Chapter 49: For the Greater Good

Snape paced that familiar stone floor, wearing a path he knew so well during the last year of his previous life.

"I do insist, Severus. Take a seat," Dumbledore urged gently from his own majestic chair. "I know this is distressing to you. But we must wait."

"Wait?" Snape hissed, planting his feet in an almost tantrum-like stomp. "We know its Avery! Why are we not acting? What are we waiting for?"

Silence answered him, but the heavy burden of knowledge lay before him without needing an answer. There was only one reason for waiting…

"You would risk the lives of your students for access to a basilisk and its venom?" Snape asked with creeping realisation as his eyes clouding with dark rage.

Dumbledore folded his hands, his bright blue eyes staring calmly from behind his half-moon glasses. Not at all the constitution of a man just accused of risking innocent lives for his own gain, nor that of a man who would deny it. Calm acceptance was the only way Snape could describe the headmaster, and it only served to enrage the younger man further.

"You swore! You swore to me you would not put her in danger!" Snape roared, slamming his fist upon the desk, setting the teacups rattling on their saucers.

Dumbledore dipped his head in acknowledgement. "And I still intend to follow through to the best of my ability."

"Best of your ability? Not acting upon Avery… that constitutes the best of your ability?" Snape was utterly aghast. He knew Dumbledore had a hands-off approach when it came to his students, but to go so far as to apply that philosophy to their safety…

"Severus. Let me ask you. What happens to the students that leave within the next two years?" Dumbledore asked in a solemn tone.

That was a baited question, because they both know what happens. "Most survive," Snape replied with a curl of his lips, not appreciating this emotional manipulation.

"And what will happen to the students that remain, should another such heir ever appear?" Dumbledore asked, as calm as anything. "One that we're not as prepared for."

"You expect me to believe that you are risking your students now for a hypothetical situation that might never eventuate?" Snape ground through gritted teeth.

The headmaster dipped his head in acknowledgement. "It is true. It is an awful risk. But I would rather we face it now, while we hold all the cards in our hand, than risk a second emergence with every element unknown."

"And that is the only reason you are choosing to wait?" Snape sniped, knowing all too well of ulterior motives afoot.

Dumbledore leaned back. "I will not deny that I wish to obtain basilisk venom from the source. And nor would I deny that this had a hand in my decision." His blue eyes seemed to harden in a way Snape could not quite place. "I had expected something similar to this vein of happening when I brought low Avery's father the months prior. I knew Tom would not leave this insult unpaid. I expected retaliation, and I expected him to strike me at my most vulnerable… at my students. But you allowed me to expect that he would do so with the weapon I knew he had forged but never deployed."

"So that was why you saved the Proud family. Not for any simple acts of insular altruism," Snape muttered as he settled into the seat opposite. "Using your own students as bait."

Those blue eyes grew distant as those great bushy brows knitted in discomforting thoughts. "Perhaps I am as you describe. Able to do terrible things to find victory in this war. And justify all my actions by the greater good to be gained." Dumbledore brought his hand to his grand beard, stroking the length in a slow contemplative motion. "I have spent the better part of a year now attempting to track that diary, even reaching so far as the belly of the Malfoy manor, the last place the relic had been in your previous life. It seems Tom hasn't yet honoured the Malfoy with the diary and the task."

"So you chose to provoke the event? How very Gryffindor a notion," Snape sneered.

But Dumbledore was not the least abashed by the reprimand. "And should I have taken the Slytherin method of inaction I would risk far more in the form of lives of students past and present. Had I simply waited, the result then, would be the same. An ancient dark creature invoked to hunt my students, while I least expect it, as lives are lost in attrition."

"Then the plan would have worked beautifully should you act now," Snape hissed. "The diary is here, we know who holds it. We capture it and destroy it."

"And should Riddle find a way to smuggle in another heir, what then?" Dumbledore asked calmly.

"Do you expect him to have a child?" Snape sneered.

The headmaster smiled, also taken by that unlikely notion. "Or create a new magical method to pass on Parseltongue. It would not be the first time he's crafted an impossible spell. You yourself are capable of unaided flight, a power inherited from a lifetime yet to exist."

"A lifetime that will never exist," Snape snapped, but calmed as he acknowledged the truth of this assertion. Destroying the diary might not end the tyranny of the Chamber of Secrets. There was every expectation another incident might crop up another few decades down the line.

But by then Lily would be safe, far from this menace.

He had accused Dumbledore of ulterior motives in all this, but Snape stood the most hypocritical at that point. He would risk the lives of everyone he knew, just to keep Lily safe. But he did not live without care for the students, not when the purpose of protecting them had been the driving force of his world for so long. The terrible year that preceded his death, he had only this one purpose to sustain him.

It was also true that this arrangement made for the cleanest strike they could have against this lingering menace. Knowledge, coupled with surprise, made for the most powerful weapons against any force. For now the heir was acting as if he believed his enemies ignorant of his existence, and the looming threat. He was at the most vulnerable he could possibly be, for confidence made men predictable.

But the risk they would wear…

The risk to the only woman he loved…

"What would be the purpose of keeping that ring intact?" Snape finally ventured, weighing the choices laid before him. "Am I correct in guessing you believe it to be useful in the war to come?"

A strange weariness came to the headmaster's eyes. Slowly, he shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

Anger bubbled in Snape's heart. "And you ask me to risk everything I have, for your own personal reasons?" He could not believe such selfishness.

"My motivations for the ring's procurement are personal. That I will not deny. A selfish reason at best." Dumbledore bowed his head, an offer of contrition Snape had never thought he'd ever see from the likes of Albus Dumbledore.

