"Beady!" Severus summoned as he stepped into the main portion of his quarters. A pale, pink creature appeared in front of him. The house elf was timid, wringing her hands and avoiding meeting his eyes directly. How ironic that a creature with such big eyes is named Beady. He gave an internal chuckle at the thought.

"I missed dinner." He explained. "A plate of sandwiches would do…and pumpkin juice." He added, remembering how much Lily had liked the stuff while they were at Hogwarts. When the elf disapparated again did he hear the door creak open

"Dinner?" She asked, her voice timid. "How long was I out for?"

He glanced at his watch. "Roughly four hours. Its past seven."

"And you were here? The whole time?" Her eyebrows came in with skepticism. In the events of that day, there had been a lot for each of them to question.

"My last class was cancelled, yes." Beady apparated back with the items he had requested. He halted his conversation, muttering a thank you to her. She gave Lily a glance, but said nothing. Severus was thankful that house elves seemed impervious to gossip. He assumed he was the only one to know Lily's true fate. It wouldn't do for word to spread through the castle that Lily had been seen here of all places. The situation was already going to be hard enough to explain, particularly to Potter. He knew the boy would have questions. For once, Severus didn't blame him. "I used the excuse of illness. No one is aware that you are here, not even Dumbledore."

He lifted a sandwich from the plate that he held, offering it to her as he made is way to the table. It was when she stepped out from the blackness of the doorway that he noticed what she wore. She had a wand, she could have transfigured anything, but had stuck to his muggle clothing instead. She was drowning inside of them.

After seeing her covered by nothing more than a blanket, he wasn't surprised. Her collarbone had jutted through her pale skin, just as visible as everything else. It hadn't been hard to determine her injuries, both fat and muscle having wasted away to nothing and leaving the bones beneath more than visible.

He found himself staring, contemplating these things as she sat across from him. He wasn't the only that had noticed. "What?"

"Nothing." He grumbled, averting his eyes to the food in front of him. He picked at the bread and awkwardness fell between them.

"Severus." She began a minute later between bites, his name sounded out slowly. It was like she was trying to get used to his name again, letting it roll over her tongue. "What year is Harry in?" The question seemed to pain her, and she avoided his eyes. The look on her face made him unwilling to answer, to destroy her further, but he did it anyway.

"He's fourteen."

"Fourteen?" She repeated, her voice a squeak of disappointment. "I was gone thirteen years?"

"Where exactly is 'gone'?" He pushed.

"Headquarters."

"Headquarters? As in the Dark Lord's headquarters?" His hand lowered from his mouth, the food he had been about to take a bite of forgotten.

"Yes."

He placed the sandwich down, having lost his appetite entirely. He had been there, he had been in the same building as she and he had had no clue. Severus felt sick with regret, with guilt. She had been so close, and he had never known. He cleared his throat. "Was the Dark Lord there?"

She frowned, tipping her head to the side. "Not exactly."

"Lily, I…" He scratched his scalp before running his fingers down through the greasy strands. "Had I known…"

"You couldn't have done anything."

Fair enough. He would have only gotten himself killed in the process, and likely her too. The Dark Lord could track them through their marks. Unless they were willing to slice their own arms off, there was no way to avoid him. They could have run, could have hid, but he would have found them in seconds and all of it would have been pointless. That led him to his next thought. He had assumed that she escaped. "And the Dark Lord, he let you go?"

She nodded. "Sev, he…he's coming for Harry."

"As he has the last three yea-" He paused, realizing who he was talking to. "Right."

"I know what he's done, what Harry has done." Her voice was meek, barely audible. Had he not been expecting a response he would have missed it entirely. The Dark Lord…he boasted about-"

"Lils." Severus interrupted, his voice stern as something occurred to him. "Are you able to hide this conversation from him? Should he come looking?"

She gave a slow nod, as if she wasn't sure herself. "I had a lot of time to myself. I remembered all your talk about occlumency, when you were trying to teach yourself."

"And you learned?"

"Yes, well, maybe. I haven't had a chance to actually use it."

His head snapped up, meeting her juniper green eyes. They were identical to those of Harry's, the same eyes he had met almost every day for the past three years. He cast the spelling, knowing it would work best if she wasn't prepared.

He found himself in her thoughts, in a room he had never seen. Of course, he hadn't.

Her leg was shackled, bare except the dirt that covered it. She was on the stone floor, her knees bent to her chest. He heard the squeak of a heavy door, Lily's head turning towards the newcomer. Before he was able to catch a glimpse of the intruder, he was shoved so forcefully from her mind that he nearly fell from the chair.

"That's private." She growled, her voice trembling. She stood, leaving her half-eaten food behind her, and abandoning him. He watched as she stepped towards the door of his bedroom, the only door she could escape to besides the one that led her outside.

Guilt flooded his system, he hadn't intended to hurt her so. Severus had been checking the strength of her barriers, not trying to invade her privacy out of sheer cruelty. He learned two things from doing so. That her barriers needed work, and not to do that again.

Feeling as though he'd swallowed a bag of rocks, he stood. He approached the door she had disappeared behind and gave it a gentle knock. "I have business to take care of."

Xxxx

Severus had grown used to this castle, to its well travelled paths, in the twenty years that he had been here. Seven he had spent as a student, having only one gap year before he sold his soul to another a master, before he accepted a life sentence in this place he had never been able to love.

He took the rarely walked corridors, disinterested in any interaction with another human being. His mind was too wound up in thoughts of Lily and the discretion that this situation required. It had been only hours since he had found her, but it felt like days. His mind had not stopped working in that time.

