Serieux Part 2

by SASundance

Despite the smoke and mirrors, it's obvious Tony's a highly flawed and complex individual who has secrets. No one had a clue that he hides a MOAS, one though, that could rip apart the fabric of society if it were ever to come to light. After almost 2 decades though Tony feels like his secret is fairly safe, which only goes to show that he shouldn't let his guard down...not ever.

27. Chapter 27: Thanks for the Memories

A/N: Thank you everyone who left reviews, I do appreciate your support even if I don't get a chance to reply to everyone individually. Do me huge favour, please take the time to leave your favourite authors even one or two words of encouragement - it makes a difference. Trust me!

This chapter was supposed to be the last before the epilogue but with the numerous redrafts before it went to be beta'd it balloon out to 17,000 words which even for me was excessive. Fortunately, there was a logical place for me to split it and so that's what I've done.

Thanks as usual go out to Faldo for not only beta'ing this fic but encouraging me to finish it. The epilogue is on it's final redraft before being beta'd. I think you'll like it!

Serieux Part 2

Chapter 27 Thanks For the Memories

Harry had been watching the memories that Sirius had extracted of his mother Lily Evans, as a school girl. Especially her friendship with Severus Snape, at least from Pads point of view. Plus, a score of other memories of his mother, father and Marauders at Hogwarts. There was a quidditch match that had been an epic grudge match between Gryffindor and Slytherin that he was still to witness because it was six hours long and he was going to watch it at his leisure, savouring the opportunity to see his dad playing the game he loved. From all that he'd heard, James Potter had been a gifted player, if not at quite the same standard as Hogwarts' youngest seeker in a century. Harry couldn't wait; he was going to make some popcorn, kick back and enjoy it later.

Suddenly he emerged from the pensieve and stared at his godfather speculatively. Finally, he spoke with a touch of anger.

"Severus… he was a dick to Lily. He was controlling. Like that Professor Higgins with Eliza Doolittle." He broke off, staring at Tony in realisation. "Hang on, is that why you dragged me off to the theatre back when I first arrived Pads?"

Tony nodded. "Busted. After I arrived here and fell in love with movies and head over heels for the gorgeous Hepburn leading ladies, Katherine and Audrey, I saw the movie version of My Fair Lady. Even though Audrey got dubbed for the musical vocals, I still thought she was totally awesome." His eyes took a faraway look as he reminisced.

"I guess being set in Britain and watching Eliza at the races yelling at the horse to move his blooming arse and watching all the blue-blood upper crust crowd have apoplexy, it was really funny but it also struck a bit too close to home. Made me think about what if your mum had met Orion and Walberga Black, my sperm donor and egg incubator. She'd have done her best to shock them because she was proud as punch of being a first gen witch, not ashamed as they would have her be. She was awesome!"

His eyes were now sparkling with mischief as he remembered Harry's mother and he chuckled happily.

"So then I had to see the original play the musical was based on - a Greek myth about Pygmalion who fell in love with his sculpture of a beautiful statue. Pygmalion pleaded with the Goddess Aphrodite to bring his creation to life, and I think that version was maybe closer to home."

Harry looked torn between irritation, fascination and revulsion. "That's why you made me watch that lame movie, Mannequin with you? It was complete tosh Pads"

"Well yeah, it's a remake of Pygmalion and Pretty Woman was a remake of sorts of My Fair Lady. I'm fascinated by the theme even though it's sort of depressing that this is a non-magical phenomenon too.

"We had a case once when I was a homicide cop in Baltimore where this plastic surgeon who by the way, was fat, balding and had a face that looked like it had collided with a bus. He'd married a pretty young wife and then decided to 'fix her'. Gave her a nose job, pumped up her lips, had her teeth straightened and whitened. Gave her a breast job and finished it off with liposuction, dermabrasion and fillers. He even removed a piece of her jaw, would you believe – ending up with this barbie doll of a wife and then he became convinced that with all the attention she got from men that she was cheating on him, so he killed her."

Harry looked sickened. He thought having blood transfusions was horrific but letting someone, especially someone who professed to love you, remove a piece of your jaw to improve your appearance was just plain sick. He wasn't entirely sure what all the other stuff was but it sounded horrendous.

Returning to the images he'd seen in the pensieve he stared at his godfather. "You honestly believe that Snape didn't love my mother?" he asked him dubiously.

"Oh no, Harry. I do accept that Snape believed he was in love with Lils but that doesn't mean he did love her. Not real love. He was obsessed with her, wanted her to only be friends with him, but only when it was convenient for him. He wasn't prepared to stand up for her against the other Slytherins, maybe because his own place amongst the purebloods was so precarious – being a half blood himself. But still…

"It used to hurt your mother so much when he'd act mean to her whenever he was around the Snakes but then expect her to just pretend it never happened when they were alone together. She used to confide in Remus sometimes."

"But I SAW his memories. He loved her, Pads." He looked torn before demanding somewhat abruptly, effectively changing the subject. "Have you ever even been in love, I mean really truly in love?"

Tony shifted uncomfortable, very conflicted by that topic before taking a deep breath. "Yeah, I have, Harry."

Harry honestly didn't notice how uncomfortable Tony was, but then he was experiencing almost unbearable turmoil – like he was being intensely disloyal to a brave war hero, who his mother had already treated appallingly. To believe for the last two decades that Sirius, Lily and James had treated Severus badly and he'd been the innocent victim and then having had his perspective about Snape's undercover role turned on its head, he now didn't know which way to turn.

He was confused. Somehow seeing his parents and their friends and Severus had been an equal participant in the bad behaviour, not the completely innocent victim he'd led him to believe, was making him feel totally unsettled and uncomfortable. If Hermione had been around she would have diagnosed that he was experiencing a phenomenon called cognitive dissonance, but he just knew he was feeling nauseous and tense as a spring. Plus, aside from being uncomfortable it was outrageous - it was like someone declaring that he and Ginny weren't childhood sweethearts, weren't star-crossed lovers destined to be together to the grave and beyond.

