Thank you for the reviews on the chapter!

Man oh man, I had no idea that Harry would be this pissed off.

Interlude: More Than Yourself

July 31st, 1995

Dear Harry:

First of all, happy birthday. I would have written earlier, but I had no idea of what was happening in the outside world—one of the few disadvantages of living in the Seers' Sanctuary. The shadows they create around the building to protect themselves also slow and bewilder the owls, so that post takes forever to reach us. They have opened a path in the shadows for my owl to fly swiftly.

But you know all that. I am only trying to put off expressing my letter's real purpose.

Snape has written to me. He has invited me to return and testify against Dumbledore. A copy of the Daily Prophet has reached us now, and we know exactly what he was charged with.

He, and your parents. Harry, I am so sorry. I never suspected that James would be so faithless, even knowing what he did to put me in Azkaban. I had thought that a parent's love for his children would prevail over his bond with Lily.

I regret that I will never have the opportunity to set some of the rats I have an understanding with upon him, but perhaps it is better this way.

Understand please, Harry: I am returning. I know that Lily, James, and Dumbledore have inflicted damage on you that can never be repaired, but they have also hurt me. I will testify in Dumbledore's trial, and against your parents as to the effects of the abuse I witnessed. I know that the Aurors will hunt me, but I intend to give myself to the Ministry and insist on undergoing interrogation with Veritaserum. With all luck, I will be free by the time the trials come around.

It is time the truth be known. Again, Harry, I am sorry, in case you see this as a betrayal, but they have hurt more people than yourself.

There were some segments of wizarding culture, a few hundred years ago, who believed that fifteen was the age of adulthood, rather than seventeen, as we now think. I hope that it is so for you, that you are able to understand why I am doing this, even as you may taste the bitterness of age.

Sincerely,

Peter Pettigrew.

August 1st, 1995

Dear Peter:

I do understand the reasons that you are returning, and if I had thought about it at all, I might have assumed Snape would contact you. Thank you for writing and informing me, however.

I will do nothing to prevent or interfere in your testimony. How could I? You deserve justice. The abuses that my parents and Dumbledore inflicted on you are not ones that I could deny, nor do I wish to.

Since you have been so honest with me, I will be honest in return. Though you may have been able to guess it, since you know the person I used to be, I did not give my permission to Snape to file these charges, and I have not cooperated with him at all so far. I will not try to free my parents or Dumbledore, or prevent the trials from going forward. They do have some opportunity of doing good, in exposing those crimes perpetrated on you and other innocent victims, whatever the outcome may be of the crimes they are charged with against me.

However, I am going to testify on the way I see their abuse of me, which, as I am continually reminded, is very different from the way that others see it. I plan to argue for leniency in those charges I can affect. I have done enough research on child abuse to discover how often the punishment in such cases, if the Wizengamot finds the criminals guilty, is execution. My parents and Dumbledore might deserve death for what they have done to others—that is not for me to say—but it is the charges affecting me that could prove fatal to them. I plan to struggle with every breath in my body before I let the sentence of execution come down.

So long as they are still alive, they have the chance to change. They cannot do that if they are dead.

I understand you perfectly. I hope you will understand me, and not take this as a declaration of war on your principles. I am already embroiled in a struggle with someone who does.

Sincerely,

Harry.

August 2nd, 1995

Harry:

I believe that you still do not understand me. I will try to explain myself one more time.

I did what I did because I believed it was the right thing to do, and so that neither your parents nor Dumbledore could ever threaten you again. I did this to secure your future. I knew that you would hate me for it, and that you have reached out to me with your letters is more than I had any right to hope. But I do not intend to retract or drop the charges, no matter what you may say in the trial. And you should know that my testimony will directly oppose your own. Pettigrew, McGonagall, and the Malfoys, I have no doubt, will also testify on the side of the prosecution. That is not to mention all the others who may have something to say. Even if your parents and Dumbledore manage to call character witnesses, I expect them to be imprisoned, and perhaps stripped of their magic.

I have made my choice. You may hate me again before all is done, but I will continue my course. I regret only the pain that has come between us, and the necessity of having to do this at all. I do not regret the exposure of the abuse.

Severus Snape.

August 3rd, 1995

Dear Snape:

I understand you perfectly. You are the one who continues to misunderstand me.

I will do nothing to prevent your testimony, or anyone else's. I understand that people have a right to speak their minds. I am not trying to make you regret anything you do not. I understand that you have a right to your emotions.

What I will do is pursue my will. By my desire and by my will, I am doing what I feel must be done, what is most in accord with my own personal code of justice. There are places that my actions affect other people, where I cannot follow a certain course because it would crush the freedom of others. This is not one of them. If anything, I am striving to secure the lives of others.

I am telling the truth as I know it. Why is this so hard for you to grasp? Why do you think that my doing so will somehow silence you? I know it will not. And if you think me contemptuous, speaking in scorn—the only cause for scorn I have is that you still think of yourself in some position of authority that can control my actions.

Your legal guardianship over me is a formality only, preserved by Scrimgeour. I will not oppose it for now. But, so far as I am concerned, the only connection we currently have is that of two principled men on the opposite side of a debate of principles. I understand why you did what you did. That does not stop me from hating it. You understand why I am doing what I do. That does not stop you from thinking me wrong.

Kindly cease to think of me as an abused child who does not know what he is doing, or someone who is only trying to spare the lives of my parents and Dumbledore because of a misguided love of sacrifice. I would try to spare the life of anyone who was charged with potentially fatal crimes against me. I ripped apart and rebuilt my mind, and I can choose to forgive them, rather than being compelled to do so.

Peter wrote to me that this is larger than I am. Of course it is. And the world contains more than you and your perceptions, Snape. It always has, but that was never truer than it is now. Perhaps you should consider that. You may have given up your grudge against my father, but you are just as blind as you ever were.

Harry Potter.