Snape turned away in disgust. "Spare me your talk of safeguarding your students. You do this for your own personal motivation. You risk my life, Lily's life, for your reasons!"

The silence that answered him was perhaps the most telling of all. The truth of the matter in all. The reason this Basilisk would be given course to run rampant, would be for the very purpose of this ring that had no bearing on the war at hand. To risk the lives of all these students… all these lives, for personal reasons?

"And when you spoke to me of fearing of a future encounter with the heir, was even a word of it true?" Snape hissed.

Dumbledore dipped his head in a firm nod. "I had not been lying. I truly believe the potential of harm for the beast's continued existence." He had the gall to continue this farce.

"Then I would rather take the risk of a future attack, to be done with the crisis now," Snape snapped, enraged by Dumbledore's admission. But the knowledge sat with him that his own choice had nothing to do with finding the optimum outcome, and all to do with protecting what he had.

Those blue eyes that watched him so, turned away. A paranoid prickle at the back of Snape's neck told him it was disappointment he saw in those blue pools, but he had long learned to see disappointment everywhere he looked.

"Perhaps you do. And I would not blame you." His blue eyes did not waver, no longer holding any such contrition for the selfish admission he had given. "But I would ask you to consider this. The personal reasons I seek this ring, has everything to do with my past.
Everything to do with my regrets… those regrets I know you understand."

The anger in Snape's heart quietened in the face of the chill that passed through it. Thoughts he had not touched for a long time came unbidden to mind. Remembrance of memories that had long faded from his dreams, and with them the realisations that came about the man before him. Mistakes that Albus Dumbledore had made in his youth had carved rivers of regrets for that man as well. The dead sister held within his arms, love for a man that would destroy so much, foolish mistakes made by a foolish youth. A familiar story that clawed uncomfortably close to Snape's own tattered core.

"I don't ask you to do this for sympathy for me, Severus. But I ask for your understanding. I too seek peace from my failures, and though I have gained a measure of it for the life I have led, I find I cannot let go of this one last foolish wish." A rueful smile peeked through his grand beard. "I believe you are correct that my judgement upon this matter cannot be trusted. I leave this decision to you, Severus, for you have proven yourself able to see clearly and act righteously despite your own desires. A claim I stand unable to make in this matter," Dumbledore confessed as he uncrossed his fingers and laid his hands flat upon the table. "But should you choose to take this chance on higher stakes, I must ask you to prepare yourself. You had once asked me to warn you should I ever have cause to risk your life. I warn you now. Because if we are to kill this Basilisk, it would be you who I ask to take the fore. And you who would bear the greatest threat of this encounter."


Lily could only stare with upraise eyebrow at Severus as he started and slammed down the lid to a small unadorned wooden box. True that she had entered his laboratory without even announcing her presence with a knock, but it didn't warrant such a response. The way he almost jumped out of his skin made Lily think he was hiding something scandalous, which would honestly surprise and amuse her by equal parts.

"What do you have hiding in there?" Lily ventured with an indecent grin. Knowing all too well how likely Sev was to answer.

"None of your concern," came his predictable reply as he sealed his box with an honestly humorous number of wards and protective spells and slid it into a subtle gap between the jars on his shelf. She wondered if he thought that would really keep her from sneaking a look. After all she was the Charms specialist, including that of warding and ward breaking, and until quite recently enjoyed a comfortable lead over the all-round boy genius in the subject.

She couldn't help but smile as she slid closer towards him, straight into his comfort zone. "C'mon. You can tell me. I won't laugh," she lied, already on the verge of bursting forth in giggles at the ridiculous thoughts that came to mind. Everything from trinkets to butterfly collections passed through her mind, even salacious possibilities in less than innocent contraband, all equally likely to elicit such a sheepish response from the boy. He was so easily embarrassed.

But oddly, he didn't rise to the bait. Instead of devolving into the shy habits that came with his discomfort of averted gazes and muttered responses, Sev met her eyes coolly and delivered his own inquiry. "Why is it I find you traversing the dungeons alone? Had I not made it clear to you I wished for you to prioritise safety above all else?"

Oh phooey.

"It's just the dungeon path to your lab, Sev. I've walked it a bajillion times," Lily remarked with a wave of her hand as Severus' eyes narrowed.

"Far less than that, I would have you know," Sev responded, nit-picking as he did. "And in times of far lessened worry. Have I not imposed onto you the severity of the crisis that might be unfolding within our school walls? And yet you insist on venturing out alone, without seeming cause nor care of my silver hairs."

"You don't have a single white hair you drama queen." Lily rolled her eyes and stepped back to a respectable conversational distance. It seemed she had somehow lost her charm over her dear-husband. Perhaps marriage had lifted that particular veil of mystery. "And I get it. You have the jitters that there's a great terrible snake running about the castle that wants to eat muggle-borns. But honestly, Sev. Do you expect me to shut myself into my tower and refuse to come down until I'm escorted?"

From the glower she received, it seemed that was exactly what he expected of her.

"Oh come on. We both know there is no way in hell that I'd agree to that. I would go batty within hours into that sentence." Lily wandlessly conjured a stool to perch upon as she gave a dismissive shrug. "Besides, brewing season is upon us again, and it's my turn to start the potion."

"When have we decided that?" Sev asked with a frown, seeming genuinely concerned that he might have forgotten a scheduled event.

But Lily let his concerns off gently. "Just now. I've decided to come down to the labs on Saturday to commence this vital portion of work, and if you do insist on me bringing an escort, I warn you. You will have unsolicited visits from Gryffindors day in and day out."

