He was ready. Three years, four months, nine days and twelve hours in training was a long time; though if he were honest, he’d been preparing for this his entire life. Ever since his fifth year, Harry knew he would be an Auror, come hell or high water. Today was the day it would all finally pay off. As he stood there in the corridor outside of the testing room, he reflected on everything he’d been through to reach this point.
The hardest part had been the character testing; Harry had a lot of issues he had to sort through from his past before he could pass. It was the final testing now, which was really only a technicality. After a few instances of disguised Death Eaters trying to infiltrate the ranks, a new test was put in place for the first time to detect glamours, spells, charms, potions or any other magically induced change on each Auror-in-training.
Harry had passed every test so far, and knowing he had nothing to worry about for the diagnostics test, he was excited. Three years after graduating from Hogwarts, he could finally start the career he had always wanted.
The door to the testing room opened and a petite woman with dark skin, kinky-curly hair and a huge grin on her face came practically flying out. Harry took a quick step back to avoid being run over, laughing the whole time.
“I passed! Harry, I passed!” Naima shrieked, grabbing Harry around the shoulders and swinging him in a circle.
Harry managed to pull himself away from the excited woman with all of his limbs attached, thankfully. Naima had been his partner throughout training and would be his partner as a full Auror after graduation. They’d become extremely close friends over the years, and Harry was nearly as excited for her as he was for himself.
“That’s fantastic! You better wait for me; we’re celebrating after I get out!” Harry instructed the beautiful African woman.
Naima had gone to a very small Wizarding school in South Africa and transferred to the British Ministry to pursue a career in Magical Law Enforcement. She hadn’t really had any friends before starting Auror training and her and Harry had hit it off right away after being partnered together.
“You know I’d never leave without you! I’ll be in the staff room, alright? Good luck!”
Harry accepted the quick hug from his partner before turning towards the door, taking a deep breath, and walking in without further ado. Some of the testers were Senior Aurors, while others were representatives from Magical Law Enforcement and even the Department of Mysteries.
“Good afternoon, Harry. This test is simple, really; you just stand there and we’ll do all of the work! A diagnostic and revealing spell will be performed on you. The spell will display your aura, which should be one solid colour depending on the power of your magic. Warmer colours represent more power than pastel colours. If there is any type of magic affecting you, it will show up as a separate colour entwined with your aura, again the colour depending on the strength of the magic. Before we begin, are there any spells that you know are affecting you that we should be aware of first? If so, we ask you to deactivate them for this test. Without passing this test, you cannot graduate from training,” Head Auror Gyladra Landon explained. Gyladra had taken over after Kingsley Shacklebolt had been promoted to Minister of Magic, much to his chagrin.
“To my knowledge, there are no spells or potions affecting me at this time,” Harry answered formally, trying to keep in his excitement. This last step had seemed so far away upon starting training, and now that it was here, it was almost surreal.
“Good, then we’ll move right along. All you need to do is stand there, and the rest is our job. Are you ready, Mr. Potter?” Gyladra asked with a knowing smile. She had already tested and passed four other Aurors-in-training that day, and she was happier than ever to see Harry’s hard work finally pay off. The young man was powerful, strong and loyal to a fault. He would make an excellent Auror.
“More ready than I’ve ever been before.” Harry beamed as all of the collected officials gave a chuckle of appreciation at his eagerness. He watched as a representative from the Department of Mysteries stood and had their wand tested to make sure it had not been tampered with. Then, taking a deep breath, Harry gave a nod as consent, and the spell was cast.
“Aura Revealio!”
For a second nothing happened, and Harry was worried the spell had been cast wrong, but then a faint glow started to emit from his very skin. He watched as the bright red turned to a dark maroon, and smiled at the appreciative murmurs of the people in the room. Just as the Head Auror was about to give the order to cancel the spell, something unthinkable happened.
Harry had been examining his own hand, intrigued by the beautiful hue of the colour of his Aura. Before his very eyes, a thin line of murky green began to lace its way up his arm. Before he knew it, the maroon was laced with a dark green colour that reminded him of a potion he had brewed once at Hogwarts.
This couldn’t be happening.
“Mr. Potter, I’ll ask again to make sure; there are no spells, glamours, potions, or anything else that you know of affecting you right now?”
Harry’s heart was pounding in his chest as he looked up to see the slight disappointment in Gyladra’s eyes. She thought he had lied. “I swear, Auror Landon; I have no idea what this is. Is there a way to find out?”
The room had broken out into whispered conversations and suspicious looks as soon as the second colour began to weave itself into Harry’s aura. He was absolutely positive that nothing had been cast on him, and yet there were still those who suspected he wasn’t being truthful. Why would he risk his graduation by lying? It was preposterous!
“Mr. Eckles, can you please perform a diagnostic to determine what the colour means?” Gyladra asked as she gestured to an older man to her left.
“Well, from my experience I know this colour to be a representation of a glamour of some sort. Conselo Revealio! The light will attach itself to whatever part of the body that is glamoured.”
A dark purple beam of light hit Harry hard in the chest, making him take a quick step back. It was almost as if he could feel the spell searching through his blood and bones and entire being, looking for what was hidden within him. It was very disconcerting.
After about three minutes, the same purple light of the spell began to travel across Harry’s body, first spreading across his face, then down his neck to his chest as the purple consumed his arms and legs. He looked up at the delegate from the Department of Mysteries, who was looking quite intrigued as the purple blended with the maroon and green of his aura. He felt like a bad Easter egg experiment gone wrong.
“Very interesting and very rare indeed. It seems to me that Mr. Potter is wearing a full body glamour. The person we see before us is nearly a projected image.”
The dead silence of this pronouncement was nothing to the racket of the protests that followed it, including Harry’s own.
“How could I be wearing a full body glamour and not know it? This is what I’ve always looked like! I don’t understand,” Harry yelled over the arguing of the testers before him. No one seemed to be paying any mind to him however, and he was starting to really panic. As the voices continued to shout and argue, Harry’s mind began to race and his heart beat double time until he thought he was going to pass out.
“What’s happening to me?!” Harry yelled at the top of his voice, affectively quieting the rest of the room. His chest was heaving with the effort to breathe enough to keep up with his hammering heart, and he could feel a burning behind his eyes that he quickly blinked away. Nothing could ever go smoothly for him.
The man from the DoM cast another four spells in quick succession with a look of confusion and frustration crossing his features. He ended all of the spells affecting Harry and turned to the Head Auror.
“I have tried removing the spell and untangling his aura, but nothing is working. This spell is very well placed; it’s almost dark in the strength at which it was cast. Whoever cast this spell obviously never meant for it to be removed, as only the spell caster can remove it.”
A woman with fiery red hair that reminded Harry of Ginny stood up from her seat at the edge of the gathered testers. She looked fairly young, but the air of duty about her told of her importance, whatever it may have been. Harry was too busy panicking to really care.
“If we can trace the magical signature of the witch or wizard who placed the glamour on Mr. Potter, we can try to ask them why it was placed and how to remove it. Per the new regulation of the Auror Department and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, there is no way I can clear Mr. Potter for graduation until that glamour is removed.”
Harry belatedly recognized the woman as the pass/fail director for all of the tests he had taken for Auror Training so far, and he felt his heart sink somewhere below his toes. He knew what was coming.
“Mr. Eckles, can you record the magical signature attached to this glamour? Zeta is right; Harry cannot proceed without passing this scan. We can scan the signature in our database and investigate, but until this glamour is removed…”
Zeta, the director of pass/fails, drew a red ‘X’ in the air with a sad look on her face. She clearly did not like this part of her job. “Harry Potter receives a failure for the full magical scan. Graduation is denied.”
