(Warnings: character death, blatant slash implications and general angst)

Serenity, Sorrow and Sincerity

The small stained glass window shone down on him. The colours were bright and lurid, like the last slice of some shattered rainbow, or a blotchy hummingbird's wing. But the colour seemed to just seep straight through him. Harry wondered what it all meant.

-----

Minerva watched Harry with a quiet unease. The boy was sat at the front of the church, his back stiff, staring straight forward. The ceremony had been over for the past ten minutes, but Harry still hadn't stirred. He had been the first to arrive this morning. He hadn't wanted to speak. He just wanted to sit and observe, with tensed limbs and raw eyes.

Sighing, Minerva turned to look at Albus, who was sat with his hands clasped, gazing at Harry with the same discomfort as she was. She sighed again. The Dark Lord had been defeated, but at what cost? There were many casualties of the war, but the one they were here to mourn today was that of Professor Severus Snape.

His death had been dignified, Minerva repeated in her head, as if that made it better. He had been fighting valiantly. So many Death Eaters were dispelled at his wand-tip. But one Killing Curse from Voldemort and it was all over. He fell in a whoosh of black robes. There was a nauseating crack as he hit the floor, his hair splayed all over his face. Yet it could not cover the emptiness in his black, dead eyes…

Minerva shuddered at the memory. Minutes later, the Dark Lord was killed by Harry's wand, but the boy found no pleasure at finally being free of the treachery and darkness that had loomed in the wizarding world for over a decade. His green eyes, so like his mother's, were rested on Snape's lifeless form. Minerva knew that Harry Potter had been in love with Severus Snape. Their tentative relationship had been the subject of much staffroom gossip, and with good reason.

Severus gradually changed during the first few month he spent with Harry. Gone was the anger that heated his voice for no reason sometimes, and the violent way he used a quill to mark an exceptionally bad piece of homework also seemed to subdue. There was also an air about him; something tranquil and serene. Probably happiness. Minerva hadn't seen anything remotely like that in Severus for a very, very long time. Not since…well, never mind that.

Severus Snape had loved Harry Potter; that was something else Minerva was sure of. Severus was never as open about his feelings as Harry was, but, well, it was enough.

But now he was dead. Minerva sighed.

The few people who had come to his funeral hadn't left yet, even though the coffin had already been spelled to the Snape family crypt. They didn't seem to want to leave before Harry did. Albus got silently to his feet and swept towards the front of the building. He placed a hand on Harry's shoulder and whispered something. The boy…the man nodded silently and got to his feet. The rest of the room seemed to take that as a cue to make their way back to Hogwarts. And so that it what they did. Minerva got to her feet, walking just a few steps in front of Harry and Albus, the headmaster's hand upon his shoulder the whole way back up to school.

-----

Harry sat in a chair, staring into the fire. The flames danced and crackled, but Harry didn't seem to see them. It was beginning to hurt his head, so he looked away. The small congregation, mostly comprised of the Hogwarts faculty, talked in a quiet buzz around him. There were a few faces that Harry did not recognise, but not many. Most of Severus' former acquaintances were Death Eaters, and were therefore dead or in Azkaban. And Severus didn't have friends much; he was a solitary sort of man. Dumbledore explained to Harry that a couple of the unknown faces were people from the Ministry that Severus had known a little. Harry surveyed the room to get a better look at them. There was one taking to Madam Hooch and Professor Flitwick, another with Professor Sinistra, and…

Suddenly Harry gasped. His breath caught in his throat and his chest constricted sharply.

Talking to Dumbledore, with their back to Harry, was a very tall someone with long black hair and heavy, black robes. A pale, bony hand flicked about sombrely as they spoke. Harry leapt to his feet and ran across the room. Severus!

"Aah, Harry." Dumbledore said quietly as Harry approached, "I'd like you to meet someone."

Harry turned to look at Severus. Only it wasn't Severus. They weren't quite tall enough, and the black hair was longer and clean. Harry's heart sank. The pale face turned towards him.

And Harry's breath caught in his throat again.

Beady black eyes, exactly like Severus' shone from where they sat inside a very pale face that had the same delicate bone-structure as his dead lover. The forehead was just as high, the cheekbones just as prominent, the face just as thin. But it wasn't Severus.

The face was unmistakably female.

