20th of August 1998

3. 20th of August 1998

They had searched for the painting of Professor Snape all day yesterday without finding it. They had looked everywhere that seemed plausible: The dungeon, the Room of Requirement—burnt out as it still was—and the library, without finding it. Today they had resorted to searching the unlikely places: the kitchen, the owlery and even the toilets, which had amused Moaning Myrtle no end. It also gave Myrtle the opportunity to give Harry a couple of lewd suggestions that had made his ears, and probably the rest of him, blush.

Now it was getting close to lunchtime, and they still hadn't found anything. And since Professor Dumbledore was still refusing to give them even the smallest hint or lead, they had split up so they could search a bigger area. That's when she'd remembered the East Wing on the ground floor. There were few classrooms here and a lot of corridors. Corridors she, Ron and Harry had never explored and that most people, students and teachers alike, tended to ignore. It was as good a place as any for her to search.

The doors in the corridor were unwilling to let her through; they opened for her only after she threatened to take their keys away as punishment, and behind them she encountered long, winding corridors.

But at the end of the last one was a huge oak door. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach the handle.

It was locked, but an Alohomora took care of that problem. The door gave an ominous squeak as it opened, swinging inwards.

The room inside was dark. She couldn't see anything, and her stomach contracted at the thought of what might be hidden in a blacked-out room that, if the size of the door was anything to go by, was roughly the size of Westminster Abbey. Maybe bigger. She swallowed the lump in her throat and held her wand a bit harder as she lifted it.

She threw the Lumos without making a sound in case something horrible hiding in the darkness was listening and prepared the next spell in case fighting would be necessary.

What little she could see of the room was empty. She took a couple of tentative steps inside. The whole room, even the parts she couldn't see, was probably empty if the echo of her steps was anything to go by.

She walked deeper into the room, and she still couldn't see or even hear anything worrying. No giant spiders, no growling, slobbering Fluffy, no snake or other random monsters, not even of the human kind.

But as she walked even further into the room, dimly lit by the light from her wand, she could see a large, dark shadow on the far wall. Her heart sped up. Maybe, just maybe this was it. She walked toward it, holding up her wand so the glowing tip illuminated more and more of the dark shape as she moved closer.

The portrait was lovely. Especially considering the object of it.

Severus Snape was sitting in an armchair with his head resting against one of its sides. His right arm was on the armrest while the other was dangling over the side of the chair that was closest to her. He was holding his wand. He didn't snore, but she could hear his slow breaths as his chest rose and fell in time with his breathing.

He looked much better than she remembered. He looked healthier, and for some reason, she felt her eyes tear up on seeing that the artist had put a lot of work into the background of the painting.

One of the walls in the picture had bookcases that stretched from the floor to the roof. The shelves were filled with books. She couldn't read the titles, but there were titles painted—with minuscule letters—on the back of every single book.

Through a door in the back of the painting, she could see a big four-poster bed covered with a beautiful spread in jewel colours.

She hadn't realised that she had lifted her hand until she saw it touch the canvas where Severus Snape's cheek was painted.

Nothing happened.

Severus Snape slept on, and the curtains hanging close to an open balcony door on the picture fluttered as if the wind outside had taken hold of them.

And all she was touching was dry paint. She could feel the cool surface of the paint and the small ridges of the brush strokes against her fingers. And that brought it home: Severus Snape was dead, and would never stride through the corridors of Hogwarts, robes billowing, again. He was gone, and so were Fred, Remus and Tonks.

The pang of pain in her chest made her knees fold.

Lying curled on the hard marble floor, in an empty room at the farthest end of Hogwarts, with her hands covering her face, Hermione, who hadn't cried even once after the battle, listened to the hollow echoes of her own sobs.