Chapter Text
Consciousness arrived like an unwanted visitor.
Pain first: sharp, deliberate, and lodged somewhere between his throat and damnation. Light followed—white, sterile, presumptuous. He turned his head; something tugged at his neck. Bandages. Thick enough to suggest either medical caution or aesthetic revenge.
The air reeked faintly of antiseptic. He was horizontal, confined, surrounded by the low hum of charms. Alive, apparently. Pity.
He tried to sit up. The ceiling tilted in protest, and black flecks swarmed his vision. He abandoned the attempt and discovered that speaking was worse. The sound that emerged was a rasp even he would hesitate to inflict on a student.
A brisk voice intruded. “Easy there—don’t try to move.” A young Healer, all starch and optimism. She smiled down at him with the vacant cheer of someone who still believed in recovery.
“You’re safe,” she said. “You’re in St Mungo’s.”
He closed his eyes. Of course. The afterlife, bureaucratically mismanaged.
“You were attacked by Nagini,” she continued, apparently determined to narrate his misfortune. “The venom destroyed much of your throat, but you survived. You’re rather difficult to kill, it seems.”
He gave her a look that conveyed precisely how flattered he felt.
She produced a slate and a stub of chalk. “Use this until you’re stronger.”
He scrawled, Who won?
The Healer’s smile brightened—always a bad sign. “You don’t need to worry, Professor. You-Know-Who has been defeated.”
He regarded her in silence. The words landed like dust on stone—meaningless, already settling. He set the slate aside, closed his eyes, and turned his face to the wall.
Victory. Wonderful. He had lived long enough to be congratulated for it.
He had been placed in a bed by the window — “for the light,” the Healer had said, as though he were a plant. From there he had an unobstructed view of humanity’s less attractive varieties of suffering.
The patient nearest the door was a young woman whose face was hidden beneath gauze. Her breathing came in irregular, trembling bursts. He had overheard a nurse whisper her name: Lavender Brown. One of the Gryffindors. Greyback’s handiwork. Occasionally she whimpered in her sleep, half-formed words clawing their way out of her ruined throat. The staff responded with brisk detachment. He supposed compassion fatigue set in early in this department.
Two beds down lay a wizard who had clearly lost an argument with an acromantula. His arm ended in something that looked alarmingly like a pincushion; the bandages pulsed faintly with containment charms. His visitors, when they came, brought newspapers and gossip, pretending he wasn’t dissolving by inches.
Across from him was a witch whose left side had been partially petrified. The petrified skin glittered like marble; her right hand, still flesh, tapped endlessly at the sheets as though trying to remember rhythm.
Farther along, an elderly man snored beneath a cocoon of wrappings. The sign at the foot of his bed read: Unclassified Venom Exposure. The mind boggled. One of the Healers had mentioned he’d been found near the Forbidden Forest, trousers missing, dignity long since surrendered.
At the far end, near the ward’s entrance, a pair of orderlies argued over a chart while restraining a patient who believed he was turning into a werewolf every time the lights dimmed. The Healer in charge—Stendall, the chirpy one—kept saying “trauma response” in the tone of someone trying to domesticate madness by naming it.
Severus turned his gaze toward the window and lay back against the pillows. The morning outside was painfully bright. Creature-Induced Injuries Ward. It was at least an accurate description. He, too, had been mauled by monsters—only some of them human.
He heard it before he saw her: the unmistakable tap of a cane, a slow but regular rhythm.
Minerva McGonagall had never entered a room quietly in her life. Even now, she carried an atmosphere of order with her, as if the mere sight of her might straighten the bed-sheets.
She stopped at the foot of his bed. “Severus.”
He inclined his head fractionally. He reached for his slate.
The cane? Injured? The chalk squeaked as he wrote on the slate.
“Nerve damage in my legs. I’ll have to use the cane from now on. It can’t be repaired since it was curse damage.”
Severus nodded.
She lowered herself into the visitor’s chair with the precision of a cat judging a new perch. “How are you feeling?”
He wrote, Like I’ve been run over.
Her mouth twitched. “I imagine that’s not far from the truth.”
He gestured for her to continue. He knew that tone; it was the one she used when she had news and was trying to decide whether to scold or comfort.
“Harry told us everything,” she said finally. “About the memories, about Albus, about—well. About you. You’ve been cleared of all charges. The Wizengamot is already talking about an Order of Merlin, First Class.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then wrote with neat precision: No Merlin. Then he underlined it.
