1998

Severus Snape opened his eyes and stared at the familiar ceiling of the Hospital Wing. He knew he ought to be surprised to be alive, and somewhere in the distance he thought he could faintly sense the emotion, but it was somewhere on the other side of an immense weariness, a desperate sadness, and a deep despair.

And failure. A river, a lake, an ocean of failure.

If I'm alive, then I have failed.

Every single person opposed to Voldemort had truly believed him a traitor to their cause, not a triple but a quadruple agent, by the time the Dark Lord came to Hogwarts. If Snape was alive, and in the Hospital Wing, and not in restraints, then the winning side had been that of the Death Eaters.

Failed utterly. Failed absolutely. Failed irredeemably.

The Dark Lord had probably not given Severus Snape a second thought, but no doubt some Death Eater had come across him and thought to seek Voldemort's favour by saving the life of his closest, his most favoured servant. There was an exquisite irony to knowing that his perfect impersonation of devoted service had saved his worthless life, and had done so at precisely the moment when the true end he was striving for was completely lost.

For Harry Potter must be dead. He'd be dead, whatever the ultimate outcome, that had been Dumbledore's plan all along, pig for the slaughter, but knowing he was dead and defeated … Snape closed his eyes.

Grief. I should feel grief, for Lily Potter's son. For all those on his side, who surely fell today — my students, my colleagues, my comrades-at-arms … If things had been reversed, they wouldn't have grieved the death of Severus Snape. They would have rejoiced.

But there was no grief, no howling empty agony such as had almost robbed his reason after Lily's death, only a deep ache as if something cold and lethal was lodged behind his diaphragm. I murdered grief, when I murdered Dumbledore on his own command, when I murdered the best part of myself and agreed to send Lily's boy to die.

Had he told himself that he would somehow find a way to save the boy at the last? Had he been so self-deluded and self-deluding? I should have nodded and smiled and taken the first opportunity to kidnap the boy and take him far away. America. Australia. Tibet.

But no. To defeat Voldemort, he had agreed to sacrifice the boy and in so doing had turned his back on the single good thing he had ever managed to achieve in his miserable, useless life: protect the son Lily had given her life to save.

And what now? The Dark Lord must have mastered the Elder Wand, to defeat Potter, so he would likely let Snape live. At least as long as I prove useful. Live in a world run by Voldemort's rules, where those he'd be forced to watch die because he could not save them would grow to numbers Snape couldn't bear to contemplate.

I will kill the Dark Lord myself. How, he had no idea, or he would have accomplished the deed long ago, but he knew it absolutely. I will find a way, if it takes the rest of my life, and then I will watch him die screaming and begging for mercy.

Just like Charity did.

A horrifyingly familiar voice broke into his thoughts. "Oh, Severus, dear boy, my poor dear boy." Poppy Pomfrey was hurrying toward him, hands outstretched, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Oh, my poor boy, my poor dear boy."

"Poppy!" His voice was little more than a rasp and speaking made his throat hurt as if each word he forced out was a razor-blade. He raised himself on his elbow and tried to shake off her efforts to make him lie down again. "Poppy, you have to get out of here."

She tried to push him back to the pillow. "Lie down, and don't speak yet, you need rest, dear boy, lie down —"

"Poppy!" Snape grabbed her wrist. He put as much of his old command as he could into his ruined thread of a voice and fixed his gaze on hers. "This is very important. You must leave. I am going to teach you a charm. Not a healing charm, and I know you have trouble with anything meant to harm, but I will teach it to you, and you will learn it. And then you will go out and as quietly and carefully as you can, you will leave Hogwarts and if anyone tried to stop you, you will use this charm. Do you understand?"

"Severus, he's gone."

"I know he's gone," Snape gritted out. Has her mind gone under the weight of the the last few days? "The charm is Stupefy. And don't worry, you won't won't hurt anyone for more than a few minutes. Have you got your wand?"

She blinked at him. "Yes, I always —"

"Good. Take it out." When she'd drawn it from her sleeve he grasped her hand. "This gesture, do you see? Like this. And Stupefy!"

