A Tale of Two Wizards

Disclaimer: Thank you Jo, I really mean it, without you... well, we wouldn't have had the lovely Severus to dream about!

Confession

Snape was sat on the Weasley sofa his head in his hands. He weren’t going to break down in front of them; he had his pride after all. He sat there for a long time not saying anything just silent and non communicative. He had a cup of coffee standing on a table in front of him going cold. He had only one clear idea of what to do next and he did not like it. No one could get him to talk and this disturbed even Harry. He noticed that this was something that they both did when troubled. They both withdrew into themselves and did not talk to people. Harry was shocked by that similarity and that it was HIM that had observed it.

Snape had moved eventually. He rubbed his hands down over his face, and sighed, as he picked up his tepid cup of coffee and sipped some, he made a face, and then he put his wand to it and heated it up. He took another sip. He sighed again and looked around at the sea of faces. He turned to Potter.

“I am sorry,” Snape said to him. “It is my selfishness that has done this!”

“What can you mean by that?” A quiet voice said from the corner.

“Lupin?” He asked.

“Yes,” Lupin said.

“If I just taught her the potion and adhered to the hatred you all thought I felt for her then she would be all right and this would not have happened.”

Lupin had pushed himself forward; he had a stern, thoughtful look on his face as he regarded the man that he grew up with. He looked down and saw in Snape a broken, torn man. A man truly ripped apart. Remus J Lupin may have hated Snape, but he was not a man to think of revenge, as a way of life, and he was prepared to listen to Snape and judge for himself. He had observed Snape throughout the whole scenario.

“Love is not selfish Snape,” Lupin said quite matter of factly. “Love is the best feeling to have in the world.”

Snape snorted and got up in one swift sudden moment and angrily turned to look at Lupin.

“If love is so wonderful then how come I end up hurting the people I love? How come the people I love always end up dead? If love is so bloody great how come it hurts so much?”

Harry made the list in his head and added the second thing he had in common with Snape. He, too, had been asking those very questions. How come people he loved ended up hurt or dead?

“Surely that’s not true,” Lupin said. “There must be someone that you have loved and is not hurt!”

“A year ago I would have agreed with you,” Snape said. “For a year ago there was someone alive and relatively unharmed that I loved, and even then I ended up destroying his life. Killing him with that horrible spell to protect some stubborn, idiotic prat whom has now turned against me! I have lost my only true friend and for what? FOR WHAT LUPIN? FOR THE SAKE OF A BLOODY UNGRATEFUL BUFOON!”

Snape landed on the floor in a heap, and then he could no longer control himself, as he began to cry, tears unbidden and unwanted crept out of his eyes, and then eventually he covered his face, and was about to turn away and run out of the door, but Lupin sidestepped him and blocked his only escape route.

“You said everyone, Snape, whom else have you loved and hurt?”

Snape shook his head. He could not say anymore. He had said too much, any more and Potter would definitely be calling for his blood and Lupin would to.

“Snape?” Arthur asked. “Tell us. It’s better to get it all out in the open. We can’t help you unless we know you.”

“I don’t want help,” Snape said through his tears and clutching his face so hard he was almost scratching his cheeks.

“Just tell us,” Lupin said.

Snape pushed Lupin aside but Arthur got to the door first.

“Who are you the bloody inquisition?” Snape asked.

“They wore red robes,” Lupin answered without a hint of a smile.

Snape looked from Lupin to Arthur, and then swung around, and looked in the faces of the crowd. He sighed. He forgot that Gryffindors dealt with the heart. He felt he weren’t worthy enough to have a heart.

“Lily,” he mumbled, so that only Lupin and Arthur heard.

“You’ll have to speak louder than that. Everyone wants to help you. Even Harry.”

