DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter is not mine. Severus Snape is also not mine. This makes me very sad. I demand compensation.

All other mentioned characters are not mine, but I don't really care too much for those.

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James Potter did not think himself a bad father. He had done all he could to be a good daddy while he was still alive and had been as good a spectator after his death at Voldemort's hands. He had sat alongside Lily and both had watched over Harry as their little son grew up.

"Your sister's barking mad, she is," said James on Harry's eleventh birthday, watching a nervous Petunia allow Vernon to drive the family halfway across England, trying to dodge the wizarding world's attempts to contact Harry. "She and her husband both. What the bloody hell do they think they're doing?"

Many a time, James wished he could help his son. He berated Hermione for not being smart enough, Ronald for not being brave enough, and occasionally Dumbledore for not doing more. But Snape! James had disliked Snivellus ever since he had first laid eyes on the pale greasy boy on the Hogwarts Express and had only refrained from letting him walk in on a transformed Remus their sixth year because he knew it would have upset Lily. Severus Snape, regardless of where his loyalties lay and what sacrifices he had made, would always be at the top of James' list of people the world could do without. And after the way the Potions master had treated Harry, James would have expected his son to have similar feelings.

"Well done, Harry!" James had burst out the minute his shade appeared in the clearing. Harry, looking rather disheveled, leaned against a tree, ring in hands. "Really, really brilliant of you! My son!" he exclaimed to Remus and Sirius, who both beamed at the bespectacled boy. "Defeated the Dark Lord!" It took James a while to realize that Harry wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. Rather, the boy was peering around him, as if expecting another shade to emerge at any moment. James' brow furrowed, then he remembered. "Oh, don't worry about your mum. Albus asked her to do something for him. She'll be along in a bit, I expect."

Harry didn't seem to hear him. Instead, he turned the ring in his hands again, looking perplexed. "Snape," James heard the boy mutter. "Where's Snape?"

"Er," said James. "I think he's dead."

"I know," hissed Harry. "So where is he?"

James exchanged an uneasy look with his friends. "Er," he said.

"I would assume that Snivellus has gone where all bad boys go," said Sirius wickedly. "Don't trouble your conscience any with that one, Harry. He's done his share of bad deeds."

"No," said Harry fiercely. "He was on our side." His tone suggested that it was obvious to anyone who had been paying attention, which Sirius wasn't. Harry, meanwhile, was peering closely at the ring under the light cast by his wand. The Resurrection Stone had a crack from when Dumbledore destroyed the Horcrux. Did being smote with the Sword of Gryffindor damage the stone's properties? Maybe Harry needed to concentrate harder. He tried, but nothing happened. His morale was falling quickly. Why wasn't it working? He was sure Snape was dead—he'd seen it happen! And if the Potions professor was dead, then the Resurrection Stone would be able to call his soul back so Harry could talk to it.

Harry urgently needed to talk to Snape. It had become a dire necessity over the past few hours, during which he had chanted "must see Snape, must see Snape, must see Snape" over and over again until it had ingrained itself in his mind. He wasn't even sure why he wanted to talk to Snape anymore. He just had to. There was something important that he needed to ask Snape, and Harry couldn't remember what it was that he needed to say, but he would say it.

Truth be told, Harry was too tired to even remember where he was at the moment. The path in his mind was the only thing that was clear: find the ring, talk to Snape, get some answers (answers to what? Harry couldn't remember that either). He had found the ring after some fumbling in the dark—lumos was hardly practical in the Forbidden Forest; it cast more shadows than light, really—but there was no Snape.

No Snape, no Snape, no Snape—where is he? Need to talk to him, need to ask him…stuff…important stuff…where…???

James was very alarmed when his only son collapsed by the tree, reduced to babbling about his Potions master and how it was so important that Snape be here.

"What… the hell?" he said weakly to Sirius, who had no better idea than he. Remus, on the other hand, looked torn between worry and amusement.

Oh, Severus, thought the werewolf, what have you done?

"Where is he?" wailed Harry.

And the night went downhill from there.

As the first streaks of dawn encroached upon the sleeping sky, the Marauders returned to their own separate world, leaving behind a sleeping Harry. The boy had worked himself into a fit and then, finally exhausted from yelling at no one in particular and punching enough trees to make his knuckles bloody, he had fallen asleep at the foot of a tree. Harry now woke up to find his glasses askew and the ring glistening several feet from him where he had dropped it in his sleep. He picked it up with sore hands and examined it under the light of the new dawn.