"What was her name? Were you at school together?" Harry probed about Sirius' true love unremittingly employing classic avoidance tactics. He rationalised it by questioning if Pads was qualified to hold forth on romantic love – he'd never been married.

"Her name was Jeanne Benoit and I met her about nine years ago and fell madly, stupidly in love with her," Tony said reluctantly.

"What happened to her, did you marry her? Did she die?"

"No, I didn't marry her and no she didn't die."

"What happened?"

"She married someone else," Tony re-joined bleakly.

Sensing there was a lot more to the story, and wanting a break from his own troubles, he pressed Tony. "So, what went wrong, Pads? What was she like?"

Looking indescribably sad, Tony withdrew a memory and dropped it into the pensieve indicating Harry should proceed him. Entering, he found himself in a car park outside a hospital and Sirius was sitting at a card table, like the one his Aunt Petunia used to own. It had a fancy tablecloth covering it, and was set with candles, a fancy meal and wine in crystal cut glasses while he and a very pretty brunette woman with the most incredible blue eyes Harry had ever encountered gazed at Sirius lovingly, even as he gazed back. Harry didn't listen to what they were talking about, it seemed like prying but he could see that Pads adored her.

Exiting the pensieve, his godfather followed soon after, his eyes inexpressibly wistful and sad.

"Wow, she was gorgeous," he blurted out and Tony laughed.

"Oh yeah and smart, too. She was a doctor…is a doctor."

"She loved you …that was obvious. So why is she married to someone else?"

"I hurt her and then she hurt me. It was too much for a relationship to cope with, even though we love each other."

Harry noted the use of the present tense. Curious, he dug. "What happened Pads, what did you do to her? What did she do to you?"

Sighing, Tony realised the inevitability of having to bare his soul and withdrew a number of bittersweet memories.

Harry saw how Tony DiNozzo was working undercover and was ordered to get close to and date Jeanne Benoit in order to get close to her father, a well-known arms dealer. It was clear his daughter wasn't involved in her father's business and obvious that Jeanne and Pads had fallen hard for each other. He saw how the federal agent was under orders, keeping his undercover mission secret at work while getting treated like dragon shit. He instinctively understood how that had also driven him deeper into the arms of Dr Benoit – his forbidden love.

He watched as she conned him into meeting her mother and Harry suspected part of Sirius' obvious reluctance, apart from the fact he wasn't supposed to fall for her, was that he had an abhorrence of maternal figures, thanks to that old hag, Walberga. Harry couldn't blame him! He'd never met her, thank Merlin, but having encountered her magical portrait back at the London house, 12 Grimmauld Place, Harry thoroughly detested her. She was a blight upon witches everywhere.

Harry also saw how Sirius went to the hospital to be with Jeanne on her tea-break, riding up in the lift with two very unsavoury characters, a male and a female who had turned out to be drug dealers, and had a run in with them.

He saw how they'd been smuggling in drugs inside another guy's body, who had ended up in hospital with a fractured leg. Then on the way to having his leg fixed, the drugs leaked from whatever was supposed to keep them quarantined and killed him. He watched as the drug smuggler tried to get to the dead body so he could retrieve his precious drugs and how he'd taken Jeanne and Sirius hostage in the morgue. How Jeanne had cleverly tricked the guy and Sirius, who'd been injured, had managed to shoot the smuggler and end the siege.

Leaving the pensieve, Harry looked at his godfather's back disappearing into the kitchen to make coffee. When he returned and handed the steaming mug to the younger wizard he smiled his thanks.

Steeling himself he asked, "What happened to her? She found out about your mission, didn't she? Your move with the gun was pretty telling."

DiNozzo nodded sadly and drew out a number of new memories for Harry to watch. He saw how Pads had been swept away by Jeanne just after the siege to meet her father, how Rene Benoit had insisted that he leave his car and join him in the limousine and the arms dealer had his own minder drive the cool Mustang sports car. Harry saw Rene Benoit informing him that he knew Tony's real identity and then the next thing, Tony's car blew up, killing Benoit's bodyguard. Then most painfully, he saw the confrontation when Jeanne learned who her lover really was and who her father really was.

He watched Rene desperately try to convince Pads that he wanted asylum with NCIS, wanted to get out from under the thumb of the CIA who had been controlling him for the longest time. He explained that the director of NCIS blamed him for her father who was corrupt, and had committed suicide when it all became too difficult for him. He begged Tony to protect his daughter from his enemies, claiming that the bomb in Tony's car was an attempt to kill Jeanne and a warning to Benoit not to mess with the CIA.

Then he saw Tony headed back to the Naval Yard and NCIS. Saw him in the lift when the Death Eater, Augustus Rookwood aka Trent Kort accosted him, demanding to know what he'd done with Rene Benoit who seemed to have disappeared.

Dragging his head out of the pensieve, Harry gapped at his godfather. "Rookwood?"

"That's where I first encountered him. He was Benoit's CIA handler – pretending to be his second in charge."

The young Auror looked ill. "A Death Eater in charge of an arms dealer. How wrong is that?" he gasped.

"What's even more disconcerting is that when Benoit disappeared, Kort took over his business."

Harry was outraged, stomping around as he ranted about how wrong it was and they needed to make sure there weren't any more Death Eater Korts hiding in the non-magical world as soon as they got home, before he stopped and stared at Tony.

"What happened to Benoit? Did Rookwood kill him?"

Tony shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Although the CIA probably would have snuffed him, they just didn't get a chance to kill him before someone else did. He was found floating not far from his boat. The one that he was planning on escaping from the CIA in and we figure out he was probably killed within days of my car being blown up. Jeanne accused me of killing her father but Gibbs blackmailed Kort into saying he did it under order in exchange for a favour. And the director made Jeanne admit that she didn't see me kill her dad like she claimed."

"Why did Gibbs blackmail Rookwood to take the blame? Did he believe you'd killed Benoit?" Harry asked.

