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Chapter Text

The kitchen was quiet except for the faint hum of the clock over the sink. Harry sat slouched at the table, hands wrapped around a mug of tea that had long gone cold. Ron was muttering something about broomstick calibration in the garden. Hermione’s head was buried in a pile of parchment, quill scratching rhythmically. They were living in the aftermath of the war, each of them trying to find a normal again, but Harry wasn’t sure normal had ever existed for him.

He hadn’t spoken to Ginny in weeks. Their relationship, once a source of light in his dark, war-scarred life, had unraveled slowly, painfully, until nothing remained but a polite distance and bitter aftertaste. Harry’s thoughts drifted into the empty spaces left by her absence, as if his mind were a house in which a room had been walled off, and he had no key.

It was then, in the corner of his vision, that he saw it. Always a single figure, long and thin, draped in black. Standing at the edge of the garden, just beyond the glass, as if watching. Harry’s chest tightened, and he jerked his head toward the window. The figure was gone.

"Harry?" Hermione’s voice cut through his sudden panic. "You’re… staring again. Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Nothing," he said, forcing a casual shrug, though his hands trembled slightly. His throat felt tight, dry, as if he had swallowed smoke.

Ron snorted as he came in from the garden. "You’ve been staring out the window all morning. Something out there? A Dementor finally got lost and wandered into the yard?"

Harry shook his head. He wanted to tell them. He wanted to scream it aloud, but the words died on his tongue. It wasn’t a Dementor. Not exactly. He didn’t have the language for what he was seeing. And part of him was terrified that if he named it, it would become real.

The mornings blended into evenings with an unrelenting sameness. Yet, every now and then, Harry would see him again. The flick of a black cloak, the sharp angles of a nose just glimpsed from a passing alley, a shadow where none should be, lingered just outside his field of vision. Always gone before he could point, always leaving that cold, hollow chill curling inside him.

And the dreams had started.

The first one came suddenly, dragging him from sleep before the sun had risen. He was in a dimly lit classroom, the scent of dust and ink thick in the air. The windows were shuttered. A single candle flickered, casting long shadows on the walls.

"Potter," the voice said. Smooth, precise, cutting through the silence. Harry froze.

"Severus?" His own voice sounded foreign, rough in the darkness.

Snape was there, as he had always been. No sign of age marred him, no sign of death either. The sharp angles of his face, the pale skin, the cold black eyes. He was alive here.

"You are not seeing clearly," Snape said, circling him slowly. "And yet, you see everything."

Harry tried to speak, to ask what he meant, but his throat closed. It was like trying to breathe underwater. And then Snape was closer, far too close, so that Harry could smell the faint scent of burnt parchment and something darker, something private. Every instinct screamed that this was wrong, that he was insane, but he couldn’t move.

The dream ended with a whisper.

"You will not understand until you are ready, Potter."

He woke gasping, sweat clinging to his hair, heart hammering. He lay in the darkness of his room, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince himself it was nothing. Just a nightmare.

Except it wasn’t.

Over the next week, the dreams returned, each more vivid, more intimate, more insistent. Snape would speak, touch, or hover over him in ways that left Harry confused, frustrated, and terrified. There was longing there, yes, but not entirely romantic. It seemed to be a shadow of something darker, something obsessive, something that clawed at the edges of Harry’s mind and refused to let go.

By midweek, Hermione noticed changes.

"Harry," she said, peering at him from across the table. "You’re… tense. You keep frowning, and you haven’t touched your breakfast all week. Are you sleeping?"

"I… yeah," he lied, trying to push down the gnawing panic. He didn’t want to tell her the truth, not yet. Not about the dreams. Not about the fleeting glimpses of Snape in the streets.

Ron, of course, noticed too. In his own way. "Mate, you’re acting… weird. Snape weird." He leaned back, arms crossed, smirking in that way that used to make Harry want to punch him. "I mean, you’re not brooding over a girl anymore. So… what? You’ve got a crush on a ghost?"

Hermione shot him a sharp look. "Ron!"

Harry tried to laugh it off, but the sound was hollow. "It’s not like that. I… I don’t know what it is."

Hermione’s eyes softened. "Harry… maybe you should see someone. A professional. This could be… post-war stress, trauma. It could even be brought on over you and Ginny falling out. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re… you’re grieving in ways you don’t even understand."

He shook his head. "No. I’m not… I’m not crazy. I’m fine. I just…" He swallowed hard. "…keep seeing him. And I keep dreaming of him. He talks to me. And I don’t understand why."

"Who talks to you?"

Harry didn’t answer at first. The room felt impossibly still, as if the shadows themselves were listening. Then he whispered, "Snape."

