This Spiral Dance

Chapter 10 : A Meeting Of Minds

The plan was simple: Lily was supposed to take each morning for a week three sips of an elixir meant to awaken lost memories. The drinking of the elixir resulted in the irksome collateral effect of a continuous sense of déjà vu and a dream pattern embroiled in previously forgotten episodes of her past - some idle and harmless, like the place where she used to keep things she had lost; some not so much, like the scent of her mother's favourite perfume or the song Petunia used to sing when they were very young - while Harry continued his treatment unvaried. In that time, the Severus Snape hypothesis seemed to find confirmation in fact: her son showed random moments of lucidity when he was able to do normal things for a child of his age, like calling for his mother or eating on his own without being spoon-fed, indicating objects he wanted to see closer, running around a tree to scare squirrels away ... but eventually, without premonitory signs, he spaced out and went back to his apparent oblivion. Lily treasured all the same each one of those temporary miracles, although she had hoped evidence would have proved Severus wrong, rendering their situation simpler. It was a small consolation to state that the Potions Master looked no less sure of their future course of action. The redhead's current preparation was all functional to their next experiment.

Lily had studied Mind Arts with a discretely proficient interest during her hiding in Godric's Hollow - when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Nominated hunts your family down, and you know he happens to be a brilliant Legilimens, teaching yourself some Occlumency makes you, if not anything else, feel a bit safer and less likely to grow insane. Her natural tendency to detach from painful or uncomfortable emotions might have helped her to gain ground but she hadn't really had the time to acquire much practical experience. Still, that mental training had come in handy when she was been forced to close her depression in a box and channel her energies into taking care of her damaged child after that unfortunate Halloween, so she liked to think she was a decent Occlumens.

But today... today she would put that aside and allow a master Legilimens inside her mind. The concept made her uneasy - it felt somehow like a wrong, unnatural thing to do - and she tried to distract herself from what was to come by analyzing each and every detail of a portrait in Severus' private quarters. The Head of Slytherin sitting room was rather Spartan, but spacious and with a simple elegance which she had often appreciated whenever he had let her to invite herself in for a chess match. How could he content himself with the dusty modesty of his family house in Spinner's End after spending the majority of the year in such a comfortable environment? Maybe he lived there in Eileen's memory - Lily had not worked up the courage of asking what had become of her, but it seemed likely to suppose she had died sometime during the war, since no wizarding newspaper had reported her mortuary.

The painting the red-head was currently observing was one she particularly liked: a gate entwined with ivy and night-blooming jasmine, illuminated only by the cool moon's rays so that it was barely visible in the dark of the night, beyond which it was revealed a vast forest, large rocks covered with lichen. Robed in living foliage, vines and branches wreathing her head, a magnificent-looking woman stood aside, like if to offer silent guidance, with dark brown skin and luminous jade eyes, a horn on her head, squirrels and marmots walking at her feet and running between her legs. The small, vivacious mammals were, along the rustling tree branches, the only part of the portrait which moved, because the woman was VerAvna, personification of the divine essence of the Earth Element.

"I apologize for keeping you waiting. We can proceed now. "

Severus Snape stood behind her, unusually proper as he walked toward the fireplace and stoked the fire to new life. She moved to reach his side.

"How do we begin?"

"You can sit there -" Severus gruffly ordered, gesturing to the chair before the fireplace "- and ground yourself. The rest will come simply enough if you try pose the least resistance you are capable of. It will be instinctive to oppose my invasion at first, but I won't be attacking you or wringing memories from you. As soon you let me in, we will move throughout your mind at the same pace. My aim will be to reach deep enough into your subconscious to find those sounds and impressions your brain has registered while you were unconscious, the night of Halloween 1981 . It's very important you stay calm during the procedure and trust me. I will leave to you the full control to direct our exploration, so I won't see anything you aren't aware of or adverse to, but if you begin struggling when we are descending into depth, it would be agony. "

He would have benefited from a subscription on a how-to-be-encouraging course, but Lily refrained from commenting about it. Irony wouldn't put either of them at better ease. So she did as he had said and leaned back on her chair, breathing slow and deep until she became conscious of the air as it flowed in and out of her lungs, of the blood flowing through her veins, of the electric spark within each nerve as impulses skipped from synapse to synapse . All the time, her eyes were on the flames in the fireplace, blurred in a haze of red and orange entwining embers.

