Chapter 28 - Severus Snape


Lizzie was breathing heavily into the palm of Hermione's hand. Hermione dared not cast a silencing charm on their location in the event it gave even the slightest indication they were right under the stairwell from certain death, if discovered.

Lizzie's hand was closed so tight around her friend's forearm it might have started to bleed. She worried he would be able to sense her and desperately kept her mind in void but also needed to focus which made the ordeal impossible. She imagined there was a canyon along the center of her brain, and she descended down into the shadows away from herself but most importantly away from him. Because of this, she'd hardly heard the conversation with Lucius, her eyes focused on the outline of the snake coiling above them.

When she heard the drawling voice of Severus Snape, however, Lizzie peered up out of the canyon much like the way she pressed her face as close as she could to a small opening to see into the room they were meeting in.

"Surely you know why I have summoned you," Voldemort said in a cold tone.

"Azalea. My Lord, I assure you I can convince her to come with me, I can deliver her to you, I'm certain of it," Snape said reassuringly.

"You're certain?" Voldemort said with a sinister smirk on the end of his question.

"Yes, my Lord," Snape affirmed.

"I'm less concerned with her delivery, I'm more concerned with what to do with her," Voldemort admitted distastefully.

"You do intend to kill her, my Lord?" Snape asked. Voldemort raised his eyebrows.

"I've discovered what she's been doing. There is no amount of pain I can force her to endure that will even scathe the surface of my fury," he hissed. "Even if dead, she has undermined tremendous progress, she has dismantled my power at sources I did not know she could have ever realized existed. She has destroyed essential keys to my legacy that can never be recovered. I will not reward her the honor of being a martyr. But I'm not convinced I will be able to kill her or find other uses for her...at least not with this wand," Voldemort explained bitterly as he ran a long finger down the line of the elder wand and examined it with the expression a father might give a disrespectful child.

"You have done extraordinary magic with that wand, you have taken it from its former master, I'm certain that when I bring her to you... it will not fail you, my Lord," Snape said evenly. Voldemort stared at him intently for something unspoken.

"No, I am extraordinary, the wand resists me, it will continue to resist me. There is a connection to Azalea I still do not understand the full complexity of. There is a hesitation I have had to force myself to overcome. I think it transcends the protection her mother gave her, I believe it maybe my doing... her blood, the ophidians, or something happened fifteen years ago that I have since thought I identified, but it has been proven in action time and time over to be more...complicated. The elder wand, this is my only chance of infiltrating the protection of that connection, but I don't think it sees me as it's true master," Voldemort continued.

"I killed Grigorovich and Grindelwald out of extra precaution, but I did not kill Dumbledore. You... killed Dumbledore," He added coldly. Lizzie watched Snape stiffen.

"While you live, I cannot use this to its full strength, it is but a wand, and like the others, will not break this connection with the girl that renders me unable to kill her," he clarified.

"Please let me bring her to you, my Lord," Snape pled. Voldemort considered this but something did not convince him, something made him think Snape would flee, something seemed odd about the request.

"Sometimes I wonder if she looks so much like her mother because she's living just under the surface... do you ever feel that way, Severus?" Voldemort asked suspiciously. Lizzie went cold with anger at the intrusive thought that Snape, Voldemort, and his death eaters had ever had their hands on her mother. It had never dawned on her before what thrice defying him per the prophecy might have meant. Snape was silent and his eyes retreated into their sockets at the comment.

"You have been a faithful servant, Severus, I do thank you for your sacrifices," Voldemort hissed. Lizzie watched him flick his hand and didn't notice a spell cast until Snape fell to the ground with a loud thud. Nagini lunged once at his neck, then twice, the seventh blow silenced his gasps of pain and with a loud crack, Voldemort apparated with the great snake.

Ron's wand hand was trembling at the ceiling above them, Hermione crept up the steps and peered into the room, but Lizzie collected herself with firm resolve and pushed past her to enter the room. Her steps creaked on the old floorboards and Snape twitched a hand for her to come to him.

"Lizzie," he said almost too quietly for her her to hear. Lizzie frowned and her guard came down drastically. There was no black veil over what was going through his mind. She frowned around an imagine of him running a hand through dead lilies but plucking a vibrant azalea flower from its stem and crushing it in his palm. He ran a hand through the dead flowers again and they blossomed back into life for half a moment before withering away again.

Lizzie knelt by his side and tried to press on the bleeding wound on his neck.

"Do we have dittany?" Lizzie whispered. Hermione shook her head whilst gazing down in horror.

