The courtroom was cold and the benches were painfully hard. Severus supposed that the last thing they wanted the accused to feel was 'comfortable,' but given the swarming Dementors about him, such attention to detail regarding the furniture was hardly necessary.

He had been waiting for a very long time, it seemed, to discover his fate according to the Wizengamot. Severus supposed he should care, or at the very least have a vested interest in the matter. As it was, however, all he felt was numbness; the world without Lily was chill grey and desolate, and it seemed to matter little whether he were condemned to observe it from the interior of a genuine prison, or a school that would serve much the same purpose.

He watched dispassionately as many of his former colleagues were marched away, some shrieking, some cursing, some sobbing. Indeed, it was striking how many 'fearless' Death Eaters broke down into tears when stripped of their mask and their Master; the poor creatures had never felt self-worth without such things.

Neither had Severus, of course. The difference, however, lay in the fact that he had never been gullible enough to believe that he was anything to the Dark Lord but a tool, just like all the others. Brewing for Voldemort had been a better job than anyone else would have given him straight from school, and he had managed to be carefully blind and deaf to the consequences.

Such self-delusions had been ripped like flesh from bone at the loss of Lily. The horror of his involvement was writ large across every waking moment.

"Call Severus Snape."

He stiffened as his case was finally announced, but it was born of instinct, not real apprehension. Truly, Severus thought once more, it didn't matter what the court were to decide; he would reside within his own personal Azkaban in either case.

Life at Hogwarts was different as a Professor than as a student, and Severus considered that, at least, a minor blessing. His own schooldays had been marred by bullying on all sides; the hateful Gryffindors, the teachers who considered him beneath their notice no matter how hard he studied, and the gilded Lucius Malfoy who made Severus bend over at nighttimes for his own personal use.

Not that he was popular with his colleagues as a professor - indeed, quite the opposite. A heavy cloud of distrust seemed to follow him about the corridors; mutterings accompanied him as he passed; an artificial silence befell the staffroom should he make the mistake of going there to fetch coffee.

"Just because Albus likes him, it doesn't mean the rest of us should."

"Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater."

"I wouldn't trust him as far as I could hex him."

Severus was sure he didn't care, of course. He had seen, endured and, for Heaven's sake been responsible for far worse than any of that, and held no illusions of being liked or of making friends. The mere facts that he was able to enter and leave the buildings as he pleased, and shut the door of his rooms to the world was blessing enough.

Of an evening, he would sometimes scrawl across a pile of essays as he must, venting frustrations in red ink and harsh words that belonged to people other than their adolescent recipients. The marking quill still felt heavy in his hand; Severus had never imagined taking stolid responsibility for others, and the thought that he should be a role model for these young wizards was frankly laughable. Indeed, while he sat gawkily at his desk, it was all too easy to forget that he was correcting essays, not still trying to write one. He felt far too young to be retired in that old castle. Even though he had witnessed greater horrors than most men see in two centuries ripe with life, he oft wondered when the sorry little existence of one Severus Snape was actually going to start.

More often, however, when there was not so much work to do or the firewhisky bottle called too loudly, he would mutely sit, alone and hollow as the hours ticked by and the ice in his glass rattled with his shaking hand. The spectre of Lily loomed large - Lily suffering, Lily gone, Lily dead - and sometimes, sometimes, Severus could numb himself enough to bear it, if only until morning when his head pounded and the sickness that had nothing to do with a hangover dawned clear.

Amongst it all, he neither sought nor invited the company of others, but living under one large roof with so many people and creatures never quite afforded him the solitude he craved. The Headmaster did not allow him to languish as thoroughly as he might have - there were always invitations to tea with their accessory innocuous and not-so-innocuous chats - but whether these were from lingering suspicion or a genuine concern for his welfare, Severus could not tell. One never could with Dumbledore.

As time wore on, and that first peculiar term threatened Spring, the other professors remained either aloof or hostile. Minerva McGonagall still regarded him as one might a wounded creature that should be put out of its misery; a mixture of pity and disgust on her taut features. Aurora Sinistra was the ringleader for the rest; an elegant woman well-versed in catty remarks and the knack of making someone feel unwanted; she must have been a delight to share a dormitory with, Severus was sure. Even Hagrid gave him a wide berth, a worried look on his slow features whenever Severus was present, as if he feared his immediate demise in a flash of green.

'The Death Eater' was clearly destined to remain persona non grata in the eyes of Hogwarts' great and good - and to be frank, thought Severus, who could blame them all?

All save one, that is. Filius Flitwick - the Charms professor of indeterminate age and minuscule stature whose natty dress sense rivaled even Dumbledore's, and whose eyes didn't so much twinkle, but danced with barely-contained pleasure in the world and all its eccentricities. In Severus' school days, Flitwick was one of the few Professors to mark his work fairly, and treat him as a student like any other - even when he was a hair's breadth from becoming a Death Eater.

He had never had cause to resent Flitwick - and that, coming from Severus, was practically a compliment. The man had been a competent and engaging teacher, even though Severus' own talents in Charms had been unremarkable. He was also clearly a powerful wizard - one who often hid his talents under the bushel of silly ornamental spells and frivolities, but powerful none-the-less, and if there was one thing that Severus could recognize, it was power. Indeed, the greatest triumphs and mistakes of his sordid young life had stemmed from that moth-like tendency to the powerful, continuing until he was badly burned, or until the light itself went out.

Not much danger seemed to present itself in the form of Filius Flitwick, however. Wreathed in smiles and bonhomie, his enthusiasm for everything from the Goblin Rebellion of 1492 to today's flavour of biscuits was infectious, and no-one was left out of these cheerful observations. Indeed, Severus began to imagine the man one feather short of a wand given his incessant encouraging smiles and cheerful greetings in his own direction, blithely in the face of the cold front expressed by all their other colleagues.

Whereas most of the teachers would ignore Severus, Flitwick would make a point of wishing him, 'good day.' When the others would remain pointedly silent during his address at staff meetings, the Charms Professor would commend his work. Whereas the norm was to feign busyness should Severus make himself a drink, Filius would settle beside him, offering a novel ingredient for a cocktail of which Severus had never heard, and cajoling until he had tried at least a drop.

It was uncommon, peculiar - even unsettling - but yet Severus couldn't quite bring himself to repel such pleasantries. He knew next-to-nothing about that small, talented man, but he was well-enough informed to realize that it was probably nothing to do with the Order; duelling-champion he may be, but Filius was not one of Albus' spies. No, even a mind as suspicious as Severus' could not discern the ulterior motive behind such warm behaviour, and perhaps that - the sheer contrariness of it - made him acquiesce from time to time to such overtures of friendship.

Further, Severus found his capacity for ire had diminished of late. Any sense of joy in the world had perished with Lily, as had much of his fire and spleen. All was numb, all was grey. A lifetime of nos were difficult to propagate, and Severus sometimes found himself saying "yes," just because he was tired and it seemed easier.

And so it was that Severus found himself in Filius' sitting room one evening, nestled into a feather-soft armchair with an umbrellaed hi-ball of cherry liqueur in one hand and his wand in the other.

"Go on Severus, try it again!"

"It's hopeless." The messy scene of squashed fruit on his side of the table told its own story. "I said I don't have the knack for-"

"-Rubbish! Just swish and flick and think of something nice." Filius demonstrated once more, causing a little parade of cherry-people to meander across the table, doing somersaults. A sprightly fire danced in the grate, warm against the sleet that was lashing the windows outside, and it lit up Filius' unbridled joy in simple pleasures with the sort of glow that is usually reserved for antique Christmas cards. The cherry-people formed a pyramid on the rim of a glass, leapt off in formation, then took a bow. "This sort of thing's great value at a party!"

"I also told you I don't like parties." That came out more sharply than even Severus had intended.

Filius stopped short, then regarded him squarely, his kind face tinged with sadness. "I do understand, you know, Severus. No-one would talk to me either, when I had just been released from Azkaban."

