Chapter 1 (THIS FIC IS NOW CONTINUED AND POSTED ON AO3 AS DISILLUSIONMENT)
He set Lilly gently onto the couch in the small, decrepit drawing room filled to bursting with books and bookshelves. How best to contact Dumbledore? A patronus? Then he heard the faint buzzing in his ear which meant one of his security spells around the house had been triggered. He strode quickly to the door, wrenching it open, wand raised. Dumbledore in blue, starry robes stood on the pavement before his house, serene as ever behind his half-moon spectacles.
“You heard.”
“Is she here?”
Snape stepped back and motioned him in, taking a few minutes to look up and down the street before closing the door. Inside, Dumbledore stood by the sofa, gazing down at the unconscious Lily. Snape collapsed into an armchair, his head in his hands.
“So he did spare her after all,” Dumbledore said softly.
“Yes, but he…he…” Snape choked on some overwhelming emotion and simply motioned towards Lilly.
“Mercilessly killed her husband and child instead. I didn’t think Voldemort recognized that there are things worse than death. Perhaps I was wrong.”
“He-he thinks it’s funny,” Snape spat with sudden venom.
“Ah.” Dumbledore said simply. He looked up from Lily towards Snape. “He saw a way to simultaneously earn your gratitude and test you. The fact that it would entail the psychological torture of a muggle-born witch was, as they say, the cherry on top.” His voice lowered, “We would be fools to assume that he does not eventually plan to kill her, after you’ve had your fill of her of course.” Snape moaned miserably in response.
“What must be done now, Severus, is to think of Lily’s safety. This is a tricky matter. Tom Riddle, I presume, expects you to keep her imprisoned here. There’s no way you would be able to keep a powerful witch imprisoned in your office at Hogwarts without my detection. Hogwarts would be safest for her, but for the sake of keeping your true loyalty hidden we must pretend to do what he expects. I believe it’s perfectly safe to keep her here for now, this house is well-protected. Perhaps the Order could orchestrate a faux raid of some sort to free her in a few weeks. Otherwise, when you refuse to hand her back over to him, the game will be up.”
Snape had lifted his face from his hands to gaze miserably back at Dumbledore. “He took her memory,” he croaked “Did you know that?” Consternation briefly flitted across Dumbledore’s face. He turned back to look at Lily.
There was silence for a few moments. “Perhaps that’s best for now,” Dumbledore said so quietly Snape barely heard it. He then turned sharply back to Snape, his blue eyes piercing, “Do you agree?”
Snape opened and closed his mouth a few times, speechless, uncertain.
“A horrible fate to know and feel nothing for the ones a person holds most dear. But perhaps an even worse fate is to truly feel the sting of having the people one loves most in the world irrevocably stolen away.”
“She deserves to know,” Snape replied in a thick whisper.
“Yes, she will know. She should be the one to decide, don’t you think? Whether to have the memory of love of her husband and child back or to live in blissful, happy ignorance?”
Snape’s eyes fixed onto Lily’s limp form. He nodded mutely. Dumbledore tapped his wand to Lily’s temple and strode towards the door. He opened it, “I’ll be going now, Halloween feast you know” and disappeared into the night. But Snape barely noticed, he was crouching beside the sofa, watching Lily’s eyes flutter open.
