This stone bird appeared in the second half of winter. Even at Christmas she was not there, and in February she was already looking at Harry with her blind stone eyes. The bird was definitely conjured, because it was one with the tombstone, as if it was born from it. It was a raven with folded wings and a slightly open beak. As if he wanted to say something.
One could only guess who decided to decorate the grave of the professor, and why it was a raven. Not some bat, not a snake, finally. A raven. Perhaps it was the symbol of wisdom and death. Yes, Harry even read about it specifically in Agatha Daredevil's book "Symbolism in Magical Transformations".
"Raven," she wrote, "has long meant mind and has been associated with death. He embodies prophecy and insight. Crows in stories often act as psychopomps connecting the material world with the spirit world."
Don't ask why Harry needed to know about the raven. And even more so, don't ask why he visited the grave of his former professor so many times in a row. He didn't quite know the answer himself.
They say that criminals are drawn to the crime scene. But it was there—in the Screaming Hut, where he left him to die all alone, bleeding. But here… This grave was just a pit with a stone coffin in which Snape's remains were placed — evidence of Harry's crime. But he remembered the basics of first aid, he remembered, and then for some reason he thought that he was powerless before fate itself.
Harry still dreamed of Snape, paralyzed by Nagaina's poison, unconscious. His light warm breath, his eyes glazed with pain (but not from death). How long had he been lying there when they left before he died? A couple of minutes? An hour? Or maybe more?
Harry first visited his grave in June. He came alone and at dawn, sneaked in there like a thief. He was going to make some kind of speech, ask for forgiveness. But even though there was no one to eavesdrop on her, Harry couldn't get a word out of himself. Instead, for some reason, he burst into tears like a child. At the funeral — Lupin and Tonks, Freddy, baby Creevey, Snape himself — did not cry. But then... the speech was successful only in August.
Since then, Harry had been dropping in on the professor at least once a month, on one of the extra-curricular Saturdays. I told him about my life, shared all sorts of nonsense. He did not ask for forgiveness, as if he knew that the professor no longer holds a grudge. And as if he understands.
“Do you mind if I sort out your things?” Harry asked in May.
Only yesterday, the Hogwarts cemetery paid tribute to the memory of those who died in the battle. Today, the usual silence reigned here again.
“No one has touched them all this year. However, the elves have recently collected... how should I say... personal — clothes and all that. There are papers left in your office. No one knows who would need them, and I told McGonagall that I could take them. Not all of them, of course. But... something important. She said she would have given it to my mom if she were alive. But she's not alive, and you're out… So you don't mind, I think.”
The grave did not answer, nor did the raven. Their tacit permission was granted.
There was a warm spring calm. The sun was hot, the back and the back of my head were hot. It was like someone's tight embrace.
Surprisingly, there were few papers. So — study plans, several business and personal letters (Harry decided not to poke his nose into envelopes with the Malfoy coat of arms, but to forward them to Draco) and books, most of which were with a library seal, and over which Madame Pince then groaned.
"Professor Snape was constantly delaying the delivery of books! But about this one — he lied to my eyes in an impudent way, said that some scoundrels stole it and burned it!".
In the top drawer of the desk, under stacks of blank paper, Harry found an old, battered diary. The entries in it were completely irregular, sometimes Snape forgot about the diary for several months. There were potion recipes, whole phrases in runic notation, addresses (Harry assumed they were potion customers or ingredient suppliers), and drawings and squiggles that Harry remembered from the Potions textbook.
The guilt that seemed to have calmed down over the past year came flooding back to Harry. He randomly leafed through this old notebook and thought about how much he had personally deprived the magical world. If Harry had stayed, he would have helped Snape, if he had called for help, the professor could have been saved. And with him — his developments. Dozens of useful potions and spells. Cured diseases, solved problems and saved lives…
Harry shifted the notebook to his other hand and started leafing through from the end. On the last filled page, at the very bottom, a bird was drawn in ink. Smooth body, large open beak and folded wings. It was the same raven that appeared on Snape's tombstone in winter. Words written in the professor's familiar small handwriting seemed to fly out of the raven's mouth:
In the lower right corner there was a postscript made in pencil:
"If you go to feed, take a broom."
Harry loved riddles, but he didn't like being overcome by excruciating excitement. Like, for example, this time.
Harry took with him a broom and treats for the raven. There was a piece of bread and a sausage wrapped in a paper bag in his pocket. In his mind, the raven would definitely have been treated to some of this.
It looked stupid. He was standing in the middle of the cemetery with a broom and trying to stuff his breakfast into the mouth of a stone statue. She refused to eat.
“Feed… Feed the bird. But how?!” he muttered, feeling himself getting angry.
Why did he even think that this was the same bird? What makes him think that the professor left him a hint? And what was he going to find anyway? A hiding place? A cache with something important? For example, by a will? Snape didn't care about earthly things, and he had nothing to bequeath, except for the old house, which, as McGonagall told him, he hated with all his heart.