Severus closed his eyes as he released a long-suffering sigh. His greatest weakness. Excessive socialisation from members of a house that almost prided itself for not respecting personal boundaries.

"No? Well then I'm afraid we're back to our classic arrangement," Lily quipped with a victorious grin.

Sinking into his own stool, Severus ran a hand over his thin face. The light that caught his face, combined with that motion that spoke volumes of unseen exhaustion caused Lily's grin to falter. She hadn't noticed the pallor of his skin, nor the darkness of the rings about his eyes, just a shade more pale and darkened respectively, but a minute difference she couldn't not take note of.

Lily stepped forth from her conjured stool to approach the flagging boy, turning his face with a touch to better see the ravages of stress in the dimmed light. "My goodness, are you really so concerned that you're worrying yourself to exhaustion?" she almost tutted.

"I have… a lot on my mind," came his non-committed mumble, his pitch-black eyes taking on a weary glaze.

"Do share," Lily prompted gently. "Is it really about my running about without precautions really tying you in a knot?

"It's part of it…" Sev murmured as he leaned his head into her hand upon his cheek. Though their relationship had changed, she never knew him to let his guard down, even with her, without true emotional strain. The last time had been when he said goodbye to his mother…

"I can get Marlene to walk me down here…" Lily relented, cringing as those words fell from her lips. She would have to endure her best friend cuss him out for the entire duration. Lily felt a tendril of distress curling at the thought. It felt like a terrible step towards a long surrender.

But to her surprise, Sev shook his head. "No… perhaps you're right. I am… being too paranoid." A smile touched Lily's lips as Sev fixed his weary dark eyes upon hers. "The last cockerel's not even dead. Why would anyone risk a most valuable creature so recklessly? That would be rather… foolish… for Slytherin's heir."

"You were about to say 'Gryffindor' weren't you?" Lily quipped lightly, teasing in tone.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he muttered dryly, but the barest lift in the corners of his lips conveyed more sarcasm than any eye roll ever could.

Lily ran her fingers through his hair, teasing the thick strands as she felt his tension ebb. "Have we solved your current crisis then?" she asked with a sweet smile, enjoying the way he looked when he closed his eyes and relaxed against her touch.

But then his eyes opened again, a strain etching itself under his eyes. "Not… entirely."

She peered curiously into his darkened eyes, urging him to continue with a gentle but playful tug of his hair. But no amusement broke through his darkened façade. Only stony contemplation. "… I was simply contemplating… life."

"Well that's vague. And an oddly philosophical use of your time," Lily quipped with a lopsided grin. "Are you turning into a romantic on me?"

His dark thin brows pinched as if he found the thought mildly insulting. "If you must mock me-"

"No, no, not at all. Please do go on." Lily released his hair and sat back and crossed her legs together in imitation of patience. But she could already see her misstep into humour was ill placed once again as he seemed to withdraw where he sat. She almost gave up hope of receiving an answer when he finally spoke, a low muted tone.

"It's hard to believe… only a year ago, we started on this path together." His words took on a sentimental tone. "Had we not… how different my life could have been…"

A smile came unbidden to Lily's lips. He really sounding the utter romantic. "Bit late for any second thoughts on this side of marriage." She teased lightly, eliciting a small smile from his stony façade, but that too faded.

"I was exceedingly lucky to have had this chance, Lily. You cannot imagine how lucky I was..." He trailed off, a statement to which Lily thought was a gross underestimation of her ability to imagine. It was never a certainty that they would wind up on the road they did, and for the longest time, the idea of which would have been unimaginable. But now that they had, she could not feel things could have turned out any other way. Not with the sudden and incredible change upon him. A newfound nobleness that had captured her heart.

"I don't think it could have happened any other way," Lily murmured, laying her hand softly upon his cheek, feeling the smoothness of his angular cheeks. But the look in his dark eyes seemed to tell her he believed otherwise. This lonelier life he was imagining seemed to almost glint off those dark pools, this future that would never happen. "There's no point in twisting yourself over 'what ifs.' You're with me now, Severus. You found yourself back into my life and now we're married. Stop torturing yourself over hypothetical failure."

Another smile broke through his dark continence. "I know. And I am grateful." He touched his hand upon her own, pressing it against his cheek. "But I cannot forget… the hopelessness of regret. A prison of the mind that I could not escape from."

"And here I thought you were studying sensibly. Turns out you're wasting time on frivolous exercises on anxiety," Lily quipped, resisting this depressing topic with every fibre of her being. He was going to make her feel guilty for casting him from her life, temporary as it was. But she had good reasons for doing it then, or so she thought. Had she spared him from the pain of uncertainty, could things have turned out the way they did? Would he have changed the way he did?

His expression did not turn sheepish as she expected her jokingly pointed words to turn his mind. Instead his black eyes blinked once, then turned away, his hand releasing hers. "I was simply thinking on the pain of regrets long past. I apologise if I was making you uncomfortable."

Lily sighed and reached out with both hands, taking his chin between them to literally hold his gaze. "You're right. I don't want to think about that time either. You don't understand how much it had hurt me to do what I did then. I felt I had to at the time. You've proven me wrong since, and now I feel like crap for doing it to you. You're not helping with your sappy sorrowful remembrance."

That smile returned, the tenuous one that hung between existence and the imagined. "I am not blaming you for it, Lily."

With a huff, she stood to pull him close. "I'm sorry for putting you through that regardless… I wished things turned for the better before it had to happen."

"No blame lies with you, Lily. The foolishness was mine. That was all on me," Sev muttered, his breath hot against her neck as his thin arms enveloped her waist. "I am thankful for the second chance. I do not know what I did to deserve it."