"I know how to cast it, Severus," she said soothingly. "Given the sort of things students here get into from time to time, sometimes one needs fairly strong measures to settle them down for a moment or two."

"Good. Good." He fought to keep his tone calm and measured. "Now, Poppy, you must go now. Not through Hogsmeade, they'll be watching. Through the Forest. Is there somewhere you could go? Far away. Somewhere far away."

She shook her head. "I'm not going far away, dear boy, when there are so many people here who need me."

"Poppy!" Merlin, raising his voice hurt and worse, it made Poppy flinch. "I'm sorry. But you must listen to me. You must go, and you must go now." She didn't look convinced and he twisted the wand from her fingers. He'd compel her if he had to. What's one more Unforgivable and this one, after all, in an unambiguously good cause. He raised the wand a little. "Imper—"

"Expelliarmus!" said an unmistakably Scottish accent.

As the wand twisted out of his fingers and flew across the room Severus wondered how Minerva McGonagall had managed not to accidentally conjure up a herd of elephants or an avalanche of gorse-flowers at least once in all the years he'd know her, given her pronunciation of spells was, to put it mildly, unique. It wasn't the first time the question had occurred to him or even the one-hundred-and-first, the thought unspooling automatically as the rest of his mind went blank with shock and the room was suddenly somehow both very bright and sharp and a very long way away.

Over a great distance, he watched as Minerva caught the flying wand with her free hand and kept her own wand pointed at him as she advanced. "Severus Snape, what by Nimue's knickers were you thinking of doing?"

Poppy captured Snape's now-empty hand in hers. "I think he was going to try to force me to escape the school grounds," she said.

"I see." Minerva lowered her wand. "Severus —"

Minerva McGonagall striding about, unharmed and fully armed, in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing with the afternoon sun fading from the windows showing it was at least eighteen hours since he'd fallen bleeding to the floor.

There was only one possible explanation for that particular set of circumstances.

Snape was so certain that it didn't even occur to him to be concerned about the Taboo, not even just in case. "Voldemort is dead."

Both women spoke at once. "Yes."

He let go of Poppy's wrist and sank back against the pillows, closing his eyes. "We won."

"Yes." And there was something wrong in her unquestioning acceptance of that we, given Voldemort's defeat, but the world was spinning around him much too quickly to chase that down.

"And Potter —" Oh, Lily. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. If I'd know Dumbledore's plans earlier I would have found a way, some way, somehow —

"I'll tell him you want to see him," Minerva said.

Snape's eyes snapped open and he surged upwards. "What?"

"I'll tell him you want to —"

"He lives?" Minerva nodded, and he clenched his hands on the bedsheets. He lives. Lily's boy lives. And the fatal, icy lump in his chest was tearing its way out of him and it hurt so much he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think, except that he lives, Lily's boy lives, he lives …

I didn't fail her, for all I did my best to try.

He lives.

"Oh, Severus." Minerva sat down on the edge of the bed and took the hand that Poppy wasn't holding. The grip of her warm, papery fingers somehow made it possible for Snape to take a breath, and then another, and another. "Yes, he's alive. We lost many, too many, but not Harry Potter. He Who — Voldemort used the killing curse, but all it did was kill the Horcrux part of him that he'd hidden in Harry. Then Harry told everyone exactly what you'd done, and why, and ninety-percent of the Death Eaters buggered right off immediately, and then he fought You-Know — Voldemort, and exploded him into approximately eighty-seven distinct pieces."

Snape felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth as he let the two women coax him into lying down again. "Approximately?"

"I was a little busy to be precise in my count." Minerva gave an indignant sniff.

A strange sound forced its way out of him. For a moment, Snape thought it might be laughter, but then he felt the warmth of a tear slide down his cheek and realised it was a sob.

"Oh, Severus." Minerva gave another sniff, this one not indignant. "I'm so sorry, I'm so very sorry. I should have known. That night — all you did was defend yourself. I should have known then you were still on our side. Before then, when all you did to Mr Longbottom and Miss Weasley and Miss Lovegood was to give them a night out with Hagrid — I should have know."

Snape pulled his hands free and ran them over his face, relieved that the tear did not seem to be in danger of being followed by others. "I'm glad you didn't. The Dark Lord might have grown suspicious if there had been any wavering in your implacable hatred."

