The summer passed slowly but Snape was hard at work. After a long day building Harry’s crib out of scrap lumber, Snape dragged the lawn mower out of the storage shed at Spinner’s End but couldn’t bring himself to do any more work under the hot sun. So the grass grew long around the mower and Snape hid himself inside, preparing for Harry Evans’ arrival. In the evenings, completely exhausted, he would read the dusty, cracked books his father had collected during his days as a university professor.

He had added his own small collection to the shelves that lined the living room: his Hogwarts textbooks, plus his own supplemental reading: Practicing the Dark Arts, Living with the Dark Mark (published only three months ago and flying off the shelves in Knockturn Alley), and Teaching Potions.

On the evening of August the third, he was reading an example situation in the Discipline chapter of Teaching Potions. The book (complete with ridiculous diagrams and imaginary students with stupid names) set up a situation where a student, Muggle-Born Maude, melted a cauldron and described how the professor handled the disaster calmly but professionally.

He had just answered the prompt, what would you do in this situation?—“That’s easy, make Mudblood Maude drink the ruined potion and record the entertaining results”—when the doorbell rang.

He leapt out of his chair, knocking it backwards. The textbook crumpled onto the floor. He knew who it was. He’d been awaiting this new visitor, sometimes awoke at midnight in a sweat. Bottles had been sterilized and lined up on the countertops. The mobile he charmed had jangled and screeched until he crushed it with a frying pan. He had even bought nappies.

He flung the door open and his best friend stood on the doorstep. She looked worn out. Tucked inside her curved arm was a tiny bundle of blankets.

Snape took it from her. He was scared to death but tried not to show it.

“You should cut the grass,” she said. Her smile wobbled.

“Have you talked to your parents?” Snape said in a voice that came out a whisper.

She looked fierce for a moment and then she passed a hand over her forehead. “They’re not to know, Severus. They don’t understand magical pregnancies and if they think I’ve been with a boy, they’ll never let me go back to Hogwarts.”

Snape peeked down into the blankets. All he could see were two squeezed shut eyes and a pinched red face. He thought it might be the ugliest child he’d ever seen.

“Are you sure you didn’t do Goyle?”

Lily glared at him. “I’m going home. I named him Harry Evans like we decided. I didn’t give him a middle name.”

Snape kissed her forehead, Lily whispered, “Thanks for understanding,” and then she shut the door. And Snape was a sixteen-year-old father with a newborn. He poked Harry in the bassinet by his bed and went back to reading Teaching Potions.

Harry woke up mewing like a cat and Snape ignored him, hoping he would go back to sleep. He was reading about how to set up a Potions classroom and the example teacher, Professor Polyjuice, raved about how he moved the desks around depending on the type of potion being brewed. Semicircle arrangements were great for brewing complicated potions where he could rush to stop a catastrophe. Plus, the professor added, without rows of desks to walk through it was easier on the teacher’s back and feet.

Snape snorted. “It would be easier on your back if you didn’t rearrange the desks every bloody day.”

By the time he had drawn his classroom arrangement in the empty box provided in the book—“Idiots in the front so they’ll learn quicker”—Harry’s cries had grown to adult-like screams.

Snape could feel the blood draining from his already pale face. He looked down at the cartoon drawing of Professor Polyjuice. “Shut up. You don’t get them until they’re halfway grown.”

He ran to the kitchen, mixed up a bottle of formula, and skidded into the bedroom. Harry’s face was redder than it had been at first, but at least he looked like a real human now.

He cursed, the same word over and over, like a lullaby for himself before scooping the baby into his arms. He remembered too late that babies couldn’t hold their own heads up. For a sickening moment, he thought his son’s overly large head was going to flop off his neck and onto the floor.

Harry threw his arms and legs out, his entire body shuddering. Snape felt horrible. Then he began to scream again.

Snape forced the bottle into Harry’s mouth. The room fell silent.

Sweat dripped off Snape’s face as he settled into the rocking chair in the corner. He had forgotten to turn on the light and heavy drapes blocked the sunbeams from coming through the grimy windows. It felt like a tomb in there. He hated being a father.

Creak, creak, creak. He rocked until Harry emptied the bottle and went to sleep. Feeling disoriented in the darkness, Snape felt as though he’d been rocking Harry for several lifetimes.

Creak, creak, creak.

He woke up to a whimper. He had fallen asleep in the rocking chair and Harry was still in his arms. What time was it?

He fumbled for the clock on the nightstand. One a.m.

He looked down at Harry who stared cross-eyed at him with bright almond shaped eyes. Lily’s eyes. When Harry let out a single wail, Snape smelled the reason.

“I hate being a father!” he said, throwing the clock to the ground. Harry didn’t say anything. Did magical newborns even talk? He felt guilty all the same. “I didn’t mean anything by it. But did you know your mother was magically impregnated? Of all the ways to get someone pregnant, I had to do it the lamest way possible. Do you realize I haven’t even slept with your mother?”

