Tribute

AN: One thing that has always stuck in my head is the fact that, due to his love for Lily, Severus Snape's Patronus was a doe. It's a romantic touch, and super sweet, but if he loved her romantically, wouldn't his patronus be a stag, the companion to her doe? Even if he hated James, you would think that if that was how patronus magic worked, then his would be a stag, and not a doe. This is my attempt to explain that.

Severus had first achieved a corporal patronus at the age of fifteen, awing Lily and giving his rivals- and housemates- jealous conniptions. And for good reason! Many adult wizards couldn't cast them, much less a wizard who hadn't even taken his NEWT's yet, and his was a silver panther, sleek and menacing and so much more beautiful than he could ever be, summoned by memories of a shy kiss with Lily under the arbor of honeysuckle in her back yard. That patronus was something of a party trick among the Slytherin upper years, as if proof that not all Slytherins were born Death Eaters, and, for the very first time, he had value. His house wanted him. Lily was impressed with him. The Marauders, none of whom could cast anything even approximating a patronus in power level, seemed to be eaten up with jealousy. Even Dumbledore seemed proud of him. But all that was to change in the space of a year.

The Marauders grew more and more vicious as the midterms approached, crusading under James Potter's standard, and his relations with Lily grew more and more strained due to his sudden friendships with a number of the Darker Slytherins, such as Avery, Nott, and Malfoy. And it all came to a head during the midterms themselves, when Severus was only trying to study, that the Marauders came at him, four on one. They hexed him, they humiliated him, they stripped him in front of the entire fifth form.

His heart warmed as Lily came to defend him from his tormentors, but his head was not so happy with it. He was humiliated, and even in his shame he couldn't help seeing the slight amusement on Lily's face at the antics which he did not find funny at all, nor was she resentful that James essentially asked her to whore herself out in exchange for leaving Severus alone. And then, when she spoke to him, he exploded.

To be fair, what he had called her was essentially one of the nastiest things one could call her. It wasn't as if he meant it. He'd been spending far too much time with Tarquin Flint lately, and he had picked up the word mostly through exposure, although it was not something that he had ever intended to say to any living wizard, he was just too hurt, and too lonely, and too angry and upset that the one girl that he had fancied most in all the world had seen him suffer, had witnessed his humiliation. But for just one word, one terrible word spoken in fury, he lost everything that had kept him firmly anchored to the Light side.

He did try to apologize. He slept outside the Gryffindor common room two nights in a row, and Merlin, was the floor ever cold, before she would even consent to talk to him, much less listen to his explanation, nor did she actually listen to a word that he was saying when he tried to explain, tried to tell him that he was simply so lost and afraid and he had lashed out at the first target which had afforded itself. It did nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The Marauders began to grow more and more vicious, seeing as their assault during midterms had garnered only a few detentions writing lines and a week's suspension of Remus Lupin's prefect badge, and no Lily Evans to act as a buffer, Severus had to act on his own. He slunk through the corridors like the panther itself, and ate all the meals that he could in the kitchens (supper attendance in the Great Hall was mandatory) and in moments of vindictiveness invented curses and wrote them in the margins of his Potions textbook (a diary would no doubt be stolen within the hour, or duplicated with a transcription spell, but no one would ever check to see what was in his textbooks; most of his yearmates knew that he considered it tantamount to sacrilege to write in books) and wished that he could hex his attackers so bad that they would never hurt him again. He knew little Latin though, and less Arithmancy, so he approached all the older Slytherins to learn, in exchange for Potions and Defense tutoring and favors, and didn't that make him popular. Indeed, now that it was proven he was in the "enemy camp" Lily started to actively scorn him, and even Dumbledore lost his grandfatherly mask.

In sixth year Lily started hanging around with Potter. At first it was the little things, just sitting next to him and his infernal coterie of friends, and eating with him at supper. It made Severus angry, but it wasn't much. For a few months he could pretend that they were just friends, that their hands twining together like ayahuaca vines was just a way of testing the waters, that Potter was only asking to study with her because she got the highest grades in the whole school, which was quite true. That is until he caught Potter with his tongue down her throat so far that he must have been examining her tonsils, the two of them curled up together in an abandoned classroom far to closely to be innocent, even if they were still technically clothed.

He held it in for three days, using the rudimentary occlumensy that he was picking up from books and some of his pureblood classmates to at least keep his grief and fury from showing. That was to say until Rowle called him over on the afternoon of the third day. "Severus," he called.

Severus blinked and looked up from the paragraph he had unsuccessfully been trying to read for a full hour. "Yes Rowle?" he responded politely. One did not want to antagonize or even ignore a pureblood of one of the old families in Slytherin house, even if one was not a halfblood, which Severus was.

"My betrothed," he nodded to a young woman, one Gemma Goyle, who was a few years younger than him at Hogwarts "cannot yet conjure a patronus. I was wondering if you would help her?" It was not a question.

