NOTES: I'm posting this the same day as chapter 13. Don't skip a chapter!

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Can you keep me in your prayers, sister
Can you keep me in there somewhere
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In the end, it was Ron Weasley who thought to send a Patronus to Minerva. The little terrier found her just after He-Who-Must-Not-Be Named had commanded his forces to retreat for one hour. When the dog spoke to her, it was with the muddled yet absolutely clear logic of the youngest Weasley boy: "Professor, you need to go to the Shrieking Shack, right away. Snape is there, and he's dying. There's something with him-I don't know, but something happened and I think you'll want to talk to him." (When she asked him, later, why he'd thought to send a message to her, of all people, Weasley shrugged. "Seemed the thing to do," he said. "I mean, you were friends with him, right?")

When she got the message, she ran as fast as she could-which was fast, even for a cat-to the Shack. She found Severus, not quite dead and lying in enough blood, surely, to fill three people. She pressed her hands to his neck, uselessly, and then fished around his pockets for the blood-replenishing potions she knew he kept in there, and forced some down his throat.

But he revived only briefly.

"Minerva," he whispered.

"Severus, you stupid fool. What did you do?" She was crying already, and she hadn't even forgiven him yet. Or maybe she had-maybe her forgiveness had slipped past her.

"Albus," he said, and wheezed a few more times. "Plan."

She chuckled hysterically around her tears. "That would just about sum this up."

They looked at each other, both breathing raggedly. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Why didn't Albus tell me? I could have helped you, Severus-I'm so sorry-I..."

"Your act...critical. You...bad actress." He nodded minutely, and closed his eyes.

"I am so sorry, Severus-I could have made this year easier on you..."

But he shook his head again. She continued, "You were saving students from them all year, Severus Snape. You were a complete...fucking...arsehole about it-"

His lips curled upward at this, and she sighed and continued, "But I wouldn't expect you to have done it any other way."

And she knelt by him, one hand on his shoulder and the other hand on his cheek, and nattered on about inconsequential things-the weather, the turning of the seasons, how he should stop wearing so much black-until he died.

It didn't take long.

Three days later, at dawn, she burned his body on a pyre just outside the school. No ostentatious funeral, no grave marker-but a bold statement all the same. She was surprised by the number of people who showed. Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley, of course, but also Seamus Finnigan, Neville Longbottom-Neville Longbottom!-Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and of course all of Slytherin House who remained, the Malfoys prominent among them. Minerva looked at all of them but said nothing as she walked slowly to the pyre holding a lit torch, which she placed at the base. Everyone stayed silent except Miss Lovegood, who started humming a wild tune that was familiar as an old shoe, but that Minerva had never heard before. The crackle of the fire harmonized with the tune, and then the fire took over the melody while Miss Lovegood harmonized, and then the fire was so loud that Minerva couldn't hear the humming at all.

And then she turned and walked toward the school. She didn't look back.