Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Hide them all, then," he croaked. "Keep her...them...safe. Please."

"Always..."

Hermione walked into the common room in Gryffindor tower. Harry was sitting in a plush chair, still wearing the same filthy robes he had worn during the battle. There was a plate of sandwiches in front of him, and he was staring off into the distance. His left leg was bent at the knee, and his foot was resting on the small table in front of him. His right hand, his wand hand, was resting upwards, propped up at the elbow. He was rubbing his thumb and fingers unconsciously. His green eyes were off into the distance, far, far away from where he sat.

Hermione walked towards him tentatively. "Harry?" she whispered.

He looked up to her and said blandly, "I'm going to take a shower now and sleep. I am exhausted."

Hermione nodded. "That's good, Harry. Do you want me to get Ron up here? You seem upset," she said uneasily as he stood and walked away from her.

He turned his head around and said, "No. Fred's gone. Ron needs to be with his family."

Hermione reached out to him and hugged him tightly. "Harry, you are their family, too. Why don't you go and be with Ron?" she suggested.

"No!" he snapped as he pushed her away from him. "If it weren't...oh fuck! I can't live on what should have been. I can't handle all of this now." He grew increasingly angry and rubbed his forehead. "I have learned so much about my past, I can't handle it all! First, my parents, Voldemort, Snape..."

His head snapped up, his emerald eyes grew huge in horror. "Hermione! Snape, he's still in the shack...we have to get him," he said urgently. He grabbed his Invisibility Cloak and climbed out of the portrait hole.

"Harry, wait!" said Hermione as she dashed after him. She half-walked, half-jogged alongside him. "You're not thinking clearly. Let's get someone else to get his body. I don't think you are in the frame of mind right now to handle this."

He stopped walking and reached out his hand to her. "Then help me, Hermione. You were the one who liked him best out of the three of us."

Hermione shrugged. "That's not saying a lot. You and Ron loathed him. I merely thought he was a lonely, bitter man to be pitied," she said hollowly.

The two walked together, hand in hand. Harry started to smile. "Snape would have hated your pitying him," he said abruptly. Then he tugged her hand to follow her as they walked down the moving staircase.

They went out through a back passage of the castle towards the tunnel that led towards the shack. Harry threw his cloak over his head. Hermione looked alone with Harry's Invisibility Cloak covering him. As soon as they were in the tunnel that led towards the shack, Harry took off his cloak.

Hermione whispered as they neared the entrance, "I'm afraid, Harry. I don't want to see his dead body. I feel so horrible. He deserved more than this." She felt tears well up inside her, and Harry squeezed her hand.

"Hermione, I feel it too. All this time, all these years, he loved my mum. I never thought the ruddy git could love!" he said in a strangled voice. "I hate that I have those memories. He would throttle me if he knew I had so many of his private thoughts."

He faced Hermione with a worried expression. "D'you think he meant to give me all of them? Did I need to see so much?" Harry looked as if the weight of the universe rested on his young shoulders.

Hermione placed her hand on Harry's arm. "Harry. I haven't seen the memories. I only know what you were yelling at Voldemort. Snape loved your mother, and that is why he came over to our side and remained."

Hermione looked down the passageway and pondered the words she had spoken. "I wonder though, Harry. Was he really on our side? Or was he there just for your mother? Did he truly think people like me are Mudbloods?"

"No," Harry said firmly as he grasped her hand. He bore his eyes into hers and continued. "I know this, Hermione. Severus Snape did not believe in all that pure-blood rubbish. He was on our side. He knew it was right to leave Voldemort. In fact, one of the memories showed that Snape hadn't liked that word even spoken in his presence!"

They reached the room where the murder had taken place. Hermione braced herself and held Harry's hand tightly as they walked inside. She could see in her mind the dead eyes, the open mouth, and the grip of his hand loosen from Harry's robes.

Look at me.

She could swear the words lingered in the air like an echo that went on and on, never ceasing. They continued slowly inside the room and saw the pool of blood, but there was no trace of the dark wizard. Harry stood frozen in his tracks. He was speechless. Hermione was flummoxed.

"Maybe someone else took him into the castle, Harry," Hermione whispered as she tried to get Harry to show some sign that he was processing the situation.

Harry looked visibly upset. His face was splotchy in red and white, and his breathing became shallow and irregular. His eyes darted around the room as they began to glisten with tears. "Or some fucking Death Eater decided to take his body. FUCK!" he swore.

Hermione leaned down and dipped two fingers into the blood pool and examined it. She shook her head, glanced up at Harry, and then back to the blood on her fingers. "I don't see how he could have survived, Harry. There is so much blood loss..."

