"Severus," Dumbledore's voice, even in death, is sonorous and filled with sympathy, and impossible for Severus to ignore.

"Albus?" Severus is done with using honorifics. If death isn't an equalizer, then nothing is. He rolls his eyes when Dumbledore shifts his white robes and turns toward where Severus is sitting, where he's been sitting since he passed from one life to the next.

"I fear that -"

Severus holds a hand up, stilling Dumbledore's tongue before he can finish whatever it is that he's about to say. Any sentence that starts out like that is bound to make Severus grumpy. He doesn't want to be grumpy in the afterlife, not when he can enjoy a semblance of peace, surrounded as he is by daisies and white, fluffy clouds.

"No, Albus," Severus says. "Whatever it is that you fear, count me out of it."

"But," Dumbledore frowns, and pulls at his chin where his beard used to be, obviously trying to figure out a new tactic for how to approach him with whatever task he'd like Severus to fulfill. "You haven't even heard what I was going to say."

"I don't need to," Severus says, resisting the urge to add the words, old man.

Here, in the afterlife, Dumbledore no longer resembles an old man. He looks younger than Severus ever remembers him looking. Dumbledore looks like a teenager. It's disconcerting.

Dumbledore sits beside Severus and sighs. It's one of those bone weary types of sighs, and, in spite of himself, Severus turns to look at his former mentor, raises an eyebrow in question.

"It's just," Dumbledore sighs again, bites his lip, belying the man's true age, no matter what he looks like now.

"What is it?" Severus asks, losing what little patient he'd managed to procure. He still resembled himself, the him he'd been just prior to his death - greasy hair, oily skin and all.

"Well, I'm worried about Harry," Dumbledore confesses. He's not looking at Severus, but rather at his hands. They're hands that belong to someone too young to have such a heavy heart.

Severus is glad that he hasn't been de-aged in death. It would, in his opinion, be an insult. The scars that he's carried into death - he's earned them, he doesn't want them wiped away, as though his struggles in life were all for naught.

"He's alive, your plan worked," Severus says, rather sourly. "Let the living take care of their own. The dead have enough on their plate with learning how to achieve peace in the afterlife."

He's right. Dumbledore knows this. And yet the old man, turned young, sighs, and this pulls at Severus. Even in death, Dumbledore knows how to get to him. Knows which buttons to push. They are, after all, the same buttons he had when he'd been counted among the living.

"For Lily's sake," Dumbledore says. His voice is heavy, weighted down with decades of remorse. "For your own sake, Severus. Please go to the boy, check up on him. I fear that his life has gotten out of control."

Severus knows better than to ask why Dumbledore can't go to Potter himself. The wizard's tied to the afterlife in a way that Severus is not. The only way that Dumbledore can peek in on those who are living, is through his portraits at Hogwarts.

Now it's Severus' turn to sigh. He can do as Dumbledore's asked. There is nothing keeping him tied to this plane of existence. No portrait that he can use to spy on those who are still living, but rather the use of a non-corporeal body. He can visit Potter, anyone, in their dreams, or in that brief moment after waking, when they are still stuck between the world of sleep and that of wakefulness.

It's something that Severus has not chosen to do, though he'd toyed, briefly, with the idea of appearing in Lucius Malfoy's dreams. Of delivering the pompous ass - who'd been nothing but a coward - a truly haunting visitation.

"What makes you think that Potter's life is out of control?" Severus asks. "Surely the boy is basking in his glory. After all, he defeated the Dark Lord. I am sure that he's reaping the benefits of that. He..."

"Severus," Dumbledore cuts him off with another long-suffering sigh, laying a hand on Severus' arm. "Harry has never enjoyed being in the limelight. He's...I'm afraid that he's not coping well with all of the deaths his victory has wrought."

And that's why Severus chooses to stare straight ahead rather than mill around in the afterlife. He doesn't want to see those who'd died in the war, some of whom he feels responsible for killing - Lily, Potter, Dumbledore...

"And you know this, how?" Severus asks.

The back of Dumbledore's hand is smooth, no longer black and gnarled, no longer diseased. Severus looks at that, doesn't trust himself to look at the man's face, knowing that, if he does, he won't be able to refuse him what he's requesting.

Dumbledore takes a deep breath, lets it out, and the man's hand reminds Severus of when he was younger, before he'd met the Dark Lord. Before he'd lost his soul.

"Your soul, my dear boy," Dumbledore's voice is deep, heavy, causes Snape to look up, "is not lost. Far from it, Severus. Just like Harry's is not lost. Minerva shared some of her misgivings about Harry with me. With my portrait."

Dumbledore's eyes are bluer than Severus remembers them being in life. They are sharper, too. Can see - if Severus is not mistaken - into the very heart of him. Maybe they've always been that way.

Even in death Dumbledore's eyes seem to twinkle, not with humor or mystery, but rather with wisdom and understanding. They look jeweled in the bright light of the afterlife.

