The pounding at the door echoed the throb of Severus’s pulse in his temples and for a long moment he couldn’t separate the two rhythms. The cold dungeon air burned when it hit his skin and Severus pushed the blankets aside, hopping barefoot on the cold stone floor as he went to answer the door.

It was Hermione, her hair ruffled and her eyes shadowed as though she hadn’t slept since she left the dungeons five hours ago. By the look of the equipment that she had levitating in the air behind her – three cauldrons, a tripod and an enormous scroll – she probably hadn’t.

“Miss Granger,” Severus said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, trying to minimize the contact of bare skin with cold floor without undignified hopping. “I assure you that when I wish for my quarters to be turned into some kind of high-traffic motorway, you shall be among the first to know. Until then, please stop barging in here at these absurd hours.”

He’d truly lost his touch, Severus knew, when her full lips curved in a half-smile. She brushed wayward strands of hair away from her face with a gesture that reminded Severus of Lily and said, “I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I wouldn’t have come if it weren’t important. May I come in?”

Severus stared at her for a long moment, shaking the last wisps of sleep from his mind and then he stepped aside to allow her to enter his rooms. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Gryffindors have decided to run roughshod through my life yet again,” he said. He led her to the sofa by the fire, past the stacks of untouched books, and gave up the last vestiges of his dignity in the eyes of this particular Gryffindor by conjuring a pair of slippers for his cold feet.

Fortunately, Granger modeled herself on her mentor Minerva rather than the other Gryffindor role model, Albus – she was gracious enough not to look at Severus’s feet and there was no gleam of hidden amusement in her eyes.

“It may surprise you, then, to learn that Harry was meant to have been sorted into Slytherin, sir,” Granger said. Again, there’s no gleam in her eye, none of the obvious Gryffindor facial tics that suggest deceit. Gryffindors don’t lie, James Potter had said to him once, but Severus had known even then, even dangling upside down and wandless, that the truth was that most Gryffindors were either too stupid to think of a lie, or smart enough that they’d realized how utterly transparent Gryffindor lies tended to be. Severus suspected that Granger fell into the latter category.

Still, it was inconceivable that the daredevil Potter could have been sorted into Slytherin House, the house of self-preservation and cunning – it was inconceivable that Severus could have been so close to the opportunity to know his son. “Indeed?” was all that Severus said, not rising to Granger’s bait.

She gave him a knowing look and he said, allowing a hint of his old snap to re-enter his voice, “Take care, Miss Granger. I believe that Minerva has copyrighted that particular expression.”

“Well,” she said, “I suppose that the debate over where exactly Harry got all of his finger Slytherin questions is resolved now.”

“That begs the question of whether he possessed any Slytherin qualities, Miss Granger.” There was a start of something warm and jumpy and electric in his heart when Severus realized that he was bantering with one of his son’s closest friends, that this girl had indeed accepted him as Harry’s father.

She smiled and wet her lips with her tongue in a quick nervous gesture. “Professor, I’m here to ask you for your help.”

Granger was trying not to fidget, he gave her credit for that, but he saw her knee twitching and the tension in her joints. She gulped and wet her lips again before continuing.

“Trouver par sang. It’s a surefire tracking spell, Professor, because it’s based on blood relationships. As an only child with both parents dead and no other children, the spell will recognize Harry quite clearly. It’ll lead us straight to him.”

Granger clasped her hands around her knees, unclasped them, and twisted them around each other. “Please say that you’ll help me.”

Like an unexpected summer storm, Severus felt his old self return after this long period of dream-like lassitude and blankness – the anger and bitterness, the acid tongue, the walls that protected him from a curious world, it all came back to him. “Miss Granger, my son is dead and you are an impertinent, meddling know-it-all child in need of a connection with reality. How dare you trifle with his memory? How dare you disturb my peace at this hour?”

She blinked and shifted on the couch. “Professor Snape, it’s …”

Severus loomed over her, forgetting that he was wearing a dressing gown and not his usual teaching robes. “You’re just a child who doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone, Granger. Like a child, you think that you can fix everything with a wave of your wand, but somehow I will make you understand that my son is dead, that he has been taken away from me, taken away from us all, and that there is no chance of his ever returning. He died protecting your precious hide and the safety of a thousand others like you, he died to allow you a chance in this magical world and you’re squandering his death by polluting his sacrifice with this nonsense. There’s no spell or potion or magic of any sort that can alter death, you brainless, heartless, inconsiderate child.”

