A/N: One of the many joys of being self-employed is that my life is wonderfully unpredictable! I have no idea how much time I'll have to update this story, but as I love writing it, I hope I'll still keep it up. It gives me so much joy to know people read it too. Thank you all! x

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Chapter 13 - Harry and Ginny

Harry hadn't known anything that his godfather or Remus were doing over the last few days. He'd posted Remus a birthday card with a box of different teabags he'd bought in Hogsmeade but that was the last correspondence they'd had.

"He's in St Mungo's?!" He asked Sirius, who had of course popped into the fire to catch him up on recent events.

Sirius nodded. "'Fraid so. They still can't figure out what curse Snap- er, I mean the death eater, hit him with."

"Snape?!" Ron, who had joined them too, said in disbelief. "What was he doing there?!"

"Well he's a death eater isn't he?" Sirius said impatiently. "Or rather he pretends to be…"

Harry glanced quickly around for eavesdroppers but fortunately they were undisturbed. He wasn't at all sure Sirius should be telling them all this somewhere he could be so easily overheard, but his godfather didn't seem to care.

"And you think he cursed Remus?!" Harry asked, remembering the look of hatred the potions master had given his old contemporary back in the shrieking shack. He could well believe he could have.

"Well, he's saying he didn't. And as the other bloke managed to escape, I suppose we'll never know now. But I want you to be very careful, Harry." Sirius warned. "Don't go trying to take him down yourself. Just do what he tells you in those occlumency classes and… well, just keep your head down and your temper under control."

"I'm not him!" Harry said, half amused half annoyed, to the others once Sirius had gone. "I don't feel the need to insult or hex Snape every time I see him."

Although sometimes Harry had to admit he would have quite liked to.

"What a wonderful example of parental aptitude." Snape said sarcastically after forcing Harry to recall a memory in which Sirius, on discovering Harry and Ron with a bottle of stolen firewhisky, had laughed, taken a sip, and then hidden it behind his back from an approaching Remus.

"Black's basically an overgrown teenager himself and Lupin's so obsessed with him he can't see what's right in front of his hairy snout." Snape continued coldly. "Now here's what I'd have done…"

Harry let the potions master rant and complain as he trained his eyes on the various jars and phials in the man's office. There was one behind Snape's head that he was sure continued human eyeballs…

"Are you listening to me, Potter?!" Snape snapped.

"Yes." Harry lied.

"What did I just say?"

"Er, Sirius is a terrible person and so is Remus." He said, hazarding a wild guess.

"Ten points from Gryffindor." Snape said coldly. "I do not take cheek from anybody, Potter, however many liberties you may take with your idiot of a guardian at home. Now, let us try again."

The next attempt was even worse than before.

"POTTER!" Snape bellowed as Harry found himself on all fours in the office again. He was panting heavily as if he'd just run a long distance. He had of course just been to that recurring corridor again in his mind's eye.

"You're not trying hard enough!" He snapped furiously. "Get up!"

But before they could try again, salvation came in the form of (for the first time ever) Malfoy. Apparently they had found Montague. He'd been stuffed in a vanishing cabinet on one of the upper floors.

Snape turned to Harry. "Don't move." He said coldly before following Malfoy, who was casting delighted looks back at Harry (Snape had told him Harry was taking 'remedial potions'), out of the office.

Feeling angry with everyone, Harry turned back to the room. It was so unfair. He hated occlumency lessons and he hated Snape and now Malfoy was going to go and tell everyone he was taking remedial potions.

But he was distracted from his anger by something silver in the corner of the room.

Curious, he moved over to it. It was a pensieve.

Harry felt his heart beat furiously in his chest as he examined the swirling contents of the bowl. These were memories Snape didn't want Harry to see if he accidentally broke through his defences. Was this evidence that he was really working for the death eaters? That he wasn't just a spy?

Curiosity overwhelming him, he leaned over the basin. And then he felt the ground lunch. He toppled forwards and fell face first into the swirling misty vapour.

He came to in a forest clearing. There were a number of men all gathered around someone. Harry moved closer and gave an involuntary shudder, even though he knew nothing could hurt him in the memory. For he recognised the man in the middle of the circle. It was Lord Voldemort.

He was still human here, although the good looks Harry knew had possessed him in his youth were faded now. His skin was pale and stretched tight across his face. His eyes were more red than brown, and there was something almost snake-like in the way he carried himself and cast his narrowed eyes around the group.

