As lonely as the castle of Hogwarts had been for Severus, the warm, friendly atmosphere of the headmaster's office painted his isolation a brilliant white: a bright, sharp, painful contrast cutting into his well-manicured blackness and swelling his insomnia with that sick, stubbed feeling depression brings to the stomach of a body with an overly stressed mind. He had told himself last night was the last time, but nevertheless he walked over to the cabinet housing the pensieve, carried it to his new desk, and filled it with a memory easily found below his dirty, black hair.

He had learned the power of re-experiencing memories years ago, when Dumbledore first gave him the device to review graduate sessions. Back then he simply watched conversations, but this time as he drove out of his office into the white, starry substance not quite liquid and not quite gas, he was reminded of that quiet, dirty guilt he'd get as a boy the first few times he'd sneak away to his tiny, basement bathroom and sheepishly lock the door.

His feet landed on the hardwood of his father's family's summer home, a simple cottage time-share empty now in the winter off-season. He saw himself, much younger, placing vials of amortentina over candles here and there about the small bedroom. The older Snape moved to a corner, nearly as nervous as his younger self, and the two cleared their throats in unison. The water-closet door clicked: her bath was over.

She walked out of the bathroom with a calm that only enflamed Snape's nervousness, wrapped in one towel just wide enough to reach from her chest to her thigh and unfolding another, smaller one. "Severus, should I read into this?" She pointed to a vial as she dried her hair. "This might explain why I was dumb enough to come here with you."

"No, Lily. I think amortentina's a bit like aroma therapy, in a way. A few vials can really set the proper atmosphere."

"And what do you smell, Severus?"

He laughed. "Honestly, I smell what I used to make it. You?"

Lily laid the smaller towel down and sat on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs in a silly presentation of selective modesty. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

"I suppose not." He walked over and sat to her right, reaching over to the dresser to his wand. "If you don't mind, then?" he asked, as he flicked his wrist and moved each candle away from the vials. "So," he asked as he moved her hair around to one side so it lay down her chest and began slowly rubbing her shoulders, "have a nice bath?"

Lily had shut her eyes as she swayed slightly under Snape's touch. "Oh, it was okay. A bath is a bath." He words were suddenly drawn-out, more breath than speech. "That's not fair," she said as he rubbed his thumbs in circles up the small of her back. "You're too good with your hands."

He put his hands back on her shoulders and pulled her back slightly, so his breath fell onto the side of her neck. Moving his thumbs slowly, he squeezed with his palms and kissed her under her ear. As though her tiny moan were an invitation, he mustered to courage to reach to her chin, turn her head to his, and kiss her. It was a slow, shocked kiss, hungry and allowing. Her arms came to life and found the back of his head, his chest, the part in his robe. As she turned her shoulders to face him, things sped up and the two lied back together.

This was to be a tender trist. Snape helped Lily crawl further up the bed and set himself gently on top of her, put his hand on the side of her face, and kissed her again. He stopped and looked at her for a second, dizzy from joy and confused as to what exactly to do now. She took the chance to say, half-heartedly, "This is wrong, Severus."

"I know," he said, forcing, "it's not too late to stop." She shook her head and pulled him back down to her. Their hands were now greedy and their mouths irrational; Lily's tuck and Snape's knot could not keep up. Snape threw both her towel and his robe off the bed and gave his hand a more defined purpose, Lily opened her mouth and moved her head to the side, pushing her hips up against him.

She reached and grabbed his hand. "Now," she said, and things slowed into a desperate passion. They moved together with warm need, knowing this was all they were to have. Their eyes locked briefly through the menagerie of breath, heat, and finality. But this memory was having the opposite effect.

The tiny, traditional bedroom became an orange-red glow in the distance as Hogwarts rushed up under Snape's feet. He bottled the memory and kicked his chair over in a tiny fury waking the portraits on the walls. "Go back to sleep," he said, and with shame for his cracking voice he hurried to his quarters.