After a disorienting moment, it was with a jerk that Snape finally realized where he was.

What in Merlin's name…?

He stared at the plain white door for a long moment, contemplating. The thought of seeing Lily again was extremely tempting – a balm for his battered and anxious soul. But was he willing to bring her down into the depths of his private hell just to make himself feel better? Was he really that twisted?

No… Remember what happened to my Lily, and now to Harry. Anyone who gets close to me ends up stalked and hunted… She has a daughter for Christ's sake. Do the right thing and leave her the hell alone.

But as he turned to leave, he heard the distinct sound of breaking glass followed by a woman's cry behind the door. He didn't think, simply reacted as he whipped out his wand and whispered a quick, "Alohomora!" and shoved the door open as he hurried inside with his wand at the ready.

Music played softly from a CD player on the kitchen counter, but there was no other sound besides the low music. The apartment was completely dark except for a few lit candles scattered throughout the living room.

"Lily!" He called out quietly, urgently.

There was a sudden rustle, and a floor lamp clicked on beside the couch.

"Severus?" she exclaimed with a note of confusion in her voice. Snape breathed a quick sigh of relief as he hurried to put his wand away before she came around the corner. "Severus, what are you doing here? And how did you get in? I always lock up at night."

"I…" He ran his hand through his hair in agitation. "I heard a crash, and your door was unlocked..." His tormented anguish of the past week and a half spilled over onto her, and it didn't matter to Snape that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. "You wouldn't have even known I was coming if I hadn't called out! Why don't you have any proper lights on? What are you doing with only a few pathetic candles lit – trying to burn the house down?" he snapped.

"Whoa," she glared up at him. "Down, boy. I was trying to relax because I had a bad day. You should try it sometime." She looked him up and down with narrowed eyes, taking in his disheveled hair, rumpled clothes, and general unkempt appearance.

Snape shot her a glowering sneer. "You may be right," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Perhaps I might feel a little better about myself if I decided to burn down my home and all my worldly possessions in a fire started by a nice, relaxing candle."

Ignoring his mocking tone, Lily's eyes narrowed on him once more as if she were seeing him for the first time, and Snape was suddenly wary.

"Are you alright, Severus?" She asked quietly, he gaze softening. "Has something happened?"

Lily couldn't know how much her worried eyes and softly spoken questions were unsettling his very precarious grasp on his current situation. His defenses were immediately raised, so instead of answering he roughly asked, "Where's Jillian? And what was that crash?"

Lily glared at him a moment longer before she sighed in resignation and replied, "It's past ten – Jilly has been in bed for a while. And that crash was my wine glass. I was lighting another candle and accidentally knocked it off the counter." He glanced over to where she pointed, the splatter of vivid red wine trickling down the wooden doors of the bottom kitchen cabinets and dripping into puddles on the floor. In the darkness it could have easily been blood. The thought chilled him.

He found her vivid green eyes studying him as he met her gaze once more. Her regard was both agitating and unsettling with the clarity with which she seemed to see him.

"Severus…" she murmured as the music continued to play in the background. "Something is wrong – don't try and tell me otherwise. What's happened? Where's Harry?"

Harry's name brought it all crashing down around him. His utter loneliness and despair; the Death Eater meetings filled with abuse of innocents; the dreams of his father tormenting him. Snape jerked back as if struck.

What the HELL am I doing…?!

"This was a mistake," he muttered restlessly as he ran a hand through his hair. "I shouldn't have come." And he spun on his heel, intending to storm out of the apartment and never return.

But before he could take so much as two steps, Lily had darted past him to block his exit. Her jade eyes were wide with worry as she backed herself solidly against the door with an audible thump.

They stared at each other for long, silent moments, both out of breath and beginning to feel the first inklings of cold desperation.

"Where's Harry, Severus?"

Giving her a dangerous look that could blister metal, he advanced until he was almost on top of her. Her eyes grew rounder the nearer he came, but she refused to budge from her place against the door.

