InsaneJournal

Title: Love Is Not A Victory March.
Characters: Severus Snape/Lily Evans-Potter, Barty Crouch, Jr./Severus Snape, Barty Crouch, Jr./James Potter, James Potter/Lily Evans-Potter, with implied Barty Crouch, Jr./Regulus Black and Barty Crouch, Jr./Anzhelina Dolohov
Rating: PG-13, for language, het and slash snogging, marital infidelity, general morbidity.
Summary: “I love you, Lils. I always have.”
Word Count: ~2,960.
Prompt: "dancing with the devil under the pale moonlight" from LJ's ~joss100
Warnings: Slash, snogging, language, generally questionable stuff.
Disclaimer: They're all JKR's kids and/or the kids of JKR's kids; I'm just playing with them. Inspired by, with several revisions to, blurred_lines canon and all characters are influenced by their portrayals there. There are too many mentioned to give everyone an individual shout-out, but: Severus is hafren's, Lily is bollywood's, James and Marius are cupcakecalamity's, Regulus is coeur_delanuit, Antonin is musify's, Crouch Senior is parisian's, and Anzhelina is plum's.
A/N: I continue to be a bad person. This continues to be news. Also, this is dedicated to hafren, as it is entirely her fault.

Although not notably warm, Severus is surely welcoming – how can he not be? This is Lily Evans, love of his life, and she’s crying to him for the first time in far too long; it’s almost like how things used to be, and of course the war is still raging beyond the borders of this cold and lonely house – because Spinner’s End is quite lonely, and, being February, it is more than often cold; it’s only Severus and Thea anymore, with the occasional visit from Barty or Demetrius; and because the war is still raging, and, no doubt, Marius Lestrange is off killing children and their mothers, just for being Muggleborn, or else for supporting the vigilante resistance or the still defiantly oppositional (despite the ostensible Death Eater overthrow) remnants of the old, problematic Ministry, before going home to Astra, to his doting, devoted wife (his wife who loved Severus more, loved everything except his blood) – Despite it all, despite everything Severus knows is happening outside this house, he has Lily, has her ginger hair beneath his long, thin fingers, has her face pressed against his neck and her arms around his shoulders. Maneuvering around her four-and-a-half-months-pregnant belly is awkward, to a small extent, but Severus can more than manage.

He has to manage; this is Lily.

“I should have known, Severus,” she chokes out in a sob, letting her betrayed tears fall freely from her eyes. “He was always so… I mean, that bravado, and that machismo, and that stupid, bloody swagger – and… and acting like such a goddamn arrogant toerag all the time! And – and Sirius! The two of them are practically joined at the hip – and, and James has slept in his, and Remus’s, and Pete’s beds – and, and I just feel so stupid, Severus! How could I have missed this?!”

“You missed it because you’re a good and trusting person, Lils,” Severus whispers softly, wrapping his free arm around her shoulders. “You loved him--” God, that tastes disgusting, even just to say it. “And… we never want to believe that the people we love could betray us like that.”

“If it were anyone else, Severus – anyone! If it were Agnes, I’d forgive him because she probably would’ve jumped him without thinking first. If it were Marlene, or Dorcas, or Hestia, or Beth, or Mary, or Jilly Macmillan – I might even have understood if it were Sirius or Pepper, because Sirius might as well be James’s twin and Pepper is Pepper! But… what, does he really expect me to believe that he didn’t initiate this? I mean, it was – I mean, Barty… he’s too innocent to initiate something like that, you know?”

