Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
A/N: I still can't believe someone is actually reading my story! Thank you so much! I am so sorry that it's taking me so long to update but my classes started up again and I had some exams which I had to study for a lot. I'll try to be faster next time, but net values and phase diagrams aren't exactly a great source of creativity...As always: pleeeease leave comments so I know what I do wrong! Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 2
It was the best parcel the Granger household had ever received. Not only where there about 20 diaries but also some schoolbooks, all with the name Lily Evans neatly written on every first page.
Not being able to read fluently Harry and Hermione had their mum read parts of the books to them. It was fascinating. Charms and Transfiguration. Potions and Herbology. Defence against the Dark Arts. It wasn't like they had imagined school at all but they had been imagining Muggle school for their whole lives after all. Harry found himself especially fascinated by the Potions books. His fingers were itching to follow the instructions read out by his mother.
When Mr. Granger came home from work two hours later he found his family lying on the floor in the living room, his wife reading aloud from an old-looking book, their kids on either side of her listening eagerly and straining their necks to look at the pages. "Well hello to you, too." He said jokingly. All three were so captivated by the book they hadn't even noticed his arrival and he wasn't even surprised by it. Those two children were the most bookish five-year-olds he had ever met. At the sound of his voice the two of them jumped up from the floor and started speaking excitedly, both at once and so fast he hardly understood anything. "There's something called an Anima-", "and it says that you can...", "and I wanna try it as soon as I-"He laughed. "Stop, stop! Remember, one at a time and at a pace and old man like me can follow." They grinned. He always said that when they spluttered on about something. So, as always, Hermione talked first.
XXX
The next morning Harry woke up way too early. It was only three o'clock and he tossed and turned but he just wouldn't go back to sleep. So the boy gave up and turned his bedside lamp on. After putting on his glasses he silently got the first of his mother's diaries from his desk and crawled back into his bed. He looked at the small notebook in his hand. What if it revealed her to be a horrible person? Could he live with that? Harry furrowed his brows. He had seen his dad doing it whenever he was thinking hard about something and thought it might help. 'Well, I'll just have to see. Knowing is better than worrying about it' He decided and opened the notebook. Deciphering the first page took him a while. His reading was quite good for someone who hadn't started school yet but he was still very slow at it. Apparently his mother had started the diary when she was seven years old. A boy from her neighbourhood had apparently rattled her so much when he called her a witch that she had decided to write it down.
Hermione turned to lie on her back, yawned and stretched her arms and legs. It was her waking-up-ritual and she wouldn't want to miss it for the world. Sunlight tickled her nose and she opened her eyes. She jerked up, surprised to see her brother sitting in bed squinting his eyes at the small notebook in front of him like he always did when he was reading. A few of his birth mother's diaries were lying on his nightstand and he seemed to be almost done with the one he was reading. "Harry! Did you sleep at all?" He looked up at her, his eyes red from concentrating too hard but he looked very happy. "She was nice!" Hermione frowned. "Why shouldn't she have been? Did you expect her not to be?" "Well, it scared me a bit. She's my mother after all and who wants a mean mother?" She scrambled out of her bed and went over to him sitting on his bed with her legs crossed. "Do you want to tell me about her?" He nodded. "The first one was from when she was seven. She had met a boy who told her she was a witch and she was really confused. But they became really good friends. It says here that he was from a wizarding family and told her stories about the Ministry of Magic and magical beasts and Hogwarts. This one here –", he held the notebook in his hands up, "is about them receiving their Hogwarts letters and starting school and –", at that moment the door to their room opened and their dad poked his head inside. "What are you two doing up already?", he asked in surprise. Harry looked guilty and started to explain: "Well, I woke up real early and I just couldn't stop thinking about my mother's diaries just lying there, waiting for me to read them. So I kinda just read until now" Their dad looked at him sympathetically but when he spoke his voice was reprimanding: "Are you telling me you were up half the night? You know the rule about mornings: No recreational activities before eight in the morning! Only because you'd sleep until noon every day, if we let you, it doesn't mean the rule doesn't apply to you!" Harry now looked wracked with guilt. "I'm really, really sorry, dad! I promise I won't do it again!", he averred jumping up from his bed. With his next sentence he lost the forcefulness behind his voice and the last words were barely audible, „I was just so worried that she was mean."
