Chapter 4: Forgiveness and self-forgiveness

Benedict/Severus could feel his body and mind reacting more and more unconsciously to the darkness, to the anger.

He could even feel his growing irrational hatred of the mudblood associated with his abusive muggle father, he wanted to curl up in the darkness and let himself be carried away by it, maybe the power, the hate, the anger, and the revenge were all he needed to escape all these pent up feelings, this constant pain he always felt.

But now he also knew what awaited him down that path and it was not an option.

Severus would rather suffer hell than see the dead body of his beloved Lily.

Now he could also understand that his love for her was becoming an unhealthy obsession, and that was something toxic for him, no doubt his love for Lily Evans was pure and true, but little by little that love was turning into an obsession for her and this was leading him down a path of endless pain.

Now he could understand that he had to accept that love has to be mutual and if it's not, he has to let that person go and wish her the best, it's going to hurt a lot, that's for sure.

More knowing that that pig James Potter is her future husband supposedly.

Just thinking about that destroys him internally more and more, makes him want to go back to the darkness more than ever.

But he had to accept that it was Lily's decision, it's her life and if he really loves her, he will have to let her do what she wants in her life.

"Merlin, she already made her decision Severus"

"She did not forgive you"

"No matter how hard you tried to get her forgiveness, no matter how much you want to get back together with her, she decided to move on in her life"

"Now, it may anger me, frustrate me just to think that I deserve her forgiveness and I may even feel that she betrayed me by going off with my greatest enemy"

"But none of that erases the fact that I made the mistake of hurting her"

"Lily may have been wrong in many things just like me in our relationship"

"But I was the one who called her out on something that I know very well hurt her like never before"

"Now she has every right not to forgive me"

"Maybe she is hard and stubborn in her decision for me and it certainly bothers me that she can't forgive me after so many things we lived through, so many things I let her go through in order to stay with her and yes, it hurts the fact that she is going with that bastard Potter, but I love her and I will always love her so much"

"I always considered myself intelligent and strong enough to deal with these things and feelings in the right way"

"It's time to prove it!"

"I am more than an idiot in love!"

"Maybe I wasn't before, and I can admit that I made many mistakes and idiocies that cost me the person I loved the most"

"But now that I see and understand things from two perspectives and not only as Severus Snape, I can change and improve"

"Yeah, I can change and improve!"

"I'm not going to do it for Lily, she made clear her decision not to forgive me and I have to accept it, now I have to do it for myself, it's time to change my life for the better, I will continue loving and protecting Lily Evans, I will also wish her the best in her life, because I love her and surely I will never stop doing it"

"But just as she could continue her life without me, I have to do the same once and for all."

"I have to start over, take everything I learned and use it to move on, so many things to do in this magical world and I'm just suffering from unrequited love"

"Maybe Lily Evans won't forgive me"

"But that doesn't mean I can't forgive her"

"I now know what the future held for both me and Lily, and although I can't be 100% sure that my future would be as written in the fiction of my other life as Benedict Clarke, it is still a more than possible future because of how I was on track in life, so I have to take everything I know about that future as a reference and avoid following that path at all costs"

"It is time to change my supposed future and for that, I must let go of the past and focus on new things"

"No doubt I am disappointed, angry, irritated, sad and many things more with Lily and me, but even so, I can admit that I love her above all things and that is why I forgive her for everything, even though she does not need my forgiveness, nor ever know why I forgive her, I have to forgive her in my mind for everything because no doubt I am resentful, angry and hurt. "

"It may not make sense to others"

"But it does to me, there is a phrase I was fond of in my life as Benedict Clarke which was: {"Forgetting is something that time alone takes care of, but forgiveness is an act of will, and only he who suffers is qualified to make the decision"}; I am certainly suffering, for that very reason I forgive her and I forgive myself.

"It is time to put aside all those painful and sad feelings and forgive once and for all both her and myself for everything that happened, maybe in the future she will also forgive me, who knows"

"But for now I have to start by forgiving and forgiving myself"

"Another incredible phrase I read in my life as Benedict Clarke: {"Don't wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving; you'll never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the decision to forgive is made"}; that's why today I choose to forgive and let go of all the bitterness and hatred I hold towards others and myself, it's time to start as a new Severus and in time begin to heal and finally change my life."

A few minutes passed in which I suffered hell itself and I thought a lot about things, both my past and my future.

I managed to finally push away all those thoughts and unchained feelings that tormented me in my head and made me want to seek refuge in the darkness.

After having a long talk in his head and forgiving himself, Severus was already much better and was now lying all sweaty and agitated on his bed as he tried to regulate his breathing and calm down once and for all.

"Uffff, Meril, that was shitty"

"I got to feel that little by little I was consumed by despair, fear, hate, so many repressed feelings that didn't let me move forward in life"

"I don't understand how I hadn't gone mad yet, and to think that all this happened just for remembering the supposed date that Lily and James had agreed to have, besides what I saw after returning home from Hogwarts, Lily was next to James Potter in the square where she and I used to play as kids. Ever since I unthinkingly said mudblood to Lily, partly because of the marauders, she never spoke to me again, she never forgave me no matter what I did, it really hurt that and almost ended up plunging me into despair and darkness."

"But to see her now next to James Potter's pig, after more than half a year of trying and trying my hardest to get her to forgive me to no avail, it was like having my heart ripped out and spit it out like it was garbage, but I guess it's only logical that I felt that wayfinding the person I love the most in the world with the person I hate and loathe the most."

