to forgive all the things that i've done-- lily

[severussnape2]

Her words rang in his head, a horrifying litany of accusations that attacked him viciously. And the saddest part? He couldn't decide whether he deserved them or not.

Severus could not even believe that she had said that, in front of all those people... He could see their faces, like a frozen tableau of hate. Alice, staring at him in that accusing way; Hannah's stricken look of hurt as Lily berated her; that Potter kid, the anger radiating off of him so strong that it hit Severus like a slap in the face, and all the other faces that watched, impassive, as he had his worst fears thrown in his face.

Tears sprang to his eyes, and he wiped them away furiously as he walked away from the tent, angry at himself for being so vulnerable. His father... It didn't matter that Lily didn't know the half of what his father had done, she certainly knew that the topic of his father had been largely off-limits. She knew that even mentioning it to him was bound to hurt him, but to announce to all and sundry that he was "just like his father"...

Just thinking about that phrase made him sick. As a matter of fact, he felt like he might throw up. He stopped abruptly, hunched over slightly, the nausea crashing over him in waves. After about five minutes of just standing there, it seemed that he would not vomit, and he began walking again up the hill at that same frantic pace.

He ended up gravitating to his usual spot right by the entrance to the school, under his favorite tree. Something about it was comforting, though he still felt scrubbed raw from the fight. Sitting down, he stopped trying to quell the tears, simply letting the humiliation and the anguish bleed through him in silence.

[lily]

She didn’t know why she was even attempting this. She knew that she would have had an easier time begging Hannah for forgiveness for her cruelty. There was something so unassuming about Professor Abaris that made her want to do as she was told… since he seemed so confident in his certainty. Her make up was ruined, her hair was somewhat messed, and the lily in her hair barely clung to her tresses. The only thing that managed to keep itself clean and presentable was her dress, although that constituted more to her stubbornness to not ruin the only thing that she had worked so hard for. It was her mother wedding gown, after all. She couldn’t ruin it.

It had taken her a while to find Severus; but, when she had, the sight she saw was something that increased her guilt by ten fold. She really shouldn’t have said it. She had been so angry, the angriest she had been in her life… even more angry than when he had called her Mudblood. It was an exhilarating thing to finally express all her aggression at once; but, at what cost? He was crumpled up by the entrance now, and from what she could see he had cried a little. Gods, she was a monster, wasn’t she?

He hadn’t deserved to been called such a cruel thing. There were many things that Lily knew about Severus’ father. He had hurt him so much… to compare him to such an evil man must have destroyed him from the inside. [red]“Severus…”[/red] she whispered, frowning. [red]“I…”[/red] she paused. She didn’t know what to say. She was too scared to talk. She was too scared to be here. She knew they would fight again, and after the last outburst she didn’t know if she could handle another one.

[severussnape2]

Severus watched Lily with some trepidation as she meandered around the grounds, clearly looking for something. It didn't take a lot of brainpower for him to think of who exactly she was looking for. But the thought of talking to her again sent shivers up his spine.

Why in the world did she bother? Perhaps this was a manifestation of her Gryffindor bravery; boldly seeking him out in order to make him see sense. Well, he wouldn't. She could berate him all she liked, but he would not let her force him into anything. He would not be that easily manipulated.

And if she mentioned his father again... His anger rekindled, a flare of pure malice whipping through him like the snap of a taut line. As he glared at her through the bushes, he felt a devastating urge to hurt her so badly that she would never recover. Severus wanted to burn her alive, to choke the life out of her, to shove those hateful words she had spat at him back in her mouth. So, I'm exactly like my father? I'll show you just what my father is like.

But in the next instant his anger disappeared entirely, replaced by a horrible, dark brooding that made him want to be as far away from her as possible. He wanted more than anything to be rid of her forever, to never have to see her again, because, if she found him and did mention his father again, he wasn't sure what he would do, but he certainly wouldn't attack her...

Merlin, he was a mess. His thoughts weren't even remotely coherent. Nevertheless, his tears hardened and dried on his face long before she reached him. And by the time she got there, he was feeling pensive. Severus had come to the conclusion that, if she'd come looking for a fight, he was going to get up and walk straight to his dorm without a word.

Apparently, she didn't have any particular thing she wanted to say to him. That was... surprising. Then, why did she come at all? He thought that perhaps he should take the initiative, to make the first strike while he still had time, but he found himself unwilling to wound Lily, even if his thoughts had dwelt on the morbid details of her suffering only moments before. However, he still settled for being snide. The easiness with which his sarcasm leaped to his lips was both a comfort and a protection. "Come to gloat?" he intoned, looking out towards the trees by the lake instead of at her. "You've already won; what more do you have to say?"

