Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

An Incriminating Photograph

Friday morning, Harry caught Ginny in the common room.

"Ginny?"

"Good morning!"

"Would you lend me a hair slide?"

Ginny giggled. "'Course. What size?"

"Um..." Harry ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it into position. "Like that?"

Ginny went to her tiptoes to look at the top of his head. "I've got a plain one that would do."

"Plain is good."

She giggled again, and rolled her eyes. "Men!" she said, and darted off.

She came back a few minutes later with a wood-backed hair slide. Zoë was with her. "Try this."

"Thanks." Harry smiled gratefully at her. "I'll buy one this weekend."

"Buy more than one. They get lost."

"Thanks."


Draco blinked at him when he sat down in Potions. "You look positively respectable today, Harry."

"Thanks." Harry grinned. "I'm practicing."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "For...?"

"I thought I might be a wizard when I grow up."

Draco laughed. "I'd hope so." He sighed and slouched back. "You were you sitting with Granger and Weasley at dinner last night," he challenged.

"Yeah," Harry admitted.

"I thought you were never going to speak to them again. That was what you said on Wednesday."

"Well, they went to a lot of trouble to apologize."

"That doesn't obligate you to forgive them."

Harry sighed. He wondered if it was worth trying to explain that it made him happier to be on good terms with them. "I need Hermione's help on a project," he said, instead.

"Oh," Draco said. "I suppose it makes sense, then." He toyed with his quill. "Would you like to go flying, again, tomorrow?"

"Sunday would be better."

Draco nodded. "Sunday, then. At the same time?

"Sounds good."


On the way to Defense Against the Dark Arts, Draco held Harry back from their classmates. When they were alone on the stairs, he said:

"About this project you need Granger for ...." He hesitated. "Could I help, instead?"

Harry shook his head. "No."

"I'm as clever as she as," Draco objected, "and more powerful. I know more spells."

"But I can count on her loyalty."

"Loyalty!" Draco repeated incredulously. "You said that she was spying on you."

"Not her loyalty to me. I mean..." Harry took a quick breath. "Politically."

"Oh." Malfoy's mouth lifted in a sneer of distaste. "That sort of loyalty. Yes, I suppose the loyalties of a Mudblood could be guaranteed."

"Watch your mouth," Harry snapped.

"You still like her," Draco accused.

Harry sighed and nodded. "I think that's permanent." He frowned. "Even if I didn't, that's an awful thing to call anybody. I don't think there's anything dirty about Muggle blood."

"Of course not," Draco said pointedly. "You are a half-blood."

"Yes. And I'm not superior to Hermione."

Draco relaxed and laughed. "Well, I think you are, blood or no."

Harry tried not to smile.

"Come on," Draco said. "We'll be late."


**********

"I found the information," Hermione said quietly, as she joined Ron near Hagid's hut. She led him a distance from the other early students.

"About what?"

She lowered her voice. "The Paternity Charm."

"Well?" He lowered his to match.

"It does wear off slowly, as blood is replaced. A bleeding injury will speed that up."

"Like Saturday?"

"Right.'

"What changes?"

"Well, it doesn't make someone look like the spell father, as you said. His traits replace only those inherited from the biological father. So traits he got from his mother will stay."

"Green eyes."

"Yes. And probably other things."

"How long does it take?"

"Six months, maximum, so if this started over the summer, it makes sense for him to say he'll be able to tell us by January."

"And we know Voldemort wasn't the father."

"I think that's a safe assumption."

"Anything else?"

"Hard to say. Dark hair is dominant, so it wouldn't be a blond or redhead..." Hermione mused.

"I think his hair is blacker. It used to be seal-brown, really. Now it's jet."

"And completely straight, rather than just not curly."

"And not messy."

"He's grown taller."

"But James was tall. Skinny, but tall, at least by the time he was seeing Lily."

"Did we figure out when he grew, though?"

"No." Ron frowned. "Maybe we should put the photographs in order."

"We haven't even gone through them all!"

"Still."

Hermione bit her lip. "It might help," she said slowly. "Can you help with it, tonight?"

"Not till I'm done with my Charms work," Ron said glumly.

"I can start by myself." Hermione stopped. She took a quick breath. "Or perhaps we should just wait until December."

