Disclaimer: All the characters belong to JK Rowling. I am just playing with them.

Author's notes: Eventual SS/HG romance. Epilogue is blissfully ignored under the assumption that every character involved was affected by the snake venom. I respond to every review. Constructive criticism is welcome. Enjoy.

So, let's begin…

Severus opened his eyes and groaned. He felt like he was run over by a dragon, no, a herd of dragons, his neck was just throbbing pain. Strong rusty smell of blood invaded his nose. Slowly his eyes focused on the gray dusty ceiling of the Shrieking Shack and finally memories started to come back.

He tried to lift his arm; it didn't want to obey at first, but after a couple of tries he managed to bring his hand to his throat. There were soft ripples of new scar tissue on the left side and it was unpleasantly sticky; he vaguely noticed that unsurprisingly his sleeve was soaked in blood. That was odd. While being enveloped in pain was by no means a new experience, the fact that he was relatively alive was odd. He was pretty sure he didn't attempt to save himself, even though he had several vials with helpful potions in the pockets inside his robes. One of them was antidote to Nagini's venom he created for Mr. Weasley what seemed like ages ago. However, he didn't want to use them. He was tired of fighting and surviving, he was tired of everything and it was a convenient way out. Admittedly there was a lot of better ones, but he never got better things, so why his end should be any different.

Severus groaned again, then attempted to sit up. When he tried to move, dizziness overwhelmed him; he shut his eyes and carried on. Finally, when his back was against the wall he looked up.

Glowing with internal light the phoenix was sitting on the edge of the table on the other side of the room, looking at him curiously. He quickly closed his eyes again, brought the hand to the bridge of his nose and slowly counted to ten. Then he risked glancing up. The bird was still there. Well, poisons could cause hallucinations (as well as some other substances he had taken recently), however the bird looked uncannily real and familiar. He briefly considered the possibility of this being some sort of afterlife, but then something clicked in his head and realization dawned on him.

"Why the hell did you do it, you, stupid bird?" he hissed. Fawkes merely cocked its head to the side inquiringly. Severus tried to sit up straighter and gather as much dignity as possible what felt like not much.

"I wanted to die, don't you understand! To end this fucking nightmare! I fulfilled my purpose, now I can rest." He gave it his best You-Will-Be-Punished-for-This- Audacity glare, however it might be spoiled by his lying in the puddle of his own blood. He paused. "Don't you have somebody better to save anyway?" he asked finally and immediately felt a bit daft because it was a well-known fact that birds generally didn't talk.

The bird blinked and looked at him for some time apparently considering the answer. It appeared to be totally unruffled by his ungrateful behavior and frankly that was annoying as Severus wanted it to be as angry as he was.

In the end Fawkes spoke only not in voice but in thought, directly to Severus' mind.

Your near death was sufficiently tragic for me to cry over it. I happened to be flying nearby, you know with all this interesting action going on around here. Its voice rang in his head like a bell, Severus fancied that he even sensed the echoes, even though his head wasn't that empty for this phenomenon to be possible. It obviously was not meant for communication with regular people, more or less.

He was so astonished by this, that he even forgot to be properly surprised. He sneered and replied promptly:

"I thought phoenixes only cared about Gryffindors, you know, the brave ones."

Just because I am mostly red doesn't mean I care only about children who generally wear red clothes in a certain school. I don't care much about all humans. Equally, mind you. It was said or thought with a bit of pride. It turned its head and started to clean the feathers of the right wing. Sadly, I am obliged to cry over some human at least three times in a single life and it always so tedious because it must be someone brave actively doing something brave and wounded while doing this braveness. And it SO hard to find this sort of thing. Unfortunately, you simply CANNOT be nearly immortal without some sort of rules. Can you imagine that? The phoenix huffed.

Severus was staring at him with eyebrows raised. Somehow nobody wrote these kinds of facts in books about magical creatures, about which he always suspected wizards and witches knew very little. And the amount of this knowledge had just shrank before his eyes.

I don't like battles, they're so unpredictable and I'm not invincible, being reborn is not as easy as it seems, trust me. And you were here in a secluded area and alone. Very convenient. Very safe. I like it. The bird stated finishing its grooming.

Severus was still speechless, an unusual occurrence.

So, yes, it's time for me to go and enjoy my master-free existence for a while more. You cannot imagine how annoying Dumbledore was at times, with all this helping Potter business. Fawkes extended its wings, then glanced at Severus again and stopped as if it remembered something.

As I understand, you humans don't have many lifes like us, so I advise you to use time given to you carefully. You can always find a new purpose for existence, and if you don't want purpose you can simply enjoy. Your life is your own.