Hermione’s eyes widened. Ron coughed. "Wait… the Severus Snape?"

Harry nodded. "I see him sometimes. Just… glimpses. And in the dreams, he talks to me, but he doesn’t… explain anything. And… sometimes… it’s… more. I don’t know. I wake up like… like I’ve been… somewhere I shouldn’t have."

Ron looked uncomfortable, scratching at his hair. "Blimey. Harry… that’s mental. Like, seriously. You’re talking dead people, mate."

"I’m not mad," Harry said, voice firmer than he felt. "Something’s happening, and I need to understand it. I… I think he’s still alive. Somewhere. Hiding. But I don’t know where. Or why."

Hermione exchanged a look with Ron, the kind that silently said, This is above our pay grade.

"You should see a therapist," she repeated. "Someone outside all of this. Someone who can help you without… without anyone else’s… assumptions."

Harry hesitated, then nodded. The thought of sitting across from a stranger, explaining the impossible, terrified him. "Okay. But… I need them to understand. I need them to know I’m not… I’m not crazy."

The therapist’s office was quiet, sunlight filtering through tall windows, dust motes floating lazily in the beams. Harry sat stiffly on the worn leather couch, hands clasped together, eyes flicking nervously to the bookshelves lining the walls.

"I need you to tell me what’s going on," the therapist, Doctor Wren ("Or Eleanor, if you prefer.") said gently, "and I promise not to judge. Whatever it is, you won’t be considered crazy for telling me."

Harry swallowed. "I… keep seeing him. Just… glimpses. And I dream of him. He talks to me in these dreams, but he won’t… he won’t say why. And sometimes… I wake up… frustrated. I don’t know why I’m… like this. And I think… I think he’s not dead. Maybe he’s hiding. But I don’t know."

Dr. Wren nodded slowly. "These dreams… are very vivid?"

"Yes. And… they feel real. Too real."

As he spoke, he felt a chill, as though the room itself were growing darker, shadowed. For a moment, he thought he caught movement in the corner of his vision. A black figure, still, observing, fading into nothing when he blinked.

And Harry realized he didn’t care if it was real or not. He had to find out.

The session ended with the therapist suggesting a sleep journal, grounding exercises, and mindfulness techniques. Harry nodded absently, but as he walked home, he couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on him, of a presence trailing just behind, watching.

He returned to the flat, poured himself a glass of water, and stared out the window at the falling dusk. The streets were empty. Shadows stretched across the pavement. And he thought he saw him again. The long black coat, the sharp nose. The unmistakable presence of Severus Snape.

Gone before he could blink.

Harry shivered, but not entirely from the cold. Somewhere deep inside, a part of him was… waiting.

Waiting to see what would happen next.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The days blurred together. Harry woke each morning with a dull ache behind his eyes and an inexplicable heaviness in his chest. At first, he told himself it was the lingering fatigue of battle, the nightmares of war and loss. But as the week went on, the signs became undeniable.

He started noticing small changes in himself.

It began with his posture. He straightened without realizing it, shoulders pulled back, chin slightly lifted, gaze sharper. Hermione noticed immediately.

"Harry," she said one morning as he reached for a quill, "you’ve… changed the way you hold yourself. Are you feeling okay?"

"I am fine, Hermione. It's nothing I cannot handle," he said, glancing away. His voice had taken on a quiet, clipped precision. He hadn’t noticed it, but Ron did.

"Blimey," Ron muttered, eyebrows furrowing. "You sound… weird. All proper and—like… him." He waved vaguely in Harry’s direction. "Severus Snape weird. I don’t like it."

Harry felt a flicker of panic at Ron’s words but couldn’t stop himself. He had started talking the way Snape did. His words were sharp, controlled, measured. Words he would have normally swallowed now slipped out with an unintended cadence. It both terrified and fascinated him.

The glimpses had grown more frequent too. Sometimes at the market, in Diagon Alley, a man would move in the shadows just out of focus, tall and black-cloaked. Harry’s heart would hammer, his chest constrict, and the figure would vanish before he could be sure it was real.

He began avoiding crowds, streets, even his coworkers. He didn’t want anyone else to notice. He wanted to deny it, to pretend it was all in his head, but he couldn’t.

The dreams, however, were unavoidable.

He woke in a cold sweat. He had been pinned against a wall in an endless corridor. Snape was there, his eyes dark, intense, and impossibly knowing. "Potter," he said, voice low, almost tender in the way that made Harry’s stomach twist, "you cannot hide from what is already within you."

