Severus Snape pulled himself up from the depths of another time, out of the memories of a person he no longer was. He stood straighter, rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles.

Well, that was just about that, then, was it not, he thought ruefully. He knew he was not finished with the remembering but he could stop there if need be. He had done it, returned to it, on the anniversary no less, and beheld the witch when she was still alive. This new day's dawning would be bringing one of those witches from his past into his present, a sister of the Norn Coven come to Hogwarts to teach its children. Every day he donned the hair shirt and was hallowed in its pain, that past defining this present. Now he was ready to be rid of that which he had worn for these nine years. Like the snake who knows only fear and darkness as it sheds its own skin over its head, Snape felt apprehension but longed for renewal.

He was well aware that those who knew him now, in this form he had created from the raw materials of his previous self, considered him to be a dark pillar hewn from nature's strongest stone. Yet, he was not. He was mud and sludge, beset by inner tremors so violent and constant as to shake the very teeth out of his head. He was growing exhausted from holding himself together.

Perhaps the night's exploration and the dissolution it had brought forth would lead into the next stage of the process simmering darkly within him. The hardening. Already he felt a firm calmness at his core which he had never felt before, not the familiar sickly resignation, but a quiet acceptance. He had been a foolish young man full of hatred and fear, broken by the beastliness of others. He himself had been beaten and bent by his own punishing hand; it was taking years to release the brutal hold he had around his own neck.

He took a deep breath and stretched his arms languorously over his head, letting his body follow, rising up onto the balls of his feet and arching his long, lean back.

There were no windows in the dungeons and thus no windows in his private chambers, and he enjoyed that feeling of inward-turning privacy. He had never been one to look to the leaded glass and reflect upon the scene outside as though it had any affect on the scene within. He was in possession of a rare internal clock; and in many ways the seasons and the rhythms of the Earth moved within him as well as around him, his body an astrolabe. He knew without question that the sun was rising, that the day would be grey and dismal and wet until mid-afternoon, when it would be just grey and dismal and cold. The chill was settling on the corpse of summer.

With the long fingers of both hands, he combed through his thick, black hair and felt the cold sweat on his scalp, the skin of his cheeks stiff from his tears. He would bathe and then take a long and lonely walk before breakfast.

Ah, Severus, he berated himself, a lonely walk? Now where had that come from? Years of being his own best company; and still he could surprise himself with observations like those.

He sank into the lukewarm waters of his tub and pondered the thought that he might be lonely.

Another hour, and he was making brisk time around the large lake on the Hogwarts grounds. The sun was settled in the morning sky now, the Pleiades fading. He was surprised at how much energy he seemed to have. He was actually hungry. He found himself wondering when the Norn witch, Katla Freyan, would be arriving. The unknown element of the witch had him curious as to what, if any, role he might have in the unfolding play, for he knew without question that her arrival signaled the next act. The past few years had been the intermission, a time of quiet in the wizarding world, a time of deep mourning as many grieved the losses to Voldemort, the loss of their own innocence. But the grief was not proving to be healing; the world was an open, weeping wound.

He turned towards the school and hesitantly, like a tongue probing an aching tooth, thought back to the hours of conversation he had spent with Dumbledore when they left Hornbjarg together and returned to Hogwarts. No, he had had enough and his mind refused to open another door leading back down into the memories. He wanted respite and he gave himself the permission to seek it out. He would think of those wrenching hours of confession later. Now he was going to breakfast in the Great Hall.