"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to say goodbye to one of our war heroes, Severus Snape."
Harry Potter barely restrained the snort that he was dying to give. 'We' consisted of a grand total of the priest, and himself. Nobody else had bothered to turn up for Snape's funeral. None of his colleagues, none of his fellow Order of the Phoenix members, and none of his friends – if the man had actually had any. It seemed a very poor showing for the man who had sacrificed so much to help destroy one of the darkest wizards in recent history.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . ." the priest droned on. His voice hadn't risen beyond a monotone. He offered a small silver dish to Harry. After a brief second, Harry took a pinch of the dirt within it, and leaned forward to sprinkle it into the gaping hole they were standing beside. It fell onto the plain wooden box with a sound like hailstones. Harry winced. Snape hadn't even rated a proper coffin. Instead, it was – literally – a box. No matter what the priest had said about war heroes, it was obvious that nobody considered Snape to actually be one. He hadn't even been dead for a full day before they'd buried him. All the other fallen were still lying in state in Hogwarts' Great Hall.
With a casual wave of the priest's hand, the dirt began falling from the sides into the grave, rapidly filling it. Within two minutes, if he hadn't been watching it, Harry would have been hard-pressed to say there was a grave there at all.
"Er—" he started, as the priest tucked his bible under his arm and turned to go. The priest paused, and glanced at him quizzically. "No headstone?" Harry asked, lamely.
"No one has paid for one," the priest responded, his hands tucked into his sleeves. "Were you wanting one? They range in price from 50 Galleons, to 500 if you want a statue. It could be ready in, ooh . . ." He sucked on his teeth thoughtfully. "Three weeks?"
"Um, never mind," Harry muttered. He shoved his own hands into his jacket pockets and rocked back on his heels, his gaze fixed on the unmarked ground.
"If you're sure," the priest murmured, and began to move off again. Harry didn't bother to watch him go, and didn't even look up at the loud crack as the priest Disapparated.
It just didn't seem right, Harry thought, that in years to come, nobody would ever know where Snape's resting place was. The man deserved at least something to state he'd ever existed.
There was a loud racket from nearby, and Harry's head shot up, his body tensed and poised to either fight or flee. The war was too newly over – the reflexes hadn't dulled yet. He slowly relaxed, though, as he realised it was just a squirrel, arguing with a large magpie.
Turning his attention back to the gravesite, Harry rummaged in his pockets, and came up with an empty potions vial. He had no idea what potion had been in it, but it looked fairly clean. Placing it at the head of where the grave had been, Harry pulled his wand from his sleeve and concentrated, waving it as he imagined what he wanted.
Slowly, the glass vial Transfigured itself, growing upwards and outwards, until it resembled the other headstones nearby. The tiny remnants of the potion it had held were swirled through the glass. In black writing edged in gold, Harry etched in the words, Professor Severus Snape – the bravest man I ever knew, and a small doe in the top left-hand corner.
Standing back, he briefly admired his work, before gently patting the headstone – or should that be headglass? – and turning to leave the small cemetery.
A small movement on the far side caught his eye, and Harry froze, his breath catching in his lungs as he stared at the silhouette half-hidden under the branches of one of the willow trees. It looked like . . . but that was impossible . . . it couldn't be . . . !
Harry swiped his glasses from his face with one hand, rubbed his eyes sharply with the other, and then swiftly replaced them, peering sharply at where he swore he'd just seen a man with long black hair, in robes that were rippling in the breeze.
But there was nothing – no one – there. Just the mocking call of the magpie, who'd vanquished the squirrel.
Shaking his head and starting again towards the cemetery entrance, Harry reflected that he was obviously more tired than he'd thought – or that trip to King's Cross station had done something to him – if he thought he'd just seen Snape.
At the gate, Harry turned and looked back again. The only thing he could see was the magpie, now perched on the new marker. Shaking his head at his own foolishness, Harry Disapparated back to Hogwarts.
The grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were bustling when Harry arrived back at the castle. He could see Professor Sprout shouting orders to various teams, as they worked to repair the lawns where the battle had been fierce and bloody. He could also see the diminutive Professor Flitwick near the surrounding fence, waving his wand in intricate patterns. Voldemort had torn all the wards down to get into Hogwarts, which included the anti-Apparition wards. Professor McGonagall had deemed that they be restored first, as until they were replaced, anybody could just appear in the castle without warning. Voldemort himself might be gone, but he still had followers on the loose, who wouldn't be too happy with Harry Potter at the moment.
"Harry!"
Looking up as he stumbled up the driveway, Harry could see Hermione Granger leaning out of a window on the second floor, waving at him. He waved back to indicate he was on his way, and Hermione ducked back into whatever room she was in.
As he entered the Entrance Hall, Harry had to sidestep a suit of armour that was marching itself doggedly across the hall to its plinth just at the entrance to the dungeons. It made a dull bonking sound with every other step, and Harry realised that the right boot was somehow fused with a block of wood. Shaking his head, he hurried towards the great staircase, refusing to look at the Great Hall as he passed. He didn't want to see Remus or Tonks or Colin or Fred, or any of the others that had died. He didn't want to see everyone else's grief. Not yet. His own hadn't sunken in yet, and he wasn't ready to face it.
