His Last Love

Until the day I die
I'll spill my heart for you, for you
Until the day I die
I'll spill my heart for you

As years go by
I race the clock with you
But if you died right now
You know that I'd die too
I'd die too

-Story of the Year

The old Hogsmeade mortician slowly walked to the next wooden table. This was the body he had least been looking forward to preparing for its final resting place, but he couldn't put it off any longer. As he looked down at the hooked nose and stringy hair, his mind flashed back to the winter of 1973. He hadn't yet become a mortician then; he had owned a grocery store. During a Hogsmeade weekend for the students up at the school, he had seen this very same boy, only thirty years younger. The boy had looked so lonely and forlorn, he, the grocer, hadn't been able to resist giving him a free piece of candy. The boy's thanks were so profuse, and his dark, sunken eyes so bright, the grocer slipped him another piece. After that, he and the boy had always had a cup of tea whenever it was a Hogsmeade weekend. He had always been curious as to why the boy was always alone at Hogsmeade, instead of on dates or with friends, but he had decided that it wasn't his place to pry.

The mortician's mind flashed back to the present, and he shook his head sadly. The hidden sadness in the boy's eyes had always broken his heart when they met, always, no matter how hard the boy had tried to hide it.

The mortician began his task of cleaning and preparing the body. He began with the face, carefully wiping caked blood off of the man's face with a damp cloth. He then proceeded to remove the man's robes, gently folding them and setting them on a corner of the table.

As he folded the last length of billowy black cotton, something dark and heavy fell and landed on the floor with a thud. The mortician bent to pick it up, and realized that it was a book. To be exact, it was a journal. Deciding that, as long as he never told a soul, the secret of this book could be revealed, he pulled back the leather cover and was immersed in a cloud of dust. It appeared that this book hadn't been written in for years.

The mortician pulled his glasses out of his cloak pocket and put them on. He squinted and realized that this book really hadn't been used for some time: The date started on July 18, 1769, and ended on November 1, 1981. He flipped back to the front and began to read, flipping to random pages after every few paragraphs.

"July 18, 1970

I saw a beautiful girl at the park today. She looks to be about my age, and has long, fiery red hair and emerald green eyes. I watched her for a while, to nervous to speak to her. I noticed that she does some interesting things. Once, she threw some leaves in the air, and they stayed up for a lot more time than they should have. I wonder if she could be a witch. I'll keep my eyes open, and see if I can find out.

"August 3, 1970

I found out her name! It's Lily. Lily Evans. Isn't that beautiful? I know because today she was at the park with her mother and sister. She jumped off the swing once, and her mother shouted, "Lily Marie Evans, what have I told you about jumping off of the swings like that?" I do think that Lily is a witch, too. She must have been in the air for ten seconds when she jumped!

"June 25, 1971

I finally talked to Lily! At first I thought it was going horribly. I went to her and tried to tell her that she was a witch, right after she made a flower fold its petals in and out. All she said was, "That isn't a very nice thing to say to someone!" But after that, we were able to make conversation, and I think we'll be friends! I just hope she is magic enough to get into Hogwarts. And if she is, what if we're not both in Slytherin?

"August 1, 1971

Lily got her Hogwarts letter! We're both going to Hogwarts!

"September 1, 1971

She isn't in Slytherin! Lily is stuck in bloody Gryffindor, and I'm in Slytherin!"

Here the mortician stopped. He thought he could see where this was going. He decided to skip over the talk of young, childhood crushes, and flipped over a large chunk and into the boy's third year. He was surprised to find talk of the same red-headed girl.

"October 3, 1973

I hate bloody James Potter! He likes Lily, and everyone likes him! She's going to fall for him and not me, I just know it!

"December 5, 1973

I tried to ask Lily to Hogsmeade today, but she has a date already. I shrugged it off, and I hope I made it sound like it was a just friends thing, but my heart was breaking. She has to see that I love her eventually, doesn't she?

