Snape's New Flower

Connecting

Professor Snape and I sat in that astronomy tower for a good portion of the day, as he told me all about the events leading up to the death of Voldemort. He left some parts out, like his motive to do all this, but I could see it was important to him.

I discovered how brave he was, trying to fool Voldemort like that. He succeeded too, when Voldemort killed him, he still had no idea Snape's loyalty lied elsewhere. But as good a liar he was, it had torn him apart in the end.

"Dumbledore was... my friend, the only person who really cared about me. And now he's gone, at my own hand."

"He would have been proud of you, though. That takes more strength than most of us have" I let my head fall against his shoulder in comfort. I couldn't even imagine what that felt like for Snape, so I tried to think of Dumbledore. "You let him die with purpose, and the two of you defeated the greatest dark wizard of all time because of it. You don't have to feel guilty for doing what needed to be done, Sir."

"Severus, please." He corrected me.

His name felt weird to say, but after opening up to me like this, it was far less weird than remaining formal. "Well Severus, I'd like to thank you for your role in this fight, even if I had doubted you at one point. You really did make an awful Headmaster."

He laughed, in a dull, distant way, but it was a laugh nonetheless. I never saw that side of him when he was my professor, and I liked it.

But as fast as the laugh came, it went, and the seriousness was back in his voice, "the reason Voldemort trusted me was because I was already a death eater." He paused, but I could see his thought wasn't over yet, "I fear that, if he hadn't taken away someone I loved, I would have been on his side during this fight."

So Snape had a dark past. I found myself wanting to know more about who he loved but I pushed that thought out of my head, knowing it wasn't any of my business. I took a minute to think of the right thing to say, "it's like what you told me in the infirmary that night. Don't focus on the 'buts' and 'what ifs'. You did turn against Voldemort. The rest doesn't matter."

I rested my hand on top of his, and he let out a sigh. I didn't want to know the 'what ifs' either, because it didn't matter to me how he got here, just that he did. Everyone can do wrong if the circumstances called for it, but not everyone can admit their mistakes, and spend the rest of their life making up for them. That is what I saw in Severus.

We sat like that, in silence, for the remainder of our visit. I could have fallen asleep there, leaning against him, my body at peace next to his. That is, until my stomach started growling, and Snape broke the spell.

"Will you be here tomorrow?"

I answered, "I can be, unless you want to meet somewhere a little more, comfortable?" It's beautiful here in the mornings and all, but its depressing history didn't make a great place for a... well, whatever this is we are doing. I'd say it's something in between a date and therapy session, if I'm not being too presumptuous.

He eyed the spot where he had killed Dumbledore and nodded in agreement, before scribbling something down on a piece of parchment he had in his pocket and handing it to me, "I know a place, but you'd have to apparate there."

12 Grimmauld Place, the paper said. It would be a little fast if he was bringing me to his house already, but by the time I looked back up for some clarification, he was already gone.

I can't tell if he's bad at goodbyes, or a sucker for theatrics.