The act of taking his own life had been a near constant thought since he was sixteen years old. It consumed him like a fever on nights where he is exceptionally gloom. Last night was one of those nights.
It is Christmas Eve, Severus Apparates to Devon, stands in a thicket of trees and brambles outside of his wife's house for hours as he awaits her return. From his vantage point, he has a clear view of both the back of her house where he could look through a large window and get a clear view of both her kitchen, and a small section of the sitting room, and the trail she will use to return home. The house is dark, no smoke billows from the chimney. She was likely at the Weasley's, warm and surrounded by people. Lorna would be opening her gifts by now. Severus wonders briefly what he would have bought for her but pushes that thought from his mind.
A light dusting of snow already covers the ground, it would be ankle deep before long if it kept up the way it currently was. Severus massages his aching fingers before clenching and releasing his fist several times in hopes of getting some relief. A soft squish of someone walking on wet snow fills his ears, he pushes himself deeper into his hiding spot in case she becomes more vigilant as she nears her home. He can't see her features properly in the dark but can see enough. A dim lantern levitates before her, lighting a path on the trail she walks, a pile of stacked boxes behind her follows diligently. He can't see Lorna, perhaps she stayed behind at the Weasley's.
As her feet touch the first step of the back stoop, the lights within the house spring to life. Severus jumps slightly as this. She hadn't uttered a word; he would have heard it; since when could she perform non-verbal magic so well?
She opens the door, sends the pile of gifts through, then steps through herself. As she turns towards the window, Severus notices a bulge beneath her coat, his heart stops, his breathing becomes labored, and time begins to move in slow motion. She unzips her coat to reveal Lorna nestled snug against her front, she's wearing a brown knit hat a bit too large for her head, a deep purple jumper, and what looks to be a corduroy skirt with thick, white tights beneath. She cups the child's small head in her hands, smiles brightly down at her as she speaks and bends her neck down to plant several kisses on her face. Lorna throws her head back, flails her arms, and makes a jumping motion in her mother's arms. A small hand finds its way to the hat upon her head, and tries desperately to remove it, to no avail. Her mother lends a hand, and the thick black hair beneath stands straight in the air due to static, which causes her mother to smile brighter. She smooths it with one hand, kisses the child once more, and then places her on the ground. Severus can no longer see Lorna, which pains him more than he had expected.
The girl's mother, however, is still very much in view. She is lovely, more beautiful than he remembered. Severus watches as she removes her own hat, followed by her scarf and coat. She hangs them on a peg by the door and turns to say something to Lorna. The dark colored jumper she wears is a bit too large for her, it hangs loosely from her body. She has lost a substantial amount of weight, the people around her were not ensuring she was taking care of herself. Her hair is sleek and wavy, far longer than he had ever seen her wear it before. It looks good on her. Even from his distance, with a window separating her from his view, her eyes still gleam.
One leg moves forward before he can stop himself. Severus grips the closest tree and brings his head forward to rest against the rough bark. His breath comes out in uneven puffs of white as he attempts to regulate his emotions.
—
Minerva visits once between December and February; on his birthday no less. She doesn't say much, just watches, judging. She makes no mention of Lorna or her mother but leaves him a picture of her nearly toothless smile and chubby, dimpled cheeks. Her hair is jet black and thick, parted in the middle and put up in two short pigtail atop her head. Every few seconds, her head is thrown back in laughter before righting itself once more. Severus props the photograph against a book on a shelf next to his bed, each night he is kept awake staring at the small face that is so familiar to him, yet very much a stranger. Catherine/Caitlin visits almost daily, becoming more and more persistent with her actions. He contemplates obliviating her memories of him and warding his shack against her, but then he would be completely alone, and he isn't sure he can handle that at the moment.
Severus is forty years old now; older than he had ever intended to be. The thought of ending it all sounding better and better with each passing day.
February ninth, Severus finds himself once more hidden in the thicket outside of his wife's house. He had promised himself he wouldn't return; the brief moments he had laid eyes on Lorna on Christmas haunted him for weeks. She is happy, healthy, thriving, all thanks to his absence. But it is her first birthday, and he needed to see her once more, for his own sanity.
Dawn begin to break, his hands shake, and his breath sends plumes of white billowing around his head. Without the protection of nightfall, he silently casts Cave Inimicum to shield himself from them in the bare trees.
