Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Chapter 8: weight of living

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside.”

— Anonymous

———

Severus was quite certain that Lily-thing was going to cry.

He’d made Lily cry — twice, actually. The first time had been an accident, when his undeveloped child-magic had caused a tree branch to (unfortunately) miss Petunia. The other incident had been right before fourth year, when Severus had told Lily that he hated going home, hated his parents, and couldn’t wait until he could leave Cokeworth forever.

Lily’s daughter did not have the same crying face her mother had, thank Merlin. Lily’s eyes would fill to the brim with tears, like a bathtub filling with water, before sobbing uncontrollably for minutes on end. It had made Severus feel helpless, stupid, and miserable, and so he had tried very hard to never make Lily cry, ever, and for the most part, he had succeeded. They had argued constantly, though, most of their days together ending with Lily storming off, but she’d always come back, where Severus was always waiting for her.

Lily-thing looked like she was trying to swallow an anvil. It did not look comfortable at all — if Severus hadn’t known any better, he might have thought Lily-thing was choking on some obstructed object in her windpipe. He considered giving the girl a Calming Draught, but decided against it in the end. She’d probably refuse it anyway, being the little Gryffindor monster she was. She’d probably take it as a direct insult, a sign that Severus thought she was somehow weak.

Well, at least she wasn’t carrying on like Draco had, but the silence was beginning to unnerve him. Why wasn’t the brat doing anything?

Severus managed to peel Lily-thing off his side without too much trouble once they were safely inside his office. He made sure to cast a particularly strong Silencing Charm (not that anyone could hear past the dungeon walls anyway), and reinforced his Wards before turning his attention back to the girl. Lily-thing glanced around his office nervously, her wand still clutched tightly in her hand. Severus quickly ran a Diagnostic on the girl, a rainbow of color washing over her in droplets and cracks of light. Her eyes widened as she watched, a question clearly on her lips, but it never came.

“That’s pretty,” Lily-thing whispered instead, holding out her hand as if the sparks were snowflakes.

Severus ignored her and the uncomfortable feeling in his chest. The Diagnostic didn’t reveal anything, which he’d expected, but it was all the more troubling. The expression on Lily-thing’s face when she’d collided into him (again) had been eerily similar to the one she’d worn on Halloween, but also entirely different. Tonight, Lily-thing had looked like someone running for their life — the relief on her face when she’d realized it was Severus had found her was undeniable.

there’s someone there he wouldn’t stop saying my name

magic hummed in the air like blood in veins but there was nothing nothing nothing

So much had changed in the past three days, between Quirrell and Lily-thing and Dumbledore’s innate ability to make Severus’ blood pressure skyrocket. Time was tricky that way. There were whole months, even years, where nothing had changed after the Dark Lord had fallen. Severus hadn’t gone anywhere new or thought a single new thought as he forced himself to walk through the monotony of daily life. Then, Lily-thing had run away from Petunia’s, and in that one day, that hour, that mere half second when Severus had opened the cupboard door, it was like he had stepped into a new life. The past three days felt as though they would stretch on forever in an endless cycle of Lily-thing catching Severus completely off guard again and again.

Something was building, twisting itself into the fabric of time like vines. Something Severus couldn’t see, something Dumbledore couldn’t even pinpoint, and that scared him most of all.

“Sit.” Severus ordered, and for once, the brat did as she was told and sat down in front of his desk.

The girl’s face begged him for answers. Her fingers picked at the skin just above her eyes, a nervous tick inherited from her mother when she was under extreme stress. Lily had picked off half of her left eyebrow right before their fifth year NEWTS. Potter and Black had teased her relentlessly for it, and she’d Hexed their balls blue.

“Now,” Severus tried his best to use only his teacher voice, and not his Death Eater voice, which he was starting to realize carried over more often than not. “tell me everything. Do not leave anything out, because I will know, and this time, you’ll go straight to the Headmaster.”

The threat bounced off of the girl like oil on water. Lily-thing fiddled with her hands before peeking up at him warily. “You won’t get mad?”

Severus wanted to smash his face against the desk. “Whether I get mad or not should not influence your explanation of tonight’s events.”

“But you get mad a lot… like on Halloween, and at Aunt Petunia’s. I didn’t do anything then, and you were really mad.” the girl looked lost and disheveled, staring down at her hands like she was trying to make sense of how her fingers worked.

Jesus fucking Christ, children, even if they were Lily’s, were infuriating. “That was different. If you feel threatened, you need to tell me, a capable adult, so that I can take the necessary precautions and advise the appropriate parties.”

