FIC: If I Could Choose Again (1 of 3)
Title: If I Could Choose Again (Part 1 of 3) Author: bohemianspirit Type: Fiction (AU, Gen, Het) Length: Short Story (prologue to a novel) Pairings: Severus/Lily, but storyline centers around Severus' maturation and development. Series: Wasn't supposed to be, but has turned into one. This story, complete in itself, is the beginning. Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the wake of Lily's rejection at the end of fifth year, Severus Snape makes one small choice that leads him to make other choices that ultimately give him the life for which he yearns.
Note: I set out to chart a believable, in-character alternative course of development for Severus, one based on choices he might plausibly have made that would have changed his life. Severus as he might have been--and, perhaps, as he really was.
If I Could Choose Again
1
She couldn't. She didn't.
Severus stared at the portrait. Lily was as close as the other side--and as far away.
"She's not coming back," said the Fat Lady. "You might as well call it a night."
Severus opened his mouth, but there was nothing more to say, and no one to whom he could say it. He lowered his head and turned his back on Gryffindor.
He slunk through the halls, in no great hurry. He didn't care if he got caught. He had lost Lily; nothing else mattered. Nothing else could matter. All that awaited him at the end of this walk was Slytherin and the company of Mulciber and Avery and the rest whom Lily so despised.
Lily.
He collapsed against the wall. He couldn't... he wouldn't...
A wild thought flew into his head. He almost cast it out: Ridiculous. Nothing to be done. Nothing could be done. And yet...
Severus lifted his head, gazing into the darkened corridor. He glanced in the direction of Slytherin. He glanced in the other direction. He stood, suspended between the two directions; after an age or two of the world had passed, he decided he might as well try the one before heading inevitably for the other.
"Password?"
Severus gaped at the gargoyle.
"I don't know..." Severus sank onto the floor, burying his head in his arms.
"Severus."
The voice broke through, as sunlight through mist.
"Severus."
His head snapped up.
"Severus." Dumbledore stood over him, a dressing gown thrown over his nightshirt. "You wished to see me?"
Severus blinked, stared, nodded. Dumbledore held out his hand and helped Severus to his feet.
"Well, Severus," began Dumbledore as soon as they were both seated in his office. "What is it?"
Severus scanned the room. The portraits were all sleeping, or seemed to be. Without looking at Dumbledore he said, "Lily."
"Lily," repeated Dumbledore. "May I assume we are speaking of Miss Evans?"
Severus nodded.
"Very well. Why don't you tell me about it."
The words tripped over one another in a breathless, incoherent, desperate jumble. Through it all Dumbledore sat listening patiently.
"And how do I make her come back?" cried Severus. "She's got to come back, she's got to!"
"Make her come back," repeated Dumbledore, peering at Severus over the rims of his glasses. "Is that your concern, Severus? Making her come back to you?"
"YES!" he screamed. "Yes, yes, yes! I can't bear it, I just can't bear the thought of--of--"
"Is it truly Lily you care about, Severus, or merely your own loss?"
Severus flinched, shrinking into himself.
Dumbledore sighed.
"I don't want to hurt her," said Severus in a small voice.
There was a space of silence. "Then perhaps, for a beginning, you might remove a certain word from your vocabulary. For the duration."
Severus did not need to ask which word.
"It won't undo what's already done," Dumbledore warned him, "but it will avoid further injury."
Severus nodded. "And how do I--? Can I--?"
"Repair the damage?"
Severus felt like a bobble-head dog he had once seen on the dashboard of a Muggle car.
"Well, Severus. If you truly wish to make things right, you must be patient. And brave. Willing to bear the consequences of what you have done--even if it brings no gain to you."
"Patient. Brave." Severus nodded. "What else?"
Dumbledore did not speak until Severus looked up and into his eyes. "Admit that you were wrong," he said.
"But they--!"
"Did not have the power to choose the word that came out of your mouth."
Severus gulped, and nodded.
