"How long?" Snape rasped out, his voice not his own. He winced involuntarily at the tortured sound of it.

"You've been here 3 weeks," a man answered gently in a heavy Highlands accent. "It's been 3 weeks ... since Hogwarts."

And Snape slipped back into blackness.

The dream of the snake's bite disturbed and paniced him, driving him to frantically search for the surface of consciousness. His heart raced from the effort to push off what felt like a weighty fog and to leave the dream behind.

But, it was more than a dream, he realized. It was memory. Snape struggled to open his eyes, to wake up and put the specters behind him. Disoriented, he called out, as if to stake a claim here in the land of the living. His vision slowly cleared and his breathing began to ease as he studied the plaster ceiling of the room he was in. He studied it with a small shake of his head as if any moment it would yield a clue to him.

He groaned with the reeling sensation moving brought him. Not St. Mungo's, he thought.

Shakily, he attempted to lift his hand until his fingers found his neck and the ragged skin there.

Nagini, his brain supplied bitterly. He wanted to piece the memories together, but he couldn't. Closing his eyes tightly to force some concentration, he asked himself to recount what he last remembered. There had been the summons, the pain in his arm somehow different with the knowledge that it would be the last time he answered that call. It had been the final moments of the battle and he had been called to the shack. Once there everything had gone quickly to hell, he thought with a squeeze to the scar near his throat.

And now? he thought bringing his eyes open and forcing himself to raise the sleeve that covered that ugly stain to his forearm. He did not believe what he saw after so many years of carrying his mark. It had seemed all that time a living thing appended to him. It had been like a spy that clung to him, that sought to betray him and certainly controlled him. And now the mark was faded to a dusty gray. Faded and dead.

Is it all over? he wondered incredulously, casting his eyes to the ceiling. Is it finally all over? Silent tears left his eyes and rolled from his cheeks. Confused, he wondered why he was crying. Why now? Was it relief or sorrow? Grief? Gratitude?

He knew it was time to let go of all that had come before: the lies, the pain, the obligations. And that, he thought sarcastically, should leave me with nothing to carry forward. Then, however, he heard light footsteps on the stairs and he knew he was wrong. He was carrying something forward, or more precisely, someone had carried him forward.

Minerva? he thought. But he could not put the thoughts right in his head.