A Love That Came Softly
Simply being alive still felt like an ordinary miracle to Severus Snape, and to be living well at that, an extraordinary blessing. Every morning when he woke up it was to greet a day filled with boundless opportunity to be and do whatever he saw fit. If he didn’t want to be a teacher anymore then he didn’t have to be one, and he resigned from Hogwarts at the first chance he got. Severus had never had the freedom to make his own decisions like that before. He was no longer tied to any master, for the good or the bad. His work for Dumbledore was completed, his debts were paid, and the defeat of the Dark Lord meant that the Wizarding World was intent on recovery, but that wasn’t entirely his responsibility. He was focused on living a life that made him happy and learning to be comfortable with that being enough.
“It is freezing out there!” Sirius exclaimed loudly, stomping through the front door in his heavy boots and bringing in with him a rush of the harsh winter wind.
Sitting on the sofa in front of the crackling fire, Severus gave a small smile as he looked over his shoulder at him. In spite of the weather, Sirius had not been persuaded to postpone venturing out into the woods between their place and the Burrow to pick out the perfect Christmas tree, insisting that it would need at least a day inside for its branches to settle enough to decorate. Now Sirius was proudly pointing his wand at the tall Nordmann Fir that was floating in the air behind him. Severus watched as it drifted through the house and directly into position next to the fireplace.
“It looks great,” Sirius said happily, slipping out of his boots and then pulling his mittens off his hands one at a time. He set them in front of the fire to dry and did the same with his jacket. There were snowflakes melting in his long brown hair and even on his moustache, as he gave a loud exaggerated shiver and turned away from the tree to look at Severus. “I wish you had come with me.
“If you had waited until there wasn’t a storm happening outside then perhaps I would have,” Severus replied, tossing a handful of unopened letters onto the large stack accumulating on the coffee table.
He was annoyed at the amount of mail that still managed to find him despite his best efforts to block such needless correspondence. Unfamiliar owls couldn’t reach the manor or his house on Spinner’s End, but more persistent witches had gotten his muggle forwarding address or just continued to write to him at Hogwarts. Severus had been officially exonerated for the murder of Albus Dumbledore and his role as a double agent being revealed to the Wizarding World had brought about a surge in popularity that quite possibly was more uncomfortable than being hated. Severus wasn't sure if being bestowed with an Order of Merlin, First Class, alongside Sirius and Harry, was worth it when it meant contending with Rita Skeeter digging into his past to write articles and being unable to walk down a street without people coming up to talk to him - a great travesty for such a reserved and introverted man.
"Aren't there any that you find at least a little tempting?" Sirius asked him, but Severus’s response was to point his wand at the mountain of unopened mail on the coffee table so that it all sailed directly into the fireplace and immediately ignited. He found the amount of unwanted attention he was receiving to be extremely overwhelming and uncomfortable. Sirius smirked, then answered his own question. "Guess not - but you won't see me complaining."
"Come here," Severus beckoned him.
Sirius picked up the blanket on the back of the couch and wrapped it around his shoulders before sitting down beside him. Severus shuffled through his last remaining letters, a contented smile played across his lips as Sirius settled against him with his head resting on his chest - a most natural gesture that Severus didn't even blink his eyes at anymore. It was how most of their evenings were now spent and he couldn't imagine anything more pleasant.
The night before the battle, Sirius had stated that there was something comforting about finding someone as fucked up as yourself to go through life with and it seemed that they had both taken those words to heart. In the passing months they had become nearly inseparable. They knew the absolute worst of one another and were both interested in continuing to learn more of the best. Together they had endured so much; through Harry, they loved and wanted all of the same things. That sort of understanding and compatibility between two people invoked a unique sort of intimacy that would be impossible to find anywhere else. Without even an official discussion, it had simply been accepted that they would stay together and make this their life going forward.
“Look at this,” Severus said a few minutes later, after reading a muggle computer printed letter which had been the first in at least a hundred envelopes that he had bothered to open.
“What do you have there?” asked Sirius, leaning more heavily against him as the page detailing the sale of the house on Spinner’s End was put in front of his face. Severus had seen no reason to hang onto it after the war and had listed it back in October at an absurdly low amount because he simply didn’t care.
“We could move the rest of your stuff out of there tomorrow,” Sirius suggested. “We don’t have to meet the train until five.”
The Hogwarts Express would be bringing students home for the start of the holidays and both of them were eager to see Harry, who had reluctantly returned to school on the first of September as scheduled. Harry found it a challenge to sit in a classroom all day when the work he’d done in the war seemed to have made him permanently restless. Yet, the first order of business for newly appointed Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, was to eliminate all of the anti-muggle born sanctions and ensure that all young witches and wizards were given back the rights to their education. A hero in everyone's eyes with still his seventh year to complete, Harry needed to set an example.
