Entry tags:

fic, rating: pg-13, snarry-a-thon

Snarry-a-Thon FIC: Reasons to Live
Title: Reasons to Live
Author: lesyeuxverts
Other pairings/threesome: Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5k
Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *EWE*
Prompt: #117: To sir, with love.
Summary: A hundred reasons to live, a hundred ways to live – this one is enough for Harry.
A/N: Huge thanks to A for the last-minute beta and to the lovely mods for their patience!

Reasons to Live

19 December, 1998

In the late afternoon sunlight, the Room of Requirement was black, as ashy as the Floo grate in the Atrium at the end of the day. Harry had seen wizards on their way home, choking as they swirled through all the ash that had accumulated in the fireplace through the day – this was worse.

He ran a hand over the stone wall and brushed the ash off on his trousers. Crabbe had died here.

The Room provided the one thing that Harry wanted – Snape's old Potions textbook. Harry knelt, brushing through the ashes until his hands hit the book. He blew across the cover until the surface was clean, and tucked it into his pocket before he turned to go. Dust to dust, it was all ashes – the Room was just stone and space now, with only wisps of magic left. This was the last day it would work ... the book was the last of it. Harry left without looking back.

Quiet and still, clean and bright, the house was empty. The ghosts of Grimmauld Place had been laid to rest, and the monsters and the Dark magic had been banished. Harry had chased his friends away, and now he unearthed a teapot from somewhere in the dusty cupboards. He found tea and mugs that needed a good Scourgify - he found quill and ink.

The first letter was hard to write. Harry had been talking to Snape in his head – he needed Snape to know that they'd won the war, words carried past the grave. Snape had died so that Harry could live. He had to know.

To Sir,

I think I'm finally beginning to understand. You never did anything without a reason – understanding those reasons is like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle, now that you are gone and have taken the whole picture with you. You never made things simple when you were alive and they are certainly more difficult now. I don't know where any of the pieces fit.

You loved my mother. That much, I can understand. I never knew her, but from what I've heard, everyone loved her.

That it was enough to keep you going for nearly two decades – two decades, when you were misunderstood and reviled, working without a word of thanks – is just another part of the puzzle.

(You needn't say anything about my suddenly large vocabulary. Hermione helps me spell difficult words like 'reviled.' She's always good for things like that.)

Still, I wonder what you would say if you were here – if you could see the world that you made possible – if you could have lived as you deserved to do.

Harry chewed on the end of his quill. The letter felt unfinished, but he had filled up the page – the one blank page left at the end of Snape's old Potions textbook, the only page that was free of the Half-Blood Prince's scrawled notes.

His writing marred the blank page – Harry's handwriting had always blotchy and uneven, as if he'd never quite got used to writing with a quill. Fat gobs of ink had dripped on the page, and there was a huge spot where he had hesitated too long over writing "sir." Snape's writing, on the other hand, had been formed with precise and thin lines, as though he had scratched an almost-dry quill across the page, using as little ink as possible.

Perhaps he hadn't been able to afford more – his mother would've sent him off to Hogwarts with a bottle of the cheapest ink sold at Flourish and Blotts, and told him to make it last the whole year.

Harry closed his eyes, seeing a young Snape in the Slytherin dormitory, knees drawn up to his chest and elbows sticking out at odd angles as he borrowed ink from a classmate. Pretending that he'd only forgotten his inkwell, pretending that he was too busy to go into Hogsmeade and buy more, pretending that he had enough – Harry had made up the same excuses when Dudley stole his lunch or snapped his pencils. He'd swallowed hard and pretended, as if it made a difference when everybody knew.

Everybody knew that Snape was a hero now, but nobody had known when it would have made a difference to him.

Harry blew on the ink again to dry it and shut the book. He had said what mattered. Snape would never know, but at least Harry had said it.

* * * * *

21 December, 1998

The house was empty – everyone else had gone ahead, everyone except Ginny. Harry wasn't ready yet.

