Before the Plunge

Cracks were starting to appear on the horizon – little lightning-shaped fissures in the pebble-dashed sky. Severus had drifted morosely out of the bar and onto the sea-front, in order to get some of what passed in Mapledurham for 'air', and now he was being greeted by a fracturing sky. It must have been the Phoenix Curse getting ready to renew itself, he supposed – taking a deep breath before it plunged into its new life of crime. Perhaps there had been a silence like this before the Big Bang – right before the universe started swarming with all that messy, complicated matter.

And he almost wished – but for the exhaustion, and the depressing Lilylessness of the scene – that he could drag this moment out forever, and never have to suffer all the noise and nastiness that was sure to follow. He was on the edge of something loud and horrible. In Hogwarts terms (and it helped to use familiar analogies when you were this far out on a limb), he was on the verge of waking up from a gentle doze, to find James Potter standing over him, sniggering, and looking unaccountably pleased with himself.

And he didn't have any resources left to face it with. He was weak, exhausted, and completely out of ideas. He might not even have the energy for Occlumency soon, and then he would really be in trouble.

Maybe he should be using these terminal moments of peace and quiet to come to some kind of understanding with life – to forgive his enemies and make his peace with the world. But, all he could think about, right now, was how much he bloody hated Potter.

Still, hatred was good short-term fuel. Almost a substitute for food and sleep. Severus had been living off it for longer than he cared to remember. That hatred was good for at least another five minutes of standing upright.

And progress was not always constant. Sometimes, no matter how far you thought you'd come, the scaffolding got ripped away, and you had to fall back on hating James Potter, because nothing in life was guaranteed, except that gerbil-faced bastard and his arrogant schemes.  


James had been inside every teacher's office and staff room in the castle, usually standing in front of somebody's desk with a guilty smile on his face, and the remnants of some botched potion splattered all over his robes. He was particularly proud of his knowledge of Dumbledore's office. He got sent there when the really spectacular pranks had gone awry, and his senses were always sharper in those moments. It was like being a stag again – but underneath your skin, where no-one would notice.

James – just like Severus, but in a much more cheerful way – treated everything as a learning experience. During his many detentions in Dumbledore's office, he had familiarized himself with every strange, whirring silver instrument, every book, and every past Headmaster or mistress of Hogwarts whose portrait hung on the walls. He had even managed to charm Fawkes with a packet of monkey-nuts. Of course, now Fawkes had a companion on his perch: the stooped, balding-white eagle that had once been Professor Caladrius.

He was looking at James with baleful brown eyes, managing to convey with looks – far better than a human could with words – that monkey-nuts would be unlikely to charm him. Those eyes seemed to say that James had better have something pretty spectacular in those bulging pockets, or he was going to get a savage beaking the moment he came near.

So James stayed put, in his chair in front of Dumbledore's desk, watching the headmaster pace up and down behind it. James had never entertained the notion that somebody could possibly want to get rid of him, so he wasn't perturbed by Dumbledore's short, impatient, distracted answers. Besides, he had never been silent when there was something on his mind, and he wasn't about to start now.

Dumbledore had explained days ago that it wouldn't be a simple matter to force Caladrius to reassume his human form. "Because his Animagus transformation was incomplete, we cannot simply reverse the spell."

"Incomplete?" James had repeated. "He's a bloody great eagle!"

Dumbledore had treated him to a patient smile. "Yes, but he didn't become an eagle all in one go. His initial transformation failed, and the spell remained dormant in his system for nearly twenty years, only to be re-triggered by extreme emotional stress. The trail, you see, has rather gone cold. I couldn't locate the spell in order to reverse it. It was performed decades ago – and improperly, at that."

"But you could do it, Professor!" James insisted, brushing aside these logical objections with a sweep of his hand.

"The slightest mistake could kill him."

"You don't make mistakes!"

Dumbledore rubbed his temples wearily. "Your confidence is gratifying, James, but entirely misplaced. People of all ages and intelligences are equally prone to mistakes."

