The world had been black and silent for some time now. She could not tell precisely how long. Time didn't seem to exist wherever she was, out where she was nothing surrounded by nothing.

She only became aware of herself when the tapping began. It was the gentlest of sounds, scarcely louder than a heartbeat, but it broke through to her none the less. Little by little, it teased her back to life.

The darkness around her felt warm and safe. She did not want to leave. She did not want to become whole again. Still, the faint sound of drumming kept pulling her closer to consciousness. The more she tried to ignore it, the louder it became. Soon, she could not help but reassemble herself and let the sound guide her back to the surface.

That was when the pain came. The full weight of her broken physicality crashed into her as soon as she left her state of oblivion. She wanted to go back to thinking, feeling, being nothing, but it was too late. Whether she liked it or not, she was awake.

She was alive.

She opened her eyes – laboriously, reluctantly – and was nearly blinded by the brightness around her. The world seemed to be full of light, and all of that light was screaming at her. But there was darkness there, too – vast, shapeless pools of black that skirted around her field of sight – and for a moment all she could see was that blurry mesh of shadows and light.

Eventually, she started to see enough shapes, colours, and shades of grey to tell where she was. She was lying on a bed next to a window in a dimly lit room; that was all the information her aching eyes managed to take in before her senses started to feel overwhelmed. The pull of sleep was nearly irresistable, but the annoying noise urged her to stay awake, if only to find out what was causing it.

She found the source of the noise when she looked at the window. There was a butterfly trapped inside her room. It was flapping its wings helplessly against the window pane, and the soft flutter of her wings had been loud enough to pierce through her dreams.

Had she been dreaming? She could not remember.

She could not remember anything.

She focused hard and tried to piece together what had happened. Her head was spinning, and even the simple act of thinking took such a toll on her that it took her a while to recall her own name. Lily Evans. Yes, that was it. She forced her mind to go further, and more memories of her life started coming back to her. She remembered her age, the name of her son, what her kitchen looked like. Soon, she had a general idea about who she was, but she still could not tell how she had ended up here.

More importantly, she did not even know where "here" was.

Lily moved her eyes from the butterfly and took a closer look at the window itself. She did know this place after all. This was Severus's bedroom – the other Severus's bedroom, the one she used to sleep in back when she was living with him in his house at Spinner's End. Something about that observation didn't make sense, but her mind was too muddled to figure out why.

She looked further to her right and saw a black shoe – or, rather, a foot that was propped on a knee. Slowly, her eyes moved past the knee and across a narrow tigh, up a waist and a chest and a long neck, all the way to the pale face of Severus Snape, who was sitting on a chair next to her bed. His eyes were closed, and his chest was rising and falling peacefully in tune with his breath.

Lily tried to call his name, only to let out a barely audible wheeze that did not seem to disturb his sleep at all. It was like a blank cough, and it sounded just as powerless as she felt. She swallowed hard and tried again.

"Sev..." she said. Her voice was still faint and pitiful, but this time the name did leave her lips, and Severus opened his eyes.

For a beat or two, he looked petrified, much like how the other Severus had been when she had first revealed herself to him. She didn't know what exactly happened next, but seconds later Severus was right beside her holding her hand.

"You're awake," he said and gave a long sigh that made his whole body shudder. His dark eyes were glistening, and for a moment there she thought she could see tears. She suddenly realized that she had never really seen him cry, how strange was that?

"What happened?" she asked. Her voice was a little bit stronger now, although speaking still felt like a task.

"Can't you remember?" Severus asked. She could feel his hand shaking.

When he brought his face closer to hers, she noticed that he looked different. His hair was a little bit longer, the bone structure of his face looked more defined than usual, and his cheeks had become hollow. She might have thought that he looked ill, except that he didn't. As a matter of fact, he looked unusually polished; he was wearing his finest clothes, his face was freshly shaved, and he even smelled nice, like he had dressed up for some very special occasion.

Again, she tried to remember when was the last time she had seen him, or held him, or kissed him, but all of her recent memories seemed to elude her.

And then something came to her: there had been a battle. She had been fighting Voldemort himself, because -

"Harry!" she cried out breathlessly. She tried to get up, but she didn't have enough strength in her body to even her raise her head.

"Harry is fine," Severus replied calmly. "He's with his parents. Voldemort is dead. No one is trying to harm your son anymore."

She felt a surge of relief, but got right back to feeling anxious when the full implications of what Severus had just said dawned on her. Their eyes met, and silence followed.

Weighty, stinging silence.

She tore her eyes away from him and stared blankly at the ceiling. She couldn't bear to look at him and face all that unarticulated pain that was lurking right behind his eyes.

"I wanted to tell you -," she began, and then her voice broke down. She started to cry, and the shaking made her feel even worse. It was all too much – she was weak and tired, and every part of her body was aching. Her head, her chest, her arm – oh fuck, her arm. It was hurting so much.

"Just calm down," said Severus. "You don't have to think about that right now."

"I'm so sorry, Sev," Lily insisted. "I shouldn't have lied to you... I can't expect you to forgive me..."

He stroke her hair gently and shook his head. "I already have."

Somehow, the fact that he wasn't angry with her made her feel even more guilty than before.

"This isn't how I wanted you to find out," she said. "I wish I could have told you the truth myself."

"I know. But you're back now, and that's all that matters," he said, and there was softness in his words that assured her that he truly meant it. He pulled her up into his embrace, and she felt like she could have just melted there. With the little strength she could muster, she hugged him back and stopped crying, simply because she was way too tired to do so.

They stayed like that for a moment, and the warmth of him felt so soothing that she might have easily fallen asleep, if only she hadn't been in so much physical pain. Her arm felt really bad. She took a look at it once Severus lowered her back on the mattress; there were two large, ugly puncture marks on the underside of her forearm. The wound itself had already scarred over, but the skin around it still looked bruised.