He had ransacked his room twice, turning it inside out with Summoning Charm after Summoning Charm, but even when Ginny stuck her head in his room, calling for him, Harry wasn't ready to give up.

"No," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Go on ahead without me … no, wait.

"Have you seen Sna- my sixth year Potions text? It was here, right on the table next to my bed."

She shook her head, pushing long strands of hair away from her face with a flounce. "No, and I don't know why you want that old thing now, of all times. Harry, we're late–"

"I know, but I – I can't make my speech without the book. It's important – I was going to talk about Snape's sacrifice–"

"It looks like you're just going to have to make the speech without the book, if you can't find it now. Harry, it's Yule and no one cares about a bloody textbook. Nobody cares about Snape. We have to go, the last Portkey is at–"

"All right, all right." Harry let her grab his wrist and pull him from the room, while he turned back to look for the book one last time.

When he came back from the reception at the Ministry, with the notes for his speech crumpled into a damp ball of parchment in his pocket, the book was on his bedside table. His room had been righted, as if Harry's magic hadn't torn through it, as if he hadn't taken everything apart to find the book.

Harry knelt next to the table, paging through the book until he found the page where he had written his letter to Snape. His letter had been erased – it was blank now, blank except for one short line written in spiky letters.

Do you think I should have wanted to live after everything?

* * * * *

24 December, 1998

Harry, not knowing how to answer the question, had waited – and when he turned back to Snape's old book, the flyleaf was blank again. Twisting his quill between his fingers, Harry splattered fat drops of ink on the paper.

Dear sir,

If you have made your old book into some sort of Horcrux, if you are out there, like Tom Riddle was, waiting for a body … well. I never thought twice about accusing you of Dark magic before, but now I can't write the words.

Have I made you into some sort of martyr, romantic and safe, now that you are gone? You were capable of Dark magic, even when you were my age. When you were younger than me, too. But you saw what Tom Riddle did, and I don't think that you would've chosen to go his way. I hope I'm not wrong. What was left of him at the end was – well, it wasn't a pretty sight, sir.

Ginny's calling me. There's another Ministry celebration, a dedication of the war memorial they built in London. Sometimes I think you had the right of it, sir. Living through all this is awfully tedious.

Harry hesitated for a minute, his quill held above the paper. "Best" didn't convey much at all, while "your student" wasn't nearly enough. He had been more than Snape's student – he had watched the man die, at the end. There wasn't a word that properly described it.

Ginny called him three times more before Harry gave up, scrawling his name at the end of the page, and leaving it without any closing at all.

* * * * *

27 December, 1998

Impertinent boy. You would accuse me of creating a Horcrux?

The book was where Harry had left it – as if it hadn't disappeared for three days again, as if he hadn't turned the house inside out looking for it. Nothing had changed except the last page. His letter was gone, and the scrawled reply was in the spiky thin hand that Harry associated with Snape.

He'd seen enough of it over the years to know. He'd seen enough of the man to know that there would be no Horcrux, no miraculous coming again. Snape would not be resurrected by Dark magic.

Harry dug his nails into his palm as he dipped his quill into the pot of ink and started to scratch out a reply.

To Sir,

I know you wouldn't create a Horcrux, but I don't understand how it is that you can write to me now.

Harry scratched out several words, leaving big blots of ink on the text, before he found the courage to continue.

Sir – if you are in fact beyond the Veil, and if you have seen my godfather – please tell him that I'm sorry. For everything. I never had a chance to tell him…

So many things. I know you'd rather hex him than speak to him, but think of how you felt, when it was my mum who was on the other side of things. You must've wanted to apologize to her. Please.

Capping the inkwell, Harry ground the nib of his quill into the paper again, pressing it into the final period and twisting it until all of the ink was spent. He left the book open to let the ink dry and left it there, on his nightstand, for Snape to answer.

I hope you had a happy Christmas, sir. I wish you all the best, wherever you are.

