All Hallows Eve - a gift for roses_at_sunset
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and Warner Bros. All fics posted at this community were written entirely for fun and no copyright infringement is intended.
Title: All Hallows Eve
Author: alchemistc
Gift for: roses_at_sunset
Pairing: Severus/Lily, Severus/Narcissa
Rating: PG-13ish for swearing
Word Count: 3466
Summary: Severus gives one day a year to mourning for the life he lost.
AN: I tried to fit as many of the likes and prompts as I could in here without making it seem like they were coming out of left field. Feedback is always appreciated, even if it is to say “Dude, this sucked.”
1982
He moved swiftly past an elaborately carved angel as the night air bit at pale skin, fighting the urge to bundle further into his coat and cloak in order to keep the pace. There wouldn’t be much time tonight - he was already risking enough just by merely being here.
Not that that had ever stopped him before.
The night was dreary October one - brown, yellow, and red leaves still blowing in biting winds, cold weather looming on the horizon. He could practically feel the wet rain that was sure to be falling by the end of the night.
It was late already - late enough that he hoped to miss those teenagers surely out and about on All Hallows Eve, making mischief around Godric’s Hollow, but he walked silently and quickly through the cemetery just in case, wand gripped tightly where he’d slipped it up his sleeve, his eyes taking in his surroundings, until finally he made it to his destination, the grave marker nearly in the middle of the cemetery, a set of dried flowers lying forgotten near one of the engraved names.
He dropped to his knees before it.
The marble was dark, and he reached out a hand to trace the name carved into it, being careful only to touch the first part of it, consciously avoiding the name she’d taken when she’d… married. In a life full of hard words and hateful touches, Lily Evans had been his light, the first person in his life to look on him with compassion. With friendship. It had been a long time since he’d imagined it to be love - that was just the kind of woman she’d been.
He ached for her, a physical pain that had burrowed into his chest that fateful day at Hogwarts - hadn’t left since she’d turned away from his apology and never looked back. There was nothing in the world he wanted more than to see her smile one more time.
A twig snapped a few feet away, and Severus turned his head in order to see who or what had caused the noise.
Both had their wands out within seconds, Severus standing so quickly he felt a little queasy for a moment. Or it might just have been his present company that caused the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Snape.” The name came out like a curse, all venom and spit out of a man who looked frail and tired.
Not that there was any wonder why.
He hadn’t seen Remus Lupin since his own trial, when the man had wearily watched Severus freed from custody and into the care of Albus Dumbledore. If he’d been the kind of person to keep score, he might have finally checked away the indignity of being forced into secrecy as far as Lupin’s condition was concerned - but Severus was too old now to remember a time when he hadn’t held a grudge. A part of him had then, and would always, hate Dumbledore for hiding away what those fools had done to him when they were in school.
With only one of them left behind to hold responsible, Lupin was the one who bore the brunt of Severus’ old anger. Lupin was the worst of them anyway. Severus could have respected Lupin, at least - he was smart, unassuming, kind for the most part. But he’d sat by without a word for seven years of torment, too afraid to say a word - he’d had friends who stuck by him despite the ugliness of his once-a-month monster, and he’d still been too much of a coward to call them out on it.
He’d had that kind of friendship, once.
And he blamed no one but them for the way it fell apart.
“Lupin.”
“Get out.” Lupin’s voice was a rasp of breath, and Severus realized after a moment that the full moon had only been three days ago. “Get the fuck away from them.”
Them.
Until now he’d been able to deny the fact that Lily was buried next to her husband - he’d been fine to pretend this time was his with Lily alone. But there it was. All he had left of her was this memorial to her union with the man he’d hated more than anything else in his entire existence, and the life they’d created together.
If it didn’t tear him apart to even think about it, he mind have found a moment to ponder on how fucking typicalthat was.
Severus thought for a moment of ignoring Lupin; he had to be weak - hell, he looked like he might keel over at any moment - and there was no way he could force Severus away, but eventually he thought better of it.