“I know, Lils – I know. And, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I know things haven’t been perfect between us for a damn long time, but…” He pauses, not for actual need of one, but for the appearance of such. “…But, if you want, just know that you can come to me whenever you need to, or want to, or… anything. This is an utter rubbish situation, Lils, and you didn’t deserve to be treated so badly, or lied to for so long, or any of it…”

He trails off purposefully and, after a brief silence, she comes up from his neck and looks at him, her pale face glowing, despite her current state, so off-set by the tears hovering in her wide, beautiful (even when she’s crying and should, logically, be less than lovely) green eyes. Delicately, Severus tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and he finds himself rewarded with a deep, passionate kiss; the sort of kiss he’s always wanted, which he takes to quite gratefully. He knows it’s “wrong,” he knows she’s pregnant and she’s married and all the other things against them – but he loves her more than Potter ever could. And, besides, how else is there to comfort a woman who just found her husband, the father of her child, naked in bed with another bloke?

Barty isn’t fond of this, not in the slightest; since Regulus and Mother died, since he murdered Father and Grandfather to get custody of his brother, and since Antonin sent Anzhelina back to Russia for protection, Barty hates being dependent on anyone. He’s still staying at the Old Parsonage – after his accidental stunt with the Calming Draught back in November, Antonin won’t let him live anywhere else, not that he wants to; especially not with Aeschylus to raise, nor with Winky permitted to stay in Whiteparish so long as she keeps out of Antonin’s way, nor with the home in Hertfordshire feeling more a mausoleum than any sort of home – but he hates being so dependent on other people for support. Not even his friends – he knows that they do not see things the way that he does, but Demetrius has more than his fair share of idiotic moments and Aquila doesn’t understand – and of course it all makes sense, why Anzhelina had to leave; after the vigilantes attacked Evangeline and Leoben’s engagement party, it became abundantly clear that it was all too hard to keep the Pureblood ladies safe those wretches and their inability to hold anything sacred.

It’s a miracle, Barty thinks, that Chloris, Seph, Narcissa, and Mrs Nott did not miscarry, it was, indeed, that stressful, and it is, perhaps, another miracle that Corbina, Veronica, Astra, Jacqueline, and Evangeline have remained in England after Gertrude, Julianne, and Gaius’s sister all left for France and Anzhelina left for Moscow – despite the Dark Lord’s clear victory in December, when the Ministry came crashing down, the war still frenzies around them, and, more than ever, now would be a time to need someone, but that is that last thing that Barty wants to do. He lost the two people who meant the most, and the girl he loves was sent away, and he is both a brother and a father to his Aeschylus… He’s a Death Eater, one of the Dark Lord’s most faithful and, of his generation, one of the lucky few to be yet alive; needing anyone is weakness, and weakness is something he cannot afford.

But then he gets to Spinner’s End and that resolve just crumbles.

It isn’t right; he knows that much is true – not only should he be a better man, good enough to resist this when the one he loves cannot be with him, but he should know better than to engage in any deviant behavior; he is one of the last two living members of the House of Crouch, and that excludes being an abomination – but, in spite of everything, his attempts to resist continually prove futile, as they have since Severus wormed out just how much Regulus meant in Barty’s life. The way he brushed Barty’s hair – in his grief, it was getting to be rather long – off his face, the gentle way he asked, “Just how happy were you for Regulus and Julianne?” – Of course Barty lied, or else attempted to, but Severus refused to let him get away with it, chasing his evasions with, “You loved him, didn’t you?”

Such truth is still something that Barty would prefer not to acknowledge – he knew that Regulus never would have consented to anything, that hoping for positive advances was the foolish dream of an unreasonable adolescent; he knows more strongly that saying anything more than likely would have lost him his best friend – but with Regulus gone and more than likely dead, he had no such friend to lose by admitting to his very guilty secret. He could have lost Severus, he thinks in retrospect, but Severus was being so tender and Barty was hardly thinking clearly.

Severus comforted him that night, and then again for several more nights following it, until, finally, he said something to make Barty break completely: “We really aren’t so different, in this way, Barty. I lost someone who I loved dearly too.” – Hardly knowing what to think, Barty swallowed hard and kissed Severus the way he’d dreamt of kissing Regulus and Anzhelina – and, to his surprise, Severus made no motion against it.

