He had helped the boy commit suicide.

Severus had done many sick, twisted things in his time, but never had he been manipulated into doing something as perverse as helping someone kill themselves, and even at their worse Death Eaters had never melted people from the inside out. His stomach twisted into a knot within him and he mentally cursed the only person in the world who had ever out-snaked Severus Snape. He felt a kind of grudging respect towards the boy for that.

He watched, detached, as Harry sank to the floor, holding his body up by the palms of his hands. His screams had subsided now into a piteous whimpering. His entire body shook as he struggled to breathe in and out. It was the least peaceful way Severus could think of dying. He couldn’t fathom why Harry would have chosen to leave the world in this manner.

He didn’t try to help the boy. Dumbledore would have. Pomfrey would have. He did not. He felt numb all over, dejected. He would be of no use to the boy anyway. There was no counter to that particular brew. Once ingested, there was no going back.

He waited for the boy to begin to spew liquids from every orifice on his body.

Nothing happened. Harry Potter died without anything else occurring. The history books got it wrong, or else Snape brewed the potion incorrectly… and he was sure that he had not. The potion was a fairly simple brew, and Snape had taken the utmost care in brewing it. There was no way he had botched it.

He was so preoccupied with such thoughts that he almost didn’t see the soft grey smoke beginning to drift out of Harry’s pores. The smoke gathered in the air around Potter’s body, smelling faintly of grass and Watermelon. It didn’t clog the entirety of the infirmary, only surrounding Potter’s dead body. When it cleared away, Potter was gone.

A child sat where Potter had laid a moment before, his pale, naked body bright in the light of the infirmary. The first thing that Severus noticed about the boy was his eyes. They were not green. Large, black, and calculating, the eyes held not a trace of Lily in them.

Somehow that, simple though it was, made the transformation real to Severus. Harry James Potter no longer existed. In his place sat a pale, undernourished boy with wavy hair the color of sangria. His thin, bony body was littered with dark bruises and a scar cut across the child’s left eye, white and furious.

Reincarnated, brand new, and already the boy was battered, bruised, and scarred. The injustice made Severus’s stomach burn with rage.

The boy had not yet spoken. He looked, Severus reflected, rather shell shocked. It was no wonder. The boy had no memories to speak of, nothing to drawn on, no way of comprehending why he was where he was. Just give me a sign, Severus thought, a sign that you’re alright. Slowly, the boy wrapped his arms around his frame and was staring at Severus through those big black eyes as though he were frightened half to death.

Severus swallowed. What was he supposed to do? It wasn’t as though he could tell this boy, this little boy, what had occurred. Not really. Still, Severus needed to help fill in the blanks. He needed to help the child know what was going on in the world.

He needed to invent a story.

“Evan,” he said, crouching in front of the boy so that it would be clear who he was talking to. “What are you doing on the floor?”

The child looked up at him, wide eyed. His lower lip had turned a bit blue from the cold. He did not, however, respond to Severus. Instead he wrapped his arms more tightly around his tiny frame. Severus frowned. He didn’t know this child. He had known Harry. I used to know the sound of a smile on your voice, Severus thought. No longer, no longer. Harry was gone.

Severus smiled thinly. “Are you cold? I’ve no idea what possessed you to sit down there without any clothes on. Come on, let’s get you up into bed.”

He picked the child up from beneath the arms and deposited him in the bed that Harry had just been in. Before. Severus swallowed. He hadn’t had a chance to think about Harry until now. Harry was, Severus realized, just as dead as if the potion had rejected him. The silent specter he was wrapping a blanket around was not Harry. Harry Potter was dead.

Severus looked at the boy sitting on the bed. Evan Snape. He was the only legacy that Harry Potter had left behind, and Severus was determined to do the child more good than he had done his predecessor.

“How are you feeling?” Severus asked, forcing him to smile at the little boy. “Do you feel hot? Cold? Is your throat sore at all?”

Evan stared up at him almost coldly. He seemed, Severus realized, suspicious. Surprisingly suspicious for one so small. Severus had not yet determined Evan’s age. He refused to contemplate it when the boy’s obvious malnourishment would cause him to appear younger than he was. It would only serve to fuel Snape’s temper when he realized the boy’s actual age.

“Evan,” Severus said, hardening his voice ever so slightly. Continuing the façade. “You know that I want you to answer me when I ask you questions. We’ve been through this!”

The boy swallowed hard, raised a shaking hand up to rub tiredly at his eyebrow, and spoke for the first time. “Who’re you?”

Severus’s eyes went wide in feigned surprise. “What do you mean ‘who am I’? You don’t know me?” When the boy shook his head, Severus allowed himself to curse. Once. “That potion must have been a memory-changer.”

He winced at the sound of that. Hopefully Evan wouldn’t remember this particular weak explanation for long, because anyone over the age of eight would know that there was no such thing as a “memory changer”. It even sounded stupid.

Severus crouched down so that he was at eye level with his new son. “I’m your Papa. You came to live with me yesterday. You accidentally drank a potion you weren’t supposed to drink--which was very naughty, by the way. I’m afraid it might have made you forget some things.”

It was the best explanation Severus could come up with under pressure. He would simply have to get Dumbledore behind the story sometime. He would, of course, tell Evan the truth later on, but the boy was far too little at this juncture to understand. At least now, any effects that Evan suffered due to Harry’s abuse as a child would not have to be pegged on Severus.

“Where’d I live before?”

“With your aunt and uncle for a little bit,” Severus said carefully, “and before that with your Mummy and her husband.”

Evan nodded, seeming to accept that. He pulled his covers a little bit higher on his shoulders. Severus took off the robe that he was wearing and Transfigured it into pajamas small enough to fit the tyke. He helped Evan into them.

“You never told me how you were feeling.”

“I’m alright,” Evan whispered nervously.

“Does your throat hurt?”

“A little.”

Severus conjured a glass of water and helped Evan drink it. “Do you think that you could take a nap?” Severus thought that the reincarnation had probably taken a lot out of Evan. The last thing that he wanted was for Evan to make himself sick trying to process things too quickly. Besides, Severus needed some time to process things himself.

Luckily, Evan seemed grateful for the idea. He nodded, settling his head back against his pillow. Severus sat down slowly, resting a hand on the boy’s head. He rubbed Evan’s hair lightly, coaxing him to sleep. He wasn’t used to this kind of thing. He stood up, intending to head back to his room and finish packing for summer, but a small hand on his wrist stopped him.

“Please don’t walk away,” Evan whispered, “I know you wanna stay.”

So Snape stayed, sitting quietly beside Evan. The boy was so quiet, so solemn. He was too young to be so silent, Snape thought. When will you laugh again? Snape wondered. Harry used to laugh all the time. He wasn’t used to this solemnity.