Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts, former Death Eater, member of the Order of the Phoenix, recipient of the Order of Merlin First Class, and sarcastic bastard extraordinaire, stalked out of the Ministry Gala Banquet. His movements were poetry lifted off the page, fluid and dark and his robes fluttered around him as though he were the harbinger of Death. His shoes made no noise on the polished marble Ministry hallway and the crowd parted before him. Severus dismissed them with a scowl – simpering wizards and witches, moths drawn to power, arrayed in silks and diamonds and velvets – pretty faces all, but worthless to him.

Severus came to a stop on the Ministry balcony. He stood in the dark and watched the gleam of lights reflected from the Thames. The reflection of the city was distorted by the wind on the water. Severus closed his eyes and with the sideways squeezing feeling of Apparation, he stood on the river bank. Leaning his elbows against the carved stone railing, he could feel the cold of the stone through his wool robes.

He spoke to his reflection in the water, the shadowy poem that floated there at the interface of river and wind. “Potter wasn’t there.” His voice was velvet in the night, a whisper carried from him by the river. “He never comes to these blasted events, yet I keep trying because there’s no other way to reach him. Unplottable, anti-Apparation wards – the boy’s paranoid to a fault, but then, he learned from the best.” The corners of his mouth twitched and it might have almost been said that Severus Snape, greasy git of the dungeons, smiled.

“He never comes, but I always look for him and I always end up here – talking to myself, looking for answers in the darkness, wondering.”

The ripples in the river distorted the reflection of his face, making Severus look like a melting waxwork figure. The lines around his mouth, evidence of a life of scowling, made him look old. The light of the electric lamps gave a haunted look to his face, like Gothic poetry, deepening the shadows and echoing in his bright black eyes. The river, reflecting back the darkness of all the night sky, did not rival the intense black of his eyes.

Severus exhaled a warm puff of air visible for a second before it was whisked away by the wind. The river air was briny, dirty and smelled like fish. “And why does Potter hide? After saving the world, does he not know how to face the world? Does he condemn us for having forced him to murder? Is he afraid? What secrets is he hiding? Irritating boy, so aloof in his secret sanctuary – why will he not condescend to see us? To see me?”

Severus clenched his hands into fists, driving his nails into the palms of his hands, and then unclenched them. His hands were pale and graceful, their reflection in the water unwavering. The tendons in his arms jerked and spasmed as he clenched his hands into fists and the echo of his heartbeat in his ears drowned out Severus’s other senses. He slipped past the smell of briny fish, past the sound of the river slapping against the shore, past the glare of the lights on the water. Severus felt only his heartbeat, the steady thrum of salty air in his lungs, the pain of his nails clenched into the palms of his hands.

“Why, Harry? Why?” he whispered into the night.

Hearing a pop of displaced air, Severus opened his eyes to see Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived and Lived Again, Savior of the Wizarding World, irresponsible brat and recluse. In that instant, Severus’s world expanded out from his heartbeat, his lungs and his hands. He focused on the pale face and emerald eyes of Harry Potter, his salvation and his damnation. Shock sent Severus sinking to his knees, and this time he did not notice that the concrete was cold through his wool robes.

“Mr. Potter,” he whispered.

“Professor Snape,” the boy said. Tension was apparent in his every muscle – the boy was poised to Apparate away. “I – well- that is, you wanted to talk to me?”

Severus’s tongue felt large and clumsy in his mouth and his breath was caught in his lungs. “You – how did you know?”

“I heard you say my name,” the boy answered.

They stared at each other for long moments, the air like a river shimmering between them. The boy was thin and pale, like a ghost or a dream in the night. After all these years, Snape saw him – saw Harry, the boy – the young man – rather than the celebrity or the savior or the son. Harry was not a reckless Gryffindor, not a killer or a fighter, not his former student who was inept at Potions and brilliant at Defense – but a boy who was pale and uncertain in the artificial light. His reflection in the river wavered just as Severus’s reflection wavered.

“Harry,” Severus whispered. “I – I’ve wanted to tell you – I know you’ve hated me and I’ve hated you, but in the end it’s not real and you deserve to know …”

Harry interrupted him. “I do know, Professor – Albus told me.”

The shock trapped the breath in his lungs again and Severus was dizzy, putting a hand on the cold stone railing to steady himself.

“Albus told you? He told you that I was the one who betrayed the Prophecy to Voldemort, that I as good as killed your parents and condemned you to all this misery?” Still kneeling, Severus looked up at Harry with dark incredulous eyes.

“Yes,” Harry said. His voice was so soft that Severus heard him only because the river echoed his words. “He told me fifth year, when he told me about the – about it, when he told me that Sirius’s death had been avoidable.”

Harry was so still, so pale in the electric light that he too looked like a waxwork statue in the dark, a calm frozen mask. “You’ve made yourself miserable over it all these years,” Harry said in sudden revelation.

His tongue was still awkward and gummed to the roof of his mouth, so Severus nodded. The ripple of the river against the shore broke the silence. After a long moment, Severus said with a voice rough and scratchy like wool, “It seems so inadequate to apologize …”

Harry moved forward and dropped to his knees a breath away from Severus – close enough for each to feel the other’s heat in the chill air. Harry put his hands on Severus’s shoulders.

“Look, Professor, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t angry – very angry – about it at first. But I’m not a boy anymore and I’ve looked past it. I know you didn’t have any idea of what would happen if – if you told it o Voldemort, and I know how you suffered to put the wrongs to right.”

Green eyes were locked on black eyes and did not flinch. Severus was shocked by the openness, the honesty, the unfiltered power, that shone in those eyes – the eyes of a pale boy who said “Voldemort” but could not say “Prophecy.”

“Let it go, Severus,” Harry whispered. “Let the guilt go. I don’t blame you anymore.”

Severus jerked back, shaking his head and knocking Harry’s hands off his shoulders, but Harry grasped his shoulders again and held him. “Listen to me. I forgive you. Forgive yourself.”

The boy released Severus and stood. His face was pale in the electric light and he was too thin – the light traced out his bones and left a poem of shadows to mark them – but he was calm. His face was at peace, like a pale waxwork statue, and when Severus looked at the river he saw that the reflection of Harry’s face was unmarred by ripples.

“Call my name if you need to talk to me again,” Harry said. The pale, frail-looking wizard gathered his power around him like a winter cloak and Disapparated.

Severus was left kneeling alone by the river. He rose and leaned again against the stone railing, ignoring the cold on his elbows. Standing in the shadows, Severus turned away from the gaiety of the Ministry party that had spilled out onto the wide balcony in an explosion of fluttering silk and noise. He turned toward the darkness of the river, the ripples and reflected lights, the briny smell of the water. His pale reflection wavered in the ripples of the river, unchanged.