Blooming Love
For his birthday present from Dahlia, she promised that she could grant him one wish- within reason, that is.
So Severus, although he just simply wanted Dahlia to know his true feelings, decided that he wanted to travel to Spinner’s End to retrieve old items.
”Sure thing,” Dahlia said cheerfully the second he said so, but did he imagine that flicker of disappointment in her gaze?
Severus didn’t know how much longer he could hold his emotions together. He wanted to look her in the eyes, those beautiful eyes, and-
He shook himself out of his thoughts and collapsed to the ground, his newly reunited wand tucked under his sleeve. Severus couldn’t help but extract it ever so often, just to feel the wand there. His right hand was improving really, really well- he could tie his shoes, feed himself with only a little bit of shaking, and he could even write, although it still looked slightly odd.
They were at the border of the Apparating site, Severus just standing up after resting on the ground for the tenth time since leaving their quarters. He didn’t know how he was going to make it; his legs were shaking and burning in agony.
”Nearly there,” Dahlia said gently, allowing him two more precious minutes of rest before helping him up to his feet.
She wasn’t sure how much longer she could last. The mere fact that Severus was so close, yet so far…
Severus drew in a shuddering breath, heaved himself onto his feet, and forced himself to step forward, his right leg dragging on the ground, and Dahlia left him to his own thoughts, knowing that Severus was doing quite a lot of serious thinking.
Right before the party ended, Severus had talked to the four Gryffindor students. He was grateful for their support, their kindness, and mostly, he felt like he didn’t deserve it.
“I am sorry about the way I treated you,” Severus began, hating how his voice rasped and shook. “It wasn’t right. I should not have used my temper and inflicted it on you five. Potter, just because you wear your father’s face does not mean you are your father. I’m sorry it took me this long to realize that. You’re kinder than he ever was. Miss Granger, I apologize for calling you unfair names. You are a know-it-all, but not an insufferable one. You are, quite simply, the brightest witch of your age. Mr. Weasley. You’ve a lot of bravery that none of your other siblings have, and your loyalty is, I admit, admirable. Mr. Longbottom, I am very sorry for how I neglected and bullied you. You have a lot of talent in Herbology, you know. Perhaps you’d like to pursue a career in that.”
He surprised the four, and particularly himself. He’d also apologized to Luna, though not for his behavior, for Luna quite liked him, but rather for that horrible year when he was Headmaster. Luna simply smiled at him, gave him a gentle hug, and promised that she never assumed that he was evil after all.
”Severus…if you don’t want to do it today, we can do it another day.”
“No,” he insisted stubbornly. “I want to do it today, I can. Do you know how long I’ve gone without reading some of my favorite books? I’ve got this one copy… awfully rare, you know, only five copies in the world.”
“Alright then,” Dahlia said kindly, helping him hobble forward to the boundary.
Severus gripped her arm tightly, and then they Disapparated.
Severus had nearly forgotten the horrible feeling of Apparating. He was being stretched and split, his lungs were heaving for air that wasn’t there, and the muscles on his right side burning in molten lava-
And then it ended. Severus collapsed on the ground, coughing, his cane on the ground.
”You alright?” Dahlia worried over him. He was pale, deathly pale, but at the sight of his childhood home stretched in front of him he immediately pushed himself shakily to his feet and stumbled to the doorway.
Dahlia walked forward with him and opened the door- Severus reached out a hand to stop her.
”Dahlia,” he chided in a soft, guttural voice, “do you really think that it’ll be this easy?”
He smirked, drawing out his wand, and tapped a seemingly random brick on the wall. It disappeared, opening a small keypad.
“Whoa…”
”I kept the spell on during the time that I was away at Hogwarts. It hasn’t- hasn’t been used for a time. I must warn you, however, that my house… it isn’t a pretty sight, you know, being abandoned for so long. And even before that, it was horrible, with my father’s hideous temper, and empty promises-“
Severus choked off, shook himself, leaned against the wall, and tapped numbers shakily on the keypad.
643105
”What does it stand for?” Dahlia asked curiously.
Severus stared at her for a second, his lips curved at the corners.
”It stands for someone meaningful.”
Dahlia’s heart gave an involuntary twinge. Someone not her, it seemed. Lily, perhaps.
Severus opened the door, revealing a dark home surrounded by shelves that were overflowing with books. It practically screamed “Severus”.