"How am I alive?" she asked. "That damn snake bit me."

"It did."

Her foggy recollections of that night were getting clearer and clearer. She remembered how the giant serpent had caught her by surprise while the others had been busy fighting Voldemort. She could still feel the echo of the pain she had felt when the creature's fangs had pierced her skin. She remembered how she had bitten her tongue to keep herself from screaming so that she would not distract Severus. She remembered fading away...

"I thought I was going to die," she said. "I felt it."

"I healed you," Severus replied plainly.

She shook her head. "That's impossible."

"Not impossible. Just... difficult. It took me some time, but in the end I found a way."

Some time. What was that supposed to mean?

"Sev... how long have I been sleeping?"

For one frustrating moment that seemed to go on much longer than it probably did, Severus withheld his answer. In the meanwhile, Lily looked at the window again, and she realized that the tree outside was lush and green, that there wouldn't have been a butterfly in her room had it still been October...

"It's August."

It took her confused mind ages to do the math.

"Nine months," she said, although she could hardly believe it.

"That's right."

"Nine months. Fuck."

"As I said, it was difficult. Believe me when I say that I worked every day and every night to get you back."

She drew in a long breath. "Tell me what happened."

Severus sat back on his chair, and she couldn't help but remark that he seemed far too calm and composed, all things considered, as if he had already processed and packaged and shelved all of his emotions regarding the whole incident, and that when he started speaking, it was almost as if he had been preparing his answer for days, or weeks, and holy back-flipping bollocks just how much had she missed?

"It was a close call, but I got you to the hospital before it was too late," he began. "The Healers of St. Mungo's bought you some time, but they couldn't find a way to rid you of the venom. I had to come up with a solution of my own."

Lily, who was still teetering between waking and passing out, lacked the brainpower to process every word Severus said after that, but she did manage to pick up enough key parts like "a sample of Nagini's venom", and "reverse engineered the formula", and "trial and error", and "healed most of the internal damage", and "multidisciplinary approach" to get the gist of it. Still, she wasn't entirely sure whether she was dreaming, for what he described sounded like a miracle.

"So you just... picked your brain, came up with the answer to an irredeemable condition, and saved me from what should have been certain death?"

He blinked.

"I am a Potions Master. This is what I do."

The unassuming look on his face made Lily snort with laughter – which in turn made her wince with pain.

"Yes, this is what you do. You save people, you fix things. You do things no one else can do," she said. She was out of breath, and her words sounded like a sigh. "You're incredible."

Severus quirked his mouth, pressed her hand against his lips, and kept it there for a moment. His warm breath felt wonderful against her skin.

"I've been waiting for you to wake up," he said. "You've been under a powerful sleeping spell for months. It took days for you to come out of it once it was lifted. The Healers told me that it was safe for me to bring you home in the meanwhile. Petunia is your next of kin, of course, but we agreed that it would be best for you to live under my care instead."

Lily blinked. Severus and Petunia. Being referred to as a "we" who "agreed" on something. It sounded too weird for words.

The last time Lily had met her sister, Petunia had still been under the impression that Lily was a devoutly single woman who hadn't even seen Severus in years. She could only imagine how Petunia had reacted when she had found out that her least favourite person in the world had actually been Lily's secret lover for years. For what it was worth, now Petunia and Severus had apparently developed the kind of relationship that allowed them to discuss Lily's care in a civil manner.

What else had changed while she had slept?

That wasn't the only question on her mind. She still didn't quite understand why they were in Spinner's End.

"I thought you sold this place after your father died."

"I never found the time to do it," Severus replied. "I'm glad I didn't. There wasn't enough room for both of us in your place or mine, so I moved us here."

It occurred to her that Severus had to be wondering how come she instantly knew where she was – she hadn't spent months living in this house with this Severus – and she knew that she had to tell him the truth.

"Sev, there's one more thing you should know," she began, and already her heart was pounding. "You need to know where this all started, why I've been forced to tell you all these lies..."

He nodded. "There's no need for that. I already know everything."

"No. Not this you do."

"You saw the future. You went there. And you've been trying to keep your son and the rest of the world safe ever since. Potter told me everything."

Her eyes turned wide. "Wait, what – James told you?"

"He did."

A terrible fear struck her.

"Did he tell everyone?"

"No. Only me."

She paused to think, yet she still failed to find logic in what he described. "Why would he do that? Did he want something from you?"

Severus shrugged.

"I wouldn't know. He didn't ask for anything in return. I suppose it's possible that he genuinely just wanted to... help me."

Lily had to take a moment to update her mind to match new reality she found herself in. Obviously, she had misjudged James in thinking that he wouldn't be capable of an act of kindess towards his sworn enemy.

"I can't believe he did that," she said. "And I can't believe that you believed him."

"I wouldn't have bought any of it if I hadn't heard it from you," Severus explained. "He gave me his memories. He showed me what you told him yourself. Your story was insane, but it was the only thing that made any sense. In the end, I had to believe it."

He looked into her eyes, and Lily's heart began to beat even faster. This was it. This was the moment she had been waiting for all these years. She had surrendered her last truth to Severus, and the air between them finally seemed clear. She could have wept, and she could have laughed, but she did neither. She just looked into his dark eyes and enjoyed the silence that, for once, was not loaded with secrets.

"Are you sure that Voldemort is gone?" she asked. Somehow, she kept fearing that this state of bliss she found herself in was just an illusion, that any minute now something was going to come and shatter it.

"He is dead," Severus said with a relieved smile. "Lupin and Moody found a way to defeat him. I'll tell you all about it, but first you need to eat something. You must be starving."

He kissed her hand again and stood up. Before he left for the kitchen, he lit the candle on the nightstand with a flick of his wand. The sun had begun to set, and twilight had entered the room.

