Companion side story one shot to Confluence of Truths (which has been thoroughly re-written - please check it out!), and although no major plot points will be spoiled, would be best understood and enjoyed alongside it.

Hope you enjoy xx

He lied on the bed and stared up at the cracks in the ceiling, the paint peeling away in flakes, his gaze now running over the dusty spiderwebs in the corners. He closed his eyes and brought the cigarette he held between his fingers to his lips, took a long drag, and felt the smoke fill his lungs. He held it there until it was uncomfortable, then slowly, slowly breathed it out.

It was not like him to smoke - it had only ever been an occasional habit - but that did not seem to matter much, right now. What did it matter that he did not even enjoy it, that it was only to give him something to do, when he did not feel like himself anyway. He did not feel like anyone. He was an empty shell, flat on his back and with no reason to lift his head from the pillow, no meaning, no purpose - nothing.

He opened his eyes. He took the butt and snubbed it out in the nearly full ashtray on his bedside table. He fleetingly thought that perhaps he should empty it, but there was no bin in this room, and he wasn't really too certain where his wand was right at this moment. He had needed a break from magic, a break from himself, for a little while. He pulled a fresh cigarette out of an open packet which lay among the bed-sheets, found the lighter on the table, and brought the two together with something akin to muscle memory. He watched the white paper turn orange, then brought it to his lips and placed the lighter back upon the table. He closed his eyes again.

It was mid-afternoon, he supposed, and dark outside already. He had thought about getting lunch a few hours ago, but time kept crawling forward and he was no closer to getting up from the bed than before. He breathed in again, deeply, then out again, slowly.

A few hours ago, he'd placed a turntable he'd found in the house on the dresser at the foot of the bed, and put a record on. He couldn't remember what it had been - he couldn't even remember there being music. The record was spinning aimlessly, now, giving off a white noise that was equal parts pleasant and irritating. Now that he had noticed it, it was getting hard to ignore, but at the same time, he did not want to turn it off. He could not be bothered to move. More than that, he had become afraid of the silence.

Silence. Inevitable, really, when alone. And he had not been truly alone - not had the chance to - for quite some time. In fact, he could not remember the last time he had been at a loose end. It was the reason why he was here, of all places. He had told his mother offhandedly that he would come at some point to ensure the house would not be considered abandoned, but what he had originally planned to be a visit of an hour or two had turned into several days. It would have almost been funny, if he had not felt so hollow inside - the natural order of things had certainly been turned on its head if he had come to Spinner's End for refuge.

His mother might have been worried where he was, he thought with a small pang of guilt, but she would not come seeking him here. And he could not bear returning to the holiday cheer of the castle, nor to the watchful eye of Albus. The Headmaster, who had taught Severus to exercise such strict control on his mind, could surely see that Severus was imploding. Severus had somehow been able to hold on to his mind the month and a half since it had happened, been able to keep himself together enough to continue teaching classes, but only barely. As soon as the students had left, so did he, and here he was now. It was pathetic how quickly he had lost control, once he decided to let go.

Lying here on his back, he felt that life had truly come to a standstill. He saw no purpose, none at all, to continuing along this miserable path. He did not enjoy teaching, and he saw it now for what it was, how he should have seen it this entire time - a way for Albus to keep an eye on him. It was stifling. He felt the Headmaster's presence everywhere, looking upon him with anger, shame, disgust. And he could hardly face his mother - he had not seen her for weeks. She, perhaps, would not even notice he was gone. Her joy - everyone's joy - in the aftermath felt obscene. He felt nothing but despair. How could everyone go on, as though the world had not lost its light, that it was not an entirely bleaker place than six weeks earlier? The Dark Lord was gone, but so was Lily.

Lily was dead. Lily. Her name was a red hot coal in his stomach that caused unbearable pain, as though he might be sick, then became a hot flush rising to his forehead, then a cold sweat. Over the past few days, he had wavered between trying to forget - to not allow himself to even think of her - and then letting the grief overwhelm him, his anguish a burning fire in his bones. He allowed himself to feel an agony previously unimaginable to him, to sink into the deepest depths of misery, because he so thoroughly deserved it.