If he’d been a better man he would have left out of respect for Lupin, for realizing that Lupin might want that time alone that Severus had craved, that time he’d sought out on a night he’d much rather have been drinking himself to oblivion. But he was a petty, selfish man, and he couldn’t bear to be with Lily with a physical reminder of why she was six feet under the ground, and not standing above it.
“Get away! I’ll kill you, I swear to God, if you - .” His voice broke, and Snape felt a stab of pity, quickly followed by a wave of disgust. What right did he have? To be upset, to be able to cry and mourn for her even as he mourned for Potteror worse, for the bastard Black?
He swept away from the cemetery without a backward glance, and spent the rest of that Halloween wallowing in the love he had for Lily, and the hatred he felt for everyone else who’d ever loved her.
1985
“Lucius wishes to see you.”
“And he sent you to inform me of this?” He watched her move gracefully across the room, his head making fine work of dizzying him as he tried to follow her movements. He’d had perhaps a bit too much to drink. Or not enough.
“Of course he didn’t. Lucius would kill us both before he voluntarily put us in a room together.”
“Oh, yes, for fear his beautiful wife wishes to have an affair with his greasy, ornery, pathetic lovesick friend.”
He didn’t miss the hurt that flashed across her face for a moment before she’d gone back to stony and composed. “Lucius is possessive of all those things he deems his alone.”
“And do you belongto Lucius?”
“I might as well.”
“That’s a dreary way to look at it.”
She slid seamlessly into the seat opposite him without waiting for invitation, her delicate hand with it’s birdlike bones swiping up an empty decanter and pouring a fair amount of his best Scotch into it.
“Where does Lucius believe you are, exactly?”
“Lucius’ beautiful wife has retired for the evening due to neck pains, and is not to be disturbed. He hates it when I have a pain. Won’t come anywhere near me.”
“I wonder how you ever managed to have Draco, then.”
The cool façade slipped away as Narcissa playfully swatted at his knee, falling into the old joking friendliness they shared. And for a while he was content to pretend he led a normal life, that being here, in the house he only spent time in during the summer, now that he lived at Hogwarts, was a normal occurrence, and that Narcissa was merely an old school friend, and not a constant reminder of the life he’d left behind, of the sins he’d committed, and of the life he’d landed himself in, always hiding his true motives, always waiting with bated breath for the day (and Dumbledore was certain it would come) that he’d have to live a double life in order to keep a boy he hated alive.
But then, inevitably, the conversation turned to what day it was, and why Narcissa had really claimed a headache to get away from her husband. The death of The Dark Lord was something that Lucius liked to mourn, and he usually did so by getting drunk and rambling on about the purity of the bloodline and what the world was coming to. Not unlike Severus’ favorite Halloween pastime, barring the bloodline speech.
And the reality of it was, Narcissa had instead come to Severus, who could do nothing but rejoice that though Lily was gone, at least the man who’d killed her had gone down with her.
He glanced up after a moments too long of silence to find Narcissa looking at him, eyebrow raised like she’d asked him a question he hadn’t answered.
“It’s always her, isn’t it?” He didn’t bother to ask whom.
“You know it is.”
“She’s not worth it, you know.” He froze, but she continued on bravely. “She never was.”
He was silent.
“I won’t take it back. She never loved you like I…” Her voice stumbled, and even through the scotch induced fog he managed to feel a pang of remorse for his friend. “Like I think you should have been loved.”
The remorse was quickly followed by anger. Here she was, interrupting his night - the one night she knew he despised more than any other, knew he spent drinking himself into oblivion, and she had the gall to tell him where to place his emotions? She had her perfect little life to go home to when she was done with him, and what did he have? A job that ceaselessly reminded him of Lily, with children he hated, in a life that was barely his own. He survived and in the meantime, she got to live.
“What do you know about it?” he finally managed, his voice shaking in fury. “What the hell would you know about love?”
She managed to look both indignant and heartbroken. “More than you’d ever let me tell you,” Narcissa replied, her voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. “You think you’re the only one who didn’t get the match they wanted? The only one in the world who knows a thing about unrequited love? You’re blind, and you’re a fool. You know how I…” her chest heaved in a panting breath. “You’ve always known.”
