Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not even my car. You will not get anything if you sue me.
Harry Potter brushed the sweat from his brow as he lugged the last box over to the attic opening. The Dursleys had him doing the summer purging of junk from the overheated space. It was the summer just after his fourth year and the weather people were predicting the hottest summer Surrey had seen in a hundred years. So naturally, Vernon and Petunia put their nephew to the tasks of removing all the detritus from the house. Harry didn't mind, it kept his mind from wandering to the graveyard and Voldemort. At night was a different story. It was a very rare night that didn't include Cedric's vacant, dead form or the snake-like, red eyes of Tom Riddle.
Currently, Harry had more important problems than Voldemort. Vernon wanted the attic cleaned by lunchtime and it was nearing eleven. He glanced back at the small pile still needed to be moved. If he rushed, he could move all of them in an hour. The boy just sighed and carried the box down to the backyard, where Petunia and Dudley were going through and sorting what to keep and what to toss.
As he climbed back up to the attic, Harry noticed a lone brown cube sitting in a corner Harry thought he'd already cleaned. Kneeling by the box, he noticed just one label, smeared, in unfamiliar handwriting. What was inside shocked Harry. Items belonging to his mother, Lily. There were some schoolbooks and letters and a photo album, with both Muggle and magical photos. Inside a black felt box was a gold band and a diamond ring, obviously a wedding set. Harry looked at them, befuddled. Why would his mother's wedding jewelry be in a cardboard box in his aunt's house? If she hadn't been buried with them, wouldn't Dumbledore or Sirius have held onto them for Harry? It was then Harry noticed something inscribed on the inside of the band.
SS & LE 6-12-79
Now Harry was even more confused. The only person he knew that had those initials was his Potions professor, Severus Snape. And his mother, his common, Muggle-born mother, wouldn't have married Snape. Would she? Harry honestly didn't know. He had only known his mother for the first year of his life. Why hadn't anyone told him? Surely someone must have known about the marriage, if there actually really was one?
Harry decided to investigate the contents of the box further. Maybe there were more clues buried elsewhere. He opened the photo album. The first several pages were still photos of Lily, Petunia, and their parents. He quickly decided that his mom took more after her father and Aunt Petunia, the mother, if the photos were anything to go by. By the tenth page, the photos became magical, their subjects moving within and without of their frames. Most of the pictures contained Lily in group shots with the Marauders and some girls Harry didn't recognize.
And then Harry had the proof he didn't need. The last pages contained wedding photos of Lily and Severus, with James Potter standing beside Snape. And tucked in the back cover was a Muggle sonogram with a caption on the back.
Julian Antares Snape, conceived 7-13-79, miscarried 11-25-79
The fifteen-year-old continued to stare at the only evidence that he almost had an older half-brother. He couldn't believe it. Not only had his mother married one of the most hideous men Harry had ever known, she almost had a child by him! But that brought up the question: what went wrong? For something obviously happened. Harry was the son of James, not Snape. How did Lily end up with James when she looked so happy at her first wedding?