A/N: AU fic. Upon his death at the fangs of Nagini, Severus Snape meets his guardian angel and gets to make a choice like Harry's – whether to go on or whether to go back. Narrated by an OC, but don't let that turn you off.

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns everything you recognize. I own what you don't.

I've known him for what feels like forever.

I know the way his hair falls into his face, the way the corner of his mouth curls when he's amused by something, his dry and altogether morbid sense of humour. I know the long pale fingers, the clean line of his collarbone, the way he wraps himself in robes as a defense against the prying eyes of humanity. I know that he likes to go barefoot when he's at home, I know that he decries Muggle music but adores Regina Spektor, I know that his walls are solid and his boundaries unending but that his heart has wings. I know he yearns to be loved but that he will deny it until the very ends of time.

We were eleven years old when we met on the train to Hogwarts. He was a sallow, hook-nosed boy with hair that did not get washed as often as it should. His robes were secondhand, as were his books. He loved magic more than anything in the world. He craved power because he had never had any in his life, he craved love because he had never known it. All his life, the darkhaired boy in the corner, soon to become the teenager killing flies in his room. All these things I saw as I looked into the compartment, the boy with his head against the cool window, hair hanging like a curtain in front of his face.

"This seat taken?" I asked.

He seemed surprised that I had spoken to him. I don't know what he made of me, the tall girl in the doorway with pale blue eyes and long black hair in a braid to my waist. Possibly I was just a spectre to him, some kind of apparition that had no basis in the physical world.

"No," he finally said, and turned back to the window.

I stowed my trunk myself. It wasn't heavy; I didn't own much. I didn't force conversation either, absorbing myself in the book on Defense Against the Dark Arts for a good fifteen minutes. It wasn't feigned interest either, because I too had a deep interest in magic. I was no stranger to it, even though a halfblood, since as far back as I could remember my father had been charming pots and pans to do his bidding in the kitchen.

I lowered the book, regarding him over it. "What's your name?"

Again, the unguarded surprise before the façade of disinterest fell over his dark eyes. "Severus Snape."

"Nice name," I said. "I'm Anaia Zephyrine." And I went back to the book.

Another ten minutes passed in silence, with me becoming thoroughly engrossed in the Charms textbook, and then he asked, "What House do you think you'll be sorted into?"

I laid the book in my lap, considering the question. "Gryffindor or Slytherin," I said, "but more than likely Slytherin. Gryffindor is for brave fools and tragic heroes. I think the Sorting Hat will take one look at my mind and put me with the rest of the ambitious."

Snape frowned, for the first time showing anything less than complete self-possession. "Sorting Hat?"

"That's how you're sorted into Houses," I told him. "You put on a magical hat, it looks into your mind, and then tells you where to go."

"Oh." He returned to looking out the window.

I allowed myself a tiny smile.

The door to the compartment slid open, and a pale boy with grey eyes and white-blond hair stood in the doorway. He looked from myself to Snape, sneered, and then sat down in the seat opposite me. "Zephyrine. Didn't think you'd make it to Hogwarts. You're about as magical as a toad."

"Hello, Lucius," I said cordially. "Strange, my father wasn't surprised."

"Your father is an insult to the magical world," Lucius Malfoy spat. "Mingling with Muggles, pissing around with crossbreeding. You have a pureblood last name, but that doesn't change the fact that your blood is filthy."

"Yes, yes." I turned the page. "I'm a Mudblood. Spare me your insults, I've heard them all before."

Malfoy wasn't finished, however. I'd known he wouldn't be. "You can put wine in a fancy bottle and call it a pretty French name, Zephyrine, but none of that will change the fact that its base component is piss."

"Nice to know you recognize your humble beginnings, Mal-foit." I gave his name the French pronunciation.

Malfoy was livid. I had actually never seen colour in his face like that before. "You wait until we get to Hogwarts, Zephyrine. You just wait. All the better if you're sorted into Slytherin. I will make you regret –"

"Would you shut it!" Snape had finally been annoyed enough to snap out of his lethargy. "If you've got to bitch at each other, find another bloody compartment!"

Malfoy stared at Snape, and then forced his face to relax. "Lucius Malfoy," he said, and held out a hand. "I'm a third-year."

Snape regarded Malfoy's hand with disdain. "Severus Snape."

I managed to find my Potions textbook and began to read.

"How can you share a compartment with her?" Malfoy asked, not being at all delicate about the sneering emphasis he put on my pronoun.

"She wasn't bothering me," Snape said pointedly.

Malfoy clenched his jaw, gathered his voluminous robes about him and stood. He looked strange, a thirteen year old boy playing dress-up. "I'll leave you two lovebirds alone," he said snottily, and flounced out.

I snorted. "Breath of fresh air, isn't he?"

"You know him?"

"Against my will. The Malfoys are one of the oldest and Darkest pureblood families in existence. Can't you tell? He's got those generations-of-inbreeding-to-keep-the-bloodline-pure ears."

The corner of Snape's mouth twitched. "What was that he called you? Mudblood?"

"Yes. It's an extremely derogatory term for halfbloods – people with one magical parent. My father's a wizard, but my mother was a Muggle." I frowned at a strange Latin term in the book. "Most of the purebloods recognize that your heritage doesn't make a lick of difference to how magical you are, but some families are still hung up on the purity of blood for reasons I can't really fathom."

Snape was quiet for a time, and then he said softly, "I'm a halfblood."

"I know," I said, and looked at him. "I can see into people's minds. I don't mean to do it, but it happens anyway. My father said it's called Legilimency. It's apparently a very advanced form of magic. He said I'm fortunate to be able to do it naturally and at such an early age."

Snape looked almost alarmed. "What else can you see?"

"Your memories. Almost your entire life. Whatever you remember, whatever you think." I closed the book and set it aside. "There's a way to counter it, I think, called Occlumency. They seem to go hand in hand – I can get into people's minds, but they can't get into mine. Useful little thing."

"Yes," he said enviously. "I wish I could keep you out."

"No point now. I've seen everything. And my grandmother was a prophetess, so I can tell a bit of the future." I crossed my legs at the ankles and looked at him. We were almost to Hogwarts; the train was slowing. "You're going to be sorted into Slytherin. You're going to become the youngest Potions Master in history. You're going to –"

"All right!" A brown-haired head craned around the compartment door. "Come on, first-years. We've reached Hogwarts!"

"What else?" Snape asked desperately, hauling his trunk down from where he'd stowed it.

"A lot of things," I said. "So much is going to happen to you, Severus Snape. Ask me later, when we've got time."

He never asked me later, because there was never time. Before I knew it, I'd been sorted into Gryffindor – the Headmaster's only explanation for that was that the Sorting Hat sees things we cannot – and he'd been sorted into Slytherin and we hardly ever saw each other. He fell in with Lucius Malfoy and Evan Rosier and that whole lot who were destined to become Death Eaters. It's strange knowing the future. Takes all the suspense out of life.

Everything happened as I'd seen it would. He fell in love with Lily Evans, became a Death Eater, found himself having to protect James Potter's son. It was pitiful, perhaps, but he never asked for pity. Nor for help. This was his penitence; it was his redemption.

And then I saw his death, and I had to do something. I couldn't let it continue. He didn't deserve it. So I did something. I invoked all the magic I knew and I sacrificed my own life to become a guardian angel of sorts. And I know I won't regret it. If his life's purpose was to watch over Harry Potter, my life's purpose was to watch over Severus Snape.