A/N: Written for shoujo_bubbles in fandom_stocking in 2010. A bit of an homage to Textualsphinx's To Sever the Lining from a Cloud (http :/ /www .fanfiction .net/ s/ 134285/ 1/), a much angstier Severus/Lily that doesn't suffer much for being ten years old (!), and one of my favorites.

Warnings/Contains: Mentions of canon deaths. Some fluff, a little angst. A few liberties taken with Latin, I'm sure. Unbetaed and unBritpicked.

•·•·•·•·•·•·•

To Weave Cold Starlight

•·•·•·•·•·•·•

"Hey, Sev," whispered Lily, tugging at his sleeve. "Look at this one! It's amazing. So cool." She pushed an open book towards him, nearly knocking over her quill in her ink-pot.

Severus raised his head from where he had been leaning it on one arm, reading his second-year Charms text at an angle and without real interest. He pushed his straggling hair out of his eyes and peered over at the right-hand page Lily was excitedly pointing at.

Of the operation Astra texerem, or, To weave cold starlight:

Hereunder find instruction for the making of a rare cloth whose warp and weft are spun from the captured light of the stars, the which may be crafted into a cloak or other garment of your choosing as might any other cloth.

You will require first a round dish of good silver, at least two inches deep and as wide across as your forearm is long, and two ounces each of the following waters...

It went on like that for at least the rest of the page. The handwritten text was accompanied by a small color illustration of the finished product: a bolt of silvery-blue fabric turning slowly this way and that, glimmering with a soft light that seemed to come from within the threads. Though the paint of the picture was faded and a little chipped off in some places, it did still look rather pretty.

"Isn't it just... wow?" she continued, sounding rapt. "I never knew magic could do something like this. I feel like... like when we were just little kids and you were telling me about Hogwarts and owls and potions and Dementors and everything. Seems like so long ago. I wish I had a dress made out of this stuff, it sounds brilliant."

"We could... we could try it?" Severus ventured quietly. Lily seemed so excited by the idea that he really wanted her to have it.

"Oh, I don't think so," Lily sighed, closing the book. "It sounds far too difficult and expensive for a couple of second-years."

"We're almost third-years." Severus pulled the book to him and examined its title page. Natural Wonders, it read, or, A hand-book for the Wizard on the making of Marvels from the Natural World, by Aethelbert Skinnard. The tone of the writing had been a little funny and complicated, but Severus felt he was quite up to it.

Lily chuckled as she turned away and started collecting some other books she'd been flipping through just for fun. "If March is 'almost'. I know we're doing well in our lessons, Sev, but come on." She looked back at him with bright eyes, then stood up with her armful of books to put them back in their places.

Severus took the chance to snatch Lily's quill from its pot, scrawl a quick note of the title and author in the margin of his Charms book, and replace it before she came back. He surreptitiously blew on the ink as she packed her things, and took her nagging to pack his own up good-naturedly, thinking of his little secret. He was going to make the thing for her: maybe not this year, but as soon as he could. He wanted to see her eyes light up like that again.

Severus returned to the library alone the following Saturday morning (Lily having chosen to watch the Gryffindor Quidditch practice) and pulled Natural Wonders off the shelf. He set out a few sheets of parchment and, as he thumbed through the pages to the required spot, muttered the copying spell he'd looked up under his breath, practicing the pronunciation a few last times. Ah, there it was, Astra texerem. He carefully smoothed the pages of the book down, set a sheet of parchment beside the right-hand page, and began passing his wand over the lines of writing. "Geminio scriptum," he whispered, and the words began copying themselves onto the blank sheet. It wasn't perfect; the copy rather resembled his own cramped writing instead of the graceful, neat hand in the book, and the illustration was lost, but it would do.

When the first page had filled, he switched to a fresh sheet and turned the page in the book. Uh-oh... the following page was missing. And... damn it, yes, the end of this second page stopped in the middle of a sentence:

And so the operation is complete, and with moondrawn thread (q.v.) you may fashion this wonderful cloth into whatsoever garment you desire, and gain the effect of its natural enchantment. And what is that, you ask? Indeed I know, forbearing reader, that other than its simple beauty, you

Severus frowned. Well, at least it said "the operation is complete", although now he got a good look at the process, he was forced to agree with Lily that it was beyond him as a second-year, in terms both of his knowledge and skill and of his means. Never mind the special ingredients, where on earth was he going to get a silver dish two inches deep and of a diameter the length of his forearm? (And that problem would get worse, for he was sure to grow.) There was nothing for it at the moment, though, but to copy what he could and place the book back on the shelf. He would at least have the instructions to study while he looked into whether he could borrow or buy the book somewhere else and get that missing page, though he had no idea how he would afford it if it couldn't be borrowed. Asking his mum for it as a Christmas present seemed a slim chance at best.

