When they were nine, Lily checked The Secret Garden out from the school library and quickly became obsessed.
She was normally the more talkative half of their duo, but she was practically silent all week, sitting under their favorite tree and poring over the pages. Severus was content to sit with her quietly, studying one of his mum's battered old potions textbooks while she read.
He looked up periodically to see how Lily's red braid lit up with dozens of colors in the setting sun, or to watch how she subconsciously covered her mouth to hide a smile when she encountered something funny in the story.
She finished the book by Friday, but she didn't stop talking about it for months afterward.
And although Severus never told her, he went to the public library for a few Wednesdays in a row while Lily and Petunia visited their grandparents. Each Wednesday, he read the library's copy of The Secret Garden until he finished it, wanting to understand what Lily saw in it.
"Would you like to check that book out, dearie?" The librarian, Mrs. Kent, asked him one Wednesday evening after she made the closing announcement. Most adults didn't like him — they took one look at his greasy hair, sallow complexion, and ill-fitting clothes and sent him disapproving glances behind his back when they thought he couldn't see. But Mrs. Kent was always kind to him in a way that seemed uncalculated and carefree.
Like how Lily was kind to him.
"No, thank you," Severus told her, far more politely than the surly tone he used with most adults. He knew that his father would have some choice words if he saw Severus reading a "girl" book. And for some reason, he didn't want Lily to know that he'd read her favorite story. It seemed...strange, like reading someone's diary.
So he played dumb when she told him about the plot, waxing poetic about Misselthwaite Manor and the caretaker Ben and the hidden garden.
Lily related to Dickon's character, since she loved plants and animals. He feared that she would tell him that he was like Colin, Mary's petulant, sickly cousin. But he was relieved when Lily tossed her head and glared at her sister, who was refusing to walk to school with them.
"Petunia is just like Colin," she sighed. "But you...you're like Mary, Sev! She starts out a bit grumpy, but she turns out to be all right in the end."
"I'm honored that you think so highly of me," Severus said sarcastically, but internally, he was pleased.
"They called Colin's dad back to the Manor using magic," Lily said, lowering her voice when she said the word magic. They would be late to class if they tarried much longer and Severus would probably get rapped on the knuckles because their teacher didn't like him, but it was worth it to see the excited spring in Lily's step this morning.
"Is that how our magic works, Sev?" She whispered to him after describing the ritual in the book, her eyes wide.
He shook his head knowledgeably and with a slight air of superiority. "No. They didn't even use wands or cast a proper spell. You'll see when we get to Hogwarts; it's not like that at all."
He reconsidered this honest answer when Lily's face fell. He sometimes forgot that magic was still so new to her. In her eyes, the possibilities of their world were vast and endless.
"But...who knows?" He added quickly. "Maybe the author was a witch, and she just wrote it wrong so that muggles wouldn't find out about magic."
Lily's eyes widened happily at this unlikely possibility, and Severus' chest lurched oddly. She hadn't put a spell on him, but it felt like she had.
So maybe Lily was right.
Maybe magic was something bigger than incantations and wands.
When Severus clutched Lily's lifeless body years later on Halloween night, rocking and weeping, his thoughts turned to The Secret Garden, for reasons unknown to him.
Maybe it was a coping mechanism. He was an accomplished Occlumens, but the human mind could only withstand so much.
Whatever the reason, Severus was suddenly swept far away from the destruction of Godric's Hollow, traveling back through miles and time to the sidewalk outside his house in Cokeworth, a memory materializing in his mind's eye.
"If you look the right way," Memory-Lily murmured, reciting her favorite passage from the book, "you can see that the whole world is a garden."
And then her eyes swept over Spinner's End. He tried not to feel embarrassed by his rundown house, with the cracked window panes and broken shutters and beer bottles strewn about on the lawn.
Lily peered through a missing plank in the tall fence that surrounded the back garden.
He'd never invited her over or let her come into his house before, fearing her judgment of...well, everything. The Evans family wasn't well-off, either, but at least their house was clean. And Mrs. Evans had somehow managed to make their cluttered, creaky little home feel cozy and welcoming.
But he needn't have worried about Spinner's End. Lily found the beauty in everything, after all.
Even in things that were rundown and scrawny and sullen.
"Wow, Sev," she sighed wistfully. "This would be a perfect secret garden."
