Author's Notes: Hi all! I'm sorry this chapter is so short but I felt, as a turning point in the story, it deserved it's own chapter, minus any other characters. And once again, here's the lyrics to a Josh Groban song...everytime I hear this song all I can think of is poor Severus. If you haven't heard the song, I highly suggest you download it. It's a beautiful song.
Chapter Eighteen: The Road Home
A beautiful and blinding morning
The worl outside begins to breathe
See clouds arriving without warning
I need you here to shelter me
And I know that only time will tell us how
To carry on without each other
So keep me awake to memorize you
Give me more time to feel this way
We can't stay like this forever
But I can have you next to me today
If I could make these moments endless
If I could stop the winds of change
If we just keep our eyes wide open
Then everything would stay the same
-Awake, by Josh Groban
The smell of peppermint had his nose tingling and pulled him out of his coma-like sleep. Well, it was either the scent or the weight on his chest and the fuzzy thing patting his face. Severus opened his eyes to find a black and white cat staring at him with yellow eyes. He never had a cat and didn't think any of the Slytherin students had one. Was he still in his room? Was he still at Hogwarts for that matter? The cat meowed and then head butted him, purring loudly as she rubbed her head against his cheek.
"Oreo, stop that."
Someone pulled the cat off him and he found he was actually enjoying the closeness of the animal. It was something that reacted as if it were truly happy to see him, unafraid to touch him. It brought more comfort than anything else in years. But then he saw those all too familiar green eyes of Lily's staring down at him and remembered the only thing that every soothed his wounds, emotionally or physically. Or, in this case, both.
He expected her to start asking questions, incensed at his omission of the truth. He waited for her to start accusing him of causing the death of her husband and the almost murder of herself and child. Bracing himself for any and every verbal insult or physical pain she was about to rain down on him, Severus waited for Lily, who was now holding the cat close to her, to speak and begin his punishment. When she finally did, it surprised him as much as if she had slapped him across the face.
"How do you feel?"
How did he feel? She had just found out that it was him who delivered the prophecy to Voldemort and Merlin knows what else Pettigrew told her. There were many occasions when he was forced to act the part of a loyal Death Eater, which usually involved the twisted pleasure of causing someone else harm. Pettigrew had been present on multiple occasions and he wondered which ones he decided to regale Lily, Black and Remus with.
But as to how he felt, no one word could describe it. He felt scared that she would reject him again for crimes much worse than calling her a horrible name in anger and humiliation. He felt weary of the constantly trying to prove himself as a respectable human being, both to others as well as to himself. And yet, he also felt hopeful. She was the first thing that he saw when he opened his eyes, and though her face was unreadable at the moment, it had to mean something positive, didn't it?
"Sev? Are you alright?"
"I don't know," he answered truthfully. Whether he was going to be alright or not lay in her hands, just as it always had. "What time is it?"
She looked off to the side briefly. "Four o'clock in the afternoon."
"I guess I missed Christmas morning."
"Christmas was four days ago, Sev."
He sat up in surprise. "Four days ago?! What…what happened?"
She sat back down in a hard backed chair that was sitting next to his bed. "Professor Dumbledore said that you haven't been sleeping very much since you've been here. When Poppy came down to tend to your wounds, she gave you a pretty stiff Draught of Living Death. You were absolutely exhausted, Sev. You can't go that long without sleep."
He idly watched the cat curled up on her lap and close it's amber colored eyes. "What happened to Pettigrew?"
"He was handed over to the Ministry and sent to Azkaban."
"He won't stay there for long."
"What do you mean?"
Severus propped up his pillows and leaned back against them, the unmistakable feeling of drowsiness still clung to his mind. "He's an animangus, a rat, to be specific. He'll slip through the bars and the dementors won't even notice he's gone."
"They know he's an animangus and the animal that he turns into. He's been placed in a special cell to ensure he stays there."
