Severus doesn't know what it is that drew Mr. Evans's attention to him. Perhaps the other man had caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye or maybe it was some sort of sixth-sense that those like the Abhorsen developed after the years they spent dealing with the abominations that they did. And despite what most would say about those who came from Slytherin house, including Severus himself, he was not a coward, and yet the sight of those emerald green eyes was enough to freeze the marrow in his bones.

He knew immediately that Mr. Evans recognized him. Severus could see it in the way the other man's eyes narrowed and his large frame went as still as an apex predator before it struck. Seeing distrust in those eyes – eyes the exact same shape and shade as Lily's – hurt even though he knew that he had earned it.

Severus didn't dare meet Mr. Evans's eyes for more than a moment, however. He had no wish to see into the mind of Abhorsen. It was place of creeping horrors and arcane knowledge that was best left lost to the ages.

He had peered into Lily's mind only once and that had been by accident when they were both thirteen. She had been four years into her training as the Abhorsen-in-Waiting already and his talents as a Legilimens had been growing by leaps and bounds; often outstripping his control and leaving him responding to others thoughts as though they had been spoken aloud.

It was during the summer before the start of their third year at Hogwarts. Apparently by her family's traditions, Lily was old enough for her first hunt. And so, she had joined her father in stalking and dispatching a Rawhead that had formed from the slaughterhouse scraps a town over in Aspen Tallow.

What he had seen in her mind had been the stuff of nightmares.

The Rawhead had been a great hulking monster; easily twice as tall as a man. Its body made from the rotting remains of cows, pigs, and the neighborhood pets it had begun to consume to sustain itself. It had been skinless with its malformed ropes of muscle clearly visible and glistening a bloody red like an open wound as it dripped with ichor. All the while, its eyes had gleam like firebrands from the sockets of the steer's skull it had made its own and armed with countless needlelike bone shard teeth.

He had had recurrent nightmares about it for weeks afterwards. No doubt exasperated by the fact that once Tuney knew the whole matter had bothered him she began endlessly chanting the old schoolyard rhyme about Tommy Rawhead and Bloody Bones:

"Tommy Rawhead and Bloody Bones

Steals naughty children from their homes,

Takes them to his dirty den,

And they are never seen again."

Or at least he had until his mum had redoubled her efforts in hammering Occlumency into his head until he was able to Occlude on reflex…. It had helped to. At least until his nightmares of cadaverous, patchwork monsters were replaced were replaced by those of an enormous wolf with mad eyes and slavering fangs a few years later…. Until they were subverted once again why what he had seen and done during the war….

Severus's mind was drawn from the past as Mr. Evans eased from his predator still stance. The other man had bent down to scoop up his grandson and was now balancing the small boy on his hip. The motion was enough for Severus to notice the disillusioned bandoleer of necromancy bells buckled across Mr. Evans's chest and the sword at his hip.

Even now, with the Ministry of Magic's Death Eater tribunal disbanded Aster Evans was still dressed for war. Though Severus supposed that the war was never truly over for a man who battled the Dead.

"Severus Snape, unless you're a revenant sent to kill me you needn't look so worried," said Mr. Evans genially, breaking the silence. Nevertheless, Severus didn't relax his guard; in fact, if anything he became even more tense at the other man's next words. "Unless, of course you believe that there is another reason you should have drawn my wrath…?"

Does he know, Severus's mind raced. Does he know that I was the one who told the Dark Lord the prophecy that led that monster to seek the death of his daughter's family?

Mr. Evans's next words left him feeling as though his thoughts had been plucked from his mind.

"Please Severus," he said heavily, "whatever ills you think lay between us … If they truly weigh upon you so much … let's speak about them now and I will consider that a step towards any recompense you feel you owe –"

Severus couldn't stand it. He couldn't believe that in any universe that Mr. Evans would ever consider forgiving him for what he had done.

"You wouldn't say that if you knew what I did!" he said, the words bursting from him like water from a broken dam. A tormented sob tore itself from his throat and his shopping fell from his hands as his arms came up to wrap around his middle as though trying to conceal a grievous wound to his center. He could feel the contents of his stomach clawing at the back of his throat as his innards writhed with guilt. "It's my fault that Lily's dead! How can I ever make that right!"

Slytherin self-preservation had Severus giving a violent flinch as Aster drew his wand from a forearm holster. However, instead of cursing him as he deserved the other man waved his wand at the surrounding area and cast a Notice-Me-Not Charm, which surrounded them with a faint shimmering mirage like heat haze. He followed this up with a subtle Muggle Repelling Charm, as well.

"Severus Tobias Snape, unless you were their Secret Keeper instead of that bastard Black or the Dark Lord himself then you are not the one responsible for my daughter's death," Mr. Evans growled, eyes flashing.

