This Spiral Dance

CHAPTER 11: Imbolc

If there were a specific phase of the year when Severus Snape could not avoid thinking of his late mother, it was Imbolc.

He had hardly any need of closing his eyes for seeing her figure within his mind. He could picture Eileen vividly, standing before the counter of their kitchen, her back to his very younger self as she filled jars with herbs or pounded them energetically with her mortar. He remembered watching her hands with awe while they cut with swift efficiency roots and tubers in regular, tiny pieces... listening how different her voice timbre was whenever she told him of her pride of being a Prince, about how different it used to be when she lived as a real witch, rather than masquerading as a fortune teller and selling herbal remedies like any Muggle wise woman to increase her family's monthly income.

He remembered how often his father would scream at her for filling his house with strong smelling oils and infusions, for sullying his name with her activities... how often she would scream back, sometimes flinging herself to her husband and hitting him until he didn't stop berating her and pushed her aside - always too roughly - and how some other times Eileen would just crawl in a corner and collapse in tears.

Before Lily entered in his life - a blinding sun to Eileen's distant moon - his mother was the centre of his universe. Yet her presence had always been elusive to Severus; her company not entirely participative unless the object of their discussion wasn't Tobias and how disappointed she was with him. Eileen's eyes always been turned inward, even when she was looking at her son.

As a child, Severus hadn't understood her behaviour, but he had adored her - that mysterious creature whose attention he craved, the only being remotely similar to himself in a hostile world full of Muggles who looked upon him in derision or diffidence for his odd clothes and poverty - so it had been easy blaming Tobias for taking his mother from him. It was no longer easy today because he had darker memories of his mother, but he had stopped trying to hate her.

Eileen had, for a reason she had never cared to disclose, loved the Imbolc festivities. Every year, she had arranged to spare the money for going Hogsmeade and allowed him to skip school in order to accompany her. She was always in good mood when February approached and Severus had used that peculiarity for his benefit more than once, but it had ever been at a better use than when he had convinced her to let him bring Lily along. Back then, he had still been trying to impress his new friend.

1969, 2 February

Lily Evans wore a pink dress which clashed with her dark red hair, braided in two plaits, the morning when her parents accompanied her to Spinner's End. She rolled her eyes at Severus as Mr and Mrs Evans exchanged pleasantries and thanks with Eileen Prince, whose frozen smile indicated to her son the extent of her displeasure with that visit. Severus knew what she thought about Muggles, but it was obvious enough that - it didn't matter how much time he spent at Lily's house, or how many times Lily followed him home when his father was out working - these two wouldn't let their daughter go with a virtual stranger. It was lucky enough he had managed to postpone this meeting as long he had and that Tobias was forced from his work at the mill to be an early riser.

Yet, seeing his friend struck in formal attire which had probably made Petunia more jealous than usual was well worth bearing his mother's future reproach and Mr Evans wandering glances at the poor conditions of his house.

"If you laugh -" Lily warned in a whisper, pulling self-consciously at one of her plaits in an attempt to loosen it "- I swear I'll punch you."

"Mmph."

It would have been a perfect day and Severus would allow nothing to ruin it. Nothing.

A knock on his office door distracted him from the pleasant memory and, recalling the task ahead of him, he smoothed his facial features in an insentient mask.

"Come in."

One after the other, two Slytherin Prefects entered the room, their heads held high. As they came to stand before his desk, their body language indicated only a marginal stiffness and Severus Snape took a moment to consider whether this made him more satisfied or irritated with having picked them.

Michael Eventide was Pureblood all through (a descendent of the Zabini line, as his dark colouring and olive skin certified), tall but slender for his age, his androgynous visage dissimulating a dangerous duelling talent and an amazing memory for particularly gruesome curses. With his superficial charisma and rigid etiquette, he had reminded Severus of a younger Lucius from the very first moment.

Rhiannon Musgrave was someone the Potions Master had chosen as an experiment of sorts, because she was the first half-blood sorted in Slytherin coming from an influential family. Her long hair was a blondish red and she was almost as tall and slender as her companion. Her chocolate eyes met his with a defiance which the other Prefect lacked and Severus wondered if she was biting her tongue to not fidget. Or clench her jaw like Michael did.

Enjoying the distress his continued silence was arousing, the Slytherin Head of House turned to the boy, staring him down until he gave in and lowered his eyes.

"In case you are wondering, I'm sparing my breath to allow my Prefects to do their duty and tell me why there's a Slytherin second year in the Hospital Wing."

