"Normal speech"
Thoughts
"Mental speech"
"Non-English speech"
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling, her publishers, and Warner Brothers own Harry Potter.
A/N: Thank you all for reading! This is the final chapter.
Epilogue
TRIAL OF SEVERUS SNAPE BEGINS TODAY
MONSTER, MADMAN, OR MARTYR?
December 1, 1995
Tonks kept her eyes trained on the prisoner as her partner steered the small boat from Azkaban. No one expected the jury to convict him, despite the overwhelming evidence and the man's own confession in front of a room full of aurors and the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement herself. Mitigating circumstances. The man who had killed Voldemort could be forgiven nearly anything, including the death of the Boy-Who-Lived.
How do you stop a man whom the killing curse cannot kill? How do you punish a man left unaffected by the dementors' presence? She knew the answer the Ministry would choose. Nothing. They will do nothing. Fudge was even blustering about giving the red-eyed monster a medal.
It made her sick.
Mad-Eye Moody had never recovered from the cursed phoenix song. He would remain a permanent resident of the Janus Thickey ward at Saint Mungo's for the rest of his life.
Gawain Robards had been a good man, a good auror. His body had been horribly mutilated when the aurors had found it. And he died just to keep Snape's cover for a little longer. The bastard.
And then making someone like Lucius Malfoy out as a hero . . . . They had barely even used the information he had provided. And yet there he went, right back to controlling his puppet ministry, as if he had never left. "I stand by my comments to The Daily Prophet," Snape had said at his trial. "In the end, the Dark Lord needed to be stopped, but I did not mislead the Prophet regarding my reasons for joining his cause." Some at the Ministry were actually considering pardoning the other Death Eaters as a result, no doubt influenced by Malfoy's gold and a palpable fear of earning Snape's enmity.
Harry Potter had been just a boy. She remembered the argument at Dumbledore's house. She had heard the evidence at the trial. They all had. He had been a horcrux, and therefore could not live if Voldemort were to die. That did not make it any better.
Worst of all, Tonks suspected that Snape deserved his pardon and his medal. Killing Voldemort was worth all of that and more.
She didn't have to like it, though.
-DVDVDV-
SEVERUS SNAPE ACQUITTED!
MINSTER OF MAGIC PRESENTS ORDER OF MERLIN, FIRST CLASS
December 4, 1995
Severus accepted his medal with outward calm, even as a part of him felt gratified by the terrified fawning of the Ministry officials. They shuddered whenever his red eyes fell upon them.
The rest of him remembered the chill of the dementors as they returned to Azkaban following Voldemort's defeat. It had barely affected him, nothing like the cruel grip he recalled from the year that dementors had guarded Hogwarts. That must be another side effect of his fractured soul.
The cowering sheep should never have freed him. Fortunately for them, he still had a promise to his dead to fulfill.
As he turned to leave, he said, just loud enough for them to hear, "You should have convicted me."
-DVDVDV-
THE FURTHER CRIMES OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
DETAILS EMERGE FROM WIZENGAMOT HEARINGS
December 15, 1995
When the aurors came for Albus Dumbledore, he went with them quietly. This is a man who has lived too long, Scrimgeour thought. His legacy is in ashes. Even if he is acquitted, his reputation will never recover. He is a broken man.
On Dumbledore's shoulder, Fawkes trilled sadly.
-DVDVDV-
MINERVA MCGONAGALL CONFIRMED AS HOGWARTS HEADMISTRESS
INVESTIGATION INTO DUMBLEDORE'S HOGWARTS COVER-UPS CONTINUES
December 18, 1995
Minerva felt no satisfaction whatsoever in her new post. She felt haunted by her complicity in the death of a student, a student from her own House, no less. Yes, Snape had stunned her before he had killed Harry Potter, but her actions had come far too late to matter. She had known that Snape was Mordred and said nothing. She had done nothing as he slipped further and further into the darkness.
"You are a good man, Severus Snape. And I will not let anyone forget it. Not even you." Those words seemed so very naïve now. He did what we could not. He accepted culpability for his crimes, and we refused to punish him for it.
She sighed. It was not really him, she reminded herself. The Severus Snape who was my friend was not the man who killed Harry Potter. I should remember him as he was, not what he has become.
Minerva glanced down at her list of ideas to present to the Board of Governors. She added one more item to the bottom. Proposed course: Magical Ethics.
-DVDVDV-
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE SENTENCED TO HOUSE ARREST
AGE, DECADES OF SERVICE SAVE HIM FROM AZKABAN
December 23, 1995
"At least I shall have you, and my books," Albus said with a sigh once the Ministry officials had left.
"I think not," Gellert replied, taking off Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. He smiled coldly. "I spent fifty years in Nurmengard, alone, while you enjoyed the outside world. I think that it is time that our positions were reversed. But do not despair, Albus. You visited me over Christmas, as I recall. Perhaps I shall follow your example."
Albus flinched, remembering Christmas, 1950. It had been the last time he had visited Gellert in prison. Forty-five years. He had stayed away for forty-five years.
With a casual wave of the Elder Wand and barely a glance back, Gellert left. Albus doubted he would ever see him again.
-DVDVDV-
CONTROVERSIAL WAR HERO PUBLISHES THREE BOOKS
CHARMS, POTIONS, DARK ARTS
January 1, 1996
Viktor Krum held Hermione Granger as she stared nonplussed at the "top sellers" window display at the rebuilt Flourish and Blotts bookshop. She could not bring herself to go inside.
"Do you vant me to get you a copy?" he asked her.
"No," she said, turning around. "Some things are better off unknown."
There was nothing that Severus Snape could have done, no spell or potion he could have invented, that could forgive him for murdering Harry Potter.
-DVDVDV-
Three of the four killers of Lily Evans had been punished. Voldemort and Pettigrew were dead. Dumbledore was disgraced.
That only left Severus himself.
Severus carried a small, screaming phoenix chick as he flew over the icy waters towards Azkaban. He could not free Hellspawn through fiendfyre, or basilisk venom, or the killing curse. Fortunately, his short stint in the wizarding prison had reminded him of an alternative.
He landed in front of a dementor. "Kiss him," he said. He held the tiny chick up to the robed and hooded abomination, unfazed at it lowered its hood to reveal empty eye sockets and a terrible, gaping maw.
They were all abominations here.
Severus watched as the dementor sucked half of his soul from Hellspawn. A twisted, ghost-like wraith of himself emerged from the phoenix's beak, and then was swallowed by the dementor. Severus felt nothing. So, Voldemort would never have felt the destruction of his horcruxes.
"Severus!" Hellspawn cried in his mind. "You're back!" Severus turned red eyes to the phoenix, who wept. "Oh. No, you're not. But you can get better. I know you can. Let's –"
"Kiss me," Severus ordered the dementor. He knelt, and closed his eyes. There was the touch of cold, dead hands. There was a flash of flame. There was a bird weeping. There was the rush of breath from his lungs. There was screaming. There was nothing.
Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv'd only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost
- The End –