•·•·•·•·•·•·•

Though Severus never entirely forgot the promise he'd made to himself that he would someday give Lily this exquisite gift, before too long his clear attention to the idea got buried under the detritus of a Hogwarts student's daily life: other books, other spells, various homework, extra Potions (purely for interest), late nights, exams, hurried meals, skirmishes with Sirius Black and James Potter, the occasional detention, hex development (purely for self-defense, of course), gaining a bit of a reputation as a damn creepy sod, jostling elbows in the Slytherin pecking order, rubbishing the Gryffindor Quidditch team—and Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s.

•·•·•·•·•·•·•

Severus had several cruel ironies in his life that he bitterly enjoyed taking out and savoring now and again, like a personal selection of ugly-flavored novelty confectionery. Among them was the fact that by the time his knowledge, powers, and finances had all improved enough that he felt he would be able to take on Astra texerem as a bit of a challenge rather than an impossibility, the question of affording another copy of the book (for it seemed it was a rare title, and every time he tracked one down at a bookseller's, the damn thing had increased in price) to first find out just what the stuff did was academic, as he had no one to give it to any more.

On particularly sulky nights, in the safety of his personal chambers at Hogwarts, he allowed himself to entertain the foolish notion that maybe, maybe if he went ahead and did it anyway, if he could somehow get it to her without her husband interfering, it might turn back the clock to those days when magic and Hogwarts were still big and new and wonderful for them, the days when Lily was still impressed with him and not having to hide in fear of her life because of something he'd done (whether she knew it or not).

But that was, he knew, a very foolish notion indeed.

And there were essays to mark, and meetings to go to, and students (students? He wasn't certain most of them weren't simian demons in human shape) to keep control of, too many of which he'd been a student right alongside.

And then—

And then.

Then events conspired to take away every last shred of fancy he'd still had that there was any chance he could send Lily Evans—Lily Potter a strange gift drawn out of their shared past, at least without committing suicide and seeing if that would take him where she'd gone (he doubted it).

So it was perhaps out of a sense of perversity wedded to grief that he decided to bloody go ahead and finally create the stuff, known effects or no. His teacher's salary was not large, but between it and the resources of the school, he thought should be able to come by the necessary items. Call it... research.

The silver basin, that pricey stumbling block of his younger years, was Transfigurable from a few ounces of fine silver, which were now relatively much less dear to buy; a charm polished the inner surface to a gleam. It was hardly fine goblin work and it would not last forever, but it was concave and shiny, which was all it needed to be for a few months.

Mountain spring water was no difficulty, since springs fed many lochs and streams in the area. Melted ice from a winter storm was almost too easy. Samples from a certain few holy wells? Obtainable even from Muggle tourist shops. May dew? A bit of a specialty item, especially on the far side of the year, but not unknown by apothecaries. Water from a river or lake where a benevolent fairy was known to make its dwelling proved tricky, though not for lack of fey population; rather it was that so few of them were not the drowning type!

Eventually Severus collected the required supplies and set about following the procedure. The filled basin was set out on various nights to draw down the light of certain stars. Incantations were said, wand motions were performed. It took some time, for clear nights were not aplenty in the Scottish winter and spring, but at last he was able to work the final spell. He watched in fascination as the faintly shining water rose up and spun itself into fine yarn, then wove itself into a few yards of cloth before his eyes. It was like receiving a gift from the arm of the Lady of the Lake.

Knowing he had a clumsy hand with a needle and having no intention of hiring a tailor, Severus hadn't bothered to look up the "moondrawn thread" (if indeed that page was not missing as well). Lily's wish for a dress made from this fabric was a moot point now, anyway, so while again Transfiguration was not the finest tool for the task, he was able to shape the fabric into a simple unhemmed cloak.

