FIC for roses_at_sunset "Finding Grey"
Title: Finding Grey
Author: xnymphadorax
Recipient: roses_at_sunset
Rating: R
Word count: ~3,000
Warnings: Some foul language and mild sexual content
Summary: Severus's Patronus wasn't always a doe. But then again, neither was Lily's.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
Author’s Notes: roses_at_sunset, I’ve never been so inspired and yet so overwhelmingly intimidated by a prompt. Writing this story was both my greatest challenge and honor. Thanks to my S., beta-extraordinaire and soul sister.
Finding Grey
Mere months after they met, Severus and Lily were already inseparable.
“Do you think I could fly to the sun, Sev?” Lily said, swinging higher on her swing.
“No.”
“Why not? If we’re magical, we should be able to do anything we want.”
“You just can’t. The sun is too far. Grown-up witches and wizards can’t even Apparate to different countries. That’s why there’s Floo. Besides, you’d get deathly sunburn.” Severus cracked a rare smile.
Lily giggled. “I don’t think it’s impossible. Look at all the other things we can do. It’s just that no one has figured out how yet.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Don’t you think-”
Lily did not listen to his reply. Instead, she leapt from the swing, opening her arms toward the sky. Severus watched from the grass, shaking his head in irritation.
She opened her eyes when she landed gracefully beside him. “I almost touched it.”
Finally, Severus indulged her. “I saw.”
Lily stretched out beside him on the grass, completely unconcerned with dirtying her pale yellow dress. Severus lay down too and closed his eyes. “I’ll bet we could figure it out together. Promise me we’ll try- when we’re at Hogwarts.”
“I promise.”
Unexpectedly, Lily took his hand. “I’m going to marry you someday,” she said.
Severus’s eyes flew open. “What?”
“One day, when we’re old and tall, we’ll still be best friends. And we’re going to get married,” she finished simply.
Severus, shocked as he was, didn’t see any fault with the idea. If he had to marry someone, it might as well be Lily. “Okay,” he said, hoping he’d be taller than Lily when they got married.
~*~
Severus couldn’t help it; even at thirteen, he loved her possessively.
“What the bloody hell are you doing sitting by Lupin at lunch?”
Lily raised her eyebrow calmly. “Excuse me?”
“What’s wrong with you? Can’t you tell there’s something off about him?”
“No, Severus. I can’t tell anything of the sort. What I can tell is that you’re trying to control me.”
“You’re completely missing my point, Lily.”
“Please, do point it out.”
“You shouldn’t socialize with the lot of them!”
“That’s always been your problem, Severus. You think I’m not allowed to be friends with anyone but you.”
“That is not true. I just expect that you stay away from Potter and the berks he calls friends.”
“Remus is not a berk and if I want to be his friend then I will!”
“I won’t associate with someone who calls them friends.”
“Associate?! Well, fine then! Consider yourself unassociated!”
Lily stomped away and she didn’t sit next to him in Potions the next day. Nor did she meet him beside the statue of the tragically tall leprechaun in the library during their break on Tuesday. For an entire week, Lily didn’t wink at him across the great hall at dinner and never once did she send a flying note his way in History of Magic.
On the sixth day of her silence, Severus charmed one of Mulciber’s Quidditch action figures to walk over to her dormitory and relay a message:
“I was a git. I miss you. Please forgive me.”
When the action figure returned, it was holding a lily. For the first time in nearly a week, Severus felt like he could breathe. An almost debilitating tension had begun to plague him as he realized that Lily’s presence in his life was not a given. Lily was more than just his best friend. She was his salvation and he wasn’t entirely sure he could survive without her.
~*~
Fifth year contained his best memories as well as his worst.
“Keep trying, Lily! I know you can do it!”
“Damn it, Sev, I am trying! It’s just smoke!”
“Then you’re not thinking of something happy enough. Scour your mind, find the memory that warms you, makes you feel… hope.”
“What’s yours?”
