Pop!
"Mister Snoop is coming with Roo right now to his house," a little elf squeaked. "Quickly, now."
Severus looked up from the drink he had been burying his conscious in and snorted a bit drunkenly.
"Piss off," he slurred. "Mister Snoop is staying here."
"Mister Harry is telling Roo to tell Mister Snoop to get his medical kit and go immediately," the elf said curtly. "Immediately is meaning NOW!"
Severus' thoughts swam slowly to the surface as he stared at the elf through half-loaded and hooded eyes.
An hour ago, Harry killed Albus at Severus' behest.
Fifty minutes ago, Susan Bones dropped Albus' corpse in a lake of inferi.
Forty minutes ago, Severus opened his liquor cabinet and began drinking.
Why did Harry need his presence and his medical kit at his house? Severus left Harry at the Hogwarts gates.
"What?" Severus said groggily. "Why?"
The elf stomped its foot in a juvenile fit and snapped its long fingers, instantly summoning Severus' medicinal potion kit. "You's can be grabbing Roo's hand or Roo will be dragging you by your hair," the elf said sternly. "Decides in three… two…"
Severus was unable to even set his glass down before the elf grabbed him by a fistful of hair and popped away with him.
Severus was absolutely going to murder Harry Potter.
As soon as Severus' feet hit the floor, the little elf was at least intelligent enough to immediately pop away before Severus could draw his wand and curse the blasted creature.
"Son of a bitch," Severus snarled. He grabbed the fireplace to keep from falling flat on his face.
"Snape?" Frederick slowly descended the staircase and watched Severus attempt to smooth his robes down. "What are you doing here?"
Another pop, and Severus' medicinal potion kit appeared by his feet.
Severus scowled and dug through the kit until he found a sobering potion of his own invention. It left the drinker with a headache, but it would be preferable to the cloud that obscured Severus' thoughts at present time.
"Healing someone, apparently," Severus sneered after drinking the potion. He looked around the empty room before looking Frederick over carefully. "Are you injured?"
"Me?" Frederick looked surprised. "No, I'm right as rain. A little peeved that you sent Tonks to Hogsmeade to mess with me, and curious at whatever Harry's got going on, but I'm fine."
Severus waved a hand negligently at Frederick before summoning his fox patronus to go to the Malfoy's. "I am in the sitting room," he said simply.
Someone here was injured, Harry never would have sent an insolent little brat of an elf to drag Severus to their home by his hair otherwise.
It was a blessedly short time before the Malfoy's arrived, both of them with robes pulled over their night clothes.
"Severus? What are you doing here?" Narcissa asked.
Severus looked them both over and scowled all the harder for their obvious lack of injuries. "Are you three the only occupants here?" he demanded.
Lucius raised a brow at him. "We are."
"Homenum Revelio." Severus frowned as the charm confirmed their words. "Harry sent an elf to bring me and a healing kit to our house."
"Why?" Narcissa asked.
Severus rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and spoke through a clenched jaw. "If I knew, Narcissa, then I would not be standing here speaking of it, would I?"
"Perhaps you simply like the sound of your own voice," Narcissa quipped back coolly. "Why do you not just floo back to Hogwarts and ask Harry, Severus?"
"Harry's busy with Susan," Frederick cut in, preventing Severus from sniping back with a scathing retort. "He called me, told me to stay home unless Snape or Susan told me I can leave." Frederick grinned at Severus. "I was supposed to verify your identity, but I don't think an imposter would stumble like that, would they?"
"You are an idiot and will die young," Severus said, forcing down his embarrassment at being caught acting as a drunkard in front of witnesses. "Did Harry indicate that anyone was injured?"
"Nope." Frederick shrugged and leaned against the bannister of the staircase. "He just asked who all came to Hogsmeade and then told me to stay home."
Severus was unsure if his building headache was due to the potion he drank, or Harry's never ending antics.
Was Albus' death not enough dramatics for the day?
Pop!
Severus, Frederick, Lucius, and Narcissa turned their heads to see Mavis appear with Ronald Weasley on his arm.
