A/N: This story is AU after Half-Blood Prince. Horcruxes, yes; Hallows, no. I haven't entirely decided about the Elder Wand yet.
Chapter One
"Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all." - Friedrich Nietzsche
xxxxx
Alone in the headmistress' office, Harry sat balancing a tea cup in his lap and toying with his wand, wondering how much longer he could stand to wait before Minerva returned.
She had owled him earlier that week with a casual invitation he suspected at the time was a pretext for a job interview, and Ginny had said, "No harm in finding out, is there?" So after nearly two years of keeping a polite distance, Harry had Apparated to Hogwarts.
He'd been genuinely glad to see McGonagall ("Minerva, please"), and the sight of her as headmistress felt unexpectedly right. After everything the students had suffered under Dumbledore and Snape, he could think of no one better suited to help heal the rifts and guide the school firmly back to its purpose than this woman of impeccable integrity.
The five minutes of catch-up that followed were a bit dodgier (yes thank you, Hogwarts was thriving, and amongst the younger set you'd never guess there'd been a war, which reminded her, did Harry and his friends still hold monthly reunions at the Three Broomsticks, and oh, was it true what she'd heard, that he'd been temporarily re-assigned to desk work? Well, yes, it was—although he neglected to explain this was because his first three partners after his qualifying exams—senior Aurors all—had all taken curses originally meant for him).
A subtle pause in the conversation cleared the air of small talk, a calculated shift from friendship to formality. Harry waited it out. Owning up with a wry smile to ulterior motives, Minerva laced her fingers together and treated him to a brisk, approving summary of his accomplishments (his record of success in instructing fellow students, the precocious ability to cast a Patronus, duelling skills, Auror training, and so forth), failing only to single out the main thing that led to him being here at all: it was you who killed Voldemort.
"In light of all that," she concluded, leaning forward, "I'd like to invite you to apply for the post of Defense against the Dark Arts."
"Oh, no," Harry said almost before the words had finished leaving her mouth. He could barely keep from bursting out with, You're joking, right? "I mean, thank you, but no." When she seemed inclined to press the point, he shook his head sharply. "Sorry, Professor, but it's not going to happen."
Minerva raised her eyebrows and tilted her head quizzically, but rather than insinuate in Dumbledorean fashion that he would one day perceive the wisdom of her request, simply nodded, leaned back without fuss, and summoned a house elf to fetch tea and scones.
Tea no sooner arrived than there was a knock at the door, and she was called away to deal with a tiff between Filch and this generation's version of the Marauders. "Oh, bother," she sighed, rising and adjusting her hat. "No, Harry, don't get up. Tuck in, please, and I'll be back momentarily."
He watched her go and released his pent-up tension in a long breath. No hard feelings, but no. No way. Not now, not ever.
Once she was out of the room, of course, he started feeling twitchy. Three years on from the war, a hackles-raising sense of being watched still lingered here, and in the short time he and Minerva sat chatting, it had grown so strong Harry's neck was stiff from resisting the urge to whip around and catch the culprit in the act.
He shifted forward in his seat, helped himself to some tea, and tried following the familiar shouts and squeals of Quidditch practise wafting in through the open windows. When that distraction failed, he fumbled his rattling cup and saucer to the edge of the desk and stood up as if casually stretching, using the twisting motion to cast a quick look over his shoulder. It would be embarrassing if Minerva caught him being paranoid, but his Auror training—make that his entire life—insisted he pay attention to all instances of prickling unease.
Once upon a time, the tower room had had a hushed, eavesdropping quality borne of sentient portraits fake-napping on the walls. That sense of keen ears and gossipy elders was absent now. Only empty frames and a few damaged canvasses remained.
Harry remembered when he used to feel safe here, a confused teenager surrounded by mystery and authority, dazzled by strange relics, cheered by the twinkle in the headmaster's eye. And it still looked reassuring. Early June sunlight slanted past the parchment-stacked desk, the heavy sideboard and curiosity cabinets. Clicking, chiming copper-and-glass instruments still glittered everywhere like the metallic bones of mechanical chimeras, souvenirs of the man who'd collected them and tinkered like the dotty old bird he wasn't.
Reminders of this sort were chief amongst the reasons Harry rarely came to visit.
