Atoning The Past by Lupins Mistress

August 17, 1996

Severus glared at the offending basin and its whirling blue liquid. He rolled his eyes at himself. He was being stupid. He knew he was. And it was just as well. He sighed. They would change nothing of his perspective. They were just memories—his memories. He wasn't a coward, he knew this, and a bunch of memories would not harm him in the least. He moved his hand cautiously and traced the strange markings on the edge of the basin, and then with a small amount of trepidation leaned forward and fell into the memories within.

Severus opened the wooden door and quickly closed it behind him, though a few flakes of snow still managed to make it into the small kitchen. He quickly brushed a few snow flakes off his shoulders and shook his hair at the hearth, before bringing out his wand and cleaning up his mess. After this he took off his heavy winter cloak and scarf and draped them over a chair, before he walked through a door across from the one he had just entered through.

Two people sat in the next room. The woman in the closest chair to the fire with a book propped up in her lap; the man staring at her from a writing table where he seemed to be constructing a letter.

"Severus!" Lily jumped up with a grin, and rushed to his side. "I didn't think you would come."

Severus just raised an eyebrow.

She rolled her emerald eyes at him and reached for her hand. He allowed her to pull him out of the room. As he passed the other occupant he gave him a nod and continued on following her.

Lily led him up the stairs and into the closest room to the stairs.

"We just finished it yesterday," She announced with a smile.

Severus looked around the room and nodded. He walked farther into it, looking down at the small crib sitting by the wall.

"Perfect for it," Severus said.

Lily grinned. "I know it's strange," she said a second later, "to be planning this so ahead of time, but James really is excited and I think he may just be okay with you as his father."

"He?" Severus asked.

"James thinks I'm being silly but I just have this feeling. I just know it will be a boy."

Severus found himself smiling gently. Only Lily could achieve to put a true smile on his face.

Severus Snape moved his rook and smirked at James Potter. James groaned, but stared at the chess game spread out in front of him, seemingly to take in every piece, and then he sent his cousin his own smirk.

"I've got you now, Snape," James said and reached forward. He moved a piece.

Severus did not look as if he had just been bested, instead an amused look played across his face and without a second thought moved his queen.

"Playing that dratted game are you, now?" Lily entered the room, and even though she seemed disgusted by the chess game, a soft smile was on her lips.

Severus looked up at Lily and gave the red head a saint smile.

James didn't seem to have noticed the appearance of his very pregnant wife, but instead was frowning over the chess board. Lily smiled at him fondly.

"If you could leave that game for just a few minutes, I would appreciate help," Lily said, her eyes never leaving James' figure.

He was a small pink think wrapped up in a green blanket. That was Severus' first impression of his son. But despite the strange look to him, Severus couldn't hide from himself that he at least cared for the boy—his son.

"Isn't he beautiful?" James came up behind him.

Severus turned to look at the man that he had learned to hate at a young age. James was almost in tears as he looked at the boy that wasn't even his son.

"Thank you," James said.

Severus had nothing to respond to that. He couldn't very well say, "you're welcome." As he searched for a reply, however, James had moved towards the baby lying in a small basinet.

"Come here," James called in a whisper after a pregnant pause, motioning to Severus with his hand.

Severus hesitated for a moment, but then he stepped forward and joined James at standing in front of his son.

"What is his name?" Severus asked.

"Harry," James whispered. "Lily picked it out. Harry Severus Snape."

Severus shook his head. "Harry James Potter."

James gave him a dubious look, but said nothing, instead gently he reached towards Harry and brushed his hand against the soft rosy cheek of the boy he would always consider his son, and then he pulled back.

"He's yours," James said, walking away. "He always will be."

Severus found he could say nothing to this.

Severus pushed the hair out of his face as he stepped out of the fire. He quietly moved across the room careful not to wake up the red haired woman o the couch with an open book lying on her stomach, her hand carefully sitting atop it. He walked to the kitchen but found no one, so he continued back to the other room and then walked up the stairs. He heard giggles. A small smile crept into his face and he walked to the nearest room.

James was sitting on the floor with Harry on his lap, while bubbles floated around them and Harry was trying to grab them.

"Having fun?" Severus asked.

James grinned. Harry looked up, wide eyed at Severus. Severus rolled his eyes at the boy and watched him get interested in a bubble that came close to his nose, nearly brushing it. Harry let out a huge squeal and joyous giggles.

