Author's Note: This story is moving very slow but please bear with me. Plz Read and review.

And suddenly time no longer existed for Severus Alexander Snape. Maybe he was dead, Severus thought, or maybe he was still asleep in some drunken stupor but neither mattered to him. Let him be dead or let him be fooling himself he could allow that. After all didn't enough people die by his hands already? Didn't he die enough times to finally earn this?

He earned seeing his friends again, didn't he? If there was nothing else on earth he was allowed, couldn't this be it? He prayed to himself, pleading with God and even the devil to let this be real.

Just this once.

"Billy?" Severus whispered hoarsely. He rose slowly from his seat, studying, memorizing and even praising God, fate, or whatever being that controlled the destiny of man for this moment.

Billy shook his head. "No. I'm that nice piece of Welch flesh you had last night, come to make you breakfast." The Auror shook smiled one of his boyish grins through strands of light brown hair. "Or perhaps I'm just a dream conceived by a man who wants to see his friends again…or needs too." A small, cryptic smile brushed his face again. He raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. "Follow me, Severus."

Snape obeyed, following him down stairs into the kitchen. "Are you real?"

"As real as you want me to be…" Billy said softly in a tone that the real Billy never would have used. It was sweet, kind but somber. And it rang desperately sad in Snape's ears.

"Are you spirit or flesh?" He tried again.

Dahlia Wyvern looked up at the same time he and Billy stepped into the small eating nook. "Call us sorrow." She whispered. She reached to put a plate in front of his seat before he actually took his seat. Severus reached out and grabbed her arm.

Her arm was warm to the touch and because of his grip, her pink color turned white. She squirmed in his grip, playfully almost and he shuttered, recoiling and even fearful. He looked at her for a long time, fighting the tears in his eyes.

A hundred things were running through his mind. Most of them were things he had never gotten to say to either her, Billy or…

The laughter he could hear through the window broke his heart.

"Dora…" He said, rising. He had intentions of running to see her but Billy grabbed his arm.

Billy was looking into his eyes with a sadden expression. "Don't."

"Why not?" Severus asked. He could hear Dora calling to him.

"Because if you do, you'll never go back." The man let go of his arm and walked around the table to put distance between them.

Severus was looking out the window. "I don't care."

"Your work isn't done, Severus."

"Wasn't Harrison's death enough?" Snape asked him. He hung his head, falling into the chair. His shoulder's slumped forward. "I can't do this anymore Billy, I don't know what to do anymore." He leaned forward. "Harrison's death was enough. He should have never died…" He looked at his partner. "Am I going insane?" He asked softly. "Is that why you're here?"

The Auror shook his head no. "Who are we to you?"

"You're my past."

"Look beyond that…deeper then that."

Severus' face darkened. "I don't understand."

"Don't understand or don't want to admit it…"

He's asking when did I become a traitor…

Don't think like that…

"What do you want Severus?" Jacqueline screamed.

Severus was pacing, his hands clinging firmly to his scalp, pulling at his hair to keep his mind off the pain he felt in his heart. Too much pain, too much for one man to bear; no man should bear this burden. "They shouldn't have died," He half-screamed, half-moaned. His pain was conquering him, drowning him. "Dora should have never died! It should have been me; I should have died instead of Billy! None of them should have died."

"But they did!" She countered cruelly. "They did die and you're still here, so what do you want!"

"I want to stop feeling the pain!" He finally howled, pulling his hands away from his scalp, taking hair with it. He stared into her brilliant wine-colored eyes and understood what she was asking. "I want to stop feeling. I want to stop by being controlled by Auror rules and codes. I fucking want revenge."

"Then take it." She whispered, her eyes ablaze with cold hunger. "My master can give it to you. Take revenge against the Death Eater that killed your family if you must…or take revenge against the code that didn't let you mourn them. Take revenge for everything that they made you become since you were first born. No one has to die anymore, Severus, no one has to die unless you want them to."

"What are you saying?"

"Join us…" She pulled up her sleeve to reveal a hideous mark he had never seen before on human flesh. The Dark Mark gleamed up at him, the skull's eyeless sockets almost beckoning to him. "Avenge Billy, Dahlia and Dora."

Severus took her arm into his hand. He traced the Dark Mark with his finger, following the serpent's tail to the left eye socket. He drew his finger across the eye three times-

One for Billy, twice for Dahlia and a final time for Dora…

Three scars over his heart, which one-day would be worn over his eye, to perhaps show the world he was blind to their cries of suffering and pleas of mercy.

"You are the reason I am who I am." Severus offered.

And Billy allowed that half-truth. "We are also what kept you sane, although you might not had known it. When you thought you couldn't go on anymore…we were there and you drew from us- our memory." Dahlia had walked over to her true love and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You protected our love, guarded our child and in turn we were your strength."

"What are you saying?"

"This is warning Severus, from some one who loves you." Dahlia continued. "Be careful because this time you won't just walk away."

Snape lean forward and hid his head in hands. "I've tried so hard to do the right…"

She watched him as he slept, as he dreamed what she wanted him to dream. Her hood was pulled over her face, hiding it from the world. She was muttering under her breath the curse that kept him in his dream world, with her sendings. She pulled her hand away and briefly considered waking him. But she couldn't bring herself to do so. Instead, she leaned down and kissed her cheek before drying her eyes and walking out of his room.

Choice Blade met her on the stairs. "You warned him didn't you?"

"You know I had too."

"How do you know it will help? What if he's dead either way?"

She bowed her head. "Then this wouldn't have mattered."