The Quidditch League (Round 1)
Holyhead Harpies - Chaser 1: A broken mirror – Write about a relationship (platonic or romantic) breaking apart.
Prompts: [word] tomorrow, [action] hiding, [color] green
Word count: 1845
Triggers: Depressive thoughts
tomorrow (she'll be there tomorrow)
Severus Snape is a coward. Pure and simple - that's what he is: someone who runs away from his problems, who'd rather hide than face them head-on.
He runs from many people; from his father, his housemates, his best friend, and the ever-growing shadow of the Dark Lord that threatens to eclipse not only him, but all of Slytherin as well. He simply doesn't have the mental fortitude to look any of them in the eyes. He will always be - and has always been - a failure to them. To all of them.
Looking down at his hands, he finds another thing to hate: ink that's stained his fingers, that's somehow managed to wedge itself beneath his nails. You'd think after so many years of writing with quills, of dipping them in inkwells and watching the excess drip off, he would have learned not to be hasty.
Lily clucks in disapproval every time she sees his hands and the mess he's made of his essays - she preaches patience. But Severus has never listened to her, and now, the evidence of his shame is staring him right in the eyes. It has the courage he's never had, a certain bravado, and for a brief second, he wonders which is more pathetic: that an ink stain has more strength than he does, or that he wants to switch places and morph into it.
"Snape?" An impatient, huffy voice yanks him out of his reverie.
He flips around, barely resisting the urge to jump. Who he sees makes him scowl. "What, Black?" he snaps. "What do you want?"
Regulus Black rolls his eyes, a close imitation of his older brother's exasperation that neither of them will ever admit to. "You're blocking the way." He points out, jutting a hand towards the place Severus has occupied.
It's then that the older Slytherin remembers where he is: the owlery, a communal tower that is certainly not a fit place to dwell on his closest thoughts in. He steps aside, giving Black and his owl access to the window. His task here is done, anyway - all that's left now is to go to the common room and wait.
"Snape."
It's Black's voice - again - that stops Severus in his tracks. He doesn't say a thing, doesn't even bother to turn around and face the fourth year. He simply waits.
All Regulus Black has to say is, "Be careful."
'Careful of what?' Severus wants to ask. 'Of who?' But even voicing the questions out loud would be a waste of time. They both know what the warning pertains to. Being Slytherins, they both know the truth. It's almost inevitable that they'll both be dragged down the same track, the same road. It's not an 'if', it's simply a matter of 'when'.
"I don't need your help, Black." Severus hears himself say. "I can take care of myself."
"I'm sure you can," is the simple reply. The owl on Black's arm croons as he turns around. "That's why you're sending letters to Malfoy Manor, after all, isn't it?"
A beat of silence. A tense, fraught moment, as Severus digests what was just said. Panic stabs through his mind, his soul. He storms forward, grabbing his arch-enemy's brother by the forearm. "What did you just say?" he hisses.
Black is entirely unaffected. "I believe you heard me," he says, shushing his owl, who - shocked by the sudden movement - was preparing itself to strike.
Severus takes a deep breath, mien like an angry bull. "What do you know of my correspondence to Malfoy Manor?"
"I know enough. I know you're biting off more than you can chew."
"Your concern is noted, Black, and entirely unwanted. Mind your own business."
"I think it best if you mind yours." The younger Slytherin parries him neatly. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into. You don't know those people - not like I do."
Severus sneers. "We're in the same house, fool. And if you knew as much as you claim you do, you would know exactly why one does not cease writing to the Malfoys."
"I didn't tell you to stop writing to them." Black points out. "I just told you to be careful."
"And I said I don't need your help." Severus takes a step back. He orders, "Do not approach me on this again."
The infernal Sirius Black's younger brother sighs, looking strangely regretful. "Very well, then. On your own grave it be." And he turns back to finally send his own letter, acting as though the conversation had never happened.
Taking a leaf out of his book, Severus whips around and marches out of the owlery, his movements oddly mechanical. He is in a daze such as he's never experienced before, an out-of-body occurrence he cannot quite describe. His footsteps don't make a sound, his hands can barely move. His mind? It's screeched to a halt.
Sirius Black's brother, he realizes, just warned him away from the Malfoys. He doesn't just suspect Severus' involvement with the Death Eaters; he's actively aware of it.
It's like someone has upended a pail of cold water over his head. Who else knows he's being courted by the Dark Lord?
He should tell Lily. He should pull her aside and tell her everything, spill every little sordid detail of the whole sorry affair.
