Book Two: Snape's Memories

Chapter Thirty-two

The leaves of the Forbidden Forest were just starting to fall and the air was crisp with the scent of frost. A mist lay over the lake that the sun would likely burn off by when it rose, but in the predawn grey light, it gave an otherworldly character to the shoreline, the matched black and white tombs and the small monument.

Harry drew his cloak more tightly around himself against the early morning chill. He watched a snowy white owl fly from one tree to another, wondered who it belonged to.

"Hello, Mr. Potter."

Harry started, looking around. The voice was one that he felt he should have known. However, he couldn't think who it belonged to.

It was the voice of a teenage boy. Not an unpleasant voice, but, like all teenage boy's voices, it had an unfinished, unpolished sound. Harry couldn't place it, it sounded so familiar; perhaps a friend of James or Al?

"Up here." The voice came from somewhere above him.

Harry looked up to the top of the black tomb. A boy of about thirteen or fourteen lounged up there. He sat up and grinned at Harry. If it hadn't been for the black eyes and distinctive nose, Harry might not have recognized him. However, those were unmistakable.

There sat Severus Snape. But, this was not Snape the Headmaster, nor was he Snape, the Hogwart's Professor, former Death Eater and Spy for the Order of the Phoenix. This was the Severus that Harry had glimpsed in the Pensieve, walking around this very lake with Lily Evans, so many years ago. No older than Harry's own sons.

The teenager hopped off the tomb carelessly. He moved like a boy who had not yet grown into his body, all lanky awkwardness. No hint yet, of the graceful Potions Master, so deadly in a duel. He was, perhaps, tall for a fourteen year old, but much shorter than he had been (would become?). He was still able to look Harry in the eye, though.

Those eyes were not the ones Harry remembered at all.

"Snape?" Harry asked in atonishment. The boy wore Hogwart's school robes, with a Slytherin tie and badge. The robes weren't second hand, like the ones Harry had seen in his memory and, once again, he looked better groomed and better rested than in life.

The boy smiled, hesitantly, "Yeah." His black eyes were not flat or guarded. They contained merely the shyness of a boy who was rather sensitive and was unsure of his welcome.

Harry stared at him for a long moment. This was the boy his mother had befriended. This was the boy one could imagine calling "Sev" without fearing a hex.

"Why do you keep getting younger?" asked Harry, when he couldn't think of anything else to say, and the boy had started to bite his lip anxiously.

"Why do you keep getting older?" the boy countered.

The older wizard smirked a little, "Because it's better than the alternative."

"Well, there you are, then." replied the boy. He smiled impishly as if that answered everything.

Harry shook his head mentally, at the notion that Snape could ever have been 'impish'.

They stared at each other, for a long awkward moment.

Not sure what else to do, Harry began to walk along the lake. He didn't like standing in the shadow of Snape's tomb, having a conversation with the younger version of the man, "Coming?" he asked Snape, not sure if he'd follow otherwise.

The boy grinned at the invitation.

Snape trotted along beside him the same way one of his children would. Snape was much quieter than any of Harry's children, except for Tim. Like the youngest, this Snape seemed perfectly easy with silences. They must have gotten halfway around the lake before Snape spoke again.