Dearest Harry - Eileen's Story

Thanks ladies for all your hard work!


Chapter Twenty Two

It had been a very strange afternoon as far as Harry was concerned; everyone had seemed so different! Professor Lupin had hugged him several times as well as Hermione and even Ron. Mr Weasley had told Harry with tears in his eyes that he was very proud of Harry and would have considered himself blessed if Harry had been his son.

Harry really didn’t know what to make of it all.

After Draco had kissed him Harry thought that he had probably gone into shock. He had allowed himself to be pulled over to the table and had sat down to eat breakfast as if this were a normal day, as if he hadn’t just ranted for ages about Horcruxes and then nearly squashed Professor Snape.

And yet everyone was being so nice to him.

Draco sat next to him the rest of the morning and just held his hand, in full view of everyone and nobody said a word.

Ron and Draco were even, miracle of miracles, being nice, well civil, to each other.

“Are you okay with this Ron?” Harry had finally gathered up enough courage to ask his friend, holding up his and Draco’s joined hands to demonstrate, as if anyone in the room hadn’t noticed, the fact that he and the other boy were together now.

“Yeah mate, I am” Ron had replied looking Harry right in the eye, “think it’s about time you had a bit of happiness.”

“We are fine Harry,” Draco interrupted, “Weas….er… Ron and I have come to an agreement.”

“That’d be right,” Ron muttered under his breath, almost too quietly for Harry to hear “You don’t hurt him, I don’t kill you. Simple really.”

“Hermione?” Harry said, turning to look directly into her deep brown eyes, “Everyone deserves a second chance Harry.” Was all that she said, but she said it with a smile. She looked a little lighter somehow, they both did. A little less worried, and Harry thought to himself that maybe Professor Snape had been right after all, to tell the Weasleys and Remus about the Horcrux thing. It was an awful strain for his friends to have to carry around such information. To have to keep such a terrible secret.

This time when Harry caught Ron’s eye they smiled at each other and then Hermione smiled too and Harry couldn’t help but notice how blotchy her face had seemed before, with eyes almost as puffy as his own from all those tears. All at once Harry felt blessed. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve friends like Ron and Hermione, but he thanked his lucky stars that they were there for him.

Draco squeezed his hand. The blond boy was still not very comfortable around Ron and Hermione, but Harry thought he would just have to get over that. He liked Draco, he really, really liked Draco, but he was not planning on sacrificing his friendship with these two for anything. Harry thought that he really had not been the best of friends but until recent revelations he had considered that pair to be the only family that he had. The last few months had been horrendously hard, he knew that, but they had promised to stay by him, support him and never once had they wavered. Even when Hermione and he had worked out all that stuff about the Horcruxes, they hadn’t left him, not even then, and for that Harry would be forever grateful.

Harry was still smiling at Ron when Severus came and sat next to him. Harry stiffened and the smile died on his lips. The row with Snape had been difficult, hurtful. Harry did not want to fight anymore, he was tired of it.

“Draco, my mother would like a word,” Snape drawled, “and Granger, Weasley, I think that Molly requires your assistance upstairs.”

Draco blanched, obviously wondering what Eileen wanted him for. But after squeezing Harry’s hand he stood and left without a word.

His friends also got up and left with alacrity, with apologetic glances at Harry. He almost laughed. They could face a three headed dog, or a basilisk or evenan irate Buckbeak but Professor Snape in lecture mode was a whole other issue.

After Ron and Hermione left, Harry realised that it was just him and Professor Snape left sitting at the table and his heart sank.

Harry gripped his coffee mug firmly in both hands almost as if it would protect him from the lecture he was sure was about to come. He wondered where Eileen was, where she had dragged Draco away to. Harry thought he would feel much safer if Draco were around, which was weird in itself because until a couple of days ago the thought of having to deal with both Snape and Draco would have filled him full of dread.

“Harry,” Snape began, “I asked Mother and the others if they would give us a moment or two, because I wanted to speak to you. She has dragged Draco off to help with the dishes and folding the laundry.”

