Chapter 28

The Impostor

Harry was standing in the sixth-year boys' dormitory, looking in the mirror. There was nobody else around; they were at dinner, most of them, but Harry was not hungry. It felt like he wouldn't ever be hungry again.

Staring at him from the mirror was a sixteen-year-old boy with a thin face and spectacles, his hooked nose conspicuous, but his green eyes also noticeable behind the glasses. Harry's lips curled in a disdainful sneer at the Snapeish person he had become during this school year, making him look even more like his father.

A week had gone by and Snape had treated Harry worse than ever, worse even than he had used to during Harry's previous school years. At first Harry had constantly felt like crying; he had been on the verge of sinking into a state of tearful self-pity again, but now the tears and the sadness seemed to have gathered as a heavy, leaden lump at the pit of his stomach, not trying to force its way out.

What was it to him if his father didn't want him? – he'd managed without parents for years, and he'd never even liked Snape anyway. But Snape had told Harry personal things, he'd given Harry the family chess set ... he'd even changed his will in Harry's favour. And he'd been ... friendly. Fatherly Harry winced and forced these thoughts away from his mind. That brief time when they'd talked, begun to come to know each other, had been an interlude only; now things were back to normal. Snape had probably changed his will once more, excluding Harry from it – not that it mattered; that was the least important thing of all.

Now Harry would pretend he had no father. It wasn't as if anyone knew about it anyway, so nobody would be surprised ... Apart from Ron, Hermione, Neville... Harry stopped; he mustn't think of them, nor of any of the others who knew. He'd tell them and they'd just have to accept it. They'd have to.

Harry looked at his image in the mirror coldly, reproachfully, turned around and made for the door. Now he was going to eat.

As he entered the Great Hall he glanced quickly up at the High Table before heading over to his fellow Gryffindors. Snape was there, eating, looking as sour as ever. Harry went and sat next to Hermione – Ron was sitting further away, talking animatedly to Lavender – and helped himself to some custard pie and gobbled it down, sloppily; the main course was gone already. Only after a while did he notice that Hermione repeatedly cast furtive glances in his direction, although she seemed to be deeply immersed in a small, black uninteresting-looking book called The Dark Agenda: Twentieth-Century Wizards of Dubious Character. As she rose, she brushed against him and whispered in such a low voice that he could hardly hear her, 'Meet me outside.'

Harry gave a slight nod and went on eating for another few minutes, then he, too, left. As he had expected, Hermione was waiting for him just outside the main entrance, putting her book away as she saw him approach.

'Harry, really, do you never think?' she said to him accusingly as they began walking away from the castle as if by mutual agreement.

'Never – what?' Harry exclaimed. 'What do you mean, never think?'

'Oh, Harry, here you've been sitting around agonising over Professor Snape's strange behaviour and you've never even noticed ... I mean, he's your dad, how come you haven't realised –?' Hermione paused, looking at him urgently. 'You do see that we've got to talk to Dumbledore, don't you?'

'Hermione, I haven't a clue what you're on about,' Harry said exasperatedly.

'It's not him! Don't you see, Harry?'

'What – you mean ... Snape?' Harry was staring at her now, both of them still walking albeit a little more slowly. They were heading towards the lake.

'Of course, who else! It has to be someone else, don't you see? Harry, I swear, the real Snape would never, ever do this to you!'

Harry gave a quick, bitter snort. 'Ah, but you forget, this is what he's always done to me.' He smiled grimly.

'Not since he found out you were his son, Harry.' They had come to a halt and Harry looked out over the lake, dispassionately.

'Look, Hermione, I can handle this, it's not like you have to make up some story to cheer me up.' He gave a small, ironic smile. 'He's simply realised that I'm the person he's hated all these years and that he still does, and he's acting accordingly. I don't think it's somebody else; he's far too like himself for that. He's behaving exactly the way he's always done.'

Hermione looked at him. 'You don't really believe that,' she said seriously. 'You know I'm right. Remember when Barty Crouch junior impersonated Mad-Eye Moody so well he even fooled Dumbledore?'

'Sure, but he's dead now – or demented, at least.'

'There are other people who could do it just as convincingly. There are several Death Eaters who are still at large, and Voldemort trains them well. Snape might be held captive while this impostor finds out about all the Order's secrets!'

This time Harry remained silent. Though this seemed unlikely, it wasn't altogether impossible.

'You see, Harry?' Hermione went on imploringly. 'We've got to talk to Dumbledore.'

'Dumbledore!' Harry snorted. 'He'd say, "I trust Severus Snape" and that'd be that.' He thought about all the times he'd talked to Dumbledore this past school year, and there was nothing cheerful about it. First he'd found out about his – his father; then he'd experienced a brief moment of joy when he thought the prophecy didn't apply to him, but Dumbledore had told him it wasn't so. Then he'd wanted to commence his training, but yet again, Dumbledore had put a stop to it. Harry did most definitely not want to go and see Dumbledore. 'You go and tell him if you're so sure about this,' he said to Hermione. 'What's stopping you?' He turned around and walked off, leaving Hermione standing there, a look of astonished disbelief on her face.

