Draco woke up early that morning, feeling more tired than when he had gone to bed. He had slept only a few hours, and his conversation with Snape that night had given him more things to ponder. Now that he knew things would have been totally different if only he had accepted Dumbledore's offer, a tight knot formed in his stomach and would not leave him alone. He got up. knowing it was useless lying down, and waited hopelessly for a sleep that would never come. He went into the bathroom to have his morning toilette, washing his face profusely with icy water in order to chase his torpor away. He paused before the other bedroom door, wondering if Snape was still sleeping. He lightly pushed the door open to peep inside. The room was empty and the bed untouched or neatly remade.
"He's probably downstairs having breakfast. I better join him and maybe apologize for my behaviour, I've been such a prat with him all year!" Draco thought as he went down the narrow staircase.
He opened the door to the tiny sitting room. It was dark, the candles had burnt out and heavy curtains still obscured the windows. He lit the tip of his wand and headed to the nearest window to let the morning sun stream in. He turned and gave a look around the room, and finally saw Snape on the armchair. He looked like he had fallen asleep there.
Draco hesitated an instant, uncertain if it was polite to wake him up or not. But the oppressive silence of the room was unberable so he decided to try to wake the man up, hoping he would not be too upset about it. He approached the armchair and stared at the sleeping man; he looked so peaceful.
"Sir?" Draco said tentatively, but Snape did not seem to have heard him.
"Professor Snape?" Draco tried again, shaking the man's arm gingerly. "Could one really sleep so deeply?" Draco thought with a mixture of annoyance and envy.
"Snape!" Draco called and instinctively touched the man's hand.
It was icy cold, putting Draco in alarm. When he tried to raise that hand, he was horrified to see it fall back lifelessly. Draco gasped as the realization of being in front of a dead man hit him. When? How? Who? were the questions rushing through his mind. He was too scared to care to find out. He rushed upstairs, collected his cloak and returned down. He headed straight to the exit door without wasting a second more and ran away from that house. He kept running madly through the labyrinth of brick houses, straining himself to hear the sound of the river. For some strange reason, he was convinced he needed to go back by the river in order to be able to Apparate. He just wanted to get away from that damn place, he wanted to go home, to reach his mother. He finally got there, took a big breath to calm himself, concentrated hard on his destination and Disapparated with a pop.
A few hours later a small group of cloaked figures Apparated on that same river bank. A cloud moved away from the sun and its rays revealed the figures to be Order of the Phoenix members. The group's leader was the ex-Auror Mad-Eye Moody, by his side stood Lupin and Tonks. The two were almost inseparable now that they were a couple. With them were Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger as well. At first, the Order was not happy with their decision to join the mission, but Harry had insisted that, after witnessing Snape kill Dumbledore, he had every right to hunt him down with the others, and be sure he paid for his crime. Harry and his friends' resolution forced the Order to let them in.
"Where now, Hermione?" Moody asked.
"That way," she promptly answered after checking her wand.
The clever witch had mastered the use of a powerful spell that worked much like the Point Me, though this one was able to track down both people and things. Thanks to the young witch’s ability, they easily advanced through the maze of brick houses and soon the mill chimney came into view. They entered Spinner's End and headed straight to the last house. The door stood strangely ajar, as though someone had forgotten to close it in a hurry. Moody ordered them to take their wands out and proceed carefully, then entered the house first. The others followed and tensed at the sight of Snape on the armchair.
"Wake up, Snape! You've got guests," Moody shouted with a triumphant smirk, but Snape did not move.
"Spare us your little tricks, Snape. You're clearly in the minority," Moody boldly hissed, taking a few steps towards Snape.
They surrounded him on all sides, their wands aiming at Snape's chest, watchful for any sign of reaction from him. Harry and his friends exchanged perplexed looks. It looked so strage that Snape had not yet moved a finger to fight them back, to try to escape. The room was overwhelmed by a suffocating stillness that was soon getting on everybody's nerves. Lupin, in spite of his usual cool reserve, was the first to lose control and move closer to Snape.
