"I'll always think of you that way. I'll find you in the morning sun...and when the night is new, I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you." --'I'll Be Seeing You' from the musical 'Right This Way'
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"My father was a great man."
No one in the Great Hall moved to contradict him. They all knew it was true. Severus Snape had been one of the greatest names of modern time, along with Albus Dumbledore and those of the so-called 'Golden Trio'. All were immortals that no one imagined as doing anything so ordinary as dying. That task belonged to lesser men, people who weren't responsible for the downfall of the greatest Dark Lord of the last millennia. The idea that four of those five beings were no longer around to save the Wizarding world was vaguely terrifying, even thirty-two years after the Darkness passed.
So no one in the Great Hall interrupted the speaker who just stared at the large crowd that had gathered as if daring them to argue with him. Realizing that they weren't, he moved his gaze around the room. Gone were the five tables that he remembered so well from his years at Hogwarts, as were the brightly colored banners of the different House, replaced by rows of chairs and black cloth, respectively. The mighty hourglasses with their gemstones still stood sentry by the doors, but swathes of black silk hung off them as a sign of the funeral happening inside the room. Seeking the strength to go on, he looked to the first row of chairs. One look into his wife's startling green eyes and the words that had been trapped inside him burst out.
"I think all of us here has had my father as a teacher at some point and have learned to hate Potions because of that." A weak ripple of laughter went through the mourners. The speaker allowed a small smile to twist the ends to his mouth. "To every first year class, he would boast about what he could teach us to do with potions: brew glory, bottle fame...and even put a stopper in death." His eyes moved from his pregnant wife to his sister sitting next to her. "I know that for a long time, he blamed himself for not stopping my mother's death. I just never realized how much until very recently..."
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The bottle exploded against the hard rock of the dungeon floor the moment it hit. Severus turned immediately towards the only other person in the room. At the sight of Hermione Granger bent over double with her hands on her head, he rushed over to her side. Even before he reached her, she was falling to the ground. When the memory would later replay itself in his sleep, it was like a dramatic scene in a muggle movie, music playing in the background only to crescendo and stop when her hand hit the ground limply. It bounced once before lying still.
"No...No," came his hoarse whisper. He scooped her into his arms as the denials fell even faster from his lips. "Oh, no, no, no..."
The trip to the Hospital Ward was a blur. Severus had no idea when Eddie and Sera began to trail in his wake. All he knew was that the twins were there when Poppy took Severus' heart out of his arms and pushed him to a corner. His midnight eyes couldn't seem to move away from Hermione's paling face. Even the sheets had more color. He couldn't seem to breathe. Neither of the twins came near him, choosing instead to cling to each other. Those few minutes lasted eternities.
Then Poppy looked at him with that pitying look on her face...and he died.
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"As terrible as my mother's death was...those first few days were even worse," he continued. In the first row, his sister bowed her head. Celestine reached over and squeezed her hand. Sera raised her head to look at the blonde gratefully. From Sera's other side came another hand to offer comfort. Marguerite Granger didn't look at her niece nor did her niece look at her. The speaker watched all this before picking up where he had left off. "None of us talked to each other. I think it was just too much. Uncle Blaise had to take care of Mum's arrangements. I don't think he would have gotten through if hadn't been for Aunt Seamus." He paled. "Oh, shit--I mean...Sorry, Seamus."
Another ripple of weak laughter went through the Hall. Even Draco, who had been stoic since news of Severus Snape's death had reached him and Harry, got caught up in the wavelet. Something inside Harry loosened at the slight smile on his husband's face. Sera had tears running down her cheeks, as did many of those on the first row. The second row, mostly made up of Weasley-Longbottoms, was more subdued with their mourning. Luna Weasley-Longbottom rolled her eyes, only to be elbowed by her mother. Seamus Finnegan, his arms wrapped around his usually nonchalant lover, nodded his acceptance of the young man's apology and gestured for him to continue.
"I think I owe the last ten years that I had with my father to Uncle Harry," the young man said, taking his 'aunt' hint. "Uncle Draco and Uncle Blaise had tried and failed to get him to come out of the silence that Father had surrounded himself with, but somehow Uncle Harry succeeded where they had failed."
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"You need to be there, Severus."
The potion-maker didn't move from his seat by the fire. His dry eyes weren't even watching the dancing flames. The only reason it was lit in the first place was because the house-elves did it. Harry couldn't help but remember Hermione's crusade in fourth year to free all house-elves. How she had changed her tune when Winky showed up to help with the twins! His lips twitched until Severus' form drew his attention again.
"The funeral is today, Severus. You should be there."
