So that was it. It was over then, wasn't it? He had done it. He had finally done it. After all these years, he had killed the Dark Lord. This wasn't how he had expected it to feel.

Harry Potter, the one who had finally fulfilled his destiny, the one who had saved them all, was sitting crouched on the floor of the library of No. 12 Grimmauld Place listening to the din of the party downstairs. He silently cursed himself for making this the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. If he hadn't, he would be here alone right now and no one could come bother him. He heard the door open and a very drunk Ron Weasley scanned the dark room, apparently for looking for Harry as the object of his search leaned back further into the shadows. Not seeing what he was looking for, Ron left the room. The sounds of other doors being open and shut echoed down the hallway as the young man continued his search.

Harry sighed. He really should be downstairs celebrating with the rest of them. That was what he had expected himself to be doing after he killed the Dark Lord, not to be sulking upstairs in a dark room by himself. He had thought he would be happy. He had thought that he would finally be free. He had thought things would be different. They were different, of course, but not that much. He was free, but what had the cost of that freedom been? His parents lives, Sirius, Cedric. Sure, he had saved the future, but nothing he could do could change the past. Nothing could bring them back. He had known this all along of course. Known it, but not accepted it.

The door opened again and once more he withdrew into the shadows. A tall figure stepped into the room and he immediately recognized the menacing profile. He breathed a sigh of relief. There was really only one person who would not try to drag him down to the party right now and that man was Severus Snape. The man turned slowly, quickly locating Harry amongst the shadows.

"Get up, Potter," the man sneered.

"I'm fine right where I am," he retorted defiantly from the floor.

"Potter," Snape said warningly, stepping closer to him, "I need you to come with me."

There was a desperation in his eyes that Harry had never seen before.

"Where?" He asked flatly.

"What does it matter to you? As long as it's not downstairs." Snape raised his eyebrow.

It was true. He wanted to be anywhere but here. The only thing stopping him was the anti-apparition wards inside the house and all the people he would have to pass to get out of it.

Severus held out a key in his hand. It immediately started to glow blue. Snape looked at him expectantly and he reached for it. A split-second later, Harry found himself on soft grass at the edge of a forest.. He looked up to see the rotting wood ceiling of the library replaced by the starry night sky. Snape was a few yards ahead of him, headed for a small house in the distance.

Harry walked briskly to catch up to them and neither said a word as they strode to the house. Harry used the walk to study the man beside him. Snape was good at hiding his emotions, but Harry was even better at reading them. From his observations, Snape was anxious, but not necessarily in a bad way. It was an anxiety filled with both hope and despair. As if the next few moments would hold a long-awaited answer to an important question that would either save him or damn him.

Snape pushed the door open and strode into the small room. A breeze whipped into the room behind them, stirring up a layer of dust. Severus muttered a few spells and there was a glow from the fireplace, a few more and the dust was gone. From the small amount of moments that Harry had seen the dust, he was pretty sure that no one had been here in at least a decade, if not longer. Harry sat down on the couch as Snape paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. It was clear to Harry that they were waiting for someone, or something.

There was a hesitant knock at the door. Severus froze. Harry looked up to see this man who been a deatheater and a spy frozen in fear beside the fireplace, completely incapacitated to do anything other than stare at the closed door. The knock came again, a little louder this time. When it became clear that Severus wasn't going to do anything, Harry rose to answer the door.

He was halfway there when the door opened on its own accord and in stepped a figure dressed in a hooded cape. The figure was clearly a woman. Another smaller female figure stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. The first figure lowered her hood and Harry froze. He had never met this woman, yet he knew immediately who she was. He had seen pictures, yet none that had been taken more recently than seventeen years ago. But even from the pictures he had seen, there was no mistaking her identity. This woman was his mother.