Snape stood in the same spot long after Harry and Ash left him. With no one present, he let his arms fall to his side and stared at bloodstains left on the overturned sofa. He dissipated them and began putting the room back in order. The spells were simple. Looking at Harry's blood, was not. What he'd done, would've crippled a muggle for life.

It only proved how strong the boy was. Not worth a second thought.

But there was something about spending every second of your life making sure no harm befalls, only to inflict it yourself, that felt a bit like voiding a contract. A deal made with life, broken. Things worked, because one honors their contracts. You can renege if you want, but what if life decides to pull out as well? What held any man afloat on his path, be he muggle or magic, but the agreement of life to always validate him?

What have you done, Severus? Silence whispered to him. He could barely hear the waterfall's echo, over this question. It wasn't the physical pain he'd caused Harry, that kept him paralyzed for minutes, looking around the cave as if he'd never seen it before. It was his failure to remain hidden. In negligence, he'd allowed Ash to enter his life. Ash was weak, through no fault of his own. He had no way of comprehending a wizard's need for secrecy, why would he? That big hearted man, given the most mynute compassion, was his undoing. It wouldn't be easy to lose Harry now.

Harry was right. He had attacked him out of fear, not self-defense. Fear of being known. Fear of having to come back to the human world, and all those chains that came with it. Fear of being helpless to save someone you love.

Ever watch a witch burn? That's what you fear.

Never again.

He had answered the question before realizing that the voice asking it, wasn't his.

Your love is still wounded by what you saw. You watched the flames get higher, and your sisters saw you witnessing, unable to save them. Then it was your turn, and you left with injuries that have never healed.

Never again.

And so you kill before you can be killed. You keep the flames away from your beloved. But you have broken a contract. You caused him to scream and suffer, as his enemies would cause him to scream and suffer. You betrayed your family. You made an eternal promise to never hear those screams again. It was the worst thing you have ever felt, and so you came into this world without the sensitivity to hurt yourself with. But you heard it tonight. He found you. Do not blame Ash. It's over. Honor the contract.

That voice, more of a vibration in the back of his skull really, was quite familiar. Apparently, seeing Harry, thinned the barrier that kept the witches on their side of reality. He had tuned them out for years. Now he felt them again. Heard them. It pulled him back into sensations he'd felt as a teenager trying to navigate his thoughts through their influence. His mother had always been open with him about the witches. "They're not haunting you because they want to scare you, Severus. They're with you because they love you. They're family, let them talk. They can give you a great deal of wisdom."

Their wisdom turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life. Since then, he'd shut them out by turning the volume down on their incessant opinions. Because of them, he let James and his friends inflict the curse upon him. He thought he could survive it just fine, since he knew completely that he was not his body. Pride in being intelligent and masterful, took precedence over pride in having a cock. And because his mother was a master at her craft, he never underestimated women. It didn't occur to him to feel shame or diminishment over an immature attack on his gender. He would always be male, because he was aligned with life that way. He had always been more powerful than his physical body.

But once the curse was done, he discovered that his entire relationship with himself was thrown off. Gender was in the mind, not the body, he insisted, but he still needed to be able to rely on his body to convey his identity to the world. He needed to feel at home in his skin, not as a stranger to an alien contraption. When he suddenly had parts that Potter and the others seemed eager to take advantage of, an entirely new expanse of vulnerability opened up for him, which had never seemed possible before. James did his worst, causing him to meet an area of pain within himself, that he denounced from that moment on. He had never known how to hate himself, until he hated those boys for what they did. What he let them do.

Those whispering witches had talked him into it. They made him think he was great enough to survive it. Oh, he was alive alright, some twenty years later, but something in him hadn't survived. Trust hadn't survived. In himself, or in others. That's why he couldn't accept Harry. That's why he couldn't have Harry following him and knowing how to get to him. Harry's was the face of everything James had done to him. It was the reflection of feelings he was too dignified to put a name to. Feelings that kept him using murder and treachery, as excuses to stay hidden in the dark. He'd rather be hated, than felt sorry for.

