A/N: Due to the fact that, of recent, I have had several people email me asking for the epilogue, I've decided to put it up here. I don't want it to be technically considered part of the story, but it is here for fun. Well, sort of fun. It's a bit of a downer compared to the real ending…

Hope everyone enjoys. Tell me what you think, as always.

And yes, the story became AU as of the release of OotP. Woot!

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Epilogue

The gray bones of Malfoy Manor curved up from the dead grass, untrimmed vines and shrubs worming through every crack as if prepared to strangle the stone like a serpent. As they approached the once grand front stoop, no line of houselves scurried out. No one waited to lead them into the grand foyer with a flourish. The elaborate silver fixtures had been stripped from the door leaving bare wood and a single, well-worn knob.

Snape gave her a short, blunt look before knocking. Her own eyes remained riveted on the turrets that pushed towards the sky like emptied eggshells. She reached out, feeling coolness radiate from the stripped stone, uneasy.

"Lili, Professor Snape. I'm glad you came."

Dia was hunched slightly against the wooden frame, face obscured behind a sheer black veil. She was smaller than the last time Lili had seen her: the shining, gaudy gown of Mrs. Draco Malfoy abandoned for the thin cotton robes of a widow—a mere ghost of stately wealth. "Please, come in."

Snape's heavy-soled boots clicked obscenely as they entered, every loud step clamoring to the ceiling and spiraling back down like thunder.

The once grand furnishings of the foyer—paintings, statues, busts, and even the nicer marble balustrades—were conspicuously absent. Naked as it was, Lili felt she was entering a cave.

Dia's small sobs echoed.

"I'm sorry, I am—I'm still trying. There's been a lot of pressure, and I'm not getting much sleep—Please. I'm really very glad to see you."

Lili bit her lip and took Dia's hand as steadily as she could, the young witch's skin as cold as the stone walls. She opened her mouth, trying to find words of consolation, but none came.

"Where…?" Snape's voice was low and small.

Behind the veil, Dia's lips appeared to tighten, but she seemed somewhat relieved by Snape's insistence on the business at hand. "Of course. They're in the grand parlor. Follow me."

The corridors they entered were equally barren, monotony of stone broken only occasionally by a door or small window.

"I assume the estate sale went through," Snape attempted after a few seconds of Dia's sniffling silence. His low voice was almost inaudible over the clicking of his boots.

"Yes," Dia sniffed, glancing up at the exposed walls. "I was able to sell it to a Muggle family. They'll be moving in next week, I hope."

Snape's eyes flickered to Lili's, and she knew he was thinking it too.

The ultimate irony. Muggles—living, breathing, eating all over Malfoy Manor.

One final bitter piece of justice. She stifled her smile between pressed lips, hoping that, wherever Lucius Malfoy was, he would see this come to pass.

"I sold the last of the things at auction yesterday at Diagon Alley. I must have raised well over 200 million Galleons." Dia's voice was flat, emotionless.

She swallowed. "You should keep some of it, Dia." Just a week earlier, Dia had announced that all the Malfoy fortune—assets and money from the estate sale—would go to Hogwarts to facilitate the massive repairs necessary before the castle could be re-opened at the quickly approaching start of term. Headmaster McGonagall, in return, had promised to rebuild Gryffindor Tower in Draco's name—Dragon's Tower-- and to place a statue of him in the main entrance hall, just beside the newly erected memorial to Albus Dumbledore. "Keep something to, you know, help you back on your feet."

"No, no," Dia said, black veil revealing a sliver of her drained pink lips. "I've had enough of money for a very, very long time."

Lili nodded, considering this for a moment. "So where will you be living after next week then?"

She shrugged and managed a self-effacing laugh as they turned the corner into another wide, shadowed hall. "Who knows? Knockturn Alley? I mean, my family has long since disowned me—as soon as things got serious with Draco, really." Her voice dropped. "I don't even know that I'd want to see them again anyway."

Lili watched Dia's pale lips sink, her own fingers finding their way to a small, folded paper in her pocket.

She understood the strange tearing of affections. Her own father had sent her a letter several days after she Snape had been publicly awarded the Order of Merlin. He wanted to see her again. He thought it was time to reconnect, to rebuild the bridges he had burned.