A silence befell the cosy chamber, and Severus stopped very still. Surely Filius was jesting. "When you had...?"

"-Just been released from Azkaban. Yes." He chuckled. "I don't suppose you'd ever guess that, to look at me now."

Severus regarded his colleague, sugary drink in hand and benign smile upon his lips. "No, I suppose not." That seemed to be the only possible response. Nevertheless, his curiosity was piqued. "May I ask what exactly...?"

"Oh yes, of course!" Filius grinned and moved forward in his chair, as if about to tell someone a charming bedtime story. "It was all Charms-related. And to be frank, I wasn't even considering hurting anybody... it was just that Xenophilius and I had so many good ideas and it was so difficult not to experiment. But oh, listen to me, I'm telling it all backwards!" He chuckled again and poured himself another drink. "We were dabbling in magic that the authorities considered too dangerous to be allowed - of our own devising, of course. We worked very well as a team, as it happens. He came up with all the crazy ideas in the first place - absolutely barking, to tell the truth, and the dear chap still is - but I had the eye to refine the better ones into spells that would actually work. We ended up making something that was pretty dicey, almost by accident, and therein lay the problem. We were actually trying to create a time-turning charm - still haven't cracked that one, I'm sad to say - but it turned out to be a spell that probes that most delicate area somewhere between life and death. If the corporeal and the non-corporeal are separated for too long, well... you can imagine."

"So you killed someone?" Severus asked, more rapt than he would have liked to have been.

"Not to my knowledge," Filius replied, seeming to muse, "But we could have, very easily."

"And how long were you..."

"In chokey? Just a year, I'm relieved to say. I'm not sure I could have stood much longer than that."

"No..." Severus hadn't meant for that to have sounded as blunt as it came out, but honestly, he was surprised that the little man had lasted a day. "Sorry, I mean..."

"Not at all!" said Filius, smiling and waving a hand, "I can see exactly what you mean. But luckily enough, most of the other inmates didn't know any wandless magic, so what I lacked in brute strength I was able to make up for in hexes. How do you think I learned to duel?"

"Oh." That certainly put his companion into a different light, thought Severus. "And the Dementors?"

"Ghastly. Absolutely ghastly." Filius shuddered, almost spilling his cocktail. "Again, I was thankful for everything I was able to do without a wand. Sometimes it took twenty cheering charms a day just to stay in one piece."

"I can imagine." And he really could. The threat of being sent to that place had pressed upon Severus all-too-closely of late. He supposed it always would.

"But yes, as I was saying, when I came out, no-one would have anything to do with me. All my old friends - poof! Wouldn't say a word, wouldn't come and visit; all gone. I was an utter pariah, and to be honest that made more unhappy even than I had ever been inside the awful place. Had reached a very low ebb, indeed. Might even have ended it all. But luckily, along came Albus, and the rest, they say, is history!"

Severus laughed out loud at that, despite himself. "So you're one of his waifs and strays, too?"

"Doubtlessly so, dear friend, and all the better for it." Filius smiled his calm smile and then drained the rest of his drink. "Would you like another?"

As the months wore on and even the recalcitrant Scottish climate was forced to accept that it might be nearing summer, Severus was honestly surprised by how much time he seemed to have been spending in Filius' company - and even more staggered by the realization the he didn't find that fact totally objectionable.

The chap was interesting, it was true, and although his cheery nature was the antithesis to Severus' own, he did at least have the sensitivity to moderate his smiles and chuckles as the occasion demanded. He was clever; well-versed in runes and astronomy and magical history as well as in charms, and generous with his understanding. Severus had learned much from their conversations, even though it had never felt like a lesson. He was also pleased to note that Filius deferred to his superior knowledge of potions and the shadier forms of magic... although truth be told, neither party particularly wished to dwell on Dark topics.

Sometimes they took tea together; sometimes they shared dinner in Filius' rooms away from the hubbub of the Great Hall. Almost always there would be things to say, and Severus found himself even volunteering a snippet or two - a lesson that had gone spectacularly wrong, an owl that splatted itself against his window that morning - and strangely enough he began to find that the bad things didn't seem quite as awful when they had been shared, and the things which, technically speaking, might be regarded as funny, even seemed slightly amusing.

Such notions swiftly disappeared when away from Filius, however. Around him, life in the castle continued as usual; the teenage spats and romances, the bustle of the staff and elves and even the ghosts. No one seemed to notice that Severus existed in his own personal limbo. There was no bustle, no motion in the world for Severus Snape, just days and days of blankness, and dreams of red hair mingled with blood and screams to disturb him at night that made him wake with chills and the desperate realization that it was too late.

When dawn came, Severus pushed all such things away; it was far better to feel nothing than to feel that.

It was after one particularly troubling night in June that Filius stopped him in the corridor - jovial as usual, and clearly making full use of the fact that most of the students were in Hogsmeade that bright Saturday morning. "Hello Severus. What a lovely day it is!"

Severus glanced about the corridors, registering the beams that danced upon the tiled flooring as if they might have been dangerous creatures. "I suppose some would think that."

Filius chuckled. "I daresay they would. Now, tell me - do you like music?"

That was certainly unexpected. Severus supposed he ought to say 'yes'. After all, who on earth didn't like music? Anti-social bastards, that's who, a small voice reminded him.

"Not particularly."

Filius smiled, undeterred. "Well, you obviously haven't heard the right kind then! Come with me."

"I really don't..."

"Hush. You might not have heard something like this before." He gave a cheery grin then beckoned forward.

That statement filled Severus with a sense of dread. It had been parroted at him by every shameless Muggleborn he had ever met who had made the mistake of thinking he would be enthusiastic about their particular variety of contemporary noise just because he wore black and washed his hair slightly less often than most. Wizard bands were no better, of course. The same crooning, twanging and yelling seemed to disease both magic and non-magic folk, so it was with very low expectations indeed that Severus allowed himself to be led up three floors and into the Head of Ravenclaw's office.

Filius scurried over to a device of some sort in the corner of the room and pulled a velvet cover from the top of it with flourish. "Voila!" he exclaimed, "My Victrola - modified, of course."

The object in question seemed to be some kind of old-fashioned Muggle music player. However, the part which must have originally housed the cassettes - or disks, or barrels, or whatever-they-were called - seemed to have been completely replaced by a reservoir for liquid with a tiny drip point at its bottom, not unlike an hour glass.

Severus looked at the machine skeptically. "And to what, exactly, are you intending to subject my hearing?"

"Bach. Perhaps a little Mozart, and but first-"

"-Mozart?" Severus recognized that name from somewhere long in his past. "Hang on, what are you doing with Muggle music?" The question sounded accusatory, and Severus supposed it was. Filius had never shown the slightest interest in Muggle goings-on to date, and it was generally assumed that anyone who had goblin-blood in their ancestry was as pure-blood as you can get... well, clearly not pure-blood, Severus corrected himself - but very firmly rooted in the magical world, nevertheless.

Filius chuckled like a fairy-collector whose best glow-worm trap had just yielded sparkle. "And that's exactly where you - and most others, for that matter - are wrong, my dear! Mozart was no more Muggle than you or I. Listen."

He hunted through a cupboard to the right of the Victrola and extracted a vial of glowing orange, its contents too viscous to be a potion. Filius poured the liquid into the top of the device, and a glutinous drop formed beneath the upper container. As it fell, the music began to play.

It gathered volume as the next drop widened but remained serene. Sceptical as he had been, Severus was forced to admit that this recording was nowhere near as bad as the sort of noise he had expected, and the slight smirk on Filius' lips seemed to register his lack of complaint. The melody soared and gathered pace, harmonies swelling. and as it did so, Severus was visited by the distinct impression of familiarity, as if he might have heard this strange music somewhere before.

"So, have you worked it out, yet?" asked Filius.

"Worked what out?" That came out snappishly, but he didn't take well to being set puzzles that he couldn't immediately see his way through.

