Severus is standing next to the bodies in Godric's Hollow. He is standing there, and he is going blind. No, he's dreaming, or someone is playing a joke.
Anything but this, but her.
The baby is crying. Severus can't bear to look at it, to see her eyes in his face, but he can understand the boy's pain. His cries echo the feeling that has locked Snape's brain in a vice grip.
There is a pop, and Severus knows who has come. He can smell him, he knows the feeling of his presence. Lucius grips his arm, but Severus cannot move.
"We must go, Severus, they can't find you here. Please leave, now."
"Dumbledore knows I'm here," Severus says, still staring down. "Dumbledore knows everything."
Lucius digests this quickly, unphased by the situation and only intent on getting them both far, far away from this.
"Be that as it may, we must go." Is he jealous? Lucius has never had to be jealous of anything before.
"Lily is dead."
"I can see that," Lucius says, and pulls them both into thin air.
When they land back at Malfoy Manor, Severus is already crying. It's despicable, Lucius thinks, for him to cry this way over a Mudblood who couldn't even love him back. But a moment of softness overcomes him, and he helps his lover into a chair, and conjures him a glass of water. He kneels next to him, and touches his face.
"What you had with her is so much less than what you have with me."
"You can't understand it, you aren't capable of knowing what it feels like to be invisible." Snape will not look at Lucius, he will not return his touch.
"I understand now," Lucius says, straightening up, and swallowing the emotions he had allowed to rise. "I must go put things in order, and be with my family. You may stay here until you wish to leave. Good night, Severus."
Lucius is halfway out the door when a choked voice calls to him.
"But what will you do, Lucius? Let us protect you."
Lucius does not turn, and he does not want to know anything about the "us" of which Severus speaks.
"I will lie, Severus."
Things settle. The War is over; Lucius has lied, and Severus has given himself freely to the other side. Life may go on.
The two men don't know how to contact one another, how to own up to the way they feel when Friday night comes and goes without seeing one another. Then, finally, Severus drinks three glasses of wine in one sitting and scrawls a hasty note.
Spinner's End, it says, tonight. Now. Leave her, leave everything, be with me.
When Lucius receives this note, he is at a dinner party in his own home, entertaining the Minister for Magic.
"I'm sorry," he says, rising from his place at the head of the table, "but apparently my mother has taken very ill. I'll need to go to her straightaway, it seems." And without one look at Narcissa, and without one thought of how he will explain this to her, he leaves.