May 2nd 1998, 3:02 am

Severus Snape lies dying, alone in a boathouse, while the battle of Hogwarts rages nearby.

The castle has fallen, and Death Eaters are everywhere. The defenders of Hogwarts are little more than children, armed with nothing but foolish bravery and audacious hope.

Most of these children-turned-soldiers, Snape knows, won’t last the night. The ones that do, may live to regret it - depending on how "merciful" the Dark Lord turns out to be to the slaves in his new world order.

As Severus Snape lies dying, he calls out for Lily. He know he doesn’t deserve her her comfort, after all he’s done. As children, Lily had offered him nothing but love and acceptance, and yet Severus chose to embrace prejudice and hate, instead of her friendship. Severus had chosen to become consumed by jealousy toward those he thought must have the perfect lives: Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and Lupin.

He chose to hate them all, and to turn to the Dark Lord for comfort instead.

It was that choice that got Lily killed. And now, it is his own downfall as well.

Severus can’t bring himself to mourn over his own impending death; this moment has been long in the making. It should have been he who died in Godric Hollow, all those years ago, not Lily. Not his sweet Lily, gone before her time, leaving only a screaming brat in her wake.

“Lily,” Severus whispers, gurgling through the blood in his neck. “I’m...sorry…I...”

His words trail off; he’s too tired to continue speaking. Instead he closes his eyes, and waits for death to take him. He hopes - even though he knows he’s undeserving of such a thing - that Lily might be waiting for him on the other side, even if for only a moment.

Then, suddenly, Severus hears voices. His body still feels like a thing on fire, with Nagini’s poison searing his veins, so he knows that he is still, for the moment, alive.

He opens his eyes and sees figures coming toward him. He can’t make out if they’re friend or foe, but it doesn’t matter now.

What more could they possibly do to him, after all? What more could he possibly lose?

“Professor,” a familiar, hated voice says, and Severus looks up into Lily’s - no, Potter’s - eyes.

Severus belatedly realizes that he’s crying, and then, in one last moment of clarity, he realizes there's so much that Harry still needs to know.

Severus begins to compile every memory Harry needs to see. The things the boy - Dumbledore’s favorite weapon - will need to know, if he is to end this war.

Severus focuses on years of conversations and mistakes, plotting and planning. He gathers memories of pledging himself to Dumbledore, and then failing him, in the end. Failing Lily. Failing Harry.

With shaking hands - and help from Potter - Severus bottles his tears, and his memories. He thinks he says something to the boy, and then, with one last look into familiar green eyes, he lets death carry him away on the wind.

* * * * *

Death feels like falling, endlessly, through a tunnel of memories.

They say that your life flashes before your eyes as you die, but it’s not Severus’s own life that he sees played out before him, like scenes from a Muggle movie. No. It’s Harry Potter’s.

Perhaps a moment of unintended Legilimency passed between them in the moments before Severus's death, because now he's seeing Harry’s life played out before him. For the first time, Severus is seeing through Harry's eyes.

* * * * *

First, Severus sees his own death through Potter’s eyes. He feels Harry’s revulsion and hatred toward him, and then, strangely, compassion. After Potter bottles his tears, and Severus breathes his last, Potter lingers like a phantom.

The boy reaches out a hand to close Snape's open eyes, and hesitates as if to speak. Then he turns away to join his companions, and the memory swirls into inky dark.

* * * * *

The memories dissolve and reform, showing a scene from earlier tonight: Harry is in the Great Hall, witnessing a scene of breathtaking grief.

The bodies of the fallen are laid out on tables, surrounded by weeping loved ones. Harry's emotions are immense, and consuming, and Severus feels every one.

Severus feels Harry’s grief as he watches the Weasley family mourn. His anger at Voldemort, for attacking children and families in the one place that Harry ever truly felt at home.

Harry feels guilt too; terrible guilt. Even as he stands on the outside of the circle of mourners, unable to help, he’s sure that he could have stopped this somehow.

