Do know that I—we—love you. That is the most important thing; that you understand the feelings that your mother and I have for you, because you are my son in every sense of the word—you are our son. However much I do not wish you to read this letter will not in particular help us, so it is my duty—mostly because I gave my word to someone—to tell you this, even if telling you means writing this letter just in case.

So, I guess, my son, it will best to begin with the beginning.

I will never say that I was the best person in my youth. Growing up, I had everything I could want at my age. My parents denied me nothing, and I had never heard the word “no”, not from anyone. I’m not proud of that, of who I was. It’s a terrible thing, to be so ignorant of the world, to only see that little sphere in which you’ve lived in all your life.

I’d never met anyone different from me, or at least no one that had the complete opposite view on things that I had.

I must have been eight or perhaps nine when I met one of my cousins. My mother had always been close to her sister growing up, even though my mother was ten years older than her sister. I asked, upon learning this, why I hadn’t met my aunt ever before, and was surprised at the answer.

My mother came from one of the old pureblood families, though they weren’t too concerned with blood, my grandparents had not approved of the man my aunt wanted to marry. His being a muggle hadn’t been a problem, but it had been his treatment of my aunt, though she had noticed nothing.

My aunt didn’t want to go against her parents and her sister; she trusted their judgment even though she loved him, but she also had a secret. She was pregnant. This was the only reason she went against their judgment and married him.

Mother told me, then, that she never saw her sister again, not until she showed up in St. Mungo’s with her son, a boy about my age, both bruised and hurt. They were coming to stay with us until she was back on her feet.

I hated him. I didn’t understand him. Ignorance.

He was small for his age, wore ratty clothes, most of them too big for him. His hair was greasy and looked unwashed, his overly large nose was crooked and I expected it had been broken at least once. He was like nothing I had ever seen, sniveling about something or other all the time. I didn’t understand him—I didn’t want to understand him.

My mother loved him. She thought he was a sweet boy. They had a lot in common, much more than she had with me, they could talk for hours about potions and other subjects that I had little interest for. My father, too, liked him. He allowed Severus to read the books in his study, though I couldn’t understand why. Half the stuff in there could put me to sleep.

His mother was nice enough if fidgety at times. She most often remained by herself in her room or in the drawing room. She hated anyone to touch her and half the time didn’t even seem to care for her son, while other times she was overprotective of him. They were both odd.

Severus knew I hated him, or at least he had guessed as much, so he stayed far away from me for the month he remained in the house with us.

I saw him from time to time, but was more than happy when he stayed away.

Thinking back now, I don’t know why I was so cruel to my own cousin, to a boy that had clearly been hurt, a boy that my parents were trying hard to help. His mother was no better after all.

Severus grew to hate me, after the first prank Sirius and I played on him once we had begun Hogwarts.

Our history was bad to begin with, but once we were in separate houses we continued to grow into enemies, Sirius didn’t much help this with his hate for Slytherin, though Remus tried to stop his—our—taunting.

I could bore you with the details of those seven years, but I imagine maybe you already know them.

Your mother was beautiful.

I only noticed this during our fourth year, and I decided to first try and be her friend, but she hated me. She wanted nothing to do with me. I wasn’t deterred to win her affection.

Lily was Severus’ friend. She was his partner in potions, and quite brilliant at it. She was also his object of affection. You could say this infuriated me, but that would be an understatement. I hated him so much more then. He wasn’t good enough for her. He was a Slytherin; he hung around other Slytherins that were far worse than he was.

What bothered me more than just that was how much she cared for him in return. How could he get Lily when I couldn’t. I didn’t understand it.

When I saw them together in our fifth year I was so mad at him. Sirius played a cruel prank on him that year, almost leading to Severus’ death if it hadn’t been for me. He hated me more for that, for owing me his life.

I could say that after that incident Severus changed for the better, but you see his mother died, killed by a muggle, the story went. He became bitter and not even Lily could get through to him. Everyone could tell I guess. He was so withdrawn.

At the end of the year he and Lily had a falling out, and even though I was happy about it, I couldn’t watch Lily cry. I tried to talk to him, then, but it was useless, you could say, he was so deep into the dark arts and his friends in Slytherin; he hardly cared about Lily anymore. It was as if his ability to love was gone.