Feeling a bit ridiculous, he levitated a scone and slowly pivoted, directing it across the room toward the opposite wall.
Right over there—covered now with a carpet—was the spot where the last incarnation of Tom Riddle had died. Harry knew this, despite having no memory of it. He'd been in bad shape after the final battle and to this day woke from nightmares flashing with curse-lights. That was better than waking with visions of his friends being slaughtered, but still. Bugger if he could remember a single thing about what had actually happened.
According to the papers, Ron, Hermione, and everyone else he met, he'd killed the Dark Lord. No one ever contradicted the account, so it must be true. The fact that he couldn't remember it—well, half the time it made him feel like a fraud.
Without that memory, that closure, he still caught himself searching hooded figures in Diagon Alley for that noseless, implacable face. Sometimes the stars at night would stir a faintly breathless, mounting agitation, until he realised he was watching for the glowing signature of a snake coiling through the open mouth of a skull.
He could feel it now, that dead spot where the last breath had left Voldemort's body, a blast zone in which magic no longer worked. Possibly the Dark Lord's struggle with death had sucked the magic out of the immediate area, and if that was the case, they should count themselves lucky the entire office hadn't suffered the same fate. Even so, it felt to Harry as if something trapped and malevolent still sat there, breathing slowly in and out. He wondered how Minerva stood being cooped up in the same room with it day after day.
The scone, silly-looking in sedate flight, fell suddenly to the carpet with a soft thump.
As if this breaching of the magical void tripped an alarm, a voice on the wall above whispered, "Get Severus."
Harry jerked back. Shock twanged through him like the wrongness of a wand being snapped.
"Please. Someone. If you're there. Whoever you are. Please. Get him. Get Severus for me."
Wand clenched tight in one hand and the chair's carved headrest digging into the other, Harry braced himself against the emotional recoil and raised his head to peer up at Dumbledore's portrait.
What was left of it.
The painting had been removed from its place of honour behind the desk and relocated to the opposite wall. Harry didn't blame Minerva for not wanting the figure in the frame spying over her shoulder. Still, it meant that every time she glanced up, there he would be.
"Professor?" He cleared his suddenly tight throat. The portrait hadn't spoken a word to him since the war's end. "Hello? Are you—is everything all right?"
A faint cheer from the Quidditch pitch coasted through the silence. "Is that … Harry? Harry Potter?" His name echoed oddly, as if two voices had answered almost but not quite in unison. Then Dumbledore's voice swelled with joy. "You're here! At long last. Why, Harry. Dear boy. I had no idea. Come closer so I can see you. Harry, please. Listen to me."
Hesitating, Harry clutched the chair and peered across the room into the smoke-blackened frame. During the final battle the headmaster's office had been ransacked and many of the portraits of past headmasters lost to curse-burning. Although Dumbledore's had survived, his painted surface was pitted, speckled with scorch marks that stripped pigment from canvas. Charred spots like open sores gouged his robes, ate into his face, and left his streaming white beard a ragged mess. Hardest of all to accept, the spell-fight seemed to have blasted holes in his once-unflappable mind.
"Severus," the portrait repeated. "Get Severus. Please. I know you can do it." Half his mouth was gone, and syllables seemed to flake from the painted lips, as if the struggle to enunciate sped up the process of disintegration. "You must—Harry, you must get him for me."
Swallowing down the impulse to promise him anything, anything he asked for, Harry let go of the chair and, staying well clear of the dead spot, crossed to stand below the portrait.
"It's up to you," the old wizard said, his spectacles flashing as if lit from within. The portrait's eyes were still a bright, riveting blue. "Only you can do this. No one else believes me, Harry. No one else will listen."
"But, sir," Harry said, trying to keep his voice steady. He'd had a lifetime's worth of only you can do this. "Snape's dead. I can't—he's out of our reach, Professor. He's— "
"Don't believe everything the Ministry tells you," Dumbledore cautioned, clearly unaware that he was talking to an off-duty Auror. "It's not always in their best interests to be truthful. I'll help you in any way I can. But you must— " The brief outburst of lucidity faded. "Get him for me." The urgent plea dwindled to a pitiful whisper. "Get Severus. For me, my boy. Harry, please."
