Severus... Reformed / SNILY (COMPLETE)

Prologue

And the last thing he saw were clear green eyes.

*

"Severus."

His name, spoken so softly, immediately alerted him to Dumbledore's presence. The old headmaster stood in blinding light, and outstretched a hand as Severus eased his battered body off the gleaming floor.

Only it wasn't battered. He had none of the injuries from his many battles. No gaping wound in his neck. And somehow Severus knew that if he looked, the numerous scars from his childhood on his torso and his back would be gone, leaving pale but untouched skin.

"Albus."

His mind was on overload. Limbo was the first word that came to mind as he stared at his mentor and his guardian since the age of twenty-one. Too many years had these bespectacled blue eyes looked intently into his, and the long grey beard been tucked into Albus Dumbledore's belt.

But he had killed Albus Dumbledore a year ago. His portrait had remained, but that did not mean his spirit had.

"Severus, look at me." The voice beseeched attention, and scathingly, Severus gave in to the lure of seeing the tears of joy he knew would grace the elder man's face.

As always, he was right. A broad smile was on Albus' face, despite his tears, and he embraced the man who had been like a son to him; the man who he had eternally seen as a boy.

"Long have I awaited you," Dumbledore spoke heavily. "I trust everything went according to plan?"

"You trust?" Severus' voice sounded harsh, unused. "You knew Voldemort would murder me, then? That he would obviously feel threatened, see me as competition, and kill me to stop the Elder Wand from disobeying him any longer? You knew I would work out in those final moments that Draco Malfoy was the true master of that damned wand, and so I had been killed for naught? I was a spy, an ingenious spy, for almost two decades! He never once suspected me. I died, thanks to the mistakes of an old man who couldn't see past the end of his ridiculously crooked nose!" He was fuming.

Dumbledore's face fell, like a disappointed child on Christmas morning. "Harry survived, Severus. He disarmed Draco in Malfoy Manor when the Golden Trio were captured. Voldemort was vanquished, once and for all, beaten by 'his' own wand."

"But I still died!" Severus exclaimed, rather petulantly. But it really wasn't a topic for children, and anyone would be annoyed at being killed off.

Dumbledore adopted a serious, sorrowful expression. "You couldn't have been able to live with yourself Severus. You tried, all those countless years ago, to join Lily Evans in death."

"Don't guilt-trip me! I've been the faithful servant of two masters, and guess what! They both wanted me dead_!"

"I hadn't finished. You wanted to join Lily in death. However, thanks to one of my many past mistakes, you can now join her, once again, in life." There was no sense of teasing in the old man's face.

Severus hadn't realised he was swaying until Dumbledore's hand closed firmly around his elbow.

"You have heard of the Butterfly Effect, I trust? In chaos theory, the Butterfly Effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state." Severus nodded, his brain already attempting to wrap itself around the problem. "I sent disturbances through time. Three years ago, at the Yule Ball, I told you nine significant words. What were those, Severus? I know they affected you."

Yes, Severus remembered. They had sent shivers through his spine, and he recalled his shallow breathing. Those very words had caused him to run for a Calming Draught.

"'You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon...'"

"I spoke to Madam Pomfrey that night. She thought she was missing a Calming Draught. Of course, it would have taken someone of quite remarkable skill to detect, and break the wards on that cabinet_"

"Alright, you know I took it!" Severus was beyond himself. "You effectively told me I should have been in a different house, and I know that you know it made me think of my past mistakes. It is not something that one likes to remember when the Dark Lord is on his way to resurrecting, and he killed the one you loved!"

"Love, Severus. Present tense. Those words made a Butterfly Effect. Those words ensured you an attempt to go back and fix things, with Lily, with your decisions. I want you to remember three things. Firstly, you know of my notebook. The Sorting Ceremony. Secondly, I will want to collect you, when you, no doubt, perform Occlumency, and wandless magic, and suchlike. I don't want you to hide your talent. And thirdly, I know that you love Lily very much. This time, I can promise she will never leave you. But only if you turn back, and change the things which you, as well as I do, know went wrong."

Severus opened his mouth to speak, but Albus held up a hand for him to stop.

"She went to your funeral," the old man said quietly, a small smile on his face. "They all went. Minerva, Poppy, Filius, Pomona, Aurora, Silvanus, Rolanda, Argus, Rubeus. Even Horace. They all forgave you. Poppy knew you had good inside. Minerva did too. And they all believed in Poppy and Minerva, their judgement, and gave you a chance. Always." Severus choked, and made to respond, but suddenly a wind struck up and he was sucked into the blackness, away from the uncharacteristically grave blue eyes.