"I've been waiting for you," James said. "It didn't feel right, waking up Lily, but I do have to leave soon."

Severus nodded. James slowly stood up, holding Harry to him, and then walked towards Severus. "They're sending us out to a relatively normal patrol tonight. I should be back within two or three hours."

"Alright," Severus said and reached for Harry. James dropped a kiss on Harry's head and handed him to Severus, and then with a nod to Severus walked out of the room.

Severus gave Harry a small smile and then sighed. "Are we going to have fun tonight, Harry?"

Harry cocked his head to the side and reached forward with his small hand. Severus pulled his head back. "No, Harry, not my nose."

Harry giggled as if he understood and did not try to reach the potions master's nose again, but he pulled at his hair. Severus merely pried it off his fingers, and sent a spiral of Harry's favorite bubbles his way. Harry followed them with his glinting eyes and Severus simply smiled. It was wonderful to see his eyes light up at the smallest of things, when out in the world it was chaos that ruled everything.

His eyes were closed as he pressed his forehead against the cool pane of glass that made up the only window in the small nursery, looking out into a cobbled street, watching a couple strolling peacefully with a small dog that didn’t really seem to require the walk as it was attempting to lie down on the street and rest. His black eyes followed the two innocent muggles as the woman picked up the small dog and cuddled him in her arms, receiving happy buoyant licking from the canine.

Severus moved away from the window, letting the curtains fall into place. He rubbed at his forehead with the heel of his hand and then crossed the room to the wooden crib from which a baby looked towards him with interest.

“Harry,” Severus said with fondness and reached to pick of the miniscule body, cradling him in his arms. “Oh, look at you, you wonderful boy.”

Baby Harry gurgled happily, one of his arms reaching clumsily upwards as if attempting to grab something from the air.

“Silly child, I’m not James,” Severus told him as if Harry could understand perfectly well what he was saying.

Harry looked up at Severus perplexed.

“You know I love you, Harry,” Severus told his son. “Even though you do not understand me, I wish you could somehow always know that I’ll love you, but maybe that is what will make this better—your lack of knowledge. So I will talk freely, even though I am quite aware of what will happen in two days. I will have lost you from my memory.

“I can only hope that when, if, there is a moment in time when we know who and what we are to each other that then we will not lose our heads and that we can try to get this back, because at this moment I don’t know if I could live without you in my life. You are my son, even if James will be your father in that perfect way that will make it so much harder for you to allow me into your life. I’m surprised at myself, really, at this attachment, because this was always the plan. You were supposed to be his not mine, maybe it’s just you are so easy to love…”

Severus dropped a kiss on Harry’s head. “Merlin, this is harder than I imagined.”

Harry looked at him with his big green eyes as if he knew what would happen.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Severus told him. “Years from now I’ll probably hate you and I won’t even remember you trusting me so much, and you’ll probably hate me too.”

Harry moved slightly in his arms and Severus smiled at him crookedly before walking to Lily’s chair and sitting down, holding Harry close. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to forget you,” he told his son.

Severus held Harry in his arms. The boy was calmly staring at the wall as if he knew what was going to happen. Severus smiled fondly at him and ran a hand through the boy's thin black hair.

They just had to wait for James now, and then everything would be done. The Potters would go into hiding and he wouldn't see them until the war was over, and then he wouldn't even remember them. He wouldn't know that their "son" was actually his. He wouldn't know that James and he had begun to have a slightly better relationship. In fact, he would know nothing at all that would make a difference even if the Dark Lord were destroyed the next day.

The door opened with a creak and Severus looked up.

Lily was in tears, and James seemed to be smiling grimly with his arm around her shoulders. They both looked reluctant to do it.

"If I let even one little thing slip, he will know," Severus said. "It will make things worse for Harry, then. This is something we must do."

It had been his idea. He'd been the one to decide their course of action, and they would do it the way he wanted it to be done. He would be the only one losing anything out of all of this. They wouldn't be hurt by this, and more importantly Harry would not get involved with the Dark Lord and everything else going on, out in the world.

Lily nodded. "I know," she whispered.

"Potter," Severus said. "Let's get it over with, shall we."

He stood up and gave Harry a bounce. The boy smiled but did not giggle as was his usual reaction.