He didn’t respond. He couldn’t look at her. When her voice cracked, when her composure was lost, he could almost believe that what she felt for him was real emotion, and not just some foolish wish to break free from the life she’d known she’d have since she could remember.
Instead he turned his eyes to the bookcase nearest him, gazing at a sad stack that had been neglected since summer, to topmost book a newer tome emblazoned with the picture of a crumbling old castle. He squinted to read the title, but either he was drunker than he had thought or he had become far-sighted in the last few minutes, for he couldn’t catch it.
The silence in the room went on for a long time, so long that Severus was tiring of trying to follow some sort of pattern in the Persian rug running the length of his floor and readying himself to speak to Narcissa again. Instead he heard the rustle of her robes as she stood, and turned to watch as she wearily made her way to the fireplace, rooting around for the Floo Powder.
She found it after a nearly overturning a candlestick on the hearth, and reached for a handful.
He swallowed as he watched her square her shoulders, feeling suddenly more miserable than he’d felt before she arrived.
She stood still a moment, and he took her in, trying very hard to figure out if the trembling in her hand was something his mind was creating, or if it was all her own.
“Happy Halloween, Severus,” she finally choked out, before tossing the green powder into the flames and calling out “Malfoy Manor!”
She was gone in a flash of green light.
1991
He was halfway through cleaning the wound himself when he realized with maddening clarity that he’d just spent the one night he gave himself to mourning Lily to making sure her murderer continued to stay dead. Or at least incorporeal. He had his suspicions about what Quirrel was hiding in that turban of his, but no matter how many times he asked, Dumbledore continued to respond with asinine answers.
He glared at the wall of his bathroom. He was never free of this. Quirrel was suspicious of him, and if his suspicions were correct, then it meant that Severus could never again live his life free of The Dark Lord. He would always be forced to balance his life along a double-edged sword. At every turn he’d have to play a part.
Happy bloody Halloween, indeed.
He limped out into his sitting room, slid into his chair, and reached for the bottle of Firewhiskey he hadn’t touched since Lucius had sent it to him in January. Without bothering with a glass, he uncorked the bottle and took a swig, grimacing as the liquid burned down his throat.
Ten years. Ten years since she’d died, and still the wound felt new. Perhaps it was the presence of her little spawn, her compassionate, beautiful eyes housed in a face he hated. And there was never any way of hiding from that. Every staff meeting there was something new being said about Harry bloody Potter, how he was the spitting image of his dear father, but his eyes were all Lily’s. He’d tired of hearing it long before it had ever been uttered.
And now he’d be spending the rest of his life trying to save the boy from death. For her. Not even her, for the memory of what she’d once been.
Beside him, a candle sputtered and died, and in the light from he fire, he watched the last of the wax trail down the candlestick, until finally it dried against the brass.
He took another drink of Firewhiskey.
1993
He glared at the mess of black hair peeking out from one purple sleeping bag as he took a step closer to Dumbledore. He was steaming in anger, ready to lash out at whoever he could, and it looked for the moment as though Dumbledore was it.
Sirius Black. He’d hated the man with a passion long before he’d betrayed Lily, but adding that to it - adding to it the fact that he was nearly directly responsible for her death - and even the mention had him seething in rage. When he’d escaped over the summer, Severus had been livid, but now, now the man had been in the castle, and his old friend Lupin looked to be in cahoots with the traitor. He didn’t know which one to hate more, at this point.
When he repeated as much to Dumbledore a moment later he was met with the same stony resolve that he been driving him mad for weeks. He knew that Lupin was involved in this. And to be rebuked again and again for what Dumbledore assumed was some old prejudice - a rekindling of the rivalry of his school years - was enough to make Severus sick.
He moved to say more when they were interrupted by the Weasley boy, and so he turned on his heel and stalked away, his mind occupying him, and before he realized where he was going he was already at the lake. His gaze wandered mindlessly around the grounds, before finally landing on the old Whomping Willow.
