Thanks to all the new favs and follows. As usual, I'd love to hear from you guys as to what you like/don't like about HM. Big loving sloppy thanks to my reviewers, both new and regular. notwolf, Nightmareprince, justareview, and irezei. We seem to have lost OCfan. :( come back OC. I'll bake you cookies! I know OnyxFeather has been working her way through the story too, so if/when she gets to this point, hey Onyx!
The Last Goodbye
'Brie is leaving today,' the nasty little voice in his head reminded him as soon as he opened his eyes that morning. He tried to ignore it by groaning, rolling to his side, and putting his pillow over his head, but it persisted. 'You probably won't be seeing her again, you know. Why would you? She'll be there in her world, you'll be here in yours and there will be an ocean between you. Oh and you don't want word of your going soft on Muggles to get out to that murderous psychotic vengeful maniac that you used to work for, wherever he is right now."
With a growl, he threw off the covers and got out of bed. It was useless to try to go back to sleep when he was simply going to torture himself with depressing thoughts.
He spent the early morning hours distracting himself by roughing out lesson plans for the following year. Most years the core potions he had the class brew remained the same, but he also liked to switch some of them up a little bit. It served two purposes, one, to keep him from going out of his mind with year in and year out monotony, and two, it helped to cut down on the amount of information sharing that could go on in larger families. Older siblings did so love to pass down their old assignments to younger ones, resulting in generations of fools.
After breakfast he started to hurry back to his rooms, but was momentarily distracted when he saw Brie, who was being hoisted up by a weeping Hagrid. Severus bit down on a smile as he continued on his course. Hagrid could be a bit overly emotional, and Severus knew that he'd taken a liking to Brie, with their similar interest in animals. He knew that Hagrid had taken Brie into the Forbidden Forest a few times, to show her some of the interesting things that lived there. He also fairly often brought animals he'd managed to catch up to the castle so that she could see them. Severus assumed that he'd be sad to loose Brie because no one else in the castle really shared his love of animals as much as she did.
Upon return to his room Severus looked around desperately for something to do, but there was nothing. He'd already packed up and tidied his rooms, his office, and the classroom. There was nothing left to do but wait. He knew that Brie would find him when she was ready to. She wouldn't leave without saying goodbye right before she left. She had done so every other year, it was highly unlikely that she would miss this one.
After sitting in every seat in his drawing room, jiggling his legs up and down, and tapping out a random rhythm on the arms of a chair with his hands, he concluded that she'd find him pretty much anywhere, so he got up and left his rooms, shrinking his luggage and putting it in his pocket as he went. He needed to get out and work off this nervous, miserable energy.
His traitorous brain kept right on nagging him as he walked, head down, hands jammed in his pockets, not paying attention to where he was going. Brie leaving the school for good was dredging up old memories from the last days of his seventh year here. As happy as he'd been about completing his formal education, he'd also been almost panic stricken by the fact that he and Lily would no longer be in the same building day in and day out for most of the year. He'd known that once they'd moved on, he wouldn't be able to catch glimpses of her in the hallways, or to quietly observe her in their shared classes, or while studying in the library. Those thoughts had filled him with a kind of dull dread back then leading up to the end of the school year, just as Brie's departure was doing now.
He'd grown used to having Brie in the castle, and their secret meetings and chats. She'd been at the school for six years, and his good friend for four of them. Even though they had to sneak around, she'd almost always been there if he needed her, to put her special perspective on whatever the situation happened to be at the time. She'd never failed to (eventually) listen to his side of things, no matter what had seemingly happened on the surface of various situations. She understood what it was like to be constantly haunted by the memories of what was and what could have been.
On top of those things, she expected better of him than almost everyone else in the world did, and in a different way than Lily had. Lily had expected him to be better than the Marauders for arbitrary reasons. Brie expected him to be better than himself because she believed he could be. There was something about that that made him feel good. It almost always boosted his pride in himself when he remembered that someone thought well of him. He preferred the feeling to the one he got when he could tell that someone distrusted him on sight.
Brie had been his friend, one of only a few people who wasn't acquainted with him for some kind of personal gain, and he was going to miss her. A lot. He might have been an emotionally stunted man, but he wasn't a stupid one... well not always anyway. He understood the good Brie had done for him. Because of her he no longer constantly tortured himself with thoughts of Lily and how he'd failed her. It was a habit that he knew he was already sliding back into after this whole year with Sirius Black running around.