“I hardly think-”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s not relevant. I’m just trying to get some idea of what I should be thinking about.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“The day you told me I was a witch…”
“When you yelled at me?”
“Well, yes. I was intrigued. For the first time, I felt like what I could do was a gift and not some freakish secret. It was the first time I ever felt proud of my magic.”
“Intrigue and pride will not produce a full-bodied Patronus. Lily, you’ve got to feel such joy that it fills your soul. It’s the type of feeling that you remember long after the details of the moment have faded.”
“Why won’t you tell me your memory?”
“Oh, for Circe’s sake! Fine! When I conjure a Patronus, I think of the day we found the creek. I remember how we laid beneath the shade of the trees, listening to the water splash and holding hands. It was like we were in our own world, without money, or my father, or your insufferably nosy sister. It was just us and it was- idyllic…”
“Expecto Patronum!” Lily suddenly shouted. A wispy silver humming bird soared from her wand, circling the length of the room. “I did it!”
Severus smiled as Lily threw herself into his arms. “What memory did you use?” he asked.
“Now. This moment. I saw the look on your face just then- it’s so rare these days- and knowing that I helped put it there…
After a long quiet moment, Lily said, “She needs company.”
“Expecto Patronum,” Severus whispered, never taking his eyes off of Lily. His raven Patronus burst from his wand to join hers in the air.
“Funny mine should be a bird too,” she commented. “Like they wanted to be together.”
Severus didn’t think there was anything funny about it.
~*~
The dungeon was warm and dim. It was an unusually warm spring day and unlike their peers who were lounging outdoors, Lily and Severus were working diligently on a new potion. They had discarded their cloaks on Slughorn’s desk in an effort to relieve some of the heat but it was relentless.
“Now stir in the salamander eyes- one at a time,” Severus instructed.
Lily began to slowly release the eyes from their container, watching as each one plopped into the cauldron. When the jar was nearly empty, Severus carefully took hold of her hand, tilting it backward so that no more eyes fell.
“Perfect,” he whispered, as if the potion might be disturbed by anything other than soft tones.
They stood absolutely still, each gazing into the cauldron as its contents turned from lilac to deepest blue. Severus’s height had finally caught up with Lily’s and he was taller than her now. His lips were close to her ear as he bent over her, his hand still grasping hers. His entire body was pressed against her back as he leaned closer to the cauldron. This was it; at last he had figured out the perfect configuration!
Severus’s breathing grew heavy and his body tensed with anticipation. He wondered if Lily too could tell that their experiment had worked. He looked down at her, smiling unguardedly but Lily did not smile back. Instead, she suddenly pressed her lips to his and gave him his very first kiss. He was so shocked that he let go of her hand and the jar of salamander eyes crashed into the cauldron. Lily placed her free hand around his neck, pulling him closer and deeper into their kiss. He was terrified that this would change everything but even more so that he would pull away and everything would stay the same. To hell with it, he thought and plunged his tongue into her mouth. Severus wondered how long they might have stayed that way if the potion hadn’t exploded.
~*~
Two years was just enough time to make them strangers.
It was nearing midnight. Lily was sitting in the back of the library, exhausting a potions book from the restricted section. Severus peered at her through the shelves, unable to leave her be, even after two years of not speaking.
He watched as she moistened the tip of her finger and turned the page, mesmerized by her long fingers, remembering what it was like to hold her hand. Suddenly, a large silver stag trotted over to her. Lily patted its head and the creature preened beneath her touch. The stag seemed to inspire a certain amount of annoyance in Severus; it was arrogant, presumptuous and- It was Potter’s, of course.
Once Lily stopped petting it, the creature disappeared. “Expecto Patronum,” she whispered and a graceful doe leapt from her wand. “Go give James a kiss for me,” she told it and it galloped away.
Horrified, Severus asked, “When did it change?” as he emerged from the shadows.
“I knew you were there. James would murder you if he found out you were hovering about like that.”
“When did it change?”
“A few months ago.”
