Work Text:
The Last of Nine Lives
The sound of his quill scratching over parchment filled the room, accompanied by the occasional ruffle of flipped pages of his research journal as he worked. In the summer months, Severus pursued the private research he didn’t get to work on during the school year. He did this while enjoying the peace and quiet of the home he shared with Hermione, his wife of forty years, in the midland countryside.
He could hear Hermione in the other room—the shuffling of books and rapid page turning telling him that she was in the midst of searching for an answer to some question her brilliant mind had come up with while reading the most recent issue of the arithmancy journal. She’d been engrossed in it over their pre-dawn breakfast, and he suspected he'd get a full dissertation about it over dinner, if her frantic movement in their library was anything to go by.
A strand of his silver hair fell across his face as he leaned down to read his notes, having escaped the tie at the nape of his neck that he’d tried to restrain his hair in. It was obvious Hermione had used his hair tie again, stretching it out with her voluminous hair so that it no longer held his fine hair in place. With an eye roll in her direction, he pulled his hair down and tied it back again, reminding himself to hide his good hair ties in his desk so that they actually worked for him.
Focusing on his recent experiment, he heard an owl arriving further in the house, along with a soft ‘who'.
“I’ve got it, it’s probably Harry again.” Hermione’s voice carried as she moved from the library.
He glanced at his timepiece on the mantel of his office, it read nine-thirty. It was strangely early for Potter to be owling, unless he was trying to rope his wife into consulting for a case he was working.
“Severus.”
There was something in her voice that didn’t sit right with him, a wobble that he couldn’t quite place the meaning of. He set his quill down, capping the ink as he leaned back from his work so that he could look down the hall. “Yes?”
“Severus.” This time her voice was muffled, strained as if there were something over her mouth.
He was on his feet, wand in hand out of decades old reflexes as he crossed the house as quickly as his long gait would let him. “What is it?”
She stood in the kitchen, a letter clasped in one hand and the other cupped over her mouth. Watering brown eyes fixed on him, and he realized she was trembling. “Minerva…”
A million scenarios raced through his mind all at once as he tried to pinpoint what the older woman could have sent to put Hermione in such a state. Severus began to cross the room. “What did she say?”
“She’s gone.”
Halting mid-step as ice filled his veins.
Could Hermione mean—
No.
He didn’t dare let his mind follow the trek it was on.
No, gone could mean a million things.
Gone could be missing, gone could be kidnapped, gone could be finally giving up on Hogwarts and retiring to the highlands with a bottle of Ogden’s and leaving the place to him.
Swallowing, he was barely able to stutter out the words. “Gone where?”
“She’s dead, Severus.” Hermione whispered in a strangled cry. Brown eyes shut tight at that admission, big wet tears rolling down her cheeks as she sucked in a breath, her fist tightening at her lips.
Severus heard the words, and the floor fell out from under him. His knees weakened to the point where he had to grasp hold of the counter so that he did not collapse to the ground.
This couldn’t be, this had to be a mistake.
They'd only spoken yesterday via floo. Minerva was fine yesterday, she was her normal somewhat nagging self, promising that if he didn’t actually take a break over the summer holidays, she’d come and make him do it herself.
How could she die?
What killed her?
Who killed her?!?
The ice in his veins sharpened, a promise of vengeance slinking into his chest as he tilted his chin to the side, rolling his neck to relieve the tightness that had begun at the base. There would be hell to pay for the responsible parties.
“How?” he barely breathed out, his knuckles going white around his wand and the edge of the counter.
“She passed sometime in the night. Filius found her after she didn’t show for a meeting they arranged…” Hermione swallowed another sob, shakily holding the letter out to him as she met him in the middle of the kitchen.
Severus shifted, holding himself up against the counter by his hip, taking the traitorous letter from her trembling hand. He pulled her to him with his wand arm, still gripping it against her back as she crashed into his chest. Severus gripped her tightly as he read the letter over her shoulders.
It was Flitwick’s handwriting, he knew it well after seeing it for eighty-seven years, saying precisely what Hermione had told him.
Minerva was gone, died in her sleep, with no signs of outside influence.
His throat tightened as if the serpent that nearly killed him sixty years ago was again constricting him. Severus read the letter three more times, searching for some sign of deceit or forgery, and with each read his heart seemed to crunch in on itself. Indescribable pain washed over him, an agony of loss he had hoped to never feel again.
“He—” Severus wet his lips, trying to get the words out through the pain, “he wants to know if we wish to see her.”
At this, Hermione’s resolve seemed to break completely, her cries breaking into inconsolable sobs as she wrapped her arms around him in a vise grip, further adding to the tightness he felt.
He thought he should be crying, wailing, raging against the world, but he couldn’t.
It was as if in the wake of his wife’s tears, numbness had overtaken him, radiating out from his chest and throat to his extremities. It took him longer than he would have liked to realize that he’d occluded in defense against the powerful emotions threatening to overwhelm him.
