Author's Note: Thank you for your kind words, and I hope you enjoy this chapter, which is finally an action chapter. Major stuff happens here, that'll ripple for the nex twenty years and onward.
On Remus and Lily: I have a lot of issues with Remus Lupin and his relationship with Severus and with Nymphadora Tonks. I don't believe in character-bashing, so I'm going to be as compassionate as I can be, but Remus is incredibly manipulative, and a master at gaslighting Snape.
On relationships: I do not queerbait. Severus, in this story, is very definitely and actively pansexual. This is a Snily fic, mixing the various kinds of love, and those loves are going to change with time. Lily is still only sixteen. Severus is an adult, though realizing he is not mature. They will be sexually involved with other people. They will be sexually involved with each other, very eventually and somewhat sporatically. They will be romantically involved with other people. They are somewhat romantically involved right now-but you don't need to be fucking and monogamous to reciprocally, romantically love someone. Lily will have at least three long term relationships in this story. Severus will have two. And he won't stop being queer because he sleeps with or finds himself attracted to cis het women.
Very few people end up with the first person they dated, and people still break up and fall in love well into old age. Their relationship is dynamic, and both of them are very concerned with having a strong, healthy, equal, and lasting partnership-whatever that might be.
In conclusion, this is a fic about getting closure, about growing up and moving on and healing. That is my end goal for Severus-that he will find a measure of peace.
On another note-just took the Pottermore wand quiz to figure out Snape's wand (answering in his character), and he got a cypress wand, dragon heartstring core, 13 and a half inches and slightly yielding. The Harry Potter Wiki says that owners of cyprus wands always die heroic deaths. Remus Lupin's wand was the same, but with unicorn hair, shorter and pliable. Interestingly enough, Lily's is-canonically-of willow, which is good for healing magic, but is for insecure people. (Ron also had a willow wand.)

Disclaimer: I don't own this fic. The portrayal of Dumbledore owes a lot to plutoplex's "Unrequited". My words are my own. As usual, there are quotes from the books, movies, and Cursed Child, and information from Pottermore, littered about the text.

Content Warning: Remus Lupin being sketchy, Snape being incredibly creepy with dark magic (there's a very valid reason why Lily dumped him, what he does is just as creepy-if not more so-than James), dated and so offensive language about trans identities (it's the '70s), ableism.

The days passed quickly. Severus felt like he was dreaming, emptily sleepwalking from pensieve'd memory with Dumbledore to deja-vu class, and only Lily's concerned glance, Emmeline Vance's lingering touch as she adjusted his (impeccable) posture while dueling reminded him that he was stuck. Twenty years would pass before he could discharge his burden, before his guilt would pass. Listening to Mulciber rhapsode on the grosser dark arts, Severus wondered if redemption could be real. He would leave the dungeons and wander, so assured half the first years assumed he was a professor, brooding over the present past. Dumbledore said most would kill for a chance to relive their youth, but he felt no relief, just the crushing depression that his job was not done, and he could not do it. He hated feeling out of control.

Latisha Randle started sitting with him at the library, as did Yatin Bhagat; they had all sat together for the carriage ride to the castle. It was nice to see more of Yatin; they were now in Arithmancy and Herbology together, and had similar muggle-structured methodology. Yatin was working on a non-addictive catalyst for the Draught of Peace. The two of them actually published a new recipe together, three years from now, that was less addictive but more difficult to make. Severus did not want to take credit for Yatin's work. Ironically, it was stressing him out, but Latisha proved a good counterpoint to them. She hadn't sorted Ravenclaw for nothing. Severus quite liked her, the way she would blink slowly, raised an eyebrow, and smirk when someone did something foolish, like when Black managed to set himself on fire trying to wordlessly hex Severus during DADA. He knew she had a kid very young, she had ended up with some Gryffindor named Something Jordan, produced Lee, who he liked, the kid was the Weasley Twins' conscience and the best in his year about lab safety. Emmy put them all doing basic blocks, two casting against one shield, and as he was boredly defending one day he realized that Lee Jordan was born in 1978, so there was a high probability that Latisha was already pregnant. What was up with the wizarding folk of his generation, unable to cast a basic prophylactics charm?

Black was obnoxious as usual, but it was only he and Pettigrew bothering him in the halls, and they were not fast enough to get him cornered. Potter, surprisingly enough, avoided him. Severus could never manage to catch his eye to get a glimpse of what he was thinking. Lupin, though, Lupin was fucking everywhere, smiling and nodding and humming, calling him by his personal name and asking how his day was going. "Badly, since you've appeared in it," Severus snarled, but Lupin would just smile sadly and everyone in the hall would tut and his temper would rise and he'd have to hurry away before he grabbed him by the throat. He thought about siccing Mulciber and Wilkes on him, and then he remembered what happened to Mary, and felt sick, and had to jog twice around the Lake before he felt sane again.