Michael Eventide shifted his weight from one foot to the other, braving up enough to fixate his gaze on a spot an inch away from Snape' s left ear. Rhiannon Musgrave threw the boy a fleeting sideway glance - like she was valuing how probable was the eventuality he would clean this mess for her - then took a sharp intake of breath and spoke first.

"Some of the older students were exercising. To show off to the first year ones. It has gotten out of hand."

Severus leaned his chin lazily on his right hand as he let his gaze to rake over her face in a clearly less-than-impressed fashion.

"I suppose the fact that Claus Lindermann is Muggle-born -" the Potion Master suggested very slowly, his voice coloured with something meaner than irony and yet not exactly amusement "- means he was encouraged to volunteer playing the guinea pig for his seniors."

Flushing brightly, the girl seemed to unable to find the nerve to answer.

"It was just a Laughing Charm, sir -" the dark-haired teen hurried interjecting "- nobody meant any damage."

"Intentions mean very little when Lindermann has almost been strangled." Severus paused, his expression purposefully darkening. "I was very clear at the term's beginning about this kind of accident."

"It would never have occurred if we had been present, sir."

To her credit, Rhiannon made a conscious attempt to keep her chin up, even if her tones were considerably more subdued. It didn't curb Snape's frigidly furious demeanour in the least; if anything, the man's reply was harsher.

"I'm not interested in excuses, Ms Musgrave. I don't tolerate any disorder within my House, especially since Wizarding England has recently been through a political reassessment which has made Slytherin exposed to slandering rumours. You are a Prefect and your responsibility is keeping your housemates from maiming each other and misusing their wands. Deducting points is merely a side benefit you are risking to lose. Fail again and you will be punished twice as hard as the offending party, because I will consider you directly responsible. Have I explained myself?"

A tense silence followed, the Prefects nodded.

"Have I explained myself?" Severus plied, standing up to tower above the intimidated teens.

"Yes, sir," they chorused.

"You can go, Eventide. Your girlfriend will catch up to you later."

Turning an intriguing shade of greenish blue - wasn't it interesting how often adolescents assumed their love life was a secret from anyone who wasn't their age, even if they were snogging all over the darker half of the castle? - the male Prefect sent a panicked look at the girl beside him, but rushed out of the door before she could notice.

Snape sat back behind his desk after the door had closed.

"If I recall correctly," he said with surprising composure for someone who had so recently looked ready to commit murder, "there are a few lines engraved above the fireplace of your Common Room."

Rhiannon cleared her throat subtly before answering, her arms protectively crossed before her chest. "Yes, sir. They are the Five Slytherin Principles, engraved by Salazar himself."

"Enunciate them."

"Plan with meaning. Prepare with devotion. Proceed with resolution. Pursue with persistence. Smooth over with persuasion. "

No hesitation there, but the girl looked alert, prepared to catch on hidden metaphors or allusions. Snape wouldn't disappoint her expectations.

"As a Prefect, you will be required to live up to them, more than average students."

"Yes -" she acquiesced uncertainly "- sir. I'll do better in future."

Snape continued as if he hadn't heard her. "Your family has a generations-long tradition at Hogwarts, continued even after your grandparents moved to Ireland. These are difficult times... one might even say The War has yet to end within these walls, but it would be a grave mistake if you thought that turning a blind eye to your housemates' less savoury entertainments will keep their nose away from your genealogic tree. Purebloods don't forget so easily."

There was no mistaking the terror on the Rhiannon face now and Severus had to wonder if this had been the expression Lucius had stolen from him so many years ago, in the Common Room.

"Since I've put you in a position of power, I will claim you rise to the challenge rather than camouflaging yourself into the background to protect your... unflattering secret. Play your role."

Apparently, there was nothing else to add, because the Prefect kept staring him with wide eyes without daring a reply. There was no necessity for it, but the girl was usually more impertinent than this.

Maybe, Severus mused without too much regret and with a touch of genuine curiosity, he had exceeded the threatening tones.

"You will accompany the accountable students in my office before dinner. I will know if any one of them is missing. You may go."

"Thank you, sir."

***

Even if this year hadn't proved particularly cold, Lily could hardly believe the holy day of Candlemas should be considered the beginning of Spring. Snow no longer mantled earth - a fact which did displease her, because she had always been rather partial to sitting by a window and watching candid flakes falling, in spite of the dreadful cold - but these days' weather was marked by steely grey skies, drizzle and slush.

She hadn't thought of Eileen Snape in years but today, when she had risen from her bed and glimpsed the calendar, being reminded it was 1^st February, she had found the older woman's face insistently creeping in her thoughts.

