I Was Younger Then

Because I Love You

A CHAPTER FROM SNAPE'S PERSPECTIVE. ENJOOY

He slammed the door to his office shut, yelling when his eyes fell on the chair that lay before his desk, reminding him of the girl, of the head of red hair he'd become accustomed to seeing there, too accustomed. He'd been a fool, forgotten himself, let his guard down, and for what? He could not change course, not now, he had not made his vow lightly. What the infuriating girl wanted from him was impossible. He'd allowed the insufferable pull he felt toward her to blind him. But the truth remained regardless of their delusion, and he could no longer pretend. It was his price, he should have not let himself forget it, but whenever he was near her. . .He'd tried to keep her at a distance, been successful for years, watching her and that insolent brother of hers prance about the castle.

But something about her had been unexpected. She was a Potter, to be sure, the spawn of that miscreant, but she brought none of the loathsome reminders of him that were ever present in the boy. At first he convinced himself that it was her likeness to Lily that had caught him off guard. There had been times, when his eyes, wandering over the loud brats in the Great Hall that he found that head of red hair, the blazing green eyes looking up as though magnetized to him, and he'd believed, even if only for a moment, that he was looking at a ghost. The day she arrived in his office, that first cursed encounter that had ruined everything, he'd been certain her only purpose was to be his purgatory--to endlessly remind him of what he'd done, what he'd lost.

And yet, though he tried to send her away, he'd called her back, finding it unbearable to watch her storm away. And so, he studied her, against his better judgement. Though her physical features would suggest otherwise, he found she was nothing like Lily, having none of the poise nor subtle graces that had characterized Lily. Even her features, upon closer examination contained the signs that she was entirely her own creature. Loud, prideful, challenging, oafish and insistent on thrusting herself upon him. And yet, at some point he'd come to find himself irritable when she did not show, when, just last year, she began to frequent his office less often and he'd instead find her giggling ridiculously after that pretty boy.

He knew he should have seized upon the natural distance that was developing, it was the out he needed. His mark growing darker by the day, it was inevitable that she would discover what he was. He should not care, had trained himself for years to be indifferent, for the moment he would return to his master's side. But an unnatural compulsion compelled him to search for any reason to be near the girl, to prod her, relishing the way she would rage against him, greedily savoring what it revealed--that regardless of all that transpired around them, she'd become as addicted as he.

Then of course the Diggory boy had died, the dark mark burning hot upon his forearm, and so he'd let go, though he knew the image of those lifeless eyes would haunt her forever, just as Lily's did him. There was no use sheltering her from reality, and reality was reminding him how carless he'd been--because standing there, watching her inch toward the truth that would alter her forever, he wanted no part of it. He cursed the day he'd made the vow, cursed the path that had led them to this moment--and for a moment he succumbed to weakness, he wanted something else.

Rubbing his face angrily several times, as though he could rub away the filth, away the intractable harm he'd just done her. But it did nothing to ease the discomfort, or to rid his conscience of the sound of her pleas; the memory of the green eyes widening in terror the moment she understood--he meant not to return. He'd almost relented; allowed himself to be pulled back into the intoxication of her, but the blindfold had fallen from her eyes and she finally asked the questions she should have asked from the beginning.

For a single wretched second, he considered lying to her, giving her the sob story she desired to hear. Constructing himself into the broken creature she wanted so desperately to believe he was, what she needed him to be in order to forgive him. It would have been easy, she always had been so foolishly trusting of him, making barring the truth from her an absurdly simple affair. He was a master of the craft, there was nothing stopping him, except, for the second time weakness preyed upon him--he did not want to lie to the girl.