A mild breeze entered the room, passed through the bed’s satin curtains and gently touched the man’s face. His eyelids flickered slightly and opened slowly for a second or two before they would close once again. The raven-haired male let out a sigh of pure satisfaction. Finally after a week of limited sleep, he had been able to rest for a whole of eight hours without any crying or annoying baby sound from a certain teenager recently turned to an infant. Reaching the age of four-month; marked the end for Potter’s colic period. The night before Snape charmed his bed, for Potter’s safety, and drifted off to Dreamland with no other care in his mind. An irritated squeal was heard and Snape’s eyes shot open. Now why on Earth I did that? It’s not like I care about Potter, right? RIGHT? he asked himself and then he whispered obediently “Right!” Harry squealed once again and Snape stared him being a bit puzzled.

“Now what is wrong with you Potter? If you want something cry for Merlin’s Sake, don’t squeal at me!”

“Ga!” Potter replied being irritated.

“Yeah Potter Ga and Goo and Gi. Now what’s the problem? Diaper?”

Harry stared at him, and to Snape’s disbelief he let out“Goo!” of confirmation. ‘You will never stop to amaze me Potter.’ he thought and got out of the bed. Baby Harry looked at him, raising his eyebrow in a question matter. ‘Well if it isn’t the typical Potter reaction!’ Snape thought as he realised what had made Harry stare at him with amazement .It was his clothes. The raven-haired professor was wearing a pair of green boxers and a white t-shirt that had the phrase “Got Potions?” magically stamped on it. The letters were silvery and seemed to sparkle every once and a while, changing to a different colour.

“Hope you like the clothes Potter. Oh and I will advice you to never, ever speak of them to anyone.” Snape stated coolly as he stood in front of Harry with a magical diaper and “Miss Bates’ whipping tissues.”

“Aprt!” Harry let out happily as his diaper was removed. Then a thin string of liquid rose up from him and landed on Severus Snape’s magical t-shirt. The hook-nosed professor stared at the baby being horror-struck as the warm liquid sprayed on his t-shirt. When everything had finished, he closed his eyes and started counting in order to calm himself.

“ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR . . . THIRTY-FIVE, THIRTY-SIX . . . Damn this thing does not work,” he thought while he was about to hit his head in the nearest wall. Looking at Harry who seemed to enjoy being naked he let out an irritated whisper:

“Damn you Potter. I loved that t-shirt.” With those words he chanted the bed once again and retreated to the bathroom. Taking out his t-shirt he put it into the laundry basket and ordered. “I want my t-shirt sterile and clean by tonight.”

“I need a bath!” he thought as he returned back to his room.

Snape raised his head from the test-papers feeling amazed that nothing was heard insight his room for the past couple of minutes. Potter could not have drifted off to sleep without his help could he? He looked towards his bed and watched the infant carefully. The small baby stared at his hands and then joined his palms together letting out a squeal of satisfaction. He, then, moved them apart and raising his right foot up, he let another squeal. A hint of a smile formed to the Potions Master face that he dismissed with a scowl as soon as he realised what he was doing. “This is not the time to turn all mushy Severus.” he scolded himself as he rose from his chair.

The Potions Master sat near Potter, who with quite some effort rolled to his tummy and smiled at him. Snape took him into his arms, as a reward, and gave Harry his index. Grasping the long index he squeezed it and put it into his mouth. “I should have got used to it by now!” Snape thought feeling disgusted. Harry chewed the finger and let out a wail of desperation. Small irritated whimpers escaped from the boy’s lips and it started kicking inside Snape arms. The raven-haired man let the baby down. Harry grasped a medium plastic circle, put it into his mouth and started chewing it with irritating squeak. Snape took the message.

“Oh great! That was exactly what I needed. Harry started teething again,” he thought as he placed Harry into a cradle that was near his desk. Another gift from Molly Weasley.

“YOU KNOW POTTER, YOU ARE LUCKY I AM NOT SUFFERING WITH MY NERVES” the Potions Master snapped as he looked at baby Harry viciously. The boy was getting crankier as time passed by. Snape found himself being attacked by every toy the cradle contained. He gave Harry a pacifier that he threw back at him hitting him on the head.

“How on Earth does he manage to always aim and hit me in the head?” the hook-nosed professor thought as a vein pulsed at his temple and his left eye started twitching.

He leaned back and closed his eyes, hearing Harry’s irritated squeals and crying. He hummed and tapped his foot to the floor and to his amazement Harry stopped crying. He stopped and after a few seconds Harry started crying again.

“It’s UNBELIEVABLE! Potter has a musical ear! Next thing I am going to learn is that the Weasley brothers know how to dance ballet!” Snape commented being amazed, as he stood up and unlocked the, always, locked door that was behind his office.

He entered the dim-lit room and paced towards a woman’s portrait. The woman had Severus Snape’s big onyx-pearl eyes, his coal-black hair and pale complexion. Her nose was pointed and she was smiling sadly. She looked at Severus and she gifted him with a smile that reached to her eyes and made something flatter inside his chest. Waving to him she let a faint whisper.

