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After all this, I realize, there is no legacy. No meaning.
These are the last moments of my life. There is no one to share it with, no one to mourn me. When Lily died, 16 agonizing years ago, I mourned her. I held her body and I loved her and I swore to make the world better if only for her memory, if only for the child she died for.
It doesn't matter; it didn't matter, for all those years, that no one knew my sacrifice. But now, I realize, it matters. For all the years of pretending to be someone I'm not, of withholding (delaying) my agony, refusing to admit, occluding my mind so that I could suffer through day after meaningless day—
Who knows if my death will bring the life it promised, but I'm not sure I care. I'm awfully tired of living, anyway, but I'm so afraid of death—so afraid after all these years of waiting, she still won't forgive me—or even worse, I'll never see her again.
I let the years of memories and self-denials wash over me; I allow myself to mourn. And when I open m eyes, I see her eyes dancing there, but I'm not dead yet and it can't be. Deathbed hallucinations, but then I realize it's Potter, it's Harry who I never called Harry, and he's there and he's trying to understand. All I can do is thrust a vial into his hands; I collect my own tears and hope he understands.
Everyone else who knows what kind of person I am is dead. So I hope, as I choke out the words begging him to look me in the eyes as I cross over, I hope that Harry Potter understands.
I could have done better, I think, and I know it's true because Harry Potter was never my enemy, and I never had to be as cruel to him as I was, or to Neville—but now's not the time for apologies, not after what I've given.
I hope he knows the doe was mine. I hope he knows that I loved him like a son in the same breath I despised him; him, the walking memory that the love of my life is gone.
And now I am off to join her.
There are many things to think about, but I am neither dead nor quite alive. I know I am at a crossroads, but I am also at the park we used to frequent when we were children. I know someone will come for me, but in the meantime, I lie down by the tree with its big, gnarly roots, and I stare up at the canopy of leaves. I imagine that they fall and turn to birds; that they spin and spiral and remain untouched by the ground for as long as they can manage.
My hair is longer, my legs no longer splay out in their awkward, childish certainty. I am not old, but I have not been young since I drove her away.
"You don't have to leave yet," comes a voice, behind me, and the voice calms me even more than the dancing leaves from my memories.
"Albus," I say.
"You gave everything," he acknowledges, and I nod.
"I gave everything before I agreed to help you," I say bitterly. "Compared to that, my life is nothing."
He looks at me almost sternly. "Your life is not, nor has it ever been, nothing, Severus."
In life, I was petty, and in death, I remain so. But I think that of all people, Albus deserves it—much more than Potter, or that hopeless student Longbottom, anyway.
"You made that easy to forget. Albus," I add.
He looks at me almost sadly. "Too many people had to give too much," he says, in a way that sounds almost as if he's agreeing.
I sit up, leaning on my arms, and I think that this is the first time in a long, long while, that I've gone outside. That I've sat on the ground. That I've abandoned the demeanor of a Dark magician. That I've allowed myself to be something other than consumed by the mark on my arm and my self-sworn promise to fight against the wizard that put it there.
I shift myself into a standing position, and I brush off my robes. "I've been ready for a long time, Albus. This," I say, waving my arm around the park scene I've created, "this is in my mind. There's nothing for me here anymore, so we can go."
"Not quite," says Albus, and I'm sure that if he had a pocket watch (or if something like that made sense in the realm of the dead) he would have checked it.
"But I should be going," he adds. "You, on the other hand, have an appointment."
I don't wait to see by what method he vanishes, because I turn slightly to my right and she is there, with a look of disapproval on her lips and tears in her eyes and an ocean of red hair behind her.
"Lily," I say, and there is no way I'm disembodied, because there is acid in my stomach and my heart has risen to my throat, because I've spent years imaging this and having those brief imaginings bring tears to my eyes, but this—
"Lily," I repeat, "Lily."
"Sev," she says, and she takes an uncertain step towards me and I look at her like I always have, like she is the answer to all of life's questions. I am in love with her, indubitably, inexorably, but it is not the needy love of my youth. I desire but I do not covet, and no longer do I beg forgiveness.
Instead, I say, "I'm sorry."
"I forgave you for that years ago, Sev."
"I know," I say, even though I didn't until this very moment. But as soon as she says it, I realize I've known it for years.
"Are you aware of what's happened?"I ask, because the mechanics of death aren't very clear.
"Bits and pieces," she says, "But tell me anyway. We have all the time in the world," and she looks at me so fiercely and so like herself that I wonder if she is truly real.
I tell her what happened the night she died, and I tell her how Voldemort found them. She curses Peter and closes her eyes, drawing her thin fingers up to her brow. "I should have known," she says, but her voice is not angry nor self-loathing; it exists as a truth that is simple and unclouded.
"I've loved you all this time," I tell her, because there is no longer anything to prove nor anyone to blame. "When you died, I thought you'd taken everything redeemably about me and killed it, too, but I realized quickly that wasn't true."
"Of course not," she says, warm, and constant, and ever so sure of herself. "You've always been a good man, and that's tormented you ever since you were a child. You would have had a far, far easier life if you were bad."
"I've been cruel, too," I admit, and she nods her head. She already knows.
"Everyone's cruel," she says, "But you more than others." I know now what that disapproving smile is about. "I thought you would have been kinder, knowing what Harry's been through."
I know I should have been, and I shake my head. "Another on the list of my inadequacies."
"That's what frustrates me about you, Sev," she says, and she cries easily, "You're brave, heroic, brilliant, clever, steadfast, constant, loyal, and a hundred other incredible things, but you're petty, vindictive, cruel, and a bully. And it's so hard for me to reconcile those things."
"They don't have to be reconciled," I say, and I consider it a great mark of personal growth that I neither grovel nor apologize for who I am and the choices I've made. "They don't need to be justified, nor apologized for, because those indecencies gave me the strength to protect those children with my life. If I was kind to them, I never would have been able to forgive them."
Lily gives me a small half-smile.
"He's incredible, you know," I say grudgingly. "Your son. Rather too much like his father, but just enough like you."
Lily doesn't bother defending James. But she smiles, for real, and she wraps her arms around my thin shoulders and she hugs me.
When she pulls back, she says, "I'm glad he had you to protect him, but you're not forgiven for how you treated him."
I purse my lips, but don't disagree.
Her voice softens. "I missed you, you know. You've always been my best friend, and no one's ever replaced that. Not James, not Sirius, not anyone."
"Then I'm sorry," I say, "I left you when you needed a best friend most."
"You did," she said, "and I wish I hadn't let you."
"We have more time, if you want," she says, after a pause, "But I think we've said what needs to be said. Shall we?" she asks, gesturing towards the river.
"Not yet," I say. "I need to talk to James."
He arrives from the first spot Lily first appeared, and he almost immediately opens his mouth to speak. I shake my head.
"It's all been done," I say. "I could say something foolish like 'thank you,' for treating Lily well, for making her happy, but we both know that was entirely under her control."
"I grew up," says James. He doesn't say I'm sorry, and I'm glad. I'm not sure how I would have replied.
Instead, he reaches out his hand to shake mine. I take it, carefully, and nod my head.
"Well?" says Lily.
"Let's go there together," I reply.