Before long, the back door to the house is thrown open and Lorna's loud protests fill the air. Her mother struggles to hold on to her as she thrashes and wails in her arms. She is undeniably as lively as she was the day he last held her in his arms, perhaps even more so now that she were aware of her surroundings and mobile.
"NO!" Lorna shouts as she flings the entirety of her body weight backwards, almost flipping out of her mother's arms.
"Lorna, please!" Her mother responds as she makes her way down the stoop and through the garden in the direction of the trails head.
"NOOOOOOOOO!" Lorna wails as she balls her mittened fists and pounds them against her mother's chest.
"Lorna, you do not hit people." She says sternly, her jaw set tightly as she glares down at the child struggling to break free of her captor.
As her feet reach the top of the trail, Lorna throws her head back and screams once more. Her body goes limp as she plummets backwards a second time, no doubt knowing exactly how to get her way. Her mother places her on the ground, puts her hands on her hips, and stares down at the child struggling to remain upright. Lorna toddles a moment, then places one foot before the other defiantly and takes two timid steps before she falls down on her rear. She opens her mouth as if to scream but smiles instead. The smile is sweeter in person, he watches as it softens even her overwhelmed mother's stern face. Lorna places her hands on the ground before her, stands, and turns back towards the house.
"No, Lorna. We're going to Nan's; I have to go to work."
Lorna ignores her mother and toddles a few steps towards home before her mother intercepts her and steers her back down the path. The child throws herself down to the ground and lets out an ear shattering screech.
"You are unbearable in the mornings, just like your fa—" She stops herself, shakes her head, and bends to scoop the child from the ground before stalking off. Lorna's protests fill the air long after their figures are no longer visible.
She was going to say father. She was going to compare Lorna to him.
Severus waits until he can no longer hear Lorna's cries before he releases the charm safely hiding him from view. In the window of the house, the damned cat narrows his yellow eyes at him; he narrows his back.
As he makes his way around the side of the home, he spots a small area of garden enclosed in a deteriorating stone fence. He lets himself in, taking note of the winter-bare grape vines still climbing the hand-made trellis. In the center is a headstone. He almost ignored it, not really caring who was laid to rest there. That is, until he spots the name atop in his peripheral.
Eileen Catherine Prince Snape.
Severus bends his knees on the frozen ground before the stone, removes the glove from his right hand, and traces the indentations of her name with trembling fingers. He lets out a shaky breath he hadn't been aware of holding and allows a single tear to drip from his eye. She is still there to look over Lorna.
It is well after dark before he hears footsteps on the path once more. He had grown concerned hours ago when she hadn't returned but thought perhaps the Weasley's had thrown a small party of sorts to celebrate the occasion and chalked their late return up to that. He watches through the window as she gently lies Lorna's sleeping body on the sofa and disappears into the kitchen. While she is gone, Lorna wakes. She brings her chubby fists to her eyes and rubs them as she yawns. She sits up and looks around the room, her little chin begins to tremble at the realization that she is alone in the room. Perhaps she is whimpering, or it could be mother's instinct, for her mother returns to the room and places a mug of tea on the table in front of the sofa. She pulls the child into a loving embrace, kisses the top of her head, and lifts the hem of her blouse as Lorna curls in her lap and buries her face in her mother's breast. Severus watches silently, a slight surge of guilt courses through him for spying on such an intimate moment.
Lorna is asleep before long, and her mother carries her off, presumably to her cot. He is about to make his departure when he hears the door open and sees his wife's figure emerge into the cold. She isn't dressed for the weather; she wears no coat, no hat, and no gloves. Even at the distance he is, he can hear her rapid, choppy breathing. He watches helplessly as she sobs, her body trembling mere feet from him. If he were a better man, he would go to her, her anger be damned. He isn't a better man, though.
Severus stands from the fallen log he had been sitting on off and on throughout the day, an unknown twig beneath his foot snaps, echoing its betrayal throughout the forest. She stands and stares out into the darkness, wand drawn before her. Without a second thought, Severus Apparates away.
—
"I do not want to be here, but I was asked to come. I need to ask a favor of you, if you are willing." Potter's voice is deep, his face set in an emotionless glare. He had forgotten just how like his father he truly is.
"I am not open to favors as of late, Potter." Severus replies, his jaw set in so hard his teeth feel as though they may crack.
"It isn't for me. It's for—"
"I do not care who it is for, I am busy. If you would excuse me, I have things to do."
"You may not be a coward, but you are a massive git." Potter spits as he makes his way out of the opened door of his shack.
