The funerals were spread out over a week, as there were far too many people to bury for one day. Many of them had memorials at the castle and were buried elsewhere, like Remus and Tonks. Others were buried near Dumbledore's grave, inadvertently creating a little graveyard by the side of the Black Lake. Hagrid had marked off a plot of land for them, so the fallen could stay together under the watchful eyes of all of Hogwarts. It wasn't a bad place to wind up, but Hazel felt like she was there more often than not, watching as more and more of her friends were lowered into the ground.
Some of the worst funerals were the students, the ones who had just turned seventeen and were willing to fight for what they believed in. They had sacrificed their young lives in the hope that their siblings, their friends, and the rest of the wizarding world could one day live in peace. Hazel stood with Flitwick as they solemnly greeted the Ravenclaw parents, telling them that their children made an incredible sacrifice and they would be honored in the halls of Hogwarts as long as the school was standing.
Every set of parents reacted differently. Some of them, usually those who were Aurors, or had been Aurors in the past, would nod, holding themselves together with the knowledge that they would have done the same thing. Others cried out in pain, in anger, in disbelief at the fact that their child had been killed. Many of them numbly accepted the news, hugging Hazel and Flitwick and thanking them for being there for their children in life and honoring them in death. Others would flock to the castle to see if their children had made it, some of them reuniting with their kids and others bringing them home to lay them to rest. A couple of parents tried to lash out at Hazel, blaming her and Sev for everything, but she was nearly numb to it. She would cast a protective charm and let them exhaust themselves crying, yelling, or trying to attack her. The other professors would try to stop them, but Hazel thought it was more therapeutic to let them work through the shock, anger, and loss.
In between funerals and comforting the swaths of parents that descended on Hogwarts, the professors did their best to put the school back together. Damaged paintings were taken off of the walls, set aside to be restored and repaired once a suitable artist could be found. A single wave of a wand and all of the shattered glass was repaired. The gargoyles were put back together, classrooms were rearranged, and dormitories were reassembled. Even the ghosts came back out of hiding, many of them joining the funeral parties, nearly transparent but shimmering in the sunlight as eulogies were read. There were a lot more ghosts now, some of them deciding to stay because they were afraid of what came next and others deciding to hang on to the mortal world until their siblings or their children had made it out of school. One last way to say goodbye, they said.
As the days wore on and an owl didn't come, Hazel knew that she was right. Sev was dead. A tiny piece of her still hoped he was out there somewhere, but she knew the truth early on. Someone as high up in the ranks of Death Eaters as he was couldn't have survived the onslaught of Order members, students, Aurors, and Hogsmeade residents. And if the Death Eaters had found out about his role as a spy, they would have executed him on sight.
Slughorn came to find her in the dungeons, Hazel sitting on the ladder in the Potions Storeroom, cataloguing what had been broken and what had been stolen in the battle. She had a clipboard balanced in her lap and she was taking notes in a careful, steady hand when he interrupted her train of thought. "I hope I'm not being a bother, but I stopped by first to apologize for… misjudging you, and secondly to offer my condolences. You know, you and Severus were my most promising students back in your day. I knew you were going to go far."
"Spare me the nonsense, Horace." Hazel finally looked up, setting her quill aside. She was already cross, tired of all of the professors apologizing to her and thinking she would forgive them easily. After all, "All of you gave Sev and I a year of Hell. There was no way we could tell you what was really going on. It was enough of a risk for me to know, and now all of you are coming to tell me how sorry you are that he's gone, pretending like what you did wasn't that bad. I know you were the one who kept poisoning him. Or one of them, at least. I bet Pomona and Poppy helped. You should've seen it. He hardly ate. For weeks. Some of you thought it was funny. Even more of you relished seeing him that ill. I was the one who sat there holding his hand as he retched, when even Poppy wouldn't give him anything to make it stop. I sat there brewing a potion on the bathroom floor so I could keep him company while he had his head in a toilet, hoping it would be done before he permanently damaged his stomach." She could feel tears of rage welling up in her eyes, but there was no stopping them. "Don't you dare - any of you - pretend like you're innocent. I understand why you all did what you did. But that doesn't make it any easier to forgive."
It was an unseasonably cool afternoon when Hazel walked outside, heading to the edge of the forest. She picked a spot under their favorite tree, the one that Sev had been sitting under in an attempt to evade James Potter when she had first spotted him, taking a seat by his side and asking what spell he was working on. It was a nice spot, one overlooking the lake, but not too close. After all, getting too close to the lake meant Sirius would try to throw him in.
Despite Harry's directions, no one had found him. There would be no funeral, no burial, no gravesite but this one. She conjured a heavy stone from Hagrid's garden, smiling sadly to herself as she mumbled a weary spell and directed the cuts with ease. It turned out better than she had imagined, Hazel whittling the stone into a proper marker. She included nothing but his name, knowing that he wouldn't have wanted anything more no matter how much he deserved a proper epitaph.
Since he was still officially "missing" there was nothing there to truly visit, nothing that tied him to the shade of the tree but the memories that only lived on in her head. Even so, a couple of people stopped by when she was sitting there. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stopped to offer their condolences early on, the three of them having realized how they had misjudged Snape all along. Luna and Xeno, who had been staying at the school in an effort to help rebuild, paid her a visit too. Minerva brought her something to eat, saying she needed to keep her energy up and complimenting the simple memorial.
As she sat with the stone, afternoon slowly turned into evening, the sun beginning to set over the lake. They'd watched it together dozens of times, knowing that it was nearly time to pack up and head to the Great Hall for dinner. They would never make that trip again, trekking up the hill, past their friends and enemies, their minds set on whatever delicacy the House Elves had cooked up for dinner.
As she traced over the letters carved into the stone, Hazel began to cry for what felt like the fiftieth time that week. She had expected to eventually run out of tears, but the pain was too much. He was gone, truly gone. He had probably died somewhere abandoned and alone, killed by one of their friends who just refused to tell anyone that they had been the witch or wizard to deal the killing blow. Or by one of the Death Eaters. Or Voldemort himself. Harry said he had watched him die after Voldemort set Nagini on him in the Shrieking Shack, but it had been empty when the search party finally got there. Who knew where the corpse had been taken, what sort of example had been made out of him. If he hadn't died there, he would have certainly been killed nearby.
It hurt more to know that he had probably been alone, scared of where he was and what was coming. If it really had been in the Shrieking Shack, the last place he saw was the place he had almost died back when they were students. Every time she thought of it, her heart ached even more. It was worse than a punch in the gut, the feeling of emptiness, like the floor had dropped out of her world. Everything spun as she clutched the stone, the cold rock giving her the tiniest sense of balance. "Sev, I'm sorry," she finally managed. "I'm sorry I never got to say goodbye. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry you never got to be happy. I'm sorry so many people still hate you. I'm so sorry…"
As she wept, a shadowy figure watched from the forest. Even the sharpest eye would have nearly missed it, the figure cloaked in black that kept its eyes trained on her from the cover of the woods. It didn't dare to leave until she dragged herself back to the castle, making sure she had safely reached the doors before departing.