“Hello my little Severus.”

Snape knew that if she was alive, she was going to try to touch his hair. Feeling the excitement he was feeling back then, when Him was not around, when he was absent and they were just the both of them; Severus Snape let out a sigh and peeped

“Hello Mum!”

The hook-nosed professor closed the door behind him and placed the small suitcase on his desk. Baby Harry let a cranky squeal and threw a toy that hit him on the head once again. Trying to ignore him, Snape opened the small black case and smiled with what he saw. An old wooden Stradivarius rested inside. Snape’s oldest friend was about to come back to life again. Examining it and making sure the violin was in a good condition, the man started tuning it and placed it on his right elbow. Taking the bow he started playing. The music escaped from the violin chords bringing back nostalgic memories. Those memories had nothing to do with Him, and his torments. Snape closed his eyes and smiled with pleasure as his fingers petted the chords. The song became passionate and the tune intensified, spreading around the room.

Snape stopped playing and turned to look at Harry. The baby was staring at his direction with his emerald-eyes shining with pleasure. The Potions Master put the old Stradivarius into its suitcase, rocked baby Harry to sleep and placed him into the cradle. When he looked up, he returned back to his secret room being unaware that his eyes had started shining once again.

The next day Snape decided to follow one of Madam Pomfrey’s advices. He, the one and only hunter had actually decided to follow her advice to start feeding Harry with a few spoons of sterile food. Now, Severus Snape, the epitome of masculinity in the wizarding world was, wondering how on Earth he was supposed to feed a baby.

Everything started when Madam Pomfrey mentioned that, according to Remus Lupin’s words, Harry’s mother, Lilly, had started feeding her son a few spoonfuls of that mushy liquidized food the moment he had reached his four months of age. Now it was Snape’s turn to give Potter his meal. The Potion’s Master prepared a small bawl of “Farine Late” and sat opposite baby Harry. Then picking a small amount of mush with the pick of his silver spoon he put it in front of Harry’s mouth.

Baby Harry eyed him with a, heaven forbid, sarcastic stare that seemed to shout clearly “YOU ARE JOKING RIGHT?”

“No Mr. Potter I am not joking.” Severus Snape answered back and placed the food at the tip of Harry tongue. The small baby’s nose wrinkled in disgust and he spit the food on the professor’s sleeve and from that moment he refused to open his mouth whatsoever.

At first Snape decided to use the direct approach. He placed the spoon in front of baby Harry’s mouth and simply waited for him to open his mouth. After a while, the Potions Master discovered that there was another human being in the world that could rival his own thick-headedness. He decided to quit using that method. After all, his arm was starting to become stiff. His next decision was to try the good old persuasive method. Taking some mush again, and hoping that this incident would never escape his chambers’ walls, he moved the spoon around Harry mouth.

“Iiiii . . . Open your mouth for the Firebolt” he uttered feeling his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

Apparently this made no real impression to baby Harry, who kept staring him with a look that seemed to state “I am not that stupid you know.”

“Well I can’t blame you, you know. This thing does not look attractive at all.” Snape commented. “But you have to eat at least a spoonful. Potter.”

Harry looked at the mush being disgusted and Snape thought that it had to do something fast. For his own sanity and Potter’s safety that is. But the only person, who knew about babies, was . . .

“ I must really like you Potter,” he thought as he took some powder from a small blue vase and threw it into the fire.

Molly Weasley was cooking at the kitchen when she heard some noise in her living room. She entered it immediately, with her wand on hand, but she saw nobody. A whisper was heard from her fireplace and she looked into the flames. Severus Snape’s head was there and he looked as if he was about to kill somebody. The chubby woman lowered her head towards the fire.

“Is it something wrong with Harry, Severus?” she asked being apprehensive.

“No Molly. There is something wrong with me. If I was sane I would have never agreed to look after him” Snape commented growling

“Oh Severus it can’t be that bad!” she stated trying to be sympathetic and not laugh at his face. The man sounded so helpless that it was laughable.

“Yes it is Molly. I can’t convince him to eat. And Lupin told Poppy that Harry was eating at that age.”

“Well he did Severus. I remember that Lilly was feeding him when she was in the Order. I used to give my Ron some spoonfuls of food too.” Molly said being nostalgic.

“Well he is not eating now. That’s for sure!”

“Hmm. . . Let me think! . . . Yes I do remember that Lilly had mentioned something about Harry’s eating habits.” Mrs Weasley said thinking

“Any suggestion is welcome”

“Oh yes now I remember. Harry used to eat only a brand of mush made of biscuit grain. He detested anything else.”

“And where am I going to find such a thing?”

“Oh don’t worry Severus I will send you some with the owl-post post tomorrow morning. You can start feeding him from tomorrow.” Molly said happily. Severus thanked her and returned to his room.

Snape gave Harry his formula and sat by the fire. Looking at Harry snoozing peacefully, Snape took a book from his library and before opening it he commented wearily.

“KIDS!”