Severus resists the urge he has to go through the mirror and throttle the boy. Dumbledore hadn’t been nearly as forthcoming about the dire straits that the boy was in as he should have been.

Potter’s not merely out of control, the boy’s a certifiable mess, and Severus doesn’t know if he can stop his downward spiral.

 At first, the boy’s recognition of the eyes, and his impromptu speech was amusing, and Severus had listened, and had mocked the boy, but when Potter had started to speak of death, Severus had grown alarmed. And now, the boy was on his hands and knees, searching for the bottle of firewhiskey that had slipped from his grasp as though his life depended on it.

Severus wishes that he’d thought to ask Dumbledore how the mirror works, because right now he has no idea how he’s going to stop the boy from killing himself, other than going there himself, and waiting out the rest of the night with the boy, keeping him from finding that bottle and then somehow talking sense into him. Or, beating it into him. Severus isn’t sure which one will work, if either of them will work.

“Leave it to Dumbledore to hand me an impossible task,” Severus mutters. He looks through the mirror, and, though it’s a laughable image – Potter’s ass straight up in the air, the lower half of his body tucked beneath the wardrobe searching desperately for a nearly empty bottle of firewhiskey – Severus isn’t laughing. No, he’s rather alarmed, because Potter seems to believe that he really should be dead.

“I didn’t sacrifice my life so you could drown yours in a bottle of firewhiskey,” Severus growls at the image of Potter that the mirror offers him. There’s a goofy grin on the boy’s face, the lost, now found bottle of firewhiskey held aloft in one hand, like a well-earned trophy.

He almost throws the mirror on the ground, feels like smashing it with the heel of his boot, but Potter’s green eyes, boring into his, stays his hand. He watches, with mounting trepidation, as Potter tries to work the cork loose. The way that the boy’s eyes are nearly crossed in concentration, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth – reminds Severus of Lily. The cork seems to be good and stuck, and Severus counts that as a minor victory.

The victory is short-lived, though, because Potter does manage to work the cork loose, and this time, instead of replacing it, almost gently, on the nightstand, as he had the other times, he tosses it aside. Potter takes a deep breath, meets Severus’ eyes in the mirror, and then closes his eyes, bottle raised to his lips. He looks at peace.

“No, Potter!” Severus shouts, his voice reverberates in his head, and he loses the sun, loses the white, fluffy clouds and the daisies with their heads bowed in the breeze.

The world spins out of control, and Severus is lost in both time and space for what feels like a short eternity before things start to slow down, and he regains his bearings.

It’s dark, stifling hot, and Severus wonders if this is what Dumbledore, and the founding forefathers, had had in mind for him all along. If they had known that he’d fail at saving Potter, and had planned to banish him to a place of darkness and gnashing teeth from the outset. If they’d purposefully set him an impossible task to fulfill so that they could, in good conscience, rid their beautiful world of him.

“You’re dead,” it’s Potter’s voice, and Severus narrows his eyes, casts around in the dark for the source of the voice. Surely Potter has not been sent to the same eternity of torture that he has.

Potter, in spite of Severus’ dislike of the boy, doesn’t deserve that – foolishly drowning himself in a bottle of firewhiskey or not. Potter shouldn’t be wasting away in Hell along with the likes of Severus and the Dark Lord.

Severus holds his breath, wonders if the Dark Lord will make an appearance. He lets out his breath as his eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, and he starts to make out shapes.

With a start, Severus realizes that he’s not been cast down to Hell – well, not in the strictest sense of the word, that is – but rather, he’s been drawn into Potter’s room. It’s not a big, flashy room. It’s small, and nothing adorns the walls.

“Did I,” Potter hiccoughs, clamps a hand over his mouth, and waves the bottle in the air. He hasn’t finished drinking it yet, and Severus is mildly relieved. “Did I die?”

Severus shakes his head, and rolls his eyes toward heaven, hoping that Dumbledore is getting a kick out of this, because he isn’t.

“No, Potter, you didn’t die,” Severus says crossly.

He reaches for the bottle, wondering if he’ll be able to touch it, or if he’ll be like the ghosts at Hogwarts, his hand merely coasting through the glass. He’s impressed when he’s able to touch the bottle and pluck it out of Potter’s fingers. The boy lunges forward, grasping clumsily at air. Severus holds the bottle above both of their heads, out of Potter’s reach, wonders if he can finish off the firewhiskey, but decides not to tempt fate.

Potter falls back on his butt, his elbows supporting him. He looks up at Severus, squinting as though it’s hard for him to see, even though he still has his glasses on.

“If I’m not dead,” Potter slurs, “then…” he blinks, and opens his mouth, but shuts it.

“Eloquent as ever, I see,” Severus says.

He doesn’t feel bad for poking fun at the boy, especially since Potter’s disturbed his well-deserved rest. He puts the bottle up, on top of the wardrobe, where it will remain safely out of Potter’s reach. The boy is still short.

