Brothers by Blood by breannatala
Summary: Harry Potter, 10 years old, finds out that he isn't a Potter, and that he has a brother still living! And his brother happens to be Severus Snape. After the reading of Eileen Prince's will, Severus takes Harry in. And after spending the summer living with his newly-found brother, being educated in the wizarding ways, and meeting new people, Harry slowly starts fitting in and having a normal life.

How long will it stay normal, though? After all, despite him being known to Hogwarts and the rest of the world as Silas Prince, he still is Harry Potter, and it is only so long that he is able to stay out of trouble.
Categories: Big Brother Snape, Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco, Dumbledore, James, Lucius, Other, Sirius
Snape Flavour: None
Genres: General
Media Type: None
Tags: Alternate Universe
Takes Place: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 22 Completed: No Word count: 102508 Read: 124312 Published: 09 Jul 2006 Updated: 26 Apr 2008
The Confusion by breannatala

"Hey, kid," James-the-ghost said, sitting down next to Silas. "I heard Sirius wants to talk to me."

"Yeah," Silas answered. "I kind of mentioned you in a letter and . . . well, he got really excited."

"That’s good," James said nonchalantly, as if it didn’t matter if he saw his friend. "When is he coming?"

"I don’t know if he is," the second year Ravenclaw answered, getting a stunned look from his adoptive father. "You see, I’m still not supposed to be seeing you, remember? Severus will get mad."

"Tell Snivellous to shove off," James snapped, and Silas glared at him.

"I’m not going to tell my brother to shove off," the boy snapped back. They sat glaring at each other for a few moments before James seemed to forget about it, bringing up another topic. "Anyway, there’s someone you have to meet. She’s been around for awhile, actually, but I didn’t know until a week ago."

"Who?" Silas asked, his curiosity peaked.

"You’ll have to guess, but I’ll give you a clue. She’s a ghost like me."

"That helps," Silas answered sarcastically.

"It should," James said with a shrug and a smirk. Silas sat, thinking for a minute.

"I give up."

"Oh, come on. You can’t give up like that. Because of that, you’re not going to get to meet her!"

"Oh, you’re the one who should be shoving off, James," a vaguely familiar voice snapped, and Silas turned to look at the still semi-transparent woman. Eileen. Looking old, but still sounding young. It was an odd combination.

"Mom?" Silas asked hesitantly and a bit awkwardly.

"Hello, Silas," she replied with a sad smile and Silas was grateful when she didn’t stick around, but he felt a little bad about not wanting her around.

"So, you’ve met her before?" James asked, and Silas shook his head, paused, then nodded before deciding to shake his head again. "Well, make up your mind!"

"In the dream, I did!"

"Ah, the dream," his father said sadly. Silas stood up suddenly, causing James to actually sit up . . . a seemingly rare feat for the ghost. "Where you going?"

"To tell Severus. He’d like to know his mother is here," he said, not catching what he had said immediately. It wasn’t until James had stopped him by catching his wrist and he saw the look on James’ face did he realize.

"His mother, Silas?" he asked. "Your mother, too! She cared about you enough to give you up so you wouldn’t get hurt!"

Silas pulled his arm away from his adoptive father and glared at him. "She abandoned me," he snapped. "She didn’t want to take the effort it would have been to take me away from the Dursley’s. She waited until she died before she let anyone know! I could have grown up with a family, but instead I was just left on the doorstep of false relatives who never even wanted me!"

"Silas, Snape only took you in because Eileen asked it of him. If she hadn’t, he probably would have left you right where you were, with the muggles. You can’t possibly think that Snape is at all a good person or that he actually . . ." James trailed off, his sight on something behind Silas.

"Or what? Or that he actually cares about me? Of course he does!" Silas snapped, the magic around him flowing as if it picked up his distress and were trying to get far enough away from the potential danger. James didn’t appear to notice, though, as he continued to look past Silas and the Ravenclaw looked over his shoulder to spot Eileen. Angry, he stood up and ran out of the room on the third floor, making his way to the common room at an alarmingly fast pace.