Fingers lifted her chin up and suddenly she was staring into two black empty eyes. Lily willed her rising heartbeat to slow down as a new, refreshing sensation slurred around the edges of her awareness, like a cool tide gently knocking on the door of her thoughts. She became acquainted with that familiar otherness pulling at her, learning to perceive it more distinctly. His mental walls were forged in murmuring, clear waters; powerful, deep undercurrents so cold than they brushed her tentatively probing mind in an icy caress. Her barriers were made of shadows - of a night so black than it became unfathomable, a silence so deep to be palpable.

It wasn't easy, but Lily 's opposition caved in and they allowed their barricades to dissolve completely simultaneously; their minds rushed inside each other within the same breath.

As wide rivers slipped through her black skies, she sensed their mutual surprise at how well those two images fitted against each other. Waves of controlled power lulled her and then Lily melted into the water that surrounded her, somehow certain that she wouldn't drown: suddenly Severus was everywhere - in and out of her, she could feel him better than she had felt anything in her life - and in the same way, she was anywhere inside and out of him. Part of him as much he was part of her. The heat which invaded her at once so fully was not physical but internal and fulfilling. It followed a rush of satisfaction so very profound than it shaded to pleasure; it was alike the sexual release of orgasm, without the frenzy of physical desire.

She felt all what he felt, all what he thought, and yet there was a boundary, an indefinite, undistinguishable line where he began and she ended...it was an inimitable, incomparable splendour of being. The river widened into a foaming sea - which was no longer cold, but it had turned quiet and silent, on a fashion reminiscent of the focal images of her Occlumency - where Lily floated freely, soothingly.

Lily?

The sound of her name came to her within a liquid caress, like a tide of the someone else's thoughts sweetly lapping to her etheric body.

Merlin, Sev how could you have forgotten to mention that it would feel so bloody good?

She sensed her voice wrapping around him in a whisper of illusory air - it was amazing - and then his embarrassment rippled on the water surface like a darker, shivery undercurrent.

I didn't know. My experience with this course of action was purely theoretic.

Well, I dare to say we are doing it all right so far - she added, because she couldn't imagine anything so damn perfect could ever be wrong, naïve as it was - so what now?

Now we begin the descent. -Severus instructed her, any hesitance forgotten - Follow me, sink into the well of the inner mind, below consciousness.

So she followed him, allowing him to guide her beneath, giving in to the pressure he exercised on her as if he were the pull of the gravity which pressed her to spiral downwards. Her memories were a wild windstorm cutting through them, hampering their journey, but Severus anchored her to him, stopped her from grabbing a hold of those inconclusive, vacuous images of past so she wouldn't be lost within any of them. His purposefulness seemed to waver only when they began facing mementos and fragments of summers a long time gone. The mirage of the childhood they had shared tempted him, and Lily became aware of how ashamed he was for wanting to reach out and relive those snapshots of merrier days.

That was the happiest time of my life as well. - she reassured him eagerly, enough surprised of how disbelieving he was of her confession to endorse an explanation - I guess it's far simpler to enjoy life when you are a kid and the world looks so full of promise, rather than a gigantic rat-trap waiting to take you in.

She had barely the chance to taste his bemusement to that, before he propelled them both downward until, at last, they reached a dark, dry place where the very essence of them started burning, becoming one with a sort of vivifying, hearty fire.

Surprisingly, Lily didn't feel any fear: she felt safe and whole, even more intensely aware of Severus' presence inside her hidden, incandescent core.

This is the moment - he incited softly - come back to that night. Lean on me and will yourself to relive it. Slowly.

She focused her energies on looking back to that 1981 Halloween and went through again the events as they unfolded from a careful distance. This time around, it was as if that tragedy was happening to someone else and she was only a very attentive spectator. She saw again Harry in her arms and felt his face against her breast as she rocked him, she saw Bellatrix breaking into the room and attacking her, uncaring of maternal pleas, her face more grim but less terrible than it had looked to Lily then, in the throws of panic.

Lily saw herself falling, Harry still in her embrace. Her son didn't cry when she crumpled on the floor. Then her whole landscape of thought was filled by darkness and her numb - and yet at the same time so sharp - perceptions were pure sound. Screams bubbled up from the darkest depths of her conscious: a Crucio pronounced in fury again and again, the desperate wail of a baby, her baby. Then a silence disturbed only by the battle sounds from another room. There was Sirius' voice, yelling for James from far away, a warning to dodge something.

