Severus was in his lab late tonight.

It was almost ready. He couldn't believe six months was almost up. It was hard to believe, honestly. The months hadn't passed as boringly or unpleasantly as he expected them to, after the first one anyway. There were even days he almost forgot to come down here and check on things.

Things being the potion. He hadn't asked for anything from Albus for his part, but this he was doing for himself.

Hermione staying evenings as she had gotten into the habit of doing the past few months was a blessing of sorts. He knew what date the potion would be ready. His coma or Nagini's venom hadn't made it so he couldn't count. Her presence prevented him from sitting down here for hours, staring at it like a child waiting for Santa Claus.

As if that would make time move faster.

So instead, because she was here, and him being down in the basement for hours would be suspicious, he just came to check to be sure what he was waiting for was still on track and hadn't been tampered with. (Or knocked over by her infernal feline!)

To this point it was on track and tamper-free. And feline interference free (a rodent in the cellar was always possible, too, he imagined).

This close to the potion being ready and his end finally near, he now spent the evenings after she'd left sorting through things as best as he could. A couple evenings he hadn't felt like it, so he'd woken up early to tend to it for a bit before she arrived.

Depressing, which did nothing to help his already rather despondent mood, and rather tedious.

It had to be done, though. He tried not to make it obvious, because she was astute and observant, but he needed to go through these things. He didn't want her, or anyone else, to have to do it. It would be plainly obvious which things he didn't care whether they were burned in a huge bonfire.

Why he cared about making it easier on anyone he wasn't sure.

Except.

He knew that she would come.

Even if he dismissed her. When she heard about his end, she'd come. She'd want to know. She was the only one who would truly care.

How pathetic was that?

Forty years old and no friends, no loved ones, no one who would miss him. Lucius, perhaps, but even if Severus lived he knew that friendship wasn't one to continue. Voldemort may have been defeated, but there were people who still held to his beliefs. Lucius was no doubt one of them. Oh, he may have become disenchanted with the Dark Lord himself after months of him taking over Malfoy Manor and when his son's life got thrown into the proverbial ring. The beliefs of blood purity and people like Miss Granger being lesser than, or stealing someone else's magic, did not just disappear because the war was over.

That reminded him, he would leave instructions that there was to be no service. No one would show up anyway! No one who would truly mourn him anyway. Hangers on. People who'd show up to see if he was truly dead. No one who'd actually wish to pay their respects to him.

Except her.

A few times, as summer turned into autumn, he wondered where he'd be if he'd had a friend such as she was. Ever. Lily wasn't ever that kind of friend, not thinking back at it with an adult's perspective. Harry James Potter had no idea how incredibly lucky he was.

Or maybe he did.

Severus didn't know, nor did he care to find out.

He did know, though, that his life wouldn't have been nearly so miserable if he'd had someone remotely similar to her.

She was smart, too smart really. And sharp. There were times she had a retort before he fully realized what he'd even said. No social life to speak of, obviously, that she was willing to spend almost all of her evenings here. He knew she was not paid for all of the time she spent here, which was why he'd extended her the opportunity to stay in the evenings and eat with him.

Oddly, she seemed to like doing it.

Odd, because never in his life had anyone enjoyed spending time with him.

Hours.

And she didn't bother him incessantly.

It was … companionship and quite comfortable. Two things he'd never had, certainly not together, in his life.

Last night, she hadn't returned to her flat until almost one in the morning. They'd watched an old VHS copy he had of Close Encounters of the Third Kind . She'd never seen it. It was one of the last things he'd seen before.

Before everything.

Before he'd taken the Mark.

Before Lily died.

Before he had to watch her son endanger himself and others at every turn.

He'd always liked muggle films.

Actually, contrary to popular belief, he didn't hate anything specific about muggles.

Other than his father.

He honestly wasn't even certain he hated the man any longer. He had once upon a time, for certain. With age and experience, well, he could understand his father's bitterness. He could not understand how he could allow that bitterness to spread, how he could be so cruel. How he could do nothing to better improve his situation rather than just seeming to revel in it. However, he could understand how he probably felt that life just kept kicking him when he was down. And he knew, as he was going through things to prepare for the day he was finally able to take control and end his life on his terms, that it was very much the pot calling the kettle black.

As Hermione pointed out, he had prepared for a rainy day. Or something catastrophically bad happening. He wasn't destitute, and other than the Dark Mark, he would have been untraceable had he chosen to leave. And if he'd had to flee, living amongst muggles would have been his option.

So, no, he didn't hate muggles.

He shunned his muggle background because it suited the rhetoric he needed to sell in order to stay in with the Dark Lord and the death eaters. Albus had known all along Riddle was only down, not out. Severus wished he knew how the old wizard knew that. Had he known about the horcruxes all along? (He hadn't learned about them himself until after the fact.) Severus would think not, otherwise Albus surely would have taken the time in between the wars to find the items and destroy them. Or at least amass them so they were in the same place and could be destroyed when Voldemort returned.

