"DAD!" a distant voice calls, shattering my nightmare in seconds.

Panting, I sit straight up in bed, trying to shake the imagined pain from my mind. Why did I hear my son's voice? It had been so clear. Had it been in my dream, or had it been real? I look at the clock. It's four in the morning.

"DAD!"

The word has the distorted quality that a child's has when they're crying out while still half asleep. This time I know it is for real, and it worries me, for Harry has not called my name in the night like this in years. He is eleven now, after all.

Heart pounding just as it had been in my nightmare, I leap out of bed. My bad left knee groans in protest, as it always does, hurting even more than usual after lying still for some time. As fast as I can go I stumble across the hall to my son's room, my wand in hand. I open his bedroom door and flick on the light. I am relieved to see that he's safe in his bed. I think he's simply had a nightmare.

"Harry, what's wrong?" I ask, sitting at the foot of his bed.

He throws himself on me, and wraps his thin arms tightly around my chest, surprising me with his suddenness.

"Shh, it was just a dream," I say as he silently shakes, his hot tears dripping onto my shoulder. For a second I see the flash of a broken down old warehouse, a memory from long ago - unrelated to the moment and yet vivid. My heart quakes, but then I blink. "Just a dream, son."

I hold him tightly, and I start to rock him very slightly, like I used to when he was a baby. For once he does not protest, and after a moment I start to wonder who is comforting who.

"I had the old dream again," he whispers in my ear. "About mum. When he came. But then it kept going."

"Tell me the rest," I say quietly to him, because it has been many, many years since he has broken down like this after dreaming of the night he got his scar. I have often wondered if the memory is real, or if it is just him imagining the night, for he was terribly young. I hope he has imagined it, because I hate to think that he remembers it for real.

"It was worse than usual, because then Grandma came, and there w-was the green light and she d-died. And you came, and you were almost at me when he got y-you too! I needed to k-know you were o-o-okay."

"I am alright, and so is Grandma," I tell him quietly, fatigue hitting me like a freight train. I wonder briefly why now, of all nights he would be so upset. And then I understand. "Harry, do you think you're having nightmares again because you are worried about tomorrow?"

Harry doesn't speak, but buries his face further into my sweaty pyjama shirt.

"I will still be there," I assure him, knowing that he really must be worried if he's acting half his age. "Even if you're in your dormitory, I will be where I always have been. You can come see me in the evenings. The only difference is that instead of sleeping in your room in the dungeons, you will have a dormitory. It will be like a big sleepover. Besides, you already know your way around Hogwarts. You know it better than some of the staff, I'd wager."

"I know but ... but I'm scared something's going to happen to you."

Ah, here we go. This is the heart of the issue. I had guessed as much. This is not surprising in the least to me. Anybody who dreams of their mother's murder would be afraid of the same things. Harry's always been afraid of losing me, and nights like tonight I am very glad he does not know how close he came to it when he was just a baby. It's for the best he doesn't know, for it would only make his fears worse. My heart aches at this, guilt rising up within me like acid, burning me from the inside.

"I can protect myself, so you need not worry," I tell him, gently extracting him from me so that I can look him in the eye. He sits on the bed, looking so small to me. Too small and young to be eleven already. How could the years have slipped by like this?

"Harry, I have been through a great deal of sticky situations," I tell him. "I have made it through them all alive. You do not have to fear that something is going to happen to me. If you do not think I am tough enough to withstand that, ask your Grandmother."

"Oh, he's tough enough," comes a voice from the doorway. I hear a chuckle as I look around. Sure enough, there's my mother, standing in the doorway with her dressing gown on, her long black hair braided behind her, a streak of grey running the length of it. "He's related to me."

Harry snickers.

"Go back to bed, Mum," I say, rolling my eyes. "Harry's fine."

Sometimes it irks me that I return to Spinner's end for the summer. I remind myself this is for Harry, because my mother is the only woman in his life that is close to a mother. Of course, this arrangement I have to admit benefits all three of us. I know very well my mother could use the help during the summer, as with my father having been dead for quite a few years, it's up to me to help her fix the dilapidated house (she never has been all that good at household spells) and lend a hand in paying the bills, seeing as when the mill went bankrupt, they stopped paying out my father's pension, and the benefits from my father's years spent fighting in the Korean war only go so far. This left us to pool our resources to keep the house, a place neither of us was ready to let go of at the time. That, and as I have said, Harry needs someone like a mother in his life. I hate to admit it to myself as well, but I needed the support even more than Harry did for a number of years.

"Since when are you telling me to go to bed, Severus?" she says with a wink.

Mum concedes though, and leaves me to talk to Harry. I wait until I hear her bedroom door shut to speak again.

"Grandma is right, you know," I mutter to Harry. "She is pretty tough herself. Taught me half the jinxes I know. But don't tell her I said that."

"I know," Harry mutters, rubbing his eyes slightly. "I'm just ... worried, I guess."

"Well, just think of all the fun you will have showing all your new friends around the castle," I say. "During the day, of course. I will tan your hide if you break curfew, young man."

Harry bites back a laugh, even though he knows very well I am not joking.

"Well, you have a big day tomorrow, so it is time to go back to sleep," I say, knowing full well he will do exactly what I just told him not to, because I was the same way. I merely hope that he doesn't follow any werewolves out at night.

I get off the bed stiffly, and lift the covers for Harry. As he slides under them, he looks at me curiously.

"Dad?" he asks hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"Were you having nightmares too?"

"What gives you that impression?" I ask quietly, not betraying the panic I feel.

"Well," Harry says, looking thoughtful, "you're all sweaty, and kinda clammy too."

"I cannot fool you anymore, can I?" I say to him, trying to smile, but I know I probably just look pained. "Yes, you did wake me from a nightmare."

I smooth his covers slightly, and Harry asks me what my nightmares are about.

How can I tell him? I've asked myself that question a million times it seems, but every time I do I still cannot come up with the words to say what I was forced to go through, and this time is no different.

So I lie. Or I only tell him half of a lie, and half of the truth.

"I also was dreaming about losing your mother," I say, because that is the only nightmare I have again and again that I can explain to him fully. In all actuality I dream more of what happened before it all. Perhaps the reason why I dream so little of the day I lost Lily is that every day has been part nightmare since she was taken from me. I doubt that feeling will ever leave completely, but I have Harry, and he is worth more to me than anything in this world.

I surprise Harry by hugging him. While he did not see it coming, he clings to me tightly anyway.

"I'm sorry, Dad," he whispers in my ear. "Do you tell Grandma about your bad dreams?"

"No," I say, feeling a tiny bit of sadness at the innocence of his question. Harry pulls away from me, and I let him go, even though I want to hold him all night, like I used to years ago, back when he was a baby. "Some things I cannot tell her, because they hurt her more than me."

"So you don't have anyone to go to when you have a nightmare?" Harry asks, a little bit astounded.

"No," I say, continuing the rest of the sentence in my head. But I used to rock you when I couldn't sleep, back before you grew so big.

"Oh."

"Think you can go back to sleep?" I ask him, and he just smiles at me, and I know he will be able to.

I ruffle his hair a little and go to the light switch, flicking it off. I leave his door open a crack, and then I go downstairs, leaving him to slip into more pleasant dreams.

I will not sleep. I know I will not, and so I sit and wait for the morning paper. All the while I stare at the gap between picture frames on the wall, filling in the space where a young man in uniform once hung, before a little baby grew old enough to understand what shining buttons and medals meant.

***

Early in the morning, way before Harry is up, Mum comes downstairs, her hair up and her clothes dusty.

"Severus, I'm working on cleaning out the attic, and there are a few things I think you should take with you," she says to me.

"What are you cleaning for?" I ask, bewildered. The attic hasn't been cleaned at Spinner's end since we moved in during the sixties. It was a damn good thing we hadn't, seeing as it meant that Lily and I didn't have to spend much on baby things when Harry came along.

"I am thinking of moving," she says to me with a sigh.

"Well, the wallpaper here is ugly as sin," I mutter, taking a sip of coffee.

Mum just rolls her eyes and continues as though she has not heard, knowing I am only making the joke because I am trying not to think about losing this place. It is our last connection to Dad. His memory seems to be as real a part of this home as Mum and I.

"I'm afraid it's just getting too big for me during the year," she says heavily. "It's been almost six years since Toby died, and keeping this place in one piece isn't as easy as it once was. I want to move to the countryside, somewhere with cleaner air. Maybe a wizarding village, even."

"I doubt this place will fetch much," I say, frowning, not sure of what to think of her moving.

"I know," Mum says, "but I've been saving for a long time. My potion business is finally doing well again."

"Seems like the world's finally forgotten their favourite Death Eater," I say bitterly. "About time they actually trust our name." I sigh. "I'm sorry, about all of that," I add for what feels like the thousandth time. I wish she could have sold under a different name, but most of her potions were her own invention and she had been selling them under her name for long enough that they were easily recognized as hers. The price for being talented.

"Severus, I don't blame you," she says. "You played your part well."

"So well they didn't know it was an act all along," I cannot resist muttering under my breath, "Even with Dumbledore's word."

"All is well now," Mum says to me. "My potions business can sustain me once more. The world is a different place than it was when your father passed on. Besides, it's been a good decade since the trial. People have simply moved on."

She looks to me gratefully, and I don't think she understands that she has helped me more than I have ever helped her. Even though I had chipped in a little to keep the house, I still feel greatly in her debt. She has helped me so much with Harry, and not only that, but she has always been there for me. I do not know how to put it into words, and so I change the direction of the conversation.

"So, you want me to take some of my old things to Hogwarts?" I ask.

"If you don't mind," she says apologetically. "There won't be much room compared to here. But wherever I go should have a bit of space for you to come back over the summer, if you would like"

"If you move, I will go elsewhere" I say, "unless you need the help. But in a house that actually tries not to fall down, probably not, I think."

"You've been thinking of this for a while, haven't you?" she asks, seeing immediately that I'm not just being spontaneous.

I frown slightly. "Well, Harry's getting a little older," I say, "and no doubt he'll want to have friends over, and that will probably drive me loony, let alone you. I was thinking of finding somewhere in Hogsmeade, actually, now that my salary's finally gone up so it won't be difficult to afford a place year round in a good neighbourhood. About bloody time, really. Pay's been abysmal since I started." That and things are going better for me, in a lot of ways, but I don't say that because Mum can probably tell.

"That sounds wonderful," my mother says, trying to sound excited. I can see that she is a little disappointed beneath it all, but she tries to be happy for me, which I really appreciate.

"I'll still visit," I say, trying to make her feel better. "Harry will most definitely drag me here. You have been so good for him, you know."

She smiles softly, and takes a sip of tea.

"What do you want me to take with me?" I ask curiously after a little while.

"Oh, just a few things," she says. "It will be a little while before I find somewhere else, but the small things can be taken out of here to make the move easier later on. I'd appreciate if you took your books, and cauldrons. That, and your box. You know which one I speak of, Severus."

I set down my coffee, suddenly feeling ill.

"Throw it away," I say sharply. "The thing has not been opened since I tossed it in the attic, anyway."

"No," she says firmly. "I know you want nothing more than to forget, but you owe it to her. You owe it to Lily to keep that box and all the things you've hidden away in it, because if you don't have it, you being gone from her will have been for nothing."

I clench my fist beneath the table.

"Fine," I hiss. "I will take the box, but don't expect me to treasure it."

"I'm sorry, Severus," Mum says softly, "but this is something you cannot throw away."

The fight leaves me, and I do as she says. For the hour before I wake Harry I shuffle through the rickety attic, moving crates of books and old cauldrons and taking them through the floo network to Hogwarts.

I've left the box for last, and I feel my heart pounding as I open up the big old trunk in the attic and dig through dusty quilts to get to the bottom. I lift up the false floor of the trunk, revealing a magically enlarged space. I reach down, and hoist up the wooden box. It's about the size of a small apple crate, and surprisingly modest considering what is held within it. The wood is roughly cut, with a small rusted latch, and it is not varnished. Mother looks at me sadly as I take it down the stairs and I take it to the fireplace. The box is fairly light, but it feels like a boulder in my arms.

"You have to tell Harry someday," Mum says to me softly.

"Not yet," I say. "He is not ready."

"Is Harry the one who isn't ready, or is it you? You will never forget, so you may as well do the memories justice."

I feel my heart pound erratically and then I step through the floo, trying to ignore my mother's words. I take a deep gasping breath when I arrive, and I drop the box in the living room of my quarters at Hogwarts, up against the wall to be moved later.

When I return I cannot think of anything to say, but she just gives me one of her melancholy smiles, and I know she understands. So I go upstairs to wake Harry so he can get ready for the ride to Hogwarts.

We reach the platform in good time, and mill about for a few minutes. Harry's face has lit up like a Christmas tree, and he's asking a hundred questions. My mother answers almost all of them, and I let her because I know she will miss Harry most, for at least I will be at Hogwarts with him. But still, as I watch Harry waving out the window as the train glides away from me, I feel a bolt of fear go through my body as he disappears from my sight. My heart quakes, and suddenly I am twenty-two again, and I'm watching Lily's figure, pregnant and swaying on the pier, growing more distant as the ship sails out into the ocean, the salty sea air rushing past as I leave her and my baby behind.

"Come on, Severus, the train's left," my mother says quietly when I come back to earth, and she takes my arm gently, in a way that tells me she probably knows a lot of what I'm remembering.

I shake my head slightly, and I let her lead me all the way home, and I know she understands that I am not only thinking of Harry. She makes me a cup of tea, then gives me a hug, and tells me to write often before she sends me on my way. So with flash of green fire she disappears from my view, and I am in the silence of my quarters, left to wait the many hours until I see my son led into the Great Hall.

~~~~

Harry sits on the train, excited to reach the school. Despite the fact he's only been on the train for fifteen minutes he cannot wait to see his father again, but this is mostly because he cannot wait to be sorted and see the look on his father's face. He hopes he will make him proud.

Harry is amazed by the fact that he has made a friend already. His name is Ron Weasley, and Harry finds it fascinating that Ron has grown up with six siblings.

"I wish I had a brother, or even a sister," Harry says in awe.

"Why don't you?" Ron asks, seeming almost unable to comprehend the thought of not having any siblings. "Did your parents not want any more kids?"

"Well, my mother died when I was just a baby," mutters Harry, unconsciously flattening his fringe around his scar. "Dad never remarried."

"Sorry to hear," mutters Ron, his ears turning red.

"Oh no, it's not all bad," Harry says, feeling guilty for making his new friend feel bad. "My Grandma lives with us so she's kind of like a mother. Only a little bit more laid back, I guess. Grandma's really cool. She makes potions, and a lot of them she's invented herself."

"Wicked," says Ron. "So you think you'll do okay in Potions class, then?"

"I know a little already," admits Harry. "But just some. Dad won't let me get too ahead because he worries I'll be bored in first year otherwise."

"Well, the good news is, I've never heard anyone say that Potions is boring at Hogwarts," mutters Ron, looking worried despite this. "Scary maybe ... boring no. My brothers say that Snape's a super tough teacher."

Harry grins. "Yeah, I know."

"You do? I thought you didn't have any older siblings."

Harry looks at Ron for a moment. He seems alright, so he risks telling Ron something he doesn't tell people usually. He knows his dad has a bad reputation, and because they aren't at the school he is a little worried Ron will react badly. At Hogwarts nobody dares say anything bad to him about the Professor, because he usually isn't too far from Harry. Harry has no doubt that will change a bit now that he will be in a common room with other boys.

"Yeah, well, Snape's my Dad," Harry says with a shrug.

"Wait, your last name is Snape?" Ron says in awe. "That makes you ... that makes you ..."

"Harry Snape," Harry says.

"Wicked," Ron says again. "Can I see your scar?"

Harry lifts his hair.

"That is so cool," Ron tells him. "Of course ... you probably hear that a lot."

"Not really, actually," Harry replies thoughtfully. "People are pretty terrified of my Dad, so oddly enough, very few people have the guts to say hello. And I mean, sure, I've grown up at Hogwarts, but a fair few of the people there have known me since I was really little so they know me as just Harry, like their friend. Some are even a little like family, so I guess you could say I kind of do have lot of siblings, in a way."

"Wow, I bet you know tons of secrets about the school. Fred and George have only told me a few."

"I know some," says Harry, grinning.

To Harry, and Ron's obvious surprise, the compartment door slide open, revealing two boys.

"So, my friend Draco tells me that Harry Snape is in this compartment," says the tall, dark haired boy with a scornful sort of look upon his face. Harry immediately has a bad feeling, for the boy looks a great deal like a disagreeable student that graduated last year, by the name of Ryan. He was in Ravenclaw, and though everyone knew he was from a muggle family, he acted like he was one of the pure-blood crowd, and had the brains to keep up the act well. He hung around the shadier Ravenclaws, who had been in with some of the Slytherins too. "Well, is it true?"

"Yeah, you heard right," Harry tells them.

"Told you so, Jake," adds the other boy, a few inches shorter with slick blonde hair

"What do you two want?" Ron says.

"Ah, a Weasley, judging by the red hair and tattered robes," scorns the blonde haired boy as he stares at Ron. "I'm Draco Malfoy. I would say I was pleased to meet you, but that would be a lie."

"Hey!" Harry says, suddenly leaping up from his seat and stepping in front of Malfoy, who seems offended that Harry would defend Ron.

"Watch out, Draco, he might go all crazy on you," says Jake, smirking. "Might be nuts like his father."

"Hey, watch what you say about my Dad!" Harry spits, clenching his fists and stepping toward Jake.

"What are you gonna do, go all Post-Traumatic Snape Disorder on me?" taunts Jake.

"What on earth does that mean?" Harry asks, completely dumbfounded as he glances to Ron to see if he understands. Ron looks as bewildered as him. Harry thinks it sounds slightly familiar, like it might be a play on a muggle term or something.

"Wait, he doesn't know?" Malfoy says gleefully, looking to Jake.

"Know what?" Ron and Harry say almost simultaneously.

"My oldest brother Ryan says your Dad's a loony," Jake says with relish. Harry is unable to respond from the shock of how bravely Jake says it, and he listens, entranced. "Back when Ryan was in first year he and his friends let off a firework in class as a joke and Ryan told me that when it went off Snape got spooked so badly he dove clean over the desk at the front of the room and took cover. Then, he just froze there like he couldn't move, staring at nothing. They had to get Dumbledore to get him back to his senses. If you ask me, all that spying on You Know Who made him nuts."

"Serves him right for sneaking around," spits Malfoy.

"You guys are full of it," Harry says, although he isn't entirely sure they're lying. "If anyone is crazy, it's your brother, telling tales like that."

"Yeah, sure, go ahead and tell that to Professor Spook," Jake says with a grin, and before either of them can retort he and Malfoy have slammed the compartment door and sauntered off down the corridor.

"Professor Spook?" Harry mutters, confused. Ron doesn't seem too confused. It's evident he's heard the name before. He looks a little apologetic though.

"Now that was not very nice," says a girl suddenly, having whipped open the compartment door again. "I haven't met Professor Snape, but I doubt he's what they say he is. Do you think I should report it to the driver?"

"What?" Ron says, looking amazed at the sudden appearance of the girl.

"Oh, how silly of me - I'm Hermione Granger," she says, thrusting her hand toward Ron, ready to shake hands.

He just stares, and she drops her hand with a huff.

"So, do you want me to report it? I don't mind. I'm not scared of them."

"I don't think it's worth it," Harry replies, having gotten over the shock of her sudden appearance. "They're just being stupid. I'm pretty sure my Dad would agree."

"Oh, your father is Professor Snape?" she says, fascinated. "So you're Harry Snape then? I've read all about you in my history books. That means you've been to Hogwarts already, if your father's a Professor then, right? You live in the wizarding world - so why are there so few pictures of you in books? What's Hogwarts like? Is it really as big as they say it is? Is the ceiling in the Great Hall actually enchanted like it says in Hogwarts: A History? Have you sat in on any classes? "

Harry suppresses the urge to grin with amusement as she looks at the empty seat nearby. He is struggling to keep track of all the questions she just asked. And it appears she has more.

"Can I sit with you two?" she asks. "All the other compartments are full. Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Harry says with a grin, glancing at Ron out of the corner of his eye, who is mouthing What the hell?

Harry just shrugs and takes his seat again. Hermione does too, and he starts to tell Hermione about Hogwarts. Ron starts to ask the occasional question too, and when they tire of discussing the school Ron pulls out a deck of exploding Snap cards, and they teach Hermione how to play. She is actually rather fun, Harry thinks, even if she is a bit of a stickler for rules. Even Ron starts to warm up to her, and soon the three of them are laughing like they have known each other all their lives.

And yet, despite the fun that he's having, Harry cannot help but wonder if his father ever did do something to earn the nickname Professor Spook.

~~~

I watch anxiously as the first years are at last led into the Great Hall. I scan the crowd for Harry. I see him quite quickly, for beside him is the newest Weasley, flaming red hair standing out among the drab browns, blondes, and blacks. They look at each other and grin, and I groan quietly. Dumbledore is chuckling beside me.

"You are going to have your hands full," he mutters. "I doubt house would get in the way of any friend of Harry's."

I do not doubt it either, and even should Harry end up in my house, like I hope, I do not think that Harry would give up a friend just for being a Gryffindor.

The hat sings its song, and Minerva begins going down the list. Naturally, Malfoy ends up in my house. I suspected that, but I hope that he is nothing like his father, despite this being highly unlikely.

At last, I hear Snape, Harry called. There is, naturally, a great deal of whispering, but from a distance I can tell that he is unfazed by this. Most of the students here already knew that it was to be his first year, anyway. The question as to which house he will be in has been one discussed quite frequently among the houses, and I can see a few last minute bets being made at the tables. Naturally, all of them want him, especially as there are a great number of older students - at least a few in each house - who are highly fond of Harry, what with having seen him grow up at Hogwarts over the years. It's been good for him, because those who have gotten to know him see him as more than just his scar, and make others around them see the boy behind it as well.

Despite the wide speculation, I myself am not even sure what house my son will be in. Lily and I did not share the same house, and Harry is certainly just enough to be in Hufflepuff, but also clever enough to be in Ravenclaw. I for one was considered for Ravenclaw myself, but the hat chose Slytherin instead.

Minerva lowers the hat over his head, and it slips over his eyes. The hall falls silent. It is a very long time before the hat shouts out the house.

***

"Alright, alright," I say in the staff room later, eager to get the start of term meeting out of the way so I can go to bed, "settle your blasted bets. Really, I cannot believe that you were all putting wagers on this, for the love of Merlin ... worse than the students you are ..."

"Which reminds me - you owe me a galleon as well, Severus Snape!" says Minerva smugly as she at last enters the staff room. There is a chorus of laughter as I pinch the bridge of my nose in exasperation.

"Oh, how the mighty fall," mocks Pomona light-heartedly.

I fish around in my pocket and slap the galleon in Minerva's outstretched hand.

"I really do not know why you look so pleased, Minerva," I say to her coolly, wanting to wipe the smirk off her face, "seeing as you now have Ronald Weasley and Harry Snape in your house, and it seems as though they are friends."

Pomona and Filius break out into peals of laughter at this, because for a moment Minerva's grin fades

"Of course, you'll be the one getting all the letters to home that I will have to write about Harry," she says, her humour recovered. "And if he stirs up as much trouble as you did at school, young man, my owl might just keel over dead."

Filius falls off his chair from laughing, and I scowl, knowing that as usual, Minerva's had the last laugh.

"Thanks to that your mother and I are still on a first name basis, you know!" she calls across the room as she goes about collecting her winnings.

I sink down in my seat, knowing full well I have been defeated for now, and I might as well stay silent before I embarrass myself. Minerva has always been one of the few I cannot beat in a battle of wits, mostly thanks to my days of being a student and her knowing far too much dirt on me.

Oh well. I have no doubt that Harry will stir up enough trouble to give her a run for her money. Fleetingly, I hope his antics don't turn my own hair grey. This hope is fleeting or a reason, however, because I know better than any other that Harry has a knack for getting into things he shouldn't. Yet, sometimes I think that's why I cannot help but love him so, because with Harry around, life is never allowed to be dull.

It surprises me still that my son is in Gryffindor, despite the fact that three weeks have already passed. What surprises me most is that Harry has not gotten into any trouble yet, especially because he is a Gryffindor. I am not bothered by his house as much as I would have thought, for Lily shared the same one. However much I would have loved him in Slytherin, I sometimes think that it is better this way, because if I were both his father and head of house, things might get a little messy. I know Minerva will look after him well, and I am quite glad Harry has not befriended Draco Malfoy. He is a right little twit, and all the years of having to pretend to get along with Lucius have made this discovery quite unsurprising.

Despite his dislike for Draco, friends it seems Harry has not had trouble in making. He did indeed befriend Ronald Weasley. He had ended up sitting next to the youngest Weasley on the train, which he told me later, as well as a girl named Hermione Granger. They had gotten along fairly well despite Granger being quite bossy, and since then I have seen the trio walking around the grounds together. I am grateful that Harry found friends so quickly, because that had been one of my greatest fears, besides him not doing well sleeping in a dormitory. So far, however, he has taken the transition very well. He has not come to my door in the middle of the night. We often have tea after classes, but that is about it. I am very proud of him, because I know all too well that Harry does not like being away from me.