James had automatically dismissed this as modesty, but he hadn't pressed the matter. Lily had seemed – at that time – to be safe.

Now it was different. Snape was at the Valance House. James had been told that he was in a coma, but he didn't see how a little thing like a coma could sideline a committed bastard like Severus Snape.

"If Snape's there, she's in danger," he repeated, for what seemed like the hundredth time. He didn't say that she was in danger of becoming a cynical, sexy, remorseless killer like the Boggart he'd encountered, because he didn't know how to explain that. Most of the time, he couldn't even put his finger on why it was wrong, because the sexiness was the trait that stuck overwhelmingly in his mind. But it was wrong.

"I assure you, James, he is quite incapable of posing a threat to anyone at the moment, even if he felt inclined to. He is not even capable of movement."

"That won't stop him!" James shouted stupidly. He stopped, and tried to backtrack, aware that he sounded mental. "I mean, his mind's still at liberty, right? I know for a fact he practices Legilimency, Professor. He uses it on first-years! And there are no wizards at the Valance House to protect her. Snape's always up to something, even when he looks helpless. It's just in his nature. He's a Slytherin to his slimy bones."

Another patient smile. Dumbledore had a limitless supply of them for James Potter. "The difference between a good person and a bad person, James, is not to be found at the molecular level," he explained gently. "It is largely a matter of opportunity. Despite what you may have heard, Slytherins are not made of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails."

"Huh! Slugs and snails and puppy-dogs' tales are too bloody nice to be a part of Snape."

"I forget why you came up here," said Dumbledore, with slightly less twinkle in his twinkling smile.

"He'd tell you, wouldn't he?" said James, nodding in the direction of the bald eagle on the perch beside Fawkes. "He's always right, isn't he? If he sees how she dies, and it's all Snape's fault, you'll believe me then, won't you?"

"And, if he's always right, what can you hope to do about it?" said Dumbledore.

James fell silent, staring at the faded stars on Dumbledore's robes.

"He seems much happier as a bird," said Dumbledore conversationally. "Perhaps he no longer has visions in that state. Perhaps prophecy requires a larger brain – although, judging by the seers I've met in my lifetime, I rather think not. He must be kept safe from Voldemort, of course, but I would hesitate to force him back into human shape simply for our own education."

"Education?" James repeated. "He can tell us how to defeat Voldemort! That's our survival, Professor!"

"And, if he tells us there is no way to defeat Voldemort, would you give up and join the Death Eaters tomorrow?"

Another silence. But Dumbledore didn't need him to respond.

"Precisely," he said, with a bright, businesslike smile. "You would not give up if it were proved beyond doubt that Voldemort is destined to rule us all, and I would not give up if it were proved beyond doubt that Severus Snape is destined to kill Lily Evans. Therefore, proof cannot be proof, because we will go on hoping anyway. And you and I, James, are far too intelligent to hope for no good reason. Let Professor Caladrius rejoin us in his own time. None of us, I think, can truly imagine what he's been through."


When Poppy Pomfrey watched the soldiers arrive at the Normandy beaches, she had gone from predicting their deaths to witnessing their deaths in the space of about half an hour. If she had been told about Professor Caladrius' strange visions – because she certainly didn't remember him at this point – she would have said that at least he had time to come to terms with what he saw, and variety in the deaths he witnessed. Soldiers died in tiresomely predictable ways. They screamed the same words in their agony – but for a few variations in the names of loved ones or family members. But Poppy knew the tone, the familiar harmonic of their deathbed speeches. None of them had exactly been surprised. Death hadn't come out of the blue for them, the way it did for someone who got hit by a bus. But, even in battle, when you saw people dying twice a minute, you clung to the idea that it wouldn't really happen to you.

And then it had happened to them and they had been childishly – almost adorably – shocked. They were supposed to believe that all of this – all the noise, politics, blood, pain, hunger and boredom – was going to stop? These were the only things they'd ever known. What else could be out there?

