“Is the mind strengthening potion ready?” Potter asked.

“It is,” Snape replied. “However, thanks to your little stunt earlier this afternoon, it is not safe for you to consume at present.”

“What?” Potter asked incredulously. What little color the teen had drained from his cheeks.

“You have a concussion, Potter. That means that you run the risk of your brain swelling. I have no idea how the mind strengthening potion might interact with your injuries, and I have no wish to find out. Therefore, you will have to wait to drink the potion.”

“For now long?”

Snape could practically see the boy’s thoughts swirling through his head, running the gamut from fear to anger to mistrust. “As long as I deem necessary,” Snape announced.

Potter looked mutinous.

“You don’t trust me? You think I’ve betrayed you? Well I have, but not in the way you suspect. Since I am sure the Dark Lord will bring this up sooner or later, perhaps it is better that I give you fuel to feed your fire of hatred against me. At least then we will be on even ground.”

Snape traced the contours of the key that lay beneath his robes. Potter wasn’t the only one who would never forgive him for what he’d done that night. Turning away from the boy, he said in a hollow voice: “It was I who gave the Dark Lord the prophesy.”

Harry was reeling from what Snape had told him. Snape had been the Death Eater who’d been caught eavesdropping at the Hogshead. Snape had set Voldemort on Harry’s family’s trail. If Snape had not delivered the blasted prophesy to Voldemort, his parents would still be alive. He’d have grown up with a mom and a dad. He wouldn’t have had a stupid scar on his forehead and that mad man wouldn’t be trying to force his way into his mind every chance he got.

Harry clenched his teeth and growled with impotence. He wanted to smash something. Snape’s smug, aristocratic face came to mind as a perfectly good target. How typical of Snape to tell him this when he was in a full body bind and could do nothing about it.

Harry cursed loudly, half hoping Snape would hear him. It had infuriated him when, after he’d recovered from the shock of what Snape had told him, that Snape had not even so much as flinched at the rude names and insults that Harry had thrown at him. A little voice inside of Harry’s head suggested that perhaps Snape had already said all of those things to himself, but Harry shoved that unworthy thought aside. No punishment would be enough for what Snape had done. His parents were dead. Snape had cost Harry his family.

“Get. Away. From. Me.”

“Potter, don’t be stupid. You are in no condition to fight the Dark Lord in the state you are in. When he attacks next, and I assure you he will, you will not be able to defend yourself.”

At Potter’s look of loathing, Snape said neutrally, “Hate me all you want, Potter. The sooner we defeat the Dark Lord, the sooner we can be shod of each other.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. Neither of us can defeat him alone. And until we do, we are stuck here together.”

By the time night fell, Potter was not speaking to him. At least Snape had managed to distract the boy. Instead of the constant fear that had loomed over the teen for his friends’ safety, Potter was now entirely focused on his hatred of Snape the Betrayer. It was ironic, really. No matter what Snape did, he’d never be absolved of the sins of his misspent youth.

Against his better judgment, Snape settled into bed in the master suite. He knew they were in for a rough night, what with Potter already keyed up emotionally and in a compromised state of health. In his absence, he’d requested that Dobby spend the night and monitor Potter for signs of a mental attack. Dobby, always eager to be of assistance, had readily agreed. 

And so it was that Dobby was shaking him awake at half past midnight.

“Professor Snape must wake, sir. It is Harry Potter, sir.”

Snape groaned inwardly, fighting the urge to pull a pillow over his head. Instead, he got quickly to his feet and strode into the smaller bedroom. Potter’s face was constricted in agony, his cheeks wet with tears. The body bind curse kept the boy from moving, but it was clear that something was disturbing his sleep.

Sitting beside the boy on the single bed, Snape grasped Potter’s hand and used the physical connection to gain entry into the teen’s mind. What he saw made his heart nearly stop.

Lily, beautiful Lily, cradling a black-haired child to her chest, and running through her home in Godric’s Hollow.

Snape felt his blood run cold as he realized what was happening.

Run, Lily! RUN! Snape urged.

Snape watched, helplessly, as Lily barricaded herself and her son in the nursery. Lily looked frantically around the room, searching for something, anything, to protect the two of them.

Grab your wand, Lily. Apparate away. You can’t stay here. He’ll kill you!

Voldemort’s cold harsh laughter echoed from the hallway.

