'You loved me once. Remember?'
'I'm still seven. In my head. I'm still sitting by the lake bank, pushing my fingers into the sand, letting the sun wash over me, thinking nothing would change.'
'If you take my hand, will you promise not to let go this time?' 'This time.'
'I misunderstood you, didn't I?'
'It's not the same anymore.'
'I wish you'd stayed.'
'You still miss me, don't you?' 'Of course not.' 'Don't lie to me. I could always tell, with you.'
'Some of us have to grow up sometimes, alright?!'
'But that wasn't now. That was a different time, a different place. Things have changed since then.' 'So have you.'
'I always hated goodbyes.'
'You don't forget how to know a person.'
“Severus’s things,” McGonagall said, eyes falling on the boxes that sat outside of the Potions Room. “He has no family, Mr. Potter. His things will be collected and vanished.”
There was a pause as Harry contemplated the few cardboard boxes.
“Could I take them?” he asked.
“Certainly,” McGonagall said, not hiding her surprise.
He unshrunk the boxes at Godric’s Hollow and methodically unpacked the contents. After visiting Hogwarts, he had also gone to Spinner’s End to collect the rest of Severus's things. Everything else was free to be vanished or taken by the Ministry.
Most of the items in the boxes were old and falling apart, clearly well-used. Harry tried his best to be gentle with these things. A lot of the books he was tempted to lend to Hermione, but ultimately decided that she wouldn’t have appreciated all the little notes in the margins.
It wasn’t until he reached the second box from Spinner’s End, that he found something interesting: a handful of letters.
He flipped through them — all unsent, and all addressed to his mother.
Harry held the letters tightly as he ran upstairs, bursting through his parents’ office door. He went straight towards his mother’s desk and found the set of letters in the upper right drawer. Pulling them out, he set them side by side to Severus’s letters and began to read them.
“I’m still seven. In my head,” his mother had written. “I’m still sitting by the lake bank, pushing my fingers into the sand, letting the sun wash over me, thinking nothing would change. You’re there too.”
In the back of his mind he saw them there, together in Cokesworth. Harry flipped through Severus’s letters.
“You loved me once. Remember? I don’t expect you to do it again, but I’m asking you to understand…” He skimmed further down. “But that isn’t now. That was a different time, a different place. Things have changed since then.”
“But so have you,” Harry found in his mother’s unsent letters. Further down, “I wish you’d stayed.”
“Some of us have to grow up sometimes, alright?!” Severus had scribbled furiously in his elegant font. This letter had been crumpled and from the stains on it, wet. “It’s not the same anymore,” it read.
“Do you remember,” his mother had written, “when we held hands as we contemplated about running away together? If you take my hand, will you promise not to let go this time?”
“This time…” Severus had written, “things will be different. Things will be better.” ‘Better’ had been underlined twice.
“I miss you…” This letter was riddled with tear stains. Harry trailed his hand gently over his mother’s letter. “You still miss me, don’t you?”
“Of course not,” Severus had written somewhere in one of his letters, and it was almost like they were talking to each other right before Harry.
“Don’t lie to me,” she said. “I could always tell, with you.” A line or two further down, “You don’t forget how to know a person.” Harry looked at the date. It was a night before she would die. “But maybe… I misunderstood you, didn’t I? I thought that you…”
“Lily, please,” Severus begged. “You know me. You know me better than anyone . You know that I’ve always hated goodbyes. For you I’d say it endlessly if it meant I could see you again. Please, don’t let this be our last…”
They had written to each other on the same night, Harry realized. Both of their last letters to each other. All of them, unsent.
“Harry?” he heard a voice down stairs. More quietly, “What’s all this?”
He raced down the stairs, heart pounding in his chest.
Ron and Hermione were there in his kitchen surrounded by Severus’s things. Harry couldn’t help the relief flooding his body and the smile invading his face.
“Bloody hell, Harry,” Ron said, making room for Molly’s cooking. “It’s like you’re moving in all over again.”
“What is all this, Harry?” Hermione asked again. “Oof — ! What’re you doing?”
She laughed as Harry engulfed both of his best friends in a hug.
“Nothing,” he said quietly. “Just…”
