A/N: Content Warning: implied/referenced drug use. This will start at the part where Graihagh visits her mother and end at the POV switch.

Thanks so much for the review! Lots of closure coming up.

Graihagh and Cate checked into a hotel not far from the Ministry, courtesy of Cate, who'd been planning her escape for months and managed to get a credit card right under Adrian's nose.

The minute they'd tossed their bags on the beds they walked right back out again, to see Milo in St. Mungo's. Fynn was in the waiting room, slumped against one of the wooden chairs, head bent forward, sleeping, like they'd spent the night there, which they probably had.

She knelt down in front of them. "Fynn."

Fynn gasped and raised their head, gazing around to get their bearings. "Oh. Hey. Did you just get here?"

Graihagh and Cate stood on either side of them; there was no room to sit. "Yeah. How is he?"

Fynn stretched their head from side-to-side, adjusted their robes, pulled their hair back with an elastic. The things that served as a morning routine for people waking up in waiting rooms. "It was a powerful curse that got him. Something about nerve damage. They might be moving him tomorrow, they said."

"To a regular ward, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"So he's alright," breathed Graihagh, slumping down and rubbing her face, eyes wet, but in a good way, a calming way, a release.

The clock struck eight. Visiting hours had begun. Only two were allowed to see Milo at any one time, and Fynn insisted Cate go with Graihagh, so the two of them made their way down a corridor on the ground floor, to a ward where the most critical patients were kept.

The back of Milo's bed was raised and he was lying on his back with his head lolling to one side, eyes closed, blanket up to his chest. His face was so smooth he looked like a different person. She was used to it lined; the frown lines as he'd sculpt and paint, the furrows when he was nose-deep in a book, the wrinkles on the bridge of his nose when he laughed.

"Hey," she said, smoothing back his hair. She told herself he could hear her, and almost believed it.

"There's a world cup coming up this summer, remember? You can't miss that." She squeezed his hand; it was cold. "I paid for the campsite last time. You owe me."

His face was blurry. Stubborn little prat, going after Rowle.

"He's gone, did you know? You did it. You got him."

"You did," said Cate, in a clear carrying voice, as though he might be able to hear it. "I saw him go down. It was a perfect shot."

Graihagh didn't know what else to say. They just sat and watched him, watched his chest going up and down, stubborn, angry, defiant. Milo wasn't going to go that easy. And he wouldn't.

"How is he?" said Fynn when they got back to the waiting room, drumming out a rhythm on the armrest.

"Same," said Graihagh. She scanned the crowd of people in the waiting room. The place was packed, nearly every seat full. "I don't suppose his parents have been around?"

"No," said Fynn.

She hadn't expected they would be. She squeezed Fynn's shoulder. "Take care of him."

"I will."

She squeezed harder and left with Cate.

They spent four days in London, a haze of paperwork and hospital visits and evenings spent in front of the television drinking Sangria and watching the stupidest programmes they could find. A small thing, but Graihagh wondered how she'd gotten through the past year without it.

She kept the bollan cross in her pocket by day, tied to her wrist at night, but it never lit up. She hadn't really expected it would, not that soon. But she knew him too well to stop hoping.

The fifth day, the threads of her old life loosened and her head heavy with guilt, Cate took a train to Manchester. Graihagh, her arms stiff and numb with worry, took a Portkey to Douglas.

She ran a few streets, walked a few others. She wanted to get there, and she didn't.

They lived in the same house Graihagh had grown up in, a white terrace house near the top of a hill. She could see the ocean out her bedroom window.

The curtains were closed. She set the valises on the stoop and pressed her finger to the doorbell, stamping her feet and shaking her hands, unable to keep still. No one answered, but that was nothing. Nine o'clock on a Saturday, they'd just gone to the shops, that was all. Or they'd gone somewhere with the baby. If they'd had the baby.

She stamped her feet and watched a car pass by on the road. Douglas looked the same as it ever did. All those people going on with their lives like they always had.

The door creaked open behind her. "Graihagh."