A tired chuckle tumbled from Lily's lips, mirth that twisted from her heart when her emotions did not know what to do with itself. "It was your noble heart, Sev. That is what made me fall in love with you. And that's why you deserve it."


His noble heart, she had said…

Nobility was not a quality anyone had ever noted before. Certainly not himself.

It was not his nature to put the needs of others before himself. If his actions had ever seemed otherwise, it was because his needs were that of his duty. The promises he had kept to a woman who could no longer hold him to it. It wasn't nobility that drove him, but if that was the quality that brought him her heart, he would not dissuade her otherwise.

But he had to confess, her words cut to the core of his current conundrum. The choice laid before him, the decision he was tasked. Should he act now and postpone the danger to the school and minimise the danger to himself and the one he loved, or to hedge his bets to eradicate the danger in its entirety?

The decision had haunted him in the hours since he descended from the Headmaster's Office and drove him to the isolation of his laboratory. It had enticed him to the Focus stone he had forged from deathly memories, to hold the relic and gaze about the ruin of his true self.

The danger of future attacks was not prominent, he had rationalised with himself. So long as the diary was destroyed, there should be no real reason as to how the creature could be released again. But that was honestly an 'if', for there should never have been another incident since the Dark Lord's own departure from this institution, and the insidious man had found a way around his own absence. To say that the future was secure by the destruction of this one path to the chamber was naively optimistic. However, even so, he had all but decided to disregard this. The school's future welfare was no longer his concern. This lifetime was his own, and he was no longer shackled to its fate.

But that brought his decision to another piece of uncomfortable contemplation, and that was Dumbledore's admission. How the man sought a non-destructive method of neutralising the ring Horcrux as a means to ease his own regrets.

Up until this lifetime, Snape had never thought the man to have ventured a direction wrong. The dreams had informed him most assuredly otherwise. Albus Dumbledore had as much to regret as any man that ever walked this magical earth, perhaps more. And though he had lived a long life, perhaps enough to atone and come to terms with his past, his regrets never truly settled.

This ring, it seemed, held a significant purpose to the headmaster. An artefact that the old man seemed convinced could somehow ease his regrets. A goal the old man had almost been willing to risk lives for, but stopped short of committing to the decision himself.

A sentiment Snape understood intimately, for until most recently he had lived his regrets as his reality. Had he a way to ease that pain, no matter how obscure, he would have stopped at nothing to obtain it. Not even the prospect of harming his charges, or those he would call friends, would have given him cause to hesitate.

Perhaps that was the greatest difference between him and the likes of Albus Dumbledore. The old man found a semblance of peace with himself by leading a life of altruism and activism, while Snape could not find it in himself to claw out of his pit of self-pity enough to offer a thought to anybody else.

It was perhaps only now when his life took on a more satisfactory tone could he find it in himself to reflect upon another. To understand that the regret of past mistakes was not wholly his own to pity. That one such as Albus Dumbledore had walked this path and their grief had not chained himself so single-mindedly. But even a man such as he could not ignore the prospect of a path from his regrets, but he could only bring himself so far as to leave the decision in the hands of another.

As Snape held the stone, glaring darkly at the foul mark adorning his weathered forearm, he dwelled darkly upon this decision. He had every right to act selfishly, to protect what he had now regardless of any hypothetical future trauma that the school might occur, and the potential easing of the pain of another.

Of the man who had given him a chance when he had nowhere else to turn. A man who had demanded everything from him to win this war. Who forced him to fight for things he did not care about. A man who had tried, and failed, to make him walk the path of a better person. A path that had perhaps been the key to easing that man's own regrets.

But Snape had been gifted a chance that Albus Dumbledore had not. His own regrets was diminished by the love of the very person he had wronged, and he knew how lucky he had been. And how easily he could have been denied all of it and laid to the ground without ever tasting a day of happiness, or relief.

Empathy was what he lacked as a professor, and a human being. A bitter man who would not venture far from his own core. But as happiness thawed his frozen heart, decisions such as these was not as simple and clear cut as they were before. He could not remove himself from his actions, and he could no longer shield himself from the cuts of another's pain.

The troubled thoughts would not leave him, even as he sat in the Slytherin common room preparing to encounter Avery. To bring this matter to its safest, most logical conclusion. But as the boy entered through the hidden wall, pale and withdrawn, refusing to look up as if he feared to meet the eyes of those around him, Snape could not muster the will to act.

He willed himself to close his eyes and continue this path, hoarding his happiness as was his right. But he knew it was no longer in his nature to do so. That somehow, despite never intending to, his own path had diverted.

Lily had said that she loved him for his noble heart…

Perhaps in this, he needn't lie to her.


The role of Head Girl had as much responsibility as an enforcer, and as a role model. So Lily couldn't help but feel guilty as she found herself sneaking off from her scheduled Hogsmeade patrol to rendezvous with her friends at a small bar at the inconspicuous end of the town. In her defence, however, she knew Severus to be more than capable of handling matters by himself. Never had a head boy been more gifted with the knack to predict and curtail trouble before its finished brewing.

Lily simply needed a break from it all every now and then. Hogsmeade had once been an exciting break from the routine of daily life, though life at a magical school could hardly be called monotonous. And it wasn't that she hadn't put in any work at all. She had already spent an hour in front of Zonko's Joke Shop confiscating contraband from its student patrons, much to their grumbling displeasure. Then an incident at the Three Broomsticks Inn called for her attention. It seemed Sev's Slytherin friend Urquart had finally gotten tired enough of Susan's advances to reject her on no uncertain terms. The hysterical girl ran out in tears, leaving the poor boy stewing in silence and the butterbeer thrown in his face.