Snape grabbed her other hand in a tight grip and ran his other into his cloak to retrieve a vial. "From Al-bus - from F-fauxes" he said. Lizzie looked at the clear liquid and imagined it couldn't be anything but Phoenix tears and gaped. "For you - not - me," he clarified when she impulsively unstoppered it.

She looked at Snape bewildered by the gesture. He was crying. "I'm s-s-sorry," he sobbed with a painful sounding croak. His hand was on her cheek while a thumb slowly grazed her cheekbone, the gesture made her rigid.

Lizzie noticed silver hairs streaming from his tears. "Y-you n-n-need to take them," he said as urgently as he could muster. "Pensieve," he mouthed. Lizzie reached up for a vial from Hermione and collected as much as she could into the tube. She felt a hand on her chin and looked back at his face. "Look at me," he said too quietly to hear, and she saw a small girl in his eyes. His face softened in a mixture of sorrow and guilt. His eyes hardened and his grip on her hand slackened. There were no more heaves of breath. Lizzie stood up and put a hand on the vials in her jacket pocket just before a high, cold voice rang through her ears and made her reel backwards in pain.

"You have fought valiantly, but it has been in vain. Lord Voldemort is merciful. Dispose of your dead with dignity and treat your injured. My forces are ordered to retreat. I do not wish to spill any further magical blood..." he commanded.

"Azalea Potter, I speak directly to you. You have permitted those you claim to love to die for you. There is no greater dishonor than using their lives to buy yourself freedom. I will wait for you in the forbidden forest for one hour. You will deliver yourself to me. If you fail to oblige, I will enter the castle myself, and slaughter every man, woman, and child who attempts to conceal you from me... one hour..." he added scathingly. It made her body coil in pain and she slumped back into the wall still hearing the voice ring through her ears.

"The castle," Ron said with a hand on her shoulder. Lizzie swallowed and nodded but struggled to stand and walk.


They entered the large doors of the Great Hall again to a much greater mess of recovering people and bodies. The air was thick with grief and anguish. Ron ran forward at the cluster of his family to check on Fred, but Molly was draped over his body sobbing hysterically. Mr. Weasley was noticeably trembling as he tried in an utterly futile effort to comfort his wife. Charlie had arms tight around Percy who had succumbed to raw tears of regret and despair, and George had his forehead pressed firm to his twin brother's, desperate for his other half. Angelina beside him with a vice grip on George's hand. Lee was on his knees in shock. Fleur had her arms around Bill who was swallowing back the waves of intense pain, and Hermione ran for Ginny who sat alone with her blotchy red face buried in her hands. For the first time since she'd known them, Lizzie felt displaced from the family. This was her fault, like he'd said. She felt she did not deserve to make any attempt to comfort them, but her heart shattered violently.

Lizzie looked around and saw Tonks hand in hand with Remus. Poppy was tending to him, but he gripped at his wife's hand in a futile effort. He was delirious and trembling, face blotchy and forlorn. Tonks was still and unmoving. Lizzie's legs, despite wanting to buckle, took her to her friend's side and she stared down at the lifeless body feeling cut into hundreds of pieces. The gash across Remus's head was deep and Poppy tended feverishly. The way Poppy's hands shook told Lizzie she wasn't convinced she could save him. "I lost the Creevy brothers," Poppy gasped with a sob she had been obviously holding back. "I lost Dora, I lost Fred... it buried them, the blood loss was too quick to replenish. I've never seen anything like that. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she ranted frantically through tears. Poppy was a miracle worker, and Lizzie's heart broke for her losing so many of her students in quick succession. There weren't enough healers, it was not her fault. She looked around and saw Charlie tending to some others, biting back his own pain and loss because he might be the only other one who was trained enough to help. Lizzie looked down at Remus and didn't think she could bear another lost father, didn't think she could bear Teddy growing up alone. She felt beyond any doubt that if he died here, her heart might just stop completely.

Lizzie's hand moved to her jacket immediately and retrieved the tears Dumbledore gave Snape but intended for her.

"Poppy," Lizzie said with a rasp and the woman looked up at her sadly.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Poppy choked. Lizzie shook her head defiantly and moved around the bed to Remus's side to empty the vial over the most fatal looking wound. Her hand pressed firm to his still beating heart and she laid her head down and prayed quietly. His heart continued to beat as the tears took action.

"Please, please, please..." Lizzie whispered. "... he can't lose both of you...I can't lose both of you," she cried quietly into his shoulder.

