He was standing on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The night was black with indistinct grey shadows smeared across his vision; a crescent moon hung waning above him and the stars were hazy and dim. It was Summer Solstice. The trees compelled, opening their arms of branches and promising an ancient embrace. He was afraid. Not of the trees, not of the impenetrable darkness of the night, but of something within the woods. Something had called him and brought him to the very edge. He wanted to turn and look over his shoulder and be reassured by seeing the outline of Hogwarts against the inky vault of Heaven. But he could not turn; he must move forward, something was calling to him. Some thing. He dug his heels into the earth and he listened. He heard His Master's silent voice call his name. He turned to look over his shoulder. Hogwarts was in ruins. He was running through the halls, he was a first year and his robes twisted around his legs, bunched between his knees because he was running through the halls of the school. He tripped in the tangle of robes and sprawled along the cold flagstones. He pressed his ear pressed against the floor and listened and heard the voice again. But this time it was not calling to him. This time the voice was demanding his life.

Snape's eyes snapped open and the darkness of his bedchambers blinded him. His heart felt gouged and poured heated gouts of blood into his veins. He could not see and he thrust his face up into the dark space. His head was wrapped in black velvet, soft and alluring but suffocating. His eyes longed for any glimmer of light, any greying in the black, a shape, a silhouette, something upon which to focus. He was the woken corpse in its fabric-lined coffin.

He rolled over and relished the feel of his body moving. His hand scuttled along the top of the bedside table and his fingers closed around his wand. Lumos. Several thick candles sprung to an orange life, illuminating the room, defining the edges with flickering shadows.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat, panting, on the edge and considered the dream. He played it out in the theatre of his mind, observing each image and letting each emotion spill like acid into his lungs. It had been a dream of emotions, not images and he wondered at this new shift in his dream world. He had always dreamt like a man seated before a fortune teller with symbols flipped over onto the table of his mind, tarot cards being lined up on a silk cloth. But now he was dreaming in the thick sludge of feeling and he longed for the definition of images instead.

He stood, his bare feet recoiling at the cold numbing of the floor. He began to walk the length of his bedroom until he found its size constricting. The hair shirt and a loose pair of emerald green sleeping pants barely warmed him; his skin was growing clammy from the chilled air so he dressed for the day and walked out into his main living quarters. It would be an hour before dawn and then several hours before breakfast. He would have to speak with Dumbledore before he could eat, before his stomach could be soothed. He dropped heavily in a chair, incendioed a fire and sat vigil on his sickened heart.

It had been the same chair, same posture, same torment just three weeks before on the eve of Halloween. And he was here again, like a snake with a belly full of her own eggs, coiling coiling a warm nest out of the rotting leaves, he was calling old memories to him and wrapping himself around them like a leathery clutch.

He could not sleep but for dreaming he could not wake but for remembering.

He thought of the strangely compelling dream again. Voldemort was returning. It was his voice in the dream forest, his presence in the nightmarish Hogwarts. How would Dumbledore interpret the dream?

How many countless hours of discourse had he and the Headmaster spent between them these past nine years, he wondered grimly. And what did all the talking do, what did it amount to, what cryptic signs were uncovered? He did not know. He did not believe that the talking was anything more than the draining of the pus for him. How could Dumbledore act as repository for so much grief and regret? Snape knew that he could never be that container, not for himself, not for anyone else. And he was humbled by Dumbledore's ability to hold all these things within him, like a vessel filled, but he would not overflow and spill his precious contents. He was a human pensieve.

He had never had someone like Dumbledore in his life before that morning on Hornbjarg. In school he had not considered the Headmaster at all; he was a figurehead, a force to be denied, to be worked around.

He smiled to himself at the irony that it was through Lord Voldemort's eyes that he had finally come to see Albus Dumbledore as a force to be reckoned. A pure shaft of light. A silver electric bolt of lightning. The wizard's powers were immense and watching the Dark Lord consumed by this knowledge brought a grudging respect for Albus Dumbeldore into Snape's breast. Tom Riddle had been frightened by Dumbledore as a young man and yet as Voldemort he twisted his fear of the wizard into an effigy of a fool and hid behind mocking laughter. Snape saw through this and was frightened. He was frightened all the time as a Death Eater. It was an impossible side effect of taking the mark that he would never have predicted. And he despised himself for this fear and grew to despise his Dark Lord for instilling it.

He had followed the Headmaster back to Hogwarts that long ago morning and he remembered aching inside. They had apparated to a small place just outside the grounds of the school, the Scottish  morning blanketed in white fog unlike the Icelandic silver sky and deep green sea. Dumbledore had looked at him in a piercing way, he was thinking of paths unfolding before him, of paths behind him flowing like blood away from his feet. And the old wizard nodded and began to walk purposely towards the castle. Snape followed. Was this then the path? Was this following a choice or was he being drawn like the obsequious moth to the death lamp?