Severus sneered, disgusted with her. “It takes some pretty strong emotion to change a Patronus. What happened? You two finally consummated the arrangement?”
Lily slapped him, infuriated. “How dare you? Are you so immersed in darkness that you don’t even-” she stopped short. “You have no right…”
“Immersed in darkness? Lily, what are you immersed in? I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“Well, that’s mutual.”
“Goodbye, Lily.” Those were the last words he spoke to her at Hogwarts.
~*~
At 3 am, there was a knock at Severus’s door. Ever diligent, he snatched his wand from beneath his pillow and crept downstairs. There were no windows in the parlor but he could catch a glimpse of the front steps if he performed a transparency spell on one of the bookcases. Before he could even say the charm, he heard a faint voice.
“Severus, are you there?”
Recognizing her voice, he opened the door quickly. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I needed to see you.”
“You needed to see a man you consider your enemy at three in the morning? Does your boyfriend know you’re here?”
“Don’t start that. I don’t want to fight.”
“Excellent. Neither do I. Get out. Best Apparate directly back to his mansion. It’s not safe to walk this side of town at night.”
“Why are you being like this? I just want to talk to you.”
“What on Earth could there possibly be left to say?”
“I’m sorry.”
Arching an eyebrow, Severus waited, curiously.
“I don’t condone the things you’ve been up to or the company you keep but I’ve realized something: None of it matters. When we were children, you held my hand and told me that we would be best friends forever. What happened to us?”
“But it does matter! We’re not children anymore and you were right when you said we’d chosen different paths. I see no reason to renege.”
“I’m not reneging. I just wanted to apologize and to…” Lily trailed off as she inched closer to Severus. “To remember who I used to be.”
Severus drew a long breath. He almost didn’t believe this was happening.
“Let’s just be us tonight, Sev.”
He shuddered at the sound of the old endearment and wondered if he was having some sort of torturous dream. He’d wake up in the morning on the edge of bliss and plummet, crestfallen, to Earth.
Tired, he said, “I don’t understand what you want from me.”
“Then let me be clear.”
Severus hardly had a moment to comprehend her words before she was pulling his body close to hers, her lips crashing onto his. Somewhere in his mind, he knew they should stop. Yet he couldn’t get his body to comply. His hands disobeyed him, clutching Lily closer when he meant to push her away. His lips held steadfast to hers rather than pulling apart. She tasted every bit as sweet as she had the first time in the potions lab. Except now he had time enough to savor her, explore her. Lily’s body was so warm against his, filling him in places that had been desolate, stirring primal heat.
She pulled away for a moment, murmuring something he didn’t catch before backing him into a bookshelf. Her hands trailed down his chest, descending until they met the waistband of his trousers. She pressed her palm against his groin and Apparated them to his bedroom.
The simultaneous sensations were nearly unbearable. “Fuck, Lily,” Severus said, pulling away from their kiss.
“My thoughts exactly.”
Lily walked toward the bed and unabashedly began to unbutton her blouse. She never broke their gaze. Nor did she did say a word as she lay down. Despite his disbelief, there was no denying that Lily was there with him, beckoning him closer than she had ever allowed anyone else. He loved her and in that moment, when she finally seemed to want him back, Severus delighted in every ounce of love she offered him.
If it weren’t for the scent of her and the crimson stains on his bed sheets the next morning, Severus might have believed the evening to be a dream. He sat up quickly, looking desperately about for her but she was no where to be found. He rushed downstairs when he heard a tapping at the door but it was only an owl with the Daily Prophet. He took the paper with full intentions of chucking it but then spotted the headline. “Engagement Party Causes Ruckus at the Rock-Us Room in London.” Beneath the headline was a sizable photograph of Potter holding Lily’s arm in the air triumphantly. There was a prominent diamond ring sparkling from her finger. Fireworks were erupting in the backdrop, courtesy of Sirius Black, Severus was sure. James positively beamed, but Lily’s smile seemed forced and anxious.
