Begin Again (Severus Snape/OC Love Story)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Haunted

     When I woke the next morning, I was still in the hospital wing. At some point amid the midnight mayhem, Madam Pomfrey had passed me a sleeping draught, which I had accepted happily in order to silence the noise in my brain that was almost as chaotic as the uproar around me.

The complete pandemonium continued on even hours later. Final exams were cancelled, professors called off their classes, and preparations were underway for Dumbledore's funeral which was to be held at Hogwarts in just a few days' time. While many students were being called back home by their parents in handfuls, others flocked to the school to attend the funeral – Ministry officials, more Aurors, a random array of witches and wizards who had known and loved Dumbledore – who had been taught by him or worked alongside him, or mentored by him.

Whispers and mutterings permeated the school about what had actually happened in the Astronomy Tower, and though only Harry and myself were the only first-hand witnesses to the atrocity, I was grateful that he left my presence on the tower out of any recounts. No one interrogated me or bothered me. As far as they knew, I was only involved in the Entrance Hall battle. Even Harry himself was far too preoccupied to question why I had been there.

I spent the days between then and the funeral mostly alone, ruminating in my thoughts, stuck on trying to make sense of everything. I couldn't seem to get the image of Dumbledore's lifeless eyes out of my head. I couldn't stop seeing Snape – the green flash from his wand-point was a splinter in my mind. The look on his face as he shoved me into the wall like I meant nothing to him shattered my heart over and over. I was haunted by the way he fled from the castle, cloak fluttering savagely as though it, too, were angry with the world. The need for answers was an uncomfortable obsession burning inside me, and I tried hard to accept that I may never get them.

Word must have reached my father about the events at Hogwarts because for the first time in months, a new slew of letters arrived. My feelings towards him hadn't changed, and I really didn't have the energy to think about that part of my life. The letters were most likely filled with babble about Hogwarts being unsafe and urging me to come back to America with him. Whatever. His letters did remind me, however, that I still technically had nowhere to stay over the summer. Great, another issue I had to sort through before the Hogwarts Express deposited me in London. It was scheduled to clear out all the remaining students from Hogwarts just an hour after Dumbledore's funeral.

I'd tossed around several options in my head. I could ask Ginny to stay with her family. I'm sure she would be happily agree. Or I could let Professor McGonagall know about my dilemma. She would almost definitely be able to come up with a plan. If I wanted to stay on my own, I could get a summer job at Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour in Diagon Alley and live at the Leaky Cauldron. If Florean's was even still open, that is. The world somehow felt like a different, bleaker place now. I hadn't known Dumbledore for very long, and yet even so, I could feel his absence. It wasn't the same as the hole that had been left in my life by my mother, of course. No where near it. But still, I already missed the wise headmaster dearly.

Two letters arrived on the morning of Dumbledore's funeral. As usual, I immediately made my way to the fireplace to discard them, unopened. I tossed in the first watching my father's familiar scribble blacked and disappear, but as I began to throw in the second, the handwriting on it gave me pause.

It wasn't my father's writing. I didn't recognize this penmanship at all. It was shaky and thick, each letter of my name bleeding onto the page as though the person who owned it covered their quill in far too much ink.

I backed away from the fire, opening the letter carefully. The writing inside was identical to the outside.

Niece –