He had loved her, truly. When Cokeworth had been his life - when the four walls of this bedroom had been his sad reality - she had been his only friend. In fact, she was perhaps the only true friend he had ever had, even during his years as a student the only one who did not expect anything from him in return. And then she had grown into a beautiful woman, admired by all, intelligent, kind. He had never met anyone like her. She, who could see something worthwhile in him. He didn't think, whatever it had been, that it was there anymore.

He had desperately tried to convince the Dark Lord to spare her. If she had remained alive, there would have been hope, hope that she would have realized what an arrogant fool James Potter was, that somehow, maybe... But she had been out of reach for quite some time. He had known, in his heart of hearts, that it had been over since the word Mudblood had spilled from his lips. He had loved her undeniably, yes, but the real tragedy was that beautiful, kind Lily Evans was gone from this world, extinguished like a flame, and it had been entirely, utterly, his fault.

It was senseless, meaningless, this murder. He would have given his life for hers, if the Dark Lord had asked for it. But that was not how his master worked. There was only ever a target, and those who stood in his way. Severus found himself wishing he could have traded places with James Potter, wished it had been he who had wed Lily, who had had a son with her, their romance surely blissful, wonderful, however short. He wished it had been he who had laid down his life to protect her, now beside her forever more. To have been the object of her love, even so briefly, would have been worth giving his life for. It would have been worth anything.

With a flash of bitterness, he felt the Dark Lord deserved his fate, the shame of being defeated by an infant. Something had gone wrong, either when the Dark Lord pointed his wand at Lily or at her son, something that he didn't understand. But it didn't really matter what had happened, did it? The end result was the same. Lily was dead, never to smile, never to laugh - not ever, ever again.

However, another name did grip at his stomach, occasionally circle in his mind. Sirius Black. Severus ground his teeth before taking a drag on the cigarette once more. He opened his eyes, tapped the cigarette over the ashtray, and closed his eyes again. It was public knowledge that Black had betrayed the Potters, handed their location to the Dark Lord. Severus thought bitterly upon the so-called Gryffindor values of bravery and chivalry that Black supposedly possessed, and could only assume that he had been overtaken by the pure-blood fanaticism that was so characteristic of his family. Potter had been a fool to trust him. The apple does not fall far from the tree, does it?

The fault of Lily's death could almost be split three ways. Severus had made her a target. Black had betrayed her location. The Dark Lord had issued the Killing Curse.

Split three ways, he thought to himself. You are a fool. None of this would have happened if he hadn't run to the Dark Lord, trying to earn his favor by giving him the contents of the prophecy. The blame was squarely, unequivocally, upon him, and he did not deserve to pretend otherwise, to gain what little relief he could from the thought.

And what now? Albus had said that his way forward was clear. But Severus could not imagine any way forward, any future, and certainly not one where the Dark Lord would return as Albus believed. He took another deep drag of the cigarette. Why had he promised Albus that he would protect the boy? What did it really matter to him, if Lily's son lived or died, in the grand scheme of things? On one hand, it was the absolute least he could do. It was his own fault that Lily's son had been deprived of her, that he would never know her. On the other, it was too late. Lily was gone. She had already died in vain.

In any case, it was mirthless, snobbish Petunia who was the boy's guardian now, her name filling him with loathing. She would be his guardian for the next ten or so years, after which the boy would begin his education at Hogwarts. Severus could not imagine that expanse of time. It felt like it had all ended six weeks ago, on that night, and that he himself was of no more substance than a ghost.