Severus dropped the paper like it was on fire. She was going to marry him! Incredulously, he fell into a nearby armchair. What had she been playing at last night? He honestly thought she forgave him; that she wanted to try again and that they could reach an understanding with one another, but she had used him. Lily had given him her virginity but she was giving James her life. Had she realized she loved him so much that she wanted to give him that last gift or had she simply been determined that James should not have it?
She’d said she wanted to remember who she used to be but now more than ever, Severus felt that the woman he loved had inexplicably vanished.
~*~
When Severus was barely an adult, he experienced the greatest pain of his life.
Severus Apparated into the town square of Godric’s Hollow. To hell with the statute of secrecy; Lily was in danger. He wasn’t sure where her house was but it took only moments for him to locate the dark mark in the distance. He rushed toward it, driving himself forward with the force of his anger. Stupid, spineless Pedigrew and that arrogant prat James Potter were to blame for this. Peter’s actions were predictable but how could Potter have trusted that rat? Didn’t he know that she was precious? Didn’t he know he had to protect her with everything he had? That fool.
The sight of her home was gruesome. The entire left side had been decimated so much that he could clearly see into the parlor and an upstairs bedroom. The walls that remained were black and charred. Some of the dust that floated everywhere, he assumed, had once been their furniture. The house looked as if it might collapse at any moment but Severus did not hesitate. Sidestepping the door, he walked through a gap in the wall where he suspected a window once stood. Just beside the door lay James’s lifeless body, his hand reaching into his pocket vainly.
Severus climbed the stairs tentatively, simultaneously anxious to find her and horrified at what he might see. There was a light on at the end of the hall and the faint sound of a baby whining. It was the sound that children make when they’ve been crying for a while. When their little voices become so tired that they can no longer carry on but the feelings of distress remain irrepressible.
The sound did nothing to quell Severus’s anxiety and he approached the bedroom slowly. When he pushed the door fully open, he was met with his deepest fear. Lily’s body was collapsed in front of the crib, her eyes wide. All the air seemed to flee from his lungs as he fell to her side.
“Li- Li,” he panted, unable to form words. He pressed his fingers to his mouth in abject horror. He could not touch her; if he felt her cold skin, it would all be true.
Harry was standing in his crib, staring pointedly at Severus, as if he expected him to fix it. He tore his eyes away from the child, unable to take in his flushed, frightened face. He looked into Lily’s eyes but they were all wrong. Instead of the flair that once sparkled there, Severus saw only terror. It reminded him of the day he had found his mother’s dead body at Spinner’s End. Suppressing that memory, he instinctually closed Lily’s eyes and was startled by the feel of her skin. She was not cold. She was almost warm and he allowed his fingers to linger on her face. Closing his eyes, he savored the last of her essence before it dissipated.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her, wishing there were more adequate words to express the enormity of his regret.
He sat with her until her skin grew chill and then tried to conjure a Patronus message for Dumbledore. It was to no avail. There was no happy memory that could pull him from this misery. Just when he couldn’t try any longer, Harry cooed and smiled at him. He was an innocent in all of this but still, the sight of him infuriated Severus. Harry was a symbol of everything Severus had lost; the product of a union that made him ill with jealousy. Despite that, Harry was a piece of Lily and Severus vowed to always protect him.
Without knowing why, Severus suddenly thought of his and Lily’s first kiss. He remembered the moment that he had lost all control and let the salamander eyes fall into the cauldron. Kissing Lily had been terrifying but he followed her blindly and recalling that absolute trust, gave him peace.
“Expecto Patronum!” he said. For the first time, a silver doe emerged from his wand. He wondered at it long after it had left to deliver his message. The doe made him think about all the ways both he and Lily had transformed since the day she had conjured her very first Patronus. Over the years, they both changed in ways that the other couldn’t understand but at last, Severus realized that he didn’t have to understand every part of her to love her.
Even though she was gone, Severus felt her emphatically, inside of him. All of her love was coursing through him and there was no dividing the pieces. It was love for her son and her sister and her husband and her very best friend. She was part of Severus now- safe, for always.
