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Occlumency was a curious art, teeming with misconceptions about its practices and what needed to be done to master it.
The short answer: no one could master it.
As one who had reached the highest levels of occluding possible, Severus Snape was well aware of what was needed to succeed in defending one’s mind from mental attacks: it meant knowing and understanding your emotions and your own sense of self. Which was why so many struggled with it when they were teenagers and eventually gave up on the practice, no matter the benefits it had. He was one of the few who hadn’t – he had persevered and endured – which was how he had reached where he was.
Severus Snape understood himself intimately. He knew his flaws and he knew his strengths, which was why he was acutely aware of one such fact: he was a terrible person. He knew that fact, and he knew it for the cold, harsh truth it was. Yet he was fine as he was, and he wasn’t beholden to change himself to be more palatable in the eyes of others. That was a job for fools who felt as though they had to pander themselves to the masses.
He wasn’t a fool: a fool wasn’t capable of deceiving the latest Dark Lord of their time, an accomplished legilimens. One he had turned against when he had learnt of just who would become a target thanks to the prophecy he had delivered to the hands of the madman who still made so many of his schoolmates stare at him with such devoted, starry eyes.
He had once been one of them, and part of him could only sigh at the folly of his younger self. There was no glory in their service; only madness and torture should they step a single toe out of line. Yet there was nothing more to do than live on with those regrets.
He would pay for them in time, he knew, and yet he could not bring himself to care much of the future ahead of him. His eyes were far too fixated on the past he couldn’t change. He still remembered the crisp freshness of the air in Cokeworth on the winter mornings. He still remembered the way those flowers had bloomed at her feet, and the way they had brightened up his day ever so slightly before he inevitably returned to his home to be beaten by his alcoholic of a father.
His lip curled at the thought of Tobias Snape, part of him ever so grateful that the man was gone. A wretched, worthless muggle who had been a waste of the air he had breathed in. Yet there he was: still living in Spinner’s End, amidst the broken memories of his childhood.
Lily Evans had been his salvations in those dark times, and he had clung to her with the fever of a madman clutching to his last straws of sanity – and eventually, he had lost her.
So why was there an envelope on his kitchen table, delivered by the aged version of the owl he had once seen deliver Potter’s mail? The same mail which had made Potter laugh – the same mail he hadn’t ever received, neither of his parents ever writing to him – and the same mail which Potter had taunted him of not receiving. No wonder little Snivellus doesn’t receive any post, mummy and daddy don’t love him. His knuckles whitened as he clutched at the letter, glaring death at the owl which was already flying away. His parents had never loved him – not the way he thought they should have.
He wished it was easy to accept as it was to say it or otherwise think it.
A frown curled at his forehead, letter opener prying open the red wax emblazoned with the Potter Coat of Arms.
Dear Severus, a familiar looping script wrote, and he almost felt his heart sink at that. He wasn’t Sev anymore – hadn’t been Sev in a long time, since he’d called her a mudblood and had made her harden her heart against him. He’d thought he hadn’t had a choice at that moment – with Mulciber and Avery watching on, waiting to report back to the upper years on him and his possible mudblood sympathies. Yet he had made his choices and turned his back on his childhood friend, at least in the eyes of everyone who watched on, and possibly Lily herself.
So why was she writing to him? Severus could only wonder and read on, a traitorous essence of hope in his fickle heart.
I wasn’t sure about sending this, since I know what side you’re on, but I couldn’t help but hope that you at least don’t want me dead. If you feel that way, then perhaps you can understand, if not accept, what I’ve done. My children are dear to me, and that’s why I’m writing to you—Paper crinkled in his grasp, teeth sinking into his lip as he thought of Potter. It was always Potter. Always the one who had the biggest hand in making his school years hellish – of helping sever his relationship with his childhood friend. He despised James Potter, no matter how he might have changed, no matter how he had tried to save his life when Black had tried to kill him. He knew the bastard would be far too happy to lord that very fact over his head.
You’re a godfather, Severus.
He choked on his spit, eyes widening as he read the rest of that cursed letter. “Who knew you had it in you?” he murmured, closing his eyes and rubbing at the perpetual knot in the centre of his forehead. Lily, he mused, what do you expect me to do? he wondered then, something like dread filling him – because he knew exactly what Lily would do if their positions were reversed. Lily was a good person, after all, unlike him, and by that point he was fully aware of that much. Yet it was too late to try and change himself in the eyes of one of the few he truly cared about in his fickle heart.
