"I want to see him," James said flatly, entering Severus’ rooms through the closed door, and Severus was stunned for a moment. The ghost was mostly solid and it was unnerving to see him walk through walls.

"Get out of here, Potter," he snapped in reply.

"Or what? You’ll curse me? You know that won’t work," James said dangerously, walking up to Severus and standing a mere few inches from him. "I want to see Silas. I understand the risks, but I have no intention on hurting my son! I won’t do what those other two ghosts did! I just want to talk to him, to get to know him! I have a right!"

"He’s not your son," Severus said without emotion.

"Why do you want to keep him from me? Are you afraid he’ll learn who you really are? Death Eater scum?"

"You do NOT know what you’re talking about!" hissed Severus. "And hee does not need to know the extent of my mistakes! Now, get out!"

"No."

"Potter," Snape growled.

"I won’t leave. I want to visit with him. Someone can be there with us, like Albus. He knows what is going on."

"The headmaster cannot see you. His presence there would mean nothing, and I have no wish to spend any time in your company. Leave."

James made no move to leave. Despite being a ghost, Severus could feel warmth coming off his enemy’s close body and he resisted the urge to fight him physically. It wouldn’t do any good since, if Potter wished it, no one could tough him. Still, refusing to back down, he glared at the slightly taller man.

"It must feel good," James Potter finally spoke, his voice almost a whisper. "Knowing you have the perfect ticket to do whatever you please. Harry wouldn’t believe you could do something wrong, would he? He would vouch for you; I’m sure his word would mean quite a bit, being the Boy Who Lived. Have you told him anything of your life? Of the horrible things, the sins, you have done? You view the Dark Arts as nothing wrong. How long until he follows you down the irredeemable path you follow?"

Severus didn’t answer. He watched as Potter finished his rant then walk of the room, through the closed door once again. Sighing, hurting, he sat down. Silas couldn’t know . . . but Merlin forbid he would allow the child to follow in his footsteps.

And he would not allow Potter to try to break them apart. Silas was his life, now, as odd as it felt to admit that to himself, and he probably would not admit it to anyone else . . . except, perhaps, Silas. Someday.

It was hard not to like the boy. He had gone through so much during his short life of abuse and neglect, yet he still had a childish innocence that most eleven year olds start to grow out of. He never had any urge to hurt anyone and he never seemed to get angry with anyone; he didn’t appear to understand the term ‘hate’ when it came to his own feelings, yet he knew when someone did not like him. Silas, although similar to him when it came to intelligence, was nothing like his older brother in personality.

He cared about him. And as odd as the unfamiliar feeling was, it caused him to feel almost joyful knowing Silas cared about him, too; knowing that he looked up to him. Someday, perhaps, he would learn things about Severus he wished he never knew, and although he hoped that the time would never come, he wished for it to be later, when the boy was older. When Silas was old enough to realize that everyone makes mistakes.

But he already knows some, Severus reminded himself. That dream . . . where I must have taken him to one of the edifices where I lived when I was a young adult . . .

The edifices were magically hidden, interconnected buildings where meetings were held and about a quarter of the Dark Lords followers had lived. It wouldn’t surprise him if they were still being used by some . . . after all, there was a very large potions laboratory and dueling stage. And libraries.

And he knew that the Ministry hadn’t found them. Perhaps I’ll find one and bring Silas, if the libraries are still running. He didn’t doubt it. Those like Lucius Malfoy had money to buy expensive tomes, but those who didn’t often borrowed books, like himself.

Silas had mentioned that in the ‘dream’, Severus had brought him to his room in one of the edifices, although he didn’t know they were called that, and had told him he needed to notify the Dark Lord of his presence. So Silas knew that he was involved with Vol - the Dark Lord sometime in his life. He didn’t seem angry about it, but it was possible that he was too young, too innocent, to understand what that meant. Despite working with first years almost every day, he was never quite sure how much the little brats actually understood about life.

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"Silas!" Stephan called, and Silas looked up from his plate of uneaten food. "It’s ten minutes after."

"What!" Silas said, standing up. "How long have we been here?" He looked around the Great Hall to see that it had quite a bit more students than when he and Stephan first arrived. He noticed that Stephan no longer had a plate in front of him, but a history book. He scowled at his friend for not telling him sooner, grabbed his bag and left the Great Hall. He was supposed to meet Severus in his office at eight, and he knew his brother wasn’t going to be happy.

Knocking on the office door, he let himself in after not hearing any immediate answer. He was late and he didn’t want to waste any time by standing outside the door to be let in, causing him to be even later.

"Sit," his brother said flatly, and he chose a chair next to the desk. There was a copy of the latest Daily Prophet sitting on the desk and he picked it up, absentmindedly. He disliked reading the news; it seemed almost pointless to him. Why would you care if there were 352 reports of rouge marbles if you didn’t buy marbles from a wizarding store in the first place? It was a muggle game, anyway.