Minerva sighed, as if she had expected nothing else. “You might try accepting that not everyone believes you a villain anymore.”
He erased the board slowly. I prefer the consistency.
That drew the faintest laugh out of her. “You would.” She glanced toward the window. “There’s been talk of Hogwarts, too. Reconstruction has begun. You’re welcome there, when you’re ready.”
He only looked at her. Ready was an optimistic word for a man who could no longer speak.
She stood, smoothing the front of her robes. “Rest, Severus. We’ll speak again soon.”
As she turned to leave, her expression softened, the way stone softens when it finally erodes. “Albus would be proud of you.”
He wiped the slate clean, though the words remained.
When she was gone, he lay back and stared at the ceiling until the whiteness blurred.
An Order of Merlin, What a grim thought. The award given to the sainted dead. How indecent to offer it to the likes of him.
He had been awake since before dawn. Hospitals, he’d learned, were places where sleep was treated like a suspicious activity.
The curtains around his bed twitched, and Healer Stendall — the one with the forced cheer of someone speaking to the terminally ill — swept in, clipboard in hand.
“Good morning, Professor Snape.”
He raised an eyebrow. Professor. The title still clung to him like a bad smell.
She consulted his chart. “You’re healing well. The wounds are closing nicely, and your pulse is steady. You’ve been very fortunate.”
He picked up his slate. Fortunate.
“Yes,” she said, missing the sarcasm entirely. “Now that the swelling has gone down, we’ve completed the final diagnostic charms. I’m afraid there’s some permanent damage to your larynx. The tissue’s been—well, essentially destroyed.”
He wrote, Temporarily destroyed?
Her expression flickered. “No, Professor. Permanently.”
He stared at her until she began to fidget. She tried to smile again. “But magical prosthetics have come a long way. There are devices—artificial vocal conduits—that can replicate natural speech with a bit of enchantment. With time, I’m confident we can—”
He was already writing. No.
She blinked. “You don’t want to—?”
He underlined it once: No.
“Professor, without some form of replacement, you won’t be able to—”
He turned the slate toward her, the handwriting suddenly precise and neat. I am aware.
The Healer hesitated, then closed the chart. “Very well. If you change your mind—”
He wiped the board clean. I rarely do.
She gave him one of those looks healers specialize in — half pity, half professional curiosity — and departed.
When she was gone, he exhaled carefully, the sound ragged and thin. Silence, at least, couldn’t be misquoted.
He settled back against the pillows and thought, not for the first time, that he’d finally achieved what Dumbledore had always wanted for him: A life of quiet reflection. How merciful.
He heard her cane before he saw her again. The Healers were beginning to recognise the sound; one muttered something about “the tartan general” and fled the ward.
She appeared a moment later, robes crisp, hair coiled into its usual unassailable knot. She took the same chair as before.
“Good afternoon, Severus.”
He raised an eyebrow, reached for his slate. Back so soon? I must be improving. Or dying.
She smiled faintly. “Your Healer says you’re nearly ready to be discharged. It seems you’re too stubborn to die.”
A lifetime of practice.
Her mouth twitched again; the corners of her eyes softened. “I came because we must discuss what happens next. Hogwarts, I mean.”
He looked at her flatly. The chalk scratched: I will no longer teach.
“You may yet change your mind.”
Unlikely. A silent professor would be difficult to interpret.
“I have an alternate proposal,” she said, tone clipped but not unkind. “We will need a Potioneer—someone to keep the infirmary stocked. Madam Pomfrey can’t do everything, and the castle will be full of half-healed heroes. We’re hiring an additional healer to help with the added load, and we’ll need more potions than the Potions Master can handle, in addition to the teaching load. It’s steady work, private work. You would have your quarters, a salary—half what you earned as headmaster, though, I’m afraid. But no papers to grade. You’ll be able to take it easy. And you’d have peace.”
He considered that word. Peace. It sounded suspiciously like exile in softer robes.
Half a salary. Half a life. Fitting.
“You’ll take it, then?”
He hesitated, then wrote, Yes.
She exhaled—perhaps relief, perhaps resignation. “Good. The rooms beside Argus Filch’s are being cleared. They’re small, but you won’t be far from your laboratory. I’ll have the elves send your belongings from the headmaster’s office.”
He nodded once. The slate squeaked again. Send everything to the new rooms.
She rose, adjusting her tartan sleeves. “You’ll report to the castle the day before term starts. And, Severus—”
He looked up.
