This is meant to be a sort of follow-up to a fiction I wrote eons ago called 'Words.' I know second chapters of well-recieved one-shot fictions are ill adviced. But this came to me in the shower just now, and well... I have been wanting to do a second chapter of Words.. But since the letter just fell into my head, i figured I had to wait for the follow-up to do so as well...
I can only appologise if this ruins the story.
I posting this on it's own since I couldn't help but incorporate the new information from Deathly Hallows. It doesn't really fit the original letter perfectly, hence its state as a fiction of its own.
As per usual;
Disclaimer: I did not write or come up with Harry Potter and the wonderful world around him. All the characters in this fiction are the work of the wonderful JK Rowling, who I hope won't mind that i borrow them from time to time.
And words are all I have
Harry Potter still had vivid memories of living in a cupboard under the stairs, but all the spiders and dust he had grown accustomed to in the first 11 years of his life didn't come close to the room he found himself in now. The house might only have been deserted for a year, but the attic he was currently standing in looked like it hadn't been used in a decade.
A heavy layer of dust had turned every item in the room gray, and every step Harry took whirrled up a new colony of motes. He moved carefully over to the window, trying to disturb as few of them as possible. The hinges complained loudly as he pushed the window open, before strategically placing himself on the other side of the room. He covered his eyes, and pointed his wand randomly into the air. 'Ictus', he said firmly, shutting his mouth the instant he'd said it.
The breath of wind zoomed around the room for a few seconds, whizzing by his ears a couple of times before everything fell silent. Harry opened his eyes to find himself covered with dust along with everything else. But at least the spell had cleared away most of the cobwebs and a fair deal of dust. It was far from clean, but it would have to do.
There was a desk in the far corner of the room, and Harry started manually shifting boxes to get to it. Sure, there were easier ways. But he was in no hurry. As he worked, his mind drifted back to his visit to Hogwarts a week earlier.
--
'He what?'
Harry was no stranger to beeing surprised by Albus Dumbledore, but even in death that ability did not seem to have faultered. He stared up at the painting hanging above the desk in the headmaster's office. The picture was a true copy of Dumbledore; they'd even managed to capture the sparkle in his eyes. And, by the sound of it, every bit of his quirky personality. Surely, this was a some sort of trick.
Dumbledore smiled down at him. 'Even in death, Severus seems intent on surprising us.'
'He left me his house?'
'He left you everything, Harry,' Dumbledore said simply. 'There's a letter in the top drawer. I suggest you read it.'
Harry pulled open the drawer. The envelope, yellow at the edges, lay neatly on top of some old parchments. Harry picked it up, and turned it over. It was still sealed. He ran his finger across the blood-red wax, tracing what had to be an S.
'Open it,' Dumbledore encouraged.
Harry carefully detached the wax from the paper, pulling the page out slowly. He unfolded the parchment, and instantly recognised Professor Snape's handwriting.
The letter was short;
To whom it may concern
I, Severus Snape, in the event of my death leave all my worldly belongings to Albus Dumbledore. In the event that his death should occur before mine, I leave everything to the last living heir of Lily Evans.
On two dotted lines at the bottom were Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore's signatures.
'I'm not mum's last living heir,' Harry reminded Dumbledore, folding the letter.
'True, true,' Dumbledore mused. 'You could pay Petunia a visit, and inform her of this.' Dumbledore chuckled. 'I expect the news will be recieved with some displeasure.'
He was right, of course. Aunt Petunia had barely accept her orphaned newphew on her doorstep. The entire legacy of a wizard she had loathed with passion would certainly not be welcome.
He checked the date at the top of the page. It was dated June, the year Voldemort had returned.
'I dare say he never planned to outlive me,' Dumbledore said remorsefully. 'Severus was many things, but never an optimist.'
'But when he knew you were... dying.' Harry strugled with the last word. 'Why didn't he change it?'
It took a moment before the answer to his own question became clear.
'He thought Voldemort would kill me.'