With a lump in his throat the size of a softball, Harry closed his eyes against the disappointed stares of all the gathered officials. Without even knowing how, Harry had just ripped apart his image as the perfect Auror, and there was nothing he could do.
He stood stock still as Mr. Eckles scanned the magical signature attached to the glamour and recorded it on a magical sheet of parchment meant to capture signatures. Harry felt completely numb, as if his life was suddenly barren and empty.
“It will be the Records Department’s top priority to scan the system and find out who this signature belongs to, Mr Potter. As soon as a result is found, an owl will be sent to you.”
Harry simply nodded; his shoulders slumped in defeat as he felt the accusing stares of everyone around him. He didn’t hear the Head Auror calling his name, and only responded when the woman was standing before him, raising his chin with her index finger. She looked sympathetic at least.
“Harry, listen to me. I will not allow this to ruin everything you have worked for thus far. We will figure this out and find a way to fix it. Once it is taken care of, we will test you again so that you may receive a pass. I have every confidence that you will graduate with your class next month. Have faith, my boy.”
Gyladra wasn’t one to play favourites, and if she were honest, she knew there were others who were slightly more skilled and prepared to be an Auror, but after everything this young man had gone through in his short life, she knew he needed a break.
“Go home and get some rest, Harry. I will let you know as soon as we find out who has put this glamour on you.”
“What if it was cast by my parents, Gyldie? They’re dead; they can’t remove it,” Harry asked, feeling the panic rise to take the place of his numbness once more. He jumped as a hand descended on his shoulder from behind and looked up to see Mr. Eckles standing beside him.
“Jeremy Eckles, Magical Scans Expert,” the man said, holding out his hand for Harry to shake. “Not to interrupt or eaves drop, but I can assure you that your concern is misplaced. Once a spell caster has passed on, any spell that person has cast will fail, almost as if a Finite has been cast against everything they had magical power over. Once a witch or wizard dies, their magic dies with them. Whoever cast the glamour on you is surely very much alive.”
Harry let out a slight sigh of relief, but he knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet. He hadn’t the faintest clue who would cast a full body glamour on him, or why they would. If Jeremy Eckles was to be believed, the image Harry had grown up looking like was a lie. What did he truly look like, who would hide his true features, and why?
~.~.~.~
Telling Naima that he had failed the very last test of Auror Training had been bad enough, but it was nothing compared to how Harry felt telling Ron and Hermione, who had wanted to take him out to dinner to celebrate.
“Oh Harry, I’m so sorry. But we’ll figure this out, all right? There’s not been a mystery we couldn’t solve yet!” Hermione said, her jaw set in determination. Harry smiled and pulled the witch into a tight hug, glad to have his friends by his side.
“Who would want to place a full body glamour on you mate? And why? I mean, it’s obviously to conceal what you truly look like, which means either you’re horribly disfigured, or…not who you think you are,” Ron said, throwing his hands up as Hermione smacked him firmly on the back of the head. “What?!”
“You’re such an insensitive berk, Ronald Weasley! Try to have a little sympathy here; this is Harry’s life we’re talking about! ‘Horribly disfigured’…urgh!”
Harry ignored the bickering newlyweds, thinking about Ron’s question and wondering the same things. While he was fairly sure it wasn’t because he was disfigured, the alternative option wasn’t very appealing either. Everyone had always made it a point to tell him how much he looked like James Potter. But it was a lie; he didn’t look like James Potter. So who did he look like, and why had he been lied to?
“Look Harry, I know a few people at the hospital who might know more about these kinds of glamours. I’ll look into it while you’re waiting on word about the magical signature. Just...try not to stress too much, ok? I know that’s easier said than done, but we will fix this,” said Hermione as she gave Harry another firm hug.
Harry watched his two best friends floo back to their home, still bickering even as they left. Some things never changed, like Ron and Hermione’s arguing, and Harry’s terrible luck. He felt miserable and certainly did not want to be alone right now, so he pulled out his muggle mobile and hit number two on his speed dial.
After the fourth ring, someone finally picked up and Harry sighed in relief. He could hear the sound of many other voices and what sounded like an explosion from the other line.
“Harry! Shouldn’t you be out celebrating?”
Harry smiled into his mobile, wishing he could see the warm smile that accompanied his lover’s cheerful tone. “Hey Charlie. I would be out celebrating, had I passed the test.”
The noise from the other end of the phone conversation got noticeably quieter, and it was obvious that the second eldest Weasley brother had gone somewhere more private to complete the conversation.
“What? How on earth did you fail, Harry? They must have made a mistake with the spells!”
Harry sighed and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. It was just like Charlie to place the blame on the Ministry and not Harry himself. He was glad someone was on his side, as all of the officials had seemed to think he’d been lying.
“There was no mistake. I’ve apparently been wearing a full body glamour my entire life. They can’t pass me for graduation until it’s taken off, but it can only be removed by the spell caster. They took a sample of the magical signature attached to the glamour to test it and find out who cast it so I can contact them and figure out what the hell is going on. I was so excited, Char; I’ve wanted to be an Auror since I was fifteen!”
“Who would put a full body glamour on you? That just doesn’t make sense, Harry. Are you alright, love? Do you need me? There’s nothing keeping me here tonight; I can come.”
Harry smiled, glad he had decided to make the call after all. “Yeah, Charlie, I need you.”
~.~.~.~
The next morning, Harry floo called Hermione and Ron, and was coaxed into a brunch date with the couple. They had invited Charlie along too, but he had a meeting to get to and couldn’t make it, much to Harry’s disappointment. He loved spending time with Charlie, but the reason they weren’t officially dating was because of how far away the man lived. Harry couldn’t ask Charlie to give up his passion for dragons and move back to England any more than Charlie could ask him to give up being an Auror and move to Romania.
After explaining everything to his two best friends the night before, Hermione had immediately started plotting all of the research she was going to do, despite the fact that Harry had assured her there were many other people on the case. As a Healer at St. Mungo’s, she was privy to all kinds of books and other resources that were hard for other people to get at. She’d be a useful asset with this research.
Ron, who was on break from the Chudley Canons for another week because of the off season, was curious as to why anyone would apply a full body glamour to Harry, and voiced his questions again.
“I mean, what is it they’re trying to hide? Obviously your appearance, but why? What’s so different that they had to change what you look like completely? It’s a bit bizarre,” the redhead commented as he ate his eggs Benedict with all the gusto of a man with a very physical career.
“Your guess is as good as mine, mate. I’m just kind of worried that perhaps I’m grotesquely disfigured or something,” Harry said a little distractedly, his thoughts going back to Ron’s questions. Why on earth would someone want to essentially hide who Harry truly was? He wasn’t really worried about being disfigured; it was just easier to think about.
Hermione shook her head, as though there were flies buzzing around and annoying her. She was clearly deep in thought, though she was still half listening to the conversation going on around her. “No, I really don’t think it’s that at all, Harry. The most logical reason is because the person you look like now is clearly not the person you truly look like. That being the case, since you look so remarkably like James, you must truly look nothing like him, and the only logical explanation for that to be changed is that…well, maybe James isn’t really your father, Harry,” Hermione said with an apologetic frown, finally coming all the way back to herself.
