In the bowls of the great castle of Hogwarts, a dark haired man slumped over his desk. He had an eerie, haunted look about him and the air about him seemed dark and oppressive. In one hand he clutched a nearly empty bottle of Ogden's Firewhisky- the wrappings of which lay on the ground and gave mute testimony to the fact that he had opened it earlier that evening. In the other he clutched a photo, which he peered at blearily through reddened eyes.
"Twenty years today love," he slurred at the smiling and waving young woman in the portrait. Her hair was a dark chestnuty blond and was extremely wavy and thick. It fell to her waist in a thick sheet. Her bright brown eyes gleamed from a face that was lit with an emotion easily recognized as love. Her thick lips were parted as she smiled and her cheeks and nose held the hint of a mild sunburn. One of her hands waved cheerfully, and the other caressed her rounded stomach. She looked to be at least seven months pregnant.
For Severus Snape, potions master at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the photo caused both an intense joy and a deep sense of loss. This was the woman he had loved since the moment he saw her, at the age of sixteen. She was the only person he had ever truly loved, truly cared for. But this photo was also the only one he had of her, his beloved wife, taken a mere two months before she died along with their unborn child.
She would forever be the price of his decision to spy on Lord Voldemort, and despite the fact that his actions had saved countless hundreds of lives, he sometimes wondered if the gain was worth the cost of such an amazing woman. When he had learned of her death the sun seemed to darken, the world spun a bit slower, and the sky became less blue. The world had not yet recovered from her loss, and Severus doubted that it ever would.
With one last gulp he finished the last of the Firewhisky and staggered to his feet, trying not to let the spinning of the room bother him. He waited a moment for it to slow slightly and then placed the empty glass bottle on his desk. The house elves would get rid of it for him and they would never breathe a word of his drinking to anyone. Severus stumbled out the door and into the hall, heading for his quarters. What he needed now, more than anything, was to pass out in his bed and not awake until the next day. In his drunken stupor he failed to notice the photograph slip from his fingers and fall silently to rest upon the stone floor.
Hermione Granger, muggle-born witch, seventh year, and Head Girl was patrolling the dungeons by the tip of her wand light. Her partner, the Head Boy, one of her best friends and none other than the Boy-Who-Lived walked quietly at her side, sulking a bit. He'd been cross even since they had caught the last pair of students snogging- Ginny Weasely, their best friend Ron's little sister, and Dean Thomas, a boy in Harry's year. Hermione smirked to herself as Harry tripped and cursed rather more than was necessary about it. Harry might not want to admit that he liked Ginny, but the five detentions he'd assigned Dean (rather than the usual two) and the dangerous looking scowl on his face as he did so spoke wonders about his feelings. The frightened look on Dean's face as he faced down an angry Harry Potter told her that the other boy would be a lot more careful about where he snogged his girlfriend from then on.
Hermione considered telling him that Ginny only liked Dean because she thought the possibility of Harry liking her was remote. She also considered telling him that she had a strong suspicion that Dean was gay but she opted not to. Hermione had no real evidence that Dean was gay beyond her suspicions (and she was a big believer in evidence) and she knew that Harry wouldn't believe her if she told him. Even though he was considered a hero of the wizarding world, Harry still had trouble accepting that people actually liked him for more than the scar on his forehead. The concept that Ginny might actually care for him, have a crush on him, was far out of the realm of comprehension for Harry. Like most boys, he could be a bit thick when it came to girls.
His attitude reminded her quite a bit of her other best friend actually. Ron had bright red hair and a temper to match, but he also had kind blue eyes you could practically drown in and a glorious smile. He really could be a bit thick at times, she thought with a smile. He didn't know that she'd liked him ever since third year he, complete with a broken leg, had hauled himself to his feet and stood between Harry and his would be killer, Sirius Black (who later turned out not to be a murderer at all). After that she had fallen a little bit more in love with him every day. How adorable he'd looked in his Yule Ball robes, his nerves when he first started to play Quidditch, the way he would moan about doing work and call her a know-it-all, but would leap to her defense if any- even a professor- called her a know-it-all… she might as well admit it to herself, she was totally and completely head over heels for the boy.