"I think that he suspected that our director, Jenny Shepard killed him and he was trying to protect her. She was his probie at one point and I'm pretty sure they'd been lovers. As much as she pissed him off most of the time, he is incredibly protective of female agents on his team."

"And lab techs. Do you think she killed him, Pads?"

"Yeah, yeah I do but I couldn't prove it. She hated him, Harry. Means and motive."

"So, she blamed him for her dad killing himself?"

"No Harry, she thought that he'd murdered him. Damned revenge again. Shepard set her sights on the director's chair so she could make Benoit pay for her father's murder. I went on the undercover assignment believing I was trying to get enough evidence to arrest a dangerous arms dealer, when the truth is that it was a one-hundred-percent unauthorised op that I wouldn't have touched with a bargepole if I'd known. Plus, to add insult to injury, Rene had been a CIA's stooge for years and they didn't want anything to happen to him."

He could see the young wizard frowning. "What Cub?"

"So apart from when Jeanne accused you of killing her father, why didn't you try to fix things. You two were made for each other."

Sirius looked sad. "Oh yeah, I saw her twice after that. In November, last year and then earlier this year. She's married to another doctor and they work in third-world countries." Seeing the lack of understanding in his godson's eyes he explained, "Poor countries that don't have healers and hospitals, often because those in power are corrupt and don't care that their people are starving. Sometimes they're poor because natural disasters such as droughts leave them with no crops to trade or because wealthy countries have snapped up all their natural resources for a pittance or all of the above.

"Anyway, Jeanne's husband was taken by insurgents – bad guys - in Sudan and we helped get him out."

"You did, Pads?"

"It's a part of my job."

"But didn't you think about if her husband died, that you two could get together again? Weren't you tempted to not try too hard to save him?"

Sirius looked at him as if he had grown two heads. "No… I never did, Harry. She loved him. If he'd died she would have been shattered. He made her happy and yeah, I still love her. I'll always love her but I knew that I could never make her happy because of her father and the fact I'd lied to her about who I was. The only way to make her happy was to help her to bring her husband home. Besides, they were doing something meaningful – saving lives."

"So are you, Pads. You save lives and I'm really sorry that you lost her. That isn't fair."

Harry wondered if a part of why Sirius accepted the directorship of the DMLE was to get away from Jeanne…far away after running into her again. Looking at his godfather, he suddenly realised how hard it had been for him to open up and talk about the love of his life.

Standing up and stretching, he thought about going back home. For some reason, when he thought about returning home, he thought not of the love of his life, but the rapidly approaching departure and how much he would miss Ellie's friendship. Not that he was in love with her… he was in love with his wife. They were just friends so why should a friendship with the NCIS agent feel so real? He should be ecstatic to return home.

"What does it feel like to you to be in love, Pads?" he asked a little wistfully.

Tony shot him a glance that was full of emotions. Harry wasn't sure which ones specifically because his godfather could be very difficult to read when he chose.

Finally, he replied, cautiously. "It's hard to put into words, Cub. You think about her all the time, want her to be happy even if it makes you miserable. You want to be with her for the rest of your life. You do things to make her happy that you would never normally dream of doing… like meeting her mother, who is looking at you like you are shit because you aren't anywhere near good enough for her princess. You would die for her or you let her go, because being with you is causing her pain and you can't bear to hurt her. You think of her every day and even after the pain dims a bit, everyone who you try to go out with is just a pale imitation of her. You know that you will never find anyone to replace her. It sucks," he finished sadly.

"Why don't I feel like that about Ginny?" Harry asked, helplessly. He loved her, he did. They had a beautiful family and she was gorgeous and was a clever witch. How could he not love her? Of course he did – there were all sorts of love, wasn't there?

If that was so, why haven't you been homesick? Why haven't you asked Hermione to help Ginny Skype call you in the last month? When you did think about her it was all about her less than perfect qualities, like her jealousy. But surely Ginny's fierce possessiveness was proof positive of how much she loved him, how much they loved each other. She wouldn't be threatened if their love wasn't so special, would she?

"Did you feel jealous of Jeanne?"

"Once, when her former fiancé tried to get her back."

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure. She told him to take a hike and he disappeared."

"So, did you hate it when she worked with guys, and tell her to only work with other females?"

Pads looked at him strangely. "No Harry, why in the world would I do that?"

"Because someone might steal her away from you. Didn't you worry she might cheat on you?"

"If someone did steal her then she never really loved me in the first place. I loved her, so I trusted her, Cub. Jealousy destroys love. You can't just work or be friends with people who are the same gender, just because you're in a relationship. Apart from which, attraction can happen between people of the same gender too. What are you going to do – have no contact with other people?

"If it's real love, then you trust your partner not to cheat. But if you constantly expect to be cheated on, then you'll just drive your partner away and into someone else's arms." Sirius proffered his opinion tactfully.

Seeing Harry's frown, he asked. "What's up, are you jealous of Ginny?"

"No, she's jealous. She won't let me work with other witches. Or let me have female friends either. She'd flip if she knew that Ellie and I were mates...um I mean friends…obviously we aren't mates," he stuttered. "But then everyone says what a perfect marriage we have and how lucky I am to have her. "

The NCIS agent (for a few more days) was silent for a long time as he regarded Harry. Several times he appeared to be about to speak but then thought better of it. Eventually, he spoke – choosing his words with great care.

"You must be missing her, Cub."

Seeing the pain on his godson's face, Tony was probably expecting a tearful acknowledgement but Harry surprised him by admitting guiltily. "Hardly at all, Pads. I'm a terrible husband. Clearly I don't love her as much as she loves me."

Sirius digested that information quietly before venturing to ask, "Who tells you how perfect your marriage is Harry?"

"What?"

"You said everyone tells how lucky you are and what a perfect marriage you have."

"Oh… ah Mollie and Ginny and all Ginny's girlfriends."

"Do you feel different when you're with her?"

Harry thought that was an odd question. "Well yeah… we're good together. Happy. Ginny didn't want me to go away and leave her. I guess she was right."