Poppy stroked her hair sympathetically and squeezed her shoulder when she reckoned she could look up. He shook with grief and was succumbing to exhaustion from blood loss and bereavement but was alive. Lizzie leaned forward and kissed his temple with shaking lips. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. She thought he looked dead in his skin and knew the feeling far too well. She crouched down next to Tonks and gripped her cold, stiff hand. "I promise they'll be ok. I promise. I'm so sorry," she whispered and kissed the cold fingers in her trembling hands.

Her head felt light as she looked around at the losses. Collin and his brother Dennis. Lavender and Parvati. Luna sat with Padma looking lost in the trauma of the evening. She looked over her shoulder at Charlie but averted eye contact when he tried to meet hers. Neville and Seamus were holding Dean still while Poppy tended to a massive wound in his abdomen. Hannah sat with Justin on either side of an unnaturally still Susan Bones.

McGonagall moved toward Lizzie cautiously. "Honey," she said almost silently, the outline of her broken heart etched into the color of her eyes. Lizzie stared back at her for a moment with nothing to say. She was numb and needed to leave the thick, sour, and dread infested air.

She touched her coat and remembered the memories she was given. She slipped out of the Great Hall and her body moved her forward on auto-pilot toward Dumbledore's former office before anyone could stop her. She entered the circular office quietly and shut the door. It was the quietest place she'd been in over the short eternity they'd spent back at the castle. Shell cottage seemed years in the past.


Tonk's face was seared into the backs of her eyelids, and her heart ached for Teddy who wouldn't know his mother. The memory of Fred's body and the shattered family she loved, made her organs harden and she felt the holes of their absence from the world rip through her stomach.

Her head throbbed and chest heaved as she reached for the vial of memories from Snape. Her blood boiled with a mixture of hatred and pity for both the brutal way he'd treated her and the even more brutal way he'd just died. She tipped the silvery hairs into the pensive and swallowed back her animosity to dip her face in.

Lizzie fell and gently hit the warm summer grass of a playground while two little girls played. Her eyes hit the first with a sharp shock because she thought she was staring back at herself, but the girl next to her to apparent doppelganger made her skin tremble in thickly veiled fury. It was Petunia, blonde and sour-faced as her giggling younger sister soared higher and higher into the air on the swing. It was unnatural the way she moved, and Petunia's eyes narrowed in distaste. Lizzie heard the creak of a teeter-totter and turned around to see a black-haired boy watching them. Lizzie could recognize the black eyes immediately and thought Snape looked rather drab and destitute in comparison to her mother and her aunt.

He stared longingly at Lily as Lizzie watched and her heart throbbed with outrage at the premise building.

Petunia ran off to tell her mother Lily was acting recklessly and Snape stopped her.

"Stop, she's..." but he looked over at Lily instead. "You're a witch," he said from across the yard. "It's not her fault," he said now addressing Petunia who frowned and looked ready to spit at him.

"What do you know? You're that ratty, Snape boy who lives down by Spinner's End," Petunia snapped back.

"Tuney, be nice..." Lily pled and smiled weakly at him. Petunia stalked off, but Lily frowned at Snape suddenly.

"What do you mean, I'm a witch?" She asked a little sharply, but he smiled like he'd been waiting eagerly for this exact exchange.

The memory faded.

They were laughing by the river's edge under a large tree talking about Hogwarts and the magical world. "Tuney tells me it's all fake, it's make believe, she says you're mental, probably possessed and are having a bad influence on me," Lily said. Snape laughed.

"She's jealous because you're special and she's... ordinary," he said with a smirk. Lily looked offended on her sister's behalf but did not protest. Lizzie could tell they'd kindled a friendship since their first encounter though it wasn't clear how much time had elapsed. Perhaps a year.

"Are you alright?" She asked when he stood up and appeared to grimace in pain. "He's not..." she whispered.

"I'm fine," he said with a fake smile. "He... my mum hexed him for it," he said.

"For what? Hitting you? What did..." she protested angrily. He shook his head dismissively.

"It's alright. The letters will come soon and then I can be gone, I can't wait to leave. It will be a new home, see?" He said optimistically but Lily's eyes swam.

"I'm sorry, Severus," she said sympathetically and handed him a leaf she'd turned into a flower before it fluttered off as a butterfly. He smiled wide at the gesture.


He loved her, Lizzie thought angrily. The sympathy in her bones was clouded by outrage that after all these years and all he'd done and been responsible for, that he had the nerve to love her mother. Then her heart panged a little for her own childhood best friend knowing already how this was doomed to end.

The memory faded and they were on the platform at King's Cross. He was watching Lily argue with Petunia who shoved her in a fury.

"She found out you read the letter, she doesn't want anything to do with me," Lily said in a huff as she sat down in a compartment with Snape and pressed her forehead into the windowpane.