"But I'm the one who told him about the – the prophecy," he said, admitting his shame.

"And Voldemort is the one who decided act on the word of a Seer that left the Clayr in shame," Mr. Evans persisted. "And Black is the one who broke a soul deep oath to guard their home from detection."

Severus could help flinching at the sound of his former master's name. His left-hand spasming as a sharp pain surged through the brand on his left forearm as the faded dark mark reacted to the Taboo of voicing the Dark Lord's name.

"Don't say his name," Severus pleaded. "Please."

Mr. Evans eyed him probingly, but nodded his acquiescence.

"Very well, but will you please come and sit with us," he asked, motioning for them to go to one of the benches near the swing set. Indicating the one in the shadow of a large English Oak in particular. "I would like to speak with you, but I can understand if you're worried about your shopping. I can have Pell-Mell can take it home for you, alright..."

Severus nodded once and a house-elf appeared before them with a crack like a car backfiring.

The elf, Pell-Mell, was obviously as well cared for as any of the Hogwarts elves with a flour sack dress, a tea towel shawl and a fine linin napkin worn for modesty on her bald head like a wimble with slits cut into the sides to allow her large bat-like ears to poke through. She smiled brightly up at Severus, her sharp little teeth bright against her toffee colored skin. Then, with a snap of her long boney fingers, both she and the shopping bags vanished with another crack.

It was with his feet feeling as though they had become leaden weights at the ends of his legs that Severus then followed Mr. Evans over to the bench.

"It really is good to see you, Sev." Mr. Evans informed him as he settled Lily's son on his lap. The boy was staring up at Severus with blatant curiosity. "It's been so long."

"Five years," Severus murmured woodenly, carefully avoiding the man's painfully familiar eyes.

"I heard about your apprenticeship under Anscom Pritchard," said Mr. Evans and Severus wondered where the other man was going with this line of thought. Then the he added, "I also heard about how he was convicted for supplying poisons and several other unsavory potions to Vol- er – the Dark Lord…."

Severus couldn't restrain his wince. Pritchard's alliance with the Dark Lord had all but ensured that he, his apprentice, had had to follow in his footsteps after the man's conviction.

And just when my mother's illness had ensured my removal from the questionable influences of Avery and Mulciber, too, he though wearily.

"Furthermore," Mr. Evans went on. "The whispers in certain parts of the Ministry are that Albus Dumbledore testified on your behalf during the tribunals," Mr. Evans probed. "He claimed that you were his spy among the Dark Lord's ranks...?"

"Yes," Severus admitted woodenly. "After the Dark Lord informed us – er – his followers that he believed the prophecy to mean the Potters, I – I went to Dumbledore to warn him and ask him to – to keep them safe…. He – Dumbledore, that is – asked me what I would do in return … that was his price…."

Immediately, Severus felt as though his lungs had frozen in his chest. A cold wave of arcane energy was rolling off of the necromancer beside him as the air was filled with the sharp tang of ozone – the scent of dark magic.

"So," Mr. Evans snarled. "The leader of the Order of the Phoenix would barter the lives of innocents in the name of his 'greater good'?" The green eyes that bore into Severus's own gleamed with the same poisonous light of a Killing Curse. "Has he bound Fawkes to his side or has the damned bird gone senile putting off his burning day," he demanded, terrifying to behold in his anger.

"W-What?" asked Severus bewildered. "Fawkes is the headmaster's familiar, isn't he?"

Raucous laughter filled the air as a large raven dropped from its perch on a bough above them and alighted onto the shoulder of Severus's wand arm. Its scaly grey toes gripping him with an unnatural strength.

"Fawkes is a phoenix little snakeling. He is a creature of magic and creatures of magic have no masters unless we are bound," the raven – no, the creature – explained, the minute silver bell on the band about its left ankle ringing softly as it shifted its weight. "The only binding on Fawkes is his duty to choose a leader for the Order of the Phoenix when the darkness rises."

"Fee-Fee," cried Lily's boy, his eyes alight with joy at the appearance of the not raven.

"Who … what are you?" Severus asked nervously as the creature looked at him with moon-pale grey eyes.

"I have had many names," it replied coyly. Its voice was a deep contralto with the barest hint of a croak. "You may call me Fea. As to what I am…. Well, I was once many things, but now I am only several. Primarily, I am a servant of the Abhorsen…. Unless, of course, dear Aster would be kind enough to remove the band from around my ankle?"