“Like Professor Dumbledore?”

Severus sighed heavily. “Yes, like Professor Dumbledore. Now, tell me who or what you heard.”

The girl did, which was nothing short of a miracle. She’d seemed so small and timid, but the more she spoke, Lily-thing grew both in size and confidence, like a sponge when submerged in water. By the time Lily-thing had finished, she looked more like her normal self, taller and poised. A pinprick of light had sparked again in her dark eyes. Even the freckles that had seemed to fade around her nose gained their color back. Lily’s had all but disappeared by the time she’d graduated. Severus wondered if her daughter’s would, too.

Despite the fact that Lily-thing was not emotionally traumatized, Severus was still deeply disturbed by her description of tonight’s events. He hadn’t seen anything in the corridor himself, but he’d certainly felt it — a cold that seeped into his bones and tied a knot in his throat. It was a kind of dark magic that was hard to conceal, hard to find unless you went looking for it… or it went looking for you. And it had found her, because Lily-thing’s scar shouldn’t have burned unless it meant imminent danger.

Severus had to remind himself that there was no possible way the Dark Lord could be inside of Hogwarts — not with Dumbledore here, anyway, but the fact that something was here, something powerful enough to stir that kind of protective magic to lash out…

Whoever, or whatever, was in the school had taken interest in the brat. The thought curled around his heart like an icicle. At least Lily-thing didn’t realize that —

“Could it have been whoever’s after the Stone?” Lily-thing asked in a tight voice.

Shit.

Severus stared down at Lily-thing, expressionless, while he sifted through his Things That Should Not Be Told To Children folder. Agreeing with the brat and letting her walk around with the knowledge that a homicidal maniac had deployed someone to steal a Stone that granted one immortality did not seem like something he should do, but then again, he regularly bullied children. Even though the girl was correct, she didn’t need to know it. The last thing Severus needed was to give a Gryffindor incentive to go off and begin a quest in the name of hero-doing-duties. Especially this Gryffindor. Lily-thing wouldn’t be frightened, she’d see it as a challenge.

The fact that whoever was after the Stone was now stalking Lily-thing was going to keep Severus’ awake at night. The girl didn’t need to suffer too.

“Tell me more about your scar.” Severus said dismissively, ignoring her question. “What did it feel like?”

Lily-thing looked like she was about to argue, but clamped her mouth shut and sighed instead. “It was really quick, only a second or two. It felt like someone poked me with a hot needle.”

Severus’ jaw clenched. “Has that ever happened before?”

“Yeah, once, during the —” Lily-thing’s eyes widened, and then her face quickly smoothed over, like she was clumsily trying to draw a veil shut. Severus was very nearly impressed, but the girl had the subtlety of a freight train.

“During what?” Severus snapped impatiently. “Don’t you dare lie, Miss Evans. This is far too important.”

The girl grimaced, and then pretended like the floor was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. Gods, he hated children.

“It was when you looked at me,” Lily-thing said in a tiny voice. “Before the Sorting Ceremony.”

Severus felt something hot pierce straight through him, like a bullet in the dark.

He struggled to recall the Feast, through the tight bonds Occlumency had bound the memory under. Severus had locked it away in his tight little box, where Lily was, but as he sifted through, he saw the Sorting ceremony, and the curious, half-wave Lily-thing had given him. As soon as Severus had made eye contact with her and tried to turn her into a scorch mark, Lily-thing’s face had twisted with panic, her hand reaching up to touch her —

Severus had thought Lily-thing was trying to look away, or block his glare with her hands. Now, it seemed idiotic, but it still didn’t make any sense. Severus was not a direct threat to the girl. For fuck’s sake, he was at the damn school to protect her, like he had tonight. Unless the scar had sensed something else, and the split second of eye contact they’d had was just a coincidence. Quirrell had been next to him, hadn’t he? Severus couldn’t remember, he’d been too busy watching Lily-thing, and wondering what Molly Weasley must’ve thought when the girl had shown up in boy clothes and that escaped-mental-patient haircut.

He was still deep in thought when Lily-thing broke through the blissful silence.

“I don’t think it was you.” the girl stared up at him earnestly, her face thick with worry.

It took Severus half a beat to figure out what she was talking about. “Seeing as you nearly stampeded over me coming from the opposite direction, I would have suspected that fact would have been quite obvious.”

