Chapter Seventeen

Severus watched as the pool of ink flowed from the end of his quill, growing larger and larger. The edges of the blot weaving like spider's webs across the parchment. He watched, but he didn't register it. His mind was preoccupied.

Preoccupied with Lily.

Lily. She was alive.

He should have been overjoyed. He was. In a way.

But he felt so betrayed. All these years spent fighting for the Order in her memory, and it had been a lie. She had been alive.

He shifted in the Headmaster's chair. In his chair. He felt like a fraud.

All this time he'd fought in the name of Lily, at least that's what he'd told himself, what he'd told Dumbledore, yet now he had her back and he was hiding away in the castle. She was pregnant with his child, for Merlin's sake! It was his dream to have Lily, to have a family with her, and though the setting might not be ideal, he had what he most desired and here he was behaving childishly. The war was on; who knew how long they might have left together?

Bringing his hand up to rub at the bridge of his nose in frustration, the back of his hand caught the bottle of ink, spilling it over the desk. He stared at the mess for a moment before registering what had happened.

"Crap." Grabbing at the bottle, he righted it. With a swish of his wand, he cleared the mess from the desk.

"It would seem," Phineas Nigellus' portrait said, "that our new Headmaster is a little distracted."

"I thought you were sleeping," Severus growled.

"It looks as if you have been. On your quill."

Severus' brow furrowed in confusion before he caught sight of his fingers, gripped tightly around his wand, stained with ink, dark blotches marring the wood as well.

He growled and flicked the stains away with his wand.

"Wonderful camouflage on your face too, Headmaster, but I would have thought, being such an almighty wizard and all, that you could have come up with something better."

Severus glanced in the mirror across the room and saw ink smeared across his nose where he'd touched it. He cleaned that away as well with an angry swish-and-flick. "Will you go away?"

"I thought you'd like to know I can see Potter, Weasley and the Mudblood again."

"Don't call her that!"

The portrait shrugged. "You know, for a Slytherin, you're turning soft." Severus bristled. Phineas' tone always made him want to reach into the former Headmaster's portrait and strangle him if he could.

"And you know I have a bottle of turpentine in my stores."

"That's not very nice."

"I'm not very nice. What are they doing?"

"Potter and the Weasley boy are asleep. The Mud...Granger is lying in her bed staring at the ceiling. Very productive."

"Is she...are they okay?"

"They would seem to be."

Severus bit his lip. "I want to talk to her."

"After threatening me with turps you think I'm going to relay messages for you?" the portrait said huffily.

"Tell me, Phineas, are you not bound to dutifully carry out any task the current Headmaster sets you?"

"Well...."

"And if I were to swear you to secrecy...."

Phineas perked up at this. "I think you could not even begin to believe what has transpired in this office, of untold secrets sealed within the sprawling fissures of my oil-painted canvas. My lips, sir, are figuratively, as well as literally, sealed." Phineas gave a low, sweeping bow. "I am at your bidding."

"Then get Hermione's attention. Tell her I want to talk to her."

Phineas disappeared for a moment before returning.

"Job done. May I retire, may I sleep now?"

Severus ignored him. "Tell her... tell her I understand. That I'm sorry." Severus paused, feeling ill at ease conveying his next message to Phineas. "That I love her."

Phineas raised one eyebrow. "I was wrong, you've not gone soft. You've gone mad! She's a Mud..."

"Just do it!" Severus barked.

Phineas looked sceptical, but he vanished from his frame again.

Severus waited nervously, fidgeting with his fingers. What if she didn't want him any more? He'd left her – walked out on her and their child.

After what seemed like an eternity, the arrogant ex-Headmaster returned.

"She's blubbering like a baby. She says she's sorry for everything. And," Phineas pulled a face like there was a distasteful smell in the air, "that she loves you, too."

Relief washed over Severus. She forgave him! He could have leapt from his seat and danced for joy if Phineas hadn't been watching. He felt so light, so ecstatic. Lily was his!

"Tell her no wonder she was such a know-it-all! And the bluebell flames..." Severus spoke with bubbling relief.

Phineas returned. "She says she wonders why you didn't figure it out earlier. She looks a little sheepish, and a little amused. And she wants to know what will happen now."

Severus welled inside. "Tell her we'll make it. That when this is all over we'll do this right. Tell her... tell her I want to marry her."

"You have to be joking," Phineas replied. "If you think I'm going to propose to some silly little Mud..."

"Do it!" Severus bellowed. Several other portraits opened their eyes at this, but after dozily looking around they nodded back off to sleep.

Phineas wasn't gone long. He sighed deeply on his return. "She said yes."

Severus grinned.

"I don't care what people say, you shouldn't do that. Smiling doesn't help at all."

"I don't know," a voice said from across the room and Severus looked up to find Albus' portrait looking back at him, a twinkle in his eye, "I think it suits him just fine."

