“He must never know, Harry.”
Harry stared, trying to find himself after the revelation. This demand however was one more shock.
“But, why?” Harry whispered.
“He doesn’t want to remember.”
Harry felt everything, all the hopes and anxieties he had been experiencing, fall away. An ache sprang up in his chest, and he had to swallow around the lump in his throat. Dumbledore’s gaze never left him.
“Okay,” he replied softly, “okay.”
Fifth year potions was strange, Potter stopped arguing altogether, his work quality took a sharp upturn, and strangest of all were his lingering stares, no longer suspicious, but something different which Severus could not place.
He was quiet in occlumency, his meager performance was at least not riddled with disrespect, and it wasn’t until he found the boy in his pensieve that he realized it had all been a game. It didn’t change the look in the teenager’s eyes, one he could not understand.
The year ended though, Sirius Black dying, the Dark Lord making his statement.
In the clearing, empty of all the death eaters, Severus stared down at the body of the child he had sworn to protect and then to lead to their death. He felt only grief for Lily, none for the child. He knelt, reaching out and moving to look for the boy’s wand. He found the stick of wood cursed by the Dark Lord, but he also found a bottle of what he knew to be memories.
It wasn’t until the Dark Lord was dead, slain by Severus’ own hand with the master wand, his allegiances suddenly shown and stumbling among the remains while people cried and numbly tried to respond to the tragedy of the day, that he remembered the vial stored in his robes.
It was in Dumbledore’s-his- whoever’s office that he poured the silvery contents and entered.
Things flashed before him. Memories, a little boy beaten and abused, one who didn’t learn his name until he went to school at the age of six.
Then a memory of Potter and Dumbledore. Severus Snape was a father. Then memories, attempts by his son to gain his attention, his desperation, sharper grief in summers in an unwanting home. Finally, acceptance, a teenage child resigned to death and his father’s hate of him. Then there was a memory of Harry with another vial, this one of Lily’s memories of their time together. The boy hid it, intentionally showing where and gifting Severus with a truth he would receive seventeen years too late.
Severus pulled out. He collapsed in a chair; realization dawning on him, crushing him once again. He closed his eyes, tears running down his face. What would Lily think of him now?
Chapter 1
The End.