Severus knew he had to go see her—to see with his own eyes that Minerva had passed in peaceful sleep.
“I have to go,” he told her, his voice trembling despite the stillness he felt within. He folded the letter with one hand and set it on the counter next to them, wrapping his arm around Hermione.
“I know, Severus.” She pulled back, wiping her eyes with her palms, nodding against the body-shaking sobs she tried to contain. She covered her mouth again as a hiccup joined the sorrowful chorus of her crying.
Severus curled his fingers around her elbow, pulling her closer to rest his forehead against hers. The simple wordless gesture was their way of saying that they were in this together, no matter what. It had been for as long as he could remember, a gesture when the rest of the world was too much to remind them of what was important. He realized he was shaking, shaking as if he were as cold as the icy numbness that was flooding his system. He gasped out, as if he were surfacing from being submerged and sucking in a greedy breath of air before speaking. “Gather your things, if you are coming.”
She nodded, the skin of her head moving against his as she smoothed her hands down the front of his shirt. “I’m ready when you are.”
They stood there together in the kitchen for what seemed like an eon and a second all at once, before they made their way to the fireplace in the library. The lid of the floo powder vibrated against the pot as Severus’ trembling hand opened it. With a pinch big enough for the both of them, he closed it again and stepped into the fireplace. He could barely speak out the address for Hogwarts as he tossed the powder down, but the green flames carried them away to the school just the same.
From the moment she read the letter, it was as if the world had turned upside down and she couldn’t get her bearings. Everything was too much, she felt raw from the pain and grief that became a fast but unwelcome friend.
Hermione still couldn’t believe Minerva was gone. She didn’t have the strength that her husband had to go into the older witch’s bedchambers and see it for herself, but the look on Severus’ face when he exited had told her with irrevocable certainty that their friend was no longer alive.
The following days were a blur of tears, condolences, and planning. Unknown to either of them, Minerva had listed Severus in her will as the executor of her estate, as well as one of the beneficiaries, along with a letter explaining that she had full faith that whatever he arranged for her would be suitable.
Minerva’s final requests were simple: she wanted to be buried beside her husband in their family plot; she wanted most of her assets given to the orphanage she’d helped create after the war; and she wanted her remaining funds distributed between the handful of beneficiaries she’d named. There were also a few personalized requests for some her effects, such as delivering the biscuit tin from her desk to Harry, gifting her transfiguration journals, research, and writing to Hermione, sending her entire box of confiscated Weasley Wizarding Wheezes products to George’s children, and to Severus, she bequeathed her tartan arisaid and the brooch she wore with it—a gift one normally gave one’s child.
She’d never seen her husband sob the way he did that night, when he finally for the first time cried and accepted that Minerva wasn’t coming back. Even though they knew Minerva would never take any steps to artificially preserve her life other than a portrait, she could see that there was some part of Severus that hoped he was wrong on that front. There was a part of him expecting her to turn up making an off-color joke about cashing in one of her nine lives. With the reading of her will, everyone knew that wasn’t going to happen, and so she consoled her husband as he cried into Minerva’s tartan shawl.
Hermione had helped Severus plan the service, having unfortunately more experience with it than he did. The actual process of planning the funeral, of having some form of control over the situation steadied her, allowing her to appear as if she were keeping it together. Not that she didn’t have her own share of emotional meltdowns while arranging everything.
Minerva McGonagall was a war hero, and her funeral was considered a state affair, where a majority of the wizarding world would be invited to pay final respects. The sheer volume of attendees required someplace open and outdoors, and Hermione could think of no place better than the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. Severus, being the new Headmaster of Hogwarts a second time now, agreed and pushed through the proper documentation to have it there. As a final touch, he made sure that Gryffindor’s victory colors would be waving from every stand on that day.
The night before the service, Hermione woke to an empty bed. Severus hadn’t been sleeping well since the news, but the state of his side told her he’d never even laid down. Drawing her robe around her, Hermione pushed back her hair from her face and sought him out. She padded in her slippers through the house, finding that his office door was shut, but the flickering of firelight cast long shadows under the door.
Opening the door, a rush of cold air made her shiver—his office was as cold as an icebox.
Severus looked up from his workbench against the wall with dark bags under his eyes, his silver hair pulled up into a tight knot on top of his head, and a needle with green thread held in the corner of his lips. “Shut the door, or I’ll have to cast the spell again.”
Stepping in, she tightened her robe and pulled the door shut behind her.
Severus went back to what he was doing, hunching his shoulders as leaned his face in close to what he was working on.
Curious as to what he’d be working on at this hour that required such cold conditions, she crossed his office to peek at his workbench. As she crossed the room she rubbed her hands up and down her arms.
Parts of plants, flowers and moss littered the bench to his right. As she got close enough to see around him, Hermione recognized what he was focusing so diligently on.
