A PENITENTIAL VIGIL
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.
A/N: Spoilers, knowledge assumed. Thanks to all my reviewers.
It was a year to the day since Voldemort had died. There were commemoration ceremonies all over Great Britain but this one, the one at the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, was restricted to the people who'd actually been there at the time. Plus, of course, the Minister for Magic, the Ministers of other departments, the Wizengamot, their assorted Secretaries and under-Secretaries and a sprinkling of reporters. It was undoubtedly the longest and most tedious ceremony of all.
Hermione rotated her shoulder-blades, flexed her leg-muscles and surreptitiously stretched her arms past her knees. The speeches were all but over, the long list of Voldemort's victims had reached the Muggle Ws – wizards and Muggles had been listed separately, much to her annoyance – the surviving Order of Merlin, First Class, recipients had been paraded, their posthumous counterparts eulogised and soon Minister Scrimgeour would be standing up for his final half-hour of political pontification. Hermione fingered her Order of Merlin, Second Class, and hid a yawn.
The Battle of Hogwarts had begun during the final Quidditch match of 1998, a play-off between equal-placed Gryffindor and Slytherin for the Cup. When the Slytherin Seeker, Chasers and Beaters had suddenly replaced fouls with Unforgivables the crowd had not immediately realised that games were over and fighting for their lives had begun. Not till Sloper and Professor Hooch had fallen and the shouts from the back rows had turned to screams.
The anti-Apparition wards had fallen and the stands were surrounded by Death Eaters. It had been chaotic, terrifying, a nightmare – But finally Voldemort had fallen and after that the outcome was never in doubt.
"And in conclusion," Minister Scrimgeour thundered –
Hermione's eyes slid around the bemedalled dress-robed crowd, calculating the best way through to rejoin her friends. She hoped it really was the conclusion this time. She was hot and tired and headachy. Were they going to do this every year? Circe, she hoped not!
About thirty-five minutes later, she was repeating those sentiments to a small knot of Gryffindors.
"It could be a lot worse," Neville reminded her, leaning heavily on his wooden leg. "At least we don't have to worry about being mobbed by autograph hunters." They had all quickly learnt to duck and dive out of the way in the first month.
"Only by the Ministers and their hangers-on," gloomed Harry, who'd been sick of fame long before any of the others had tasted it.
"Nah." Ron, tallest of them all, scanned the crowd. "None of them are heading our way yet. Everyone has someone to talk to. 'Cept Snape of course. Miserable git."
Their eyes turned with Ron's to the middle distance, where a tall black figure punctuated the sea of colour. Snape's head was slightly bent, but his back and shoulders were straight as ever as he stared down at the bare patch of ground where Voldemort had shriveled and flared into a fireball. Even Sprout and Neville hadn't been able to persuade anything to grow there since. Harry rubbed his arms in remembered pain even though the burns had been gone for months.
Hermione felt a stab of recognition. Miserable. Yes, that was it, he was miserable. Under that cold, grim mask, he'd probably been grieving almost since before she was born, grieving in silence because whom could a spy confide in? All of his friends, Sirius had told them once, had been Death Eaters. So they were all dead or in Azkaban now. And he'd put them there.
"He looks as nasty as ever," Ron added. "Think he's paying his last respects?"
Even the sight of Snape in battle, magnificent and deadly, hadn't abated either Ron's dislike or his mistrust. He still insisted that, if Snape had truly been on their side, he wouldn't have warned them only that an attack was imminent, but would have included the day and time and place. Nobody had been able to convince him otherwise and they no longer bothered to try.
"Probably wishing we'd all leave so he could dance on Voldie's grave," Ginny whispered hoarsely. The healers said her voice would come back one day, though two fingers and her left ear were gone forever.
Despite the ache of sympathy in her chest, even Hermione laughed at the thought of Snape dancing. In seven years of sneering smirks and sarcasm, they'd never seen him smile. Today he seemed to her fancy like a medieval knight standing a penitential vigil. Ron wasn't the only person who wouldn't forgive him. She was sure he'd never forgiven himself.
She let her mind drift to the last time she'd seen him. After that N.E.W.T.s letter confrontation fiasco, she'd dithered for a week before deciding to ask him for career advice. After all, he had agreed to start afresh and had even displayed a little interest in her future career.
"I'm tempted to direct you to Siberia," he'd written back, "if only to put a stop to this tediously repetitive imposition on my time and patience. At least it might cool down some of that Gryffindor hotheadedness. I suppose, however, you'd only wear out your owl with messages. I can spare you an hour and a half on Sunday afternoon, 3 pm, my office."
She'd gone with no high hopes and returned with confident decision.
He'd started by naming the half dozen other Potioneers who could teach her to brew Wolfsbane. She hadn't minded that two brewed it for their own consumption. She wasn't scared of werewolves. However, Ivanov used his apprentices as poison-testers, Yelena Polgarski harvested body-parts, Carreda had married and buried four apprentices and just wed a fifth, LeFeuille was "harmless", Fontaggio's wife was too jealous for him to teach females and Bertram at the Ministry was a glory-hound who'd name her work his own - and blackmail her into silence.
So then he'd run through all the other Potioneers of Europe, followed by a discussion of other Potions-related jobs from Curse-breaking to cosmetics, Medi-witchery to the Ministry. Finally, she'd surprised him by settling on joining the Unspeakables.
