Everything is exactly the same as he left it, and yet, it feels so different.
The grey clouds above remain unchanged from before, yet they oppress him more than anything else could. And though the downpour has not slowed down, it no longer bothers him; he embraces the weeping sky, for he weeps alongside it. He shakes alongside it, too; his hands, his arms, his legs, his feet – his whole body shakes and trembles and he has to lean against the rough bricks that make up the outside of his house for stability, and he accepts their pricking in his shoulderblades all the more. He focuses on the stinging pain. He deserves it.
He closes his eyes and lets out a sudden gasp for air. He has not breathed properly sice Apparating back here, his chest squeezed shut, not allowing the air to enter. He tries desperately to let it through and fails. He pushes back the new wave of tears that threatens to spill from his eyes. He fails again. He gasps for more air and it chokes him.
Rough gusts of wind pass him by, nearly throwing him off his unstady feet and flinging him to the ground. His body grows cold in this harsh, stormy weather and he draws his drenched robes tighter around his body in an attempt to keep in some warmth, though it only succeeds in making him shiver more. The wind chills him to the bone.
He should go home. Enter his house, sit by the fire, warm himself. He should. And yet, he stays in this uncomfortable position. Because he already knows that what he will find in there will keep him from recovering, at least mentally. He already knows that he will find his home exactly how he left it, untouched, unmarred by the events that unfolded this afternoon. He will find it apathetic to the fate that rests her.
That is why, despite the worsening cold, he remains outside. It is why, despite the plummeting rain, he sinks to the ground and pulls his knees up to his chest beneath his robes. He needs to be careful with his body warmth if he wants to avoid hypothermia, so he makes sure he makes no skin contact with the cold, wet cobblestones below.
The mechanics of keeping warm occupy his mind, and it keeps him from thinking about worse matters. His tears have actually managed to dry, or perhaps he has simply lost the ability to tell them apart from the rain. He is still as helpless and miserable as before, but slightly better at rationalising his thoughts. The cold helps him think.
Does it really?
He hardly thinks at all. The cold has consumed him, frozen his thoughts. It is for the better. The less he thinks, the less he feels. And the less he feels, the better he functions.
Another gust of wind passes and throws him against his home with sudden force. He hits the back of his head against the bricks, and the sharp pain that follows radiates throughout his body.
The clarity of mind he had gained from the cold is swept overboard almost at once. His thoughts swirl around, and he cannot order them any more, he cannot make sense of them. For a moment, he thinks that this is the end. This is his death. His life is flashing before his eyes, so it must be the end. It must be his death.
And in a way, it is. Her life is entwined with his. They are one and the same. If she dies, he dies. If she lives, he lives. That is why his life seems so fickle now, because her life is hanging on by a thread. Her fate is to be decided by his master, and so, by extension, is his own.
No!
He steers his thoughts away from the subject, lest he think something he will come to regret. He needs a distraction more fruitful than the cold alone. He stumbles to his feet and paces along the cobblestones. His shoes are soppy, and he focuses on the sound of his steps, a soft sloshing that echoes through to the back of his mind.
One, two, three, four – he goes forth.
Five, six, seven, eight – he moves back.
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve – forwards, again.
As long as he keeps counting, as long as he can hear nothing but rain, he knows he is safe. He cannot allow his mind to wander.
And it seems to work. He can breathe more freely now. The emptiness in his mind is soothing. He comes to a halt by his front door and stares longingly at it.
It will be warm in there. Dry. Perhaps if he just paces up and down in front of the fire, he could keep his mind at bay in a more pleasant –
His mind fills with a sudden, inexplicable urge to set it aflame. He knows the spell. He has done it before; countless homes have gone up in flames under his and Lucius’ watch. And what use does he have for a house if he has no life left to live in it? If his Lily is gone, for good?
That is where he makes his mistake. By allowing her name into his mind, the tears he fought so viciously before come back in full force. His mind turns sluggy from the burst of emotion creeping through his veins and the rain only makes his suffocation worse. It is relentless.
He spells the front door open and staggers through it, falling over the threshold and stumbling into the wall. Water streams down from his robes, forming puddles on the floor below. It takes him all the strength he has left to force the door to a close before he collapses.
She’s not dead yet, he reminds himself. And he has no right to think she will be any time soon; the Dark Lord knows how much she means to him. He has seen how much she means to him. She is in safe hands. He must not doubt that.
