This chapter is dedicated to the following people:

debz

WolfDragonDemon

opal

A big thanks to debz, WolfDragonDemon & opal, who reviewed to the last chapter. Seriously over a hundred of you read it and only 3 people reviewed. Please, please, please review. It really does make a difference, but thank you for reading anyway. Replies to reviews are at the bottom.

Chapter 15

As Harry was so drained, he decided to have a refreshing and invigorating sleep for nine hours and then read the mysterious letter. That way he'd be awake enough to process the contents and not have to read it again later because of a frazzled brain.

True to his word, Harry woke up nine hours later at eight o'clock, raring to go and welcoming the lovely new day. After getting a glass of pumpkin juice and a bowl of coco-pops, Harry sat down in his newly decorated room on his newly purchased sofa and settled in to read his letter.

Turning the letter over in his hands, Harry noticed that it had stains on it, and bringing it slightly closer to him; he found that a rather potent alcoholic substance was the cause of the offending smell. As Harry had not been in contact with magical spirits he could not identify which alcoholic beverage it was.

However, the second he saw the untidy black ink scrawled on the front, he knew who the letter was from. He also knew that he most likely did not want to read the contents. But, as he had gone to the trouble of getting up early to read it, Harry felt that he might as well. After all if his biological father had written it in the early hours of the morning, while he was intoxicated to the point where nine times out of ten lying was impossible, Harry might even learn something he didn't know before. So snuggling further into his sofa, Harry opened the letter.

Dear Alexis,

I realise that I am probably the last person that you want to hear from right now, but I have a few things I need to say. Things which I can't let go unsaid any longer.

Many years ago, while I was at school, I was good friends, albeit secretly, with two groups of pranksters in my year. I say secretly because these pranksters were not in my house. Or even in a house tolerated by Slytherin, with house rivalries being nearly the same as they are now, I think you can guess the house in question. One of these groups, you will have heard of. The Marauders. The other group I think will be unrecognisable to you, The Lifelong Magic Asinine Society or L.M.A.S. I believe you know who the first group consisted of. However, the second might be a bit trickier. It like the Marauders consisted of four non-muggles. But unlike the Marauders, L.M.A.S. were all girls.

L.M.A.S. were Lily Evans, Marcia Black, Arabella Figg and Sarah O'Doyle. These four were inseparable and three of them were romantically connected to all of the Marauders. Lily of course with James, Arabella with Sirius and Sarah with Peter and later on Remus. Both Lily & James' and Arabella & Sirius' relationships lasted outside of Hogwarts and probably would have lasted longer if it were not for the Dark Lord and Azkaban. As you will have noticed one of L.M.A.S. was not involved romantically with any of the Marauders. That was for two reasons, 1) She was Sirius' twin sister and 2) She was going out with someone else. Me. She was your mother.

In my last year at Hogwarts, my parents cast the imperious curse on me and forced me to get the dark mark during the Christmas holidays. Luckily, my relationship with your mother was not public knowledge. Marcia although being from a noble, pureblood family was like Sirius and utterly set against the old ways. So, unless I could prove to everyone that I had her completely under my spell she would not have been deemed a suitable wife. Even if I had fooled everyone she still would have faced punishment for her previous 'misdemeanours' and I loved her far too much to allow her to marry me publicly only to hide her true self and act like my personal slave whilst also having to endure the Dark Lord's torture sessions.

So I persuaded her to marry me quietly. To our close friends, we'd be a normal, ecstatically happy couple and to everyone else, well no one else ever saw us together.

Lily and James tried for a few years to have a baby, but it never happened. Then, your mother and I found out that she was pregnant with you.

By that time the Potters had gone on a sort of long holiday. The holiday filled two purposes for them. Firstly, they were able to have a proper honeymoon and secondly they were able to hide from the Dark Lord who, while at that time was in the midst of killing off the old pureblood families either because they offended him by not joining his ranks or being muggle supporters or well known ambassadors for the light.

