A/N: This chapter is in no way meant to mock any particular stories. It is merely to poke fun at various common fanfiction story plots. Thankfor reading!
In magical homes all around the country, eyes widened and newspapers were passed from hand to hand like batons in a relay race. The front page headline was so wonderfully shocking, so deliciously scandalous, that it could only have come from one poison-green quill.
"The Chosen One—Harry James…Snape?! The Truth of 'Potter's' Father Revealed"
And below it, the equally inspired sub-heading:
"Boy Who Lived Engaged to his Own Sister!"
Finally, beneath the screaming, outraged headlines was the story that was drawing gasps from wizards and witches across Britain.
"He's the man we all love, the tortured and unstable boy wonder who brought You-Know-Who's reign of terror to an end not once, but twice. Our savior, the Chosen One: Harry Potter.
"OR IS HE?"
"He's the man we all love to hate, brooding and bat-winged (according to unnamed but reliable sources) who crushed our innocent children under a draconian regime of terror after committing a murderous coup upon doddering Albus Dumbledore. A murderer who got off on a technicality, traitor to us all: Severus Snape.
"What do these polar opposites have in common? Why did Potter lobby so hard to keep Snape from Azkaban? What secrets went with Potter's mother to the grave? And how will the Weasley family's rampant use of love potions finally come home to roost?
"Perhaps we should have been looking more closely at these two men all along."
The article continued, breathlessly basking in its own sensationalism. It told of the friendship of Lily Evans Potter ("a scarlet-haired Juliet, a convincing virginal maiden-mother—or so her controlling 'friends' would have us believe. Yet does one not detect an unrepentant vixen in her smile?") and Severus Snape ("the eternal outcast, pining turned the handsome features of a Roman god to the face of the god of the underworld."). James Potter entered the picture ("This jealous rich boy cad made friends with a werewolf. Why, you ask? So he would have a slavering assassin to sic on any who got in his way.") The friendship was shattered. A prophecy was revealed, and Lily was forced through coercion or even a love potion to marry James Potter.
And then! "A reliable source has revealed the clandestine meeting of Lily Potter and Severus Snape in a Muggle pub in London. Candles and fire whiskey. A darkly lit room. Need I say more? (This is a family paper!) Nine months later, a bouncing baby boy with thick black locks was born. His name was put down as Harry James Potter. Only now does the truth come out: he is really Hadrian Snape."
It was a long article, but Severus could hardly bear to read anymore. He wasn't the only one. Harry had gone white-faced and was shaking with rage. The entire Weasley clan was watching them both.
"That—that harpy!" Harry exploded. "How dare— How can she—"
"I know," Severus half-sighed, half-growled. This had to be the first moment he actually commiserated with his future son-in-law.
"My mum! She's making her out to be a—" He stopped himself from using a stronger word. "—a scarlet woman."
Severus felt less enraged than hollow and numb. It would have been easy to blame the Skeeter woman, but it was too much to have the worst mistake of his life shoved back in his face. At nineteen, he wouldn't have been above having a relationship with a married woman, if that woman was Lily. But she never would have cheated. She would not have been the Lily he loved if she had. If he had chosen differently, Harry might have been his son, and this article made a mockery of Lily's life, his own, and even Harry's.
"I mean, come on!" Harry threw down the paper and glared at the two enlarge photos of their faces, side by side. "We don't look anything alike! Black hair—that's it. And everyone's always going on about how I look like my dad. And now my name's Hadrian all of a sudden?"
"Purebloods don't use common Muggle names," Fred said in an impossibly posh accent. "Do we, Percival?"
"Professor Snape is a half-blood," Percy said crossly. He obviously didn't want to be dragged into this.
"That excuse for a woman," Severus said tightly, "is an insult to the written word." This wasn't the first time Skeeter had insulted him. Last month she had written about how Molly had used a love potion to ensnare him, and how every single one of her married or dating children had done the same. It was ridiculous, really. "Your main concern, Potter, is at the bottom of the page."
Harry scanned the last paragraph of the article and let out a snorting yelp of protest. "Harry is even know engaged (perhaps literally entranced) to Ginevra Weasley, his father's daughter through his marriage to dumpy housewife Molly Weasley. No doubt Severus has begged him many times to cancel the engagement. The danger is real: the Chosen One is even now engaged to his own step sister. Considering Molly Weasley's figure as prescedent, the pair is on the verge of supplying Severus with a horde of inbred grandchildren."
"No doubt all of wizarding Britain stands behind me as I warn the Boy Who Lived: It's not too late!"
"Harry," Hermione said reasonably. The look on Harry's face was horrified. "It's not true. You know it's not, Ginny knows it's not, and we all know it's not. That's all that's important. Remember what we told Hagrid when that awful dung beetle wrote about him in fourth year."