That was where it had all gone to hell, anyway. His suspicions about Lupin had estranged him from Lily more than their separate houses or their different friends, and when he’d had them proven he’d been forced into silence. Worse, still, Lily hadn’t believed him. He’d fallen in with the Slytherin’s, then, and from there…
Severus started at a noise behind him in the trees, and turned slowly to face the tree line, hand, as always, closing around his wand. His eyes scanned the ground in front of him, looking hard for anything that might have made the noise, and when they came up with nothing he scoffed, berating himself for being paranoid. It didn’t take much, these days.
He was about to turn and head back inside when he saw a flash of white, and he stood absolutely still as shrubbery continued to rustle. A twig snapped, and he listened hard, staring at the place where the noise had been.
A black nose darted out of woods, followed closely by the rest of the body of a deer, her white spots glinting in the moonlight. She sniffed the ground, and Severus felt he couldn’t move as the deer turned her eyes up to look at him.
They stood like that for a long time, evaluating each other, until finally the doe started at a splash in the lake from the giant squid, and turned back into the forest.
Severus returned to the castle feeling an odd mixture of dizzying confusion and a strange fluttering happiness that was sure to be crushed the next day.
1980
She looked beautiful. Radiant. She was smiling, talking to someone as she swung out the door of the store, and from his spot ten meters away he could hear the tinkle of laughter that came from her mouth.
He’d stopped here on his way to meet Lucius for drinks, hoping to buy a carton of fags from the local grocers he knew was nearby.
And instead he’d found her.
Lily.
The wind was whipping crimson hair around her face, her scarf billowing out behind her as she hefted a bundle of screaming blankets back up into her arms, speaking that low voice she’d always used on Severus when she was cross about something.
After a moment, the child seemed to calm, and Lily turned back down her path, a brown bag held in one arm and the red-faced baby in the other. She stopped in her tracks the moment she saw him.
She stared unsurely, eyes darting from his face to his clothing, and while she stared, Severus took note of the way the sun made her skin flush, how her hair still seemed to glitter.
“Sn - Severus.”
“Hello Lily.”
“Hello.” She fidgeted. “What are you - why are you here?”
“I stopped to get…groceries.”
She stared at him for a moment, and he had the sudden urge to itch his forearm, where the new mark still burned sometimes.
“In Godric’s Hollow?”
“I was nearby.”
He watched as a tiny hand reached out of the mess of blankets, grabbing at a handful of Lily’s sweater.
“You…you look…” she glanced at him, eyes scanning his face. “The same.”
“Haven’t changed anything.”
“No, of course not. Why would you?” Her tone was snappy, upset. He furrowed his brow, and then cringed as she turned her gaze directly to the sleeve pulled tight over the Mark.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Well. I…had a baby. Obviously. His name is Harry.”
“Hmm.”
“James liked it.”
The way she said it made him think she was doing so just to get a rise out of him, but he didn’t take the bait.
“How are you, Severus?”
“I’m…mother died.”
Her eyes sought his, and she made a move like she meant to lay a hand on his arm, but she stopped, arms hindered by their bundles.
“I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you.”
He would have given anything to have something else to say to her, anything at all. But instead he stood still until the bundle at her right began to rustle and make noise, and Lily finally looked away from him to calm Harry. Severus let her calm, loving nonsense rush over him, and ignored the flash of jealousy he felt.
“I should get home. Harry gets restless quickly.” There was a hint of an apology in her words.
“Of course.”
“It was nice to see you.”
He swallowed. “You too.”
Her eyes held his for a moment, and he was sure he could get lost in the green depths - felt that same swoop in his stomach and lack of breath her gaze had always given him, and then she’d shot him a swift smile and spun away, moving around him in the direction she’d started out in only a few minutes earlier. He closed his eyes, trying to make the moment last.
“Oh!”
He turned at her voice, watched her as she made a full stop just up the street from him, and she flashed him a full blown smile. “Happy Halloween, Severus.”