Harry had been afraid to even think of such a thing, but he had to admit that it made all too much sense for him to ignore it completely. However, he would wait for the analysis on the magical signature to come back before deciding if he should panic or not. As though beckoned by his thoughts, a beautiful tawny owl swooped down to their table outside the wizarding café, a scroll clutched in its beak.
Harry fed the owl the crust from his toast after taking the scroll. It had the ministry seal on the outside, and Harry’s hands began to shake as he broke the seal and unrolled the missive.
‘Dear Mr. Potter,
The results of the magical signature scan are now complete. Your presence is required at the Department of Magical Records at your earliest convenience to discuss these results.
Best Wishes,
Head of the Department of Magical Records
Geraldine Humphrey’
Harry stood up with the scroll held tightly in his fist, ignoring Hermione’s curious looks. “They’ve got the results, but they want me there in person to release them. I’ll owl you guys as soon as I find out what’s going on, alright?”
Before either of his friends could reply, Harry was making his way to the apparation point in the alley behind the small wizarding café. He turned on the spot, his heart in his throat and his destiny hanging delicately in the balance.
~.~.~.~
“Ah, Mr. Potter. Wait right here; I’ll get Geraldine for you,” said the young secretary outside of the main Records office. She had clearly been advised to keep an eye out for him, and there was no need to wonder how the witch knew who he was; who didn’t?
A tall witch with greying hair and kind blue eyes followed the young secretary out of the office and smiled at Harry, though he noticed immediately that she seemed uneasy. He gulped down his worry as he followed her to her office, all the way in the back of the Department.
“Please, have a seat, Mr. Potter.”
“Call me Harry, please,” Harry insisted as he took the seat in front of a stately oak desk that was very well organized and gleaming with shine from the newly wiped down surface. The woman’s very well put together appearance increased Harry’s impression of the woman being very anal retentive about organization. He thought she was definitely in the right career with those kinds of obsessive compulsions.
“Alright, Harry. Well, I can’t say I have good news, but I do have news. The scan that we did on the parchment Mr. Eckles sent to us originally came back inconclusive, but we double and triple checked it, and finally found that a concealing spell had been attached to the signature. Whoever did this was hell bent on not being found out. However, once we took off the concealment spell and rescanned the signature, what we found was even more confusing than being merely inconclusive.”
All this build-up was making Harry decidedly nervous, his hands clasped tightly in his lap as he sat on the very edge of his seat. Was it really necessary to hold him in all of this suspense? Out with it woman, he wanted to shout, but he controlled himself enough to ask in an impatient, strangled sort of voice, “What did you find?”
“The person who applied the full body bind on you has been dead for the past four years, Harry. However, because there was obvious tampering with the signature to begin with, we are reluctant to believe these results, and think they may have been hoodwinked further by whoever placed this glamour on you. I’m sorry Harry, but we have classified these results as inconclusive. Gyladra has asked me to send you to her as soon as you got the results.”
Harry felt his heart sink to the floor. Who the hell had been so desperate to hide his true identity? Why him, of all people? He gave a jerky nod and stood up, shaking the Department Head’s hand distractedly before leaving the office and heading to the lifts to get to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to speak with his would-be boss. He felt numb.
“Harry, oh good. I just spoke with Geraldine and she told me what happened. I cannot believe someone would go so far as to tamper with a magical signature! Not only is that just asinine, but it’s terribly difficult magic to perform. I consulted the board and the Pass/Fail Director, but they wouldn’t budge. I’m sorry Harry, but we still cannot pass you yet.”
Harry gulped, trying to keep his bitter anger and disappointment from being vented at the Head Auror. It was not Gyladra’s fault that this was happening, and he knew raging at her would not help his chances of graduating with his class in the slightest bit. “What do I do now?” Harry asked dejectedly. He was all out of ideas and he could see his future crashing and burning before his very eyes.
“Mr. Eckles has taken it upon himself to analyze the signature to try and figure out how it could have been tampered with and try to get a more accurate reading off of it. We’ll of course let you know if we find anything out. The only thing I can think to suggest is try to investigate this on your own. Perhaps try to contact some of the people your parents knew and see if they might have any clues? I wish I could be of more help, Harry, I really do.”
Harry nodded sadly, glad for the genuine regret that he heard in Gyladra’s voice. At least she was on his side in this. “Thanks, Gyldie. I dunno if I’ll be able to find anyone who really knew my parents all that well; they’re all dead.”
Gyladra sighed heavily and shook her head. It was horrible that this poor young man was facing another obstacle in his life, making him jump through even more hoops just to accomplish the one dream he’d set out to make come true. She was angry on his behalf and vowed to make sure Harry graduated; one way or another.
Harry was making his way out of the ministry, planning to call Charlie as soon as he got back to his flat to ask if he could come stay again, as Harry was just about ready to burst from indignation and frustration. How could the signature have been hoodwinked? And who was the supposedly dead person who the signature belonged to? Harry belatedly realized that Geraldine had not volunteered that information, and now Harry was really curious. He made a detour and took the lift back to the Department of Magical Records, asking the young secretary to please get Geraldine for him.
“Harry, back so soon? What can I do for you?”
“The person who the signature belonged to, you said they’ve been dead for four years. Who is it?” Harry asked, immediately knowing he had been right to come back and ask as Geraldine frowned and gave him a worried glance.
“Well, I don’t think it’s really all that important, because it’s impossible for this man’s magic to still be active because he is dead. Do you truly want to know?”
Harry stopped himself from glaring at the woman. Of course he wanted to bloody know! “Yes; if I knew who the signature belonged to, perhaps it could lead to more clues, give me somewhere to start looking.”
Geraldine sighed and looked around hesitantly before stepping very close to Harry, leaning in so that she could whisper very faintly to him, “The magical signature belonged to Severus Snape.”
Harry stood frozen for what felt like an eternity as the Head of Magical Records stepped back, a worried look in her eyes as she saw how pale Harry had become at her words. She grasped his shoulder as he seemed to sway before her eyes.
“Harry, as I said; the signature must have been tampered with. Severus Snape is dead; the ministry had custody of his very body.”
“I know…I…I watched him die. But…I don’t understand. Why would someone want me to think Snape had placed the glamour on me?”
Geraldine shrugged, her concerned face shrouded in sympathy as she saw the young man come very close to tears. “Mr. Eckles made a suggestion in passing; perhaps you could look into that?”
Harry sighed, just about ready to do anything to uncover this ridiculous mystery. As much as he wanted to be an Auror, he was hoping his first assignment would have had nothing to do with himself. No such luck. “Go on.”
“Perhaps your parents were trying to conceal the possibility of different parentage? We of course checked your birth certificate and all other relevant records and your name is listed as Harry James Potter everywhere. The only place I can think that might be able to answer your questions is in the Master Book at Hogwarts. It records the names of all magical children as they’re born, and the names cannot be changed but by the Headmaster or -mistress of Hogwarts. Perhaps you may find what you are looking for in there?”
Harry thanked Geraldine and made his way out of the ministry, heading home to his small flat. Instead of calling Charlie, however, Harry dialled Hermione’s number.
“Harry? What did they say; did they find out who cast the glamour?”
“The results were inconclusive. Get this; they say the signature was hoodwinked because it came back as the signature of someone who’s been dead for four years.”
There was a short pause as Hermione made a noise of protest. “That’s impossible, Harry. You can’t falsify a magical signature on Aura magic. You can conceal it, but you can’t change it. Who did they say the signature belonged to?”
Harry gulped, hoping that Hermione was wrong, but knowing without a doubt that she was right. “Severus Snape,” was all Harry could choke out.
