They met up with Hermione’s parents, said goodbye to Rose and Snape, and continued their sightseeing.


Hermione seemed somewhat distracted all day, but she denied it whenever her parents commented on it.

Only after dinner, when she was alone with Harry, she confided in him: “Rose told me she found her birth certificate and ... oh Harry, you won’t believe it!”

“Why is it so shocking? Is she actually Voldemort’s daughter or something?” Now that would be creepy!

“No, but you might think it’s almost as bad. Professor Snape is her father.”

“What?” Okay, that explained why he was so nice to her, but it didn’t explain why he lied about it. “When did she find out? Yesterday?”

Hermione shook her head. “No, last summer already. She said she wasn’t searching for it, even, she’d gotten hurt and was looking for a healing potion, and thought she remembered her mother keeping some in the locked drawer in her desk, and, well.”

“That must have been a shock!” Harry wasn’t sure in which way, though. Perhaps Rose was just angry because Snape hadn’t told her?

“She was very upset. That’s why she tried to dye her hair, apparently. She wanted to see if she’d look more like him with darker hair.”

Why would anyone want to look like Snape?

On the other hand, Harry did like that he looked very like his dad. Just that his dad hadn’t been, well, Snape.

What was about as baffling was the thought that Snape must have had a girlfriend. Had he used a love potion? “Did she tell you about her mother, too?”

“Yes, and ... that’s rather weird, you know? I guess it is better if you sit down before I tell you ...”

Harry sat on his bed. “What could be more shocking than having Snape as a father?”

“Well, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions but the name of her mother was ...” Hermione drew a deep breath. “Lily Evans.”

“No way!” That just couldn’t be! It couldn’t!

Slowly, realization sank in, and Harry felt like he had a clump of ice in his stomach. “That’s why she has the same eyes as me ...”

“As I” Hermione corrected. “Sorry. As I said, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, there’s villages in Wales where everyone is called Evans, it is not that rare a name ...”

“Yeah, I guess ...” But what were the chances that there was another witch called Lily Evans, of about the right age?

“If you are half-siblings – and I don’t say you are, we just don’t know right now – then your mum would have had Rose when she was still at Hogwarts.” Hermione frowned in concentration. “That would explain why she was shipped off to France ... people used to hush such things up ...”

Harry groaned. “Not helping.”

“It’s just a theory. Anyway, Rose asked me to research things, ask around in Hogwarts, and so on. And don’t look like that – wouldn’t it be great to have a sister?”

Having Rose as a sister ... yes, that would be nice, if it didn’t mean he had to think about Snape and his mother and ... ewww.

Harry decided to think about it as little as possible. Hermione was right, they couldn’t be sure it was the same Lily Evans.

“Oh, and don’t tell anyone about it – Rose said her parents’ names are secret for some reason Snape refuses to tell her. Anyway, I don’t think he’d be happy if everyone at Hogwarts knew he has a daughter.”

“Why isn’t Rose more angry? I mean, Snape lied to her.” And hadn’t she accused him of being ashamed of her? That made sense now, he must be, or why didn’t he admit he was her father?
Of course, Rose had more reason to be ashamed of Snape than the other way round.

“She is angry. It’s just that she thinks if he’s lying to her, he won’t admit it anyway if she asks about it, so she doesn’t want him to know she knows. If we ask around for her, she has more of a chance to find out the truth.”

That made sense, but Harry still couldn’t understand how she had been able to keep it to herself. “Her whole life is a lie!”

Hermione sat down next to him. “He only really lied about being her father. The part about her parents not being able to take care of her could be true – he must have been very young at the time. Rose figures they might have passed her off as her mother’s younger sibling or something. She hopes there’s some good reason why Snape needs to keep everyone believing the lie, but even then, he could have trusted her with a secret.”

“She hopes Snape has a good reason?” In Harry’s experience, Snape didn’t need a good reason to be nasty. “Since when is he reasonable.”