At the moment, she was running across the moors to the village like a woman possessed – which, in certain crucial respects, she was. Some kind of dam had broken inside her, and now the anger was pouring out – it was raining down on her like molten lava. She turned her face up to it as though it was a refreshing downpour. She was parched.

Obstacles that she'd had to think around for years had suddenly vanished. Thoughts were streaming into her head from all directions, and the ones that bobbed to the surface – no, the ones that thrust themselves up through the surface, took a deep breath, and screamed – were the ones which insisted that Sally and the others had to pay for what they'd done.

How did they dare raise a hand to Morry? How did they dare set fire to her house? And what use were they, when you got right down to it? Poppy had bled herself dry trying to cure their ailments and listen to their troubles, and what did they do with all that health? They moaned and plotted and tortured people!

And, if you cured torturers, so that they were in a fit state to continue torturing, weren't you a little bit of a torturer yourself?

Mrs. Snape had tried to follow her across the moors, but she was suddenly loathsome to Poppy. She was just another one of those callous, blood-sucking widows, trying to get revenge on the world for her misfortunes.

Poppy resisted – with all her might – the idea that she herself was falling into that category. She stumbled onwards, dreading the moment when the anger would subside and force her to think.

Kurt was gone, of course. She had a horrible feeling she knew where he was going, but she couldn't work out whether it was horrible because she was appalled by the idea of violence, or because she wanted to commit all that appalling violence first.

"Poppy, wait!"

Poppy hissed through her teeth, but didn't slow down. The horrible woman was still following, although she was limping quite severely now. For the first few minutes of her fury, Poppy had hurled fireballs over her shoulder, and one of them had accidentally – but quite gratifyingly – hit Mrs. Snape on the ankle.

Bundles of suitable healing spells flocked into Poppy's head as she risked a glance over her shoulder at the limping woman, but she dismissed them all with biting satisfaction. Let somebody else feel what it was like to stagger through this world in pain for a while. Mrs Snape wouldn't recognize mercy if she was beaten over the head with it. When had she ever tried to soften the blow, or take away the pain? She wallowed in pain – other people's for preference, of course, but she had enough of her own to fall back on, if it came to it.

Besides, there was something in the way she looked at you – something in that spreading, cynical smile – which suggested that she wasn't expecting mercy. She had seen to the bottom of your soul and you had already disappointed her. If Poppy had been in a different mood, she might have found that liberating. As it was, she found it infuriating.

"Poppy, you don't want to do this!"

Poppy shot another fireball over her shoulder, causing a thumping, coughing sound, as Mrs. Snape dived to avoid it and then choked on the fumes in its wake.

"OK," said the widow, when she could speak again. "Badly phrased! Of course you want to do this – I would too! That's how this curse operates! But it will kill you."

Poppy stopped and turned round, trying to avoid looking directly at the widow, because she wasn't sure what it would make her do. At the moment, all the spells occurring to her were relatively harmless – classroom pranks like fireballs and Body-Bind curses. But Mrs. Snape was so irritatingly pretty, even though her forehead was plastered with sweat, and she was holding her high-heeled shoes in one hand because they were impossible to run in.

"Trust me," said Mrs. Snape – and she must have known how infuriating that sounded, coming from her lips. "You don't want to do this, Poppy. You don't want to be like me."   

"I wouldn't mind looking like you," Poppy muttered resentfully.

Mrs. Snape rolled up her sleeve, to reveal a dark, horrible tattoo on her left forearm. "Yeah?" she demanded. "Still?"

"I don't know what that is," said Poppy.

"Does it look auspicious? This says ugly, Poppy. Trust me. There's no ugliness like it."

"Stop telling me to trust you!" Poppy hissed, raising Mrs. Snape's stolen wand over her head. Hideous incantations were rushing into her mind – incantations for curses she had once read about with a horrified shudder – but they were frightening, too frightening to speak out loud. Besides, it would be better to choose something to mar all that infuriating beauty.  