It was with some trepidation that he stood before his bathroom mirror, holding the thing before him. He experimented with spells and potions, of course, but he'd never done something without first having some idea of what the effect was going to be. He was not cut out for reckless adventure; climbing down carefully into a chasm was one thing, but jumping straight into it was another. He reckoned nothing woven of pure starlight would have a really evil purpose, but that didn't mean he would like whatever was about to happen. Magic was controllable, but almost never safe.

Severus closed his eyes and swirled the cloak behind him and down onto his shoulders. It tingled, like he imagined it might feel if starlight had a thousand little fingers that were fluttering all around him and brushing at his skin, hair, and clothing. He took a breath to steel himself, opened his eyes—

—and was shocked, even frightened, by what he saw in the mirror. Not that his reflection was hideous, no, no; it was that seeing a near-complete stranger there gave him a kind of vertigo. It had to be him, for the double mirrored his motions, the gape of his mouth and the stupid blinking of his eyes, but it possessed a reworking of his features that just seemed wrong. He looked—well, more than normal; he was positively handsome, even a little exotic. His skin tone had improved. His cheeks were not hollowed. His eyes were still quite dark, but warm and inviting, and there were no shadows underneath them. His lips were fuller. His hair was a shining black mane that spilled attractively around his face, rather than a mess of black oily strands.

In total it was bizarre, and the longer he looked, the more he rejected it. A visceral horror began to gather in his gut. Whatever that unnatural creature in the mirror was, it was not Severus Snape, thank you! He snarled in disgust and self-hatred, tore the cloak off, and turned around to hurl it back into his bedchamber, where it landed in a heap on the floor.

After a few panting breaths, though, he could no longer keep up the rage, and hung his head in defeat. It would all have been a waste; he couldn't possibly have given such a thing to Lily! She'd have outshone the sun, put shame to the most perfect rose. Severus didn't know a lot about wooing women, but he was fairly sure most of them would take exception to an implication they weren't pretty enough. Coming from the likes of him, it would even be a considerable insult.

The pile of fabric glimmered sadly at him from the floor, inexplicably tugging on heartstrings he didn't know he'd had. He heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes at himself for taking pity on an inanimate object, but picked it up and shook it out all the same, petting it wistfully as he hung it up at the back of his wardrobe.

•·•·•·•·•·•·•

It stayed there, untouched but not gathering dust (for that was one of its virtues), for years. And before too long, just as Severus had not-quite-forgot his intent to make it in the first place, he not-quite-forgot the cloak itself among the other things that weighed on a Potions master's mind, and then the additional troubles of a reluctant multiple spy, and at last the truly astonishing number of things that burdened the mind of a Headmaster, especially one in his situation.

So Severus was surprised to learn that he had somehow brought the thing with him when he found himself blinking his eyes open in a grey, featureless place after having his throat savaged by a dirty great snake. It was a good thing he had, though, because was nude underneath it, a fact he was acutely aware of now that he had, er, regained consciousness, because his bits seemed to be pressed against a rather cool surface.

He sat up and pulled the cloak around as much of himself as he could, then hugged his knees to himself against the chill, and wished he had some clothing. No sooner had he thought this than black cloth spun itself over his naked flesh, but to his chagrin it was not a set of robes, but a simple black long-sleeved shirt and trousers. His feet were still bare.

Feeling disoriented, Severus looked down at the ground between his knees, if ground it was, while he pondered what he should do next. He expected he was dead, after what he'd just been through, but knowing that wasn't much help. He could have done with an informational pamphlet, at least.

Then a pale, lightly freckled hand came into his view above the circle of his arms. It seemed familiar...

Realization spread through his mind like fire through dry tinder, and he jerked his head up. "Lily... my God, Lily!" Dazed, he took her hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. She wasn't smiling, but wasn't looking at him with condemnation, either; her expression was calm and neutral.

Something tickled in his mind. Shouldn't she be looking at him funny for some reason? He couldn't remember. But it did seem obvious now why he had the cloak. He scrambled to get it off, folded it rather un-neatly, and held it out to her, feeling all of twelve years old again. "I've brought you a gift," he said.

Lily was surprised, but smiled a little and took it. She shook it out and looked at it carefully. She felt like she'd seen this particular glitter and shine somewhere before... a picture in a book, perhaps.

"Wait—no! Don't put it on," Severus pleaded, remembering what it had done to his own appearance.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want Aphrodite storming over here demanding her golden apple back."

