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Harry had been told long ago about Severus Snape's past, but not just what he then told the wizarding world, but also a secret job he had been doing while spying for both Dumbledore and Voldemort.
So it was that Harry strode into the Potions classroom mid lesson and ordered the students out. He turned and faced his irate partner.
'What are you doing, Harry?'
'I have some bad news to tell you, Severus. You may want to sit down.'
'And why would I do such a thing?' Severus replied. 'Just say what you came to say.'
Taking a deep breath, Harry spoke with a somber tone.
'Your other self... the actor, Alan Rickman died earlier today, Severus.'
Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't that. He was glad that had his chair directly behind him. He fell into it.
'H-How?' Severus croaked.
'Cancer. No-one but his family and close friends knew about it.' Harry went on. 'Here, he left you this letter.'
Harry handed over the plain muggle envelope with his name and Scotland below it. Harry meanwhile had moved around the desk and placed his hand on his man's shoulder and gave it a supportive squeeze.
'You know where I am, if you want to talk about it.' He said before he left the classroom, closing the door quietly behind him.
Severus just sat there at his desk stunned - he couldn't believe it... Alan was dead?! He had spoken to Alan at Christmas. And to Severus, Alan had sounded fine. Why hadn't he told him? Severus had counted Alan as a friend.
He glanced down again at the unopened envelope. Closing he eyes breifly he took the envelope, opened it and removed the folded paper inside.
Dear Severus
I am writing to say Thank you...
By the time he had finished reading, Severus sniffed and cleaned his face, before he stood up and stormed from the room, through the dungeon corridor and up into the Entrance Hall, where he strode across the Hall and out into the grounds, where he turned and made his way hurriedly down the path until he reached the main gates.
He was just about to apperate away, when Harry stepped out of nothing and pulled him back.
'Severus, you can't go storming into the muggle world.'
'And why not?'
'If you return to the muggle world Severus, the muggles there are going to think that they're going crazy. They've spent the whole day hearing about Alan's death. If you go into that world and someone sees you, well...'
Slowly nodding, Severus' shoulders slumped.
'Come, Sev. I have an idea.' Harry went on, as he guided the man back through the gates and back across the grounds, detouring towards the black lake.
Stopping at the water's edge, Harry waved his hand and out of the water came a small perfect sphere comprised of water. Puzzled, Severus raised an eyebrow and looked at the ball of water to Harry and back to the water ball again.
Harry brought the ball over to Severus.
'Take it, Sev.'
Unsure, Severus took the ball from the air in front of him and held it up.
'What do I do with this?'
'Place all your memories of Alan into the ball and it will act like a pensieve. Only with a pensieve every time you view a memory the memory will eventually distort and break over time. With this, you can view it permanently by placing the ball into a frame that I have already placed in our rooms. The frame will act like a muggle slide show screen. You'll also get volume control too, so that you can hear them or turn the volume down and just sit back and look at the show, without sound.'
Unable to tell Harry his thanks, Severus kissed him and together the two of them made their way back to their rooms, where Severus placed the ball into the frame and watched with teary eyes as the memories played out.
On the bottom of the frame was a silver plaque, it read: Alan, in Memoriam