Part IV

I'll be your dream
I'll be your wish I'll be your fantasy
I'll be your hope I'll be your love
Be everything that you need
I'll love you more with every breath
Truly madly deeply do
I will be strong I will be faithful
'cause I'm counting on
A new beginning
A reason for living
A deeper meaning

Harry stood at the foot of Severus' casket, weeping. "I never knew he was this sick," Harry sighed. "I never knew that Severus was about to die. I thought he was…"

He looked up at Albus, who was also crying hard.

"You have to make your speech," Albus sighed. "After that, you can say all you want to Severus. Like I will."

"You make your speech first," Harry asked.

Albus nodded and called the congregation to order. Among them were the staff and students of Hogwarts, some of the Aurors Severus had become friendly with, and the odd person or two. The Ministry was also there, pompously led by Fudge in an attempt to respect the spy.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Albus called. "I am here today to tell you about a man who spent his life in shades of gray…" He stopped, physically unable to continue. "I cannot…. I cannot speak today. I have lost one of my closest friends to a disease he didn't deserve to have, a poison he should never have been given. I cannot tell you what kind of a man he was, because my words fail me today." Albus stepped down, unable to say another word, crying hard.

Harry stood up. "I asked some of you what you thought of Severus. Many of you told me he was a bright, vindictive man. Some of you told me that he was occasionally pleasant. One person remembered him…" his voice broke. "Remembered him as the man who saved her family. Another told me he had destroyed hers. Many of his former students said they hated him but learned so much from him. I think that's the way he would've wanted it. He always thought that a teacher should never get close to any of his students, lest something terrible develop. The disgust the students felt for him he was okay with, but he always said anything stronger would be terrible. Hate from a student – vindictive, adult hate – would have shattered any ability of the student's to learn. Adoration, admiration, affection, those too would destroy the ability to learn. I think he was the one teacher no one ever had a crush on while a student."

He paused for a moment, looking around. Many of the people were nodding.

"Three years after I graduated, he and I ended up dating each other. Our relationship lasted five years, after which I slammed the door in his face. Only after his death did I find out that the poor man was sick, that he was dying, that Voldemort had managed to kill him while he himself was dead."

Harry paused again, crying profusely.

"I loved him so very much," he said softly. "And I destroyed his spirit when I slammed the door in his face. Why I am standing up here, why he asked me to speak at his funeral, I have no idea. I just can't believe he's dead. I always thought that he would live forever somehow. No idea how, of course, but just somehow. Fate, it seems, did not want that to happen. And I regret that."

He paused again. "I can say nothing about how much I miss him already. Allow me to borrow the words of another man, W. H. Auden."

He pulled out a sheet of paper and read:

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good."

He stepped down and sat down at the foot of Severus' casket. Eventually, everyone except for Albus and Harry left.

"I never knew," Harry whispered. "You got worse and worse, so much harder to live with, and spent so much time in your workroom. I thought that maybe you had found someone else or that you were trying to find a way to tell me to leave. And in reality you were dying. And, oh Merlin, I left you when you needed me the most. I killed you, didn't I? I killed you just because I was so… fucking… selfish!"

"You shouldn't blame yourself. Severus knew he was dying and never told you," Albus told Harry in an attempt to help him.

"I should've guessed, I should've known, I should've trusted him and stayed by him and helped him battle it and instead I killed him by leaving him!"

"You couldn't have known that leaving him would do that. You couldn't have known anything, especially since he never told you anything."

"I should've loved him unconditionally."

"You are only human."

Harry stood up and looked into the casket, a thousand words bubbling up inside of him and none coming out in any coherent thought. He left, tears still streaming down his face.

Albus sat down next to the casket. "I never believed you when you said you had little time left. I kept telling you to keep fighting, and instead you died. And you knew you would. Maybe I just didn't want to admit the truth to myself that you were dying. Maybe I wanted to think that you would live to see much after my death. How very wrong I was. How I wish that I had stood by you and helped you in your last moments instead of trying to give you false hope."

Harry noticed a letter on his desk. "To Be Delivered After My Funeral – Severus Snape," it read on the envelope. Harry opened it curiously and sat down to read the letter.

"Harry," it began.

"I cannot tell you how much I love you. I was an idiot to let you go, an idiot to stand by and watch how I alienated myself from you, an idiot not to tell you I was dying. I thought you would leave me; I was wrong. I see now you would've stayed with me until the end if I had told you I was dying. Instead, I told you nothing, nothing, and you left me. You thought that I wanted to leave you and couldn't tell you, or that I was in love with another. But you never could have guessed I was deathly ill – I hid it too well, even from you.

I loved you, I love you, and even in Death, whatever it may be, I will love you. You will not see me as a ghost, I'm afraid, since I am not afraid to face Death, like those who are ghosts are. Forgive me, please, if only for your own sake. I have forgiven you for leaving me; I see now it was my fault. I should have been there for you so that you could be here for me.

Under my bed there is a box for you. You will see what the contents of that box are when you open it; I offer no explanation here. Those things that require one have one next to them.

Next to it is a box of my poetry and two diaries. Albus knows what they are. Help get them published, please.

The two of you knew me the best. I thank you for that.

All my love,

Severus Snape."

Harry let the letter fall from his hands and began crying hard. "Merlin, I miss him."

He knew the pain would recede but the memories never would. He smiled slightly. "I'll always have him with me," he sniffed quietly.

He looked up at the wall, where a picture of Severus was mounted, and smiled. "I'll always love you," he told the picture.

-- End.