Angrily, Harry threw the spoiled food on the ground and began sorting through everything he knew about crows in his head. As a child, these birds scared little Harry. Aunt Petunia knew about it and said: "Don't look at them, or they, bloodthirsty creatures, will peck out your green devilish eyes."
“Bloodthirsty… Bloodthirsty creatures," Harry whispered thoughtfully and bit his finger with his teeth.
The blood did not appear immediately, it had to be squeezed out of the wound. Harry put his hand to the bird's beak and smeared it with blood.
The stone moved. At first, the raven moved its head, then cawed soundlessly — just opened its beak several times. Then he spread his wings, stamped on the spot and fluttered up.
Then Harry understood why the broom was needed.
"Why the hell were you going through my papers? Arrogant, stupid, curious, shameless... why are you silent? Can you feel your hands? Do you feel it or not?!”
Snape was furious, his eyes were shooting lightning, but Harry was not afraid. To see him—pale and with bloodless lips—on the floor of a Screaming hut, to see him off on his last journey a few days later, to come to his grave for the first time — that was what was scary. But now I'm sitting in a chair, leaning closer to the fireplace, licking drops of firewhisky from my lips and watching the professor rub his stiff fingers… It wasn't scary at all.
Let his hands be completely frozen from the long flight, let them turn red. Let this village house be unfamiliar and creepy, and it looked like no one had lived here for a long time and only recently a person had settled here. Let Snape, aged and with a torn, scarred throat peeking out of the collar of his robe, shout at him (thank Merlin, his voice remained the same). Harry was happy. And he couldn't get a word out of himself.
“Do you feel it? Are you going to answer me?”
Harry nodded, somewhat drunkenly and sluggishly, and only then did Snape leave him alone.
He sat down at a table—a long one and probably intended for a large family that once lived here, and now almost completely covered with dried herbs- and began to unwrap one of these dried bouquets. His fingers nervously fingered the thin stems and selected suitable ones.
“I…” Harry finally managed to say, but then he trailed off.
Snape looked at him sternly, and there was a threat in that look.
“I was hoping it would be Minerva. Or, in extreme case, Miss Granger…
“Weasley”, Harry interrupted automatically. Hermione, who had been Ron's wife for three months now, was constantly correcting her acquaintances who called her by her maiden name. “She's Mrs. Weasley now”.
Snape snorted. As he was doing it before — ironically , disapproving and arrogantly.
“ I had a better opinion of her. Well… What the hell did you want in my desk? What were you looking for there? Memories? My diary, in which I confessed to crimes? They wanted to sell his Skitter, probably, and…
"I wasn't looking for anything," Harry interrupted him again. "McGonagall gave me permission to take your papers, that's all. The office had to be vacated for a new teacher. She allowed it… She allowed me to take what I think is necessary.
“Allowed you? And why on earth would that be?”
“Why did you need it? Couldn't leave me alone even after death?
“Couldn't," Harry muttered, reaching for a bottle of firewhisky. It was standing at his feet.
The esophagus burned with heat, it became difficult to breathe at first, and then immediately felt better. Even the excitement has subsided.
“Why would that be? Tormented by guilt?”
"No, no guilt," Harry lied. “ I just fell in love. You know, it happens like this… You know a person for many years, and then he dies, becomes less disgusting and malicious, and you even have a communication. So you can fall in love. Even... with such a… you.”
He took two more big gulps, and a very pleasant heat spread in his chest.
Snape was silent and stared at the herbs on the table. It seemed that now they would break out and a fire would start.
“And how did you...? The antidote? Or did someone help?”
"Someone helped," Snape echoed and, apparently deciding that Harry had had enough to drink, called for a bottle with non—verbal and non-verbal spell.
He waved his hand — and it jerked and flew to the table, hitting the bottom on the edge.
“Malfoy? I've seen his letters… You were friends, right? … Are friends, I mean”
"Can you take the stairs?" Won't you wring your neck? Or do you need to be levitated?
It took Harry a moment to realize what the professor meant.
“ Are you inviting me... to stay? After what I…”
“ You won't be able to fly back in this condition. I won't let you apparate drunk, and I don't have a sobering one. You will spend the night here, and in the morning I will erase your memory.”
“ What are you going to do to me that you will have to erase my memory?” Harry laughed.
“I don't like you, Potter...” Snape looked at him as if he suspected some kind of bad change in him or someone else's evil influence.
“Yes, to be honest, I don't like myself ... but you…” Harry paused, feeling like a drunken fool. “Don’t erase my memory. I'm coming back anyway. In a week or a month…”
“Yes, you are coming back. I have no doubt in your stickiness, Potter.”
A few things didn't happen next morning. Firstly, they did not quarrel, although they could have. Secondly, Harry did not apologize for what he said drunk in the living room yesterday. As if he felt it was wrong to apologize for telling Severus the truth. Thirdly, Snape never erased his memory.
And, to be honest, Harry didn't go anywhere. Neither in the morning, nor in the evening, nor the next day.
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