The words resonated even as Harry struggled to breathe. The shadows of the corridor shifted and stretched, the walls seeming to pulse with life. Snape’s hands were on Harry’s shoulders, firm and possessive, and a part of Harry ached for the reassurance he didn’t dare name.

"I… I don’t understand," Harry gasped.

"You will," Snape whispered, leaning close. His lips brushed Harry’s ear, just enough to send a shiver down his spine. "In time."

Harry awoke, heart hammering, sheets twisted around his legs. He sat on the edge of the bed, trying to force his thoughts back into reason. But his body remembered what his mind could not explain. A heaviness lingered in his chest, a mix of fear and longing, that made him both sick and exhilarated.

He began keeping a journal at Hermione’s suggestion, writing down every glimpse, every dream, every twitch of muscle or change in speech he noticed in himself. Sometimes he wondered if the act of writing it down made it worse. He wondered if by naming it, he was giving it more power.

At breakfast, Hermione and Ron exchanged worried glances as he sat stiffly, fingers tapping the rim of his cup with a deliberate, precise rhythm.

"You really should take it easy," Hermione said gently. "I know these dreams are disturbing, but you’re… you’re changing. And not in a normal way."

"I’m fine," Harry replied, voice sharper than he intended. He realized only afterward that he had spoken like Snape, clipped, precise, with an edge he didn’t mean to carry. He winced.

Ron leaned forward, voice low and nervous. "Mate… you’re freaking us out. You’ve gone full… uh… Professor Doom again. Snape-voice, posture… are you sure you’re okay?"

"I’m fine," Harry said again, but the tremor in his hands betrayed him. He wanted to scream, to beg them to believe him. He wanted to tell them he had seen the cloak in the alley again yesterday, tall and black against the dying sun. He wanted to tell them that in his dreams Snape’s hands lingered, pressing him to a wall, whispering promises he couldn’t name.

He didn’t.

Instead, he excused himself, muttering that he needed air, and walked to the garden. The sun was low, casting long shadows over the grass, and for a moment he felt as though the entire world were holding its breath.

And then he saw him.

Just for a second. A flicker of black in the far corner of the hedge, impossibly thin, impossibly still. Harry froze. His chest constricted, his fingers curling into fists at his sides. When he blinked, he was gone. But the cold that had crept through his veins didn’t leave.

That night, he dreamt again.

This time, it was a library, endless rows of books stretching into darkness. Snape stood among them, arms crossed, eyes dark and unreadable. Harry approached cautiously.

"You are changing," Snape said, voice low, almost accusatory. "You carry my shape, my words, my temper."

"I… I don’t know what’s happening," Harry whispered, voice shaking.

"You are becoming what you were never meant to be," Snape said, stepping closer, so close Harry could feel the heat of his presence. "And yet… it is not entirely unwanted, is it?"

Harry recoiled, suddenly aware of how the dream’s proximity mirrored reality. The room seemed to shrink around them, the shadows stretching like fingers, threatening to pull him in. His body reacted before his mind could, and he felt a heat pooling in his chest, a twisted, fearful yearning that left him breathless.

He woke screaming into his pillow, hands shaking violently, tears running down his face. The journal lay on the nightstand, untouched. He wanted to write, to capture it, to ground himself, but the act felt pointless. Snape’s presence lingered even after the dream ended, wrapping around his mind like smoke.

By the next morning, Hermione had noticed. She cornered him in the kitchen, hands on his shoulders. "Harry, you’re… you’re scaring me. Ron too. Something is happening, and you’re not telling us the whole truth."

Harry’s voice cracked. "I can’t. I don’t even understand it myself. I… I see him. I dream him. He’s… here, somehow. And I can’t… I can’t control it."

Hermione’s eyes softened, worry etched into every line of her face. "Then we get you help. Real help. Not just me and Ron watching you unravel."

Ron hovered nearby, awkward and uncomfortable. "I dunno about all this…" he said, scratching the back of his neck. "Seeing dead people, dreams… Mate, it’s freaky. Like, really freaky. But… Hermione’s right. You need someone to talk to. Properly. Before…" He trailed off, glancing at Harry, worry etched across his face.

"Before I go completely mad?" Harry whispered, half-laughing, half-sobbing.

"Yes," Ron said bluntly.

And so, that afternoon, Harry returned to the therapist’s office. Sunlight streamed across the floorboards, and the smell of old parchment filled the quiet room. He sat, hands clenched, staring at the floor, trying to summon words that wouldn’t sound insane.

"I… I see him," Harry said finally. "I can’t stop. Sometimes it’s just a glimpse. A shadow, a figure… black cloak, sharp face. And in dreams… he’s there. Talking, watching… touching. I wake up… like I’ve been somewhere I shouldn’t have. And I think… he’s not dead. Maybe hiding. Maybe… I don’t know what."

