Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or anything pertaining to the Harry Potter universe. That honour goes to JK Rowling and her publishers.

The Potions Master's Son

A Hollow Halloween

It was a quiet night for the residents of Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey. It was approaching midnight and just as every other night on this particular street, not a blade of a grass was out of place, no children's toys plagued the road, no dogs barked, everything was quiet, and everything was most certainly ordinary. You see, on this particular street, order and obedience ruled. Freakishness and funny business was not tolerated, and if for whatever reason, something out of the ordinary appeared on this particular street, it was quickly disposed of. Unbeknownst to any of the residents, something both freakish and unordinary was about to happen.

As the bells of the church in the distance began to ring, signifying that the hour of midnight had approached, a man appeared. This man, who was dressed in robes and a purple cloak, was most definitely not welcome. As the man started walking down the street, seemingly to extinguish the street lamps alongside the road, another peculiar thing happened; a cat seemed to transform into a woman.

The two peculiar people seemed to be acquainted with each other, as they commenced in speaking. They were standing just outside of number four Privet Drive, the residents of this home being the most ordinary of anyone else on the street. The woman, who had a moment before been a cat, didn't seem to particularly like these people, however.

"You don't mean - you can't mean the people who live here?" cried the fierce looking woman. "Dumbledore - you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for his sweets. Harry Potter come and live here?"

The two out-of-place people continued on their strange conversation, disregarding the unwritten rules of the neighborhood. If any of the slumbering residents happened to listen in on their conversation, they would be thoroughly confused indeed. The unsuspecting, ordinary people would hear things about someone called Voldemort, a war, and something tragic happening to a family called the Potters. The strangest thing they would hear however would be things pertaining to magic, and magic was something that was simply not mentioned. If any of the quiet residents heard what these two eccentrically dressed people were discussing, a call to the psychiatric ward would surely have been made.

Suddenly, a low rumbling sound broke the silence of the quiet street, and once again, the ordinary structure of Privet Drive was disturbed. A huge man, seated on an almost equally huge motorbike, appeared out of the night sky. The giant man handed the old man in purple robes a bundle, and after heartfelt tears, and cries for lives that had been lost, Harry Potter was left at the doorstep of his unsuspecting Aunt and Uncle's house. It was here that Harry Potter's story truly began. But this is not the story of Harry Potter. Our story begins at the place the giant man with the flying motorcycle had just departed from. Our story begins at Godric's Hollow.

Earlier the previous night, deep within the bowels of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Severus Snape was doing what he did best. He was brewing a potion. Tonight would be a stressful night for the newly appointed Potions Master, and he needed the therapeutic and repetitive task of brewing a complex potion to keep his mind at ease. Tonight was the Potions Master's most hated day of the year, tonight was Halloween.

Not only was tonight a night when the dunderhead students of the castle would be at their most disorderly, it was also a night when his supposed Master would be ostensibly malevolent.

He was confident that tonight he would not be receiving a summons from his so-called Master, not while his Master believed him to be spying on his enemy Albus Dumbledore, but that didn't stop the normally stoic Professor of Potions from reliving past grievances.

Severus Snape was a hard and bitter man. His students thought he was cruel and cold hearted, his colleagues believed him to be unfriendly and devious. He didn't deny he was these things; in fact it was these aspects of his personality that he embraced as these emotions were familiar to him. It was such empty-headed emotions like love and jubilation that he stayed away from, these emotions he didn't understand. At one point in his life, when he had been a very different man, Severus thought he had understood love, but that emotion turned out to only bring the worst pain he had ever endured in his life. After his heart had been ripped out of his chest and trampled on by a herd of wild hippogriffs by none other than his school rival James Potter, Severus Snape vowed he would never love again.

He sighed as he continued with brewing his potion. His carefully trained hands stirred in the freshly cut ginger and watched as the delicate potion turned the expected shade of light brown. Severus' lips twitched in amusement. He knew he would always be able to count on potions to set his mind behind the occluding mask at ease. Potions were never changing, they were constant and familiar. He knew how each ingredient would react upon another, how adjusting the temperature in the slightest could cause an explosion, how adding the wrong ingredient or stirring in an inappropriate manner could have catastrophic consequences, all of these consequences turned many people away from the art and science of potion making, but it was these reasons in particular that kept the disciplined Potions Master at ease.