"Ron?" Frederick went to his brother. "What's going on?"
Ron shook his head at his brother before looking to Severus. "Timmy had—"
Pop!
Miss Granger swayed on her feet as she blinked around the room while the tiny elf dropped her hand and Mavis disappeared once more. Ronald immediately stepped to Granger and guided her to the sofa by her elbow.
Granger looked towards Severus. "Harry's at Timmy's."
What?
What?!
"WHAT?" Frederick yelled.
It became mayhem after that.
Narcissa set herself up to monitor Granger and the infant's vitals, as witches were hardly meant to be apparating God only knows how far past a certain point in their pregnancy. Ronald, who flatly refused to be monitored, began telling their tale of kidnap by death eaters and liberation by house elves.
Severus sent Frederick to floo Black to inform him that Harry and his misfits were absent before search parties were sent out for them.
And then, as Ronald mentioned Nymphadora, Mavis popped away.
"Probably getting someone else," Ronald murmured, as if the rest of them were imbeciles who could not piece that together for themselves.
Severus glanced towards the flashing vitals above Granger's head and felt a fissure of relief to see that the infant was strong and healthy at present time. And… Severus squinted at the fuzzy image being displayed.
"A girl," Narcissa told Granger with a wide smile. She stroked Granger's frizzy hair in a maternal sort of motion that Severus idly wondered if Lucius was internally twitching over. "Congratulations."
"A girl?" Granger spun her head to look up at the image. "I told them so!"
Before anyone could say anything else, Mavis returned.
"Blaise!" Ronald lunged from the sofa where he had been seated beside Granger and barely caught Zabini before his head hit the floor.
Zabini was covered in blood from the top of his short cropped curls to his undoubtedly expensive boots.
Severus knocked Ronald out of his way, any alcohol induced relief he had been feeling long gone now. He levitated Zabini while quickly conjuring a makeshift cot to lower him back down to.
Narcissa moved to Severus' side without haste with her wand drawn. "Put me to work," she said.
"Vanish his clothes," Severus snapped as he waved his wand and placed privacy curtains around the young man. Severus summoned his kit and set up a monitoring spell.
"Hurts," Zabini murmured.
"Quiet," Severus told him softly. He siphoned the blood off Zabini and fought to hold down the wave of nausea that struck him at the sight hidden beneath the blood.
"My God," Narcissa breathed.
"Tell Lucius to go floo for Lupin," Severus said as he stared in horror at the marks on Zabini. "Lupin first, then the Contessa."
Narcissa turned to go then let out a small gasp. "Nymphadora!"
Severus' neck pulled a muscle as he quickly looked over his shoulder to see Nymphadora's body being placed gently on the floor by Ronald and Frederick.
"LUCIUS! CALL FOR LUPIN AND ZABINI'S MOTHER!" Severus yelled over the noise of the students and the elves popping around erratically. "Narcissa, check Nymphadora. Please." He cleared his mind and focused on his current semi-conscious and terribly injured patient.
He had to trust Narcissa to work on Nymphadora because Zabini needed Severus now.
The dark brown of Zabini's skin tone had paled to an ashen color and, Severus carefully felt his skin with his fingertips, the teeth and claw marks from his right orbital bone down to his upper arm and down the front of his chest, were already crudely healed.
Harry's work, Severus presumed.
A presumption that Zabini confirmed as his thick black lashes fluttered. "Harry back yet? Should tell him thanks," he said in a broken rasp of a voice that used to be a lazy and confident drawl.
"He is not back yet," Severus said, ignoring the pang that accompanied his admission. Every time he heard an elf popping in and out though, he had to presume that Harry was living and causing mayhem, as were his two true talents. Severus cleared his throat and summoned a healing salve. "Perhaps I summoned Lupin too hastily," he told Zabini calmly as he knelt beside him and unscrewed the stopper. "This is going to hurt, I'm afraid."
An understatement.
Severus began applying the salve and Zabini let out a plaintive whine through his teeth.
"I know," Severus murmured. He gently rubbed the salve in to the boys chest before moving to his arm. "Can you tell me what happened?"
