Rating: PG
Title: Kicking Edgar Allen Poe
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters, settings, and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling as published by, including and not limited, to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. The use of these characters and settings is for entertainment purposes only; no infringement is intended or should be inferred.
Spoiler Alert: Books 1-5.
Summary: I am a liar. It is what I do. It is what I have always done. It is how I have survived.
Pairings: James/Lily and Harry/Hermione
Author's Notes: Weird one-shot. I'd used the title of this story as the title of a chapter in a wholly unrelated work, so it's always been in the back of my mind. Then, in wanting to write something angsty, the title floated up and it just all came together. Whether or not this is good is another matter entirely…
This is first person, from Professor Snape's POV…therefore it is exceedingly cranky, a tad snarky, and a bit…dark. It is a strange take on J/L and H/Hr. It is anti-fluff.
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KICKING EDGAR ALLEN POE
[] OR, AND HE NEVER SHOWS HIS FEELINGS
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I see them, and I feel instantly unwell.
They're so...happy together.
...I wonder what that must be like...
So very happy.
Just like Lily and...him.
I cannot stand that family.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It's a lie.
I'm a lie.
I am a liar. It is what I do. It is what I have always done. It is how I have survived.
It is all that I know.
I am bloody pathetic. Little wonder as to why Black constantly referred to me "Snivellus". I am a snivelling, simpering, arrogant, lonely fool.
Father, you were correct in stating that I would never amount to much. After all, what am I? The Potions Master at Hogwarts' School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Traitor to the House of Slytherin, traitor to the Snape family name, traitor to the Dark Lord. Traitor, traitor, traitor, thricefold, tenfold. It galls me to hold that title in common with Dog Boy. Traitor. I am neither a Death Eater nor a member of the Order of the Phoenix. I walk the grey in between. I am protector to a boy whose father was my sworn enemy. A boy whose father I hated. A boy whose father I envied.
For the love of a Mudblood…
They both love Mudbloods. I loved one as well. Is this what binds me to Potter? History repeating as he follows in his father's stead? Am I here to guarantee that history is repeated in one regard and to deny it in the other?
For the love of a Mudblood…
This is not the path that you wished me to traverse, Father. This is not the journey that you worked so very hard to set me upon, with your continual thrashings, the incessant rebukes, the contemptible treatment of my mother. For all of your loving and tender fatherly ministrations, what have I gained? An unholy stigmata never to be expunged, a barren existence spent dwelling in the dark and dank recesses, two lifetime's worth of regrets and opportunities squandered for lack of a spine.
I am a failure.
You were quite prescient, Father. I am nothing. I am no one. I have no claims to stake. I have nothing. I am without friend, without love, without hope. I am without.
I am some black stain hiding in the void, bearing witness to the happiness of others whilst experiencing none of my own. I am that raven drinking tears from the faces of the living, subsisting solely on the emotions of those who cannot tolerate being in the same room with me.
I can at least say that I have come full circle.
He is so very much like his father. And she is so very much like Lily.
I despise feeling this way. I resent this. I loathe the sensation that fills my stomach with dread and colours my tongue with bile whenever I see them together.
I am jealous of the son of a dead man.
…I am pathetic…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He is oblivious.
How can he be so utterly obtuse?
This happiness, so apparent to the rest of the world, how can this boy be ignorant of his feelings towards her? How can he not know her feelings for him? He is so very much like his father.
Both are insensible, feckless prats.
That Potter boy is besotted with Miss Granger. It comes off of his form in waves of bliss and contentment when they are together. The classroom is suffused with the scent of their mutual longing. One can scarcely discern the potions brewing for their shared yet unrealised sentiments.
I must assign much more odious fare for the coursework.
I have come to expect a certain level of unawareness on the part of Potter. After having tolerated the boy in my Potions classes for so very long, and then being required to endure him over the course of our mercifully foreshortened Occlumency sessions, his lack of perception has been made painfully clear to me. Miss Granger clearly holds strong feelings for him, has so since first year. And he has felt the same. Yet they continue this idiotic dance of avoidance. On Miss Granger's part I am fairly confident that this is due to her fear that her affections would serve as a distraction to the boy. I need not be a Legilimens to discern this.
She is wise beyond her slight years.
But Potter…he waltzes because he simply has not a clue.
The boy is thick. Just like his father.
What Evans ever saw in him I shall never understand.
Miss Granger. I meant Miss Granger.
Of course I did.
I do not understand what she sees in the boy.
He is egotistical.
He is insolent.
He is irrational.
He is emotional.
The preposterous mass that is his hair always looks as though he has just come in from the Quidditch pitch.
He is always taking the mick.
He is always surrounded by his sycophants.