When he looked at his back garden, he saw dead grass, overgrown shrubs, and a plethora of weeds and broken bottles.
But Lily only saw potential and life and warmth. Her eyes flickered towards the kitchen, where they could clearly hear Severus' parents shouting at one another.
"When we're grown-ups and we graduate from Hogwarts and we know lots of magic, we have to come back here and make this our secret garden. Okay, Sev?"
In his memory, she was wearing a purple cardigan, her shoelace was untied, and she was twelve years away from her murder.
The scene wavered and Severus began to feel the weight of his friend's limp body in his arms. A keening sound filled his ears, and he wondered if he was the one wailing, but then he remembered the teary-eyed baby, still in his cot.
The boy hiccuped and lifted his arms toward Severus. He wanted to be held and comforted. Severus wasn't sure if he understood the magnitude of what had happened, or if he just wasn't used to his cries going unrecognized and unheeded.
The two of them stared at one another for a long moment. The boy looked like Potter, but he had Lily's eyes.
"Trust me, you do not want comfort from me, boy," Severus snapped.
Potter blinked at the sharp tone, his eyes watering anew.
"It's my fault she's dead — do you hear me? It's my fault!" Severus snarled in a choked, harsh tone. "My fault!"
His voice broke, and the boy burst into tears again.
How did it come to this, Lily? He found himself thinking, tearing at his limp hair in despair.
Even at nine, it had been clear that she was destined for bigger and brighter things than gray, industrial, smoggy Cokeworth. She'd outshined everyone and everything in that small, impoverished town.
If only she could've stayed there, where life had been boring and dull, but safe.
And now her son wept along with him. A boy who wouldn't remember how Lily had thrown her head back when she laughed or how her ears turned red when she was angry.
I did this, he thought hollowly, grief making it hard to swallow. I ruined everything.
Nothing in the world would ever be right again. Severus had destroyed his life through his own foolishness and his stupidity. He'd gotten the only person who'd ever truly loved him killed — a person who was bright and good and so full of life and potential.
For a moment, he contemplated turning his wand on himself. It would be easy. Just two murmured words, and all of this suffering could end. For good. He could cease to exist, and then he wouldn't have to feel this pain and guilt anymore.
He lifted his wand to his forehead, testing the weight of it against his temple.
But those eyes followed his every move. Lily's eyes.
"You bloody coward," he imagined Lily spitting at him, her eyes fiery. "How dare you kill yourself when my son still lives. How long do you think it will take before one of your little friends hunts him down and kills him? Or before your master comes back to finish the job?"
Severus flinched and looked down at his forearm. The Dark Mark had faded in the past few hours, but it was still there. When he ran his fingers over it, he could feel the faintest tingle of dark, foul magic.
Voldemort still lived.
He lowered his wand.
Outside, over the din of confused, frightened muggle voices, he heard the rumble of an engine approaching. He climbed to his feet, feeling as though he'd aged fifty years in the past few hours, and moved over to the window.
Rubeus Hagrid's silhouette was unmistakable. He was coming for the boy on Black's ridiculous motorbike. Severus needed to leave.
He staggered back toward Lily — Lily's body — his mind whispered traitorously.
He wanted to scream until his voice gave out. He wanted to finish the destruction of this house until nothing was left of it.
Instead, he leaned forward and gently closed Lily's eyes for the last time. He took her hand — which was beginning to grow cool to the touch — in his own and gave it a gentle, final squeeze, remembering when he'd clutched this hand on the boat ride to Hogwarts their first year.
"I'm sorry for everything," he murmured. "Rest well, old friend. I will protect the boy from the Dark Lord."
Even though Lily wasn't alive to perform the other half of the spell, there was such conviction in his words that he could feel the unshakeable magic of an unbreakable vow settle around him.
He didn't look over his shoulder at the boy before he disapparated from Godric's Hollow.
He spent the next week in a drunken stupor at Spinner's End, vacillating between bouts of helpless weeping, bouts of rage and destruction, and bouts of laying numbly in bed staring up at the ceiling.
In a way, it was a relief when they finally came to arrest him on suspicion of being a Death Eater. He ignored how Alastor Moody curled his lip in disgust, stepping over broken bottles and waving his wand to vanish a plate of moldy bread crusts.
"Christ, Snape, you're in a right state," Amelia Bones muttered. She'd been the Head Girl during his second year at Hogwarts, and she'd once stopped Potter and Black from hexing him near the Charms classroom.
