“Right” said Tom, as he loaded the breakfast plates into the sink “First things first, let’s get that damn Trace off you, Harry.”

“Huh?” Harry responded eloquently.

“The Trace, Harry, will tell the Ministry if anyone around you uses magic. That’s how they catch underage magic use, you see.”

“It’s one of those nasty, discriminatory old laws which the Ministry can, somehow, never find the time or funds to alter.” Lily added wryly “You see, when magic is performed near a kid, it is picked up by their Trace. However, if you're living with a witch or wizard, no one can tell whether it was the child or adult who cast the spell.”

“Indeed” Severus added, folding his arms and leaning against the larder door “Master Malfoy, for example, could be hexing, jinxing, charming and transfiguring every second of the holidays and, as the Office of Underage Magic could not hope to prove that he, as opposed to his parents, had been casting the aforesaid spells, they would not trouble themselves to investigate. However, Ms Grang… Hermione would be investigated if any witch or wizard cast a spell in her vicinity; all her relations are muggles and, therefore, she would immediately be the prime suspect.”

“What!” Harry reddened with indignation “But that’s…”

“Bloody unfair” Tom grinned darkly “I thought so too, being in a muggle orphanage. That’s why I, ah, researched the matter in my spare time. Slughorn, bless him, never realised just how I spent all my ‘work experience’ days at the Ministry.”

“You can lift it?” Harry asked, hope, relief and incredulity combining in his voice.

“Harry, rules are only there so you think before you break them.” Tom made a complicated movement with his wand and Harry felt something change within him.

“Now”, smiled Tom, setting the dishes washing themselves with a flick of his wand, “Let’s start making lunch!”

Harry raised an eyebrow and- all of a sudden- he realised just from whom he’d inherited that expression. It felt kind of weird.

“We’re all potioneers, Harry and good potioneers are invariably good cooks. And it would be a travesty to let all that talent go to waste.” Tom threw a tea-towel over his shoulder and grinned. “We’re making frittata; everyone grab a vegetable and start chopping!”

“Unhand me woman!” gasped Snape as Lily tackled him around the waist.

“Nuh, uh! Tom said I had to chop you up!” Lily grinned cheekily, her holly-green eyes bright.

“Children, please! You’re no longer eleven!” called Tom, who was gathering his mass of dark hair into a ponytail.

“Would a courgette do?” said Harry fishing around in the vegetable basket.

Tom gave him an old fashioned look “Am I supposed to be the ‘good example’?”

“Um…” Harry looked around at his Mum, who was standing behind Snape, who was chopping up onions, doing an impression of his haughty expression whilst giggles wracked her small frame. “I guess?” Harry had expected his Mum to act… well, like a Mum, not a barely older sister. Then again, Lily was, technically, still only twenty-one…

“Yup, courgette, tomatos, chillies, spring onions, mushrooms, peppers, herbs, olives, whatever you enjoy eating. Frittata is good like that; anything goes. As the actress said to the bishop…” He smirked.

Harry stared at Tom’s thin mouth; he’d seen that expression about a thousand times- admittedly on a different face and with eyes as cold and dark as the abyss rather than sparkling with warm humour.

Having been an orphan all his life and tracing the features of the man he knew to be his father, seeing eyes like his in a woman’s face, noting the texture and colour of raven-hair which, but for length, was identical in every way to that on his own head... it felt weird.

Tom waved an elegant hand over Harry’s eyes “Don’t tell me I’ve broken your mind, Harrybo.”

Harry blushed “Sorry, it’s just… strange realising that, well, your mouth is like Snape’s… I’ve never… Petunia and Dudley look nothing like me.”

“That is probably for the best, Harry. Petunia, while not blessed by nature, always did her level best to make herself look as shrewish and unpleasant as possible. It is said that, by the time a man is thirty, he has made his own face and, even at the tender age of eleven, Petunia was glaring and scrunching her mouth so tight it looked like a cat’s rectum.”

Harry laughed “She still does that.”

“Bet the wrinkles are showing now too” smiled Tom, who was briskly slicing mushrooms to paper thinness. "I understand, Harry. It took me quite a while to get used to seeing my feature's in another's face."

Harry returned Tom's smile and started dicing his courgette into tiny cubes. When he’d finished, Harry turned around to grab a couple of chillies.

“These are very evenly diced, Mr… Harry.”

Harry turned to look up into sad, serious dark eyes. “Um, thanks. I used to cook a lot at the Dursleys.”

Snape swallowed “So I have gathered… if you do not wish to cook, however, I, that is to say that no one here would take it amiss if you would prefer to go flying, for example.”

