It is our choices (A Harry/Severus friendship fic post DH) (Watty Awards 2011)

Chapter 11- Spots that never come off

Authors note: Thank you to everyone who has commented. Great to see some new faces! Welcome!!! Here is chapter 11. I hope you enjoy it :) Don't forget to comment and vote!

Chapter 11- 'Spots that never come off...'

Now that everyone was full, having finished eating Ginny's wonderful Christmas lunch, the children were even more eager- if that were possible- to find out more. Again, the adults resumed their seats, having only just agreed to omit a reasonable amount from their 'tale', but each of them did respect Snape's wishes and had no intention of backing down from the deal. 

"Finally!" James said when the parents entered the living room once again. "You're here! Tell us more!" 

"Okay, is everyone ready?" Harry asked looking around at the other children, each of whom nodded excitedly. 

So Harry continued telling them everything about his sixth year: Horace Slughorn, Draco's suspicious mission and Snape's appointment as the Defense against the Dark arts teacher. When Harry began to tell them about the old potions book he was using, Harry had to pause momentarily to think of what to say, knowing that he couldn't reveal who actually owned it. Eventually he told the children:  

"Slughorn gave me an old potions book to use and I noticed it had scribbles on all the pages as the previous owner had tried to improve the potions. So I followed the hand written instructions and ended up making my potions even better than Hermione's." Hermione scowled at Harry and momentarily stared at Snape as if blaming him that she was not the top of potions that year. "It became clear to me that the person who previously owned the book was intelligent and well adept at potions. I looked on the cover for a name and saw that the book belonged to the Half Blood Prince." 

"Ohhhh, did you find out who he was?" Rose asked, wanting to know who could possibly be more intelligent than her mother. 

Harry paused. "No, we never found out as there was no other evidence in the book that indicated who he could have been. But let me just say that although the Half Blood Prince was intelligent, he also seemed to have a nasty tendency towards the Dark Arts," Harry said, realizing that he could make the Half Blood Prince sound mysterious and exciting seeing as his children would never know that the man was in fact sitting right next to them. 

"Why, what else did he write?" Albus asked, looking a little worried that this Half Blood Prince person may have caused his father more problems. 

"I'll tell you a little later, because I want to talk about the private lessons I had with Dumbledore..." Harry said, wanting to side step the question until he arrived at the moment where he used Sectumsempra against Draco.  

So Harry spent an hour telling the children exactly what he saw in each of the memories Dumbledore showed him for he still remembered every detail almost perfectly. He even skipped ahead and told him that he retrieved the memory from Slughorn (without explaining exactly how he did it) and told them, finally, about Horcruxes. Harry thought the looks on the children's faces were priceless, but the expression on Snape's face was truly humorous. 

"He had six horcruxes? That's... no wonder why he was so... inhuman," Snape said quietly, talking more to himself than anyone else. 

"So that's why Dumbledore wasn't trying to kill him in the ministry and why he didn't die when the killing curse back fired!" Rose exclaimed excitedly for the facts now made better sense. 

"That's right, Rose, but now do you realise what we had to try and do?" Harry asked, trying to see how much his niece could guess at. 

"Well you'd have to find them wouldn't you?" Rose asked, realizing just how big of a task that would have been.