Disclaimer: I own only the plot. Everything else belongs to J.K. Rowling and Mr. Claude McKay.

If We Must Die (Claude McKay 1922)

The battle has been won, Voldemort has fallen, and all rejoice but one.

Standing over a gravestone with tears streaming down her face, Hermione Granger said her final goodbye to a fallen mind.

Reaching into her robes she retrieved a piece of paper and started to read aloud to the freshly buried grave as the wind whipped around her.

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

When she finished she knelt and placed a single Morning Glory on top of the granite header. As she walked away she glanced back to take in the view before her.

Buried in between the Black Lake and the Dark Forest, the Astronomy Tower was in the background and Hermione could see a Raven sweep down to land next to the flower. Crying out mournfully it took off again and she realized she had been privy to his familiar. She read the gravestone one last time before heading up to the castle.

Severus Tobias Snape

(1961-1998)

Honored teacher and friend

You will be missed!

The grass ruffled around the site as she walked away and it was the last proper goodbye he received for many years to come.

Years later, once Rose Weasley started Hogwarts, she visited the gravesite every morning to place the same flower on the little hill where he lay, and every morning the Raven greeted her with his cry before he would fly off into the forest. Although, the Raven soon stopped visiting her before she graduated, Severus presence was there forever.

AN: Alan Rickman was more than just Professor Snape, he will always be the voice of god (dogma), Marvin the robot (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Hans Gruber (Die Hard), and many more wonderful roles to me. RIP Alan Rickman 1946-2016