"Come on, Severus. Stop this rubbish and surrender your wand," Lupin barked shaking the man by his shoulder.
That move caused Snape's head to fall on his chest, giving him the look of a big, grotesque puppet. Everybody gasped and Hermione and Tonks clapped a hand to their mouth in horror as they realized Snape was dead. Ron took a few steps backwards and almost stumbled in the process. Lupin instinctively rubbed his hand on his coat, the one he had used to touch Snape, as if he wanted to clean away the remains of something contagious. Hermione felt her knees go weak and leaned on the nearby table for support. The poor thing had never seen a corpse before. Moody was the first to get out of that general state of stupor. He knowingly approached Snape to examine him for some clue of what might have happened to him, some trace of a possible culprit.
"What do you think, Alastor?" Lupin inquired.
"There's no sign of violence on the body," Moody muttered as he inspected Snape. "Pupils dilated," he added checking Snape's eyes, " and traces of what looks to be tears on the cheeks," he said rubbing his index across the man's face.
"What is that?" Tonks said pointing at the small, dark vial standing on the table.
"Poison!" Moody stated after sniffing the bottle and pouring the last drops on his palm.
"Poison? Snape can't have been poisoned? I mean ... He's been our Potion Master. He knew everything about poisons," Hermione expressed her perplexity.
"This is a very uncommon one, Hermione. It's called the Draught of Peaceful Death. It kills the drinker, sparing him the agonizing pain provided by most existing poisons," Moody knowingly explained.
"He's got something in his hand," Ron observed.
"I'll take it," Lupin offered and bent down to prise the object from Snape's now rigid fingers, "It's a Famous Witches and Wizards' card, Dumbledore's to be exact," he added turning it in his hand.
"How ironic, isn't it?" Moody snorted.
"And there's a letter as well," Lupin said when his eyes fell on the envelop laying across Snape's lap, picking that up as well. "It says To anyone interested," he read and opened it.
Lupin silently read it and his face showed a succession of different feelings as his eyes read on. The others watched him with evident curiosity, wondering what on earth could be written on it.
"What does it say?" Moody asked impatiently.
"It hasn't been a murder, but suicide," Remus whispered and he could not help giving Snape a pitiful look, then passed the letter on to Moody.
"What? But Why?" Harry shouted astonished.
"Apparently the weight of his conscience made him crack down, and with Dumbledore gone he felt his life was useless," Moody coldly stated. "Well, he did us a great favour, mark my word," he snarled.
"Lupin, Tonks! Go check upstairs, though I doubt you'll find anything," Moody ordered them.
The two began to search the walls for some hidden passage. The walls were so thickly covered in books that it was nearly impossible to find any sign of a door or anything. The three kids readily joined them in the search and finally managed to find the two hidden doors. They all went upstairs to inspect the bedrooms, leaving Moody alone with Snape. They found nothing apart from the evidence that somebody had slept in the smaller bedroom. The little group went back to the tiny sitting room descending the narrow staircase one at a time.
"I've sent a message to Shacklebott, he'll soon be here with his guys to deal with Snape's body. There's nothing left for us to do here, let's go!" Moody told them and they prepared to leave.
On her way to the entrance door, Hermione threw a last look towards Snape. She could not help feeling sorry for him. It was so plain that life had been hard on him. She now wished more than ever to have a time-turner with her. There were so many things that could have been changed. Maybe Snape and Dumbledore would be still alive, or even Sirius... yes, they could have gone back and saved Sirius's life too. The thought that all the time-turners had been accidentally destroyed during their visit to the Department of Mysteries filled her little heart with regret. It was always dangerous to meddle with time, Professor McGonagall had made that clear during her third year, but she still believed it was worth trying if one could save someone's life. Moody was right, there was nothing left for them to do there, because no magic on earth was able to bring the dead alive.