--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And on thy head I pour the vial
Which doth devote thee to this trial;
Nor to slumber, nor to die,
Shall be in thy destiny;
Though thy death shall still seem near
To thy wish, but as a fear;
Lo! The spell now works around thee,
And the clankless chain hath bound thee;
O’er thy heart and brain together
Hath the word been pass’d– now wither!
Harry was still watching the streetlamp, seeing it come ever closer as he ran from the Dementors. He concentrated on the end of the street, knowing it was his only way out. Unfortunately he did not see the crack in the pavement, and he found himself sprawled on the concrete, his glasses shattered, with hundreds of Dementors swooping towards him. Harry closed his eyes, knowing that there was no way out, and prepared for the clammy grasp of the horrifying creatures.
At that moment, however, Snape suddenly came bursting through the crowd of Dementors, throwing himself upon Harry and shielding him. A brilliant burst of white light suddenly radiated from Snape’s body, passing over the Dementors in a wave that felled them as they were hit. Harry heard a woman screaming, and he swooned, dizzy and barely aware of his surroundings. His scar was white-hot with pain; Voldemort was nearby, and he was furious. The white light burned into his eyes and he squinted, briefly seeing an expression of horrifying pain upon Snape’s deathly white face. Then, the white light stopped abruptly, and Snape collapsed, pinning Harry’s arm to the ground. Harry could barely make out several silvery-white Patronuses chasing away the last few Dementors, and he looked up to see blurred figures running towards him, calling his name.
"Harry! Harry, come on, we’ll get you out of here!" a man said, leaning forwards to pull Harry off the ground.
"No..." Harry looked over at Snape’s limp form; he was not breathing, and his wand lay snapped in half near his hand. "Professor?" he asked, trying to shake him awake.
"Harry, leave him. He’s dead," Remus told him, trying to pull him away from the body.
"No...he can’t be, he’s just been knocked out!" Harry insisted, tugging on Snape’s sleeve desperately.
"Don’t, Harry. There’s nothing you can do," Remus explained quietly, helping him to his feet. "We have to leave, the Dementors are regrouping. Please."
Harry obliged half-heartedly, being dragged by Lupin as if he were a rag doll. He felt empty, as if his insides had been hollowed out and replaced with nothing but blackness. He saw Kingsley Shacklebolt pick up Snape’s body before walking to the end of the street and Disapparating, and the feeling inside him grew worse. Remus gripped him tightly, as if afraid he might vanish as well, and together they Apparated out of Wyvern Road.
Harry awoke in the hospital wing, which had become so familiar in the past while that he recognised it even without his glasses. He became aware that someone was gripping his hand, and looked over to see Ginny Weasley sitting next to him on the bed, tears sliding silently down her face. Ron and Hermione were on his other side, and Remus stood beside Tonks, whose hand was on Ginny’s shoulder. "Harry? Are you awake?" Remus asked, moving forward and sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Yeah," Harry replied quietly. He could not bear to have them all standing around him; how likely was it that they would die, too, trying to keep him safe? "What happened to Snape, and Ursula?" he asked suddenly, trying to prop himself up on his elbows but finding he did not have the energy nor the will to do so.
"Severus will be laid to rest tomorrow. Ursula Hardwick was overtaken by the Dementors after Voldemort realised she had failed to bring you to him. She suffered the Dementor’s Kiss," Remus told him with a grimace.
Madam Pomfrey bustled over, and pushed a large chunk of chocolate into Harry’s hand. "Eat this, dear, you need to keep your strength up."
Harry took a small nibble off the corner, but did not feel any better for doing so. The cold, hard feeling inside him had not gone away, and he looked down the hospital wing to see a body draped in black, lying at the end near the doors. "He died trying to save me," Harry said, his voice cracking. "I don’t know what he did, but it killed him."
"We saw it, Harry. We showed up just in time to see Snape using that spell. It was a very powerful bit of magic, the effort alone must have killed him. I feel terrible for shouting at him earlier, I didn’t believe him," Remus explained, burying his face in his hands. "We could have been there faster, if I had just listened instead of getting angry."
Tonks wrapped her arms around Lupin, comforting him. "It’s not your fault, none of us believed him at first. We shouldn’t have trusted Hardwick, she was on Voldemort’s side all along. Harry, what happened back there, why was she trying to kill you?"
Harry swallowed another bit of chocolate, but found it to be tasteless and of little comfort. He immediately launched into the story of Ursula’s plans and what she had told him, but when he tried to explain the reason behind Snape’s protection, he broke down and could not speak any more.
"He took an Unbreakable Vow with Lily? But why?" Remus asked.
"It was his punishment, she made him do it because he betrayed my parents to Voldemort by telling him about the prophecy. My mum knew Voldemort was hunting them down, and she made Snape take the vow because she knew she was going to die." The words made his throat feel as if someone had clasped a hand around it and was squeezing with all their might. Harry fell back onto his pillow as the others stared blankly into space, too shocked to speak. Outside, the storm raged worse than ever, and Harry closed his eyes. Of all the things he had called Snape, he deeply regretted calling him a coward more than anything else. Severus Snape was not a coward, nor had he ever been. He had risked everything, created a separate life out of hundreds of lies, but he had done it for the sake of someone other than himself, and Harry was forever grateful.
The next day, Harry waited for a long time for the others to leave the cemetery where Snape had been laid to rest. He stood in front of the grave, breathing in the freshly dug earth. A few paces away were the graves of Lily and James Potter, upon which Harry had laid flowers. Harry hoped that he would never have to return to the cemetery again; he could not bear to think of how many more people would stand between him and Voldemort and end up losing their lives. He stared at the tombstone of Severus Snape, which was carved from simple grey granite, and had only a few words upon it which Harry had chosen himself:
1960-1997
LIVED A LIE BUT DIED A HERO