Hell was being a teenager, apparently.
It made sense. His life as a teenager had been hell, what with Potter and his gang, losing his best friend, and his terrible choices that would eventually ruin the rest of his miserable life. But then again, there was little of his life that he could point to and call pleasant at all; someone could argue that this was some fucked up version of heaven, and he would have to concede that at least his forearm was still unmarked.
(The question of hell and heaven, he realized, was awfully Muggle of him—or, perhaps, awfully Christian—but it couldn’t be helped, even as he commanded Magic on a whim, or brewed on the edge of mortality. Wizardkind only took the Christian holidays as they were a cheap, modern echo of the old—and they were always like that, wild, part of the earth, part of whatever greater power there was. But Muggles looked up in awe and fear. No matter how many times Severus had steeled himself to face Guilt and Suffering and Death, he’d never shaken the feeling that he was little more than an insect crawling through the mud, unworthy to perceive the light that burned overhead.)
He was surrounded by ghosts. It was uncanny to see Minerva twenty years younger again—but a Minerva that saw him as little more than a deplorable runt, dirty and wicked, and not one that saw him as a colleague, or even a traitor. She gave no indication that she had been dragged into his same hell, and in fact remained consistent with a Minerva from 1976 that he would expect. He found himself grateful, for perhaps she had survived the battle after all. He let himself imagine her landing the killing blow, after he was laid waste in a pool of his own blood and Potter had gone to sacrifice himself--but then she’d snapped at him for not paying attention, and had taken five points from Slytherin. Not that he cared. What did House Points matter in death?
After Transfiguration, he followed a fair distance behind Avery and Mulciber to the Charms classroom. The Gryffindors filtered in later than the Slytherins, having come from the greenhouses. They brought the aroma of potting soil with them as well as their headache-inducing ruckus, and the moment Severus heard the peal of James Potter’s obnoxious laughter, he forced himself to avert his eyes to his desk, and hopefully disappear to anywhere else.
But he was spotted, of course. They’d always been drawn to him like predators on prey—like dogs on vermin.
Before Filius could call order, he caught sight of them. Sirius Black was vicious but well-kept, free of the misery that Azkaban had inflicted upon him later in life. Remus Lupin was notably absent--was it the full moon?—but Peter Pettigrew was there, the damned traitor, with his beady eyes and his tiny, twisted smile and the way his uniform was just slightly askew. James Potter was the closest to Severus’s last memory of him: boastful, loud, and self-centered. He drew his little followers into him, like he was their sun. He drew a hand through his hair and winked at some vapid girl nearby.
He blinked, and wondered how he had missed it.
His son had always had his own following—had always had that underlying viciousness in him, always ready with a snide remark or a need to defy any and all authority in favor of his own idiotic plans. But James Potter was like a caricature of Harry Potter. The faces were close, but they didn’t quite line up. The voice was wrong, the posture was off.
“Oi, Snivellus,” Black called, leaning back in his chair. Severus glared.
“What, Black?” he grit out through his teeth.
“What did you do to Evans?” Potter answered instead. His expression had changed, suddenly dangerous.
Severus glanced around. Class was to start any second, and sure enough, Lily wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, his voice low. He wondered if, in the back of his mind, seeing Lily again would make it a better or a worse hell. “I haven’t seen her all morning.”
Black and Potter shared a look with one another, one that Pettigrew attempted to join, but failed, before they turned on him again.
“You’ve done something, and I won’t stand for it,” Potter declared, puffing up his chest.
“Greasy little—” Black started, reaching for the front of his robes.
“Now—Mr. Black, please!—We will be resuming with the Double Expansion Theories. If you would kindly open your books to page two hundred and fourteen...” Filius began. Reluctantly, Black turned around, though not before shooting him another glare.
Class was dismissed before Lily ever appeared. Severus tried to hurry out before Potter and his gang could track him, bound for an isolated broom closet, or an abandoned classroom—whichever he chanced upon first—but they caught him before he could even make it to the staircase.
He drew his wand instantly, spinning around to face Black and Potter. Silently he Disarmed Potter, but Black was quick—and to his rage, while Potter fumbled around in the nearly-empty corridor for his wand, Severus found himself hoisted upside down.
“Cowards—all of you—” he seethed before Black Silenced him.
Vaguely, a dozen or so past instances he’d never imagined he’d have to relive filtered over the scene. He saw the lake and by the edge of the forest; he saw just outside the greenhouses, Second Year; he saw the different crowds that gathered, content to look, to laugh at his plight.
He deserved it, surely. The Universe—or God—or whatever—had been making a point of it, his whole life. He knew what he was, and he’d never forgotten.
But that never stopped the violent rage that tried to rip out of him, seeking justice. It had never stopped him for yearning for what he could not have.
In the end, he would always be hated and alone. That was how he had died. It was a sick sort of fate, to be condemned to such a torture in the afterlife.
Oh, the cruelest torture.
“Evans!” Potter’s tone and expression shifted immediately—bright and hopeful. He ran a hand through his hair, though he still aimed his wand at Severus. “Are you feeling better? I took notes in Charms, see, and if you want to copy—”
“I don’t give a rat’s arse for bloody Charms, Potter,” Lily cut over him, her own wand pointed squarely at his head. Everything about her seemed on the verge of breaking, and even her arm trembled. Her face was blotchy, her eyes red-rimmed, but it was her expression that startled Severus most: murderous, twisted, almost unnatural. He could remember Harry Potter’s eyes, then—and while they had resembled Lily’s greatly, hers were narrowed and hungry in a way Severus had never seen before.