Severus looks away, finding solace in the no longer gnarled hand of the man he'd served as penance for being the cause of Lily and Potter's deaths. The hand is an anchor, a reminder that not all has been lost, even in death.

"What is it that you'd like me to do?" Severus asks, his throat feeling tight.

"Visit him," Dumbledore says; his voice almost wistful. "Let him know that the sacrifices that were made were not in vain. That, he should start living his life. That he should stop clinging to the past, and start living in the present."

"Life being a gift, and all that," Severus says, rolling his eyes, and waving his hand in the air.

"Will you do it?" Dumbledore asks; voice serious and subdued.

Severus knows that if he were to look at Dumbledore now, the man's twinkling eyes would sear him. Make him realize that he still owes Dumbledore his very life, even in death.

Instead, Severus focuses on the back of Dumbledore's hand, and he wonders if Dumbledore chose to be this age - fourteen, maybe fifteen - in the afterlife, or if it was simply granted him by the wizards and witches who control this realm. The founding fathers of Hogwarts are also those who reign in death. In a way, it makes sense.

Severus nods. He can't trust his voice right now. There'll be too much venom in it. Venom that Dumbledore doesn't deserve. He owes Lily, Potter, and Dumbledore. He owes the founding fathers. He owes everyone who died in the war.

"You do not owe us, Severus," Dumbledore says. "It is we who owe you."

Severus shakes his head. His mouth twists in denial, and his hands clench into fists. No one owes him anything, least of all a chance to redeem himself. He'd half expected that he'd be thrown into the realm that the Dark Lord was now occupying. An afterlife of darkness so deep that it blinded you. An afterlife filled with endless despair and pain. An afterlife that better fit the life Severus had lived than this one - filled with fields of daisies and endless blue skies, with happiness should he just reach out and accept it.

Severus' heart grows still, and a momentary peace steals over him. He knows that it's Dumbledore's doing, that the wizard is now one of the caretakers of this realm.

"Was it really my choice to make?" Severus asks. "Going to Potter?"

Dumbledore nods, squeezes Severus' arm. "Everything is a choice."

Severus snorts, stares directly at the sun. It's always shining. There is no night, and Severus misses it. Misses the moon. Misses the rain. Misses the life that he'd never really gotten to live. The life that he should've been able to live after the war. The life that, even if he had gotten to live it, would never have satisfied him, because it would have been a life lived without Lily.

"You will do this for me?" Dumbledore asks, though Severus is certain that the wizard had already known what answer Severus would give him before he'd even sought him out. Dumbledore had always been like that - death would not make it any different.

"Yes, old man," Severus says, sarcasm dripping from his lips. "I'll go check up on Potter for you. Tell him that there's more to life than death. Get him back on the straight and narrow path of life so that he doesn't waste it as I did." There's bitterness in his words, and Severus does nothing to temper it.

"Thank you, Severus," Dumbledore says. He pats him on the arm. "I knew that I could count on you."

"Why not send the boy's mother or father?" Severus asks after a moment's hesitation, the thought suddenly occurring to him.

Dumbledore frowns, makes him look much older than he should in his current incarnation. By the twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes, Severus knows he's not going to like what the wizard is going to say. He steels himself, takes a deep breath and waits for Dumbledore's answer.

"They, my boy, are at peace. They've done what they could for their son," Dumbledore says. "They, unfortunately, are not at liberty to revisit him."

There's sorrow reflected in Dumbledore's eyes, and Severus bites back the retort that he'd had ready on his lips before Dumbledore had even begun speaking. It seems petty now. Not that Severus is opposed to being petty. He hasn't got much else going for him in the afterlife; only what he's held onto - from his former life - with great tenacity: a sour disposition; his dark, foreboding looks; sarcasm; pettiness...

"So, I'm the last resort?" Severus asks, thinks of inquiring after Black and Lupin, but would rather not hear about how they're faring in the afterlife. He knows that they're doing well, thriving even. After all, they don't have a lifetime of regrets weighing them down. At least not the kinds of regrets that Severus has. Regrets and mistakes that should've kept him in perpetual darkness rather than light.

Dumbledore's smile is sad and he pats Severus' knee, shakes his head. "No, you are my first choice. I doubt that Harry would listen to Black or Lupin, not with something like this. He needs you, like it or not."

"And what of Weasley?" Severus wishes that he could've saved the twin, knows that the wizarding world is not the same without him.

Dumbledore laughs, wipes away tears from his eyes. Severus glares at him, nostrils flaring. Dumbledore sobers up and apologizes. "He is otherwise occupied, and, again, he's not right for this. No, what Harry needs right now is a good, swift kick in the pants."

Severus' lips twist into a scowl. Pettiness rears its ugly head again, and this time he gives into it. "I see. So, if someone needs a swift kick in the arse, Severus is the go-to man." He shakes his head, should've known that he'd be the afterlife's version of a heavy hitter. Haunting poor, lost souls until they see fit to change their ways.

