Chapter Text
Minerva had been there when they'd recovered Severus' body; she'd hexed an Auror for attempting to defile him.
It, the body, she tried to tell herself, but it didn't work; her remembrance of everything was far too clear. Him, Severus—you secretive, stupid, sullen boy!
That didn't work, either. He'd been a man when he'd left her, and old enough to know what he was doing.
He didn't trust me.
She thought this as she placed the laurel wreath on his tomb. No one deserved it more, and Severus would never have understood the gift of flowers.
I was too quick to judge. I was too quick to fall in . . . . "No matter," she whispered, rising and circling the monument to the seeming chastisement of the rain.
Cold stone gleaming in the moonlight, that's all it was, and nothing like what it should have been. People's ingratitude had made Harry so angry.
He, at least, has someone to warm his heart now, someone to forgive him.
Ginny wouldn't break Harry, not the way she'd broken Severus with her condemning looks and accusative tone. . . . Of course, she'd had no way of knowing.
I should have known.
Cold stone and no chance of a reconciliation—why had she come? And how had he stood it? How had he hardened his heart against past love and present ease and flung himself, utterly alone, into a mission from which he'd never expected to return?
Her hand caressed the marble, and she sighed at Severus' strength, her head bowed. "I'm so sorry."
Long cool fingers slid over hers then, and Minerva's heart stopped, briefly, before pounding wildly within her breast—but she didn't look up. She couldn't do that to herself. She knew that Severus would never return to her, a shade; that simply wasn't his way.
Damn him.
The storm grew worse; the stone remained cool against her palm, but slowly, the hand covering her own began to warm. It wasn't until she heard the words, however, his words, that she was able to believe.
"Laurel? Really, Minerva, it wasn't a race I was running."