"But when will he wake up?" Harry demanded of the exasperated medi-witch who was monitoring the comatose Severus Snape's vital signs. "You said he was just sleeping, so when will he wake up? Now?"

"I don't know, young man!" she replied a bit sharply. The six-year-old had been pestering her with questions ever since her shift had started an hour ago and she was quickly becoming irritated with the child's endless inquiries. "If I did, I'd be a Healer. Now, go and sit down and color or read a book. Anything but ask me more questions."

"Okay," Harry said, his lower lip trembling. He couldn't understand why the lady in the starched white robe was so cross with him, really. All he wanted to know was the answer to a Very Important Question-when would his daddy wake up? The dark-haired child was growing very worried, since his daddy never slept late and was always awake before Harry was, cooking breakfast or making potions.

But ever since the attack by the black-robed iron-masked men, his daddy, whom most people called Severus, and his mum had called Sev, had been lying here sound asleep. It mystified the little boy, who couldn't understand why a bump on the head could cause his father to fall asleep for such a long time-hours and hours! It just didn't make sense. Harry wished his dad's partner, Healer Morgan, would come and talk to him, Uncle Matt would explain everything and not tell Harry to quit asking so many questions.

The six-year-old scowled at the nurse when her back was turned, casting a diagnostic on the unconscious Potions Master and Healer in the bed. Daddy never tells me to stop asking questions. He says that's how you learn, Harry thought irritably, and retreated to the chair and the little table that had been set up for him in the hospital room.

On it were a large coloring book, crayons, and a few of his favorite books, like The Silly Sea Serpent and The Hippogriff Who Wanted a Family, which his father had kept in his office for Harry to read when he couldn't get a babysitter for his son and was working the late shift. Severus was a certified Healer as well as a Potions Master, and sometimes worked odd hours, requiring his son to amuse himself for long periods of time.

That was fine with Harry, who didn't mind drawing or coloring usually, and could read quite well, he was very advanced for his age. At least his daddy always said that whenever somebody asked how come his six-year-old was carrying around five books in a satchel. Harry loved to read and he also loved to have his father read to him, Severus always used different voices for different people and made Harry laugh.

Harry went back to coloring in a picture of a dragon, maybe he could show it to his father when Severus woke up and Sev would put it on the art wall with all his other drawings and pictures. The art wall was something his mum Lily had begun, when Harry was two and started scribbling all over everything with whatever he got his little hands on-the wall, the table, the floor-in ink or marker or crayon. She got tired of scolding him and smacking his hands and finally decided the best way to get her son to quit making pictures all over was to create a special wall just for him. There Harry could put all the pictures he'd drawn on parchment or colored that week, so she and Sev and their friends could admire them. It was called the art wall, and Severus continued the tradition even after Lily's sudden death of a rare blood disease-lupus, it was called.

Harry had been only four when Lily had passed away, and since then it had just been him and his daddy. He was Sev's special boy, because he was "adopted", as the grown-ups called it. That meant Sev wasn't his real daddy, ‘cause his real daddy, James, had died when Harry was only a year old. Harry couldn't remember him at all, the only father he knew was Severus, who had married Lily when Harry was two. Sev had told him when he married Mummy that even though Harry was James's son, he could still be Harry's daddy, since he'd adopted him, though Harry's last name was still Potter and not Snape.

The nurse had finished with her diagnostic-the results were the same, Master Healer Snape was in a coma, due to trauma to the head from an attack by Death Eaters, it was unknown exactly what had happened, but he'd fallen and struck his head hard, resulting in a hairline skull fracture, internal bleeding and a coma. She arranged the blankets about her patient again and went to get herself a glass of juice and a bite to eat, leaving Harry alone with his father.

As soon as she had gone, Harry slid down from his chair and walked over to Severus's bed. He gently put a hand on his father's shoulder and shook him. "Daddy? Wake up, Daddy! You can't sleep away the whole day, you know!" he told the Master Healer (the designation was a combination of Severus's two masteries-Healer and Potions Master). "Come on, Dad. Rise and shine, lazybones!"

That was what Sev always said when Harry protested getting up in the morning. He shook his father's shoulder again, more firmly this time. "D-a-a-d! Wake up!"

He waited expectantly for his father to open his eyes and say, "All right, you little scamp, I'm up. Now quit being a pest and go to the kitchen for breakfast."

But Severus's eyes remained closed and he didn't stir.

Harry frowned. "They said you won't wake up ‘cause you're sick, but that's dumb. You're a Healer, you make people well when they're sick, so why can't they make you well, Dad? Why?"

"We're trying, Harry," came a familiar voice from the doorway. It was Healer Morgan, who was a tall slender man with dancing gray eyes and reddish blond hair, around his dad's age of twenty-six. He was dressed in the familiar white Healer robe with the blue caduceus on it.