She brought down the wand with a slashing motion, and watched with satisfaction as the mud around Mrs. Snape's bare feet started to bubble. The woman took a step forward, and instantly sank up to her ankles. She tried to stagger towards Poppy, wrenching her legs out of the mud with every footstep, but it was no good. She was being sucked down now. The mud gulped thirstily at her knees, then her thighs, until her struggles only plunged her deeper.

Poppy watched with vague curiosity as the woman fought it. She was breathing heavily. The exertion was making her cheeks pink, in a way that shame evidently never could. But she was crackling with energy. She was clawing her way through the mud – waist-deep by this time – as though her life, or something she didn't hate as much as her life, depended on it.

But there was nothing she didn't hate. She was Mrs. Snape. She existed to make cynical jokes and bring you back down to earth when you were feeling almost hopeful. What could be making her struggle like that?

Mrs Snape gritted her teeth and tried to grab onto something to slow her inexorable descent into the mud. There weren't many trees on the moors, so she had to make do with the branches of a prickly hawthorn bush. Her eyes brightened as the thorns sank into her skin. She looked almost as though she was enjoying it.

"I was hoping we'd have more time that this," she gasped. "I'm not good at calming people down."

"You astonish me," said Poppy.

"Morry was right when he said we were in a dream," she choked out, craning her neck back to try and keep her chin above the mud. "Actually, it's a magical coma, induced by a curse that uses the power of your anger to reproduce itself. We're actually in the middle of a bizarre, asexual mating dance."

"You're not doing your best to sound believable, are you?" said Poppy. But the unexpected stupidity of it had broken her concentration. The mud had stopped sucking Mrs. Snape down. She was still encased in it up to her boney shoulders, but her struggles were making some headway now.

She hauled on the hawthorn bush, and managed to wrench her shoulders a little further out of the mud. She spat out a mouthful of turf and said: "Yes, I am. I am doing my best. I'm just not used to this kind of thing."

"You mean telling the truth?"

Mrs. Snape ignored her. Little streams of blood were trickling down her wrists from the places where she was gripping the hawthorn. "The curse renews itself," she panted, liberating inches of her body every second, "by recreating the worst experience of your life, and making you so angry that you throw your whole existence behind a curse to strike down your enemies. The energy generated by that kind of hatred is enormous. Standing in the middle of it will be like standing in the middle of the sun. You won't even live long enough to complete the incantation. But that won't matter, because you will have already released the energy. Whatever curse you cast will become the Phoenix Curse."

She had succeeded in freeing her torso by this time, and she flopped forwards onto the relative stability of the grass in front of her, trying to catch her breath. "And, if you don't kill Sally tonight, the curse will keep squeezing you," she panted, "trying to make you angry enough to kill."

"So what does it matter?" said Poppy, with a shrug. "It sounds like there's no other way to end it."

A little smile curled the only part of Mrs. Snape's face that was still visible. "Ah, but there is, Poppy. According to Riddle, a great wizard has been here before us, leaving us clues. He was the one who carved 'Resurgam' into the beam over the bar in The Shipwreck. He's the one who makes every spilled liquid assume the shape of a Phoenix. Riddle thinks he's only giving us clues about the nature of the curse, but I think he's also telling us how to break it." She looked up suddenly, revealing a face darkened with mud, mascara and determination. "Resurgam, Poppy! Amor vincit omnia!"

"Stop quoting Latin at me!" Poppy shouted. "I don't know what you're talking about! I never learned Latin!"

"Yes, you did – yes, you did, Poppy," she hissed excitedly "Think! Where do people like us hear Latin words?"

Poppy stared at her. "It's a spell? 'Resurgam' is an incantation? Why haven't I ever heard of it?"

Mrs. Snape shrugged. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Poppy frowned. "Who wrote it? Who carved 'Resurgam' into the beam?"

Mrs. Snape, having caught her breath, placed her palms flat on the grass and tried to wriggle her legs free. "I guess, in a manner of speaking, I did."