He finds his breathing for the umpteenth time that day, pulls himself in a more comfortable position on the floor (insofar that is possible) and goes over it again and again in his mind. He trusts the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord shall reward him for relaying the prophecy – he had promised as much. Lily’s life will be his reward. He has secured her safety. He cannot – must not – have second thoughts now. He must trust the Dark Lord will spare her. After all, she is not the subject of the prophecy. There is no need for her to die.
She is safe.
He arrives upstairs without having noticed he moved there, but he embraces the change in scenery nonetheless. He reaches his bedroom and falls down on the mattress that makes up his bed.
The Dark Lord knows best, he reminds himself again. It is horrible he has to remind himself of this fact. The Dark Lord is infallible. He knows this. He has never questioned it before. He has no right to question it now. No right at all. And yet … Yet he knows that if he allows his thoughts to run freely, he will question it. He will have doubts. And so he does not allow them to run freely, for if he does, the Dark Lord will know.
The Dark Lord is infallible.
He lies on his mattress for a while, repeating that phrase over and over again until it loses its meaning and his mind begins to wander. Lily creeps back to the surface of his mind, and he tries to shut her out. It would not do to keep thinking about her. Her life is not in his hands.
If the Dark Lord decides that Lily must die, then so it shall be, and he isn’t to mourn her. He is to do the Dark Lord’s bidding, regardless of his personal feelings and desires.
If he decides she can live, then – and only then – she may live.
The Dark Lord’s word is law.
He closes his eyes and forces himself to believe this. When that does not work, he empties his mind with all his remaining strength, in an attempt to get rid of Lily’s vivid face and all the thoughts and doubts she brings. He knows he can do it; he is quite skilled at Occlumency, or so his master told him last time they practised. But this is the first time he is using his Occlumency against such personal thoughts, and it is much more difficult, and his overly emotional state makes it nearly impossible to succeed.
He focuses on something else to help his mind. The fabric of the bedsheet, for instance. Though wet, it feels familiar against his hands. He fumbles it. He tries desperately to keep his mind shut from everything but the feeling of the sheet. He must. He has no other option.
He fails, so he tells himself that it would be far more prudent to reply to Lucius’ owl, to stop by the apothecary and to get the potions ingredients he needs, than to lie here wallowing in self-pity for the rest of the day. It would be best to get on with life as if today hasn’t happened – but how could he?
A fine place to start would be by not thinking about today, but so far, that has failed spectacularly, for it has just made him think about the situation more and more. It has caused him to doubt the undoubtable. If only he could stop doing that … Again, he tries to steer his thoughts in any direction but that one. He tries so hard to guard his mind against it all that he quickly finds himself too drained of energy to continue.
He needs a distraction. He needs something to do.
He resorts to pacing up and down his small bedroom.
He can only take about a step and a half in either direction, but he finds himself unable to settle down and unwilling to move on to a larger room; this is the only room in the house Lily has ever been in. Her memory is strongest here. He cherishes it. It is also where he keeps the little items he has of her. No –
That trecherous mind of his! The way it keeps circling back to her, the way she seeps through the cracks of his shield. Can it not just listen?! He is the master of his mind!
He tries to apply Occlumency again, yet he fails after mere seconds. His emotions run too deep for it to work.
How much time must pass before the Dark Lord deigns to reveal whether Lily will live or die? How much longer must he stand the raw ache in his chest that threatens to rip his insides apart? How much longer must he face himself red-eyed from the tears that won’t stop coming?
He wonders briefly if the Dark Lord knows the agony he puts him through. Of course, the answer is yes. The real question is if this prolonged agony is a deliberate test of his loyalty or merely for the Dark Lord’s enjoyment.
He had him at his feet, begging for her life only to retaliate with I’ll consider it.
Consider it! After all he has done for his master, after all he has given up, after years of unconditional loyalty and devotion! After bringing him the Prophecy! Granting him this one request, this one reward is too much asked?
The Dark Lord did not care. The Dark Lord does not care. The Dark Lord has never cared, and the Dark Lord never will.
Whether it is a test or a game, he should not care either. He cannot protect her either way. He cannot keep her safe. He has already done all he can do, and it is no longer in his hands. She is at the Dark Lord’s mercy now, so he already mourns her death.
