HP&THBP 1.6180339887... Chapter 1
Title: HP&THBP 1.6180339887...
Rating: T
Genre: Fan Fiction, Drama/Spiritual
Current Chapter: 1 - Harry Receives a Letter
Chapter Word Count: 2,225
Summary: Two years after the Final Battle, Harry Potter receives an unexpected and rather unwanted letter amidst his already tumultuous life. He embarks upon a new quest, this time a more deeply interpersonal one as he blazes a trail down what's left of Severus Snape's memory lane. Is he truly ready for his parents', or more accurately, Severus Snape's history?
Read the story on ff.net!
Read the story with my original, intended formatting!
HP&THBP 1.6180339887
I
Harry Receives a Letter
HARRY Potter was not quite sure what to do after he read the letter in his hands. He felt rather nauseous, in fact. He remembered a time, some eight odd years or so ago (Merlin's bollocks, had it been that long already?) when he had stood just like this - hand-scrawled letter in hand, feeling outright sick to the stomach with this warm, sloshing anticipation. However this letter was from a different Headmaster of Hogwarts than the one who had sent him his letter as an eleven-year-old boy. Very different indeed.
Harry's stomach somersaulted sickeningly.
Severus Snape had been dead for nearly two years and yet here Harry was receiving a letter from the old bat.
As if it were yesterday, he thought.
He shuddered, but decided to read the letter over again, just to make sure he had read it correctly, just to make sure it was real.
Mr. Potter,
I trust you’ve been taking care of my small amalgamation of memories (if not, in fact, coveting them like the emotional hoarder you are). In anticipation of your bottomless desire for personal history and your highly agitating talent for nosing about, I decided I’d save you the trouble of having to go through my (now former) possessions willy-nilly in search of answers...or more memories.
Thusly, I am providing you with the key to my (re, former) abode on Spinner’s End, located in Cokeworth (it’s the last one on the street, you can’t bloody miss it, even with eyesight as poor as yours probably is). I have also included the password incantation to unlock the wards still surrounding the premises (which, if your aforementioned talent got the better of you, you have already discovered. My condolences - apply liberal amounts of dittany in the event of burns.).
The remainder of the instructions await within the house itself.
~ Severus Snape
P.S. Try not to think too hard when speaking the provided incantation (gods forbid you injure that already inflated head of yours) - it should come naturally...perhaps much like riding a broom did for you (the other only real talent you possess).
Yeah. It was real all right - cryptic instructions emblazoned with chiding remarks about Harry’s character. And there was no mistaking that hard, spidery writing (to him it would always be the Prince’s writing first)"; this letter had definitely been written by Snape himself. And yet, it was indeed no less an invitation. An invitation into the private life -
And suddenly his stomach decided that it was lost somewhere on the high sea; it gave a rolling lurch and Harry doubled over over the wastebasket.
“Harry?”
Harry wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tossed the letter onto the table, and then walked over to the sink. He washed his hands as Ginny leaned against the kitchen doorway.
“Is everything alright?”
Alright? The teacher who hated me the most sent me a letter two years after I saw him die! He took a moment to scrutinize the herbs Molly had hung there that morning before answering. “Of course I’m alright. I think I’m going to go see Ron. Can you get the Floo Powder?” He dried his hands slowly, giving some rosemary a good stare-down.
He felt Ginny pause momentarily and he knew that she was eyeing the letter on the table but then she Disapparated with a smart crack and in a moment Harry could hear the distinct roar of fire in the fireplace.
He took a deep breath...
and pivoted on his foot, snatched the letter and its envelope from the kitchen table, and walked into the Weasley’s living room. Ginny was standing by the fireplace, aglow with the dancing luminescent green flames flickering within it. She looked rather grim, but he couldn’t blame her for that, not right now.
“Thanks, Ginny,” Harry said. He gave her a kiss then placed the letter securely in an inside pocket of his jacket.