"Don't dwell on it... we're off to Hogwarts, she's upset she was wrong about it being fake. I told you she was jealous," he said, trying to sound reassuring. Lily shot him dagger eyes and shook her head.

"She's still my sister," she muttered. He stopped himself from saying something insensitive, which Lizzie could tell he was rather impulsive at doing even as a child.

"You better be in Slytherin," he said trying to change the subject.

"Slytherin? You're joking! I think I'd leave, don't you?" a well-kept looking boy said at the doorway to the compartment. Lizzie looked back at who she knew to be her father, and next to him, Sirius. Sirius's face fell when he sat down.

"My family has been in Slytherin for ages," Sirius said.

"Well, here I thought I liked you," James said with a smirk. "Let's hope you break tradition," he added with a wink.

"What house do you wish to be in, then?" Snape asked sharply.

"Gryffindor, like my father," James said rudely. The way her father looked at Snape, not having known him moments prior, made Lizzie bubble with a bit of resentment for the type of boy he had to eventually grow out of being. Not quite the first impressions of a Draco Malfoy, and almost a Dudley, but less aloof. Snape scoffed and James had the audacity to look affronted.

"Well," James said, smiling at Lily, and left the compartment with Sirius without another word.

The memory faded.

Next, they were in the Great Hall being sorted and Snape's face fell when she was sorted into Gryffindor just following Sirius. She greeted them at the table and James shot him a victorious sort of look. Snape, however, was sorted as Lizzie knew into Slytherin and he sat down next to a prefect who could be none other than Lucius Malfoy.


The Great Hall faded, and her mother looked older, possibly fifteen or sixteen, she was strolling with Snape in the courtyard.

"I just don't understand why you're hanging out with them!" She whispered harshly. "You know damn well what they think of someone like me, they use dark magic... Mulciber especially, what has gotten into you?" She asked.

"And you? I see you hanging out with Potter and his friends," he snapped back.

"I'm a prefect with Remus! They're in my house and in my year, of course I'm on good terms with them, they don't use dark magic mind you," she retorted.

"And Lupin, where does he run off to then?" He asked sharply.

"He's ill. Don't pry," she hissed reproachfully.

"Every month on the full moon?" He asked incredulously.

"I know your theory. Stop it! Jamie saved your life, or did you conveniently forget?" she said angrily. He shook his head.

"Jamie..." he said with disgust, his eyes blacker than ever on hers. "He saved his own skin and his friends' hides, it had nothing to do with me," he protested. "He fancies you!" He said and she looked taken aback but said nothing. He seemed to be examining her face for reassurance that she didn't return the affection.

"I'm aware that James Potter can be an arrogant toe rag, but he's nothing compared to those creeps you involve yourself with, Sev," she said harshly. He veiled a smirk at her insult of James and seemed to walk a little more happily alongside her.

"I'm sorry," he said. They were now in front of the Gryffindor Common Room. Lily was in pajamas and scowling at him with great disdain.

"I already told you to stay away from me," she said. "I only came out here because Marlene told me you said you'd sleep out here," she spat.

"And I will! Lily, please..." he pled. "I don't think that way of you. You're... you're my best friend," he said apologetically.

"Then why did you say it?! I hear the way you talk about people like me. Mind you I've never heard those words out of Potter's mouth," she barked. His eyes flashed mean with hatred for James and she knew she was striking a chord.

"Leave me alone," she growled before entering the portrait hole. His eyes swam and he swallowed back guilt.


He was older in the next memory, but only by maybe a couple of years. He was staring through a crack in a doorway at a younger Dumbledore and Professor Trelawney as she gave the prophecy for the first time. There was a loud crack near him of Aberforth shooing him out of his back room and he stumbled into a pub with an abashed expression as his eyes caught Dumbledore's.

In the next he was confiding in Voldemort about the prophecy. His master was pleased, and he felt he'd be rewarded handsomely for the information. His face fell when the Dark Lord contemplated which child it might be.

"The only two sets of new or prospective parents I know of who have thrice defied me are the Longbottom's and the Potters," he said. "James Potter just had a daughter, and Frank Longbottom a son, both born at the end of July," he added.

Snape's face was white. "Surely the boy. He's pure-blooded, auror's son. His father is rather formidable," Snape said evenly.

"Yes..." Voldemort said but didn't seem convinced. "I have much to think about."

Lizzie recognized the next memory, though she'd seen it first from Voldemort's perspective and without reference to Snape. "I think your assessment of the Longbottom's is correct..." Voldemort said and relief washed over Snape's face until he watched him pick up a photo on his shelf of a young girl.