"I will not pretend to care what you think of me, Potter." Severus retorts as he slams his clenched fists on the make-shift wooden counter housing his potions ingredients.
"How can you live with yourself?" Potter whirls around to face him, both of their eyes are narrowed, their fists clenched at their sides. "My child isn't even born yet, and I couldn't imagine leaving them. I would die before I ever left my wife and child."
"A pity not everyone can be as noble as the famous Harry Potter." Severus sneers through grit teeth, ready to strike should Potter give him a reason.
"I have forgiven you for a lot, but I won't ever forgive you for this. She has a big family who loves her, who will never leave her. She won't miss you, but I hope she haunts you for the rest of your life." Potter snips before turning and slamming the door behind him.
It had been a year and a half since he last laid eyes on his daughter on her first birthday. She was two and a half years old now, and he likely wouldn't even recognize her should he pass her on the street. Going there that night had been a mistake, had haunted him every moment of his life, as it should.
No potion took the dreams away, her presence still haunted them. Her voice, which he had only hear once as she screamed defiantly at her mother rang in his ears. Her smile, her laugh, her big blue eyes.
Teaching her to ride a broom, letting her beat him at Gobstones. The two of them prepping potions ingredients together, her brow furrowed as she brewed. Her blue eyes focused on him as he taught her simple spells, taking her small hand in his own to guide her movements. Foraging in the forest together, her laugh cutting through the dense trees and echoing throughout. Reading to her as she drifted off to sleep on his chest, her black hair tickling his nose. Brushing her hair after a bath, just as he did for her mother. Braiding her hair at his grandmother's vanity, as he did for his mother, except Lorna is giggling and telling him a spectacular story she had made up. Holding her hand as they cross a busy street, her bouncing and skipping at his side before smiling up at him. Lorna singing some Muggle song she had picked up somewhere as they prepare dinner together. Him and her mother taking turns chasing her through a meadow, her blue eyes scrunched in laughter mirrored on their daughters face.
The worst though, the ones he could not shake no matter how hard he try. Albus taking his Lorna's hand, leading her towards a cliff, and throwing her over. He turns towards Severus, grins, and declares that the act was to save Lily Potter's son. The Dark Lord stroking her beautiful face, tisking, and feeding her to the snake, all while he sits stone faced and complacent.
He fucked up. He ruined his life. He can never repair what he had broken, could never get his family back. Neither of them would ever forgive him, Lorna wouldn't even know him. Severus chokes on a sob, removes the reading glasses he had finally broke down and purchased, and runs his hands down his face to quickly rid himself of the tears now streaming from his eyes.
Cathleen, he had finally learned was the woman's true name, barges in. Try as he might, this woman would not leave him alone. Admittedly, he hadn't tried as hard as he could have. He replaces his glasses on his face and straightens himself to his full height.
"Get out." Severus barks as he points towards the door.
"Dalton, wha—"
A knock at the door interrupts her, she turns to open it as if she owned the place. From his spot behind her, Severus sees a flash of red several inches shorter than Cathleen.
"Can I help you?" Cathleen snips as she places one hand on her hip.
"Dalton, huh?" His wife asks as she peers around Cathleen's imitating form to glare at him. Severus glances towards the opened window, no doubt she had heard the short exchange as she approached the door. "If you could excuse me, I need to have a conversation with Dalton here."
She maneuvers herself around Cathleen and enters the small shack. He can't think, can't form any coherent words. She is beautiful, she seemed to have not aged a single day in all the time he had been away. Her hair is French braided tightly to her scalp, ending in a long, waist length whip, wisps of red hair escape the braid and frame her face. She wears a deep blue sundress that ends just below her knee, brown leather flip-flops on her feet. Her toenails are painted brightly, each one a different color, the paint spilling over onto the skin next to the nail, no doubt Lorna's handy work. She wears a thin line of black on her upper eyelid which ends in a sharp point, the same style she had worn since she began wearing make-up to his potions class when she was thirteen years old. Her skin is slightly sunburned, the freckles peppering her skin standing out more so than they otherwise would. On her left hand, his grandmother's golden wedding band glimmers in the sunlight. Severus swallows hard and closes his mouth, he hadn't realized it was open.
"Privately." She snaps at Cathleen before pushing her gently towards the door and slamming it behind her.