Severus was making Minerva’s funeral wreath.
He had warped a branch of elder into a circle, and carefully arranged and affixed the plants to it in a pattern.
“I’m nearly done,” Severus told her wearily, drawing the needle from his lips to stitch a sprig of rosemary to the moss wrapped around the majority of the wreath.
She watched him work with the same determined focus he put into brewing delicate potions. His fingers were deft as they added and sewed additional flowers, trimming them to fit the space. Severus did not seem affected by the cold of the room, but Hermione shivered as she stood next to him. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she moved to his desk, wrapping herself in his teaching robes hanging from the wall and returning to his side.
After nearly an hour, Severus set down the needle, picking up his work and examining it. He did this by turning it every which way and giving it a few vigorous shakes to ensure nothing fell off. It was then that Hermione realized Severus had done the entire thing by hand—not once had she seen him affix something to the wreath with his wand. Her eyes watered slightly, lip curling up at the corner as she saw it for what it was—a labor of love for someone he cared deeply for.
“It is missing something,” Severus muttered, more to himself than her as he set it down on the bench once more.
It was beautiful, a swirl of colorful flowers against a backdrop of deep rich green moss, but he was right, it looked as if it was missing something. There needed to be a focal point, something to anchor the wreath.
“A bow?” she offered quietly.
Severus' dark eyes fell on her for a moment, before they grew distant, as if he were considering her statement. “You may be right.”
Turning sharply from her, he went to his desk and opened the top drawer. From within he carefully removed Minerva’s arisaid. The way Severus cradled it in his hands belied more about how he felt than any tears he’d cried yet. He carried it with him the same way one carried something delicate and precious as he returned to the bench.
Severus drew his wand, pausing thoughtfully as he looked at the green tartan garment in his hand before grimacing as he carefully sliced a strip from the bottom, no more than a few inches wide. Clearing the bench with his hand of the debris from making the wreath, he set the tartan wrap down gently. Hermione noticed the way he patted his fingers against it once before he picked up the needle and tucked it into the corner of his lips again.
Severus folded and pleated the strip, tying and stitching it into an intricate bow that she didn’t even know he knew how to do. With the needle and green thread, he added it to the wreath at the bottom, his fingers carefully pressing it into the flowers as he smoothed all creases out of the material.
“There,” he whispered, setting the needle down and resting his palms on either side of the wreath. “Something worthy of her.” His deep quiet voice echoed in the room, gripping a hold of her heart.
Her voice caught in her throat as she placed her hand on his arm, leaning her head against him. “If she were here, she’d love it.”
Severus nodded emphatically, one hand lifting to smooth a finger over a flower petal.
Having been married to the man for forty years, she knew that each part of this creation had a meaning, a purpose. Severus often leaned into florigraphy when he wanted to express a deeply felt emotion that he might not have had the words for. Hermione knew this, having been on the receiving end of beautiful meaningful bouquets throughout the years. “What does it say?”
“Harebell and marigolds for grief,” he murmured softly. Severus’ other hand wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer. “Rosemary, for remembrance, and alstroemeria, for love shared between friends. Sunflowers, for gratitude and happiness, and lily of the valley for the return of happiness. Asphodel for peace after death,” his voice warbled as he touched the plant with his free hand.
Hermione tucked her face into his side, squeezing him around his waist. “I see thistle too, and heather.”
“For her Scottish sensibilities and to honor her origins.” Severus nodded as he swallowed.
His shaky breaths vibrated her from where she pressed against him. Severus was trembling as he continued, touching each plant as he explained their meaning.
“The virgin’s bower is for—filial affection, and the carnations and moss are for—for—” His voice cracked and he squeezed her, tucking his face into her hair.
Holding on to him tightly, she heard him let out a wet gasping sob.
“She was closer to me than my own—” he wept, the words failing him.
“I know, me too,” Hermione cried softly against him, rubbing her hand up and down his back to soothe him. She understood the meaning of the carnations and moss. There were times when Minerva was more than a friend, more than a colleague, times when she was more like a mother, especially to Severus after the war. It broke her heart to see her typically stoic husband fall apart against her, and she searched for the words to bring him relief from the pain he felt. “She would be so proud of the work you put into this. You know, if there is an afterlife, then she’s there bragging to Albus that all he got was yellow carnations and petunias, and she’s getting a whole poem written in flowers of how much you care about her, how much she means to you.”
Severus cleared his throat, sniffling noisily as a rough chuckle left him. “He barely deserved those.” He stood up fully then, giving a shake of his head, and some long silver strands broke free of the knot on his head.
Hermione reached her hand out to the wreath, running her fingers tenderly over the tartan bow. Minerva would have been touched that Severus put so much thought, so much love into it, and Hermione could almost hear the woman’s voice in her head full of delight if she’d ever gotten to see it. Hermione was careful not to bruise the lily as she traced her finger over it. “Will they stay fresh in the cold?”