A woman voice - coming from a far minor distance - uttering, almost growling an incantation... it could only be Bellatrix Lestrange, made unrecognizable from that obscure litany. It was like a song, a ferocious lullaby whose cadence resulted threatening.

Focus on the words, not the rhythm. - came Severus' soft reproach, squeezing around her to remind her of his presence. She wasn't alone in this.

I can't. - she panicked.

This is your mind, Lily. The only limitations existing there are those you impose on yourself. You remember, you know you do.

His certainty squelched her doubt and without a clear awareness of how she came to do it, Lily obeyed him. Maybe this was the secret here: set your most rational self aside to let intuition do its bidding. Finally, she could distinguish the words Bellatrix Lestrange was using to weave her last curse:

"An di allaigh an di aigh

An di allaigh an di ne ullah

An di ullah be..."

It was a chant of evocation for power, in Gaelic maybe, murmured in a crescendo of anguish and hatred.

"I greet you, powerful Furies,

Daughters of the night, weavers of vengeance

Bless my fury by the wind which is your breath, by the earth that is your flesh and the fire that is your will and the water that is your living womb

An di allaigh an di aigh

An di allaigh an di ne ullah

An di ullah ne...

Harken the rhyme, break the chain.

Blue God nego

and my will be done! "

It makes no sense - Lily reasoned despairingly. - This is no curse. A joke of my imagination?

No - Severus placated her - there's meaning in what Bellatrix has chanted. Even if this curse is like nothing I've ever heard of.

Then how you do know I'm not fooling myself?

If I wasn't able to feel the difference, Lily, I would be a very poor Legilimens. Besides, the Blue God or Divine Self isn't an unfamiliar concept for those who have studied etheric anatomy.

Yes - Lily acquiesced, feeling more in control - I think I've read something about it in a book about Shamanism. There are supposed to be three Selves composing human Soul. The Child Self - who is like the Freudian Es, carnal and instinctual - and the Talking Self - rational and organizing like Freudian Ego - and then the God Self ... the higher part of our soul, our teardrop of divine essence. But it has little to do with curses and hexes.

Still, it's a theoretic model dearer to past wizarding generations than modern ones. It makes me wonder if Bellatrix has used Patrimonial Magic. Old families celebrate their sabbats privately, and every pureblood clan guards jealously its own spell-work to pass down solely to younger members. It's tradition for every initiated member to offer a spell or a curse of his or her creation to increase the group's power.

It was a little bit scary how much he sounded like a professor each time he tried to illustrate something he knew, but Lily just mentally nodded, remembering even James had tried to explain this custom to her once.

Then Sirius can't help. His mother had kicked him out a long time before initiating him.

It makes little difference to us. His brother Regulus has inherited the family house. I might find something useful in his library, hoping the curse isn't anything Bellatrix has learnt from the Rodolphus side of family. Although I suppose Regulus might have some information about that as well, since his cousin had a hand in training him.

Why would Regulus help us, anyway? He and Sirius hate each other.

He and I kept in touch, let's say. I'm in a position to expect his collaboration.

If I ask you to be more specific, will you end the conversation?

I'm ending it right now - Severus brusquely asserted - we can surface. There's nothing else we can do here.

It displeased Lily a little, leaving that hot, safe core of herself and abandoning herself to her companion's guidance to allow him to pull her up, but surfacing was surprisingly an easier and swifter operation than descending had been. She felt weightless and amazingly clean as Severus drove her through the mists and the currents of her deeper mind to bring her back to a normal state of consciousness. At last, Lily sensed a snap, as if a thread had suddenly broke and the density of her physical body had became oppressively inescapable...there was warmth on her face.

She opened her eyes to find herself there, sitting in front of a fire place as if their little adventure had been no more concrete than a dream. Opening her mouth to talk, she noticed her lips were dry like sandpaper and her throat painfully coarse.

"Drink."

At her side, Severus was handing her a glass of water. She took it and drank avidly: perhaps it had indeed been a dream, because he appeared unfazed, authoritative and perfectly functional. When their eyes met and she gave him back the emptied glass, red spots coloured his high cheekbones and his hand was almost jerking as her fingers grazed it. No, even in her wildest dreams she wouldn't have imagined that feeling of fulfilling, sensual well-being she had experienced when she had surrendered her mind to him.