Graihagh wheeled and wrapped her arms around her father's neck and he squeezed her so tightly it hurt, murmuring her name and kissing the top of her head. "We didn't hear from you, we didn't know what happened..."

"I'm sorry," she said into his shoulder. "I didn't want to risk it. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he soothed, loosening his death-grip and rubbing her back. "I'm just...I was going out of my mind..."

Graihagh squeezed her eyes shut. All this time, they'd been as worried about her as she'd been about them.

Her stepmum ran onto the stoop in her housecoat and slippers. "Oh, thank God," she said, putting a hand to her shoulder.

Graihagh sensed that she was holding back, that she felt herself an intruder in a private space. But she wasn't. Graihagh let go of her dad and threw her arms around her, squeezing her tight. She couldn't remember the last time she'd done this—probably their wedding day nine years previous. She was soft, rounded, unfamiliar shapes and curves.

Emma stroked her back. "It's good to see you."

"Good to see you too."

They let go and her dad picked up her valises and carried them into the house. "Oof, did you go and rob Gringott's before you left?"

Graihagh laughed. "No, but I did pick up a millipede. Hope that's alright."

Her dad's eyes crinkled around the corners the way they did when something was funny. "Just like when you were little, remember that lizard you brought home? Threw a right little fit when I wouldn't let you keep it."

Emma tapped Graihagh's shoulder. "Come upstairs."

The house had that smell it got whenever she'd been away too long. The one she'd tried so hard to remember when she'd been in hiding, so she could close her eyes and picture herself there, picture their faces. Mellow and earthy, like old wood. Graihagh followed Emma up the stairs and she opened the door to her granny's old room, which they'd turned into a nursery. Graihagh might've resented this, but what she saw there erased it from her mind completely.

Cloth witches sat along shelves, their legs dangling from the edges. Painted witches smiled from posters and paintings, flying on brooms or stirring cauldrons, black cats on their shoulders. Glow-in-the-dark stars were scattered across the ceiling and crescent moons dangled from a mobile above the cot. A plastic cauldron sat in the corner next to a wooden broom.

"In honour of her big sister," said Emma.

The room was blurry, but Graihagh didn't hide her face.

"We named her Breeshey. After your grandmother."

Graihagh wiped her face on her shoulder. The sheet rustled as Breeshey wriggled on her back, and she stared up at them with big alert eyes. Blue, like their dad.

"How old is she now?"

"Five months," said Emma. "Go ahead and pick her up if you'd like."

Her dad walked up behind her and put a hand to her back as she bent down over the cot, pausing with her hands halfway down. How on earth did you even hold those things? She'd never picked up a baby in her life, not that she could remember.

"Just slip your hands underneath her back," he said. "That's it. Hold the back of her neck as you lift her."

Graihagh slipped her hand under her sister's head and hoped for the best. She'd been bracing herself for something heavy, but Breeshey was practically weightless.

All that time in hiding, Graihagh had barely thought of her. At best she was an abstraction; in her lowest moments, when she was sweaty and hungover and couldn't stand the sound of her own voice, she'd been afraid of her. She was all unrealised potential, someone who could grow up to be normal and safe in a way Graihagh never had been.

But now, with Breeshey's warm weight against her, velvety head resting against her arm, all that went away.

"Hey you," said Graihagh, tapping her soft head. "It's your big sister. And I'm going to spoil you rotten."

Breeshey's eyes grew bigger and she scrunched up her face, her lower lip trembling almost comically. Two seconds later she was bawling her head off.

"That's alright," said her dad. He picked her up and rested her against his shoulder, rubbing her back, and the wailing subsided to a hiccupy sob. "She just needs a few days to warm up to you, is all."

Her dad walked the floor with her until she'd calmed down, and the four of them went downstairs, Graihagh and her parents on the settee, Breeshey on the carpet, where she flopped on her stomach and attempted to push herself forward on little sausage arms.