Still Severus didn't respond. The professor's silence was almost as unnerving to Harry as his screams of denial had been. In a way, Severus' silence reminded the Boy-Who-Lived of how his honorary nephew was dealing with Hermione's death. Both the twins were in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, surrounded by Weasleys, Weasley-Longbottoms, Zabinis, Finnegans, and the few Malfoy-Potters that there were. But both father and son had taken to silence instead of tears to mourn. Sera, however, couldn't seem to stop crying. She would also take off with her broomstick whenever they looked the other way. The last time Harry had found her out in one of the many autumn thunderstorms that had plagued Hogwarts since Hermione's death. It had been impossible to tell what was tears and what was rain falling down the fourteen-year-old's face. The thought of the twins gave Harry an idea.
"She wanted you to take care of them...if anything ever happened to her."
Finally, there was a sign of life from the Potions professor. It was only a brief sound akin to a sob, but it was the first sound since he had stopped saying his mantra of 'no, no, no, this can't happen'. Severus' head fell forward, his hair flying to obscure his face. Despite the moisture falling into the other man's lap, Harry felt a growing hope that maybe they wouldn't loose Severus as well. He seriously thought that Seraphim couldn't bear to loose another parent. And Eddie wouldn't survive loosing Sera.
"Why me?" Tears and days without speaking thickened Severus' voice. "Why did she choose me? Why not you and Draco? Or that sister of hers that lives in America? Or Blaise and that dunderhead he lives with? Or, Merlin forbid, Longbottom and Weasley? It wasn't as if she was low on choices!"
Severus exploded from his seat and advanced on Harry. The Potions professor still towered over him. Harry's heart thudded in his chest as the thought crossed his mind that the only two people who could calm the now-raging man were gone. It was only by sheer will that he stayed still as Snape got into his face. Spittle hit Harry's face when Severus yelled again.
"SO WHY ME! I CANNOT BE A FATHER! I DON'T KNOW HOW! THEY WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITH THE DARK LORD AS THEIR FATHER!"
"Well, Voldemort is dead, so that leaves us with you, doesn't it?"
For a moment, Severus looked as if he would cheerfully strangle the Boy-Who-Lived. Then he spun around and stalked to the other side of the room. Harry knew what was over there. Hermione, herself, had shown him the muggle picture when he had visited just a few hours before her death. It had been taken at the fair that McGonagall had arranged on the tenth year anniversary of the Final Battle. The former Headmistress had arranged for two Gypsy troops to be there, the Cooper and the Prince troops. The picture showed Hermione kneeling between the three-year-old twins with the head wagons of both troops in the background, the June sun shinning like there was no tomorrow. On a little shelf above the picture was one of the four of them taken the summer before last when Headmistress Tonks had decided to repeat McGonagall's idea for the fifteenth anniversary. Harry watched as Severus touched the glass of this picture with his fingertips.
"You should leave, Harry," he said without turning from the picture. Harry decided not to push his luck. But before he exited, he turned and said one more thing.
"She would want you there."
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"My father was a great man."
No one in the Great Hall dared to defy him on that point. His wife watched him with unblinking eyes; a stare she knew was unnerving to most. Celestine rubbed her stomach in hopes of reassuring the fussing child inside her. Beside her, Sera mimicked her sister-in-law's gaze, not even attempting to stop the rivers flowing from her eyes. A chilling breeze found its way into the Great Hall making the swathes of silk sway slightly. Harry blinked at the stirring shadows near the door he had gone through in fourth year. For a moment, he thought he had seen a strand of wild brown hair.
"My father was a great man, but he hasn't been happy for ten years, not since Mum died. She was his heart. He used to tell her that all the time and she would laugh." His midnight eyes, so much like his father's, scanned the crowd. "But it was true. He was never the same after her death...none of us were. I think she knew that if she was gone, that we would need each other to survive, to heal our souls just enough to live afterwards." The only one in the Great Hall not crying at his words was himself, though his voice got thicker with each passing second. "I only wish I could have done that for him, that I could have made him smile or even sneer again." No one said anything, but the sounds of crying began filling the room. Eddie bowed his head, unable to go on because of the silent sobs that racked his body. Celestine waddled up to where her husband was standing and pulled him into her arms. Sera stood up.
"But great men," Sera said, picking up her brother's thread, "love greatly and once you have loved greatly, there is no cure."
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The Great Hall was silent. Not even eight-year-old Luna Weasley-Longbottom was speaking. All eyes were on the black-robed figure making its way to the pyre in place of the head table. His movements were jerky as if it pained him to be there, but he was there, which was more than most people had expected of him. He approached the body dressed in periwinkle blue, pale in death, as she had never been in life. The impossible long skirt of the dress spilled off either side. He lifted her torso into his arms and placed a kiss on her cold forehead...the tip of her nose...her unfeeling lips. He whispered an inaudible comment in her ear. Then he laid her back down like a fragile doll and turned to address the gathered mourners.
"I love this woman." He gave a brief glance at the dead woman on the pyre. "She is my soul, my heart." His eyes scanned the filled room, as his son's would do exactly ten years later. "Not even death will stop me."
Without another glance at Hermione's body, he left, once again not noticing when Eddie and Sera fell in step behind him, but knowing they were there.
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An Ending