Authors Note: Post Deathly Hallows. Divergence from canon is strictly my error, so point any of those out to me. Nitpickers are the literary oxpeckers on the great hippo of fan fiction.
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns all these characters, along with half the world.
Prologue
The obsidian lid slid shut, and Hermione watched him go. Only a scattering of cloaked figures stood by, so much fewer than for his predecessor. There were no chairs set out for kinsmen, colleagues, students, or friends. No magical creatures came to pay homage. No heavenly light broke the darkness of the clouds above. Hermione could smell the threat of rain in the air, and the thin scent of smoke from a Hogwarts still burning.
Headmistress McGonagall stepped forward and threw a clod of dirt on the black box below, and the others followed suit. Hermione turned away, suppressing the urge to throw it all in- all the stone rubble, broken enchantments, bodies of the loved and unloved, alike. Thrown in, covered up, and put away. Never to feel, to breathe, to exist as the sun and the skies and the stars continued to turn in their ceaseless cycle above the cold burial of the past. So much was lost in the time of a single breath. In the heat of battle, righteousness and faith gave her purpose. Now, at the end of it all, Hermione could feel only the senselessness of death. And regret.
McGonagall open her mouth as if to speak, but no words emerged. As she looked upon the spectators, the crowd shuffled awkwardly and cast sheepish looks at their neighbors. No one had words to memorialize a man who was hated at his worst, and disliked at his best. A man whose allegiances throughout his life were multiple and yet, always, singular. A man whose few friends laid in tombs long sealed. With a sigh betraying a fatigue heavy for even a woman of her great age, the Headmistress silently waved her wand. Fresh earth sealed the aching ground, and two words were carved into the simple grey stone at the head. Wordlessly, she nodded, turned, and walked away from the scene. Wordlessly, the others followed.
Hermione was the last to go. Kneeling, she traced the lettering on the small rock as two fat droplets landed on its surface. "Severus Snape." No more, no less. He was gone, and Hermione had watched him go. She stood and turned, a flash of lightening illuminating her shadow on the fresh dirt. A moment later, when a boom of thunder chased its brother across the lake to the mound with its little stone, only emptiness greeted him. All that remained were echoes scattering in the night air.