There was a sharp gasp from the other line, and Harry knew Hermione was having the same horrible epiphany that he was experiencing; Severus Snape was alive. “Oh Harry…it has to be true; he has to be alive. Magic dies with the witch or wizard; it cannot possibly live on without its conduit. What are you going to do?”
Harry took a deep breath and pulled himself together before be completely fell apart at the seams. There was still one more thing he needed to check before he let his head fall off in panic. “I’m going to check my name in the Master Book.”
~.~.~.~
Harry had been given special permission by the Headmistress to floo into her office whenever he felt the need to. She had told him he was always welcome at Hogwarts no matter what, and she trusted him. He had never used the connection however, and so Headmistress McGonagall was quite surprised when the frazzled looking young man came through her floo that evening just before the pre-term staff meeting was to take place.
“Harry! What a pleasant surprise. I’m afraid I don’t have much time to chat, as I’ve a staff meeting to head in fifteen minutes. What can I do for you?”
Harry slumped down into the chair before the Head’s desk looking very tired and thoroughly dejected. Minerva could remember the young man looking this haggard only once before, and that was directly after Albus Dumbledore’s death.
“I need to read my name in the Master Book, Professor.”
The Headmistress held his gaze with a steady one of her own, trying to gauge his emotions. The young man was clearly upset about something, but there was also a fierce determination there that Minerva had seen all too often in Harry as a Hogwarts student.
“Whatever for, Mr. Potter? I can assure you that your name is indeed Harry James Potter; I wrote your name straight off the page in the Book and onto all seventeen-thousand bloody letters that we had to send off to you when you turned eleven. Your name is listed right below James Harold Ignotus Potter.”
Harry sighed as he scrubbed a hand across his tired face. He wished he could just take the Headmistress’s word for it and leave, but he had a curious feeling that everything he needed to know was going to be found in that Book. “Have you seen my name in the Book recently?”
The Headmistress looked slightly confused by the question. “Well, no, of course not; it is the job of the Deputy Head to sign all the names to the letters, and as that job has been passed on to Professor Sprout, I’ve not had cause to even touch the Book in almost four years. What are you getting at, Potter?”
“I’ve been wearing a full body glamour my entire life, apparently. It was woven into my Aura.”
The Headmistress’s eyebrows shot into her hairline as she leaned back into her straight-backed chair. What on earth was going on now? “That’s very curious indeed, Potter, but what is it you are hoping to learn from the Master Book?”
Harry took a deep breath, not wanting to explain this part at all. Saying it out loud gave it room to be true, and Harry was terrified at that possibility. “There’s reason to believe that my parents may not have been who everyone thinks they are. Well…at least my dad. I look so much like James, right? But that’s just a glamour, which means I look nothing like him.”
“But as I’ve already said; your name appears as Harry James Potter.”
“Did you know that the current Headmaster or –mistress can change any name in the Master Book?”
The Headmistress sent him a withering glare, but Harry did not back down in the slightest. “Of course I know that, Potter; I am the Headmistress, after all.”
“So who’s to say that Dumbledore didn’t change my name in the Book to throw you off? Now that he’s dead, any changes he made will have reverted back to their original state, since magic dies with its caster.”
There was a long pause as the older woman fixed Harry with her piercing gaze. If what Harry was insinuating was true, Minerva was going to have a very large and loud bone to pick with Albus Dumbledore’s portrait, which he was curiously absent from at the moment, she noted. She stood from her seat after glancing at the clock and moved to the cabinet in which Dumbledore used to keep his pensieve and retrieved a massive tome that shimmered with protective spells. She cleared her desk with a wave of her wand and gently set the tome on the desk, removing the spells.
“I hate to run off like this, but I really must be getting to the staff meeting now. Stay as long as you need, and leave the book there when you are finished; I’ll deal with it. I hope you find what you’re looking for, Potter, little as though I’d like to believe something like this has been kept from you for so long.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
Harry felt his heart race as Professor McGonagall took her leave, the ancient tome laid before him in all its daunting glory. He was so curious; he wanted to know! And yet, he was terrified of just what he was going to find within the pages of the Master Book. He opened the front cover slowly, then realized he’d be turning pages for days at this rate. He pulled out his wand and muttered, “Point Me list of Potters.”
The pages began to turn themselves in earnest, causing a small gust of wind to blow Harry’s hair about. Nearly halfway through the book, the pages stopped and Harry squinted down at the tiny writing. Every name on this page and the next had the surname of Potter. He flipped a few more pages and saw that it went on for four more pages before the name changed to Putterman. There were all kinds of curious names, from Riley Sebastian Wolfgang George Potter, to Evangelina Renee Marie Sophia Potter. Harry became caught up reading all the names of his ancestors, and only realized he had missed something after looking at all the funny names for nearly five minutes.
The last name listed with the surname Potter was not Harry James Potter, put James Harold Ignotus Potter. Each name was listed with the year of graduation, so Harry knew they were all listed from oldest to most recent, and his name was decidedly not there. He felt all of the oxygen rush from his lungs.
With his heart beating so fast he was sure he was going to have a heart attack, Harry lifted his wand once more, and in a voice quivering so bad it was nearly indecipherable, he muttered, “Point Me list of Snapes.”
The pages began to turn once more, more quickly than before. It stopped on one page only about one hundred or so pages past the list of Potters. Harry took a deep breath and read the first name on the page: Snalder, Wallace Jermaine. He scanned down the page and felt his stomach turn as he saw only two names with the last name of Snape: Severus Tobias and…Harold Octavius, who just so happened to have graduated the same year as Harry. Breathing so hard he was sure his lungs would burst and with his heart pounding so badly it was deafening to his own ears, Harry promptly passed out, and knew no more.
~.~.~.~
“…Harry? Harry! Oh Merlin, wake up, my boy!”
Harry heard the voice as if he was at the bottom of a barrel. He blinked his eyes open slowly, his brow scrunching in confusion as he looked up into the face of the Headmistress of Hogwarts. What the hell happened?
“Professor? What happened?”
Minerva sat back on her heels with a heavy sigh; she should have expected something like this. He was Harry Potter after all. “I was hoping you could tell me that, Harry. Last I knew, you were looking in the Master Book when I left for the staff meeting, and I come back to find you passed out on my office floor. Why must I always find you on floors, Mr. Potter?”
Harry sat up and rubbed the back of his head where it must have hit the floor and looked around. He was indeed lying on the floor of the Head’s office, just beside the chair behind the Headmistress’s desk. He glanced up and saw the corner of the Master Book, and suddenly it all came flooding back to him.
“Holy shit!” Harry yelled as he stood quickly and bent over the Master Book once more. Maybe he had imagined it, maybe it had all been some horrific –
“Harold Octavius Snape? Well, I never!” the Headmistress exclaimed as she looked over Harry’s shoulder at the name the man’s finger was pointing to.
So, not a bad dream then.
“But I don’t understand. The man from the Department of Mysteries said that the person who cast the glamour over me has to be alive in order for the magic to be affecting me still. Hermione said a magical signature cannot be altered in Aura Magic. Snape is dead; there’s no way!”
“Whatever are you going on about, Harry?”
“They took a sample of the magical signature attached to the glamour that’s affecting me and said it belonged to Snape. They said the magic must have been hoodwinked to throw off the trail of the real caster, but Hermione said that’s impossible when it comes to magic affecting one’s aura. She was right; Snape’s alive and he’s…he’s my father,” Harry whispered as he shared an ominous look with the Headmistress.