"Right," Harry said with a deep breath. "Yeah. That's it. That's exactly it. We just ignore her, and it'll all blow over. …Why don't we write an article, Hermione?"
Severus had no idea what he meant, but Hermione and Ron seemed to.
"In response to a silly gossip rag?" Hermione said dismissively.
Severus Snape—Father of Two?
The Twisted Truth about Harry Potter's Secret Sister
At the sight of the next day's paper, Hermione's blasé attitude dropped. She scanned it hurriedly, and her face got redder and redder.
Severus had long ago resolved not to read articles with his name in the headline, though the previous day had tempted him too much. "Let me guess," he said sarcastically. "Ginevra is my love child with Minerva McGonagall?"
"No," Hermione said in a strangled voice. "I am."
"Oh, bloody hell!" Ron groaned. "That means everyone thinks I'm going to marry my step sister."
"Oh no. Everyone will think Harry and I are brother and sister. And her articles in fourth year. Everyone thinks we—" Hermione turned a horrible color and buried her head in her arms.
The entire family rustled like angry owls at this new trespass. Since the end of the war, they all valued their privacy a great deal. This was too much.
Molly leaned over to whisper in Severus' ear. "We have to do something! Harry and Ginny's wedding is in a month! They can't get married with this hanging over them!"
"Something will be done," Severus said grimly, and lit the paper on fire.
"Harry." Hermione raised her head a little. "We both need to get paternity tests."
"What are those?" Ron asked, at the same time that Harry gaped. "You don't think she's right!"
"Of course not," Hermione snapped. "But that way we can prove that he's not our father."
"I'm not sure wizards will believe it," Harry said doubtfully. "A lot of them have no idea how DNA works."
"I don't care, we're getting them. And then we're going to run an article of our own in the Quibbler."
"Just like old times," Ron sighed. "I hoped we'd never have to do this again.
Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy: Twin Brothers?!
Separated at Birth and Made Mortal Enemies by Manipulative Old Kook
Molly scanned the headline and then casually lit the newspaper on fire as she sat down at the breakfast table. The two of them had risen early today to intercept any upsetting headlines before the kids got a look at them. "I had no idea you got around so much, Severus. Narcissa Malfoy too?"
"He's supposed to be my and Lily's son along with Harry," Snape said dryly. He had spent a good five minutes hitting his head against the wall at the sight of the new headline, but morbid curiosity had overcome him. "Dumbledore allegedly claimed he died at birth and switched him out with the Malfoys' dead baby so Harry would be easier to manipulate." He didn't bother pointing out that Draco was Lucius' spitting image, or that he was a month older than Harry. Rita Skeeter wouldn't have known logic if it bludgeoned her over the head with a tea kettle. "Pass the eggs."
Molly was smiling at him strangely. "You know, all this mess might be good for something. That's the first time I've heard you call Harry by his first name and not 'Potter.'"
Severus couldn't think of what to say to that, so he ignored it.
A week later, a new article took the wizarding world by storm, appearing in the Quibbler.
Daily Prophet Reporter a Secret Animagus
Harry Potter and Friends Pressing Charges for Harassment
This article was much less self-congratulatory. Instead, it was full to bursting with evidence, including photographs and interviews. It also included a sidebar explaining the revolutionary Muggle tool of paternity tests. (A magical version of the test was developed within the year, funded by Draco Malfoy.) The Quibbler again flew off the stands.
Rita Skeeter never wrote another article.
After the excitement died down, only a few things had changed. Wizards could now find out if their children were exactly that, or if their wives had two-timed them (like Lily Potter hadn't). Harry and Ginny and then Ron and Hermione got married without fuss or official inquiries into if it was legal. The Weasleys and Draco Malfoy became friendly enough to nod to one another and make small talk in the lifts at the Ministry.
And Severus Snape began to receive fan mail.
"I don't understand it!" he growled to Molly in frustration one night. Yet another letter written in bubbly cursive lay on the table gushing about his sad life, how "hot" he was, and asking to go on a date. "How I long to gaze into your glittering obsidian orbs and wipe your tears away!" was the least nauseating bit. A few letters came every week, mostly from either middle-aged housewives or teenage Hogwarts and Beauxbaton students.
"You're desirable now, Severus," Molly said without looking up from her book. "An outcast with a tragic past, a doomed romance, someone who breaks social norms for love—what woman can resist that? You're dangerous and edgy, and sensitive, poetic, and tortured at the same time."
Severus stared at her. He had not changed. He still had greasy hair, a large beak-like nose, and a sallow complexion. He still looked like a bat. He still was a supremely unlikable person, by his own self-assessment. He still had no children, and never would. Step children, all right, but not real children. He still loved only one woman—at most two, and he wasn't even sure about loving Molly romantically yet. "Why aren't you bothered by all of this?"
She shrugged practically. "None of that is any crazier than you and I getting married, Severus."