_-_-_-_-__-__

Severus was, as he usually was on a Thursday night, grading seventh year papers. As the papers were on original topics of their choice, pre-approve by him, they were rather interesting to read. Thus, he was in a strangely good mood when a crash came from Silas’ room and instead of check on the source immediately, he continued reading, thinking that Silas had just dropped something. It took him a few minutes to realize that Silas wasn’t spending the night and that it was several hours past curfew.

Slowly, Severus stood up and made his way to his brother’s bedroom and opened the door. His attention was immediately pulled to Potter, who was throwing books around, clearly angry, but before his mind could fully comprehend what the ghost was doing, he heard a voice he had never expected to hear again.

"Potter, you will stop it this moment," she snapped.

"Or what?" Potter said, throwing another book, this one at Severus himself. Stunned, he wasn’t able to dodge it and slammed into his stomach, knocking the air out of him. "You’ll tell Snape? I think he knows!"

"Out!" Severus yelled suddenly, gaining him bearings. Amazingly, the ghost listened and he disappeared. It took him a few more seconds to calm down and face his mother.

"Severus," she said, looking at him with joy that he hadn’t remembered when she was alive.

"Mom," he answered, doing his best not to show how excited he was to see her. "How . . . how long?"

"Long enough to know some things," she replied. "Like how well you and Silas get along. And how he has no wish to get to know me."

"He would," Severus started, but then stopped, seeing his mother shake his head.

"I’ve been watching for awhile. He won’t forgive."

"I think he will, eventually. Just–."

"Severus?" Silas called from outside the room, startling Severus.

"Silas, what are you doing here after curfew?" he asked, not bothering to move from his spot. He heard footsteps – more than one pair – walk toward the room and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Silas enter hesitantly.

"What are you doing . . ." Silas trailed off. "What happened to my room?" he asked accusingly.

"Potter happened," Severus snapped. "Was throwing everything around."

"How do you mean?" Dumbledore asked, gently pushing Silas aside to enter the room. "It’s the cleanest I’ve ever seen a young boy’s room."

The two brothers looked at the headmaster questioningly. The room was, for the lack of any better phrase, a disaster. Books were now littering the floor and the bed, some open at odd angles from being thrown carelessly, and the oil lamp that had been on the bedside table was knocked over and broken, the oil leaked onto the bed.

"Everything messed up!" Silas pointed out.

"No," Dumbledore said slowly. "There is nothing out of place. Let’s go to the sitting room." Confused, both Silas and Severus followed the old man without questioning, barely noticing that Eileen was no longer in the room.

"You’re hinting that we’re crazy," Severus said flatly, refusing to sit down where Dumbledore indicated. Silas, dressed in his pajamas and socks, willingly sat down on the couch and curled up.

"I have news you might be interested it," Dumbledore finally said, sitting down himself. "I have heard from the Department of Mysteries and about Chimera that had appeared."

"What does that have to do with us?" Silas asked. "And couldn’t it have waited until morning?" he grumbled.

"It probably could have, but I’d like to leave that decision to you. When the Department of Mysteries first claimed it, it was a whole Chimera. Nothing suggested otherwise, until it slowly became to fade. It when then that they decided to look into it being created . . . not from breeding, but from magic. I was contacted an hour ago, the department telling me they found the source that created it."

"How did they find out?" Severus asked, unwilling to see where this was going.

"This afternoon, it became solid again. They were able to trace the magic to Hogwarts, in that third corridor room. They wish to investigate."

"So, what does that mean?" Silas asked, sitting up. "Was it the ghosts?"

"I don’t believe so," Dumbledore said, shaking his head. "In fact, I think tonight may have just proved several things. One, Silas, you are very . . . powerful. Two . . . the ghosts are not in fact ghosts, but a backlash of that spell you cast nearly two years ago."

"I thought we already agreed on that," Severus said forcefully.

"Yes, but not in the way I am indicating tonight. You both agree that the next room is a complete disaster?" Both brothers nodded. "In contrast, I see nothing but a well organized room. I could be wrong, very wrong, but I do pride myself on interpreting situations well. I think you ‘ll agree that I am, in fact, rarely wrong in these cases? I believe that the backlash of the spell has convinced you that what you see is real . . . as Silas saw the dream he had as real. All of it is based on real events, real people, but was merely taken from your mind and made real only to you."

"You are telling us we’re crazy," Severus said with a glare. "I will not stand for–."

