A/N: Hello, everybody. Long time/no fic. The last two years I've had an awful case of Writer's Block, but I'm back (sort of) and hope it doesn't happen again.

I come to you all with a new fic, as you can most probably gather.

This fic features Sirius paired with a female Severus Snape (and how she may or may not differ from Canon Severus. For the purpose of this fic the two had a son in their youth, hence the presence of such a character appearing in this chapter. More on the history later.)

Chapter One: The First Meeting

A large man, with an equally-large moustache proportionate to his stature, all but dragged his family through the hotel door. Somehow he had to put a stop to all those letters that kept popping up in the toaster or every single egg that his wife had bought. In comparison to the sheer quantity that were consistently flying through the letterbox, however, the former was nothing.

"Gotta shake 'em off," he mumbled, with a shudder. "Gotta shake 'em off."

Petunia Dursley had never seen her husband so nervous in all her days. It was true that both she and her husband knew exactly what was going on; why all those letters were being sent in the first place, but they simply couldn't let such a thing happen. No, the boy could not be allowed to attend.

She recalled all those years ago when only one of those letters came in the post for her younger sister, Lily. It had been a letter inviting Lily to attend a school for witches and wizards, which the younger girl had been only too happy to attend and frequently returned home during the holidays with 'magic tricks,' as Petunia called them, wherein she would turn one thing into something else, or cause all laws of gravity to fail by lifting something high into the air without physically laying a hand on it and gently returning it to its original place.

Petunia had so wished to attend that school herself and even wrote a letter to the Headmaster requesting a place. Alas, she wasn't gifted with the art of magic like her sister was, which had only caused her resentment to grow.

Petunia had called Lily a 'freak,' though considering who her sister was friends with Lily herself paled in comparison when tarred with that particular insult.

Lily had met her best friend when she was nine years old, but Petunia resented the very ground she walked on. She was almost too weird for words. She didn't exactly look normal, in Petunia's mind. She was short with greasy black hair which hung limply to her waist, a complexion so pale she might almost have passed for a ghost, an incredibly plain (even ugly, in Petunia's view) face and clothes that looked 'positively awful.'

When Petunia didn't like something she would often dismiss it as 'positively awful.'

In fact, that girl herself was 'positively awful.' She changed Lily for the worse; even got her killed. If Lily had never befriended that rotten Dinah Snape then she'd still be alive and she almost certainly would never have attended that 'freak school.'

Breaking herself from her thoughts, Petunia focused on the main desk where a bellboy had just appeared to take their suitcases, which had been carried by a scrawny little boy with black hair and glasses from the car to the reception desk, to their rooms.

The 'scrawny little boy' was, in fact, Petunia's nephew. Yes, her sister had a son, only one month younger than her own, but Petunia loathed him just as much as she did magic, the headmaster of the magic school, the Snape girl and even her own sister.

As the family turned to follow the bellboy, her own son for once refraining from tormenting his cousin, though still complaining about having missed all his favourite television shows, Petunia's eyes fell on the one person she never expected to see and, quite frankly, never had any desire to see.

There, just entering the double doors leading through to the very modest hotel lounge, was the one and only ghostly Dinah Snape.

Petunia, not noticing the teenaged boy beside the woman, almost collapsed of shock at the mere sight of her. She fought for words but could only gasp.

It appeared as though the woman in question sensed Petunia's discomfort as she slowly turned around and looked her in the eye. Her own black eyes penetrated Petunia's blue and the latter was frozen with fear.

Dinah often had that effect. It didn't matter if you were man, woman or child, Dinah Snape, despite not looking particularly intimidating in general (at least not physically) could be likened to Medusa; freezing a person to the spot at the very sight of her.

The woman's dark eyes then focused on Petunia's family. Both her husband and her son were exceedingly large, she noted, before considering the small boy who stood off to the side appearing as though he wasn't part of the family at all.

Her expression softened slightly at the sight of the small boy with the glasses. Her eyes were rather intrigued by his mere presence.

The boy himself could feel her eyes on him, as he nervously shuffled his feet on the spot where he stood.

By this time, Petunia, it seemed, had found her voice, as she stammered a bit while announcing the woman "S-S-Snape…" In spite of losing the intimidation factor by fumbling over her words, her voice was nonetheless filled with hatred for the woman who stood before her.

Two sets of eyes fell on Petunia; one black, one grey. The grey belonged to Dinah's son, though the resemblance between the two was somewhat dissimilar.

The boy didn't look much like her at all. He was considerably taller than his mother, his thick hair curly rather than straight and his light eyes held a certain sparkle to them, a sparkle hers lacked.

"Petunia Evans, as I live and breathe," the dark-haired woman said, in a soft, low voice.

"Oh, you know her then?" The optimistic voice belonged to Dinah's son.

After a short pause, his mother responded. "Unfortunately." There was an undeniable tone of displeasure when speaking of, or to, this woman before her.

The small boy who hadn't moved from his spot near the reception desk studied the 'Snape' woman.

She had anything but a kind face, he noted, and wondered if she'd always been that way or if something had happened in her past. There were things that could change a person and Harry himself had often pondered how different he might have been had one or both of his parents survived; did his relatives change him?

"Dad, I want a room with a television!" This came from the large boy, who looked to be the same age as his cousin, though it was evident he was considerably more immature than the quiet boy who stood off to the side.

"Be quiet and hurry up," was the impatient demand from the boy's father as he stalked through the hallway door after the bellboy, knocking over a potted plant on his way. Still annoyed by the lack of visual amusement (having not watched television for six hours) the boy bounded after his father, his feet pounding en route.

Petunia followed, though not before sneering at the woman in her presence and turning her nose up, leaving only the boy with the black hair and green eyes in the foyer.

The boy was reluctant to follow and continued to focus his attention on the duo standing before him; the plain black-haired woman and the contented curly-haired teenager.

He saw something in the woman's eyes. Recognition? It was almost as if he'd encountered those eyes before. Perhaps he once dreamt of having seen them, though if he had they hadn't been quite so cold as they were now. For all he could recall they may have been fraught with emotion; pain, something of a strange speculation considering the hard-faced woman who currently stood before him.

"Harry!" the irritable female voice called to him from halfway down the corridor.

"Coming, Aunt Petunia," Harry called back, as he moved to follow his family to the room, his eyes never once leaving those of 'Snape,' as she had been announced by his relative.

Just the same, Dinah's eyes never left Harry's.

The remaining boy turned to his mother. "You know him as well?" he asked, inquisitively. For a teenage boy he was unusually observant, as he had witnessed the exchange in eye contact between the two.

She never responded to that, merely turned with sorrowful eyes, a far cry from what that family had just witnessed, and continued her journey into the lounge.