A/N: Two chapters to go after this one, my lovelies! Thank you for sticking with me.
12
The Magical Consequences of Mortal Pain
They say the flowers stopped growing when he died. All the girls say it. It's the whisper that flashes around the campus of Cackle's Academy in the weeks and months after it had happened, once everyone has started rebuilding from the war and discovered their Deputy's secret marriage to the notorious Headmaster from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The girls aren't sure who heard it first - where the observation had come from. None of them has ever seen her garden, none of them is brave enough to risk Hecate Hardbroom's wrath by venturing to the little cottage she shared with her husband – even if they could find a way to locate it. Nevertheless, the rumour floods the school, and in the typical fashion of rumours it is not entirely correct.
Their Deputy Headmistress had arrived at work on the first day school resumed after the war; fearsome, stoic, unyielding as ever.
Miss Hardbroom (as she is still known even after the discovery of her nuptials) does not betray herself by showing visible signs of grief when her broomstick deposits her on the grounds of Cackle's. She eviscerates the children with little more than a gaze as she always has. Her spine is as fixedly rigid as it has always been. But underneath her impeccably fitted brocade robes, Hecate Hardbroom is astonished that her lungs are managing to oxygenate her blood, that her heart has continued to push that blood to the various edges of her body. Hecate feels nothing at all and absolutely every ounce of pain possible for a person to feel all at once. When she stops to consider whether she is, indeed, alive and breathing and somehow, outrageously, functioning, magic begins to prickle at her fingers. Little green and blue sparks dance around her hands. Hecate, when she stops to think about it, becomes such a lethal combination of pain and rage that, unchecked, she is at risk of literally raising the world to the ground. One day she is sure she will fail to contain herself.
But today is the first day of school, and Hecate refuses to allow such a lack of control. Severus would not tolerate it. Severus would tell her she was doing a disservice to herself, and to him. That she always knew this was in their stars – even if neither of them believes in the efficacy of celestial bodies as prophets.
Severus would tell her that she is strong, and that she must armour herself in that strength now. He would say it should pose no great challenge for her.
But Severus is not here anymore. Severus is somewhere she cannot reach him, no matter how hard she might try. The thought makes her fingers prickle again, but this time with the desire to touch him, to lay her fingers on his cool white flesh, to feel his pulse beat beneath them.
"Severus." She whispers involuntarily.
"Hecate?" Ada Cackle asks, only half hearing her Deputy.
Hecate turns to the older witch, and for the first time since it happened, Ada sees Hecate's eyes when they are glazed, focused on something at a middle distance that is imperceptible to anyone else. Hecate comes back to herself, but when she does she surprises Ada. She lets her in.
"I loved him, Ada." Ada nods, that kindly generous nod that only Ada Cackle is able to offer another human. Ada's eyes are soft with anguish for the younger witch. Hecate shuts hers to prevent them welling with tears. "I loved him so much."
Ada reaches for Hecate's hand and squeezes it tenderly. "I know you do, Hecate." In spite of herself Hecate appreciates Ada's use of the present tense. Because of course she does, of course she still loves him. Of course she always will.
And at this moment, as Ada reaches up to touch Hecate gently on the face and a single tear slips from the formidable Deputy's eye, the lush garden at the unassuming white cottage forty miles from Cakcle's and infinitely further from Hogwarts turns up its roots and gives up the ghost. The flowers fall and the leaves shrivel. The vines release their grip on the walls and curl back into themselves. The cores of the branches turn from green to the colour of curdled cream. The death of their garden sounds like the ragged exhalation of a long-held breath, but no one is there to hear it.
The wind used to rustle the leaves of the ancient oak tree, ruffling them pleasantly. Now it is sliced into shards by newly bare branches.
When Hecate returns that evening to find their garden barren, she thinks it an appropriate reaction to the gaping hole Severus Snape's death has left in her world. Hecate gestures, a furious, expansive wafture of her arms, and a new fence springs from the ground, high and forbidding. A fence to shut out the wide world.
