Chapter 37

FAMILY

"Her brother?"

"Of course," Sirius answered Harry. "We thought that's what you were talking about."

"Her brother!" Harry pulled a reviving draught of air deep into his lungs. "Oh, thank goodness. He was her brother. Her brother?" He narrowed his eyes skeptically, wanting to be certain all objections were answered before he accepted this new story. "But they were in the same year at Hogwarts. There'd have to be an age difference for him to be her brother."

"Not if he was her twin." At Harry's stunned stare, Remus smiled. "From different eggs, of course, and as different as noon and midnight, but twins nonetheless."

"Twins? As close as that?" Harry pressed his hands to his forehead, waiting for this shock to pass. "But Snape was adopted. That would mean—"

"Your mother was adopted, too."

When that implication sank in, Harry gleefully slapped his thigh. "Adopted! Then Petunia wasn't her blood sister, and the Dursleys aren't my blood relations!" Such secrecy, he thought. Somehow, he didn't believe his aunt and uncle knew. Surely, they'd never have carried out their duty—even to the grudging, mean-spirited extent they did—if they'd known he wasn't their natural nephew.

Sirius raised a scraggly eyebrow. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic. I'd been worrying I'd have to warn my future bride that Dudley genes might be lying dormant in me, waiting to rear their ugly heads."

Sirius shrugged. "Actually, you don't know what genes might be lurking inside you—unless you can talk Professor Dumbledore into revealing your grandparents."

"I can't think of anything worse than Dudley genes, except . . . ." Harry's grin faded. "Snape genes. Ouch. You're telling me he's my uncle."

Remus laughed. "Don't be so hard on the poor man. He's brilliant, articulate, dedicated, scrupulous, and one of the most ingenious Potions masters in the world today."

"And testy, insensitive, and inflexible," Harry added. "And he has a honking big nose."

Sirius burst out laughing. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Twins," Harry said slowly, "separated at birth. That explains so much . . . yet it's so hard to believe. It's like something from one of Aunt Petunia's daytime serials."

"Or Shakespeare," Remus said. "Unusual, granted. But unheard of? No. Most of the nurture versus nature studies Muggle psychologists do are based on the fact that orphaned twins are separated at birth far too often."

Harry cocked his head, sending his glasses askew. "Nurture versus nature?"

"Environment versus heredity," Remus explained. "How you're brought up versus what you're born with."

"Don't worry," Sirius assured him. "Anyone who knew your mother knows she shared no genes with her twin whatsoever." He peered down at his foot basin, then pulled out his wand to zap the water. When it resumed steaming, he exhaled in contentment.

Harry pushed his glasses back into place. "How long have you two known?" And why did no one ever tell me?

"Just since spring," Sirius said. "Remus suggested that Snape make me a special potion. As if I'd willingly drink his brew! It took hearing that secret to make me agree."

From his godfather's scowl, Harry wasn't convinced Sirius fully trusted Snape now. When he glanced at Remus, his ex-teacher smiled.

"Toward the end of our seventh year, I chanced across them one afternoon near the Confessing Conifer—hugging."

Harry whistled. A brotherly-sisterly hug. That he could accept. But he could imagine what it had looked like.

"Severus refused to explain anything," Remus went on. "Lily was afraid I'd pass on what I'd seen to your father, so she confessed."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "You mean my father didn't know?"

"Not until that night. Lily couldn't very well reveal her secret to me and keep it from James."

I should hope not, Harry thought. But why was everything so hush-hush?

Sirius wiggled his toes in the hot water. "Back then, if someone had seen fit to explain to me that Snape was being a meddling pain in the rear out of some exaggerated notion of Big Brother is Watching, I'd have ignored the misguided bugger. Our last term at Hogwarts, everywhere we turned, there that sly sneak was—sticking his big, oily nose into everything."

"He was trying to discredit James," Remus explained, "get him kicked out of Hogwarts. He wanted to turn Lily against him. He nearly succeeded."

Out the corner of his eye, Harry saw Sirius wince. Then abruptly, he jerked his feet out of the water, busily dried them, and lugged the basin into the lavatory. Harry peered after him, wondering what his godfather was avoiding telling him now.

Sirius returned looking sheepish. "It was no big deal. A little tomfoolery."

"You must admit," Remus said, "she was pretty ticked off."

Harry glanced from one to the other of his parents' old friends. "Come on. No more secrets."

Sirius sighed. "You have to understand, it all began quite innocently. I had an assignment for Esoteric Geometry. I asked Lily to help."

"Your mother was awfully talented at spells," Remus put in, "whether spoken charms or runes on paper." He pointed at the sketchbook. "You saw how lively she made her drawings."

"And?" Harry prodded.

Sirius blew out his breath. "I'd drafted a floor plan of Hogwarts. I asked Lily to show me how to add symbols that could stand for people."

"The Marauder's Map!" Harry exclaimed.

Remus nodded. "That's what it became, of course. Lily's skill was amazing. Not only could the map show people, it could limit itself to the ones you wanted to see—so you didn't have to bother with the hundreds actually in the castle. And it would stay set until the next time the same user picked it up."

