Hmm. I'm not quite happy with this, but I suppose it could be worse. What do you think?

Harry Potter and the Hidden Truth

By Koinaka

In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end;
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In complement extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.

Othello Act 1, Scene 1, Line 56-65

Chapter Three
Truth often resembles fantasy

The week leading up to his birthday was a relatively uneventful one -- as far as the war front was concerned. In fact, Voldemort seemed suspiciously quiet. Not because he wasn't busy, because he definitely had been, but because he was so fixated on the ring that he was driven to distraction. Because of this, Harry, in turn, thought of nothing else but the ring. He could see it clearly in his mind. It was a rather attractive ring with a black stone. It was the odd-looking triangular symbol on the black stone that Voldemort was fixated on. Harry didn't recognize it at all -- he thought, probably wrongly, that it may have been an Ancient Rune, but he couldn't be certain.

And the pure and unadulterated rage that Voldemort felt about it's loss... it left Harry breathless -- and more than a little happy that anger wasn't directed at him which Harry had to admit was more than a bit selfish, but who could blame him?

However, even when Harry wasn't dreaming or actively thinking of it, the ring continued to be on his mind. He would find that he had sketched it on the parchment alongside his essays when he'd finish them. Or his letters. Or any bit of parchment Harry put his quill to. It was a bit unnerving, and Harry probably would have been more worried about it if things had not gone downhill as quickly as they had.

The week that began as uneventful was rapidly becoming rather eventful. At Hogwarts, Dumbledore had told him he was to stay with the Dursleys until mid-August, and then he could spend the two weeks prior to the start of term at Headquarters with everyone else. However, after writing to Dumbledore about his changing appearance, he had received a response stating that Dumbledore himself would be collecting Harry on his birthday and would, after a short detour, deposit Harry at the Burrow. Not a word was said about his changing appearance.

Not that Harry was complaining, mind you, because he certainly wasn't. He didn't, after all, want to spend more time than necessary with the Dursley's, but it made him wonder... why had Dumbledore changed his plans so abruptly?

It made the changes he was going through much more unnerving. If Dumbledore felt it urgent enough -- though he hadn't come out and said that, of course, as he hadn't said anything about them -- to remove him from the Dursley's care.... then it must really be something. Harry didn't see how it could not be something though. Just this morning, he had awoken, rather sore, to discover he had grown three inches overnight, and the face that now stared back at him in the mirror while still essentially him was beginning to take on the appearance of a stranger. Well, perhaps not quite a stranger because it did look quite familiar although Harry couldn't be sure who it belonged to. For the most part, he was happy to say, he still looked like himself -- only different.

That hadn't stopped his relatives from noticing. His aunt, at least, had taken to giving him these odd looks whenever he came into any room she occupied and went out of her way to avoid speaking to him. That was why Harry was now actively searching for her. He would be leaving tomorrow, and as unpleasant as informing the Dursleys that wizards would be visiting their home would be, it would be far better than if the wizards in question showed up unannounced.

She was tending her garden when Harry practically cornered her that afternoon. "I'm going to be leaving here in the morning, and I won't be returning before the start of term," he'd told her, quickly, before she could think of an excuse to flee the garden.

Petunia looked torn. On one hand, allowing Harry to leave would make him happy, something the Dursleys were decidedly against. On the other hand, if Harry left... well, Harry would be gone, and that was how his relatives liked him best. In the end, she decided to go with the lesser of two evils. She set her lips into a harsh line and fixed a heated glare on the son of her hated sister. "Fine," she spat out. "But you be sure they collect you in some normal fashion. I'll not have my parlor wrecked again so you can travel through my fireplace!"

The rest of the day was spent cleaning out his trunk and then packing up said trunk. After he'd finished, he sat back down on his bed and munched away on some crisps he'd acquired from the kitchen. It was sort of a tradition of his to wait for the clock to strike midnight. As the anticipated time drew near, however, Harry found himself become more drained, as if he had performed some huge feat of magic. He was fast asleep and in the throes of a vicious vision long before he turned sixteen.