That had been a month and half ago; the letter was still folded in her robe pocket, unanswered.

She removed her fingers from the paper, pushing the thoughts aside in favor of more relevant ones. "You know, my roommate Olivia is going to need a new roommate when I move out in a couple of weeks. It's not too glamorous, but I think you'd like her company."

Dia stopped walking for a moment, and the clacking of Snape's boots halted just as quickly. The black-clad witch seemed to consider this for only a short moment before raising her shadowed eyes to Lili and continuing on her way, pace quickened. "Actually, that sounds lovely. I think I might just take you up on that."

Lili smiled. "And, if you're there, I can come and visit the two of you all the time. Or you can come visit us." She didn't look at Snape to gauge his reaction at being offered up as a host—or as part of a first person plural pronoun.

"Oh, that's right," Dia sighed, letting go of Lili's hand and swinging open the doors that led through an antechamber into the grand parlor. "I forgot Hogwarts has a new Potions Mistress." She tilted her veiled face up towards Snape's. "And a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher as well."

Lili wasn't listening, letting Dia's voice mix with the echo of Snape's mumbled reply. Instead her eyes filtered through this room where she had sat, shivering in the firelight, waiting for it all to begin. The hearth was dead gray now, the chair she'd curled close in, absent. It seemed like the abandoned set of a play, stripped of its reality, a mockery of the fearful box it had once seemed...

By the time her mind floated back to her companion, Dia, too, had fallen silent, her gaze flickering to the wooden beam that hung thick above the parlor doors. She seemed lost in her own sorrowful thoughts.

But, examining the beam more closely, Lili realized what it must be. It bent down slightly, and a thin ring had been roughly wrung about its center.

The Ministry officials had found Narcissa a month earlier, hanging from the rafters, her husband's photo crunched in her stiff hand. The story never quite made the papers, and the name Narcissa Malfoy simply faded from the polite society of which she had once called herself queen.

Dia seemed to drift back again, pushing her veil away from her face, red-rimmed eyes riveted on the distressed beam. "Wouldn't even come to Draco's funeral," she mumbled absently before replacing the veil and sliding back into motion. "Come on. They're in here."

The grand parlor was as naked as the rest, marble fireplace clean swept and empty, like a mouth frozen in the midst of a scream. It was as dead as the wizards and witches who'd hidden in it, the ghosts that now only haunted her memory. She let her fingers reach out, gingerly touching the marble, shuddering at the familiarity of the contact.

I won. Damn you all, I won.

She barely suppressed the urge to spit across the cool marble filigrees and cast as exploding charm at the barren stones.

"All the things I'm keeping are in these stacks here." Dia said, approaching a few small, unassuming piles of bric-a-brac in the far corner. Lili glanced across the items, curious as to what Dia wanted to save. Many of the things were those she'd brought with her to Manor in the first place, or things she'd bought or had bought for her while there: clothes, small pieces of furniture, a few books and supplies. And there, sitting on a pedestal among those prosaic objects, was a beautiful green urn wreathed in intricately inlaid silver dragons. At the urn's edges, the dragons' long, sinuous tails formed arching handles.

Lili pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth, noting Draco's elaborate gold medals arranged around the urn's base. She knew at once what lay within the urn.

"Thank your friend again for the vase," Dia said from somewhere behind her. "It was perfect, really."

Lili vaguely remembered Xiao Ke mentioning a gift she'd sent "the Malfoy widow."

Lili had sent nothing.

Her hands lifted to brush some dust from the most prominent of the gold medals. She read the words to herself, lips barely parting and closing with the letters. Order of Merlin, First Class: for outstanding service to the wizarding community—

She stopped, a faint smile tugging her cheeks.

Si hui fu ran. – Dead ashes burn again.

She brushed the silver dragons gently with her fingertips.

"Ahh, here. These are yours."

Both she and Snape turned to watch Dia pull items from among the mess.

"These are a number of books I thought might interest you, Professor Snape. I took the liberty of removing them from the library before the other books were sold. I'm told they're all quite rare."

