AN: This tale was originally going to be a one-shot, but it grew. This one is for Elflina because she enjoyed the first telling.

A Meeting

Severus walked through the grey fog, his steps sure even with the ground being uneven. He could see the cracked neglected path just in front of his feet, but nothing else. The sound of water slapping against a stone cliff echoed through the fog, disguising where the edge was. Even the knowledge he might fall into the water and be dashed against the cliff didn't slow his steps. Each was unerringly placed on stable ground, each corner rounded without even knowing it was there, and his heart remained steady, positive of his route and fate. He would make it to his destination no matter how much his brain knew that this trip – especially at this speed – was destined to fail.

The sound of the water, though still present everywhere, was muted as if it was getting further away. It was then that he noticed the slight incline of the ground, so gentle he didn't feel the burn in his muscles from climbing it. Soon, he broke through the fog layer and found himself at the mouth of a cave. There was nowhere else to go.

Severus glanced about and what he saw made his brain quail but not his heart. The path where it trailed back into the fog was at best two feet wide, and the sides plummeted straight down, jagged rocks spearing up through the fog on either side. He had been walking along a very narrow headland. The ever-present, surrounding sound of the surf made far more sense now. Turning back to the cave, he noted it was inside of the most formidable rock spear, a sea stack that went as high as he could see. Roots came from somewhere up high, darting in and out of the rock, plunging into it not to come back out almost three yards above the cave entrance. Surveying the entrance, he noted there was a gap between the end of the path and the opening.

'Do I jump and enter or do I go back the way I came?' It wasn't much of a question, he knew he was here to move forward, to find out what was in the cave, but he also knew he was being given a choice. And he wasn't typically given choices these days – at least not ones so easily made. Most of them came with balancing lives against needs. 'Though, walking back into that fog might kill me. Then again, going forwards might do the same.'

He raised his hand to his face, thinking of rubbing the tension from his brow as had become his habit since he started his new life as a Hogwarts Professor and spy for both the Dark Lord and Dumbledore. It was only the end of October – surely he was stronger than this, better at coping with the stress. He dropped his hand, it never making it to his brow. Staring into the mouth of the cave, he knew he had to go forward if just to find out why he walked all the way here.

Once again, his feet carried him where his brain quailed. As he jumped off the edge of the path, he noticed that the gap was not the two feet he'd thought, but at least three. 'I'm not going to make it.'

Even as he thought the words, his heart discounted them. He sailed through the air, tendrils of fog rising up to meet him. A tendril caught his foot and wrapped about his ankle.

Fear shot through him as the tendril solidified and tugged on him, pulling him away from the cave entrance.

'No! I am not going out like this!' He reached for the rock spear, his fingers scrabbling against the rough surface as he attempted to smash the fog tendril against it. The fog vaporised and his ankle slammed into the rock. Pain lanced through him, but after a gasp or two, he ignored it and began to climb the rock, wishing for the roots.

Every hand hold, every foothold was a test of the rock climbing skills he hadn't used in years – not since he opted to become a potions master instead of an ingredient collector. And even then, this was a higher skill level than he'd ever tried. Sure, he'd been bouldering and had even done some sports climbing, but this was free soloing. His fingers sought a hold as he wished for a rope and harness. 'A route would be nice if I could pause to find one, but the fog is still trying to get me.'

A tendril reached up and almost wrapped around his leg, causing Severus to rush through the route he'd chosen more by instinct instead of plan. On the safety of a ledge he could comfortably balance on, he studied the remaining twenty feet up. He knew he had to study the surface or the fog would win without it even touching him. He had just enough time to plot a route to another ledge – one smaller than this one, but still serviceable – before the fog attempted to wrap itself around his waist. He moved quickly, breaking through the tendril before it could solidify, and scrabbled to the ledge. It became a cycle. He'd scrabble to a spot he could balance – even precariously – and plot out the next part of his route while the fog attempted to pull him off the wall. A few times it almost succeeded.

Finally, he pulled himself up over the lip of the ledge and onto the floor of the cave, and moved quickly out of the fog's reach. Leaning against the cave wall, he waited for his breathing and the tremors in his arms and legs to calm down before proceeding deeper into the darkness.

