Harry Potter: "Happiness In Death, Rest In Peace" (Severus/Lily)
Title: Happiness In Death, Rest In Peace
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters/Pairings: Severus/Lily, Severus Snape, Lily Evans-Potter, hinted James/Lily, James Potter
Rating: PG
Narrative: Snape's POV, first person
Genre: Angst, Romance
Length: One-shot
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Seventh book, "Deathly Hallows"
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
Author's Note: Couldn't decide on a title, 'Rest In Peace' is perfect but clichéd, so I put in both.
Summary: Snape spends his final moments thinking of Lily. Throughout his life, he has struggled with his attachment to this girl, and he has always relied on her. Yet he cannot be happy in this way. How can Snape finally attain peace?
I told myself I couldn’t live without you.
I met you when you were a mere child. A young girl, and even then I could not help but watch you. Your joy fascinated me. All you were doing was sitting on a swing, yet, your happiness was incomparable. Had I ever felt that peaceful? In my short years, I had felt nothing but the pressure of knowledge. They say ignorance is bliss. I wish I had the chance to test that theory. Alas, I have hardly been ignorant in my entire life.
On those days, those days that are as vivid in my mind as if they had occurred moments ago, was the closest to contentment I have ever felt. I grew to like you, this strange child with ignorance. I think you grew to like me too. I taught you of the world, I shared with you all of my, nay, our, secrets. The secrets of our lives. You believed me; you joined with me in this life. As we sat together in the grass, as the years flew over our heads, I began to love you. Well, at least I began to realise I loved you. I think, when I look back over our long-gone past, I had loved you all along.
I knew it couldn’t last. I had believed that I was in paradise with you, and I knew it would not last. However, I know now that I was not truly happy then; you were not happy. A half cannot feel an emotion without it being shared by the other. I did not know then that I relied so much on you. I cared foremost about what you could offer me, not what I could do for you. Maybe that was why we did not work. Maybe that is why you moved on. Maybe it is my fault that everything changed.
I suppose it had been a gradual process. I cannot pinpoint the day that it all turned around, but I can remember the day that I finally knew that we had ended. You had been with him. I did not care for the way he looked at you, the way he treated you. I knew his type. He would use you and move on. I was so certain that I knew him, that I knew what would happen, that I lost sight of what you wanted. So, really, it was my entire fault. I should have paid attention to you. But I didn’t. And after that day, you never spoke to me again. I lost you.
I told myself I couldn’t live without you. You were my joy. My soul. I raised you high and called you God. You were me. I believed I could not truly be without you. Yet that was kind of selfish, wasn’t it? It’s not your responsibility to make me happy. It’s no one’s but my own. We create our own happiness. Yet, I never stopped loving you. Not once.
I remember the day you died. I had not conversed with you in countless years, years that had been nothing but an unnecessary blur. Yet it did not hurt any less. For I still idolised you, loved you to the point of madness. I could not help but feel partially responsible, yet deep down I knew there was nothing I could do. I had failed. I had lost you all over again. I did not even get to see you one last time.
My last memory of you and me is filled with such rage and sorrow. I wish I could wipe that memory away. I used to gaze upon you gravestone and hear your shouts in my ears. How I wish I could have taken that back. Replaced it with some happy memory. One of those summer afternoons in the grass.
Now, as I face my own fate, will you be waiting for me? I don’t suppose you will; he’s up there with you. I expect you two will the epitome of love. Standing together. Now place for me. I have always assumed that you stopped caring about me. Thinking of me. I am a faraway memory in the back of your mind, one that doesn’t matter. You cannot love us both, even if you did not love us in the same way. You probably never spoke of me to him. I wouldn’t blame you. You had a life, a love. Where does someone like me fit in?
I take a gasping breath, as my final thoughts are with you. I always knew they would be. My ears screeched against the agonising noise in my chest. My soul wanted to get out, to rid itself of this pain. Yet I knew what that release would mean. There was no escape, though. This was the end.
I think I saw you, one last time. Just a glimpse, a glimmer, the light reflecting the wrong way. But I’m sure it was you. You were standing over me, watching me, and I knew. You’d been there the whole time. You’d never left my side. You smiled sorrowfully at me, a smile that broke my heart as I lay dying. You were clothed all in white. As I lay dying, all I could do was smile. In that fleeting moment, you told me all of your truths. You had time for me. You always had done. You had never stopped caring. Although you loved him, you had always loved me.
As I died, I finally realised what it meant to be happy. This was happiness. My white shining angel. You were peaceful. Therefore I could be. I had accepted my fate, I had finally let go. I had to brave, as you had been. I was standing on my own two feet, for the first time in my life, in the final seconds of my existence. I did not care that this was the end, for I was about to spend the rest of eternity alongside my angel who loved me.