"You've spent seven years making a name for yourself and now you choose to be nameless?" he'd demanded.
"I think I've already proved I belong here. The people who will accept me already do and the ones who don't never will, so why should I waste my time trying to change them?"
"Well, at least you learned something from my lessons," he'd murmured and she'd stared.
"Were you trying to teach me that?"
"There was little else I could teach you," he'd sniped, adding in a lower tone, "Take control of your own life and no one will control it for you."
She'd been chewing on that thought ever since.
Professor Snape blinked.
There was only so long you could stare at a bare patch of ground, no matter how many memories and regrets it stirred. All year, he'd avoided this spot. He'd never set foot on the pitch and he'd stayed away from all Quidditch matches except Slytherin ones. Those he couldn't evade, but he'd been careful to keep his attention on the air, even when the action moved towards the ground.
Today, he'd had no choice. His attendance was compulsory. Once his eyes had fallen on the spot where the Dark Lord – where Voldemort died, he hadn't wanted to look away. How different it all could have been. The waste, the destruction, the desolation –
When he finally turned to leave, there was that irritating not-a-student-anymore again. Her bright brown eyes were at once eager and confiding.
"Professor," she called.
He sighed.
"Miss Granger, you really are the most tiresome girl. Have you come to apologise to me again? You may as well save your breath."
"I think I've exhausted my sorrys but I realised I never thanked you."
He raised an eyebrow.
"For my career advice?"
"That too," she said, her pink cheeks getting pinker. "For everything. For keeping us safe while we were at school -"
"– No more than my duty as your teacher."
"– For giving up everything to fight Voldemort -"
He scowled. And this was her business, how?
"Everything? I'm still alive," he pointed out, then watched her trying to bite back angry words. She didn't succeed.
"Buried alive, you mean!"
"Don't be impertinent," he snapped.
"Do you still miss them? Or are you used to being alone?" she asked quietly.
She was like a particularly annoying gnat that keeps returning, no matter how often you swat it. But no one else had ever cared – or dared - enough to ask.
He kept his face stony as he looked her over, cataloguing all her clumsy Gryffindor dive-in-headfirst-onto-a-submerged-log-and-break-your-silly-neck recklessness. Then he tried a glower, but she was still looking at him with those soft, sincere eyes.
He shook his head impatiently. Answering her question would be the stupidest thing he'd done since returning to Voldemort as a spy, but somehow it had all the inevitability of a Longbottom explosion.
"Do I still miss who?"
"Your friends."
"Define friends," he growled.
"People you care about, people who care about you."
"Strange, I was sure trust and loyalty had to figure in there somewhere." I have no friends. I betrayed them all.
"It was the right thing to do," she assured him. "You had to do it – to save the world."
Gryffindors were always so sure they knew what was the right thing to do. But she had a functioning brain. Now to make her use it.
"Oh? Then you turned Potter in, every time he broke curfew? You told on him for sneaking out to Hogsmeade in third year?"
"That's different."
"Different in kind or in degree?" he pressed.
He watched her eyes drop to the same bare patch he'd been looking at before and waited. He knew it held no answers. The silence grew louder.
"That had nothing to do with saving the world," she protested at last.
This really was too easy.
"So endangering the life of the only person who could defeat Voldemort had nothing to do with saving the world?" he sneered.
"That's – that's not fair. We didn't know."
"Oh, you didn't know. That makes everything all right."
He watched her expressive face and knew the exact moment she recognised her hypocrisy. Now she was realising she was wrong, now that she had neither right nor ability to judge, now that she'd never betray her friends no matter what they did. She was a Gryffindor after all and would always place friendship above rules, loyalty above the law. Hadn't she done so all along?
"You mentioned trust and loyalty," she rallied. "Professor Dumbledore trusted you."
"I trust my chair not to break underneath me as I sit on it. Does that make it my friend?" He never cared about me. I was only a flunky to him.
Her eyes were troubled now, he could see. She always cared, always.
"You don't have to stay here anymore. Now that Voldemort's gone – and you're a war-hero – you could get a job anywhere."
"I've no wish to leave. There isn't anything I could do on the outside more important than moulding the next generation," he admitted. Her astonishment was almost amusing.
"You – you mean – you like teaching?"
"Not especially. But there's something quite satisfying about taking a dunderhead like Longbottom and turning him into a competent member of society."
Why was he telling her this? After twenty years of secrecy and watchfulness, Occlumency and shielding, where one slip could end his life or his usefulness, was he really telling her simply because she'd asked? No Veritaserum, no Imperio, no Legilimens, just questions she probably hadn't even expected him to answer. The words just gushed out like blood from a slit wrist. Praise Merlin, Voldemort had never made her his inquisitor.
"I thought you despised him!"
His lip curled. Of course you did, I meant you to.
"I despise carelessness. That's why I detest Gryffindors," hetold her. Then he turned and left before she could reply.
Detest wasn't quite the right word, not for her. Irritating aggravating little wretch. She was like a kitten that will keep scratching holes in your favourite chair then twines itself purring around your legs every time you catch it. Every time he reached to smack her nose he found himself scratching her chin. And he didn't even like cats.
A/N I originally wrote Minister Bones, but I've changed it to Scrimgeour to better fit in with the sequel.