The heads of house are due for a meeting with Dumbledore in a few minutes regarding our new batches of students, and so, rather reluctantly, I swim to the surface of my thoughts and emerge. This meeting is bound to be extremely dull, as it always is every year, and so I cannot help but feel my heart sinking as I leave my quarters. I would much rather be with Harry, and I wonder what he is doing right now.

~~~

Harry puzzles over the question, and he looks to Hermione.

"I don't know either," she mutters, as Ron scratches his head. "I've looked at our textbook and it doesn't say anything about adding beetle wings, but I'm sure Professor Snape mentioned something about it."

"I'm pretty sure he said so too," Harry said, frowning.

"So, why don't you go ask him, Harry?" says Ron with a shrug. "I mean, he is your dad after all."

"Yeah, but he's going to a meeting tonight," Harry says with a frown, tapping his quill on his half-finished essay. "By the time he's done it'll be curfew."

"Oh well," mutters Ron. "I guess we will just have to figure it out ..."

"Hang on," Harry says, remembering something. "Dad has a notebook that he keeps the first year potion recipes in. If he's made any changes to them - and believe me, he does do that lots - they will be in the book. Helps him keep track of it all."

"Won't he mind if you look at it?" Hermione asked, wringing her hands.

"No, it won't bother him," says Harry confidently. "He lets me look at the book all the time. He taught me a bit about potions last year."

"Was he as strict with you as he is in class?" Ron asks, amazed.

"Not always, but I listen better to him than a lot of the others in our class," Harry says with a shrug. "He has to be really strict because brewing can be really dangerous. The students that find him really hard are the ones that don't get how dangerous it is to be making potions."

"I suppose," Ron says, frowning. "Still, he could at least smile. Does he even smile at all?"

Harry laughs.

"Sometimes," he says with a grin. "I'll go take a look at the book. Be back in about twenty minutes."

It is not too much longer after this that Harry arrives. He stops in front of the door to his father's office, secretly glad for a reason to come here, for in many ways it is home. As his hand touches the doorknob a click rings through the air, and Harry goes over to the portrait on the wall. It is of a stern looking man with a snake resting on his shoulders. He wears a locket with an ornate S on it.

"Hello, Salazar," Harry says cheerfully.

"Ah, young Mr. Snape," says Salazar as he strokes the shiny scales of the snake. "I trust you are getting on well in your classes?"

"They're really interesting," Harry tells him honestly. "It's nice to finally get to go to classes like all the other students!"

"Is Gryffindor House to your liking?" asks Salazar rather distastefully. "I cannot fathom liking that house ... but if it suits you ..."

"Oh I like it a lot," Harry says with a bit of a laugh. "I know you wanted me in your house. Well, I think so did Dad, but you can thank Mum for that. For his dislike of Gryffindor, I find it funny that Dad even married Mum."

"Indeed," Salazar says under his breath. "But enough chatter: I presume you wish to come inside?"

"Of course. Right, monkshood's the password."

"Correct," Salazar tells Harry as he bows his head slightly. The portrait swings open, and Harry climbs through the hole.

The painting swings shut behind him and Harry goes over to one of the many book cases on the wall. Up near the top he spies the shelf that his father keeps the first year potion recipes on. Looking around for something to stand on, Harry drags a simple wooden chest over to the bookcase. He reaches up and grabs the leather book, and while standing on the chest he flips it open to the first page. Harry skims down the list of potions, written in the spidery handwriting he could read in his sleep, and flips to the correct page. Down the list of ingredients he looks.

"Hah, he did change the recipe!" Harry says triumphantly as he notices the small star beside beetle wings, which his father had once mentioned was his symbol to indicate ingredients or steps that vary from the original instructions.

The book shuts with a snap and Harry places it back on the shelf. He jumps down from the wooden chest with a grin on his face, and lands with a thump beside it. He pushes it back against the wall where it was, and then he stands and stares.

"Hang on, where'd this come from?" he asks himself, puzzled as he finally pays a second of attention to the chest now that he has accomplished his mission.

He shuffles on his feet for a moment, looking at the latch. It is simple and made of metal, but there is no lock. Surely if his father had not wanted him to see what was inside it would have a lock? The box is out of place in the room, and Harry looks around to the other furniture, taking in how rough the box looks compared to all the other wooden furnishings. He takes a step closer to the box, and then he falls to his knees and opens it. The rusty hinges creak noisily, but Harry pays no attention to this. He looks down, seeing green material. Harry fingers the fabric. It is camouflaged.

"An ... army uniform?" Harry whispers, slightly puzzled, especially because it looks like it is a muggle one. His grandfather's, perhaps?

The uniform sits on top, and the smell of old leather boots fills his nostrils. Gently, Harry lifts  the folds of the uniform, and sees the boots. They look well worn, and there are scuffs all along them. With great care he reaches down to pick up a helmet. Harry fingers the scratches and dents on it, his brows furrowed with wonder. He goes to replace the helmet, but then he notices that something had been under it. A small leather case lies there. It looks so out of place with the dusty contents of this box, which smells of dirt and old leather.

Harry looks behind him, but nobody is there, and he carefully places the helmet with its green camouflage bits on top beside him. He takes the small case as though it could shatter beneath his fingers, and slowly he opens it. Red ribbon and shining metal meets his eyes. There is a lion at the centre of the medal, which is shaped like a cross. Harry's eyes travel to the banner beneath the lion, the metal words drawing his eyes.

"For Valour," Harry mutters. He looks at it for a few moments more, then he carefully shuts the leather case.

"Grandpa won a medal?" he asks himself, because he can only think of one person whose things these could be. Harry remembers how his Grandfather fought during the Korean War. He wonders why his Granddad never mentioned that he won a medal. Then again, Harry had only been six when he died, so perhaps he just never got around to mentioning it. Harry figures that his dad probably didn't have the heart to mention it, either. Harry can tell that his father misses Granddad a great deal.

Not knowing what to think of it all, Harry gently sets the medal and its case back into the wood box, wondering what it was earned for. He replaces the helmet, and he is just about the cover it all back up with the army uniform when he sees something wrapped around the ankle of the boot. Curiously, Harry grabs a hold of a metal chain, and he pulls it up to his eye level.

"Cool," mutters Harry, for these could only be his grandfather's identification tags.

Harry holds the slightly dulled metal up to his eyes. Fascinated, he traces the numbers stamped into the metal, and then he looks for his grandfather's name.

He feels his mouth fall open, for the name stamped into the metal is not T.A. Snape.

It is S.T. Snape.

"Dad?" he gasps, dropping the tags. He leaps back as though burned, and shuts the box quickly.

Heart pounding and realizing that he should not have looked in the box, Harry does not even say goodbye to Salazar as he leaves for the corridor.

Dad fought in a wizarding war, as spy, not a muggle war, Harry thinks wildly.

He does not know what to make of it, and when he gets back to the common room he completely forgets why he left in the first place.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione asks, looking up from her assignment.

Ron has long given up on his work, and is playing chess with Seamus. Harry is glad for this, and unable to keep it to himself he spills bits and pieces of the story to Hermione in a jumbled mess, and she looks as shocked as he does.

"Is that why he limps?" she whispers to Harry.

"He told me that his injury was from when You Know Who tortured him for being a spy, and they couldn't heal it because it was dark magic," Harry says to her, puzzled. "But after finding the box, who knows if that's the truth? I mean, he's never told me any of this stuff."

"Maybe he finds it hard to talk about," Hermione suggests, looking worried.

"There was even a medal, Hermione," Harry says in a low voice.

"A medal? What did it look like?"

"It had a red ribbon, and there was a lion on the medal, and it said ‘for valour'. He must have gotten it for bravery, or something? I dunno."

Harry is astounded when Hermione's mouth falls open.

"What?" he asks, suddenly worried.

"Harry," croaks Hermione in a low voice, "that was a Victoria Cross! We learned about it in Social Studies at my old school."

"Oh. What is it?"

"What is it? It is the highest decoration for bravery! The Queen herself has to approve the recipient for the award!"

"Seriously?" Harry asks, unable to believe it.

"Seriously," Hermione says breathlessly. "Wow ... a Victoria Cross. You're sure he's never said anything about serving?"

"Yeah, didn't say a word," Harry mutters, brows furrowed. "What on earth was he doing fighting in a muggle war?"

"Search me," Hermione mutters back.

"What if what they said on the train was true, Hermione?" Harry asked. "I mean ... if Dad was in a muggle war. And if they let off a firework in class, maybe ..."

"Will it change your opinion of your father?" Hermione said thoughtfully.

"No ... but ... I just want to know if it really is true."

"Well, what do you think?"

"I ... I don't know. It's just ... the whole war thing sort of would make sense ... even what they said on the train too because I can't think of a time when I've ever gone to see fireworks with Dad. See, he and Grandpa used to stay home on bonfire night every year. Grandma always told me Dad was keeping Grandpa company, because my Grandpa was a muggle and he fought in Korea, so he never liked all that stuff because it gave him bad memories, or something. Even after Grandpa died though, Dad wouldn't go. I just thought it made him miss Grandpa.

Hermione did not seem to know what to say, but she shared a worried glance with Harry, a look that like his, was full of questions.

~~~

I'm exhausted by the meeting, and I barely can keep my eyes open by the time that I am standing in front of Salazar.

"Harry came by," he says to me.

"Is he in bed already?" I ask without thinking.

"Presumably, although up in his dorm, I imagine," Salazar says to me, a little amused.

"Oh, right," I mutter, mentally kicking myself for forgetting that he is a student now. "What was he here for?"

"I did not ask. He left in a hurry though. He was probably looking for you."

"Did he seem alright?" I ask, wondering why he had been in a rush.

"Fine, I think. He was probably just disappointed you were not here."

"I could have sworn I told him of my meeting," I say, but I shake my head. Perhaps I have been more absent minded lately than I had thought. "Well, goodnight, Salazar. Monkshood."

"Goodnight, Severus," says Salazar as he bows and the portrait opens at the mention of the password.

I stumble into my quarters, and I wash up quickly before going to bed. I fall into the mattress, my knee aching something fierce. I apply some of the homemade ointment I created years ago with a little bit of brewing, and I lie back on the pillow with a sigh of relief, my leg already numbed. I miss Harry right now. Even just knowing that he was in the other room would make me feel better. I comfort myself with the reminder that he is coming to tea tomorrow.

Still though, somehow I have found that I do not sleep as well when he is not down here with me in my quarters. I hate being away from him, but then again, maybe that is because the last time I was away from him for more than a few days wasn't the best experience.

It takes many hours for me to fall asleep. When I do I am plunged into dreams of liars and traitors, guns and mines, of children left behind, and of abandoned ships in hostile seas.

***

It seems like forever when Harry finally arrives after classes. I have a plate of biscuits on the table. They are peanut butter, his favourite kind. The house elves do not make them, because there are students with allergies, and so I had to learn to bake them early on, after my mother found out they were his favourite. This batch turned out well, although Harry's forbidden to mention that I can bake to any of my students. It's a sort of deal we forged when he was younger, because I'd have a real job intimidating students if they knew that.

"Hi Dad," Harry says with a smile. He looks a little downcast, for some reason.

"How have you been?" I ask, pouring him a cup of milk.

"Good," he says, but I can tell that he is leaving something out.

"Are you absolutely sure?" I ask lightly. "You seem like something is on your mind."

"Well, there is one thing," Harry mutters under his breath, looking like he just wants to get something over with as he picks at the biscuit on his plate.

I have to hold back a smile, because he looks so sheepish. I feel less of an urge to smile when it occurs to me I might have to answer questions about girls. I cross my fingers under the table that I can avoid that topic for another few years. The thought makes me miss Lily immensely.

"Well, first, I just want to say that I think you should give students copies of the revised recipes you use in class," Harry says to me plainly (and almost sternly). "Lucky for me, I could double check that we did in fact have to add beetle wings to our burn mending potion. Our textbook doesn't have that instruction, and your question about beetle wings confused some people."

"Ah, that's why Salazar said you were here the other day," I say, not bothered in the least. "So you checked my recipe book?"

"Yes," Harry says. "You don't mind, do you?"

"No, you can feel free to check it if there are any inconsistencies with the course material and my instructions," I say to him, amazed that this is all that is bothering him. "I will definitely follow your suggestion. Sometimes I forget that the textbooks aren't exactly on the same page as my class material, so thank you for reminding me."

I have misjudged what was bothering him, and I realize this in moments.

"There's ... another thing though," Harry says quickly.

"And what is that?" I say slowly, trying to decide what he wants to ask.

"I ... I found your box."

I set my teacup down quickly, before I drop it. My hands are shaking, and I grip them together tightly under the table.

"Box? What box?" I ask innocently, although without meaning to, my words come across as rather dangerous, although I don't notice at first.

"I-I know I shouldn't have opened it, but I'd never seen it before, and it wasn't locked, and then I thought it was Grandpa's stuff so I looked through it a bit ‘cause he never minded me asking him questions and ... and ... his name wasn't on the tags. Yours was. I know I shouldn't have looked - and I won't do anything like that again, Dad. I'm really sorry." Harry is shrinking down in his chair, and it takes me a moment for me to understand why. He was always more emotionally intuitive than I. Just like Lily.

Breathe, Severus.

I force myself to relax, and Harry's shoulders lose their tenseness, and relief shows on his face because I no longer look angry.

  "No, you shouldn't have looked," I add quietly, and Harry looks down at his lap guiltily. It's clear he's sorry. Quietly, I add, "But what is done, is done." 

"There was a medal," Harry whispers to me after some time, when he realizes that I am not planning on elaborating. I know I am pale as a ghost, and maybe this is why he says it so quietly. "It was a Victoria Cross, wasn't it? For bravery. Was it yours? Why didn't you tell me? Were you really a soldier? Why were you in a muggle war?"

I have no words for this, and I open my mouth, trying to speak. I look away from him as I begin to say something, although I have no idea where I am going with my sentence.

"You have to understand ... I ..."

He looks at me, eyes wide, looking for answers.

"Harry, this story is not easy to tell," I say to him in a low voice, trying to stay calm, but I know I sound shaky. "It won't be easy to hear either."

"Please, can you tell me?" he whispers, hardly daring to speak.

How can I do this? How can I talk about what I have never told anyone? And then I remember that I do not have to tell him all the details. Only the ones he needs to know. But even speaking of it will bring all of the memories back to me, and I am afraid it will break me. But I see in my mind's eye Lily standing on that pier with her hair waving in the wind, her hands on her belly and her baggy clothing fluttering in the breeze.

"For your mother, I will," I say to him, my voice shaking. "It is a long story. I had to tell you eventually ... but you will not be given all the details. There are some things no man should witness, let alone a boy." Twenty-two, could I have even been considered old enough for that? When I look back on it, I feel like I was just a boy as well. I thought I was so grown up back then. But I wasn't. Only after the war did I realize that in my heart, I had still been a boy, just a boy who was in too deep, playing spy and trying to prove himself to the world.

"Okay," whispers Harry. I wait a moment, and he looks at me intently. I wish I had a day to work myself up for it. Or maybe a week. A year. And then I realize that I've been working myself up for this since I first held Harry, and I'm still not sure I'm completely ready. The realization that has slowly been dawning on me the past few years sinks in further now. As I take in a deep breathe, I finally understand that I'll never be ready. I start to speak anyway.

"This story starts a while before the war, and you know part of this," I begin, "but not all. During the wizarding war I was discovered as a spy, that you know. I suffered under the hands of the Dark Lord, but was rescued by the Order of the Phoenix - an organization against him that I had been reporting to, started by Dumbledore. After that, however, the Ministry of Magic wanted me charged for Death Eater activities, because they were not completely convinced I was a spy all along, which I was. That, and they were under pressure to get supposed Death Eaters off the streets, guilty or not.

"Dumbledore had specifically asked me to spy for him shortly after I finished school, because he found out I was good at Occlumency, which allows someone to hide their thoughts and memories to fool others. I said yes, because at the time your mother and I were not dating so I didn't have to worry as much about her, and I wanted to prove myself to others. Maybe what I secretly wanted was to impress Lily. Or maybe I just wanted to do something dangerous and brave in some misguided attempt to live up to my father's legacy, because even though he left the army to work in the mill afterwards, people looked at him differently. Like he really was something. Or perhaps I just wanted to make him proud. Stupid, because he always was proud of me, no matter what - I was just too foolish to see it. I'm still not sure why I said yes to such a dangerous idea, and at the time I never really considered what would happen if the Ministry didn't want to believe Dumbledore when the war came to an end. Nor did I imagine what could happen when the time had come for me to own up for all the things I did as a spy."

"What?" Harry asks, surprised. "You played your part so well the Ministry couldn't even decide whose side you were on?"

I smirk half-heartedly. "I suppose you could look at it like that."

"Did you have to go to court?" he asks.

I nod, and as I begin to recount the story, the memory swims before me.

***

I am sitting on a bench in the tiny room outside the courtroom, chained. I hear arguing inside, and all I can think of is that this is not going well. I am grateful Lily is not here to see this, and that she cannot be seen here with me for her own safety. I often hate that we have to keep our relationship secret, what with me being a spy (ex-spy, I remind myself), but today I am glad for it. The first part of my trial has left me shaking and feeling sicker than I have ever felt in my life, and that includes when the Dark Lord tortured me for being a traitor a few months previously. Lily would probably feel worse about all of this than me, however. More reason to be glad she isn't here.

I hear Dumbledore's voice again through the door, and then Barty Crouch's. I am surprised he even let me have a trial. For a man so popular, I am amazed that he has not been thrown in Azkaban himself. Something about him screams madman to me, and after working among Death Eaters, I know a bit more about those than I care to know.

The rattling breath of a dementor fills my soul with dread again, and I close my mouth tightly. What if this does end the way Crouch wants it? What if I do get the Dementor's kiss? I'm literally shaking the bench I sit on it, fear, fatigue, and uncertainty rising up within me like a poison. Can Dumbledore really convince them to drop the charges, or even get me something less menacing, like time in Azkaban? Of course, there isn't a cell that has an inch of room these days, so the latter has to be out. I'm starting to think that there is no hope, and by the time the door creaks open a half hour later, I feel like a man whose destiny is set. But why do people in the crowd look so restless? Why do they look so intrigued? A normal dementor's kiss could not possibly cause this much whispering, could it?

Dumbledore looks ill, but less so than when I first left. I hope this is a good sign, although he still looks troubled - like he can't make up his mind about something. I am chained again, sitting in the iron chair in the middle of the room, the Wizengamot staring down at me. I think I'm going to be sick, so I keep my mouth shut as tightly as possible and try to think of anything but the shame I feel with all those condemning eyes turned on me. I just know, somehow, that they think I am guilty. Maybe I am. I don't know. It's all muddled. When I started spying I was stupid and young. Well, younger. And I didn't have Lily to look out for, and my hands were clean, but now, I have had to do things I never wanted to do to gain the knowledge the light needed. I've had to fight for my life and take the lives of others, and maybe lives have been saved thanks to my information, but who can say whether one life is better than the next? I didn't have an inkling as to what spying truly would be like, and it was nothing what I expected. It has been an ugly ordeal, and I fear it is going to get worse as the moments go by.

"Severus Tobias Snape," says Barty Crouch at last in that awful trembling voice of his, "your sentence has been decided. While your allegiance is still in doubt due to valid testimonies from both parties claiming you belong to their organization, the punishment of the Dementor's Kiss has been revoked."

A flood of relief washes over me, and I look to Dumbledore gratefully. He shakes his head. I look to Crouch again, and it appears to me that he is not done.

"However, the evidence confirms you have taken part in Death Eater activity," he says over the whispers. "You have committed crimes of great weight, and therefore you shall pay the price for them, regardless of which organization you were working under at the time. Azkaban has no room for you, and so it has been decided that you shall pay your debt to society through service."

I just about laugh. Really? I had never, in my whole life, heard of anyone being sentenced to community service for something like this. I can't believe I've gotten off so easy.

"This shall be done in the form of voluntary enlistment into the Muggle army," he says.

My insides grow cold. That kind of service. My father served in Korea. It is with a wave of relief that I remember that there is no war going on in the muggle world. The wizarding world is a completely different situation. I know I can work hard, and I will be able to stay here in England. I can breathe again. Just a bit of training and maybe some small missions. Nothing else. A few years, pay my dues, get the hell out.

"While we wizards rarely get involved in such organizations as the muggle military, we consider it as a valuable option to repay the debt to your country for the crimes you have committed under the organization known as the Death Eaters. You shall train in one of their programs, and serve a minimum of five years in the military, in whatever job they have for you. When your term is over, you shall be allowed to return to your life."

"If you refuse, or attempt to flee, you will be tracked down and given the Dementor's kiss. If you follow our wishes, there is no reason why you cannot resume work in the wizarding world when your mandatory enlistment is over."

It seems like years and yet seconds later when Dumbledore takes me home, and Lily throws herself into my arms. We are both so relieved, and while I do not particularly want to join the army, I will gladly sign any papers they throw at me so that I can stay alive for Lily.

~~~

"Professor Dumbledore couldn't make them see you had to do that stuff?" Harry asks me, flabbergasted. "Surely he could have convinced them to let you off?"

His innocence is rather sweet, sometimes.

I absentmindedly stare into my tea, and I shake my head slightly.

"Dumbledore was able to convince them to spare me from the dementor's kiss," I tell him slowly. "Enlistment was the only option, and keep in mind that then, they did not know that a war was going to start soon. He did as much as he could have done, and if you had met Barty Crouch, you would understand that in all actuality, I got off very easy. Dumbledore did not know what would happen a year down the road. The Falklands situation arose with almost no warning, when Argentina seized the islands, and it was only a month after I graduated as a part of the parachute regiment -"

"You jumped out of aeroplanes?" Harry interrupts, absolutely in awe. "Like Grandpa?"

I nod.

"I always had my wand with me just in case though," I tell him with a laugh. "Although I was forbidden to use it on the job, I would never have to guts to jump without it. Technically I wasn't supposed to have it, but the ministry had other, more pressing things to do than babysit me. At least I could have apparated if something went badly wrong, even with the consequences being severe," I shake my head at Harry's look of amazement. "Do not look so surprised. I did enjoy flying on a broomstick when I was your age, I was simply too academically inclined to join the Quidditch team. I was a bit wild, at times. You just have not known me at a time when I was. I have mellowed a great deal, believe it or not."

"Wow," Harry mutters.

"Anyway," I continue a little reluctantly, "as I was saying, it was not until after I graduated that they told me I would have to go overseas to fight. It was a shock to everyone else as much as us that Parliament ordered a full scale attack on the islands to try and take them back. Sure, there had always been sovereignty disputes, what with the islands being so close to Argentina, but there being a British colony settled on the islands. Still, it happened so quickly it seemed almost surreal. At that point, your mother was pregnant with you, and we were comfortably settled."

"How did Mum react?" he asks me, and my vision is filled with sunflowers.

~~~

"Lily, come out, please," I beg, close to tears myself as I stand outside the bathroom door in our little flat, which is hidden by enchantments for our protection. I can hear her sobbing in the tiny room, and I try the door. It is locked, even against magic, because my alohomora charm has done nothing.

"This was never part of the agreement! How can the Ministry let this happen?" I hear her say aloud to herself, her words muffled by the door.

"They are just looking out for their best interests," I say bitterly. "If word ever got out what my sentence was  ... unorthodox to begin with  ... and then that they went back on it, it would look bad."

I hear her through the bathroom door, and then she stops speaking, and I hear sniffling.

"You don't have to hide," I say, sinking down in the narrow hallway. "It's okay if you are angry with me."

"I am not angry with you," I hear her say quietly.

"Then why will you not come out?" I ask gently. I know her too well to believe her statement.

"Alright, maybe I am a bit angry," I hear her say. "B-But, I don't want to be! I just ... I ... I think I'm just looking for someone to blame."

"Blame Voldemort," I say. "This is his fault. It is not even Dumbledore's, or the Order of the Pheonix's, it is neither of our faults. It is his, and his alone." I only wish I could fully believe that it isn't mine, like I say. But Dumbledore stressed that to me, that if was the Dark Lord's fault. Not mine. So that's what I tell Lily, because I know he would tell her that.

"I know," she says, and her voice is barely audible now. "But with a baby ..."

"Please, Lily, let me come in," I say to her, hating the way my voice cracks. "I ... I need to be with you right now."

Maybe it is the tone of my voice, but I hear the click of the lock, and I enter the cramped bathroom. Lily is sitting on the lid of the toilet, her make-up running, a total mess. She's got her arms wrapped around her belly, clinging to the baby within her like a child does to a beloved stuffed animal.

I kneel down in front of her even though there is barely enough space. Gently, I pull out a handkerchief and put it in her hands. She takes it and wipes her eyes.

"I'm sorry," I whisper to her, placing a trembling hand upon hers, feeling the baby move within her. "I'm sorry to both of you."

"How can they do this?" Lily asks, seeming to wilt within her maternity dress, somehow managing to make the brightly coloured sunflower fabric seem sad. "How can they send a wizard into a muggle war! This isn't a wizard's fight!"

"The Ministry does not know I am a father," I say, trembling slightly at the word. Before, whenever I thought of myself as a father, I was filled with excitement, and anticipation. Now, all it does is fill me with dread, and fear at the thought that I may not be here for my child. Would my son or daughter understand why I had had to leave? Would I even come home to them?

"Can't we just tell them?" Lily says rashly, her stubborn Gryffindor ways shining like a beacon as she looks into my eyes. "They wouldn't send a father away like this. They couldn't! They would have to withdraw your sentence!"

"I wish we could say something," I whisper, wrapping my arms around her. "But if the Dark Lord finds out about us - and you know as well as I he has spies in the Ministry - he will never rest until both you and the baby are dead. It is for the best. Part of the reason why this became my sentence was that the Dark Lord would never suspect enlistment as punishment. So far he doesn't seem any wiser. Dumbledore did a good job of making sure that the trial audience was small, and trustworthy as far as he could tell. Besides, Voldemort never pays enough attention to the muggle world - they're not a threat, so he won't look for me there."

"A war, though, Sev," she says to me, trembling in my embrace. "Do you really think you can make it? I do not doubt that you're brave enough, or smart enough. You've survived as a spy long enough to show that, but all the cleverness and courage in the world cannot stop chance."

"I know, Lily," I say, shutting my eyes tightly as we pull away from each other. I feel her hands come up to my face. Her thumbs wipe away the tears before they can run down my cheeks. "But at ... at least there is a hope that I will return."

Lily suddenly says. "I can't do this without you."

I try to think of all the ways I can respond to that, but all I can say is, "I'm going to come home. You'll see."

She puts her arms around me again, and we sit there, rocking back and forth in the tiny bathroom, trying to imagine a future where everything will be okay.

~~~

"Dad, are you alright?" Harry asks me hesitantly.

I snap back to reality, and my son is looking at me with worry.

"Your mother was heartbroken over it," is all I can manage. "She was eight months pregnant with you when I left."

"Did she come say goodbye to you?"

"Yes," I mutter, finding it easier to speak now. "And she really should not have. If we had been seen, who knows what would have happened. It was lucky the Dark Lord did not know of where I was going - in fact, he probably had more pressing matters to attend with anyway, and even had he known I was off to a war he would be pleased to think that I was being sent to die. Besides, it was agreed to keep my sentence low profile. That, and the ministry did not want to advertise it, because they had not used war as a sentence for years, not since the fifties when a storm did serious structural damage to Azkaban, and they were short of cells. It was a decision that was not met well by the public, so they did not want to say where I had gone. That, and Dumbledore got them to agree to keeping it quiet, for my safety."

Harry looks at me, and I begin to tell him the story of the day I left for further training on Ascension Island, the closest base to the Falkland Islands.

~~~

I'm cold and clammy, wearing my army uniform, my identification tags feeling foreign against my neck. I still cannot seem to get used to having my hair cropped short, even though I had had to cut it a little under a year ago when I started training. I feel the back of my neck unconsciously, a habit I developed some time ago. My neck is tense, and while the hour is far too early for Lily and I, we are both wide awake, fear keeping us from being drowsy. I sit on the edge of our bed and watch Lily dress. She smiles at me, trying to keep from falling apart.

She rummages through her drawers, through colourful fabrics both muggle and magical, robes, dresses, and flowing shirts, her red hair falling delicately over her back.

She looks to me for a moment, then pulls open the drawer where I keep my t-shirts. She searches for a moment, and I do not need to ask to understand why she would rather wear something of mine than hers. I wonder who is more frightened right now, me or her. She casts aside some of the ones with emblems from the wizarding world, sifting for something less conspicious.

Lily finds what she is looking for, and pulls my Electric Light Orchestra t-shirt from the pile, and slips it over her head. She fingers the fabric. I got it at a concert we both went to when we were nineteen. That was the night we first kissed. I still remember the lights and the sounds of the guitar and the way she felt in my arms.

Oftentimes we put on our favourite record by them and both sing the song Telephone Line as loud as we can, even though neither of us can sing. We can play it loud because the lyrics don't give our magical heritage away in case someone hears - that's the trouble with being wizards among muggles. It's one of the only muggle bands we both like, and besides the memory of that night, maybe that's part of why she wears it.

"I always love when you wear this one," Lily says fondly as she fingers the fabric. In a moment she pulls one of her favourite skirts from her drawer, flowing and warm.

"I like it better on you," I say quietly.

"Good," she says with a half-hearted grin, and I can tell she is trying to keep her voice from trembling. "I'm going to wear it every day that you're gone."

"Well, wash it at least," I say, trying to make a joke, but it falls flat. Neither of us can laugh right now.

Lily finishes dressing and sits down beside me on the bed, leaning against me. I wrap my arm around her, and she lifts my dog tags up by their chain.

I look down, and am surprised when she pulls out her wand. She taps the backside of one of the tags, where my name is not stamped. Curling words appear, carving themselves into the metal.

