Severus grabbed another parchment from a rather large stack and cursed himself for ever becoming a teacher not that he had a choice in the matter. He squinted at the essay, trying to decipher the barely legible handwriting. Usually he would have graded it as Dreadful without giving it second glance. But this essay was written by a muggle born first year which would make it her first attempt at writing with a quill since it was still very early in the school year. So he put some effort in reading the words which might as well have been written in another language.

He looked up when he heard a tentative knock on the door. It was most likely a student, considering the hesitancy of the knock. He considered not answering and going back to grading essays but then glanced at the little mountain of parchments he had in front of him and grimaced. Some distraction would be welcome at the moment after staring at first years abysmal attempt at the essay on Forgetfulness potion. He put his quill back in the ink well and sat up straight with his hands on the desk in front of him.

“Come in” he said sharply.

His right eyebrow went up in surprise when he saw Potter entering his office. He hadn’t expected the boy to seek him out voluntarily after his godfather’s death, especially not twice.

“Good afternoon, sir.” Potter said fidgeting with an envelope in his hand.

“Potter, I thought I made it clear that you were not to enter my office unless it was absolutely necessary, did I not?” Severus said still seething at having his privacy violated by the boy previous year.

Before Potter could say anything he continued.

“I hope you are not here again to ask me to resume the occlumency lessons.”

“No, I am not” Harry said through gritted teeth remembering how he had practically begged the man to resume the lessons not long after Sirius’s death. He knew that if he had managed to close his mind from Voldermort, Sirius might have still been alive. So he had went to Snape to request him to start the Occlumency lessons again so that no one else would have to die again because of his mental link to the dark wizard.

But it had only resulted in another heated argument between them when Snape had refused, calling him too lazy to learn anything and then proceeded to badmouth his father. So he had went back to the Dursleys for the summer, fuming and certain that the man was on Voldermorts side. But had ended up questioning the Potion master’s loyalties all over again after receiving a certain letter on his sixteenth birthday.

He took a deep breath to quell his anger at the man. He wasn’t here to fight with Snape.

“I received this during the summer and I think maybe you should take a look at it.” he said putting the envelope in front of Snape on the desk.

Severus opened his mouth to ask why, he would ever want to read Potter’s fan mail but then clicked his mouth shut when his eyes fell on the envelope, it had a brownish hue to it. He lifted his hand and traced the familiar writing on the front with his fingers. He hadn’t expected to ever see it again after all these years.

Harry stared at Snape his fingers curling into a fist. He could immediately tell that Snape had recognized the handwriting when Harry himself hadn’t at first glance. He hated how everyone knew so much about his parents when he knew so little about them even after sixteen years.

Severus took his eyes off the envelope that he had been staring at when he heard the door shut with a loud bang and realized that Potter had left. He would have went after Potter and rebuked him for his insolence if he hadn’t been distracted by the envelope sitting so innocently on his desk.

The date 31st October 1981 was written on the front of the envelope. It was the day when Lily was killed by the dark lord. Severus turned it over and found it already opened. He emptied the contents of the envelope on the desk and found a letter and a picture. The letter was a white muggle paper. He unfolded the paper and frowned. The letter was addressed to Potter. It was written with a pen instead of a quill. Lily had always been more comfortable with muggle paper and pen. It read,

Dear Harry,

Today I would like to tell
you about a very special boy
that I knew. He lived a few
minutes away from my childhood
home in Cokeworth. We met at a
park near his home in Spinner’s
end when we were nine years old.
He was the one who told me that
I was a witch and not a freak.
He told me about the wizarding
world and Hogwarts school of
witchcraft and wizardry. Which
you will be attending when you
turn eleven Harry.

We went to Hogwarts together
when we turned eleven. I was
sorted in Gryffindor as was your
father. But Severus was sorted
into Slytherin. But we promised
each other that we will always
remain friends and never let the
animosity among both of the houses
break our friendship.

