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CHAPTER SEVENTY THREE:

Harry sighed as he closed the door to Remus's room behind him. They had had a very long conversation about Dumbledore, the trial, Harry's upbringing and more, but there had been one thing they hadn't touched upon, and Harry wanted to deal with it privately. He turned away from the door and met the lost gaze of his younger self, speaking quietly even though he knew the two men wouldn't wake from under the effects of a Dreamless Sleep potion.

"Let's go back to the kitchen; I have a few other memories to show you…" His younger self simply nodded and followed him into the kitchen; once they were both standing in front of the pensieve Harry sighed again.

"I'm sure you could tell, but I was as shocked as you to find out that Dumbledore had dosed Mum with a love potion… The impression I had been given growing up was that Dad had been in love with her since he first saw her on the train, and that when he finally grew up Mum agreed to date him. The thing is," he frowned slightly at his teenage self, "you haven't heard much about her yet. I only really found out more about her when Horace Slughorn became Potions Professor at Hogwarts – she had been his favorite student, you see, so he was all too happy to talk about her at length. He didn't have anything good to say about James Potter, though, and by that time I could understand that, because at the end of my fifth year I, er…" he looked sheepishly down at the pensieve. "I thought that Snape was up to no good, and one time before an Occlumency lesson I got to the classroom and he wasn't there, but his pensieve was…"

Harry sucked in a breath, and Hames looked at him with a slight grimace. "Yeah, I took a look. And it wasn't what I had expected. But let me show you," he gestured at the pensieve, but Harry frowned.

"Wouldn't it be invading his privacy if you showed me a personal memory of his?"

Hames paused in surprise. "Wow, I didn't understand that until after I saw it," he said, sounding both pleased and rueful.

Harry gave him an exasperated look. "That's because you were under spells not to trust him. Of course you looked into his pensieve."

And there was the greatest validation Harry had ever gotten for that immense breach of privacy. Of course, he thought with no little relief, Severus forgave me for it, but I wouldn't have done it in the first place had I not had spells compelling me…

"So why don't you just tell me about it instead of showing me?" Harry asked, and there was definitely a worried note behind the bravado.

"Maybe that would be better," Hames agreed, moving to sit in an armchair across the room; the one, incidentally, that he had waited in when the Order had dealt with the Death Eaters what felt like a lifetime ago. "Growing up, we were always told that we were just like our father – the perfect Gryffindor, brave, powerful, kind…" And so Harry set about taking apart the only things his younger self had known about their parents, making it painfully clear what bullies the Marauders had been, how close Lily and Severus had been growing up, how talented, intelligent and powerful both James and Lily had been, always cautioning that it seemed a lot of the Gryffindors' bullying behavior was brought about by Dumbledore.

"You already knew from when we questioned Dumbledore that there had been a strong rivalry between Severus and the Marauders," Harry said regretfully, "but they truly were more bullies than rivals. I do think most of that was because of spells, though – Remus actually gets along just fine with Severus, and Sirius I'm afraid is more than a bit stuck in the past. I think once he gets over that he'll at least be civil to the Slytherin," he gnawed his lip slightly. "But the thing is, we don't know what James Potter really was like. Maybe if we could find someone who knew him before Hogwarts, since we do know from Severus what Lily was like before going to school…" He pulled a face. "So, basically, we're left knowing that they were definitely very intelligent, since you can't fake that, and that they each loved us very much, since I doubt their echoes in the Priori Incantatem were still drugged," he smiled crookedly, an expression copied by Harry. "Other than that, we can't really know anything for sure. But I choose to believe that their pre-Hogwarts selves and the Priori Incantatem echoes were their true selves, and those are some amazing people right there."

"Yeah," Harry smiled softly. "They were pretty amazing parents…"

Hames smiled in reply, then stood. "Come; I don't think Severus will mind me showing you some memories of Lily from before Hogwarts…"

OoOoO

Severus stared blankly into the fire, a glass of brandy in his hand. He had kept himself busy first talking to others, then brewing, and only now had allowed himself to consider the events that had taken place that morning.

She didn't love him, he echoed the shocked thought that had rang through his mind at the trial. When he had learned that Lily had been dosed with a love potion. She could have been mine, had been the second thought – before he had remembered that he, too, had been under the influence of a love potion at the time. He had thought himself over the effects, but an echo of old feelings seemed to remain anyway, tied to the memories he had of that time.

Then Severus had looked at Harry, and seen how hard that information had hit the young man – for clearly he hadn't known about it. And Severus's heart had ached.

I grew up knowing that my father didn't love my mother, he had thought, but Harry grew up hearing from everyone how in love his parents were. For that to be a lie… He couldn't imagine how painful it must be for the young man. Immediately following that thought he had realized that Harry would of course tell Potter, and the teenager had only ever heard how wonderful his father was, knowing nothing of his mother, and realized that Harry would have to tell him the truth about the Marauders.

"Oh, Harry…"

As if on cue the entrance to his rooms slid open, and Harry walked into the room with a sigh.

"Severus," he said simply, and a second later the man was by his side, placing a hand on his arm and watching him with concern. Harry simply stepped forward into his arms, rising on his toes so that he could bury his face in the soft warmth of Severus's neck.

They stood that way for a long moment before Harry exhaled and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Severus's neck. "I need you," he whispered against the warm skin, pressing his body up against Severus's and sliding his hands down to untuck the taller man's shirt.

Severus hummed, placing one of his cold hands at Harry's nape and holding his lover close. "Then you shall have me," he said softly, pulling back and drawing Harry into the bedroom. Tonight would be a night of tender affirmation of what they shared – a relationship untainted by love potions and false affections.