[lily]

At his words, she merely felt her irritation flare up again. It was always going to be like this, wasn’t it? There was no way that they could get along. Their stubbornness had made them so close before; but, now, as they stood against each other, it was that same stubbornness that forced them apart. Professor’s Abaris’ words floated in her mind, however, and she closed her eyes to take a second to breathe. Be clear headed, Lily. she thought, and soon after her anger subsided. She was filled with fear again, though, and began staring at him again as he watched her, seemingly expecting something… like her to lash back, or to push more things into his face again.

[red]“There’s nothing to gloat about,”[/red] she said, her voice faltering slightly. Lily took a few steps forward; but, kept a fair distance from him so he wouldn’t be spooked. She didn’t want to chase him off, not when she had this guilt weighing heavily on her chest. She swallowed hard. [red]“I can’t be proud of what I said to you. There’s absolutely no way,”[/red] she told him, letting her hands clasp together and in front of her. She didn’t know how to approach the subject without angering him. She remembered the past, even the mention of his father’s name would set Severus’ off for hours. He never wanted to acknowledge the man existed… too many painful memories, she supposed.

Too many that he never wanted to share.

[red]“I’m sorry,”[/red] she whispered. [red]“It was wrong of me to say that… to do all of that. But…”[/red] her eyes clenched shut, as her hands tightened around each other. Her stubbornness was showing through again, she knew that she wasn’t completely wrong. Her anger was justified in some respects… but she could apologize for the outburst. [red]“I’m not the only one at fault, either,”[/red] she dared to whisper, opening her eyes again.

[severussnape2]

Though he thought it interesting that Lily seemed to be attempting to reign in her anger, Severus couldn't help but immediately snap at her, piercing her with a critical glance. "And what, exactly, did I do to deserve your-" he stopped, unable to find a word to define it. Severus gestured vaguely, turning his head away from her with a sigh.

He started again. This time, with more eloquence. "You can't possibly know how wrong you are," he informed her irritably. "You apparently find fault in my date, though why that should concern you, I have no idea."

"Furthermore," he told her, glaring at her in earnest. "If you think I'm going to accept your horrible excuse for an apology, you are sadly mistaken."

He could tell that, although he remained as haughty and distant as he ever was, he sounded pathetic. Hurt and very much alone, he wanted to test the sincerity of Lily's guilt. He wanted her to tell him just what her problem was. The sting of her words was not removed by her apparent desire for repentance. They still twisted and writhed inside his mind and his heart, and she couldn't call them back so easily.

But notwithstanding his skepticism, he cherished a tiny bit of hope that she meant what she said. If she was willing to seek him out in favor of the Masquerade, to subject herself to his unpleasantness, then perhaps she cared a lot more about him than he'd thought. The idea of having, at the very least, some sort of understanding between them both excited and disturbed him. And even if they did, Severus was not a man easily given to forgiveness... He was no Hannah Abbott. Speaking of his father was beyond "inappropriate"; it delved into the realm of the truly heartless. If she couldn't understand that, then she had no business even speaking to him.

[lily]

Of course it wasn’t going to be easy. It was foolish of her to even think that was a remote possibility; and yet, the fact that he refused to even try to understand why it upset her to see him with another girl… It truly was hard to admit your faults when you felt they were justified. She got that what she had done to him was beyond inappropriate; but, gods, why couldn’t he understand? Why couldn’t he get that it hurt her because she had forced herself to become vulnerable again? Why couldn’t he formulate that she had opened herself up to forgive everything he had done to her, in hopes that everything could possibly get fixed? She shouldn’t have made the comparison… but perhaps she had hoped that he would understand why it had come to her so easily: He was hurting her. He wasn’t stopping, either.

[red]“You know exactly…”[/red] she began, but then forced herself to stop. If anything, the presence of Professor Abaris’ voice in her mind was calming, and reminded her of why she was attempting this. She had done irrevocable damage that she needed to rectify. Although she had hoped this would push some humility into him, so he could feel the pain she felt when he had called her a Mudblood, she was not above apologizing, as he was. She had to stay calm. She had to stay patient. Getting angry now would only push him away. Her hands were suddenly irritated and she rubbed away at her eyeliner more. It blackened her arms some and for whatever reason, she felt self conscious. Insecurity had always been something Lily never retained; but now, with her flaws before her, she couldn’t help to feel as if she were the most ugly human being in the world.

