Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling nor do I own anything Harry Potter-related in this story.

Author's Note: Thank you so much for all your reviews, especially Risi and DiedLaughing. They're really helping me get a sense of what's going good and what's not working so far in this story. As for the significance of the date, it will be revealed in this chapter. Just to clear up the time period issue, Snape and Dumbledore have not been taken back to relive their lives, they've just been taken back to the world as it was during the darkest times in Snape's life, when all he really wants to do is just die. Keep reading and reviewing! Thank youuu!

4. EVOKE

Snape stared, wide-eyed, down the hallway of doors that seemed to have no end. Dumbledore came to stand beside him, contently looking down the hallway in his all-knowing manner. There was even a slight smile on his face.

Snape blinked, but the doors were still there instead of the staircase to the upstairs bedrooms. His eyebrows furrowed.

"What in the name of… Where is the rest of my house?" Snape exclaimed.

"Just as I assumed…" Dumbledore thought aloud. But of course he meant for Snape to hear it.

"Albus, what in the name of Merlin are you talking about?" Snape said.

"Walk down the hallway, Severus."

Snape's denial and disbelief turned into anger. "What kind of games are you playing with me, Albus? Haven't I already suffered enough? Haven't you already helped me enough in life? Why, why should I relive one of the darkest days of my life for the rest of eternity? Do you know what day this is? DO YOU?" Snape bellowed angrily. His fists were white and shaking, tightly clenched.

Dumbledore, however, did not seem taken aback. He seemed satisfied, rather. "What day is this? Is it a date I should remember?" he asked sympathetically, yet quizzically.

Snape's pale face turned white and his eyes dangerously dark. "This is the day… of Lily Evans's funeral." He choked on the last word.

It was painful to say it, and the thoughts that went with it were even worse. He remembered the funeral clear as day; one of the worst days of his life. The more he wanted to forget it, the clearer his memories became. He remembered being the last person to pay his respects at the open tomb in the empty room after everyone had gone into the church. He'd looked at Lily, his Lily. He remembered the constriction of his throat as he gazed over her face.

Her freckled, alabaster skin was as white and as perfect as snow. He brushed his finger against the tip of her nose as he'd always used to do in a joking manner when they were young, then stroked her soft, deep red hair. He didn't want to think that she was dead, that her delicate white hands would never reach to brush back that long hair anymore, that her deep emerald eyes would never gaze his way again, that she would never again speak to him in her voice that had just always had that soothing tone.

Oh, how he had wanted her to open her eyes, how hard he had wished that she would just sit up in a dazed manner, asking Severus why and where she was, blinking her large green eyes. He remembered the tear that had crept down his cheek as he'd imagined this. He'd watched the tear drop into the coffin, landing in a soft bed of red hair. He'd let it be, a shimmering drop, a reminder of himself that would always be with her.

"Ahem," he'd heard a cough. The undertaker was standing by the door. "It's time for the service to start," he'd said delicately. He'd looked from Snape's watering eyes to his hand upon Lily's. He'd ventured closer.

"I…" Snape couldn't finish, let alone find words to make a sentence.

"Loved her?" the undertaker had said understandingly. Snape remembered feeling comforted by his words, that he had finally let someone know how much she had meant to him, that someone else knew that look.

Snape had nodded with a choke.

The undertaker looked over Lily once more and motioned to close the casket. "It seems fitting," he had said.

Snape gazed at Lily all that he could as he slowly closed the lid. Tears silently streamed down his face, and he took a deep, heaving breath when he had finally closed the casket. The undertaker had given him one last look, then nodded for him to go into the church.

"I'm sorry," he'd said as Snape had made his way to the door. Snape nodded cordially, choking on another breath.

He remembered slinking into the very back pew of the church, staring at the famed picture of Lily and James on the cover of the tiny ceremony booklet. He knew he still had that booklet somewhere, splattered with teardrops so that the ink ran. Lily's beautiful face was a slew of grays, yet she still danced with James through the frame, seeming to tease him. He remembered how loud the priest seemed to speak, how his voice became louder with every word he uttered; pure torture.

At the graveyard in Godric's Hollow, he remembered standing at the edge of the crowd gathered around the grave to watch the entombment. He just stood. He listened to people speak, every word a blur to his ears. He didn't see anything through the heavy crowd. After the crowd had gone, before the undertaker filled the grave, he stood at the edge of the hole, looking into the tomb. And that was the moment he knew that he could never love another woman like that again, that she was his first, last, and only.

Ok, so this chapter didn't really advance the plot, but I felt like I had to write it. Hope you guys found it as great and devastating to read as it was to write. Sorry it took so long to write the chapter, I didn't really know where to go with it so I wrote that. This next update might take a week or so because I haven't completely figured out the plot yet. Below is a link to a drawing I'm working on of what Snape sees in the Mirror of Erised, and although it's not a scene in the book, it will work it's way into this story:

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Keep reading and reviewing! Thanks!