The phoenix leaped into the air and disappeared in the bursting flame. A single scarlet feather slowly drifted to the ground. Gleaming gold as it caught the limited sunlight. Piercing silence filled the room.

Severus didn't know that Fawkes thought smugly: Merlin, I'm so cliché, but the poor man really needed a bit of a motivation speech. And apparently, I'm in a talkative mood today.

Overall, Fawkes considered this to be a restrained reaction to the miraculous salvation, because some courageous but not very intelligent humans tried to grovel in front of him or hug him or even kiss him in gratitude. What a disgusting thing to do. Nevertheless, he always stayed to see a reaction since his ego as his feathers needed regular grooming. Also, there were no more grateful listeners to well-timed aspiring songs than those on the verge of defeat or even death. Phoenixes liked gratitude. It was nice.

Meanwhile, Severus was left wondering what the hell had just happened. Somehow this was not how the one pictured the inner workings of phoenix's mind, if the one thought about such things at all. He was so distracted that he hadn't even realized up until now that the pain in his body gradually began to subside, thought his neck still remained a painful mess.

He fought his way to his feet finding his wand in the process. He was deeply relieved that it was unharmed since things would be far more complicated otherwise. He regarded the pool of blood, the second evidence of his near departure to the world of the souls or nothingness (depending on your optimism level), for several seconds and then vanished it.

He was about to pick up the red feather when searing pain shot through his left arm and radiated throughout his body as if somebody was directly pinching the pain centers of the brain. This caused him to fell on his knees with the cringing dull thud and curl up into himself. He clenched his teeth so hard that only a miracle stopped them from breaking, probably his tongue sustained an injury too. Not even his Occlumency shields were able to make it bearable as this wasn't the usual physical pain inflicted by some outside force. The agony came from the inside produced by the magic of the Dark Mark, which was subtly laced with the Severus' own magic. And now the Dark Mark was dying. In reality the torment lasted the mere minute at most, but to Severus' inner clock it felt like a small eternity.

When it ended at last, he continued to lie on the floor trying to gather what little remained of his strength. Then a sudden realization dawned on him. The Dark Lord was finally dead for good, he could feel it in his very bones. He did not have to drudge through being a professor to an endless number of dunderheads anymore. He did not have to suffer regular bouts of torture inflicted on him by a madman anymore. He was free from now on. Finally, he was his own man.

Severus couldn't believe it felt so good. He also couldn't fathom why he decided not to fight for his life in the very end. That could have been one of the effects of the poison, but deep down he knew that it was probably due to daily exposure to a bunch of psychopaths and sadists, suffering and death, and the ever-present fear that sooner or later he was bound to become one of them. Yes, this could rob a man of any desire for life he had left, which wasn't much to begin with.

Slowly, against his body's protests he stood up and prepared to apparate, then he remembered something and groaned loudly, this time not from the pain. He looked upward as if some divine help could come from there.

"Oh, bugger, why did I give the brat those memories? Is it possible that my IQ dropped 60 points from just looking Potter in the eye?" he muttered and shook his head. Maybe I can obliviate him, some evil inner voice suggested. No, Severus, you can't obliviate the greatest hero of wizarding Britain. Fine, then let's pretend it was all the poison and not some soppy desire for redemption. Right. Just poison. But this is going to be so embarrassing...

Severus was exhausted.

On arrival to his house at Spinner's End Severus staggered into what passed for a living room and fell face down on a couch. He soon was fast asleep.

When he woke up, the sun was shining merrily through the dusty window. There was a moment of brief disorientation during which he tried to answer basic questions such as who he was, where he was and what he had to do. Then with satisfaction he realized that he didn't have to do anything in particular, except for going to the shower as his nose informed him.

Slowly he got up, his muscles ached from lying in an uncomfortable position for an extended period of time. He cast Tempus and discovered that he slept for more than 24 hours, that was more than four times the time he usually slept at night for the last year. He contemplated this fact for a few seconds. Now, shower.

Bathroom was as unclean and neglected as the rest of the house, but at least there was still water, and soap, and mirror – all he really needed. First things first, he washed his neck and examined it closely. Of course, a jagged scar covered his neck; however, it was not the usual kind of scar. It was noticeable, not because it was red, but because it was silvery-white, even lighter than his pale skin. And when he turned his head closer to the light, he realized with horror that it glittered, faintly but still. This is what happens when you carelessly get saved by some insane magical bird, Severus thought exasperatedly. He knew everything there was to know about ugly scars and this one was not even ugly per say, it was just weird. And it was still a little painful.

It turned out that all his clothes were at Hogwarts, so he transfigured some old curtains into black trousers and white shirt, but sooner or later he would have to acquire normal clothes. Because while it was possible to wear transfigured ones, he could feel magic lightly radiating from them and in contact with skin it felt like weak statistic electricity, creating slightly annoying tingling sensation.