Graihagh told them everything, how she and Milo had been captured by Rowle and rescued, how she'd gone into hiding above the Hog's Head, how she'd made potions for the Order. She told them about Milo and Fynn and their attempt to free Muggle-borns (omitting the part about werewolves, not knowing how they'd take it); about Remus and Cate and the battle of Hogwarts. Everything except Severus. All she said about him was that she'd made a friend, a fellow potioneer and a spy for the Order, and that she'd helped him recover from his injuries.

"Christ almighty," muttered her dad, rubbing his face with one hand. "If I had any idea..." He squeezed her arm and let out a long breath, like the outcome had been uncertain even as she was telling the story.

"I'm sorry," said Graihagh. "I didn't mean to put you through all that."

Her dad wrapped an arm around her and she let herself go, buried her head in his shoulder like she was five years old, breathing in the clean steady smell of skin and soap and the engine oil he could never wash off.

"Don't worry about it."

They spent a quiet day together. Graihagh slept awhile and helped her dad make lunch. She played with Breeshey, who stared at her unsmiling but didn't cry, and washed her clothes, the first time in nearly a year she didn't have to do it by hand. She could've fallen on her knees and worshipped that wash machine.

Her dad and Emma had salvaged some personal things from the old flat and Owain's shop and stored them in the attic, but she wasn't ready to go through them just yet. She didn't ask about Mona. She only hoped it had been quick, and she hadn't felt any pain.

After dinner they settled into the lounge to watch the Eurovision final. Breeshey was asleep in Emma's lap, but they didn't put her to bed. "She wakes up the minute you set her down," she said.

The singer for France took the stage—she was gorgeous-and Graihagh sank back against the cushions, feeling weightless. "I've missed this."

Emma smiled and her dad squeezed her shoulder, but he was quiet, and he stayed quiet through the whole programme. Graihagh and Emma would laugh at something someone said and he'd sit there and stare at his glass like he hadn't heard a thing, maybe glance up a the screen half-heartedly. When the winner was announced and Emma carried Breeshey up to bed, he rubbed his face and rested his arms on his legs, his hands pressed together. Graihagh didn't want to stay there with him, but she knew she'd hear it sooner or later.

"I got a call from your mother a few weeks ago."

She'd been expecting to hear that someone passed. That he'd gotten an owl from St. Mungo's about Milo or Remus or someone. She must've heard wrong.

"From my mother?"

"She heard about the war. She wanted to know if you were alright."

Graihagh crossed her arms over her chest and let this sink in. Her mother wanted to see her. After twenty-seven bloody years. And only because her life was in danger.

"Bit late, isn't she?"

Her dad's eyes were soft, understanding. She could say what she liked about her mother, he didn't feel any particular loyalty to her after all that time. She would've been annoyed if he did, and yet. She wanted so much for her to mean something to him. Something more than a mistake.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "She, erm, wants to see you."

"Here, you mean?"

"No. Not here. She gave me an address." He stood up—he was like her, he needed to do things when he was upset—and went to the kitchen, coming back with a slip of paper.

Graihagh studied the address. She didn't know the place, except that it was somewhere in Liverpool, where they'd lived when she was born.

"You don't have to go just because she asked. It's up to you."

Graihagh folded the paper once, twice, ran her hands along the creases. "I'll think about it."

She tucked the paper into her pocket and her dad settled back into the sofa, relieved, she knew, that she'd taken it alright. But for her it'd just begun.

"Do you miss her?"

Her dad stared at the television a moment without seeing it. "Oh, I don't know. It's been a long time." Floorboards creaked above them. Emma, getting ready for bed. Graihagh knew she meant to give them some time alone.

"Sometimes something will remind me of her. Like vending machines. She didn't know how they worked. This one time she stuck her hand in through the bottom and tried to get a crisp packet out. I still remember that." He wasn't smiling, but his eyes were sort of sad, and Graihagh was relieved almost, that he still felt something.

He studied her face. "Sometimes you remind me of her. Just the way you smile. It's not a bad thing," he added, when he noticed her guilty expression. "I don't regret any of it. Don't you go thinking that."

