Chapter One: A Pox of Letters
On 1 January 1991, the Hogwarts Express returned to Scotland, bearing the student populace who'd departed back in December for the winter break.
The following morning as the students began to trickle into the Great Hall for breakfast, Severus Snape instantly began to feel that something was not right.
There was a slight pall that was spreading throughout the students that had nothing to do with the start of another term within the school year. There was less chatter than usual, no need to glare out at the students to remind them to lower their volume.
The Hufflepuffs were all very low energy this morning, nearly all of them silent and focusing on their breakfast with more effort than necessary. The Gryffindors were straggly, coming into the hall in pairs or very sluggish groups instead of their normal raucous throngs of red and gold-colored menaces. The Ravenclaws were hardly at their table; for students who were largely self-sufficient, there was a noticeable dearth of punctuality among the table, many blue and bronze students missing despite the hall having been open for an hour so far. His Slytherins were the only ones who made it obvious that something was amiss; there were open gaps between themselves at the table as if they were deliberately not sitting close together for an acknowledged reason.
A decade after concluding his risky role as a spy upon the Dark Lord and his forces for the Order of the Phoenix, Severus had never lost the edge of his instincts. A prickle of warning was pulling at him, making him scrutinize the gathered children sharply, if discreetly.
Just before the ending bells for breakfast rang, signaling that the students had twenty minutes before classes started – it happened.
A Fifth Year prefect at the Hufflepuff Table sneezed so loudly, it was as if a small Ukrainian Ironbelly had flown right in the Great Hall and roared.
A plume of sickly blue-and-black fire came from his green-colored face.
Screams and startled shrieks erupted from the previously subdued Hufflepuff table, as napkins caught on fire, dishes were upended as students tried to get away from the little fires burning across the table – and two Hufflepuffs were shouting in terror, as their prefect was rocked by sneeze attack that seemed to promise the whole table would burn within moments if something wasn't done.
Pomona Sprout was on her feet within seconds, closely followed by Minerva McGonagall, and Albus Dumbledore rose to his feet and called for calm, as the Great Hall began to rumble and upset at the unexpected event from the Hufflepuffs.
Severus didn't need to get any closer or listen to anything Albus was saying, for him to know what was going on.
The Dragon Pox epidemic of 1990 had rolled over into 1991 and had come to Hogwarts, evidently.
A week later, the whole of Hufflepuff House was being quarantined.
All but a handful of students had become infected.
Albus and Minerva had made the controversial decision to keep the Hufflepuffs restricted to their dormitories until the infection had stopped spreading so rapidly. The rest of the school was on edge, waiting to see when they'd end up like the Hufflepuffs. A team of house elves were dedicated exclusively to bringing the Hufflepuffs their meals, delivered their lessons for the day to the correct student, and tending to the students who weren't sick enough to be removed to the Hospital Wing but still contagious. Pomona was keeping as well in spirit as she could, but she was beginning to wear under the strain of the responsibility of an entire House of infected students.
Severus didn't envy her, not even a little.
He was being deathly strict with his own Slytherins, who had already been practicing contagion-limiting behaviors since the first fiery sneeze in the Great Hall. So far, nobody from his own House had been infected; the schoolwide approach was working very well, too, and only one Gryffindor had succumbed, so far. If Gryffindor House could hold strong against the spread and Ravenclaw House and Slytherin House could keep free from infection, perhaps this outbreak wouldn't turn into the epidemic it was in the wider Wizarding World.
All hope was lost for a brief outbreak, in the dark hours before dawn on 9 January, the day that he forgot was his own birthday.
Severus caught a Seventh Year Hufflepuff entangled in a fierce embrace with one of his own Slytherins – the Head Boy of the Class of 1991, no less! The very badge that should have indicated responsibility was skewed upon the front of Jian Chang's robes; the clutching embrace that Nymphadora Tonks pulled him down into.
Severus was furious.
"Mr. Chang, Miss Tonks – you have no idea how much trouble you two are in!" snarled Severus, his poisonous glare enough to make Tonks and Chang leap apart from one another as if they'd been engulfed in Dragon Pox fire. "How dare you two take it upon yourselves to put the entire castle at risk, because of your foolish hormones?"
"Professor, it's fine, there's no risk!" The Tonks girl tried to reassure him, her face the picture of innocence and penance – and patently false, if Severus knew better. Pomona had told the staff years ago that the Tonks girl was a Metamorphagus and there was always more than what met the eye with her. The doe-like eyes of contrition might be a shape-shifting skill and seemed so, for her voice was a little too innocent, as she announced: "I've already had Dragon Pox. My mum is a Healer and says that once you've caught it once and survived, you're immune –"
"But Chang is not immune!" Severus nearly roared. His temper was incredibly short, and he didn't have the time or inclination to deal with Hufflepuff idiocy. "Chang is a Slytherin who will go back into his Common Room, where his fellow Slytherins have not been infected. Undoubtedly, he will pass it along to someone else, even if he doesn't contract the pox himself. He will then make contact with his twin brother in Gryffindor or his younger sister in Ravenclaw, who might also get infected, even if he doesn't – and then, there goes the exact disaster we've been working hard to prevent this past week!"