Hermione stood up and stepped back away from Harry. He was livid. He marched off back into the tunnel and inside the castle, his robes whirling behind him, so ironically like the professor, and she followed him, watching and waiting to see where he would go and what he was planning to do. He stormed his way through the throngs of people who wanted to congratulate him and went up to Professor McGonagall.

"Where is Severus Snape?" he demanded as he walked up and down the tables of the dead searching each lifeless face as he strode furiously up and down the aisles. Everyone in the Great Hall, even the wounded, silenced as the Boy-Who-Killed-Voldemort raged.

McGonagall's face was white as she tentatively approached the volatile wizard. "I don't know, Potter," she said in a soft voice.

"Where are the Death Eaters' bodies?" he bellowed as he continued to look, becoming increasingly upset as he searched and found no sign of the wizard. Hermione swallowed and tried to remain calm. She had seen Harry angry before, but not like this.

"They are in one of the empty classrooms, waiting to be burned," McGonagall answered sharply. She grabbed his upper arm when he tried to run off.

"Harry," she said in her stern teaching voice. "I assisted Hagrid in the separation of the dead. I have seen each and every Death Eater's face. He isn't there. Where did he die?"

Hermione's eyes darted between them. She doesn't know, she thought. No one knew Snape had died.

"In the Shrieking Shack," he spat angrily. "Hermione and I went to make sure his body was brought back here to lay with the dead who were in the Order. What happened to him?"

McGonagall took him by both shoulders and forced him to focus. "Potter!" she barked. "What did you see?" Her eyes were like burning steel. Her hair had come free from its usual trademark bun, and now it hung in a makeshift twist to keep it out of her face. She looked younger somehow, and the pressure of now being Headmistress pro tem was bringing out the lioness in her.

Harry looked into her eyes and whispered softly, "There was blood...his blood. I need him here, Professor. I can't have him out there. He has to be buried properly." Harry looked strained to the point of breaking. McGonagall seemed to understand this and treated him cautiously.

"And he shall, Potter," she said as she kept her grip on the young wizard. "You must get control of yourself. We will find him."

"Professor McGonagall is right, Harry," Hermione whispered as she put her hand in his. "It will be all right."

"No, it won't, Hermione!" he yelled. He forced the two witches to release him. "I want every Auror to be looking for him. Finding his body should become priority number one!" He looked around and focused on the Malfoy family. He stalked over to them in a blinding rage. Hermione stayed close, her wand at the ready. Harry took his wand and forced it underneath Lucius Malfoy's chin. Narcissa and Draco shrank away from Harry's ire. He was no mere boy wizard; he was a man...a man who had killed the greatest Dark wizard in fifty years. His look commanded respect. Although mother and son would be reluctant to give him his due, they were no fools. Lucius, however, a wizard who had stood up to far more dangers than a wand of a raving boy, refused to cow. He remained where he sat. He kept his back straight and his face upraised in defiance.

"Where is Severus Snape?" Harry roared.

"I have no idea, boy," Lucius replied arrogantly in a clipped tone. Hermione watched the green eyes of Harry's stare into the cool, gray eyes in front of him.

"CRU..."

" Expelliarmus!" screamed Hermione, and Harry's wand flew into her hand.

"No Unforgivables, Harry!" she snapped at him. "No more!"

"I've got to find him, Hermione," he said desperately. "I have to find him now before someone does something to him."

Madam Pomfrey dashed over to Harry's side and said, "That is enough, Mr. Potter! Now lie down." She forced a phial of liquid into his throat, and he immediately became sedate and relaxed.

"Draught of Peace," she explained to Hermione as she tucked Harry into one of the makeshift cots in the Great Hall for the wounded. "Now," she said after Harry was tucked away. "What's all this hullabaloo about?" she demanded.

"We can't find Professor Snape's body," Hermione whispered to her. "Harry is very upset. We need to keep him calm until all of this can be sorted."

Madam Pomfrey looked horrified. "Oh, dear," she choked out. "Is Severus really dead? Is there any chance he could be alive?" Hermione saw tears beginning to swell in her eyes

Hermione opened her mouth to answer and closed it. She had never even entertained such a possibility.

A/N: Some quotes in this chapter are from DH. I used the following prompt:

5. Coping in the Aftermath

a. Many people were affected by Voldemort - his followers, his victims, etc. After the war is over, how are they dealing? After all, for people like Harry, Ginny, the trio, and especially the Malfoys, he was a huge part of their lives. How are they dealing with his demise and are there any repercussions?