Author: xnymphadorax
Recipient: roses_at_sunset
Rating: R
Word count: ~3,000
Warnings: Some foul language and mild sexual content
Summary: Severus's Patronus wasn't always a doe. But then again, neither was Lily's.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
Author’s Notes: roses_at_sunset, I’ve never been so inspired and yet so overwhelmingly intimidated by a prompt. Writing this story was both my greatest challenge and honor. Thanks to my S., beta-extraordinaire and soul sister.
Finding Grey
Mere months after they met, Severus and Lily were already inseparable.
“Do you think I could fly to the sun, Sev?” Lily said, swinging higher on her swing.
“No.”
“Why not? If we’re magical, we should be able to do anything we want.”
“You just can’t. The sun is too far. Grown-up witches and wizards can’t even Apparate to different countries. That’s why there’s Floo. Besides, you’d get deathly sunburn.” Severus cracked a rare smile.
Lily giggled. “I don’t think it’s impossible. Look at all the other things we can do. It’s just that no one has figured out how yet.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Don’t you think-”
Lily did not listen to his reply. Instead, she leapt from the swing, opening her arms toward the sky. Severus watched from the grass, shaking his head in irritation.
She opened her eyes when she landed gracefully beside him. “I almost touched it.”
Finally, Severus indulged her. “I saw.”
Lily stretched out beside him on the grass, completely unconcerned with dirtying her pale yellow dress. Severus lay down too and closed his eyes. “I’ll bet we could figure it out together. Promise me we’ll try- when we’re at Hogwarts.”
“I promise.”
Unexpectedly, Lily took his hand. “I’m going to marry you someday,” she said.
Severus’s eyes flew open. “What?”
“One day, when we’re old and tall, we’ll still be best friends. And we’re going to get married,” she finished simply.
Severus, shocked as he was, didn’t see any fault with the idea. If he had to marry someone, it might as well be Lily. “Okay,” he said, hoping he’d be taller than Lily when they got married.
~*~
Severus couldn’t help it; even at thirteen, he loved her possessively.
“What the bloody hell are you doing sitting by Lupin at lunch?”
Lily raised her eyebrow calmly. “Excuse me?”
“What’s wrong with you? Can’t you tell there’s something off about him?”
“No, Severus. I can’t tell anything of the sort. What I can tell is that you’re trying to control me.”
“You’re completely missing my point, Lily.”
“Please, do point it out.”
“You shouldn’t socialize with the lot of them!”
“That’s always been your problem, Severus. You think I’m not allowed to be friends with anyone but you.”
“That is not true. I just expect that you stay away from Potter and the berks he calls friends.”
“Remus is not a berk and if I want to be his friend then I will!”
“I won’t associate with someone who calls them friends.”
“Associate?! Well, fine then! Consider yourself unassociated!”
Lily stomped away and she didn’t sit next to him in Potions the next day. Nor did she meet him beside the statue of the tragically tall leprechaun in the library during their break on Tuesday. For an entire week, Lily didn’t wink at him across the great hall at dinner and never once did she send a flying note his way in History of Magic.
On the sixth day of her silence, Severus charmed one of Mulciber’s Quidditch action figures to walk over to her dormitory and relay a message:
“I was a git. I miss you. Please forgive me.”
When the action figure returned, it was holding a lily. For the first time in nearly a week, Severus felt like he could breathe. An almost debilitating tension had begun to plague him as he realized that Lily’s presence in his life was not a given. Lily was more than just his best friend. She was his salvation and he wasn’t entirely sure he could survive without her.
~*~
Fifth year contained his best memories as well as his worst.
“Keep trying, Lily! I know you can do it!”
“Damn it, Sev, I am trying! It’s just smoke!”
“Then you’re not thinking of something happy enough. Scour your mind, find the memory that warms you, makes you feel… hope.”
“What’s yours?”
“I hardly think-”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s not relevant. I’m just trying to get some idea of what I should be thinking about.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“The day you told me I was a witch…”
“When you yelled at me?”