3 January, 1999

Potter –

I have not seen your godfather, nor will I. Any further pleas to my conscience or to your mother's memory will be ignored, and you may as well save your ink. If you are clinging to a misguided sense of guilt over your godfather's death in direct contradiction to the facts of the matter, that is your own affair.

Do not look to me to alleviate your guilt by making me into your messenger – I am not your lackey.

-S. Snape

* * * * *

14 February, 1999

To Professor Snape–

You loved my mother, but I never had the chance to know her. I wish ... I wish you were still alive, sir. I'm hardly naïve enough to think that you'd be springing to my rescue again – that you'd sit with me and drink bottomless cups of coffee and tell me stories about her, not sparing the insults when I asked stupid questions, but I wish – I wish that someone who had known my mother was still alive. I wish someone would tell me about her.

Ginny's insisting that we go to Chez L'amour tonight. It's a new fancy French restaurant in Diagon Alley – right in the spot where Ollivanders used to be. I wonder where you'd be tonight, sir, if you had lived. Or who you'd be with.

I won't know how to pronounce anything on the menu, or which fork to use, or when Ginny wants me to reach across the table to hold her hand, or whether or not she wants a good-night kiss after I walk her back to her flat. Nothing was this complicated when Chez L'amour was just Ollivander's, when I walked in that day and bought my first wand and actually felt the magic going through me.

* * * * *

15 February, 1999

Potter –

Do not expect a response to your impertinent speculations about my private life. As to the rest of your rambling letter, I can only say this: the world was never that simple. To an eleven-year-old, it may have seemed that way, but you are a child no longer. Knowing about Quirrell and the efforts that Voldemort made to achieve the Stone that year, you cannot still think that it was that simple.

-S. Snape

Kingsley's seminar that week had been on investigative techniques and deductive reasoning. He had scanned the crowd of Auror trainees busily scribbling notes, and his eyes had paused on Harry when he said that deductive reasoning was the most important tool an Auror could use, that ten minutes' thought saved lives more often than not.

Harry met Kingsley's gaze and then bent his head over his parchment, taking notes with the rest of the trainees.

If he'd known this, years ago ... he'd never have suspected that Snape was after the Philosopher's Stone. Motive, ability, and opportunity. Harry'd been led down the garden path, suspecting Snape for no real reason. He'd never thought to question the clues that Quirrell fed him.

Circumstantial evidence is no evidence at all, Kingsley said, repeating it over and over. Do not judge hastily. Do not leap to conclusions. Trust your instincts, but trust your reason more – and believe nothing until the prisoner's been captured, confessed, tried and sentenced.

Snape had always been innocent when Harry suspected him of the worst. The Philosopher's Stone, the Dark Mark, the scene on the tower ... Snape hadn't been after the Stone, he hadn't been working for Voldemort, not truly, and he'd killed Dumbledore at his own request. Nothing had been as it seemed.

Harry hadn't known how to think like this, how to argue and how to reason. He'd suspected Snape because it was easy.

Ron jabbed Harry in the side with his elbow, and Harry glared at him before bending over his notes again. "What?" he hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

"Pay attention," Ron said, shifting his chair closer and whispering in Harry's ear. He was warm pressed against Harry's side, and his breath tickled. "You look like you're about to go haring off on some crazy adventure again. Saving somebody."

"It's never been crazy adventures–"

"Potter, Weasley ... would you care to share your sudden insight into suspect identification with the rest of us?"

Kingsley looked disappointed, and Harry looked back down at his notes without meeting his eyes. "Er ... I was just thinking, sir, that it's wrong to assume someone's guilty just because they look suspicious, umm ... the clothes they're wearing, or maybe if they're not very nice ... just because you don't like them, it doesn't make them a suspect."

"True enough, as far as it goes. Does anyone have any thoughts about when it's important to pay attention to a suspect's appearance?"

