Yes, he’d been reckless.

He could almost hear Hermione’s voice chiding him.

He wished he could hear Hermione’s voice. Anyone’s voice.

But all was silence. All but his own frantic breath.

Beyond the silence, darkness.

The scent of newly-cut wood.

Raw, damp earth.

Earth that surrounded the narrow, wooden box. The box which surrounded him.

He was in the box, in the earth.

Buried.

Alive. For now.

But for how much longer?

Would Draco Malfoy really retrieve him before he suffocated? Or would he return too late?

He gave a sound that could have been a sobbing giggle at the mental image of Draco proudly unearthing his prize under the expectant gaze of his Dark Lord, only to suffer Voldemort’s wrath when the rough wooden coffin was opened to reveal no more than Harry Potter’s lifeless body, his sightlessly-staring eyes bloodshot, lips and fingers blue from anoxia.

Yes, he’d been reckless.

But these past weeks following Sirius’ death—well, it hadn’t seemed to matter. So what if he’d spent too much time outside the blood wards? So what if he got killed by a passing Death Eater? At least he’d get to join Sirius. And his mum and dad. Just like he’d thought at the Ministry, when Voldemort was possessing him. He’d truly been ready to die at that moment. He’d been ready to die every day since then.

Since learning of the Prophecy.

Death was inevitable.

And after having given the Prophecy some serious thought, he realized that, realistically, he probably couldn’t “vanquish” Voldemort. Certainly not with love. That was just Dumbledore’s fantasy, right?

So, why not be reckless? Live a little, while he was still alive.

Yes, he’d been ready to die. Death was inevitable.

But not this…

Not this slow inevitability.

A quick death was how he’d always envisioned it. Violent, even.

NOT … this …

Gasping in damp, black silence.

THINK!

There had to be a way.

Possibility amidst the impossible.

Draco had confiscated his wand, making the possible impossible.

THINK!

He’d done wandless magic as a child. Accidental magic. He hadn’t even known he was a wizard, but he’d done magic. Without a wand. And later, he’d blown up Aunt Marge. Without a wand.

He could do it. He could get out of here. Anger could be the trigger. Wishing could make it happen. Wish magic based on pure emotion. But—how to focus? Did he need a particular spell or just a strong desire?

What to wish for? This wasn’t as simple as levitating a feather or summoning a pillow from across the room. He wasn’t even in a room. He was lying in a box, buried underground. Nothing to levitate. Nothing to summon. He could barely move.

A genuine sob escaped him before he fiercely clamped his teeth around his lower lip.

THINK!

Cold sweat glassed his face.

He needed help.

He needed Sirius. He needed his mum. He needed his dad.

He closed his eyes. It didn’t make the darkness darker or less dark, but at least the blackness was voluntary when his eyes were shut. He was more in his mind, less in the box.

Mum. Dad. Sirius. He could see them smiling at him. Their happy faces. His happiest memories. The people who had truly loved him.

Happy memories. He would finally share laughter with them again before long. Draco would never make it back in time.

Happy memories. Strong emotion.

Harry smiled in the blackness. Now he knew.

“Expecto Patronum!” he shouted, his voice deafening in the small confines of the wooden box. “Expecto Patronum!

“Help me! Anyone! Dumbledore! Hermione! Ron! Even Snape! Help me! Even Snape! Help me! Snape, help me! Snape, help me! Expecto Patronum!”

And suddenly the blackness lifted.

Harry could see the inside of the box, the thick grain of the wood glowing in a silvery light.

YES!

“EXPECTO PATRONUM! Help me! Snape! Dumbledore! Anyone! I’m buried alive! Help me! EXPECTO PATRONUMMM!”

A gentle rushing filled his ears; a silver wind lifted his sweat-soaked fringe off his clammy forehead, lifted his breath from his lungs, lifted him upwards through the top of the wooden box, through the earth, to the living world, and beyond.

