"I would like to give it to you, trust me, but it's impossible to find."
Harry had in fact no intention of giving the Resurrection Stone to Snape. He was still only 17, but he was not naïve. He knew Snape was a liability when it came to pining over dead people. He saw that much in the memories he had since wordlessly returned to Snape who had wordlessly taken them back. Anything. Always. Yeah, right. He would surely want to see Harry's Mum just once, no harm done, just one sentence, a short greeting, nothing more, he would so tell him that. Just a final goodbye. Suuuure. Harry was not born yesterday, thank you very much.
"So you hid it with a spell?" Snape asked. They were walking down a path in the Forbidden Forest. Harry had given up the general location of the Stone to Snape of course, he had seen the memories of Snape reporting to Voldemort and he knew the first rule of misdirection was to give the interrogator something. (There were many more memories in the vial than Harry had seen right before confronting Voldemort and of course he tried looking again while Snape was still out of it, just once, to see whether he would glimpse anyone interesting – just the one time, really).
"Yes, I hid it with a spell."
"A powerful hiding spell?"
"Yes."
"You hid the Resurrection Stone in the Forbidden Forest using a hiding spell?"
"Yes."
"Which spell did you use?"
"I would prefer not to reveal that."
"Occulto? But you need a meaningful hiding place for that. So perhaps, Unplottable … no, hmm, so you just chose the hiding place randomly?"
"Yes."
"Here in the Forest?"
"Yes."
"And you used a hiding spell that prevents it being found by anyone - ever?"
"Obviously."
Snape stopped and straightened. His robes stopped billowing. The straggly greasy hair the healers had cut short to access his neck wound stopped jumping about his head. He looked at Harry – Harry quickly looked away, but as Snape's face was the picture of dawning realization, he knew no Legilimency was necessary.
Snape slowly extended his left arm and took out his wand from within his robes with the other. With an exasperated look at Harry, he shouted: "ACCIO RESURRECTION STONE!"
For seconds, nothing happened. Then, the shiny black polished stone flew into Snape's palm. Snape closed his fingers around it and sighed. "Alright, so this is done."
They continued in silence. Branches crunched under their feet. Small animals scuttled away at the sound of their approach.
"So, what do you plan to with the Stone, now that you have it?" Harry asked.
"Get rid of it, of course," said Snape, stopping to look at the stone in his hand.
He looked at it for a long time. An alarmingly long time.
"Ah, to think this was all it took," Snape said finally.
"What?" Harry said.
"Nothing, Potter."
"Alright, well, you know, the Stone can be dangerous." said Harry carefully. "Maybe I should hold on to it."
"Nonsense," Snape was now the one to look away. Harry noticed Snape blinked several times. The situation was clearly getting out of control. Please don't resurrect my dead Mum, please don't. Stupid! Stupid just throwing the Stone away! Maybe I can distract him and knock it out of his hand, maybe-
Snape blinked again. Then he took a deep breath. "I …"
"Yeah?" Harry said, his heart fluttering in panic. This was it, wasn't it. Snape was going to live here, in the Forest, forever, with the resurrected ghostly corpse of Lily Potter. He would become one of the dangerous creatures lurking behind the bushes, creeping around at night, scavenging food, sharing a bed of moss and heather with the re-animated imprint of Harry's dead Mum …
"I … well, I was just thinking about my mother." Snape said.
Harry's heart stopped. "My mother?"
"No, my mother."
"What?" Harry stared at him blankly. "By my mother, do you mean-"
"By my mother, I mean my mother, Potter, not your mother. My mother. That's how pronouns work."
Harry frowned. "What?"
"Ah, I suppose I might as well … you think you know all my secrets, Potter, do you," he sneered. "But you have not even brushed the surface."
Snape gestured forward and they resumed walking, now circling back in the direction of the school.
"My mother used to work in the Department of Mysteries, you see," Snape said. "And this was one of the things they studied. Artefacts and curses pertaining to death, dying, the Great Beyond, all that. And as part of her career progress, she began to supervise the Veil."
"The Veil?" This conversation was taking an unexpected turn. Harry could hardly keep up.
"Yes, The Veil. So, she studied it, but also oversaw all that concerned it. Stamped all the documents allowing others to study it too. And one day, she approved an experiment, an experiment involving the Veil and what she – and her colleagues – believed to be this Resurrection stone." He lifted his hand with the Stone. "And the experiment failed, of course, because the stone was fake. A good fake, a genuine fake, you might say," Snape chuckled darkly and clenched his fist around the Stone so his knuckles stood out. "And a wizard died and my mother was fired. No one would hire her, so she returned home. Her marriage was not a happy one, far from it, but it was all she had left. I was away at Hogwarts or with Lily or the Malfoys or anywhere not there. So she was alone."
"Oh," said Harry. Never in his life did he expect to be told such a private story by Snape. Also, it did not seem to be headed in a happy direction. Did anything good happen in Snape's life, ever? The fact that Snape was even telling him all this was a small miracle. Harry feared speaking out lest he disrupt Snape and he would call him an idiot or something and not finish it. Or did he want him to finish it?
"Well, she became increasingly isolated," Snape went on, "and cut off all connections and remained all alone in a place she hated and with a man who hated her, and so, finally, she killed herself. What a surprise. So … someone somewhere once created a replica of this Stone, charmed it and enchanted it and dipped it in potions to have the qualities of the real one, and sold it. Just to make money probably. Who doesn't need money, right?" he looked angrily at Harry.
"Er, I-," said Harry.
"They could not have foreseen what it would lead to, could they? And even if they did, could it even be considered their fault? Probably not. Whose fault was it, then? Whose fault, Potter?" Snape's voice rose.
"I … I'm sorry, I didn't know..."
"Nevermind that, then." Snape stopped and opened his fist again. The black stone lay in his pale hand, emanating ancient power. "Maybe this one is fake, too? And the visions you mentioned were just visions. Fawkes is an egg, so I suppose to destroy this Hallow, we will simply have to-" He reached for his wand again.
Harry's mind was suddenly racing, trying to sort through all the information through the fog of the shock of Snape's tale. Resurrection stone, The Veil, an experiment...
"Wait!" Harry shouted. "Can you, just, wait. For a second. Have you thought? I mean, what sort of an experiment was that? That your Mum got fired over?"
Snape's face contorted in a wry grimace: "I know what you are thinking. I saw the red light go on ever since I mentioned the Veil. Have you even paid attention to anything else? And no, Potter, we cannot. There's no bringing Black back. It wasn't that sort of an experiment. He's just as dead as my mother, as your mother, as Dumbledore. The Stone is said to grant a living person passage into the realm of the dead just as it can allow the dead to pass into our world. But to do such a thing is to sentence yourself to a life of liminality. Neither here nor there, neither fully alive, nor fully dead. I would not wish that on my – well, perhaps – anyway, your mother did not die for you to go traipsing into the afterlife searching for lost souls. All we can do is to let the dead be dead."
"I'm sorry about your Mum," Harry said. "The Veil - I'm sorry."
Snape turned away from him. "That's where the Resurrection Stone belongs – beyond the Veil."
They Apparated to London later that day. Using the perks of being war heroes and saviors of all that was good about Wizarding Britain, they waltzed through the Ministry all the way to The Department of Mysteries. Snape handed the Resurrection Stone to Harry and Harry took aim, changed his mind, stepped a step closer and took aim again – and threw the Resurrection Stone into the rippling hand-woven abyss of the Veil.
The Veil stopped rippling.
For a long while, nothing happened.
Then, it spat out Sirius Black.