Zabini spoke in bursts between his yelps. "Is Tonks back?" he asked first.
"She is," Severus said, resisting the urge to look for her.
"She's mad, Snape," Zabini panted. "She was going to die for us."
"Oh?" Severus applied the salve gratuitously to Zabini's neck where the scarring was the worst.
It made Severus feel incredibly ill to see the dotted teeth marks and know that a wolf tore off a chunk of Zabini's body without the full moon being present. It would make him ill if it had been a full moon, all the more so due the fact that the wolf (Greyback, undoubtedly) did it as a mere man.
"Yeah," Zabini said. He struggled to lift his head to look around then dropped it back down. "She's brave; mad as Harry, but brave as hell."
"Hmm. Quiet now," Severus said. "Let me get your face."
Zabini closed his eyes and obediently went quiet as Severus dabbed the salve over him. His facial muscles twitched as constant proof of his pain, but he remained blessedly silent.
Severus had no more than finished with his face before Bones burst through the privacy screen and let out a shocked gasp.
"Blaise?" She dropped to her knees and rubbed the uninjured side of his face. "Oh, Blaise."
Severus got to his feet and took stock of the overly filled sitting room. Lupin, who had been speaking quickly with Narcissa, turned to him and took Severus' attention off Nymphadora, who was thankfully awake and speaking softly to Granger and Theodore on the sofa.
"Severus, what happened?" Lupin asked, blocking Severus' line of sight as he tried to mentally count the misfits.
Was Harry the only one missing?
Severus ignored Lupin and turned back to Bones. "Where is Harry?"
"He should be back soon," Bones said as she tilted her head to Zabini's. "Did someone call his mum?"
"I did," Lucius said, striding back in the room and going directly to Draco's side.
"ENOUGH!" Severus yelled, silencing all the overwhelmingly loud conversations and drawing all eyes to him. "I need a full account of what exactly happened today?"
He also needed a drink, a pain reliever, and his son.
Narcissa provided a pain reliever, likely noticing the twitch in his eyelid, and Longbottom, who was suffering unhealed burns on his face, provided an explanation.
"Long story short; death eaters nabbed us in Hogsmeade—"
Severus saw Nymphadora nod out of the corner of his eye.
"Timmy wanted Harry to join him, Tonks said 'sure'."
"She could have died!" Granger cried as she cradled Theodore's head in her abdomen.
Nymphadora shrugged and Severus swore to begin holding seminars on the outrageous importance of everyone doing their upmost best to not get murdered, starting with Nymphadora and Harry.
"Draco got a crucio—"
"So did Neville," Draco said hastily as his parents turned stricken faces to him.
Severus summoned two pain relievers and two nerve potions that he quickly gave the two boys. He also summoned another healing salve and gave it to Ronald, gesturing for him to apply it to Longbottom's face. Longbottom nodded gratefully and swallowed his potions before turning toward Ronald, leaving Luna to pick up his story.
"Fenrir took Blaise," she said softly. "All of us could hear Blaise screaming."
Lupin and Narcissa both let out tiny sounds and moved to Zabini's side where Bones still sat.
"Reapply the salve," Severus told Narcissa. "Every five minutes for the next eight hours." He looked toward Lucius and raised a brow. "Is the Contessa Zabini en route to us or is she making a detour to kill the wolf first?"
"She is attempting to secure a portkey," Lucius said. "Apparently she has reason to believe that the International Confederation has her floo under watch and she is unwilling to risk your location being leaked."
Severus nodded in acknowledgement then motioned impatiently with his hand for Luna to continue.
…were there less children in the room now than there had been?
"That's pretty much it until Harry and Susan arrived," Luna said. "Harry said we had to come back because we don't have our wands."
Severus looked toward Bones and cleared his throat.
"Harry'll be here in a minute," she said. She got to her feet and looked around at everyone. "Wait, where the hell did they go?"
"Where did—"
Pop!
A young Gryffindor girl, one of the third years that Severus occasionally saw around Harry's group, popped in the room, unconscious, with Mavis holding her leg.