Ginny’s eyes followed the letter and then returned themselves back to Harry’s. “Mum’s got dinner planned tonight,” she said. “Tell Ron for me. If, you know, get the chance to that is - or I’ll send her myself.” She flashed a mischievous, but knowing smile.
Harry loved her more than anything in that moment and chuckled in spite of the heavy pit in his stomach. “We’ll try to be here,” he said and stepped into the fireplace.
“BLOODY hell, Harry, you have to warn me or something before you just pop over like this,” complained Ron, pulling a shirt over his head as he walked into the living room from a bedroom in the back.
“I did - I used the Floo Network,” Harry mumbled.
“Is that Harry?” came the voice of Hermione from down the hall.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Harry flashed a grin. “Sorry, mate,” he said as Ron sat down on the couch. “But it was urgent.”
“It better be,” said Ron. “What is it?”
“As soon as Hermione gets in here I’ll tell you both.”
“Hermione! It’s urgent!” Ron yelled over his shoulder.
Hermione stepped into the living room, wearing a dark blue bathrobe, her brown curls frizzy and her face flushed. “Ron, of course it’s urgent, otherwise Harry wouldn’t have just popped up like this.” She turned to Harry. “Harry! It’s so good to see you!” They embraced, and Harry was glad that he had come by - the pit in his stomach was easing slightly in the presence of his dearest friends. Hermione plopped down next to Ron on the couch and Harry took a seat opposite them in a big, comfortable-looking chair.
Harry decided that it would be best to just dive right in. “You won’t believe this-”
“Oh, try us, Harry,” said Ron with a grin.
Harry chuckled. He swallowed once and pulled just the letter from inside his jacket, keeping the envelope in the pocket against his chest. He could feel the weight of the key he had yet to examine next to his thumping heart. He took a breath. “Well, I got this letter today from...well, it’s from Snape.” He held it out for them.
Hermione’s eyes lit up with such fierce intrigue Harry couldn’t help but smile. She reached out and took the letter, assuming her analytic reading position. Ron said, “Snape? But he’s dead,” and frowned.
“I know, that’s the weird thing,” said Harry, shuddering slightly at the recollection of being witness to Snape’s gruesome death. His mouth felt dry. “It’s like this letter was written yesterday or something, but I know it’s not. And I definitely know it’s really from him.”
Hermione finished reading and then passed the parchment to Ron, who skimmed it over, eyes wide.
“Is there really a way to do that?” asked Hermione breathlessly, eyes twinkling, full of wonder. “Is there really a way to leave someone another’s memories? I mean, memories will deteriorate over time and I didn’t even know that they could exist after the person passes...”
Harry thought about the vial of Snape’s memories that he still had. He could picture it clearly, stowed in the back of his sock drawer, wrapped up in his ugliest pair of socks.
He had gone back and collected the memories from the Pensieve after the Final Battle telling himself the whole way to Dumbledore’s office (he would forever call it that, even though it had been Snape’s at that time) that he only wanted the memories, even if he couldn’t view them without the Pensieve, because, in a way, they had been his mother’s memories, too.
But as time wore on, Harry couldn’t help but wonder more and more about who exactly Snape was. The memories, while they shed light on a number of mysteries about Severus Snape, had, in fact, only raised more questions in Harry’s mind. Perhaps he would even go so far as to say he still loathed the man, even after knowing the truth. What was more, often in the dead of night, Harry would remove the vial from its hiding place to just hold it and stare at it. Over time, he did begin to notice a change in its coloration and the swirling seemed to have slowed, but as far as Harry could tell, Snape’s memories were still...alive.
To answer Hermione’s question with these musings meant Harry would have to tell both Hermione and Ron that he had kept the memories and he still was not ready to give full disclosure on those memories nor was he ready to open up about his feelings surrounding the events shown to him...not to mention he didn’t want to go into his feelings about Snape the man himself. I mean, I don’t even want to explore those feelings and -
“You alright, mate?”