Jian Chang no longer looked smitten. Instead, he had the sense to look ashamed, stricken with reality about what he'd done - but Nymphadora Tonks opened her mouth to argue, more.
Severus didn't give her the chance.
The seal of quarantine had been broken and Hogwarts was about to be swept by an outbreak that would morph into an epidemic similar to what raged through the rest of Wizarding Britain.
He needed to prepare himself for the worst – although, how they'd reached this point barely two weeks into 1991, already, Severus didn't know.
The birthday that Severus did not forget was on 30 January.
No matter what day 30 January fell, each year, Severus had ritual for that evening. He always observed it in the eleventh hour – the final hour of Lily Potter's birthday.
The tradition had started in the winter of 1983.
Severus had been too deep into mourning to do anything but drown himself in Ogden's finest in January 1982, the first birthday after her death. After being discovered by Pomona Sprout, who'd been compassionate and discreet and never mentioned it again, Severus had promised himself that he'd never let himself spiral that badly again. He hadn't. When Lily's birthday came around again the next year, Severus had initiated his new tradition that was much more dignified and respectful.
He visited her grave and offered her penance, remembrance, and promise.
The year that she would have turned thirty-one, Severus prepared to visit her grave, as was his tradition – but, only shortly before midnight, when he was least likely to be missed or seen. Despite the risk that came with being away from Hogwarts for a moment, Severus was determined to keep his tradition.
This year, her child would arrive at Hogwarts, and all his atonement would be put to the test as he was made to become the protector and defender of James Potter's son, the son that Lily had given her life for without hesitation.
He needed to affirm himself one final time, before the Potter child would come into his life, and his life would no longer be his own until the Dark Lord was defeated, permanently.
The eleventh hour of 30 January 1991 saw Severus arrive in Godric's Hollow, heading silently and invisibly to the graveyard were Lily Potter rested with her husband.
A snarl of complicated feelings unfurled in him, as always.
The bottomless sorrow that Lily was dead warred with the guilt and self-loathing that never allowed him to forget that he played a large role in her being dead; the resentment that the cold lettering proclaimed her to be Lily Potter, a dead war heroine at only twenty-one was a close match for the complete rage he felt at the Dark Lord for hunting her and killing her.
Overpowering all of it, stronger than any of those feelings, was the plain yearning he had for the one friend he had ever had, the ache of loss that had been carved deep within him well before her death.
Severus was keenly aware that he had precious little time, far less than he would have had any other year.
A dome of protective magic sealed him within the bounds of spells that didn't allow him to feel any cold or snow and wind. Quietly, Severus spoke, unheard by anyone but himself.
"Your child comes to Hogwarts this year, Lily," said Severus in a low voice. "Albus says that by his return to the Wizarding World, he is in danger. There is nothing that can be done to avoid or prevent the danger, simply because of who he is. I am not sure how well I will do, but I have promised to protect your child." Severus paused, swallowing past the thickness of emotion that suddenly rose in his throat. Clearing his throat gruffly, he continued, "I cannot change what I have done so far to make it to where I'm speaking to your gravestone about your child that outlived you. I know that, now. I live with that, daily. What I do know is that I'm determined to do whatever it takes to see that your child has every advantage, skill, and opportunity necessary to finish what you started in defeating the Dark Lord. I'm not sure how, Lily, but…I will be sure that your sacrifice was not in vain."
Severus allowed himself only a few more moments of kneeling, remembrance, and grieving.
All too soon, he had to leave.
Severus could not afford to spend another hour or two in the cemetery at Godric's Hollow, as he had been able to do in the year or two previous to this one.
The following morning a deadline that had to be met, on behalf of Minerva. The scroll of incoming students for the 1991 school year was ready to be unsealed and the first round of Hogwarts letters sent out. The process of welcoming a new cohort of students took several months and it was imperative that the first letters be sent out tomorrow on 31 January; the next six months would be spent determining who would round of their incoming First Years in September.
Severus had very little choice but to return to Hogwarts and be prepared for an early morning.
The single, deep red tulip that Severus left upon the grave of Lily Potter was the only sign that he had been able to keep his annual ritual of mourning and respect for the most precious friend he had ever had.
On the morning of 31 January, Severus skipped breakfast and left Professor Flitwick to supervise the Great Hall.