"Fuck, it's really sad story and a miserable life mine"

"No doubt I was never lucky in this life, the only good thing that happened to me was Lily Evans and maybe Lucius Malfoy which is very debatable"

"But even though life was not good to me, I always moved on, but I had never had a situation like the one I witnessed at Hogwarts and going back home, it hurt so much to see my dear Lily next to James Potter's bully talking so well in the place where she and I used to hang out when we were young before we went to Hogwarts"

"Plus James Potter was one of the biggest reasons why everything was ruined between Lily and me,"

The shitty situation Severus went through at that moment made him so angry that he vowed to make himself very powerful to never go through a situation like that again, he had never felt that scale of pain, the feelings and the intensity that was in each of them were a world apart from what Severus once lived, he felt useless, weak, alone, sad, a failure, and a thousand other things.

It was a feeling that the current Severus had never experienced in his life as Benedict Clarke, so he could not describe it as it was something completely new to him.

But now that he managed to forgive her and forgive himself, he could only move forward in his life and escape from that darkness and all those memories that tormented him so much.

Severus now knew that he was going to have to stay away from Lily for a good while, because she was a catalyst for his most intense/volatile memories and feelings, just thinking about seeing her now made him a little afraid.

He might love her even after the union of their two souls, but now he could understand that little by little she was becoming an obsession and a downfall in his daily life.

"As much as it costs me, I have to put an end to this obsession and go on my way," Severus said to himself with some fear on his face at the idea of actually meeting Lily Evans.

Now he understood completely what Death had wanted to tell him.

He was no longer Benedict Clarke, but he was not the young Severus Snape either.

He was a new person with the knowledge, experiences, and feelings of two different lives.

He was a new Severus and he would use all the knowledge in his power to move forward.

Two souls united in one, two lives that will be the beginning of a new Severus in this world.

"Luckily I was smart enough not to torture myself anymore, getting away from my home and Lily who was next to James, coming to The Leaky Cauldron and renting a room with my savings to stay away from my torments and refresh my mind," thought Severus proud of his good decision

Otherwise, who knows how he would have ended up being at home when all that darkness invaded him.

For Severus, his home was a constant reminder of his deceased parents.

"Now the first thing I have to do is plan what I'm going to do going forward, I have to take advantage of the knowledge I have from the books and movies of the Harry Potter world and use them to my advantage"

"But for that, I have to first understand the current situation I'm in."

"Mmmmm, if I remember correctly when the second half of the fifth year at Hogwarts began, James seemed to have lost quite a bit of interest in picking on me and making my life at Hogwarts a living hell."

"Probably because the Slytherin and I no longer had Lily Evans' attention"

"I always knew he liked her and that's why he focused on picking on me to get her attention."

"As much as I'd like to think that James Potter isn't going to cause me any more trouble now that Lily Evans isn't talking to me, I know he's going to continue to be a nuisance. Potter and his group of bullies would always ambush me every time my fellow Slytherin boys left me alone in the long, dark corridors of Hogwarts or even outside on the grounds. This is going to be a nuisance for years to come"

"But the marauders aren't my biggest concern, no, the most important thing right now is Voldemort and his followers, the death eaters."

"My housemates in Slytherin, especially the ones I tend to spend the most time with like Evan Rosier, Mulciber, Avery, the Lestranges, and Wilkes, were actively seeking to recruit me to join the ranks of the Dark Lord alongside them"

"It was an outcome that I was always trying to avoid at all costs at the time, not because I disagreed with Voldemort's ideas or the fact that I was a death eater,"

"But because I loved Lily too much and I knew that she would never accept me doing such a thing as joining the death eaters"

"She was a Muggleborn, so it would be a betrayal to her if I joined the blood purists who sought to kill the mudblood or Muggles"

"I had even gone so far for Lily as to turn down the Malfoy's invitation to their annual winter ball on my Christmas break so that at the end of the year all that happened would happen."

But now that Severus understands things better, he is truly grateful to Lily Evans from the bottom of his heart.

If it wasn't because he didn't want her to hate him, it's safe to say that he would have gone to that ball on Christmas break of his fifth year along with all the blood purists and death eaters, being closer than ever to being a death eater.

Severus always felt a deep respect and appreciation for his friend Lucius Malfoy,so when in his fifth year he received the personal invitation embossed with gold lettering stamped with the characteristic seal of the House of Malfoy.

Severus was extremely happy and ecstatic that he was being considered for the first time for something so important as far as the Pureblood inner circle was concerned, it was the first time he had been invited and included personally to go to an important meeting.

It was even the first time he had been invited to a meeting in his whole life.(Well the Slugorn club does not count for Severus)

Severus was too much of a loner and only used to get together with his friend Lily Evans to chat and play or else with some of his housemates who used to be with him because of his extraordinary skills in the dark arts or some others who used to ask him for help in different subjects.

There were also those who talked to him for convenience as he was known for producing, delivering and selling potions to his housemates.

But thanks to Malfoy that invitation changed everything, it was different, he had been personally invited for an important event of the purebloods, it was all a compliment for Severus as this meant that the inner circle of blood purists were recognizing his capabilities.

But sadly he could not accept at that time the invitation of his friend Lucius Malfoy, because Severus knew that if he did that it was safe to say that he was just one step away from being part of the death eaters and that Lily Evans would never forgive him, so he had to reluctantly refuse at that time.

Today Severus is thankful that he refused at that time, otherwise, he would now be in big trouble.