For a moment no one knew who was more surprised: Harry, Lucius, or Voldemort.

The boy sat there frozen, unable to comprehend the sight of his Potion master laying there so still and lifeless at his feet.

No… No, this isn’t happening… the boy thought, desperately trying to deny what he saw. No, no, no this isn’t happening!

Behind them, the sound of battle had reached a fevered pitch. More Aurors had arrived and were steadily beating the Death eaters back. The Thestrals circled and dove from the air, relentlessly harassing the masked men. Steaks of magic sliced the air, but fewer and fewer were coming from the attacking force as they were driven closer and closer to the front gates of the school.

The tide of battle was turning.

Voldemort was the first to break himself out of his trance. Glaring at the Potion master’s body, he looked back up at the horrified boy, hatred boiling in his eyes. His wand shook in his hand, as though desperately wanting to incant some deadly killing curse, but knew he couldn’t. He’d already lost his power once to this boy by underestimating the sacrifice of another person for him. He wasn’t going to take that chance again…

“Lucius!” he yelled, bringing the other man back to his senses. “This battle is lost to us. Call a retreat. We will flee now to live and fight another day.”

Lucius mutely nodded - staring at Snape with unreadable blue eyes - and sent up a plume of red sparks into the air, signaling the Dark Lord’s retreat.

Voldemort was still staring at Harry, eyeing him with such hatred and rage it seemed a miracle the boy didn’t burst into flames.

“You were lucky this time, boy,” he hissed. “But next time you might not have someone else there to die for you…”

And then he and Lucius were gone, Apparated away to wherever the Dark Lord made his lair.

The front lawn of the castle suddenly became very quiet, as if someone had cast a strange Silencing Charm over it. Everything was still. The once pristine landscape of snow and moonlight was now a charred and empty war zone.

Alone with his teacher’s body, Harry could only stare at the crumpled form. Snape lay facedown in the snow, his long black hair obscuring his face.

“P-professor?” Harry weakly called, slowly crawling to his knees. The Potion master didn’t reply, no sign of life stirring his body. “Professor?”

No… This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t true.

“Professor?”

Harry crawled to his Potion master’s side and rolled Snape onto his back. The Potion master came limply over in his arms, his body giving no resistance to the boy’s clumsy ministrations. The moonlight lit his features. His eyes were closed, his eyelashes gently pressed against the pale white marble of his skin; his features unnaturally lax. If Harry didn’t know better, he would have almost said Snape was sleeping…

“Professor? Professor, please answer me!” Harry desperately called, now shaking the man’s shoulder. “Professor? Professor!”

Still no response from him.

Somewhere deep inside, Harry already knew Snape was never going to answer his frantic calls - that there was nothing left of the man he once knew to answer. But still he shook him, desperately calling to him as the cold chill of denial refused to let him accept the Truth. Tears began to sting the corners of his eyes, blurring his vision.

“Professor! Professor! Please answer me!”

Harry couldn’t explain it, but he felt as though he was missing something - as if something deep inside him had suddenly been taken away. He felt broken and empty, like someone had surgically removed a piece of his very soul. A strange void resided in the bottom of his heart where it felt like something had inexplicably been torn away. He desperately reached out through the void to try and reconnect with whatever it was he had lost. But he could feel nothing. Nothing but cold emptiness…

He was now shaking his teacher’s shoulder so hard there would have been no way Snape could have ignored him. But still he lay there. So silent and still…

“Professor! PROFESSOR!”

The sound of people running towards him registered somewhere in the boy’s mind.

“Professor! Professor, please answer me! Please!”

He felt hands on his shoulders, gently trying to pull him back.

“NO! Let me go! Professor! ANSWER ME!”

“Harry! It‘s no use! Harry!”

So consumed with grief and exhaustion, Harry was powerless to fight the hands that tore him away from his Potion master’s body and into a strong embrace.

“Merlin... Harry, what happened?”

Harry was only partially aware that it was Sirius speaking. How Sirius was there, Harry could not even begin focus on enough to ask. He gave himself freely over to his godfather’s embrace, suddenly desperate for the offered comfort.

Hysterical sobs shook the boy’s battered form, tears flowing down his blood-caked cheeks.

“H- he stepped in front of a curse!” he wailed, burying his face in his godfather’s chest. “Voldemort was going to kill me. H-he stepped in front of it and saved me!”

