Lily lay quietly in her bed, waiting for Severus to return with news of her little boy, who wasn't that little any longer. She felt her heart contract with bitter remorse that Voldemort had robbed her of the chance to see her only son grow up. Harry had been walking and talking when she had been struck down, he had just started to put words into sentences and to comprehend different colors and shapes. He had been bright and inquisitive and so very curious. She had adored him, and he had quickly become her whole world. It was agony to know that she had missed all the milestones other parents took for granted with their children. She had missed his first day of school, the first time he had written his name, or learned the alphabet, or how to add. She hadn't been there to explain to him about his special gift, the gift he needed to learn how to control so he wouldn't be a danger to himself and anyone else.

Instead Petunia had gotten to see her son grow and Lily couldn't help but feel resentful and angry, for she knew that her sister would never have appreciated Harry the way she would have. Petunia hadn't even been able to stand the thought of another wizard in the family, she had refused to acknowledge her nephew at all, which had hurt and angered Lily deeply. She had sent Petunia a gift for Dudley and a card when he was born, despite the fact that Petunia and she had been on the outs for years and she despised Vernon Dursley, who had once made a pass at her when she was eighteen and he had been newly engaged to her sister. She had told Petunia, trying to warn her sister about the kind of man he was, but Petunia had blown up at her, accused her of being a tease, of using magic to ensnare Vernon out of jealousy, and said she never wanted to see her again. Lily had been all too happy to oblige. Let her sister marry the groping cheating fat bastard, she would discover soon enough that he wasn't Mr. Wonderful and that not all the money in the world could buy class and happiness.

Sighing, she gazed down at her feet and legs, which felt strange and unwieldy to her after so long of being asleep. She wondered if she could walk, if she would need therapy, her limbs seemed to belong to someone else and she felt awkward even lifting her hand and brushing her hair back from her forehead. My hair must look a sight! Poor Sev, having to see me looking like something the cat dragged in day after day. She made a vain attempt to fix it, then gave up and prayed that if Harry saw her, he wasn't scared to death of the hag lying on the bed calling herself his mother. Then she wondered how much Harry remembered of her? Would he even recall what she looked like? Or had the years stolen away the memories of her and James as well? He had been so young when they were taken from him. She silently cursed Voldemort and Sirius Black in her head for causing this terrible tragedy. She even blamed James a little, for his stubborn refusal to listen to her and send them, or at least Harry, out of the country when Voldemort began terrorizing everyone and searching for extraordinarily gifted children to use as his pawns in his quest for power. True, it would have broken her heart to do it, but she would have sent Harry to stay with some of her Evans'cousins in Northern France rather than risk his life. But James wouldn't hear of it. He had insisted they should not be separated and that he could protect them just fine. They had quarreled repeatedly over that, and Harry's talent, almost right up till the night Voldemort came to the cottage.

Lily shook her head. She had known when Voldemort came up the stairs to the nursery that James was dead, for otherwise the dread sorcerer would have never been able to enter her home and threaten them. She had known that James would have gone down fighting, like the heroes he had worshipped. So Severus' declaration that he was dead was not the shock it could have been. She had been prepared to die herself to save her son, and it was a greater shock to have woken up ten years later, still very much in the world she thought she had left forever. Yet she recalled conversations that Severus had had with her sleeping self, recalled him telling her that James was dead, and about a memorial they had erected in Godric's Hollow to honor him. A part of her had grieved her husband's death and then moved on, a fact she only now realized. She had long ago laid James to rest, along with her parents and the others who had died in the war. She had Severus to thank for that, for keeping her abreast of things, even while she had floated somewhere in a place beyond time and space. Good old faithful Sev! Anyone else would have left her to rot and treated her like a piece of meat on a slab. He was a true friend. He had never mentioned Harry, though, and now she knew why. Because he hadn't known what had become of her son, living as he did with her sister in the Muggle world. She didn't want to remember anything else right then. What mattered was now, and that Harry was alive and she could at last be reunited with the son she had lost.

