“Everyone respects him...he is very brave and very wise. That's why he is known as the Great Prince of the Forest.”-(Bambi’s Mother) Bambi, Disney

Almost…Severus Snape had almost managed to fall asleep.

Snape slit his eyes open a crack to see the fawn wiggling on the edge of his bed. Harry’s front legs managed to fold atop the duvet but his hind legs dangled off the floor, the little fawn trying to slowly squirm his body onto the bed completely. Sighing heavily, Snape opened his eyes and sat up, the little fawn noticing the Snape man fully awake and proceeding to wag the tail that the Potions Master longed to chop off. The fawn had stopped his wiggling at least but was still hopelessly stuck hanging off the bed.

“Potter,” Snape began in a low, menacing tone. “It is three in the morning. Couldn’t you wait two hours before getting into trouble?!” he asked roughly. “I have double potions to teach first thing tomorrow—in three hours—and there are Hufflepuffs that—POTTER!”

The fawn had dimly noted that his body was slowly sliding off the edge until it was too late and Harry began to thrash as he felt the plush down rolling quickly from under him. His panicked writhing quickened his descent that would have surely injured him against the cold stone floor.

But strong hangs caught him and carefully lifted him onto the bed, depositing him on his feet that sank into the plump down cover. He folded his legs beneath him so he could embrace the cushioned softness and warmth of the bed, Snape’s hand still lying comfortably on his back adding more warmth.

Snape cursed himself, unable to tear his eyes off the creature that basked on top of his bed. The fawn’s coat was chilled. The man could see the trembling spasms of the little creature ease as the bed’s warmth spread itself through the animal.

Idiot!

Snape had no option but to allow the fawn to sleep in his bed. Not that he liked the idea…the fawn would be discouraged from wandering in the middle of the night and getting into some danger at least—

“Potter, no!”

Harry had been pleasantly comfortable until his sensitive ears picked up the warmth coming from the middle of the bed…right next to the pillows. He quickly made his way to them and formed a niche for himself against the duvet and soft cushions and burrowed himself deeply into it.

“That is my spot.” The fawn simply blinked his tired eyes at the man in response.

There was a thick silence that would have radiated warnings to human Harry Potter but in his current form, the little creature did not budge.

When Snape attempted to push the fawn towards the foot of the bed, he didn’t budge.

“Damn it, Potter.” Snape hissed.

Now the damned creature was pressed against his side, WITH one of his tiny hooves poking at his ribcage. The man turned slightly to be rid of the irritating limb but this allowed the fawn to scoot closer, curling himself into the slight arch of his abdomen. No matter how Snape tried to make the situation better, Potter’s intentions always prevailed. How typical.

Just as the dour adult thought of the agonizingly long hours of sleepless seconds wasted, the tug of the sandman’s magic pulled both of the occupants in the bed to sleep.

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“Harry,”

Harry looked up from the tender plant shoots he had been rifling through the fields for. His ears twitched at the melodic voice that sweetly called his attention. Turning his head to scan the barren hills, he jumped as he finally caught sight of the giant man-cave with tree-like heights and a fire’s light glowing in its knots and holes. It had appeared out of no where… And look! That lake, Harry was sure that hadn’t been there before either. Just behind him a forest sprouted behind him looking very…very…forbidden. Should he run into it and hide?

“Harry,”

Harry turned back to the lake where he saw the only other creature in sight. The mysterious forest and cave—no, it’s called a castle…a school—that popped out were scaring the young animal. The animal trotted forward slightly then stopped, the light on its coat dimming so he could clearly see who it was.

‘Mother!’

At last! Harry knew he’d be able to find her soon. The ecstatic fawn leapt full gear towards the doe crying out for her in fear she would have to leave again. But he finally reached her…and she was still there.

‘Mother! Mother!’

Only now…

‘Mother!—M-Mum! Mum!’

The woman smiled affectionately and lifted the fawn into her arms, cradling him gently. The floral smell from her red hair blanketed him, a smell he was sure he was so familiar with but had not been given for many years. This human…a woman…was holding him, a stranger, yet Harry knew she wasn’t. His heart still thumped with joy. This was his mother. She smiled down at him as he rubbed his head against her shoulder. The fact that she was a human was barely registering.

‘Please, if only I could stay like this forever!’ Harry thought desperately. “Don’t go anymore.” Harry startled himself with a voice. His voice.

He lifted his head and emerald eyes met emerald.

“I’ve never left, Harry.” The soft feminine voice twinkled like chimes, merry but with the gentle grace of a breeze. This was his mother. “Harry…how long will you keep yourself in this form?”

