A bit of a shorter chapter this time, but still hopefully just as good!


111

Severus felt his calloused palms push against the splintered old wooden oak doors of the Great Hall (what was left of it) and Severus Snape felt himself enter into a completely different world, one that he was not at all prepared for.

His weary, blackened eyes looked far beyond the length of the massive Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, feeling certain that his eyes must be playing a sport of his mind, that this was a cruel hallucination.

But it was not. Very little remained of the Great Hall, and of the eastern side of Hogwarts. Ash. Only ash and ruins.

Severus walked slowly, his black, narrowed eyes sweeping to the left and right at what was left of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, now reduced to a pile of moist black dust and chunks of stone.

The thick, unmistakable scent of charred wood intermingled with burnt flesh, smoldering stones, and melted iron from where Professor McGonagall had enchanted the Knights' statues to come to life and defend the boundaries wafted into his nose and caused his nostrils to enlarge and flare like a bull's.

But the worst of all was the putrid smell of burnt flesh and the hundreds of deceased bodies laid sprawled out on white cots, though they were not so white anymore. Now stained with the blood of the deceased, they looked garish, cold.

He heaved a sigh of frustration, feeling his pounding head against his temples threat to crack his skull and leave it wide into two separate segments.

"Professor." A woman's curt voice rent the otherwise chaotic air behind him as the gasping wails of the injured and those who had lost friends and family members on this blood-soaked red-dawn filled his ringing eardrums.

Severus turned slowly at the waist, his hands clasped in front of his middle, and lifted his chin slightly to regard none other than Minerva McGonagall.

The moment his black eyes locked gazes with Minerva's piercing eyes of green, he coughed once to clear his throat and quickly averted his gaze. It did not take Severus dipping into the Transfiguration Professor's mind to know that she was about to question his sudden disappearance during the siege.

McGonagall squared her shoulders as Severus slowly approached her, her chin raised and her lips slightly trembled, suggesting to the former Potions Master that she was having trouble maintaining control of her emotions.

"Minerva," he answered, sure to keep his expression one of impassive indifference as he inclined his head, suddenly wishing to be out of the Hall.

"May I…? Just a word, Severus. All I require is a moment of your time, Professor, nothing more than that," Minerva murmured, seeming to sense his thoughts, for the older witch peered at Snape over the rims of her dainty silver spectacles and she began to walk towards the door, ignoring the students and the other fighters who had converged in the Great Hall, though she did pause briefly at the arrival of a head Healer from St. Mungo's who'd gotten her owl.

"Of course," Severus muttered by way of response, keeping his head inclined and his fingers laced together in front of his middle.

He waited patiently by the doors, repressing the urge to snort and roll his eyes as he took sight of their caretaker, the Squib, Argus Filch, taking his broom and sweeping up near a copious pile of rubble from where one of the walls had exploded.

It would take more than a simple broom and a mop to undo the damage and right that which had been destroyed during Voldemort's chaotic siege.

Minerva McGonagall finished providing instructions to the team of Healers to care for the wounded, passing along overseeing of the Great Hall and its wounded to Professor Slughorn while she politely excused herself.

It did not take her long to catch up to where Severus was waiting just outside the hall in a manner of three quick strides, her green robes billowing behind her in her movements. The pair of them walked in silence down the hall and onto into the courtyard, looking ahead at the war-ravaged Hogwarts Grounds.

"You have got a habit for seclusion, Severus, and yet, you are impossible to ignore," she sighed. "The list of the dead is yet unaccounted for, all of them, but we estimate at least over a hundred deaths, Professor," Minerva spoke up at last.

Severus mutely nodded. And even more wounded, he thought, though he did not speak that thought. He merely proceeded to purse his lips into a thin line and regarded his colleague and Transfiguration Professor out of the corner of his eyes, waiting for her to reveal the true nature of her request to speak with him.

It was not very often that Professor McGonagall sought out his company. A dozen or so questions burned on the tip of his tongue, demanding answers, and yet, only one that he desperately sought the answer to from her.

"Any that we know, Professor?" he queried his colleague, and as Severus shifted at the waist to regard Minerva, he could tell by the distant stare the Transfiguration Professor was currently shooting him filled him with a crushing sense of guilt that felt weighted on his shoulders like a stone slab.