Severus watches through the open window as Cathleen walks away, a dazed look on her face. His heart picks up speed as she stalks closer to him, he can smell her. She smells divine, similar to her usual smell, but slightly foreign. The last time he had been this close to her, she smelled strongly of sour milk due to nursing and being more or less covered in Lorna's spit-up, it wasn't unpleasant, it was motherly and intimate. Now, however, she smells earthy. Like fresh cut grass and dirt, her signature scent of coconut lingers in the background. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply as his heart pounds away in his chest. His hands shake as he clenches them at his sides, his jaw tightens against his will, sending a pain shooting up to his temple.
"Look at me." She demands.
Slowly, as if his life depend on it, he obeys. The sun filtering through the open window frames her from behind, casting her in a light that seems too perfect for the occasion. The image sends a jolt of pain to the center of his chest, instinctively he brings his hand to his chest and clutches the fabric covering his shattering heart.
"Why are you here?" Severus croaks, finally finding his voice.
"Really?" She scoffs, a menacing expression on her face.
She lifts her hand; she was holding a folder he hadn't noticed before. She thrusts it towards him. He can't make his hands work as his eyes dart between her angelic face and the hand clutching the folder so tightly her knuckles glow white. The day he had been dreading for so long was finally here. She slams the folder down on the wooden board he had slammed his fists onto only moments before when Potter fled from the shack.
"Every person I have ever depended on left me. No one has ever wanted me. No one has ever loved me. You knew how terrified I was that Lorna would feel that way, too."
Severus looks down his nose at her, his heart breaking with each word she spoke. He had no right to be this saddened, no right to feel this pain. Her eyes are glazed over with unshed tears as she sets her jaw and glares at him. She is doing her best to remain strong.
"I'm not even mad that you hurt me. I don't care how badly you destroyed me. I care that you hurt Lorna. She'll spend the rest of her life wondering why she wasn't good enough for her father to love."
"Do not ever say that I do not love her again!" Severus explodes, the words leaving his mouth before he can even formulate a true response.
"Why did you even marry me?" Her fists are clenched at her sides as she asks the very question she had asked him countless times throughout their time together before the war. "You married me, promised me so many things you knew you would never follow through with, and then left us with nothing! If it weren't for the Weasley's, we wouldn't be here! There were days when I had no money, no food in the house, no way to feed my child and they always came through for us!"
"I did not leave you destitute. However poorly you managed the gold is your problem, not mine." Severus turns his back on her flaring eye and busies himself with vials lining the wooden table.
"You left barely two months' worth of gold on the table! How could I have possibly made that stretch any further than I did?"
"I left you my entire vault of gold! You had a lifetimes worth of gold at your disposal, it is your own vault you were at the mercy of the Weasley family to feed your daughter!" Severus whirls around to face her once more. A shocked look is plastered to her face as if he had slapped her.
"How was I to know that you had left anything more than what I found in the kitchen after you left?"
The two of them stare at one another for several long moments, each of them panting. Him due to heartache and anxiety pertaining to the folder she had slammed on the wooden board, her no doubt due to fury. Her eyes are wide and shining in the sunlight, her lips clenched tightly, the top lip nearly disappearing in her large bottom lip. He had never noticed how her, and Draco had the same shape of eye before now. It was interesting, being as if they are several generations removed from one another. The Black genes are undoubtedly stronger than he had given them credit for. She is breathtakingly beautiful, despite her rage. Her face still looks so much like Lily, but not nearly as much as it had when she was a teenager. She looks like Lily, like Rose, like Bellatrix, and like Sirius. She has a perfect balance of every ancestor on either side of her family; all of their perfect features, and some of the imperfect ones as well. The way her left canine tooth is much sharper than the right, and the slight gap between her two front teeth, the way she sweats so much in her sleep, and has the weakest stomach he had ever seen in a person. She is perfection, she is beauty, and she is standing before him. He could reach out and touch her, take her into his arms, and drop to his knees and beg her forgiveness. But he can't. His damned hands won't work, his mouth is dry, and his chest hurts.
"I didn't come here to fight with you." She is the first to break the silence. Her voice is smaller than he is sure she intended it to be. "I came to ask for your help. It isn't for me, though."
"Potter sent you." Severus sneers, his voice coming out angrier than he had intended.
"No. I sent Potter. I was waiting in the village. He came and said you two got into it, so I came. Draco needs our help. His wife has a blood curse, we're trying to find a way to break it, but we can't."
"I'm well aware of the blood malediction the Greengrass family carries. You are not the first to come to me for help, and you surely won't be the last. I have tried more than once to find a cure. There is none."