There was a multitude of other voices, all of them speaking, it seemed, at once.

“We need to clear this area immediately. Before relief teams arrive.”

“Dear Merlin… Is that-?”

“Where’s Harry? Is he alright? Is he hurt?”

The voices slowly died away into silence as yet another figure appeared, his pale blue robes shining in the moonlight.

Choking on the bitter truth that now sat like acidic bile in the back of his throat, Harry dazedly looked up at the ones around him.

The battered figures of Professor McGonagall and Lupin were the first to arrest Harry‘s broken attention. Their wands hung limp in their hands as they silently stared at the motionless form of their former colleague splayed out in the snow before them.

McGonagall’s usually crisp tartan robes were dirty and torn, shredded in some places by the horrific blast that had crippled the castle’s outer wall. She was favoring her right leg badly, the strict matron battered from the fight. But she hardly seemed to notice the pain, it seemed. Her hand was silently held up over her mouth as she took in the tragic scene, as though stifling a cry of despair. Her eyes were shiny and wide, filled with indescribable sorrow.

Lupin looked much like McGonagall did: dirty and visibly exhausted from battle. His hair was mussed and stood up in places where it’d been swept during the fight. The werewolf’s face was solemn and grave, a mask of trained emotions.

Behind them stood a small group of Aurors, their bright red robes tattered and singed in places from unblocked attacks. Shacklebolt, Moody, and Tonks all solemnly surveyed the scene, stoic in their professionalism.

Behind them stood two other familiar figures Harry felt unable to appreciate were there. Like the rest of them, Ron and Hermione looked like they had just survived the deepest Circle of Hell and lived to tell about it. His two best friends were sweaty and dirt smeared, their school robes torn. Hermione looked as if she was on the verge of tears, her teeth chewing her lower lip. Ron stared with an almost comical expression of shock on his face. Neither seemed able to comprehend what they saw; the scene -Harry had to admit himself- unbelievable.

Sirius had begun rocking Harry back and forth in his arms, as if trying to apologize and sooth away the terror of his fifteen year old godson who he’d been unable to be there to protect himself. Harry couldn’t see the ex-convict’s face, but by his godfather’s fierce grip he could almost imagine the horrible possibilities of what could have happened going through his mind.

As Harry sat there, letting his godfather rock him back and forth in his arms - anchoring him to this surreal world of lost he suddenly found himself in - he watched the last member of the group slowly step forward and kneel beside the Potion master’s body.

“Oh, Severus…”

The Headmaster’s voice was strained and heavy. Carefully, he reached down and brushed several strands of jet black hair from the other man’s face.

The others all looked on in silence.

Harry felt another sob catch in his throat before he could finally find the voice to speak, his words half mumbled against Sirius‘ chest. “H-he didn’t mean to do it…” he choked, tears still burning his eyes. “It was Voldemort that made him do it. H- he didn’t mean to do it…”

“I know, Harry,” Dumbledore said, as if he already knew what he meant. “I know he didn’t…”

“H-he saved me,” Harry said, struggling to keep his voice from breaking. He knew the others already knew what Snape had done - that he was telling them nothing they couldn’t already see for themselves. But somehow, he felt like he had to tell them himself. “He stepped in front of the curse. Voldemort was going to kill me. He-”

“I know, Harry, I know,” Dumbledore said, his head bowed almost to his chest. The Headmaster’s voice was tight, his eyes clenched shut against the sting of tears Harry himself could not fight.

Harry felt a new wave of grief wash over him, an anguished sob ripping from his throat. Sirius held his godson closer as the boy began to shake, unable to stop the flow of tears that assaulted him.

His blue eyes sorrowfully dulled, Dumbledore reached up and undid the clasp of his winter cloak. Slowly, reverently, he draped it over Snape’s body. He paused a moment when he finally came to the Potion master’s head. But then with one final look at the younger man‘s features, he lowered the last fold of cloth over Snape’s face.

Harry felt a jolt of panic go through him at that. Somehow that - even more than seeing his professor fall to the ground in front of him or lay there so still and lifeless in the snow - struck Harry as more disturbing than anything else. Because that final act of Dumbledore’s - draping that piece of cloth down over Snape’s face - was the last confirmation that Snape was truly gone. Because it represented the final severance of the Potion master’s connection from the rest of the living world…

“Shacklebolt,” Dumbledore was saying, looking up at the head Auror with suspiciously damp eyes. “Will you please help me levitate Severus’s body back up to the castle? I want to see that he’s taken care of before-”

“No!” Harry shouted, straining against Sirius’ grasp.

