Harry's well-worn trainers skidded across the roof of an abandoned shop on Spinner's End.  A river bordered by trees shone in the distance, but Harry didn't spare it more than a glance.  He couldn't stop running.  He gulped for air like a drowning man, his feet turning up bits of gravel and tar scattered across the flat roof. 

As he neared the edge, he sped up, one foot hitting the short wall at the edge, launching himself over the narrow alleyway and onto the roof of the next building.  He landed and kept running, the echo of the impact stabbing into his heels. 

A dark shape flitted in his peripheral vision, following him.  "If this is your idea of hiding," said the shape, "I have quite a lot to teach you."

"Not--" gasped Harry, and now he slowed, his lungs battering against his ribs.  He turned toward Snape, who hovered to his right.  "Not...hiding.  Exercising."  He wiped the sweat out of his eyes.  "Is that my Firebolt?"

Snape gave his deepest scowl, although the impact was lessened by the sight of his legs dangling below a broomstick.  "I had no intention of searching for my broom when an adequate substitute was within reach."

"If you ever used your broom--"  Harry stopped, his cooling skin heating again.  His temper had been close to the surface ever since this morning.  "What do you mean, 'adequate'?  It's a bloody Firebolt!"

"Language," chided Snape.  He shifted on his seat.  "Staying at Hogwarts during the summer does not mean you are unsupervised.  Departing on a whim--"

"--A Firebolt!  Tell me it's not brilliant."

"Portkeys--"

"Faster, I know, but the Fire--"

"Portkeys are no longer to be used, if you plan on running off.  I want that letter returned."

Harry fished the Portkey out of his pocket, but the anger was still there, crawling under his skin.  Locking eyes with Snape, he set his jaw.  "Tell me it's not brilliant."

Snape leaned forward and the Firebolt swooped closer, braking so that Snape's nose was a centimeter from Harry's.  "The Portkey." 

Harry held out the letter.  Snape grabbed it, and the words on the paper glowed briefly.  Harry held onto the letter, watching the black scrawl dance across the page, blurring illegibly. 

Snape tugged at the letter, but Harry could not loosen his grip.  It was happening again: the fierce pull of two worlds, splitting him into pieces.  He needed to tell Snape, but his teeth chattered to a staccato beat; the same beat to which the words danced, to which his heart skittered, so fast he thought his veins would rupture. 

Snape wasn't tugging at all; it was Harry's arm jerking to that same rhythm.  Snape held Harry's face with both hands, his mouth wide in a shout.  Harry couldn't feel his touch or hear his words.  Snape began to glow, so bright that his features disappeared, blotted out in a white haze. 

Harry tried to close his eyes, tried to will the world right.  But the world was cracking.  Fine lines appeared across Snape's body, in the air between them, across the sky.  Everything was falling apart, and he couldn't stop it.  A sound grew: a high-pitched whine, drilling into his eardrums. 

With a clap, the noise ended, leaving his ears aching. 

He lay on the roof, Snape's hands still clasped around his head, the only sound his own labored breathing.  His body had all the strength of a wet noodle.  He stared at the gouges in the cement near his face and tried to get himself working again. 

"Worse than before," said Snape.

"S'fine," said Harry.  His mouth was filled with cotton.  He cleared his throat.  "Bit of dizziness.  Could've been those dodgy eggs I had this morning."

For a brief moment, the hands squeezed painfully tight around his face.  Snape stood up, looking about twelve feet tall.  "Do not lie to me."

Harry righted himself, forcing his legs not to quiver.  The sunny sky seemed overcast after the harsh brightness of his vision.  He was careful to look Snape in the eye, and smooth out his face.  "I'm not lying," he said. 

"Dodgy eggs," repeated Snape.  "You weren't at breakfast in the Hall."  Snape breathed in sharply, his hand falling over a small bump in his breast pocket.  "You overheard us in the kitchen this morning." 

"I--"

"How much did you overhear?"

So much for lying.  "Not much," said Harry.  "You and Dumbledore kept your voices low."

Snape's hand fell away from the pocket.  "You didn't hear...?  What exactly did you hear?"

