In the empty house, apart from his own hoarse almost unintelligible voice, was the sound of the wind passing through the cracks between the walls and windows of the house in disrepair.

He could hear his own heavy breathing, his own heartbeat that seemed to burst through his chest and jump straight to the ground, but he could not hear her heartbeat, her breathing, or her voice, which often had a faint smile and a brisk tail that rose upwards at the end, and could only be heard by listening to her voice.

Oh, what a pity, Severus. I thought you thought that dance was pretty good, too. 】

[I thought that no matter how incorrigible a liar was, he deserved a wonderful Christmas Eve. 】

You may not believe it, but I care more about your soul than you can imagine, Severus. 】

Your soul is without blemish, and so is the future—even if you complete the task that Dumbledore has entrusted you. 】

Are you afraid, Severus?]

[It's me.] Severus, everything I do is because of my own decisions. 】

……

His mind was in turmoil. Her voice rang out again and again, and countless words she had ever said came to his mind, jumbled together in a haphazard manner that made him feel dizzy, and the six gods were lost.

He had thought he was bored with the words she had spoken at different times, and had forgotten them as soon as he had entered his ears, but now he found that his disobedient brain had remembered them all too clearly, and even the way she had said them, the expression on her face, the tone of her voice, and the gentle smile and slightly arched eyes.

He shook his head as hard as he could, trying to get the chaotic words out of his mind for a moment—there were more important things in front of him to deal with, to confirm—but the words did not just leave his brain, but were twisted like a ball of thread and knotted in a dead knot, and at last they all became a sentence, a voice—

"Severus! Severus ......"

It was the voice she made when she called his name. She had called him that countless times over the past twenty years, and unlike Berryl, the real Lily, she rarely called him "Seaver", and most of the time she would go out of her way to call him by his full name. He suddenly couldn't remember when she had given up pretending to be the real Lily, and stopped calling him "Seaver". He searched through his memories in a daze, and finally found an example—a trace of memory—

[Come on, Seaver. Let's kiss. 】

Snape:!!!

It should have been a half-joking sentence forced by the situation. However, at this moment, he suddenly jumped out of the water in his memory, but as if he had been given a slap in the face, he struck him on the forehead with a thud, and smashed him with gold stars in the eyes for a while.

For a moment, the scene and the environment in which she said this came to his mind, and Snape's face turned blue and white, and he clenched his five fingers tightly, as if he did not dare to act for a short time, for fear that if he did, he would do something that even he could not imagine—

In my memory, she was always so bold. However, her audacity and Bryll's straightforwardness and bravery seem to belong to two completely different categories.

Brille—the real Lily Evans—lived up to the name "Gryffindor" that the Sorting Hat shouted the moment it touched her head. She is straightforward, frank, brave, passionate, jealous and hateful, and does not hide her likes and dislikes, although sometimes she may be a little too frank to understand the helplessness and plight of others, but that small weakness does not detract from her brilliance as the flower of Gryffindor, always standing in the light.

Unlike her, however, the later Lily—he didn't even know her real name—was more cunning and agile than Beriel, like the Cheshire Cat in the portrait she hung outside the Muggle Studies office, which often hid itself and left only a meaningful smile, slick, light, cunning, intelligent, even a little crazy, bold, ingenious and unpredictable— Although she doesn't want to admit it, she is indeed more empathetic, more round-witted, and whimsical, and at the same time, she is also better at putting herself in the shoes of others, and knows how to skillfully balance the relationship between "pursuing results" and "process justice......

Now that I think about it, her body is full of contradictions, and because of this, it seems more multifaceted and unfathomable than Beriel's personality, and people can't help but want to explore what is deeper behind that warm smile-

…… However, even if he found out that he had been observing her all along, and had come to many different conclusions, and discovered many aspects of her personality, he did not know her as well as he thought...... However, what is the use of all that now?

There was a long silence, and there was only a wheering in the room, like the breath of an old locomotive as it struggled to climb a hill. It took Snape a moment to realize that the unpleasant wheezing sound was coming from himself.

His nasal cavity was as close to his throat as if it were all choked with tears and grief. He felt nearly suffocated, and had to open his mouth to breathe, and that's how the gasp sounded like a bellows came out.

Tears blurred his vision. He now knew clearly that she was dead. He didn't have to rush over to touch her cold body and pale face, he knew that there would be no more this person—this soul, to be exact, in this world.

Unlike himself sixteen years ago, when he clung to Beriel's body and wept bitterly, Snape now found that he did not rush in and hug the body he had been trying to get her out so that he could return it to Beriel, and lost his mind and wept bitterly. But he also found himself as if his spine had been suddenly drained by some unknown force, and the bones that remained were not strong enough to support the weight of his body, and he slumped to the ground, and fell at her feet, reaching out to touch her slender ankles—but he never did.

…… Because he knew in his heart that he was afraid. He was scared to death. He was afraid that as soon as he reached out and touched the slender and cold ankle, he would prove her death, and the cruel fact that she would never come back—

[All will be fine, Severus. I promise. 】

Suddenly, her voice emerged from his dazed, grief-stricken mind. That's what she said the last time they talked in the Room of Requirement before the decisive battle broke out.

How...... How can it be......?!

Such a bold statement, so a matter of course...... But at the end of the day, what did she take...... What guarantees that "everything will be fine" ?!