Sometime before dawn, he woke up gasping for breath, pain searing through his body -- it was gone. Gone -- gone -- gone! How could it be gone? He let out an anguished cry before falling back against his pillow. He furrowed his brow as his mind -- and the pain -- cleared. What was gone? All he could remember was... a necklace of some sorts. A locket perhaps? He couldn't remember. Whatever it was, it belonged to Voldemort, and he was none too pleased to discover that it was gone.

He sighed as he saw the time. Three a.m. He was now sixteen years old. He blinked several times when he noticed that his glasses were beside his clock -- as they always were. But if they were by his clock, then how could he see the clock so plainly? He'd never been able to before.

Then, he began to notice other things. His hands. His fingers were now long and slender. Not that his hands had been... unnaturally large before, but they were a bit thinner than before. That made him wonder, what else had changed?

He bypassed the pile of presents sitting on his bedside table and stumbled into the bathroom to the mirror. What he saw caused him to let out a half-screech, half-laugh. The face that stared back at him was not his own. In fact, there was nothing there that he recognized as belonging to him. Every ounce of James Potter erased from his person. Even his eyes, his mother's eyes, were gone, replaced instead by obsidian eyes that seemed to mock him. The scream he let out must have screamed rather loud because when he exited the bathroom, his aunt and uncle were in the hallway. His uncle seemed on the verge of exploding, but one look at Harry, and he stopped.

"Do you see it?" Harry asked them frantically, his voice rising shrilly, bordering on hysteria.

Petunia let out a gasp. "What have you done to yourself? You look like... him," she said, horrified.

Harry's breathing began to increase. This was real. He had changed, had been changing. Why, why, had his appearance changed? Why did he no longer look like the son of James and Lily Potter? "Who?" whispered Harry, half-afraid to hear the answer.

"That horrible, horrible, Snape boy that used to hang around with your mother before she went off to that school of yours," she said the word as if it was a curse. "I should have known there was something odd about him then. Scrawny little thing, he was. Dark hair, dark eyes, always wearing filthy secondhand clothing. None of the neighbors took kindly to him and his. His father was one of those alcoholics," she finished smugly.

Snape, Snape, Snape, Snape, the word echoed through his head. His mother, Lily, had known Snape before Hogwarts? After viewing the events in Snape's pensieve, Harry knew they were friends in school, but before... and now his aunt seemed certain he looked like him?

Harry ignored his aunt's continued diatribe and went back into the bathroom once more. The same strange face stared back at him in the mirror, but replaying his aunt's words, the face was not so foreign to him. The eyes, those obsidian eyes, had glared at him many a time from the face of the Potions professor. The nose was different to be sure, obviously, but he had the same high cheek bones and bone structure that Snape had. But, no, his aunt must be mistaken. Because he could not look like Snape. He was the son of James and Lily Potter, and as such did not - could not - look like Severus Snape, his hated Potions professor.

There were too many questions and precious few answers, so, numbly, he walked back into his bedroom and penned a letter to Dumbledore telling him that something had happened, and he was to come quick. If he did not come, Harry told him plainly then Harry would just take the Knight Bus there -- alone. He gave the letter to Hedwig and told her in no certain terms that she was to deliver that into the hands of the Headmaster, and that she wasn't to leave until he had read it.

That being finished, he sat on the bed and began opening the packages, not really noticing their contents. Until, that is, he came to a small box with no envelope attached. There wasn't a return address either. It simply said his name. He thought momentarily that he really ought not open an unaddressed packed, but his curiosity got the best of him, and it was without much regret at all that he opened the package.

Inside the package was a smaller much more elaborate box. Inside the small box there was a silver ring. It was an odd looking ring to be sure with a strange iridescent stone. There was an elaborate P on one side and a coat of arms on the other. Without thinking, he slipped the ring onto his right hand. The ring sized to his finger automatically, and much to Harry's dismay, could not be removed. No amount of pulling lessened its hold. He discovered, however, that he liked the feel of the ring on his newly elongated fingers. It felt right, somehow -- which considering how wrong this situation was was saying something.