"But Aurors must go away sometimes, Harry. It's part and parcel of the job." Seeing his expression, Sirius seemed to make a mental leapt. She doesn't want you to be an Auror, does she?"

Harry shook his head and the other wizard was silent for another extended period before asking cautiously. "Was Ginny your only girlfriend before you married, Harry?"

Looking like he'd been caught off balance, he stuttered and blushed. "What? No…no of course not! I had Cho Chang too."

"You went out with her? "

"Um…no…not exactly. We kissed once," he said, self-consciously.

"Did she feel the same way about you?"

"Yeah… I think so. Who knows how girls think, Pads. I still haven't figured it out, even with Lily," he stated, referring to his daughter who was named after her paternal grandmother.

"So… what happened?"

"It kinda fizzled out. And then suddenly, Cho had the hots for Cedric Diggory."

"Did Ginny know about your crush on Cho or how she felt about you?"

Harry considered the question carefully before answering. "Well she was a member of Dumbledore's Army, so maybe." He frowned at his godfather. "Why are you asking me this stuff?"

Sirius shrugged. "Just wondered if she was jealous."

"Why would she, Pads. We weren't going out then."

"Yeah but she had a massive crush on you, Harry. You must have known."

Now it was the younger wizard's turn to shrug his shoulders. "I guess. I just don't see why it's important."

"Maybe, maybe not." They were silent for a moment, but it wasn't entirely a companionable silence before he confessed hesitantly. "You know, you'll probably laugh, but all these years, I've imagined you and Hermione would get married. Did you ever get together?"

Harry went red as a tomato. "Um I thought we might once. We came close. After Ron stormed off and it was just the two of us, something changed. But then he came back and that was that. I couldn't betray my best friend with his girlfriend and I realised she was like my sister."

Sirius nodded and didn't say anything. Eventually he mused. "The only other witch that I could picture you with was Luna. After all, you were her protector, you understood what it was like to be bullied."

"If you knew that Ginny had a crush on me, how come you didn't think we'd be married?" Harry demanded.

"Because she had a crush on you, Cub but you weren't pals. With Hermione or even Luna, you were their friend and they were yours, which is a good foundation to base a long-term relationship upon. Infatuations burn out quickly. Ginny Weasley had bought into that Boy-who-lived crap, probably knew you were the last heir of the Potter house and then it was no secret that you were my heir."

"Romanticised ideas of reality, dreamt up by little girls who think they want to marry Prince Charming and live in a magnificent castle with a horde of servants to do their bidding are destined to crash and burn when exposed to the light of day. In fairy tales, the handsome prince doesn't fart in bed or have bad breath when he kisses his princess good morning when they wake up.

"He always accedes to all his princess' wishes because he adores her so much and she's always right. Her Price Charming knows exactly what she wants as presents for her birthday, anniversaries and Christmas and he'll shower her with presents at other times too, just because he loves her so much and she deserves it. He never disagrees with her and their life is absolutely perfect."

Harry's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. He didn't speak for several minutes. In the end, he decided to ignore what Sirius has said about fairy tales.

"But Ginny was different. She is just like my mum, everyone said so," he protested. "And every wizard wants to end up marrying someone just like their mother, don't they?"

Seeing the look of horror on Sirius' face before he started choking violently made Harry wonder what was wrong with his godfather. He'd heard stories about his weak lungs – was something not right with them? Should he call an ambulance or maybe he should call Ellie or Fornell and ask them?

When Sirius was finally able to speak, he chuckled weakly, holding onto his chest. Harry realised that with that thread still holding his chest together, it was probably very painful to be coughing up his lungs.

"Harry, I truly don't know who has been giving you relationship advice but you should fire them asap. Based upon your ludicrous theory, that means that Jeanne Benoit was not my soul mate… that I needed to find someone just like Walberga Black to settle down with. And trust me Cub, that would be enough to turn Sirius Orion Black to adopt life-long celibacy or at the very least, to go bat for the other team," he declared, dramatically.

Harry started choking violently too. The idea of Sirius marrying his mother or someone just like her was debauched and disgusting. No wonder Pads still looked like he wanted to spew his guts up. As he was deciding that he needed to bleach his brain to get rid of the mental image of Pads marrying his hideous mother, the younger wizard was completely blindsided by the next question.

"And who in Merlin's arse told you that Lils and Ginny were alike, Harry?" Sirius asked him sharply.

"Mollie Weasley and her cronies and Ginny and…er her friends."

"As if Mollie or Ginny knew Lily."

"But Mollie was at Howarts with my mother."

"Harry, Lils was ten years old when Mollie had Bill. She was barely out of school when she had you and was twenty-one when Voldemort killed her. Mollie and Arthur never went to school with us and she was never Lily's friend. Pandora Lovegood and your mother were good friends, along with Alice Longbottom. Plus, your parents were pretty friendly with my cousin Andi and her husband Ted because he was a first gen wizard too, and understood what your mum faced after they got married.

"So, believe me when I say that Mollie Weasley nee Prewitt didn't know squat about Lily, apart from them both being members of the Order of the Phoenix after we left school. But seeing she had you when she was nineteen, she didn't get to attend a lot of meetings after you were born."

Leaving Harry with rather a lot to ponder, his godfather stood up and went into the kitchen to start getting lunch. Harry thought he looked drained but done. Personally, he could sympathise – he felt like he had been hit by a giant bludger – repeatedly.

~o0o~

Tony was a bit bemused. That had definitely not gone like he thought it would. Harry had handled his memories of Snape, the Marauders and Lily at Hogwarts better than he'd expected. Hermione was a damned smart witch. Being able to watch his memories at least made Harry realise that Snape's memories weren't the only side to the story. He had no idea who his godson would ultimately choose to believe but right now Harry was at least considering that what Severus had shown him might not be completely true, and that was massive progress.

