Snape looked fondly at his ward who had curled up on the sofa and was fast asleep. The words that Harry had yelled at him had certainly hurt, but looking at his sleeping face now Snape felt that hurt mend. He knew that the boy had just been doing what asked, and had spent the evening eagerly awaiting the explanation. With a sigh, Snape knew that they all deserved that. He reached out and grasped Harry's shoulder gently.
"Wake up, Harry," he said softly. "I'm here to take you somewhere else."
"Snape?" Harry asked, rubbing his eyes and looking around confused. It took him a second to remember what had happened, and then his face became stricken. "I'm so sorry!" he blurted, close to tears.
"Why?" Snape cut him off with a concerned face. "You did precisely what I asked, and in a very believable way. You were perfect, Harry."
"I was?" he asked, wanting to believe.
"Of course," Snape nodded. "You trusted me completely and did precisely as I asked, which made all the difference. Even in your understandable grief and doubts you have you're your head. Your bravery will likely be what saves us all."
"Really?" Harry asked, squirming under this unexpected praise.
"Of course," Snape told him. "Now let's wake your friends, I believe we have a lot to discuss."
The other three in the room groggily awoke, blinking at the form of Severus Snape before them. "You know, if I'd had evil intentions you would all be dead," Snape told them. "The security here is dreadful."
"There are wards," Sirius answered sleepily.
"I suppose," Snape agreed. "Now I have much to tell you. Firstly, none of you will be returning to school."
"What?" Hermione protested. "How could that be?"
"Hogwarts will become increasingly uncomfortable for muggle-borns," Snape explained to her in a business-like voice. "You would not have been there more than a month more anyway. And the three of you, with the help of Sirius, Lupin, myself and another that I shall reveal, have a great deal of work before you."
"Work?" Ron asked in confusion. "What work?"
"I have much to explain," Snape admitted. "This is going to take some time, and I don't believe this is the best place to do it. We must go to the safe house."
"You have a safe house?" Harry asked incredulously.
"I have been planning this for some time," Snape told him. "The house is part of it."
"Where is it?" Hermione asked, trying to come to terms with the radical change her life was about to take.
"A large and boring suburb of London," Snape told her. "As non-descript and magic-free as I could find. It's called Croydon."
"My floo is shut down, obviously," Sirius reminded him.
"I have port-keys," Snape told them, handing each of them a necklace with a medallion on it. "Make sure you obscure these when you are out. The key word is the name of Headmaster Dumbledore's pet."
"So you are still loyal to him," Ron confirmed, but his voice had doubts.
"You have no idea," Snape replied to him, sounding tired. "But you are about to find out. Alright, everyone, activate your port-keys."
"Fawkes!" they all said, holding their medallions. Harry felt that familiar tug at his naval, and soon found himself dumped out onto cream-colored carpet. He looked around at the creamy walls and the non-descript furniture, and found himself shivering at feeling like they were back in the muggle world. He half-expected Aunt Petunia to come out of the kitchen.
"Welcome to number six, Parkview Circle," they heard a voice greet them that they couldn't believe they were hearing.
Harry looked up to see Dumbledore, with his flowing robes and his eyes merrily twinkling, holding his arms out in welcome.
"Dumbledore?" Harry asked, awestruck. "But you're . . ."
"Dead?" he helpfully supplied. "Not yet, my boy, but soon enough. With Severus' help I have cheated the grave for another six months or so."
The four new people looked between Snape and Dumbledore, none knowing what to say.
"We should begin at the beginning," Snape told them, taking charge of the situation. "And I'm going to ring for tea. I assume that Posy has taken residence?"
"Of course," Dumbledore answered. "She has been caring for me quite well. Posy, could we have some tea please?"
"Right away, sirs," a small house-elf in a colorful dishtowel popped and then out again. Within a few minutes they had strong English tea with bread, scones, boiled eggs, sausages and fruit. Nobody had felt particularly hungry before, but on seeing the delicious food set before them they each began filling their plates.
"We should start by explaining that I am dying," Dumbledore told them, brandishing a darkened, withered hand. "Due to a cursed ring I foolishly put on several months ago. Due to his brilliance in potions Professor Snape has been able to stave off the curse for as long as possible, but my days on this earth are more numbered than most."
"Is there no way to cure it?" Harry asked, looking at the hand with concern.
"None that we have been able to find," Snape answered him gently. "I still search."
"My original plan was to have Severus kill me in view of the death-eaters," Dumbledore explained. "That would cement his loyalty to Voldemort and make him an unquestionable spy. However, Severus had other ideas."
"With the task before us, we needed every day you could live," Snape explained. "And since Dumbledore has so little time left, we decided to move up the original timeline and have me murder him now. He could be much more useful to us than just as a murder victim."
"But how was it done?" Hermione asked. "Surely people checked to see if he was actually dead."
"The draught of the Living Death," Dumbledore chuckled. "With some special modifications made by the youngest Potion Master in five centuries."
"A tricky potion, but not impossible," Snape acknowledged. "And then after I removed Dumbledore from his grave, I placed a golem in there to take his place. It was enough to fool whom we needed to fool. We also have allies that helped us."
"Who knows he's still alive?" Hermione asked.
"Poppy," Snape acknowledged. "And the people in this room. It is of utmost importance that this information never becomes public, for obvious reasons."
"What if we're captured?" Ron asked.
"Do your best to avoid it," Snape told him. "Use your port-key to return here, if you can. But if this information becomes known, I am likely dead within the hour."