It chilled him. Potter, however, could not sense the danger.
“Er—well—” Potter fumbled a bit, glancing toward Black. “I just thought, since you were so upset this morning—”
“I’m upset right now,” she hissed. “If you lot don’t clear out right now—”
“Easy, Evans,” Black said. “Look, alright? We’re trying to help you. Since you were screaming bloody murder about Snape, we figured we’d set him straight for you!”
In a flash, Lily’s wand was aimed at Black instead. He flinched, but Severus was still dangling in the air.
“You want to know why I was upset, Black?” she spat. Her voice was low. She was smiling, almost, except it was a snarl. Feral. Severus was half-frozen in his mind. He couldn’t remember such an interaction before, or seeing Lily so—unhinged. “It was because of you, you know. And your stupid prank—except it wasn’t just a prank, was it? It was attempted murder—”
“DON’T INTERRUPT ME. The lot of you are absolutely foul, so fucking entitled it makes me sick—”
“And you, Potter—you let me rot in Azkaban while you walked on your merry way with your pet werewolf—”
Whatever else Lily had to say Severus did not understand. Even if his mind had been able to process exactly what her words implied, at the magic word, Black and Potter were practically foaming at the mouth, their wands trained on Lily instead. Her voice increased in volume and pitch until she was running ragged on hysterics, her accusations increasingly far-fetched. At last, Black had had enough, and spells were exchanged.
The crowd—a crowd had formed—dispersed as soon as Severus had properly noted it. The commotion would surely draw a staff member sooner rather than later, but that didn’t stop Lily from shouting a few choice insults as Pettigrew fled and Potter tried to wrangle a savage-looking Black away.
His scattered collection of the present caught up with the rest of him the moment he came crashing to the ground. Lily was suddenly beside him, kneeling in the hallway, her face still flushed and her eyes wet.
But there was something off.
She stared back at him, at first hesitating, but eventually reaching to cup his face. She studied him greedily; he felt like he was being consumed, but he found that he didn’t mind, for in his own greed he did the same to her.
He couldn’t remember any such interaction between them before. They had shared an intense friendship before it had fallen apart. But he couldn’t remember Lily accepting his theory that Lupin was a werewolf, either, especially in 1976—nor could he recall anything that was remotely a metaphor for Azkaban—
Had Lily found out about the Shrieking Shack incident? Was this the day after? That would explain Lupin’s absence—
“Oh, Severus,” she whispered, a few tears spilling from her eyelashes. His heart hitched on his own name. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
He was about to ask her what the fuck she was sorry for when she suddenly threw her weight onto him, her grasp so tight it was almost painful, and her face pressed into his robes. As she sobbed, he awkwardly brought his own arms around her.
She said something muffled into his uniform.
She pulled herself away slowly, sniffing loudly.
“Oh, it was so awful,” she hiccupped. “I—when I got to the hospital wing—oh, Sev, it was so horrible. I couldn’t—everything I’ve done—I missed you, every day after.”
“Lily…I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he said slowly. “You remember…dying?”
She froze for a moment before nodded frantically. “Yes. I…well, I had to do it. I couldn’t let everything keep happening over and over again,” she babbled. “So I blew the whole bloody place up. I evacuated the students, of course, I couldn’t—”
She let out a whine before she slammed her face back into his chest, nearly knocking him over. “Hogwarts,” she admitted, her voice distorted.
Severus stared straight over her trembling head and at the stone wall. He felt like he was going mad.
“What? When?” He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “I had just started as a professor when you died—”
“What? No!” She pushed away from him though two of their knees still touched. “You had died twenty-two years before I did,” she insisted adamantly. He merely stared at her. “You don’t—? Sev, Lupin killed you. Don’t you remember?”
He shook his head slowly. “No…he came close,” he said, watching as Lily’s lips parted and her brow furrowed. “The Dark Lord’s bloody snake is what did it. And you—Lily, he killed you, in 1981.”
“No,” she whispered. “It was 1998. I—I did it myself.”
“Mr. Snape, Miss Evans,” Minerva interrupted them. They both sprang to their feet, brushing off their robes, and Lily wiping at her eyes furiously. “Oh, my. Miss Evans, is everything all right?”
“Just Potter and Black, ma’am,” she sniffed. Severus tensed his jaw and nodded once, avoiding Minerva’s scrutinizing gaze. Luckily for him, it was mostly focused on Lily. “But it’s—it’s no matter now. Just a…disagreement.”
Minerva didn’t buy it all. But Lily flashed her a smile, and the Gryffindor boys had long fled the scene.
“My office is always open to you, Miss Evans,” Minerva said stiffly. Lily nodded mutely before she swept away.
Once she was gone, Lily turned to him again, her expression suspicious. “You’re not my Sev, then,” she said quietly, her eyes narrowing. Severus could see it now, all the wrongness of her. If she had died in 1998, the Lily before him was thirty-eight—his age—but she’d matured far beyond any Lily he’d known. Her expressions were deeper and more severe, her movements uncanny.
“And you’re not my Lily,” he replied. The smile she answered him with was disturbing on her sixteen-year-old face.
“I knew it. I knew this was Hell.”
