Always

In the headmaster's office of one Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, high above the school grounds, Professor Severus Snape could be found slumped back in the large, high-backed chair behind his desk. It would be an unusual sight had anyone spotted him there, for his tired slouch and unbuttoned collar betrayed his customary erect posture and stiff wardrobe. His elbows were propped up on the arm rests, his forefingers massaging his temples in slow revolving circles.
"Why," he muttered, "Why have you bestowed this upon me?" He glanced toward a large framed portrait on the wall, but the subject was not there. Snape scowled. Where had he gone?
"Even in death, you still have secrets."
He closed his eyes and brooded once more.

...

The night was cold, for late September. The summer warmth no longer lingered; the darkening of the days produced a chilly atmosphere around the castle.
Snape was in his office, pacing in front of an open cupboard. The room was almost completely dark, except for a blueish-silver glow that was exuding from the open cabinet just far enough into the room to reach the pacer and push deep shadows down into the ridges of his sallow and sunken face.
He paced back and forth, back and forth.
He shouldn't. No, he couldn't. This was neither sane nor healthy.
His cloaked swished about him as he turned to and fro, in and out, and back into the light again.
What would Dumbledore think, had he witnessed this?
He would tell Severus to move on, to focus his energy and emotion into something more useful, like his mission.
And the Dark Lord, how would he respond?
The Dark Lord, had he known, had he bothered to see into Snape's mind (he rarely did these days- his trust so keen, his mind so preoccupied with other things- he never prodded with enough force that Snape's Occlumency could not keep him out), he would have sneered, bemused yet disgusted at the sickening images he would find there. And then he would kill him.
But Snape needed it. He needed to see it again. The same as last night, the same as the night before, Snape needed to escape from his dismal reality at least one more time.
His mind decided, he stopped pacing and paused in the pool of light, but not in hesitation as if unsure as to whether or not he should go through with this. No, he was observing the office around him. All the portraits were sound asleep and two of them were bare, one of them being that of Phineas Nigellus Black, the other of Albus Dumbledore. When Snape was satisfied that no one was watching him, he turned into the bright silver light and braced himself against the stone basin from which it was pouring out of.
With a serene sort of smile, he lowered himself into the Pensive, allowing himself to fall yet again into his own silver-lined memories.

...

There was a hard knock on the door.
"You may enter."
Professor Carrow stormed into the headmaster's office, towing two students by fistfuls of their hair.
Snape looked up coldly from behind his desk.
"Is there a problem professor?"
The Carrow duo were beginning to agitate Severus. Bringing him students left and right, hoping to expose crimes worthy of punishment inflicted by the Dark Lord himself, enabling them to reap the benefits of their menial service.
Fools. Snape thought curtly. The Dark Lord does not wish to have his time wasted on trivial matters such as Hogwarts students.
"Severus, these students have -"
But Snape already knew, as seen from looking into Amycus' thoughts. Longbottom and Weasley once more being disruptive, this time found rallying a crowd of students on the seventh floor of the castle, no doubt orginizing a meeting in the Room of Requirement.
"How many times must I tell you, professor, unless it is Harry Potter himself, Amycus, do not bring me anymore students! I trust you are capable of deciding the consequences of their actions."
At the sound of Harry Potter's name, Ginny Weasley faltered. This did not go unnoticed by Snape. He eyed her disgustedly.
She had gotten taller, and had grown into her womanly figure. He took in her long red hair and her devious freckles. Beautiful, bold, intelligent. Another Lily.
"You can't punish us for telling the truth! You may have the ministry and the rest of the world fooled, but we know, Snape! You can't silence us, you murderer!" Neville Longbottom glared at the headmaster as he writhed in Amycus' grip.
What is Longbottom playing at? Trying to take Potter's place as hero. Another Harry. Another James.
He sneered at the pair.
"You are dismissed... Now, Amycus."

