Yes, although I haven't added anything to it since August. Mm. I think I may have even posted the first part of it somewhere -- possibly in "Other People's Fanfiction" (by mistake) -- let me see... Nope, I didn't. Well, what the hell. I promised I'd post the start of it... let me do it now.
Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the
chapter.
DEAR MISTER SNAPE
by Robert M. Schroeck
The first letter, Severus Snape had to admit to himself, had been
an unpleasant surprise.
*Dear Mr. Snape,
You don't know me, but you knew my mother Lily. And my father
James, too, I think. My name is Harry Potter. I live in
Little Whinging, Surrey with my aunt and uncle. While
cleaning out the attic last week I found a diary that belonged
to my mother when she was my age, and she mentioned you on
almost every page...*
Upon seeing the hated name, he had almost wadded up the sheet and
banished it, but something in the writer's tone had stayed his
temper. There was no trace of the arrogant brat he had been
expecting. Instead, it had been polite, respectful... and
plaintive, almost begging him for anything he could tell the boy
about Lily and Potter.
*Doesn't he *know* already?* he remembered thinking. *Surely
he's been told the whole sordid story a thousand times over.*
But the last lines of the letter seemed to put the lie to that:
*Nobody will tell me anything about my parents except that
they didn't have jobs and they died in a car crash. Please,
Mr. Snape, can you tell me about my mother and father?*
And following that was a sentence that held a horrible
familiarity for Severus.
*If you don't want to answer me, I understand, and I won't
bother you again.*
Severus immediately understood the true meaning behind the
literal. It was a sentiment he had been intimately familiar with
throughout his entire life.
*Nobody ever wants to talk to me, and if you don't either, well,
I was expecting it and I'll just go away.*
Confused by the welter of conflicting emotions the deceptively
simple message had raised in him, Severus sat back and studied it
for a few moments in lieu of actively *thinking*. The letter had
been painstakingly written in pencil on a sheet of lined muggle
school paper, but had arrived by owl. Severus, upon reflecting
on that, suspected that Lily's diary contained more than just the
usual musings of a preadolescent girl -- her son had obviously
been able to find one of the well-hidden public owleries
scattered around the muggle world.
*He'd be, what, nine now, wouldn't he?* For a moment, he
remembered himself and Lily at nine, at play among the alleys,
streets and vacant lots of Spinner's End, and the barest hint of
a smile threatened to elbow its way onto his face. Then he
scowled at himself for slipping into sentimentality. He'd lost
any right to recall Lily with happiness years before.
Still scowling, he snatched up the Potter boy's letter, intending
to crumple it and hurl it into the office disposal bin. At the
last moment, though, something -- he was not sure what -- stayed
his hand, and instead he slid the sheet of muggle paper into the
top drawer of his desk.
Later that night, after a particularly unpleasant dinner in the
Great Hall, Severus stalked back into his office and sat heavily
in the chair behind his desk. If he ever caught those Weasley
twins in the act... He growled wordlessly in fury and no small
amount of humiliation. He was in his thirties, for Merlin's
sake, not a first year! He wondered if he were cursed to be
eternally tormented by Hogwarts students.
By Gryffindors.
He rubbed his eyes, still growling.
When he lowered his hands, his gaze fell upon the drawer in which
the letter from the Potter boy waited patiently.
With a snarl, he summoned a sheet of parchment and a quill, and
began writing.
* * *
The second letter arrived just as the first twinges of guilt over
his angry reply began to beset him. Severus blinked in surprise
as the owl dropped the envelope of muggle paper before him as he
sat at breakfast in the Great Hall. The return address was the
same as that on the first.
*Did the brat not understand me?* He scowled at the letter and,
ignoring the curious glances of the other staff at the table, he
tucked it into his robes.
He had had to wait until the end of his last class that day to
finally break the seal on the envelope and draw forth the slip of
paper within. By that time his anger at the boy's effrontery had
faded somewhat, displaced by the usual aggravations and angers
spawned by the day's encounters with the dunderheads and
troublemakers that seemed to populate every period.
*Dear Mr. Snape,*
it read as before.
*Thank you for writing me back. That's more than anyone else
ever did before.*
Severus' eyes widened momentarily. Surely the brat must be
exaggerating.
*When I read your letter, I looked through my mum's diaries
for the things you mentioned. I couldn't find all of them,
but the ones she did see, she was so mad about. My father was
really mean to you, and I'm sorry about that. But I still
can't figure it out -- if you were my mum's best friend like
she says so much, and my father was so mean to you and she
hated him like she says, why aren't *you* my father?*
*I will not cry,* Severus remonstrated himself. *I will *not*.*
Merlin knew he asked himself why it couldn't have been a dozen
times a day. He had only wanted two things in all the world --
respect, and Lily -- and in the end, he had neither. And he had
done it all to himself.
The sheet of muggle paper drifted to the floor when he suddenly
buried his face in his hands to dam the flood his stinging eyes
threatened to release. He sat that way until long after the sun
had dropped below the horizon and the castle torches lit
themselves.
* * *
*Dear Mr. Snape,
Thank you for writing back again.
It's okay that you don't want to tell me what happened that
you and my mum weren't friends any more. I think I found
where it happened in my mum's diary, but she ripped out the
pages, so you don't have to worry about me finding out what it
was. It's still sad that before those ripped-out pages she's
your friend and worried about the bad people you were with and
after she's so mad at you. She wrote down words that if I
used them Aunt Petunia would hit me harder than she usually
does....*
Petunia. Dear Merlin, he hadn't thought of Lily's sister in
years.
Wait.
Lily's son was with *Petunia*?
Oh, dear *Merlin* in *Avalon*.
Did Albus know?
* * *
*Dear Mr. Snape,
Yes, I live with my Aunt Petunia and my Uncle Vernon. They
let me sleep in the cupboard under the stairs for doing my
chores around the house.
I've never met anyone named Dumbledore, but I think Aunt
Petunia has. When I asked her, her eyes got real big and she
started yelling at me. I got double chores that night.*
Severus glared at the paper. From the sound of it, Petunia
was using the boy the way the Malfoys used their house-elves --
(confronts dumbledore, is forbidden to go to Harry -- violation
of ministry parole D arranged. Snape does what he can from a
distance?)
HP story idea, suggested by "Two Sides of the Same Coin" by "Ten Toes"
Stock pre-Hogwarts Harry, except some time around age 9 or so, he
stumbles across a box of Lily's stuff in the Dursleys' attic,
including her diaries from 10 to 16 or so. He learns about the
Wizarding World, and he learns about his mother's best friend,
Severus Snape.
And wanting to learn more about his mother and his father, he
figures out how to write to Snape, and asks him...
The boy's self-effacing, humble letter begging for any kind of
information on his parents gets past Snape's prejudices and,
in spite of himself, he finds himself replying, then trading
letters, and slowly warming to the boy. And hiding the
exchanges from Dumbledore for as long as he can.
Tell story from Snape's POV, end with revealing that Snape has
been remembering all this while waiting on the Hogsmeade
platform to welcome Harry to Hogwarts. Harry gets off the train,
spies Snape and comes up to him shyly to confirm that it is
actually him. When Snape confirms, he finds himself hugged around
the waist by the boy. At first shocked, he slowly smiles, and
returns the hug, and makes a silent promise to Lily that he
will watch over her son.
(alternately: Snape comes to Harry instead of Hagrid on his
11th birthday)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