"So!" Harry said. "That's why you saw Peter on the map, while Ron and I never had." It evidently only showed normal time people—because Remus had only seen Hermione and him sneaking across the lawn, not their turn-back-the-time selves waiting to rescue Buckbeak and Sirius.

"That map was a thing of beauty, all right," Sirius said.

"But it nearly broke my parents up?"

His godfather grunted. "After that snoop Snape caught a glimpse of it and tattled to Lily, yes. When she realized it was helping us—uh—tiptoe past Filch, she became a bit perturbed. I told her to blame me, but she held the rest of the gang accountable anyway—"

"After all," Remus said. 'We'd each taken advantage of it."

"—So she told James she was through."

Harry cupped his hand over his mouth. Wow. How close had he come to never being born? "But they got back together. They couldn't help it."

Under his breath so that Harry barely caught the words, Remus murmured, "If he hadn't cried wolf . . . ."

Sirius leaned forward to look Harry in the eye. "You have to appreciate how angry I was. That nosy Slytherin had already caused us enough problems. Now he'd wrecked my best friend's romance as well."

After he'd already wrecked your own with Florence, Harry thought.

"I had to get even—teach that greasy little spook the dangers of spying."

"With the Whomping Willow," Harry said, "and the Shrieking Shack."

Sirius nodded, looking chagrined. "I swear—neither James nor Remus knew anything about it. I thought I had everything in hand, that Padfoot would be there to keep that Slytherin creep from any real danger."

"But he wasn't," Remus said. "And by the time Severus started down the secret passage under the Whomping Willow, I was no longer . . . completely myself."

"We nearly had a bit of a mess, all right." Sirius spread his hands wide. "But it all worked out. It was that trick of mine that got your mother to make up with your father."

Harry let out a little whistle. "When he saved her brother's life."

"Yes." Remus sent him a lopsided smile. "And none of the petty pranks us Marauders ever played on Severus made him hate James so much as that."

Harry released his breath slowly. So Dumbledore had told him the truth when he'd said Snape hated his father for saving his life—though the headmaster had held back the full explanation. Snape had hated James for winning back Lily.

Sinking his chin to his palms, Harry stared into the smoldering fire. Tonight, he'd learned more truths about Snape and his mother than he had in a month of anxious speculation. And that knowledge had raised new questions just as baffling. He recalled Snape's face in the wizard photo of his father's final Quidditch match—seething when he glanced at James, desolate when he gazed at Lily. Why had he been so desperate to wrest his sister from her sweetheart? Why had his failure left him with such a look of despair?

"I don't get it," he murmured. "Why was Snape so down on my father? Just because he wasn't a Slytherin? Just because he was better at Quidditch? Just because he had more friends?"

Sirius gave an elaborate shrug, but not before Harry saw him shoot Remus a warning glance. "Who can explain these things?" his godfather said with studied nonchalance. "Who knows how these bad feelings begin?"

Harry narrowed his eyes. "You've told me a lot, but you're hiding even more. Why all the secrecy? I swear, even my Aunt Petunia doesn't know her sister was adopted. And why did nobody ever let me in on all this before?"

"Well—" Remus began.

"Moony!" Sirius's tone was sharp. "This time, no. It's not for us to tell him."

Remus looked askance at his old friend. "I wasn't. What I was going to say is that the only one who can is Albus Dumbledore."

Frustration surged through Harry, constricting his muscles and pushing him to his feet. "No! This isn't fair! You two have to tell me."

But they didn't. And no amount of pleading, badgering, grumbling, and fuming would change their minds.

"Give it a rest, Harry," Remus said at last. "It's up to Albus—to tell you when he thinks the moment right."

Leaning forward, Sirius patted Harry's shoulder. "All in good time. But I understand how you feel. I used to be rather impatient myself. Twelve years in Azkaban taught me how to wait."

With a sigh, Harry nodded. He'd be patient. Until tomorrow. Christmas night, after all the celebrating was over, he'd make Professor Dumbledore tell him everything. He glanced at the clock on the mantel—an intricate affair of gold-colored gears and flywheels twinkling under a bell jar. A minute past midnight exactly.

"Merry Christmas, Sirius. I'm so thankful you came. Merry Christmas, Remus. I'm glad you're here, too."

"Let's get some sleep. Santa can't come if we're all awake." Sirius winked.

Hi! A couple of you very nice readers who reviewed back on the "Truth" chapter were surprised I seemed to have predicted Severus's loyalty to Lily back before even the canonical book 5 was written. I have to confess, the speculation was actually really common on Internet discussion groups back then. I think it was the revelation in book 3 that Severus *didn't* feel he owed any debt to James that made people start wondering whether the connection he felt to Harry was due to his mother instead. It was the promise of tragic love that first sent me looking for a Harry Potter Usenet group. When I posted what I'd thought was a brilliant theory, I received a response that it was "moribund equine flagellation" that had already been discussed to death.

Speculation on a family connection, however, wasn't so common (and plotwise, it allows a second twist). Plus for a Snape fan like me, it was certainly easier to picture Lily as his sister than as a woman who'd rejected him. I mean, what kind of woman *would*? ;D