"What he's up to!" Undeterred, Filius gestured at the Victrola. "It might help to know that he titled this one, `A Little Night Music.'"

Severus creased his brow in concentration. Irritating as it might have been, his pride would not be outwitted by some daft old recitation machine. He certainly couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity - more so in some passages than others it was true - but was sure that he had never had reason to happen across `Mozart' before in his life....

And then - hang on a moment! - wasn't that the sonic symbol for the moon? Closely followed by ...yes - the pattern of tones traditionally used to represent the stars.

Severus snorted as it all became clear - the higher instruments were painting the setting of a night sky while the lower ones chimed wove in and out with a handful of typical cantations for `calm,' `peace' and `wistfulness.' "What a hack!"

Filius' smirk blossomed into a broad grin. "Yes he is, - but effective, no? It's amazing how well the formulae work together when taken out of an academic context. Of course, it's a bit like using arithmancic symbols to decorate your wallpaper, but he certainly had the Muggles fooled - they'd never heard anything like it."

Severus considered. "That may well be so. But what a lot of trouble to go to, just to entertain Muggles."

"Ah. Well, he didn't have much choice. Old Mozart was in fact a runes specialist who had an unfortunate run-in with the authorities. Not dangerous enough to be sent to Azkaban, mind, but his wand was snapped and he was exiled to live as a Muggle for twenty-odd years. He managed to keep the werewolf-from-the-door by confuddling a family who'd had some sort of musical child prodigy to take him as their own, and then by cranking out page after page of sonic runes that pulled at the Muggle heartstrings in ways so affecting and evocative they found it almost magical.When the sentence was over, he bought a new wand, faked a tragic and untimely death for himself and went back to live Diggory Littleton with his wife and twenty-seven cats."

"I am at least impressed by his lateral thinking," Severus allowed.

Filius rummaged in his cupboard and changed the orange liquid for something blue. Severus was listening out for tricks this time, and it didn't take him long to notice the particular patterns of intervals in which the melody climbed: "Well that's just the Merlin Series, isn't it?"

"Yes - but when juxtaposed with the Sorcerer's Sequence in the bass it makes quite an effective ditty, don't you think?" He waved at the Victrola again. "This is Bach: his `Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' to be precise. He was an arithmancer - German again - who managed to pass off the standard magical numerical patterns as an amazingly innovative tuning system to the Muggles, then used those very same principals to write harmonic, rhythmic and bar-number patterns that keep the poor dears entranced to this very day."

"So, another charlatan."

"I suppose it depends how you look at it," Filius mused, "He wasn't doing anyone any harm, and the Muggles tend to think they're much better with it than without it. This, however-" He busied in the cupboard for a third time, "-is something rather different."

Severus prepared himself to be nonplussed once again by whatever type of trickery someone else had seen fit to employ. The glutinous drops of purple swelled and fell, and then slowly, slowly, sounds began to weave their course to his ears, hesitant at first but gathering force until Severus found himself rapt and blinking. He had never heard music such as that before. He knew not the name of the instrument that played nor anything about the piece or composer. He simply understood that it was - and Severus did not use this word lightly - it was beautiful.

The melody did not follow a tune, per se. Rather it meandered with purpose, reaching sinuously toward the listener as might a cat winding about it's owner's legs, or a snake appraising it's next meal.

No, not a snake, Severus corrected himself. There was nothing sinister about these sounds, despite their intensity; something dark and sticky and delightful, but not vindictive.

After a long pause in which he merely listened, Severus found his tongue once more. "And what is...?"

Filius shrugged. "Oh, never mind that." He then turned a knob on the Victrola causing the music to fade - slowly, but it's course to extinction was clear. Severus had mind to protest, but instead watched intrigued as Filius produced yet another item from his cupboard of music: a sort of instrument which bore resemblance to a violin, but sporting a number of bells and buttons along it's gleaming sides. With a wink, he lifted it beneath his chin and took a bow - flush with unicorn-hair - to the nearest string, then closed his eyes and began to play.

Nimble fingers danced along the instrument, sounds blending seamlessly with those of the recording and swelling higher as the Victrola dimmed. Any beauty that was present in the recorded version was magnified tenfold by such accomplished performance. Truly, Severus was captivated.

He stood dumbly for what might have been hours; watching, listening, as the music keened and soared and Filius played as if the strings and bow were a natural extension of his very hands. There was a rawness, a passion to the sounds, as if they carried some wordless truth that bled from the heart of another and came to nestle in his own. Severus found his breath caught, and his better sense seized by a feeling that he could not name, such was its novelty. He studied Filius closely; the grace with which he moved, the spirited concentration upon his features - and he was struck by the idea that not only was Filius a handsome man, he had been a fool for never having seen that before.

All to abruptly, the music stopped. Severus started as he was transported back to an office on a Saturday morning in June; his mind had been luxuriating somewhere quite apart.

Filius smiled, a tad apologetically. "That's all I have, I'm afraid."

"So what was-"

"-Oh, never mind that." Another smile, perhaps a little too bright; too rapid. "Well, thank you very much, Severus, for coming to see my little collection. It is terribly nice to have people to share these things with, isn't it? But - oh gosh!" A glance at the wall-clock. "I think the little terrors are going to be back any moment, so you better go back to Slytherin, I suppose."

Severus was still preoccupied; it took him much longer than usual to register the clock and the time. "Yes, I suppose I should."

"But will you have supper with me next Friday?"

"I can see no reason why not."

"Excellent!" Filius beamed on as Severus finally gathered his wits and urged himself in the direction of the door. "I'll look forward to it."

The days following that Saturday accosted Severus with appalling violence.

Nightmares spilled into waking time and he could do nothing to stop them; numbness, which had been his refuge, had vanished. He felt haunted by everything at once; the guilt, the grief, the pain. Everything was razor sharp. Sometimes, his chest felt so tight he could hardly inhale. Severus found himself merely sitting, quivering at the horror of it all as the clock ticked, and he wanted to cry or to scream but couldn't.

Lily - of course, it was all about Lily. Yet strangely - yes- very strangely - there was also a new element to Severus' suffering; a yearning for another, for someone to understand and listen and be his when he truly had nothing. For someone to want him without condition of his friends, or his magic, or his past. Severus thought it was all a foolery; a sick joke.

In those six days, Filius was little in evidence. There were passing greetings in the corridor or staff room, of course, but he always seemed to be rushing somewhere, professing insufficient time to talk. Severus realized quite how much he had come to expect Filius' company - enjoy it, even. The notion sat uncomfortably, but he couldn't deny its truth.

It was therefore a terribly worn, desperate Severus who presented himself at Filius' doorway at eight o' clock on Friday, purplish circles painted crudely under his eyes and face drawn white. Naturally, he sought to betray none of this, returning Filius' greeting smoothly, pressing himself to discuss the students, choking down the excellent dinner when it came. Indeed, the charade was holding well. Well, that is, until they retired to the sofa with wine and the conversation turned to matters more serious:

"My parents? I lost them both when I was about your age," Filius answered, swirling the last of his wine in goblin-crystal. "Rum business, indeed."

"What happened?"

Filius hesitated. "Oh, not something to tell now, Severus. I'm sure you won't want to hear-"

"-Because I'm the sort of person who killed them aren't I?" Severus looked away, shocked with what he had said, swallowing hard, hands beginning to twitch.

"No! I meant no such thing, it was just that..."

But Severus was no longer listening. "It's my fault she's dead. I killed her, as good as. I can't bear it, I wish I were dead and..." He never finished that sentence, as the twitching became a shaking that threatened to swallow his whole body. Every line of his face tore with anguish; he felt as if he would explode.

Filius edged closer on the sofa, extending a hand to Severus' shoulder, his voice soft. "Keep her with you always, but let the pain leave now."

The soft sounds filtered into Severus' brain. So kind, so smooth.

Madly, he turned and pressed his lips to Filius', eyes closed and screaming inside even as he did it; desperate, lovely, forbidden to the likes of him, but yet...

