"I had a dream last night," Lily said, dropping to her knees beside him, under their favorite tree by the lake.

Severus had had a dream, too. The only part he remembered was having his throat ripped out by a giant, evil snake. The pain had been thoroughly disconcerting in its realism.

He rolled his eyes, focusing on his silent levitation of leaves and pebbles. "What of it? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you do normally have dreams?"

Lily laughed, high and sharp. Her laugh always reminded him of winter sunlight lancing through bare branches, even at the height of summer. "Not like this one. This one was true."

Severus dropped his spell, focusing on green eyes and copper waves glinting bright, a vision of spring, despite the chill in the air and the smell of autumn on the wind. "How do you know?"

"I just do."

"Well, what happened in it?"

She hummed, and smiled, the private, crooked smile reserved for him and thunderstorms. "We were older, you more than me, and married, for one." Well, that sounded much better than his dream. "You had stolen me away from the Light, or so they all thought – really I had wanted to go with you all along. Who else knows me, after all?"

"Who indeed?" he murmured, smirking.

She returned the expression with interest, but her attention wandered as she continued to speak. "I kept up the play, but it was… strange. They thought me a victim, they knew but didn't know… a long game of pretense, not unlike our current project, but… cut closer to the surface with the lies." Her gaze left the greying sky and found his own again as she said, "There was a time and place where I didn't have to lie at all. You were its king, and I its uncontested mistress."

"Sounds nice," he murmured, too quiet, he thought, for her to hear, but she answered anyway, with a smile as sharp and merciless as her laugh.

"Paradise."

Severus shivered, and it had nothing to do with the suddenly-cold wind off the water.