Lily lay on her bed watching the dancing shadows on the wall. She felt airy, light-headed; she was alive, Harry was safe, the war was over, and Severus was with her. Was this it? Had she really gotten her happy ending? Everything had turned out so well that she could hardly believe her luck.

Suddenly, she heard a faint crackling sound and turned her head. The butterfly had flown too close by the flame and burnt its wings black. She watched it spiral down and down until it landed on the floor.

And then, out of nowhere, she remembered something she would have preferred to forget.

She was alive because she had murdered Albus Dumbledore.

The scar on her arm was throbbing with pain.

At first, Severus didn't think it was anything to be worried about.

He got it – Lily had almost died. Her son had come close to being murdered. She had lost nearly a year of life and woken up in a world that was much different to the one she had left behind. Of course she would be shocked and upset. Who wouldn't be? She just needed time to put herself back together, and then she would start acting like herself again.

That was what Severus thought, yet days and days passed and Lily only seemed to be getting worse.

It wasn't like there was anything physically wrong with her. In fact, she was making excellent progress under his care. Every day, she seemed to be a little bit stronger than the day before, and she was back on her feet in no time. Still, even as her body regained its strength, her spirit only seemed to be sinking. She was aloof, withdrawn, and apathetic, and she spent most of her time sleeping. Sometimes, Severus felt like only a fraction of her had returned to him after she had woken up.

He couldn't understand what was the matter with her. Everything was fine now, what reason did she have to be so sad? He wondered whether she just missed her child, but when he begrudgingly asked her whether she wanted to go and see Harry and his parents, she just smiled at him sadly and shook her head.

"Let him be. He's better off without me."

As jealous as Severus was of the love Lily had for her son – a feeling he was not proud of, yet unable to overcome – her answer filled him with concern. Nothing was keeping her from seeing her son anymore, so why would she wish to stay away from him now?

Whatever was bothering her, he soon realized that it was something much darker and deeper than he had originally thought. She simply wasn't the same anymore, at least not when it came to him. Every interaction between them seemed somehow out of tune. Lily was never unkind to him, but she wouldn't smile at him, or tease him, or crack jokes with him as she used to. She barely even talked. The comfortable physical intimacy they had established over the years was gone, too, as Lily seemed to avoid his touch. They slept in different beds in different rooms, and they hadn't even kissed since she had woken up.

He tried his best to help her. He was patient. He was forgiving. He gave her space; he offered her comfort. He tried to talk to her, and he tried to listen to her, and he waited, and waited, and waited, but nothing he did made any difference. She was slipping away from him, and it seemed like there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Still, he never actually asked her what was wrong with her. He told himself that he simply didn't want to push her too hard, but the truth was that he was afraid of what she might tell him. Maybe she'd tell him that he was the problem. Maybe she had now realized what she truly wanted in life. Maybe that wasn't him after all.

Maybe she was still too much in love with that other Severus to care for him.

It was an insane thought, but it had been vexing him ever since he had heard about her journey to the future. Somewhere out there, in another world, there was another Severus Snape who had succeeded where Severus himself had failed: he had made Lily fall in love with him. And although they were technically the same person, Severus could help but wonder if there was something about the other him that he was missing in this life.

Ever since they had become lovers, Severus had remarked that Lily would sometimes look at him as if she was searching for something that was not there – as if she was looking through him, and not at him. He had always noticed it, but he had never worried; Lily had had her secrets, yet he had never doubted that she loved him no matter what.

Now he wasn't so sure about that anymore. Maybe she just saw him as a pale reflection of the man she had fallen for. Absurdly, he found himself feeling jealous of this other Severus, who sounded much wiser and stronger and more powerful than he could ever be – who had claimed Lily's heart and never given it back.

Either way, he had to do something about Lily. He had not fought so hard to get her back only to see her living out the rest of her days in misery.

It had taken him forever to find a way to rid her of the venom that was killing her. He had worked from dusk till dawn and from dawn to dusk, and sometimes had had felt like he was losing his mind in the process.

At the same time, he had been fighting another battle inside his mind. Lily had lied to him. She had kept things from him. She had had a child with fucking Potter and never even told Severus about it, and for months he hadn't fully understood why.

It had killed him, yet he had forced himself to ignore the hurt and the anger to focus on saving her. The sting of betrayal had been nothing compared to the fear of losing her. In the end, he had chosen to forgive her in full.

Then Potter had given him the final piece of the puzzle, and his entire understanding of the world itself had turned upside down. Time-travel, alternative futures, freedom of will – all these ancient questions had suddenly been answered. The scholarly side of him had been eager to explore this new view on the workings of the universe, but his concern over Lily had held him back. There hadn't been any time for him to spend on any of it as long as she had been in danger.

Now Lily was alive and well, yet Severus still found himself standing still, lying awake at night, watching the sun rise and set again, unable to move on to pursue the mysteries of time, and unable to do anything to keep her from succumbing to a darkness no miracle potion could ever cure. It was as if rescuing her had changed nothing.

Petunia finally came to see Lily a few weeks after she had woken up. Severus had kept her updated on Lily's condition, but Petunia had been unable to visit her any sooner; she had just given birth to her third child and had been forced to stay put.

At last, she appeared on their doorstep with a tiny, pink baby in her arms, and Severus was so glad to see her that he could have almost hugged her – not because he liked Petunia, which he didn't, but because he hoped that she might be able to cheer Lily up. She hadn't left the house since she had woken up, and a little bit of fresh air was bound to do her good.

Severus even offered to look after Petunia's revolting offspring so that the sisters could go out for lunch in peace. There were few things in life he detested more than children and Petunia, yet he was prepared try anything to help Lily.

In the end, taking care of baby Mimi wasn't as terrible as he had imagined. She slept through the whole time Petunia and Lily were away. All Severus had to do was to make sure that she didn't choke to death in her sleep.