Deductive reasoning. Harry slid down in his chair when Kingsley's attention moved on, and he scribbled notes on his parchment.

Snape's book wasn't a Horcrux – Harry knew that much for sure. Snape wasn't a ghost, because ghosts couldn't hold quill or parchment. He couldn't be an Inferius, because Voldemort hadn't had time to make one.

Snape couldn't talk to Sirius, so he wasn't beyond the Veil. Or he wouldn't talk to Sirius ... but Harry was willing to bet that Snape wasn't going to refuse him that much, after everything. So Snape was – he must be–

"Snape's alive." Harry said it quietly enough that no one heard him except Ron, but he gave Harry a strange look and elbowed him again. It didn't matter. Snape was alive.

It was all that Harry could do to sit through the rest of the class without fidgeting. He crammed his parchment and writing supplies into his bag as soon as Kingsley dismissed them, and rushed headlong out of the classroom, dodging through the crowds and leaving Ron behind.

* * * * *

15 February, 1999

The Shrieking Shack was empty – as Harry had half-expected, half-hoped it would be. There weren't even bloodstains left behind.

He crouched on the ground, in the dust and in the dirt, and pulled Snape's old textbook out of his bag.

To sir–

You're alive, aren't you? I don't know why I didn't see it before. The book disappears between letters because you're alive, somewhere, writing in it and sending it back to me. I never dreamed – I never thought you could've survived.

Can I see you? I want to thank you for everything you did. I want to tell you ... so many things, and hear your side of the story. Please, sir.

Harry sat on his heels, staring at the blank space under his letter. It was–

The blank space was growing, his words sinking into the parchment until they were only faint traceries of ink before they disappeared. Large strokes slashed across the page and rearranged themselves into letters while Harry watched.

No.

* * * * *

15 February, 1999

Ron and Hermione were waiting when Harry came back to Grimmauld Place at last, the book tucked under his arm. "Harry–"

No amount of staring at the page had made the big black No disappear. He'd waited in the Shack until the sun had gone down and the empty house grown cold. Harry shifted the book to his other arm and kicked off his shoes into the pile by the door. "Yeah?"

"You know Snape's not really alive, don't you?"

That was Hermione, as reasonable as ever. She crossed the room to stand in front of Harry, putting her hands over his. "You know that, right?"

"I don't know that, Hermione – he's been writing to me, he must be alive. He's not a Horcrux or a ghost or an Inferius ... what–"

"He's dead, Harry. We saw him die..."

"Things aren't always the way they seem in the wizarding world. I know Snape's still alive, okay?"

"Can I see that book, Harry?"

Ron only shrugged and said, "I had to tell her." Glaring at him, Harry handed over the book.

"Write in it," he said. "You'll see. Snape's still alive. He's got to be."

"Better off dead," Ron said, dodging out of Hermione's reach when she turned to glare at him. "Well, he is."

"I know you want him to be alive, Harry, but you've got to understand that he isn't. He died, and you can't bring him back to apologize to him or thank him. I'm sorry, but he's dead and that's all there is to it."

"He wrote–"

That only made Hermione cross her arms over her chest and look even more stubborn. "You should know as well as anyone else that there are dangers in that. You can't have forgotten what happened to Ginny."

"No," Harry said. "No, I haven't forgotten."

* * * * *

31 October, 1999

While Snape was gone, Harry wrote to him. Without the textbook, Harry wrote on scraps of paper, in the margins of his mission reports, on the back of the lists that Ginny wrote out for the groceries.

He had sent owl after owl, instructing them to find Severus Snape, but none of them returned with an answer. Harry's fingers shook when he unwound the string that tied the rolls of parchment to their legs, but it was always his own letter and never a reply.

He had lost his one way of contacting Snape.

Hermione was still testing the book, she told him – very advanced spells, far beyond her level, she had to wait for the more senior members of her department to have a bit of free time to spare for it. She read text after text on Dark magic, bringing them home and crowding her flat with piles and piles of notes – nothing new, but Ron blamed Harry for it.

