When Voldemort called off the fight for an hour, everyone slowly made their way into the castle, the Order trying to regroup. Hazel had been fighting on the front lawn when the command came down. She hesitated, wondering if the Death Eaters were going to use this as a chance for a surprise attack. Much to her relief, the Death Eaters fell back. Everyone else began counting the dead.
Bodies were strewn across the school grounds, lying where they died, Death Eaters and Order members alike. Lost wands and broken glass littered the cobblestones and mixed in with the grass. Shattered gargoyles and suits of armor that McGonagall had enchanted lay broken all over the castle. Hazel was on her way to the Great Hall, walking in a daze when she saw him. He stood out at the end of the line of bodies. She dropped to her knees at the sight of one of her oldest friends lying in the corridor as one of the seventh year Hufflepuffs asked if she knew him. He had been one of their professors a few years back, after all.
No one knew exactly when Remus had died, but the look of shock was still etched onto his face, his eyes permanently wide open as he stared down the Killing Curse that had somehow found its way around his countercurses and hit him square in the chest. "No." The words were barely audible, but it didn't matter. She clutched at his cold hand, trying to keep herself from crying. "Remus, how…"
The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was filling up slowly as the first-years tried to find their classes among the constantly-shifting staircases and endless corridors of the castle. They had maps, but the staircases changed so often that they were hardly helpful. Hazel was one of the first ones there, taking a seat in the front row. She'd read all the way up to the chapter on gytrashes already, way beyond what they had been assigned. It had been fascinating, so she practically devoured the book. She stared at the giant dragon skeleton for a moment before rummaging through her bag for a book. Growing up, she had heard stories about them. She'd even seen one off in the distance when her family took a trip to Romania, but she had never gotten this close.
"Is this seat taken?" A Gryffindor boy with sandy brown hair and a couple of prominent scars running across his face materialized next to her.
"No, go ahead," she answered as she continued to unpack. "I'm Hazel Ashmore. Ravenclaw, obviously. Nice to meet you."
"Remus." He shook her hand, the two of them distracted by a couple of rather loud Gryffindors who had burst into the room, obviously excited for the class. "That's Sirius, and the one with the glasses is James. Our friend Peter should be here soon. I think he lost his map of the halls at breakfast, though, so it might take him a while. We all met at the sorting ceremony," he explained. Sirius and James took seats in the back of the class, still talking loudly. "So what about you? Are you excited for class?"
The two of them ended up being the top students in Defense Against the Dark Arts, to no one's surprise. No one was surprised when they dominated their other classes either, coming out with the most 'Outstandings' in their year. Though Hazel wasn't a big fan of the other "Marauders", as they started to call themselves, she and Remus got along famously. Even when she and Severus became friends, Remus stayed close. He did his best to stop James and Sirius from terrorizing the other students, and when he and Hazel were named as Prefects, they took away as many points from them as they would have taken from anyone else.
They stayed in contact after graduation, both of them joining the Order of the Phoenix as soon as they turned seventeen. Though Hazel went into the Aurors' Office, she did her best to keep up with Order business, and with her old friends. She sent him a congratulatory owl when he was named as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and they tried to keep in touch even after Lupin was exposed as a werewolf and forced to leave. It was good to see him at the Order meetings again, eve if they weren't getting together for the best of reasons.
Harry Potter is dead. The words rang in her ears, Hazel still stooped over her friends' bodies. It hadn't just been Remus. Several of her students, several members of the Order, both old and new, were gently placed side-by-side. She had tried to help the injured, bringing them over to where Madam Pomfrey was patching them up or sending them away if their injuries were too extensive, but with every new body brought in, she felt more and more like her stomach was filled with lead. Harry Potter is dead.
Luna placed a hand on her shoulder, assuring her that everything would be fine. "I know Harry. This isn't it. We need your help, Professor."
"What are you… going to do?" Hazel managed, her entire face numb as the words tumbled out.
"There's a Death Eater camp right outside the castle boundaries. Professor McGonagall is organizing an attack. She says that even if it's true, even if Harry's dead, we should take as many of them down with us as we can." Luna was right, and she knew it. That had been their mantra in the height of the First Wizarding War too. If they knew they were going to die, they might as well take as many Death Eaters out as they could. Fight to the death, and show the Death Eaters no mercy. The only one she had ever shown mercy to was Severus, and now she had no idea where he was.
When there was almost no hope of making it out, people seemed to come up with even more brazen plans. "How long do we have?" Hazel asked, standing to look her in the eye. "And where's Mr. Finnegan? I have an idea. I'm going to need him, as many of those suits of armor as we can muster, and… my keys to the Potions Storeroom. And possibly Professor Slughorn, if anyone can find him."
"What are you planning, Professor?" Luna looked at her with wonder, still eternally positive despite all of the dirt and blood she was covered in, despite the carnage surrounding her.
Hazel smirked, her resolution set. "You said they have a hideout, right? We're going to tear the whole thing down."
Tear the whole thing down they did.
While everyone else was celebrating the end of Lord Voldemort and the flight of the Death Eaters, Hazel made her way up to the Headmaster's office. The gargoyle out front had been destroyed, so she took the stairs up, passing the untouched office entirely and stepping into her chambers.
As soon as she closed the door behind her, she noticed the note. Snape wasn't hiding up there. He had clearly fled. It made sense, after all. No one yet knew that he had actually been on the winning side all along. No matter who won, he would be in danger for a little while. He'd left her a note, Hazel picking it up off of her desk and turning it over in her hands before unfolding the parchment.
My dearest Hazel,
I've just gotten word that Harry Potter is in the castle. You are in your office, and I do not wish to disturb you. Soon you'll hear the news in the corridors, and the war will be on our doorstep. I want to find you, but I don't want to bring the war to you any earlier than need be.
If you're reading this, you have yet to find me after the battle. This is something I know you've been worried about for a while, something we've both been turning over in our minds and refusing to say to each other, but the odds are against me making it out of this alive. Both sides will want to see me dead, even if I manage to survive the initial battle.
If that is the case, I want you to donate all of my books to the school. Someone will get good use out of them. Let horace take which ones he wants and give Madam Pince the rest. Keep the ones in the house, though. The enchantments will be broken, so anything written inside one will no longer copy into the other. As for the house itself, the keys are in my desk drawer, under a pile of old parchment. I know it isn't a beautiful place to live. Not what you deserve, but it's all I have to give to you. Take the house, take everything in it, take everything I've left behind in our rooms. The goblins at Gringotts will take care of the accounts for you. I've already had all of the paperwork drawn up. As you know, professors do not earn that much, but there's a little something from Slughorn and I's inventions and writings. If you need more than that, the Malfoys will help you, Narcissa especially. She always was fond of you back in our school days. If something happened to them, I'm sure the other professors would be willing to help.
I wish there was more that I could leave to you. I wish I could have found the words long ago to tell you how much I appreciate you, to tell you how much you have truly saved my life over the years, to tell you how lucky I feel to wake up next to you every day. You really have been the one bright spot in my life, especially as of late. There are no words for how truly lucky I am to have you, to have had the honor of being with you, so I must resort to the words that I have long avoided out of fear, the ones I now wish I had told you in person.
I love you.
I hope to see you again, but if you are reading this, I doubt that I have made it out of battle. Still, I hope to be able to tell you in person.
All my love,
Severus
Hazel sank to the ground, leaning on the wall for support. Clutching the letter to her chest, she knew it long before Flitwick came to find her to tell her that Severus was still unaccounted for. He wasn't missing. Snape was dead.