Harry found himself riding the back of the silver wind, silver antlers bobbing before him as his Patronus swooped above the dark treetops where leaves flashed silver in recognition of their passage. Stars twinkled madly in the clear sky overhead as the earth rushed beneath the stag and his passenger.

“Hogwarts!” Harry shouted. “Go to Hogwarts!” Although, somehow, he was certain that directions weren’t really necessary. The stag would fetch help. Prongs would never let him down.

His silver hands grasped the silver neck of the soaring stag.

He had no idea of which direction they were headed. Hadn’t known where Draco had buried him after the Portkey had whirled them away from Wisteria Walk. But Prongs knew. Harry put all his faith into Prongs.

Upon the silver wind he rode, a flashing zephyr that mere Muggles might mistake for a shooting star if they happened to glance skyward.

-:-     -:-     -:-     -:-     -:-

In the Headmaster’s office, Severus Snape  frowned mightily at the sobbing Squib. Albus Dumbledore’s offer of a calming sherbet lemon went unnoticed by the woman who had buried her face in her hands. Arthur Weasley stood, white-faced, behind her chair.

“I’m so sorry, Albus! It happened too fast!” Arabella Figg’s muffled voice filtered unevenly through her tear-wet fingers. “He came out of nowhere, grabbed Harry, and Portkeyed them away!” She sobbed anew. “I couldn’t do anything! I’m so sorry!”

Dumbledore gently patted her frail shoulder and sat down heavily in the armchair opposite Arabella’s. He stared at the lemon sweet sightlessly for a moment, then popped it into his own mouth. “Waste not, want not,” he murmured absently.

Snape interrupted his steadfast glare just long enough to roll his eyes.

“And this happened how long ago?” Dumbledore inquired softly.

Arabella looked at him, then at her wristwatch. “Maybe thirty-five or forty-five minutes ago? I had the awfullest time finding where I’d written down Arthur’s telephone number—you know he hardly ever has occasion to use his phone. When I finally got in touch with him, he came straight through the Floo and then brought me here.”

Dumbledore looked up at Snape and Arthur.

Unnecessarily, Snape stated, “They could have Portkeyed anywhere. Possibly even to the Continent.”

“Do you have any reason to suspect that Harry was taken out of the kingdom?” asked Arthur with trepidation.

Snape gave a barely perceptible shake of his head.

Dumbledore stood slowly, walking toward his array of silver instruments. One in particular sat motionless upon its dainty cherry table. “Harry is not detectable at the moment.”

“Which means?” Snape raised an eyebrow.

“Which means that he’s either beyond the boundaries of Great Britain, or…” Dumbledore’s voice trailed off as his jaw tightened.

The three men stared at the stilled instrument.

In the background, Mrs. Figg continued to sob quietly.

Dumbledore looked pointedly at Snape’s left forearm.

Snape silently shook his head, once.

“Which means nothing, in the end,” Dumbledore concluded quietly.

They stood, considering.

“What would you require of me, Headmaster?”

Dumbledore’s blue eyes regarded Snape  seriously. “Severus, I—“

A silver stag flashed through the stone wall of the Headmaster’s office.

“Help me! Snape! Dumbledore! Anyone! I’m buried alive! Help me!” shouted the stag in Harry Potter’s voice.

The four people in the office stared at the stag in shocked surprise. The faint silvery image of Harry himself straddled the stag’s glowing back. The boy’s mouth was moving, his hands gesticulating urgently, but they could hear no words at all coming from him.

“Harry, we can’t hear you,” said Dumbledore.

The silver boy grew even more agitated, fairly bouncing upon the stag, which shifted from hoof to hoof impatiently.

“Calm down, Harry,” Dumbledore said soothingly. “Severus and I will send our Patronuses with yours to your location, and we’ll Apparate there. Understand?”

Harry nodded his silver head, but worriedly mouthed one silent word: HUR-RY! He sharply tapped his left wrist several times, mimicking a Muggle wristwatch.

Dumbledore nodded and cast his Patronus.