They had sat in Dumbledore's office for hours in silence. Snape watched the man before him place his elbows upon the massive desk and drop his head down into his hands. All the implications of the situation seemed to explode like a volatile potion before his eyes. In the curve of the Headmaster's bony fingers Snape saw his failure, in the strands of snow white hair he saw his guilt, in the way the thumbs of the older wizard massaged his scalp Snape saw his anger. After a long time, Dumbledore looked up at him and began to speak and they spoke for the rest of that day and long into the night.

"Severus, you can speak of these past years. You can speak of this past week. I know that you are not used to speaking at length or freely, but I have found that doing so is testifying to the universe and when you put your story out to the universe great and terrible things happen. And it is these great and terrible things that make our lives worth the living."

"I have no story, Headmaster. I have confessions. That is all. And I fear that I would sully the world by speaking of them."

"You sully yourself by hiding them within you. These things you keep will become a personal Dementor and your soul will be sucked from within. You will create a vacuum."

"I am the one who told Lord Voldemort we needed the pregnant witch."

"The Buddhists believe that every action must be considered. We do not teach that in our world. Every action, every word, each breath, each thought."

"I read about the Western gunslingers and how they notched the handles of their weapons. I have notched my own body for each death I am responsible for and the scars are keloids but they still bleed."

"I am sorry."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dumbledore turned his face away from the Potions Master and looked out the window. "This is your first dream of Voldemort returned?"

Snape nodded.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He had returned to the Headmaster's rooms at tea time. A lunchtime scrap of parchment had requested that he do so, and he couldn't help but smile at the unwritten concern he read in the spidery script. Although the dream had faded away, it had ripped a small tear in the fabric of his thoughts. Snape knew that even Dumbledore could not stitch up this hole in his psyche. Voldemort was indeed returning and there was much more at stake than a rend in Severus Snape's mind.

So, he went to tea. His long and purposeful strides carrying him to Dumbledore's office, his long and lean face closed in thought. Minerva was there and he marveled at how open her features were and peripherally he saw Dumbledore drop a cube of sugar into her teacup and he wondered at this casual knowledge.

"Ah, Severus." Dumbledore looked up and said his name like he was receiving a gift.

"Severus," Minerva clipped out lightly. She poured him his tea and handed him the frailly thin china cup and saucer. He took it and settled into the chair beside her. The three of them were gathered together by the hearth, a fire chuckling warmly there, a tea-table completing their small circle of wing backed chairs.

Snape let his thoughts float carelessly upon the smooth waters of their conversations. They discussed students, and holidays, and a particularly troublesome portrait in the Ravenclaw common room. They sparred about Quidditch and pondered the weather. And then Minerva turned to Snape and asked him, "How are you finding our new History of Magic instructor, Severus? Have you sat in on any of her classes? Have you spoken with her?"

And Snape felt caught out by this and studied the older woman under lowered brows. "I have not really found her to be any more different or any more similar to the rest of the staff."

Minerva inclined her head and sipped her tea.

"I had not considered sitting in on one of her classes. That might, indeed, prove to be intriguing."

Dumbledore spoke, "She does not find that an annoyance or intrusive, Severus. You could sit any one of her classes at any time. She is a phenomenally gifted instructor."

"I think I might do that, then." Snape said slowly as if considering a request. Minerva was still studying him closely and he addressed her directly. "I have not had as much opportunity to speak freely with Instructor Freyan as I would have hoped. But she has only been here at Hogwarts going on three weeks now."

Minerva brought her cup down to her lap, "She is a fascinating creature. I could speak with her for hours, but, truthfully, she intimidates me more than I care to admit." She smiled and Dumbledore laughed aloud.

Snape concurred, "Yes. And not even to consider what she is but to look very long into her eyes is difficult. They are really unique in their coloring, are they not? And she seems quite," he paused, searching for a word, "probing."

Minerva's tea cup crashed to the floor and shattered. "Oh, dear. I am sorry about that." She was flustered and bent to the broken pieces but Dumbledore muttered something low and the cup was whole again. The older witch picked it up, turned it carefully in her hands and looked over at Snape, "You, you have seen her eyes?"

Snape stared at her, his thoughts streamed into a waterfall of adrenalin that cascaded down through his sinuses and into his mouth.

"You have seen her face, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

Snape's blood cooled to ice and his guts froze. He narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips into a thin, jagged line. He felt his hands tremor and pushed one hard against his thigh, the other taloned through the delicate handle of the teacup.

"What do you mean?" he looked from Minerva to the Headmaster, who was studying him over the rims of his spectacles, and back to the aged witch with her open face.

Minerva spoke slowly as if to a child, "She is veiled, Severus,"