"I heard why I can't return home."

Snape no longer looked twelve feet tall.  He had shrunk in on himself.  "My  Patronus needs to join with yours, to be your guide.  But it cannot, in its current state."

Harry remembered peering out from his shadowy corner of the kitchen, watching  Snape cast his Patronus: wobbling on thin legs, ribs showing through her sides like the rings of a barrel, her coat a dull grey rather than silver. 

"I do not have the necessary...commitment to the project," said Snape.  "The connection between us must go, if you are ever to leave this world."

The connection: the mysterious magical force that enabled them to combine Patronuses, or offer each other healing magic.  It grew stronger as they grew closer, but it was also binding them to each other, holding Harry tight when his own world pulled at him.  Weakening their Patronuses so that they could not guide Harry home.  Breaking such a connection was difficult, if not impossible. 

Harry crossed his arms, the heat building in him like stacked coals.  "What've you come up with, then?  What's your brilliant solution?"

Snape studied him.  "There are few spells that can break ties between two people.  The simplest, and least dangerous, is--"

"Obliviate!"  The word exploded out of Harry.  "You're going to use Obliviate!"

"Not on you," said Snape.  "On me.  I require assistance in--"

"Forgetting me."
"Harry."  Snape's voice was quiet, but hard.  "These seizures are killing you."

"Why don't you let them kill me, then!  Either way, I'll be gone." 

Snape grabbed his arm, yanking him close.  "This is your fault," he growled, so low it vibrated through Harry's skull.  "You insisted on staying with me, on following me about like a lost puppy, and it's wrought you a death sentence."

Harry ripped his arm away.  "Everyone I care about forgets me!"

"Everyone I care about dies!  If wiping you from my mind keeps you alive, then so be it!"

Harry's legs were charged with electricity.  He needed to run.  No, he needed to climb.  Snatching the Firebolt still hovering in the air, he aimed it toward the trees lining the river. 

He was just about to clear the roof when an arm wrapped around his shoulders.  "I think not," said Snape.

Harry wasn't about to be stopped.  With a growl, he lurched forward, urging the Firebolt on.  Snape pulled him backward.  Harry wrestled with Snape's elbow, jerking until Snape lost his balance, nearly unseating them both.  The Firebolt, sensing a release of its anchor, bounded for the sky.  Harry managed to hold on.  So did Snape.

"Potter," said Snape, who now had a death grip across Harry's chest.  "Land this broom!"

The Firebolt was on the verge of going into a nosedive, straight into the tarmac.  "Landing is not a good idea," said Harry.  He struggled to pull the Firebolt up, and the broom bucked like a wild pony.  "And my name...is not...Potter!"   With a wrench, the broom straightened and rocketed toward the river. 

The cool breeze became a freezing blast, like diving into icy water.  The landscape blurred.  He welcomed the sting across his face.  He could shut out the buzzing of his mind, see nothing, hear nothing. 

Except for the shouting in his ear.

"We will discuss this rationally!" screamed Snape.

"You're rational enough for the both of us!  So go ahead.  Have Dumbledore Obliviate you.  Erase me like a bad sum."

"Do you think I wish to lose these memories?  I have no choice!  Unless..."  Snape's arm jerked convulsively around Harry's ribs.  "Unless you stay.  You overheard that, as well?"

Harry shook his head violently, causing the Firebolt to swerve.  It veered down, toward the river.  He tried to pull up again, but a tree loomed.  He had just enough time to process the inevitability of the crash before the branches closed in. 

He was battered by a thousand pointy, leafy arms.  Until he hit one of the larger branches, which slammed him in the gut, effectively braking his progress.  Harry spent a moment curled around the branch until he was certain none of his organs would ooze out of his sides. 

The Firebolt rested peacefully in a nearby nook.  Snape was sprawled out over several uneven branches.  One of Snape's legs hung over a nearby branch, the robe rucked up to reveal a bony shin ending in a drooping sock. 

"Well."  Harry spit out a leaf.  "I finally got you up a tree."