Outside of himself, he worried for Brie too. She was about to go and face something that would prove incredibly hard, and had the potential to dredge up a lot of bad memories for her. She'd freely admitted that she'd previously dealt with these type of situations badly afterwards. She hadn't gone into much detail, but he remembered her mentioning once, in an off handed way, that after Rogan and her family had died, she'd lost almost a year of her life.
He wasn't quite sure how that was possible, unless she'd meant that she'd been as he had after Lily's death. For weeks he'd barely moved around his house, if he even bothered to get out of bed at all. He'd practically starved himself because he just hadn't been interested in food or drink. He hadn't wanted to see sunlight or even the moon. Worst of all, he'd felt somehow hollow, like something inside him had been missing. It had been like the feeling he'd had when Lily had finally given up on him in their fifth year, magnified by a thousand. Light had bothered him, dark had bothered him, even the wind in the trees had set him on edge in a way he hoped never to feel again. He'd been uncomfortable in his very skin.
He hoped that's not what Brie had meant, but if it was: how would she do this time? He felt better about it when he thought that she'd at least have Evan to lean on, but he also felt a bit uncomfortable about it as well. Would Brie forget him as she sank back into the life she had before Hogwarts? How would they stay friends across the great divide of their vastly different lives? It would have been hard enough with Brie's habit of flitting around the world like a bee in a field of flowers. The added complications of great distance, communication difficulties, and the Dark Lord's looming return would make it even more difficult still.
Severus wandered without aim, hardly noticing where he was going, only cluing into his location within the castle when he found that he had run out of stairs to climb and ground to cover. He'd wandered his way up to the Astronomy Tower.
Once upon a time it had been the secret birthday meeting place for himself and Lily. For the past few years, it had been his and Brie's small safe haven. As he looked around, he could see in his mind's eye both Lily and Brie. He could remember both in almost every spot they'd ever occupied up here.
He saw Lily gazing through her telescope during their first year, trying to find Jupiter, amazed that the school held lessons so late at night. A few feet from that spot, he saw Brie, sitting with her back up against the stones, strumming her guitar as the breeze blew her hair into her mouth and she laughingly choked on it.
Two steps away from where he stood, he'd most often found Lily on his birthday, holding his present, looking excited to give it to him. During Brie's second year, when they'd first been getting to know each other better, he'd stood almost exactly where he was now as he'd watched Brie climb up onto the edges of the stone parapet, holding her arms wide and jokingly asking him if he believed her yet about being crazy. She'd laughed and jested that sometimes she imagined that she could fly. He could remember wondering if she was insane as he worried that she might fall off, forcing him to reveal that he, in fact, really could fly.
Letting thoughts of both of them tangle inside his head, he wandered over to that same parapet and propped his elbows on it as he looked out onto Hogwarts' grounds. As his gaze traveled over to the Forbidden Forest, he was suddenly reminded of the kiss he and Brie had shared in the snow, right before her world had come crashing down around her with news of her friend's troubles.
They'd never really had the chance to properly talk about it. He knew she wasn't mad or upset by it, she'd even claimed that she liked it and had sent him the glowing snowball ornament for Christmas, but directly after the kiss there had been a look that had come over her face that he hadn't known how to read. Honestly, she'd looked almost terrified.
Maybe she'd just been trying to be polite and he was actually a horrible kisser. Or maybe it tied in with what she'd been trying to tell him when they'd talked about her leaving. She'd seemed as confused as he felt about her reasons for leaving. More accurately, she'd seemed most confused about her reasons for staying for as long as she had. She'd said that she'd been lying to herself all these years. He'd been too harassed at the time to make sense of that statement.
He tried now, but didn't get far. Someone softly came up behind him and he turned, knowing it was her. Who else would it be up here at the end of the year, but Brie? Icarus was with her. When Severus turned, Icarus took off from Brie's shoulder and perched himself on an outcropping of stone, his yellow eyes unblinking as he ruffled his feathers and folded his wings.
"Hey," she said softly and sadly. "This...uhh... I guess this is it."
He nodded, unable to think of anything to say. He'd been focused on his thoughts and was having a hard time pulling himself into the now, with all the questions swirling in his brain. They stared at each other for a minute or two before she wandered over and leaned up against the stonework wall with him. They silently looked out into the distance for awhile.