Harry couldn’t help but give a smile as he caught Hermione elbowing Ron. “Yeah, I mean...for the most part, yeah.”
Ron nodded, glaring at Hermione, and looked back at the parchment still in his hand. His brow furrowed.
“What?” said Harry.
Ron looked up at him. “Why would Snape wait two years after he died to send this to you?”
Before Harry could stop himself, “Because he’s just that much of a prick,” tumbled from his mouth. He averted his eyes from his friends. “Or at least he was to me,” he mumbled.
Hermione’s soothing voice met his ears in the shape of his name. He glanced at her as she leaned forward. She said, “He only acted that way - well, based on what you’ve told me -”
Now it was Ron elbowing Hermione but Harry wasn’t finding it very funny anymore. Insides now bubbling, he jumped up out of his chair and began to pace back and forth in front of them. Distantly, he heard himself fervently saying, “But that’s exactly it, Hermione! Don’t you see?! Snape spent practically his whole life working to protect me and he hated every moment of it because I was the product of the person he most despised and the only person he actually ever loved! So, of course, he never missed an opportunity to take his messed up feelings out on me!”
Ron and Hermione could only stare at him.
Harry sighed, removed his glasses, cleaned them on his shirt and then returned them to his face. “I just-” he swallowed. “I just can’t help wondering, y’know? Wondering why... I can’t help feeling-” he paused. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a whisper, “I can’t help feeling that there’s something - something more about the whole thing.” Remarkably, his insides were finally beginning to settle.
There was a beat of silence.
“Well, pardon me for being blunt, but, seems to me like the way forward is pretty clear,” Ron stated matter-of-factly.
Harry could have kicked him. Instead, he laughed, and genuinely this time. Ron stood up now and made his way next to Harry, holding Snape’s letter out to him. Harry took it wordlessly, folded it up and stowed it back inside his jacket.
“I guess I don’t really know why I came here,” Harry said lamely, feeling exactly that.
Ron grasped his shoulder, grinned, and said, “Do you need me to show you to the door?”
Harry couldn’t tell if Ron was referring to the door here or Spinner’s End - he decided it was both. He grinned back. “No, I - I think I’ve got this one.”
Ron sighed in mock relief. “That’s good - I really didn’t want to go into Snape’s house; it’s probably full of spiders.” A shudder passed over him.
This time Harry did kick him but he, Ron, and Hermione laughed; young kids together again, if just for a moment.
The fireplace was merrily crackling again, fluorescent green flames licking and dancing on the walls; Harry was preparing to step through it to Grimmauld Place for a few things before heading on to his more dismal destination.
“Oh!” he said and turned around.
“What is it?” asked Hermione.
“I nearly forgot - Ron, your mum’s got dinner planned tonight and she expects you two to be there.”
Ron groaned. “And what about you?”
“I’m not going, of course.”
“Oh, mum’s gonna be pissed at you -”
“So will Ginny -” chimed Hermione.
“Just tell them something came up,” Harry replied a little gruffly. He turned to the fireplace again but suddenly a recklessness, an inspiration seized him. Harry spun around. “Don’t!”
Ron and Hermione jumped.
“Don’t what?!”
“Don’t tell anyone what I’m doing...about Snape.”
“What should we tell them, then?” Hermione asked a little gruffly in return.
“I dunno, make something up - if family or friends ask, I’m just off on Ministry bullshit. You know how it is...tied up with one thing or another, blessing babies and stuff...but if it’s anyone from the Ministry, just tell them I’m on holiday. But don’t you dare say a word about this Snape business! To anyone!”
Hermione and Ron exchanged another look between them. Not that it was the first time, but Harry felt like they were questioning his sanity. He was beginning to doubt it himself when Ron said, “You got it, mate. But let us know if you need anything at all.”
Satisfied, Harry nodded, stepped back into the fireplace, and then barked, “Number 12 Grimmauld Place!”