"Severus, I’d like to test a theory," Dumbledore interrupted. "If you two would both go back to the room and tell me what you see?"

Silas was the first to comply, glancing back suspiciously at the headmaster as he walked to his room. He briefly glanced in before turning around to find Severus standing behind him.

"It’s clean," Silas whispered. "It’s how I left it before!"

"Headmaster," Severus said in a low, dangerous voice after peeking in himself. "What game are you playing?"

"I am playing no game, Severus. What would I have to gain from this?" he asked, his voice betraying a bit of sadness. Severus felt a little bad, but still didn’t trust that the headmaster hadn’t done this himself. "I am telling you this because if the Department of Mysteries traces it back to Silas, it would be best to work with them. They could help quite a bit."

"Silas," Severus said quietly. "Go to your room."

"Why?"

"Go. Now," he replied shortly. Obviously angry, Silas stood up and slammed his door once he got to his room. Not knowing whether or not Silas was angry enough not to eavesdrop, he quickly put up a warding bubble around him and the old man before turning to face him.

"He’s a child," Severus stated.

"I know he is Severus."

"He’s a child, not the bloody boy who lived. You are not to put ideas into his head. It’s hard enough to keep him out of trouble as it is."

"Severus," Dumbledore said quietly, then waited for the potions master to calmly face him. "I’m not trying to put ideas in his head. But you can’t ignore the fact that he is Harry Potter. Fate will win no matter how hard you try to avoid it. And if my theories are correct, he could be powerful. We already know he is clever, and if it was him who summoned that chimera accidently . . . his powers will need to get under control."

"The room, though . . ."

"And I did not do anything to that room. Nor am I saying you are mad. I believe the magic from the incorrectly ended spell from your brother has affected both of you. Now that you see a possibility that it is not real, the magic doesn’t have the control it had before to making you believe what you saw was real."

Severus couldn’t think of anything in response to that. Instead, his mind was processing what Dumbledore had told him.

"Do you see why I suggest working with the Department of Mysteries?"

"You are asking if I would work with a Department. Are there no wizards working there?" Severus asked after a moment of silences, stalling.

"Of course. But they are very . . . secretive. By the nature of the job, of course."

"Of course."

"Which would work to your benefit.

Severus couldn’t help but not answering. He was tired, annoyed, and a little confused. He was sure that if any words would come to him, he wouldn’t say them anyway. Being careful of what you said about anyone – especially someone like Dumbledore – was a hard habit to break. It didn’t help his trust issues, either, that the old man had taken a special interest in his young brother. Talking to the other professors to see how he was doing in his classes, holding conversations with the boy . . . it wasn’t something that a headmaster of a large school usually did, unless the circumstances were unique. Granted, he was the brother of one of the professors he employed, but his interest seemed to go beyond that.

Perhaps he was reading too much into it, but just in case, he regressed to the older days of spying in a matter of a few minutes, all this going through his head. Perhaps contacting Lucius would be beneficial.

"I will think about it," Severus said shortly, standing up to indicate the old man’s presence was no longer wanted. Dumbledore nodded and slowly stood up and they both walked toward the door.

"That is all I ask, Severus," Dumbledore responded quietly before leaving Severus to his silence.

Severus didn’t immediately go to his brother. He knew Silas would ask what they had talked about and he couldn’t decide whether or not he should let the boy know. He himself knew that if someone would keep information like this from him he would be angry, but . . . Silas was only twelve. A twelve year old boy who wanted to be normal.

And how it’s been so far, life hadn’t been normal for the boy. He found himself wanting to change that but not knowing exactly how to precede.

Unable to make a decision, Severus walked to Silas’ door before knocking softly, hesitantly. Not getting an answer, he knocked a little louder, finally deciding just to walk in after a few minutes of not getting answer to the sporadic knocks.

Silas was sitting on the floor in a corner of the room. The walls surrounding him and the floor were stone, and Severus briefly wondered how long he had been sitting there – it couldn’t have been comfortable.

"Silas?" he asked, walking over to him, but Silas didn’t answer. Instead, the look he gave Severus made him stop walking. "Silas?" he asked again, but there was no answer for a few minutes.

"Get out," Silas said quietly, but his voice was slightly bitter. Not quite to the level of being angry, but . . . it was obvious he wanted to be alone.

