Snape woke to the sound of Graihagh singing.

"Vulnera Sanentur, Vulnera Sanentur, Vulnera Sanentur."

She traced his neck with the tip of his wand and he sucked in his breath; it hurt like a bastard. His robes were wet and his skin itched and his mouth dripped with some bitter liquid that made the back of his throat tickle.

She traced the wounds one more time, singing the incantation.

"Vulnera Sanentur."

He wasn't so cold now and a drop of warm wet liquid took the edge off the biting ache in his neck. Dittany, only it couldn't be, it wouldn't have worked on the venom. She must've had some sort of antidote with her.

Graihagh knelt beside him and stroked his hair, keening like an injured dog, gasping and sobbing. Snape wished she would pipe down already, his head ached.

He opened his eyes part way. "Whas' all the fuss about Corlett?"

Graihagh sucked in her breath. "Severus!" She grabbed his face and kissed his cheek, her face wet with snot and tears. "You ass," she breathed, kissing his jaw. "You stubborn ass, you just went ahead without telling me. What if you'd..."

She pulled away and checked his pulse. "You need more Blood-Replenishing Potion," she said, rummaging around on the floor. "Oh shit, where is it? I just had it."

Snape gasped when the Dark Lord spoke; his voice was a thousand sharp tendrils that slipped inside him, wrapped themselves around his body, wringing out every last bit of strength. Graihagh stood up and raised her wand, but he wasn't in the room with them, or she'd have been dead.

"You have fought valiantly. The Dark Lord knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste."

Was mine a waste, you cold-hearted fuck?

"Here," said Graihagh, twisting the cap on a dark amber bottle and lifting the back of his head.

"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately...I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself."

Graihagh squeezed his hand and Snape squeezed back so hard it must've hurt, but she didn't let go.

"I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you...One hour."

So this was it. This was how it would end. Lily's son would never stand by and watch anyone die for him, not if he could stop it.

But then...why would the old man done everything in his power to ensure the Dark Lord didn't have the elder wand?

He sat up and sucked in his breath at the pool of blood beside him, trickling down the floorboards and filling up the cracks. Fuck. He'd been a breath away from being dead. Maybe he had been; his vision or whatever it was had felt so real.

"Turgeo," muttered Graihagh, pointing her wand to his robes. Most of the blood was siphoned away, but his sleeves and front were still wet. She clasped his hand. "Don't get up too fast. You'll need a few days' rest, the potion can only do so much."

He propped himself up on one knee, then the other. The room dimmed and his eyes flashed with orange lights and he would've passed out if he hadn't knelt down and lowered his head.

"It's okay, just keep your head down," said Graihagh, looking wildly about the room.

Snape propped himself against the wall. "Searching for something?"

"I need something to put you on. Like a stretcher or something."

"But of course, an abandoned shack is the perfect place to find medical equipment."

Graihagh let out a shaky breath that aspired to laughter. "I just saved your life, smart-mouth, you should be kissing my arse right now."

Snape raised his wand and conjured a stretcher. "I believe I'm still ahead by about two or three life-savings."

She bent down to kiss his forehead. "I hope I never catch up with you."

She helped him onto the stretcher and pulled off her robes, tucking in the edges and smoothing them over like a blanket.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he mumbled.

"Erm..."

"I'm supposed to be dead."

"Oh. Right." She fumbled for her wand and tapped it to his head and then the stretcher, looking them over. "Well, that's probably good enough, everyone'll be distracted."

He didn't like the sound of this.

She set the stretcher to hover a foot or so above the ground and maneuvered him out of the shack. "Should we Apparate back to Spinner's End then?"

"No," said Snape. "Go back to the castle."

"But-"

"To the castle."

He'd save his strength, jump off that stretcher and make sure the last thing the Dark Lord ever saw was the face of the man he thought his servant, about to strike him dead.

"That's just as well," said Graihagh. "I need to know what happened to Milo."

She must've meant Selwyn, but he was too tired ask about it then. He closed his eyes but he listened to every sound, every rustle in the grass, every thud of shoes on the soft ground. Graihagh kept her wand raised and stopped a few times when someone shouted. Mostly it was quiet. Just her footsteps and the splashing of a creature in the black lake.

They'd reached the courtyard when the voice spoke again. Graihagh knelt down next to him and put her hand to his chest as though to reassure herself that his heart was still beating.

"Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone..."