Mary McDonald was finally showing up to classes, flanked protectively by Lily and Marlene. The Gryffindors more or less enveloped her, further separating themselves from the other houses. Severus did not blame them. He had instructed his Slytherins to do much the same. He rarely had a chance to see Lily. She was always with Mary, and Lupin started dogging their footsteps. Severus presumed that Gryffindor males wanted to feel involved, and he was the best behaved of the lot. Still, Lily charmed little notes to appear in his books, and once he found a doodle of him as Potions Master, dark and thunderous, sneering down at a little boy who looked like James Potter. Guiltily, he kept them, even the one of him bullying Harry Potter. They were cute, little animations of Hagrid dancing with the Giant Squid, a sketch of him done up like a punk (not dissimilar from how he dressed in his early twenties, when he wandered through the Muggle world and needed a break from Lucie Rosier's relentless haute-couture). His favorite, though, was a self-portrait she had done during their Charms lecture: herself in muggle clothes, a green sweater and bell-bottoms, in the midst of what would have become the Great Hall if Lupin hadn't nudged her and scrawled, What are you doing? Severus wanted to set his head on fire.

He waited until the first Hogsmeade weekend to report to the Dark Lord. It took him awhile to pick a memory to lead him through the barrier, but he finally settled on the moment after Voldemort had finished meting out his punishment for being late. He set everything neatly in the cauldron: blood drawn from the arm that took the Mark, to draw him to the Dark Lord; his semen, for steadying the connection to this plane; a few strands of red hair he founds and his robes and the mucus taken from the handkerchief he had lent Lily, to bind him back to her. She was his lodestone. The memory, he stirred in last. Dark potions required a piece of the brewer; he was glad that it didn't require actual flesh. He used a larger, thicker candle, for the catalyst. Doublechecking his wards on the bathroom door, he filled a beaker with the leftover potion and tucked it into his robes, just in case he became trapped in the shadows. Taking a deep breath, he painted the potion-sigil onto the mirror with his wand. He lit the candle, wordlessly and wandless, and stepped through the mirror.

There was a dull gray path unevenly pushing out of the shadow, better defined than the last spell-fertile matter was powerful stuff. Five steps in, the path suddenly split seven ways. Severus, shocked, stopped. The candle-flame flickered: artus, he spelled quickly. He lifted the arm that once bore the mark and concentrated, hoping for a tug in the right direction. His nostrils flared. He walked one path, in two steps, and saw a glimpse of a grail; another showed him ruins and a ring; a third, a tiara shining amidst dusty shelves; a fourth, a necklace in what resembled Grimmauld Place. He padded back to the nexus-point. He could still seen the bathroom mirror behind him. Two paths were closer than the others, almost interwoven; he saved those for last, and walked the last. Unlike the others, it solidified into texture as he walked it, cobblestone, almost lending him a wall-he could feel the darkness weave itself, slowly, into a solid, at his side.

The portal resolved itself into a window, locked and closed. Severus was surprised; he had done this spell a few times, first as a game at the same bodily age-and he had gotten his left foot stuck through the mirror, had to amputate, and then Skelegro it the first time around-and had never seen or read of it having this much power. He leaned in. There, staring into space, was Harry Potter, seated at his desk in a muggle house, presumably Petunia's. He was pensive, stroking the cover of a photo album. Suddenly, the boy stopped. Sighing, he leaned down and pulled out a large leatherbound sketchbook-Lily's diary.

"What?" Severus said aloud. The boy looked up and across. His gaze-Lily's eyes, killer green-locked on Severus. Harry leapt up and bounded to the window.

"Snape!" he shouted. "Professor Snape!" He gestured excitedly to the book on the table. "I know who you are! Moody told me! It's-did she tell you? Snape!" He brandished Lily's diary at him.

Severus stared at him incredulously. Surely the boy was not Voldemort. He noted the belated title, as well. He must have fucked up the spell-Lily's hair must have drawn him there. Disgusted, he walked away. He'd deal with this in twenty years. He returned to the nexus, candle still burning bright, and followed the interlocking roads to what he hoped was actually Lord Voldemort.

The Dark Lord was seated in front of a fire, stroking Nagini. Severus lifted an eyebrow: he recognized the parlor of Malfoy Manor's best guest suite. Perhaps his master shared in the snake's essence; he remembered, vaguely, Pettigrew talking about milking Nagini. He cleared his throat.

"My Lord," he enunciated, "I have returned to give my report."

Lord Voldemort was a pale, thin creature, all sinew and strange polished smoothness. He undulated around the chair, Nagini winding around his torso. "Severus Alexander," he hissed. "You have returned to me."

Severus did not twitch. Just as carefully, gracefully, he kneeled, wand twisted backwards, away from his master. "My Lord," he bowed his head. "Through the shadows I come." He smiled ironically. "Beyond the Veil, in an alternate plane, but I come. Always."

The Dark Lord rolled back on his neck and stared ruddily. "You are not...in shadow?" Merlin, that he had lapped up this melodramatic circumlocution about death as a boy.

"The Veil pulled me into an alternate universe, where you are a MW and running for Minister, and I am but sixteen."

"But still a Slytherin."