It appeared that Hermione, for once, had taken Harry's behaviour badly; during the following days she didn't seek him out once and she seemed to be busy studying even more than she usually did.

The Easter holidays had begun and Harry didn't have to face Snape. The only times he ever saw him was at meals, and then he never looked at Harry or acknowledged him in any way.

Harry tried not to think about Snape or anything to do with him, but buried himself in various Defence Against the Dark Arts-books, determined to start learning as much as he could now instead of waiting until it pleased Dumbledore to begin to teach him. He paused, sometimes, wondering why he was doing this – after all, the person he was doing it for no longer took any heed of him – but he always reached the same conclusion: even if Snape didn't want him, Harry still wanted to ... protect him. Even if Snape would never say another friendly word to him, Harry wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of giving him the chance to die for him, or in any other way sacrifice himself for Harry. Even if Snape were never friendly to him again, Harry didn't want him to die.

As the end of the holiday was approaching, Ron came over to Harry where he was sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room, eating the last of the sweets Mrs Weasley had sent him in his Easter Egg and reading Deflection of the Mind: How to Perform and Resist the Cruciatus Curse, which he'd taken from the restricted section of the library a few nights ago.

'Well, Harry,' said Ron, 'You're very sociable these days.'

Harry looked up at him coldly. 'It's not as if you have a lot of time for anybody but Lavender yourself,' he said.

Ron blushed slightly but went on, 'You know what I mean, mate,' he said. 'Tell me – whatever did you say to Hermione to make her so ...' he hesitated.

Harry looked at Ron, seeing him properly for the first time in days, if not weeks. Even though Ron had apologised for what he'd said at Christmas, and they'd done things together since, the three of them, things had never been quite the same as before. Harry averted his eyes. He felt, for the first time, a vague sense of loss; there was no way things would ever be the same between the two of them. Ron had been his first real friend in the wizarding world – his first real friend ever. And now ... now there was a gap between them, an invisible yet unbridgeable gap. Harry sighed.

'Oh, all right, I'll talk to her,' he said wearily. 'If you think it'll help ...' he looked around, but Hermione, as he'd expected, wasn't to be seen. 'At dinner, OK?'

Ron nodded. 'Right, at dinner.'

A while later Harry scanned the Gryffindor table, searching for Hermione's shock of auburn hair. She wasn't there yet, however, and Harry sat down opposite Ron and Lavender. Unintentionally his eyes came to rest on Snape, sitting at the High Table with his usual bad-tempered expression. Snape did not seem to be eating, but he drank from his goblet from time to time, saying the odd word to the other teachers. Suddenly Harry's stomach churned and he thought he'd be sick – there was his father, his! – and he treated him like nothing, didn't even look at him at mealtimes. Harry suddenly wondered if Snape had other children somewhere. Maybe he'd discovered some other unknown child, or maybe he'd had one all along, estranged perhaps, but still his child. A son – or daughter – he liked better. It seemed unlikely in the extreme, but wasn't it just as unlikely that Harry should be his son? Perhaps ... perhaps Snape had other children, other relations he hadn't told Harry about, other people more important to him ... Harry shuddered, feeling a dull pain in the region of his stomach.

Then, however, Snape looked his way, his eyes meeting Harry's for one fleeting second. As he looked away again, he knocked over the goblet he'd been reaching for, and at that moment, Harry knew Hermione had been right. This couldn't be the real Snape. Snape ... Snape never knocked things over. And he didn't have a look like that in his eyes. Harry kept staring at him, and although he reacted exactly the way Harry would have expected, this idea didn't leave Harry's head – it wasn't Snape.

Harry leapt up, his meal untouched, and looked for Hermione urgently. She still wasn't there, and Harry left without saying a word to anyone. He went to the Gryffindor Common Room first, then called out Hermione's name at the foot of the spiral staircase that lead to the girls' dormitories. When there was no reply, he left, looked out of a window to see if she was visible anywhere outside, then went to the library.

He found her in the Restricted Section.

'Hermione!' He hissed so that Madam Pince wouldn't hear; he couldn't go into that section without permission unless he used his invisibility cloak. He called out again and she rose and came over to him.

'You were right,' said Harry quietly. 'I should have believed you from the start – it isn't Snape.'

Hermoine sighed with relief. 'Finally, I thought you'd never come round,' she said and smiled.

They walked to Dumbledore's office hurriedly; if there was an impostor here instead of Snape there shouldn't be a moment's delay – who knew what this person had already found out about the Order? And ... where was Snape? What had happened to him?