They'd discussed long after the movie had finished the possibility of extraterrestrial life. She'd brought up a television show he hadn't heard of that her parents liked, The X-Files . She hadn't watched many episodes because it started while she had already started her schooling at Hogwarts.

The implication was, though, that maybe they could watch it together. He hadn't agreed necessarily, but he hadn't scoffed at the idea either. Of course, he wouldn't be here much longer to get through multiple seasons of an American television show. It sounded as if it was still being made.

Both ended up agreeing that aliens would probably flee earth, hoping they never saw it, or its kind, again.

A lot of stuff down here was junk, which was the reason he'd put off going through it. It needed to be done, though. He wondered what his dad would think realizing his life had come down to boxes of shit that no one gave two fucks about.

Severus certainly didn't.

Really, he was ensuring there was nothing … disparaging to be found. He never specifically told people about his childhood. Rumours abounded, some factual and some not. He would not allow people to gossip about him even in death.

Less likely, but there could be something valuable down here, too. Anything like that would go into a box labeled specifically for her .

She never came down here.

Well, not anymore.

He knew she had in the beginning to ensure he didn't have any helpless victims chained up against their will, or illegal potions brewing. Not that she'd ever said that was what she was looking for, but he knew. The Ministry had to be sure the big bad death eater wasn't fooling everyone and rubbing their faces in it. Even if she didn't believe he was, it would be a requirement her superiors put on her as part of her job to look and report that everything was acceptable.

Finished for the night, he made his way upstairs, slowly. He was moving better these days. She was doing a good job. If it mattered. The cane was still necessary, but he found he wasn't as dependent on it as he had been.

She'd done a good job securing the handrail for the stairs leading from the basement.

Who knew she was that handy?

Then he was coming to the conclusion, after nine years of knowing her, that there was little Hermione Granger could not do. Much like himself.

The railing used to be loose to the point it was almost unsafe. He'd never had much need of it until recently, so hadn't bothered to fix it. Not that he cared about falling to his death at this point. Except it would begrudge him one last visit with Lily if he went in that way and not the one of his planning and making.

He stopped in the kitchen to cut off a small bite of the brownies she'd made earlier. It seemed every week there was some sweet she baked. Sometimes he'd help, not that she needed it. They worked well together now. That hadn't been the case the first time he offered to assist with dinner. She had a system, he did not. At that point he hadn't cooked for himself in years really, because until Hermione came he'd made sandwiches and such, if he remembered to eat at all. It only took him once or twice to assist without getting in her way.

He made his way upstairs to the second floor and his bedroom then and went to his dresser. There, he slid the piece of paper out from underneath his wallet, keys (not that he needed them), coins, a muggle pocket knife that had been his paternal grandfather's, and other things he wanted accessible. He put another tally mark on the slip of paper. It was the last thing he did each night before going to sleep.

Not that he didn't have the date etched in his mind.

One day closer.

He was ready.

Of course he'd been ready over two years ago, had planned and accounted for it. She wasn't wrong in that he had stashed money and documents. He'd had no one to leave them to before, so had willed them to Draco.

Now, though, he knew someone who would actually put that saved money to good use. He knew what she was doing, trying to get him to talk. She was trying to heal more than his physical ailments. She was attempting to heal his mind. And his soul. He suspected with a windfall, she'd use it to further her education to do for others what he was beyond hope for her to do with him. At the very least, she'd ensure research was done so that the wizarding world could heal: mind, body, and soul.

Blasted do-gooders had to make sure he was taken care of and hadn't been taken away by death eaters to be tortured or his corpse defiled. Not that he remembered any of it. He wished he could say he had eighteen months of memories of time with Lily. The things he wished he could talk to her about!

There was so much. He wasn't even sure where he'd start.

Would she believe things like computers and the internet even existed?

Would she believe he was a professor? (Had she known that before her death? He had no idea what they'd been told.)

Would she be completely disappointed in him? He'd ended up doing exactly as she feared.

He hoped not.

He hoped she'd forgiven him by now.

What if she hadn't?

That was not something he wanted to think about tonight. It could make him alter his plan.

These same questions and thoughts, or variations of them, went through his mind just about every night before bed.

Every night before bed he had to force them from his mind. Occlumency was wonderful for things like that, too.

He went to the lavatory then, taking care of his end of day needs before returning to his room for bed. Only to do it all over again tomorrow.

How had his life gotten to this?

He'd aspired to do great things. Those aspirations were what led him to be a follower of the Dark Lord. If only Albus had paid him half of the attention he paid Harry Potter when he'd been a student here instead of presuming he was always the guilty party. He thought his life could have been much different.

Her attempts to get him to leave the house were welcome and appreciated, as much as he hated to admit it, but he never imagined his life would truly end here within these walls. It would be appropriate, though, he supposed, to meet it here. His father, while an abusive tyrant, didn't have it in him to do the actual deed of committing murder. He hoped his father's ghost was here when he finally succumbed.

Not that he'd ever seen any evidence either of his parents were here.

That would be appropriate, though.

Story ©Susan Falk/APCKRFAN/PhantomRoses.com