“I know,” Lily-thing said with a jerky nod. “I just didn’t want you to think the two were connected. I never thought about my scar hurting at the Sorting before now… it’s never bothered me. Sometimes I have to remind myself I didn’t get it in a car accident, like Aunt Petunia said.”

Severus wished he’d made Dumbledore tell him what he’d done to those useless scraps of flesh when they’d returned home. “It’s quite possible that whatever followed you tonight was also present at the Sorting.”

Her eyes widened. “So it’s definitely someone in the school?”

“Unless you’re proposing that someone astroprojected themselves into a corridor in Hogwarts to frighten you, I don’t see any other possibilities.”

The brat blinked at him before her face knitted together in deep thought. “How’d you know?”

Severus furrowed his eyebrows. “Know what?”

“Where to find me.” Lily-thing frowned. “I was nowhere near the dungeons.”

“There weren’t a great many places for you to go, Miss Evans. Not at this hour, anyway.”

That was a lie — he’d been in Dumbledore’s office the entire time, and had been making his way down, intent on obliterating whatever nonsense had taken root inside of Lily-thing’s head when he’d heard running, and known it had to be the girl.

“You… you didn’t hear the voice?” Lily-thing looked confused. “Not at all?”

This troubled Severus greatly. “No, I did not.”

Lily-thing looked almost disappointed, before she leaned forward, her demeanor suddenly loud and determined, like she was trying to make herself bigger.

“I didn’t imagine it!” the girl said defensively.

“I never said you did.” said Severus coldly.

“Oh,” she deflated. “So… you believe me, then?”

“Why do you think I performed a Diagnostic spell on you?” Severus said, stifling the urge to roll his eyes. “I wouldn’t have wasted my time on that if I suspected you of being dishonest.”

“Oh,” the girl’s corners twitched upward. “well, thank you.”

Severus didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.

He considered letting the girl go, but maybe it was better off that she stay put for now. That way, Severus could keep an eye on her. Even if Severus escorted her up to Gryffindor Tower, he wasn’t comfortable with letting the brat out of his sight just yet — whoever had chased her could still be lurking around outside, though it was unlikely since the dungeons were near impossible to navigate unless you were a Slytherin. Lily-thing still had a pension for getting into trouble without trying very hard, just like her father.

The thought that Dumbledore should know about this crept forward, but Severus had just left his office, and he certainly wasn’t going to take the girl with him. He could only imagine the nauseating dialogue that would emerge from that interaction.

He was furious with Dumbledore anyway, so the old coot was just going to have to wait until morning. The thought of knowing something Dumbledore didn’t was immensely satisfying.

“I’ve made a mess of things, haven’t I?” Lily-thing said, just as Severus went to stand. He had decided that he was going to make her write a hundred lines or so, and then have her assist him with restocking the storeroom. It was nothing compared to what he’d originally had in store for her, but this way, he could keep an eye on the brat while manipulating her into telling him what was in that fucking letter.

He sat back down, and stared at the girl. Her legs swung absentmindedly high above the floor, but her eyes were dark and intense, like she was trying to read his mind.

“You’ve certainly put in an annoying amount of effort.” Severus said coolly.

“You wouldn’t talk to me!” she shot back. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Have you considered, out of all of the abysmally foolish things you’ve done over the past three days, that I did not want to talk to you?”

“Mum wanted me to.” Lily-thing said, very matter-of-factly.

What the fuck was he supposed to say to that? All of the rage, the itch he couldn’t scratch, the screaming chorus of “get it away shut the girl up” had gone from a raging inferno to smoldering ashes. Severus had been hellbent on scaring the brat into never looking in his general direction ever again, but the thought of what might’ve happened to Lily-thing if he hadn’t found her when he did absolutely terrified him, squashing his anger like a bug. Severus couldn’t even muster together enough annoyance to be angry about not being angry. He’d spent all afternoon brooding and planning, while Dumbledore lectured him on how important it was that Lily-thing grew up understanding that love was the most powerful form of magic. It was rather disappointing, after all the trouble Lily-thing had caused.

(the cold from the corridors still hadn’t left his bones)

Severus massaged his temple forcefully. “I’m sure your mother wanted a great deal of things for you.”

Lily-thing frowned. “You don’t sound like you were friends with her. Mum told me you were her best friend when you were kids.”

She WHAT —

“Did she?” Severus asked in a toneless voice. His head was throbbing, now. The night would undoubtedly end with a migraine, if not complete mental collapse. There was no world in which Severus desired to talk about his most precious secret with a child who represented everything he’d feared come to pass.