Once he reached the second floor, he whispered, "Point me Hermione," and headed to the left when he felt his wand tugging that way. He had to skip sideways to avoid a house elf, who was pulling what looked like a large sack behind it. Harry felt his stomach churn as he realised it was an arm – a giant's arm – that had apparently been hacked off by something. Swallowing hard, he continued down the corridor looking for Hermione.
He found her in an old Charms classroom. The wooden furniture had either been used as a barricade, or as weapons. Either way, it had not stood up to the challenge, and pieces were scattered everywhere like a bad attempt at wooden carpeting. Hermione was trying to repair it all, or throwing out the bits that wouldn't mend.
"All right, Harry?" she asked, giving him a sharp glance as he appeared in the doorway. She waved her wand in a tight spiral, and the pieces closest to her floated up into the air, rearranging themselves into what looked like the seat of a chair and one leg.
"Mm," said Harry, noncommittally. He waved his own wand, and several more pieces pulled themselves together to reveal two more chair legs, which attached themselves to the seat still floating beside Hermione.
"How was it?" she asked, knowing precisely where he'd been.
Harry moved his shoulders in a way that wasn't quite a shrug. "It was a funeral," he replied. "A very small, quick one."
"Well, you couldn't expect people to believe in him so quickly," Hermione said, frowning at the incomplete chair. She flicked her wand almost angrily, but no other pieces came to join it. With a sigh, she gestured, and the chair floated over to lean drunkenly beside the doorway, ready to be removed. She looked back over at Harry. "It was only a few days ago that he was supposedly one of Voldemort's supporters."
"I know that," Harry said, folding his arms and tapping his wand against his bicep. "But he shouldn't have been buried so quickly, like everyone just wants to forget him. He should at least have been left in state somewhere, like—" His throat closed around whatever name he would have said, and Hermione gave him a look of sympathy.
"He probably wouldn't have wanted that, anyway," she suggested, softly.
"No, but he deserved it," Harry said, his voice thick. He coughed and cleared his throat. "Where's Ron?" he asked, in a blatant subject change. Hermione gave him a look that said she knew what he was doing, but allowed it.
"He's down in the Great Hall, helping Mr Weasley to . . . with Fred," she said, and blinked rapidly, before turning away to poke her wand at another pile of large splinters. "Ginny's looking after Mrs Weasley, and Percy's taken George . . . well, I'm not sure where he's taken George," she admitted. "But George is a mess."
"That's not surprising," said Harry, and concentrated very hard on the remains of what had once been a desk. "He's lost the other half of himself."
"They're all worried about him," said Hermione, softly. "Mr Weasley said that Bill and Charlie are on their way here, just in case—"
"George does anything stupid?" Harry finished. Hermione nodded.
A loud shout from outside distracted them. Looking out of the window, they could see a large knot of vines waving from beneath part of a castle wall. Apparently it was Devil's Snare, and someone had gotten too close to it.
A whoop of joy made them look the other way. Professor Flitwick was dancing a strange jig of delight. It seemed he'd finally managed to raise the anti-Apparition wards again.
Chuckling and shaking their heads, Harry and Hermione returned to their task.
A week later, Harry was beginning to think he was going insane. At least once a day – and sometimes several – he'd catch sight of a tall, dark figure, standing and watching him. The figure was never close enough for him to clearly see its features, but it very strongly reminded him of the deceased Potions Master.
Which was ridiculous, because the man was buried in a small wizarding cemetery just outside of Cokesworth.
If anybody else had ever seen the figure, they never mentioned it, and Harry was wary of saying anything as he'd learnt the hard way that people were always eager to think him off his rocker, and frankly, he'd had enough of that.
"You look awfully peaky, Harry," Hermione said one night, as she, Ron and Harry sat outside the remains of Hagrid's hut. Although they were all grateful for regular meals, hot water and soft beds after their year on the run, the sheer number of people still living in the castle was sometimes daunting as they'd become used to being isolated. "Perhaps you should take a break for a while."
"Yeah, mate," Ron agreed around a mouthful of sandwich. "Get away from the castle for a bit."
Harry raised his eyebrows at them both. "What, just go on holiday?" he asked, jokingly.
Ron shrugged. "Why not?" he said. "There's loads of people still here to help with repairs and . . . stuff, and Merlin knows you deserve it."
"Even just a day trip," Hermione added. "You've not left the castle apart from Snape's funeral."
"And where would I go?" asked Harry, feeling slightly annoyed. It wasn't like it was a hardship for him to stay at Hogwarts; the castle was his home. He looked away from his friends, across the expanse of lawns that had all been re-turfed, and suddenly spotted that black figure again. It was leaning against a tree trunk, and appeared to be looking straight back at him. Harry hastily looked away from it. "You know," he started, slightly shakily, "you might be right about the whole getting away thing. I think I'll go tomorrow."
After some debate with himself, Harry had decided to go and see the neighbourhood where his mum had grown up. Most of the town was derelict now, as one by one the factories had shut down, but the area where his mum had lived was hanging on by its fingernails.
After wandering around the streets for a while – and getting suspicious looks from everyone – he found himself in the street where his grandparents' house had been. The little house was as smartly shabby as every other house, but there was a shiny new car in the driveway.
It looked a lot like the sort of car his Uncle Vernon would have appreciated, Harry thought, and sniggered at the thought of what his Aunt Petunia would have to say about the state of the house. Nope, it definitely wouldn't meet her standards.
