Dearest Harry - Eileen's Story

Thanks to Kim for the stonking betaing job!


Ten

The boy was sprawled on the floor blinking owlishly at Severus and, belatedly, Severus realised that they had not sorted out glasses for him yet. All of them had meant to do it but as yet nobody had. He sighed to himself, wasn’t that just the story of the poor boy’s life? They had all meant to help him and yet somehow his needs had once again been overlooked. And yet Harry had said not one word of complaint, which was a very different reaction from the one Severus would have once expected from him.

He held out his hand to help the boy back on to the bed and was a little hurt when he flinched. Chagrined, he told himself firmly that the boy had been abused for much of his childhood. That he had never really had a good experience with the adults in his life, and that he, Severus, had not done a very good job in breaking the news of their own familial relationship.

Harry had been even more prickly than usual when Severus tried to talk to him, and he could not help but think that he probably deserved such a reaction after the way he had treated him over the years. In recent days, Severus had felt more and more guilty about their past relationship. He was determined to try and change things between them, even if the boy was very irritating at times.

After all, family was important to Severus, who had had to make do with very little contact with the more agreeable members of his family because of the existence of the one very disagreeable member, his own father. He wondered what Harry would make of his more eccentric and peculiar aunts and uncles and what they would make of the fact that their great nephew was The Boy Who Lived.

The boy’s family tree had just undergone a major re-shaping. The Prince family, who had generations of pureblood heritage behind them, would surely embrace the child of a half-blood witch who had stood against the Dark Lord, and the only scion of a family older than their own? The Prince family, unlike many purebloods, despised that upstart Voldemort and would have nothing with Severus after he had taken the Dark Mark, mistakenly thinking that his acceptance into the Death Eaters would overcome the tainted blood of his father.

So Severus tried hard to swallow his annoyance and extended his hand to Harry once again.

“I am merely trying to help you back on to the bed.” he said smoothly. “Do you not think that if I were going to hurt you, I would have already had far better opportunities than this one?”

The boy looked up at him again and, this time, extended his hand.

“Sorry,” he muttered, shrugging his shoulders, “I don’t know why I did that.”

But Severus did. Harry was used to being hit by adults, wasn’t he? Especially the man he had believed to be his uncle.

“How come you only just found out?” Harry asked, as Severus helped him back into bed. He winced slightly, his shoulder was obviously still bothering him. Then, in a much quieter voice, “Or did you just not want to tell me before now?”

Severus looked at the boy, really looked at him. Circe, help me, he thought, the child was so damned needy, it oozed out of every pore. How could he not have seen it before now? Severus Snape, who prided himself on his skill at character judgement, had really got it wrong this time, hadn’t he?

“Did you know when you told him?” he asked, in such a quiet voice that Severus almost missed what he was saying.

“I beg your pardon, Harry? What do you mean?”

“When you told Voldemort the prophecy, did you know that my mum…. That she was your sister?”

Severus felt like his insides had turned to water. Harry knew?

“How, did you?” Severus mouth shut with an audible snap. He was quite simply, lost for words.

Harry looked at him straight in the eye, that cold green stare piercing him mercilessly. All of a sudden the air around them crackled with a dark menace, and immense power. Severus realised that the child’s magic had come in fully. Not only that, but he was controlling it, using it ruthlessly to let Severus know who was in charge.

“Answer my question first.” he said coldly. “Did you know?”

For the first time, Severus got a glimpse of the steel in Harry’s soul and, all at once, he knew for certain that the Dark Lord had lost. He did not stand a chance against this boy. Severus had seen his foolish bravery, his determination, before. But never had he recognised the inner strength that Harry had, or realised the potency of his magic. The boy was very powerful indeed, stupendously powerful. For a moment he was awed. He thanked the gods that Harry was a Gryffindor, that he seemed to have such a strong sense of justice and fair play. Because, if things had been even a little bit different, if this boy had resented his relatives rather than defending them, he could have killed them all with out even breaking sweat and then moved on to seek his revenge for his dreadful childhood, just like Tom Riddle had.