He knew that all of Harry's grief and guilt wasn't going to be miraculously cured by what they'd dealt with today but it was a start. He'd been a little disconcerted with how his godson had managed to railroad the proceedings way off course so that Tony had talked about Jeanne Benoit. He knew what Harry was doing though – since Tony used a similar defence mechanism to divert attention onto another topic of conversation. Still, at the end of the day, Harry had seen the memories and he couldn't unsee them now.

That said, talking about Jeanne had been incredibly painful, especially reliving it via the penseive – it had hurt. Tony wouldn't have done it for anyone but Harry. He owed him though and he'd felt that if he'd prevaricated or tried to flip him off, Harry would have known and felt that it made his account of what had happened at Hogwarts to be less credible. Still, Jeanne was in his past and he did not want to go over it again. His heart could not handle it.

Then finally, that discussion about Ginny and her jealousy. He did not see that one coming.

He was beginning to think that Hermione's reluctant suspicions about love potions were not as fanciful as it may seem at first. Harry's loosening of the bonds of affection, and Ginny's opposition to him going away could be interpreted as her not being in a position to be able to dose him regularly. He couldn't help wondering if Cho Chang, Harry's youthful dalliance might have been chemically diverted onto another wizard to clear the road for Ginny to make a move on her crush.

But the piece de resistance must surely be, filling Harry's head with rubbish about him marrying a girl like his mother. Mollie pretending to know what Lils was like was an affront that he couldn't forgive.

Thinking about how antagonistic Mollie been about him taking up a role in Harry's life after his escape from Azkaban, he'd always assumed that she didn't believe that he really was innocent of James and Lily's death and the murder of 12 non-magical humans plus Peter Pettigrew. But what if she was afraid that he might hold sway over Harry as his guardian, godfather and his heir to the House of Black, and therefore might scupper any marriage between her daughter and Harry.

Percy Weasley aka Percy the Prat obviously got his fanatical ambition from somewhere and it wasn't from Arthur. Perhaps Mollie and Percy should have been sorted into Slytherin instead of Gryffindor.

Tony figured he'd make something for them to eat. Using the extra pizza dough from a few nights ago, he quickly put together a couple of pizzas for their lunch, feeling like he could do with a reward for the last couple of hours. And Harry looked like he'd been through hell too.

Fifteen minutes later, calling his godson over to the dining table to eat, he handed him a sparkling mineral water, plate and paper napkin before sitting down. Serving them both a piece of pie which was so damned hot, he decided to spare the roof of his mouth and wait. Harry picked up his piece briefly, burning his fingers before deciding to let it cool.

"Have you given any thought to what might happen if you run into Anthony DiNozzo's English relatives, Snuffles?" Harry queried catching him by surprise.

Obviously, his godson wanted to avoid any awkward topics which was fine with him. "Oh yeah, but luckily for me, the English relatives weren't/aren't a part of Anthony's life. You know - I always have trouble with which tense to use since in a tangible way Anthony is very much a part of me. You know, I still hear his voice inside my head," he confessed.

"Anyway, the Paddingtons essentially ignored Anthony for most of his life. Apart from a summer holiday when he was seventeen when he stayed with his uncle, Clive Paddington, they've never had anything to do with him. Plus of course Anthony's cousin, Crispian who was pissed off that Clive left Anthony an inheritance."

"Why was he pissed off? His mother was a Paddington – he was family."

"Harry, you should know by now that no matter how much money people have, they always want more. Some people, and Lucius Malfoy is a great example of that, as is Anthony DiNozzo Senior, equate money with power and they crave both, no matter how much they have. And when it comes to families and inheritances, it can get really ugly – like Crispian demanding I pay back a £10,000 gift from Clive to his sister's son, Anthony to help him get through college when he was seventeen."

"If it was a gift, then how could he demand it be paid back?"

Tony chuckled. "Anthony was a stubborn, proud SOB. He never wanted to accept charity so when his uncle gave him the money to help him through college, and it was just a drop in the bucket for him (but it was a huge amount for Anthony) he insisted on giving him an IOU. He tried to give back the money to him periodically over the years, but Clive refused to accept it. I guess he knew that Senior had disowned him when the kid was twelve years old."

"Okay, so let me guess…after Clive died Crispian found the IOU. So, why'd he keep it all these years? Why didn't he just throw it away?" Harry asked.

"Dunno, maybe for sentimental reasons, like a birthday card or something. A reminder of what Anthony had achieved in spite of what he had to overcome."

Tony took a cautious bite of the pizza, before taking a larger bite of the now cooled pie, letting all the delicious flavours dance around his mouth. He knew that when he moved to London, his favourite brand of mozzarella cheese would probably not be available since he bought his at a little Italian delicatessen which sold a boutique brand of cheese. So, he was savouring every bite but still he rationalised, being able to see Harry and Teddy, (Tonks and Moony's boy) was compensation enough. He'd cope with regular mozzarella.

"Anyway," he continued, returning to the original thread of the conversation, "Bottom line, they wouldn't recognise Anthony if they fell over him in the street. The Paddingtons are the least of my concerns about returning to London, Cub," he declared, taking a second slice of pizza and placing it on Harry's late before grabbing one for himself too.

Harry nodded and then switched topics yet again. "So before, you said you accept that Snape believed he was in love with my mother but that doesn't mean he loved her. What exactly did you mean? I saw his memories, Sirius. He was thinking of her as he was dying. He loved her and he never got over her dying."

"I know he believed he loved her, Cub. But you should know better than anyone that beliefs are not truths. Your Aunt and Uncle believed that all witches and wizards are sick perverted freaks but just because they believe it with their entire being, does not make it the truth."

Sighing because he knew that this conversation was far from over, he took a deep breath and ploughed ahead, knowing this was going to be hard on them both but that it was necessary.

"Tell me Harry, did Snape ever accept that he was responsible for your mother's death? Or did he blame her dying on your father, me, Moony, Voldemort, Wormtail," Tony cynically enumerated a litany of protagonists and antagonists. "Maybe he blamed Trelawney for having the 'vision' or Dumbledore for holding her job interview in his brother's pub?

