Minerva McGonagall looked to her right, wishing she had stolen Hazel's copy of The Daily Prophet before the poor woman had made it down to breakfast. But she hadn't acted quickly enough, distracted by the thousand little things that always kept her busy at the beginning of the term. The fall term was going to be off to an interesting start. Hazel skipped the welcome feast the night before, knowing that she would cry if she heard the speech McGonagall was going to give. But this…
Hazel picked up the paper, smiling a "good morning" to the new headmistress as she sat down. Her smile faded as she noticed the headline splashed across the front of the newspaper: Muggle Actor Alan Rickman Actually Severus Snape in Hiding? By Rita Skeeter, of course. She set the paper aside, maintaining her composure as she looked out over the Great Hall. "I'm sorry I missed you all last night, Minerva. I always enjoy the Sorting Ceremony, but I couldn't… not this year."
"I understand," McGonagall nodded. "It was a difficult evening, especially seeing how many of our students are missing. If you need some more time -"
"No, I think this is the best thing for me. It's what he would've wanted. Life goes on. It has to. Hogwarts needs us. Could you pass me the salt?"
A new group of first-year Ravenclaws sat at the table in front of her, full of hope and excitement for the beginning of their time at Hogwarts. A couple of seventeen and eighteen year-olds also sat at the table, returning to finish their studies after they had been driven from the castle simply for being Muggleborns. McGonagall had offered them passing grades in everything if they didn't want to return, but a handful had opted to go through with their seventh year and round out their education.
The Slytherin table was noticeably smaller this year. Some of their parents had moved them to Durmstrang, where Igor Karkaroff still offered a curriculum that many reformed Death Eaters found to be more suitable for their children. But many of them had stayed, some defying their parents and some coming from families that had fought for the winning side all along. Though she had been a Ravenclaw her entire life, Hazel had offered the Slytherin table a soft smile when McGonagall introduced her. Everyone there knew - or at least had heard - about the man she had loved and lost. As a tribute to the Slytherin she had befriended long ago, she had vowed to herself that she would do her best to keep the rest of the castle from seeing the Slytherins as evil and keep them from being targets of James Potter-esque bullies.
It only took one Gryffindor facing her wrath to set an example for the entire school. It wasn't the first time a house had been negative points at the very beginning of a term, but it would stick in everyone's minds. They hadn't even started classes when she overheard a sixth-year Gryffindor mention how the school "ought to get rid of all of the junior Death Eaters. Even the first-years are probably infected by now." The lecture she had given him was whispered about for the rest of the day, flying through the portraits, ghosts, and students alike until everyone, even Filch, had heard about it.
Hazel's first class of the day was her seventh-year N.E.W.T. class, a group composed of students from all four houses. Some had just finished their sixth year the previous term, others returning to repeat the lessons that they had lost during the war. Hermione Granger sat in the front of the room, Neville and Ginny on either side of her. Luna rounded out their row, giving her the support she needed to get up and start teaching again.
It had been a long summer. Though she had dreaded it with every ounce of her being, she went to Spinner's End to clean up the house. She couldn't bear to sell it, not yet. So she spent the summer cleaning, redecorating, and trying to let more light into the gloomy duplex. Though she cried a little less every day, she had been completely knocked out when she found a box of Sev's old things, photographs of the two of them and her friends that he had saved from school, tickets to the Muggle movies they had seen together over the summer before their sixth year, scraps of notes they had passed in class. Every new discovery pained her. Even though some of her friends would stop in, she was constantly trying to force herself to smile, to find a shred of happiness in the house. As soon as they left, she would let herself collapse, sitting along the wall and trying to collect herself. Returning to Hogwarts had almost been a blessing.
The house at Spinner's End had once been charming, a cozy place full of books that Sev had assembled from the remnants of his former life there. But now the charm had worn off, the soft glow of the firelight long gone. There were no cauldrons bubbling over the fire, no cups of tea littering the tables. The armchairs sat empty. Hazel couldn't bring herself to sit where they once had, holding hands as they pored over old books. Most of the books were packed away now. She had cleaned up his piles of notes too, boxing them up to bring to Slughorn at the start of term. She couldn't bear going through them. Hopefully Horace would get some use out of them.
The worst part was finding everything he had squirreled away, the little mementos of their life together. She found photos of the two of them tucked into a drawer in his bedroom. A collection of their letters, wrapped up in twine, sat high up on a shelf in his closet, hidden under an old cloak. She went through them all, reading the notes she'd sent him, the photos, the collection of tickets to Muggle movies, everything he'd amassed over the years. Sitting on the floor of his closet, she found herself crying again at a couple of unsent letters, ones he'd penned after their falling-out in seventh year. It had pained both of them, but it was the only way to go. There was no way an Auror and a Death Eater could be friends. It hurt beyond anything to let him go. Back then it felt like she had been letting him go for good. But now there was no way she could get him back, even if she wanted to.