Severus wasn't sure he could identify all of the emotions that flitted though him as he watched Mr. Evans give the creature of magic a fond smile – as thought this was a familiar bit of banter they often engaged in – and as he called her dear-heart as he reminded her that he couldn't do that. The fool heartedness of a Gryffindor, he thought, even though he knew the man had been sorted into Hufflepuff. It was quite clear to Severus that whatever Fea was, that the silver band around its ankle was the only thing that kept it as a servant of the Abhorsen … or anybody else for that matter. He wasn't a rune master, but even he could tell that the sigils on the band were quite explicit about that. Not to mention that the binding spell they wove was positively ancient. It was quite possible that Fea was some sort of magical creature as old as Hogwarts Castle, or even older….

"Ah, I thought not," said Fea, as it … or she, as Severus felt that the not-raven was definitely feminine, released his shoulder and fluttered down to perch upon his knee.

He watched as she, now at eye level with Lily's son, began to preen the boy's hair with her worryingly sharp beak and noticed with a surge of unease that Fea's shadow was not always that of a raven.

"Try not to look so worried, Severus," Mr. Evans advised him. "Her binding aside, Fea has watched over the Abhorsen and their kind since time immemorial."

Still, he could help keeping one dark eye fixed upon Fea as she worked on tucking a lock of Lily's son's dark hair behind the boy's ear and revealed the lightning bolt shaped scar that had quickly become legend among the wizarding community.

"So that's where…," he murmured.

"Yes," said Mr. Evans, one large hand running along his grandson's spine. A reassurance that the boy was still there, Severus was sure. "Severus," the other man began, his voice full of implication. "Have you never wondered why the Killing Curse – a spell that is known for its ability to extinguish life without leaving a mark – the Dark Lord's preferred method of killing – why it left a mark this time….?"

Severus pressed his lips together until they were nothing more than a thin pale line. An expression he'd only recently realized he'd picked up from Minerva McGonagall, the Head of Gryffindor House.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I've wondered about it – who hasn't in the Wizarding World – but I don't know. Dumbledore seems to have some idea, but he isn't sharing…"

"Of course not," Mr. Evans remarked derisively. "He wouldn't."

"You don't trust Albus Dumbledore very much, do you," Severus asked, meeting Mr. Evans's eyes just long enough to know it was true.

"No, I don't," Aster admitted readily. "I haven't since his lover had my uncle's wife and children slaughtered and he was lauded for 'defeating' him by merely sealing him within his own stronghold.

"And I trust him not at all now that I know he used my daughter's life as a bargaining chip…. Which doesn't even bring into account the fact that he left my grandson and heir on my eldest's doorstep last autumn with no more than a letter hinting that a Bond of Blood Ward had been erected for their protection…. So, no I don't trust the conniving old man."

Severus had only ever heard this perspective from his fellow Slytherins before. And usually only when they were those of a darker inclination. Though he supposed being a necromancer, even one sanctioned by the International Confederation of Wizards, did qualify once as Dark.

Be honest, Severus's own inner voice chided him. You didn't go to Dumbledore to protect Lily and her family because he was Light. You went to him because he was and is powerful and apposed the Dark Lord.

"When Dumbledore told the wizarding world that the boy had been placed with relatives for his own safety I had assumed he meant you. Not Petunia," he said slowly. "After all, it would have been the safest place for the boy. Especially, since Dumbledore believes that the Dark Lord will return and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was never one to take … insult lightly …. And making him appear fallible in anyway was a mistake few ever lived to repeat…."

If there was one man on the planet who could have truly known whether or not the Dark Lord would be able to somehow return; it was Aster Evans. And so, it made Severus's heart sink when the man gave a dark, humorless chuckle.

"Oh, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has most certainly sown the seeds to ensure that he has a means of returning," Mr. Evans said, his voice rumbling like an approaching storm. "He had already created enough horcruxes to destabilize the core of his soul before he arrived in Godric's Hollow this past Hallowe'en. A fragment of his desecrated soul broke away from the whole when the protection Lily laid upon Harry caused the Dark Lord's Killing Curse to rebound. The fragment attempted to attach itself to the nearest source of Life it could find – my grandson."

Severus could feel a growing swell of horror rising up within him like bile, yet it was tempered by Mr. Evans's choice of words.

"You said it attempted to," he demanded. "So that means it didn't succeed, doesn't it?"

"Not fully, no," Mr. Evans hastily reassured him. "The Moira were merciful and Lily's sacrifice bought me enough time to get to him and remove it…. Hell, it's thanks to her that I even knew about the attack."

"What – What do you mean," Severus asked slowly. Everyone knew that during the final year of the war that the Death Eaters' had managed to secure saboteur among the Floo Network Authority by casting the Imperius Curse on of the Regulators. There would have been no way for Lily to use the Floo to get even so much as a message out.