Even as he was thinking this, the front door that he was watching suddenly opened, and a woman stepped out, her head turned to speak to someone behind her in the house. As the door closed behind her, she turned to face where Harry was sitting on the front garden wall of the house opposite. Their eyes met, and they both froze.
"Aunt Petunia?" Harry mouthed, weakly.
His aunt seemed to shake herself. She scowled at him, and stalked down her front path towards him. "What are you doing here, boy?" she demanded, stridently. "I thought we'd seen the last of you."
"I didn't know you'd be here. I just came to see where Mum used to live," Harry said, feeling the urge to cringe back. Then he reminded himself that he was of age now, and didn't have to feel like the unwanted freak anymore. "What are you doing here?" he asked, straightening his spine and putting his shoulders back.
Petunia's mouth pinched even more, as though she'd just sucked on a lemon. "We had to leave our home, didn't we?" she reminded him. "It was too expensive to stay in hotels all that time, and Marge couldn't take us."
Harry raised his eyebrows at her. "The war's over," he said, surprised. "You could go home. You could have gone at least a week ago."
"And just how were we supposed to know that?" Petunia's voice went high-pitched with indignation, and a flock of sparrows nearby took wing. "Nobody ever thinks to tell us anything, just go here, do that, leave if you want to save your life." She scowled fiercely at Harry.
Harry felt a slight shiver of guilt. He supposed Petunia had a point – as soon as Harry had left Privet Drive, it was as if his relatives had ceased to exist. He wondered how long they would have lived here for if he hadn't shown up this morning and been seen.
A flutter of black at the edge of his peripheral vision caught his attention, and he whipped his head around. The black figure was back again, standing square at the end of the street, arms folded across its chest, the brisk wind blowing hair and robes around. Harry felt his stomach sink. Couldn't he go anywhere without seeing that blasted thing?
"Perhaps we should go inside," he suggested. He didn't really want to see Vernon or Dudley again, but anything was better than being close to that figure. He didn't want to find out the hard way that it was a rogue Death Eater.
Petunia pursed her lips, obviously not wanting to, but Harry made a very obvious show of looking around, and his aunt hastily tugged him towards the house, scowling at him.
"You're back quick, Pet," Vernon's voice came floating out of the living room as she shoved Harry inside and closed the door behind them. "Did you forget . . . ?" Vernon's words trailed off as he came to the doorway and spotted Harry. Instantly, his eyes narrowed so much that Harry wondered if he could see anything, and his face began turning purple with rage. "What is that FREAK doing here?!" he bellowed, his moustache twitching ominously.
"He was outside," Petunia said, briskly, pushing past her large husband to enter the living room and onwards to the kitchen. "I couldn't leave him out there, Vernon. What would the neighbours say?"
"It's not like they could have connected him to us," Vernon protested, still glaring at Harry. He hadn't moved any further; obviously he did not want his nephew in his home ever again.
"He was watching the house," Petunia's voice came to them. "And I'm sure there are still people who'd remember my sister's eyes if they got close enough to him. Old Mrs Sternwell can't stop talking about her; I'm lucky if she remembers my name," she finished, bitterly.
Harry shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. He desperately wanted to turn around and see if that black figure was still out there, and he was just as desperate not to be in this house, but unless Vernon actually made a move on him, then he thought he was better off staying quiet.
Vernon made a low rumbling noise, sounding almost like Fluffy had. "You'd better behave yourself, boy," he threatened, his eyes looking Harry over for anything suspicious. Harry refrained from patting his sleeve, where his wand was hidden.
"I will if you will," he answered.
His uncle took a deep breath, and swelled up as though he was about to start shouting at Harry, as of old. But, strangely, he remained silent and moved back into the living room to sit in an old lounger chair, his gaze remaining on Harry warily.
Harry perched himself on the edge of the settee as Petunia came back from the kitchen carrying a tea tray with three cups balanced on it, along with a gleaming silver sugar bowl and a delicate-looking china milk jug. She placed the tray on the low table in front of Vernon, handed one of the cups to him, then picked up a second one and daintily sat in the upright armchair across from Vernon's lounger. Harry briefly glared at the now-solitary cup still sitting on the tray, then decided it wasn't worth arguing over – really, he counted himself lucky he'd gotten a cup at all – and retrieved it for himself.
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, as they all sat sipping their tea.
Finally, with an abruptness that almost startled Harry into dropping his cup, Petunia spoke. "You said we can go home now?" she asked, gingerly balancing her cup on her knees.
Harry fumbled with his, and managed to place it back on the tea tray without dropping it. "Um, yeah," he answered. "The war's over now. There was a big battle last week. Voldemort's dead." It still surprised him when neither of his relatives flinched at the name.
"But we can go back to Little Whinging?" Petunia insisted. She leaned forward slightly as though trying to impress upon Harry just how important this query was.
He frowned at her slightly. "Yes, I already said so, didn't I?" he half-snapped at her. "Nobody will come after you looking for me, since everyone knows I'm at Hogwarts helping to rebuild."
"Except for today, obviously," Vernon said into his teacup, but he muttered it so quietly that they both ignored him.
"Goodness knows why anyone would come after us anyway," Petunia was saying.