Dr. Wren nodded slowly, quill poised over a notebook. "Do you feel fear when you see him?"

"Yes. Yes, and… something else. Something I can’t name. I wake up… trembling. And sweating. And I don’t know why my body reacts the way it does. I… I can’t explain it."

The therapist’s voice was calm, grounding. "It’s clear these dreams and sightings are affecting you deeply. We’ll work on ways to manage the fear, the hallucinations, the physiological response. You’re not crazy, Harry. But your mind is… haunted. And that is something we can address."

Harry nodded, but as he walked home, the shadows of the city felt heavier, darker. The air itself seemed charged, waiting. And for a brief moment, he thought he saw the black figure again, across a distant alleyway, tall and impossibly still, watching him.

Harry shivered, but not entirely from the cold. Somewhere deep inside, he knew the spiral had already begun. And he was powerless to stop it.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The days had grown longer, yet somehow heavier. Each morning, Harry felt as though he were waking into a world slightly off-kilter, every shadow sharper, every silence more oppressive. The glimpses of the black figure in alleys or on quiet streets were becoming more frequent, and sometimes in a moment of panic or fatigue he thought he felt the brush of a hand on his shoulder, though no one was there.

It began with subtle habits he didn’t notice at first. A flick of his wrist, a sharp intake of breath before speaking, the way his gaze lingered too long on someone’s movements, dissecting them with an unnatural precision. Hermione noticed the first change.

"Harry," she said one morning, adjusting his collar before he could leave for work. "You’ve… tightened your posture again. And your tone — it’s… precise, clipped. You sound like him."

"I… I don’t notice it," Harry murmured, voice quiet, low. But Hermione’s gaze did not waver. She had begun to notice the way he carried himself, the subtle hardening around his eyes, the meticulous way he measured every word.

Ron, as usual, noticed too. Though in his own blunt, impatient way. "Mate, you’re scaring me. You sound like you’ve swallowed Snape whole. I mean, the way you snap at things, the… posture, the glare…" He trailed off, clearly unnerved. "It’s weird. And it’s not the funny weird."

Harry’s stomach twisted, half in guilt, half in fear. He didn’t mean to scare them, but he couldn’t stop it. He realized, with a sinking panic, that Snape’s habits were beginning to seep into him as naturally as breathing. His thoughts were sharper, colder, and in moments of stress, he found himself thinking in the man’s cadence.

At night, the dreams worsened.

One evening, he woke in a room that seemed impossibly vast, lined with mirrors that reflected him back endlessly. And in each mirror, there was Snape. Not just his reflection, but an echo of Harry’s own movements. "Do you see?" Snape whispered, voice low and accusing. "Do you understand what it means to carry me within you?"

"I… I don’t…" Harry stammered, fear curling in his stomach. He tried to step back, but the mirrors rippled like water, and suddenly he was pressed against glass, looking into Snape’s eyes, which were both piercing and haunting.

"You are becoming me," Snape said, stepping closer. "And yet, you do not understand. Not yet. But soon, Potter. Soon you will feel what I feel. And you will know."

Harry woke with a jolt, sweat clinging to his hair, heart racing. He could still feel the cold press of glass against his back, the brush of fingers that weren’t real. He sat on the edge of the bed, trying to convince himself that it was just a dream. Yet deep inside, a part of him knew it was not that simple.

Hermione was waiting in the kitchen the next morning, brow furrowed. "Harry," she said, voice gentle but firm, "you’ve changed again. You… you’re not sleeping, are you?"

"I am," Harry lied, voice tight. He didn’t dare admit the truth. That sleep had become a battlefield, and every night was a struggle to maintain his own sense of self against the intrusive presence of someone he was supposed to have seen killed, someone who should have been gone.

Ron leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, scowling. "This is getting ridiculous. You’re snapping at everything, pacing, mumbling in your sleep… You’re freaking us out. Are you sure you’re not… I dunno… losing it?"

Harry felt a flicker of panic. "I’m not crazy," he said, almost shouting. "I know what I see. I know what I feel. Something is… happening. And I can’t control it."

"You’re scaring me," Hermione said softly. "And Ron too. Please, Harry… let us help."

But Harry couldn’t. He felt trapped inside himself, caught between waking and dreaming, between memory and reality. Every glance at the shadows, every flicker of movement at the edge of his vision, reminded him that Snape was still there, somehow, watching, waiting, claiming him in ways he didn’t fully understand.