Did Severus ever accept that in becoming a Death Eater and telling Riddle about that damned prophecy, he signed James and Lily's death warrant and effectively Alice and Frank Longbottom's, too? Alice, Frank and Neville had done nothing to deserve his betrayal. And here's a question that always bothered me, he hated you and made your life a misery because he hated James and Lily shunned him but why did he single out Neville and make his existence a living hell? "

He stole a glance at Harry and witnessed first-hand the pain he was feeling – that Tony was causing. A part of him knew though that Harry was already experiencing pain and guilt; he was trying to help him come to terms with his survival. Pressing on, he hardened his heart.

"Perhaps he blamed you for being born, causing her to die protecting you? Did he blame Lily for dying because she refused to accept his friendship anymore when he called her a mudblood in anger and expected her to forgive him, like she'd done so many times in the past? Sorry but that's not real love…not in my book anyway."

There was silence, not even the sound of pizza being consumed as Harry tried to deny everything he'd believed in for the last twenty years. It was too much to let go and he protested.

"But I saw him, Pads. I watched Snape with Lily. He adored her since before they went to Hogwarts. He taught her all about magic and being a witch. He loved her! But now you tell me that it wasn't love. You see my problem - I'm confused."

"I didn't say it wasn't love, Cub. Just that it wasn't real love – healthy love. And you as an Auror should know better than anyone that just because someone remembers something that happened, it doesn't automatically mean that it's true."

Seeing Harry's puzzled look, Tony took a deep breath. "There's been a lot of research done into peoples' memories by scientists in the past decade. And a lot of it was provoked by DNA testing, witness testimony and even by questionable interrogation practices. For example, in a research project called Project Innocence, researchers discovered that of the 239 convictions overturned by DNA testing, proving beyond doubt that the accused weren't guilty, one third had been convicted based on wrong eyewitness testimony. What was even more shocking than that statistic Harry, was that they found 33% of those cases that had been overturned had rested on the testimony of TWO OR MORE mistaken eyewitnesses."

His godson looked astonished. "How can that be possible?"

"That's what helped prompt the research into memories. See we tend to think of memories as a series of facts stored pristinely in our brains. We think about our memories as if they are stored just like they are files in computers." Tony darted a look at his godson. "Okay, so maybe magicals don't but you do tend to think that if you see a memory in a pensieve, then it must be the truth. But memories aren't like data that's stored away for safe keeping and easy retrieval."

"Like socks in a sock drawer?" Harry struggled to understand the analogy.

Chuckling a bit, Tony nodded. "Sort of. Anyway, scientists who study the brain have demonstrated that when we recall an event we're actually reconstructing it, putting it together from various traces of data throughout the brain. Not retrieving the memory like a computer file." Realising that Harry was struggling with the explanation he returned to the sock draw analogy.

"Okay, so think of a memory as recalling an outfit you wore some time ago. You need to reassemble it perfectly, so you take the socks you wore out of the sock draw and the t-shirt out of the t-shirt drawer and the jeans out of your jeans drawer but you make a mistake because you were wearing black jeans, not your blue denims. And then you grabbed your blue hoodie but hang on, the problem is that you like blue hoodies so you have five blue hoodies. You grabbed the royal blue hoodie rather than the cobalt blue hoodie that you actually wore; you think its same outfit you wore but it isn't.

If you had the whole outfit stored together then it would be easy to retrieve it (unless there was a fire and the whole outfit would be destroyed) and there'd be less opportunity to make mistakes. So say we store a file on all the intel we had on a crime in little bits and pieces in a whole bunch of different files in different locations all over the Ministry. Then when we wanted it, there would be a much greater likelihood that bits of it might get lost, or destroyed, for instance, someone might spill coffee on their bit and render it unreadable."

Harry nodded, "Yeah I think I get what you're saying. So, when we look at a memory in a pensive, we're looking at the reconstituted elements of what happened which have been stored in a number of locations…like the assembled outfit, not one that was stored perfectly and in pristine condition altogether."

"Yep that's about the size of it. And even before this research, we already knew that we tend to suppress horrific memories or painful ones, especially if they aren't flattering to our self-esteem or how we see ourselves. Memory can be flexible when it suits us. We remember things that makes up feel good and which paint us in a positive light and equally tend to forget stuff that makes us look or feel bad. That's why we need to keep such detailed notes about our cases, so we don't just rely on our memory to convict someone who may be innocent," Tony finished gravely.

Harry was still looking hot and bothered and disappeared into the kitchen to clean up the lunch plates and put the kettle on. Appearing he asked, "Do you want a coffee?"

"Tea, please," Tony responded.

After rinsing the plates and stacking the dishwasher, Harry wandered out with two steaming mugs of tea and a frown.

Sighing, since Tony sensed they weren't done, he playfully bumped shoulders with the younger wizard. "What's up, Cub?"

Harry rubbed his eyes, a nervous tell that Tony had noticed when he was feeling conflicted. "I saw Severus' memories of how much in love he was with my mother but now you're telling me that memories aren't necessarily an accurate record of what happened and you show me your memories that contradict Snape's. You're saying he was a jerk not a hero and I shouldn't believe him but I should believe you."

Tony shook his head. "Absolutely not. I'm not telling you who to believe, I'm simply pointing out that his memories are different from my memories when it comes to certain elements of what happened when it comes to your mother. I'm not trying to deny that James and I were dumbass jerks to Snape when we were at Hogwarts and I almost got him killed. I'm just saying that his memories seem rather selective – I'm pointing out that my memory is that he wasn't just a victim of our bullying – that he often gave as good as he got. From where I am standing, he was determined to get Moony chucked out of school because he was jealous of him.

"And I have other memories that I didn't share with you because they were memories of things that Remus told me about Lily after she'd died and I escaped from Azkaban. But they are what's called in legal terms, hearsay, because I didn't hear them directly from Lily but indirectly via Moony. However, he was a good friend of Lily's from the day they were both sorted into Gryffindor."

Harry looked intrigued. "What did she tell him?"

