"Sev. Sev. Wake up."

He could hear. He still existed. How interesting.

"You did it, Sev. Harry knows now."

There were soft cool fingers in his hair. This person, this voice, clearly had a body. And since he had hair, it followed that he must have a body too. His cheek tickled. He was lying face down, with the warm green scent of grass in his nostrils.

"You were brilliant. For a while we thought...well, it doesn't matter anymore. Harry can do what he has to, and then – hopefully – we think – there'll be an end to this."

He listened intently to the voice as it talked. It was achingly, wonderfully familiar, though deeper and softer than he had ever heard it in life. And yet he didn't want to open his eyes, because he couldn't quite yet face the idea that he might be imagining things, that Lily Potter might not really be there with him.

"Come on, Sev." A shade of the old bossy impatience crept into her voice. "Enough's enough. I know you're in there."

A smile curled across his mouth. He couldn't help it. How he had missed that tone, that unconscious bite of authority.

"Severus Snape, you were my best friend for nearly ten years; I know where you're ticklish. Open your eyes this instant, or I swear..."

"Now, now, Lily," admonished an older voice. It sounded amused, and it too was familiar.

He opened his eyes. "Dumbledore?"

The old man nodded and strode forward, eyes twinkling behind his half-moon spectacles. He offered Snape a hand up.

"You're dead," the younger man stated.

"I am."

"Then..."

"Yes, Severus, I am afraid that you are dead as well." Dumbledore's voice was tinged with quiet regret. "That is something I did not intend, and I am sorry. However, you did your duty admirably; Harry will understand enough from your memories to be able to follow the necessary course."

Snape took the hand – the one that he had last seen blackened and ruined, now made whole again – and stumbled slightly as he got to his feet. Someone else's hand on his arm steadied him, and he spun to face a wild halo of red hair and eyes of emerald green...

"Lily!"

She said nothing, but flung her arms around his waist and held him harder, tighter than she ever had when they were alive. Warmth flooded him and he returned the embrace, but dropped his arms after a few moments.

"What's wrong?" she asked, lifting her head.

"I'm sorry."

"Whatever for?"

"It's my fault – I started all of this – if I hadn't told Voldemort about the prophecy..."

She held a finger to his lips. "No time for that now."

"Indeed not," agreed Dumbledore. "Although if you will take guilt upon yourself, Severus, I must also point out that in all likelihood you will be the indirect means of ending this as well. You have provided Harry with the information he needs to finish Voldemort. I think the two deeds balance each other out."

"You wouldn't be here if they didn't," Lily added confidently, taking his hand. "Come on. We need to talk, and I haven't got long."

He glanced at Dumbledore, deferring to him for permission out of sheer force of habit. The old Headmaster nodded and waved him away. "We will speak later, Severus."

And so he allowed Lily to tow him away, across the grass towards a great lake – and then understanding came in a rush. He knew where they were. The lake, the grass, the forest edge...it was Hogwarts, but not as he had ever seen it. The colours were brighter, the sounds sharper, and everything had a golden, opulent cast that could not be natural. He longed to laugh. He had never believed in a Heaven, never really believed in anything after death, unless one chose to become a ghost. That he should be dead and yet strolling the grounds of Hogwarts castle as if nothing had ever happened struck him as beautifully ironic.

"Why are we here?" he asked Lily.

"At Hogwarts?"

"Yes."

She stopped and sat down at the water's edge, and patted the ground beside her. "It's hard to explain...we're not really there, or not in real time, anyway."

He sat down. "No, I had guessed as much."

"We're here at the moment because, in the real world – that is, the living world – Hogwarts is where all our loved ones are, where the future of our kind is being decided, and where we would choose to be if we were still alive. So Dumbledore says, anyway."

"It's not just you and him here, then?" He couldn't help the question, and he knew she would understand the meaning behind it. Is Potter here?

"No, it's not." She regarded him carefully. "James is here too, and Sirius, and lots of others. Silly old Bertha Jorkins. Charity Burbage. One of the Weasley boys – Fred, I think Dumbledore said. Cedric Diggory. Everybody who fought – or would have, if they'd had chance – for our side."

He hunched over his knees, much as he had when they had sat in this spot as teenagers. "So being dead is a place? Most odd."

"Well, that's the thing...ah!" A pained expression flitted across her face.

"What is it?" Severus asked, anxiety flaring in him.