Voldemort's moments of humor were always unnerving. Worse, these flickers of humanity usually heralded an outburst, a furious Crucio.

"That can never vary."

Voldemort's tongue darted out and moistened his lips. "And when will you return to me? Come out of the cold?"

"I've contacted Rookwood, who is still a member of the Department of Mysteries here. In essence, one hour for you is a month for me, and I must wait for this body to be fully grown to step through the Veil and return." His lips quirked. "There is a space still remaining for me, and I must grow to it."

"Return to me, then, when you are able," Voldemort sneered. "Fate has her constraints. Have you reported to Dumbledore yet?"

Severus hung his head. "No, my Lord," he lied. He could not say he used his own judgement, Voldemort punished moments of ingenuity the worst, that was why Crabbe and Goyle pretended to be so stupid and Bellatrix became so slavish. Before, he used to reward-up to a point.

"Do so," Voldemort stepped back. Nagini hissed, licking at his neck. He crooned at her in Parseltongue, and suddenly whipped back to the mirror, red eyes staring Severus straight to the soul. "I would scar you for your insolent irresponsibility."

Severus dropped his head into the shadows. This was a painful, twisted position, but slavering in the Dark Lord's service had taught him to be flexible. "My Lord is merciful."

"Indeed, I am." Voldemort smiled liplessly. "Leave me, Severus Alexander, I had no need of your shadows. Your candle is flickering."

"My Lord is merciful," he said, and when Voldemort settled back in front of the fire, he hurried up and down the path, running through the nexus, and leaping through the portal. The candle was still burning when he hit the floor. Carefully, he pinched the flame out. The sigil flashed and faded beyond the glass. Voldemort had not clarified whether he wanted Severus report after reporting-he mentally added irony-to Dumbledore. "Fuck."

With most of the castle gone, the bathroom clean, Severus took a walk about the grounds. It was chilly, He rejoiced in the silence, in the silent manicured grounds, the hungry taste of the woods on his tongue. The air was clean. His appetite was aroused. Normally, he would apparate to his flat in Newcastle on the weekends, invite Saoirse over for a meal and a quick fuck, or a tour of the gay clubs in the area-Saoirse was a transexual, he never knew what term to use, but that she considered herself a woman but occasionally a drag queen, playing with gender expectations, and expected him to treat her cock gently. Severus had offered to help pay for whatever surgery she wanted, as a friend and occasional partner, but she had laughed him off. "My body," she had said, "And I'm getting it my way." They had been a terrible couple, and had lasted about two weeks of summer domesticity-she was a slob, he was a bastard. But she was the best person to party with, the best person to bitch to, and when they had sex, it was always a blast. He had stopped seeing her after the Dark Lord returned; Voldemort was odd about sex outside what he considered the norm.

Well, Saoirse still went by Iain at this point, stuck in a Catholic Wizarding school in Donegal. Severus wandered over to his spot on the rocks by the Lake and watched the Squid lazily trail a tentacle through its waters. He liked to sail, he was a strong swimmer, used to launch from the boathouse attached to the Slytherin dorms and see how many laps he could manage before the Squid inevitably pushed him back to shore. He pulled out a novel-something Lily recommended, Silas Marner, her lips twitching as she said it reminded her of his future life. He was barely halfway through the intro, a tedious recounting of George Eliot's life, when he heard someone approaching. He closed the book and began to push himself up.

"Hey, wait!" a terribly familiar voice called: Potter. He drew his wand. "Snape!"

Severus edged away. He could cast a spell to walk on water and hurry away that way, take an impromptu swim back to Slytherin, but then he would get his book wet, and drying charms were always a bother.

"No, please! Please hear me out!" Potter scrambled to him.

Severus pointed his wand straight between his dull hazel eyes. "What do you want, Potter?" he barked.

Potter pressed his lips together awkwardly, and then tried a smile. "I-I just, I've been a real bastard to you, Snape."

Severus stared at him. "Is this some sort of...ploy to regain Lily's respect?" He stepped one stone closer, wand unwavering.

Potter looked horrified. Nervously, he ran his hand through his hair. When Severus had kept his hair short, briefly as a child, and later, after Hogwarts, it had naturally been a mess, if he didn't wash and condition it, comb and dry it carefully. On him, it looked sloppy, a sign of ill-breeding. On Potter, it looked charming.

"Well?" Severus said testily. A quick Blasting curse would shove him far back to shore, and a quick Stunning would give him enough time to get away.

"No!" Potter said firmly. "Merlin, no. I seriously fucked up with Lily. I can't-no. But McGonagall finally-she explained, well. She made me realize I was going too far, I was assuming too much-I was being an asshole, alright? About you being a Dark wizard and all that, since you were a Slytherin. I wouldn't have-if you'd told me-I didn't know you were half-Muggle, and I'm sor-"

"Stupefy," Severus snarled. A flash of red light felled him; Potter crumbled. He dragged him onto more solid earth and walked away. James Potter might have bullied any Light he had had in his schooldays, but he knew his own darkness. He understood it. Stalking back to Slytherin House, he barked the password: "Sanguinis castitas!" In the cool green of the common room, amongst the trappings of pureblood supremacy, he knew he had inherited it from his filthy Muggle father. The last of the Princes, after all, had perished rather than join Voldemort-and some of the Shafiqs had left for Canada, and the Burkes took an extended holiday through the continent for the last of the war. He came by his cruelty naturally, his ill-looks and his poverty. He had been damned by his upbringing, his father's helpless rage, his mother's furious tongue. Blood had nothing to do with it. He was his father's son.