Five minutes passed. He was giving Dumbledore an hour before departing for Grimmauld Place himself. Another five minutes passed, and Harry was on his feet, pacing restlessly in front of his window, his eyes searching the night sky desperately for any trace of... well, he wasn't sure what as the Headmaster would likely arrive by port key or apparation. But as the hour deadline drew near, Harry began to feel anxious. Perhaps the professor wasn't coming? Well, it was no matter, Harry wasn't going to spend another hour in this house without know why he looked like Snape. He grasped the handle of his heavy trunk and, with a bit of effort, pulled it down the stairs. He arrived in the living room just in time to hear the doorbell ring.

"I'll get it!" his aunt said in a strained voice, still eyeing him warily, muttering underneath her breath about oddities and that strange Snape boy. Petunia and Vernon had been sitting rigid on the couch, wrapped in their nightclothes, when Harry had entered the room. Now, both stood up, Vernon standing in front of Petunia protectively.

The doorbell rang a second time.

"Well, someone get it," snapped Harry.

Petunia fixed a withering glare on him, but she did step around her husband and opened the front door.

Harry was standing stiffly in the middle of the room when Dumbledore entered. He set his eyes on harry and took in a sharp breath before closing his eyes momentarily as if pained. "I had heard... but thought it nothing but mindless gossip..." he murmured almost to himself. "Well, Harry, it seems as if we've a rather large problem." He turned to Petunia, then. "I understand that the hour is quite late, and you all have been through a terrible shock, but I must beg you to allow us to trespass upon your hospitality for a bit longer."

If it was under any other circumstances, there would have been no question as to their answer, but things being what they were, the Dursleys agreed without much resistance at all. Vernon stayed where he sat. His normally red face was red and splotchy. Petunia was never very good at sitting still, so as soon as Dumbledore had made himself quite at home on the sofa, she had fled to the kitchen to make some tea. Dumbledore waited until Harry sat before speaking. He gave Harry a sad smile. "You must have questions," he began, gently.

Harry gave a jerky nod. "Yeah," he said. "Do you know -- I mean... why do I look like Snape?"

"Professor Snape," corrected Dumbledore, more out of habit than anything else, Harry thought, "and I think it would be rather obvious why you look like Professor Snape, if you take a moment to think on it."

Harry flushed. "Oh -- oh!" he exclaimed, throwing his hand over his mouth, his mind struggling to process the information.

Dumbledore sighed. "Yes, it would appear that your father was not James Potter as we were all lead to believe, but Severus Snape."

Frantic dark eyes met blue. "It would appear," Harry repeated, rather lamely, "You mean, you didn't know, then?" he asked.

"No," said Dumbledore, albeit reluctantly. "My omniscience, Harry, is a common misconception. I had heard... rumors that Severus and your mother were involved... but that was several years before you were born, before she'd married, and as you did look so remarkably like James, I had no reason to think you were anything other than you appeared to be."

Harry furrowed his brow. "But how? If James Potter," here Harry's voice cracked a bit, "isn't my father -- how come I looked like him? 'You like just like your father'! How many times have I been told that? How could that have been a lie?"

"Magic," Dumbledore said, simply. "What kind exactly we may never know. It is likely that your mother took her secret to the grave with her."

Harry's heart was beating rapidly, and he felt his breath begin to come out in short gasps. Everything he knew had been a lie. It was too much -- far too much! First Sirius, then the prophecy, and now this. He didn't think he could bear it. Maybe... maybe if it was anyone but Snape. Snape hated Harry -- probably as much as Voldemort did, if not more. He would hate being his father when he found out.

Harry froze. If he didn't already know, that is. "Do you think he knows?" he asked the Headmaster.

Dumbledore frowned. "I do not believe that he would keep something of this magnitude to himself if he knew."

Harry scowled angrily, his dark eyes narrowed. "He would," swore the boy, contemptuously. "Snape hates me, you know he does."

"Professor Snape," Dumbledore said, gently, "and I do not believe that he hates you. The two of you... are quite volatile together, I musts admit, but both of you could do better. And... despite how you may feel about him he is a good man, Harry. I do not think him so cruel as to have kept this from you."

Harry sighed. "I don't guess so. He must not have known," he admitted grudgingly.

"I'm afraid, however, that this new development puts us into a rather difficult situation. While there are traces of Lily in you, no traces of Harry Potter remain."