And then Filius pushed Severus gently away. "Hush, my dear."

Utter panic overcame Severus as his cheeks flushed and his hands quailed anew. What had he done? How stupid could he be? He had had one person he could possibly have called a friend, and now it was all ruined. He was hideous. Of course he was hideous, everyone knew that, even a tiny bachelor who he thought might have been his friend, but now- "I'm sorry," he blurted to the floor, "I'll understand you won't want to speak with me again and-"

"-Don't be silly!" interrupted Filius with more force than Severus had ever heard him use. The air sat heavily between them and silence drew on.

Finally, Filius let out a deep breath and took one of Severus' hands in both of his, bringing it chastely to his lips. "I like you very much indeed, my dear friend, and I'm honoured, I really am. In fact, it takes the better part of my self-restraint to say this, but - even though I'd like to have you in a second flat, it wouldn't be fair of me. You're grieving, Severus. You probably don't even realize it yourself, but it's only in the last week or so that you've allowed yourself that. I don't want to take advantage of you. I want to be here for you - and maybe, in a while, if you really do think there could be something between us, then I'd be over the moon. But give yourself time, first. That's all I ask."

Severus could do nothing but mutely listen, watching the scene as if it were playing out elsewhere, with another individual entirely as the subject addressed. When Filius had finished speaking and squeezed his hand before dropping it, he managed to nod and mutter something vaguely in agreement before taking himself away to the dungeons, more shocked and confused than he had ever believed possible.

The next day, Severus took himself far away from Hogwarts; to bleak moors that were both achingly familiar and so alien to the life he now led; to scruffy parks and riverbeds and hedgerows of his - of their - youth. Her ghost seemed to follow him there; bright, mocking, affectionate.

He roamed these places, remembering and aching, hidden by a disillusionment charm such that he could sit without interruption on a park bench; atop a hill. As he climbed up away from the village, the wind whipped his face, cold despite the season, and Severus allowed the remoteness to consume him - no-one to please, no-one to witness. He stood as a speck in the moors; the feeble beat of his own heart the only life he could note - and then finally, painfully, that terrible rigor mortis within him broke away. Severus Snape collapsed to his knees and wept.

He wept for the woman he loved - hot fiery tears - and wailed, just a little. He wept for himself, for his foolish mistakes, his arrogant pride. He wept for the future that he had denied himself and for life's promise that would never come his way. Severus wept for all these things and more, the strange Muggle wind carrying it away from wizarding ears and stinging his face as it smeared with grief and salt.

Much later, when the stars had long risen and he shivered with cold, Severus apparated back to Hogsmeade. Of course, nothing was better - but he did feel somehow different. That is, he felt perhaps human. The pain in his heart was real and raw - as opposed to the limp numbness that had beset him before, interposed with episodes so psychedelic and unhinging they had to be unnatural. He did not know whether such wounds could ever heal, but at least they felt as if they were real wounds.

It was several days more before he saw Filius again. The man went out of his way to be nice; to make Severus feel welcome and comfortable, and no-one mentioned what had happened before. It was almost pantomimic, Severus reflected, as he was being asked his opinion on hellebore in Sleeping Draught for the second time that week, and poured his third cocktail, but strangely enough he did not rebuff Filius' kindness with acerbic comments. For the first time, they spoke directly about Severus himself. Filius was careful never to pry, never to ask more than what Severus was about to give - and because of that, Severus surprised himself with how much he was willing to volunteer. There were some things he had never said aloud before - how he had loved his Muggle grandmother more than his wizarding one, but had been banned from seeing her past the age of eight lest he pick up 'funny ideas'; the time in fifth year when Lucius Malfoy had first invited him to a secret meeting and exactly how many potions he had developed at the Dark Lord's instruction.

It seemed that nothing could shock Filius. Of course, Severus had met others who displayed that very trait - but Albus was always calculating ahead, deciding how he might outsmart, and the Death Eaters took a perverse pleasure in being unruffled by any depravity that came their way. Filius however, seemed to press no agenda of his own. He was merely worldly enough to listen without blinking and knew that people behaved awfully as a general rule, but were still people, all the same. As Severus spoke he would sit calmly atop his cushions, arms crossed in thought and sipping at his drink, offering an encouraging remark or helpful question along the way. Severus had never felt so noticed.

Eventually, the students left, and summer wore on in much the same way. Those staff who had spouses and other homes left the castle, but many of Hogwarts' bachelors and spinsters stayed - including, of course, the Charms and Potions masters, who were both relieved to have a little more time to themselves when classes had stopped and there were no difficult children prowling the corridors.

In these days of relative peace, a shock became Severus one evening. It was by no means an exceptional evening; indeed it's very normalcy was the shock in itself. Severus had just finished playing a game of chess with Filius and was putting himself to bed, the tiny portrait of Lily on his bedside table as ever his sole companion and constant reminder of his woe. - Only, in that split second between taking off his socks and swinging his legs into bed against the chilly stone floor, Severus realized he didn't feel as desperately miserable as he was accustomed, or usually did, or perhaps rightly should. He felt... well, not happy exactly, but somehow lighter. The chess game had actually been fun. Just before pulling himself up on the matter, he had been thinking not about death and doom, but about the fact that he and Filius had planned to have a rematch at teatime the next day, and was considering taking along some liquorice cakes because he couldn't quite cope with the level of sugar contained in those of Filius' preference.

Had he any right to be thinking such things? A part of him felt immediately guilty. Severus Snape did not deserve enjoyment or frivolity.

Yet there was also another part of him - the part that had been taking the most notice of Filius, he supposed - that said Go on, for Merlin's sake! Stop being a limp lettuce.

Conflicted, Severus closed his eyes and hoped that things would be clearer by morning.

Naturally, they weren't, but Severus went to his chess game anyway - and won, as it happened. The liquorice cakes were good, too. So good, in fact, that he had to bat Filius away from his plate when their popularity became clear, and then parry for all he was worth when the man engaged various sneaky charms to try to levitate, disillusion and apparate them away from his grasp.

Unfortunately for Severus, however, he soon learned that there was no use in trying to match a Charms master. He was just dealing with a flock of sickeningly sweet bluebirds that had been called to chirrup about his shoulders when he saw his beloved cakes had grown little legs and were marching in an orderly fashion inches from Filius' plate.

"Oi, that's not fair!" he exclaimed,

- only to be met with a, "Really, dear boy?" as the sofa throw wound about his knees toppling his balance and Filius levitated somewhere near the lampshade with a mouthful of liquorice-flavour crumbs.

As he hit the floor with a well-cushioned thud, a bunny rabbit appeared from seemingly nowhere and kissed the end of his nose. "I'm sure that using wildlife is against the rules," Severus grumbled from his breathless, cakeless position on Filius' carpet.

Filius laughed as he floated down, and offered Severus one of his own cakes with a flourish. They were both smiling.

That very evening, Severus felt a sensation so alien to him of late that he took some moments to identify it as sexual desire. It bubbled within his blood, subtle at first, but quickly building to a throb beneath his skin that could not be ignored.

He slid his hand beneath the sheets, warm and dark and urgent, and his flesh awoke for seemingly the first time since the end of the war. As he stroked himself, the image in his mind was not of a pretty girl, or even a buxom woman. No, as his arousal grew, Severus' mind flooded with thoughts of...

...a small, neatly dressed man playing music that sang from his very soul, eyes closed in rapt concentration and elegant fingers gliding across the instrument like a lover's caress.

When he had completed, the thoughts of Filius did not go away, but softened: his cleverness, his laugh, his uproarious sense of humour. That crazy, needy kiss from months before that they had both done their very best to forget suddenly began to make sense, on his own part at least. Filius had said that he'd take Severus. It had been spoken in clear black and white, but had the man only been dissembling to be kind? How could anyone possibly want him, Severus Snape, if not just as a tool?

As he lay there, limp, sated and confused, Severus dared to wonder if it could ever be true.

