Anakin was in beast form, though not that of any beast he was familiar with. Evidently the Force was prompting him to appear in this shape because Severus would also be picturing himself, within his dream, in cat form, and they needed to match, just as when they both appeared to each other as children or adolescents or young adults. But what was this creature? He was like a greater krayt dragon, with the same long, whip-like neck and tail, but he had only four legs, like a canyon krayt, instead of the greater krayt's ten. More interestingly, he was flying, and, instead of spitting venom like a krayt, he was breathing out fire. Anakin had heard legends of rare krayts born with wings, but he had never known anyone who had actually seen one.

It was nearly dusk, but as he turned his head to glance behind him for a moment, he could see his scaly black body, his leathery black wings like a cloak, and, stretching out behind, a tail lined with long, bronze-coloured spikes, which shone in the rays of the setting sun against the black of his scales.

He soared above a green, roughly triangular island, a mixture of towns, farms, and patches of woodland. Towards the northern end, it had looked wilder and less densely populated, studded with small mountains, silver-blue lakes (including at least one long, narrow lake in which sea-serpents played), and castles, most of them obviously ruined and long abandoned. But there was one which was clearly still in good repair and still as full of life as the nearby village. Anakin recognised it from the other shared dreams as Severus's old school. A much more beautiful place to go to school than Coruscant, certainly. Teenagers strolled about the school grounds or played games, though most of them, unlike Severus, avoided the lake as much as they did the ugly, misshapen pollarded tree – or the dark forest beyond the school.

The forest, Anakin knew. That was where Severus would be hiding, like a Jedi in exile. The Force guided him on until he found the tree where he could smell a small, furry, frightened feline. There was no convenient clearing to land in, so Anakin simply folded his wings and let his huge, reptilian bulk crash through the neighbouring trees, frightening a pair of centaur foals and a giant spider, all of whom hastily skittered away.

Severus hissed and spat at him, but his fur wasn't standing on end in fright. He recognised who Anakin was, and although he pretended to be annoyed at being disturbed, Anakin could feel – what? Confusion, mistrust, maybe a hint of relief?

'You need to wake,' he informed the cat. 'If you do not return to your waking form, you will die.'

'And whom would that inconvenience?' retorted Severus. 'Doubtless Cheiron can find someone else to brew potions for him.'

'Do you want to die?'

'What did what I want ever have to do with anything? Nobody in my mortal life cared whether I lived or died, unless they had a use for me. I fail to see why that should change now.'

'Do you think I don't know how that feels?' retorted Anakin. 'I was a slave all my life, remember? First to Gardulla the Hutt, then Watto, then the Jedi Order, and then Emperor Palpatine. I know what a slaver's mind feels like, and Cheiron is not one.'

'You still believe there's a difference between good and evil, don't you?' snarled Severus. 'You thought you could redeem yourself by finally turning against your evil master, just as Konstantine did. But what can you do when there is no good side – or even a less evil side? There's just a choice of which psychopathic narcissistic megalomaniac to serve, and fools like us who are willing to try to make a deal with anyone to protect those we love, and end up betraying both sides, and being betrayed by both. Should I work for a future in which everyone considers it right to torture and murder Muggleborn wizards for fun, or a future in which everyone considers it right to torture and murder Slytherins for fun? Whatever decisions I made, there was never going to be a good outcome.'

Anakin wasn't sure whether this was a lie. It wasn't just that he couldn't know enough about Severus's world to know whether it was objectively true, but that he wasn't sure whether Severus himself believed it. He got the impression that the wizard almost wanted it to be true, because a universally bleak picture made the world simple enough to understand.

The Force whispered to him, Don't argue. Severus didn't need someone to ask him how he could possibly know what the future held. He just needed someone to listen.

'If your world was that irredeemably bad, you are well out of it,' Anakin said instead.

'Why? Did I say I wasn't just as evil? My last action was to send a teenage boy to his death!'

'By trickery?'