Apparently, Harry had less difficulty in finding Moony's memories more reliable than Sirius'. Shrugging philosophically, he began. "When she'd left school she talked to Remus about how in hindsight, she realised that their friendship before she started at Hogwarts, helped in a way to destroy her already trouble relationship with Petunia. She said that Snape was so possessive that any time she tried to sort things out with her sister, he'd come between them, telling Lily that Petunia had been bad mouthing her and riling her up. He kept telling your mother how special she was- how special they both were and Petunia was jealous."

"Well she was special, they both were. They were magical," Harry protested.

Yes, they were magical but that didn't mean they were better than non-magicals…only different. Just like non-magical people aren't better than wizards or witches either."

"Or house elves or goblins," Harry responded slowly.

" Exactly, special different. Anyway… she realised after they became estranged, when she looked back on that time that Severus was so jealous that he really didn't want her to fix her relationship with her sister because that would mean she spent less time with him. Remus thought perhaps his jealousy was in part because he was afraid that if Lily and Petunia reconciled their differences, she wouldn't be friends with him, which wasn't true – your mother wasn't like that.

"Lily told me once that Petunia was shattered when she found out that Lily was a witch and she wasn't. She even wrote a letter to Dumbledore, begging him to let her attend Hogwarts with her sister."

Harry looked shocked. As well he might, seeing his mother and aunt's inability to resolve their differences as children impacted upon his own childhood dramatically.

"Aunt Petunia wanted to go to Hogwarts?" he blurted out, astounded.

"Yeah, so she could be part of Lily's life. For what it's worth, Cub, I've thought a lot about how wizarding society tries to isolate first gen witches and wizards from their families. Like they had to separate them off from the dumbass muggles to protect them from them. That typifies a point of view Severus espoused to Lily when she first found out she was magical – that wizards and witches were special and superior to muggles just because they can perform magic. It may have even affected how Lily related to her family on a subconscious level, exacerbating the rift between the sisters."

He flashed a glance at Harry who was thinking, a frown furrowing his brow.

"Snape completely embraced that mentality of how special he was – perhaps he was at war with his own heritage since he was part muggle too." Tony shrugged. "His specialness was something he honestly believed in all his life – not just compared to muggles but his peers too. To him, they were all dunderheads – people of low intelligence, magical or muggle alike. Riddle believed himself to be special too, just like the purebloods consider themselves special. There's a fine line between being confident in yourself, possessing healthy self-esteem and being deluded and a danger to others."

Tony stood up, stretching carefully since he still had sutures in his chest and wandered over to the sofa, sinking down into it with a sigh.

"There's no way to know if things might have different between Lily and Petunia," Harry rationalised, joining him on the sofa.

"You're right, there's no way to know if things might have different between Lily and Petunia, but according to Remus, your mother had regrets and doubts. I brought it up more to show you that even back then, Snape seemed to think he owned Lily, that he could dictate who she spent time with. A mind healer would call that obsessive love and it wasn't just Petunia that he was jealous of, either. It was Lily's whole family.

"Severus was also jealous of Lily's friendship with Remus too once she was at Hogwarts. It was one of the reasons why he was determined to get Moony expelled from Hogwarts, because he was such a good friend to your mother – she saw his gentle soul, just like she also saw the good in Snape. The trouble was that Severus didn't want to share her with anyone else."

Seeing the torment in the younger wizard's expression, he felt fresh guilt for causing him anguish before reminding himself that Harry already felt guilty. He was trying to help.

"Look, Cub, despite what you think, I'm not trying to make you pick sides, but the truth as I see it is that Snape has negatively affected your relationship with James and Lily which has already been stolen from you. You blame your parents for treating him poorly but bottom line is that they are dead because of the choices and decisions he made. Yes, your mother probably broke his heart when she refused to accept his apology, but it wasn't just about a onetime racial slur as you seemed to think. Lily forgave him time and again for his failure to stand up against the baby Death Eaters in Slytherin when they taunted and tormented her for being a first gen. "

"Okay, say I accept that. But Ron was my best friend and he did some pretty horrible things to me too," he objected. "But I still forgave him."

"Yes, you did, but you were also abused and neglected as a child. You didn't have a friend, let alone a best friend until you went to Hogwarts, nor did you know what it was like to be loved while you were living at the Dursleys. You were starved of affection, Harry, so I don't think you can use your own experiences as a yardstick in determining what normal social behaviour is. Your mother, on the other hand was no door mat. She had a normal happy family life and friends before she went off to Hogwarts so she didn't have the self-esteem issues that you did. She valued herself more highly," Tony countered, thinking of Lily who was a gentle soul yet she'd easily stood up to the Marauders. She most definitely was not a shrinking violet.

"You're saying I'm a doormat, Pads?" Harry looked shocked.

"Nope, I'm saying that as a kid you had a desperate need for friendship; that you lowered your standards and accepted crap you didn't deserve. And my qualification for making that assessment is that in hindsight, I did exactly the same thing for the last fifteen years at NCIS. Between Anthony's experiences with an abusive upbringing thanks to his two alcoholic parents and being sent to abusive boarding schools, my own charming family and twelve years of solitary confinement with only Dementors wanting to suck out my soul for company, I think I'm eminently competent to comment. My…our self-esteem, my…our need for social interaction… for a family had me accepting abuse and disrespect that I…we didn't deserve."

Harry stared at him bleakly. "Ah…okay. I don't know what to say, Sirius."

"It is what it is, Cub. Don't have to say anything," Tony replied neutrally. "We both copped a raw deal in the karma stakes – maybe now it's time for our luck to turn. And it has for me – I've got you back in my life!"

Harry approached and gave him an awkward manly hug and Tony pretended not to hear him sniffle.

"Anyhow… as I've said before, as much as Snape hurt her feelings, when he chose to join the Death Eaters it was the last straw. It was a slap in the face to their entire friendship since those murderers fervently believed that first gen witches and wizards were a threat that needed to be obliterated, yet he couldn't understand why it upset her so much. That's what destroyed their relationship; his lack of empathy for others, not just one very ugly, very hurtful mudblood comment about her from her best friend."