Harry quickly thanked Minerva and set off to – to where? Snape was alive, he’d conceded to that fact, but how on earth was he supposed to find a man that had been thought dead for the last four years? He knew only one person who could really help him now and flooed there.
“Hermione?”
“Harry, is that you?”
Hermione came around the corner from inside the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Ron was right behind her, snacking on some of the veg Hermione was preparing for their dinner.
“Hey, mate. You look like you just saw an Inferi. You alright?” Ron asked as he walked over and gripped Harry’s shoulder, a look of true concern on his face. He hadn’t seen his friend so pale since the war.
Harry took a deep breath as Hermione walked forward and grasped his hand in a comforting gesture. The only thing he wanted to do right now was find out the truth once and for all. He was sick and tired of having things kept from him, and this was the ultimate lie.
“Hermione, I need you to isolate the magical signature attached to the glamour so that I can put a tracking spell on it.”
Hermione looked shocked for all of five seconds before she pulled out her wand with a determined expression. “Are you sure about this, Harry?”
“I checked my name in the Master Book. I’m not a Potter. I need to find him, Hermione, I need to know the truth,” Harry insisted. He saw the look of horror that crossed Ron’s face as his friend realized exactly who Harry was if he was indeed not a Potter. He couldn’t help but wonder if Ron’s opinion of him would change now.
Dragging her wand up and down the length of Harry’s body, Hermione murmured a spell in Latin, her brow scrunched in concentration. As her wand made one full sweep, Harry’s Aura began to appear, beautiful maroon interwoven with that deep green. Using the first thing she could find, Hermione spoke another spell, causing the same green to transfer to the dish towel in her hand.
“You can place the tracking spell on this towel. The magic should detect who the signature belongs to and compel you to their location. If you cast it strong enough, you might be able to apparate straight there.”
Harry took the towel with a grateful half smile and pulled Hermione into a hug before heading out the door of his two best friends’ home. He paused on the porch and pulled out his wand, deciding which tracking spell to use on the towel. If he used a mild one, it might take him ages to specifically locate the man he was seeking. The strongest one he knew would allow him to apparate within five miles of his intended target. Though it could still take him a while to pinpoint Snape’s location, Harry knew that was as good as he was going to get.
Harry cast the spell and immediately felt a strong pull on his magical core, urging him to apparate. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, prepared to let the tracking spell take him to a confrontation he never thought he would have. With a quick turn, the tight squeeze and breathless weightlessness that was apparation stole him away, and when Harry opened his eyes, he was very obviously not in London anymore.
He looked around and saw a small book store right behind him, and figured he better try to find out exactly where he was. Perhaps he could try to get some information out of the shop keeper if he asked careful enough questions. Harry had been trained for this stuff; he could find Snape with little to no problems.
The book store, named Tills, was small and cosy and even had a tiny café where you could sit and read. There was a couple sitting in the café laughing as they flipped through a book together and a barista was behind the counter wiping it down with a cloth as she smiled fondly at the young man and woman.
“Excuse me, but I was wondering if you could help me out a bit,” Harry asked with his most charming smile at the barista, who looked to be about his age, maybe older. The woman smiled at him and set the cloth down.
“What can I do for you, sir?” she asked politely with a smile of her own. The way her eyes trailed up and down Harry’s body told him he would have no problem getting information out of her. The problem was whether or not she had the information he was seeking.
“I’m a little bit lost, to be quite honest. I think I took a wrong turn somewhere. I’m actually here visiting an old friend, but his directions were a little confusing. Could you tell me exactly where I am?”
The barista, who had mousy brown hair and bright hazel eyes let out a tinkling laugh that Harry found he quite liked. She was charming in her own way and her comfortable laughter and smile told Harry that he very much deserved his Outstanding on his Persuasion Auror’s Exam.
“Well I’m sure you at least realize you’re in Edinburgh, yes?” the barista asked with a teasing laugh as she tapped her nails on the bar. “This here is Hope Park Crescent. Behind us is The Queen’s Hall and across the way is East Meadow Park. Where’s this friend of yours live?”
Harry sighed in relief as he recognized where he was. He’d been to Edinburgh a few times, once to visit Hermione at University and once on a training mission for Auror training. Hermione had taken him to the café inside The Queen’s Hall. Harry knew there was a Wizarding District hidden within Holyrood Park, which wasn’t all that far from where he was.
“You’re a life saver; he lives off the next street over! Thanks for your help, love,” Harry said with a smile and a wink. The barista smiled back and returned the wink before waving Harry off with the cloth she had been using to clean the bar.
As Harry got to the door to leave the book store, the barista caught up with him and lightly tapped his shoulder. She held out a folded napkin with a smile and a light blush. “I get off at eight, if you want to come have a coffee with me later.” With that, she turned around and jogged back to the coffee bar, where the couple was standing to make an order.
Harry glanced down at the napkin and saw that she had written her phone number down for him. With a blush of his own and an amused smirk, Harry headed out of the shop and for an alleyway he could apparate from. He stuffed the napkin into his pocket first.
~.~.~.~
Harry had gone into four different stores within the Wizarding District of Edinburgh, and yet not a single person had heard of Severus Snape, save for one who knew of him as a former Death Eater and scowled heavily at Harry before realizing exactly who Harry was himself. He’d received a free muffin and a sincere apology from the baker’s wife before he left the bakery.
With a heavy sigh, Harry turned down another street and was just about to pull his hair out in frustration when he saw it; an apothecary stood beside a small home that looked almost empty, but it was the name of the shop that struck a familiar cord in Harry.
Bottled Fame and Brewed Glory: Ensnaring the Senses since 1998
The memory of Harry’s very first potions lesson came to the forefront of his mind, and Snape’s silky voice drawling on about bottling fame and brewing glory sounded so real, Harry was almost expecting the man to be right there in front of him. He knew he was at the right place.
As Harry walked over to the shop, he noticed there was a closed sign in the door, and no lights were on. His heart skipped a beat as he turned toward the house instead, his heart telling him where to go. He knew if Snape owned a shop, he would never be too far from it, night or day.
The door of the house looked as though it had been repainted recently, and the dark green reminded Harry of the Slytherin colours from Hogwarts. It all made too much sense. He raised his fist to knock on the door, but paused. His heart was hammering and his hands were shaking. What was he going to say? How was he going to explain how he figured everything out? Hell, how was Snape going to explain how the hell he was Harry’s father?
With a deep breath and a strong desire to graduate with his class at the Auror Academy, Harry brought his fist to the green door and gave it three sharp knocks. He stood with his hands shoved in his pockets and felt like a year had passed before the handle of the door turned slowly and it creaked open to reveal a face Harry had last seen in what he thought was its last look of deep regret and sadness. Snape’s last message to look at him, to see him for who he really was suddenly hit Harry, and he found he could not breathe if he had wanted to.
Severus Snape looked fairly good for his age. The lines and creases that had marred his features as a professor had smoothed out, and his raven black hair that once hung in greasy clumps around his sallow face was now longer and sleek and had lines of grey shot throughout, his skin tone more closely resembling that of a man who spent some time in the sunlight. His fathomless black gaze was the same as ever, however, and it seemed to burn a hole in Harry’s soul as he stood there like an idiot, his heart caught in his throat and his jaw hanging slack.
“I wondered when you’d come. I honestly thought it would be many years from now. Come in,” the older man instructed as he stepped back and opened the door wider for Harry to pass through. As Harry stepped over the threshold, the man rolled his eyes, “and close your mouth before you collect flies, boy.”