Graihagh wasn't sure she believed this. She didn't say anything.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "I'm just glad you're home."

"Me too."

"Love you Graih."

"Love you too."

He stretched and gestured to the television. "Want me to leave this on?"

"Sure."

He went upstairs and she flipped through the channels a long time, falling asleep on the settee.

Graihagh distracted herself as much as she could. She went shopping with Emma and bought some babygrows and romper suits for Breeshey, who'd gotten used to her and even smiled a time or two. She went to the wizarding district and sent letters to Cate and to Severus, telling him she'd gotten back safely and to take care of himself, as though he would. He was probably up in his bedroom in two-day-old robes eating Coco Pops out of the box. Which didn't sound half bad, when she thought about it.

But there wasn't really any question of not going. She'd known she would ever since her dad brought it up. And so, four days after getting home, she boarded a boat back to Britain.

The neighbourhood was a bit like Spinner's End. Boarded-up shops, rows of houses wedged together on narrow streets. There were more people here at least, more cars parked on the street. Some of the houses had pots with flowers growing out front.

Graihagh double-checked the address and pressed the doorbell.

A woman opened the door and looked her up and down with eyes like switchblades. She looked about thirty, with dark blonde hair pulled back with an elastic and Adidas tracksuit bottoms. Her face softened as though she knew her.

"You're Graihagh, aren't you?"

"Yeah—how did you know?"

The woman's mouth didn't smile, but her eyes crinkled around the corners. "You look just like 'Lethea. Come in."

Graihagh followed her through the front door into what must've been the lounge. The white plaster walls were cracked and bulging with damp, leaving a ring of dust and debris around the threadbare carpet. There was a grey settee, a a small television propped up on a crate, and a coffee table with an ashtray and a bottle of water. Otherwise the room was empty. Bright and sunny, but empty.

The woman locked up behind them and smushed her cigarette in the ashtray. "She'll be dead chuffed you're here. She didn't think you were coming."

"She's told you about me?"

The woman smirked. "Never shuts up about you, does she? Ever since I met her."

"How long have you known her?"

""Bout fifteen years now."

Graihagh glanced around the room. This wasn't some trap house, with six or seven people camped out. This was quieter, more private. "Are you...?"

"No," said the woman, and to Graihagh's relief she didn't look offended. "She's like my mum. She took care of me when we were on the streets. I'm Jo, by the way."

"Nice to meet you," said Graihagh. She meant it, and she wasn't uncomfortable in places like this, but she didn't know what to make of her mother. She'd been kind enough to take a homeless teenager under her wing, and that was something-she didn't want some selfish monster for a mother-but it would make it so much harder to walk away, to accept that she hadn't been there.

"Listen," said Jo. "I'm trying to get her into treatment with me. I told her, it's not like it used to be, you wouldn't have to go through withdrawal or nothing. But she's being a stubborn little shit about it. D'you think you could talk her round?"

Graihagh didn't know what to make of this. Why would she listen to someone she barely knew, even if that someone happened to be her daughter? "I could try."

"Thanks," said the woman. "She's just upstairs."

Graihagh saw the worry in her face, the sympathy. Her mother was not in good shape.

Graihagh's arms and legs were so stiff it was hard to walk up the stairs. They were narrow and steep, like the ones in Spinner's End.

There were three bedrooms. Two of the doors were closed, one was partway open. She stepped lightly, but the floorboards creaked just the same. Her chest was numb. She couldn't do this.

But she hadn't come all this way not to. She couldn't just walk out the door, tell Jo she'd changed her mind, and by the way could you tell my mother she's twenty-seven years too late?

She tapped on the door.

There was a mattress, a black holdall, a nightstand. The duvet was plush, covered in a floral print, and there were books on the floor. The empty syringes were a punch to the stomach. She thought maybe she would've stopped by now. That her dad was just lying, trying to soften the blow, and there was never anything wrong to begin with.

