Harry had just started to doze when he heard the door open. He opened his eyes slightly, revealing Severus Snape standing at the foot of his bed. He sat up with a start, �Snape! What are you doing here?� his voice sounded frantic in his ears.
�I have come--no, sit down boy--to offer an apology and tell you the real reason I hated your father.�
Harry gaped at the professor as if he was speaking another language, �apology? F-for what?� he narrowed his eyes in suspicion, thinking this was some sort of trick, �my father? Wha, Just, I�m confused, please sit down and stop pacing. Harry pointed to the chair Dumbledore had been sitting in.
Snape sat but would not look Harry in the eye as he began to speak, �I�ve come to realize that I have been unfair to you, and as such, was not the best instructor I could have been. Where you genuinely tried your hardest, most of the time, I scratched you off as worthless from the moment I heard you were coming to Hogwarts.
�I hate to admit it, even though I�ve been saying it for years, it is mostly because of your father. I told you once that he tried to kill me, but that is only half of the reason I hated him. The other is that he lost me my wife.� Harry gasped as Snape paused, licking his lips nervously. �We had met at Hogwarts, she was in slytherin house even though she was of muggle lineage. She had the aloof demeanor and cutthroat nature that was prized among that house�s students at that time. She was a year older than I and looked down on me with disdain. I thought she was fantastic.�
He cleared his throat and continued. �Through the years, the feud between your father and I grew worse and worse and it was when he started dating your mother that she finally noticed me. You see, she was your mother�s sister, Petunia.�
Harry gasped, eyes wide in shock, �aunt Petunia?! She�s a witch? How is that possible?� He laughed out loud.
�Do not interrupt me, Potter!� Snape shook his head, as if to clear his mind, �I am getting to that. Now, one day, your father and I got into a rather intense bout of jinxes and he actually had me in a corner with those friends of�in any case your aunt happened by and cursed the pants off of them�quite literally in fact� he smiled, ruefully. �We became friends then, and it grew into love. We were married and happy.� Snape cleared his throat as it was constricted with emotion.
�On December fifth of the year before you were born, James found out that I was a death eater and told Petunia.� He closed his eyes, suddenly to Harry he simply looked like a man, a very sad man, but just a man, no one to fear. �The argument we had was horrendous she threatened to go to the ministry and turn me in. That is when they showed up, the death eaters. They had been sent by the dark lord to kill her before she made a ruckus and fingers began to be pointed.� Snape swallowed thickly, staring out the window as he continued, �the battle was atrocious, she came out of it very near death as did I, but none of the death eaters survived. I got her to st mungos and told them she was attacked by death eaters. They rushed her in and I was left in the wake of my ruined life.
�That is when Dumbledore came to see me. He waited, patiently, with me as they popped in and out, giving reports on her status. When they finally pronounced that she would be fine but didn�t want to see me, he took me aside into an empty room.� he shook his head, closing his eyes again, �he said the order of the phoenix knew I was a death eater and that they had tried to kill petunia because she also knew. He offered me a deal, one that would save her life, mine as well. I took it greedily, not wanting anything to do with the dark lord�s vile ways. I was to become a spy, a double agent and petunia was to have her memory altered and become the woman she is today, a muggle. They programed her to despise everything about the world I live in, it was actually quite simple, she already detested me, they just turned her feelings to that of jealousy towards her sister�s being a witch and that jealousy bred bitterness.
�All these years, I blamed your father. And when you came to school, so tormented and thin, as if you had been cast down and abused all your life by the very woman I had hoped would be the mother of my own children, it just reiterated how much she hated all things magical, including myself.� a tear slipped down his cheek.
Harry stared at him, wide eyed. He wasn�t sure how to react to this or what to do. He ahd never seen Snape act any other than contemptuously toward him but now he was crying in Harry�s hospital room. Harry had a momentary feeling to just let him suffer but after a moment, he caved and patted the older man on the shoulder. �I forgive you, professor Snape, I just wish this had come earlier, you have no idea how many times we thought you were behind all of Voldemort�s schemes.� He laughed, awkwardly.
Snape looked at him and laughed too, �well, I suppose I can�t blame you for that.� he stood to leave.
�Wait, the danger is gone, can�t you giver her the proper memories back? Let her make up her own mind now that she has had nearly twenty years to cool off.�
�I don�t think that is a good idea, she�s happy with her family, now.�
�No, I don�t think she is! Vernon is a beast, I sometimes think she hates him nearly as much as I do! She spends all her time cleaning her kitchen, which isn�t dirty! I think if she was to drop her �perfectly normal� facade, everyone would see that she�s miserable. Of course that is just my opinion and I was miserable the entire time I was there so I could simply be externalizing my feelings onto her. However, I do not think she is happy, no, there you are wrong.� He looked at his feet as snape turned to go, �don�t you at least owe her the chance to know who she really is? At least speak with dumbledore about it, you both have suffered long enough!�
Snape left without a word.
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