If Dumbledore hadn't planned it this way Snape might never have believed him. He propped himself up on the stretcher. He shouldn't be lying here, he should be doing something. Had the boy seen his memories? Did he understand what they meant? Not that it meant that, not that he cared for him...he'd shown him that memory; it wasn't for him that he did these things, he'd said so to Dumbledore...but there were so many things he could've told him.

Graihagh stood up and walked again, the stretcher floating alongside of her, her pyjama trousers swishing lightly with every step. People would stare at her, dressed down to her nightclothes the way she was, and the longer they looked the more likely it was they'd see the shimmery outline of his stretcher. But the crowd of people in the courtyard were rushing into the castle with bodies draped on their shoulders or staring out in the grounds trying to catch some glimpse of Harry.

Graihagh stopped beside a pillar to catch her breath. A few people were whispering, but most of them were quiet, waiting. The air itself was still, holding its breath. No wind.

Graihagh drifted his stretcher through the room and into the Entrance Hall, the pile of bodies in the Great Hall just visible beyond the open doors. Snape turned to his other side so he wouldn't see them. Minerva wouldn't be there. She was too skilled, only the Dark Lord himself could strike her down, and he hadn't been anywhere near her.

And as it turned out, she wasn't. Her heartbroken cry rang out from the Entrance Hall, a sound that echoed inside his chest so that he felt it too.

"Harry!"

"Harry!"

Snape sat up so fast he nearly passed out again. Now was his moment. Now he'd kill the sick fuck who'd murdured Lily, who'd killed her only child.

Shouts and screams echoed off the castle walls, then silence. The Dark Lord spoke, but whatever shit he was spouting, Snape didn't hear it. The shouts broke out again; the crowd was fighting back, or maybe it was the Death Eaters, maybe they were all dead, maybe the old man had been fighting a doomed battle the whole time, but he'd forged ahead anyway with his eyes wide shut and his hands groping about in the dark, the clueless optimism of idealistic fools.

Silence again, and then-

"Dumbledore's Army!"

Longbottom's cry warmed his chest like Phoenix song, like liquid hope, and his heart was still beating and Graihagh was beside him and they were alive.

Silence again, a longer one this time. Someone screamed and Snape gripped the canvas-covered wood on the edge of his stretcher and everything was a mess of battle cries and that hare-brained Grawp calling Hagrid's name and before he knew what was happening a crush of people trampled their way into the Entrance Hall. Graihagh hurried him into the Great Hall to avoid them, all the way up to the raised platform where Madam Pomfrey and Miss Bones were tending to the wounded. She hurried over to them, but he couldn't hear what they said over the roar of voices in the Entrance Hall.

Snape lowered his legs off the stretcher and stood up. The bottom of his throat hurt and had to kneel down to catch his breath, he was so winded. No matter. He could still speak, he could still use his wand, and that was all he really needed to Avada Kedavra the Dark Lord's arse into oblivion.

Everywhere was fighting, Order members and Centaurs and house-elves with little meat cleavers. Minerva raised her wand and shot a curse at the Dark Lord, strands of loose hair flying around her head, her eyes livid with fury, Athena herself come down from Olympus to smite a bastard. Snape stepped forward to help her, but he was so bloody weak he could only move a foot or so before he had to sit on the edge of the raised platform and catch his breath.

Molly Weasley shouted and Bellatrix fell to the ground, legs splayed at unnaturally sharp angles that suggested death or severe unconsciousness. Either way, she was out of commission, and Snape was not sorry to see her face-down on the stone. Nor was he sorry that Molly was the one who'd done it. She wasn't too terribly annoying, she'd gone off on Black a few times, and the year before she'd made fudge for everyone in the Order and sent him some.

"Protego!"

That voice. His voice. Snape stood up and looked for him before he was even conscious of hoping for anything.

"Harry!"

"He's alive!"

And he saw for himself, the tall slim figure, the messy black hair, Lily's eyes, the part of her that still lived.

He hadn't failed her.

The boy stepped out into the empty space in the middle of the Great Hall, circling the Dark Lord, and Snape stepped forward, his wand raised. They'd almost lost him once, it wouldn't happen again.

"I don't want anybody to help," Harry shouted. "It's got to be like this, it's got to be me."

Snape stopped to catch his breath. Had Dumbledore set it up like this? Had he known, and kept it hidden from him all that time, let Snape go to his grave thinking he'd failed?

"There are no more Horcruxes," said the boy. So. They weren't as stupid in the real world as they were in his classes, that was something.

They circled each other some more, wands at the ready. Snape couldn't suppress a grudging respect for Harry's cheek when he called him Tom right to his face.

