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A/N: Remember to leave me that review after you are done reading!

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Chapter Forty-Six

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Horcruxes.

Harry shivered as he made his way down the corridors underneath his invisibility cloak.

The very idea was unnatural. Evil, even. But then to go beyond just the mere idea and actually follow through with it?

Harry shuddered again, feeling as though he were going to be sick.

How could anyone desire to split their soul seven times? Immortality, be damned.

In a way, it reminded Harry of what happened to wizards when they were kissed by dementors. They were nothing but an empty shell without their souls.

Sure, when Voldemort split his soul, he became immortal. But at what cost? Was that immortal life even worth living without the entirety of his soul? Could he even feel anything besides hatred and greed?

When he had asked about what the horcruxes were, he never expected the weight of the answer Dumbledore gave him. And it was a burden that was put onto Harry's shoulders.

He, more than anyone, had to ensure the finding and destruction of all seven horcruxes. It was his destiny as the 'Chosen One'. It was the prophecy.

Because the horcruxes kept Voldemort alive. 'And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…'

Harry was uncertain of this tremendous responsibility. He was no powerful wizard. Not like Dumbledore.

But Dumbledore had assured him that he wasn't alone in this task. That he would have help. Then, he had went on to inform him that two of the horcruxes were already destroyed. Tom Riddle's diary as well as Marvolo Gaunt's ring.

Harry had then asked him if he knew of any place where the other horcruxes could be. Dumbledore had looked a tad bit stricken for a long moment as he stroked his beard with his blackened hand. Then, he had said that he would need time to figure out the locations, as well as what they actually were.

Harry thought that it was certainly a daunting and impossible task. But he trusted Dumbledore. With him on his side, Harry was sure that he wouldn't fail.

Harry lifted his head from the invisibility cloak when he approached the painting of the Fat Lady.

She was fast asleep.

"Pssst!" Harry hissed, nudging the frame nimbly with his knuckle.

The Fat Lady awoke with a start. "Oh! Good Heavens!"

"Shhh!" Harry shushed, waving his hand slightly in an effort to get her to be quiet. He let the invisibility cloak fall from his shoulders as he gathered it together and put it in his robe's pocket. "It's only me."

"Mr. Potter!" The Fat Lady admonished. "I thought that we were well past your horrid habit of wandering around the grounds!"

Harry had been about to open his mouth to answer, when a voice behind him interrupted.

"Yes, indeed…" The slow, slimy voice interceded from behind him.

Harry's back stiffened, and he turned to face the man who had caught in out of bed past curfew. His wand was extended, with the tip being illuminated by a dim lumos charm.

Professor Snape looked at him with every ounce of hate, which Harry returned wholeheartedly.

Merlin did he hate this man. It was really no wonder why his dad and Snape were enemies back in school. His dad must be a really good judge of character.

"Detention, Potter." Snape drawled slowly with an ugly sneer. "And one hundred points from Gryffindor."

There was no holding it back. The words had bubbled up from his chest and burst forth from his mouth. "When are you going to learn that I don't care about house points, anymore, Snivellus?"

Snape's eyebrows raised in surprise for a mere moment, before the hatred on his face intensified. "Fine, Mr. Potter. Two detentions. You want to try for a third? Or would you rather open that fat mouth of yours that resembles your dead father, so?"

The Fat Lady gasped.

Harry's wand was out before he had even comprehended the full extent of the words. Snape merely smiled his ugly grin that showed his yellowed teeth. Luckily, Harry had enough common sense not to curse the slime in front of him outright.

"So predictable…" Snape mused, as he started forward slightly in a causal jaunt. "How does it feel, Potter, to be responsible for the deaths of so many people? I'm sure it must boost that insufferable ego of yours, just as it would your father's."

"SHUT UP!" Harry cried out as he pointed his wand even further, unable to stop the effect that the words had on him.

"Leave the poor boy alone!" The Fat Lady cried out, tears in her voice.

"What in the blazes is going on here?!" A thick Scottish accent echoed down from the hall.