The following night, the dreams escalated further. He was in the dungeons of Hogwarts, the air damp and cold, the torches casting long, quivering shadows. Snape was there, his gaze impossibly intense, fingers brushing lightly over Harry’s arm. "Do you not understand, Potter?" he asked. "Do you not feel it? The bond we share is not merely memory. It is… something more. Something that lives."

Harry’s chest constricted. "I… I don’t understand!" he shouted, though his voice echoed strangely in the dark halls.

"You will," Snape whispered. "In time."

And then, the dream shifted. The dungeons melted into an endless hallway of doors, each one reflecting Harry’s face and Snape’s face simultaneously. Every door showed another possibility, another outcome, and a sense of inevitability pressed on him like a weight. He awoke again, trembling, unable to distinguish where the dream ended and the memory of it began.

The next morning, Ron grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him with a mixture of fear and frustration. "Harry! Enough of this! You’re scaring everyone. Hermione and I… we don’t know what to do anymore. You’ve got to tell us the truth."

Harry shook his head violently. "I’m telling you the truth!" he said, voice trembling. "You wouldn’t understand! It’s not… it’s not just seeing him. It’s… it’s inside me. I feel him. I… I wake up and I feel him there, pressing into me. And… I’m changing. I can’t stop it!"

Hermione’s eyes filled with tears, and she reached out, grabbing his hands. "Harry, you’re scaring me. And I don’t think this is just dreams anymore. Something is… affecting you. You need more help. Proper help. Go back to therapy. Dr. Wren can-"

"Dr. Wren can do nothing! I am not… insane!" Harry shouted, though the sound of his own voice made him wince. He was beginning to recognize the tone of Snape in his words, the sharp, clipped edge he hated himself for.

Ron looked at him, his expression torn between fear and anger. "Maybe not… but you’re scaring yourself, mate. That’s worse than insane. You’re losing control."

The confrontation left Harry reeling. He retreated to his room, shutting the door with trembling hands, trying to ground himself in something solid. Anything. But the shadows outside the window seemed longer, darker. The air felt heavier. And in the corner of his vision, just beyond the veil of perception, he thought he saw him again. A tall, black-cloaked figure, motionless, watching.

By the next evening, the strain had begun to take its toll physically. Harry’s movements were more precise, almost surgical. His gaze was sharper, more analytical. He found himself mimicking Snape’s habits without meaning to. The subtle tilt of the head, the deliberate pacing, the careful enunciation of words, it was all there. Even his dreams mirrored this, becoming more focused, more commanding, as if Snape’s will were embedding itself into him.

And then, there was the faint, persistent thought that had begun creeping into his waking mind.

What if he isn’t dead? What if he’s really out there, and I’m the only one who can find him?

Chapter Text

The silence in the flat had turned brittle.

Ron avoided looking at Harry for long. Hermione moved quietly, watching him as if afraid he might shatter. Harry no longer tried to reassure them. He barely trusted his own reflection.

He was starting to forget where the dreams ended. Sometimes in the middle of the day, he would feel a tug in his chest, a sense of being pulled elsewhere, like a spell calling him across a great distance.

That morning, he found George waiting outside the door.

"Mind if I come in?" George asked, voice rough. The light had gone out of him after Fred’s death. What remained was a quiet steadiness. "Ron says you’ve been seeing things."

Harry hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. Someone."

George followed him into the kitchen, eyes flicking over the stacks of books and papers. "Him?"

Harry didn’t need to ask who he meant. "Snape," he said. The name still caught in his throat. "Everywhere. In dreams, too. Like he’s… calling me, or maybe I’m calling him."

George pulled out a chair and sat. "You ever think it’s because he saved you? Last thing he did before dying. Maybe something tied you together."

Harry looked up sharply. "You believe me?"

"I believe in what grief does," George said quietly. "After Fred… I used to hear him. Swore I saw him in the shop sometimes. But what you’re describing… it sounds different. Like he’s trying to tell you something."

Harry exhaled shakily. "If he’s alive, I have to find him."

George leaned forward. "Then I’m coming with you. If there’s even a chance he’s out there, then maybe… maybe there’s a chance for all of us to bring back what we’ve lost."

When Hermione and Ron came home later, they found the two of them hunched over a pile of maps and half-scribbled notes. Hermione froze in the doorway.

"Harry, what are you doing?"

"Looking for him," Harry said simply. "I can’t ignore this anymore."

Ron groaned. "Merlin’s beard, not again."

George interrupted. "He’s not wrong. If you’d seen what grief does to a man, you’d understand. I’d give anything to have Fred back. And don't act like you wouldn't either. If Snape’s alive, why shouldn’t we try?"