Snape's face was flushed, and his eyes had the glassy look of someone who had just witnessed a hurricane.  "Try anything like that again,"  he said, his voice as rough as pounded gravel, "and that Firebolt will become firewood."

The breeze kicked up, and the leaves chattered around them.  Harry climbed toward sturdier seating while Snape righted himself.  Snape summoned his lost shoe from somewhere within the depths of the tree.  Grunting, he twisted his leg toward himself, aiming for his foot.  "You think I will try to keep you here?"

Harry rubbed at a spot on his knee where a branch had whacked him with enthusiasm.  "Dunno," he said.  "Do you want to?"

Snape inched closer to Harry, disrupting a nearby bird who squawked like a rusty hinge.  "Irrelevant.  We'll continue on course.  Return to Hogwarts, and, despite your reservations, use Obliviate--"

"No."

"Harry--"

"It won't help, anyway."  Harry turned his face away from Snape.  "Your Patronus is weak?"  He pulled out his wand.  "Expecto Patronum!"

A sickly doe appeared on a heavy branch near them, as though tossed there by a raging wind.  She looked just as Harry remembered her from his last casting: near death.

"You're not the only one," said Harry. 

The breeze lessened, the chattering of the leaves faded, and there was a long silence. 

"You could stay," Snape murmured, so quietly Harry could barely hear him.

Harry's heart pounded.  "Anchor me to this body.  No going back, ever."

"Your symptoms would cease.  Your body cannot endure being dragged in two directions."

Dragged in two directions.  It would stop, if he made a choice.  Just one impossible choice.  "I can't abandon my mum and dad.  But...I can't leave you alone."

"You're stubborn to a fault.  Much like James Potter."

"And I can't protect the people I care about.  Just like him."

"You have reason to dislike James Potter, but I have no doubt he did everything in his power to protect...his family."  The words seemed torn out of Snape. 

Harry looked at him.  "You're my family, too."

"No.  Your family is on the other side."  Snape pressed his hand to his breast pocket, clutching something inside.  "Go back and protect them."

"And you?"

"I survived many years without a Harry in my life.  I'll do so again."

"But you will have a Harry in your life.  The other one."

"Harry Potter is not you.  By any stretch of the imagination."

"So you hate him, but you--"  Harry grinned.  "-'lack the necessary commitment' to get rid of me?"

Snape's gaze remained steady.  "Essentially."

Harry's smile fell away.  "At the beginning of summer, I told you that you couldn't be that different from my dad."

"You were wrong."

"I was wrong.  I wanted you to be the dad I left behind.  You're not.  But you could be somebody's dad."

"I'll never be a father."

"You could be a friend." 

"Concern yourself with your own well-being, not mine.  In any case, if I use Obliviate--"

"Promise me that you won't use it, and I'll come back to Hogwarts.  We'll work together to send me back."  Harry doubted it would do any good.  But he needed the reassurance of Snape's word. 

Snape's hand fell to his breast pocket again, his hands idly trailing along it as though he were lost in thought.  "All right."

Harry thought making a decision would make him feel better.  It didn't.  He had begun to see a glimmer of who this man was, how they might fit into each other's life.  Now that glimmer had been abruptly shut off.  He rubbed at his mouth, trying to signal to his eyes to behave themselves. 

Snape reached out and grabbed his hand, in preparation for Apparition.  "You were right about one thing," he said.

His stinging eyes were not getting the message.  "Oh yeah?  What's that?"

"The Firebolt is brilliant."

As the pressure of Disapparation closed in, Harry nodded.  "Bloody right." 

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Harry had memorized every crack in the walls of the infirmary, and he hated them all.   But he needed to be here.   He'd had another attack soon after they'd reached Hogwarts, and the pain hadn't retreated until Snape had administered a strong  potion. 

Snape stood over his bed.  Déjà vu.  But this time, Snape wasn't pointing an angry finger; he was fingering his breast pocket.  Again. 

"All right," said Harry, sitting up in bed.  "What's in there?  You're not going to offer me more bubblefruit, are you?"       

Snape sat on the bed. "No.  But it is for you."  He pulled something silvery from his pocket and placed it in Harry's hand.  It looked like a bit of lace made of thin glass.  But this was not glass, nor any material Harry had encountered before.  Each strand glowed, and it was warmer and heavier than it should be. 