It was sickening. It was like looking at his Severus again, only someone had perverted the face that Harry had loved. The eyes were larger, too large to sit comfortably in that face. Her nose seemed to ignore the fact that it should be hooked, as if it had been broken but never quite healed properly. It was too straight and too long to be the nose that Harry had kissed countless times. There was a vague plumpness around the cheeks of the otherwise lean face, and there was a dark red lipstick smeared over the slightly more full lips. The eyebrows were plucked and neat, and she was wearing mascara. Even her form seemed different beneath the heavy black robes so like those of Severus. Her body was clearly full and rounded; breasts and hips and the curve of her belly. A far cry from Severus' skeletal form. She was younger too. Early thirties at the most. Still considerably older than Harry, though.

"Harry, I'd like to introduce you to Sincerity Snape." Dumbledore said, indicating the woman who was wearing his lover's face all wrong.

"His daughter." she explained at Harry's surprised look. Her voice was quiet and hoarse. But it was very different from Severus'

Harry nodded. Severus had explained to Harry that he had been married before. When he was young. To a Death Eater. They'd had a child. His wife was killed not a year later by the Aurors. He'd never loved her. But he'd loved his child. That child had been sent to live overseas with people that Dumbledore had known, to keep her away from all the horror and the hate that came with Voldemort's reign. He wrote to her often and visited her once a year. The subject clearly upset Severus, so Harry had said no more about it.

He just hadn't expected her to look so much like her father.

"I've asked Sincerity to be the new Potions Mistress here." Dumbledore said. Harry's gaze shot to the headmaster as if to say 'What?' "I know it seems a rush Harry, but the new school term starts soon." Dumbledore explained hurriedly.

Harry turned his gaze down to the floor, and walked back over to his chair in front of the fire. He was painfully aware that everyone in the room was watching him. Including the woman wearing his lover's face. Sincerity.

Minutes passed, and the firelight began to give Harry and headache again, when he felt a presence by his side. Thinking it was Dumbledore, he looked up to tell the man to leave him alone. He nearly jumped when he saw Severus looking down on him. Then he blinked and saw it was Sincerity.

"Harry." She said quietly, "We've got to work together. You're the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, so you can't just ignore me." She breathed in, "I'm sorry I look like my father, but you can't hold that against me. It's not my fault."

"I know." Harry mumbled, looking at her feet. She really was very tall.

"I know what was between you and my father. He wrote to me to tell me about you. He was happy, and he loved you. I think I should be thanking you; you made him happy for the first time in years." She presented her words in the same way her father would've done; each syllable perfectly pronounced. Harry wanted to say something, to thank her, to say her sentiments were admirable. But he just nodded.

She moved to walk away, but Harry finally found his voice before she could leave:

"Why didn't you speak at the funeral?"

"I thought you were going to." She said quietly, and then she left. Harry stared into the fire again, wondering what it all meant.

-----

Harry found his grief, still fresh and achingly tender, beginning to ebb as the new school term drew closer and work began to keep him busy. He didn't think about Severus every second, but he thought about him every minute. It was a step in the right direction, Harry supposed. His mind began to clear slowly, so he could completely bury himself in his work, preparing to teach about the Unforgivable Curses and banshees and werewolves and vampires to students who would only want to hear about how he killed Voldemort. Harry didn't want to talk about that. It was too close to the memory…

Before the funeral, Harry had taken sanctuary in the dungeons. It was quiet down there, and it smelt like Severus. But now, of course, Sincerity was down there nearly all the time. He could hear a cauldron sizzling away whenever he passed there and, just for a moment, his heart would leap into his throat and memory would confuse with reality and it really could've been Severus down there. But of course it never was. And the thought passed as quickly as it came.

He never saw Sincerity if he could avoid it, and he usually could. She spent a lot of time in the dungeons, he spent a lot of time in his office. He ate in his chambers quite often, avoiding the Great Hall like the plague. Too noisy with too many sympathetic eyes. Harry hated to think what the start of school would be like, but at least the eyes would be full of curious amazement and not sympathy. No one could pity the Boy Who Lived and then Killed Voldemort. On the occasions when he chose to eat with the staff, who were returning to Hogwarts in growing numbers each day, Sincerity was seldom there. Sometimes she would wander in just as Harry was finishing his meal, but usually not.

But Harry knew he couldn't keep this up once the term began. So he resolved to stop intentionally avoiding Sincerity. It was for the best.

-----

Another year of first years. Another year of students craning their necks to see his scar. Another year of Gryffindors and Slytherins learning to take their house rivalry as far as they could without getting detention. And Harry was glad for their company. Shouting at disobedient first years certainly took his mind of Severus.

