I watch the moonlight guarding the night,
waiting till morning comes.
The air is silent, earth is at rest –
only your peace is near me.

Watching the stars appear one by one in the night sky, Severus is as still as the non-existent breeze. He is weary, but strangely, he is also not tired. He is weary of the war, of the deception that he must practice. He is weary of the looks given to him by friends and colleagues who should know him better – but, for the sake of the deception, cannot.

It seems lately that nights like these are the only times Severus can be himself, relax and let his guard down. It doesn’t help to still his worries, but he doesn’t have to work so hard to hide them.

More students are disappearing every day. Those cretins masquerading as professors, the Carrows, seem to become more unhinged every day. No doubt they’d get on swimmingly with Bellatrix Lestrange. It is all Severus can do to distract and divert them, so that they fail to notice when students, especially the younger years, aren’t punished quite so heavily as they wanted.

It is a very wearying dance he does, trying to keep one side happy whilst protecting the other, without either being aware of it. He is amazed that he has managed this long. The disappeared students are at last alive. It could be much worse. They could all be dead.

Severus knows, however, that the end is coming. He will not have to do this penance for much longer. News reached the castle just that afternoon of the break in at Gringotts. Severus shakes his head, unsure if he is amused at Potter’s audacity, or horrified at the risk they all took. Really, he’d thought Miss Granger at least had more brains than that.

But, somehow, the reckless, hair-brained children managed to pull it off, although he does not know if they succeeded in . . . acquiring what they were after.

And now the Dark Lord has warned him that Potter and his cronies will be making their way to Hogwarts. Severus has no idea why on earth the brat would come back here, unless to confront him yet again over Dumbledore’s death. But the Dark Lord is certain, and it is a foolish spy indeed who argues with the Dark Lord.

So plans have been made, traps have been set, and Severus just hopes that he will manage to get his hands on Potter long enough to pass along Albus’ final message.

Looking up at the brightly shining stars, Severus wonders just how much of his life’s work has been in vain, if Potter has to die. His penance, his atonement for getting his best friend killed, has been to protect her child. Except he cannot, apparently, protect the boy from this. The spymaster, the chess master, the puppet master, has spoken. And like a good puppet, he will dance to the tune pulled on his strings.

Knowing the end is nigh, Severus decides to take what might be his last stroll around the castle. He is not seriously checking for misbehaving or amorous students out of bed at this hour, but more saying his goodbyes to the castle that he has called home for almost twenty years now – closer to thirty if he counts his school years.

He has done these rounds so many times that he doesn’t need to light his wand anymore. Portraits sleep on, undisturbed, as he glides past them. He spies the gleam from a cat’s eyes at the end of a corridor, but it turns away with a haughty flick of its tail before he can be sure whether it’s Mrs Norris, Minerva, or just a student’s familiar. When this is all over, he hopes that Minerva will at least not think too badly of him.

On the fourth floor, he comes across a house elf, busily polishing a suit of armour.

“Is there anything Jancy can be doing for the Headmaster?” it asks, softly.

“No, thank you,” Severus answers, but then pauses. “Yes, actually, there is. Kindly ensure that the best food is served every day. After all, every student is growing up and needs feeding.”

The house elf blinks at his subtle emphasis, then nods firmly, once, twice. “Jancy shall be passing along the message, Headmaster,” it replies, and vanishes with a quiet pop.

Satisfied, Severus continues his stroll. He is unsure whether the hidden students are managing to feed themselves, but this way – for a day, anyway – he can be sure of it. He just wishes he’d thought of it earlier.

Ascending to the Owlery, Severus finds it almost deserted, except for the nesting mothers. It is midnight, and all the other owls are out and about, hunting on the grounds, or else far away from here delivering mail. He hopes they all manage to survive the upcoming battle unscathed, and makes a mental note to get Hagrid to move the nests somewhere else. They are not running an owl breeding business, he will snootily inform the half-giant. And he will not have children running up to the Owlery at all hours to get glimpses of the eggs, or the chicks, so they will simply have to go.

Minerva would leave the birds there just to spite him, to let them suffer their own fate. The Carrows would eagerly blast the adult birds and smash the eggs. Hagrid, though, will tenderly move the nests and ensure the birds come to no harm. At least, Severus hopes so.

He leans out of the Owlery window and studies the stars. He was never very good at Astronomy, and the name of all the constellations eludes him now. Two stars directly overhead seem to be twinkling more than any of the others nearby. Severus wonders if that is a sign that Albus is watching over them all. At first, he is comforted by that thought, but then realises that if Albus can watch, then so can others who have gone on, and the thought of some of those watching him is less comforting.