Everything had been real.

***

Severus encouraged Lily to let him handle Regulus, promising her that he would share with her any possible new developments. They agreed that Harry would go on with his usual treatment in the meantime, since no benefit could come from suspending it and a more complete understanding of his ailment could derive from a strict and continued surveillance of his episodes of lucidity: it would be been important to study whether they became more frequent over time and in which situations they presented themselves, if they showed a tendency to somewhat evolve becoming longer or shorter or even more articulated.

That night, Lily went to bed feeling overwhelmed in spite of her resolution to not keep a level head. Afterwards, she would convince herself that it was because of this her sleep was troubled.

She was so tired that her eyelids shut as soon her head touched the pillow and she fell asleep almost immediately.

She dreamt of her childhood home, of her mother baking almond cookies with Petunia, of running outside toward the river, her breath coming out in gasps because she was fatiguing to maintain her velocity, her hair falling before eyes as she refused to slow down. She was twelve again and her legs were too short.

Someone was calling to her; a boy about her age had waited for her, his feet in the water of the river, his arm waving to her to draw her attention from a distance. Her heart filled with a wild joy while she accelerated and jumped over the hedge, toward him... but the arms seizing her weren't those of a scrawny, lanky kid.

To spare her fall there was only a man, pale and dressed in black robes, catching her effortlessly and tightening his hold around her waist. In his arms, she was no longer a little girl; the curves she pressed against his warm body were womanly and in her yearning for his touch there was a very adult, desperate hunger. Lily could see his eyes: black and unforgiving, they had the same bruised beauty of a winter morning.

Sev...

The morning after, Lily awoke with his name on her lips and the fantasy of his large palm flat on her breast, of his mouth on her face. Her body throbbed with half- forgotten needs as she wrapped her sheets more tightly around herself to stop her hands from wandering , even by accident, in any way.

She curled up in the foetal position and hid her visage in the comforting softness of her pillow, determined to ignore the flush which was already creeping up her neck. Eventually, she pulled herself up on her elbows, surrendering a fit of hysterical giggles.

Oh Hecate, tell me I have not just had an inconvenient and most inappropriate dream about my ex-Death Eater childhood friend who happens to be the current sort-of Healer for my son.

It wasn't that she thought he wasn't attractive, because she had always considered his unusual appearance rather compelling - in some gothic and dark way which eluded a precise definition - but... this wasn't a line she had ever crossed. She just didn't think of Severus in that way; the mere idea of him laying his hand on her naked skin for more than a few seconds went far beyond anything she could reasonably expect from a man so little keen on tactile contact. Never mind the prospective of his gaze burning on her figure rather than coolly assessing her: that one was the most simple and forbidden kind of impossibility.

It had to have been that session of shared Legilimency and the weird sensations it had awoken in her, supported by the fact that she hadn't had sex in almost one year. Lily could hardly hold herself accountable for a natural consequence of abstinence and... psychic compatibility, could she?

Once, Severus had kissed her only once, by the river, the summer after their friendship had fallen apart and she wasn't sure it had meant more than an explosion of nostalgia, anger and awakening teenage hormones on both sides. Her memory of it had been overwhelmed from the impression left by the poisonous words they had exchanged before and after.

It had nothing to do with her dream, first kiss or not.

Sometimes dreams were meaningless. Nothing too strange with this one in particular.

So Lily put on her best robe and a brilliant smile and resolved to come down moderately late for breakfast, before she had a chance to backtrack. It would be been just silly hiding in her room to delay the inevitable.

Strangely, she wasn't embarrassed to sit beside Severus as usual, and it was very simple drowning her more recent contemplations in inconsequential chatter.

She met his eyes over a bottle of spiced wine with an unspoken challenge he couldn't decrypt and it gave her a shiver of elation, as if she had discovered a funny secret too compromising to reveal.

**

February seemed to approach with unanticipated swiftness, while Severus' and Lily's lives settled into a vivaciously productive routine they were both extremely comfortable with.

