Valentine's Day had never been Hazel's favorite holiday. She much preferred Halloween, when the best professors would hand out Fizzing Whizbees and other delicacies in class. Honeyduke's was always overrun on the trips right before Halloween, everyone racing to pick up the seasonal candies before they were completely sold out. The ghosts would invariably host a party, a good place to end up even if you spent most of the night at your house's party. Valentine's Day was accompanied by shockingly pink decorations in the Great Hall, the love letters that would fly into classrooms, and a general sickeningly sweet air that she disliked.

Sev never much liked it either, so they would keep their celebrations to a minimum. She'd find flowers in her classroom, and they'd set aside their books and their piles of ungraded essays to spend the evening with each other. But now that he was gone, she sat alone in her office, morosely flipping through essays on boggarts. Pomona had invited her to the Hufflepuffs' party, but there was no way she could bring herself to go. The Hufflepuffs were the only ones who threw a Valentine's Day party, working with the House Elves to make cookies and decorations for everyone. They tried to make everyone feel special and appreciated, even if they didn't have special plans for the holiday. Hazel would've gone, but every time she thought of the paper hearts that covered the Hufflepuff common room she felt like she was going to be sick.

Without warning, one particularly good line in a fifth-year's essay brought tears to her eyes. It wasn't anything special, but it reminded her of something that had stuck in her head since her own fifth year, before Sev had almost died in the Shrieking Shack.

"It's the most haunted building in Britain." Hazel had dragged Sev to see the Shrieking Shack, since he had never properly explored Hogsmeade. He'd gone to buy things, of course, but without a decent group of friends to show him around, he'd only adventured to where the Slytherins hung out. The two of them stood in the snow, watching the building as if something was going to happen. "It goes quiet for a while, but then it starts up again. No one's figured out a pattern," she lied, thinking of Remus, "but it's been here forever."

"Maybe it has something to do with the people who are afraid of it, like how a boggart - maybe it imitates whatever people are afraid of, so we just think it's haunted by something evil," he suggested, staring at the dilapidated building. "Once you know it's a boggart - once you know it isn't really what scares you - it's fine."

"Well if you're bold enough to go up there, fine, but I'm not exploring it," she shrugged. "And I really wouldn't go at night."

"Why not?"

"You can't see anything, of course!"

The crunch of footsteps in snow made them spin around. Remus had found them. "Hey Hazel. Snape," he nodded. Out of the four of them, Lupin was the one Sev hated the least. Remus turned back to Hazel almost immediately, giving her a warm hug. "The guys and I were headed to The Three Broomsticks, if you want to come with."

"Umm, I was showing Sev around. We might pop by later, but I don't think it's the best idea if we all go."

Remus lowered his voice, Sev pretending to study the map of Hogsmeade he'd been holding. "You know what he's like. There's a reason we're not friends with him."

"Yeah, it's name is James Potter. Or Sirius Black, take your pick," she shot back. "He's always been nice to me."

"Yeah, you're the great-something-niece of Rowena Ravenclaw, of course he's nice to you." Hazel crossed her arms, Remus dropping the hostility in his voice. "Look, I'm going to drop into Scrivenshaft's and Honeyduke's later, once the guys have gone to check out the new brooms at Spintwitches'. Why don't you meet me over there? You can bring him with if you want."

"Yeah, um, maybe. We'll see. I'll see you later, okay?"

That wasn't their biggest fight about Sev by far. The little disagreements turned into bigger ones, and though she would never admit it, Sev was what drove a wedge into their relationship. They'd split up one evening in sixth year when, spurred on by the stress of impending exams, Remus had remarked that Sev was Death Eater material and he was only friends with her to get into the Pureblood crowd. And that he was sure Sev was in love with her. Hazel had tearfully closed her book, swept everything into her arms, and told him that it was over. It was a long time coming, what with his friends adamantly hating Sev and Hazel insisting that he was only friends with the Slytherin crowd she didn't trust because he had no one else. She'd tried to introduce him to her friends, and they got along fine, but the Gryffindors didn't trust him and the Ravenclaws never got that close with him.