In the end, she deceived him anyway - the note she left for him was the latest lie! It wasn't the last time she deceived him, it was!

She disappeared from this world. Nothing will ever get better again.

It's everything.

Everything。

Snape heard himself let out a twisted, monster-like growl. He was amazed that his choked throat could still make such a sound, but the next second his body moved on its own, and even he couldn't help but be amazed by what he did—

He didn't try to get back up and make a better pose, but took a few steps forward as if he were crawling, and finally reached out to her with a long hand—a grasp of the wrist she had at her waist.

An icy aura rushed through the skin they touched almost immediately. There was no more straightforward proof of one thing to him than that—that what was lying there now was at last an empty shell, from which the funny, cunning, brave, laughing soul had disappeared. Even if you turn to Merlin for help, it may not be possible to get it back.

He heard his own hoarseness, almost like a burst sound, whispering in the dilapidated, empty room.

"No...... Lily......"

He wanted to say that he had never expected this to happen, that her soul had ever withdrawn from this earthly world, and that he had never expected her to die when it was all over, even though he resented her for taking the body of his best friend and swaggering under the name Lily for twenty years.

He had thought that there was a way for his best friend to regain this body, and she—she could appear in front of him as she is, so that everyone could know her real name, her true life and story, and praise all the virtues behind that real name, not just "Lily Evans" and the illusory image and preconceived impression that the name represented.

He opened his mouth to say, "I never wanted you like this", "I want to die", and "if this is how you can get that body back, then you can continue to be Lily". In the end, however, he couldn't say anything.

There seemed to be a fog of pain in front of him, his brain was almost stopping, his reflexes were sluggish, his mind was disintegrating, and although the last bit of reason was stubbornly telling him that perhaps he should go back to Hogwarts at once, go to Dumbledore, and see if Dumbledore could do anything, but it seemed like it had taken a long time for this little lucid thought—the last little hope of solving the problem—to spread from the place where the thought had arisen in his brain to the whole brain.

Go back to Hogwarts—take her, this cold, empty shell—and maybe there's a way—if you give up here, there's really no hope—

Reason had forcibly held him up, so that he would not collapse as he had been after witnessing the harrowing scene in this room sixteen years ago, yet his consciousness seemed to have been stripped from his body, floating in mid-air high above his and her bodies, looking down at them as they collapsed on the floor between the ruins.

Hogwarts—the term popped up from his dazed mind once again. However, the term could no longer offer him any hope. Now when he thought of the magnificent, ancient, and imposing magic castle represented by this term, he found that the sense of belonging, shelter, and security that the castle had given him in the past had all disappeared, and all that remained in his memory were the gray-black buildings and walls, the low and oppressive atmosphere, the seemingly never-ending corridors, and the noisy and chaotic magical portraits......

Then it dawned on him something.

The sense of belonging, the sense of shelter, and the sense of security that the castle once provided to him was, in the final analysis, nothing more than the people who lived in the castle. At that time, Dumbledore, who was both a master and a father to him, was still alive, and the man who could suddenly dispel the low and oppressive darkness of that huge castle and the decay of ancient buildings, and sang Christmas songs along with the armor in the corridors of the castle, bringing life, vitality and a touch of color to the gloomy castle, was still alive.

Now, however, they are all gone. From that huge, ancient castle, from this world that suddenly became strange and uncomfortable, disappeared.

Hogwarts was the first and best home he ever knew. Whether it was him, Harry Potter, or even Tom Riddle, the abandoned boys found a home there.

But now, there is no one in that house. Only then did he understand that only the place where those dear and important people existed could truly be called a home. Without the presence of those people, no matter how brilliant, how magnificent, how famous, how grand a building is, it is just an ordinary, insignificant house.

Snape reached into his pocket with the other hand that wasn't holding Lily, fumbled for a moment, and pulled out a two-way mirror.

This was given to him by Cyris Black when he left Hogwarts to find Lily's whereabouts. The stupid dog said that this thing would allow the two people in its possession to communicate anytime and anywhere, and that it might be useful for his trip to Godric's Hollow.

It was the first time he had accepted something from the stupid dog - and now he really needed it to contact the stupid dog and Dumbledore, who was still waiting for news at Hogwarts.

See what else could be done - he stared at the two-way mirror, and though he was suspicious of the strange prop that Siris Black had brought out, he still said the stupid dog's full name to the mirror.

Because of what she once said-

You can doubt that the stars are flames, that the sun moves, that the truth is a lie......

At that time, he had doubts and had things to do, so he didn't really listen to her, so let's start now.

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June 26:

Ah, I've used up my health bar and blue bar.

Regarding the real Lily, whether it is her motivation or her subsequent development, everyone doesn't have to make up for those very ky parts, because they are not true.

The "I wish it was me who I wanted to die" in the professor's chapter was said in the original work when he was talking to Deng Xiao after Lily's death. Then Deng Xiao let him live to protect Harry.

"Hogwarts is the home of the abandoned boys" was Harry's thought after reading the Meditation Basin before he planned to die in the Forbidden Forest.

Next update: Let's tentatively wait for 0:00 tomorrow. The current code party can't afford to hurt [right fingers.]

Thank you to the little angel who voted for me or irrigated the nutrient solution~

Thanks to the little angels who threw [mines]: Meow Meow, Gui Heshen, Qi Ya 1;

Thanks to the little angel who irrigated [the nutrient solution]:

Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!