"Who is this?" Voldemort asked.

"A girl... a girl I... cared for growing up. It's nothing," Snape said dismissively with a dry voice.

"What's her name?" Voldemort asked with a piercing stare, reading him.

"Lily..." Voldemort said.

"Lily... Potter?" Voldemort asked with sudden dawning realization.

"Yes... my lord, I know she is not of proper blood status but we grew up together. She was the only friend... I've always -" Snape said with an air of defense but it wasn't completely coherent in his trepidation. Voldemort cut him off and held up his hand.

"Thank you, Severus, I think I have changed my mind about the Longbottoms," he said coldly. Lizzie glared at the red eyes, trying to imagine them as Tom Riddle, the handsome Tom Riddle, and then the little boy in the orphanage, who, had he any shred of capability to love, would have recognized what having one kind friend meant to abandoned and abused children like himself, like Snape, and like Lizzie.

"My Lord, I apologize. I did not suggest the Longbottoms solely because of Lily. Please just, please spare her," he said impulsively, he was panicked and for the first time whilst emersed in these memories, she truly felt sorry for him.

"I... if she means that much to you, perhaps I will, should she give me what I need," Voldemort said.

Snape nodded but visibly trembled a little.

"Her daughter..." Snape said under his breath and Voldemort nodded. When he left, Snape's eyes welled. He picked up the photograph and shook his head surely knowing she'd never give him her daughter.

In the next, her mother met him. She was radiant. Snape wanted to hug her but she stopped cold next to him. "How are you?" He asked. She didn't answer.

"You wrote me saying you were ready to change allegiance. Is that really why you're here?" She asked.

"Not - I can't just switch sides, but I want to help you," he said. She was listening with narrowed eyes.

"You're in danger. He's after your daughter. I don't know exactly why, but it was prophesized..." he started to explain, and she cut him off.

"He's after, Azalea?" She asked in horror. "He's after my little girl? How? Why? She's not even crawling yet. The most magic Lizzie can do is light up the azaleas I planted when I let her touch them," she ranted, tears pooling in her eyes rapidly.

"You're joking. I can't think of a single reason... this is sick... she's no threat," Lily continued feverishly.

Snape swallowed. "He will spare you, he may even spare James. He just wants her," he said with a shaking voice.

"How could you suggest that?" She yelled in outrage. "I love her more than anything. I would be incapable of breathing if she died. I would jump off the highest cliff, throw myself in front of bloody train, if I'd just handed her over! There is no life after doing something that inconceivable," She roared. "Jamie would take a sword through the heart...come back and use me as a human shield if he had to save her, he adores her. If there's one thing he knows that you don't, it's how to love, you don't know love!" She added hysterically.

"I do..." he said in an uneven breath.

"No!" She snapped back. "If you know love, then help me protect what I love," she pled.

"How can I?" He asked.

"Swear to it!" She barked.

"I cannot swear to it, I have no confidence I can do anything about it! All I know is he will spare YOU, if -" he said.

"Don't you even finish that thought, Severus," she hissed.

Snape was now on his knees in front of Dumbledore. "How much did you tell him about the prophecy, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

"Everything I heard. He thinks he knows. He's going after the Potters..." Snape said, vomiting his words before he could hesitate.

"Why is that important to you, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

"Lily... I need you to hide Lily," he said.

"But not her daughter? Not her husband? How could you dream of parting her from her family, Severus?" He asked indignantly.

"I do! I love her! Hide them all, please, I will do anything," he pled.

The scene faded. He looked like he'd suffered a thousand deaths in Dumbledore's office. The place was trashed much like it had been when Lizzie demolished it after Sirius died. Much like the way she'd destroyed Snape's when she found out about his involvement in the prophecy.

"You said you would keep her safe!" He roared at Dumbledore.

"Lily and James put their faith in the wrong person, Severus, much like yourself," Dumbledore said. Snape shook his head, tears pouring from his eyes.

"Her daughter lived," Dumbledore added.

"She might as well be a reincarnation, the resemblance to her mother is uncanny. Lily loved her more than anything Severus, and she is in terrible danger," Dumbledore continued.

"She doesn't need protection, the dark lord is gone," he said coldly, his chest heaved in swallowed sobs.

"You and I both know he will return. She's in great peril when he does, if you really loved Lily, you'd do this for her," he said, an echo of Lily's words. "She's more than in danger from him, she's riddled with dark magic, alive, but her body is cold. I haven't the faintest idea what the extent of that curse did yet..."