Cripes, this was so bloody unfair. It was exactly the sort of memory that made Hogwarts an echo chamber of regrets, and here it was, incarnate, begging him to dive back into his nightmares again.
"By 'get'," Harry said reluctantly, "do you mean, bring him here? Or— "
He spread his hand wide against a fist-clenching impulse. "Or make sure he's dead, like they say." Marks left by the chair slat dimpled his reddened palm.
He wasn't expecting silence, and looked up to see Dumbledore's head drooping, his eyelids sliding shut. "I leave that," the portrait mumbled, "for you to decide. I have complete faith in you, m'boy. In your judgement." The blue eyes blazed awake for a startling second. "Just get him."
Then his bearded chin sank, his eyes closed, and Harry jumped at a touch on his arm.
"He woke up for you," Minerva said softly, easing up beside him. He'd been so engrossed he hadn't noticed the door opening. "Och, poor man. Did he ask you to fetch Severus? It seems his sole topic of conversation these days."
Not sure how to answer that, Harry followed her back to the desk and collapsed into his seat. He waited until Minerva had settled in and chosen a scone before admitting, "It's practically the last thing he ever said to me, you know. In the Astronomy tower. He told me to bring Snape— " He grimaced over the name. "Bring Severus to him."
"I see." The headmistress was a cool one. Her curiosity, though sharp as a claw, barely pricked him. Harry swayed toward confiding in her, but for some reason he'd always found it difficult to be entirely open with his head of house. After a moment's tight-lipped concern—not the same as comfort—she sighed and busied herself halving her scone and applying a thin layer of lemon curd. "I won't deny it can be harrowing, those times he's most agitated. I've learnt to tolerate this fixation of his." She nipped a currant off the golden crust and stared pensively into the alcove, chewing. "Poor Albus and his dreadful propensity to scheme."
"Professor?" Minerva's faintly damning glance flicked toward him, and Harry ducked his head against the lingering traces of reproof. He'd always assumed she supported Dumbledore one hundred percent. "Do you think there's a chance Snape's still alive?"
Her tongue had just touched her lemon-dipped finger. She curled it inward and said carefully, "Why, do you?"
"To be honest, I'd rather believe him dead." For a moment reproach darkened her eyes, and he bristled. "Don't expect me to be sorry, Professor. Snape's toadying to Voldemort killed my parents. I got saddled with a pretty horrid childhood, and he took a starring role in that. Not to mention I was right there when he murdered Professor Dumbledore. Even if it was part of some grand plan, I still say he enjoyed doing it. He had to mean it, right?"
As he hammered out these bits of personal dogma, Minerva sat collected and unbending, neatly dispatching the curded remains of her scone. She didn't interrupt, and only looked up again, licking her lips over the last vestige of lemon, when he said, "That's why, if Snape's not dead, I'd really like to know."
"So that you may do what?"
The warning note in her voice almost made him regret having been honest. Sod that. He hadn't dropped by to be made to feel like a sullen schoolboy again, even by his former head of house.
Brows pinched in Dumbledore's general direction, Minerva remarked, "I'm not the person to ask regarding Severus' fate. But I must say, your sudden disquiet revives mine. I'd put it down to Albus' constant demands worming their way under my skin. Now I wonder.
"Unfortunately," she used her next sip of tea and the subsequent clink of cup in saucer to punctuate her disapproval, "you have a stake in determining if Severus is 'not dead.' I'm rather inclined to hope he's alive, and I don't consider that a mere syntactical quibble. Which makes it difficult for me to help you, I fear."
Rising, she offered a cold, slim hand, and Harry took it. No, her hand was warm. The faint refrigerated whiff emanated from behind him, from the patch of flooring that had absorbed the Dark Lord's death.
"I'm so sorry to cut this short. While I was out, Filius brought to my attention a few matters I ought to address without delay. But I'm always delighted to see you, I hope you know that. Come back whenever you like. If you do happen to uncover some clue concerning the truth about our late lamented Slytherin, I'll be happy to hear it." Minerva squeezed his hand reassuringly and let go. "Assuming, of course, you feel inclined to share."
On his way out, Harry brushed one casual glance over Dumbledore's portrait, hoping a sliver of enlightenment might be forthcoming. The old man slept on, blackened and sagging, a heartrending last glimpse for him to take home.
