Harry Potter looked out at the group of young faces watching him anxiously.  It had barely been a week since his defeat of Voldemort and here he was sitting in front of the whole school explaining what had happened.  He hadn’t expected this, but the Headmaster had requested it and after several rounds of heated debate between Harry’s father and Dumbledore, the two had come to an agreement, so here Harry sat.

His speech about the actual defeat of Voldemort had gone over fairly well.  Most of the students paid at least some attention to what he had said.  There was a round of polite applauses before Harry agreed to take several questions from the audience.  A number of hands shot up excitedly, each trying to be a little higher than the next.  Choosing to ignore the reporters in the back of the room Harry pointed to a hand somewhere out in the middle on the left side. 

A nervous looking Hufflepuff girl stood up, she couldn’t have been more than a second year. Her blond hair came down to just under her chin framing her face. “Mr. Potter, sir, you talked about fighting alongside your dad during the final battle. You were talking about Professor Snape, but my older brother is in your year. He told me that you hated Professor Snape and that he hated you too. Can you tell us a little more about that?”

Harry let out a nervous laugh. “You can just call me Harry. What’s your name kid?” He asked giving the girl a reassuring smile.

“Uhh… Bridgette Macmillan,” she said the surprise showing on her face.

“Ernie’s your big brother?” Harry asked hiding the mirth from his voice.

Bridgette nodded.

“I guess I should’ve expected that question.” Harry said shifting on his stool and starching the back of his neck.

Harry cast a glace over his shoulder to his father.

Severus nodded. He had expected at least one of the students to ask. The story had only broken a few weeks earlier and it was still quite the buzz in the school rumor mills. Most of the students were too scared to ever approach the imposing Potions Master to ever ask the questions they had about it though.

Now however, they had Harry Potter, a far less intimidating figure despite the fact that he eliminated one of the most evil wizards of all time in front of them and willing to answer their questions for the first time since the news had come out. Harry had refused to talk about the news, even before Umbridge banned the students from discussing the matter.

Harry gave his father a nod in return before turning back to the group of students in front of him. “If somebody had told me I would have graduated Hogwarts after defeating Voldemort, I probably wouldn’t have been that shocked. However, if they had told me that my father would have been right by my side I would have laughed and suggested they see a Mind Healer at St. Mungo’s. If they had gone on to tell me that my father was in fact not James Potter, but rather Severus Snape, I would have hexed them. There was no way that “the greasy git of the dungeons” could be my father. Then how did we get here? That’s a good question, one without an easy answer.”

He let out a sigh. “I guess it all starts with the dementor attack on me and my cousin last summer. You probably have all heard about how Umbridge sent a couple of dementors after me, but in case you haven’t. It was early August and I was stuck at my cousin’s house like every summer…” He began his tale his eyes glazing over as he became lost in memory.

****

August 1995

Harry sat alone on the only swing that Dudley and his gang had not yet managed to break yet. It was getting dark. Harry could hear loud, crude singing coming from nearby, the voice was distinctive. It belonged to his swine of a cousin Dudley Dursley. Kicking the ground under his feet one last time Harry rose from the last intact swing. He started his walk home; he had no desire to be late again, late being any time after Dudley made it home.

Harry hurried to catch up with his cousin once he was alone. “Hey Big D!” Harry called out.

Dudley turned.

“Oh,” he grunted. “It’s you.”

“How long have you been ‘Big D’ then?” said Harry.

“Shut it,” snarled Dudley, turning away again.

“Cool name,” said Harry, grinning and falling into step beside his cousin. “But you’ll always be Ickle Diddlykins to me.”

“I said, SHUT IT!” said Dudley, whose ham-like hands had curled into fists.

“Don’t the boys know that’s what your mum calls you?”

“Shut your face.”

“You didn’t tell her to shut her face. What about ‘popkin’ and ‘Dinky Diddydums’ can I use them then?”

Dudley said nothing. The effort of keeping himself from hitting Harry seemed to be demanding all his self-control.

“So, who’ve you been beating up tonight?” Harry asked his grin fading. “Another ten-year-old? I know you did Mark Evans two nights ago—"

“He was asking for it,” snarled Dudley.

“Oh yeah?”

“He cheeked me.”

“Yeah? Did he say you looked like a pig that’s been taught to talk on its hind legs? ‘Cause that’s not check, Dud, that’s true…”

****

“Yeah, I was being a major league git." Harry admited. "I deserved anything and everything that Dudley wanted to do to me. So, I was teasing my cousin pretty bad. But, that’s when he mentioned my nightmares. I was having them almost every night after Cedric’s death. I got upset and pulled my wand, the worst possible thing I could probably do when at the Dursleys. Then everything went dark and cold.

“I could feel the dementors before I could see them. Dudley went running right at them. Of course, he couldn’t see them. I finally found my wand; it had been knocked out of my hand when my cousin punched me. Like I said I deserved anything he wanted to do to me. Though, for this I didn’t. He thought I was responsible for making everything dark and all the feelings of happiness being sucked out of him.

“I yelled ‘Expecto Patronum’ and luckily a huge silver stag erupted from my wand. It chased the dementors away, but then of all people to show up was my batty old neighbor Mrs. Figg. This woman has a passion for cats. Every year when Dudley went to places for his birthday, I got to stay with Mrs. Figg looking at her photos of her cats. So, it was more than a bit surprising when she told me not put away my wand, just in case there might be more out there. That and she was threatening to kill Mundungus Fletcher.”

“Anyway, we manage to get Dudley home. That wasn’t an easy task. He had collapsed after the attack and had yet to recover. So I was more than half carrying a boy twice my size. My uncle instantly lost it after seeing Dudley vomiting on the doormat.”

“Dudley was aware enough to tell my aunt and uncle that it was my fault. I had putted my wand, so of course it had to be my fault. It wasn’t long after this that my whole life changed. After the letters that came. The first was from the Ministry, telling me that I was expelled. The other was from Mr. Weasley, telling me that the Headmaster had gone to the Ministry; I was to do no more magic and NOT to surrender my wand.”

Harry let out a sigh. He hadn’t thought much of that summer night since his trial. It all seemed so long ago, when in reality it was still under a year. How strangely time past at points. Sometimes it dragged, like in any History of Magic class, at other times it flew by, like most of this last year, since that night really. “As if all of this wasn’t exciting enough, it wouldn’t compare to what my aunt had to tell me.”