"Remus," she murmured. "Oh, dear, dear Remus...so soon after the birth of your son..."

"You can tell when someone dies?" he asked, incredulous.

"If it's someone you know, yes. How do you think Dumbledore and I knew to come for you?" She tucked her hair behind her ears, tears beading at the corners of her green eyes.

He realised too late that his question had been utterly tactless. "If you want to go to Lupin – Remus – then you can..."

She shook her head. "I'm assuming James and Sirius will have gone. He won't want too many people there – it can be very disorienting when you first arrive – and anyway, I need to talk to you. Like I said, I don't have a lot of time."

"Where are you going?" He couldn't keep the pain from his voice; he couldn't bear to lose her yet again, after such a short respite.

She seemed to read his thoughts. "Don't worry, I'll be back – but I might get called away for a short while. I have a feeling that Harry might need me. James and Sirius too – and Remus now, I suppose."

He frowned, bewildered. "You can go back? Why didn't you..."

"Why did I never do it before?" She sighed. "We can't come and go as we please, but we can be called back by one thing."

Snape thought hard, and remembered the book that Dumbledore had left the Granger girl. "The Resurrection Stone!"

Lily nodded. "Harry has it – as I'm sure you know. Once he's seen your memories, he'll know that he has to walk willingly to his own death. It will probably be the hardest thing he's ever had to do. If he realises in time what's hidden in that Golden Snitch, then he may want our...ah...support."

He understood. "I'm sorry that he has to die. I tried to keep him safe for you."

For some reason, she smiled. "I know." The smile widened to a grin. "And as for whether he actually dies...well, we'll see."

Baffled though he was by this remark, he had another, more pressing question. "So if this isn't a place and it isn't really Hogwarts, what is it?"

She shrugged. "None of us know for sure. My best guess is that it's some sort of in-between – maybe a kind of fold in the fabric of our world. The borders between the two realms – that is, life and death – are semi-permeable as far as I can tell. That's why people who are close to dying can often hear the voices of their loved ones who have already passed beyond."

He swallowed, as nervous as he had been on that summer's afternoon so many years ago. "I saw you...your face...right at the end..."

A look of mixed smugness and intrigue stole across her features. "Did you? I could feel you were going, and I tried to let you know it would be alright. Interesting. I'm sure Dumbledore will want to know." The more serious expression returned. "Do you have any more questions?"

"Yes. What is this place when it isn't Hogwarts?"

"It varies. It can be different things to different people. Distance and time aren't the same here as they are in the real world – you can walk forever and not reach the edge of this land, and yet if you need to be somewhere quickly then it seems to...I don't know...contract. Everything's more fluid somehow." She frowned. "Does that make sense?"

"I think so."

"Good." She got to her feet. "I'm sorry, Sev, but I have to go. He needs me."

He knew she meant Harry. "Goodbye, Lily."

"We'll talk more when I get back," she promised. Already she seemed less solid as she began to fade across the boundaries between the worlds.

"Good luck," he called as she disappeared from sight.

He wasn't sure she heard him. It didn't matter. He would see her again. For now he needed to find Dumbledore, so he set off at a brisk walk, thinking as he went.

The future he had seen opening up before him by the side of the lake all those years ago – a life with Lily at his side, loving him – had never happened. Instead he had taken a diversion through darkness and returned to be redeemed, and it was his love for her that had done it. Suddenly he realised that he probably owed Lily Potter his soul.

Lily Potter.

The name still sounded alien even now. He wondered where her husband was – but it was idle curiosity, not a burning desire to do him mortal damage, that lay behind the thought. She was not his, and now never could be. Again he felt an insane urge to laugh – had death really reconciled him to his old enemies, the Marauders? Strange indeed.

He threw a glance back at the lake, and wondered whether, after the battle was won (of the fact that it would be won he was now certain, for he had been reunited with Lily, and all was right with the world) he would ever see it again. Would there ever be a need for the in-between to shape itself as Hogwarts in the future? Perhaps not. His eyes lingered on the patch of grass where once she and he had lain, lips brushing uncertainly in the unique, awkward way of that first teenage kiss. He smiled.

Lily Potter was not his. But Lily Evans had been, if only for a few brief hours.

He touched his mouth almost unconsciously and felt the familiar nostalgic tingle as the memory revisited him again. He was glad that he had kept it from Harry.

Nobody, he decided, must ever know.