Title: Seven Stages of Grieving
Author: So Yun
Beta: Syracusethedog
Chapter: 1/7
Rating: M
Warnings: Languages, violence, adult themes, character death
Summary: Something tragic has befallen Harry, how do the seven people connected to him deal?
Note1: If you have "How to save a life" By the band, "The Fray" please put it on whilst you read this. Each chapter I will recommend a song to play that will put you in the mood.
Note2: Play "Dead Wrong" by the Fray in this chapter.
Seven Stages of Grieving
Chapter one: A Single Tear
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"Cease your babbling at once Miss Granger!" Severus Snape, Potions Master and teacher of Hogwarts School snapped, bearing down at the bushy haired girl.
"But sir!"
"Weasley! Did I ask for your opinion?" Snape sneered disdainfully and looked down his extraordinarily long, hooked nose at the red haired boy.
The two kept blathering and protesting angrily, but he would have none of it. The Professor grabbed them both, silenced them and dragged them off to the Headmaster's office.
"Oompa Loompas." Snape said dryly, he hated the choice of passwords the old coot desired to use.
The phoenix moved and a revolving stair case was revealed, he continued to drag them up it. He ignored their gaping mouths and wild gestures, the Weasley boy often pertaining rude ones.
He ignored the grim and surprised look on Albus Dumbledore's face before depositing the two ignorant Gryffindors on two equally comfortable chairs.
He waved his wand and rubbed the bridge of his nose as their whining and screeches disturbing him greatly.
"Sir! He never got on the train! We waited for as long as we could and-"
"Headmaster something is wrong, I can feel it-"
The two agitated Gryffindors continued squawking, they reminded Snape of magpies. Dumbledore sat there calmly, listening to every word the two students said and nodded gravely.
As they continued, he calmly put his hand up to pause them and said solemnly, "I have sent Kingsley and Lupin to the Dursley's. It is a great grievance to hear this, Sirius is close to breaking the door down-"
"Oh no doubt, the mutt cannot control himself over his golden godson-"
"Severus, this is neither the time nor place,"
Snape sat silent, properly admonished and looked between the three other people in the room. Granger looked on the verge of tears.
For one swift moment, Snape felt sympathetic towards the girl. Even if he greatly disliked Potter, he also was disturbed by the boy's disappearance.
He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to the girl, saying stiffly, "There, there Miss Granger. I'm sure everything will be fine."
Weasley looked like he was going into shock and Albus was vaguely smiling, his eyes twinkling as goddamn usual.
"Ronald, I think you will find Severus human," He said, laughter in his tone as he looked at Weasley, his eyes goggling and jaw dropped.
Granger smiled and accepted the handkerchief, wiping her eyes then graciously handed it back to the Potions master.
"Thankyou Sir." she said shyly and looked away. For that moment the four sat silently and Weasley huffed every now and then.
"You are an impatient boy," Snape snapped, but with no snideness and only a touch of sarcasm.
The boy had the audacity to roll his eyes and huff again, at that moment he really didn't care what Snape thought.
Finally when the floo roared and two figures stepped out, everyone jumped to their feet.
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Kingsley came out first, his eyes looked hollowed and he was unnaturally pale. Then Lupin, his eyes were red rimmed and he was rubbing a bloody fist.
Weasley and Granger looked up hopefully, fully expecting for a third person to step out and hug them. Running his hands through his wild hair, and grinning madly with a twinkle that absorbed his emerald eyes.
But a third person did not step out, and the four people standing slumped back down further in their chairs.
Kingsley Shacklebolt, prime auror and member of the Order of the Phoenix stepped forth slowly and placed a foggy bottle on the Headmaster's desk.
"I think you should watch this Albus," He said softly before falling softly into the chair behind him. Lupin did the same and unconsciously rubbed his hand, muttering things that no one could understand.
Albus looked at the bottle; the twinkle had left his eyes. He prepared himself for the unknown and poured the contents of the bottle into his pensieve.
He looked up to Snape and the two students, looking unfathomably disappointed and motioned for them to stand.
"I think you have the right to join me in seeing this." He said gently, he watched as Ron looked up at Snape in horror then nodded. Hermione wiped her tears and sniffled, also nodding.
Together they stood and watched as he floo called Sirius to join them.
When Sirius stepped out, his eyes were sunken and his hair waxy and greasy like Snape's.
He was slumped, but his posture still held a glimmer of hope. He had been frantic for hours ever since he had heard that his godson had not arrived at Hogwarts.
Being confined to headquarters while his best friend and Shackbolt went to investigate pained him deeply.
He felt helpless, not able to do anything when anything or something horrible had happened to befall Harry.
Together they stood and gulped, diving into the bowl, anxious of what horrors had befallen their friend, student and Godson.
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Soon the five found they existed in a foggy memory, but it cleared instantly and most of them recognised the living room of number four Privet drive of Little Whinging Surrey.
They heard shouting and everyone became alarmed but listened intently.
"I'm sick of you! You're a freak and a laze-about, as bad as your good for nothing parents!"
"Don't you dare insult my parents Vernon!" Harry's angered voice penetrated them and they began to watch as the scene unfolded.