Harry’s eyes widened at the thought of Draco doing housework, and Snape, picking up on Harry’s surprise, smiled wryly.

“Mother thought that it was about time that young man helped out with some of the little jobs around the house, she found out that he knows almost as many dark curses as I do, yet had never used even one simple household charm!”

“But we don’t have very long, and I really did want to speak to you,”

“Yeah I’m sorry,” Harry blurted, “ I should have said it earlier, but I just lost my temper and I got upset and I’m sorry I jumped you like that, but well, some of the things you said, well they hurt and I know I’m reckless, well and a bit stupid, but I do think about others…”

“Harry,”

“I ‘m sorry, I mean, I knew I was going to be an animagus, because I could see my animal and I needed to help Draco, but….”

“Harry!”

“Well, then the whole being in bed together, well we didn’t really do a lot, well I mean we did, but...”

“Mr Potter, Will you please SHUT UP!”

Harry did. He looked at Snape in astonishment, he knew he had been babbling a bit, but, well, he was trying to apologise.

He opened his mouth to say so, but Snape spoke first

“You do not have to apologise to me Harry,” he said mildly, “It is I who should be apologising to you.”

Harry felt his jaw drop open.

Severus Snape had just apologised to him?

“I’m sorry sir,” he said, “But I must have misheard you or something, erm…did you just say…?”

”Sorry. Yes Harry I did.”

“I have never been very nice to you, and whilst there were good reasons for me to appear to dislike you in public, I did indeed dislike you very much, with no good cause really. I have often treated you unfairly and for that I am truly sorry.”

Harry felt that his world had completely turned over now.

“But you hate me,” He said simply.

Snape looked at him, intently, and the expression on his face, well he almost looked fond of Harry and Harry knew that could not be the case at all.

Slowly whilst holding Harry’s gaze he shook his head.

“No Harry, I do not, not anymore.”

Harry felt even more unsettled now.

“Look Professor, you don’t have to apologise, I mean I know how annoying I am sometimes, Uncle Vernon said…”

“He was not your uncle Harry, I am.”

Severus cut in before Harry could start rambling again, “and Petunia Dursley was not your mother’s sister, she was, is, our cousin. My first cousin, your second. She is no more closely related to you than that. Those people who treated you so badly have no rights over you. The Weasleys should factor higher in your life than those dreadful relatives of ours do, or your friends for that matter. They at least have earned your respect”

“You are a most admirable young man, and you did not deserve the treatment that was meted out to you by that odious family. I only wish that I had known years ago what I know now, you would never have been left with them at all.”

“I have come to see in the past few weeks that you are indeed a most estimable person and I have found myself becoming quite fond of you. If she could see you now, Lily would be most proud.”

Harry could not look at the older man, he didn’t want to look at him, he didn’t want to think about any of this really. Eileen he could cope with, because she was like magic herself somehow, she still didn’t seem completely real to him. Oh she did when he was with her all right, but at times like this when she wasn’t around he almost forgot about her, like she was a dream or something.

But Professor Snape was different; he had been in Harry’s life since he was a child, and whatever else happened to him, Snape was the one constant. He hated Harry, always had, and always would, even more than Draco did. Had. Except now apparently he didn’t for some reason and Harry was not sure what to make of it at all. He felt deeply unsettled and uncertain about what to do. So instead he focused on his hands, which were still in front of him on the kitchen table. They had let go of the coffee cup some time ago and were just lying there, holding nothing. They sat like that for several moments, he and Snape, neither of them moving, or speaking.

And then Harry realised something all at once and it was almost as if his world tilted on its axis, because the evidence was right there in front of him, it was so clear and he could deny no-longer, he knew it was true. It was all true!!

Severus watched the boy stiffen up as he spoke to him, heard the sharp intake of breath and the whispered

“Oh!”

He saw Harry, clench his fists, saw his jaw become tight as if he were trying not to cry and he could not help but wonder what on Earth was going to happen next. But when Harry spoke it was barely audible.

“Our hands” He murmured.