When Ada visits one day and gently suggests that perhaps Hecate should move back onto the Cackle's campus, Hecate nearly incinerates her old friend with her gaze.
"How could I leave this place, Ada? How could you expect me to leave the place I lived with him? This house we loved – we chose to spend our lives in." Hecate's voice cracks with emotion as furious tears overtake her. "How could you even begin to think...?"
Ada takes Hecate in her arms and lets the slender witch cry against her.
"I'm sorry, my dear." Ada whispers. She tosses up between pressing Hecate further, and accepting her decision, preserving her place in Hecate's life. Of course, she wouldn't be Ada Cackle if she didn't do what she thought was right. "I don't want to see you trapped in the past, Hecate."
Hecate pulls away and dries her eyes firmly, silently chastising herself.
"I work. I teach. I train the next generation of witches. I shape the future of magic - "
"- and you don't let anyone in."
"I let you in."
"Hecate," Ada gently chastises, and Hecate can see where she's going. She cuts her off before she can make the point.
"I didn't need anyone before him and I have no desire to have anyone after him."
"But you also didn't know you wanted Severus until you met him, Hecate. You must be open to the possibility - "
"No." Hecate says, in a tone that means she won't be argued with. She softens a modicum. "People like me are allowed one great love in our lives. I have had mine."
"I have never placed much stock in the theory that there is one right person for everyone." Ada says wisely.
"Nor have I. I believe often there is no right match for someone."
Ada's words are soft. "You believed that was true for you, and were proven quite incorrect, my dear."
"I can't explain to you, Ada, how it felt to be so perfectly... seen by someone. To have every fault and foible known, and have someone still willing to die for you. I can't explain the hole he has left within me." Hecate deflates slightly, her shoulders curling in on themselves uncharacteristically. "Nor can I explain that I would rather leave that hole there than try to fill it. It... it reminds me that he was real."
Contrary to Hecate's belief, Ada has always understood this. Hecate has always been a person who holds on to pain like a talisman. A kind of proof of life. Even when she made the decision to come here today, Ada doubted that she would convince Hecate to find joy in a world outside her memories. Ada had never seen Hecate as light and content as when she was with Severus. She understands why Hecate is resigned to life without him bringing no further happiness. The younger witch feels she has met her quota. Ada knows this to be nonsense, but she is also wise enough to know she will not change her young friend's mind.
Moving towards Hecate, Ada squeezes her hands fondly. "Very well, my dear. I will not raise it again." They continue to rely on the portal that was created all those years ago so Hecate can return to Cackle's quickly when a student has the temerity to knock on the door to her quarters. Ada worries about Hecate being alone every night when she leaves the Academy. But for the duration of their friendship, Ada Cackle keeps her promise to Hecate, and never again does she suggest Hecate leave the cottage she shared with Severus.
When Ada departs the house, Hecate stands perfectly still until she's sure Ada will have left her property. Hecate barely remembers how she came to be standing in the garden, surrounded by dead things and the wall that has turned her house into a fortress. Hecate crosses to the oak tree that so captivated her the first time she saw it, lays her right hand against its familiar bark. To her surprise, she feels the pulse of life still running through it. She looks up at the branches, shivering naked in the breeze. She feels as if the tree is grieving for him, too. Hecate rests her head against the broad trunk as she did the very first day they came here. Behind her closed eyes, she can imagine Severus watching her, taking her in with his dark analytical eyes. She remembers the soft smile that touched his lips when she turned from the tree to look at him. She remembers, with perfect clarity, the moment they silently decided to make their life here.
"I miss him, too." She whispers against the tree. After standing with her forehead against it for more minutes than she had intended, she presses off the substantial trunk and returns to the empty house she loves so dearly. She does not notice that a number of the branches have curled themselves into something that curiously resembles a serpent and a panther.
A/N2: I promise there are some happier times coming in the next chapter. Honest! xx
