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December 20th, 1978

It was Severus Snape's last year at Hogwarts and although he had spent a majority of his time relentlessly studying, potion-making and meticulously crafting spells that would send even the most experienced spell-caster into a coma, he found that he hadn’t an inkling of care for anything concerning his education. He had spent the last few weeks of his fleeting life in a dazed state. He walked the halls of Hogwarts as a ghost, his lithe body navigating the twists and turns of the castle  with a practiced ease, almost floating. This was a sharp contrast to the Snape that, up until a few weeks ago, walked with a perpetual air of contempt; his shoulders drawn up to meet his ears, his thin lips curled into a sneer of disgust at any and all things around him, his dark onyx eyes constantly flitting about the room to scan the halls for any sign of his tormentors and his bony hands curled into a tight fist around his weathered school bag.

His colleagues, though having never associated themselves with a potential death eater, noted that he would spend an uncanny amount of time sat by the great lake. Every day, during those last few weeks, he would be spotted walking lazily out of the dining hall, his untamed raven locks billowing behind him, towards the great lake. He would, in a practiced sequence, reach into his tattered schoolbag, pull out some sort of muggle contraption that confused the purebloods, but the muggleborns and half bloods instantly recognised as a cassette player. He would then proceed to drape himself across the yellowed grass and nod along to whatever song was blasting into his eardrums at the time. 

James Potter, in particular, was peeved by this. He had been too busy with the humongous pile of homework the unforgiving teachers had given him to take notice of Snape's new disposition. This day, however he had finally managed to put a dent into said pile so he decided to make his way into the Hogwarts fields. The biting air, like pinpricks on his handsome face, sent a jolt of excitement up his spine; the winter holidays were fast approaching meaning less days until he could sneak out to muggle bars with Sirius, drink to till their livers were begging for reprieve and stagger back to the manor in fits of giggles.

He was strolling the grounds, restless, waiting for something to happen. He turned a corner and spotted a head of greasy raven locks. His lips curled into an amused smirk.

Finally, some entertainment.

James Potter had never put much thought into Severus or why he treated him the way he did or why he still chose to play cruel pranks on him even after burning his friendship with Lily to the ground. Severus was a wannabe Death Eater and that was the bottom line. Ha had ingrained the thought in his brain so deep, it was almost laughable to suggest otherwise.

Yet a part of him still felt a twinge of guilt anytime he saw Severus flare with anger. Because he had done it. He had pushed and prodded and poked at Severus until that foul word spilled out of his mouth. He had flipped Severus over and humiliated him in front of the entire school. He had burst into fits of laughter whenever Severus’ eyes welled up and he became all red in his pallid, sickly face.

These kind of thoughts were always uncomfortable  to sit with. They would rush in and flood his brain during dinner whenever he saw Severus walking towards the Slytherin table with a visible limp – a result of his earlier ministrations. His stomach would churn and his mouth would dry up like the desert. His eyes would be glued onto him and he'd eventually scoff at himself for daring to even think of feeling sympathy for a future Death Eater. His eyes would flit away eventually and he'd forget all about it because so long as he did not have to look at Severus or even acknowledge his existence, then he was good, he was perfect, he was the James Potter all of Hogwarts had deemed him to be. He was a good man.

Severus was draped over the grass, his lithe figure sinking into the soft soil. His onyx eyes were half-shut and his head was moving up and down, in shaky little awkward nods and his pale fingers tapped an unrecognisable rhythm on the blades of grass. His greying robe had been discarded to the side and his tie was loosened. 

This alarmed James. Severus was the nearest person he had ever encountered. Although James was  well aware of Snape's crippling financial situation, having thrown cruel comments about it many a times, the Slytherin somehow managed to look put together everyday. His loafers, though worn out, were always shined, his shirt and trousers perfectly pressed and his robe spotless except for the conspicuous scar of age. Although he was clearly lacking in the hair department, seeing as the raven locks slithered past his shoulders and fell limply over his sallow face, he still made sure to maintain an acceptable level of personal hygiene no matter what his financial situation was at the moment. This was ingrained in him partly because he never wanted to appear unclean in front of his cunning housemates lest he have the last remaining shred of his dignity snatched and partly because he never wanted Potter to make him feel the way he did on the train to Hogwarts that day. 

James took long, proud strides towards the homely boy. Severus was still lying serenely on the grass, a lazy smile gracing his lips. James’ eyes travelled down the long column of his throat and stopped at a rectangular like object. His hands twitched in excitement. He reached towards it and snatched it roughly before looking up to inspect it in half amusement, half curiosity. Severus's eyes snapped open, his hands shakily cupping his ears. He was confused for a brief before he noticed  Potter's muscular figure hovering above him.

“What do we have here Snivelly?”, Potter began. Severus swallowed hard at the nickname. It never ceased to send him into a fit of anger but his limbs felt heavy that day, the energy sapped out of him, his chest heaving with the effort of trying to stay up.

His feet scrambled up into a defensive stance and he felt that there was no point in fighting it anymore, Potter was just going to take and take and take until there was nothing left so he decided that he will just let him have it. He tucked a stray lock behind his ear, his hands eventually crossing over his stomach.

“Can I have that back please?”, the skinny boy gestured at the cassette player. James's eyes widened for a slight second. Severus sounded tired. Snivelly was never tired, he screamed and thrashed and cursed until he was heaving in exhaustion and his pupils were blown wide and black. Today he was slow, almost lethargic in his movements. He heaved another sigh as if just standing was taking a toll on him. His eyes, usually blown wide with rage, were now glazed over as if a thick film had shrouded them. The firm hands he used for precision in potion making now shook as he gestured at the muggle contraption.

“No.”,James wanted to push him further, he was not going to settle for that lousy reaction, he wanted Snape's sharp tongue, the slew of dark curses that usually spilled out of his mouth, the flared nostrils and furrowed brows as he struggled to contain his boiling resentment. Not this. This sudden calmness from the most resilient boy he had ever known. 

James clenched jaw, his hands tightly gripping the muggle object. He flung it into the undisturbed water and with a quiet plop, it sank deeper until there was no trace of it left on Hogwarts grounds. He flipped around to gauge Severus's reaction. He was half expecting him to jump into the lake to retrieve it himself. Snape loathed it when they destroyed his belongings, it seemed to get a rise out of him more than anything they ever did. James knew exactly what buttons to push to get him to explode into one of his fits of rage.

This ought to do it.

Snape heaved a shaky sigh, his chest visibly expanding and contracting. He wanted to say something, anything. He might have found something to live for if he did. But he didn't. He picked up his bag and left quicker than he had been there. 

James swallowed the ball of anger lodged in his throat. His words turned into rubble and he found himself standing there thinking about Severus longer than he would have liked.

The sun had started to set on the Hogwarts ground colouring everything  in an orange hue. James felt heavier than he had ever been. His skin crawled as he made his way back into the warm common room. The rest of the marauders had been splayed out on the crimson couches. He had heard their boisterous laughter spilling from the room before he even entered it. They asked him if he was up for a game of exploding snaps to which he politely refused before carrying his shaky form into his room. He went about doing his nightly ministrations in uncomfortable silence and the only thoughts his brain could muster up were those of onyx eyes and trembling hands burned into his retinas.

December 23rd, 1978

Severus’s affinity for potions was inherited and fostered by his mother. His earliest memories were of her in a long black cloak, her signature Prince hair cascading down her skeletal back as she made precise stirring movements to whatever concoction she was brewing at the time. He remembers most distinctly her velvety voice as she went on long winding lectures about how a bezoar was the perfect antidote to any poison or how stirring anti-clockwise would only bring about trouble and that he should be careful when picking herbs for the Felix Felicis because most of them looked similar and if you picked the wrong one, you'd end up at Saint Mungos faster than you could say it. Although most of her speeches sounded like a long jumble of over complicated jargon, little Severus would hang on to every word. He would move his head in vigorous nods, his hair flying everywhere, to show her that he was listening intently and she would send him a suspecting tiny smile before they both doubled over in a fit of giggled having both been aware that he could not understand a lick of what she was saying. 

These memories, which he usually kept lodged in the furthest recesses of his mind, would usually resurface whenever he brewed. He wondered why they never discussed  the patches of red and blue across the long column of her neck or the noticeable limp in her gait. He was only six but he was sharper than all the kids at Spinner's end combined, he supposed it was an open secret between them; Tobias did it.

His father would come back from the pub reeking of week old sweat and beer and then he would pounce on her like a predator all the while whispering cruel words into her ear. Severus would be stood at the top the creaky staircase, his pupils blown wide and his tiny fists clenched in anger but paralysed with inaction. Tobias's hands knew no limit when it came to Eileen, he found it quite pleasing to treat body like a wet rag. His feral grin seemed to widen every time his hands wrapped around her bony wrist. He pushed and and poked and prodded at her till she was incoherent and her incessant pleas slurred. He was resigned to beating the magic out of her. Severus's eyes would well up in frustration, his teeth grinding against each other as he wondered why she would not just take her wand and fling him across the room in one swift motion. The thought echoed around his skull for most of his childhood.

He thought about his father's death as he brewed his own poison. He wondered why his mother was so crushed by it, why she remained immobile and refused to get out of bed to wash or eat or why she knelt day and night at the alter near their bed, a Christian cross clutched tightly to her chest, why she prayed to a God she did not believe in much less had any faith in, why she never got rid of his work boots or why she made sure to set the table for three at tea time. He asked her one warm summer night as they sat on wicker chairs watching the dazed mosquitoes lazily circle round the clearing.

Her response had been short, clipped: “He is my husband.” He also wondered why he never confronted her about it, why he never got up and threw a fit. Why was she talking about a dead man like he was alive? Why did she pray for him night and day? Why did she never pick up her wand? Severus had a lot of ‘whys' he wanted answered but he loved her more than he hated him so he never insisted.

He was currently standing at the dingy stovetop he used to dangle his little legs over. The kitchen window rattled with the force of December winds, the mesh curtains, a peculiar design choice by his mother, billowing aggressively. His fingertips had gone numb from the cold, his hands rendered awkward and stilted as he found it hard to manoeuvre the stirring spoon. The rest of his body was not fairing any better; he shifted from one leg to another in a desperate attempt to find a comfortable position. His thin cardigan did little to keep the frost from seeping into his bones, a blush had quickly spread to his cheeks and the tip of his nose.

The crispness of the air made every breath sting, his chest heaved with the effort to stay up, he had been shuffling in front of the stove now for most of the day. The clouds were closing in on the sun and the air was more unforgiving than ever. The kitchen was now bathed in blue, the orange flame on the stove now stark against the hue. Severus's attention  was now all on the embers, his pupils widened to accommodate for the tiny kaleidoscope before him. His mouth hung slightly open as he took in the scene before him, a small moment of beauty, so tiny and so fragile and only his.

His lips quirked up in one corners as he moved to extinguish the flame. The steaming cauldron now simmered down to a viscous liquid. He wondered if it would be uncomfortable to down but he supposed it did not matter much, he had lived his short life in a state of perpetual discomfort so what was one last moment before he kicked the bucket? 

He took a deep, steadying breath. He couldn’t afford to have his hands tremble when he poured the liquid into the small glass vial. He thought about Lily as he watched the potion drip into the vial, his eyes glazed over and his mind completely shut off. He wondered if he'd be standing here, pouring a suicide potion into a drinking vial, if she'd forgiven him for calling her that godforsaken word. He supposed so.

He wondered if he could have seen her graduate Hogwarts with all O's or tie the knot in that wedding dress she'd had her eye on since she was a ferocious red-headed  first year. He thought about her kids and what they might look like if she married that dimwit Potter or what Lily and he might have looked like if they had grown old together as friends, their hair and teeth sparse and far inbetween and their eyes wrinkled from decades of laughter. He chuckled bitterly at these thoughts and shook his head gently as he watched the last drops fill the vial.

This minuscule vial was going to be his demise.

He had collected the ingredients from the forbidden forest over the weeks leading up to Christmas break. He would lie rigidly in his dorm bed until the clock struck midnight. He would hurriedly untuck himself from the emerald green sheets and slip into a tattered robe. His socked feet making no noise as he padded down the long, swirling Hogwarts stairs, all the while ignoring the withering stares of the moving portraits. Once he made it to the forest, he would carefully manoeuvre his limbs so as to not disturb the variety of creatures slumbering. They had an unwritten agreement; they would not harm him if he did not harm them. Simple as that. He would collect his herbs and make his way back sheepishly to his dorm to receive the few hours of rest he could manage. He would stash the herbs under the thin mattress and then slip seamlessly in just as he slipped out.

December 24th, 1978

Like many other industrial towns before it, Cokeworth, having peaked in the fifties, was now wracked by a long procession of poorly built houses, sagging under the weight of the freshly fallen snow of last night. Its residents held a general air of misery, though justified as they had spent decades in its infamous coal mines and gotten little out of it except for a rampant cancer that had killed off half the town's population by the age of fifty. It had become an unwritten rule amongst the residents to not discuss the matter or connect the dots because then they’d have to come to terms with the injustice they had suffered  and those topics were better left untouched. And so they went on with their grey lives, finding occasional reprieve in the greasy pub by the corner or the hymns and chants of the town priest at Mass, their rosaries clutched to their chests and their mouths spilling a tune they did not understand.

Spinner's end was located at the edge of Cokeworth, completely indistinguishable from the rest of the town till the walls started sagging under the weight of Tobias's anger, Eileen’s hopelessness and Severus's melancholy. The house withered away over time till all that was left was the moth-eaten furniture and the bitterness of the residents. Despite several attempts at trying to get him to agree, Severus had refused to invite Lily over. The red-head was far too pure to be tainted by such things. He wanted her to continue living in her utopia of fashion magazines and muggle books, lest she be disgusted by him. He was far too proud to show her any of what was going on in that house of horrors.

Severus had woken up at dawn to pray at the altar at the edge of his bed. His life had always been a conflicting tug of two, his magic and his religion. Although magical folk did not believe in God or Christianity or Catholicism for that matter, Severus found it hard to shake off the habit beaten into him. He had grown up Catholic, a heavy wooden cross rested on his chest at all times. He stopped wearing it when he was back at Hogwarts out of a crippling fear that Potter would snatch it or do blasphemous acts with it. Potter was a pureblood and therefore would not comprehend the importance of religious paraphernalia. Severus doubted he even knew of the existence of a “God" and so he stashed it in the first drawer of his splintered bedside table along with his rosary and leather bound bible. On this day however, the raven decided to wear it on his neck, the wood a comforting weight on his chest, right above his heart. A step closer to God until his final act.

Shortly after his prayer, Severus got up on creaky knees and headed towards the kitchen for cleaning supplies. He started off with his sorry excuse for a bedroom. He rounded up all his records; Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Beatles and labelled them in bright red letters “FOR MUM". Aside from potions, Severus had inherited his love for music from his mother. Oftentimes they would sit together by the kitchen table as a classical record spun on her dusty record player as unsaid apologies and frustrations merged with the dramatic violin and flowed through them and for a split second, they'd ascend to a place far away from Spinner’s End, a place so irrefutably and completely theirs where Eileen did not have to hold up an ice pack to a bruised cheek and Severus did not have to pretend not to see it. 

He put the labelled box at the centre of the freshly made bed and made quick work of emptying out the rest of his worthless belongings in a black trash bag. He lowered himself to his knees once more and began scrubbing the stained floorboards, the scent of bleach worsening his dizzy state. He oiled the wooden floor so that it would regain the shine it had when they first bought the house. By the time he got up to draw the curtains open to let in light, he had beads of sweat running down his face and strands of hair sticking to his neck. He was finding it increasingly difficult to stay up and so lowered his body completely, sagging against the edge of the bed as he fought to regain his breath. 

The day was spent scrubbing, dusting, mopping and washing the house from top to bottom to make it clean for his final day. He even went out to the little garden his mum had stopped tending to since his father’s death and plucked a bunch of flowers to decorate the dreary house.

He went to the kitchen, now bathed in a golden hue from the winter sun,  and pulled everything from the fridge. He then proceeded to prepare an assortment of food. He laid out the mushroom soup, custard tarts and chocolate filled eclaires on the wooden table and sat straight to devour them. Severus’s never ate much at school, even during the feasts, he knew he'd have a hard time keeping it all down if Potter and his friends decided to mess with him, which they frequently did. They'd filled his pumpkin juice with toad slime during 4th year which led to a humiliating visit to Madame Pomfrey. He always avoided her because she made him feel as if it was his fault he was in the med bay. She would shake her head in disappointment and tut at his wounds and send him off with a withering glare as opposed to the marauders who were received with warm smiles and motherly hugs. It infuriated him to no end but he kept his mouth shut because there was no point in trying to convince her that no, he was not a future death eater and no, he did not do anything to deserve this maltreatment. People like her always had a hard time believing him and it just frustrated him so much so that he felt he was ripping part at the seams.

This day, however, he ate to his heart’s content as Mozart's Requiem reverberated through the tiny kitchen. He dusted himself off and packed up the rest of the food leaving a little note behind for his mother to find: “Heat up the soup for 3 minutes and let it cool down for 1. Enjoy".  

He rinsed his hands shortly before padding to the old bathroom. The floral wallpaper had a yellowish hue to and the edges had  started to peel. He sat at the edge of the clawfoot tub as he watched the tap gush his bathwater. He shed his tattered clothes and lowered himself into the lukewarm water with a serene sigh. His head felt fuzzy as he traced random patterns onto the edge of the tub. The only sound that could be heard in the silent bathroom were the occasional drips of water from the leaky faucet. 

He thought about doing it here. He thought about submerging himself and never coming back up for air. He quickly shook the thought out of his head. He did not want to make a mess. He did not want blood splatters or water splashes or a rope dangling from the ceiling; it would be too much of a burden for the people who were going to remove his corpse. He was going to pass cleanly, without any fuss or struggle.

He had gone out the previous day to buy an assortment of hygiene products ranging from expensive shampoos and body washes to intricate hair styling creams. He figured he would spend the last few galloens he had earned doing entitled pureblood Slytherins' homework on something for himself. He worked the shampoo into his hair as he watched the sun's rays tilt and distort against the water's surface. He submerged himself entirely to wash out the suds and came back up renewed.

He dried himself and sat before the vintage mirror his mother had come to adore over the years. Severus inspected the reflection closely. He raised one pale hand and traced his face from the top of his forehead to his chin. His hand found his hooked nose and his breath hitched. He had inherited his nose from his father and had always hated the fact. It was his most conspicuous feature, the subject of many taunts at school and the source of his refusal to stare at a mirror too long. The longer he stared, the easier it was to morph into his father.  
He picked up his wooden comb and began running it through his hair, the bristles getting caught up in a tangle every once in a while as the faint hint of lavender flooded the bathroom. His hair was another thing inherited from his mother. It exceeded his shoulders and was pitch black in colour, a sharp contrast to his pallid complexion. Although he found it quite charming, it was the subject of many taunts at school with James often labelling it as greasy and basing all his other clever nicknames for Severus around the fact. Now that he had put it through a good wash, it seemed reinvigorated, shining against the soft pastels of the walls. He began braiding the thick strands with patience and tied off the ends. He let two front strands fall against his face and dried his hands on a towel.

He had also picked up a pair of expensive dress pants, a white button-up and new dress shoes at a fancy shop in Knockturn Alley. The shopkeeper’s face twisted into an expression of what could only be disgust when she saw him walk in. This did not deter him in the least and he looked her dead in the eye as he dropped five-hundred galleons on the counter, money he had spent sleepless nights earning, writing footlong parchments of essays. The Slytherins usually regarded him as invisible, only acknowledging him when they wanted their schoolwork done or whenever they fancied a torture session.

He buckled his belt and swiped his hands over his body once more. This was the neatest he was ever going to look. His hair was in a flowy braid and his clothes had been freshly pressed and ironed. He looked healthy, rejuvenated and ready to die. He wanted to pass clean and respectable. After a life of much humiliation, he was justified in seeking a dignified death, even if it was at his own hand.

He walked towards the wicker chairs that had been collecting dust outside, the witnesses to many uncomfortable silences overlooking a green field that stretched out for kilometres. He lowered himself onto the splintered one and settled with a sigh as the wind spun the notes and melodies of a Queen record round and round the clearing.

The sun had started to rise, a canvas of orange against the pale winter sky. The warm rays bathed him for a last time. Severus always felt that mornings carried an infinite sadness in them; the sun would rise, set and rise again. There was no point in which it would stop and breathe, the world went on, even as he struggled to keep up with it, his feet blistered and heart aching and it would continue to go on even as he passed, even as the earth consumed him and the rot settled in and even as every trace of him withered away. And why should it not? 

He unearthed the potion vial and downed it.

Severus just hoped he wouldn't smell when his mother found him.

The effect was almost euphoric, it was as if every nerve ending of his had been exposed and all that was left was colours. His eyes drooped as a lazy smile settled on his face, the two unruly strands of his hair billowing in the harsh wind. His lungs had expanded to house a big breath and his head spun as his fingers started twitching. It was like the world had narrowed down to his little corner at Spinner’s End. 

