Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 11: In Which Snape Wakes Up Properly

He woke to bright light, and he kept his eyes squeezed shut to defend against it.

He could smell pain potion on his own breath and he ached. The pain was more noticeable than when he had spoken with Minerva, but it was still nothing near what it had been even when he had been falling.

Falling.

The Dark Lord.

The insults heaped on Lily's memory.

Lily's son.

His eyes snapped open.

He was in the hospital wing at Hogwarts—he'd been in it often enough as a young man that he doubted he'd ever forget that ceiling. The light was coming through a window somewhere above his head. A curtain was wrapped around the bed, and to judge from the shadows there was another set up around it as a second layer. He could tell he was wearing hospital clothes with short sleeves, but a sheet had been pulled up over his arms.

He was weak and hurt in ways that told him he had been injured and then magically repaired, and there were other pains from unmended damage.

Which meant that hell of laughing Death Eaters had been real. He hadn't felt enough when he'd woken up before for it to be real. Or he'd simply been too damaged to remember clearly.

That still form at the Dark Lord's feet...

But Minerva had given him a message from Potter. How in the world had the boy pulled off such a stunt? And how in the memories of the founders had he been able to claim that the Dark Lord was really and truly gone, when the boy had never managed to detect the piece of soul within himself in the first place?

There was a memory of something, a warm spring breeze and something wonderful, but it was blurry and senseless.

"Finally decided to wake up?" Remus stirred in the chair beside the head of Snape's bed. "Minerva said you had woken up last night, but she said you were really disconnected from everything."

He mentally floundered for a moment, trying to place why Remus John Lupin was now 'Remus' to him instead of 'Lupin'.

They had sworn to fight together, in the still before the attack. They had called each other 'friend' and shaken hands. And in that brief period of awareness on the ground, which he could just faintly recall...

He had a friend now. He couldn't count all the friends, real friends, he'd had in his life on one finger anymore.

But that didn't change the fact that he had sent the boy marching off to his doom. Even if Potter had in fact managed to exploit technicalities again, he, Severus Tobias Snape, had in fact given the boy information designed to lead to his death.

"The celebrations are nearly over, at least the ones here. I think the sixth-years finally started recognizing the benefits of sleep. It certainly took long enough; they've been casting wakefulness charms at each other for days. The Gryffindor seventh-years were going to save you some of the cake, but Madam Pomfrey told them you weren't going to feel like eating anything with any bulk to it for a while. The house-elves have really been outdoing themselves; they got involved in the fight, so this is the first feast that's really been theirs too. Hermione thinks they're eating, sleeping, and celebrating in shifts. There was this apple pastry thing last night..."

"How many of the seventh-years made it through?"

"Everyone who made it through the first part of the fighting. Neville has a clump of girls following him everywhere he goes now. Nott's a bit beat up, but his broomstick got jinxed and he got off safely."

"Nott was in the fight?"

"Yes, and he was brilliant. Turns out there's been a very quiet movement in Slytherin for years—mostly among graduates, and to hear them tell it, they've been extremely careful that you never heard about it. So, when he got kicked out of the castle with the rest of the House, he went to go round up the cavalry. When the second half of the fighting started proper, they came flying over the top of the castle. The Death Eaters didn't know they were coming until the first round of hexes hit them from above, and it was a very dark night. So a good bit of the general Slytherin image and reputation seems to have been much improved."

"Good." He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked over at Remus as something hit him. "Neville Longbottom, with girls following?"

"Neville Longbottom was the hero of the hour, Severus. And his Gran is never going to let anyone forget it. Ever."

"And this happened how?"

"Well, after you'd had your five-minute stare-down and flying lesson, we were all fairly well cowed. Except that Neville charged forward. He was disarmed almost instantly, of course, and Bellatrix had herself a good cackle at the entire situation. I still haven't heard an accurate account of what happened next—I was a bit preoccupied at that moment, you understand—but the next thing anyone knew, he'd pulled Godric's sword out of the Sorting Hat and beheaded the snake. And when everyone looked back at Voldemort, Harry was gone, so the fight was on." Remus looked over at him, and apparently caught his look of discomfort. "You're never going to be okay with hearing his name, are you?"