Her mother's face fell like she'd seen ghost. Someone from a past life come to stand in judgment. Graihagh couldn't say she wasn't satisfied.

Her mother stood up, the mattress squeaking. Lifted her arms and set them down again. "Graihagh."

Graihagh stepped a few feet into the room, but didn't touch her. "Hello."

She had the same face, only thinner, more lined. Her hair had changed from brown to grey, long and loose and slightly frizzy. Graihagh knew the skin under her jumper was scabbed and covered with scars and collapsed veins.

Her mother glanced at the mattress, a feeble-hand half raised with nothing to gesture to; she couldn't really ask her to sit down, and there weren't any chairs to offer. Graihagh felt a twinge of sympathy for her. Just a twinge.

Her mother settled gingerly on the mattress, right on the edge, her legs crossed, like a child trying to make a good impression. "Did you take a Portkey?"

"How did you know I was a witch?"

Her mother kneaded the blanket. "I knew it from the time you were a baby. You had this toy, one of those see and say things, remember those? You used to cry when we'd take it away at bedtime. And then one night I heard it going off in your cot. You'd made it fly to you."

Well. That would've been nice to know.

"I took the boat, actually."

"Ah, I see."

Her mother picked at her sleeves and Graihagh glanced out the window to avoid looking at her. She couldn't remember ever having a conversation that was less direct. Not even with Severus.

"How's your dad?"

"He's good."

"Is he?"

Graihagh knew what she was really asking: if he'd found someone else. She wasn't going to tell her. If she cared that much she could've come back, could've saved him from all those horrible women he dated before he met Emma.

"Yeah."

Her mother seemed to hear what she wasn't telling her. She brushed it aside with a change of subject.

"What house were you in?"

Graihagh looked out the window again. There wasn't much to see. Just the house across the street. "Slytherin."

"Really?"

She seemed so surprised that Graihagh was taken aback. All this time, she'd assumed she was a Slytherin too.

"What were you?"

"Ravenclaw."

There was a sticky moment-they both knew the question this raised. If you're so clever why'd you let this happen to you?

"Did you like school?"

Graihagh shrugged. "It was okay I guess."

"You must've done well."

She hadn't, but she didn't say this. She was waiting for the point. The real reason she'd sent for her.

"Graihagh."

She said it slowly, let it linger in the air like she was trying it out. Matching it to her face. Memorising her.

"Your grandmother picked your name, did you know? I thought it was a bit odd at first. But it grew on me."

Graihagh crossed her arms over her chest and studied a hairline crack in the plaster. Her grandmother was the woman who'd named her, the woman who'd raised her. The thought of them together was jarring.

"You must hate me-"

Graihagh's voice was cold, even, without heat. "I don't hate you. I wish I hated you. Sometimes I feel like I'm turning into you."

Her mother's face fell, but she didn't ask what this meant.

"If you'd just told me all of this years ago, if you'd just been there..."

Then she wouldn't have nearly killed her friend and Milo wouldn't be fighting for his life and she wouldn't be the fucking mess she was now.

Her mother hugged her arms to her chest. "I'm sorry, Graihagh. I'm so sorry. I've been wanting to tell you for ages..."

"And you decided to wait until a war broke out. How'd you know I wasn't dead?"

Her mother's face strained with the effort of keeping things in. Her dad was warm and open but she was like Graihagh, she kept it hidden. Graihagh rubbed the bridge of her nose. She wasn't going to break down, not before her mother did.

"I don't know what else to say..." said her mother, with an air of clutching at reeds and falling. Her eyes were lost and wide in her thin, lined face. She was so bloody frail, like she'd crumple any second. Graihagh sat down on the mattress, a few feet away from her.

"Well...I'm here now. So don't worry about it."

A car door slammed outside. Jo turned on the television in the lounge downstairs.

"Listen," said Graihagh, who knew the thing she'd run away from, the thing she was afraid to tell her. "I know about what happened. With Bellatrix."

Her mother sucked in her breath. "How did you-"

"Doesn't matter," said Graihagh, thinking it best not to mention Dumbledore. "But you don't have to hide it from me."