The past twenty years of his life, came crashing through him. He trembled, as visions of his parents, of Voldemort, and Dumbledore's falling body, assaulted his mind. At once, he was back at the inn, with James and his friends. He smelled their bodies sliding against him. He couldn't escape their vulgar odors. He wretched at their touch and invasion. A forgotten memory snuck in. It was the night he was allowed to be fully conscious and aware of his intimate encounter with Voldemort. Most of the time, he was obliviated, and that was fine by him. He even willed it so. Between the cruciatus and the sex, there were times when he wanted to be a drone that felt nothing and thought nothing. It wasn't devotion that held him to Voldemort's sheets, it was knowing who would die next if he didn't tolerate that icy touch.

Even Voldemort, didn't want to see distaste and repulsion staring back at him, on Snape's face. "You spoil me, Severus. Thanks to those naughty school boys, you can fill any appetite I might have. I'm in the mood for something soft and moist. Now don't be shy."

How had he survived that night, in full awareness? With Voldemort's skin in vascular atrophy, looking damp and paper thin, like bloated cauliflower with purple veins. "Don't hide it from me, Severus. Let me see it. You know what I want."

Those encounters took place in stolen manors, lavish hideouts, and hostile take overs. The Dark Lord made a point of using him in luxurious spaces, as if to prove that his appreciation of comfort and luxury, proved how civilized he was. "Spread it for me, Severus."

Never again, the voices whispered.

The witches were many voices speaking as one who represented them all. The witches were back.

He almost smiled at the madness. So that's all it took. One visit from Harry, and the walls of his protection came tumbling down. Things he had been safe from, for years, were stirred back to life. All those damnable emotions. That's what he feared. Harry brought all that back with him.

No, the minute you buried him in that jar, you buried this part of yourself so that you could perform your duties without distraction. He's merely out of the jar for you. You knew this time was coming. You're still here, to see this time. You would not die without seeing it. You not only have a son, you have a granddaughter. This is the next phase of your life. Don't run from it. We want you to see it. You have been courageous enough to risk death for others. Now, a different gear. Be courageous enough to live and face what comes tomorrow.

"But I deserve death. I don't want him. I don't want anymore life."

Die, and the flame of our magic and wisdom dies with you. Live, and they inherit it. Do not let your past cheat you out of a future. Do not hide in darkness. Every life you have ever taken, was doomed to end in malice and murder. You have been an angel of death, going where you are sent, and your humanity weighs heavy with that responsibility. Still, you are a great creation, and you have begot great creations. Admit it. Say the thing you can't say, with your own lips.

He braced himself in silence.

Say it. Take up the contract where you left off. Forgive yourself for bearing life. That's the game, Severus. We've all played it. Let it pass your lips, the way he would've passed the door between your legs. Harry has done what you refused to do. You must stay here and help him. Say it.

He held it in. A different set of words spilled out, as slippery as blood through his fingers.

"No. He's her son, not mine. I didn't go through with it. I passed him on to her. He has nothing to do with me."

Then why can't you turn your back on him for good? Because your flesh knows its own. Lily merely adopted your project to keep it alive. She gave her life, keeping the flame alive. You must see it through.

"He's not mine. I look after him because he needs looking after. It's what I could not do for her."

He's yours.

"He isn't. I didn't raise him. I had nothing to do with him."

You did and you resented it. Even then, you did not escape your duty.

"I didn't do the things that one does for a child. He got that elsewhere, the best way he could. I buried him and I meant for him to stay buried. I threw him away. I had nothing to do with Lily taking my place. Therefore, we are not related."

And she could've used the cauldron of her womb to change him into someone unrecognizable to you. She could've remade him for herself. But she treasured what you were ashamed of, what you threw away, and she preserved your craft. She signed your name to a painting that you would not sign, and grew it to fulfillment. When you look at Harry, you see splendor that would've died if she had not saved it, and if James had not been as vile as he was.

He choked on this truth, finding no way around it. He'd been standing all this time, running out of things to put back in place in the room. He dropped into a chair and bit his bottom lip to pinch off emotion.

