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If I could turn back time and undo what I’ve done …
The feuds. The grudges. The pathos.
If I could have simply accepted Lily’s friendship instead of pushing for more, she never would have learned to despise me.
To fear me.
To hate me.
Perhaps she was right to do so. I was hardly deserving of her approbation, much less her friendship or her love.
I’m still not, despite all I’ve done. Perhaps because of what I’ve done.
I’m not sure that I’m deserving of anyone’s love. How is possible that I ruined it all so thoroughly while still so young?
Severus stared at the lines he’d written in his journal. He was fairly sure this was not what Dr. McGillicuddy had intended when she’d asked him to write out his inner most thoughts.
She’d meant, he assumed, to make him write out his thoughts in an attempt to help him address the feelings he’d been occluding for the better part of twenty years. It turned out that hiding from your feelings could quite literally harm a person; suppressing his emotions since for decades had left him nearly incapable of expressing true emotion.
A fact that had revealed itself when he’d started seeing a certain clever witch after the fall of Tom Riddle. His initial attempts to reciprocate her admiration had gone well enough, but after six months…
Well, he’d certainly never expected a declaration of love to cause hyperventilation. Hermione had initially misidentified the episode as a panic attack and he’d brewed a rather delicate inhibitor to compensate…
Except he’d collapsed when he’d attempted the declaration a second time. He’d had a seizure the third. His girlfriend (he sneered mentally at the insipid word) had been understanding but utterly firm: Severus needed help. And if he wanted to keep her, he’d get it.
They’d consulted with Minerva, who’d referred him to a squib cousin. Dr. Metis M. Mcgillicuddy was, for all appearances, her cousin’s opposite. She was round and warm; her demeanor was welcoming, her voice soft, and her eyes understanding.
She also had a spine of steel just like another Scotswoman he could name. She’ been utterly undeterred by Severus’ bluster and bravado. She’d ignored his proclamations that her services were ‘codswallop’ and ‘unnecessary.’ She’d dismantled his defenses one by one and, in a very short time indeed, found the underlying root of his issues.
Hyperoccluding Attenuation , she’d called it. In short, he’d diminished his access to his own emotions for so effectively and for so long that even glancing passes with more intense emotions (anger, joy, love ) could cause his physiological defenses to react as though under attack. They would remove him from the situation in the most expedient way: by rendering him unconscious.
And so here he was, attempting to engage in the dreaded talk therapy he’d heard disparaged so often amongst books and the few Muggles he interacted with.
“You’ve done an excellent job with your journal this week, Severus,” Metis said, tapping her finger on the journal that mirrored his.
“Hardly,” he said. “I appreciate your attempt at praise, but I’m well aware that I wrote a scant ninety or so words.”
Metis nodded and smiled. “We’ll address your ideas of achievement some other time, but I found your words quite telling. You communicated a lot in those few brief sentences.”
She frowned when he huffed in disbelief.
“I’d like to focus on this entry today. In particular, this line: If I could turn back time and undo what I’ve done …can you tell me more about that?”
“I would have thought that the most self-explanatory of them all,” he replied sourly. “It isn’t possible to wish myself unborn; too many important events would be unwound and you and I would not find ourselves as we are. But there is not a day that goes by that I do not wish I could have acted differently.”
“Differently how?” the doctor queried.
Severus gestured vaguely. “I wish I had not been so sensitive. So…fearful. I wish I had known how to self-regulate and that I had not been so rash. Or had attained some modicum of wisdom.”
Metis scratched some observations on her notepad. “It sounds as though you wish you knew then what you know now.”
Severus grated a laugh in response. “Perhaps, in some way. I do not believe anyone would say I’d attained serenity, even now.”
“Then how can you wish it upon your younger self?” Metis asked gently. “I believe that we all wish our younger selves had even an ounce of self possession,” she said with a smile, “but then there would be no room for growth. You grew from how you were then to how you are now.”
“Such as I am.”
“Yes, such as you are,” she agreed. “We’re all flawed creatures. Perhaps you should shift your viewpoint slightly?”
“In what way?”
“It’s a process, Severus, and not always an easy one. But our goal here is for you to love and accept your younger self, flaws and all, so that you can do the same for your current self. So that he,” she said, gesturing toward him, “has some room to grow.”
_________
He shut the office door behind him with a gentle click and strode toward the waiting room.
“How did it go?” Hermione asked gently, taking him by his elbow as they left the office.
“It still feels like any progress I make is miniscule,” he said with an irritated shrug. “But she says I’m improving.”
“I’m so proud of you,” Hermione said as they walked to the Apparition point around the corner from the Golden Hare Bookshop. “More proud that you keep coming back. Same time next week?”
“Indeed.” He paused. “Will you come with me?”
She squeezed his hand as she stepped into the circle of his arms. “As long as you want.”
“Always.”
It was her smile that lingered in his mind as he spun them away toward home.