"It’s time to be getting to bed," Severus said without emotion, taking a step backwards. When Silas didn’t look at him, he left, closing the door softly behind him. It was probably best if they didn’t see each other until morning, anyway. Severus was still confused as to what he was going to tell his brother . . . his charge, for a lack of a better word. More than a brother, he was a child that needed taking care of. He was an older brother, yes, but at times, he needed to act like a father. Perhaps most of the time he should act like a father.

He couldn’t help but thinking that it wasn’t supposed to be that way. That something had been off-balanced and that something was about to go horribly wrong.

Shaking his head, he pushed that thought away. It wasn’t intuition that was telling him that, it was want. The want to treat Silas like a brother. He felt himself wanting desperately to not have to worry about making sure he grew up correctly, but to have someone to discuss things with. Someone to be with to vent emotions without the feel of being rejected. But Severus knew they would probably never have that; neither of them.

In less than five years, Silas would be an adult. In comparison to everything else, it felt like such a short time, and there was the foreboding feeling that Silas would go on his own way, parting from him as Severus parted from his parents.

When he reached his own bedroom, he found he wanted to speak to his mother. Even if she couldn’t tell him what to do – Severus had to admit, especially after finding out about Silas, that was wasn’t the best a decision making – it would feel so good to see her again. He hadn’t seen her for four years before she died. In fact, he had no idea she was dying until he was contacted by the department for the reading of her will.

He regretted it deeply.

"It’s okay, Severus, my Severus," he heard from behind him, and he turned around to find her standing in the open doorway that just moments ago he had closed.

"Mum," he said quietly, almost longingly. He wanted to believe she was there . . . couldn’t believe she wasn’t, no matter what the old man told him. He had closed the door . . . there was no way he could be imagining that it was open. He saw it open. He saw his mother walking over to the desk he used for storing personal items and pick up the framed photo of him and Silas . . . one he had kept despite that it was Trimdol who had taken it. He saw her walk over to him and felt her give him hug. A warm, comforting, real hug, even though she was still a slightly transparent ghost.

There was no way she wasn’t real.

_-_-_-__-_-_-__-_--_-_

Silas woke slowly, his mind only registering that he was cold. Eventually, he realized he was on a floor and a little sore, his slow pounding in his head that was echoing the beating of his heart. After a bit, he willed himself to open his eyes, and he found himself in his room in Severus’ quarters. He remembered Flitwick coming to find him and bring him to Dumbledore, only to be brought to Severus with no explanation other than that there was, "something to discuss with the both of you."

He remembered the conversation, Severus telling him to go to his room, him slamming his door. After that, though . . .

I must have fallen asleep, he thought, but he wondered why he had done so in the corner of his room on the floor. He remembered being angry, but that was it.

He also didn’t remember Severus coming in or Dumbledore leaving. Had Severus just left him in his room? Perhaps it was because he slammed the door . . . maybe his brother was mad at him. He hoped not. After all, he wasn’t really that mad at Severus. Well, he was last night, but not anymore.

Slowly, he was able to stand up and stretch, loosening his muscles that had stiffened over the night before opening his door and walking out into the main room of the quarters. Severus wasn’t out there and he debated whether or not he should knock on his brother’s door, which was a crack open. He was at the door, arm up and fist loosely clenched, but he couldn’t bring himself to knock. Instead, he walked back to his room, changed quickly into clean clothes and left.

He saw just a few students wandering the halls on his way to the Ravenclaw common room and he guessed it was still early morning. Early enough for there to be food in the Great Hall, but not late enough for too many students to be awake. It had to have been early enough that none of his classmates from Ravenclaw were up yet – most of them where late sleepers as they usually went to bed a little later than he usually did – and he decided that it was a good time for breakfast. He really wasn’t in the mood to talk to his friends right now.

_-_-_-_-_-___–_-_-_--_-_

Even after talking with his mother for a couple of hours before she left through the door, leaving it open a crack as she used to do when he was a small child, he wasn’t able to sleep peacefully. He had woken up several times throughout the night and felt in no mood to get up and teach five classes that day. He found he did want to talk to Silas, even if it was just to see if the boy was still mad at him, so that propelled him, albeit a bit slow, out of bed and to Silas’s door, still in what he had slept in.

