As Snape's dark eyes closed for the last time, the last thing he saw in the mortal world were those bright green eyes. The land of the living dissolved, and Severus Snape knew no more.
Suddenly, however, his eyes were slowly opening once more. Where was this place, Snape wondered. Gradually his surroundings seemed to solidify, becoming clearer through the mist around him. Standing up, Snape looked around. He was standing in the expansive front hall of Hogwarts. The hall was deserted, but Snape did not mind; he rather appreciated the solitude. Despite himself, he felt a sense of familiarity and home as he looked up at the great oak doors and the glass containers which recorded House points.
"Hello, Severus," came a familiar, soft voice. Snape turned on his heel. Standing at the foot of the great marble staircase, a serene smile playing across his lips, was Albus Dumbledore.
"Headmaster," came the automatic title as Snape stepped forward to stand in front of the older man.
"Goodness, Severus," said Dumbledore, his smile widening, "I think it is time you called me Albus, don't you?"
Snape's lip twitched, and Dumbledore's blue eyes sparkled behind the half-moon spectacles. Soon, however, the atmosphere between the two men sobered perceptibly. The smile on Dumbledore's face had vanished.
"Can you ever forgive me, Severus?"
"For what?" Snape asked.
"For putting you in an impossible position. For asking more of you than I had any right to."
Snape was silent for a long moment, and when he replied his voice was unusually soft.
"I was angry with you for a long time, Albus. But I know you only did what had to be done. I require no apologies."
Dumbledore nodded, but did not speak. Snape went on.
"It's just-" Dumbledore thought he heard the other man sigh, "why must the boy die?"
Dumbledore smiled, and met Snape's dark eyes.
"Well, there's dying, and then there's dying, Severus."
Irritation flared in Snape's voice when he spoke.
"Must you always speak in riddles, even now?"
Dumbledore chuckled.
"Fair enough, I will make things plain," said Dumbledore. "I take it you have told Harry what we discussed?"
Snape nodded.
"He knows, or will in short order," Snape replied.
"Well, when Harry learns what he is meant to do, he will make sure it is done-" Dumbledore began, but Snape interrupted him.
"You really think so, Albus?"
Dumbledore's eyes hardened for just a moment, and when he spoke his voice was very firm.
"I have faith in the boy, Severus. Please do not belabor the point."
Snape nodded and Dumbledore went on.
"Harry will walk into that forest and let the Dark Lord kill him."
Snape waited expectantly for Dumbledore to go on.
"What Harry does not know, and neither does the Dark Lord, is that in trying to kill Harry, the Dark Lord will only succeed in destroying part of himself. And that will bring Harry one step closer to destroying him for good."
Snape did not fully understand Dumbledore's words, but decided not to ask for details. There was something more important he wanted to ask.
"But if this is true, then why did you not tell the boy? Why does he think he is walking to face his death?"
"Because he must make the choice, Severus. He must face his death for Voldemort's power to break."
There was a pause, and Dumbledore went on.
"And before you ask, Severus, I do think he will make that choice." Dumbledore was silent for a moment, then went on. "But I suppose there is only one way to know for sure."
Mist descended upon the two men once more, and when it cleared the two were in the headmaster's office. The Pensieve was sitting on the desk as usual, and Dumbledore gestured to it.
"Shall we?" Dumbledore asked.
"What will we see?" Snape asked.
"The mortal world; the present."
Snape nodded, and together the two men fell through the darkness of the Pensieve. They landed in the dim moonlight of the Forbidden Forest. As the two looked around, they saw Harry Potter walking slowly through the trees. The look on the boy's face was unlike any Snape had ever seen before. It was resigned, determined, but mired in an unbearable sorrow. Suddenly the boy stopped, fumbling for a moment with a pouch around his neck. Pulling out a small golden ball, Snape recognized it as a Snitch. Snape was about to ask what he was doing with it when the boy, barely audible, spoke.