Her memory kept drifting to her first Imbolc, that incredible day when magic had stopped being the material constructing dreams and stories and became a concrete truth of life, the mirror of her future. Eileen had taken her and Severus to Hogsmeade and they had spent the morning visiting shops and watching the parade... having lunch at an economic little tavern with turquoise-painted walls which served a holiday's special menu comprehending only dishes cooked with flowers and spring herbs. Petunia had been furious, for both being been excluded from the outing ("Of course I don't want to come, Lily," she had said, "but it was rude not asking me!") and envy for the ridiculous pink dress their mother had forced her sister to wear, but all the sad reminders of Petunia's current estrangement couldn't poison the fresh sense of wonder Lily still felt thinking of the Feast Of Lights.

1969, 2 February. Hogsmeade.

Lily Evans felt as if she was the most lucky girl in the world. It didn't matter how many times she had asked Severus to describe the only entirely wizarding village in Britain, how many times she had tried to paint in her mind the picture of a place inhabited only by witches and wizards, her imagination had never came near the enticing reality.

Eileen seemed happy enough to air a lecture for everything they saw in that throaty voice of hers, her visage strangely animated, unlike the dull mask Lily had faced every time she had followed Severus home, and the little girl couldn't ever have enough. Trees and shop windows were decorated with candles of the most different colours and there were so many things to see that her best friend was always pulling at her sleeve to show her something he had told her earlier about. Maybe it was a silly thought, but the air itself felt different, like she could almost breathe in the magic charging it.

They came to a square, whose centre was occupied by the largest bonfire Lily had ever seen. It had to have been lit with a magical fire, because the dancing flames were entwining shades of different blues and violets. They flared so high that it was a spectacle of rare, raw magnificence.

She and Severus stood before the fire, identical expressions of awe on their visages.

"It looks always so... powerful. I never get used to it."

"It's the most amazing view in the world."

Behind their backs, Eileen placed one of her hands on the shoulder of each of them and went on with another of her explanations: "Every year, at midnight of the Imbolc's Eve, all the women of Hogsmeade meet here and bring the trees or the logs they had decorated for Yule and they burn them to salute the quickening of life within the Great Mother's womb. To welcome the life which stirs under the cold soil, even while our eyes can't yet see. Now, take your place because we are going to sit and wait for the procession to arrive. "

Lily turned quickly toward the witch, tampering an impulse to jump up and down in excitement. Nobody had told her anything about that.

"Which procession?"

"Don't tell her Mum, it will spoil the surprise!"

"Sev!"

"It's true!"

Looking extremely amused by her son's unusual streak of vivacity and a bit smug at knowing something Lily so completely ignored, Eileen witnessed in silence the exchange between the two kids until the red-haired one turned to her again with an endearing puppy-like pout.

"Mrs Snape?"

"Hush, Lily you have heard him. We don't want spoil the enchantment of your first time here."

It was really too bad Lily wasn't enough familiar with her friend's mother for insisting her questioning. Luckily having her stomach full and her feet sore rendered their pause more companionable. She and Severus sat close and played a game of inventing a dramatic back-story for the most eye-catching passer-by, while Eileen was completely absorbed by some private inner meditation, kneeled in her spot.

The crowd slowly gathered around them in a two hours span and then finally, the procession arrived. It was a long, triple queue of young women clad in long white robes and scarlet mantles, mistletoe garlands crowning their heads; the central girls played their drums, singing a very cheerful chant about the coming spring, while the girls on both their sides held in their hands a bowl filled with water they used to sprinkle around, on both people and houses.

They were led by a more mature woman, dressed completely in red and wearing a crown of copper with a crescent moon front and small opalescent fire-like lights on the side. In her hands there was a weird cross: it consisted of three bundles of wood, interlacing with other three at the centre. The crowd parted easily at their passage, allowing the women to circle the bonfire.

Then the white clad ones threw their mantles up high to the sky and Lily saw them vanishing... small scarlet flowers rained everywhere and she opened her hands to let them fell on her palms, but the illusion dissolved at the contact with her warm flesh, leaving behind a tickling sensation on her skin.

She grinned widely at Severus, wishing for the words to express exactly how wonderful was all of this and how much she loved him for making her a part of it, but he was grinning just as widely, pointing ahead: "Don't get distracted just now!"

The chanting had stopped and the drums were getting louder.

The woman dressed in red - which had to be a some sort of Priestess, Lily decided - screamed wildly: "Brid is come, Brid is welcome!"

