Harry
A quiet knock at the door pulled Minervas attention away from the tedious administrative tasks she was working through, she called to the visitor to enter. The door crept open and Harry Potter stepped in quietly.
“Hello, professor.” He said, smiling awkwardly at her, “I came to see Professor Snape, well, his portrait at least.”
“You’ll get a portrait at most, Potter. I’m dead.” Came the blunt voice from the painting.
Sheepishly, Harry stepped in front of the man in the frame and cast his eyes, Lily’s eyes up at him.
“Sir,” he said, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve.
“Potter.” Severus replied, folding his arms and looking at the bottom corner of his frame.
“I’ll leave you two to it, no risk of you getting into a scrap I suppose.” Minerva said, glaring at Severus as a warning before she closed the door behind her.
A moment of quiet passed.
“I haven’t got all day, Potter.”
“I mean… you kind of have.” Harry shrugged, smiling uncomfortably.
“There’s a seamstress in a portrait on the fourth floor. I would rather be sticking her pins in my eyes than having this conversation but here I am so get on with it. What can I do for you, mister Potter?” Severus shot back, glaring at Harry.
“I just… I… sir,” Harry sighed, unsure where to start, he returned his attention to his sleeve, “thank you. Without you, we wouldn’t have won. You gave your entire life up, any hopes and dreams you had to the order and… and I hated you. Now-“
“Now you merely dislike me?” He shrugged.
“I respect you,” Harry raised his eyes to Severus once more and held the former headmasters gaze, “I respect you and I admire your bravery and your loyalty to my mum. You were a good friend to her.”
“I got her killed, she always deserved better than me.” He replied in a tone softer than Harry had ever imagined possible from the harsh man.
“She… she smiled when my dad hung you upside down. I think you maybe deserved a better friend than her too. I know my parents weren’t perfect, no one is, but I think she’d have forgiven you, after all this time, after all you did. I know I do.”
Severus looked at him, dumbfounded, relieved to hear words he didn’t know he’d needed to hear before. Albus had always maintained Lily would forgive him but to hear it from her son, it was a monumental moment for him. If he had a heart left beneath his painted robes, it would have twisted painfully in his chest. His dark eyes brimmed.
“You forgive me?” He spat, venom in his voice, blinking away the moisture in his eyes.
“Yeah, I do. I forgive you, for everything. Seeing your memories, it makes sense why you were how you were. I’m not saying you were a saint, you were cruel at times but I can’t stand here and say you’re the worst person in the world. You made a mistake and it cost you-“
“Everything.” He whispered.
“Yeah, that.” Harry shrugged, looking down at his shoes. “But if you hadn’t told Voldemort about the prophecy, he’d have never chosen me and I’d have never been able to defeat him. It had to happen, I suppose.”
Severus snapped his gaze away, almost wincing at Harry’s words as a silence stretched between them.
“I wondered if you’d like your ashes scattered at Godricks Hollow, where-“
“No!” Severus snapped, desperately, “not there, not where she died.”
“Oh. Is there-“
“The river.” Severus said gently, “the river by Cokeworth.”
“The river.” Harry confirmed, he gave Severus a nod of understanding as he turned to leave.
“Potter?”
“Sir?”
“Thank you.”
Harry gave the painted man a nod and a small smile before making his way out of the room, a task to carry out. Ginny was waiting outside the office for him, she linked her fingers through his and together they set out to find Minerva, to retrieve the ashes of the spy.