Just because Severus Snape didn't consent to surviving the war, doesn't mean he'll let Hermione Granger wither away.
Damn Permanent Reverie - A post-war story of healing and finding life again.
Every other May afternoon of Severus Snape’s life at Hogwarts had been greeted by a serene, green hillside from the castle doors, sloping gently down to fields below. Leading to the dark quiet of the Forbidden Forest or the gentle lapping of the shore of the Black Lake, everywhere he had once looked beckoning him closer in a peaceful invitation.
For years, it had been his favourite time of year, the weeks between the last of the students leaving and when he would journey back to Cokeworth. A quiet serenity.
In years past, between the wars, he would leave the dungeons to find a tucked away spot to read. His back pressed against the bark of a tree, birds chirping around him as he lost himself in passages for hours. The smell of the Scottish Highlands warming herself again, summer around the corner making him linger.
What remained this May was a scarred, pitiful sight.
The peace of the space was broken, the beauty ripped open.
A hillside was now torn apart, gashed by the deep hits from giants’ weapons and burned by stray spells. Stones and debris littered the fields below all the way to the forest edge of broken trees and burnt sections that still smelled of smoke. A large part of the castle above was still torn open, the grounds below pummeled by its massive stones.
Wrecked and ruined, Severus saw the peace of the ground severed despite the end of the war. It matched his own energy, broken and lacking.
The garish sight of it all softened by the popping of light violet and white wildflowers down the slope, peeking out as if Nature hadn’t gotten the message that this was a place of destruction and death. Trees bloomed, the white buds dancing on the breeze. Spring moved along as May would blur soon into June, the immediate world around the ancient castle showing none of the damage.
To some, it may give a spark of hope but not a single bit of the beauty woven among the ruin around him brought any warmth to his heart.
It only made him more bitter. Weighed on him heavier.
His sharp eyes glared over at a starling calling from a nearby stone, the bright sound of its call too pure to be over a place where the most innocent of those torn apart in the war had died. Children who should have been worrying about final exams instead of running for their lives.
The mix of life moving on in a place that had soaked up blood and magic only weeks ago was an affront to his senses. At least the sun had the good sense to slink back behind a cloud, softening the brightness around him.
He swallowed hard, forcing back memories of the sounds of screams. Never allowing himself to fall apart in it all.
The uneven terrain was a punishment on his body every few steps. One Severus concluded that he deserved, clenching down his jaw to endure it. His boots sank into some spots, skipping with hesitation over others in a way that jolted his knees, sending waves of responding pain up his still sensitive nerves.
He hated it. Hated being out here.
His was angry about the way his legs were stiff and protested the simple movement, too used now to lying in bed. Furious even at how it still seemed peaceful out here, even with the reminders of the damage of the battle.
He most especially hated that he was alive to see it.
Everywhere was life, a reminder of a world still turning. His own life forced upon him.
Who to blame for his continued, pathetic existence shifted by the hour.
Potter’s little sidekicks, for rushing back to where he’d fallen with help from some of the Order.
Potter himself, for shouting Severus’s allegiance across a bloody battlefield and making his survival a cause worth fighting for.
Kingsley Shacklebolt, for carrying his half-dead body back to the castle and keeping him from being arrested.
Minerva McGonagall, for being the first person he saw when he woke, her eyes wet with unshed tears.
This particular hour it was Poppy Pomfrey who caught his ire. Blame settling on her more often these days than anyone else. Severus reasoned that the old bat could handle it, the witch made more of steel than flesh.
The meddling mediwitch who had fussed at him enough to force his boots on, leaving the quiet of his secluded corner of the Hospital Wing for the first time since he’d woken there weeks ago.
The very same mediwitch who had played too great a hand in saving him, her steady, calm voice the first he heard he woke with a ragged gasp, lightening searing through his blood. Her hands gently holding him down as she called out orders to unseen helpers, pouring hissing elixirs over his gaping wounds.
Of course it was Poppy who pulled him from the brink of death, interrupting what should have been his final, long sought after peace. The same Poppy oversaw his care as she too often had done over the years he played spy, determined to help him despite his bark and bite.