He mourns the loss of those beautiful eyes, the emeralds that always glistened in the sun, that lit up when they saw him. He mourns the loss of her red hair, her beautiful locks of auburn that reminded him of the very best of autumn, of afternoons spent rustling through the fallen leaves, letting them float around in the river …
He mourns her creativity, her talents, her love of nature and of magic, and all that she held dear. He mourns their friendship and what could have been, mourns that she fell in love with that arrogant Potter and bore him a child, that prophesied child that will cause her death.
He gives up on trying to suppress his thoughts. It does not work regardless.
He pulls a box from the cabinet, from below the pile of robes. It’s dusty, and he suppresses a cough as he opens it.
In it lies a flower she gave to him out of kindness, a few weeks into knowing each other. He remembers it like it was yesterday: they were at that playground near her house, and she had said she wanted to show him something. She was so gifted already, even back then … The flower has long since wilted, but once was as vibrant as herself. Carefully, he takes it out of the box. He can feel her magic on it. It is soft and gentle yet fiery and ready to burst all the same.
Below it is a napkin she used in this very room, to wipe the grease off her chin after they indulged in some chips and gravy after she learnt he hadn’t eaten properly all week. She’d bought it with her own pocket money. All for him. It had been a few months after the flower, and he hadn’t meant to collect it at the time, truly, he hadn’t. It just happened.
He puts it aside.
His first real birthday present, at least the first he remembers. A yo-yo she bought him when she learnt he had no toys to speak of. A picture of the both of them, taken the day before they boarded the Hogwarts Express – the day before they met that Potter, that Potter who took her away …
He stares at the little girl in the picture. So much time has passed. So much has happened since. He caresses it, whispers apologies as if the little girl in it can hear him. It is a Muggle photograph. She doesn’t notice it. Yet he presses his lips against the smooth surface, a tear rolling down his cheek.
How could he have been so blind? How could he have allowed himself to go down the very path she accused him of going down to? He is plagued by flashes of her pleading eyes, both past and real and present and imagined. What would she say if she knew …?
He is no fool. He knows what she would say; they had that conversation several times when they were still on speaking terms. She hates him. She’s hated him for years. She hated him before he even joined his ranks.
He closes his eyes. He had always known the risk of being a follower of the Dark Lord: hatred, jelousy, discrimination. It is inevitable. People will always hate him. People always have hated him, and he sees no real reason for that to change. At the time, it had meant that, besides the possibility of an early death, there was no real risk for him, only gain … And he gained so much, yes, but he has lost even more. He will lose so much more.
Why must the Dark Lord go after Lily?!
The Dark Lord knew what he wanted when he asked him – Severus suspects he has known for a while now – yet made him beg for it. Made him crawl at his feet to beg for mercy, that he spare the woman of his dreams. That he let her live. Then he trod him down and kicked him. Played with him while he was at his lowest and made the mere consideration of granting his desire feel like a great reward, made him feel grateful for his indifference.
A cold laugh escapes his lips. He had been too foolish, too infatuated to see what was right in front of him the whole time. Truly, if it was about anyone else, it would have been funny. It would have been hysterical. He had thought himself special. He had considered himself close with his master. He had believed him when he spoke of their kinship, of friendship and camaraderie.
No more.
He puts the items back into the box and puts the box back where it came from, safely tucked away. Nobody knows of its existence. Even if he does not survive what he is about to do – and that seems very likely, for what he is about to do is as reckless as it is idiotic – nobody will find those treasures.
He stands up and leaves the bedroom, sudden calm washing over him. He finds his mind at peace for the first time since his meeting with the Dark Lord that afternoon. He knows it won’t last long before he returns to the blubbering mess he was moments ago but takes this sudden clarity as a sign. He has no time to waste.
He knows that what he is about to do will change everything. It will be disastrous, with consequences at a cosmic scale. He will betray everything he ever worked for, everything he holds dear. If anyone finds out, he will suffer longer and harder than anyone, and he can be more than sure of Lily’s death – but that is the very thing. He already can be sure of her death, for he knows he cannot rely upon the Dark Lord to save her. He cannot rely upon his graceful consideration. He cannot rely on a man who wouldn’t bat an eye at breaking even the strongest of promises.
He hastens through the rest of the actions. He writes a letter to a man he never imagined to write to and bids his home and old life goodbye, just knowing, somehow, that his request will be answered.
He steps outside. The sun has set. The rain has cleared. It is warmer now, but Severus barely notices it, too consumed by his own thoughts. He shakes his head, snorts, thinks, briefly, I’ve gone mad, then turns on his heel.