Accompanied by a silver phoenix, Prongs and Harry sailed out Dumbledore’s tower window. In a moment, they were joined by an exquisite silvery doe, which Harry surmised must be Snape’s Patronus. The three creatures flashed through the night sky—whether for a couple of minutes or a scant handful of seconds, Harry couldn’t say—before Prongs dove toward a tiny clearing tucked into a heavily-wooded area distant from Muggle lights. Harry felt surprised at how quickly the return trip had gone; the flight toward Hogwarts seemed to have taken ages in comparison.

Back in the Headmaster’s office, Dumbledore, Snape, and Arthur watched another instrument intently, while Dobby popped in with a restorative tea tray for the shaken Mrs. Figg. When the silver needle finally froze in mid-spin, Dumbledore nodded to Snape, who gripped his mentor’s arm tightly as the Headmaster prepared to Apparate them to the Patronuses’ location.

“Alert the Order,” Dumbledore instructed Arthur, who nodded. “I’ll contact you here if we need you.”

Wands at the ready, the other two wizards turned on the spot and disappeared.

-:-     -:-     -:-     -:-     -:-

The air in the box was thinning, Harry could tell. Try as he might to breathe slowly to conserve oxygen, his lungs simply wouldn’t cooperate and heaved in the attempt to find more oxygen amidst the increasing carbon dioxide.

He’d lost track of time, but he’d lived a hundred lifetimes since Draco had shoved him in here and magically sealed the lid. Make that a thousand lifetimes. Somehow, they all ended the same way—with Sirius falling backward through the Veil. A thousand times he’d fallen, and a thousand times Harry had witnessed the surprise—the fear—on his godfather’s face in that final second before he disappeared from the world of the living. A thousand times, Harry had silently screamed in self-condemnation, realizing only now, in this unrelieved blackness of the tomb, that he and he alone was responsible for Sirius’ presence at the Ministry of Magic that fateful night.

Lying here, waiting for death or Draco or Voldemort himself, Harry thought back to the conversation he’d had through the Floo with Sirius and Remus, and how both of them had emphasized the importance of continuing his Occlumency lessons, even after Snape had thrown him out of his office following the Pensieve incident. SIRIUS had wanted him to go back to Snape, despite how much Sirius hated Snape. But Harry couldn’t be bothered to ask for further lessons. Even without Snape, he could still have practiced clearing his mind. Surely Hermione would have been willing to help him—surely she could have come up with books about the subject, books that might have clued him in to Occlumency more than Snape had managed to. But Harry couldn’t be bothered to practice.

He’d tried so hard to blame everyone else but himself—Snape, for ceaselessly taunting Sirius about hiding in his mother’s house; Kreacher, for lying to Harry about Sirius’ whereabouts, convincing Harry of the necessity of heading off to the Ministry; even Dumbledore, for insisting that Sirius remain exiled within the confines of Grimmauld Place for the past year.

In the end, however, the truth was undeniable. Sirius would never have left Grimmauld Place that night, if Harry had not rushed off to the Ministry to “rescue” a false vision of Sirius. Harry wouldn’t have received that false vision if he’d bothered to practice Occlumency, the way Dumbledore had wanted him to. He could have learned Occlumency, if he’d truly applied himself. Surely he could. He just hadn’t wanted to. In deepest honesty, here in the grave, Harry acknowledged that he’d refused to practice because not practicing had been a way to rebel against Snape. Rebelling made him feel powerful. But the power was merely an illusion of Harry’s pride, and in the end, his rebellion had killed Sirius.

Harry had finally accepted the truth—Snape was not at fault. Sirius had died because of Harry. Harry alone was responsible for Sirius rushing to his death. He’d wanted so desperately to blame Snape, but that was unfair. Harry knew that now. It was his responsibility and no one else’s. When he saw Sirius again—and it wouldn’t be long now—he’d beg his forgiveness.

His lungs heaved again and again. He couldn’t tell whether he felt hot or cold.

