Disclaimer: I am not Matthew Stover or J.K. Rowling.

Enter Snape, now fitted with black armor and prosthetics, over two meters tall. A mask and helmet are lowered onto his burnt scalp, with black eyes, sallow skin, a hooked nose, and long black greasy hair.

As mechanical breathing immediately sounds from the mask, Lord Voldemort is approached by Strout.

Strout. My Lord, the construction is finished. He lives.

Voldemort. Good. Good.

Lily is troubling to breath, as she looks up at Sirius.

Lily. Sirius. There's good in him. I know. I know there's still . . .

As Lily dies, she drops her necklace in Sirius's palm, the same necklace James presented to her thirteen years ago.

Enter Albus.

Sirius. She dropped this in my hand. I don't even know what it is.

Albus. Precious to her it must have been. Buried with her perhaps it should.

Sirius examines the necklace.

Sirius. Yes. Perhaps that would be best.

Far off, on London, Lord Severus Snape rises to his feet.

Voldemort. Lord Snape. Can you hear me?

Snape's voice has now become soft and cold.

Snape. Yes, Master. Where is Lily? Is she safe? Is she all right?

Voldemort. I'm sorry, Lord Snape. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her.

Snape. I? I couldn't have. [angry] She was alive. I felt it. [aside] I loved her. I will always love her. I could never cause her death. Never. But I remember . . . remember all of it. I remember the dragon that I brought Snape forth from my heart to slay. I remember the cold venom in Snape's blood. I remember the furnace of Snape's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth . . . And now, in one blazing moment, I finally understand that there is no dragon, that there is no Snape . . . that there is only me. Only James Potter. That it was all me. Is me. Only me. I did it. I killed her. I killed her because, finally, when I could have saved her, when I could have gone away with her, when I could have been thinking about her, I was thinking about myself . . . It is in this blazing moment that I finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Death Eaters . . . Because now my self is all I will ever have.

In his anger and grief, Snape reaches into the Magic and attempts to snuff out Voldemort, the Dark Lord who destroyed him.

But I am so far less now than what I was, I am more than half machine, I am like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, I can remember where the power was but the power I can touch is only a memory. And so with all this world-destroying fury it is only droids around me that implode, and equipment, and the table on which I am strapped shatters. And in the end, I cannot touch the shadow. In the end, I do not even want to. In the end, the shadow is all I have left. Because the shadow understands me, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers me unto itself . . . And within my furnace heart, I burn in my own flame. This is how it will feel to be James Potter . . . forever.

With the hospital wing now in shreds, Voldemort cackles with mirth at this display of his apprentice's power.

No!

Exit all.