"Get out! GET OUT!"

A glass jar of cockroaches flew through the air, just missing Harry's head.

… judging from what he had just seen, his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told him…

—-

"NO!" cried James Potter, still as young as he'd been on that fateful Halloween fourteen years previously. "No…" He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Lily looked pained, and knelt beside him, her arms twining around his neck. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

"James…"

"Look at his face, Lily. Look at him. He… hates me." James' voice was so small.

"James, he doesn't hate you… He just needs time."

"Look what he saw of me! Think of whom he has as a father! Lily… I'm not proud of what I did. I regret that…"

"James, James, I know." Lily squeezed his shoulder.

"But-"

"James. I know you regret what happened between you and Ss…Snape." Saying his name was still hard for Lily, but she pressed on. "But James, you have to understand that Harry just saw an isolated incident. Yes, what you did to Snape was wrong. But he was just as wrong to you, remember? He sliced your face, James."

Her fingers danced up his jawbone to his cheek, where a scar was still barely visible.

"James, neither of you was in the right. But he cursed you far more severely, on the whole, than you did him. Remember that time at the end of sixth year when Remus and I had to carry you to the hospital wing after he attacked you? You were on blood-replenishing potions for weeks, and all because he thought you'd had Gideon Prewett hit that bludger at him on purpose."

"Lily…"

"James. You two always hated each other. You needled each other constantly."

"That's true. But I shouldn't have!"

"James. You were a boy. You let him get under your skin. The two of you traded hexes and insults like Chocolate Frog Cards."

"But I started it! It's my fault! I was terrible to him. Look at me."

"True, James, you started it. But there were times when he initiated it too, cursing you from behind statues and hexing you on your way to class. It takes two to tango, sweetheart. You can't blame yourself entirely."

"But Harry just saw that! I was that arrogant berk of a boy. I was terrible to a boy weaker than me…"

"James, don't flatter yourself. Severus was very much your equal. He may have been smaller physically, but magically he had you matched pace for pace." There was a ghost of a smile on her face as she spoke.

"But Harry…"

"Give him time. He's got Sirius and Remus to tell him how it really was. He'll come to see that his father was more than just an overconfident, rebellious, easily-angered schoolboy. He'll see that that schoolboy grew into a good man, a man who changed when he didn't like who he saw in the mirror-"

"I only changed after that afternoon because-"

"-Because you realized that your actions really hurt people, even when you weren't entirely serious. You never injured Severus. You were never violent the way he was. Harry will come to see that his father was a good, humble, brave man who was prodigiously talented but never tempted to harm another. Harry will see understand how special his father was. Just give him time."