Laying the paper out on the side of the desk Severus wasn’t using, he flip the pages while scanning to see if there happened to be anything interesting.

"We are leaving tomorrow at nine in the morning. Make sure you have everything packed," Severus said, nothing bothering looking up from the exam he was grading.

"Can I go to the train station today to say bye to my friends?" Silas asked. He was about to ask again when he heard Severus sigh.

"I suppose you may," he replied and Silas shrugged off the grammar correction. "Tell Hagrid so he can bring you back to the castle. I don’t want to have to retrieve you later."

"Okay." Silas was ready to give up on the newspaper when he suddenly spotted a familiar name in a small corner of the page.

It was a small article; from the way it seemed packed into the corner, it was probably charmed to look smaller than it really was in an attempt to keep most readers from finding it.

"Can I go to Sirius Black’s trial?" Silas asked suddenly, causing his brother to look up, glaring.

"No."

"Why not? He was my godfather. Doesn’t that make him . . . sort of my family? Just like James is still kind of my father?"

"Black is not your godfather and James is in no way your father. And you are not going to the trial!" Severus snapped, causing Silas to freeze in his seat for a moment.

"But why not?" Silas snapped back. "I know you don’t like James and Lily Potter, but Mom must have! They raised me for a year and a half! They are still my family, even if not by blood! They were willing to die for me, not Mom! She gave me up and then she didn’t even bother to claim me again when she knew it was safe! She was probably glad to have gotten rid of me! Even in the dream, she shoved me off on you, not willing to take care of me!"

Severus stood up suddenly, causing the wood chair he was sitting in to fall back hard. Silas, scared that Severus was going to hurt him, flinched, missing the very brief pained look that crossed his older brother’s face. When Severus took two hastened steps toward him, he panicked, running from the room before anything worse could happen.

Oddly enough, when he found himself calm enough to stop running, he was outside the third corridor room; the room where they realized that Mikey, Lily, and James appeared from. The room that, through an spell of his own, he met his biological mother and father. A room that he felt unnaturally comfortable in.

His mother and father . . . to Silas, both were cruel in their own way. His mother by blood died forgetting about him, his father died not even knowing he existed. In the vision, the dream, he knew both.

And he knew Severus. Severus would always protect him, he would never hurt him. He knew this, so why did he say those things about their mother? Although Severus avoided talking about Tobias, the older wizard cared about Eileen. He could tell by the stories he told him over the school year. Yet she betrayed him, too. She never mentioned Silas, probably didn’t even care. Silas knew this, understood this. Severus cared about him, but he didn’t expect anyone else to. He knew his mother didn’t care enough about him to find him, knew his father would have hated him enough to kill him. Or, at least hurt him.

But Silas never meant to say that to Severus. He knew it would cause his brother to get angry, yet he brought it up anyway.

Shaking his head, he entered the room. It was satisfyingly warm, like a hug, and he went to a corner, curled up and started crying. Severus cared for him, but the man wouldn’t, or couldn’t, understand that while Silas knew his parents of blood were Tobias and Eileen Snape, James and Lily Potter were his parents in every other way. It was the one thing that he couldn’t let go from his life as Harry Potter. He was more than willing to give up the Dursleys, the muggle life, and everything that went with it (although, knowing he would be able to watch the telly in a few days when he went home was nice), he just couldn’t give up his parents. They took him in, loved him, and died for him.

"Harry?" he vaguely heard, and he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Harry? Silas? What’s the matter?" Realizing who it was, Silas turned away from the wall.

"Dad," Silas sniffed, and James immediately sat on the floor and pulled his son into his lap, holding him tight.

"What’s wrong? Did Snape hurt you?"

Silas shook his head at the question, enjoying the feeling of being in his father’s arms. It was still hard for him to completely understand that this man who felt so real could be dead. Was dead, and in fact, was see-through if you paid it enough attention. Positioning himself into a more comfortable position, he rested his face in the cloth of his father’s robe.

"Dad?" The sound was muffled through the robes.

"Yes?"

"How come you are still here? All the other ghosts were gone after a short while . . ."

"I don’t know, Harry," James answered quietly.

"Silas."

"What?"

"M’name’s Silas." he mumbled in answer. James didn’t respond verbally; just squeezed his son tighter.

"I should go. I don’t want to miss saying goodbye to my friends," Silas said after a few minutes, and James gave a small excited laugh stood up, still holding Silas. "Hey!" the young boy answered, and he was put down, not gently, but not rudely either. James gave another laugh and spun his son around quickly before giving him a hug.

