Fic: Living for Ghosts
Title: Living for Ghosts
Author: breathless_dawn
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Severus/Lily
Disclaimer: Just a muggle girl, playing with a borrowed wand.
Warnings: Spoilers for Deathly Hallows, character death, and complete and total disregard for English grammar.
A/N: Twenty sentences for the 20paperplanes occasions theme. As per my usual, there are a great variety of AUs and emotions explored in these, so have fun with them! It should also be noted that 17, 18, and 19 all occur within the same day. Enjoy!
1. Anniversary
Years later, he returns to the meadow behind her house where they used to lay together and stare at the sky, but he feels out of place, too old now for their childhood hideaway, perhaps, or maybe it’s because she isn’t there; he lays down anyway, beneath the giant oak tree, whispers, “I miss you,” to the sunset and swears he can almost feel the gentle pressure of her fingers curling around his.
2. New Year’s
They kissed at midnight on December 31st, in the middle of their snowy street when they were fourteen years old, and now, seven years later (and 60 agonising days since she left him and the world behind), he sits alone in his new office at Hogwarts and whispers her name to an empty bottle of Firewhiskey.
3. Halloween
Severus arrives too late; he waves his wand over her still frame, muttering incantations that sound like songs, tips potions down her throat, kisses her forehead, her cold lips, “I love you,” he sobs in desperation; it’s not enough.
4. Firsts
“Thanks, Sev, you’re a life saver!” she says breathlessly, taking his Transfiguration homework from his hand and kissing him quickly on the mouth before running down the corridor.
5. Middles
“What in the name of Merlin are you trying to prove, Severus?” Lily demands, “You know what that lot is after as much as I do, and I just - I just don’t want to lose you to them, Sev.”
6. Lasts
“Now you’ve lost her, too,” Petunia says in an oddly satisfied voice, watching her sister drape herself over the Potter boy in the middle of the train station and sparing a sneering glance for Severus.
7. Nostalgia
He stays in Spinner’s End, in his father’s old house, not because of the memories of his parents (those are the ones he would like to forget), but because of the memories of Lily Evans’ hair shining in the summer sun, the ice cream melting down her chin, her fingers laced with his.
8. Rendezvous
They haven’t spoken in years, not since their teenage feud, the utterance of an ugly word, but she answers his frantic owl and agrees to meet him when James is with Remus at the full moon.
9. Death
“My Lord, I beg of you, please - please, spare her life,” Snape pleads, unable to hide the tremble in his voice, “Please spare Lily.”
10. Life
When her son is born, she can only see that he has dark hair matted to his head with blood; when he is cleaned and swaddled, she cradles the boy in her arms, notices that he has James’s nose, exhales the breath she doesn’t realise she’s been holding; his middle name is James, after his father.
11. Birthday
They are sitting on Lily’s front porch on a cold January afternoon when she pulls a piece of paper from behind her back and offers it to him, “Happy birthday! Look, it’s a drawing of you and me and your little cat!;” Sev takes the drawing, frowning slightly, and when Lily asks if he likes it he says, “Yeah, of course I do! It’s just that my cat died this morning,” and at the stricken look on her face he thinks it’s best he didn’t tell her that his father stuffed the animal in a bag and threw it in the creek (“Happy birthday, son”).
12. Wedding
He watches the ceremony from afar and tries very hard not to picture himself in Potter’s place.
13. Spring
“We’ll be friends forever, won’t we, Sev?” Lily asks on a chilly April morning in their meadow; “Yeah, of course we will,” Sev says, watching their breath swirl up and dissipate above their heads.
14. Summer
Lily wears sundresses with no sleeves in the summer, in colourful hues of orange and yellow and pink and green, all clashing beautifully with her hair; Severus spends all summer trying not to stare (but he still manages to count all the freckles on her shoulders).
15. Fall
The train ride back to Hogwarts used to be one of his favourite parts of the year, when Lily would sit beside him and they would talk and laugh together, but that was before James Potter, before he’d called her a mudblood, before he swore an allegiance to a man who would kill her without a second thought.
16. Winter
Severus thinks that in the winter the whole world seems to go grey, except Lily Evans, of course, who is a bright flash of red and green that the cold and gloom can never quite steal the colour from.
17. Morning
She can’t save him now, it’s too late (it was too late from the moment he called her mudblood), and tomorrow when they leave Hogwarts she will join the Order and he the Death Eaters, marking them (“I thought we were friends…best friends?”) as enemies; the sun rises over Hogwarts as tears fall into Lily’s lap.
18. Afternoon
They collide accidentally in front of the Great Hall and the force of it pushes her over; “Lily, I-” he starts, about to apologise (for everything), but before he can, Potter and Avery are there, spitting threats and drawing wands, and Severus can’t find his voice anymore.
19. Evening
Lily and Severus don’t sleep that night, both shaking with visions of whose blood they may have to spill when they become part of the war, worrying what will happen when one of them is staring down the length of a wand at the other.
20. Author’s Choice
“I’m going to hex him,” Severus spits as Lily dabs gently at his bloody lip with the corner of her sleeve, “Worst excuse for a fucking father there is,” he says, voice still dripping with venom, but he sighs heavily as the anger ebbs away from him when she lightly kisses his temple.