"I never killed anyone. Not ever. It wasn't-" Her voice was as thin and strained as her face. Those stringy neck muscles, she looked like she'd snap if she moved her head too fast. "I met her my fourth year. I didn't have any friends and then I met her...And she took me under her wing. Even though she was younger than me."

Her eyes flickered towards the nightstand where there were undoubtedly a few tinfoil packets tucked away. Graihagh gripped the duvet and stifled her anger. That was so like her, to run away from the confession.

"Were you going to tell me any of this?"

"I was. I wanted to." She opened up the nightstand and for one horrible moment Graihagh thought she was going to use right there in front of her, but she pulled out a folded piece of notebook paper.

"I wrote this awhile ago. In case anything happened." She handed Graihagh the paper.

"Do you want me to read it now?"

"When you're ready."

Graihagh ran her hands along the edge of the paper. Folded it again and tucked it into her pocket. She knew what it would say.

They were so much alike, the two of them.

She bit her lip and glanced away, so her mother wouldn't see her face, but she knew. She knew what was there. She shifted closer and Graihagh didn't move away.

Graihagh screwed up her eyes and it was her mother kept her from breaking down. She asked her what subjects she'd liked in school, and they talked about her work as a potioneer, about her friends and about the war-she didn't mention there were Death Eaters after her, just that she'd had to go into hiding. Sometimes her mother broke eye contact and stared at the wall, like it was all too much for her, but she'd always bring her eyes back to Graihagh's face.

She was getting cold. She hugged her arms to her chest and her face was pale and washed out, like she was about to be sick. Graihagh knew it was time to go.

"Your friend told me she's in treatment," she said.

"She is. I'm dead proud of her."

"She'd love it if you went with her."

Her mother picked at her sleeves again. Glanced up a the wall. Graihagh knew what her answer would be.

"I don't know."

"I'd help you."

Her mother closed her hand over hers. Neither of them said anything.

Graihagh checked into a hotel not far from where her mother lived. She stayed with her a few hours each day, and each visit left her more discouraged. Her mother was fading away, shrinking into herself like a bruised apple. Five or six more times Graihagh asked her to go into treatment, and every time she got the same answer. I don't know.

The third night she went back to one of her old haunts and stayed til six in the morning. Sometimes she thought she was fading too. That was why she did the things she did, after all. To stop existing for awhile.

She slept until late in the afternoon and woke up hot and aching and drenched in sweat. She was too sick to see her mother. She curled up on the bed, grimacing, pushing through the stomach pain, thinking of Severus.

She'd fallen asleep in her jeans and the bollan cross pressed against her leg like a rebuke. She could hear Severus' voice in her head. What if he'd needed her, and she hadn't been there?

She was not going to do this to herself. She would not be fucked-up when he sent for her.

The next morning she washed and dressed and bought a ticket for the afternoon ferry back to Mann. After she'd found a payphone to call her dad she walked the few blocks to see her mother.

"I'm leaving today," she said. Her mother's face fell but she didn't protest, didn't ask her to stay. Graihagh suspected she understood why she couldn't.

"I'll come and see you again sometime, okay?"

Her mothers eyes were grey, like hers. They watered like rain-soaked glass. "Come here."

She was hard, bony, but the sleeve of her jumper was soft. Graihagh rested her head on her shoulder and her mother stroked her hair, just like she'd wanted her to, for years and years and years. But she was strange and unfamiliar. She knew her, and she didn't know her at all.

Her mother kissed the top of her head. Breathed her in. "I love you."

"Love you too."

This wasn't entirely true. But if that's what she wanted to hear, then that's what she would tell her.

She boarded the boat and took a seat near the window. For three hours she sat and stared at the sea.

Her dad was waiting at the sea terminal, standing beside the car. She buried her face in his shoulder, and when she told him she needed help he didn't lose a second.

Narcissa thought Snape was a nasty prank. Some clever young bloke throwing voices.

