Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and Gato Azul created this. Nothing belongs to me.

4. The Risen Prince

Hermione looked around. Harry and Ronald had just left the room; the young Weasley's warmth was fading away inside her, like a piece of the hug they had just shared.

She regretted not being able to be with him for a longer time.

She went dutifully to her trench formed by mountains of bandages and started to clean them fiercely, still thinking about the trial, about the arguments they'd give… she watched carefully the bandages she was washing, noticing the stains were much smaller than the last week.

"How has professor Snape been?"

McGonagall was washing the man's forearm with a wet sponge.

"Better. Sometimes he moves."

Granger was pensive; the gauze's water she was squeezing ran down her hands, her bushy hair was lightened up by the sunset's light, which warmed half her face.

"Is something wrong, Miss Granger?"

"We've been having some problems building a good defence. I feel Harry is hiding something from me, and the worst thing is that I don't even know why he's doing it."

McGonagall settled down the man's arm beside his body and extended the sheet, covering him up to his neck.

"You know things about the professor, right? Do you think you could answer me some questions?"

Minerva was watching her with her usual stagnant serenity.

"What questions, Miss Granger?"

"Professor Snape joined the Death Eaters, I guess for the same reasons everyone else did: power and money, right?"

The professor moved her head slightly, without nodding or denying. Hermione turned back to the interrogation.

"Is there something the professor cares for more than those things?"

Minerva looked at the wall, her eyes seemed to wish for a window.

"It's a very hard question, Miss Granger. I've never spoken intimately with Severus. I can only tell you that, when I was his teacher, I didn't even notice he cared about money, although he always seemed to need it; his school robes were always faded and old…" she gave the impression of being talking about times too far away, of a person different from Snape. "The only thing I know Severus liked was Potions, he was brilliant in every subject… like you."

Hermione trembled slightly.

"He was always trying to be the best, he was the best, in almost everything."

"In what wasn't he good, professor?" Hermione's curiosity had increased after the confidence she was included in.

"In Quidditch. He was jealous of Potter; they fought all the time. Generally, Severus was a distant student, but calm; however, when Potter or Black showed up…"

Snape was silent, covered by a mute, stiff veil, as if he was another furniture, completely distant from what was happening around him, distant even from himself and his own story. Hermione couldn't picture a young Snape, a student. She couldn't delete the image of the laying, too pale man.

Pale, pale like a withered flower, like an old, faded relic, like a blurry photo of his past.

That was it; Snape was so lost, his gaze so remote, hidden in the depth of his eyelids, he seemed to never have lived at all.

She opened one eye; she thought she had heard a noise, but McGonagall slept by her side unruffled, with a stance so rigid as she had when standing up, with her face facing the roof and arms on her sides, arranged almost symmetrically.

The girl half-stood, calculating it was about three in the morning. She looked around, everything seemed to sleep; the basin full of quiet water, the spiderwebs moving almost imperceptible, with movements so fluid, as if they were underwater.

The man's breathing revealed her path, walking uncertainly in the dark until her fingers found a body's warmth, the scratchy sheets. She touched until she found the sweaty, hot forehead. She put in between the lips' gap a bit of medicine to reduce the fever.

The man's weight made her arms yield. Granger was slowly laying him down again, putting down the lifeless head, but suddenly on his eyes a pair of fiery coals were opened, orbs of black fire.

"Professor McGonagall, professor," she whispered, having turned her gaze away from the painfully aware eyes. "Professor McGonagall," she repeated in vain.

She could feel the gasping breathing of the man in her arms, sensing the weak shift of his muscles, but she didn't dare to look at him in the face and tell him… What could she tell someone like Snape, after all?

McGonagall woke up suddenly, scared and confused.

"What, Miss Granger? What happened?" she mumbled in the dark, rubbing her eyes delicately.

"Professor Snape is awake," the brunette whispered.

The professor went in a second from rattled drowsiness to absolute wakefulness. She stood up almost jumping and walked to the man, kneeling beside him.

"Severus, Severus."

The black eyes were wandering, without stopping on anything in particular.

"Severus, can you hear me?"

Then finally the man's gaze locked on her. McGonagall's face was hardened and sour, looking in the depths of the dark pupils in a frantic search.

