Nobody in the Weasleys' sitting room had the heart to tell me to stop pacing back and forth like a caged animal. Everybody was fidgety due to lack of sleep. Last night had been brutal, and Harry and I had lain wide awake, tossing and turning in Fred and George's room, which we were going to share for a few days. I did have the opportunity to sleep in Percy's old room, but Harry seemed to fear I too would disappear. I thought that he suspected there was one little detail I was not mentioning, and I could not blame him for watching me closely. It was nights like this that I wished the Dark Lord had not cut off the connection of my Dark Mark from his own, for I knew not what he was feeling. Sometimes when he was experiencing an intense emotion, the mark used to tingle slightly so that I knew something was amiss. But it was safer this way. The mark, when it burned black, enabled the branded person to locate the meeting spot, and so it was dangerous for my or any other traitor's mark to remain magically connected. So faded it remained.

"Any news?" I asked immediately when Dumbledore finally returned, ready to give us the report for the day.

"None," he sighed, and my heart fell further into despair. "We have a great number of Order members stationed around Malfoy Manor, and while we are sure they are in there, we have been unable to penetrate their defences."

Molly and Arthur looked grim. There was a large bang as the precarious exploding snap card castle Harry, Ginny and Ron had been working on blew up in Harry's face.

"Oops, sorry," Harry said glumly to the other two as he put his shaking hand down.

"Whatever mate, we'll build a better one," Ron said sportingly.

"On second thought, I think I'd rather go to bed," Harry replied, even though it was only quarter to ten.

Everyone said goodnight, and I tried to communicate with my eyes that everything would be okay. I wasn't sure if he understood, for he continued on his way up the stairs, slowly and methodically conquering each step as though it were a mountain. Well, if he did get my message, he did not acknowledge it.

Later that night when I crept into the room to go to bed myself, the rest of the house quiet, I found Harry lying on his back, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling.

I did not say anything, for I knew that if he wished to speak, he would. Say something he did, and only once I was lying on my side and examining the moonbeams upon the floor did Harry say in a hushed voice, "I didn't even tell him how great of a brother he is. I never said it in front of him."

I did not say anything in reply, for I knew that it was a feeble statement for me to say that Harry could tell Draco that when he got back. Harry hadn't been expecting a reply, that much was obvious. So I closed my eyes.

I tried to escape from the world, just for a few hours. But peace cannot exist in a soul so filled with worry and fear. That night I had a horrible nightmare, where I arrived seconds too late, only to find Draco lying on the floor at Bellatrix's feet. James Potter had been laughing in the distance, and calling out to me that I deserved it, but then he had turned into Harry, who rushed over to me. I reached out for him, only to find it was nothing but the reflection of Harry in a mirror, and as my hand hit the surface he shattered into a thousand pieces before my eyes. Then I had tried to run to Draco's prone form, but before I could take two steps I was met by Bellatrix's knife as it soared into my chest. So I awoke, wide eyed, coughing, and wheezing in a cold sweat. I had experienced a very real flash of pain, and it felt as though my chest muscles had constricted as they would around a knife. I nearly fell out of bed upon my awakening, as my hands searched for something to steady myself. But I remembered where I was. While I stopped moving quickly, it took me a while to quit coughing. It seemed as though it would never end, and with each spot of blood added to the already stained handkerchief I imagined every way possible that they could be hurting Draco, even though I tried not to think about it. Eventually the coughing stopped, though I could not relax. I swung my feet out of the bed. Ignoring the sudden onset of vertigo, I caught a glimpse of Harry watching me, heavy bags under his eyes. He shut them quickly, and pretended to sleep. It was four-thirty in the morning, and while I was bitterly tired, it was not of the body, but of the heart. So I pulled my clothes toward me and got dressed. Sleep is always the last thing on a mind so full. 

"I am only going downstairs to the kitchen," I called softly to him before leaving the room to go make a cup of tea with plenty of honey to soothe my raw throat. I thought I heard a soft sigh of relief before I closed the door.

The stairs creaked as I slowly went down them, hand gripping the haphazardly attached railing. I passed a few bedrooms, and all of them had the doors closed. I noted with amusement the Holyhead Harpies poster attached to Ginny Weasley's door, along with a home-made plaque bearing her name and painted in the team's colours. Harry had mentioned she was a big fan of the Harpies, and on more than one occasion I wondered if it was she that he was sweet on. I had no doubt that a girl as enthusiastic and skilled at Quidditch as Ginny would be found attractive in Harry's eyes.

I found the kitchen to be empty, and that was what I had hoped for when I was venturing down the stairs. I craved to be alone, for I needed to think. Once it was ready I sipped my tea slowly, wondering how and why my life managed to get more and more complicated as the minutes slid away and the hourglass slowly emptied. I felt as though I had been given a deadline for a project, and I had to have it all in order and ready to be turned in on a due date I had not be told of. How can one have anything prepared for a deadline they do not know? When would my deadline be? When would my stubborn heart finally cease to beat? Would I even get a chance to tell everyone what I needed to tell them? With Draco in the clutches of the Dark Lord and the Order falling short of rescuing him, that deadline was getting closer. I think I knew even then, when I saw those words burnt into the wall; at that moment, deep down, I knew it was inevitable, that it was the only outcome. It was only just a matter of time before I would have to hand myself over. I would humour the Order until tonight, but after the meeting at Grimmauld Place, I kept no promises but the one I made with myself to save either of my sons, no matter the cost. It was something everyone else needed to understand, but I knew that precious little time was to be wasted, and so Harry was the one that I would spend time explaining myself to. I owed him this. He needed to know I wasn't abandoning him, that I had no other choice and that this was the better option, for my days were numbered. He needed to see I would do the very same for him.