Rating: T
Genre: Fan Fiction, Drama/Spiritual
Current Chapter: 1 - Harry Receives a Letter
Chapter Word Count: 2,225
Summary: Two years after the Final Battle, Harry Potter receives an unexpected and rather unwanted letter amidst his already tumultuous life. He embarks upon a new quest, this time a more deeply interpersonal one as he blazes a trail down what's left of Severus Snape's memory lane. Is he truly ready for his parents', or more accurately, Severus Snape's history?
Read the story on ff.net!
Read the story with my original, intended formatting!
HP&THBP 1.6180339887
I
Harry Receives a Letter
HARRY Potter was not quite sure what to do after he read the letter in his hands. He felt rather nauseous, in fact. He remembered a time, some eight odd years or so ago (Merlin's bollocks, had it been that long already?) when he had stood just like this - hand-scrawled letter in hand, feeling outright sick to the stomach with this warm, sloshing anticipation. However this letter was from a different Headmaster of Hogwarts than the one who had sent him his letter as an eleven-year-old boy. Very different indeed.
Harry's stomach somersaulted sickeningly.
Severus Snape had been dead for nearly two years and yet here Harry was receiving a letter from the old bat.
As if it were yesterday, he thought.
He shuddered, but decided to read the letter over again, just to make sure he had read it correctly, just to make sure it was real.
Mr. Potter,
I trust you’ve been taking care of my small amalgamation of memories (if not, in fact, coveting them like the emotional hoarder you are). In anticipation of your bottomless desire for personal history and your highly agitating talent for nosing about, I decided I’d save you the trouble of having to go through my (now former) possessions willy-nilly in search of answers...or more memories.
Thusly, I am providing you with the key to my (re, former) abode on Spinner’s End, located in Cokeworth (it’s the last one on the street, you can’t bloody miss it, even with eyesight as poor as yours probably is). I have also included the password incantation to unlock the wards still surrounding the premises (which, if your aforementioned talent got the better of you, you have already discovered. My condolences - apply liberal amounts of dittany in the event of burns.).
The remainder of the instructions await within the house itself.
~ Severus Snape
P.S. Try not to think too hard when speaking the provided incantation (gods forbid you injure that already inflated head of yours) - it should come naturally...perhaps much like riding a broom did for you (the other only real talent you possess).
Yeah. It was real all right - cryptic instructions emblazoned with chiding remarks about Harry’s character. And there was no mistaking that hard, spidery writing (to him it would always be the Prince’s writing first)"; this letter had definitely been written by Snape himself. And yet, it was indeed no less an invitation. An invitation into the private life -
And suddenly his stomach decided that it was lost somewhere on the high sea; it gave a rolling lurch and Harry doubled over over the wastebasket.
“Harry?”
Harry wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tossed the letter onto the table, and then walked over to the sink. He washed his hands as Ginny leaned against the kitchen doorway.
“Is everything alright?”
Alright? The teacher who hated me the most sent me a letter two years after I saw him die! He took a moment to scrutinize the herbs Molly had hung there that morning before answering. “Of course I’m alright. I think I’m going to go see Ron. Can you get the Floo Powder?” He dried his hands slowly, giving some rosemary a good stare-down.
He felt Ginny pause momentarily and he knew that she was eyeing the letter on the table but then she Disapparated with a smart crack and in a moment Harry could hear the distinct roar of fire in the fireplace.
He took a deep breath...
and pivoted on his foot, snatched the letter and its envelope from the kitchen table, and walked into the Weasley’s living room. Ginny was standing by the fireplace, aglow with the dancing luminescent green flames flickering within it. She looked rather grim, but he couldn’t blame her for that, not right now.
“Thanks, Ginny,” Harry said. He gave her a kiss then placed the letter securely in an inside pocket of his jacket.