Hermione shrugged. “Rose says he has always been reasonable with her. Told her she can’t know her real parents’ names because it’s a secret he can only tell her when she’s an adult. I don’t think he’s just doing it to annoy her. Perhaps it is just that he is embarrassed about it. He’s a teacher, he’d be setting a bad example if everyone knew he got a girl pregnant while he was still at school, wouldn’t he? He can’t be ashamed of her, she’s nice and gets good grades and all.”

Typical that Hermione would mention that! Harry hoped her parents wouldn’t be ashamed of her if she wasn’t such a genius. It didn’t seem likely. The Dursleys never would be ashamed of Dudley, even though he was so stupid. Why would Snape be ashamed of his daughter? It couldn’t be something to do with school, he couldn’t have known how she would turn out when he decided to give her away.

Except ... “Wait, what if her mum was a muggle and he thought she wouldn’t be magical? Filch acted like it was some shameful secret he’s a squib, so ...” That would mean Rose’s mother could be any random Lily from a village in Wales where everyone was named Evans, and not his mother. “Neville says his family wasn’t sure he would go to Hogwarts for a long time, so it’s possible, isn’t it?”

“And then she would already have been used to her foster parents”, Hermione said slowly. “But I really can’t believe he is that superficial.”

“Not more superficial than keeping her secret because of his reputation, is it? I mean, the Slytherins would hate him if word got out he had a muggle girlfriend.” Harry didn’t think Snape would have a muggle girlfriend, but you never knew. Love did seem to change people a lot. Love potions sure did.


Later, when it was time to go to bed, Harry remembered he had left his new book in the living room part of the suite. He tiptoed there, and found to his relief that Hermione’s parents were still up and he wouldn’t risk waking them. Their door was open, there was light inside and he could hear voices.

“Perhaps my idea of leaving Hermione to socialize with her new friend wasn’t such a good one”, Hermione’s father was just saying. “She was awfully quiet today, don’t you think?”

“It can’t have been her spending time with other children. Hogwarts is good for her, and you were right, she needs to become more independent of us. Do you think it was that teacher, Snape? If he so much as touched a hair on her head ...” Hermione’s mother sounded like she was ready to kill.

“He didn’t seem the type. If he was that sort of man, he would have acted nicer, wouldn’t he? Didn’t seem at all happy that he would have to babysit the children all on his own. If you hadn’t implied we would require even more babysitting, I’m sure he would have refused.”

Hermione’s mother chuckled. “True. He reminds me of a teacher I had – everyone knew she had wanted to become a scientist, but then she got pregnant and that was that. Terrible woman. Hated us all.”

“Perhaps he said something nasty about Hermione’s teeth. You know how sensitive she is about her teeth. And from what she told us, she was never alone with him.”

Harry wanted to tell them they needn’t worry, but then he would have to admit he had been eavesdropping, and also tell them about the secret Rose had told Hermione.

He would just have to tell Hermione her parents were worried. She would come up with some good excuse.


The holidays ended much too soon, and before he knew it, Harry stood at King’s Cross again, waiting for the train.

“Harry, Hermione, over here!” Ron waved.

They walked over to where the Weasley family was gathered.

Ginny looked much better than she had in a while, Harry realized. The change had been so gradual he hadn’t noticed anything at Hogwarts, but now it was obvious – her cheeks were much rosier than he remembered, and she smiled shyly at him.

“How was France?”, Ron wanted to know.

“Great.” Harry grinned. “Best holidays ever – no offence, staying at the Burrow was great, too, but I’ve never been abroad before.”

“Yeah, it’s different. We don’t go abroad much, mostly just to visit Charlie in Romania. Bill works in Egypt, but we can’t afford to go there as a family.”

When the train arrived, they were happily chatting about France, Romania, and how the countries were different.

Hogwarts welcomed them back as if no time at all had passed.

After Professor McGonagall had escorted them to Gryffindor common room, Harry immediately dragged Ron up the stairs to their dorm to tell him what had happened in the holidays – minus the things on Rose’s birth certificate. Harry wanted to be sure if it was his mum or not before he shared that with anyone else.

“No way!” Ron exclaimed. “Why would anyone put him in charge of a child? He hates children!”

“He doesn’t seem to hate Rose. But yeah, I was surprised, too. Don’t tell anyone, though – Snape would murder us.”