The day Harry received the news was a day in the middle of the hottest part of summer so far, just weeks before he was due to sit for his NEWTs. When he thought about it afterwards, it really should have been pouring rain from an endless grey sky.

Up until halfway through breakfast, everything was normal. Hermione had her nose buried deeply in yet another book revising, muttering spells under her breath and tracing the wand movements with her spare hand on the table, in between taking small tidy bites of her food. Ron, on the other hand, was shovelling food into his mouth as though he’d been starved for the past month, and told he wouldn’t be eating again for weeks.

Harry happened to be looking up at the Staff Table when a small black owl delivered a folded newspaper to Professor Snape. He watched idly as Snape unfolded the paper, and then froze as he read the headline. Surprisingly, Snape’s expression turned almost . . . stricken. He briefly closed his eyes, apparently taking a deep breath to calm himself, and then opened them again to further study the newspaper.

Ron made a garbled noise, spluttering crumbs across the table. Several people made disgusted noises, while Hermione just brushed off her book and ignored the redhead. Swallowing hard several times, Ron tried his question again. “Wonder what’s up with Snape?” he said.

“Probably just found out that he’s not got the Defence post again,” chortled Seamus from further down the table.

“Or that some potion ingredient has just tripled in price,” added Dean, grinning widely.

“No,” Harry said, slowly, watching as an almost imperceptible tremor in Snape’s hands made the paper he was holding rattle. “No, I don’t think it’s anything like that. I think it’s bad—”

In what would turn out to be ironic timing, he spotted Hedwig soaring towards him, a rolled-up newspaper clutched tightly in her talons. She dropped it beside his plate, then, in an uncharacteristic display, landed neatly on his shoulder and hooted gently in his ear.

“Didn’t think you’d taken a subscription to the Daily Prophet, mate,” Ron said, around yet another mouthful.

“I haven’t,” said Harry, frowning at the paper. Hedwig hooted again, almost mournfully, and began to preen his hair comfortingly.

“Besides, Ron, that isn’t the Daily Prophet,” Hermione added casually, although how she’d managed to notice that when she hadn’t moved her eyes from her book was a mystery to Harry. “It’s a muggle paper. Which one is it, Harry?”

“I have no idea,” Harry stated. For some reason – his eyes flicked back up to Snape at the Staff Table – he was very reluctant to touch the thing. Maybe it was just his real bad experiences with unplanned portkeys . . .

Eventually, though, he’d have to touch the thing to discover why Hedwig had brought it to him. Maybe that meant it wasn’t an unplanned portkey, since he doubted Hedwig would do that to him. The snowy owl continued to croon into his ear as he reached for the paper and unrolled it.

MURDER IN SURREY SURBURBS, the headline read. But what caught Harry’s eye was the picture that was on the left-hand side. It was of an elderly lady, with short hair that curled tightly against her head. Her eyes, framed by oblong-framed glasses, looked steadily out of the picture, as her mouth curled up into a faint smile. A black cord draped around her neck, and although it fell below the cut-off of the picture, Harry knew very well that it held up a tear-drop shaped stone. He never had discovered what it was made of.

Blinking several times against the wetness that had sprung to his eyes, he skimmed the accompanying article. Lady in her seventies . . . lived alone . . . disturbed an intruder . . . no signs of a struggle . . . happily looked after neighbourhood children . . . presumed heart attack . . .

Gulping, Harry shakily lowered the paper to the table top. Hedwig hooted at him and nuzzled at his ear.

“Harry?” Hermione had lowered her book and was peering at him with a worriedly curious expression. “Harry, what is it?” When Harry didn’t answer her, she pulled the paper towards her.  “Oh, Harry, did you know her?” she asked, sympathetically, once she’d seen the headline.

“She used to look after me sometimes,” he said, quietly. “When Mrs Figg was ill or away. She looked after several of us, in fact.” Just the thought of some of those afternoons caused the lump in his throat to grow. “Excuse me, I—” Unable to finish the sentence, he grabbed the paper in one fist and hurried out of the Great Hall, dislodging Hedwig in the process.

Without watching where he was going, he soon found himself half-hanging out of a window on the third floor, desperately gulping for air as though he were drowning.

He didn’t know why it was hitting him this hard. He hadn’t seen her – Merlin, he hadn’t even thought of her – in years. Not since he’d received his letter for Hogwarts. So why did it feel like he’d lost something incredibly precious that he hadn’t known he had?

“Potter, what are you doing here?” a voice asked behind him. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

Snape. Of all times – of all professors – it just had to be Snape.

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” he said, trying to unobtrusively wipe his eyes. “I was . . . I just . . . received some bad news this morning.”

“Ah.” It was, surprisingly, a sigh of understanding. “You, as well?”

Surprised, Harry turned his head. Snape was standing behind him, looking very pale apart from two blotches of colour high on his cheekbones, his arms not so much folded across his chest but looking rather as though he were trying to hold himself together. A newspaper was scrunched up in one fist, but from what Harry could see, it looked remarkably like the one he himself was holding.

“You knew her, sir?” he asked.

“Yes,” Snape said, swallowing hard. He didn’t say anything else, but then, he didn’t need to. The one word told Harry all he needed to know. He vaguely remembered her saying once that she had spent a goodly number of years in a northern mill town that had slowly become more decrepit and abandoned as the working men gave way to machinery. She never had explained how she’d managed to acquire a soft Scottish burr when she’d apparently lived in England her whole life.

Harry shuffled across, allowing Snape to lean against the opposite side of the windowsill. They remained there for some time, ignoring the occasional tear splashing onto the window ledge or the odd hitched breath. United in their indisputable grief, no words were necessary. A bedrock of their childhoods had gone.

Eventually, Snape sighed and straightened. “Come, Potter,” he said. His hand hovered over Harry’s shoulder as if he were going to pat it, but it fell back to his side before he could make contact. “Class awaits.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said, sniffing heavily. With a put-upon sigh, Snape produced a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it over.

“You may return it after the Elves have laundered it,” he said, with a hint of his usual sharp tone returning. “Now, get to class, Potter. I will not be writing any excuses for you.”

With a last sniff, Harry turned and scurried off to his next lesson, knowing his friends would have been worried about him.

Once he was sure he was alone in the corridor, Severus turned to look out of the window again. “May angels escort thee to thy rest, dear lady,” he murmured softly, laying a hand over his heart and bowing his head. Then, he straightened his shoulders and strode away down the corridor in the opposite direction to the one Potter had taken.

Outside, a small brown bird began singing joyfully, and launched itself from the branch it was perched on. It spiralled up and up, the sunlight glancing off the bright red feathers of its chest, until it was nothing but a speck in the sky.