The coroner stopped. He had realized why the boy had looked so dejected that day. He had wanted to be on a date with the girl he liked, not hanging around in front of a grocery store!

The coroner read a few more entries similar to this, then decided to skip over another chunk. If he wanted to get a basic idea of this boy's life in one night, then he would have to go as quickly as possible through such a big book.

"May 4, 1976

I HATE JAMES POTTER! I hate him, I hate him, I hate him! He and that blood-traitor goon, Sirius Black, used my own curse to hang me by my ankles, and right in front of Lily! My robes flew down and everything, and everyone who happened to be by the lake after O.W.L.s (which is almost all of the fifth years!) saw me in my knickers! And the worst part is, when Lily tried to help by telling off Potter, I was so angry and embarrassed that I called her a Mudblood! How could I call her something like that? What if she never forgives me?

"May 5, 1976

I really don't think Lily ever will forgive me. She came to talk to me after dinner today, and she was so hurt and angry! I tried to explain that I hadn't meant it, but she just asked why she was different from the other Muggle-borns that I call Mudbloods. I had no answer to that, and she stormed away. What have I done?

"May 30, 1976

Lily hasn't spoken to me since the fifth, and wouldn't sit in my compartment on the train home today. I hope that she'll have forgiven me by the time school starts again, because I don't know how I'll make it through the day without her to talk to.

"September 2, 1976

Lily still hasn't forgiven me. I have to just stop thinking about her. I WILL stop thinking about her!

The next few months contained the boy's obvious attempts to stop thinking about Lily Evans, talking about such mundane things as the simple potion he had concocted or what he ate for breakfast. There were, however, many sentences starting with "Lil-" that had been crossed out, but other than that, there was absolutely no mention of Lily anywhere until the end of the boy's seventh year.

"May 29, 1978

Lily still hates me. I can tell. She won't look at me, and if she does, it's only for a minute, and then she gets this hurt look on her face and looks away. If she thinks that she's hurt, it has to be nothing compared to how I feel, knowing that after today, seventh year graduation, I may never see the love of my life again. All that I can say for certain is this: Lily Evans, I will love you until the day that I die.

"June 14, 1978

I officially joined Voldemort today. Maybe working for a cause will keep my mind off of Lily, but I doubt joining an anti-Muggle-born group would make her happy. What she would say is pressing down on me. I feel so horrible.

At this, the mortician decided it would be best to sit down. The sheer depression of this tale was making him tired. He decided to skip this part, hoping that he would miss most of the descriptions of Voldemort's tales of horror. He picked up again on the eighteenth of December in 1980.

Voldemort wants to kill the Potters, all of them, including Lily! I can't let this happen! I already asked him to spare her, and kill the rest, but I know him. He enjoys killing and pain so much that he would think it would be funny to kill her just to make me angry.

"November 25, 1980

I talked to Dumbledore. He promised to help keep Lily safe if I would help him to fight Voldemort. I hate Voldemort so much right now for wanting to kill Lily, I would do anything for Dumbledore.

Here the mortician stopped yet again. He knew, of course, the tragic ending to the story of Lily and James Potter, and he was beginning to realize that this also couldn't bode well for the ending of this boy's story. Anxious to hear the rest, he flipped over a few pages describing the elaborate measures that the boy had taken to conceal his new double-agent status and took up reading again about a year after the last entry, and on the last page of the journal.

"November 1, 1981

She's gone. Lily Evan's is gone forever. She is never coming back. I've failed. I can barely hold the quill steady enough to write, and I'll be surprised if my words aren't smeared by tears. My heart is breaking. I can't take this. I feel like my world has been ripped asunder. Lily Evans died ruthlessly. Lily Evans died, and she didn't even know that I loved her. I still love her. I'll love her until the day I die, no matter what.

The mortician silently closed the book. He heaved a deep sigh from the pit of his chest, letting his tears flow freely from his eyes. He stood and walked over the body of the boy, now a grown man with his own tragic ending, and slid his eyelids shut.

With that, Severus Snape suffered no more.