He almost stands then, almost walks away from Dumbledore, from the bench that's in the middle of the field that he's occupied since Nagini killed him with her poison. He remains sitting when Dumbledore grips his arm, feels compelled to look at the disorienting, younger version of his mentor.

"It's not like that, Severus," Dumbledore says sharply. "And I think there is some part of you that knows that."

Severus takes a deep breath, motions for Dumbledore to get on with it, because he's got better things to do with his eternity than to listen to Dumbledore prattle on about what he does and does not know. He just wants to get this visitation with Potter over with so that he can enjoy the better things in the afterlife.

Better things, like looking at the sun and watching the daisies bow their heads in the gentle breeze? His inner voice drips of sarcasm. Severus wonders if Dumbledore can hear his inner voice when the wizard smiles at him, blue eyes definitely twinkling with humor as opposed to wisdom.

"Fine, I'll do it," Severus says, pinching the bridge of his nose, wondering if he's supposed to be able to develop a headache even though he's dead. Certainly a headache-free existence isn't too much to ask for. He's asked for very little, nothing in actuality. Knows he doesn't deserve even that much.

The smile that Dumbledore gives him is enough to outdo the brightness of the sun, and Severus holds a hand in front of his eyes to shield them. He's only being partially sarcastic in the gesture. Dumbledore's teeth reflect the rays of the sun and really do glint rather marvelously. Almost blindingly so.

"You'll need this," Dumbledore says, and Severus squints at him.

There's a mirror in the wizard's hand, and it's unlike any that Severus has ever seen before. He frowns, but takes the mirror. It's heavier than it looks.

"It is a portal from this realm to the one that Harry occupies," Dumbledore explains. "It will allow you to get a glimpse of his life, and then, when you're ready, it'll allow you a brief window of time to communicate with him. I trust that you'll get through to the boy, keep him from continuing along the path of self-destruction that he's currently on."

Severus swallows, and nods. It's rather daunting when it comes right down to it. He holds, quite literally, the life of another person in his hands. Granted, he is not responsible for whatever decision Potter chooses to make in the end, but he is responsible for giving the young wizard a choice, making him aware of the path that he's on and how it could lead to his destruction. How he's aware of all of that, he doesn't quite know.

"It's rather illuminating, isn't it?" Dumbledore says, nodding toward the mirror.

Frowning, Severus nods, and he looks into the mirror. When he looks up again, to ask Dumbledore how much time he has, the wizard is gone, the bench where he'd been sitting is cool to the touch, like he'd never been there to begin with.

Harry picks at the food on his plate. He’s not hungry. Hasn’t been for a while. Not since just before the war ended. He knows how it must look to Mrs. Weasley, to the other Weasleys – like he’s ungrateful, or a picky eater – but he can’t really muster the ability to care about what they think.

“Harry, dear,” Mrs. Weasley says, and she gives him an indulgent smile. A smile that communicates that she’s nearly at the end of her patience with him. A smile that he’d gotten often, and for far less than this, from the Dursleys.

“Not hungry for shepherd’s pie tonight? Can I make you something else?”

She starts to rise from her chair, no doubt to make something more to Harry’s liking, but he shakes his head, stuffs a generous bite of the meat and vegetable dish into his mouth and chews, a little overzealously. He smiles around the bite of food, which, to him tastes like paper – he just hasn’t had much of an appetite these days – and she resumes her seat. He can tell that she’s not convinced, so he takes another bite, and another, and another until he’s eaten almost the entire dish. The food feels heavy in his stomach, like he’s swallowed a bowling ball.

He gets away with just a bite of dessert, drinking half of his pumpkin juice, and touching none of the spinach salad. He feels fuller than he’s been in a really long time, and with that feeling comes guilt.

He excuses himself, ignores Ginny’s hopeful look, and escapes up to his room, which used to belong to the twins. Living with the Weasleys isn’t the refuge that Harry had thought it would be. It does keep the wizarding press away from him – most of the time – and he isn’t pestered by hordes of fans, but the solitude that it offers him is almost too much. He’s surrounded by memories of death – of wizards and witches who’d died to protect him. Of those who’d sacrificed their lives so that he, and his generation, could live.

It’s not what Harry had expected. Not what he’d wanted. He wishes that when he’d met Dumbledore at the King’s Cross station, in the afterlife, the older wizard would have kept Harry there. That Voldemort could’ve been defeated in some other way. That he could have stayed dead. That he could be with his mother and father, with Lupin and Tonks, with Sirius. That he could’ve apologized to Snape for never trusting him, and to Dumbledore for always rushing headlong into everything that he did.