All my love, Lily.

I don't know what to say, and just seeing the words makes it so hard to speak, so I kiss her. She responds with a kind of desperation, and if I would have had my way we never would have broken apart, but the doorbell rings, and my mother and father have come. They want to see me off. We are all going, together.

My father has somehow resurrected his car, and it is sputtering and coughing as we drive down to the docks. I suspect my mother secretly helped him along with a few charms, without him noticing of course. He's too proud to let her fix his car with magic, but with a junker like this it has to be held together by something more than just muggle technology.

The world goes by as we drive, and none of us really can think of anything to say. Maybe it is just enough to be there together, all four of us. Well, a little more like five of us ... or maybe four and a half. I take Lily's hand in the backseat, and she edges closer to me so that we are sitting beside each other. I see my mother look back in the rear view mirror. Her eyes are puffy.

I hear again what she had said through sobs when I told her that I had to go to the Falklands. "You're only just twenty-two!"

I felt strange thinking of that statement, because up until a few weeks ago, I had felt like I was definitely an adult. Now, looking at life ahead of me, and seeing that it could be cut short so soon, I start to think I haven't really grown up as much as I thought.

This isn't supposed to be happening, I think to myself. I want to say I am sorry for doing this to my family, but I am afraid to open my mouth in case I am sick. So I close my eyes and grip Lily's hand tighter.

It seems to me as though I have blinked, and then there is a flurry of hugging, and lots of crying, and even my father looks like he wants to shed a few tears too, but I know that he won't because he's wearing his old dress uniform from his time in the army, and he wants to look brave in it.

All I can feel is shock, and as I cling to Lily I hope so much that I will come home and see her again.

"I'll s-send you a picture of the b-baby," she sobs onto my shoulder. "Gemma Eileen for a girl, or Harry S-Severus for a boy!"

I manage to choke out an "okay" to her.

Men in uniform are beginning to board the ship, and the bell clangs for us to go. My mother hugs me, and even my father hugs me too.

"Son, even if they push you down, and drag you through the mud, remember that you have the blood of a survivor in you," he says in my ear as he claps me on the back. I see his row of medals when I press my face into his shoulder. "Promise me you will not forget that, Severus."

He lets go and I look up at him, for he's still a good inch taller than I am, and always will be. I'm more my mother's build. Skinny, and not overly tall. I can easily picture him fighting in a war, for unlike me, he is broad shouldered and has a rough look about him. I suddenly feel like a twig in my uniform, and I hope the mere blood of a survivor is enough.

"Yes sir," I say, nodding.

I turn to Lily one last time, and my father tactfully begins to point out to my mother the differences in modern uniforms from the ones in his day, and turns his back to us. Lily and I share one final kiss, and I think I hear a wolf whistle nearby, but I do not pay any attention to that. When I pull away she's crying, and then I have to let go of her hand as the crowd of soldiers sweep past me. I join the throng, my rucksack feeling a million pounds heavier now that I am leaving Lily behind. Up the gangplank I go, and I take a place near the railing like the other men, and all of us wave to whoever has come to see us off. I can see Lily's flaming red hair, and as the ship begins to leave I see her run to the end of the pier, jostling her way through crowds. She waves at me, blowing kisses, and I too fight through the crowd to get to the back of the vessel, watching her red hair disappear in the distance.

"Your wife?" says a man who is a fair bit older than I. He has blonde hair, blue eyes, and a thick moustache. He has a few lines on his face.

"Yes," I say. There are technically no paper records of our marriage, because we had to keep it secret. A friend of the family luckily was able to marry us quietly. We could not afford rings, though, and even if we had been able to it would have been risky wearing them. But the bond is there anyway. Besides, someday we planned on getting rings for an anniversary, hopefully when the Dark Lord wasn't as much of a threat.

"How far along?"

"Should be about eight months by now," I say to the man.

"Congratulations," says the man beside me. "That won't be easy at all, being away for that."

"No," I say with a sigh.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two," I say, and even though the question could have come across as invasive, it does not, and there is something about him that I cannot help but like.

He lets out a low whistle.

"What on earth are you doing this for?" he mutters. "I've got at least fifteen years on you and I'm not sure I'm ready for this. I hardly know what to expect this time."

"It's ... complicated," I say. "Bit hard to explain, actually."

"Then I won't ask you to," he says. "Benjamin Reeves, but I prefer Ben."

He holds out a hand, and I grasp it.

"Severus Snape."

We shake hands, and then for a while we talk about our families. Ben hasn't got any kids. He has a niece who was born a few months ago, and he tells me about her in detail. I share a few things about Lily, but not a lot. After some time we fall into silence, and simply stare out at the ocean. I like Ben. I guess he reminds me of my father when he was younger, minus the physical resemblance, of course.

The both of us are shaken out of our thoughts about a half hour out of port by the thud of someone slamming up against the railing. A man with bright red hair leans over the side of the ship and throws up spectacularly. He looks familiar to me, and I'm pretty sure he did training at the same time as I did. We didn't really talk though.

I grimace.

"Seasick?" Ben asks, not fazed.

The young man looks up weakly, his skin grey.

"No, I just like puking my guts out," says the man sarcastically, scowling, his Scottish brogue thick.

I snort slightly at the comment.

"Oh, very funny, yeah," he replies.

"Here, drink this," I say despite my better judgement, pulling a tiny phial from a pocket inside my uniform. I brewed up a huge batch of seasickness cure, just in case I fell ill.

"What is it?" he asks, surveying me suspiciously under his red hair.

"Herbal remedy for seasickness," I say with a shrug. "It helps a lot, trust me."

The redheaded man starts to reply, but then holds up his hand and leans over the side of the boat again, retching spectacularly.

"Alright, you've convinced me," he says weakly, taking a hold of the phial, which I've removed the stopper from. He looks to Ben, and then says, "Now, if I die, skin this bastard alive, got it?"

"Will do," says Ben cheerfully.

I roll my eyes, and the redheaded man downs the potion. He looks better immediately.

"Wow," he says, "minty."

"Better?" I ask, amused.

"Loads. Thanks."

"Severus Snape," I say, rather pleased as I hold out my hand.

He says his name is Joey Bryant, and from that moment on I can tell I have made a friend.

"Where the hell did you get that?" he asks, pleased his seasickness has completely gone.

"A friend of mine makes herbal remedies," I lie easily, making things up as I go along, my mind still on Lily. I do not think it is a good idea to say I have made it, for that would invite too many questions. "She has a lot of allergies, and prefers natural solutions to illness."

"Is she pretty?"

"What?"

"Hell, if she can make shit that good, I'd up and marry her any day."

Why did I have to make up a friend who was a woman? God forbid he figures out I actually made the potion. I highly doubt ‘he'd up and marry' me. I grimace.

"That bad, eh?" mutters Joey, taking my response for an answer to whether or not my ‘friend' is pretty.

I catch myself trying not to laugh. If he only knew.

***

"To be continued," I say after glancing at my watch. "It is almost curfew."

"But Dad!" Harry exclaims. "You have to keep going! What about Joey, and Ben? Did you stay friends with them? You haven't even gotten to As-Asentshun Island yet!"

"Ascension," I say without thinking. "And that is enough for tonight. Your curfew is in fifteen minutes young man, so you had best high tail it back to your dormitory. Besides, the rest I would rather tell you on a weekend, so I can tell you during the day."

"I won't get nightmares," he says childishly as I herd him to the door.

"You might not," I mutter under my breath.

"Oh," Harry says in a quiet voice as we walk out through the portrait hole into my office. "Sorry."

"No, you had to hear the story eventually," I say with a heavy sigh. Harry hugs me, and then I watch him leave my office. "I'll tell you the rest on Saturday."

Harry looks like he'd rather hear the rest tomorrow, but he knows not to argue.

When the door shuts I wait for a moment, and then I turn back to Salazar, who is looking at me curiously.

"What must he hear?" asks Salazar.

"You would not believe me if I told you," I say with a heavy sigh. "Monkshood."

"As you wish," he says, looking a bit haughty at my silence

Harry sits before me Saturday morning at ten-o-clock, squirming and awaiting the continuation of the story. I have one or two things set out before us on the little coffee table in front of the sofa. Some of them came from the box, others came from another collection of keepsakes of mine. There is a stack of letters and my dog tags.

I turn the tags over in my hands, examining Lily's writing.

"This is where she carved her note," I say to Harry, showing him the back of the tags.

"Can I hold them?" Harry asks quietly. I nod, and set them into his palm. They clink slightly, and I have to fight the memories that come with them.

He traces the back of the tag with his finger. First, Lily's name, and then he flips it over and traces mine.

"Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you miss Mum still?"

"Every day," I say.

"I miss her too," Harry mutters, blinking quickly. "I wish I could remember her. All I really remember is green light, and ... and her scream. And even that ... maybe I'm just imagining it. I hope I am, but sometimes I hope I'm not, just so I can have one memory of her, even one like that."

I shudder slightly, watching as he sets the tags in the middle of the table again.

"I am so sorry I was not there to save her," I tell Harry when I find the words, trying not to tear up.

He nods. "It's okay Dad," Harry says. "It wasn't your fault someone betrayed her."

"I used to blame James Potter for it," I say, trying to keep the trembling out of my voice. "But I can't anymore. He was at least good enough to hide her for me. I guess I never could hate him after he gave up his life protecting her. He lost his best friend too, Sirius Black, who had been Secret Keeper. The Dark Lord got to him. Did you know that he refused tell the secret? He flat out refused. The Dark Lord tortured him, but he never gave in."

Harry looks stunned, and I shake my head, guilt rising up within me. I hated Sirius Black as much as I hated James Potter, but now, that hatred is gone. I owe him for what he did. I owe them both, but there is no way for me to repay them. It haunts me in ways I never would have imagined.

"But Dad, if Sirius Black didn't tell Voldemort, how did he know where to find Mum?"

"He killed Black eventually," I say quietly. "And Peter Pettigrew knew of the location because he had visited. When the Secret Keeper dies, all who know the secret can share it. Pettigrew was one of three that knew where they were. Nobody guessed he was in with them."

"I'm sorry, Dad."

"Me too. I just wish I could have been there for her. I suppose I owe it to her to finish telling you why I couldn't be. Which leads me to continue my story."

Harry perks up, and after a sip of water, I begin to speak once more.

***

"You alright, Severus?" Joey asks curiously as I sway on the deck of the ship. "They're serving dinner; if you're feeling a little off I can try and save you something."

I swear heavily, and sink down against the railing of the ship, the letter clutched in my hand, addressed to me from Dumbledore. Fawkes the phoenix had appeared and dropped the note when I was alone on the deck.

"What's eating you?" Joey inquirers again, looking worried.

"Joey, can I have ... a moment alone?" I say, glancing down at the letter again. I know that even his good sense of humour will not help me with this.

He nods, says goodbye and walks along to the other side of the ship, saying he'll try to save a dinner roll or two for me if he can.

My heart hammers with fear, and I can hear the thundering of boots below deck, getting their evening meal. I have no appetite, however. I wish I could have confessed to Joey exactly what was going on. But how could I explain about divination teachers, and spies, and prophecies? I want to kill whatever rat had been eavesdropping on Dumbledore and the new divination teacher. I lower my eyes to the letter yet again, and phrases jump out at me.

Lily is safe ...

... James Potter has promised to hide her. He is in the Order and has the money to stay home to make sure she is safe, and we have put his home under the fidelis charm.

... know you do not like him, however ...

James knows you are the child's father ...

Lily misses you and ...

The deck is empty, and like a sleepwalker I edge my way to a stack of crates, and wedge myself between them. I lower my head to my knees, shaking and trying to fight the roiling, fearful feeling in my gut, the letter safely tucked in my pocket. I am glad Dumbledore was able to deliver it to me immediately, but I can barely breathe.

***

"You must have been worried sick," Harry says, half in horror, half in awe when he hears how I found out.

"You could say that," I mutter under my breath.

***

"Severus? Is that you?" asks Ben from behind me as I wipe my mouth, shivering as I lean over the railing of the ship, the thoughts of all the awful things the Dark Lord can do to Lily and my unborn child swirling in my head.

I wave weakly as I throw up again.

"I somehow doubt this is seasickness," says Ben rather dryly in his all-knowing sort of way. "You've been fine the whole trip, so why now, a day from the island? Anxious about where we're going? No shame in that. Everyone is."

I just shrug, not wanting to say anything.

"Joey was so worried he stopped cracking jokes," he continues. "He said you got a message. Must have been urgent to get to us here."

"Yes," I say, still bent over the railing and watching the sea sliding away beneath the ship.

"Care to talk about it?"

I look up as he puts his arms on the railing beside me.

"My wife is in danger," I say, taking a risk because I'm terrified, and I have to tell someone otherwise I think I might break. "She's had to go into hiding, because ... a - a murderer's supposedly picked her as his next target."

"Killed a lot of people, this murderer?" Ben asks curiously.

"Loads," I say, gulping as I try to keep from puking again.

"The world has been a dangerous place as of late," he mutters, shaking his head.

I look at him sharply. There's something about the way he says it that heightens my senses.

"How so?" I ask, unable to keep suspicion out of my voice. I know code. I have spied, I have lied, and I have said one thing while saying another for years.

"Well, like you said, there's a madman on the loose," he says with a shrug.

"Who?"

"No idea. Nobody can tell me his name."

The wording is clever enough that no muggle would know a bit of what we were talking about.

We pause for a moment, and then I continue.

"Well, at least you seem like you can hold your own if someone comes after you. Even if you do not know who is out there, surely you have some skill that you could defend yourself with?" I ask, because I see right through him. He had to have recognized the potion earlier. Perhaps that was why he had been so keen to hang around me since. I can't believe my luck.

"Not really, it's my sister that is the best at that sort of thing," Ben says, looking a little put out. "She was the talented one in the family. Got to go to a special school and everything. I'm not so lucky, but I hear a great deal about what she gets up to. I've been in the army since I was about your age, instead. You might know my sister though, as I believe you two have similar backgrounds."

"You are right, it seems. You have no idea how much a relief it is to know someone who actually understands anything about ... well, where I come from," I mutter to him. "Nobody here seems to know what it's like back home for me."

"If you belong there, then why on earth are you in the army?" asks Ben, his greying eyebrows furrowed.

"I was lying low with the other lot to help with the war effort, and I guess I played my part too well, because my people couldn't convince the higher ups that I was really doing it on our side's orders. No room for me in their system, so they sent me here. It was either this, or they were going to have me leave with nothing but a kiss goodbye."

Ben nods, and I am grateful that he understands the last part, because he shudders slightly. "Horrible way to go."

"Definitely."

"So, they probably did not know that you have a kid on the way, then?"

"No," I mutter. "Bit difficult to make an announcement like that given the situation."

"I cannot imagine," he mutters.

I gulp slightly.

"Does that seasickness cure work for illness in general?" Ben mutters, noting my sweaty complexion with slight concern.

"To some degree," I mutter, "but it doesn't exactly help for anxiety."

"She will be alright," Ben says. "You'll see. Before you know it you will be going home to her and your new baby."

"I hope so."

Ben grasps my shoulder, then leaves to go to bed.

"Wait ... thank you," I call to him, and he nods before going below deck, leaving me alone with the stars.

The wind feels cool on my cheeks, and I close my eyes, trying to imagine a day when I do get to go home. Right now, at the start of what I am beginning to realize is going to be a journey I will never forget, I can hardly imagine it. I walk along the ship, just for something to do, and I go to the back of the vessel and stand by the railing once more, watching as the rippling black waves of the ocean fall behind. They reflect the bright stars, for the ocean is like glass tonight. It seems strange to me that the stars look the same as they did only a few days ago, when Lily was still in my arms. It is as though I believe that there should be some visible sign in the heavens that our paths have diverged for the moment.

Suddenly, an intense pain in my chest makes me shudder from head to toe, and yet it is not a physical pain. It is the fear that our paths will remain apart, and so I reach down into my shirt and pull out my tags. I find the right one, and I flip it over, feeling her words with my fingers.

All my love, Lily

I press it tightly to my lips, and I try to forget the pain inside me ... the fear, the uncertainty. I wish that I too could send her all my love. My paper and pen lie dormant in my bag, because there is no sense in writing until they can get us to a permanent destination where they can actually send mail from. But most of all, I hope that in time I can really be there, not in pen and ink, but in flesh. Then I will take her into my arms, and I will never let go again.

***

"Ben knew all about the wizarding world?" Harry says, flabbergasted.

"Yes," I say. "I am sure there were a few more that did, but we did not have the luck to meet any more. Not an easy subject to discuss, really. I was right shocked when I found out."

"Do you think there are a lot of wizards who have fought in muggle wars?" Harry inquirers thoughtfully.

"Probably more in the olden days than now," I say, having wondered the same thing every so often. "I doubt that I was the only one that fought in the Falklands. Wizards don't always choose wizarding careers, and there were probably a fair few that were aware of the wizarding world, like Ben."

"What was it like when you got to the training camp?"

"Nerve wracking," I say with a grimace. "I had done my training to become a paratrooper, of course, but the things we did on Ascension Island were mostly strategy and preparation for the battles ahead; the things that came up were not always easy to think of. They had us do a number of things, such as go through various practise scenarios we might encounter in the field."

"Did it prepare you?" Harry asks.

"Son, nothing can prepare one for war," I mutter to him. "Nothing."

Harry does not say a word, and so I continue.

"We were only at Ascension island for a few days, but the training was very rigorous," I tell him. "Oddly enough, however, I actually recall those days rather fondly. Ben, Joey, and I trained together a lot, and so we got to know each other quite well. As well as that, I got a very good piece of news."

~~~

The long days of training sessions on Ascension island have left me exhausted. The rest of the men are the same, and it is finally starting to sink in that we are going into a war. Despite having done heavy training in order to qualify for the army this kind of training is like none I have ever done before. A lot of it is strategy, which we are to apply during practise battles. These battles are the closest thing to a real fight they can give us, and as we practise formations and combat we sharpen our skills, and do the necessary preparation with the newly formed platoons. Joey is in mine, and while Ben is in another platoon, his group tends to do practises with ours, which I am glad for, because he has quickly become a good friend to me.

It has long grown dark out, and our weary company plods toward the make-shift barracks, exhausted from a surprise practise in the evening which replaced inspection. We had been forced to try and capture a small hill that had been set up to mimic the dangers we would likely face, and after hours of strategy, formations, and adrenaline, at last we can rest.

Up ahead I can see a swarm of men talking loudly, waving envelopes in the air.

"The post got through one the latest supply ship!" Joey cries with glee, suddenly full of energy once more as he runs forward to go and see if there are any envelopes for him. I am not far behind him, and I wait with badly concealed anticipation until I hear "Snape" called out by the man with the postbag.

"Over here," I shout, and the men clear a path for me.

The envelope is thrust into my hands. Ben and Joey are waiting for me. Ben's got his letter tucked in his shirt pocket, and Joey's already devouring his letter. He almost bumps into one of the poles on the tent as we go inside, but I laugh and pull him in the other direction before he can. It is quiet, and a few men seem to be asleep already.

I sink down on my bunk and throw my muddy boots off, lying back with a moan of appreciation. Ben lights the little camp lantern and sinks into his cot beside mine, Joey on the other side. I hear Ben chuckle appreciatively as he pulls out a colour photo of his niece.

"Elly got her first tooth," he says, passing the picture to me. Joey gets up to admire it.

"Great picture," I say with amusement, handing the picture back to Ben, who tucks in his shirt pocket and continues reading his letter.

I unfold my letter, surprised to see that Lily's normally neat handwriting seems rather jumbled. With concern, I begin to read. I needn't have been worried however.

Darling,

It's a boy! Six pounds five ounces, born at 6:02 A.M. on April 19th, 1982. He's got your hair, and my eyes. He is a beautiful boy, and your father was quite taken with him. Your mother was in danger of flooding the house with her tears of joy - I have never seen her so hysterical! I wish I could write more, but I'm exhausted. I had to do a lot of convincing to get your mother to allow me to write this much before sleeping some. I'll try and send a picture in my next letter. I hope it reaches you.

All my love,

A proud mother!

I shoot up from my bed and run my hand through my hair, my face breaking into a grin.

"What are you so excited about, Severus?" Ben asks absent-mindedly as he carefully folds his letter up again.

I look at Ben, hardly able to speak, and finally I cry, "It's a boy!"

"When was this?" says Joey, looking almost as pleased as I am.

"April 19th! Harry Severus Snape, six pounds, five ounces!"

"Congratulations!" roars Ben, leaping up from his bunk and thumping me on the back.

"What's all the shouting about?" a man I know as Simon says groggily.

"Severus is finally a father!" Ben says jovially.

"Congratulations, mate!" Simon says with a smile before shutting his eyes and relaxing into his pillow, dead to the world in mere moments, a smile still on his lips.

"Hey Severus," says Joey in a conspiratorial tone. "What say we celebrate?"

"Aren't we already?" I say, grinning.

He laughs, and pulls something from his bag.

"Drinks are on me," he says in a low voice, lifting up a bottle of rum.

"You rascal, Joey," Ben hisses, thrusting his flimsy tin cup toward Joey. I do the same, and he pours us each a measure.

"To Harry," Ben says, raising his cup.

"To Severus!" Joey adds.

"To Lily," I say, and we all drink.

Joey grabs the bottle again, starting to pour another round.

"I say that we celebrate this new responsibility by being completely irresponsible," he says in a low voice, "and getting you utterly smashed. What say you?"

"Joey, we ship out tomorrow," Ben says, amused, setting down his tin cup before Joey can refill it too. "Do you really think a hangover will help your seasickness?"

"Can't make me much sicker," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Ah, one more," I say, grinning. "One can't hurt."

"Oh yeah, just one," says Ben skeptically. "If I have to force some of that seasickness cure down your sorry throats tomorrow ..."

***

"Well, did he?" Harry says. "Did Ben have to make you two drink seasickness cure?"

"Oh, no," I reply. "We were perfectly responsible."

~~~

Ben just about splits a gut laughing when he comes across Joey and I the next day, both bent double, leaning over the ship railing and clutching our stomachs.

"Well done, boys," he says, giving us each a slap across the back just to wind us up. We both moan, and Joey tells Ben to do something extremely impolite.

I hear a chuckle, and Ben looks calmly out at the still, blue sea.

"I hope it was worth it," Ben tells us, "because it is a beautiful day for sailing."

Joey looks at me, his green tinged face damp with sweat. I look him straight in the eye, and we both nod.

"So worth it," we say at almost the exact same time.

We both throw up spectacularly, and Ben just shakes his head, leaving the both of us to try and swallow some seasickness cure.

~~~

"Yes, perfectly responsible," I mutter again after a moment of silence, and Harry snickers softly, having guessed exactly what I neglected to say. I pin him with a glare that makes most first years turn a ghostly white, but he just snickers louder. I'll have to work on that glare of mine if I want to avoid getting letters from Minerva.

"Alright, so you and Joey had an awful first day on the ship," Harry said. "What then? Did you get the picture Mum sent of me? What happened when you got to the island?"

"Well, first of all, the picture with you never really did make it to me," I said, frowning. "The mail couldn't catch up with us where we were going, and was always a step behind, it seemed. Whether she sent it or not, I do not know, for I never did get it. It is possible it got lost in the muggle mail, or perhaps Dumbledore warned her not to send a picture in case it was intercepted. I will never know.

"But the distance from her seemed even more profound after the news of you being born. It made me realize what I was missing, and the silence after seemed to make the distance grow, and grow. Perhaps it was really because after a little while I started to feel so far apart from who I used to be, because the closer we got, the more I realized that it really was a war I was going into. You could see it in the others too, especially once we had boarded the ship and sailed for the Falklands. Ben got quieter the closer we got, and Joey didn't laugh as much. It was tense, but nothing compared to the night we went landed in the Falklands.

"You see, we were expecting a full out storm of the beaches of San Carlos, going up against the Argentinian army, who had taken possession of the islands some months back after overwhelming the small military presence. We had our guns ready and our strategy decided, but as the boats came in onto the beaches, we were met with almost no resistance. It did not seem to bode well.

"So there weren't any soldiers from the other side?" Harry asks, enthralled.

I shake my head.

"Of course, we were not just worried about them," I say in a low voice. "Our air force was vastly outnumbered by the Argentinian force. They had the shores of Argentina close by for their air force, but the closest base we had to the Falklands was Ascension Island, and that was almost four thousand miles away and smack dab in the middle of an ocean. So, the Argentinians had much better access to air support, and while the Royal Air Force had newer planes, they could only bring over as many as they could fit on the two aircraft carriers that were sent from home. There were scores of Argentinian Planes, and the RAF was supposed to clear them out before the landings on the beaches, but they were not able to manage it in time. So we had to land with the threat of an air strike. Some three thousand of us."

"But nobody was waiting for you on the beaches?" Harry asks.

"No," I say. "Not that that set us at ease. It was quiet. Too quiet. We had mostly dug into the surrounding hills of San Carlos when it all went to hell. I think it was about six AM."

"What happened?"

"The air strikes started."

"In the hills?" Harry asks, horrified.

"No," I mutter, shaking my head as the bombs start to fall in my mind, the sounds somehow ingrained in my memory so that I can hear every bang, every crash, every whistle, even after all these years.

~~~

We are spreading out over the surrounding hills of San Carlos, our nerves twanging as our eyes scan the hills and the water down below. Everyone is tense, for the place is practically deserted. The men like me from the Parachute regiments are most unnerved, for we are used to coming into the field by air, but this time we too came in from the landing craft like the other commandos. The marines had told us to expect a fight, and then there wasn't one.

"I wish I knew what was going on," mutters Ben as we help to set up the mounts for the anti-aircraft guns.

I wish Joey was working near us too, rather than a hill away. We could use a little humour, for everyone is tired and worn out from the nerve wracking act of landing on the beaches. The anticipation and uncertainty.

"Shh," says someone nearby. "You guys hear that?"

There are nods all around.

"They our boys?" someone asks.

Ben hunts around for a pair of binoculars and watches the skies.

Everyone knows by the way that Ben lowers his binoculars that we had better hurry in setting up our anti-aircraft gun. Most of the other guns are ready, but a select few were pulled out last minute to be set up, just in case we needed more. Everyone has had to lend a hand in this, not just the artillery experts, and it's been slower going for the men I am with, for most of us are paratroopers, with only a few experts from Artillery.

"So it starts," I hear someone whisper, but their words are almost drowned out, for the roar of the aircraft crescendos. It grows louder, and louder until the drone of the Argentinian air force overhead is almost deafening.

I turn around for a second to look down into the bay, where our ships are. High up above them the wings of the planes can be seen, and I am looking when the first bombs fall. The flashes are blinding, and great cascades of water shoot into the air. Some bombs do not detonate, but that only builds the fear, because you do not know which will blow.

"That was a hit!" I cry to the others, who have turned around.

One of the ships that took troops here has had a huge hole blown through the side of it. My stomach falls to my toes, and the men around me look sick as well. That was the ship we came on. It was almost like home, even just for a little while.

"Keep going!" someone says, the clanking of metal barely audible as the race to assemble the gun continues. "No time!"

The whistle of bombs falling and the sounds of aircraft shooting meet our ears. Soon the Royal Air Force is up in the sky as well, as many planes as it seems they can get up. Still, they are vastly outnumbered. I clamp my hands over my ears as our Anti-Aircraft gun is fired for the first time. It misses. The clatter of the rounds firing fills my ears again. A stream of fire connects, and the bullets tear up the right wing of a distant Argentinian plane over the bay. It does a nose dive, and spirals madly, a stream of smoke billowing from it as it falls. A few men cheer, but I don't. Something stops me.

