The Memory Cabinet of an Alchemist

"The watchmaker works all day
and long into the night;
He pieces things together
despite his failing sight.
Though all the cogs connect with such poetic grace,
Time has left its curse upon this place."

~

He feels as if he hasn't slept in years.

His feelings are accurate; he hasn't.

The shadow of insomnia smudges itself beneath his eyes like paint, his face reminding him much of a work of Van Gogh; layered, blotchy, pained, alone. He finds his own reflection confusing now. He passed the point of concern weeks ago.

He has to keep his mind off of the war. Off of Albus. Off of all related duties. He knows it's coming. They all do.

So he stays up through nights on end, staring intensely at his own vials, mixing things with tiny adjustments falling out of a thin dropper, watching his liquids turn from white to purple to deep black, pretending that the future doesn't exist. Although, in his case, that may be comfortingly true.

~

"Each hour becomes another empty space to fill,
wasted with the care
and virtues of his skill.
The watchmaker buries something deep within his thoughts:
a shadow on the staircase
of someone from before..."

~

Every distraction is a god to him. He worships preoccupations with the commitment of a nun, every drop of liquid cooling his own thoughts like nitrogen as they fall from the dropper to the beaker, each drip slowing the pulsing blood in his ears. So quickly, so easily, he forgets.

He forgets that his time in this dungeon is slipping so quickly away from him. He forgets that he will soon be responsible, by request, for maiming one of his only friends. He forgets that his jobs and double lives will rapidly become more and more dangerous until the war ends or he dies; whichever comes first. He almost hopes it's the latter.

But even deeper down, he forgets more.

He forces back the memories of his early school days, of being pushed around in the courtyards, of the name-calling and fight-starting and friend-losing. He pretends not to remember James. Lily. Sirius. Petunia. Even the echoes of his father's rough voice and Peter Pettigrew's cackling little laugh he shoves into the least reachable spot of the cabinet in the back of his head, closing the door and locking it three times on its abused and chipped frame.

But the better memories are ones he would like to forget, too. And those are harder. Because everything about them is gone, so all they bring is pain. However, the good memories are the only ones he's ever liked; they're the only things that, for a moment, have made his life worth living in the slightest. So it's difficult to grab ahold of them, and they seem to so easily slip back out of the cabinet he shoves them into no matter how hard he attempts it.

He mixes a new concoction, his face tightening as it all floods back to him. As he tries to pick up his memories and put them away, they seem to slip between his fingers and fall right back into his conscious thought again, back and forth, until he has no choice but to face them for a little while.

He remembers. And it's heaven. And it's hell.

"I thought it might be nice to start over," a voice reverberates in his ears, the softness dampening the noise of his own terrified heartbeat. "You know, to forget our rifts for a while. We're coworkers now, after all."

He remembers shaking a hand in agreement (and how soft and warm it was. So comfortingly safe), giving a harsh nod and leaving the room.

He remembers that voice. The stupid, horrendous, beautiful voice, bantering with him and bringing him coffee every morning at sunrise. He remembers it whispering softly in his ears, so close, so unbelievably caring; its hands caressing every square inch of him as if he were worth loving. He felt so cared for back then. He cared back. He hates that he cared back.

"Meet me in my office tonight," it would say on multiple occasions, "unless you prefer I meet you in yours."

"I may just... happen to be in the area," he would say back, word for word, every single time.

"Just... be casual about it. Please."

"Naturally."

"No one can know."

A pause. "That's quite apparent, is it not?"

Another pause. And a smile.

"Get back to your class, then."

He remembers the affection, the closeness, the warmth as they would hold one another as close as they possibly could. He remembers having to strengthen his skills in Occlumency to keep such love hidden from Voldemort himself. He remembers his life slowly altering until it revolved completely around Remus Lupin, as if he was some sort of star. And maybe he was. He was the one light there seemed to be, and that certainly counted.

And he remembers the news. The "I'm-scared-of-coming-out-in-such-a-climate-and-in-order-to-stay-hidden-I-think-I-am-going-to-spend-my-life-with-a-woman" news. His last night in the Dark Arts office. The long conversation, hours and hours of offers and ideas that all had some way of being proven faulty.

"She's kind. She's my friend. I don't mind her."

"You don't feel for her."

"I don't have to."

Loyalty was Lupin's biggest fault, and Snape scolded it endlessly after it was taken from him and given to Nymphadora Tonks. Because, even though Remus did not love her in the way that was ideal, he could not cheat. He cared too much to do such things. Damn him for caring. Damn his wonderful, perfect heart.

~

"This thing is broken now
and cannot be repaired.
Fifty years of compromise
and aging bodies shared.
Dear, you know there's something I should say—"

~

The remembering stops, everything about the shaggy werewolf going silent, the images of his smiling features going dark. Severus blinks his eyes to realize that they are red and watery, irritated by the potion fumes, no doubt, but also irritated by the loss.

He sniffs, sitting back in his chair and sighing up at the ceiling. With the war approaching, the break was for the best, although the wound still hurts like hell. Satan himself seems to have kissed it, his teeth sinking deeper and deeper into Snape's thin and timid blood, the fangs becoming part of it, the hurting becoming irreversible.

He wonders if Remus is lying awake as well. He wonders if he ever misses him. He wonders if he ever cries.

He decides to write to him. He doesn't know why; it happens without his own processing nor consent. His hands and quill are on the paper before he even notices that they've moved. He ignores his own convulsions of emotional turmoil as he scrawls out a message, the ink seeping into the parchment quicker than death itself, his silent sobs muffled by the scratching of the metal nib on the rough surface of the letter. He provides no return address and no name; he figures it's unnecessary. Lupin will know. He'll recognize the handwriting. He used to gush over it so.

He stamps it with a deep blue wax and sends it away, the words carved permanently in as it's carried to the mailbox towns away with the engraving Lupin and Tonks lettered on the outside. The message sits. Snape goes back to his alchemy. The words await. It remains:

"I never really loved you,
but I'll miss you anyway."