Meanwhile, down the hall, a confused green-eyed boy was just waking up, blinking owlishly at the eggshell and silver painted walls and the strange room he found himself in. He groped for his glasses and put them on and the room came into focus better, as did a tall man wearing what looked like a light green bathrobe with an odd crossed bone and stick insignia on it. Harry wondered if he was still dreaming, if he was it was the weirdest most vivid dream he could ever recall.

The man had just entered the room, Harry noted that he had black hair pulled back at his nape, and dark penetrating eyes. His face was all angles and his nose slightly prominent, he might have been forbidding if he had been scowling, but right then Severus was wearing a concerned expression, and so Harry was not afraid of this strange man.

"Hello, Harry. How are you feeling?"

Harry paused to consider. "Okay, I guess. I mean I feel a little sore and my head aches a little. How do you know my name?"

"I know who you are because I know who lived at Privet Drive, and you match the description of Harry Potter, which everyone in my world knows." Severus began.

"What do you mean, everyone knows me?" Harry asked, puzzled.

Severus came and sat down in the chair near Harry's bed. "You're famous. Because you survived a curse that no one else ever did and in so doing you defeated the worst dark wizard in the world. Did your aunt ever tell you anything about magic? Or wizards?"

Harry shook his head, even more confused. "No. She always said magic wasn't real and that I needed to stop doing freaky things."

Severus' eyebrow rose. "Freaky things? Explain, please."

"Umm . . .sometimes weird things happened around me." Harry bit his lip. "Like . . .Aunt Petunia cut my hair almost to nothing and the next morning it was all grown back longer. And once I turned Dudley's hair blue and once when I was watering the garden the hose broke and I needed to water the new plants and I . . . I made it rain, just on the garden. And sometimes I could make things fly through the air, but Uncle Vernon said if I ever did that again he'd skin me alive. So I tried real hard not to. I . . . I don't want to be a freak."

Severus' eyes flashed. "Harry, listen to me. You are not a freak. What you did is called accidental magic and it means you are a wizard. You have inherited a very special gift, one that few other children have, and you are no more a freak than I am. You see, Harry, I too am a wizard. My name is Severus Snape, and I am a Mind Healer. You are in St. Mungos Hospital for Magical Maladies."

"I am? But why?"

"Do you remember anything before waking up here?" asked the Healer, concerned Harry had amnesia.

Harry's brow furrowed. "Umm . . .yeah. I was in my cupboard and . . .I heard a big noise. I didn't know what it was, I couldn't see, and the door was locked. Then . . .I guess I passed out."

"Why were you in a cupboard?" Severus asked, frowning. "Did you go there because of the storm?"

"Storm? No, I . . ." here Harry hesitated, because he was never to talk about the cupboard to strangers.

"What is it? You can tell me," Severus said, making his voice very soft and encouraging , the way he did on some of his patients who were very frightened of revealing something traumatic in their past.

Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't."

"Why not? Did your aunt or uncle tell you not to? Did they threaten to punish you?"

Harry swallowed hard. He wanted to trust this man, something within him was urging him to, but he had been conditioned to never speak of what the Dursleys did to him. So all he did was nod.

Severus' jaw went rigid. From just the little Harry had spoken, he could tell that things had not been right in the Dursley household. Harry was displaying all the reticence and nervousness of an abused child, and that made Severus furious. He's going to need therapy sessions. I'll have to speak to Lily about them. But first things first. "Harry, I want you to know that you're safe here. No one will hurt you. I know you must be confused and nervous and maybe a little afraid."

"Yessir." He admitted, but then he lifted his small pointed chin and said somewhat defiantly, "But only a little."

"That's all right then." Severus paused, wondering the best way to break the news to the boy of both the deaths of his relatives and his mother's awakening. Finally, he decided to just tell the simple truth. "Harry—"

"Sir, can I ask you something?"

"Yes, you may."

"If . . . if magic is real and you're a wizard, and you're not just putting me on, what can you do with it?"

