2.

When he woke up the first thing (or better to say: person) he noticed was Snape sitting still in an armchair next to his bed with a very, very strange and unfamiliar expression on his face.

He seemed sad. And guilty. And his face was missing every previous sign of annoyance and anger or even coldness. His eyes were watching Harry’s face with a little bit of discomfort, but he tried to crack a half-smile when he saw Harry opening his eyes.

“Good morning,” he said and slipped Harry’s glasses to his face. Harry shut his eyes in shock.

The world was about to end. Snape was civil. Or even more: Snape was friendly with no other than Harry Potter? Harry even forgot to reply back. He heard a loud sigh from the bed’s side.

“I’m sorry,” Snape said and Harry’s eyes flung open. His pupils were dilated in shock. The man stood up. “Sorry, I didn’t want to shock you...” But you managed, Harry thought to himself. Snape tried another smile. “I go to find Madam Pomfrey...” his tone was still apologising. When he disappeared towards the nurse’s office, Harry slipped into a sitting position and stretched slowly. He felt almost completely healthy, at least physically. His broken arm was mended like his ribs, the main part of his bruises faded notably, and all in all every part of his body appeared to be less sore and painful. And the most important: his mouth wasn’t dry as the Sahara desert any more. He could swallow, and the disgusting, metallic taste of blood and filth had disappeared from his mouth.

But all this still didn’t mean he was all right. In the Infirmary’s brightness the past days’ darkness towered over Harry more heavily and depressingly and still, he could feel no future for him. With Sirius dead, whom could he go to live with? He needed his mother’s blood to protect him, but his own blood and flesh had betrayed him, handed him over to Voldemort. He had no future, but he was alive. Again. Apparently, Dumbledore was a professional at keeping him alive, the only problem was that after every rescue Harry felt more fed up with life than before. Now, he really didn’t want to live. Not, with those memories he brought from his captivity.

The office’s door opened and Madam Pomfrey, Dumbledore and Snape strode out. This time, fortunately, Dumbledore didn’t smile as jovially as he normally did, because that, Harry was totally sure, would increase his hatred towards the white-bearded man to an unbelievable level.

Harry cast a hostile glare at them, then he turned his face away. For more protection, he pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them close.

“I don’t want to talk,” he said first. “To anyone. About anything,” he added as an afterthought.

“I came to apologise, Harry. For failing you,” the Headmaster said. “I didn’t...”

“I don’t want to talk,” Harry repeated without looking at the old man.

“Mr Potter you have to eat first of all,” the nurse said matter-of-factly, “and since Professor Snape here is very determined to stay with you, I agreed to let him help you in the next few days.”

Harry cast a sideway glance at them, and he noticed both men standing with slumped shoulders and somehow... in an apologising way. It didn’t erase Harry’s hatred towards them, but his curiosity won over his loathing towards Snape. The git wanted to stay with him? Very well, then. He could – as long as he could restrain himself from sarcastic remarks and evil humiliating comments.

He nodded slowly, but didn’t utter a word. Under his piercing glare, the Headmaster left the hospital wing. In the meantime a house elf appeared with a tray of food and rolled it next to the bed Harry was occupying. There was just a cup of thin broth soup on the tray, which excited his curiosity.

“How long was I...” he couldn’t finish the question. In Voldemort’s captivity? In Hell? In the underworld?

“Sixteen days,” Snape said softly, tugged the tray closer and sat down on the bed next to Harry. Harry tensed and moved away. The professor sighed. “Calm down. I just want to help you. If you let me...”

The expression on the git’s face hushed Harry again. The guilt was so clearly written that Harry could recognise it without any skills of Legilimency.

Harry nodded again, silently staring at Snape with disbelief. The man helped Harry to sit properly and put a plate on his lap. When Harry realised that he was too weak to lift the spoon to his mouth, Snape took it from him and fed him cautiously.

The first spoonfuls were better than anything Harry’d ever eaten in his life. His starved stomach relaxed greatly as the warm liquid filled it. He had to wait after every spoonful of the first few as he tried to keep it down. Madam Pomfrey watched the two men seriously while Harry was eating, then she left without any further comment or orders.

When Harry finished his soup (it wasn’t even more than a half plate) and leaned back, signalling, he couldn’t eat more, Snape took the plate and placed it back to the tray. Then he rasped his throat.

“Po- Harry, I have to talk to you...” he began unsurely, which was highly unusual for him.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Harry said and slipped into a lying position and turned away from the man. “I don’t think there would be anything we have to talk about.”

After a short silence, Snape said-

“Well, there is. A lot of things, actually.”

“I don’t think I want to talk to you nevertheless,” Harry mumbled. “I don’t know what this sudden change in you is, perhaps because you pity me now, I don’t mind, I don’t care, just leave me alone.”

“No, I... don’t,” Snape said quickly. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Harry barked and turned to the man.

“I’m sorry, Potter. It was entirely my fault and I want to tell you everything...”

Harry sat up.

