Previously:
Severus, after hearing all this finally got his voice back, "You mean to tell me that my SON is being beaten by an obese MUGGLE?!" He basically roars, his eyes flashing black with rage, Remus actually flinches back from the rage that is rolling off of the Potions Master.
Chapter 1 – Explanations and A Birthday
"Calm down Severus! I'm not exactly sure, I'm worried that that may be the case, but I'm not sure, he's only owled me and Sirius twice this summer, once a few days after the end of school and another exactly 2 weeks later. From my past experiences, he owls me and Sirius at least three to four times a month. His letters usually have some what of a cheerfulness to them, but these seem to be, I don't know, forced or bleak."
Severus sighs, trying to contain his rage, one thought going through his head, 'God I hope he's alright!'
"Now that we've got that over with, it's your choice whether or not we go to Albus or not. I know it'll be hard with going back to Voldemort and everything, but I highly suggest that we tell both Albus and Harry about this. If anything you might save Harry from his Uncle for the rest of this summer."
"I-I don't know what to do. I have to tell at least Albus, and now that I know, I'm completely positive that I'm not going to be a complete bastard to him anymore in class…which will show that something's up automatically." Severus sighs, his conscious splitting in two, one side saying to just drop everything and get Harry to at least recognize him as a friend, let alone a father. The other side wanting to ignore this and follow his duties as a spy for Dumbledore, to protect Harry in the process from Voldemort and everything else.
"I for one am going straight to Albus, even if nothing's wrong, we have to check on him, even if he doesn't realize it."
"Are you suggesting we go and spy on Harry?" Severus says, his eyes finally becoming a little brighter.
"In a sense, yes, but I wouldn't recognize it as spying, only as 'checking up on a student while in disguise.'" Remus says his voice betraying his humor.
"Well, before we go 'checking up on a student while in disguise,' we have to go to Albus, we'll have to tell him the entire story too. Whether he believes it or not, I'm going to go get Harry tonight!"
"I'm sure he'll let us go get him if there's even a chance that Harry's being mistreated. Well we should go now, before it gets to late, I'm sure the Headmaster wouldn't want us to wait any longer than we have to."
Severus gives a slight nod before he motions Remus to go ahead of him, he silently follows after a moment of silence, his black robes billowing out from behind him. Both the professors heading in a quick walk for the Headmaster's office thinking their own thoughts on the future, one going through both their minds. 'How the hell are we going to tell this to Black/Padfoot!?'
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"Come in," a cheerful voice says from behind two large wooden doors. Remus and Severus walk in, seeing Albus Dumbledore sitting at his desk, his pensieve in front of him and Fawkes, his phoenix standing on his knee. His blue eyes, sparkling behind the half moon glasses, gives the two men a piercing look before motioning for them to sit down. His eyes slightly dulling when he notices the identical grim looks on both the men's faces.
"What do I owe the pleasure of this visit gentlemen? Would you like some tea?"
"No thank you Albus, we have come, not for a social visit, but for an issue that will effect quite a few people, I'm sorry to say but this will not be a sit and chat visit." Remus says lightly, trying to make the mood a little more enjoyable.
Severus glares at him, "this is not a matter to talk lightly Lupin!" he says coldly, turning back to the headmaster he starts explaining their unannounced visit. "Earlier this evening, Remus came into my classroom to talk about a certain student." He says carefully, trying to stay away from the truth as long as possible, Remus shakes his head, slightly amused next to Severus while Albus's interest in the matter is captured.
"Well, stop stalling and tell him Severus! That is unless you want me too, I'm sure that I could do it very easily."
"Shut up Lupin, I'm perfectly capable of relaying this explanation with out your smart remarks." Severus replies acidly before he turned back to the Headmaster who was getting more and more confused by the minute.
"As I was saying, we were talking for a few minutes before he brought up one of the missions the Dark Lord had me do over fifteen years ago." At this he pauses to let that sink in, Albus's eyes loose any sign of a twinkle and his features seem to grow older and more wearisome.
"This was the time you told me to do everything possible to make sure the mission was a success, do you remember which job this was?"
Albus leans back in his chair, a thoughtful expression over his face, after a minute of silence Albus nods his head in a positive motion. "If I recall correctly, you were to go into the Potters' house and contain an artifact, I recall telling you to do anything and everything possible to gain it because Voldemort was starting to question where your loyalties lied."