Harry shrugged. "Some people might think they could hold you hostage against me," he said. "And some Death Eaters wouldn't need a reason beyond the fact that you're Muggles."
"Ey?" Vernon jerked upright and eyed Harry suspiciously. "We're what now?"
"Muggles," Harry repeated, rolling his eyes. "Means you don't have magic."
"As if that's a bad thing!" exclaimed Petunia, her voice going shrill again. Harry couldn't tell if it was with indignation or panic.
"To some people it is," he said.
Petunia sniffed, haughtily. "As if we'd want magic," she said. "All those wars all the time. What's it ever done for you?"
Harry opened his mouth to hotly debate that claim, but closed it again without saying a word. He supposed, to an outsider, it would look like that. To those brought up in the wizarding world, magic was just like breathing – just there. They might have a longer lifespan, but they were still vulnerable to diseases or – as amply proved by Voldemort over the recent years – to someone wielding a Killing Curse.
"Not all of us think like that," he said, finally, but he could see that Petunia didn't agree with him. He doubted she ever would.
"Hitler," Vernon said, suddenly.
Harry blinked at him. "Sorry?"
"These . . . Death thingies of yours sound just like Hitler about the Jews," said Vernon.
Harry shook his head, confused. "I don't understand," he said.
"Didn't they teach you about world war two, boy?" asked Petunia, sharply. When Harry shook his head, she scowled down at her teacup. "What kind of things are they teaching at that school?" she muttered. Harry didn't think he'd been meant to hear, but he did.
"Magic things," he retorted.
"Watch it, boy!" Vernon warned, his face going a dull brick-red again. Harry subsided, grinding his teeth together. Had he really thought he could have a civil conversation with his aunt and uncle?
"I don't care about this Hitler and the Jews," he said, getting to his feet. "The war's over now. Done. You can go home. And we won't have to think of each other ever again." And he was striding towards the front door before either of the others could even think of saying anything.
Outside, Harry took a long look around. Was that black figure still here, or had it gotten fed up of waiting for him? No – he could see the blur of it down at the far end of the street. He briefly debated about going down to confront it, but decided he'd had enough of confrontations for today.
With a shake of his head, Harry Disapparated, leaving behind nothing but the hoarse calling of a magpie.
"Hitler?" Hermione paused in her task of separating out frayed tapestries and gave Harry a curious look. "Why do you want to know about him?"
"Just a conversation I had with someone," Harry muttered, ducking his head to his own tapestry to avoid her gaze. "They said the Death Eaters sounded like him about the Jews."
"Oh." Hermione looked down at the strand of thick red yarn she held, and tugged on it to ease it through the knot created by several other strands as she considered this. "I suppose they're right," she said, finally, winding the yarn into a neat ball and laying it aside.
"Who's Hitler?" asked Ron, tugging impatiently at a blue strand. It suddenly snapped, and he fell over backwards with an oomph. Glaring at the strand, he levered himself upright again and went digging for the other end. "And what are Jews?"
"Hitler was the leader of a political party that came to power in Germany in 1933," Hermione said with a slight sigh. "Germany had been on the losing side of world war one, and the entire country was devastated by it. Money became all but worthless, and Hitler's party promised to make everything right, to make Germany prosperous and a world power again." She followed the trail of another strand of yarn through the large knot. "Of course, the power went to Hitler's head, and he became a dictator. He wanted to expand his empire, so his army invaded the neighbouring countries, sparking off the second world war."
"And Jews?" Ron prompted.
"I'm getting to that, Ron," Hermione snapped, then she shook her head. "Anyways, Hitler had this idea of what the 'perfect' race should look like. Tall, blonde hair, blue eyes . . ."
"His mirror image?" Harry suggested.
Hermione smiled. "No, actually, his complete opposite." Ron and Harry's jaws dropped open. "Small man, very dark hair, small black, square moustache – none of that ringing any bells for you?" she questioned Harry. Harry shook his head slowly. "I'll find a picture for you sometime," she said. "Eventually, Hitler came to believe that anyone who wasn't one of his 'Aryan' race were lesser beings. For some reason, he came down very hard specifically on the Jewish race. It's a type of religion, Ron," she said, tiredly, as Ron opened his mouth to interrupt.
Ron hastily closed it again.
"He created concentration camps, and most people that he didn't like ended up there," she carried on, leaning forward to poke through the tangles of yarn. "Millions of Jews ended up in one or another. Most of them died. If not from starvation, or torture, or basically doing slave labour, then they were killed in gas chambers. Even now, people still remember the Holocaust."
"And this Hitler . . . he was a Muggle?" asked Ron, looking very pale and faintly nauseated. Harry knew exactly how he felt.
"Yes." Hermione nodded vaguely. "I believe the point made to Harry was that Hitler hated the Jews for no other reason than that they were Jewish, as well as other people for being things they couldn't help. The Death Eaters hating Muggles for being, well, Muggles is the same principle—"
The lecturing tone of her voice faded from Harry's hearing as his attention was caught by something outside the room they were in. He could have sworn that he'd just seen that blasted black figure dart past the doorway. Was nowhere safe from it?
"Harry!"
The fingers clicking in front of his face brought his attention back to his friends with a jerk. "I'm sorry, what were you saying?" he asked, although his gaze was dying to shoot back in the direction of the door.