But it was hard, to begin with. When he heard someone shouting "Professor Snape!" as they jogged down the hall, it was hard not to turn and look for Severus. He did that several times before he realised that Sincerity was stood six feet away. It always hurt.

Even so, the swing of school life, the repetitive timetables, the steady pace of life at Hogwarts was helpful. Routine was healing. The trick was to keep breathing.

-----

"Sincerity?"

"Harry?" Sincerity looked up from the cauldron, surprised to see Harry in the dungeons. He liked to avoid talking to her if he could. She'd noticed; she wasn't stupid. "What brings you down here?"

"I just…I wanted to watch you…you know…work." Harry stumbled. She stared at him with beady black eyes that were not her own. "I just really missed him."

"Have a seat." She nodded. She understood.

Harry sat down on a stool, very near where Draco Malfoy used to sit. He got out his third year essays on dispelling Boggarts. And he watched her.

Despite everything, it was surprising how very much like her father she was when she worked. Harry may have been more surprised by this than by her Severus-like appearance. The fluid grace with which she stirred the cauldron, the way she seemed to know which bottles were which without looking at them, the swift way in which she could measure out what she needed seemingly without having to check the scales. It could've been Severus himself in front of him. Except, of course, it wasn't. But Harry could see why Dumbledore hired her. There was no one more fitting for the job.

"You work like he did." Harry had to say it. He knew she would take it was a compliment rather than a reproach.

"Mmm. I know. I was his apprentice." She said distractedly as she watched the liquid come to boil.

"Really?" Harry grabbed for another Boggart essay.

"Yes. When I was young he schooled me over the summer. He wanted me to have proper foundations in Potions and Defence against the Dark Arts. I was always better at Potions. When I grew up a bit he took me on as an apprentice of sorts. He said he taught me everything he knew. I know he didn't." She had a faint fond sort of smile on her lipstick-covered mouth for a moment, before it vanished to be replaced with a look of concentration. "He was so much better at this than I am."

"What are you making?"

"Veritaserum." She said without looking up. She sprinkled a very small amount of silver powder in. "It's almost done. I've been maturing it for a good moon-cycle now. It should be ready."

"How do you test it?"

"I don't need to. Only Veritaserum is clear like water." She said calmly, "Although, I could always give you some and see what happens." She smirked. Not quite the sneer that would've suited her face. His face.

Come to think of it, most of Sincerity's features were not quite suited to her face. Her eyes were too big. Her nose was too long and otherwise unremarkable. Where Severus had been striking, Sincerity seemed to be lacking. Maybe it was her age; caught somewhere in between young and old. Sometimes she seemed to be around the same age as Harry, other times she made him feel like a child. Harry shook his head and concentrated on her face again. She wasn't especially attractive, but she wasn't ugly either. And she didn't look too ordinary; she was just…different.

Entirely unaware of Harry's observations, Sincerity carefully ladled the liquid out of the cauldron into a squat little bottle she had standing by, labelled in big loopy handwriting. It was clearer than crystal, even in the muted dungeon light. Harry thought she'd done herself proud.

"Why did you need Veritaserum? Surely there isn't much use for it nowadays?" Harry said, quill poised carefully over the essay.

"Oh, you'd be surprised. After all, I am head of the Slytherins." She smiled. Harry smiled back. "Anyway Harry, it was a pleasure talking to you, but I fear I must retire for the night. I have the Gryffindor and Slytherin sixth years tomorrow, first thing. And both the Quidditch captains are in that class." She shook her head. "Goodnight."

"Yeah, Night." Harry got to his feet.

When he left the room he realised that he hadn't missed Severus like he usually did while he had been talking to Sincerity. Harry walked back to his chambers wondering what it all meant.

-----

Harry soon formed an uneasy little friendship with Sincerity, and spent a lot of time with her in the dungeons, watching her work. He began to notice little things about her. Comforting things. Things that made her different from Severus.

He began to notice that she was a lot dressier than her father had been. Her heavy wool robes were lined with either cream or charcoal silk. Her dress robes were covered with small, delicately embroidered roses around the collar and the cuffs. Most of her robes were tailored, cinching her waist. Her cloak was made from fur and her hats had fake, black flowers along the brim. She wore high heels too, which gave her that intimidating tallness.