She was gone in a twirling flash of color before he could respond in kind.
Title: All Hallows Eve
Author: alchemistc
Gift for: roses_at_sunset
Pairing: Severus/Lily, Severus/Narcissa
Rating: PG-13ish for swearing
Word Count: 3466
Summary: Severus gives one day a year to mourning for the life he lost.
AN: I tried to fit as many of the likes and prompts as I could in here without making it seem like they were coming out of left field. Feedback is always appreciated, even if it is to say “Dude, this sucked.”
1982
He moved swiftly past an elaborately carved angel as the night air bit at pale skin, fighting the urge to bundle further into his coat and cloak in order to keep the pace. There wouldn’t be much time tonight - he was already risking enough just by merely being here.
Not that that had ever stopped him before.
The night was dreary October one - brown, yellow, and red leaves still blowing in biting winds, cold weather looming on the horizon. He could practically feel the wet rain that was sure to be falling by the end of the night.
It was late already - late enough that he hoped to miss those teenagers surely out and about on All Hallows Eve, making mischief around Godric’s Hollow, but he walked silently and quickly through the cemetery just in case, wand gripped tightly where he’d slipped it up his sleeve, his eyes taking in his surroundings, until finally he made it to his destination, the grave marker nearly in the middle of the cemetery, a set of dried flowers lying forgotten near one of the engraved names.
He dropped to his knees before it.
The marble was dark, and he reached out a hand to trace the name carved into it, being careful only to touch the first part of it, consciously avoiding the name she’d taken when she’d… married. In a life full of hard words and hateful touches, Lily Evans had been his light, the first person in his life to look on him with compassion. With friendship. It had been a long time since he’d imagined it to be love - that was just the kind of woman she’d been.
He ached for her, a physical pain that had burrowed into his chest that fateful day at Hogwarts - hadn’t left since she’d turned away from his apology and never looked back. There was nothing in the world he wanted more than to see her smile one more time.
A twig snapped a few feet away, and Severus turned his head in order to see who or what had caused the noise.
Both had their wands out within seconds, Severus standing so quickly he felt a little queasy for a moment. Or it might just have been his present company that caused the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Snape.” The name came out like a curse, all venom and spit out of a man who looked frail and tired.
Not that there was any wonder why.
He hadn’t seen Remus Lupin since his own trial, when the man had wearily watched Severus freed from custody and into the care of Albus Dumbledore. If he’d been the kind of person to keep score, he might have finally checked away the indignity of being forced into secrecy as far as Lupin’s condition was concerned - but Severus was too old now to remember a time when he hadn’t held a grudge. A part of him had then, and would always, hate Dumbledore for hiding away what those fools had done to him when they were in school.
With only one of them left behind to hold responsible, Lupin was the one who bore the brunt of Severus’ old anger. Lupin was the worst of them anyway. Severus could have respected Lupin, at least - he was smart, unassuming, kind for the most part. But he’d sat by without a word for seven years of torment, too afraid to say a word - he’d had friends who stuck by him despite the ugliness of his once-a-month monster, and he’d still been too much of a coward to call them out on it.
He’d had that kind of friendship, once.
And he blamed no one but them for the way it fell apart.
“Lupin.”
“Get out.” Lupin’s voice was a rasp of breath, and Severus realized after a moment that the full moon had only been three days ago. “Get the fuck away from them.”
Them.
Until now he’d been able to deny the fact that Lily was buried next to her husband - he’d been fine to pretend this time was his with Lily alone. But there it was. All he had left of her was this memorial to her union with the man he’d hated more than anything else in his entire existence, and the life they’d created together.
If it didn’t tear him apart to even think about it, he mind have found a moment to ponder on how fucking typicalthat was.
Severus thought for a moment of ignoring Lupin; he had to be weak - hell, he looked like he might keel over at any moment - and there was no way he could force Severus away, but eventually he thought better of it.