He remembered to hold Harry’s head up this time as he carried him to the changing table. He whipped off the nappy and pointed his wand at Harry’s bum, realizing as he did so that he knew no spells that related to bodily functions. A few curses, perhaps, but no spells.

In that moment, the image of a redhead sprang to his mind. Not Lily, the one who had caused this mess in the first place, but Mrs. Molly Weasley, a frazzled mum he had met while buying Harry’s nappies. She had been chasing two children down the aisles and was very pregnant with a third. She had pointed out the most absorbent nappies to Snape before declaring that if she had a fourth child, Snape had permission to call her insane. She had forgotten to take her middle child home. The shopkeeper had run after her before returning with the anklebiter. “She lives at the Burrow. I’ll drop him through the Floo Network.”

He had wondered then, Is this what it is like to be a parent? He’d gone home that evening and downed an entire bottle of Firewhiskey. And now he couldn’t stop staring at the green Floo Powder sitting over his fireplace.

Harry started to cry. Snape was scared. This thing seemed to cry all the time; right now, it seemed to be because he was naked. Well, Snape could relate. He’d cried, in private, after Potter had pantsed him in front of the whole school. But while he had stopped crying when Crabbe walked into the common room, Harry seemed content to cry no matter who was around.

He gritted his teeth and finished changing Harry. Just in case, he made another bottle and Harry sucked on it hungrily.

After setting Harry asleep in his bassinet, Snape dropped off to sleep. He was dreaming of Professor Binn’s boring History class when he heard the sound again: like a fire engine with black hair.

His nappy was wet. It was three a.m.

Three hours later, he was hungry again. This time Snape had been dreaming about screaming babies.

He stumbled into the kitchen and mixed another bottle. While Harry slept, he ate breakfast, showered and shaved. He tried not to look at himself in the mirror but he was all too aware of the bags under his eyes.

“I’m sixteen,” he reminded himself, and went back into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. He drank it all and was so jittery, he went out in the yard and mowed the lawn.

By the time evening rolled around, Snape was bored out of his mind with the monotonous routine of feeding, rocking, and changing a stranger that was supposed to be his son. He wondered when paternal love was supposed to kick in. Maybe it didn’t apply to teenage fathers.

He turned his alarm clock off—he wouldn’t need it—and rolled himself and Harry into bed.

Around the same hour as the night before, Harry started crying. Snape woke up, feeling as though pins were stabbing his eyelids. His legs didn’t seem to belong to him. They dragged somewhere of their own accord as he tried to head toward the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.

He drank the entire pot and his eyelids started working again.

Harry was still crying when he got back from the kitchen. Snape tried burping him and then he changed his nappy. Afterward he paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He wasn’t enjoying it. Sure, the coffee had zinged him and the walking gave him a way to work off the energy, but the coffee also put an enormous amount of pressure on his bladder.

He put Harry in the bassinet and ran to the master bathroom. It was the perfect solution. Yet when he heard Harry scream, his muscles tensed and he found he couldn’t relax enough to go. Maybe that was paternal love kicking in.

When he picked up his son, Harry snuggled still crying against his chest. Snape wondered if bladders could explode.

“Are you hungry, Harry?” he asked.

He put a bottle in Harry’s mouth and Harry started sucking happily. Hallelujah! Snape scrambled to the bathroom. Balancing the bottle against his chest, he managed to keep Harry quiet long enough to relieve himself.

He had just finished when something splashed into the toilet. Harry started screaming and Snape checked for a wild moment to make sure he was still holding onto him. It wasn’t Harry he had dropped, it was the baby bottle, and he was not fishing around in the toilet to get it out.

Harry was screaming in his ear and he was so tired. He was tired of this fathering business. He couldn’t even use the toilet without a little person watching him. Now he’d just wasted an entire bottle of formula and he’d have to make another bottle in the dead of night. He didn’t like this one bit.

He set Harry, still screaming, into the bassinet and stomped over to the fireplace. Throwing Floo Powder into the fireplace, he shouted, “The Burrow!”

Harry screamed louder. Snape could feel himself losing his reserve. He swallowed around a lump that had appeared in his throat.

The kitchen that swam in front of his eyes was dark and empty. “Mrs. Weasley?” he called in desperation.

He heard a crashing sound and then a light flickered on. Mrs. Weasley appeared, hair askew, carrying her lit wand.

“Who are you?”

“Severus Snape. I’m a student at Hogwarts and now I’m a f-f-father.” He stammered the last word but he would not cry. He wouldn’t.

“I remember. You were at Babies ‘R Magic. Is something wrong?”

Harry screamed louder and Snape felt his ears pop. He jumped to his feet scattering ash, and shouted, “Shut up!”