“Wow.” Dahlia helped him collapse onto his shabby sofa. She walked around, tracing the letters in the titles of old, worn books with awe.
Slytherin colors were around the whole house, the house covered with dust and cobwebs. With a flick of her wand, the house was rid of all debris. Dahlia could see that, in the kitchen, the cabinets were halfway broken and wedged.
”My father,” Severus said quietly, watching her from the couch. “After drunken stupors, he would always swing his fists at them. He promised me he would fix them, each time he did so, but he never did. Whenever I would remind him-“
Severus shrugged his one-shoulder shrug, extending his right arm to trace a random scar on it.
“I don't have the heart to fix them. Some people love drinking- Lucius, for one matter- but I never drink. I don’t want to become my father, you know.”
Dahlia slid softly next to him, close enough so that they were touching. Both of their hearts leaped.
Severus wanted her to know, he really did. But what if she rejected him? What if she didn’t want him? He was ugly, horrendous, disgusting.
But truth be told, the password for his house was for someone meaningful.
Her.
It was the date of her birthday, going in the order of year, day, and month. 62-31-05. May 31, 1962.
She just didn’t know it yet, did she?
Severus really, really, really wanted her to figure it out.
“Would you like to see the rest of the house?” Severus rasped hoarsely, making her jump.
“Oh, yeah, sure!”
But Dahlia couldn’t shake off a growing, numbing suspicion. If he was coming back to his house, did that mean he was leaving Hogwarts? After all, he couldn’t stay there forever, could he?
Minerva still knew that she loved him.
And it wasn’t like she was being subtle- Hermione came up to her yesterday and whispered, “I see you looking at him! He looks at you too, you know!” and then ran away giggling like a schoolgirl with gossip. It gave her heart an involuntary jump of hope.
Severus dragged himself up the stairs, his leg burning. He showed her around the house, first his childhood bedroom, which he turned into a potions lab, and then the master bedroom, where he slept.
It was simple, cozy, and the bed, even after three, four years of abandonment, was neatly made.
“Winky comes and cleans sometimes,” Severus said softly. “She did it even while I was supposedly dead. She’s a funny elf, that one.”
Dahlia walked closer and sat next to him on the bed.
She was so close.
Severus’s heart was about to burst. He could count her eyelashes, those pretty, curled eyelashes, and her eyes, those eyes, sparkling like a crystal against the sunlight that was spilling into the room.
“Dahlia?”
“Yeah?”
Severus, right then and there, promised himself that he would ask, even if it made him look like a teenager swooning over a girl out of his league, even if it made him look like the biggest fool there was on planet Earth.
“You know my password? The password on my door?” He waited until she nodded. “Well- it’s for you. Your birthday, you know.”
He took a deep breath, readying himself to say the words he’d been reciting for the past few months.
“I’m sorry for leaving, for listening to Albus even when I shouldn’t have. I took you for granted, Dahlia, and even though I’ve been missing you and wanting to get you back, I’ve been too afraid to ask. I’ve been rejected before, and because I was scared of getting rejected again, I cowered. But after all that you’ve done with me, your patience, your healing touch, your- well, everything, I thought that you ought to know. I love you, Dahlia, and I haven’t ever stopped, even when I was in Azkaban. You wondered if my past with Lily would affect our relationship at all, in the beginning, and I can promise you that it won’t. If you don’t want me, I’ll leave, I promise, and you won’t ever see me again.”
He stared at her, his heart thumping louder than he thought was possible. For a split second, he thought she was going to say no, to shout at him, to scream at how silly and utterly hopeless he was, but no. Dahlia’s lips curled up and she wrapped him into a tight hug, making him fall back onto the bed.
“Of course I want you, Severus Snape. I missed you more than you could ever know. You don’t know how regretful I was, when I heard that you died. That was my biggest regret in life, you know. Never telling the man I love that I love him, and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with that same, handsome man.”
“Handsome?” Severus laughed crookedly. “I am many things, but handsome certainly isn’t one of them.”
“You can be handsome on the inside too, you know.”
And then she met him in the eye, leaned forward, and pressed her lips into his.
Severus Snape, ex-Death Eater, master Occlumens, and spy, nearly fainted as the love of his life kissed him, after he went to hell and back. He hadn’t thought that she would actually want him, that she would want someone as lowly as him back, that she still loved him, even after he’d obeyed Albus’s orders without really fighting, that she still loved him after he went through hell and back.
But she did, and that was all that mattered.