"Of course," Severus replied, although with less enthusiasm than he would have normally. He was, after all, still having difficulties occluding his grief and projecting an impassive or happy front, and besides, he was rather used to having to teach said spell to the other Slytherins, as many of the upper years couldn't cast it themselves. Slytherin house was a magnet for abused children and Dark purebloods, who simply couldn't muster the emotions necessary for summoning the delicate spell. "When do you want to meet with me?"

"Now would be fine," She said imperiously, and Severus hastily set down his book and came over. It wasn't like he was reading it, anyway.

"Very well," he said, drawing his wand. "To summon a patronus, you have to bring to mind a very powerful emotional memory, and then you have to cast. The wand-movement honestly doesn't matter, although you should probably use that at first, as it is better for beginners to start out with as much structure as possible." He didn't add that it was most likely that most wizards and witches with inferior cores, which was nearly all purebloods, would never move past this stage, and instead went on: "emotions that work are love, joy, intense pleasure and amusement, although desperation may occasionally work."

She blinked. "I know all that. But no matter what I do, all I get is mist!" she whined petulantly.

Severus resisted the urge to plug his ears. "Don't expect to get a corporal patronus on the first try," he told her calmly. "Most adult wizards can't manage more than a mist, although the younger you learn it the more likely you are to make it."

"But I've been trying all week!"

"Have you tried a happier memory? Simply pleasurable activities like flying on a broom or eating a good cherry cheesecake are usually not strong enough."

"What do you use? What is an example?"

Severus flushed. "I use a very personal memory," he returned. "I will not share the details, but it was a girlfriend."

Rowle made ugly kissy noises and Severus resisted the urge to glare at him. Or wretch. Or possibly cry. "I see," Gemma said at last. "What form does your patronus take?"

"A panther," he responded reluctantly.

She blinked. "A panther? Why?"

"I don't know," was his reply. "All the patronus lore I know boils down to a patronus being an embodiment of your personal protector, hence the name, patronus. Married couples tend to have matching patroni, and sometimes they can take the form of lost relatives or such."

"Oh." She sounded a little disappointed that he didn't know. "Can I see it?"

Severus drew his wand. "Expecto patronus!" Nothing happened. Severus frowned, then loosened his occlumensy shields and drew up the memory he always used, Lily kissing him shyly in her parents' back yard. But that innocent kiss was overlaid with James snogging Lily violently against the wall, and nothing more than mist emerged. His eyes widened in pain and horror, and he repeated the spell, but only a vaguely panther-shaped mist emerged.

Both Rowle and Gemma's eyebrows went up, and the rest of the common room stared. "Been playing with black magic, Snape?" Rowle said. It was a valid question. Dark magic taint was, after all, the usual reason a Slytherin was suddenly unable to cast a patronus.

Severus slammed his occlumensy shields hastily down. "Not much," he returned, not willing to reveal the true reason his patronus had suddenly failed.

Rowle slapped him on the back as he retreated.

But by the next day, the news that Severus Snape's patronus had failed was all over Slytherin house, and it seemed that Dumbledore knew too, judging by the sudden influx of disappointed looks and grandfatherly "advice". Severus slowly began to give up, as if the patronus failing had been a visible symptom of the Light within him dying out. He began to delve seriously into black magic, studying long hours into the night and pumping the seventh year Slytherins for every crumb of knowledge they would give. And still Potter tormented him; not literally, actually, as it seemed that Lily had made him stop bullying the other students in general, although it was clear that she had not done it in any attempt to help him.

One night, while he was sitting with Lucius Malfoy and a Ravenclaw whose name Severus could never remember in the Slytherin common room, sharing firewhiskey smuggled from Hogsmeade, and Lucius popped the question- did he want to come to a preliminary meeting of a resistance movement focusing on trying to keep the ministry from outlawing Grey and Darker magics?

He'd had a little too much firewhiskey and not enough sense, and so he agreed.

The meeting went well enough, with the leader, a man of perhaps thirty-five years of age (well, at least that's how old he looked) spoke to them of the dangers of Light-sided wizards potentially limiting the magics legal in magical Britain, and of the dangers of muggles knowing about the wizarding world- even the parents of muggleborns, and slowly, he found himself agreeing. Muggles could be nasty pieces of shit- his father was certainly proof of that- and it was true how much the ministry flunkies limited their magic by outlawing bloodmagics and such. And so, after going to a few more meetings, he finally agreed to join.

It was the worst mistake he had made in his life, even after calling Lily that horrible name. The initiation was painful as hell, branding him on the arm, and only days after his full initiation he learned the true purpose of the group; it was a terrorist group crossed with a cult, and there was no way out. He would be tortured to death if he so much as questioned their leader, the self-styled 'Lord Voldimort', and so he had to play along, had to pretend that he enjoyed what they did, had to pretend that brewing torture potions was such a good opportunity to stretch his craft and serve his lord.

Oh, Merlin, he was dying inside.

And then came his greatest mistake, the one that condemned not only himself but the woman that he had always loved and her family; the telling of the prophecy.