Dumbledore and the others all looked up at him in surprise.

Harry fought off Sirius’ arms and crawled to his Potion master’s side.

“No,” he cried and frantically clutched the voluminous folds of fabric shrouding his professor‘s body. “No, please. You can’t take him away.” Though he struggled to maintain his composure, Harry felt another sob break through his defenses and a new line of tears streak down his cheek. “Please…” he begged, almost like a child. “Please… He saved me…”

Dumbledore had to look away and close his eyes before he could compose a reply. “Harry…” he croaked, his voice straining not to break. “That’s why we have to take him. So we can do what’s right for him. More people will be here soon and he doesn’t deserve to be seen like this by anyone else…”

Harry felt tears stinging his eyes, his shoulders shaking with the effort not to dissolve into sobs. “You can’t!” he cried, starting to ball the Potion mater’s death mantle between his fingers. “You can’t take him!”

“Harry, please…” Dumbledore whispered.

“Don’t you understand?” Harry cried, angrily ripping the cloak back from Snape’s face. “It’s my fault he died! Mine! I didn’t tell anyone what was wrong with him. It’s my fault all this happened! If I’d just told someone else… If I’d just tried to help him more. If I‘d just-”

“Harry…” Dumbledore said, wrapping an arm around the boy’s shaking shoulders to make him stop. “It wasn’t your fault. Snape did what he had to. He couldn’t bare the thought of standing there and letting one of his students get hurt.”

“But it’s my fault…” Harry sobbed, heedless to the Headmaster’s reassurances. “It’s all my fault…” Unable to fight back the violent flood of tears threatening to consume him anymore, the boy dissolved into broken sobs, still clutching the cloak over the Potion master’s body.

Through his haze of grief, Harry once again felt hands try to pull him away and into a comforting embrace. But he couldn’t stand the thought of being comforted when his professor still lay there so still and lifeless underneath Dumbledore’s cloak.

“Come on, Harry,” Sirius was saying, gently trying to coax his godson away. “Let’s get you out of the cold. You‘re freezing.”

But Harry ignored him and leaned forward, resting his forehead on the shrouded chest of his once hated teacher - the man he’d slowly come to want to help, and who’d saved his life by stepping into the path of an oncoming curse.

It wasn’t fair! he wanted to rant and scream into the night. It wasn’t fair!

Harry angrily clenched the cloak over Snape’s chest between his fists, wanting nothing more than to tear it to shreds. Why’d his professor have to die? Why hadn’t he tried telling someone sooner? Why’d Snape have to die?

Angry, helpless sobs racked the boy’s frame as he clung to his professor’s body, almost as if physically trying to keep Dumbledore from taking him away.

He suddenly realized what that aching feeling inside him was. It was from Snape. He remembered his connection to the surly man earlier that year when he’d been nothing but a frightened spirit desperately trying to find someone else that could see him. It’d been Snape Harry’s soul had depended on to restore him back to his proper form when he’d become his unwilling anchor to this world. And it had been Snape who’d saved him more times than he could count by risking his own life to protect the boy. He hadn’t even realized his connection with the man had survived after he’d been restored to his body, or how strong it’d become since. But now…

Harry could feel nothing of their previous connection. It was like whatever had been tying him to the surly Potions master had disappeared, rendering him alone and scared in a dangerous world. He felt lost, wandering in an empty landscape with no one there to help guide him back home.

Harry’s helpless sobs intensified, soaking the soft material at his cheek. Beneath him, he was disturbingly aware of the stillness of the Potion master’s chest, not even the smallest hint of breath being drawn into his lungs.

Why hadn’t he realized his connection to Snape earlier? Why hadn’t he noticed he still retained some connection with the surly man? If he had, he might have been able to help him. He might have been able to reach out to him and find out what was going on with him. He might have-

The possibilities were endless.

Harry felt himself drowning in a sea of could-haves and might-have-beens. But none of them could do him any good now.

