THE GRAVEYARD OF EVERYTHING

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: This chapter follows on from the second-last letter in ch 7 to begin a two-chapter DH-compatible ending. Thanks to all my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste, Cecelle and Lady Memory.

The story till now: Since Harry's first year, Snape had eased his troubled mind by sending time-spelled letters twenty years into the future to Hermione. Now, two months after receiving his last letter, it's her turn to speak.

I let him die. That's the thought I can't let go of. Funny, because back then I found it so easy to justify: we thought he was the enemy, the traitor, the murderer. I was tired, distraught, preoccupied. There were more important things to do, a Horcrux to find, a war to fight! But now that thought won't let go of me. I let him die. I let Severus die.

I shouldn't even think of him as Severus. I have no right, I who watched him drop lifelessly to the floor in that awful Shack, not once but twice in my life, without pity or feeling. Without lifting a finger to help, or even to check whether he was alive. Oh, I was right when I told Harry in first year that there are more important things than books and cleverness. "Friendship and bravery," I said then, meaning loyalty and courage and determination. In a word, heart. Harry has it. Dumbledore, I thought – wrongly; how wrong I was! – had it. Neville, whom I used secretly to despise and helped all the more for that, has always had it. And Severus had it in full measure, heart and strength and brains and creativity – everything except wisdom. He loved too well to love wisely.

I remember when Harry told Ron and me what he'd seen in those memories. The battle was over and he talked all the way to the headmaster's office. (All the portraits cheered when we went in. But Severus wasn't there. There wasn't even an empty frame.) How it pricked me to hear that Severus would not watch die anyone he could save. Not as much as it should have, but it did. It pricked, punctured my self-esteem, for as long as it took me to convince myself that it wasn't the same, that he had great wrongs to atone for, that, anyway, he was twenty years older and when he was my age he'd been a Death Eater. No saving people then! "Lately," he'd told Dumbledore; lately he'd saved whenever he could. There was time for me. I was, at any rate, no worse than him. I could also grow into a fully human being.

I was wrong. You don't grow into such things, you sculpt yourself, like clay, like stone, piece by laborious piece, adding, cutting away, shaping the unforgiving rock or squeezing the clay back into a ball and starting again. Either way, it has to begin with seeing clearly, with knowing you're wrong, unfinished, incomplete, and choosing to put yourself right. Not with excuses, justifications, defences, and denial.

And here I am, older now than he was then, and how do I measure up? How do I compare? With this Time-Turner in my hand, I have the means to save him. (Maybe – if it wasn't already too late when we left him there. How can I know? We didn't bother to check.) And do I dare? Do I sacrifice? Do I choose to return?

I can't. I have responsibilities, loved ones, anchors.

Not Ron. Our marriage has been in name only for years. I knew early on that I'd made a mistake, that the attraction I'd felt from the moment I first saw him (if I'm honest, and surely I can at last be honest with myself) should never have progressed to marriage. We could have been friends forever perhaps, unlike as we are, if we had only not taken that one step too far. If only I had realised that marrying him meant becoming my mother-in-law.

I never wanted to be Molly. I've never liked her as much as I told myself I should. Yes, she has seven children and she's fed and clothed and brought them up, and taught them enough of what's right that they all fought on the right side, even Percy in the end. Even the twins, whose moral sense was lacking in so many ways, but not in that one. But I could never quite forgive her for believing Skeeter against me in fourth year and showing it so pointedly with my Easter egg. And why did she have so many kids if her love had run out by the time she had Ron? (Oh, she fed him and clothed him all right, it was more subtle than that: sandwich fillings he didn't eat and clothes he was embarrassed to wear, like that dress-thing in fourth year. Maroon and mouldy lace, with his red hair! Could he be more a figure of fun?) She wanted a girl, I think, and kept trying till she got one. And once she'd had all those boys she just had to lump them, didn't she?

I was luckier. I had my boy and girl set with just two. I could stop there, so I did.