"Nobody can know..." Snape warned and took a few sobbing breaths. "Where is she?" He asked, pity laced into his face.

"With Lily's sister, we just returned from there," Dumbledore said, averting eye contact. Snape shook his head in disbelief.

"Petunia hated Lily... was that necessary?" Snape said. Dumbledore looked grim but nodded and Snape stared for a long moment at his face before leaving.

He was now at the cottage staring at the azaleas. The lilies had died but the pink vibrant flowers lived on. He entered the empty house and stopped at every photo of Lily; in most she was with Lizzie. He bored a fingernail into Lizzie's face with a surge of resentment for the reason the woman he loved was murdered.


In another wave of a new memory, he caught sight of Lizzie immediately as she filed into the Great Hall for sorting. He watched Lizzie get sorted and off to the Gryffindor table, she was exactly like Lily, except the cheery nature didn't resonate. This little girl looked perpetually sad, not well kept like her father, not apprehensive like her mother was to be here for the first time... it was as though the muscles in her face had already atrophied, the smiles she gave people who enthusiastically greeted her were forced. He caught her eyes and only read fear.

Lizzie had forgotten how small she was then. The bruise stung her eye where it had been seven years ago and everyone had been correct in calling her a toothpick.

Her heart ached for that past self who didn't know what was coming. Then she was leaving the feast in a hurry, she remembered why. The made a short exchange with Peeves in the corridor when he followed her out, but the look on his face when she left was whiter than snow, like he'd seen a ghost.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say she had her father's brain implanted, she's snide and condescending, outrageously sarcastic, relishes in the fame, and has no regard whatsoever for authority," he spat in Dumbledore's office.

Dumbledore stared up at him. "You're seeing only what you want to see, Severus. Other teachers have said the opposite. She's intelligent and intriguing, she's an old soul, mature beyond years, she has a heart and I'm impressed how easily she's made friends, when -" Dumbledore trailed off.

"When, what?" Snape asked sharply.

Dumbledore handed him papers. "Enrollment papers. It was a challenge to get her here Severus, and I know you only half listened to Minerva's heed of caution," he said evenly.

Snape read them. "They didn't adopt her?" He asked incredulously. Dumbledore shook his head. He continued to read. "Erratic, bipolar, hallucination prone, possibly schizophrenic, compulsive liar, substance abuse... suicidal?" He asked even more incredulously. "Witnessed a suicide and her family murdered, car accident is the official story? What is this?" He asked in disbelief, slapping the papers on the desk indignantly, the papers Vernon wrote out in all his glorious bias and disdain for his niece.

"Her family's interpretation of her powers. This is enrollment in something no short of prison in the muggle world. She's not the least bit like James in the ways you think, Severus. She might, I dare say be more like... you were," Dumbledore added with his eyebrows raised. Snape rubbed his face. "Keep an eye on Quirrell, will you?" he added as a footnote to the conversation.

The memory faded but they were back in Dumbledore's office again in seconds. "What makes you think she's not behind this? Did you know she could talk to snakes?" Snape asked. Dumbledore shook his head.

"She's not!" He said firmly. Snape obviously did not believe him.

"Other death eaters rallied around the idea that she was next to ascend into power, it was the only way they rationalized a toddler bringing down the Dark Lord. I think you need to be careful. You cannot tell me you don't sense it. That those circumstances at that school weren't odd..." he snapped. "Send her home and see if it stops at the very least," he offered.

"I'll do no such thing. She nearly killed herself getting here, I'm not sending her back for anything beyond what's necessary to keep that spell in place. This is not her!" Dumbledore yelled.

In the next memory he was walking with Dumbledore. "Lupin suspects she's an obscurial," he said. "Her bogart took the form of one but she didn't know what it was," he said with a twitching lip. Dumbledore stared ahead coldly.

"I'm not inclined to believe that yet. She's fourteen. From experience, it would have presented itself in some form by now," Dumbledore said dismissively but his eyes were dark in thought. Lizzie could tell he was being deliberately shallow in his rationalizing. Snape didn't believe him either, he stared back at his calculating expression with narrowed eyes. He looked up in the next wave of memories to her body barreling down from hundreds of feet in the air, dementors swooping and swarming overhead, followed by the loud crack that left him petrified in place whilst watching Lupin jump down from the stands and push through with McGonagall to her immediate aid.

In the next, he was seeing her name with Sirius's and Lupin's on the map at the shrieking shack. He bolted immediately only to get blasted unconscious by her, but not before seeing a level of derangement to her demeanor the likes of which he'd never imagined. Bloody hands, trembling fury and disdain, her eyes were sinister.