That night. The thought froze him, as though ice water had been poured down his chest. It was too painful to think of, and yet his control was gone, images now flashing through his mind - Albus, telling him that it had happened, that he only had minutes before Hagrid arrived. Minutes to say goodbye, when he still did not quite grasp, could not reconcile, even after months of waiting for the inevitable... Standing at the threshold of the shattered house, walking through the door, up the stairs. Then Lily, dead on the floor, as if she was simply another piece of debris, because of him. Because of what he had done. Her lifeless eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life. No, he had to stop - he could not allow himself to think on it any longer...

He opened his own eyes, trying to remove the image from his mind. His hand had become numb from the angle he'd held the cigarette, and it shook as he extinguished this one as he had the last, snubbing it out forcefully, trying to redirect his thoughts to something, anything else. He was immediately tempted to have another cigarette, but no, he would need enough to last him the night, and he was getting through them at an alarming rate.

He ran his hands over his face, through his hair, and felt disgusted with himself. He was a grown man lying in his childhood bed, trapped there by his own mind, a loathsome individual compared to the person he had been as a young boy. Oh, to turn back time, to do it all over again. He would do everything, everything differently.

The time passed, his mind an ouroboros, a serpent eating its own tail, all-consuming yet never ending. The names repeated themselves in his head. Lily. Albus. The Dark Lord. Black. Petunia. The boy. Lily. His insides churned.

After some time, he realized that his stomach was roiling with hunger as well as loathing. When he could no longer ignore it, Severus took a deep breath and sat up, listening to the creak of the metal frame, watching as some ash which had fallen onto his shirt from before now dropped into his lap. He would clean it up later.

He stood up, his head light and prickling, before walking over to the turntable and switching it off. The ensuing silence was unbearable. He left the room and walked down the stairs, bending his head forward so he would not knock it against the low ceiling.

Severus put on his shoes, his thick black scarf, and his black woolen coat, finding his wand in its deep front pocket. He must have left it there the last time he went out.

I must be out of my mind, he thought. He really was losing touch, to be treating his wand so carelessly. He had never done that before.

He walked out the door, locking it behind him before looking up and down the deserted street. There was a single, sad strand of Christmas lights around one door, further down the street, but there was no other attempt at festivity. It did not feel like it had any place here.

He took the familiar footpath towards the end of the street, along a metal fence, then down along the ditch. The cold was dry, biting at him, and he placed his hands in his coat pockets to keep them warm. He eventually reached a tall hedge where the path forked, and he continued along the hedge, to the right, where he passed a playground.

It was empty, the metal frames rusted, the seat of one swing broken and hanging by a single chain. He continued along the path littered with broken glass bottles and plastic bags. Had it been like this when he was young, when he and Lily had played here together? Had he simply been unobservant, blithely distracted from the hideousness around him? Or had it really been better back then, the world and everything in it only becoming unbearably worse and worse as the years moved forward?

The path led him through the park and to the road, across which sat the chippy, its lit sign the same as when he was a boy, though fainter and darkened with time. He entered, the bell just inside tinkling loudly.

A few minutes later he left, carrying a hot bundle in his hands. He walked back through the park and took the other path at the fork, not wanting to go back to the house just yet, and followed the ditch until it reached a narrow canal. Finding nowhere else, he sat down on the edge of the canal as he had done when he was younger, although never in this freezing cold, never this dark outside. He suddenly wished he'd thought to bring a cigarette with him, knowing that it would not be long before his thoughts began gnawing at him again.

He opened the parcel, regretting that he had forgotten the extra salt and vinegar, and began to eat the soggy chips and the mushy fish. The hot oil rushed into his mouth with every bite and sat uneasily in his stomach. He was only partway through when he realized he did not feel hungry any longer. He wrapped the newspaper back around the greasy mess, his thighs numb from the heat emanating from it. Perhaps he would finish it later.

It was a disappointment, but so too had been the kebab, the curry, the Chinese takeaway, the beans on toast that had tasted faintly metallic. There was no solace in any of it, no comfort to be found in the salt and the oil and the ugly little throwaway boxes they came in.

