Nox Est Perpetua

Nox Est Perpetua

The bar on Diagon Alley was both small and luxurious, its walls decorated with reproductions from great magical artists like Lamonte and Ferrier. It was a quiet, discreet place; the clientele were mostly of an intellectual, quiet sort, more disposed to whispered conversation than drunken rows.

Remus Lupin paused for a moment in the doorway, gazing around him with faint interest. He saw his own face, pale and exhausted, reflected back at him from the mirror above the bar, and could not help but flinch. It was weeks now, since he had first heard the news of Lilly and James' death at the hands of Sirius Black, but the signs of the shock were still apparent in the dark shadows under his eyes and his weary expression.

His mind returned to the task in hand with reluctance. He was here to meet the last man in the world whose company he would have willingly sought, and the sooner it was over with the better. Hugging his threadbare coat around him as if against a chill wind, he stepped through the door and pulled it shut behind him.

Severus Snape was sitting in a shadowy corner, one elegant hand toying with a glass of champagne. The other customers were giving him a wide berth, repelled by the air of icy reserve he carried with him like a shield. Remus noted dispassionately that Snape was even paler than himself, and that the hand gripping the glass was far from steady.

Remus could tell Snape was aware of his presence; but he studiously ignored Lupin as he strode through the tables of chattering people. He was a few metres from Snape's table when Severus looked up and met his gaze.

"Oh," he said, his tone neither welcoming nor the reverse, "it's you."

He did not offer Lupin a seat, but the other man sat down anyway with a sudden feeling of weakness he could not suppress. Since the murder he had driven himself unsparingly, he was aware that he was in anything but good health.

"I heard Sirius Black has been sent to Azkaban," Snape commented with deliberate malice.

"I thought you might have," Remus replied, looking pointedly at the open bottle of champagne on the table, which was already half empty.

"I came here to celebrate," Snape explained unnecessarily.

You would, Remus thought, but did not say. He noted absently that Snape's demeanour was anything but celebratory. His air was more of a man drowning his sorrows than someone celebrating an enemy's demise.

"You look well," he retaliated, glancing expressively at Snape's unwashed hair, decrepit robes and haggard expression.

"Is this a social visit, Lupin, or are you just trying to borrow money?" Snape replied curtly, refraining from rising to the taunt.

"Actually I'm here to invite you to a funeral," Remus replied.

There was a pause. Severus turned to examine a painting on the wall nearby, and his face was hidden for an instant.

"Whose?" he asked finally.

"Lilly and James Potter's" Remus replied reluctantly.

For an instant Lupin saw a look of pain flicker across Snape's face.

"You know they were dead?" Remus asked.

"Yes," Snape snapped. "Of course I knew." His eyes were cast down, staring sullenly at the black and white paved floor.

"I suppose you were glad about that too."

Snape flinched slightly from the harsh contempt in Remus' voice.

"Why? Why are you inviting me?" Severus asked, ignoring the comment. "Is this an eleventh-hour attempt to heal the breach or are you just trying to fill up seats in the church?"

Remus sighed, trying to keep his temper. Surely there was no one in the whole world as objectionable as the man sitting in front of him, he thought absently, suppressing an urge to give Snape a black eye. He had to do what he had come for.

"Lilly wanted you to come," he said, staring past Snape at the emptying bar, "she left a bequest for you in her will."

He reached into a pocket of his shabby coat and produced a small packet. Snape stared at it, but did not move to touch it.

"She wanted me to come?" he asked, in a tone which in anyone else would have sounded hesitant.

Remus nodded.

"I don't understand it, I'm not sure that I want to, but that's what she wanted. Not that you care, I suppose," he replied with a sudden harshness, feeling the anger and grief welling up inside him. "I'm sure you're glad she's dead. Now unless there's anything else..."

He trailed off, shocked into silence at the look on Snape's face. His expression was one of pure, unadulterated fury.

"Say that again, and I will rip your stupid head off," he snarled, knocking the empty champagne glass off the table. There was a brief silence in the bar as the glass shattered against the polished stone, sending fragments flying across the floor.

Lupin sat in silence, gazing at Severus with amber coloured eyes that were both astonished and alarmed.

Snape seemed to be making a desperate effort to control himself. For a minute he said nothing; Remus had a sudden glimpse into the desperate battle that was going on inside him. For an instant he understood what Snape was suffering; bereavement flicked across his face like a wraith and was gone again.