It was probably a time Severus Snape perceived among his most creative: indefinite projects of spells and recipes hadn't flowed so readily from his imagination to his feather since he was sixteen and he was mildly surprised to find how he had missed that old comfort. It was no small victory to observe that his students were finally beginning to treat him with the respect he was due: he no longer had to raise his voice above a conversational tone to attract their attention when he entered a classroom, because a suspicious silence shortly followed his entrance lately. When he had made his decision about the punishment he would inflict on the students who had tried to prank him at Yule, Severus had expected nothing less. It had been rather incautious of them, leaving behind an object dark magic could easily trace back to its owners: the singing shampoo bottle was very useful as a token for a very subtle vengeance spell, which had exploited the Threefold Law to turn back academic misfortune on the young pranksters. Those four seventh-year Gryffindors had found themselves rather careless at every and each lesson - outside Potions, ironically - so Severus was able to single them out very easily, although he pretended the contrary. A few well placed comments during detention and his would-be victims had grown fairly alarmed by the true feelings of their Potions Teacher, who was quite glad of ignoring them completely now. The rumour had spread and blown out of proportion. Other teachers thought it was rubbish, of course, except possibly Albus Dumbledore, who frowned upon it but furthered no comment; Severus felt the satisfaction he had drawn from his little game outlasted the risk of displeasing the headmaster.

Lily, on her side, monitored her son better than any professional nurse. She kept a diary which described with occasionally paranoid precision her son's temporary 'awakenings' - as she had taken to call them - beginning to notice they lasted from fifteen minutes to half an hour, happened more often and lasting more around the noon, or more in general when the sun was high in the sky and the solar energies were most powerful. Even if all that she could have of her son were sparse moments, she had chosen to bask in the joy and the hope they gave her at the present rather than feeling disappointed or worried for the future.

There were also times when she could watch Harry playing with snow or tugging shyly at Severus' leg or his huge green eyes - so much like hers - filling with wonder at the simplest spell her wand could produce. Lily experienced a serenity so complete that the red-haired witch came close to admitting she could get used to that life.

After dinner, every night, she helped Severus to extensively examine the volumes he borrowed from the Grimmauld Place library - they planned on finishing in little more than one month, by taking a few of them each week - and they discussed the passages which seemed concerning their area of interest. So far, few texts of Etheric Anatomy and Supernatural Physiology had helped them to understand better the basic knowledge which had been to Bellatrix Lestrange the backbone of her magical preparation. Regulus Black was apparently been able to point to Severus even some books his cousin had advised him to read when she had attempted to recruit him, but those had proved mostly useless.

The camaraderie developing between Severus and Lily in the meantime had given to their relationship a new balance: they were now able - maybe for the first time - to turn to each other and see not the distance between their worlds but instead their synchrony. She dragged him to see a play of Oscar Wilde in Muggle London for his birthday and he took her to see the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' for hers. Yet they touched each other with excessive prudence for two people who had known each other for the most of their existences: a hand which wrapped around an elbow and it was reluctantly but not immediately drawn back, shoulders brushed while their faces were looking elsewhere.

Poppy Pomfrey took in the way they subtly oriented around each other during Harry's check-ins with amused trepidation; she saw how Lily would grow slightly more alert when Severus entered a room, how Severus' tense posture would imperceptibly soften whenever a certain redhead spoke to him, how they would subtly adjust their positions in reaction to the other's smallest movements and it made the older witch sad and happy at the same time. It reminded her so much of the way she had felt - a lifetime ago - for her late husband that it had become impossible to stay irritated with the young couple whether they forgot including her in the newest speculation over Harry's case.

***

Regulus Black wasn't a man easily irritated; he liked thinking that a childhood spent in subservient adoration of Bella's fierce temper and constant resignation of Sirius' sudden swings of mood - honestly, it was no question from whom his older brother had inherited the capacity to pass from protective and understanding to spiteful and angry within a fourteen minutes' span - had taught him a lot about patience and self-restraint.

The latest Yule had been a wonderful exercise of it: all those people at Charity's house, magical and not magical, asking him indiscreet questions he had answered evasively to... all those thunderous looks sent to him from Mr Burbage when his daughter was looking elsewhere, Mrs Burbage' s gentle hospitality, veined with repressed fear and so much more difficult to digest. All those Muggle neopagans who claimed to have their sort of magic... Regulus had refrained from ridiculing them.

