A/N: I just wanted to thank all my reviewers. Sorry for the long long long delay, but I wasn't sure about this chapter. I like it much better now, but I think it plays out so much better in my head sometimes than it does on paper. Anyway, please read and review. Let me know if you want more or would like me to other versions. I love you all!

Chapter 6

Severus closed his eyes, taking in the last scents of his love. He did not want her to leave. Despite everything that had happened between them, he knew that now it did not matter. All that mattered was the fact that she was there while others were not.

The snow faded away and was replaced with lush green grass, the type that was only present for a month in the summer. Severus knew that who ever he was to meet next, must enjoy the sun, something he did not. Slowly he saw three large golden goal post rise from the ground. Severus looked up towards the sky, and saw nothing but blue sky above him.

There Severus Snape stood directly in the middle of Hogwart's Quidditch pitch, but saw no one. Who's heaven was this? Why had they brought him here? These questions were soon to be answered when he saw a faint dark spot high in the sky coming down towards him.

"Hello Snape." A young man with black hair and glasses said to him as he dismounted from his broom.

"James Potter?" Severus asked almost disgusted.

"No, sorry to disappoint, it is just Harry." He said lightly.

"Mr. Potter, leave it to you to pick a Quidditch field as your heaven." Severus scoffed.

"It was here where I was truly happy. All my thoughts and obligations were gone, and for a moment I was free." Harry said as he looked his old professor up and down.

"Who would have thought the student would be come teacher?" Severus said lightly laughing.

"Fortunately for you Snape, I do not wish to bore my classes with drawn out lectures on the history of the wiggenweld potion." Harry jabbed back.

"How very amusing Potter, it seem your brain did retain something after all."

"Aren't you in the least bit curious why I am your fifth person? I mean out of everyone you have ever know why I was chosen?" Harry asked after a few moments together in utter silence.

"I suppose it is because you were the bane of my existence and what would life be after all without one?" Severus spoke sarcastically.

"Very funny, but no." Harry said closing his eyes.

"You killed me." Harry said more seriously.

"What are you talking about, you died at Voldermort's hands not mine." Severus said highly offended.

"You knew what was to happen, you knew he was going to kill me." Harry said more forcefully now.

Severus was unable to find words. He knew Potter was right, he knew he was leading the boy to death, but he did it anyways. 'Everything for the good of the war', Albus always said to him. Severus however, did not carry with him the Headmaster's optimistic outlook on the future of Harry Potter. Severus knew the boy only had one fate, and that was to kill the Dark Lord, but in doing so sacrifice himself.

"What do you want me to say Potter?" Severus now said his mouth having gone dry.

"Say my name." Harry said.

"What?" Severus asked confused.

"Say my name, and mean it like a friend. Say my name with good intention. Say my name like it should have been said before you took me to my death." Harry said now slightly advancing on Severus.

Severus stood, watching this man whom he watched grow from a boy to the tall brave man that he became before his death. Severus never brought himself to say "Harry" before. It made it feel too personal, too connected. He hated that.

"Well?" Harry asked again.

"Yes? Oh all right." Severus finally said looking him in his eyes seeing the hurt and pain of 18 years of his young life.

"I am sorry Harry Potter." Severus said as best he could.

"Again." Harry said, not satisfied.

"I am sorry Harry Potter!" Severus said louder this time.

"Say Harry, it won't kill you, your all ready dead." Harry joked.

"I am sorry Harry." Severus now said with a hitch in his voice. It was his fault this man was dead. He wanted to die that day on the battlefield so he would not face the guilt that he felt, but instead he was to relive it every night in his dreams.

"That wasn't so bad was it?" Harry asked.

"It was horrid." Severus said in distaste.

SSS

"Sir, how was it after the war I mean?" Harry asked. As the two walked around the Qudditch pitch.

"The Dark Lord was gone, if that's what you wanted to know. I couldn't say things were better, but then again I was not in a position to judge." Severus said as he avoided Harry's gaze.

"What do you mean? You felt that things stayed the same?" Harry asked.

"No, not for many people, but for me yes. I should have died. I had prepared myself for it, death I could have handled, life I did not want nor expected."