He wasn’t expecting Silas to be awake, so he cautiously opened the door and peeked in. Not seeing the boy on his bed, his eyes went immediately to where he had found Silas the night before and then entered when Silas wasn’t there, either. Spotting the discarded clothes on the neatly-made bed, it hit Severus that his brother had already left for the morning or perhaps sometime during the night.

It hit him suddenly and hard, a feeling of discomfort that he couldn’t readily place. So, Silas left before he had woken up. Silas was an early riser, and it wasn’t the first time he left to get ready for the day without saying good bye.

Still, the events during the night had unsettled him. It was easy to forget that Silas wasn’t exactly a trusting person after living with him for nearly two years. He had gotten so used to his presence – and his occasional talk-back attitude – that he had more or less forgotten about how the child was treated at the Dursleys.

With this thought bouncing through his head as he walked to the bathroom to take a bath, he gave another thought to telling Silas what Dumbledore had told him. He still had a bad feeling about telling Silas . . .

_-_-_-_-_-_-_—_-_-_

Second year Ravenclaws had potions on Fridays . . . a fact that he had forgotten about between yesterday and the moment he saw them wander in early. He watched as Stephan walked in with Draco, Silas not in sight. Right before he started class, though, Silas quickly walked in and sat down in his usual seat next to Stephan. It was obvious the child was avoiding looking at him and Severus knew that he had to do something about it. After classes today, Severus decided. I’ll bring him somewhere.

The first class of the day went by painstakingly slow, and the four classes after that even slower. He couldn’t concentrate on teaching and by the time his fourth class arrived, sixth years, he passed out copies of a book they hadn’t seen before and had them write a quick essay on the effects of one non-magical herb in potion using only their text and the new book while he thought about what he was going to do.

Honestly, he had no idea why he was so confused about it. Yes, there was always that magical blood connection between siblings that would make them close – usually stronger in those of the same gender – but he had never heard of it being strong enough to confuse someone like this.

Probably something else he should ask the headmaster about, although he was still angry with the man for accusing him of being mad. He realized now that he shouldn’t have accused him of tricking them into believing they were crazy. It wasn’t something the headmaster would do, no matter how Severus didn’t entirely trust the man. The issue of trust was on a deeper level than that. One he never completely understood.

As the fourth year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs left the classroom, Severus called up a Ravenclaw that was in Silas’ Ancient Runes class and told her to find Silas and tell him that he needed to speak to him. She nodded, obviously embarrassed and nervous at being kept after class, and left.

Realizing that he had wasted the entire day worrying about what he was going to tell Silas, he gathered his belongings and made his way to his office to wait for his brother.

He waited two hours before he decided to get up and walk to his rooms. As he opened the office door, though, he found Silas outside, sitting on the floor next to the door with his knees brought up and his forehead resting on them.

"Come in, Silas," Severus said quietly, causing the child to jerk and look at him questioningly. After a second, he stood up shakily and followed him back into the office. When Severus turned around, he saw that his brother was silently crying. "What’s wrong?"

"You’re mad at me. I was bad yesterday," Silas answered, his tone sounding older than he was while his words made him sound younger.

"I am not mad at you," Severus assured him.

"If you’re not mad at me . . ." Silas said, trailing off. "If you’re not mad at me, why didn’t you come to see me after the headmaster left? You usually say goodnight when I stay in your rooms."

Severus just stared at his brother. Yet again, an apprehensive feeling swept over him like cold water in his veins.

"I did," he answered. "You told me to leave."

"I . . . I did?"

The brothers couldn’t do more than stand there until Severus took him by the hand and lead him slowly to the Hospital Wing. Something wasn’t right, and they were going to learn what it was.

To be continued...
End Notes:
How was the chapter? I'm sorry it's taking so long for each update, but school has been killing me (literally. I've been getting only a few hours of sleep a night). Anyway, I tried to make it a little . . . . confusing. Jumping from thought to thought . . . and as I've been a little confused lately, I'm not sure if reached my goal. I might end up rewriting this chapter, so I'd like feedback on this one, please.


This story archived at http://www.potionsandsnitches.org/fanfiction/viewstory.php?sid=1176