Some things instead drove him around the bend with a radical immediacy he was unable to control. Like having a Horcrux under his roof. Albus Dumbledore had insisted that, in wariness of legal binding spells used by Gringotts, the best place to hide the Hufflepuff Cup was Grimmauld Place, so the object was placed inside Walburga Black's old bedroom until the Headmaster could get a new stock of unicorn milk and fairy dust, which were apparently necessary to purify Gryffindor's blade and enable it to exorcize the Horcrux.

In spite of his natural uneasiness at the proximity to the dark artefact, Regulus could have come to accept the idea, if said artefact hadn't been surrounded by a protective circle which prevented anybody but the caster - also known as the Hogwarts Headmaster - to do so much as enter the room.

Although necessary, that precaution so lacking in subtlety afflicted deeply Regulus' pride: it disturbed him as if he had been patronized in his own house. And to add salt to the injury, that blasted cup wouldn't let him sleep decently! He kept having nightmares about Charity, white and still and unbreathing at his feet, her blood splattered all over his Death Eater robes. Every night, it began the same: they were strolling in a beautiful garden and then she would turn and said he had something on his face. She would lean in, grinning in a way he loved, and she would draw back removing a white mask from his face. And then he would kill her, while she still looked up to him with such open trust and a shy question on her lips.

He couldn't stand it.

In a fit of temper, yesterday he had thrown all of her letters in the fireplace and regretted his impulsiveness the moment flames had hungrily embraced the parchment. What kind of man destroyed something he treasured without a blink?

This morning when her owl had landed on his shoulder - far too friendly animal, like her mistress - relief had almost killed him.

If she had an ounce of sense, she would steer clear of me. If I weren't a remarkably selfish person, I would take that choice from her and stop this madness while I still can do it without hurting her.

But Charity was... healthy for him. She was like the sea breeze for a sailor who had survived a shipwreck, essential for his senses even while it resulted painful.

So he had opened her missive with pathetically eager fingers and read it twice before something else than the recognition of her neat, childlike handwriting got to his brain.

Oh, Regulus,

I'm sorry I was silly to get so angry at you for that comment you made after we visited that Wicca shop. I keep ignoring that we were brought up in completely different environments and it's often difficult for me to accept that you have a right to your scepticism. I still remember your expression when you got on a lift for the first time and I couldn't stop you from going back up and down again and again.

I was wrong to call you arrogant and it means so much to me that you asked me to show you how muggle world works. It takes bravery and humility to admit how wrong we have been and I had no right to berate you only because you wouldn't accept my viewpoint without questioning it. I guess sometimes it is only too easy to mistake stoicism for anything else, given our different standings.

Perhaps next weekend I could take you to try out pizza? I promise I won't sulk if you act embarrassed by my table manners.

Write me back!

I know you miss me too, you git.

Love,

Charity

It angered him that she had admitted so plainly she had missed him. It was one thing that he was making himself miserable by tempting himself with her, even knowing he couldn't allow her to get close - he could never decide which of them had more need for protection from the other - but it was unacceptable that she could be as affected by their time together as he was.

Couldn't Charity see he was a greedy, selfish, coward, two-faced, murdering fool without a clear opinion of where he was going with his life?

Regulus Black was someone who was getting interest in exploring Muggle London to confront his conscience but at the same time insisted on diminishing the finest points of Muggle culture because giving it too much consideration would made his crime more terrible. He was dangerous for Charity and dangerous for himself; he certainly didn't deserve her praise. He had nothing but his doubts and his blindness to offer her, yet he desired too much her company to remove himself from it.

Well, Regulus could at least keep considering good taste as his main redeeming quality.

Sighing a bit too deeply, he spread out his parchment and wrote:

Dear Charity,

If you were harsh, you were certainly not the only one. I should have remembered I was speaking to a lady and a very smart one at that.

At least our discussion spurned me to buy some new books. Did you know few authors consider Muggle and magical etheric physiology structured very similarly? It seems the basic difference between us and them is the fact that we are far better energy conduits. I suppose it explains why some Muggles would experience premonition and empathy. Or why Muggle-borns can exist.

There's a whole universe out of here I was blind to. I'm more grateful you are taking your time and patience for showing me more than words can express. Whatever pizza is, I trust you wouldn't poison me so I'm looking forward it.

Yours,

Regulus

AUTHOR NOTE: The kiss Lily reminisces about after her dream is a passing reference to another story of mine, the one-shot 'Awakening'. I hope this will make happy all those who have asked for a sequel... and will fill the holes within JKR canon by creating my canon.

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