"Mr. Black, you must understand," Minerva tried, attempting (to little avail) to comfort the distressed teen. She was crouched on the bathroom floor next to him, hoping beyond hope to be able to make her escape before Tobias's return. Severus's father had always given her a creepy, chilly feeling.

"Mister Snape was a very distressed boy. I do not think he had one single friend at Hogwarts besides Lily Evans. Now that you have seen the pitiful kind of life he led, and how miserable he was, how is it to be lamented that he has gone somewhere better?"

Sirius sniffled in response to this, sitting up a little straighter on the floor, his back against the peeling, sickly wall. He wiped his nose with his sleeve, causing his teacher to grimace and hand him a handkerchief.

"What about Remus?" His eyes were wide like saucers. "What about my friend? He'll go to jail, I know it! He'll take the rap for my mistake. Who knows what they'll do to him and it will be my fault! What am I going to do?"

Minerva could not help it; a frown creased the corners of her mouth. He hadn't been upset about Severus at all!

"you need not fret, Mr. Black. I assure you Professor Dumbledore has done everything possible to keep the true nature of Mr. Snape's death a secret. Madam Pomfrey has even ruled it an accident, I believe. No one else even knows that he was involved."

Sirius breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good," he said. He blew his nose again. His gray eyes darted quickly around the cold, dust-covered room. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in ages, as if it was some cake that had been left out in the sun until the icing melted and ran down in clumps. He wondered who had lived here before the Snape's.

"It really was wretched, the way he lived, wasn't it?" Beside him, Professor McGonagall nodded. Maybe she was right- how could he feel sorry Snivellus was gone? Hadn't he and James had said for ages this is what the nasty git deserved? Now that he'd gotten what he'd had coming to him, there was no reason to be upset about it. After all, not even his own parents seemed to miss him; he knew that despite their anger, there had not been much difference in the level of tension in the house since he had gone, that somehow, things had always been this way and always would be, with or without the unwanted, unnamed someone else to get in the way.

Standing to her feet, Minerva held out a hand to help Sirius rise as well. He did, wiping his face one final time before handing the handkerchief back to her. She grimaced again and shook her head.

Sirius laid in the bastard's bed later that night, curled up on his side and trying to ignore the flies now buzzing around his head. He was attempting to listen for Mrs. Snape's return, but as the minutes turned to hours and the night drew into day, a sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. He knew that after what he had taken from her, she couldn't see him anymore; as if to see him was to be reminded of all the things she had not seen before, that inexorable connection she had severed herself long before Sirius ever entered the picture, of the part of herself that she wanted to go but could not die as long as he remained.

He thought of Remus, the horrible guilt he must be feeling even though there was nothing to feel guilty about. His stomach now jumped. How he wanted to talk to him again- just one last time, just to apologize again, just to know he was alright.

As light began to stream in through the window, he decided he couldn't lay awake there anymore and got up to examine the pile of books Mrs. Snape had brought home from her son's dorm. Most of them were school textbooks. Sirius picked up the Potions one and began to leaf through it, surprised to find scribbles and markings in that neat, cramped writing he had despised so much. He almost couldn't breathe.

Snape had invented his own spells.

And not just any spells. Many of them were ones Sirius recognized, ones Snape had used against them when the Marauders were in hot pursuit and he had nowhere else to run. Some were quite nasty; he ran across the spell that had left a gash on James's cheek that day by the lake, and the toenail hex that had caused Sirius himself to trip and lose his wand as he chased Snape through the halls. Now he smiled at the memory; that's all it was now. He had no idea Snape had been so… well, not smart, exactly, but not a bumbling idiot like he'd always thought either.

Vowing to come back the book later and see what useful things he could take, Sirius headed downstairs.

His suspicion had been right. Severus's mother was gone.

Tobias was glaring.

The next morning was Snape's funeral. It was a quiet one, as cold and dark like the person it was for. Few people were there. Remus walked in calmly, facing straight ahead and using all of his might not to look at Sirius, scars covering his beautiful face like lines in a mesmerizing impressionist painting, not even a tear breaking the horrid blankness in his face. James was not there. Lily was balling, red hair tangled in her face like she had just stepped off the Quidditch pitch.

Of the Hogwarts staff, only Albus Dumbledore and Horace Slughorn made an appearance, Slughorn blowing his nose like a foghorn and telling everyone he spoke to that it was "unfortunate indeed" and that Severus had been "a talented boy and one of his best students."

As if, Sirius grinned to himself. Slughorn had to come because he had been Snape's Head of House; that was all.

Tobias sat silently in the church pew, looking mean as ever. A few of his mates had come, but not many. It was clear that they were used to seeing each other in dirty pubs and bars, and not sacred religious buildings. No one was even dressed up. There was no music.

Dumbledore got up and said a few words, which were fairly meaningless as far as the people in there were concerned. Some drivel about Severus being a good student and having a lot of potential, whatever that meant. If all your own Headmaster can say about you was that you could pass a stupid test, you probably wouldn't have amounted to much anyway. This made Sirius feel a little better, but only a little.

Tobias said nothing. Made no noise and shed no tears, just… watching, like his only son's funeral wasn't of much interest to him. It probably wasn't.

A few people asked him about Mrs. Snape, but he never answered them; and after Dumbledore was done speaking he came up to Sirius and asked him the same thing, in a low voice that was the most menacing Sirius had ever heard.

"Where is Severus's mother?"

Sirius shivered.

"I don't know," he whispered.

Dumbledore glared. It was the most frightening thing Sirius had ever seen in his life.

"Remus needs to know. Where is Severus's mother?"

Sirius just shook his head, feeling helpless.

"I don't know," he whispered. "I don't know."