"I am about to die," Harry Potter said, and Snape heard the despair in the boy's voice. Snape glanced at Dumbledore, and there were tears in the light blue eyes. As Snape looked back at the boy, he was turning a ring over in his hand.
"What is he-" Snape began, but then he saw her. She had the same long, red-brown hair and bright green eyes that he remembered; Lily. She was looking at her son, however, gazing at him intently.
"You've been so brave," she said to Harry, and the boy was staring at her just as avidly as Snape was. For the first time, Snape understood what Harry Potter was feeling; love for Lily Potter. A pang of loneliness and, Snape was loath to admit it, envy was taking hold of him. Envy that the boy had the love of Lily Potter in return. A new voice was speaking now, one Snape did not wish to hear.
"You are nearly there," said James Potter quietly. "Very close. We are so proud of you."
Despite everything, he knew James was sincere; he could hear the pride in James Potter's voice. Snape wondered why the boy had summoned his dead parents and, he could now see, his godfather and the werewolf, Lupin. His question was answered almost at once.
"Does it hurt?" the boy asked, seemingly to the group at large.
Sirius Black replied, but Snape did not hear him. Realization came to Snape, bright, harsh, and unyielding. The boy was frightened; truly frightened. Snape had thought Harry Potter was too like his father to admit fear, to even feel fear. Now he realized that the boy was terrified of death, but was preparing himself to face it nevertheless.
"He summoned them," Snape said softly to Dumbledore, "to give him courage."
"Yes," said Dumbledore, "he did."
"I didn't want any of you to die," the boy was saying, "Any of you. I'm sorry-" The boy turned to look at the werewolf. "Right after you'd had your son...Remus, I'm sorry-"
Snape turned to look at Dumbledore, his mental footing seeming to slip.
"Why does he do this, Dumbledore?"
"Call his loved ones to him? You answered that yourself, Severus." Dumbledore asked.
"No. Why does he take this burden onto himself? He is not responsible for the deaths of his loved ones."
Dumbledore looked at Snape.
"I don't believe you ever really understood Harry Potter, Severus. It does not matter if he is not to blame. He will always take the responsibility."
As Snape and Dumbledore returned to the headmaster's office Snape heard, as if from a distance, the boy's voice once more.
"You'll stay with me?"
"Until the very end," came James Potter's reply.
The two men stood in silence for some time, neither one wanting to break the stillness. Suddenly Snape turned to Dumbledore.
"He sounded..." Snape trailed off.
"Scared?" Dumbledore supplied.
Snape nodded.
"He is," Dumbledore replied. "He is terrified. Part of the reason I left him the Resurrection Stone."
Snape remained silent for several long moments.
"Will it work, Albus?"
Dumbledore looked at Snape quizzically.
"Will what work, Severus?"
"If Harry does this, will Voldemort be destroyed?"
"I think he will," said Dumbledore quietly.
"And will the boy...survive?"
Dumbledore smiled at Snape.
"As I told you before, Severus, I have faith in the boy. I believe he will survive this."
Snape looked down, his eyes unable to meet the older man's.
"She was there, Albus. He called her."
"Naturally, Severus. She is his mother."
Snape nodded.
"It's just...I never thought I'd see her again. At least I got to see her one last time."
"'One last time'. Always the optimist, aren't you, Sev?"
Snape turned, the shock of the familiar voice rooting him to the spot. Lily Potter was standing before him, James Potter just behind her; his hand on her shoulder. She was smiling, and the green eyes she had passed onto her son were fixed on Snape's.
"I-" Lily began, then took a deep breath. "I know what you did for Harry. You protected him all this time. I can't thank you enough."
"The same goes for me," said James quietly.
"I-" Snape began, but then decided the time for pretense had passed. "I didn't do it for him."
Snape looked up at the two Potters. They were both looking at him questioningly. He took a deep breath, and simply drew his wand.
"Expecto Patronum," he said clearly.
The silver doe erupted from the end of the wand and trotted gracefully around the room before vanishing. Lily Potter followed the beautiful animal with her eyes, then looked back at Snape, her face betraying heartache for the man who had once been her friend. Snape remained silent, unable to find words to say.