Like all babies, Mimi was an unsightly creature, yet Severus found himself hating it less than usual. Perhaps some of his distaste for kids – and for all things related to Petunia – had worn off over the years. He hadn't really been exposed to anyone's children since his brief stint at Hogwarts.

He wondered – and not for the first time – whether Lily wanted any children, besides the one she already had. She never talked about it. Severus had thought that he was absolutely sure he wanted no children of his own, yet he found himself feeling oddly left out when he thought about Lily's son. It wasn't just jealousy. There was more to it – some weird longing for family and legacy that he didn't even know he had in him. And once he started entertaining the idea of being a father, the thought of it began to seem less and less unappealing.

But all of those faint, vague ideas of starting a family of his own rested on Lily. No matter what he chose to do with the rest of his life, all of his dreams started and ended with her. If she didn't want him, or his life, or life in general, what point was there to any of it?

He tried to study Lily's face when she and Petunia returned to see if she was feeling any better. She looked as tired and uninspired as ever – which, admittedly, might have been because she had been forced to listen to Petunia's nonsense for two full hours.

Petunia stayed the night, and headed back home the next day. She took the train, although Severus had offered to take her and her baby home via Apparition ("Absolutely not!"), and he walked her to the station through the grimy town.

"She didn't seem... off to you, did she?" he asked her as they waited for the train to come. It was a grey, foggy day, and Severus was shivering under the black Muggle coat he was wearing just to accommodate Petunia, who had issues with walking in the street with anyone dressed in a cloak.

Petunia shrugged. "She's been through a lot."

More than you know, he added in his mind.

"There seems to be more to it," said Severus. "I've never seen her like this. She doesn't smile. She barely eats. She sleeps way too much. It's like she's in mourning, and I don't know why. Everything is all right now. She survived."

Petunia looked into the distance. The train was still nowhere to be seen.

"Has Lily ever told you about our grandfather? The one who went to the Great War?"

Severus shook his head.

"He died before we were born, but father talked about him sometimes," Petunia continued. "Our grandfather was little more than a boy when he left. He was the only boy from his class to return home in one piece. They said that he was one of the lucky ones, but that wasn't true at all. According to our grandmother, he could never get over the guilt of coming back when so many others didn't. She said it was like a shadow had followed him ever since he came back, and not even marrying and having children would help him let go of it. Many years later, he drowned himself."

Severus stared at Petunia in dismay, and suddenly it felt like the autumn chill found its way under his skin.

"Guilt?" he said. "You think she's like this because she feels guilty?"

"I don't know," replied Petunia. "I'm just saying that surviving is sometimes... hard."

"That can't be it. She has no reason to feel that way."

"Why don't you just ask her, then?" Petunia insisted. "If I've learned anything over these past few years, it's that life would be so much easier if we'd have the audacity to speak up every now and then."

Severus gazed down at his shoes. "It's complicated."

Petunia rolled her eyes. "It always is when you're concerned, isn't it?"

They lingered in the restless silence that had landed between them. Severus stuck his hands deep inside his pockets and kept staring at the ground.

"I don't know what to do," he admitted. "I don't know what she needs."

"Find out," Petunia insisted. "I need her to be here, now more than ever. I found Lola sitting on the roof the other day. I haven't got the faintest clue how she got there."

Severus glanced at Petunia. He understood what she was implying, yet he had no idea whether she was excited or horrified by the idea.

"I'll do whatever it takes to bring her back to us," he said. "You have my word."

"Good," Petunia nodded, and he was relieved to hear the train coming from the distance. He felt like he was disturbing some kind of natural order by being too friendly with Petunia.

"By the way," Petunia said just when she and Mimi were about to get on the train. "I've invited Lily to spend Christmas with us again this year. It's a tradition. The children were so upset last year when she couldn't make it."

Severus frowned. "Why would I stop her?"

"That's not what I meant!" she said with a scoff. "I was saying that, given the nature of your relationship, I suppose the proper thing to do would be to extend the invitation to you."

He blinked. That was certainly unexpected. He had already come to accept that Petunia would always going to treat him as a dirty family secret she would not even try to include in her own life. Not that it mattered – Petunia and especially Vernon, as Severus understood, were insufferable people, and he had no desire to have dinner with them on any day of the year.

However, once he gave it a thought, having tedious holiday traditions with insufferable family members sounded delightfully normal compared to the life he had known before. He usually spent his holidays alone. Was Christmas with the Dursleys really such a bad alternative to that?

"I'll consider it," he said, and it must have come off colder than he intended because it made Petunia pout at him.

"You don't have to come", she said, "- but you may if you wish."

Severus couldn't help but smirk; this had to be the nicest thing Petunia had ever said to him.

In October, Lily had almost fully recovered from the injuries she had sustained the year before.

The scar on her arm would always be a little bit sore, according to the Healers, and the arm itself would be slightly stiff because of it. Other than that, she was in good health, aside from the fact that a year of bedrest had seriously taxed her constitution. She had started taking long walks twice a day to remedy that so that she could return to work as soon as possible – though Severus could not help but wonder whether she was doing it just to avoid him.

That day, he asked to join her on one of her walks. She had agreed, although he felt like she did it just because she couldn't think of an excuse to refuse him.

They walked to the edge of the town, over the hills and across the meadows that skirted around it, past all the places they had been so familiar with as children. They didn't say much to each other, and that was all right with him. At least she wasn't trying to run from him.

Eventually, they found themselves at an old playground – another childhood haunt of theirs. Lily went straight to the rusty swingsets and reached out to touch it. It was the first time he had seen her smile in weeks. However, soon the smile died on her lips, and she withdrew her hand.