“LILY!” He screamed. “All right, I hurt Lily. I hurt Lily so much so that she never got over it. I was in love with her and I wanted to marry her. I did not care what she was, I did not care who she was I wanted to marry her. I wanted to make love to her until the day she died, old and happy! I wanted her children and one day I called her a – a well you were there Lupin you heard what I called her! I wore my heart on my sleeve that day and it lost me my only chance of happiness. I was THIS CLOSE TO ASKING HER OUT I HAD JUST SUMMONED UP THE COURAGE TO ASK HER OUT AND I RUINED IT!”

He fell back on the floor sobbing and sobbing trembling with the emotion. No one had believed that Snape was capable of this much feeling.

“Come on, let’s get you back on the sofa,” Lupin said picking Snape up tenderly and set him down on the sofa with Snape still crying.

Then Snape looked up at Harry.

“You want to know why I hate you Potter?”

“I know why you hate me, because I am so much like my father!”

“That and the fact that you were HIS son and not MINE! You are the constant reminder of the one thing I could not have! The one thing that I wanted! The one thing that I loved!”

Harry rolled his eyes. Then Snape turned toward Ginny. She had kept out of the conversation, but she was feeling pity towards Snape as the story was finally coming out.

“I don’t believe you,” Harry said.

“Oh don’t you,” Snape sneered. “How would you feel if your relationship with Miss Weasley did not work out, and she fell in love with someone you hated - let’s use Draco Malfoy as an example shall we - and then you were a teacher, and you had to teach that child. Imagine him having Malfoy’s blonde hair, pale features, even had his personality then imagine that he had the eyes of the woman that you once loved. And try to imagine those eyes that had once looked upon you with warmth and love, and now, now they look at you with hatred and spite? How would you feel boy?”

Harry looked at Ginny and Ginny looked back at Harry. He looked down on the floor and thought before he answered.

“I suppose I’d hate the child,” Harry said. “But some small part of me would not help but try to protect the part of the child that was Ginny.”

“Exactly Potter, and that is how I feel about you! I hate you, but I can’t help but protect the part that is your mother. I did not save your life on your first Quidditch match because of your father. I’d do nothing for him! I did it for your mother. I felt Lily’s anguish and pain at seeing her son dangling miles above ground being shaken off his broomstick. Even now I am working hard to protect you. These are things that Black would not understand. He would never have been able to help you the way I can. And, believe it or not, I do want to help you!”

“How could you have felt my mothers pain?” Harry asked.

“I knew your mother very well,” Snape said. “If you don’t believe me ask Lupin.”

Harry turned to look at Lupin.

“Harry I couldn’t tell you as I knew it was up to Snape to reveal the truth. But all what he say’s is true. I knew of their friendship and I kept it from James and Sirius. I knew they were great friends and I knew that even your mother felt something a little more for Snape than friendship. It was that one comment Snape said in the heat of the moment that had stopped their friendship for good. I saw your mother crying over it. She had never gotten over the pain that Snape had caused her. It was this knowledge I suppose that made Dumbledore trust Snape!”

“If you think I lied to Dumbledore of all people you must think me the lowest of the low. Besides it was well nigh impossible to lie to Dumbledore. He knew the difference between when someone was lying to him, and was telling him the truth, and he placed an enormous burden on me. He charged me with absolute secrecy regarding any information on how to kill you Potter, because of that damned prophecy I walked in on. Information that I gladly wanted to keep.”

Harry had now sat down and held his head in his hands he shook it mumbling something.

“Wait a minute?” Ginny asked. “What’s this about a prophecy?”

Harry looked at Ginny.

“I have to either be killed or do the killing,” Harry said. “Lord Voldemort and I are entwined in a certain way. Neither of us can live while the other survives. We don’t know how to kill each other, but I have a clue as to how to destroy him. He does not know how to destroy me.”

“DON’T SAY HIS NAME!” Both Arthur and Snape shouted. They looked at each other and despite the situation both found themselves collapsing with laughter.

“But that means that -!” Ginny left it hanging.