Hermione looked from the woman to the man alternatively.

The half-blood's lips drew syllables, but none of them emitted any sound; they could barely hear a dry, abrupt exhalation. The women looked at each other confused, then focused their attention back to the man, who was trying to say something again, without result. Then his black eyes were ablaze, and he shifted with desperation, opening his lips over and over again like he was yelling, but nothing came from him other than alarming aphonia.

"Calm down, it's natural your voice doesn't work because of the snake's bite, don't get frustrated if you can't talk, you're an Occlumens."

Snape calmed down; his wheezing was the only thing that could be heard in the room.

Who…? Minerva? What's happening? Where's Nagini?

"She's gone, Severus. War's over," his black eyes moved nervously on her face, stunned, delirious.

No, it isn't over, Potter… the blood, so much blood.

Snape lowered his lids, livid, grimacing. His pain turned out to be sharp when one watched the expression of his face.

Minerva reached with her hands, but she never touched him; she just watched him, thinking about something very far away from the physical pain the man may have been feeling.

"Why did you kill Albus?"

And her voice was blunt, charging against the silent space, taking down the ambience around her. Granger seemed shocked by such a direct question.

A fixed stare of jet black pierced her.

Kill me if revenge is what you want, Minerva.

"I want to know why you did it, Severus," she said, vibrating of rage and drowned accusations.

Where's Potter? Where's the Dark Lord? What's going on?

"Answer me, Severus."

The half-blood's gaze rose until it found Granger's face, with her big eyes widened and her hair hanging all over in spiral curls. The young woman wasn't speaking, she just looked at him as if he was the specimen of a strange, dangerous creature she had never seen before.

I had to do it and I did it.

Minerva's mouth curled with a tremble; her rigid fingers broke the distance between the man and herself and she rudely put the potion's vial for pain. Hermione rose a hand, wanting to stop her, but finally lowered it again in impotence. The half-blood coughed, choking, but Minerva didn't show signs of commiseration.

"Do you know why are you alive? Do you know who you own for having kept your life, you coward?" she rubbed it with rushed, aggressive sentences.

You? The infinite benevolence of Potter?

"To Albus, I don't know how. He sent you Fawkes, despite what you did to him; he wanted to help you and it's so easy for you to say you killed him because you had to," she slowly lowered her face to the man's, without breaking the eye contact. "Severus, if you ever cared about me or Albus, tell me why. Why, Severus?

Think whatever you want, Minerva.

The woman would've slapped him if he hadn't been in those conditions.

"We should've let you die, Severus," she spat before rising and leaving the room. In her insides she had been expecting it, she had strengthened her hope of Albus giving him those awful orders, she hoped deep inside he wasn't a traitor; when she looked at the feather she was almost convinced of his innocence, and yet there she was, holding herself against the stair's railway, with an almost uncontrollable urge to cry out in rage and disappointment.

Granger put him in the stretcher carefully, without watching him again, reject implicit in her elusive eyes, and with the same disapproving mutism she went back to a corner of the room to kneel and scrub more dirty clothes beside a basin.

Snape tried to breathe and bear the pain without yelling or moaning. He concentrated on the sounds the girl made when she washed; he imagined the water drops and recited to himself an old monologue to avoid thinking about the burning or the tortuous sensation gnawing his neck. The pain started to slowly fade away, the noises around him decreasing by the lethargy and fatigue that were beginning to take over.

A feminine voice, soft and bitter travelled to him, in the middle of his drowsiness.

"Harry thinks you're innocent. I hope he isn't wrong."

McGonagall spent day and night kneeled beside him, showing her irritation by her austerity of words. Snape hadn't woken up again and she spent time trying to lower his fever with potions and wet rags; she gave him water and tried to feed him, washed his body with wet gauzes, doing everything without much tact, face darkened and hard… Hermione helped where she could, wondering at every action if they were helping an enemy.

Harry and Ronald had spent a big chunk of their time in the Ministry and Hogwarts, helping to repair the castle and repeating the story of their Horrocrux's hunt over and over again.

With the coming and going of the days, the habitants of the castles started to ask them about what happened to Snape; nobody had seen his burial, not even his body, and McGonagall' and Granger's absence were too obvious.