This was to be her last visit to Hogwarts before graduation as this was the last trip she could indulge before the Easter Break and the subsequent exam spirit after school's return. She didn't want to spend the day chasing down troublemakers, not when the Head Boy enjoyed that activity far more.

She had hoped to include Severus in on the activity, but knew it was pointless to even try. The boy had just about proven himself adamant on the course of rules and the following there of. This was all's more the pity as she had found their time spent together dwindling in the face of unspecified responsibilities he'd ghost away several times a day to undertake. Once she tried following him and made it as far as the seventh floor before he discovered her on his tail and he proceeded to abort his plans. Lily gets that he's a private person, and that she really should give him some space, but Gryffindors don't deal well with curiosity or boredom.

It was with this vein of thought that she had made arrangements with Marlene and the Marauders. To enjoy a few hours of irresponsible revelling in Hogsmeade as they once had before duty took Lily away. And for whatever reason, they had chosen to hold this get together in this tiny run-down dive at the edge of town named the Hog's Head Inn.

She paused at the doorway, wondering if she even had the right place. The windows on the side of the building was so dirty she couldn't even peer through it. If it weren't for the lopsided sign, she might have taken the establishment for a badly maintained storage shack.

Thankfully she wasn't left to hesitate for long as a rap at the window alerted her that someone inside could at least see her through the smudged panes. She could barely make out the form of a hand waving to and fro, beaconing her in.

She didn't need to be invited twice, and without another thought, Lily entered through the roughhewn doors only to be greeted by the shocking sight of a piercing blue set of eyes glaring at her from behind the bar counter.

"Professor Dumbledore!" She uttered without thought, eliciting a scowl from the man in a manner most unlike her kindly professor.

Immediately James was at her side. "She didn't mean that, Aberforth. Sorry old pal." To Lily, however, he leaned in with a terse warning. "Try not to offend the old goat. You get kicked out once and it's likely a lifetime ban."

"How was what I said in any way offensive?" Lily grumbled as she followed James to their table of friends, not difficult to locate as it seemed it was the only table currently occupied.

Marlene shuffled her stool over to give Lily space in that cramped area, indicating the glowering bartender with a tilt of her head. "Lily say the big D-word?"

"Oh yes," James replied with a cool ruffle of his hair as he dropped onto the stool opposite, between Sirius and Remus. "Literally the first impression she made."

Everyone at the table winced and it was all Lily could do to glance about in confusion. Sure on second glance it was oh so obvious the barman wasn't Dumbledore. Though his eyes were that same shade of piercing blue, his hair and beard was stringy and grey and there was something distinctly goat-like in his appearance. Perhaps it was simply first glance when she first stepped from the brightness of a lightly clouded day into the contrasting dim gradient of a bar with mostly obscured windows. The more she looked at the man the less he resembled the first glance.

"Quit staring, you might get us thrown out," Sirius muttered in a low tone, a surprisingly deferential attitude from the usually quite cocky boy.

"He's the only bartender that'd serve the hard stuff to students," Marlene whispered to Lily's unasked question, prompting the girl to round on the other prefect at the table with upraised brows. Remus could only sheepishly shirk her look with a quick draw from his suspicious tankard.

James didn't look the least abashed. "We're all eighteen. We can drink as we like."

"But Madam Rosmerta still refuses to pour for us." Sirius reminded him quite sternly.

The two boys exchanged a grimace as Marlene turned to Lily. "Want one?" she asked, indicating her own glass of miscellaneous contraband.

"Certainly not." Lily could already hear the earful she would get from Severus if he even whiffs the tone of alcohol on her breath. He had become an incredible stickler for the rules in recent times. One daresay being head boy was suiting him.

"Well then get a butterbeer then you wet blanket," Sirius drawled, as he drew shamelessly from his frothing glass.

That would have been a preferable idea, had it not been for the uncomfortable realisation that she couldn't afford to spend recklessly any longer. The ten Sickles and twelve Knuts that rattled about her coin pouch was everything she had on her, and with the profits made from the sale of her house after mortgage and solicitor funds were deducted, her sum total sat uncomfortably light in her Gringotts Bank statement.

"I think… I'll give butterbeer a pass to. I got to watch my spending," she mumbled, feeling herself reddening.

James' dark brows knitted together with concern. "Didn't your dad leave you anything?"

"He did. He left me a house. But I had to sell it… what's left of that has got to keep both me and Sev going until life settles down," Lily sighed, reality biting harshly as those words left her lips.

Marlene glared at her in utter disbelief. "Wait what? It can't be all on you surely. What's he contributing to all this?"

Lily didn't answer. They all knew the answer, there was no point flogging that dead horse. Severus Snape had not a Sickle to his name, and that was not what she married him for. But the realisation was beginning to sink in how difficult their lives were going to be once school ended and they were set upon the wider world. No more free meals, no more free accommodation, it would be just the two of them, struggling desperately against their dwindling resources.

It made it all the more clear she couldn't afford even a single stray Knut unaccounted for.

"We'll manage. Somehow." Lily put on a brave a face as she could. She was beginning to understand why Sev frowned so much.

"Well it just won't do for you to be the only one left out here. A round of bubblies on me." James announced, standing from his seat.

With objections on the tip of her tongue, Lily was stopped by a bracing hand upon her shoulder. "Just let him," Marlene sighed through a barely contained smile. "He's got coin and he gets antsy if he isn't allowed to part with it.