[red]“I know you won’t,”[/red] she continued, her body releasing its tension. [red]“I can’t force you to, either. But I won’t let myself sleep or even attempt to enjoy myself until I know I’ve atoned for my mistakes.”[/red] Her voice stayed as steady as she forced it to, and her tone was just as gentle. Perhaps if she did as Abaris had told her, she could get through to him. [red]“What… what your father did to you… was inexcusable, Severus… I know that better than anyone else. You know I do… so to even say that to you was heartless of me. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t deserve any of it…”[/red]

Her eyes cast downward at the grass, because now she couldn’t even force herself to look at him. How could she? All of this was pointless. He was determined to never listen to her, or ever care. Perhaps trying to rebuild what they once had was a pointless venture. He was too changed now, wasn’t he? But something told her that her Severus was still inside, and he would listen if she was able to coax him out. She had to be honest. She had to. [red]“I’m trying,”[/red] was all she was able to manage before she felt her eyes stinging with tears. Her arms went upward to furiously brush them away, and her body immediately turned sideways to skew his view. She didn’t want to repeat the incident in the Room of Requirement. That was the last thing she wanted… since she knew he would just laugh at her. She wanted to explain everything that was in her head; but, after stating that she had been trying, she couldn’t force herself to continue. She didn’t want to put herself out that far yet.

[severussnape2]

His anger flared again suddenly, and he stood to face her. "No, I don't 'know exactly'! And neither do you!" he sneered at her, his voice sharpened to a point. The fire in his veins intensified to the point where it was almost pain, and he had to let it out or he would suffer from it forever.

"You know nothing about what my father did to me! Nothing! How dare you say to me 'what he did was inexcusable'. What he did to me was a great deal more than that; it was unforgivable. If you want to know what was 'inexcusable', then you'd best take a look at your own behavior," he spat at her, drawing his anger from the never ending fount of bitterness that flowed through him daily. Only now, he refused to keep it in check. "As for deserving it, I honestly couldn't tell you. Seeing as it seems to be my lot in life to be hated, I hardly think that your vitriol is likely to matter to me in the long run."

Even as he said it, though, he could feel himself choking on his own words, the sheer amount of hurt he felt threatening to consume him. "You say you are trying, but trying to do what? To break me? Control me? Certainly not help me, with all your cruel, misguided accusations. Who in the world do you think you are, to bend me into what you want me to be?" he asked her, his voice pitched low. Even as she turned away to wipe her tears, he did not stop. He couldn't. "Do not come to me and presume to tell me how to live my life when you have no idea what I went through. You are so absurdly naive... You think that I should just 'open up' and tell you everything! You think that I'm stubborn and foolish for not 'trusting in you'! I can see it in your eyes. You want to control me, to view my life like it's some ingredient in a potion's bottle and tell me what to do about it. But you can't! It's my life, and you aren't part of it!"

By the end, he had been shouting at her, and he glanced down the deserted path for a moment in nervous anticipation. However, nobody seemed to be around, which almost made his anxiety worse. To see himself standing before her, towering over her in his fury while she averted her tear-streaked face made him feel both vindicated and dirty. She looked so horribly sad that it caused him a momentary pang of regret, but that small feeling could not drown out the overwhelming bitterness and pain that he was forced to carry around.

In anguish, he looked away from her to glare at the grooves in the tree next to him. He felt drained in the aftermath of his anger, but at least he no longer had the insane desire to physically injure someone. Running a hand through his hair, he let out his frustration in one quick gust of air, waiting for Lily to yell at him, or, even worse, continue crying. He felt a bit like a monster, just watching her cry without reacting at all, but he felt at a loss for what to do.

[lily]

His screaming, his accusations, they didn’t anger her then. Her sadness increased some; but, moreover, she was just relieved. For her to finally hear the truth from him now than he had ever offered her before made her want to breathe a sigh in relief. However, now, as he towered over her, and she kept her face away, tears falling down her face, she couldn’t do that. Her grief bubbled up and she continued to weep gently until he was finished and couldn’t bring his eyes to look down at her accusingly anymore. She didn’t want to lose herself now. She had to keep trying. Lily turned to him, letting her hands rest in one another.

[red]“Stop it.”[/red] she urged, her voice shaking. [red]“Stop pretending that everything I’ve ever done in my life is to control you, or make everything worse for you. You don’t even know. I don’t know what view you have of me in your mind; but, I can tell you that you are sorely mistaken, Severus Snape.”[/red] Lily’s voice was merely a whisper. She didn’t want to yell at him, or make him feel intimidated… but she would speak her mind. She wouldn’t hide anymore. [red]“You’re not my pet. I’ve never viewed you as such. You know you meant more to me than that, Severus. You know.”[/red] Lily’s hands went up as a few more tears fell down her face. She was weakening some, and the thought crossed her mind that she deserved this. She hurt him more than she could ever know.