Finally, Potter had to confess the man had survived and they were taking care of him, but he didn't agree on giving his whereabouts, no matter how much they asked or stalked him for information. He had to protect the Occlumens form the dubious people of the Ministry and the magical community's rage in general, although he knew he wouldn't be able to keep him safe for much longer if they didn't move him away from the Shrieking Shack.

Hermione arrived at Hogwarts trying to go unnoticed; she had to look for some healing potions and go back quickly to the Shrieking Shack. The Great Hall's roof and walls were rebuilt; people slept there, laying on the floor as if they were camping or resting in a war shelter. She walked between the lumps, with light and silent footsteps. Having gone at night had been a good idea to avoid getting surprised by a sea of questions. Harry had warned her they had to keep Snape's location in secret as much as they could.

Harry and Ron went through her mind like two melancholic comets. She didn't know where they were at the moment, maybe sleeping at some muggle motel close to the Ministry.

She found a table with healing stuff and started to look for the vials, putting away everything useful in her never-ending bag. Bandages, gauzes and many doses of coagulant potions. In her hurry to finish, a small vial fell from her fingers, breaking against the floor. Hermione looked around; some people shifted in their nest of sheets and comforters.

A blue eye was focused on her in the middle of the harmonious breathings and dim light of the hall.

"Hermione?"

"Neville," she whispered a bit scared, keeping her voice low.

"What are you doing?"

"I can't talk, I have to go, Neville, I'll tell you…"

Several pairs of eyes looked at her with curiosity.

"Aren't you Potter's friend?"

She closed her bag and started to hop between the laying people.

"Hermione, wait!"

But the girl didn't stop; in her quick escape, she stepped over some feet and hands.

She heard rushed footsteps behind her and wished that Harry could've thought of lending her his Cloak of Invisibility. She didn't know how much ruckus she had caused, but it was clear her visit to Hogwarts wasn't going to be a secret.

She ran as fast as she could until she got out of the castle and there she looked around. No one was following her. She made her way back to the Shrieking Shack.

Harry entered slowly, followed by the redhead, looking around with solemn, sad seriousness, walking silently, stepping lightly to avoid making any noise. McGonagall greeted him with an inclination of her head, Hermione gave him a quiet but strong hug. Both of them looked worn, like invaded by the smell of confinement and sterility of the room. The professor took him to the stretcher, where both of them kneeled. Then Minerva started to murmur.

"He can't talk; I think the bite destroyed his vocal cords. I don't know if his voice is going to come back, you'll have to communicate by Occlumency."

Harry nodded, eyes on the man's gaunt face.

McGonagall pushed him by the shoulder until he woke up. His black eyes opened on Minerva's face, shifting to the boys with excruciating slowness.

Harry shifted positions, again and again, feeling nervous.

"Professor," he inclined his head forward, letting his gaze lock in an awkward and overwhelming contact with the injured one.

Far away, Granger and Weasley's voices whispered something about a jury.

His black eyes were fixed on him, blank.

Who are you?

"I'm Harry Potter, sir."

Potter.

The boy blinked several times, not knowing what to say, having been thinking about that moment, planning every detail of what he was going to say, and now that he was there the words had left his mind. He could only focus on his half-opened eyes, consumed by pallor.

"Professor, I'm sorry about what happened between us."

Snape remained impassive, like a wax statue. Harry held his gaze again.

"If I had known…" he stopped to correct himself. "I want to thank you for everything. I was rude many times, if I had known you, I mean…" he seemed unable to string a single thought. "If I had known, what you really did, things would've been different. I… I just wanted to say that I'm grateful and that we're going to protect you from the Ministry or from whoever is necessary.

The man looked at him for a few more seconds, without giving any hint of wanting to answer, and then he closed his eyes again with indifference, leaving Potter confused and frustrated, asking himself what just happened.

He turned towards McGonagall looking for an explanation, but she turned her head away, upset.

Harry's voice expanded in the jury's hall, the same shapes in the air formed by the sound of his words, his clear shade flowing soft and gentle through ears.

He was already a man.