His head flooded with thoughts, like a wave crashing against the shore, retreating and coming back with full force and he was floating in the middle, unable to drown  and unable to crawl back to shore.

He mind swirled with thoughts of his mother and the countless silent nights spent brewing by the kitchen counter, her shawl an ill-attempt at hiding the bed sores and cigarette burns, her laboured breaths deafening against the quiet kitchen. He recalled her slender fingers buttoning  his crisp white shirt and black trousers as she readied him for church every Sunday. It was his only pair but she made sure to wake up an hour before he did to wash and iron every stubborn stain and wrinkle on it so it always looked as good as new. His mind travelled back to yesterday this time, when she was bidding him goodbye because she had finally mustered up the courage to visit an old witch she had befriended back at Hogwarts halfway across the country. He was so truly happy for her that he could have burst at the seams.

He thought about Lily. Lily, with eyes wide as the sun and hair so red it burned his eyes. His mind went back to that day her parents had taken them to the big lake by their house. He remembered her dress as if it happened yesterday; dark green that sparkled against her fiery head. He remembered how the water lapped against their feet, the sound of crashing waves drowning out their giggles. They must have been ten at the time, now that age seemed so far away to Severus. He was a mere sixteen years old and the emptiness he had stuffed in a faraway cupboard in his mind as a ten year old had now metamorphosed into an inescapable beast.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head, the whites entirely visible, as if a demon had taken hold of him. His mind swirled with flashes of red hair. He saw a bony hand reach out to him. He heard his fathers boisterous laughter echo in the few cubic centimetres of his skull. He saw the shopkeeper's wrinkly hand. He saw Malfoy's toothy grin as he yanked him by the lapels of his school shirt, whispering taunts and a miscellany of slurs he couldn’t even begin to uncover. He heard a distant howl and shivered. He saw Potter's slender fingers encase the cassette player before hurling it at the lake. He imagined himself sinking much like that player.

With a shuddering breath, he felt his body go rigid. His hand, heavy as a boulder, clutched at the cross lying unassumingly on his chest. Every nerve ending was alive with light as his body unravelled completely, his limbs stiffening and his breath hitching for the last time.

..........................................................................

Severus Tobias Snape passed on a cold morning on the 24th of December. His body, taken in for examination by the healers that had arrived on the scene immediately after, having been alerted by a disruption in the magical energy of his district, had been confirmed to have shown signs of an overdose of Felix Felicis. It is said that a drop more than the recommended amount would send the consumer into paralysis and shortly after, death. 

Eileen had just been returning from Mrs. Mallows house when she spotted a black shapeless figure. She could not decipher any expression on his pallid face as she bounded the steps of the raised foundation upon which he sat, her movements awkward and stiff in the biting cold.

She could hear faint traces of a Queen song echoing. It made sense, Severus had a strange affinity for the band, though one would never expect such stiff, cold person like him to enjoy the band's flamboyance.
She hobbled over the stiff figure of her son on the chair and called out in a strained voice for him. Between being locked up in her room all day and having Severus at Hogwarts for eight out of the twelve months of the year, her voice had withered away with time and it took a hefty effort to restore it to its once timbre quality.

“Severus?” the skinny witch asked. He was silent, but that wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for the young wizard. She was no stranger to silent spells, she had had enough of those in her time.

Her feet staggered two steps closer to the rickety chair, making no noise so as to not disturb him in case he was napping. She asked herself why he would be napping in the cold at this time of day but quickly shook the creeping thought away; her suspicious mind had a tendency to reach the most macabre conclusion and she had the tendency to always be right.

Her mouth dried at the sight. He was stiff as a rock and his lips had taken on a sickly blue hue. Right then and there, her nose had registered the scent of Rue. It was overpowering in its entirety. Rue did not usually have such a pungent aroma, it was added in small quantities because an overdose was deadly. She distinctly remembered Professor Slughorn chastising her for being too generous with the Rue when they brewed it in 6th year.

"Miss Prince, I sure do hope you are aware of what an excess of Rue can do to a potent potion such as this one. You'll be dead before you can even utter the words 'liquid luck'. Let this be the only time lest you end up behind the veil tomorrow."

“Severus”, she called out again, her voice breaking in-between each syllable. Her chest constricted and her throat had closed up, it felt as if a she had swallowed a boulder and it refused to come out. 
A shaking hand reached out to touch the young wizards face, the lanky fingers cupping his face. Severus ran cold most of the time due to his skinny stature but that day felt as if the little heat he stored had dissipated from his body and flooded the earth below. 

Eileen had lost her voice that day calling out for her son. The Aurors that had found him had reported that she was found alongside him, clutching at his bony body and stroking his hair rapidly, the sobs and shrill calls for her son reached them kilometers away. 

The lead auror on the case reported having to physically detach her from the young wizard's corpse as an incoherent string of sentences flew out her mouth at lightening speed. The image of her limbs thrashing  every other way and her mouth foaming with spit had been burnt into his retinas and he was sure he would never forget it, but what he most distinctly recalls are the haunting melodies of the thin record filling the silence that was left after Eileen had been subdued with a tranquilizing potion.

..........................................................................

James Potter had spent a large portion of his winter holidays at Hogwarts plotting another intricately designed prank with his friends. They had decided to stay at Hogwarts that year because it would be their last until graduation and they wanted to take in the school that they had spent a majority of their adolescence in. Up until the 25th of December, he had not thought of Severus Snape except for when they decided they needed a victim.

So it was not much of a surprise to the little students that had decided to stay at Hogwarts for the Winter holidays that his face had become ashen when he read the news regarding his victim's untimely death.  

From the information that was gathered from the onlookers, nothing seemed out of the ordinary that day as James Potter had entered the great hall, Black and Lupin behind him (Pettigrew had been forced to return to his grandma's cottage), to begin his Christmas Feast which was not particularly interesting to anyone.

He had been laughing boisterously with his gaggle of friends, as he usually did, when the owls began dropping in, dive-bombing past each other in an effort to reach their owners. James had just begun to unclip the newspaper from the snow-white owl when he felt the hall go silent. They had apparently beaten him in reading the day's news and were now all sending each other cursory glances.

James face was the picture of an amalgamation of confusion and hesitation as he unfolded the neatly folded issue of The Prophet. His eyes perused the text multiple times before he registered the words on the page: 

TRAGEDY STRIKES SPINNERR'S END

Severus Snape was found dead at his childhood home of Spinner's after overdosing on Felix Felicis (also known as Liquid Luck).

The sixteen year old wizard was found by a team of Aurors due to an unexpected disturbance in the magical field around the neighbourhood. The team reported having to administer a sedating potion to the boys mother and physically remove her from the scene as she 'muttered hysterically' to herself.

Mr. Snape's untimely death was ruled a suicide by the investigators as all evidence (autopsy results) points to a voluntary overdose of the deadly potion.Theories of the tragedy being an accident were quickly shut down by the Deoartment of Magical Education as Mr. Snape's records show impeccable results thereby eliminating the question of a badly brewed potion.

The student's mother, Eileen Snape, has refused to speak with any reporters despite numerous attempts from the latter. The auror investigation team have stated that they will be opening up several social programmes related to teenage suicide and have requested the sympathy of the public in these difficult times....

The world around James had contracted and twisted itself and caved in upon him as his eyes perused the paper. His vision had gone blurry halfway into reading the paper, the words jumbled up and the letters hopping from one corner to another, swirling into tiny, indecipherable blotches of ink. The hand grasping the paper had gone white at the knuckles as he tried and failed to control his breathing. His chest heaved in a failed effort to take in air, it felt as if there were no more oxygen left in the world for him. The ringing in his ear had been increasing steadily till he felt like there was a swarm of bees buzzing around in his head. 

“Prongs?”, coaxed the scarred boy next to him. Moony was the best of them. His affinity for books and reserved demeanour made up for his intimidating tall stature, gangly limbs and scars that stretched from his forehead down to the chin. He'd broken out of his skin and returned to it so many times  that he was not phased by much anymore. Transforming into a bloodthirsty beast every full moon did that to a person, much less having Snape discover him that day. So what if he gained a silent appreciation for the boy for not having spoken a word to anyone about a werewolf on school grounds? It made much less sense than having him banished from school grounds and wizarding society as a whole.

James failed to register the words of the tall boy. His head felt entirely too heavy for his shoulders. He let out a short breath, the only sign that he was alive and breath. The whole world had come to a stop in his little corner at the Gryffindor table.

James’s thick brows furrowed as he cast surveying glances at his schoolmates. His brain was muddled, his friend's faces had contorted into varying expressions, the most popular one being hesitation.
He had just learnt of his schoolmates death. The schoolmate he had spent his entire school career picking on. 

Sirius balked. He couldn't think of any reasons that would cause his friend to look like he had just ran a marathon.

“James what’s going on with you?”

The bespectacled boy swallowed loudly.

“Fucking hell mate, you’re sweating buckets", Sirius loudly exclaimed. His face was etched with exasperation as he snatched the paper, now wrinkled from Potter's iron-clad grip on it, and examined it.
The contents baffled him. How could snivellous of all people have killed himself.. From what Black knew, the skinny boy had been far too resentful to end his life as abruptly as he did, he wanted to join the Death Eaters, hadn’t he? Black was so sure that the raven would end up as another one of the Dark Lord's bootlickers, that any other conclusion seemed laughable to him.
“Well, that’s proper fucked", the black haired heir muttered to himself as he sat back down, his hands flying to support the shaggy black head in a crossed position. “I have to say, wasn’t expecting the little bugger to actually do it. Pity though, I had an impeccable prank planned for graduation”.

Remus turned to him with his eyes ablaze. “Would you just shut the fuck up for once in your life Sirius?”, the werewolf hissed.
Remus had to admit that the black-haired boy sometimes enraged him. Where Remus would be concerned about his grades and future, the latter would be plotting the next prank on some innocent student.
Black could ramble all day long about how he despised his family and that they were, as per his words, “piece of shit blood purists” but he was still a Black at the end of the day and there was nothing akin to Black pride in this world. 

The most ancient and noble house of Black.

Sirius came from a long line of nobility, achieved through a protective layer of apathy and coldness, rising through the ranks of wizarding society and eventually establishing themselves as something more than human. Magic was in its purest and most powerful form when it danced in their veins, essentially putting them, as they believed, above others.

He talked, walked and even ate like a Black, one could even say that the only thing severing him from his family is his affinity for rebellion; they were too prim, too proper and he was a wild fire, uncontrollable in its entirety and unconforming. Padfoot would sit for those long family meetings and social affairs Walburga deeply enjoyed in his uncomfortable robes, listening idly to some git drone on about the rise of a new Dark Lord, a new era in the wizarding society then immediately go up to his room to flip through muggle motorbike magazines.

Muggle interested him, sure they were pathetic and often helpless at times but that was no reason to go about slaughtering them, is it? His mother seemed to think otherwise. Muggles and muggleborns disgusted her at best, enraged her at worst and Walburga’s rage was like no other. Sirius himself had been the recipient himself for many years before the insufferable arguments got to him and he took off for the Potter's, leaving behind a slew of insults that hung heavy in the air and a burnt off name on the family tapestry, courtesy of Walburga's slender wand and proliferating rage.

James was overjoyed to have Sirius stay with him but later on he would learn that the other boy was not much different from the Slytherins they provoked in the halls. He still grinned like a rabid dog anytime he sniffed out Snape in the halls and James swore he once heard his friend call him “Nothing but a pitiful half blood”. The prank he played on the night of the full moon was enough proof that the black heir still carried a hint of the infamous “black madness” other purebloods liked to discuss in dark corners.

He laughed and laughed as James's chest heaved, trying to steady his shaking hands in Dumbledore’s office after having rescued a terrified Snape from the werewolf's clutches.He had actually come close to killing Snape. The git was unlikable at best, detestable at worst but surely taking away his life was not justified? 

James thought of the look of absolute pleasure on Sirius's face that night, the toothy grin he kept flashing as he rambled on about how stupid Snape was and that surely he could not have fallen for such a dangerous joke. 

Snape had suspected that Remus was a werewolf for a long time, he just had to see it with his own eyes. As much as he hated Lupin for his cowardice, he was fascinated by his condition and wished to develop an anti-werewolf potion, one that would make life much easier for the likes of Lupin. It was a great opportunity and in hindsight should have seemed stupid to take on but Severus was nothing if not determined. And so he went and was unsurprisingly paralyzed with fear as Potter snatched him away from the beast. He had handed over his life to Potter that day, courtesy of Dumbledore and his proposed Life Debt all while Black's laugh echoed in the recesses of his mind.
It had taken a lot of time and meaningless apologies for Sirius to be tolerated by Remus after that day. Even now as they sat in the Great Hall, just having been notified of Snape's death, he still could not brush off that boiling anger and resentment he had developed for his friend after that night. The night where Remus laid in bed, frigid with fear that he might have taken another life as Sirius came barging in the room, his boisterous laughter bouncing off the infirmary’s walls. 

Despite the various conversations had with Sirius, he could not be convinced of the fact that what he did was “proper fucked” in James's words. He genuinely saw it as a joke and it would remain that way to him forever. So what if he took it a little too far? It excited him and gave him something to do when he was bored.

Bored.

A bored Sirius was a dangerous Sirius. 
Sirius Black doesn’t experience boredom like other people do. He absolutely abhors it, down to every last nerve ending. It claws at him and weighs him down heavier than any boulder ever could. It crawls underneath his skin and buzzes with impatience, often sending him into fits of rage. The first-year Gryffindors knew to avoid the common room whenever Sirius was afflicted with these fits. They'd come in after one of his infamous tantrums and everything would be in tatters, pillows thrown and parchment torn into a million minuscule pieces.

Everyday was a test. A new experience. A way to see how far he could go to satisfy his boredom without crossing a line. 
James's stomach churned as he tried to take in Sirius's words. He loved the dog animagus with his whole heart. He had even gone around parading him as a brother and vowed to never leave his side in a spur-of-the-moment display of adolescent melodrama. 

Sirius's words sickened him, the pumpkin pie he had been scarfing down up until a few minutes ago was threatening to come back up. James swallowed thickly before standing up and all but sprinting to the bathroom. He pushed open the stall door and stuck his head down the toilet boil, all his stomach's contents now floating in the porcelain bowl.

It was getting increasingly more difficult to breath, his hands flying up to claw at his neck, his fingernails drawing blood. His pupils had dilated to the size of dinner plates his stomach roiled once more, sending the panicking boy into another vomiting fit. This time, it was nothing but bitter bile that came up, some of it slumbering on his mouth. 

His brief, panicky breaths transformed into full on hyperventilation as he tugged at his tie. Just then, he heard the stall door being forced open and felt himself being dragged away from the porcelain bowl as a dainty hand pulled him in roughly by the collar.
Lily let out a venomous snarl as she pushed him up against the porcelain tiles of the wall before grabbing his face in one hand and smashing the back of his head into them. A deep, sharp pain penetrated the back of his skull, the bones rattling in their place. He swore he could actually see the blood pool in her eyes as she forced him to look at her.

“YOU FUCKING DID THIS.”, her breathing was rapid as she spat the words in his face, her voice cutting through both their heavy pants.

Lily’s fist collided with his nose and with a sickening crack, blood began to spurt out like a fountain. His vision had gone a hot, searing white as his hands flew up to meet the broken cartilage.

“YOU FUCKING RUINED HIS LIFE.”, her voice had cracked as her fists continued to collide with his face. So much of the warm sticky liquid gushed out that it was almost impossible to tell where it came from. He could physically feel the bruises forming as blood pooled and coagulated in all his extremities. 

“YOU GODDAMN BASTARD”, another punch, this time to the stomach leaving him doubled over in a blooming pain.

“I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU JUST LIKE YOU KILLED HIM", this time a kick to his face. He was now on the floor in a neat little bundle of blood. The warm liquid had started to seep into the cracks of the bathroom tiles. He felt blood bubble up in his throat, trying to escape so he titled his head to the side and sputtered it out, the substance now coating every inch of his body. His glasses had fallen at the very first punch and now lay shattered by his equally battered  body.
The thought of using a wand to hex the living daylights out of James had not even occurred to Lily as her knuckles continued to tear as they collided with his bloody face. Just reading the first sentence on that bloody paper had sent her into a spiral, her head swam with unanswered questions until a screeching thought had come to the forefront of her mind. 

James did it. He had managed to make Severus's life so suffocating that he felt he had no way out but this one.

She had had her fair share of fights with Severus, eventually cutting all ties with him after he called her that filly word. She was not angry at him for it, she was disappointed that the smartest person she ever knew would utter such filth. Severus was as composed and clever as any student their age could be so it was quite a bit difficult to ignore his slip up. Besides, tensions were rising within the wizarding world and getting caught up with a potential Death Eater would only lead her to an early grave and with that she walked away from the scene of her friend’s humiliation. She was too young to give him grace for something he said in his weakest moment and it gnawed at her at every second, a dark pit in her stomach, growing larger by the second.

But the love remained and she found that she did not mind. The love was there but it didn’t save them. It didn’t magically patch up the open wounds nor did it make the scars disappear.

Her clothes were now splattered with James's blood but she found that she did not care or she was too out of it to care. Part of her liked it. Magic was powerful but nothing compared to feeling the boy's nose shatter at the collision of her fist. Her fury was immeasurable, so much so that it couldn't be subdued by a wand, a mere hex or two to make the boy suffer. She wanted to feel the press of her body against his as she tore into him, the heat of his blood as it coated her limbs, the sound of his brain rattling in his skull as she smashed his head repeatedly against her knee.Remus was the first to find them. He had gotten up intending to check on James after the latter fled the scene. Sirius went right back to inhaling his lemon tart as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
The werewolf's ears had picked up a series of grunts emanating from the bathroom. It took him only three long strides to barge in and discover the bloodbath that had been occurring while he was in the hall. 

James was unrecognisable. His face had swelled to the size of a cantaloupe. A bloody cantaloupe at that. The boy's long limbs were splayed out on the floor like pieces of meat at a butcher shop as Lily tore into him with the force of a lion.

Remus ran to stop Lily's assault on James. He clutched at her arms in a futile attempt at paralyzing her, which proved to be a difficult task as it only earned him an elbow to the stomach. 

Lily thrashed and bit and kicked in his arms as he struggled to pull her off the now passed out boy. She was now vibrating with anger, sending shockwaves to Remus as he clasped her hands and put them behind her back. 

Her legs thrashed and flew all over the place as she spat profanities at the unconscious boy. It was as if the red-head's brain had switched off, leaving only her corporal faculties alive, which at that moment, had wanted to tear James from limb to limb, like a rabid bear.

Her breaths came out in wheezing gasps now, as if her throat had turned into a whistle. Tears spilled uncontrollably from her eyes, blurring her vision so that she could not decipher who was James and who was Remus. Her voice had gone hoarse now and the profanities turned into whimpers and gasping breaths.

“You fucking killed him...”, her voice had trailed off to a whisper now, as if coming to some kind of realization.

“You did this to him, you caused all of it...”, another whimper. Remus found it easier to hold her off now, seeing as her limbs had gone slack. Her eyes were now half-hooded and red-rimmed, the white grates of her teeth grit against each other.

Just as Lupin was about to drag her away from the bloody mess she had caused, he heard the clatter of hurried footsteps making their way to the bathroom. “Shit.”, he muttered to himself. “What have you done Lily?”. Lily gave no response has she continued to gasp for air.

The door to the bathroom once again flew open. This time, it had been Professor McGonagall who had discovered the trio, all in various states of distress. She gasped, speechless, at the sight before her before using a levitating spell to escort both James and Lily to the infirmary, muttering a deadly “I’ll deal with you later Mr. Lupin” and taking off, her robes billowing behind her. 

Lupin stood still, paralyzed with fear at what he had just witnessed. This somehow, seemed even more gory than his monthly transformations and that was saying a lot considering that during said transformations, his body would tear and repair again in its entirety.

In the furthest recesses of his mind, he entertained the thought that he deserved the beating, not James. Because not doing anything was worse than doing something. 
He could have done something, anything. The rest of Snape's life might have turned out differently if he had, but he did not and it was now much too late to rectify his cowardice. 

Cowardice had always followed him around, from his young years to his formative ones. It clung to him like a bad smell and no matter how much he tried to rid himself of it, it would not budge. No matter how many conversations he had played out in front of the mirror or how many breathing practices he did, he could not utter the words out loud. Then he’d go home and ruminate on long past conversations that he had fumbled or silent body signals he had missed and bash his fists against his head. This made his brain rattle in his skull which in turn made him panic at the thought of permanent brain damage which eventually lead to him lying in a foetal position on his bedroom floor, hyperventilating into a brown paper bag. And so the cycle continued until something or the other interrupted it.

This took a toll on him physically and mentally but it did not sting as much as seeing Snape the week after the incident. He had been walking favouring one leg over the other, and his eyes had been flitting about the room constantly, on high alert. Remus had nearly killed him that day so his behaviour was a bit understandable, that he would be very anxious because at that point, he believed nothing was off limits for the so called marauders.

It felt like a hole was opening up in his chest.

