Severus opened the windows in Regulus's flat, and closed them again, and opened them again. He did not know what to think. For weeks, he had been telling himself that he must be crazy, that he had hallucinated that vision of the Dark Lord speaking directly to his mind, threatening him with bondage and torture. He had been forcing himself to list the many things he had to be grateful for. Walburga has been forced to accept you. You have a job. You live in London. You will never set foot in Spinner's End again. The Dark Lord looked into your heart and he promised you - he promised you protection, power, and love, everything you wanted, did you expect this right away, for your path to be smooth? Are you that dense? Are you not happier, now, than you've ever been? Have you ever gone this long without being attacked?

And yet, however much he tried to push it down, the memory plagued him - and it was at once unreal, and more real than anything else. He had you kneeling and branded like cattle . He said all traitors will be caught, he said they will be punished... for weeks, he told himself it was all in his head, that his stupid mind is playing tricks on him because he is too damaged and ungrateful and does not deserve it, and now, he had proof. Rodolphus, who used to sit at the Dark Lord's side, had only made a mistake, and his own wife punished him with Cruciatus. She had reduced him into a pulp in minutes, and she did not stop until he stopped fighting ( don't think about the Muggle ) - and if that could happen to Rodolphus, who had gotten drunk and did not do it on purpose, what could happen to Severus, who could barely remain faithful for as long as it took to get the Mark? And Regulus, who was barely of age - what if Regulus had let something slip, would he have been tortured too?

But he assigned you to brew the Drink of Despair, he's going to give it to Dumbledore, you are going to get your revenge, and Regulus is not stupid enough to get drunk and brag about Dumbledore's impending removal, is he? No, Regulus is clever, he always has been - he can follow simple orders - he will be fine ( as long as you keep lying to him ) ( but he will know you are, and he might read you, too!)

He opened the windows and closed them, and felt like he was suffocating and opened them again, and felt like he was being watched and closed them again. He paced like the Dark Lord had paced, and visions of Rodolphus whimpering, of the Dark Lord investigating Regulus, did not afford him a moment's peace. On top of it all, he was still lying every day at the Department of Mysteries. He did not understand - could not understand - how they all had let themselves get away with so little to show for their time there.

When a knock on the door was heard, he jumped out of his skin. They're on to you. You're going to pay. One of your lies has finally caught up with you. And you fidgeted with the windows like a fool, they know you're here.

He put his hand in his wand pocket, just in case. "Who is it?" He asked.

"It's me," Lily answered from behind the door, and shocked him just enough to drive all other thoughts out of his mind. "Lily," she clarified, as if he could mistake her voice.

Abandoning all caution, he opened the door, and there she was - her face covered in tears, with a ring on her finger, and she was holding a file that said "S. Snape".

They stood without speaking. Suddenly, his mind was empty, and he could not think of what to say. Over two years ago, he had felt as though he had ripped her out of his own flesh, and there was nothing he could do to fix it - even begging her forgiveness outside her common room did not work. He watched from afar as she became a different person, and he struggled to forget her, although he never could, and there she was now, a bit taller maybe, and married, but otherwise just the same.

All he could think to do was to ask her what had happened.

"Oh, Severus," she said, and her lower eyelid twitched as though she was about to start crying again, and she sniffed - "I didn't know, I swear I didn't know."

"Didn't know what?" He asked her, his confusion escalating.

"Anything! If I had, I never would have - oh, Sev, I'm so sorry!"

She threw her arms around him, and his body tensed and relaxed back into a state of extreme confusion. He did not know what to do with his arms, or what to say, or what she was talking about. Slowly, he raised his hand and patted her on the shoulder. They were still standing on the threshold. "Would you like to come in?" He asked her, as if this was not insane. She walked in and he shut the door behind them. When he turned back to look inside the living room, Lily was still there.

"So... you were saying?" He prodded.

"This," she raised the hand that was holding the file. "Hospital wing record. It says - oh, god - it says Sirius tried to get you to - when Lupin was - and Dumbledore put a silencing spell on you?! And James never told me, Sev, I only found out from this!"

Right. Yes. Sirius. This also happened to you. Lily reminded him of himself, when he had tried to get the words out in front of Regulus under the effect of Veritaserum, and even then, could not. There was only one way to find out if the file told the truth. "Yes, he tried to use his werewolf friend Lupin to kill me," he said, and the words came out. She knew the truth. "How did you get this?"

"Death Eaters - they attacked Hogwarts, and James fought them, and they hit him. Look, it doesn't matter, he's still recovering, I left him there. I just... Regulus said, he said you - you might like to see me - and you said we were best friends - and I wish I had done everything differently, I wish I'd known, Sev!"

Reality came crashing down upon him as soon as she said "Death Eaters" - as though he was not one. All these months and years ago, he had dreamed of telling Lily, he had prayed that she would find out somehow, and believe him, and not look at him like he was crazy - and now, he got it, and he was a Death Eater, and she was married to a member of the Order. "Are you in the Order of the Phoenix?" He asked her, his throat dry.

"Yes," she said. "Of course I am. Dumbledore had recruited me in our 7th year." Of course he had. Memories of their Sorting, her sad smile, and the pitiful tenure at Hogwarts that followed, came unbidden to his mind.

Suddenly, he was angry - all he ever wanted was an escape, and every place that had held this promise had failed him. Cokeworth had given him a friend, but otherwise, only pain and a chip on his shoulder - Hogwarts, his would-be escape, had taken away his friend and given him more pain. Now she came back - and she was in the bloody Order.

