Snape's Exit

As Harry exited the Headmaster’s Office, he suddenly wondered what had happened to Snape. He had left the wounded, unconscious Potion’s Master in the Shrieking Shack; Hermione had assured Harry as they were rushing back that her spell will take a few hours to work, but he shall be out of danger once all the serpent venom was ousted from his system.

“He should have been back”, Hermione noted, when Harry brought up the matter. “But we should still check up on him.”

“Check up on Snape,” Ron snorted. “Today’s a really weird day.”

Hermione blushed. Harry suppressed a grin, while Ron remained oblivious.

It took them longer than they expected. Harry had dropped the Invisibility Cloak in the earlier chaos, and now was visible to everyone crowding the Great Hall and the courtyards. Almost immediately upon revealing their presence to the people, all three were swamped by crowds of grateful people. People without faces grabbed his hands, shaking them hard enough to make Hagrid cry, or otherwise screaming their gratitude into his head. Several hands found their way to Harry’s head, ruffling his hair until he felt sure he would never be able to tame them.

Harry was dimly aware of Ron shouting colorful profanities as the crowd separated him from Hermione, and of Hermione shouting a word repeatedly. At last, all of a sudden, the crowd’s pressure on his person decreased, until only few people seemed to even recognise him, and others making their way to him stopped and looked around themselves in a confused manner, as if unsure of the intent behind their erstwhile movement.

Harry looked up at Hermione. She had her wand out. “Confundus Maximus,” she replied in response. “Not quite as potent as the Confundus, but works over a wide area, making people temporarily forget their purpose. It won’t last long.” She looked around. “Where’s Ron?”

Harry spotted him a few paces away. Ron was inspecting a tear in the side of his shirt. Harry thought this warranted another onslaught of oaths, but Ron merely shook his head in an exasperated fashion, said “Gits!” and jogged over to the others.

“Can’t we just Apparate to the Shrieking Shack now?” he said. “You-Know-Who did remove the spells that banned Disapparation. Those morons were literally Apparating right into the grounds.”

Half a minute later, the world righted itself and the three found themselves in the dusty drawing room of the Shack. Hermione immediately started to inspect Ron all over, her wand out.

“What are you looking for?” Ron asked, confused, before realizing. “Jeez, Hermione, I don’t splinch everytime I Apparate, okay?”

“I am not saying that, but it’s always prudent to do a safety check. It said so in the manual we were given last year.”

“You are worse than Mum, Hermione.”

Get married already, Harry thought as he rushed up the stairs, ad the two followed.

The bedroom was silent, the bed empty. There was no sign Snape had even been there aside from the damp blood soaking the sheets. Harry turned to the others. “Where’d he go?” Ron said.

Hermione looked afraid. “Do you think some Death Eaters kidnapped him?”

Harry harbored a similar horrible suspicion. “But why?” he said finally. “What would kidnapping Snape get them? They don’t even know he is a traitor. Voldemort doesn’t know it either. Didn’t.”

“Maybe they think they are rescuing him,” offered Ron.

“Not sure if Death Eaters are so concerned about their comrades though,” countered Harry.

“Well, I’m not sure. Maybe he just walked out to the grounds?”

“That would be like committing suicide. Everyone out there thinks he is the Death Eating traitor who killed Dumbledore.”

“Wait, what’s that?”

Harry and Ron turned. Hermione was pointed at something on the pillow, partly concealed from view by the darkness of the drapes. Ron gave an unceremonious pull to the fabric, and it tore easily, shedding more light.

Two objects were laid on the pillow: the torn half of a magical picture, its contents moving, and a small white flower. A lily, Harry realized.

“Is that -” Hermione began, but Harry already knew. The torn picture’s half was the one Snape had taken from Sirius’ stash of letters from No. 12, Grimmauld Palace. Unlike the one Harry had found that day, and as he had seen in the Pensieve, the torn picture featured his mother, laughing and cheering.

His eyes then inadvertently wandered over to the flower as well. The lily was petrified; magically, Harry guessed. With a slight start, Harry realized he recognized it too.

The flower that Lily had enchanted for her sister on that playground that day so long ago, right before she had met Severus Snape for the first time.

And Harry understood. “He’s gone,” he said out loud.

Ron and Hermione had blank expressions of confusion. “Gone?” repeated the latter. “Where?”

“Away from here,” Harry answered calmly. He suddenly felt strange, as if a part of his identity had changed form, colors and dimensions. His hatred of Snape, the one that had defined him for the last seven years, was now gone.

“Why would he do that?” Ron wondered. “He’s a hero! Did more than anyone else in the entire Order to bring down You-Know-Who! I mean, sure the people don’t know now, but you can tell them, right, Harry?”

It wasn’t Harry who answered, but Hermione. “Murder is still punishable, Ron, even if it was by Dumbledore’s own design. Besides, he would still be treated as a pariah, even if he was let off.”

“He doesn’t care about that,” Harry added quietly.

They both looked at him, confusion evident on their faces. Harry looked back at them, a sense of contentment enveloping him. “He stayed in Hogwarts to do right by my Mum,’ Harry said, a sad half-smile tugging at his corners. “He has done right by her. His job’s over.”

He turned around to look back at the photo and the flower. “He’s free now.”