Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Author's Chapter Notes:
Well folks, this is it! The final chapter of Never Alone. It has been a crazy journey, and I’m so glad to have shared it with all of you amazing readers. If you have been with this story from the very beginning, I give you kudos for your saint-like patience! To new readers just now discovering this story, thank you for reading and be glad you’re not waiting 7 years like the original followers lol! I do have plans to right a few one-shots to tie up some lose ends and give a glimpse of what the future holds for our lovely characters. I make no guarantee that this one-shots will be posted any time soon.

Thank you very much for reading and sticking with me. Without you, I’d be nothing!
Chapter 60: Epilogue

The cloying smell of antibacterial soap, cleaning charms, and antiseptic filled the air. Harry took a minute to take in the sounds and smells around him, and had no doubt that he was in some sort of hospital wing. As he slowly opened his eyes, he heard a quick rustling and felt someone grab his hand.

“Harry? Oh thank goodness, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

Harry turned towards his left and blinked a few times, finally realizing that the blurry shape holding his hand was his stepfather. “Moony? What happened – where am I?” Harry asked as he accepted his glasses from the Defense Professor and slid them on.

Before Remus could answer, memories came flooding in. The battle. Spell lights flashing everywhere, the sound of people grunting in pain and sobbing with grief. Voldemort yelling at his loyal Death Eaters to stay back, that Harry was his. The look of shock and unadulterated rage in Voldemort’s eyes when Sirius stabbed the syringe into his neck and depressed the plunger in one fell swoop. Harry’s throat tearing as he screamed for his father, struck by one last spell from a dying megalomaniac…

“You’re in St. Mungo’s. You collapsed on the battlefield and we couldn’t wake you, so we brought you in for monitoring. The Healers think it’s just shock, but we wanted to be sure you were ok. Do you feel alright?”

Harry looked around and saw a curtained off area just behind Remus, but on his right side, another hospital bed was occupied by a pale, blonde teenager. “Draco! Is he ok – what happened to him?” Harry asked in a panic, nearly throwing himself out of bed to get to his boyfriend.

Remus grabbed his arm and prevented Harry from leaping out of bed. “He’s alright, Harry. He was hit by a few cutting curses but he’s pretty much all healed up. They gave him a few blood replenishing potions, so he’s sleeping it off. I promise, he’s ok. How are you feeling?”

Harry sighed in relief, stubbornly still wanting to pull his arm from Remus’ grasp and run to Draco’s side. “I’m…I’m ok. How are you? What’s been going on?”

Remus took a deep breath, scrubbing a rough hand over his weary, prematurely aged face. “I’m…alive. It’s been pretty difficult, dealing with the aftermath. I’ve been helping with the cleanup of the graveyard, being interviewed by the Auror department over and over, trying to keep some semblance of sanity as the Order is in complete chaos. But Harry, you did it. We won.”

Harry felt his heart speed up as Remus gripped his hand a little tighter. “How many? How many deaths, Moony?”

“Harry, that’s not really important right now. You need to focus on getting better and then – ”

“Remus, please. How many?” Harry implored, his green eyes wet with unshed tears, preparing himself for news he never wanted to hear, but needed to hear.

“Five deaths in the Order, but the final death count for Death Eaters has not been revealed yet. Lucius Malfoy was among the Order deaths, as well as Nymphadora Tonks. Draco was with his father when he passed. I’m sorry, Harry.”

Harry felt his heart sink. Draco must be completely devastated to have lost his father. And Tonks…she was so young. She and Charlie barely had any time together. It was so senseless and sickening. “It’s not fair…I did it, I killed him; I got rid of that bastard, but people still had to die. I hate this, Moony.”

Remus pat Harry’s hand gently before pulling away, a look of sympathy on his face. “I know, Harry, and I’m very sorry. Things will start to get better though. You’re right; you did it. We can all rest assured now.”

There was a loud clang from behind the curtain surrounding the bed to Harry’s left, startling Remus. As he stood up to check everything was alright, a disgruntled Healer flung the curtain back and gave Remus a dark look, his nostrils flaring as he slapped a vial of potion into the werewolf’s palm.

You feed the damn thing to him, then! He refuses to let me give him anything until he sees his son,” the Healer groused before stomping away, quite clearly sick of his patient. As Remus moved closer to the other bed, Harry caught sight of his father’s black hair fanning across the stark white hospital pillow.

“Severus, I didn’t even know you were awake. I silenced the curtain so that we wouldn’t disturb you. You need to take your potions, love. Harry is fine.”

Without Remus there to stop him, Harry lunged out of his bed and ran to his father’s side with a sigh of relief. He was shaking with emotion; he’d been afraid to ask about Severus’ fate, as he wasn’t sure he would be able to handle the answer he received. “Dad! Thank Merlin. I saw you get hit by that spell and I couldn’t do anything, I just blacked out. I was so scared; I thought you were – ”

“I’m not, Harry, I’m here. I’m bound to this damned bed for the foreseeable future, but I’m alive. I’m glad to see you’re at least recovered enough to vault out of bed so quickly,” Severus replied, his sardonic drawl music to Harry’s ears.

“Why are you bound to the bed, are you ok?” Harry asked, his green eyes full of worry as he took his father’s hand gently into his own, afraid to aggravate whatever injuries his father was suffering from.