Ginny’s eyes followed the letter and then returned themselves back to Harry’s. “Mum’s got dinner planned tonight,” she said. “Tell Ron for me. If, you know, get the chance to that is - or I’ll send her myself.” She flashed a mischievous, but knowing smile.
Harry loved her more than anything in that moment and chuckled in spite of the heavy pit in his stomach. “We’ll try to be here,” he said and stepped into the fireplace.
“BLOODY hell, Harry, you have to warn me or something before you just pop over like this,” complained Ron, pulling a shirt over his head as he walked into the living room from a bedroom in the back.
“I did - I used the Floo Network,” Harry mumbled.
“Is that Harry?” came the voice of Hermione from down the hall.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Harry flashed a grin. “Sorry, mate,” he said as Ron sat down on the couch. “But it was urgent.”
“It better be,” said Ron. “What is it?”
“As soon as Hermione gets in here I’ll tell you both.”
“Hermione! It’s urgent!” Ron yelled over his shoulder.
Hermione stepped into the living room, wearing a dark blue bathrobe, her brown curls frizzy and her face flushed. “Ron, of course it’s urgent, otherwise Harry wouldn’t have just popped up like this.” She turned to Harry. “Harry! It’s so good to see you!” They embraced, and Harry was glad that he had come by - the pit in his stomach was easing slightly in the presence of his dearest friends. Hermione plopped down next to Ron on the couch and Harry took a seat opposite them in a big, comfortable-looking chair.
Harry decided that it would be best to just dive right in. “You won’t believe this-”
“Oh, try us, Harry,” said Ron with a grin.
Harry chuckled. He swallowed once and pulled just the letter from inside his jacket, keeping the envelope in the pocket against his chest. He could feel the weight of the key he had yet to examine next to his thumping heart. He took a breath. “Well, I got this letter today from...well, it’s from Snape.” He held it out for them.
Hermione’s eyes lit up with such fierce intrigue Harry couldn’t help but smile. She reached out and took the letter, assuming her analytic reading position. Ron said, “Snape? But he’s dead,” and frowned.
“I know, that’s the weird thing,” said Harry, shuddering slightly at the recollection of being witness to Snape’s gruesome death. His mouth felt dry. “It’s like this letter was written yesterday or something, but I know it’s not. And I definitely know it’s really from him.”
Hermione finished reading and then passed the parchment to Ron, who skimmed it over, eyes wide.
“Is there really a way to do that?” asked Hermione breathlessly, eyes twinkling, full of wonder. “Is there really a way to leave someone another’s memories? I mean, memories will deteriorate over time and I didn’t even know that they could exist after the person passes...”
Harry thought about the vial of Snape’s memories that he still had. He could picture it clearly, stowed in the back of his sock drawer, wrapped up in his ugliest pair of socks.
He had gone back and collected the memories from the Pensieve after the Final Battle telling himself the whole way to Dumbledore’s office (he would forever call it that, even though it had been Snape’s at that time) that he only wanted the memories, even if he couldn’t view them without the Pensieve, because, in a way, they had been his mother’s memories, too.
But as time wore on, Harry couldn’t help but wonder more and more about who exactly Snape was. The memories, while they shed light on a number of mysteries about Severus Snape, had, in fact, only raised more questions in Harry’s mind. Perhaps he would even go so far as to say he still loathed the man, even after knowing the truth. What was more, often in the dead of night, Harry would remove the vial from its hiding place to just hold it and stare at it. Over time, he did begin to notice a change in its coloration and the swirling seemed to have slowed, but as far as Harry could tell, Snape’s memories were still...alive.
To answer Hermione’s question with these musings meant Harry would have to tell both Hermione and Ron that he had kept the memories and he still was not ready to give full disclosure on those memories nor was he ready to open up about his feelings surrounding the events shown to him...not to mention he didn’t want to go into his feelings about Snape the man himself. I mean, I don’t even want to explore those feelings and -
“You alright, mate?”
