The Edge of Nowhere

Chapter 2: Missing in Action

It took Hermione a few moments to rationalise that his body wasn't where she, Harry and Ron had left it. There again, in the dirty, dilapidated Shrieking Shack no sign of a brutal murder or the dead Potions Master existed save the pool of blood on a warned wooden floor.

She remembered the need to cry at seeing someone in the process of dying. Not someone dying of natural causes, tucked up in bed with family lovingly attending. This was someone she knew. He wasn't the nasty cruel Professor then. He was just a man, mortally wounded, writhing in pain, bleeding from a gaping tear in his throat, dying. It had been sickening and she had felt the crush of empathy for him.

The drafty old shack was a lonely place to die, she thought. The smell of death was thick in the air. A metallic nauseating smell of blood that, together with seeing the spilling of it, made her insides wretch. The entire grounds of Hogwarts had that smell and the look too, as it would following a fearsome and terrible battle.

Hermione became aware of a third element. The ghostly silent aftermath. A haunting stillness as if she had suddenly gone deaf at it all, too many agonizing screams to bear any longer. The dead lay everywhere.

Harry's raised voice broke her stupor,

"B-but he was there...dead. I saw him die. He was dead, I know it. We all saw him! There, the blood! His blood! So much blood...."

Harry's voice trailed off. The shock of a very long day had gripped hold of him. It had gripped hold of everyone. Harry in particular. His hands still had Snape's blood stuck to them, a consequence of trying to mitigate the bleeding torrent at the dying man's neck.

If anyone had looked into the young hero's eyes at that moment one would likely see Voldemort as Harry had seen him last. Or through his glassy gaze a dying Snape, blood gushing from his throat. Then there was the foray into whatever that whole Harry dying thing was with Dumbledore and King's Cross Station.

Minerva placed her hand on Harry's shoulder interrupting his absent stare. Her own heart ached for what he had been through. For what Severus had been through. The heartbreak for all the brave innocents that had to fight, die at so young an age. A heartbreak that threatened to tear her apart.

The older witch stifled her grief. There would be time for that later, once alone in her quarters...afterwards. She was still needed as a tower of strength. She reckoned whatever had happened to Severus' body likely was not good. If the Death-Eaters got to him she didn't want to imagine the unspeakable horrors those fiends would put to the poor man's remains.

"Come, Harry, you've done enough."

Hermione turned to look back at the large red wet stain seeping into the old weathered planks. As she followed Harry and Minerva out of the Shrieking Shack she rubbed her arms at the sudden chill in the air. The atmospheric oddity caused her to shiver. Her mind raced with the thought of what depravities might have occurred after they had left Professor Snape for dead. She shook her head, not wanting to see such thoughts.

There was one thought she could not shake. She recalled the memories Harry had just revealed. They told the story of not only a very brave man but an exceedingly clever one. The Potions Master's words rang in the young Gryffindor's ears, 'I can teach you to...put a stopper in Death.' Hermione would wager Snape could do a lot more than that.

Upon hearing Severus' memories, Professor McGonagall had been consumed with remorse for her disloyalty, having failed to trust in her colleague. She knew he was in the Order of the Phoenix. She knew he was a spy. She should have trusted him. Most of the gathered who witnessed Harry tell Voldemort where Snape's loyalties truly lay felt the same. A few reluctantly acknowledged he was indeed under Dumbledore's command.

A few days had passed before the authorities came to search the castle. Snape's missing body was a problem. If the Headmaster was indeed dead that would be the end of the inquiry. If he was alive, the Ministry had to consider him a fugitive until he was captured and could stand trial as a traitor and a murderer. The public demanded it. They were not yet privy to those telling memories. They did not know of the torment, the manipulation, the sacrifice, the hero.

Minerva had refused the Aurors entry into Professor Snape's quarters. She was determined to do right by the man she had abandon to his fate. Even Acting Minister and long-time friend Kingsley Shacklebolt could not persuade her. She stood firm,

"Hogwarts, and her lands, make up an autonomous state. We are not subject to the whims of the Ministry, Kingsley."

The members of the school's Board of Governors acted as an independent body with absolute rule. The Ministry could not enter without their expressed permission even in legal matters. The Aurors were hard pressed to find a Board member in the aftermath of the war. Some had been killed, some had fled, some were in hiding. In such cases the provisional authority fell to the school's Headmaster or now acting Headmistress. Still Shacklebolt pleaded his case,

"Minerva, please, I don't want to have to go to the Board for permission to search Snape's rooms."

"Good luck with that just now. At any rate, I'll not have Severus' things disturbed until I myself have had a chance to go through them. We owe him that much, Kingsley, and you know it."

"The Wizengamot want proof, Minerva."

"They have Harry's word and Severus' memories. That is enough...for now."

"No, it isn't. Minerva listen to reason. If Severus is alive he may need help. He could be out there badly injured...if what Harry says is true. If we can find him we can get him to St Mungo's."

Minerva would not be swayed. She knew how the Ministry worked. Her late husband had worked for the Ministry. Yes, she knew all too well. If anything her resolve strengthened symbolized by her hands on hips,

"Codswallop! I know exactly what would happen, Kingsley. He would be thrown into Azkaban without regard. The Wizengamot would be content for him to die in custody, in Azkaban, if it meant securing votes for their re-elections. Severus' story would never be heard. His innocence ignored. A scapegoat. I'll not have it."

The discussion ended there.

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