The Girl Who Never Knew

The Girl Who Never Knew: Epilogue

When I received it, beribboned in black, I felt a horrible sense that this was not unlike what I had received several summers before. A macabre sense of humour had made this a monochrome replica of Snape's wedding invitation. That had just been the beginning of the end; death itself was the end.

His funeral. I was incredulous. Had it not been so very long ago that we had parted ways? Though a week remained until the service, I laid out black clothes, and I waited. Many mysteries had gone unsolved in his death, I was sure.

I had heard nothing of him other than his owl, which I had hoped meant something, but I knew he had married in the end. Of course being wand-less meant little for him–his family came from wand makers–but I had never wanted to believe it. We had left each other on good terms, and I had expected him not to tread the same dire path. I could not understand why he had.

Even with a busy week ahead of me, I was suddenly immobile. Perhaps I thought that if I stayed where I was, someone would come to find me. Someone would be able to tell me how such a thing could happen. It was so very easy to believe the death of saints, but Snape had been anything but. How could he, cheated, hopeless, and angry, have been able to slip out of life like this? The chasm of emotion locked within him should have been enough to fend off any illness.

So even longer I waited, fasting and mourning. Was I the only one to do so for him? I thought so.

Ron and Harry visited me, the day before the funeral. They wanted to know why I was so depressed.

"I'm not depressed, just thinking. Did you know that Severus Snape has died?" Annoyed to see them turning to each other with the largest of smiles, I snapped, "It isn't funny."

Harry looked at me repentantly and smiled. "You're right, Hermione. We shouldn't be celebrating.

"No, we should...for him." For his stubborn need to hate me, to leave me, for his impatient dreams that never did get fulfilled. It had all been his own fault.

"You always had too nice an opinion of him, Hermione," said Ron. "You and your authority figures. Why, you'd kiss up to anyone taller than you."

"Get out," I said. "I am tired of having everyone I love openly scorning me."

I had a dream that night where my eyes lost focus and the vivid colours surrounding me were blurry. I walked through that bright haze until I bumped into someone taller than me and had to look up. Severus Snape stood there, smiling, laughing at me; I didn't take offence because it was not intended to hurt. He leaned forward to crush me against him, and I complied. Stooping over, he brushed back my hair and whispered in my ear, "Memento mori." Then a kiss.

He was gone when I woke, comprehension dawning on me, but his words remained. Memento mori: remember you will die. I wished his message had come sooner. Had he become a ghost? Imagining it, I laughed, but my laughter soon turned into hysterics and that soon turned into tears.

_

I had prepared to slip in as an invisible relative, in my drab dark clothes and my tamed, lacklustre hair. The night before had been a sleepless one and I looked so much the worse for it that I should have easily been unnoticeable. However, the first thing I saw at the cathedral was a dark-haired boy on the front steps, weeping his little heart out, and I would not have been able to leave him there.

"There, there. You have to be good today. What's the matter?" I soothed him.

"My father," he sobbed. "He's gone, and I don't have anyone else." He reached out to me piteously and I was obliged to take him up.

"What about your mother, dear? What's your name?" I rocked him in my arms, crooning.

"Adam Snape," he said. "And mummy's always busy."

Adam: the first. Snape's arrogance in calling himself God and his confidence in his son was not overlooked by me. Of course he'd had children; had that not been his ultimate plan? From the diary, here with me today, I should have guessed it, but years had passed since my initial reading of it.

Looking more carefully at the boy, I could see that luck–or his bossy, wilful mother–had intervened in the matter of his genes. His black hair was clean, while his narrow eyes were blue, his nose small and straight. His tear-streaked face caught the light and glowed, and the arms he clung to me with were clad decently.

A group of women descended upon us right away as we entered. Their gloved hands strangled their handkerchiefs with unsuspected strength. Hats set off their coiffed hair and sun-starved complexion, but shadowed their greedy, appraising eyes. Enough men had fallen under their spell that they could be so well dressed they could not be distinguished from one another. As a woman broke through their midst, they skulked behind her, sniffing and dabbing at their eyes.

Mrs. Snape was their leader. "Ah, Clytemnestra," she said dramatically. "I have changed so since our paths have last crossed, have I not? Bless you, girl, you look exactly the same, so young and innocent. I see you have my darling with you. Go over to the girls and show him off, would you? They've been dying to see the little Cupid."

I felt bad handing little Adam off to those harpies, but I obeyed; I wanted answers, and I had just seen Mr. Ollivander across the room.

Making my way over to him, I was intercepted by a tall woman. She wore no hat, but instead a rueful smile. Her eyes sparkled from the tears that threatened to fall from them.

"You are here to mourn my son," she said, her voice instilled with tragedy in such a way that the people in her radius were weeping the hardest.

