"I can't thank you enough for this," the young father said, clutching the vial of silvery substance in his hands.

"Your gold is thanks enough," Snape said, deliberately rude. He had no choice but to deal with the customers who requested his most special potions, but he did not socialise with them. The last thing he wanted was the familiarity of wizards and witches who wanted to be friends.

The young wizard didn't hear him, he was holding the vial up to the light, admiring the swirl of the potion against the thick blown glass. "It's hard enough to watch her transform," he murmured. "But to see her as a snarling beast one night a month was so hard on her mother. This potion makes such a difference."

Snape counted the coins and dropped them irritably into his lock box. Why did these people think he wanted their life story?

"It's so hard to watch your child suffer," the man whispered. Then he shook himself and straightened. "Helping her's worth any price."

Snape felt something clutch within his own chest at the words, noticing for the first time the frayed cuffs of the young wizard's robe. The draught he'd invented for werewolves was his most expensive potion, it had never occurred to him before how difficult it must be for such a young couple to afford it.

On impulse he pulled out two more vials. "These will only keep for three more months," he said carelessly. "I don't generally hold onto stock that breaks down so quickly. I'll throw them in with this batch." He pushed them into the wizard's hands before he could change his mind.

The younger man gaped at him. "Th-thank you," he stuttered. "Thank you very much."

"No need to thank me," Snape said, his glare making that an order. He hurried the man from his rooms and slammed the door closed behind him, setting his usual wards with a vicious twist. He looked out of the window, it would be full moon tomorrow night.

It had been a full moon hanging over that tombstone of a house in Surrey.

A month then, since he had first laid eyes on the boy.

And here he was, mooning around, being kind for the love of Belenos! Cutting his profit to nothing!

It's so hard to watch your child suffer.

Oh yes. It's much easier when you can walk away and not actually watch. Snape sneered at his own sentimentality.

A month.

Every night since then he wondered. Was Harry still in that room, or had the Muggles dared move him back down to the cupboard under the stairs? Were the new charms on the doll holding? Did Harry's cousin get a shock every time he tried to touch it?

"This is not your concern," he told himself firmly. "It wasn't your concern five years ago and nothing has changed since."

How was Harry?

Snape wished he had kept that damned invisibility cloak for a little longer. Just to check up on the situation. He hated leaving any job half done, it was his nature, it was what made him a great potion maker.

There was a scratch at the window and an owl hooted irritably, tapping its beak against the glass. It carried a parcel and Snape tossed it a dead mouse from his workbench and unfastened the thing curiously. He received orders by mail, but never parcels. A moment later he was cursing under his breath as a fine substance spilled out over his hands and onto the desk.

"Thought you might want to pass this onto young Harry when the time comes," the note read in Dumbledore's spiky writing. "He's the one I was holding it for."

"Interfering old fool," Snape muttered under his breath.

But he stuffed the cloak into his pocket after all.

888

It was evening again, lights winking on up and down the street, fragrant smells of cooking wafting from the nearby houses as cars trundled up driveways and Muggles strolled up walks. The snow had never really fallen here as it had at Hogwarts, the streets shone with the cold winter rain, a crisp damp chill was in the air.

Snape walked right up the stairs this time, tread cat like and silent on the wooden risers, hearing childish voices raised as he reached the landing.

"My daddy says he's gonna burn it," Dudley was sneering, hands on his hips. Harry was standing in a doorway, his doll held tight to his chest.

"He would of already if he could've touched it," Harry shot back. "Merlin's magic, Dudley. No one can touch him but me. So there."

"I'm gonna tell my mum on you," Dudley said, his chest swelling with outrage. "She said she'll wash your mouth out with soap if you say magic again."

Harry's jaw quivered but he held his ground. "She will not," he said shakily. "Cos she knows my dad is watching her. He won't let her hurt me, and soon he's gonna come for me and take me away."

Snape bit back a curse on his lips. So here were the results of his meddling. He'd given the boy false hope, given him dreams about a father long dead.

Dudley was making a rude noise between pursed lips. "You were better off believin' in Santa," he said meanly. "Your dead father got himself killed in a car smash, my daddy said so. He's not comin' back. We're stuck with you. And I'm tellin!"

With that he ran down the stairs, shrieking for his mother in his annoying treble.