"Many things, Harry. We have a school for wizards and witches where you go to learn how to control your powers. It's called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You would have gotten your Hogwarts letter soon, since you're almost eleven."

"Really?" Harry looked astonished. "They would have wanted me to come there?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Oh. How do they send the letters, sir?"

"They are sent by owl post."

"Oh. Well, I did get a letter. A lot of them, actually. But Uncle Vernon wouldn't let me open them. He said it was my fault we were being invaded by crazy wildlife and he burnt them all and boarded up the mail slot and then he . . ." Here Harry stopped. Severus waited patiently for him to speak again. But when he resumed the thread of conversation, he said only, "So they were from a magical school."

"Yes. The same school that your mother, father, and I went to."

"But my aunt and uncle would have never let me go. They would have said it was too expensive."

"Your tuition to the school would have been paid in full before you got your letter. Your father was a wealthy man, and had set aside a trust fund for you." Severus said.

"He was? But . . . Aunt Petunia always said he was a drunken bum and that's why he died in the car crash."

"Car crash?" repeated the Healer, incensed at the web of lies the boy had been told about his past.

"Yeah, the car crashed 'cause he was driving drunk and that's why I got this scar here," he indicated his scar on his forehead. "And my mum . . . that's why she's a . . .vegetable." He looked down at his feet as he said it, ashamed to have to use that term to refer to his mother.

"A vegetable?"

"She's been in a coma for years, see, and Aunt Petunia told me she was never gonna come out of it, and somebody should just pull the plug, because she was a waste of breath, just lying there taking up space." Harry said matter-of-factly. "I used to ask to see her sometimes when I was small, but Aunt Petunia said it was a waste of time and she wasn't going to let me laze around looking at a brain-dead woman."

"Oh, she did, did she?" Now Severus wished Petunia were alive so he could rip out her lying wicked tongue. That she could speak so to the boy about his mother was simply atrocious. And unforgivable. "Harry, I'm going to tell you two things, one might upset you, and for that I'm sorry, but the other will make you so happy you'll forget about being sad."

"What is it?"

"The first is this. There was a massive hurricane on the night you were locked in the cupboard, and it crushed your house and killed all of your relatives. You were the only survivor, because you were inside that cupboard. Some rescue workers and their dogs found you, and took you to a local hospital, but they couldn't have given you the care you needed, so you were removed by some wizards and brought to St. Mungos. I'd offer my condolences on your loss but from what you've told me, I'd do better to wish your aunt and uncle straight down to hell. Nearly everything they've told you about your past, Harry, is a lie. Your parents never were in a car crash, and your father was not a drunk. He was a wealthy aristocratic pureblood and he died fighting a dark wizard who had come to steal you away. Your mother was injured as well trying to protect you, but she is most certainly not a vegetable. She has been under my care for these ten years and her brain functions are quite normal."

"Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and Dudley are dead?"

"Yes. I'm afraid so."

"But then . . .where will I go?"

"Have no fear, Harry. You aren't an orphan and here is the next part of what I wanted to tell you. Your mother, Lily Evans Potter, is awake and she wants very much to see you."

Harry grinned. "For real? Mum's awake?"

"Yes." Severus smiled tentatively back. "It's like a miracle."

Harry certainly thought so. He had always dreamed of someday going to see his mum and have her wake while he was there. He had kept hoping for that even when Petunia had insisted he was an idiot and Lily might as well be dead. He had dreamed of his mother awakening and then taking him away from Privet Drive to live in London, or York, or Devon, anywhere except Surrey, and she would love him and never call him a freak or tell him he was a worthless pig. He didn't quite know how to feel about learning that the Dursleys were dead. He knew they had despised him and hated him, and he had never really liked them. But he had tried to please them, because they were the only relatives he had and if they kicked him out, he would have nowhere to go. So a part of him felt almost regretful that they were gone and he would never get the chance to show Petunia that she had been mistaken and he really wasn't a freak after all. He didn't really feel sad, not after what they'd done to him, but rather ambivalent. Truth be told, he felt sorrier for Dudley than his aunt and uncle, because now Dudders would never have a chance to grow up. But then he grinned as he realized that not only would he never have to go back to Privet Drive and live in the cupboard, he could go to live with his mother. His mother, a creature of mystery and curiosity and longing. His mother, who was awake at last.