"Harry, are you alright?" Hermione asked, peering at him worriedly. "You've not been the same lately."
"Yeah, a bit jumpier than usual," Ron added. His hand was on his wand, just in case it was needed.
"I . . ." Harry paused, just about to admit that he was being haunted by some Snape-like thing, and really looked at his friends. Really, they didn't need to know about what was surely just a figment of his imagination, he thought. They had enough worries of their own – Hermione's parents were still in Australia and unaware they were parents at all; and the entire Weasley family was still mourning the loss of Fred. "Nothing, I'm fine," he sighed, when the silence had stretched almost too far. "Just remaining nerves from the battle, I guess."
Ron and Hermione made noises of agreement, but it was obvious they were far from convinced.
Two days later found Harry sitting on the dilapidated swings in the little park close to Spinner's End. He figured at least here he would have an excuse for being haunted.
It was getting steadily more apparent that he was losing his mind. The black figure that he could swear most times looked like Snape hadn't gone away, but nobody else ever mentioned seeing it. The apparition apparently appeared to Harry alone.
Something of his worry must have communicated itself to his friends, as they'd taken to shooting him sideways glances every few minutes. Hermione had spent a good few hours in the library, her nose buried in a slim book, but when Harry had approached her about helping him and Professor Sinistra tidy up the Potions classroom, she had swiftly slammed it shut and buried it in the middle of another stack of books, before grasping his arm tightly and whisking him out of the library.
Harry dreaded to think what she thought might be wrong with him, but no doubt he'd find out sooner than he'd like.
"You again!" a voice exclaimed behind him, and Harry was off the swing, his wand out and aimed before the echoes of the sentence faded. The intruder looked alarmed, but not for the reason Harry would have hoped for. "Put that away, you stupid boy!" his aunt Petunia hissed, flapping her hand at his wand. "What if somebody sees you!"
"There's nobody here to see me," Harry said, disgruntled, although he tucked his wand back into its holster. "What are you doing here? I thought you were all going back to Little Whinging."
"It's not like we can just up and go," his aunt said, haughtily, looking at him like he was an idiot. "We have to pack, and arrange the movers . . ."
"Oh." Harry sheepishly looked at his feet. He was just so used to the wizarding world now, how one could pack everything they owned in one tiny bag with just one sweep of their wand, that he just hadn't realised how time-consuming moving the Muggle way must be.
He settled himself back onto the swing, wincing as the chains creaked a protest. "So what are you doing here?" he repeated. "I mean, here, in this playground?"
Petunia looked around the desolate place with a faintly wistful expression. "Revisiting the past, I suppose," she said, finally. "Vernon and I have decided to sell my parents' house, so we won't be back here again."
"Did you come here often before you met Snape?" Harry asked, curious. He knew that Snape and his mother had been here often, but after those first couple of meetings, none of Snape's memories had ever shown Petunia.
Petunia's expression suddenly soured. "This used to be our place," she said, bitterly. "Mine and your mother's. Until the day we met that boy, and then suddenly she had better things to do, better people to know, than her older, un-magical sister."
"I bet she didn't think like that," said Harry, softly. Even if Snape hadn't understood it, he'd seen that Lily had been deeply hurt by her sister's rejection.
"He certainly did," Petunia said, crossing her arms. "And our parents . . . well, once they understood what was happening and that she could learn to control it . . . who needed me after that?"
"My mum tried, though, didn't she?" Harry pointed out, remembering the mist-wreathed argument on Platform 9 and 3/4. He was willing to bet it hadn't been the first – nor the last – time Lily Evans had attempted to make things right with her sister.
"It doesn't make any difference anyway," Petunia said after a moment, letting her arms fall to her sides again. "She's been dead and gone for over sixteen years now. That magic that she was so thrilled with killed her."
"Don't make it sound as though she had a choice!" Harry shot to his feet again, his words almost a shout. "Even if she hadn't gone to Hogwarts, Voldemort could still have killed her anyway – it wasn't just magical folk he went after, you know."
Petunia pursed her lips and studied Harry for a long moment, until he felt like looking down to see if he had something on him. "And yet," Petunia said, slowly, "we hadn't seen a single one of these . . . characters, until they came after you."
"You were just lucky, then," Harry said, and now it was his turn to sound bitter. "Voldemort and his Death Eaters killed loads of muggles."
"Really." Petunia folded her arms again. "Where? And when?"
"Uh . . ." Harry had to stop and really think about that. "That bridge that collapsed!" he finally said, triumphantly. "Two years ago. And those murders, and that hurricane!"
Petunia made a sound of disbelief. "The bridge that collapsed where the rescuers reached all but half a dozen in time?" she queried. "The two murders? The hurricane that only killed three people?"
"Um . . ."
His aunt actually snorted. "That's what I thought," she said. "Almost a dozen people is 'loads', is it?" She shook her head. "Goodness knows what you think a hundred is then."
"But – I –" Harry stammered. It just didn't seem possible that those had been the only Muggles killed by Death Eaters.
"Seems to me that my sister would still be alive, if she hadn't gone off to that freaky school," Petunia said, and then tossed her head sharply, as if to move hair out of her face. Of course, her hair was tightly tied back and didn't look as if it'd move without a hammer and chisel. "Hopefully this will be the last time we see each other," she sniffed, and stalked off before Harry could find the power of speech again.