"I can't take things with me, can I?  It's only my soul that's going.  Or supposed to go."  They still had not managed to create a Patronus strong enough to be a guide to the other world. 

"I can transfer its properties to you.  To your soul."

"Is this to make up for not taking me to the Quidditch World Cup?"

"I took you to the Cup, as you well know.  Stop testing to see if I've used Obliviate."

Harry couldn't help himself.  Every time he looked at Snape, he wondered if the man would keep his word.  It would be so easy for Snape to cut off his feelings, to forget him the second he left this world. 

Harry held the lace in front of him, testing the weight of it.  The thin strands were as heavy as chain mail.  "What's it made from?"

"It's made from me," said Snape.

Harry frowned.  He hadn't heard that right.  "From...?"

"It's magical energy manifested.  Much like the memories one puts in a Pensieve, or a Patronus.  I experimented with it years ago, and your appearance revived my interest.  If a shared Patronus is powerful, then an object created with a person's magical energy could also contain great power."

"But magical energy can't manifest outside a person forever.  It fades, or needs something like the Statura or the Pensieve to sustain it."

"This is temporary as well. I've stabilized it with a brewed solution.  But it will degrade.  That is why it must be incorporated into your magical signature."

"You're giving me some of your power."

Snape paused.  "Yes."

"That's temporary, too, right?  Like with the Patronus.  The power will return to you."

"The transfer is permanent."

Harry squirmed.  "I can't do that."

"You have not heard what it is for, yet."

"To make my journey safer?  I can't-"

"It is a curse eater."  Snape kept his eyes fixed on the lace.  "Your mother.  Her curse."

The bottom dropped out from under him.  "This will..."  He couldn't say cure.  It was too much to hope for. 

"It is uncertain.  I could only transfer a fraction of my power.  And the power will begin to degrade once it becomes a part of you.  It may be too little to have an effect.  You will not know until you make the attempt."

Harry held the lace tightly to his chest.  "I need to go.  I need to go now."

Snape looked up, a strange light in his eyes.  "Yes.  Cast your Patronus."

Oh, hell.  He was off his game, being manipulated like this.  He tried to quench the fire in his belly, but he couldn't.  Every fiber in his being was lit with a need to find the way home.  Taking a deep breath, he raised his wand and cast the spell. 

His Patronus shone brightly, her hooves clacking on the floor as she paced restlessly. 

There was one problem.  "Cast yours," said Harry. 

This Patronus was still a sickly figure.  Snape banished her, and looked at Harry.  "It appears," he said, "that you will need to release me from my promise not to use Obliviate." 

Damn, damn, damn!  The frustration inside Harry was close to panic.  "Why are you doing this?  Why are you making me choose?"

Snape leaned close.  "There is no choice.  There never was.  We are who we are.  You cannot stay here.  I cannot let go.  We were never meant to be anything to each other.  Best to accept that, and go back to our lives."

"Just teacher and student, right?  Just like you said when I left Hogwarts last June.  No wonder you can't say farewell to me.  My dad said farewell means--"

"You told me.  I do wish you to fare well, Harry.  This is the best way.  It's the only way."

"It's not!"  Another tremor hit him, blinding him.  He could feel his hand shaking, the lace slipping from his fingers.  But Snape's hand enclosed his, wrapping in a tight grip.  Don't let go, don't let go, Harry chanted, although the words were lost amid his chattering teeth.  

When he came back to himself, he was flattened in bed, the sheets soaked in perspiration.  Snape knelt beside the bed, his hair tickling Harry's ear.  "Just say it," Snape crooned, his hand pressing down on the top of Harry's head as if to keep it from shattering.  "Say, 'I release you from your promise.'  That's all you have to say."

It would be easier to split in two.  Bloody Slytherin tactics.  But this was not a battle he needed to fight on Slytherin terms.  He was part Slytherin, part Gryffindor, and he was going to use everything he had to win this.

"Did you think about using Obliviate before?  After you lost my mum?"