He asked himself, suddenly: So what if she was sorry, now? Regulus had no reason to believe him, but he made an effort, and Sirius was his brother. Lily had just believed James, and had acted as though she could not wait to be shot of him. What was he supposed to do now? Be grateful that she apparently believed attempting to kill him was wrong?

"I said I was sorry," he said to her, without looking at her. "I risked my neck just to say I was sorry... and you walked up to your common room and never spoke to me again. Was I that bad a friend, Lily? Was it so hard to believe that I didn't mean it?"

She pursed her lips. For a change, she was the one who was lost for words. Severus knew exactly how that felt - it was not that there was nothing to say, it was that there was too much, and nothing could cover it, nothing was right. If she had let him finish a sentence back then instead of walk back up, he would have said so many things - "I need the Slytherins on my side," or "I will never call anyone that," but what he had really wanted to say was only "he tried to kill me," and he never could have - no matter how long she waited.

Was he cursed? Was he doomed to get everything he ever wished for - in exactly the wrong way? Becoming a Death Eater was supposed to make it easier to be with Regulus, it was supposed to help him make something of himself, and all it had done was create a distance between Regulus and him, and he was terrified of revealing that he was a spell crafter, and prohibited from telling anyone that in fact, the Department of Mysteries was doing nothing... And now, Lily has come back - and she was in the Order, and he was just what she had accused him of wanting to become.

He felt himself lose steam. There was so much more he was upset with her about. He heard himself say, much too meekly for his taste, "Dumbledore... I tried to tell you. I tried to get you to understand. It came out wrong. You said I was being ungrateful - I-"

She interrupted him - "I'm an idiot. Even when they told me about Remus, I didn't get it. And you were alone, for months you've been alone, and I never understood why you were acting so strange and why you'd nearly stopped going anywhere outside the Slytherin tower and doing anything. It's all I've been thinking of. I'm just an idiot, Sev."

"But you married Potter. Have you lost your mind?"

Her hands trembled, still holding the file. Since she'd first read them, the words had been jumping at her, attacking her at random. She would be doing something, anything, picking out clothes to wear, or reading, and she would suddenly remember yet another terrible thing she had read. Attempted murder. Attempted suicide. Two weeks he spent sleeping off poison. An attack on a sleeping patient. Even when she and James had already been seeing each other, he'd still managed to hex Severus, and then looked her in the eyes and told her that he loved her. That she made him better. That she deserved to be happy and have friends who appreciated her and didn't just use her to pass the time while stuck in Cokeworth. She felt dirty.

"He'd tricked me. I know now. He made himself out to be the hero, with you, and I was so impressed. You don't have to forgive me but you have to know - I'm sorry. And I never should have -"

"You would have left me anyway. You've been wanting to - I don't blame you, Lily. I'm that Snape boy, aren't I? It's always been hard. And we came to Hogwarts and you made other friends who were magic and I - I didn't, did I? And you were a Gryffindor" - he imitated pulling a sword - "and I was a Slytherin - and that's it. We were like brother and sister and all of a sudden we were a Gryffindor and a Slytherin and nobody would let that stand."

She listened to him and she had nothing to say. The file she held in her hand told her that the Slytherins did not make his life easier than the Gryffindors had made hers, but he had fought, tooth and nail, and she did not.

"Is Regulus good to you?" She asked.

"You see?" He asked her icily. "You don't even deny it."

"No. It's all true. It was too hard and I stopped fighting and I waited for an excuse and I took the first one that came and even when they told me about Remus, I didn't think of you, and I've been an idiot and a coward."

It was everything she had wanted to say. She was ashamed, but she was relieved. Severus stared wordlessly at his own arm.

"Well, is he?"

He seemed unfocused, as if he was in a different conversation.

"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, he is."

At least, she told herself, there was that. She might have been an idiot, and a coward, but at least he had found someone. A man, and a Black no less, but someone. She hoped there would come a time when she could question Severus about how the hell that had happened, but now was not it.

"I really wanted to tell you, Lily."

"Yeah. I missed it. I'm sorry."

"So, how is the Order?" He asked, in mock-cheerfulness. "Is it what you had hoped you'd do after school, fight a losing war for Dumbledore while he is basking in the glory of the fabled defeat of Grindelwald?"

"Don't be like that. I suppose I should have joined You-Know-Who, instead? He'd asked us, you know. I suppose Slughorn keeps in touch with Slug Club alumni, otherwise I have no idea what might have made him think we'd be interested in joining forces with him; but I saw what the Death Eaters did to the Prewetts, Dumbledore showed me, so there was no way we were joining him after that. Sev! Are you alright?"

"Alright? I'm wonderful. I only wish you'd had your little epiphany three months ago, Lily," Severus said, in a pained voice.

"What? Why?" What difference could three months have made?

He pulled up his left sleeve.

"That's why."

The colour left Lily's cheeks, the same way it did when she first heard about Dementors. "No. No. It can't be. But didn't we just - James and Sirius lied to me, so I thought they lied about everything, Slytherin and Regulus's family and -" she let out a mirthless laugh - "come on, you're teasing me, you're a sodding half-blood!"

Don't I know it, Severus told himself.

"What can I tell you, Lily? You said you were an idiot - well, that makes two of us."

Lily stared at him.

"I suppose you think Dumbledore cared about me enough to warn me not to do it?"

Just as had happened with Severus's trip down the tunnel under the willow, when he had said the words, they suddenly made sense. He suddenly felt human again, and not like a freak who had survived by accident. It all fell into place - he'd been made a fool of, like Lily. The din in his head stopped, and an awful clarity replaced it. He'd dragged Regulus with him, too, and there was absolutely no going back.