You cannot reconcile such amazement with his father's disgusting actions. And that is the path called humanity. You walk it, as you have promised to walk it. Your steps part the way for Harry and his daughter. Stick to your path. Claim him.

"No. I gave him up and I meant it. I don't claim any relation. I've no right to. Others took up my responsibility. Others did what I could not. Even Petunia and that bloated red-faced turnip of a pathetic husband, did more for Harry in their begrudgement and abuse, than I did for him. I have no right to intrude into his life and I will not pretend that I do. He had no one to care for him, I can't make it up to him. I won't fantasize any redemption. I'll take the road to hell, over giving him false hope, any day."

But you were there for him. You never abandoned him, merely delayed. You were seventeen and Voldemort had his sights on you. There'd been no time to adapt to your father's death, what those boys did to you, and the child that came from it. So you bottled him, like your mother, and gave him another way in. Another door. Another person. She's here with us, you know. Your mother's here. All of us are supporting you. You survive, year after year, not because of your mastery, but because you have access to ours. Let him in your life. Open your home now, as you could not open it then. You have avoided the hardest parts of the course. It isn't like you to take the easy way out. Let him in.

He growled, "You bitches have always tried to ruin me. My hands are bloody. Staying away from Harry, is the greatest thing I can do for him."

Severus, my son needs you.

"Lily?"

I'm here. I'm always with my sisters. I'm asking you, what are you living for, if not to help him?

He had never heard her voice so clearly, since her death. A trick?

"I'll not fall for it. You're lying. You're hags who have always lied to get what you wanted. You wanted me to have the child. You tricked me once, you'll not trick me again."

No, Severus. You agreed to it. You agreed to your role, James agreed to his. Once indoctrinated into your humanness, you could no longer comprehend such an agreement. The curse, Harry, everything, has been to help you see the greater arrangement. The world will need Harry's light. It'll need his daughter's, just as the school needed yours. Sometimes, warriors come with bloody hands, and sometimes they have hair as white as snow. When you look into that little girl's eyes, you see your own splendor, don't you? She reflects it back to you. We know the depths of your heart. We know that you are secretly proud of her, that you are hidden within her, in plain sight. People react to it, and don't know what it is they're reacting to. Magic has mixed peculiarly and uniquely within her, just as we planned. Accept it. Accept him.

His head twisted vigorously, denying them. "You don't know what you're asking. I've been complete shit to him. I've no right to approach him. With love or anything else. He's been through enough"

Yet you do love him. Were it not so, you could put your back to him forever. But he's a part of you. He found you tonight, because he's an extension of your soul. He will always find you. Better to give in and give him the acknowledgment that he's asking for. Give him the time he's asking for.

"I can't. I can't tell him how great the lie is. How deep it runs."

What makes you think he doesn't already know? He's smarter than you think. That information sits in his mind like two live wires that he has yet to connect. Right beside each other. Sparking. Right now, he is trying to make sense of everything. Do you really think, he will simply ignore those exposed wires? It's better that you tell him, than he learn it any other way. Step in.

Was he ready for another fight? He'd hardly rested from his injuries at the last battle. His defenses were already on hyper alert, ready to block emotional manipulation wherever he saw it. Family kept you fighting. That's what he remembered.

What you call fight, most call love. If you can spend all day making the most complicated of potions, you can handle the rigors of a stable address, toddlers, and domesticity.

"I fail all of my family."

That isn't true. Come out of the dark. Hold your head high and claim your kin.

Not like this. He shut his eyes against it. "No. That privilege is lost."

You are like a muggle, terrified of natural magic. This is how we know you love him. Failing him is the only thing you fear. You'd rather preemptively denounce yourself, than let history record that you actually could not support him. Either way, there will be proof of your abandonment. Why try so hard to do the impossible all his life, when the real moments that matter, leave you bowing to save your neck? Question this for one moment.

He didn't have to question it. She'd found that spot in his heart that he couldn't justify.

Let posterity record that you were there for him. Through everything. Not just the battles. That's too easy for you. But for the love.

"To hell with you!"