Harry pulls out the bottle of firewhiskey that he keeps hidden beneath one of the loose floorboards, almost laughs at how similar the gesture is to the days when he’d hidden food beneath the floorboards at the Dursleys’. Then, it had been a matter of self-preservation. Now, it was a matter of ridding himself of painful memories. Memories he wished would not resurface when the potent drink had worn off.

“Here’s to death,” Harry says, uncapping the bottle and brandishing it high in the air. It’s a quarter empty. He’ll need to purchase another soon. “And to the ghosts that haunt me, even in broad daylight.”

A movement in the mirror startles him, and he surges forward, drink sloshing dangerously in the bottle. There’s nothing there, just his own hated reflection – green, bloodshot eyes surrounded by wire-rim glasses, set in a pale, white face.  He shakes his head, and laughs at himself.

“Haven’t even taken a sip yet, Harry,” he says, smirking at his reflection. “Try not to get ahead of yourself, mate. There’s still plenty of time for ghosts in the mirror.”

He waves the bottle of firewhiskey in the air, nods to himself, and then takes a generous swig. The liquid burns a path down his throat, and he grimaces. It’s pungent, and Harry doesn’t like the taste, but he knows that his tongue and throat, the rest of him, will grow numb, and it won’t matter, because he won’t be able to taste, or feel it anymore after about the third or fourth swallow.

He chugs the firewhiskey, still regarding his reflection in the mirror. Thinks he sees dark, impossibly black eyes, looking back at him.

He drinks until there’s only a fourth of the bottle left. Carefully, with only a few false tries, he gets the stopper back in, because, though he wants to drink the rest of the bottle, he knows that he won’t be able to get a new bottle until after tomorrow. He won’t be able to survive another day with the Weasleys, another day with the memories – dead people staring at him with their fathomless eyes – without the drink.

He wipes his burning mouth with the back of his hand. Watches the black eyes smolder with anger, and tries not to laugh at the absurdity of it.

His stomach is on fire, and his head is spinning, and he knows that he’s got to wait this out, that, soon, the fiery liquid will make him numb. He should lie down, but the black eyes, staring at him from the mirror, won’t let him. They hold him there, and Harry thinks that they want something from him, but for the life of him, he can’t figure out what it is. What could those black eyes possibly want from the living dead?

“Ain’t othing’ here for you,” Harry says, pointing at the black eyes. “Nothin’ at all to see.” He sways on his feet, sits heavily on the bed, but the black eyes keep him from sagging down. Keep him from sleeping.

Harry giggles, stifles the sound beneath his hand, nearly smothers himself, and gasps for air. He hiccoughs, and waggles his finger at the eyes.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he says, leaning forward, peering into the black eyes. “You’re thinking that I’m all washed up, that…that I’m,” he hiccoughs, “a…a has been.”

Harry sighs, runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up all over the place, which is nothing new. He thinks that he sees the black eyes roll, and he laughs so hard that he doubles over, because he can’t quite catch his breath, and there’s a stitch in his side. And those eyes remind him of Snape.

Snape’s dead, though. Harry’s responsible, and he almost reaches for the bottle of firewhiskey to get rid of those accusing eyes, the memory of Snape, broken, bleeding even in death, but the eyes stop him. He can almost see himself in those eyes.

He’s impossibly small. Thin as a rail. Body hunched over like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders. He looks sickly, and Harry wonders if maybe this isn’t what he looks like to the Weasleys. If those long, drawn out sighs and those sidelong glances that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Ron and Ginny are always casting him, have more to do with this than with what’s happened in the war.

“I’m not, you know,” Harry tells the eyes, points his finger at them. “I’m not.”

He doesn’t even know what he’s arguing about anymore, wonders if maybe the eyes do. If they can tell him what’s going on, if they can explain away the emptiness that’s still clawing at Harry’s gut in spite of it being filled with firewhiskey.

He stares into the black eyes, and feels dizzy. Thinks that maybe he’s had a little too much firewhiskey, or maybe too little, but as he reaches for the bottle, the black eyes dart in its direction, and his hand, shaking, stills. His heart pounds, feels like it’s going to come right out of his chest, and he almost wants it to – wants those cold, black eyes that spit fire at him, to pull his heart out, release him from his misery.

It hurts. The dark eyes mock him, and Harry grasps the neck of the bottle in fingers that are slick with sweat.

It’s green, Slytherin’s most prominent color. Would make a fitting end for him, should he wind up overdosing on the contents of the bottle.

Harry’s heard about Muggles dying from alcohol poisoning, wonders if wizards can die from it as well. Wants to see whether or not they can.

He smiles crookedly at his reflection, at the black eyes. Uncorks the bottle, brings it up to his lips, but doesn’t drink. It’s almost a challenge now.

The black eyes sparkle, remind Harry of Dumbledore – of the way the elderly wizard had been knocked right off of his feet when he’d been hit with the killing curse, how he’d been thrown into the air with the force of it, and how he’d died, his blue eyes dull in death. The sparkle flares, and Harry takes a sip of the firewhiskey.