"Sure, we can toss almost everything so I don't think it will take us long," Severus replied. "Just my books and papers…"
“I really want you to publish those,” Sirius said encouragingly, reaching for his hand and linking their fingers together.
"Eventually, I will," Severus answered vaguely.
There was something a bit disconcerting to him about putting his name officially to any of his work. He much preferred the shadows - submitting his improvements to the Wolfsbane Potion to the board anonymously and allowing Lupin to reap the financial rewards, or else teaching his personalized recipes to his students instead of writing a textbook to rival the old one that hadn’t been updated in half a century. He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for - perhaps just for his name to be forgotten and to be able to reclaim some form of anonymity, but slowly he was beginning to register that that was probably never going to happen.
“I’m nearly finished writing the dissertation for Harry’s potion,” Severus shared, who still hadn’t bothered to come up with a name for the drink that had successfully shielded a human brain from a Horcrux’s invasion. Even he knew that the work he’d done inventing that potion was nothing short of remarkable. He hadn’t even known that it was a Horcrux living inside Harry that had been responsible for the connection between him and Voldemort, but he had still managed to block the channel anyway with great success.
"Is that why you were up so late last night?" Sirius asked. "I was wondering why it took you so long to come to bed."
"Yes," Severus admitted. "I got to thinking about ways my formula might be modified to combat other interferences in the brain. I don’t know how far I can take it though - I might be completely overestimating myself…”
“Oh, I sincerely doubt that,” Sirius interjected confidently, squeezing his hand affectionately.
“Well….” Severus absentmindedly traced his finger down the length of Sirius’s arm as he organized the thoughts that had been exciting him since he’d first begun to consider the full potential of his research.
“I just keep thinking about ways Dark Magic has plagued other people’s minds and I understand how it works - it’s my background,” he paused, not sure he would ever fully overcome the guilt he had about his past, though he was certainly looking for its positive applications. “There’s a whole floor in St. Mungo’s devoted to people who are suffering permanent psychological damage caused by magic and who might be able to benefit from my knowledge.”
“Yes, absolutely ” Sirius nodded his head encouragingly. "What exactly are you thinking?"
“This is very reaching of me….” Severus continued, “but what if I could take the properties from the potion I had Harry drink and instead apply it to separating the Dark Magic invading other people’s minds? For instance, what if I could block the memories and damage inflicted by the Cruciatus Curse and restore even a morsel of sanity to the Longbottoms and other people approved magic cannot treat or cure? You have to understand Dark Magic to be able to reverse it….I might be able to do that.”
Sirius reached for Severus’s other hand and wrapped them both around himself in a tighter embrace. “You’re not reaching…and I have no doubt that you can do anything.”
"Well, it’s something to keep me busy anyway," Severus said quietly, who couldn't help but feel rather elated at the idea of using the flaws of his past to bring about so much good.
He thought it would make Lily proud to look down and see what he could accomplish, though she had made it clear to him in the resurrection of her memory that he had been, and always would be, enough just as he was. He didn't need to save more people or invent more solutions to justify still being alive, but the potential to do just that ignited a fire of inspiration within him that he was very eager to explore. His work made him happy, but it was his place in his family that he loved most of all. It was the role that he took the most pride in and the one that, in some ways, had been the most challenging. It had been a difficult road getting to this place of peace and contentment - realizing that he was capable of giving and receiving love, of forgiving and being forgiven, and of moving on from the past without ever letting go of its hard lessons and the memories that made him smile.
With her blessing Severus had learned to let Lily back into his life again. He was able to think about her and love her without concentrating on the parts he’d gotten wrong when there was so much good to hang onto instead. All the times that they had laughed, comforted, and pushed one another to grow and to question - it had been a relief to see her and know that she was alright. Severus was even grateful to have seen James and know that he approved of his place in Harry's life enough to actually even thank him for it. There could be no reconciliation greater than that and in the end, he, Sirius, Lily, and James had all been there together for Harry in unity when he had needed them the most.
“I love you,” Severus said softly, which were words that didn’t come easy for him, but which he’d felt a sudden yearning to express. It felt right, it was true, and his life didn’t need to be consumed by secrets anymore when he was able to be authentically himself and take the time to figure out exactly what that was going to mean. Allowing his whole body to relax into the sofa as Sirius kissed his hands with a tenderness that spoke abundant volumes. They would never be lonely again.