The Dark Lord made some taunt about Dumbledore and Snape wished he felt nothing, that he cared nothing for the old man, but his hands betrayed him, balling themselves into fists, a reflexive loyalty he couldn't stamp out, like it was woven into his body.

"You didn't have him killed," said Harry, still circling the Dark Lord. "He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant."

The moment of truth. The knife in the back. Snape studied the Dark Lord's face. He was rattled, he could see it in the way his eyebrows went up, in the way he stood straighter and lowered his wand just slightly. Afraid that all this time he'd been played for a fool. Snape had been waiting for this moment for years and he rocked forward on the balls of his feet a bit, almost giddy. Just so long as the boy kept his trap shut and didn't go into any details.

"Severus Snape wasn't yours," the boy went on, his voice the only sound in the Great Hall. "Snape was Dumbledore's. Dumbledore's from the moment you starting hunting down my mother. And you never realized it, because of the thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?"

The fuck?

"Snape's Patronus was a doe, same as my mother's-"

Shut up, Potter.

"-because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realized, he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"

Snape bared his teeth and gripped his wand so tightly it almost snapped in half. If the Dark Lord didn't kill the boy he'd do it himself, right after he stapled his lips together.

"...he was Dumbledore's spy from the moment you threatened her, and he's been working against you ever since. Dumbledore was already dying when Snape finished him."

Snape glanced around the Great Hall, gauging everyone's reaction to this bit of news. Wide-eyes and shocked whispers. Minerva had a hand to her mouth. He'd wanted so badly for her to find out who he really was. But not like this. Not with everyone listening, watching. Not from the mouth of Potter's son.

He clutched his face and pulled at his hair. They knew, they knew and there was no way he could stop them, nothing he could do.

A foot collided with the back of his heel and there was Graihagh, hands out, palms-up, searching the air around her like a mime in a box. She hadn't heard a thing, and it wouldn't matter if she had. She'd always known.

The Dark Lord shrieked and laughed in a shrill, losing-his-mind sort of way. So he was shaken. Good. Not that it was worth all of wizarding Britain knowing his deepest secret. Damn that insufferable show-off. Was this really necessary? Snape could've killed the fuck in two seconds. Efficiency was criminally underrated by these people.

Graihagh must've missed him. She kept on searching for him, prodding the empty space around her with her feet. Snape put a hand to her back. "I'm here," he whispered, barely moving his mouth. Graihagh let out a shaky breath and clutched his arm, burying her face in his shoulder. He could hardly believe this was real.

The Dark Lord and Potter were still circling each other, wands raised. Potter's body was tense, loaded, ready to spring.

"...the true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy."

The room sucked in its breath. Snape scanned the crowd for Draco and found him standing with Lucius and Narcissa, who stepped out in front of him, shielding him.

"You've missed your chance," Potter went on. "I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took his wand from him."

So he'd ended up with the Elder Wand after all. He couldn't fail.

They'd stopped circling each other and stood like striking cobras, waiting. A shaft of light beamed in through the window, lighting their faces, just like in a film, and Snape had seen enough to know what was coming. Graihagh squeezed his arm so tightly it hurt.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

And the Elder wand flew like something alive, above the jets of light that clashed in mid-air and sent up a spray of gold sparks, right to the boy, who caught it neatly in his left hand. The Dark Lord crumped to the ground like Dumbledore, his robes bunched up around his legs.

The room let out its breath in a roar of cheers and shouts, a crush of people hugging and crying and carrying on. Snape's legs gave out and he slumped to the floor on the edge of the platform. He was dizzy and out of breath.

The crowd parted around him, to the boy in the centre of the Great Hall, crying and cheering and trying to touch his robes. Of course it was Potter, it was always Potter. The chosen one, the hero, the hope of the wizarding world. Photographed, adored, feted everywhere he went simply for being alive. The one everyone loved, no matter what he did. And how would they remember Snape? The Death Eater scum who went crawling back to Dumbledore to save a woman who'd loved someone else? The miserable hooked-nosed bastard who played his part so flawlessly everyone hated him?

Graihagh was still clutching his arm. "Ready to go?"

"Yes."

She slipped an arm around his waist and marked a path through the widest spaces in the hall, out of the castle and into the grounds. They stopped about ten times to rest, but after what felt like an hour or two they made it into Hogsmeade.

Graihagh clutched him to her chest and they spun into the air.