Severus stared down into the filthy brown canal, wondering with despair who could ever want to live in a place like this, wondering if he should throw his dinner into the already polluted water and be done with it, wondering if he should perhaps throw himself in, sink to the bottom and lie there a while. It could not make anything any worse.

He closed his eyes. He had considered going to Albus, falling to his knees and begging the Headmaster to Obliviate him, remove the memories he had of Lily, of the prophecy, perhaps of everything he'd ever known. Let him be a blank slate, start over again. But Albus would never do it - surely, he felt that Severus deserved this suffering, this painful lesson.

He had wondered how much it would cost to ask someone else to do it. There must be witches and wizards who would do that sort of thing, for the right price. He probably knew some of them personally. But could he ever trust being at the end of another wizard's wand, completely at their mercy? He doubted it.

There were potions he could make to do the trick, yes, but they were volatile, difficult to use, best if he truly wanted every scrap of himself obliterated - which did not seem so bad, right now. He simply could not continue on like this. There must be something he could do, take, to forget the shame, the guilt, the pain.

He looked back down into the canal, his back hunched, his feet hanging just above the water, his legs frozen to the bricks where he sat.

"Severus?" asked a breathless voice from behind him.

He sat up straight, stunned, his head turning to look. "Mum," he said, in disbelief, looking up at her white face, her black eyes drawn taut with worry. She looked so out of place standing there in her bright, royal blue winter coat over her black robes. She seemed as shocked as he was. Surely, she would not have come back, not here.

He placed the parcel containing his dinner to his side, fumbling to pull his wand out from his pocket. He cast Cave inimucum around them, ensuring that no one would notice they were there.

She stepped towards him quickly, her eyes flitting over him as though to check that he was okay, that no disaster had befallen him. Her mouth was turned down at the corners. "I've been looking for you," she admonished, now standing over him.

"How...?" He did not finish. How could she be here?

"There are only so many places you could have been, my love," she chided, "and I know you." He looked down into the canal, feeling like a child who had been caught in a lie, and she followed his gaze before gently lowering herself to sit down beside him, her feet too only just hanging above the surface of the water. He placed his wand back into his pocket. She looked upon him once more. "I knocked on the door, and you didn't answer. I thought I'd go for a walk, just in case."

"You should have sent an owl," he replied, feebly.

"I didn't want to send an owl," she said, calmly. "I wanted to speak to you."

But then they both sat silently, as though afraid to begin again. His mind was blank, empty, and he could not remember what he had been thinking of only moments ago. She did not know where to start. She noticed the bags under his eyes, his greasy, lank hair, his yellowed skin.

"Aren't you cold?" she asked, at length, noticing his reddened nose. He shook his head. She looked down at the oily bundle beside him. "Late lunch?"

"Early dinner," he replied, emotionless, his eyes upon the bank opposite. A group of children cycled past them, chattering loudly as they went by and then disappearing in the direction of the playground.

"Can I have a chip, then?" she asked.

"Have it all," he said, handing it to her and placing his hands back into his pockets.

She unwrapped the parcel, pulled out several lukewarm chips, ate them one by one, and folded the newspaper back up, placing it to the side. "Not the best I've ever had," she mumbled, wiping her mouth.

"It never was any good," he replied, the silence again heavy between them.

She pursed her lips. "You smell like cigarettes, Severus," she said quietly, her face turned to his, her eyes still flitting over him. "You know I don't like that."

He did not reply, and simply lowered his eyes further.

"What is this about, then?" she prodded, softly. She began to shiver as she grew cold, their breath visible in the frigid air, the streetlamp above them flickering and then staying on. She looked around them once more, and asked, "Is this about Lily Evans?"

Lily's name from his mother's lips startled him perhaps more than her appearance here had. His eyes found hers but he quickly looked away, afraid his gaze would reveal too much. It had become second nature to avoid eye contact when he was feeling vulnerable, as Albus had taught him, though he knew he had nothing to fear from her. She, however, knew now that her suspicion had been right all along.

