Sebastian exhaled, a deep, satisfied sigh that fogged the crystal glass before him. Snape's capitulation had been a crucial administrative victory. He had secured the autonomy to operate in Slytherin without the risk of the nominal Head of House sulking or actively undermining his reforms.
Good. Just cooperate, Sebastian thought. Their friendship, though genuine in its own warped way, was not a shield against Snape's famous vindictiveness. To bypass him would have ensured a bitter, long-term feud. Diplomacy, however brutally efficient, was always preferable.
Now, it was time for the therapeutic phase of the evening.
"I know, Severus, I know," Sebastian said, leaning back in his chair, his tone softening only slightly, adopting the studied, clinical empathy of a Muggle psychologist. "You care for nothing. Your inner man is an empty, echoing cathedral of resentment."
Sebastian leveled a steady gaze at his friend, plunging the verbal knife directly into the oldest, deepest wound. "It's Lily's fault, isn't it? That she saw the best in you, and still chose… another."
Forgive the blunt trauma, Severus, Sebastian rationalized internally. This is not malice; it's desensitization therapy, an essential Muggle technique. You can't get out of the shadow of the past if you refuse to confront the ghosts.
Sebastian's mind drifted to his own nagging guilt. Even with his foreknowledge—fragmented memories of a film he'd seen decades ago—he had failed the ultimate mission: preventing Lily's death. He remembered the critical, chilling detail of the Wormtail betrayal.
He remembered the Vanishing Cabinets he had sourced and given to Mia to give to Lily, charmed with the highest protective wards his burgeoning Alchemy business could produce. He remembered the Felix Felicis he had subtly maneuvered into her possession via Snape, hoping the sheer luck would insulate her. It hadn't been enough.
If Lily had lived, Sebastian reflected, his own smile fading slightly, Snape wouldn't be this emotionally desiccated shell, and James Potter would be the one paying for his dry cleaning. The thought almost restored his good humor, but the failure of his protective measures remained a small, cold stone in his stomach.
Sebastian had quietly, systematically attempted to remodel Snape after becoming his roommate at Hogwarts. He had found Snape's secret trigger: Lily's belief system. Whenever Sebastian needed Snape to change a behavior, he would simply phrase the necessary action as a condition for Lily's respect.
"Lily could never love a wizard who spends his time obsessing over how to hurt Muggles, Severus." That phrase was the open sesame.
Under this constant, calculated influence, Snape had slowly, grudgingly reformed. He had distanced himself from the most egregious Pure-blood zealots. He'd learned to suppress the casual slur of "Mudblood" when referring to Muggle-born witches and wizards like Lily.
Crucially, he had redirected his prodigious talent away from Dark Arts theory and entirely into the meticulous, demanding art of Potions. Sebastian had even used his own burgeoning Swann Galleons to purchase Snape a continuous supply of Swann Alchemical Potions, raising his peer status and giving him the financial freedom to choose a less antagonistic lifestyle.
At Sebastian's insistence, Snape had abandoned his threadbare, outdated robes for elegant, bespoke garments—deep black, certainly, but tailored with modern, severe lines that suggested power rather than poverty.
It was during one of Sebastian's own manipulative schemes—tracking Lily for Snape—that Sebastian had met and subsequently courted Mia Ellen, the fierce Gryffindor Lioness who would become Mia Swann. Everything had seemed to be aligning perfectly—a smooth path toward a tolerable future for his melancholic friend.
Then, disaster struck in the sixth year.
Snape, in a rare, sentimental gesture, had been determined to acquire a specific, obscure Potions ingredient—a component required for a complex, non-combative cosmetic potion—as a Christmas birthday gift for Lily. This quest led him to the seedy, shadowed corridors of Knockturn Alley during the Christmas break, a place Sebastian had repeatedly warned him against.
There, Fate, or perhaps the Dark Lord, intervened. Snape ran directly into Voldemort and a cadre of his newly organized Death Eaters. Among them was a freshly graduated, ambitious Pure-blood who, recognizing Snape as a rising star in the Potions world, foolishly introduced him to the Dark Lord.
Faced with an impossible choice—death, or a coerced allegiance that might grant him the proximity to power necessary to protect Lily—Snape chose the latter. He received the Dark Mark on his left forearm.
The moment Lily heard—without context, without understanding the compulsion, and tragically blinded by the fear of her friend aligning with the man who sought her destruction—she cut him off completely. She did not ask; she simply exiled him.
Snape spiraled into utter despair. Sebastian, unable to offer a clean fix, could only provide damage control. He instructed Snape to adopt the persona of a hyper-focused academic: a wizard obsessed only with Potions, politically inert, and, critically, one who never raised his wand against a living soul for the Dark Lord.
Sebastian introduced Snape to Lucius Malfoy, urging the sophisticated, undecided Death Eater to 'mentor' the young Potions prodigy and ensure his survival in the ranks.