'Worse. By being the first person to be honest with him about what he was, why he had survived up until now, why the previous Headmaster had wanted me to protect him, and that he had only ever been reared to be a sacrificial victim when the right time came. The key to defeating the Dark Lord we were fighting against depended upon his handing himself over to be killed. He wasn't a particularly nice person, and certainly not a good student, but still – he didn't deserve to die when he'd barely had the chance to live. But if he could somehow have managed to defeat the Dark Lord and yet survive, he would probably have grown up to be the next Dark Lord.'

Anakin had the feeling that Severus was trying to play a verbal game of dejarik to lose: to ensure that whatever Anakin or anyone else said blocked him into a position of total despair. 'What do you want?' he demanded bluntly.

'To be left alone!' Severus hissed.

'You are lying. What do you want?'

'I want to be dead! I've wanted that since I was twenty-one years old!'

'You have already died. What do you want now?'

'What do you expect me to say? That I want to be loved and appreciated and cuddled and to feel happy and at peace?' Severus's voice was bitterly sarcastic, but his words rang with truth in the Force.

'If that is the truth.'

'What's the point? I don't know how to do any of that! How is it that you and Konstantine found people who could believe there was still good in you in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, and I never did? The Headmaster – gave me a job and protected me from going to prison, but he thought I was disgusting. So did everyone else. When I had to – pretend to be a traitor, when I killed him – on his orders! – not more than two of my colleagues were even surprised. Virtually everyone thought I was evil.'

'You knew you were not,' said Anakin firmly. 'You knew how to be an honourable man without anyone telling you that you were, because your soul is Light. I like you. So does Konstantine.'

'I'm supposed to be reassured by the fact that a Sith lord and a rapist think I'm not too bad?'

'Yes. I have no love for anyone, except Luke – but I like you. Konstantine trusts barely anyone except Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith – and Cheiron and you.'

'And you.' Severus's presence flared with resentment, even if the fur on his back standing on end hadn't made his feelings clear.

'No. He loves me – he is more like a father to me than Obi-Wan ever was – but he has more sense than to trust me. However,' Anakin continued, 'I must ask you to trust me.'

'Why do you even want me back? If I'm not a villain, clearly I can't be a member of your cosy little Reformed Villains' Support Group.'

'Because we all have different things to learn,' said Anakin. 'You know how to be a good person, but not how to be happy. I do not know either, but – I know that I was once a child who found joy in some things, and who believed in helping people, and I need to learn again how to be him. Konstantine does not know how to be independently a good person, but he knows how to regret the evil he has done and yet still go on doing the best he can without being consumed by guilt, and to discover that just because some people have hurt him does not mean that there are no true friends whom he can love and trust. Erik…' Anakin wondered whether there was anything positive to say about Erik's moral character – 'Erik is barely even a reformed villain, but he wants to be.

'Your connection to your body on the Rock is growing weaker,' he went on. 'You need to wake up now. Come back to the Rock, drink some milk, and come and sleep on my bed, and we will watch some more memories tomorrow, if you wish. Do you want to see what happens next?'

'Yes,' Severus admitted.

'Climb onto my head, and I can carry you back from this place.' The dragon extended his scaly snout to the branch, close enough that the kitten could jump onto him.

However, instead of doing this, Severus leapt clear off the branch in the opposite direction. Anakin was about to shoot his head forward to catch him, but the Force whispered to him not to interfere. Severus had all four paws outstretched, and – Anakin saw to his amazement – there were flaps of skin extending from foreleg to hind leg on each side, almost like wings, slowing his descent. He floated gently down, landed neatly on all fours, and briefly tidied his fur before strolling up to jump onto Anakin's outstretched claw. The kitten's wings had now vanished again, and Anakin wondered whether he had imagined them. Could all cats do that, he wondered, or was that because Severus was a wizard – or, more likely, because it was Severus's dream and if he decided that he could fly, then he could?

'Very well,' Severus miaowed. 'If you're in such a hurry, let's go.'