James and Severus however could
never see eye to eye. They were
always at each others throat. I
tried to be Sev’s friend through
all this. Unfortunately one day
during our fifth year James
started tormenting Sev in front
of every one. I tried to help
Severus and stood up to James
but everything got out of hand
and Severus called me something
that was a very bad word for a
muggle born witch like me. I was
very angry at him and left. After
that day we drifted apart. Severus
started spending most of his time
with Malfoy and his lackeys. Our
friendship started to deteriorate.

To this day I wish I hadn’t been
so hasty in ending our friendship.
I let a single word that Severus
had uttered in anger to ruin our
years of friendship.

Anyways I am telling you all of
this because I want you to know
that even if your dad and I don’t
make it, you won’t be alone. There
are lot of people who care about
you Sirius, Remus, Peter,Dumbledore,
even Severus.

He made some wrong choices but I
refuse to believe that he is
anything but a good person. I know,
no matter how broken our
relationship has become he will
always protect you if I could not
survive.

I will write to Severus too. Maybe
we can still salvage our
friendship.

With love,
Lily

Severus clutched the letter to his chest. Lily never got to write the letter that she promised she would. This was probably the last letter she ever wrote. If only he had not been so stubborn and just talked to her after their fight which ended their friendship.

Severus couldn’t believe that She had still cared about him even after so many years. She had wanted her child whom she loved so much to know about him. She had spent last moments her life thinking about him, writing about him. She had trusted him to protect her child.

She would weep knowing how he had treated Potter all this years. He had let his hatred for James Potter cloud his mind so much that he could barely remember at times that Potter was also Lily’s child. He felt a stray tear rolling down his cheek and clutched the letter to his chest.

After a while he put the letter down and reached towards the picture that Lily had sent to Potter along with the letter. It was a muggle photograph of him and Lily in a park they always visited as children. They were sitting in the grass next to each other. Lily was facing the camera with a huge smile on her face. While he was gazing at her with a soft smile on his face.

Harry felt a nudge on his side and looked up to find Hermione glaring at him. He rolled his eyes and glanced at the picture inside his book before closing the book. He sighed and tried to focus on what Flitwick was saying in front of the classroom. After a few minutes he glanced at Hermione who was furiously writing on a parchment with furrowed brows. He turned his head towards where Ron was drooling on his desk next to Neville. He opened his book again and found his parents smiling at him from the picture with a baby Harry fussing in Lilly’s arms. He pulled the picture aside to look at the three letters tucked inside the book.

He had received a parcel on his birthday along with presents from his friends and Remus. It was a small box wrapped in a brown paper with Gringotts seal on it. Inside the box he had found four letters with different dates on them. He had been so excited when he realized that they were from his mother. He had read all the letters in one sitting devouring each and every word she wrote.

The letters had answered some of his questions regarding his father. She had written how she had hated James at first because of his immature behaviour and his bullying of other kids. But then had fallen in love with him eventually. She had written about how James had matured since they started seeing each other. But had also complained how he always turned into something worse than a toddler with sugar rush when he and Sirius were in the same room.

She had a lot to say about Sirius and James trying to teach baby harry to say the word ‘Quidditch’. He had felt sick at how she had even written about Pettigrew. She had trusted him, considered him a friend. He felt himself growing angry thinking about how Pettigrew had betrayed his parents, which had ended up being one of the reasons they had died.

He had felt a pang in his chest when he reached the last letter knowing why she had stopped after writing the fourth letter. He had read the last letter over and over again trying to understand how she had ended up being friends with Snape the greasy git of all people.

He jerked in shock when he felt a thud on his desk and looked at Hermione slamming her books on the desk. He looked around and saw everyone putting their books away and leaving the classroom.

“Honestly Harry you are turning as bad as Ronald. You two need to start paying attention in class. At this rate you are going to fail all your classes.” Hermione said slinging her book bag over her shoulder.