"She won't even look at me, most nights," Ron said, elbowing Harry on his way to his cubicle. "Couldn't you have left the bloody book in the Room? Couldn't it have just burned, like everything else?"

Harry had no answers for him – none that would satisfy him. He'd needed the book, just as he'd needed the Half-Blood Prince to pass Potions in his sixth year. He'd needed to apologize to Snape and thank him.

Hermione brushed Harry aside when he went to ask her how the work on the book was going, and so he left. He went out of the Ministry, past the gleaming statues in the Atrium and out the grand doors, and he wandered through London until he came to the river.

Halloween. Everything had hinged on this night, and Harry had to face it alone. Ginny was on tour with her Quidditch team, Ron and Hermione were at the Burrow with the Weasleys, and Snape was – Snape was gone. Harry stared at the river for a long time before he Apparated home.

* * * * *

24 February, 2000

Harry had the book back. It had been tested by Hermione with all of the magic that the Unspeakables could bring to bear against it – and it had passed every test.

"Not dark," Hermione had said, her final verdict as her fingers lingered on the book she had handed to Harry. "There was nothing we could find. But be careful – you know what happened to Ginny."

"I know. Thanks, Hermione."

To Professor Snape–

Hermione says you can't be alive (and she's checked this book over for all sorts of Dark spells), Ron says I'm a bloody idiot for wanting you to be alive, and Ginny just says I'm an idiot. (We had a row on Valentine's Day again this year, and still haven't completely patched it up. I missed having you here to write to, after.)

I've missed you, period. How have you been? Don't call me an impertinent boy and refuse to answer ... please don't.

Am I the only one you write to, I wonder? Are you still watching over me for my mum's sake? Are you happy, wherever you are and whomever you're with? I hope so.

-Harry

* * * * *

31 July, 2000

Potter,

I suppose you expect me to be glad that you remembered where this book was, let alone how to write. If you remember how to read as well, then accept my congratulations on the fact that you've apparently managed to survive another year. Thoughts of your demise give me considerably less joy now that I think of sharing the afterlife with you, so I hope you will continue in that healthy state for many more years.

Harry grabbed a quill from his desk and, between the closely written paragraphs, found space for You could have just said Happy Birthday, sir. But thank you.

He had the book. Snape was writing him again. Harry wouldn't quibble over Snape's references to the afterlife or the fact that Snape was alive. Nothing else made sense ... he was alive. He had to be.

Do not expect me to have any patience with you if you trivialize the occasion by nattering on about Miss Weasley and your complete incompetence with her. You seem to think that I have some sort of interest in your torrid affair, but I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. Even the dead do not have infinite patience.

Do not continue to call me Professor Snape. If my perception of time is at all accurate, it has been some years since I had the misfortune of being your professor.

-S. Snape

* * * * *

1 August, 2000

To sir,

I'm sorry I didn't write for so long – I am. Hermione wanted to make sure that there was no Dark magic associated with the book, and I think you know how persistent she is. She made a thorough job of it, she's training to be an Unspeakable, you know. After everything that happened with Tom Riddle's diary and Ginny, I suppose she was right to be cautious.

No, I know that you're not a Horcrux, and I didn't say any such thing, but there are all sorts of Dark spells. I guess you would know better than most, wouldn't you? Not that I think you used any of them on this book. Hermione told me all of the ones she had checked for ... quite a list, sir, and most of them gruesome.

She stopped by almost every day to tell me what she'd done and to try to convince me that you're not alive. But you are – you are, I know it, and one of these days you'll come out of hiding and tell me what it is that's kept you in hiding all these years. One of these days, you'll have to let me apologize to you properly.

-Harry

5 August, 2000

Potter: As you do not tempt a man in the desert with water, do not taunt a dead man with talk of life. As I said to you once before: why should I have wanted to live after everything?

