Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters, terms, and concepts belong to J.K. Rowling
Across time and distance, wars expose the true characters of men. All involved tested by the constant dichotomy, victims are killers, friends are enemies, triumph holds with tragedy. This was never more true than in the aftermath of one of the greatest wars of wizarding history. Voldemort had been defeated, his Death Eaters scattered to the wind, the Elder Wand destroyed. Harry Potter had succeeded, and yet, a sense of despair and loss thickened the air around what survived of Hogwarts castle. Students, teachers, parents, all mourning for themselves and others, forced to ask themselves what it was they were supposed to do now. When Voldemort had been alive, there was a mission, a purpose, and now there was nothing but death and rubble, a world in shambles.
Some were able to recover quickly from this loss of purpose. Madame Pomfrey, Professor Slughorn, and Professor Sprout were kept busy by the constant calls of the injured who had been moved en masse to the great hall. Though mediwitches arrived every day from St. Mungo's to take the mutilated and maimed to the hospital facilities, there were still hundreds of sick and dying in need of potions and remedies. Professor McGonagall and the rest of the teachers not assisting in the great hall began the laborious task to moving rubble and searching for the missing from both sides. Most of the students well enough to travel were sent home to their families, some of the older ones remaining to assist their professors.
Harry Potter was not so lucky. His life in the wizarding world had revolved around Voldemort, and now that he was dead, he felt a greater loss of purpose and meaning than any other witch or wizard. He had no skills in healing like Hermione, no knowledge of plants like Neville, no family to comfort like Ron, he had nothing. Though he knew he should be happy, that he should feel at ease, he was only confused. So much had changed, and no one even knew. Most assumed his melancholy was due to the loss of Order members and thought it best to leave him alone. No one suspected that everything he had known about the man, who had been the closest thing to a father he had ever known, had changed. Dumbledore was no longer the man who saved Harry, who did everything in the name of love and righteousness. He was the man who had knowingly sent Harry to die, who had manipulated Snape's love for his mother. Snape was not the evil heartless monster that Harry had believed, but in fact only wanted to keep Harry and his mother safe. It was all so wrong, so distorted.
He had tried to talk to Hermione and Ron about it, but they were so wrapped up in their new found love that they did not want to spend very much time discussing events nearly twenty years past. Everyone directly involved in his parents' deaths was either dead or gone; there was no one to help him make sense of this. So much of it didn't add up. Why had his father changed from bully to freedom fighter? Why had his mother cut off contact with her best friend after one cruel comment? It made no sense, and his mind was wracked with confusion. In the days and weeks following Voldemort's death Harry had taken to going up to Dumbledore's old office. It wasn't entirely quiet, with portraits of old headmasters constantly asking what had happen and arguing with each other. At first, Harry would just sit beside the window overlooking the grounds, trying to think about what had gone on. As days passed, he learned how to place his own thoughts in the pensieve in an attempt to clear his mind. He watched and re-watched Snape's memories, trying to piece together some sort of sequence of events.
He was using the pensieve on the night he found it. He had just pulled his head from the gaseous pool of thoughts, frustrated with himself, with Dumbledore. In a fit of anger he slammed his fist against the stone pedestal on which the pensieve rested, when he heard a small clunk. Harry looked around, searching the floor for any fallen objects. Finding nothing he shook his head and turned from the pensieve, which under normal circumstances would cause the basin to retreat back into its cupboard. This time, the pensieve did not move. Harry raised an eyebrow and knelt in front of the basin, looking to see if something was blocking its path. To the left of the basin, tucked between it and the wall, were several rolls of parchment.
Harry reached, pulling the parchment from its resting place, moving to sit at Dumbledore's desk as he untied the twine holding the rolls together. He chose one and unrolled it. At the top was a small "3", and below that, feet of parchment full of neat scrawl. Snape's handwriting. Harry picked through the rolls, finding the one with the number "1", and began to read.
My name is Severus Snape, former potions master and current Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The world believes me to be a dark wizard, a murderer. They are wrong. I loathe the dark arts more than many alive today, for I have seen what they can do. I wish to tell that story, my story, in hopes that someday, people will understand.
No doubt you have heard of Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, and who will finally kill Voldemort. He is the son of Lily Evans and James Potter, the love of my life, and my fiercest enemy, and holder of the best-kept secret in wizarding history. James Potter was more than just the father of Harry Potter. He was a spy for the D6ark Lord.