"Snape?" he said hopefully, turning it three times in his hand. He looked expectantly around the clearing. No one came. Maybe he needed to be more specific. He swallowed hard. He hadn't had to think about it this much when he called for his parents and Remus and Sirius! "I want to see Severus Snape," he said in a voice that trembled. "Please," he added as an afterthought. He wanted to see the Potions professor, the one who had done so much for him, even if it had really been for his mother, wanted it so badly it hurt. But Severus Snape failed to appear in the clearing. Harry's heart seemed to drop down an endless gorge. He had come out here for nothing.

"Maybe Sirius was right," Harry said aloud to himself. "Maybe Snape got punished for what he did when he was alive." But that wasn't right. Snape had done so much to help Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. He had saved Harry countless times! Harry suddenly alighted on a new idea. Perhaps the Resurrection Stone only worked when the bodies of the deceased were buried? It made as much sense as any other explanation he could come up with.

It was decided, then. Harry would find Snape's body and give it a proper burial. It was only right, Harry thought. It was only proper to pay respects to a man who had sacrificed everything for the greater good. But deeper in his mind, the truth behind his motivation remained unacknowledged—Harry clung to every last shred of hope that he would still somehow be able to communicate with Severus Snape.

By the time Harry got past the Whomping Willow and crawled through the tiny passageway to collapse, panting to the floor, morning had officially begun. He straightened, frowned, and looked around, feeling utterly lost. Snape's body was nowhere to be seen. Had Death Eaters taken it, or had Aurors been here to search for threats? Tears of frustration prickled behind his eyes. Why wasn't anything going right? Instead of answers, all that Harry had achieved were more questions. Why wasn't the Resurrection Stone working? Where was Snape's body? Why couldn't he get a hold of himself?

What was this so fucking important to him, anyway?

Choking back an angry sob, Harry glared at the floor. The copious amounts of spilled blood had been smeared, proof that Snape had died here and Harry had not been having a mad hallucination before. But there, on the ground—for a moment, Harry thought that they had dropped the locket Horcrux when they had come in here the day before. The early morning light filtered in through a dusty window and the necklace on the floor glinted golden. Harry picked it up. No, it wasn't Slytherin's locket. It was of a cheaper make, for one—more of a gift to a sweetheart than a House heirloom. And for another, the engraved initials were L.E.

Harry pried open the locket and it sprang open easily to reveal a portrait of a smiling red-haired woman with sparkling green eyes. "Mum," breathed Harry. In the other half of the locket was fastened a lock of auburn hair.

There was no doubt that this had been on Snape's person—Harry saw no reason for Voldemort or anyone else to be in possession of such a personal item. That his mother had given it to Snape was troubling in Harry's mind, but he shelved that worry away and absentmindedly fastened the locket around his neck. He would puzzle over it later. Snape's body had obviously been moved, and he needed to find it.

Seeing his mother's face had grounded him a bit. He couldn't keep running about on the school grounds, looking for a deceased professor. People would be waking up soon and wondering where he was. There were things to be done, and finding Snape would have to wait. Harry was used to making hard decisions by now and knew that no good would come out of acting impulsively. He needed Hermione's help, and Ron's, too. Well, he went back on that thought, maybe just Hermione. It would be easier to explain the situation to her. Ron would just think Harry had gone daft.

Walking out into the sunlight, the worries of the night before seemed silly now. Why had he been so concerned about Snape's motives? It hardly mattered; what was done was done. It was regrettable that Snape had died, but so had many others, all for Harry's sake, and Harry hadn't felt the need to question their souls about why they had helped him. It was stress, Harry finally told himself. Stress and hubris had worked together to make him jealous of his mother because Snape loved her, not him.

Harry stopped, frowned, and shook his head to clear it.

Stress and hubris had worked together to make him jealous of his mother because Snape had done it for her, not him.

There. That was better.

Harry decided that the first thing he would do when he got back to Hogwarts was eat a large breakfast and then pour all of his energy into helping with recovery work around the castle until he was too tired to think such stupid things. Of course Snape hadn't loved him! That was—that was wrong.

Wasn't it?

As Harry approached the secret entrance through which he had escaped from the castle the previous night, he pulled his Invisibility Cloak back on. It wouldn't do to let people know he had been out of the building. As he approached the Great Hall, from which wafted welcoming breakfast smells, he passed a scene that made him stop cold.

A handful of Aurors and Professor McGonagall had Severus Snape surrounded, all with their wands pointed towards the former Potions master.

"Potter told us the Dark Lord had killed you!" McGonagall was saying, her face drained of color. "Obviously that was some trick… Were the memories you left to clear your name a trick as well?"

"Minerva, please…" Snape said, his face pale for entirely different reasons.