I wonder what it sounds like hitting the water, because over the sound of aeroplanes, bombs, and gunfire I can't hear it. I do not see any parachutes, and it takes me a moment to realize that the ground is not shaking as much as I think it is. The rest is all me.

This goes on, and on, it seems. I lose track of time as I hoist huge clanking belts of piercing rounds up into the machine when it needs more ammunition. The noise roars in my ears, and the flashes overhead make me feel dizzy. I see a British helicopter hit, and if I would have blinked I would have missed it smashing into the ocean below in fiery pieces of wreckage.

I have seen muggle action films before with Lily, and it is at this moment that I realize that no movie could ever capture the kind of twisted chaos of a real helicopter going down. The disaster I just witnessed was a sight to behold, and I know I'll never forget to the way it feels in my chest as I see it fall. Who was the pilot? Did he have a wife too? Was he a father?

"SEVERUS!" shouts one of the men firing the anti-aircraft gun. I leap into action, because they need a new belt of ammunition. Ben too seems to shake from a stupor, and he helps me hoist it up and put it in place.

Then the ear-splitting fire continues. There is a symphony of explosions and fire. As I clamp my hands over my ears to try and dampen the sound, I know I'll never watch another action film again.

~~~

"Then what?" Harry says.

"Well, when things finally cleared up, we had fifty miles of hard terrain to march across to get to Port Stanley, where we all knew the final fight was to take place because the Argentinians had mostly set up base there. I was to go to Mount Longdon with many of the paratroopers. That was the first battle in the series aimed at taking back Stanley, and it was to be fought at night, as were the rest."

"Wait, you went on foot?"

"Yes. With one hundred and thirty pounds of kit."

"Wow, you walked all the way to Port Stanley?"

"Well," I say slowly, "not entirely. I personally did not make it all the way to Stanley. I was only able to go as far as Longdon ... like many others. The battle was horrific."

My thought is interrupted by Harry's awestruck voice.

"What happened during the battle, Dad?"

He sounds simultaneously amazed, and horrified at my statement that I did not make it all the way.

"Well, we were told to go forward, up the mountain. It was a maze of rock and hilly terrain, but of course, to get there you had to get past a lot of other things first."

***

The boys from Artillery fire up onto the mountainsides, the darkness pressing in around us. The whistling scream of the shells spinning through the air are enough to make me want to faint. I am tired to the bone, and the weather only seems to be lifting now. Sheets of icy rain had been pouring down on us as we walked in long lines to the battle site, across rugged terrain in cold weather. We had been walking for three days with little rest, over what I had heard someone say was about ninety kilometres. I do not doubt it, for I am dead on my feet. It is only my nerves that keep me standing as we wait for the moment when the real fight begins.

Joey is beside me. He looks to me, and even though I know he's every bit as scared as I am, he nudges me in the ribs, and says, "How 'bout it?"

"Looks bloody awful," I mutter under my breath.

"The girls will like the battle scars though," he says, letting out a small wolf whistle. He grins, but I know that there is no heart behind his joke. I nod my head appreciatively, and I think he understands that I am glad he is trying to lighten the situation a little.

We are silent again, and I look around for something to do, even though I'm scared too. To my relief I see Ben up ahead. Ben was split into a different platoon from Joey and I for this. I wish he would turn around, just so I can see his face. He's got that calm look about him much of the time, and you can't help but feel better when you see it. I am torn from this thought as the crashes sound overhead and we hear the order to go forward.

I clutch my rifle, and suddenly I am running, Joey's back visible to me as he runs ahead. The way seems clear enough, and the men up front fire off into the hillsides, where the Argentinians are sheltered by rocky outcrops and natural caves. Bullets whistle past our heads, and I think one grazes my helmet, but I cannot be sure in the din. You can see the spark of the guns up on the hillsides as each round leaves the barrel. I am absolutely terrified, and if it were not for the fact that the other men are behind me, blocking my way, I might have turned round and tried to run all the way back to San Carlos. The first trembling bang shocks me to the core, and I see up ahead an explosion from the ground.

There are mines, all along the base of the mountain. Over the chaos I think I hear the order to keep going, and it must be that that is said, for despite the shuddering of the force, nobody halts. There is only one thing to do, and I follow Joey as he darts up ahead. I want to catch up with him, and I am almost there when I hear an ear-splitting bang, and he hits the ground. I am unable to stop, and I fall head over heels, tripping over his prone form.

"JOEY!"I shout as loudly as I can, and I turn him over.

Everything seems to go silent, and I turn Joey over. There is a gash in his helmet, and I see his blank eyes staring up at me, dark drops falling from his temple. He does not stir, but I shake him and call his name again because it doesn't make sense. We were talking just seconds ago. He, Ben and I had spent long, tiring days together waiting for this fight to start, talking tactics to keep our nerves from getting the best of us. This wasn't in the plan. This wasn't in the plan.

I can barely move, and then I feel someone grab me by the collar and drag me up.

"Keep going!" shouts the voice, and in a second I know it is Ben. He was slowed down by the masses, and he must have recognized my shout. He pulls me forward, and I go with him gladly, because right now I have the dizzying sensation that up and down don't matter anymore, for my mind is still trying to process what I just saw. A shell lands behind us, right where we were only seconds ago.

We are through the mines. Only a few of them ended up exploding. I hear someone shout that they think the mines are frozen from the cold. I do not pay much thought to this, however, as I am surveying the situation, the sheer adrenaline seeming to have grounded me. The Argentinians are scattered all over, and we throw ourselves against the stone, Ben and I.

"GRENADE!" someone shouts nearby, and we see the rattling form come rolling down the hill toward our troops.

Ben and I clamour behind a large rock, and we hear the explosion. There is a blinding light for a moment, and then it is gone, only the crashing bangs of the artillery and the occasional mine. Screams puncture the air every which way.

I see one of the men from my platoon wave that the coast is clear. The platoons have broken up a fair bit. Only small groups from them remain, and I hope that this is only because people were separated, rather than the alternative that they just did not make it. Ben and I move from our spot at the signal, and I glance behind, seeing the explosions of the mines behind us. I look ahead again, and I see him before anyone else. The dark outline of a man with a gun is just visible a few feet above us, wedged between a crevice, and I can just make out his enemy uniform. He is aiming at the British soldier near the front, the one who had signalled earlier - I think his name might be Andrews. I raise my gun, and before I have a chance to think I fire. The man's rifle clatters down the rocky side. A soldier beside me claps me over the back and shouts ‘good shot' over the din, and I hear Andrews shout a word of thanks.

Ben pushes me from behind because I've slowed down as I stare at the rifle that has fallen in front of me. It occurs to me right then that I am far too lucky that I have Ben by my side. I thought I knew warfare before this, but now I understand that I only ever saw the edges of the Wizarding war, the shadow that I spied in. That was dusk, and this is night, and at the moment I can barely see the ground beneath my feet.

The bullets keep firing, and the flashes go on and on, and I think it has been almost three hours, and yet the sheer, gripping terror on my heart has not lessened any. We edge our way up the mountainside, gaining ground then losing it, and gaining it again. It seems to me as futile as it is bloody. The combat is often very close, and a few times I end up duking it out with my fists and the butt of my rifle. I narrowly miss being jabbed by a bayonet, and it leaves a gash along the side of my uniform. I barely feel the sting, but I feel the tightness of fear in my chest, the world spinning dizzily. Worst of all, I see the faces still as I run on, leaving the dead behind in body but not in spirit. They're boys, some of them, younger looking than any I've seen on our side. Fourteen, fifteen maybe.

Everything seems different after that - the air, the sky, the ground. My hands.

There is a rather flat portion of ground, and we charge across it, firing at anyone we can hit. The banging and crashing has started my heart pounding erratically again. There are mines here too, and a man beside me falls, the ground shaking as the mine takes his leg off. Ben and I keep running, trying to dodge the dark spots on the ground that look like something might be buried, because even though only a few of them seem to be going off, we do not want to take our chances. Somehow, we are through again, but half of the men we were with lie on the ground, mostly by gunfire.

Ben darts further ahead and takes shelter in a crevice, shooting up at a ledge, where a man is firing. He misses, and dives out of sight. I feel a thrill of fear down my spine, hoping that he is aiming somewhere else for I am slowed up when I stumble over something, a man's abandoned helmet, I think. I hit the ground with my knees but I get up again with great speed. Ben's aiming up at the ledge again, and I am about to dive into the crevice as well when I see out of the corner of my eye the sparking of the bullet leaving the barrel. The man on the ledge has fired, and before I know it there is a flash of blinding pain and I am on the ground, out in the open. I curl up and clutch my left leg, and it occurs to me that I am shouting. I hear a deafening shot nearby, and through the haze of pain I see the man slump with his arm dangling over the rocky outcrop. My fallen helmet is jammed back on my head as I spit dirt and blood from my lips. At nearly the same time I feel an arm hoist me up under my armpits, and I am dragged into the crevice. Through a haze of pain I see Ben's face, illuminated every so often by flashing light from the battle outside of this tiny shelter of rock.

The sounds of the battle are dampened slightly, for this crevice goes deeper than I had thought. Ben's pale and shaking as he looks down at my leg, and I too glance at it. My chest heaves as I stare at my leg, mangled and bloody. I feel like I'm going to throw up and am breathing erratically, and Ben is talking to me, but I do not quite understand what he is saying. Then I start to make sense of his words, and he is saying he is going to stay here with me. His calm look is gone.

I shake my head.

"No," I croak, because I don't want him to get trapped in here because there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. You can only fire one shot at a time. That, and one grenade rolled in here would be certain death. I doubt the chances are any better outside, but I do not want anyone to die for me.

He does not say a word, and reaches deep into his pockets to pull out some bandaging. He takes the long strip and he ties a tourniquet above my knee to keep me from bleeding out. I hear distressed shouts from outside. They are our boys.

Ben looks out, and it is clear we both know that they need all the help they can get, and that staying on one spot is as bad as leaving.

"Go," I mutter dazedly.

"I'll be back for you," he says shakily, placing my rifle in my hands and propping me up against the stone. "I promise!"

I just nod, and then I see a rush of uniforms past my little crevice. He launches himself out with an animal-like cry of terror and fury.

I hear the clatter of the battle outside, and every minute that goes by I feel the fatigue growing. I hiss in pain. Despite the fact that I am ready to fire, nobody comes into the little cave I sit in, thankfully. I think it has to have been at least five hours since the battle started. I think I've been in the cave for two. I can barely hold the rifle, and then suddenly, I hear the sounds of the battle start to dissipate. Surely it is not over yet? I am in too much pain to care, however, and in the darkness of the night I start to think of Lily. Where is she? How is she? And what of Harry? Does our son look like her? I wish so much that it was easier to send letters out in the field. Having had to trek across the islands, I missed her letters. At least when we had done a little bit of training for the mission on Ascension Island we could communicate. I had not heard a scrap of news since the short letter about Harry being born. I desperately wish I had a picture of Lily and the baby.

I shake my head slightly, my thoughts moving slowly. There is someone coming. My heart suddenly jumps into my throat, and I weakly try to lift my rifle.

"Severus?" asks a voice.

I sigh with relief. It's Ben. I am amazed he is alive.

"Is the battle over?" I ask, my words slurring slightly.

"No," he says grimly. "Just a temporary lull. We're to collect casualties."

"You okay?" I say weakly.

"Fine," he says, though his voice is shaking and he looks ready to faint from exhaustion, "well, mostly. I got a good graze on my arm, but throw on a bandage and I should be able to keep fighting."

I feel his good arm behind me, and he grunts slightly as he hoists me up. I can barely hold my weight with my good leg, and my head spins. He practically has to carry me out of the crevice and down the hillside, even though his whole left sleeve is almost drenched with his blood. I can just see the shadows of people in the darkness, lumbering with the burdens of either the dead or wounded. Ben keeps a tight hold on me as we slowly go down the mountainside, through the twisting mazes of rock. There is a marked path through the mine field, and we go through it in a line with the others. Most of the mines appear to have been found. Bodies litter the battlefield, and other strange shapes that look to be nothing but black splotches in the dark of the night. Once we are behind our artillery, the lines of men lying on stretchers come into focus as we navigate through them to try and find an empty one. My body is weary but my mind, even in its hazy state, refuses to rest.

I cannot make sense of anything. And I wonder, why is this even happening? I swallow thickly, trying not to look around me. Sitting in their offices, did the politicians on either side even pause to think of what their choice would come to? Did they even want to? Would they if they could hear what I hear? Hearing dying men crying for their mothers ... would they?

I don't quite realize that I am hiding my face in my shoulder as Ben halts at last. I moan as Ben helps me lie down on a stretcher. He seems to be worried about me, and I know I am not doing well either. My leg is torn up really badly, and I've lost a lot of blood. There are a great number of wounded, but at least a lot are minor wounds, like Ben's. Some are really bad, though. A fair few have lost limbs. The worst are being patched up as well as they can be, and they are going to be taken by helicopter to the medical station at Ajax bay, where they will be patched up further and then sent to the hospital ships to recuperate. Ben is trying to get the attention of a doctor, and after about fifteen minutes one is able to look at my leg. It seems that my wound is one of the really bad ones, besides those missing limbs completely, of course.

"Severus, I have to keep helping," Ben says to me as the doctor examines my leg.

I nod, gritting my teeth, for the doctor is gently feeling my leg and kneecap, probably gauging to see anything is broken. Something definitely is; it is just a matter of what.

I nod, and I grasp his hand as firmly as I can.

"Thank you," I say, my voice hoarse, my words slurring. I do not know how to express the gratitude I feel and my sluggish brain does not help me in this area. "I - I wish I could repay you ... somehow."

"You can repay me by getting better and going home to your little boy," he says to me firmly.

I nod, and he grasps my shoulder one last time before disappearing in the crowd, off to bring in more casualties.

"From what I can see and feel, your kneecap is out of place, and likely shattered. The bullet went through the leg, and judging by the area the kneecap and surrounding bones, your leg is likely broken in a number of places," the doctor says to me when Ben has gone. The doctor is an older fellow, and his moustache is streaked with grey. "You need to have an x-ray and then surgery, as soon as possible. You have lost a lot of blood, and while your friend was clever to stem the bleeding with the tourniquet, you will need to receive blood. We only have so much in the field, but more is on hand at the surgical unit on Ajax bay. I am going to bandage your leg up as well as I can for now. Then, you will be air lifted by helicopter, along with some other soldiers in need of immediate treatment."

I nod, and all I can think of is all of the other men, left here to keep fighting. Left to their deaths.

***

"So, that is part of the reason why my knee has never healed perfectly," I say to Harry after a moment of silence, allowing him to digest some of the details I have given him. "Muggles are quite good with their surgeries, but unfortunately, they could only do so much for my knee. I have arthritis in it now, which is to be expected considering. They managed to patch me up quite soon. The day I arrive at Ajax I was able to get my surgery. They put my kneecap back together, and put a few pins in my leg. I had to stay off it for a couple of months, and wear a brace to keep it immobilized, but I still have both legs, so I am really very lucky. Ben definitely saved my leg that day, and probably my life too."

"What about Ben?" Harry asked, sounding as though he was not sure of what to say.

"That was the last I saw of him," I say sadly, trying to get words past the lump in my throat. "I do not know what happened. I've looked through phone books and in records, but I haven't found him. I suspect ... I suspect he did not return."

"I ... I'm sorry, Dad," Harry whispers.

I nod, and we sit in silence for some time, neither able to think of anything to say. It is a long time before Harry speaks.

"Dad, I don't understand ... if you were done fighting, how did you get the Victoria Cross?" Harry asked me, bewildered. "Did you leave something out from Mount Longdon?"

"I did not get my medal for anything that happened during the battle at Mount Longdon," I mutter, almost bitterly. "I got it for something that happened a few days later. But first, I have to tell about the news that came for me."

"What was that?"

I close my eyes for a moment, trying to think of all the ways I can put this in words.

~~~

I am in a bed, my knee aching something fierce. It is immobilized, and I lie in the dimly lit abandoned factory along with many others who have recently come out of emergency surgeries. It is a wonder to me that they have been able to get to so many people so quickly. It has been almost ten hours since I came out of surgery, and there are many men scattered throughout the building, only some visible to me. Apparently I am doing well, but all I can think of is Ben, and my comrades, marching toward their next battle. Will it be their last? And here I am, lying in a bed that is so much softer than the cold ground I am used to, knowing I will be allowed to go home after a stay on one of the hospital ships for a little while, because I will not be fit to fight for months.

For a moment, I feel myself fill up with guilt. How have I deserved this? Why am I still not fighting? And then, I remember Ben's words, telling me to go home to my son. I suddenly feel like I want to get up, and tell each and every person lying in beds in the recovery area that I have a baby boy waiting for me at home, and a beautiful wife who I will get to hold in my arms.

I lie there, imagining the look on her face when I walk through the door. Lily will be standing there, this time with our little boy in her arms. When the picture comes to mind she is wearing my t-shirt, and laughing as she tells me she did wash it after all.

I know that in a few hours I will be leaving for the hospital ship, and while I know that it will be some time before I do arrive home, I am certain now that I will get there. I doze for an hour or so after this, simply trying to ignore the pain in my knee.

I am wide awake again when a nurse comes over to the group of beds mine is among, looking grim. She is holding a note in her shaking hands. I wonder who it is for, and then I hear her call out my name, glancing around the scattered patients.

"Severus Snape?" she asks in a shaking voice.

I feel sick, and as I nod that I am Severus, she comes and sits down on a crate by my bed.

"We've just received an urgent message," she says. "It's ... it's for you. It's from a friend of yours, Albus, I think."

"What does it say?" I ask, suddenly feeling cold to my very bones.

The nurse is around my age, I think, and she's shaking like a leaf before me. She is not hardened like some of the older nurses assisting. I have the strange desire to tell her it will be okay, but in a moment of terrified realization, I remind myself that this note is not for her, but for me.

"It ... It says that ..." she says, trying not to cry. "Oh, I am so sorry S-Severus, it's your wife ..."

I sit up sharply despite the fact that I barely have the strength to do so.

"No. No ... what happened? Tell me!" I croak, stricken and barely able to speak. I do not realize that everyone who can hear and is able has turned in their beds to watch the scene play out. "And my son, my little boy?"

"Your w-wife's been ... k-killed," the nurse says, "but your son is alive. He's okay, and he's with your parents."

I sit there, shaking, still as can be. I feel a second of relief that Harry is alive, but then agony drives everything out of my mind. Lily ... how can she be ... how?

"D-Dead?" I whisper, choking on the word.

The nurse nods, and tears are flowing down her face. Surely this is a mistake? I see the note, hastily scrawled by someone or another. I see my name, Severus Snape. Then I see Lily's name. I see Harry's name, and then I know that this is real.

I don't realize that I am sobbing, and I don't realize the nurse is holding me in her arms, crying too because of my pain, because of all the pain here in this makeshift surgical hospital. I don't care that someone is holding me, and she can be of no comfort to me, because she is not Lily.

This was never supposed to happen. I was supposed to be the one that was killed, not Lily. It was never part of the plan for me to survive only to be left on this earth without her. Guilt overwhelms me, and I hate myself because I was not there for her. Did Potter try to protect her? Is he alive still?

Time seems to pass in great dollops, and I don't know how long I cry for, but eventually I am left lying in my bed, the nurse long gone. I've stopped crying now, because I have no tears left. The other soldiers nearest try to comfort me, saying things like, ‘your son is okay, you'll be with him soon', and ‘I know how you feel. My wife passed away a few years ago from cancer, it's going to be alright'. I barely hear them, and in my haze of grief all I can do is clutch my dog tags, feeling Lily's writing over and over with my fingers, as though I believe that this action will bring her back.

But it doesn't.

***

Harry's head is on my shoulder, and he's pressed up against me on the sofa. I hold him tightly, the silence deafening now that I have finished recounting the note. It was not easy for him to hear, and it was not easy for me to tell. I had only ever told him that I was away on a mission when the Dark Lord came. He never knew what kind of mission, where I was, or how I found out.

"You didn't even get to see her before she died?" Harry whispers to me, sounding like he wants to cry.

"No," I mutter, and I stroke his hair a little bit. "It is my greatest regret that I was not there to save her."

Harry nods, but then says with care, "This way I still have a Dad though. If you'd been there that night, maybe you wouldn't be here either. He killed James Potter, after all."

Harry says it matter-of-factly, and for the first time, it occurs to me that he probably is right.

Who am I kidding? I would not have been able to hold off Voldemort long enough for Lily to get away either. Everyone knows you cannot apparate with a young baby, and even by broom she wouldn't have had a chance. I know very well that I would have fallen far too quickly for her to get away, however ashamed I am to admit it. The only person that might have stood a chance at giving her enough time would have been Dumbledore.

"I know, and I am glad that I still have a son," I mutter, and I know I need to tell him this. "You have been my saving grace, Harry. I was lucky to come home to someone that needed me so badly. You will always be my reminder of how precious life is."

And as I hold him tightly, cling to him, I think of all the stories of soldiers killing themselves, and how more soldiers from the Falklands have died from suicide than during battle. I do not tell Harry this, but I think he senses that there is a great deal of depth to my statement, because he holds onto me tighter. I get the feeling the rest of the story has to wait for tomorrow.

That night I cannot sleep, and I sit by the box that holds so many memories. So much pain. I hold up the trousers to my army uniform. I finger the frayed material and the hole where the bullet went though. I can find where it entered, and where it left. Just thinking about this makes my knee hurt. There is a dark stain where the blood soaked my trousers, along the left leg. No amount of washing would get it out, but I did not care. I doubted I would finish my service in the army because of my injury, which they had forecasted would take quite a long time to properly heal, and longer still for me to return to the physical condition I was in, if ever. I was just glad that the Ministry found my service sufficient, especially considering that I had to fight in a war.

I reach down to pull out the shirt, and as I shift it I feel something slippery in my fingers. I let go with surprise, for it had felt nothing like my army uniform. I grab the uniform again, and I put it aside. Then, I grope around at the bottom of the box. I feel that sliding feeling between my fingertips again, and to my utter amazement, my hand comes up with an invisibility cloak, dust drifting down from it. I had not put that there. There is a clunk and something falls from it, but for a moment I stare at the invisibility cloak in my fingers, frowning.

Has this always been in here? I know all too well this box has not been opened since the day I dropped my army things into it, shoving it far into the reaches of the attic at Spinner's end. Dumbledore had salvaged only two pieces of furniture that Lily had brought over to James Potter's home in Godric's Hollow, where they hid from the Dark Lord. One was a rocking chair I painstakingly built for her with my father when I first found out she was pregnant. The second thing was this box, which had been Lily's. She used to keep it under her bed at Hogwarts, and she had kept it to throw various things in over the years. I remember filling it with dishes before carting it to our little flat in London. I wondered why Dumbledore bothered to save it. He said it was one of few pieces of furniture Lily had taken to Potter's. I doubted he looked inside it, and I recall opening it and feeling so let down that there was nothing of Lily's inside it, because the box never meant that much to her, and did not remind me of her all that much. Almost everything had been destroyed in the cottage, and I was aching for something of hers, anything. But there was nothing, and I even remember crying a little as I threw my army things in it and shut it for good.

Now, with the cloak no longer concealing it, I see the leather bound book lying on the floor, the source of the clunking. I see the yellowed pages along the sides. My breath catches in my throat as I feel it gently with my fingers. It's a photo album, and I can barely see through the tears as I flip it open to the first page, the invisibility cloak of no concern to me.

There we are, Lily and I. The magical photograph is of our wedding, cradled in the yellow pages that Lily must have concealed with the aid of Potter's cloak. I feel my chest starting to hurt when I realize she must have done this to protect me in case they were discovered. I wipe my eyes and stare down at the pictures of our wedding once more. It was not extravagant in the least, the ceremony. My father had a friend who was able to marry us quietly, with just my parents there. Lily's parents had been dead for some time at that point, after a nasty car crash in her sixth year. But she is happy in this picture. Radiant, in fact, and the photo was snapped exactly at the moment when we kissed. I touch the photograph's edges, careful not to get my fingerprints on it. I wish I could fall through it, and as I close my eyes I can remember the way her lips felt on mine.

I flip to the next page, and then I see a picture of myself, asleep on the sofa and drooling, wearing my Electric Light Orchestra t-shirt as I always did in those days because Lily liked it on me. Lily had snapped a picture of me asleep, thinking it was funny. That had been the day after my first session of training with the military. I was utterly exhausted when I came home.

The next picture is of us sitting in front of the fire at my parents' house on Christmas Eve. You can see the stockings hanging from the mantelpiece, and we are leaning against each other. The shot is taken from the back, and my arm is around Lily. I think it was my father that took the picture on the sly. I flip the page.

I catch myself laughing when I see the photo Lily snapped of me when she told me she was pregnant. I had just gotten home for the day and she told me to come into the kitchen and sit down at the table. She started rambling about the camera, saying she was having trouble with it so I didn't suspect anything, and then she casually slipped in the line about her being pregnant. The magical, moving picture shows that my eyebrows are as high as they can go, and I have a rather bewildered, but delighted look on my face. My mouth is hanging open, utterly shocked, and then I start to grin. Smiling at the memory, I look to the next page and see the picture of Lily with her belly just barely protruding, her short t-shirt lifting slightly to show a small patch of her pale pink skin. She's looking out the window serenely and she's stirring a pot of soup on the stove. Her hair is in a long braid, the way I liked it best.

"Oh Merlin," I say to myself, half in embarrassment, for I had forgotten the existence of this picture as I see the magical photo of both of us singing and dancing by the record player, bursting out into laughter occasionally at our equally bad renditions of our favourite song. I recall Lily putting the camera on the mantle, and charming it to take a picture, so we were both in it. There is one of us slow dancing in the living room too. Lily is quite pregnant in these pictures, as they were taken shortly before I got the news that I would have to go overseas.

I flip through a few more pages of just Lily and I, her getting more pregnant with every shot. I laugh when I see the picture from when I ambushed her with the camera while she was taking a bubble bath, relaxing under fluffy mountains of foam. The picture has captured her mid laugh as she flicks bubbles at the lens, and you can see her lips forming a long "Severus!", as she always did when I acted silly.

When I flip to the next page my laughter fades away, and instead my breath catches in my throat, because I've never seen these pictures. I stare at the page, down at the two people I love the most, watching as their matching green eyes meet for the first time.

***

The school day has ended at last, and Harry stands quietly outside in the courtyard, Herbology having finished up moments ago. Nobody notices the thoughtful expression on his face, something he is glad for. All of the things that his father has told him are swirling in his head again, and as he and his friends mill about in the nice fall air he is not forced into conversation, for Hermione and Ron are busy arguing over some silly thing. He goes on thinking interrupted, taking in deep breaths of the crisp fall air.

Harry shakes his head slightly, trying to imagine what it must have been like for his father, going through all that. It makes his eyes sting to think of surviving only to find out the love of your life was dead, knowing you weren't there to tell her you loved her one last time. Harry felt strange to think that he had been there when his father hadn't. He'd been with his mum and he'd probably hugged her one last time - or as well as a baby could hug. Yet, somehow, he felt just as distant as his dad had been. Harry did not remember her, at least not truly, for what he did recall were only the fragments of a half-remembered moment that replayed over and over in his nightmares when he was worried and stressed.