"Brie..." he ventured, finally snapping into the moment enough toseize the opportunity to get at least one answer out of this last meeting. "About that night, you know, in the forest, in the snow?"
She looked at him and nodded, indicating she knew what he was talking about and that he should go on.
"We never really talked about it."
"There's not much to talk about, Severus," she said, looking out at the horizon again. "We're both horribly broken people in a horribly perverse situation. There can't be anything for so many reasons."
He nodded, studying her profile. "I just wanted to make sure we were... OK about it."
"I know. Thanks." She was silent for a moment before she muttered, "It's not you, you know. It's me."
He was stunned, as he'd been on the verge of saying almost the same thing. "No, it's not," he muttered back. They stared at each other with furrowed brows for a few seconds before looking away.
"Albus is waiting for me," she finally said, a bit up her pack and tossing it over one shoulder, she turned, looking troubled. After two steps she stopped and shook her head a bit violently before turning to face him again. "I'll miss you, Severus. I'll miss you a lot."
He nodded. "You...," he hesitated. How did you tell someone that they fundamentally changed you as a person? "You make me think differently about so many things. I'm going to miss that. Thank you."
He was suddenly stunned with himself. He was never that eloquent in these situations. Situations that didn't need lies and carefully veiled information. Give him some story to sell, and he could convince the world with very little difficulty, but something from himself, something from the heart, was infinitely harder to convey. It was just another of life's little jokes on him.
"I don't make you think differently," she answered, looking surprised. "I just let you know that it's OK that you think that way already."
He didn't know what to say to that and groped for something that would let her know how he felt. "Don't... work too hard. And, be safe. You're crazy and it scares me to death," he finally came out with.
"You sound like my mom used to," she answered blandly, reminding him again of another thing they had in common. They were both essentially alone. Almost constantly surrounded by people, but alone nonetheless. Brie had Evan, and for that Severus envied her. Severus had had Brie, but life hated him and now he would barely have that anymore. He cursed himself for being so stubborn and taking so long to get to know her in the first place.
They stood looking at each other for a long moment before they both covered the distance between them in just a few strides and practically collided into a hug, for what would probably be their last chance to see each other for perhaps several years. "This sucks." Her voice was muffled by his arm.
He agreed as he put his chin down on the top of her head and inhaled the scent of her hair. "It can't be forever," he said. After a moments hesitation he softly added, "Brea."
She went still for a split second before pulling away and looking up at him, that same almost terrified look in her eyes. She blinked and it was gone.
"You be careful. If he comes back, you be really really careful. OK?" Her voice shook and she sounded truly afraid for him. She sounded almost exactly how he felt when he thought about her working with all her dangerous creatures so far away from any real help.
"I promise," he answered.
"I don't want this to be the last time I see you."
"I could say the same."
"What a pair we are. Right?" She laughed.
He smiled sadly and nodded as they pulled apart and Brie turned to leave. Icarus tried to land on Brie's shoulder again, but she caught him on her arm and held him out. "Stay with Severus, Ic," she said. "It's time for me to go."
Icarus tilted his head and hooted softly before flying over to land on Severus' shoulder. As Brie disappeared, he gave another hoot, which somehow sounded sad.
"I'll miss her too," Severus said to the owl, feeling slightly foolish to be talking to him like a person, but it was how Brie always had, so he did it too.
A few minutes later, Severus saw Brie again as she and Albus walked down to the school gates so that Albus could take her home. From way up on the Astronomy tower they looked like tiny dolls, moving farther away and getting tinier by the minute.
Icarus took off from his shoulder again and started to circle the sky above the tower. As he flew, he started to give long drawn out screeches. Before she went through the gates, Brie turned and waved up to the castle. Severus waved back, even though he knew there was no way she would be able to see him from her vantage point. Watching her disappear, he hoped he'd see her again.
He tried calling Icarus down, but had no success. He'd stopped screeching when Brie disappeared, but was still listlessly nothing left to do but leave, Severus turned and slowly walked down to the school gates. As he crossed the lawns, he could still see Icarus circling the Astronomy tower. He wasn't sure what, if anything could be done to calm the owl down, but knew that Hagrid would handle it, if it was something that needed handling.
With one last glance back at the school, he Apparated away to his miserable house and his miserable life in Spinner's End.