The diminutive Charms Master was likely to be the newest Head of Ravenclaw before the end of term; the current Head of House, Herbert Beery, had been removed to St. Mungo's Hospital, only days after Minerva McGonagall's condition had worsened and seen her removed, too. With Albus recovering slower than Madam Pomfrey would have liked for a wizard of his age, Pomona Sprout was the acting Headmistress and Severus was left as the acting Deputy Headmaster, out of all the Heads of Houses unstruck by the Dragon Pox that had swept the school like its namesake. Professor Flitwick may as well get used to the role and responsibility, as it seemed to be coming upon him fast.
This meant that Severus had the unfortunate responsibility of attending to all of Minerva's duties, on top of his own overloaded duties.
Severus intended to make of use the time he would have spent at breakfast addressing the pressing deadline of mailing out Hogwarts Letters, as Minerva had been meant to.
The Birth Quill and Roster was an enchanted scroll and its accompanying quill, which recorded the live birth of every child within Wizarding Britain.
Each year, the scroll and quill were removed from their secure holding in the Headmaster's Office and brought to the similarly secure Deputy Headmistress's Office. Severus had no choice but to settle into the too-soft chair behind Minerva's desk and tap the scroll, so that it would open for him.
He felt an uncomfortable clench in his gut after a quick perusal of the writing upon the crisp, bright-white parchment.
There were less than 50 names upon this scroll.
The first recorded set of birthdays were on 2 September 1979. Despite the Birth Quill having recorded every live birth of a magical child in Wizarding Britain from then until the following year, on 1 September 1980, there were still barely a third of what Severus remembered the numbers being from his own time at Hogwarts. There had been nearly twenty boys in his own dormitory in Slytherin House, the dormitory reserved for students that had started Hogwarts in 1971.
For this class of students, it looked like there might be 20 boys to be Sorted, altogether – not simply per year in each of the four Houses.
The Great War had done more than simply make people afraid of Death Eater strikes and the possibility of their neighbors being an enemy; if this Birth Roster was anything to go by, British wizarding folk had been scared out of believing there was a future for themselves or their children, for quite a while.
Severus glared at the scroll.
This wasn't even something he should have known.
If Dragon Pox hadn't swept the castle, he would have been blissfully ignorant of the hard truth that the Birth Roster Scroll told. At least until later in the year, when the first of September arrived, and yet another Sorting Ceremony was brutally shorter than it would have been ten years prior, at the peak of the war.
Severus started with the name Abbott, H. and began to work his way through the list of students who were being offered a place at Hogwarts the next school year.
He began to brace himself for the name he knew would be there by the time he reached the Ds – Davis, T. and Dunbar, F. and Dursley, D. and no others – and moved far too quickly through the Gs – Goldstein, A., Goyle, G., Granger, H., and Greengrass, D. were just as discouraging in their small number – to arrive at the Ls and Ms – Longbottom, N. and Malfoy, D. promised to be something a headache, with the historical enmity between the families – before he wanted to.
Severus lingered on Nott, T. for much longer than he should have; the quill wouldn't move forward to the next letter, until he prompted it to.
There was no child that was turning eleven before or on 1 September who would be eligible for Hogwarts this year with a surname beginning with O.
Severus watched with dark eyes as the envelopes meant for Parkinson, P. and Patil, P. and Patil, P. were swiftly inked and sealed, followed by one more for Perks, S., and then –
Potter, H.
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging, Surrey
Severus stared at the letter as it was inked and sealed the same as the others. He didn't know how he felt, but he felt something strong enough that his Occlumency shields raised themselves, forcefully.
Within seconds, the letter meant for Roper, S. and Rivers, O. covered up the Potter child's letter, hiding it from his direct sight.
There were only a few months left until Potter, H. would not be just a name upon a letter, meant for a child he knew was mothered by Lily.
Come September, the Potter child would be here in this castle, a symbol and a target, a wizarding child that would need as much protection as training, for Potter, H. was no ordinary child.
Severus didn't get the chance to dwell much longer on Lily's child and what the arrival of the Boy Who Lived at Hogwarts meant.
Startlingly too soon, the letters meant for Weasley, R. and Zabini, B. were neatly inked, sealed, and the scroll became wiped blank of anything except the Hogwarts Crest.
The letters were ready.
Severus couldn't leave the Deputy Head's Office quickly enough.
Flitwick would be responsible for sending them out by a fleet of Hogwarts owls later this afternoon, while Sprout would take her turn tomorrow morning, receiving the responses that would begin to roll in.
He had no more use for the burning sight of Potter, H. until September.
Only then, he would be made to see Lily's child in person.
A Hogwarts owl bearing two letters reached Number Four, Privet Drive by the morning of 1 February.
The family of three thought that it was rather odd to see an owl perched upon their back fence for a greater part of the morning; unmoving and staring at the house intently, the owl seemed to have been waiting for something. When it fluttered away in the early afternoon, as the light was lessening towards night, the Bridgewater family quickly forgot about the oddity.