"If I could only take a look at some of your books, and then I'll leave. You don't owe me anything, but please. This is for Draco, not me."
"What makes you think that you, a girl who can hardly preform non-verbal magic, who struggled to control her magic enough to not explode dishes even as an adult, can find a cure for a curse countless men have given their lives to find?" Severus narrows his eyes at her. She steps back, a shocked look on her face before shielding her emotions once more and squaring her shoulders for battle.
"That was Lorna. You'd know that if you were there." Her words come out as venom, and he knows she is about to strike. Severus presses himself against the back wall, ready to take every ounce of her rage. "How can you wake up every morning and your entire body not ache to hold her? How can you sleep at night and not panic because she isn't with you? She has spent one single night away from me her whole life and it physically hurt me! How could she mean so little to you? How can you not be so desperate for her that you would crawl through fire just to catch sight of her?" Her voice is high, her face beet red as she screams the words at him, digging the knife deeper into his heart.
"If it was me, if you left because of me you should have told me! I would have tried to understand! I would have let you see her; I wouldn't have kept her from you! I gave you so many outs, Severus." His name on her lips feels sacrilegious but sounds so sweet.
"What do you want from me?" Severus bellows as he pushes himself off of the wall he had pressed against.
"Tell me why. Tell me the truth. Tell me anything! Please. I deserve that much."
Severus stalks towards her, his chest butting up against hers. He leans forward, his nose barely touching hers. He could kiss her, part of him wants to. That isn't the play, though. He's trying to intimidate her, trying to see if she would back down. She stays strong, she doesn't even flinch.
"You want the truth? You want me to tell you that you were never anything more to me than a good fuc—"
She lifts her hand, rears it back, and makes to strike him. Severus catches her wrist just before it makes contact and pins it to her side before backing her up against the wall, placing one knee between her legs and uses his body weight to hold her there.
"You told me you loved me. You told me in your letter that you wished we had more time. We had the rest of our lives. We had so much time, and you threw it away. How could you throw us away?" Tears stream down her pink cheeks and down her rosy red lips as he holds her there against the shacks wall, the very position he had her in a dozen times or more at Hogwarts and Spinner's End as he kissed her neck and roamed his hands across her body. Her breath smells of citrus. She still drinks lemonade.
"I will make you hate me." Severus sneers down at her, his breath hitting the top of her lip as it quivers.
"I—I could…I could never hate you." She stutters as a sob racks her body, the heat of her pressed against him causes him to sweat, causes his heart to race. She's so close, her hearts beats against his, filling him with her life, causing the ache in his chest to cease. If he moves, if he lets go, it may just stop entirely. "I could never hate you, because every time I look at Lorna, I see you. You don't know how perfect she is. You don't know that she's smart, kind, funny. She's so brave and determined, she's confident and curious. She terrifies me because she's so….much. Severus, she's so amazing and you aren't there to see it. You aren't there to see how phenomenal she is."
Her eyes are stunningly blue with tears as the sunlight filters through the open window and shines across her face. He pushes himself away from her and stalks the short distance to the other side of the small shack. His face is contorted in pain as he closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths before taking the glasses from his face and slinging them across the room. One hand rests on the wall, his head hangs down towards the floor as he clutches his chest with his free hand.
"Leave." He barks. She starts to speak, but he cuts her off. "Now!"
He stays in the same position long after he hears her softly close the door and depart. His heart aches, his head pounds, and he can't stop the tears streaming from his eyes.
Well into the night, he finally gains the strength to open the folder she had slammed down on the wooden board. With shaking hands, he turns photo after photo. Lorna in a pink one piece swimsuit, her black hair in two pigtails on top of her head, gleaming in the sunlight as her mother holds her beneath the armpits to dip her toes in a stream. They're both smiling brightly. Lorna with cake frosting smeared across her face, both hands clenched in fists high above her head as if cheering. Lorna wearing only a nappy and a pale yellow shirt, her feet swimming in her mother's high heels. Lorna clutching the ugly hippogriff stuffy her mother had fallen in love with while she was pregnant with her, a grin plastered to her face as she squeezes the things neck to her chest. Lorna asleep on the sofa, one arm draped over her eyes, her mouth opened slightly. He finds himself smiling as tears stream down his face once more.
She looks so much like him, so much like her mother. She has her mother's nose, thank god. Her mothers eyes are also etched onto her small face. Her ears, however, have rounded out at the tips and look more like his than hers. She is perfect, too beautiful to have been made by him.