“No Harry, I did not know. I swear to you that I did not. I did not even know that the prophecy was about them, about you. I would have done anything to save Lily, I promise you that I would.”

Harry regarded him steadily for a moment or two. Then, all at once, he was a boy again. Lost, uncertain, and somewhat beaten down by pain and loneliness. The atmosphere in the room returned to normal and Harry seemed to shrink.

“I met Trelawney that night.” he began, but now his eyes were fixed on the bedspread in front of him. “The night that Dumbledore died, I was going to warn him about Malfoy but instead I met her. She told me that you had crashed into her interview and how rude you were.” He looked up at Severus for a moment and said, wryly, “So no change there then, Professor? But Dumbledore had already told me that that was the night that he heard the prophecy. He told me that no-one but him heard the whole prophecy, that someone had heard the first part and told Voldemort. But he was lying, wasn’t he?

“You heard it all, everything. But I don’t think that he was there to interview her that night. I think he did interview her, but really, really he was waiting for you. Somehow, he thought you were going to turn to him and he got you onside, didn’t he? That’s when you became a spy?” Severus opened his mouth to answer, but Harry’s question had obviously been rhetorical because he had not stopped talking.

“I hated you that night, I wanted to kill you, tear you limb from limb with my bare hands. And then you apparently murdered Dumbledore in cold blood too and I knew that I hated you.”

Severus shivered. Harry knew it all. He was laying things before him that Severus had never wished to examine, things that he had buried for years. Harry was flaying him alive in a cold monotone. His blood felt like it had turned to ice in his veins. His heart felt like it was about to break.

“But then I thought about it again and again. I had plenty of time to think this summer, Professor, and I worked out a lot of stuff. I worked out that you are as much Dumbledore’s man as I am. He didn’t beg you for his life, like I thought he did. He begged you to kill him, didn’t he?”

This time Severus could not keep silent. “You really did see it all, didn’t you?” he whispered.

Harry gave a bitter chuckle. “Yes I did.” he said simply.

This time Severus closed his eyes. He saw again, Albus’ face, heard the pleading in his head. ‘Please, Severus, for the sake of us all…Kill me, Severus, do it fast, I am dying, I am in pain. You promised me, Severus.’ He saw again, leaning against the wall, two brooms two brooms. Harry truly had seen him kill Dumbledore, Severus had known it all along, really, long before Harry had told him. He also knew that it was Severus’ fault that his parents had died, and for some reason he had not killed him yet. He felt like someone had shoved something hard and immovable down his throat, he felt like he had been torn in two.

Harry had known all this time, and yet he had done nothing, said nothing. Who was this child? How could have defended Severus to the Order like he had when he had known the truth?

“I hated you, Professor. If you had come to me earlier in the summer, I would have done my best to kill you. I used to lie in bed at night and plan how I would do it, each method more dreadful than the last. But when I really got to thinking, something just wasn’t right. I wondered why a loyal Death Eater, if he knew the whole prophecy, would just tell his beloved Master the first bit? Not the important bit, the bit that says ’he will mark him as his equal’. Why not warn him? If Voldemort had not gone after my parents, he wouldn’t have marked me, I wouldn’t be in this position right now and he would be undefeatable.

“I reckon that, when Dumbledore heard that prophecy, he was delighted, relieved, probably overjoyed. He thought there was a chance at last. If Voldemort could be persuaded to search out the child then mark him as his equal, the side of light would have a chance. So then he got you to do the deed for him.

Oh, I don’t think for a moment that he realised what needed to happen for an equal to be created, but, by the time he realised my mum was pregnant, it was too late. Nothing could stop Voldemort by then, and the cost of creating this weapon was me. My childhood, my parents, my life.

