Early on Saturday morning, long before anyone else was awake, Harry opened the first of his mother's diaries and began to read.
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29th July 1970Dear Diary,
You'll never believe what happened today! I can hardly believe it myself. This morning, when we were leaving to go shopping, an owl flew up, and dropped a letter addressed to me at my feet. Not an ordinary letter, either, it was thick parchment with a green wax seal. A seal! Then when I opened it, it said that I was a witch and that I was invited to, well, witch school!
Of course, Mummy and Daddy didn't believe it, but it did look so very official and an owl had delivered it, so eventually they thought it might be real after all. Petunia wasn't happy at all. She stormed upstairs saying that it was silly and that it couldn't possibly be real and that anyway she should have got the letter since she was the oldest. Sisters! I think she's just jealous because I get to be a witch.
Anyway, I've got to go to bed. Tomorrow we're going to try and find this Diagon Alley place.
Lily
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Harry was astonished. This, like the photo album in his first year, was a revelation. His mother was a real person. She'd been young, excited about Hogwarts, glad to have one up over her older sister. He thought about it for a little while, and read a couple more entries, about visiting Diagon Alley for the first time, and about the people she'd met. It turned out that, much like Harry, she'd met fellow Hogwarts first years there too. A boy called James Potter, for one.
At this point, however, the other boys were starting to wake up, so Harry stuck the diary under his pillow and got out of bed. After spending the morning revising with Ron and Hermione, he headed off on his own. He had a Snape to corner.
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As usual, luck was with Harry. As he emerged from the library, he saw Professor Snape walking past, heading in the general direction of the dungeons. He followed the professor for a while, and when they were reasonably close to the dungeons, spoke up.
"Professor Snape!"
"What is it, Potter? I had thought to be rid of you until your exam."
"Well, it's kind of important, sir."
Snape sneered, indicating the utter triviality of any need such a lowly being as Harry Potter could have, compared to his own greater concerns.
"It's about my mother."
The sneer almost fell off Snape's face, before he caught himself.
"And what do you think I could possibly know about your mother? She did, after all, marry the elder Potter."
"Well, sir, she wrote me a letter, and told me that you were not exactly what you seemed."
Oh. Now that was interesting. Snape's face showed almost as little expression as usual, but around the edges, traces of 'taken aback' and even a tiny glimmer of 'fear' were showing. Harry decided to follow up on his advantage.
"I'm not sure that you'd want it discussed in a corridor, though," he hinted.
"No. While I'd much rather not discuss it at all, I suppose it is your right," came the grudging reply. "Come on then, Potter."
Mildly astonished at how easily Snape had caved – clearly there was, or at least had been, a lot more going on than Harry had suspected – he followed Snape towards his office.
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"Sit." Harry sat. Snape took his seat behind his desk, and waited to see what Harry would say. Clearly he wasn't planning to give away anything without first knowing exactly what Harry knew.
Well, he'd better get on with it then, hadn't he? Harry produced the letter, and said "I got this yesterday, from a Gringotts goblin. Apparently my mother left it with them." He produced another piece of parchment, on which he'd copied the section that mentioned Snape, and handed it to him. No matter what his mother's advice, he wasn't about to trust the man any more than necessary. He may be on the side of the Light, a spy in Voldemort's camp and all the rest of it, but he was still also a sarcastic bastard who'd had it in for Harry because of his father. Snape read the parchment, and made a motion as if to hand it back. He definitely looked a little mystified now, but the fear was fading.
"Keep it, I have the original," Harry said, and Snape retracted his hand.
"Is that all she said about me?"
"Yes, but she also left me her diaries, dating from when she started at Hogwarts." The fear was back, mingled with a touch of sorrow. This was absolutely fascinating. Who knew that Snape could show emotion apart from venomous hatred and unholy glee? And who knew he had such human ones as these? "I haven't had a chance to read them yet, though," Harry added, just so that he could watch the fear fade slightly at that.
"Well then, Potter, I suppose all you should know at this stage is that I was…on friendly terms with Lily, and she insisted that I wasn't quite as evil as your father's friends made out." Interesting, he had said 'father's friends', and not 'father'. But Snape was still speaking. "Once you've read her diaries, come back and we will have another conversation." Snape's apprehension was showing. "And I suppose that since Lily was kind enough to shred my cover, I should not be quite so malevolent to you in private. Therefore, it will be perfectly safe for you to return." Although perhaps not so safe for me. Harry blinked. Snape's lips had not uttered those last words, but he could swear that they'd been spoken in his voice, dry, with an undertone of the apprehension that still lingered on his face.
"Thank you, sir."
"Unlike you, I have work to be getting on with now."
Well, that was a dismissal if ever he'd heard one. Harry got up and left. Now he had even more things to think about, and OWLs the day after tomorrow. His life just couldn't get any more complicated.
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After Potter had left, Snape allowed himself to relax slightly, but only by the tiniest amount. Soon enough, after the holidays, the boy would know exactly what the relationship between Snape and his mother had been. God only knew how he'd react to that. Not to mention the fact that the urge to do something besides watch only grew stronger by the day. The points during the conversation he'd just had when he could almost swear that he knew what the boy was going to say before he spoke. The fact that Voldemort would be calling him soon to commit more unspeakable acts. His life just couldn't get any more complicated. He had the feeling that those would be famous last words.