Author's Note: Not quite sure what this is, I just felt like writing, as we all often do. All characters and settings belong to J.K. Rowling. If you're reading, I thank you. :)
The Grey Lady
Pallid yet beautiful was how he'd always remembered her.
Even now she was just so, when watching for her was as tiresome as an old scar and hoping that she would glance his way was as painful as the wound that had made it. If their eyes ever did happen to meet and he could hear her ugliest thoughts, she was still a sight to behold. As her ire permeated the coldest walls of the castle, he held her image in the forefront of his mind.
She became a ghost when he became headmaster. While all others marched on she floated aimlessly, hovering between worlds and haunting the halls at dusk. He himself had been a phantom for years, drifting in and out of countless, mostly meaningless lives, but he had hardly put it into thought that she would be one to join him. Sometimes he felt like reaching for her hand only to be reminded of the fact that his would merely pass through hers.
In every degree his actions had lead to her death and he would never deny it, least of all to save himself. The blood from his past that covered him from crown to toe remained after every wash, weighed him down with every drop, but none shone so brightly as hers. Rusted and silvery it bathed his torso, sprays of iron here and there to recount the violence of his betrayal. It shimmered in the light, in the dark, and during his waking hours at the school or by the Dark Lord's side. If a blade had existed, he would have banished it to the ends of the earth. Instead, he'd wielded the razor edge of a terrible but necessary secret that made her an unintentional target. By bringing one relief, he'd caused the suffering of another. He knew she grieved solely for the loss of Albus Dumbledore. The loss of Severus Snape meant nothing.
When the night fell that he finally did, his own blood draining through the floorboards of the Shrieking Shack, he felt hers slip away as well. In a fractional instance he recalled the burden of Lily Potter's lifeless body in his arms, baby Harry's sobs, his own decimated heart. Then the chilling wetness gave way to a greater warmth as he graduated from physical to spiritual form, all pain and anguish receding into the darkness. For the want of one last thing, he willed himself to the battered old castle while the war raged on with no acknowledgement of his passing.
She stood among the injured and the deceased, working hard to keep all calm amidst unspeakable chaos. Her hair had escaped from the top of her head and he could see the silver it had gained just in the past year alone. She was exhausted, with more injuries than her robes would reveal, but in his misty vision she appeared more alive than ever. She was beautiful and bleeding red. Her eyes radiated pride and strength and love and for all of these he was glad.
Severus stepped forward to embrace Minerva McGonagall for the first and last time, falling through her and into the next realm where he would be reunited with those who had gone before him.