12th_night_mod (12th_night_mod) wrote in the_12th_night, @ 2008-01-15 21:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | lily/snape |
Happy 12th Night, melfinatheblue!
Title: A Memory Reserved
Recipient: melfinatheblue
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Snape/Lily
Summary: Severus Snape treasures the memory of one particular day with Lily Evans.
Warning: Underage content.
On a certain evening every July, Severus Snape locks the door to his rooms and takes a bottle from a hidden, warded niche inside his closet. It’s a pretty bottle, a green glass oval molded with flowering vines trailing up the neck. Sitting on the desk in his chamber, it seems to gather the dim light, making a jade moon in the dusk. Outside, the crickets sing their courting song. He can just hear them.
Snape has waited all year for this one day. He understands that memory is a miser, that its goods are cheap materials, easily worn out by overuse until all that is left is memory of remembering, and then a pale memory of that. He knows that he another person would open the bottle less often; if he expected to live a full span, he might try to go two years, or at least eighteen months. But he does not expect to live. He only hopes that his life will not outlast the silvery liquid that he pours with exquisite caution into the pensieve this July night.
This memory will never, never be shared by another. If he dies tomorrow, the bottle will never be found; he is sure of that.
The contents of the pensieve swirl invitingly, like a cool dip on a hot day. He has washed his face and eaten sparingly. Now he gathers his hair into an elastic at the back of his neck, making the ritual preparations. He takes a deep breath and plunges in.