A/N: I'm excited to share this one with y'all- it really is yours and not mine. It's a culmination of all the suggestions and advice I have heard since last chapter. I hope you enjoy, and please let me know if you do!

He left the Headmaster's office with his head hung, the heavy lead-filled voice ringing in his head and yet the memory of it such a blur he could barely recall what was said. Sirius took no notice of the way that the gargoyle guarding the office snarled at him, the way people were shooting him strange looks, as if by looking at his sad eyes they could glean what had happened; he did not even see the now nearly empty glass hourglass with barely any rubies remaining. The whispers persisted as he passed the Entrance Hall, but breakfast seemed like such a long-ago thing now, something for people to partake in when they are young and innocent and not in pain. He no longer seemed either of those things.

How could he have done it? How could he have hurt Remus that way-

The memories came like a cold, clear flood. Remus shying away from them when he, Prongs and Wormy had confronted him in second year about his condition, the way he hid his prematurely scarred face in his hands and backed away as if he were some dirty, deranged animal-

The pouring over the stolen Transfiguration books, more difficult than anything any of the seventh years had ever done before, that very thought giving them almost as much of a rush of exhilaration and inspiration as the thought of how they would be able to help their disenfranchised friend.

Waking up with Remus in the Hospital Wing, a giant grin for the first time drawing on his face…

Sirius hadn't even realized the way that his wandering mind had automatically drug him in that direction. He had to explain himself to Remus, had to explain, make any possible excuse in the world so that he wouldn't hate him- He burst through the door, barely able to control the overpowering, dominating urge to see his friend, just as reckless and ill-timed and with as poor a judgement with which he had performed the act that had landed them in this situation in the first place.

Nothing in the entire world could have prepared him for what he saw.

In his regret at his betrayal of Remus, his ache and hurt at losing his friend, his eagerness to help him and make up for the pain for what he had caused him, he had forgotten the cause for Remus's anguish- the hated, battered, abused boy with greasy nasty hair and nastier friends, laying comatose and unresponsive and, worse, writhing and seething. Well, Severus Snape had always been seething.

Remus was crying. Ugly, mucose-filled, guttural cries that went to the bottom of Sirius's soul. He was sitting on the edge of the git's bed, staring down at him with an intense and suffocating look, and it broke Sirius to the ground. But nothing broke him so much as the words that came from the cracked and half-choked voice.

"I should have stopped them! I should have stopped them. The way they treated you…" A sob. Or a sigh? "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Snape. I know we never really got along- and how could we, with James and Siri going around like they own the place and making it such a hell for you? But I am. I'm sorry. If I could go back-" Definitely a sob. "I know you won't forgive me. I don't even know if you can. I won't either. But it doesn't change that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." And there it was. The scars that for so long had made Remus so beautiful were covered once again by the aged and worn hands. It was utterly- breathtaking.

Sirius backed out of the room without saying a single word.

What the tired boy found on his way back to the Gryffindor dormitories, which required him to walk yet again past Dumbledore's office, left him no more speechless than the exhausting scene he'd just witnessed. Coming down the stairs, emerging from the stone gargoyle with her head bowed as if she had just received a death sentence, was a hunched, dark-haired and obsidian eyed woman who scowled when she saw the approaching Gryffindor teen, and Sirius did not doubt for a single second who she was.

Snape's mother.

He almost, for a fraction of a millisecond, sneered- how could Snape have a mother when snakes were clearly hatched from eggs like slime-demons- but he had lost the ability to finish thoughts like this in the past twenty-four hours. She looked at him and stopped.

She expected him to say something. Sirius squirmed.

"Er… Mrs. Snape?"

She paused for a long moment before she spoke. "You have killed my son."

Sirius's mouth fell open.

"I almost did not come. Albus Dumbledore did not consider it important to inform me that my only child is on the verge of meeting his maker, it seems."

Her eyes examined him like Sirius imagined dementors examined their victims just before they Kissed them, and it was almost as chilling.

"Why you are not expelled is utterly beyond me."

