Aurthor's Note: 122509 This Chapter has been edited. Thanks to my grammar beta FaintingFancies.

Chapter 2 – A Walk Toward Destiny

The wind lashed his face and yanked at his long hair, flinging it back across his nose and into his mouth. A light dusting of snow had fallen earlier that day, and the wind was now using it as a plaything, sweeping the icy pellets along before him in waves. The intense cold took Snape's breath away as he struggled to make headway against it, forcing himself along and down the path to the lake. The cloudless night had blanketed the grounds around him in an inky blackness, obscuring even the shadows in its smothering grip. It suited him.

Walking purposefully, without fear, Severus arrived at the edge of the water and stared down into the black depths. A silly thought entered his mind. He could not swim. How did one go about entering the water? With the same approach that he attacked all problems, he weighed the various alternatives. Should he dive in? No, he did not know the depth of the water, and he preferred the lake to take him rather than a broken neck. Should he run in, looking like a fool to the gods above? No, he would walk in, slowly, feeling the water as it enveloped his body.

The clothes came next. He took off his cloak and then his overcoat, folding them neatly on the ground beside him. He did not want to trouble anyone that would have to dispose of the remains of his life. The least he could do was to be neat and tidy about it. Deep in thought, he slowly unbuttoned his frock coat and removed it as well as his trousers, also folding them in a precise stack. He neglected the use of magic, and instead relished the manual effort of his last acts in this world. He almost forgot to remove the photo, but as he pulled it out of his coat pocket, the wind grasped it in its wicked clutches, lifting it skyward and forever out of sight.

The loss of the photo struck him a heavy blow. He had wanted to look upon Lily's beautiful face once more before he closed his eyes on life, but the winter gale had denied him. In agony, he covered his face with his hands and tried not to cry out, the pain causing him to choke as the tears now began to flow.

"NO!" he shouted into the wind. "I will not be weak!" The sound of his deep aching voice was lost as the gale stole his words, just as it had the image of the woman he loved. But Snape did not need to hear his own pleas. Shaking his head, Severus concentrated on breathing; the simple act of taking the air into his lungs seemed to calm him.

As he had done with the other items, Severus removed his dress shirt and immediately felt the cold air penetrating deep into his skin, numbing his nerves and causing a convulsive shivering that overtook his senses. Placing a good-sized rock on the pile of clothes, he denied the winds of another toy. His boots and socks were last on the pile, adding more weight to the stack.

The time had come. With his teeth chattering so crazily that he thought they would break, Severus turned toward the water. There was no more waiting. As he approached the edge, he realized that the water was partially covered with ice. Shaking furiously from the cold, dressed only in his briefs, Snape walked out on the ice, the cold stabbing the bottoms of his feet like knives. Grimacing, he snarled and his eyes grew wide. With one last step, he fell through the frozen surface, plunging into the icy depths. The shock of the ice water took his breath completely away, the murky depths pulling him down as if he had stepped into a vortex. Within seconds, the black water covered his head, and he was gone.

Silence and peace overtook his senses, but as the water enveloped his body, he heard the muffled cry of a woman's scream followed by a splashing sound. Suddenly, there were hands grasping at his arms and wrapping almost violently around his waist.

"NO!" he screamed back through the water, the icy liquid filling his lungs. With his last bit of strength, he tried to push the hands away. "Leave me alone. Leave me to die!" he tried to say, but the words just dribbled out of his mouth, sounding like rainwater through a drainpipe. Relentlessly, the hands kept pulling him with vise like grips, yanking him back to shore. A wand appeared, swirling in the water next to him and then, he felt himself being lifted – levitated up out of the black, icy depths and onto the beach. The relentless arctic wind clawed at his naked wet body, sending even more knifelike stabbings into his nerves.

"What on earth are you doing? You IDIOT!" the woman screamed. "Never in my life would I have imagined how stupid … how- how brainless …" The woman sputtered, not knowing what else to say, her body beginning to shake and shiver as if it had been overcome by an earthquake. "Do I have to watch you every minute?"

Strangely, Severus had stopped shivering, his body overcome by hypothermia. His vision had begun to blur as he struggled to get up, finally staggering weakly only to fall back onto the snow-covered ground. But in the haze that was quickly overtaking his senses, he had recognized that voice. Could it be? Could it possibly be her? His love?

"LILY?" he croaked. "LILY, my GOD! My sweet Lily."

"Yes, you f-fool. It's Lily. I'm the one that p-pulled you out. Why I bothered, though, I c-can't imagine," she stuttered, starting a fire just a few feet away. "We can't st-st-ay out here m-much longer. I'm so c-c-cold …"

"Lily …" Severus said weakly before collapsing flat out on the ground.

"Oh, no, you're not going to die now. Not after I-I … j-jumped in that ice water." Pulling him over by the fire, she conjured some blankets. Before she wrapped them around, she pulled him into her arms and hugged him fiercely. He was already unconscious, but she talked to him anyway.

