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"Dad, what would my name have been if I was a girl?"
Harry turned, surprised. Al stood in the doorway. He hadn't had a chance to say hello to his son; he'd been working late last night when Ginny picked the boys up from the station.
"Hello, lad. How's school been?"
Albus didn't answer. His pointed face was pinched, and Harry knew something was wrong. He didn't know what it was, so he decided to answer the question. "Well, we weren't quite sure. We were going back and forth with a few names—your sister got two of them. I think we may have settled on Minerva for a middle name. Why?"
Al frowned. "Oh, I just thought it might have been Dolores. Since you ended up naming me after another horrible teacher."
Ah.
“What brought this on, Al?” Harry put down the newspaper.
Al’s eyes were angry now, narrowed behind his glasses. “Scorp and I were talking to Professor Neville, and he told us about the day you did Boggarts with Remus.”
Harry winced, the memory of seeing Snape in women’s clothes much less funny now.
“And I asked him,” Al said, clearly trying not to get too loud, “I asked him whether he would still be afraid of Snape now, and he thought about it. And he said he wouldn’t be scared, but he would want to punch him. So we kept asking questions, and…. Dad, why? Why would you name me after someone like him?”
Harry closed his eyes. “Albus, I…”
“And do not tell me he was ‘the bravest man you ever knew.’ That can’t be true.”
“You’re right,” Harry said, opening his eyes to his son’s stricken face. “It isn’t. Not anymore.”
Albus looked angry and bewildered. Harry’s heart ached. “Come and sit down, son,” he said, gesturing beside him on the sofa. “I’ll explain as best I can.”
Albus sat, arms folded across his chest, leaning away from Harry. “You said he was though,” he whispered. “You said he was brave.”
Harry sighed and leaned back. “Albus, you are eleven years old now. Eleven and eight months, right?”
Albus nodded stiffly.
“So, eleven years and eight months ago, I took your Mum to St. Mungo’s.” Harry remembered that day vividly, James wailing from teething, Teddy on a visit and stroppy, and Ginny turning pale with pain. “I waited with your brother and god-brother in the hall, and tried to stop them from screaming the place down.”
“I’ve heard this story before,” Albus interrupted.
“You haven’t heard this bit,” Harry replied. “I finally got James to sleep, and Teddy calm, and they told me I still couldn’t see your Mum.”
“Was Mum…” Albus trailed off, his face turning white. “Did I almost kill her?”
“No,” Harry said quickly. “See, you were turned around, and she had to have an operation. They were still quite new there, and with the injuries Mum had from the war, and from Quidditch…well. They didn’t need any distractions.”
“I’m sure she wanted you there.”
“I wanted to be there,” Harry whispered. It still hurt, all these years later. You can’t see your wife, who’s pregnant because of you, because she’s hurt and you’ll just make trouble. “But sometimes you’ve got to step back and let someone else take care of the people you love.”
Albus leaned against Harry, and Harry put an arm around his son’s shoulders. “What does this have to do with my question?”
“Right.” Harry snapped himself out of the memory, though not entirely. “I started realizing that even though I was worried for your Mum, I knew she would be okay. The doctors were good, and you were going to be born, and we would all go home together and be happy. And that got me through the worst of being frightened.”
“But Professor Snape…Severus Snape never had that. He was in love with my mother, and she fell in love with someone else.”
“So he was an enormous creep about it.”
Harry bit his lip. “He was. And that’s very important, Al—that wasn’t okay. However, when things were at the worst—when he thought she was in danger—he stepped up. And when he couldn’t protect her, he stepped in to protect me.”
“But he was horrible to you!”
“So were the Dursleys, lad.” Harry felt Albus flinch, and tightened his hold. “But they protected me out of fear. Snape did it out of love. And it wasn’t good love…but it was love. And that’s powerful to use for someone you hate.”
Because Severus Snape had hated him, Harry knew it. Hated him because he had James Potter’s face, with Lily Evan’s eyes taunting him with what could have been.
“And you have to remember, Albus—Snape was alone. And yes, he absolutely brought a lot of it on himself, but part of it had to do with him trying to keep his word, to do good to protect Lily’s child. And when he was somewhere scary or had to do something hard, he had nothing to go back to. Nothing to live for. The woman he loved was dead, and she wasn’t even his when she was alive. But he still fought in her name anyways.”
“And in that hospital, Albus, while I was waiting to see your Mum, that struck me as the bravest person I’d ever known.”
Albus was quiet, playing with his fingers. “What did Mum say?”
“Well, we had talked about Albus for a first name, and your Mum said I could choose the middle name. I asked her, and she asked me didn’t we want to name you after Hagrid?”
“Yeah, why not? Hagrid’s brilliant.”
“Hugo’s middle name is Rubeus.”
“….what does that have to do with anything?”
“Hagrid’s first name is Rubeus,” Harry explained, bemused.
“You’re joking, Dad.”
“I’m not. What did you think it was?”
“Hagrid!”
