"Longbottom, you idiot!" Snape snapped at Harry's potions partner, "Go to the hospital wing, now! Potter! Get newt's eyes to balance the acidity of Longbottom's mess before it burns through the caldron." Snape started to remove the red gas cloud from the room before any more students could inhale the toxic fumes.

Harry opened the in-class storage cupboard. "There's none left, sir." Harry said, looking at the empty jar of translucent brown liquid.

"There's some in my desk drawer, hurry up."

Harry slowly walked over to the desk, according to the Half Blood Prince, adding too much unicorn tail-hair did nothing to except make the potion stronger and create toxic red vapour.

Right again, Prince. Harry thought sarcastically.

There was nothing but vials of various coloured liquids in the first drawer. No newt's eyes.

Harry opened the second drawer, and moved around a stack of parchment and saw the newt's eyes in a clear glass jar.

Harry put the parchment back only to notice, it wasn't parchment at all. It was muggle papers, written on with an ink pen, not a quill.

Curious he picked up the top one. It was a letter, they were all letters. They looked old and worn as if they had been read time and time again.

Dear Sev,

Severus, I'm not sure why I'm returning your letter it's been years, maybe something made me pity you. Maybe it was because I miss the way things used to be between us, you were my best friend. We were best friends. I don't understand how we ended up in such different places. What you did, what you said, I know they're just words. But they hurt me. I still don't know if I've truly forgiven you for it. After everything we went through together, after everything we've been through, how could you do something so hateful?

I told you everything since the day we first met, how James Potter wouldn't leave me alone how when your, Slytherin friends called me Mudblood I used to cry in the bathroom. You were the person I went to when Petunia told me she hated me. And you went and did the same thing.

Did you know she didn't even tell me my parents had died or that she had gotten married? I suppose not.

It's not that I haven't gotten over the words you said that cut so deep, it's the fact that you took my biggest weakness, my biggest insecurity and used it against me. You betrayed me.

You know me better than anyone in the world, Sev. I think even better than my husband does. You know how hard it is to get my trust back once you've lost it. But I guess you also know how forgiving I am. Too forgiving. That's what James says anyway.

I don't know if you already knew, but I just had a baby. Harry, we called him. Harry James Potter. He looks so much like his father. It's almost unsettling to see your husband's face every time you look at your baby. The only way we know he's mine to and that James didn't clone himself are his eyes. They're green like mine. Sirius says he's going to be a heartbreaker, just like his father, but Remus said he's got my temperament. I included some pictures of Harry and the wedding. Sirius has taken enough to fill two photo albums already.

Sev, he's such a good baby. He hardly every cries unless I've been gone for too long. Harry makes the sweetest noises and I swear, he can tell when I'm upset because he'll always want to cuddle with his mum. It still feels weird, calling myself a mother. I hope I'm doing this right, my baby deserves the best, and I don't know if I am. I hope I'm not a bad mother. It's only been two weeks and already I've forgotten him in his play cot while I'm doing something, like cooking dinner for three. Sirius might as well move in, after all, he's got his own bedroom and I don't think he's been to his own flat since we told them I was pregnant.

Listen to me, bragging on and on about my baby and how perfect he is. At least I got that part of motherhood right.

"Harry! HARRY!" Harry looked up; he was sitting on the cold dungeon floor. He didn't remember how he got there or why his face was wet. "Harry what's wrong?" Hermione said. She looked as if she didn't know whether to get up and offer Harry comfort or to leave him be.

"Potter, what are you blubbering about?" Snape had turned around to see the sixteen year old crying on his class room floor; the letter was blocked from his view by the old wooden desk. The classroom laughed. Slytherins because they enjoyed other people's pain, the Gryffindors to ease the tension.

Snape snatched the eyes off the desk top and dropped a few in. Instantly the potion stopped smoking.

Harry read the last paragraph before answering.

I don't think we can start over, but I do think we can be friends again. But that means you have to get along with my husband now, he's the most important man in my life after my son. If you can accept who he was and what he did to you, then I can accept who you were and what you did to me. I honestly hope that you have reformed, for both our sakes.

Love From,

Lily Potter (Evans)

"What did you do to her?" Harry said, trying to keep his voice from cracking.

"Potter, I don't have time for your stupid games!" Snape rolled his eyes, "Now, get off my floor before I give you a detention."

Harry cleared his throat and read a quote from the letter.

"It's not that I haven't gotten over the words you said that cut so deep, it's the fact that you took my biggest weakness, my biggest insecurity and used it against me. You betrayed me."