Chapter Text

James later awoke to the sun's harsh rays descending upon him like a scorned beast, dotting his vision and burning into the sterile sheets. The infirmary was warm, hazy and James felt it too demanding to move his bruised eyes away from the spot on the stone wall he had been watching for the past five consecutive minutes.

“Oh, dear", he heard Madame Pomfrey mutter to his right. He heard the ruffle of her various skirts get increasingly closer as she approached him warily, her footsteps light so as to not disturb him. He internally scoffed at the thought of deserving any kind of peace after the news that had just broken.

The mediwitch stopped at his bedside with a tray-full of potions, some taking on a sickening greenish hue and others plain and colourless. “Lily's done quite a number on you hasn’t she?”, she muttered, partly to herself as she worked on separating the miscellany of potions. He gave no reply.

“Here, drink this, it'll ease the pain”, James heard her whisper as raised the foul-smelling potion to his chapped lips. He turned his head away, his eyes tightly shut, blocking out the world and all its miseries. He couldn't bear to down the thing, knowing it would erase any trace of his pain. He wanted to feel it. He wanted to feel the sting of guilt he had worked so hard to avoid any time his eyes met Snape's.

“Oh dear..”, she trailed off, shaking her head. She crossed her wrinkled hands neatly on her lap and began, “I won’t pretend to know what happened out there Mr. Potter or how you’re feeling at this moment but what I do know is that you can't regrow your bones without at least a bit of pain relief.”, she ended by raising the potion vial to his lips once more. This time, he downed it without protest.

The potion’s side effects were felt immediately. The pain subsided into a dull ache and rendered him sluggish. He lowered his head onto the pillow once more, sinking into its softness with a relieved sigh.
Everything went dark.

His whole body shuddered.

James's eyes flew open. He blinked away the drowsiness caused by the foul-smelling potion before he registered a familiar voice.

“James...”, the calm voice seemed so close yet so far away. He turned his head to the source.

Snape.

Snape?

James's breath hitched. He was here.

Severus was here. He was alive and calling out to him.

His eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“Severus...”, he whimpered, his voice pleading, for something, anything from the boy in front of him. He didn’t know what he wanted from him or why he was calling out in the first place. Maybe he wanted Severus to fill the sinkhole that had been rapidly forming in his chest or maybe he wanted an acknowledgement.

Severus’s body seemed to waver, shimmering. A spectral. His face was blank, a calm expression that James hadn’t been able to recognise had been etched onto his ethereal face. His pale skin had taken on an almost unreal tone, flawless. His hair was different from how James remembered it; greasy and unwashed. Snape now wore his hair in a soft braid as he stood at the edge of the bed. Watching, waiting.

James choked on a sob. His arms lay uselessly by his side, they felt heavier than boulders, the toned arms that he had used to win Quidditch and to woo girls had now failed him.

Another sob had escaped, they were suffocating him now. He concentrated all his willpower into lifting his hand. He reached out for Severus.

“Please...", another plea escaped through the deafening sobs, for what? James was none the wiser.

“Come back...”, this seemed to get a reaction out of the boy in front of him. Severus titled his head to the side, as if utterly confounded by James's question, as if it was something so completely out of the realm of possibility, it was laughable. His eyes had even widened a little.

The bed-ridden boy had at this point been crying rivers, his tears and snot mixing together to smear across his face. His eyes were blood-shot and he was having a hard time stifling his sobs.

“Come back to me...please...”, another choked off sob shook James's figure.

The two boys were inches apart but James felt as if they were light years away. Severus was in a different place now and deep down James knew it but he failed to accept the fact. The utterly crushing and demoralising fact.

“James...”, Snape whispered again, his words now increasingly slipping away from James's range of hearing. The latter barely registered it before letting another whimper escape.

“Stay...please...come back..”, another gasp, “and stay this time...”. “Come back to me...”.

Snape merely looked puzzled at James's pleas, as if the latter had been speaking an alien language, indecipherable and completely new to him. His face contorted into an unreadable expression as he moved farther from James.

James’s knee-jerk reaction was to reach out to him but when he went to grab him, there was nothing.

James awoke once more with a gasp, his eyes frantically darting around the room. He fought for air as his hands thumped on his chest, trying to get something, anything. The infirmary had emptied out at this point, the only other occupant having pulled their curtain so as to not suffer any awkward encounters.

He laid down on the bed once more, now thoughtlessly gazing at the spot Severus has been in.
He looked so real. So human. James felt as if he could’ve reached out and touched him. But he couldn’t and James didn’t want to admit how much disappointment the fact had brought him.

Severus had uttered a total of two words during the potion-induced dream but had communicated a thousand to James. He said his name like a question or a mantra and yet a prayer at the same time.
James felt as if they had had a million conversations between them, a million emotions exchanged and even more grievances.

Just then, he heard Madame Pomfrey come in once more by the sound of her skirts. She approached him warily and once ensuring that he was wide awake began furiously fussing over him, fluffing his pillows and checking his bandages. James stayed silent throughout this whole ordeal. Yet again, he couldn't bear to say anything.

“Glad to see you’re awake Mr. Potter, I was beginning to worry to tell you the truth, you’ve been sleeping for ages.”, she ended her rant by shaking her head, seemingly exasperated by his affinity for ending up in her infirmary.

She raised her eyes to look at him with a fondness she reserved especially for him.
“Did you sleep well, my boy?”, she looked at him expectantly. She was already used to his many visits and the interesting stories that came along with them, today should be no different, she thought.
James was still boring holes into the wall and barely registered her inane question.

“No.”, he stated bitterly, closing his eyes for a brief moment. Just to shut out the world, if only for minute, so that he could pretend all of this hadn’t happened and that Snape was alive and well, still being the resident dungeon bat he had deemed him.
“Oh well, that was kind of expected if I’m being honest. The pain reliever that I gave you has a few unpleasant side effects, one of them being unusual dreams, I’m suspecting you had those?”, she asked sympathetically.

James nodded in response. He was too tired to actually give a proper verbal answer.
The mediwitch was just about to exit the infirmary before he stopped her in her tracks.

“Why aren’t you speaking about him?”, he asked her simply, his voice low and teeth grinding against each other, as if wanting to spill way more than he was letting out. James could not make out her expression clearly but he could tell that her shoulders had tensed. Good. He was tired of her skirting around the issue like it was something unimportant and unremarkable.

“About who Mr. Potter?”, she replied with a question that aggravated him.
“Snape. Severus fucking Snape. The student that killed himself yesterday whom I believe you’ve tended to many times. So why?”

“I don't believe speaking about such matters with a student is in any way appropriate Mr. Potter. I am not a mind healer, therefore I won’t pretend to know why Mr. Snape did what he did and I certainly won't discuss it with a student. But I want you to know that I am saddened by his death just as much as the next person and that I won’t ever forgive myself for missing the signs”, she finished her monologue just as tears started to collect in her eyes. She quickly wiped them away with the back of her hand and cleared her throat in a manner that suggested that the conversation was over.

“I’ve given you various portions that have helped speed up your recovery so I believe you should be well enough to attend the Christmas feast, that is, if you wish to.”, and with that she promptly left.

James dressed in silence, the ruffle of his freshly laundered uniform (courtesy of the elves) the only thing disturbing it. He felt the familiar tightening in his throat again, a ball of pent up frustration fighting its way to the top.

The trek to the Great Hall was hellish. Not only was he still feeling the dizzying effects of the pain reliving potion, he also did not know why he was even going to the feast in the first place.

It was Christmas and Snape was dead.

New year’s would come, then he'd graduate, become an Auror, get married, have kids, live out his life and Snape would still be dead.

Severus Snape will be seventeen forever.
..........................................................................
The Great Hall had been completely transformed in honour of Christmas Day. Moat wizards do not celebrate Christmas but Dumbledore thought the muggleborn and half blood students would appreciate a taste of something familiar.
The dizzying effects of the potion made it hard for James to register the two dozen Christmas trees lining each wall, all that could be deciphered was a line of gleaming lights, burning a familiar ache into his head. A miscellany of flashy lanterns and tinsel hung precariously over the students' heads. James could make out a few Ravenclaws huddled together, whispering about something he could not care less about.

He staggered towards the table and collapsed on the nearest jovially decorated bench. Just then, his ears picked up the unmistakable ruffle of Dumbledore's flashy robes sweeping through the hall and settling on the head table.

The old wizard was the picture of innocence as perched on the decades-old chair reserved for the headmaster. His eyes met James's foggy ones just as he clinked his glass goblet, effortlessly silencing the rowdy hall. The familiar twinkle was replaced with a solemn mutedness now, once again twisting James's stomach into a complicated knot.

“ If I may have everybody’s attention please... Yesterday, we lost one our most diligent students. Severus Snape was one of the most hardworking and dedicated people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I still recall the day the sorting hat placed him in Slytherin. I still laugh about it to this day because that was the moment I realised that Hogwarts was about to witness something it had never seen before. And it did. Severus Snape had been the top-scoring student in all of Hogwarts up until his last moment. I remember his confidence and assurance in himself as he told me that he wanted to earn a potions mastery and go on to open his own apothecary. At just the young age of twelve, he was so sure of himself that it was almost laughable. He wanted to be someone great, someone who would change the world with his potions and more. And I have absolutely no doubt in my heart that he would have gone on to become the finest potions master if there ever was one...had he not left us so early. But I want you all to remember him by his soul, his fighter spirit and not by the actions of his weakest moments.”

Dumbledore’s voice cracked at the final words, a rare sight for Hogwarts' normally composed and jovial headmaster. The wrinkled eyes that usually held a twinkle were now glossed over, a sheen so bright it made his eyes look like glass spheres embedded into empty sockets.

James couldn’t breathe.

It felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his body and the hall itself. He stood up shakily and staggered towards the gigantic doors, his hands working overtime to support his trembling frame. He didn't know where his feet were carrying him or how he was going to get there but his utmost concern at this moment was getting access to some oxygen so it didn’t really matter.

Before he knew it, he was on his hands and knees in the middle of the astronomy tower gasping for air. The overstimulation coupled with the untamed hair sticking to his forehead had him going haywire, his eyes nearly bulging out their sockets. His hand had formed into a fist that had been repeatedly banging against his chest for the better part of his stay at the tower, willing his chest to open up.

Severus wanted to be a potions master.

The thought beat around and echoed in his head till all that was left were those seven words.
James eventually collapsed against one or the pillars, his back sliding down the rough stone dramatically. His breaths still came in short spurts but he was finding it a tad easier to compose himself.

Potter never put much thought into his emotions, considering he had grown up in a happy healthy home, he almost didn’t have to. His parents had been present and supportive every step of the way, anything he asked, they provided and if they refused, it was for a good reason.

His mother and father were not all that interested in arguing or fighting or going through the negative, yet natural motions of married life that everybody and their mother droned on about. They moved in tandem and peace, a general air of indifference and quiet content hovering around them, which was a given if one were to consider the security and stability they had built for themselves.

Any other concept was difficult for James to understand because he had been brought up in a bubble of his own, shielded from the pessimism and harsh realities of life. Granted, he was not completely unaware of the injustices of life, considering he had suffered some in his lifetime but said injustices only extended to McGonagall giving him detention for a prank he had not participated in or his father fulfilling his regular parental obligations by taking away his wand for blowing up the fireplace with it.

This, naturally, meant that James Potter had never been met with much adversity in his lifetime thus leaving him much the same as his parents, not exactly gushing with happiness but a buzzing contentedness. This fact made it especially difficult for him to recognise stronger emotions or think further than what his plans were for tomorrow. It also gave him an undeniable charisma and a zest for life trademarked by him and only him.

The invisible barrier that his parents, peers and even his teachers worked so hard to protect shattered before his very eyes as he leant against the stone wall, fighting for breath. And because it had collapsed so suddenly, he did not know what to do with himself or where to go.

Severus's death hit him like a freight train. It was something so out of the realm of possibility for him. It almost seemed impossible that Snape would follow any other path than the one James had destined for him. It seemed a natural means to an end for Snape to die a snivelling cowards beneath the Dark Lord's feet, anything else was laughable to suggest. The sad thing is, James was not the only person at Hogwarts to assume this future for Severus, it was his teachers, his peers and even Dumbledore.

Dumbledore, the wise headmaster that had spent James's entire time at Hogwarts telling him that help will always be offered at Hogwarts for those in need. The words seemed almost childish to James now, an empty sentiment repeated to scared first years.
As James sat on the dusty floor of the tower, he wondered why Severus was not offered the same help Dumbledore spoke so surely of. He thought about the number of times Severus had been punished and the number or times he and his friends had been punished and it seemed so silly to him now; how vehemently he would fight against Severus's imagined evil, his alleged bad intentions and all those accusations his friends liked to throw around without any proof to back them.

He threw his back against the wall, the impact resonating in his skull. James tried to come up with a reason as to why he had behaved the way he had with Severus. To him, Severus had always been a natural enemy. He targeted the boy for being too close to Lily, which he found threatening because James being James, had the biggest crush on the girl and made it known to the entire school.

Even later on, when Severus was far away from Lily after their fall out, their only form of communication being cursory glances towards each other, an invisible act to the rest of the school but a heart-wrenching gesture to the two doomed friends, James didn’t falter. He still managed to get under the raven’s skin, wayward insults and well-aimed hexes.

Now, as he sat here, head in hands and chin nuzzled to his chest, it seemed so silly, so childish, so stupid it almost hurt him to think about. Entertaining the thought that Severus might have killed himself due to completely different reasons sent another pang of guilt to James's chest because it seemed as if he wanted it to absolve him of his sin.

James’s thoughts were scrambled and for the first time in his life, nothing could comfort him. Not the thought of graduating or becoming an auror or even winning over Lily and starting a picture perfect life with her.

He inhaled a big gulp of air and stood up shakily. He swiped his hands over his face, momentarily composing himself to face the outside world. The cruel world beyond the tower that had abandoned Severus, the one he was expected to live in and surrender himself to. James was going to go out and pretend like a sinkhole hadn’t opened up in his chest the minute he had read those cursed words.
The trek from the tower to the dormitories was as painful as it was long. The stars were shining brighter now, their light casting eerie shadows as he crept along the now desolate halls, the portraits all staring at him pitifully. Every step he took weighed on him like a boulder and every reminder of Severus tore at his heart, the lake visible through the Victorian windows he had humiliated Severus in, the whomping willow Sirius had lured the raven into, the door to charms classroom he had hexed Severus silly in. James could picture these events so clearly and while he usually would have laughed at them with his friends, they now only served to worsen the knot in his stomach. It was not funny anymore. Any joy he might have found in recalling these incidents had been replaced with a sickening disgust.

Once he reached the bright crimson dorm, he collapsed on the couch by the fireplace, exhaustion seeping into his bones, sending pangs of pain through his limbs. The bespectacled boy’s eyes glazed over, staring at nothing in particular. His mind was racing and he was loathe to admit that he could not stop it. He let the thoughts of Severus wash over him like a wave as his hands drew mindless patterns on the throw pillows.

He eventually went upstairs and threw himself onto the awaiting bed, his friends already having been in deep sleep by the time he got there. Just as he was about to doze off, the day’s events weighing heavily on him, a sharp thought came to the forefront of his mind. Severus's funeral. His breathing sped up again as he curled into a foetal position, willing the sleep to come and claim him again, send him into a world where he was not obligated to speak or think or do anything really.
..........................................................................
Scotland got really cold in the winter and sitting on a train for hours on end was starting to weigh on James. The passing greenery flitted past his very eyes as he leaned into the window, his cheek resting on his palm. The compartment was silent aside from the occasional rustle of a page being turned by Remus.

They had both not said a word to each other for the better part of the day, except for when James pleaded with Remus to accompany him to Spinner’s End as his frame shook with nervous breaths. The former had also begged Remus to not bring Sirius along because he could simply, in his own words, not bear it.

“Please...do not bring him, he wouldn’t understand and I cant bear it. He's like a brother to me, you know it, I know you know it Remus, I just need you to promise me that you won’t say anything because he just wouldn’t understand.”

Remus had hesitated for a brief second before registering the look on James's face. His eyes had glazed over, his hands curling into shaking fists.

“Please...”

Lupin nodded sympathetically and immediately pulled James into a bear hug, a rarity for someone as aloof as himself.

Remus had quickly scrawled a few words explaining where the were going to both their parents before sending them off with James's owl. They were both gone before they could receive a reply.

Now they were sitting in uncomfortable silence as Remus pretended like James's behaviour was totally normal and that no he wasn’t acting irrationally by ambushing Severus's poor mother at her own son's funeral due to his overflowing need for closure. Remus knew James like the back of his hand so he refrained from speaking further. The situation was complicated and for the first time in his life, Remus was unable to make sense of it or come up with an excellent solution that would leave everybody content in the end. That’s what he was, a fixer and now he was quite frankly feeling useless.

The bespectacled boy didn’t speak of his emotions like other people did but Remus noticed early on how it worked for him. For the most part, James was quite happy, if not a bit hyperactive but on the very rare occasion that he wasn’t, all hell would break loose. The boy felt everything too deeply, to the point of mental decline at times. If one of his friends was mad at him, he would quickly lose his breath and apologise repeatedly until said friend had reassured him that they had accepted his apology. Any negative emotions would eat at him, unsettling him to the point of physical discomfort. He saw everything as black and white, good and bad. There was no middle ground and this mentality, Remus concluded, is what made him such an ass to Snape and put him in his current dilemma. Suffice to say that the prank almost put James into a comma.

The train came to a halt with a deafening groan. The few people that had rode with them quickly spilled out, leaving only the two of them. James fiddled with his hands before taking a deep breath and disembarking along with the rest of the students, Remus following wearily after him.

Lupin made quick work of hailing a taxi to take them to Cokeworth, the driver looking at them suspiciously before muttering to himself and speeding off. Remus was unable to figure out how James had discovered Severus's address but he kept his mouth tightly shut considering James's fragile state at the moment.
The road to Cokeworth was as depressing as it was long. The cab driver kept sneaking glances at them through the rear-view mirror, trying to figure out why two posh boys would be going to such a dilapidated area. Of course, James took no notice of this as he was too busy watching the grey houses pass by, the wind occasionally whipping his hair the opposite direction.

Cokeworth was unlike anything James had ever seen before, patchy paintwork and decrepit houses littered the neighbourhood, every single one of the either missing a door or a window. Not to mention the smoky smell that had buried itself in every nook and cranny in the neighbourhood, sending jolts of nausea up their throats. James had read up on it the night before boarding the training; mill town. Cokeworth was a mill town, that explained why Severus always smelled like that every first day of school.
..........................................................................
“You sure this the right address Jamie?”, Remus asked carefully. James had been staring the splintered door for the better part of an hour now, waiting. For what? Remus was none the wiser. His eyes darted from the door to Remus and from Remus to the door about a billion times before the werewolf nudged him towards the steps leading up to the greying house before them. “How about you just knock, I’ll be right here beside you”, Lupin's words seemed to restore confidence in James as he took a deep inhale and knocked lightly on the door.
Silence engulfed them in a suffocating bubble. The hairs of James's nape had stood at attention, waiting for anything, a faint sound or a loud crash. Just anything.
Nothing came.

James tried again, this time more hurried, his breathing was getting faster and his knocks more frantic. “Mrs. Snape?”, he asked warily. Again, no reply came except for the faint sound of dogs howling from afar.

They waited with in silence with bated breaths. Remus was too afraid to break it lest he send James down a mental spiral again. The winter air had rendered their fingers numb, James's hands now aching as he banged them against the door. “Please..” he muttered to himself.

“Maybe we should leave Jamie, nobody’s answering and it’s getting really cold, I don’t think it’s safe to be out here any longer. Let’s go back.”, Remus carefully suggested, his eyebrows slightly furrowed in worry.
James swung his head to face him, teeth gritted and eyes watery. His eyes had widened to an unimaginable size as he furiously inhaled and exhaled.

“Please Remus, I can’t give up. I can't give up on him. Go if you want but please don't stop me.”, James fists had tightened to an almost unbearable level, his breath hitching on sob. Remus felt a pang hit his chest, how could he deny James, the purest and most loyal person he had ever met, his request? The realization struck him like a thunder clap; James would rather die than leave without something to satiate him, something that would put his mind at ease, assuage his guilt. This would eat him alive.
“Alright, I’ll wait, we'll try together”, Remus muttered reassuringly. James sagged in relief at the words, giving the werewolf a wet smile. The bespectacled boy encased his hand in his own and squeezed tightly, a silent thank you. They were still standing at the decrepit door, cheeks stinging from the biting air. James looked at it with a renewed sense of hope, he was going to talk to Severus's mother today and nothing would stop him.

James knocked once again and the door swung open, startling the two boys and revealing a ghostly-looking woman, her hair curtaining her sallow face. James felt his stomach drop, she looked so much like Severus. The eyes, the long, black hair, the wispy frame, the high cheekbones, the bony hands, everything. James felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs, leaving only a pulsating muscle aching for more. Looking at her was painful because if he looked long enough, he could almost pretend that Severus was the one staring at him suspiciously.

