Pretty Good Year

1.

The building is garrisoned with a third of all the Aurors in Britain, but Snape still cannot bring himself to turn his back on a door.

So he stands facing it, leaning a shoulder against the cool stone wall of McGonagall's chambers. Unlike most of his colleagues, McGonagall doesn't mind talking to the back of his head. It saves her the bother of keeping herself busy as they speak; she hasn't looked anyone in the eye since Molly Weasley was killed two weeks ago.

"They've started slaughtering our owls," she says, with the careful non-inflection of a woman experienced in delivering unpleasant news.

She cannot see his face so he does not trouble to raise an eyebrow. "Only ours?"

"All the ones bearing Untraceable charms. Taking no chances, it seems."

His hand curls at his side. Not tight enough for a fist. He is reminding himself of the strength he can call upon when necessary. And of the miracle that is the human body, functioning as it is meant to. "I assume we cannot reach them by Floo."

"They—I should say, Leopold—refused to join the Ottery St. Catchpole enclave, which is the only unmonitored fire in that end of the network that we have access to. Of course, if they were with the enclave in the first place we wouldn't need to have this conversation." He hears the splash of tea against the side of a teacup. Her hands are unsteady.

They have reason to be.

She is waiting for him to speak, but he has nothing to say. He is not in the habit of thinking aloud.

She misinterprets his silence. "We owe him a debt."

"I do not contest it."

She pauses. Then, taking his words as correction, she tries another way. "You've been a spy for almost twenty years, Severus. There are worse ways to end that sort of career." Her voice becomes hopeful. Almost tender. "And one way or the other, we are very near the end."

The argument is a poor one, and he wishes to say so, but other words fill his mouth. He jerks, almost to the point of turning around, and arrests himself by looking over his shoulder, past McGonagall, who is sitting in a chair across from the fire. Slumping.

In the thirty years Snape has known her, he has never before seen her shoulders touch the back of a chair.

Snape trusts McGonagall, and not merely to keep his secrets. He was afforded that much courtesy by Harry Potter, and it doesn't especially warm him. Rather, he trusts McGonagall to do him justice. She understands compromise and discretion, and she is not offended by subtlety.

"It is not that I am reluctant," he says finally. "I hesitate because....I am not reluctant."

He has never in his life made an admission of this depth to anyone other than Dumbledore. The sight of her, weakening, disturbs him.

She nods. "We are all tiring."

The clock in the Great Tower is striking half past eleven. Time to go. Preparations to make, and prayers to say.

He says as much to McGonagall; bids her good night and is bidden luck in return. He stops just inside the door, before turning and facing her for the first time.

"Tell the Headmaster I will return as soon as I'm able. And that I won't end it unless I have to."

She nods as though she believes him, and he leaves.