Snape flipped through the box of books, cradling each one as it were a treasure. "Miss Morrighan—I can't accept these. Some are worth thousands of Galleons singly, not to mention as parts of entire sets."

"Then sell them," Dia said, shrugging, and returning to her rummaging. "They're yours now, Professor. You should get something more for all you did, and, after all, the Malfoys are generously footing the bill."

Snape allowed himself a small smile, letting his fingers slide through the yellow pages of a particularly thick, old tome.

"And, Lili," Dia continued, allowing herself only a short, satisfied smirk at Snape's reaction. "Here's part of yours." She pulled out a small, tattered box and offered it up from her seat on the floor. Lili took it, noting the edges of the lid frayed brown and white from frequent opening.

"I found it when I was going through his things," she said, still rifling through the stack of miscellaneous items. "He always kept it in the bottom of this dresser. Have a look."

Reluctantly, she tugged at the lid, wrenching it off in a dusty puff.

She sank to the floor, cradling the box in her lap.

On the very top was a small black seed-like object, and it took her a moment to place it. But, squeezing it between her thumb and forefinger, she recognized it immediately. "Suan mei," she whispered, grinning. "I can't believe he saved this." He'd taken them quite often in an effort to bribe Artibius into liking him, and somewhere along the way, he must have saved one.

Dia smiled, glancing up only briefly.

The rest of the box was filled with pictures they'd taken over that year. One she'd taken of him on the Quidditch field, zooming after the snitch. One Mishal Chamcha had taken of them dancing at the Yule Ball. One of the two of them, Dia, Crabbe, Goyle, and Milicent, and standing in a line making very queer faces. And one he'd taken of her sitting in the Slytherin common room, heavy potions text resting on her legs.

In every picture, the figures moved, dancing between the picture edges as if caught, happily, in a single, wonderful moment.

She paused, watching him wave up at her, smiling, from the grand balcony of the Manor. He was reclined beside his broom, blue-gray eyes bright with winter light.

She replaced the box lid, leaning back absently against the cold of the fireplace, lost in memory.

"Oh, here," Dia exclaimed, pulling a long hanging bag forward and laying it across the floor carefully. She tugged at the rusty zipper, slowly revealing a cascade of musty yet still shimmering green silk. "I thought you might want this back as well."

Lili reached out and, heart fluttering, pulled the dress from its bag, green and silver falling over her hands and dusting across the thick carpet.

The dress. Her dress from the Yule Ball. She'd all but forgotten it after that Christmas.

"I don't know why it was here," Dia mumbled, standing and brushing some of the dust from her black robes. "I found it in one of the storage rooms along with some other clothes."

Lili ran her fingers down one of the sparkling seams, remembering how difficult it had been to leave the dress behind. "I left it here after that Christmas, along with all the clothes the Malfoys gave me. I was too afraid to take them, and I—somehow I guess I thought if I left their presents behind they'd understand that--"

She swallowed. That I didn't want what they had given me. In more ways than one…

She placed it back in the hanging bag, pulling the zipper over the shimmering fabric with all the solemnity of closing a coffin.

"Well, all that's over now," Dia sighed. "And it survived, just like you."

Lili smiled, lifting the bag carefully and hoisting the box under her arm as she stood. It seemed like so long ago that she'd seen that dress draped on her bed. It had seemed like a miracle: it had really been the beginning of a curse.

She would take it home and bury it in her closet: lay it low just as she had the other ghosts of her past…

Or maybe she would wear it again some day, when she was ready to reclaim those memories without fear or anger.

Dia pushed her veil aside, meeting Lili's eyes with a pressed smile. "It's good to see you." She wiped at her nose and nodded over at Snape as well. "Both of you."

Snape cradled the box of books and was looking rather eager to leave.

Lili couldn't blame him. The cold and the dust and the thick, sorrow-soaked air were beginning to burn in her throat.

"Well--now, if you two will excuse me," Dia sighed heavily, "I need to finish my packing and take care of all the final estate preparations."

Lili straightened her face, afraid her discomfort had shown through.