A look of surprise on his face Keith Granger kneeled in front of his son taking his small hands into his, now talking softly: "Harry, it is natural for you to be curious about your birth parents but you have no reason to be worried! They were without any doubt flawed, just as any human being, but they died as heroes. And even if you'll someday find out that one of them might have been 'mean', always remember: You're not defined by your birth parents. You are your own person and neither your birth parents, nor mum and me determine your actions. Only you can choose to be mean. Or not to. It is entirely your choice what kind of person you want to be." He looked his son deep in the eyes as he said this, trying to convey how important his words were. Harry swallowed hard, nodded and fell into his father's arms, who hugged him tight for a second before extending one arm to invite Hermione into their embrace. She immediately moved in and they stood there, hugging, for quite a long time.
XXX
Three days later Harry had finished all the diaries having his parents read parts of them to him so he would make progress faster. There had been great emotions involved. Harry had refused to accept that his father was a bully and sat in the garden for three hours not talking to anyone. When the pages continued to speak of his birth mother's discontent towards James Potter Harry seemed to shrink in his seat but then remembered his dad's words. He wouldn't define himself through his birth father. When they read about Lily's best friend Severus becoming meaner with every school year Harry felt sad for him. He was convinced that the boy was just trying to cope with James' bullying. When they came to the point where Lily had poured out her heart about her big fight with Severus that ended their friendship, Harry was furious. How could he say that to her? She always defended him! He had yelled out. It had taken his mum fifteen minutes to calm him down explaining how people often say things they later regret when they are hurting. And at last Harry was incredibly relieved, reading about his father getting nicer and stopping his bullying.
The diaries ended with Lily's graduation from Hogwarts. Harry just having finished the last diary sat still for a while. They both had turned out to be good people. Even if it had taken his father 17 years to figure it out. The little boy tried to be happy about it but he couldn't shake a gnawing feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger. He knew that his father had died fighting the evil wizard but did his heroism in the end make up for all the bad things he had done in his younger years? Those were quite mature thoughts for a five-year-old but the Grangers had raised their children to fundamentally believe in what was right and what was wrong and Harry just knew that bullying was wrong. For all he knew Severus and Lily would have stayed friends and the boy might have grown up to be a better person if he hadn't had to go through so much in his youth. He turned around to look at his sister, sitting at the desk drawing something. She always knew what to do.
XXX
When Severus Snape received an owl on a mild evening in early September he didn't think much of it. He went to sit in his armchair but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the sender's name. Bewildered he went to sit down and with a frown he opened the letter and started to read.
Dear Mr Snape
My name is Harry Granger but I was born as Harry James Potter and you knew my birth parents. You are probably wondering why on earth I would write to you. Well, here it is:
One week ago my parents told me about being adopted, the wizarding world and the night of my birth parents' death because I had grown scared about a returning nightmare that I now know to be about said night. Because I wanted to know more about my birth parents we contacted my birth mother's sister Petunia Dursley who then sent us a package full of Lily Potter's old belongings. Among them were many diaries of hers that she had written during her school time. After reading all of them I now know that you played a big role in her childhood and during her early years at Hogwarts. You were her best friend for a long time. I don't know if you ever read these diaries or to which extend you knew about the deep friendship she felt for you, so I will have my mother copy some pages from the diaries and include them in this letter.
But now to the real reason of my letter: The diaries also spoke of my birth father's, James Potter's, behaviour towards you. More specifically his frequent bullying.
I can't even begin to express my deep regret and shame about this. In the name of my father I would like to very much apologize for any pain and embarrassment he caused you. Please know that I will do everything in my power to make up for his wrongdoings and should there be anything you need that I could help you with, please never hesitate to ask for it.
I don't expect you to reply to this letter but I would be delighted to read anything you want to write me. I very much hope you accept my apology and are able to get some closure and put his bullying behind you if you weren't able to do so up to this point.
Yours sincerely
Harry Granger
For a moment he sat there completely overwhelmed. He hated that boy! He was living proof of his worst memories and mistakes. James Potter's son! He could only be as exceedingly arrogant and obnoxious as Potter had been.
But there in his hands he held a short letter that was proof of the boy being quite the opposite. At only five years old he had decided to apologize - almost submissively - for something that he hadn't even done himself. How could the son of James Potter show such a wilful ignorance for his pride in favour of someone else?
And then it hit him. Not Potter's son but Lily's. This behaviour was so much like her that he couldn't believe he hadn't realized it right away. And then he remembered something Dumbledore had said to him a long time ago. 'I don't expect you to care about James' son but I was quite sure you would care about Lilly's'.
For hours Severus Snape sat in his armchair reading and re-reading the letter and the attached copies of diaries he never thought he would ever see, an emotional turmoil raging inside of him.