Love. That word. It stuck like a pick in his chest. So much so, that he flung it away from him, releasing magic borne on anger as he did so.

"Don't you dare use that disgusting, lying, filthy illusion of a word to me. It doesn't exist in this world. He comes from my despisal of his father, and James's utterly rotten core. Where was love when you all tricked me into using my body to take revenge? Did you spout such tulip-white goodness when we were plotting his death? And the death of his friends? You'll tell me anything to get what you want."

He shouted back before they could whisper. "Part of the reason I didn't kill James and the others, was because I knew this wasn't entirely their fault. You sisterhood of whores made me think I could do it. Once on that path, I couldn't leave it. I couldn't let Voldemort know that Harry had anything to do with me. I lived my life neck-deep in shit and death because of you. I was seventeen. I shouldn't be sentenced to live that cycle forever."

Nor should you. You're one of us, remember. We tried to tell you to keep him. To take your child home to your empty house, but it was you who chose a different path. This is proof that you acted on free will, no matter what we said to you. We never controlled you. You agreed only to do what you wanted to do. Nor did we truly want to control you. We wanted our magic to pass to the child that could only come through you. That's all.

"Well, you got it. Don't ask for another goddamn thing from me."

Had your mother given us a female, instead of attempting to please her husband, you would've made different choices. In that regard, the curse has served us all. Perhaps, if you chose to look upon the alignment with creation, the birthing process, you would find a solution to helping Harry.

"Bullshit!"

If you could only see, we made you stronger when we allowed the curse to happen, not weaker, and not in a sense of being tougher. That's trash thinking. We never asked you to suffer for us, but to excel. We gave you gifts that you have not tested.

"Like what?"

Like summoning raw magic into your world, from nothing, and shaping it to be what you need. For instance, there is no cure for the curse, until your need for one, and your belief in it, causes your concentration to divide like cells. It gives birth to solutions filled with magic. This is a virtual womb that all possess, but if you despise those who carry wombs - furnaces of creation - then you despise yours in spirit, and cut yourself off from it. It works with what you believe is possible. If you hold women in contempt, then you cut off half of your power. If you feel betrayed by your body, then you deny the magic expression. You were indoctrinated as a man, like Harry, and therefore you both resent the furnace. If you made peace with it, you could master it.

"Enough of your poison. He has your magic and he's become the Elder Wand. I'll tell him this. It's enough to arm him with all the information he needs to know. Then I'm finished. He's on his own."

This resignation gave him something to grip. He held onto it. "Even muggles let their children go. I've been foolish to hold on."

There were lifeforms in nature, that had nothing to do with their offspring. It was a purer system, unmudied by the whiny grievances of mankind, who still needed archaic laws to tell them how to live their lives, when all of life was simply taking the next logical step.

Then you admit it. He's your son.

Defeated, "He's my son."

Those three words took his breath. In the back of his mind he heard echoes of James Potter's laughter.

"That doesn't have to mean what the world thinks it does. There's no point to it."

You will never forsake him. He's a part of you. This recognition completes the birth that you abandoned all those years ago. Now you are ready for the final act of living.

"I'm not. I'm tired. I have nothing left for him."

Don't despair. You have more than you think. He has found you, and will always find you, because that connection is never lost. All he has to do, is follow his love, no matter where it takes him, and you will be at the end of that string.

"I don't want him to know. He mustn't find out."

If he can see what was done to you, he can see also, what his true beginning was. Do you want to be the one who tells him, or the one who apologizes for not telling him?

"I have nothing to apologize for. He wasn't supposed to be." He'd gone to extreme measures to correct that mistake, only to have it snatched out of his hands. Everything else had been done to prolong Harry's life, even denying him the truth.

Either way, he will learn the truth. Will you cower from that day, or meet it head on?

He waited in the shadows and soft lighting. Waited, to hear his own answer. His lamps cast the only warmth to be found among his possessions. He looked up into a dark, conical dome of rock formations that traveled up well beyond his books and paintings. No matter how he searched, scaling the height with his eyes, like a man scraping the walls of his soul, he couldn't find that answer.