"It'll be all right." Hermione said in a panicked voice,"Let's...let's go back to the castle, Harry. If he's gone to the Forest, then...then we'll need to think of a new plan."

"Yeah, don't listen to him, mate." Ron said warily.

"Harry?" Hermione frowned.

Harry gave a small nod of agreement and followed Ron and Hermione out of the Shrieking Shack. The trio made their way back to the Great Hall, where Ron moved back over to Fred and knelt down by his mother's side. Harry and Hermione shared a sad look. Bill, Fleur, and Gabrielle had joined them, and Gabrielle hurried to Ron's side and sat down, stroking his back.

At Fred's side lay Lupin and Tonks. They looked peaceful and were almost holding hands, but Harry's breath still caught in his throat as he turned to the door and ran from the Great Hall. Quick footsteps followed him, but nobody called out for him to stop. Harry did not look back until he reached the Headmaster's office.

"Harry," Hermione slowed to a halt as she reached the door too,"what are you doing?"

Harry didn't answer. He simply stared at the stone gargoyle that was guarding the door, face deadpan.

"Password?" The gargoyle asked.

"Dumbledore!" Harry said without thinking, for it was he whom Harry yearned to see most. To his surprise, the gargoyle slid aside, revealing the spiral staircase into the office. Harry charged up the stairs two at a time and burst into the circular office with such force that he almost tripped on a table leg.

"Harry!" Hermione sounded a little annoyed,"Would you please tell me what's going on?"

"I need to see Dumbledore!"

"He's up-" Hermione began, pointing to a large gold frame above the desk,"oh!"

There was no one in the frame. In fact, there was no one in any of the frames that surrounded the pair, supposed to be filled with previous Hogwarts Headmasters and Headmistresses. The lack of familiar faces made the office feel a lot colder than usual.

"I'm sorry, Harry."

"That's all right." Harry gazed up at the empty frames with a heavy heart,"I've got something else to do."

"What?"

Harry turned to face her and pulled out the flask that he had filled with Snape's memories. As Hermione's face softened with understanding, Harry turned to the shallow stone basin that stood beside him. He hadn't seen the Pensieve for almost a year, and Harry had had no desire to return to it, until that day. Unstoppering the flask and tipping its contents into the basin, Harry said,"You don't have to come in with me if you don't want to."

Hermione returned his statement with an incredulous look,"Of course I'm coming!" She eyed the Pensieve uncertainly,"Well...how do you...um...how does it work?"

Harry gave her a small grin, said,"Like this.", and plunged his head into the cold liquid. Only once he felt ground beneath his feet did Harry open his eyes. A light thud told him that Hermione had followed him into Snape's memories.

Hermione gasped,"Harry, is that-?"

"Stop it!" A young girl shrieked.

Harry turned to face the source of the noise. They were in a playground, in which two girls were playing on the swings. The taller one who had just spoken was hardly swinging at all, arms folded across her chest and a look of pure disgust on her face, framed by neat blonde ringlets of hair. The smaller girl, on the other hand, was swinging incredibly and somewhat dangerously high. She was laughing as her sister scowled at her, long red hair flying out behind her, bright green eyes sparkling with joy and youthfulness. There was someone else in the playground, too, however; a young boy whose black hair was long and messy was crouched behind a bush, watching the two girls. He wore a large, shabby overcoat, jeans that rode up above his ankles, and an odd smock-like shirt. It could only have been Severus Snape.

"Lily, don't do that!" The blonde girl shrieked again.

But the little red-haired girl had let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and quite literally flown into the air. She had launched herself skywards with a great shout of laughter and, instead of crumpling onto the playground asphalt, she soared like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up far too long, and landing far too lightly.

"Mummy told you not to!" The blonde girl said bossily, stopping her swing and storming over to her still giggling sister,"Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!" She placed her hands on her hips angrily.

"But I'm fine!" Lily insisted,"Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do!"

"No Lily!" Petunia snapped, looking suddenly quite scared.

Lily wasn't listening. She had picked a daisy from the ground and held out her palm. The daisy sat in the very centre, opening and closing its petals in what looked to Harry like a dance. "Look, Tuney!" Lily beamed.

"Stop it!" Petunia shrieked.

"It's not hurting you." Lily frowned, but she closed her hand on the daisy and threw it to the ground.

"It's not right." Petunia's eyes followed the flower to the ground. "How do you do it?" She almost whispered, and there was a definite longing in her voice.

Taking Harry and Hermione by surprise, Snape jumped out from behind the bushes. "Its obvious, isn't it?" Snape said. It was plain to see that he had regretted his appearance as soon as he had made it. A dull flush of colour spread across his sallow cheeks as he looked at Lily.

"What's obvious?" Lily asked curiously, staying rooted to the spot as Petunia backed away.

With an air of nervous excitement, Snape lowered his voice and said,"I know what you are."

"What do you mean?"

"You're a witch, Lily."

"That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!" Lily looked affronted. She turned, nose in the air, and marched off towards her sister by the swings.

"No!" Snape shouted, blushing furiously,"You are. You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while. But there's nothing wrong with that. My mum's one, too, and I'm a wizard."

Petunia's laugh was like ice cold water. "Wizard!" She screeched,"I know who you are. You're that Snape boy that lives down Spinner's End, aren't you?" Snape nodded uncomfortably. "Why have you been spying on us?" Petunia demanded.

"I haven't been spying." Snape said defiantly,"Wouldn't spy on you, anyway. You're a Muggle."

Though Petunia did not understand the word, she could hardly mistake the tone. "Lily, come on, we're leaving!" She said shrilly.

Lily obeyed her sister, but gave Snape a curiously hopeful glance as she hurried out of the playground. Snape returned it with a half-hearted smile, equally hopeful.