"You'd better go," Snape said at last. His eyes were like pits of shadow, revealing the bleakness that lay beneath them.

"Quite," said Remus, feeling faintly bewildered. He stood up, feeling rather dazed, and turned to go.

"If you mention this to anyone-" Snape began, with a halfhearted attempt at his usual manner.

"-You'll rip my head off. I know. I'm beginning to spot a motif here."

Snape decided it was wisest not to reply. He leant back in his chair with a sudden feeling of desolation.

"She said thank you."

The words, uttered unwillingly, took Snape by surprise. He stared up at Lupin with unfriendly enquiry.

"What?" he demanded curtly.

"Lilly," Remus said, "in the will. She said thank you."

"Did she say what for?" Snape asked awkwardly. Remus sent him a penetrating stare, and he dropped his gaze.

"I don't think she needed to," he said. Snape's expression gave him a sudden, unwelcome stab of pity.

"She didn't."

"You cared for her." It wasn't a question. Snape didn't reply, and Remus had an uneasy suspicion that he would have liked to throw the champagne bottle at his head. Wisely he turned to go, several taunts on unrequited love unuttered.

"Thank you," he heard Snape mutter ungraciously, as he moved away.

"Any time," Remus murmured dryly to himself, stepping outside into the cold with a feeling of relief. Typical Snape, he reflected ruefully, nothing was ever simple where he was concerned.

The moment he had left, Snape turned to the packet Remus had left on the table. Inside lay, as he knew there would, a green necklace. It had become more battered since the summer morning years ago when he had given it to Lilly, but the green glass beads still gleamed in the candlelight as if they were alive.

*

The last time he had spoken to Lilly had been a long time ago.

They had passed once in Diagon Alley, exchanged a few words on the weather, war against Voldemort, the price of chicken liver. She had been nervous, of course, eager to get away from Snape; he was a damaged man by that time, embroiled in a desperate game of espionage from which the only escape was death. Guilt and long suffering had changed him. He was paler, older, less arrogant and more sullen.

They had only exchanged a few words; they could not risk Snape's cover being blown. Besides, Lilly was preparing for going into hiding, she had more important things to do than spending time with a haggard-looking former enemy with a foul past and cave-black eyes that were suddenly eloquent with love and despair. Anyway, the memory of what had passed between them that night in seventh year probably revolted her as much as it tortured and enraptured him.

This was what Snape thought of the matter, at any rate, and he never realized that what made Lilly so awkward and distant was not revulsion, but guilt. His torment had marked him more than he realised, and Lilly had shrunk from the realization that it was for her that he suffered, for her that he sought so unsparingly to redeem himself.

"Good luck," she had said awkwardly. A blast of cold air swept past them, and Snape realised inconsequentially that it would soon be autumn.

"Good luck," he replied, and shook her hand.

Then unexpectedly he had bent and kissed her forehead. She barely had time to realise the pressure of his lips against her face before he had gone, fleeing into the crowd as if he was being pursued.

Lilly gazed after him as he strode furiously into the mass of people, viciously elbowing aside anyone who was unfortunate enough to get into his way.

That was the last time they were to ever meet in this world.

*

"I didn't think you'd come."

"You must be disappointed."

Snape and Lupin stood by the grave, their robes blowing in the wind.

The double grave had already been dug, and the second of the two coffins was being lowered into it. Apart from themselves there were few mourners, Remus had preferred a private ceremony to one fraught with public mourning and publicity.

"Are you sorry you did?" Lupin asked. He preferred talking, even to Snape, to standing silent at the mercy of his thoughts.

"You don't have to patronise me, I'm not going to start throwing things again."

They paused, staring at the hole beneath them, each absorbed in his own grief.

"What are you doing now?" Lupin asked suddenly.

"I'm standing by a grave talking to a complete idiot," Snape replied caustically.

"I meant what are you doing now the war's finished?" Lupin clarified irritably. Only a suspicion that Snape was being deliberately abrasive to keep him from breaking down prevented him from loosing his temper. Besides, perhaps driving Snape into an angry frenzy would distract him from the dreadful hole in the ground, which opened like a black mouth to swallow the bodies of two of his best friends.

"Nothing," Snape replied harshly. "I am not fit for anything."

"You're not married?" Lupin asked.