Sobbing into Snape’s chest, Harry wanted nothing more than to go back in time and do everything again. Maybe then he wouldn’t be so alone…

Almost subconsciously, Harry reached out through the torn edges of his soul where his connection to the Potion master once resided. Desperately - blindly - he searched for the presence of the one he’d unknowingly become so attached to. A part of him knew it was no use, that there was nothing left of Snape for him to find - that Snape was truly and utterly gone. But still he searched, grief blinding him to all logic.

Another sob was muffled into the Potion master’s shroud, Harry hopelessly crying for the man who’d saved him to hear him and come back.

Harry strained with all his might to feel the Potion master’s presence, searching with a power he did not quite understand. Searching, reaching, groping through the empty darkness of grief that consumed him, Harry felt himself drift beyond the confines of his own body into a realm that was strange yet… familiar at the same time.

The world slowly faded into a strange, misty grey place that seemed to belong to no actual time or place. He was suddenly standing - or at least what seemed to be the equivalent of standing in this strange world- the Potion master’s body and everyone else suddenly gone. Around him floated countless figures. They were shadowy and grey, like pillars of smoke, but coelesqued into the uncertain forms of human beings. They had no differing characteristics or color, all of them as identical and indistinguishable as the next.

Harry looked around himself and the strange sea of ghost-grey figures, confused. He felt tears still staining his incorporeal cheeks. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was trying to feel the tentative line of connection he’d once shared with the surly Potions master. Could Snape be one of these shadowy figures? he wondered.

Tentatively reaching out with a sense he did not quite understand, he tried to detect the presence of the one he sought. It felt like feeling around an emptyroom in the dark. He didn’t quite know what he was looking for, or how he was going to know when he found it, but still he searched. He had to at least try.

As he reached out with his senses he suddenly became aware of a familiar presence somewhere nearby, hovering just on the edge of his consciousness. Like an invisible tether brushing against the torn edges of his soul, Harry suddenly knew where to go. The feeling was faint and weak. But it was there. And he knew without a doubt who it was…

Spinning to his right, Harry took off running, weaving in and out of the endless forest of ghost-grey figures. He didn’t quite know how he knew where he was going, but he knew that he was close. And that he was somewhere nearby…

The faceless figures rushed past him, nothing but scenery in this empty world of misty grey. He barely spared them a second glance. Because he now knew where he was.

I know you’re here, he thought, hurrying towards the faint presence he knew so well. It was him, he knew it! Hold on, he silently called. I’m coming…

Suddenly, Harry caught sight of a figure through the forest of other shadow-people. It was the same as all the others: featureless and grey. But there was a strange green color tingeing the shadow’s misty aura, like a noxious green fog.

Rushing to the figure’s side, Harry reached out and grabbed hold. How he was able to touch or hold onto such an incorporeal figure, he couldn't even begin to guess. But he did somehow, and began to pull it back with him -back to the light.

It seemed reluctant, unwilling to follow. But Harry persisted. Slowly, tenaciously, he urged it after him, dragging it with all his might as he felt the misty grey world around him slowly begin to brighten and fade into light…

Harry’s sobbing form had become very silent, still half draped over his teacher’s lifeless body. Dumbledore and Sirius quietly knelt beside him, unable to find the heart to pull him away. Snape, after all, was now the second person in Harry’s life to die by sacrificing himself to protect the boy. It seemed wrong not to let him have a moment to grieve.

“Is he alright?” Tonks softly asked, coming up beside them and kneeling on the other side of Harry.

Sirius sadly nodded. “He should be. He’s probably just overwhelmed with everything right now… Probably should get him somewhere quiet where he can rest.”

Slowly, he reached out and touched his godson’s shoulder. “Harry?” he called. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you inside. You‘re going to freeze to death out here. You have to let Dumbledore take Snape now.”

He sat there a moment waiting for his godson to reply, or at least acknowledge his request. But when Harry didn’t move or show any sign of hearing him, Sirius worriedly leaned forward and shook his godson’s shoulder. “Harry? Come on, Harry, answer me.”

When he once again received no kind of reply, he anxiously looked up at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore now leaned forward. “Harry?” he called. “Harry, can you hear me?”

Still no response.

Not waiting anymore, Siriustook his godson by the shouldes and pulled him away from Snape. The boy gave no resistance and lifelessly fell back into his arms. His eyes, they saw as Sirius cradled his limp body against his chest, were open, his dull green eyes staring into nothing.