"What I wouldn’t give to be alive," James whispered into Silas’ hair. "I would have loved to have seen you grow up . . . hopefully I’ll stay for a bit, so I can see you grow more, hopefully into an adult." James let Silas go a few moments later, and the boy gave his dead father a shy grin. The older man’s sad smile grew into a frightening glare . "I wish I could take you from Snape. You shouldn’t be near him. He’ll hurt you, in the end, no matter what he or Dumbldore says." Silas blushed.

"Have you found a way to talk to the headmaster yet?" he asked, changing the subject. As much as he wanted to know why his father hated Severus, he wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to know. Maybe it was because Severus was the one alive and taking care of him, maybe it was something Severus did bad . . .

And if it was something Severus did bad, he didn’t want to know. He deduced from the dream that his brother was a Death Eater at one time, but Dumbledore, the figure of Light, trusted him, so he must have stopped . . . right?

"Yes! I should have known forever ago that I can write to him! Have to be careful not to let anyone see, of course . . ."

Silas stopped listening. Now that Severus was brought up again, he couldn’t stop thinking about how angry Severus must have been at him. He knew Severus said he would never send him away, but deep down, he wasn’t so sure. After all, he knew his mother longer, loved her longer. What if . . .

He shook his head, sliding a hand into his pocket to feel his bag of runes and calming instantly. Turning his attention back onto his adoptive father, he open the bag with one had and pulled out a rune. Almost immediately, he dropped it back in. He didn’t want to know what it was ready to tell him . . .

". . . and I was thinking that you’d like to meet Sirius. He’s innocent, after all. He didn’t betray us, and I’m sure he would never kill those muggles. Pettigrew, maybe not."

Silas looked at his watch to check the time, not wanting to think of the subject of his ex-godfather. That was what started the fight with his brother after all.

"I should go," Silas said again. "The carriages will be leaving for Hogsmede in half an hour, and I don’t want to miss my friends . . ."

"Oh! Of course. Run along. Please, visit, Harry . . . er, Silas. That’s going to take some getting used to, I suppose. Don’t tell, Snape, though. He doesn’t want you talking to me, the bastard."

Silas’ eyes widened slightly at the language, but he only bid the man goodbye before turning and leaving to catch up with everyone in the Ravenclaw tower while trying to avoid thinking anything about any of his older relations.

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Silas gave one last wave to his fellow Ravenclaws before turning to the large man standing beside him. He had only been with Hagrid a few times but this was the first time alone with him. Although he had always been nice, it was unsurprisingly unnerving standing close to the extremely tall, unkempt grounds keeper.

"Come ‘long, Silas," Hagrid said, and Silas followed not-too-closely to the weird, flying horse creatures that pulled the carriages. He eyed them suspiciously but with envy. They were rather beautiful, and he longed to pet one.

He was surprised when he first saw them, when he and Severus came to Hogwarts the previous summer. Silas took no notice when none of the professors mentioned anything about them, mostly because they were probably used to them, but when none of the other students had commented on the beautiful creatures, even Draco (who loved to talk about those sort of things), he became suspicious.

He supposed the beautiful wasn’t truly a word to describe them. They were thin and bony, patches of scales on their faces making it appear dragon-like and fur covering most of their body, their wings covered in what he could only imagine as some type of feathers to aid in flying. It was hard to believe that these large creatures could actually, fly, but he imagined they had to. One of the animals stretched it’s wings; the wingspan was huge!

"You can see the Thestrals, Silas?" Hagrid asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah," he answered slowly. "What’s weird about that? Are they supposed to be invisible?"

"They are, ta most," the large man said. "‘Cept those who has seen someone die."

"Oh," Silas said, not knowing what else to say.

"You like ‘em?"

Silas thought about it. There was something that drew him to them. Something about them felt dark, yet he knew they weren’t dangerous. They were peaceful, yet there was something deep emanating from them. Something he couldn’t quite describe . . .

"Yes," he answered without meaning to. "Very much."

"Would ya like to pet ‘em? They’d like ‘hat."

"Sure," Silas nodded, taking a step forward. The nearest Thestrals looked up at him, as if they knew what he was planning.

"Go ahea’," Hagrid urged. "They won’t hurt ya, they’re tame as can be."

Taking the encouragement, Silas walked toward the closest one. It was smaller than most of them, making Silas a bit more comfortable to approach the magical creature. He wondered why he hadn’t read anything about them, yet.

Hesitantly, he reached out toward the neck and petted downwards gently. He jumped a little when the Thestral moved it’s head, but relaxed when the creature rested it’s head on Silas’ shoulder. Realizing it was almost like a hug, he wrapped his arms around the neck as best as his small body would allow, then rubbed it up and down, then slowly moved toward the face.

He moved back to have a good look at the reptilian face and trace the area around the patches of scales. Maybe not beautiful in the common sense, but beautiful just the same.