"Mr. Snape? Could I . . . go and see her?"

"Of course, Harry. Come with me."

Severus waited until Harry had stood up and then led him from the room. He could hardly wait to see Lily's expression when she saw her son again.

Lily lifted her eyes as the door opened and Severus entered. For a moment she thought he was alone, and that her son was still asleep. She stifled her disappointment. But then Severus stood aside and in came a boy of medium height and build, dressed in a blue wraparound hospital gown that came down to his knees, a white robe, and white fluffy socks. He glanced up at her shyly, and their eyes met.

For long moments, neither stirred or spoke.

Lily drank in the sight of him, her baby, now grown and ready to attend Hogwarts. She recalled his chubby infant self, just walking and talking, his green eyes bright with endless curiosity and a thirst to learn, his fine dark hair sticking up like thistledown. My baby, my dearest little one. She recalled how she had held him before putting him down for his nap that night, how he had smelled like melon and baby powder, how she had tickled him and he had giggled, how soft his skin was as she kissed him good night.

Now she looked upon him again, noting that he had inherited James' eternal messy hair and also his poor vision, as he was wearing glasses. But such ugly ones! She frowned, wondering why he wasn't wearing ones that fit his face better. James had always worn ones that were almost wireless. She would have to get him a better pair. She almost laughed at her own foolishness. Here she was, seeing her son for the first time in ten years, and all she could think about was getting him a new pair of glasses. Where is my brain? She chided herself. I've been asleep for too long and I'm all muddled. But oh, I cannot believe here he is, grown so big, the little boy I held and rocked to sleep in my arms. Whom I would have died to protect.

Tears filled her eyes, but she did not let them fall.

Harry remained staring at her from across the room. In all of his imaginings, he had never thought that his mother was so beautiful. Her hair haloed her like a fiery nimbus, and her eyes were the same as his own, only larger and somehow more luminous. He had imagined her looking similar to Petunia, except prettier, but Lily looked nothing like her horse-faced sister. She looked delicate, with her pale skin and pointed chin. I have her chin too, he realized with a start. Her chin and her eyes. She too was wearing one of those silly wraparound hospital gowns, only on her it looked classy, as if she were posing for a picture. Model beautiful, he thought in awe. And not a vegetable at all like Petunia had said, for she was sitting up and gazing at him as if he was something wondrous, something precious, the way no one had ever looked at him before.

He took two cautious steps forward, uncertain of what he should do.

"Mum?"

That single word broke the spell of silence that had settled over them.

"Harry," Lily cried. "My little one. Come here, let me see you," she beckoned to him.

He came to stand before her then, all awkward coltish grace.

She reached out and clasped his hands. "Oh, Harry. When I saw you last you were no bigger than this," she held her hand down by her knee. "And now look at you! How you've grown! You look very like your father when he was this age." She murmured, overcome. But she noticed that he did not have James' easy charm, he seemed shy and uncertain, rather reminding her of a young Severus. "I never . . ." she did not finish that sentence, for the words that would have completed it would have spoiled this joyous moment, for she had never expected to look upon him again in this world. That she could do so now was an unlooked for blessing. One that she cherished all the more for being so unexpected. Her eyes overflowed with tears.

Harry blinked, for he found he was perilously close to tears himself. "Mum, don't. It's okay."

"Yes, it is," Lily wept, smiling. "It's going to be okay now that we're together again." Then she reached out and drew her son into her arms, holding him close and rocking him, as she had done on that long ago Halloween, before the monster had come and their world had shattered. "Harry, Harry." She chanted over and over. Her tears fell on his head, and one trickled down over the lightning bolt that marked him. "My sweet little one!" she crooned, her words flowing over him, filling him with warmth and light. "I love you so much! So very much!" All she wanted right then was to hold him forever.