"Uncle Matt!" Harry ran over to him and the Healer scooped him up and hugged him. "Why won't Daddy wake up?"

"C'mere, kiddo." Healer Morgan walked over to the chair Harry had been sitting on and sat down with Harry on his lap. "See, your daddy had a bad accident and hurt his head, so in order to get well, he has to sleep for a long time."

"How long?"

"Umm . . .well, it's hard to say. It was a nasty knock on the head he took, so it might take him several days to wake up."

"Days? But who's gonna take me home then?"

Healer Morgan paused, for this was not an easy thing for him to say, but nevertheless it had to be said. "Harry, if your dad doesn't wake up by tomorrow morning, you have to go and stay with another grown-up while your daddy's in the hospital."

"Who? Can I stay with Uncle Al?" asked Harry. Uncle Al's full name was Albus Dumbledore and he was the Headmaster of a school called Hogwarts.

"I'm afraid not, Harry. Uncle Al's busy running Hogwarts, he can't look out for you. And neither can I, scamp, I'm too busy trying to oversee my patients and your dad's now that he's sick," said Healer Morgan regretfully.

Harry bit his lip. This didn't sound good. "Then where can I go? Am I gonna have to go to an orphan home, like Oliver, in Oliver Twist?" He'd watched that movie last week with Severus at the cinema. His father liked going to the cinema and so did Harry, they saw a movie once a week usually, unless Sev was too tired or Harry was being punished.

Healer Morgan was startled. "An orphanage? Sweet Merlin, Harry, no! You're not an orphan, son, your daddy's not dead. Only boys who have no mum's or dad's go there," he hastened to explain. The child really was too perceptive for his own good. He tipped the child's chin up until he was looking directly into Harry's brilliant emerald eyes. "Do you remember your dad ever mentioning your grandfather, Harry?"

Harry shook his head. "Nope. I didn't even know I had one."

Matthew chuckled. "Of course you do, silly kid! Everybody has a grandpa, Harry. He's your dad's father. His name is Tobias Snape."

"Oh? Daddy never said nothin' ‘bout him before, Uncle Matt. Where does he live? How come I never saw him? Can he do magic like us?"

"Take a breath, scamp," ordered the Healer, which was what Severus always told his inquisitive son when he asked too many questions at once. "Now, as far as I know, Tobias lives in London, which is a little ways from here. You never really saw him because . . ." here Matthew hesitated trying to come up with a plausible reason, for he could not tell the little boy that he had never seen Tobias because Severus wanted nothing to do with his father, who had been an alcoholic and abusive to Severus all through his childhood. Recently, however, Tobias had checked himself into a clinic and was now sober for the first time in twenty years. ". . . Tobias traveled a lot," he finished lamely.

"Oh. Is he a wizard too?"

"No, he's a Muggle, he has no magic, Harry. But he knows about wizards and magic because your dad's a wizard."

"Okay. Does he know Daddy's sick and sleeping?"

Matthew nodded. By now Tobias would have been told of Sev's condition by Albus or Minerva McGonagall. "Yes, and he's who you're going to stay with until your dad's better."

Neither Matthew nor Albus had liked that idea at all, but the Minister of Magic had insisted Harry be placed with his next of kin until Severus was declared fit to take care of his son. That was Ministry policy. Matthew had tried explaining that Severus had never gotten along with the elder Snape and the last thing on earth he'd want was for Harry to spend time with his father, but Fudge was adamant.

"He must go and live with a relative and Tobias is his closest living relation."

It was times like these that Morgan wished he really were Sev's cousin or brother, so Harry could stay with him. Despite his schedule, he would've been glad to care for the little boy, or at least made sure he was properly looked after while at work. The hospital made provisions for Healers with small children. Harry had stayed at the daycare center before when Severus was on call.

"Oh. Is he nice, like daddy?"

"Uh, I don't know. I guess so," Morgan replied, praying that was the case. "He should be here to pick you up in the morning, if your daddy isn't awake by then."

Harry nodded, hoping his daddy would wake up soon. "Can't you fix him, Uncle Matt?"

"I'll do my best, Harry," said the Healer solemnly. "Now, why don't we go down to the café and get you some dinner?"

"Can I have chocolate ice cream after?" asked the six-year-old.

"If you eat all your supper, then yes," Matthew told him, knowing that was Sev's rule.

Harry scrambled off the Healer's lap and raced for the door. "Hurry up, Uncle Matt!"

Matthew rose and gave his comatose friend a concerned glance. "Damn it all, Sev, you'd better wake up, you hear me? Or else they're going to send your kid to live with your bastard father."

But even that awful news did not penetrate the other wizard's brain, which wander down paths best left unexplored. Severus Snape remained lost to the world, locked away in the realm between dreams and reality. Nothing the Healers at St. Mungos could do roused him, and so it was that the next day Tobias Snape came from Spinner's End to claim temporary custody of his grandson, Harry James Severus Potter.