded once Lily made the suggestion that he sleep with her. After a period of awkward stuttering at her almost ludicrous request, Severus finally brushed it off with a chuckle.
The one thing that bothered him, though, was the almost severe disappointment in Lily's eyes when he said no. Surely she had been joking with him?
His eyes drifted to the wall separating the guest room from hers.
That's when he heard the moaning.
For a moment, he thought he had imagined it. It only happened once, then there was another period of silence.
Then another moan, followed quickly by a shudder, and sobbing. He could hear Lily's terrified voice muttering something.
"NO!" he shouted internally to himself as he threw the covers off and silently crept towards the door.
It had been so obvious, yet his mind had foolishly drifted to the juvenile implications of her request, rather than the very real truth. Lily was having another nightmare.
Within moments, he opened her door, seeing the soft light of the moon revealing Lily's sleeping form in the darkness. Her hair was messily spread across her pillows and she was tossing and turning, with all the violent force of a crashing tide.
Her arms and face were both drenched in sweat.
"Lily...hey, Lily!" Severus hissed quietly. He took a seat next to her on the bed, nudging her shoulder as gently as possible in order to rouse her somewhat peacefully from the nightmare.
Despite his efforts, it had been anything but peaceful. Lily's eyes snapped open and she immediately clung to him, her labored breaths coming in short spasms. It took several minutes of comforting strokes through her hair, and soft, soothing whispers from Severus, assuring her that everything was alright, that it had all been a dream, before the young witch finally started to relax.
Lily's clinging lessened, but did not cease. It still seemed like she was holding Severus for dear life, much in the same way she had the night she had been dropped from the Astronomy Tower by her mystery assailant. The night he had abandoned all secrecy and soared like a bird to catch her.
Severus spent several minutes waiting for Lily to speak to him. But eventually, all he heard was the rhythmic breathing in and out, and the slowing beat of her heart. Once he looked back down at her, it was obvious from her closed eyelids and rapid eye movement that she was still dreaming. She hadn't truly woken up throughout the whole ordeal. But at least the nightmares were over for now.
With his eyes swimming in emotion, Severus adjusted himself so that he was under the sheets, right next to Lily as she remained in his protective embrace. In time with the rhythm of her gentle breaths, he stroked, from the back of her head down her spine. It was a caress unlike any he had given Lily before, past or present life.
He shut his eyes and merely continued to listen to her breathing. It had been a moment of clarity, more powerful to him than any crazed speech from Dumbledore about a greater good or doing the right thing. Looking down at her sleeping form, he whispered softly, almost inaudibly. "Whoever did this...they're going to pay. And their master is going to pay double. I swear to you, Lily, if it's the last thing I do, I'm going to create a world without Voldemort."
As the hours passed throughout the night, Lily continued to sleep peacefully, nuzzling her head into Severus' chest unconsciously. The nightmares did not return again.
Author's Note: After chapters which tend to focus or highlight other characters, I like to take things back to the main duo of the story to get the audience more invested in them. I'm still trying to incorporate ideas for chapters fully from Lily's point of view, but that will likely come more often during their sixth year than right now.
Another awkward part of the whole Severus "Back in Time" trope is touching the subject of Severus' animosity towards Harry. Some people assume it to be a jealous, vindictive grudge towards James Potter, and I'm sure that's part of it. Yet, I also think the most driving reason is Harry's recklessness and need to be a hero. Severus is so damaged emotionally that in his life of grief, he could see that as a complete disregard towards the people who sacrifice to keep him safe, most of all, Lily.
As I always do, I'd like to take this time to thank everyone so far who has been inspired to comment and review on what they've read so far. I can't emphasize enough how important it is for authors to get meaningful feedback from their readers. If you enjoyed something in particular, I want to know. If something confused you, I want to know. If you're looking forward to something or want to share your theories with fellow readers, I want to know. So with that in mind, please keep sending that feedback; I can assure you it makes all the difference to me!