[red]“You don’t think I know what your father did?”[/red] she asked, her voice trembling as she continued to speak to him. [red]“You don’t think that I could read between the lines when you came to me, broken and bleeding, and I had to mend those wounds? Even when you hid your scars, I knew they were there. I saw the pain in your eyes, Severus. I’m not stupid. I always knew what he did. You never wanted to talk about it because when you were with me it was escape. What kind of cold hearted person would I be if I didn’t put my energy on trying to make you as happy as I possibly could have? You never gave me the power to help you. Never. You thought that you distanced yourself enough for me to never know what was going on, but I knew. And I stupidly thought I could reverse some of the damage he did.”[/red] Her eyes rolled upwards as she tried to stop herself from crying. She didn’t like thinking about the past, and the emotional tension of this moment was making it worse. [red]“I saw it, Severus. What he did to you, with my own eyes -- I saw it. I looked in your window one day. I saw what he did. And I still carry that regret, not having done anything to stop it.”[/red]

Lily's shoulders stiffened, as she tried standing strong against him. She wouldn’t let him dominate this. They wouldn’t fight, she wouldn’t allow it; but, she wasn’t going to back down. [red]“I tried to fix everything. But what could I do? You started avoiding me. You started telling me lies. And then, you tried to pretend that I was nothing to you. So what could I do? You started pushing me farther out of your life and there was nothing I could do about it. And then? When we were in the Room of Requirement? I had the thought to forgive you, to try to fix things again. But, obviously, you didn’t want that, and you were with someone else, because all you ever want to do is take everything out on me. It’s like you want to punish me and I don’t know why.”[/red]

Lily wiped her eyes again as she felt her body begin to shake. And then, in a loud voice, she let out in a painful scream: [red]“And that’s why it hurts!”[/red]

[severussnape2]

His mouth went absolutely dry when she said she'd seen what happened to him, an awful sinking dread that felt like he was being filled with cement. "You saw-" he started, his expression mortified before he stopped himself.

But then, the thinking part of his mind kicked in, and he realized that she couldn't have seen that incident, the one he wanted to keep secret at all costs. Lily had been fast asleep in her house, and his father had taken him into the bathroom... There were no windows there for her to see.

He clenched his eyes shut. The memory of it was just... too painful. It had been like an open wound, constantly re-opened every time he saw Lily, poisoning all his thoughts against her. He had vowed, long ago, that he would never tell her. Ever. Thankfully, she didn't know, which immediately calmed him some. He hoped she didn't see how relieved he looked and inquire further.

But if she hadn't seen that particular incident, she must have seen something else. Though not as devastating as the former, he still felt a sort of bone-deep humiliation that she had been a witness to his suffering, despite all his efforts to shield her. "What in the world made you believe that you could fix anything?" he asked her, his voice bordering on cold. "There's nothing to fix."

One thing he figured out, though, was why she'd been so angry. He was 'with someone else' after their talk in the Room of Requirement. But... why should that bother her?

A couple of things clicked in his mind, then. Her seeking him out in the dark of the night, his hand closed around Hannah's, Lily's sudden fit of rage... She was jealous. She thought he liked Hannah more than he liked her. She thought he had rejected her, after what had happened in the Room of Requirement.

Unfortunately for him, that couldn't be further from the truth. Even seeing her so upset, her face red with emotion, the awful sound of her voice breaking... He continued to worship her. Logically, he realized that she looked like a mess, but when he looked at her, all he saw was that lively, beautiful girl he'd spent so much time with as a child.

He'd always protected her. Even from himself. If that meant that she felt like he was punishing her? So be it.

Feeling so unbearably tired, he let out another sigh. "Lily..." He cringed at how plaintive he sounded. But then, his voice hardened. He couldn't help saying it, even though it may hurt the both of them. "I couldn't give you the power to help me, because you were the problem." He turned further away from her, crossing his arms as he began to feel chilled by the night air.

[lily]

As those fateful words left his mouth, her heart stopped. She couldn’t properly describe the feeling; but, it was an out of body experience. The feel of her body completely losing function to the point where she was beginning to believe she was dying… Her skin ran cold, and her lungs stopped working. Had her eyes not continued to stare into his dark and stern face, she could have sworn she had collapsed in front of him, lifeless. She could no longer hear her Professor’s words, they had left her mind, along with most of her other senses. There was nothing to calm her. Life sprung back into her, though, as she felt a wave of fury build up in her stomach. Suddenly, her arms went forward, and she pushed him, though so weakly that it pushed her back instead.