He knew that he should not have left in the throes of the battle, though given what he knew of Jameson's life, though he despised the bitch, he could not, in good conscience, allow her to perish.

She had, after all, dealt with Dolores Jane Umbridge and successfully rid the entire wizarding world of another dangerous mind that by rights, should not have been allowed to exist in polite society.

That, and that reason alone was the reason he had accompanied Mr. Brennan and Lupin to the man's home.

Minerva McGonagall peered at him through her silver spectacles, the mask of serene calmness she had perfected throughout her tenure as a distinguished Hogwarts Professor began to crumple, her mouth compressing into such a thin rigid line to repress the half-choked sob that threatened escape.

"Too many, Severus," she began at last when she had managed to regain some semblance of composure. "Percy Weasley, to start, Professor. He—he was struck when the wall," Here, she jerked her thumb back behind her, though she dared not look back, "when it exploded. The Weasley's are, quite naturally, distraught. As I am. Percy was one of my students, Severus. Anton Dolohov was the Death Eater behind the explosion. Lavender Brown, attacked by Fenrir Greyback, though Mr. Brennan did us all a favor by ridding us of that beast," Minerva spat, spitting her last word as though it were poison that had lingered upon her tongue. "Professor Vector," she murmured, squeezing her eyes shut.

Her body convulsed for a moment, and Severus thought perhaps Minerva would allow her grief to consume her, and he was surprised when she did not. She swallowed down hard past a growing lump in her throat and continued after a moment spent in silence to quell the shaking of her limbs.

Minerva glanced down at the rubble beneath their feet. Severus sensed the Transfiguration Professor was not quite finished naming the list of known dead. "And…we…I—I found this in the rubble, just outside of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, what's left of it," she whispered, her voice so faint, it was barely audible.

Minerva dipped her hand into an exterior pocket of her robes, her hands shaking so badly she almost fumbled the little item in the outstretched palm of her hand as she held it out for Severus to take from her.

Severus swallowed, opening his mouth to say something as he examined the still-swiveling magical eye of distinguished Auror Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody, but it felt as if his throat had been twisted as it hollowed and tightened, and he was left voiceless. His former partner was going to be crushed at this news.

Why should YOU care what Tonks thinks?

The demonic voice at the back of his mind pied up from the darkest recesses of his tired, exhausted mind.

The witch is a wretched little succubus and is only good for driving you up the wall with her incessant, stupid prattling that sounds more like a banshee screeching than a woman talking, it taunted him, and he let out a low growl.

"Were you able to recover his body?" Severus asked, feeling his nails dig into the skin of his palms as he folded his arms across his chest, keeping his face impassive, or so he hoped.

If word got out that there was a small part of him, however minuscule, that actually cared for his fellow Order members, his entire reputation would be worthless, and it would be the end of his very life.

As expected, fearing that he already knew what McGonagall's answer would be, he watched as the Transfiguration Professor gave a curt shake of her head no, a crestfallen expression etched on her lined face that, in the dim light flickering from the light torch in its sconce on the wall behind her head, made her look aged by at least ten years.

"I'm afraid not, Severus. Albus has sent a team of volunteers to comb through the castle's wreckage to look for survivors."

He nodded, his gaze remaining fixated at the still swiveling magical eye of Moody's in his hands.

Unable to stomach looking at it another second longer than he was forced to, ignoring the swooping sensation as a coil in his gut twisted, he pocketed the magical eyeball into an exterior pocket of his robes.

For the first time, he felt…old. As if his lifetime of hardships had finally taken its toll on him.

"I shall inform the wolf's mate at my earliest opportunity in a few days' time of the passing of her mentor," Snape announced gravely, careful to emphasize his insult towards Remus and his wife as to save his face.

Professor McGonagall silently nodded her agreement, her shoulders slumping in defeat, her face careworn, forlorn, and utterly defeated.

"Our world should not be this way, that the young perish, and the older linger," she murmured, looking away from Snape and out at the grounds instead.

Severus, for his part, found himself immune to empathy that came from a colleague who had once treated him so coldly.

He managed a slight lilt of his head, feeling the corners of his mouth twitching in something that almost resembled a smile, though it faltered immediately as he caught sight of McGonagall once again staring at him in such a way out of the corner of his eyes that he was not sure what to make of.

