So here we are.

I stare into your eyes.

I have to tell you.

I must explain.

I'm the only one left alive who knows.

You must know that I never betrayed you, that I was closer by your side than you ever imagined.

But I cannot let you know the reason. You must never know the reason.

There is someone else here, but I cannot see into the shadows past your face. With what little strength I have left, I push the memories from my mind. The first seven are easy; I don't alter them at all. The eighth, I do.

When I approached Dumbledore for help, I had told him of my intent only to save Lily, but he asked me why; he had thought that I still bore my silly childhood infatuation. No. Lily and I had been friends, and I wanted her to live, even if she hated me, because she was my friend.

The ninth, I fabricate entirely, using only fleeting moments of the truth.

The tenth and eleventh are unaltered, but I omit the three years between them. The truth – the reason I protected you – is too heavily ingrained in my memories of these years.

And another year until the next, unaltered.

The next, I also have no need to alter.

In it, Dumbledore and I walk through the grounds, and, for the first time in the course of these memories, I lie to him. I feign contempt, as I did on many other occasions such as this.

The fourteenth and sixteenth are altered, but not the fifteenth, and not the seventeenth. That will suffice.

I grasp at the front of your robes, hold onto you. I must hold onto you until you have them.

"Take . . . it . . . . Take . . . it . . . ."

The work is hasty, and I am not entirely sure that I have done it well enough. . .

But what will it matter if you know?! You go to your death as surely I do!

I will tell you! Now! Before it's too late.

"Harry . . ." The word won't come. I can't speak. The pain has given away to numbness and I can't feel anything. I lose my grip on you.

God, I can't feel you anymore! I can barely see you! You're turned away!

"Look . . . at . . . me . . . ."

There . . .

There are your eyes.

Dumbledore told me once, before I had ever seen you, that you had your mother's eyes, but he was wrong. Your mother's eyes were pure green. Yours are different.

I focus on them . . . .

A black ring around the outside.

The deep beryl that fades to emerald.

A ring of gold.

And then deep, shining black.

The same black as the eyes of my patronus.

You will believe, as I had intended, that it is a doe.

But it is a fawn.

A fawn with a mark on its forehead.

Like lightning.