“I see you've not given up... who are you and what do you want?”, her voice was quiet, so low that the boys had to strain their ears to hear. She looked as if she had just been woken up from a long slumber, her eye bags stretching kilometres. The half-hooded oh-so-familiar onyx eyes surveyed them, looking for a clue as to why they were standing at her door in negative degree weather. Her frail body shook, the white night gown she had been wearing doing little to insulate her from the biting cold.

“Mrs. Snape.”

“Ms. Prince.”, she corrected Remus sharply.

“Ms. Prince...my name is Remus Lupin and this is James Potter, we were Severus's classmates...”, Remus supplied. James looked as if he had just been stupified, his mouth hanging open, body frozen, either from the cold or from not knowing what to say in such a moment. Remus was having a hard time keeping it together, Snape's mother looked exactly like him and those onyx eyes had just brought back a wave of unpleasant memories.

The witch looked them up and down again, scrutinizing them for more information. “What do you want?”, she cut through the haze, straight to the point. The boys blanked. What did they want? They just showed up at a random witches house expecting her to welcome them with open arms. James, in particular, was floored. The look on the witch's face unsettled him, she did not want him here and he could understand why. Her teenaged son had just killed himself and now two boys she has never heard of show up at her door, waiting to be let in.

Remus snapped back to reality faster than James, who had been standing like a deer caught in headlights for the past minute. “We just wanted to offer our condolences ma'am, we know it probably hasn’t been easy since...you know...”.

“Since my son killed himself.”

Remus sputtered while James, who had been slowly building up the words to talk, was rendered silent again, his words shoved back down his throat. The Welsh boy swallowed loudly, breaking the tense silence that had enveloped them.

James side stepped Remus and all at once he spit out his first sentence. “We want to offer our condolences...”. The witch seemed taken aback by this, though the only hint of this being a twitch of the eye. As far as she knew, Severus did not have friends. He could barely stand being around other people, let alone have two friends after Lily. This sparked a twitch of curiosity in her, it also brought a touch of relief. She had been searching high and low for anything about Severus, trying to understand why he did what he did. Now, these two young men were in front of her silently pleading to be let in so she gestured for them to come in, opening the door wider.

The house, though visibly old, was clean. Not a trace of dust or disarray, which is what they expected upon entering considering the current situation. Eileen led them to the living room, the flowery wallpaper doing little to hide the creeping desolation.

Remus and James sat on the larger sofa, the springs digging into their thighs, while Eileen settled with a heavy sigh on the blue armchair before them. The room was quiet except for the faint sound of a church bell ringing in the distance, though this was only familiar to Remus, having endured countless nights kneeling by the family altar before bed and then being woken up by a devout Christian mother to go and kneel again at the Church altar. A few minutes passed in an unyielding silence before either of them spoke, the words lodged in their throats, suffocating them slowly.

Eileen’s eyes darted between the two of them, a heavy exhaustion prominent in the hunch of her shoulders and an almost painful looking furrow in her brows. Her chest moved in slow, little motions, as if the simple act of breathing was taking a toll on her – James could relate. Remus looked around wearily and began, “I...uh...well...we actually, we want to say sorry for your loss, we know it mustn’t be easy to deal with all this...ahem...”.

“All this?...”

Remus felt as if he was communicating with a brick wall, Eileen’s face had contorted into so many indescribable expression, it was getting increasingly difficult to tell which was which. Her open-ended questions were also tying a knot in his stomach and skirting around then would not do much good considering they showed up at her house unannounced.

“Go home, Remus", James piped up, after having been tracing patterns one of the old throw pillows throughout he whole ordeal. Remus blanked, hadn’t James begged him to come with him to meet Severus's mother? Remus felt a hot rush of annoyance, he didn’t know what was going on with James or why he had dragged him away from Hogwarts for this little visit but he quite frankly did not care anymore, James was obviously frazzled and Remus did not have the mental capacity to deal with the fact. He figured the bespectacled boy would at least know how to get himself home safely and with that final thought, he chucked his coat back on and made for the door.

The door closed with a resonating bang and they were both left in silence yet again. These silences were starting to take a toll on James, he wanted to speak, say something, break something, literally do anything but he was paralyzed, his limbs heavy from the cold or disuse, as if they had been chopped off completely.

“How did you know my boy?”, the innocence of ‘my boy’ astounded James. Now that he had come to think of it, Severus was just a boy, no more than a sixteen year old boy that the world had deemed a vicious death eater. Eileen's words struck a chord in James, Severus was a boy and would continue to be a boy for the rest of eternity.

“I am...uh well...I was Severus’s classmate", James replied, the reality of the situation hitting him like a freight train. His thick winter coat was starting to suffocate him, the warmth a claustrophobic feeling rather than a comforting one. His face was flushed, from embarrassment or shyness or nerves, James didn’t know. All he knew was that Eileen's face now held a longing gaze, her obsidian eyes boring holes into him and he couldn’t breathe.

“Were you his friend?”, Eileen enquired innocently, her expression hopeful. James wanted to dig himself a hole and crawl into it. Why had he come here? Why was he so adamant on meeting Severus’s mother? What did he want out of this? He wondered if maybe this was some kind of messed up atonement ritual he was putting himself through. He figured that even if it was, he deserved it. His perfect life had unravelled before him in the span of two days and now he was faced with the cutting truth. The sugar-coated years he had lived now seemed like a sickly sweet fairytale. A war was brewing within the halls of Hogwarts and all he had done was turn his head away, choosing to pick on the kid that needed help the most during these turbulent times.

All those times Lucius Malfoy had encased Severus's nape with his large manicured hands, all those hisses and insults he threw at him, all those whispered threats and thinly-veiled contemptuous remarks that had slithered from his mouth, James turned a blind eye. He placated himself with the thought that Severus wanted it, he wanted the glory of being a death eater, he wanted to hurt muggleborns and climb up the rotten social ladder of pureblood society and James often made fun of him for that, not knowing that with each taunt, Severus was getting closer to the edge, with each cruel laugh, Severus was tearing apart even more.

James snapped back to reality, his train of through dissolving into an acidic sludge of negativity in the back of his mind. He had been staring at the wall behind Eileen for the better part of a minute now and Eileen was getting confused so he figured it was best to give her a quick reply, however much it ate at him to lie to this poor lady and tell her that he had actually been more of a tormentor than a friend to Severus.
“Yeah...kind of. I mean, yes.”
“Oh...”.

Chapter Text

“You know, to be honest, after Lily....I didn't think he would make any more friends. He was always like that...quiet, reserved. It’s hard to believe he talked to people at all.”

Her tone remained whispery, detached. It seemed as if she had an invisible shield around her, effectively shunning any emotional input and blocking any output. The silence around them had eased. She quickly realised that James would not be speaking much, whether that be from shock or necessary respect for a grieving mother, she did not know. And so she got up from the creaky armchair and started to ascend the spiral staircase – equally creaky and mottled with holes in the rotting wood.

“Come.”, she instructed him, relieving him of the awkwardness of trying to figure out why she was walking away from him. He quickly got up and followed suit.

Each step was like walking on squeaky ducks, the damp and unoiled wood sagging beneath their combined weight. He turned his head to see that she was already making her way to a closed forest green door.

Dread filled his stomach. There was no expression or metaphor or clever adjective he could come up with to describe it. It was pure dread in his stomach, threatening another hurl fest, his stomach's contents threatening to make their way up again.

Sev’s room. That was what his mother had called him, wasn’t it? Not Severus, not Snape, not Snivellus. Just Sev.

She nudged the door open slowly, the hinges teetering on the edge of collapse, corroding away with the rest of the house.

Her socked feet hesitantly crossed the threshold, her whispy dress billowing in the breeze from the open window. And suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, her eyes widened, an unexplained look of horror creeping around the edges as she turned her gaze to the window, glaring at it as if it had been the one to kill her son.

“No....oh no...oh God no...”, she frantically muttered to her self, her pitch getting increasingly high, as if reciting a mantra. Her feet staggered towards the window, making quick work of slamming it shut, her breaths coming in gasps now, relief flooding her system.

“What happened?..”, James’s question came delayed, his frame frozen in place, not a hair out of place, scared of how she might react if he even moved so much as an inch. Clearly, she was uneasy. Panicky a more suitable word to describe the frazzled woman before him.

Eileen's head hit the wall next to the window, a strand of hair cutting across a prominent cheekbone. Her legs wobbled beneath her weight, now sagging with relief.

“His smell..”, she huffed. “His smell was gonna leave.”
A wave of understanding washed over James. Of course. His smell. Her son’s scent. The son she had carried for nine months and birthed. Maybe the only thing she has left of him. She got up and composed her self before briefly stating what James had already concluded.

“This is Sev’s room. Was.”

Her arms remained rigidly crossed as she looked around. The room was spotless. The floorboards, unlike the rest of the house, were evenly swept, oiled and did not squeak in protest at each step. The wrought-iron bed before him bore no signs of sleep or disruption – neatly made; just as everything about Severus always suggested, whether it be his schoolwork, uniform or demeanour.

James once again took a sharp inhale. Why was she showing him this? Why hadn’t she sent him on his way already? What exactly did she want? Or more precisely; what exactly did he want?

“He cleaned it and the whole house before he went. Left everything spotless.”, she had her head down, as if to prevent James from seeing the tears building on the corners of her eyes. She sniffled and raised her head once again, her eyes now suspiciously reddened.

“I thought you might like to see it is all. Get a proper chance to say goodbye. He was your friend after all.”
James almost collapsed right then and there, his insides twisting every which way. How could he stand in front of this poor woman knowing that he was everything but a friend to her son? That he was, in fact, worse. His breath hitched before a small “thank you” escaped his throat.

“Come.”, she uttered again. She led him down the creaky stairs again and to the sitting room. From then on, she started rummaging around the bookshelf. Her calf muscles strained as she stood on her tiptoes, her hands searching for some mysterious item. She huffed in relief as she finally managed to secure it, resting the soles of her feet on the floor again as she dusted off a cardboard box. She led him to the couch once again, taking a seat on the armchair before it.

“When Sev was going into his first year, he was so nervous about not seeing me and, to be honest, I kind of was too that we decided that instead of sending letters, we'd find another form of communication and because Sev's father wasn’t very fond of magic, we couldn’t use the floo network, so we settled for this.”, James listened intently as Mrs. Prince fiddled with the peculiar rectangular objects. The bespectacled boy noticed an entire assortment with messy lettering on them. He wracked his brain for an explanation as to how these muggle objects could be used for communication and came up empty.
“What are they?”, he inquired, barely able to contain himself.

“They’re tapes, Sev and I would record them at the end of each week to keep up with each other’s lives.”, she sighed sadly.
“Record?”, James asked, the picture of confusion on his face.

“Oh right, you're a pureblood. Well, muggles have these things called cameras which are used to preserve moments...kind of. They capture light from a scene as it passes through a small opening, which is a lense, and focuses onto a surface. Cameras can either capture photographs, which, unlike wizards, don't move or videos which are technically a sequence of images changing really fast, creating the illusion of motion. These videos are then stored on a tape such as this.”, she explained briefly, her breath running out by the end of the sentence.

James’s mouth hung open, the onslaught of information struggling to penetrate his cloudy mind. Mrs. Prince apparently took this for amusing confusion and gestured at yet another peculiar object he had missed, quite indescribable but he guessed it was the camera they had used to “record the tapes".
“These are some of the tapes Severus sent me throughout the school year. It’s not all of them. Some have been misplaced and others damaged. My tapes, I’m guessing, are still at Hogwarts. I suppose they’ll return them to me when they clean out his things.”, she smiled sadly, lowering her head to focus on organizing the tapes. She cleared her throat and stood up to dust the soot from the ancient box off her long dress.

“I’ve played these a thousand times over already, just taking him in...it feels like he never left.”

“Here. I want you to have these. You were his friend after all. Besides, I’ve got copies.”, she gently handed him the box, a hopeful but sad look in her eyes, glassy. Just as Sev's onyx eyes looked that day. The invisible knife lodged itself deeper into James's chest, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. A wave of shame washed over him. Pure, unadulterated shame. Shame at having lied to this grieving mother. Shame at having tormented her son. Shame at daring to show up on her doorstep seeking closure when he knows that even if he had lived a million lifetimes, he would still not deserve to see those tapes. He accepted the box with a watery smile and a hoarse ‘thank you'.

They spent the next hour on the floor of the sitting room, Severus's mother teaching him how to play them on their ancient TV as James's brain melted into a puddle of confusion. Muggles, despite not having an inkling of the magical ability wizards have, could sure as hell build some of the most confusing contraptions he had ever come across.

It was nearing night time and Mrs. Prince’s mouth had gone dry from rattling on about the inner workings of the muggle paraphernalia in front of them. “Its getting late and I doubt there'll be any cabs round here at this time, you can stay in Severus's room.”, she said as she stood up to arrange her dress once more. James immediately got up to refute. Just as he was about to explain that he did not want to be an imposition and that he should probably apparate, the words came tumbling out her mouth, effectively silencing him.

“The funeral is in a couple of days, you should attend.”, and with that she turned her back to him and climbed up the wooden steps once again, holding onto the splintered banister for dear life.

James stood still, the house swirling around him, a whirlpool of emotions attacking him at the same time. He found it hard to register the words. Funeral. Severus's funeral. He should attend. The words mashed together and floated around his mind. Severus will be dead in the ground in a couple of days. And he will attend. He wondered how many people would attend, then guessed that it probably won’t be a lot. Immediately upon thinking of that vile fact, he shut his eyes tightly, that all-too-familiar wave of shame washing over him again. The boy’s body hadn’t gone cold yet and here he was, demeaning him yet again.

He swiped his hands over his face, the exhaustion finally settling in after the day he had had. He thought about checking up on Remus but quickly pushed the thought away. Nobody could handle themselves better than Remus. He was the most responsible out of all of them. He’ll be alright. And with that thought he began ascending the steps towards Severus's room, each one weighing heavily on his mind.

The room felt different now that he was the only one present. His nose twitched at the scent of old books and peppermint. That was what Snape had always smelled of, he could never pinpoint it but it always nagged at him. A very unlikely combination. The pale green wallpaper, dotted with tiny, imperceptible flowers glowed in the moonlight, the curtains had been pulled back, letting the weak light flood the room.

The invisible dagger twisted into James's heart further, his stomach rolling at the thought of sleeping in Severus's room. He didn’t think he could bear it. The smell, the look, the ever-present feeling like Severus was still in the room, his ghost moving up and about. The wrought-iron bed looked uninviting and cold, as if reserved for Severus, his presence being the only acceptable one.

He quickly lowered himself to the spotless floorboards and unclasped his shoes, removing them off his feet with a relieved sigh. His back hit the end of bed, resting rigidly against it, he could not bring himself to even sit on it. Severus left it a certain way and he was not going to mess with it. The bespectacled boy’s hands had been fiddling with his trousers, the expensive material wrinkling from the sheer grip. He glanced at the box of tapes once again, his brows furrowed as a mental battle went on in his brain. Mrs. Prince had spent the whole day teaching him how to work the TV so that he would be able to play the tapes. The woman seemed barely able to stand on her own two feet and she took the time out of her day to teach him, painstakingly at that. There had to be a reason. She wants him to see those tapes because she thinks he deserves to, what with being Severus's ‘friend’ and all. She wants him to have a piece of Severus always, just like she does.

James sighed in resignation before picking random tape labelled ‘FIRST YEAR', the feminine hand writing stark against the white. He slipped it into the empty slot and waited with bated breath, his hands tightening into fists by his side. Merlin, he had waited so long now it almost seemed like an eternity.
The screen crackled to life as flashes of light sporadically appeared, the ancient television booting up.

Severus.

More precisely, a first year Severus in his too-big, washed out robes. His features stood out against the dark green back-drop of what James guessed was his dorm bed, the heavy ancient curtains enclosed around him. His eyes were widened, giddy with apparent excitement or nervousness or a cocktail of the two, James could not tell. His signature black locks remained the same as ever – a deep contrast to his pallid complexion.

Severus shifted this way and that on the bed, eventually settling for a criss-cross position as he fiddled with the camera, the frame disorienting James as the first-year boy tried to position it correctly. Having settled on levitating it with a quick charm, the camera now steadily focused on Severus, his lanky arms retreating to tuck in a rogue strand of hair.

“There we go", Severus muttered to himself.

James’s stomach dropped.

So young. So childlike. So innocent.

“Hey there.”

James's breath hitched. No. No. No. What?

Severus was looking at him, he was smiling at him, his overcrowded teeth shining in the best way possible. James's heart almost leapt out of his chest. The bespectacled boy's chest heaved again, the weight of Severus's grin washing over him like a wave, igniting every inch of his soul. Alive again.
The image on the screen was grainy but oh so bright. Severus sat there, looking much like a spectral, the pixels enmeshed within the screen, twinkling with each movement. He was so close yet so far away. James wanted to reach out and touch him, feel him, do anything. His hands had already been outstretched, as if acting on instinct. His deft fingers traced the glass screen, static crackling beneath them. The disappointment in his chest grew and metamorphosed into a hungry, dejected beast.

He knew Severus was in his own realm, somewhere far away, imperceptible to him and others but vast and beautiful - he hoped. He knew he would never return. He would never get to do the things he wanted to do. James just hoped he was happy.
“This is awkward huh?”, Severus's whispery voice inquired once again, twisting the knife deeper into James's heart. “It’s my first time working one of these alone after you taught me, it’s kind of weird talking to myself.”, he huffed in amusement. James gave a watery smile, the tears threatening to spill over, clouding his vision. Severus’s image now wavered, bent out of shape from the moisture glistening in James's eyes. The latter quickly wiped them away, disliking the all too consuming sensation.

“We just got done with the sorting. Bloody hat tried to put me in Ravenclaw. Couldn’t stand for it so I gave it a piece of my mind.”, the raven spat, a hint of pride lacing his accented words. James let out a startled laugh, his palm hurriedly clamped against his mouth. There goes the brummie accent James was all too familiar with. The proud eyebrow raise. That familiar sneer of mild disgust. James did not think he'd ever miss it. They were all insufferable up until a couple of days ago but now all he wanted to do was reach out and yank Severus out of that bloody screen. Have one more argument. One more duel. Once more to see him...

The boy on the screen lowered his head, transfixed by the material of his trousers, picking and tugging at the loose threads. His hands seemed to tighten around the rogue strings before he lifted his head once more, a grimace taking the place of the previous Cheshire grin. His eyes bore holes into the camera as they stuck onto it like glue, never wavering, as if plucking up the courage to mutter something. The black of his irises sent goosebumps erupting all over James's tan skin, a sea of black that he could get lost in.

A breath. And then, “These boys on the train...uh...they kept – they kept saying that Slytherin was bad and evil and that only dark wizards and witches came out of there.”, the boy finally spit out, his hands flaying wildly above him, trying to muster up the correct words to describe the interaction.
James took a sharp breath. He knew exactly what the little boy on the screen was talking about. First day on the train. James and his new-found friends strolling in with the confidence of a pride of lions. Sirius and he clicked instantly over their childish admiration of Gryffindor; the former's born out of a deep hatred for the bigoted pack of Slytherins back home and the latter's simply because it was the “right place to be", a Potter tradition. James followed tradition while Sirius steered from it. They then went on to adopt the scarred boy and the pudgy one alongside him, forming an unforgettable union.
James liked to remember that day with fondness. It was the first time he had seen Lily. The red-head captivated his little childish heart instantly, with her fiery temper and odd accent. He recalls Snape sitting next to her, enraptured by the potions book in his lap, as quiet as a mouse, a haunting spectre and that was all he was ever going to be in James's mind, wasn’t it? A mere shadow, an obstacle in his way, a filthy plaything he could entertain himself with every once in a while.

Severus's role in James's life had been minor, unimportant, passive. It did not matter if Snape was in the hospital wing throwing up slugs while James was knee-deep in a new prank or if he was limping in the hallway on his way to class while James drunkenly recounted the cause to a raving group of Gryffindors. It did not matter if there was a war brewing just outside Hogwarts walls or even within them or that Snape was getting sucked into its tight grasp while James rode brooms with Sirius. It did not matter at all.

That day on the train must have been horrid for Severus. His clothes, his hair, his accent. A rush of memories overtook James. His accent. The accent he had not heard after that fateful day when he and his gaggle of friends plunged into fits of laughter at Severus’s harsh syllables and elongated vowels. The harsh lines of his mouth, so old for such a young boy, that appeared when they declared their simmering hatred for Slytherin. The flushed cheeks as he fought to regain composure. Every aspect of his laid out bare and dissected by a group of children as he sat watching his own carcass be devoured by cruel retorts and snorts of derision from people who just happened to have more privilege than him. He wondered if he would have been this cruel if he afforded it.

And now here he was, nervously asking his poor mother if what they said on the train was true, silently begging for a reassuring word, a laugh of amusement that would wash away all the humiliation his little body had endured. It seemed to be a wake up call for him, an erasure of the utopia he had imagined Hogwarts to be. How tragic. That he would continue to be himself. To live in that body. To experience the world differently from his peers. To be mocked and ridiculed not only by his classmates but life itself. It all seemed like one big elaborate prank on him, just like all the others.

