Snapedom

Here's a bit of Creative Meta for the Underground. ;-)

In our recent discussions about Snape's Worst Memory and the issues of prejudice in the series as a whole, several people have commented on the friendship of Severus and Lily. As I said in my first post on the subject, why in the world did he continue to "love" a woman who had rejected him years ago? It's not so much that they broke up, but how it happened, that I object to, along with the notion that Severus continued to think so highly of Lily, despite how she treated him, that he remained eternally devoted to her memory and sacrificed himself to that devotion.

Realistically, all romantic fantasy aside, I think Severus and Lily had a circumstantial, superficially-founded childhood friendship that both of them would have outgrown, even if Severus had never become a Death Eater. Based on what we see in the texts, it appears that Lily had started to pull away from Severus once they got to Hogwarts and she discovered other friends who could also do magic. Lily and Severus really don't seem to have been all that comparable, or compatible, in terms of intellectual capacity and personality, and Severus seems to have read far more into the friendship than Lily ever did.

I think the forces of survivor guilt and idealizing the memory of the dead had more to do with Severus' devotion in later years than a True Love based upon a solid and genuine soulmate-level friendship. A good counselor would have pointed this out to him within the first few years of Lily's death, but, alas, poor Severus had no good counselors available to him, only Albus Dumbledore.

So here's how I think it would have played out, had Severus given up his Death Eater associations and had he ended up marrying Lily. And now that I think about it, it kind of says a few things about his devotion to her in canon, too... ;-)


Title: Childhood's End
Author: bohemianspirit
Genre: AU, Het
Pairing: Severus/Lily
Rating: PG

Summary: Severus had known for a long time that he and Lily were growing apart, but an early morning conversation about their marriage still leaves him in shock.

Note: Story title shamelessly lifted from Arthur C. Clarke, because it fits.


"The only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want." - Oscar Wilde


Childhood's End


Voldemort was gone.

The Longbottom boy had, under the tutelage of Severus Snape, gone from a fearful firstie to a quietly confident defender against the Dark Arts. More than once he had nearly fallen before the war was done. And Severus had nearly lost his own firstborn son in the quest for the Horcruxes, a quest that had taken a quartet of students, one from each House, to successfully fulfill. But in the end his son had lived, and so, too, had the Boy Who Lived. And Voldemort was gone.

All was right with the world, or should have been. Instead, as summer dawned, the world for Severus was falling apart.

"You want it, too."

Severus sighed, staring out at the damp, gray morning.

"See? You don't even deny it."

"Lily..." He shook his head. "What about the children?"

"What do you think, Sev? They have eyes. They have ears. Do you really think they believe we've been living one big happily ever after?" Lily sniffed. "Al, maybe. He's always been good at not seeing what he doesn't want to see. Like you."

Severus turned sharply. Black eyes met green.

"My sight is as good as it ever was," he softly intoned, his eyes never leaving hers. "I merely harbor an absurd and quaint belief in honoring the vows I made, for better or for worse."

"Go on." Lily regarded him skeptically. "There's never been anyone else?"

"No." Severus started. "Have you?"

Oh, God, he hadn't thought she wouldn't deny it...

"Who?" he asked, feeling his stomach clench.

Lily's shoulders twitched. She sipped her tea. "It doesn't matter," she quietly answered.

He let out a bitter laugh. "It doesn't matter! It doesn't--"

"You really don't want to know, Sev."

"No," he agreed. "I probably don't." His mouth twisted. "Just tell me it isn't--"

Lily blanched.

No.

"Him?" It came out in a choked, harsh whisper.

Lily nodded.

"Why--if it had to be--but--why him? Of all..." He lifted the cup to his lips, managed a small swallow, set the cup down.

"I don't know." Lily shifted, staring into her morning tea. "I just know..."

"Yes?"

She picked up her spoon and stirred it round the cup. "I could have been happy with him," she said in a small voice.

A slow numbing started from the center, spreading slowly through his limbs.

"Then why," he intoned, "did you marry me?"

Lily refused to look up at him. "I guess I felt--after all you did--well, I'd have felt really bad, Sev, to think you went to all that trouble for nothing."

"You felt sorry for me."

She set the spoon down, precisely, next to the cup and saucer.

Severus felt sick.

"So," he said, his voice low. "You are telling me that the marriage I entered into as--as a sacred thing: to love, to honor, to devote all that I am and all that I ever will have... for you it's been merely a twenty-year act of mercy sex?"

Lily's head snapped up. "That's a terrible thing to say, Sev."

He held her gaze without relenting. "But it's true."

She averted her eyes.

Severus bowed his head, staring helplessly into his tea.

"I was afraid you'd go back to your Death Eater friends, if I didn't," Lily said.

His hands clenched around the tea cup. "Is that how little you thought of me?" he murmured. "It never occurred to you that I left them for my own reasons--reasons that had to do with--with--choosing my way?"

Silence.

Severus lifted the cup, tightening his hold so he wouldn't spill tea all over his robes as he sipped. His hands were still shaking as he set the cup back on the table.

"I'm sorry."

His lip curled. "It's a bit late for that."

"I am sorry, Sev."

From upstairs came the first stirrings of the children beginning their day.

"Well." Severus sat up straight; at the sound of his voice Lily looked up at him. "I guess you've chosen your way--and mine. Shall I gather my things now, or would you like a few moments to discuss the distribution of our property?"

"That won't be necessary." Lily pushed away from the table and stood. "I've got a place to go; you and the children can stay here."

"How very thoughtful."

She flinched.

Severus closed his eyes, sinking back in the chair. "Lily," he sighed. "I did love you. Or I thought I loved you--I thought I knew--" He looked up, one last time, into those eyes. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I should get my vision checked."

She stared at him, wordlessly, then turned away and walked out of the kitchen.


Lily... gone...

"Dad?"

Severus looked up at his oldest child, the only one who had his eyes. He nodded, once, and Al slid into the seat opposite his father.

"Your mother and I are getting a divorce," Severus said.

No, Al wasn't at all surprised.

A subtle, fluid gesture from Al, and the dregs in Severus' tea cup were replaced by steaming, strong coffee, full to the brim.

In spite of himself Severus felt a slight smile emerge. "Thank you."

Al smiled back. "I learned from the best."

Severus inhaled the fragrant steam, watching his son summon and fill a cup for himself. Oh, to be seventeen, ready to win the world with a wand and a word.

Al glanced up at him, just then. "You'll be all right."

Severus held his gaze for a few moments, then, slowly, nodded. "Eventually."

The thought came to him of breakfast, and no sooner had he thought it than Al was sending pans and spatulas and bacon and eggs flying through the kitchen to come together on the stove.

"Don't forget the toast," said Severus, holding back a smile.