Lily laughed—by the heavenly spheres, how he'd missed that sound!—and settled the cloak about her shoulders. It glimmered and shone and cast a silvery light up onto her face. She looked quite pretty, of course, but to Severus's confusion, she seemed essentially unchanged.

She stroked the cloth thoughtfully. "I remember this now. That was such a long time ago, wasn't it? It's nice, but... well, you've already given me quite a gift, Sev." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I've seen Harry. He's doing fine. I think we're going to win after all."

"Seen him?" Severus swallowed nervously. "So—he came here? Dumbledore was right, the boy did have to die?" He cursed the man under his breath.

"I don't know about Dumbledore, although he's often infuriatingly correct, don't you find?" Lily said with a wink. "But no. He asked for us, and we went to see him." She paused, as though contemplating how best to put something. "They did have to fight, Sev, like you knew they would, but... well, I don't want to distress you."

"I'm dead, what more is there to be distressed about?" he said dryly.

Lily laughed again, and took the cloak off, hanging it over one shoulder on her fingers. "Come on," she said, jerking her head in the direction of some people sitting around a table in the shade of a tree.

Severus followed her.

(Why break the habit of a lifetime?)

"Who did you mean when you said we went to see him?" he asked as they walked.

"James, of course," she replied, and Severus sneered and grunted. "Padfoot. And Remus."

Severus suddenly halted, for when she said these names he was filled with clairvoyant dread about who the figures in the distance were. As there were four of them, he guessed the fourth was probably sodding Pettigrew, and his blood began to simmer at the thought. He yearned to take now the revenge he had not got, could not have got in life, no matter that, wandless here, he would have to resort to crude fisticuffs.

"Severus, you're trembling," said Lily's calm voice beside him.

"I have nothing to say to any of them," he said viciously, pointing with one hand and realizing that its fingers had somehow got twined together with Lily's. "And I highly doubt any of them would be pleased to see me, except that it would confirm I had finally found that death they apparently felt I so richly deserved." He touched his neck gingerly with the fingers of his other hand, but felt nothing; he pulled the hand away to examine his fingertips for blood, but there was none.

"You might be surprised."

"You don't seriously think—!"

"Sev," she said, taking her hand back and planting both on her hips, "haven't you wondered why I don't seem to be angry with you?"

"Ah, well, er—yes, now that you mention it..."

Familiar, long-ago trees by a river shifted into being around them, and Lily sat on the ground, cradling the star-cloak in her lap. Severus sat beside her and her green eyes held his.

"I am angry, Severus. And I was. Rather angry, in fact. Furious, sometimes. But I loved you, too. No, I do, I really do. I think that's why I could get so angry. You were in danger and you didn't believe me and I couldn't force you to... to do what I knew was best for you." She smiled wryly. "Maybe that's something you can't quite understand without having a child."

"Sounds a lot like teaching Potions," Severus said without relish. "Only I had hundreds of them to cope with."

"Ugh, my condolences," Lily chuckled.

Severus was rather surprised at how little it stung to hear Lily talking about forcing him to do what she knew was best, something he had definitely resented before, even as he struggled to please her. She had black and white ideas about what was acceptable and what was not with no room for greys, no matter how useful. She had expected others to feel the same way, and given them up as hopeless if they refused to be forced to change just because she said so—including him. He'd spent (not to say wasted) a lot of time trying to earn esteem back from her, not understanding that he'd already been judged and found wanting.

It sounded just as unreasonable as he'd always instinctively felt, now he laid it out like that. But though he wanted to continue to bear this grudge, somehow he couldn't put any force behind the emotion in this place. He was annoyed with her, but then he had done some awful things himself, and it didn't seem like the time or the place to get into a confrontation over it.

He voiced these thoughts, and Lily nodded. "You see? I am angry with you. But it looks like none of us are here to judge anyone else, those boys included." She jerked her head again towards the table under the tree in the distance. "We all do the judgement to ourselves. So I guess you're all set up, then, eh, Sev?" She gave him another wink and a cheeky smile.

"Why do you keep calling me Sev?"

"Should I not?"