Gasping… gasping… gasping…

Couldn’t he just lose consciousness?

He’d thought he might have died when his Patronus left. It’d felt—weird—as if a part of him had disappeared. But the rest of him remained undeniably in the box.

Gasping…

He thought he saw a flash of light.

There!

Another flash! Stars! There were stars in the box!

And lightning!

He wouldn’t have to die in the dark after all…

-:-     -:-     -:-     -:-     -:-

Dumbledore and Snape landed back-to-back, wands drawn. Quickly, they circled, peering suspiciously into the darkness between the trees, but nothing moved. Aside from the three Patronuses, they were alone.

The phoenix and the doe quickly vanished, but Prongs remained, Harry’s silvery finger pointing frantically at the ground.

There, in the stag’s glow, at the end of an oblong of disturbed earth, a familiar holly wand had been embedded vertically in the raw ground, its tip pointing mockingly toward the star-sprinkled sky.

Snape realized he had never heard Dumbledore use that particular word before…

With one hand, Dumbledore Accioed Harry’s wand, while the other wielded his own in an arc over the grave. The loose dirt vanished, revealing a rectangular wooden box about six feet long. The moment Snape had levitated the box from the grave, Dumbledore swept his wand over the lid, unsealing it.

The second that Snape began to lift the lid, Harry’s silvery form swooshed from Prongs’ back into the box, vanishing into the corporeal Harry himself, who lay silent and still in the bottom of the narrow coffin.

“Harry!” gasped Dumbledore, dropping to his knees, unwilling to believe the horrifying tableau before his eyes.

Snape aimed his wand at the boy’s body. “Ennervate!” If the youth were already dead, surely the silver Harry would have gone—elsewhere? “Ennervate!” he cast again, urgency infusing his voice.

And the boy took a ragged breath.

Snape took an equally ragged breath, lowering his wand.

Dumbledore sank to the ground, his head bowed over The-Boy-Who-Still-Lived.

Fresh air filled Harry’s lungs, air so sweet it must have come from Honeyduke’s. When he finally opened his eyes, he could still see stars, but there were also two heads leaning over him. Neither one was Draco Malfoy or Voldemort.

He recognized the swinging dark hair, even by starlight.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Harry whispered, looking into Snape’s eyes, darker than the night sky. “He died because of me. It was my fault.” Somehow, saying the words aloud seemed the most important thing right now. If he couldn’t atone for Sirius’ death, he could—at the very least—atone for assigning false blame.

Snape frowned slightly. “To what—or rather, whom—are you referring, Potter?”

“Sirius,” Harry whispered hoarsely. “I blamed you, you know. But it was my fault entirely. I take responsibility. I’m sorry.”

Although Snape didn’t respond verbally, Harry could sense the man’s black eyes probing Harry’s own, and he was too exhausted to care if Snape was attempting to use Legilimency on him. Why that would even be necessary, Harry couldn’t be bothered to work out. Snape must have known all along that Harry had blamed his taunts for ultimately driving Sirius to leave the safety of Grimmauld Place and recklessly rush off to the Ministry, to the Department of Mysteries, to his death. Surely. Right? Whatever. Harry would think things through later on, when he was better able to focus.

With noticeable effort, Dumbledore finally raised his head, effectively blocking Snape from Harry’s view. “I think it’s time to get you to Hogwarts, my boy. Let Madam Pomfrey check you over. She’ll probably want to keep you overnight, at the very least. You’ve had quite a…” –he ran his gnarled hands along the edge of the wooden box— “…scare.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Harry muttered, struggling to sit up in the rude box. But he felt too weak to manage it on his own and fell backwards again. The next thing he knew, strong hands had gripped him firmly and lifted him into a sitting position. Hands too strong for Dumbledore’s. He twisted his head around and found himself looking into Snape’s black eyes once again. “Thank you, sir,” Harry murmured humbly.

Snape barely nodded.

Something else caught Harry’s attention.