"Mulciber." Came the cold, cruel voice, and one of the group's members moved forwards.

Harry thought he recognised the wizard as one of the death eaters who had broken out of Azkaban.

"You are here today because you have vowed to serve me. You have vowed to align yourself with my cause, and to, with my other death eaters, seek to realise a purer world. And now here is the truest test. Are you willing to join me?"

"I am willing." Came Mulciber's deep, gruff voice.

"Hold out your arm."

Mulciber did so, and Harry heard his hiss of pain as Voldemort placed his wand tip to it. Where there had been skin there was now a dark snake-like tattoo. The dark mark.

When it was done, Mulciber held up his arm and examined it. "Thank you, my Lord." He said, bowing to Voldemort before moving back amongst the others.

Voldemort turned his cruel eyes again on the group. "Next we have… Severus Snape."

Harry thought he heard one or two of those gathered jeer as Snape moved forwards.

He was young. Younger than Harry had ever seen him in reality. He looked like he could still be a teenager.

"You have demonstrated your loyalties." Voldemort hissed. "You assisted Rookwood and Travers in the torture of a muggle family and successfully cast the imperius curse on an auror. It seems your old classmates may have their doubts, but Lord Voldemort does not. Severus Snape, welcome to the death eaters."

But as Snape moved forwards to receive his own dark mark, the scene shifted.

"Half blood." A dark haired boy with a squashed looking face was sneering at a boy with equally dark, long hair by the fire in what Harry recognised as the Slytherin common room.

And Harry thought he recognised the pair as a younger version of Snape and Mucliber.

"Yes I am, and proud of it!" Snape shot back. "Eileen Prince is my mother, and I've got all my magic from her. That's all there is to it!"

"But what about your father?" Another boy, blond this time, jeered from another green velvet chair. "I heard tell he's a muggle."

Harry thought he saw a muscle twitch in Snape's jaw but he said nothing.

"Someone told me he hates magic."

"Who said that?!" Snape said, sitting up straight and staring in shock and anger at Mulciber.

"Ah, so it's true then." The boy said, a smug expression on his piggish face. "No wonder he hates you then."

"Who says he hates me?!" Snape said, a red flush now creeping across his pale cheeks.

Mulciber paused for a beat as though what he was about to say was too much even for him. "Avery saw the marks." He said quietly at last. "First day back after the holidays. Beats you up, doesn't he? That old magic-hating muggle?"

If Snape had looked flushed before it was nothing compared to how he appeared now. Of course there was no point denying the truth of Mulciber's deductions. The evidence of it was written across his panic-stricken face.

"Don't worry, we won't tell." Mucliber said, despite having just told everyone in earshot. "But don't you go acting all self-important with your invented spells and talks of joining the death eaters. You're nothing but a nasty muggle's son."

And then the scene changed again.

If Harry hadn't felt sick to his stomach from the last journey into Snape's past, it was nothing compared to how he felt watching his father and Sirius torture him by the lake.

He had wanted to yell at them to stop. To scream at Sirius to leave him alone. Hadn't he been through enough?!

Remus had told Harry his father and Sirius weren't very kind to Snape at Hogwarts, but there was a difference between hearing about it and really seeing it for yourself. This wasn't fun. This wasn't a laugh. This was cruel.

And then a horrible thought occurred to Harry. Was this why Snape had joined the death eaters? Was he so sick of the Gryffindors who had tortured him at Hogwarts and the father who'd tortured him at home that he had considered he'd had no other choice?

Of course nothing excused what he'd done and the decisions he'd made, but could this perhaps help to explain it?

He felt a firm hand grip his shoulder suddenly and he looked up to see an adult sized Snape standing beside him. He was looking more furious than Harry thought he'd ever seen him. "Having fun?" He spat and then Harry felt the ground lurch and moments later found himself back in Snape's office.

"I'm sorry!" Harry gasped as Snape billowed like a giant bullfrog. "I didn't mean to see that… I'm…" what did he want to say? How sorry he was that his father and Sirius had treated Snape the way they had?

"Get out."

Snape's voice was cold and hard as granite. His eyes flashed dangerously and he was breathing heavily.

Harry looked back at him. He wanted to explain. To apologise. To say something. Anything.

"GET OUT!" Snape bellowed. He moved over to his cabinet of jars and phials but appeared to be in such a state that his hands shook and several clattered to the ground.

Harry, deciding being alone with a very angry Snape was not a wise idea, however badly he felt for the man, turned on his heel and ran.