"I insist you leave," snapped her voice from the front gate, with such force he could feel her spit flying from a hundred yards away.

He stated coolly that he was, in fact, Severus Snape, just like the letter said, and after a heated exchange she came charging down the front drive, her white robes whipping around her.

"What the hell"-metal clanged and squeaked as she unlatched the front gate- "do you think you're playing at, you-" Her mouth fell open. "Oh my God. Severus?"

"In the flesh," he said, sliding through the gate. "Unless of course you're having a very vivid hallucination."

She grabbed his arm, squeezed it til she hit bone. "You certainly feel solid," she said with a faint smile. "But I wouldn't put it past you to come back as a ghost and taunt us endlessly." She pressed his hand in both of hers and stared at his face, drinking him in. "Lucius went back, you know. Wanted to give you a proper burial. He said the floor was covered in blood. I thought..."

Her voice trailed off, but he wouldn't have heard what she said anyway. All he could think was that Lucius had gone back for him.

"Come," said Narcissa, pulling him towards the manor. "They'll want to see you."

The manor was as peaceful as it had been between the wars. Flowers and shrubs in bloom everywhere, peacocks strutting on the maze of hedges, the fountain trickling in the distance. But he couldn't stop the feeling that those tall black windows were the Dark Lord's eyes watching. Like he was in there still.

Narcissa stopped just as they reached the front steps. "I suppose I should be furious with you."

"Are you?"

Narcissa examined one of her cobra lilies. "No. I think deep down I always knew."

They shared a look that was full of meaning, of shared misgivings and Unbreakable Vows and plans to save her sister.

She pressed his hand again, her nails just piercing his skin. "Of course, if Draco and Lucius hadn't survived you'd be the target of several Unforgiveables right now."

"Naturally."

She smiled and led him into the front hall, up to the planetarium, where Lucius was sitting in the dark with a drink in his hand, staring up at a holographic projection of one of Jupiter's moons, volcanoes that belched up yellow acid. Io. He would've chosen someplace peaceful like Callisto, but to each their own.

Narcissa cleared her throat. "Lucius. We have a guest." Her voice was strained with suppressed excitement.

Lucius swirled his drink around. Finished it. Set the glass down. Stood up with an irritated sigh. When he saw Snape he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at him. His face was still puffy, but the bruises were healing. With the Dark Lord gone Narcissa could care for him the way she couldn't before.

"Severus? How-?"

His shock turned to anger, and Snape's hope of a warm welcome vanished under Lucius' accusing stare. He couldn't blame him, not really. In a war you compartmentalise; you keep your affection in one place, your duty in another, and they're like parallel lines, never meeting. He knew the information he passed on to the Order could get them thrown into Azkaban, maybe even killed. But he didn't dwell on it. He couldn't.

"You could have said something," said Lucius. "I'm not a fool, I know when to keep my mouth shut."

"I was trying to protect you-"

"I invited you into our home. I entrusted you with my son. I made you what you are and all this time you were selling us out to the fucking Order?"

I made you what you are? Someone had a high opinion of himself. Snape ignored this. "Lucius, listen to me-"

"Do not interrupt me, Severus! We could have died in that war, the least you could've done was tell us what was going on-"

"You know I couldn't-"

Lucius made an impatient noise. "Why did you even come here? We're useless to you now. No more Order to pass information to."

Narcissa put a hand to his arm. "Lucius, really. You know that's unfair."

Lucius snatched his arm away. "Oh I think it completely fair, Cissa." He glowered at Snape and strode away, but there was something more than anger in his eyes. Hurt, perhaps, or betrayal, which would be harder to overcome.

Narcissa watched him go. "You must excuse him, Severus. It's been terrible for him these last few weeks."

"Was there a trial?"

"A short one. But you know how they are. Acting all magnanimous, like we owe them our freedom. Our name counts for very little now, as far as they're concerned."

Ah. That must've stung.

"Will you be alright?"

"Of course we'll be alright," said Narcissa, her nose in the air, like the thought of not being alright was offensive to her. "We always manage."