And I can't leave them. I can't. It would be different if I could go and come back. I could wait until Hugo starts at Hogwarts, put him and Rose on the train, go into the past to find Severus and be back in plenty of time for the school holidays. (Bring him back with me, if he would come. If he was alive to come. Someone moved him after we left, but no one has ever admitted to doing it. Sometimes people say they've spotted him, or found his resting-place, but it always turns out not to be true.) But time travel only works one-way and I can't go forever and leave my kids. Not even for him.

(Or am I just saying that? He learnt courage as he got older. I learnt cowardice. I was much braver once. But I had nothing to lose. And he had nothing; nothing to lose, nothing to gain. Just his immortal soul perhaps. But maybe it was easier to be brave for that.)

Two months ago, I got his last letter. Almost a year ago, we saw Rosie and Al and James off on the train, and at the end of the day, I got his first as headmaster. And I couldn't breathe for sobbing.

I'd already quarrelled with Ron. After I called him a Muggle-hexing Malfoy-wannabe, and he'd stamped out the door, I knew it was over between us. Whatever respect I'd ever felt for him was long gone. He thought I couldn't hear what he told Harry at the station, but I did. His smugness has stopped being funny. He parrots his father's ideals, but he doesn't live them. (What could I expect? Arthur doesn't live them either. He thinks he does, but I'm a Muggle-born. I notice who treats my family as equal and who doesn't. Mostly who doesn't.) I didn't even feel sad about it, just numb, and glad that the kids weren't there to be woken by our screaming. I'd let Hugo sleep over at Harry's, knowing but not quite admitting to myself what was to come.

I wasn't particularly expecting a letter that night, not more than any other night, but Severus was writing quite frequently by then, and I knew one might come. I sat staring into the empty fireplace (because I didn't want visitors) and waited. And it did.

So short. So quiet. But his pain couldn't have sounded louder if he'd screamed it. We were waiting for the end by then, he in his deep cover as Voldemort's right-hand man, me in my cold, comfortable home, reading of Dumbledore's death and Charity Burbage's, of ambush and betrayal and the Ministry's fall and Lily's letter. Severus had not even hope left. (Not for himself.)

I had found Hogwarts a home and a harbour; he had found it the graveyard of everything. And worse was coming; we both knew that. Perhaps that's why his letters that year were more about my doings than his, until those last two frantic letters written within hours of each other: "I must find you before the Carrows do ... Think of me kindly sometimes." (I do, oh, I do. Always.)

And since then, there is only silence. There have always been gaps between his letters, most of them longer than the two months I've waited so far, but I knew those times he was still alive to write, whether he would or not. This time...

How I wish I could know that he had lived past that night. That whoever moved him (the Malfoys, perhaps; they owed him so much and had professed friendship so often) had found him still breathing, or somehow revived him and healed him and hidden him away in a place of refuge to start a new life, better than the old one. (It could hardly be worse.) Then I could dream of one day finding him and greeting him (with a hug – would he let me hug him?) and turning "do you remember"s into the friendship I think he was beginning to feel for me.

Or that I could imagine he'd saved himself, prepared a way out, "put a stopper in death" like he told us that first Potions lesson, and made a new identity for himself. Then surely, probably, he would have continued to write to me; I could look forward to more letters to come and maybe he'd even let slip or say openly where I could find him. (I wish I could find him.)

But I know from his letters that he didn't. He had no thought of such a thing. Besides, they were spelled not to arrive if he should still "exist in my time". If he had lived long enough, even the first letter would not have arrived.

I was so surprised to receive it, I remember. Surprised and honoured and heartsore and eager all at once. (He thought I could not remember him with fondness. He was wrong.) I read it in secret again and again, crying and smiling and letting myself pretend for precious moments that he was alive. Ron would never have understood, of course, even if we'd still been sharing our thoughts then. And Harry would have told Ginny, and she'd have thought it was creepy. A letter from beyond the grave, from someone she hated anyway. Harry might have forgiven him for the way he treated him, but she never would, nor for the things that happened that last horrible year when he was headmaster. Weasleys are not forgivers.