Severus wanted to ask her what was wrong, but he was distracted by a sound coming from the big oak that grew in the middle of the playground. Lily's owl had appeared on the top of the tree; it was tilting its head and blinking its huge eyes at them.

"Psyche is here," Severus said.

"I know," Lily replied flatly. "She follows me whenever I leave the house. I don't know why."

"Maybe she's worried about you."

"Maybe she's just dotty. Look at her. She's getting old. She used to be such a pretty little thing."

Severus disagreed. Psyche had imprinted on her mistress, like all owls were, and this was just her being a loyal familiar. He remembered how depressed the bird had seemed when Lily had been fighting for her life. It was like she didn't want to leave Lily's side now that she was awake.

He mused on how typical it was for Lily to name her pet after a Greek myth, and he had to wonder why she had chosen to name her son Harry instead of giving him a name like Orpheus or Theseus. Maybe it hadn't been her pick after all – maybe Potter had chosen the name in that other world, and that this Lily had simply gone with it.

Once again, he thought about the difference between this world and the one that had been undone – the lines between who they were, and who they could have been. Just how fine were those lines?

"I remember the last time we were here," Lily said. It had started to rain and she stepped under the tree for shelther. She leaned her back against the trunk, and for a moment it seemed like she was almost smiling again.

"I don't," said Severus. "How long has it been? Fifteen, twenty years?"

Lily shook her head. "No, I mean when I was here with the other you."

His heart stung.

"Oh?"

"I think this was where I finally began to understand you. Actually, it's where I began to understand that I didn't understand you."

He was breathing through his nose, careful not to show how agitated he was. Lily had hardly spoken about the time she had spent in the future. She had answered his questions, but she had never really told him what it had been like, being there with him.

"And that was good?"

She nodded. "It was a real turning point for me. I had been so sure of myself before that, but you helped me understand that I still had a lot to learn about you, and about everything else in life. If it hadn't been for you, I might have never stopped being that foolish little girl I used to be."

She sighed and looked through him, not at him.

"What exactly did he tell you?" he heard himself asking.

She pressed herself tighter against the tree, as if the world around her was spinning.

"He told me the truth. He shared his ugliest, dirtiest secrets with me, even though he thought I would hate him for it. But I didn't. I began to love him, more than I already did. I guess the darkness in him spoke to me even back then."

"Lily. What's wrong with you?"

He could not remain silent anymore. There were tears in her eyes, her voice was cracking, and she was stirring all over.

She took her time before she answered. She regained the control over her voice, but her eyes were still wet.

"A great many things, apparently."

"Tell me."

She shrugged. "What can I say?"

"Anything!" he shouted and unleashed an onslaught of questions. "What's bothering you? Why can't you talk to me? Why are you so determined to be unhappy?"

"Maybe I don't deserve to be happy," she whispered.

He narrowed his eyes.

"Because you lived?"

"Because I killed."

Severus opened his mouth, but nothing came out of it. The rain was drumming against his head, and for a while it was the only sound he heard.

"Dumbledore died because of me," Lily continued.

"It wasn't your fault."

"It was. I told Voldemort to kill him, and he did."

Severus shifted his weight from one heel to another. He didn't know what to make of her confession. Like everyone else, Severus had just assumed that Voldemort had killed Dumbledore in a duel.

"He played me," Lily hissed. "He played me in that other life, and he did it again in this one. He tried to force me to die for Harry because he was convinced that it was the only way to win the war. He told me that he had plotted my death in that other life as well."

"That... that doesn't make any sense."

She gave a panicked laughter through her tears. "It doesn't. It really doesn't. But it's true. He overheard me telling James the truth about what had happened to me, and then he went to the archway. Somehow, it made him remember his other life, and he confessed that he had always meant for Voldemort to kill me."

Severus raised his eyebrows. "He remembered his other life?"

She nodded. "I don't know how exactly it happened, but it did. It made me so angry to think that he had been pushing all these buttons since the beginning. I had to stop him."

"I see, " Severus said. He didn't fully understand what Lily was talking about, but he knew he had to say something to make her calm down. "It was self-defense. You were just trying to protect yourself and your son."

Lily shook her head slowly. Her eyes were wide and her chest was heaving, and she was still leaning against the tree like she had been cornered by a predator.

"Do you want to know what was going through my mind on the exact moment I decided to turn on him?" she asked.

He didn't, he truly didn't, but she told him anyway.

"I wish I could say that I did it because I wanted to protect Harry, or because I still hoped that James was coming to help me, or because I wanted to live just to see you again, but I didn't think about any of those things. I didn't even do it just to save my own skin."

She swallowed hard, and Severus felt his whole body growing tense.

"I did it because I didn't want him to win."

Lily's voice was both fragile and dark. She looked like she might have shattered into pieces at the lightest touch.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that he got one thing right about me", she replied, and her voice was shaking harder than her hands. "Merlin, what if he was right about everything?"

"Lily, you're not making any sense."

"The last thing he said to me – the last thing he said period – was that he thought I would have made an excellent Slytherin," she continued. "I know what he meant by that. You know what he meant by that. He saw evil in me, and I think I can see it too."

Severus gave a deep sigh. "That's just your guilt speaking. You think you're the reason he died, but you're not. He brought it on himself. You have no reason to feel guilty."

His words seemed to bring her no comfort. "That's the thing. I don't feel guilty. And it scares me that I don't. That's why I know he was right about me. I don't feel the slightest bit guilty for having him killed. I'm glad he's gone. If I had to do it all over again, I would do the same thing. If this is how I feel, how am I any better than him?"

She gazed at him, and her eyes were devoid of all hope. Now Severus was truly, genuinely afraid that he had lost her forever.

"It doesn't matter," he said, but his words didn't sound convincing at all. She noticed that.

Silence filled the air between them again. Severus desperately tried to think of something to say, but he was speechless and helpless, unable to reach out and keep her from drowning.