Once again, Snape found himself falling through the Pensive, back again to review his memories. Not for scrutiny and reflection, as Dumbledore often did to calculate Voldemort's intentions, but instead to relive past events and revive hopes for what once was.
He landed softly in a thick patch of onion grass on the edge of a green forest, his black robes even more flowy as a figure within the Pensive. He knew this memory well, and at once strode forth between the trees, his flowing cloak not disturbing a single weed or flower.
He stopped when he reached a clearing, where two teenagers where sprawled on the mossy bank of a babbling brook. One had his long and pale body propped up on his elbows, the other was sitting upright, ringing water out of her fiery hair.
"Goodness, Sev! I think this must be the first time your body's seen sunlight all year!" Lily Evans joked, gesturing at the young Snape's milky white bare torso. Water droplets glistened on his chest, and his lanky hair and slightly too-short jeans were both soaked as well. A small drop of water caught the sunlight as it rolled off the tip of his hooked nose.
"Yeah, well, I'd be doing laps in the lake at school if it weren't for the giant squid," he laughed, his eyes glued to Lily, who had discarded her blouse before pushing young Severus into the shallow stream and had yet to retrieve it. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and laid back in a sunny patch of grass, donning only her shorts and a soaked undershirt, through which her black bra was slightly visible.
Young Severus never took his eyes off of her, nor did the real one. She closed her eyes, taking in the bit of the sun's rays that managed to permeate the shady forage, and chirping birds filled the silence before she spoke again.
"It's so nice out," she exhaled, shifting slightly to a sunnier patch that was closer to Severus.
"Mmm," was all he replied, and he remained in the shadows.
"Yeah. Who would have thought that you could find any beauty around here?" He said after a moment. Lily thought he was referencing the nature around them but his focus was still on her.
"You know, Tuney's going to a sleep over tomorrow night. You could have dinner at my house. My mom's making spaghetti."
"Yeah?" Snape smiled.
"I wish you two could get along, though." His smile faded.
"She doesn't even like you!" He spat out, but regretted it instantly.
"She does too like me! We're sisters, we love each other, whether she realizes it or not."
"She?" Snape asked.
"I meant you!" Lily quickly corrected herself. "Whether you realize it or not."
Snape smiled again. "Well, I don't mind a bit that you're a witch, or even that you have freaky red hair."
"You know I don't mind that you're a wizard either, or that you have abnormally pale skin." Lily replied, smiling over at Snape. "But you could do to cut your hair. I'd say anything past shoulder-length is hardly acceptable. Even James Potter's hair is tidier than yours now!"
She laughed and he scowled once more.
"I don't trust mum. She'd wreck it, she would, it's better I don't do anything to it all."
"Do you trust me to cut it?"
He looked over at her and thought for a moment. "I'd trust you with anything, Lil."
She smiled. "I trust you too, Sev."
The scene dissolved around the real Snape, who watched intently the whole time from beside a nearby tree, and reformed around him in a darker, nighttime setting.
A yellow moon hung full in the sky, illuminating two figures sitting upon a porch bench.
Young Snape's hair was shorter and neater now, apparently he had allowed Lily to cut it. The pair were sitting close to each other, a thick book spread across both of their laps, but neither was looking at it anymore, and not because the darkness would not allow them to. They were too busy laughing, and had become forgetful of the time, unaware of how late it really was.
"I love your mum, I really do. She's loads better than mine, and she can cook better too, Severus chuckled.
"I think she loves you too, Sev. She loves anyone and anything to do with Hogwarts."
"But not your dad, eh?"
"No, he does, too. He just doesn't like you too much."
"Why not?"
"I don't know, Sev. He's just at that stage, you know… Overprotective father, suspicious of the boys that their daughters bring home. Especially when they know all sorts of strange magic tricks and spells. Never know what they're going to do." She laughed at her joke, but Snape was pensive.
So Lily's father recognized him in that way. As a boyfriend. Or at least as a potential one to his daughter, even if Lily didn't. Suddenly Mr. Evan's gruff stares at supper seemed less trivial now that Snape understood the reason for them and yet more frightening as it dawned on him that he would need to deem himself worthy to Mr. Evans to date his daughter.
They continued to talk into the night, until a sudden tiredness overtook them. Snape glanced at his watch, and saw that it was well past one in the morning when Lily closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder, and he fell asleep pretending that she was his girlfriend.

...

"And your plan worked, Severus? Potter has the sword?"
Snape stood, cold and still, draped in his black cloak before Dumbledore's portrait.
"Yes, sir. Potter and his friends now have the sword of Gryffindor. The locket has been destroyed."
"Excellent. Excellent, Severus. There may be hope yet… Forgive me, I must be off again. And you know, your next task Severus?…" but Dumbledore fled his portrait before he heard Snape's droning reply.
Snape turned to his desk, staring into the dark mahogany. His mission that night was quite chaste; he had found Potter easier than he had expected to (something that unsettled him slightly, the boy he was sworn to protect so easily lured away from his protected campsite and comrade), yet the end result left him quite drained. He was not sure how much more he could take.
His eyes shifted stealthily to the cabinet bearing the Pensive, pondering another silver-lined night-cap.
No, he told himself, not tonight.
Instead of drowning himself in his memories for the night, Snape sat down at his desk and pulled open the bottom most drawer. From beneath a few rolls of parchment, he retracted a single scrap of torn paper. It was tear-weathered and crinkled from excessive handling.
"Lots of love, Lily"
He read the last few words on the parchment for what must have been the thousandth time and let out a sob-shaken exhale.
"What I do for you…." Snape wept for the signature once more.

...

Snape was uncomfortable, standing there in the Shrieking Shack before Lord Voldermort. He sensed a change in the Dark Lord that he feared would interfere with his own assigned mission.
He could not convince Voldemort to allow him to go to the boy, and now he was discussing the Elder Wand with him.
Snape knew what was going to happen.
Voldemort swished his wand through the air, and for a fleeting moment Snape did not dread his death as he thought of reuniting with Lily. But he could not hide the terror in his eyes when he realized that Voldemort would not be kind enough to finish him with the Killing Curse, but was delegating Nagini a snack instead.
With a single, piercing bite Snape's body was filled with excruciating pain and he felt his blood and his life draining from him.
"I regret it," Voldemort said simply before retiring with the snake.
Snape lay there for a few moments, dying, when Harry Potter appeared before him with a swoosh of his invisibility cloak. Never in his life did Snape ever expect to feel relieved to see the offspring of James Potter.
As Harry bent over him, Snape used all his strength to clutch the boy's robes and pull him closer. He focused to push every silvery relevant memory out of his body and instruct Harry to take them.
"Take… it… Take… it…" he gushed.
Thankfully, Hermione Granger appeared too, with a conjured flask to bottle the information.
The pain was fading now, and Snape could feel himself fading too… but he had one last request.
"Look… at… me…"
And the last trace of life left Severus Snape's body as he stared into the emerald depths of Lily Potter's eyes.