By the time Snape returned to his quarters, Mrs Weasley had left and Harry was being looked after by Hermione. They were both sitting on the floor near the toy-box and for once Harry was quiet as Hermione was pointing to the moving pictures in a Quidditch Book. Typical that he would give his full attention to Quidditch, thought Snape.

“Oh, hi Sir,’ Hermione said, “Mrs Weasley had to get back to the burrow so I offered to stay until you got back.”

Snape pursed his lips. He didn’t know how comfortable he was having Miss Granger come and go as she pleased.

“Very well Miss Granger; you may leave now,” he said shortly.

Harry had been distracted by the pictures of the flying players in the book which Hermione had brought for him. He loved the way they whooshed and tumbled through the air and the way he could put his hand right through them as though they were not there. He had no intention of letting her or the magic book go anywhere.

“Ba – na – Hermy - onee,” Harry said, shaking his head furiously. He was frustrated when his words didn’t come out as well as they could have, but then again he did have Cheep-Cheep in his mouth.

“Do you really wish to choke on that thing, Potter?” Snape said irritably. “Take it out of your mouth!”

Harry looked at Snape with all the disdain a fifteen-month old baby could manage. The batman didn’t seem to understand that Cheep-Cheep enjoyed being in Harry’s mouth and that Harry enjoyed having him there.

“Actually Sir,” Hermione said tentatively, “I think that he’s teething. He kept putting things in his mouth and then screaming when I took them out so I put a cooling spell on Cheep – Er, that toy in his mouth and he was quiet after that.”

Snape gave Hermione a thoroughly withering look, but the thought that Harry might start screaming again persuaded him not to push the issue. As his eyes fell once again down to the book Hermione had in her hands he remembered the idea he had had that morning.

“Miss Granger,” he said. ‘Does Potter have a photo-album?”

“Sir?”

“A photo-album,” Snape repeated impatiently. “- with pictures.”

Comprehension dawned on Hermione. “Oh,” she said, “do you think they might help? I read somewhere once that St. Mungos often uses memories to help the victims of black curses, I think it was …”

“Yes, thank-you Miss Granger,” Snape interrupted – really that girl was an insufferable know-it-all – “I am well aware of that particular theory. Now does Potter have one or not?”

“Doo – ba – dee” said Harry, pulling on Hermione’s arm to get her attention – they seemed to be forgetting that he was even there.

“Yes Sir,” Hermione said, unfazed by Snape’s irritation, “do you want me to get it for you? It’s in his trunk in Gryfinndor.”

Snape nodded and Hermione got to her feet.

“Doo – ba – dee” Harry repeated, with such vehemence that Cheep-Cheep popped out of his mouth.

“It’s okay Harry,” Hermione said, prying his little fingers from the hem of the robes so she could leave, “I’ll be back to see you soon.”

“No. No. No” Harry insisted. He hugged the magic book close to his body.

Hermione smiled. “You can keep the book,” she said. “It was a present for you anyway.”

Harry gave Hermione’s leg a hug at this delightful piece of news before toddling off to a corner of the room, Cheep-Cheep in his mouth and the book in his arms, before she could change her mind.

“Bye Harry,” Hermione said.

“Ba – da,” he said distractedly.

As soon as Hermione left, Snape crossed the room and brusquely picked Harry up and transported him to the playpen.

“Stay there,” he commanded. Harry was so engrossed in his Quidditch Book that he didn’t even protest. Learning from Harry’s ‘little adventure’ that morning Snape silently cast a spell to raise the bars of the pen high so that it was more a maximum security prison than a playpen. Harry didn’t even look up and Snape went next door to retrieve his notes.

***

“Na – ba – da,” Harry mumbled, his mouth, as usual, full with stuffed toy.

Snape sighed in frustration. He was holding up pictures to Harry from his photo album, but unfortunately Potter didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in them. Snape had sat him on the counter-top and Harry kept crawling from one end to the other, or turning his head away when Snape tried to get him look at the pictures from Lily and James Potter’s wedding day.

“Concentrate Potter,” Snape said, “unless you want to stay in your current state forever.”

Unfortunately Harry didn’t seem to be in the mood to concentrate. He was actually pretending that he was a little cat who was eating a bird – and there was certainly no room for books of strange people in the game. He sat down and moved his arms about like he had seen Crookshanks do that day then he purred at Snape. He wanted Snape to stoke him or scratch his ears like Hermione did to Crookshanks that afternoon and he looked up at him, gesturing wildly.

At this point Snape seemed to lose the little patience he had. He reached forward and pulled the stuffed canary out of Harry’s mouth.

This had an instant effect – Harry began to scream.

“Waaah …”

Harry screamed very loudly, angry that Snape had ruined his clever game and upset that the cooling Cheep-Cheep had been removed from his mouth. Since that morning he had had the urge to bite things hard at the back of his mouth. His gums were very hurty and hot. He got onto his knees on the counter-top and started to pound it with his fists, his face turning red from screaming. Why was Snape so nasty to him? Why couldn’t he make anyone understand that Cheep-Cheep like it in his mouth and liked playing ‘Cat’ with him? Life was so unfair!

Snape folded his arms, watching Potter’s tantrum with a pained expression. He couldn’t decide whether it was simply Potter being wilful and trying to outsmart him or whether indeed Hermione was right and he was teething. Either way, Potter in a tantrum wasn’t very conducive to the exercises he had planned for him. He wondered if appealing to the teenage Potter – who he knew was locked in the baby somewhere - would help.

“Really Potter,” he said, contempt heavy in his tone, “what would you think if you could see yourself carrying on in such a childish way? Despite appearances, you are not a baby, you are a fifteen-year-old wizard. It’s about time you started acting like it!”