They both turned to see Professor McGonagall striding down the hall, in her nightgown and robe that was tied by the sash. Instead of the tight, strict-looking bun that he always saw in her hair, she wore her hair in a single braid.

Snape straightened slightly, as he diverted his attention away from Harry. "I had just caught Mr. Potter out of bed after curfew."

McGonagall came upon them, her eyes taking in the scene before her, and Harry realized that he still had his wand raised and pointed at Snape. He lowered it gingerly, feeling himself oddly calm under her hard stare. "Well, I must say that it looked far more serious than just that."

Neither of them spoke, each not knowing how to respond to such an observation.

McGonagall turned her stare from Harry over to Snape, before saying, "I think I can manage everything from here, Severus. You may go."

Then she turned her full attention over at Harry, her eyes unreadable.

Snape sneered. "But I'm the one that caught him wandering the halls."

McGonagall's eyes widened and she turned a blazing look back over at Snape. "Yes, but am I not the Gryffindor Head of House? Go, Severus."

Snape had no argument for that, so he had no choice but to do as she said. He turned on his heel and stalked down the hallway, his robes billowing behind him.

McGonagall sighed, and looked over at Harry with a weary look. "I must ask, Potter… Were you with Professor Dumbledore, again?"

Harry's eyes shifted over to the Fat Lady nervously, who was silently crying in her portrait over his exchange with Snape. She seemed to not be paying attention as she sniffled about how injust it was for a Professor to bring up a student's dead parents.

Minutely, Harry nodded. Just enough for McGonagall to see.

McGonagall huffed out in exasperation. "I honestly wish that he wouldn't be so hard on you. You need to sleep, sometime! You are only a boy! Not a soldier for war!"

McGonagall paused, seeming to realize her very own words, as she then stated the password to the blubbering Fat Lady. "Get to bed, Potter. You have classes to attend to in the morning, as do I."

Harry nodded and did as she said, stepping through the portrait hole as he watched as McGonagall close it behind him.

…

But Harry didn't go to sleep right away. Not yet, at least. Instead he went up to his dormitory long enough to grab the compact mirror before he brought it down to the common room.

He sat by the fireplace, situating himself in such a way to be able to get the best angle of light, before he called their names.

"James," Harry said to the mirror. "Lily."

He waited a moment before he tried once again.

"James," Harry tried, this time more insistent. "Lily."

After he waited another moment, Harry had been about to try again, before the mirror shimmered and the sluggish, sleepy faces of his parents appeared in the mirror.

Harry paused at seeing their mussed up hair and the drooping of their tired eyes. He had forgotten that it was late and they had to have most likely been sleeping before Harry had woken them up.

Upon seeing his face, however, they became more alert.

"Harry?" His dad's insistent voice rang out. "What's happened? What's wrong?"

He could see the worry in their eyes and he felt even more guilty for disturbing them.

"Sorry… it's just- Well, I just wanted to talk to you." He said, lamely. Looking back now, he really had no need to calling them through the mirror. He felt silly, now. Until the feelings of his altercation with Snape came back to him and he felt a newfound rage. "I actually had a run-in with Snape just now."

Both of their faces furrowed in concern, as they urged him to continue without words. So, he told them. He vented everything. How Snape had given him not one detention, but two! How he had spoken ill of James and the fact that he was 'dead', as far as Snape knew. And how he had told Harry that he was the one responsible for so many deaths.

As soon as he had finished with that last one, both of his parents had blazing looks of fury on their faces.

Suddenly, his mum jumped up and out of view from the mirror, leaving only his dad.

"Mum?" He asked, his voice anxious for some reason.

He watched as his dad was craning his neck to watch her beyond the mirror, before he looked back at Harry with clueless eyes. "She went into the closet, Harry… She probably didn't want you to see her curse up a storm. Merlin knows I want to."

Harry nodded, still quite concerned, but pushed the feeling aside as he and his dad talked a tad bit more - mostly about how awful and slimy Snivellus was, before they said goodbye. And Harry went up the stairs to bed.

….

The lightning crackled and shook the entire castle, that one being closer than the first.