“Well, yes. I was intrigued. For the first time, I felt like what I could do was a gift and not some freakish secret. It was the first time I ever felt proud of my magic.”
“Intrigue and pride will not produce a full-bodied Patronus. Lily, you’ve got to feel such joy that it fills your soul. It’s the type of feeling that you remember long after the details of the moment have faded.”
“Why won’t you tell me your memory?”
“Oh, for Circe’s sake! Fine! When I conjure a Patronus, I think of the day we found the creek. I remember how we laid beneath the shade of the trees, listening to the water splash and holding hands. It was like we were in our own world, without money, or my father, or your insufferably nosy sister. It was just us and it was- idyllic…”
“Expecto Patronum!” Lily suddenly shouted. A wispy silver humming bird soared from her wand, circling the length of the room. “I did it!”
Severus smiled as Lily threw herself into his arms. “What memory did you use?” he asked.
“Now. This moment. I saw the look on your face just then- it’s so rare these days- and knowing that I helped put it there…
After a long quiet moment, Lily said, “She needs company.”
“Expecto Patronum,” Severus whispered, never taking his eyes off of Lily. His raven Patronus burst from his wand to join hers in the air.
“Funny mine should be a bird too,” she commented. “Like they wanted to be together.”
Severus didn’t think there was anything funny about it.
~*~
The dungeon was warm and dim. It was an unusually warm spring day and unlike their peers who were lounging outdoors, Lily and Severus were working diligently on a new potion. They had discarded their cloaks on Slughorn’s desk in an effort to relieve some of the heat but it was relentless.
“Now stir in the salamander eyes- one at a time,” Severus instructed.
Lily began to slowly release the eyes from their container, watching as each one plopped into the cauldron. When the jar was nearly empty, Severus carefully took hold of her hand, tilting it backward so that no more eyes fell.
“Perfect,” he whispered, as if the potion might be disturbed by anything other than soft tones.
They stood absolutely still, each gazing into the cauldron as its contents turned from lilac to deepest blue. Severus’s height had finally caught up with Lily’s and he was taller than her now. His lips were close to her ear as he bent over her, his hand still grasping hers. His entire body was pressed against her back as he leaned closer to the cauldron. This was it; at last he had figured out the perfect configuration!
Severus’s breathing grew heavy and his body tensed with anticipation. He wondered if Lily too could tell that their experiment had worked. He looked down at her, smiling unguardedly but Lily did not smile back. Instead, she suddenly pressed her lips to his and gave him his very first kiss. He was so shocked that he let go of her hand and the jar of salamander eyes crashed into the cauldron. Lily placed her free hand around his neck, pulling him closer and deeper into their kiss. He was terrified that this would change everything but even more so that he would pull away and everything would stay the same. To hell with it, he thought and plunged his tongue into her mouth. Severus wondered how long they might have stayed that way if the potion hadn’t exploded.
~*~
Two years was just enough time to make them strangers.
It was nearing midnight. Lily was sitting in the back of the library, exhausting a potions book from the restricted section. Severus peered at her through the shelves, unable to leave her be, even after two years of not speaking.
He watched as she moistened the tip of her finger and turned the page, mesmerized by her long fingers, remembering what it was like to hold her hand. Suddenly, a large silver stag trotted over to her. Lily patted its head and the creature preened beneath her touch. The stag seemed to inspire a certain amount of annoyance in Severus; it was arrogant, presumptuous and- It was Potter’s, of course.
Once Lily stopped petting it, the creature disappeared. “Expecto Patronum,” she whispered and a graceful doe leapt from her wand. “Go give James a kiss for me,” she told it and it galloped away.
Horrified, Severus asked, “When did it change?” as he emerged from the shadows.
“I knew you were there. James would murder you if he found out you were hovering about like that.”
“When did it change?”
“A few months ago.”
Severus sneered, disgusted with her. “It takes some pretty strong emotion to change a Patronus. What happened? You two finally consummated the arrangement?”