Severus slept for far longer than he was accustomed the following morning, not surfacing until nearly noon, when shafts of light danced from the windows between the gaps between his bed-curtains. His dreams had been peaceful enough, but animated; fits and starts of activity and decision and travel that left him with no clear memory as to their narrative but a general sense of the need for dynamism.

In addition to this - or perhaps because of it - Severus found that his thoughts from the previous night had crystallized: he was sure that he liked Filius, as a friend and also as more. It was true that his approach those weeks before had been haphazard and borne of all sorts of stoppered emotions, but that didn't mean to say that it had been wrong. Now, although he was by no means finished with grief, he was able to know his own mind, and his mind told him that Filius Flitwick was exactly the sort of pleasant, interesting, attractive man in whom he should rightly be interested.

Severus told himself all of these things firmly as he strode about his quarters, trying to quell that wheedling voice that was mocking the very idea that he might be able to have a real relationship; that the idea of Severus Snape engaging in any sort of functional human interaction was ridiculous.

As the minutes ticked by, doubt lapped at his reason, threatening to erode the little confidence with which he had woken. He looked at himself in the mirror, then firmly wished he hadn't, grimacing at his own pallid reflection and hooked features. Cursing, Severus turned away and grabbed a quill and ink. He was going to take action; to put in train whatever he could before his better sense managed to persuade him that the whole idea was useless.

The very last thing he could stand, Severus knew, was months and months of waiting and watching and hinting. He had spent his entire adolescence hanging upon coy words, confusing signs and eyelash flutters that may or may not have been for him and it had eaten up his heart piece by piece until there had probably been nothing left to give even if she had decided she wanted it. No; this regard was solid and sensible and was going to be addressed in a forthright and adult fashion.

With that in mind, Severus scribbled a note, sent it off with his owl to a far turret and settled down anxiously to wait.

By the time a knock on the door arrived, Severus realized that he hadn't really thought through the idea of having a guest. Despite having lived in the castle for nearly a year, his sitting room had no useful furniture for more than one, and not even a convenient way to make multiple cups of tea. Indeed, the bare wooden surfaces and haphazardly placed boxes of books and potions ingredients were quite the opposite to Filius' warm, welcoming chamber, with its overstuffed sofas in pinstripe candy colours and filigree stands holding fondant fancies at an easy arm's stretch. Well, he sighed to himself as he opened the door, it would have to do.

"Hello, Severus," Filius beamed, "I got your note; shall I come in?"

"Err, yes. I mean, please do." He offered Filius his chair but was politely declined with a clever wave of the wand whereby Filius conjured himself a tall pile of cushions and hopped aboard.

"So what was it you wanted to ask me about? It sounded quite urgent."

"Um, yeah." He could do this, Severus told himself, he could do this. He took a deep breath and started somewhere that seemed logical. "Why-aren't-you-attached-to-anyone?" That came out much more harshly than he had planned - accusatory, even. Severus cringed inwardly.

Luckily, Filius knew how to handle the enquiry. "Oh, don't worry about me! I've had my fair share of fun over the years."

Pushing on: "Yes, but... now. What about now?" The words echoed clumsily around the wooden surfaces of his room. It sounded stupid; Severus knew he sounded stupid. This was probably the worst way to ask someone to commence intimate relations since Elgin the Elder sent a singing love letter by troll-post.

"After a certain number of pleasurable but frivolous acquaintances, such things seem less important, you know," replied Filius, still with equanimity, "It takes a special person to catch one's interest, then. Someone a little unusual."

A silence stretched on and Severus chewed the inside of his lip, clutching at things he could possibly say next. Finally, an idea twinkled at him, like a precious stone in the desert. Filius had looked so stunning when he played; that day with the violin... "That music you played - what exactly was it?"

"The music?" A pause. "Oh, that! The piece I played was just a regular composition-"

"-Ah, but by whom? And what was the trick in it?" At least they were talking now, he thought.

For the first time, however, Filius looked slightly less than comfortable. He fidgeted and looked down at his feet. "Not a well-known composer in the least. No-one, really."

"Ah, but who?"

"Oh all right!" Filius threw his hands into the air. "It was by me. But I swear there was no trick involved. It was just something I wrote as I heard it in my mind - no systems or series at all." He looked up at Severus, seeming to check for an unfavorable reaction. Of course, there was none, so Filius saw fit to push on. "I do admit to have been thinking about you while I wrote it, though. I've liked you for a long time, Severus."

"What?" That had not been part of the plan. Severus found himself doing a passable expression of one of his own clueless students.

"You needn't look so surprised! You're an attractive young man, and unlike the vast majority of young men, you have a brain to make more than five minutes of conversation worthwhile."

"But I'm... but I'm bad..." It sounded such a fatuous thing to say, but had passed his lips before his mind had granted permission.

"Poppycock to that!" countered Filius, even laughing. "I'm sure that the Headmaster would come up with some sort of clever phrase about choices and actions and intentions, but I simply say: balderdash and bollocks. A bad person would not bring me liquorice cakes, to start with." He held Severus' gaze firmly - so determined, in fact, that Severus felt something melt inside himself and couldn't stop a bubble of laughter from pulling at his own cheeks. "A far more sensible objection, I would rightly think, is why on earth a fine young man such as yourself would care about a daft old dwarf like-"

"-No!" Another pause. "I mean, don't say that. You're the best thing that's happened to me since I got here - or possibly ever, for that matter - and I'd really like it if we could, maybe-"

Severus never got the chance to say what-maybe-might-he'd-like-to-happen, however, as he was quietened by soft lips upon his own and an agile hand running through his hair. "Mmmmfff!" he said, staggered and delighted in equal measure. How on earth...?

His mind was awash with sensation and puzzlement - not to mention a generous slice of arousal. How wonderful it felt! Gingerly, Severus moved under Filius' touch, returning the kiss as it seemed was right. That earned him an encouraging sound from Filius, so he continued, eyes closed, and reached out a hesitant hand of his own. The whole thing was surprising and exquisitely lovely - not only because it showed that Filius really was interested in him, but doubly so, because it was the first time that Severus had really been kissed.

He had been buggered, of course - roughly and carelessly while Lucius pulled at his hair - and he had been required to administer oral services to a number of their cronies. He had trailed and mooned sufficiently to earn himself the odd indulgent peck on the cheek. He had never, however, been the recipient of a real, passionate kiss, full of promise and charm; a kiss that spelled that he - Severus Snape - was of interest to another person, not just for what use he could be to them, but for his own self.

The idea was dizzying, and when they broke apart, Severus' mind was whirling both from the enormity of what had happened as well as the lack of air.

"I hope that wasn't too forward of me," whispered Filius, still caressing his cheek.

"No. Now, I'm sure."

He's done it. It had actually happened! The cynical part of Severus' mind went to lick its wounds as he reveled in the fact that his hair-brained resolution had actually worked. And it had been... well, easy. No embarrassment, no gnawing rejection.

All of this was so distracting however, that Severus had failed to consider what might actually happen next. Therefore, when Fillius cocked his eye toward the bedroom and asked, "Shall we?" he was set adrift in a whole new sort of delightful panic.

Severus nodded, and then found himself sitting a little stiffly on the edge of his bed, glad that he'd bothered to straighten the sheets when he had got up. Filius was standing beside him, leaning in to more kisses and caresses, a hand straying to the buttons of Severus' robes, but pausing, first. "We don't have to, you know. Maybe another time?"

"No. I want to." Inexperienced he may have been, but Severus and a certain part of his anatomy were sure of that. Indeed, he was very rapidly revising his opinions about the nature and desirability of intimate contact, full stop. The problem, however, was thus: although he wasn't a virgin, Severus reflected that he might as well have been. Bending over for Lucius Malfoy in the Slytherin dormitory suddenly didn't seem to count; he had never experienced pleasure from relations with another person before, and he felt utterly at a loss regarding what he was supposed to do.