Harry sank back down onto the swing, and gazed numbly at his hands. Less than a dozen Muggles killed in two years. And in that same period of time there'd been . . . how many magical folk? Dumbledore, Amelia Bones, Emmeline Vance, Dobby, Remus, Tonks, Fred, Colin Creevey, Lavender, Snape, the old Muggle Studies professor (whatever her name had been), members of Dumbledore's Army, countless students . . .
Harry felt sick. For all Voldemort's rhetoric about Muggles not being worthy, well, he apparently hadn't even considered them worthy of being killed.
He needed to talk to Hermione, he decided. Getting to his feet, he lifted his gaze – and flinched. Standing at the edge of the playground was what looked like Snape, gazing steadily back at Harry. Deciding he'd had enough unpleasant surprises for one day, Harry deliberately turned his back and Disapparated.
Hermione pursed her lips as she studied Harry. "I doubt they would have been the only Muggles killed," she said, finally. "But certainly they would have been the most noticeable."
"How could you not notice someone being killed?" Harry demanded. He'd found his friends sorting and cleaning suits of armour outside the Transfiguration classroom on the fourth floor.
Hermione looked down at the metal gauntlet she held in her hands, and absently rubbed a cloth over it. "The thing is, Harry," she began, slowly, "hundreds of Muggles go missing every day. They die, from old age, traffic accidents, accidental poisoning, choking, drowning, and yes, deliberate murder." She lifted her gaze to meet his. "Most of them don't make the news, Harry, unless it's a very violent case. And, well . . ." She dropped her gaze again, and reached out to attach the gauntlet to a nearby suit of armour. "Voldemort was really more of a localised problem."
"Huh?" Ron looked over from his own pile of armour parts. "He was a lot more than a local problem, Hermione!" he protested. "Terrorised most of the country!"
"That's precisely my point, Ron," Hermione said. She leant against the wall, folding her arms over her chest. "Voldemort was only a problem in this country. He didn't go after anyone in Europe, or Asia, or America, or Australia, or India, or anywhere else. He didn't even cause trouble in Ireland, for Merlin's sake! It was just here; England, mostly, and up here in Scotland." She glanced from Harry to Ron, and seemed exasperated that they hadn't grasped the point she was trying to make.
"I don't—" Harry started, but Hermione interrupted him by pulling out her wand and conjuring a large map.
"This is a map of the world," she said. She flicked her wand, and an incredibly small portion of it turned bright red. "That is the area where Voldemort was active."
The two boys gaped at the map.
"The wizarding world in Britain is very small, and very insular," Hermione said, gently. "So much of what he did to us seemed like a very big deal. But, really, it wasn't. Muggles die in their thousands when they go to war with each other. Even if Voldemort had conquered us, he wouldn't have found taking over Muggle Britain so easy, especially if the other countries banded together against him."
"But they're just Muggles," Ron protested. "They don't have magic."
"They don't need it, Ronald," said Hermione, impatiently. "They have bombs that can be dropped from high up in the air, that will devastate anything in the target area – which can be miles across. Even magic wouldn't help us against that, especially if the Muggles dropped more than one at a time."
Harry ran his fingers through his hair and tugged on it. "So why not go after them first?" he asked. "The wizarding world would have been a snap after that."
"Well, for starters, he would have just been immersed into the wizarding world when that type of bomb was being developed," Hermione replied. She gave a sharp glance at Ron. "And secondly, 'they're just Muggles, with no magic'."
Ron opened his mouth, then slowly closed it again without making a sound.
Harry took a few steps away, then the few steps back and tugged at his hair again. He didn't know why this discovery made a difference, but somehow, it did. "I need to go," he said, curtly. "I need to think about this."
"It doesn't really make any difference, Harry," Hermione said, reaching a hand out to him. She dropped it as he took a step back before she could touch him. "Voldemort had to be stopped, no matter what."
"I just . . . I need to think," Harry repeated, and he left them there to stare after him.
"For heaven's sake, boy, are you following me?"
The strident voice coming from behind Harry made him jump, but even before he spun round, he knew who it belonged to, and so managed not to draw his wand.
Petunia folded her arms and tapped her foot, highly annoyed.
"No," Harry said, shortly. He had a right to be annoyed, too. "Not everywhere I go is about you."
"Then what on earth are you doing here?" Petunia hissed, indicating the surrounding cemetery with a gesture of her head.
Harry scowled at the headstone he'd been standing in front of before his aunt had interrupted him. "I came here to think," he said.
"Think?" said Petunia, shrilly. Harry winced; it was almost as if Petunia had been channelling Snape. "Why would one of your kind come to a cemetery to think?"
"Perhaps because one of 'my kind' is buried here," he snapped at her. Petunia pressed her lips together so tightly they all but disappeared. It was only then that she even seemed to notice the headstone that was made of glass.
"So," she said, drawing the word out with relish, "that awful boy finally got what he deserved, did he?"
"He didn't deserve to die!" Harry bellowed, taking a step towards Petunia. She paled, and hastily backed away, as the echo of Harry's shout died out into the calm stillness. Harry dropped his head and shut his eyes, seeing again all the bodies laid out in the Great Hall. "None of them deserved to die," he whispered, his voice hollow and his chest aching with the tears he hadn't yet managed to shed.