"Doesn't get the least bit under your skin how quick Prongs is to buy drinks for another girl?" Sirius prodded with unneeded antagonism.

To which Marlene barely scoffed. "If he were a closer breed of philanderer as you perhaps."

"Can't tie this much masculinity down. I have to be shared." Black winked at Lily with a wolfish grin, a little too confident with his own wild good looks. "Since me mate's not after you no more, if you wanna try a bite I'm more than offering."

"I'm married," Lily responded with a withering glare.

Without an ounce of shame Black waved that fact off like it was non-consequential. "Yeah, but to Snivellus. Can't imagine he'd be doing it for yah."

"You're such an unbelievable arse," Marlene snorted with a shake of her head as Lily found herself struck momentarily speechless with a mixture of mortification and rage.

Thankfully it was at that moment that James returned, a collection of tankards levitated to the table in a neat cluster. "Hope everyone's thirsty again." He grinned as he set his precious cargo down onto the scratched and grime smeared table. But as everyone set about collecting their glass, he winced as if just remembering something. "Shit. I forgot you weren't drinking alcohol, Lily. Let me reorder-"

"Don't bother," Lily huffed, reaching for a frothing tankard. "I need a properly stiff drink after all that vileness."

"Only a properly stiff drink?" Black snipped back with a wink that set Lily's skin crawling.

James shot his best friend a warning glare as Remus shot her an apologetic smile and Peter burst into a fit of inebriated giggles. Lily glowered as she took her first draught of the frothy brew, wincing at the lukewarm bitter taste as the bubbles flattened upon her tongue.

"Oh ignore him Lil's. He's such a crass bastard even when he's not smashed," Marlene remarked with a shrug.

"I'd rather not hear it. This didn't used to be a problem," Lily muttered into her drink, still trying to get used to this unfamiliar bitterness.

But Black just didn't seem to get the hint and wrap things up. "It's not like I couldn't tell you're all kinds of good looking, even if your personality sucks absolute rot. Still, can't compete against my best mate. He wouldn't have stood a chance."

"Poor delusional Padfoot. That's your last drink I think." Marlene shook her head with a loopy grin of her own, as if she found the whole situation amusing.

Black however, didn't feel the least bit contrite. "Naw. Still got plenty more to give. Fill 'er up will yah, Prongs?" he asked as he drained the last dregs of his only recently filled mug.

"I think if you want any more you should be getting it yourself." James replied a little tersely, to which Black, even a half-sloshed, managed to pick up.

"He's still into her. You see that Marly? You see?"

"I think you need to sober the hell up," Marlene snapped, suddenly no longer in a jovial mood. "And leave Lily the hell alone. Don't you see she don't want none of your innuendos?"

Black turned an upraised eyebrow upon the ruffled girl. "Don't tell me you have the hots for her too."

"I can't believe Mary thinks you're alright," Lily muttered with a shake of her head.

Black seemed not in the least abashed. "Hey the bird's got good tastes, and she knows how to share. Which reminds me what's the status of her and Truman? You know, that Hufflepuff?"

"That's old news mate," Marlene supplied in between her gulps. "She's already moved on to some Ravenclaw guy"

Sirius winced. "Damn. Missed my window. So you want a go, Lily? You know, to know what you're missing out with saddled with your gremlin of a husband."

Peter suddenly snorted loudly, breaking down into a fit of hissing giggles, "Innuendo. In-your-end-o." he slurred, fairly late to the topic, before hiccupping once and falling backwards out of his stool.

"Yup. He's had enough," Remus observed in an even tone, nudging his own half-sipped glass to the middle of the table. "And I think we would all be wise to take heed of this lesson. I'm done too."

"Well after this mind-numbing exchange, I don't think I am," Lily announced with a growl and reached for her fellow prefect's unfinished pint, pushing her own empty glass pushed to the side.

It was perhaps a drink too many in hindsight as Lily made her way back down the main street of the Hogsmeade main road, trying her best not to appear as if she had been drinking. It seemed a trivial task, one that she accomplished daily when she actually hadn't been imbibing, one that she felt she was accomplishing quite successfully.

Until she ran into the very man she knew would disapprove of her little stunt the most.

"Have you been drinking, Lily?" Severus asked the moment he laid eyes on her. How on earth could he tell?

"No," she lied, quite proud her voice came out perfectly enunciated. She only had the… three drinks. In the span of an hour. She wasn't so forgone. She could walk straight and everything.

But Sev seemed to know the truth, because darn it, he was too clever to trick. "It's against school rules to drink, Lily, even if you are of legal age. You know this." He insisted, like the straight-laced stick in the mud he was.

"Can I convince you to look the other way?" Lily winked, drawing close to him, only to have him take a distinct step backwards.

"You've convinced me." He muttered with a tilt of his head to the direction of the castle. "I'll finish the patrol. You get back and sober up. I can't handle you when you're like this."

"Oh? I hadn't realised you could handle me at all." Lily almost crooned with a wink. "I must up my game."

"Please don't take it as a challenge," he sighed, but she could see the smile edging around his lips. He was disappointed in her, but not to the point where he couldn't enjoy their flirtatious exchange.

With a smile and a wave, Lily took her leave and headed back to the castle. By the time she arrived the sun was setting behind her and she was beginning to feel mighty drowsy. Unfortunately she realised there was one last article of duty she had yet to finish.

Wolfsbane. That constantly present duty to her curse-ridden friend. Lily had begun to take on an equal proportion of the duty in this area, having had a hand in making each of the steps of the brewing process. She could even take on the nightly maintenance duties without supervision now, but somehow that felt ill advisable at the moment. Though she felt herself steady and her mind light but clear, her own potioneering instincts, her friend's vitally potion felt like an unideal sobriety test.