"We cannot control the choices of others, Severus. We can control only how we will, or will not, respond." Dumbledore's voice carried him along a gentle current, flowing into a stream branching before Severus with the promise of possibility. "Our entire lives are built of choices, and the choices we make as a consequence of those choices. What, then, will you choose?"
Severus spent the remaining few days at Hogwarts mulling over the Headmaster's words. Patience, Dumbledore had said. Summer was at hand: Perhaps the summer would soften Lily's heart, give Severus an opportunity to be heard, to admit that he was wrong, that he had never really wanted to hurt her.
But Lily avoided him all summer. Though they lived in the same town, and inevitably crossed paths now and then--and only some of those nows and thens were by his intention--Lily Evans made it quite clear by her bearing that she wanted nothing more to do with Severus Snape.
Patient. Brave. Bear the consequences, even if doing so brought him no gain.
He spent a lot of time by the river that summer, where he and Lily used to meet, thinking about where he had been and where he would choose to go.
She was still avoiding him when they returned to Hogwarts in September. Severus paid very little attention to the Sorting Ceremony, and even less attention to his fellow Slytherins: His eyes were on the Gryffindor table, where Lily Evans seemed to be warming up considerably to the attentions of James Potter. It was not to be borne.
Severus clenched his fists. He would bear it.
He had no choice but to bear it.
Still, he wished with all his heart she would at least listen to him.
What, then, will you choose?
Severus spent all the first day of classes pondering those words. He kept to himself, avoiding the common room and not meeting the eyes of anyone he passed in the halls. Whatever was said in classes that day went directly from the lecturer to his hand and quill; his mind was otherwise engaged.
By dinner, Severus had a plan. As soon as the meal was over, he slipped outside, before he could think about it enough to talk himself out of it, and found a place where he knew he would be able to work alone.
While his fellow students ate breakfast, next morning, Severus sat tapping his fork on his plate, awaiting the owls. Once he dared a quick look in the direction of Lily. Even if she wouldn't ever speak to him again, he wanted her to know how truly sorry he was.
He was sorry as soon as he saw the envelope falling to the table. It sprang open, and his own shrieking voice ripped through the air, carrying clearly to every ear in the Hall:
"SEVERUS SNAPE, YOU IGNORANT, VILE, WORTHLESS SACK OF SHIT! HOW DARE YOU, HOW DARE YOU INSULT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL EVER TO WALK THE HALLS OF HOGWARTS? DON'T YOU DENY IT, SEVERUS SNAPE, JUST DON'T YOU TRY! YOU CALLED HER A MUDBLOOD! A MUDBLOOD, SEVERUS! YOU, THE SON OF A DRUNKEN MUGGLE! WHO ARE YOU TO PUT ON AIRS? YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF, SEVERUS SNAPE! THOROUGHLY AND PROPERLY ASHAMED! DO YOU HEAR? I SAY, DO YOU HEAR? DON'T YOU EVER, EVER, EVER CALL ANYONE A MUDBLOOD--EVER AGAIN! YOU'RE HALF-MUGGLE YOURSELF, SEVERUS SNAPE--AND DON'T YOU EVER FORGET IT!!!"
Severus sat, his head cast down, fighting back tears. It had been a stupid idea. He waited, wondering when the laughter would begin.
After ages of silence--not so much as the clink of a fork against a plate--Severus snuck a glance through the veil of his hair. Nobody was laughing, or looked as if they were anywhere near inclined to laugh. Some looked sad, pitying, afraid. Others--Mulciber and Avery--looked disgusted.
Severus felt disgusted.
His eyes were focused on his plate as he heard the scraping of chairs and shuffling of feet, robes rustling as students filed past him, silently, to attend their classes.
The Hall was empty.
Almost.
Severus felt a hand on his shoulder.
"That wasn't exactly what I had in mind, Severus."
Severus looked up, made himself look up, into Dumbledore's eyes.