***********

What felt like - and really was - a lifetime later, the scene surrounding Harry and Hermione had dissolved into a dark night sky. They were flying alongside Snape on a broomstick, who was following Lupin and a Polyjuiced Harry that must have been George Weasley. A Death Eater moved in front of Snape and raised his wand to Lupin's back.

"Sectumsempra!" Snape shouted, but the spell, intended for the Death Eater's wand hand, missed and hit George instead.

The sky became Sirius' bedroom in Grimmauld Place. Tears were dripping from the end of Snape's hooked nose as he knelt down by the four-poster bed. A piece of parchment was in his hand; Harry and Hermione instantly recognised it as the letter from Lily to Sirius that they had found when they had visited Number 12 the previous summer after escaping the wedding. Snape tore through the letter very close to the bottom, placing the top section onto Sirius' bed. Harry and Hermione moved forwards quickly to read the small piece of parchment that remained in Snape's hand.

could ever have been friends with Gellert Grindelwald. I think her mind's going, personally!
Lots of love,
Lily

On the floor in front of them was the photo of baby Harry zooming along on his toy broomstick that the pair had found with the letter. Snape picked it up, scowled, and threw it onto the bed next to the rest of the letter. Sighing heavily, Snape tucked the parchment bearing Lily's signature and her love into his robes.

The scene changed once more to the Headmaster's office. Snape was stood before the portrait of Professor Dumbledore. The frame next to him was empty. Phineas Nigellus cane hurrying into it.

"Headmaster! They are camping in the Forest of Dean! The Mudblood-"

"Do not use that word." Snape said sharply.

"The Granger girl, then, mentioned the place as she opened her bag, and I heard her!"

Harry felt Hermione shift uncomfortably by his side at this revelation.

"Good, very good!" The portrait of Dumbledore cried,"Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget that it must be taken under conditions of need and valour, and he must not know that you give it! If Voldemort should read Harry's mind and see you acting for him-"

"I know." Snape said curtly, approaching the portrait of Dumbledore and pulling at its side. The frame swung forwards, revealing a hidden cavity behind it, from which he took the sword of Gryffindor. "And you still aren't going to tell me why it is so important to give Potter the sword?" Snape said, slinging a black travelling cloak over his robes.

"No, I don't think so." Dumbledore said politely,"He will know what to do with it. And Severus, be very careful, they may not take kindly to your appearance after the mishap with George Weasley-"

Snape turned as he reached the door. "Don't worry, Dumbledore." He said coolly,"I have a plan."

Harry and Hermione rose up out of the Pensieve and moments later they lay on the carpeted floor in the Headmaster's office.

Lying with his face pressed into the dusty carpet of the office where he had once thought he was learning the secrets of victory, Harry understood at last that he was not supposed to survive. His job was to walk calmly into Death's welcoming arms. Along the way, he was to dispose of Voldemort's remaining links to life, so that, when at last he flung himself across Voldemort's path and did not raise a wand to defend himself, the end would be clean, and the job that ought to have been done sixteen years ago in Godric's Hollow would be finished: neither would live, neither could survive.

Harry felt his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. He felt it strange that, in his dread of death, it pumped harder, valiantly keeping him alive. But it would have to stop soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as he rose and walked through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the Forest? Terror washed over him as he pushed himself up from the floor, a funeral drum pounding inside him. Would it hurt to die? In all those times he had thought it was about to happen and escaped, he had never really thought of the thing itself. His will to live had always been so much stronger than his fear of death. Yet it did not occur to him now to try to escape, to outrun Voldemort. It was over, he knew it, and all that was left was the thing itself: dying. Harry's eyes met Hermione's. She was sitting in front of him, watching his every move. One look at her told Harry that she had figured out the truth just as quickly as he had. Tears were streaking her face, but Hermione did nothing to wipe them away.

"I d-don't sup-ppose there's anything I can d-d-do to stop you, i-is there?" Harry shook his head. Hermione let out a loud sob and flung her arms around Harry, pulling him in tighter than she ever had before, desperate never to let go.

He let his head rest on Hermione's shoulder as the looming reality of death finally swallowed him up. "You...you need to finish it." He said quietly, feeling himself begin to go numb.

"The war?"

"Everything." Harry nodded,"Kill Nagini - tell Neville, Luna, and Ginny, too, in case they get the sword - and kill Voldemort. Without his Horcruxes, he'll be just as mortal as the rest of you."

"But...but, Harry-"

"I need to do this, you know I need to, Hermione. I'm a...I have to. I've...I think I've known for a while, and...and I think you have, too."

"I'll go with you." Hermione whispered, tears filling her eyes once more.

There was no need for Harry to answer that. If there had been, he wasn't sure he'd have known what to say. "I need to go." He said gruffly, suddenly wanting to be apart from her, to end the pain he was causing both her and himself, and stood up.

Hermione leapt to her feet alongside him, features even more desperate than Harry could ever remember seeing them. "Harry, wait." She pleaded, looking at her watch,"Its only b-been half an hour, Harry, p-p-please, stay for just a-a little-"

"Hermione," Harry said gently, taking her trembling hands in his numbing ones,"don't do this, please."

Hermione looked down, but Harry took her face in his hands and kissed her for the last time. Neither of them could bear to pull away, and neither of them would have done if they could have had their way. Harry turned away, unable to look at her, locking his fingers into hers and keeping them there until he could walk no further with them. As he dropped her hand, Hermione whispered,"Goodbye, Harry."

Harry stopped for a moment, not turning around,"Not goodbye. Never goodbye."

"F-farewell, then?"

"No." Harry shook his head, looking down at the floor,"See you soon."

Hermione went so silent that Harry had to turn around to make sure she was still there. Thankfully, she was. "I love you, Harry."

"I love you, too, Hermione. I always will." And, with that, Harry left.