Once again, as he walked in complete darkness, his mind quailed but his feet knew their path. The path seemed to wind down the spear, its slant far more noticeable now than the one outside. Ever so slowly – so slowly he almost didn't realize it was happening – the darkness faded. He stopped at a widening in the path and surveyed the bright cavern before him. Stalactites and stalagmites filled the edges, and woven between them was a wondrous tapestry that went further and further into the cavern as far as he could see. Three women sat near the working edge – one spinning colourful threads onto multiple spindles, one weaving them continuing the tapestry and another cutting the threads where the middle one indicated to do so.

Severus didn't notice his feet taking him closer as he studied the patterns of the fabric. At first glance, it was just colourful threads, but the longer he looked, each thread told a story of a person and they intertwined with other threads as other people pushed the first thread's story along. Searching the newest edge, he found himself – a pine green thread woven carefully between bright and dark hues alike. A tarnished silver – far longer than his thread – had come close to his but was now staying at a set distance and an even longer sky-blue one recently moved closer. A gold thread, starting just near his, shone brightly through the other colours making Severus wonder what this person would become.

His thoughts stuttered to a halt as the middle woman held the gold thread taunt away from the tapestry.

"Here," was all she said and the last one moved her shears and began to cut it.

"NO!" Severus felt the shout torn from him, the sound of it reverberating off the stones. Three heads snapped towards him but the shears stopped, one ply of thread cut.

The middle one touch his green thread with the back of a finger that was holding the golden thread. "It is his time, Severus."

Severus shook his head, uncertain as to why he was being stubborn about this. He'd watched many people die, even children, but he didn't want this bright gold one to leave the tapestry yet. "Not yet, surely there is something..."

He trailed off as they studied him, each one's eyes gentle, caring, firm, hard, and understanding. It was the last one who spoke next, "What would you do to keep this one? What would you give?"

The question stumped him. What would he give to keep that bright thread? Would the gold dull over time? His eyes traced the tarnished silver thread back to its beginning and saw it had started that way, just as his thread was the same colour from start to now, just as each one he could follow was.

The eyes of the first woman lowered and Severus followed her gaze until he noticed that the unwoven ends of his and the gold thread were wrapped about each other. It looked right. They would be close to each other and he could see the wonders this bright one could bring. "My life tied to his, not suffocatingly, but linked."

The three turned to study the tapestry and then each other. Then the last removed her shears from the gold thread, and the middle held his green thread out in the manner she had held the former. The shears sank into his thread. Severus felt the pinch, the cutting of a single ply.

His heart sped.

His breathing faltered.

His strength ebbed.

Grey fog – the same colour and feel of the fog he fought earlier – tried to steal over his vision.

Holding firm, fighting with all his resources against it, he refused to fail.

The first woman picked up the cut golden ply that was closest to the tapestry and in her fingers it miraculously grew until it touched the edge of his green ply that was furthest from the tapestry. The two melded together, gold tracing its way through his green.

Severus rocked, his heartbeat and breathing changing patterns once again. His strength ebbed and swelled randomly.

He still fought the fog.

The first woman repeated her actions, but this time starting with the cut-end of his green ply. As the thread spun out, he felt himself stretching thin, his strength leaving him.

Clenching his finger, he held on.

He had strength enough for this. He had to. He had strength enough to survive his childhood, his teenage years, and now the beginning of his adulthood. He stockpiled it, knowing it was a resource he should never be without.

The thread spun in the woman's fingers and Severus opened more and more of himself to help it be created. At last, it touched the golden thread's cut end and the green traced its way through the gold.

His heart rate settled, his breathing became normal, and his strength slowly returned. The fog lost the battle and as his sight cleared, he could see a wisp, not even a full ply, of the tarnished silver thread wrapping itself around the gold thread. As it did, Severus could see five more wisps of the tarnished sliver spotted throughout the tapestry along the thread's path.

He walked closer, not believing his eyes. Surely, the threads of someone's life shouldn't shred like that. The main silver thread was only one ply now, and Severus wasn't sure if it was a complete ply at that.

The middle woman moved slightly, "Touch the link, Severus."

As he reached out for it, he wondered whose life he'd tied himself to. His finger touched where the gold and green joined, and the cavern faded, but he knew.

The gold thread was Harry Potter.