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A Potter bunny has seized me...
A Potter bunny has seized me...
#1
An idea for a short Harry Potter story occurred to me yesterday, and is insisting on being written, partly inspired by an event or two in Ten Toes'
"Two Sides Of The Same Coin". The first part is already written, and if I can complete it to my satisfaction, I'll be posting it. If I can't,
I'll post the idea and the completed portion for someone to grab and complete if they want.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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#2
Did anything ever happen with this?
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#3
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.
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#4
Innnnnnnteresting. This sounds like one of the more IC Snape-has-a-heart stories out there.
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#5
Yep, agreed. Not 100% original (no Snape-(rescues/mentors/is-benevolent-towards)-Harry fic can be, by this time), but it looks interesting, and definitely has
a lot of potential. If there's ever more, I'd like to see it.
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