The storm had, quite honestly, come from nowhere.

He found himself curious about it for a mere moment, before he let his mind wander onto different things. Like how much he hated Potter.

After his encounter with the insufferable Potter and after Minerva had unceremoniously turned him away; Severus had chosen to walk the castle a bit more, hoping to find any other students that he could punish now that he couldn't punish Potter because of Minerva…

Unfortunately, he hadn't found anyone else out of bed, a fact that had served to sour his mood.

So, after cursing his terrible luck for the evening, Severus chose to retire to his chambers, which were connected to the inside connecting door from within his office.

When he approached his door, Severus took out the key and went to unlock it… only to find that his hold on the doorknob jiggled. Severus frowned as he tried twisting the doorknob, only to find that it was already unlocked.

"I swear, Peeves…" He muttered under his breath as he pushed the dungeon door open, letting it crash against the back wall with a resounding thud.

Severus entered, and closed the door behind him. He stepped forward to the nearest candlestick, about to light it, before a dark shadow of a figure in the room caught his eye.

They stood, by the window, completely motionless.

From the size and height of the person, Severus immediately surmised that it was a student out of bed, who was apparently idiotic enough to break into his office.

"Who's there?" Severus sneered, abandoning his intent to light any candles as he faced the figure in the dark room. "It is after curfew, and you shall be severely punished for wandering about. Especially in my office."

Severus waited a long moment, only he didn't receive any answer. He let his eyes wander over the form of the offender that had broken into his office. And was shocked to see that the person was completely soaked, as water dripped down onto the floor from their long hair and clothing.

So, the student hadn't only been out of bed, but had also been wandering the grounds after hours?

This would serve to be extra punishment, if found to be true. And if it wasn't, he would have enough ground to still punish the student with the evidence he had now.

"Well?" Severus snapped, getting impatient from their lack of answer.

For a moment, time passed slowly. Severus could simultaneously hear the ticking of the grandfather clock as well as their own breathing.

"...Why do you hate me, Severus?"

CRACK!

The sky once again illuminated with a split second of light… Just enough time for him to see the flash of wet, red hair that covered the majority of her face.

The room darkened once again… And all that could be heard were the breaths of air coming from the two sets of people. Her breathing seemed to be very calm at the moment, while Severus found himself hyperventilating.

"L-Lily?"

"I believe that I asked you a question." She stated, her voice forceful. "Why do you hate me, Severus?"

Severus could barely comprehend the mere idea that she was in front of him at the moment, let alone her repeated question. "H-Hate you…?"

The sky flashed with light yet again, and he was treated to another brief sight to her stunning, red hair.

The sky darkened before she responded again. "Why? Why do you?"

Severus could only gape at her. Why was it she was asking him of this? Did she not know? Did she not see all that he had done because his love for her over the years? "L-Lily… I could never hate you. I love you."

Her shadow of a form shook its head as a mirthless laugh trickled out from her lips. The very lips that he had spent the last twenty or so years fantasizing about. "That couldn't possibly be true."

"It is." Severus said firmly, imploringly.

He heard her scoff, as she turned her head to look out distantly through the window as another bolt of lightning came out through the sky. "Then why is it that you sully my memory by treating my only son the way that you do?"

"LUMOS!"

Severus' wand lit, just as he was taking strides forward to stand in front of her. Holding up the wand to illuminate her face… Lily lifted her chin, her beautiful face now revealed as her wet hair fell away from sticking to her cheeks. Her eyes were the same shade of green that he remembered. The same shade as when he used to admire them when they would sit by the pond by both of their houses when they were young, when there was laughter in her eyes.

There wasn't any trace of that mirth anywhere now, but he still searched for it in vain as he took in her pure beauty.

She hadn't aged a day since he had last seen her.

"Sweet Salazar… It is you." Severus breathed. "How is this possible? How is it that you are here?"

Lily's eyes hardened. "Trust me. It wasn't from anything that you did."

She started to turn, meaning to stride away from him, but his hand automatically came forward and latched onto her arm.

