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She comes to him on nights when it rains; slipping into his dreams, blurring the line between fantasy and reality. He wakes with her scent of cinnamon and vanilla clinging to his skin, with the echo of her voice ringing in his ears, with the sweet, phantasmagoric weight of her body imprinted on his.
In the heartless light of day, his mind torments him in garish colour. The memories of her rip through his psyche. If he closes his eyes to escape them, the images are there, burned into the back of his eyelids.
But at night, she comes to him in blurred, muted tones, calling him to her like a will 'o the wisp.
Severus always follows.
Sometimes she takes him back to the Christmas Holiday before everything went wrong. They'd spent every stolen hour together, mapping each other's bodies with clumsy, eager touches.
Sometimes she takes him back to the Christmas when they ran into each other in Diagon Alley. She, a newly wed woman, he a newly Marked man. They stare at each other with frustration and fury, then hurry off in the opposite directions.
Now, she comes to him as a lover. She slides into his arms, planting kisses on his lips, rocking her body against his. He wakes hard and aching, but never takes himself in hand. She is so real on those nights, he is afraid she can see him, even after he wakes.
It would be too humiliating for her to see him spill himself on his own hand, even if she is only a figment of his overheated imagination.
Tonight she is there the instant he closes his eyes. The rain beats against the castle like it would break down the battlements. The howling of the wind is oddly soothing to Severus, echoing the despair inside his broken soul. She is standing there in the dark, dressed in white like a goddess, her hair red as flame. Because it is a dream, she does not shrink away when he runs his fingers through the fiery tresses.
"You never used to be a prude," she says. "What changed?"
How pathetic. His subconscious mind trying to grant him permission to follow his baser instincts. "I don't know what you are talking about."
"Yes you do. Why won't you finish what I start? Or is Headmaster Snape too good for a nice hit of dopamine?"
She walks her fingers down the buttons on the front of his frock coat, and he has to swallow a moan.
"Sometimes I fancy you're actually here. It's ridiculous, but I should hate to be caught in flagrante delicto the one time you are."
The streaks of gold in her hair cast a deceptive halo around her head as she leans in and traces his nose with hers. "Wake up, Severus."
His eyes snap open. At first, all he can see is the shadowy canopy of his bed looming over him in the dark. Then there is a flash of red, and that beloved form is next to him, the brilliant hair spread out over his pillow.
"Lily?" he asks, his voice raw as his heart.
"I guess you were right. I really am here," Lily says. She brushes her lips against his cheek. The phantom touch makes his skin prickle. "Looks like all I can do is tease. You'll have to take care of yourself. I like to watch, though."
He is afraid to move, lest he break this spell. "I thought you had...gone. Crossed over."
"I did. But I've been called back. I don't understand exactly how. I think it's something to do with Harry. The veil between the worlds is thinner around him. Thin enough I got through."
Potter. Was the boy's doom so close as that? "What are you doing here? Haunt your son. I'm certain he needs all the help he can get. Though you look like more of a succubus than a guardian angel tonight."
"Maybe I'm both. Harry will have my help when he needs it. Anyway, he can't see me. Yet. Seeing a ghost who's already crossed over once requires a concentration on the ghost to the point of obsession. Harry's mind is on the present." She licks her lips, and her eyes are the green of the forest after the rain. "You, on the other hand, think about me all the time."
She walks her fingers down the buttons of his nightshirt. The traitorous things pop open, one after the other.
"Stop it," he growls.
"But I'm so bored. I want to see you feel good. You don't know what it's like to be floating in the ether all the goddamn time and not be able to feel anything. To do anything."
By the time she's finished speaking, his nightshirt is undone, laying him bare to her phantasmic eyes. His cock is hard and heavy against his stomach. She gives a throaty giggle as she sinks down over him, her transparent form merging with his. The cold shock of her sets his own skin aflame, as the pinpricks of her unearthly magic snag the edges of his with kittenish claws. His hand is on his cock before he knows what he is about.
"That's right," she purrs. "Give yourself a nice rub for me."
"Succubus, indeed," he rasps. "Damn you."
Her form ripples as she laughs, dark and velvet as the night. His hand flies over his cock, shameless now for all his protestations. His breath comes in harsh pants, freezing into puffs of fog where it hits her. He can feel her vibrating through him, a tingling, ectoplasmic pleasure that builds at the base of his spine. All too soon, he comes, shooting thick white stripes over his stomach that seem to burn his skin in the places where her shade touches him.
"There, was that so hard?" she asks, her great green eyes devouring every last gasp of his pleasure.
It was filthy as the river that ran through Cokeworth. But, God, it had been so bloody long since he'd felt anything even pretending to be so good.
What a shame, it is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
"Why are you really here, Lily?" he says, his heart still racing. "What is it you want?"
She tilts her head, and a malevolent smile spreads across her lips. "I'm here to save Harry, of course. I gave my life for him. I won't see him die because Albus Dumbledore was too senile to think of a better way."
Ah. Now things began to make sense. "I don't see how you expect me to prevent his death."
"It's simple. I tell you what I know. You put that obscenely large...brain of yours to work. We come up with a new plan. In exchange, I give you enough pleasure to make a succubus blush."
He is a man drowning. He's been a man drowning for longer than he can remember. It is hardly surprising the last shreds of his dignity and pride break as she pulls him under.
He wets his lips, wondering how soon they can begin. "Perhaps I shall fail you."
"Not an option." Her ghostly fingers close around his neck--she knows she has already won. "Tell me, Severus, what do you know about Horcruxes?"