“I don’t know… I kind of like it.” Harry answered, biting his lip uncertainly. “I feel less troubled.”

“Trouble doesn’t disappear, my son. It will find you again. Please go back to your human body, Harry.”

“But I don’t want to… Please, don’t make me.” Harry begged in a choked voice. “I don’t ever see you in my human body…not like this.”

She held his face in her hands and kissed his forehead, both faces now shining with silent tears. “You are very vulnerable, Harry, like this. You have not yet adjusted to this form and you are weak. I can not protect you as strongly when you are hiding.”

“I’m not hiding!”

“Not so much now…Severus has found you.”

“Severus?” Harry fought to put a face to the name. “Snape man?”

The woman smiled and kissed his forehead once again. “In this form, he shall protect you, slowly you will grow stronger, my son…but it is inevitable that Voldemort will find out about your weakened state sooner or later. You must try, Harry, please, to learn to control this.”

“B-But I don’t want to change back! Ever!” Harry cried as he buried himself in her embrace.

“Harry…”

His crying turned to sobs and he clung to her in distress. “Please, Mum, please!”

“Shh…”

She smoothed his hair and hugged her son with as much love as she could give him.

"Shh. There now. It's going to be all right. You'll see." she murmured softly, her voice lulling a sweet sense of comfort that attempted to penetrate Harry’s anguished state.

He panicked, looking up at her. She was going to leave him again. No! Harry was so confused. Why did this have to happen…? "Why'd you have to go?" he asked miserably.

Something was happening…his eyelids were getting heavy again but he didn’t want to sleep, not yet… "Everything in the forest has its season.” his mother’s voice danced in the air…in his head. And she was no longer moving her lips. “Where one thing falls, another grows. Maybe not what was there before, but something new and wonderful all the same."

"But I feel so alone." Harry managed to mutter as his body started to go limp with fatigue.

"I'm always with you. Even when you can't see me, I'm here."

“Y-You are?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

Harry’s eyes finally drifted close, the image of the woman replaced with that of a glowing, silver doe whose eyes sparkled with love for her son. Him.

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.

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When Harry woke the next morning, he could remember a woman with radiant green eyes and the comfort of the silver doe. And not much of anything else… But there was a physical presence, someone’s warmth that protected him nearby. He opened his large emerald eyes and began to slowly uncurl his long limbs and attempt to stand on the bed. The Snape man was still asleep, the sound of his breathing passing more noisily than others through his rather large snout.

Harry stood shakily and clumsily turned around to see the Snape man more closely. When his mother had left him in the dark after dusk, the fawn had been so afraid, so full of despair. Then this man showed him the way to this large forest of stone. This human had sheltered and comforted him yesterday…given him a place to sleep and warmth through the night.

The little fawn was very happy with his temporary guardian. Snape protected him.

Feeling ever so grateful, the fawn couldn’t stop himself from moving forward.

Snape was jostled—or more appropriately, knocked—awake by a mass of lithe limbs with a cold, wet nose. The little fawn was now sprawled across his stomach with his little head turned towards him waiting expectantly for the angriest lecture in all his life.

“Potter,” Snape began lowly.

Ears twitched merrily at the almost familiar sound of his name and the warm belly squirmed as the fawn attempted to move closer to Snape’s face.

“JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?”

Silence. A wagging tail.

“Insufferable little—remove your persons from me this instant. I have a class to terrorize.”

Snape ended up having to lift the fawn off of him in order to even sit up.

The Potions Master attempted to psyche himself for the day. “Just follow your daily routine, Severus. Potter’s annoying presence will fade into the background soon enough. Hopefully.”

The little fawn followed the man into the bathroom and had to be nudged with a knee in order to wait outside. Snape couldn’t possibly relieve himself with the blasted animal watching.  But as the crying and wailing started to reach an irritating shrill pitch, Snape was forced to open the door once more so the fawn could watch him brush his teeth.

“Stand there. And don’t touch anything!” Snape warned the fawn.

Just another hour more…then he could dump the fawn at Hagrid’s hut for the day.

But the little animal continued to make Snape’s morning even more burdensome. The fawn was insisted on being as close as possible to the man even trying to dig under his robes after he was dressed. The fawn also nearly tripped the man when he went to check on his potions in stasis in the next room. No matter how the man tried to force an adequate amount of space between them (the width of a room) the animal was always tripping on its own hooves to be smothered against his leg.