"You said to be brave," he said.
"I did." It seemed as if the stars shone in Dumbledore's eyes--very strange, thought Severus, as it was bright and sunny morning. "And that was brave, indeed--in its own way. But perhaps... perhaps you can find a better way."
In the days that followed the Howler, Severus found himself alone. Truly alone. He had expected to be ridiculed without mercy. Instead he was avoided. The other students--of all Houses--shrank back from him as he passed them in the halls, not meeting his eyes if he glanced in their direction, not speaking to him at all, not even in mockery.
Whispers. There were whispers. Lots and lots of whispers. Only Lily, it seemed, remained silent. But her silence extended, still, to him.
Slytherin was no longer his refuge. Whenever Severus walked into the common room, all conversation ceased until he passed on. Nobody spoke to him in the dormitory; the conversations at bedtime did not include him, and, increasingly, took place within the boundaries of silencing charms.
Who needed them, anyway. He'd always been alone. He liked to be alone. He didn't really care if--
He darted madly for the nearest bathroom, barely in time to collapse and heave what little he had been able to put into his stomach that day.
The library, he decided, was a good place to study. He got a lot more accomplished without the idle banter of housemates to distract him. His Potions book was rapidly filling with notations in the margins.
A flash of green and silver caught his eye. He looked up, then breathed again: Slytherins, but not from his usual--former--crowd. They glanced in his direction, paid him no heed, and settled together several tables away.
Long hair, he'd long ago discovered, was useful for observing without being observed. He observed the group of Slytherins, conversing quietly over their opened books, acting for all the world like the students of any other house. It took him a few minutes to begin associating names with faces; till now, he really hadn't paid attention to anyone who hadn't been part of Mulciber and Avery's circle.
Sally Talbot. Third year. Mud--Muggle-born. A Muggle-born in Slytherin. Several Muggle-borns in Slytherin, he realized upon reflection. Many more, if one counted all the Half-bloods like Severus himself.
Why hadn't he noticed before? Was it really any better to be a Half-blood than a full Muggle-born? What separated so-called Mudbloods from the Half-bloods, anyway, in the eyes of the Purebloods? Why, if they so despised the taint of anything Muggle, did the Purebloods not exclude everyone who had any amount of Muggle blood?
Because they wouldn't have any bloody numbers if they limited themselves only to Purebloods.
He was staring. He looked down quickly as several of the other Slytherins stared back.
He was almost getting used to being alone.
Mulciber and Avery continued to shun him. He was beginning to think it wasn't such a loss. Power. They were always going on about power: the power they had, the power they would have, the power that Severus could have by associating with them and becoming part of their circle.
Power. Severus snorted, leaning more intently into his book. What did they know of power?
Patience. Courage. There was power. To have a plan, a course of action, and to go about silently, unobtrusively, step by step by step implementing that plan, without having to impress anyone: That was true power.
Patience. Courage. And discipline.
It had begun one night in the bathroom. Another round of retching till he thought all his internal organs would come heaving up with the bile. Standing at the sink, looking into the mirror, he considered what he saw before him.
"Look at you." He spat the words, a fine spray striking the mirror with each word. "Power. Power? Why, you haven't even got the power to--"
His face slackened. His eyes were wide, his mouth agape. Then, all at once, he narrowed his eyes, clenched his jaw, gripped the basin as if to break it, and with every word reverberating through every cell in his body, Severus looked himself in the eye and said:
"Yes. You. Do."
He heard footsteps.
"Who in--at this hour--Snape! Snape, it is you, isn't it? Don't deny it. What are you doing in here--at this hour?"
Severus looked up at Professor Slughorn.
"Bathing, sir."
The professor blinked, sputtered, finally echoed: "Bathing."
"Yes, sir."
Slughorn shook his head. "Well. Hurry along, be getting on to bed. I won't take any points--this time."
"Thank you, sir."
"Only do make a habit, in future, of bathing at a more reasonable hour."