Petunia was silent for so long that Harry wondered if she'd gone, but when he lifted his head and opened his eyes, she was, unfortunately, still standing in front of him.
"You didn't know him," she began. "When he was younger—"
"I've seen his memories," Harry interrupted her. Slashes of pale pink appeared over her cheekbones, but he ignored her irritation with him. "Sure, Snape may not have been the nicest boy around, but you weren't exactly all sweetness and light either, Tuney."
His aunt gave a gasp of outrage. "How dare you—" she started, but Harry steamrollered over her once again.
"Merlin, you and Mum were more alike than you could ever imagine! You hated him for what he couldn't help, and you made sure he knew it. Snape made one mistake, one, and Mum crucified him for it. My dad and his friends didn't help, either. But Snape spent the rest of his life trying to atone for what he saw as his greatest sin. He more than paid for that one mistake, made while he was still young." Harry was pacing now, back and forth, back and forth, the words pouring out of him. He thought he saw the flare of robes out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned, it was just the magpie, landing on the headstone and cocking its head at him, curiously.
"Because of him, we won," he continued, softly, speaking more to himself than Petunia. "But he doesn't know – won't ever know. He managed to hide his true loyalty from—" he glanced sideways at his aunt, and decided it was too complicated to explain legilimency to a Muggle "—one of the most paranoid people in the wizarding world, for years, doing hideous things, being tortured . . . and right before the end, he gets killed. For nothing!" Harry spat.
Petunia opened her mouth to say something, but Harry ignored her. "He should have been able to go out and live his life without a master looking over his shoulder," he mused. He gave a bitter-sounding laugh that held nothing of humour and almost choked him. "Remus and Tonks should have been able to share the world they fought for with their son. Fred should have been able to expand the joke shop into an empire with his twin. Colin should have been able to complete his education and go out and get whatever job he wanted." Harry's breath hitched, and he had to stop.
The 'should have's were killing him, tearing apart his mind until the harsh croak of the black and white bird perched on the glass headstone sounded like the harsh rasp of Snape's voice, telling him to stop being maudlin.
His aunt sniffed disdainfully. "Perhaps you've never noticed, but there are monuments to the hundreds of soldiers who died in both world wars," she said. "A few freaks less in the world is nothing compared to that."
"We. Are not. FREAKS!" Harry yelled, and in an instant, leaves and twigs and larger branches and stones of all sizes were swirling around them, as he lost his grip on his temper. "We are people, with family, homes, lives the same as you."
"You are in no way the same as my family!" Petunia hissed back, narrowing her eyes at him. "My sister was the only one in our family with magic – that makes her the odd one out. The freak," she said, emphatically.
"It could have been you, Tuney," Harry countered. "What then? If you'd been the one to receive a Hogwarts letter?"
"I dread to think." Petunia pulled herself as straight as she could, looking down her nose at her nephew.
"That's not what you thought when you were young, is it?" said Harry, his voice dropped almost to a whisper. Petunia went white, although whether with shock or in temper was hard to say. "Things could have been so different if you were the witch, and Mum had been a plain old Muggle. Dudley could be the one standing here, with you and Vernon dead and gone. Except, of course, it wouldn't be Vernon, would it? Either way," he turned aside with a shrug of one shoulder, "it wouldn't be me standing here. I wouldn't have lost people I . . . cared for. I wouldn't know that people had lost their lives needlessly, all because of some madman."
"Very definitely a madman with a box," Petunia murmured, absently.
"What?" Harry gave her a puzzled glance, as the magpie burst into raucous caws and launched itself from the headstone, flapping its way to the nearby tree.
Petunia shook her head. "Just something I heard somewhere," she said, dismissively. She shook her head again, as though to clear her thoughts, and then abruptly turned towards the entrance gate of the cemetery. "We shall be leaving tomorrow morning," she said, to no-one in particular. "To return to Little Whinging. So I won't see you again."
Harry didn't even bother to respond. He hadn't planned to watch his aunt walk away, either, but he spun round when he heard her panicked shriek.
His aunt was wailing in distress, and kept putting her hand to her hair, and then removing it again without actually touching. The magpie was flapping away from her toward the opposite end of the cemetery.
Its caws sounded like malicious laughter.
Two days later, Harry felt like a bug under a magnifying glass – or, considering it was Hermione's gaze that was always on him, perhaps that should be book from the Restricted Section.
He didn't really feel he could say anything, but the almost constant sideways glances, which were usually followed by her nibbling on her lower lip, were swiftly wearing away his patience.
"What?" he finally snapped, as they were helping Neville to restore the Greenhouses.
"Nothing," said Hermione, quickly. She then betrayed herself by giving him another small glance out of the corner of her eye. When he scowled at her, she immediately focused on the plant in her hand. "It's just . . ."
"Just what?"
"Nothing," she repeated, her voice squeaking. There was silence for several moments, and then Hermione's hands slowed in their task, and finally stopped. "We're just worried," she said, softly. "About you, that's all."
"Well, you shouldn't," Harry said briskly, and dumped a large handful of earth over the plant – whatever it was – he was re-potting. The plant brrrr-ed in protest, and wriggled its vines through the topsoil.