Soles smacking down the revolving stairs, Harry did his best to drown out the echo spiralling in his head: "Please. Get Severus. You can do it, Harry. Get him for me."
xxxxx
"So," Harry threw out a few weeks later, sitting with his elbows on the pub table, hip to thigh with Ginny whilst peering over the rim of his fourth drink. The clamour of the Three Broomsticks on a Saturday night was nearly as good as a Muffliato, but it couldn't protect him from the memory of Dumbledore's voice, circling inside his head like a stubborn bumblebee. "Can we talk about Snape? About what happened to him, I mean."
"Buggered off and burning in hell, I imagine," Ron remarked. "Probably getting his arse Crucio'd on one side by Voldemort and stuffed with lemon sherbets by Dumbledore on the other."
Further down the table, Seamus snorted a laugh. "Oi, I'll drink to that." He raised his eyebrows and his pint glass, waggled the former and took a slug from the latter. "Me, I've not wasted a single thought on the greasy git since the war ended, you know?"
"Me either." At a polite distance down the bench from Harry and Ginny, Neville sat picking at the reddish crescents of Thestral dung lining his cuticles like chipped nail polish. Catching the smirks aimed at his lack of table manners, he snatched both hand down from the table to spell them clean and levelled an earnest look at Harry. "We should keep it that way, don't you think? Anything else means speaking ill of the dead, and that's—I don't know. Unproductive."
"Disrespectful," Kingsley corrected quietly from the far end. "Whatever your personal opinion of Professor Snape, remember he was instrumental in Voldemort's defeat."
Remember. Right. Remember what? Reports said that Snape switched allegiance at the last minute, but no one had ever been able to explain why. He glared down at the scarred tabletop and let his wand slip from his sleeve just far enough to burn a line into the wood. He was tempted to draw a Mors Mordre—a small reminder, a talisman against forgetting—but Ginny touched his wrist, and he roused himself before his brooding killed the mood.
"Anyone here attend his funeral?" He drained his drink to disguise how agitated the whole subject made him. He hadn't eaten much that day, so his head was feeling a bit swimmy, and it took actual effort to sound curious rather than inquisitorial.
But Seamus had already gone back to talking to Dean, and Ron was leaning in close to Hermione, trying to tease her away from her book. Luna had wandered over from the card table, where she'd lost five Galleons and won a delicate poisonous-looking green flask half-filled with absinthe. Only Ginny, who leaned lazily against him, and Kingsley, who watched him with an air of mild concern, paid any attention.
"No one?" Harry said, feeling suddenly odd about it.
"It's been three years," Kingsley said. "You've barely mentioned Snape in all this time, but for the last two weeks you've been fixated. Something happen, Potter?"
"No," Harry mumbled. "Nothing. A few nightmares, that's all."
Kingsley drew a chip from the charm-warmed basket he was sharing with Neville, dipped it in curried mayonnaise, chewed with more solemnity than even the tastiest fry warranted, and surprised him by saying, "There was no funeral. A few members of the Hogwarts staff might have attended if we'd arranged a service, but in the end the department decided it would be best not to draw attention to Severus' fate. All goodbyes, if there were any, were said in private."
No funeral? No witnesses to the burial, then. But any suspicions along those lines would mean accusing the MLE of concealing Snape. Harry toyed with his empty glass and tried not to feel paranoid. "It just crossed my mind that no one talks about him anymore."
"I know what you mean, Harry." Luna sent him an sympathetic smile, then poured a tiny percentage of the green liquid into a clean goblet and held it up to admire the chain of bubbles rising from the bottom. "The Professor's not an easy man to forget, is he? But we can't spend all our time mourning our losses." She tilted the glass to her lips and blinked in disappointment. Harry was about to protest her ridiculous choice of words, since 'mourning' and 'loss' had absolutely no relevance to his feelings about Snape, but Luna conjured a sugar cube to drop in her glass and remarked, "A lot happened during the war that I just never think about. I can remember if I want to, but," she took another small sip, her expression brightening to one of cautious approval, "I don't want to. It's not that I bear Professor Snape any ill will. He's just one of the things I prefer not to think about, even if he doesn't deserve to be forgotten."