Harry laughed. “No, lad, it’s Rubeus. And I had to explain to your Mum at three in the morning that we couldn’t name you for him, because Aunt Hermione won the right off me in a game of chess.”
“Aunt Hermione beat you at chess?”
“One time,” Harry said. “And I’m pretty sure Ron was helping.”
Albus grinned. “I want to see that game.”
“I’ll see if Professor McGonagall will let me borrow the Pensieve,” Harry replied, smiling back at his son. “And so when I suggested Severus, your Mum said okay. But that was almost twelve years ago.”
“And what difference does that make?”
“You’re so young,” Harry mused. “I suppose you don’t really know how long twelve years can feel. Especially when you start understanding that you made a mistake.”
“The thing is Al…you’re right. Severus Snape wasn’t a very good man. He was a horrendous teacher, and Neville’s probably given you an edited version of the story. He was awful to…well, most of your aunts and uncles.”
“He was mean to you too,” Albus added. “That’s important.”
Harry shrugged. “He was never really my biggest problem. But yes, he was extremely unpleasant all around. But after the war, after I saw what he did for my mother, for me…I wanted to look past that. Heartbreak makes people do strange things sometimes, and Snape had a hard start. My father and Sirius didn’t exactly make that easier.”
“But that doesn’t excuse what he did!”
“You’re right. And that’s what’s taken me this long to realize. Snape was damaged, certainly, but I’ve known many people who were hurt terribly and didn’t take it out on innocent people. That’s the part I couldn’t reconcile, no matter how hard I tried. I tried to tell myself that oh, he hated my dad, that’s why he was mean to me, that made it okay. He didn’t have friends, how could he know how to be good…but I was wrong to think that. Wrong to ever try and argue it. He was still a teacher, still in a position of power, and he abused it, and abused his students. He didn’t have to do any of that.”
“It’s like he never grew up.”
Harry raised his eyebrows. “That’s very insightful, Al. And I suppose he didn’t, not really. People do change as they get older, at least they’re supposed to. Look at your other namesake; he changed a lot from when he was young.” Albus was only eleven, so Harry and Ginny had told him a simpler version of Dumbledore’s story, but he knew enough about Grindlewald and the story behind the ‘Greater Good’ slogan.
“But Dumbledore wasn’t totally good either.”
Harry winced. It was easy to look at a man he’d hated for ages and realize it was okay to keep doing so. It was harder to listen to his wife and his family gently try to tell him that the man he’d idolized and trusted for so long hadn’t deserved it.
“I know,” he said quietly. He did know, even if it hurt. “He shouldn’t have used me the way he did. He had no right to control my life.”
“He shouldn’t have left you with the Dursleys either.”
Harry winced, remembering a fight with Ginny once she’d learned the extent of their abuse. That old man was either oblivious or heartless, otherwise he couldn’t have left you in a house like that!
She’d apologized the next day. Harry had forgiven her, but the hurt still chafed every once in a while.
“I still don’t know what to think about Dumbledore,” Harry said quietly. “I think he deserves to be honoured, and so does Severus Snape; they did a lot of work to make sure we won the war. But I don’t think they cared as much as I thought the day I gave you their names.”
"I owed them, Albus. I had your mother, and your brother, and our whole family, and I owed that life to them. And back then that was all I could see. That it was a way to honour being alive. But now...you're right. Neither of them are worthy of having you carry their legacy. So you can change your name if you want. Pick whatever you like, I won't be angry, and I'll tell everyone that's your real name."
He watched as his son tapped his foot, deep in thought. Then, to his shock, he saw him smile.
"No, Dad. I think I'll keep it. After all, it says more about how willing to forgive you are than anything else. And that's something to be proud of."
Harry bit his lip. "Thanks Al," he whispered. He hugged his son close.
“Can I yell at them next time I’m in the Headmistress’ office?”
“…Why are you in there on a regular basis?”
“Um, right.” Albus blushed. “I’ve got detention with Professor McGonagall for the next month. Rose and Scorp and I sort of…snuck into the Prefect’s bathroom. Sorry?”
Harry slapped a hand to his forehead. "That was not an invitation to test that forgiveness, Al!"
"But you will anyways?"
"...Yes. Always. But stop getting your cousin Rose into trouble! Mione keeps Flooing me." "It's all her idea!"
Harry hid a smile. He knew Rose Minerva (alright, two games of chess) Weasley was the ringleader of that little trio, but he had no intention of letting his son know that.
“Mind you behave yourself in detention,” was all he said. “Professor McGonagall’s fair, and she might let you out early.”
“Will she do that if I yell at Dumbledore and Snape?”
“You don’t have to do that, son.”
Albus looked his father very seriously in the eye. “They hurt you, and I’m angry. And I want to tell them that they didn’t make you bad.”
Harry drew him close again, eyes blurry. “If you want to, son, you can. Mind you’re fair.”
“Of course, Dad. Just like you.”
“…Your mother doesn’t know yet, does she.”
“Erm....”
“I’ll tell her. If you come and play a game of chess with me.”
“Deal, Dad.”