"But it was not your time." Harry stated as did the others.

"Yes, yes I have heard that, but what does that mean? I lived while others died, did I not? I made more students lives miserable as their Potions Professor. I never married, I never did anything more in life. I was just me, pathetic old Snivellus." Severus stated with feeling.

"There was a girl was there not when you died?" Harry asked, Severus's eyes widened. He had nearly forgotten. The poor girl, another victim at his hands. Severus knew he should not have made her stay. He was old and bitter, and Longbottom was an innocent bystander.

"Yes, but I fear she died. I remember feeling her hands on my shoulders, then nothing." Severus said with some urgency.

"Those were not her hands on your shoulders, those were my hands."

"Your hands?" Severus asked.

"I pulled you up to heaven. I am the reason you are here now." Harry explained.

"You? But why? You hated me. I was cruel and unfair." Severus said.

"Everyone has a story, everyone is on earth for a reason. You were meant to be a spy. You were meant to teach me. You were meant to save the girl." Harry explained.

"Do you see? You were a man who lived his life the best way you knew how. Perhaps at times you were quick to judge and harsh, but you made me a better man because of it, as well as all the students you have taught over the years. You taught us lessons that everyone else was too afraid to teach."

"We are all connected, and your part in the story is never truly over. It is now other's turn to learn from you. People will come to you looking for the same lessons that you have learned. You are now ready to share your knowledge with others."

"The girl lived then?" Severus asked trying to digest what Potter had told him.

"Yes, she will live, but she will also will die, and so goes the circle of life." Harry continued.

"It seems so simple, but yet people spend their whole life trying to decipher the meaning of life. I only wish I knew in life what I know now." Severus admitted.

"And if you did? Would you live your life differently? Would you act differently?" Harry asked, already knowing the answer.

Severus stood quietly and thought about everything he had gone through, Headmaster Dippet, Albus Dumbledore, Rowena Ravenclaw, Lily Potter, and now Harry Potter, they all taught him lessons which knowing now he felt all the wiser, but perhaps deep down he knew the lessons. They were always with him, but seemed unimportant and irrelevant in life.

Severus understood now. He understood that he would not have changed. He could not have, for he was meant to live the life of an outcast and spy, it was the only life he could ever know

"No, I would not." Severus answered.

"You knew the lessons all along, it is God's way of acting in mysterious ways." Harry smiled. Severus noticed that he looked at peace, as did everyone he had met in heaven. Now Severus could be in peace knowing that his life did mean something, as does everyone's.

"So that is it? I have met my five people?" Severus questioned.

"Yes, you may now choose your heaven and wait for those you are to teach. Of course you could stay a bit longer and play me at a game of Quidditch." Harry smiled.

Severus sighed, he knew that this boy, no man was fine. He had spent half of his life regretting what he had done, but was now at peace to see the boy happy for once. To see the man with the lightning bolt scar playing Quidditch and smiling was enough to give the Potions Master his redemption.

Severus mounted a broom, and the two were off like a shot. The last time Severus had played Quidditch was when he was thirteen years old. He had not felt this light in his whole life. Racing around on a broom with his mortal enemy's son made him strangely happy.

"Hey, Snape did you ever play Quidditch at school?" Harry asked.

"Yes, one year." Severus answered.

"What position?"

"What do you think? Seeker." Severus smiled coyly.

As the two finished the game, Severus stepped off his broom, and slowly Potter's heaven faded away. Severus closed his eyes one last time, before opening them to the most joyous scene he could ever ask for. There Severus stood in the middle of the Great Hall, Hogwarts his home. Severus Snape finally returned home.

'Welcome home, Severus." He heard several people say. There to his right stood Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, and Hagrid.

"Welcome home Severus." He heard more people say to his left. There stood his mother, his father, and Lily Evans.

Severus took his customary seat at the Head table, as food filled the tables. Severus looked around and knew he was finally home.

SSS

"I have been waiting for you." An old woman with long black curly hair heard her old Potions Professor say as she stood in the middle of his Great Hall.

Everyone has five people to meet in heaven whose will yours be?