"Mavis is leaving!" Mavis shouted before popping away once more.
Severus moved quickly to the girl and nodded absently at Lucius as he conjured another cot.
"Reneverate," Severus murmured, tapping the girl's chest with his wand. The girl sat up with a surprised gasp and her eyes immediately looked around frantically.
"Calm yourself," Severus said, gently pushing her back down to the cot. "Are you injured?"
"Where's Harry? Where's Trent?" she asked, apparently ignoring Severus' question altogether.
Severus sighed, he had no idea where Harry was and rather wished he would come home soon, and cast a nonverbal diagnostic on the nearly hysterical girl. "She's fine," Severus told Lucius.
Pop!
Severus looked toward the sitting room doorway hopefully at the sound of yet another arrival.
As nobody had yet to give him a complete list of the abducted students, Severus was unsure who all was absent, aside from the one student he most wanted to see, and he desperately wished that it would be Harry who arrived.
Sure enough, after a tense moment, Harry stepped into the sitting room, Trent Bailey sleeping in his arms.
Severus felt the rest of the tight knots in his stomach loosen at the sight of Harry; Harry alive, Harry uninjured.
Thank Merlin.
He had doubted if the Dark Lord would kill Harry, but he hardly had time to consider the many ways he could torture the child as busy as he had been tending to the misfits.
"Make me a bed," Harry commanded of no one as he took stock of the furniture currently covered in students.
Frederick, who had rushed to Harry's side the moment he walked in the room, waved his wand and conjured yet another makeshift cot. Harry shook his head at it though and squinted at Granger and Theodore.
"Move," he told them shortly. "Now."
Granger complied with Harry's rude demand immediately, nearly stumbling again as she moved from the sofa to the cot where Theodore once more curled himself in to her body and hid his face in her stomach.
Harry very gently laid Bailey down on the cot before looking around quickly and counting aloud.
"Everyone's here," Harry said, his voice dull in a way that everyone took note of. "I'll be back."
"Where are you going?" Severus demanded. He had been about to reapply the potion to Zabini, but he tossed it to Narcissa and moved toward Harry.
Harry ignored him as if he were unable to even hear him. "Sue," he called, his flat voice sending a chill down Severus' spine, "C'mon."
Severus was unable to even ask a single question, or grab the child's sleeve, before Bones rushed to Harry's side and the two of them tossed Harry's cloak on and disapparated.
"I'm going to bloody kill him," Frederick groaned, sinking to the floor where he stood and burying his hands in his hair.
"Where are they going?" Narcissa asked as she applied more potion to Zabini's neck.
Severus quickly went to Bailey and cast a spell to assess his vitals before stepping back in shock.
Dead.
The boy was not sleeping, he was dead.
"To torture the Dark Lord probably," Severus answered her absently. He cleared his throat, and his mind, quickly. "Narcissa, he's gone."
Trent Bailey was a child.
One who looked so terribly small and young in his death. Those eager green eyes, never to open again. His ever present gap-toothed smile, never to charm another person.
How could the world be so unbearably cruel?
Narcissa's gasp of shock was hidden by a sudden heartbreaking cry from the young Gryffindor girl. She leapt from her cot and rushed to Bailey's side, nearly knocking Severus over as she ran.
"Trent," she wailed. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "TRENT!"
Severus stood, frozen in shock, as he watched the girl sob on Bailey's chest.
Thirteen.
Bailey was only thirteen.
"What happened?" Narcissa asked the other students.
"I don't know," Granger said as tears dripped silently down her cheeks and Theodore kept his face hidden in her abdomen.
"Voldemort took them," Draco said quietly. "When they were moving us to the dungeon, I heard him say to keep 'the small one' with him. I- I guess Sapphire was with him too. I never saw her in the dungeon."
Sapphire Herron. Severus had forgotten her name, but he did recall hearing Bailey speak about her rather affectionately over the summer.
The others were silent as they watched Herron cry over Bailey's body. Severus himself was struck with horrible guilt.