Harry stood up, "I – I have no idea what you're talking about Potter! So put that letter away its private and get out of my classroom!"

"Technically, this letter belongs to me, Sev." Harry said holding the letter up, careful not to crinkle it.

"It was addressed to me." Snape paled, those were the only things he had left of Lily Evans.

"From my dead mother!" Harry snapped, tears leaked out his eyes again. "How many do you have?" Harry ripped open the second drawer again. The stack of paper was sitting right in top, where he left it. He grabbed it and was surprized to find how thick it was. Almost a year and a half of letters was in this neat little stack.

Flipping through the dates which were in order from oldest to newest, Harry realized she wrote to him almost every day, sometimes twice a day.

Snape lunged for the stack of papers, but Harry easily avoided him.

"You were her best friend and you did something so terribly bad she didn't talk to you for years! What did you do?" Harry yelled at the potions master from the corner of the room.

"It was a long time ago." Snape said defeated. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"Obviously, the woman's been dead for fifteen years but it matters to me." Harry said narrowing his eyes.

"I…"

"What?"

"I called her a Mudblood."

Harry wiped the tears from his eyes angrily he hated crying in front of people. "Were you ever going to tell me you knew her? That you actually knew who she was, not that she just existed?"

Snape closed his eyes.

"What about these pictures she sent you? Where are they? Was I ever going to get to see those? I have one wedding photo. One and it has Peter Pettigrew in it."

Snape flicked his wand and a thick photo album, about three times the width of the one Hagrid had given him, flew out of the third drawer.

Harry slowly walked behind the desk and opened the soft leather cover. The sound of plastic unsticking was all that filled the room.

Everyone watched as Harry studied the first picture, his fingers gently touched the page and he turned to the next page. And the next one, and the next one.

"why."

"Why what?" Snape cleared his throat.

"Why would you say that? Why wouldn't you tell me you knew her, or had all these letters and pictures, and why out of all the people in the world, did she have to pick you to be her best friend?" Harry grabbed the photo album and the letters turned to leave.

"Wait those are my letters!"

"Go to hell." Harry said, not looking at Snape and slamming the door shut a second later. Ron grabbed his bag and chased after him. Hermione was too shocked to move.

"Well, guess that proves that Potter's not a hero everyone thought. He's a little girl who still cries about his parents." Malfoy sneered after a seconds shock.

"You! Draco Malfoy. Are a complete ass hole. Harry has a single memory of his parents and it's of them being murdered, by your dad's 'boss' I might add." Hermione stood up and advanced on Malfoy's desk. Seeing him shrink back made Hermione feel a rush of satisfaction she hadn't felt since she punched him three years ago.

"His Godfather, the only person even close to being family, was just murdered, by your Aunt. The Malfoy's are almost directly responsible for everything that's gone wrong in Harry's life. So I'd shut your mouth if I were you unless you'd rather me do it for you."

Not knowing what else to do, Snape announced, "Class dismissed. All of you out!"

…~*~*…*~*~…

Ron found Harry in a completely empty common room. Smiling through tears as he read bits from each one of his mother's letters.

"Ron. Ron, listen." Harry told him when he saw Ron enter the common room, "When I first brought Harry home, I was sure I was going to turn him into a mamma's boy. The only time I put him down was to make an attempt at cooking. He sleeps in our bed. I can't bear the thought of him being in his cot all alone at night. (Something I've been afraid to tell you because I don't want to hear about it, now I mean it!) But it turns out I was wrong. He said his first word today, not mum or mamma like I thought it'd be. Not even dad or dada. My son's first word was Padfoot! Or that's what we think it is at least. He's got two syllables and a definite "A" sound to start."

Harry looked at Ron's sad smile. "My first word was Padfoot. I wonder why Sirius didn't tell me. What was your first word?"

Ron grinned, "Mum says it was banana. But dad reckons she forgot because he clearly remembers it being baby, you know, because Ginny was new and all. Bill promises it was spoon. And Fred and George swear it was shagging."

Harry smiled and went back to flipping through all the letters in his hands, clearly overwhelmed by the events of the day and how much information there was sitting in his hands.

"You know what? These will still be here in the morning. You're coming to the burrow for Christmas this year and the train leaves right after lunch, it's a half day." Ron said trying to take the letters.

"No! I want to read these now! I've got plenty of time to pack!"

"I'll pack your stuff if you go take a nap. I know you didn't get any sleep last week."

"Just let me read one more!" Harry protested as Ron pulled them away.