Yet, his father spoke with almost as much dread of getting that medal, of earning that Victoria Cross. What could possibly be so bad about being given a hero's medal? His father has always been perfectly happy to have people look up to him, and Harry has known him to gripe from time to time about how the Wizarding World is too stuck up to see past their prejudice and realize that as a spy he brought in information that saved countless lives. It seems to annoy him quite a bit, and yet why on earth would he speak so bitterly of this, a war medal that is given only to the exceptional?

"Hey, Snape!" spits an all too familiar voice, dragging Harry out of his thoughts and causing heads to turn.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Harry says with a scowl as pronounced as Malfoy's smirk.

"What's with Professor Spook today, huh?" taunts Malfoy. Harry glares at him, knowing exactly what Malfoy is referring to.

Somebody had dropped a textbook in class this morning, while his father was underlining a few things on the chalkboard. He had jumped rather suddenly, and the chalk fell on the floor and broke. Harry had watched closely, worried as his father turned back around to pick up the pieces, waving his wand to fix the chalk, it being the last piece. His hand had been shaking very slightly, and Harry was scared that telling the story last night had gotten to him. He had wanted to stop to ask if his dad was doing alright, but Malfoy and his crowd had been hanging around, and his dad was busy sorting through the ingredient cupboard.

"Nothing, Malfoy," Harry says coolly, rolling his eyes, forcing himself to stay calm.

"He seemed pretty ... jumpy," Malfoy takes a step forward quite suddenly, but Harry doesn't flinch. The other students in the courtyard watch intently, mostly just first years that have come out to enjoy the particularly fine day before going to put their books away. A gaggle of Hufflepuffs ogle.

"You look pretty jumpy yourself, Malfoy," Harry retorts.

"I stand by what I said before," is the cool reply. "He's gone mad. Something's wrong with him."

"Shut your mouth, Malfoy," Ron says suddenly, he and Hermione having noticed what is going on when everyone falls silent at Malfoy's accusation.

"Why bother defending him, Weasel? You know just as well as I that Professor Spook is a basket case." A few people nod in agreement with Malfoy's statement, and a handful of laughs rise in the wintry air.

"You're the crazy one, Malfoy," Ron says to Harry's relief, cracking his knuckles.

"Crazy? I'll wait to get my opinion from Snape," Malfoy says nodding his head towards Harry. "He would know."

"What, and your father is so much better, is he?" Harry bites back, his nerves fraying. "Buying all his friends?"

Malfoy flushes slightly. "Don't you dare say that about my father."

"Then don't insult mine!" Harry replies.

Malfoy scoffs, then, seeing that his friends are watching with grins on their faces, continues.

"Come on, everyone is thinking it," he adds. "Besides, he's a terrible professor and a total nut-case. I mean, come on, nobody actually likes Professor Snape." He waits a moment for it to sink in, then, with relish, he says, "If he wasn't such a coward, I'd say old Spook should just off himself and be done with it."

Harry lunges forward to hit Malfoy, but to his amazement someone beats him to it. It is one of the Hufflepuff first years, and upon Malfoy's last statement she lets out a wild scream and launches herself on him, punching every inch she can reach, her blonde braids flying.

"YOU STUPID, IGNORANT -" she is bellowing, but Crabbe is dragging her off Malfoy as Harry leaps on top of him, fury in his blood as he thinks of all the things Malfoy knows nothing of.

The girl is still shouting with all her might, and struggling, but overtop her cries Harry hears another voice.

"STOP THIS INSTANT!" bellows Professor McGonagall, and as Ron drags him back by the collar Harry feels his stomach drop to his toes.

He clutches his bleeding nose, and Malfoy gets to his feet after a moment, seeming a little stunned. The girl falls silent, the fury still written on her face. Crabbe releases her hastily and she stomps on his foot before walking away and standing with her arms crossed and her face mutinous.

"What in heaven's name is going on here?" Professor McGonagall cries in exasperation.

"Malfoy started it!" Ron says.

"I do not care who started it, Mr. Weasley," Professor McGonagall says stiffly, "but I am ending it!"

Just then, Percy Weasley comes rushing into the courtyard.

"What is going on?" he cries indignantly. "Ah, Professor! Has Ron gotten himself in trouble?"

A few people snicker, and Ron tells Percy to do something highly impolite.

"No, but that mouth just lost you ten points, Mr. Weasley," she says to Ron. Ron grumbles, but remains silent. "Percy, please escort Mr. Malfoy to the hospital wing so that he may have his injuries healed before the matter is discussed. He is to wait for me there so that I may hear his side of the story."

Percy does as he is told and helps a limping and bleeding Malfoy (whose injuries are much worse than his or the Hufflepuff girl's, much to Harry's satisfaction) away from the scene.

"Miss Crandall, Mr. Snape, are you alright? Can you manage for a few minutes?"

Both nodded that their injuries are minor, although Harry's nose is bleeding just a little. It is not crooked, however, and does not seem to be broken. It is throbbing a little, but Harry is too angry to care.

"Good. You two come with me. I want an explanation."

Miserable, the two follow her, a few steps behind and heads bowed.

"Here," whispers the girl, who is pale, but mainly unhurt. Her knuckles are bleeding on one hand, but she hands Harry a lacy handkerchief, which he takes gratefully. Her accent is strange to him. Harry remembers his classmates saying that she just moved here from Canada.

"Thanks," Harry mutters, taking it numbly and pressing it against his nose, feeling too ill at the turn of events to ask her why she got so mad at Malfoy too.

Professor McGonagall informs them quite curtly that their heads of house are responsible for dealing with fighting. Harry tells her what Malfoy was doing, but she just says that even though the words were horrible, they should have come to her before resorting to fists. She says no more of the matter.

He and the girl share a miserable glance before Professor McGonagall knocks on Professor Sprout's office door. Apparently fighting is an offence that earns you a trip to your head of house. Miss Crandall looks ready to cry as Professor Sprout shakes her head and takes her inside. The door shuts, and right now, Harry's extraordinarily grateful that he's not in Slytherin.

"I wouldn't look relieved just yet, Harry Severus Snape," snaps Professor McGonagall when she sees his expression. "I know just what I am doing with you!"

Harry swallows.

***

When the end of the day comes I am happier than I have been in a long time, and not long after I end up sitting in the staff room reading a book. The thunder of students walking through the halls to wherever they wish now that the day is done, and so I do not hear Minerva come in. After a moment I see her. I drop my book immediately when I realize that she's leading Harry in by his shoulder, looking murderous. His nose is bleeding very slightly, and he's holding a handkerchief up to it. He's got a black eye coming too now. I leap out of my chair and kneel down to him.

"Harry, what happened, are you alright?" I ask, panicked.

"'M okay," he says meekly through the blood. "'Snot broken. Just a cut."

"Harry got into a fight," Minerva says sternly, arms crossed in disappointment as I mop the blood off my son's face. The few staff in the room look concerned, as Harry is like family to most of them.

"What?" I ask, shocked and angry.

"Dad," he begins, but falters, his eyes brimming.

Minerva looks tired, and says, "I gave him a talking to on our way down here, but I thought you might want the final word."

"All the other kids' parents aren't told about this sort of stuff," Harry mutters, looking down ashamedly.

"Their parents do not live here," I say to Harry firmly. "You should have considered that before you got into a fight, young man. Now hold still, I am going to do a spell to heal the cut in your nose." I'm grateful Minerva left the healing spells to me - that is one area I can certainly beat her at.

Harry obeys me, and I wave my wand. The bloods stops, and I hand him a clean handkerchief with a bit of water on it to mop up the rest of the blood. Splotches of red can still be seen on the collar of his white school shirt, protruding from his robes. He'll need a salve for the bruise.

I thank Minerva, and for a moment when Harry is not looking we share a weary look.

"We shall go to my office," I say to him sternly after a moment, and I beckon him to my side. He plods along beside me in the corridor, and I can tell that he doesn't like the other kids staring. Some of the older ones look mouth ‘what happened?' to him, but he just shakes his head.

He seems to wilt under their gazes, because the older students mostly look at him like a little brother, on account of the fact that many have known him for years, when he was still young enough to hide his face in my cloak out of shyness as we walked through the corridors.

I am so disappointed in him. I hate to have to give him a talking to, but what on earth was he thinking? I have always made it perfectly clear that if he gets into trouble Minerva has the right to bring him down to see me. A lot of it she has planned to deal with, which we agreed some time ago, but we also agreed that something like brawling in the corridors is not something that I am to be left out of.

Harry hangs his head as I guide him into my office by his shoulder.

"Sit," I say sharply, pointing to the chair in front of my desk.

I remain standing, and I tower over him, arms crossed. I force myself to remain stern, even when he hangs his head and tears drip off his nose.

"Dad," he croaks, "I'm sorry! It's just ... Draco Malfoy ..."

"Is he in bad shape as well?" I ask sharply. "Who threw the first punch? Was it you?"

"Well this other girl sort of leaped on him too, and then I did, and I think he's gonna have a black eye," Harry mutters. "I know I shouldn't have done it."

"Then why did you?" I say in exasperation.

"He started making fun of you," Harry whispers, still not looking at me. "He kept saying bad stuff about you, and I didn't tell you but on the train he was saying the same things and what his father thought of you. It was awful."

"Really," I say, not surprised in the least. "Well, I am sure that whatever he had to say was not nice in the least, but no matter what anyone - not just Draco or Lucius - says about you or I, I forbid you to fight them, unless you are in physical danger and there is no other option. Is that clear?"

Harry nods. "But Dad, he said you were a c-coward!"

I uncross my arms, and I feel my heart sinking, because the way he's looking at me I can tell this is bothering him a great deal. I drag my desk chair around the side of the desk and place it in front of Harry, then sit down so I am facing him.

"And what about that statement bothered you so much?" I ask him quietly.

"Everything!" Harry says, his voice cracking a little bit. "Y-You're so brave. It was a total lie. You risked your life to spy for Dumbledore, and you went to war, a-and you have nightmares but you don't tell Grandma about them ‘cause they'll hurt her more ... you're the bravest person I know! And you won a medal for it, even. I wanted to tell Malfoy about your medal in front of everyone, b-but I knew I couldn't."

"So you hit him instead," I say, sighing. "I am flattered that you think I am brave, Harry, and very grateful you kept the medal a secret, but that still does not make what you did right."

"I know," he mutters to me. "I just wish he'd lay off you."

"Are you going to be alright?" I ask Harry. "It looks like you took a hit or two as well."

"I'll be okay," Harry says to me, meeting my eyes and forgetting to think before speaking as he adds the second part. "I've met girls that hit better than Malfoy."

"I am going to ignore that last comment," I say under my breath, and he blushes. "Now, of course, there's the matter of your punishment."

Harry frowns, but he does not argue.

"There are three things I want you to do," I say.

Harry looks worried, and I start to list them off.

"One," I begin, "you will apologize to Draco Malfoy for hitting him."

"But -"

"No complaints," I say. "The second thing is that you will apologize to Minerva for failing to show decorum, and thus casting Gryffindor House in a bad light. Lastly, you will ask her what she thinks is a fit punishment - most likely detention - and you will obey her wishes. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir," mutters Harry.

"I'm sorry Mr. Malfoy upset you," I say to him quietly. "It is sometimes easier to hear yourself made fun of, rather than someone you care about, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

I get up, and so does Harry.

"I am glad you are alright," I say, giving him a hug, feeling my heart clench because I do not feel deserving of his insistence that I am brave. If he only knew. There are too many times that I have acted as a coward.

"Dad, are you going to tell me the rest of your story?" Harry asks, wrenching me out of my thoughts as he looks up at me.

"Tomorrow," I tell him.

He looks disappointed, but I think he will live.

"Now, run along," I say, "No doubt you have homework - ."

"Dad," Harry blurts out in exasperation immediately after he hears the word homework. "Do you ever think of anything besides homework?"

"Sometimes," I say with a smirk.

"Well, my classmates think you don't," Harry tells me matter-of-factly. "I think they're right."

"Do you?" I say with a chuckle.

"Yeah, you're way too uptight. Bye Dad."

He shuts the door to my office with a snap, and I shake my head slightly.

"That boy is so much like you it hurts," Salazar says, stating the obvious and rolling his eyes in his frame. "I recall a certain small Slytherin that also had very little filter between his brain and his mouth. Harry is a bit more ... Gryffindor-ish, but other than that, he's your carbon copy. ."

"Except for the eyes," I say under my breath.

"Except for the eyes," agrees Salazar.

Harry comes bounding into my quarters the next evening, bright eyed and cheerful.

"I apologized to Draco Malfoy," he says to me, clearly glad to have it over with.

"Good," I say. "How did he react?"

Harry frowns. "Well, I think he said something about how his father was going to hear about it."

I hold back a smirk, secretly feeling rather pleased that my son gave Lucius' a black eye. I should not have been gleeful over this, but my days spying as a Death Eater coloured my views of Lucius Malfoy just a little bit. Well, a lot. It did not help that Draco was far too much his father's son.

"I am proud of you for apologizing," I say. "It was the right thing to do."

"Minerva's going to make Malfoy and I scrub the trophy room," Harry says with a scowl, clearly not looking forward.

"That's Professor McGonagall to you now that you're a student," I add. "And I was aware of what you two would be getting to do. Minerva and I discussed it, seeing as Mr. Malfoy is in my house."

I fall silent as I make an after school snack for him.

"So, Dad, are you gonna tell me the rest, like, how you got your medal?" Harry asks eagerly when I sit down at the table. He reaches for an apple slice.

I do not understand how he can be so excited. Does he not realize that this is not just a story? That this actually happened? I try to remember that it is not his fault, for he is a young boy, and loves an adventure, just as all young boys do. It does not seem to me like an adventure. All I see is the pain.

"Finish your snack first," I say quietly.

When Harry is ready, I sit down on the sofa, and he comes to sits down beside me. He pulls his feet up onto the cushions so they are folded underneath him. His attention is on me, and I begin where I left off.

"After I had been in the recovery wing for about a day I was to be shipped off with a few others who were ready to go to one of the hospital ships," I say. "There was an area in the ocean a ways off the Falklands that had been declared a safe zone for both British and Argentinian hospital ships. I was to recover there for a little while, until I was strong enough to be sent home. A few of the more critical cases were taken by helicopter, but I was not that lucky. I was doing well enough to go by boat out to the hospital, as they had to find other means to get us all there due to the fact that a great number of our helicopters had been destroyed. The Argentinian army was making a point of getting rid of every helicopter possible to minimize our movement capabilities. We had originally been told that we would be taken across the Falklands in groups, by helicopter, as they had a great number brought out to the island, but we ended up having to walk to Stanley because the Argentinians destroyed the transport ships with bombs. Naturally, that gave them vital time to prepare for us. Even after that, they were still targeting ships with helicopters, as that made it all the harder for us to get supplies to the battle sites. There were very few left for transport."

"So it was good you didn't go by helicopter?" Harry asks me.

"Not exactly," I say with a heavy sigh. "We ended up going by boat. It was an old one at that. There had been a fair few casualties in the Navy, and so the men who were originally in charge of the transport ship were assigned to different ships. The Captain was sent somewhere else, and so it was up to one of the few crew members to take turns navigate and steer it, which was not a problem because it was a smaller vessel, and was not considered a threat to the enemy."

***

I lie on a stretcher, my knee in a brace as I watch men carry stretchers with other wounded men onto the ship. A fair few have similar injuries, and most can walk fairly well, but no risks are to be taken in ascending the gang plank. It is a small vessel, perhaps Eighty feet long. It is one of the civilian vessels that had gone toward the war effort, and I find it looks rather strange with its fishing gear and boxes of army crates just visible over the deck railing. As a few men come back down to lift my stretcher up I wish that they had given me crutches. I have a restless desire to do something, and I find myself almost wishing to go back to the battlefield, for a fire has started in my stomach, replacing grief.

The last twenty four hours have been hell, and some time ago I started to feel less despair over Lily's death, and more anger. I want to do something, but I lie still on the stretcher as I am told, and it is placed down in rows with the other men sandwiched between empty crates to refill with supplies, all of us waiting to be shunted off to somewhere just as crowded as the surgical hospital that we all left behind. A few I can see have sat up, their arms in slings or their legs bandaged like me. One lights a cigarette. I wonder why there are so few passengers, until I see a helicopter on the ship, taking up most of the deck room, and I wonder why it is there. It looks like it's taken some damage, with the tail end mostly missing. I understand when I hear one of the crew members of the ship say that it is being taken to Ascension Island for repair, as it needs new parts. The man seems nervous when he says it.

I do not care though, and I stare up at the orange skies, the sun falling fast as the other men are loaded up onto the ship. The clouds are stained brilliant reds and oranges, and the misty air catches the light so it looks like the whole earth is aflame.

There are eleven injured men, including myself. We are the ones who have recovered fairly well. Those who have more serious injuries, but are ready to be moved are being flown to the hospital ship. I would rather go by air. Maybe it's because I'm a paratrooper, or because being up in the air makes me think of my father, as he too was a paratrooper in his day. He was the reason why I went into that area anyway. He had a few old friends that directed the training courses, and at least he was there to give me advice if I needed. I could sure use some of his calming words right now.

Little droplets of rain fall, like mist, and I lie still as the ship begins to move. A few of the crew members can be seen. There aren't that many of them. In total, between men and injured, I think there are fifteen people at the most, yet I wish there were less injured men, for the crates and equipment - much of it sent for repair - take up a lot of room.

"Why so few men?" a soldier beside me asks one of the members of the crew. The soldier's head is bandaged and has his arm in a splint.

"Majority of our crew were taken out to another ship," says the crew member. He has bright blue eyes, and looks to be the calmest of everyone on board. "They need men to man guns. There have been a fair few air raids lately, and our ship isn't much help in that. The Atlantis isn't made for war, so with no proper guns to man, our men are of more use elsewhere. It is mostly for small cargo and transport now, but nothing too important, so it's up to who's still in the crew to take turns steering the ship because our Captain's been sent elsewhere. Navy's taken a little bit of a pounding, what with some of the larger vessels being hit the last while."

"Think there's much chance of us getting hit?" asks the injured soldier.

"Not much," says the crew man with a shrug. "We should be fine. We have made this trip a few times, and the Atlantis may be old, but she's reliable."

"Good, I'm looking forward to a stay somewhere we won't be bombed out," says the soldier cheerfully.

I want to stand up. I am sick of lying down, and so I sit up and edge toward a broom with a long, sturdy handle. I grab it and use it to lean on as I stand against the railing, wobbling slightly, but upright. I hear the soldier who was talking earlier speaking of his family back home. I try not to listen, but I think of Lily anyway, and I feel my throat constrict.

I watch as the beach drifts away from us, and we are out to sea. It looks so big, and endless. It makes me wonder where Ben is right now, and I hope that wherever he is he is alright. A flash of red crosses my vision as I remember Joey. I fight the pressure in my chest and focus instead on the misty rain, which continues to chill me to the bone. I do not know how long I stand here, but the horizon darkens as time goes on. Despair washes over me in great waves, and I have no energy to stop it.

We are slowly making our way out to sea, but the islands are still in sight. I am sitting down again, on an upturned crate. That's when the water erupts some twenty feet from the ship. I feel my heart jump out of my chest, and the other men around me give cries of shock.

"Shit!" says the crew man with the blue eyes, fear blossoming in them for the first time. "They've sighted the helicopter! I told them we needed some camouflage for it! God, don't they know it's practically a write-off?"

I think my lungs are going to burst with panic, and the ship is veered off to the right. I hope we can get out of range. It appeared as though it was a missile, fired from shore. It will take them a while to reload, thankfully.

A few other ships are too far away to fire anything at the source of the missile, or at least that's what I'm hearing the few crew members shout back and forth. I look around, and I do not see any in sight.

I cannot stand to sit, and so I grab the broom, thrust the straw bristled side under one of my armpits. It crunches as lean on it and hobble toward the front of the deck, slowly but surely. There is not much hope for us outrunning the missiles. They are firing to demolish us, all because of one stupid, broken helicopter. Before I know it I have wobbled my way to the control room. The ship is very much a fishing boat, and nobody is there but the man at the wheel. He looks young, and he has the panicked look of someone who has had minimal experience with steering a ship.

"Sir, you have to get these men off of this ship," I say without knowing what I am doing, because I have an awful feeling. My head is going in circles, and I know that we will be hit if they want us to go down, especially given the lack of gun support. There are no other ships in sight, and if there are any, they might be out of range.

"What, you have some suggestion?" says the man at the wheel, hurriedly cranking the wheel as another missile comes rushing through the air. He's pale, and sickly looking, his words coming fast and gasping. "God, I never signed up for this. Used to work on a towing rig ... bloody hell. Said we weren't  in any danger ... shit, shit, shit!"

The rev of the engine fills my ears, and when I speak I almost have to shout. He's looking paler by the moment.

"The enemy only want the helicopter gone, right?" I say as quickly as I can, not sure where my words are coming from, but I feel the beating of my heart and the metal of my tags against my chest as I think frantically, swaying with the broom under my arm. "This ship is old; there are barely any men on it. There is little on this thing worth saving besides them - and it isn't like the helicopter will make it. They're not gunning for the wounded, so get them off onto a lifeboat - they are mostly just the ones with broken bones so they'll be fine for a while. Another ship will be able to pick them up if you send out a call. Then steer the Atlantis away, far from the lifeboat. Speed is something this junker seems to have, and at least if something goes wrong then the men will be alright, because if this small boat gets hit, almost nobody's going to survive."

"That is a huge risk -"

"It is one you do not have to take," I tell him as I think of empty beds and lonely rooms, of red hair and marble headstones. "I'll steer the ship away, and you get your fellow crew members and passengers to safety. I am injured already, and you will need as many strong members of your crew as possible to lower that old wood lifeboat off the ship and row, yourself included. I can't move too fast, but I can steer."

"But what about you?" he says, bewildered, sweat running down the side of his face as he awaits another missile, which could come at any moment. I am just glad it takes them time to reload and aim.

"What about me?" I bark. "I will be fine. I'm just one man. All the enemy wants in the water is the helicopter. They sunk as many on ships as they could before, and they seem to want to do it again."

"That is true," mutters the man.

"Just go, I can do it!" I snap, my words spilling forth faster than I can pause to think. "At least I have a chance of getting out of range - the rest of the crew needs your help to get the injured off the ship. I am only one man. Surely you must have a family that needs you as well?" It is with recklessness that I add the last part, and all I can think of is that note. I do not think of Harry. I do not think of my mother, or my father. I only think of Lily, cold in the ground, and the world that condemned me to die in the Falklands, just like all the men I watched perish before me on the mountainside, their faces burned in my mind, men from both sides. I am determined to take action somehow, and for a moment I feel more alive than I ever have before.

He looks at me, calculating, and I know that I have hit home with the comment of his family. He does not seem to realize that I can easily see the edge of a picture tucked into his shirt pocket. I close my eyes for a second. I open them as another missile lands only feet to the port side of the ship. It rocks the boat dangerously and water sloshes over the sides, but we are not hit. I hear shouting and panic on the deck. The man lets go of the wheel when he sees the expression on my face.

"Fine," he says quickly, "if you want to do it, then you can."

I hobble over to the wheel as he shouts instructions down deck, staring out at the misty sea, the sun having gone down completely now. Darkness has begun to descend, and I hear shouts from outside as they try to shift the lifeboats. Judging by the time they took to aim again between the shots, we only have five minutes at the very most.

"What's your name?" asks the man hoarsely as he grabs the emergency radio.

"Severus Snape," I say simply, a little confused.

I can tell he's trying to find the words to thank me, but I just tell him that there is no time, and to go.

"Wait to hear two gunshots before going forward," he says as fast as he can. "We only need one lifeboat, and we'll signal for you when we're in."

I just nod, and then he is gone, and I hear the splash of a lifeboat a few moments after he arrives to give it one final heave. I hear cheers, and after two minutes or so, I hear the gunshots. So I shove the throttle forward, and with my heart pounding in my chest the ship is moving as fast as I can get it. I am steering the Atlantis as far from shore as I can. It is not hard, and I simply go in a straight line. My leg throbs beneath me, and the broom wedged under my arm is making my shoulder go numb. Then the adrenaline takes over, and I stop feeling the pain for the minute I am speeding away. The shadow of the inevitable hangs over me. Yet, I feel so alive, and for a second I think I hear Lily's voice calling my name. And then the missile hits.

There is an awful tearing sound in the ship, and I am blown forward into the wheel. The vessel lurches, and I feel the heat and fire as pieces of it are torn apart. It is a small ship, and one missile is enough to send her quickly to her grave. The Atlantis lists to the right side, and in a world of torn metal and terror I slide across the floor, away from the wheel. I hit my head on something, and then all I know is blackness.

I do not know how long after this that I feel the cold water licking my legs. It is darker than it was before. My head pounds, and sluggishly I sit up. In the dimly lit ship I see a pool of water coming from the door. The front end of the ship appears to be bobbing on its own. I find no trace of the back of the vessel. I can see the dark water reaching toward me, and in a fuzzy haze I cannot believe that I survived the hit. I have to get out of this space, away from the wheel. In a wave of panic I wade through the water to the door, and I make my way to the bow of the ship, which is sloping down toward where the centre of the vessel was. Only a few crates remain from the back end, and the metal along the remaining bits of the ship is split like kindling where it broke apart. It is a good thing the other men are some distance away, for they would have been torn to pieces by that shot, or at least hurt by the shrapnel. The remaining lifeboat has been blown to smithereens too, for it was one of two along the back.

I stumble up to the bow of the ship, hanging on tightly. What can I do? What have I done? I see no ship in sight. Maybe it is the mist, maybe it is the darkness, but there is nobody. The ocean is quiet but for the creak of the ship, sinking quickly.

For some reason, I don't even panic. Instead, a strange sort of calm settles over me, and I reach down my shirt and grab a hold of my tags. I hold them up to my vision, but I cannot see Lily's writing very well in the dim light. I let the tears pour down my face, because there is nobody to see.

"See you s-soon, Love," I mutter hoarsely to myself, shaking from cold as I press the tag with Lily's note against my cheek. A small part of me is afraid to die, but then my fear increases when I realize that a larger part of me is glad to be going down with this ship.

And then I understand it was my intention all along.

It's harder to hang on now. My hands are cramping up, and the slant of the deck is getting greater. I hook my arms into the railing, and then swing over to the other side as it bobs nose up. She'll go any moment, and I hear the creaking as the water gets closer, and then there is a rushing noise, and the darkness pulls me under. I have no life jacket, and swimming isn't easy with my leg. I reach the surface, but the water chills me to the bone. There is a piece of floating debris bobbing by my head, and I grab hold of it because it is either that or the darkness below. I want to let the cold take me slowly, rather than take my last breath from the dark water. I hoist myself onto the wood, and lie half out of the water, my head resting on it. The smell of smoke still lingers in the air, and I think of the ship, now fathoms below me.

The cold starts to take over me, so very different from the cold I have felt inside for so long, and I do not feel the pain in my leg anymore. It is a blessed relief. The tears have stopped, and the dark ripples of water before me beckon. I feel my stomach contract as I think of Lily, for she is the only one I want right now. I hunger for her warmth, and I cannot believe she is gone. But there are still no tears, and after some time I find myself dazedly humming a melody of a favourite song we used to sing together. So suddenly the memory takes over me, and before I know it my voice rises above the slapping sound of the waves, shaking and tuneless, but I sing anyway, maybe because I hope she'll hear.

"Midnight, on the water," my cold lips mumble, forming the words beneath my breath, my teeth chattering.

"I saw the ocean's daughter

"Walking on a wave she came,

"Staring as she called my name

"And I can't get it out of my head

"No, I can't get it out of my head.

"Now my old world is gone for dead,

"'cause I can't get it out of my head."

