Harry Potter watched as the Potion's Master slumped into a chair. The body of Sirius Black was laid out in front of him, and the three of them were in the medical ward.

"Well?" he demanded, angered and confused by the recent events. "You said you knew what was wrong." Harry's hand tightened around his wand. "What are you going to do?"

Snape didn't move as the answer echoed out of the shadows.

He said no such thing. I did.

Harry whirled around and found himself facing a very attractive amber-eyed woman. He stepped backwards, uncertain. She was tall, almost a head taller than he was, and impossibly slim.

"Who're you?"

Who I am is unimportant. Professor Snape had nothing to do with this. He will not remember what happens here. Her cold eyes turned to regard the still figure of Sirius Black. And as for the man...

"You can do something?" Harry jumped in. "You can help him?"

He is, to all intents and purposes, dead.

"But he was walking! He came here!"

Ignoring him, she reached over and pulled back Black's open shirtfront. A ragged, red wound, hastily stitched together with gut leather, marred the left side of his chest.

Those who found him did this.

"Why don't your lips move when you talk?" Harry asked, suspicious.

Still ignoring his question, she took a thin-bladed knife from her sleeve and cut the stitches. Pulling the leather out, she continued. They thought to prolong his vital systems long enough to ensnare you. They want you to turn to them when you discover it is possible to bring your godfather back to life.

"Then why did you tell me?" he demanded, trying to keep the hope out of his voice.

Perhaps I too enjoy human suffering. She looked him in the eye as she pulled back the red, raw flesh, exposing the chest cavity to reveal a ruby red heart.

But something was wrong. The heart was not pulsing with the normal, healthy beat of life. Instead, it ticked with the regularity of clockwork, sounding with a thin and spidery beat. Her hand closed around the makeshift heart, and she pulled it out.

Harry started forwards with a strangled cry, but her hand shot out, catching him in the middle of the chest. It was like running into an iron bar.

"What do you think you're doing?" he choked, hate filling his expression. "You killed him. You killed him and now he's dead."

Looking him levelly in the eye, she opened her hand. The heart lay open in two pieces, revealing the gears meshed neatly inside.

A clockwork heart does not give a person life. She turned away, slipping the heart into an inside pocket.

"But you said you could bring him back to life," Harry persisted, subsiding into resentment.

She didn't look up from washing her hands. It is possible to give the body new life. But it would not be your godfather who is brought back.

"What do you mean, if you're giving him life!"

It will be Sirius Black's body that lives, but it will not be the Sirius Black you know. The man would have none of the old Black's memories or experiences. This Black would never have known the Marauders. He would never have gone to Hogwarts. He would not recognize you.

"He would," said Harry firmly. "He wouldn't forget."

You haven't been listening, she reproached him, laconically. It would be a new person, not Sirius Black, who lived. He would not know how to walk, so how would he know who you were?

He took a deep breath. "Alright. So giving him new life erases his memory. But you can revive him, can't you? And get the real Sirius Black back?"

No. He has been dead too long, and oxygen deprivation has destroyed his brain cells. He would still not be able to function normally.

Harry throttled the sudden desire to kill the woman who stood between him and his last wizard relative. "So magic can't save him," he said flatly. "He's dead."

Isn't that better than ignorance as to his fate?

Reaching out to close the blank, staring eyes, Harry looked from the gaping wound in the middle of his godfather's chest to the woman's impassioned expression. Hate and bloody murder filled his heart, and he started forwards again with a strangled yell of rage.

She was gone.

A sound startled him. Snape sat up suddenly, staring wildly past Harry. He jumped to his feet and stalked out the door before Harry could stop him.

"You have some explaining to do," Snape snarled, slamming his office door behind him. There was a moment of uncertainty, when an answer failed to come immediately.

I need explain nothing to you.

"What do you mean by bargaining with the Dark Lord?" he demanded. "You promise to make him invincible, and for what?"

She didn't answer.

"Fear. Pain. Suffering. Death."

That is my business, not yours.

"Not my business? When it will lead to our demise?"

Despite the desperate anger that blinded him, her next words were like a slap in the face.

Your life is not your own anymore. It is mine

"Damn you," he muttered, furious but able to see the truth behind her words. "Damn you. Why couldn't you have stayed out of my life?"

Too late.

His own weaknesses throttled him, preventing the flood of angry words from escaping his throat. For the first time in many years, he was close to tears.

The cataclysmic purging of the wizard families, mudbloods and muggles they had strove so hard to prevent would become a reality. The only escape now was suicide.

Sunk in an agony of despair, Snape barely noticed the touch of a velvet hand on his shoulder. It was surprisingly gentle, but when he looked up into her eyes, he saw nothing.

Calm yourself, she ordered, and he felt all the pain and fear melt away, leaving only heavy, oppressive, unnatural sleep.