She would understand. She would be disappointed, but she would understand. In fact, he can already hear her voice in his head. "Oh, Severus. What did I tell you about Avery and Mulciber? Didn't I say they were bad news?"
Lily would pull him in her arms and sigh. "You should've been in Gryffindor," she would say. "I've always known it."
But the truth is, he doesn't belong in Gryffindor. He never has. The house of the brave and the chivalrous - when has that ever been him? He, who locks himself up in his room to avoid his father; he, who ducks behind tapestries and suits of armor to refrain from interacting with his very best friend. By the gods, that is pathetic. The conversation he had with Regulus Black this morning is more than he's said to Lily this entire week. He knows it confuses her, he knows she's angry with him - and he desperately wants to confide in her, but he can't bring himself to even entertain the idea that she might be disgusted with him.
So, he sits in the common room, in the one place he knows she won't be able to access. "Perhaps," he thinks. "I shall tell her tomorrow." But the thought is a useless one, for it's something he's been telling himself since he started avoiding her. Since he started hiding from her.
Is it because who dragged him into this pit that he's so scared? Is it because he's afraid of the reaction she'll have when she finds out who he's been writing to, without ever bothering to tell her? …Maybe.
Lily, after all, holds no fondness for Lucius Malfoy. And she's right to dislike him - Severus can freely admit that. But Lucius had been the one who'd welcomed him to Slytherin, who'd taken him into the fold instead of leaving him adrift. He owes him something, some degree of loyalty for that, although in retrospect, he can admit the so-called 'favor' Lucius did him has not benefited him that much after all.
"When did it all come to this?" Severus thinks to himself, bitter and sour. "Where did it all go wrong?"
His fascination with magic - with the wrong side of magic - has not gone unnoticed. He is a prodigy in potions, talented at spellcraft, and descended from a long line of purebloods who can boast much and more to their name. He is exactly the sort of person the Dark Lord wants, exactly the type of talent his side seeks.
He had been flattered, initially, when Lucius had sought him out for the cause and began to cultivate him for an eventual place in Lord Voldemort's ranks. But how could he, a fourteen-year-old, have known the extent of it? How he was being utterly manipulated? He had thought himself invincible, after all. But he was not, and the murders splayed across the Prophet's front pages, all done in this so-called great lord's name, had shown him that.
He needs someone to confide in. He knows that. But Lily is all he has, and he can't bring himself to talk to Lily today. Not today.
But maybe… maybe tomorrow.
Yes, he'll talk to her tomorrow. She'll still be there tomorrow.
Tomorrow turns into yesterday, and then the day before that.
Like a coward, Severus continues to hide away from his best friend, from the one person he knows he can depend on. All his energy is spent on running away from her, on keeping everything in his bag so he can make a mad dash for the door the moment their classes are over.
He hears her voice in the hallways, catches glimpses of her red hair as he ducks and weaves behind this and that to avoid her. Her eyes, he no longer sees, because he stopped making eye contact with her weeks ago - and that, somehow, is the thing he mourns the most.
Lily, cheerful Lily; Lily with the bright, uniquely colored eyes… she had given him an entirely new meaning to the color green. Before her, green had been for Slytherin; for ambition, greed, money, envy. After her, it became about friendship, happiness, companionship. When he had her, he needed none other. Without her, he is adrift, floating, aimless.
These days, when he's sure she's not looking, when he's certain she isn't paying attention, he lets his eyes dart to look at her. Sometimes, she's at the Gryffindor table, talking with her roommates, her friends. Other times, she's sassing Potter, flicking him off and telling him to shove his precious snitch up where the sun doesn't shine.
He hates that she shares a house with the Marauders; wonders, then, whether he should confide in her after all, if only to save her from their bothersome presence. But he always backs out, always the coward.
And then, irrationally, green stops being about friendship, about companionship. It's once again greed, jealousy, everything he had stymied with Lily.
He is a poor, feckless creature without her, a desperate mockery of loneliness and apathy. He stews in that well of pity he'd long ago dug for himself, and resolves to never touch, never talk, never think about her ever again. He doesn't deserve her.
He, Severus Snape, deserves nothing.
(When days turn into weeks, and months pass to welcome one new season after another, when autumn turns into winter, and winter morphs into spring, he is still not a person changed. He is still the same coward, the same pitiful creature he has always been. Then that cursed word spills out of his mouth, a final nail in a half-completed coffin, and he seals his fate. Pathetic, cowardly, green-with-envy Severus Snape is all he will ever be. He will never change.)