He felt a jar of something explode over his head as he made his way out of the office, but he didn't care.

He felt nothing but misery as he arrived back in the Gryffindor common room and ignored all Ron and Hermione's attempts to get him to talk.

How could he explain. How could they begin to understand?

He remembered what Snape had said to him at the start of the lesson. How disapproving he'd been of Sirius and Remus as guardians to Harry. And Harry remembered how he'd defended them. How lucky he had felt to be living with men like Sirius and Remus in the holidays.

But now, as he recalled Sirius' bullying (for what else had it been?) and Remus' complacency, he wondered if perhaps he had defended them too hastily. In fact, quite honestly, right now he never wanted to see them again.

After Harry had ignored three of his owls, Sirius eventually turned up in the common room fireplace one night.

"Hello stranger!" He said on seeing Harry in his customary armchair by the hearth. "Surely you've not been too busy studying for your OWLs to forget about me now, have you?!"

Harry felt sick at the sight of his godfather. He recalled the casual cruelty with which he had bullied Snape and then remembered his total lack of remorse when he, Harry had confronted him just the previous year.

"I don't want to talk to you." He said, going back to his charms essays.

"Well that's very inconvenient, since I've come all this way."

Harry knew he had in truth come all the way from the kitchen table to the kitchen fireplace, but he supposed this was just his godfather's idea of a joke.

"Sorry I don't think you're quite as wonderful as everyone you were at Hogwarts with seemed to think." Harry told him coldly.

"Huh?!"

Harry turned to his godfather. "I saw you. In Snape's pensieve. The summer of your OWLs. You and my dad… you were horrible to him!" Harry said, unable to say exactly what the two of them had done.

"Oh don't give me that, Harry. You know the greasy git's a death eater."

"Yes, I know that too!" Harry snapped. He knew Sirius would be delighted by the evidence he had gleaned about Snape's allegiance to Voldemort, but he didn't think that was really the most important point right now. "But was he a death eater when he was fifteen?!"

Sirius' grin faltered. "Well no…"

"So what's your excuse then?!" Harry shot back.

"Let's not do this here." Sirius said quietly. "I'll explain, Harry. I want to explain, but not now. Not like this."

"You think you can explain, do you?" Harry said angrily.

"I'll give it a bloody good go." Sirius promised. "Please, Harry, let me try. Next Hogsmeade weekend?"

Harry paused. He wasn't sure what Sirius could possibly say to excuse his behaviour, but he supposed he could hear him out at least. "OK." He said at last.

"Thank you."

"How's Remus?" Harry asked, because he had to know.

"No updates yet."

"OK."

"OK." Sirius said and then he smiled. "Well, bye then."

"Bye." Harry said and then he was gone.

Harry was quite sure there was nothing his godfather could say that would make him feel better about what he'd seen in Snape's pensieve. He felt utterly miserable over the next few days. It was as though someone had unmasked a hero of his, and what he'd seen underneath had been deeply disappointing.

"Oh it's not so bad, Harry." Ginny had said as he voiced some of his concerns to her one day.

The two of them had gone for a walk. They were still 'just friends' but Harry was nonetheless keen to get her alone as much as he possibly could and she seemed quite happy in his company too.

"You should hear some of the things Fred and George did to me when we were kids." She told him, sitting down by the lake so that her skirts fanned out across the grass. "When I was about three and they needed a quidditch keeper they put me in goal even though I'd never flown on a broom before! They threw quaffles at me until I fell off. I think they thought I might bounce. I didn't."

Harry had just opened his mouth to ask what Mrs Weasley had made of that, but Ginny was still speaking.

"When I was about five they shut me in the attic with the ghoul all afternoon because I told mum it was them who 'amended' Percy's Hogwarts letter. And then there was the time they heard about a rare curse from dad that causes angry ghosts who don't want to depart the world to attach themselves to you. It makes you really unwell and do things you wouldn't normally do and the twins thought it would be, er, funny I suppose, if I were possessed."

Harry could imagine that was exactly the sort of thing Fred and George would have found entertaining as small children.

"But it's OK." Ginny continued. "Dad caught them before they went too far and so nothing happened. They were just being idiots. A lot of boys are idiots. Not you though." And she smiled at him in a way that made him feel he'd just missed a step coming down the stairs.

He smiled back at her. "That's different, Ginny." He said, thinking of Sirius and his father again. "Your brothers were only kids. My dad and Sirius were my age when they did what they did to Snape."

