I don't own Harry Potter.
This story is a direct sequel to "Forward To The Past".
It's been nine years now.
Nine years his scar no longer hurt. Nine years since the final battle against Voldemort. Nine years since life has returned to normal without the threat of darkness.
Celebration Day, Victory Day...
Nine years since the deaths of all the war victims.
Nine years in which the boy who lived, who became to a man who still alive, made it a point to visit the lonely graves of those who fell in the war.
He owed it to them.
When he was a kid, he saw everything black or white, good or bad. Looking back, he was so innocent. Nothing in life was that simple.
Why does victory taste so bitter?
The world saw him as a hero, but he knew he didn't do more for the world than others. He landed the final blow, but so many before him prepared the ground for it...
Seven years he came here loyally, sometimes alone, sometimes with his friends or Ginny. Last year he took his newborn son here. It was not a place for children, but he wanted to instill in his son from the very beginning, liqueur the history and sacrifices of people, even those he did not know.
That's why he named him the two people who sacrificed their all lives just to protect others.
And now he came alone again.
He looked gloomily around him. No. There was no black or white. Happiness was touched by sorrow, the hope with pain.
Hiding his son was the only way he could protect him, he knew, no matter how painful it was to separate him.
He rose to his knees near his godfather's empty grave and walked slowly to Dumbledore's.
He had no words to offer, and still, he had too many things to say.
There were times when he resented, some blamed, some begged for understanding and times he could just thank.
Now he felt tired. Not a word came to his tongue to say to the dead around him.
Here, surrounded by tombstones that emphasize the past, life seemed like something far away. His own continuity has been planted somewhere in the past...
He shook his head and passed measured steps across a long line of tombs, stopping only at the last tomb, a short distance from the others.
The place was deserted and dark, the silence through it was heavy and seemed even suffocating.
No chirping, no live sound, just flat moonlight.
That's why he was so surprised to feel a quiet presence behind him.
As a matter of fact, as a auror, he would have been ashamed to admit the amount of time he needed, before realizing that fact.
The old woman stood in the shadows, the long coat on which she had blended into the monotonous background, and the pallor of her shaded face gave her a sickly and haunted look.
Harry didn't know how long she had been there. She didn't talk, didn't move. Her dark eyes are fixed on the gloomy grave behind the young man.
After a long time, the woman's onyx eyes turned toward him, her thin lips curving into a kind of crooked smile. "That's not what you expected when you left him, is that?"
Her words came out in short gasps, her voice squeaking slightly, as if it had been too long since it was used.
It was evident that the woman had seen better days, age and means did their own, and it was hard for Harry to shrug off the idea that this was exactly the kind of creepy witch described in the Muggle children's literature.
He turned his head slightly at her, "Sorry?"
The witch exhaled slightly. "Did you expect everything to end like that, when you left him?" She asked again, making sure to say each word slowly, as if she was talking to a particularly difficult person.
What was the woman talking about? Did she mean about leaving the professor in the Shrieking Shack to be wallow in his own blood? Was she obnoxious to her that he did not reach out to help as the man breathed his last souls, taking only the silver memories from his hands?
Did she mean he could have been saved?
As she read his thoughts, the woman added, "In the first time."
Harry blinked slightly, "What?" He asked, knowing that it only increases the woman's impression of him.
His eyes surveyed her behind the glass. Her appearance was familiar, he saw her as he watched the memoirs that enabled victory in the war. Now she seemed even more neglected and subservient, it seemed that the years away from her husband, too, did not go well with her.
"Are you Eileen Snape?"
The woman's lips curved, although the expression on her face was far from smiling, contempt was a more appropriate title.
"So you know, eh?"
Harry was surprised at the words' aggression. Was she mad at him?
"I'm sorry, I really didn't know what I could do, I didn't even know he was on our side then..."
Eileen raised her eyebrows unimpressed. "In the first time." She repeated. She looked at him and let out a chuckle, "Though, this was probably the last time for you."
Harry felt embarrassed. "I do not understand..."
The old woman shook her head. "Great Harry Potter. Who would have believed it? Did all the news really be a celebrity bluff?"
He didn't like the sound. The words were too similar to those her son had plunged into him, so many years ago.
Harry decided it was time to slip away, the woman seemed insane and he really didn't feel ready for old charges at the moment.
"Mrs. Snape, I'm sorry, but I have to go now..."
Barely he could take two steps, when her words had stopped him.
"I respected your request. I raised him as best I could, called him by the name you gave."
Harry froze, still slowly moving around and turned to look at the woman again. "The name I gave..?"
A small nod, a haunted smile on his lips. "Isn't that the name you gave him? 'His name's Severus...' at the last moment adds the information that was most important to you. Am I wrong?"
Harry's eyes widened steadily, "S... Severus..?" Whispered without a voice.
Mrs. Snape continued as she was just waiting to pour her speech.
"Was that the only way to protect him? Did you expect things to roll out? To lead a child straight to the Dark Lord's ascension, to win from within, was that your goal?"
When his eyes were already the size of plates, the young man wiped his lips dryly, "No..." he whispered.
No.
How can it be?
"No? And if it wasn't for him, the results of the war would have been very different."
A punch was less shocking to the green-eyed man. It couldn't be.
His lips moved voicelessly, and perhaps better, since he had no idea what he could say now.
"Truth will always be better than any beautiful lie, and even so, we are forced to live with the choices we made." Eileen's voice was quiet, but her words sounded too good on the dark night. "That's what he did," her head leaned slightly toward the white marble tombstone, "all his life."
Harry swallowed with a sore throat, a terrible malaise on his body suddenly.
Their eyes intersected, green meets black. Her voice was no more than a whisper, but for him it was enough.
"It's now your turn to live with yours."
The words continued to resonate long after he went to bed that evening.
How can living with a choice that leaves you feeling so dead?
How can he fix something that already end?
So early it has become too late.
It was the best choice...
It was a pure attempt to defend.
But the act left a bitter taste in his mouth.
A/N: After writing, I always have a feeling I should have done better. Unfortunately, I have no idea how...
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you for reading.
Hope you liked it!