If he’d been a better man he would have left out of respect for Lupin, for realizing that Lupin might want that time alone that Severus had craved, that time he’d sought out on a night he’d much rather have been drinking himself to oblivion. But he was a petty, selfish man, and he couldn’t bear to be with Lily with a physical reminder of why she was six feet under the ground, and not standing above it.
“Get away! I’ll kill you, I swear to God, if you - .” His voice broke, and Snape felt a stab of pity, quickly followed by a wave of disgust. What right did he have? To be upset, to be able to cry and mourn for her even as he mourned for Potteror worse, for the bastard Black?
He swept away from the cemetery without a backward glance, and spent the rest of that Halloween wallowing in the love he had for Lily, and the hatred he felt for everyone else who’d ever loved her.
1985
“Lucius wishes to see you.”
“And he sent you to inform me of this?” He watched her move gracefully across the room, his head making fine work of dizzying him as he tried to follow her movements. He’d had perhaps a bit too much to drink. Or not enough.
“Of course he didn’t. Lucius would kill us both before he voluntarily put us in a room together.”
“Oh, yes, for fear his beautiful wife wishes to have an affair with his greasy, ornery, pathetic lovesick friend.”
He didn’t miss the hurt that flashed across her face for a moment before she’d gone back to stony and composed. “Lucius is possessive of all those things he deems his alone.”
“And do you belongto Lucius?”
“I might as well.”
“That’s a dreary way to look at it.”
She slid seamlessly into the seat opposite him without waiting for invitation, her delicate hand with it’s birdlike bones swiping up an empty decanter and pouring a fair amount of his best Scotch into it.
“Where does Lucius believe you are, exactly?”
“Lucius’ beautiful wife has retired for the evening due to neck pains, and is not to be disturbed. He hates it when I have a pain. Won’t come anywhere near me.”
“I wonder how you ever managed to have Draco, then.”
The cool façade slipped away as Narcissa playfully swatted at his knee, falling into the old joking friendliness they shared. And for a while he was content to pretend he led a normal life, that being here, in the house he only spent time in during the summer, now that he lived at Hogwarts, was a normal occurrence, and that Narcissa was merely an old school friend, and not a constant reminder of the life he’d left behind, of the sins he’d committed, and of the life he’d landed himself in, always hiding his true motives, always waiting with bated breath for the day (and Dumbledore was certain it would come) that he’d have to live a double life in order to keep a boy he hated alive.
But then, inevitably, the conversation turned to what day it was, and why Narcissa had really claimed a headache to get away from her husband. The death of The Dark Lord was something that Lucius liked to mourn, and he usually did so by getting drunk and rambling on about the purity of the bloodline and what the world was coming to. Not unlike Severus’ favorite Halloween pastime, barring the bloodline speech.
And the reality of it was, Narcissa had instead come to Severus, who could do nothing but rejoice that though Lily was gone, at least the man who’d killed her had gone down with her.
He glanced up after a moments too long of silence to find Narcissa looking at him, eyebrow raised like she’d asked him a question he hadn’t answered.
“It’s always her, isn’t it?” He didn’t bother to ask whom.
“You know it is.”
“She’s not worth it, you know.” He froze, but she continued on bravely. “She never was.”
He was silent.
“I won’t take it back. She never loved you like I…” Her voice stumbled, and even through the scotch induced fog he managed to feel a pang of remorse for his friend. “Like I think you should have been loved.”
The remorse was quickly followed by anger. Here she was, interrupting his night - the one night she knew he despised more than any other, knew he spent drinking himself into oblivion, and she had the gall to tell him where to place his emotions? She had her perfect little life to go home to when she was done with him, and what did he have? A job that ceaselessly reminded him of Lily, with children he hated, in a life that was barely his own. He survived and in the meantime, she got to live.
“What do you know about it?” he finally managed, his voice shaking in fury. “What the hell would you know about love?”
She managed to look both indignant and heartbroken. “More than you’d ever let me tell you,” Narcissa replied, her voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. “You think you’re the only one who didn’t get the match they wanted? The only one in the world who knows a thing about unrequited love? You’re blind, and you’re a fool. You know how I…” her chest heaved in a panting breath. “You’ve always known.”