"Just look at the pictures, I'm going to put these in your trunk."

"Ron, please." Harry pleaded.

Ron hated to do it but, "I'll be right back." He told Harry and disappeared with his best friend's dead mother's letters in his hand.

Ron returned feeling immensely guilty. But it was worth when he saw that Harry had fallen asleep, photo album open to the first page.

There was one picture in the centre, a muggle black a white picture of the Potter's wedding. Lily was being walked down the aisle by Remus and she was about to take James's hand. It was beautiful. Underneath in gold ink was written the date and names of each person: Remus Lupin, Lily Evans, Minister Herte, James Potter, Sirius Black, Marlene McKinnon, Alice Prewett. September 22 1979.

Ron closed the book slowly, covered Harry with a blanket and put the album in Harry's trunk, under the perfectly preserved letters.

…~*~*…*~*~…

"Hey, Ron, is Harry still asleep in the common room?" Seamus asked.

"I hope so, why?" Ron said, putting down his chicken breast.

"Well, I still got me some things to put in me trunk for the holidays, but I don't want to wake the boy up. Don't think he's slept in a month."

"Do all the Irish exaggerate like you, Seamus? Or is it just you?" Lavender Brown said trying to flirt with her year mate.

"Oh, I ain't making no joke. Wakes up screaming bloody murder and whispering things in Parsletongue. Sometimes even he'll repeat every word You-Know-Who said when he killed his mum, he will."

"Seamus!" Hermione interrupted. "That's enough!"

"You can't tell me that when you're in the common room studying at an ungodly hour, you can't hear him, eh?"

"That's not the point –"

"Tis the point! Look, Hermione, everyone knows You-Know-Who is trying to mess with 'is head, but Harry's not letting 'em. Boy must be exhausted. I'd be too if every time I closed my eyes I saw me mum get killed."

"Actually, Seamus, that's a pretty good guess but that's not all I see." Harry had walked up behind him and heard the last part of the conversation. In his drowsiness, he didn't fully realize that he was hurting his cause, not helping it. "Voldemort can send me images of whatever he wants. I don't know what he's playing at but when I'm sleeping I see what he wants me to see." Harry yawned. "So I'm really not a crazy person who just re-lives their parents' deaths over and over and over. And over and over and over…"

"That must be so scary." Romilda Vane reached over to pat his arm.

"Bloody maddening." Harry said. "It's blurry and hard to make out most of the time and I can't tell the difference between what he's actually seeing and what he's making me see. That's how Mr. Weasley lived and Sirius died."

"What's like having You-Know-Who inside your head?" Romilda asked. "…Harry… Harry?"

"Hmm?" Harry jumped out of his retreat. "Oh shit, I can't believe I just told you that."

"Isn't that like… dangerous?" Lavender Brown asked.

"Can't kill someone with dreams." Harry shrugged.

"No I meant for us."

Harry laughed nervously, "I thought so too at first. But can't possess me or even put me under the Imperious curse." Harry, now extremely angry with himself, got up to leave.

Once he was gone, Seamus spoke up again, "He's going to end up killing one of us isn't he?"

Ron rolled his eyes, "I've had Dumbledore explain it to me, your fine. I don't think Harry could have told it and wronger while still being kinda right." Ron lied, "And they're way more to it than that."

…~*~*…*~*~…

Harry sat silently on the train, thinking about the letters and photographs that were stowed away in his trunk, unobtainable to him.

"I know what you're going through, you know." Luna said breaking the awkward silence only Harry was oblivious to. "After my mum died I found old journals of hers, new spells mostly, but they were hers. I remember not wanting to do anything else but crawl into bed and read them. It's an unhealthy obsession, and you really should try to moderate it."

Harry looked at Luna, "I'm not obsessed, Luna. I just want to know what she was like; there are so many memories of hers in those papers."

"It hurts when you finish." She said almost sympathetically.

"What?"

"I think especially you. You never got to know your mum, she's always been dead. These letters and pictures are only going to make you realize how much alive she was and it will hurt when they stop because that will be the last of you getting to know her. She'll die all over again." Luna explained.

Harry didn't take in what Luna was saying, he didn't care. All he wanted were his mother's letters.

…~*~*…*~*~…

An:/ This was supposed to be a one shot, it's just I can't write just one long chapter, I get distracted and it never gets finished so I put them on about 2,000 words at a time and the reviews and favourites sent to my email are like little reminders 'Hey, hey I need to be finished' Hope you liked it! Review please. New update right after "Lily's Daddy" is updated (soon)!