Lily slapped him, infuriated. “How dare you? Are you so immersed in darkness that you don’t even-” she stopped short. “You have no right…”
“Immersed in darkness? Lily, what are you immersed in? I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“Well, that’s mutual.”
“Goodbye, Lily.” Those were the last words he spoke to her at Hogwarts.
~*~
At 3 am, there was a knock at Severus’s door. Ever diligent, he snatched his wand from beneath his pillow and crept downstairs. There were no windows in the parlor but he could catch a glimpse of the front steps if he performed a transparency spell on one of the bookcases. Before he could even say the charm, he heard a faint voice.
“Severus, are you there?”
Recognizing her voice, he opened the door quickly. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I needed to see you.”
“You needed to see a man you consider your enemy at three in the morning? Does your boyfriend know you’re here?”
“Don’t start that. I don’t want to fight.”
“Excellent. Neither do I. Get out. Best Apparate directly back to his mansion. It’s not safe to walk this side of town at night.”
“Why are you being like this? I just want to talk to you.”
“What on Earth could there possibly be left to say?”
“I’m sorry.”
Arching an eyebrow, Severus waited, curiously.
“I don’t condone the things you’ve been up to or the company you keep but I’ve realized something: None of it matters. When we were children, you held my hand and told me that we would be best friends forever. What happened to us?”
“But it does matter! We’re not children anymore and you were right when you said we’d chosen different paths. I see no reason to renege.”
“I’m not reneging. I just wanted to apologize and to…” Lily trailed off as she inched closer to Severus. “To remember who I used to be.”
Severus drew a long breath. He almost didn’t believe this was happening.
“Let’s just be us tonight, Sev.”
He shuddered at the sound of the old endearment and wondered if he was having some sort of torturous dream. He’d wake up in the morning on the edge of bliss and plummet, crestfallen, to Earth.
Tired, he said, “I don’t understand what you want from me.”
“Then let me be clear.”
Severus hardly had a moment to comprehend her words before she was pulling his body close to hers, her lips crashing onto his. Somewhere in his mind, he knew they should stop. Yet he couldn’t get his body to comply. His hands disobeyed him, clutching Lily closer when he meant to push her away. His lips held steadfast to hers rather than pulling apart. She tasted every bit as sweet as she had the first time in the potions lab. Except now he had time enough to savor her, explore her. Lily’s body was so warm against his, filling him in places that had been desolate, stirring primal heat.
She pulled away for a moment, murmuring something he didn’t catch before backing him into a bookshelf. Her hands trailed down his chest, descending until they met the waistband of his trousers. She pressed her palm against his groin and Apparated them to his bedroom.
The simultaneous sensations were nearly unbearable. “Fuck, Lily,” Severus said, pulling away from their kiss.
“My thoughts exactly.”
Lily walked toward the bed and unabashedly began to unbutton her blouse. She never broke their gaze. Nor did she did say a word as she lay down. Despite his disbelief, there was no denying that Lily was there with him, beckoning him closer than she had ever allowed anyone else. He loved her and in that moment, when she finally seemed to want him back, Severus delighted in every ounce of love she offered him.
If it weren’t for the scent of her and the crimson stains on his bed sheets the next morning, Severus might have believed the evening to be a dream. He sat up quickly, looking desperately about for her but she was no where to be found. He rushed downstairs when he heard a tapping at the door but it was only an owl with the Daily Prophet. He took the paper with full intentions of chucking it but then spotted the headline. “Engagement Party Causes Ruckus at the Rock-Us Room in London.” Beneath the headline was a sizable photograph of Potter holding Lily’s arm in the air triumphantly. There was a prominent diamond ring sparkling from her finger. Fireworks were erupting in the backdrop, courtesy of Sirius Black, Severus was sure. James positively beamed, but Lily’s smile seemed forced and anxious.