“My Patronus!” The silvery stag stood silently, surrounded by its pale, glowing aura. “Did it find you?”

“In the nick of time, Harry. We followed it directly back to you.” Dumbledore regained his feet, his knees creaking perceptibly beneath flowing purple robes. “And you managed to cast it without your wand? Impressive! Well done, my boy!”

With a further bit of assistance from Snape, Harry finally managed to clamber out of his would-be coffin. Hesitantly, he approached Prongs on wobbly legs, reaching out to pat his Patronus on its ephemeral nose. The stag dipped its head once, then slowly faded, leaving the three wizards standing by the open grave amidst the darkened trees.

“How did you get here, Potter?” Snape inquired. “Arabella Figg says she saw you being abducted from your neighborhood?”

Harry nodded, wiping his damp face dry on his sleeves. “Yeah. Draco Malfoy suddenly—appeared—I don’t know if he Apparated or Portkeyed in—jabbed a Portkey into the side of my neck, and Portkeyed us both here. He put me into a brief body-bind that lasted just long enough for him to shove me into—“ he pointed to the box, “—then closed the lid, and buried me.” Harry looked at Dumbledore, and bit his lip momentarily before saying hesitantly, “I hate to say this, Professor, but from the way he was talking, I think Draco has taken the Dark Mark. He—he also said he was doing this to avenge his father’s capture at the Ministry. He said he was coming back with Vol—“

At Snape’s fierce glare, Harry amended quickly, stammering, “Y-You-Know-Who.”

“We should leave, Headmaster,” Snape said immediately, turning in a quick circle, his wand at the ready. “Potter would have died, had we not arrived when we did. Mr. Malfoy obviously underestimated the margin of error for the box’s oxygen capacity, but probably not by much.”

Dumbledore nodded his agreement. “But first…”

He waved his elder wand and the wooden box returned to the grave. A quick flick, and he’d conjured a holly leaf with a bright red berry attached to the stem and, using his wand, lowered it carefully into the coffin. The old wizard then covered the box with the lid, magically sealing the edges. The vanished dirt returned, refilling the grave. For the final touch, at the head of the grave where Harry’s wand had been planted, Dumbledore set a small holly tree neatly into place.

Snape snorted sharply. “Are you quite finished, Headmaster?”

“Quite, Severus.” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled merrily, like the stars through the treetops. “Harry, take my arm.”

Harry firmly grasped the smiling wizard’s thin arm, and seconds later they were standing outside Hogwarts’ main gates.

-:-     -:-     -:-     -:-     -:-

A few minutes more, and Harry was ensconced in his usual bed in the hospital wing, with Madam Pomfrey fussing over him even more than usual. Order members who had congregated in Dumbledore’s office, awaiting his command, slowly filed past Harry’s bed, pressing his hand, patting his knee, or—in Molly Weasley’s case—giving him a long, hard hug. Mrs. Figg was sobbing again, but this time tears of joy soaked her hankie.

Through it all, Snape watched Potter silently, noticing every time that the boy’s eyes darted toward him. As far as the Potions Master was concerned, when all was said and done, the Potter brat had exactly two redeeming qualities—namely, his mother’s eyes. Lily’s eyes.

Lily Evans…Potter.

Fifteen years after her death, thinking about her still hurt him to the core. His anger and regret, his fury and loss, his absolute self-condemnation, and knowing above all that he, Severus Snape, would never have the chance to atone for all his errors of judgment. He could never fall upon his knees before Lily to beg her forgiveness, for Lily was gone, never to return. He would have done anything to make up for inadvertently sending Death to Lily’s doorsill. The old fool of a Headmaster knew it, too, and had used Snape’s grief against him to secure his promise to guard Potter’s brat and keep him safe for Lily’s sake. He’d never forgiven Dumbledore for that particular manipulation. He never would, either.