But still, it felt like an incredible lapse of responsibility to simply skip out on tonight's duties and leave it all to Sev. There was only so much irresponsibility she could shamelessly flaunt.

However, even as she settled in the lab, into her usual conjured seat, she floundered for something to do when she knew the potion was off-limits. Then an idea came to her, a curiosity that had been haunting her since she first spotted it the week before.

She turned her eyes to the shelf at the back of the room, fixing them upon that little wooden box hidden among the equipment, warded with more than enough spells to stoke the curiosity of any bored Gryffindor.


It was all that Snape could do not to belt down the dungeon corridor the moment he felt his trespass ward tripped. Someone had not thought to check for silent detection wards when untangling the myriad of complex spells Snape had though sufficient to keep intruders away. But after decades of losing supplies from his personal potion stores, he should have expected not to be so optimistic about the resourcefulness of even dunderhead students.

Snape burst through the heavy oak doors of his laboratory, wand out and ready to face this brazen trespasser. He should have guessed it could only be Lily, even before her wide green eyes flitted upon his pointed wand, her lips parted in surprise, and his deathly Focus Stone held lightly between his fingers.

With a hiss and a flick of his wand, he flung the stone from her loose grasp, allowing the substance to clatter harshly across the stone floor. He felt anger burn hotly beneath his collar, fanned on by the chilling fear of what she might have seen. The ruin of his true self that the stone would reveal.

The twisted features of the man she had actually married.

But instead of questioning everything she must have seen, a sheepish smile flitted across Lily's face. "Whoops..." was all she said. More embarrassed to have been caught, then to have committed an offence against her husband's privacy.

"What did you see?" Snape demanded urgently, not trusting her innocent flippancy as an indicator of calm seas.

She winced at the tone of her voice. "A pretty black stone… and a pretty angry husband…" she winced as she bowed her head and murmured into the front of her robes, seeming to realise she crossed some sort of line with her nosiness today.

Snape frowned as he peered questioning at the contrite girl as he summoned the stone with a flick of his wand. The room immediately shifted, turning the air into that dense undeniable monochrome, brushing the beautiful girl standing before him with a bright luminous glow that cut right through the thick colourless dark. It was not something he couldn't not notice, and he could only frown with confusion at the girl who stood before him.

"Did anything change when you held it?" He continued, perhaps pushing his luck but he had to know now that the question has been raised.

She glanced up, her green eyes seeming eager at this civil line of inquisition. Perhaps hoping she was in the clear with her blatant rash of recent misbehaviour. "Umm… No? Should something have?"

After a moment's hesitation, and deliberate consideration, Severus held out the stone. Offering the piece wordlessly in an experiment that warred with his fears. "If you feel anything off, anything at all. Drop it immediately." He ordered solemnly, only to have her sweep up the silvery black stone without hesitation or start. The world returned to its dim vibrant colour palate, as the now non-glowing red headed girl turned that mysterious stone in her hand, peering curiously with wide-eyed anticipation.

Snape tugged his too short sleeve, carefully ensured his forearm properly covered. "Anything?" he ventured cautiously.

Her green eyes lifted from the stone, resting upon what should have been his wizen features. "Umm I think its warmer."

Snape's dark brows met in a frown, thoughtful now the concern had passed. He took the stone back, feeling the hollowness settle upon his senses. The colour washed from the walls surrounding, the candle flames burned a dull flickering white, the red bleeding from Lily's hair. His weathered hands grasped the stone, scars and calluses he didn't earn in this lifetime etched along his fingers, his nails chipped and worn, and no doubt yellow had colour been emulated.

And yet Lily noticed none of this.

"I had feared the worst when you held this stone, for I created it with an untested property at its core." Snape offered by means of explanation, turning the silver laced shard of darkness between his calloused fingers. "I still do fear the worst, Lily, because you have an insatiable curiosity and seem to display not an ounce of caution or forethought in your actions."

The shimmering monochrome girl gave a hesitant grimace. "In my defence, I had been drinking."

"That is never a defence!" His words lashed from his tongue quite harshly, and he regretted his tone the moment it formed. Words and intent that had been for another breed of irresponsible drinkers. Lily too felt the brunt of a sentiment intended for his parents, seeming to wince as if physically struck.

Silence stretched between them as Severus turned away, unable to muster the words to retract the barb in his words. He dropped the stone, drawing his breath in deep as colour returned to the world, bringing a shimmer touch to Lily's bright green eyes. Tears perhaps… hurt for his sudden flare of his black temper.

"Sorry…" he murmured, glancing away. "I was… not…" He had been annoyed by her reckless curiosity, actions that could very well lead her to knowledge she simply cannot have. But he had known her nature since the day he fell in love with her, knowledge he's held for two lifetimes. She had the curiosity of a cat with half the sense, and too much courage for her own good. Her youth combined with her nature seemed to paint the world so consequence free. To have stuck her face into the Pensieve before she even knew what it was, to be behind every door whenever there was conversation to be overheard, to have fallen in love with a man who wasn't any good to her, who cannot bare true the ruins of his soul.

"No. You're right," Lily conceded with a sudden huff and deflation. "I shouldn't have been drinking today. It was stupid of me. And I should have remembered… your parents."

"-Are not you!" Snape stated firmly, his black eyes fixing her shimmering ones. "Don't ever believe that I hold you to the distain I hold them. I would never ask you to abstain from experience… only to follow through responsibly."