She clutched her son's arm, just below his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Severus," she said mournfully, her voice full of emotion. "I know she had been a true friend to you. She was a lovely girl."

He hated the past tense, the acknowledgement that there would no longer be Lily - there only ever had been Lily. That she had been his friend. It made him feel sick to his stomach.

After a few moments, she murmured, "I understand the need to mourn, Severus, but why here? Why did you not let me know you were coming here?"

He could only shake his head, his lips pulled thin, almost in anger, his eyes still avoiding hers.

"What is it?" she asked, her hand still on his arm, knowing that something deeper was wrong, and knowing that he would not answer unless pushed.

Again, he shook his head.

Her voice was soft, low. "We have been through a lot, you and I." He felt a pang of guilt in his stomach. She paused. "You know that you can tell me anything."

Severus's thin face turned towards hers, taking in how plaintive and uncertain she looked. He hated what he was doing to her, making her worry. He was despicable, selfish. He took a small breath, but no, he could not speak, and he looked away again.

"Severus," she whispered, "why won't you tell me?"

She now noticed a tear trickling down his cheek, and then another. He could not stop them, could not remember the last time he had cried, and sat there, breathing in and out through his mouth as hot tears sped down his cheeks. He felt so empty.

"You-Know-Who is gone," she offered, unsure what to say. "Perhaps there is relief for you to find, in that."

He, imperceptibly, shook his head. No, he could not refute her, tell her Albus's suspicions, that the Dark Lord was not really gone. It would ruin her.

"There was nothing you could do, Severus," she said, gripping his arm with force. "Nothing any of us can do now except, perhaps, be thankful that her son..." she trailed off at the expression on his face. He looked as though she had slapped him.

He seemed broken, almost crazed. It had become too much. "You don't understand," he gasped suddenly, his pain almost tangible. It sounded like someone else's voice.

She froze, her eyes darting over his. "Understand?"

His bottom lip trembled. "It's all..." He gasped again. "All - my - fault," he whispered through gritted teeth, speaking towards the water.

"Your fault?" She paled, and he looked out of the corner of his eye, watching her breath as it met the cold air. "How? How could it be?"

He took a deep breath, stricken with anguish, his eyes large and clouded. "There - there was - was a prophecy," he began. He stopped, as though he had lost the nerve, before continuing. "I overheard - I told The - You-Know-Who." Her mouth hung open. "When you were - away. Before I - before Albus," he whimpered. She struggled to string everything together, to understand the full meaning of his stilted words. "The - You-Know-Who - he thought it meant the Potters - their son - it said he would defeat him. Their son could defeat him." He sounded as though he was being strangled. She shook her head, as though she refused to believe it. Tears continued to roll down his cheek. Every word was pain, but he no longer cared if she knew, what she thought, as long as she could share the burden of this unbearable secret with him. "I begged him - he didn't care. He didn't care," he repeated, his eyes closed, his body slumped over further than before. They both were shivering now, from cold, from shock.

Her throat felt tight and her heart raced, understanding and despair washing over her. He was so young, to have suffered this kind of pain, to have made a mistake this serious. There were tears in her eyes, and her hand moved to his forearm, trying to comfort him. "You c-couldn't have known," she said softly. "You d-didn't mean for this to happen-"

"It doesn't matter what I knew - what I intended," he gasped, opening his eyes. "She is - dead - because of me." He looked horror stricken, to have said the words aloud. His arm shook under her touch.

"Oh, Severus," she whispered, her voice imploring him to listen, "of c-course it matters-"

"I gave him the reason to do it," he choked, refuting her.

"It matters that you t-tried - that you d-didn't want-"

"It made no difference." He looked as though he would collapse.

"You did n-not hold the wand - you didn't c-cast the spell-"

"I may as well have!" he hissed at her, his face an angry mask, and a flicker of fear flashed across her expression. She pulled away her hand.