It’s a relatively small sip. This time it doesn’t burn his mouth, he can’t even feel it slide down his throat. It tastes like Mrs. Weasley’s shepherd’s pie had – like paper.

He takes another sip. This one is much bigger – it’s more like a gulp. The black eyes roar with flame, and Harry brings the bottle to his lips once more and drinks, wondering how the black eyes will react, what they’ll do if he drinks the rest of it.

The bottle slips from his fingers before he can make good on his plans, and Harry watches, dumbfounded, as the bottle bounces on the floorboards. He’s sluggish and uncoordinated in his response, nearly tips the bottle over himself when he reaches for it.

There’s a part of him that’s terrified of losing the remnant of the golden liquid. It would be such a waste to have it water the thirsty floorboards rather than his own thirsty gullet. His heart hammers thunderously, and he closes his eyes when he manages to finally catch the bottle and set it to rights without spilling any of its contents.

Harry places a hand over his heart, waits for it to slow down some before he sits up, slowly, because his head is spinning. He clutches the bottle to his chest, holds it close as he reaches for the stopper and replaces it. He puts the bottle on the nightstand, and holds his breath until the bottle stops wobbling.

“That was close,” Harry tells the eyes. They’re still there, in the mirror, watching him. They’re almost comforting, in a way. Make him feel like he’s not alone as he thinks he is.

“Thought I’d lost it,” Harry says conversationally. The eyes say nothing, they just stare at him. He wishes that they’d speak, but that doesn’t make sense, because eyes can’t speak.

“I think I might be drunk,” Harry says, and he hiccoughs, giggles and slaps a hand over his mouth, careful this time to not cover his nose.

Dying from alcohol poisoning is one thing, but accidentally smothering himself with his hand is quite a different matter. It would be most embarrassing. He thinks that maybe he might’ve said some of that aloud by the way that the black eyes seem to sparkle with humor.

He leans in close to the mirror, so that he’s nose-to-nose with himself. It feels like the black eyes can see into his soul. He wonders if his soul is as dark as those eyes. If maybe those eyes are a messenger sent from Hell. If they’ve been sent to take him down to Hades where he deserves to be after all that’s happened.

“I can’t make them stop,” Harry whispers. He begs the eyes to understand. Doesn’t want to have to explain.

He drops his eyes. “They just keep coming,” he confesses, and he looks up at the eyes, wondering if they’re mocking him.

They aren’t. They aren’t compassionate, but they are filled with understanding.

“I keep seeing them over and over again, and I can’t stop them. I can’t save them. I…” Harry takes a shuddering breath, wipes at his eyes, and blinks away the moisture gathering in them. The black eyes seem to be waiting, none too patiently, for him to continue.

“I can’t save them. They keep dying, over and over again, and I can’t make it stop,” Harry says. His chest feels tight and tears threaten, but he knows that the black eyes won’t tolerate tears.

“I want to die,” Harry whispers harshly. “Because…because…” he can’t find the right words, wishes that the black eyes would stop staring at him, stop waiting for him to say what has been haunting him for months.

“Then I won’t have to keep seeing them die,” Harry says, hoping that he makes sense, that the black eyes will understand what he means. “If I die,” Harry elaborates, “then maybe they can stop dying. You know?”

The black eyes grow even blacker, and that isn’t what Harry had been expecting.

“If I die,” he continues, hoping that the black eyes will stop questioning him. “Then everything will be made right. You see,” he says, voice pleading with the eyes. “I was supposed to die, not my mom, not my dad, not Cedric, or Sirius, or Fred, or Dumbledore, or Lupin, or Tonks, or, or Snape. It was supposed to be me,” Harry says, and he feels as though a weight has been lifted from him.

He reaches for the bottle of firewhiskey, because what he’s said makes sense, even the black eyes seem to be in agreement. His hand and eye coordination are off – it’s a good thing he’s not playing Quidditch right now – and he accidentally brushes the bottle off of the nightstand, sends it clattering to the floor.

The bottle rolls on the floor, but doesn’t break, much to Harry’s relief. Harry scrambles to his knees to find the bottle. He’s dizzy and it’s hard to get his hands moving in the right direction. His stomach clenches painfully, but he clamps his mouth shut the minute his stomach launches a rebellion, swallows the bitter liquid that burns his nostrils, back down, and begins his search for the bottle.

It’s disappeared beneath the wardrobe. His fingers catch on the sharp splinters of the wooden floor, drawing blood, but he ignores that, because he has to find the bottle. Has to end this once and for all. His death is the only thing that will make things right. 

Severus resists the urge he has to go through the mirror and throttle the boy. Dumbledore hadn’t been nearly as forthcoming about the dire straits that the boy was in as he should have been.

Potter’s not merely out of control, the boy’s a certifiable mess, and Severus doesn’t know if he can stop his downward spiral.