This was true enough. She always had, and it was one of the things he liked best about her, her way of taking lead and turning it into gold.

"Is Draco here?"

Narcissa softened. "The last I saw him he was flying around the park. He spends all day at it lately. I think it helps him forget."

Narcissa led him through the manor and out the back door. Draco was throwing quaffles into a tall hoop.

Narcissa called for him a few times and he ignored her until he realised she wasn't leaving. He flew towards her and dismounted, wiping his face on his sleeve. He didn't say, 'what?' but his expression did.

"We have a guest," said Narcissa, but Draco was already staring at him, his face as angry as his father's.

"You?"

Snape opened his mouth to say something but Draco cut him off. "Why didn't you tell me? All that time you let me think you were serving him...You could've said something...done something..."

Something to stop him, he meant. Something to stop him destroying his soul the way he'd nearly done.

"Draco, listen to me-"

"I don't want to hear it. You're nothing but a coward. A selfish coward who only thinks of himself."

"Draco," warned Narcissa.

Draco pushed past them and stomped off towards the broom shed.

Narcissa sighed. "I'm sorry Severus. I know this wasn't the reception you'd hoped for."

Snape shrugged it off, but he was rattled. He'd have been better off letting them think he was dead. Lucius might've toasted him at dinner. He could've snuck into his wake to see what people really thought about him. Then again, maybe that wasn't such a hot idea.

"I can't really say I'm surprised."

"He was so conflicted. I think he wishes he'd picked a side and stuck to it."

"Any side?"

Narcissa shot him a knowing look. "You know which one."

Snape watched a deer graze at the far end of the park. "Perhaps I shouldn't have erased that memory. When he saw me save that woman."

"Oh, I don't know. It would've been so dangerous for you. Draco too."

"I suppose," said Snape, but this didn't convince him. There were so many things he could've done differently. So many different outcomes. So many more people he could've saved.

"And Miss Parkinson?"

"They brought her in for questioning. No arrest."

"Keep an eye on her for me."

"I will."

Without thinking they'd begun to walk through the park, two specks in a sprawling sea of grass. You could fit all of Spinner's End in there, probably. "So what's next for you?" said Narcissa. "Surely you're not going back to teaching?"

"I'd rather get eaten alive by a nest of badgers. And if anyone should ask, I'm still dead, you understand?"

"Of course."

They turned and walked along the side of the manor, towards the gardens, an otherwordly place filled with tree tunnels and waterfalls and flowers as large as their heads.

"There were rumours about a woman. The one who got Rowle in trouble."

Narcissa didn't miss a thing. He might as well tell her.

"I didn't get myself out of the Shrieking Shack, let's put it it that way."

Narcissa arched an eyebrow. "So I take it she's quite fond of you?"

"I have no idea."

"She's head-over-heels in love with you, in other words." She picked a magnolia off a passing tree and held it to her nose before ripping off the petals. "Does she come from a good family?"

"No."

"How very typical of you."

A jagged barb of a comment, her way of mentioning Lily without mentioning Lily. After everything he'd been through, after throwing himself on the ground and letting himself be shat on over and over again, this was how she saw him. The man who loved the wrong sort. Snape stood up straighter, ready for a fight, but there wasn't any. They'd reached the front gates.

"Won't you stay for dinner? I'm sure Lucius and Draco will come around."

Even if Snape hadn't been silently fuming over what she'd just said, he still wouldn't have stayed.

"I appreciate the invitation. But I have urgent business."

"What could be so urgent to a man everyone thinks dead?"

Snape gripped his sleeves and glanced at the hedges, playing for time. Analysing his words, examining all possible outcomes, deciding just how much to reveal was so deeply ingrained it was automatic, and probably always would be. That was the way of it, for a spy.

"Relics of his past life."

"Ah," said Narcissa, and her face told him she understood. "Of course." She pressed his hands in hers and kissed his cheek. "Do keep in touch, Severus."

"I will."

She walked him to the front gate and he spun into the air.