AN: This hit me like a brick to the face when my dear friend Beloved-Stranger showed me a beautiful picture. Some of you may or may not be familiar with my HP OC Alexis, who is a much loved and tormented character of mine. Well, here she is in another very AU role.

This is completely un-betad and fresh off my brain.

So without further delay - I don't own diddly squat except my poor wee Alexis! ENJOY :D

Edit: Please note that this Alexis is the same character, but is not from the same timeline as My Last Breath or Before The Snow. There are a couple of tiny moments, small decisions changed, that diverge this Alexis from the path set out in My Last Breath.

Edit 2: Fixed Alexis' dimple. It was on the wrong cheek! Jeez, me and my consistency (or lack thereof...).


For the first time in no one knew how long, Severus Snape relaxed. There was nothing more he could do but lie there.

Nagini's potent neurotoxin turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He could no longer feel the bite in his neck as it poured his lifeblood onto the dirty floor. He could not feel as his body shut down piece by piece.

Potter and Her beautiful green eyes had left to save the world, as he had been prophesised to do. The prophesy he had overheard. The prophesy he had reported. The prophesy that had killed Her. It was only fitting that he should die with its completion.

Maybe now that he had helped save the world he could sleep. Maybe now that he had suffered he could be with Lily, as she had promised all those years ago. Maybe now he could spend eternity in Her sweet embrace. Hadn't he earned that?

There was nought to do now but wait. He would sleep soon enough. And he would have his sweet dreams of Lily.

So he lay there. And closed his eyes.

As he waited for his heart...

...to...

...stop.

Light trickled through his eyelids. His sensitive ears could hear the pitter patter of tiny feet on hardwood floors. The bed dipped imperceptibly as little hands grabbed his own. He opened his eyes.

A cherub was beaming at him, with a gap-tooth smile and brilliant blue eyes. The sunlight from the open window caught her hair in a halo of gold. "Mummy says to get up," she said. He noticed she had a sharp little chin not unlike his own at her age. "The pancakes are ready!" She pulled again on his hand and skipped out the door.

He sat up with absolute ease, a summer duvet pooling around his waist. The smell of pancakes was incredible. He swung his feet over the side of the bed, noting the unfamiliar cotton pyjamas. He flexed his toes and watched them move. Everything felt good.

Severus pushed himself upright and opened the door the child had gone through. There was humming from the kitchen at the end of the hall. He padded towards the scent and sounds; the little girl was talking and a woman laughed. He pushed opened the door into the dining and kitchen area and was bathed in sun.

White hair flowed rampant down the woman's back where there should have been silken red. She was shorter, more voluptuous. When she turned around he could see her blue eyes mirrored in the child's, and a dimple in her right cheek from her smile. The dimple deepened when she saw him.

"Good morning, sleepy head. Your tea is just about finished brewing, how's your head this morning?" She placed a plate of pancakes at the head of the table and pulled the chair out. He couldn't make his feet move.

"Where's Lilly?" he blurted. This was all wrong. She stopped, hand resting on the back of the chair.

"She's been … gone for years," she said slowly, eyebrows drawing down. The little girl munched on her pancakes enthusiastically.

"If this is the afterlife, why am I not with Lilly?" She looked shocked. Honestly gobsmacked. The corners of her eyes pinched and her lips clenched into a thin line.

"I don't know what dreams you had, and I certainly didn't realise you had a thing for my best friend," she said, voice tight. The little girl stopped eating and watched the two of them with bright eyes.

"Mummy, who's Lilly?" she asked.

"Not now, Freya." His mother's middle name. "Could you please take the cupcakes next door to Mrs Hernandez' house and play with Maxine for a little while?" The little girl nodded and hopped off her chair, wrapped her arms around a square container filled with cupcakes, and tottled out the back door.

"Please, sweetheart, have a seat," the woman said, lowering herself into the chair to one side of the table. His feet wouldn't take him there. "You went to bed early with a headache, which is very unlike you, and when I got up this morning you didn't rouse..." She looked at her hands clasped in front of her and played with her wedding band. He looked down at his left hand to see a matching one.

"I am dead." Severus reached the chair and dropped himself into it. "I'm dead and Lilly promised she would be here, and she's not." He jerked his hand away from her seeking one. She looked like she might burst into tears.

"You are not dead, and if I had known you were waiting for Lilly in the afterlife, I wouldn't have married you," she said firmly.

"I died on the floor of the Shrieking Shack alone," he snarled, making her jump. She stared at him, her blue eyes overbright with tears unshed.

"No, Severus, you didn't. You haven't visited the Shrieking Shack since we went to Hogwarts, and we haven't visited Hogwarts since our wedding six years ago, don't you remember?" She was pleading now and her eyes were red.

"I don't even know who you are, how could I remember marrying you?" She did cry then, but the tears were silent. He felt nothing. She was not Lilly. She pushed away from the table and jerkily got up. She walked, stiff legged, to the fireplace on one side of the lounge, grabbed a fistful of powder from a china basin, threw it in the fire and stepped in.

He didn't know how long she had been gone. He couldn't really bring himself to care. This was not the afterlife he deserved, not after all the sacrifices he had made, not after dying for her son. This was just not fair, damnitall. He slammed his hand on the table and pulled off the wedding band.

Beneath the band was a strip of pale skin – anyone looking could tell what had been there. His hand, on closer inspection, was less bony than it should have been. Less scarred. His left arm was clear – there was no mark. His shoulders and chest were also unmarred and better filled out than he remembered. It had been a long time since he had cared enough to really see himself.

The fwosh of fire distracted him from his examinations and he looked up. The woman emerged again, followed by another whoosh and … Albus?

"Hello, Severus," he said, dusting off his robes as though this were the most normal thing in the world. "Alexis has informed me that you appear to be suffering from amnesia." Neither pair of blue eyes twinkled.


Pretty please review with chocolate sprinkles on top!