Silver hair flashed in front of his eyes as he sprinted down the tower stairs. Silver hair falling, swirling in the stormy air and vanishing over the battlements… He grabbed the Malfoy boy by the arm roughly and dragged him, sprinting flat out. His mind was blank, numb, his only thought getting out of the castle as fast as he could so it wouldn't all have been in vain.

He heard screams and crashes as curses hit their targets or bounced off the stone walls, but no one gave him a second glance as he raced past. No one suspected him. They all trusted him, all of them, Penelope… He could swear he heard her voice in the distance as he raced onto the grounds, the dewy grass slippery beneath his feet. Why did his brain have to torment him like this? Her voice, agonized, accusing, getting louder…

It wasn't until he heard uneven footfalls crunching gravel behind him that he knew she was really there. Of course, he realized numbly. She would have been up in her office, the only other room in the castle with a view into the astronomy tower… Oh, Penelope…

"SEVERUS!" Her voice was hoarse like she had been smoking. Fire dazzled his blurry eyes; Hagrid's hut was burning, the acrid smoke singing his nostrils and his throat as he took gulps of air to keep going.

"LOOK AT ME! LIAR!… TRAITOR!"

He did not look at her. His chest felt as though it was splitting in two and he realized he was crying, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was pulling off this last and greatest double-cross, this last effort for the man, and the war, that had shaped, guided, and ruined his life. He could not look at her.

"BASTARD!" she half-screamed, half-sobbed some ways behind him. He was losing her, her voice becoming fainter. "RUN AWAY, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!"

He remembered dimly, as though from another lifetime, her dark-haired head turning over her shoulder as she called him a filthy fucking bastard, and he felt a horrible urge to laugh. He heard her fall to the ground with a dull thud, heard her scream, a wordless howl of pure pain and fury.

He turned into nothing as he reached the edge of the grounds, the darkness blurring and smearing in his burning eyes. His chest felt like it was bursting and he forgot everything, everything except for the fact that he had to see her, one last time… He looked back desperately as the world twisted, a second too late. She was gone.

"Come down."

"No."

"I insist that you be there. Think of your students."

"I won't. I won't put anyone through that." Penelope buried her head in her hands as McGonagall stood over her, glowering.

"Put us through what, exactly?" the older witch asked sharply.

"I was his bloody girlfriend!" Penelope roared. "The man who murdered him! I'm not going to put in a bloody appearance at his funeral!" Her head felt like it was splitting in two. The yelling had not helped.

McGonagall sniffed in distaste as she looked around Penelope's room. Several empty bottles of Firewhiskey littered the sofa and floor, nestled in a glittering carpet of smashed glass. Cigarette butts filled a dirty shot glass, the ash kicking up in a small stream as a breeze came in from the open window.

"You could shut the window." She scowled at McGonagall.

"And leave you here to drink yourself to death? No." McGonagall leaned down to where Penelope sat, staring fiercely at her over horn-rimmed spectacles. "Pull yourself together," she snapped. "You are a professor, a colleague, a member of the Order. You have responsibilities to consider."

Penelope stared up at her blearily. That made her eyes hurt, so she immediately buried them in her hands again, in the merciful darkness. She hiccupped, feeling suddenly very nauseous.

"Drink this." McGonagall was handing her something and she took it weakly. It tasted horrible and thick, and for a moment she felt like she might throw it back up again. Then the nausea passed and her vision seemed to clear, the splitting pain in her head lessening.

"Sobering tonic," McGonagall said curtly.

"Thank you."

"Thank me by putting on some clean clothes and coming to the funeral."

Slowly coming to her senses, Penelope stared at the older witch as though she hadn't seen her before. A memory came to her, unbidden: McGonagall's voice in the darkness hissing at them to hurry up, Severus clambering so awkwardly onto the Vespa behind her, his arms around her waist… She coughed in an attempt to hide the tears welling up, but she felt McGonagall's beady eyes on her and knew the witch wasn't fooled.

"I thought he… He told me he loved me, Minerva."

McGonagall's expression softened and she was silent for so long, Penelope thought she wasn't going to respond at all. When at last she spoke, her words were careful.

"Penelope, I have given this matter some consideration, while you were up here drinking." Penelope had the sense to look abashed. "I simply cannot make out that Severus had anything to gain from this relationship with you. You were not closer to Dumbledore than he, nor privy to more classified information." McGonagall's expression was suddenly sharp. "Were you entirely honest in your responses to the Order's questions? He did not ask you for details of your work, or copy any of your documents?"

"No," Penelope replied earnestly. "I told Kingsley everything. He never… Severus never did anything like that." She recalled the almost irritating refrains in his letters over the years: take my concerns for your safety to heart… do not share your whereabouts with me… the less I know the better… trust no one… She gazed numbly out the window, onto the sunny grounds where students were beginning to gather, but she could still feel McGonagall's calculating stare.

"Then we must consider the possibility that he really did love you."

"Love me?" she croaked. More stupid tears were springing to her eyes and she desperately wanted another drink, wanted to slip back under and feel none of this painful clarity… "Love me and betray everything I worked for? Love me and commit murder…?"

McGonagall's hand was gentle on her shoulder.

"I know this is painful, and hard to understand, and I certainly don't want to minimize the pain he has caused you… But I cannot believe that everything he said and did these past three years was a lie."

Tears streamed down Penelope's face and she made no effort to wipe them off. If it wasn't a lie… then what the bloody hell was it? She looked out at the beautiful green grounds and remembered long summer evenings, just the two of them. They would walk for hours, sometimes in arguments, sometimes in conversation, sometimes just in silence… She looked back at McGonagall.

"But why?" she whispered.

"I don't know, dear," McGonagall replied softly. "I don't know."