"I suppose so."

"Why wouldn't he be able to tell us, though?"

"I still think it's got to be a Death Eater," Ron said confidently. "Or someone into Dark Arts in a big way, at least."

"What if it's the other way round?" Hermione asked.

"What do you mean?"

"What if it's someone whose reputation would suffer? Minister Fudge, say, or Professor Dumbledore?"

Ron looked slightly green.

"Ron? Hermione? Yeh' comin' to class?"

Ron and Hermione jumped guiltily and ran over to Hagrid. "This," he said proudly, gesturing at a seemingly empty cage, "is a tebo."


**********

After classes, Harry dropped some of his books off in his dormitory, and went to the library with his lightened bag. He hoped to go through the pictures, pull out any photos with Severus in them, or with Lily wearing his ring, and sneak them out of the library.

He made it into the archive room, and found the photographs without problem, but he soon realized that this was not a one-evening job. Not only were there more photographs then he thought, in no particular order, and spanning a longer time period than he had realized, but he couldn't rely on a single scan of a wizarding photo telling him what he needed to know. Just because a picture did not have Severus in it when he first looked at it, did not mean Severus was never in that picture.

After a few minutes of scanning through a selection of photographs multiple times, Harry developed a method. He picked up a half-inch section of photographs, and scanned to sorted them into three piles: definitely the critical years (1974 through 1977), definitely not the critical years, and photographs for which he could not determine the year. Before '74, he thought Severus was too much of a little boy to look as noticeably like him.

When his pile was three piles, he took the irrelevant one and put it in the back of the box, set the questionable one aside, and laid out the photographs from the relevant one on the table, in a grid. Then he scanned over the grid for several minutes, looking for either of his biological parents.

On his third set of photos, he stopped at a picture of Draco. Even as he raised it for a closer look, he realized the blond boy couldn't be Draco. This was Lucius, at Draco's age, or close to it. Lucius Malfoy had several other boys and one girl with him, but he seemed to be the leader of the group. Everybody looked to him, not only when he spoke, but when anyone else finished speaking.

Harry jumped when someone entered the room. He whipped his head around and saw it was Hermione.

"Looking?" she asked.

"I'd rather do it in private, if you don't mind."

Hermione, perversely, came closer and looked over his shoulder. "Who's in that one?"

Harry studied the photograph again. "Future Death Eaters," he said, remembering James had called them that. "See, there's Lucius Malfoy, and I think that may be Bellatrix -- unless she was younger? I don't recall."

"Why are you looking at them?"

Harry laughed slightly. "Because I saw Draco."

"But that's--"

"I know." Harry looked at the blond boy again and felt disoriented at the way he set his head back, like Draco about to say something cutting. "It's strange. Disconcerting."

"I find it weird enough, and I don't even like him," Hermione agreed. She looked at the photos that Harry had laid out in a grid. Harry was just opening his mouth to tell her to leave when Ron appeared in the doorway.

"Hi?" he called tentatively.

"A moment, Ron," Hermione answered. She gestured to the spread out photographs. "What are these?"

"Photos that might be from my parents' last few years in school," Harry said quickly. "Now, if you would--"

"Because...?"

"To see who wanders into them, if anyone."

Hermione slapped her forehead. "That's why Ron took so long on each one!"

Ron looked perplexed. Harry laughed. "You just looked at them once?"

"I didn't think about it!"

"Oh."

"Oh!" Hermione pounced on a photograph from the grid. "Look. It's your mother!"

Harry looked. It was his mum ... with Severus. "May I see?" he asked, trying to sound casual. He reached a hand out. In the photo, he could just Lily starting to lean back into Severus's embrace....

"Just a minute. I've seen that boy in ... Profess--?" Hermione stopped abruptly. She looked up at Harry.

"Hermione, please," he said desperately. "You should --"

"Take off your glasses," she ordered. "And let the hair down."

"You should go, now." Harry said, through clenched teeth.

"Take them off."

"Hermione, please!"

"Accio glasses!"

Harry snatched at the glasses, but they beat him to Hermione's hand. He glared at her. He distantly noted that this would make him look more like Severus, but he was quite sure it didn't matter anymore. The world was only blurry at a distance. He held out his hand.