He is so much like his father.
He even looks like him.
But he has her eyes.
Merlin, he has Lily's eyes.
My daily sacrament. To endure the literal reincarnation of James Potter so that I may be constrained to gaze into the eyes of Lily Evans.
I am a failure.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It is at times like this that I find my mind goes wandering.
I do wonder what it will take for Potter to finally tell Miss Granger that he...
One should think that he would have come to this profound realisation after the horror show in the Department of Mysteries.
Dolohov was indoctrinated into the fold early on. He is far too capable a wizard. He long ago perfected the art of being a Death Eater. That Miss Granger was not slain outright could be considered a miracle.
But I do not believe in miracles.
Miss Granger reminds me of Lily. Miss Granger reminds me of myself.
It is possible that this is a reason as to why I push the child so very hard. Why I attempt to defuse her know-it-all nature every moment. She does not deserve the life I live. Though I cannot properly refer to this existence as a life. I am merely suspended between moments, waiting for the end to come.
The full moon does this to me. Sets my mood to something pensive, wistful, even. I nearly died on the night of a full moon. One should think I would loathe a night such as tonight.
But I do not.
The moon provides me company. And her cold company I do keep.
I am not without compassion. She is a harsh mistress. She maintains a torturous hold over Lupin. She ravages him time and time again. She will ruin him with her monthly vexations until the day he dies.
I have not forgiven him. My sympathy does not connote forgiveness.
I have not forgiven Potter. I will never forgive Black.
I am not one to show my feelings. You never permitted me to do so, Father. No emotion other than cold, calculating hatred, and a well tempered violence.
I will grant you this, Father, you were an excellent tutor.
But to look upon Potter...my control falters. It is as though James is haunting me. The same features. The same mannerisms. The same bloody hair. With the eyes of Lily. When I see Potter with Granger, I see James with Lily. James was constantly chased by and would occasionally surrender to the female students. Potter has been given chase and has dated. Lily was a near constant companion to James, but was never much more than that. Miss Granger is always in the company of Potter, but has not been more to him than a friend.
I sound as though I should work for that rag, the Daily Prophet.
I am truly pluming the depths of my pathetic nature this evening.
There are times when, as I watch Potter and Granger in their fumbling, that I am reminded of James and Lily. Acutely so. As Potter is as arrogant and as brash as his father, Granger is the spiritual inheritor of Lily's intellect, of her compassion, of her courage.
In watching them I feel as though I am a student yet again, awkward, angry, alone. No one ever wanted to know me. No one seemed to like me. This I know. It was familiar. I am able to accept being hated. In fact, I prefer it.
No, Potter is not his father. But he might as well be in my view.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I am sworn to protect this world from the Dark Lord.
I have made no oath to protect Potter.
While I resent his existence, what he represents...in the same moment I do feel...protective.
I am not a man to show my feelings.
I can see Lily in him. Not just in his eyes, but there are flashes of her in his personality. And I hate him for that.
I hate that the only connection I have left with Lily is through the son she bore with James Potter.
I fear that Potter and Granger will met a similar end. Perhaps fear is not the word I truly have in mind, but it shall suffice. They remind me of James and Lily. Their unspoken courtship, aspects of their personalities, their bond - I watch them and I am watching James and Lily again.
Perhaps my act of contrition is not only to bear witness to the spirit of James and Lily, but to aid Potter and Granger in the re-enactment of their happiness? That would truly be the injury to the insult. For me, Severus Snape, to actively engage in matchmaking, so as to give joy to the boy who is the result of the happiness of the man I hated and the woman I loved...
Torture indeed.
Yet, stranger things have happened.
I am no matchmaker. I do not interfere with such matters. I know nothing of them. My chance has long since passed me by. I have not been granted a commutation of my sentence. I am to forever pine for my Annabel Lee. She does not reside in a sepulchre by the sounding sea. She resides in the eyes of a boy who wears the face of my enemy.
I very much want to kick Edgar Allen Poe at this moment.
I am no matchmaker. I will not interfere. And I will not allow others to interfere. What comes to Potter and Miss Granger will be of its own accord and nothing more. They will have the opportunity. What they do with it, I cannot say, but they will have the chance.
I loved Lily Evans once. I never stood a chance.
I envied James. I envied him to the point that I scarred myself in retaliation. I tried to burn away my feelings for you, Lily, my loathing for him. I failed.
I will not act. I will keep perfectly still. I will not in any way interfere with your son's chance. Nor will I influence Miss Granger to her chance. My inaction is not nearly enough, not nearly enough penance for the sins I have committed against you and your memory, Lily. But it is a start.
And, Lily…James, that is not a lie.
∞