Severus Snape

It was a windy autumn day. Severus Snape, soaking wet, stood in the headmaster's gloomy office, clutching a parchment. He couldn't believe his eyes. It was Lily's dying wish. Not James's (though he signed it), but Lily's.

In the event of their death, Severus Snape was appointed guardian of Harry James Potter.

"Headmaster, this is madness," Severus hissed, but his black eyes gleamed not with anger but panic. "I'm a spy, I... the entire Order hates me. I'm not fit to raise a child."

Albus Dumbledore looked at him over his half-moon glasses with an unusual gentleness.

"Lily thought differently, Severus. She believed you could protect her son from the darkness that was coming for him. And perhaps give him something you yourself never had."

Three days later, Minerva McGonagall knocked on the door of Snape's modest home in Spider's End. She held a basket wrapped in a baby blanket, from which a head of unruly black hair protruded.