Of course, Harry doesn’t know how, but he curses himself all the same. He curses Dumbledore for lying to him for so many years; he curses Snape for betraying him. But mostly, Harry curses himself.

It’s him that Voldemort wants, after all. He’s sick of letting other people die in his stead, but he doesn’t know what else yet to do. There are still horcruxes left to destroy, and Death Eaters to face, and he has the sinking feeling that the constant burning in his scar can mean nothing good.

In that moment, Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, Dumbledore’s golden champion, sinks into the shadows away from his friends, buries his head in his hands, and sobs.

* * * * *

The scene in front of him swirls away, and now Severus sees a whole string of memories, one right after another.

He sees Harry with the Granger girl and the Weasley boy, looking the same age they are now. In the memories that speed by like film on fast forward, the trio of Gryffindors is camping, searching, hiding, surviving. He sees them running through Gringotts, through the Ministry of Magic, through forests and Malfoy Manor and then, through Hogwarts itself.

In every memory, Harry is running, and in every memory, even those with his friends by his side, Harry feels utterly alone.

* * * * *

The speeding memories of the past year dissolve into fine, blue mist, and reform into a single, sharp moment: the moment that Severus killed Albus Dumbledore. Severus remembers the terrible moment all too well, but now he sees it through Harry’s eyes.

He sees Malfoy, shaking and uncertain. He sees Dumbledore, calm and trusting. He feels Harry’s impotent rage as he’s forced to witness it all while invisible and bound to the wall, condemned to do nothing. Condemned to watch as Dumbledore dies.

Severus sees himself, then, entering the astronomy tower. He sees the tiny nod, and the awful, grim smile that Dumbledore gave him, along with his mentor’s last plea: Severus, please.

Severus sees himself aim his wand at the man who saved him and mentored him and gave him a second chance, back when he was entirely lost.

To his great relief, the memory dissolves before he casts the Killing Curse.

* * * * *

In the next memory, Harry’s in what looks to be a Muggle house. A horse-faced woman with a pinched expression is yelling at Harry. She’s calling him a freak, and worse, telling him exactly how little he’s worth.

“I’m just reading,” Harry says, his tone somehow both resigned and pleading. “Please, Aunt Petunia. My professors will mark me down if I don’t do my summer homework. I have to get this done.”

The woman’s eyes blaze. “You will NOT practice magic in this house young man! Now put those foul books away at once!”

When Harry doesn’t move, his aunt gathers the open books and half-finished essays spread out on Harry’s bed, and marches swiftly out of the room with them in hand.

Harry follows, frantic, but he’s too slow to stop what happens next: Petunia Dursley lights a fire in the grate and throws every last book and homework assignment into the flames. Then she looks back at Harry with an ugly, triumphant grin.

Harry’s breath leaves him in a shocked whoosh, and he leans against the wall for support. He slides down it until he’s sitting on the floor in a now-empty hallway, head in his hands.

What am I going to do? Harry thinks, a little wildly. No one believes me when I tell them how bad it is here. They all think I’m just making excuses. Hell, Dumbledore knows how the Dursleys treat me, and he still makes me stay!

And what about the assignments? McGonagall at least gives me extra time but Snape...Merlin. I don’t even want to think about what Snape will say. That man already ridiculous me every chance he gets, and this will just add flames to the fire.

Fire. Ha. Perfect analogy, Harry thinks, with a grim smile. He watches, heart sinking, as his potions essay is devoured by flames.

* * * * *

The memories pick up speed again, and then Snape’s rushing backward through the years, seeing Harry’s life in bits and pieces. He sees Quidditch matches, study sessions, Hogsmeade weekends. He sees meals in the Great Hall, and nights spent sneaking out of Gryffindor tower.

He sees a younger Harry - during fifth year, maybe? - standing in front of a group of students at the Hog’s Head, giving a rousing speech and urging the others to band together and fight Voldemort with him.

