It was a blisteringly cold evening, white flakes whirling to the ground in delicate swirls like frosty ballerinas to add to the thick white blanket on the ground. The landscape was as bleak as it was beautiful; bare trees groaning under the snowy weight on their bare branches, the Black Lake frozen solid and the castle itself a dark forbidding presence. Few lights showed life and warmth, all the students had gone home for the holidays, taking with them all joy to be found. Instead, there was only the cold marble sarcophagi; one in elegant and beautiful ivory and the other in stark black; a forbidding counterpoint to the virginal snowscape.

Before them was a figure clad in black, a cloak wrapped firmly around the frame, doing a poor job of insulating its owner against the frigid onslaught. The person had been stood so still, for so long one might have assumed it were a statue; perhaps a dark angel to stand guard over the souls laid to rest. But a closer look would show them shaking; trembling not only from the cold but also the courage of even coming to this place.

The figure faltered and fell to her knees, the wind sweeping back her hood in spiteful jest, toying with her long dark hair and freezing her tears as they laid cold tracks along her cheeks. Pale hands, blue with cold, reached out and swept the snow from the inscription on the tomb. With a pained expression, she lovingly traced the name inscribed in silver: Severus Snape.

"Why?" she choked in a whisper. "Why didn't you tell me? You should have known, I was always there for you. You needn't have gone it alone." She laid her recriminations at a man who would never answer, as more bitter tears fell. He had always known, and he had pushed her away. And she had let him.

Elektra had no idea how long she had knelt there, only coming to realise how cold she had become when she felt a warming charm being cast upon her, and noticing the soft welcoming glow of a Lumos from behind.

"Come along child, ye can do nae good here, the deid can offer nae comfort to the living." A soft Scottish brogue encouraged kindly. Elektra looked up into the sympathetic face of her former professor.

"He was everything to me, Professor. I wouldn't have abandoned him, he knew this." She said, allowing herself to be assisted up from the snowy ground.

"Aye, and I did too. Anyone who knew ye did. He was a good man, and he didnae want to see ye hurt." McGonagall agreed

"But I loved him!" Elektra sobbed.

"And he loved ye too. He's bin waitin' for ye." The Headmistress replied. Elekrta stopped with a sharp sniffle.

"What do you mean, waiting for me?" she asked in confusion.

"His portrait. He was Headmaster after all." McGonagall explained. "since he came back he's been asking after ye, if ye've come, how ye are. 'Parrently he'd kept some interest in ye after all these years. Did ye never wed then?"

"No, never. I... no one was ever like Severus, I could never replace him." Elektra said weakly.

"Tis a damn shame, ye were a guid lookin' lass, still are in fact. Foolish boy!" McGonagall grumbled in the direction of her office tower. "Will ye come, speak with him?" she offered.

"No!" Elektra replied sharply, surprising the older witch. "I can't. Not after... this. Too many years, too much hurt. I... I can't. It won't be him." She said, tears beginning anew.

McGonagall seemed to understand ,flicking a brief, but not unnoticed, look towards the ivory tomb.

"Vurra well, but ye know ye can always drop in, even just for a sympathetic ear. I'll always have my door open to ye, even if ye dinna want tae speak to him. But ye should, ye know. Speak to him. Might ease the pain." McGonagall suggested.

"I'll think about it." Elektra said faintly, removing her wand from her robes and conjuring a dark red rose and placing it on top of the tomb, above the heart of the only man she had ever loved.

A/N: Brief and sad, yes I know, and sorry. But thank you for following my little story, which I cannot believe I finally finished!