I was going to make this a fourshot tale, but I think that the extra chapter's necessary. Better format and all.

It's hardly The Thomas Crown Affair, but I lacked a good chapter title, so there you have it.

:D Enjoy...

The Severus Snape Affair

"Nymph, are you ready to go?" Sirius asked softly, his hand resting upon her shoulder, to which she nodded, gently brushing away her own tears as she realised that she would soon be with her husband again.

"I'll miss you," he muttered, smiling at his cousin as he wrapped her in a friendly embrace, willing himself not to become too emotional until after her departure.

"Oh, I'll miss you too, Sirius," Tonks replied, her tone melancholy, and she gave him a final squeeze before relenting the hug and standing alone, a metre from him.

"Apparently, this is painless," he said reassuringly, grinning as a pale yellow light engulfed her body, oddly enabling her to see perfectly clear despite the glare of optics that encased her.

The metamorphmagus chuckled, returning the grin.

"It is. Pleasantly warm too…"

Reverting to a sincere and apologetic smile, she raised her hand in unison with his in a mutual farewell, and began to materialise from the realm of the dead just as Severus Snape seemed to apparate in.

Tonks barely had time to widen her eyes in shock before she had vanished in a haze of celestial brilliance.

Spinning on his heel at her final expression, he came face to face with none other than Snape, who seemed unable to prise his eyes from the spot where his wife had been standing mere seconds ago.

"Where…?" He managed to ask quietly.

Chewing through a brief slice of shock at how distressed his childhood nemesis looked, Sirius found himself incapable of feeding Snape such a burden. Merlin, he looked so desperate…

"Where did she go, Sirius?"

Blinking at the sound of his actual forename coming from the Potions Master rather than a derogatory yell of his surname, he raised merciful eyes to him and attempted to shield the Professor from what he was about to hear.

"She…"

"She what?"

Merlin, what the hell was he meant to do? This would destroy every last molecule of the sanity that he could see full well that Snape was barely clinging to.

"She… left to become a ghost. She didn't want you to be alone."

Snape's expression melted into distress, fear streaking through his eyes until he momentarily regained a tiny sense of control over his torrential emotions.

"Then bring her back here."

Squeezing his eyes shut, Sirius knew he wouldn't be able to survey his old enemy's reaction without wishing to cry.

"I can't."

Unbeknown to the former convict, the former Death Eater found himself shaking in anger and frustration. It wasn't meant to be like this - she was meant to be here, waiting for him, spending forever with him…

"No," he snarled, striding towards Sirius furiously. "That bastard wouldn't do it, so it's your turn. You and your damn friends condemned me to solitude in life, Black, and you're not fucking doing it in death too!"

Whipping out his wand, which he could barely keep steady from his trembling arms, his expression twisted into one of agony as he held it against Sirius's throat.

"Bring her back to me."

"It's not possible, Severus!" Sirius cried out desperately, allowing his furious mind to work through thousands and thousands of potential possibilities that couldn't possibly work that might bring his cousin back from spirithood. "It isn't because I don't want to!"

"Don't do this to me."

Sirius's eyes met in a firm line with his acquaintance's, whom he had never seen look so distraught. Shock ignited within him as a tear slid down the cheek of the Potions Professor.

"Don't fucking do this to me, Black! I can't do it anymore!" Snape screamed out, the fright fully returning to his retinas as Sirius felt the wand against his throat shake violently.

The werewolf's friend, however, had only one question as his mind halted directly at an idea that although was a long shot, had a vague plausibility of accomplishing what he needed to.

"Did you love her?"

Oh Merlin, Black. You could never understand how much.

"More than you'll ever know."

Snape's eyes all at once told Sirius stories of terror, sorrow and crushing loneliness, and he was left with no doubt whatsoever that Snape was being truthful.

"I can't face forever alone," he admitted, relinquishing the knowledge of his greatest fear. "Don't make me have to."

"There may be a way," Sirius said gently, uncertainly, "but it's a long shot. There is every likelihood that it will fail, but you must believe that it will succeed."

"Just let me try, Black," Snape responded, a touch of hysteria colouring his voice as he abruptly shifted his wand from his former foe's throat, causing the animagi's eyes to soften.

"Power here is driven by people, Severus; More accurately, death is kept alive by the emotions of the dead people - wizard, witch, muggle or other. The fabric of this dimension is kept secure by their ionic energy, and it alters with them; for example, right now, we're standing in bleakness. Look around, heighten your senses - feel."

For the first time since seeing his wife disappear, Snape did endeavour to look somewhere that was neither where she had vanished nor at Sirius, and he noticed exactly what Black had said - it was almost pitch jet, with a solid concrete ground and various storm clouds littering the sky above their heads. It was musty, dark, suffocating, and terribly reflective of solitude. Snape unconsciously shivered.

"This section of reality is reflecting your mindset - your innermost turmoil is shown in a meteorological sense. It's the ultimate in pathetic fallacy, Severus - your mood is mirrored by your surrounding environment. It's reflecting your emotions because yours are the strongest within our parameters. Your ionic energy is manipulated by that of other people and self-reflection is obtained."

"Is there a point to this?"

Sirius would have stormed at him to be quiet under normal circumstances, but seeing the desperation that was fighting so damn hard to obtain control over the ex-Death Eater, he managed to sustain his calm frame of mind.

"Of course, Severus. You must appreciate what's happening before you can effectively reproduce it."

Stepping away from the confrontational scene, the older man kept walking until he occupied a position ten metres away.

"The idea, Severus, is for you to simply feel,", he instructed. "You have to want her here with all your soul."

Sirius smiled, a bitter aftertaste to the gesture.

"You have to let go of all the sorrow, the grief, the pain. Allow it to consume you and reduce you to nothing - then want her."

Swallowing in fear, Snape nodded, horrified.

"The process of becoming a ghost is irreversible, Severus. I have to warn you now that the odds of this being effective are -"

"Shut up, Black. I won't fail, do you understand me?"

The Potions Master was shaking slightly again, his vocal tone fragile and dangerous yet urgent.

I hope you don't, Snape - for your own sake, the animagi thought, inclining his head to inform his former enemy to commence when ready.