"No, don't worry. I understand how you feel. This house—it's rather like a tomb, isn't it? I can't wait to get out myself." Dia's swollen eyes fluttered. "Draco and I always talked about leaving. I guess we got our wish." The thin, sickly light that managed to filter through ivy-smothered windows had inched its way to Dia's pale face, raking across her dark eyes like glowing tears.

"I trust you can find your way out again?"

Lili swallowed, watching the light rise and fall across the pale witch's face, wondering how her friend could handle all this: so much loss and pain, rising like a flood up to her neck.

"Yes, thank you."

She had the sudden urge to grab Dia and shake her until, from beneath the black cloaks and the thick, heavy frown, the old Dia could break free and smile; could follow them out the front door and never turn back to the tomb she'd let herself be buried in.

But Lili knew that Dia was gone, just like the Lili she'd been was gone. Life had kicked them about, pummeled their tender hearts.

She wanted to lean forward and hug Dia, to tell her that things would be fine. That she could come live with Olivia and that, together, they would, eventually, be happy.

Instead she merely followed Snape from the room, affording Dia only a quick, thoughtful glance as she disappeared down the opposite end of the hall, flanked by tall, naked stone.

The cold, thick air spread between them, an emptiness wrapped in bare slate.

*********************

The light breeze outside seemed so fresh and clear that Lili paused for a few seconds to let it tingle in her lungs and tickle her hair across her face.

Malfoy Manor remained at their backs, and she suddenly felt as if the whole world lie spread open before them, full of freedom and possibility. It was an exhilaration she hadn't felt since that moment in the hospital when Snape had embraced her fully and without hesitation.

Now he merely turned and looked at her for a moment, lips quirked, halfway smiling. "Something wrong?"

She shrugged, and walked once more, feeling the heavy form of Malfoy Manor just over her shoulders. "I don't know. Something about seeing Dia, about seeing that place so—" She searched for a word.

"Pitiful?" he suggested.

"Yes, so—barren." She bit her lips, fighting the urge to turn and give the place one last glance. "I just can't help but wonder how we managed to survive. Or maybe why."

It was Snape's turn to shrug, glittering black eyes flitting from her face to the sky that lay blue and clear overhead, setting sun cracked on the horizon like an egg. "Who knows."

"I mean, I lived to see that place gutted and sold out, to see the Malfoy name fall…and rise." She grinned. "I lived to discover just how good a kisser my Potions Master is."

His eyes flashed for a moment. She knew he didn't like her reminding him of their age difference and of the fact that she had once been his student, but she couldn't resist.

Her gaze traveled of into the distance, watching the sky as if searching. "And then there's Dia, who's now living in that tomb only to be homeless in a few days. And who knows what will become of her, as broken up as she seems to be."

The setting sun caused shadows to dribble up the ground, tickling her feet.

"I don't know whether to be happy or sad sometimes."

The foul look on Snape's face faded, failing light revealing dark lines in the creases of his smile. "As soon as you figure it out, it'll be too late," he sighed, pulling his wand from his robes as they emerged through the iron gates and off the Malfoy grounds altogether. "But, it seems to me, if you're happy most of the time, you shouldn't think about it too much." His free hand reached down and grasped hers lightly.

She grinned, twining her hands in his.

Yes, she was happy.

Things had gone in a circle, she realized, watching the beginnings of night shadows swallow her ankles.

"So where do we go from here?" she asked, looking up to find Snape's pale faced turned down towards hers, watching.

He sniffed, nostrils of his hooked nose dilating slightly. "Well, actually, I was in the mood for a nice cup of tea. Café Midnight?"

It wasn't what she meant by the question: and of course, he knew that.

But small steps, perhaps. They stumble who run fast, he'd said once. And perhaps there was something to be said for a nice stroll in the twilight.

"Sounds wonderful," she sighed, pulling out her own wand, then pausing. "Wait, you realize Olivia's still working the night shift there. There's a good chance you won't get a 'nice cup of tea.'"

Snape's thin lips curled into a beautiful, devious smile. "Well, who knows, Lili. Mountains are tall, rivers are long: is anything impossible?"

Laughter echoing, they disappeared, leaving night to devour Malfoy Manor and all the shadows of the past.