“They never …” she said.

“Get out.”

She scurried to the door, slamming it behind her and leaving a hodgepodge of cauldrons and magical paraphernalia cluttering Severus’s living room.

----------

There was an echoing silence in Severus’s quarters after Granger left, a silence that would never be filled with Harry’s voice. Severus cursed himself for his maudlin, disgusting sentimentality, and went to the cabinet to pour himself a glass of whiskey.

Harry’s journal was still perched on the velvet green cushions of the sofa. Severus curled in on himself, hunched over with his knees drawn up to his chest and his elbows sticking out at an angle like stubby featherless wings. He was still shocked by the nerve of that chit, suggesting that his Harry was still alive, disturbing the quiet acceptance and tranquility that had cradled Severus. He had been safe, enclosed in a bubble of grief, separate from the rest of the world.

With a shaky, uncertain gesture, he reached out and touched his son’s journal, ran a finger down the spine. There was a thrill, a tiny swirl of magic that came from touching something that his son had touched, a journal where his son had kept his private thoughts.

Severus downed the remainder of his whiskey in one burning gulp and picked up the journal. This was the closest that he could come to his son.

The first entry was in a cramped, illegible scrawl that made Severus remember Harry’s first Potions assignments. There was something about the handwriting of Muggle-born or Muggle-raised students, something about childish hands unused to holding a quill, which made blobs and scrawls and illegible messes.

Sirius is dead and it’s all my fault. For some reason the Headmaster thinks he can make everything better by giving me some sweets and a box my mother owned. I can’t even open the box so it makes me feel like she’s farther away than ever.

I am glad that Hermione gave me this journal. I thought it was a girly idea at first, writing down my emotions to get over Sirius’s death. But now that I’m here at the Dursleys’, and am locked up with no-one to talk to … I think I’d just explode if I didn’t have this.

Severus drew a breath so sharply that it cut into the soft tissues of his throat. His son’s pain left a vivid feeling in him, sharp and prickly and uncomfortable. Harry had been hurting and it had been due to Severus. If he had not failed to teach his son Occlumency – if he had explained matters to the boy – none of the fiasco at the Ministry would have happened and the boy’s godfather would still be alive. Severus touched one gentle finger to a splotch on the page, a wrinkled circle where a tear had fallen. The paper was rough and uneven to his fingertip.

Severus touched that fingertip to his lips, a gesture soft and bittersweet as a petal. He had never seen Harry cry, had never seen through the façade that Harry Potter had presented to the world, the Golden Gryffindor that he’d shown himself to be. He had probably, with his harsh behavior, caused some of Harry’s tears – but he had never witnessed them, had never comforted the boy.

Severus turned the page with a sharp crackling sound before the maudlin emotions welling up inside him could get out of control. He was a Slytherin, he was a spy, he did not have emotions, again and again he told himself.

I’ve opened the box, Harry’s writing was a stutter across the page, interspersed with inkblobs and scratches such that Severus could barely read it.

I’ve opened the box and I wish I never did. Nothing I’ve ever known is true and it feels like I belong back in my cupboard, huddling in the corner nearest the door where the spiders don’t go and wishing that my Mum would come to get me.

The worst of it is that I’m not sure I want Mum to come and get me any more. It’s like she’s a stranger to me – of course she’s a stranger to me – but before, I could pretend that I knew her. I had the pictures Hagrid gave me, and I … I had that one memory of her from the Dementors, and I knew she was good at Charms – the little things that people told me about her, and I built an image of a mother out of those. She was sweet and loving and maybe when I was a baby I liked to pull at her bright hair and maybe she sang lullabies to me.

Now – now she’s the woman who left my father to marry another man. Somehow nobody knew, despite the papers that they filed with the Ministry for my adoption, that I wasn’t James Potter’s child. They must not have known, or they would have told me. I have to believe that they would have told me, that they wouldn’t have lied to me all my life.

Did she ever tell Professor Snape? I don’t think that she could have told him. Draco Malfoy is the man’s godson, and look how he’s treated in class. If he knew that I was his son, he would be kind to me in class as well, wouldn’t he? Perhaps I’m no good at Potions, but neither is Malfoy and Snape praises him. So he doesn’t know.