"What does that mean?"

"I just want you to promise me you'll think about it," said Mrs. Snape. She had curled up on the grass in a foetal position, but her voice was smooth and businesslike again. "We can go and rescue Morry if you like, but promise me you'll remember that something in this dream wants you to be angry."

Poppy gave her a surly shrug. "And what do you care if I get killed by some non-existent curse? Why warn me? What's in it for you?"

Mrs. Snape got to her feet. Her skin was blotchy with mud and her wet dress was clinging to her more audaciously than ever. But her spirits hadn't been dampened in the slightest. Poppy was sure the mud could have hardened and cracked in the heat of her determination. "My husband," she said calmly. "Shall we go?"


The hand holding the goblet was trembling. Dark, steaming green potion was slopping about alarmingly, cresting the sides of the goblet and creeping perilously close to the edge. But Lily didn't spill a drop. She had been expecting the trembling. She had only filled the goblet half-way, so that her hand could tremble as much as it wanted without spilling any potion and attracting Bruiser's attention.  

It was not the Sleeping Draught he'd asked for. It looked like the Sleeping Draught he'd asked for in every particular – she had been quite careful about that – but it was not going to give Elsa a peaceful night of dreamless sleep.

She wondered if, in years to come, she would be able to trace her moral dissolution from this exact moment – the moment she'd risked an eight-year-old's life to rescue her boyfriend. It was like taking a bite out of an apple in the Garden of Eden. Dumbledore wouldn't have done it, she was sure of that much.

She had the eight-year-old's consent, of course – Elsa had been surprisingly eager to go back into the nightmare. "But not for him," she had said, balling her little fists. "For Madam Pomfrey. She give us hot chocolate when we came out of the ice."

Passion had mangled her grammar, but Lily was still impressed. Elsa had conceived a fierce loyalty towards Madam Pomfrey – and it only hardened when she found out about what she thought of as 'Snape's treachery'.

"I should've chose someone better to rescue her," she said firmly. "Someone less sneaky. But, don't worry, my dad'll sort him out. And that snake-faced idiot he takes orders from."

"I'm glad to hear it," Lily had said primly, flicking a speck of dust off her skirt to give her guilty eyes something to linger on.  "But your dad won't understand about Madam Pomfrey. He doesn't see why you have to be the one to rescue her."

"But you do?" said Elsa, narrowing her dark eyes into slits.

"Yes, I do," said Lily, giving her a reassuring smile that turned to ice on her lips. "There's nobody else to stick up for her, and someone has to."

Elsa's eyes widened. "Yeah," she said slowly. "Yeah, that's what it is. Someone has to, and you can't sit at home, twiddling your thumbs, wondering who it's going to be. You've got to do something."

"We definitely understand each other," said Lily, letting a genuine smile thaw out her lips for a moment. "So you won't say anything to your dad?"

"Get me a Sleeping potion that puts me to sleep but doesn't stop me having dreams," said Elsa. "But it'll have to look good, OK? Dad knows everything about magic."

"Don't worry," said Lily. "I've never got a grade below 'Outstanding' in Potions. Professor Slughorn used to call me his 'Cut-throat Potioneer'."

Elsa raised her eyebrows. "Well, that's silly. I thought he was supposed to be a grown-up."

Lily stood up suddenly. She didn't trust herself to linger. She felt half-tempted to grab hold of Elsa's blouse and sob into it, wailing: "I'm so sorry I'm doing this to you!" She missed the old days - when she had been able to get things done without compromising her principles. She had always been quick enough, clever enough – or, more probably – lucky enough to get everything she wanted without being dangerously irresponsible. Was the world getting darker, or was she just getting thicker? It was probably both.

She took a detour on the way to Elsa's room, even though she knew it was stupid. What was she expecting to have changed? And the sight of Severus Snape was hardly likely to steady her hands. But she dragged her footsteps up the great staircase to his room anyway, just so that she could stand in the doorway and feel her stomach churning as restlessly as the potion she held in her hands.