Several hours later, as Pomona Sprout was wrapping up her turn at covering Minerva's duties, the owl tumbled into the Deputy Headmistress's Office in a tumble of snow and ice-sharp wind.
Pomona tutted, as she received the letters from the owl.
This was the fourth or fifth owl to have returned with the inability to deliver the post to the intended child. She looked at the two names – and let out a startled noise, as she recognized one of the names as Potter, H.
It wouldn't do for the Boy Who Lived to not have received his Hogwarts letter!
Another few minutes and the letters that the owl had returned with were sent back out with stronger charms. Pomona was confident that they'd reach the Boy Who Lived, this time; by morning, Harry Potter would have his letter and his family could celebrate their boy hero having come upon the important milestone of receiving his Hogwarts letter.
Quite the shame that the child's parents couldn't be there to witness the moment, but at least the moment would come to pass, thanks to the boy's defeat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, nearly ten years ago.
Pomona extinguished the lamps in the Deputy Headmistress's Office, warded the door, and headed down to the Hufflepuff Basement to check on her Badgers, before retiring to be herself and preparing for a robust weekend of harvesting the latest crop of winter herbs from Greenhouses One and Seven.
The letter would surely arrive by morning and then, Severus could take back over with accounting for who would be coming to Hogwarts in the autumn, who needed to think about it a little while longer, and who would pass along the opportunity and choose something else for their magical education.
An owl bearing two letters tied to its leg arrived at Number Three, Wisteria Walk in Surrey, a few hours after the enchanting from Professor Sprout that ensured delivery.
Unlike when it had mistakenly landed at Number Four, a few streets over, the person who noticed the owl landed upon the fence was well aware of what an owl meant.
Petunia Dursley sat her teacup down sharply, pale and trembling slightly. Her daily cup of tea before the rest of the household rose for the day was a ritual for her. It had been interrupted by the appearance of one of those owls and the appearance of those owls had meant letters from –
The Wizarding World.
The world that had come calling for her sister when they were children. The world that had taken everything from the Evans family, in the end.
The letter that had been left along with her sister's orphaned child back in 1981 had been clear.
Wizarding education began around eleven years old and when the time came, Lily's child would leave the non-magical world and disappear into magic. There had been no exact time or day, but just the promise that the letter from the school would arrive. Petunia was startled that the day had come so soon, but she had been expecting this.
The forward path was simple enough.
Take the letter. Tell the child about the school that the letter was from. By September, she would have done the responsible thing and cared for Lily's child, until the wizards took over again from that school of hers.
Petunia couldn't help flinching back as the owl came in the window, allowed her to untie the letters from its hovering leg – and then swooped back out the window as briefly as it had been let in. She blinked, wondering why it hadn't been required to stay.
There were two thick yellowing envelopes.
One was addressed to Potter, H., as Petunia expected.
The green-eyed, bespectacled girl who was fast asleep upstairs would wake and find a letter to a magical school, just as her mother had, twenty years earlier.
Petunia felt a strange lurch in her chest, as she recalled the morning that everything had changed for her entire family, simply because of one letter that Lily had received. Once again, a Hogwarts letter had found its way into her home. Once again, Petunia had to prepare for her family to be cleaved apart by the demands and seclusion of the world that beckoned from a calling to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Petunia sighed deeply.
Her mind half-upon memories of the past that seemed to be echoing the present, she didn't truly look at the second letter closely until she recognized her own last name –
No.
Not her last name.
Her son's last name.
Petunia wasn't breathing as she looked down at the letter that had come along with the letter for Potter, H.
Dursley, D.
3 Wisteria Walk
Little Whinging, Surrey
The emerald ink was plain, simple, and utterly shattering and destructive in its seemingly harmless address to Petunia's son, Dudley.
Her niece had been expected to receive a letter from Hogwarts, because Haesel Potter was a witch just like her mother, Lily, had been a witch.
Her son had not been expected to receive a letter from Hogwarts, because Dudley was most assuredly not a – he couldn't be a –
Petunia screamed so loudly that something more peculiar than finding a letter from Hogwarts for her son happened.
All the electricity in her home surged so strongly that bulbs shattered in their fixtures, the outlets began to spark and hiss, and both windows in the kitchen shattered in their panes. If anyone had been in the kitchen with her for the handful of moments before her whole household was awakened, they would have seen a sheen of iridescent light seemed to pour from underneath her skin and engulf Petunia, as something deep within her unlocked itself from dormancy.
Magic was roiling in the air, thick and raw.
She would not know for a while yet, but with the shock of discovering her own son was a wizard, Petunia had come into her own latent magic –
And was now every bit of a witch as her niece and her sister, the third witch in the Evans family.