He told her they would, that the whole reason he’d cooled his office was so that he could work on them without wilting. Severus’ face was gaunter than normal, his eyes weary and outlined by dark circles. He needed rest, especially if he was going to speak in front of a majority of the wizarding community tomorrow.
“Come to bed,” she coaxed him, pulling him down so that their foreheads were touching. “We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
He nodded against her head, taking one last glance at his handiwork before letting her lead him to the bedroom.
It was a bright and sunny morning, a direct contrast to how Severus felt inside. Part of him was relieved that it was a clear day. Minerva deserved to be remembered on a beautiful day, but the other part wanted the world to be as sad and angry as he was. He wanted the ground to shake with the force of the thunder, because then it would make sense why his knees felt weak and his pulse jumped. He wished for rain so that it was as if the world was crying right along with them, with him.
But it wasn't going to rain, it wasn’t going to storm.
Just like the days after the final battle, the world continued to ignorantly ignore the anguish of its occupants. To that effect, the sunshine was a mockery of the pain in his chest.
Severus stood in Hermione’s office, the transfiguration office that had been Minerva's for decades before she became the Headmistress, and looked out at the Quidditch pitch, seeing streams of those wishing to pay the final respects flowing into it.
He clicked his tongue against the top of his dry mouth.
He’d written her eulogy two days before, but as he looked at the meager words on the parchment before him, he wondered if it would be enough. If it would be enough to encapsulate a lifetime that spanned more than a century, touched more lives than he could count, and had personally changed him for the better. Had he written the right words, told the right stories, shown the absolute best of her without making her out to be more than she was.
The rock that had taken residence in his throat since her death expanded, making it hard to swallow as his insecurities threatened to get the better of him. There was no guarantee that he’d make it through the words he’d written without succumbing to his emotions.
Severus wondered if that would please Minerva, to know that losing her had affected him so greatly that he didn’t have absolute faith in the fact that he would not cry in front of the thousands of attendees.
Probably, but she’d also give him a firm grip on his shoulder and tell him he’d get through it, that she had faith in him where he did not. He let his head drop forward, wayward strands of silver hair falling around his face as he exhaled sadly. Merlin, he wished she was there to do that now, he could use a little extra faith.
The bell tower tolled, the ring echoing throughout the school and letting him know it was nearly time to begin. He stood up straight, sucking in a breath that would hopefully make him look more confident that he felt. Severus reached into his front pocket, pulling out the brooch Minerva had bequeathed him. The meaning wasn’t lost on him, and that was why he carried it in his pocket, had carried it in his pocket since the reading of her will. The dark green jewels set in the silvery circle refracted the sunlight, creating glittering spots of light through the room.
With care, Severus pinned it to his lapel, making sure it was straight.
Another tolling of the bell rang out through the castle mournfully.
With a deep breath, he gathered her funeral wreath and left the room, making his way down the stairs so that Severus could give Minerva a eulogy worthy of her.
The walk was quiet and peaceful, though it felt as if it took him ten years and yet at same time only ten seconds to cross the grounds to the pitch. As he walked, he recalled the decades of banter and competition he shared with her on this very trek. They walked together to most of the Quidditch matches, taunting and teasing each other about giving all the detentions to the losing teams head of house. He could almost feel her keeping up with him step for step, holding on to her hat and asking why he was always in such a hurry.
Hermione was right, there was no better place to say goodbye to her than the pitch.
Speaking of his wife, Hermione was waiting for him at the entry to the stands, her hands clasped together in front of her. She was in a black dress and black heels, but what made his heart lurch was that she’d donned Minerva’s arisaid, holding the pleats in place with a pin in the shape of a lion's head. He knew the pin well, it was one that he’d bought Minerva several Christmas’ ago, thinking she’d like a new one. Minerva had worn it every Christmas since.
“I thought she’d appreciate us both wearing something of hers,” Hermione explained as she reached for his free hand. Her fingers intertwined with his, and she squeezed them. “I know you gave her this pin a few years ago, and I thought it was fitting.”
Taking a calming breath, he nodded his head toward the arisaid wrapped around her body and secured with a belt. “Is this now our family tartan?”
“Did we have one before?” Hermione asked, tilting her head at him.
The Snapes were not Scottish, nor the Princes; he had a crest, but never a tartan. He shook his head. “No.”
“Then yes, it is. I think she would be honored.” Hermione smiled, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
Minerva would have been tickled pink to see Hermione wearing her tartan like this. Severus could imagine her with tears in her blue eyes, wrapping her arms around Hermione in one of those impossibly tight embraces she was known for.
His chest ached at the thought, feeling a tight ball of tension building in his gut.
Just beyond those doors was not only a mass of people he had to address, but also Minerva's casket, which he would stand over and extol the virtues of her life and then say goodbye.