'Professor Dumbledore!' Harry and Hermione blurted out at once as they opened the door to his office, then Harry went on, 'Professor Snape isn't the real Snape! It's somebody else – I'm sure; there's no way it can be him.' He stopped, catching his breath, looking at Dumbledore. He had expected a look of shock, surprise, or at least comprehension to appear on Dumbledore's face, but it didn't.

Instead, Dumbledore replied calmly, 'Of course it isn't Professor Snape. He's still on Professor Lupin's mission, so Alastor Moody is impersonating him … that is to say, it was Alastor until tonight. Now it is Nymphadora Tonks.'

Harry stared at him incredulously but said nothing at first. Dumbledore had known. He had known that it wasn't Snape but hadn't bothered to tell him. It just seemed too incredibly unfeeling to be true. He swallowed. 'That's all right then,' he said, turning to leave. 'Just as long as you know.' He began walking towards the door.

'Harry,' said Dumbledore, an odd, puzzled look on his face, but Harry didn't turn to face him.

'It didn't occur to you to tell Harry about this, Professor?' said Hermione, teeth clenched and her voice oddly strained.

'Don't bother, Hermione,' Harry snapped from where he was at the door, waiting for her. 'It's all right, I said so,' he said in a lower voice. 'C'mon, let's go.'

'Are you telling me that you had no idea?' Now, Dumbledore did look surprised. 'I thought that surely Professor McGonagall must have told you … But, of course, I ought to have told you myself.' Dumbledore gave Harry a piercing look. 'I am very sorry, Harry. I can only say that there was a lot on our minds when we arranged all this, and I – I forgot. I am sorry.' He sighed, suddenly looking very, very tired. His eyes had none of their usual brightness, nor did they twinkle.

Harry looked at Dumbledore, his anger and disappointment evaporating. He almost felt sorry for him. 'I don't suppose it occured to you to mention to Professor Moody that I am Professor Snape's son?' he said, remembering his encounter with the fake Snape in the Dungeons. Moody, having been away on a mission for several months, would not have found out about Harry's paternity unless someone had told him.

'Ah …' Dumbledore said slowly. 'No, I might have neglected to mention that to him …'

'Really!' Hermione said, almost angrily. 'We thought it was a Death Eater or something. We thought someone was after the Order's secrets; we thought it was really serious! We –'

'It's all right, Hermione,' Harry interrupted her. He was so used to not being told about things by now, that he simply couldn't stay upset with Dumbledore for long. Besides, he was so relieved that Snape wasn't in the hands of Death Eaters – that he was still away on his mission, and that he didn't loathe Harry.

Harry blushed slightly. He had been unbelievably stupid not to realise at once that it wasn't the real Snape. But he guessed that, for some reason, it had felt better to believe that Snape was safe at Hogwarts, even if he behaved horribly towards Harry, than to think that he was out there somewhere, in danger.

'Will it be Tonks impersonating him the whole time now?' Harry asked, thinking that Tonks had not by far done as good a job as Moody.

'No, we have a rotating schedule for that,' Dumbledore said. 'Kingsley Shacklebolt and Hestia Jones have also made short appearances as Professor Snape ... and next week it will be Bill Weasley's turn for a few days. They're using Polyjuice Potion, of course.'

At hearing this, the thought of what had happened when his father had used Polyjuice Potion quickly crossed Harry's mind, but he deemed it unlikely that anything similar should happen to the people impersonating Snape. Nevertheless, he smiled slightly for the first time in days.

'Well, now I know,' he said. 'So it'll be different people every day, almost?'

'Yes. As I said, Bill Weasley will do it, and Alastor will be back, as will some of the other Aurors. I'm afraid Professor Snape – the real one – will not be back for another fortnight at least. Probably more.'

'But isn't this very risky?' Hermione asked. 'I mean, if anyone found out it wasn't the real Professor Snape ...'

'He has been absent for extended periods of time already this school year, and can't stay away any more without risking exposure. This was the only reasonably safe solution for all parts.' Dumbledore looked at his watch. 'Now, unless you have more questions, I shall have to ask you to leave.'

Harry thought about Snape as they were going back to Gryffindor Tower. His mind was in turmoil; he had been so hurt – so resentful towards the man he'd thought was his father that all this didn't quite sink in. He still felt angry with Snape although he was in no way to blame for any of what had happened. They had done a good job, Moody and Tonks and whoever else had impersonated Snape, but Harry wished that someone had told him about it before so he wouldn't have had to go through all this, or that the Aurors themselves had known and acted accordingly.

And above all he wished that Snape were safely back at Hogwarts again.

Author's Note: Thanks to all those who have read and/or reviewed this story so far. :) Please tell me what you thought of this chapter; it makes writing so much more enjoyable.