Hermione stared at them both. "You don’t even know if he is alive. This could be dangerous. Or worse-"

"Expelled!" Harry and Ron said in unison. Hermione glared at her husband.

"Or worse, it could make everything worse."

Harry met her gaze. "Then help me make sure I’m not imagining it."

Hermione hesitated, torn between reason and loyalty. Finally, she said, "We’ll go to Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick, they’ll know what to do."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The next day, the castle loomed gray against a pale sky. Time had softened it but not healed it. McGonagall greeted them with a look that mixed affection and concern.

"You’ve grown, Potter," she said, "but trouble seems to have kept pace with you."

He told her everything. Every dream, every glimpse. When he finished, silence filled the office.

Professor Flitwick frowned. "Residual soul magic isn’t unheard of. But for a connection this strong…"

The old portrait above McGonagall’s desk stirred. Dumbledore’s painted eyes opened slowly. "Harry," he said, voice soft and echoing, "I feared this might happen."

Harry froze. "You knew?"

"I suspected. Severus carried great magic…and great guilt. In giving you his memories, he may have given you more than that. A sliver of his essence. A shadow of soul, bound by sacrifice."

Hermione’s breath caught. "A horcrux?"

"Not quite," Dumbledore said. "Not deliberate. But enough to tie you together. If he lives, the connection would call to you. If he doesn’t, it may still echo across whatever lies beyond."

"So he could be alive?" Harry whispered.

Dumbledore smiled faintly. "Perhaps. He was always resourceful. I would look not in Britain, but east on the continent, where no one remembers his name."

Harry turned to the others. "Then we find him."

Ron shook his head, half-in disbelief. "Blimey, mate. You’re really doing this?"

George stood. "We are."

McGonagall’s eyes softened. "Then go carefully. The living and the dead are not so easily separated."

The group left the castle as twilight fell, the weight of new knowledge pressing down like a storm. For the first time, Harry felt the air between the waking world and the dreams begin to thin. He felt the pull of something far away and familiar, waiting for him to cross the distance.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Morning light leaked through the curtains in thin, anemic threads, not enough to warm the kitchen table where Harry sat staring into a cup gone cold. Steam had stopped rising from it twenty minutes ago, maybe longer. He couldn’t tell anymore when the minutes began or ended. They bled together like ink in water.

The house was too quiet. Ron had left early for work at the Ministry, Hermione for the library. That left Harry alone with the soft ticking of the clock and the whisper of something beneath it. A faint pulse that seemed to echo in the walls whenever he held still long enough to hear it.

He touched the rim of the mug, meaning to drink, but his hand paused halfway. The gesture was precise, measured, the sort of deliberate economy he’d once associated only with Snape. He dropped the cup as if burned.

"Bloody hell," he whispered, pushing back from the table. The chair scraped sharply against the floor, too loud in the narrow space.

In the mirror by the door, a flicker caught his eye. A tall figure, black-robed, half-turned as if surprised to be seen. Harry spun around. Nothing. Just dust motes moving through light.

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "You’re not real," he muttered. "You’re dead."

But when he opened them, a faint scent of potion ingredients, wormwood and asphodel, lingered. Unmistakable and out of place in the tiny kitchen.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hermione found him hours later at the sitting room desk, surrounded by parchment. He had drawn columns of dates, places, times. Next to each he’d scrawled words like glimpse, voice, mirror. The handwriting grew slanted and impatient near the bottom.

"You’re charting them," she said softly.

"I have to see if there’s a pattern."

She crouched beside the chair, studying him with the same careful sympathy she used when cataloguing cursed artifacts. "Harry, you haven’t eaten. You’re shaking."

He looked down. His fingers tapped against the parchment in a rhythmic pattern. Tap-pause-tap. The same cadence Snape once used when marking essays. He forced his hand still. "I don’t notice until you point it out," he said hoarsely.

Hermione hesitated. "Sometimes trauma leaves echoes. The mind mimics what it can’t release."

Harry gave a short, bitter laugh. "You think this is trauma? He talks to me, Hermione. In dreams. Not memories. New words."

"What does he say?"

"Lately? ‘Find what was severed.’ Every time, the same phrase." He rubbed his scar, though it hadn’t hurt in years. "Maybe he means himself. Maybe… he means me."

Hermione’s expression tightened. She reached for one of the parchments. "Let me keep these for a bit. I’ll compare them with what Flitwick told us about residual soul signatures."

When she left, Harry stayed at the window. Outside, the street looked normal. Children walking home from school, a cat darting under a hedge. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that the air itself was thinner, as though another world pressed close behind it, waiting for him to slip.