Fingers relinquished their grip on that letter, eyes watching as the heavy parchment settled on the table, folding back up and concealing the damning contents of that letter. Of the fact that he was inexplicably bound to both sides of the war. But he had long since been straddling the razor fine line between the two factions in their war. He had been doing that much since he had learnt just who would be the target of the prophecy that he himself had delivered to the Dark Lord.
Yet Lily had just bound him through magic itself to be a protector of one of her children, should the worst come to the worst. And he could no longer do anything to harm that one specific child tied to him by powers greater than humanities own. “Leo Charlus Potter,” he muttered, wondering then if the boy would take more after Lily or his father.
His jaw clenched at the thought.
The fire in his hearth was still burning hot, the moon high in the sky when he felt something inside of him tug and squirm. It only took him a moment to realise exactly what that sensation was, fear and horror filling him as he recalled the location the Dark Lord had told him to meet him later that evening. A celebration, he had said it would be, and Severus cursed as the meaning of that finally dawned on him, even as the mark on his forearm throbbed.
Why hadn’t he realised before? Why hadn’t he told the Order? How had he found out where Lily was? His brow furrowed, fingers yanking his cloak off the railing by the door, feet twisting as he vanished from Spinner’s End with a loud crack.
His heart thudded in his chest, part of him praying that perhaps for once in his life he’d be able to make it. Part of him prayed to Circe, God, Buddha, Merlin, anyone that the Dark Lord would give her the choice and she’d stand aside as asked. That for once in her life Lily would be selfish and value her own life more than anything – or anyone – else.
He looked around the street, his feet already leading the way as he ran down the little muggle street to one of the quaint few dwellings of Godric’s Hollow. There was no dark mark in the sky – nothing to suggest that the house had just been attacked besides the front door which had been blown open.
Ice settled in his chest, his throat suddenly feeling incredibly dry, and the short distance in front of him suddenly felt like miles.
Anti-Apparition wards settled over his skin like thin paper as he crossed the property line, garden gate swinging silently shut behind him even as he walked down the garden path, his heartbeat the only thing ringing in his ears as he set his foot on the porch. He paused then, part of him warring with the idea of going further or simply running away. Then he could pretend that she was most definitely alive for a while longer. Schrodinger’s cat could still be happily alive in its box, until he opened it and saw the reality for himself.
The floorboards creaked as he stepped inside what would have been a homely house, had it not been for the broken door and the dead body on the stairs. Yet he had never cared for James Potter, and he wasn’t about to start now – or start comforting the tiny tot crying next to his lifeless body. He didn’t like children, never mind the fact that he had somehow been made a godfather of two by now.
He could still remember Draco’s gummy smile on his face as he had peered down at him, curious and mildly disgusted by the amount of drool there was to contend with. Yet Draco wasn’t there, and there was only a foreboding sense of misery building in his chest with every step he took.
A loud, familiar crack rent the air, the weight of those wards vanishing as someone tore through the scant remaining magic there was around the property. Proof that whoever had cast those temporary wards was dead and unable to fuel them any longer. The eerie quiet to the mark on his forearm was also something of a tell that the master he had sworn himself to long ago no longer walked amongst the living.
Had Lily somehow defied expectations and defeated him somehow? he wondered in the depths of whatever frantic madness was overtaking him. She had to be alive. She had to be. He could hardly comprehend the idea of her lying there like her husband, lifeless and glassy eyed. The stair creaked beneath his foot, the trail of destruction all but leading him to another door which had been blasted off its hinges. His heart beat in his chest like a war drum, sinking as he spotted that familiar red hair which had once made the little boys of Cokeworth tease her and call her all sorts of names because it was different. He remembered those days vividly then, even as he caught sight of those bright green eyes staring blankly at the ceiling above her.
He stumbled back, leaning heavily against the wall as the realisation crashed into him. Lily was dead. His breath came in a short, sharp gasp, a choked cough escaping his lips, even as he felt the first tears trickled down his face. He buried his face in his hands, almost as if trying to cover his tears, and yet there was no one there to hide them from. Only a bunch of toddlers who were either crying their eyes out or otherwise unconscious.
Slowly, almost cautiously, he made his way over to Lily, wishing somehow that she would blink – that she would stop looking up at the ceiling so blankly. That she would turn to him and admonish him for all the vile things he’d done. That she would breathe again or otherwise do something beyond lie there. Her body was still warm, far too indicative of how he had arrived too late.
And what would you have done if you’d arrived earlier? Some snide part of his brain asked. Severus didn’t have an answer for that.
He didn’t think he ever would.