A smile shone through, whisking away the tears that might have been forming. But he could not help himself from opening his mouth and wiping away the settling peace between them. "Though I would appreciate it if you were a tad less nosy about my affairs."

"Excuse me. We're married." Lily's brows shot up as her pretty lips twisted in disapproval. What an innocent notion of the whole ordeal she must have if she thought marriage wiped away the secrets.

"As we are. And our lives will entwine far more intimately now, I'll give you that," Snape offered, verbally back stepping. "But… privacy is still a part of my nature, as I'm certain curiosity is yours. I ask that you ask me about your bugbears, rather than place yourself in mortal danger to uncover it."

"Aww but that's half the fun," came Lily's reply, hopefully with a lack of seriousness as indicated by the smile that was edging her lips once more. Then she leaned in suddenly as if taken by a thought, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Well since you offered, I need to ask. Where do you keep running off to just about every day?"

Snape stilled, suddenly regretting everything he had just said. This didn't have anything to do with knowledge he could not reveal, it was simply a matter of supreme embarrassment. "I go to… the Room of Requirements." It was a truthful offer, but incomplete, and he should have known it would raise more questions from her than answers.

"For what?" She pressed on, evidently enjoying every second of this.

Snape settled himself, taking his words close to the truth through the route of least embarrassment. "I needed a room to practice… powerful spells that need containment."

The answer was far less exciting than she likely imagined, for the curious amusement blinked straight out of her wide green eyes. The truth was, he had been preparing himself to face the dark creature that was coming, and to do that he needed to condition himself in body and spell work. He took note of the training regime he was given during the days of his decent, methods that held relevance outside the army of darkness.

While not wholly embarrassing a notion in itself, the fact that a large portion of it involved physical fitness was not something he would be willing to admit for fear of seeming as if he was attempting to emulate the muscle heads in Gryffindor.

Stamina was such a necessary quality for anyone with a hope of surviving prolonged combat, even for the most dextrous of duellists such as he. A quality he had lost in the later years of his life due to lack of dedication to his form. But this was what he must develop if he hoped to survive his encounter with the Basilisk, an event he has already determined will be earmarked upon this lifetime. He had chosen the harder path with the better outcome for the highest number of people, but he intended to give himself the best chance to survive it.

So he could live a life his heart had wished for, before his mind had ever decided on a wish.

"Have I sated your curiosity, Lily?" he asked steadily, summoning his crystal box from her side of the table.

"Yup, you pooped that party flat," she replied with a solemn nod. "So you gonna put that crystal back in your terrible hiding spot?"

Snape hesitated upon closing the box, her words grating upon his anxious spirit. "I would rather carry it on me… but unless I wish to risk my hole-lined pockets I do not think that's the better option.

Lily barely rummaged about her pockets when she pulled out an empty drawstring pouch. "Carry it in this then."

"Just happened to have a spare moneybag on you did you?" Snape muttered dryly, but not ungratefully.

"Yeah, was totally prepared for the day when you would have enough to finally fill one," she snarked dryly, and likely without ill-intent, but she winced at her own joking flippancy and quickly offered a less pointed explanation. "It was my back up moneybag. It was supposed to hold a few Galleons because dad and I figured we can't go down to Gringotts too often. I used the last of it to pay for our wedding."

Snape had offered to sell his Gold medal made of true gold to cover that wedding. She had refused of course, citing she'd take care of it, and that his medal was symbolic proof to the world he was amazing. Admittedly it would have made a good impression upon the job hunt. But in the end, that meant he relied on her to cover the entire cost of the ceremony. Another mark upon his life marred by his lack.

But Lily shared none of these disparaging thoughts while shoving the pouch quickly into his hands as if she feared he might refuse. "Now you can just carry it, and never worry about nosy busybodies like me stumbling onto it."

"A pouch that shouldn't have been empty, then," Snape muttered as he accepted his cargo, eliciting a wincing grimace from the girl who had given up so much to be with him. And to this day he could not fathom why.

Never had an empty pouch felt so heavy.


Easter had arrived, and with it the sudden diffuse of heat and humidity. Clouds were thick and heavy with rain the day the carriages left with the students bound for home, and Lily felt loneliness keenly as she watched them go. She would have been one of those who left, back when she had a family and a home to return to.

But her home now, was no more. Sold to settle debts she never knew she had, and to pad out a bank account she never knew was so meagre. Her father's death changed her entire world, and every expectation she had of it. At the very least she still had family, and she did not need to go anywhere to be with him. Severus signed on to stay, as he always did, and for now she could not be more grateful that there was still family she could spend her holidays with.

Returning to the coolness within the castle walls, Lily breathed out a pent up sigh, for relief for the slight dissipation of that suffocating warm mugginess, and to unsettle her unsettled heart. She did not want to enter the breakfast hall looking miserable, not when there were so few students left and she could not hope to get lost in the crowds.

But as she entered the grand chamber, so too did Hagrid, busting through the main doors from just behind her. She had to quickly sidestep to allow his hefty form through, any greeting dying upon her tongue from the dark look that plagued his shaggy face.

And in his massive hands he gripped the limp bodies of seven mangled cockerels.


A/N: Snape is probably the only person that doesn't see Lily as Harry version 1.

A/N: A day late. Apologies. I work pretty intense all-day shifts. I don't get a chance to do anything but eat and sleep on my work days.

A thank you to my Beta readers Sattwa100 and MrsNanna for your work on this chapter.

Next Update: Saturday 29th December 2018 AEDT.

Chapter 50: The Chamber Opens

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe and do not seek to profit in any way, shape or form from this fan work.