Since Potter’s first foray into the Great Hall to be Sorted prior to his First Year, every time Snape looked at the boy, the pain of losing Lily had stabbed him anew. Seeing Potter on a daily basis throughout each school year was purgatory incarnate. Every glimpse of the brat brought back memory after memory of everything Severus had lost to the boy’s father. Most especially, Lily herself.

The only exception to the rule occurred when he looked into Potter’s eyes. Because they weren’t Potter’s eyes; they were Lily’s eyes. Lily’s emerald depths, like a bottomless pool calmly reflecting a verdant forest in late summer. The warm green of life itself, captured in twin orbs that emoted her deepest feelings, be they joy, anger, mirth, irritation, or any other of the vast array of human emotions. Potter shared his mother’s amazing eyes. As much as Snape despised the Potter brat himself, he kept finding excuses to stare into those emerald eyes, wishing for just one more moment with Lily. Just one more.

Now, as Potter lay in the hospital bed, the boy’s emerald eyes—his mother’s eyes—flicked toward Snape once again.

That moment…

That horrible moment. That moment when the lid came off the coffin. Those emerald eyes had been closed, hidden by waxy eyelids. In that moment, Snape had never hoped to see them looking at him again. Grief slammed through him as violently as it had the night Dumbledore had informed him of Lily’s death. With Potter’s demise, with the final closing of his verdant eyes, it was as if Snape had lost Lily all over again.

Thankfully, however, Death had been cheated out of this pair of emerald eyes. The lids had slowly lifted, revealing Lily’s eyes opening to gaze upon life once again. Upon Snape.

Those same eyes were gazing at him steadily now.

Aside from Dumbledore and Pomfrey, everyone else had finally exited the hospital wing, and those remaining two were busily conferring in lowered voices near the door to Pomfrey’s office.

“Something on your mind, Potter?” For some reason, Snape couldn’t quite manage his customary sneer, and his throat felt yet too tight for the words to emerge silkily.

Potter kept staring at him.

“I just wondered, sir…” Harry trailed off, not really knowing how to word it all.

Snape raised a silent, dark eyebrow.

“I’m really sorry, sir,” Harry blurted in a rush. “For everything. Not just for wrongfully blaming you for Sirius’ death, but for everything I’ve ever done to you, including being bad at Potions and getting into—into your P-Pensieve. I’m really really really sorry about that, sir. I wasn’t trying to pry into your personal memories—I just thought there might be something that—that would explain everything that nobody else would ever tell me. About everything. About Vol—Him. About everything. And why all those strange things kept happening to me. I’m really sorry. I never should have looked, regardless. No reason justified my—my invading your privacy. I knew that then, but I really understand it now. I am truly sorry, sir.”

The emerald eyes stared into Snape’s, then dropped to examine Harry’s hands folded tightly upon the white sheet.

After a long silence, Snape said quietly, “Thank you for your apology, Potter.” Another silence. “I accept it.”

Harry heaved a sigh. It felt so much easier to sigh when he could breathe freely. There was all the air in the world in the hospital wing. Taking another deep breath, he plunged onward.

“So, sir—could we—do you think we—could—start over? Maybe?”

“What?” Snape said sharply, startled. “Start over…how? And—more to the point—why?”

Harry’s green eyes met the Potion Master’s dark stare.

“I know this will sound weird, sir, but I—I saw my mum. When I was buried, I mean. She wouldn’t let me go with her, even when I KNEW I was dying, but she wanted me to ask you to let us start over.”

Snape glared at him.

Harry gave a tiny shrug. He hadn’t really expected Snape to agree to Lily’s request. However, she had imparted one more message from the beyond. One specifically intended for Severus Snape.

“She also said to tell you that you never got her last letter? That it was still where she’d left it, in the usual place?” Harry watched in astonishment as Snape’s jaw dropped.

“What!” whispered the man hoarsely. “What did you just say?”

Harry shrugged again, more in confusion than anything else.  “I’m just repeating what she said, sir. That the letter is still in the usual place, waiting for you. Whatever that means…”

But Snape had already whirled in a blur of black wool to rush out the Hospital Wing doors.