Lily sobbed and walked forward. Severus handed her Harry. Severus moved towards James and watched his cousin bring out his wand. James muttered a spell

Severus pulled himself out of the penseive. He sat back in his chair and groaned slightly. The onslaught of emotions had been too much for him. For he who had pushed away all emotion for so long. He hadn't once imagined how much that little boy had made him feel. He had loved Harry. Loved him. And now it was an emotion that he couldn't even ponder, but now, looking back he couldn't stand how he had treated his son. He hated how much grief he had caused the green eyed boy.

It had been strange to witness those memories, to see himself hug and cuddle Harry Potter—Harry Snape—to see himself allow him so many things that he would never have allowed anyone else. He had told the baby so many things that granted he would never have understood anyway, but that he knew he would never have mentioned to anyone else.

Severus sighed. How different would his life had been had he been able to retain those memories? If the dark lord had killed Lily and James regardless he would have readily taken in Harry had he been aware of who the boy was. How would that have changed him? But still the question of whether he would have slipped haunted him. It would have ended up so much worse had that happened. He sighed. There was no changing the past. Nothing he did would bring them back or change the fact that he had asked James Potter to take his memories.

It was different to see the memories after so many years, not having felt what came with the image of the people involved before that very day, and having held an undying grudge against his cousin for the past twenty years, at least—in his mind.

He didn't know now how to even approach perhaps getting a somewhat better relationship with his son, if he even wanted to try that, but he knew he could at least try something for Lily, and—he grudgingly admitted, even though he had seen the different James in the memories—James. They wouldn't have wanted Harry to not know him, they obviously didn't, otherwise they wouldn't have gone through all the trouble. That was something else that bothered him, now. He didn't know what to do. He didn't even know if he could look at Harry and not bring back all the memories to the forefront of his mind.

Severus took a deep breath. He needed to stop over thinking it. He needed to just accept that the boy that now was his son was not the same boy that he had hugged and held as a baby. He also needed to accept that Harry did not need him as his father. He had said so earlier that night, though not in so many words. Severus frowned. Did he want to be Harry's father?

Severus rolled his eyes at himself. He brought out his wand and waved his wand at his memories and brought them up to his temple, letting them all enter his brain at once. It took a few minutes for them to set themselves and then he sighed, getting up. He needed to stop over thinking everything.

August 18, 1996

Madame Pomfrey was muttering something from her office. It was loud enough that Harry could catch some of the words, but not loud enough for him to know what she was talking about. Snape was sitting in the other side of the room, reading, while Dumbledore sat next to Harry with some sort of pensive look on his face. Harry had been sitting in the plush armchair he had been led to when he entered the hospital wing hours earlier, and simply looked around himself, deep in thought.

It was odd to think that his magic was just growing, and that the reason it had stopped working was more to do with Snape than with him. Apparently he had been completely and utterly charmed to look like James Potter, that even his magic had been altered and now, that was the beginning of his metamorphosis.

Harry sighed. That was why his wand had given out the strange sparks and whistle. Not only had it recognized his signature, but it had also denied it. That had been the part Snape didn't understand, that his wand hadn't wanted to work for him even though it had bonded—picked him—to begin with. Dumbledore, too, had not been completely sure about that part of it even with his extensive knowledge of wandlore. The entire point had been that his magic had only ever been in part, not that he hadn't been strong magically before, but, and this was the big thing, he'd had more power at his grasp but the spell his mother had put on him had hid that not only from him but everyone else around him.

Harry sighed.

Snape looked up at him.

Harry rolled his eyes at the man and turned back to simply staring at the wall opposite him. He was bored, and with Snape attempting to read an entire book so that he could figure out some way to help with the problem, and Dumbledore taking the entire thing as if it was just a walk in the park, and Madame Pomfrey worried out her wits about him, not to mention the fact that she wanted to know everything there was to know about his mother's charm on him.

"Do you wish to do something to entertain yourself, Harry?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry frowned at him, but nevertheless nodded.

Dumbledore seemed to almost be as excited about this as a child learning a new game as he brought out four strange objects from his cloak.

"Well," Dumbledore said. "I haven't played this game since I was, well, I can't even remember. I do think I know the rules, but if we have any trouble, I'm sure your father will help us out."

Snape who had been watching them snorted and hid behind his book, as if the book being between him and the headmaster would protect him from having to do anything if Dumbledore had forgotten the rules to his game.

It had taken the better part of two hours, but Snape had finished his reading at last, but he said nothing about the book. Instead as soon as he had closed it, he sat as still as possible in his chair before standing and leaving the room altogether. Harry who had been in the process of reading one of the magical cards that came from one of the objects Dumledore had brought out earlier had jumped at the sound of the door and his father's footsteps.