She looked away, towards her knees, and bit her lip before saying quietly, "Would you j-judge me so harshly, Severus, when it had once b-been I in your shoes?" His face fell, unsure what she meant, his stringy hair obscuring much of his expression. "When it had b-been my friend - when it had been a m-monster instead of the Killing Curse - but m-my words - m-my help - that had led him s-straight to it?"

He felt a chill run through him. He looked sobered. "You were only a girl," he murmured, looking away. How could he have forgotten?

"And you, only a b-boy, not even twenty." A tear fell from her eye and she rubbed it away, her fingers as cold as ice. "Perhaps it is my f-fault, for not warning you, when you were young." She, too, looked to be in pain. "I simply wanted to p-protect you, from the fear, but... perhaps it would have been k-kinder to allow you to be afraid."

"No," he gasped, desperately. He could not allow her to feel this guilt too. "My - my fault alone-"

"You cannot take the f-full responsibility for Lily's d-death, Severus," she choked. "It would d-destroy you. And it will do nothing to b-bring her back." Her words pierced him. She swallowed hard. "We cannot know - or c-control - what others do with what we t-tell them." She bit her tongue. "It is enough to make you n-never trust again, to cut yourself off f-from everyone you know. An unhealthy c-coping mechanism, I see, that I perhaps have p-passed on to you." Color rose to both of their cheeks, both ashamed. She paused, tucking her long black hair behind her ears and sitting on her hands in an attempt to warm them. "No, the guilt does not l-leave you - not ever. It is something you will have to l-learn to live with. It will take some time, before it is b-bearable," she admitted. She looked down at his feet, took a deep breath to steady herself, and her eyes found his. "But you have come here to feel worse, my love - not b-better. And it will do no one any good."

After several moments of silence, he opened his mouth, wet tear marks still upon his face. "Are we cursed, Mum?" he asked, his voice small. Once the words were out of his mouth, they seemed so silly. He immediately regretted them.

"I should hope not," she whispered, reaching up to tuck his hair behind his ear, to see him better, before crossing her arms. "It is human to make m-mistakes, Severus, and that is what we are - human." She shivered, taking another deep breath. "You have made many mistakes - and so have I - but the fact that you have made them will not s-stop me from wondering where you are, from hoping that you are somewhere safe." The words caught in her throat. "You are my s-son - you are the only one I have - I cannot help it."

He felt, once again, overwhelmed by guilt, by the feeling that she had deserved a son so much better than him.

She furrowed her black eyebrows and cleared her throat. "Now," she said softly, measuredly, "we are going to go back to the house, and sooner rather than later as I can no longer feel my toes. You are going to gather up your things, and then we'll go to yours - or mine - and have a cup of tea, and some proper food - yes?"

She waited, her head tilted towards his, and he gave her a barely perceptible nod, a tear dripping off his chin before he wiped the rest away.

"You will feel better for it, Severus. Perhaps you can take a shower as well - you smell a bit," she said quietly, the smallest of smiles upon her lips, but it disappeared when he looked away, towards the water again, ashamed. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, for everything."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he mumbled.

"I'm allowed to feel sorry that I did not come for you sooner. I should have, considering all that you have done for me." She gave him a meaningful look, one that he did not even see. "But you will not feel any better, if you stay here." After a moment, the streetlamp above them flickering again, she whispered, "Come, let's go."

He looked back down into the water before gingerly getting to his feet, his limbs frozen, then helping her up as well. "There's - there's nothing at the house, for me," he explained, his voice wavering. "No reason to go back." He held out his arm, stiffly, ready to leave.

She turned her thin face towards him, her lips trembling. "Promise me, Severus, that you won't ever come here again," she whispered. "Not without telling me."

His black eyes held hers. He looked away, nodded, once, and she delicately placed her hand upon his arm.

They Disapparated together.

If you have enjoyed, please review and subscribe to my Author Alerts. I'm hoping to have a slightly more cheerful story out by Christmas xx