I cough a bit as I complete the verse, the taste of the ocean in my mouth. There is no answer to my song, but I keep singing anyway, the words second nature to my lips, for this was one that Lily and I used to sing a long ago, years before we started dating. It was the summer of 1974, and we were going to be going into our fifth years in September. Lily had always loved music (she had been playing the piano since age six) so her parents usually got her a new record as a coming home present for her to listen to while she was there, and that summer it was an album by Electric Light Orchestra, which a muggle neighbour Lily's age had suggested. That was all we listened to all summer. I still remember her carefully bringing up the record player into her room on rainy days, during rare moments when her parents were out and Petunia was gone. We would sing until the cat was so mad it would run off for the day, and eat peanut butter out of the jar with spoons, although it was tricky to sing and eat peanut butter at the same time, we learned.

As I bob up and down on the piece of wood I try and remember her the way she was when she was fourteen, with her hair down to her waist and the freckles on her arms. I cannot see her, and now I'm shaking again, but not from cold. Why can't I picture her? I keep singing, trying to snatch up the image of her long ago, but it is like trying to keep ocean water in my hands.

"Breakdown on the shoreline.

"Can't move, it's an ebb tide.

"Morning don't get here tonight,

"searching for her silver light."

Then I begin to see her again, for as the words come back to me, so does she, taking my hands and dancing with me across the room, her sweet laughter rising above the music. I am momentarily calmed, and my voice fades to a whisper as I sing the chorus one last time, my halting words cradled between gasps of air as the chill waves wash over me.

"And I can't get it out of my head.

"No, I can't get it out of my head.

"Now my old world is gone for dead,

"'cause I can't get it out of my head ..."

Then I am silent, for suddenly fatigue is rolling over me, and I am colder than I have ever been in my life. I close my eyes, resting on the wood. Oh, how I wish for her warmth. My knee gives a sudden throb before going numb again, and I feel darkness gathering at the edge of my mind.

It could be minutes later, or hours when I hear voices through the fog, and I see the bright light. I feel the splash of something in the water nearby. I think it is a life ring, but I am too cold to move or care. There is more shouting, and then there is a splash in the water a ways behind me.

"Lily?" I ask hoarsely, barely able to speak, my lips numb. Yet I am no longer cold. A strange kind of warmth is washing over me, and I struggle to keep my eyes open.

"No, mate, the name's Jeremy," says a voice, out of breath. A man swims by me, and the light from behind us illuminates the face of a member of the Royal Navy. I see him in a haze, and I think he's speaking to me again as he drags a buoyant stretcher, or something, toward me. He drags me onto it, and I feel stiff and frozen in the cold water. I do not realize my hand is still gripping my dog tags still. The stretcher is hoisted up onto the deck of a ship. The man who pulled me onto the stretcher is hauled up too, and what looks like a medic is kneeling by me.

"Lily," I mutter dazedly.

"You'll get to go home to her soon, I'm sure," he says as he throws a blanket over me.

If they only knew.

My chest feels tight. I fight to take in air, but it does not seem to be there, and then comes blackness. The deck of the ship fades from view, as well as the faces above me.

I'm coming home, Lily.

It feels like a second later when I take a heaving gasp of breath, and lights pop behind my eyes. I am coughing violently and retching, and the medic's hands are on my chest. I hear sighs of relief as the momentary warmth I had felt dissipates, and I feel once more the icy cold of the ship deck.

"We need to get him warm!" calls the medic. I look up at him, dazed. He looks into my eyes and calmly says, "It is good to have you back. You weren't breathing for a minute or two."

I close my eyes, but they tell me to stay awake. Do they not understand that I can go home to her no other way?

The medic keeps talking to me so I cannot slip off, and I am brought into the cabin of the ship. Someone donates a spare uniform, and I start to shiver uncontrollably as he removes my wet clothing and replaces it with the dry uniform. I am piled high with blankets and hot water bottles, and there is a woolly hat on my head. The weird warmth I had felt is gone now, and for a long time I shiver and my teeth chatter, and he sits by my bedside, talking me through it. I pay hardly any attention to what he is doing. I do not know how long it is that I lie here. Later on, for a couple of minutes the medic leaves to talk with someone outside. He comes back looking thoughtful, but does not speak.

"Are you Severus Snape?" the medic asks me a long time later. I am warm now, and a crowd seem to be hovering now that I appear to be out of the danger zone. I think it is a larger ship. They all are looking at me in awe, like I've done something amazing.

I just nod, but I think my look of confusion shows.

"We got a radio call," explains the medic. "A group of wounded men were picked up in a life boat a ways from here. The crew had been left to man the ship alone, and one of the men sent out a distress call from there, saying that a ship was likely down and someone may still be alive. He told the story of how one of the wounded soldiers had ordered everyone get off the ship quite forcefully, and then steered it away from them, because the enemy was aiming for the helicopter, and it was only a matter of time before they were hit. Apparently he saved the lives of sixteen men, who were able to row out of danger in a life boat. That was you, wasn't it?"

"I guess," I mutter hoarsely.

Then suddenly, there is clapping, and the medic smiles.

"My friend's brother was on that ship," he says to me, choking up slightly. "It was a pleasure to help you tonight. You did a very brave thing, and for that, I am truly thankful."

"It wasn't bravery," I mutter, suddenly needing to tell the truth, to make them understand the moment of complete reckless abandon I had felt when I did what I did. "I wasn't trying to be a hero."

"Well, hero or not, you did a hell of a thing out there," says the medic. "Crazy, damn near impossible, but you did it."

"My wife was killed last night," I try to say, but the words don't come out. I want to tell them that it wasn't me being noble. It was me being selfish. I wish they had just let me be.

"Do you have a family?" the medic asks after asking people to clear out and go back to work.

"A son," I mutter mechanically, surprising myself.

A son. I have a son. For a moment, I am amazed. Had I forgotten? How could I have forgotten? Lily's baby, my baby. And suddenly I am asking myself, what did I do? How could I have done that, with him waiting for me? A wave of shame washes over me, and ever so slowly it begins to penetrate the cold pain I feel from Lily's death.

"Well, you should get to see him soon, after a stay on the hospital ship, of course," says the medic with a grin. "You'll get there in good time too. See, ordinarily doing what you just did, you would have been in a world of trouble, taking charge of a ship like that, but you saved a lot of lives tonight. So they've issued orders for us to make a special stop by the hospital ship for you, even though there are other things to be done. You'll get there tonight, and you'll get to rest up for a time before going home."

"They didn't have to do that," I say, my words barely audible, because I do not care where I go and my voice is still hoarse from being in the cold.

"And you didn't have to risk your life tonight, but you did," he tells me gravely.

I sigh, and he gets up from the bunk across from the one I am lying in. He tells me he'll be back to check on me, but that I will be alright now that my body temperature is back to normal. I am allowed to sleep now. But I can't, because all I can think of what might have happened if my plan had went the way I intended it to - the way a part of my mind still wants it to have gone. I put the pillow over my head, trying to drown out my thoughts, for in my mind I hear the cries of an orphaned baby whose father deliberately sailed off into the night, his intention to die.

***

Harry looks at me, holding the Victoria Cross in his hand. I clear my throat, forcing my emotions under control.

"It is all a lie," I say hoarsely. "It was selfishness that got me that cross. Not valour. I am nothing but a coward. I tried to tell them, but they would not believe me. The thought I was being modest. The medic and his friend's brother put my name forward for the medal. I never wanted them to."

"But you still saved their lives," says Harry, sounding as though he hardly dares to speak.

I just shake my head, and Harry does not seem to know what to say.

"I tried to leave you ... I wanted death," I say, unable to stop a tear or two from escaping, hating myself for looking weak in front of Harry. This is why I never told him. This is why I didn't talk of the war. "I never even considered that I had a son at home. I was prepared to die, simply because I wanted out! I came up with that plan because I wanted to go down with that ship. There is no way I can ever repay that; don't you see? Had my plan succeeded, you would not have a father ..."

"I'm not angry," Harry says, eyes wide with worry at the sight of me so unhinged.

"But the guilt has never left," I mutter, barely able to speak, my voice breaking. "Every day I wake up ... and I wonder what would have happened. I had no right to risk my neck like that, not with you at home. Not with a little boy who needed me. It was selfish, so selfish." I pause for a moment, shaking, and Harry does not speak, but seems to be holding his breath. I am calmer when I continue. "Sometimes ... sometimes I dream that I did die, that you were left alone. It's awful."

"Dad?"

I look up in surprise, for his voice is quiet, worried.

"Yes?" I ask, my voice as soft as his.

"If ... if you had died on that ship," Harry begins, blinking, "and I had never known you ... well, I would have been proud to know that sixteen men owed you their lives." His voice grows stronger, and as he continues he has that same blazing look in his eyes I remember Lily always had. "And I'm proud of you now. You still saved them. You still gave sixteen families a reason to be thankful, even if you didn't mean to."

I look into my sons' eyes, Lily's eyes, astounded.

"Do you really think that?" I say, hardly able to digest this piece of information, hardly daring to believe those words have just come from the lips of an eleven year old boy.

"I do," Harry says. "It did take some bravery, still. You could have just waited for the ship to get hit, but instead you got everyone off it and tried to go out in a way that you thought was worth dying for."

I frown for a moment. Why had I not simply waited until we were sent to the bottom of the ocean? It had been inevitable, and it would have been easier, in some ways. Maybe I did want to go out in a good way. Maybe I did want something worth dying for. Those injured men and the worn down crew on that ship had been worth it. I had realized that helicopter was a ticket to the bottom of the ocean - not just mine, but theirs too. I had seen the fear in their eyes. It was the same fear that had been in mine, only I was hardened enough by pain to do the unthinkable. Besides, what is a hero, anyway? It is then that it occurs to me that maybe a hero is just someone who is cold enough, tired enough and hurting enough to do anything to put an end to the root of all the suffering. I wanted to end my suffering, but I also wanted more than that to end.

For a moment I remember that hazy helicopter ride from the battle field to the surgical unit, where in a pained stupor I had seen once more in my mind all of the men who had fallen before me, all the while asking a hundred questions of whether or not it was worth it. I still lie awake at night and wonder if so many lives were worth that island, and the some eighteen hundred people that had resided there at the time. And at that moment, when I took that ship wheel in some sort of haze of insanity, I had wanted everything to just stop - my pain, the fighting, the senseless death - and I knew it had come to the point where I didn't care what I had to give for it.

All these thoughts swirl in my head, and a thousand questions sit silent upon my lips as I wonder if some of what I did was courage after all. Maybe I never knew what courage was, or maybe it is the world that doesn't. I see no glory in it, though. Not like those who give medals away do.

I look at my son, with his determined look, my black hair, and all the stubbornness of his mother.

"You're too hard on yourself, Dad," he tells me plainly. "Granddad always spoke about you like you were a hero, and Grandma and I agree with him. It's time you see it too."

There he is with my no bones about it attitude, using that tone of voice that sounds so much like Lily that I have to clasp my hands tightly under the table to keep from shaking. It's like she's here, scolding me for not seeing the world the way it is, like she did so many times when she was alive. And all I can do is reach forward and pull my son into my arms and bury my face in his hair, because there is no way for me to find the words to say just how precious he is to me. His arms wrap tightly around me too, and I know that I do not need to speak such things aloud, because he knows already. I don't know if what he says is true, but maybe one day I will.

"I'll see you guys back at the common room," Harry tells Ron and Hermione at dinner, abandoning his plate.

"Where are you going?" asks Hermione, staring at his half-finished treacle tart with amazement.

"I gotta give something back to the girl who slugged Malfoy the other day," Harry says, waving the handkerchief, now clean.

"Ooh, does ickle Harry fancy someone?" Fred says to George as he passes him the dish of apple crisp.

Harry makes a face at them and leaves, knowing he hasn't time to waste if he's going to catch Miss Crandall as she leaves the hall, alone thankfully.

"Hi!" Harry says, jogging slightly to catch up with her.

The girl turns in surprise before smiling slightly, and they fall into step beside each other.

"Hi," she says.

"Er, I just wanted to give this back to you," Harry says, feeling awkward as he hands back the handkerchief she lent him. "Thanks for letting me borrow it. It's been washed, don't worry."

"You're welcome," she says, taking back the neatly folded piece of fabric.

"Wow, your accent is so different," Harry says before he can stop himself.

"I just moved from Canada," she says shyly, "but my family lives here, in Britain. My parents moved there to get away from You Know Who, but we just moved back this year because Mom wanted me to go to Hogwarts. ‘Course I've been to Britain before, but only ever a few times, to visit family here."

"Cool," Harry says. "I've never really met anyone from Canada. Is it nice?"

"I miss it," she says a little sadly. "But at least my whole family is back here now ... well, ‘cept my dad."

"Why?"

"My parents split when I was little. I was around seven, maybe. He isn't really around much."

"I'm sorry," Harry says quietly.

"Yeah, it's kinda sucked."

"I think I know what you mean, in some ways. See, it's just me and my dad. My mum died when I was a baby."

"Your dad's Professor Snape, right?" she asks hesitantly.

"Yeah," Harry says. "Thanks by the way, for being on my side the other day."

"You're welcome," she says a little sadly. "I'm Eleanor, by the way. I don't think we really got a chance to swap names."

"Harry," he says, offering his hand. "I was going to go to the library to look for a good book, if you want to come?"

"I would love to," said Eleanor with a smile. She hesitated slightly before adding, "It's been kind of lonely, moving. All my friends are back home, and all that."

"That would be hard," mutters Harry thoughtfully. "I know just about everyone at Hogwarts, it seems. I sort of grew up here."

"Cool," Eleanor says.

Together they walk to the library, chatting amicably. Among the fiction shelves they pull books off, comparing titles. Harry's quite pleased to find that Eleanor has similar taste in books to him, pulling on the spines with adventurous titles and vivid colours.

After some time, through a gap in the shelves Harry catches a glimpse of Draco Malfoy making faces with his friends at a group of Gryffindors. He scowls.

"He' so rude," says Eleanor quietly. "I ... I don't regret it for a minute, hitting him."

"Me neither ... except that it disappointed my dad," Harry mutters. "Malfoy just winds me up."

Eleanor looks around for a moment, then she sighs.

"What he said about your dad was awful," mutters Eleanor, looking guilty, "but I hope you'll forgive me when I say that isn't why I hit him, exactly. That was part of it, but not the whole reason."

"Why did you, then?" Harry asks, his words level and kind. Harry watches as relief breaks over her face, like she was expecting him to be angry at her. This seems to be something that was weighing on her heavily.

"Well," she mutters, "he said that thing ... that thing about how your dad should just off himself. It just ... I guess it got to me because my Uncle tried to kill himself when I was five. He moved over to live with us not long after You Know Who fell."

She says it quickly and then looks away, like she's afraid Harry is going to judge her.

"That's awful," Harry whispers, shocked.

"Yeah," she says, blinking away tears. "My mom went to pay him a visit one evening, and she found him with a gun to his head. She didn't even know he had one. I wasn't supposed to know, but I heard my parents talking about it."

"Was he okay?"

She sighs, "Yeah. They got him some help, and he stayed in the hospital a while. I remember going to visit him. It took a while, but now he's better and happy again. My Uncle's more a dad to me now than my actual dad is sometimes. I wish he was my dad instead, some days."

"Did your Uncle stay in Canada?"

"Naw, Uncle Ben came with us," she says brightly. "I'm glad he did. He tells all sorts of stories. Some are scary though, but he doesn't tell those much."

"Like what?"

"Well, sometimes he tells me about when he used to be a soldier, but only ever general things. He won't tell me details."

Harry freezes. "A soldier?" Harry says, a strange feeling coming over him as he starts to consider all the things she has told him.

"Yeah, he fought in the -"

"Falklands?"

"Yeah," says Eleanor, surprised.

"What's his last name?"

"Reeves."

"You'll never believe this," Harry says breathlessly, "But I think my dad knows him."

***

When I next see Harry he seems to be in a very good mood. It is not as though we ended the story on a light note last time, and I didn't promise the next part to be a whole lot of fun to hear, so it must not be that. I suspect that something good has happened, and when I ask him, he only says that it is a nice day. I think he has something up his sleeve, but I can get no further in my questioning, for he is eager for me to continue where I left off in the story. After a few minutes of idle chit-chat, with me asking him how his day was, we get to what he has been waiting for.

"So what happened next?" Harry says to me. "After you were rescued, I mean?"

"They took me to the hospital ship," I say quietly. "I'm not completely sure how long I stayed. It all just blurred together. I got a letter from home. There was one from Mum, and Dad too."

"Did they finally send a picture of me?" Harry asks curiously.

"No, at that point Dumbledore thought it unwise," I say. "You had your scar, remember? He did not want the mail tampered with somehow, and he did not want anyone to know where you were."

"Right," Harry mutters.

"After that, the news reached the ship that the war was over," I say hollowly. "Argentina had surrendered at Port Stanley, going out without any further fighting. A few days after that, I was on a boat back home with what was left of the men. It was very surreal, but a little less so for me. At least I had a little bit of time to gather my thoughts, being in the hospital. But the others were almost straight out of the field. It was hard on all of us though. We had trudged across the Falklands, slept what little we could, seen our friends die ... how could they possibly understand that back at home? All of us could barely think about what had happened, let alone talk about it. I did not know what I would say to my mother, or to my father even, and he had gone through a war himself."

***

"Severus, get your nose out of that book," says one of the men from my regiment. "We're a half hour from home."

"Seriously?" I ask, groaning slightly as I sit up in the tiny bunk, eagerly dropping a ratty old copy of Frankenstein someone had found earlier. I was really just flipping pages for lack of something to do.

"Seriously," is his grave reply before he goes out onto the deck with the others.

I swing my legs off the bunk, my knee paining me. It is in a brace to keep it immobile, but that does not stop it from throbbing. I reach under my bunk for my crutches. The wood clacks together as I pull them out and hoist myself to my feet.

Home, I think to myself. Home. What is home now, anyway? My eyes prickle with tears as an image of Lily, pregnant and glowing as she tries to paint her toenails around her bulging belly comes to my mind. That was home. She was home, and now that she is gone, where will I go? I have to sit back down again, for I feel weak right down to my toes.

But is she gone? I wonder to myself if it really is true. It feels to me as though she will be waiting for me on the pier, just like she said goodbye to me. This whole experience has felt completely unreal to me. I half expect to see Joey come into the room and weakly flop down on a bunk, green and seasick.

God, did that really happen? Did I really see Joey die in front of me? Or perhaps, I think, had he just fainted before me? Just fallen over from fatigue? That was it. He merely fainted in front of me on the battlefield. He had to have. He is on a different ship; that is all. Just like Ben. Just like Ben, who I have not seen since he half-carried me to the medical station. I do not realize I am shaking until my crutches, still standing upright as I grip them from where I sit on the bed, start to rattle. I shut my eyes tightly, trying to believe these lies, because the alternative frightens me too badly to express with words.

"I can see it!" someone shouts up above, the voice carrying. "I see home!"

A thrill of excitement, fear, and sudden sickness wash over me, and I know I have to get up. I try to move, but I can't. I can't, and I'm shaking as I try not to cry, even though there is nobody here to see my tears. I take a deep breath, and I try to push it all away, just like I used to when I was a student at Hogwarts, and James Potter and his friends were giving me hell. But even James Potter reminds me of what happened now, and I don't even know the full story yet, just that he was there.

So instead I think only of Sirius Black's taunts, and I take all my emotions, and I bury them, and soon I feel that numbness settle over me. It is calm, familiar, cold and yet strangely right. I close my eyes and I think of my Dad for a second, looking at me, telling me that even if I fall, and they push me to the ground it cannot change the fact that I have the blood of a survivor. In that one second I feel a sudden surge of strength, so I get to my feet and shove the crutches under my arms, and begin forward. After that, I do not know what keeps me going. I think I am afraid to stop, knowing I will not find strength enough to take another step if I lose momentum. My chest is numb as I emerge from the long corridor, and come out onto the deck, packed with soldiers, all craning their necks to get a glimpse of the coasts of Britain again. Some are grinning, and some are crying. Some look ready to throw up, or faint. Others, like me, have that look of apathy on their faces, because there is nothing else to do but push it all away. Couldn't they have at least given us a week together, to talk, to think, to exist? Instead here we are, just days ago having finished with a war, faced with the impossible thought of moving on. Moving on. Is that even possible?

It is not too much longer that we pull into the dock, boats and helicopters of all kinds coming in with us in a convoy. It is really a sight to see. Overhead planes soar and banners fly. I look up for a moment before I am shepherded along to the railing. A few of the other soldiers have piled up crates and dragged out chairs for those of us who can't stand long, and someone nudges me toward a stack of crates by the railing. This is where I sit as we coast into the port. After a time I cannot stand to sit, so however shakily, I lean on my crutches and stand, skimming the crowd. The docks are packed with people, waving flags and cheering. They look so small from up here.

I see families, and lovers, children and parents. My eyes catch a flash of red near the end of a dock, and my heart leaps into my throat. It turns out to be another flag, and numbly, I sit down again. I cannot see my parents. I cannot see Lily. She should have been here. She should have been waving down there too, and it is at that moment that I really start to realize she is gone, and I have to bite my tongue hard to keep from breaking down. Someone shouts to start leaving the boat, and an older soldier behind me taps me on the shoulder and helps me put my rucksack back on my back. I try to thank him, but I can't get a word out; my throat has closed up because in the moment when I first saw him I thought he was Ben, but he isn't. The soldier just nods that he understands that I am grateful, because everyone's started singing the national anthem and I won't be able to hear what he has to say anyway.

The long line of men going down from the ship starts to stretch out, and they try to get the men suffering from injuries off sooner. I find myself herded toward the gangplank. Then I'm going down, the soldier at my side, an arm guiding my shoulders. There are a number of others with crutches, or their arms in slings. These are the men who are well enough to move on their own, but not well enough to be standing around for a long time. There are a fair few uninjured soldiers coming down with us, to make sure nobody falls. I finally get down to the dock, and the wood clunks under my crutches. I skim the faces of the crowd. They are jubilant, and smiling. They cheer, like we've done something noble and courageous. Why do they not understand? Do they not realize that we have seen our friends die before us, and that it is sheer chance we are here instead of them? Do they not realize the cost that was paid in this war, not just by us, but by the other side too?

My thoughts feel so muddled inside. Before I left, I thought that Britain was the good side. And here, for these people cheering, it would have remained easy to pick out the good side and the bad side, especially with the press. But as for me, I am not so sure which side is which now. I saw men just like me in the Argentinian forces, some still boys. Yet, in the end, weren't we all just boys, if not in body, but in heart? I know I will never be a boy again, not even close. I wonder if you can see the change in me, the way I saw it first hand in others. I remember how back on the field, after a while everyone had looked the same. No matter how hard I try, I know I will never forget the look in the eyes of the Argentinian soldiers that I got close enough to see their faces, and nor will I forget how at that moment I realized with startling clarity that the look was the same as it was in the eyes of my friends. Fear does not choose sides.

In a daze I go through the crowd, which moves aside for the soldiers coming down. I look for someone I know, anyone, and I feel my breathing coming faster and harder, and I look, and look, but all I see are faces blurring together, and the sound seems to crash over me like a wave, swallowing me whole. I shut my eyes tightly as I see a flash, and I freeze, waiting for the shot to land. When it doesn't I open my eyes, and realize it was just a camera. I take a shaky breath and keep going forward, afraid to stay still.

"SEVERUS!" I hear a voice calling through the crowd.

It's my Dad, and my heart leaps. I look around for him, but he finds me before I can see him, and before I know it his hands are on my shoulders, and he's looking down on me like he's never seen me before.

"Dad," I choke, barely able to speak, and then he's thrown his arms around me, and he's holding me tighter than I can ever remember.

My crutches dig into my arms, but I don't care.

I feel him shaking, and I think he might be crying a little bit. He's wearing his old uniform again, the formal one. I see the buttons and medals glimmer in the sunlight when he lets go of me.

"How is your leg?" he asks me, concerned. "We got a letter, a few days ago ... it was awful. They just said you were injured, and coming home soon."

I shrug. "I'm okay, I guess," I tell him over the roar of the crowd, scarcely able to believe that I am really talking to him. Words come out of my mouth, but I do not feel like I am saying them. "They say I'll be walking in a few months. A couple breaks, but they'll heal."

"Good," Dad says gruffly, clearly relieved. "Give me your rucksack."

"Thanks," I mutter, and he helps me slide it off my back, and he throws it over his shoulder. Then he slowly leads me through the crowd, toward the street beyond the docks. "I brought the car. I managed to find a place to park a block from here. You mother wanted to be here, but she's at home with Harry."

I just nod.

"He's a beautiful little boy," Dad says, and his voice is shaking, and I know he wants to say something about Lily, but I think he understands I'm not ready to talk about what happened. I don't know the full story yet, but it doesn't seem to matter to me. She's dead, and knowing how won't undo it. Besides, there is only one monster that could have done it, and that is the Dark Lord. How Harry survived, I don't know, but I don't have the strength to ask why just yet. There are too many other whys in my head right now.

We walk in silence until the docks are behind us. My arms are aching, and I'm sweating.

"If you get too tired let me know," Dad says in my ear, and I nod, panting.

After a few more minutes I finally see Dad's rundown old car. I gratefully go around to the passenger side. I see a gaggle of young women nearby whispering to each other and sharing tiny grins as they take sidelong glances of me. I catch one staring, and she winks. I look away, my chest suddenly hurting. Dad opens the door for me, and I turn and sit down. He takes my crutches, and we share a look as the girls keep talking nearby, giggling and smiling. He doesn't have to say a word, because I know by his eyes he understands. I cautiously swing my legs into the car and he shuts the door. It is quiet in here. My eyes land on the scratch on the dashboard, and the worn leather seats. It is the same as when I left, and for a second I almost think I catch a whiff of Lily's perfume. I force myself not to look into the back seat. I know only my rucksack and crutches sit there. Dad gets in and puts the key in the ignition. The car coughs, splutters, and then I hear the engine turn over.

"Atta girl," my father mutters appreciatively as he pats the dashboard.

"Thanks for coming to get me," I tell him, because I do not know what else to say.

"I've been looking forward to it for weeks," is his reply. I hear the unspoken words, saying that he's been hoping he would get the chance.

I look out the window, and I know that it is going to be a long drive. We have to go through London, and then out into the country and then into Cokeworth, where home lies at last. Spinner's End. The name sounds foreign when I think of it. So does the word home.

For a little while Dad fills me in on what I've missed. He mentions tiny details of what happened with Lily - that James Potter died protecting her. I feel a surge of guilt, and I have to look out the window, although I think of all the awful things James Potter did to me to try and make it hurt less. It doesn't help, but I listen as Dad keeps talking. He says Dumbledore is going to visit me and explain how it all happened, and explain how the Dark Lord was finished at last (Something I am only able to feel a slight bit of relief at, for I am still rather numb). Also, apparently Harry got some scar out of it too, but he's fine, thankfully. That is pretty much all Dad mentions. I'm glad he doesn't talk a lot about the whole ordeal, because I'm having trouble keeping it together, and he seems pretty choked up by it too. By the time he's finished we are out of the city, and rolling hills stretch out before us, green and lush. The sun is going down now. It is beautiful, and the silence is a relief.

"Sorry I haven't got much to say," I say after about ten minutes of this.

"I didn't expect you to be talkative, Severus," my father says quietly, sparing a sideways glance at me. "I couldn't think of a thing to say when I came home after Korea, myself. You don't have to tell me about what happened over there until you are good and ready, that is, if you ever do want to talk about it."