Only when they separated did he speak out: “This can happen between us, Barty, but there’s something that you need to do first.”

Barty’s been working at this for nigh on two months now, and he’d rather planned to spend his birthday lonely and getting drunk, or else lonely and trying to work, but, instead, he finds himself going to Godric’s Hollow, to James and Lily Potter’s house, where he’s been a handful of times before, with a drunk façade on his face, and something on his mind other than murder and destruction.

James doesn’t understand this, not even a little. He doesn’t understand what this is, or where it came from, or why he keeps letting it happen, or any-fucking-thing about it, or … well, no. That isn’t all true. He understands why he keeps letting it happen because that answer, unlike the answers for all the other questions he’s tried to ask himself, is really bloody simple: he feels like shit for Barty. Life for that kid must fucking suck – not only did he have the misfortune to be suckered into Cupcake Fairy Feet Black’s best friend, but then the little punk went missing without a word; then Barty’s father (neglectful as he had to be, to have spawned a son so unused to the idea of people caring about him as Barty always seemed to be); then Barty’s mum died in labor; and then, like all of that hadn’t been enough, Barty’s grandfather died within a week of his mum. James, personally, has no idea how Barty’s still going, and he really can’t help but try to help the kid out. Pureblood Slytherin and best friend of the late Cupcake or not, Barty had never been a bad kid, that James had seen, and James always doubted that Barty had it in him to be bad.

…At least, he’d doubted that until the first time Barty kissed him – and even then! The kid was lonely, and confused, and James had honestly thought he was gay from the first time they’d ever dealt with one another – something that Sirius had corroborated in all but name and concrete evidence in discussing how close Barty and Regulus had been – but…

“Barty, I can’t,” James had explained, after that first time he’d found himself with Barty’s lips against his own. “I mean… I’m married. And Lily… she’s the love of my life.” And he nearly threw in, ‘And I don’t swing that way’ – but it was hard enough turning the kid down for decent reasons, like being married. He just looked so sad.

“Just… please?” Barty asked, one hand clinging to the collar of James’s jumper while his big, wibbly blue eyes fell downwards. “I’m sorry, I am, I am not usually so reckless – but… please, don’t tell anyone? If anyone found out, they… I could lose my brother too, and-”

His voice hitched and a soft, little sob came ghosting out, sounding really not unlike a kitten – a malnourished (because, really, Barty is absurdly skinny, even with Lily’s attempts to fix that up), orphaned kitten that had been kicked in the face one too many times. Comforting him seemed to work alright, and he never seemed to be contemplating kissing James again – things were a bit tense between them, to be sure, but James Oorion Matthew Potter is not the kind of person who just leaves the suffering by the wayside, regardless of their unfortunate taste in former friends. He’s been trying to help Barty out, help him see the light – he can’t leave Purist society, obviously, or he risks so much with his little brother (and really, his thoughts on Purist society aside, James can respect that), but having an Order operative on the inside could be useful, and Barty’s obviously skilled enough – he’s a Healer trainee, which will supplement Beth and Hestia nicely, and he got nine bloody Outstandings on his NEWTs, and he’s more than competent enough. The issues are selling him on the Order, and then selling the Order on him.

And then, tonight, he shows up unannounced, stinking like a pub, which is decidedly a smell that James never thought he’d smell on anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, always perfectly clean Barty Crouch, Junior. Naturally, James lets him in – it’s cold outside and, as he remembers, it’s Barty’s birthday; he can’t just leave the boy outside, regardless of how drunk he is; that’s even more of a reason to take him in, really; Merlin only knows what he could get into if left outside –

And then Barty kisses him again.

James knows he should protest, but: a. he’s tired, and b. he notices now that, past the pub smell, there’s some odd scent of cinnamon and lilac, one that’s always been associated with Lily. And his eyes are closed so, despite the four-inch difference in their heights, despite Barty’s obvious lack of curves, and despite the suspicious absence of Lily’s pregnant belly, the boy might as well be Lily.

