Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Nope, not me.

A/N: I know you're all dying to know what's going on with Remus…

…but you're going to have to wait a little longer, because this is a delightfully Snape-y chapter!

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Aralinda was waiting for them when Severus and Helena reached the gates of the temple at dawn.

"Open the gates, Sister Aralinda," Helena instructed her quietly, and without a word, Aralinda obeyed.

Helena took one of Severus's hands. "Welcome to the Sanctuary of the Lady Weaver," she told him warmly, and, wordlessly, he let her lead him in.

The sanctuary beyond the gates was verdant and sumptuous. "It's beautiful," Severus murmured.

"When was the last time you called something beautiful, Severus?" Helena asked him, her voice tranquil.

"I - I don't think I remember," Severus replied.

"Think on it. You do remember, even if you have not thought of it for a very long time."

For so long there has been so little worth living for, Severus thought, so few things that are worthy of being termed beautiful. I have not seen anything beautiful since -

"She was," he said hoarsely. "She was beautiful."

Helena inclined her head. "The bounty of Arachne is always beautiful."

He did not say anything.

"The Gatehouse has been made ready for you," Helena told him after a few minutes silence. "I will conduct you there now. I advise you sleep, Severus, for there will be no sleep for you tonight."

"Tonight?" he almost whispered.

She smiled at him. "Tonight, Severus," she said softly, "tonight is Midsummer Eve. Tonight the priestesses will drink the Elixir of the Stars, and tonight," she whispered to him, "is a night when no man should be alone."

*

When Helena had left, Severus began to look around the Gatehouse.

It had seemed, for the first few moments, to be just one room - an almost empty, austere room, with nothing but a wooden table. But, when he looked harder, he saw… more things.

The immediate reality is not all there is, he remembered someone telling him once. Her. The world is meta-implicate, Severus, and we exist in several realities all at once.

There was a fresh vase of flowers on the table, ensconced in a vase that looked like it was made from ice. Severus, impulsively, reached out and touched it, and found not the biting chill of frozen water, but the calming coolness of something that felt like a mixture between glass and crystal.

There was a bookshelf along one wall. Severus perused the titles with interest. Some were codices on potions that he already possessed in his own modest library at Hogwarts, others obscure texts that he had sought after but had never been able to find, others in languages he did not recognise.

He picked up a book at random. It was bound in dark blue leather, the title inscribed in simple but elegant script on the front. Telae Domus In Litha, he read. An Account Of The Rites Of Arachne.

He opened the front cover, and almost dropped the book in surprise.

It had been a gift. To her.

There was a date - the book had only been given to her a few months before she was taken.

And beneath that?

All my love, Sirius.

*

Severus awoke several hours later in the same chair he had sat down in. The book that had been a gift to her from Sirius Black was back in the bookshelf.

However, he could not get the image of her out of his head.

If her books were here, he thought, maybe… she lived here, if only for a little while.

As if in experimentation, he pulled another book off the shelf. The potions books she might have bought herself, he thought, but she never would have bought this one. She never read novels.

He flicked back the cover and read.

To the dearest girl in the world on her birthday,

You, my darling, are far too serious and spend far too much time bending over cauldrons than relaxing. I expect to see you sometime in the next week reading this - preferably in Gryffindor Tower, where I can watch.

And, dearest, if you don't relax… I am sure I can persuade you to. I am not above playing dirty, and I know I do have certain cards up my sleeve…

All the love in the world,

Remus

Severus closed the book with a snap. I have no right to pry in her books and her possessions, he thought.

Then he spotted a book he recognised in her collection, and he could not resist his curiosity. Eagerly, he flipped back the dusty cover of Moste Potente Potions.

To my beautiful potions partner,

Forgive the impersonal nature of this gift - though I am sure you will appreciate not having to break into the Restricted Section every three seconds when you decide to set your (brilliant) mind to some new, incredibly complex potion.

I am not altruistic by nature - no-one in Slytherin ever is. I hope you understand that, like a snake protects itself with layers of skin, I must protect myself with layers of false seeming and pretence. But, my dearest, loveliest queen, understand that this is the sentiment of my heart.

I love you.

And - if it is not too much to hope that you would break with all that you have ever known and associate with a Slytherin - I hope you can return these feelings.

Have a wonderful Christmas.

Always and forever,

Severus Snape

Severus sighed. He had never known the answer. She had disappeared before he ever spoke to her again.

*

"Severus."

He looked up. He had not heard her enter - and Severus Snape always knew when people came into his presence. It was instinct - not only instinct that allowed him to know when Harry Potter was out and about in his Invisibility Cloak, but instinct that had saved his life more than once.

"Miss Seraphim," he greeted her.

"My name is Helena," she reprimanded him.

"Helena," he emended.

She smiled. "You found the recipe for the potion?"

He felt uneasy. "Er - yes. I did. I wasn't prying, it's just…"

"We depended on you finding it, Severus," she told him gently. "No man may brew the Elixir of the Stars if he is not both curious and cunning."

Severus flushed red - something that did not occur very often. "She lived here," he said quietly, after a few moments.

"Yes. She did. And we preserve this place always as a monument to her, and all that she was," Helena replied softly.

"I miss her dreadfully." For the first time in over twenty years, Severus felt like he was going to cry.

"So do we all," she told him.

He looked up half-desperately. "What happened to her?"

Helena shook her head sadly. "Even we do not know."

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