Until Death Do Us Part

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. JK Rowling does.

It was all over. Bodies needed to be recovered. The headmaster felt it necessary to do this himself, survivors guilt, the guilt of knowing, call it what you like. He had a list of names that teary eyed, tired, and beat up family members, friends, and acquaintances had put together for him.

Two names stuck out to him. He felt that he may know just where to find them. He crossed the grounds and apparated to the shrieking shack. The silence surrounding the building was eerie, even if he himself had been the one to create the rumors about its haunting. He scaled the front steps of the house and pushed the door open. There had never been any need to lock it, with a werewolf inhabiting it and all.

Still, there was absolute silence. He could not even hear the birds outside singing. He checked the whole first floor. No sign of anybody. The old headmaster then went upstairs. The first door to his left, a bedroom, was wide open.

There they were. Just as he expected.

There, lay the two people the elderly headmaster had ever considered as close step-ins to children of his own. Severus Snape was sprawled across the floor, gracelessly. He looked as though he was in a deep sleep. Draped across him was the Gryffindor princess, Hermione Granger.

The laid peacefully in each other's arms, so much so that anybody who walked by would assume them to be lovers … If the large pool of blood that surrounded them was gone. The blood seemed to just begin to congeal. The wounds in Severus' throat were enough to kill, having hit a major artery in his throat. Hermione on the other hand had taken a simpler route, though not necessarily less painful. The small vile of poison. The headmaster picked it up and sniffed it. Baneberry Potion. Deadly. It would have killed her in minutes, the poor girl.

He stepped back and observed the lovers. To leave the world by choice, together, was the strongest declaration of love a witch and wizard could make. The young woman was obviously distraught by the loss of her love, so she followed him into the great fade, to be together forever.

He wanted to make them presentable, but it seemed a sin to remove them from each other. This was how they had wanted to be forever. Who was he to take away this, their only chance? Instead, he cast a cleansing charm to remove the blood and effluent.

The headmaster cast a stasis charm on the bodies, and proceeded to exit the room, warding it on his way out. There were still more that needed to be attended to.

He had been so wrong about them. They hid it so well. How they managed to do that, he would never know, especially considering that as headmaster, one was privy to all and any goings on a the castle. He could not help but imagine what hell they had been through to force them so close together that they would willingly die together.

As he exited the small cottage, he cast a location charm that would notify the search parties of their location. He also sent a patronus to those remaining at the castle.

"I have found Severus and Hermione. We were wrong. We misjudged. They passed in each other's arms. Gods rest them."

As the walked away from the cottage, he could not help but wipe the stray tear they escaped beneath his half-moon spectacles. His only children had found happiness. His only children had loved. His only children had made the ultimate sacrifice, for each other.

A/N: First of all, thank you for reading this. Today, I found myself in another one of those moods. I had to watch a person I used to be madly in love with get killed in a musical performance today. The staging was so eerily beautiful, but it was still one of the scariest things I have ever had to watch, even if it was just a performance. I doubt I will continue this, so it's just a one chapter kind of thing. Again, thanks for reading and putting up with my shenanigans.