Severus grabbed another parchment from a rather large stack and cursed himself for ever becoming a teacher not that he had a choice in the matter. He squinted at the essay, trying to decipher the barely legible handwriting. Usually he would have graded it as Dreadful without giving it second glance. But this essay was written by a muggle born first year which would make it her first attempt at writing with a quill since it was still very early in the school year. So he put some effort in reading the words which might as well have been written in another language.
He looked up when he heard a tentative knock on the door. It was most likely a student, considering the hesitancy of the knock. He considered not answering and going back to grading essays but then glanced at the little mountain of parchments he had in front of him and grimaced. Some distraction would be welcome at the moment after staring at first years abysmal attempt at the essay on Forgetfulness potion. He put his quill back in the ink well and sat up straight with his hands on the desk in front of him.
“Come in” he said sharply.
His right eyebrow went up in surprise when he saw Potter entering his office. He hadn’t expected the boy to seek him out voluntarily after his godfather’s death, especially not twice.
“Good afternoon, sir.” Potter said fidgeting with an envelope in his hand.
“Potter, I thought I made it clear that you were not to enter my office unless it was absolutely necessary, did I not?” Severus said still seething at having his privacy violated by the boy previous year.
Before Potter could say anything he continued.
“I hope you are not here again to ask me to resume the occlumency lessons.”
“No, I am not” Harry said through gritted teeth remembering how he had practically begged the man to resume the lessons not long after Sirius’s death. He knew that if he had managed to close his mind from Voldermort, Sirius might have still been alive. So he had went to Snape to request him to start the Occlumency lessons again so that no one else would have to die again because of his mental link to the dark wizard.
But it had only resulted in another heated argument between them when Snape had refused, calling him too lazy to learn anything and then proceeded to badmouth his father. So he had went back to the Dursleys for the summer, fuming and certain that the man was on Voldermorts side. But had ended up questioning the Potion master’s loyalties all over again after receiving a certain letter on his sixteenth birthday.
He took a deep breath to quell his anger at the man. He wasn’t here to fight with Snape.
“I received this during the summer and I think maybe you should take a look at it.” he said putting the envelope in front of Snape on the desk.
Severus opened his mouth to ask why, he would ever want to read Potter’s fan mail but then clicked his mouth shut when his eyes fell on the envelope, it had a brownish hue to it. He lifted his hand and traced the familiar writing on the front with his fingers. He hadn’t expected to ever see it again after all these years.
Harry stared at Snape his fingers curling into a fist. He could immediately tell that Snape had recognized the handwriting when Harry himself hadn’t at first glance. He hated how everyone knew so much about his parents when he knew so little about them even after sixteen years.
Severus took his eyes off the envelope that he had been staring at when he heard the door shut with a loud bang and realized that Potter had left. He would have went after Potter and rebuked him for his insolence if he hadn’t been distracted by the envelope sitting so innocently on his desk.
Chapter 1