Severus learnt early on that poverty came with a macabre brand of humiliation. One that would stick to the frayed edges of his second-hand robes and the roots of his greasy hair. It followed him around like a shadow. It balled up in the deepest pits of his stomach and it oozed out of every pore. It was not merely his clothes or shoes or hair. It was in his very being. His existence screamed of destitution. His gait, his accent, his hands, his feet, his nose. They all screamed of inferiority. He tried to hide it. He polished his shoes and hand-stitched his robes when they stretched thin. He fixed his posture and walked with his head high, looking down at people below his nose. He ate calmly and little. He even sheared the tips of his hair when it got too long for his liking. He practiced his posh accent every night before bed, casting a silencing charm over the curtains lest he be caught talking to himself in disjointed phrases. The whole school thought him a mad man already, no need to add fuel to the fire. He carried himself rigidly, a cold indifference permeating from his every pore.
This, however, did little to eradicate his nature entirely. He still foamed at the mouth with rage whenever Potter and his cronies approached him. His strong sense of justice used to paralyze him some days. He could not fathom a lack of consequences to their actions because when it came to him, he received his due punishment, and was even expected to take it in silence. By the end of every week, his palms would have crescent-shaped scars, a testament to his nails burying themselves into his skin and his jaw would be aching from clenching it too tightly. This physical display of his anger landed him the very clever nickname of ‘Snivellus’, one that would stick with him throughout the rest of his school career.

How dehumanising it was. To have people laugh at your anger and frustration. To have it be the source of amusement for the entire school. Especially as a child. An impoverished one at that.

He learnt that even children could be cruel that day.

He was painfully aware of how uncomfortable his mere presence made them. Like an itch that they couldn't scratch. It made him want to crawl out of his skin and into the earth below him, where he would be swallowed up for all eternity. It seemed to be a prevalent feeling amongst adults as well. They would look at him pitifully, an eye sore in their midst that they could not avoid being responsible for. This mild content for him flowed through the school's veins, often manifesting in pointed fingers and cutting glares.

People always assumed the worst of him. His peers, his teachers and even the neighbours who would meet up at the pub, whispering tales of his abnormality and scrunching their noses in disgust. His Hogwarts professors had taken to penalizing him for the slightest mistake, often exaggerating them in order to make him scrub the potions cauldrons or sweep the transfiguration classroom. And it wasn't like he didn't try to better his situation, Lord above knows how many crooked smiles he had flashed them or how long he spent on his essays, the long stretches of time passing by like molasses as he scribbled his thousandth word. This all served to make him even more pitiful, the humiliation of trying often gnawing at his chest as his eyes stung from the potions fumes emanating from the cauldrons they made him scrub again.

Lucius Malfoy did not make it any better, constantly badgering him about a meeting with the Dark Lord. Severus had lost count of the amount of exaggerated conversations about him that would flow through the Slytherin common room. Whispers of his ability and tales of his magic spread like wildfire and this excited his peers, it seemed to make a switch flip in their heads, making them halt in their step at the very mention of future meeting. Somehow or somewhere, he had gotten roped into their exchanges, promises of power and triumph over his bullies tempting him for a while before he became disillusioned with a half-blood leading a blood supremacist political group. It was almost laughable if it did not make the whole school spit their thinly-veiled venom directly at him instead of whispers behind his back. It was like the whole world had sat aback with bated breaths, waiting for him to fall in and prove them right.
Snape? The dungeon bat? Of course he would join the death eaters! It was the natural order of things, something inevitable.

James sat limp on the floor, the rivers flowing silently from his hooded eyes as his hands lie on his crossed legs. There was nothing left for him to say or do. But by God he wanted to. He wanted to go back in time and fix it all. Restart things from the day on the train. To tell Severus that it does get better and that a vial of enhanced liquid luck won’t make it so. To tell him that he is so, so young and that a bright future awaits him, that he could become the best potioneer the wizarding world had ever seen. To grab him by the shoulders and shake sense into him.
But most of all, he wanted to apologize. He wanted it so deeply, it ate at him, consumed his whole being till nothing but a carcass of dead bones was left. It flowed through his very veins and settled in the pits of his stomach.

But no time-turner could ever fix this.

Severus looked into the depths of the camera, the grainy image transforming him into something otherworldly, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. He smiled shakily, a poor attempt at trying to compose himself, and drew a ragged breath.

“I miss you mum. I miss you until I close my eyes.”

And James just broke, the lump forcing itself up his throat. His mouth watered and before he knew it, he was heaving all his stomach's contents into the tin bucket in the corner of the room. His hands shook as tried and failed to unbutton his collar, the lack of air blackening the edges of his vision. His breaths came in ragged gasps, interrupting his shaky sobs. He was suffocating. He was suffocating and there was no way out.

He collapsed on the floor after a while, wiping the mixture of bile and tears on his face with a trembling hand. This only served to smear the mess in further, leaving him resembling a messy toddler.

Those were the last words that Severus had said to the camera, the screen turning to black.

James remained settled in a foetal position on the floor, clutching at his churning stomach. His throat felt raw and exposed as if someone had taken a quidditch bat to it. He felt it too much of an effort to open his eyes, or get up or do anything at all.

And so he stayed. He stayed until all the lights had gone out and the only thing left was him and his pain, hand in hand and so utterly alone. He thought of Sirius and Remus while fading in and out of consciousness. He thought of Sirius's words and their cruelty. He thought of Remus and his scar and if the werewolf ever considered leaving them to rot after what they had done. His eyelids had gone heavy but he fought it, much the same as if a fly would fight a broken wing. Delaying the inevitable.

He was tired and worn out but he knew sleep brought nothing nice – at least from his last experience. The cycle would repeat and he would get no reprieve. He knew he would see Severus and the fact comforted him straight into the dark's warm embrace.

Chapter Text

Severus donned a crisp white shirt and a pair of perfectly pressed trousers as he sat in the corner of the room. His black locks were tightly bundled into a loose braid, a couple of stray strands landing on his prominent cheekbones. His hands fiddled with a stack of what looked like thin circular objects arranged neatly on top of one another. His eyebrows furrowed slightly as he searched for a particular one, James guessed.

James stood at the other end of the room, watching silently. He was not sure how he ended up here, wracking his muddled brain for an explanation of some sort. An unfamiliar buzz had been steadily growing in his ear, the vibrations travelling up his spine and down to his fingertips. His plain grey sweater did nothing to stop the frigid air from crawling up his neck, wracking his body with shivers. His eyes remained glued to the boy at the other end of the room, head tilted in confusion.

Severus.

What was Severus doing here? Severus was dead.

James grinned, his mind racing at all the possibilities of Severus being here. In this room. With him. He took a hesitant step towards the boy, who seemed to be enveloped in a world of his own, his eyes travelling over the variety of peculiar muggle objects before him. Severus seemed to take no notice of him, as if James was invisible to him. James's breathing started to pick up, the buzz in his ear growing. Why was Severus ignoring him? Could he see him? Was James imagining him? Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him again. Cruel, cruel tricks.

Severus seemed to snap out of whatever reverie he was in, his head sharply twisting to look at James, finally taking notice of him as a smile grew on his face. The buzz quieted almost instantly, a content hum replacing it.

“Oh, James. You're finally awake. I was beginning to think you'd sleep forever.”, he laughed, the low, velvety sound flowing through the room and engulfing James. The bespectacled boy felt inexplicably happy. Pure joy surged through his veins, the feeling of relief after waking from a nightmare as a frightened child. It was all a nightmare and Severus was okay.

“Come. Help me choose one.” James had not the slightest idea of what Severus was talking about. Choose what? What is happening? How did he get here? The raven extended both hands, each of them clutching a thin circular object. James blanked. His eyes darted between the two as the buzzing in his ear grew momentarily and before he knew it he had distractedly picked the one to his right, eliciting a sloppy grin from Severus, stifling the buzz again.

“Good choice. A classic.” Severus lifted himself off the floor, taking two short steps towards another peculiar object James could not recognise. He slid the object James had chosen into it, a melodious tune beginning to emanate from the weird artefact.

When the night has come

And the land is dark

And the moon is the only light we'll see

He turned towards James with a playful smirk etched onto his face, an expression the latter never thought he would ever see in this lifetime. His tucked an errant strand of hair behind his ear, his eyes twinkling and abuzz with light. His hands found James's own, sending a jolt of electricity through the brunette's veins.

“Come on.”, with a low laugh, as if amused by James's bewildered state. As if this was all natural. James followed him slack-jawed to the centre of the room, the sunshine illuminating Severus even further, sending light rays bouncing off the black strands slithering their way down his neck. James could not speak. The words were lodged in his throat, so far down he would have to tear them out with his bare hands. What was happening? This isn't natural, is it? Severus was dead. This couldn’t be. And what was Severus doing? His smile, his hair, his clothes, the ease with which he carried himself. He had never seen the boy act like this, as if he had peeled off the skin he wore to Hogwarts and emerged a new specimen.

Severus's hands landed on James’s shoulders and everything was okay again, the buzz fading away completely, replaced by the deep voice of some American singer. Severus liked American music? The raven’s hands travelled lower to his own again, positioning them just so that they would rest on his waist. He steadied his fingers onto James's shoulders again and began swaying with them. His footsteps were nearly imperceptible against the floor boards as they travelled in small circles.

James held his breathe. Maybe if he focused long enough he could root himself to this very room, to these very floorboards so that he would not ever step foot outside again. The world has given him nothing that Severus has in these two brief minutes. He did not want for more. Only this. Only peace where his guilt isn’t buried somewhere deep in the recesses of his soul, a tear in its fabric.

Severus shut his eyes, the long lashes brushing over pale cheeks. James smiled. A warm one.

No I won't be afraid

Oh I won't be afraid

Just as long as you stand

Stand by me

So darling, darling stand by me

Oh stand by me

“Spin me.”, Severus commanded with a giggle. James obeyed silently as he twirled the other boy, eliciting another fit of giggles. His face had started to hurt from the amount of smiling he was doing. Severus was an excellent dancer, swaying and twirling with the ease of a swan. His feet carried him in circles across the centre of the room, simultaneously guiding James along too. It was like their souls had enmeshed, becoming one as the soulful music flowed through them like a stream, the instruments coming together to create a tapestry of different sounds, each one more beautiful than the other.

If the sky that we look upon

Should tumble and fall

Or the mountain should crumble to the sea

I won't cry

I won't cry

No I won't shed a tear

Just as long as you stand by me

James continued to sway lightly with Severus, the other boy blissfully quiet. They danced all across the room, their legs carefully navigating each other. They danced even as the tears fell silently from James’s closed eyes, the familiar buzz steadily growing in his ear again. They danced even as the weepy violin faded with the wind. They danced even as Severus started to slip away, his frame disintegrating by the second, as if puzzle pieces pulled from each other.

And when James opened his eyes, Severus was gone.

..........................................................................

James awoke to a splitting head ache and a cold floor. It seemed that every time he slept, Severus haunted his dreams. His silliest and sweetest dreams. His eyes had clouded over from staring at the ceiling as he lay motionless on the floor of Severus's room. He was laying on the floor of Snape’s room and Snape was dead. Funny how life turns out. He'd thought the boy would outlive them all out of some evil need for victory over them. He thought he'd die early. Honourably. Fight in the war. For the greater good. Now war was brewing outside these very walls and he lay on the floor of Severus's room, wondering where it all went wrong.

His limbs creaked in protest as he lifted them off the floor and stumbled towards the box of tapes again. Every second spent not knowing why Severus chose to do what he did was a second wasted and he wasn’t taking any risks. His hands fiddled with the tapes before finally settling on one labelled “FOURTH YEAR". He searched for the ones from second and third and came up empty, Eileen’s words about some being lost or misplaced ringing in his head.

His grazed his hands through his hair, his fingers getting caught on some curly knots. He sniffed his armpit and realised that he reeked and that he also didn’t care. The tape slid into the player seamlessly as his back hit the wrought-iron bed frame with a heavy thud, the pain reverberating all across his bones. Once again, it seemed like such a minuscule pain compared to the one in his chest. The screen crackled to life and Severus's face encompassed it once again.

His cheeks had lost the prominent baby fat of his earlier years making way for protruding cheekbones and a sharper nose. The raven locks now lay as a greasy birds’ nest on his head and the ever-present furrow of the brow James had ridiculed one too many times now made a first appearance. It seemed unnatural on him, like somebody had taken his face and kneaded it like dough to shape these specific features – the pale thin lips, the oily strands and the awkward nose.

“Hello, mum.”, he muttered with an awkward smile, a far cry from the grinning boy of first year. James inspected the screen for what felt like an eternity, the unsettling feeling of there being something wrong suffocating him.

Of course. His smile. He does not smile normally anymore. Where first year Snape brandished those overcrowded teeth anytime Lily had been in the vicinity, this Snape gave a closed-lip smile, his teeth safely veiled beneath a pair of thin lips. His threw his head back at the realisation, an errant memory of Sirius bellowing a creative insult about his teeth that day on the grass crashing to the forefront of his mind. James had never laughed harder in his life and Sirius had never been prouder. Severus stormed off with a cutting glare and his book bag in his white-knuckled hands, his mouth so tightly shut, his teeth might’ve been grounded to dust. Lily gifted Sirius a black eye and a slew of insults that would have sent his posh mother to the grave that afternoon.

“I went to Hogsmead with Lily today. Didn’t get much, just a bunch of candy.” James smiled tiredly. It baffled him how Severus could speak with such causality. The boy only ever offered him hissed insults and whips of his wand. It felt like intruding upon a private interaction he was not supposed to be privy to. This was not meant for him and the fact only served to tighten the knot in his stomach. This Severus was special. This Severus was only reserved for his mother to experience. This was Sev.

“I got full marks for my potions essay. Lily did too. She’s quite good at it. Practically a genius, even impressed Slughorn. I think maybe we can get our potions mastery together. It would be fun working with her.” The words spilled from Severus's mouth like wine, each one uttered with casualty and comfort. It was not something completely interesting or shocking. Mere simple time-killing conversation and yet it enraptured James so completely, he sat back and pretended that it was he who Severus was talking to, drinking in every syllable and small silence.

“I also uh...”, the boy stuttered, tugging at his collar for air. He started to shift around on the small bed, as if he was sitting on a pile of nails. His mouth fell open and closed again various times as the words failed to spill out, a sudden nervousness wracking his thin frame.

“I want you to owl me my other bible. It’s in my nightstand drawer, you’ll have no trouble finding it at all.”, he rambled, his words getting caught in between each breath.

James’s brows met in confusion. Bible? The word rang around his brain as he wracked it for an explanation. Fuzzy memories of a fourth year Severus flashed before his eyes, his hands tightly clutching a leather-bound book as he strut across the Great Hall, his robes billowing behind him. The book had been unassuming, much resembling the frayed potions book Severus loved so much but it caught their attention. Sirius sniffed it out first, like a hungry hound spotting a slab of meat. His Cheshire grin was burned into James’s neurons as he casually strolled the grounds, his feet seamlessly carrying him directly towards a hunched over Snape, his knees drawn to his chest as he immersed himself into the mysterious book. And with one fell swoop, Sirius swiped the book away, a perfectly groomed eyebrow shooting upwards in what looked like a mixture of surprise and amusement at the contents.

Severus of course lit up with rage as if a bell had been struck. A slew of accented curses flew out his mouth, the posh posterior he had adopted since coming to Hogwarts flying out the window. James remembers having his hands in his trouser pockets, a fit of giggles overtaking him at Sirius's bemused face. The roaring laughter only seemed to spur Black on as he dangled the book in front of Severus's pointed nose like a treat.

“Fucking hell Snivy, this is some serious shit. You gone and got yourself mixed up with them crazy muggle people?” Snape grit his teeth so hard, they almost shattered.

“What crazy muggle people?”, James inquired, not liking being out of the loop.

“He knows what I’m talking about. Those muggles that wander the streets talking about God and what not.”, Sirius’s grin widened, as if he’d struck gold, encroaching upon Severus's rigid frame further until their noses were hairs apart.

“Come on Snivy. You of all people? The fucking dungeon bat believes in God!”, Sirius bellowed, a hearty chuckle escaping him suddenly.

James just stared bemusedly at the scene before him. Sirius was doubled over in laughter, the deep chuckles spilling out of his lean frame as his shoulders went up and down, nearly in tears. Severus was vibrating with such rage that it almost felt like the ground was shaking with it. His naturally hooded eyes had been blown wide and red-rimmed and his nose was upturned in contempt, deep, angry puffs of air escaping occasionally as his breaths came in unsteady turns. Sirius, as always, got bored eventually seeing as Severus made no further move to react. It was a bit unsettling to witness considering he acted like a feral rat anytime they approached him. This time, it seemed like he was bearing it silently, his fists tightened and teeth grit as the hatred spilled out of him in silent waves, all the unsaid words blending into the air and thickening it. His eyes followed Sirius's flailing hands carefully, not daring to stray for so much as a second. Sirius was unpredictable and bored and Merlin knew how bad it got for Severus when he was in either of those moods. At the end of the day, the cuts and bruises, the torn robes, the soaked parchments and the burning embarrassment were all Severus's to deal with. Not Potter or Pettigrew or Lupin and certainly not Black.

The hound eventually settled for shoving the book into Severus's awaiting arms, the heavy impact staggering the limp boy a couple inches. Severus left just as he came, silently and without protest, relieved to have the book back in his possession. James recalled having spat out a couple of teases regarding his hair that day as the black-haired boy retreated, the thought infinitely worsening his already haggard state.

So that’s what it was. A Bible. He had had little to no information regarding religion or God throughout his childhood considering the fact that he was a born and bred pureblood wizard. The words echoed around in his head until one eventually rung a bell, a brief exchange between him and his mother one warm afternoon as he set the table for guests – some foreign investor or the other. She had been stacking the nice plates as a frazzled house elf skittered around the gigantic dining hall muttering Elven spells to itself. He was helping her with the flower arrangements as her velvety words slipped in and out of his ears with ease.

“Muggles have got about a thousand different religions dear so it’s hard to keep track but Birtain is mainly Christian or Catholic, depending on if you want to consider it a branch of the former. Not all muggles believe in God but there are many. Its important to them. Gives them meaning...hope. They've got a holy scripture which is the Bible. It’s quite sacred to them, especially when attending Church – which is also a holy place where they go to pray. They believe in one divine power, whereas we know and live through magic.”

James remembered being baffled and a bit impressed at her ability to speak so eloquently and in such a casual manner. His mother had always been someone he could look up to and these moments only served to solidify his admiration and love for her. She was well-educated and when James was still a toddler, he had thought she was Lady magic herself. She seemed to know everything and anything, his own personal library to parade in front of the other kids. His pride at having such a mother ran deep and never seemed to leave, same for his father.

James now wondered what she would think of him if she were to ever discover this version of her son, to peel back the layers of golden grins and charming words and see the rot beneath, festering in his own spoiled flesh and blood. He gripped his trousers extra tight at the thought. He would not corrupt her like this.

His eyes snapped back to the ancient television before him. Severus had gone silent. Like he always did. He was not much of a talker, James noticed. It amazed him how he could sit in silence for so long and how his voice remained. He had always suspected the boy to have frozen vocal chords, weathered from the long stretches of disuse.

But why would Severus need another Bible? From what James recalled, Sirius had not harmed it that day. The book returned to Severus safely. So why was he so visibly uncomfortable at having to ask for another?

The answer came as quickly as he had thought up the question.

“My other copy got thrown into the water by a couple of seventh year Slytherins. People seem to enjoy throwing my stuff into water quite a bit.”, he huffed in resignation, his flitting downwards as his gaze burnt holes into the bed sheets.

Severus folded like a wilted flower, pulling his knees up to meet his chest as a curtain of black locks quickly enshrouded his pale face. His gaze landed on the camera thoughtfully before glazing over as a few muffled words escaped.

“I thought it’d be different here...You said it’d be different here mum.” Severus reached forward and with one flick, switched off the camera.

The silence was deafening, Severus's face before the camera turned off even more.

His face looked tired, almost exhausted and beyond his years. James thought that maybe this is when it had started. Maybe this is when Severus had started to give up on life.

James cried himself to sleep on the hardwood floor that night. There was no anger, no throwing up, no fragmented sobs. Just silently falling tears. What could he do now except cry?

There was a time in James's life where he though that if Severus disappeared, everything would be significantly better. First year when he laid his eyes on Lily and the glistening mane of red hair. Second year when they got a week's detention for putting slime in his potion's cauldron. Third year when Lily punched him for enchanting Snape's unruly locks. Fourth year when Snape and a couple of Slytherins' hexxed his meticulously styled hair right before he was about to ask Lily to Hogsmead. Sixth year when Severus showed up at the Shrieking Shack and ruined everything. And seventh year when Lily’s gaze would drift towards the raven whenever they would be conversing.

And now Snape is dead and everything was worse.

