Work Text:
Harry Potter is buried in a nondescript patch of the Hogwarts grounds, situated almost perfectly between the quidditch pitch and Forbidden Forest. Minerva had wryly commented it was the only place suitable, caught halfway between the extremes by which Harry's life had been defined. Were one not looking for it - and few do, most not knowing where the body lie and content enough paying tribute to the ornate lion with a lightning bolt scar and gruff mane that serves as a memorial at the Ministry - they would likely pass by without notice.
The true monument to Harry Potter is much less elaborate: a stone plaque embedded in the ground, bearing a carving of Harry's glasses resting on his wand. It reads simply, "Harry Potter. May he be forever home."
Snape passes it daily, and reads each time.
It's a long time before he starts to talk, long enough that he may be the only person still to visit. The others, those who knew Harry and loved him, can carry his memory in their hearts; but Snape has none, and this is how he must remember.
"Home," he says one day, contemplation interrupted by a curious necessity. "Is this a home?" Snape glances to the castle; his prison, as he thinks of it, that he can't escape even when the doors have opened wide. "Who were you?" he asks the air, and spends a full moment expecting an answer.
None comes, and he goes.
When he returns the next day, Severus makes no attempt to conceal his purpose. He sits down purposefully by the plaque, reads it as always, and speaks.
"You were a product of tragedy, and salvation. Touched by evil, tainted by contempt and cracked with neglect, you still shone brightly with fervour and joy. You were a child; reckless, irritatingly adept and irritatingly careless. You were a child, though never given the opportunity to exist as one. You were a child, with a god's expectations and adults' acclamation and children's resents. But you were a child."
Snape presses a handful of Asphodel petals into the ground, stands, and walks toward the castle.
It's days before Severus says anything else, eyes cut futilely to a ground whose grass has cultivated itself perfectly enough that one would never suspect it to be the resting place of a hero, had one not read the plaque or been there when his body, achingly frail without the force of life which Potter wielded as a cloak and a dagger, had been lowered unto earth and covered, so irrevocably, by soil like black ash.
Snape's hair falls over his face, blocking out the sun and everything not Harry.
"This was your home," he confirms. "You owned it, Potter, as with everything you wish to belong to. Hogwarts was yours, and the rest of us knew well how little claim we had in the face of your utter devotion to the school; and its to yourself."
A pause, fingers flexing against wrist, arms tight to his stomach. "Or perhaps you owned us, as well. Perhaps you owned everything, Harry, and were generous enough - too generous - to give it all back. Death isn't an apology."
Severus stalks away, briskly, but his tight throat and shallow breath belie the exertion.