Severus slips from the Owlery and continues his nocturnal wandering. He ends up this time in the dungeons, standing outside the classroom that once was his, and now belongs to Slughorn. There is no ward on the room, so he enters it, striding to the front as though he is getting ready to teach yet another bunch of dunderheaded students, who think they know better than him.

He wonders how long it will take for the standards for Potions to slip. Currently, Hogwarts students who take their NEWTs in the subject score higher than those from Beauxbatons, or Durmstrang. His students are much in demand, because they are used to brewing to his exacting specifications. He only accepted the best into his class, but already, Slughorn has lowered the grade a student must reach to be able to take the NEWT.

Looking around at the empty classroom, Severus’ imagination fills in the young, boisterous students. He can see Draco Malfoy, preening and smug as usual, Pansy Parkinson all but draped on his arm. The disaster that is, or was, Neville Longbottom, getting ready to explode yet another cauldron. And of course, the Golden Trio. Albus’ pets.

Sometimes Severus wishes that Albus had been even a fraction that kind to him. Things could have been very different, if only Severus had not felt like he had been shrugged off as unimportant. Perhaps it had been too long since Albus was young, and he had forgotten just how fragile a child’s ego can be, especially on the cusp of adulthood.

Severus slowly wanders around the room, brushing his fingers along the top of various desks. Slughorn wouldn’t stop boasting about Potter’s skill in Potions last year. Of course, after the debacle with Malfoy, Severus knows very well that it wasn’t Potter’s skill that Slughorn was seeing. Such a shame that Slughorn was too focused on the fame to notice the actual underlying talents – or lack thereof.

Meandering his way back up to the Entrance Hall, Severus pauses to study the hourglasses that hold the House points. The point system has rather fallen by the wayside this year, and only Slytherin’s glass is anywhere near full. Indeed, Gryffindor’s glass is emptier than Severus has ever seen it. He wasn’t even aware the hourglasses could get that empty. Just how many points have the Carrows been subtracting from Gryffindor that Severus wasn’t aware of?

He shakes his head. “Ten points to Gryffindor, Potter,” he murmurs, and turns to continue his stroll. “And you’d better make them count, boy.”

Aware that there’s a good chance the Room of Requirement is in use – after all, there are only so many places in Hogwarts that will hold the number of students that have disappeared – Severus avoids the seventh floor in his trek over the castle. He makes sure to cover everywhere else, though.

Good, bad and neutral memories – all flow through his mind as he silently communes with the place that will not be for him much longer. Whether Potter comes or not, whether the Dark Lord takes up residence here or not, Severus knows that he will not survive the upcoming battle. Even if he does, by some miracle, he will be captured as a Death Eater by the Ministry afterwards. If they are lenient, the best they will give him will be life in Azkaban. At worst, he will receive the Dementor’s Kiss. Severus hopes he is felled in battle – at least it will be quick.

Half past five in the morning finds him outside in the grounds. He spent some time wandering the fringes of the Forbidden Forest, but it is strangely quiet. Not even a centaur appears. The Forest inhabitants, too, know something is coming.

Severus is beside the Lake as the first hints of orange touch the western sky. Birds are beginning to sing somewhere behind him, and he can see some of the owls coming home to roost after their hunt.

The clouds in the sky look like wisps of spun sugar, tinged a delicate shade of pink. The orange stretches upwards, outwards, and gains a hint of red. The dew that has been soaking into Severus’ boots is glistening in the pale light, but the day promises to be scorching hot, and it will not last long.

More birds join in the early morning chorus as the whole sky seems to burst into light. Absorbing the spectacle, Severus feels himself relax completely. He is ready for whatever will come. He hadn’t realised it, but there was a little spark inside of him that wailed that he didn’t want to die. The spark is gone now – he has accepted that his time is almost upon him.

For one moment, the stress and the years fall away from Severus, and he stands there as the young man of only thirty eight that he is. Maybe someday there will be a life that will be as carefree as this moment. Maybe somewhere else there is a world where Severus did not need to atone for anything. He hopes, though, that this particular moment is the same across all time.

The first rays have been creeping up the lawn towards him, and now Severus raises his face to bask in the light. He doesn’t know if he will see any more sunrises, so he will enjoy this one while he can.

He even feels like bursting into song, although he represses that urge.

The glorious burst of the awakening sun passes, settles into the more common daylight. The birds all around the castle are singing madly, greeting the day. With a sigh, Severus accepts his burdens again, and turns to face the castle. It appears to be split in half, part of it glistening in the sun, the other half in deep shadow. It is a good analogy for himself, too, Severus thinks.

Step by step, he enters the darkness of the castle, wrapping it around himself like a cloak. It will go well with the mask the Death Eater must wear.

I watch the sunrise lighting the sky,
Casting its shadows near.
And on this morning bright though it be,
I feel those shadows near me.