A terrible moment stretched out.  "Yes."

"Why didn't you?"

"If it were not for memories of her...I would have sank even further into the darkness."

Harry understood sinking into darkness.  "You're afraid of being forgotten, too."

"Nothing so simple as that.  I'm greedy by nature.  When I see something of value, I..."  His palm closed, his fist clenching tightly.  "I've let go of too many things.  Too many people."

"This is different.  You're overthinking this, the way Slytherins always do.  It doesn't mean what you're thinking."

"Oh?  Give me your Gryffindor perspective. What does it mean?"

"It means...farewell.  You need to learn to say farewell."

"Naive thinking.  I cannot break the connection."  Snape stood up and strode out of the room, his last words echoing behind him:  "Not without Obliviate." 

Harry stared into the infirmary fireplace for a long time after that, trying to get the pounding of his heart to slow.  Fires calmed him.  They reminded him of his dad's workroom, where a fire always burned, licking one or more bubbling cauldrons. 

He thought back to a time, years ago, when he had watched the flame under a cauldron dip lower and lower, until it slipped under the curving pewter.  He held his breath, afraid he would blow the flame out, until he couldn't bear it any longer.    

"Dad!  It's gone out!"               

A hand came to rest on the work table as his dad leaned down, eyeing the flame.  The firelight caused the edge of his hand to glow, like magic.  That's how Harry thought of his dad's hands: full of magic, full of power.    

His dad's hand moved now, skimming over the steam rising from the cauldron.  "It's fine.  Banked."       

"Bank?" Harry asked.  He thought a bank was a large room full of leathery creatures who scowled at his father and said words like "denied" and "overdrawn."  His father usually left the room with a scowl of his own, and a few muttered words Harry guessed he wasn't supposed to hear.      

But his dad wasn't scowling now.  One corner of his mouth wriggled in that funny way, which meant he was holding back a smile.   

"Banked," his dad said.  "Hold your hand closer to the fire.  Carefully." 

Harry did so.  "It's hot."

His dad pulled his arm away.  "Hot enough to create magic. Listen."

Harry listened.  Potions made all sorts of sounds, like crackling, or whistling.  This one made a soft ting-a-ling-a-ling, like a faraway ice cream wagon.  "Will it be strong enough to help mum?"

"Is that why you're here?  Your mum was supposed to see you to bed."

"She forgot again."

"We aren't going to use that word when she's near.  Rules."

"Rules."  Harry nodded vigorously, going over the rules in his head.  Then he said, "she did that thing.  That thing with her eyes."  That thing where she looked at him like he was a problem she couldn't quite solve, and he knew she'd forgotten him.  But he didn't know how to tell his dad.  Whenever he started to explain what he saw in his mum, the light would go out of his dad's eyes, and that made him hurt inside.  He tugged his dad's robes, wanting to climb up.

"You're too old for that," his dad said, but he sat down on a stool, and pulled Harry near.  "I know there are times when her eyes... But your mum is still there."

His dad hadn't quite understood what Harry meant about her eyes, but he let that go.  He felt like his dad was telling him something important.  Harry closed his eyes.  The ting-a-ling tickled his ear.  She's still there.  "Like the fire?"

"Like the fire.  You won't be able to see it.  You have to feel it."

"But I don't know what to do.  When she's banked."

His dad said nothing, but held him more tightly, as if he were afraid Harry would fall. 

"Maybe I should be banked, too?"  asked Harry.

"What do you mean?"

Harry hadn't been able to explain what he meant, then.  But he could explain it now.  At least he hoped he could. 

xxxxxxxxxxx     xxxxxxxxxxx     xxxxxxxxxxx

"You can use Legilimency to cut the connection?"

"No."  Harry lit a fat candle on a pedestal between himself and Snape.  "It's not like a rope that has to be cut.  It's like a fire that has to be banked.  It's still just as hot.  It just can't reach out and engulf what's around it."

"Do you really believe that?"

Harry offered a weak smile.  "It's all I've got.  The Legilimency is so you can see what I do.  I don't know how else to explain it.  There aren't any words to the spell.  I just know how I feel inside when it works."