Suddenly the fawn dived back under the black comforting robes as a presence pecked at Snape’s window. Usually Dumbledore used this ‘portal’ to send messages to the younger man. Indeed it was Fawkes with a small scrap of parchment.

‘Good morning, Severus! A new, delicious bottle of Oisín milk will be provided  at breakfast. A.D.’

Just. Great.

It was another half hour later when Snape turned up at the head table, taking rather small steps and looking more rigid and fuming than the staff had seen in a long time.

Dumbledore and McGonagall exchanged worried glances as the man sat stiffly into his usual seat. “Are you well, Severus?” McGonagall asked.

“…and where is Mr. Potter?” the headmaster followed in a hushed tone.

Snape lifted the table cloth slightly so they could barely make out the form of the fawn making its escape from Snape’s robes and under the shelter of the table.

“Potter refused to walk in the hallways while the early risers were up and about. I presume his bottle is here?” Snape said hurriedly, pouring a good dose of caffeine for himself.

He could tell he was going to need a lot of it for the day.

From under the table, Harry pressed his belly against the floor to peer at the many feet of students who were racing each other to their tables. Two scents he recognized from the students, a boy and a girl. The freckled boy was whispering to the bushy haired girl who looked anxiously at the head table. Were they looking for him?

When the side of his feeding bottle nudged him, he turned to greedily suck on his meal. All thoughts of the many humans were whisked away by the darkness of the table’s underside and the creamy milk swishing in its container. Professor McGonagall pocketed her wand after performing a temporary wingardium leviosa on the bottle for the fawn to enjoy. Harry noticed out of the corner of his eye, somehow sensing the magic that she had performed to help him. Maybe humans weren’t so bad.

Next to McGonagall was Snape, whose legs were casually crossed at the ankles. The fawn stared at those feet fondly, thinking of the man’s scowl and frustrated sighs with adoration. He was so lucky to have Snape as his guardian! Everyone respected Snape. Even from under the man’s robes, Harry could sense the other humans going out of their way to make a path for the man to walk through. They became silent and alert of the man’s presence. He had even left the smaller humans quivering with fear. Harry’s guardian sure was respected. The fawn was ecstatic at the idea and the Potions Master, as if he could sense the animal’s elation, pulled back the table cloth to see what was nudging against his shoes. The man gave Harry a questioning look.

“Seeing as you are done, Severus, shouldn’t you head to the dungeons and get Harry reacquainted with his Potions class?” the headmaster asked too merrily for a morning hour. Harry recognized the voice from the previous night and cautiously peered out from under the table. Somehow, the twinkling in the eyes of the older human eased the fawn’s trepidation slightly. “Harry might recognize the familiar setting and trigger him back to his human conscious.”

Snape had to admit to himself that such an idea was worth trying until he mentally envisioned it. “Headmaster, that would be a complete disaster! I thought we agreed that we would keep the state of Potter to as few people as possible?” the man quickly replied. He gave the fawn another scathing look as though the suggestion were his fault. “Potter would get in the way of the day’s lesson and is bound to be the center of attention. As usual.” Shaking his head he gave a stern glare at the headmaster. Even if it was the same glare that never phased the old wizard. “Potter is going to Hagrid’s.”

The headmaster and Transfiguration professor both ignored the tone of finality in his voice. “Severus, Harry is not ready to be left alone. Right now, he does not recognize the castle and he could easily be worked up into a serious condition. He needs you to be near him.” McGonagall said in her lecturing mode. Snape was often given that tone even as her fellow colleague and well past his student years.

“And it just so happens that Hagrid had to leave with Remus earlier this morning. Due to their trip concerning the ingredients for young Harry’s antidote, they had to be on their way as soon as possible.”

Snape stared at the headmaster for a good couple of minutes, face blank. “Just. My. Luck.” the man ground out from clenched teeth. “Potter, you better see to it that you behave yourself and keep out of the way!” he hissed at the fawn. Harry was currently trying to part the man’s feet so he could curl himself around Snape’s ankles.

The man stood quickly and it didn’t escape Dumbledore or McGonagall’s notice how Harry easily adjusted himself from beneath the robes, appearing to the unsuspecting observer that the fawn was not there at all. Harry stood, followed the pace of Snape’s long strides, and soon the two were heading back to the dungeons. Many students, who were observant enough to sense the man’s foul mood, wasted no time to head for a completely different corridor.

Again, Harry felt pride swell within him. Here he was, a little old nobody, with a great guardian to watch out for his well-being!

In this strange forest of stone, with the presence of Snape, it wasn’t bad at all. Harry felt very much that his mother would approve.