He found her down by the water's edge sometime later, but then she was in his office, smug and arrogant. She might as well have been speaking in James's voice. Surely, if not for an imbecile father she wouldn't have been insufferable to him, she wouldn't have run steadfast for a werewolf and dementors, she wouldn't have been careless with the life that was spared at her mother's and his expense. She wouldn't be wasting her mother's sacrifice on the people he despised most. He had the urge to beat it out of her if he had to, he tried, and had he been her father, she'd have been smarting for a week with welts, sore and ashamed, but he stopped as soon as she froze and went rigid at the first blow, with dawning recognition of his own childhood demons. The conflicting anger and pity were enough for him to throw his fist into a glass mirror after she left the office.

With a wave of black smoke, he was now arguing with Karkaroff. "I know you know what's coming. I know you can feel it. What are you going to do when -" Karkaroff hissed, and Lizzie watched herself burst in enraged. "You're one of them, aren't you? - Nobody stops being one of them!" She shrieked and he slapped her as hard as he could. The crack reverberated and Lizzie remembered immediately how much that hurt, how quickly it bruised, how his skin seemed to bubble in hatred. He stalked back to his office, pulled on his hair in frustration and bit down hard on his knuckles until they bled. There was a mixture of intense fear, trepidation, guilt, and remorse in the air he'd never let her see.

With another wave she was lying over Cedric's body screaming in pain and he held her down while Charlie tended the bleeding. Next, he was lifting her off the floor and pulling Barty Crouch Jr.'s blade from her ribs. She slumped forward and he held her. Lizzie said something under her breath, and he seemed to pause for a long moment almost obliging her request to just let her die. It was more horrible than he'd imagined it would be. They were alike yet again, in Voldemort having taken who they loved most.

Lizzie had never once caught a real glimpse of his face during occlumency lessons because he'd always looked away or she'd quickly become delirious, but from the new vantage point it was obvious he'd been flushed, shocked, and increasingly horrified. He wanted badly to comfort her, she could tell by the way he moved toward her curled up on the floor, but couldn't bring himself to offer consolation, to make himself vulnerable to her trust. If she trusted him, his job became impossibly more difficult.

She watched him destroy his own office after he'd found her at the manor. His hands shook getting her into clothes, his jaw was clenched tight as Lucius dragged her off to the ministry, and he'd nearly succumbed to an explosion of fury in his office when forced to return, knowing she was cursed and bound to the dark lord forever.

In the next wave, he saw her animagus form in the forest and stared transfixed. It was obvious as an observer and in new context he was expecting it to turn into Lily. When he discovered Lizzie, his eyes changed, he'd grown angry and felt robbed. He wanted to cut the eyes from her face for impersonating the woman he loved. He wanted to strangle her for endangering herself with this bit of magic. He didn't want to admit she was more like her mother than her father. When she lied to him, he hit her, and the anger coursing through his body as he stalked back up the castle was telling. Following him now in memory, she watched it start to wash away, his black-eyed glare soften and distort into a pained expression, like she'd snatched away some tiny beacon of hope.


He was now speaking with Dumbledore in his office again, but Dumbledore's hand was feeble and dead looking.

"I've contained this to your hand, but I think you likely only have a year," Snape said regretfully. Dumbledore went cold in calculation, then ordered him to kill him in place of Draco doing so. Snape agreed but not without voicing his bitterness over it.

"How long did you know she was an obscurial?" He asked in a now separate meeting.

"When I met her," Dumbledore admitted shamefully. "My sister was..." he added.

"You don't hate her because she reminds you of James. She brings out your worst because she hosts a piece of the man who murdered Lily," Dumbledore said further into the conversation. "Not unlike Petunia's feelings toward Lizzie," he added and received a sharp glare back from Snape. "It makes it impossible for either of you to love her. If Lizzie had been your daughter -" he continued but Snape threw up a hand.

"Stop it," he hissed.

"You would have died for them both like James did," Dumbledore finished and stared with intensity back at Snape.

"How long had you known how they treated her?" Snape asked.

"There was a report made when she was about ten. Hospitalization. It was telling of everything. But... if you skip forward, those wards have kept her alive time and time over. She would be gone without them," Dumbledore said defensively. Snape shook his head in disgust.

"Her uncle tried to kill her, even my own father only ever threatened. Did you know she killed him? And that man he married her to?" Snape hissed disdainfully.

Dumbledore nodded while his blue eyes seemed to die a little in their sockets. He was no stranger to letting down someone vulnerable.