“Voldemort sent a bone breaking curse as his final goodbye to me. It nearly severed my spine. I’m on a regiment of Skelegrow and nerve repairing potions until my spine fuses back together and my nerves heal. At this point, I am paralyzed from the waist down,” Severus explained, his dark look a clear indicator of how displeased he was to be a prisoner in his own skin.

“Your spine was severed?! That horrible piece of – ”

“He’s dead, Harry, and I’ll be fine. Once my spine and nerves heal, I’ll have to go through some physical therapy while my legs remember how to be legs again, but I will heal, and that’s what matters. I’m just glad nothing happened to you. I’m glad it was me that Voldemort aimed for, not you,” said Severus, though his tone had gotten pretty acidic in regards to physical therapy. This was clearly a sore spot for the Potions Master.

“Don’t say that, Dad. I’m sorry,” Harry whispered. He couldn’t imagine the pain his father must be in. He had had to regrow bones in the past, but regrowing his spine? Harry was sure that was excruciating.

“There is nothing to be sorry for. I am so proud of you, and the worst is over. We’ll get through this. You and your father will have to deal with a few months of me being extremely uncooperative and downright miserable while I go through therapy, but luckily I’ll also have pain potions.”

“Severus! You will participate in therapy and if you start taking too many potions, I will take them away from you. Don’t test me,” Remus warned, though there was a fond smile hidden in his less than threatening expression.

“Hmm yes, just remember that when you’re having to push me around in a wheelchair in Hogwarts. It’s not exactly a wheelchair accessible school, now is it?”

“I’ll just use Glisseo charms on all of the staircases. Instant wheelchair ramps! I swear that you forget magic exists sometimes.”

Harry grinned widely as his parents continued their good natured back and forth bantering. It was good to hear them arguing about trivial things. If turning stairs into ramps was the biggest debate going on right now, Harry was glad for it.

Harry jumped as he felt arms wrap around him from behind, and turned to see Draco’s sleepy smile. “You’re awake! How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy, a little sore. How are you?”

“I’m good. I’m great. I’m glad you’re all mostly ok. I’m…Draco, I’m so sorry about your father.”

“We wanted to wait for you to decide details for your father’s services. As soon as you’re ready, Draco, we’ll help you with everything. If you don’t want to deal with any of it, we’ll do it for you. Just let us know what you want, ok?” Remus assured the young blonde as the Slytherin clung to Harry, his eyes red and wet with tears.

“Thank you. I think my father would want to be buried beside my mother. I’m sure he has a will. I’ll need to get back into the Manor at some point to look for it, but I’m not sure if any Death Eaters will be hiding out there or not,” Draco explained, glad to feel Harry’s arms around him in support. He was shaking with grief, trying his hardest not to break down completely.

“We’ll send some Order members to check it out first, make sure everything is safe,” Severus stated, his voice gentle as he spoke to his godson. He knew the young Slytherin was bound to be very fragile right now; he was an orphan now, and had lost both of his parents less than a year apart.

“Thanks, Sev. So, Mr. Savior, what are you going to do now that you’ve saved us from certain death?” Draco asked Harry with a cheeky smile. He was upset about his father, but he could have lost so much more.

Harry shrugged, slightly annoyed by his new nick name, deemed by the Daily Prophet already. “Attend my seventh year at Hogwarts, take my N.E.W.T.s and hopefully get accepted to the Aurors program. What did you expect me to do? Lay back while the house elves fan me and feed me bon-bons?”

“You still want to be an Auror, even after all this crap with the Dark Lord and Death Eaters?”

“What else am I going to do? You’re going back, right?”

Draco nodded, sharing a smile with the Potions Professor. “Yeah, I’m going back. And I’m going to work extra hard to get an Outstanding on my Potions N.E.W.T. so that I can accept Severus’ offer to do the Potions internship.”

“Oh, you got the internship?” Harry asked, happy for his boyfriend, but also feeling quite jealous that Draco was going to be spending so much more time with his father.

“Yes, he did, and so did you. The Defense internship, if you’ll accept it,” Remus responded, sharing a knowing look with Severus.

“So we’re all going to stay at Hogwarts after this year?"

“If that is, in fact, what you want, Harry,” Severus responded.

“Yeah, that’s what I want. Hogwarts is my home. You guys are my home. I never want to be alone again.”

Severus smiled at his son, his husband by his side and his godson clinging to his son. He had a daughter on the way, and more love than he knew what to do with. He had everything in the world he had always wanted, and he couldn’t be happier, legs or no legs. “You never will be, Harry; none of us will. We’re family.”

~THE END~

The End.
Chapter End Notes:
You have no idea how tempted I was to leave this as a cliff hanger too, but I thought that would be too mean lol. Thanks again for reading, and double thanks to everyone who left well wishes after I posted about my poor health right now. I love you, dear readers, and I will continue to keep fighting and to keep writing when I can.

Along with the one-shots, I do want to go through and re-edit the entire story chapter by chapter, as there are a ton of mistakes I have not caught over the years, and little things like phrasing, sentence structure, and other grammatical errors I would like to refine a little more since I have more experience as a writer now than I did when I started writing this story at 18. The editing process will probably take quite a while, but I DO plan to get it done!

Also, if you’re one of those readers who waits until a story is complete to review/comment (I am totally guilty of this myself!), please, PLEASE do let me know what you thought of it overall! I would love to hear your opinions!!!

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