"How can you know it's magic, then?" 

"I know.  When you're filled up with needing someone, and then you're not-that's magic."

"You've used it.  During the bad times."

Harry looked at the candle, trying to focus his mind on the flame.  "Only  for a while.  I thought it would hurt less...but Mum needed me to be there.  All there.  Even if she didn't know it."

"And you need me to not be here."

"Our feelings, our shared Patronuses...it's all intertwined.  We need to untangle it  This spell should help us do that."

"And if it doesn't?"

Harry knew what Snape wanted him to say.  Obliviate.  But he wouldn't say it.  He wasn't sure he could ever say it, even if all his other options ran out.  "Start.  I'll show you what to do."

"How do I start?"

"Begin with goodbye."

Snape looked impatient.  "I should simply say goodbye to you?"

"No."  It was too recent, too direct.  It was the bubbling froth on the surface.  Harry reached out with his mind, and could feel it.  Trying to turn down the heat, to settle the connection between them to a low burn, was like trying to cool a fire that had been burning hot for days-or years-by sprinkling a bit of water on the top.  To have an effect, he had to reach the core  And the core was not this moment, this goodbye.  The core was something deeper, older. 

Harry only knew a few pieces of this Snape's past.  There were any number of places he could probe, hoping to find the right memory that would cool the fire of Snape's emotions, of his need to hold on. 

But he also sensed that this was not a time to probe and analyze.  This was not a time for Slytherin strategy.  The Gryffindor part of him knew exactly what question to ask.  And so he did.

"My mum.  Did you ever say goodbye to her?"

"This is--"

"Irrelevant.  Yeah.  But if I'm dying, I should get a last request.  Tell me."

"Lily and I...did not part on the best of terms.  There were no goodbyes."

Snape's tone warned Harry to leave it alone, but he couldn't.  This was the only way.  He could feel the connection between them, warm and tough, like burnished leather.  He pushed forward, gently.  "How would you have said goodbye?" he asked.  "If you could have?"  

The man's look said this is pointless.  His gaze fell to the lace carefully cradled in Harry's hand, and something changed in his face.  His eyes closed into thin lines.  "There was a summer when...that is, she..."  He cleared his throat.  "I cannot..."  He rubbed his long hands on his knees, and his body quivered, as if fighting forces as powerful as those surrounding Harry. 

Harry understood that this was difficult for the man, even if he didn't completely understand why.  With Snape sitting at the edge of his bed, he was reminded of his dad, at bedtimes, not so long ago.  "Once upon a time?" he ventured.

Snape stared out the long infirmary windows, lit by the late afternoon sun, and for a moment Harry was certain he would roll his eyes and walk out.  But then he spoke. 

"Once upon a time," his voice was slow, fumbling, "there was a boy and a girl.  And a river between them.  The boy would the bridge to see her.  But one summer, there was an industrial spill...ah, that is...there were..."

"Dragons?"

"Dragons.  A shadow passed over Snape's face.  "And the boy couldn't cross."

Harry guessed Snape was remembering more than an industrial spill, because that was how memories were: crisscrossing caverns, all connected.  Exploring one happy memory meant bringing light to all the dark ones that surround it.  Maybe awakening something from the past that should have stayed buried. Dragons. 

He tested the connection between them.  Still strong, pulsing with fire.  They needed to stay focused.  "What did the boy do?"

"He stood on the bank of the river, and she stood on the other.  They found, if they wished very hard, they could send messages to each other."  Snape raised his hand to his mouth and whispered into it.  Then he blew gently, as if releasing the words into the air.  Harry heard...no, heard wasn't right.  A voice was tickling the inside of his ear.  It said, Are you there?

Harry whispered into his palm.   I'm here.  Snape cocked his head, as if listening, and his face brightened for a moment, the years dropping away.  Harry remembered an old photo of his dad as a child, with wide eyes and an open face.  For the first time, he could see that child in the man before him. 

"So the boy and the girl...they were separated.  But not kept apart."

Snape made a strange sound then, low in his throat, and Harry felt it: the thick band between them wavered and cooled.   He couldn't explain how he knew, but he could visualize it shrinking in front of him.  He looked up at Snape. 