He had convinced Bailey to move in with Black.
He had convinced Bailey's mother to relinquish him.
And now the boy was dead.
Lupin took a hesitant step towards the sofa- his eyes were wide and his hand was stretched out uncertainly.
"Call for Black," Severus told Lupin quietly. "He should be here."
Lupin nodded and then quickly left the room with a quiet sniffle as he went.
Dead.
At thirteen.
"How?" Severus asked.
No one answered.
Severus was unable to look away from the young couple torn apart through death until a loud crack filled the room and Bones and Harry reappeared from beneath their cloak.
Harry dropped a bag on the floor that Bones scooped up and he moved to the sofa, dropping to his knees beside Bailey's head while Herron was draped across his chest.
Severus thought he had dealt with grief before; grief for the friends he was unable to save, the lives taken too soon, but that was nothing, nothing, compared to seeing Harry drip silent tears as he stroked the hair of the child he considered a brother.
"Where'd you go?" Ronald asked Bones quietly from behind Severus.
"We blew the place up," Bones said flatly. "Harry stormed inside and took the wands from everyone, then I loaded the grenade gun and Harry cast fiendfyre." Bones held up the nondescript black bag, apparently one with the missing wands within it.
"Did you kill anyone?" Longbottom asked her.
Bones shrugged while she watched Harry. "Dunno," she said. "It wasn't the point."
Severus longed to know what the point was, but he was struck silent as he too watched Harry.
As Harry stared down at Bailey, it was safe for Severus presume the point was for Harry to try and cause as much pain to the Dark Lord as the Dark Lord did to him.
Harry was whispering something that none could hear as he continued stroking Bailey's hair and his youthful face.
"I wish it had been me," Herron said with a mournful whimper.
Harry's entire body tensed, Severus could see the tightening of his shoulders beneath his shirt, and he turned to give Herron a cold look- a look of utter loathing and hatred. "I do too," he said.
"Harry!" Severus said sharply. Dear Lord, did the child have no empathy at all?
Harry turned his glare to Severus for a moment, just long enough for Severus to see true agony burning in his piercing green eyes. He turned back to Bailey and touched his forehead to Bailey's for another moment before standing up and glowering down at Herron.
"It's her fault," Harry said. "Trent was safe, he was home. And then she wanted to be a fucking hero and she got him killed."
Herron opened her mouth, but Harry cut her off.
"YOU KILLED HIM," he screamed at her. "YOU DID. BECAUSE YOU'RE A FUCKING MORON!"
"Enough," Narcissa snapped. She stepped over to Herron and put her hand on the sobbing girl's back. "Severus, get him out, now."
"GET HER OUT," Harry shouted. "WHY DID YOU COME BACK?! WHY?!"
"TO HELP YOU!" Herron yelled between her sobs. "TRENT LOVES YOU AND I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO GET HURT SINCE YOU WERE BY YOURSELF!"
"Loved," Harry sneered in the coldest display Severus had ever witnessed from the child. "Because of you, Trent doesn't 'love' me, he loved me."
"That's enough!" Severus said as Herron physically recoiled and went pale from his cold words. He grabbed Harry by the shoulder and jerked him toward the doorway that led to the office the two of them shared. "Come, now."
The tension in Harry's body melted beneath Severus' grasp and he allowed himself to be guided away. The majority of his misfits, with the exception of Zabini, Draco, Luna, and Ronald, immediately followed behind them.
Severus flicked his wand impatiently, transfiguring the pair of matching chairs in to a sofa, and pushed Harry down in the center of it. Frederick, as Severus presumed he would, took one side of Harry while Bones took the other. Severus raised a brow at the girl and she frowned before sliding to the floor and sitting at Harry's feet, staring mournfully up at him.
Severus summoned a calming drought, not that Harry seemed to truly need it, as eerily calm as he was, and pressed it in his hand.
"Drink," Severus ordered Harry. He sat beside him while the other misfits arranged themselves on the floor in front of the sofa. Frederick grabbed Harry's empty hand and frowned before flicking his wand at the fireplace and lighting an inappropriately cheerful and warm fire.