Hermione left off reading and raised her head, brushing a tumble of hair from her eyes. It had been annoying at first, the way she always toted a book along, even on outings like this one, casting Lumos over the pages so she could see in the dimmest, smokiest interior, but it was so very Hermione that it soon came to be pegged as her way of being social. She always sat to Ron's left so he could keep an arm around her waist without interrupting his wild gesticulations or his frequent recourse to a glass of whatever the rest of them were having. She also had a spy's talent for monitoring the conversation, and Harry wondered what Luna had said that had got her attention.
"It's sad that no one misses him, isn't it?" she mused, glancing from face to face until she reached Harry's and stopped. "No one ever talks about him. No one remembers. No one cares. It's almost as if— "
"No, it isn't," Ron broke in, one big hand landing hard on the tabletop, more emphatically perhaps than he'd intended. Hermione scooped her wine glass out of danger and glared. "I don't care if I sound like a tosser," Ron argued. "It makes perfect sense. I'm loads happier never thinking about Snape, and it's not like I have a problem going the rest of my life knowing I won't waste a single bleeding second on that arsehole when I could—I could be remembering Fred or Sirius or—bloody hell, let's start and end with Dumbledore, all right?"
He clapped a hand to Harry's shoulder and gripped it hard, as if Harry needed persuading. "Luna might be able to forgive him, right? But I'm not Luna. Can't think of anyone I feel more justified forgetting, frankly. I mean, look." His hand flapped in exasperation; Ginny ducked and said, "Honestly, Ron," when Harry's glasses nearly got flipped from his face. "Our memories of Voldemort will never go away. He killed our friends and families, he threatened our whole bloody world, and it's our responsibility to make sure the next generation takes this Dark Lord shite seriously. But Snape?" Ron huffed in disgust and to everyone's relief settled back into drinking. "Shadows and dust, mate. It's what he asked for, and it's all he gets."
"Yep," Dean said. "No offence, Harry, but why should we care? Maybe it'd be different if Snape were alive, but with him dead I just can't be arsed to wank on about his crimes or boo-hoo over his last-minute change of heart. If that's what it was. He did us all a favour by sodding off to the afterlife, and I'm content to let history judge him."
"Fine. I bow to majority opinion. But," Harry rapped the bottom of his glass irritably on the table, "what exactly happened to him?" He ignored Ginny's testy whisper in his ear and went on fiddling with the glass until it ended up spinning out of his hand and rolling across the table. Kingsley levitated it back to him with a warning look. Damn. Well, at least it was empty. "I get that nobody cares, but what— "
"Voldemort killed him," Luna said softly, staring into her absinthe as if it held the key to the universe's secrets. "But you were there, Harry. Weren't you?" She raised her calm, curious, unembarrassed eyes, then blinked and offered the absinthe to Neville.
"Yeah, Voldemort killed Snape, and you killed Voldemort," Seamus said, as if reciting the answer to a test question.
This was going in circles. Harry shook off the consoling arm Ginny tried to put around him. What he really wanted to do was jump up and pace. It sounded plausible, but— "If I can't remember, did it really happen, though? To me, I mean?"
Silence descended, awkward or tolerant or impatient, depending, because Harry's memory loss and his inability to get over it were old subjects by now. Luckily Rosmerta sashayed up right at that moment, wand aloft and a refill for anyone still thirsty. "On me, my lovelies," she trilled, as she did at least once a night when they gathered here for their monthly reunion. Apparently having the Boy Who Saved Our Arses as regular custom was a drawing card worth its weight in alcohol.
"My round, please," Harry countered, and dug a handful of galleons from his robes. Rosmerta valued them at a glance, clinked them together in her closed fist, and gave him a perfectly wicked grin. Then she leaned over, interposing her laced bosom between Harry and Ginny, and tapped the rim of each standing glass. She Summoned Harry's empty and provided him with a fresh snifter half-filled with steaming, eye-watering amber. Kingsley, still working on his previous pint, covered the top of his glass and quirked a wry smile. Rosmerta straightened up with an obvious boosting of her bosom, put one hand saucily on her hip, lifted an inviting eyebrow, then withdrew with a swish of skirts, leaving Dean and Seamus staring after her.