*****

Lily's heart thumped loudly in her chest as she snuck into the Shrieking Shack with Ron and Harry. Memories of her last time here, her time with Severus, came flooding back, the feelings it brought overwhelming her. And now he'd asked her to marry him! But it wasn't all plain sailing – there was still a war on.

And when she saw Severus standing off with Voldemort between the small crack that allowed them to see into the room, fear set in.

"It cannot be any other way," said Voldemort. "I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."

Nagini's cage rolled through the air under Voldemort's power, encompassing Severus' head and shoulders, entrapping him with the serpent. Severus yelled out, the terror in his voice chilling Lily to the bone.

Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue, but Lily had no doubts as to what he had just commanded the snake to do.

"Kill!"

Lily let out a silent, strangled scream. She was trapped, helpless to help him, hidden in the shadows of the tunnel from the Whomping Willow, squashed behind Harry and Ron. She tried to shove Harry out of the way, tried to force her way passed to go to Severus, but Harry, stronger than her and so engrossed in the scene, didn't budge. Lily had no choice but to simply stand there and watch as Severus, the love of her life, slowly drained of life.

"I regret it," Voldemort said coldly. Lily saw his face as he turned to leave; no remorse, no sadness. The cage lifted from around Severus and Voldemort swept from the room, the great serpent floating after him in its protective sphere.

Lily saw Severus' foot tremble. She shoved at Harry, trying to get past him to help, but Harry seemed frozen to the spot.

"Harry!" Lily breathed from behind him, but Harry had finally begun to move. He pointed his wand at the crate that blocked the doorway and lifted it out of the way. Lily had to wait for first Harry and then Ron to clamber into the room before she could get in there.

And what she saw the moment she entered the room froze her in her steps. Snape's face was white, his bloodied fingers held the serpent key, the key to their secret chamber under the lake. He clutched at the front of Harry's robes. Lily watched as he pulled Harry down closer and, with the last of his strength, tried to pass him the key.

The most terrible rasping noise gurgled from Snape's throat. "Take... it... Take ...it...."

Lily saw the silvery wisps of Severus' memories gushing from his mouth, his eyes, his ears. In a panic, Lily conjured up a flask, shoving it at Harry.

"Look... at... me," Severus whispered to Harry.

And Lily saw his eyes empty of life, become the black, empty pools she'd seen when he'd become a Death Eater. He was gone. The key, its chain entwined in his limp fist, thumped tonelessly against the wooden floor.

She couldn't cry. She couldn't do anything. She was completely numb.

Time passed, she had no idea how much.

Voldemort's voice broke through the silence. "You have fought," said the high, cold voice, "valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery."

Lily heard as he taunted Harry, taunted him with the deaths of his friends, with more of them to die if Harry didn't meet Voldemort's demands.

Lily's eyes bulged, and she shook her head frantically at Harry.

"Don't listen to him," said Ron.

"It'll be all right," Lily pleaded desperately. She couldn't let him go off on his own to face Voldemort, not after all these years. "Let's – let's get back to the castle, if he's gone to the Forest we'll need to think of a new plan–"

Lily gave Severus' body one last look. He was gone. She might as well have been. But for now, she needed to worry about Harry. She owed Severus that much; he'd sacrificed his own life to save her nephew.

****

Lily frantically searched through the castle. Harry had gone! One moment he was there in the Great Hall with everyone else, the next he'd vanished.

"Neville!" Lily cried, grabbing the boy by his arms. "Have you seen Harry?"

"Well, yeah. He said the oddest thing. He told me if you and Ron were busy I had to kill the snake."

Lily's mind raced. That could only mean one thing – Harry wasn't planning on returning to defeat Nagini himself.

"Where was he when you saw him?"

"Out in the grounds. Why?"

"I saw him coming out of the Dumbledore's... Snape's office a while ago," Luna piped up from behind Neville.

Lily bit her lip. Then, without a word, she scurried off to the Headmaster's office.

She stood before the stone gargoyle. What would the password be? Why hadn't she asked Severus...before?

Then it hit her. "James Potter is an arrogant toerag."

The gargoyle slid aside and Lily belted up the spiral staircase.

She wasn't surprised to see the silvery liquid swirling in the Pensieve on the desk. Without a second thought, she shoved her face into the contents.

Scene after scene from Severus' memories flashed by. In any other circumstances Lily would have enjoyed watching them as children, but she was searching for something. A clue as to why Harry would run off on his own.

Finally, her question was answered.

Dumbledore took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Tell him that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort's soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in the collapsing building. Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry, and it is that which give him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with Lord Voldemort's mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to, and protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die."

"So the boy... the boy must die?" Snape asked, calmly. Too calmly.

"And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential."

Severus was silent for a long time. "I thought...all these years... that we were protecting him for her. For Lily."

"We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strength. Meanwhile, the connection between them grows ever stronger, a parasitic growth: sometimes I have thought he suspects it himself. If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will, truly, mean the end of Voldemort."

Lily pulled herself out of the Pensieve. She'd heard enough. She couldn't go with Harry, she would be of no use to him.

He would die.