After brief consideration Severus rejected the idea of going back to Hogwarts to retrieve his belongings as it would mean revealing to everyone that he was not actually dead if the absence of his bloody body hadn't dropped a hint. He simply could not face those people, at least not yet, and if it was for him to decide he would never see some of them again. Some abhorrent memories of his time as Headmaster flashed before his eyes and he hastily pulled them back in the secluded place in his mind where all such disturbing memories were kept. He was as proficient as it was humanely possible in dealing with them; however, he knew perfectly well that they would still haunt him for the rest of his sorry life, maybe not in broad daylight, but at night, leaking into his nightmares.

If his assumptions were correct Potter's Gryffindorish nature would do all the things that needed to be done for him to get pardon from the Ministry, thus he wasn't in any danger of going to Azkaban. More people would learn the truth. More people probably would learn his sentimental story and would snigger at his embarrassingly feminine Patronus as well; Severus wasn't sure if his masculine pride could sustain such a blow. Since he didn't care much about recognition, it was best to avoid any unfortunate encounters.

Then there was a complicated matter about phoenix. No so complicated as Severus thought about it. The bird was quite reasonable if nothing else. He touched the warm feather meditatively. He wasn't really that special to be saved, he just happened to be a convenient target for its tears. He understood this intellectually, nevertheless he could not help feeling honored. Severus could almost feel the value of his life increasing just a bit.

In the end Severus decided that he was over-analyzing, and something needed to be done about it. Maybe there was no suitable clothes in the house, but luckily there was enough strong alcoholic beverages for Severus to drown himself in them for the next several days. Also, he smartly combined this activity with watching crappy Muggle shows on TV he found in the basement.

Of course, during his brief moments of sobriety he made a few trips to the local shop to get some food, but the time came for him to really go out. How does a man try to prove to the world and to himself that he is not dead? He embarks on all possible pleasures of the flesh. And that was precisely what Severus did; maybe he didn't intent explore all possibilities, only the most obvious ones. But before that he needed to tackle some essential business.

Thus, at dawn Severus was standing in the middle of the street under Disillusionment Charm holding a small bag and watching his house burning down merrily; slight smile that nobody could see curved his lips. The fire was arranged carefully, special spells restricted its movement, not letting it spread to the houses nearby; and he certainly would be there to extinguish it when the job was done. Admittedly, this wasn't very rational decision, but he wasn't inclined to be rational at this particular time.

Exhilaration from newly discovered freedom faded fairly soon, but freedom remained, and he was determined to use it. This house with all its despicable memories of his childhood and youth represented the essence of his guilt. He hated it, but he couldn't get rid of it, up until now... Now he could finally move on.

Since he could not be bothered at this point, moving on implied to another slightly less old house a few streets away. Miss Granger's idea of using Undetectable Extension charm on a bag to pack enormous amount of things in it was quite clever since he used the same technique. However, naive girl didn't know about modified version of this charm, which prevented objects from flying randomly inside unfortunate bag, for the simple reason that he himself created it many years ago to transport potions without them smashing all together. He didn't bother to tell anyone about it though.

Quite a lot of people confuse being handsome with being sexually attractive and reverse. In fact, these are two different characteristics and a person does not necessarily have to be one to be the other. Severus was far from handsome, but over the years he became a good actor because it was essential for his survival. However, as he discovered in his twenties, being a good actor had its unexpected perks such as getting laid as often as he wanted. It absolutely did not help to build a relationship since it was real personality that mattered in the long run, but this was all right with him since he never desired nor had time for one. And who said that he couldn't use a bit of the glamour? Perfect arrangement all around.

Also, early on he realized the full merit of his voice and used it to his advantage ever since. He learned how the force of personality and a drop of mysteriousness could make all the difference. People who knew him probably would laugh at this idea in relation to him. It was a well-known fact that people in general loved to put labels on everybody so much, that sometimes it obscured the true picture of the world, however it was comforting; and Severus generously let them do it.

So, it was absolutely no problem for him to find women to casually sleep with in some small bars in the outskirts of some little city. And that was what he happily proceeded to do. Maybe not happily, because it was an exceedingly rare state for him, but with a certain degree of contentment.

A few weeks later Severus finally ran out of money he had in his immediate disposal. The dreaded trip to Gringotts was inevitable. He was embarrassed by the sappy memories he gave to Potter in the heat of the moment; it was rash decision and now he regretted it deeply. But in his defense, the miraculous beast didn't deem it fit to warn him in advance to spare him awkwardness later.