Severus lowers his head in a shameful motion, he takes a minute before he continues on, "yes, that was the time, anyways I never told you exactly what really happened…"
Flashback
A younger Severus Snape glares down at a cauldron, a dark, thick mixture bubbled sluggishly. He slowly takes a small glass and puts a ladleful of the mixture into it, he then takes out a small vial containing a single, short black hair. He adds it to the mixture with a tiny sigh, it hissed and frothed furiously before settling down and turning a striking maroon color. Sighing once more, he pores the potion into another vial and puts a piece of cork in it, as to not spill it. Looking down at the cauldron once more, he disappears with a small 'pop'.
End of Flashback
"I used the Polyjuice Potion to take on Potter's appearance, after I finished I apparated outside of their home. After arriving a took the Potion and quickly entered the home, not wasting one second of the disguise because I only had one hour to find what I was there to find.
"Lily was supposed to be gone out shopping at the time, like you said, but she appeared to have either finished already or had decided to wait a little longer, anyways, she found me looking in the study. She thought I was truly James, she was surprised at first that I was there, then she figured I finished what James had to do. Anyways this was only moments from when I took the potion, and entered the house." Here Severus paused for a moment, trying to continue, Albus looked slightly surprised, this was a different version from what Severus had told him before.
"She-She asked me to come to bed early, I tried to stall so I could get out, b-but she refused, eventually, as to not make me look suspicious, I had to agree." Severus looks down in shame as he continues, "I-I slept with her that night Albus, she fell asleep afterwards, the potion would be wearing off within minutes so I had to leave, on the way out, I was to the door when the potion started to wear off, I could feel my features slowly taking on the rightful appearances. That's when I ran into Remus…he was coming over to check on Lily, at James's request."
The Headmaster looks on with a stunned expression, slowly turning into a calculating one. Motioning for Severus to continue, he takes a glance at Remus, his face mirroring guilt in every feature.
"He figured out what had happened, he could smell it on me…I had to tell him the truth then, I had to make him believe that I hadn't meant for that to happen, in the end he agreed not to tell anyone, knowing that it would most likely have mostly bad conclusions. Lily must have known what had happened, or at least had suspicions, from what I know she never told James about that night."
Albus sighs as he listens to Severus finish, he has a few suspicions as to what the Potions Master was saying, but all of which were hard to comprehend. Looking up, he realizes that the Professor in front of him regrets this more than anything. Sighing once again he says one sentence that not a sound could be heard from the Headmasters office for a while.
"You do not have to finish Severus, I'm well aware of the birth that happened, almost exactly nine months after that night."
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Thousands of miles away, a young teenager sits up on bed thinking about a dream he had had a little while ago. He got them a lot lately, ever since the Dark Lord had risen once again at the end of his forth year.
You see, this young man wasn't any normal child, he was actually a wizard, a famous one at that. He was Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the only one who has on numerous occasions, have met the Dark Lord and has walked away alive. Yet, Harry had never wanted all the attention, he's always wanted to be a normal boy, and live a normal life.
In every year since he had started going to Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry has always had some sort of life threatening adventure, whether it was with Voldemort, or his servants.
In his first year, Harry had found out who he actually was, and what his parents had done, he had also confronted the Dark Lord and his servant Professor Quirrell, protecting the Sorcerers Stone. In his second year, the Chamber of Secrets was opened, Harry was accused of being the Heir of Slytherin and also opening the Chamber. In the end it was found out to be Ginny Weasley, his best friend, Ron Weasley's younger sister, she had been taken over by a younger Dark Lord with the help of a diary. He had to fight and Defeat Tom M. Riddle, or Lord Voldemort, and a Basilisk deep within the Chambers walls.
In his third year, he went through the most of it thinking a murderer, and his Godfather, Sirius Black was out to kill him like he supposedly killed his parents by giving their location to Voldemort. In reality, it was actually Peter Pettigrew, or Ron's pet rat Scabbers, he was an illegal animagus by the nickname of Scabbers. At the end of the year, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Harry, and Ron met up in the Shrieking Shack at the end of Hogsmeade, not under regular circumstances either. The truth finally came out that at the last minute, the Potters had changed their secret keeper from Sirius to Wormtail at the last minute, with no one knowing about the change. Wormtail then ran to his master and turned the Potters over to him, and on Hollow's eve, at Godrics Hollow, the Potters died, and Harry seemingly defeated the Dark Lord, at one year of age.
Sirius had then hunted Pettigrew down in the middle of a street filled with muggles, Pettigrew framed Sirius and blew the street apart faking his own death, and from then on Sirius had stayed in Azkaban, the Wizard Prison. Later that night, Pettigrew escaped from his captors and returned to his master.
Last year, Harry's fourth year, he was somehow entered into the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and had to go through three tasks, with a rogue Death Eater watching his every move. In the final task, Harry and one other was transported by Portkey to a graveyard. There, Harry watched his friend be murdered by the Avada Kedavra Curse, in other words, instant Death. Later, he unwillingly took part in resurrecting his foe, Lord Voldemort, and had to then Duel with him, surrounded by numerous Death Eaters.