She had closed the curtains in here, even though it deepened her gloom. Severus didn't like the sunlight, and respecting his wishes seemed more important than keeping her spirits up.

He was sleeping in the same tense, prickly posture as before, as though he had just lowered himself onto the bed and hadn't had time to relax yet. His jaw was clenched, and he was breathing hard through his nostrils. Nobody had dared to pull the covers up around him. He looked as though he would snap out of his coma and strangle anyone who tried it. His chest was bare, boney and racked with tension. Too little over-stretched flesh and far too many poking-out ribs. Lily couldn't help wincing in sympathy every time she looked. Whatever he was trying to do in that nightmare, it was killing him.

But she was on her way to helping him. Nothing was going to go wrong. She would ache and tremble and torment herself, but she would do what she was going to do anyway, because she knew who she was now. And this was not the time to battle with her instincts. She had done so much wrong that she needed to do a little more just to get out of it. This was the course of action that entailed the least damage overall. And she wasn't helpless anymore. It was going to be alright.

Passing and failing were not the only options, after all. You could always cheat. Although, if you thought that, you had probably already failed.

Lily wanted to touch him – she wanted to put her hands on those rock-hard shoulders and feel the tension melt away under her fingertips – but she had to admit that she hadn't often managed to accomplish that, even at the best of times. And these certainly weren't the best of times. She was afraid of breaking his concentration. Whatever he was going through behind those eyelids, he had screwed up every muscle in his body to try and cope with it. She was worried that she would distract him if she even entered the room.

No, she wasn't going to bother him with hugs and kisses now. She was going to be of more material assistance.

Anyway, physical contact with her usually increased his tension. You wouldn't think that was possible if you didn't know the full, furious limits of what Severus Snape could cope with. However stretched he looked, he could always stretch further.

When she touched him, the contact usually shot through him like an electric current. Sudden greed jolted him to life, and he would grab hold of her, as if he thought there was still a possibility – after all this time – that she was going to go away.

She would have done anything to see him jolt back to life now.

Standing wretchedly in the doorway, Lily remembered her old dreams with sadness and a certain degree of embarrassment. She had once longed for peace with him – for a slow, unhurried undressing at the end of the day. But now she understood – even shared – the urgency he felt.  Those dark figures that he was convinced were just over the next horizon, waiting to drag them apart – she could hear them approaching. She could hear the relentless, remorseless shuffle of their feet.

She couldn't imagine an unhurried meeting now. She liked it best now when they clutched each other convulsively, their stomachs heavy with dread and their ears roaring with desperation. This is your last chance.

She dragged her eyes away from his sleeping figure and looked at her watch. It was ten minutes until Elsa's bed-time. She had made the potion ridiculously early. But she had needed something to do. God, she never wanted to wait again. She wanted every crisis to spring on her like an ambushing tiger. It was horrible – horrible – to have the time to think all these thoughts.

This was how Severus must have felt all the time, she realized. He thought faster than her – or he didn't know how to switch his thoughts off – so even the disasters that came suddenly had been expected, dreaded, and picked over in the recesses of his imagination.

Lily felt her chest heaving with sympathy. She needed more oxygen than her lungs could possibly contain to neutralize all that sadness. But she would keep trying. All things considered, it was the least she could do.


Something wasn't right. No, make that: something new was wrong. Various things hadn't been right for a long time – Severus barely remembered what 'right' was supposed to look like. It seemed like something you only got in fairytales. But there was another discordant strain to the chaotic symphony, and he had been staring at it for about a minute before he finally realized what he was looking at.

He had drifted back into the bar of The Shipwreck, simply to get away from the sight of the fracturing sky, and now he was staring out of the windows into the pub's back garden, while Voldemort nursed what must have been his seventh scotch under the big, carved beam by the bar. Severus was impressed. The Dark Lord could clearly handle his liquor. He wasn't slurring his words at all, and his evil schemes were, if anything, getting even more complicated.