"I'm going to be gone soon, Severus. I'm not going to be able to tell her what she needs to know. I'm not going to be able to tell her how to end it, and I cannot tell her until she's ready to face him," Dumbledore said.

"Tell her, what?" Snape asked suspiciously.

"She's uncovered secrets about Voldemort I could have never come upon on my own. He chose her deliberately. That curse she took temporarily satisfied a debt he had long owed, but at her expense. There was a piece of his soul astray, it followed him for decades while he sought to give it what it wanted. It wanted her, it latched onto her. She is the living embodiment of him. He cannot die because she anchors him to the earth for as long as she lives."

"She has to die," Snape said, pale with disbelief.

"He has to kill her. Only he will be able to destroy the piece of him inside her. She's resisted it all her life, but... resistance is not enough. If his body is destroyed before she dies, she will essentially become...him...Lily has held onto her daughter all these years. She has never let go... but it's not going to be enough on its own to stop this," Dumbledore explained. "It's the only hope we have of at the very minimum, saving her soul and destroying him forever. I don't reckon she will survive, but the very least I can do is send that little girl's soul home to her family," he added, his eyes welling in tears.

"How long have you known this?" Snape asked, anger rising. Dumbledore did not answer.

"All of this, everything I have done has been to keep Lily's daughter safe, and YOU, you raised her just to slaughter her!" He roared.

"You let her get heinously abused. You've trained her, groomed her to battle things far beyond her years, you have made her believe she can destroy him! You've kept her alive so she can die at the proper moment?!" He ranted indignantly.

"People have died for her, she's suffered those losses, when she's simply supposed to die anyway? To think I've been the cruel one... while you..." He added with malice.

"You care about her," Dumbledore said. Snape rolled his eyes and ran hands through his greasy hair in frustration.

"This was never about her; you think I wanted to protect James Potter's daughter? You think I wanted to be reminded of who took her away from me! You think it wasn't unbearable to look at her? She loved her, she died for her, that bloody girl is the reason Lily is dead, but this was always for..." he said heavily.

"Lily..." Dumbledore said sadly. "After all this time?" He asked.

Snape buried his face in his hands in anguish. "Always" he said just above a whisper. Lizzie watched a doe patronus dance around the room and Dumbledore looked astonishingly ashamed.

"That's not just Lily, Severus, Lizzie has the heart of doe too," Dumbledore said quietly.

"I know..." Snape choked.

"She has resisted Lord Voldemort from that night in Godric's Hollow on... please help me make sure it's not in vain, it's all we can do...or Lily will never be reunited with her... she'll be lost," Dumbledore added. Snape turned away to keep his tears off display.


Lizzie watched herself destroy Snape's office when she'd found out he was the courier of the prophecy. Her own demeanor scared her in retrospect, but the way he held her when she succumbed to grief explained everything, it was not like a lover would, or a friend would, not even like a father would, but like a scared and guilty child clinging to any hope of redemption would.

The next memory was dark, there was a loud splash of water, and his hands came down and wrapped around her rib cage as she dived under the water away from the ambush. He dragged her to safety, checked for confirmation it was her, and then called off the assault.

Now she looked through the trees at the doe in the forest of dean. "They're in the Forest of Dean," Finneus said in the headmaster office. Snape's head snapped up and his eyes widened. He left the office with the sword in a hurry and watched her follow the doe to the frozen pool. She pulled off her clothes and dived in, he shuffled impulsively to help when she didn't come up but stayed concealed when Ron ran forward and dived in after her.

It was then, looking around his shoulder at Ron pulling her trembling body into the snow that Lizzie fully understood the animosity. Not only was her existence what killed her mother, but Lily chose James over him, she chose Lizzie over him, she chose death over him. She was the walking reminder not only of what her mother looked like but carried her mother in her skin alongside the man who killed her like a life-long hostage situation. Even still, he shared the blame, and he couldn't live with it. He protected her out of guilt, he hated her because of the guilt, but cared about her solely because he'd never loved anyone before her mother, and never loved anyone after.

Unlike Voldemort, his one friendship meant everything to him, unlike Lizzie, he had never found love and acceptance again after he'd lost it. He was trapped in the center, the only one to live for was already dead, and the only way to atone the death was through the very thing that killed her.

"She has to die?" He asked again and it felt like an echo as she pulled herself from the pensive.

"Yes, and Voldemort must do it," Dumbledore affirmed. Lizzie's breath caught in her throat when she stumbled into the center of the office and fell to her knees. She had no words for anyone, couldn't even bear to see them, but her heart ached fiercely. For the first time that night, she sobbed and screamed into her hands with raw emotion.