For not the first time, his own talent at potions had cursed him. The vials he’d tipped back at the critical moments of the battle were only meant to keep him alive enough to get the right message to the Potter boy. Nothing more. And yet, he woke from the attack by the Dark Lord’s bloody familiar, the antivenom working wonders.
His left ankle twisted on a limb uncovered in the destruction of the grounds, the jerk of the motion making Severus stiffen too quickly, a jolt of fire along his neck and shoulders.
“Get outside, she says,” he muttered bitterly, still happy enough to blame Poppy for every single moment of this damned adventure.
He would stomp his feet in frustration if it wouldn’t promise to bite him in the arse when it triggered nerve pain. “‘Breathe fresh air, Severus,” he mimicked. “‘A walk will do you good, Severus.’ In- fuckin’ -deed.”
He’d much rather be back in the too narrow bed in his corner. Where charms and dark curtains hid him away from the world, leaving him there to glare up at the ceiling, lost between wishing for the freedom of death and planning how far he could manage to run away before his damnable loyalty to the women fussing over him led him back to Hogwarts once again. The curse of living.
There was no other easy place for him at the moment. Headlines of stories he refused to read in the Prophet had told him that much. His old home, the battered shell of a house called Spinner’s End was no more. Destroyed by either wayward Death Eaters or good, normally law-abiding folk who had taken Skeeter’s exposé of the traitor who may or may not have saved the world to heart and set it to flame in punishment for the children he couldn’t protect.
Good riddance, either way. Yet another sign to Severus that he should be below the dirt and not trudging on another day above it.
Minerva’s bleeding Gryfindor heart may have made him stay at Hogwarts instead of some hole of a hostel but it didn’t mean he’d make it easy.
A part of him that he itched to rip out, his conscious begging to make up for past pain put upon the new Headmistress kept him at Hogwarts but it didn’t force him back into the dungeon quarters that had been his true home for more years than not.
Instead he made himself a sore in Poppy’s side, an attempt to punish her for bothering to try and save him and stayed in the Hospital Wing far beyond what was necessary. In his corner, far enough away from the few other occupants, and still feared enough that no one tried to bother him, he could disappear for hours upon hours.
Except for the pair of busy-body witches that seemed to think they were his new masters. A point proven in how he’d listen to their demands, still always a man seeking to prove his worth to others despite how much he tried to fight the instinct.
There was Minerva with her daily delivery of the newspaper and tea, trying to talk with him about work done around the damaged castle. Her way of apologizing for believing the lies he needed her to believe to do his part. And he halfway listened in his attempt to apologize back, she being one of the very few exceptions of people he didn’t want to think ill of him.
Then Poppy with her potions and murmured healing incantations. Urging him to stretch this way and that, puttering about that he should go for daily walks, which he had refused until today. Making snide comments about the need of a good Potions Master as Horace Slughorn was woefully behind in the potions she still needed in the recovery from the battle. As subtle as a hammer over the head but still he refused to find his way to a cauldron.
That would require him to participate back in life, something he still refused to do. What was there left for him but duty? What ever was there for him besides that?
Severus grit his teeth, making his way towards the greenhouses at his slow pace down the hillside.
Word had it that Pomona Sprout had also stayed for the summer, aiding in the repairs. He knew from too many years at the castle that Pomona kept strong spirits tucked away behind the shrubs of dart flowers behind her desk. If he was lucky enough, the old gossip was up working in the castle, or more likely talking off Filius’s ear as he worked, leaving her office ripe for the nicking. It would serve her right too as Severus knew Pomona completed the unholy trifecta of meddling matriarchs taking full control of the castle and its occupants by now.
It almost made him smile to know he’d find a dark amber reward to this inane little walk about the ruined grounds. He almost wanted to flaunt it in front of Poppy, the rebellious teenager deep inside him still wanting to stick his tongue out at the mothering she offered, bucking against her care with his own defiance. Pointless but about the only entertainment awaiting him, a tugging reminder that if he had to be alive, he would do it his way.
Severus rounded the row of greenhouses, eyes locked on the first for his soon-to-be prize when something pulled his attention away, slowing his halting steps to a stop.
There, on the east side of Greenhouse Three, leaning over a bench with rows of dirt-filled pots was someone entirely unexpected.
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