"None of us hated you." Minerva had always been a terrible liar. For years, every time that thought had crossed his mind it had brought with it gnawing anxiety, impatience with her, and a general burning anger at the whole impossible situation.

Now he felt only fond amusement. So this is what peace feels like. "Minerva, you all hated me. You despised me. You loathed me. And thank Merlin for it: you did half my work for me."

"I'll never forgive myself —"

"Minerva." The old intonations still answered. "Kindly compose yourself."

"Yes, of course." She gave one final sniff. "There's no use crying over spilt milk, as they say."

"Why would anyone cry over spilt milk?" Poppy Pomfrey sounded genuinely puzzled. "All it takes is a simple — oh, Muggles."

"I'll go and get Harry for you, Severus," Minerva said.

"No!" he said quickly.

She frowned. "But I thought —"

"Not — not yet." Not ever, if he could help it, thinking of those memories he'd let spill from him in a dying effort to do Dumbledore's dirty work for him one last time. He wasn't even sure what they had been, apart from that one crucial conversation to tell Potter that Dumbledore needed him to die. Nagini's venom was cruel, and it had been an even bet whether the poison or the blood-loss would finish him first, and Potter had been there — his father's loathsome face, his mother's lovely eyes — and not that Snape cared what a teenager thought of him, but Dumbledore had been the last person to trust him and the only one to ever know why —

I could have given him anything. What had Minerva said? Then Harry told everyone exactly what you'd done, and why.

That's a certain indication that there was more than just that one important memory there. Dying, his personal dignity had been just one more sacrifice on the altar of his service.

Except I didn't die. "Not yet," he said again. "Minerva. Who found me?"

"I did," Poppy said. "In the — well, Severus, all three of them — Miss Granger, Mr Weasley, Mr Potter — they said Voldemort had killed you. There's been … we've had to …"

"A burial party was sent to bring me to the morgue," Snape summed up.

"Yes," Minerva said. "Terribly unfortunate, but there you are. Poppy didn't realise you weren't quite as dead as we'd thought until a few hours ago."

Snape felt for the wounds to his throat and found nothing, not even a bandage. "Nagini tore out half my neck."

"When I undressed you, I found this in your robe." Poppy held out a single phoenix feather. "There's still some damage, internally. It will take a few days for the potions to work."

Snape took the feather and turned it slowly between his fingers. "No-one's seen Fawkes since we buried Albus."

"It looks like that's not quite true, though, doesn't it?" Minerva said.

"How many?" He turned the feather over again. "How many others, in the morgue?"

"Nearly sixty," Poppy said, and then gave a gulping sob and put her hands over her face.

Sixty. And of all of them, Dumbledore's pet had seen fit to save only Severus Snape.

He laid the feather down. "So everyone believes me dead."

"I didn't think you'd want to wake up to a circle of expectant faces," Minerva said tartly.

His lips twitched, and he realised they were trying to smile. It had become an unfamiliar feeling, recently. "You thought correctly." Pulling up his left sleeve, he examined his forearm. There was a scar, now, where so recently the Dark Mark had been seared bone-deep. "And the Death Eaters?"

"They'll be rounded up," Minerva said.

"By your use of the future perfect, I gather that at least some are currently still at large?" When she nodded, he closed his eyes. "And Potter made my work known to the world. Minerva, please, for now — let me be dead, as far as anyone knows."

"But — you're a hero, Severus!"

Gryffindors. "I am still a traitor, Minerva. Not, perhaps, exactly the traitor I was formerly believed to be, but a traitor. If it's known I live … well, let's just say that Fawkes will have wasted his efforts."

She was silent a moment, and he could see the good sense of his words sinking in. Finally she nodded. "Severus, whatever you want. Whatever you ask of me. I owe you that. That and more."

"For my service," he said, hearing the bitterness in his own voice.

She took his hand again. "No, my dear. For your friendship, which I hope I still have."

Snape blamed the damage to his throat for the fact that he was unable to speak, and closed his fingers over hers.

.

.

.

Author's Note: The final battle recounted here is an amalgam of both book and movie.