James knows it’s wrong, and a loud part of his brain says to stop – but it’s Lily’s scent, and someone obviously taught Barty how to kiss like her, and – James can’t even think about this or his brain is going to fucking break. He’s not even aware of anything happening – he vaguely knows what’s going on, but not enough to stop anything; he knows that somehow, his shirt comes off and he ends up in bed, but everything’s just fuzzy until he hears the scream of –

“JAMES POTTER!”

He sits right up in bed, mouth agape, then Barty’s head and naked torso pop up – the blonde boy doesn’t hang around long, though. He and James still have their trousers on, which means that Barty can still grab his wand, which is how he summons his clothes and coat so easily before Apparating out with a pop.

James looks up at the empty space, staring, dumbfounded, at his angry, pregnant wife.

He knows full well that he can’t say anything to make this better.

Lily knows that the last place she should have gone right now is Spinner’s End; she knows that Severus is far from an unbiased party in this equation, and she knows that she’s risking so much by talking to her old friend – but who else can she go to? Her first thought was Marlene, until, too angry to Apparate out of her and James’s house, she tramped around Godric’s Hollow and nearly walked right into Marlene’s headstone. Agnes was right out for all the potential violence and nose breaking that could have ensued. Petunia patently did not want to see her sister, and all of the Marauders would have leapt to James’s defense – except, perhaps, Remus, who would be sensible, but would still try to find some way in which this was not James’s fault.

And it had to be James’s fault. Barty Crouch, Junior is too innocent and sweet to run around breaking up marriages – and, moreover, he’s lost too many people recently to go running into a relationship with someone he only knew before as a coworker and a source of aggravation for his dead best friend. It just makes no sense to think that he would try anything.

Lily knows that she shouldn’t do this, but Severus is being so sweet that she can’t help but kiss him. Then he kisses back, and he’s so gentle, so tender, so considerate of her needs in this kiss – and then he separates for breath and says:

“I love you, Lils. I always have.”

She kisses him again, this time without any reservations.

After the travesty with Potter, Barty first goes back to Whiteparish for a shower, but, once he’s clean and clothed, he goes back to Spinner’s End. The drunkenness, of course, was all a ploy – a ploy that, he’ll note, worked exceptionally well – and now he can get something new; something that, past Aloysius’s books, Pepper’s liquor, Antonin’s host of gifts, the presents from Demetrius, Corbina, Aquila, Marius and Astra, Narcissa, Aunt Chloris and Uncle Hephaestus, Seph and Prior, Aunts Margaret and Catherine, will be the greatest birthday present he could receive this year: Severus. He said they would be together. All Barty had to do was separate the Potters.

Barty Apparates outside the sitting room window, and immediately, he wishes that he’d gone anywhere else.

Severus, his Severus, is on the sofa, snogging Lily Potter, that vile, Mudblood bitch. First, she’d tried to kill Antonin in the attack on Hogwarts, now this – why can’t she be content with the fact that he’s suffered enough? Why can’t she just leave well enough alone? Why in the ever-expansive mind of Merlin does this woman want to take everything from him?

In the back of his mind, Barty hears Madame Lestrange’s harsh chastising: were she here, she’d first shriek about Severus’s blood and then about his and Barty’s status as abominations – but once she finished, she would shout and tell Barty to go in there and claim his prize. Make the Mudblood bitch suffer and steal Severus back by force…

…But then Severus speaks – “I love you, Lils,” he says; “I always have” – and Barty’s knees go completely weak. He turns around, leaning against the house as he sinks into the snow – how could he have let himself be so blind?

…But he was lonely, and depressed – and Severus was good to him – he doesn’t want to need people, but he so much does – and he hates the fact that he’s crying right now; he should be stronger, better, but… He kissed James Potter for Severus, and… and…

…Severus said they’d be together…