It seemed like too much all of a sudden—
Severus wasn’t ready —
He wasn’t ready to say goodbye—
The rest was all pomp and circumstance, which he didn’t really care about. It was the knowing that when the funeral ended, they would be apparating Minerva to her final resting place, that sunk like a boulder into his gut. Severus wasn’t sure, again, if he could get through it, if he could do this.
Hermione must have sensed his thoughts, as she squeezed his hand once more and then pulled out of his embrace. She cupped the back of his head, bringing him down so that their foreheads touched.
Severus exhaled in relief; he needed this moment, he needed the grounding of her presence and the confirmation that he wasn’t alone.
“You can do this, and I will be there if you cannot. If you step away, I will do the rest of the ceremony for you.”
“Thank you for everything, love.” He sent a silent prayer of gratitude to whomever was listening for having placed Hermione in his life. She’d shouldered so much of the process of arranging the funeral, having insight on what to do next when he didn’t, and supported him in his grief while balancing her own. Severus hoped he supported her even half as much as she did him.
When his heart rate evened to a more tolerable pace, he pressed a kiss to her brow and stood up straight, steeling himself for possibly the second hardest thing he’d ever have to do in his life. Severus walked through the doors out onto the pitch with his head held high, the wreath he’d painstakingly created held in both his hands.
Hermione was a step behind him, he could feel her comforting presence even if he couldn’t see her.
Not making eye contact with any of the thousands of attendees, his focus was on the mahogany casket situated at one end of the pitch. The closer he got, the bigger the rock in his throat felt, the heavier the boulder in his gut weighed.
This was different than walking into her bedchambers and approaching her still silent form, hoping she’d give a great exhale and laugh at his troubled face. Severus didn’t have the words to explain why his heart felt smaller and smaller with each step, or why his fingers gripped the wreath tighter than they should have. This was more surreal and yet more substantial than that moment when he held her cold hand in his.
This was final, while highlighting how fleeting time truly was.
Minerva looked as peaceful as she did when Severus had seen her last. Her long grey hair was down, spread over her shoulders, and she was in the last set of dress robes that her husband had ever seen her in. It was one of her final requests, and fortunately for him, Hermione knew which ones those were, as Minerva had shown them to her once before. They were a subtle green, like seafoam, embroidered with beads that sparkled in the midday light.
His lip trembled against his will as he said her name softly, carefully placing the wreath on the closed bottom half of the casket. Once he was sure it was in place, Severus took one more glance at the woman who had given him so much. He hoped that if there was a chance she could see what was being done in her honor that she would be pleased. Before his throat became so impossibly tight that he would not be able to speak, he inclined his head to her and walked to the raised stage placed at the head of the casket.
Hermione was already standing there, her eyes focused on him as she waited patiently, along with the other members of the staff. Severus met each of their eyes, nodding in condolence and solidarity of grief, before turning to face the crowd that had silenced as soon as he stepped out the doors.
At least he could still quiet a crowd with his presence.
Lifting his wand to his throat, he cast the sonorus spell so that all present could hear his carefully planned words. With it in place, he tucked his wand away and unfolded the notes from his inner pocket.
“Ladies and Gentleman, thank you for coming today on behalf of Hogwarts, the staff, myself, my wife, and those close to Minerva.”
The Quidditch pitch was filled three quarters of the way with chairs, and the stands were open, but there were still not enough seats for everyone who’d come. Additional guests were standing in the aisles and along the walls of the pitch, all watching him.
Severus sucked a deep breath and began, trying his best to keep his tone even and calm. “We are here to honor a war hero, a witch of great power, but also of great kindness. Minerva McGonagall was and will always be remembered as one of the greatest educators Hogwarts has ever seen, but she was also one of the greatest women I have known, and as someone who has touched more lives than it is possible to even calculate, one of the greatest witches the world has ever seen, or will for some time.”
It was surreal how quiet it was with so many people present. It had been decades since he’d had to address anything close to the size of this audience, and then it had been much louder. His voice echoed back to him, making the words he spoke more substantial and real. His guts churned with nerves, but he continued.
“Minerva was a great many things to many people. Most knew her as a professor, as she taught at Hogwarts for the last one hundred and two years. Even in the last several decades as the Headmistress, she insisted she had a hand in teaching the NEWT level Transfiguration classes once a week. So many of you here now were her students at one time, and you will believe me when I say she never lost her passion for transforming into her Animagus form to startle first years as well.”
A quiet ripple of laughter broke through the silence, letting him know that his attempt at brevity had not fallen flat. Minerva would have been very cross if at least one person hadn't laughed at her funeral.
“Some knew her as a colleague, as many witches and wizards have passed through these halls while she remained a fixture.” He turned slightly, sweeping his hand in the direction of his fellow professors. “Not that she ever treated any member of the staff as transitional. Minerva did her best to make everyone feel at home, staff and students alike. She was the first to tell any member of staff, even a rival head of house, that her door was always open if advice was needed.”