The situation was stabilized, Sebastian thought grimly. And as for the enthusiastic Death Eater who so unwisely gave Voldemort a talented Potions Master… he suffered a most unfortunate, brief, and painless poisoning shortly thereafter. A terrible accident involving a poorly brewed sleeping draught. Some problems just solve themselves.
Snape, who had been nursing his giant glass, took a slow, deliberate sip after Sebastian mentioned Lily, the name still echoing like the toll of a funeral bell in the silent, modern dining room.
Sebastian took the opportunity to lean forward, placing a thick, antique magic notebook—its covers leather and the pages filled with delicate script—onto the table near Snape.
"What is this artifact?" Snape asked, his voice low and melancholic, easily distracted by the novelty of the book.
"An old magical notebook, acquired during my travels in the Far East," Sebastian replied softly, taking a calmer, longer drink of the fiery Baijiu. "I translated it a few years ago. It's a very old, mystical story from what they call the Illusory Realm."
Snape looked intrigued. The term was utterly foreign to Western magical theory.
"The story concerns a powerful wizard," Sebastian continued, weaving the narrative with deliberate pacing, "whose soul was ripped from his body during a catastrophic attack. Yet, due to the sheer, powerful pull of his love and devotion, his consciousness refused to accept the final destination. The story says his soul broke free from the illusion—the prescribed afterlife—and managed to fight its way back to his physical body, which lay in a profound coma. He came back to life, though horribly changed by the journey."
Snape was hanging on every word, the grief temporarily eclipsed by academic fascination.
"The text is ambiguous," Sebastian noted. "It never confirms if the body was technically dead or merely clinging to the barest thread of life. However, I once asked my grandfather about it—as you know, the Master Alchemist has read literally thousands of texts. He told me he'd encountered similar concepts in some forgotten, esoteric magical writings. They claimed that death is nothing more than the Grand Adventure."
Sebastian paused for effect, letting the mystical concept hang in the air.
"They proposed that after the physical death, the soul first arrives in the Illusory Realm—a waiting room, if you will, where the spirit is shown the path forward. Brave, detached souls choose to move on immediately. But souls with powerful, unresolved emotional tethers—unpaid debts, unsaid goodbyes, or profound, lingering love—these souls are said to wander the periphery of the Illusory Realm, forever trying to touch the real world."
Snape was now utterly captivated, his rigid posture slowly loosening. He instinctively leaned closer, his eyes fixed on Sebastian. The pain in his chest was no longer just the alcohol's burn; it was a desperate, rekindled spark of hope.
Sebastian watched his friend, calculating the moment of maximum psychological impact, then struck with devastating precision.
"Severus, based on everything you know of her, do you honestly believe that Lily's spirit accepted the final adventure? Or, given her immense, sacrificial love, is she even now wandering the Illusory Realm?"
Snape physically flinched, his hand instinctively gripping the neckline of his high collar. Damn it! The room suddenly seemed too hot, the air too thin. He was gripped by an instantaneous, sharp wave of breathlessness. Sebastian's questions were a surgical strike against the core assumption of his despair—that Lily was irrevocably gone.
"She must have been terrified and consumed with worry for her son, Harry," Sebastian pressed on, his voice now a mesmerizing whisper of possibility. "She faced down the Dark Lord, knowing what was coming, and saved her child with her life. That is not a soul that walks away peacefully, Severus. That is a soul with an unbreakable, desperate tether."
Sebastian let the silence build, then delivered the final, crippling blow.
"If these wandering souls can glimpse the real world—if they can watch their loved ones—she would certainly want to see Harry grow up, thrive, find happiness. Now tell me, Severus. If Lily's soul is watching you, observing the man you have become—the man who now holds a prestigious position at her alma mater, the man who risks everything for her son in secret—would she be proud? Or would she see the petty, point-deducting antagonism and be disappointed?"
The questions hit Snape like a series of concussive curses. He couldn't speak. He couldn't even properly breathe. His chest tightened painfully, the pressure unbearable.
With a trembling hand, he reached for the white porcelain bottle, ignoring the food and the delicacy of the moment. He seized the bottle, poured a generous measure into his enormous glass, and without waiting for Sebastian, threw his head back and swallowed the scalding liquid whole.
It was no longer fire. It was pure agony. The Baijiu felt like molten ice, a physical manifestation of his guilt and hope. It tasted less of grain alcohol and more of pain.
He staggered to his feet, weaving unsteadily. I feel... dizzy. What did the miserable Swann put in that vile substance?
He needed darkness, solitude, and silence. He stumbled toward the sitting room's deep velvet sofa, his legs giving way before he reached it.
Sebastian's voice, now calm and utterly clinical, reached him as he collapsed.
"I've prepared a comfort gift for you, Severus. A six-month supply of the Muggle shampoo brand Lily always used."
Lily…
The name was the last thought, the final anchor. A soft, blue cushioning charm—executed with silent, effortless wandwork by Sebastian—caught the Potions Master's body, easing him gently onto the soft cushions.
Before unconsciousness claimed him entirely, a single, hoarse word escaped Snape's lips, a plea, a confession, and a lament, barely audible in the quiet of the opulent manor:
"Lily…"