Harry’s jaw shut with a clack as the door was closed behind him, and suddenly Harry felt like a teenager again. Just because this man was his father, didn’t mean he was any less of a bastard at times, Harry supposed. He had no idea what to do or say, so he just stood there awkwardly.
The former Potions Professor led the way from the foyer into a small sitting room that looked both neat and well lived-in. There were ceiling-high bookshelves framing a handsome fireplace, a mantle adorned with picture frames and a pot of floo powder hanging over it. There was a leather sofa flanked by an arm chair and a chaise, another armchair sitting directly across from the sofa. The coffee table held a heavy tome and a few potions magazines. One of them had a ring of dry tea imprinted on the back cover.
“Would you like some tea?”
Harry turned at stared at the man he had been searching for, who had his arms crossed over his chest and an eyebrow arched high on his forehead. With a shuddering breath, Harry finally dislodged his heart from his throat and found breath for words.
“How the hell have you been living in Wizarding Edinburgh without anyone knowing you’re alive?” Harry asked bluntly, bursting with so many questions, he had no idea where to start first. He figured asking how the hell the man was still alive was the next logical question in the queue.
Snape sighed as he uncrossed his arms and gestured towards the sofa behind Harry. “Please, take a seat. This is going to take quite a bit of explaining, and we’re most definitely going to need tea.”
Knowing that arguing with the man would be futile and in desperate need of some answers, Harry conceded and sat down on the squishy leather sofa, glad when the man took the armchair across from him instead of the seat beside him. He was the epitome of uncomfortable at the moment, and space sounded like a good idea, as well as tea. He accepted the conjured cup when the older man passed it to him, taking a large gulp that scolded his mouth and brought him closer to reality before he sat it down on the coffee table.
“To answer your question; I’ve been living in Edinburgh under an alias. As far as the Wizarding world knows, Severus Snape remains deceased in battle. I’ve been wearing a glamour so that no one may recognize me. I needed a fresh start, and Severus Snape was not going to receive one so easily, so I fashioned myself a new identity. You are the only person who can see through this glamour.”
“But why? You’re considered one of the heroes of the war; why hide? Why can only I see through the glamour?” Harry asked, stopping himself from literally bursting with even more questions. Now that the initial shock had begun to wear off, Harry’s anger and confusion started warring for precedence in Harry’s mind, and the calm demeanour of the man before him was fuelling his utter confusion.
Snape sighed as he leaned forward and sat his own tea on the table. His elbows were resting on his thighs as he gave Harry a searching look, as though he was trying to find the right words to say in Harry’s less than friendly expression.
“I wanted you to find me eventually, Harry, that’s why. I altered the glamour so that its affects would not be seen by you, and only you. I could not risk anyone else finding out I was still alive and having you hear about it somehow. I knew you would come find me when you were ready.”
Harry saw red. How dare the man sit there so calm and collected, speaking of his manipulations like they were discussing politics over tea! This was Harry’s life they were discussing, and it had fallen apart in the last few days spectacularly. Harry wanted answers, damn it!
“How the hell can you sit there so calm? I buried you with my own two hands! How the hell are you sitting here, breathing, talking, living? You had nothing to hide from after the war, not after I saw those memories. I wouldn’t have let them throw you in Azkaban. What the hell is going on?!”
With the air of someone talking to an injured and confused animal, Snape began to explain. “I knew my time was short lived around the Dark Lord. I had began to take an antivenin every day, as I had watched many men and women meet their deaths at Nagini’s fangs on the Dark Lord’s orders. I did not die that night. I very nearly did because I did not anticipate you showing up at the moment I was supposed to die. I had a blood replenisher and essence of Dittany ready to take to stop the bleeding, but then you were there, and suddenly the most important thing was giving you those memories, making sure you knew what you needed to do in order to defeat Voldemort. I did not think of my own well being, and because I did not act quickly, I blacked out and almost died.
“After you left with the memories, I came to and had barely enough strength to take the replenisher, apply the Dittany and take a Pepper Up potion. Upon leaving the shack, I found the closest dead Death Eater, cast a glamour so that he would take on my appearance and changed my own features. I placed the man in the shack to take my place, and then I ran. I did not know you had even prevailed and still lived to tell the tale until three days later, after I had recovered in a safe house Albus had set up for me in my spying days.
“I felt so free. I had concern for nothing but resting and taking in that freedom. I didn’t want to have to deal with all of the publicity and trials and being heralded as some hero when I did not feel I was anything of the sort; still don’t, for that matter. I had paid my price, done my job; didn’t I deserve a little peace?”
“Then why didn’t you cover all of your tracks? You left things uncovered, ways for me to trace you. If you wanted to fade into non-existence and be forgotten, why did you alter the glamour to allow me to see past it?”
“How did you trace me? I thought perhaps you would find out somehow, someway, but I didn’t expect you to seek me out so soon. Why did you come looking for me?”
Harry thought the man was slipping if he thought that diversion tactic would keep Harry from asking more questions, but he would humour the Potions Master for the time being. “I’ve been in Auror training and I’m supposed to graduate in a month. However, there’s one last test I need to pass before I can be cleared for graduation; a scan of my aura. I can’t have any charms, glamours, potions or anything else of the sort affecting me in order to pass this test. That’s when they found the glamour. I’ve been running around for days trying to figure out what the hell is going on. As of right now, I won’t be graduating with my class in the Auror Academy because of this glamour.
“I tracked your magical signature using the remnants that were traced off the glamour. That led me to Edinburgh, but not your precise location. I found the Wizarding District and went looking for you. I was about to give up when I saw your shop; the name sounded just like your first Potions lecture in my first year.” Harry trailed off as he saw a small smirk form on the man’s lips and tensed immediately. That look couldn’t be good.
“I knew you would never forget your first Potions lecture. I named the shop with the intentions of being able to draw myself out slowly as people started to get suspicious. I did not intend to hide forever, just a few years more. I gave the same lecture to all of my first years every year, Harry. It’s obviously legendary.”
Harry found that he quite liked the smug drawl of the man’s voice. Snape had much to be proud of, but his reputation at Hogwarts had always meant a lot to him. He reminded himself that he was supposed to be annoyed with the man before him. “Why is my name listed as Harold Octavius Snape in the Master Book at Hogwarts?”
The self satisfied look slowly slid from the former Potions Professor’s lips as he rested his chin in his hand. He had a faraway look in his eyes as he gazed towards the fire in the hearth. It was at least five minutes before he took a deep breath and met Harry’s eyes. “I have not heard your true name since before you were born. I hope you are ready for a long story.”
“Not quite, but I suppose I’ll have to suffer through,” Harry breathed, earning a half annoyed, half amused look from the older man.
“I knew you’d figure it out sooner than later. I even considered going to you and confessing everything myself, but I’ll admit that I was too ashamed of what I’d done; what I had to do to keep you and your mother safe. If I hadn’t been a fool and joined the Death Eaters while still at Hogwarts, things would be very different.
“You saw from my memories that your mother and I were once very close. After our fight in fifth year, she didn’t talk to me until after graduation. Lily had dated James in seventh year, and my anger and jealousy drove me to join the Death Eaters. I knew I was in over my head immediately, but once you pledged allegiance, there was no going back. I contacted Lily, who had broken things off with James shortly after applying for the Healer’s apprenticeship so she could focus on her career. It was a mutually agreeable split, as James was too focussed on Auror training. They remained friends, however.