The look Snape gave him would have frozen lava.

"Apparently not. Children?"

"Do I look like a doting parent?" Snape snarled, with an aghast expression at the very thought. "As far as I'm concerned, the fewer nauseating brats with whiny voices roam the earth, the happier I'll be."

"So that's no," Lupin said.

Snape glared at him.

"Leave me in peace, Lupin."

Remus took the hint, and edged away from Snape towards Dumbledore, who was standing gazing at the grave with a look of grief.

"Talking to Severus, I see," Dumbledore commented. "I hope he didn't offend you. His grief makes him antagonistic to everybody."

Remus almost pointed out that Snape was always antagonistic to everybody, but at this moment the gravedigger began shovelling earth onto the coffins, and he was distracted. He felt suddenly sick, thinking of his two friends lying their so placidly whilst someone piled earth up on top of them.

"Are you alright, Remus?" Dumbledore asked suddenly.

Remus started.

"I'm fine," he replied.

"No, you're not," Dumbledore replied. "Of course you're not. You've lost all of your best friends in one swoop. Of course you're not fine. You must excuse my stupid question. I am not myself today."

He did not look himself, Lupin noticed. Dumbledore seemed suddenly older, and his face was marked by a profound sorrow. Suddenly something occurred to him.

"What did you mean, Snape's grief?" Remus asked. "Did he tell you...?"

"About him and Lilly, you mean?" Dumbledore said calmly. "No. Severus is not exactly confiding. I'm sure he'd murder me in my sleep if he thought I knew. I'm not completely blind, however. Decades of living amongst hormonally-charged adolescents has made me rather sensitive to that sort of thing."

"Oh," said Remus vaguely.

"He'll be a problem," Dumbledore commented.

"Snape? How a problem?"

"Haven't you seen him? He's broken. He hates everybody, and himself most of all. He can't work, he can't relax and he's plagued with grief. You don't like him, Remus, I know that, but believe me, he does not deserve what he is suffering now. Even you would not have wished it on him."

Remus glanced across the grave at Snape, who was staring into space, absorbed in a private world of pain.

"I see..." Remus said.

Suddenly, a brief memory flickered through his mind: Snape, smiling with smug malice from the Slytherin table as James, Remus, Sirius and Peter sprouted fur, tusks and (most bizarrely of all) went suddenly bald. Remus had never discovered with what particular potion Snape had spiked their drinks, but it had certainly been effective.

Then he recalled Snape's horrified expression when Remus had asked if he had any children. Remus smiled, and for an instant Dumbledore glimpsed the mischievous boy he had known as a Hogwarts student in Remus' now saddened face.

"Why don't you get him to teach potions?" Remus suggested innocently.

"Teach? Potions? With children?" Dumbledore said with astonishment.

"Trust me, I think he's a natural," Remus insisted.

Snape glanced unpleasantly at them and disapparated, unaware that they were placidly plotting his doom.

*

"You've been here before, Severus."

Dumbledore's words were kind, but slightly stern.

Snape did not turn round, but continued to gaze into the mirror of Erised, his face strangely calm.

"Severus?"

Snape sighed gently.

"You're moving it?" he asked, already aware of what the answer would be.

Dumbledore nodded.

"You know it's not healthy for you to come here," he said gravely. "I think you're strong enough to do without this...drug. It is a drug, you know, and like most other drugs it will eventually destroy you."

"I know."

"I will arrange to have it taken away tonight," Dumbledore said. "You know what it is to be used for."

"I know," Snape said again.

Dumbledore had turned to go before Snape spoke again.

"Headmaster-"

"Yes, Severus?"

"Please leave it here. For one more night. I will never ask for it again."

Dumbledore refrained from looking at Snape. He was well aware of what the words must have cost Snape, usually so proud and detached.

"Very well. For one night only," Dumbledore conceded.

"Thank you."

"She did care about you, you know."

Snape seemed not to hear Dumbledore's parting comment. He was already lost in contemplation, and the words did not reach him.

He stared into the mirror, and Lilly Evans stared back at him, her arms entwined around his waist. The same green eyes that mocked him daily in the face of Harry Potter smiled back at him, filled with laughter. Snape leaned forward, touching the glass, to pass through the mirror and reach out his hands to brush her face. To gaze at her, one last time. To spend just one more night imagining that she was standing there beside him.

Just one more night.

What harm could it do?