He came to me battered, utterly broken. I almost didn't recognise him when he entered my office, so physically and psychologically mangled he was. He sat in front of my desk, and simply couldn't speak. I tried to read his expression: there was deep weariness, insecurity and despair. Perhaps shame. He couldn't face me. He, who had always been so straightforward, so candid as a child.

"Severus, do you want some tea?" I asked him, trying to make him at ease.

He shook his head, absolutely disheartened.

"Then tell me what is upsetting you so much."

"I... You know that I... that I'm a Death Eater, don't you?"

His openness shouldn't have surprised me. As I've just said, when he was a child he was singularly candid. But I wasn't used to candour. Even less coming from... a Death Eater.

"I know, Severus."

"I... I killed a man last night."

"At the attack on that Muggle inn? Oh, Severus, I'm so sorry."

"You are sorry? What do you mean? I killed a man! I... didn't think that I would feel like that. But I do. I can't go on with them. What they are doing, it's genocide. In the beginning, it was only the Muggles. Now it makes no difference if it's a Muggle or a Wizard. If you are not with them, you are rubbish. Life is not important to them, in any way. I didn't think I would mind it, but I do."

He let out a choked sob, and hid his face in his hands. I got up and approached him. I held his hands between mine.

He stared at me, surprised, as if he didn't find himself worthy of my care.

"Headmaster, I don't know what to do. I only know I don't want to be with them any more. My life is in your hands. You are more powerful than I am; you can subjugate me and call the Aurors. However, before they put me in Azkaban, I will kill myself."

"Don't say such a thing, my boy!" I squeezed his hands firmly. "Let's have some tea and talk things over calmly. If you want, I can have a bedroom prepared for you. You can take a bath, rest and eat, and then we will talk."

He got up abruptly, turning away from me. "Don't you understand? None of what you are saying makes any sense now. Nothing makes sense anymore. I can't stand... being who I am."

I saw that the simple pleasures of life - a tea, a sherbet lemon, a pair of thick woollen socks - wouldn't calm him, wouldn't bring him back to our daily, ordinary life. He was in one of those turning points, those do-or-die moments. I don't know very well how to handle people in that state, I admit. I probed his mind - subtly, because I didn't want him to notice it - trying to find a way to calm him. What I saw there was so dark and despairing that I withdrew. However, he had come to me. That must mean something. There might be a hope somewhere.

"Severus, we are who we choose to be. You have made the wrong choices, even for yourself."

He lifted his eyes to me, as if waiting to be punished verbally, though not as a child who fears the punishment, but as someone who craves for it.

"No, Severus, I'm not going to report you to the Ministry, or punish you in any way. You are already punishing yourself, carrying all this guilt."

"Headmaster, I am a Death Eater! I tortured people. And yesterday I killed a man. I... didn't want to kill him. I had been able to avoid it so far. I wanted to cast an Imperius on him and have him pretend to be dead. But he was so frightened when I possessed his mind that he must have died of fright."

I let out a deep breath, relieved. He hadn't killed on purpose. That mattered a lot to me.

"So it was an accident," I said, trying to comfort him.

"An accident? We have attacked an inn and killed everybody inside!"

"But you didn't intend to kill him."

"What difference does it make?"

"Severus, it also makes no difference whether you feel guilty or not. What matters is whether you wish to do something about it."

"If I wish to do anything? I wish I have never been born."

He glared at me, as if I could be blamed for his existence. I restrained my wish to remind him that I wasn't his father. Because, in a certain way, I was responsible for what he had become. I had failed in my role. Completely.

On second thought, I decided to treat him as if I were his father. Or his mother.

I opened my arms to him.

"Come here, Severus."

Perhaps I used some kind of magical inducement, unconsciously. Sometimes I do that. It's not on purpose. Or perhaps he felt that he needed to be comforted. The fact was that he didn't come to me, but he didn't withdraw when I approached and embraced him.

His entire body shuddered. He was crying. I don't know how I know this; I simply know: since his childhood, since his Snivellus days, since he had joined the Death Eaters, Severus Snape hadn't cried. Until that moment, in my arms.

We stayed several minutes like that, embracing each other, his running tears soaking my robes. Then I led him back to the chair, and asked the house-elves to bring us tea.

Later, when I finally got him to drink a cup of tea and eat some biscuits, I told him, "If you came to me, it's because you long for redemption. You don't want to go to Azkaban, or die. You want to make something to..."

"I can't undo all the evil I have done, but I can stop the spreading of evil. I want to put an end to this, once and for all. I won't have peace until he dies."

"Right, Severus. You must stick to it. That's what will give you a reason to live in the next days, in the next months."

He lifted his face to me, his eyes still showing sadness and anger, but also something else. Now I was very close. One more step and I would get what I wanted from him. "Severus, you can have a very important role in this war... If you agree with what I am going to propose to you... Nobody else can do what I'm going to ask from you."

I knew I had won when I saw that determined glint sparkling in his dark eyes. It was a tiny glint, but it brightened his face at first, and then everything around us.

I don't think it was a coincidence that Fawkes chose that moment to take flight from his perch on the back corner of my office and land on his lap.