The weird cross was thrown into air and toward the pyre, at midair it self- combusted, becoming a turning wheel of fire.

The moment the bonfire's flames embraced the wheel, it seemed to inflate as if it was about to explode and Lily, in a fit of complete irrationality, grabbed Severus' hand.

He leaned toward her and looked at her like she was insane. "Are you scared?"

"No!" she cried in indignation, nonetheless tightening her hold around his wrist as if she feared he would have taken it away.

"Whatever." Severus shrugged with a smirk and turned again to the show.

But fire had placated its violent roaring... flames almost grew still and then they parted: a white doe took shape from their heart and stepped out.

Lily was speechless in front of the beauty of the slender, sleek animal which trotted around the circle of women who were now singing both their welcome to Brid, Celtic goddess of fire, and calling upon the patronage of the Moon deity Diana.

The doe was being honoured by the Priestess as sacred totem of Diana; the animal's candid fur glittered in the sun and her eyes were so large and when her elegant neck turned, the expressivity reflected in their silvery depths was almost human, like if she was real, not an illusion of magic.

For a moment, Lily almost believed the majestic beast had looked straight at her, but before she could do so much as nudge at Severus, the doe was going away, uncaring of how loud the heart of Muggle-born little future witches beat against their ribcages while they watched her... Lily's enraptured gaze followed the doe as it ran away from the bonfire, toward the parted crowd.

It was impossible to accept that someday small miracles like this one would be been ordinary for her. Oh, she couldn't wait to become a real witch!

Walking along the Hogwarts corridors, Lily was almost knocked over by a fleeing Slytherin girl with coppery curls.

"I'm sorry, Profe-" The girl paused, realizing the adult woman wasn't a teacher. "I'm so sorry!"

And then the girl - who sported a Prefect badge - was gone again, no longer running but not necessarily less fast.

Lily found Severus Snape's office door ajar and she pushed it softly open, her head popping inside as she stayed on the threshold. He was sitting behind his desk, his face void of any emotion as he stared into apparent nothingness.

"Expecting someone?"

Her voice didn't seem to startle him; Severus simply cocked his head in her direction and met her gaze evenly.

"No. Anything specific I can do for you? "

Lily let herself in his office, closing the door behind her. "You can accept being my escort and coming to Hogsmeade with me and Harry after dinner. I want to see as they light the bonfire. It doesn't look smart or fun going alone."

"I'm surprised you want to be staying up until midnight with a child so little."

"He has had a long nap today and then since he never gets sleepy unless I get him tucked in, I might even use his condition as an advantage for once. I have never been to Hogsmeade since he was born and it would be the perfect day to show him. There's at least a chance he has one of his moments of lucidity while we are there, right? It can't hurt try."

"It's not a bad idea."

"Can I consider it like an agreement?"

"Yes."

Lily's natural playfulness had always been one among her personality traits which endeared her most to Severus, mainly because it tended to dispel his aloofness. Another was her tendency - when she was among friends - to speak whatever she had on her mind exactly the way she was thinking it, which could result in an unnecessary thoughtfulness on her part, but it also freed Severus from the paranoia which he employed around anyone else. There were very few reasons he would have turned down the opportunity to spend more time with her.

Without waiting for an invitation, Lily occupied the armchair facing his desk, with a comfortableness impossible for anyone else.

"To say the truth," she confessed, "I didn't expect one had to go as far as Hogsmeade to see the Yule's logs burning. When we attended here, the Yule's trees were kept around until the Imbolc' s Eve. Hagrid would burn them at the sunset on the yard and we will go to watch and help and sing. Now that's only another tradition lost."

The lopsided curve on his mouth became more rigid and something thunderous in his black eyes flashed briefly before being swallowed up by coldness... his turning to the Light hadn't erased his contempt for the way their customs were being bastardized, the deepest mysteries of witchcraft were being discarded, misunderstood and forgotten by contact with external influences. She saw it clearly enough to be put off from it, because it still made her uneasy to state 'the other side' had had few points which could pass for rational.

"When the war ended, Dumbledore thought it would be a great political statement to cancel purely pagan celebrations from the school program. I thought it was crude and unnecessary, but of course the opinion of an Ex-Death Eater held little weight."

"At least students are still allowed to go Hogsmeade after their scheduled lessons."

"A poor compensation for a gross disrespect of our culture."

Lily opened her mouth only to realize she had no comment to mollify his discontent. It was a feeling she could share, but while she no longer idolized the Headmaster like she did in her adolescence, she wasn't completely certain his reasons weren't sound. Besides, there was nothing to be done about it now.