Severus stared at him puzzled.

“I’m sorry Harry, what did you say?”

”Our hands, they’re the same.”

Severus followed the boy’s glance. A moment ago, when he had finished speaking, he had placed his hands beside Harry’s and the boy was staring at them intently.

“Ever since you told me, I’ve been looking. Looking for a way that we were alike, but we’re not, at least we didn’t seem to be.

“But I was wrong”

“My hands are just like yours.”

“You really are my uncle, aren’t you.”

The question was rhetorical, it didn’t require an answer. Which was just as well as far as Severus was concerned, because right that moment any answer that he tried to provide would not have been coherent.

Harry was right. Their hands were identical, even down to the length of fingers, and the way their pinky fingers leaned inwards, so as to get close to their next door neighbour, the large knuckles, the blunt pink nails, identical in every way.

“Oh God,” Harry said, resorting to a phrase that was often used in the Muggle world, but rarely in the magical one.

Then all at once Harry’s head had snapped up and he was staring right into Severus’s eyes. Harry’s eyes, his hot green eyes, Lily’s eyes, were so full of anguish that Severus almost gasped aloud.

“Why were you such a bastard to me Professor?” Harry asked shortly. His mouth was twisted in obvious pain, his jaw clamped firmly on his emotions.

He closed his eyes at last and Severus felt a sweet release, which, unfortunately did not last long.

“My first potions lesson, you looked at me with such contempt, such hatred and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what a bezoar was. How would I know that? I was trying to make notes, so that I didn’t miss anything and you ridiculed me. I didn’t want to be famous or well known; I didn’t even know that I was. I just wanted to fit in, to not be a freak anymore.”

He looked at Severus again. “What my father did to you was wrong and I’m sorry, I am really sorry. But I would never do that, I would never hurt someone, humiliate them, because I know what it feels like.”

He was shaking; Severus thought that the child in front of him was about to fall apart. The depths of emotion that were visible behind a sheen of tears that Harry was so reluctant to let fall, seemed limitless.

“Harry,” Severus whispered, “Oh Harry I have no excuse, I am so sorry, so very sorry.”

He saw again the little boy that Harry had been. He hadn’t been arrogant at all had he? He had been lost and alone and not a little afraid and Severus had torn him to shreds. He had thought the boy to be arrogant, like his father had been, not caring about Severus’ snide comments and sarcastic remarks. But he had felt them, hadn’t he? Harry Potter was just very good at hiding his secrets.

He wasn’t the simple Gryffindor that Severus had always assumed him to be; the boy, as Severus had found out over the last few weeks, was a mass of contradictions and far more complex than Severus had ever previously suspected!

Harry ducked his head and seemed to struggle with himself for a second or two, but when he looked at Severus again he had regained a little control at least; he had obviously come to a decision. He was shaking still, trembling, he tentatively lifted his arm from the table and held out his hand to Severus to shake, the pathetic attempt he made at nonchalance almost caused Severus to lose control of his own emotions.

“S’okay. S’okay Professor” The boy said, somewhat shakily.

“Do you think? Erm…shall we start again then? You and me? Hermione says that everyone deserves a second chance and maybe we do too. Maybe we could start over again?”

Severus was completely stunned. Just like that, Harry was offering him forgiveness.

Severus grasped Harry’s hand, the mirror image of his own and held it firmly as if it were salvation. It was smooth and cool and free of calluses. If nothing else, that simple gesture that was awesome in its magnanimity, offered Severus a second chance, one that he promised himself he would not ignore

If he were asked afterwards Severus could not have described what happened next to anyone, ever, but without warning he pulled Harry into his arms and he was hugging him like the long lost precious child he truly was, as if he would never again let him go.

For what seemed like hours Severus stood there in the shabby, run down kitchen of Grimmauld Place and hugged his nephew, pouring all of his emotions, all of his apologies, all his regret into that hug. And Harry in turn, wrapped his arms round his most hated professor, tucked his head under Severus’ chin and held on tight, as if for dear life itself.