An email response to #2 from the main PM for this fic. Someone did ask very nicely for an explanation and I was in a good mood (surprisingly), so I whipped one out. Added extra notes at the end, as part of the answer only just now occurred to me.
Okay, I’m gonna have to do this on memory since I have not re-read the story recently and have no plans to do so (no way, Control Issues is next if Sims 2 doesn’t get in the way).
Yes, this connection is not so clear cut, not in the least, but here are some factors which lead Severus to making his “leap of faith accusation”. I think of Severus in this as having a mind like a steel trap, so.... Yes, I could have done a much better job of “show” in this instance. I totally admit to that. But it’s still there for me for a “leap of faith”.
1. From memories/letter: the implication that Heru is not a pure-blood, nor a blood Slytherin. He’s been adopted somehow. Added to other factors, it is possible that Severus started making many, many comparisons between Heru and the “deceased” Harry. And the way he disassociates himself from the argument doesn’t come across right to Severus (this is me remembering, not saying it’s in the text, which would make it a fault... though I know he does make the comparison then of original!Heru to present!Heru) in terms of why he steps away. I’m not explaining myself well here, so if you think I’m full of it, feel free. :)
2. The physical similarity. Harry resembles Tom Riddle. He also resembles Salazar a lot. When his appearance does change, it’s enough to throw the average person off (and I tend to think of most wizards and witches as sheeple anyway), but Severus isn’t average. Another comparison point.
3. Harry’s diary. When Severus was reading it after Harry’s “death” he gave Heru some sort of weird look or looks. A comparison point there between Heru and Harry again. Something about the diary and Heru’s normal behavior is resonating with Severus. I can’t remember the order at the moment, but I’m pretty sure Salazar’s letter was already found, and Heru’s behavior there was hybrid!Harry/Heru, not Heru “I am Slytherin!” Slytherin. It’s almost like thinking, “Is this what Harry would have been like had nobody known that Harry was ‘The Boy Who Lived’?”
4. You can make a case for the average “person” to expect that all Slytherins are the same, they’re all evil, blah blah blah (hey, just read canon!), but we know that’s not the case here. Heru is rather a lot different from a Slytherin, and definitely Salazar. (This plays back into the whole adoption suspicion.) Heru is a hybrid Gryffindor/Slytherin. No matter what his name and supposed bloodline, he’s still winging everything, and he’s not a brain like Severus. And he makes plenty of mistakes, as you’ve seen, stuff that makes Severus go, “Eh?” (And I do make a distinction between Draco as Slytherin and Severus or Riddle as Slytherin.) Severus isn’t saying it to that point, but his mind is going, “Who is this Gryffindor in Slytherin clothing?” ...Actually, I think he does say something like that after the trial? Something about distressingly Gryffindor tendencies when it comes to Heru feeling responsible for taking out Voldemort...?
5. Mark Evans is mostly irrelevant... unless you want to hook in the orphan thing, but it wasn’t ever really intended to do more than perhaps justify in Sev’s mind that Heru = Heru. If you do, then it’s Harry’s “saving people” thing at work. Ever the Gryffindor. You could, I suppose, work on the Evans surname angle... the name was blurred out. Even though Lily Evans and Mark Evans are in no way related, it’s still a kind of sticking point. Lord knows the fandom debated that kid endlessly for a while.
6. Heru doesn’t know a lot of stuff he ought to know. That lends a lot toward Heru = Heru, but it also lends to another comparison point. Harry barely knows anything about the wizarding world of “today” because he was raised muggle.
7. Heru knows things he couldn’t possibly know unless he was haunting Hogwarts for decades. Maybe he is that good, but Severus doesn’t believe it. I don’t show or tell anything where Albus informs Severus that Heru was aware that Remus is a werewolf or that Sirius is a dog animagus, but it could have happened. A bad example, I know, but if I’d tossed it in there, it would have been blatantly obvious I was up to something, and nothing happens outside of Heru’s POV (I think except one mixup at Heru’s house where I briefly slipped into Severus for some reason).
8. That damn bathroom. History would say they didn’t have those back then, and while I can believe that wizards were better off than muggles, I don’t believe a “modern” bathroom would have existed back then. A chamber pot with a spell on it to banish the contents after use? Sure. Jugs one could fill with water via a spell? Sure. But not flush toilets and whatnot. The point being, it’s probably impossible for Salazar to have made that entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. So, original!Heru couldn’t have possibly known about it. And if he knows now, it’s because he’s been invisibly lurking at the castle for decades (again), or invisibly lurking when he got wind of the CoS incidents, or he was Harry, who had actually been there.
9. Another factoid from the story (not necessarily canon) is that the castle moves rooms around. Original!Heru would have no clue where the entrance was (and in fact, Salazar never told him). But that simply means that if stuff moves around, Heru would have had to be there (again) invisibly lurking all this time and never getting caught.
10. I think... and I can’t remember right on this... that I may have included in my decision the way Harry died, and how nobody took credit for it. And also the sheer viciousness of it.
I’m running out of steam here.
Severus wasn’t sure, I know that. He made a leap when he called Heru Harry, and it paid off (but mainly because Heru froze up rather than tried to slither his way out of it). I have to think about that after the fact, because at the time I’d made the decision and found what I thought was enough evidence. Now if only I’d written it all down so it could have gone in the damn Post Mortem... but most people are good on seeing the Heru=Heru clues, at least. My mind works funny, sorry.
So anyway. I hope that was at least some insight, but if you’re sitting there shaking your head and going, “No, not really,” that’s okay. You asked nicely, so you get a lengthy response.
Nicole (Shivani)
ETA 20 October 2008: I have to add something else here, as I am actually reading CP at the moment.
I made a joke (somewhere, I think in a rant) about how there must be a magician in the background running a translation spell or something so that Harry and the founders could all understand each other. Well, it’s just occurred to me that something like that really did have to be going on, and I’ll assign it to “Opportunity”/“Fate”.
So, when Severus is watching those suspiciously convenient memories, a part of him (aside from analyzing Heru’s reactions to some of the swill Salazar was saying) has to be thinking, “Why the hell are these people speaking modern English?”
So that’s (bizarrely convenient as it is) another reason why Severus might make the leap from Heru=Heru to Heru=Harry, for why else would the language be modern if not for someone from much closer to the present (or whatever) having gone back? And who is the perfect candidate but Harry Potter and the Potter Factor™?
...of course, then I have to wonder (five minutes after adding this extra bit) why Albus didn’t pick up on it. But oh, he’s an old man with way too many thoughts in his head. Yeah. *shakes head*