“What was your fault, Snape?” his eyes were burning with anger. “My aunt’s renouncement? My uncle’s hatred? Voldemort’s ability to discover the wards disappearing before Dumbledore? Your fellow Death Eaters’ tortures?” he shook his head. “No. You have your faults, but this was entirely not yours!” he finished, a little appalled over his words. Was he defending Snape? Was he making excuses for Snape? Had he gone nuts?

“Yes.” The man’s voice held so much finality that it jolted Harry.

“Don’t be ridiculous, professor,” Harry snapped, and he noticed that he was almost polite now.

“I’m not,” Snape’s whole expression tensed. “I could have prevented it. All of it.”

The air froze. Harry blinked in embarrassment. Surely, one of them wasn’t in his right mind.

“Look,” Harry began, “just because you knew that my home life wasn’t entirely perfect, because of those... remedial potions lessons, you couldn’t be sure that they would renounce me!”

“Don’t defend me!” Snape yelled suddenly and lifted his glance from the floor. “I don’t deserve your defence, Po- Harry,” he added a little calmer.

“And what’s this ‘Harry’ stuff?” Harry noticed the slip of tongue, which reminded him to ask this very question. “What’s going on?”

“Let me tell you, please?” Snape again seemed apologising. Harry shrugged.

“Well, if you want to blame yourself who I am to stop you?” It was most certainly an impertinence, but Harry couldn’t enrage Snape with it. Instead, the man lowered his head again.

“It’s a long story, but I want to tell you as quickly as I can...”

“We have time,” Harry suddenly said surprising even himself. Snape looked at him with astonishment. Then he nodded and flushed with fluster.

“I didn’t behave as a mature adult towards you, Potter,” this confession surely didn’t come easy to him, and still, Snape didn’t turn his eyes away. “I acted like a stupid, idiot six-year-old. From the very first moment.” He gulped and shook his head. “And I was so proud of being a rational man!”

The repeated shocks over the Potions Master attitude somehow washed Harry’s hatred away. He was now only curious.

“Well, if I think that you hate me just because of my father...”

“No.” Snape’s voice stopped Harry. “I didn’t hate you just because of your father. I hated you more because of your mother.”

Harry was lost.

“My... mother?”

Snape put his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands. Later, he lifted his head and ran his hands through his oily hair.

“Yes,” he said finally. “And I couldn’t see through my childish hatred for too long.” He looked directly into Harry’s eyes. “I was an idiot... and now I don’t know how to repair our relationship, how to repay you those lost years, how to compensate you for these two weeks in the Dark Lord’s prison – and how to forgive myself...” his voice faded leaving Harry breathless and thoroughly scared.

If he hadn’t been sure that this man was indeed Severus Snape, his potions teacher for the last five years, Harry’d never recognise him by his attitude. Something was going on, and Harry couldn’t place a finger on it.

“Professor,” he said calmingly, and myriads of emotions swirled around him, “I- I can understand that you hated me. That’s okay – I mean that’s not a problem. You have nothing to do with these weeks...”

“I could have taken you under my protection,” Snape said and Harry shuddered.

“Well, sorry, sir, but I don’t think I would have accepted your protection,” he muttered in fluster. “Our relationship wasn’t good enough to accept such an offer...”

“Which was my fault again,” Snape said firmly. “I did everything not to have even a civil conversation between us not to mention a human relationship, just because I couldn’t forgive for my childhood to my father –and your mother.”

Harry furrowed his brows.

“It was my father who harassed you, not my mother!”

“Yes, but...” Snape stopped and for a short time he was lost in thought. When he opened his mouth again, Harry could hear the determination in his voice. “Potter, I’m sure you remember some things you saw in my memories, don’t you?”

Harry blushed violently and turned his eyes to his hands.

“I apologise for my... curiosity, sir. I...”

“No, I didn’t mean the Pensieve. I know you saw some of my other memories...”

“Yeah,” Harry mumbled and he suddenly saw Snape’s parents quarrelling, his father was leaning menacingly towards his mother. “Yes, I saw some...”

Snape, again, seemed to know what Harry was thinking about, nodded.

“My parents’ marriage wasn’t good. It was an arranged marriage, they didn’t know each other before their wedding day – and they didn’t like each other from the very beginning. My father soon decided to look for somebody else to- to...” for the first time in life Harry could see the infamous Potions Master in loss of words.

“I understand,” Harry whispered embarrassed.

Snape let out a relieved sigh.

“He left my mother when I turned six and disappeared totally from my life taking away all the money we had, even my mother’s own funds, leaving just our house and the furniture behind. He moved in with his lover leaving the wizarding community once and for all. My mother told me that my father’s lover was a Muggle woman, and from that very moment I hated Muggles with all my strength. As a child I assumed they all were evil and unworthy to live. My mother always supported these thoughts, and after a while, she entered the Dark Lord’s service. Her life’s main aim was to find my father and his new family and kill them all. She left me alone many times when she went to Death Eater meetings and I was bored. After a while I began to read just to prevent going mad from loneliness. My mother adored Dark Arts. By the time I began my studies in Hogwarts I knew almost every existing Dark spell and practice. But we were poor and I wasn’t too social a person – I had barely met children of my age before – so from the first moment I found myself alone and excluded from the students’ society. Your father singled me out on our second day, and from that point I didn’t have any peaceful minute. I hated my childhood. And my father was one responsible for... for everything. I hated my father and I think I can never forgive him,” his eyes went unfocused as he was lost in thought again.