[red]“I’m the problem?”[/red] she screeched, the power of her voice leaving her as she was swept with stronger tears. Her hands came up, and she clenched them against her hair, pulling, as she quietly growled to herself. She didn’t want to be violent toward him, so she made do by being violent to herself. [red]“The man that beat, tortured and hated you… the man that told you that you were worthless, that you killed your own mother…”[/red] she began to feel sick, then, wanting to vomit; but, her words came instead of the sick and bile, even as it rose in her throat. [red]“The boys that bullied you, humiliated and made you feel hated… The girls that shunned you and told you that you were a loser…”[/red] Her hands reached for the lily in her hair, and she pulled it out, throwing it into his face. Her body writhed with rage and she wanted to break things. Even the dress she was stubborn to keep perfect became a victim, as she gripped it tightly, white knuckling. It was becoming stained black with the streaks of her own eyeliner. [red]“No… None of them were the problem.”[/red] The words hissed out with such hate and disdain that she could have sworn she didn’t even speak them.

[red]“But the girl who you’ve known for years, the girl who stood by you, the girl who told all of those people to stay quiet, who told all of them that were wrong,”[/red] she hissed, and she moved close to him, as she grabbed onto his dress robe, squeezing it in her hands. Her tears stayed wet in her eyes, not allowing themselves to fall down her cheeks as she stared at him intensely. [red]“The girl that played with you, who let you sleep in her bed… The girl that held you when you were in pain, who took care of your cuts and bruises, who tried to not let your secretive nature ruin things… the girl who endured it when you looked in her eyes and basically told her to die, and went off with a group of people who had wanted to help you make that possible, and yet she found it in her heart to forgive you regardless,”[/red] her voice hissed, and she let go of his wrinkled robes. She glared into his eyes, and let out with a loud scream: [red]“The girl that loved you!”[/red] She was shaking then, barely able to keep herself from doing something mad, like slap him. [red]“Yes, she was the problem!”[/red]

The words were spat into his face, and she immediately pushed him away, as her eyes widened at the feeling of a sudden weakness. It was almost as if a spirit had finished possessing her body, leaving her meek and fragile. She let out a gasp of air violently, as she held her chest and hunched over to pant. The outburst finished, she was now tired, feeling almost as if she would have passed out then if she wasn’t desperately clinging to consciousness.

[severussnape2]

At first, he was so completely stunned by her violent reaction that he could only stare at her, his eyes wide with confusion as she caught her breath. For one wild moment, he was frozen in both fear and awe, transfixed by the sudden heat of her anger, the feel of her clenched hands on his chest, the harsh warmth of her breath as she yelled at him.

And then her words began to sink into him like salt into a wound. It was obvious that she had misunderstood him, that she assumed he meant that she was the root of every problem he had, which wasn't true at all. He felt so dumbfounded that all he could say to her was, "That's not what I meant..."

But piece by piece her words etched themselves into his mind. Her description of his father, his humiliation at the hands of other students... but, most important of all, her own thoughts and feelings. They had never been given to him so... plainly before. He had always supposed that he'd imagined her care; he'd assumed her friendliness was only skin deep, her forgiveness a technicality on her road to becoming a paragon of Gryffindor virtue. Every excuse he could invent to convince himself that he didn't matter to her in the slightest... He had used them to the fullest. And that night in the Shrieking Shack, when he'd seen the light of love in her eyes, he had told himself, 'There was nothing there. It was a fantasy I created in the midst of grief, nothing more.' He had explained away all of it. And now it turned out he was hopelessly wrong.

Lily said he'd told her to die, but he could not for the life of him remember ever saying such a thing. He'd spewed a great deal of hate at her, but he'd never, ever wished her dead. Not even in his mind had he thought about it, much less gather the sort of cruelty to actually say that to her. He almost asked, but he could not find the words.

And then his mind came to the crux of the matter... She loved him. Did she still, or was that a thing of the past? Her presence in front of him seemed to answer that for him, but his old habits were hard to break. Even as he tried to justify her admission of love as only trifling, he realized that he was lying to himself, and he always had been. And that just made him a fool, didn't it?

"I didn't..." he started, but stopped as he realized he'd meant to repeat what he'd only just finished saying. Since his words seemed to fail him, he bent down slowly to retrieve the lily that she'd thrown at him. It was slightly smashed, the edges of the petals beginning to die, but he cradled it lightly in his hand. As Lily sniffed weakly in front of him, he tentatively reached forward with a hand to brush her flyaway hair from her face. With careful precision, he placed the flower back behind her ear before pulling away from her quickly, as if he'd been burned.

Feeling incredibly frightened of what else he might be tempted to do, he turned on his heel and walked away into the castle without looking back.