Marcia and I both decided that she would keep you and pose as a single mother, a thing which witches were only known to do, at that time, if the father was a muggle. We both thought that both you and her would be safe, if needed we discussed that you both would go and live in the muggle world.

However, all that changed when one night for seemingly no reason, the Dark Lord along with two of his deatheaters: Nott and Pettigrew turned up at your residence. This was just after you had been born. A warning alarm having sounded in your nursery when Nott and Pettigrew first stepped into the wards alerted Marcia to the fact that either one or more deatheaters, who weren't myself, were on the premises, gave her time to write a note to her best friend and send you with it. I'm sure you don't need to be told to whom you were sent.

All this was to plan, but then, (and this is just pure conjecture), she transfigured something into a living person. That person was an exact look-alike to you. That's why up until the other day when you told me the truth, and I was drunk enough to recognise it as that, I was a sadistic, cruel bd who was in mourning for his dead wife and son. The two people in the world, I ever really cared about.

After, your mother and you died the Potters came back and they had a baby boy with them. A boy who was exactly like his father except for his eyes, which were his mother's, and because I was so lost in my grief needing several crates of Ogden's fire whisky per week to keep me sane-ish, I did not see the peculiarities in it that I do now with hindsight.

I was so jealous of the Potters having what should have been mine that I ruined my friendship with them and later on, when you came to Hogwarts, I took it out on you because you reminded me so much of James and Lily and the son I lost.

I hope you read this letter, if you wish to see me I'll be at Florean Fortescue's in the US Diagon Alley three days after you receive this at 12 noon. Please meet me.

Your father, if you'll accept me,

Severus Snape

And with that, a muffled thump was the only sound heard coming from the living room.

During this time, Severus had tried to sleep off his hangover, only to wake up in the late afternoon with a blinding hangover and rather dizzy. However, after drinking one of is hangover cure potions mixed with a pepper-up and a liver healing potion, he was as right as rain. At least as right as Snivellus can be.

He spent the rest of that day making potions, not very complicated ones but not easy ones either. After all he couldn't afford to brew difficult and potentially dangerous potions whilst his stomach was performing Olympic standard gymnastic sequences. That night he had to take a dreamless sleep potion as he was in such a state. From that, luckily for him, he didn't wake up until ten thirty but then of course he was in a dither about what to wear, the usual black robe or a different black one? Too many choices. He eventually settled on his usual black robe which he transfigured to look like a long black leather coat with black jeans and a black shirt, so that if the muggles went past him, they wouldn't see his wizard clothing.

Then after brushing his teeth and making sure his hair wasn't greasy and slimy (as usual) Snape left for the American branch of Florean Fortescue's.

It was at this point in time (11.40) that Moony decided to drop in on Harry only to find him in a stone cold state on the sofa.

However, after skimming through the letter in Harry's hand he knew the cause but, he also knew that Harry had to see Snape. No matter what his current feelings were.

That being decided, Moony froze Harry with the petrificus totalus charm and then flooed him over to the local ice cream store, where he placed him in a chair to await Severus' arrival. When Sev got there, Moony muttered 'enervate' leaving Harry no time to escape. He left Florean Fortescue's, happy with a job done.

A/N: thanks for reading this. Please, please, please click that little button and review. Whether you love it or hate it! If I get 5+ reviews I'll update either tomorrow (Monday) or Tuesday.

Replies:

opal: Ahh, but Snape is a potions master!

WolfDragonDemon: I am going to continue. I'm working at the minute which is really good because I write to and from work. Thank you soo much for reviewing it really does make a HUGE difference. (:) cookies for you!

LilyEvens Potter: Thank you for reviewing (I think it was for chapter 12). Hopefully you'll get this. (:) cookies for you too.

debz: I already replied to your review. Thank you. I really wanted to get this chapter out so I didn't make it longer. But Harry's hesitation will be explained in the next chapter which will hopefully be out in the next 2 days (but its all down to the readers). I have read the black secret but it was ages ago so I'm going to read it again! Again, I thank you.