Potter sent him guilty looks for weeks afterward, and was scrupulously decent whenever Emmeline partnered them in Defense. Even Black was alright, coldly shunning him in the halls. It was definitely a change from his first youth-he remembered being hunted by the Gryffindor gang, never finding a moment's peace outside of Slytherin, always walking with his wand ready and a paranoid eye. They had stopped shoving him into toilets after fifth year, at least. Sixth year they had been a bit more discreet, more spellwork and less physical violence-a tripping hex right at the trick stair, so he had nearly fallen three storeys into the Great Hall; ice appearing on the cobblestones during Astronomy lessons at the Tower, as he attached his telescope to the ledge; and, horrendously, a full one-on-four duel after he had sneered something about Bellatrix Lestrange's sexual habits. He had been in the Hospital Wing for two days afterward-he told Pomfrey he had gotten into a Potions accident. Yes, it was quite a change.

He enjoyed retaking his advanced classes, spending more time with Yatin Bhagat. Yatin commented he seemed much calmer with those Gryffs leaving him alone, to which Severus shrugged. He was beginning to unwind. Mulciber was too busy chasing after Alecto Carrow, Wilkes was in torments over Evan, and Avery was lying low after the Mary incident. For once, he was glad for the teenage drama. All his close acquaintances were too caught up with themselves to bother him. Unfortunately, that left his farther-flung friends-really his only friends, besides Lily, and the ones who had stayed when she had left him-free to owl him, and be sure of a response. The Slytherin grapevine twined at least seven years' worth of housemates together, regardless of graduation year.

Lucius wrote him mentioning that Yatin said he had become positively graceful. He insinuated it had something to do with losing his virginity, and asked if it had been Atticus Flint's friend or Wilkes who had taught him how to move. Severus did not respond. Narcissa wrote him more depressingly about Andromeda and the baby she never met, her fears of Slytherin radicalization, and careful inquiries about how his parents were doing. Severus wrote extensively about Rosier's careful friendliness and Mulciber's outright intimidation, and did not answer any of her questions. Even Rookwood wrote him, grudgingly, gritting teeth obvious in the lines; Severus was snarky in response, but careful to keep him amused and feeling slightly superior.

More interestingly, Atticus sent him cheerful missives asking him if he and Emmy were having a torrid affair. Severus wrote him pornography in response. Atticus sent him back illustrations. Severus tried purpler prose. Atticus animated his doodles. He kept these letters carefully warded in his trunk. Besides filth, Atticus added in reports from Broderick, who wanted to know why he had all the Death Room Unspeakables in uproar, and an invitation from Dorcas to discuss duelling and spellcraft at the Cat & Kettle next Hogsmeade weekend. Apparently Emmeline had reported his technique was "very concentrated and refined". Twenty years of duel practice with Death Eaters and Dumbledore would do that.

His mother did not write him. Severus did not care. He did, however, get a garbled package through the Muggle Transit Owl post from his father, in prison stationary-an incomprehensible letter and a battered copy of the Qu'ran. Severus did not want to know. One of the reasons why his grandmother had been so dissatisfied with her daughter's choice was because Tobias so fervently refused to consider converting to Islam or spending the Eid with her family. His grandfather Prince had converted, why couldn't his father? But his father had always been a half-assed Marxist: "the opiate of the masses," he would sneer, and his mother, who had never been religious, would roll her eyes-on a good day. He was a little curious to what his father had done to end up in Strangeways, since that had not happened the first go-around. He was not tempted to write back.

Meetings with Dumbledore continued. Voldemort's terror had begun around his first year, but didn't grow deadly until his sixth. There would be an uptick in violence very, very soon, but Severus could not remember the name of the first prominent person disappeared-just that he had assumed Bellatrix had done it. Annoyed, Albus went back to memories of the resurrection.

"You said he used a horcrux?" the Headmaster said, stroking his beard. "Tom has always been a collector…" He sat down with Severus and gave him a list of likely books from Cygnus Black's library, instructing him to try and get Narcissa to let him in the library. Severus knew that Voldemort had picked the best of Narcissa and Lucius' library; they had been secretly pleased to regain sole ownership of their books, after the Dark Lord's demise.

Between researching horcruxes and spinning timelines with the Headmaster, Severus had little time for Lily, who was busy enough on her own. She had become obsessed with Lupin. The two were always together, joking over Potter and Black's antics, Pettigrew's insecurities. It was infuriating, but Lupin, suddenly looking sheepish whenever he caught Severus' eye, knew better to turn the superiority towards him. The two stayed obnoxious. Lily was not painting anymore, and she was sending her doodles to Lupin instead.

