Debris

Another sunny day cast its light over walls rubbles and pavements ruins, rays gleaming hopefully through holes and layers of dust.

The air all around smelled like summer, faint scents of heating earth and growing grass, cheerful chirps and clear blue sky.

The-boy-who-lived-twice sat speechless on the past ghost of a staircase, the castle around him gloomy though being filtered with rays of light.

A faint, shy trace of victory amongst the empty spaces, the strong overwhelming power of sorrow filling all the rest.

It had been seven days.

One very week, indeed.

No one really spoke, everybody were scattered, over Hogwarts lands and far away, the Wizarding World had been turned upside down.

But the lonely boy at the end of the staircase, crooking and grasping his own knees - his knuckles dead white - couldn't manage to cram everything on his poor human brain.

Nobody was there with him, a few ones tried to get close in the last days, but he hardly spoke, barely conscious of the others all around him.

It was all about something he wasn't figuring out at all...after all the running, the bleeding, the thinking, the exposing, the bearing...his brain was worn out.

Empty.

Absolutely deprived of energy.

And his eyes started seeing dimmed colours, his tongue savoring insipid tastes, his voice using toneless, half-witted words, his skin uncaring of being naked or covered.

So, dazed, he watched his hands trailing invisible marks over the warm grass, waiting for someone to call everyone inside for lunch...elves were not to stop their duties, even in all that mayhem.

He had decided to bury every single dead with his own hands - no magic, no sir, there had been too much of it - and he started thinking about the three poor third year Ravenclaws he would have taken care of that afternoon.

A faint rustle and some few uncertain steps, and he lifted up his head.

On the other side, across the courtyard, he saw a dark tall figure standing.

The man leant over the rests of a mighty smoky wall, a bit panting, only his ghost-like features emerging from the black constriction of his prim robes.

They locked their glances at midair and the boy felt his face reddening under the piercing dark look of the man.

So there he was, saved by Kreacher skillful hands and brought back from the land of the dead he was going to.

Maybe - thought the boy - the other wasn't meant to be alive, maybe he had waited nothing but his death for all those years.

But the boy wouldn't have left him there, bleeding, crying, showing for once his TRUE, deep, moving loyalty.

Nonetheless, the boy wasn't sure of his actions and knew, deep inside him, he would have never stopped to fear the other man's judgment.

Then the man started limping towards him, slowly, and suddenly the courtyard seemed an enormous pool of unsaid thoughts in which the two of them were going to drown.

The boy felt the man's magic frizzling all around them, mingling with his own, being so pathetically protective and welcoming, so amazingly warm and caring.

After all the hate, the spiteful words, the secrets and the sacrifices...Tsk – the boy snapped - how could he have been so moronic?

The greenish flash of his eyes looked away, trembling with the idea of having hurt someone so dedicated, suffering and strong.

He had been put on that war like an attractive banner, he was no other than a mere hoax, a reproachful mass of lies piled on in almost eighteen years of misunderstandings.

He was no hero.

The man now standing menacingly in front of him was a true one.

The boy felt exploited and insignificant, older than his young age, not even worthy of being near the man.

He buried his eyes on the ground and felt all the weight of his now intolerable flaws, just as small as a tiny grain of sand.

- The desert dunes wouldn't exist without tiny grains of sand.- stated the man with his deep, velvety voice, a bit scratched due to his throat wound.

The boy shuddered but did not dare to lift up his eyes.

He hated to be pitied.

The air around him frizzled again, and something like an invisible plume danced carelessly insight his own brain.

- Stubborn as usual.- said the great Legilimens, and the boy felt even more embarrassed.

But he had no will to use Occlumancy at all, on the contrary, he prided himself with the right of not be cautious anymore.

He had had enough of every little thing.

The man sighed, probably perceiving also this boy's difficult state of mind, but didn't care to add anything.

He reached out his elegant hand to the seated boy and spoke again.

- It's time for lunch.-

The boy finally looked up at him.

His aged, pointed face; his raven-black, unkempt hair; his crooked awkward nose and his intimidating shadowy eyes.

Who that man was, the boy really didn't know anymore.

He tentatively grabbed the hand and stood up, careful not to burden too much the wounded man.

They were close, now, and the boy saw something different in the man's features.

It was like their lines were no more stern and harsh, no more crossed and constantly tense. I was like they now were a bit relaxed, smoother.

And the man's eyes, too, seemed time-worn but different, gleaming mildly with a sparkle that the boy would have recognized only a few weeks later.

The boy let out a profound gush of air, only partially aware that he hadn't been breathing properly in the last few days.

Then, driven but some kind of unbridgeable sense of loss and abandon, he moved towards the man's chest, bathing himself inside the funny coziness of his aura.

He sensed the warmth of life against his body and realized how dull and forgotten of everything he had been for days, weeks, months.

An the man slowly enclosed him with his shaking arms, without even saying a single word, as the boy rested the scarred forehead on his shoulder.

Their magical powers were still growing together, mixing and burning, when they untied themselves, glared astounded one another and silently went back to the castle, the boy leading and the man following.

The war was really over and in that precise moment the boy perceived a spotless jolt of hope for his future.

*End

Yuki's corner

Brief and ready to go, a bit of an experiment.

It's my personal vow for this 2014: being less dispersive.

I cannot imagine a world without Snape and in fact I kept imagining him alive after Hogwarts Battle. I guess it's normal, though. I hope I chose the right rating.

All the characters depicted are JKR's property and I do not gain anything from this worthless scribbling.

Yuki

Post review 1: thanks for your kind reviews and thanks to Imagination94 who informed me of the silly mistakes made in the summary (pardon my enormous distraction). Keep writing me if something is wrong and, obviously, I'd also like to know your opinions.

byebye!