 At first, the boy’s recognition of the eyes, and his impromptu speech was amusing, and Severus had listened, and had mocked the boy, but when Potter had started to speak of death, Severus had grown alarmed. And now, the boy was on his hands and knees, searching for the bottle of firewhiskey that had slipped from his grasp as though his life depended on it.

Severus wishes that he’d thought to ask Dumbledore how the mirror works, because right now he has no idea how he’s going to stop the boy from killing himself, other than going there himself, and waiting out the rest of the night with the boy, keeping him from finding that bottle and then somehow talking sense into him. Or, beating it into him. Severus isn’t sure which one will work, if either of them will work.

“Leave it to Dumbledore to hand me an impossible task,” Severus mutters. He looks through the mirror, and, though it’s a laughable image – Potter’s ass straight up in the air, the lower half of his body tucked beneath the wardrobe searching desperately for a nearly empty bottle of firewhiskey – Severus isn’t laughing. No, he’s rather alarmed, because Potter seems to believe that he really should be dead.

“I didn’t sacrifice my life so you could drown yours in a bottle of firewhiskey,” Severus growls at the image of Potter that the mirror offers him. There’s a goofy grin on the boy’s face, the lost, now found bottle of firewhiskey held aloft in one hand, like a well-earned trophy.

He almost throws the mirror on the ground, feels like smashing it with the heel of his boot, but Potter’s green eyes, boring into his, stays his hand. He watches, with mounting trepidation, as Potter tries to work the cork loose. The way that the boy’s eyes are nearly crossed in concentration, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth – reminds Severus of Lily. The cork seems to be good and stuck, and Severus counts that as a minor victory.

The victory is short-lived, though, because Potter does manage to work the cork loose, and this time, instead of replacing it, almost gently, on the nightstand, as he had the other times, he tosses it aside. Potter takes a deep breath, meets Severus’ eyes in the mirror, and then closes his eyes, bottle raised to his lips. He looks at peace.

“No, Potter!” Severus shouts, his voice reverberates in his head, and he loses the sun, loses the white, fluffy clouds and the daisies with their heads bowed in the breeze.

The world spins out of control, and Severus is lost in both time and space for what feels like a short eternity before things start to slow down, and he regains his bearings.

It’s dark, stifling hot, and Severus wonders if this is what Dumbledore, and the founding forefathers, had had in mind for him all along. If they had known that he’d fail at saving Potter, and had planned to banish him to a place of darkness and gnashing teeth from the outset. If they’d purposefully set him an impossible task to fulfill so that they could, in good conscience, rid their beautiful world of him.

“You’re dead,” it’s Potter’s voice, and Severus narrows his eyes, casts around in the dark for the source of the voice. Surely Potter has not been sent to the same eternity of torture that he has.

Potter, in spite of Severus’ dislike of the boy, doesn’t deserve that – foolishly drowning himself in a bottle of firewhiskey or not. Potter shouldn’t be wasting away in Hell along with the likes of Severus and the Dark Lord.

Severus holds his breath, wonders if the Dark Lord will make an appearance. He lets out his breath as his eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, and he starts to make out shapes.

With a start, Severus realizes that he’s not been cast down to Hell – well, not in the strictest sense of the word, that is – but rather, he’s been drawn into Potter’s room. It’s not a big, flashy room. It’s small, and nothing adorns the walls.

“Did I,” Potter hiccoughs, clamps a hand over his mouth, and waves the bottle in the air. He hasn’t finished drinking it yet, and Severus is mildly relieved. “Did I die?”

Severus shakes his head, and rolls his eyes toward heaven, hoping that Dumbledore is getting a kick out of this, because he isn’t.

“No, Potter, you didn’t die,” Severus says crossly.

He reaches for the bottle, wondering if he’ll be able to touch it, or if he’ll be like the ghosts at Hogwarts, his hand merely coasting through the glass. He’s impressed when he’s able to touch the bottle and pluck it out of Potter’s fingers. The boy lunges forward, grasping clumsily at air. Severus holds the bottle above both of their heads, out of Potter’s reach, wonders if he can finish off the firewhiskey, but decides not to tempt fate.

Potter falls back on his butt, his elbows supporting him. He looks up at Severus, squinting as though it’s hard for him to see, even though he still has his glasses on.

“If I’m not dead,” Potter slurs, “then…” he blinks, and opens his mouth, but shuts it.

“Eloquent as ever, I see,” Severus says.

He doesn’t feel bad for poking fun at the boy, especially since Potter’s disturbed his well-deserved rest. He puts the bottle up, on top of the wardrobe, where it will remain safely out of Potter’s reach. The boy is still short.

“Relax, Potter,” Severus says, leaning down to offer the inebriated boy a hand up. He helps Harry into bed, wondering if Dumbledore is watching this with a hand over his now teenaged heart.