Luckily for him, Filius seemed happy to take the lead. "Then you just relax..."

Wordlessly, Filius cast a charm to send Severus floating backwards, reclining on a cloud of softness. He then bared inch by inch of Severus' pale chest, lavishing each new piece of skin with kisses and caresses until Severus was a tingling wreck, eyes squeezed shut and gasping. Pleased with his work, Filius started upon Severus' trousers, making short work of them with another charm and sending bolts of sensation through Severus' legs as his magical hands explored and stroked.

It was then that Filius worked a piece of magic so deliciously sinful it must have been notated only in the Restricted Section. Severus found himself without underwear and was being held and stroked by a million agile hands at once, a billion talented tongues lapping at him in a way that made his blood burn blue and his lungs neglect to inhale.

"Whatever charms you've been using on me," he gasped, "are certainly effective...."

Filius stopped short at that, and Severus felt both bereft at the loss of contact and strangely thankful for the brief respite. An amused - and rather smug - expression played across Filius' features. "I regret to inform you, my dear, that I haven't employed a spot of magic for at least the past fifteen minutes. That was all perfectly natural."

Oh, goodness. Severus did his best to muster a scowl at being outsmarted like that, but he was afraid it came out more akin to a whimper. It did, however, give him the courage to make a move of his own, and pulled at Filius' robes in an impatient manner. "Then come and join me."

Little further encouragement was needed, and before long, Severus made a mental note of how handsomely Filius was keeping beneath those filigree robes, and the fact that proportionately speaking, he was... spectacularly endowed! Which is to say, he was perfectly average.

Filius must have caught the direction of Severus' gaze. "Ah yes, at least there's one upside in having goblins in one's family tree."

"Really? Are they...?" That sent Severus' imagination to a place he had hoped it would never visit.

"Apparently so. Bloody enormous." Filius laughed. "But back to the matter at hand..."

They kissed again, and then Filius climbed atop and they stroked and bucked and rubbed and moaned, hardnesses aligned and eager. It took neither man long to reach that shining peak, at which point each clutched at the other, heads thrown back in glory and spines curved in glorious release.

Afterwards, Severus' vision was clouded for what seemed like minutes and his breathing remained ragged. That had been staggeringly more intense than any occasion on which he had ministered to himself, and he could barely move what with the whirl in his mind and the limpness in his limbs.

Fortunately, he found little need to do so. Filius had performed some sort of discreet magic to clean them both up, and he now found himself being held close, gentle kisses pressed to his cheek and jaw. His heart warmed with something amazingly close to happiness. "Thank you," he whispered, into Filius' flyway hair.

"No, my dear boy. Thank you."

What had started between them in the summer continued thus when the new students arrived in September, and happily wore on to the end of term.

Severus was reassured to find that actually, not too much changed. They still saw a lot of each other in the evenings and weekends, and talked and laughed and shared the major and minor events of the day - but as well as that, they made love and even slept together afterwards. It was surprising in its naturalness and Severus found it all the more amazing for that; none of the hand-wringing, soul-wringing trauma that he had vaguely assumed came as part of a relationship, but relaxed, pleasant, a balm to the heart.

They had settled into an easy pattern - some nights were spent in Severus' rooms, some in Filius', and some comfortably apart, where both men had plenty of things to do. Neither seemed to pine for more or for less; they were happy bachelors who so happened to also be together.

Although Filius denied any intervention, it also became apparent to Severus that the attitude of their other colleagues toward him had thawed considerably. There were no more cold silences in the staff-room, no more pointed remarks. At staff meetings, he even earned a modest round of applause after delivering subject reports, and people began to ask his opinion on various different matters. Perhaps he had simply served his time as an outcast and was becoming a fixture of the castle. Perhaps the wily McGonagall decided that she trusted Filius' judgement, even if she couldn't seem the attraction herself. Either way, thought Severus, it made life decidedly more equable.

At Christmas, they dined in the Great Hall as was traditional, but then quickly sneaked away to Filius' cosy rooms, bedecked in every glittering object and creature that one could imagine and more besides - in a way that Severus found both ridiculous and charming. He loved to see the pleasure that Filius found in the season and the festivities; his lover was even more excitable than usual, and for the first time in his entire life, some of that vicarious pleasure came to nestle home and softened Severus' own attitude to the celebrations.

Scooting through the front door, Filius dashed to the foot of his extraordinarily-large Christmas tree (especially charmed to extend it's tip through the open window without letting in the cold air). "For you, Severus." He extended a beautifully-wrapped parcel.

Severus accepted it, swallowing hard and trying not to dwell on the fact that this was the first Christmas present that he had been given for about a decade. His gift to Filius still nestled beneath the tree; he hoped that 'The Almanac of Useful Herbs for the Charms Specialist' would be thought appropriate.

Carefully, Severus pulled at the string to reveal, also, a book of some sort. However, upon closer inspection he saw it was not a book per se, but a musical manuscript, written by hand in neat filigree notes on finest Thestral parchment. He looked at Filius queryingly, only to meet an unusually bashful expression on his lover's face.

Unenlightened, Severus read the cover's inscription, "'The Dark-Eyed Wanderer, by Filius H. Flitwick'. Oh, is this..."

"The very same." Filius smiled, "I'm not sure it's very good, but you seemed to like it, so I thought... Well." He gestured at the book in Severus' hands. "The tune has words, too. Mercifully, you can't hear those in the violin version! I swear I'm no poet, but, what is it they say? 'Behind every piece of bad poetry is a well of genuine feeling,' or somesuch?"

"Indeed," said Severus, a little overwhelmed. He opened the copy and read the text that accompanied the uppermost line:

"'Oh, Dark-Eyed Wanderer,
You course across land and sea.
I have no lover, but,
I wonder if you might be he.
I see your ghost coming close,
And I wonder what you will be.
Dear Dark-Eyed Wanderer,
Why don't you wander forth to me?'"

Filius seemed to be able to stand no more; he broke into a fit of giggles. "I told you it was terrible! But maybe the music was better?"

Severus remembered how transfixed he had been by Filius' playing, the shivers that had coursed along every vertebra he owned. "Well, it certainly had the desired effect."

"Oh, tush. I just wanted to play it to you; being sentimental and all. I swear there was no funny-business involved. When I was writing the thing, I really did mean it, though - every word. Maybe there's a magic in the process that neither of us quite understands."

"Maybe so." Severus scooped Filius into an embrace. "I'll treasure it, Dark Magic or no."

That earned him a swat on the arm, but then an indulgent kiss. "I don't believe quite how lucky I am to have you, my dear." His tone then became more measured as they parted. "And you are happy, aren't you? With us, I mean; with things as they are?"

"With our situation?" Severus clarified.

"Yes. That is, you don't feel suffocated. Or the opposite, I suppose - inadequately committed to." Filius had a lightness in his voice, but Severus could also sense the strain beneath it. This must have been something that he had been intending to ask for some while.

Severus considered. There was no way he was going to risk losing another person dear to him by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time - and besides, meaningful communication had never been a strong point of his. Nevertheless, he did need to state his case. Taking a deep breath, he started, "I've never considered myself the sort of person who would do well in a particularly domestic scenario."

"Me neither," Filius concurred.

"So I confess to being quite content just as we are." Was that the right thing to say? He still felt a-flounder at this relationship business. Was asking to perpetuate the status quo a sure-fire way to wreck it all?

At that moment, however, Filius exhaled a relieved breath. "A gentlemen's agreement, then. Just like this - if I had my way, for keeps! - But in truth, for as long as we want?"

"Quite so. That sounds most satisfactory."

"You didn't strike me as the type to want to move in and choose curtains, anyway, Severus." He began to laugh at that, and was rewarded by a snort in response.

"If I had to live with your taste in interior decor, this agreement of ours might reach an end very quickly."

"There's nothing wrong with pink!" Filius protested, casting about his room for examples of tasteful objects in that very colour.