She kept her eyes turned away from him as he took in the feeling of live flesh underneath his fingertips. The silky smoothness that just barely covered the ghost of the thudding pulse point beneath layers of skin. Severus gasped and felt his knees threaten to buckle underneath him as the air left his lungs. But he fought against the feeling, wanting - no - needing to stay conscious so that he could ensure that she didn't leave.

"Y-You're alive?" This had to all be a mere illusion. Either that, or Potter had somehow confunded him as he had turned his back earlier.

But in the deepest depths of his heart, he knew that not to be the case. Somehow, he knew that she was really here. Standing in front of him at last.

And if nothing else, her one word confirmed it for him.

"Yes." The word was simple, but to Severus, it meant the entire world.

"Were you always…?" He had to know. Had she been hidden away all these years? Did Dumbledore know but chose not to tell him? For loyalty, perhaps? But that still didn't explain her apparent youth...

"No." She stated again, her lips going into a thin line.

The realization hit Severus like a load of bricks. "Resurrection, then." He breathed. He hadn't posed it as a question, but rather a matter of fact.

His one true love had come back to life for him. But the thought cut him short as he remembered… And he found that he just had to ask, desperately needing to know.

"I-Is Potter…?"

Lily smirked. The expression didn't fit with the normally kind face that he remembered. "James is alive and well. Sirius Black is, too. And they both send their regards… Snivellus."

Severus' heart plummeted. And not just from the news that his two rivals were supposedly back from the early graves in which they belonged. But from the pure hatred that his Lily was looking at him with in that moment.

"What have I done to warrant you using that name for me?"

Lily's eyes went wide as she gaped at him in disbelief. "Are you daft?"

Severus frowned, deep lines forming on his forehead. After all that he had done for her, after all that he had sacrificed. How he had betrayed the Dark Lord and joined with Dumbledore to keep her safe. How he had looked after her son for her after she had died. How he had been a double agent ever since. He had thought that when he would see her next, in what he had thought to perhaps be the next life after this one, she would be thanking him for all that he had done.

Lily tugged her arm away from his grasp, and he reached forward to grab it again too late… as she got her wand pointed directly at his nose. A terrifying glower on her gorgeous face. "You've treated my son with nothing but disdain and hatred ever since you first saw him."

Surprise overcame him for a moment, before his trademark sneer came back with a vengeance. "Your son is as arrogant and spoiled as his father."

He didn't even hear her cast the curse. But he felt the effects. A long, red cut slashed across his cheek. She had used his own curse against him. It wasn't deep. Just enough to draw a few drops of blood, but Severus felt as though she had slapped him.

"That's where you are lying to yourself, Snape." Lily spat, her face flushed with fury. "You knew that Harry was sent to live with Petunia. You knew how she was like. How much she hated magic. How she hated me because I am magical. You knew how she would treat him. Yet, you still accuse him of being spoiled and arrogant? If anything, Severus, you are delusional."

There was nothing for him to say to that. He did know how Petunia would treat Potter. It was precisely the reason why he had chosen not to warn Dumbledore about her when the Headmaster had decided to place Potter with her and her muggle husband.

He had thought that the child deserved it. Especially after he was the cause of his own mother's death.

Lily eyed him, daring him to say anything to contradict her statement. Before she continued on to say, "And apparently, you are delusional in more ways than one. Because you still see James as the little boy who was a bully and liked to torment you and other Slytherins. When you fail to see him as the man who has grown up and had actually risked his life to save yours."

Blood drained from Severus' cheeks as she brought up what he referred to as 'the incident'. She knew about that? Potter had told her?!

Severus had long tried to forget about his run-in with Lupin in his werewolf form when he had still been in school. Black had tricked him by getting him down to the shrieking shack. But, of course, Potter had to play hero.

Apparently, it had all been just so he could go tell Lily at the first opportunity that he had saved his mortal enemy from certain death… Like the deceitful, conniving tosser he was.