"I do believe he has some idea what might be going on," Dumbledore said with a shrug.

Harry found the headmasters entire attitude towards everything somewhat disturbing. He was too mellow!

"We will have to postpone our game, I think, Harry," Dumbledore said a moment later. "You look as if you want to rush after him. Curiosity is not always a good thing, you know."

Harry rolled his eyes, but nodded regardless.

Dumbledore waved his wand around and all his things went back into his cloak, before he stood up. "Shall we?" He asked.

Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes but instead followed the headmaster out of the hospital wing.

Snape was in his classroom when they got down to the dungeons, but he was not brewing, instead he was moving papers around atop his desk and muttering to himself.

"It has to be here, I know it does," Snape said with a groan.

"What could you be looking for, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

Snape said nothing in response but continued throwing papers about on his search for whatever it was that would be useful to him. Then suddenly he stopped as if a brilliant idea had come over him, and he was rushing past them towards his office.

"It must be here," He said again, and then after a few minutes of looking around on his desk he found what he had been looking at, he sat down and he began to read.

Harry and Dumbledore watched him from the door and waited for him to say something, but Snape didn't, because mere minutes after he had finished reading his overly important paper, Voldemort was calling him, and Harry felt his scar burn.

"Occlumency, boy!" Snape said to him, rushing past him.

Harry barely nodded, and then closed his eyes, pulling his thoughts within his mind, especially the recent development of his loss of magic, and then he pushed everything behind a tight wall. The pain was gone almost at once, and Harry opened his eyes to see his father in death eater robes rushing out the door. Dumbledore still standing next to him had a worried look on his face, Harry was surprised to see, but did not express any more concern than that.

"I'm afraid he took his precious new development with him," Dumbledore said.

Harry looked at the man and shook his head, and then said, "How can I get back into his rooms?"

"Yes, I imagine you'd like to be more comfortable. Your first day here has not exactly turned out to be the perfect day. Just through there," Dumbledore said, he showed Harry how to get back into Snape's quarters and then without further ado claimed to have a meeting with his phoenix and left.

Draco Malfoy rolled his eyes at his mother. He'd just arrived home from the latest meeting, where thankfully Voldemort had been in a good mood, for he had not punished one of them. His mother of course, would hear none of it as she grabbed him by the shoulders and led him to the nearest chair.

"Oh, but, Draco," she cried, "there could be all number of things wrong with you."

Draco rolled his eyes at her, but allowed her to lead him away. He didn't care really, it was just that he had gotten his first assignment that night, as it were, and it was not one that he wanted or felt as if he could accomplish. He knew Voldemort was just hoping he would fail, it would be punishment for his father, for his so called treason. Draco groaned.

"What's wrong, what hurts, Draco?"

"Nothing," Draco muttered. He hated how annoying his mother had gotten lately. He blamed it on his father mostly. Most of it hadn't begun until he had wound up in Azkaban, but it had been there in the background.

"I have to kill Dumbledore," Draco muttered absentmindedly.

His mother stopped smoothing over Draco's hair and looked at him with wide eyes. "What?" She asked, then, "No. No. He can't ask you to do that. You're just a boy. You can't be expected to kill someone like Dumbledore…unless…" And realization dawned on her. "He expects you to fail, to hurt that fool of a father of yours." She groaned. "Oh, my baby!" She cried and threw her arms around him.

Draco struggled to get out of her hold, but finally relented when he felt her crying against him.

"It's alright, mum," Draco said gently and patted her almost awkwardly on the arm.

His mother cried harder. "I hate your father," she said after a moment. "He's gotten us into this mess and now he's not even here to get us out of it."

"I can do this, mother," Draco said. "I can fix this."

"You think he won't kill you, that he won't punish you when you fail?" His mother said, then, "I'm glad at least you aren't happy with this."

Draco barely gave her a nod.

"Severus!" She said suddenly. "Yes." And then she was standing and she was muttering to herself as she walked away from him.

Draco frowned. He didn't want his mother getting far too involved with the entire thing, but he wanted a way out, but that didn't mean he wanted help from Severus Snape. From what he had seen so far the man was on Voldemort's side. It was his fault his father was in prison and his fault that Draco now had the task to begin with.

Draco stood up and with a frown walked to his room. First, he needed sleep. There were only two weeks left of summer and he was going to enjoy them, especially with what he had to do once the year began.