"Don't 'Minerva, please' me!" cried McGonagall shrilly. "The Dark Lord is gone, Severus! If you still serve him…"

"Snape," said Harry plainly. Severus started and three of the five Aurors, nervous and on-guard, stunned him simultaneously. "No!" screamed Harry, still invisible. McGonagall frowned in the direction of his voice.

"He's back!" said one of the Aurors, clearly not meaning Harry. Another grabbed Severus from where he had collapsed after being stunned thrice. The one who had spoken pointed a wand in Snape's face. "Don't…don't do anything ill-advised!" he said nervously to the air. "Or we'll hex your precious servant into—"

"Stupefy!" shrieked another Auror, aiming in Harry's direction.

"You idiots!" said McGonagall, leaping in front of Harry and deflecting the spell. "It's Potter!" Harry only now realized that he had yet to take off his Invisibility Cloak. He did so. The Aurors all relaxed slightly. Some of them looked abashed. The one who had cast the Killing Curse looked as though she wished to be invisible herself. McGonagall paid them no mind, turning instead to examine Harry. "Are you quite all right, dear?" she asked worriedly.

"Yeah, thanks," said Harry. He walked past her to regard the fallen black-haired man. "W-What's going on?" he asked quietly. "I… I'm sure I saw him—"

"That's what we thought, too," said McGonagall with a frown. "But yet here he appears to be."

"Polyjuice Potion, perhaps?" suggested one of the Aurors.

"It's possible," said McGonagall. "It would be easiest to know if the body was still where Harry last saw it—"

"It's not, Professor," said Harry. "I just went to see, and it's gone."

"Well," said McGonagall, frowning at Severus' prone body. "That makes sense, too. Anyone with half a brain would want to hide the real one—too obvious if there's a double. I suppose a Levicorpus would take care of any smeared blood that might give investigators clues as to where the body was taken."

"Professor," said Harry, suddenly remembering. "There was smeared blood. It was as if the body had been dragged out."

"Makes no sense," retorted McGonagall. "Why go through the trouble when Levicorpus could move the body easily?"

"Unless the body was moved by none other than Snape himself," said the Auror who had suggested Polyjuice Potion in the first place.

"Snape is dead," McGonagall reminded him.

"So was Potter, from what we've heard," said the Auror. "And he's alive, isn't he?"

That made McGonagall pause. Harry felt irrational hope growing within him like a weed. What if... What if Snape really was--? He set his jaw and stopped the thought dead in his tracks. He needed to calm down and be reasonable. Snape coming back to life was severely improbable.

Harry had an idea. "Let's take him up to the infirmary and wait for an hour," he said. "If it's really Polyjuice Potion, it'll wear off by then and we'll know for sure." McGonagall opened her mouth to say that that simply gave the Man-Who-Might-Be-Snape too much benefit of the doubt, but then shut it when she recognized the terrible light shining in Harry's eyes.

"Very good, Potter," she said at last. "We'll do that." Reluctant to see her student get hurt, she added, "Be on your guard, Harry. Don't… don't get your hopes up." The expression on Harry's face made her wish she hadn't said it.

While they moved Snape to the makeshift sickbay in the Slytherin commons room, Harry followed, hearing McGonagall's words echoing in his head. He felt stupid for having been caught hoping, been caught falling into some Death Eater's trap. He forced himself to think rationally. It must be Polyjuice Potion. Severus Snape is really, truly dead. I saw it happen. I'm not going to think stupid things about him coming back to life. I'm not. He remorselessly quashed the hope that had sprung up inside him until it was safely gone. Enough miracles had happened in the past twenty-four hours. Harry figured he had used up his supply of amazingly good luck for the next two lifetimes.

Regardless, after Harry had washed up and grabbed some toast and eggs from the breakfast spread, he went straight back up to the Slytherin commons to watch over Snape's doppelganger's prone form. He wanted to see for himself when the visage of the greasy-haired man morphed back into the perpetrator's face. Harry would wait until the pretender recovered from being Stunned, then he would punch him in the face for daring to make believe he was Severus Snape and keep punching until he could no longer continue. And then he would Crucio the bastard into next week, because no one played with Harry Potter like that! His hands were shaking. It had been so terrible to see Snape living and breathing again only to realize that none of it could be true. For one painful moment, Harry thought he would cry and fumbled for his Invisibility Cloak so he could at least have some privacy. He was interrupted by a cool hand on his shoulder.

