"What do you think you're doing, Potter?"

Harry looked up at Snape, who was standing over him with his hands on his hips. "I'm dancing the macarena," he replied as he vigorously ground up a root with his mortar and pestle.

"You haven't learned a thing from me, have you? You do not attack willow root as if you are mashing potatoes for dinner. You gently, gently press it until it surrenders and yields what's inside to you willingly."

"Are you talking about potion-making or sex?"

"You know, Potter, it really is a pity you inherited your father's brains."

"It's a pity you inherited that face from... whoever you inherited it from." Finished with the willow root, Harry dumped it into his cauldron.

"Your mother, now, she was brilliant. She could whip up a cure for troll pox out of ingredients from her mother's pantry. Your father was very good at... explosions. He must have gone through fifty cauldrons during his Hogwarts years. He had all the finesse of a galloping rhino."

"How long have you been here watching me, anyway?" Harry heated the cauldron with his wand, quickly bringing it to a boil.

"Long enough to see things that make me want to weep. The way you stir your cauldron is atrocious. You are supposed to swirl gently, not beat the potion into submission. I feel sorry for your wife, I really do."

"You don't watch me while I sleep, too, do you?"

"You overestimate how fascinating you are."

"I'm fascinating enough for you to keep coming back." Harry looked up at his former professor and grinned cockily. Snape reached a hand out. Just as his fingers were about to brush Harry's cheek, there was a sound of footsteps coming down the stairs into the kitchen.

"Harry? Who are you talking to?" Ginny called. Snape vanished, and Harry's grin faded.

"No one, Ginny. Just talking to myself." Doubt showed in the set of Ginny's mouth. She walked to the fireplace and sniffed, laying her hands of the stone to check for heat. "I didn't have a firecall," Harry said impatiently as he used his wand to cool the contents of his cauldron.

"It didn't sound like you were talking to yourself. There were pauses, like you were having a conversation." She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.

"I leave time for the voices in my head to answer me."

"That's not funny!" Ginny snapped. "You're either having an affair or going mad, and I don't know which one is worse."

Harry pushed the cauldron in Ginny's direction. "I finished the aphid-killer for your rose-bushes. Have at it."

Ginny picked up the cauldron and hugged it to her chest. "Do you think we got married too young, Harry?" Her eyes were a little too shiny.

Harry pushed his chair back and got up from the table. "Oh, Ginny." He turned to go up the steps.

"That's not an answer," Ginny called after him.

...

Yes, they had gotten married too young, along with nearly everyone else they knew. The death of Voldemort led to a frenzy of elopements. The older generation, of course, had tried to discourage this epidemic of wedlock, but controlling a bunch of teenaged war veterans was beyond their powers. Rampant hormones had trumped common sense.

After only a couple of months of living with Ginny, Harry realized that he had made a big mistake. There was still too much of the hero-worshipping ten-year-old about her, and it made Harry feel like he was smothering every time he caught her staring at him as if he was the answer to her every wish, hope and prayer. Harry wanted her to see him as a human being, not as a hero or a savior.

It was around this time that Snape first came to visit him.

...

Harry was watching the news when he noticed that Snape was sitting beside him on the couch. "You just can't stay away, can you, Sev? Am I that irresistible?"

"It's your helplessness that draws me. You need my guidance. You're not clever enough to be left on your own, and that soft-headed twit you married doesn't have what it takes to do the job. She holds you in awe, which is rather like worshipping a turnip."

Harry laughed and turned to look at his former professor. Snape did not look as he did when Harry had known him while he was alive; he was much younger in appearance, a teen. But he looked much different from how he did in the memories that Harry had gotten glimpses of. He was slim, not scrawny. His nose was not so big or hooked, and his long, black hair was clean and shiny. His skin was less sallow, and he was unstooped. "Why do I see you like that? Is that how you wanted to look?" Harry asked.

Snape rested his chin on his folded hands. "Perhaps it's how you prefer to perceive me."

Harry put his hand out, and right through Snape's left knee. "Why won't you tell me if you're real or not?" He found himself suddenly, irrationally angry.

"Does it matter that much?"

"Of course it does! I need to know if I'm losing my mind! I wish you would leave me alone. My marriage would be fine if you would just go away." Harry put his face in his hands.

In his silkiest tone, Snape said, "You know that's not true, Harry. Look at me." Harry did. "Take off your glasses." Harry obeyed. "You really do have your mother's eyes." His fingers would have touched Harry's face it they had been corporeal.

"I can't be in love with a ghost."

"You need to be more precise when you speak. You don't mean 'can't,' as you already are. What you mean is that you don't want to be."

"Of course I don't want to be! Who would? Maybe it would be better if I was just mental. There might be pills for it."

"You are in love with either a ghost or an illusion, and so is your wife. The Harry that exists in her mind is less real than I am."

The front door opened. There was the sound of shopping bags hitting the hallway floor. "I'm making your favorite for dinner, Harry, and I bought that Weird Sisters album you wanted, and I rented us a movie to watch together." Harry watched Snape fade into nothingness. "You're not going out again, right, Harry? You'll stay in with me tonight?" The neediness in his wife's voice made it hard for Harry to breathe. Harry closed his eyes and visualized fading, vanishing, evanescing away.