He huffed. "It hardly seems age-appropriate. You're as lo-ovely"—his voice broke a little on the word as he tried to catch it before it got past the gate—"as you were at twenty-one, but I'm thirty-eight and, ah, a bit the worse for wear? And bloody Headmaster of Hogwarts," he added proudly. "Or I was, at least. For eight months. Not that you'd know it by these clothes." He sighed and stretched his arms out in front of him, trying by force of will to turn the shirt and trousers into robes befitting his erstwhile station, but apparently his subconscious had other ideas. It seemed that he was stuck showing his Muggle half, stuck as—

He noticed that his outstretched arms seemed scrawnier than he would have expected. Not that he'd ever been more than lean and wiry, nor had he gained weight during his tenure as Headmaster (his stressed eating habits surely contributed to that), but the limbs he saw before him were almost... adolescent. They were the arms of a very young man, not the adult he had known himself to be.

Could it be...?

Hesitantly, he turned his left arm over, unbuttoned the cuff of the shirt, and rolled it up. He was immediately disappointed to see the Dark Mark still in evidence. He'd thought for a moment that maybe he'd become young enough to have escaped it, but it wasn't even faded! Paler, true, than it would be if he were being summoned right at this moment, but clearly a live Mark, tied to a live Dark Lord. He wondered if this was just a feature of this projection of his self, as he guessed his appearance must be, or if it meant that the Dark Lord he knew and feared was still walking in the world of the living. Either way, it seemed he had manifested himself here somewhere around the age of eighteen or nineteen, as though he hadn't got past that part of his life at all.

He felt anger and self-hatred and Dark magic steam off him in shadowy, lambent flickers, and was tempted to sink into a very destructive sulk. Like a child, he started tearing up patches of perfectly good grass, just as he'd once torn leaves apart in a glade very much like this nearly thirty years ago. Lily winced, apparently physically pained by the whole sight. He stopped, unwilling to cause her any more suffering than she'd already had in her life, but didn't know what else to do with his hands. At a loss, he pressed them hard into the ground beside him.

"Sev..." she began gently.

"Don't call me that!" he roared, not wanting to hurt her, but lashing out in his uncertainty and despair. "Just look at me. Look at this!" He thrust the arm with the Dark Mark towards her. "This was the only good I was sure would come of my death. I'd finally be able to get away from this—this shackle, even if it meant oblivion. I was prepared for that. I might have welcomed it. I was even prepared for Hell, if that were my fate. I was not prepared to be stuck as a teenaged Death Eater for eternity!" His chest heaved and he looked away from Lily in shame.

"Well, Severus," she began again, looking at him and hoping he would turn those deep black eyes back at her, "I'll agree with one thing, that you seem to be stuck for some reason. I mean, I died"—it was Severus's turn to wince—"just like this, but you made it so much further."

Severus's mouth twisted, but he refrained from snapping back at her. Of course someone who was only twenty-one would think that thirty-eight was "so much further", when really it was hardly any time at all. He'd never had particular designs on living as long as that Marchbanks woman who came round at O.W.L.s, but thirty-eight was still pretty disgraceful for a wizard.

"Do you know what this cloth really does?" she said.

Severus met her eyes then, confused at the abrupt change of topic. He blinked. "No. Never found out. The next page was missing, and I couldn't lay hold of that book again for love nor... actually, for money I could have done, but I never had enough of that around." He smiled ruefully, then his expression softened. "I don't know why it stuck in my mind for so long. I just... I just knew I wanted to give it to you. The look on your face when you came across it... and I thought... but of course I should have known that what a twelve-year-old girl liked wouldn't have any bearing on what a young woman would want from me. Or you." He clamped his jaw shut, appalled at how much he'd revealed of his true feelings for her.

Lily made no reply, merely drew a piece of crinkled, folded parchment from who-knew-where and handed it to him.

Severus unfolded it and smoothed it out on the grass. His mouth dropped open; it was the missing page from the book, he was sure of it! The half-sentence at the top of the page must complete the one he could hazily remember from his copied instructions, ages ago:

may be wondering why one should fashion this star-cloth and what purpose it would serve worn upon the person. I tell you this mystical cloth bears a perfecting, if you will; the radiance of the stars shall make your countenance as beautiful as you deem it must be to win your love's heart. But while this can serve as disguise in face of those who know you not, I caution you not to wear it in the view of those who know your true face, for while they shall see the illusion, it will not cloud their minds, and they will instantly know a deception is afoot, and wish to know why you do not appear yourself. So while you might use it to win the heart of one you have admired from afar, beware that you must wear it forever after when that one shall see you. A devilish deception it would indeed be to maintain. Thus I offer it here primarily as an exemplar of the strange passages of the wizard's art, which do not always run to the practical! Yet you will find it a beautiful object in any case, should you endeavor to create it, and I shall always encourage the introduction of more beauty into our world.