Severus was dead.

Severus.

Finally the grief hit her. Her Severus was dead.

She barely remembered the journey back to the Shrieking Shack.

His body lay on the dusty wooden floor, pale and lifeless, his dark eyes now completely empty.

She fell to the ground next to him, pressed her head against his silent chest and wept.

She couldn't leave him here, leave him in the dust. Summoning all her strength she rose to her feet and levitated his body out of the Shrieking Shack.

As she came out from under the Whomping Willow her foot connected with a dull thud against something bulky lying in the grass. Looking down she found Ronald Weasley, staring up at the night sky with the same empty look as Severus' eyes held.

"No!" she screamed. Not Ron as well!

She fell to her knees again. Harry was sacrificing himself. Ron was dead. Her Severus was dead. There was nothing left.

Without her concentration, Severus' body drifted down to the earth beside Ron.

Her heart hurt so much she couldn't cry, she could do nothing but stare at the two of them, to try and wish away this nightmare. But it was all too real. Their faces were both ashen. They were gone.

Finally, she began to weep. Great sobs racked through her entire body, right to her core.

In the distance, in what seemed another lifetime, she could hear the commotion in the forest. Harry and Voldemort. She tried to block it out; she couldn't listen to her nephew die as well.

"Why?!" she screamed. "All of you, it's your fault!" she bellowed at their bodies. "So bloody selfish! Ronald, you should never have come back – you're just a kid! You should have stayed with your parents... nobody asked you to do this, nobody expected you to!" She hit the ground next to him with her fist in frustration, not feeling the pain. "And Severus – an entire life spent spying for one side or another...and this is the thanks you get. Lies upon lies and betrayal upon betrayal!"

Tears spilled down her cheeks as she cradled Severus head in her lap, stroking his hair. "I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you." She ran her fingers over the cooling skin of his forehead. "I'd do anything to be able to tell you that, anything."

The air around Lily crackled with electricity. The quiver of magic in the air knocked her from her sorrow. Tiny lightening bolts glimmered in the air, then seemingly of it's own accord, as if possessed, her wand arm lifted. Incantation after incantation flowed from her lips, and at first Lily didn't recognise them. Then, a memory of years ago, a memory from Dumbledore's office. A memory of becoming Hermione.

All the spells hit Severus in his chest, each one jolting his body as if he'd electrocuted. Each blue bolt darted across his body, down his right arm to spark at his fingertips.

A silver glint caught Lily's eye in between the bursts of light. The Slytherin serpent key was still clutched in his hand.

Before Lily's eyes, Severus body shimmered. His nose began to shrink, his hair grew coarser. Lily moved back a step, frightened. It was then she saw Ron's body fill with light. As she watched on it began to wilt, his limbs curling up, his body became more and more opaque. Finally, it melted away into the ground.

Lily reached out to touch the earth where he had lain, but felt nothing but damp soil.

"No, no, no!" she said, shaking her head in horror. She didn't know what was happening, she'd never even read about anything like this.

A horrible gurgling noise came from Severus, and Lily's eyes shot back to him. His hair was becoming lighter, his body filling out a little....

He no longer looked like Severus. Now a rasping Ronald Weasley lay in his place, his body jerking. Suddenly he sat bolt upright, his eyes wide open, staring up in terror.

"Sev....Severus?" Lily asked cautiously.

"Lily." His voice came out in a gravelly rasp. He collapsed back onto the ground, gasping for breath.

"Severus!" she cried out, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tightly, so tightly in case he should disappear again. She couldn't say how long she lay there for, refusing to let go. She listened to his chest as his breathing became easier, as his heart slowed to a normal pace.

"Am I alive?"

His voice was barely more than a whisper, but it reverberated through his chest into Lily's ears.

"Yes," Lily said, sitting up to look at him. Her eyes were filled with tears, but there was a smile on her lips. "Yes, Severus, you're alive."

He struggled to sit up, and with Lily's help, he finally made it. Confusion furrowed his brow.

"What's wrong?" Lily asked desperately.

"Something feels...different."

Lily could have laughed out loud if she hadn't been crying so hard with happiness at his return. Unable to form any more words, so choked up with emotion, she conjured up a mirror and held it before his face.

Severus looked at his image, tilting his head from side to side. "As much as I appreciate you saving my life," Severus spoke, his still raspy voice held a hint of amusement, "couldn't you have chosen someone other than a Weasley?"

Lily tried to laugh, but her eyes drifted back to where Ron's body had vanished. "I shouldn't have been so hard on him – he was just a kid."

"So were we, Lily," Severus said quietly, his hand taking hers.

Lily turned back to him. "I..." She choked on the words, unable to get them out.

"I love you," Severus told her, his eyes meeting hers.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. "I love you too, Severus. Always."

____________________________________________

AN: Huge hugs and thanks to my most wonderful beta! Just the epilogue to go, hun, and then we're done :D

Disclaimer: I nicked bits of this chapter directly from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. No infringement intended, just wanted to have some fun :D