One day in late November, Benjy Fenwick waited for him after Defense class. Severus had been discussing rhythmic magic and choreography with Emmeline, who wanted him to focus more on wandless spellcasting. She was talking about Tai Chi and suggesting he talk to Garwin Yu, another seventh year, about elemetal magic when they noticed Benjy staring. She touched his shoulder and smiled him goodbye. He liked that she didn't act as if she were ashamed of him. Charity, whenever they'd fall together again, always oozed self-hate.

"What, Fenwick?" he demanded crossly, leaving the classroom.

"Can you talk a minute?"

"Can I? Of course. Would I? To you? Why should I?"

Benjy sighed. "It's about Lily. I'm-Mary and Marlene are a little worried about her, and I was wondering if you would be interested in meeting up with us and possibly strategizing on-"

"Lily's life is her business," Severus said shortly. "Her mistakes, her successes. I have no opinion."

Benjy looked at him incredulously. "You can't be pleased with how she's been acting lately. Lupin's a good guy, but he has a habit of isolating people-look at what he did to Peter, remember how they were first and second year? Before they started hanging with Sirius and James? It was as if nobody else even existed. Even you were more social." Severus shrugged. He had been too busy trying to gain acknowledgement as human as a half-Muggle in Slytherin House to pay much attention to Gryffindor social dynamics. "Well, are you free now?"

He was. "No," Severus said.

"What about after dinner? We can all meet in the Defense classroom. Let's say, around 8?"

"I'm busy." He wasn't.

"Don't you care about her ruining her life?" Benjy said, shocked. "She's barely talking to Mary now, just entirely wrapped up in Lupin and his gang, taking care of him when he's sick. It's ridiculous. Marlene told me she coaches him through his Charms homework. She's basically doing it for him! It's disgusting."

Severus said, voice heavy with irony, "At least she's not dating Potter."

Benjy quirked a smile. "What sick world would it be, for that to happen!"

"Indeed," Severus said flatly, and rubbed his palm.

Dinner was boring. Evan was trying to charm the younger Burke girls (fourth year twins) into asserting the necessity to purge the bloodline of impurities, and they kept glancing up at him, nervously worrying at their lips, rather like his own. He was their cousin, somehow, his grandfather's mother had been a Burke. His relatives mostly avoided him, afraid of his grandparents' and mother's temper-their feud was their business, and Tobias, an anti-religious admittedly racist Marxist muggle, was not something that could be rehabilitated at a family dinner party. Khalil Shafiq had never mentioned their relation. In the other plane, his grandmother had invited him to Eid al-Fitr after his trial, once it was clarified that he was a spy and did not kill him own father; he did not attend. He felt no need to further fragment his identity than it already was. It was deadly enough as it were.

Shaking his head to clear away the encroaching bitterness-why had his mother fucked his father?-he piled his plate with beef tips and sauteed vegetables, glancing up at the Gryffindor table. Lupin was there, staring at him. Severus scowled. Lupin looked away. Lily was nowhere to be seen, but Marlene and Mary were sitting at the Ravenclaw table with Benjy and Latisha. Latisha noticed him looking and smirked. Severus raised an eyebrow and began to eat. Yatin slid over and brought up his senior thesis on Charmed potions, specifically mood-enhancers and treating weather-related disorders. He played careful teacher, asking linking questions as they ate, until dessert suddenly flashed onto the table and Yatin, fire in his eyes, abruptly left to test a new hypothesis.

Severus grabbed a plum and left. Avery's eyes followed him.

"Sure you don't want an escort?" he called. "The Gryffindors have been quiet lately." Next to him, Evan smiled benignly. Severus' mouth set into a thin line, repressing irritation. He would have appreciated the offer in the original plane; but they had not started bringing him into the fold until later in sixth year, after Lucius was officially honored at Beltane, for starting a new Integral Wizarding party, after the Knights of Walpurgis were declared a terrorist group.

"I'm going to the library," Severus lied, and wandered away. Curiosity brought him to the defense classroom. Instinctively he sat at the professor's desk and pulled out his a sheet of parchment-he'd be meeting with Atticus and Dorcas next Saturday, and then Flooing over to Narcissa's apartment in London with Regulus, to catch up and further Dumbledore's agenda. The Headmaster reckoned that the Dark Lord had gotten his information on horcruxes from Cygnus Black, a mentor who had happily thrown his daughters into the Cause. It seemed like a stretch to him, but this entire situation was a stretch of the imagination, he was a bloody wizard, and magic did not, unfortunately, follow logic. It seemed to delight in violating it: case in point, his existence.

He began to draw a timeline of Lucius' career, trying to work out when he got the diary. Dumbledore had a theory, but needed to talk to Slughorn first. Severus wished him luck. Sluggy hated dealing with Gryffindors, and didn't want to slight any of his Slytherins, regardless of what side of the civil war they were on. He made an exception for Lily Evans and her charm, of course, but Severus suspected that was partly to show the Headmaster he wasn't a racist, and partly some subterranean secret Slughorn himself would never reveal. His favorite working theory was that Lily's mother was his granddaughter, child of a squib fostered among muggles. It was probably all bullshit, but it made good craic.

