Chapter Text
“Magic is all about balance, my boy,” Dumbledore said, “As invincible Voldemort seems, there will always be someone to check his power. And I believe that Harry will-”
“The Potter boy cannot win the Dark Lord with raw power! What happened at the graveyard was a fluke!” Snape growled, pacing around agitatedly. “We may win small battles, but this is a war we cannot win! Now that he has his best generals like Bellatrix Lestrange at his side, what hope do we have?”
“I have my best general too,” Dumbledore said with a small smile, “You.”
Snape made a choking noise. “Excuse me?”
---
Al was five when the first irregularity occurred.
“Dad, is it true you can talk to snakes?” James asked excitedly, tugging at Harry’s hand.
Harry gave his son a pat on the head. “Do you want to see me talk to snakes?”
“Yes!” James and Al squealed in unison. James let go of Harry’s hand and ran towards the snake enclosure, his younger brother tagging along behind him as usual.
Ginny gave Harry a wearied smile, gently patting the little three year old girl who was asleep on her shoulders. “Go ahead first, I’ll join you soon,” she said. “Try not to scare the Muggles, alright?”
Harry chuckled. “I’ll try my best, dear,” he replied, before walking briskly after his overly hyper sons. He expected to see them leaning against the glass, bubbling with questions and demanding him to...
“Dad!” James voice pierced the air. “Help!”
Harry burst into the room and saw James bending over Al, who was curled into a ball in the corner, shaking desperately.
He hurriedly dove down and wrapped his arms around his son. “Al,” he whispered reassuringly, “Everything’s alright, Dad’s here.”
Al finally turned up to look at him, tears falling down his eyes silently. “I can feel it,” he choked out, a haunted look on his face, “It’s going to eat me and kill me!”
“No,” Harry said, hugging his son tighter, “Do you see the glass there? It will to protect you. I will protect you. The snake can’t hurt you.”
“No,” Al said, gripping on Harry so tightly that it started to hurt, “I can feel her sinking its fangs into my skin. Nagini.”
It was only much later on that Harry registered that Al should not have known Voldemort’s pet snake’s name.
---
“James, you know it is unacceptable to get a Troll for potions if you want to be an Auror,” Harry lectures sternly.
“Smith is useless!” James complained, rolling his eyes, “It’s not my fault he can’t recognise his own faults.”
“James,” Ginny warned, fixing him with a strict gaze, “I don’t like this attitude.”
“Seriously, though! Professor Smith is worse than Slughorn! Why did Slughorn have to retire? At least he was still nice-”
“More like favouritism,” Ginny muttered.
“-but Smith doesn’t know what he’s doing! He is the first one to bolt when someone’s potions start to boil over! When I confronted him about it, all he did was sneer at how I was overstepping my privilege as the son of the boy-who-lived...”
“Still, that’s no reason for you to write an essay insulting the professor for your exams!” Harry said exasperatedly.
“Back me up, Al!” James pleaded, turning to his brother who sat next to him silently reading a book.
Al chuckled. “From what you say, he sounds like a piece of work. James is right- he probably deserved it,” he said, before turning back to his book.
Harry groaned. “Boys,” he said, “No matter how much you hate the professor, it’s not right to turn in an essay insulting them. I agree that Zacharias is an arse-”
“Cough, coward,” Ginny interrupted.
“-but it’s not worth it to sacrifice your grades for it. Al, I’m warning you, when you go to Hogwarts in September, you’re not to follow in your brother’s footsteps-”
“Al would care too much about his grades to risk something like that,” Ginny pointed out.
“Mom,” Al whined, “You’re making me sound like some sort of nerd!”
“But you are,” James replied cheekily.
“I thought we were on the same side! Don’t make me regret backing you,” Al warned, slamming down his book in a huff.
“At least he asked you! Does no one care about my opinion?” Lily snapped, glaring at everyone.
“You’re too little!” James replied, mussing up Lily’s hair.
“I’m not!” Lily shouted shrilly, her face turning red.
Harry turned to Ginny helplessly.
“ENOUGH!” she yelled. The children fell silent. Ginny sighed. “James, stop teasing your sister. Now that you’re going to be a Third Year, I expect you to be more mature.”
James smirked. Ginny sighed again.
“Even if your professor is... not very helpful, you won’t do too bad if you memorise you work.”
“I do!” James protested defensively, “I know that Swelling Solutions have lacewing and dried-”
“Actually, Swelling Solutions only have dried nettles, bat spleens and puffer-fish eyes,” Al interrupted.
“How would you know that? You never learnt any... hm, now that I think of it, I think you’re right, actually,” James said, his eyes widening. “How did you know that?”
“I just know,” Al replied, looking slightly confused as well.
“I’m positive we don’t have any potions books at home,” Ginny said, “Where did you read it from?”
“What is the colour of the Cure for Boils?” James quizzed.
“How would I know that?” Al grumbled, turning back to his book. “It was a lucky guess, alright?”
“And here I was thinking you were a potions genius,” James teased in mock disappointment.
Ginny glared at him. “Don’t you change the topic, James Potter. I expect you to at least pass potions next year, okay?”
“Fine! Whatever!” James said huffily, storming off irritatedly.