Harry couldn’t help but give a smile as he caught Hermione elbowing Ron. “Yeah, I mean...for the most part, yeah.”
Ron nodded, glaring at Hermione, and looked back at the parchment still in his hand. His brow furrowed.
“What?” said Harry.
Ron looked up at him. “Why would Snape wait two years after he died to send this to you?”
Before Harry could stop himself, “Because he’s just that much of a prick,” tumbled from his mouth. He averted his eyes from his friends. “Or at least he was to me,” he mumbled.
Hermione’s soothing voice met his ears in the shape of his name. He glanced at her as she leaned forward. She said, “He only acted that way - well, based on what you’ve told me -”
Now it was Ron elbowing Hermione but Harry wasn’t finding it very funny anymore. Insides now bubbling, he jumped up out of his chair and began to pace back and forth in front of them. Distantly, he heard himself fervently saying, “But that’s exactly it, Hermione! Don’t you see?! Snape spent practically his whole life working to protect me and he hated every moment of it because I was the product of the person he most despised and the only person he actually ever loved! So, of course, he never missed an opportunity to take his messed up feelings out on me!”
Ron and Hermione could only stare at him.
Harry sighed, removed his glasses, cleaned them on his shirt and then returned them to his face. “I just-” he swallowed. “I just can’t help wondering, y’know? Wondering why... I can’t help feeling-” he paused. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a whisper, “I can’t help feeling that there’s something - something more about the whole thing.” Remarkably, his insides were finally beginning to settle.
There was a beat of silence.
“Well, pardon me for being blunt, but, seems to me like the way forward is pretty clear,” Ron stated matter-of-factly.
Harry could have kicked him. Instead, he laughed, and genuinely this time. Ron stood up now and made his way next to Harry, holding Snape’s letter out to him. Harry took it wordlessly, folded it up and stowed it back inside his jacket.
“I guess I don’t really know why I came here,” Harry said lamely, feeling exactly that.
Ron grasped his shoulder, grinned, and said, “Do you need me to show you to the door?”
Harry couldn’t tell if Ron was referring to the door here or Spinner’s End - he decided it was both. He grinned back. “No, I - I think I’ve got this one.”
Ron sighed in mock relief. “That’s good - I really didn’t want to go into Snape’s house; it’s probably full of spiders.” A shudder passed over him.
This time Harry did kick him but he, Ron, and Hermione laughed; young kids together again, if just for a moment.
The fireplace was merrily crackling again, fluorescent green flames licking and dancing on the walls; Harry was preparing to step through it to Grimmauld Place for a few things before heading on to his more dismal destination.
“Oh!” he said and turned around.
“What is it?” asked Hermione.
“I nearly forgot - Ron, your mum’s got dinner planned tonight and she expects you two to be there.”
Ron groaned. “And what about you?”
“I’m not going, of course.”
“Oh, mum’s gonna be pissed at you -”
“So will Ginny -” chimed Hermione.
“Just tell them something came up,” Harry replied a little gruffly. He turned to the fireplace again but suddenly a recklessness, an inspiration seized him. Harry spun around. “Don’t!”
Ron and Hermione jumped.
“Don’t what?!”
“Don’t tell anyone what I’m doing...about Snape.”
“What should we tell them, then?” Hermione asked a little gruffly in return.
“I dunno, make something up - if family or friends ask, I’m just off on Ministry bullshit. You know how it is...tied up with one thing or another, blessing babies and stuff...but if it’s anyone from the Ministry, just tell them I’m on holiday. But don’t you dare say a word about this Snape business! To anyone!”
Hermione and Ron exchanged another look between them. Not that it was the first time, but Harry felt like they were questioning his sanity. He was beginning to doubt it himself when Ron said, “You got it, mate. But let us know if you need anything at all.”
Satisfied, Harry nodded, stepped back into the fireplace, and then barked, “Number 12 Grimmauld Place!”