"Get out of my way. Now." He growled menacingly down at her.

"No." It came out in a hoarse whisper. But her voice was stronger as she jutted her chin in a stubborn tilt and continued, "Not until you tell me what's wrong. Where's Harry?"

With a frustrated yell, Snape spun away so as not to accidentally hurt her. He couldn't bear the thought of causing harm to yet another person he cared about. But his anger and self-loathing were roaring through him, quickly drowning out any other emotion, and he found himself desperately close to losing his self-control. His hands trembled with the effort as he heard the beginning of rain start to drum fiercely against the window pane. Snape tried to focus on the sound of the drops beating against the concrete outside, which he could clearly hear through the bit of window that she had left open.

Only able to force some of the anger behind his shields, Snape harshly ground out, "Harry is gone!"

"What do you mean 'gone'?"

"I… He wasn't safe around me! I was a danger to the boy!"

"What?" she muttered in disbelief. "Severus, don't be ridiculous… Of course he was safe with you."

Something inside snapped, and Snape grabbed her roughly by the arms and knocked her against the door before he could stop himself. "You don't know me!" He snarled, leaning menacingly down into her face. "You haven't the faintest idea of what I'm capable of."

There was fear in her eyes as she looked at him – he could see it.

But there was something else there too, shining out at him from within their beautiful depths: Determination. Resolve. A strength of will that refused to give up.

It shook him to his core.

"That's not true," she whispered, her panted breaths whispering over his face. Lily refused to break eye contact or push him away, even though she was trembling. "You may not like to admit it, but I do know you, Severus. And as much as you try to deny it, you're a good man."

"Stop," he ground out, unsure if it was a command or a pitiful, pleading request.

"No. I can't. I won't. I know you're not going to hurt me… I feel safe with you. I know you'll protect me from every danger, even yourself. You're a good man, Severus."

The song on the CD player sighed alongside them, unexpectedly and unexplainably increasing in volume, perhaps another show of unintentional magic. The melody swirled and captivated Snape within its lyrics. "Pulled into another state of time… My heart…"

Snape let his head drop until his forehead touched Lily's. Eyes closed, he breathed in the mingled scent of lavender on her skin and heady red wine on her breath. His fingers gentled on her arms, brushing along her soft skin as he stroked his way down to grasp her hands. Her breath hitched in her throat at the touch, and she intertwined her fingers with his.

"Try to keep the wolf I hide inside… My secret pride… I'm in your head, I'm in your head, I'm in your head…"

Lily – his Lily – grasping tightly onto his hands, searching his face for the boy she once knew. Begging. Beseeching. "Please, Sev. Don't go down this dark path. You're a good man. Come back to me…"

His weak mother, for once holding strongly into his small, battered hands as she got to her knees to look him in the eye. "Don't fight him, Severus. Just let him do it. He has a problem. But he's a good man, really…"

His malicious father, clamping down on both of his small hands, crushing them within one of his massive fists. He struggled within his father's grip, but he was an undersized five-year-old boy, and his father was so much bigger…

"You'll be a man when I'm done with you."

"NOOO!" Snape shoved himself away from Lily, his hands grasping either side of his head as if he could somehow force the reviled memories from his mind.

Lily pursued him down the hallway, grasping tightly onto his wrists and trying to pull his fists away from his temples. "Severus! It's alright! Please, Severus – I'm here. Come back to me."

But Snape couldn't be in her presence a second longer – he couldn't bear her goodness, her innocence, her acceptance. It was too much, too painful, like a blind man suddenly ripped away from the comforting darkness and thrown out into the harsh desert sunlight.

He had to get away.

Thrusting her aside, he stumbled to the door and threw it open, lurching out into the hallway to the door leading to the emergency staircase. Lily was calling his name, but he couldn't stop. He was a man possessed, a tiny child being hunted by a massive predator. Her sweet voice made him feel as if he would be caught by the beast at any moment. He kept running and didn't look back.

