Work Text:
Do you ever feel you grew up too fast?
You'd give anything just to go back
-So Low by Spencer Jones
The chair was uncomfortable beneath Severus, the cushion that held him seeming overly plush, the back of it too tall, the desk in front of him too far away. He was never satisfied.
A spell, a few uttered words, and a wave of his wand could have changed it all, could have eased his discomfort, but comfort seemed unimportant with the opportunity that lay before him. It was the picture clutched in his hand that stole every bit of his attention. With it, nothing else mattered.
He brought the tip of his wand to the glossy surface of the photo, the images inside it hardly noticeable in the dark in which he sat. He didn't need the flicker of a flame beside him to tell him what lay trapped in muggle pixels. Didn't need any semblance of light to know that this is where he wanted to return.
" Tempus Reviresco."
Aqua sparks exploded from the tip of his wand, cascading over the picture as the spell fell from his lips in a practiced whisper, months of preparation bringing him to this moment.
The photo expanded beneath his fingers, eclipsing the room and swallowing him inside what had once been. Severus tumbled through layers of ink, landing along a hillside that looked as he remembered it. Landing beside the tree that had once been theirs.
Ahead, a warm breeze rippled across the deep turquoise waters of the black lake and the image of Hogwarts reflected across the lilting waves. Lily sat beside it, her robes fanned out around her, a bit of parchment and her quill tossed to the side to be forgotten.
It was almost perfect.
Severus stood aways behind her, the distance spread between them in years and regrets and things that should have been. He wanted to step forward, to speak with her as he once had, but the scene in front of him glimmered with a magic that hadn't been there before. A magic he was hesitant to disturb
He waited a moment more, allowing the leaves on the tree beside him to sway in the wind and for tentacles to peek above the surface of the lake.
She turned to him then, the Cokeworth green of her eyes finding the endless black of his and he knew it wasn't his moment to break.
"I know you're there, Severus."
He felt a prickle along his heart, a pull of the barbwire his existence had trapped him inside. He heard the painful edges of her voice as she continued his name. Rarely had she used anything more than Sev, but whatever emotion she hid behind the four other letters of his name he was sure he deserved.
He edged closer, his feet shuffling along the grass and her gaze following him all the while.
"You look different," her voice was distant, curious, but she seemed unconcerned by the sharp lines of his face that hadn't been there before, ones she had never been around long enough to see. "How long has it been?"
"Seventeen years." The words tumbled from him before he could give it any thought. Had it really been that long? Had he really lived so long without her?
He eased himself downward with a protest of his knees, his body having grown ragged after years of war, years of fighting, years of just trying to survive.
"And I'm…?" She waited to ask until he sat beside her. This time the distance was measured in centimeters.
"Dead." His voice was flat, his eyes falling from hers in shame and to the water that seemed so much easier to look at despite the fact he saw it every day and he hadn't seen her in years.
Her eyes, too, drifted across the lake, unconcerned. Severus wondered if this was a part of her that he had forgotten or a result of the magic he had cast that had allowed this moment to happen.
Silence spread between them. Although he enjoyed the peace it brought, he lived in this solitude day in an day out. Her voice, the sweetness of an enchanted garden, he hadn't heard in much too long.
He didn't know what to say, didn't know how to form words beside the warmth of her presence he had missed so much. He was glad that this, too, fell on her.
"Why are you here, Severus?"
The wire inside him pulled tighter, the points digging further inside him. He had no good reason to give. Even he wasn't sure.
I miss you.
The words sounded dull as they rattled around inside him, flat, not enough. They were a thin excuse, an even thinner veil for the fact that he was selfish, that she hadn't given enough and he wanted more. More time, more love, more of anything she could offer. Right now, he would accept it all.
"I don't know what to do." He said finally. "I don't know how to fight in a war I am bound to lose no matter which side I am on."
"And which side is that?"
He was silent again, falling into his thoughts once more. Perhaps this was the darkest part of him, the fact that he didn't know. When his voice came from him seconds later it was a slow drawl of thought. "The Dark Lord… he is deplorable, inhumane, insane. But, I cannot deny that a sliver of my soul still rests with him. I cannot deny that he can offer things I crave."