That information settled on those in the room, and they looked around soberly.
"Since we all risk so much, we decided to tell you everything," Dumbledore told them. "We will answer any questions you have at the end, but for now please listen to the story. I hope you appreciate the risk we are taking, but we have decided that it is worth the risk."
"There have been many things we couldn't tell you until now," Snape told them quietly. "You don't know how it grieved me to cause you all such grief and sadness, knowing that Dumbledore was still alive but letting you believe him to be dead. But we had no choice, your grief had to be real."
"And it is for that lie that we are most sorry," Dumbledore nodded. "But hopefully at the end of the story you will understand more. If not, Severus and I are fully prepared to take your wrath. Now, children, has anybody ever heard of a horcrux before?"
And so Dumbledore and Snape told their story about the plans that had been years in the making. They told them what they knew of the horcruxes, what they feared, and the plans they had. Harry saw more clearly than he ever had what being a spy had cost his guardian, and how much he risked to defeat Voldemort.
"How many horcruxes are there?" Hermione asked as their story drew to a close.
"We don't know," Dumbledore admitted. "I believe that Horace Slughorn has this information, but he has not been forthcoming."
"We are two down," Snape told them. "The diary and the ring that cursed Dumbledore are now destroyed. We have a lead on a third."
"It is horrendous to contemplate even making one," Dumbledore told them. "Splitting your soul can make you dangerously unstable. It is hard to imagine that there are more, but there must be."
"How do we know that the horcrux isn't some nondescript stone thrown on the bottom of the ocean?" Hermione asked.
"That would certainly be a logical tack to take," Snape nodded, appreciating her assessment. "But we believe the Dark Lord to be too proud for that. The diary was the first try at it, but as he went on we believe that he chose items of significance to the wizarding community in an effort to legitimize his position. So he would want to keep these items safe, but also available for display should he choose to do so."
"Have you made a list of suitable artifacts?" she asked.
"We have," Dumbledore answered with a chuckle. "See, Severus, I told you that they would be helpful. We have a list of about thirty artifacts that would be likely targets."
"He liked Hogwarts," Harry told them, considering. "I think that likely many of the artifacts will be related to Hogwarts if he can do it."
"What, like the sword of Gryffindor?" Ron asked.
"The sword would not be suitable," Snape answered him. "It answers to Gryffindors. But there are several artifacts on this list related to Hogwarts. The cup of Helga Hufflepuff, for one."
"What about Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem?" Hermione asked.
"But that has been lost for centuries," Dumbledore protested.
"We should still consider it," Harry agreed. "Riddle has a way of finding these things."
"There is another thing we must consider," Dumbledore looked soberly at Harry. "Your connection to the Dark Lord is not understood well, Harry. But how did you feel about the diary?"
"I was scared at the time," Harry admitted. "But there was something creepily familiar about it. Something drew me."
"I believe that you are going to be our greatest tool in finding these horcruxes," Dumbledore told him with a sad smile. "I think that due to your connection with the Dark Lord you will be able to recognize them."
"Before we go any further, however," Snape interrupted. "We need to offer our sincere apology for the sadness and pain we've caused you. It was the hardest part of our plan."
"They understand, Severus," Dumbledore told him softly.
"Yet I still wish their forgiveness," Snape answered, fixing his eyes on Harry. "Do you three forgive the lies we have had to tell?"
"We know why you had to do it," Hermione told him.
"But do you forgive us?" Snape pressed. "Understanding is different. If you need time to forgive, I understand that as well."
Harry considered. He could feel the anger at being lied to about Dumbledore's death even though in his mind he understood the actions that Snape had taken. But what was the cost of not forgiving? He knew that he wanted a relationship with Snape, and he knew that forgiveness was a cost of that. He remembered when he looked in the Pensieve and Snape had had to make a choice to forgive him, even though he was angry. But Snape had been angry at Harry's thoughtless intrusion, Harry knew that Snape had had little choice but to act as he did if he wanted a chance to win the war.
Snape saw his hesitation, and nodded. "Please don't feel that you need to offer your forgiveness now," he told Harry calmly. "But please know that I want it and will do what it takes to secure it."
"I forgive you," Harry told him softly, and Snape nodded in surprise. "I know you wouldn't choose to cause that unless you had to, and I know it hurt you to hurt me."
"It did," Snape agreed. "But don't feel that you have to forgive me."
"I don't," Harry told him.
"But I lied to you," Snape told him. "You cried for days because I couldn't tell you the truth. You even hugged me."
Harry turned red remembering the hug, but then he laughed a bit. "Yeah, you did. But it sounds as if you don't want me to forgive you," he told Snape.
"I just want to make sure you forgive me and don't just feel like you have to do it," Snape told him, looking down. "You have been hurt a lot in life, that makes it harder to forgive."
"I have been hurt," Harry nodded. "But this is different. First, you actually apologized. Secondly, I can tell that it really hurts you that you hurt me. That really makes the difference."
"That is what helped me forgive you with the Pensieve," Snape told him, understanding. "When I saw that it grieved you, I realized that I could forgive you."
"I did pay a penalty as well," Harry joked. "But yes, the punishment was not the hardest part. The hardest part was that I'd hurt you, and that it made you not like me. I would have done anything to fix that."
"I feel the same way," Snape answered gravely. "Except I do not believe I will be paying the same penalty. But thank you for forgiving me."
"Great, forgiveness all around," Ron announced. "Let's bloody get on with destroying these horcruxes."
AN: I hope this was a surprising chapter, let me know what you think.