Snape staggered through the front door to the apartments and out into the empty street, the heavy rain mingling with his strangling tears. He stood in the downpour, welcoming the cold soaking of his hair and skin, praying it would numb the rage and pain and fear swirling inside his soul.

Snape tilted his face up to the sky, letting the rain wash away all feeling. If he was honest with himself, he could no longer see a point to this existence. This utterly unfair, excruciating life filled with nothing but loneliness and grief.

His arms wrapped around his middle, holding tightly to his writhing soul as he gasped for breath. He wanted to end it. He wanted to die…

But in that moment, a song rose clearly out of the darkness and drifted down to him. He realized he wasn't far from Lily's open window, and it was as if the music was sung by an unearthly, heavenly presence.

"I thought I saw the devil, this morning… Looking in the mirror, drop of rum on my tongue… With the warning to help me see myself clearer… I never meant to start a fire, I never meant to make you bleed… I'll be a better man today."

Snape closed his eyes, seeking something so unfamiliar, he could not put a name to it. But he knew without any doubt that he was at a crossroads. This was a moment of judgment – of himself, of others, he wasn't sure. Both perhaps. But he knew that in this moment, he had to make a choice between his painful, abusive past or a possible future filled with love and forgiveness.

"My past has tasted bitter for years now, so I wield an iron fist… Grace is just weakness, or so I've been told. I've been cold, I've been merciless… But the blood on my hands scares me to death… Maybe I'm waking up today…"

Lily's face suddenly materialized in his mind, laughing joyfully at something he could not see. He thought at first that it was his Lily, but realized with a jolt when her face turned his way that it was the beautiful, loving woman upstairs that he was actually seeing.

"I'll be good, I'll be good. And I'll love the world like I should. Yeah… I'll be good, I'll be good. For all of the time… That I never could."

And in that moment, he knew with every fiber of his being what he must do. He had made his choice.

Heart pounding, Snape rushed up the stairs and found himself in front of Lily's door. He didn't slow his pace, and the door easily gave way beneath his hand – whether because of magic or because she hadn't locked it, he would never know.

Lily was sitting on the couch with her knees pulled to her chest. But as he entered, she rose hastily to her feet with wide eyes.

Snape's robes were plastered heavily to his body, but he didn't care. He strode purposefully to her, taking her face in his hands and threading his long fingers through her hair as their lips met. She sighed beneath him as her arms came up and wound themselves around his neck, pulling him close. He could feel the heat of her small body through the wet fabric.

"I'll be good, I'll be good... For all of the light that I shut out. For all of the innocent things that I've doubt. For all of the bruises that I've caused and the tears. For all of the things that I've done… All… these… years…"

A damn broke within him. The peace, the calmness, the acceptance she offered flooded his insides, and he suddenly couldn't get enough. Snape pressed her curves to him, molding her softness to his hard chest. Lily's tongue flicked out to gently whisper against his lips, and with a growl he lifted her and pressed her fiercely against the wall.

Wrapping her long, lithe legs around his waist, her fingers wrapped themselves in his hair and she tugged his head back with a delicious pull, breaking his hold on her. "The bedroom," she managed to purr, and then her mouth crashed down on his once again.

Snape easily carried her to the master suite, refusing to let go even as he put her down and she struggled to remove his wet robes. A moan escaped him as Lily's small, warm hands found his flesh, her palms pressing against his chest as his heart beat frantically beneath her touch.

Pushing the mass of wet fabric over his head, she clenched fistfuls of his hair again and brought his head down to meet her lips.

As their bodies melded and intertwined, Snape found something that he believed he would never find again, not after the torment that he'd repeatedly experienced throughout his life, making him believe that he was unworthy.

That night Lily showed him that even after everything he'd been guilty of, after every horrible thing he'd done and had been done to him, he was worthy and deserving of love.