𝙳𝙴𝙻𝙾𝙲𝙰𝙿𝙾𝙽𝚄𝙼 » 𝚂𝚂/𝚁𝙻

{𝐜𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝐭𝚠𝚘 » 𝐟𝚕𝚞𝚡𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚍}

< 1 MONTH, 5 DAYS >

Earlier that day, Severus Snape remembered that he was fermenting a potion, and additionally that he had, by some morally-forsaking means, forgotten about it completely.

He also remembered that he had left it in the back corner of Rubeus Hagrid's cupboard, and that, furthermore, the man barely left that little old shack, so getting his hands on it now was a near inutile thought. Scolding himself for not being clever enough to take the vial with him on the night he put it there, he closed his eyes and necessitated himself to push remorse aside and focus on an actual stratagem.

He knew it wasn't even-handed to blame himself; he had been out of sorts in the moment. One can never think straight when outstripped by a veiling passion, and is why people fall in love and marry one another. It's why they divorce them months later and move to another country for two years before coming to the full realization that the government is atrocious and they never should have left or gotten a divorce or gotten married and they never should have fallen in love.

Things like this were why Severus so often plighted to never give in to feeling. Yet still, wound up in the intense cyclone of his hidden personal experiences, was the downtrodden fact that this promise would never be fulfilled. It would be broken every time. Because a wall can never keep emotion out; it'll just keep it in. Things will always be felt, regardless of what anyone attempts to block from happening, and he knew this very well.

So he sat in the morning windowlight one month following the death of Lily Evans Potter, very much wallowing in it, because this reality of feeling was ineludible. It was an anniversary of sorts. Thirty days since he lost her. Thirty days of sleepless nights — although he was commonly trammeled by those anyway — and thirty days of reliving the past, not regarding that he knew fully well it was far behind him and it would be healthiest to leave it there.

"It would be healthiest." He scoffed at the thought.

Because since when had he owned a healthy state of mental being? Since when had he gone out of his way to warrant the prevention or jurisdiction of utter dysfunction when it'd aided him through each wrenched and knotted path; helped him over every thorn? If anything, he should've been doing exactly the same thing as he always had: pretending just convincingly enough on the outside so that nobody had the suspicion nor desire to look in.

He neutralized his expression. His mask of indifference slipped over each and every pore, though inside his gut twisted all the same. At least now nobody would know. He would prevent them from being able to tell. Even when looking into a mirror, he intended for the façade to be so seamless that even his own head would be tricked into surmising that nothing was all he felt.

Strange thing, making yourself believe you're something you aren't. The greatest achievement that manipulation could ever dream of touching. So completely unattainable to the general public. Even to him. It was something he hadn't yet reached. Something he knew he might never do.

Perhaps he couldn't sidestep the reality of feeling misplaced, or threnodic, or guilty. But he could still decline failure. He could still dodge the contrition of an unperformed task.

He thundered outside and down the steep hill that his life, reborn in all its disconsolate luster, sat upon, careening over the frost-bitten grass as the wind blew his cloak behind him. His tight black boots, laced and glossy, contrasted roughly against the yellow of each plant's blade, the edge of his separated heel digging into the chilled dirt surrounding their roots. He gouged the soil with his very feet, each step more obdurate than the last as he made his way to pick up a vial from Hagrid's cupboard.