Of those gathered on the stage with him, it was Filius who looked as if he were on the brink of a breakdown, and Severus could understand why. The man had been the one to discover that Minerva had passed, and he knew it had shaken Filius. Minerva and Filius had been close friends, and he’d known Minerva far longer than Severus had.
Perhaps he would have been better suited to speak to Minerva’s life than I.
Exhaling softly, he pushed away the errant thought, turning back to the crowd.
“Even fewer were given the privilege, the honor of knowing her as a friend.” Most of those gathered only knew her as a teacher or celebrity after the war. It was a great tragedy in his mind that anyone who knew her so superficially would never understand what had been truly lost, but he considered himself privileged to be one of the few who knew her enough to hurt this bad. “Minerva was not that much different behind closed doors, except that she swore like only a Scotswoman could when she was mad. The honor of being her friend wasn’t that you got to see a different side of her as much as you ended up on the receiving end of the sheer intensity of her personality. She had a way of balancing the impossibly contrary qualities of being magnanimous while also being austere.”
Behind him, he heard Pomona break into sobs and Pomfrey quietly speaking to her, hopefully in an attempt to soothe her. His own eyes threatened to betray him and water, but he swallowed against the sharp stone in his throat, maintaining composure.
Severus was going to get through this —
Severus was going to maintain control—
Severus was going to give Minerva a service worthy of her!
Setting the paper on the podium, he folded his hands together as he continued to address those gathered. “I had the distinct pleasure of knowing Minerva for eighty seven years. I would like to give you a picture of her life, through my eyes if you will. She was my professor first, a strict but intelligent matron who favored her own house, but still actually taught her subject to any that would apply themselves and listen.”
Severus remembered his time as her student fondly, especially his NEWT level courses. She encouraged her students to experiment within the established rules of Transfiguration, and Severus had come up with quite a few spells that he still used to this day.
“From there, Minerva became a colleague, a damn good one at that, who coached me through my shaky first few weeks as a twenty one year old potions professor, effectively teaching my former peers with constant encouragement.” He could still remember his first day, when he swore he would strangle Lockhart and then quit, but she talked him down, reminding him that he could, in fact, give Lockhart detention with Filch scrubbing toilets.
Severus shared that story with the crowd, feeling his lip curve at the memory. He heard several loud cackles, one he could distinctly pick out as Potter from the crowd.
“She became my friend in those years between the first and the second war, though we were highly competitive friends. I admit we perhaps put too much stock in house rivalry and our desire to one up the other, but it was always with the underlying sense that ‘this was what friends did’. She was one of the first members of staff I ever considered a friend.” It was her friendship that got him through some of the hardest years, but also was one of the things he missed the most in the 1997-1998 school year.
“I am also one of the few people who remain alive and free that she would have, and did, call an enemy.” He glanced toward his notes and his brows furrowed, knowing that for some, what he was about to speak on would still be too soon , sixty years later. “The last year of the war was hard on everyone. In that time, even though she hated my guts, she was someone who I could reasonably predict to do what was in the best interest of the students. Unwittingly, she was my ally more times than she knew, and I used her as a way to aid students when I myself could not.” Severus remembered the dismissive tone he used when telling her that she needed to tend to different issues rather than the Carrows, because he knew she would be even-handed in dealing with it. He also remembered her mocking that tone several years later over fire whiskey. “We laughed about it in later years, in the only way that one could laugh about sharing a horrific time on opposite sides of a war. What not many knew about Minerva was that she also had an exceptionally wicked sense of humor.”
Merlin, he missed her sense of humor.
“You should have heard the many colorful jokes she had about Dolores Umbridge during her tenure here,” Severus felt his lips twitch ever so slightly as he managed a stiff chuckle.
He heard Hermione let out what sounded like a giggling sob behind him. She’d been one of the few who heard what Minerva had to say about that pink toad.
“Minerva often joked about how many of her nine lives she had left. When I started teaching, she had seven left. Each life she—” he quoted the air “—‘lost’ often ended up as some cosmic joke to her.” He could see her now, sitting in the staff room, laughing about how she’d nearly broken her neck falling during Quidditch practice as a student, and how that was one of her first lost lives.
Severus’ breathing quickened as he moved onward in the speech. “She once ribbed Kingsley, before he became the Minister for Magic, telling him that it was a good thing Aurors could not count, else the stunners she took to the chest would have taken more lives than the four they did.” Severus' voice caught, going off script as he lamented about her own miscalculation. “Stubborn witch was supposed to have two more left.”
Hot tears began to rim his eyes, and he shook his head, trying to conceal the sound of his struggle with something that sounded like a laugh, if only to buy himself enough time to get through this speech.
From both behind him and before him, he could hear crying. It had been present throughout the whole time he spoke so far, but now it had gotten louder. It sounded a bit like the rain and thunder he wished for before, but it was overwhelmingly emotional, and he struggled against succumbing to its influence.