“Harry?” Sirius called, alarmed by the glazed look in his godson’s eyes. “Harry?” A hint of panic was beginning to worm its way into his voice.

“What happened? Did he pass out?” Shacklebolt asked, stepping closer.

“I don’t know,” Sirius said, worry now blossoming into full panic. “Harry? Harry, come on! Answer me!” He patted his godson’s cheeks several times, but even that got no response from the lifeless boy.

“Was he hit with some kind of curse?” Hermione asked, hurrying to her friend’s side.

“I don’t think so,” Sirius said, fear now shining in his eyes. “He was shaken when we got here, but he didn’t really look like he was hurt or anything.” Turning his attention back onto his godson, Sirius frantically shook the boy. “Harry! Harry! Come on, Harry, wake up!”

The others looked on in mounting fear.

“Tonks, go find a medi-witch,” Dumbledore said, jumping into action. “If you can, find Madam Pomfrey. Tell her Harry might have been hit with some kind curse or-”

But the old Headmaster never got a chance to finish as Harry’s eyes suddenly snapped back to full awareness and he bolted upright in his godfather’s arms, startling Sirius and everyone else there.

But that wasn’t even half as startling as when half a second later a ragged gasp suddenly rent the air and the once lifeless body of Severus Snape arched up over the ground back to life.

Several people jumped back in surprise. Hermione actually gave a startled scream.

Snape’s eyes were wide as he looked around, distant and glazed. His body began to violently shake, his features dissolving into an expression of disoriented pain and dismay.

“No… no…” he whispered, his voice so weak they could barely hear him. “No… not this… no…”

Dumbledore was at his side in a second.

“Severus?” he stammered, almost as if he didn’t quite believe the miracle he saw before him.

The Potion master didn’t answer, still babbling softly to himself. “No… not this… Not this…”

Dumbledore knelt beside the Potion master and gently lifted his shoulders up off the ground until the other man was half laying in his lap. Snape was still babbling incoherently, as if not even aware of where he was or why he was there.

Ripping off a strip of cloth from his sleeve, Dumbledore pressed it to the back of the Potion master’s neck where a nasty cut at the base of his skull had begun to bleed profusely.

The pain of Dumbledore putting pressure to the seeping wound seemed to give Snape something to help focus his shattered thoughts with, and dazedly stared up at the old Headmaster.

“I never meant to…” he said, his voice weak and fevered. “Never meant to… Couldn’t stop him… Dark Lord made me.. Tried to get help… Couldn’t-”

“It’s alright, Severus, don’t worry about that right now,” Dumbledore said, trying to hush the other man as he continued pressing the now bloody cloth to the back of the Potion master‘s neck. “It’s alright. We already know.”

“Tried to stop him…” Snape stammered, as if not even hearing Dumbledore. “Tried to fight him… So hard… Couldn‘t stop him…”

“I know, Severus, I know,” Dumbledore reassured, not quite sure anything he said was actually reaching the fevered man‘s mind.

Snape’s babbling slowly faded away into silence, his whole body shaking as if he’d been plunged into a icy vat of water. His eyes began to drift shut, the faint light in his eyes fading.

Dumbledore worriedly looked up at the others watching him with stunned, startled expressions. Wrapping the cloak he’d given Snape as a death shroud closer around the shaking man, he urgently shouted, “Shacklebolt, Minerva, help me levitate him back to the castle! He needs immediate medical attention. Someone else find Pomfrey! Tell her to meet us in the Hospital Wing immediately.”

Gently lowering Snape back to the ground, Dumbledore stood and conjured a stretcher under the Potion master’s shaking body, then motioned for Shacklebolt and McGonagall to take up the levitation spell with him.

Not wasting a parting glance at anyone, Dumbledore and the other two hurried off, balancing the weight of the levitation spell between them.

For a moment, no one moved or said anything in the wake of the Headmaster‘s departure.

Slowly, pair after pair of awe-struck eyes swiveled around to stare at the battered teenager still sitting in his godfather’s arms. Harry seemed ignorant of their looks though, and stared in the direction Dumbledore had gone.

Shakingly, Harry pushed himself to his feet and - as if not even aware of anything else - took off after the old Headmaster and his injured charge.

The one - the rest of them slowly began to realize with growing disbelief as they watched him hurry back towards the castle - he’d just successfully brought back from the dead.