Always

A twitch! The mightiest wizard that ever existed. The grand king of spells and illusions even ‘He who must not be named’ feared, failed to comprehend the vulnerability of that tiny moment. He saw through all and yet through his egotistical farsightedness, he failed to see the stoic misery of his most trusted accomplice. Professor Severus Snape, just stood there, in silence. Not a hint of emotion or pain in his very demeanor, for he had given it all up. Immersed it in the sea of blackness in which Lily Potter gave her life away. Snape was but still there, in the mortal world. With nothing to gain, and nothing to lose since that night. Except, the most important thing of his life. The eyes! The young Harry had the eyes of his mother. And why wouldn’t he? Lily wouldn’t have left Snape all alone in the world so cruel. Those vast green eyes, the last pieces of reminiscences were Snape’s only breaths left. To see Harry alive was a blow to his heart, for Lily could never be his. And at the same time, the knowledge that Harry was a part of the girl he once loved after his heart, was the poetic poison Snape took each waking day. So when the mighty wizard, Albus Percevil Wulfric Brian Dumbledore looked back at Snape in astonishment as he saw the coy doe escape from the window, a Patronas he clearly remembered for it had once belonged to his most cherished student, and uttered those words “Lily, after all this time?”. Severus Snape, with every countable breath that he took every waking day, with every excruciating pain and warmth that he remembered the only ray of his life, the one lady who even from the other realm  kept him alive,he muttered, in the mildest tone. Mild, yet as clear as the eyes of the child he sought to protect. ‘Always’! He lived his beloved more than she lived in herself….always.