Harry swallowed down the entire drought then threw the vial at the wall, the shattering glass echoing in the silent room.
"She killed him," Harry said quietly. His eyes were blurry and unfocused as he stared at the wall across from him. "I had a plan. A good plan."
"It was a perfect plan," Bones said. She reached up and wrapped her glittering golden hand on Harry's leg. "It was brilliant, Harry."
Severus felt regret, but he needed to know what happened. He placed his hand softly on Harry's shoulder, internally remorseful at the the momentary flinch he felt within Harry's shoulder. "I would like to hear about this brilliant plan," he said gently.
***
While Harry began speaking, starting from the moment he arrived at the castle, Sirius stepped in to the sitting room and let out a heartbroken cry at the sight before him.
For the most painful split second of Sirius' life, all he saw was a thin body with messy black hair lying on a sofa with his arms folded on his chest and a girl sobbing by his side.
For the most painful split second of Sirius' life, he thought it was Harry.
Sirius felt as guilty as the pain receded a smidgen when he recognized not Harry, but Trent.
And then it clicked in his mind that it was Trent and the grief crashed in him hard enough to push him toward the sofa.
"No," he whispered. He dropped uselessly to his knees beside Trent and Sapphire.
Little Trent.
His honorary godson.
Sirius and Remus were going to adopt him, legalize their familial relationship this summer with Trent and Harry's blessing.
Sirius already had the paperwork signed by Trent's mother. He had visited her over Christmas break and she signed it after Sirius swore that he would protect Trent and take care of him for always.
And he failed.
"No." Sirius grabbed Trent's hand, so still and so cold, and clutched it tightly. "Trent, no."
Remus knelt beside Sirius and pulled his head toward his own.
"It's Trent," Sirius said dumbly in a voice too shocked to be tearful. "Trent. Our Trent."
"I know," Remus said. Remus had already processed through the shock and had moved on to grief and it showed in the endless outpouring of tears. "I know."
He didn't know. Not really.
There was no explanation for a life so young, so absolutely good, to be taken from the world.
***
"I didn't know what to do," Harry said in the office as he was surrounded by his solemn and teary eyed friends. "I can't kill him, can I? And he didn't want to kill me, obviously. I- I wouldn't bow. I refused to join him. And then Trent just..." Harry stared in to the fire blankly for a long moment. "He just popped in, pushed Mavis to Sapphire, shouted 'fuck you!' then shot Timmy."
"Trent... he shot Voldemort?" Theodore whispered.
Harry nodded. "Yeah. And- and before I could even move- Timmy- Timmy killed him."
Harry made an inhuman sound of pain and buried his face in his hands. "All- all I could do was grab his fucking body, call for Mavis, and come back. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Oh, God," Granger moaned around the hand she had pressed over her mouth.
Severus wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulder and pulled him tightly to his side while Frederick squeezed his hand tightly on his other side.
"You did excellent," Severus murmured with as much warm reassurance as he could muster in the face of his absolute shock. "There was nothing more you could have done, Harry."
Truly, Severus was unsure if there had been anything he would have done differently in Harry's place, aside from perhaps bowing to the Dark Lord to momentarily appease him. Harry had done his absolute best; he had planned logically and in a cunning way that the Dark Lord could never have accounted for.
House-elves as rescuers? Severus doubted if the Dark Lord ever even considered them when he set his trap. But Harry, Harry and his penchant for adopting those so often overlooked, remembered them and used them.
"I could have bowed," Harry said bleakly. "I should have, yeah?"
Yes.
"No," Frederick said vehemently. "Trent wouldn't have wanted you to bow, Harry. He would have-" Frederick took a shuddering breath, "He would have hated that."
Severus had no platitudes to share, no words to ease the burden of survivors guilt off Harry's thin shoulders. He merely sat there with him until they were interrupted by a soft popping noise and the appearance of Mavis.
Harry looked up at Mavis and the two of them held eye contact for a long moment.
"Why?" Harry asked him simply.