"I've thought often of your mother today."

Her change of subject distracted him, but the surprise he showed ashamed her, for the same reasons she hadn't asked about this before.

"Have you remembered when she used to take us?"

Lily nodded, her pale cheeks flushing a little. "I wanted to apologize for not having asked about her before. I didn't even hear her name pronounced from our fifth year, but when I saw you were living at the Spinner's End alone... "

She didn't want to finish, to say she had considered only then that Eileen could have died. Lily had liked the older witch, even if they hadn't interact often - like Tobias, Eileen had worked hard the most of her days and more often than not, if she came back to home to find Lily with her son, she was tired enough to not be so sociable.

"It was one of those matters where it sounded rude to pry, but I didn't want you to think I didn't care enough to ask."

Severus studied her features with a colourless intensity which tingled lightly over her skin but when he responded her, his answer was smooth and effortless:

"My mother died a few months before our graduation; I had taken a leave from school for fixing the formalities but there wasn't even a real funeral... I thought it would have been a waste since none would attend but me. I avoided mortuaries as well... I didn't think she would have liked having her name on a paper."

What he wanted to say, they both knew, was that Eileen would have hated have her mortuary on a Muggle publication and that Severus had considered counterproductive publishing one on a wizarding paper, given her marital choice.

"She was a discreet woman," Lily amended, not sure about how she was supposed move around this subject. "I'm sorry you lost her so soon. I mean... I know how terrible - "

"She and I were already estranged from the earlier summer," Severus interrupted her with a dismissive firmness which surprised both of them as much as his willingness to continue that conversation. He hadn't breached the matter since it had happened - with anyone - nor had he wanted to but now he had the chance, talking about it with Lily appeared strangely fitting.

"Oh. Because of your... politics?"

She felt rude to ask so directly, but he would express it plainly if he hadn't wanted to talk about it.

"Because of my father," Severus remarked roughly. "I came back from Hogwarts to find him gone and her depressed. I couldn't understand why she would be been so unhappy after all the times we had wished he would disappear in thin air. I suppose I was too young to see hatred can become a valid and intense substitute for love after enough years. I had almost the impression of not having her known at all... I lost my patience once, we argued and never bothered mending the break."

He couldn't summon the courage to reveal how Eileen had blamed him, how harsh her accuses were been, how he had done his best to hurt her back as much she had hurt him. He wasn't even sure whether his mother was been right or not. Had Tobias left his family because of the vague threats his son had vented in his face - about what he would be able of doing, once the decree was no longer a problem - or had his father simply grown weary of wasting his hard-worked money on people whom he considered 'something else'?

Had it any importance?

Tobias was just as dead as Eileen, and if Severus had once considered him accountable for his mother's suicide and hysteria, fantasizing of killing him for those and other older crimes, it didn't change the devastation Severus had felt when Regulus had taken from him that satisfaction. Hearts lied you too, and sometimes what you thought you wanted and what you actually wanted were polar opposites.

"It must have made her loss harder to accept," Lily said gently, trying to imagine how she would have felt if Petunia had died.

Severus faced the compassion in her lovely eyes with slightly self-depreciating smile. So many events stretched between now and then than he felt like if he was spreading around pieces of someone's else life. What did he expect from sharing that old story? Maybe he wanted only to see if it was true what they said, about how putting this kind of troubles in stark words diminished their inherent shallowness. Did talking truly take comfort to anyone, in these occasions? He hadn't ever tested it; he hadn't ever really wanted to be comforted.

"Only more difficult to feel. I wasn't even surprised when she killed herself."

A bit bluntly maybe, but he had spoken it finally. It gave him an odd shiver, but it didn't truly set him free of anything.

He could remember the numbness engulfing him after he had received her owl, reading her letter at breakfast table like if everything was ordinary. Her intentions were been declared there, black on white, mocking him because there was no emotion or apology or explanation, only a statement without frills of what had already happened and he was too late to avoid. It wasn't difficult guessing from whom he had inherited his incapacity to forgive.

Lily was cringing, her eyes lucid, her hand covering her mouth. "That's terrible. I -"

Severus watched her face intently as her voice broke, entranced to see the horror he was supposed to have experienced playing on another's face.

"I'm sure she knew how you adored her all the same."

Without plausible warning, her hands reached out to cover the back of his left one, open and laying on the dark wood of his desk. Hers was an emphatic response, impulsive and irrational. He didn't know how react to it, to her soft hands he was unable to shake off because he didn't have any desire to push her away and...