Hunched forward, Harry put his nose to the sinus-prickling fumes and inhaled, then peered up, giving voice to the thing that haunted his dreams. "Do we know it was Voldemort? What if I— " His chest tightened, whether in excitement or dismay he couldn't tell. "Maybe I killed Snape."
Kingsley's mouth pulled into a cheek-sucking grimace, and he ran an exasperated hand over his glossy scalp. "We've been over this before, Potter. You didn't."
"But you—not you, of course, Kingsley. I mean the MLE. They never tried to arrest Snape after he murdered Professor Dumbledore. They could have taken him out, even just abducted him, once he started his reign of terror at Hogwarts." Briefly, Harry imagined throwing curses at Snape, and his body gave an involuntary shudder. Maybe that was why he kept having nightmares in which flashes of green light figured. He admitted, "I wanted him to suffer for what he did. It makes sense that I would have been the one to kill him."
"Harry, what does it matter?" Ginny fetched his glass away and sampled the hot brandy, wincing at the taste before she hastily gave it back. "All three of them are dead. Voldemort, Dumbledore, and Snape." She coughed slightly and frowned. "No one holds you responsible."
"I do," Harry retorted, feeling harsh and messy inside, like a painting scraped down to bare canvass. Like Dumbledore's face, scabbed and faded on the wall. "No, I don't remember, and maybe Voldemort got to him first, but I can imagine it. I can imagine casting the Killing Curse. I certainly hated him enough."
"Harry."
By now spoiling for a fight, Harry lifted his eyebrows at Hermione in a belligerent What?
Marking her place with a finger, she managed a superb impression of the McGonagall deep-freeze. "You're talking about murder."
"What else would you call what Snape did to Dumbledore? Anybody here says 'mercy killing,' it's wands-out, I'm warning you."
Bugger. His tone was all wrong. He couldn't joke about this. He knew his blush was visible from the way Ginny was looking at him.
"She means," Kingsley rumbled, big arms folded across his broad chest, "that you're fantasizing about killing a man in cold blood."
"Who says it has to be cold?" Merlin, now the alcohol was talking. Abashed, Harry drummed his fingers, frowning down at the mark he'd burned into the wood. He sneaked a quick look around the table. Only Ginny flashed him a reluctant grin.
Rousing, Ron reached around and gave Harry a cuff on the shoulder that nearly knocked him face-first into his brandy. "You're sloshed, mate. Sozzled as a kneazle on poppyseeds." Seamus and Dean smirked, and Neville frowned doubtfully. Hermione was clearly biting her tongue, while Luna gazed across the room, a vaguely disappointed look on her face much like her response to unsweetened absinthe.
"However much you may wish you had, Potter, you did not, in fact, kill Severus Snape."
It was Kingsley's senior Auror voice, the one that commanded obedience in the field. Having laid down the law, he relaxed into affability again. "You were seriously messed up after the last battle, and I'm sorry. More than likely you'll never remember what happened. But trust me on this. Never doubt you were there, or that you did what had to be done."
Glass in hand, he scraped back his chair for a wider view. "Regardless of what you've forgotten, the fact is, you have friends around you and you'll always be remembered. This puts you one-up on Snape." He addressed this to Harry but clearly meant the rest of them to pay attention. "You have magic. And each other. You won. Try to take satisfaction in knowing you're still here, and," Kingsley gestured to their surroundings, "he isn't."
Harry turned his woozy head as if maybe Kingsley was wrong and Snape was hiding somewhere. The echo of Dumbledore's voice faded as he watched wizarding life bustle around him. These were his friends. This was one of the cosiest spots in Hogsmeade. Just over there, Rosmerta flirted with a couple of the lads. Reminded, Harry tightened his arm around Ginny and tucked her closer.
On display in every corner of the wood-panelled room was an eccentric jumble of wizarding fashions cribbed from different eras. Platters of steaming buns, bangers, and shepherd's pie popped into existence in front of famished customers. By the door, broomsticks were stuck in wall brackets bristles-up or slotted into a large stone urn. The inhabitants of various soot-smeared portraits, crowded into one door-sized painting placed conveniently over the gaming table, urged on the bettors as the dice rolled and the cards flew, or shrieked imprecations at the least signs of foul play. Amulets, heirlooms, books, and potions ingredients changed hands as often as galleons, and there were frequent booms or jets of water sputtering over the table, followed by a great flailing of wands and raucous spell-casting. The fireplace crackled cheerfully, and at intervals patrons stepped into or fell out of the Floo.