Harry sniffed and buried his nose in the soft hat of his doll. "It's all right, Merlin," he whispered. "She can't hurt you, my dad made sure of that. And soon he'll come and take us both from here, you'll see."

"Had to come back here didn't you, Severus," Snape muttered to himself as the small boy trudged into the stark room and climbed up onto a narrow bed, overlarge shirt hanging off one shoulder. "Couldn't just leave well enough alone. Now are you going to stand here and watch that bony Muggle bitch lay hands on a magical child? On any magical child?"

Snape kicked the door jamb and cursed a vase of flowers, turning them all into stinkweeds with barely a thought. Who was he fooling here? No matter how tenuous the connection felt between him and this boy he wasn't going to just stand around while a Muggle punished a young wizard merely for saying the word magic.

Studying the drooping shoulders a plan began to formulate in his head and his darker mood began to fade. Dumbledore had said it, there were two safe places in this world for the hero, Harry Potter. If he couldn't stay here any more then there was only one place for him.

Hogwarts.

Dumbledore would have to do what he should have done five years ago, and take the child in himself.

"Pawning him off on Muggles," Severus whispered in disgust as he stepped into the room and waved the door closed behind him. The lock clicked and Harry glanced over his shoulder, frowning in the dim light at the closed door.

Releasing his hold on the slippery fabric Snape let it slide off his head, hearing the soft slither as it pooled around his feet.

Harry did not scream, although his eyes widened and his mouth opened on a gasp.

"Merlin?" he whispered.

"Not even close," Snape said, illuminating the tip of his wand and lighting the room a little more. Harry reared back and peered at him in the white light.

"You're a wizard," Harry breathed.

"Yes," Snape said shortly, wanting to get this over with. "And so are you."

He wondered if the boy even heard him, his eyes behind his glasses were wide, his mouth was turning up. "Are you my father?" he breathed, and Snape opened his mouth to correct him. Of course he wasn't his father, not where it counted. Donating seed, casting a spell and then walking away didn't make anyone a father. James Potter, for all his sins, had been this child's father and he was dead.

"I knew you'd come," Harry whispered, and his face began to glow in the wand's light, green eyes sparkling, too pale skin taking on a luster of joy. "I knew you'd come and get me!"

And in the end it just seemed easier to agree. To save explanations, to get the boy out of this Muggle rat nest, to hand him to Dumbledore and just walk away again, get on with his life.

"Yes," he said, admitting it for the first time aloud. "I am your father."

"Have you..." Harry broke off, hope in his eyes. "Did you come to take me away from here?"

"Do you want to leave here?" Snape asked carefully. After all the Muggles had raised the boy, they were the only parents he knew-

"Yes," Harry said, before Snape had even formed the question mark. He jumped off of the bed and stepped forward, tilting his head way back. "Yes, please," he said hastily.

Snape inclined his head, more sure than ever that this was a mistake, but aware things had gone too far to stop it now. Besides, he wanted to see Dumbledore's face when he walked in and dropped the child on his desk. Harry still stood expectantly in front of him and Snape sighed. Doubtless the boy would expect affection now, hand holding and hugs etcetera. Best disillusion him straight away on that score.

"Listen," he began, gesturing with one hand.

Harry flinched away and Snape frowned. It was one thing to keep his distance, it was another for the child to flinch from him. Deliberately he left his hand out, then raised the other one.

"Harry," he said quietly, indicating quite clearly the boy should step closer.

Harry surveyed him for a moment, his doll firmly clenched in his left hand. Then, seeming to make up his mind he stepped closer and raised his arms obediently.

Snape lifted him, surprised by the light weight and somewhat confused when it came down to it as to how this was done. Abruptly he realised he'd never actually held a child before, and had no idea how to do it. Harry seemed equally at sea for long moments, hanging like a limp puppet from his father's hands.

Then thin arms reached for his neck and instinct bought the boy to his side, where legs wrapped around his hips and weight settled.

It was the most curious feeling.

It was like... magic.

The way sensation rushed from every point their bodies touched. The way something in the small fragile weight sitting on his hip was reaching into his chest, clutching at his heart, squeezing it.

It seemed Harry felt it too, for with a sigh, almost as if the puppet had had his strings cut, he lay his head on his father's shoulder.

"Daddy," he murmured, white hot heat of damp breath against the skin of Snape's neck.

