Author's Note: This chapter is the more detailed version of the sixth scenario from chapter one, the death at the beginning of the Battle of Hogwarts. Enjoy!

In one world, a world that might have been, Severus Snape died in the corridors of Hogwarts at the age of thirty-eight, cut down as he tried to flee without harming his old colleagues. In this world, when a duel broke out between Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall the night Harry Potter returned to Hogwarts, it did not end with the Potions Master fleeing into the night, shaken but unharmed. In this world, Severus Snape's reactions came just a little too slowly as he fought to defend himself without causing injury to the woman who had once been almost a friend. When the Transfiguration Mistress sent a swarm of daggers shooting down the hall towards him, Severus Snape's attempt to shield himself came too late. The daggers, which in another world might have been stopped by a suit of armor flung into their path, in this world hit home, sinking deep into the chest of Severus Snape. For a moment all were simply frozen in shock; no one had quite expected that he wouldn't be able to block the spell. As the blood poured from his wounds, the Potions Master desperately reached out a pleading hand towards the horrified Minerva McGonagall. She knelt by his side, finding herself unable in that moment to ignore his pleas, his dying wish, however evil she may have believed him to be. Weakly he whispered the words, forcing them out through bloody lips, begging her to catch his flowing memories and bring them to the Boy Who Lived, to watch them immediately. He forced out an apology with his final breath, trailing off before he could finish, lying suddenly still amid the spreading pool of blood.

In this world, it was both Minerva McGonagall and Harry Potter who viewed the memories of Severus Snape, leaving his body lying in the corridor, face hastily covered by his own bloody robes, to run for the pensieve in the headmaster's office. Both were shaken by what he had just done, what he had just witnessed, and neither questioned their instincts to watch the memories as soon as possible, to try to understand just what information could be so important that the dying man had wanted his apparent enemies to have it on what they had all realized was the eve of battle. Professor and student watched the memories, not speaking a word while they were in the pensieve, and returning from it shaken by what they had seen. Harry Potter, unsurprisingly, was most concerned with what would apparently be his own role in the battle to come: dying at the hand of Voldemort to rid him of his last horcrux. But he was overwhelmed, as well, by all the rest as well - Snape had loved his mother, Snape was on their side, Snape was dead...it was too much to take in. For Minerva McGonagall, she simply could not allow herself to dwell on any of it. At a later point she would allow herself time to grieve, allow herself to feel the horror at what she had done, not killing an enemy as she had believed, but a man who had been on her own side. Later she could try to come to terms with everything she had seen, but not then, with the Death Eaters approaching and the school still filled with innocent school children who she had a duty to protect. If either of them had been watching the memories alone, they very well may have remained there, standing in shocked silence before the headmaster's pensieve, but they grounded each other, each suddenly reminded that there was much that needed to be done if they were to have any hope of getting anyone through the battle.

Harry Potter went off to finish what he had originally come to do - to find and destroy the diadem of Ravenclaw, the last horcrux aside from Nagini and, as he now knew, himself. He told neither Ron Weasley nor Hermione Granger about what he had seen, keeping the knowledge to himself. They would only have tried to stop him, and he knew now that there was no other way to win. Minerva McGonagall went her own way, to rally the school, call for backup, do her best to shore up the castle's defenses and get its youngest students to safety. In this world, when Voldemort called for Harry Potter to come to him by midnight to avoid a battle, the Boy Who Lived heeded his call. Leaving his friends to deal with the diadem horcrux, and after giving them instructions to kill Voldemort's snake before attempting to kill the dark wizard himself, Harry Potter slipped away and walked out to die before the battle could even begin. The Dark Lord may have been surprised to see his foe so readily present himself for death, but he did not allow that to impact his actions. The curse was cast, and Harry Potter fell in a burst of green light. In this world there was no captive Hagrid to carry out the presumed dead body to flaunt before the defenders of Hogwarts, and instead he was simply levitated before the Dark Lord himself, before being laid down at Voldemort's feet.

In this world Minerva McGonagall was not taken by surprise upon seeing Harry Potter dead, though she was no less grief stricken, for she had already known that this was, had to be, part of the plan. The slight forewarning allowed her to react before anyone else had overcome their shock, and in this world it was she who pulled the sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and used it to kill Nagini. There was a sudden surge of motion, as those from both sides tried to react to what had happened, and duels broke out across the Hogwarts lawns. But the confusion lasted only moments before all eyes were drawn to a duel beginning at the center of the crowd. For Harry Potter had stood up, clearly not dead, and challenged the Dark Lord to what would clearly be the defining battle of the war. In this world as in others, it was Harry Potter, rather than Voldemort, who was the true master of the Elder Wand at that time, and the duel ended as it was destined to, with the Dark Lord dead and the Boy Who Lived victorious. The minor fighting continued for some time; rounding up the remaining Death Eaters was no easy task, and there were no few casualties taken on both sides before it was all over, though many fewer than if there had been a full scale battle fought in the castle. As the survivors began to gather their dead and wounded and begin the process of recovery, two figures stood together before a single body. The Dark Lord was dead, the war was won, but the Chosen One and the new Headmistress of Hogwarts would never forget what they had done to the man they had not realized was their ally. In this world, where the death of Severus Snape was a mistake, these were its consequences.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! This is the final chapter of The Deaths that Might Have Been, but I will soon be posting the first chapter of my next work, The Victories that Might Have Been, which will follow another set of paths that could have resulted from these same starting scenarios, with very different results.