He knew the next part by heart, not needing any notations or reminders. “I woke up unexpectedly on May 5th, 1998, when by all accounts I should have been dead. If it were not for Minerva, I would have been dead. Minerva was sitting there by my bedside keeping vigil—I knew it was her by her tartan robe, the only thing I could see being unable to turn my head. She stood over me, her eyes red with tears but a grateful smile on her face. I will never forget that moment, because she held my hand and apologized to me—to me, of all people.” Severus swallowed back a sob that threatened to undo him, wrapping his fingers around the edge of the podium, using it to ground himself.
He felt Hermione’s hand on his arm—it was enough to give him the strength to continue.
“Potter had shared with her my memories, and she felt guilty that she’d believed the worst of me. Once I could speak, I asked her how I survived. Do you know what she told me?”
The crowd was silent again, save for the ever present low murmur of crying. He closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath through his nose before he continued recalling the first day of his new life.
“Minerva looked at me, a former enemy, the man who had made her life a living hell for the last year, and smirked, saying—” He closed his eyes, still seeing her face, hearing her voice as he impersonated her Scottish brogue. “— I’ve given you one of my nine lives, Severus. I’ve only got two left, so you better make the most of it when you are up and about again.’ ”
Severus wasn’t able to conceal the choked sound that escaped him as he said something unplanned. “Perhaps, if she’d not wasted that one on me, she’d still be here.”
That was the breaking point of his control.
Involuntarily, Severus began to weep, the hot tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Excuse me,” he managed to warble before he canceled the spell that was amplifying his voice.
He turned to flee, only to be pulled into Hermione’s waiting embrace. She squeezed him tightly, before ushering him to stand behind a curtain behind the stage so he could have privacy.
It took every bit of strength in her to walk away from Severus while he cried into his hands behind the stage. She wanted to wrap him up in her arms and console him, to cry with him, but he needed her to finish what he’d started.
Hermione doubted her speech would be as inspired as his, as he always had a way of captivating a crowd, but she knew that she could do justice to Minerva’s memory.
Wiping her own tears away, she took Severus’ place at the podium, casting the sonorus spell on herself. “I ask you to forgive my husband’s hasty departure, as he needs a moment of privacy, this has affected him greatly.” She picked up his notes, finding where he’d left off. “I’m going to continue with what he wrote, until he feels he can return.”
Hermione read aloud what Severus had written about the time Minerva and Severus spent rebuilding a friendship after the war. He’d written about how Minerva had encouraged him to pursue Hermione when their mutual attraction and feelings became obvious to everyone in the castle but the two of them. Severus wrote at length how she’d become a fixture in life, in their life, and how in recent years they rarely went more than a few days without speaking. Severus had written it so eloquently that she didn’t need to change any of it to keep the crowd engaged, other than occasionally agreeing with his observations.
Flipping over to the final page, she found it filled with the statistical data that Severus felt needed to be included.
"Minerva was preceded in death by her husband, Elphinstone Urquart, her parents, her siblings, innumerable friends, and her greatest nemesis, Mrs Norris."
A rip of laughter exploded throughout the pitch, and Hermione felt a smile crack over her own lips at the quip. “Who knew Minerva and my husband had such a sense of humor, right?”
Another spike of chuckles rose up, helping soothe the grief with humor.
Hermione wrinkled her nose at what came next, turning her head toward where she knew Severus was standing concealed. "This eulogy says she had no children, but that's not right, is it?”
Suddenly, the air stilled as if she was about to reveal some deeply kept secret that Minerva had never told the world before. She scoffed, rolling her eyes at the obvious energy change.
“Minerva never gave birth to a litter of kittens, no matter how many times we thought she might in a pique of rage,” —Madam Hooch cackled behind her— “but she raised one hundred and two classes of students. I cannot even imagine the impact her life has had on the world when you think about those numbers. One hundred and two graduating classes, you need only look around to see that it is far from the truth to say that she had no children.”
Hermione met Harry’s eyes in the crowd out of habit, and he nodded with her words, tears in his eyes as he held his wife. She scanned the crowd, saw the faces of those she went to school with, and knew that they were only a small portion of those who felt as if Minerva was a mother figure to them in some way.
“We were her children, and she loved all of us like a mother should. Firm, but often understanding. She comforted us when we were homesick, she lectured us when we were daft and did something stupid and dangerous, and she was so proud of our achievements. I’m not just talking about Gryffindors either, because we all had her as a professor, and we are all better for it. She'd probably agree with me in saying that she had plenty of children, and that her life was never lacking in that department."
A murmur of agreement echoed back at her from the audience.
The ceremony was coming to an end, there were only a few lines left written. Hermione glanced down at the woman whom they were here to memorialize and honor. Minerva would have cried her eyes out knowing that so many people had come to send her off, and would have likely told the lot of them that they were sentimental fools, but it would have been her way of saying she loved it.