Harry was standing in the middle of the living room, his wand raised. His uncle stood in front of him, veins nearly popping in the side of his head. His fist was raised and he looked like he wanted to pummel Harry.
"I'll insult your stupid parents; I mean they are the ones who got themselves killed!"
"How dare you!" Harry screamed and lunged forth at his Uncle, throwing punches when he could.
"YOU FREAK! GET OFF ME! PETUNIA-"
The Muggle fought back and was pinning his nephew to the ground, putting his hands around Harry's neck, strangling him.
The five witnessed this in horror and wanted to rush forth and do something, anything to help. But their minds immobilized them, and they stood frozen in mortification as the scene went on.
"Uncle!" Harry was rasping and clawing at the hands, the witnesses all breathed in relief as Harry managed to break free.
But their relief was not long lived as they watched on, tears springing to Dumbledore and Hermione's eyes.
Harry was fighting back bravely, but his wand lay forgotten on the ground.
"You stupid freak! I'm going to kill you! I should have drowned you when you were dropped on our doorstep! Marge was right, when the bitch-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
Harry was then picked up bodily by his uncle and thrown; there was an almighty crash as he hit the glass coffee table. Shards embedding themselves everywhere, then there was silence as the last tinkling of glass landed.
The five people watched in grief as they saw the still form that lay at horrible angles over the once coffee table.
Harry's beautiful green eyes were lifeless and his lips were contoured into a slight smile. His neck and head were at a strange angle, as were his arm and one of his legs.
A sticky, blackish crimson pool of blood dripped, oozing over the surface from somewhere underneath Harry.
Time stretched and Harry's body was still, so still, too still. His chest did not rise and fall, his lips were parted a little and no breath ghosted them.
His messy raven hair covered his forehead and his glasses hung limply from one ear and his nose. His body was splayed grotesquely over the table, it looked sickening.
His eyes that made his gorgeous, beautiful smile were so lifeless. There was no apparent twinkle in them anymore.
His fragile seeker hands used for grasping the snitch were frozen in a delicate arch like a ballerina's pose.
His body held no life anymore; it held a strange beauty in it.
He was dead.
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Numbness encased Severus Snape; his eyes became glazed as he stared at the body. The body of a child, the body of the fifteen year old child he had come to forcing himself to detest.
Bile was rising in his throat as the sticky pool of blood stopped flowing; it was as dark as midnight.
He found it hard to breath, but he could not stare away from the expressionless eyes of the teen. The brutal ness of the murder he saw bit him hard, it stung.
He swallowed the bile and blinked furiously, but his eyes entranced at the odd angles in which Potter lay.
He couldn't stare long as the scene lurched on, what came next nearly made Severus Snape want to kill the muggle himself.
The muggle stared at the body for a second, horror, and then relief? Dawning on his fat features.
He ushered his wife back into the kitchen, Petunia looked awful. She kept looking out the doorway into the living room at the body.
She sat down, shaking and gasping for breath, "Vernon-" She began but was cut off as her husband hastily pulled out a big garbage bag noisily and retreated back to the living room.
Snape looked at his companions beside him, Granger was sobbing uncontrollably into Weasley's arms, who seemed in a trance as he comforted his girlfriend.
The headmaster had guilt ridden in his eyes and aged features, he had buried his face in his hands. But enough to see what was still happening.
Black looked the worst, he had unfallen tears pooling in his eyes. Despair and anxiety marred his features, grief was tipping on the edge for him. His eyes stared through the wall where he knew his godson lay in a pool of his own black, crimson blood.
They followed through watching in awe struck horror as Vernon Dursley carelessly handled the body of the boy who lived. Stuffing the teenager's marred, bloody, but unbroken body into the garbage bag.
He laid the body in the bag on the ground and tied a knot tightly at the top and surveyed it for a moment before snapping for his wife to clean up the blood.
When his wife did not answer or move, Vernon hastily grabbed a sponge from the laundry and messily wiped the pool of blood. It stained the carpet in a grotesque way, but cleaned off the remains of the table easily.
Vernon then picked up the body very carelessly and carried it into the garage where he shoved it into the trunk of his car.
He sighed then wiped the sweat of his brow before heaving into the car himself and driving out onto the street. The body in the boot unceremoniously thumping side to side as the car drove.
Severus Snape closed his eyes for a second when they reached a large gutter pipe below a bridge on the outskirts of town. Water flowed little through the pipe and into the cemented stream down into a creek further down.
Vernon parked on the bridge and opened the boot, pulling out the garbage bag and throwing it over the bridge.
He panted as if it were a hard working job to be done with. His face was red with exhaustion and he never took a second glance as the body fell over the bridge railing.
It landed in the little stream with a small splash and Vernon Dursley drove off, never looking back.
Pale and shaking, the five landed back in the Headmaster's office, all stumbling in shock.
An unbidden, single tear escaped Severus Snape's eye and rolled down his cheek landing on the carpet. Snape never cried, never. Until now.
Emotions swelled up in his chest and he dared not look up. They had just seen hell and come back.
The material absorbed it as silence encumbered the five witnesses of Harry Potter's, cold hearted murder.
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Next chapter:
Chapter two: A Pair of Calming Draughts