"Glasses, if you would," he said coldly. The glasses came easily out of Hermione's numb fingers. Harry narrowed his eyes. "Come with me," he ordered. He turned the glare on Ron. "You too." With that, Harry whirled and strode out of the room, keeping only enough attention behind him to confirm that Hermione and Ron followed.


By the time they had reached the fifth floor, Harry's fury had abated, but he did not dare look at Hermione, for fear of breaking down. Desperately, he paced back and forth, willing the room to appear with some safe, calming place to talk with friends. He had lost track of his pacings when the door appeared. In a flood of relief, Harry opened it.

"Your Bohemian flat," Hermione commented, as they entered the small, dark room with the couches and fairy lights.

Harry shot her a look, but didn't bother to compose a retort. He pointed his wand at the door and sent off spells to keep it closed, and to make the cracks around it impassable. Then he turned in a slow circle to soundproof the door and walls, then ceiling and floor. Finally he turned back to them.

"What I tell you here is not to be mentioned to anyone else, or in any place less secure."

"Right, mate," Ron agreed, looking at him as if he had gone totally round the bend.

"I'm deadly serious about that. No talking to me, or between yourselves, in corridors or a corner of the common room -- or even a closed, unwarded room. If Voldemort finds out what I am going to tell you, he will have enough information to dismantle my protections -- to kill me." Harry let out a short breath. "Not to mention that he'd kill Severus and disrupt a number of the Order's activities."

"Severus?" Ron said, confused. Hermione, behind him, nodded grimly, and sat on the couch. She folded her hands in her lap. Ron sunk down to the seat next to her.

"Professor Snape is my father."


For a second, it seemed as if both of them had taken this calmly. Then:

"I'll kill him!" Ron exclaimed. His face was going very red. Hermione sat still and pale.

"WHAT?!" Harry yelled. "Don't you dare touch him."

"Well, you can't think it's all right!"

"He's been fine. I spent August with him, and--"

"Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?"

"Ron, it's all right," Harry soothed. "The whole situation was much more of a mess than you think. He found out when I did, this summer--"

"And that makes it all right? How, exactly? I'm supposed to think this is okay because he didn't know he'd got her pregnant? Bloody wonderful, that!"

"It wasn't like that! He--"

"And don't glare at me like him!"

"I can't help that!" Harry screamed. "Are you my friend or not?"

Ron went silent for a moment. He chewed at his lower lip while he looked steadily at Harry. Hermione, caught in the space between them, had pressed back into the cushions of the couch, and remained flattened there, in a vain attempt to stay clear of the fight. "Of course," Ron said. He spoke quietly, but his voice and body both shook.

"Does it matter who my father is, then?"

Ron scowled. "That's not it! I don't give a fuck about your ancestry!" His voice rose in anger. "You've been in the dungeons with him -- I know! Why are you associating with that greasy snake?"

"He's my father?"

"So he raped your mother. That's n--"

"He did NOT RAPE her!"

"Then he used Dark Arts on her," Ron said fiercely, "or dropped something in her drink! Mum's told me about James and Lil --"

"He asked James! It was a Herem ritual!"

"That's medieval!"

"Mum was willing; it was entirely proper--"

"It doesn't MATTER!" Ron screamed, pushing to his feet and hurling the nearest object across the room. It was a throw cushion, and not at all impressive. "HE'S A FUCKING BASTARD!" Ron grabbed a book from his bag and threw that, too. It thudded into the far wall, then thumped to the floor in a flurry of loosened pages. "HE HATES GRYFFINDORS, AND HE BLOODY WELL HATES YOU! Remember that," he finished, almost pleadingly.

"Ron, you hardly know him. What you see in class--"

Ron scowled. "I am not listening to any more of this!" he said angrily over Harry's words. He sliced his arm across the space between them when Harry started to rise. "Don't worry; I won't tell. I'd rather cut out my tongue than repeat any of this! And when you come to your senses, I'll be there for you." He paused, with his hand on the doorknob. "I know you want a family, Harry, but you don't need that scheming, slimy, sadistic, filthy, evil snake of a Death Eater!" With that, he stormed out, slamming the heavy door behind him.

The crash echoed in the still room.


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