His appeal seemed to fall on deaf ears as Harry carried on crying louder than ever. It was obvious that at present Potter was in full baby mode – which was probably why he didn’t seem very interested in pictures of the parents the Dark Lord had murdered. This, then, presented another problem – how was he going to stop a baby Potter from screaming like a banshee?

“Here Potter,” he said at last, holding out the stuffed canary, “put it up your nose if you want to - just stop that infernal racket!”

Harry, however, was too far involved in his tantrum to be appeased even by Cheep-Cheep. He snatched the canary and put it down his little spotty jumper before resuming his bawling.

Breathing in heavily, Snape picked up Potter and put him, still screaming, in his cot whilst he went to his visit his private stores down the corridor. He returned with a small vial to find a slightly calmed Potter. With no-one to witness his wailing Harry was crying only in quietly little gasps that made his body shudder. In fact, now that the anger had burned out of his tantrum he was pleased to see the batman enter the room. He hoped that he might want to cuddle him like the fire-haired woman had as he was feeling quite lonely in his cot.

He rubbed his eyes and held out his chubby arms, “Up,” he said. “Up Snape!”

Snape looked sceptically at Potter. He didn’t want him to think he was picking him up just because he’d asked him to, but then again he needed him in the high-chair that Molly Weasley had brought earlier on. Grudgingly he relented.

Harry smiled as he was hoisted into the air. He grabbed Snape’s neck, hugging it tightly.

“Don’t strangle me Potter,” Snape said irritably, using his free arm to return Harry’s hands to himself and repositioning him so he was balanced on his side. Harry responded by burying his head deep inside the man’s cloaks, which were not only soft, but had a vaguely pleasant smell.

“Snape - ba – dee,” Harry mumbled happily, his body feeling warm and soothed from the elder man’s falling and rising chest.

When he had eventually sat Harry in the high chair (which took a lot more energy than he would have like seen as Harry seemed determined to cling to him) Snape handed him a small plastic spoon containing the chilling potion he had got from the cupboard. Harry looked blankly up at Snape – he didn’t really expect him to eat that stuff did he? It was a horrible brown colour and it smelt nasty. He held it back towards Snape.

“Na – da – do” You eat it.

Snape didn’t seem to understand. ‘Come on Potter,’ he said, we haven’t got all day.’

“Na – da – do” Harry repeated. Snape raised an eyebrow but didn’t take the spoon away from him. Oh well, Harry thought, If none of them were going to eat it, he might as well get rid of it. With that he catapulted the stuff across the room.

“Potter!”

A few moments later and Harry found himself eating the horrible brown stuff which Snape, taking over from Harry, abruptly fed him by pushing the spoon into his open mouth. Snape had taken away Cheep-Cheep and told Harry in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t open wide and take his medicine then he would not be getting him back. Screaming and wriggling hadn’t worked any better than smiling angelically, so in the end Harry decided to make the sacrifice for the beloved bird which he desperately needed to chew and opened his mouth. He did not enjoy being fed like a little baby, but Snape did not seem to trust him with the spoon anymore.

In the end Harry was not sorry that he took the medicine because the minute the brown stuff passed into his mouth, the hot, hurty feeling that he had had all day disappeared just like magic. He smiled gratefully up at Snape.

“Ta – da,” he giggled, holding out his hand for Cheep-Cheep.

Snape thrust the damned purple bird back at Potter. “Maybe now we can get on with some work,” he said irritably as he went to fetch the photo-album.

***

“Come on Potter, focus,” Snape said. He was sat in front of Potter, who was still in his high chair, turning the pictures of his photo album and pointing things out to him. ‘Do you recognise these people?’ he said gesturing towards a picture of James and Lily Potter twirling together on a polished dance-floor, strings of flowers hanging like streamers over their heads as the wedding party, including Remus, Sirius and a unusually well-dressed Hagrid, stood admiring them from the edges.

“Na – da,” said Harry, pulling at the corner of the page to get quickly to the next one – he wanted to finish this book assoon as possible and go back to the one where the little people flew.

Snape sighed. He was beginning to regret requesting Potter’s photo album. The boy didn’t seem to remember anything about the people in it and so it was not helping and on top of that Snape felt a knife slice through his chest every time he caught a glance of the smiling Potters. When he had asked Hermione to bring him some photos he thought she would have returned with one of the Quidditch team or some of Potter’s pathetic little Gryfinndor friends. He scarcely imagined that he would find himself confronted with the ghosts that he had tried to exorcise from his mind fourteen years ago.

The scenes in the photo album seemed to stretch right from Potter and Lily leaving school all the way through to Harry’s first birthday - which was near the time which the experiences they were capturing had ceased to continue. Lily and Potter were frozen forever as smiling, waving newly-weds and parents, and their faces betrayed a contented naivety of the events which were to follow barely three months from the last flash of the camera.

Snape shuddered even to think of the things that he had been doing at this time in the service of the Dark Lord. He felt his left arm itch in sympathy. He had not documented his experiences in an album – in fact he would be pleased with any possible way he could find to banish them from his memory forever, particularly those which told of his own role in the Potter’s legacy.

At that he felt Harry’s fingers grip tightly round one of his own. He looked down to see impatient, wide emerald eyes reminding him that he was there to deal with the present and not dwell on the past.

“I told you to concentrate,” Snape snapped. “We are not turning the page till I say so.”

This time Harry didn’t start at Snape’s harsh tone. He thought that the batman looked a bit sad – rather like Harry felt when he was alone in his crib and it was too dark.

“Ga – da,” he said shaking the Snape’s fingers. “Ga – da – dee.” With that piece of advice given, Harry decided he would really try to concentrate on the pictures of the pretty lady and the scruffy-looking man that Snape kept wafting under his nose.