"Well… maybe Sirius will have an explanation when you meet him in Hogsmeade." Ginny said. "It's a shame you'll be busy." She said, looking down at the blade of grass she was twisting between her fingertips. "I rather hoped…" she looked back at him, the top of her ears slightly pink. "I sort of wondered if we might go together." She was blushing furiously now.

Harry felt like his insides were suddenly dancing the conga.

Smiling, he reached out and took her hand. "I'd love that." He told her.

Harry agreed he would meet Ginny after his chat with Sirius. Harry had suggested Madam Puddifoot's. He'd swallowed his pride and gone to ask Hermione for help and she had told him it was a good place to take a date.

"Oh no thanks." Ginny had said, wrinkling her nose as he made the suggestion. "That place is so full of snogging couples it makes me nauseous. How about we take a picnic and go up by the shrieking shack?"

"It's just the shack now." Harry smiled at her. "Remus hasn't transformed in there for years."

"Well then it will be safe for us to have a look around. And it will be just the two of us." She smiled as she held his gaze and Harry thought she might just be the most wonderful thing in the world.

"Sounds great." He told her.

Harry was glad he had his date with Ginny to look forward to as his conversation with Sirius was highly frustrating.

"I don't understand how you can keep defending what you did." He said crossly as his godfather tried to fob him off with more reasons why his behaviour was justified. "Honestly if I have to hear the phrase 'greasy git' one more time… what does it even matter what he looked like?!"

"You don't get it, Harry." Sirius said impatiently. "You weren't at school with him."

"Oh, was he worse then than he is now?" Harry challenged.

"No but he was just as foul. And don't tell me you don't want to curse him from time to time… even bloody Dumbledore probably wishes he could use the bat bogey hex on him in their staff meetings."

But Harry wouldn't let Sirius put him off with jokes. "Maybe I do." He agreed. "But I wouldn't ever humiliate him the way you and my dad did. Haven't you ever felt what that's like?!"

"Er…"

"I didn't think so. Everyone loved you and my dad at school. Must've been nice." He glared at him.

"Look, Harry." Sirius said, gently now. "I agree I was an idiot at school. I wish I hadn't done some of the things I did, but I can't just erase the past."

"Do you regret it?"

"'Course I do."

Harry wasn't at all sure he believed him.

"He definitely was a death eater." He said, choosing to change the subject, at least for now, and he told Sirius what else he had seen in Snape's pensieve. He chose not to mention the scene in the Slytherin common room however.

"Foul berk." Sirius said predictably. "Once you join the dark side you never go back. What on earth has he told Dumbledore to make him so convinced he's on our side?!"

"I don't know. I was hoping you might."

Sirius shook his head. "I've tried asking him. But Dumbledore seems to think he's been sworn to secrecy. So whatever it is, Sniv-Snape doesn't want us to know."

"I'm with Sirius." Ginny said as Harry discussed his godfather with her on the way up to the shrieking shack later that afternoon. "Snape's awful. Do you know he called a girl in my year the closest thing to a troll he's ever encountered at Hogwarts?"

"Git." Harry said. "Especially as he did actually meet a real troll at Hogwarts in my first year".

"He's so foul. I don't blame Sirius for losing his temper with him."

Though to Harry's mind what Sirius had done had been a little worse than that, he decided to let it drop. He was enjoying Ginny's company too much to argue with her.

"Here we are." She smiled, taking his hand as they approached the door to the shrieking shack.

They opened the door using alohamora and entered the little kitchen and living room.

Of course Harry had been in the place Remus had transformed once a month during his school days in his third year, but the sight of the damage the werewolf had done to the place still gave him chills. How much must he have suffered without his friends there to distract him from himself?

"Are you thinking about Remus?" Ginny asked. Harry had of course told her everything.

He nodded. "Yeah. I hope he'll be alright."

"He will be." Ginny said.

The two of them moved to the little sofa, which had large chunks torn out of it.

"Sorry it's not very romantic." Harry said, gesturing the claw marks in the fabric apologetically.

"It's not your fault!" Ginny laughed. "You don't transform into a furniture-ripping monster once a month."

"Not a monster." Harry corrected her.

"Sorry. I didn't mean that."

"It's OK." Harry said, and of course it was. Ginny could do or say pretty much anything she wanted as far as he was concerned.

"Harry the werewolf." Ginny said, smiling up at him. "Sounds kind of attractive."

"Er, does it?"

"Maybe not." She reached out a hand and ran it through his hair. "I think I like you just the way you are."