Hermione was a firm believer in letting the boy come to the girl, and despite a few slip-ups (the good luck kiss before his first quidditch game in fifth year, a hard, fast kiss on the lips when she found out he'd lived through a curse she was sure had killed him in a battle at the end of their sixth year, and her tearful goodbye- complete with a kiss on the cheek- when she went home for their last summer break) she was determined to let him take the first steps toward establishing a relationship. Even though she was logical, there was a very real and thriving part of her that long for the romance she'd read about in books. Hermione was fairly sure that Ron liked her at least a little bit- his jealousy whenever she talked to any other boy, Harry's assurances, and the way he stared at her whenever he thought she didn't notice- were fairly large clues on that front. But Hermione was a bit caught up on the whole fairy tale idea of being swept off her feet, though lately her patience was beginning to wane. Ginny was urging her to take a few more drastic steps because, as Ginny put it, "Ron's so thick he'll probably wait till you're both thirty and then muck the whole thing up anyways."
She was startled out of her thoughts when her wand light fell on something resting on the floor. Hermione frowned a moment in consideration. She knew that Argus Filch, the school's caretaker, had already cleaned this corridor- he'd complained to her about the terrible state he'd found it in, covered in dung bombs and the remnants of the Weasley twin's fireworks. She crouched and Harry was momentarily brought out of his sulk-induced stupor. "What do you have there?" he asked, stepping closer and raising his wand to cast more light on the area.
"It looks like some kind of photograph," she said, flipping it over as she stood. The woman in the photo smiled and blew a kiss at her, her painfully familiar face beaming out of the photograph. Hermione suddenly felt faint and confused, as if everything was spinning rapidly around.
She felt Harry catch her arm, and realized that she was leaning heavily against him. Her legs had buckled and for some reason she was having trouble getting them to obey her and carry her own weight. Harry's voice was slightly frantic, and she realized that he had called her name several times. "Hermione, HERMIONE! What's wrong?"
The teenage girl lifted her eyes to meet the emerald ones of her best friend. In Harry's eyes she could see confusion, worry, and sorrow, and for a moment she had a pang of pity for him, for all that he had suffered and all that he would suffer in the war against Voldemort. She hated to add more to that burden but this was too much, far too much, to handle on her own. Hermione flashed him a reassuring smile, and he relaxed slightly as she managed to straighten up again, though he kept a supportive arm around her. He still looked tense and worried and she couldn't shake her feeling of sympathy. He always ended up being the strong one, the brave one, and she knew that it was not an easy role. Once more, for the thousandth time, she swore that she would stay by his side and give up anything necessary- even her life- to see him through the coming war. Hermione held the photograph so that he could see it, and he studied it for a moment, looking vaguely confused. "Harry," she stammered, "that's my mother…. My MUGGLE mother."
In a small house, far from the magic of the Wizarding School, a woman cowered in front of her enraged husband. He glared at her, practically snarling like a vicious dog. "Please honey," she begged, her scraggly, greasy blond hair tumbling in front of her weary brown eyes. "I'm sorry, I just" he cut her off with a slap and she bit back a sob. If she cried he would just become angrier, his blows would just get harder. Instead she trembled at his feet praying that it would all end soon.
This wasn't what she pictured from marriage, nor from her life. As she crumpled before her furious husband she once more regretted the loss of her first husband, a brave, kind, and loving man, who had proven too weak to battle the evil he had fought against. He'd kissed her one day, strolled away arrogantly, and never came back. She doubted that the possibility he would never returned had even entered his mind and she sometimes cursed him in her darkest moments. Maybe if he'd been less cocky, more willing to ask others for help, maybe then he would have lived. She'd remarried out of loneliness and desperation when her child was a year and a half; two years after her love had vanished. She had wanted a father for her child and a companion for herself, though she had failed miserably on both counts, she admitted to herself silently. The man she lived with now was no love of hers and was certainly no father to her daughter. She prayed that one day soon her soul would escape to find that of her first husband. Her child was almost grown now, almost old enough to be alone, and then finally she could let go.