There was a slight kink in her black hair. Harry suspected that it might once have been wavy, before the smog from the cauldrons she spent hours stooped over made it limp and brittle. And when she was teaching, pouring her scorn over her students as seemed to be a Snape family characteristic, she wasn't just sarcastic; she very nearly belittled them. It was almost cruel.

And, although these differences, so subtle that they had been almost invisible to Harry at first, still seemed like perversions of his lover, he was glad of them. He stopped getting Sincerity and Severus mixed up when he glanced her out of the corner of his eye. His heart got caught in his throat much less often now.

-----

Harry was down in Sincerity's dungeon again one night. It had been hard to get into the habit of referring to the dungeon as Sincerity's, and Harry still resented calling it that. But he learnt to live with it, much like how he learnt to live with Sincerity. Harry was marking first year essays on banshees; quite a few of them were extraordinarily bad. Sincerity was making a potion, as usual. They never usually spoke much; Harry usually just liked to watch her, but today Sincerity seemed to have something to say.

"I was clearing out the cupboards this evening."

"What?" Harry's head shot up from where he was correcting a sentence that stated that banshees feared sunlight. The reason for his alarm was that Sincerity now occupied Severus' quarters.

"Mmm." She crushed some fairy-wings with her hands and sprinkled them into the cauldron, "Yes. I found some things that I thought you might like. An old Sneakoscope and some clothes and sketches and things."

"Oh." Harry couldn't quite keep the bitterness from his tone, "Why were you clearing out the cupboards?" he chose a safe topic and hoped the anger would ebb.

"I'm running out of space. I think I'll have to stay away from Madam Malkins for a bit." She stirred the cauldron anti-clockwise three times with a violent jerk of her elbow, "And I was looking for any potions or recipes that father might have saved. I like to make things to his specifications; he was terribly good at what he did."

"Hn." Harry grunted without looking up from the essay he was marking. The topic had come back to Severus. "You should've left everything where it was." The hostility was still in his voice.

He heard heels clacking crisply against the stone floor, echoing round the small room. He jumped when a thin, pallid hand crashed down on the table. His neck cracked as his head jerked up to look at Sincerity.

"Stop being pathetic." She hissed, "And come down off that fucking high horse you seem to be living on at the moment." There was a sourness in her voice that would've made her father proud, "Do you think this is easy for me? My father is dead! It's not just you who's suffering. So cut this righteous anger immediately, before you piss me off even more."

"I…" Harry was shocked and ashamed. He hadn't actually considered Sincerity's feelings. She just always seemed so calm, so cold. Another Snape trait. "Sincerity, I…I'm sorry."

"I should hope so too." she snarled, forehead still furrowed in rage. Her face was very close to his; an intimidation tactic Severus had used many times. But Harry had seen it so often that it failed to scare him anymore.

And that face was so close…

Harry didn't know what he was thinking when he kissed her travesty of a mouth.

-----

Harry knew that things would change after that. For better or worse he could not say. When Harry had first reached up and cautiously kissed Severus, everything changed overnight. Harry knew that it would be the same with Sincerity. Only different.

Different because he didn't want this.

He wanted Severus.

-----

Harry stood by the Great Lake, staring at the tiny plates of silver that were sitting on the still, glassy water. The reflection of the stars. There was no moon tonight, so the darkness was thick and leaden. The only real light was the dusky orange glow that spilled out from some of the castle windows. Everything smelt warm and hazy and wet, like the perfect summer's night.

It occurred to Harry that it had nearly been a year since Severus had died.

He heard a trudging coming up behind him. The movement was laboured and difficult. It was stumbling and slipping. Like someone trying to walk over wet grass in high heels.

"Sincerity."

"Harry."

"I should probably explain."

"You probably should."

Harry turned around. She stood there, in the gloom, looking like him. Wearing a parody of his face. Harry felt sick. Her expression was closed, almost guarded; just the way Severus had worn it. Harry thought he might actually wretch. She was wearing her fur cloak; it made her shoulders seem wider and her neck shorter. A little less like him. Harry wasn't sure, but her hair might've been in a ponytail. He couldn't see for the coat. Her breathing was slow, permeating the still night with a murmur of soft, unnecessary noise.

"Sincerity, I didn't…I mean…" Harry took in a long gulp of air.

"Just say it, Harry." She said in static, cool tones, "I'm not my father."

"No," Harry agreed, "You're not."

Sincerity turned and walked back up to the castle, leaving Harry stood on the edge of the lake wondering what it all meant.

The End.