“Yeah,” Lily-thing crossed her arms. “she did. Why don’t you want to talk about her?”

Because I killed her, said an insidious voice in his head. Because I killed her and Potter and I almost killed you. I gave up everything and nothing and it still wasn’t enough.

Severus stayed silent, unable to articulate something that wouldn’t make the brat cry. It seemed that silence was just as bad as anything cruel he could have mustered together. Lily-thing’s face fell, like she’d been told Christmas had been canceled, but her eyes stayed bright and unwavering. Severus thanked any god listening that the girl had not inherited her mother’s eyes.

“No one ever wants to talk about them.” Lily-thing whispered, her breath hitching.

No, Severus wanted to scream at her. STOP —

Her eyes were glittering with an ache that Severus knew all too well. “I mean, Aunt Petunia hated Mum because she had magic, and Uncle Vernon is too stupid to think for himself sometimes, I think. I don’t really know, but he didn’t say much about Mum, only Aunt Petunia. Professor Dumbledore was really sad when he told him what happened to Mum and Dad, how they died and all, like that was all that mattered. Every time someone talks about them, it’s only about how they died, that they’re gone and how sad it all is. I know that, and I’m so sick of everyone telling me the same thing over and over. Why won’t anyone tell me about them? I just want to know what they were like. The pictures and even Mum’s letter, it’s —”

“Never enough,” Severus finished. His chest felt like it was made of lead.

Lily-thing’s eyes widened, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Yeah.”

Severus closed his eyes. “You want what the rest of us have, but you don’t understand it like we do. To know your parents was… to lose something more than just two people. We knew them — you did not. Perhaps it was for the best that you didn’t, because then you would have lost something insurmountable. To confront that is… incredibly difficult.”

When he looked up, Lily-thing was staring at the floor again, a look of deep concentration and thought on her thin face. “I never thought about it like that.”

“How could you?” Severus sighed impatiently. “You’ve never experienced true loss before.”

“Yeah but… I’ll never know, you know?” Lily-thing bit her lip. “What they were like, what parts of her are in me. Everyone says I look like Mum but… what else? That can’t be it. And now I can’t even reread what Mum’s said to me, because of the charm. Professor Flitwick said it only disappeared because I didn’t need it anymore, and I feel so horrible because I do need it, I need Mum and the protective magic says I don’t…”

She wiped at her eyes, but her voice was tight with the pang of longing and guilt. The sight was pitiful, if not heart-wrenching. Severus wouldn’t know, because he no longer had a heart. Something similar to one, though, told him that the girl was only acting out in the hopes of getting some scraps of information about Lily, since she’d named him in this blasted letter of hers. Severus still couldn’t comprehend a reason for her needing to emphasize a friendship that ended over a decade ago to her only child, but with Lily’s charm hiding it’s contents, he’d never find out exactly what had been said.

It was going to drive him mad, not knowing. It already had — and if Lily’s daughter kept crying… well, he’d need something stronger than a Calming Draught to get him through the next seven years.

“Let me see it.” Severus said heavily, gesturing for her to hand over the letter. He knew she had it. Lily-thing wasn’t the kind of child to leave sentimental shit laying about. She would carry that letter with her like an albatross around her neck.

Lily-thing gaped at him like a fish for a moment, before she collected herself and glared at him suspiciously. “You didn’t care about it the other night.”

“Miss Evans, you have brawled with a mountain troll, incited chaos in my classroom, injured one of your classmates, and been assigned two detentions since reading this letter. I’m sincerely afraid for the structural integrity of this school if you don’t get what you came here for.”

Her lips twitched as she wiped at her eyes. “You hate me, though.”

Severus considered this statement. He didn’t know the brat well enough to hate her, but she was certainly becoming a thorn in his side. Unfortunately, Lily-thing was the only reason he was at Hogwarts. He hated how meddlesome she was, and he hated her House, but Severus couldn’t say he loathed the brat just yet. There was still time for her to turn into her father, though. The thought upset him more than it should have.

“I do not hate you.” Severus said heavily. “You are, however, making it increasingly difficult not to.”

“Then why do you ignore me?” Lily-thing demanded.

“I ignore everyone.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t ignore the Slytherins.”

 “It’s almost as if I’m their Head of House.” Severus said flatly. “I understand it must be a difficult concept to grasp.”

Lily-thing scowled. “You know what I mean.”