"Harry, we're all . . . jumpy," she finally decided on. "Shaken, grieving, still in that war mind-set." She paused, and looked at him intently, before obviously screwing up her courage and deciding to continue. "There's this thing that people get—"
"I know about post-traumatic stress, Hermione," Harry cut her off. "And I don't have it!" Even as he said it, he caught sight of a blur of black out of the corner of his eye, and whipped his head around to the Greenhouse door. Typically, of course, it was empty.
"That's what I mean, Harry," Hermione said, firmly. "You've been jumping at nothing ever since the final battle."
"It's not nothing," growled Harry. Hermione pressed her lips together tightly, and Harry sighed, leaning back against the counter they'd been working at. "I keep thinking I see Snape," he admitted.
His friend's eyebrows rose briefly in surprise, then lowered into a concerned frown. "That's . . . understandable," she said, doubtfully. "Ron always seems to be expecting Fred—"
"No, I mean I actually see Snape. Or something that looks like him, anyway." Harry raised a hand to rub tiredly at his forehead. "But when I look, it never is. It's a tree branch, or a shadow, or a bird . . ."
"But he's dead, Harry," Hermione said gently. "We saw him die in the Shrieking Shack."
"I know that!" snapped Harry. "But perhaps no-one's told him!"
"You think he's a ghost?" asked Hermione after a startled pause. "But then, wouldn't he be more likely to haunt—?"
"It's not haunting," Harry told her, turning back to start on the next plant that needed a new home. "He never speaks with me, doesn't interact with me. I'm not even certain it is him."
Hermione made a humming sound and, Harry recognising the signs of her wracking her brain for knowledge or ideas, they continued working for a while, Harry only have to go after a pod once as, recognising his friend's distraction and taking advantage, it made a break for freedom.
Finally she looked up at him. "Perhaps it isn't about interacting with you," she mused. Harry raised his eyebrows at her. "Well, you said he'd made a vow to protect you, right?" continued Hermione. "I suppose, in a way, making sure you're okay in the aftermath of a big battle is still taking care of you."
"That . . . actually makes sense," Harry realised. "So, how do I convince him I'm okay if I can't talk to him?"
"Talk at him," Hermione said, smiling. "I don't think it matters where you are, Harry, or even talking directly to him. If it's somewhere you've seen him, or think you have, then he should hear you."
"Right." Harry nodded his head, decisively. "Better make sure I'm okay then!"
A week later, he was back in the Cokesworth cemetery. At least he was certain his aunt wouldn't sneak up on him again. He'd come here via his grandparents' house, which had been dark, with a For Sale sign placed just beside the driveway that was already leaning drunkenly.
Winding his way through the gravestones, he stopped short as he approached the one made of glass, almost certain that he'd just seen a flash of black robes disappearing behind a nearby tree.
"Snape?" he called, tentatively moving closer. "Um, Professor Snape?"
The only answer was the hoarse call of a magpie, so Harry turned his attention to the headstone he'd Transfigured.
"I think I'm doing better now," he informed it, solemnly. "Yes, it was horrible. Yes, Voldemort was an idiot, and it's all his fault. No, we may . . . no, we won't know what started him on this track. But I finished it. It'd over. Done. The last funerals were held this week. Remus and Tonks, and Fred . . . People died to stop him—too many. But not in vain. You didn't die for nothing, Professor." Harry stepped forward and laid a hand on the top of the glass monument. He was about to say something else, when the sudden appearance of writing on the headstone – and not anything he'd carved into it – made him jump back with a yelp. The words disappeared before he registered what they had said.
Cautiously, Harry moved in again, and pressed a fingertip to the top of the stone. The words appeared again, carved in a very familiar handwriting.
The rumours of my death . . .
"Are greatly exaggerated?" Harry guessed. He gave a snort of amusement. "Great, so I'm not cracking up. Always good to know!" He glanced around the cemetery but couldn't see anything, or anyone. "Well, thank you, Professor. For everything."
As he wandered back out of the cemetery, the silence was only disturbed by the croak of the magpie, winging its way towards the horizon.
The End
A/N - The Muggle death details come from the beginning of Half-Blood Prince, "The Other Minister". It doesn't actually give numbers in that, just mentions half a dozen cars went into the river (nothing about people, whether rescued or not), and the damage the hurricane did to buildings and people (which doesn't necessarily mean death).
Also, you may be asking why doesn't Harry know about Hitler/WWII already? Because that's not taught until high school . . . which obviously Harry didn't go to. Or, at least according to the info I've been able to find, not the European part of the war* (which would involve Hitler's attitude, which was Vernon's point.) You could argue that Dudley would have learnt about it, but I doubt Harry would have been able to get anywhere near Dudley's school books to read about it. Hermione, however, while also not attending high school, is the kind of person who would have read about it herself "for light reading". She keeps her explanation simple because it's to Harry (who hasn't learnt it) and Ron (who's wizardborn, and therefore clueless about Muggle stuff). I figured proper explanations would be longer than the entire story - and slightly boring!
*According to the curriculum documents I've found (which wouldn't have been implemented until Harry's last years of primary school, so '89 or '90), there is a choice of either being taught about Victorian Britain, OR Britain since 1930. Although that does include WWII, the focus with that is the impact on Britain. Vernon's point was that the DEs attitude to Muggles is the same as Hitler's towards Jews . . . and, technically (aside from leading to war), that wouldn't have been an impact on Britain.