“You’re not dead, and I’m not a figment of your imagination,” Severus says when he’s got Potter tucked into bed. He feels out of his element, and wonders if this isn’t some sick afterlife joke that Dumbledore and the forefathers are pulling on him, if they aren’t watching from the other plane and laughing it up at his expense.

He sits on the edge of Potter’s bed when the boy clutches at his wrist and practically pulls him down. Severus sighs, and pries his wrist free from Potter’s surprisingly firm grip, rubs at it, because it tingles from where Potter touched it.

He plucks Potter’s glasses off of his face, and lays them on the nightstand. Potter follows his every move, a sober look on his face. The boy hiccoughs, reminding Severus that he’s far from sober, and why Dumbledore had sent him here in the first place.

“Potter,” Severus says, holds a hand up when Potter opens his mouth. Potter slams it shut, and crosses his arms over his chest.

Even drunk, the boy is a pain in the ass. Severus slowly counts to three, and then counts to ten, and he takes a deep breath.

“Listen to me, Potter,” Severus says, choosing his words carefully, knowing that he’s only got this one chance to talk some sense into the boy, and finding, strangely, that he actually wants to save Potter’s life.

Severus realizes that he wants to keep the boy from spending the rest of his life peering up from the bottom of a bottle. That he wants to spare Potter some of the pain that he’d undergone when he was the boy’s age – having experienced more than his own fair share of death, feeling the weight of those deaths bearing down on his soul.

He understands now, what Dumbledore had been trying to show him all of those years – that he and Potter really do have much in common. He wishes that it wasn’t so. But, wishes like that don’t come true, not after the living has been done, and it is so. No amount of wishing the opposite is going to change any of it.

Potter is damaged, and hurting, and Severus has been given the unique opportunity to help him through this, to see him through to the other side. And it’s this – not what he’d done, keeping the boy safe and alive all of those years he’d attended Hogwarts just so that he could face the Dark Lord in a final battle to the death – which will finally redeem the debt that Severus owes Lily and James Potter.

Severus isn’t sure what overcomes him, why he brushes at the hair on Potter’s forehead, bringing the unruly locks into a semblance of order. It’s an impulse that he doesn’t fully understand, but which he’s hopeless to control. The lightning bolt scar, which had been so prominent on the boy’s forehead, is now gone. Severus wonders if the boy misses it.

Potter’s got a curious look on his face; his cheeks are ruddy from his life-threatening consumption of firewhiskey. His green eyes are glassy, and yet they hold Severus’ gaze.

“Why’re you here?” Potter asks. His voice is quiet, and the young man – he is a young man now – is regarding him almost coolly.

“To save your life,” Severus says matter-of-fact. He doesn’t know if he’s said the right thing or not, and Potter frowns at him.

“That’s funny,” Potter says, though he’s not laughing. “You’re here to save my life, even though it was my fault that you’re dead.”

Severus shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Potter, you’re no more responsible for my death than you’re responsible for the color of the sky.” He brushes at a stubborn lock of hair on Potter’s forehead that just doesn’t seem to want to surrender.

Potter scowls, tucks his blanket closer around himself. He’s shivering, and Severus isn’t sure if he should do something about that. He’s not sure what he can do.

He remembers how cold it had gotten when he’d gone on a rampage and nearly drank himself to death on firewhiskey – it’s one of those nasty side effects of the alcohol. It’s so hot going down, and yet it leaves you icy cold in the aftermath.

Dumbledore had been there to stop him all those years ago. This isn’t all that different, though he’s coming to Potter from beyond the grave, and Dumbledore had been just down the hall.

 “Potter,” Severus says, takes a deep breath as he schools his temper and his thoughts. “My death is not your fault. Nor is Dumbledore’s, or Fred’s, or Black’s. Your parents’ death,” Severus closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose as he remembers Lily – copper hair flowing about her shoulders like a river.

“Potter, it wasn’t your fault,” Severus finishes, his voice husky. He opens his eyes to find Potter staring at him, his mouth no longer set in a thin, stubborn line.

“I forgive you,” Potter says, the words coming out slowly, thoughtfully, as though he’s just coming to the realization himself.

“I don’t,” Potter takes a shuddering breath, closes his eyes, and when he opens them, his green eyes are clear and piercing. “I don’t blame you,” he says. “For any of it.”

Severus’ heart skips a beat, and he bites his lip. He draws in a sharp breath, and blinks at Potter. This isn’t supposed to be for him. It isn’t, and yet, something inside of him shifts, and he feels a weight lift off of him. It’s disorienting, and freeing and makes him feel almost giddy. It’s unnerving, especially when Potter gasps, and reaches out to touch him, a look of wonder on his face.

“You’re…” Potter breathes out. “You’re growing younger.”

Severus scowls at the boy, and brushes almost aggressively at the boy’s bangs, wishes that they’d stay in place, that he didn’t feel so exposed, so vulnerable.