Severus scanned the directions on the parchment to his side, reading ahead to the second part of the brewing which he would commence tomorrow. Normally the potions master could brew any potions with his eyes closed, but this was a new potion, one he had never brewed before. He cursed himself as he read what the potions' book called for in tomorrow's brewing. How could he be so foolish? He was planning on going his entire life without touching that particular plant again, as far as he knew it wasn't even used in potions! Of course, on tonight of all nights, it had to come creeping back into his life. It had to remind him of a life he could have had, a life he should have had! If only that infernal James Bloody Potter hadn't come into his life and ruined everything. That man had and taken everything away from him!

Severus angrily shut the potions book and threw it back into the pile he took it from. He charmed the potion he had been diligently working on with a stasis spell and hastily sent it to his storage room. The pain that had suddenly made itself present in his heart was one that he wouldn't be able to cure with any potion, whether it was from brewing one, or consuming one. This pain was one that went so deep, only Firewhisky and a long night's sleep would be able to quell his mind.

Sighing softly to himself, and silently wishing that his megalomaniac of a Master would suddenly appear before him and curse him with the Cruciatus curse, Severus exited his private lab and made his way over to his liquor cabinet. Normally he wasn't one to satisfy his pain with the tempting relief of alcohol, after all his own father had been such a man, and look where that got him, he concluded to himself that tonight was a night he could indulge in such desires. Sighing to himself once more, Severus reached into his liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey. Not wanting to resemble his father too much, Severus strode into his kitchenette and searched for a drinking glass. Unfortunately for Severus, he chose the worst glass possible.

For the second time tonight, Severus uttered a foul curse word directed at himself. It was if the entire world wanted him to think about the love he had lost. Losing himself in desperation, Severus let the engraved glass drop to the floor and watched as it shattered into a million tiny pieces. He evansco'd the mess and made his way to his sitting room. He sat down on his favourite chair and let his head rest in his hands, letting his long, black, greasy hair settle around his fingers, willing the day to finally end.

His thought drifted back to his beautiful love that he had lost, the woman that should be by his side. If she were here, they would be out celebrating tonight, like witches and wizards should be, instead of being hollowed up remembering days long past. It had been almost two years since he had last seen his beloved, yet he could still remember her as if it were only yesterday. He could remember how her dark red hair illuminated her bright green eyes that seemed to know everything about him, how she used to laugh at his poor attempt at humour, and how she was ever forgiving of his mistakes, ever caring and ever loving; or so he had thought.

In the end, as with all of his past mistakes, Severus had been a fool. He should have known he wasn't worthy of such a beautiful and incredibly kind woman as Lily Evans. He knew he was not an attractive man, his hair was too greasy, his nose too long and crooked, and his horrible grievances were too innumerable to count. He should have seen the signs, perhaps if he had just paid more attention- but no, it wasn't good or healthy to dwell on the what-ifs.

Severus slammed his first down on the sitting room table in anger. He would do anything just to see her smile again, to hear her call him her Sev. That blasted Potter! He had taken everything away from him. It wasn't inexcusable enough that he had the audacity to steal his love away from him, but when he heard that she was pregnant! And that the child was Potter's! It was just too much to take in. But that was all in the past now. The child would be almost two by now, and then they had had another one, this one the target of that damned prophecy! Paranoid Dark Lords and their interest in Divination be damned! Everyone knew it was just a crackpot subject anyway!

Severus went back to the forgotten bottle of Firewhiskey. At the path his mind was headed he would need an entire bottle of the stuff, as well as a vial of Dreamless Sleep potion before he managed to get through the night. His thoughts kept drifting back to Lily, her friendly green eyes that never bore him any ill-will.