***

My mind was made up for me shortly after I walked into the meeting, the sun long fallen outside in the street.  The downcast expressions said it all. Everything passed in a haze, like the nightmare from last night, only I was not waking up from this one. Nobody could meet my eyes, except Black, who for once looked at me in a way that showed he shared my pain. But this was no comfort to me; nothing was. My resilient heart was hammering too hard beneath my rib cage for me to care. I barely listened to Dumbledore announcing who was on guard duty tonight and which Aurors were to be working on breaking the wards. Arthur was the first to leave to take his position. Shortly after, Black shot me one last look as he went to see Lupin off, who was headed to take his post as well, far from the edges of the burned Manor that had once been the home of the boy now imprisoned there. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody filed out of the room. Even the best were not enough, and this I knew, for the Dark Lord's enchantments I had seen firsthand, and even with my information they had still not succeeded. How had it come to this? How had life passed me by so quickly? I felt that in a sense I had barely begun to live.

It was with a pained determination that I returned to the silent Burrow. I walked through the doorway, and crept up the stairs, noting that all the bedrooms were silent once more. It was quarter to twelve. All the doors were closed and nobody could be heard moving about. I was glad to return on my own. I was glad that Arthur was on duty, and that Molly had stayed behind to make sure the kids were alright. I did not wish to speak with them right now. I felt muddled, and as I entered the room that Harry and I were staying in I wondered what he would do without me. As I pondered this I gazed upon him. Harry was asleep, and it seemed as though I had seen more of him this way than awake as of late. I watched his chest rise and fall as his breath softly flowed from within him. Slowly, ever so slowly I crept closer, until I was kneeling at his bedside. I noted with a slight twist of my heart he had his cheek resting up against the ratty old dinosaur Lily had sewn for him when he was a baby. Rexy, he called him, and he still couldn't sleep without him despite the fact that he was sixteen and thought he was practically a grown-up. It was all he had left of his mother, after all. And Harry was all I had left of my beloved Lily. It was at that moment that I wondered if I should just stay - if I should just hope the Order did their job. But then I thought of Draco, and how he should be here too, and my mind was decided. I let out a soft sigh, and I gently put my hand on Harry's shoulder to wake him. He opened his eyes, which were glassy with fatigue.

"Did they bring him back?" Harry whispered to me, more asleep than awake.

"No," I forced myself to say. "I need to go after him. I'm his only chance. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded, sitting up as his eyes filled with tears, even though he looked to be trying so hard to keep it together.

"I would do the same for you," I said to him, feeling far away. "I'm not abandoning you. I will be gone soon anyway if I do not go, and the guilt will only make my health go faster. This is the best option. He has more time left than I. Even if I do not go you will be alone eventually."

"I know D-Dad. But I wish you didn't have to." We sat like that for a moment. Harry took in a shuddering breath, and unable to stop himself anymore he fell into my arms, shaking. I held him close to me, and it felt like an eternity as he gripped me tightly. I didn't know who was holding on the hardest; I wasn't sure who wished the most that we would never have to let go of each other.

"I'm sorry son," I said into his ear. "You know I must."

"This is the last time I'll see you, isn't it?" he choked..

There was no point in lying. There was no point in pretending. "Yes," I whispered to him shakily, for in my heart I knew it to be true. "I'll be with you even when I am gone," I said with as much strength as I could muster amidst all the uncertainty.

"Promise you will be?"

"I promise. I'll be there, always."

I hated to make him let go of me, but I knew that if I stayed any longer I would never be able to stop holding him there. If I didn't let go ... if I didn't pull away, Draco would die under the wretched gaze of the Dark Lord. I broke the embrace, but I held Harry's tear-stained face in my hands, and like so many times before it struck me how much he still looked like a boy.

"B-Bye Dad ... I love you," choked Harry, barely able to speak.

I pulled from my robe pocket a phial of dreamless sleep potion, and I pulled Harry tightly into my arms once more, just for a moment, just one last time.

"I love you too," I said, for once my voice not gruff, for there was no sense in acting as though I did not. It would be foolish to act tough in a moment like this, and I knew I would positively hate myself if I did not say it to him now. "Someday I will see you on the other side." And then I made him drink the potion, and he fell limp into my arms and I laid him down on the bed and covered him up, pulling an envelope from my pocket addressed to him, for him to open and read all the words I could not say, so that he could have something to hold onto from me. I had Draco's in my pocket. Then I left the room before I could run back to him, and I made myself walk down that flight of stairs that felt longer than any staircase had in all of my life. There was one last thing to do, and I walked into the kitchen and to the table. To my surprise I saw Molly standing there, crying.

"I won't stop you," she said, eyes red and full of unspoken things that told me she would do the same for her children if it came down to it. She looked to me for confirmation of what I was going to do.

I couldn't say anything, but spoken words would not have been enough. So I pulled a thick envelope from my pocket, upon it an elegant script. I set it on the table with shaking hands, and wearing a look on my face that I knew was breaking her heart I left the room, trying to clear my mind as I went. Behind me, as I walked out into the snow, I could hear her sobbing as she stared at the ink upon the envelope, coldly spelling out The Last Will and Testament of Severus Tobias Snape.