“I told Lily everything, admitted what I had done and expressed a desire to veer off the path I had created for myself as a Death Eater. She promised to talk to Dumbledore for me, to try to save me from my own mistake. I began spying for the Order of the Phoenix, and now that I had changed my ways, Lily allowed herself to have feelings for me. A year after I turned away from the Dark Lord, I married your mother.”
Harry’s jaw nearly came unhinged as he stared at the man before him. How had this been covered up so seamlessly? Sirius and Remus must have been in on it as well, as they never gave any indication that Lily had ever been married to anyone other than his father – er, James Potter. “But – ”
“Let me finish, please. I’ve been waiting to tell you this for so long, and I need to get it all out,” the former Head of Slytherin insisted. He waited for Harry’s reluctant nod before he continued his explanation.
“Now, though Lily and I were married, we knew we could not be open with our relationship because I was still spying at the time. Dumbledore and your mother came up with a plan, then, one I did not agree with. Lily begged for me to stop spying, but Albus needed me on the inside, and so I refused. Instead, Lily asked James Potter to pose as her husband as a cover up. James agreed, and they staged a wedding for all of their friends and family. The only people who knew the truth were your mother, myself, James and Dumbledore.”
Harry could hold his questions in no longer, and nearly burst with the need for answers. “So Sirius and Professor Lupin never knew?”
The Potions Master sighed heavily and shook his head. He’d feared these questions, but knew he’d have to answer them eventually, so he had answers ready. “Lily had wanted to at least tell Sirius, Remus and Peter, but I refused. It was not safe for her, and soon after the staged wedding, she found out she was pregnant with you. Now with a child on the way, I had to do something to protect my wife and baby. What you know of Black being the Secret Keeper and passing the responsibility stupidly to Pettigrew – that is all still true. The Prophecy was also still valid; even with me as your father, you still fit the criteria. And before you ask, yes, I was still the one to deliver that piece of the Prophecy to the Dark Lord, but you must believe me, Harry; I had no idea it referred to you. I was trying to do as little as possible to stay in the Dark Lord’s favour so that I may continue to spy for Dumbledore, and I thought that information was harmless, especially since I did not report the full Prophecy. I’ve never regretted anything more in my life.
“Right before you were born, I insisted the glamour be casted on you, to protect you and keep suspicions away. Lily refused at first, but knew it must be done to continue fooling everyone. She wanted me to give up the subterfuge, to run away with the both of you and forget the war, but my pride and debt to Dumbledore kept me in my spying position. I should have listened to your mother. When it became apparent that the Dark Lord was after Lily and James to get to you, they did go into hiding, and they chose Sirius as the Secret Keeper. Everything else is as you’ve been told. Black freaked out and transferred the Secret to Pettigrew, and the rat sold James and Lily out.”
“But you knew I was alive. Why was I sent to live with the Dursleys if I had a living relative, a father? Hell, if you’ve known all this time, why were you such a bloody bastard to me?” Harry nearly shrieked, feeling the confusion, pain and anger amass until he thought he might explode. All those years at the Dursleys, being treated like a house elf and feeling unwanted and unloved, he’d had a father out there, unwilling to claim him. He felt even more unwanted and unloved than he had as the lonely little boy in the cupboard under the stairs.
The older man rubbed a hand over his face, his expression nearly as distraught as Harry’s own. “I begged and pleaded to claim you, to raise you on my own, but Dumbledore was more than insistent that I continue to spy, rendering me incapable of caring for a child. He assured me that the Dursleys would take good care of you, raise you as their own. All those years, Harry, I never knew how they treated you. I thought I had done the right thing; I had no idea how to raise a child, and the Dursleys already had a boy not much older than you. I thought you’d be better off without me.
“I told Dumbledore I wanted to be obliviated, so I wouldn’t have to deal with the pain of missing my son, of knowing you were out there and I could not care for you the way I wanted. He told me my sacrifice would pay off, but he would not allow me to simply forget what I’d lost. I always thought he was punishing me for joining the Death Eaters in the first place, and perhaps he was. Albus believed he was doing the right thing as well, but we were both severely mistaken. I trusted Petunia to care for you like Lily would, being her sister. How foolish I was to believe such a thing.”
“I still don’t understand. You were so horrible to me in school, nearly as bad as the Dursleys, and sometimes worse,” Harry croaked, feeling as though the floor had been pulled from beneath his feet. He was free falling into a mass of confusion and an utter pang of sorrow and longing for the life he might have had if raised by his real father.
“Since I was not allowed to forget, and I had to keep appearances up in case the Dark Lord returned, as Dumbledore insisted he would, I had to find a way to keep you at arm’s length. I could not grow attached to you, allow myself to feel for you as a father would their son, lest I blow my cover and put us both in even more danger. Though I may have been horrible to you, I always protected and watched over you. Every year when you found yourself in sticky situations, ask yourself how many times it was your hated Potions Professor that managed to get you out of them.”
Harry was having a hard time processing all of this. His life was essentially a lie, or at least the beginning of it. He had been told so many lies already, how was he supposed to believe any of this now? Catching the reflection of his eyes in his tea, Harry remembered the memories that the Potions Master had given him when he was ‘dying’. The love that his father felt for his mother had been genuine, and Snape was right; Harry had been saved by the man more times than he’d been willing to admit before.
“Why did you wait for me to come for you? The war is over; you could have claimed me four years ago.”
“That, Harry, is entirely due to my own cowardice. I honestly did want an escape, and that is why I faked my death. You were always in the back of my mind, and many times I had set out to find you and confess, but the fear of you rejecting me after everything I’d done kept me away. It was easier to let you think a brave man like James Potter was your father than confuse and anger you with the truth. You were right; I am a coward, and I don’t expect you to ever forgive me for that.”
Harry stood up abruptly, causing Severus to flinched back in his seat, almost as if he expected Harry to strike him. Feeling his heart ache, Harry moved slowly toward the older man, kneeling down in front of the arm chair Snape sat in.
“I may not be able to really understand it now, but give me some time, and I’ll learn to forgive you. You’re not a coward, but it wasn’t your place to decide how I would react. You rejected yourself from my life without giving me a choice, but I’m taking that choice back. I can kind of understand the things you and Mum did, and I realise you were only trying to protect us, but you let Dumbledore manipulate you too much. I too fell victim to it, so I can’t say I really blame you. The man was manipulative in such a subtle way; it was easy to fall prey to it.
“I want to be angry, to rage at you and blame you for all those years I sat in my cupboard, crying for someone to come and rescue me. I want to hate you for all the things you said and did to me at Hogwarts. But what’s done is done, and neither of us can go back and change the things we did or did not do. Instead of spending the rest of my life resenting the only family I have left, I want to know my father, learn about the family I never knew I was a part of. I’m not forgiving you yet, but I want to give you a chance. That’s my decision, and you won’t take it from me this time.”
The look of utter despair mingled with hope was the most emotion Harry had ever seen on the Potion Master’s face. He looked almost ready to cry, but instead, the elder man leaned down to grasp Harry’s hand in his own, his black eyes bright and earnest.
“I’m so sorry, Harry.”
There wasn’t much to say other than that. Severus could spend hours – days – apologizing for every little thing he had done to Harry, but he knew it wouldn’t make his son forgive him any quicker. He was glad to at least have a son willing to pick up the pieces of their shattered history and try to form a real relationship between them.
“Now, I can’t graduate until this glamour is gone, but I really would like to see who I really am. Will you remove it?” Harry asked hopefully as he stood, his hand still held firmly in the older man’s – his father’s.
“Yes, of course.”