“I most certainly am not,” Severus insists, and is startled by how different his voice sounds, how smooth and unwrinkled the hand poised just above Potter’s forehead looks. It’s like Dumbledore’s, except his fingers are longer, the nails trimmed neatly, because his father had insisted that they be kept that way when he was a teen, living under his roof.

Potter laughs and raises an eyebrow in response. “Fine, you’re the same old bat of the dungeons that you were when you graced the halls of Hogwarts,” he says, and immediately clamps a hand over his mouth, his eyes going wide.

Severus glares at him, momentarily, before bursting into laughter, because he can feel it now. Knows that Potter speaks the truth, and that he’s been transformed, just as Dumbledore had. It’s an odd sort of feeling, and Severus isn’t sure what it means – if it means that he’s saved Potter, or if it’s Potter who’s saved him.

“You are definitely not the same,” Potter says. “And this is probably a product of overdrinking, which means that I should lay off the firewhiskey.”

“And you should eat a little more,” Severus says, wonders where on earth those words are coming from, because they had not been on the tip of his tongue.

“Potter, you need to stop dwelling on the past, and start living. You’ve suffered enough.” He brushes a stray hair from Potter’s eyes, ignores the way that Potter’s eyes well up with tears.

“You’ve suffered what you were never meant to suffer,” Severus says, and he means it. He feels no animosity toward Potter, and it’s like a vise has been removed from his heart. He’s never felt this light of heart, like, if he wants to, he could fly.

“So did you,” Potter says, his voice a little mulish. “And so did the Weasleys and –”

Severus places a finger over Potter’s lips. “Enough. We’ve all suffered, but the point is, Potter, that you don’t need to keep suffering. Your suffering, drinking yourself numb, killing what little brain cells that you have left,” Severus thunks Potter in the forehead with his index finger, “is not going to undo what’s been done. Those who died in the battle with the Dark Lord will still be dead. You, choosing to drown your sorrows in a bottle of firewhiskey isn’t going to change any of that.”

Potter pouts, and Severus narrows his eyes at the young man until Potter lets out the breath that he’s been holding and relaxes.

“Do us,” Severus says, when he knows that he’s got Potter’s full attention. “Do me a favor?”

Potter takes a moment to think, and then he nods and shrugs. “Sure. What is it?”

“Choose to live,” Severus says, leaning in close so that their noses, as they had been when he’d been spying on Potter through the mirror, are touching. Potter’s breath catches in his throat, and his eyes, once more, fill with tears, but he nods.

“Promise me?” Severus presses.

“Promise,” Potter whispers.

“And no more firewhiskey,” Severus says, waving a hand toward the top of the wardrobe. “That stuff will rot your brain. Trust me, I know that first hand.”

“Fine,” Potter says, though he eyes the wardrobe almost longingly.

“Potter, the memories will just come back when you’re sober, and with a vengeance,” Severus says. “You need to face them head on, and not run away from them. Stop giving them power. Stop letting them keep you from living.” He wishes that someone had told him this when he’d been Potter’s age, wonders if he’d have listened if someone had. Hopes that Potter will listen to him.

“Why are you here?” Potter asks, again, his voice whisper soft.

“Because you needed me to be,” Severus says, the words coming from somewhere else. They ring true, though.

“But, you don’t even like me.” Potter frowns.

“What’s like got to do with it?” Severus asks, though he no longer dislikes the boy, and Potter’s accusation kind of smarts.

Potter seems to consider his words, and, finally, after several seconds have ticked by, he nods and smiles. “Did Dumbledore send you?” Potter asks around a yawn.

Severus rolls his eyes. “You think he’s got nothing better to do than send former Potions Masters from the afterlife to save you from the brink of death, Potter?” The yet again is unspoken, yet clearly understood in the way that Potter’s eyes light up.

“So,” Potter yawns, his eyes blink lazily closed and open and closed again. He’s losing the battle to stay awake. “He did send you?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Severus gives Potter that much, watches as the boy’s eyelids flutter open and closed once more before remaining firmly shut.

He waits until Potter’s breathing evens out, and then he rises. On a whim, he bends down, another instinct overtaking him, and he presses a paternal kiss to Potter’s forehead.

He snatches the bottle of firewhiskey off of the boy’s wardrobe, takes a whiff, and realizes that he doesn’t miss the stuff. He pours it out onto the floorboards. The boy will probably think that he’d done it himself, will probably remember Severus’ visit as a dream, or a hallucination. In any case, he believes that he’s accomplished what Dumbledore has sent him here to accomplish.

Feeling lighter than he’s ever felt in his entire life, Severus looks into the mirror, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees blue eyes twinkling back at him. There’s a knowing look in those eyes, a bit of mischief in the twinkle, and Severus rolls his eyes, wonders what Dumbledore, and the afterlife, have in store for him next.