He didn’t respond. He couldn’t look at her. When her voice cracked, when her composure was lost, he could almost believe that what she felt for him was real emotion, and not just some foolish wish to break free from the life she’d known she’d have since she could remember.
Instead he turned his eyes to the bookcase nearest him, gazing at a sad stack that had been neglected since summer, to topmost book a newer tome emblazoned with the picture of a crumbling old castle. He squinted to read the title, but either he was drunker than he had thought or he had become far-sighted in the last few minutes, for he couldn’t catch it.
The silence in the room went on for a long time, so long that Severus was tiring of trying to follow some sort of pattern in the Persian rug running the length of his floor and readying himself to speak to Narcissa again. Instead he heard the rustle of her robes as she stood, and turned to watch as she wearily made her way to the fireplace, rooting around for the Floo Powder.
She found it after a nearly overturning a candlestick on the hearth, and reached for a handful.
He swallowed as he watched her square her shoulders, feeling suddenly more miserable than he’d felt before she arrived.
She stood still a moment, and he took her in, trying very hard to figure out if the trembling in her hand was something his mind was creating, or if it was all her own.
“Happy Halloween, Severus,” she finally choked out, before tossing the green powder into the flames and calling out “Malfoy Manor!”
She was gone in a flash of green light.
1991
He was halfway through cleaning the wound himself when he realized with maddening clarity that he’d just spent the one night he gave himself to mourning Lily to making sure her murderer continued to stay dead. Or at least incorporeal. He had his suspicions about what Quirrel was hiding in that turban of his, but no matter how many times he asked, Dumbledore continued to respond with asinine answers.
He glared at the wall of his bathroom. He was never free of this. Quirrel was suspicious of him, and if his suspicions were correct, then it meant that Severus could never again live his life free of The Dark Lord. He would always be forced to balance his life along a double-edged sword. At every turn he’d have to play a part.
Happy bloody Halloween, indeed.
He limped out into his sitting room, slid into his chair, and reached for the bottle of Firewhiskey he hadn’t touched since Lucius had sent it to him in January. Without bothering with a glass, he uncorked the bottle and took a swig, grimacing as the liquid burned down his throat.
Ten years. Ten years since she’d died, and still the wound felt new. Perhaps it was the presence of her little spawn, her compassionate, beautiful eyes housed in a face he hated. And there was never any way of hiding from that. Every staff meeting there was something new being said about Harry bloody Potter, how he was the spitting image of his dear father, but his eyes were all Lily’s. He’d tired of hearing it long before it had ever been uttered.
And now he’d be spending the rest of his life trying to save the boy from death. For her. Not even her, for the memory of what she’d once been.
Beside him, a candle sputtered and died, and in the light from he fire, he watched the last of the wax trail down the candlestick, until finally it dried against the brass.
He took another drink of Firewhiskey.
1993
He glared at the mess of black hair peeking out from one purple sleeping bag as he took a step closer to Dumbledore. He was steaming in anger, ready to lash out at whoever he could, and it looked for the moment as though Dumbledore was it.
Sirius Black. He’d hated the man with a passion long before he’d betrayed Lily, but adding that to it - adding to it the fact that he was nearly directly responsible for her death - and even the mention had him seething in rage. When he’d escaped over the summer, Severus had been livid, but now, now the man had been in the castle, and his old friend Lupin looked to be in cahoots with the traitor. He didn’t know which one to hate more, at this point.
When he repeated as much to Dumbledore a moment later he was met with the same stony resolve that he been driving him mad for weeks. He knew that Lupin was involved in this. And to be rebuked again and again for what Dumbledore assumed was some old prejudice - a rekindling of the rivalry of his school years - was enough to make Severus sick.
He moved to say more when they were interrupted by the Weasley boy, and so he turned on his heel and stalked away, his mind occupying him, and before he realized where he was going he was already at the lake. His gaze wandered mindlessly around the grounds, before finally landing on the old Whomping Willow.