Chapter Text

In this dream, Severus wakes him gently, a few black strands of hair looming over him patiently. James awakes almost immediately to a blank-faced Severus, his dark orbs empty like a dried up well. The raven slips his pale hand gently into James's own, coaxing him off the tender soil and up on his feet. The deep green field seems to stretch for all eternity around them and something seems out of place. The wind whips the ebony strands of his companion's hair every which way as they stand on the epicentre of the world, nothing but knee-high greenery encasing them.

Severus grasps his hand tightly and tugs at him with purpose. They trudge through proliferating grass even as the wind thrusts them back, even as the cold penetrates his bones and even as every rational thought is yelling at James to wake up and that this was not real and it was going to fade just as the others did. Snape steers him this way and that, meticulously navigating the teeming verdant field. He stumbles over a few misplaced branches and sticks, knocking the breath out of him and yet Severus never ceases. The lanky boy marches with an unrelenting determination as James fights with every inch of his being to get him to slow down but Severus wants to take him somewhere and even the seven seas and skies would not get him to stop.

James spots a shapeless structure further ahead just as Severus’s feet quicken, mindless of the miscellaneous stones sprinkled across the clearing. James whips his head back to Severus. His white button-up billows in the wind and James can now see the skeleton beneath, his breath getting caught in a gasp at the ghastly sight. He wondered how Severus had survived this long in school when he looked to be on the verge of withering away.

By the time they finally reach their destination, James is heaving from the exhaustion of their journey while Severus looks concerningly unaffected, almost indifferent and a tad bit confused at James’s heavy breathing. He waits for him to regain his composure wordlessly before tilting his head towards the side.

James thinks his dreams may be more cruel than his reality.

He nearly throws up at the sight.

Severus.

He notices the boy’s eyes first - soulless and utterly empty, the life sapped so rapidly from them that only a canvas of white spheres remained. His waxy skin had been rendered a stark white against the dark of his trousers, the veins running like rivers from his head to his toes, frozen in time. His mouth hung open like a black infinite hole, perpetually trying for a breath that would never come. His limbs were stiff against the rocking splintered chair as his hands clawed at the edges, a faint series of scratches catching James's eye.

All too soon, a sharp smell penetrates the air. His eyes water as a gust of wind carries the foul odour nearer to him. The scent is unmistakable; the rot has settled in, eating at Severus's carcass from the inside like a parasite. It suddenly occurs to him that Severus existed as a pile of meat and bones, just as they all did and he too would be susceptible to the unforgiving ravages of nature.

He closes his eyes because has nothing else to do. He knows all too well that this is just another trick, albeit cruel, it’s still a trick and that he would wake up eventually to his equally cruel reality. He just wished it would be sooner. He thought about how intriguing it was, that a person's mind could be their worst enemy.

With clenched fists and tightly shut eyes, he waited for the cold floor of Severus's room, where he would undoubtedly wake up. He knew that any minute now, the buzz in his ear would grow deafening and the world would collapse upon itself to later sprout again. But reprieve did not come. The wind was still blowing with the force of a thousand dragons. The smell still lingered in the air hauntingly. And when he opened his eyes once more, the other Severus was still standing before him in quiet observation.

“Why do you look away James?” The words were genuine as they escaped this Severus's mouth, a curious head tilt accompanying them. But they felt like a cruel taunt. A stab in the gut.

“You did this to me James. I thought you knew that.” His tone was hauntingly calm, analytical.

It sounded so genuine that James was almost inclined to answer him had he not known that this was just a figment of his macabre imagination. The bespectacled boy remained rigid in his place, his fists tightly clenched against his sides. Perhaps if he buried his nails further into his palms, the sting would wake him.

“Same old Perfect Potter. Can't admit to his mistakes. He just leaves them to die instead.”

“Please stop.”, James pleaded quietly.

“Why? You didn't.”

“I’m sorry.”, James sobbed.

“That’s funny.”, Severus uttered, his black eyes stretching out endlessly as they glared at James.

“Please stop.”

“No.”

“I am begging you please stop. Please.”

“NO.”, Severus bellowed, his voice reverberating in the green vastness as James's frame shook with uncontrolled sobs.

“Please please please please....”, James begged as his knees collapsed on the soft grass.

“YOU DID THIS POTTER. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED!”

“I DIDN'T WANT THIS, I SWEAR. PLEASE STOP. I DIDN'T WANT THIS...”

The buzzing in James’s ear, that accompanied every dream, had returned in full force so that he could not even hear himself over it.

Severus was yelling something at him, his hands gesticulating wildly, flying over to point at the rotting corpse sat rigidly on the wicker chair. He couldn’t hear. He couldn't see. His eyes were squeezed shut. His palms encased his ears, sheltering him from Severus's abuses.

His body rocked back and forth and back and forth again as he repeatedly muttered to himself. His words were jumbled, indecipherable to even the sharpest ear. He was begging, pleading for it all to stop as tears slid down his cheeks and collarbones, the tracks running like a river. James did not think. Could not think. The world was blurry and confusing. His mouth moved to shape words he did not understand or hear. His hands latched on to his hair tightly as a flurry of accusations showered him while his legs numbed from the prolonged kneeling.

..........................................................................

James jolted awake from the sound of his heart trying to beat it’s way out of his chest. The light of the winter sun spilled into the room weakly, bathing the wooden floorboards in a golden hue and illuminating the dark room and James wondered how long he had been asleep. He wondered how he had even managed to sleep at all.

Severus's corpse was still dancing in his vision. He wasn't sure he'd ever forget the sight or screams. It left him with a pit in his stomach, growing by the minute. His eyes had puffed up to an almost concerning level and his throat felt drier than a desert, like somebody had been rubbing sandpaper on it.

His limbs creaked as he lifted himself off the floor. He dusted his now wrinkled clothes, embedded with a mixture of tears, snot and sweat. He needed to wash for the funeral. He had to look presentable at the very least. He felt an obligation to be there. For Mrs. Prince. For Severus.

He had not seen the late boy's mother in a while, which was undoubtedly weird considering he was holed up in her dead son's room, throwing up and crying himself to sleep. But he had learned that a lot of things do not matter after death. Not food. Not water. Not sleep. Not even dreams; at least not the ones he had had of becoming an war hero and starting a family with Lily. A lot of things went unaddressed because it was hard to care when a hole had just opened up in your life. Things that used to stress him seemed so insignificant in the face of this loss. A tear in the universe that could never be sowed back up.

He nudged the room door open, peering out at the empty hallway; achingly empty. He wondered if Severus used to run around these same halls like he did back at the manner, if his childhood had been as comfortable as James's, if this house had been kind to him. A thousand ‘ifs' raced through his mind but no answer came because the only person that could provide him with it is dead. And he's not coming back.

He stepped out of the room and immediately noticed the shift. The scent of old books and peppermint that clung to the walls was no longer there. His stomach churned at the thought of facing Snape's mother again. He descended the creaky staircase slowly and quietly, not wanting to wake her lest she be sleeping.

He found her on the old armchair, a black shawl wrapped tightly around her spindly limbs, fighting to keep the winter air out. Slices of the sun's weak ray peered in from outside, inviting a bit of warmth into the dead living room.

She seemed to take no notice of him as she stared off into space, like something was going manifest before her eyes and whisk her away into oblivion.He cleared his throat, immediately regretting the action as it squeezed horribly. She whipped her head in his direction, finally registering the entire human before her. These past few days she seemed to exist as a ghost, forgetting the very real blood running through her veins, the heartbeat that kept on pounding even as her very soul prayed for reprieve. The human body has a cruel way of keeping you alive even when you do not want it.

“Oh...James...”, she whispered, barely any sound escaping her fragile throat. James might not have heard her had it not been for the cold silence that seemed to haunt them.

“Come. Sit.”, she gestured at the ancient sofa opposite her.

James blindly obeyed, his body responding to commands that his own mind didn't fully register.

“Today's the funeral, I hope you know. I want you there. For Severus. You were his friend and I know he would have wanted you there.”

James blanked. He wanted to get up and scream. Yell at the universe for cursing him this way. For torturing him this way. He felt like a big, hideous monster in disguise next to an angel. Here she was, offering him comfort when it was the last thing he deserved. Even as her own son lay in a freezer waiting to be six feet under, she was comforting him.

He gave a shaky nod, unsure of what he could possibly say.

“Lily will be there too. Severus adored her. She was his best friend. She wrote me yesterday, asking if she was welcome. As if I would ever say no.”, she huffed, shaking her head in disbelief. She was making idle conversation, he knew it all too well. Something terrible happens and all you can think about is a schedule.

James had not heard from or seen Lily since she battered him in the school bathroom. He wondered how she could be dealing with this. Severus was her best friend and although they ended on bad terms, James knew that she would never forget him or forsake his memory. They had a relationship akin to something one would see in stories for children about friendship. It was so simple and pure and James just had to go and ruin it. And in the end, he was left with nothing but a bruised ego and an empty heart.

“I found this on my nightstand today.”, her voice chimed in again, ringing like church bells in his ear, snapping him back into reality. She plopped a bag of galleons straight on the wooden coffee table between them, the coins clinking against each other loudly.

“And this...”, she handed him a small note, her fingers quivering as she outstretched them.

James quickly scanned the yellowed paper, swallowing loudly at the contents.

FOR THE FUNERAL

James suddenly felt obligated to chime in. He was not going to let the dead boy pay for his funeral even if he came back to life and demanded it.

“ You don’t need to use that money. I can cover all the funeral expenses Mrs. Prince. Anything. Anything at all.”, he spoke with a conviction that suggested he was not going to take no for an answer.

“Oh I can’t let you do that. You're only a student dear. Besides, Severus worked hard for this. Merlin knows how he got it but I’m sure he worked hard for it.”

“Please Mrs. Prince. Let me do this one thing. For Severus. Please.”, he pleaded as his bottom lip quivered with the overflow of emotions. “You can use this other money for yourself but I won’t let Severus pay for his own funeral.”

She extended a bony hand and cupped his with it, tightening her hold as her thumb ran gentle circles over the back of his palm “Thank you dear. You're very kind.”

“Its no problem at all Mrs. Prince.”

Her hands swiped over her eyes briefly, collecting the tears that had been silently falling. She sniffled before giving him a shaky, watery smile, breaking his heart into a million little pieces.

“Now dear. Tell me about Severus. What was he like at school?”

The innocent question hit him like an unforgivable. His heart felt like it was going to beat it’s way of his chest with the way it was racing. Despite it being the middle of winter, the room felt increasingly warmer. Suffocating.

“Um...I don't – well. Well, we weren't very close but he was still my friend. We used to have potions class together. He loved it. He would always be the first to finish. And perfectly all the time. He'd even make Lily jealous with his skills.

” A watery laugh suddenly erupted from the witch, shocking James into silence. His eyes winded as she continued the emit the weird noise. He didn't know whether to comfort her or laugh with her.

“That’s my Sevvy alright. Always loved his potions. Takes right after his mummy.”

James bit his lip to stifle the sobs threatening to escape. The water in his eyes made it hard to see, blurring his surrounding making it so that he felt like he was in a fever dream. Merlin knows how this woman found the strength to live after her son died. She absolutely adored Severus.

“Oh I can’t bear it...the house – it’s too quiet without him.”

Every word she said was like a stab to the gut, the knife twisting further and further each time. That was her son, for Merlin's sake.

“He always kept the music going.”, she sniffled, a watery smile breaking on her face. “Sometimes we'd even dance. We'd just put the record on and keep at it till sunrise. Our feet used to ache so much but I didn’t care and I don't think he did either. He never did that stuff in front of his father though. He was a completely different person around Tobias.”

“To be honest with you Mrs. Prince, I wasn’t expecting Severus to be like this. He was always so quiet in school, it was hard to believe he talked at all.”, James supplied, finally feeling useful in the conversation.

“Sevvy wasn't very extroverted or loud. He liked to keep to himself. He just opened up around me – like I did to him.”

James gave a shaky nod.

“I don't know why he did it. I just – I – I wish he'd just come back and tell me why he did what he did.”, she sobbed, running a hand through the thick black mane on her head, her fingers getting caught in the knots.

“You know all he did after coming home was sleep. He didn’t want to do anything – he didn’t eat or put the records on. He just slept. All the time. Well into the morning. I think he was gone already by that time.”, she whispered, as if coming to some kind of realisation. A horribly sad realisation.

“Did he tell you anything. Maybe it was something at school...”, James inquired, hoping that he would not come off as disrespectful. He was as thirsty for information as Mrs. Prince was. He wanted answers. Perhaps he just wanted reprieve.

“He didn't say much when he came back as I told you. He always mentioned this group of boys in the tapes though...”, she supplied, summoning a napkin to wipe her reddened face with as the tears continued to stream.

“He never told me their names or where they were from. He would get so shaken up in the tapes whenever he talked about them. Or Lily. He would get so...angry and it – it killed me. Oh it killed me. I tried – I swear – I tried to do something about it but he wouldn't let me. I tried to complain to that damned headmaster but he begged me not to. He said that he was fine and that I shouldn’t worry because he just wanted to graduate fast enough to get his mastery in potions – he loved potions you see – and that me intervening would cause him unnecessary trouble. He said that they were just childish. That’s it. He complained but I didn't know how bad it was. He said they were just teasing him...no reason to worry....”

James clenched his jaw so hard, he felt his teeth might shatter.

“James. Do you know anything about those boys? Did you ever try to stop them?”

“I – erm – I don't...I don't think I ever saw them and I wasn't really close with Severus so – um...”

“That’s okay dear. You can't have known.” But he did. He did know and it was eating him up inside. All the lies he had so carefully constructed were crumbling before him. He didn't know what to do or say. What could he do or say?

“I think it was the Slytherins...”, James rushed to answer, feeling a crushing sense of obligation. “They – they always gave him a hard time...”

Mrs. Prince tilted her head sadly, her eyes suggesting that she already knew of this piece of information.

“Thank you love, that helps.”, she whispered with a watery smile, patting his shoulder comfortingly.

“It’s almost time dear, you have to get ready. Go and freshen up, I want you looking your best for Sev. He looked his best when he left us so its only fair.”

James suddenly felt a rush of embarrassment at his state. He was sat in this woman’s house, who he barely knew, reeking of old sweat and tears and sleeping in her dead son’s room. His own mother would have a heart attack were she to see him now.

“Yes, of course...”, he muttered bashfully, turning a shade redder as he stood quickly to hurry for the bathroom.

He bathed with quick precision, scrubbing his skin raw until it had turned a pale red to remove the dust, sweat and tears embedded in it. The water was just above freezing level and he wondered if the stasis charm he had put on the tap even tried to work. He cast a quick drying charm when he found no towels in the small bathroom then transfigured his worn jeans and sweater into a nice suit, dressing slowly in front of the cracked mirror. Merlin, he looked dead.

His gaze travelled down to the tube of toothpaste on one side of the porcelain sink. Brand new. Severus never got to use this toothpaste. Eileen probably picked it up at the shops, mindlessly stuffing it into her basket, preparing for the arrival of her son from Hogwarts. But the tube was full. Severus had never used it.

Severus will never use it.

He will never wake up again to brush his teeth groggily in front of the bathroom mirror. He will never use the toothpaste that Eileen got him.

James could not breathe all of a sudden. One minute he was buttoning his shirt and the next he was on the bathroom tile heaving for air. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the tiny bathroom anymore, his world had reduced to the few cubic meters he was hyperventilating in.

Why was he reacting like this? Why did the thought of Severus simply brushing his teeth send him into a panic. Why was he like this? A million unanswered questions flooded his brain, pushing and prodding against its walls with a violent determination.

A light knock sounded from the door before him. His heart seized.

“James? It’s time dear, the service is about to start.”

“Just a minute.” He stood hurriedly on two shaky feet, straightening his dishevelled suit with a quick swipe before exiting the room with his heart down to his stomach.

Chapter Text

“May his soul rest in eternal peace and glory.”

“May the Lord accept him into his heavenly kingdom.”

“May the Lord cleanse his spirit of the sins it carries.”

...

“And may he be forgiven for what he did.”

“Amen.”

Muggle funerals were about as happy as you could imagine. Eileen had stubbornly refused to hold a proper wizard's funeral.

Severus died with a cross and to the cross he shall return.

The air inside the chapel was stifling at best, suffocating at worst. Stained-glass windows took up most of the walls, casting strange shadows across the congregation, which – James noticed – wasn't a lot of people.

He sat by Remus, who had wordlessly arrived as soon James's owl reached him with a scribbled note begging him to accompany him, and an unfamiliar couple dressed in fancy black. They didn’t look at him or even acknowledge anybody else's presence, choosing to gaze blankly at the impassioned priest.

Eileen was huddled in with Lily on the first row, the girl's fiery locks the only discernible feature amongst the black coat and gloves she donned. She hadn't seen him come in. He dreaded having to face her when the service was over.

It didn’t matter anymore. Where once he would’ve been thinking up of new ways to sweep her off her feet, he now felt his stomach churn just looking at her. Those days felt so far away now. His whole life had been flipped upside down and he was finding it increasingly harder to care for teenage puppy love. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Nothing except Severus.

Eileen had opted for a closed casket funeral – James suspected it had to do with the sickly colour the potion turned the body. She didn't want people to see her boy in that state. No parent would want that, he supposed.

The scraggly priest had just finished up his impromptu speech when the squeak of the church doors rang around the congregation, announcing the entry of a strangely dressed boy. The new arrival, donned in weathered overalls and thick miner's boots soundlessly beelined to the last row, his steely grey eyes landing on the interrupted priest.

The attendees recovered from the interruption quite quickly, choosing to focus on the rambling priest once more.

James found it hard to concentrate on the words flowing out of his mouth, especially when he could feel grey eyes boring holes into the back of his head. His collar suddenly felt a little too tight. Merlin, he couldn’t breathe again. Who is he? Why is he staring at me? Does he know Severus? Can I die from panic? What was the priest saying again?

Remus squeezed his hand once, then twice for good measure. A silent reassurance. Leave it up to Remus to always be aware of these things.

“ – Severus's mother to say a few words.”

Eileen stood on shaky legs before the sparse congregation. From this angle, James could barely believe she was a woman of forty years of age when he looked at her. Her black robes swarmed her bony frame, much like her son's. Merlin, she looked so much like Severus. It was almost like being inside a memory. The same onyx eyes, translucent skin and bony limbs.

“Severus first started showing signs of being a magical child when he was just two years old. I’d come in to give him a bottle and the chairs would be floating around the room for no reason.”, she began, laughing sadly at the memory.

“And from that day onwards I knew he was special. I knew my boy would go on to be a brilliant wizard and an even better potioneer. Because at just seven years old, he was helping me brew salves some adults didn't even know of. He was beautiful and he was mine and I don't want him to be remembered for how he died but for his beauty and intelligence and endless loyalty to his loved ones.”

She gave a shuddering gasp as the tears continued to gush like clockwork. “When I found him, he was still warm. Like the day I held him as a newborn.”, she rasped, a hand tightly clutching the cross hanging from her neck.

“He was wearing his best clothes and his hair had never looked more beautiful. He had told me before that they used to tease him about it but I thought it was perfect. My boy was perfect and I pray to God that he will not be remembered by the actions of his weakest moments.” If God was real, James would kneel at his throne and beg for another chance. ..........................................................................

Lily could remember the exact moment that the picture above Severus’s coffin was taken. The boy was not at all fond of having his photograph taken but somehow Mrs. Evans had convinced him to stand still long enough to snap a quick picture for ‘memories'.

She often thought about how beautiful her Severus looked that day, with his cherry red cheeks hanging on to their baby fat and long black locks billowing in the heavy wind. So it broke her heart into a million tiny pieces when the boy had silently wept into her chest, repeating over and over that he looked so ugly. That his nose looked too big and his teeth too yellow. She could not, for the life of her, figure out how Severus could see himself like that when she had spent hours telling him how beautiful he was. It angered her so vehemently that a few loose words from a loser like James Potter could undo all the love she had poured into him.

But then again, Severus was the most sensitive creature she had ever come across. He bruised as easily as a peach and when his heart broke, it couldn’t ever be repaired. He'd remember the tiniest things about any interaction. Every word uttered towards him – he took to heart. Because that was the thing about Severus – he thought everybody was as honest as him.

He had foolishly believed in telling the truth and only the truth so when his peers said he was destined to be a slave to Voldemort, he had believed them. When James and his cronies told him that his hair was greasy, his teeth too yellow and his robes too shaggy, he had believed them. And when Lily had sworn to never forgive him, he had also believed her. It was almost funny how she swore she would never look at his face again, yet she was sat front row at his funeral, listening to a preacher tell her that he was good, honest, kind when she, herself had been a proud witness to that goodness, that honestly, that kindness. She stifled the sneer tugging at her lips. These people didn't know her Severus. They didn't know just how much he had made her laugh and cry and love. These people had judged and ridiculed him any chance they got. The very same priest that just prayed over his body had been calling him a ‘queer' for the past few months and dropping suspiciously specific pamphlets at the foot of his front door.

Now he was in that ugly black coffin, laying lifeless and wordless.