I could have told Luna. She'd have understood, even shared some of my feelings. (Not the regret. She is always too little dissatisfied to feel regret; he was right about that. And she had nothing to regret anyway. She didn't watch him die and do nothing.) Somehow I never have. The opportunity never arises. Perhaps I am careful that it doesn't. This is my secret. Mine and his. The only thing we've ever shared, just the two of us. (There is no two of us. I wish there could be.)

I didn't really expect to get a second letter, but I hoped. And sure enough, in the waning days of the year, I did. He was castigating me for having turned myself half into a cat. I suppose it was then that I really began to know him.

I remember how terrified I was that awful day he came to me in the infirmary. He was so angry, and I knew I deserved it. I'd stolen from him, I'd brewed a potion in a bathroom, where anyone might take it, I'd made the boys throw fireworks in his classroom and drug two classmates – any one of which activities might have got me expelled in a Muggle school – and I was lying to him. He knew all that. It's all in his letter. And yet, under the anger was compassion, understanding for my fear, hope for my future and a deep, deep desire to protect. I would never have known that if he hadn't written. Dumbledore was right about one thing at least; Severus did always hide the best of himself. And there was a lot of best to hide. With every letter I saw that more clearly.

There was a year between the fourth letter and the fifth. By the time it arrived, I'd given up hoping. Meanwhile, my marriage was continuing its long, slow crumble. Ron worked late and I worked early. Half the time, I was asleep when he came home to reheat dinner for himself and fall into bed. The other half, I pretended to be. Then the Shrieking Shack debacle happened, and he wrote, ranting, scolding, saying he would never write again. I couldn't blame him. I remembered too well.

I had thought all those years ago that he was almost insane in his fury. I'd believed him petty and silly to condemn Sirius on the strength of, yes, a dangerous and brainless prank, but certainly not the murder attempt he claimed it was. Sirius wouldn't turn one of his closest friends into a killer and fugitive just to stop a nosey parker, and to suspect Lupin of being involved had to be madness. (Now, I'm not so sure. Some of what Harry saw in Snape's memories gives me the strangest suspicions that I don't like to think about. What's the point of wondering, anyway? There's no one left to ask.) Of course, by the time I got that letter, I'd known for years that there was reason behind the fury. That he blamed Sirius (and himself) for Lily's death; that he believed Sirius was trying to kill the boy he'd sworn to protect. But still, it was different hearing it directly from him.

There's so much of that night I'd give anything to take back – hexing Severus unconscious, letting Ron chain himself to a werewolf, Wormtail's escape, but, most of all, that it never occurred to me to care how Severus fared. I hate my younger self for that. Fourteen was not too young to know better. I hate that I never asked his forgiveness. Three more years went by under the same roof, and it never even occurred to me to apologise. I'd give anything to get back those forgotten chances and tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I'm grateful. Tell him I finally understand how much better he deserved. Yes, I'd give anything ... except my children. I can't leave them, how could I?

Another year went by before he wrote again. I was sure he never would. He'd said he wouldn't, and he wasn't the sort to say what he didn't mean. It would take a cataclysm to shift him.

It did. Voldemort returned. I couldn't even be glad Severus had changed his mind. All I could think was how desperate he must be. How desolate. How alone. How Cedric had been another death he couldn't prevent, and how he must have dreaded all the other victims he knew he wouldn't be able to save.

But he had forgiven me. I should be comforted by that, but I can't be. Or maybe I won't let myself be. I just feel I needed to earn his forgiveness, not receive it as a free gift, for no reason other than that he had no one else. It's not personal enough, somehow. He might have forgiven any chance person he'd chosen as his confidant, forgiven out of necessity rather than conviction. I tell myself I should be honoured he chose me at all.

I wonder why he did. (Even he didn't know that. He suggested various reasons, but they weren't very convincing. I like to think he saw something kindred in me, that he saw more in my eleven-year-old self than the "hair, teeth and wildly waving hand" he disdained, but that's not convincing either. Why should he?) Was it just because I was Harry's friend, as close to Lily as he could get – as close as he dared go?

