May 21, 1997
Severus woke up that morning in a state of panic; questioning how he'd managed to sleep throughout the night. That hadn't happened in over a month, each night worse than the last. He breathed a sigh of relief thinking maybe things were finally settling down. Then his still sleep-deprived brain caught up to the situation facing him that day and it brought with it the fresh searing pain that ripped through his chest. How long would it be until he didn't have that constant reminder first thing every morning? How long until those wonderful, first thirty-seconds of his day no longer existed? It would come, he knew that, and he dreaded when it would arrive.
He showered as he should have for an occasion like this, though he wouldn't remember actually getting in or out, nor would he remember how he ended up with his towel tightly tied around his waist, standing before his opened wardrobe. There it was, his black dress robes. The same black dress robes he wore for the adoption and then again at the Yule Ball, and the same ones he transfigured into the muggle suit for Petunia Dursley's funeral, and the very same one's he wore to the Malfoy's Christmas Party less than six months ago. He really should have gotten another set for this occasion as Molly Weasley suggested to him only three days ago, but he couldn't bring himself to go out and find a set he would only wear once. At that time, he had already known once he took them off today he'd never wear this set of robes again. He wouldn't be able to think of anything else when he picked them back up after today: the day of his son's funeral.
Sirius insisted on coming over before taking a port key to the cemetery in Godric's Hollow - Harry would be buried beside his parents, the one thing he could finally give the young wizard he failed to protect - and the professor assumed he'd be seeing a lot of the animagus in the days to come. His quarters had been constantly filled with people in one way or another since Harry's death; Molly insisting she help him with the final arrangements, Sirius not wanting to be alone, or Minerva and Albus filling in the rest of the time just to check on him. It was nice to have something to occupy his mind, to stop himself from thinking about what was going to happen today, but none of them could prevent those first waking moments when he forgot what his life was like now. Those moments - and the crushing realization only seconds later - set the mood for his entire day. At some point, though, probably after today, the visitors would end and he was oddly looking forward to it. It was for the same reason when Albus asked him if he'd like to take the remainder of the year off, he'd said he would consider the offer, but already knew he wouldn't agree. He needed some control and normalcy to return to his life; two things that would never happen. Life wasn't supposed to be normal any longer, a father wasn't supposed to bury his son.
Sirius arrived at just past eight that morning, a time that was deemed acceptable to enter someone else's home, but he had a feeling the Gryffindor had been itching to come over sooner. He was dressed in an equally sad set of black dress robes and didn't comment when Severus held out a glass of firewhiskey at that early hour of the day. The two wizards who were no longer enemies, yet not friends - a strange pair who would forever be tied by the child missing from the room - sat across from each other listening to the newly repaired clock ticking on the mantle, neither making eye contact as they sipped their drinks.
"What time are we expected?" Sirius asked with a quiver in his voice.
"Between ten and eleven," Severus answered flatly.
Another period of silence fell over the wizards before Sirius asked, "What are you going to do now?"
He was sure many of the other visitors that had come through his quarters in the last five days had wanted to ask him the same question, but none of them had. Sirius, though, looked just as distraught and lost as Severus did. Here was a man who spent a third of his life locked away for a crime he didn't commit - at least this time - and he'd just gotten his Godson back only to lose him. Severus himself felt cheated by the lack of time he had with the young wizard, and he'd had two extra years. All he could do was hope that the last five years made up for the previous ten Harry had lived through; that he made some difference in his son's short life.
"I'll most likely go back to teaching on Monday," the professor replied.
"Already?!" Sirius exclaimed, placing his glass a bit too hard on the table in front of him. "You're just going to go back to life like nothing's happened?"
"What else should I do?" He asked more calmly than he felt inside. He understood it was Sirius's grief that caused the outburst, but he refused to feed it; not before a day like today.
"You should…" the Gryffindor stood and started pacing while running his hands through his long dark hair.
"I should do what?" He prompted again, "Do tell me what you think the most appropriate reaction is in a situation like this, because the last thing I want to be doing is sitting around here!"
And that was the crux of why no one had dared to ask him that question. What was he supposed to do now? There was no right or wrong answer, it was simply putting one foot in front of the other in hopes that he wouldn't fall and eventually he'd be somewhere new. While the wound would never truly go away, at some point it would dull and instead of the sharpness, it would simply be a blanket he carried over his heart for the rest of his own days.
