Summary: Harry gives Snape one last chance to say goodbye.

Authors Note: I've always loved the deliciously devious Severus Snape but after experiencing Alan Rickman's heart-wrenching, brilliant portrayal in Deathly Hallows Part 2, I wanted closure. And thus this little ficlet was born.

Thanks to PolRobin on this site for her feedback. She's more obsessed with Harry Potter than I am and so if she said this was ok to post, I'm taking her word for it - despite my doubts!

One Last Goodbye

Harry marched through the Forest like a man on a mission. No longer were the oft feared woods dark, dreary and forbidden. Students were permitted to venture into them, now. No evil lingered here.

Harry wondered if he'd find it after all these years. He'd wondered for even longer if he should even try.

But with a new life and new responsibilities came new perspectives. As a father, the love and protection he felt for his newborn son drove him to seek out that which he'd deliberately lost.

He'd been granted the precious gift of closure on the eve of his own death, buoyed by overwhelming love when the ghosts of his family had given him the support he needed to meet his mortal end. But another, who had done innumerable things in the name of love, hadn't been so fortunate.

Harry stopped in a small clearing and noted the stillness that surrounded him. There was no animal in sight. No breeze reached out its tendrils to cool the nervous perspiration that dotted his forehead. It was as if they knew what he was about to do and wanted no part of it.

He raised his wand. "Accio resurrection stone!"

Nothing happened.

Harry frowned. "So much for making this easy on me."

Harry sighed and glanced down at the expansive forest floor beneath his feet. His eyes fluttered shut as he remembered back to that night, their supportive voices giving him the strength that he needed.

"Will you stay with me?"

"Until the end."

The stone slipped from his hand as he walked to meet his death.

With a sharp gasp, Harry's eyes popped open and he shuffled deeper into the forest. He dropped to his knees, renewed hope driving every sweep of his dirty hands across the forest floor.

A twig snapped in the distance and Harry's eyes darted toward the sound, falling at last on Firenze standing atop a small mound, hoof digging absently in the dirt. He didn't speak. His large, watchful eyes simply stared at Harry.

"I have to find it, Firenze."

The hoof dug at a steady pace as Harry continued his search.

"I understand if you don't approve. Ginny questioned my sanity, too, but I have to do this. I have to try."

Harry relentlessly searched as Firenze looked silently on, the only sound that of the hoof gently piercing the densely packed mound.

"Okay, okay," Harry said without looking up at Firenze. "You're right. I should just leave it be."

Harry stood, brushed his dirty hands on his pants and glanced guiltily at the Centaur.

"You have only to reach out and take that which you seek." Firenze glanced down, then back at Harry and then disappeared into the forest.

"Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who deserve it."

Harry scurried up the mound and in the hole was the Resurrection Stone, buried, where no one would think to look.

Slowly, reverently Harry picked it up. He squeezed it tightly and then turned it, using its power to summon the dead.

After a moment, the long feared and hated form of Severus Snape appeared below.

Dark eyes narrowed. "Potter."

The deep, disdainful tone hadn't changed. But Harry's reaction to it had. No longer did he cringe beneath the dark, steely gaze of his former Professor. Instead, something different and not entirely unwelcome stuttered his breath.

Understanding.

Snape twisted his hand upward and glanced through it. "What have you done?"

Harry stared at the man he'd once hated with every fiber of his being but didn't move a muscle. Instead, with more sincerity than he thought he would ever be able to muster toward the man standing in front of him, he said simply, "Thank you."

He glanced over Snape's shoulder and nodded slowly, deliberately.

Then Harry watched, a suddenly uncomfortable third wheel in this reunion a long time in coming, as Snape, sensing another presence, slowly turned. Shock was plainly visible on his slack-jawed face as the only woman he'd ever loved walked slowly toward him, a kind, understanding smile on her transparent face.

A surge of protectiveness shot through Harry as Snape raised a trembling hand toward her. He resisted the urge to push the apparition away from the beloved mother he'd never known, to prevent the formerly Death Eater from tainting her memory.

But he watched, entranced, as unmistakable adoration crossed Snape's pale features. Their hands finally touched, wisps of nothingness in an emotionally charged atmosphere where solid, living form was but a distant memory.

Harry knew the truth, had known it for years now, and he made sure everyone else knew it, too. The only reason he was alive today was because of the sacrifices Snape had made for a woman already lost to him; for an undying love as unbreakable as the curse of the same name.

"Look at me," Snape gurgled as he lay dying.

Harry didn't know why he granted that final wish.

"You have your mother's eyes."

A flood of regret curled up Harry's spine. He hadn't understood then why Snape wanted a vision of a boy he hated to be the last thing he saw in life. Not until he'd seen the memories of a man who had sacrificed so much only to be rewarded with a lifetime of reminders of the woman he'd lost.

Tears welled in Snape's eyes and Harry found himself unable to turn away.

"I'm sorry." Harry heard the trembling voice whisper.

The apparition of Lily Evans simply smiled, held his tortured gaze with kindness and understanding. She knew for what he apologized. Had he not called her a Mudblood that gloomy day, things may have turned out quite differently for them all.

"I know."

"I kept him safe for you," the voice trembled and never in his life did Harry think he'd ever see an ounce of vulnerability in Severus Snape.

"Thank you, Sev."

A hint of a smile flitted across the suddenly tender features at the use of his boyhood name. "He has your eyes."

"He was there with you? At the end?" Her voice was softer now and Harry found himself straining to hear.

A flicker of disgust was quickly masked by determined denial. "No." He reached out to her, thought better of it, and let his arm fall back to his side. "You were there with me. I could have asked for no better end."

END

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