“Relax, Potter,” Severus says, leaning down to offer the inebriated boy a hand up. He helps Harry into bed, wondering if Dumbledore is watching this with a hand over his now teenaged heart.

“You’re not dead, and I’m not a figment of your imagination,” Severus says when he’s got Potter tucked into bed. He feels out of his element, and wonders if this isn’t some sick afterlife joke that Dumbledore and the forefathers are pulling on him, if they aren’t watching from the other plane and laughing it up at his expense.

He sits on the edge of Potter’s bed when the boy clutches at his wrist and practically pulls him down. Severus sighs, and pries his wrist free from Potter’s surprisingly firm grip, rubs at it, because it tingles from where Potter touched it.

He plucks Potter’s glasses off of his face, and lays them on the nightstand. Potter follows his every move, a sober look on his face. The boy hiccoughs, reminding Severus that he’s far from sober, and why Dumbledore had sent him here in the first place.

“Potter,” Severus says, holds a hand up when Potter opens his mouth. Potter slams it shut, and crosses his arms over his chest.

Even drunk, the boy is a pain in the ass. Severus slowly counts to three, and then counts to ten, and he takes a deep breath.

“Listen to me, Potter,” Severus says, choosing his words carefully, knowing that he’s only got this one chance to talk some sense into the boy, and finding, strangely, that he actually wants to save Potter’s life.

Severus realizes that he wants to keep the boy from spending the rest of his life peering up from the bottom of a bottle. That he wants to spare Potter some of the pain that he’d undergone when he was the boy’s age – having experienced more than his own fair share of death, feeling the weight of those deaths bearing down on his soul.

He understands now, what Dumbledore had been trying to show him all of those years – that he and Potter really do have much in common. He wishes that it wasn’t so. But, wishes like that don’t come true, not after the living has been done, and it is so. No amount of wishing the opposite is going to change any of it.

Potter is damaged, and hurting, and Severus has been given the unique opportunity to help him through this, to see him through to the other side. And it’s this – not what he’d done, keeping the boy safe and alive all of those years he’d attended Hogwarts just so that he could face the Dark Lord in a final battle to the death – which will finally redeem the debt that Severus owes Lily and James Potter.

Severus isn’t sure what overcomes him, why he brushes at the hair on Potter’s forehead, bringing the unruly locks into a semblance of order. It’s an impulse that he doesn’t fully understand, but which he’s hopeless to control. The lightning bolt scar, which had been so prominent on the boy’s forehead, is now gone. Severus wonders if the boy misses it.

Potter’s got a curious look on his face; his cheeks are ruddy from his life-threatening consumption of firewhiskey. His green eyes are glassy, and yet they hold Severus’ gaze.

“Why’re you here?” Potter asks. His voice is quiet, and the young man – he is a young man now – is regarding him almost coolly.

“To save your life,” Severus says matter-of-fact. He doesn’t know if he’s said the right thing or not, and Potter frowns at him.

“That’s funny,” Potter says, though he’s not laughing. “You’re here to save my life, even though it was my fault that you’re dead.”

Severus shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Potter, you’re no more responsible for my death than you’re responsible for the color of the sky.” He brushes at a stubborn lock of hair on Potter’s forehead that just doesn’t seem to want to surrender.

Potter scowls, tucks his blanket closer around himself. He’s shivering, and Severus isn’t sure if he should do something about that. He’s not sure what he can do.

He remembers how cold it had gotten when he’d gone on a rampage and nearly drank himself to death on firewhiskey – it’s one of those nasty side effects of the alcohol. It’s so hot going down, and yet it leaves you icy cold in the aftermath.

Dumbledore had been there to stop him all those years ago. This isn’t all that different, though he’s coming to Potter from beyond the grave, and Dumbledore had been just down the hall.

 “Potter,” Severus says, takes a deep breath as he schools his temper and his thoughts. “My death is not your fault. Nor is Dumbledore’s, or Fred’s, or Black’s. Your parents’ death,” Severus closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose as he remembers Lily – copper hair flowing about her shoulders like a river.

“Potter, it wasn’t your fault,” Severus finishes, his voice husky. He opens his eyes to find Potter staring at him, his mouth no longer set in a thin, stubborn line.

“I forgive you,” Potter says, the words coming out slowly, thoughtfully, as though he’s just coming to the realization himself.

“I don’t,” Potter takes a shuddering breath, closes his eyes, and when he opens them, his green eyes are clear and piercing. “I don’t blame you,” he says. “For any of it.”

Severus’ heart skips a beat, and he bites his lip. He draws in a sharp breath, and blinks at Potter. This isn’t supposed to be for him. It isn’t, and yet, something inside of him shifts, and he feels a weight lift off of him. It’s disorienting, and freeing and makes him feel almost giddy. It’s unnerving, especially when Potter gasps, and reaches out to touch him, a look of wonder on his face.

“You’re…” Potter breathes out. “You’re growing younger.”

