"Fiona, I can't believe you are actually going to come down for Christmas dinner dressed like this!" squealed Victoire, who was gradually recovering from the shock of losing her uncle and becoming her usual giggly self. She was already dressed in very frilly and rather low-cut dress robes of bubblegum pink, with a matching pink ribbon in her silvery-blonde hair, which she had curled for the occasion. It fell in shiny ringlets onto her white shoulders and cascaded down her back as she moved.

Other than Fiona and Victoire, the dormitory of the sixth-year Ravenclaw girls was empty. Rebecca, Susan and Emma had all gone home for the holidays. Victoire was staying behind for Christmas dinner because her parents, Bill and Fleur Weasley, were invited by Mrs. Snape, her mother's all-time best friend. She was giddy with excitement because her boyfriend, Ted Lupin, was coming over too, and they haven't seen each other much since the start of term, apart from a couple of Hogsmeade visits. Victoire already drove Fiona mad earlier that day by endless inquiries regarding whether her dress robes really look fitting for the occasion, and Fiona decided to pay her back in the same manner.

"How do I look?" she asked, smiling mischievously.

She couldn't blame Victoire for not finding the right words straight away. Even though Christmas was definitely a time to shed the school uniform, she doubted whether the castle walls had ever seen an appearance such as she had put on now. She was wearing a black leather miniskirt, a tight top of black satin, and knee high, monstrous platform boots of black dragonskin, with a matching jacket. A generous touch of black eyeliner accentuated her sparkling blue eyes, and her lipstick was purple to boot. Muggles would probably have called her appearance "Gothic", and she wouldn't have looked out of place at a rock concert.

"Your parents are going to drop dead when they see you," Victoire finally said, giggling, "and Jeremy will be very surprised, considering what a good girl you always appear to be in his classes." She added after a pause.

Fiona scowled.

"If we both mean the same person," she said, "I normally call him Professor Hawthorn."

"Gorgeous Professor Hawthorn," amended Victoire, sighing, "Honestly, it's so unfair they got someone so handsome to teach Potions right after I quit the stupid subject. It would have been worth to carry on just for…"

"For the purely aesthetical pleasure," offered Fiona. Victoire smirked.

"Fiona, only a girl who has never had a boyfriend could miss something like that."

"We ought to be going downstairs," said Fiona, putting a stop to the conversation. The last thing she wanted was to discuss her dating history with Victoire.

As she had predicted, her appearance extracted quite a few stunned looks from fellow students who were staying over for Christmas – not to mention the teachers. With satisfaction, Fiona noted an expression of deepest shock on Anna's pretty face as she strutted past her. Anna was looking beautiful as usual in her robes of floating sky-blue silk and a gold headband. With a further lift to her spirits, Fiona noticed that Torbjorn Rowle was gone for the holidays, and the place by Anna's side was occupied instead by Lennox McKinnon, the Gryffindor Seeker, in the direction of whom James was casting dirty looks.

Fiona's mother, who slipped behind her unnoticed, had her elbow in a very tight grip.

"You look like a Muggle!" Mrs. Snape said in a scandalized whisper, "What have you been thinking, it's your father's first Christmas as Headmaster, why do you always have to do something ridiculous?"

But Fiona just looked straight ahead of her, put a defiant smirk on her face and shook her short black hair out of her eyes. It's a pity Jews don't attend Christmas parties, she thought. Lenny would have found this highly amusing.

After a lot of good food and cracker-pulling, the atmosphere eased up quite a bit, though the murderous look in her father's eyes unmistakably told Fiona she will be in very serious trouble once she comes home. For now, however, she decided to just ignore it and enjoy the moment. The dancing has opened, and her parents were already circling the dance floor in a waltz, her mother's graceful movements making up for her father's lack of expertise. Anna was dancing with Lennox McKinnon, and James Potter was very uncharacteristically sulking in a corner.

Fiona threw a furtive look at Jeremy Hawthorn, who was standing alone near the punch bowl, his arms crossed. It was so typical of Victoire to say she would have carried on with Potions just because the teacher has a perfect smile, a mop of wavy dark brown hair and those liquid grey eyes. Poor Jeremy, she mused. No, she corrected herself, poor Professor Hawthorn. He may be talented, but he does not have the authority required to deal with being the Head of Slytherin. Without much thinking, she felt her legs carrying her over to him in confident strides. Surely an innocent liberty such a dance on Christmas Eve won't be considered excessive, even by her father?

"Don't you dance, Professor Hawthorn?" she asked. For a second, he looked startled, but then got up and graciously offered her his hand.