"But I am Harry Potter," said Harry, stupidly.

Dumbledore gave him a smile. "So you are, but you no longer look yourself at all. Had I not been expecting something -- though I must admit, I had not expected this -- I would not have known you at all."

Harry chewed nervously on his bottom lip. "What are we to do, then?"

"I'm afraid we must consult with a dear friend of mine before any decision can be made. I understand that the hour is late -- or early, rather -- but needs must. If you are ready to depart, perhaps you should say farewell to your family?" said the aging wizard, indicating the Dursleys.

Harry blinked. He'd nearly forgotten they were there at all. "Oh, yeah. Bye, then," he told them as he stood.

They muttered their goodbyes, but Harry didn't pay them a bit of attention. He made to grab his trunk, but before he could, Dumbledore shrank it with a flick of his wand. Harry gave him a small smile as he pocketed it. "Thanks."

"Now," said Dumbledore, kindly, "grasp my hand -- the left, if you would -- and we shall be off."

It was then that Harry noticed Dumbledore's right hand. It was blackened and withered. "What happened?" he asked

"Not just yet, Harry. It is a truly captivating tale, and I wish to do it justice. Now, grasp tightly. It wouldn't do to be splinched on top of everything else, now, would it?"

Harry shook his head quickly. "That would be awful," he said. He'd heard of people being splinched before. It didn't sound like something he had any desire to do -- at all.

Just as soon as Harry had grabbed a hold of Dumbledore's good arm, he felt as if he were falling into darkness. Not falling, exactly. It was more like he was being pressed by hundreds of hands until he fit into the tiniest of parcels. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't see, he could do nothing. The feeling was gone, then, as if it never had been there at all, and Harry found himself standing, still grasping Dumbledore's arm, in front of a very rundown, very muggle looking home.

Nausea swept over him, and he bent over and heaved into the grass. When he was through, Dumbledore handed him a glass of water he had conjured.

"Apparation, much like using the Floo Network, is something that one must become accustomed to."

Harry grimaced and gave a slight shudder. "I don't think I'll ever become accustomed to it."

Dumbledore chuckled softly. "Perhaps not," he agreed. "Come along now. It isn't wise to linger in the darkness." He motioned for Harry to proceed up the walkway. Before Dumbledore could knock, however, the door was thrust open.

Peering back at them, his dark eyes glittering furiously, his greasy hair hanging limply in his face, was Severus Snape. Seeing Dumbledore, his brow furrowed as if confused. The confusion only seemed to increase when his eyes flicked over to where Harry stood.

"Might we come in, Severus? I do hate to call on you at such late an hour, but..." Dumbledore trailed off.

Snape's face smoothed out. "Of course, Headmaster," he murmured, more politely then Harry would have thought possible. He stepped aside so that first Harry and then Dumbledore could enter.

Once the door was closed, Snape murmured a series of incantations while flicking his wand towards the door. Then, he turned back to Harry. He said nothing, but he seemed to be drinking in his appearance. His face, unfortunately, was completely blank, and nothing could be gleaned from it.

He, then, gave Dumbledore an inquiring look. "Perhaps an explanation is in order?" he suggested, one ebony eyebrow raised.

"Ah, Severus, you are right, of course, but I'm afraid that I've none to give. I was hoping you would be so kind as to fill in the blanks for us," said Dumbledore. Behind his half-moon glasses, his blue eyes seemed troubled.

"You are mistaken, Headmaster. I've never seen this boy before in my life," replied Snape.

"But you have," Dumbledore interrupted, softly. "If nothing else, surely you see yourself in this boy?"

Snape fixed a withering glare on the Headmaster. "As I am not blind, yes, I do realize the boy resembles me slightly," he paused as Dumbledore made a noise of disagreement in the back of his throat, quirking an eyebrow at Snape. Snape sighed. "Very well, he could nearly be my double, but perhaps you could just save me the trouble of guessing his identity. It is quite late and as it was you who brought him here, I've no doubt you know it."

Dumbledore stared pointedly at the lightning-bolt scar that still remained on his forehead. It only took Snape a second to follow Dumbledore's gaze.

He let out a strangled breath. "Harry Potter?"