-S. Snape

* * * * *

1 May, 2001

Three years after the war, Harry had learned how to find the quiet place in his mind that Snape had called Occlumency. It was there when he was standing on the edge of Remus Lupin's grave; it was there when he saw Hogwarts reopen with a new Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore twinkling in his portrait; it was there on the anniversary of the war, when he was dragged to the Ministry for speech after speech, where people passed champagne flutes and truffled eggs around like promises. By the time the last egg was gone, Harry's feet were sore from dancing and his hand was numb from handshake after handshake.

Everyone wanted to touch him, to hear him tell the story again.

Harry slipped into himself, moving away from the people who crowded around him, the people who needed him. Snape would have been proud, or as close as he could come to it, if he had been there to test Harry's shields.

Sir,

I'm sorry I never appreciated your lessons when you were alive.

"What's that look on your face?" Ginny joined him, putting her hand on his arm and leaning against his shoulder. "This is nice, isn't it?"

She hadn't been in the forest with them, she hadn't gone to Malfoy Manor, and she hadn't seen the Fiendfyre. She hadn't been in the Shrieking Shack, watching Snape die. She hadn't faced Voldemort – though whenever Harry said she didn't understand, Ginny said it was because she hadn't been allowed to understand, that it wasn't her fault that she'd been left behind.

She didn't like it when Harry stood off from the crowd, alone and writing letters to Snape in his head. He didn't share them with her.

He had made that mistake once. Days of silence, with the bed cold between them and pillows piled up like a wall – at the end of it, she'd broken the silence, calling Snape a waste of skin and magic, a waste of ink and parchment, a waste of Harry's time, and he had left the house for weeks. She didn't understand. She couldn't understand.

* * * * *

2 May, 2001

To sir,

Well, that's another year done and gone, and all of us survived. To tell the truth, I think Ginny even enjoys it – she buys fancy new robes and makes me escort her to all the dances. Champagne and photographs and a whole lot of nonsense.

To tell you the truth, I have a hard time believing it's been three years. Three years without you sneering at me or calling me on every single fault ... I suppose you'd say that my head has got swelled without you here to remind me that celebrity's not everything.

It doesn't matter most of the year. No one in the Auror department cares anymore, and the press doesn't bother me much since I adapted Ginny's Bat Bogey Hex to work on their owls when they pester me for interviews. They only come around like vultures on the anniversary of the battle ... and on Halloween.

Not a pleasant memory for either of us, is it, sir? That's enough of that, then. I like to imagine you vacationing on a tropical island somewhere, like the places where Sirius went when he was hiding from the Ministry and the Dementors. Maybe you're so busy sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas that you never notice the day.

I'd rather that than think of you brooding in a dungeon somewhere, brewing forgetfulness potions and unspeakable poisons, only to smash the vials against the wall, one by one, every anniversary. My mum ... I don't think that she'd have wanted that for you, sir.

I know, I know, you're not alive and you don't know why I set such store on living. Could probably give you a hundred reasons to live and you'd demand a hundred more for good measure .... wouldn't you, you grumpy old git?

Well, I'll keep my imaginary futures for you, and you can keep your death, if that suits you. Happy anniversary, sir.

-Harry

3 May, 2001

Potter –

Your imagination borders on the absurd, and I hope that you will keep it to yourself in the future. If you were any sort of Auror at all, you would have checked the champagne for potions and hallucinogenic substances before drinking it.

-S. Snape

* * * * *

31 July, 2001

Stop writing to me, Potter. As trite and mawkish as the sentiment is, this is your birthday and you should be cavorting with your foolish friends, not sitting at home and writing letters to a dead man.

You depend upon me too much. I am not here to answer questions about your criminal investigations, offer advice when you say something stupid to your girlfriend, or be your friend.

I've watched over you for your mother's sake. I've discharged my duty and done more than enough.

As you are fond of telling me: live. It's what Lily would have wanted for you.

