The seventh year N.E.W.T.-level Defense Against the Dark Arts class is fairly large for N.E.W.T.-level in the 1977-8 school year. Large for a N.E.W.T.-level class is still small enough for all the students to be placed in one classroom. It is the sort of thing that Severus Snape, seventh year Slytherin thinks about. On the first day of the class, he had considered the factors that would lead to the class size being what it is. The war is continuing, which would make more students want to take Defense. On the other hand, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has been unable to keep a professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts for more than a year since the fifties and they’ve run out of worthy applicants. Their current professor has a better reputation than the last two office holders, but not by much. The professor for Defense during their fifth year was so poor that it is surprising that so many people passed the OWL with an O or E to even take N.E.W.T. Defense. None of it matters in the end. It is just another mental exercise.
It has been several months since then. Autumn leaves faded to winter snow, back to spring. Lectures, discussions, charms, counter-curses, Dark creatures have all come and gone by. Today’s lecture is on the Patronus Charm. Severus sits towards the rear of the classroom, not bothering to pay much attention to the lecture. He knows the relevant information already from the textbook and he doubts that anything that the professor can add will prove useful. The short of it is that the Patronus Charm is quite difficult to master and can only be cast if the user concentrates on their happiest memories. A fully corporeal Patronus is harder to cast than a non-corporeal Patronus.
Snape actually read the debate about the nature of the Patronus shape closely. The concept intrigues him. He’s not good enough at Transfiguration to become an Animagus, and while some people believe that Patronus shape is inherently tied to self, like Animagus shape, others feel that the shape is related the nature of the happy memories that a person possesses. There are married couples who have matching Patronus shapes, and the theory has something to do with their love for one another.
Snape glances around. He is one of the few Slytherins in the class. Most of them scorn Defense, and are partial to the Dark Arts, but Snape prefers to learn them both. The Dark Arts aren’t useful if you don’t know the counter-curses. Even if he enjoys learning Defense, he is still scornful of his classmates. Half the class is only taking Defense because they’re afraid of the Dark Lord, he thinks. He is not afraid, not of anything, not of anything at all.
Finally, the lecture is over. The teacher demonstrates his Patronus, a hawk. The teacher tells them to get up and try to cast their own Patronuses. Chairs clatter around him, as the students get up from their chairs.
Snape stands and fingers his wand without doing anything. He knows what his happiest memories are, and he is also slightly afraid to see his Patronus’ shape. He doesn’t want to think about it; but, at the same time, he knows that whatever shape his Patronus takes it will represent her. The only really happy memories he has are of her. He shakes his head. That isn’t true. He has plenty of happy memories with his friends, his fellow Slytherins. They do so much together, it’s... good. He doesn’t want to think about her, about how he lost the best friend he’s ever had.
He glances over at the idiot Marauders, the Gryffindor foursome that he loathes. Perfect Potter already has his Patronus up and it’s a stag. It figures that someone with a nickname like Prongs would have a stag for a Patronus. He hates their nicknames, hates that no one realized that Moony means that Lupin is a werewolf. All four of them, Remus Lupin, James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, ended up staying in N.E.W.T. Defense Against the Dark Arts. He should have expected them to, as much as he loathes Potter and Black, he recognizes their skills, but he had been hoping to have fewer classes with them, particularly all four of them. He has no escape from them, not here, but at least... at the very least, she is still here.
Snape turns towards her, slightly, trying to hide the motion from the Marauders and from the few Slytherins in the class. She is as beautiful as ever, even if her blood is... fine. He refuses to think along those terms, he simply refuses to. No matter what his Housemates say, no matter what anyone else believes, he knows the truth. She is just as good, better, than all of them.
The only bit of red in the room that he doesn’t hate is her hair shining in the spring sunlight. He refuses to look at the bright Gryffindor badges that she and the idiot Marauders wear. He wonders if staring into her brilliant hair will leave after images in his eyes, like he’s been looking into the sun. He doesn’t fully realize it yet, but in the end, she is the source of light and goodness in his life, the light in his darkness.
She hasn’t cast a corporeal Patronus yet, just silvery wisps. He wonders what she is thinking of. He wonders if some of her happy memories include him. He hopes that they do; but he doesn’t like to hope “ he likes firm, concrete knowledge.
He feels the professor’s eyes on him. He hasn’t even tried to cast the spell yet. He needs to, before the professor asks him why he hasn’t. He takes a deep breath, pouring everything into the spell, all of his love, all of his reflected happiness. All the light, all the happiness, all the joy in his life comes... came from her, even if he still refuses to admit it. He half-hopes that it won’t work, he doesn’t want to admit how important she is to him, even though, deep inside, he knows that it will work. He is too proud to not try, too proud not to get a Patronus the first time, if only so he can show perfect Potter that he isn’t the only one with a corporeal Patronus. He needs this to work, he doesn’t want it to work with memories of her, he knows it will work with memories of her. He’s working himself into a logical mess and he feels almost divorced from his body. He doesn’t even know how long he stands there, trapped in his memories. Lily’s bright green eyes lit up with happiness, her soft voice saying “Sev”, her laughter that he can almost feel in his bones, as much as hear in his ears, the way she tilts her head slightly to the side when she’s thinking. He hears his own voice say “Expecto Patronum!” A silvery doe bursts forth from his wand.
At the same moment, Lily Evans manages to cast a corporeal Patronus “ a doe.
He stares at the two does. They look like sisters, identical in every way. His doe walks towards Lily’s slowly. He doesn’t know if he is controlling its movement or if somehow the spell is attracted to her, the inspiration for its existence, or to its twin, the other doe. She stares at the does, before turning towards him.
They haven’t spoken since the end of term two years ago. Sometimes he wants to break the silence. More often, he still thinks that it is her fault. He was the one who taught her about the magical world, who told her what she is. She... they were best friends. Surely that had to count for something. It has to. She owes him, but even more than that, he loves her, needs her. He turns towards her the way a sunflower turns towards the sun. He feels his lip curl at that metaphor. A sunflower accepts the light, the heat it receives from the sun, without asking for anything more. He is no sunflower. He wants, he needs, no, he deserves all of her.
He cannot name the expression on her face, the light in her eyes, the furrow of her brow, the purse of her lips. He wants to say something, but before he can decide what to say, much less open his mouth, she turns around. She is still stubborn as ever. Once she takes a position, that’s it. He loves that about her. She was his friend for five years, despite both their Houses hatred. He knows that she must have spent weeks, months, arguing with her Housemates on his behalf. Now, she won’t talk to him, for one fatal misspeak. He hates that about her.
He is too proud to call after her; but when she guides her doe towards Potter’s stag, it’s too much. He dismisses his doe with a wave of his wand before any of the Marauders, especially Potter, can see it. He is not in the mood to fight with Potter today, particularly when Lily is smiling at him like that... like she used to smile at him.
Potter has a stag shaped Patronus, and Lily “ beautiful, intelligent and almost completely perfect Lily “ has a doe shaped Patronus. It is like some horrible romance novel that a fifteen-year-old Hufflepuff girl would read, the soul mates with matching Patronuses. The hatred burns his insides. She should be his.