Even while he'd been trying to determine if it was really her his mind had been racing. During that hour, part of him had hoped that it wasn't her. Had it been another death eater in disguise, or someone who was trying to hurt him, he could have dealt with the problem. One, quick spell, and the threat would have been eliminated. But, with Lily, it was like orchestrating a whole other side of the war. He had somehow come responsible for her integration back into society, back to her son.

She had been calm, sucking on the end of a spoon like he'd seen her do countless times before. Her appearance was the only sign that she had been through any kind of trauma. It was the shock that led to her calm, the normalcy, he knew that know. She had been given freedom after so many years in captivity, so many years of things he didn't even want to imagine.

The small inkling he had received through legillimency had spurred thoughts he hadn't even considered, thoughts he didn't even want to touch. They had more in common now than they ever had before. He knew it was selfish, the flicker of contentment he had felt at realizing it was really her. Sure, the situation was complicated, to say the least, but she was alive, and he had a desire to keep her that way.

The thoughts carried him all the way to Dumbledore's office and through heavy door. They dwindled only when Dumbledore beamed back at him from behind his desk. "Severus." He began, rolling up the parchment that had been in front of him. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"We have a situation. But, first, I think some firewhisky would be wise." He glanced at the cabinet in which he knew it was held. Dumbledore's smiled dropped in slight confusion as he called the alcohol to him with the flick of his wand.

Holding the decanter between his aged fingers, he began to pour the both of them a stiff drink. "You've never been one for alcohol."

"No." Severus agreed. "But, this situation calls for it." He took the glass from the headmaster, eagerly sipping at the contents. He marveled, not for the first time, at the maker's ability to capture the scent, the taste of flame in a liquid. When he could feel the warm, liquid courage spreading through his veins, he spoke again. "I found a rather strange occupant in my home this evening."

"I assume this has to do with your illness?" Dumbledore smirked, an eyebrow raised.

Severus ignored him. "It was Lily Potter."

The teasing grin was wiped from his face to replaced by shock, silence. After a minute he cleared his throat. "If this is Lily-"

"Its her. There's no if about it." Severus had no desire to repeat the tests he had put an already traumatized Lily through.

"Did she provide an explanation?"

"Not entirely, but I could hazard a guess. She's in bad shape."

"Is Harry aware?"

"No." He dreaded that very thing. "If he was, you wouldn't be hearing this from me." The boy was incapable of keeping a secret. It was a miracle he was still alive. "But, he needs to be." Dumbledore nodded in agreement, but Severus could practically see the gears of his mind working. "Her son – the only thing she has left in her life – is about to battle a fucking dragon."

"Harry is not the only thing she has left." Dumbledore insisted, ignoring the danger that Severus had insinuated.

"Sir?"

"She came to you, didn't she?"

Severus passed the now empty glass between each hand, distracting himself. "She had no where else to go."

Dumbledore lifted his arms, gesturing to the room around him before looking at Severus as if he was that 11-year-old boy all over again. "Hogwarts would have accepted her."

He felt an anger boiling within him, a heat that had nothing to do with his drink. "Harry is in danger." He recalled what she had said. He's coming for Harry. It was a situation that didn't change from year to year, but that worried him all the same. "With his mother back, I'm afraid he'll be more of a target than ever before."

Xxxx

She shifted in the floor that was cold beneath her bare skin. Her hips ached from the hard surface she rested on day after day, the pain migrating up her spine. The skin of her ankle was raw from the chain that prevented her from moving, from any kind of escape. The iron had been charmed, preventing her from fiddling with it in any way, cementing her in this place.

She heard the squeak of a door, the announcement that she was no longer alone. She forced her mind elsewhere, knowing what was to come, hoping for an out of body experience. Everything was the same as before, the black robes the other death eater was clad in, the silver skull that hid his face, his identity. The only way for Lily to ever hope of recognizing this man was by his voice. Perhaps it was best she didn't know.

"Spread your legs, Potter." Her last name was spat in disgust. The man making her feel like filth on his tongue. She locked her legs, pressing them closer together. She wouldn't let his happen without a fight.

Tears stung her eyes, recalling the memory that Severus had drawn out of her. The pain, the humiliation, the triumph she could see in the other man's eyes from behind the mask. She could feel his touch on her, his and many others. No matter how hard she scrubbed or how much soap she used, she would never feel truly clean.

He had violated her again and again and he was far from the only one. Thirteen years in captivity meant she had spent more time with them than she ever had with James, with the man she had loved, and the only one she desired. Lily felt destroyed from the things that had been done to her. She had been treated as little more than a piece of meat and she still felt as that was an accurate description of her worth.

"Lily?" It was Severus' voice this time, not the gravelly one that had threatened her before. He spoke slowly as if unsure if he should be there.

She pulled the blankets of his bed tighter around herself, using them as a barrier from the outside world. A means of protection she hadn't had before. "Come in." She forced, wanting nothing more than to be left alone.

He cracked the door open, allowing light from the other room to spill inside, across her. She wiped at her face, knowing that it was red. Despite everything she had been through in the last few hours, this was the most humiliating. She didn't want him to see how destroyed she was, the mess that lay beneath the calm she had tried – and failed – to portray.

"Pott- Harry's been informed that he's needed in my office tomorrow morning."

She propped herself upwards, not quite meeting his eye for fear of what would happen. "What did he do?"

"He has to meet his mother."