"This is where you told me your last secret," Lily said, and swept the area lifelessly with her gaze. "You told me that you had killed Dumbledore, and that you felt like your soul had been damaged forever. I didn't get what you meant back then, but I get it now."

"But you loved him," he said. "You said it yourself. You learned what he was, and you loved him still. That's how I feel. I don't care what you are, or what you have done. I will never stop loving you, do you understand me?"

She nodded vacantly. "Yes. You will always love me, and you will always forgive me. But that's because you're good, not because I deserve it. You don't get it because we're different. You're the best person I've ever known, and I'm the worst, the worst one of all of us. I'm so scared that I'm going to ruin your life, just like I ruined everything for the other you..."

"Stop it! You're being ridiculous!" Severus shouted. He wanted to grab her and shake her until she would come into her senses again, but every word he spoke seemed to get lost in the fog of sadness that surrounded her.

"I always thought that Dumbledore was arrogant for acting like he was the hero of this story," she said. "But what if he was? What if he was right about me all along? That I've been selfish, blind, and stupid this whole time, and everything I've done has been wrong? And if Dumbledore really was the hero, what does that make me?"

She looked terrified. The rain had turned into a real downfall, but he didn't care, he didn't care about anything than finding a way to prove to her that it didn't matter, that it would never matter. His heart was beating and the rain was getting in his eyes, and he only had one last thing to say to her.

"So you think you're the villain?" he asked. "You think that you've done terrible, unforgivable, evil things? Then does it really matter whether you regret it all or not? I'm going to ask you one thing, and one thing only. I need you to forgive yourself, and to forget all of these bad things you keep saying about yourself. If you're as evil as you think you are, one more sin can't make you any worse. If you're not, you deserve to be forgiven. One more sin, Lily. You owe me that much."

Lily sobbed under the tree. He stared at her without blinking, waiting for her to say something, anything, and there was nothing else in the world except Lily and the tree and the rain.

"I can't," she said.

She stormed off into the rain. He didn't go after her. He knew that he would not be able to reach her, even if he did catch her.

It was already dark when Lily made it back to Severus's place. She had been walking aimlessly around neighbourhood for nearly an hour, feeling like she would have rather drowned herself in the pouring rain than faced Severus again after the conversation they had just had. She had already said way too much tonight.

Luckily, she heard the water running when she got inside the house; Severus was in the shower, and she could go straight to bed without having to talk to him again. She really didn't have the energy for it.

Still, she couldn't help but peek into the bathroom when she realized that Severus had left the door ajar again. Maybe he did it out of habit, or maybe he was hoping that she'd join him. In the old days, that's exactly what she would have done. She would have gotten out of her clothes, stepped under the warm water, and stayed there with him until she would have felt right again.

But not this time. This time, she just observed him through the shower curtain, and then she went straight to her room and fell on her bed without bothering to change out of her cold, wet outerwear.

The ugly scar on her arm was throbbing again. She hoped that it would never stop hurting. She never wanted to forget what she had done.

It wasn't just that she had killed Dumbledore. She had also become him, and she hadn't even realized it before she had already gone beyond redemption.

All her life, all she had wanted was to do the right thing, but her good intentions had corrupted her right under her nose. She had lied, deceived, hurt the ones she loved, acted like she had the right to command destiny, and, finally, killed a man – all while thinking that she was only doing what was right. How was that any different from Dumbledore and his greater good?

Sometimes, she felt like the only difference between the two of them was that he had died, and that she had lived.

Maybe she shouldn't have.

That new Patronus form of hers certainly suggested that she had crossed the line. She still didn't know what exactly that sharp-toothed beast was, but it definitely wasn't an innocent doe. Was that what she was now – some monstrous creature that preyed upon the weak? That wasn't who she wanted to be. That wasn't the kind of person who deserved to survive the war.

She wished she could have just moved on and been happy, but she couldn't. Ignoring the awful things she had done would have robbed her of the last bit of decency she had left. If she pretended that she had done nothing wrong, that the ends of her actions had justified the means, she really wasn't be any better than Dumbledore.

Severus didn't understand. In that other life, he might have known how she felt, but not this time. This Severus was untainted, good. His soul remained unstained and unbroken, unlike hers. The other Severus had been good as well, but he had been forced to do terrible things, so he would have known the horrible guilt and regret that were tearing her apart. She often wished she could have asked that Severus what to do next, because she honestly did not know anymore.

The night grew darker. Lily curled up on the bed, and wished that the rest of the world would just forget that she had ever even existed.

She woke up the next day still in her overcoat and shoes. The night had passed, but she felt as though the darkness of it lingered inside the house, and inside her lungs. She felt like that every day.

It took her a while to build up the courage to go downstairs, to see Severus again after the things she had told him. Would he even be able to look at her anymore?

She found him in the kitchen reading the Daily Prophet by the table. He had cooked lunch (it was well past noon), and he greeted her with a "Good morning" that didn't give away any particular emotion. Was he mad at her? Scared? Disgusted? It was impossible to tell.

She gave him a timid reply and went on to fix herself a cup of tea. For a while, they sat together in silence Lily hoped would last forever, but eventually Severus did speak to her.

"We should do something about that archway."

She felt slightly relieved that he had chosen to bring up the least awkward subject out of all the things they had talked about the night before.

"Why? You're not thinking about using it, are you?"

He glanced at her above her paper. "It is a functional gateway through time. It would be irresponsible to leave it unsupervised."

"It's not unsupervised. It's in the Department of Mysteries, and it has sat there indisturbed for hundreds of years."

"But now people know about it. You, me, Potter. Dumbledore's portrait has also woken up."

Lily shuddered. She knew that the portrait was bound to be awake already, but she had tried not to think about it. She had been wondering if the portrait Dumbledore had told anyone the truth about his death. Clearly, he hadn't, since she hadn't been arrested yet.