Severus dropped the paper like it was on fire. She was going to marry him! Incredulously, he fell into a nearby armchair. What had she been playing at last night? He honestly thought she forgave him; that she wanted to try again and that they could reach an understanding with one another, but she had used him. Lily had given him her virginity but she was giving James her life. Had she realized she loved him so much that she wanted to give him that last gift or had she simply been determined that James should not have it?
She’d said she wanted to remember who she used to be but now more than ever, Severus felt that the woman he loved had inexplicably vanished.
~*~
When Severus was barely an adult, he experienced the greatest pain of his life.
Severus Apparated into the town square of Godric’s Hollow. To hell with the statute of secrecy; Lily was in danger. He wasn’t sure where her house was but it took only moments for him to locate the dark mark in the distance. He rushed toward it, driving himself forward with the force of his anger. Stupid, spineless Pedigrew and that arrogant prat James Potter were to blame for this. Peter’s actions were predictable but how could Potter have trusted that rat? Didn’t he know that she was precious? Didn’t he know he had to protect her with everything he had? That fool.
The sight of her home was gruesome. The entire left side had been decimated so much that he could clearly see into the parlor and an upstairs bedroom. The walls that remained were black and charred. Some of the dust that floated everywhere, he assumed, had once been their furniture. The house looked as if it might collapse at any moment but Severus did not hesitate. Sidestepping the door, he walked through a gap in the wall where he suspected a window once stood. Just beside the door lay James’s lifeless body, his hand reaching into his pocket vainly.
Severus climbed the stairs tentatively, simultaneously anxious to find her and horrified at what he might see. There was a light on at the end of the hall and the faint sound of a baby whining. It was the sound that children make when they’ve been crying for a while. When their little voices become so tired that they can no longer carry on but the feelings of distress remain irrepressible.
The sound did nothing to quell Severus’s anxiety and he approached the bedroom slowly. When he pushed the door fully open, he was met with his deepest fear. Lily’s body was collapsed in front of the crib, her eyes wide. All the air seemed to flee from his lungs as he fell to her side.
“Li- Li,” he panted, unable to form words. He pressed his fingers to his mouth in abject horror. He could not touch her; if he felt her cold skin, it would all be true.
Harry was standing in his crib, staring pointedly at Severus, as if he expected him to fix it. He tore his eyes away from the child, unable to take in his flushed, frightened face. He looked into Lily’s eyes but they were all wrong. Instead of the flair that once sparkled there, Severus saw only terror. It reminded him of the day he had found his mother’s dead body at Spinner’s End. Suppressing that memory, he instinctually closed Lily’s eyes and was startled by the feel of her skin. She was not cold. She was almost warm and he allowed his fingers to linger on her face. Closing his eyes, he savored the last of her essence before it dissipated.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her, wishing there were more adequate words to express the enormity of his regret.
He sat with her until her skin grew chill and then tried to conjure a Patronus message for Dumbledore. It was to no avail. There was no happy memory that could pull him from this misery. Just when he couldn’t try any longer, Harry cooed and smiled at him. He was an innocent in all of this but still, the sight of him infuriated Severus. Harry was a symbol of everything Severus had lost; the product of a union that made him ill with jealousy. Despite that, Harry was a piece of Lily and Severus vowed to always protect him.
Without knowing why, Severus suddenly thought of his and Lily’s first kiss. He remembered the moment that he had lost all control and let the salamander eyes fall into the cauldron. Kissing Lily had been terrifying but he followed her blindly and recalling that absolute trust, gave him peace.
“Expecto Patronum!” he said. For the first time, a silver doe emerged from his wand. He wondered at it long after it had left to deliver his message. The doe made him think about all the ways both he and Lily had transformed since the day she had conjured her very first Patronus. Over the years, they both changed in ways that the other couldn’t understand but at last, Severus realized that he didn’t have to understand every part of her to love her.
Even though she was gone, Severus felt her emphatically, inside of him. All of her love was coursing through him and there was no dividing the pieces. It was love for her son and her sister and her husband and her very best friend. She was part of Severus now- safe, for always.