He tried to summon up feelings of relief but all he could think about was how he should be the one sitting in a Azkaban cell. He was just as guilty as Pettigrew. Why was he given forgiveness and a second chance? What made him so different? The cat had decided against napping on Lily's lap and had jumped back onto his bed. "Is this your cat?"
"Yes," she smiled absently. "I thought I had lost her after Ha-Halloween. A squib named Arabella Figg found her and took her in. Apparently, Arabella loves cats so taking in one more wasn't too hard for her. Remus actually found her and gave her back to me Christmas morning. Her name is Oreo."
Severus tried to come up with what a Oreo was but couldn't quite pull the definition from his cloudy mind.
"An Oreo is a muggle cookie, Sev."
Now he remembered. "Your mother used to eat them."
She gave him a slightly surprised look. "You remember that?"
"I remember everything. Sometimes…"
"Go on."
He concentrated on the feel of the cat's fur under his fingertips. "Sometimes it was the only thing that kept me sane, remembering those details. Your mother always had cookies or some other kind of sweet. She never commented on my clothes or hair, only on my lack of weight."
"What other details, Sev?"
He chanced a glance up at her. There was no anger or accusation on her face. In fact, she looked close to crying. He didn't know why this was so important to her but apparently it was. The glassy look of unshed tears urged him to speak honestly and openly for first time.
"Well, I remember how your sister always hid whenever I came over to your house. How she only referred to me as 'that awful boy' whenever she had friends over and how your mother always scolded her for it. Your father showed me how to use a charcoal grill the summer between our fourth and fifth years. But most of all," he closed his eyes, unable to look at her anymore, "I remembered you. Whenever I felt like I was going mad or couldn't sleep because of nightmares, I would sequester myself off from everyone and relive every memory I had of you. The place in the woods by the brook…that was always my favorite."
He called it up in his mind then, the sound of the water running over the stones and the quiet rustles of the leaves overhead. He could still see clearly the sun glinting off the gold strands in her dark red hair and smell the fruity shampoo that she had used as a child. He would spend hours, laying in the grass and watching her, memorizing everything there was to tuck away for when his father's slurred words threatened to overtake him or when the taunting of his peers threatened to break him. That cove in the trees had been his heaven that he was able to only catch snatches of before returning to his purgatory that he called life. "I'd give anything to go back there."
He opened his eyes and stared down at the cat, who had curled up in his blankets and slept soundly. His head hurt and he reached up pinch the bridge of his nose but when he lifted his hand to his face, he found his cheeks were wet and quickly wiped away the tears. Ashamed, he looked over at Lily to see was crying too.
She swallowed visibly. "After all this time?"
How could he tell her he never stopped loving her? That the desire to spend hours studying her had never faded. There really was only one word that summed up years of devotion. "Always."
She stood up from the chair and sat down next to him on the bed. He was afraid she was getting ready to tell him she was leaving Hogwarts or that she thought they should once again go their separate ways. He couldn't take her walking out of his life again. He was already doing a mental check of all the potion ingredients he would need for a swift poison when she put her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.
"Then we'll just have to go back to our spot by the creek."
Relief flooded through him at her acceptance and he buried his face against her neck. No longer smelling of the fruity shampoo but rather vanilla, peppermint and baby powder. It was almost like returning home, or how he would have thought it would feel since he never really had a home to begin with. Hogwarts was the closest thing to a home but even there he was an outcast. Home was about unconditional acceptance, love and contentment. Everything that he found in Lily's embrace. He knew he wasn't there to stay yet, but he was definitely on the road home now.
And I know that only time will tell me how
We'll carry on without each other
So keep me awake for every moment
Give us more time to be this way
We can't stay like this forever
But I can have you next to me today
We'll let tomorrow wait, you're here, right now, with me
All my fears just fall away, when you are all I see
We can't stay this way forever
But I have you here today
And I will remember
Oh I will remember
Remember all the love we shared today
-Awake, by Josh Groban