Then he felt someone pushing him then pulling him forward. He let out a choking sob and then fell against something soft and plump. Molly Weasley had stepped through the fireplace into Snape’s home and was murmuring something that sounded admonishing and sympathetic at the same time.

“You mustn’t yet at your son like that, Severus,” she said, rubbing his back. “Shh, shh, it’s hard, isn’t it? There are days I want to wring Bill’s neck when he’s discovered a new naughty word or when Charlie’s drawn on himself with color quills. And you never quite get used to those cries, it always tugs on your heart.”

Snape rubbed his nose against the puffy sleeves of Molly’s robe. “I just want to go to Hogwarts.”

He felt Molly’s shoulders shake and knew she was laughing at him.

“I’m a terrible father. I accidentally dropped Harry’s bottle in the toilet just now.”

“Oh my,” she said, patting his back. “You’re having a rough time of it. Where is Mum?”

Snape simply shook his head.

She let go of him and pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket. “Dry your eyes. I’ll go fetch Harry a new bottle.”

He couldn’t let her do that for him, not when she had a new baby of her own. He tried to protest but either Harry’s cries drowned him out or she chose to ignore him.

He collapsed onto his bed and pulled his pillow close. He would rest until she came back up the stairs. Until then, he would just shut his eyes and think….

Early in the morning, he was jolted awake by Harry’s cries. There was a piece of parchment propped up by his lamp. He opened bleary eyes and read it: “Dear Severus, I’m sorry you haven’t parents to help you through these difficult first months. Mine were a great help during Bill’s first year, so I offer my husband’s and my assistance. Please let Arthur or me know if you need us, you would never be a bother. All the best, Molly.”

Around lunch time, Lily came by to see Harry. Snape had forgotten it was still summer. While Lily cooed over Harry, Snape ditched shaving and showering for a four-hour nap.

The months passed. The summer’s bright sunlight faded into the paler version that peeked through colorful trees. When Harry was four months old, Snape started smiling when he saw him waving his chubby legs. Sometime during the long hours pacing back and forth in an effort to calm Harry, Snape had fallen in love with his son. He wasn’t sure how it happened but it seemed an eternity had passed since he had shouted at Harry to shut up.

After they had struggled through the rough first few months, both of them slept more soundly at night. Snape wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not but when he picked up Harry, Harry seemed to recognize him and love him in return.

When he asked Molly, she laughed. She had been holding her three-month-old, Percy, at the time and he’d been looking up at her with a soppy grin. “Of course he knows who you are. In spring, he’ll be saying “dada” and your heart will melt all over again.”

Now that Harry could hold his head up and that horrible floppiness had disappeared, Snape could hold Harry on his knee and bounce him up and down. Harry would laugh and Snape couldn’t help joining in.

They were in the middle of this game in late December—Harry was nearly five months old—when there was a knock at the front door.

Snape jumped off the threadbare couch. “Sorry, love, but when you’re my only company, I go a bit insane. Go play by yourself.” He laid Harry on the floor and watched him reach for his favorite rattle.

The doorbell rang.

“I’m coming!” he shouted. “Git.”

He wrenched the door open. The hinges creaked; it had been a while since someone came to visit. Arthur and Molly always came through the fireplace.

Lily stood on the doorstep, holding a trunk.

Snape burst through the doorway. “Let me get that for you, Lil.” He pecked her on the cheek and she turned away.

“Snape, I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Snape smirked. This was probably the first time he had spoken the truth when he said those words. “I’ve missed you.”

“Don’t. People have been murdered in the streets. Muggles, too. They say a Dark Lord is taking over the wizarding world.”

Snape thought back to the days at Hogwarts when he, Mulciber, Crabbe, and Goyle talked about joining with Lord Voldemort. They’d practiced the dark curses they knew. Snape had even written his own, including Sectumsempra which he’d used against Potter, and Levicorpus, which Potter had used against him.

“I’ve been busy changing nappies and giving baths, Lil. Do you really think I had time to murder people?”

“I don’t know.”

Snape scratched his greasy head. “Of course you don’t know, what was I thinking? You haven’t been here to see anything.”

She whipped around and said hotly, “I’ve been at Hogwarts! I have to finish my education. I didn’t think you wanted to finish Hogwarts anyway. Weren’t you set to help the Dark Lord carry out his plans?”

Snape didn’t say anything, only stared at the wall. In the dark nights when Harry wouldn’t stop crying, he had thought of this moment, the day he and Lily would be reunited. In his waking dreams, he had seen Lily’s flaming red hair streaming out behind her in the wind, her robes billowing, and her face glowing with the happiness of seeing the person she’d grown to love as more than a friend. Right now, Lily’s face glowed, but the way her eyes roamed the room, Snape knew it wasn’t he she was seeking out. He felt betrayed.

“Harry!” she squealed. The baby looked up and beamed.

It just wasn’t fair.