That earned him a withering look, closely followed by sour lips crushed to his own. "Definitely not pink."

And that, in a fair world, should have been that.

A thirty-five year old Severus Snape, however, was the first person to acknowledge that the world was anything but fair.

Much had changed with the passing of years: Severus had advanced from the confused wraith of yore to embrace middle-aged grumpiness with gusto; he had even manged to organize his quarters with shelves. Filius' hair had grown whiter and his choice of robes yet more showy. His poetry had even improved a smidgen - even though Severus would certainly not let him know that.

Severus had been made Head of Slytherin House and even managed to do a passable job of it. Observing the Head of Ravenclaw in action had taught him more than he would have liked to admit, and although Severus could never be truly warm or paternal to the dunderheads in his care, he extended more good sense and practical help to them than he would have imagined he was able. Like a fountain that was once completely dry but had since been filled with bright water, some of Filius' good sense and compassion seemed to overflow from him onto his young charges. It was novel indeed for Severus Snape to imagine himself a conduit for anything positive.

With Severus' encouragement, Filius wrote some more music. Nothing could quite match that first, extraordinary piece in Severus' estimation, but the work that followed was certainly jolly and serviceable - and besides, Severus recognized that he was quite possibly biased. The man had been ridiculously shy about it, but after sufficient persecution on Severus' part, Filius had agreed to ask the students whether any of them might be interested in forming a choir or an orchestra. The response had been little short of overwhelming; Severus had had difficulty maintaining his grim mien as he sat in the back row of the inaugural Hogwarts school concert, watching Filius on the podium glowing with pride so strongly the Charms master might have being emitting actual light. Oh, what it was to feel accepted.

As those hesitantly hopeful, interstitial years of rebuilding and coping and forming became the wizarding world, the understanding between Filius and Severus weathered and deepened. Indeed, it became so much a part of their lives Severus found it difficult to remember how he might have coped without Filius at his side and in his bed. Life abraded the rough edges of their match and any new crags and fissures that formed belonged to them both. Both were an institution within the institution; publicly, part of the furniture, privately a part of one another.

Severus never lost a sense of awe about the whole thing, though. However secure it seemed, Severus Snape could not learn to take being liked for granted. Filius was the family that he had never been given, the lover he could still seldom believe was really his. Filius said that Severus was the path he had not taken, but which had always called. They complimented each other - shady bright, sweetly sour, gushing inhibition - and it never seemed to pall.

As time pulled on, however, Severus could sense the world was turning once more to trouble. It was just personal at first: the arrival of Harry Potter at Hogwarts - but Severus found himself disquieted by emotions he had thought had long since passed. He didn't want to look at those ghostly green eyes, he didn't want his equilibrium - their equilibrium - upset. Thus, he fought it, tooth and nail, hating the boy, cursing all the sorry life he stood for... and nearly, very nearly, managed to keep their peace.

He discussed many things with his lover, but never that, and he was never asked. Filius was not only perfectly, even-handedly fair, but also a master at smoothing choppy waters. They agreed to disagree on the subject of the boy, and - remarkably - that was all it took.

The world at large, and Voldemort in particular, however, had other ideas. Severus may have seemed noble in obstructing Quirell and the ghastly secret he bore, but he did it as much for himself as for the world at large. Severus mused as to whether he was just a skulking Slytherin to the bone, or whether the nature of all bravery was, in fact, thus; self-interest dressed in fancy robes.

When the Dark Mark burned hot three years later, he had already reconciled himself to a double-life - or perhaps more accurately, a half-life. Severus had also, by that point, made a binding decision.

He had lost his first love by loving too jealously. Severus Snape might have had many faults, but he was sure he was not a fool; he refused to make the same mistake twice.

Therefore, as the world tipped once more into war and Severus was called upon to restart the perilous life of a spy, he shared a carefully calculated level of detail of the business with Filius: precisely nothing.

He kept Filius as much in the dark about his activities as any other resident of the castle. When he was summoned, he'd arrange an alibi. When he was injured, he'd heal his own wounds and make sure they did not go to bed together until nothing appeared amiss. When he was miserable he occluded, and did his best to seem no sourer than usual, blaming any residual bad mood on Longbottom and his cauldrons. If Filius were to hold no information of use to the Dark Lord, he would not be regarded a target.

Moreover, Severus knew his lover too well to believe that Filius would let him simply go on placing himself in danger for the cause on an almost daily basis. At the very least, he would want to help; would try to take half of the burden - and Severus would not see Filius put himself in danger; he simply would not allow it. Also, Filius would ask perfectly fair yet seemingly intractable questions about why he was doing all this to protect Harry Potter, Lily Evans' son. Severus feared such thoughts; they could only lead him to pain and loss of the steadiness they had built; could only undermine the one place he could go when he wanted to forget about all of the troubles.

Severus was a masterful deceiver, and managed to conduct this charade for almost two years. No-one knew save Albus, and for his many faults, the Headmaster was at least tight-lipped.

However, when Voldemort's reappearance became public and attacks occurred in the broad light of day, Severus came to realize that mere secrecy was insufficient. Each of his days was precarious; his life hung in the balance every time he was summoned and every time an Auror got too close. By extension, any person who was linked to him would be in almost as much danger as he was himself. Keeping their relationship customarily quiet was no real defence; too many people already knew for it to go underground without real change - and aside from that, Severus estimated that Filius would never agree to anything but standing solidly at his side, in any case.

He cared about Filius more deeply than he could put to words. Their years together had been more of a blessing than he could have imagined ever receiving, and when the time came he would do anything to protect that wonderful, kind, intellectual, eccentric man.

Anything.

Even break his heart.

It happened on a summer evening, hot and muggy and sickly brimming with midges. Albus had been injured long before and was leaving the castle so often he might as well have invited the curse to consume what was left of him, forthwith.

Filius knew that something was wrong that night; he'd been asking on and off for months in that gentle way of his, looking more concerned each time Severus had assured it was nothing and had gone back to his book. They had even made love - Severus tense and desperate, trying to commit each touch, each second to memory as he knew it would be the last.

Afterwards, he rolled away, rebuffing Filius' hands; shrinking from the arms in which he usually was held. He swallowed hard as his lined face pressed into the pillow, willing himself to gather the strength. Now. It must be now.

"Severus, darling," started Fililus, reaching out once more, "Please tell me what's the matter. I feel so worried for you, and-"

"-Go away, old man," He spun around and delivered a stinging slap to Filius' face, "I have no need of you."

A dreadful silence stretched between them. Severus willed his eyes to remain unreadable; cold as winter. Filius pressed one hand to the side of his face that was already blooming red, slack-jawed and eyes welling with tears that likely had nothing to do with the impact. Then, with an almighty crack he disappeared, leaving Severus with nothing but the silver tassled cord of his lover's favourite dressing gown and the knowledge that saving someone from death only hurt marginally less than watching them die.

The following day, Severus Snape killed Albus Dumbledore, and fled.

The year as Headmaster was excruciating in more ways than should be imaginable. Trapped in a pretense, bullied by a portrait and juggling razors, in a lifetime of ritual rejection Severus had never felt more isolated.

In many ways, it was not unlike that first awful term back at Hogwarts, shunned by all, respected by none - only this time there was no friendly, brilliant man to go against the crowd. Filius would not say a word unless he was forced to do so in his role as Professor, and even then it was as terse and clipped as one could imagine. He would not acknowledge Severus' presence; would not even meet his eyes. When Severus stole a glance he saw nothing but disappointment and sadness there; he had executed his own scheme too well.

As indications of battle began to form that creeping night, Severus felt almost as much relief as he felt dread. Whatever happened, it was going to be over.

He fought Minerva with the necessary skill, but regretting every blow against such a proud, fine woman. His resolution did not waver, however, as he did what he must.

- Did not waver, that is, until a cry that screamed of hurt so deep it was bleeding echoed from the stone corridor. "No! You'll do no more murder at Hogwarts!"