The nighttime stretched ahead, now charcoal, and hued, cold, now that the fires had been put out by a collective effort of all of the Hogwarts Professors.

The crumbling stones, remnants of the magnificent castle, lay ash-like on the ground, a cloud of cold dust settling now over every charred blade of grass and leaf.

It would remain there until either the wind came with a powerful rustle to carry it away on the breeze or the rain would wash away every little thing clean.

Severus sensed there was more to Professor McGonagall's request to speak with him in private than the aging, severe but fair Transfiguration Professor was letting on, though he decided not to probe into her mind for the answers.

He was rewarded for his determined patience when she spoke up at last.

"Mr. Brennan and Miss Jameson. I know that you left Hogwarts Grounds to tend to the poor dear. How are her wounds? Will she make a full recovery?"

Severus nodded. "In time, yes, though not without its complications. I am confident she will be well looked after in the care of Mr. Brennan and the Lupin's."

He stiffened at the mention of Remus's surname, though if McGonagall noticed, she said nothing, for which Severus was grateful. He let out a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"I will inform the pair of them of Alastor's passing in two days. Though I care not for either one of their feelings," he spat, hissing the word through clenched teeth, "considering the fact that our Order members are brand-new parents, allow them a day or two in peace to recuperate from that ordeal. I'll let Albus know not to announce it or have anyone say anything to them until I let her know first," he growled through gritted teeth and flinched as he saw Minerva smile.

"You cannot deny that deep down, Severus, there is a part, however minuscule, that does care for those within our Order, particularly Remus and Harry—"

"Don't."

Severus hissed his command through gritted teeth, cutting Minerva off before she could complete the damning sentence that would surely ruin him. He was sure his lips had turned as pallid as the rest of his skin, shivering despite the humidity and heat from the fire that had ravaged the castle.

"Not. One. More. Word. Professor. Do not test me," Snape swore he felt the very pores of his flesh widen as memories of his and Remus Lupin's time together as fellow classmates during their days as Hogwarts students rose from the chasm of his mind.

He clenched his molars together, grinding his teeth in the effort to remain calm.

"You alongside Dumbledore, and the boy now, too, are the only ones that know the truth of why I have remained a protector to Harry Potter these long years, and I would have it stay that way, do you hear me?" he barked, his voice now dangerously low and quiet. "And as for Potter…"

Scenes struck him like lightning. James tormenting him in the corridor, Lily coming to his defense, Remus, brooding in the background, clearly disapproving of the ridicule Black and Potter put him through, but entirely too much a coward to speak up and end the torment, and now, forced to work alongside the man himself once more, was enough to ensure his blood boiled.

Despite what he had said to Lupin back at the man's cottage before Disapparating here, he could not seem to put the torment he had suffered at James Potter's hand behind him, though Minerva was not at all finished.

"Is it truly so hard for you to imagine, Severus? You have defended and protected the man's son all these years." When Snape did not respond to her query, she let out a sigh and pushed her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose. "Surely, but you care for the boy, even now. The Dark Lord is dead, and you have nothing to say in that regard, Professor? Such a long silence, Professor Snape. Would I be shocked to learn that you wished that the Dark Lord had succeeded in killing poor Harry Potter? Is that it?"

There was a small part of his conscience that screamed it.

Yes. Yes, I wish that, is what he wanted to say, though he felt his hands ball into fists at his sides and he immediately stormed down the corridor, away from Minerva before his temper swelled to dangerous levels and in his anger, he knew he would do something that he would come to regret, and he dared not raise his wand against a fellow Hogwarts Professor. He spat his words quietly, in hate.

"I wish not that the boy had been killed, but that the Dark Lord had gone for you instead, Professor, to spare me listening to this ridiculous slander, that he would have removed your cursed, wretched head from your bony shoulders, Minerva," he hissed amid obvious defeat.

He turned away so McGonagall would not see the beginning streak of tears on his sunken-in cheekbones.

Though Severus would never admit it to anyone, least of all to Gryffindor's Head of House, he was not at all looking forward to informing the Lupin's of the loss of one of their own. It was not news his former partner was going to take well.

With a quick turn on the heel of his boot, without waiting for Professor McGonagall to respond, he was striding down the hallway and towards the dungeons, his mind swinging like the uncontrollable pendulum of a clock.

He had an owl to send.