"Ah, Snape!" Benjy bounded over. "Good to see you! Mary and Marlene should be here soon, they're just trying to avoid Black-apparently McGonagall gave them all a lecture on Gryffindor chivalry in the beginning of the year, and it took to heart...what are you writing?"

Severus wandlessly and wordlessly casted a drying charm and folded the sheet of parchment, stowing it into his pocket. "My schedule for the upcoming weeks."

Benjy nervously rolled his wrist. Severus' eye twitched at the cracking sound. "You're doing an independent study with the Headmaster, right? Something alchemical?"

"Yes," Severus said shortly, and leaned back in his chair. Darkly he regarded Benjy: a nice enough guy, brown-haired and dependable, doe-brown eyes. The Death Eaters had eviscerated him, hunting down all the younger members of the Order of the Phoenix. The Dark Lord had thought the best way to cull recruitment would be to kill the recruiters. It had worked.

Voices floated down the hallway. "Fucking Sirius Black," McKinnon growled, "I hate how he always managed to twist my words! Like fuck did McGonagall say never to let the girls out unattended, I didn't see him ever looking after the third year girls, and none of this shit when he was still stringing me along-"

"Come on, Marlene," Mary stepped into the classroom, "for once he means well, even if he's an arse about it. Egotistical masculinity aside. It isn't safe to walk around alone."

"I know. But we've got each other, don't we? And between my wand and your karate, we'll tear any junior Death Eater apart, limb from limb!"

Mary shivered. "I don't think we're enough…" She noticed Benjy and Severus staring. "Hi," she said flatly. Severus examined her: she looked alright, well-groomed, but a bit drawn, as if she hadn't been sleeping, and very tense. He didn't blame her. "Snape."

Severus straightened in his chair. "McDonald," he said. He drew breath, unsure on how to proceed. He could feel McKinnon watching him like a hawk. "I'm glad to see you up and about."

Mary's brow furrowed. "Yeah?"

Self-consciously, Severus stroked his lower lip, thinking hard on what to say. "Yes. There are few in Slytherin who would have your courage. Zara Shafiq transferred to Durmstrang. So did Basil Fawley." Zara had actually transferred because of Sirius Black; Basil had left under Mulciber's harassment. They were all members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight; Voldemort had only exploited an already fractious detente into an explosive civil war.

Mary eyed him. Severus gazed steadily back, keeping his face unguarded. He caught rage, terror, disgust, worry, and finally, grudging acceptance that he was serious. "Mulciber's trash."

Severus caught himself from sneering. "Pond scum, you mean. Yes. I live with him."

"O-kay," Benjy edged in. "Well, I don't want to keep you all waiting, I have some revising to do, we can't all be geniuses like you, Snape." Snape sneered at the obvious attempt at sarcastic flattery simultaneously with McKinnon. McKinnon thought only Gryffindors could be smart. Mary began to look less wary and more irritated: success. "So here comes the first meeting of the Lily Evans Interventionalist Squad."

"No," Severus said. He rose. "Absolutely not, I am not getting involved with anything that takes away her agency and messes around with Potter's gang."

Mary sighed. "Benjy, don't be an arse. It's not an intervention, it's…it's a plan of attack. But yes, thanks for inviting Snape." She eyed him again. "Lily said you've turned your life around. Got kicked out of the house. I didn't know you were Muggle-raised."

Severus flushed. "How the fuck-" he restrained himself, "my blood status is of no one's concern-"

Mary stood her ground. "Don't be angry with her. Not for that. I was bugging her about you. I didn't know you were one of us, too."

"My mother's a pureblood," Severus said. "I was always raised knowing about magic. It's not the same."

"No, it's not. But that's beside the point. We're here to talk about Lily, not your self-hate."

Severus flushed. Mary, across the Veil, had a knack for disarming him; he understood why Lily had chosen her for a friend. He regretted the falling out-over hanging out with Potter and Sirius Black, Mary thought it had been horribly hypocritical, they were worse bullies than him-that had removed her good influence on Lily. For a second, he saw an alternate world, the three of them as friends. Then Marlene was saying something mildly apologetically racist, Mary's expression had turned flat, and Benjy had changed the topic.

"Now, we all think Lupin's a bit er, right?" Benjy asked.

Marlene folded her arms. "Meaning he's alternately clingy and condescending, yeah. He's good for a laugh. But yeah, I don't like how he's been treating Lily. I swear she's spent more time with him in the boys' dormitory than sleeping in her bed."

Severus shrugged. "She could be sleeping with him. This would be her first relationship. Young love-cloying and sickening, she'll tire of it soon enough."