“The worst of it, is I think I understand a bit of what he must have been going through now. These last few months, as more people have been killed or gone missing, I know that I would do anything in my power to stop Voldemort killing any more innocent people. Sacrifice anything, especially if it was something abstract, like the prophecy seemed to be. And in the end, he even sacrificed himself, didn’t he? He had been dying all year, he was just hoping to keep going just a bit longer, but it wasn’t to be.

“You had kept him alive, hadn’t you? When you gave us that welcoming speech in first year, you said you could ‘stopper death’ and you did. But that poison that he made me promise to force on him was the final straw. Whatever happened, he would have been dead by morning, and he wanted you to use his death to your best advantage.

“I reckon that near the end, the war, defeating Voldemort became ever more important.

“When I worked it all out, I even hated him. When he told me about the prophecy and what I had to do, I destroyed his office. If he had been near me when I worked out how Voldemort had found out about it, I think I probably would have tried to kill him, tear him limb from limb. But I can’t hate him anymore. I don’t even blame him, really. He did what he thought was best, even if the consequences were really bad for me and for my mum and dad.” Harry wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, mopping up the few tears that had escaped. “There were two people responsible for the death of my parents. One was Peter Pettigrew, and the other one isn’t really even a person any more, because the other one was Voldemort.

“So if I can’t find it in me to blame Dumbledore, then I can’t really blame you either, can I? I don’t like you and I don’t like you touching me and calling me Harry like all of a sudden you care about me. But I’ll defend you, because all along you have been following Dumbledore’s instructions and that’s not always easy, I know. You don’t have to do this. Pretend we could have a family relationship. I mean, I believe you, it’s a shock and it doesn’t seem real somehow, but I don’t see why you would lie.”

The room was completely silent for a moment or two. Severus was unable to speak. He knew it all. Harry knew it all.

“So why did you come to find me, Professor? Why does it suddenly matter that we are related? What do you want from me?” He fixed Severus with another one of those gimlet glares. “I want the truth.”

“I promise you, Harry, that I have only just found out the truth for myself, I didn’t know. If I had known, I would have taken you in, I would have come to find you. I…I would have treated you well.”

Harry’s eyes filled with tears again. But he blinked them away fiercely.

“When I found out, I was furious, hurt, wounded beyond belief. But most of that was down to the fact that Lily was my sister. That I cared for her and did not know about our relationship, neither of us knew and yet we were drawn to each other.

“I hated you because you are James’ son and he took her away from me. She was my friend, but, when she started hanging around with Potter, I gave her an ultimatum: ‘Him or me.’ And when she tried to stay friends after their relationship turned serious, I blanked her and refused to see her. You look so much like him. But I have come to know you so much better in the last few days and you are far more like her than him in many ways. I thought that you took after him in every way, that you were arrogant and spoiled. But what I saw at your aunt’s house…..” he broke off there, trying to get it straight in his own head just why things had changed so much for him, just why he felt so differently about Harry now.

The fact that Harry was his nephew, his own flesh and blood, did change things immensely, but so did the fact that he had seen a different side to the boy. The characteristics that Severus had attributed to him were not ones belonging to Harry. He wasn’t selfish, he wasn’t arrogant, he wasn’t spoiled. In fact, if Severus were very honest, he found that he rather admired Harry. He was unaccountably proud of him for the way he had dealt with things. But the boy had made it clear that he was not ready for things to change that much between them as yet, and Severus could not blame him, really.

Whilst Severus could see that Harry was desperately in need of someone in his life that he could turn to, he could also see that there had been too much enmity between them for him to accept Severus in that role right now, maybe one day, but not yet.

He looked up from his thoughts to see that the boy was still watching him. He had drawn up his knees in a protective gesture and was hugging them; seeking whatever comfort he could in this situation. Harry was waiting; he wanted to know about Eileen, he wanted to know how Severus had found out that Harry was his nephew. He had waited long enough.

So, Severus told him everything.