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"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done;
it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
When he first begins to regain consciousness, he is aware only of the sense of darkness blanketing around him, allowing his body to float along the gentle waves of a softly rolling black sea. It is not oppressive darkness that surrounds him, but rather a soothing one, one that brings none of the weight that being alone in the dark has brought him these past few years. One that reminds him of summer nights under a tree shared by unassuming children ready to take on the world or rainy mornings spent with tea cooling in its chipped mug and dog-eared and creased worn pages. Or the gentle pressure of a wizened hand laying on his shoulder and the echo of a lilting laugh that shone brightly in emerald eyes and always seemed to staunch the deep ache in his very soul that has haunted him since he could remember. It is peaceful and for the first time in a long time, Severus feels calm.
He wakes slowly, for the first time in months, years, decades… There is no rushed sense of duty that usually accompanies him and spurs him to action the second he is aware of the waking world. There is only the feeling of a warm spring breeze lofting over his face, pulling playfully at his hair as it dances across, well wherever he is. Normally finding himself in an unknown place after being so deeply wrapped in the arms of Morpheus would alarm him, even send him into a whirlwind of abject panic but strangely enough, the familiar anxiety isn’t present. Instead, he allows himself to relish the sounds of leaves rhythmically swaying in the wind, the prickles of untrimmed ryegrass through the fabric of his robes, the pleasant warmth radiating from the traditionally more traitorous English sun. He hasn’t been allowed to just exist in this simple capacity since he was a small child before his life was so convoluted and controlled by the decisions of more powerful men before the weight of the fate of all wizard-kind across Britain fell upon his shoulders, bowing his back and making him more Atlas than man.
There was something pulling at the back of his conscience, he can feel it pulsing through the severe fog that's invaded his senses. Not unlike when he uses his occlumency to bury his emotions when they overwhelmed him, or when it was imperative the Dark Lord not see the thoughts that ravaged his mind during Death Eater meetings. However, unlike those occasions where occlumency was the only option to halt an oncoming nervous breakdown, he couldn't wave away the haze. The longer he laid there, poking around at this inexplicable barrier around the parts of his mind that had ruled supreme these past few years, the spymaster, the renegade, the ruthless Death Eater, the protector, they all fell away. Hidden behind walls, not of his own construction and remained unreachable through the thick shroud of hazy quiet. Until suddenly even that muted feeling of alarm was swept away in the breeze and floated gently in the wind along with the dandelion seeds. Far, far away from him, and he finds he doesn’t bemoan the loss.
Severus supposes he should care, waking up in a strange place and so far removed from his own mind and thoughts. He should care, but he doesn’t remember ever being this tired. His eyelids feel so heavy that even thinking about prying them open takes an insurmountable amount of energy that he does not possess. The grass and weeds feel good against his back, far more comforting and soft than even his bed at Hogwarts and certainly his moth-eaten and unbalanced one at Spinner’s End, somehow feeling like the glimmers of contentment and peace of his childhood. The breeze a nice change from the howling winds of the Scottish Highlands, he thinks as it settles across him like a warm blanket. He supposes it’s not a bad spot for a bit of a nap, and he is so very tired. There are much worse places to drift away in.
That thought breaks through the veil in his head, just for one moment but it’s enough to bring the muted pressure of rotting wood up against his spine, a sharp, coppery scent replacing the smell of wildflowers in his nose, a cold voice breaking the peace he’s found. Severus tenses, his fight against the haze in his mind redoubles and twice as savage as before, panic and desperation by his side once more. Until he catches sight of green eyes in the unpleasant memories flowing by him, solemn but bright enough to burn away the flashes of images of a familiar-seeming, dilapidated house. That green fills his mind, gently carrying him away from whatever horrors trying to claw and scratch their way back into his awareness, pulling him gently away from an office with numerous paintings lining the walls and a high-backed chair, from the darkness clinging to a sprawling manor even it’s elegance could not override, from a smoky and underground lecture room, from a cramped, angry house by a polluted river.
Severus is distantly aware that these places hold some great significance to him, he feels the subdued emotional ties to them but is unable to articulate what they are or explain where they came from. He can’t bring himself to care and gladly follows that green back to the peaceful weightlessness of before, because somewhere he knows with a bone-deep surety that those eyes are home.
“Hey, Sev.”
Despite his previous weariness and weight of his eyelids, Severus finds it extremely easy to open his eyes. He is greeted by the pale blue sky of a warm spring evening, streaks of white clouds held in place above him, and the swaying branches of an old oak tree. It feels familiar, like greeting an old friend after a time apart. He slowly pulls his arms from his stomach, and props himself up on his elbows, and looks in the direction of the voice. And sitting amidst the knots and gnarled roots of the oak, chin casually resting in the cradle of her hand, sits Lily.
Red hair floats down around her shoulders, a few strands following the breeze as it makes its way through the field again. Her freckles scattered along the bridge of her nose, curling around her cheekbones just as he remembers. An easy smile splits her lips, one that speaks of fond and long-held affection, the very same as the one that haunts him in his dreams. But here she sits before him, solid and real in a way her presence hasn't been to him in many years. And those green eyes that he sees every time he closes his eyes, are looking at him with a gentle sort of mirth and a warmth he hasn’t felt in a long time.
There are a thousand words he wants to say, hundreds of apologies laying at the tip of his tongue, but they stick in the back of his throat. There is something in the way she reaches her hand out to him and sweeps the hair out of his face that makes them unnecessary, a sense of causal affection that tells him that she requires no explanations. They would break this wonderful moment of reprieve, so he’s content to spend the remainder of forever in this comfortable silence.
A million memories spill forth from the dam in his mind, some fuzzy with a deep fondness and peace, others sharp with a deep-set pain and desperate loneliness. They swirl around him in branching streams and he runs his fingers through them. The sudden sound of a cracking branch, biting retorts flown in reckless abandon, a betrayal by a glass-green lake. They flit about the edges of his mind, too quick to hold fast to and they slip from his grasp and dissipate into the lovely spring air. A small hand clasped in his, a peal of musical laughter, and those green, green eyes are the only things left. Home, Severus thinks, this is home.
“Hey, Lily.”
She closes her eyes for a moment, and Severus thinks she is every bit as bright and lovely and magical as she has ever been. She cups her hand around his cheek, and he can’t help but lean into her touch, feeling every bit like the grumpy cat she always compared him to. She gives him an affectionate glance and turns her eyes back to the field in front of them. The sloping hill, the grasses and the weeds, the wildflowers, all much more numerous and beautiful than their spot in Cokeworth but it feels right, familiar all the same.
Lily slowly rises to her feet and takes a moment to brush off the dirt collected on her trousers. She holds her hand out to him with a look of patient expectancy. He looked at her hand and then back up at her face.
“You ready to go?”
Severus closes his eyes for a moment, taking in the quiet and the lovely weather a final time, and stands. When he reaches for her hand, she opens it readily and grips him with a comfortable tightness. Here they stand again, hand in hand, after everything that's happened and against all odds. Joy fills him in a way that he hasn’t felt since he was that nine-year-old boy, bathing in her warmth and secreting away what happiness he could afford.
“I think I am.”
When they take their first steps together, he can feel Lily swinging their joined hands between them. And for the first time in a long time, Severus smiles.