I nodded. "It was so sudden, wasn't it?" Leaning in, I whispered, "What exactly happened?"

She leaned in as well, lips set in a painful grimace. "That is what we have yet to learn. One day, he bid adieu to his wife and kissed his children...and he went upstairs."

With surprise, I asked in hushed tones, "And that was all?"

Her voice quivered as she spoke. "We are still uncertain of the exact details. Most importantly, he did not kill himself, and it was a clean death."

I nodded, prompting her to say more.

"The greatest curse is for a mother to outlive her child," she said, "her only son. I can forgive him anything right now, and it is too late. I must bury him."

The emotion in her voice was a performance to force people to like her son. What else could have done it? If a man's mother does not love him, who will? She had a task of Herculean standards before her; only a Snape would have been up to it. Only a Snape would have had to be up to it.

I said what I could for her. "He was always a man of great intricacy. We never appreciated him, but I did like him." I may have been lying.

Her smile, genuine and pleased this time, shone through her mask of tragedy.

"You will be giving the oratory," she told me. Fearing I would refuse, she departed before I could.

The chance to define him and lay him to rest excited me. Not only did it challenge me, I wanted to make him sound as if we had liked him. Putting my composing skills to work, I formed a short speech in my head. I praised myself, and later felt ashamed about enjoying myself at Severus Snape's funeral. When everyone was seated, Mrs. Snape called me to the front.

"Severus Snape was a prominent member of wizarding society," I began. "The generation he went to Hogwarts with was the wave of the future in their time, fighting private wars against themselves and Voldemort. He battled largely himself, dabbling in the Dark Arts at first but later becoming spy for the Ministry, a brave and dangerous task to undertake. He earned the trust of Albus Dumbledore. Every student he has taught has learnt to appreciate Potions, a subject about which he was passionate, and will never forget him."

I saw Draco Malfoy sitting in the back, nodding and smirking at my last sentence. He flustered me at first, but I cleared my throat and continued, "As a person, he attracted a lot of interest. He acted very abrasive to many–well, most–of us, but he had an irrevocable sense of where our limits lay and only overstepped them when you needed taking down a peg or two. If he was visibly attentive to you, he didn't mean well, but anything great that he did was done quietly, with no hope for accolade. Sometimes he would let unshakeable feelings get the better of him, causing great harm for himself through his stubbornness, but through his passion is the only way he ever lived. He hid a lot from us; he was secretive. Everyone who knew him learnt his character quickly. We all know who he was and what he did."

My ending was weak, but several people clapped, the sound echoing through the cathedral. I sat back down with a burning face. A requiem wept from the back of the church until we trudged outside to the graveyard. The pallbearers were all young men, none of whom I recognized.

Adam rushed to my side again, still crying, as we all threw handfuls of dirt into the grave. I did not contribute to the burial, but instead I threw in a diary and a wand. Wizards, I had learnt, must always be buried with their possessions, and it lifted my spirits to give back what I had taken from Severus Snape.

Draco Malfoy came up to me as everyone was leaving.

"You did well," he said. "Not exactly honest, but good all the same." He looked down. "We all had hoped to say something ourselves about him–it was a surprise to find a Gryffindor Mudblood here–but you said everything for us." Lifting his head, he smiled at me.

"What's a Mudblood?" asked Adam in the silence that followed.

Draco cleared his throat awkwardly. "If your father never told you, I won't." He turned to me again. "I didn't know you knew Snape that well."

"I was at his wedding," I said. "We used to talk sometimes."

He nodded. "Hermione... you know we didn't have anything to do with this. I mean, of course the blame falls on the Slytherins but believe me, we would never have done anything to Snape." Blinking, he turned away. "I wish he'd never left Hogwarts."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," I said. "His death just happened. It wasn't anybody's fault."

He nodded, smiled again, and left; whether mourning or not, Draco Malfoy did not want to be seen talking to a Gryffindor. The wind blew around us, pushing us away.

Adam grasped me even as his mother left, a cloud of black against the silver sky. We stayed rooted to the ground for a long time. Silence fell over the vicinity like a shroud as we stood there, an enticing sign we were the only humans around. We plodded towards the graveyard, to Snape's unmarked grave. I conjured a small fruit tree for us to plant; Snape would have liked having the forbidden fruit of a graveyard grow on his grave. The rain fell later to water it, muddying our clothes where we sat, giving us another excuse not to move. Adam began to fall asleep as the sky darkened later, and I held him close to me to warm him, drawing my clothes over him as a blanket. I rested not at all that night, determined that my consciousness would fulfill an unspoken mission. Only the stars and I remained faithful to Severus Snape, honouring the midnight vigil.

fin