“Thankfully, I don’t, because it’s irreverent.” 

She seemed to swallow whatever she wanted to retort with before replying. “You only talk to me when something… happens.”

Severus blinked at her, nonplussed. Dumbledore was right, the girl… expected certain things from him.

“Is that… because of Mum?” she asked in a voice that was a mixture of hope and resignation. 

He quickly ran through the pros and cons of answering yes or no, and then ignoring the brat outright. If he gave Lily-thing what she wanted, maybe she would stop pestering him, but it could also be feeding the beast. Confirming that it was for Lily’s sake, however, would not give the girl any inclination that Severus felt any sort of personal connection to her, because he didn’t, and he never would.

“Yes,” Severus answered, and then he tensed as he waited for her response.

He wasn’t expecting the reaction he received. The girl looked away and wiped at her eyes furiously for a moment before she pulled the letter from her robe pockets, looking back and forth between the letter and desk hesitantly, like she was afraid it would grow teeth and eat the parchment. After a moment, she slammed it down, anxiety creeping into her thin face. Her eyes did not leave the letter, and Severus’ did not leave Lily-thing’s face as he reached for it.

She watched his face carefully, with a hunger that unsettled Severus. They were wild, like a forest made up of stars. Lily-thing fidgeted with her hands and leaned forward in her chair, so much so that it scraped forward, causing her to jump in surprise.

Severus opened the letter, and lowered his eyes to the familiar cursive that had once stained his hands, his notes, and the soles of his boots.

Where do we go when we walk on light?

The neat, tidy, secure little box inside his head imploded.

If Severus had a name for this thing roiling inside of his chest, clawing away at his insides and splinting his mind, it would not have mattered. If he could have, he’d have ripped it out of him and flung it somewhere dark; locked it away and thrown away the key. It was unbearable, to say the least. The words on the page were echoes of a friendship that had ended with the kingdom of childhood.

They were words Lily’s daughter never should have known. They were words only he would understand.

Something had crept into Lily-thing’s thin face that shone like starlight. Severus stared at her, trying to make sense of the child’s demeanor, but it was only fueling his rage, as if she’d doused an already burning building with gasoline.

Lily’s letter was not something Severus wanted, not something he could handle, not now, not ever. But why would Lily have used this, of all the Charms she could have placed for the girl to break? Unless the Charm was never meant to be broken, and the girl had made a mistake in showing Severus. There was no universe besides this one in which Severus would have known Lily and Potter’s spawn. If they had lived, they undoubtedly would have had a hoard of little Lily-thing monsters, and Severus would have dug himself a hole that led to the center of the Earth to get away from them all.

What was in this fucking letter that Lily desperately wanted to protect? What did the girl know?

Severus had to lock this down — he could not bear to be dragged back into the dark abyss that had threatened to swallow him whole ten years ago. Lily was dead, and Severus would do everything in his power to protect her daughter and destroy the Dark Lord, but whatever this was —

He couldn’t know. He didn’t want to know. It would only give rebirth to his grief, which had spent years crystallizing into the jagged shards of bone crushing, heartstopping, mind numbing guilt. It surged through him like a tsunami, growing in size every time.

His head felt like it was in a vice. He stood up, ready to throw the letter into the fire and be done with it for good, for the girl to shriek and scream and tell him that she hated him, but before he could, Lily-thing was suddenly in front of him, her eyes glowing like a solar eclipse.

She must’ve read the expression on his face and known he was about to do something terrible, awful, unforgivable. She was good at that.

"I know about Lily." said the girl. "That you loved her."

Severus froze mid-footfall. He felt as though he’d had the wind knocked out of him.

"She's my mum." her chin lifted, her eyes clear. "She wrote me this letter to tell me about you. You're the only person she really mentioned, but I guess that makes sense, since you're my father. Who else was she supposed to talk about?"

Something was tapping away at Severus’ shields, a claw scratching on glass, a hammer slamming into drywall, a Stunner to the chest. He could not — the room was spinning — the torches were too bright, like the moonlight outside, and everything was overwhelming him as he struggled to steady himself, because he would not would not would not —

He closed his eyes.

green eyes laughing at him laughing with him staring at him from across the room

and what do you think of Miss Evans, Severus?

James wasn’t nearly as deliberate at Ariel’s age

do you promise we’ll be friends forever best friends always friends

“She said you’re my dad.” Lily-thing’s voice did not waver. “She wanted me to know, said that… if I wanted to, I should tell you. And I do.”