He groaned Hermione had started calling the red head Ronald instead of Ron just like she always did after a fight with him.

“Hermione, school has just started there is a lot of time to catch up.” He said carefully putting his book in his bag, making sure none of the letters would fall out.

“Its never too early to start studying.” She said in her patronizing way which meant she was going to go on a tangent about studies and exams and everything else Harry and Ron were doing wrong according to her.

“Besides don’t you get tired of cramming everything and rushing to do your homework at the last moment.” She said.

“You do that too, Hermione. No matter how early you start, you are still trying to improve your essay till the last moment.” Ron said walking next to Harry.

“I wasn’t talking to you Ronald” she said glaring at him.

Harry subtly slowed down his steps so that he wouldn’t get caught in the middle of their argument. He could still hear them bickering as they made their way towards Potions classroom. He followed them trying to stay behind them.

He was dreading potions but was also looking forward to it at the same time. He had been baffled after reading his mum’s fourth letter. He could have never imagined that Snape would turn out to be her childhood friend. The way she had written about him, it was clear the she was close to the potion master. She had wanted to fix her friendship with Snape, but probably never got the chance.

He wondered if she knew about Snape’s deatheater status. Would she have still wanted Harry to trust the man if she did.

When they entered the classroom Harry ignored Hermione and rushed to sit next to Ron. She had started sitting next to Harry since the year had begun. As much as Harry loved her she was starting to get on his nerves.

Harry sat up straight when Snape entered the class room. Snape flicked his eyes around the room and then stopped when he caught Harry’s eyes. Harry tapped his fingers on his desk nervously when Snape kept staring at him. Finally Snape looked away swishing his wand towards the board.

Harry gathered the ingredients and started making the Felix Felicis potion as per the instructions on the blackboard. All the while he could feel Snape’s eyes on him. Ron and Harry peered at their potion. Harry shrugged at Ron. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They could still get passing grade for it.

Harry cleared their desk while Ron went to turn in their potion. He then made his way towards the door where his friends were waiting for him.

“Potter” Snape called.

Harry nodded at his friends and told them to go ahead.

“Yes sir?” he said standing in front of Snape.

“Where did you get that?” Snape questioned gesturing towards an envelope on his desk.

Harry shrugged glancing at the envelope and then back at Snape.

“It arrived during the summer on my birthday. It was sent by Gringotts. I was supposed to get it on my eleventh birthday but there was some mix up, so I didn’t get them until my sixteenth birthday.” He answered.

“What do you mean by them? How many of them did you get?”

“Uh there were four of them. That was the last one.” He said pointing at the letter on Snape’s desk.

Snape looked at him with a frown. Harry fidgeted with his book bag nervously.

“Why did you give it to me?” Snape said after staring at him for a long time.

“That was my mum’s last letter to me. She spent her last moment writing about you. But she never got to talk to you or uh write to you like she wanted to. So I thought maybe she would want you to know that she uh uh er cared about you” he finished awkwardly.

Snape narrowed his eyes and went back to staring at him.

“That… was thoughtful of you” he said pushing the letter towards Harry. Harry picked it up.

“If you still desire to continue your Occlumency lessons come to my office after your classes.” Snape said hesitantly.

Harry looked at him in surprise and then gave a jerky nod.

“But I will end them again if I get the impression that you are slacking off. Or if you go back to invading my privacy” Snape said with a pointed glare.

“Yes, sir”
“Good, you are dismissed.” Snape said motioning towards the door.

Harry went towards the door and turned around to face Snape.
“You can keep the picture if you want to” he said lifting the envelope.

“That won’t be necessary, Potter” he said

Harry frowned at Snape. Did the man already have his mum’s pictures? How close were they exactly? He thought narrowing his eyes at the man.

“Potter, leave unless you want to help me clean up the class room for the next class.” Snape said without looking at him.

Harry quickly left the room. Maybe Snape could tell him more about his mum. He hoped she was right to trust Snape.