Author's Note: Hopefully, you find this conversation with Harry as therapeutic as I did writing it. With everything laid out on the table for everyone, including Harry, to see, I didn't think it would be feasible for someone as practical as Snape for him to avoid an inevitable conversation. Snape survived, so a conversation must happen. Harry knows all the details, which makes it a bit easier on Snape, I'd imagine. I also don't think Severus would try to pointlessly drag out the conversation by manipulating away from answering. Like a bandaid, just rip it off quickly!
As there were no open teaching positions that he desired, and because Minerva very much desired to retain her position as Gryffindor Head of House and Transfiguration Professor, Severus decided to resume his position as Headmaster after much encouragement from McGonagall.
He was, finally, rearranging the office to his liking when a knock came at his door. "Enter."
Harry Potter walked into the office and Severus froze. He'd expected Potter at some point, but found himself completely unprepared at that moment.
"Mister Potter," He greeted smoothly, hiding his anxiety.
"Professor... Er... Headmaster."
"Either work," He said. It was a relief to Snape that Potter seemed as uncomfortable as he felt.
"Right. I was... Er... Wondering if you had some time to talk."
He'd also expected Potter to come with questions eventually. Swallowing nervously, Snape pulled at his unbuttoned collar. The thick bandage at his neck remained despite a month and a half passing since he'd been injured. He looked at his desk, and moved to the chair behind it. Gesturing to the chair across from him, he offered Potter a seat. His black eyes watched Potter squirm across from him.
"I know... Er... I know this is probably as awkward for me as it is for you, but I've... Got loads of questions."
"That is unsurprising," Severus acknowledged, and it was true. He'd shown Potter a great deal in the memories he'd given him.
"I don't want to upset you or anything, and I understand that there might be things that you'd prefer not to discuss right now, but I'd... Like to talk. If you're willing."
Snape tapped his slender fingers on the desk. It couldn't be avoided forever. "Very well. I will do my best to answer."
"You met my mother before Hogwarts?"
Severus shifted. "You certainly waste no time getting into the mess of it, but yes. You already knew as much."
"Right. Sorry. Umm..." Harry stumbled for words.
"I cannot take points from you anymore..." Snape said.
"Can... Can you tell me about her? My mother," Harry said timidly.
Severus' eyes went out of focus for a minute as he pondered his question. Of course he'd want to know about his mother. What child wouldn't? But Severus was uneasy with the question. Still, he owed Potter that and much more, didn't he? After all, he was the reason Potter didn't know her.
"She was intelligent, curious, loyal, sensitive, and stubborn. Not unlike yourself."
"You never found me particularly intelligent," Harry said.
"You are a bloody menace in a Potions lab, but your other teachers said you excelled," Severus responses evenly.
Harry snorted. "I am awful at Potions."
"Indeed."
"I just... What I saw of my dad, I didn't like much. I hope to be more like my mother."
"You are their son. You are like both of them, and you are like yourself."
"How, sir?"
Leaning back into his chair, Severus touched a long finger to his temple. "Apart from the physical, you are athletically gifted, as your father was. Both of your parents were loyal. Both of them were, to most people, charming and likeable, as you have been to most people. In personality, I think you are much more like your mother. She just wanted to succeed, to excel, and I saw that in you as a student. You are different though. You're more reserved than either of them ever were, more large picture and broad strokes. You are not easily swayed by the people around you, though you are, to your credit, usually humble enough to list to their advice. I believe your upbringing has much to do with how you differ from them."
Harry's brow furrowed. "Upbringing?"
Severus gritted his teeth. "I am the reason your parents were taken from you. I did not cast either of them down, but I set in motion the chain of events that directly led to their demise, and your orphaning."
Harry frowned deeply, and his eyes hardened a bit. "You told Voldemort about the prophecy."
"Yes," He said. He could not deny that, though he so badly wished it weren't true.
"You didn't know about me then. Professor Dumbledore told me that after Professor Trelawney told me that you had overheard her making the prophecy that night, and that you'd run to Voldemort to tell him." Each time Potter said the Dark Lord's name, Snape flinched reflexively.
"No. I didn't."
"Professor Dumbledore also said that he believed it to be the greatest regret of your life. Is that true?"
"Yes," Severus answered quietly, and he looked at the bookshelf to his right absently.
"Would you have told him if you'd known about me? That it could've meant me, my family?"
"Absolutely not," He answered with finality.
"You loved her that much? You would've kept that secret from your master?"
"Yes," Severus said. He locked eyes with those famous emerald orbs.
"Why didn't you do anything more to protect me? To protect her? To protect my dad?"
"I did everything I could possibly do," Severus said softly. His faced turned dark with sadness. "I begged for her life, for your family's lives."
"You begged Dumbledore for our lives. You begged Voldemort for hers."
Severus looked down at the desk between them. Potter's words had been bitter and a bit angry. "Yes."
"You didn't care at all about me? Or my dad?"
"There is no excusing the fact that I was short-sighted, selfish, and desperate," Severus admitted. "I know that it probably causes you great pain and anxiety, but I spent your entire life trying to protect you, trying to atone for my selfishness."
"But you hated me!" Harry yelled. "You hated me because I survived."
