An Interference of Portraits

Building Tensions

This was too much. Minerva asked too much to think I could have even a portrait of Snape in my house. I swiped violently at my tears and running nose, ashamed of my emotional outburst. I knew I'd be no better than him if I held onto our history but it was complex and still angered me that he should have treated me so badly just because my dad had the audacity to marry the girl Snape loved, even though she fell in love with my father.

'Harry,' Minerva sat down beside me, a hand resting gently on my hunched over back as I sat with my head in my hands. 'I'm sorry.... I didn't know...'

'No one knew, in the end it was just me and Albus Dumbledore who knew. I shouldn't have said anything. But you understand why this idea won't work. There's too much complex history between us. I still can't fathom my way around it all. I'm not sure I even want to.'

'But you declared Severus a hero.'

'Because he is. He did more than anyone, he hid more than anyone, his situation was more dangerous than anyone's. But that doesn't make it okay. I've had three years to unpick it all and I've come to the realisation that it doesn't turn six hellish years at his hands into something bearable. He demeaned me, he undermined my confidence, he bullied me, in front of everyone and in private, and then blamed my father. Every. Time. I am not my father. He was an adult, in a position of responsibility. No teacher should ever do that to a child that they teach. And I wasn't the only one either. People talked about his fairness but where? He openly favoured Slytherins, turned a blind eye to their misdemeanours and constantly derided anyone from Gryffindor. Why... because it was some petty vengeance on my father's dead soul?'

'He's right... about it all...' Snape's voice reached us from outside. 'For which I'm truly sorry.' His deep voice held a profound element of sorrow that stopped me in my tracks. 'It is unforgiveable behaviour.'

'I know that you had to play a part,' I said, looking through the open doors at him. 'I understand you had to appear irreproachable to Voldemort and, if anyone should be spying on you, it had to be clear that you weren't favouring me or treating me as special. That's not what I'm saying. But you could have just ignored me. Pretended I wasn't there. I don't know. Anything but that... I was just a kid who didn't understand your hatred... it was so personal because it was so wrapped up in your history with my parents... a history from before I was even born... yet all those years later you still held onto it and took it out on me. Do you remember? Do you remember telling everyone I was taking Remedial classes... or vanishing my potions just because... or sneering at me, demeaning me, mocking me... or blaming me for something or another... or trying to get me banned from Quidditch... accusing me of stealing from your stores when I hadn't... and what of your bullying of other students who weren't your precious Pureblood Slytherins... the list goes on and on...'

'Minerva, would you mind bringing me inside, please?' said Snape.

I waited. We both did. Minerva placed the portrait opposite me again and then moved away to the kitchen sink and began washing up the cups, much to Mellie's indignation. Snape and I just watched each other warily.

'You are right,' he said eventually. 'I could have played it differently. I should have played it differently. I hung onto too much of the past and made it personal and that was wrong. We all do things we regret and I deserve your anger.' He sighed heavily.

'Why did you have to hold onto it all? I mean, you act like the Marauders only lived to bully you but honestly, I can't even fathom how they had time beyond standing up when you yourself stood out as a bully. And you were a bully back then too. You weren't innocent in all this. Besides, they had enough on their plates with Remus's monthly transformations, studying, Quidditch, making maps, becoming animagi. Dad and Remus were Head Boy and a Prefect. They were training because there was a war going on. And they must have had personal lives; surviving, living, loving, being happy. I'm not naïve enough to believe they're innocent either but I cannot believe they had no other existence beyond bullying poor Severus Snape. Someone who proclaimed his innocence twenty years later but all through this, still invented lovely little dark spells and fantasised about being a Half-Blood Prince, openly hated Muggleborns and actively tried to get the Marauders expelled. And was well on the way to becoming a Death-Eater by the age of fifteen—'