"It was her – her Sending that informed me of her and James's deaths," Mr. Evans informed him gently.

"You – you spoke to Lily?"

"Briefly," Mr. Evans confirmed. "She sent me her wand and every tool she had for taking down a rogue necromancer."

Severus couldn't believe what he was hearing. It couldn't be true. Because if it was … if Mr. Evans had spoken with Lily then why –

"Why didn't you bring her back?!" he demanded. "Why did you allow her to stay dead?"

"You think I wanted to?" Mr. Evans growled coolly. "Resurrection is a temptation all those who wear the mantel of Abhorsen face at one time or another. I experienced the temptation for the first time when Grindelwald murdered my family. I felt it again when Voldemort's teacher murdered my wife. Can you honestly believe that I didn't feel it when I found my daughter's body on the floor of my grandson's nursery?

"I wanted to bring her back so much it disgusted me. But resurrection is the temptation of a necromancer. And only a necromancer – not the Abhorsen – would cast aside their duty and take the cards nature or circumstance has dealt, reshuffle them and deal again.

"It is painful in a way I pray you will never understand to know that you have the power to make someone you love be able to live again, laugh again … but know that you can't because if you did then the person that they were in Life would hate you, because you would have turned them into a monster that can only cling to a semblance of life by feeding on the Life and blood of others."

"I – yes, I understand," Severus said slowly. It was painful, but he did understand. Lily had been a kind and generous soul. It would have destroyed her to become such a monster. "I – wait – what do you mean by the Dark Lord's teacher – you mean the one who taught him necromancy, don't you?" he queried.

"Yes," said Mr. Evans with more menace in his tone than Severus had ever heard before. "It's curious don't you think… true necromancy is nearly a lost art and yet two Dark Lords within the last fifty years have been quite gifted in the art."

"Most assume that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named learned it from Grindelwald," Severus hedged. "After all, he more than proved he had no qualms about using the remains of the Nazi's bloody genocide to add to his ranks of Inferis."

But there was no way that Grindelwald could have murdered Sylvia Evans in nineteen seventy-seven when he had been imprisoned in Nurmengard since the forties.

"True, most do believe that," Mr. Evans concurred with a smile as sharp as a Cutting Curse. "But I'm afraid they would be wrong…. In fact, as wrong as Dumbledore for assuming that the Bond of Blood would have saved Harry if You-Know-Who's teacher were to payed a visit to Privet Drive…. The wards might have saved him from the Death Eaters and even Voldemort himself, but it never would have saved him from the one who taught them both necromancy."

Severus swallowed nervously. His mouth suddenly as dry as the Sahara.

"Who – Who taught them?"

"She is called Chlorr of the Mask," Mr. Evans said softly. He spoke not with hushed fear most wizards used when invoking the Dark Lord's name, but with a rage that had the time to turn cold and calculating. "She and her lover were the first enemies of the Abhorsen and it is her plots that my line has fought against though the ages.

"She was once a powerful witch … now she is one of the Greater Dead that has used its ages of existence to amass tremendous power."

"Why hasn't she been exorcised or banished or whatever it is you lot do to spirits that linger too long," Severus felt he must ask.

It was with gentle patience that Mr. Evans answered him. The sort learned from years of explaining an obscure field to a layman.

"Sometimes the Abhorsens of the past have been able to shackle her deep in Death, but this is never a permanent solution. There are always fools eagerly seeking power whom she is able to use to aid her in her return," he explained. "As for why she has never been made to walk through the Final Gate... It is because of the state of her soul, Severus. A soul must be whole to pass through the Gate of the Inevitable One. Those who split their soul and create a horcrux can only be bound until a time when every piece of their soul has been freed from its vessel and cast into the River of Death – and Chlorr of the Mask has hidden her horcrux well."

"Why are you telling me this," Severus wondered aloud. He could think of no reason for someone – even a former Hufflepuff – to offer up this much sensitive information for free.

"Because you loved my daughter and I know you'll do right by my grandson for her sake at least," Mr. Evans said simply. "Hogwarts is supposed to be a haven, but wards can be breached. It's been done before or do you think that a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor every year since Idris left in sixty-seven is the norm?"

When put that way, Severus mused, it was little wonder that the Death Eaters had been able to exterminate an entire generation of Muggle-borns – never mind the losses amongst those considered to be blood traitors….

"And what am I supposed to do that you can't," Severus asked with genuine curiosity.

"Nothing more than you would have done anyway," said Mr. Evans, he was smiling once again. "Petunia will watch over him when my work calls me away. But you'll watch over him when we can't."

Severus swore the only promise he could make in response.

"Always."

Author's Note: As always, thank you to everyone who has left reviews, followed, or favorited this fic.