Hang On

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the storyline or plot created by the wonderful J.K. Rowling. I only own my tears and love for my Snape...who will live on in my dreams and my fan fiction stories.

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
when you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on.
Don't let yourself go, everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes.

Everybody Hurts by REM, 1992

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Hang on

By Coral Grace

The throbbing pain I had been feeling seemed to be going numb. I hazily watched as Potter stared at the flask containing all I had left to give. Those green eyes. With my vision becoming so obscure, those bright green eyes seemed to glow against the otherwise indistinct shape that was Potter's son. There was suddenly a lot that I needed to say; I could only hope that Potter made it a priority to get to the pensieve.

The world around me was steadily growing hazier and still those green eyes did not look at me. They were all that I could see; they were all that was left in the world I could feel myself slipping from. I needed to see them...I couldn't let go without seeing them one last time. The world started to fade more completely.

"Look...at...me." It was a struggle to whisper each word, and my lack of energy could not express in my voice the pleading I felt inside.

The bright green eyes settled fixedly on mine and they held no resentment. I hung onto the green as long as I could, though the blackness was beginning to engulf me...

The darkness was drifting away. The green eyes suddenly became more defined, still fixed on mine. This wasn't right. Was that red hair I just glimpsed? I was dreaming...

"Sev?"

Damn that boy. Even in my final moments he could not address me with proper respect. There's no need to call me sir. Such insolence.

"Sev?"

I blinked. I knew that voice. It was the voice that created that strange tingle inside me. I had not felt that glorious feeling in such a long time...

"Honestly, are you going to answer me?"

It was as if the lights had suddenly been turned on. I blinked again in the vast sunlight. Here before me stood the only person my life had been worth living for.

"Lily," I said softly, scarcely able to believe it. It was probably a prank the devil was playing on me. I had no right to meet Lily in the afterlife. Even so, if it was a prank I was going to make the most of it. I would endure another sixteen years of torment just for a few seconds in her presence.

She smiled. "Well, about time." She raised her eyebrows at me, as she often had when we'd been children. She always had reason to raise her eyebrows at me. "For a moment there I thought you weren't coming."

"Where was I going?" I asked vaguely, simply content to just watch her smiling face. I felt drugged just looking at her in the flesh after all this time. No potion or spell I had ever created could match the feeling; not that I had bothered to try; I had known such research would be fruitless.

"It seemed for a moment there that you were hanging onto something," she said, cocking her head to one side. "You wouldn't let go."

"I still haven't," I whispered.

The smile vanished from her face. There were tears in her eyes. "Oh, Severus," she said, taking my hand. Her touch sent a burst of warmth through my veins.

Not letting go, she turned and proceeded to walk towards a swing set. I hadn't noticed where we were. It was the same swing set I had seen her leap from when I had watched her from behind the bushes all those years ago.

Reaching the swings, she let go and sat down on one. She gestures for me to sit on the other. I folded my arms, giving her a mock sneering expression. Even as children, she had never persuaded me to take a turn on the swings. Back and forth, back and forth; it had never appealed to me.

She laughed, and again I felt a tingle go through me. "Just sit down, Severus," she said. "I won't make you swing. I'd be better at it than you anyway."

Rolling my eyes, I consented to sit down on the childish thing. "I don't deserve to be here with you, you know," I murmured, looking down at my black boots.

"Why not?"

I looked back at her. "Why not? Why not? I am the reason you are here! I am the reason you were killed, Lily!" I blinked, forcing the unwelcome tears away.

She stared at me for a long time, her gaze steady.

"I was killed by Voldemort," she said finally.

"And I gave him information that put him on that path!" I said, my voice wavering. "I never meant for him to come anywhere near you, Lil."

She nodded, no trace of anger on her face. "I know."

"How can you not be furious!" I said incredulously. "How can you stand to even look at me? I have scarcely been able to look at myself all these years."

A smile twitched at her lips. "I thought that. Your hair looks dreadful, Sev."

I pursed my lips. "Lily," I said seriously. "This is no time for jokes."

"I wasn't joking," she said airily, starting to swing. "Your hair does need a good combing."

"Lily."

She sighed. "A white light came to me earlier on," she said. "A doe actually. I hadn't seen my Patronus in a long time. I followed it here to find you." She stopped swinging and fixed her green eyes on me again. "What past misdeeds you have committed, Severus, what guilty thoughts that have plagued you until you felt numb...I know my doe wouldn't have come for me on your behalf if you didn't deserve it. I am here because my doe led me to you...you are here because you deserve to be."

I gazed at her, not stopping the tears that left my eyes. The doe came to her? Was it her doe or mine who had requested her presence?

Lily reached over and placed her hand over mine. "You've left to land of the living, Severus," she whispered. "Don't plague yourself with things you cannot change now. It's time again for you to live, and live you must."

Slowly, I nodded. I was home. Home with my Lily.

"Severus?"

Before I could stop myself, I gave her a grin. "Yeah?"

She smiled, those bright green eyes fixed on me once more. "Tell me again about the Dementors. Would your Patronus have been strong enough to ward them off?"

I nodded. "Yeah...my Patronus was the best."