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The fading train whistle signaled a bittersweet end every June. Students hugging each other, promising to owl over the summer. Some of them reminiscing over the past year, or already making plans for the next. It was especially bitter to those leaving Hogwarts for the last time.
For Severus Snape, however, the sound of the departing train was ever so sweet.
“At last,” Severus groaned, pinching the pharaonic bridge of his nose; a hefty three-fingers of firewhisky nearly spilling over the edge of his glass. Another year done, and yet no closer to his unchosen career’s indefinite end. Tallying the years up would do him no good as it would only serve as a dreadful reminder for time-served with no parole in sight.
The summer break was never long enough to both recover from the preceding year and to prepare for the upcoming one, and in no way did he mean to lesson plan. As a student himself, he had already rewritten the required potions textbook, long before he'd been hired on the spot; sans interview.
He took a sip of the amber drink.
It was a meager – see also: fitting – celebration to his first decade of indentured servitude. Oh, but woe to him for trusting the man who’d promised to keep Lily safe, only for her to still die at the hand of Severus’ former master; from his own rash actions, truly. Severus grimaced as he tossed back a large mouthful of firewhisky. The burn reminded him that this was the best he could hope for in the form of penance, though his punishment seemed to grow with the years; new eleven year olds gracing the wobbly stool for their sorting, raucous cheers, and otherwise annoying merriment.
If he pressed the cool glass to his temple, he could start easing the headache forming due to the imminent arrival of the Malfoy spawn this coming September. There could be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the boy would be in his House. The towheaded showboater was already a menace at the occasional manor dinner, but the thought of him sitting in Severus’ classroom, week after week . . .
“Knock, knock, Severus,” came a voice instead of the actual sound. Opening his eyes, he saw the twinkly gaze of his employer, the thorn in his side . . . the man who had promised more than he ever should have.
Severus, however, could not bring that up without the subject of “Azkaban’s weather this time of year” joining the fray. He did wonder if the weather actually ever changed there, or if it was permanently dreadful.
Albus Dumbledore eyed the amber liquid in Severus’ glass with a quizzical gaze.
“The rugrats are gone, headmaster. Please allow me a moment’s reprieve before they return,” he bemoaned.
“I will not refuse you, the drink or, any other distractions, that you desire, Severus,” breathed the aging wizard. “I only came, however, to remind you of the year, in which we find, ourselves.”
“If you’re here to congratulate me on my first decade installed as both your potions professor and the only one willing to head the House of Slytherin in this climate, I was doing just fine celebrating on my own,” he said, taking another long sip of his drink.
Dumbledore chuckled lightly, walking towards his bookcase. He picked up a crystal apple that had been in Severus’ possession for fifteen years; a gift never given.
“That’s quite right, Severus.” Severus eyed the grinning wizard over the edge of his glass. “I merely came to remind you, yet, in only a couple short months, we shall have a most anticipated student, here, at Hogwarts.”
The idea that Albus Dumbledore, of all people, cared about the Malfoy heir attending Hogwarts, over the rest of the students in attendance was absolutely—
“Harry Potter,” began the headmaster, and Severus choked on his drink, “will be rejoining the wizarding world.”
And just like that, Severus’ peaceful summer break was already over.
Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
Severus had made many vows in his life, most them whispered threats that only his ears caught, but every single one of them binding. It was, however, the perilous phrasing of such vows that caused him so much strife.
He’d sworn his everlasting love to Lily when he’d been a besotted boy, a promise from which he had never wavered.
Early on in his Hogwarts schooling days, Severus had sworn to never let the Marauder’s see a single tear, to not give them any benefit of their bullying affecting him so.
And then . . . he’d promised Albus Dumbledore he’d do whatever he could to protect the Potter family. At the time, his only distaste was in – indirectly, mind – declaring a sort of fealty to James Potter through his agreement with Dumbledore. In the end, he agreed in an effort to save Lily, a feat that proved unsuccessful.
Over the years, those vows had mish-mashed into a tangled web; one that became harder to navigate over the past seven years, so it was confusing now to him that he was able to produce tears in the presence of the boy who bore the resemblance and name of the one he’d sworn never to give his tears.
“Take them,” he muttered, his strength waning as death encroached. “Please,” he pleaded. Another broken vow he’d made in regards to Potter.
While Dumbledore’s beloved Chosen One retrieved them, he’d leaned so close that Severus had been forced to look past his glasses – the same style as his father before him – to see the green eyes of the mother.
Lily’s eyes.
“You have your mother’s eyes,” he whispered softly, and perhaps that was why the vow allowed him to cry.
Like my father's come to pass
Seven years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends
“What a delightful, final August night,” said Headmaster Dumbledore as he entered the clocktower courtyard. Severus had been leaning against the courtyard’s well, admiring the final sunset before the school was swarmed with loathsome little pests; one notable pest standing out amongst the rest.
Famous. Harry. Potter.
Severus had heard that name be said with rapt reverence for the last decade. Now he would have to see the boy, listen to him mouth off like his father, and watch him strut about the castle like him, too.
