The gray morning gloom disappeared into the sorrowful dawn. The new day dawned and brought with it an encounter with the inevitable condemnation of others. A collision with one's own revived fears, unwanted meetings, and another road without an end. He had lost his aim somewhere in the middle of the path and now wandered senselessly with little concern for the final destination. As he had expected, that evening his small house with three rooms, a guest bedroom given over to a library, a kitchen where apples and pears or herbs were always drying, and blue smoke curling from a red-brick chimney was visited by Minerva.
He opened the door for her, glanced indifferently at the strict emerald-colored cloak, and noted deep wrinkles and eyes red from tears. He stepped back inside, letting the headmistress and faithful friend through his darkest days into the house.
"Severus, how could it even be possible?" Minerva sobbed, rustling past Snape.
"If I knew that, I would certainly tell you, Headmistress."
Minerva pursed her lips, ignoring his remarks.
"Harry promised to come tomorrow. Poor boy, such a misfortune, such a loss. Two of his best friends."
Severus frowned, feeling the flames of hatred and bitter resentment rise in his chest.
"Harry, you say? Poor boy? An unfortunate lamb given up for the slaughter? Nothing has changed, Minerva, as I see it. Has our so-called friendship gone to pieces?"
"Severus, why are you doing this? I came to offer help."
"Yes, and instead you, for some reason unknown to me, dragged your wonderful boy into the conversation, once again!"
"I thought we had reached an understanding long ago, Professor Snape."
Once again, Severus felt like an eleven-year-old boy, standing guilty before the formidable headmistress. Again, so suddenly, his conscience began to speak. Asking Minerva to sit down, Snape sat down across from her and stared at the flames.
"I have no answers for you, Minerva. Our marriage happened before your eyes, and who knows, perhaps you contributed to it to a greater extent. She always listened to you, and even more so, having almost lost her parents. Therefore, I should probably thank you now..."
"Severus, I didn't come here to play the role of your conscience. I came to support you and say that I will accept any of your decisions. If you want to vacate the teaching post and leave for ends of the earth, I will understand."
Snape was silent for a long time, watching the reflections of the flame cast slanting shadows on the walls. He remembered all sorts of nonsense, which, as it once seemed to him, had no meaning at all. After the war, she became afraid of loud noises, darkness, falling from a height and, it seemed, even Hogwarts ghosts. Snape recalled how she was apprehensively huddled up to him when they happened to patrol the night corridors.
He couldn't bring himself to call her by her name. Couldn't even think it, let alone say it out loud. It seemed that her name would break the fragile haze of stupor in which he had been for the last nine hours, and he would have to accept that his wife was no longer there. He was alone again. As always.
Minerva stayed at his house for another half hour, promised to take on all the necessary preparations, and left. Snape's world was quiet again, cold, indifferent, and hopeless.
The rain rustled softly against the silvery surface of the invisible rune-covered glass. The Hospital Wing was probably the only place in Hogwarts where the security shields never needed to be updated. The students shied away from Madam Pomfrey as if she were one of the Unforgivable spells. Truthfully, the Mediwitch felt the same way about the students.
Endless abrasions that did not have time to heal, cuts from unsuccessful spells, or, too well-aimed curses. Broken bones, purple bruises, in a word, everything that she knew perfectly well when she applied for the position of a Mediwitch at Hogwarts.
She was young and inexperienced and tried to heal her broken heart with grueling work. Her husband was killed by Dragonpox a little more than a month after the wedding. This was why the newly-widowed Pomfrey decided to devote her whole life to researching this disease and not allow any more preventable deaths again.
The unsociable boy, who preferred to sit in the far corners of Hogwarts, always bothered her more than others. If everything was clear with the boys who had outplayed Quidditch and overheated in the sun, rare for Scotland, Severus always looked sullenly, skillfully hiding the pain, and running away to the Astronomical Tower. She used to go in search of him and she used to sit down next to him and make him talk to her, but Severus kept his silence, brushing off all her possible questions.
Madam Pomfrey did not insist, of course, but her sympathy for the sullen boy from the very beginning warmed her towards Severus. So, she patiently waited, went to his Tower, and persuaded him to go to bed. She brought gingerbread cookies, took him by the hand, and led him away with her to the Hospital Wing. She put him to bed and sat next to him for a long time.
It seemed that Poppy would never condemn him, therefore, when he was distraught after receiving the Dark Mark, Severus came to repent in the Hospital Wing. Minerva happened to be there too.
Severus watched blankly as the drama ensued between the two women, each in their own way responsible for him. Poppy, as expected, justified and consoled Severus, while Minerva reprimanded and threatened to tell the Headmaster everything. Poppy had to intervene again and open her friend's eyes to the death of the Potters, the Prophecy, and the true role of Severus in Dumbledore's grand plan. Minerva fell silent. Then she started a violent activity to counter the crazy schemes that coiled under her very nose.
They were like a mother and a stepmother, they consoled and punished, they were there when there was no one else left. Women came to the rescue when the men sent Severus to his death.
Severus sat in the dark and waited.
By midnight, the fireplace lit up with a green light, and Poppy entered without asking, unloaded containers with food and bottles with various potions of all kinds on the table: from Soothing Potion to Dreamless Sleep. Next, she went into the kitchen, turned on the kettle, mixed mint, lavender, valerian, and a pinch of black tea. She then set out the plates on the table and only then returned to Severus.
"Come on, my dear, there is no need for you to sit here in silence and drown yourself in your grief."
"Poppy, I don't need your advice or your-"
"Hush, Severus, you can tell me everything later. You can even yell at me and chase me away, but first, you come with me and eat whatever I put on your plate."
Severus stared at the nurse with wide eyes. Once upon a time, during a childhood immersed in pain and darkness, his mother used to bring him crackers into the attic, bought with the last of her change from a neighbor, a merchant. Crackers and sweet tea with more sugar than the tea leaves. And in these innocent gestures, his whole world was covered.
Severus desperately grabbed onto Poppy's outstretched palm with both hands and pressed his forehead against it.
"I'm with you, my boy, I'm with you. We will survive this night, and then we will see."
And he survived, of course, he had no other choice. Life never asked for his opinion, it only put him between a bad and a very bad road and made him go forward.
By noon Potter came, entered without asking, and looked at Snape in confusion.
"Why her, Professor? Why her? She was the best of us, wasn't she?"
And instead of a venomous remark bursting from his tongue, Snape suddenly froze in indecision. It was as if he had awakened from some wicked slumber in which he had been living his entire life during those few hours. He realized that he and Potter, for sure, had nothing to fight about anymore. And Harry, just like Severus, dreaded calling Hermione by her name.
"Sit down Harry. Remus should be here in an hour, so there's no point in kicking you out," Severus muttered, making an inviting gesture. Harry smiled sadly.
Hermione had been Teddie's godmother. Lupin who lost his wife in the Battle of Hogwarts should have understood Snape like no other. Snape, on the other hand, desperately wanted to share his loneliness with at least someone, even if that someone would be his long-time enemy, and now forced ally.
In the evening, Remus came, and they drunk themselves into unconsciousness, not thinking of a better way to cope with their grief. By midnight Snape went to the cemetery and stood for a long time at the marble tombstone - simple and memorable, like his wife's whole life. He lowered a bouquet of fragrant rue on the monument and stroked the golden letters:
"Hermione Jean Snape. Dear heart."