-S. Snape

* * * * *

13 June, 2004

The swish-swish-swish of the tall marsh grass died away before Harry opened his rucksack and, as he took pains not to lose his quills in the grass, conjured a makeshift writing desk. He set everything out on it. Snape's old Potions textbook took pride of place in the centre of the little desk, and when Harry opened it, the wind shivered through the grass again, the rustling sound as quiet as a prayer. It was time.

Of all the times he had written to Snape, this was the hardest letter to write, made hard by silence and by meaning. Harry dipped his quill in the ink and blotted it on a spare scrap of parchment. He sat, watching the ink dry, while he rolled the words around in his head.

Dear Sir,

I asked Ginny to marry me today – Hermione said I'd kept her waiting long enough.

None of it sounded right, not in that order. It wasn't right, and Harry's quill had gone dry. He dipped his quill in the inkwell and scratched out what he had written, beginning again.

Dear Sir,

I asked Ginny to marry me today – she said yes. We're both very happy. Molly is over the moon, and decided to plan the ceremony for us.

The mud, buried under a layer of last year's grass, had begun to soak through it, until the legs of Harry's trousers were wet. He shifted his weight from knee to knee, and the mud made a sucking sound, as if it was trying to draw him in deeper.

Harry could have Transfigured a cushion or a proper desk – any wizard worth his wand could have done as much. He could have Apparated home to the warm dry study tucked under the attic eaves and written his letter there in the comfort of his favourite chair. Instead, he sat in the mud and endured the buzzing of the summer's first bottle-green flies, swatting them away when they came too close to his ink.

He didn't know what to say to Snape – that was the problem. No matter how he ordered the words, they still stared at him in an accusing stark row of letters that didn't belong together. At his desk at work, in his study, in the one sunbeam that hit the kitchen table during the fading afternoon light, it made no difference.

Here, next to the river where Severus had played with Lily, it had to be different.

Harry covered his eyes with one hand, dipping his quill in the inkwell one last time – third time the charm – and without looking, he scrawled the words out on the flyleaf of Snape's old Potions text.

To sir,

I miss you. Please come back and talk to me again. I don't know what to do when you're gone.

The words were big and blotchy, the quill having scattered fat drops of ink over the page that obscured half the words. Harry closed the book with a muted thunk and screwed his inkwell closed before he let it fall into the damp old grass and the mud. He tossed the quill as far as it would go, into swish-swish of the wind in the tall grass.

Snape's old book was the only thing he took with him when he Apparated away.

* * * * *

15 June, 2004

Dear Harry,

If you are not happy with the idea, don't marry her.

You've seen enough unhappy marriages to be able to judge for yourself if you ought to enter into this one. Your friends the Weasleys are a case in point – completely unsuited for one another, and blinded by infatuation to the point where they're unable to see it.

You know better than that, Harry. You have always been able to trust your own judgment, even when it led you into situations that risked your neck and horrified your professors. It was never easy to watch you, but ... I watched over you when you were a child. You don't need it any longer. You're a grown man and able to make your own decisions, even if you should decide to risk your life or your happiness.

I tried to make it clear that this continuing correspondence is not to your benefit. Shackling yourself to the memories of the past and the voice of a dead man will do you no good, either in marriage to Miss Weasley or in any other future that you choose to pursue. You have learned how to live on your own, these past three years – continue to do so.

Live, Harry. Marry Miss Weasley or choose another path, but be happy.

-S. Snape

* * * * *

16 June, 2004

There were other paths to take. As much as Snape might try to deny them – they were there, Harry was sure of it. Knowing which path he wanted, he took his quill to the last page in the book for what he hoped would be the last time.

To Sir – with love –

You asked me once if I thought you should want to live, and now I know: the answer is yes. I said that I could give you a hundred reasons to live and you'd ask for a hundred more, but one is enough. This reason is enough.

Harry closed the book and set it back on the table next to his bed. His answer would come in the morning – he would wait for it.

-end-

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