He’ll be the school’s new celebrity; everyone clamoring for his attention and friendship.
“Tomorrow shall be a, a wonderful beginning, Severus,” continued Dumbledore, standing beside him as the sun set beyond the hills. Clouds were starting to roll in, streaks of grey already angling down from the sky.
“Hmm,” grunted Severus. “Mind if I skip to the ending, headmaster?”
The headmaster didn’t say anything for several minutes, just taking in the sounds of the caretaker’s beasts bellowing, the critters chirping nearby, and the distant thunder stretching towards them.
“There will be so much, you will miss, if you do,” he said, finally. Severus blinked, having forgotten the question.
“What?”
“Skipping from the beginning, off to the dreary end,” he replied before making his way back to the swinging pendulum of the clocktower.
“What dreary end?” he asked as thunder rumbled closer. “Headmaster?” he tried again, turning to follow the old wizard as the clocktower chimed the hour.
Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are
Severus should have done it all differently.
The headmaster had been using Harry this whole time; using him, and Snape thought—he thought . . .
Severus has long-known the many times he’d lost Lily Evans; journaled them like an unread memoir:
When she’d been sorted into Gryffindor, sorted away from him.
When he’d called her a Mudblood.
When she started dating James Potter.
When she married the bastard, too.
When he had foolishly made a tactical move that would result in her death.
In retrospect, his foolishness never stopped there. He’d not questioned the headmaster’s decision to place little Harry with Petunia’s family. Severus personally knew how awful Tuney could be, yet he had never objected to the placement. Then, once the poor boy – for he was dressed very poorly, even though Tuney’s family certainly had the funds to provide more for him – finally arrived at Hogwarts, Severus felt delight at seeing James Potter’s near-copy in such a state, and anger for him looking so much like his former bully.
That was the morose thing about hindsight, it always seemed to shed light on regrets, and – simultaneously – shadows on the fading good memories.
Lily had been alive, in some part, through Harry this whole time, and Severus had lost that time to pettiness when he could’ve spent it getting close to the boy.
Sighing, he muttered, “Expecto . . . Patronum.” His doe materialized, awaiting his instructions to direct the Gryffindor trio to their founder’s sword.
Perhaps, if things had been different, Severus could’ve found another way to save the boy, to save everyone without resulting in the death of the inimitable Harry Potter.
The boy had been forced to grow up too fast, and yet . . . he would still die all too young.
As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost
Wake me up when September ends
It’s been twenty years since Lily Evans became Lily Potter. There had been no marriage announcement in The Daily Prophet, not with how far into the war they had been, but Severus had known.
His first time riding in the boats to Hogwarts at eleven years old had been with Lily beside him and two others seated behind them. The last time he rode them was upon finishing his seventh year. If he’d been a year younger, perhaps he’d have shared it with Regulus as only two grown wizards could fit in each one. As it was, there were enough boats for Severus to not have to share at all.
As he passed into the next life, Severus found himself in a similar boat, though the scenery was strikingly white. When he approached the final crossing, he paused. Turning back the way he came, all he could see was a landscape of white, and no one was there.
“Severus,” said a familiar voice. His eyes widened as he faced her.
“Lily,” he breathed. Then the forms of the rest of them appeared. James Potter. Remus Lupin and his wife. Sirius Black. “I—I can’t go, not yet.” He turned back to the way he’d entered—watching, waiting.
A hand rested on his shoulder, and when he saw whose it was, he’d almost melted at the realization that here—here she was corporeal. She was real, again.
“That’s alright, Sev. You can wait with us,” Lily said with a smile. “Dumbledore has gone on ahead of us. Harry will be here soon.”
In death, he could no longer hold it in. Severus burst into tears, blubbering his apologies to his childhood best friend.
Like my father's come to pass
Twenty years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends
Wake me up when September ends
Wake me up when September ends
Time moved differently here.
When they saw a shadowy form loom from where they expected Harry to arrive, Severus wondered why they instead saw a lone figure instead of two. Did something happen? Had Harry Potter not been permitted entry? Would he be condemned to eternity with the likes of Pettigrew?
They all rushed to ask after him, and their former headmaster placated them with a hush and pacified gesturing.
“I am happy to say, that Harry James Potter, will not be joining us,” he took a deep breath, “just yet.”
Confused, they all stood still as Dumbledore explained everything fully. That he had always known Harry would have to die for Voldemort to die, but that luckily, for the last three years he suspected that if everything lined up just right, perhaps Harry could avoid the permanence of death, for now.
“This was always the plan,” he concluded.
“And you didn’t think to actually explain this to . . . anyone?” Severus tugged on his sleeves, making sure his hands were free of any obstruction. “No one?”
“Didn’t you know, Severus?” Dumbledore asks with that blasted twinkle in his eye.
Hopefully he wouldn’t be rooming with Pettigrew for this, Severus thought as he lunged towards the most insufferable wizard of all time.