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Three years ago, Harry Potter was none the wiser to the anniversary of his parents’ death on Halloween night.
Halloween was just like any other day. He’d wake up from Aunt Petunia’s incessant knocking on his cupboard door and cook breakfast for his Uncle and cousin. If he were really lucky, he’d steal a nibble or two when Aunt Petunia wasn’t breathing down his neck.
However, three years later, he was all too aware of the events that had occurred on that dreadful night. Though, within the last couple of months, he had also somehow obtained a ruthlessly protective and overbearing guardian who, in Harry’s opinion, was borderline neurotic in his care for him. Who, just yesterday, gave Malfoy detention for stirring his potion too loudly after he tried to trip Harry on the way to his seat.
Severus Snape was many things, but a lacklustre guardian was not one of them.
So, that's exactly why Harry was currently avoiding him on the morning of October 31st.
“Uhm, Harry?” Ron asked cautiously.
Harry hummed noncommittally in response while shovelling down a spoon of his cinnamon oats into his mouth.
“Is there any reason why Snape is staring daggers at you right now?”
Harry looked up and watched Ron’s gaze shift nervously between the teacher’s head table and Harry. Harry let out a long breath, practically rolling his eyes, “God, he’s so dramatic.”
“Harry, I’m serious, you’re about to turn to stone right now,” Ron whisper-shouted at him, as if Snape could somehow hear them amongst the loud noise in the Great Hall. “What the hell did you do?”
“Err… Well,” Harry scratched his head. “You know how I slept in my room in his quarters last night?” Ron nodded in response. “Well, last night he sort of brought up my parents’ death anniversary, and I sort of panicked, and told him I didn’t want to talk about it and hid in my room for the rest of the night. Then this morning, he told me he needed to talk to me, and then I sort of just ran out of his quarters before he could say anything.”
“Yeah, it was nice knowing you, mate, you’re done for,” Ron declares, leaning back and stabbing his sausage.
“How mad does he look on a scale of one to ten?” Harry asks, pointedly staring at Ron despite the daggers he could feel on the back of his head.
Ron nervously glanced at the head table and swallowed. “It’s a solid 7 on the Snape-richter scale.”
“The Snape-ter scale?” Harry added, grinning. Ron snorted so loudly that a piece of sausage came flying out of his mouth.
Hermione chose that moment to materialise beside them, “A pleasure as always, Ronald, your table manners never cease to amaze me.” She didn’t let Ron reply as she sat down next to Harry, looking at him, “And is there a reason why Snape looks like he’s about to turn you into potion ingredients?”
Harry grinned at her, “He’s on a solid 7 on the Snape-ter scale.” Hermione’s face twitched, fighting a smile, before she caught herself and narrowed her eyes at Harry.
“Is this about Halloween night?” She asked carefully.
Ron looked at Harry, baffled, “How the hell does she know that?”
Hermione scowled at Ron, “Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all do. It is rather obvious that some tension might stir up between Harry and Professor Snape on this night.”
She turned to Harry, her expression turning soft, “Is everything alright?” She asked lowly.
Harry’s throat caught at her concern. How did he get so lucky to have friends this caring and thoughtful?
“Y-yeah. No. Sort of,” He stumbled. His two best friends stared at him softly, waiting for him to go on.
“It’s just I don’t really know how I’m supposed to act about this!” Harry begins, clearly flustered. “Don’t get me wrong, obviously I’m sad. I mean, it’s always quite depressing being an orphan and all, but not just on this day. Does that make sense? I don’t know!”
Ron tried to interrupt him, glancing behind him, “Uh… Harry-” But Harry’s word vomit was on full throttle, and nothing could have stopped him.
“I just don’t know what he’s expecting from me! Am I supposed to cry? I don’t feel like crying. Is he expecting me to be all broken? I don’t think the Dursleys messed me up that badly! I’ve never had a guardian who cares as much as he does. Is he going to be weird about this? I don't know! I have no idea what to do!”
A familiar voice cleared his throat right behind him.
Harry paled, “Oh no.”
“Imagine my surprise,” the deep voice started, low and falsely pleasant. “When I asked to have a conversation with my ward,” the man paused for a moment, continuing slowly, “and he ran off whilst my back was turned.”
Harry turned around slowly and was met with the piercing black eyes of his guardian, glaring down at him. Backed into a corner, Harry nervously smiled up at the man, scratching the back of his neck.
“Uh, woops? I didn’t want to be late for breakfast.”
“You didn't want to be late to breakfast,” Snape repeated back to him.
“Yes, sir.”
“My office. Now.” He didn’t wait for a response, his cloak swirling as he turned, storming out of the hall.