Severus scowls at the boy, and brushes almost aggressively at the boy’s bangs, wishes that they’d stay in place, that he didn’t feel so exposed, so vulnerable.

“I most certainly am not,” Severus insists, and is startled by how different his voice sounds, how smooth and unwrinkled the hand poised just above Potter’s forehead looks. It’s like Dumbledore’s, except his fingers are longer, the nails trimmed neatly, because his father had insisted that they be kept that way when he was a teen, living under his roof.

Potter laughs and raises an eyebrow in response. “Fine, you’re the same old bat of the dungeons that you were when you graced the halls of Hogwarts,” he says, and immediately clamps a hand over his mouth, his eyes going wide.

Severus glares at him, momentarily, before bursting into laughter, because he can feel it now. Knows that Potter speaks the truth, and that he’s been transformed, just as Dumbledore had. It’s an odd sort of feeling, and Severus isn’t sure what it means – if it means that he’s saved Potter, or if it’s Potter who’s saved him.

“You are definitely not the same,” Potter says. “And this is probably a product of overdrinking, which means that I should lay off the firewhiskey.”

“And you should eat a little more,” Severus says, wonders where on earth those words are coming from, because they had not been on the tip of his tongue.

“Potter, you need to stop dwelling on the past, and start living. You’ve suffered enough.” He brushes a stray hair from Potter’s eyes, ignores the way that Potter’s eyes well up with tears.

“You’ve suffered what you were never meant to suffer,” Severus says, and he means it. He feels no animosity toward Potter, and it’s like a vise has been removed from his heart. He’s never felt this light of heart, like, if he wants to, he could fly.

“So did you,” Potter says, his voice a little mulish. “And so did the Weasleys and –”

Severus places a finger over Potter’s lips. “Enough. We’ve all suffered, but the point is, Potter, that you don’t need to keep suffering. Your suffering, drinking yourself numb, killing what little brain cells that you have left,” Severus thunks Potter in the forehead with his index finger, “is not going to undo what’s been done. Those who died in the battle with the Dark Lord will still be dead. You, choosing to drown your sorrows in a bottle of firewhiskey isn’t going to change any of that.”

Potter pouts, and Severus narrows his eyes at the young man until Potter lets out the breath that he’s been holding and relaxes.

“Do us,” Severus says, when he knows that he’s got Potter’s full attention. “Do me a favor?”

Potter takes a moment to think, and then he nods and shrugs. “Sure. What is it?”

“Choose to live,” Severus says, leaning in close so that their noses, as they had been when he’d been spying on Potter through the mirror, are touching. Potter’s breath catches in his throat, and his eyes, once more, fill with tears, but he nods.

“Promise me?” Severus presses.

“Promise,” Potter whispers.

“And no more firewhiskey,” Severus says, waving a hand toward the top of the wardrobe. “That stuff will rot your brain. Trust me, I know that first hand.”

“Fine,” Potter says, though he eyes the wardrobe almost longingly.

“Potter, the memories will just come back when you’re sober, and with a vengeance,” Severus says. “You need to face them head on, and not run away from them. Stop giving them power. Stop letting them keep you from living.” He wishes that someone had told him this when he’d been Potter’s age, wonders if he’d have listened if someone had. Hopes that Potter will listen to him.

“Why are you here?” Potter asks, again, his voice whisper soft.

“Because you needed me to be,” Severus says, the words coming from somewhere else. They ring true, though.

“But, you don’t even like me.” Potter frowns.

“What’s like got to do with it?” Severus asks, though he no longer dislikes the boy, and Potter’s accusation kind of smarts.

Potter seems to consider his words, and, finally, after several seconds have ticked by, he nods and smiles. “Did Dumbledore send you?” Potter asks around a yawn.

Severus rolls his eyes. “You think he’s got nothing better to do than send former Potions Masters from the afterlife to save you from the brink of death, Potter?” The yet again is unspoken, yet clearly understood in the way that Potter’s eyes light up.

“So,” Potter yawns, his eyes blink lazily closed and open and closed again. He’s losing the battle to stay awake. “He did send you?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Severus gives Potter that much, watches as the boy’s eyelids flutter open and closed once more before remaining firmly shut.

He waits until Potter’s breathing evens out, and then he rises. On a whim, he bends down, another instinct overtaking him, and he presses a paternal kiss to Potter’s forehead.

He snatches the bottle of firewhiskey off of the boy’s wardrobe, takes a whiff, and realizes that he doesn’t miss the stuff. He pours it out onto the floorboards. The boy will probably think that he’d done it himself, will probably remember Severus’ visit as a dream, or a hallucination. In any case, he believes that he’s accomplished what Dumbledore has sent him here to accomplish.

Feeling lighter than he’s ever felt in his entire life, Severus looks into the mirror, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees blue eyes twinkling back at him. There’s a knowing look in those eyes, a bit of mischief in the twinkle, and Severus rolls his eyes, wonders what Dumbledore, and the afterlife, have in store for him next.