8.

You're welcome would have been a terribly pathetic answer. Harry racked his brain for something better, something *meaningful*. What a perfect moment to wind up with a blank mind. I had to was maybe closest to the truth, and yet, it wasn't, because he didn't *have* to, didn't he? No one put a wand to his head and told him he had to name his second son after the two men he'd loved and feared most. He hadn't made a promise, and very few people knew, actually.

He remembered telling Ginny, very hesitantly, about his idea, and what did she think, only if she was okay with it, of course, and if she wasn't, he would understand, babbling away, almost hoping she would be against it. Maybe she'd think that it was a heavy and ungainly name for such a little boy, or that it had too much history, better not to think of it anymore... But Ginny just looked at him with those fiery, diamond eyes of hers, and smiled. "I think that's a wonderful idea, Harry. Wonderful."

Ron seemed surprised, but then nodded thoughtfully: "Seems kind of fitting", was all he said. And Hermione had stared at him for about ten seconds and then thrown her arms around him and almost crushed his lungs in a fierce embrace, whispering into his ear "I am so proud of you!".

Harry himself didn't feel very proud. He felt like a fraud. He wasn't naming his son after Snape as an homage, or even as an attempt to make up for past mistakes. No, his reason was fear. A superstitious fear that he couldn't control, of something, some black poison, coming back to haunt him and his family, this new life he had built for himself and that he'd give his life to protect. The name was a talisman. And telling Snape about it was like giving it back, or taking away its protective powers.

He was afraid again, he could feel the poison clouding his veins already. He was alone, no family, no friends to help him, confronted with his deepest fears. The one place he'd thought he'd never be again. And just like he'd learned to do when he was nothing but a boy, he did what he did best: let go of all thought, of all preconception, and take a leap of faith.

"Don't thank me. I didn't want to do it."

"Then why did you?"

"Because- I don't really know. I felt like I had to. Like something terrible would happen if I didn't. To my family. To my son."

"That's superstitious gibberish. It's just a name, Potter." Snape was trying to regain his composure.

"No. It's more than a name, and you know it. I don't think you realize how much I still feared you, how much I-" He stopped. Just one more word and he would have gone too far.

"Hated me? How much you hated me, is that what you wanted to say?"

Harry took a deep breath. "Yes."

"And you still do?"

"I - no. No, I don't."

Snape looked away, somewhere beyond the dark frame of his picture. Harry wondered what he saw there. Did he have a whole life there, shared with others who had passed to the other side of the veil? Was his mother there, his father? Sirius? Were Remus and Tonks watching over Teddy still?

"Then we're even." Snape was looking at him again, and for the first time in all the years he had known him, the mask of bitterness seemed to have been lifted off his face. What was left was an infinitely tired man, tired of pain, the pain he had inflicted, and the pain he had seen inflicted on others and been unable to prevent.

"I have hated you too, and for too long. I suppose - I knew it was wrong to hate an innocent child, but I couldn't help it. After all, it was you who had torn Lily away from me."

"Me? But - she fell in love with my father... married him. Even before that, what I saw..." Harry was conscious of speaking and acting like a boy again, but he wasn't ashamed. Somehow it felt appropriate. All this had happened when he was a boy; he had carried that boy inside him all his life; and after today, that boy would be no more.

"What you saw in the memories I gave you? Yes, that. It is true, we- she had turned away from me long before she married. But, you see, that doesn't mean I accepted it. Lily - your mother, Harry, was all I ever had. Literally." In spite of the painful memories he was conjuring, there was now a sweetness on Snape's face, around his eyes and his mouth, that Harry would never have believed possible. Then, of course, he was speaking to a dead man, so *possible* didn't really seem to be an issue anymore.

"As impossible as it may seem to you, I had managed to convince myself - or at least part of myself, however that may be - that she would come back to me. Oh, not as a wife, or a lover, I never thought as far as that. It was enough for me that she should talk to me, that I should have a place in her life that belonged only to me... " His voice broke for a moment but he recovered quickly. "Even when we were no longer friends, even when she became involved with - your father, and eventually married him, I believed that one day, somehow, she would just - be there again. Hold out her hand again and say 'come on, Sev, let's not be cross anymore'."

Snape turned his face away, and in that moment Harry wanted nothing more than to step through the frame, stand in front of the man he had feared and hated for so long, and do exactly that: hold out his hand to him, and assure him, from the bottom of his heart, that no one was cross anymore, that all was past, forgotten, erased... If only that had been possible.

"How an adult and otherwise uncommonly sharp and intelligent man could hold fast to such notions, I don't know. I suppose everyone needs illusions. That fact is that when I heard she was with child, my last hopes, unreasonable as they were, died."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe I just needed a reason, an outward sign. I thought that now that she was pregnant, all memory of me, if she even retained it, would vanish." He took a deep breath and went on. "That is when I started hating you, and for that I owe you an apology, Harry Potter."

On any other day, hearing these words would have seemed outrageous and downright impossible to Harry, a sure sign that he was delusional, or that the world was coming to an end. Today, he took it in his stride.

"She would have, you know?"

"Who would have what?"

"My mother. She would have come to you. At the slightest sign that you had changed, even after... after everything. She didn't give up on people."

Snape was mute, the expression on his face stricken. Harry could almost see the conflict taking place inside him: could he let hope in? Could he give himself permission to believe in the only redemption that mattered to him - the forgiveness of the only human being he had ever loved? Or would he choose mistrust and sheer misanthropy again? After all, mistrust and misanthropy had served him well for so long, they were comfortable, trusted companions, and how much could a dead man change, anyway?

As sure as he'd known he had to go and speak to Snape's portrait after his conversation with Al, Harry knew now that is was the moment to leave. What had to be said, had been said. Severus Snape's struggles were not his to witness.

"Professor..."

"Yes?" Snape seemed to emerge from a dream, his voice was far away.

"I have to leave now. I - " What did one say after a conversation like this? It was nice talking to you? Let's do it again sometime?

"Yes, yes. All right. Erm, don't let me keep you Potter. I'm sure you'll want to... go back to your... well, family. All that."

Harry repressed a smile. Yes, that was exactly what he wanted to get back to. He nodded to Snape, who was already turning away, about to step through the frame to wherever he was when he was not in his picture, and started to walk out of the room. Snape's voice called him back.

"Potter?"

"Yes, Professor?"

"Your son..."

"Yes?

"Will you... well, I... should like to meet him. I wonder if you could... only if he's willing, of course..." Clearly, Snape was not used to asking favors.

"Of course. I'll tell him, and I'm sure he will be very happy to come and see you."

"Allow me to doubt that", Snape sneered.

"You don't know Al, Professor. He will come, and he will be happy."

Snape opened his mouth, then shut it again. After a short pause, he said:

"He must be an unusual boy."

"Oh, yes. Yes he his."

"Well, then - I shall... look forward to his visit."

Without another word of acknowledgement or goodbye, he took a step a vanished out of sight. Harry was left standing alone, with a smile on his face and a lightness in his heart he hadn't felt in quite a long time.

On his way home, he thought about family. All that.