Harry turned back to his friends and sat in silence with them for a long moment.
Ron cleared his throat, “So, what do you want written on your gravestone?”
“Ronald!”
— — — — — —
When Harry opened the door to Snape’s office, the man was already standing and waiting for him. Snape pulled a book from the bookshelf, and the door to his quarters creaked open.
“In,” Snape demanded, already walking inside, not waiting to see if Harry was following him.
Harry entered the familiar area, the deep, rich tones of mahogany wood and warm candlelight engulfing him.
“Sit,” Snape said, pointing to the warm brown couch placed in front of the fireplace.
Harry obeyed, despite feeling the urgent need to run from this conversation once more. He sank into his usual corner, crossing his arms on his chest, desperately trying to convey a false sense of indifference as he stared at his shoes.
Snape remained standing in front of him. There was a long stretch of silence before Snape sighed softly and crouched down to be level with Harry.
“Harry,” He spoke, a gentleness in his tone that Harry was only recently beginning to become accustomed to. Though it still made his breath catch, for no other adult figure in his life had ever been this gentle with him.
“Harry,” Snape repeated carefully. Harry remained silent, still staring at his shoes.
“Harry, look at me,” he asked softly.
When Harry still refused to listen to the man, a gentle hand on his chin nudged his face toward his eyes.
“I do not expect anything of you today,” He began. “There is no correct or incorrect way to grieve, and I do not expect you to know it. Do you understand me?”
A suspicious stinging began behind Harry’s eyes, though he viciously ignored it as he nodded his response.
“What I wished to discuss with you initially is how I could support you today. Though now I am very tempted to lecture you on the repercussions of giving me grey hairs.”
Harry winced, finally speaking up, “Sorry, sir-”
“Enough with the Sir, I have already told you to call me Severus, no? Or Snape at the very least.” Snape exhaled a slow breath. “Nonetheless, an apology is unnecessary from you.”
“Sorry, sir- Snape- I mean Severus.” Harry stumbled out, groaning as soon as he did, dragging a hand down his heated face in embarrassment.
Snape’s lip twitched upwards, a rare show of true amusement from him as he watched Harry’s antics, “Graceful as ever, Harry.”
Snape stood from his crouched position in front of Harry and sat next to him on the couch. “If anything, I must apologise for making you feel like this, it was not my intention. Though I would prefer it if you voice your concerns to me instead of running like you did,” He gave Harry a pointed look.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know,” Harry insisted. “I sort of just panicked.”
“Why? Tell me so that we can avoid this in the future.”
Harry looked away from Snape nervously, once again avoiding eye contact, “If I say something, you’re not going to think I’m a bad person?”
“Never,” Snape promised.
Harry fidgeted with a thread on his pants, collecting his thoughts before speaking. “When you think about it, I never really knew my parents, did I? I know nothing about them at all.”
“When I think about my parents, it's just a fantasy I’ve made up about them in my head, it’s not real. If I never knew them, how can I truly grieve them? It seems selfish and disrespectful to the people who actually did, who actually knew James and Lily Potter. It feels wrong.”
The thread on his pants became very interesting as silence fell between the two.
“Harry, what did I say about grief?” Snape asked, looking at Harry expectantly. Harry just shrugged in response. “No, tell me," Snape insisted, "What did I say?”
“That there’s no right or wrong way to grieve?” Harry mumbled.
“That’s correct. It is also correct that you never truly knew James or Lily Potter.”
Harry hung his head low.
“But that does not mean you do not have a right to grieve for them. You have a right to mourn over what could have been. What should have been. The loss of your parents lies more within you than anyone else on this earth. Nobody has more right than you to mourn their loss, do you understand me?”
“So it’s not wrong to long for two people I never even knew?”
“Harry, you know them in a way no one else in this world does. You know them as your parents. No one else can say that.”
Harry nodded. In a moment of calm, Harry unthinkingly leaned sideways into Snape’s shoulder on the couch beside him as he processed his words.
Harry froze, tensing, “Sorry-” he quickly went to move away from Snape, but his guardian was quicker. Snape reached around the boy’s shoulders and pulled him back, arm firmly resting around him.
Harry let out a long exhale, closing his eyes as he relaxed into the strong embrace.
Long fingers began to card through his curls on the side of his head. After what felt like hours, the steady feeling of his guardian’s hands began to lull him to sleep.
After a very close call, he tried to shake himself awake and moved to leave from the embrace, “Sorry, I’ll go-”
“You will stay right here.” Snape’s firm voice opposed, and with the state Harry was in, he had no more fight in him and leaned backwards to rest his back on the man’s chest.
“Mm-kay,” Harry mumbled and succumbed to his sleep.