"Mavis was coming back for Master, and the Sapphire girl grabbed on to him," Mavis said with teary eyes and a wobbling chin. "Then Mister Trent, who Master Harry told Mavis to be listening to last summer, called for Mavis and demanded that Mavis bring him to help Master. Mavis was only trying to make everyone happy. There were different orders going in different directions and Mavis only wanted everyone to come home safely. Mavis is sorry. Mavis is so so sorry."
Harry's eyes were as lifeless as his young brother's body was in that moment, they were also worryingly dry. But Harry held direct eye contact with Mavis while he slipped the loose Slytherin tie he wore off his neck and held it up in his hands.
"If I see you anywhere near me, I'll give you this and wipe your entire memory before dropping you off at Hogwarts. Is that perfectly fucking clear?"
Mavis swallowed harshly, his Adam's apple bobbing in tandem with his head. "Mavis is sorry, Mavis is so very sorry."
"Just go," Bones murmured kindly to Mavis. "He needs space, alright?"
Mavis gave Harry a trembling bow before popping away quickly, his quiet cry lingering in the air.
The others sat in near silence, only Granger and Longbottom's occasional sniffles broke the silence. After nearly half an hour of heavy silence, Black stumbled in, looking like a madman caught in a nightmare.
"Harry," he croaked.
Harry looked up and the agony in Black's eyes finally broke Harry's composure. He ripped himself from Severus and Frederick's sides and rushed to Black. Black barely caught him in his arms before the two of them sank to the floor in a miserable sobbing mess.
Severus could never begrudge Harry for going to Black. Severus was fond of Bailey, he had seen a lonely boy with an ignorant muggle-parent who resented his magic and saw a bit of himself in the boy. But Black loved Bailey, loved him as a son, just as he loved Harry.
And after all that Black had done for Harry, Severus could never begrudge either of them for seeking the comfort they needed from each other.
"I'm sorry," Harry cried. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I tried, Sirius, I swear on my magic I tried so hard."
"I know," Black said as he clutched Harry to him and hid his face in Harry's hair. "You always do. You always do."
"Trent," Harry sobbed.
"Our Trent," Black cried back.
Lupin stepped in and stared sadly down the duo after their words melted in to shameless sobs as they clutched at each other in a desperate attempt to lighten their grief. Lupin's eyes were bloodshot, and his face was drawn, the lines and scars standing out prominently against the pale pallor of his skin, but he seemed as if he were thankfully not there to cry as well.
Severus could only handle so many displays of emotion from so many people before he scratched his skin off in discomfort.
"Juliana Zabini is here," Lupin said quietly to Severus. "Blaise is asleep, and Juliana is reapplying the salve."
Severus nodded. "Call Minerva," he said. "Inform her of what happened."
"Minerva?" Lupin furrowed his brows. "Surely I should call Albus?"
Was it only hours ago that Severus watched Albus embrace death?
"Albus then," Severus said smoothly. "If you wouldn't mind, perhaps simply floo to my office at Hogwarts and speak with him there? I would prefer he not come here."
"Of course." Lupin put his hand on top of Black's head for a moment then nodded. "I'll be back."
"Lupin."
Lupin paused and looked back at Harry's soft voice.
Harry lifted his wet and tear-stained face from where he had it on Black's shoulder. "Tell them I quit."
Lupin looked to Severus, Severus looked to Harry, and Harry returned to his godfather's embrace.
"Tell them he quits," Severus echoed Harry's request quietly. "And inform them to expect my resignation within the week."
By the time Lupin returned, he informed Severus that Albus was absent from the castle and that Minerva would like to speak to him.
"She said she wants you to stay," Lupin said. "She asked if you'd come see her as soon as you can get away."
Severus looked across his sitting room; so filled with bodies that it was suffocating in the heavy grief.
Draco and Luna sat with the Malfoy's, both their young faces stricken. Severus was pleased to see Narcissa held Luna as tightly as Lucius held his son.
Granger had fallen asleep on a cot and Theodore held her as if he had believed that he would have lost her and his daughter both today.