"It's strange," I mutter to him. "Being back here."

"I know," he says quietly.

Dad starts to hum after a little while. I recognize the melody. He has hummed that tune as long as I can remember, but I cannot name it as any particular song. I think he probably made it up. As the first few notes reach my ears, for the first time in months, I feel safe. For a moment I watch him out of the corner of my eye, studying the thoughtful look he has as he drives, the lines on his face, the grey hairs in his once black moustache. I glance back at the sunset as Dad hums, and I lean against the glass, my cheek resting on my fist.

Suddenly, I am exhausted, and I feel myself sinking into sleep as I watch the first of the stars come out. I am trying so hard not to drift off, but after a while, I give up. I'm too comfortable, and the sound of the old car mixes with that nameless tune. The last thing I remember before falling asleep is Dad glancing over at me, checking up on me like he's done a hundred times, back when I was a little kid in the backseat. Maybe it's that look that finally sends me off to sleep.

***

"Was I awake when you got home?" Harry asks eagerly. "Were you excited to finally see me?"

"Of course I was excited to see you," I say. "I was pretty shocked from the transition. As to whether or not you were awake when I got home ... I do not know."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I was not awake to find out."

"Huh, how?" Harry asked. "Wouldn't you have known when you came into the house?"

"I stayed asleep for almost twenty hours, according to my parents," I say slowly, clearing my throat slightly. "My father couldn't wake me when we got home. I awoke in my bed much later to find that he carried me up to my old bedroom. He denied it, but my mother confirmed it later."

"Granddad carried you?" Harry whispers, surprised.

"Yes," I mutter softly, not embarrassed to admit it, like I was long ago. "I think he was so glad to have me home he did not mind. In fact, I have the strangest feeling he did not try overly hard to wake me."

I shake my head fondly as I think of him. I miss him terribly, and somehow it seems like yesterday when I woke up at home, him just down the hall from me.

***

The utter bliss of a warm bed is all I know for some time. It takes me what feels like a very long time to realize that I am in fact in a bed. It is so comfortable, for a moment, I wonder if I am dead. Then, the throb of my knee brings me to reality. It is but a mere ripple in the stillness of waking, however, and I realize that wherever I am, there is orange light shining through my eyelids, although only a small amount.

I wiggle my toes slightly. Someone has removed my boots and socks. My army shirt is gone too, and I'm wearing one of my white vests. The dog tags clink against my chest as I stir slightly, hating to move, but trying to remember where I am. For a second, darkened roads under the glow of headlights are brought to my mind. Then, I panic. I was just in the car with my father, and now, I am in a place I have no memory of getting to. What if I am still on the hospital ship and they have not declared peace? I sit up sharply, opening my eyes. My breathing increases, and then I take in my surroundings. It looks vaguely familiar, but panic clouds my memory. Where am I? Where is the car? Where is my father?

I hear the door creak open, and then I fall back onto the bed with relief.

"You alright, Sev?" my Dad says softly, and I don't quite catch that he used my old nickname.

I nod.

"Can I come in?" he asks, and I say yes, taking a deep breath.

"You painted," I say, looking around my childhood bedroom. "I didn't recognize it at first."

"It had to be done," Dad tells me with a bit of a smirk, but he seems a little apologetic. "A certain someone had a nasty habit of brewing potions in the middle of the night as a youngster, in the cupboard. I daresay some of the mishaps left marks."

I smile weakly, and Dad suddenly looks older. He opens the blinds, and the room fills with light. He sinks down in the creaky old chair close to my bed, which has been turned toward it for some time, it appears.

"How long have I been asleep?" I ask.

"Nineteen hours, about," he tells me after a moment of consideration. "It's four-o-clock now. I cannot say I am surprised."

"Weird," I mutter to myself, sitting up again and stretching. "I don't remember coming up here."

"You were pretty tired," is all Dad says quickly, and I look at him curiously.

I open my mouth to ask him a question, but he cuts me off.

"It is good to have you back."

I try to say something back, but it catches in my throat, because all I can think of is Lily. I should have been waking up next to her. And then for a moment, before my eyes I see a ship wheel and a flash of light, the sound of tearing metal in my ears. But I am still in my bed, although I am clutching the sheets in my fists. I just lie still, trying to breathe steadily.

"Dad?" I finally am able to say after a long silence, though not an uncomfortable one.

"Yes?"

"Will ... I," I begin, stumbling over words, trying to get them past my constricted throat, and I look at him, pleading for an answer. "Will I ever be able to forget what happened there?"

He takes a deep breath, and his shoulders droop a little. I can see Dad's wrinkles more clearly now. Have those always been there?

"No," he says quietly, his greying eyebrows furrowed with thought. "But in time ... you will learn to live with it. I wish I could offer you more comfort ... but, that is all I can say honestly."

I nod, leaning back against the headboard, feeling cold.

"If you ever need an ear to listen, or want to swap stories," he says slowly, "I am always willing to talk."

"Thanks," I say, barely able to make my voice heard, because I know he means it. You can see it in his eyes.

He pats grips my shoulder tightly for a moment, and then speaks again.

"Do you feel well enough to visit for a while?"

"Yes," I say, stretching a little.

"Good," says Dad, a warm smile suddenly washing away the worry lines, making him look like a young man again. He goes to the door, and then sticks his head out of the room and calls, "Eileen, bring him up."

Dad looks at me, and then suddenly I know who they're bringing, and I'm shaking.

Then there she is, Mum, standing in the doorway, holding a bundle of blankets. I see a tuft of black hair sticking up, and the little bundle squirms.

"I won't hurt him, will I?" I whisper, and Dad reassures me quietly.

Mum's crying already, and I can hardly breathe as she comes over to my bed. She looks down at me, and I nod that I'm ready. She kneels down slightly, settling the bundle in my waiting arms.

"Harry Severus Snape," my Mum says, "Meet your daddy."

I don't breathe as I look down at my son for the first time. His hair is jet black, just like mine. A tiny scar sits on his forehead, which for a moment I study curiously. He wiggles a bit, his little hand clutching the fabric of the blanket. And then he opens his eyes.

I breathe again, and this time I am amazed by the shuddering sob that comes from my throat. My parents are surely reacting to this, but I only have eyes for my son. Those bright green eyes blink up at me, and Harry puts his tiny fingers in his mouth, looking concerned as tears drip down my nose. I feel myself shuddering as I experience what I imagine to be every emotion possible.

I am somehow proud, grief-stricken, awestruck, humbled, terrified, utterly in love, worried, insecure, breathless, and so many other things I cannot put in words, all at once. How have I deserved this? How could someone so imperfect have helped bring forth such a miracle? This innocent child, big eyes so filled with wonder lies in my arms. And all I can think is that I have no right to hold such a perfect being. I, who have murdered and seen those fall before me. I, who threw myself into the jaws of death on a whim, on some notion that my life was not worth living. But here, right now, I see purpose again. The only thing that matters to me now is this little baby in my arms, who is reaching his tiny hand up to my face, trying to comfort me as I cry. And at this moment, I fear that my son will never understand just what he has done for me, without even uttering a word.

***

"You really cried, Dad?" whispers Harry, astounded.

"I did," I say unashamedly. "Much more than you, that is for sure."

"Why?"

"Harry, did you know that more veterans of the Falklands have committed suicide than died in the war?"

"No," he says to me. "Is ... is that really true?"

I nod, and then speak, trying to keep the trembling from my voice, trying to put into words everything I need him to know. "If it had not been for you, Harry, I may have gone the same route. I was reckless, bereaved. As I have said, I set out to meet my death once already before I came home, when I talked that crew out of leaving me to die on that ship. It was a death wish, not something done out of bravery. I might have tried again if you had not been around, so really, you saved me, Harry, without even trying to."

Harry does not seem to know what to say, and so we end our talk for the day, for it is growing later and curfew is soon. I give him a hug before I send him off to his common room because I know he needs to think. He does not protest, and whispers that he loves me in my ear before I let go of him. I whisper that I love him too.

Such a simple phrase. It just never seems like it is enough, and I wonder if Harry can even comprehend how much he means to me. I comfort myself with the thought that perhaps he too will have a child someday, and will at last see, for I never really understood how much my own father cared about me until I held Harry for the first time.

The next day is a Monday. I am surprised when I open my eyes and realize that my dreams have been pleasant. I get out of bed, my leg throbbing as it always does, and ready myself for the day. I send Harry a note to see if he wants to meet me for lunch in my quarters, but he declines, saying he is busy. For a moment, I am afraid. What if he does not want to come because he believes me a coward? And then I tell myself that is silly, for he had said only the other day that he believed me to be a hero. I only wish I could see myself in the way he did. Yet, thanks to his insistence, I do feel a little differently. The guilt seems to have lessened now that he knows what I did, and is not angry over it. Although I am still unsure as to whether or not I deserve to be called a hero. I accept this to be a question I will always ask myself, one that I will never truly have an answer to. At least now I do not feel so guilty. That's a start.

I teach my classes without thinking, and when I make to retreat to my quarters, I pass through my office and find a letter sitting in my in-tray on my desk. It must have come too late for breakfast, and one of the house elves delivered it.

I tear it open eagerly, for I recognize the handwriting as my mother's. I have not heard from her in a little while, and I am looking foward to know how she is.

Dear Severus,

I hope you are well. I apologize for the late delivery, but I did not send this as quickly as I would have liked. I have good news! But I will wait to tell you it when I see you, which leads me to ask, would you like to drop by for tea Monday evening? Just the two of us? I will be in all evening so just come by if you can.

Love Mum

I smile. Yes. I would, so I send Harry a little note with Hedwig, who I find in the owlery on my way from the castle. A second note goes to Albus so he knows I am away from the school. Then, without a backward glance, with the recently found photo album under my arm, I apparate to the mucky banks of the river by Spinner's End. A few minutes later I knock once on the door to the house and open it, because Mum never minds.

"Just a minute, hon!" she calls down the stairs, and I take my black overcoat and toss it on the peg by the door, glad it is cool outside so I could just cover up my robes and apparate, rather than come by floo. The walk is sometimes nice, even if Cokeworth isn't exactly the most ideal of towns.

I put the kettle on and sink down at the kitchen table, just in time for Mum to arrive in the kitchen, wiping her brow on the sleeve of an old jumper of Dad's, her hair back in a loose bun.

"What a job!" she says with a light laugh as she puts a few chipped mugs on the table. "I've been busy packing all day!"

"Packing?" I say, intrigued.

"I sold the place at last," she says to me with a mixture of excitement and sadness. "Which is perfect, because I found a nice little cottage down in Godric's Hollow, just the right size for me, and a spare room in case you two stay the night on occasion. Needs just a little fixing up, but nothing I can't handle."

"That's great," I say, although I look around the kitchen, a strange feeling in my stomach.

"I know," she says quietly. "I will miss some things about this place too."

Mum sets the tea pot on the table and pours me a cup, setting out a little plate of biscuits. I smile slightly when I notice they are oatmeal chocolate chip, my favourite. I suspect she baked them specially in the hopes I would come by. I make sure to tell her they are great.

"Harry knows now," I say quietly a few minutes later, figuring I might as well get it over with. Mum's hands, which are wrapped around her mug, tighten slightly.

"Oh, Severus," she says, and you can tell in her eyes that she knows just how hard it has been for me.

"I had to tell him. He found the box. I had to give him a bit of a talking to for looking through it, but he didn't have a clue what it all meant, so I had to explain everything first. He thought the uniform and medal were Dad's, until he read the tags."

"How did he take it?"

"Better than I thought he would," I say thoughtfully, but that's all I can manage for the moment, so I change the subject. "And ... I found something, when I went back into the box after the first night I spent talking about it." I take the photo album, and I set it on the table. Mum slides her chair so that it is next to mine. "It was sitting at the bottom, hidden under Potter's invisibility cloak. Lily must have hidden it in case they were found, so that nobody could tie them to me. I never knew it was even there, all these years."

Mum puts her hand to her mouth, and lets out a laugh that is half smothered by tears when she opens it. She flips page after page, seeing the pictures.

"Lily was going to make copies for us of the pictures we took of Harry's birth," explains Mum after a moment, wiping her eyes, "but she never really got the chance, especially once she went into hiding. I thought they were lost ... so I never mentioned them. Oh, my, I forget how much Harry looked like you as a baby, besides the eyes. Well, that, and you had a birth mark right on your bu-"

"Mum," I moan out of habit before I remember that nobody is here to hear her. Goodness knows she laughed over enough silly details of me as a child with Lily before we were dating. Sometimes I forget that those days are gone. All those years seem to blend to one when I sit in the kitchen at Spinner's End, changeless and familiar.

Mum just laughs and kisses me on my red cheek.

"Come upstairs, I have something for you," she says, now on her feet.

Intrigued, I follow. The living room looks strange, with boxes stacked on the sofa and bed frames unassembled, stacked in one corner. The upstairs rooms are empty, and Mum takes me into what was their bedroom, but now it is almost all but bare, with the exception of an end table with a drawer pulled out of it. The drawer sits on top of it. Mum feels around the base of the drawer, and something clicks. Curious, I bend over to get a better look at it. She pulls out a thin wooden board.

A false bottom.

"Kind of like that one in that trunk upstairs for your things, huh?" she says with a twinkle in her eyes. "You and Toby are so alike sometimes. That wily father of yours kept this hidden even from me - I suppose he never got the chance to mention it. It seems that in this family I'm the only one without invisibility cloaks or hidden compartments!"

Under the drawer is a thin, leather bound notebook.

"I found this just the other day," she says rather sadly, and she hands it to me. I take it with delicate fingers. I look at it, confused.

"Dad kept a journal during the war?"

"Not during his, if that's what you mean," Mum says, her eyes damp around the edges. "We couldn't send as many letters as we wanted. Your dad seemed particularly bothered by this, when I look back on it. I remember him saying how important letters were to him when he was away, hearing from the people he loved. That's where the idea for the notebook must have come from, I think. He never told me of it. Maybe he didn't want to upset me, or remind me where you were. Either way, he did it because he missed you, and I think one day he planned to give it to you, when the war wasn't so close still, but ... well, he didn't stay as long as he wanted to."

I look at her curiously, not entirely sure where she is going with this. Mum just smiles, and then answers me.

"They're letters, Severus, all to you. It looks like he wrote one for every day that you were away, and one for the day you returned."

She puts it in my hands and clasps them tightly before leaving me be for a few moments. I stare down at the leather binding, my fingers travelling over its surface as I turn it over in my hands. I blink hard, staring at the creases in the leather spine, the signs of use. I want to open it right now, but I get the sense I'm going to need a good block of time to myself to read them all, so I slip it into my pocket instead, although it takes a great deal of restraint.

"I'm glad you found that," I say to Mum as I sit down in the kitchen again.

"It might not be easy to read," she says, "now that ... that he's gone."

"Yeah," I say quietly. "Maybe a weekend project."

Mum takes a sip of tea, looking thoughtful.

"I miss him," she says softly. "You know, it's silly, but I thought I heard him the other day, calling from the back garden and asking me to bring him his garden gloves. It gets lonely without him. Maybe that's why I trick myself into thinking he's still here."

She shakes her head, and I feel a pang, knowing exactly how she feels.

"Do you think ... do you think you'll ever want to marry someone else?" I ask, curious.

"After Lily, do you?" she says in reply.

"Not really," I say quietly. "I think that I would always be comparing her to Lily."

"That's how I feel about your father and I. But ... then again, one doesn't know. Life is full of surprises."

I nod slightly. We are silent for a little while. Outside, the rain has started. There is the gentle patter of it falling on the glass. It slides down, drop by drop, the cool skies visible through the splotches on the pane.

"You know when you asked me what Harry thought, of my story, that is?" I begin, trying to say what has been on my mind.

"Mhm? What about it?"

"Well ... Harry seemed to think the whole thing was some sort of ... adventure," I say uncomfortably. "He got some of what I was saying, but still, it was like it was just a story to him."

"To an eleven year old, they are stories. You weren't much different then."

I sigh. "I know. But he didn't seem to understand it, not really, anyhow."

"Severus," Mum says firmly," be glad he doesn't understand. Be glad he cannot comprehend what it was like."

I look up from my cup of tea to find that Mum is looking at me with one of her strong, blazing looks, the one she gets when she really wants me to listen.

"I know," I mutter. "I just feel like ... like maybe I didn't tell it well enough, that maybe, if I would have worded it differently he would have understood that war is not what he thinks it is. Perhaps then he could see that war is anything but an adventure. It was just so hard to put something like that in words when I was telling it to him ... I feel like I did not do the story justice."

"Justice," Mum mutters aloud as if to herself, looking thoughtful. After a moment, she continues. "You know, I don't think the way you told it matters as much as you think. Harry took from it what he will, and how you told it has little to do with that. If he wanted an adventure, then it would have been one to him, and if he felt it was a tragedy, he would have thought of it as that. Severus, nobody can fully bring justice to the events of a war. Novels, plays, and entire lives have been devoted to that purpose, but no matter how much you write, speak, or try to explain, there are some things that need to be experienced to be understood fully. If a simple story could bring war to life every bit as much as the real events do ... well, very few would be able to listen. So be glad he doesn't understand fully right now, and hope that he will never have to."

I am silent, not knowing what else to say, because her words seem astonishingly wise to me. Then again, I would not be surprised if she had experienced a similar conversation with my father. Some things about being a survivor never change, and the fear that you can never make others see exactly what you were through is one of them.

We visit a little while longer before I must be off. I throw on my black overcoat and give her a hug goodbye. I wish I had the right words to say how much her advice has helped me, but I have to hope that she understands with the ones I can say. Mothers just seem to know those things though, and she sits on the steps with the neighbourhood tomcat, which has joined her to watch me walk down the street and out of sight.

I feel the notebook in my pocket, its soft leather against the fingers on my left hand brush against it in my pocket. I smile slightly, and wherever Dad is, I hope he sees.

This smile stays with me as I enter the grounds to Hogwarts, the turrets greeting me with a familiarity I find comforting. The evening stretches before me, my only thoughts on a nice, hot shower and curling up in my armchair with the notebook. I suspect it will be a quiet evening. After all, the students are usually too tired on Monday nights for too much mischief.

***

Harry stares out the window with a pair of omnioculars, twiddling the dials. A nervous rustling is going on behind him.

"He's coming!"

Silence falls. 

The corridor to my office is still and quiet, to my relief. I go to my office door and open it, closing it behind me. I turn around, and then am surprised to see that Harry is sitting in my desk chair. He leaps up immediately, grinning from ear to ear and yet looking nervous for some reason.

"Dad!" he says, "How's Grandma?"

"She's good," I say as he bounces on his toes in front of me.

"Did she say anything?"

"About what?" I ask, narrowing my eyes.

"Nothing," Harry says quickly. "I have a surprise for you. You can thank Eleanor Crandall, really, because we got talking and I never could have found him if it hadn't been for her. She sent the letter right away -"

"Found who, Harry?" I ask, my heart suddenly pounding, but he keeps going on about how he couldn't believe what he'd heard and doesn't answer me.

"Monkshood, Salazar, open the portrait already," Harry says, positively writhing with excitement.

Salazar snickers slightly, and I mouth "What on earth?" to him, to which he simply shakes his head, smirking.

"See you tomorrow Dad," Harry says, turning quickly to give me a hug. I hardly have time to register it before he's running out of the office. "You can thank us later!" he calls after me.

"Whatever that was about ..." I mutter. Yet, I cannot seem to calm my treacherously beating heart, threatening to make me give in to the shaking fear that I suddenly feel, because I can think of one person in particular who might be sitting in my quarters, and I fear that I am wrong, because it is impossible. Death cannot reverse itself, no matter how much you wish it to. Lily taught me that.

I walk through the doorway, and I hear a shout, and before I know it someone has leaped out from round the corner and is thumping me hard on the back.

Death has reversed itself, it seems, but how?

"B-Ben?" I gasp, and he releases me, holding my left shoulder and bending slightly to look me in the eye. He has less hair, but his eyes are still that unmistakable, piercing blue, and they're full of tears, just like mine are.

    I cannot believe this, and my mind searches for a sign that I'm imagining this, but I cannot find one.

"It is you," he mutters, and drags me into a hug again. "I thought you were dead! And then I got this letter, from my niece Ellie ... I wasn't sure until I saw your son's signature as well ..."

"I t-thought you were dead too," I say dazedly, trying to keep from breaking down, hardly registering what he's saying because I'm so amazed.

"Just parts of me," he says with a shaky laugh, lifting up his right arm. It's prosthetic.

"What, how did that happen? How are you alive? How come ... how come I couldn't find you?" I wipe my eyes on my sleeve, finding it hard to stay together, my words coming out in a whirlwind "Ben, I looked everywhere. Dumbledore had me erased from records for my safety after I got that medal because he didn't want me discovered by Death Eaters who knew me as a spy ... and I couldn't ask too extensively because it would have seemed odd and my Dad looked too, and you weren't on one of the casualty lists but nobody knew where you'd gone. We just had to assume you were ... you were dead. Well, maybe they messed up the papers, because there weren't any records of you coming back on one of the crew ships and - and ... and nobody knew where you had gone ..."

"Severus, slow down," Ben says, nudging me toward the set of chairs in the kitchen before getting me a glass of water and shoving it into my trembling hands. "Wait, medal? What medal?"

"You go first," I say, taking a grateful sip. "It's a long story."

"Oh, alright," Ben says with a slight twinkle in his eyes as he drags a chair to sit opposite mine. "Don't think you're getting out of it, though."

"Yeah, yeah, now get talking," I tell him, loving the way his voice sounds. It's so familiar, and I have missed him. I never thought that I would care about a group of guys as much as I did Ben and Joey. Something about facing the impossible together did that. I feel a momentary pang, wishing Joey was here for this.

"My right arm, yeah," Ben starts, waving it slightly. "Well, remember how the grenades kept rolling down the hills?"

"Yeah, I still dream about ... about that," I mutter. "Just like yesterday."

"Me too," mutters Ben, for a moment, truly showing the some eleven years he has aged since I last saw him.

We are silent for a minute or so, and then he continues.

"Well, I got a piece of shrapnel in my lower arm. They think it was from a grenade. Well, you know how you sort of just went numb after a while. So I didn't notice for ages."

I nod, and the way we understand each other feels so good, almost better than when my Dad and I got talking of our war experiences, because Ben was right beside me during those long days. He was there.

"I haven't a clue when I got hit with that, but either way, I never really noticed it, and it was such a small piece. I got the scratch on my shoulder cleaned up, but the other one was just a little nick and I never thought to look for a wound because ... " He pauses, and for a moment he stares off into space, distracted in the way I get when I start to remember that place. He turns and looks at me, and I nod that I understand what he means, how there was so much blood from other people on your uniform, not just yours. One scratch was hard to find. "So I hiked all the way to Port Stanley from there, and I was aching all over. I just thought I was tired - everyone was half dead on their feet. We just kept pressing on, and then the other side surrendered without a fight, so we were too busy being relieved about the whole thing for me to notice that I was coming down with a fever. Then I started to feel really sick, and one of the medics had a moment to spare and checked me out ... God, when I got a look at my arm, there was this spot, right by my elbow. It was just ..."

"Disgusting?" I offer.

"That'll do. Yes, disgusting ... and infected. So, they took me to the hospital ship right away by helicopter, and by then I was in a sort of feverish stupor. I don't really remember much of it. I think they tried to cut out the wound and kill off the infection with antibiotics, but it didn't work. My body must have been too exhausted to fight it off. I don't really remember that part, I was in such a haze. Once the fever started to go down, I guess I came to a bit, and at that point ... well, I didn't have an arm, and the hospital ship was on its way back with me on it. I'd heard that the rest of the boys got back some time before us.

"I stayed in a hospital in London for a little while until I was strong enough to go elsewhere, and then I went straight to Canada, where my sister was still living, even though You Know Who was gone. She wanted to stay, so I left Britain. I managed to get over really quickly because she squeaked me in through the Wizarding Immigration Services, and even though I'm not a wizard, she was able to get me through. She was all I had left, and that's probably why they let me in within a month or two. I think she told one of her friends who worked in that department the full sob story of me having to go off to war and all that. And that was where I stayed until my sister wanted to move back to be with family, and so her daughter could go to school here. So I came back. It's been strange. I'd left for Canada without saying goodbye to anyone, really. At the time I just wanted the hell out of here. I mean, first Joey died, and then you. I really thought you were dead ... I had heard about some boat going down when I woke briefly on the hospital ship. Something about a ship with wounded men going down ... I caught your name in there."

"Nobody died," I say. "But you were right ... I was on it. I was the only one, actually."

"Huh?" Ben says, confused.

"Well ... that's where my long story starts," I say with a pained smile.

"You don't have to say the whole thing, not unless you want to," Ben says softly.

"I don't mind telling you," I say after a moment, and then I start. And I am glad that I do, because Ben understands it every step of the way, more than I ever could have imagined.

"Then ... after all that ... after I tried to off myself," I finish bitterly, "the bastards gave me this."

I hold out the box with the medal, and Ben takes it.

"Shit," he mutters when he opens the box, his eyes widening in shock at the Victoria Cross. "You must have hated that."

"I did. I still do. In fact, I wanted to toss the damned thing away, but my mother didn't play fair and told me throwing away the medal would have made it so that being gone from Lily left me with so little to show for it. Maybe she has a point, I don't know."

"I'm sorry, Severus," Ben says. "I'm sorry about Lily. I couldn't imagine it - being told like that. And ... I know how you felt when you ... at least somewhat when you tried to ... well, you know."

I look at him, wondering.

"I never got to say goodbye to anyone, pretty much," Ben says to me quietly, looking ashamed of himself all of a sudden, "And some of the stuff I did, over there ... I just couldn't live with it. I tried to stay around, for Elly. She was the only thing I lived for, most days, and I knew her father was a bit of a slime even then, so she needed me too. She was the only one who didn't treat me like I might break any second. She looked up to me, still does I think, not that I always deserve it. Back then I tried to do what was right, for her, but after a while ... even that just didn't work."

A tear runs down his cheek, but he does not look away.

"Severus, I tried it too. The only difference is I didn't get a medal for it, but ... but it didn't work either."

"Ben," I begin, my stomach dropping to my toes. "When?"

"Five years ago," he says, his voice hoarse. "My sister Kate dropped in unexpectedly. I guess she was worried. She thought I was sick - I'd told her I had the flu so I didn't have to see anyone. But she came by to drop off some soup ... and she had Elly. I don't think Elly remembers, because when I apologized to her later, she didn't seem to know what I was talking about entirely. I don't know, maybe she blocked some of it out. But if she does remember, well, she's never mentioned it. I had a gun to my head and I was going to do it. I was shocked to see Elly, and she just started crying and I dropped my hand long enough for Kate to stun me with her wand. It was terrible for Elly, well, both of them, but Elly especially. I should never have ... I shouldn't ... not with Elly around. She was the only one who really saw me ... and I scared her so badly. It wasn't fair - I should never have even tried it, but the scary thing was that if she hadn't walked in, even with Kate there, I might have done it."

He looks down at his feet.

"Kate took me in to some muggle hospital for a while, and got me some help. Things aren't always easy now, but ... I don't feel so guilty anymore about surviving ... and there are good things in life. I'm glad now I didn't do it, and I'm happy again, but ... it doesn't quite erase the past. I know how you felt then, Severus, and now, too, wishing you never tried it."

I look at him, shocked. Ben. Ben. He was the strongest, the best. He carried me halfway down a mountain to save me from death, and even he had had enough one day. It took longer, but he did.