He remembered how those eyes had remained friendly, even after the first time he had lost his Lily to James Potter. Humiliated in front of the entire school by that inimical bully and his three friends, he had called Lily a word that bared no forgiveness. After his wonderful Lily had stood up for him against the merciless quartet of Gryffindors, he had called her a Mudblood. She had looked at him with so much pain, yet even then, those eyes held no malice. Despite that, it had taken her years to forgive him. In that time, she had fled to the company of James Potter, and Severus had driven to the Dark Arts. True, he had always been interested in the uncharted territory of Dark magic, it had been a subject of argument many times over the years with Lily, but after she had left him for the arms of James Potter, he became fully enamored with the subject. His lust and passion for the Dark Arts would drive him straight into the clutches of the Dark Lord. His foolish teenage-self thought that if Lily could see the power Severus would gain from joining Lord Voldemort, she would not be able to resist him. It was if he hadn't known Lily at all.

It had taken an excruciatingly long time for Lily to forgive him, and by that time he was deep within the ranks of the Death Eaters. In the end though, she had indeed forgiven him. He was to spy for her, he was to tell her every bit of information he knew, and in secret, Lily would be his, or so he had thought. As it had turned out, she had never really left Potter. No doubt the whole thing had been his idea, make a fool out of a Death Eater and gain valuable information at the same time, it was like the ultimate prank for that defiant Gryffindor. Once again, she had left him for that bloody Potter, and Severus was left alone amongst the most murderous and treacherous people in Wizardring Britain.

Severus sighed once again and poured himself a generous amount of whiskey, this time in a not so personal glass, one that wasn't filled with imprints of days past. He finished the liquid in one swallow and refilled the glass, this time watching the liquid swish around inside; his pierce, black eyes penetrating it as if it had the answers.

He was about to finally put the past behind him and take a medicinal shower, when an envelope suddenly appeared before him. At first he thought he must have drank the post powerful alcoholic drink known to man and that he was hallucinating, but then he saw the familiar warm handwriting that could only belong to one person. Lily, his Lily, had written to him.

He knew something pretty important would have had to happen for her to have written to him. He knew she was currently in hiding with her family, awaiting the death of the Dark Lord for reasons he had inadvertently caused. He also knew that by writing to him, she was not only at risk of giving away their position in hiding, but also his position as a spy for Dumbledore.

He picked up the large envelope and stared gloomily at it, wondering just what dire news would make her write to him. He inhaled a large gulp of air as if it were going to be his last, and carefully opened the package.

His cold, black eyes scanned the paper, digesting every word that was written in that familiar feminine font. Each word seemed to become more and more confusing; each word seemed to become more and more difficult to understand.

What did it mean by if you are reading this than James and I are dead? And what could it possibly mean by Charles Potter is your son? He knew this had to be some kind of joke, Lily and James were in hiding, they weren't dead, and Charles Potter was most definitely not his son.

Suddenly pain erupted in his Dark Mark, the Mark that ensured his enslavement to the most treacherous, insane and malicious monster to ever walk the earth, pain so severe it felt like he was being tortured by a thousand Cruciatus curses at once, like Lily left him for Potter over and over again. The pain was too much; it was if his entire body had become the Dark Mark. He cried out in pain, cried out at the new, torturous pain that entered his body through the Mark, cried out in pain for all the wrongs he had made, but most of all he cried out in pain for the sweet girl he had lost.

Just as the pain seemed like it was about to rip him in two, it abruptly ended. As soon as it coursed through him, it was gone. Gasping for breath he stared down at the Mark that would remind him of every single mistake he had ever made in his life, only to find there was barely any traces of the Mark at all. Before he could ponder the cause for his vanishing tattoo, his floo erupted to life. Out strode a very pale, and very panic stricken Albus Dumbledore.

"The wards!" cried Albus, his every twinkling eyes looked like they would never twinkle again. "They've fallen. They Potters- the Potters are dead. I must go, prepare potions to bring to the Hospital Wing just in case."

And with those cryptic words, Albus was gone. Leaving a very confused and very broken Severus Snape alone in his quarters to mourn for his only love and to contemplate the letter he had just been given from seemingly beyond the grave.

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TBC