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO END UP WITH ME!" Snape yelled, unable to think of any other argument other than that. Because it was the one thing that he saw a pure unadulterated fact. "I'M THE ONE WHO HAS LOVED YOU MORE THAN ANYONE! CERTAINLY MORE THAN POTTER!"

Lily didn't even flinch at the sheer volume that he threw at her, nor did his words seem to have any effect.

"What you feel for me isn't love, Severus. It's obsession." Lily retorted, a hard line in her tone as she finally lowered her wand arm. "And even if it hadn't been James, then it would have been someone else. But certainly never you."

Severus' eyes widened, looking at her with disbelief.

"What?" Lily continued, her voice had an edge of condescension. "Did you really think that I could just force myself to be attracted to just anyone? Love doesn't work that way, Severus. I have never looked at you in that way. Even when we were friends. The attraction was never there."

"No…" Severus whispered, his voice clearly displaying his denial. "That's a lie. You've had to at least used to feel something for me…!"

This couldn't be happening. How many times had he envisioned seeing her again, and just taking her into his arms, telling her how much he loved her? How many times had he clearly seen her returning his affections? She had to feel an inkling of what she felt for him. He couldn't have just created it all in his head.

His eyes searched desperately to find a flicker of that feeling within her deep, green eyes.

"That's true. I did used to feel something for you…"

Severus' expression started to soften slightly, the tightening in his chest started to loosen...

"...and what I felt for you was pity." His heart shattered and dropped to the pit of his stomach. "When I saw you, Severus, all that I saw was a boy who had a difficult life. And I wanted to help that boy… to be that boy's friend. But somewhere along the way, the boy decided that he didn't want any help. The boy started to delve into the Dark Arts… The boy started to spend time with known Death Eaters, and eventually became one himself… The boy… called his only true friend - the one person who looked out for and protected the boy - a mudblood."

"But, Lily!" He made to grab her hand again, but she was too quick, stepping back from within his reach. "You know that I didn't mean it, and-"

"No, Severus." Lily cut him off, holding up her hand, her hand keeping him from stepping any closer. "No."

When he paused, she took a deep, steadying breath. "There may be a chance that you actually mean that. That you didn't mean to call me a mudblood. But the intention was still there. Even if you accepted me as a muggleborn, you still wouldn't accept every other muggleborn. Because you see yourself as above them. Above us. You say that you love me… but you still hate those who are exactly what I am. Muggleborns. I've seen how you treat muggleborn students as lesser than the pure-bloods and even the half-bloods. How can you claim to love me but hate what I am?"

Again, he had no solidified answer. At least not in any words. All that he knew was in his heart, there was a difference between her and all the other mudbloods.

Because despite how Lily was born and where she came from, she was still just as pure as any other pureblood.

"I know a way that I can prove my love for you." He said, in a rash and desperate sounding voice, before he reached out again, managed to grab her wrist, and tugged her closer.

She was pressed up against his chest now. So close that he could feel her soaked clothing through the thickness of his robe. He leaned his head down, closing the distance between his lips and hers…

"Petrificus Totalus!" She cried out, just as his lips came a mere inch away from her own.

His whole body stiffened as tight as a wooden board before he fell back against the ground.

She stood over him, glaring at him with every ounce of hatred that he had given to both Potters over his lifetime.

"You leave my son and my family alone." She threatened through clenched teeth. She stood over him menacingly with her wand still pointed. "And just know, that this is the last time that you will ever see me. And it will be as I look at you as nothing but the slime that you are."

Then, she left his field of vision. Severus tried desperately to cry out. He moved his eyes as far as they could look out of the corner of his eyes, trying to extend his last look of her. Until, he couldn't see her any longer. He could only sit, and listen to the movements she made in despair.

With one last creak of the door that she opened, Lily paused. "Goodbye, Severus."

The door slammed shut just as another bolt of lightning burst forth from the sky. The thunder shaking the grounds as his heart shattered.

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A/N: Let me know what you think! Obviously, I'm not a big fan of Snape and I thought that this confrontation was needed. Please leave me some of those juicy reviews! And I promise that I will have a Harry/Ginny moment in the next chapter!