Filius charged toward him, wand wielded aloft and ready. The whole world seemed to slow down. He parried Minerva's blows automatically but could see nothing save Filius' dear face, contorted in anger and enmity. For the first and last time Filius then looked him in the eyes, and Severus saw pure rage, undisguised hatred where there had once been fondness.

A few more parries were all he could last. Oh, Filius! cried his heart, This monster before you - it isn't me...

Irrationally, Severus ran - away from a battle he could probably have won, but away from a lover who would have been his undoing. Later, he supposed it was useful for his cover that the Dark Lord had had an immediate use for him elsewhere - but at the moment he crashed through that window, bruised from stone and cut by shards of glass, nothing save evading the glare of the person he cared for most was on Severus' harrowed mind.

The battle proper passed in a blur of hexes and screams and crashes. Severus fought where he was obliged, of course, but for once the objectives of both of his masters coincided; he had to find the boy.

Desperately, Severus cast about for the youth who had to be told to die. He thought he knew Potter by then - knew his tactics, could guess his game - but he searched and searched until he was breathless with running and dizzy with ideas that had proved false. When the Dark Lord's summons came, burning deep into his marked flesh, Severus knew that he had failed.

The Shrieking Shack was as dilapidated as ever, and Voldemort's voice was low and dangerous. Severus did his best to escape, to be allowed back into the melée outside, but deep down he knew that it was useless; that sordid place had been greedy for his own squalid little life, and it still hungered. Nevertheless, when Voldemort's intention with the wand and the snake became clear, Severus was washed with despair. Not so much for his own sake, but for all that he had failed to achieve, the war that he had failed to end and for the lover whom would never know the truth.

Voldemort believed him the master of the Elder Wand, but,it's Draco, go after Draco! Those words would once have spilled forth from his tongue, but now they stuck in his craw, unpalatable, unsayable. It seemed that Severus Snape was not a bad man, after all - and somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he laughed at the irony: If he were to live now, he would deserve Filius' hate.

Death was grey, apparently, and clouded.

Severus had woken up very slowly, cracking his eyes open against the dull light and registering each minor ache and pain in his body as it made itself known. He now stood upright, detachedly amazed that he seemed whole and relatively well, despite it all. Self-sacrifice had redeemed a murder or two then, and assisted suicide clearly didn't count. A fortune could have been made he known that while still on earth, he thought wryly.

The grey fug extended in all directions without respite or feature, and Severus wondered whether all of the afterlife was going to be so thoroughly boring. Just as he thought that, however, something began to form in the middle-distance.

It was a structure - or perhaps many - formed of orderly horizontals. The sight lifted Severus' spirits, and he was also gratified to feel the swish of his customary black robes against his calves as he strode toward them. As he drew closer to the objects, he saw that they were not just in one clump, but present on all sides, and - yes! - they were bookshelves; ranks and ranks of bookshelves. Beneath his feet, the nondescript grey formed into a comforting wooden parquet floor, and dusky light fittings swung from dark wooden beams overhead.

Severus wondered whether the place was a giant bookshop, or perhaps an immense library. Neither, however, quite seemed to ring true. There were no desks, no tills, no discernible doors. Most strikingly, however, there were absolutely no people. Severus did not need to cast about to qualify this; he could feel that he was entirely alone. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that; relieved and glad and disappointed and unwanted all at once, came close.

Sighing, Severus reached out to the nearest shelf to take a book. The titles weren't quite clear from where he stood, but he had the feeling that one would appear when he was holding a volume; it seemed the afterlife didn't want to waste any of it's energy in conjuring details ahead of schedule.

He had barely weighed the thing in his hands, relieved that it was solid and did indeed feel book-like, when he was startled by a voice that came from directly behind him.

"A fine choice, I'm sure."

Severus whirled round - to see Filius, calmly smiling. - Only the vision wasn't quite Filius in his usual form. He shimmered, three-dimensional, but not quite corporeal, halloed by a soft blue glow.

"What on earth...?" Severus spluttered. "Did they kill you? But why...?" he waved vaguely toward Filius' transparency.

Still smiling, Filius spread his hands wide. "I decided I wanted your opinion on curtains, after all."

It was all too much to digest. Severus was so pleased to see Filius - especially a Filius who wasn't throwing curses at him - and he was fairly sure that had been a joke, but the whole situation was so surreal it was difficult to tell. "You wanted... I mean, why, really? Or how?"

"Calm down, my dear! We haven't much time." Taking a deep breath, Severus allowed himself to be subdued, and then Filius continued. "No, I'm not dead - or at least, I'm pretty sure I wasn't when I came here. I dusted off some of those old spells I told you about. A bit tricky to remember at first, but well - here I am, and they seem to be holding up." he pinched his forearm in demonstration.

Severus made the connection: the charms for which Filius had landed in Azkaban all those years before. "But won't you get in trouble again?"

At that, Filius actually laughed; a mellifluous, sweet sound that echoed between the bookcases and seemed to warm the greyness itself. Severus felt he could listen to that laugh forever. "Practically speaking: probably not. That is, in the direct aftermath of a battle no-one's going to be checking up on such things - particularly as we don't even have a Minister at the moment. And far more importantly: I couldn't care less! Not when I needed to find you." A long pause; glowing, tremulous. "I'm so, so sorry, Severus, for doubting you. For believing, even for a second that..." he sniffed, threatening to break into tears. "I wonder if you could ever forgive me? If maybe, in time, you might..."

Severus took all of that in with awe. How fortunate he felt, that Filius now understood, still cared. However, he could see an obvious problem. "But I'm... I'm dead. You can't-"

"-No, you're not," stated Filius, pulling himself firmly together. "That is, you will be in half an hour or so, according to the healers' best guess, but not quite yet."

Again, Severus took a moment to process that information. He then remembered his last moments, and was struck incongruously by the thought: "I must look a terrible sight."

"Not at your most handsome, I'll grant - but then again, only a few notches down from first thing on a Monday morning." Filius face creased again into smiles, and Severus couldn't stop his own from doing the same. When a calm settled once more, Filius continued. "But Severus, my dearest, listen. It's terribly selfish of me to come here. That hasn't stopped me from getting this far, of course, but I'd be an awful blighter not to mention the rest. If I just go away now, and the healers are right, in a few more minutes you'll go....on. And when you get there, she will be there too. Isn't that what you'd rather, after all these years?"

The question hung heavily between them. Severus closed his eyes for what felt like a very long time, and tried to examine his heart. After years of avoidance and equivocation it was time to tell himself the truth, and that was neither simple nor painless. Filius seemed to be holding his breath; the silence in that strange place pressed like a gale upon timber.

Finally, Severus began to speak. "Yes, it is true that I shall always love her - irrationally and fruitlessly, I now know, but I cannot deny it." Filius' face was ashen, but he nodded stoically, trying not to let his feelings show, edging away. "But..." - A flash of hope across those features, neither dared breathe - "But I... also find that I..." Severus' voice trailed to be almost inaudible, "love... you."

At that, Filius collapsed to the floor, sobs shaking his shoulders as tears flowed freely across his cheeks. For a moment, Severus was afraid that he had completely mis-spoken, but his fears were quelled when he saw that Filius was smiling more than he thought it was physically possible for a person to smile.

Born of his need for thoroughness, Severus added, "So, I'd like to come back with you." This was definitely not the time to trust anything to provenly poor communication skills, he felt.

From his position on the floor, Filius nodded, spraying tears sideways within his bluish aura. "Oh my darling..."

"But I still stick by green. For curtains, that is."

"Alright, green it is," agreed Filius between sniffs, "But only if set-off by a nice pink pinstripe." The serious business of interior furnishings seemed to help him regain his composure. Filius swallowed hard and appeared to collect himself as he stood.

"So, what exactly do I...?" Severus looked around again at the odd library, and the grey beyond.

Filius simply held out his hand. "'Dear Dark-Eyed Wanderer, Why don't you wander home, with me?'"

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