Harry’s astonishment grew with every passing minute. Why was Snape telling him all these things?

“In our third year an accident happened in a Potions lesson. Your mother, Lily Evans, managed to explode a cauldron in such a way, that the explosion threw her bag at my feet. It turned upside down and all of its contents spilled over the floor. I leaned to help her pack the things back up, when a photo caught my eye. It was a typical Muggle photo of a typical Muggle family... just one thing wasn’t typical: I saw my lost father standing happily next to a smiling, brown-haired woman, his left arm on the woman’s shoulder, with his right he embraced your mother and smiled at her so warmly... I could barely move then. I was frozen, my heart was racing, and from that moment I hated Lily Evans with all my heart...”

Harry felt his limbs going numb and the world became so distant. Did it mean...?

“I asked her about her father’s name. She told me. That night I couldn’t sleep. I was staring at the written name before me and trying to understand something... to prove my fears. To find a proof that he is not... But Lily Potter told me his father’s name was Perseus Evans – not only a little bit strange name for a Muggle, it’s more a typical wizard name, but my father was always so keen on unnerving people and my mother told me he loved Greek mythology as well... everything seemed to prove my suspicions. And I didn’t have to wait more to have the final proof. Look!”

He pulled out his wand and began to trace it through the air, writing two shimmering words:

PERSEUS EVANS

Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of the name rearranged themselves:

SEVERUS SNAPE

“I was named after my father,” he explained, but Harry’s heart was racing now. First, the little show reminded him too much of Voldemort’s stunt in the Chamber of Secrets, on the other hand it meant...

“You... are...” he stuttered foolishly.

“Yes. I’m your mother’s half-brother. I’ve never told anybody. Except for Dumbledore, but it was much later. And I never told my mother, of course. I- I hated Lily Evans, but I didn’t want her killed. She was my sister after all. Even if I didn’t want to accept it. That was the truth. And when he married that Potter git,” Snape shuddered. “That was the worst day of my life. By that time I was one of the Dark Lord’s servants. One day my mother found my father. I joined her in her hunt. I tried to save your grandparents, my father... But the only one I managed to save from my mother’s wrath was your aunt.”

Harry shook his head.

“When I learnt that the Lord wanted you and your parents dead I tried to alert them. They didn’t listen to me. Then I went to Dumbledore to warn him. He asked why I did that. I told him the real reason, but I made him swear to keep everything secret. I didn’t want more people to know about my, our ‘filthy’ secret. Fortunately, my mother died before finding out the sisters’ identity and spilling out information about her ex-husband’s marriage. Petunia was safe with her new husband, and the only one I had to look after was your mother. I helped her and Potter many times to break free from the Dark Lord’s traps. The last time I failed...” he sighed deeply. “The thing I hated most in your mother was that her father – my father – loved her. She talked a lot about him with her friends and I caught a lot of things then.” Snape’s jaw clenched. “My father loathed me. I was too much like my mother for him. He never said a good word to me. And finally, he left me.”

Both were silent for some minutes.

“When I saw you the first time, you were so much like the James Potter I loathed, and when I looked into your eyes, I saw your mother’s eyes – and my father’s eyes, because you inherited your grandfather’s eyes, and I couldn’t help but hate you for everything you made me remember... Your father treated me like shit for years; your mother stole my father from me... And there you were, at the centre of attention and admiration – I... I was blinded by my prejudices. I wanted to prove that you weren’t worthy of the admiration and special treatment you received, but you always proved the opposite – and I hated you even more. I have no excuses. What I did to you was unfair and perhaps unforgivable as well. I was biased and unjust.” He sighed and Harry could see that he was about to confess the hardest part of the story. “After your parents’ death Dumbledore asked me to raise you. I refused without a second thought. It was my fault that you had to grow up with those... Muggles,” he spat the last word. “But the worst is that the Headmaster asked me to take you this summer. He had evil forebodings – but I was so mad at you about the Pensieve stuff and your stupid, foolhardy behaviour, which almost killed you, that I didn’t even ponder about things I should have. It’s my fault that you almost died. And it was my fault that the Dark Lord caught Black – I stopped our Occlumency lessons because I was afraid of your curiosity. I didn’t want you to find out my secret. But many times, you were so close...”

Harry didn’t react. He was too shocked to say a word or make a movement. He just stared dully at his lap, and everything was too distant and large and empty... Snape looked at him worriedly.

“Potter, are you all right?”

“It’s too much,” Harry blurted out. “I want to be alone.”

“Potter, I...”

“I want to be alone,” Harry repeated, but feeling Snape’s distress, he added, “please, sir.”

After Snape retreated, Harry turned over, buried his head into his pillow and let himself cry.

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