"And the other?" She looked at him inquisitively, shifting her body towards him. The silver chain hanging around her neck glinted beneath the sun, the teal stone that hung from it muted and unspecial. The necklace he had given her so long ago and that he had forgotten about until now.
He tore his eyes away, focusing on the freckles of her cheeks instead. He couldn't allow himself to fall inside the memories the jewelry brought.
"The other side," he continued, "isn't entirely different. The light is so much darker than it appears." His eyes flit around the features of her face. She was only 18 here, mere months away from when she would leave Hogwarts and join the Order. He wondered if she ever got to see just how many shadows the light held. "The things I've done for Dumbledore have nearly been worse than that which the Dark Lord has asked of me. "
"But?"
Severus chuckled at the ease of her question, the blasé tone in which she gave it. He paused momentarily at the raspy, unpracticed sound that came from him. When had he last laughed?
" But, it's right."
"How can you be sure?" Her voice was soft with genuine wonder and he let himself believe that when he left this moment wouldn't just fade back into a photograph.
"I can't."
She gave a heavy sigh, leaning back on her hands. He watched her unabashedly. There was no real Lily for either of them to be ashamed of the way his gaze lingered on every freckle across her cheeks or the way her nose wrinkled in thought, the way her lips puckered to the side as they always had when she had fallen so far into her own mind that she forgot what lay around her.
He sat silent, observant, waiting for her to come to her conclusion. Time here seemed nonexistent, but it didn't matter. He would wait forever.
"Why did you choose both to begin with?"
Choose. She said it as if he had ever had a choice. Then again, he supposed, at first, he did. He had chosen the Dark Lord's side, he had chosen murder and destruction, he had chosen the path he thought would bring him redemption, but that had never come. But, Dumbledore… Dumbledore had never truly asked him.
"Because I was foolish," he said finally. "I acted as though I was a child when I was a man."
"And now?"
He nearly laughed again. "And now I am a man trapped by his idiotic decisions."
"That's it, then?" She questioned with a raise of an eyebrow. Even this Lily, this Lily who was no more thank ink and paper could see through the facade he had so hastily patched together. "You'll fight for a war you don't believe in purely because you think you have no other choice?"
Severus swallowed. She was suddenly so hard to look at and he found himself staring at his hands instead. "I'll fight because it is the promise I gave. I'll fight for Harry, I'll fight…" The words shuddered to a stop in his throat.
"I know , Sev. I've always known." Her voice was soft, punctuated by the sound of movement. He saw then, the necklace she had been wearing, dangling from her fingers, offering it out to him. "And maybe that can be enough."
He clutched at the chain, feeling no sensation along his skin as he took it from her. He realized then that she had said nothing about Harry, she'd given no indication of confusion or understanding, she'd given him nothing at all. This wasn't real. Nothing he did here mattered
He stared at Lily a final time, knowing that this was it.
" Tempus Remeo." He uttered the spell that would take him back with less enthusiasm than the one that had brought him here, his tongue forming each letter with disappointment.
The scene dissolved, the magic fading away and the images that had felt so real now splintered into colorful sparks that fell to the stones beneath his feet. The warmth of the sun melted away, replaced instead by a waning crescent and a spatter of stars just visible through the window beside him.
Severus curled his fingers, clutching at the chain she had left in his hand and found the hard, unforgiving wood of his wand instead. The jewelry, too, gone. In the other hand he held the photograph he had fallen inside, the spell he had cast, had created , allowing these things to be so. But, Lily remained in the white border of the polaroid, unmoving, sitting just as he had found her, where she would always be.
He stared at her a moment more, wishing that he had captured her smile with the camera all those years ago, but he knew, if he had, he would find fault with that photograph too. There would never be enough of her.
Maybe some things were best to remain muggle. The reanimation of memories long past only seemed to drive the sharp blades that contained him further into his heart.
He set the photo down on the desk beside him, wondering if any of it had been real. If her questions were a reflection of his own thoughts or if they were really hers.
No, he scolded himself. This image of her was a puppet held on strings, guided by his own hand. None of it had existed outside of his own mind.
But, maybe that was the point. Maybe the words she had said, no matter to who they belonged, were right. Maybe none of it mattered in the end. Maybe this was a fight that went beyond sides of a war. And, maybe, that had to be enough.
He laid both his wand and the picture down, four new words blossoming inside him. Words he had never finished.
I'll fight for you.