The former potions professor stood, releasing Harry’s hand to unsheathe his wand. With a deep breath and one last look at the boy he had convinced himself was the spawn of James Potter, Severus raised his wand and gave it a sharp flick “Finite Incantatum!”
The magic travelled over Harry’s skin, like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. He could feel curious pulls and tugs on certain parts of his body, and gasped a little as he slowly began to grow until he was almost the same height as his father. He felt a strong tingle rush through his face and even his hair felt heavier. Without realising it, Harry had closed his eyes during the transformation. Hearing a small sound of distress, Harry opened his eyes and looked up the significantly shorter distance to meet his father’s eyes.
“Well?”
Unable to articulate anything, the Potions Master jabbed his wand at the wall across from them, changing the wall paper into a mirror. Harry stepped forward slowly, and looked upon his true features.
Despite his fears of being disfigured or a completely different person, Harry didn’t look quite that different than before. His cheek bones were a bit higher, perhaps, and his nose was a bit longer. His lips seemed fuller, but he couldn’t tell if he was imagining it or not. His hair was still black to match his father’s, but instead of sticking up everywhere, it tussled elegantly around his ears and drooped into his eyes in a not unpleasant way. His eyes, though…his eyes were still all Lily, with their perfect almond shape and emerald hue. One thing that became quickly apparent, however, was that being near-sighted was a trait that had belonged to James. Harry pulled his glasses off, his vision going from slightly fuzzy to perfect as he stared at his new reflection.
Catching movement behind him in the mirror, Harry looked up and caught sight of his father’s reflection hovering closer above his right shoulder. Though there were definitely similarities, he was not the spitting image of Snape by any means. It was clear that the glamour had not only changed many of the features Harry had received from Snape, but also a few he had shared with his mother. As if his father knew exactly what he was thinking, the man smiled, which was shocking in itself.
“Your eyes were the one thing I refused to change when I put the glamour on you. I so loved your mother’s eyes; they’re what I fell in love with first when we were still just children.”
Harry could feel those same eyes begin to burn as he smiled back at his father in the mirror, wishing so much that his mother could be here to see this, to share this moment with him. He was grateful to at least have one parent, but he wished so bad to know his mother that it hurt his very soul.
“What would you say if I said I wanted everyone to know who I really am? I don’t want to hide anymore, and you deserve recognition for everything you’ve done for me and for the war.”
The face in the mirror reflected surprise, but also something deeper; something that looked dangerously like hope, even longing. “I never wanted the charade to last so long. I had wanted to raise you from the beginning. I’d be honoured to be widely known as your father, Harry, but there will be backlash. People will not like it, especially those who know of our previous relationship as professor and student. I did what I had to to protect you, little good that it did.”
“I’m here, healthy and alive, aren’t I? I think that can be considered a success on your part. I just wish I would have known sooner. I could have used a father all those years of Hogwarts.”
“I was always there, Harry. Even though I treated you so horribly, I never once stopped protecting you, making sure you were safe. Even at the very end, when I almost died, the very last thing I wanted was to warn you what you had to do to truly succeed. Honestly, that was one of the biggest reasons I ran and hid. I never expected you to actually survive. When I found out you had, I was too shocked to actually confront you. I wish I could have truly been there for you, son.”
Hearing that one simple word seemed to tear Harry apart and put him back together again all at once. All he had ever wanted was to be loved, to have the kind of relationship Ron had with his mum and dad with a parent of his own. Though there was still some lingering resentment for everything they had been through, Harry was simply glad to have a second chance at that kind of love. Wiping his watery eyes, Harry turned and smiled at his father, facing him instead of the man’s reflection.
“There’s no time like the present. I’d like to invite you to my robing ceremony for graduation. Each graduate gets to choose an important person in their life to place their Auror robes upon them for the very first time. I want you to robe me…Dad.”
The look of pure shock on Snape’s face was tempered with something Harry thought he’d never see on the man’s face: pride. He quickly nodded and gently grasped his son’s shoulder.
“I’d be honoured to robe you, Harry.”
~.~.~.~
“Harold Octavius Snape.”
Having his birth name announced at his graduation from the Auror Academy was both the hardest and easiest decision Harry had ever made. In the weeks leading up to his robing ceremony and graduation, Harry and Severus had made a point in being seen together. The first time caused quite a stir, as everyone still believed Severus Snape to be dead.
It was bedlam at first: reporters and cameramen on their heels no matter where they went, the Ministry trying to arrest Severus, despite his posthumous pardon, people accusing Harry of performing necromancy and becoming the new Dark Lord. In short, the Wizarding world went crazy.
Harry defended his father left and right, making their relation to each other quite plain after a reporter accused them of being lovers. Though they would have preferred to release the information in a more formal way, they could no longer tolerate the asinine accusations.
Severus had not lied when he said the Wizarding world was not going to like their newfound relationship, but Harry had been through much worse from the press.
“Trust me; it was a lot worse after the war. You weren’t around for that insanity, though I’m sure you probably heard about it. They set my house on fire just to get me to come out. I’ll be fine,” Harry assured his father as they huddled under his invisibility cloak to get away from the café they had lunch at.
“It would have helped if Charles would have kept a low profile, you know. Honestly, snogging you in the middle of Diagon Alley was just asking for a mob.”
Harry chuckled, fondly remembering being lifted nearly off the ground by Charlie’s enthusiastic kisses when he found out Harry had been passed for graduation. That combined with Charlie’s decision to transfer to a closer dragon colony and be with Harry full time, caused quite a scene in the middle of a very busy Diagon Alley. Harry had been on cloud nine for weeks, and now he was finally completing his dream.
“Robe Masters, please robe your graduates.”
Harry stood from his seat, his smile spreading from ear to ear as the crimson robes of the official Aurors were slid up his arms, onto his shoulders, and clasped neatly at his throat. He turned to look his father in the eyes, and was rewarded with such a proud smile, he felt dizzy.
“It is my honour to present the graduating class of 2002!”
Wand sparks of every colour went flying in all directions as the biggest graduating class in history celebrated their achievement. Harry turned towards his partner, Naima, and was immediately engulfed in a tight hug.
“We did it, Harry! We’re finally official Aurors!”
Harry hugged her back, too happy to even form any words to adequately describe his sheer joy. When Naima released him, Harry was then bombarded by a sea of red heads, being hugged and kissed from every angle. He finally managed to worm his way out and towards the back wall where a lone figure stood, his arms crossed over his black-clad chest as he gazed on with a small smile.
“Woah, I thought I was going to suffocate for a second. Why’re you all the way over here?”
“I was letting your friends and family have a chance to congratulate you. Also, I despise crowds,” the Potions Master said, his lip curling in an approximation of his classic sneer.
Harry smirked, reminded again that, though the man was his father, he had not received a personality transplant. “I’m not a huge fan of crowds either. You’re my family too, though. You have every right to be included in that group. I know some of them still feel a little uncomfortable around you, but they all know the truth now; about the war and about you being my dad.”
Severus sighed, a chagrined smile on his face as he uncrossed his arms and relaxed. “Forgive me; it will take time to get over the feeling of being an imposter in your tightknit group, Harry. I will try, though.”
“That’s all I ask. Thank you for being here, and for robing me. It means a lot to me.”
“Thank you for inviting me. I hope you know how very proud I am of you, how proud I’ve always been of you. This is not your first great achievement, nor will it be your last.”
With one hand clasped in Charlie’s and his shoulders encircled by his father’s arm on the other side, Harry left the ballroom with his friends and family all around, finally ready for the first day of the rest of his life.