She mentioned you I thought you’d want to know

Mum had magic

You said Aunt Petunia hated Mum because Mum had magic

Perhaps Lily meant it for James?

What do you think of Miss Evans, Severus?

He could see the pieces coming together, like a dome of multi-colored glass. The pressure in his head mounted, but he opened his eyes.

Severus stared at the girl, and she stared back. Her face was calm and collected, like she was relaying the weather, or something trivial and unimportant. The light in her eyes had grown though, bright and wide and unrelenting in the torchlight. They glowed a deep gold, echoing the colors of her House, with her red hair and gold flecked eyes. She did not look like Lily anymore, no, but someone else. Not Potter — he never would have kept his nerve like this, not with emotions this raw.

He turned around slowly, mechanically. There were no words he could possibly formulate to express his fury, his pain, his overwhelming, all-consuming need for her to stop, to cease speaking and to never do so again.

And then he remembered Dumbledore’s face in the staffroom, the insistent questions about what Severus thought of the girl.

Dumbledore knew.

The furnace that fueled his rage ignited, spreading faster than a forest fire.

Lily-thing pointed to the letter in his hands, inches away from the fireplace. “Read it, then, if you don’t believe me.” her eyes challenged him, goaded him, dared him. “You know the counter-spell, don’t you? That’s why you don’t want to read it. Mum knew you could keep the secret too, but that you had to read it for yourself to know the truth.”

“What you’re proposing is impossible.” Severus said, and the words hurt his throat on their way out. “Your mother stopped speaking to me after fifth year.”

“Mum Obliviated you. She said you wouldn’t remember.”

Lily across the pub with the werewolf what was she doing here she wasn’t SAFE

be careful who you invite into your soul, Severus

The floor had begun to tilt. Severus steadied himself on the desk. “She never would have —”

“You made her!” Lily-thing’s voice finally broke, like a quill snapping in two. “You made her Obliviate you ever seeing her. That’s why she couldn’t tell you before — before she died, okay? You saved her during some battle —”

Bellatrix’s maniacal cackle cutting through the air like a knife as Lily stumbled back, raising her hand over her eyes —

“ — and she said that you two talked. I don’t know much after that because she didn’t say a whole lot, but Dad knew too, he was protecting us.”

I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus

Who wants to see me take off Snivellus’ trousers?

She’d never love someone like you

Severus almost laughed out loud, then. “Potter wouldn’t have lifted a finger to protect a child he knew was mine.”

He heard her breath catch in her throat. “He did, Mum said —”

“She was mistaken, then.” Severus said cruelly, but he knew that she wasn’t. Lily never would have made something this insane up for the hell of it, wouldn’t have told her only child, a child she’d died for, but it was impossible —

“She wanted you to know.” Lily-thing said, fists balling at her sides. “I wanted you to know, but I didn’t know how to tell you.”

There were tears forming in her eyes now, and it was with another wave of horror that Severus realized that the girl was going to cry again. He didn’t move, partly because he didn’t think he could. The heaviness in his chest was turning into something that burned like ice, an unmistakable pang throbbing in the back of his head, as though there were a hole there, something just out of reach, just out of touch that Severus couldn’t see.

“I wouldn’t lie about this!” Lily-thing said, her voice growing louder, the anger behind it building like water behind a dam. “Why would I? I didn’t want this!”

“Then why not keep it to yourself?” Severus sneered. Get it away shut it up get it AWAY.

She flinched, finally, like Severus had brandished a whip.

Her eyes had gone out, like a candle doused, and that was when Severus saw it, really and truly saw what the girl was talking about. They were fathomless, bottomless, sucking up whatever the girl had opened and set free in the room. The eyes were running away, hiding, escaping —

When she spoke, her voice was so soft that Severus had to strain his ears to hear.

“I never should have told you,” Miss Evans whispered. “I never should have let you see.”

The eyes —

The eyes —

Severus was sincerely afraid he was going to be sick. The room had begun to spin, the fire lashing at his skin as the floor rushed up — 

When he looked up, the girl, and the letter, were gone.

Chapter End Notes:

A/N: The truth is out, hooray! Now we can begin the process of making Snape FEEL things. Mwahaha.

I did this chapter only from Snape’s POV for obvious reasons. Next chapter will be a little ~different~ but it’ll be a break from this little shitshow.

The inner-monologue about time being tricky is a modified quote from E.R Frank

Reviews are really super duper appreciated, and help a lot in terms of motivation! xx


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