She went to move past him, and he could not help it; it was a gut instinct almost as much as it had been to protect Remus. Sirius Black flinched.

It was not shaping up to be a good day.

Sirius spent the day in such a haze that he did not even go to the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff Quidditch game to see Prongs win. He went back to his dormitory after classes and fell asleep without any of the other Marauders there to bother him and missed dinner. He only left his room when he decided that it would be impossible for him to stay there any longer, and ran into Albus Dumbledore outside of the Owlery, where apparently the Headmaster had been sending out a fairly important notice.

"It is good to find you here," he informed Sirius. "I was just about to volunteer one of your many friends to go and fetch you to accompany me to the Hospital Wing, but it seems I have been spared the trouble."

"But, sir, I-"

Dumbledore did not reply but continued walking down the cobblestone steps, leaving Sirius no choice but to follow. It was a dreary walk, but that was nothing compared to the atmosphere of the Hospital Wing when they entered it.

Remus was there. He was standing by Snape's mum, and when he moved too close to her it was impossible not to notice how she jerked away like he was a pile of so much bilge. It was enough to make Sirius open his mouth as if to say something in criticism, but he was stopped when his eyes took in the seemingly no-longer-still figure on the blindingly white bed.

His eyes were open. Snape's eyes had flashed open, and the sight of them cut in to Sirius like so many hot knifes. His palms were laid on the blanket laid over him, clenching open and closed like some disturbed spirit had possessed him, teeth chattering like mad as if he had been dumped in the middle of the Arctic. He was disgusting and gross, covered in his own sweat and stringy hair flung over his forehead, captivating and horrifying as each wracking shudder made him cough, sometimes bringing up phlegm, sometimes not.

The sight of him made Sirius shiver.

Things remained this way for over an hour, the three outsiders and intruders watching as the mother hung onto her son's hands as if begging him to stay, as if she would never get to do so again. This was made all the worse when she did not cry but encouraged him in a slow but commanding and steady voice to return to her.

"I cannot endure this, Severus."

"You know I will not return by myself."

"When you are a bit better, I will make you my best and hardiest chowder. I know how you like it."

"Speak, my child."

"I am sorry."

It was only the last of these that seemed to stir up such objection and dissention in the near paralyzed but observant patient.

"Mum…" It was whispered as if it took all of Severus's strength to even mutter it, and it made his mother clutch his hand all the tighter for that.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," he said.

Eileen took her other hand to brush the fringe off of his face and began to quietly stroke his forehead. His eyelashes were fluttering but there was no longer any blood crusted in them making them stick together.

"Oh, my brave lad. But I do."

He shook his head vigorously, but she shushed him instead.

Slowly, but without hesitation or resistance on the part of her son, she pressed cold and damp lips to his forehead, and it made him gasp. She pulled the blankets up around him in an attempt to made him as comfortable as possible.

"I love you, Severus."

"I love you too, Mum."

She brushed his forehead one last time. She felt his hand spasm in her palm for the briefest of time, at the same time the onlookers saw his eyes shut. They did not open again.

Heaving a great sigh, a single cold and hollow tear fell from Eileen's cheek.

It was at this precise moment that they were interrupted by a vibrant, vivacious and beautiful red-headed girl, and Lily Evans burst into the Hospital Wing like so many stampeding wildebeests, taking in the scene with wide and bloodshot eyes.

"No!" she screamed.

"No- Severus, no!" And she fell before anyone could catch her, the only one there who was now a mess of tears and snot and clenched teeth, unable it seemed to regain control of herself until the Headmaster helped her to stand and approach the bed where her late friend lay. She ran a finger down his cheek, as she used to do when she had inadvertently caught him crying, and the memory of it almost made her chuckle in spite of herself.

Sirius did not know what to do. He did not even know what to think, but stood open-mouthed like an scaly codfish until he felt a firm, long-fingered hand grasp his shoulder. It was Dumbledore's.

It seemed that he would be joining the Snapes this summer after all.