Maybe this is how it was always going to end up. She'd marry and have kids and grow old and he'd be six feet under haunting her forever. She wouldn't mind. Not really. If it meant seeing him again - she'd welcome his ghost with open arms.

..........................................................................

The drive down to the cemetery passed in a blur of green and blue as the radio played a fragmented “Stand By Me". Funny, Severus used to love that song.

She stood arm-in-arm with Eileen, watching shovelful after shovelful of soil drop, as the priest rattled off a series of final prayers, the complicated Latin falling on deaf ears but receiving a chorus of ‘amens' shortly after.

She didn't know how long she stood there for, hands clutching the soft material of her coat pockets. She didn't notice the small congregation peter out or feel Eileen planting a kiss on her forehead before leaving her alone with the ghastly grave. She didn't particularly feel anything aside from the cold wash of finality settling like a rock in her gut.

And before she knew it, she was laying next to the soft soil of her Severus's grave, pretty black dress ruined and dusty.

Her name is Lily Evans. She is seventeen years old. She likes books, history, newspapers, boots, potions, transfiguration, berets, red scarves, green hair pins, cats, bunnies, frogs, does, swimming, Halloween, red cherries, The Beatles, Bowie, crisps, pumpkin juice, chocolate biscuits with the white filling but not the ones with the coconut shavings on top but most of all she likes Severus Snape.

Severus Snape is six feet under.

..........................................................................

She must have lain there for an eternity, her vision reduced to swirls of blue and green as she fought to muster up the will to leave, to return to a life she now knows will never be the same – an existence marked by a loss she will never convalesce. Half of her soul now lay six feet under, blue and not breathing. Eventually, the ravages of nature will have their way and it will disappear entirely. She just hoped she'd be dead before the time came.

Several quiet minutes ticked by before she garnered the resolve to blink her eyes open and keep them that way. The teeming greenery drew long, unsettling shadows above her like a macabre puppet show where she was the only audience member, watching them silently perform an infinite dance.

The crunch of a few fallen leaves had her rearing her head upwards, green eyes widening to the size of saucers at the intruder.

Her gut roiled at the sight of the curly-haired boy, donned in a pristine black suit, his tie loosened several inches.

What the fuck was James Potter doing here?

“What the fuck are you doing here?”, she spat, her words laced with venom as her legs scrambled to an upright position, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“Lily I – “ The familiar crack of his nose echoed around the empty clearing like a whip in the wind. The blood came afterwards, oozing from either his nose or mouth – neither were sure which considering the crimson liquid was coating every discernible feature on the boy. He had gotten lucky the first time around, though the battering was really painful, he had still avoided a concussion. This time, he was about ninety – nine percent sure he was seeing stars.

“You taking the piss yeah? You think it’s funny to show up to a dead boy's funeral?! Where are all your other friends, huh? Are they hiding?”, she hissed, her eyes alight with a chilling fury as she descended upon him once more, this time shoving him into the nearest tree, his head smashing into the dark wood.

“No – no – I promise – I came here to – ah – to pay my respect.”, he sputtered through the blood dribbling down his mouth.

“And pay your respect you shall.”, she whispered, alarmingly calm before hurling him at the mound of soil next to them.

He landed face-first and came up coughing a mouthful of dirt.

A hot, white flash of anger washed over him for a second, rejuvenating the rotten parts of him he'd extinguished long ago.

“And what about you, Lily? Last I heard you’d left your poor best friend by that tree.”, he spat, words laced with a sickening vitriol.

Lily’s face twisted into something unpleasant as she dropped to her knees beside him.

“No, no – don’t you fucking dare bring that up, Potter! I’m not the one who stripped him and left him hanging upside down in front of the entire fucking school. I’m not the one who tortured him every goddamn day of his life. Don't you ever try to suggest that we're the same!”, the redhead snarled, her voice breaking into a dull sob. ..........................................................................

The world seemed to quiet around them, the only perceptible noise being the twitter of birds whizzing above them through the rapid winds.

“It hurts to look at you James. Because every time I do, I’m just reminded of all the horrible things you’ve done to him. All the horrible things I let you do to him....”, she whispered through a broken sob, pulling her knees up to her chest.

The words settled between them like a thick fog and all of a sudden James was confronted with his casual cruelty.

Then:

“I see him.”

“What?”

“I see him. I see him in everything I do. Everywhere. His eyes. His hair. I dream of him too. I dream of him so much Lily and I know I’ve no fucking right to but it’s like – it’s like someone's put a bag over my head and I – I can’t breathe...”, he whispered, his eyes clouded by a thick layer of tears.

“Welcome to the club, Potter.”, she smiled sadly.

“You know, I told myself that since we're graduating soon, I needed to stop being childish – make amends. I didn’t want there to be any bad blood between us. I wanted to tell him that I never really hated him – that I just had a silly crush and I took it out on him. I was going to apologise – make the others do it too – Remus certainly would have. I had even practiced it in the mirror beforehand but then he – “

“He killed himself.”, she finished for him.

A sudden quiet descended upon them, thick with the hardness of her words. But they were true. Undeniably so. He had killed himself. It wasn't an accident. He didn't mess up. He had willingly crafted the potion for it. Poured it in the vial. Then drank it. Severus Tobias Snape killed himself because he couldn't bear living in this world one more second.

Maybe this is how it was always meant to be. Maybe Severus was always meant to end up six feet under while they went about their lives with a Severus-shaped hole in their lives.

Then:

“He would have forgiven you.”

“Yeah, right."

“He would have forgiven you. I hate to say it but he would have. Trust me, that boy could hold a grudge like no other but he was so stupidly sensitive and beautiful and no matter what he would still have forgiven you.”, she rasped, wiping the quickly falling tears.

“He would’ve made you work for it though, he wasn't easy.”, she added on with a wet laugh.

James chuckled for the first time in what felt like years.

“I wish I could go back. And tell him that I forgive him. I was so angry at him, and rightfully so because it hurt to see that filth spill from his mouth, but he was hurting too. He was hurting badly and I didn't see it, even after he begged me every night outside the dorms.”, she recounted, the knot in her throat getting tighter by the second.

“I wish I could go back too.”

Her mouth curled into a snarl.

“You humiliated him, James. You stripped him and hung him upside down in front of everybody and when he cried you called him ‘Snivellus’. You tormented him every second of every day. And I hope that haunts you for the rest of your life.”, she stated calmly – the words spilling out with an alarming calmness as she slipped her coat on, turning to leave. “Goodbye, James.”, she sighed before disappearing with a pop. ..........................................................................

"James Potter. Sirius Black. Remus Lupin. Peter Pettigrew. That’s them. You asked me if I knew anything about the group of boys Severus mentioned and I’m telling you right now. They spent every single year he was in that school taunting him and laughing at him and messing with his shit. They don't deserve to get away from this.”

Eileen studied the red-head for a moment before her eyes flit back to the knitting in her lap.

“Sit, dear.”

Lily sat on the ancient couch, her frame trembling with adrenaline.

“Do you want tea?”, the raven asked with a warm smile.

“No – I – I don’t want tea. Mrs. Prince, do you understand what I just told you?!”, the red-head protested, disbelief colouring her face.

“When I was still at Hogwarts, my professors used to call me ‘the genius’. Now, I’m not as sharp as I used to be but I’m quite sure I do understand what you just told me.”, Eileen murmured, her steely gaze flitting upwards for a moment before returning to the half-finished glove in her hands.

“Two of them were at his funeral for heaven’s sake. They just went in there and acted like they hadn't done anything to him – like they were best buddies or something.”, Lily rasped harshly, willing herself to not pull her hair out of frustration.

“Severus is dead, sweetheart.”, the older witch whispered, smiling sadly at the red-head.

Lily bristled. So because he was dead, his bullies deserved to go on with their lives freely? As if they hadn't made his a living hell when he was still here? So because he was dead, he didn't deserve justice?

“Still, how could you not be the least bit angry at this? At them?”

“Because he wasn't.”, Eileen replied calmly, producing a folded parchment from her cardigan pockets.

“What is this?”

“See for yourself.” ..........................................................................

“Lily? What are you doing here?”, James questioned, puzzled by the red-head’s sudden appearance at his family manor's front door.

“I came to give you this. It’s only fair.”, she breathed tiredly, extending a yellowed piece of parchment.

“What is it?”, he inquired, heart stuttering against its ribcage.

“See for yourself, Potter.”, she replied, disappearing with a pop. ..........................................................................

Dear mum

Sometimes I dream of an entirely different existence. I dream of Da never going back to the bottles. I dream of getting my potions mastery and opening an apothecary, maybe patenting a couple of potions. I dream of Lily kissing the space between my eyebrows once more and holding me so tight that it feels like my bones are going to turn into dust in her hold. I dream of reconciling with the boy with those glasses and the other one with the scars. I dream of a world in which we're friends. I dream of a world in which there is no dictator poisoning the young minds of children.

But my favourite dream of all - is one where we're in that living room again. We put on the record and dance until our feet hurt.

Sometimes the dreams feel so close that I can reach out and touch it.

Da once told me that God does not forgive liars. And from that moment on, I promised myself I would never lie again. I vowed to lead an honest existence, no matter the cost. In my effort to not lie to others, however, I ended up lying to myself. I convinced myself that I could be more than this - more than the drunken beatings or unbearable solitude, more than the poor half blood destined to be a death eater.

And for a while I did try. I studied relentlessly, got all O's, crafted new spells, invented and improved on a few potions, wrote a myriad of essays for myself and others, fixed my posture, washed my hair with a new shampoo, and even befriend someone new.

But no matter what I did, the rot persisted. It was a solid emptiness in my chest that never left, like someone had taken a shovel to my insides.

And I don't blame anybody. I'm not angry at anybody. I'm not angry at the world or myself. I'm not sad or happy. I'm just tired. And sleeping doesn't help.

Maybe I was born rotten or maybe I was infected with it along the line. Either way, it was still in me. It was me.

Truth is, it was always going to end up this way. Da was always going to drink himself into an early grave and I was always going to follow him.

And I knelt before God's altar. I prayed so hard and so much. I drank the blood and bit the meat. But I'm so tired of praying.

So I think I'll just rest for now.

James threw up into the nearest trash can.

Chapter Text

The room he had been assigned to was standard white. Clean. Unassuming. In fact, it was miles better than what patients of his case were often afforded – courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Potter. The nurse that came by to drop off his meals had informed him jovially that he could decorate it however he pleased. Movie posters. Music albums. Photos of semi-naked women – as with most male, teenage patients – he had free rein. It was part of the collective effort to get them used to the good old St. Mungos mental ward; if they could personalize their domiciles, they’d feel more at ease. More at home.

The walls remained a bare, sterile white except for an incongruous wooden cross hanging above the wrought-iron bed in the corner. His only request. It had been the talk of the ward for the first few days. In all of it existence, the St. Mungos mental ward had never seen a pure-blooded wizard – a Potter at that – be admitted into the special cases facility, let alone come bearing a cross.

Upon being questioned by one of the nurses, James merely shrugged.

“It belonged to a friend.”

The use of the term startled Remus, who would come for a visit every once in a while, considering the fact that James and Severus were anything but friends.

But to the former, it seemed to be the only thing that made sense. Severus is a friend. At least the Severus that would occupy the TV screen the nurses had once again provided him with. That strange, beautiful face – uttering words only meant for his mother, rambling about anything and everything.

But it was no surprise that James had up ended up here. At first, his parents had given him enough space to grieve properly. Fleamont had brought home a variety of potions from his stock, hoping to ease the constant ache in his son's chest. He sat him in his study and talked for hours upon hours. He had cradled his boy to his broad chest and let him cry as much as he pleased. Euphemia ran him warm baths, stroked his curls and called up his friends to cheer him up.

So when the tightness in his chest persisted, the Gryffindor turned to traditional muggle methods. He stayed out till the morning sun rose, crossing into muggle bars and getting accosted by sketchy drug dealers offering him a fun time for a couple of pounds. He'd down those little white pills and wash them down with chugs of whiskey. Some days it’d be bourbon, others vodka. Then, he'd pass into a blissful, dreamless sleep and wake up feeling ten times worse than before.

And when his body acclimated to the constant chemical abuse and the pills and bottles stopped burning Severus from his memory, he would curl into a little ball and sob. The screams and shouts never reached Fleamont or Euphemia because between all his mini benders, he'd somehow manage to cast a silencing charm over his large room.

On a cool evening in January, Remus arrived at Potter manor to visit his bereaved friend. He knocked twice at James's large, oak doors before a strange sense of doom settled in the pit of his stomach. Tired of the unsettling silence he pushed them open and that was when he found James Potter, his beautiful, sunny, life-of-the-party brother choking on his own vomit, surrounded by about a thousand empty liquor bottles and naked except for a pair of black boxer shorts. And, strangely, a wooden cross.

James was admitted into the St. Mungos psychiatric facility shortly after undergoing a detoxification program which included a litany of potion-induced vomiting and convulsions. Remus sat by his bedside throughout his entire stay. Sometimes he would read to him and sometimes he'd hold his hand, rubbing tiny little circles on the boy's large palms. He made sure to never brush over slits littering his arm – he didn't want to go down that rabbit hole.

James entered a brief catatonic state. He didn't speak. Barely ate. And when the time came to administer medication for his abused organs, the nurses had to manually pour the potions down his raw throat. His non-verbal state, however frustrating it was to Remus and his parents, aided in healing the eroded flesh of his throat brought on by the constant retching it had been subjected to.

Euphemia and Fleamont had held each other tightly that night, weeping for the shell that had become of their lively, sweet boy.

“I don't know what's wrong with him, why won't he tell us?!" 

“Listen, let's just give him some time yeah. He'll come around eventually..."

"Come around?! For Merlin's sake, Fleamont. He just tried to kill himself!"

 James pretended not to hear them. He wasn't planning on killing himself. No. That would be far too cowardly. He didn't deserve to take the easy way out. He wanted to live. He was going to live. If not for himself, then for Severus.

The day they left him, he mustered up the little energy he had remaining to bid them a warm goodbye. A kiss on each cheek for both. Then promised them he wasn't going to do anything rash. Remus hugged him extra tight, nearly crushing his weakened frame.

“I want you to be there for graduation, Jamie.”, he stated, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

James swallowed heavily.

Severus would never graduate. Top of his class. Genius mind. And he would never get that stupid certificate.

“I’ll try.”, James rasped, teeth gritted.

“Hello, mum.”, the boy on the screen whispered.

This time, he looked a little more grown. His hair had grown longer, shabbier somehow and his face had become even more angular. There was something in his eyes, they were deeper. Darker. It seemed impossible. Severus's eyes were as dark as possible and yet somehow, the ink deepened. He was outside, by the looks of it, surrounded by never-ending greenery as his hair whipped in the wind. James wondered where the place was. It didn't look like Hogwarts.

“I listened to this song today…and I thought about you. And Da.”, he paused while saying this, as if carefully contemplating his next words.

James, from his criss-crossed position on the floor, stared at the screen expectantly. He had already watched this tape. And the next one. And the one after that. He knew what Severus was going to say. He knew that in roughly four seconds, he was going to tuck an errant stand of hair behind his ear. He had memorized the words already, mouthing them seconds before the boy on the screen could. But it was never enough. Maybe it would never be enough. So he just watched with wide-eyed amazement and listened intently, hanging on to every word like a lifeline.

“I remember that before he started drinking…he used to play it a lot. I remember that night, when he came back from the mill. He had just gotten sacked but – somehow he was the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”, and at this he laughed wetly, eyes widening with amazement at the memory.

“I think I was about eight. I was so…small – and he kneeled next to me, then held me to his chest – so tightly. I remember we danced to that song and it was only a few minutes but to me it felt like hours. That was the safest I’d felt. Anywhere. It seemed like nothing could reach me. Or him. We were invincible.”, he smiled – a sad little thing.

James stiffened, knowing what was coming next.

“And then the next day, he was at the pub. And the one after that. And he was so angry all the time. At the world. At me. And I was angry at him. Because he was smart. He was beautiful. He was my father. And he'd ruined himself.”, the raven rasped, eyes glazed and voice heavy as he hastily wiped the spilled tears.

“He was the only fair thing in the world. With him, it seemed like the universe was balanced. And then I woke up the next day and he was cruel. And because he was cruel, suddenly the whole world was cruel. Suddenly, I was upside down with foam in my mouth, begging to be let down.”, he whispered weakly, pressing his fists into his forehead. And when his face reemerged, it was red and stained with tear tracks.

James fisted the flimsy material of the scrubs they’d given him. Breathable. So he wouldn’t suffocate himself.

“He did it so easily. One minute I was reading and the next he had me upside down in front of the whole school. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn't do anything. He did it like I didn’t matter. Like if I died right then and there, they'd all have a laugh about it. It was just a game to him. And his friends – his friends just laughed. And Lily….”, he heaved a large, wet breath, his broken voice trembling with indignation as potion-stained hands clumsily wiped the moisture spilling from his eyes. It wouldn’t stop. He looked unreal in the gravelly quality of the tape.

“Lily laughed too. She called me snivellus. And I called her a – a mud blood. I called her that nasty, stupid word. I was so – angry and humiliated. I wanted to hurt her the same way she'd hurt me. It didn't matter that the whole school was laughing. It only mattered that she was too.”, he choked out through the silent sobs, his palm smothering his mouth to keep them from breaking free. Minutes, maybe hours passed by in silence.

The sun was setting on Severus. Then, he looked into the camera and smiled – teeth and all. His eyes were unchanged.

“Bye, mum. I love you.”

The camera switched off.

“Hello, mum.”, he breathed. Trembling. Sixth year. The prank.

James's stomach dropped. His forehead was scraped, an inflamed red stark against his pallid complexion. His eyes were glassy and widened, like a deer in headlights.

Bruised hands tightened around his torso as his teeth silently grit together.

“Dumbledore told me to keep quiet about it this time. He said – that I owe him for saving my life, for pulling me out of harm's way. That I’m – that I’m indebted…to him.”, he spat the word out like it was venom, his onyx eyes burning with a silent fury. James shut his eyes tightly. Severus pressed the heels of his hands into his temples. His hands were scraped and bruised, the blaring red and blue mixing into sickening patches of torn purple skin.

“Sometimes…I feel like a really bad person because I want them to be in as much pain as they cause me. I hate them so much for doing this to me, sometimes I hope they die.”, he snarled, voice thickened with anger.

The camera switched off. 

“Hello, mum.”

“One more year till graduation. If I get all O's, I’m going to get my mastery. Then I’ll be the greatest potioneer there ever was.”, he breathed, laughing emptily.

James vomited into the garbage bin next to his bed.

Potioneer. Severus was going to be a fucking potioneer.

Severus smiled meekly. His face was grey and sallow. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in a decade. He looked tired.

“I just want you to know – there will be a piece of you in me always.”

The camera switched off. 

“Mr. Potter?”

“James?”

“James, it’s time for your session with the Ms. Althea.”

Ms. Althea was the best mind healer St. Mungos had to offer and she was assigned to James, once again, a courtesy of Fleamont and Euphemia's incredible connections.

Her pitch black pixie-cut and long, silken robes startled James at first. All the other healers wore professional white, cotton ‘medical’ robes. He had seen plenty of them in session with other patients through the large windows. He saw wands, cauldrons, mirrors, books and herbs and somehow Ms. Althea had never used them on him. They just talked.

Unlike the others – clean, neat and meticulously organized – Ms. Althea’s office or ‘healing room’ was cluttered with foreign objects. Books of all shapes, colors and sizes permeated the room – some piled five stories high next to the large, double-wide windows, some tucked into every crevice of furniture occupying the room. Tightly woven, iridescent dream-catchers hung from every cabinet and door. A yellowed magical calendar sat collecting dust on the splintered coffee table. A procession of colorful, dragon hide boots lined the doors. All in all, it looked like a well-loved museum. Or a knick-knack boutique.

‘Hello, James.”

“Hello.”

“How are you feeling today?”

His stomach churned.

“Fine.”

“Just fine?”

Swallowing thickly, he nodded.

“I’m not sure I believe that James.”

He fiddled with a loose thread on his breathable, white cotton shirt.

“Whatever.”

“Ok.”, she smiled sweetly crossing her legs leisurely. The bitter winter wind wafted in through the open windows, igniting a chill within his bones. “Are you cold?”, the slender healer asked, tilting her head in a concerned manner.

“No.”, he bit back, a little too quickly to be believable.

“Shall I close the windows?”, her brows furrowed.

“I said no.”, he rasped, muscled arms tightening around his torso – withdrawing into himself.

Her expression was unreadable.

“So, what did you do today?”, she inquired innocently.

“Nothing. I just…sat in my room.”, he breathed out, scarred hands reaching up to massage his aching temples.

“The nurses tell me you’ve been watching the tapes again.”

“Don’t.”, he hissed, nostrils flaring.

“Why not?”, she quipped back. This is the most she had gotten out of the boy in there sessions. She was not going to back down. She wasn't known for backing down.

“Because.”

“Because what?”, her face remained purely curious.