"Damn you, Sev. Here I thought you had gotten your life back together, back to normal. I thought you were over all of this. Over me …" Rubbing her hands on his arms and legs, she saw that his skin had turned blue, and his lips were a horrible shade of purple. "Oh, my God, Sev, don't die, please? I love you so much. Please don't do this …" She felt the tears start to explode down her face, and she wiped her eyes on his icy cold chest. "I always thought I'd be able to hold you one day, but, God, not like this."

She used her wand to blow heat on him, drying his hair and his body. With a jerk, he began to shiver violently again, his teeth starting to chatter so loudly, Lily thought he'd bite his tongue.

"Come on now, big boy. We have to get you back to the castle, back to your bed." With a yank, she tried to get him to stand, but his legs were like jelly, and he fell back down in the snow. "Okay, I guess I'll have to carry you." With a flick of her wand, she conjured a stretcher, pulling him onto it and tying him down securely with ropes for the journey. "There," she said, leaning over him, his face completely limp. Small crystalline flakes of snow had landed on his face, hair and eyelashes, but he was so cold they had not melted, giving him the look of a gray haired old man. Hurriedly, she gave him one last hug and then kissed him on the lips before levitating him in front of her up the path and back to the school.

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Gasping, Severus awoke. His body jerked with convulsions, the shaking and shivering starting once again as his body attempted to recover. Trying to see, he blinked, but the room spun around him making his stomach revolt. With a sudden need, he leaned over the side of the bed and vomited. Moaning, he lay back down flat on his back.

A hand and then a beautiful arm with pale, pink skin reached over him. As he squinted, he could see that the hand held a wand, and the mess he had made was quickly vanished. Closing his eyes once again, he tried to concentrate on overcoming the nausea and the convulsive shivering.

"I wish you'd stop shaking so." A concerned voice spoke to him from the space next to him in the bed. It was then that he realized that he was naked, there was another person lying up against him, and two arms were wrapped tightly around his chest. Fear gripped him, and he tried to struggle away, but the creature sharing his bed slid on top of him, her face now immediately above his.

"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you," she said.

Still trying to focus his eyes, he attempted to concentrate. Something wasn't right. Who was this woman? The voice sounded familiar. He knew he was supposed to understand …

"Sev, can you see me? I know this is a shock, but it's Lily Evans. Lily Evans Potter. Come on, Sev. You remembered last night." She leaned her fully clothed body onto his chest and looked in his eyes, trying to see if they were dilated.

"What … who?" Severus whispered, his voice sounding like sandpaper.

"You heard me. It's Lily," she said smiling, the dimple appearing on her face as she grinned at him.

"Are we … am I in heaven?" he gasped, his eyes closing as the nausea once again caused him to lean over the side of the bed.

"I don't think people vomit in heaven," she said laughing. "No, Sev, you aren't dead. Although, I don't know why. You sure tried hard enough."

Suddenly aware of what had transpired the previous evening, the shock finally took hold. With strength he did not think he had, Severus leapt out of bed and then fell on the floor, his naked backside hitting the cold stones. Frantically, he tried to grab a blanket off the bed to cover his privates, but Lily pulled it away from him.

"Will you get back into bed? You're going to catch pneumonia."

"Who are you? What trick is this? Are you using Polyjuice? How did you do it? Answer me!" Severus rattled off the questions, his mind starting to work almost normally, as he tried to overcome the fog in his brain.

"I'm Lily, Sev. Really, I am. I know this must be a shock, but you need to believe me."

"But, you're dead! Dead and buried. Dumbledore told me … your son … Potter … how?" he sputtered. Snape struggled up off of the floor, forgetting he was in his birthday suit.

Lily pointed at his maleness and cleared her throat, the wide grin still on her face. "Ah … you are going to start shivering again. Can you please get into bed?" She drew back the covers but instead he looked at her, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"You sound so much like her. You look … like her."

"But older, yes, I know. I'm 42. Just like you." Lily's voice got softer, and the grin disappeared from her face. "But I feel more like I'm 80. Life has been a little crazy, I think for both of us."

Still wary, Severus approached the bed before sliding between the covers. But when Lily snuggled up to him again, he stiffened. "Don't," he said coldly.

His voice saddened her, and she moved away from him. "I just thought you'd get warmer faster if I …" she stopped when she saw the look on Snape's face. It was contorted in disgust and disbelief, the pain of this revelation too much for him to handle.

"I will need to see the headmaster. The Aurors will need to be summoned for impersonation …"

"Sev, NO! Stop it. I am Lily. Ask me anything. I can prove it. Go ahead. Ask me." The grin was back.

Clamping his mouth shut, Severus frowned suspiciously and stared at her, his eyes boring into hers. His eyes moved to his bedside table. In a blindingly fast move, he grabbed his wand and pointed it at her. "Legilimens," he cast out, the spell hitting her right between the eyes.

"Damn it, you son of a witch!" she spat, the slap to her mind hurting as if she had been punched. But she had been taught Occlumency, and although she had at first been taken unaware, she stopped him from entering further, firmly blocking the memories from his grasp. But she could tell he had seen some of them. The vision of himself hanging in the air upside down, his underwear pulled down to his knees in front of James Potter, had flashed vividly before him.

"Who are you?" Severus said softly. "What are you?"

Lily sighed. "Let me explain," she began. It was going to be a long day.