5: Delirium
Once she got him into a chair, Lily reached up and pushed Severus's hair out of his face.
"Sev, are you alright?" she asked frantically.
Severus didn't respond; he couldn't. He was completely convinced that somewhere in the last half hour, someone had killed him, because there was no other way he could be seeing Lily Potter standing in front of him.
"You-you're dead," he stammered, "the Dark Lord… I-I saw…"
Severus trailed off, and before long passed out from shock.
Images floated through his mind like sand through an hourglass, and he felt as if he'd just been thrown headfirst into a pensieve that was suspended in a tornado.
He saw his father throwing empty whisky bottles at his mother, and his mother curled up sobbing in the corner, begging him to stop. Severus watched stolidly from the upper floor, unable to do anything else… walking through a field of daisies and seeing Lily Evans for the first time… explaining to her that she was a witch, and frightening away her ignorant sister Petunia for calling her a freak… laying side by side under a willow tree by a lake in the middle of the summer, making all the leaves levitate inches above the water…
…He could feel his arm burning, but he couldn't understand why… "Sev, can your hear me?" The woman's voice echoed frantically in his ears. He tried to answer, but she was so far away…
…He saw the look on his mother's face when she opened his acceptance letter to Hogwarts, and the owl she sent to his grandmother, asking her to take him supply shopping… boarding the Hogwarts Express with Lily by his side, his mother nowhere in sight… meeting James and his friends on the train and Sirius casting the leg-locker curse on him as he followed Lily down the corridor… falling on top of Lily and causing her to hit her head on the wall… getting his picture taken with Lily…
…The burning in his arm was getting worse, and it was getting very uncomfortable… "Stay with me, Severus Snape. Don't you dare die on me!" The woman's voice echoed through his mind again, and this time he thought he recognized its owner, but he was dragged down into his memories again…
…Sirius tricking him into climbing into the Whomping Willow, being saved by James Potter… Potter dangling him upside down using his own spell… calling Lily a Mudblood… Lily asking him if he was still going to join the Death Eaters…
… The memories were coming faster now, and the pain in his arm was excruciating. He heard himself screaming, but it was coming from somewhere far away… a woman stood over him wiping his face with a cool cloth, holding up his head so he could drink a potion… "Come on, Sev, stay with me, please…" the voice pleaded, closer than ever. A face floated on the blurry edges of his vision and he could hear someone crying…
…overhearing the Prophecy as Albus Dumbledore interviewed Sybill Trelawney… Voldemort deciding that the Prophecy referred to Harry Potter… begging Voldemort to spare Lily's life… begging Dumbledore to put Lily and her family in hiding… finding Lily's home in ruins… vowing to help protect Harry Potter for the rest of his life… having to look at Harry Potter every day, being reminded of James… Capturing Sirius Black… learning about Black's escape… learning about the Dark Lord's return… playing Dumbledore's spy… Having to cooperate with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin… Occlumency lessons… Harry Potter seeing his memories…
…His screaming was growing louder and his memories were getting foggy… the same woman standing over him speaking his name, her face so similar to Lily's, her eyes filled with tears…
…Dumbledore tracking down horcruxes and getting cursed… telling the Headmaster he had only a year to live… Dumbledore asking Severus to kill him… staring into Harry Potter's eyes on the Astronomy Tower… performing the Killing Curse… realizing that his spells had fallen into the wrong hands and were being used against him again… the Dark Lord punishing him for killing Dumbledore…
… He screamed in agony one last time and fell silent, his visions ceasing as he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When Severus opened his eyes, he was in a room softly lit by candlelight. The walls were a pale green with green pinstripes, and the green velvet curtains looked brand new. He glanced around him and noticed that all the furniture in the room looked polished and clean. The blankets on his bed smelled freshly laundered, and matched the color of the walls. He was wearing new pajamas that weren't his own, but were quite comfortable. The bed he was in was soft, and the pillow under his head was softer. He had no idea where he was, but he never wanted to leave. He turned his head to the left and saw the picture he'd been looking at the last time he was alone in his bedroom.
"Sev? Are you really awake?"
He turned his head to the right and saw with disbelief that Lily Potter was lying next to him in bed, propped up on her elbow and staring at him with puffy red eyes.
Now he was convinced that he was dead.