Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter 10: In Which Harry Also Lives
He came to a vague awareness of the world, lying on something soft and puffy. He could feel air on his forearms and tried to cover them. He was Marked, he couldn't let anyone see...
"Severus, be still or you'll hurt yourself more than you already are," McGonagall told him in a voice not much above a whisper. "You are already on more pain potions than is technically safe."
He managed to open his eyes a bit. "Minerva?"
She was silhouetted by moonlight. "You were injured, badly, and if you can't remember much of what happened right now, that's to be expected. It's a miracle you survived at all. Poppy thinks getting you in and out of long sleeves is too much of a stress right now. Those of us present when you showed that... that thing to Minister Fudge have been taking watches. No one who hasn't already seen is going to. We figured you deserve at least that much dignity. But, if it will ease your mind for the moment..."
She reached over and he felt a thin sheet pulled up to his shoulders, over his arms. He gave her what he hoped she would recognize as a look of gratitude, and then let his eyes drift closed again. "Remus is… he can come."
"I'll make sure Poppy and he know that." He felt her softly squeeze one of his hands through the sheet. "The war is over, the students are safe. Just go back to sleep and let yourself heal. I daresay I can keep things under control for summer break, even if the seventh-years appear to have decided going home was merely a suggestion."
"We'll need input from some of them on what happens next year," he mumbled. "And if any of them want to help clean up, for closure, they should be allowed."
"Spoken like a true Headmaster." He opened his eyes long enough to see her face and almost thought he could see tears in her eyes. "I'll see to it. Oh, and I have a message for you."
"Hm?"
"Potter wanted me to tell you that he is fine and that Voldemort is absolutely, definitively deceased."
He failed to suppress a painful shudder at the Dark Lord's name, and then McGonagall's words hit him.
Potter was fine. He was alive, at the very least. Somehow things had worked out in the boy's favor, although Snape had no clue how Lily's son had managed to get through that night. He had been lying on the ground at the Dark Lord's feet!
"How?"
"He said he would explain once he thought you were in a condition for it. He's been quite taciturn about the entire year, and that night in particular. Remus has been just as quiet. Ronald Weasley claims to have missed much of what was going on, and Miss Granger won't say anything beyond that they all seem to have passed the Real World Exam."
He allowed himself a small smile and a tiny yawn. "She would say something like that."
Lily's son was alive, Hogwarts was secure and sleeping, and Minerva had shown herself perfectly capable in the past of handling the normal daily disasters of the school.
Yes, he could let himself rest...