Sunset Memories
"Dad, he's at it again!" A raven haired child wiped sweat off his brow as he stood fidgeting in the doorway. The little boy, no older than eleven frowned as he crossed into the parlor. "What if he's right though?"
The bespeckled man folded his newspaper, an early edition of The Prophet and patted the space beside him on the sofa. "Is James bothering you again? You shouldn't let him get to you this much, he knows it upsets you." He stretched his legs out onto the chestnut coffee table, upsetting a photo album. Absentmindedly, he watched it teeter to the floor.
"But Dad. . . I go to Hogwarts in three days! What if I get sorted into Slytherin, like he says?" The child removed his glasses and wiped them with the inside of his shirt. "James said that I'm probably going to get placed in that house and everyone knows it's the dark house!"
The child's father leaned over took the child's glasses and placed them on his son's face. He sat for a moment, emerald eyes gazing over his young son's face. For a moment all that could be heard were the distant laughter of the boy's siblings and family dog as they played with each other outdoors. He cupped his hand around the boy's face. "I see that rumor is still going strong." He sighed as his eyes once again took in the sight of the upturned photo album. He slightly smiled in apology as he stood up and retrieved the item.
The man settled himself on the sofa, book still in hand. "Albus Severus, I've wanted to show this to you for a long time and I think that you are ready now." He plopped the red aged book between them as he slid one arm over his small child. He used his free hand to open the slightly musty album.
A young girl with fiery red hair stood clasping hands with a boy whose raven hair fell to his shoulders. Both were all smiles as the posed for the camera in front of a jungle gym set at a rundown park. The man fingered the edges of the photo, and spoke. "This photo is your" he had to pause as a lump grew in his throat "grandmother Lily and the boy with her is one of the men you were named after. Severus Snape."
Harry watched as his son peered at the photos. "Dad, who's that girl in the far left of the photo? She doesn't seem happy at all." The tossled-haired man paused and considered his son for a moment.
"That's Lily's sister, Petunia. She's my aunt." Harry's words were mere whispers. "You never met her . . . she doesn't like magical people. I learned that she didn't like Lily much once it was known that Lily was a witch."
The little boy fidgeted as he shook his head, "that's stupid. We can't help who we are or what we are!"
"Indeed."
"There's no such thing as magic, Freak!" A horse-necked woman watched as he her husband shoved the waif into the cupboard.
"Dad?"
"Dad?"
Colors swirled and the man filtered back to the pale blue walls of his home.
"Yes?" The photo album now sat open with a wizarding picture.
Two teens, obviously older versions of the previous children sat under a tree. Red juice from a watermelon smeared the girl's face. The boy shook his lanky hair as he reached over and wiped her face with a napkin.
"If they were still best friends in-" the eleven year-old looked at the photo's date "fifth year, why did your mom marry Grandpa James?"
"Well son, people change and grow. . .and Severus and Lily were no different. There were too many things that came between them. Those rumors…the ones that your brother was teasing you about, they were only worse then. A Slytherin and a Gryffindor had no real chance, not then. Severus said things, things he didn't mean and Lily, as great as your grandma was, she couldn't forgive him."
"Mudblood!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Forget it!"
Harry flipped towards the back of the book. "This is Severus as adult." A hook nosed man stood indifferently as the school's camera captured his image for the yearbook. The annul that covered the year that he and his two best friends had spent camping. "We wouldn't have won the war without him."
"I thought people said he was evil!" Harry's son furrowed his eyebrows as he took in the man who was glaring up at them.
The man smirked, "Would we have named you after an evil man?" He playfully punched the boy on the shoulder.
"James said you would! He says that everyone at Hogwarts said that Professor Snape was the "Greasy Bat!"
"Now Albus, you know that James likes to say anything to start an argument! Yes, Severus Snape was considered that name but what he did in life made all of that irrelevant. Some people just can't see past their hate."
The child puffed his cheeks up in a breath and let it out with a sigh. "What did he do?"
"You see son. . .he had to fight in a war where his own side hated him. "
Fight like a Wizard!
Coward!
"We'll run you out murderer!"
Harry choked as he looked at his innocent son. "The man, the HERO, you are named after, well, the war would never have been won without him. I sat with the man, his eyes peering into my own as he gave me all the knowledge I needed to know to fight Voldermort. He also was one of the only people who saw that training a kid to be a military wasn't right."
"You have been raising him like a pig for slaughter!"
Harry made more no explanation as he looked out the window. Brillant blues, pinks and purples made a beautiful array as the golden sun set. For ten minutes father and son watched as the moon slowly peeked into the sky.
Father and son's emerald eyes met. "It does not matter what house you are put in. Do your house proud and . . . don't fall into the same trap I did in thinking Slytherin was evil."
SM
"Potter, Albus Severus!"
"What's that you say?" the aged wizarding hat asked the boy. "Really. . .no prefence?"
"Better be Slytherin!"
SM
A lone raven flew from its hidden perch in the Great Hall.