Hurry, Snape begged. Lily, hurry…

The door blasted inward and Voldemort stood, his pale face etched with triumph, his wand pointed at the pair of them.

Snape’s glance darted between the woman he loved and the evil wizard who had taken her from him. No! Not Lily…

Lily shrieked and dropped young Harry into the crib. She turned swiftly, her arms splayed, shielding the child with her body. “Not Harry! Please, no, not Harry,” she begged.

Please, not Lily…

 “Stand aside, you silly girl. Stand aside, now!”

 “Please, not Harry – I’ll do anything…”

Please, not Lily – I’ll do anything…

There was a flash of green light, and Lily collapsed to the ground, her mouth open in a plea to save her son, her once beautiful green eyes now still and empty.

Harry watched in horror as images of his father’s and mother’s murders played repeatedly in his mind. He knew that Voldemort had placed this vision in his head but he had no means of stopping it. The sight of James and Lily Potter dying over and over was eating away at his already fragile hold on sanity.

At some point, he was vaguely aware that another presence had joined him. But the sight of his mother—her red hair curling lovingly around her oval-shaped face, her expressive green eyes, her nose, which was also his, and her perfectly shaped lips, begging Voldemort to spare her son’s life—was all consuming.

“Run, Lily, run!”

Harry startled at the new yet familiar voice. He turned to see Severus Snape standing in the room, his face panic-stricken, his voice urgent and alarmed. Harry turned back to his mother, but clearly she couldn’t hear Snape’s words.

Echoes of Voldemort’s laughter reached his ears, along with more of Snape’s frantic pleas. Harry knew what was coming, yet he still couldn’t help but hope that Snape’s entreaties might somehow enable his mother to escape with him in time.

“Lily, hurry!”

And then Voldemort was in the room and Harry was drawn back to his mother’s panic-filled eyes and terrified voice. “Not Harry. Please, no, not Harry.”

“Not Lily,” Snape’s desperate plea echoed, “Please, not Lily.”

Two quick flashes of green and it was over; his mother was dead and his small, marked body lay unconscious in the crib. Harry looked away, tears streaming down his face. How many more times would he have to witness this?

And then, instead of the silence that lay like death itself over the scene until Voldemort deemed it time to hit the replay button, a horrible keening sound echoed through the nursery. Harry turned back to find Snape cradling his mother’s body, howling in pain. Harry watched, stunned. Had Snape really been there that night? Hiding unseen somehow, perhaps under an invisibility cloak? Or was this just an illusion?

A few moments later, a glowing white image of his mother emerged from her lifeless body. Her face was even more beautiful than Harry remembered. And though he couldn’t understand how it could be so, her presence suffused the room with peace and love and forgiveness.

“Severus...”

Snape jerked at the sound of the voice and looked up, his keening growing even louder at the sight of her specter. Harry could not remember hearing his mother’s voice outside of her pleas to Voldemort but knew instinctively that this was it had sounded like. It calmed his shattered nerves like the sweet melody of phoenix song.

“Lily,” Snape beseeched, “please, don’t leave me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen—any of this,” Snape pleaded, waving one arm in a wide arc, the other still protectively encircling Lily’s corporal form. “Please, believe me. I would never… never…”

Lily’s understanding smile illuminated the room, sheltering them both, accusing neither. “I know, Severus. And I forgive you.” Lily’s apparition wavered, as if she was fighting against the bonds that were pulling her spirit onward. “I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything, Lily, anything at all,” Snape sobbed, looking more wretched than Harry would have ever dreamed possible.

In the background, the baby boy started to stir in the crib, his tiny fists going automatically to the wound on his forehead while his face scrunched up in pain.

“Promise me you’ll keep Harry safe. Promise me, Sev.”

Severus’ words came out hoarse and pained, barely audible against the backdrop of little Harry’s cries: “I promise.”

As Lily’s spirit faded away, Harry realized that he could no longer distinguish between Snape’s anguished lament and the wailings of his younger self.

Harry lay on the edge of consciousness, hovering in the land between slumber and alertness, still feeling the calming effects of his mother’s spirit. Finally forcing himself to open his eyes, he found the ravaged, tear-stained countenance of Severus Snape mere feet away from him. As soon as they made eye contact, Snape turned away.

“You loved her,” Harry realized aloud.

Snape dropped his head into his hands. Muffled by the older man’s shuddering breaths, Harry barely heard Snape whisper, “More than anything.”