Harry, you might have let Ron get away with some pretty shitty crap, but you can't tell me in all honesty that if Ron had joined the Death Eaters, if he called Hermione a mudblood or he'd supported Voldemort's philosophy of pure blood supremacy and extermination of first gens and their parents that you'd have continued to be his best friends either, because I'll call you a liar!"

The Auror stared at him, gobsmacked because it was true. He'd just never thought about it like that before. It would kill him, he'd feel utterly betrayed but no, he would have ended their friendship before you could say 'Chudley Canons sucked bigtime.'

"And yes, I'm the first to admit that James and I could be jackasses. Yes, your dad hated Snape vehemently, but know this, Severus was no innocent little lamb. He gave as good as he got; seriously his tongue and his acid putdowns should have registered as a lethal weapon which he used to humiliate and belittle others. But Harry, please don't take my word for it," he entreated his godson intently.

"There are plenty of people still here who can tell you what they remember," he reasoned. "There's Minerva McGonagall, Horace Slughorn, Filius Flitwick, Pomona Sprout, Rubeus Hagrid who were all staff when we were all students, and there's all the other students who were attending Hogwarts at the time – they know what really went on. Plus, don't forget to ask the Hogwarts elves, either. People always forget that the house elves know everything that's going on in the castle."

Harry nodded; it was so true! Dobby had known what was going on in the Malfoy family, hence his frantic and somewhat painful attempts to keep him from returning to Hogwarts in his second year when the basilisk was released. Wizards and witches spoke frankly when the house elves were present because they saw them as servants, slaves or possessions.

"True…plus there's the ghosts, too."

"Yeah, especially Moaning Myrtle, she was a real busybody," Tony agreed. "I'm sure she knew your mother. So, act like the trained investigator that you are, and investigate – then make up your mind about all the memories that Snape showed you are accurate or not," Tony urged him firmly.

"Why Sirius? Why are you so gung-ho? Why does it matter that I believe Snape?"

"Because he made you believe he was a totally blameless victim, who sacrificed everything to defeat Voldemort and now you feel guilty for surviving when he didn't. You feel he deserved to be given a second shot to live instead of you because your parents wronged him. The truth is he was far from blameless, even though he blamed everyone but himself for all the bad things that went wrong in his life. Bad things happened to him, yes but he also made bad choices he wasn't prepared to accept responsibility for. He doesn't deserve you tying yourself up in knots with survivors' guilt – you've earned your life and your happiness. Harry. You were truly blameless and you absolutely, positively deserve your second chance more than anyone."

Tony paused, then raised his voice.

"You don't owe him anything!"

"You don't owe him anything!"

End Notes:

In the spirit of positivity, I wanted to continue honourable mentions to reviewers, specifically those reviewers who regularly leave feedback. I think perhaps authors tend to be badly underestimated in terms of how exposed we feel about sharing our work and opening ourselves up to negativity. In an ideal world, negative feedback shouldn't carry more weight than positive comments - but we don't live in an ideal world. Speaking from personal experience, bad comments are unfortunately very easy to take to heart – some people get upset, some people get angry. One reason why I believe that negativity is weighted to affect us disproportionately is that writing can be an incredibly solitary and isolating pastime. If you don't get positive feedback, it's very hard to be motivated to sit down and redraft chapters. You know, I once read a piece of advice from another author who stated that for every hour spent feeding the muse and writing a chapter (which is the intoxicating, addictive and creative part of writing) a writer needs to spend at a minimum eight hours on drafting, redrafting and polishing the chapter or section and that doesn't include the beta. I think it's a valid description of what I do to make it readable before I post a chapter publicly and FYI it isn't fun nor addictive – it can be a real drudge.

Writers who do exhaustive redrafts do it partly because we are anal and because we respect the people who read our stories. I've come across fics littered with typos and grammatic error that make if almost impossible to read – or so full of plot holes that I give up trying to read the story, no matter how entertaining or original the author's idea was. I've read stories where the writer gets a great idea and starts a story but then the addictiveness of starting a new story becomes too difficult to resist and they abandon the story and start another one. We all know writers who never finish anything or they get bored and throw together a lame ending just so they can start a new story. It is difficult to resist that lure. I'll admit that I've felt the pull too but I resist it because I respect the people who read my work and understand they become invested in a story and want a proper resolution.

Getting negative comments, criticism that isn't constructive or when feedback dries up, it is easy to ask yourself – 'why am I wasting my time when no one is reading this? So, for all you readers who think 'I'm not a writer, I don't have advice to give', please know that even one or two words of support DOES make a difference to us. It helps make us feel we aren't the only ones invested in the story – that we aren't alone. That motivates us, helps balance out the negative comments and the isolation and boredom of the redrafting process. It is the only recompense we get for our fan fic except for personal satisfaction. So, it seems to me that you readers actually hold enormous power in your hands – you more than anyone are in a position to fight back against bullying and negativity and help stop the exodus of authors leaving the fandom/site. Maybe even inspire someone out there to take the first scary steps and dip their toes in the water and write their own fan fic.

Below is an example of reviews that helps make me feel connected to readers. Three of my favourite readers/reviewers are Angelscatie, DS2010 who have been leaving reviews for my stories ever since I started posting here and KY111 who has for the last couple of years also left reviews for every chapter. Often, they'll chat about something that happened in the chapter, sometimes it's just a good job but it always makes a difference. They are incredibly loyal and are, in part why I have fought through the lows to continue to post here. I also know that they support other writers, too so this is my opportunity to reciprocate and say on behalf on myself and other authors, "Good job, Thanks a bunch, Guys!"

Ky111: Great chapter and I like some of Tony's ideas for cleaning up magical Briton, plus his plans for catching Malfoy with his hands in the cookie jar and I really like the twist of perhaps letting Malfoy be tried and punished by muggles. Also the icing on the cake expel him from magical society, which would be the worst punishment for him possible.

Until the next one.