“Severus?” Dumbledore called after him, but Snape didn’t pause.

To the contrary, he began to run, his black boots pounding the ancient stones, corridor after corridor, staircase after staircase. He stormed up the Owlery steps, breathing loudly enough to startle several Tawny owls into flight. Up to the second level of the Owlery, to the back wall, bending down to find that particular stone—just there—then pushing it firmly with the toe of his right boot…

The stone wall jerked crankily, then grated inwards to reveal a narrow staircase leading up inside the Owlery wall. Casting a whispered Lumos, Snape climbed cautiously, his robes trailing through the thick layer of undisturbed dust on the stone steps. He soon reached the small, secret room he’d discovered as a First Year. His personal refuge, his Marauder-free sanctuary, the only other person he’d ever told about it—shared it with—had been Lily. And there—in the usual place, on the tiny dust-covered table next to two dusty, bent, wooden stools—lay a dust-laden envelope.

He couldn’t breathe.

With a trembling hand, he reached out, barely daring to touch the envelope. He lifted it and gently blew a good two decades’ worth of dust from the upper surface. Carefully, he traced his name written in fading violet ink—Lily’s teenage trademark. Slowly, he opened the envelope and extracted an aged sheet of folded parchment—Lily’s final missive.

“Dear Severus,

“I’ve given what happened at the lake yesterday much thought. Not to mention, your apologies outside of Gryffindor Tower last night. I can’t express how hurt I felt when you called me a Mudblood. I realize that your pride was hurt, but that’s no reason to have attacked me the way you did. I was only trying to help. I know I hurt you back when I refused to accept your apologies last night. I guess I wanted you to feel pain, because you’d hurt me first.

“But I want you to know that I did think things over. I really didn’t sleep all night, I was so upset. But now I want you to know that I do forgive you for what you said. I also accept your apologies—on the condition that you never—and I mean NEVER—call me—or anyone else—a MUDBLOOD ever again. Deal?

“If you accept my condition, meet me on the Astronomy Tower tonight, an hour before curfew. If you don’t come, I’ll know you really are a bigot. But I’m hoping we can still be friends. Your friendship has meant the world to me through the past few years, in spite of your questionable choice of other friends.

“Hoping, Lily”

Snape leaned against the cold stone wall, closing his eyes briefly as he tried to collect himself. His hands were shaking even more, now that he’d read the letter. He’d never gone to the Astronomy Tower. He hadn’t known to go.

He’d never even been back to the Owlery retreat since the lake incident, even though it had been his near-daily haunt since he’d first discovered it. He’d been afraid of encountering Lily, convinced that she’d continued to use the hidden room. In fact, they had both forsaken it—he before she’d written the letter, and she after leaving it for him to find. She must have waited in vain on the Astronomy Tower, then definitively turned her back on him, thinking he was a racist bigot who had spurned her.

All these years…

She’d forgiven him.

Offered him a second chance.

And he’d never known.

Until Potter.

Potter…

Harry was already dozing when he became aware of a dark presence hovering beside his hospital bed. Cautiously, he opened his eyes.

“Sir?”

Snape looking imposingly down upon him, arms crossed firmly over his chest, was an unnerving sight to wake up to. Especially when Harry’s glasses were lying next to his wand on the nightstand.

“If you wish it, Potter, I suppose we could try to … start over.” His black robes jerked slightly in what could have been a minute shrug. His thin lips twisted wryly. “I won’t guarantee a different outcome.”

The emerald eyes looked up at him. “But we can try.”

Snape nodded crisply.

Harry began to smile but caught himself stifling a huge yawn. “Thanks!” Another yawn followed. “Good night, sir.” A pause. Lily’s eyes blinked. “Thanks for everything.”

Silence…

“You’re welcome.”

Meanwhile, back in the forest, Draco Malfoy watched in incredulous horror as Lord Voldemort carefully lifted a shining holly leaf and berry from the rough wooden coffin…