He thought he heard a voice. It was low, silken, impossible to mistake. It seemed to say his name from somewhere beyond the glass. Perfect.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

By the next evening, the kitchen table had turned into a small war-room. Parchment rolls, reference books, and a half-empty pot of tea cluttered every inch. Hermione sat cross-legged on a chair, reading three texts at once, her quill moving in quick, nervous strokes. George leaned against the counter, arms folded, watching Harry pace the floorboards.

"I’m telling you," George said, "you need to stop counting how many times you see him and start asking why he wants to be seen."

Harry stopped pacing. "You believe me, then?"

George shrugged. "Belief’s not the word. I’ve lost enough to know that sometimes the impossible just doesn’t care if you think it’s real."

Hermione looked up from her notes, dark smudges beneath her eyes. "I think I found something."

She pushed a sheet across the table. On it was a copy of an old Ministry requisition ledger, half-burned, rescued from the post-war clear-outs. Her finger tapped a line near the bottom.

Shipment destination: Calais, Northern France

Recipient alias: T. Prince

Contents: Powdered Dittany, Bezoar Shavings, Rare Antivenin Components

Date: July 30, 1998

Harry’s heart tripped. "Prince," he murmured. "That’s…"

"… his mother's maiden name," Hermione finished. "It was the same he used for the Potion's text you had in sixth year. It was also the codename Snape used for one of the Order’s emergency safe-houses. I checked with McGonagall."

George whistled softly. "So someone bought snakebite antidote ingredients under his alias not long after he was meant to be dead."

Hermione nodded. "Which could mean he survived, or someone close to him tried to duplicate his work."

Harry stared at the parchment. The ink seemed to breathe under the lamplight. "He was dying from Nagini’s bite. He’d have needed antivenin." The idea struck him with such force that the room tilted. "He’s alive."

"Harry-" Hermione began.

But he was already reaching for his coat. "I can feel him. Every day it gets stronger. He’s somewhere close enough for me to sense it."

George caught his arm. "Slow down. If you rush at this, you’ll scare him off. If it is him, let’s plan it right."

Hermione exhaled, rubbing her temples. "George, you can’t possibly think-"

"Why not?" he said quietly. "I’d give anything for one more minute with Fred. If there’s a chance Snape’s still breathing, then maybe the world owes Harry that same chance."

The three of them stood in a fragile triangle of silence, the old clock ticking between them. Outside, rain began to fall steady, cold, and certain.

Hermione finally broke the quiet. "There’s one more person who might help us. Someone who knew where Snape would run."

Harry frowned. "Who?"

"Draco Malfoy," she said. "He was closer to Snape than anyone at the end."

George raised his eyebrows. "Well, that’s going to be a cheerful reunion."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Malfoy Manor sat like a wound on the landscape, pale stone half reclaimed by ivy, windows shuttered though the afternoon was bright. When the group reached its gates, the air crackled faintly against their wands. Hermione lifted hers and murmured the recognition phrase McGonagall had provided. The wards flickered, hesitated, and grudgingly opened.

Inside, the once opulent hallways smelled faintly of dust and lavender polish. Harry felt the weight of old memories press down. This was the place of captivity, of blood on marble. George’s usual humor failed him here. Even he kept his voice low.

A door opened at the end of the corridor.

Draco Malfoy stood there, pale as bone in the dim light, wand lowered but not hidden. His hair was shorter, his robes plain, and the sharpness of youth had dulled into a wary stillness.

"Potter," he said, and the name fell like an old curse. "Weasleys. Granger."

His gaze moved over each of them, neither welcome nor outright hostility. Merely fatigue. "You couldn’t possibly think I’d welcome Gryffindor salvation at my door again."

Hermione stepped forward. "We’re not here to save anyone. We need your help."

Draco’s mouth curved in a small, humorless smile. "My help. Fascinating. And what is it you think I can provide?"

Harry met his eyes. "You knew Snape. Better than most. We think he’s alive."

The smile vanished. "Alive." The word hung in the air like a ghost.

Draco turned away, pacing a slow line toward the hearth. "How could he possibly be alive? He died in front of you. Or so the stories say."

Harry didn’t answer. The silence itself became the argument.

Draco stopped, his back still to them. "I’ve dreamed of him too, you know," he said at last. "He stands by the old Potions room at Hogwarts, watching. Never speaking. I assumed it was guilt. My mind making amends."

Hermione exchanged a startled glance with George.

"I knew the little bugger was acting more git- like than normal," he muttered. "He sounds just as much like Snape as Harry does."

Harry said quietly, "What if it isn’t? What if he’s reaching out?"