Hazel stood in the middle of the living room, sorting out piles of books. She was in Muggle clothes, her wand tucked into her ponytail as she worked. There was music on in the background, but she was hardly paying attention. She paused as she reached a well-worn copy of Advanced Potion Making, one of the ones he had annotated and used in class every year. She leafed through it sadly, adding it to the smaller pile on her left. It was what she found behind the book that stopped her.
There, hidden behind a bunch of old Potions textbooks, was another album full of photos. She took it over to the well-worn sofa and gingerly began to flip through it. There she found all of their school years: the first trip to Hogsmeade they'd gone on together (when Pandora had just gotten her camera), every winter ball, a couple of blurry photos of Sev, Hazel, Pandora, Xeno, and Marlene out on the lawn. A few of the photos didn't move. They were regular Muggle photos taken on trips to the sea or to see her aunt and uncle in Sussex or to the Continent over summers. The photos of their seventh year tapered off until the last one they'd taken together at the winter ball when she discovered he really had committed to becoming a Death Eater.
There were a few drawings in there of her from far away, sketches she could tell were from after they had gone their separate ways. And then the photos came back. The first Halloween party she had been back for, when Dumbledore brandished a camera and made all of the professors take a picture together. Valentine's Day, when Dumbledore had thrown a party for the staff. And then they started appearing in photos together again, just the two of them. One from the Yule Ball. A short vacation they took to the coast, one of the rare photos she'd gotten of him in Muggle clothes. A photo, half obscured by Hagrid's thumb, of the two of them in his garden. Hagrid had been trying to take a photo of his prize pumpkins when they wandered down to his garden to gather potion ingredients.
Hazel sat on the ground, leafing through the album. Her stomach dropped as she realized what the last few pages were for. It was going to be a gift when - "Engagement photos here," Hazel mumbled, reading what he had scrawled on the last few pages. She put a hand to her mouth, stifling a sharp inhale. Suddenly everything was spinning out of control again. She closed the book, holding it to her chest as she tried to catch her breath. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks as she held onto the book, one of the last remnants she had of him. "Severus... Where the hell... Come back to me. You can't be... Sev..." She choked on her words, frantically wiping at her cheeks. "Please. I love you."
When the man from the Ministry arrived with the will, he confirmed everything Sev had told her in his last letter. She was to get almost everything, including the proceeds he had gotten from helping to invent the modern Wolfsbane Potion. The Ministry official had accompanied her to Gringotts, where she discovered that it was a small fortune, enough to live off of for the rest of her life. Apparently Sev and Slughorn had worked on it together, both of them splitting the prize money offered by the Ministry and the royalties for the next five years. Hazel didn't pretend to know how it worked, but it was a small comfort to know that she didn't need to return to teaching right away if she didn't want to.
It was a whirlwind day, signing all of the papers and consulting with the goblins. Ignoring the stares and the whispers she got in Diagon Alley was the least of her concerns. It took all of the strength she had, but she held herself together in the face of it all, in the face of the latest Daily Prophet headlines that had his photo splashed across the front page. By the time she locked the door behind her back in Cokeworth, she was exhausted.
Collapsing onto the well-worn sofa, she was finally alone and could let herself breathe. Sev had been vilified in the press, but they had suddenly changed tune after it was revealed that he had been working as a spy all along. It didn't stop people from whispering and it certainly hadn't made up for the onslaught of abuses and slander that they had faced in the last year and a half. It was something, though, a small comfort.
As she forced herself to clean up the house, she decided to start packing more things up. There was no way she could stay there. Sev had lived some of his worst memories there, between his parents' abuses and the slow descent into the illness that ultimately claimed his mum. That house had never been filled with love, not until she got there. His desperate attempts to wallpaper over his previous life there were sad, not sentimental. So she would be selling the house, putting the memories to rest and giving it to a family who knew nothing about the horrors that had happened there. With a little luck, they would never know who had previously lived there at all.
Taking a deep breath, Hazel leaned back on the desk, looking out over her class. Everyone waited eagerly to see what she had to say. Many of them had been her students in the past, but others signed up for the class out of curiosity - not about the subject, but about her. "You can set your books aside for a moment," she began. "For those of you who don't know me, I'm Professor Ashmore. Yes, Professor Snape and I... There was a lot he couldn't tell you. You don't have to believe me, but he was working as a spy for the Order of the Phoenix all along. He did bad things, but ultimately, he helped us win this war at great personal risk. Whatever your feelings are about that and about him, I ask that you remain respectful in my classroom." There was some murmuring in the class, but she continued. "Every single one of us has been affected by this war. We lost family, we lost friends... if any of you ever need anything, or just want to talk, you know where my office is."