“Teenagers,” Ginny groaned. If Al also caused all sorts of trouble after going to Hogwarts... She turned look at her other son, who was again deeply engrossed in his book quietly.
Nah, he wouldn't.
---
The Hogwarts letter. There was nothing particular about it, merely being a letter to notify First Years about their placement, yet there was some un-understood magic about it that somehow enabled it to trigger memories of lives passed. Of course, such cases were far and few between, unless one happened to be browsing a fanfiction website, so it was a total coincidence and entirely unexpected that it would have happened to our resident protagonist, one particular Albus Severus Potter.
“Go on, read it!” Lily urged, looking at the letter enviously.
Al smiled uneasily. He did not know why he felt so nervous just gripping holding onto the envelope. Wasn’t this what he waited for his whole life? Tentatively, he reached for the Hogwarts seal. As his fingers closed around the emblem, the seal started to glow.
“Dad, is this supposed to happen?” Al shouted, frightened, dropping the letter to the ground. The light grew brighter and brighter.
“No!” Harry yelled, raising his wand. This was not possible. Did the mail get intercepted? How did someone manage to curse the seal to glow? “Finite Incantatem!”
“It’s not working!” Ginny yelled, trying a counter-spell as well. The seal started to shake violently. “Incendio!”
Al looked in horror as his precious acceptance letter went up in flames, but a second later the flames vanished and the letter continued to rattle.
“Fire resistant,” Harry groaned. “It looks like something is trying to come out of it.”
“Kids, out,” Ginny ordered, a steely glint in her eye that echoed Molly Weasley and the three children quickly ducked out of the living room.
Harry approached the letter, rapidly casting detecting spells but nothing happened. He eyed the dark detector on the mantelpiece, which seemed to be lying dormant despite the trembling envelope on the floor. “I think we should open it.”
“No, Harry,” Ginny said anxiously, “It could be dangerous- for all you know, it could explode...”
“I doubt so, my spells have revealed nothing dangerous. It seems more like a Howler type of letter.”
“But why would someone do that to Al’s letter?” Ginny asked in a low voice.
“I’m not sure,” Harry said, reaching for the envelope. Strangely, the seal was tightly bound. “Diffindo!” The cutting spell slashed across the paper but the envelope still refused to open.
“I think that the seal reacted with Al’s magic,” Harry muttered. “There’s no other way. Only he can open it.”
“Harry James Potter!” Ginny yelled, “What if it’s dangerous?”
“No sign of magic tampering, and the magical signature seems to be Flitwick’s. Goblin magic usually cannot be overcome by wizards,” Harry pointed out. “As much as I hate it, I think that the letter really wants to be opened by Al, for it to react so much.”
“Harry!”
“Al, come here!” Harry yelled. Al’s head popped out in the doorway, his eyes wide. Harry beckoned him over, and Al shuffled over uneasily. “I believe it is safe. Try opening it.”
Al looked up at his father slightly reluctantly, reaching over to take the letter. The letter stopped shaking.
“Go on, open it,” Harry said, putting a reassuring hand on Al’s shoulder while keeping his wand hand trained on the paper.
Al broke the seal.
There was a flash of light and he passed out.
---
“I told you!” Ginny screamed. “It wasn’t safe!”
“The healer said that Al’s fine,” Harry replied weakly, “Besides, there was nothing out of order with the letter.”
“Harry James Potter, do you always have to be so reckless? What if there was something wrong with it? And even if it was safe, tell me, why is my son unconscious now?”
“I don’t know! Maybe it was shock or something. He must’ve got a huge scare.”
“Oh really? Then what explains that flash of light?”
Al groaned softly and opened his eyes slowly. He stared up at the ceiling. St Mungo’s. Why was he here?
He closed his eyes again. Right. The letter. The light. Fainting. Then suddenly darkness. Then...
Rounding on his best friend, the beautiful green-eyed redhead. “-thought we were supposed be friends? Best friends?”
“We are, Sev, but...”
The scene changed, and he was in the middle of a field, hung upside down, his best friend standing in front of him. He opened his mouth, but the only sound he could hear was one word, resounding, echoing, running away...
“-Mudblood-”
Lightning. Thunder. His wand lying lifelessly on the ground out of reach. He did not care. Nothing mattered anymore. His life was over.
“Keep her- them- safe. Please.”
“And what will you give me in return, Severus?”
“Anything.”
Darkness. Hazily seeing that man, now the only one who ever believed in him in this world in front of him, pleading, and he held the wand, knowing what was going to come...
“Severus... please...”
“Avada Kedavra.”
Green. Those same tormented green eyes, swallowed by grief and despair. But the boy was lucky. His rage and horror had and outlet for him to scream and shout, to place the blame on someone else, to be filled with righteous fury... It was nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the monster tearing apart in his own chest, hidden behind walls of ice and a deadened heart, to lose the one person dear to him all over again, at his own hand... Staring at his own fingers, his own wand, which had shot out that horrible spell, choking on his own breaths which said the painful words...
“DON’T CALL ME COWARD!”
Standing in the darkness, looking at the doe which represented everything to him, which was yet so incongruent with him...
“After all this time?”
“Always.”
Severus Snape.
His name was Severus Snape.
Al opened his eyes and saw Harry Potter's bright green eyes staring back at him.
“Damn.”