The service had been beautiful, as every single person he talked to afterwards had told him, and was carried out exactly to Harry's short list of wishes. There really wasn't much that Harry cared about in terms of the service, but he wanted it small, bright, and 'not sad'; that last one Severus couldn't do, there was no way to make the death of a sixteen year old 'not sad'. The others, though, they'd done well on: the guests for the actual service were limited to his closest friends, Dudley, Sirius, The Weasley's, Lupin and his wife Tonks, Minerva, Albus, and any of the other professors who wished to attend; and most of them did, at least for a short while.
By the end, once most of the guests had long left, Severus found himself unable to move. It was too final for him and once he went back to his quarters at Hogwarts it would officially start his life of 'after Harry'. The last five days had been this transitional period where he could almost push the majority of his grief to the side because he had a task to do: prepare Harry's funeral. The moment he set foot back in his home, it would be different; that task was completed and now it was only him.
"Severus," Minerva's sad voice called to him. She was standing beside Lily and James's headstone, tears filling up her eyes as she watched him kneeling before his son's grave. "It's time, Severus. We need to go."
He looked past her and saw a group that had likely been waiting for him before they all made their way back to Hogwarts where there was some meal planned for the rest of the student body to mourn their classmate. Naturally, as Harry's father and professor, he was expected to be there, and by now they'd given him as much time to say goodbye as they could.
"I'm so sorry, Harry. This isn't how it was supposed to end," Severus said to the ground in front of him, not caring about the tears falling from his obsidian eyes, "I love you, son."
He stood, also not caring about the dirt that clung to the front of his robes. Minerva wrapped her arm around his and they escorted each other back to the waiting group, where a port key was scheduled to take them back to Hogwarts; no one trusting their ability to safely apparate anywhere today.
As he'd anticipated, no one said a word when Severus left dinner in the Great Hall as soon as possible. He received a sympathetic glance from those around him, but no comments were made. He took the long way back to the dungeons and when he entered, it felt different to him. The air was heavy and empty at the same time, and the professor had no idea what to do with himself.
Deciding he'd had enough visitors for the day, Severus walked into the sitting room with the intention of blocking his floo for the night, but the contents on the table as he past it caught his eye: Harry's Official Adoption Certificate and a handwritten letter to him from his son that he'd found after his death. Three days ago, as Severus and Molly were finishing up the final funeral arrangements, he came across the letter Harry had placed with the adoption certificate; the last piece of information that would be needed. Harry knew his father would need to show proof of the Adoption before any of the final papers could be signed. The fact that the young wizard had the forethought in those two concepts - that he took the time to write Severus a letter to read after his death and placed it where the professor was guaranteed to find it - was a testament to Harry's kind personality. And so, he'd left both the letter and the adoption certificate out on the sitting room table for the past three days because he didn't have the courage to put them away. Someday, he told himself, someday they'd go back.
He read the letter every day since he discovered it and, naturally, went to pick it up again while standing between the table and the fireplace. This time, instead of picking it up to read, he withdrew his trembling hand at the last second, turned around, and swiped it across the fireplace mantle. All the pictures and trinkets throughout the years crashed to the ground and shattered when they made contact with the stone floor. Something about that action released a burst of relief inside of him, and he found himself stalking around the room releasing his anger on anything in his way: parchment from people sending their sympathy to him, all of which flew to the ground and the ink pots spattered across the floor from the desk near the sofa, books from the tall overfilled bookshelves tumbled to the floor, until any sign from the life he and Harry built together was in pieces around him… all except the letter and the adoption certificate sitting in pristine condition on the sitting room table.
It shouldn't have surprised him that the relief from his tantrum was short lived, and once he caught his breath the grief blanketed over him yet again. It was a shadow he couldn't hide from, he couldn't scare it away, and he would have to find a way to learn to accept it or else he didn't know how he'd manage to survive. Taking one last look around the completely trashed room, he walked down the hall on his way to his bedroom to change - and remove as much of this awful day as he could - but he found himself automatically turning and walking into Harry's bedroom. Molly had removed as many of the reminders of what had happened in that room as possible, like the medications and other medical supplies, and now it looked just as it would if this were any other year and Harry was simply upstairs in the tower. He climbed into the bed - not caring how juvenile he looked laying in his son's bed - without any idea of what was to come; simply because he'd forgotten to block his floo from visitors as he had originally planned that night.