That was where it had all gone to hell, anyway. His suspicions about Lupin had estranged him from Lily more than their separate houses or their different friends, and when he’d had them proven he’d been forced into silence. Worse, still, Lily hadn’t believed him. He’d fallen in with the Slytherin’s, then, and from there…
Severus started at a noise behind him in the trees, and turned slowly to face the tree line, hand, as always, closing around his wand. His eyes scanned the ground in front of him, looking hard for anything that might have made the noise, and when they came up with nothing he scoffed, berating himself for being paranoid. It didn’t take much, these days.
He was about to turn and head back inside when he saw a flash of white, and he stood absolutely still as shrubbery continued to rustle. A twig snapped, and he listened hard, staring at the place where the noise had been.
A black nose darted out of woods, followed closely by the rest of the body of a deer, her white spots glinting in the moonlight. She sniffed the ground, and Severus felt he couldn’t move as the deer turned her eyes up to look at him.
They stood like that for a long time, evaluating each other, until finally the doe started at a splash in the lake from the giant squid, and turned back into the forest.
Severus returned to the castle feeling an odd mixture of dizzying confusion and a strange fluttering happiness that was sure to be crushed the next day.
1980
She looked beautiful. Radiant. She was smiling, talking to someone as she swung out the door of the store, and from his spot ten meters away he could hear the tinkle of laughter that came from her mouth.
He’d stopped here on his way to meet Lucius for drinks, hoping to buy a carton of fags from the local grocers he knew was nearby.
And instead he’d found her.
Lily.
The wind was whipping crimson hair around her face, her scarf billowing out behind her as she hefted a bundle of screaming blankets back up into her arms, speaking that low voice she’d always used on Severus when she was cross about something.
After a moment, the child seemed to calm, and Lily turned back down her path, a brown bag held in one arm and the red-faced baby in the other. She stopped in her tracks the moment she saw him.
She stared unsurely, eyes darting from his face to his clothing, and while she stared, Severus took note of the way the sun made her skin flush, how her hair still seemed to glitter.
“Sn - Severus.”
“Hello Lily.”
“Hello.” She fidgeted. “What are you - why are you here?”
“I stopped to get…groceries.”
She stared at him for a moment, and he had the sudden urge to itch his forearm, where the new mark still burned sometimes.
“In Godric’s Hollow?”
“I was nearby.”
He watched as a tiny hand reached out of the mess of blankets, grabbing at a handful of Lily’s sweater.
“You…you look…” she glanced at him, eyes scanning his face. “The same.”
“Haven’t changed anything.”
“No, of course not. Why would you?” Her tone was snappy, upset. He furrowed his brow, and then cringed as she turned her gaze directly to the sleeve pulled tight over the Mark.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Well. I…had a baby. Obviously. His name is Harry.”
“Hmm.”
“James liked it.”
The way she said it made him think she was doing so just to get a rise out of him, but he didn’t take the bait.
“How are you, Severus?”
“I’m…mother died.”
Her eyes sought his, and she made a move like she meant to lay a hand on his arm, but she stopped, arms hindered by their bundles.
“I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you.”
He would have given anything to have something else to say to her, anything at all. But instead he stood still until the bundle at her right began to rustle and make noise, and Lily finally looked away from him to calm Harry. Severus let her calm, loving nonsense rush over him, and ignored the flash of jealousy he felt.
“I should get home. Harry gets restless quickly.” There was a hint of an apology in her words.
“Of course.”
“It was nice to see you.”
He swallowed. “You too.”
Her eyes held his for a moment, and he was sure he could get lost in the green depths - felt that same swoop in his stomach and lack of breath her gaze had always given him, and then she’d shot him a swift smile and spun away, moving around him in the direction she’d started out in only a few minutes earlier. He closed his eyes, trying to make the moment last.
“Oh!”
He turned at her voice, watched her as she made a full stop just up the street from him, and she flashed him a full blown smile. “Happy Halloween, Severus.”
She was gone in a twirling flash of color before he could respond in kind.