The wise say there may yet be another use or meaning of the cloak's "perfecting", that it can reveal truths within the self, if one should gaze into a mirror and contemplate the meaning of what is seen in the cloak's light. But we have not room to address this here, and other

Severus cursed handwritten manuscripts; far more could have fitted on the page if it were typeset.

"So that's why I looked so strange..." he murmured to himself, remembering the weird vision he'd had in the mirror of a Severus Snape so changed, so handsome he was hardly recognizable. "And it didn't change you, so it means you don't..." He swallowed, then looked up at Lily, his expression guarded. "Would it even have worked? If I had used it as intended, I mean?"

Lily's brows drew together as she tried to imagine what Severus would have seen. "Probably not. I mean, you're not Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Anything, but you're perfectly—now don't give me that look! You're not ugly, Sev. You look just like you should look. In your own way it's kind of gorgeo—and that thing doesn't change it either," she finished fiercely, seeing that his gaze had fallen on his Dark Mark. She grabbed his left arm. "I may never understand why you did it, and I'm probably going to be pissed off about it for a long time, but now that I look at you like this even I can see that it's part of you. You'd look naked without it." Her mouth twitched like she was trying not to laugh at that.

Severus sat, dumbstruck, not even pulling his arm out of her hand. His mind fixed on the word naked for a few moments. It was only by force of will that he pushed himself away from the idea. He already felt far too naked in front of Lily, and that was with clothes on.

They looked at each other for a while, Lily's warm hand covering his Dark Mark. He'd asked—begged—her son for a glimpse of those eyes as he'd died, but he hadn't expected to be spending this much time staring into them so shortly afterwards.

"Give me back the cloak," he said finally. "I need to know what you see."

It was Lily's turn to look uncertain. "But you didn't—do we really need to—?"

"I need to. You shall be my mirror," Severus said, all Headmaster again despite his youth and incongruous clothing.

She didn't seem convinced, but gave him the pile of fabric. "Really, Severus, it's—"

He ignored her, swept the cloth about his shoulders, and stood up. His eyes were closed, his jaw set. "Lily, please."

Lily shook her head; apparently Severus was as stubborn as ever. "Severus Snape, you look almost exactly as I remember you looking at this age," she said, a little exasperated.

His eyes opened wide in surprise. That was not at all the answer he'd been expecting.

"Maybe a touch different about the hair, not so oily," she added. "And no spots, and you don't seem to be getting those worry lines you were getting here, even then." Her fingertips brushed his forehead. "But otherwise, yes, pure unadulterated Severus."

It took a few moments for the significance of this to sink in. Somewhere along the line he must have given up on the idea that he would need to look vastly different for Lily to regard him as appreciatively as she was doing right now. Probably it was that he'd given up on Lily as anything other than a warm thought that let him keep on keeping on, but it seemed the result was the same.

A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. Lily thought he was fine the way he was, Dark Mark and all, or at least she was willing not to stir the pot for now? Inconceivable as it was, he wasn't about to let a second chance get away from him.

Severus reached shyly for her hand, and she gave it to him. On a silly impulse, he raised it to his mouth and kissed the backs of her fingers. Lily giggled, and he blushed with embarrassment at how soppy and trite that had been, vowing to himself make their next kiss much more... impressive.

"Why don't we go have a chat with your friends?" he said mischievously, dropping her hand. "I think I may have some choice words for them."

Lily blinked at him. Wanting to talk to Regulus, she could understand, though she wondered if Severus had even recognized him from this distance. But was she really hearing Severus willing to approach and speak to Remus, Sirius, and James? Maybe she was temporarily hallucinating.

"You realize you look like some kid playing dress-up, wearing that thing over Muggle clothes and—and bare feet?" she said, bewildered.

"Element of surprise," he replied with an evil glint in his eye. "They'll never expect it." He strode off towards the distant table with the star-woven cloak billowing behind him, just like life. Well, almost like life.

Lily laughed at the absurdity of it all. Severus looked back at her, eyes dark but warm over his glistening shoulder, and smirked.

She followed him.

(Why not start the habit of an afterlifetime?)