Convincing Draco Malfoy to kiss Harry Potter was easier than anyone would have thought it to be. Severus suspected that, like Weasley, his motives had been at least partially self-serving. Not only a chance to break the Boy Who Lived's heart, but a chance to do it publicly. He'd have been both loved and despised, a catch in the eyes of half of Wizarding Britain, if it had worked. Which, of course, it hadn't; and neither had the Weasley twins or Luna Lovegood. Even Neville Longbottom had been given the chance, along with every other boy in Potter's dorm.

The Potions Master began to fear that they had exhausted all avenues. He didn't know what else to try, and was tempted to begin convincing Albus to let every student try and wake their savior. The only thing that stopped him was a promise. The promise to safeguard Potter's dreams, his mind, was one, but internally he had promised himself that he would do what he could to protect Potter's body as well. And you were always meant to keep Christmas promises.

He visited again and again, but with each visit he grew less and less concerned over finding the Wizarding Savior's savior. There was nothing left to ask, no road they had not walked to its dead end. Through his dreams, Potter showed Severus his world. A cupboard under the stairs, but only from the outside; Hogwarts, as seen from the eyes of a bright and imaginative young mind; the Ministry, through the eyes of a frightened Fifth Year; Diagon Alley, ever-changing but always the same; and a park, not dissimilar from the one where Severus once met his best friend in the dog days of Summer.

Sometimes there were even people, though Potter never interacted with them. To him, it was as if they didn't exist at all. The students of Hogwarts, the wizards and witches of the Ministry, his relatives…all shapes, and blurred lines and colors, but never with any substance. Severus had asked once, as they traversed the corridors of the school.

"Why do the people never have faces?"

"Why should they?" Potter had asked bitterly in return. "This is how everyone sees me, isn't it? Faceless. A name in a headline, a scar on a forehead, and a bleeding heart in a much unguarded chest."

Severus hadn't known how to respond, and had said nothing. It took two more visits to learn the real truth. They'd been walking through a dark and terrifying version of the Ministry, officials dodging this way and that as they weaved easily past.

"Shakespeare was right, you know," Potter had said, breaking their companionable silence. "He often was, usually without meaning to be. All the world's a stage…and everyone wears a mask. You asked why the people are faceless, and it's because here I can strip away their masks. I think everyone has two lives, Snape. There's the one we live, right out in the open for everyone else to see…and there's the one in our heads. Sometimes, we let the two lives converge, with unknown consequences. But, for most of us, we keep a secret part of ourselves completely hidden from the scorn of others. For some, it is a terrible darkness that must forever be locked away, for others it is an innocence that no truth can kill…But for us, for you and I, it is the pain. We take the card's we're dealt and we bluff until not even we can tell if the hand is good or bad. Because the alternative is so much worse, the alternative is letting people we care about see the things that eat at our souls…the alternative is turning everyone away in terror of the things we've faced and done."

Again, Severus had found he was unable to respond. Admitting that Potter was right would kill the bluff, and he was horrified to find that the dam walls were dangerously close to snapping under the pressure of maintaining the mask. The only other thing he could say would be to lie, and he found he couldn't bring himself to do that either. No one else, besides Albus, had stood so precariously on the edge between his mask and his mind. No one else had ever bothered to peek beyond the walls around his secret heart and accept what they found there. He'd been unable to cope and had fled the dreamscape. Only when he was safely in his quarters could he admit, in his secret heart, that running was as much an admission as anything he might have said.

He hadn't returned for nearly a week, and Potter never mentioned it again.