He put his other hand on the top of hers, squeezing it lightly and rubbing his thumb across the vulnerable skin of her wrist. He was never much of a tactile person, so it was shocking that he would feel so affected by so little.

"Sorry that I wasn't there when you needed it the most."

Although she had not known about this - or perhaps exactly because hadn't - she felt guilty he had passed throughout that horrible tragedy without her support. Within a two years span he had lost all what he was used to and the girl who for eight years was been a constant in his life had ignored it, ignored him.

Severus remained silent for few seconds, hypnotized as he was by the manner their fingers were now entwining... their palms settling against each other.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it? It was downright arrogant of me, saying you had chosen your path. We were just fifteen year old and you deserved better than that from me."

"You weren't so mistaken in the end. I could have proved you wrong with facts rather words, but I didn't want to give my success with Dark Arts up. They made me feel like I was whole and normal... I needed that feeling. To be sincere, I was relieved to have you sealing the choice in my stead."

It was odd she had never analyzed too closely the root of his interest in Dark Arts, but maybe then she had been too young and idealist to perceive the darker nuances of reality. All that Severus had hoped for, in his way, by coming to Hogwarts, was feeling normal... if in Light Magic his anger and isolation were been a weakness, in Dark Arts they had to have been a source of power. Now, it was almost natural to understand how they could have drawn him. Did he miss them nowadays? Or had their allure faded when he had paid its price?

"I'm glad you found your way back to Light and I'm... grateful for your friendship. Finding you again is been like homecoming."

She promised to herself would be been a better friend this time around.

"Idem," he muttered, pleased but not quite smiling, unable to bring himself to figure how they had ended up having that discussion.

Maybe the famed comforting power of 'talking' and 'trusting' when you were hurt had little to do with relieving yourself of invisible weights, but it was rather about realizing you had someone who cared for your loss and made hers.

Because Lily cared - this wasn't pity - and the impossibility of denying or misunderstand this notion filled Severus with a sweetness he wouldn't forget. Ever.

***

So Severus and Lily brought Harry to Hogsmeade for his first Feast of Lights, but rather going after dinner they decided on visiting that first little tavern where Eileen had taken them years ago. Lily was surprised to learn the place was still owned by the same pixie-like old lady and that the decorations were just as beautiful as in her childhood memory: white jasmine-scented candles were hung anywhere and the centre of each table was decorated with a dish of magical snow, evergreens and brown little candles. The tavern was also just as little and poor as it was twenty years ago, but they barely noticed that.

At midnight, the three of them were at the square, surrounded by giddy witches and wizards who linked their arms and danced back to back - according the ancient ways - by the tribal rhythm of drums, bagpipes and drums; while they were waiting as the bonfire was lit, Lily felt once and again like that little girl who had been recently introduced to a fairy tale realm: an otherworldly creature who had found her road to home.

"I had taken for granted all of this," she confessed to Severus as he offered a cup of hot lavender tea.

"I can't imagine why," he said to her sardonically and she was touched by carefulness he was employing while he volunteered to get Harry to drink. His hands were amazingly gentle in forcing her son's chin up and pressing the cup against the Harry's closed mouth until her little boy opened it and sipped the warming beverage, his patience effortless as he calibrated each pause to give Harry his time to gulping down each sip.

Then finally, all the mothers and matriarchs resident in Hogsmeade gathered around the large pyre prepared and they pointed their wands toward the massed woods and hogs.

The bonfire took life in one spectacular breath.

"To Imbolc," some men toasted, their booming voices rising above the explosion of hands clapping and drums beating heavier.

"Lily," Severus called her and she saw his gaze drifting down, motioning her to do the same, to see Harry - in her lap - was following the movement around him in palpable interest.

Feeling happier than she would have ever imagined she would be able of, because her child could truly participate in the Feast, Lily kissed Harry's cheek and silently thanked the gods who were watching over them.

She appeared radiant to Severus as she showed to Harry how to clap along everyone else. In moments like this one it was difficult to admit he liked watching Lily with her brat.

Not just because it was Lily and watching her was always a source of pleasure, but because in these situations he could appreciate the difference between the Eileen's love and hers: Lily loved her son with reckless abandon, even if it had turned painful to her. Every time he saw her with Harry - even if it was James Potter's spawn she was coddling - it almost invited him to believe there might be more to this world than the dark and violent side he had experienced firsthand.

For that rare taste of faith, Severus loved her more each time.