There wasn't much to see in the back garden of The Shipwreck – and night had turned the windows into black mirrors anyway. But there was something pale out there, sunk in various overlapping shades of darkness. Its contours were the kind he would have recognized under normal circumstances. In fact, under normal circumstances, those contours made his nerves stand up and scream with urgency. But these were not normal circumstances. And, anyway, he was used to seeing her poised and beautiful – smiling at him with savage cynicism, as though she was thinking: I can't wait to see how you're going to try and wriggle out of this one.

He was not used to seeing her dripping with mud – although it was, underneath the dread that she always engendered in him, sort of sexy.  

There was no savage smile now. Her face was framed with straggly wet hair and set with sadness. She was staring in at him through the window as if she didn't even have the energy to hate him anymore. If the Boggart-Lily had been at the end of her tether ever since Severus had met her, she had now reached the end of the end of her tether.

And he couldn't help remembering a time when their positions had been reversed. He'd been about eleven, and it had been Christmas time – or that weird interval between Christmas and New Year when nobody knew what day it was, or why they ever bothered waking up before noon. He and Lily had been out for a walk on the frosted, rubbish-strewn paths beside the canal, and he had dropped her off at home, but lingered sullenly on the pavement outside her house, watching her through the lighted windows of the front-room, with his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his oversized coat. Through the window was a scene of complete domestic happiness: the kind he had thought you only got in stories. Lily's father – still wearing the paper hat from his Christmas cracker – caught her in his arms as she came in from the hall, all pink-cheeked and shivering, and tickled her until she was warm again. The only sour note was the horse-faced Petunia, and Lily's luminous beauty more than made up for her.

And, at first, Severus had been disgusted – or pretended to be disgusted, while secretly writhing with longing – which he did so well, even at the age of eleven, that he genuinely couldn't tell, if they were suddenly to fling open the doors and beckon him inside, whether he would run to their arms or tell them to fuck off.

It was unlikely to happen, either way.

But, as usual when Lily was around, desire overcame his disgust, and he looked up, right into the glare of other people's happiness, just to catch a glimpse of her.

And she was looking right back.

Immediately, Severus had flushed and hurried onwards, annoyed that he'd allowed himself to be caught off guard. When he threw a casual glance back, at the end of the road, Petunia was closing the curtains with a horse-faced frown.

His childhood had been full of moments like that – moments where he wondered whether he could have had her, if only he'd been less defensive. But they were all over now. She had been laughing and blushing and exuberant and out of breath in his arms, and that was never going to go away, no matter how often he had to suppress the memory when looking Voldemort in the eye.

It all came back to him at the thought of that memory. Twenty-seven hours of exhaustion presented its bill. Severus swayed on the spot and listened to his muscles screaming.

"Flesh and blood, remember? You're happy enough to be flesh and blood when her flesh and blood is also involved. Well, this is the downside. You want us to work for you, you're going to have to give us something to work with. Even a sit-down would be a start."

Severus covertly rested his shoulder against the wall, hoping that would be enough. He couldn't show weakness in front of the Boggart. Weakness was something her husband would show, right before he gave up on life and left her alone with her grief.

And he knew it was stupid. He knew she was just a nightmare made flesh. He knew she hated him. But somehow, he couldn't bear to let her think that he was the same man whose jealousy and despair had turned her into a raving psychopath. If he could convince her that she was wrong about him, maybe he could convince himself.

Severus stared back at her for as long as he felt able. It wasn't nice, to see her standing out there. He didn't like to see Lily standing out in the cold.

Oh god, he was starting to think of her as though she was Lily. She was not Lily. Lily was that little slip of red and white he'd seen at the top of the hill overlooking the village, bare-armed and shivering in Voldemort's vice-like grip. Lily was who he was doing this all for. He couldn't allow himself to get distracted now, especially not by a demented Boggart who hated him.

Severus turned away from the window and cleared his throat. "I think Madam Pomfrey is here, my Lord."