A/N: These characters belong to JKR and Warner Brothers. I make no money from this fiction.

It's on nights like this you burn, remembering smoldering eyes and pale skin that glows silver in the dark. You burn, incandescent as Fiendfyre, recalling his liquid, silken voice and hands that played across your skin, cataloging every shiver, every whimper, every sigh you gave him. You remember his dour pleasure at making you cry out his name.

There is nothing left of him now but your memories, the long nights spent remembering the cold, dark hours before dawn, when he crept away, not wanting you to be associated with him now.

You sit up in bed and cry.

He hasn't come to you in weeks, nor have you expected him. It doesn't mean you don't miss his prickly, urgent, fiery passion, feverish between sheets.

You figured it out long before you confronted him. He was mentally on his last legs, holding it together, keeping the Carrows and the Death Eaters at bay, while you urged your unruly House against vigilantism and revolt.

You knew it would come to this, and even as you almost dragged him into an empty classroom and started warding it like Gringotts, he knew you enough to know what you were going to say.

"Why didn't you tell me?" you ask, knowing you sound desperate and fearful, and knowing he'll shut you out, because he has to. He has to be the enemy now, even though he is no more your enemy than Hagrid.

He sighs. "What was I supposed to say, Min? Give us a leg-up, Our Kid; I've just become the most hated man in our world and I need your shoulder to cry on?" He sneers, and you love him a little, even for that. "You know I couldn't reveal what was going on. Albus – "

"Fuck Albus!" you cry.

He laughs. "I probably would've if I thought it might have got me out of this," he says.

"I could have helped you," you insist stubbornly. He sadly shakes his head.

"Oh, Min, you're the worst liar there is. You're an even worse actor. I couldn't risk getting you involved. You'd tell the entire school."

You huff, but you know he's right. He's always been right when you were concerned, even when he was wrong.

"That's, right, old girl," he says in that tone of voice; the one that makes you do things you've never done to another man. "You know it."

You regard each other for a moment, trying to think of something comforting to say. Then he suddenly crushes you to his breast.

"When the time comes, forget me. Forget you loved me. Forget my bed," he whispers urgently, and his anguished, pleading tone almost spirals you down through the floor with pain.

"I can't do that," you cry, knowing you'll have to. Slowly he pulls away, and you let go reluctantly, like a child unwilling to be parted from your dad.

"Thank you, Min," he says. "Believe me, it helps." He turns, and schools his expression. "You know what to do."

You nod, knowing it will almost kill you. He smiles sadly, and caresses your cheek. "Drop your wards, lass," he says, sounding like a loving, indulgent parent.

Then he's out of the room; exploding from cover like a bird of prey, thundering down the hall, leaving frightened children in his wake. It is intentional. You will champion them; they will remember this moment.

You have to make it sound real. Even though it nearly kills you, you know you have to make it real. "I will NEVER forgive you for this, Severus Snape!" You scream to his retreating back. "NEVER!"

You watch him stride away, knowing his heart is breaking because you can hear the sound of it, crying in harmony with your own crumbling heart.

You look at the young people standing there, gaping at you both.

"Well, what are you looking at?" you say, putting anger and helplessness in your voice. It isn't that hard to manufacture. "Get back to your classes!" Nobody moves.

"GO!" you scream, ashamed of showing such weakness. Severus was right; you're just not cut out for espionage.

You will see each other one last time before the end. He is weary, sick with the strain, and he stumbles into your arms one night, weeping and frightened. You comfort him as best you can, but he's already fading away; he is almost gone even as he pulls himself over you like a blanket.

The battle is almost over, and you fight him like your life depends on it, which it does. Even as he swoops, diving with the grace of a dancer, you sense his heart isn't in it. It's already with that little ginger Muggle girl he fancied all those years ago; you know you've always only been a substitute.

But now, years later, as the snow falls and the wind blows frigid from the North, you burn, remembering that for a few brief moments, you held him, and you burned - as brightly, as beautifully, as incandescently as Fiendfyre in his hands.