Clearing her throat, Hermione began to the end of the eulogy. “Minerva had very few wishes in her will about how she wanted to be sent off. Most of it, she left to the discretion of my husband.” Hermione glanced over her shoulder to see if he’d been able to return yet, but he hadn’t. She didn’t blame him, she knew that the cruel nickname he’d had as a child had put a stigma on him showing any emotion in public and he’d just cried in front of everyone.
“Minerva asked that we bury her with her husband, and that her portrait was placed in the Gryffindor common room.” Hermione cleared her throat, looking directly at Seamus. “She did make it very clear that pouring one out for her’ was unacceptable, as it is a waste of perfectly good whiskey, and she’d rather shots be taken in her honor than the alternative.”
There was a conflicted response of excited ‘whooping’ and disgruntled ‘awwws’.
Hermione recognized Severus’ return by his energy before she saw him. Turning, she watched as Severus came to stand at her side. His face was blotchy and red, as were his eyes, and his long silver hair had broken free from its tie and was now hanging about his shoulders.
Everyone became quiet, looking at him expectantly.
Severus brought his wand to his throat, his voice carrying out over the crowd. “The last thing she asked was that at the end of the ceremony, we'd raise our wands for her, one last time. Please, join me in doing so now.”
Hermione's hand covered her mouth to conceal her own emotional cry as she watched him lift his wand high in the air, the light from it glowing so brightly that it was easy to see in the brightness of the day. She raised her wand along with him, along with thousands of other wands, all sending up white light in honor of the dearly departed Minerva McGonagall.
There was something magical about that moment. It almost felt as if Minerva was there with them, her wand raised in the air, saying goodbye to them all. Hermione was sure Severus felt it too when he looked at her, his lips quivering with a half-hearted smile with more tears in his eyes.
Slowly, the wands of those gathered lowered, until Severus’ was the last still pointed skyward. He brought it down, the light extinguishing as he tucked it into his inner pocket. Wordlessly, Severus bowed his head to those gathered and walked back down the stage, across the pitch the same way he came, and left the pitch.
Hermione knew he needed a moment alone, so instead of following him, she moved through the crowd, embracing those she was close to, and sharing in the grief and love everyone had for their former Head of House.
When it was too much, when her heart hurt more than she could handle, she joined her husband. They stood in the shadow of the stands, forehead to forehead, fingers entwined as Filius led the crowd through a few of Minerva’s favorite songs.
When everything was said and done, and the various wakes and memorial parties were starting up, they took Minerva’s casket and buried her beside Elphinstone in their plot, just as she asked. Filius brought a gramophone to play‘The Flower of Scotland ’ as those who worked with her, who called her friends, took their turns burying her by hand. When the dirt was finally filled in, Severus placed her funeral wreath over it, saying something that Hermione could not hear. A magic expanded from it, moss growing and covering the disturbed dirt. Hermione pointed her wand to the marble headstone, her name taking shape directly next to her husband’s. A feeling of serene peace filled the air as their magic settled, protecting their gravesite so that no one who wished harm could disturb it.
It was their last gift to the woman who had brought them together.
With that finished, they returned to Hogwarts to settle the rest of her affairs.
By dinnertime, Hermione had finished packing the last of Minerva’s belongings while having a long chat with Minerva’s portrait about how the ceremony had gone. She’d not seen her husband for a few hours, so she sought him out, searching the castle for him so they could share an evening meal.
Hermione found Severus standing in her office, his back against the windowsill as he looked wistfully out toward the pitch as if Minerva was still out there. She slid up next to him, wrapping her arms around his waist.
He embraced her, gently running his hands down her back.
“I cannot ever repay her; even if I live twice as long as her, it will never be enough.”
“I think this was enough, Severus,” Hermione disagreed, not wanting him to believe he’d not done everything Minerva had ever hoped for him and more. “This and following her orders from when you woke up in the hospital.”
“Yes,” he let out a sound that was half pain and half joy. “I need to make the most of this life, I have the last of the nine lives.”
“Let's make it the best of nine lives then,” Hermione replied, pressing a kiss to his cheek before burying her face in his chest, breathing in his scent.
“I waited on you to toast her, shall we do it now before dinner?” Severus asked her, gesturing to the bottle of Ogden’s Finest sitting on her desk with two shot glasses.
Hermione unwrapped herself from around him. “Of course.”
He poured two fingers of fire whiskey for them both.
She took the glass Severus offered her, watching as he swirled the amber liquid in his glass, before lifting into the air in a salute. “To you, Minerva, to the last of nine lives.”
“To Minerva and the best of nine lives,” she repeated, downing the shot in time with her husband.
Again she had that feeling of warmth, as if the witch was there with them, draining her own shot along with them and toasting to the last and the best of her nine lives.