Secret Snarry: FIC: Footprint Title: Footprint Author:tiptoedbow Gift Recipient:elmyraemilie Rating: PG Word count: 1,341 Content/Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *None* Summary/Prompt: This time of year never gets any easier, does it? Prompts: returns; If Harry had known, he would have done it differently; h/c; happy endings A/N: A thank you to Lena for being a wonderful, quick beta when I was in dire need of one! My unbounded gratitude to the mods as well for being so patient with me while I finished this up. This was a joy to write and I hope my recipient enjoys!
Footprint
There was no sight prettier than the snow-capped towers of Hogwarts during December. Despite the skin-nipping breeze, Harry enjoyed walking around the grounds; finally emptied of students for the winter holidays. As much as he enjoyed teaching Defense, three years already well under his belt, he’d come to realize that the days leading up to the break were synonymous with ‘blinding tension headache’. Not even a potion or Severus’ talented hand could remedy it so the moment the last of the students stuffed themselves into the carriages, Harry coiled a scarf around his neck and set out.
Snow began to fall; soft fat flakes wafting on a chilly breeze, stretching themselves like birds along the branches of the trees of the Forbidden Forest. Harry gazed up at the castle, watching as the snow began to accumulate on the window sills giving them a slight droopy look, warm candlelight already casting a coppery sheen as the sky darkened to a deep grey-blue. This would be his first year spending Christmas at the castle, the previous ones always with the Weasleys or at his barely used flat in London. Yet Severus would be staying here and—not that he would ever explicitly ask—Harry knew he would be, well, let’s say not immediately banished from the man’s rooms were he to grace them with his presence.
Harry grinned and stomped onwards.
His feet carried him to an alcove at the base of the North Tower facing the Black Lake, bracketed by an assembly of Mountain Ash trees, their branches as splintered with ice. It was always the quietest parts of the Grounds. Harry had never seen anyone else in all his wanderings out to the spot. Perhaps because of what it housed, but he had a feeling it was some kind of magic protecting the area, lending whatever privacy necessary to its visitors. For his part, Harry tried to come at least once a month.
In the middle of the clearing sat a large stone basin, not unlike Dumbledore’s Pensieve only larger, roughly the width of his arms when spread out. Behind the basin stretched a seamless obsidian wall, etched with elegant script writing: The Wall of the Remembered.
Both had been erected following Voldemort’s downfall, memorializing all those who had been lost in the Battle of Hogwarts. It had been an idea of Hermione’s that Harry pushed (with little resistance) for the school to have. A quiet place for anyone to come and speak to those long gone. The basin stored memories or good thoughts; whatever people desired to place for it was for everyone. Hermione’s clever bit of magic was Harry’s favorite: whenever a memory or thought was placed in the basin, the name of the person who received it would light up on the wall, twinkling brightly before fading out.
He planted himself in front of it, staring into the swirling hazy contents. Snow crusted the sides but had not touched the center, the magic of the area protecting anything that laid in there. Even if Harry tried—which he had not nor ever would—he could not place his face in there like a normal Pensieve. What was in there was deeply private and personal and would always remain so.
They never spoke of the basin, him and Severus, both of them preferring to forget that Harry’s name was etched on the wall as well—much to Harry’s chagrin. A technicality, Hermione had said. He had, after all, given his life during the Battle but Harry wasn’t so sure. It felt a bit like cheating really and he didn’t relish the extra attention. Yet, he had let them do it because it had made Hermione and Ron happy, in some odd way, to see his sacrifice commemorated. Severus thought they were all a lot of sentimental Gryffindors.
What did he know, Harry thought, snorting a little before pulling out his wand. Every year, around this time, Harry tried to give every name on the board (skipping over his), even if he barely knew them, a few thoughts and well wishes even though his heart ached a bit more by the time he was done.
He was at the Z’s when he heard the gentle crunch of snow behind him. Snagging his last memory for a young Ravenclaw girl Elopie Zans, Harry turned, a smile crinkling his tired eyes.
“Finished marking already?”
“Hmm, yes, unfortunately. Though I suspect quite a few of cheating their way to only vaguely competent scores.” Severus shook his head. “You Gryffindors can never quite cover your tracks.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Yes, because it’s alright if Slytherins cheat so long as they don’t get caught, yeah?”
The corner of Severus’ mouth twisted. “Well done, Potter.”
“Learned from the best, Professor,” Harry drawled and turned back to the wall, glad for the warmth pressing against his side as Severus settled beside him.
“It’s always hard this time of year,” he whispered, glancing up quickly but Severus’ gaze was that stony calmness he only put on when he was thinking. “I think about them with the rest of the students, taking the train home right now, back to their families…” He was surprised when tears bit his eyes, after all this time but he swallowed hard, willing them back. “It makes me think if I had known Voldemort would have chased me here…maybe I would have done it differently and not come at all. Then they’d all be alive.”
Severus was quiet for so long, Harry thought he hadn’t heard him. The snow started raining down on them, patting his shoulders with audible thumps and sticking to his glasses. Contacts, he thought. Someday he ought to get some—
“You are not to know that,” Severus said lowly, breaking through his thoughts. Harry frowned.
“Maybe but—.”
“No, Harry.”
He understood what Severus meant, this discussion already long and well debated between the two of them but that didn’t lessen the pain he felt every time this year (or any other time really). The truth was, there were gone because of him. Terrible, sad, wasted deaths because of the decision he made to return to Hogwarts and finish what Dumbledore had started. But perhaps he should start blaming Dumbledore then, for sending him on the mission in the first place. Or even Severus for abandoning all of them as Voldemort moved in, only waiting to fulfill his last wish to Albus and giving Harry those memories.
Guilt. Merlin, he felt its cold sting no matter how much time he tried to put between himself and that year. Yet somewhere it had been the driving force behind their relationship, him and Severus. Not that they had been forced together because of it but simply because Harry…he felt like the man ought to understand some things. If anything, he had listened and understood when no one else really…well could.
Feeling a little brave, Harry moved his hand and slipped his gloved hand into Severus’ own, feeling the fingers tighten around his own after a few moments. “It’s freezing.”
“Inside then.”
Harry nodded, giving the wall one last long look before twisting away. However, something held him back.
To his surprise Severus had not moved and instead pulled out his wand, pressing the tip to his temple. Curiously Harry watched as a wispy silver thread connected the two, longer than any of threads Harry had plucked from his own head earlier. With a small tap, the thread came loose and drifted into basin, the liquid turning a faint gold color before joining the swirl of silver and copper.
Without a word, Severus pulled on his arm and began to march them away, face devoid of any tell.
But Harry cast a glance behind as they walked away, watching as the letters of his own name flared to a shimmering white, so dazzling it lit the rest of the names across the stone with a soft pale glow until it gradually drifted and winked out.