That summer he came to stay with us once more, for the entire summer. This time I attempted to get to know him, to get him to maybe go back to his old self but he was always busy, always doing something.

Terrible as this was I let him be.

Our next year was much the same. He was back to normal, almost, though you could see a difference. He and Lily’s relationship was not the same this year, but lucky for me, she began to see me in a better light and became my friend.

The next year Lily and I began to date. It was to me great.

What I have told you so far isn’t much to detail everything, but to give you something so long to read might put me off the real reason for this letter.

It took another year for Lily to finally marry me, but by this point I had no doubt in my mind that she was in love with me. I loved her, at least. My parents died within a few months of each other two or three months after my wedding.

I did not see Severus after our last day at Hogwarts, though he often went to see my parents. He didn’t come to my wedding though he was invited. I didn’t blame him. You could say that by this time I was near tolerating him, I wanted to put our past behind us.

The next time I saw him was when my father died. I knew almost instantly he was a death eater, but I said nothing.

Dumbledore formed his order next and Lily and I were ready to join. The order of the phoenix was plainly put the strongest force against Voldemort. I was surprised to see my cousin next to Dumbledore on the first meeting. Dumbledore explained then that he had turned spy.

Lily was ecstatic, I could tell, but she said nothing to him.

I saw how much she loved him still but didn’t say anything about it to her even though I knew she was still hurt about his betray earlier on.

After a couple of months they began talking and I allowed it. I loved Lily and I had grown to care for her so much I didn’t want to take anything from her. I wanted her happy, even if that meant her talking to Severus making me as jealous as ever. We too had come to an understanding. We would be at most cordial to each other.

Around this time Lily and I tried hard to have a baby. We wanted family, and my mother wanted a grandson to love and care for. She wanted something else in her life to take the place of my father’s death.

Lily became pregnant a few months later. We were so happy, but told no one, a few weeks later the most terrible event occurred, she suffered a miscarriage. We were devastated. The first healer we went to see was Madame Pomfrey and she announced to us that we would never be able to have children, or at least I couldn’t. But Lily wanted a baby terribly and I wanted nothing more than to give her what she wanted.

Lily found the charm and the potion. They were meant to help us conceive a baby but they didn’t work.

So we tried something else. It would only work if it was my family member. As long as I gave her to a family member and performed a spell on her afterwards the baby in question would be mine in all forms of the word, except biologically.

This is why I write this letter, for you to understand so much. You see, my son, the spell was meant to make you mine only in a legal way, but always you would be his son. Always, you would his.

I told Lily he was the best one for the job. He loved her still and added to that he didn’t want a son, not like me. We agreed quickly enough that he would be the best for the job. Severus loved her and I knew she loved him. It was in a way my way of telling her that I knew even though she loved me that she could love him as well, and that if she wanted to be with him in the end, wanted him more than me that she could have him instead of me.

So, this is the reason for this letter. Know that your parents loved each other. Know that I am your father regardless of anything, even though he too is your father. I don’t want to take that away from you. I love you even though you aren’t mine, and if you’re reading this letter I’m long gone and I wish more than anything that if he’s still alive to give him a chance.

Severus Snape is your father, Harry.

He loved you for the time he knew you. I must say at least that much. You see his memories of you, of the fact he was your father were deleted, put into a pensieve. He’ll be getting them back at least some twelve hours after you get this, with it comes an explanation from Lily.

I’m so sorry for this coming to you now instead of earlier. Know that only Lily and I knew about it afterwards.

I love you Harry. Please give a chance to him. You need to understand his background to understand him, and I want to you something else. Just one thing: I want you to understand that everyone is the way they are because of who their parents are, the way they grew up. I also want you to know that no one is the way they appear to be on the surface. I wish I had known that a long time ago, that I could have been a friend to my cousin. So try to be open minded and allow people into your life, people you would never allow in before.

Love,

James Potter (your father)

P.S. The reason you look like me is a charm your mother put on you. This charm will begin to wear off on after your 16th birthday, slowly. It could take from 6 to 12 months to completely wear off. The memories in the box are for you understand how much Severus, Lily, and I loved you. The diary is something Severus wished for you to have, you must read it.