Chapter Twenty-Five: Curtain Call
"What's that?" asked Harry, looking up finally from Lily's letter to see the parchment grasped in one of her hands, and two thin notebooks in the other.
For some reason, Ruby wanted to say 'Nothing,' to keep it to herself. But that was selfish and strange, so she handed Snape's letter to Harry, who read it quickly, his expression growing more and more confused.
Folding up both letters and handing them over to Ruby, Harry said, his voice wavering: "What's he talking about? If he decoded Mum's notes six months ago, why didn't he tell Dumbledore? Why didn't he do anything about it? Why didn't anyone tell us?"
Ruby looked down the letters, then put them safely back in the envelope, along with the pictures, and tucked it under her arm.
"I suppose we'll never know," she said, feeling altogether listless. All of a sudden, the office felt particularly stuffy and cramped. Surely it hadn't been this small when she and Tee were here during Slughorn's Christmas party?
In fact, Ruby was quite sure that if she turned her head and looked a little over her shoulder, she'd see him, bent over the drawers, face twisted in irritation. But she was wrong. He wasn't. He was gone now, a fleeting apparition, a snow-maiden melted in the spring. After all, in the fairytales, creatures like boys made of salt and desperation were never permanent.
Instead, she stared awhile at a stack of exam papers on his desk — this year's practice O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, half of them scribbled all over with red ink, and another half that he would never get to.
That's the cruellest part of all, thought Ruby. All the things you were planning to do — the illusion of time.
Absentmindedly, she flicked the meridians on the false Time-Turner, sending them spinning on their axes until the friction burned the energy away and left them as still as they had been before.
It's not that the scythe must fall, but how the break is never clean. The reaping always leaves part of the stalk in the ground.
Those breaks — those ragged edges — she felt them in her heart as keenly as the Second Sight burned in her veins, the shadow in Harry's.
"Let's go, then," said Ruby heavily.
Harry nodded, and without another word, they turned and left the office, pausing for a long time at the door, as if to memorise as it was, still giving the illusion that Snape was going to return within the hour and finish marking those exams.
Then, with a sense of finality, Harry shut the door behind them, and they started up and out of the dungeons.
"You can keep the envelope," said Harry, all of a sudden. "I've got the photo album from Hagrid. And he liked you better than me."
If Ruby hadn't felt so numb, she might have been amused. "That's true, but it's a low bar." And then, thinking better of it, she said: "Thank you."
A clock somewhere sounded out the hour. Soon, people would be leaving the assembly at the Great Hall; it seemed the atmosphere had already darkened in preparation. But for now, the corridors were empty.
The Veil whispers. Harry and Ruby have a solemn return to Hogwarts, and discover that Snape has left them a gift. Harry has a revelation at Dumbledore's funeral, and makes a fateful decision. Now, the endgame begins. Read from the beginning at AO3|FFN.