"Careful, Potter," Severus warned.
Harry shut his mouth tightly for a moment and took a deep breath. "That's how it felt at least."
"It was easiest to keep you at more than arm's length. That way, I couldn't see how much of your mother was in you. I wouldn't have to look into the eyes of the woman I inadvertently killed on the face of the man who tormented me in my youth. If I kept you at bay, I wouldn't have to see the living, breathing reminder of what I'd done more than I absolutely had to."
Snape's transparency disarmed Harry for a long moment. Then, he changed course and asked, "If my mother hadn't been in danger, do you reckon you would've betrayed the Death Eaters?"
"Doing what I did was no small task, Potter. Leaving the Death Eaters was impossible. Once marked, you were the Dark Lord's forever."
"But you did betray them."
"At great cost to myself," Severus said.
"You really believed in what they stood for?"
"No," Severus admitted after a long pause. "I did not join them because I believed in their cause. I joined because I was alone, scared, I was good at the Dark Arts, though I had no real inclination to enjoy Dark Magic. I merely felt defenseless and it gave me a sense of power. The Death Eaters were, at the time, a bunch of fanatical schoolmates of mine. The Dark Lord was, then, much like the muggle Adolf Hitler was at first. He was smooth talking, spoke to the broken youth, and appealed to their desire for a sense of unity and power."
Harry thought about what Snape had said. "You're half-blood. How did you convince him to take you? Most of Slytherin is pure-blood, and most of his followers were in Slytherin."
"You know as well as I do that the Dark Lord was also half-blood. My academic skill did not make his debate a difficult one. I was an asset, and one that he wanted close to Dumbledore, and the only one he felt he could get hired here at Hogwarts."
"So, you would've stayed? If my mother hadn't been the target?"
"This is a pointless "what-if." At the time, many of us considered behind closed doors the cost of leaving, and the slim chance we'd be able to succeed at it. When the Dark Lord was all talk, and no action, things were okay for many of us. It provided a sense of protection, security, and we were treated in ways many of us lacked growing up - with loyalty, with promises of a better future, with 'friends.' Then, when it came time for action, and the actions were as egregious and hideous as they were, many of us realized we'd made the wrong choice. It was futile, of course, to realize our mistake whilst up to our neck in it."
Harry sensed Snape's tension and frustration at the line of questioning, but he couldn't let it go. "My mother was enough of a reason to betray them."
"Betraying them was something I did privately up until very recently. Leaving them outright and openly would have been impossible. Others were killed without an ounce of hesitation for trying. On the outside, I was still 'in,' so to speak. It was the only way to right what I'd done, and the only way I could align myself more with my actual moral compass."
"So, you believed in our cause?"
"Yes," Severus answered. "Despite what you think, I am not like the monster that branded me."
"Yet you took his mark..."
"You saw bits of my childhood, you saw my experiences at Hogwarts, you saw my fascination with the Dark Arts as a means to protect myself and release the angst inside of me. When an opportunity arose to make myself powerful rather than powerless, yes, I jumped at it, like a starving dog would at a steak."
"People make mistakes," Harry admitted.
"Usually not as horrific as the ones I've made," Severus admitted darkly.
"It is our choices," Harry whispered.
"What?" Severus asked and his brow furrowed.
"Just something Professor Dumbledore said. He said it's our choices, not our abilities, that show us who we truly are, and I think you've done that. Sure, you made bad choices, but you tried to fix it... Longer than anyone else would have probably. Sirius told me once that everyone's got Dark and Light inside them, and that it's what we choose to act upon that matters most. Sure, you've got d
Dark inclinations, and you've done Dark things, but when it came down to it, when it really mattered most, you chose Light."
Snape stared off at the bookshelf behind Potter's head as he pondered boy's statement. He'd never sounded more like Lily had then he did right now. He truly was her son. After several minutes, Potter broke the silence. "Do you still love her? Do you still miss her?"
Severus stiffened quite a bit at those questions. Swallowing an angry remark back down, he took a deep breath. Potter looked pensive and sad. "Grief is unending."
Largely, he'd avoided answering those questions directly, and Potter didn't press for more specific answers. Instead, he looked directly at Snape for the first time in several minutes. "Hermione really looks up to you, you know. I'm glad she's got a friend that's more on her intellectual level. Y'know, sometimes she gets on these tangents and... It just makes my head spin."
Severus smirked slightly, just barely. "Indeed."
"I'll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me, and, if you're open to it, I'd quite like to be able to talk again. Consider it an olive branch?"
Severus took a moment to absorb what he'd said, and then nodded once. He watched the boy turn and walk to the door, but raised an eyebrow when he stopped and turned back around.
"You know, I think she'd forgive you. My mother, I mean. I think she'd go back and forgive you when you were at school if she could've, and I'd think she'd definitely forgive you now. My dad, too. I know it's just assumptions, but I know it in my heart. I know they'd forgive you just like I do. I just hope you can forgive yourself," Harry said and then he abruptly turned and left Snape's office, leaving the dark haired Professor stunned in his wake. Then, Snape leaned forward and put his head in his hands and cried once more.
"You chose a villain role because you were not destined for another and I do not, in sound mind, resent you for being that way because you knew not any other."~ Night Tide Musings