The people of the jury: a mass of faces and hands, frowns and whispers. They heard him, they stuck whispers in their ears, some made ugly faces after Harry's every sentence, others nodded, complying with his speech.

"That is why I think this trial is unnecessary and, why not say it? Disrespectful towards professor Snape and everyone who knows him. The proofs of his innocence are undeniable; it doesn't make any sense to be here," the murmur in the tiers increased. The new minister looked around, scared of the people's zeal; one of his advisors took the floor.

"Have you considered, young Potter, the possibility of his memories being fabricated by Severus Snape to cover himself? It is well known that he's an Occlumens; it wouldn't be hard for him, don't you think?

The young man looked at the other's eyes, with intense disapproval, a shadow behind the green of his pupils.

"Yes, we thought about it, but we've known professor Snape since we were children and we'd keep an eye on him since then; the dates, events and the professor's attitudes during all these time match the memories he gave me," his face was hardened by the raw light of the place. "I believe in the innocence of Severus Snape."

The advisor smiled to himself, ironic.

"If my memory doesn't fail me, young Potter, you're the only know who has seen these alleged memories; therefore, I don't think they've been analysed as they should. It's a rather weak defence; surely you don't expect us to declare this man innocent just because of your hunches; because facts, young Potter, those are undeniable. There are witnesses, included yourself, that saw Albus Dumbledore being murdered by Severus Snape.

Hermione watched Harry's hand: clutched into a fist, impotent.

The girl stood up, watching around as a multitude of eyes focused on her. The words got stuck in a knot, but she swallowed and began to talk; at the beginning, her voice sounded weak, like a trail of liquid flowing through the hall.

"There are still Death Eaters around who are proven to be guilty, and instead of going and hunt them we're here, uselessly talking about an innocent man. Why are you only concerned about charging Severus Snape? What about the others? Is he the only guilty one for you?"

Potter seemed to recover clarity and supported Hermione.

"While you all hid and did everything to deny Voldemort's return, professor Snape went out there to those madmen," he moved his hands firmly, face transfixed, ire behind his voice. "He left his life on their hands just to save us all, and what about you? What have you all done? We don't even know how have you reached your seats."

"Mr Potter," the registrar cut out his monologue. "You are making very serious accusations out of place in the trial of Severus Snape. That is what we came here for, isn't it, Mr Potter?"

"There's another proof," the girl interrupted, trying to soften the volcano that was Harry. "Between Snape's robes we found a phoenix's feather, from Albus Dumbledore's phoenix itself; for some reason, Albus Dumbledore wanted to make sure he saved the professor. What better proof—?"

Again, the haughty voice of the registrar dissolved the girl's voice.

"That doesn't count as evidence unless you can prove that feather is indeed from Albus Dumbledore's phoenix. Can you, Miss?" he crossed his fingers under his chin.

"At this moment, no, sir," a sheepish Granger replied. There was silence in the room.

During the trip back to the castle, Potter's mouth remained closed; his cloudy eyes couldn't mean anything good. She understood him, that taste of unfairness they drank every day, that outrage. Finally, the young man wondered if his fight had really finished.

They went back to Hogwarts tasting defeat and disenchantment. They had thought it'd be easier; Harry couldn't resign himself to this: trial after trial, tons of witnesses. The memories he had received from Snape were so blunt and undeniable to him… and even if he hadn't wanted to show them to avoid exposing the man, he had begun to understand it'd be necessary to share, at the very least, the most important parts.

They found at the entrance of the castle a group of people: young ex-students from Hogwarts and adults talking loudly; when they saw the two Gryffindor, they went silent, following them with their gaze.

"He's a bastard, a murderous traitor, and he must go to Azkaban," said one of the elders; a general murmur broke after his words. Harry glared at him with his green stare.

"If you want to take him, you'll have to fight me first."

Then the man got cold feet, closing his lips tightly. To attack the boy who lived was a terrible idea, especially after he had just defeated Voldemort.

"Anyone who has any business with Snape will have to face me first."

One by one they started to leave, talking between themselves, watching him with mistrust and confusion. Nobody could understand why Harry Potter was defending Dumbledore's murderer.

Fun fact: It took me several chapters before I realised that every disclaimer at the top was in Spanish. That's one piece of evidence of my idiocy :)