Or else he knows and he’s already rejected me. Perhaps something tragic happened between him and Mum. It must have been some clandestine love affair, if no one could put their relationship and my date of birth together to realize that two people and nine months make a baby. Perhaps they were secret lovers, and they quarreled – whatever. This isn’t a soap opera, even though it feels a bit like one right now. The Marauders and Snape hated each other, and Snape and my mother – loved each other? – and then my mother and my … James loved each other. Or did they?

I wish I had a brain like Hermione’s, she could put all these puzzle pieces together and come up with a story. But even then – I think some of it can only be answered by my Mum and Snape and James. Two of them aren’t here and Snape … well, if he doesn’t know that I’m his son, I don’t think he knew the whole story to begin with. Well. I’ll be logical anyway and see how far that gets me.

What I know so far:

1. The papers in the box – wedding license shows that Lily Evans married James Potter and took his name; the birth certificate shows that Severus Snape is my father; the adoption certificate and the will show that James was aware of that fact and wanted me as his son.

Questions: 1. Can these papers be faked? 2. Were Mum and Snape married? 3. Is there some other way of proving that Snape is my father?

2. The photos – Mum and Snape were engaged and the ring that Mum is wearing is the same ring that she left in the box. You can tell from the photo that they did love each other. Question: What happened to their engagement? Was it broken, and who broke it?

There’s a picture of James and Mum with me as a baby, but no way of telling whether Snape saw me as a baby or not.

There’s a picture of Mum and James at their wedding. The ring that she’s wearing is different from the ring that Snape gave her. Question – what happened to that ring?

There’s a picture of just Snape – Mum must have still felt something for him to keep it.

3. Bracelet of dried flowers – I have no clue why Mum kept this or what it means.

4. The engagement ring from Snape – Mum kept it.

Questions: 1. It’s traditional for Muggles to let the woman keep a ring if the engagement is broken – is it also true for wizards? 2. Is there any significance to the ring being set with a ruby and not a diamond?

Severus traced the writing with his forefinger, moving along the jagged spikes and lines. There were no rough splotches from tears, no dark blobs of ink, no other signs of agitation – Harry had calmed himself by writing the list. A spike of pride ran through Severus’s veins at the thought that it was his son who was capable of such a calm response in the destruction of everything that he knew, his son who was logical and precise in the face of crisis.

If I could only talk to Ron and Hermione – but they would blow up at me and ask so many questions and fuss about it. The less fuss, the better in this case, because I bet Voldemort would kill Snape if he found out about this. So – I could tell either Dumbledore or Snape, because they’re so brilliant at Occlumency that Voldemort would never find out from them. I reckon that no one else could keep it safe, and even if they promise not to tell – no, it isn’t safe. There’s no way I’m going to be responsible for another death.

Dumbledore – if I tell him, he’ll just say that it has to be a secret and send me back to the Dursleys in the summer anyway. Maybe he’d offer me some lemon drops or sweets or something to try to calm me down after I start yelling at him about how I don’t want to go back to the Dursleys.

Snape – I can’t even guess how the man would react. I don’t know him well enough. I guess there are two options: he could yell at me and sneer at me and want nothing to do with me because he thinks I’m a spoiled arrogant brat, or he could accept me, change his personality completely and decide that we need to become a normal, loving family. Maybe he would tutor me in Potions because he couldn’t tolerate having a son who was such a disgrace at them. Maybe he’d find out about the Dursleys and hunt them down and use some Death Eater torture tricks on them. He’d go on being horrible to me in class, to keep up the act for the junior Death Eaters, but in private he’d be nice to me and say he was proud of me and forbid me to go out doing reckless Gryffindor things that are likely to get me killed.

Right. I guess there’s only one option after all. He can never know.

Severus closed the journal, his fingers lingering on the leather cover. Harry’s words bit into him like acid, the knowledge that his son had been afraid to tell him the truth about his parentage cut into him. His breath felt like it was caught in his throat and he choked on the lack of oxygen.

Harry had chosen not to be his son. He had chosen to ignore their relationship.

Severus sat on his sofa, his fingers curled around the cover of the journal. This was as close as he would ever come to touching his son.