All that next year, his letters made me smile. The war hadn't begun yet, Voldemort was still playing possum, and Severus was grumbly about my "earnest, reproachful eyes", my "aggravating" habit of doing Harry's work for him, my "glorious mayhem" and my "smug expression". He'd begun to compliment me - backhanded compliments, usually, but definitely compliments. When he told me I'd have been "more loyal" – more loyal than Lily, the love of his life – I could almost forget that Ron accused me constantly of undermining him.

(I suppose I did. Less by what I said, usually, than by what I thought, by the automatic assumptions I made. "Always the tone of surprise", he told me once, about what I don't remember. Oh, that he'd Stunned a Death Eater on a broom the night they chased us. And I said it back to him not long after. Any undermining between us was mutual.)

But loyal or not, vindicated or otherwise, Severus still thought of me as a child. He wrote to me as the child he watched rather than the adult he anticipated.

Then we ended the phony war by going to the Ministry, and Dumbledore managed to curse himself, and everything changed. Severus was sadder, grimmer, more despairing ... and he no longer called me child. I'm ashamed to admit how largely that figured in my reading of his letters. If I lived to be two hundred, I wouldn't reach his age, I think. Not his chronological age, but his mental age, bowed down by years of misery and striving and self-transformation. He was amazing.

Somehow, he began to turn from unreachable dreams of Lily to curiosity about me, the adult-me who was/is his reader. No less unreachable, and yet he turned – more and more, he turned. I wish I could have read his letters then,when we occupied the same time-space, when I could have done something with the knowledge other than grieve.

Too late. (And would I have had wit to appreciate them? Or would I have thought, oh, how creepy, Snape's crushing on a future-me, how pathetic?)

Two months ago, I received his last letter. Eight weeks ago, I bought a Pensieve. I have stayed up every night since, long after Hugo's bedtime, watching Severus. Watching the pivotal and trivial moments that made up our acquaintance. In the classroom, on the Quidditch pitch, in the Shrieking Shack with Sirius and Lupin, and conjuring us stretchers after he came to. In the corridors and the Hospital Wing, the Great Hall and Grimmauld Place. The swish of a cloak, the twitch of a lip, the flick of his wand to the board. And every night, there is one memory I dare not pull, one memory I flinch away from.

I did not see Voldemort set the snake on him. There was only enough space for one head to peek through the gap, one pair of eyes to witness their meeting. Harry took it and Ron and I waited behind, not daring to speak. I did not see and I could not fully hear. I remember a mumble of voices, occasionally rising into intelligibility.

"I do not think you can make much difference now ... I have told you, no! ... Can't you?"

"My lord – let me go to the boy ... My lord!" Then a hush, a shout, a hiss and a terrible scream.

Voldemort left, Harry levitated the crate out of the way to climb in, and there was Snape kneeling, falling, blood pouring from his neck and his fingers pressing, pressing vainly, unable to stop it. Clutching Harry, memories pouring out with his last dying strength. I conjured a flask, and he whispered something and his hand fell. We stared for a moment, and Voldemort's voice echoed around the room and we left. I left first. Little as I had seen, it was enough, I thought.

What would I see in my Pensieve now, if I watched till the last edges of my presence? Would I see a hint of who came, who moved him? Would I see a flicker of movement, belying his apparent death? Or would I see nothing, just a corpse and a room and a pool of blood?

A/N Quotes are mostly from earlier chapters of this fic, but "friendship and bravery" and "put a stopper in death" are from PS and "Lately", "tone of surprise" and the scraps of death scene conversation from DH.

The hospital interview with a cat-eared Hermione comes from ch 2 and the one-way operation of Time-Turners is mentioned in ch 8 of this fic. Both are neither supported nor denied by canon. I base my belief that Hermione missed hearing most of Snape's last conversation on the fact that in the text it starts mid-sentence when Harry puts his head to the gap to watch. Before that, all he heard was "voices".

For those who have struggled with my concept of time travel, try imagining yourself standing outside time and seeing past, present and future all in the one glance, like a napped cloth spread out on a table. The cloth can be folded, allowing a being to move from present to past (but not vice versa, because it's against the nap), but the effect is not to *change* something that's happened, but to *place* the mover in the correct time to do what was/is/will be done there. The pattern of events is already woven in the cloth.