Benjy was staring at him. "I thought you guys had been together. Since third year, at least"

Severus was taken aback. He was too disgusted by the idea of two sexually active thirteen year olds to even come up with a way to address it. Finally, he said, "Lily would be furious if she knew we were...disccusing-"

"Gossipping about her?" Mary laughed, albeit harshly. "Come on, Lily gives what she gets, she's a horrible gossip too." Severus looked at her flatly. He should never had expected that Lily would keep their situation quiet; she could be trusted with an explicit secret, but not much else. "It's not them having sex or anything like that I'm worried about. It's just-we haven't seen her. He'll wave her over when she's with us, and immediately she'll leave. A little guiltily, but she'll excuse it."

Marlene made finger-quotes in the air. "'Oh, you know how Potter's gang gets, it'll do Remus some good to talk to somebody else in the House'-as if Potter doesn't have everyone and the Headmaster eating out of his hand-"

Mary smiled cruelly. "Not McGonagall, though."

Marlene grinned back. "No, not her. But, anyway-it's been two months of this, it's like I've lost one of my closest friends. And it's not like she's been in the library with you."

Severus said, "No." He was starting to understand their worry, but he knew what she was like. She had done this in the other plane: the more things change, the more things stay the same. She had dropped everyone for Potter. "Potter's little posse is...exclusive."

Marlene said, "They don't let Peter make any other friends. They're always laughing at him when he talks to girls-or guys, for that matter. No wonder he's such a twitch." She scowled, lost in her own drama. "But Sirius never lets anyone in, besides James at least…"

Benjy stepped forward. "She's been doing his homework when he's sick. I've seen her a couple times, in the library, rewriting her notes for it. But she says it's because he's been through so much." Severus snorted audibly. Benjy grinned. "I know, I know. Our Lily's always been naive. But it's worrying-what if she gets caught? It's cheating. And they won't punish him, he's a pureblood prefect. But they might take her prefecture away, and she's the first female Muggleborn to be Gryffindor prefect…"

"Have you talked to her about your concerns?" Severus asked. The three of them eyed each other.

"Well, no…"

"Not precisely…"

"Uh, no, I don't feel like her blowing up in my face."

Severus sighed.

The conversation, as he had expected, was entirely useless. He let them decide how to approach her, and went back to wandering the halls. Outside a sleet was starting, coating the high windows wet and chilling the stone walls. Severus pulled his cloak around him and walked back to Slytherin. Lily Evans was not his responsibility; she needed to learn how to live her own life. She would have to learn not to sacrifice her friends for love's obsession. He had learned, with Lucie, with Charity. He had been given the time. He was determined she would have that space to learn as well.

He ran into Dumbledore on his way through the Great Hall. The man was dressed in fiery orange robes, that flickered blue-flame at the edges. They were spangled with red gems, probably not colored glass, Severus thought, the man oozed wealth.

"Ah, Mr. Snape," Dumbledore smiled genially. "It's coming close to curfew."

Severus raised an eyebrow. Surely he was not going to be held to the letter of the law.

Dumbledore laughed at his expression and touched his shoulder gently. Severus restrained a flinch. "Why don't you join me in my office? It's a cold night."

Severus thought about the slow journey to the Slytherin dormitories, rather than his comfortable quarters, and decided to follow him. He missed talking to fully-grown adults.

The gargoyle let them pass-"Mars Bars"-with little comment, only asking about his liver in an undertone as he walked up the spiral staircase. Severus felt worn by inevitability: Lily would date a Marauder, Marlene would die, Benjy would be blown to pieces, and Mary would be left again, to pick up the pieces of her life with harsh humor. Albus directed him to sit in a cushy armchair by the fire. He was beginning to sense a plot. The portraits all around them whispered to themselves. Albus settled in a wingback across from him, and snapped his fingers. An endtable appeared between them, bearing fresh black bread and butter and a bottle of whiskey. Severus frowned at him, suddenly grasped by melacholy: he and the Headmaster used to eat this, plotting out his spyig like this, chatting at the fire. Albus had made his persona, the dark drama and dripping sarcasm, and even helped him pick out his clothes. He closed his eyes.

"How have you been, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

Severus' lips twisted. "Dead people keep asking me for advice." He considered the Headmaster, his aging face lit by the fire. He realized suddenly that this was the only person on two planes who understood his sacrifices and recognized his responsibility. Disturbed, Severus looked away. What did he mean to this Dumbledore, then? A shot in the dark, and a compelling experiment. His eyes slid back to Dumbledore's face. He was staring at him, eyes gleaming.

"What have you been doing?"

"Trying not to get involved. I'll be seeing Narcissa next Hogsmeade weekend, with Regulus. I believe Slughorn has already filed the permission slip. We'll be staying at her London apartment and having dinner with her parents-that should give me enough time to browse through the library, as long as Bellatrix is not there…."

Albus regarded him fondly. "Does Cygnus approve of you, then?"

"He approves of my grandparents enough not to directly slight me. Druella, however," Severus shrugged.

"Indeed."