“Why do you think I broke up with you Ginny,” Harry said. “I can’t afford to give you pain. It would have been better for you to have stayed with Dean Thomas. You would have been much safer with him!”

“Not much,” Snape said. “Dean Thomas may think he is a muggleborn, but he isn’t, as I knew his real father. His father was a powerful wizard. If he was a muggleborn he would have been a victim of the basilisk in your second year boy.”

“How powerful?” Harry asked.

“Powerful enough for the Dark Lord to kill him personally,” Snape said. “His mother remarried a muggle and had lot’s of muggle children. That is indication enough don’t you think?”

“How do you know that?” Harry asked.

“Pupils records, all of us teachers had access to them you know,” Snape said. “I know the history of all the pupils I taught.”

“No wonder Lord Voldemort kept you alive,” Harry said.

“Don’t say his name,” Snape winced.

“The more I say it the less afraid I am of him,” Harry answered. “You should try it sometime!”

“Mia say’s his name.”

“And what about Hermione?” Ron asked still angry with Snape for daring to even touch his girlfriend.

“She’s almost like Lily was. I immediately recognised her as a girl that I probably would end up caring about in some degree or other. At first I treated her like a father would a daughter if he was disappointed in her choice. I knew she could not end up in Slytherin, but she would have had, had she a Wizard as a parent or grandparent. If she DID end up in Slytherin then she no doubt she would have been my star pupil and not Malfoy. Now, she’s a woman I can finally treat her the way I have always wanted to. And yet again I end up hurting the person I care about the most.”

Harry looked from Lupin to Arthur, to Molly and Ginny. The only people that kept silent throughout all of this were the twins. They finally spoke out.

“Right,” George said slapping his legs and rubbing them as though he meant business. “I guess you’ll be needing some of our products.”

“What do you mean by that?” Snape asked.

“You are going to rescue Hermione aren’t you?” Fred asked.

“Well, yes, but I can’t, not until I know where she is,” Snape said. “Until I do find that out then we can start making plans.”

“Won’t Malfoy have taken her back to the Mansion,” Harry said.

“No, that would have been too obvious,” Snape said. “Slytherins don’t do the obvious. No, I will have to find it out. I’ll do it my way, and no, I won’t reveal what I will do, but let me assure you that I will get the information out, and then I will come back here. Is that agreed?”

“Agreed,” Harry said.

Ginny put her hand palm facing the floor and then Ron put a hand on top of hers: Lupin, Arthur, Molly, Harry, Fred and George followed suit. Snape sighed and got up and put his hand on top of the pile.

“All for one,” Lupin said.

“One for all!” Arthur exclaimed.

“For Hermione,” Harry and Ginny said.

“And all whom she loves!” Molly said.

“Push your hand down Snape,” Ginny said.

“Why?” Snape asked.

“Just do it!” Fred said.

Snape pushed his hand down, and the pile went down with it, and then Ginny pushed it back up, and then they broke apart with a smile on all their faces. Snape stepped back into the fireplace, as he took the Floo Powder in his hands. He yelled out Malfoy Manor and then spun out of sight.

“You know something Fred,” George said.

“What George?”

“Snape is actually not that bad, he might have made a semi-decent Gryffindor!”

Lupin looked at the fireplace.

“He should have been a Gryffindor,” Lupin said. “He might have ended up a better friend than a certain RAT!”

“HE KILLED DUMBLEDORE!” Harry shouted.

“He hates himself for doing it Harry,” Ginny said. “Or weren’t you listening properly?”

Harry was listening but he was uncomfortable with the truth about Snape. He weren’t prepared to believe Snape had a heart now it seems that he had and that disconcerted Harry rather. All what he had felt, known and believed about Snape in the past six years were all taken out and shaken out of the door. He did not like re-evaluating his perceptions of Snape but he had to. And that was going to take a long time!


A/N This story is actually complete, and that is the reason for the fast updates. I have actually started a new SS/HG one, but I want to get this one over with first. SO, review please? I know you want to...