Granger is there too, her face twisting in fear as she says the word “Voldemort” out loud for the first time. It’s that, more than anything else, that gives Harry hope. The teachers wouldn’t help him, and he’s not sure if he’s fit to lead or teach, but he has his friends by his side. He’s not alone.

Sweet Merlin, Severus thinks. Where was Albus when this was going on? Where was I? How could we let these children carry the burden of battling the Dark Lord?

Then he has a startling thought: I wish I could do it all over again. I would find a way to do it right, if I only had one more chance.

* * * * *

The next memory is of Voldemort in the graveyard, after the Tri-Wizard tournament. But Snape knows this one already. He relives it in excruciating detail, night after night in his own twisted dreams. (Or, he did, back when he was alive.)

What am I now? Severus wonders. Just a dying mind, floating through another man’s memories?

“Stop,” Severus finally says, not sure who he’s talking to. “Enough. I’ve seen enough.”

To his surprise, the memories stop. The fog surrounding him lifts and he finds himself back in his own body, in a clean, black, billowing robe.

For a moment, he wonders if he’s alive again. Then he reaches for his neck where Nagini's wound had been, and finds his neck whole and unharmed; he checks his left arm for the Dark Mark and finds only pale, unblemished skin.

What's more, the pain - both mental and physical - that he was drowning in right before death is entirely gone. He decides he might be dead after all.

It's shockingly easy to accept.

Severus looks around, taking stock of his surroundings. He appears to be in the Hogwarts dungeons, in a corridor he doesn't recognize. He stills, listening for signs of life, but when he hears nothing, he begins to cautiously explore.

There are dozens of pathways branching off the main corridor, but he doesn’t dare approach them yet. He’s not a foolhardy Gryffindor, after all; he’s not willing to jump until he knows where he might land.

Severus walks for what might be minutes or miles, and then stops. He seems to be going in circles and still nothing looks familiar, so he closes his eyes and breathes deeply, reaching for a plan.

“Hello, Sev.”

Severus keeps his eyes closed tight, even as his heart speeds up. He knows the afterlife could never be so kind to someone like him, but he is thankful for the illusion, at least. He spends long moments breathing in Lily’s familiar scent, not daring to move. Not wanting to break this precious moment.

Then Severus feels cool hands brush his own, and he opens his eyes to see his best friend.

“Lily?” Severus whispers. “Where am I? Why are you here? Why - why aren’t I in some version of hell?”

Lily narrows her familiar green eyes, and she looks like she wants to slap him. “You deserve do be, after the way you treated my son.”

Snape nearly takes a step back at the strength of her wrath. Then Lily softens. “But life is rarely so black and white, and people aren’t either. It’s the same with death. Here, sit with me.”

A bench appears behind them, and Severus sinks into it. He has no idea if any of this is real, but he decides to embrace and enjoy it, for as long as he can. Then he brings himself to ask the obvious question:

“So I’m dead, then?”

Lily gives him an impish grin. "That is the question, isn't it?" she murmurs.

She joins him on the wooden bench, and her presence is like a summer breeze. She’s not entirely solid, which is interesting, because Severus is. While Lily is ethereal and somewhat transparent, Severus’s body is still tangible and fully visible. He can pinch his skin, and feel the sting.

Severus knows he’s not alive, but he has the strange notion that he’s not entirely dead, either.

Lily confirms his thoughts a moment later. “You died, Sev, and yet somehow, you’re clinging to life. I can’t explain it, but it seems to have something to do with my son. I think you two forged some sort of mental connection in the exact moment that you died, and that tether is still binding you to the world of the living.”

Severus is quiet, thinking. Lily’s voice interrupts his thoughts. “You’ve been seeing Harry’s memories, have you not?”

“I have,” he says. “Lily I - I don’t know what to say.”

Lily looks him right in the eye. “Say that you’ll do better next time. Say that you’ll go back, and that this time, you’ll love my son.”

With that, Severus Snape’s world dissolves into white.