"Harry Potter?" whispered Narcissa Malfoy. Harry turned, confused. The tall blonde woman looked distinctly uncomfortable and fidgeted. "My Draco told me what you did… It was very…" she searched for a word "Gryffindor of you. I'm not sure if my husband and son would approve, but the Malfoy family thanks you for your… valor." Such words were obviously not a part of her usual vocabulary. "We are in your debt, and if there's anything we can—" Narcissa suddenly let out a horrified gasp and Harry spun around, fully expecting Snape's face to have been replaced by another, hideous one. It hadn't been. "Is that Severus?!" hissed Narcissa, blue eyes wide in her pale face.

"No," said Harry bluntly. "It's not." Narcissa looked at him incredulously. "We figure someone's taken a Polyjuice Potion," said Harry. "We're waiting for it to wear off, so we can see who it is."

"Oh," said Narcissa. Then, "But he looks terrible!" It was true. The man's face was turning an awful shade of gray and beads of perspiration were collecting on his forehead. Harry involuntarily felt the Man-Who-Might-Be-Snape's forehead. It was scorching hot. Harry snatched his hand away and pretended he hadn't noticed.

"Of course," he said. "He was stunned by three Aurors all at once." Serves him right, thought Harry bitterly.

Narcissa bit her lip. "Listen, Mr. Potter," she said finally. "I've seen this before. All of Nagini's victims look like this before they die."

That got Harry's attention. He paused, then said, "Wait, no. I've seen what Nagini's victims look like before they die—I saw Snape when he died, alright? It's a whole lot of bleeding to death. None of this… this fever stuff." Narcissa frowned at him. "He's not Snape, okay? I don't know if you're in on this stupid little scheme or whatever. Maybe you're trying to convince me it's Snape so I'll let my guard down and you can build up a new dark lord or whatever—"

"Harry," said Narcissa savagely, on the brink of tears, "listen to me. I don't care about dark lords or any of that other rubbish. All I care about right now are my friends and family. Severus was—is one of my best friends. If there's any chance at all that he isn't dead, and that's actually him on the cot, then I want him to be taken care of!" She started to cry in that silent, awful way, and Harry considered joining her, then decided against it. He wished he didn't understand how she felt, but he did all too well.

"But… that isn't what Nagini's victims look like," he protested feebly.

"It is if you staunch the bleeding and let the venom take effect instead," said Narcissa quietly. Harry swallowed and looked back at the Man-Who-Might-Be-Snape.

Think about it, Harry, said the voice in his head, if he really is Snape, and he's poisoned and may die for real…

Harry may have been used to making hard decisions, but it didn't mean he liked to make them. He took a breath, held it, let it out. Then he said, in a clear, loud voice, "Kreacher!"

The House-elf appeared before him and fell immediately to kissing the hem of Narcissa's robes with cries of "Miss Cissy!" Narcissa smiled and petted the head of her old servant.

"Kreacher," said Harry wearily. "I need you to find me a bezoar as quickly as you can, please." The House-elf immediately rose to his feet and bowed to Harry. "And thanks for the sandwiches," added Harry. "They were great."

Kreacher beamed and bowed low. "Master Harry is too kind," said the House-elf. "Kreacher will find what Master Harry requires." With one last endearing look at Narcissa, Kreacher vanished to do Harry's bidding.

"Thank you, Harry," said Narcissa after the House-elf had gone. Harry wanted to say that he had done it as much for himself as he had done it for her, but held his tongue.

Narcissa and Harry talked quietly amongst themselves while they waited for Kreacher to return. Narcissa insisted that Harry request something of the Malfoy family; favors were not something a proud pureblood family liked to owe. Harry surprised her by asking her to tell him about Severus' past. What were his years at school like? Was he really unhappy all the time? What friends did he have other than Lily?

So absorbed was he in Narcissa's stories that when the latter commented that Kreacher was taking a while, Harry absentmindedly glanced at his watch and said "Yeah, he's been gone for over an hour." The full meaning of the words struck them a moment later and they both spun to examine the Man-Who-Might-Be-Snape. The man looked more ill by the second, but there was no doubt about it.

"Oh my god," breathed Narcissa while Harry stared, his heart in his mouth. "It really is him."

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NOTE: I refer to Severus as "the Potions master" even though he ceased to be such since the sixth book came out for two reasons: 1) Potter Puppet Pals, and 2) "Potions master" is sexier.

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AN: Right. Apologies for the slow pacing, as some of you have commented on that. I have a tendency to explore emotions and motives because that's just my writing style. I'm sorry if you guys want more cool things to happen faster, but you'll need to suffer the slowness for a bit longer. It could be worse! I once wrote a story that covered three days in TEN CHAPTERS.

See! I'm improving!

:: beams ::

I promise Severus will be awake for most of the next chapter. P-R-O-M-I-S-E.

Thank you so much for your reviews! They keep the muses chugging!

CHUG!