He had known they had to be dead.

It had been...weeks since she had disappeared, and slightly less time since he had. There was no logical reason for him to have believed otherwise. Except he had. Of course he had. Some stupid senseless sentimentality had seized him. And he had hoped. He had hoped, so much. But now.

"Severus, you really do not want to see - "

He ignored Lupin.

"Snape, there is nothing to gain from seeing them."

He ignored Moody.

"Severus...please...don't."

He wanted to ignore Poppy, but her voice was different. He stopped mid stride. He turned to face her, and her grief, and her shadows, and he stared at the tears on her cheeks, and he stared at those still in her eyes, "Of course I have to see them." How could he be so calm? How could he speak those words so easily? How could he... "Tell me what you think happened." He did not look away from Poppy, even though his question was directly most explicitly at Moody.

"It was everything we suspected."

Severus suspected that Moody's constant vigilance was similar to his, in the way of, constant do not show emotions.

"She was clearly bait in a trap, and he followed."

"Of course he did." Lupin murmured, before Severus could speak the same sentence, and he was surprised to realise that he was going to speak the words with the same tone of respectful reverence rather than the rage he was feeling deep inside his chest at the sheer stupidity.

"How do you know that?"

If he was tormenting Moody, it was not deliberate, and for all his flaws and for all their grievances, Moody knew that. Maybe he wanted to share it. "The injuries, Snape." Could not bring himself to speak softly, though. Severus wondered why he did not flinch. Why neither of them flinched. "Injuries."

"She was clearly tortured."

Now there was something, within him. He knew what triggered it. It was Poppy's sob. "I want to see them." He spoke to dispel the image. He spoke to dispel the image of the Headmaster, frantically searching for his deputy, finding her, finally, finding her, going to her side, seeing the blood but not caring, picking her up into his arms and whispering her name, and Severus could see, the face, their faces, one still, or maybe not still, maybe she had clung to some strength to say goodbye to him, the one she had always waited for, and as Poppy could not longer restrain herself, he did not know which image he feared worse, "And then?"

There was shuffling noise as Lupin went to comfort Poppy. He turned his attention to Moody, "What happened to the Headmaster?"

"We think he was distracted. Single blade. Did not stand a chance. Was left to bleed."

A slow death. A slow death, clutching his beloved Minerva in his arms. It seemed so poetic and yet so excruciatingly normal. Too normal, for two beings with such might between them.

"In here?" Severus pointed to the door in this abandoned building they had eventually found.

Moody hesitated.

"I said, are they in here?" Severus repeated. Moody nodded once, "Snape. I - " He did not finish his sentence immediately, "It will not help."

"Oh, but it will." Severus heard his own voice tremble and he knew what it was. It was Moody's concern. Moody had always been an antagonist. Severus desired no sympathy. "It will help, Moody. It will help me." His voice was so steady now. Steady and slow and determined and deliberate. "It will help me, because I will see everything that was done to her and him and I will ensure that they who committed this suffer in the same way, except, they will suffer, tenfold, do you understand me?" There was silence from the others. Absolute silence. "They will suffer." But first he had to. First he had to. He understood that. Severus Snape always suffered and then he took that suffering and he channelled into a weapon that he could use to sharpen his strategy and develop his mind and all the time ensure that those who committed crimes against those he loves would never live to enjoy it, that they would fall, and that he would be responsible for it -

He opened the door. None of them followed. He did not expect them to. They did not need to.

He needed to.

He stood, in the doorway.

It was a little room. There was not much natural light. Someone had enchanted some candles. They flickered in some soothing rhythm that contrasted the stillness of him and them. He took a step forward. They had not been moved. Sentiment. Practicality. The two blurred. He did not know which one encouraged him to move closer now.

He could see the injuries. But underneath. Both of them. The closest thing he had to parents. Entwined together. He knelt by them. The Headmaster would have done the same. He would have knelt by her. He would have been more desperate, more determined to save. Severus was too late. He reached for their hands, the way he imagined Albus had. He was still holding Minerva's hand, after all. Their hands were cold and damp and not shaking. Severus was shaking. He wanted to shake. He wanted to hurt. He wanted to feel. He stared. Oh how he stared. He stared at the wounds, he stared at the bruises, he stared at the chains, he stared at the death masks on the faces that had always loved him. "Tell me you told each other." He whispered, to Albus, to Minerva, who knows. "Tell me you confessed it, at the end. Tell me you said you loved each other." He was suddenly desperate to know. He had never truly known any kind of love beyond familial, but he had seen it, each day, something unique, between these two, and he -

What if Albus had been too late, and had never heard it back. Had he sat there, stunned, in disbelief, whispering the words until there had been a different pain in his chest that, despite its fatal effect, could never come close to the feeling of a heart breaking. Severus was sure he would never feel any pain again. Good. He had no need of it, now. He leaned in to kiss Minerva's forehead first, and then Albus', and he held their hand for a moment more, and he realised there was now their blood on his face, both of them, but he did not care. Nothing mattered now.

Nothing mattered now, except.

He spoke to the room.

Nothing mattered.

Except.

"Expect me."

"Expect...me."