He hated to be so weak, but it wasn't like he could will the oxygen to his muscles. Graihagh had to half-drag him into the house, and by the time they reached the sofa he collapsed on top of it, his boots sinking into the one of the sofa cushions. They were frayed and so thin he could feel the wooden slats underneath and it was luxurious. Except his robes were crusted over with something he didn't want to think about.

The sun had just risen but it was hidden behind the row of houses. Severus flicked his wand and lit the lamp on the ceiling, filling the room with soft yellow light. They were cocooned in there, the two of them, protected from the outside world. The first time that room had ever felt like any kind of refuge.

"Expecto Patronum," muttered Graihagh. The silver crow flew from her wand tip. "Nuntio." The bird perched on the arm of the sofa and waited.

"I am safe. The war has ended. Please send an owl if you can. I love you and I'll see you soon. Finite." The crow flew away.

"For my parents," she explained. He hoped that he'd done enough and they'd survived.

She knelt down beside him and unlaced his boots, slipping them off his feet, pulling off his socks-even those were crusted with blood, it must've been everywhere. When she'd put them aside she reached for his collar and undid the buttons on his robes.

"I thought I'd get you comfortable before you sleep," she said. "Is that okay?"

"Mm," murmured Snape. His eyes were heavy.

She peeled back his robes and eased them off his arms, pulling them down to his waist. Much as he hated to admit it, he was relieved she hadn't pulled them any lower.

She raised her wand and Summoned a washcloth, some soap and a bucket from the cellar. She filled the bucket with water and wrung out the pale blue washcloth, bringing it to his chest. She wiped his skin in soft, gentle strokes, cleaning the blood and the sweat away, soothing the scar on his neck. Her hair fell across his face.

He didn't have the words to describe what he felt.

She put the cloth in the bucket and wiped his chest with a towel until it was warm and dry, the motions becoming softer and slower, until her hand slipped from the cotton and stroked his bare skin, her fingertips sliding over scars and bruises, places where he'd been hit with fists and whipped with belts and cut apart with curses. Her caress was in some strange way more intense than any of these, almost unbearable, but he closed his eyes and fought to stay present, to let himself feel it.

She stroked his face and he wrapped his arm around her back and pulled her to him, kissing her hair as she buried her face in his shoulder. He shifted his position to make room for her and she settled into the sofa beside him, their legs tangled up together, her head on his chest.

"I thought about you," she whispered, tracing circles on his arm. "When I made that patronus."

"Don't get too excited yet, Corlett. I might not survive sleeping next to you."

She rubbed her foot against his and nestled her head in the crook of his arm. "You're a real charmer, Severus."

He was asleep within minutes.

Snape's chest was wet again-he was bleeding-he shot up and Graihagh let in a sharp breath and sat up with him.

"What's wrong?"

He looked down at his skin but there was nothing there, no cuts or open wounds or anything like that. Graihagh must've been drooling on him in her sleep.

She smoothed back his hair. "It's okay," she said. "It's all over, remember? We're safe here."

"What?"

"The war's over."

He heard her words, but his anxiety-wracked body didn't feel them. He knew, on an intellectual level, that they were perfectly safe, with the Dark Lord dead and a million protective enchantments around his house, but his body was still in the war.

He sank back into the sofa and Graihagh settled in beside him and surrounded him. Slowly, slowly, his body calmed, and he drifted back to sleep in her arms.

He woke up with his heart pounding and his mouth dry.

Fabric rustled she braced herself against the back of the sofa. "Everything alright?"

"Just thirsty," he said, rolling over on his side to get up.

"Let me." Graihagh crawled over him and padded to the kitchen, her bare feet slapping against the linoleum. There was more light coming in through the west-facing windows. Must've been about mid-afternoon.

She handed him a tall glass of water and he drank it slowly, savouring the cold liquid.

"How are you feeling?" said Graihagh, settling in beside him and smoothing back his hair.

"Better." This was sort of true, anyway. He wasn't so weak now, the water had helped.

Graihagh nuzzled his shoulder. "Good."

She was wedged between him and the back cushion, pressed up against him with her lips on his skin. She traced circles on his collarbone, sliding her fingertips under his arm, along the edge of his stomach, playful little footsteps skirting the borders of some strange new place, weaving in and out, going just so far. He was getting hard and she must've felt it, with her thigh pressed right up against him. Her breathing changed, got slower and deeper. Her breasts were loose under her t-shirt, he could feel them against his chest.

He ran his hand down her back, slid it across her stomach, the edge of his fingertips just brushing her breasts. She was so still he wondered if she was waiting for him to touch her, but maybe he was reading her wrong, maybe she was exhausted, maybe she was afraid he'd back out again.