James did not reply, instead choosing to simmer in an uneasy silence. So be it. He was sure he'd throw up right then and there if he recalled it once more.

“You think you're avoiding it.”, she said matter-of-factly.

He did not reply.

“Do you like riddles, James?”, she asked innocently.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever”, he replied, albeit reluctantly. He promised Remus. He promised his parents. He had get through this.

“What grows larger the more you ignore it?”

He groaned, exhausted from the constant mind games. Plus, he was kind of dizzy from having retched up his insides after watching the tape for the millionth time.

“I don’t know.”

“A problem.”, she stated, the corners of her mouth quirking up.

“You saying I’ve got a problem?”, he asked, humoring her.

“Oh you’ve got more than that, dear boy.”, she huffed indifferently. He laughed mirthlessly. For the first time since the news reached him.

Ms. Althea smiled, thinking about how far they had come; from absolute silence and dead-eyed stares to a laugh! Her gaze softened.

“You can't keep running from it, James.”, she whispered, eyes filled with a pitying sadness.

“I’m not running.”, he said wetly.

“Then why won't you talk about him? Why won't you talk about what's on those tapes?”, she pushed.

“Because it hurts.”, he whispered, fiddling with the loose piece of thread once more.

“What hurts, James?”

“Everything.”, he whispered, his voice laced with anguish, like a dying man's last words. And then he looked at her, his eyes filled with something indescribable.

“What's everything?”, she knew she was pushing it. James might not be ready. But the truth is he never would be. There would be no specific moment in which the boy would stand up and declare that he was willing to cut away at his flesh and reveal every feeling, every emotion, every thought.

“Him. His eyes. His hair. His teeth. His mind. He is – was beautiful.”, he murmured wetly.

“And why does that hurt, James?”

James looked at the window, his chin resting on the palm of his hand. He swallowed the incoming sob down, lips quivering.

“Because he didn't know it.”, he breathed shakily, eyes still fixated on a random spot outside.

“Why do you think he didn't know it?”, she was about to hit the precipice, she could feel it. She couldn’t go back now.

“Because I told him he wasn’t! Because I spent every single minute of my time with him telling him that he was ugly – that – that he was some kind of monster. I spent every second at school calling him names. I hung him upside down for the everyone to see. I exposed him. I bullied him like a child. I ruined his clothes, his books, his shoes. I laughed at him when he cried and I even got my friends to do it too. I killed him for Merlin's sake!”, he spat, his voice thick with anger. The words spilled from his mouth like scorching lashes of fire. But the only person burning was him.

“Did you make him drink that potion?”

James shook his head vigorously, tears splashing everywhere, but not in denial; he didn't want to hear whatever she was about to say.

“James. Listen to me, dear boy. Did you make him drink that potion? Did you brew it for him? Did you force it down his throat?”, she stated calmly, hoping that the boy would be still enough to listen to her.

“No.”, he whispered, the word barely audible against the strong winds wafting through the room, ruffling his chocolate curls.

“Then you didn't kill him.”

“No – you don't understand – I – “

“James.”

…

“It’s not your fault.”

“No, don't lie. Don’t lie to me – I – “

“It's not your fault.”

“He was hurting. He was hurting so badly and I didn’t see it. I was so stupid – so cruel – “

“It’s not your fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?...”, he whimpered, his limbs trembling with silent sobs.

“It’s no one’s fault.”

“No – no there’s got to be someone – something – I just -I just wanna know why – Merlin, he had so much to live for! And he – he just – he went ahead and – “, he choked out, falling back into the couch dejectedly, like a puppet with loose strings.

“James. Who knows?”

“Wha – “

“Who knows why Severus committed suicide? It could’ve been your mistreatment of him. It could have been others' mistreatment of him. It could have been the simple fact that he wanted to commit suicide and so he did.”, she spoke calmly, adjusting her robes casually.

“But – “

“But nothing, James. We could sit here all day and discuss Severus feeling this way and that and try to reason with each other but truth is – it’s not going to be much help. And I’m here to help.”

“Can't you just give me one of those potions you have in the back? I’ve seen other healers do it.”, he breathed wearily.

“I could. But you'll fall asleep for seventeen hours and wake up feeling the same, if not worse. Do you really want that, James?”, she stated simply, waiting for a response.

“Um, no – not really.”, he sighed, rubbing his eyes.

“James, do you wish to continue the session?”, she asked kindly, the realization that this would take much more than a few words to resolve hitting her face-first.

James carefully considered her question. He was so close to saying no but memories of Lupin and his parents' anguished faces reared their ugly heads.

“Yes.”, he muttered, exhaling deeply.

“Are you ready to talk about the tapes?”, she spoke casually, her furrowed brows betraying her careful hesitation.

James sighed.

“You don’t have to.”

“No – no – I want to.”, he stuttered, the words fighting their way through the lump in his throat.

“Okay – so – what’s in them?”

"They’re – videotapes – kind of like moving pictures – I don’t know to explain – “, he stammered, face twisting up in confusion.

“I’m a half blood, James. I know what videotapes are. My dad loves them.”, she stated reassuringly, flashing him a playful grin.

“Oh – alright then. So he – Severus and his mother would send each other videotapes while he was at Hogwarts.”

“How’d he manage that then?”, she joked, hoping to lighten up the mood. So far, it seemed like James was walking around with a cloud of sadness over his head.

“Severus was smart. Class genius. All O’s. Even in charms, he struggled a bit with that one but that’s because – I – we’d sometimes mess with his wand… anyways – he – uh – he must’ve found someway to make it work on school grounds.”, he breathed, jaw tightening at the flood of memories.

“So, what did he talk about in the tapes?”, the dark haired woman smiled warmly. Encouragingly.

“He talked about – uh – everything. He talked about me. My friends. Lily. His father. He talked about his father a lot. He talked about the Slytherins, the Death Eaters.”

“And what does he say about them?” He heaved a large breath, his fingers flexing and unflexing repeatedly. It felt like hours before the boy replied, his eyes refocusing.

“A lot.”

“Okay.” “He’s – he was like this…never-ending reserve of sadness. Like the universe decided to sap all the life and happiness from him. But he was so stupidly sensitive. He persisted and he made the best with what he could. He would talk about his father all the time. And it made me so angry because his father was a drunk that used to hit on him and his mum. But he never said a bad thing about him. He loved music. He loved reading. He loved his mother. He loved his father. He loved Lily. He loved – life. He loved it so much. But sometimes – sometimes I’d look at his eyes through the TV screen and they’d just be…empty. He spoke as if he was already gone. As if his fate was sealed.”, James rambled, voice thick with grief. His hands were littered with crescent shaped marks.

“How does that make you feel, James?”, she asked, voice shaking with trepidation.

James bit his cheeks to keep from sobbing. Words turned to rubble in his throat. How could this lady, who has never known him and would never know him, understand how he feels? He could speak about the guilt, the aching chest, the churning stomach, the scarred arms, the dry throat, the burning heart. He could speak about the dreams. The beautiful and yet terrifying dreams. He could speak about the vomiting. The infections. The brain fog. The anger. The sorrow. The shame. The guilt. The terrible, inescapable guilt. But she'd never understand. He wished she could. He wanted it more than ever; to have a person look at him and say ‘I see you’ and to know that they were telling the truth. Perhaps Severus wanted the same. Perhaps Severus wanted to be seen.

“It makes me feel…bad.”, he whispered, his vocabulary crumbling to dust.

She tilted her head to the side, perplexed by the vagueness of his answer. Healing does not work when the pain is vague.

“It makes me feel like – like a bad person.”, he spat.

“Why does it make you feel like a bad person, James?”

“Because – because I was cruel to him. For fun. He was fighting to stay alive. To keep going. And I just kept on kicking him down. And I can’t ever be forgiven now…I can’t let him know how sorry I am….”, he rasped.

“Why do you want forgiveness so desperately, James? Is it because you don’t like feeling guilty – knowing that you have hurt a person willingly and that might have lead to his death or because you feel actual remorse?”, she asked calmly, the question hitting him like a punch to the gut.

“I – uh – “

“And who decides if you’re forgiven? Who decides if you are good or bad? Listen to me, James. The world isn't black and white. Nobody is completely good and nobody is completely bad. Humans have been on this earth for six million years and not a single one of us has been perfect. We love and lose and make so many mistakes. The best we can hope for is that we will wake up the next day and be better. In a hopeless world, the only thing we can have is hope. It is the only thing we must have. I mean, look at me – I’m a healer with about a thousand certifications and I have yet to crack the code for life. Sometimes I am mean and cruel and sometimes…sometimes people tell me I’ve saved their lives. You are not a bad person, James. You are a good person who does bad things and even though that’s a cliché, you must understand it. Torturing yourself will not absolve you of your sins. The guilt that you feel, the anger, the sorrow, the pain. Use it – whether that be helping a stranger on the street or apologizing to those you’ve wronged. Be better from it. Don’t let it destroy you, dear boy.”, she stated calmly, yet firmly. Her voice did not break nor did she stutter. 

Nurse Melody extended the same attention and quality of care to all patients, regardless of their behavior or mental capacity. She found James the easiest to deal with. He was docile and lethargic and downed every potion at its given time without complaint or fuss, unlike her other patients who would thrash and kick and scratch relentlessly if she even so much as mentioned anything related to medication. Not only was he incredibly quiet – an irregularity for the St. Mungos mental ward – he was also very withdrawn. He did not partake in group activities and when he was not sleeping, he was sat rigidly watching those tapes.

Which is why she found it strange that Ms. Althea had ordered her to confiscate them. James had let her in without fuss when she knocked on his door. Once again, he was sitting on his floor in a criss-crossed position, his eyes glued to the grainy video on the screen. She felt a pang in her chest, looking at the unassuming boy who had never once given her trouble, who had swallowed those potion vials quietly and finished his meals without complaint, knowing she was going to rip his only comfort away.

“Is it time for my medication already?”, he whispered, a brief flash of discomfort passing his face.

Nurse Melody knew that James did not like drinking it. Nobody did. It’s why some of them had to be tied down. But she had always appreciated his yieldingness, that’s why she always made sure to give him a sucker and a wink afterward. He never ate it but still ensured that she'd receive a warm, albeit empty, smile.

“No, not yet dear. I’ve actually come to take these from you. Ms. Althea said they had to be confiscated. I’m really sorry.”, she winced.

“What? Why do you want to take them?! I haven't done anything…”, he protested, standing up rapidly.

“Boss's orders, lovey.”, she smiled kindly, her hands clasped together.

“Well….you can't! I haven't done anything. I need them.”, he rambled, standing between the stack of tapes protectively.

Nurse Melody summoned her wand and with one quick flick, she had the tapes levitating towards her.

“Ms. Althea said that this would hinder your recovery, dear. I’m just doing what I’m told.”, she said, hoping to pacify him.

“No – no – you don’t understand. It’s the only – it’s the only thing I have left of him. Please.”, he begged.

“Sorry, love. It’s for your own good, yeah?”

And that’s when the screaming started. Then the kicking and scratching after two buff male nurses had to be called in to subdue him. And as they strapped him down onto a gurney and wheeled him away to receive a healthy dose of some calming potion or the other, he looked at her with such hurt in his eyes that she had to turn away. His docility would only last so long. They all snap eventually. It’s part of the healing process. And James was like scrambled electric wires, pulsing with energy and quiet, until disturbed.

When the night has come

And the land is dark

And the moon is the only thing we'll see

No, I won't be afraid

Oh, I won't be afraid

Just as long, as you stand

Stand by me

The record player spun twelve hours of the twenty-four hour day and for the rest, James slept. Always the same song.

After the tapes had been confiscated, James had regressed back into the catatonic state that landed him in St. Mungos's mental ward in the first place. Without much to do except show up for his daily sessions with Ms. Althea, who had been slowly but surely getting to him and to whom he had replied with silence, he ended up sleeping half the time.

While the others were painting or watching movies, he was slumbering into the seventh heaven.

Ms. Althea, who had recognized this as merely a roadblock to his recovery, chose to allow him one request to which he had finally replied, for the first time in weeks, the he wanted a record player and only one record. And thus came about the endless loop of the same song. By the second day, Nurse Melody considered confiscating his music too but thought it too cruel considering they had already ripped the tapes away from him. So they settled on casting a long-lasting silencing charm around his room so that the other patients, who had already gone stir crazy, would not be further disturbed.

The strangest occurrence, though, was not the repetitive tune. It was the fact that he'd stand in the same spot for hours, swaying to the raspy melody again and again. Nurse Melody winced, thinking of the blisters and aches he was most definitely experiencing.

The other patients swore they could see him whispering to himself as he swayed, hugging himself tight enough to break his own bones. It wasn't an oddity in this end of the hospital. Nurse Melody had seen a lot worse.

So darlin', darlin', stand by me

Oh, stand by me

Oh, stand by me

Stand by me

 “James?”

James was sleeping. Common occurrence. The round of potions they had him on was exhausting at best.

“James, wake up love, you’ve got a visitor.”, the kind nurse whispered, not wanting to startle the slumbering boy.

His bleary eyes blinked open slowly, adjusting the weak winter light spilling into the tiny room. He buried his head further into the pillow, not wanting to face the world yet. He didn't care for what the sweet nurse was mumbling – he couldn’t even hear it anyways. It felt like his head was submerged in water, every sound muted and distorted, as if a mermaid's call from some distant island.

“James, honey…?”, her voice seemed clearer now, plunging him violently back into reality, his body freezing up.

He sighed. Time to face the music.

“Who is it?”

“It’s a red-headed girl. Says her name's Lily.”

“Lily…?”

“Yes."

Come on now, you’ve got ta get up. She’s been waiting a while.”, she said, a hint of exasperation coloring her tone.

He stood up quickly, shrugging on an unassuming grey zip-up - hospital issued of course. He was always cold these days, even as summer descended upon England vibrantly. Spring had come and gone just as fast as winter. He did not keep count of the days – it would only make him more depressed. Nurse Melody smiled warmly. It felt like just yesterday he was being wheeled in as a hollowed out carcass. Summer had brought a bit of color back to the boy. Sometimes he'd even join the procession of patients for a little walk down in the hospital’s endless courtyard. His cheeks had filled out again, a healthy pink flush returning. It felt like a beacon of light amongst a sea of darkness, though some days he'd be paralyzed with sadness and refuse any and all human interaction.

“Where is she?”, he questioned, an unbridled curiosity seeping into the words.

“She’s in the courtyard. Now, come on, we don’t want to leave her waiting any longer.”

The trek to the courtyard was torturous. What did Lily want with him? Last time he had seen her was when she wished him a bitter life and stormed off. And to call her a ‘visitor' did not sit right with him. He didn't think they had anything more to say to each other.

“Lily…”

She stood like a phantom in the middle of the proliferating greenery of the field, long thickets of red hair billowing over her shoulders. She wore a soft cardigan and a pair of faded blue jeans. She had matured somehow, no longer clad in frilly pink socks and heart-studded tights. Even her usual intricately curled locks remained pin straight. She no longer had time nor heart for superficial aesthetics. The sun beamed down on them gently, a forgiving presence in the midst of the palpable turmoil. She turned to look at him and even though they were far part, her grass-green eyes were as striking as ever.

“James.”, he saw her mouth moving but the words did not reach him.

“Just a little further, come on.”, nurse Melody encouraged, lightly directing him to the awaiting visitor.

They met by the incongruously placed stone bench. She surveyed him closely, as if trying to read him before he could speak a word. Lily's face had hardened, he noticed. Her brows were knit in a permanent furrow and her once soft, feminine jaw had sharpened, likely from the constant clenching. Her back was ram-rod straight, as if anticipating the collapse of the universe at any given moment. Always alert. Grief had done a number on her. She looked grown. Gone was the airy confidence she carried so seamlessly. Now she was tense, tight and rigid. Careful. As if one minor movement would unravel the ribbon holding her together. The wind picked up a little bit.

“James.”, she acknowledged from her place on the bench, her voice void of any emotion; not even anger.

“Lily…”, he whispered, still unsure of her presence. Maybe he was dreaming all this up?

“Sit.” He obeyed wordlessly. Lily faced the vast green acres before them. Her eyes surveyed the gently sloping landscape, zeroing in on a colorful bird.

“How are you you doing?”, she asked lightly. Simply. Her voice did not betray any emotion, rather it seemed as if they were old friends catching up. Or strangers making mindless small talk.

“I’m fine. And you?”, he replied, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I'm fine too, James.”, she hummed, turning to face him. Scrutinizing.

“That’s…that’s good.”

“It’s been two months.”, she stated simply. His stomach churned. He stayed silent. Two entire months since Severus had killed himself.

Had it really been that long? It felt as if it were just yesterday. The ache was still the same.

“We're supposed to be graduating but the school delayed the ceremony. Apparently, they want to give the students and staff a bereavement period.”, she huffed, unimpressed. “I didn’t know.”, he replied mindlessly.

“Yeah well – leave it up to Dumbledore to play the hero. Couldn't give less of fuck about Severus when he was alive. You'd know that well, James.”, she said calmly, her words laced with venom.

James flinched.

“Why are you here James?”, she asked, frustration bleeding into her words. Her eyes surveyed him once more. This time, it felt as if she were trying to figure something out. Something unutterable. He sighed, fiddling with the drawstring of his sweatpants.

“You know why, Lily.”

“No, I don’t actually.”

“What do you want me to say? That I’m here because I almost overdosed on some muggle crap or that I’ve gone completely mad so they had to put me away for good?”

“I don’t understand you, Potter. You spent every waking moment poking and prodding at him and when he finally kicked the bucket, all of a sudden you’re not able to function? So you end up in a fucking mental hospital of all places?”, she huffed, incredulity splashed across her face.

“I don’t know.”, he breathed, exhausted already. He wanted to slip into bed and pass out, dream of Severus.

She sighed. “So…what's it like in here?”, she said, her eyes travelling all across the place.

“It’s…It’s good – you know?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” “So what do you do here?”

“I...I don't do much, to be honest. I watch the tapes. And I sleep. Sometimes, I talk with a healer and she gives me…medicine.”

“Do you still see him?”

“Always.”

James knew who she was talking about. How could he not?

“Me too.”, whispered, her eyes clouded. She inhaled sharply, straightening up.

“So…we're graduating soon. Have you thought about what you’re going to be?”, she asked nicely. She had to be. They couldn't keep on like this.

He huffed a sad little laugh.

“Sirius and I were going to be Aurors.”

“Were?”

That feeling reared its ugly head again.

“I used to want to do stuff, Lily. I used to wake up and look forward to seeing you and my friends. I had all these quidditch posters up in my room. I’d never miss a game. I used to like transfiguration and playing pranks on McGonagall. I used to like Sirius. And it felt like the most important thing in the world.”, he rasped, eyes wet.

“And now?” she asked tentatively.

“Now it doesn't matter. It doesn’t matter if I fail or pass, if I graduate or not. Back then, it was so easy. It was so easy to breath. Lily…I – I can't breathe.”, he whispered through the lump in his throat, brown eyes meeting an endless green.

Lily shook her head vigorously, eyes wet with unshed tears. She hurriedly wiped them away.

James quickly turned away, choosing to glare at a faraway patch of wispy dandelions.

Silence reigned over them.

Lily was getting better. She was so close. She was so close to dealing with it, learning to put it aside, stuff it into a little box and bury it for all eternity in some dark corner of her mind. And then James had to remind her. He had reached in and opened that box, let the contents spill out like some hazardous black sludge.

“Lily?”

“What, James?”

“Will it ever get better? Will this feeling go away?”, he whispered wetly.

“No. It doesn't go away. It’s always going to be there. You’ll have to learn to live with it. It could be so good, for a few weeks, months, maybe years. Then, one day, you'll see a jumper in a store or a record spinning and it'll be like the first day again.”, she stated, shutting her eyes tightly.

…

“But we have to keep going. We have to learn to live and love this life, even if we have to do it with a clenched fist. We have to live for him. Do you understand, James? I’ll be a Healer and you'll be an Auror, okay? We'll both make sense of this stupid, fucked up world.”, she stated rigidly, tears streaming down her reddened face as she intertwined their hands tightly. She looked at him with such hope, such fragile yet persevering hope.

James nodded vigorously, the words lodged in his throat.

“We can be good again, James. We can be, good.”

James sobbed. James sobbed so much, it must have been hours before he stopped. And even though he knew he did not deserve it – it felt good. It felt so good to know that maybe this wasn't the end for him, that maybe he could be good again, that maybe he could be reborn. Like a Phoenix from the ashes. Maybe when he scrubbed himself red and raw in the shower, the guilt would finally wash off. Maybe he could breathe again.

She embraced him and it felt like coming home. They were two beautiful and flawed humans mourning the loss of another beautiful and flawed human. Maybe they would never get over this. Maybe Severus would haunt the deepest corners of their hearts forever. Maybe they would ride the waves of grief for as long as they lived. But they would try. They would drag their feet through the mud. They would live this beautifully stupid life if it meant they were living it for him.

She pulled back from him, green eyes meeting brown.

“See you at graduation, Potter.” “You too, Evans.”