They broke bread and sipped their drinks, discussing the war. Severus felt like an aide-de-camp dining with his commanding officer during a lull in the war, vaguely Napoleonic; it felt good, it felt normal. Dumbledore was being kind to him. He had not believed his apology, but he thought the shock and guilt was genuine. The old lion was dazzled by his own mane, and sometimes it took the consequences in physical form to shock him back into humanity. Severus had long accepted he was the Headmaster's conscience, as much as Albus was to him. Neither of them could pretend to be noble around the other. Then Severus remembered this Dumbledore had only known him through his memories, for less than three months.

Albus was musing on Severus' trip to the shadows again: "Six paths, one leading you to the boy-and he could actually see you, notice you before you called his attention? I have never heard of something making more than one horcrux-not even Gellert dared-"

Severus interrupted, "Headmaster? Do you remember who I am?"

"My boy, what do you mean?" Blue eyes widened. "Severus Alexander Snape, Potions Master of-oh. Aha." He sat up.

Severus cast about for a memory he knew he had not shown this world's Dumbledore. "Do you remember what I said after my first Potions lesson?"

Dumbledore was still. "Nothing," he said slowly, "but Minerva caught you with your head in your arms, lying on your desk in your office. She thought it very merry-she said you glared up at her and informed her that you hated everything, yourself most of all, and then grudgingly apologized for ever existing before the age of twenty-one."

"I never showed you that."

Albus steepled his hands. "The timelines are meshing. Or at least, I am."

"And what is your brilliant hunch now?" Severus asked softly.

"I believe I might be dead."

Severus considered him. "How very irritating."

The Headmaster got up and began to pace around the fire. He explained that he thought that Snape's trip through the Veil was drawing the planes to intersect. He had died before his scheduled time, and so his sojourn here was meant to balance it back out again. Unfortunately, his death had ripples-whatever Dumbledore's counterpoint did, it had caused him to die before his moment as well, thus causing his consciousness to follow the same path Snape had blazed out. His journeys back and forth between the worlds had widened the pathway the Veil had already established. He hypothesized that Severus had been meant to save him-hence him waking up here.

"And how did you die, then?" Severus said, standing up. "What happens if we die here?"

"I was destroying Tom's first horcrux," Albus said dreamily, searching through his mind. "A ring, among the ruins, like what you saw-"

"Like what I saw in the shadows. Yes." He did some quick calculating. "Then he made three more, besides the diary and the ring." He thought of the intertwined paths, the snake, Harry Potter. His eyes widened. "Can a living thing be a horcrux?"

The air tensed. The two stared at each other.

"Not the boy," Severus whispered. There was a roaring in his ears. "Not Lily's child. No." He clutched the back of his armchair. What was the point of it all then? Why had he done this?

Albus poured him a few fingers of whiskey. Instinctively, Severus took it. "You cannot tell me," the Headmaster said, "that after all this time, you've done this just for her memory."

Severus closed his eyes. He thought about her, thriving and failing in this world, her dreams for revolutionizing wizarding art, the sketch of him cooking dinner in her sketchbook. His mouth twisted, and he sat down. "Always," he said heavily. "Always. It was her. The one person who cared. One person. All it takes is one person. I couldn't save her, even though she did so much for me. So now I give my allegiance to the cause she believed in." He closed his eyes. "I suppose it's possible—that along the way I started believing in it myself."

Albus touched his arm gently. "You were never a murderer."

"But I enabled it, didn't I?"

"Who have you killed?"

Severus' shoulders slumped, heavily. Lily, Benjy, Marlene, Evan, Wilkes, Regulus, Barty Crouch. Even Potter, he was culpable for that bastard's death. "Only those I could not save."

"You're alive now." Albus' eyes were shining in the fire. "I'm alive now. We have a chance. Meet with me the night you return to Hogwarts. Send a Patronus when you get back." He stopped. Lily had developed the communication part of the charm.

Severus reached into his pocket and handed him the list of events he had been writing. "I've been working on a timeline for the rise of Lucius Malfoy. We might be able to pinpoint when the Dark Lord gave him the diary, if the diary indeed is a horcrux," Albus nodded, so it was, thanks for never telling him, bastard, "and what we need to do to retrieve it."

"I'll do the same." Albus flexed his wandhand, and rubbed the wrist absently. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Severus, my Pensieve calls."

Severus left, feeling hollow and steady all at the same time. Back in the dorms the lads were laughing, playing music-Evan was dancing wildly in the center. When he came in they all started clapping, demanding he join.

"Not tonight, lads, I'm not in the mood."

"You're never in the mood," laughed Avery.

"Come on, Snape," Mulciber gestured, then gyrated his pelvis. "Show us the way you move."

Evan grabbed him and spun him around the room. A louder, wilder song started playing, a Ramones ripoff. Why did wizarding music always add a glockenspiel. Wilkes handed him a goblet full of cheap firewhiskey-they were slumming it, nothing so good as Old Ogden's-and he gulped it. The fire burned in his belly, lightened his step. He let himself have fun; the boys drank and talked shit and laughed about sex and danced, and when Severus woke up he relished first in his quiet mind, and then the memories of a last, careless night.