Maybe he was just trying to protect his own reputation. Dumbledore couldn't have told the truth about her involvement in his death without also telling everyone why she had done it in the first place. It seemed like the two of them were destined to live in the fear of one exposing the other until her dying day.

"And you think that one of us is bound to reveal the secret?" she asked.

"Maybe, but I was actually thinking about the moral aspect," said Severus. "We know for a fact that there's a way to accurately see the future, to change the future. What are we going to do about it?"

"I want nothing more to do with that thing."

"But what if something terrible happens?" asked Severus. "What if it's something we could have predicted and prevented if we had used the archway? Are we not morally obliged to do everything in our power to build the best possible world?"

"Do we even have the right to do that?" asked Lily. "Does anyone have the right wield so much power? Things could also go horribly, horribly wrong. Maybe that damn thing should just be destroyed."

Severus shrugged. "That's one side of the dilemma. I'm just laying out our options. We could use the archway for good, we could destroy it, or we could just wash our hands from this and hope that the next person who discovers its secret isn't stupid or evil enough to do something terrible with it. Whatever we choose to do, what happens next is on us."

Lily sighed. "So what do you propose we do?"

"I don't know yet, but I want to see it with my own eyes," said Severus. "I want to know what I'm dealing with"

She eyed him suspiciously. "Again, I hope you're not thinking about using it."

"I couldn't do that even if I wanted to," he replied. "It's October. It doesn't work right now, does it? I just want to take a look at it."

Lily took a sip of her tea while she weighed the options. Knowing Severus, he was probably just genuinely curious about the mechanics of time, and she doubted there was anything she could say or do to stop him from going. Personally, she never wanted to see the archway again, but she didn't feel right about letting Severus visit it alone, lest he did something stupid.

"Fine, but I'm coming with you," she said. "Let's just get it over and done with."

That night, they sneaked into the Department of Mysteries. The security had been upgraded since the place had been secretly rebuilt, but Severus's experience as a Death Eater had taught him enough about breaking and entering to lead them through the locked doors and protection spells unnoticed.

Around midnight, Lily found herself standing in the Death Chamber for the first time in more than nine years. It still looked the same, as if the room itself had been untouched by the hand of time.

"It's smaller than I imagined," mused Severus, as he circled the archway. "And much more plain. No runes or markings. Just the arch, and the veil."

"Don't get too close to it," said Lily. She stood near the wall, unable to take another step towards the strange construction. It was like she was suddenly feeling the weight of everything that had happened since she had first fallen through it, and it was crushing her.

Looking around, she could almost see her 19-year-old self there, stumbling through the archway in her summer dress. She'd come a long way since then, but had she changed for the better, or for the worse? She had been young and stupid back then, but at least her soul hadn't been the black, rotten thing it was now.

"What exactly did Dumbledore do to it when he came here?" asked Severus. He was observing the archway from a distance with his arms folded and his head tilted.

"I really don't know," Lily groaned. She had to turn away and face the door; looking at the archway was triggering way so many memories and anxious thoughts that she felt like throwing up.

"He said that he just listened to the voices that came from the other side, but I'm not sure what he meant by that. I never heard any voices. He said that everyone thinks that the whispers come from the land of the dead, and that he believed that they were actually echoes of the undone future instead. But either way, I guess -"

Her words got stuck inside her throat, because she had glanced over her shoulder and seen the most horrifying sight.

Severus was standing right in front of the archway, and he was lifting the veil with his hands like he was about to step through it.

"SEVERUS, DON'T!"

Severus was lying on his back, and his head was hurting. These were the first and the only thoughts that came to him when he first opened his eyes.

He tried to sit up, but someone was kneeling next to him and shaking him furiously. Lily? What was she doing here, and why was she screaming at him? His ears were ringing, and he couldn't quite make out what she was saying, but she did look very angry.

Where was he again? The shack. Yes, that was the last place he remembered. He went there to meet with the Dark Lord, and they talked about Potter, and then Nagini -

Instinctively, he put his hand against his neck, but there was nothing there.

Was that a dream? Had the snake not attacked him after all?

His hearing was coming back to him, but he still couldn't make any sense of what Lily was saying. Her face was red, and there were tears in her eyes.

"- ONLY AN IDIOT WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT AND I THOUGHT YOU DIED AND OH MY GOD!"

"What happened?" he asked.

"What happened?" she repeated in dismay. "You tell me what happened! What on earth were you thinking?"

He closed his eyes and asked himself the same question. What exactly had he been thinking, besides distracting Voldemort and finding Potter? Wait, he had found Potter, hadn't he? Yes, he remembered lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood and giving Potter his memories to make sure that the boy would know what to do next. He remembered thinking about Lily, how he had prayed that she would find her way out of Hogwarts in one piece before the battle began.

And then everything had turned black.

Suddenly, he remembered something else as well. Something that did not align with the other memories he had in his head. He remembered standing in front of the archway and listening to the whispers that came from the other side, whispers that became clearer and clearer the closer he got.

Whispers that had told him to lift the veil, and to stare straight into the heart of time.

And once he had recalled this, he remembered the rest of his other life as well: being with Lily, working for the Order, defeating Voldemort. It all came back to him in a heartbeat, yet his memories of an entirely different life remained in his mind as well.

"Never do that to me again!" said Lily. Her heartbeat began to steady once she saw that Severus was all right, but she was still mad at him for scaring her. "You were just standing there way too close to the archway, and the next thing I knew you were knocked out cold on the floor. I thought you were dead!"

"Lily, I remember."

He sat up and touched her face. It felt strange; he remembered being this close to her many times before, yet this also felt new. And Lily, she looked different – more mature, and more beautiful – but also exactly as he remembered. It was as though he was looking at her through two sets of eyes.

