Chapter 6 - Summer 1998

Severus came to awareness gradually. He felt like he'd been asleep for a long time, as though he was waking naturally from a restful night. It was a sensation that seemed somehow alien to him but the lingering contentment chased off that concern.

"Severus, my boy," Dumbeldore's voice was gentle, as though he was not certain that Severus was awake. There was another niggle this time, a stronger notion that he really didn't want to see the Headmaster, "Come now Severus." He peeled his eyes open, blinking and trying to allow his surroundings to settle in.

"Where…?" he asked.

"You're in your portrait Severus, in the Head's office." Severus looked out at the familiar room and it was as though someone had opened a door on his memories. He had spent so many unhappy hours in this place but while the memories returned it seemed to him as though he were shielded from them. Turning around, he looked past the portrait Dumbledore to look at the setting of his own frame. He'd been painted in his lab and he was immediately grateful to whoever had made that decision and had a suspicion that he knew who it had been. This was followed however, by a horrible, horrible thought as the context of his death came back to him.

"Minerva?" he asked, suddenly glancing around the Head's office for some indication of it's owner.

"She's fine. We won, my boy, we won. The losses were great but we won the battle. Harry…"

"Allowed himself to be slaughtered?" he asked, the bile rising up within him again.

"No! No Severus! The boy lived,"

"Well done to Potter then, for that certainly wasn't any part of your plan."

"Perhaps," Minerva's voice spoke from the door through to her quarters, "you might like to visit your portrait at the Ministry Albus?" Her tone was shorter than he might have expected and Dumbledore opened his mouth as though he was about to protest but did after a moment close it again and offered the headmistress a tight nod.

"Severus," he said in farewell before he turned and walked out of the side of the frame.

"There are days," Minerva said wearily, "when I wish I could remove his canvas from these walls."

"I… I did not always enjoy his company that last year," Severus said cautiously, "but he did at least know what… he understood at least a little of what I was going through."

"It wasn't only Albus who had at least a notion."

"I often wondered. I think I knew really, that you at least suspected."

"It's an awful way to live; shrouded by hints and inklings of things that may or may not be. I…" she swallowed thickly looking away from his frame. "…I wish I had been able to do more…"

"You did more than I could have asked for, Minerva," he said quietly, wishing desperately that he could reach out and touch her. "There were nights…" Even in this state, when the memories seemed almost as though they belonged to someone else, distanced, it was hard to put into words the desolation that had filled him.

Severus had felt as though his steps had been dogged by his own personal dementor for so long that it had been so very hard to find any trace of humanity left inside him. He'd ended up in the church on Christmas Eve only because he really hadn't been able to think of anything else he could do and inside that safe space, he had wept in a way he had no longer thought himself capable of. As it had on that Sunday morning all those years ago, there was something in the music that spoke to him. He knew she must have been lifting the silencing charm on her practice room, as he had realised in hindsight she must have when he had been a student, and that small welcoming action had been enough to keep him going.

"It was little enough in the scheme of things," she murmured. She looked older, he realised and more fragile than he remembered but he'd barely allowed himself to look at her in so long that he couldn't be sure whether it had been Dumbeldore's death or the events that followed that had caused it. "I…" she continued, still focussing her gaze down on her desk, "I thought that you would be most comfortable in a laboratory. I asked Horace to check the stores would be adequate."

"And I thank you for it.

"There's…" she hesitated again. "I've hung a new picture in the music hall as well. I wasn't sure how easy you would find it to be here, in this room." Severus opened his mouth to respond but he could find no words. No one had ever shown the same quiet care for him that this woman had, even in death. She offered him a tight, wet-eyed smile and walked across the room to a gramophone. She lifted the arm, lowered it gently and let the Brahms Requiem fill the room.

A/N: Well that's it. I hope it's struck a chord... please do let me know.