"Well, now that we have that straightened out," Dumbledore said crisply, waving his wand. A huge image, like a projection on a movie screen, appeared before them all. What they saw made them all fall completely silent, seemingly hypnotized. Voldemort and Harry were facing each other.
"I don't want anyone else to try and help," Harry was saying, "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."
Lily Potter was watching her son, her hand over her mouth, trying to hold back tears.
"Potter doesn't mean that," Voldemort was jeering, "That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?"
"Nobody," Harry replied, "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good."
Lily was trying to hold back sobs, quite unsuccessfully, and James's arm was around her.
"You think it will be you, do you, the boy who survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?"
Dumbledore's eyebrows raised, but he said nothing.
"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" Harry said, and Lily said her son's name quietly.
"Accident, when I decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"
James Potter let out a strangled yell of triumph, but Snape could not take his eyes off of the image in front of him. The next words between the combatants were spoken, but Snape barely heard them. He could not help but look at the boy's eyes, locked on his enemy's, and so like his mother's. Suddenly a familiar name broke through Snape's reverie.
"You think you know more magic than I do? Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"
"Oh, he dreamed of it, but he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you've done."
Dumbledore's smile was brilliant.
"You mean he was weak! Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!"
"No, he was cleverer than you...a better wizard, a better man."
"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"
"You thought you did, but you were wrong."
Snape's eyes widened, he could feel what was coming, and did not know if he wanted to hear it.
"Dumbledore is dead! His body decays in the marble tomb in the grounds of this castle, I have seen it, Potter, and he will not return!" Voldemort screamed.
"Yes, Dumbledore's dead, but you didn't have him killed. He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant."
"Dumbledore-" Snape said, but Dumbledore appeared not to have heard him.
"Severus Snape wasn't yours," Harry was telling Voldemort, "Snape was Dumbledore's, Dumbledore's from the moment you started hunting down my mother. And you never realized it, because of the thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle? Snape's Patronus was a doe, the same as my mother's, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realized, he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"
Voldemort and Harry were still talking, but none of the watching dead were listening. Every eye was now upon Severus Snape. No one spoke for several long moments. Finally James Potter broke the silence.
"I never knew," he began, but Snape cut him off.
"Of course not," he said coldly. "It was the biggest mistake of my life. Not something I'm likely to advertise, is it? Particularly to you."
James Potter did not reply, but his eyes conveyed understanding.
"Your son," Snape went on sardonically, looking between the two Potters, "is altogether too clever sometimes."
Lily and James Potter smiled, returning their eyes to continue watching their son. Their faces fell as they watched, however. Voldemort and Harry had stopped talking to each other now, and were simply looking at each other as the first red-gold light of dawn spilled into the Hall where the combatants were dueling. In unison the two duelers cast their spells, eliciting a cry from Lily Potter.
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Expelliarmus!"
It seemed to happen in slow motion; the wand Voldemort had held was arcing through the air and Harry caught it. Simultaneously Voldemort was falling onto the ground, dead. There was a deafening silence that reigned for several long moments. Then, the reality of the situation hit; Voldemort was dead. Their most dangerous enemy had been vanquished by a seventeen-year-old boy.
Snape looked over at the Potters. Their arms were around each other tightly, and both were overcome with the magnitude of the moment. Turning to Dumbledore, Snape could not help but return the glowing smile the headmaster was giving him.
"He did it," Snape said, hardly daring to believe it.
"To use a somewhat crude phrase, Severus, 'I told you so'", Dumbledore said, blue eyes gazing at him through the familiar half-moon spectacles. Snape could not help but laugh.
As the noise and celebration mounted throughout the Great Hall, Harry thought about all those he had lost. His parents' faces rose in his mind and in his mind's eye, they were smiling at him. Exhausted as he was, Harry felt contentment steal over him as the sun continued to rise, suffusing the Great Hall with golden light.