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A Proper Goodbye


Lily was standing outside, bundled up, watching her mum pack up the car with presents for cousins. They were going for a holiday party and she was dressed up pretty in a green dress and her hair was done just so and when she turned around and saw James Potter standing at the end of the driveway, with his hands in his pockets, her heart skipped a beat. She handed the last of the presents they were packing into the car.

“Is that James?” Mrs. Evans asked.

“Yes,” Lily answered. “I’ll be right back mum.”

“Invite him along,” Mrs. Evans suggested, smiling.

Lily nodded and walked down the driveway to where he was standing, right on the corner by the street. His air came out in clouds before his face and he looked nervous as she neared him, his eyes cast downward. He paused just before she got to him to take a sip of something he had in a bottle in his pocket before he hurriedly slid it back into his cloak and stood up right as she came.

“Potter,” she said by way of greeting him.

She’d expected the usual reply of Evans, but instead, he skipped a greeting altogether and said, “I just came to apologize, for how I acted the other day at Diagon Alley, on our… date.”

“All controlling and weird?” Lily asked. She raised her eyebrow, “And I’m not counting that as a date, Potter, for the same reason I didn’t count that last one. That’s not how I’d fancy a date to go.” She shivered and rubbed her arms.

James sighed and looked away, “Yes, neither would I.” After a long pause, he said, “I’m sorry, at any rate.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Lily hesitated, then glanced over her shoulder at the Morris Mini, spluttering exhaust while it waited for her to go and join her mum inside. She turned back to James. “Would you like to come to a Christmas dinner, Potter?”

He shook his head, “I better not. I have to go, actually.” He stared down at his feet, “I already stayed longer than I should’ve…” He looked at her and there was something haunting about the way he was doing it, something eerie and strange that set her on edge.

“Are you alright?” she asked, giving him a bit of the side-eye. “You’ve been acting quite funny, Potter. I’m not going to lie, I’m rather worried for you. Ever since that night on the dock… I’ve worried that perhaps you might’ve been more hurt than you’re letting on.”

He stared at her a moment. “More hurt than I let on?”

Lily looked nervous, “Well. I mean. You did hit your head rather hard.”

Severus Snape stared at Lily Evans through James Potter’s eyes and he felt sick to his stomach.

She was thinking that he wasn’t himself - that he was acting mental, that he might’ve been damaged somehow. Lily Evans thought Severus Snape was nothing but a brain damaged version of James Potter, he realized and he felt a twist inside of himself. That was how it’d always been, though, really. He’d never been enough for her, and he never would be.

He’d never get the chance to be.

Voldemort was sure to be angry with him, sure to be coming for him the moment that word got back to him what had happened, that word was out that Snape was an imposter and the real James Potter was missing - taken by the Dark Lord. Voldemort was going to hunt him and kill him for sure.

And he didn’t intend to allow Lily to be caught in the crosshairs.

He probably shouldn’t have come at all, but Snape had to see her one last time. To say goodbye.

His eyes met hers again and Lily stared back into them. “James?” she asked.

Severus took a deep breath, “I love you, Lily.”

She blinked in surprise. “You… you called me Lily,” she said.

“I love you and I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done to hurt you, and I wish I could take it all back, all the rubbish mistakes I’ve made, and I wish you could learn to love me back.” He held up his hand to stop her. He didn’t want her to interrupt him, to say the words he’d heard her gearing up to say that night on the dock far below Hogwarts castle. He didn’t want to hear it. “Just… I’ve always loved you. And I just wanted to say a proper goodbye.” He shook his head. “I’ve got to go.”

“A proper goodbye?” Lily said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Severus shrugged his shoulders.

“James,” Lily’s voice lilted with a tone somewhere between fear and desperation.

The way she said his name, it made tears come to Severus Snape’s eyes.

He could hear it - all those words he’d didn’t want her to say about the things she felt.

She loves him.

She caught his hand in hers before he could turn away and she clutched it and stared into Severus’s eyes. “James, are you alright?”

She sounded so worried...

Severus shook his head. “He’s not.”

“What?” Lily asked.

He hated the worry in her tone. Hated the way it twisted her mouth and her forehead screwed up with concern. He wanted to undo all the rubbish, turn back time to when they were ten years old standing in this very spot, looking entirely differently than they did now (even without the Polyjuice). He wanted a second chance to become more like the person that Lily Evans had always deserved to have before he took her for granted.

But it was too late.

And that worry was there.

And guilt hung heavy in his belly suddenly. Guilty for having any part in this.

“Durmstrang,” he whispered.

“What?” she asked.

Severus looked up at her. “I don’t know anymore than that… only that when we left the school, we went North first and we stopped at a town on the fjord and that’s where he got the boat.”

“What are you talking about?” Lily looked confused, horrified, and concerned all at once.

Severus held her shoulders. “Please don’t go there. Not you. You’re -- you’d be in a great deal of danger there.”

“James… I’m not going to any town off any fjord, I don’t even know what you’re talking about…?”

“Just… just remember that, alright?”

He turned quickly and started down the street.

“James!” Lily called, rushing after him, “James, wait up. What’s going on? Where are you going? Why are you saying goodbye? Please. I’m so worried for you, it isn’t fair not to tell me what’s going on!”

“You’ll understand soon enough, Lily.”

Her name hung between them, funny coming off his lips, and yet… somehow… somehow familiar… and she felt blood go cold in her.

Why did he say her name in that tone? Like Severus Snape.

Severus heard his name.

He looked at her, unable to hold back his surprise that she recognized the way he spoke her name, even when it wasn’t with his own voice.

And with that quick, unwarranted, unsought after peek into her mind -- Lily’s eyes widened.

“Wait -” she said, her voice shaking, “Wait.”

Severus shook his head, “Goodbye, Lily.” He turned and ran down the street as fast as James Potter’s legs would carry him.

Lily stared after him, her mouth dry, her heart vibrating against her rib cage, disbelief… Impossible!

But if that was --

Then where was --

Numbly, she walked back to the car, her hands balled into fists, shaking, nervous… she opened the car door and got in and she sat there, staring at the dashboard for a moment as her mum smiled over at her sadly, “James isn’t going to join us? I suppose his mum and dad probably have plans already, dear, it’s alright.” She put her hands up on the wheel, “Are you ready to go, love?”

Lily nodded.

They started backing down the driveway, and Lily shouted, “WAIT.”

Mrs. Evans put the brake on the car. “Yes?”

“I have to… to check something,” Lily answered, and she threw herself out of the car, slipping on a bit of ice on the walk and ran into the house. She thundered up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom, pushed the door open and ran across to the nightstand. Upon it sat the water globe James had given her the year before with the deers inside, and also the photo of herself and James from last term, and the necklace with the small vial of expired phoenix tears that Professor Slughorn had given her for her birthday the year before.

She paused, shaking the globe and looking inside of it.

The doe was all alone, and she was searching about anxiously.

Lily felt she rather knew exactly what that doe was feeling.

Tucking the necklace and the photograph into her coat pocket, she paced for a moment, then went to the desk and grabbed a bit of parchment.

Sirius,
Has James been acting funny to you?
He’s just been by, acting really wonky. Worried about him. Please let me know.
Also - do you happen to know… Where is Durmstrang?
Love, Lily.