After a fight and the duel, and after Prior Incantatem was performed, Harry escaped back to Hogwarts, via the Portkey that first brought him to the graveyard, also taking Cedric Diggory's body back to Hogwarts and his parents. He then had to deal with the rogue Death Eater at Hogwarts, overall his Fourth Year at Hogwarts was the most eventful one, he had lost a friend, helped resurrect one of the evilest Dark Lords of the Century, saw the shades of his parents when Prior Incantatem was performed, and the only people that believed that Voldemort was back was Dumbledore and few select others. The Minister was being blind and wouldn't except the fact, and now as Harry lay down in bed thinking about all his years he wondered if this would be his last, because thinking about it, every year seemed to becoming more dangerous as each year passed.
Harry knew that something big was happening, he would have dreams each night with Voldemort torturing muggles to death, most of the time doing disgusting and mortifying things with them first. Each night, Harry would wake up breathing hard, and in a cold sweat dreading he had awakened his uncle with his soft whimpering or gasp upon awakening.
He hadn't written to anyone about these dreams, not only knowing it would only make the burden heavier for the person, but also because he didn't have an owl or other means of contacting people. After sending his last letter to Sirius, his godfather, Harry had sent Hedwig, his snowy owl, off to his friend Hermione's house. He fought the dreams every night, if they weren't of Voldemort, they would be dreams ridden with guilt. He would dream of Cedric accusing him of murdering him, saying it was all Harry's fault he was dead, Harry agreed with him most of the time, he had insisted that both boys should take the cup, that it would be a 'Hogwarts victory' nonetheless, that resulted in having Cedric lying dead next to him, the sound of rushing death still rang in Harry's ears whenever he was alone.
The dream he had woken up to tonight was actually one of the less horrible, Voldemort seemed to be looking for something, of course, the muggles who he was asking didn't know anything, and the muggles were from all over Britain. What Voldemort was looking for, Harry didn't know, although he had a suspicion it was a person, and that person was him. He just couldn't figure out why Voldemort was asking muggles and not wizards. But figured it was because he didn't want to alert the Ministry that he was back, and more terrifying then ever.
Moving slowly, wincing in pain as he did so, Harry moved over to the mirror to see the latest damage that had been done from waking up his uncle. His appearance had changed desperately since he had left Hogwarts, his figure had grown a little taller, yet he had lost a lot of wait. The skin that was showing was deathly pale, and had all different shades of bruises, his ribs poked out from his skin. You could tell which were cracked and broken by just looking at them, the Dursleys were furious with what happened to Dudley last summer, and had taken it out on Harry since he had come home.
They had locked Harry into his room like they did in his summer before his second year, they had barred the windows and stripped the room of everything but the bed, mattress and the thinnest blanket they owned.
Harry, figuring it wasn't going to be the best summer, had sent Hedwig off to Hermione, since she didn't have an owl, and was one of Harry's best friends he decided it would be best for her to hold on to his owl. She was suspicious at the time but had agreed to watch Hedwig anyways for Harry.
Looking over to the clock, he realized he would be fifteen in a few minutes, he already knew that he wouldn't be getting any presents this year, he hasn't been able to talk to anyone from the wizarding world since the beginning of the summer, Dumbledore had said it was due to protecting him from being found. It would be Harry's first year without getting anything for his birthday since he went to Hogwarts, even though he never got anything before, he was still slightly disappointed.
11:58 The clock read.
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
11:59
Suddenly, Harry felt tingling spreading throughout his body, from his head traveling down through his arms and legs to his fingers and toes. As soon as it began it was gone, looking over to the clock he watched it turn to 12:00. Dreading what he would see he looked back into the mirror, he had to stifle a yell at what he saw. The person that was staring back at him wasn't the person that had stood there moments before.
He had apparently grown a few inches, his hair had lengthened and became more fine toned it reached down to right above his shoulders, his skin, from what wasn't bruised, became even more pale like, his eyes became more defined and his face became more lengthened and elegant. He looked closer, he thought he looked like someone he knew, and it was just so familiar, yet not. Although, it seemed to look more appropriate now, he felt slightly more graceful, if it wasn't for his twisted ankle anyways.
After a more scrutinizing look, he jumped back with a shock, disbelief painted throughout his face, he looked like someone he knew alright! He looked like the person that he detested more than anything, well besides Voldemort and Malfoy, he looked like the dreaded Potions Master of Hogwarts, the person that almost everyone else, besides the Slytherins, hated and despised…