I'm not sure who starts it, but we're both crying, and neither of us seems to care. I grab a hold of his shoulder, and he grabs mine, and we bow our heads, our foreheads pressed together like brothers. Nobody's here to see, just us. The way I look at it, we have a right to cry. Our eyes have seen too much, and nothing can take those memories away, but at least having someone to share in your grief makes it easier to bear.

After a while, we break apart. We are silent for a long time, but it is enough just to know that the other is there.

"You know what the funny thing was?" Ben says at last, his voice quiet, thoughtful. "When Elly walked in, she reminded me of that day we got our letters on Ascension Island, and the picture of her first tooth, and then of you and the look on your face when you found out that Harry was born."

I look at him intently, and I nod.

"I never thought I would try it," I mutter hoarsely after another long silence. "I never thought I would try to kill myself, Ben. I never thought I would really want to do it."

"Neither did I."

"I still dream about it, sometimes."

"Do you ever wish you had done it?" Ben asks hesitantly. "Or wish you could still do it?"

I look at him, and tears fill my eyes. "Well ... some nights I almost do. It passes quickly now. It isn't like it used to be. I have Harry. I have my mother. There are others."

"I'm glad you never did," he says quietly.

"I'm glad you didn't."

"Me too," Ben tells me.

We smile slightly.

"Severus?"

 "Yeah?"

 "I don't know what Wizards do, but muggles have these people called Therapists ..." Ben mutters.

"Oh yeah, those are like Mind Healers."

"Right. Well, I went to one, and it actually ... helped."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, really. I mean, mine is back in Canada, so I couldn't recommend one, but it might help if you went to see a Mind Healer, or something."

"I never went to one. I should have, really. I just ... my case is so unusual, and still fairly top secret among the Ministry. Just never really found the right person, I guess."

"Give it a try, Sev. Really. It helps. Not at first. Kind of like a fever. It has to get hotter until it breaks, but when it does it's way better, I promise."

"Okay," I say, and I choke slightly as I say it, and have to look away.

"What?"

"It's just ... you reminded me of my Dad for a second there."

Ben looks at me knowingly. He seems to be able to tell that he isn't here anymore. Maybe the look on my face is enough.

"You know, he was a Vet, right?" I say quickly.

"Yeah, I remember you talking about him" Ben says to my surprise. "Korea, wasn't it?"

"Yes," I say, staring off into the distance. "He had it bad too, PTSD. Never got a diagnosis, but it couldn't have been anything else. You didn't really go talk about it in those days. You just lived with it, right? I remember as a kid, he never came to bonfire night. When I got back, I finally understood why he was that way. I really hope Harry never has to lose his enjoyment of fireworks. It was horrible for me after."

"Me too," Ben says quietly.

"I never really appreciated Dad until that night, I think, the first bonfire night since I was back," I mutter.

"Tell me about it," Ben says, intrigued. "What was your Dad like?"

So I tell him. The words come easily. I remember the smell of the kitchen and hear the click of the checkers on the board and the creak of my father's chair, the sound of people walking through the street. The story brings back everything, and with it comes the memory of another survivor, the one who was my hero not for what he did in war, but what he did at home.

      Ben listens, and from this story we spring into other stories, until night has fallen and the early hours of the morning arrive. Somehow, it doesn't seem like time has passed at all, but it has in the very same way that a decade has slipped away since we last saw each other. Maybe that's why the time we have doesn't seem to be enough.

The next morning I am awake much earlier than I had intended to be. I hardly had any sleep last night by the time Ben left. The whole thing seems like a dream to me, but the little note on my kitchen counter says otherwise, where his address was hastily scribbled last night.

I drink my coffee like it is the elixir of life, trying to get rid of the strange, hazy feeling I have felt from the shock of all that has happened, trying to ground myself to reality. I owe Harry very much, but also Ben's niece. Ben had suggested last night we go on a fishing trip together over the summer and bring them as a thank you. He says he knows a spot his father used to take him when he was a boy. I have yet to decide over the matter, but right now I am content with the thought of seeing Harry when class is over for the day and thanking him properly. I've already written him a little note, asking him to meet me at home. Besides, I want to know just what my mother had to do with this whole charade, although I am betting she was the distraction, albeit a welcome one.

***

Harry comes flying into my quarters after school with the biggest grin on his face, and I'm waiting for him. The first thing I do is catch him (a difficult task given his speed) and give him the biggest hug of his life.

"Daaad I can't breathe!" he tells me, and I let him go. He's making a face, but he looks pleased with himself.

"Harry, you astound me," I tell him, shaking my head. "I really am impressed. Thank you. Ben and I talked so long I was tempted just to bring him to class in the morning!"

"Well, I thought you would appreciate it," Harry says with a shrug. "Of course, Dumbledore helped too. I had to ask him permission to bring someone to the school to see you, you know. And Ben's sister was nice enough to apparate him here and bring him inside - you know, muggles can't see the school until they're in the grounds. And Eleanor was the one who wrote him the letter -"

"I know, Harry, but I thought I should thank you first," I tell him with a laugh. "And you can tell your friend Eleanor she has my gratitude as well."

"I'll be sure to tell her," Harry says, swelling with pride. "You got to see an old friend, and I made a new one! Ella's the best - she does these really cool drawings and she did one of Hedwig and said I could keep it!"

I laugh slightly, "Well, then perhaps Ben's suggestion isn't as crazy as I thought."

"Huh?"

"He thought it might be fun if the four of us went fishing over the summer. If you like the idea."

     "Wicked! I like Ben too - he's awesome. You know, he was started telling me stories about you while we waited for you to get here - it was hilarious!"

"What kind of stories," I say, rolling my eyes. I should have known.

"Well," Harry begins, his words coming out in a rush as he grins at me, "he said this one time when you guys were on the ship a few days from the Falklands there was this one night where everyone was really nervous and jumpy and just wanted to get their minds of it and have some fun and forget about everything. So someone dared you and Joey and a few others -"

Oh no ... I think, eyes widening.

" - to run the length of the ship -" Harry continues.

He didn't.

"- in just your dog tags!" Harry cries at the exact same time, like it is the best thing ever.

He did, the arse.

"Remind me to thank Ben for that," I say, embarrassed.

"And the best part! What was the best part? Come on dad!"

I crack a smile at last, starting to laugh. "I got to be the flag bearer," I mutter, sure my face is as red as a sunset. For a moment, I grow serious and add," and if you ever tell anyone that you will know a whole world of hurt, young man."

"Yes Dad," Harry says seriously before cracking a smile again. "Did you guys really not get in trouble?"

"True. Everyone thought it was so funny all of the people in charge said it was good for morale," I say, rolling my eyes and fighting another laugh. "Please tell me that was all Ben told you."

"That was the worst of it, yeah. He must be the coolest Uncle ever!"

"Yes, I imagine so, just so long as Miss Crandall does not start telling stories about the adventures of a sillier sort that Ben and I took part in while overseas." I cringe slightly, but I am not too worried. I know Ben won't mention anything too embarrassing to a student of mine. Harry's an exception, and I know he's only doing that because he knows Harry will think it's funny. "But enough distraction - what did your grandmother have to do with this whole stunt?"

"Grandma was awesome!" Harry tells me, sinking into the chair. "I sent her a letter to run my idea by her - she thought it was great. So, she agreed to help get you out of the castle, which was good because she'd wanted to ask you to tea for a while anyway."

"I will have to make sure to thank her at Christmas," I say, chuckling.

Harry and I talk for a long time, and I tell him about the notebook that my mother had found. Harry is astounded.

"Have you read it yet, huh, Dad?" he asks eagerly, on the edge of his seat.

"No," I say to him, my eyes downcast. "I haven't gotten a chance."

I dismiss the subject, and instead tell him of some of the more noteworthy things that I discovered last night regarding Ben's survival. We talk a long time, and then say goodbye. The notebook sits on my shelf, and it stares me in the face.

Somehow, I am afraid to open it.

***

It is the middle of the night, and the castle is silent. I walk through the corridors, the feel of the stone under my shoes grounding me to an earth that my mind has left for the time being. The notebook is in my pocket. I am searching through the castle, looking for somewhere, anywhere, as though I want a place to read it. This is really just a distraction, and my head goes in circles again and again, always returning to the point of origin - that steady ache that is forever there when I think of my father and the war. My father's voice lies in a book in my pocket, and why, why have I yet to read it? When I first stepped into the corridors I had fooled myself into thinking that I needed a quiet, calm place, away from the distractions of grading and test papers. Yet all of that stays in my office. No school work enters my quarters unless I absolutely cannot help it, except perhaps Harry's, and only that which I do not need to mark. It is my wall between teaching and life, something I have always worked hard to keep separate if possible. So there are no distractions after all.

That is, of course, because I am the distraction. My own head is the source of noise. The clatter of boots and spray of guns and the wreckage illuminated by the flares that rise in the night. I want to open the book, but I fear it. I fear what is written, the words that will become the final dialogue to me by my father. What will I find there, and how will it make me feel? Will it be filled with simple things of a life that I can never truly go back to? Will it bring me back to the war after all these years? And even though I feel the familiar stone of Hogwarts under my boots I fear that somehow, if I read those letters, I will find myself in a dugout as the flares arc overhead, the year 1983 and my life about to change irrevocably.

How much will these letters change me? Can they change me? I long for a place that is safe, a place that nothing can hurt me in, where I am not reminded of my own aloneness ... a place I can breathe. And that is when I see the door handle materialize opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, its silver handle melting into existence in the plain stone wall.

With my head in circles, no answer of what this place is comes to mind - just flares and guns and broken hearts and silver tags and black water. So I close my eyes and open the door.

It's a room, and yet it isn't just a room to me. The door closes softly behind me, and I feel myself begin to tremble when I realize that somehow, some way, this room is my father's study back at the now empty Spinner's End. It is the same as I remember it, in every way, just as it was thirty years ago when I was just a lad. It's just as small, and dimly lit with only a tiny window that I can see out of, and the laundry is still hanging out on the line just outside. There is a stack of notepaper and envelopes, a tray full of bills and receipts. It looks as though it always did when he was alive, organized but in a disorderly way, its manner speaking of a life that is now long gone. A life that can never return. I feel my knees go weak and I sink to the ground.

What is this place, this place that can somehow bring me to this old room, this memory? I wonder if the corridor is still out there, but I fear that if I open the door, the study will be gone.

My head spins too much to understand, but all I can think of is that it's everything I had wanted while I was wandering the corridors. So, whether I am imagining this or not, I lean against the soft pillow that rests against the wall. The plush orange carpet is slightly scratchy, and the pillow feels just like it always did, but smaller. It is so familiar it makes my chest ache, because Dad use to keep this pillow here exactly for the purpose of me sitting and chattering away at him while he worked. He wasn't like some dads, who did not want to hear any talk when they were doing important things. I always got the sense that it was my talk that was one of the truly important things, and the papers only a distraction from them. That's what made him a good father.

I take in a deep breath and find that it even smells the same. The faint scent of coffee and the slightest trace of stale cigar smoke fills my senses. The scent is so relaxing it is almost intoxicating. I close my eyes, and quite suddenly I could be five years old, eating an oatmeal biscuit and getting crumbs on Dad's carpet while he tells me stories and organizes papers. For some time I just sit here, breathing in the familiar air, but at last I open my eyes. I half expect to see Dad sitting in the old wooden chair with its curved arms, but it is still empty. That ache returns, and more than anything right now, I want to hear Dad's voice. So I slide the notebook from my pocket, rubbing my gritty, tired eyes and flipping to page one.

Dear Son,

The house is quiet without you, so I'm writing this to keep myself occupied. I wish I could send all of these letters, but unfortunately I know from experience how unreliable the post system can be in a war. I hope you get the chance to read these someday upon your return, even if they don't end up containing anything all that wise.

It is strange thinking that you are headed off to a war. Only a few hours ago we were eating breakfast together, and now you are shipping off to what will probably be the hardest time in your life. You know, I had always thought that Korea was the hardest time in my life, but I admit it was harder to let you go than it was for me to leave for war so many years ago. I thought I said all my goodbyes the first time, back when I went to Korea. I guess I wasn't done. Nobody said that it would be easy to let you go like that, but nobody really said that it would be that hard either. I just hope it doesn't remain goodbye.

I promised your mother I would let her be alone for a little while, so she can process everything. I wish I could sit by her all day, but I suppose everyone needs a moment of silence to realize the harder things in life. Would you believe she's taken every photograph with one of us in uniform - old and new - and put them in an envelope and hidden them away? Only the ones of us out of uniform are left. I think she doesn't want to remember where you are just now. I'll keep quiet about it for a day or two, let her do what she needs. Apparently my own mother simply refused to eat for a few days after I left, so I think she's doing admirably, considering. I suppose that it didn't help I was an only child too. She'll come round though. Do not worry about us.

I hope things are going well as you get on your way. Don't worry too much about what's to come. Worry does not change the future or the past.

I think I'll go check on Eileen,

Dad

The letters go on like this, talking of simple things, and what's going on at home. They give me a strange feeling. A sense of loss, perhaps. Around the fifth one, they start to change slightly.

Dear Severus,

Today I started to wonder if I told you that I love you enough. I wonder if this is how my father felt when I left for war. He was a very quiet man - well, you know how he was. Hardly said a thing. I'm not sure if he ever told me he loved me, but I always knew because of the things he did for me, or the sort of soft smile he would get when I made him proud. I've started to wonder if you could tell my feelings just by looking too, because even though I could see my father's love, I couldn't see how deep it went. Down the road, when Lily has the baby you will know how I feel, but right now I wonder if you know how much I love you. I have not said it as often as I would have liked to, and with you overseas I've found myself wondering if it could ever have been enough just saying it.

I'm not sure if I could ever find the right words, and if I could I would go to the end of the earth just to find that right word so you knew right now. It's funny how children turn their parents sentimental from the moment they are born. I used to think that I was so aloof and tough, and that that was what proved a man's worth. If my comrades could see me now, I have no doubt that those without children would shake their heads, but those with a son or daughter would understand that it really is the most terrifying thing to pour your soul into something the moment you set eyes on it. Yet, somehow, it happens whether you want it to or not. I've come to believe that learning to live with not only your own suffering, but to suffer also the trials of another, is the real proof of a man's worth. Being a father is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I hope that fatherhood is something that you will be blessed enough to be challenged with.

Stay safe. Keep a cool head, and trust your instincts. Trust luck as well. A soldier cannot afford not to.

Love, Dad

I pause, tracing the handwritten words on the page. My father did love me, but at that time, fathers didn't really say that they did. It is strange to see such words in writing. I wipe my eyes and keep reading. The letters often tell of simple things, but sometimes they tell more than what Dad seemed to manage to actually send to me. Maybe that's why he didn't send some of them, because some I would not have been ready to read where I was.

Dear Severus,

I hope you shall return, but I am afraid you will go through the same things I did if you do. I am haunted by dreams of Korea still, after all these years. And while the scars have faded on my body it seems like my mind remembers them too well, and I hope that you do not have to relieve your experiences every night as I do. I hope you never have to have dreams like this. But if you do, know that you aren't alone. There was nobody around to tell me that the nights are always the worst, and I had to learn that myself. I also had to learn that the days get better with time, and that when it's dark out you must remember that the sun does come up, and that morning is never as far as you think it is.

I wish I could have done something to keep you from having to go. War isn't like what you always though it was, Severus, as a boy. It wasn't what I had thought it was as a boy when I went either. It makes everything get lost, turns everything from black and white to grey. It isolates you, so much. When you return you may find this, that it is so much harder to be understood and not to build walls against people. For you this will be difficult especially, because you already have had to build so many walls thanks to your spying for the light, and the way the other children treated you. I am sorry for the last one especially, because I could not be there when you were away at school.

Around people, I was more open than you at that age, I think, before the war. But when I got back, I built many barriers. I wish I hadn't pushed people away. I remember my family calling me a hero for what I did, even your mother to some degree when I told her of some of the things that happened. I'm not sure they know what a hero really is, and I felt the same then. I pushed people away, sometimes your mother, but she was patient with me. Promise me that you won't build walls, Severus, even when people don't understand. It's walls that stop people from understanding in the first place, and I know that will be especially hard when you return to Lily.

I made the mistake of trying to protect Eileen from the horror I went through. Sure, I had good intentions, and sometimes that is what helps people, but what your mother wanted was to share my pain, and make it easier, because she loved me. Don't push out people you love and hide the bad things from them if they want to help you. Lily especially. She is so strong, and she will want to be there for you, even though she could not be with you.

Love Dad

Lily. I look up from the book, rubbing my eyes. None of us guessed it, not me, not my mother, not my father, and not Lily. Who knew that I would return, and not her? Oh Lily, I think. How I wish I could have shared my burdens with you when I returned. I wish you could have been there too. I never thought I would return to an empty bed like I did.

I sink back against the pillow, wondering. Who have I shut out? What walls have I built? Dad is right. It is easy to build walls. I just wish it was easier to tear them down.

Dear Son,

Lily was over for dinner today. She's as round as a pumpkin! I teased her that she looked like one, actually, because she was wearing orange. She laughed, of course. The baby is very close to coming, but it's still hanging in there. Your mother thinks it's going to be a girl - I suppose she would know more than I, but secretly, I'm really hoping for a boy, although I'll love any grandchild I end up with. If it is a girl, I just hope she likes fishing, is all. Remember the time I tried to take you fishing for the first time, Severus? I think you must have been four. Yes, that sounds right.

I'll never forget the look on your face when you held the fish I caught. It flopped its tail, and you jumped so bad it went flying into the lake! You screamed so loud the fishermen were claiming you scared the fish away. That was the end of that. I've always found it rather funny that fish make you squirm so, considering all the slimy dead things you have to cut up for potions. So, needless to say, and no offence to my favourite son, but I'd be rather pleased to have a grandson to take out on the water a bit.

Hope things are going smoothly for you,

Love Dad

"I didn't scream," I mutter to myself, rolling my eyes. I stare at the chair for a second, imagining my father sitting there and raising his eyebrow. "Alright, I did."

I chuckle slightly.

"And thanks to that father son outing, I had nightmares about giant fish for weeks," I mutter under my breath, wondering if he can hear me. "And would you look at that. You got your wish. Harry's been bothering me to take him fishing for ages, all thanks to your little trips with him, you old codger."

I shake my head, and read on. The letters go on, and there is indeed one for every day. There's one for the day the Dark Lord decided Lily was a threat, the day they went into hiding, and there's one for the day that we lost her. It's hardly any words at all. It doesn't need to be.

My Dear Son,

Dumbledore has sent you the message, so you won't hear it from me. But I need to say it. Harry is safe, thankfully. Oh Severus, I am so sorry. We lost Lily today. I wish I could do more. I wish I was there with you. I wish you had been given the chance to be there for her. I wish I was there to tell you it isn't your fault. I wish so many things, and I am sorry to say they can only be wishes. She was a daughter to me, and I am sorry we could not do something. I know you're hurting right now, but you won't always hurt this way. It will fade with time, but that doesn't make it easy. I know, son, but it will be alright with time.

Lots of Love,

Dad

And has it, I wonder. Has it gotten less painful? I shake my head, and in some ways it hurts me to think that it has, that I don't miss her quite the way I used to. I have learned to get by without her, and I am not sure what to think about this. I miss her very much, but maybe I have started to move on. This is a thought I will consider later, so I keep reading through the letters, page after page after page. It is late at night when I reach the last one. I pause before reading it, fingering the paper. At last, I look down, and I read.

Dear Severus

I get to go and get you today. We are excited. Your mother has been pacing with the baby for some time now, anxious for you to get home. I was so afraid you would not return. I wish you did not have to come back to find Lily gone. Life is so full of cruel surprises. But you are alive, and Harry is here. You will make a wonderful father, and I am thankful every day that he survived, because as long as Harry is here, so is Lily. He is your link to her, and her link to you. Cherish him, always, as I cherish you. I have missed you, and I know right now all you are probably able to think about is how much you miss Lily. But, you know, I do not think people we have loved and lost are as far away as they seem. I still see things that remind me of my father, or of the friends I lost in Korea. They're all there. They never really leave you, because the ways that they changed you are there forever.

You are changed forever for having known Lily, and isn't it better to be glad for all the good ways she changed you, than to be angry at the world for all the things it has changed by taking things away? I have come to see that war is similar. I would not trade the friends I came out of it with for the world, even though what we went through was terrible. Just as I would not trade it now because had I not gone into the army, I may never have met your mother, and therefore never met you. I suppose my final piece of advice to you, before I go and bring you home, is that hard things in life may change everything, but it's the way we look at it that counts. Look for the good, Severus, even if it hurts searching.

Love Dad

I close the book, and as I do so I think that all these letters would never have been written if I didn't have to go away. Right now, my father feels closer to me than he has in many years, even more so than he did on some days when he was alive. I think this is what he was talking about.

"Harry, I want you to sort through the things here that you want to take home with you," I say to Harry early on Friday morning as we prepare to leave the school. It has been an hour since the other students have left by train to their homes for Christmas, and it is due time that we get on our way as well.

"To go where?" Harry asks, curious.

"To our new home, silly," I say with a small smile.

"You found us somewhere?" he says, aghast.

"Yes. I just sealed the deal a week ago. A little flat, just the two of us."

"Dad, where is it?"

"It isn't far from Grandma's. You'll be able to visit her whenever you like. Godric's Hollow isn't too large, and her cottage is only a little ways out of the town, so you will be able to walk."

"Godric's Hollow? Really?" Harry asks, excited. "Grandma didn't tell me where her new house was. Does this mean we're going to bring Mum flowers more often? And can I have friends over for the summer now?"

"Yes Godric's Hollow, yes I am serious, yes we will if you would like to come with me," I say, having trouble keeping up with all of his questions. "And finally, yes you may have friends to stay. But they have to swear to keep it a secret that I'm not a vampire after all."

"Dad," Harry says with a laugh, shooting me a grin over his shoulder as he runs into what was his bedroom in my quarters before he started school. He returns with a few boxes of things, most of which had long resided at Spinner's End before they were relocated here temporarily.

"Ready?" I say after waving my wand to send all of our things there by magic.

"Yes!" Harry tells me, and so I hand him the pot of floo powder, and I tell him the address. He grins, and before I know it he vanishes in a puff of smoke and fire.

I'll never quite get used to that.

I grab a handful myself and toss the powder into the fire. I step into the emerald flames, and speak.

"Number three, Cherry Road," I say, and when I arrive in the small sitting room Harry is standing, covered in soot and spinning in circles, with his arms out.

He looks so terribly funny I do not scold him for getting soot on the carpet. We leave the boxes for later, and we walk through town and down the narrow, snow covered country lane to visit my mother. She's happy to see us, and gives Harry a huge hug.

"Severus," Mum says when she finally releases him so he can take a gasp of air. "Oh I'm so glad to see you!"

"Glad to see you too, Mum," I say, giving her a hug.

"Now come into the kitchen, won't you two? I need a hand icing cookies for Christmas. You can fight over who gets to lick the spoon."

I chuckle and follow her in, where, with laughing eyes cast at me she gives Harry the mixing spoon from the bowl of icing to lick. She then moves to take the cooled cookies off the pan.

I watch the two of them as Harry tells her all about his first half of the year. Harry adds sprinkles to the cookies while she ices them, and once in a while he dips his finger in the frosting, only to have his hand swatted away. It's very fun to watch, and my half of the cookies end up looking rather sloppy because I'm paying more attention to my family than my icing duties. Nobody minds of course, least of all me, for this is exactly why I chose to live here in Godric's Hollow. We're all together here. Past, present, future.

The days go by like this until Christmas Eve arrives, my letters to Ben returning with speedy replies, and finally the promise to visit the day after Christmas for a game of cards and a tour of our new flat.

Godric's Hollow is so full of life during this time that it makes it hard to remember what happened here so long ago, and that I am grateful for. Harry doesn't seem to think about the past much at all, and instead has fallen in love with other things here, which I am glad for. The connection to Lily is what I like about this place, and I worried he would only think of what happened here long ago. I at least have other memories of Godric's Hollow, for while Lily and I never lived here together we used to visit my elderly Grandmother Prince, who had lived in the old part of Godric's Hollow. Before she died we visited her often, staying for a few days sometimes, just as I used to when I was a child during the summer. She was the only Gryffindor in the Prince line, and she adored Lily. Maybe that's why Lily decided to take James Potter's offer to allow her to hide here at his home. This place is full of us, full of memories and beautiful days spent with nothing to do but talk to each other. It is for that reason, all of the memories, that I am drawn to the streets of Godric's Hollow, and when Christmas Eve comes I find myself upon them, far from the door of my mother's home, where Harry is sitting and drinking hot chocolate with her, eagerly awaiting Christmas tomorrow.

I walk purposefully, my destination not far but my wishes to remain long making themselves heard. It will be some time before I return there to the cottage to sleep, having promised Harry we would stay the night in the country, because he wants to spend every second of Christmas with Grandma. Even though our new home is not far from hers, and we could get there in good time in the morning, it's an idea we both like. After all, family time is something I appreciate more and more, and my mother is the only family we have left besides each other.

The streets are lined with thick, deep heaps of snow. The flakes drift down softly upon the world below, and the frosted windows gleam with light, the occasional glimpse of families gathered behind sparkling windows. It is like a picture, still and quiet. There is no wind, and my crunching footsteps are the only sound in a silent world. I pass the church. Lily rests in the graveyard there, a bundle of roses from me upon it. It's the only way I can bring her flowers now, and yet, it doesn't hurt quite the same as it used to. Right now I do not turn into the graveyard, instead opting to go forward, for what I seek lies ahead.

At last I find what I am looking for, bathed in the soft, warm glow of street lamps, the flakes of snow swirling brightly around it as they fall from the sky. There it is, the obelisk reaching up into the night, a war memorial that has stood there an age. I feel my stomach twisting inside, wondering what muggle names sit upon it, and from which wars. But as a Wizard it does not last long for my vision, because to I, a man of magical blood, it means something else too. I see the war memorial only from a distance, for as I approach the obelisk it melts into something new. I take a deep breath. There she is, my Lily, standing still and smiling, white snow gathered in her hair and baby Harry bundled in her arms. She stands there with a soft smile - just another war memorial to the muggles that live here. But I know better.

"Happy Christmas Eve, love," I mutter under my breath as I drink in her image.

I fall silent, the church bells striking ten times, and like a man in a dream I stare into the face of all that I lost, and yet all I gained. Lily dared to love me even though she knew it was likely she would lose me. First I was a spy - a man married to risk. And then I was a soldier. Lily's soldier, married to her, but also engaged to a destiny that could very well end my life. And when she was gone I became married to Death herself, and oh how easy it would have been to fall into her embrace.

Some days I wonder how it is I made it through it all, half of me in the grave after Lily's death. The only answer I can ever come up with is that I wasn't meant to die. I have cheated death over and over, and there are times when it should have had me. Countless times from my spying days, my fighting days, and the day I reached my hands out for those of Death. And yet Death did not take them as I wanted back then.

Maybe it's luck. Maybe it's chance. Remembering those days in the war when the best of us fell and those less deserving walked free, much of the time I think it is. But on nights like tonight, thinking of Harry and my mother sitting back at her cottage, and the letter from Ben saying he's coming to visit soon, I start to think that maybe there were things I had yet to finish.

There have been times when I've lost just about everything, where it would have made more sense not to go on. Yet, I did anyway, and it is only now, remembering all I have lost as I breathe in the brisk night air and feel the chill winter night in my bones, that I realize the bravest thing I ever did was go on.

And that's something I can truly be proud of.