"I remember everything," Severus continued, and stared deep into her green eyes.

She saw something in his gaze that took her back beyond time and space. A minimal change, naked to anyone else but her, but she recognized it all the same.

"No," said Lily, shaking her head in disbelief. He found her hand and took it in his.

"I promised I would come back to you," he said. In his voice, Lily could hear the echo of the last words the other Severus had ever said to her.

That did it. Something she had kept contained for years and years bursted inside of her, and she felt like her heart was bleeding. She gave a soft gasp, and then she crashed against him and started weeping like a child.

He held her close and stroked her back with his hand – with his strong, young hand. Half of him felt like ten years of physical decay had just been removed from his body.

"Why would you do something like that?" Lily asked against his neck. She was still holding him tight, as if she as afraid that he would slip back into oblivion if she let go.

"I had to," he replied. "I had to become him."

"But why?"

"Because I didn't know how else to help you," he replied. He got up on his feet and pulled her up. "You said that you think you're damaged because of what you did to Dumbledore, too damaged for me to understand you. Now I know, because I killed him as well. We're both just as damaged now. That means you're not alone in this anymore."

Lily gaped at him, unable to choose between the many emotions that fought over her heart. She had missed the other Severus so much, and never in her life would she have believed that she'd be able to see him again. Yet, she loved thia Severus with all of her heart as well, and she was glad that he had never been forced to suffer the things the other Severus had suffered. But now that had changed.

"You – you didn't have to do that," she said and leaned against his chest, fearing that she might pass out if she didn't held on to him. "I never meant that... Sev, all I've ever wanted is for you to be happy."

"And I can't be happy if you're not happy," Severus replied.

Lily swallowed a sob. Once again, Severus had sacrificed so much for her, and she had so little to give to him in return.

"I've been trying, but I can't!" she cried out. "It's too hard! How can I be happy when I know that I'm not good enough to deserve it? Sev, I've been wanting to do the right thing, but I end up getting it wrong every time!"

He took her face between his hands.

"There isn't such thing as a right thing to do," he said. "And we are not good. We have never been good, and we never will be. But we can always strive to be better."

She stared at him, unsure of the meaning of his words. Still, something in his eyes compelled her to let go of the guilt and the regret she had been holding on to and to fall into his open arms. Severus had done impossible things just to be there for her. The least she could do was to make sure that he had not done it in vain.

Her arm was hurting again. Absently, she reached down to scratch the scar, but Severus grabbed her by the hand before she got there.

"Lily, I know that life is pain. I've felt it. But the pain – it's not all there is. We also this – us, what we feel for each other, what we can be together. It's worth living for, even when it hurts. You have got to come back to me."

There was quiet desperation in his voice, and she suddenly realized that he really did need her just as much as she needed him.

She meant to tell him yes, but found herself leaning in and kissing him instead.

Lily's lips felt like home, yet the sensation was also unfamiliar to Severus. One side of him had kissed her for the first time only moments before his death. That part of him felt electrified, and it could hardly believe that he was really here with her after so many years of tragedy and hopelessness.

Lily tasted it all in his kiss, and she could not help but think about the word Dumbledore had used, ananke. Her and Severus being together after all the trials they had had – it did not feel like it had happened by chance, or because destiny had dictated it. It felt like necessity, as if the history of the world had been torn and rewritten just to make room for them – because this needed to happen.

And yet, she did not believe that it was so. She didn't believe in Dumbledore's vision of a world governed by rules and order and things that simply were to be. She did not want it. She wanted to live in chaos, in a world that was in a constant state of flux, full of accidents and incidents and freedom and choices that anyone could make. She wanted an universe that could always be disturbed. Because if there was never room for change, how could things ever get any better?

In time, Severus broke the kiss, but he kept his forehead pressed against hers.

"We should get out of here before anyone catches us. Let's go home," he said, and he nearly lost his mind when he thought about all the things he wanted to do once they'd get there.

"Yes," Lily replied, although the impatient side of her was ready to tear off his clothes and do dirty things with him right then and there even if it meant running the risk of getting arrested. For weeks, her desire for him had been buried under many layers of sadness, but now it was suddenly back, burning so bright and hot that she feared it would leave her scorched.

They walked towards the exit, hand in hand, until she realized that there was something they had forgotten.

"Wait, what about the archway? We still haven't decided what to do with it. Are we going to use it, destroy it, or leave it be?"

"I don't know," said Severus. "I came here because of you, not because of it."

"Well, we're here all the same. We have to make a choice."

They stared at the archway, and they both felt like it was staring right back at them, daring them to do the right thing.

The End

A/N: Holy shitballs, I can't believe I actually finished this. Considering how absurdly long I've been writing this story, I suppose I should say a few words now that we've finally gotten here.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank you all for reading this story. Writing is fun, but telling stories is better, and I couldn't have told this one without having someone to tell it to. Seriously, you could have done anything with the time you've put into reading this silly little fanfic, and it means a lot to me that you've chosen to stick around. So, thanks to all of my avid reviewers, loyal lurkers, and persistent hate-readers – you're the reason I never dropped this story even though I often didn't have time for it. Also, special deluxe thanks to all of you who have taken the time to write lengthy reviews for multiple chapters. I've had so much fun reading your reflections and speculations.

I originally thought about ending this story with some long, self-indulgent afterword about the themes, history, and the influences of this story, but now that I'm here, it seems wholly unnecessary. Make of this story what you will and feel free to stick with your own conclusions without my intrusive authorial input – it's way more fun that way. And for what it's worth, let's just say that for me this story has been an excellent exercise in writing and storytelling and language (though it's primary function will always be "shameless, subversive Severus Snape melodrama for the needy fangirl, by the needy fangirl") . I've learned a lot from it, and I've learned a lot from you.