Longbottom and Ronald sat with Bones as the three of them watched Zabini sleep and Juliana dab salve over his injuries.
None of them knew what it meant to be bitten, to be marked so brutally, by a werewolf with the full moon absent. Juliana spoke to Zabini's friends about her son's bravery, his charms, his beloved good looks.
Frederick stood beside Nymphadora, his arm over her shoulder, as they spoke quietly in a corner of the room. Nymphadora caught Severus' eye and quirked a pink brow at him.
I love you, Severus thought in her direction, the silent admission catching himself by surprise.
He had not realized it until then, but as he searched himself, he found that it was as undoubtedly true as his love for Harry was.
She would have died for them.
Harry wouldn't bow, but Nymphadora would have died to protect these children.
How could he not love her?
Nymphadora's lips curved up in a soft and sad smile, as if somehow guessing at his thoughts from clear across the room, then they turned as one towards the sofa in the center of the room.
The sofa where Bailey's small body laid.
The sofa where Harry, Black, and Herron held vigil for Bailey's tragically short life and his immeasurably heroic sacrifice. Someone had covered Bailey with a sheet, but Harry had peeled back the top of it so that his face was still visible.
"I have nothing to say to Minerva," Severus told Lupin quietly as he watched the vigil. "Hogwarts does not need me. I am needed here."
***
Harry gave the eulogy for Trent Bailey on the day he and Black buried him in the cemetery in Hogsmeade.
Severus had invited Bailey's mother, offered to ensure her safe arrival and departure from the service- penance for his guilt at the boy's death, but she refused.
She slammed the door in Severus' face and her sharp scream of agony would haunt Severus for the remainder of his life.
Minerva, the interim headmistress in the face of Albus' 'abrupt and inexplicable disappearance', allowed the students to attend and they made up the majority of the crowd along with the wolves Bailey lived with over the summer, the Kent family who closed their store so that their entire family, including little Allison, the girl whose life Bailey once saved, could attend. Little Allison held her mothers hand tightly while her lips trembled as she sat in the front row beside Black, Lupin, and Sapphire, all listening as Harry spoke.
Harry was solemn as he stood before the crowd. None could doubt his right to eulogize Bailey as none had loved the boy as fiercely, or mourned his death so harshly. Harry looked years older than his age as he wore his muggle suit, something that the Weasley boys, Draco, Theodore, Longbottom, and Zabini did as well to mark tribute to Bailey's roots. Harry looked out across the filled rows of mourning friends and cleared his throat before forgoing magical amplification in favor of speaking strongly and loudly, his voice carrying clearly.
It was an aching kind of pride in his child that Severus felt in that moment.
"Do you know Trent's last words?" Harry said to them all. "Trent's last words were 'fuck you!'"
There were a few soft chuckles from the Slytherin students, but Harry's friends sat in their row and watched him speak with silent reverence.
"And do you know who he said that to? Tom Riddle. Voldemort. The Dark Lord. Timmy. Whatever you want to call him. Trent Bailey," Harry stepped to the side, gesturing his arm to the white marble coffin that Severus knew Black and Harry chose together, "told him 'fuck you' right before he died on his feet by his wand.
"This is a war. A bad one. And people are going to die; good people, people who deserved the entire world and were given nothing but dust. Trent deserved to live to be an old man." Harry's eyes lingered on Sapphire Herron for a moment. "Trent deserved to marry the girl he loved, and he deserved to one day have three sons with her."
Herron let out a muffled cry at Harry's acknowledgment and Severus' pride soared high once more.
"Trent deserved to be a firefighter," Harry looked towards where Nymphadora sat, "or an auror," he said softly. "Whatever kind of hero he wanted to be when he graduated."
Nymphadora didn't sniffle or cry, she just squeezed Severus' hand and tilted her chin in gratitude to Harry's comment.
"But Trent didn't get what he deserved," Harry went on, speaking to the crowd. "Because his life was cut short. Because he was already a hero. So when you find yourself caught in a battle, and you see people you know and love needing your help- you could save yourself, or you could be a hero. A hero like Trent Bailey."