"I will if you honor me, Miss Snape."

As they spun around, a mischievous gleam was ignited in Hawthorn's grey eyes.

"In New Springs," he told her, "one of our Professors once showed up on a Halloween night bare-chested, wearing leather pants and covered with tattoos."

"Oh?" Fiona raised an eyebrow, "Fake tattoos, I trust it?"

"That is precisely the point – he used some sort of charm, and they were supposed to come off after twenty-four hours… but they did not. He confessed that to us as a warning – we were in our final year, and he told us we should never mess with poorly studied branches of magic, even after we get our N.E.. He eventually had to make a trip to a Magical hospital in another state, where, as I heard, he spent most of the summer. I don't know what became of his tattoos, but on the few occasions I have encountered him after we graduated, I always saw him wearing high-collared robes."

Fiona burst out laughing.

"I see that they taught you with a more liberal attitude in New Springs, Professor," she said with an evil grin.

… In the meantime, a man and a boy walked out of the Great Hall to the frosty, chilly night outside. They walked slowly across the grounds, engrossed in their conversation, the freshly fallen snow crunching under their feet and the moonlight streaming down on them from the clear sky.

"Whatever you say, Uncle Harry," said Septimus, "it doesn't change the fact that my parents have been lying to me since the day I was born."

"Listen, Sep," Harry said firmly, "I know how you feel."

"Do you?" Septimus's black eyes sought Harry's green ones, his expression sharp, "Do you know what it's like, to admire your Dad, to see him as your – your hero, only to find out something that will make it impossible to ever look at him the same way?"

"Yes," Harry said earnestly, "I do."

He wasn't going to elaborate so as not to send the boy's mind into further confusion, but he thought, of course, of the scene he had seen in the Pensieve all those years ago, of his father taunting and torturing Septimus's – and even though he believed it would probably be for the best if Sep never finds out those particular details, he knew what the boy was going through and how painful the downfall of one's father image in one's eyes will always be. Boys tend to glorify their fathers, and the pedestals we erect, he mused, are almost always too high. That's why he always tried to appear as a real person to James and Al, a man with limits and faults. He wanted his sons to know and respect him the way he is – not some far-fetched ideal.

"I just don't understand," Septimus went on gloomily, "how my Dad could ever have been in league with You-Know-Who."

For a few seconds, Harry was silent. The complexity of Professor Snape's character became striking to him once he found it out. He learned to come to terms with it and respect it. He wasn't sure, however, whether he would not have found it all too confusing had he been eleven years old.

"Listen, I was the one who finished off You-Know-Who in the end. You know that, right?" Harry finally offered.

Septimus nodded.

"Well, then, trust me when I tell you I could never have done that without your father's help. He was a hero, Sep. A real hero. When I look back, I realize we were just kids, barely of age. He watched out for us, he kept us safe, he pulled strings nobody but him could have pulled. In my eyes, he had completely redeemed himself. If I felt any differently, I could not have been friendly with him. I wouldn't ask him to be the best man at my wedding. And I certainly would not have named my son after him."

"Al. Albus Severus," Septimus said slowly, thoughtfully, "yes, I see, but… don't get me wrong, Uncle Harry, it's not that I don't believe you, but I simply need to know the whole story. With as many details as possible. If I don't, how will I understand?"

Harry sighed and grinned at the same time. It felt strange. He saw so much of himself in this skinny, black-haired boy. He, too, couldn't rest until he knew the truth.

"You already know many parts of the story, of course," he said, "but there are some details I must fill you in on, so that all the pieces of the puzzle will fall together. Did anyone ever tell you that your father and my mother used to be best friends?"

Septimus shook his head, looking surprised.

"That must have been long before I was born, right?"

"It will take me all night just to get started," warned Harry.

"It doesn't matter," said Septimus, "start now, Uncle Harry, and tell me what you can whenever you can. I need to know. And somehow, I… I don't think my parents will tell me everything. Even now."

"Alright then," said Harry, preparing to travel back in time as his memories started to unravel, "I will begin, then, with a day when two boys, one with red hair and freckles, the other wearing glasses and with a scar on his forehead, rode the Hogwarts Express for the very first time…"

It was painful to recount his school years, because Ron was there in every memory – from the moment they met on the train, and until the day not too long ago when they stood waving their children off to school on platform Nine and Three-Quarters. And now he was gone. But he knew he had to tell. For the sake of Septimus, and for the man whom he had once considered among his greatest enemies, the man who became a valued friend and mentor in later years. The man who taught him a whole new meaning to loyalty, bravery and love – Severus Snape.