Draco turned, eyes cold but not unkind. "If he is, he doesn’t want to be found. The man lived in secrecy his whole life. Why should death change that?"

George pushed off from the wall. "Because he might not be dead, mate. And if he’s trapped somewhere between, that’s not living either."

For a moment, the only sound was the crackle of fire. Then, from somewhere deeper in the house, a child’s laughter echoed, brief, bright, and distant. Draco’s expression flickered. He looked toward the sound, then back to them, something softer in his voice.

"If Severus lives, he’s wounded. He’d never let the world see him broken."

He paused. "He kept a list once. Safe-houses, places to disappear. Most were destroyed after the war, but there was one in the Alps near Grenoble. A place he used to call the Winter House. You’ll find it marked with a lily seal."

Hermione’s quill was already moving. "Do you still have the coordinates?"

"I do."

He hesitated, then added, "And I’ll go with you. If he’s alive, he won’t speak to you. But he might speak to me."

Ron groaned. "Brilliant. A road trip with Malfoy."

Draco ignored him, turning to Harry. "But understand this, Potter. If we find him, and he doesn’t want to return-"

"I won’t force him," Harry said quickly, though he wasn’t sure it was true.

Draco nodded once, crisp and formal, as if sealing a contract. "Then we leave tomorrow. Pack for cold weather."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That night, sleep came late.

Harry lay awake in the borrowed room at Malfoy Manor, the wind pressing against the windows like a slow, persistent tide. His mind circled Draco’s words, The Winter House, near Grenoble, until exhaustion finally pulled him under.

He stood in a white wasteland.

Snow fell soundlessly, thick as wool, swallowing everything but a single shape in the distance, a dark cottage crouched at the base of a mountain. Smoke bled from its chimney in slow spirals. The air bit his skin, yet he could feel heat coming from somewhere ahead.

Each step toward the cottage deepened the quiet. No wind, no heartbeat, no sound at all. Only the faint crackle of a fire beyond the door. He reached for the handle. It was iron-cold and slightly ajar. He pushed.

The hinges groaned softly. Inside, candles floated above worktables cluttered with vials and parchment. The smell of crushed herbs and ash filled the air. At the far end of the room stood Snape, unchanged. His back was turned to Harry, robes moving like ink in water. The professor’s hand hovered above a cauldron that burned without smoke or flame.

"Professor…" Harry’s voice cracked the silence.

Snape turned, slowly. His expression held no anger, only weary knowledge.

"Not all deaths are endings," he said. His voice was faint, distorted, as though coming through glass. "Some merely scatter the pieces."

Harry tried to move closer, but the floor shifted beneath him like liquid. The room rippled, the walls fading into snow. Snape raised a hand, palm out.

"Find what was severed," he whispered again. Then he was gone.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Harry woke with frost on his breath and a fine dusting of snow across the bedsheet that vanished when he blinked. The clock read four in the morning. For a moment he could still smell potions smoke and winter air.

Downstairs, the kitchen light was already on. Hermione sat with Draco and George, maps spread between them. She looked up as Harry entered, eyes wide.

"You saw it too," she said quietly. "Didn’t you?"

Harry nodded. "A cottage. Snow. He was there."

Draco unfolded a map of southern France, tracing a finger along the Alps. "That’s it. The Winter House. My mother mentioned it once. He kept it for emergencies. No one’s been there in years."

George leaned forward. "Then that’s where we start."

Hermione’s wand tapped the map. "We’ll need protective wards. Something to shield Harry from the connection if it strengthens. Whatever link binds them seems to work through dreams, but proximity could make it worse."

"I can handle it," Harry said.

"Maybe," she replied, "but we can’t risk you being pulled in completely."

Draco’s tone was measured. "I can brew a stabilizing draught for him. Snape used it when he had to counter strong mental magic. I remember the ingredients."

George gave a low humorless chuckle. "Look at that. Teamwork."

No one smiled.

By dawn, their plan was set. They would travel first to Paris, then south to the Alps by Portkey. Hermione prepared charm stones for focus and safety, each etched with a personal rune. Ron, half-asleep and grumbling, helped them pack cloaks and supplies.

As they stepped out into the pale morning, Harry felt a faint pressure at the edge of his mind. Something like a pull, distant but insistent dragged at him. It came from the direction they were headed, a thread of cold energy stretching out across the sea.

He looked back once toward the horizon. In the reflection of the kitchen window, for the briefest heartbeat, he thought he saw Snape standing beside him. His eyes were dark, unreadable, as if watching to see what Harry would do next.

Then the reflection was gone, and only the morning mist remained.