Of course, by now at least several other people were bound to know about his story. The least he could hope for was that the brat did not actually show them the memories but merely told them in hopes that they would believe him and believe him they would. Their reactions were totally unpredictable, in the worst possible scenario they might think that it was romantic. Severus shivered and not from the cold.

On the bright side they didn't think he was a traitor anymore and might dislike him slightly less i.e. not actively try to kill him.

It was high time to let people know he wasn't dead, it was high time for a couple of awkward meetings he would rather have avoided. As a result, Severus sauntered into the magical bank pretending that he belonged here. His usual black robes billowed behind him; for a moment he had considered wearing a t-shirt and jeans but decided that the shock of him being alive would be enough, he genuinely didn't want anyone to have a heart attack.

He came to the nearest counter, a goblin frowned at him from behind it.

"Good afternoon," he said calmly deciding to be polite for once. "I would like to access the vault number 666. This is the Prince family vault. Here is my key." He put the old golden key on the counter with the clink that seemed too loud in this vast hall.

The goblin checked something among his papers.

"It says here that Severus Snape, the owner of the vault, is dead," he grumbled.

"As you can see I am not," Severus answered still being patient. "You can check my wand." With great reluctance he put his wand on the counter near the key as if tearing away a part of himself, he suddenly felt extremely vulnerable and unprotected.

The goblin carefully examined the wand and returned it safely back to its rightful owner. Then he took the key and inspected it too. Severus wiped his wand with the corner of his robes before putting it away.

"Well, everything seems to be in order," the goblin finally said looking at him suspiciously. Then suddenly he motioned to the goblin guarding the entrance. Severus rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. Complications were to be expected.

When the other goblin came, the two of them had a whispered discussion, then the second goblin left.

"Wait if you please, Mr. Snape," the first one said through gritted teeth. Severus didn't grant this with an answer. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to make everybody angry and irritated.

It was a full minute (and Severus counted) before the second goblin returned with what looked like an old car antenna. Evidently goblins decided to implement some innovative technology left by the progressive Death Eaters. Severus sneered at them.

"Oh, Probity Probe, apparently not all the Dark Lord's implementations are absolutely worthless after all." The two goblins ignored him.

The second one approached Severus and waved the antenna in front of him. Nothing happened. They waited. Nothing happened.

"Very well, Mr. Snape," the first goblin finally broke the silence, "follow we."

Half an hour later Severus emerged from the intricate underground tunnels with his pockets full of money again. He felt much relived. But this state hadn't lasted for long.

He exited the bank and found Potter and Granger gaping at him from the other side of the street. And here we go, thought Severus. As he had predicted the sneaky goblins immediately informed the Ministry and the Ministry immediately informed Potter and his sidekicks about him being alive and well. But obviously not even erupting volcano could wake up Weasley at six in the morning.

The two Gryffindor cautiously approached him. He remembered that he had completely forgotten to cover up the scar on his neck as he noticed how their eyes darted to his neck. It was at least partly visible. Then he found that he didn't really care.

"All right, let's get it over with," Severus snapped making them jump. "I don't have all day."

"We thought you were dead," Potter had the nerve to say it almost accusingly.

Severus folded his arms across his chest.

"Of course," he answered, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "and I'm the ghost that will haunt you till you finish that last essay about the correspondence between total lack of logic in wizarding community and Mandrake Root. Remember how ghosts are transparent Potter? Am I transparent to you?" His words caused the desired effect: both of them stared at him blankly. Potter recovered relatively quickly.

"You died before my eyes! You had no pulse!" he announced.

"Let me remind you, Potter, that I am in fact a Potions Master and I was the one who created an antidote for Arthur Weasley when he was bitten by Nagini. Do you really think I have not expected something like that to happen and have not thought it though?"

There was an embarrassed silence. There, strictly speaking Severus didn't even need to lie, it was so easy to fool a Gryffindor. Just bombard him with long words and plant the right idea in his head.

Potter nudged Granger, she cleared her throat and shuffled her feet nervously.

"Sir, we would like to apologize for misjudging you so much. We should have trusted Dumbledore when he said you worked for our side. We should have never doubted your loyalty." She was going to continue, but he interrupted this unnecessary cliché speech full of false gratitude. Very like Potter, make the girl do all the dirty work, he wanted to say but decided to spare them.

"Please, Miss Granger, save your breath," Severus said in a bored tone. "Nothing you say will change anything. You could never have trusted me, not that nasty Professor with greasy hair, even though he repeatedly saved your sorry backsides. I would rather say this was the whole point, that's why it's called effective cover."

All this time Severus was thinking, don't bring her up don't bring her up.

"I have terribly important business to attend to." Like watching Monty Python and playing Tetris, he thought. Lest they had an opportunity to bring her up, he stalked swiftly past them and apparated away in the middle of the step.