She closed her hand over his and kissed his lips, biting down gently. "Keep going if you want to," she whispered, bringing his hand to her chest.

He stroked her breasts and she kissed him harder, clutching his hair in her fist. All his fears, his disgust at his own body, his shame over what had happened the last time, was lost somewhere inside him, waiting for another time. He needed her too much.

He slid his hands up her t-shirt and stroked her bare skin, and there was nothing in the world but her, and the way she was moaning, like she needed him. Like she needed this as much as he did.

She sat up and pulled off her shirt, her pyjama bottoms, her knickers, tossing them in a careless heap on the floor beside them. The first time she'd done this, he'd hardly been able to see her, she wasn't more than a shadow. He'd been fantasizing about this a long time, the way her body would look as she slipped out of her robes and got into bed with him, or lifted up her shirt with that black bra underneath. The woman in front of him was less perfect than the one in his daydreams, and all the more striking for it, because she was so shockingly real.

He shifted his position a little and she did the same—the rickety sofa really was not made for all that weight, he wondered that it didn't break apart. She was on top of him now, her bare chest against his, those grey eyes right above his own. She was so close, so much. He gripped her shoulder and breathed her in to anchor himself, to stop himself from slipping away from her.

She slid his fingertips down his chest. "I keep having to tell myself you're real," she breathed. "It's like I have to touch you so you don't disappear. Maybe that sounds weird."

Snape stroked the small of her back. He knew exactly what she meant, but he couldn't say it. He couldn't say anything, he was so overwhelmed, fighting to stay with her. She was so close.

She kissed his collarbone and slid her hand across his stomach, swirling it around in the pool of hair. "Don't you leave me like that again, okay? Don't ever..."

He wrapped her arms around her, pressed her to his body as though she might seep into him, fill up all the empty space. Leaving her was the last thing on his mind just then.

She rocked her hips against his, moaning against him as she kissed his throat. They didn't take their time, didn't stop to explore each other's bodies. This was urgent, grasping, reaching, his hands digging into her back, her mouth all over his skin, their legs tangled up together. This was months of longing, the things they'd never told each other made physical.

She was grinding against him now and he needed the relief. He closed his eyes and dug his fingers into her hips, pushing upwards to meet her. This was...he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so good. Their bodies were hot against the cushions and they'd started to sweat and they were moving in a rhythm now, rocking their hips together, stroking each other's skin. He was so close...and the way she whimpered...he was going to come in his pants.

"Ready?" she whispered against his neck, the side that wasn't scarred.

He murmured into her hair.

She propped herself up and reached down to grab the robes that were bunched up around his legs, elbowing him in the groin on the way there. Shit, that hurt. He gasped in spite of himself.

Graihagh looked up. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," he said, still grimacing. He wasn't about to let it stop them, and anyway, he was relieved that it was her doing something clumsy and not him, especially after she'd pulled down his pants and his robes and gotten a good look at the matchsticks he had for legs.

He'd been dreading this a long time. What she'd think when she saw him. He raised his head up off the cushion to watch her watching him, but whether there was disappointment there, he couldn't tell. Her eyes were glazed over and her skin was flushed, the same way it'd been before. She was breathing hard, her chest heaving.

She touched those legs, slid her hands right up his skinny thighs as she positioned herself on top of him. He shivered, and when she gripped him in one hand to guide him into her the pressure reached its breaking point; his legs tightened and his body shook and he grunted and dug his fingertips into her back. Everything was forgetting, everything was gone but the pleasure gripping his body, rising in waves that left him blissfully spent.

He sank back in the cushion sleepy and smiling, all euphoric forgetting. Only when his mind cleared did he realise that he'd come while he was barely inside her.

She kissed his lips. He could feel her smiling. "Enjoy that, did you?"

Her voice was husky, playful-was she mocking him? He turned on his side without answering her. He needed his robes, he needed to cover himself, cover that scrawny body so she wouldn't have to see it. He must've seemed so pathetic, so desperate.

He grabbed his robes off the floor and draped them over his head.

"Severus?"

He thrust his arms in the sleeves and walked upstairs to his room. She called after him but he didn't hear what she said. His curtains blocked out the light so that his room was dark as night. He crawled into bed and closed his eyes. So much had happened and none of it felt real.

Thanks so much PearlM21 and guest for the reviews! I'm so glad you liked that last chapter, and that it was emotional for you.