Hazel set her quill down, thinking back to the night when she had run up to Astronomy Tower, still crying as she dropped her books in front of Sev, who had been carefully brewing a silver liquid in an equally silvery cauldron. It was one of the few times he'd hugged her before their seventh year. After that they studied together almost exclusively, unless she had a major exam coming up in a class that the Ravenclaws and Slytherins weren't in together or in a N.E.W.T. class he wasn't taking. She looked to the rose hovering over the corner of her desk. She'd found the last one he'd left her in the rubble of her classroom and enchanted it so it wouldn't wilt. It was the last gift he'd given her, the day before the battle that had claimed him. She stood, thinking she would walk down to the makeshift grave she'd set up by the edge of the forest. She didn't get far.

The classroom door opened, McGonagall stepping inside. "I thought I would find you here. Are you going to Pomona's party?"

"No, I don't think so," Hazel sighed.

Minerva gave her a sad half-smile. "When I first lost my husband, it felt like the world had fallen out from beneath my feet. Continuing to teach... You really are a strong one. I would've been proud to have you in Gryffindor."

"Thank you. It hasn't been easy. I knew it was just a matter of time. We both did. The war was closing in on us." She paused, trying to keep herself collected. "I knew that he knew he probably wasn't going to make it. Neither of us wanted to believe it, though."

McGonagall nodded sympathetically, offering her the slightest sliver of hope. "His portrait still refuses to move. Filius looked at it again, and he has no idea why. He reanimated all of the others that had been damaged, but the charm won't work on Severus. The Charms Master wouldn't make a mistake."

"He's dead, Minerva. Harry saw him die."

"We both know that things aren't always what they seem. Like the bat and the bird that would appear around Astronomy Tower when you two were in school. Though I'm sure you wouldn't know anything about that," she smiled slyly.

"And I'm sure you wouldn't know anything about the cat that would hide in the shadows of Astronomy Tower every so often, keeping an eye on us," Hazel smiled. "I'll tell you what, I'll meet you at the party. I'm only staying for a little while, but first I have to go wish a gravestone a happy Valentine's Day."

On her way out of the castle, she ran into someone she hadn't seen in a while. Since the Battle of Hogwarts, plenty of new ghosts had taken up residence in the castle. Some were afraid to move on. Others wanted to see a younger sibling or a child graduate. A couple still hadn't accepted that they really were dead. The older ghosts had taken to keeping them company, helping them adjust to being ghosts or helping them move on if they had inadvertently gotten stuck. The woman was drifting away from her, but Hazel called out, jogging over to where she floated. "Aunt Helena!"

Much more ancient than an aunt, the Grey Lady had been friends with Hazel since her first year, when her mum had told her about their ghostly relative. "Hello there," Helena Ravenclaw smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, but I still haven't found him. I've ventured out to the Shrieking Shack, and... it's very odd. Usually ghosts can tell where someone died, even if they moved on. There's a shadowy imprint of a life taken too soon, like the air itself was frightened. I cannot sense it there."

Hazel nodded. She'd been asking Helena about Sev for months now. He hadn't been found amongst the new ghosts, and Hazel searched all of the places he would have hidden in the castle. "Would you be able to tell if someone was about to die... and then they moved?"

"No, I'm sorry. It is possible they took him, but if Harry Potter said that he was with him when it happened... It is a little more than odd. Someone saw him die, but there is no imprint of it... unless he didn't actually die."

"There. He could've died somewhere else, if they came back for him and..."

"The portrait in Professor McGonagall's office has yet to move," Helena reminded her. Hazel checked up on it once a week, and McGonagall kept her updated even more frequently. The bits and pieces of evidence were starting to stack up and make it seem like Sev had lived, but it was impossible. Harry had seen him die. No one could survive an attack like that. He'd given Harry all of his memories of Lily. There was no way he was still alive. No one could have pulled that off. No one other than him.