"Remus, if you knew how many times he personally used the Cruciatus Curse on me, the rest of your hair would go gray. And that's not even counting all the things I've seen happen."

The werewolf blanched for a moment before continuing. "Harry had flipped James's old Invisibility Cloak over himself and run for our lines. He just kept casting Shield Charms and such whenever it looked like a Death Eater was gaining the advantage in a fight. Molly Weasley was in a personal duel against Bellatrix Lestrange, but Neville hit her from behind with a muscle-seizing curse he had used on him his first-year, so both of them are being credited with that victory. His Gran's also been talking about that incessantly. And at that point, You-Know-Who was the last one standing on his side. Harry flipped off the Cloak, they postured at each other for a bit, and the feared dark wizard managed to off himself with his own reflected Killing Curse."

"You cannot be serious."

"No, I'm Remus. And yes, it happened just like that. Clean kill, and no one had to become a killer to end him. Only spells Harry cast the entire night were to disarm, muscle-bind, or protect, and we haven't even been able to start counting the lives he probably saved by doing that."

Only those weren't the only spells Harry had used. In that fight, likely. But not in that night. And despite the general allowance of actual wartime, the boy should never have cast that spell. Lily had been angry enough at his own youthful indiscretions, which had never edged anywhere near the Unforgiveables. For her son to have been capable of such a thing... and after he'd experienced being on the other end of it, no less!

The boy was getting a lesson he'd never forget once Severus was on his feet and capable of being properly fear-inducing again.

But Remus did not need to hear of such things, not now.

"Tonks come through the battle safely?"

"Yeah. Dora's fine. Andromeda's livid, though, both of us fighting with her babysitting."

Snape blinked.

"You already have a child together? And you were both fighting? Damn, Remus, that's how war orphans happen! And worse. The kid could have ended up like Neville, visiting the two of you in St. Mungo's at Christmas. If we hadn't gotten there when we did, if Hermione had wanted any more explanation before we made our way towards the castle…"

"And the world Umbridge wants would have let him have any sort of a life, even though we already know he didn't inherit my condition? We want him to have some kind of a future."

Snape let the matter rest, looking up at the ceiling and trying to evoke a sense of long suffering. "I suppose you have pictures."

"Well, Tonks has them right now. But I can bring them the next time it's my watch. Everyone else is shifting their hours around, but I've got the afternoon one every day. Easiest way to make sure we don't accidentally schedule me for full moon night and have to juggle everyone else to cover—and don't worry about the potion, there's two weeks left and Slughorn's already started on it. Hermione's supposed to be coming up in a bit, and I think Molly is supposed to take the first half of tonight, if anyone can drag her away from trying to get Harry and Ron well-fed again. Those kids went through hell and back this year."

"Minerva told me Harry said he was fine."

"If fine means scrawny-with-all-ribs-showing along with bruised-from-hitting-the-ground-with-no-natural-padding, then yes, he is fine. Harry and Hermione spent the entire winter without a reliable food source. She claims they were raiding hen houses for eggs and sneaking through Muggle shops under the Cloak, leaving money as they left, whenever it got so bad they couldn't stand it anymore."

"No wonder Minerva said Granger was calling it 'The Real World Exam'."

Remus nodded. "They ate themselves sick after the fight. Apart from a few days at Bill and Fleur Weasley's, Hermione and Harry hadn't had a decent meal since last autumn. They're going to have to readjust to even having normal amounts of food around. I doubt either of them will be able to handle a proper feast for some time."

"And certainly not that apple pastry." Granger stuck her head around the curtain. "They just made another one. If you get down there in the next ten minutes, there might even be some left."

Remus brightened. "I'll be back tomorrow, Severus." He left.