Her tone of disappointment irked him.
He threw up on her shoes.
Moody dragged him out of bed none too gently and tossed him on the floor. "Pathetic. You want to add assaulting a Ministry official to your long list of charges, Snape?" He growled.
Severus remained silent.
"Not so brave now that your master is gone, eh?" Moody taunted, snapping magical restraints around his wrists. "Well, you'll have plenty of time to get used to the new way of the world during your stay in Azkaban."
Severus didn't put up a protest when he was immobilized and transported to a Ministry holding cell. He didn't ask for a third party to defend him in his Wizengamot trial. He didn't take advantage of his free Floo call to notify anyone of his charges. He mostly just laid in his cell and occluded as hard as he could, focusing only on the mental wall that surrounded his thoughts. Usually he was occluding to keep someone out of his mind, but this time, he was occluding to stop himself from being in his own mind.
He was almost looking forward to Azkaban. At least he would be suitably punished for his crimes there. The dementors would make sure that he got what he deserved. And maybe then, if he was ever released, he would feel like he had at least suffered for the harm he'd caused.
So of course, Dumbledore had to go and ruin it all.
"Cleared of all charges," Severus said acidly when he found himself sitting in Dumbledore's office a few weeks later. "Have you lost your bloody mind, Headmaster?"
He remembered when he'd craved this man's attention and approval earlier in his life. How he'd strived to get good grades, hoping that Slughorn or Dumbledore or McGonagall would take an interest in him and mentor him.
He remembered how all of those childish hopes and dreams had faded at sixteen, sitting in this same chair and listening to Dumbledore defend Black's attempt on his life as a boyish prank gone wrong.
Dumbledore had the nerve to look at him sorrowfully over the rim of his glasses, much like he'd looked at Severus back then. "I believe Lily's death is already enough of a punishment for your crimes, Severus."
Against his will, Severus flinched. "Don't talk to me about her."
Dumbledore sighed softly. "Very well. I also feel that your service to me as a spy toward the end of this war mitigates much of your previous involvement with the Death Eaters."
Severus rolled his eyes. Dumbledore could say it however politely and nicely he wanted, but the fact remained that Severus had taken part in Death Eater raids and brewed potions that had caused harm to others out of genuine commitment to Voldemort's cause at one point.
"Besides," Dumbledore continued. "With Voldemort's ultimate fate uncertain, I would rather have you outside the walls of Azkaban. Your eyes and ears will be needed in the coming years, my boy."
"Very well," Severus said, rubbing his wrists out of habit. Over the past few weeks, he'd gotten used to the chafing of restraints, and his hands felt oddly light without their pressure and weight. "I'll give you a ring if the Dark Lord pops over for tea, shall I?"
As expected, Dumbledore didn't rise to the bait. "I had something rather more formal in mind, Severus. I would like you to come to Hogwarts and teach."
There was a beat of silence after this astonishing proposition. Severus waited for the headmaster to laugh, but the punchline of the joke never came.
"You actually mean that," he said flatly. "Dear Merlin. You think parents will want a former Death Eater teaching their children? And besides that, you know that I have neither the patience nor skill to teach, Headmaster."
"I would like you to be here when Harry comes here. For his protection."
Severus took a deep breath, reigning in his annoyance. "The boy is an infant, and he will not be a student here for ten years, Headmaster. I will not accept a job that I am not suited to on the off chance that the Dark Lord will return ten years from now."
The headmaster considered him for a long moment, and Severus wondered if he'd expected him to be much more pliable and easy to convince.
"Very well, Severus. Give the matter some thought, though, will you?"
Severus shook his head and stood, fastening his traveling cloak around his neck. "No. I've already given you my answer, Headmaster. I was cleared of all charges thanks to you, and I do not owe any debt to society. I have made my own promises to Lily about her child, and it is my own personal affair to ensure that I carry those promises out."
He wondered if Dumbledore regretted bailing him out now.
"The boy is being raised by his closest remaining relatives, should you wish to seek him out."
"I don't," Severus said immediately, shuddering at the thought of James Potter's parents raising the boy to be a perfect Potter clone.
"The position will be waiting for you if you change your mind," Dumbledore said.
"I won't," Severus replied, and then he swept out of Dumbledore's office, with no plans to ever return again.