There were tears in Harry's eyes, taking all this in, and he blinked them away before anybody noticed.
Heaving himself to his feet, Kingsley downed the last of his stout. "All I can say is, put your mind at ease." His stern eyes travelled the circle of faces. "Snape's case is closed. I'd advise you to forget he ever existed.
"And now, if you'll excuse me, I have an early day tomorrow." Hermione had already shut and stowed her book. Luna and Neville were standing; Dean was counting extra Knuts onto the table. "Auror Weasley, I'll see you at the office. Superintendent Potter, please remember the Monday meeting scheduled with Madam Pettifer in the Department of Records, ten sharp. My friends, till next month."
About to turn away, Kingsley hesitated. "Harry." Leaning down, he brought the full force of his authority to bear on the three-sheets-to-the-wind boy saviour. "Be reasonable, for all our sakes. Let it go."
Lying awake next to Ginny that night, Harry decided, well, sure, he could be reasonable. He could attempt a thought experiment, here in the privacy of his bedroom. He could imagine that Snape had never existed.
Staring up into the darkness, he synchronised his deep breaths with Ginny's tranquil exhales and tried blotting the greasy bastard from his mind. It was a struggle. Snape's image, Snape's actions, had gone into making Harry who he was. The viper's tongue, the snap of robes, the eyes that could be cold and smouldering at once. The terrible mistakes Snape had made, so many of which had cost Harry so dearly.
He fell asleep repeating, There is no Snape. Snape doesn't exist, as if wishing hard enough could make it true.
He woke once, with the hollow, homesick remnants of a dream fluttering in his mind and the skin around his eyes tight and salty with tears. His sleep was stuffed with edges of memory that his head kept trying to fit together, confused and incoherent fragments being all that remained of that day in the headmaster's office, when he'd—
—remember, Potter, you faced Voldemort, remember that you—
Killed him, right? He slung an arm over his eyes, furious at the lie. With an Expelliarmus. Yeah, right. It still made no fucking sense.
Except in dreams. In the dream, he was trying to get away. In the dream there was always something inside his head, coming after him.
He didn't remember casting Expelliarmus. All he could lay hold of was a half-formed image of Voldemort on the floor, and the flare of deathly green. The grip of harsh, thin fingers on his face. A desperate voice spitting words. But he didn't remember—he couldn't remember—so much had been taken from him, taken away—
Remember, Potter. You killed him. Snape's voice, recognisable even in dreams. Fuck that greasy bastard anyhow. He didn't exist. He had no right to exist.
Hovering over the depths of sleep, he whispered, Get Severus. A promise, wasn't it? A purpose, more like. It sounded just the thing.
Morning arrived like a clout to the forehead. Merlin, why did he drink so much at these reunions? Shirtless, Harry staggered into the lav and squinted at the mirror.
"Squiffed again?" it cracked. "Take pity, sir, I beg you. I'm the one who suffers when you drag home looking second cousin to a Shrivelfig."
Not feeling up to repartee with a bathroom fixture at such an early hour, Harry leaned closer. His stubbled face stared blearily back at him. "No Snape," he croaked, still trying it on. A queer grin contorted his pillow-creased features.
"Gracious!" squeaked the mirror, adding nervously, "I was speaking entirely in jest, you understand."
Huh. "I wasn't," Harry told himself. This was more than just a drunken midnight experiment. It was an idea, evidently, whose time had come.
He had his face crammed into a wet flannel when the dream rose out of the blackness and snarled, Expelliarmus? Potter, for fuck's sake! Scraping his dripping fringe out of his eyes, Harry stared into the mirror and thought, He didn't die. He should have died. He's not dead. It was dream-logic, the hiss of half-Obliviated memory, but it felt real.
He wished—Merlin, he wished he could remember what had happened that day in the headmaster's office. The day the portrait burned. The day the Dark Lord died. The day he forgot what had happened to Snape.