Light, Gone
30 Days of Shipping: Saddest Unrequited Love
Title: Light Gone
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters/Pairing: Snape, Lily/James
Rating: Gen
Orientation: Het
Word Count: 765
Prompts: Love Bingo Fill: “Gone too Soon”
Dark Bingo Fill: “Bullying”
Once, Severus had imagined a happy life with a girl he met at school. Lily had not looked at him oddly or pushed him aside when others didn’t give him a second glance.
They had made Severus’s life miserable, from the first day at Hogwarts. By the seventh year, he hated James Potter and his cronies; he hated them as much as he loved Lily Evans.
He had needed to keep multiple copies of his textbooks, because they disappeared at random from his room. How the Gryffindors managed to get into Slytherin house to perpetrate the crime, Snape never knew. But they did. They also switched his powders and vials around, mixing up his labels so that when he attempted to mix spells in potions class, things went wrong, every time. He learned to tell his ingredients apart by scent and taste when it became apparent that he could not trust his labels.
Pushed, shoved, bespelled, Snape was quite used to the physical attacks they ambushed him with. He could tolerate it, so long as Lily wasn’t a witness. When she was there, he felt shamed and humiliated. She tried to stand up for him occasionally, but James or Sirius would laugh and brush her off. It made him feel worse.
Too soon, their time at school was done and it was time to move on. His time at Hogwarts had not really prepared him for life after school. The only thing he truly excelled at was potions, thanks to his keen nose and sense of taste. He had nowhere to go, his mother would not welcome him back, he had rarely gone home, even over the holidays and breaks. Once, in the first year, before James Potter had become territorial and aggressive about Lily, he had been invited to visit her home over the winter holiday when Lily found out he was not planning to leave school.
It had been the single best Christmas of his life, before or after. The time flew by, the holidays over and gone before he knew it. He had liked Lily before that visit; afterwards, he knew that loved her. He would do anything for her, anything to make her happy, because she was that important. Her wants and desires came above and before all else.
So, when it was clear to Severus that Lily Evan’s one desire was James Potter, he had sadly stepped aside and watched their relationship grow and change over their years at Hogwarts. Always on the outside, they grew further apart as they aged. James became the center of her life.
It was no surprise when they wed after school. It hurt though. Invited to the wedding as her guest, Severus watched as his one true loved pledged herself to another, felt his heart break anew as they danced and kissed and started their life together. He would never love anyone the way he loved Lily.
The Potters moved away to Godricks Hollow. Severus, having nothing else to do with his life, returned to Hogwarts to teach what he knew best to the next generation of the wizarding community; Potions. Without Lily, there wasn’t much else to hope for. He had convinced himself that he wanted to be the Headmaster of Hogwarts one day, and that became his new, albeit cold dream. Alone, morose and missing Lily so much that it was like a knife in his gut, Severus was weak and impressionable and easily led into following Voldemort. He was a Death Eater without much conviction.
When he learned that the Potters were a target, that Lily was Voldemort’s enemy, his alliances changed. He sought out the Order of the Phoenix and offered his aid as their eyes on the inside. For Lily, he would dare to work against Voldemort while standing at the Dark Lord’s side.
He spoke to her once; he went to Godrick’s Hollow to warn her about Voldemort’s attention when he learned she was expecting a child, when he heard about the prophecy. She had refused to back down, claiming that she and James had to continue to stand up against the Dark Lord. She thanked him for the warning but would not consent to leaving her home, not even for the coming baby’s safety.
And then Halloween came and Severus’s life would never be the same. Too late, Severus returned to Godrick’s Hollow. Voldemort killed Lily and stole from him a piece of his soul. He would never see her again. The light was gone from his life.
The End Originally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/