He had been sent by his 'Lord'- as if he could call that foul thing a lord- to feed Dumbledore a story about his interest in dark arts being only secondary to his interest in the defense of them and begging to become the DADA teacher, and Dumbledore had, at least, listened to his first query and had set up an appointment. As Severus was waiting, he heard another wizard- well, witch, actually- being interviewed, and was just leaving when the woman's Sight took her over, and she spoke a prophecy. But as he was listening, uncomfortably close to the door, Dumbledore's cursed brother Aberforth caught him and dragged him away before questioning him roughly.

Severus's rudimentary occlumensy kept him from spilling what he knew, and at last Aberforth let him go. He shouldn't have. Because Severus went straight to the Dark Lord, and told him all he knew. The only thing that kept him from being tortured into oblivion for missing half of it was his potions skills, and even then, he could barely make it back to Spinner's end that night.

And then, a week later, he was called again, though his bones still ached from the last bout of crucitus. It was at that meeting that he learned that the Dark Lord was going to go after Lily. Well, not just Lily, actually, but her son, and that was the same thing. Lily was too good a person to just let her son be killed without a struggle. He begged for her life, knowing it would not do any good, and took the crucitus that followed as his rightful punishment. As soon as the carved ebony doors of Riddle Manor clicked shut behind him, he left for Hogwarts in the pouring cold rain, shaking with pain and fear. Dumbledore would extract something in payment for his painful request, he knew that.

It didn't work.

Dumbledore listened to him, and warned the Potters, but it didn't work. And so it was that he found himself in the shell of a small cottage he had visited only once before. He passed Potter's life-less body in the living room- oh, Merlin, he'd hated the prat, but he hadn't wished him dead- and then, numb, he began to make the dismal journey up the stairs, breathing in smoke and choking on ash at every step that he made. It was too much to hope for that she or the baby would yet be living, even if the Dark Lord had even bothered to attempt to keep his promise.

What had been a beautiful nursery, with soft yellow and lavender walls and a beautiful carpet was totally wrecked, scorch marks marring the walls and the carpet spattered with blood, a plush gryffin- Potter's influence, no doubt, lying squashed on the ground. In the center of the room lay a dark-robed figure, and Severus couldn't contain his gasp. Impossible! Was it- no, it was the Dark Lord. Dead. On the floor. Severus took a step closer, and his sandled foot slipped on red hair, spilled crimson as blood on the carpet. Lily.

Severus screamed, his magic lashing out in an explosion of power, and caught her desperately to his chest. Her head flopped lifelessly in the crook of his arm.

He was still holding her when the aurors came to rip her away, still thinking of that desperate, frozen face, too young to die, as he was taken in, as he was questioned, as he was sent to Azkaban, as Dumbledore testified for him and took him back to Hogwarts on parole.

That night, after half a bottle of firewhiskey, he broke down in Dumbledore's office under the old man's callous eye, and that was the night that his life ended.

It had been thirteen years since then. Thirteen years, and it still hurt just as much as if it had been yesterday. It had healed, somewhat, but that was before Harry Potter had come to Hogwarts, with those cursed green eyes and that oh so arrogant swagger, and that shy smile which would not have looked out of place on Lily's lips. The dementors that guarded Hogwarts made it worse still, because he could see her body, again, and those empty eyes, and he had to witness all the people who had ever been killed at the Death Eater meetings he'd gone to, had to feel again James Potter and Sirius Black stripping him before the whole of Hogwarts.

That particular day, Severus was walking through the grounds, on his way to the greenhouses to speak to Pomona, when all at once he saw a pair of dementors, swooping towards a student. A lone student. Severus caught his breath. Oh, Merlin, no- he couldn't cast! But he had to do something; he couldn't just wait around while the dementor attempted to snack on the child's eternal soul. He closed his eyes, thought of Lily's kiss, and cast. Mist. Nothing but mist. And then the boy turned, screaming the incantation himself, and he caught a glimpse of messy black hair and eyes the color of a killing curse, the color of all the mistakes that Severus had ever made. Oh gods, it was Potter- he couldn't let him die!

Then, as if in a dream, he remembered something he had once told Gemma Goyle: "desperation can occasionally work". And he thought of what would happen if he didn't act, how he would be failing Lily all over again, and he thought, not of her kisses, but of her friendship, how she had once defended him from his detractors. And he said the spell, in barely more than a whisper...

And a silvery gas swelled on the tip of his wand, taking a slow, shimmering form, and bounded towards the dementors, driving them away with sharp slashes of it's aetherial hooves while an awed Potter just stood there and watched the loathsome things flee before it. Severus, too, could only stare. His patronus had changed form, something unheard of. There were only a few documented instances of a change, and all of them had to do with love, or with loss. But somehow he knew this was neither. Oh, he had loved her, certainly, more than his own life, and he'd lost her, as well, but this, though both played a part in it, was something different. A tribute and a memorial, a little fragment of her brightness that had not been extinguished from the world.

Years later, in Dumbledore's office (it would never truly be his own) he would find himself casting it again, to see the flash of innocent silver eyes and remind himself what he was fighting for. Or, perhaps, to simply to bask in the closest thing he could ever reach to her forgiveness.