"We best be movin’, Silas," Hagrid said and Silas gave the Thestral one last pet before waving goodbye and getting into the carriage that it was pulling. Hagrid climbed in also, and Silas was amazed that the large man could fit. Suddenly, the carriages started moving and he leaned back to enjoy the ride. He felt amazingly good.

"You’re a natural," Hagrid said, interrupting Silas’ musings on his new creature-friend. "You ought to come down to my hut sometime, and I could show you many more magical creatures."

"Really?" Silas asked, then looked down, remembering Severus. "Severus and I are leaving tomorrow."

"Well, the invitation is open to whenever you’re at Hogwarts, Silas," Hagrid said with a smile and Silas forced himself to return it. Now that he remembered how angry Severus was, he wasn’t so eager to get back to Hogwarts.

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He spent the rest of the day packing, taking his time as he had nothing to do. He did go down to the Great Hall for lunch and dinner, but Severus wasn’t there either time. Silas couldn’t help but think that it was because of himself.

Because of the lack of activities to do and people to talk to, Silas went back to his dorm to have an early night, but he couldn’t sleep. A few hours later, close to midnight, Silas got up, put on slippers, and made his way to the dungeons, clad in his pajamas. He couldn’t let Severus stay mad with him. Silas knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it if his brother gave him up, sent him to an orphanage or something, even if he deserved it.

Giving the password to Severus’ rooms, he was disappointed to find the candles out, and he walked blinding through the black room, finally finding Severus’ open door. Knowing his brother’s room well, enough, he found the bed easily and climbed in. Finding Severus in the middle of the bed with his back to him, he gave the man a hug, not wanting to loose this.

"Wha?" Severus asked incoherently, woken up suddenly. It took him a few moments to realize that there were arms wrapped tight around his torso, and he both heard a felt the familiar yet uncommon sobs of his younger brother. "Silas?"

"I’m sorry," Silas said, trying to breathe deep. "Don’t hate me. I won’t be bad anymore; I won’t talk bad about Mom anymore, and I won’t ask about Sirius, or Mom or Dad anymore. Please, don’t be mad . . ."

Realizing what Silas was there for, he maneuvered himself so he was facing the young Prince, although he couldn’t see his brother in the lack of light. Enveloping him in a hug, he gave the boy a small kiss on the forehead.

"I’m not mad at you Silas," he whispered. Neither said a word, and Severus continued to hold the child, the boy who was still too small for his age, until the breathing was even and Silas was asleep. Charming a candle to lighten the room very little, Severus conjured a damp cloth and wiped his brother’s face before tucking him under the covers and then sliding under the warm blankets himself. He hadn’t bothered before; he was too tired from correcting final exams. By the end of the day he had merely collapsed into bed and fell asleep.

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The next morning, Severus woke to the unfamiliar feeling of someone next to him, and he turned to find Silas laying awake, staring at him. Checking the time, Severus rose out of bed. Remembering the events of yesterday, he sat back down immediately to face his brother.

"Silas, we need to talk," he said, and gave his brother a comforting look when Silas got wide-eyed.

"Do we have to?" he pleaded.

"Yes." Silas slowly sat up and leaned against the headboard, trying to concentrate on how comfortable the bed was instead of what Severus wished to talk about. "I’m not mad at you," he continued flatly, "but there are reasons why I do not want you to meet Black or be with Potter. Normally, I feel I would not have to explain myself, but I realize you do not understand the extent of the danger both possesses.

"It is very likely that Potter will end up like the other two ghosts, even though it might not seem like it at the time. We do not know the exact affects the spells that were cast on the room might have on him, but it appeared to have prolonged his time here. As for Black," he sneered, "even if he does get free, which I highly doubt, he spent nearly twelve years in Azkaban. Wizards have been known to go crazy after a year, and I highly doubt that Black would have the ability to keep the limited sanity he started with. He would most likely be dangerous, especially if he found out who exactly you were."

"But . . ."

"Silas," Severus warned, and he looked down at the blanket that was covering his legs, wanting to argue, but knowing better than to continue to do so. So he changed the subject.

"What do you know about Thestrals?" he asked his older brother, and Severus looked at him with surprise.

"Why?"

"Well, before Hagrid and I came back to Hogwarts, he let me pet one . . ."

"What?" Severus asked, and Silas shrugged.

"It was really nice. It liked me. Hagrid said I could go down to his hut and see other creatures . . ."

"Silas," Severus sighed. "I realize Hagrid is nice. He’s rather like a large child at times. He knows his own capabilities well enough, but he doesn’t always understand the limitations of others. If you go, I want you to be especially careful. If a creature seems to dangerous, don’t go near it. Understand?"

"Yes, Severus," Silas said, smiling, glad that something finally went his way. "Thank you."