“You did more good than you imagine. Don’t throw it away because you dislike the accommodations.”
He wrote, neat and small: I’ve made a career of disliking the accommodations.
That drew a soft laugh. “Some things never change.”
When she left, he looked at the empty chair for a long time, then at the slate. The faint ghost of the last words—I’ve made a career—still shimmered in chalk dust.
He brushed them away. Half a salary, he thought, but blessed silence thrown in. Perhaps the world has finally learned to meet him halfway.
A month later, Severus appariated at the edge of the Hogwarts grounds. He walked the grounds slowly, in order to see the place from a distance first. It felt appropriate — a condemned man inspecting the site of his own execution.
The castle rose ahead through the morning mist, scarred and skeletal. The Astronomy Tower was a blackened ruin, its crown bitten away. Scaffolding crawled up its side like a parasitic vine. Farther along the ridge, the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw towers leaned under the weight of temporary bracing spells, their proud silhouettes fractured.
He walked slowly up the drive. The grass had not recovered; the ground was pitted and gray, scattered with stones that had once been walls. Yellow Ministry tape fluttered across cordoned-off sections, flashing warnings: UNSAFE. DO NOT ENTER. Bureaucracy’s final triumph over catastrophe.
A deep thud echoed from the courtyard — rhythmic, laboring. He followed the sound and found the source: A giant. Hagrid’s half-brother, if memory served. Grawp, he thought. The creature was heaving great chunks of stone into a waiting cart, watched closely by a middle-aged witch with a clipboard and the authority of one who could make even giants obey. Her robes were plain, practical; her quill darted like a mosquito.
“Move that to the north wall,” she called up to the giant, whose idea of obedience involved hurling the stone in roughly the correct direction. The ground shuddered.
Severus regarded the scene for a long moment. Hogwarts rebuilt by committee and giants. Albus would be delighted.
He turned toward the main doors, or what remained of them. One hung from its hinge like a broken wing. He stepped through into the echoing silence of the Entrance Hall, where the smell of dust and magic still lingered. Somewhere beneath the ruin, the castle’s pulse was still beating — faint, stubborn, alive. Not unlike himself.
The east corridor had fared little better than the rest of the castle. The flagstones were cracked; the sconces flickered as if uncertain whether the place was still worth lighting. Twice he encountered warning charms that sealed off entire stretches of hallway, forcing him to detour through unused classrooms. Dust clung to his boots and robes.
So this was what remained of his dominion — a labyrinth of half-collapsed passageways and Ministry tape. It seemed a fitting metaphor.
At last he reached the end of the wing, past Filch’s quarters. It was the second to last set of rooms in the wing, identifiable by the faint odor of polish and despair. There, a new brass nameplate gleamed against a freshly oiled door: S. Snape.
The engraving looked too neat, too new. It might as well have read Relic, Do Not Disturb.
Inside, the rooms were modest but intact. The bedroom held a narrow bed, an adjoining washroom, and a single high window. The adjoining sitting room had been arranged with grim practicality: one bookshelf, one desk, one settee facing a small fireplace. The air had the stale stillness of long disuse, overlaid now with the faint, forced brightness of recent cleaning.
It would do. He had occupied worse spaces — mentally and otherwise.
He was still cataloguing the furniture when a voice with an Eastern European accent startled him from the doorway.
“Looks like we’re going to be neighbours!”
He turned, sharply.
A woman stood there — shortish, well put together, perhaps his own age. Her hair was pinned back in a loose coil, a few streaks of grey catching the light. She carried herself like someone used to speaking with confidence and being obeyed.
“I’m Eleanor Ashcombe,” she said, smiling. “I’m an art restorer. Part of the Hogwarts Restoration Project.”
She extended a hand.
He regarded it for a heartbeat too long — a handshake was, after all, an act of mutual trust. Then, remembering his manners (such as they were), he accepted. Her grip was firm.
When she released him, she studied his face with frank curiosity. “You’re a professor here, right?”
He reached for the slate at his side and wrote with quick, neat strokes: Not anymore.
She blinked, puzzled, until he touched his throat, still covered in linen bandages. Understanding dawned — and, worse, sympathy.
“Oh,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
He sneered and gave a faint, dismissive inclination of the head. Everyone is, he thought. It’s become a national pastime.
When she was gone, he looked around the small sitting room again. Two rooms, a desk, a stranger on the other side of the wall. For the first time in years, he felt he had no idea what would happen next.