Harry clasped her rather awkwardly, since he was standing and she was sitting, and he had not really ever been hugged this way before. But somehow he managed to half-sit on her lap, not caring that he was too big for such displays and he was making an ass out of himself in front of Healer Snape. He had a mother at last, and she was real and warm and she called him Harry and said she loved him. It was something he had waited all of his life to hear, and had feared he never would. He had feared he would be the outcast unwanted burden forever. But Lily's soft and yet strong arms about him put paid to that fate forever. He laid his head on her shoulder, breathed in the rich scent of her—like rose petals and honey—it was a scent that took him back to a vague recollection of his infancy, and he recalled nestling in her arms while she rocked and sang to him, and his little hand reached out to tug at the strands of her shining hair . . .she had been warmth and comfort and light to him and he remembered feeling utterly content and safe in her embrace . . . just as he did now. Then he heard her singing, very softly, the old lullaby she had sung to him in the cradle, that he recalled only just then. Softly, he began to sing the words back, words that he didn't remember knowing, yet that were somehow engraved upon his heart. Words that had always meant peace and love and mother.

"I love you too," he whispered in her ear, he was so full of joy that he almost forgot how to talk properly. His heart was dancing in his chest and he wanted to shout, Look, here's my mum! See, I have a mother just like everyone else. Finally he had someone who loved him, who would care for him, and he would never be the freaky brat ever again. Tears trickled down his cheeks, but he didn't bother to wipe them away, for he was too happy to care if anyone saw him cry.

Severus stood quietly in a corner of the room, observing the reunion between mother and son. He was wearing a half-smile upon his face. For so long he had felt as if a storm cloud had hovered over him and Lily, a cloud of doom and gloom that threatened to burst if he breathed wrong. But now that cloud had been chased away by the sun, emerging from hiding after so many years to light up the sky with its brilliance. Watching Lily embrace Harry was like witnessing a resurrection, of both body and soul, and he thought of how perfect they were together and how this was how it should have been all those years ago.

Finally, Lily let Harry go, though he didn't go far, he simply sat down on the bed next to her. He smiled at her and said, "Mum, I can't believe you're awake. Aunt Petunia said . . . she said . . ." he trailed off and blushed furiously, not wanting to upset his mother by relating his aunt's unkind sentiments.

But Lily looked at him wryly and said, "I can imagine what she said. That I was going to sleep forever, like a bloody enchanted princess. Or that I was brain dead and would never wake, am I right?"

Harry nodded. "I used to ask to visit sometimes, but she would never bring me here. Told me there was no sense in it and to quit asking before she got mad. But I would have liked to come."

"Oh, Harry. You don't have to feel guilty that my sister refused to bring you here. In a way, she did me a favor, because I wouldn't have wanted you to see me sleeping like a lump on a log. Tuney was never really close with me after I went off to school, I think she resented me for having magic and the fact that my parents didn't disapprove of it, the way she thought they should. She never understood the way the magic worked, nor did she wish to. To her, I was abnormal. She said it often enough when I came home for the summer, and other things as well. After she married, she cut all ties to me and mine, saying she couldn't be associated with my sort, as if magic were a disease that could infect her. I'm sorry you had to live with her and her bigotry. I can only assume that her husband was just as bad? And what about your cousin?"

Harry drew in a deep breath. Should he tell her everything? "It's a long story, Mum."

"I hve nothing but time to listen, Harry. I missed ten years of you growing up. I want you to tell me everything. Don't leave anything out, even if you think it will upset me." She told him firmly, her eyes still wet with tears. She looked at him with her brilliant emerald eyes, earnest and eager to hear about his life, and Harry found he could not deny her. If he could not tell his mother the truth, then who could he tell?

Softly, he began to speak, and his words held Lily spellbound, and Severus as well.