Snape raised his wand, and cast his Patronus.  It stood strong. 

As soon as the doe had finished forming, Snape moved to the fireplace, sending off a quick firecall.  "The lace," he said, turning back toward Harry.  His eyes were as forbidding as they'd been the first time they'd met in this world.  "Once its energy runs out, you must cease any attempt at a cure."

Harry searched Snape's face for any sign of the warmth that had been there moments before.  Anything other than this cold lecturer.  But there was nothing.  He ran his fingertips over the lace.  It's made from me.

"What happens if I don't stop?" asked Harry.

"The lace will siphon your magical energy to continue.  It will use you to absorb the curse.  If allowed to continue, you could become as afflicted as your mother."

No sign of concern; it was a simple statement of fact.  Harry sighed.  This was what he wanted, wasn't it?  The connection was gone.  He could go home.  Nothing holding him back. 

Nothing at all.

He turned the lace over, finding comfort in its steady warmth.  "How will I know?  When the energy runs out?"

"You'll know.  I've erected multiple wards.  An alarm will sound inside your head.  The light will shift.  It will take an extreme act of will to push past them.  Do not try."

Harry nodded.

Impatience colored Snape's face.  "I'm familiar with reckless Gryffindor heroics.  I will not be responsible for bringing this curse down on anyone else.  Promise me."

Harry searched Snape's expression.  Perhaps he still cared, after all?  "I'll stop.  I promise."

"Severus?" called a voice.  Dumbledore emerged from the creaking infirmary door.  "Your message sounded urgent.  Are we ready?"

"Yes, Headmaster."  Without another word to Harry, he began an incantation. 

The lace in Harry's hand grew warmer, until his palm became uncomfortable, nearly sunburned.  "Is it..." he started to ask, but then the lace began to melt, its intricate lines seeping into his skin.  Heat ran up his arm, into his chest, spiraling throughout his body.  His eyes throbbed, and his tongue burned the roof of his mouth. 

Everything looked odd: the chair, the bed, even the infirmary walls, like they were made of thin paper.  Snape and Dumbledore stood near him, each outlined in brilliant colors.  Dumbledore's was thick and orange, like butterscotch pudding.  A white mist outlined Snape, flickering as he stepped closer.  A tendril of mist formed, reaching toward Harry. 

"What is that...white?"  Harry asked.

Snape tilted his head, the mist moving, reaching the footboard of Harry's bed. 

"An aura, you mean?" asked Snape.  "You're seeing the magical signature of each wizard, part of their souls.  The combination of the lace's properties and the Patronus spell must be creating that effect..."  Snape stumbled, reaching for the footboard to break his fall. 

The tendril touched Harry, and he noticed that an aura enveloped him, too, and it was reaching out for Snape's.  Grabbing it, pulling it towards itself.  Absorbing it. 

"Stay back!" said Harry.  "Something's wrong.  It's pulling you.  Pulling your soul."

Dumbledore stepped forward, the orange bubbling briefly toward Harry, and pulled Snape back.  The tendrils broke contact.  Snape gripped Dumbledore by the arm, breathing deeply.  Harry wanted to run to him, but didn't dare get any closer.   

"Lie down, Severus," said Dumbledore.  "I'll fetch Poppy." 

Snape shook his head.  "Momentary weakness.  I can carry on.  It's best to get this over with."

Get this over with.  The fire wasn't just banked; he'd succeeded in breaking the connection.  Maybe it was too much to ask, to say goodbye and still care.  Maybe Snape had said goodbye too many times. 

It was time.  He focused his mind on happier thoughts.  Home.  The doe sprang from his wand, merged with Snape's.  She grew brighter, her flicking ears casting off glimmers of light into the shadows.  Clacking toward Harry, she nipped at his ear. 

An electric current shot from his ear and down through his spine.  Powerful forces yanked at body.  Not his body, he reminded himself.  His soul. 

Fatigue washed over him.  He was pulled out in a strong tide, warm salty water covering his vision.  But before he shut his eyes completely, he rasped out a mantra to himself: "Separated.  But not kept apart."