Arms tightened, that mysterious magic spell shifting through him like blood through veins, like a living thing. Severus breathed in the child's scent and a word pulsed in his brain.

Mine.

888

Snape didn't bother to ask Harry if there was anything he wanted from this place. Nothing here could be of any value to the boy save the toy he clutched to his chest, a gift from his father.

My gift, Snape thought firmly.

All he wanted was to get out of here and to never see this loathsome little hovel again. To think Dumbledore had sentenced the child here! It was an outrage. To think that something of his, his seed, had been thrown onto this pile of filth to grow.

This was James Potter's fault, he thought abruptly. I entrusted my seed to you, insane as I must have been at the time. And look what care you've taken of it.

There was a banging at the door but Snape didn't even have to wave his wand to silence it. Wandless magic was rare for him, and it usually only manifested during the times he laboured over his potions, pouring his very essence into the brews, wild natural magic oozing off him, arcing into the air around him.

But tonight it seemed he was connected to some deeper source of power as the door opened before him and he walked past the Muggles, frozen in place, horror on their dull, stupid faces. He spared them barely a glance and was glad Harry's head was still buried in his shoulder.

He wondered if the aunt and uncle would even care, once their immobility wore off. Or whether they would simply be glad to see the end of the burden they had carried for so long.

Snape tightened his arms around his burden, breathing again the child's sweet scent.

Mine, he thought once more, and then they were outside the stuffy little house and he was looking around as if waking from a dream.

It was beginning to occur to him that he could not apparate carrying Harry. He had no idea where the nearest floo was, and he had never mastered the art of creating a port key.

They were stranded.

He remembered the invisibility cloak as he pulled out his wand to call the most undignified form of transport known to man, and summoned it swiftly to his side. And then the Knight Bus was there, honking gently like some ungainly beast, snuffling to a stop right before them. Harry lifted his head and peered at it curiously.

"Good evening, and welcome to the Knight bus," a dull voice intoned. Gum snapped and pink bunches of hair gathered in thick clumps at the side of her head bounced as the conductor consulted her crumpled card. "Emergency transport for... the... stranded..." The conductor trailed off as Snape fixed her with his best Death Eater glare.

"Um," she stuttered. "Where to, sir?"

"Hogsmeade," Snape said shortly, handing her a galleon. "I'll collect my change on the way out," he said over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs. On the top level he secured a bedstead to the wall with a muttered spell and sat down, turning Harry easily so he sat on one knee.

"I've never seen a purple bus before," Harry confided.

"Hopefully you never will again." Snape felt a shiver run over the boy's narrow frame and wrapped the edge of his cloak more tightly around him. The bus set off with a pop and a jerk and Harry cuddled against his chest gratefully.

"Left all my jumpers back there," he mumbled sleepily.

"You won't need them," Snape assured him. If he could he would have left everything there, even the rags the boy stood up in. He wanted nothing of those Muggles near his son, not ever again.

"Where are we going?" Harry yawned and Snape was silent, wondering himself. To Hogwarts of course, ultimately. Where Harry could be safe. But then what? Leave him with Dumbledore? Now that everything had changed?

What other choice did he have?

"How come Aunt Petunia said my mummy and daddy were dead?" Harry said into his shirt.

"She meant your adopted father." It was amazing how easily that came out.

A small finger traced the long line of buttons down his chest. "So my mummy's still dead then?"

This was harder. "Yes."

"Oh." Silence for a moment as the bus juddered to a halt and another passenger got on. "I wish she wasn't," Harry said in a small voice.

Soft black hair was close and Severus gave in to the urge to lay his cheek on it and rub comfortingly. "You have me now," he whispered, meaning it with all that was left alive within him. The boy deserved better, but for a change something Dumbledore had said was true.

Snape was all Harry had.

Funny it had taken until now to occur to him that Harry was all he had.

888

Harry was asleep by the time the bus shuddered to a stop outside the Three Broomsticks, and Snape blessed a potion maker's strong constitution as he carefully made his way down the spiral stairs and back out into the fresh air.

He paid for a room with his change from the bus and ordered a simple supper. Harry didn't awaken as he laid him on the wide bed and Snape sat next to him, studying the thin form with wonder.

How had he ever thought to walk away from this?

What was he going to do now?