'And in a sense he was right,' Dumbledore reminded him. 'Severus left his secrets to me because he trusted my judgement. I believe he counted on there beeing no living heir of Lily Evans when this was all over, and thus his secrets would go to the grave with him.'
'And again I disappoint him,' Harry muttered.
--
So here he was, in the attic of Snape's family home, only a few minutes away from the place where his own mother had grow up.
Harry reached the old desk, still covered in a thick layer of dust his spell hadn't reached. He sat down, not bothering to try and clean it. The desk was a dark red, mahogeny by the look of it. It had intricate carvings everywhere except the tabletop, and the top drawer had a keyhole. The rusty old key stuck out from it, and Harry turned it curiously. The lock clicked open with surprising ease, and he pulled the drawer out.
'Lumos', he muttered, shining the light from his wand into the dark drawer. A family of spiders fled the light, several of them crossing his hand on their path. But Harry took no notice. He sat frozen, staring at the only item in the drawer. It was a small envelope, so yellow and shrivelled it looked too frail to touch. And on the front of it, Snape's name and adress were written in what was now an all too familiar script. His mother's handwriting.
For a moment Harry was paralyzed. There were a million reasons why Snape would have an old letter from Lily lying around. But somehow, without so much as touching it, Harry knew that this letter was something special.
He picked it up slowly, careful not to damage the frail parchment, and turned it over. To his surprise, the seal on this letter was not broken either.
For a long moment he just stared at the seal. The fact that the letter was unopened made him all the more certain that it was something out of the ordinary. Slowly, he released the wax from the paper, with very little difficulty, and unfolded the letter.
More of his mother's familiar writing shone up at him
Severus,
You do know how to give a wedding-present with a kick, don't you? Can you imagine the look on James' face when he saw that envelope in with all the other presents? I bet you can. Bet you were counting on it, you childish oaf...
Oh don't worry, he hasn't read it. I think both he and I knew that anything you left there was for my eyes only. But I have read it. So, so many times. Because I keep thinking that maybe, if I just read it one more time it'll make sense to me.
You know, you really are a hell of a lot like James. Yes, yes. Cringe all you want, but it's true. You both seem to have an endless amount of ways to avoid saying what you really mean. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?
Why did you have to wait all those years, Severus? Did you really believe I could never love you? That I thought the idea of you and me laughable? That our friendship was worth that little to me? Of course I could love you, you foolish man! I would have loved you too, if you'd have let me.
And yes, you have every reason to look as guilty as I know you do right now. How dare you do this to me now? How dare you tell me all these things after I'd given you up for good? You couldn't have done it one week earlier? One month? No, you wait 'til it's too late... you always did like to torture yourself... except now you're torturing me too, Severus.
I love James, of course. I wouldn't have married him if I didn't. And he worships me, so no complaints there. And I was perfectly ready to live a long and happy life with him. How can I do that now?
We were friends for years, Severus. Best friends. You were the only one I ever really trusted. And I loved you.
Yes, I did love you. And no, not just as my best friend. We might have started out friends at first, but it didn't take long before I knew that what I felt for you was stronger than anything I ever felt before. And the feelings didn't falter with age, they only grew stronger. There were times, long after we broke contact, when I'd lose myself entirely in some ridiculous memory from school, or a summer holiday. One of those warm summer nights we spent under that large oak behind your parents house. Chatting, laughing. How desperately I wished I had the courage to kiss you. Or that you somehow, miraculously, would kiss me.
You never did, of course. And so I concluded that your feelings for me must be only friendship, and that if I admitted that mine were more, I'd lose the best friend I ever had. So I held my tongue, I backed away. I let it be what it was. A decision I've regretted many times since.
Which is probably why I'm answering this letter. And why I am about to propose what I am about to propose. Because, no matter how much I love James, you were my first love. You, Severus. I would have been yours forever, had you just asked me.
I'll be at King's Cross Station on the 23rd, ready to hop on a random train and abandon everything for you. If you will abandon everything for me. No more Lucius, no more Deatheaters. Just you and me. And whatever comes.
You had the choice between me and him once before. I'm giving you a chance to chose again.
I'll be waiting.
Lily