Notes: I don't own Harry Potter or any of it's characters.

A New Understanding

Harry Potter had learned from a young age not to ask questions about his parents. His uncle only ever referred to them as thoughtless drunks, and his aunt always paled before murmuring that her sister had been a fool. He never heard stories about his aunt and mother's childhood, or anything about his maternal grandparents. At times, he could almost convince himself that he had no parents at all, that he had simply one day come into existance, only to be found by the Dursleys, who hated fairy tales and anything that couldn't be explained by scientific logic. In his wild imaginings, he could picture Aunt Petunia holding his infant self on the porch, Dudley screaming from the safety of his playpen inside the house, while she and Uncle Vernon attempted to concoct a story for their neighbors to believe - that her estranged, recently deceased sister had left behind a baby boy to be cared for by her sister, and hadn't had the decency to ask before naming the Dursleys guardians of her only child.

But Harry knew this day-dream was false. After returning to the Dursleys his fifth year of attending Hogwarts, Harry knew that his parents had been real. He had watched his fifteen-year-old father tormenting Snape, the greasy, grumpy Potions Professor, and had heard Snape's younger self call Lily a "mudblood" after she had tried to rescue him. Embittered by the death of his godfather, desperate for some sort of connection with his parents, Harry had waited until the Dursleys left to go to an amusement park before sneaking into his aunt and uncle's bedroom.

He had rummaged carefully through the closet, looking for anything that might resemble a photoalbum or a childhood diary. In the end, he had found what he was looking for in the oddest of places - a small glass mason jar, almost completely hidden in a small pink boot in the furthest corner of the closet. Harry took both boot and jar into his second-hand bedroom for a better look.

The contents of the jar were laid out carefully on the floor: a quartz crystal, a few small shells that had probably been collected on a vacation somewhere, three mismatched pearl buttons, a charm bracelet with a broken clasp, and a small stack of photographs that were curved to the shape of the jar.

The first picture was of a family, a mother, father, and two daughters - one of whom was obviously his mother. The back read "Our new home, 1967" in a delicate scrawl that was much too neat for a child. The next picture was Lily sitting on a swing, not much older than she was in the first picture. It had probably been taken by his grandmother, Harry decided, turning it over. Nothing was written on the back. The following three pictures were of Lily and two other girls, who would probably be forever nameless to Harry, for all that they mattered. But the last picture was of his mother, slightly older, standing beside a boy with long black hair and an unforgettable nose. Scrawled on the back in a young girl's hand was written, "Me and Severus, 1971."

Harry turned the photograph back over, wondering if it couldn't be a coincidence. But then, Lily and Severus were both wearing Hogwarts robes, not yet having their house ties to tell them apart. It must have been taken when they were about to start at Hogwarts, because both children were grinning broadly.

'I heard that awful boy telling my sister about them,' Aunt Petunia had said of the dementors earlier that year, and Harry had just assumed she had meant his father, James. Now, he wondered if it hadn't been Snape she had been talking about.

Harry gathered the treasures up, placing them back in the jar. The jar was shoved back inside the boot, and the boot he hid beneath the pile of clothes inside his own closet.

When the Dursleys returned hours later, Harry had dinner waiting for them. He ate in silence while his relatives talked in rather cheerful tones about their trip. When they had all finished, Harry cleaned up without complaint, and without even being told, served his Aunt and Uncle tea in the living room, and offered his cousin Dudley a plate of cookies and hot chocolate. After he was certain there was nothing further that could be required of him, he carefully approached his aunt.

"What do you want?" she demanded, not even glancing up from her copy of Sense and Sensibility.

"Did my mum know Severus Snape?"

His voice was trembling, knees weak as he waited for a response.

Slowly, Aunt Petunia lowered her book, face pale.

"Where have you heard that name?" she whispered. "That... that horrible, awful boy. He used to live on the other side of the park, near the textile factory. Always skulking about like a sewer rat with bruised knees and dirty hair. I saw the way he looked at your mother - I knew he was trouble from the moment I first laid eyes on him. But Lily didn't care what the neighbors would think, she only cared about having another freak around like her..."

Petunia glanced up at him, studying his face. "They were thick as thieves, Snape and my sister. She was always bringing him home, showing him off to our parents. I couldn't believe they even let him in the house, as dirty as he was. Daddy simply loved him off the bat - said he was the brightest ten year old he'd ever met, and wasn't Lily so lucky to have such a great study partner when they started school? Mother was always inviting him to lunch, even after he and Lily would pull the most horrible jokes on me..."

"What's all this interest in Severus Snape?" Uncle Vernon asked. "Is that little slimeball a criminal in your freak world, too?"

"No, actually." Harry replied. "He's one of my teachers."

"A teacher?" Petunia scoffed. "No doubt you're his star pupil, son of his only friend and all."

Harry shook his head. "I'm pretty certain he hates me. He's always giving me detention, and yelling at me. Last semester he threw a jar of tentacles at me."

Uncle Vernon snickered softly, then turned the page of his paper. Aunt Petunia gave her husband a sharp look, then turned her attention back to her nephew.

"Why are you telling us this?" she asked.

Harry wasn't certain himself. "No one ever talks about my mum... what she was like. Who her friends were. I was just curious, I guess."

He turned and walked away, taking the garnered information with him to ponder over.

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