The last thing he felt, before the water covered him, was a tickle in his ear.

Yes. Farewell, Harry.

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When he opened his eyes again, he was surrounded by trees: a forest of light and shadows, moss thickening the air.  Paths split in every direction.  The doe chose one, her hooves making soft impressions in the powdery soil.  Harry followed.

In a clearing, waist-high grasses swayed as if in a breeze, but the air was still.  The path narrowed to a tiny trail, leading to a lake at the center of the clearing.  The doe wound her way through the grass, dipping her nose to the lake.  Ripples floated across the surface. 

"Thirsty?" asked Harry.  He felt like they had been walking for a long time, but he didn't feel thirsty, or even tired.  He wanted to be home, and wondered if the doe knew where she was going.  Would they wander in this place forever?  He ran a finger across the surface of the lake.  His reflection broke into pieces and reformed, rocking with the movement of the water.  His reflection frowned at him, as if annoyed by Harry's manipulations.

But Harry wasn't frowning.  He leaned forward, peering at the reflection. 

The reflection stretched a hand toward him, the fingers touching the surface of the lake from the other side.  Ripples skated away from those fingers. 

Harry reached out, fingertips touching fingertips.  He broke through the surface of the water and felt a warm hand clasp his.  The other Harry pulled, and the world shifted, the lake turning on its side, dissolving in a roar of water.

They both stood in the clearing, arms still clasped, a sheet of water suspended in the air between them.  It undulated, like linen on a clothesline.  A doe stood by each of them.

"How?" Harry asked his mirror image.  "How do I get back home?"

The other Harry's eyes widened.  "I thought you would know." 

A strange rat-a-tat rhythm ran through his thoughts, intrusive, jarring.  "I can't wait," he said.  "I need to get back.  My mum."

The other Harry frowned.  "No, your dad."

"What--" Harry began, but then he saw: his dad, lying against a rock face, clutching a wound in his side.  Black liquid oozed over his fingers. 

Harry jerked back.  The other Harry was pulled forward by their clasped arms, stumbling into the water.  A spray of mist erupted on both sides.  Harry tried to yank his arm free, but found he couldn't.  Their arms had lost their shape, and were now entwined around each other like the thick fibers of a rope.  It reminded him of the tendrils reaching toward him in the infirmary, of souls.

That was it, he realized.  While he might walk along a path with his feet or feel the water on his face, he had no body here.  His body was somewhere in his own world.  What he saw as arms and legs weren't physical.  He was a soul without an anchor, and so was the other Harry. 

"You can cure her?" asked the other Harry.

The rat-a-tat noise in Harry's head grew louder, becoming fragments of words: my mum...save her...should have...done more...

The words were similar to his own thoughts, but he could sense that they weren't his; the feel, the rhythm, wasn't quite right. They came from the other Harry's mind, tapping to its own beat.  He felt a contrast in the pulses of longing, in the need to protect.  He felt himself being drawn in, to childhood memories different from his own. 

He tried to shut out the other's thoughts, clearing his mind enough to speak.  "It's like it was in the infirmary.  Our souls are getting...tangled up in each other." 

The other Harry, who must have been hearing his thoughts as well as his words, seemed to understand immediately.  "How do we separate?" 

The paths in the clearing were disappearing, swallowed by the thick grasses that were growing around them.  "Brute force?" suggested Harry. 

The two leaned back and pulled, as if in a tug of war.  Harry watched over the other Harry's shoulder as a single path was left, shrinking until it disappeared entirely. 

"No!" said Harry.  Was he too late?  Were they trapped here forever? 

The two does approached, one on either side of the water.  Each lapped at the sheet, their tongues sending shimmers of light through the barrier. 

The water.  He needed to go through the water.  "Jump through!" he shouted to the other Harry.

The other Harry stopped tugging.  Their arms were free, but the tendrils still entwined each other at their hands.  Harry couldn't wait any longer.  He had to go now.  His dad's life depended on it.  He plunged through.  He heard a splash, and then he was falling.  He hoped the other Harry made it through. 

He hoped he made it through himself.