And Counting || Silvanna Snape

PART TWO - Chapter Twenty

 So that was ten.

 She counted the days as they went by, dragging in and out. The war was over and there was nothing left to do. Twenty-three days went by so she packed up their rooms, sending clothes to charity shops and books to the Hogwarts library. She'd never noticed but Lily liked to annotate hers. Maybe Harry would like them one day...

 After twenty-seven days she decided to redecorate, just for something to do. One-hundred-and-nine was the day she lost count, because that was the day she went back to Gringotts.

 It was busy there, and with the war over there were hundreds of new investments and projects. Businesses starting and incentives to get everyone back on track. But she only lasted three-and-a-half days until someone's laugh was a bit too close to James's. A week after she saw a flash of crimson and gold and felt so sick she took the next day off.

 Her supervisors understood though, of course they did. They'd even prepared for the fact that everything might be too familiar. She was on a different floor than she had been before her marriage, and worked with different people. But she could hear them all in every word spoken. Mrs McKinnon was echoed in the scottish lilt of an assistant, and the lady who made the coffee was from Nottingham and sounded just like Lily. Every corner she rounded, every street she walked, every shop she'd browsed; she'd done it all with them.

 They called her in one day, after the headlines surged once again.

 SEVERUS SNAPE, FORMER DEATH EATER, NOW APPOINTED HOGWARTS PROFESSOR

 The rumours were true then. Her brother had been cleared. It felt cruel and unfair in every conceivable way. She'd done everything she possibly could and had still lost it all. Even her justification of staying to spy - that she might save her friends - had not been true. And there he was, he who had committed every atrocity, a prime position at Hogwarts under the man who had promised her everything, and given her nothing.

 It had been a hard day for her, and she'd vistited James and Lily when she'd read the paper. They didn't have proper gravestones yet as the earth above them was too fresh, but there were small wooden plaques acting as markers. She apologised again, and cried some more, before leaving a bunch of peonys and finding a bottle of firewhiskey.

 'Have you thought about a transfer?' asked Elliot, the wizard who ran their department. 'There's an opening for a position in our New York branch.'

 She thought about it that evening as she ate her evening meal. Here she was surrounded by the freshly painted walls, but there was still the ghost of Harry's fingerprints, the creak of the pipes that made her think for a moment that someone had turned on the shower. Every morning the Prophet landed on the mat, still reporting news of her former family and late friends. Every evening she came home and sat alone. Yes, a new start would be clean and fresh.

 It was supposed to be better in New York, and in a way it was. The laughs were different, the accents foreign to her ears, and the newspaper shared economic growth and Ilvermorny curriculum advancements.

 But still came the flick of the wand, the flashes and sparks that they'd cast together in the Gryffindor common room. So when weekend she locked her wand away, in a small chest under her bed.

 It was the first time in years she'd known peace. In all these years...never had she thought that this could be a solution.

 She did the only thing she could think of. Silvanna Snape left the wizarding world.