“Er, no. It’s okay. I enjoy cooking too, it’s relaxing.”

“Very well” Snape nodded and, scooping up the courgette, retreated to his frying onions.

Lily, who had been skinning and slicing garlic-cloves, paused to press a kiss on the top of Harry’s head as she passed on her way to the oven. Harry saw his Mum stand on tip-toes and loop her arm around Snape’s hunched shoulders as she dropped her garlic into the pan.

As Harry bent to slice his chillies, an image suddenly jumped into the forefront of his brain; once Dudley and his friends had found a semi-tame rabbit and, being the lovely boys that they were, they had enticed it into captivity and proceeded to ‘play’ with it. By the time they lost interest, the creature was half-insane with pain and terror and, when Harry had tried to help it, the rabbit had almost taken his hand off.

Dumped, his mum had said, with unnecessary cruelty. Snape was heartbroken…

Harry couldn’t help but remember the hatred, distain and contempt in Sirius’s gaze when he looked at Severus that night in the ‘Shrieking Shack’. Or the way Sirius had levitated Severus so that he hit his head on every step. He found himself wondering how Sirius’s expressions had twisted Lily’s face as ‘she’ last looked on Snape.

Unnecessary cruelty…

Harry’s green eyes, almost the same shape and shade as his mothers’, must have resembled Lily’s eyes, as worn by Sirius, in expression every time Harry glared at his most hated teacher.

Heartbroken…

Hunched, broken creature, wild-eyed and spitting in fury, lashing out with all it’s might because it just couldn’t bear to be hurt again.

Broken…

“Owww!” Harry looked down at a deep gash in his finger.

“Harry, oh God, it looks deep!” said Lily, rushing over.

Severus strode over and took hold of Harry’s hand “Evansco” the blood disappeared “Episkey.”

“Um, thanks.” Said Harry, rubbing his hand. “Er, I could have just washed off the blood.”

“Chilli oil in a closed cut is exceptionally painful M… Harry.” Replied Severus, vanishing the ruined chilli and casting a cleaning charm on the bloodied chopping board.

“Oh,” Harry flushed, why hadn’t he thought of that? “Thanks.”

Tom patted him on the back “You know, it’s not mandatory to eat human flesh if you’re a dark wizard, Harry” he said with a wink.

oOoOo

The Wytchfeld Woods were, Harry thought, the perfect place to picnic. Provided you didn’t believe in the Jabberwocky. If you did, you’d expect him to be lurking within the towering, viridian spires of every yew-tree, behind every sprawling, knobbly, ancient oak, amid every thicket of hemlock umbels, whose creamy foam of tiny flowers nodded in the breeze.

Godric, however, was as fearless as his namesake and tore around the mossy forest floor yapping at birds, snuffling at flowers and, rather unromantically, spraying urine over everything.

Harry hoped that they’d manage to lay the picnic rug before the daft pup managed to scent-mark every inch of the place.

“Godric!” Harry moaned, as the puppy surged forward, dragging the teenage boy by Godric’s new, red leather lead, “Don’t pull!”

“You named him Harry!” called out Tom, who was carrying the picnic basket. It was such a lovely day, he’d decided that they should eat lunch outside. After all, as Tom’s house, the Wren’s Nest, was surrounded by the Wytchfeld woods, a country walk could simply mean stepping outside the front door.

“Godric by name, Godric by nature” chortled Lily, who was clunking along with a couple of bottles of fizzy pumpkinade in a hemp bag.

Godric, hearing his name, looked up and raced towards Lily, dragging Harry with him.

“Hello handsome one” Lily cooed, ruffling the puppy’s golden mane.

“Isn’t there a spell or something?” Harry moaned, rubbing his arm.

“For stopping a dog pulling? In fact there are two” Smirked Tom “The incantation for the first is ‘heel’ and one must stand absolutely still until it works and, only then, move off, repeating the charm whenever symptoms reoccur.”

“The second spell takes, oh, eight years or so to come into effect” continued Snape “One simply has to say ‘oh I wish this dog would stop pulling’ and wait.”

“Hey, don’t gang up on a helpless cub, you nasty old Serpents” called Lily

“Well excuse me, princess, but he was talking about hexing a puppy” Tom retorted cheerfully.

Harry chuckled, only Tom would spend the first week of his reincarnation watching CITV.

“Hey, Sev” said Lily “Sing us your woodland song!”

Severus flushed and looked away “It has been many years since I last sung anything, Lily” he said in a low, solemn voice. “I am not sure how much of the ‘Lay of Luthien’ I can remember.”

“But you used to sing all the time.” Lily replied, bemused.

Harry looked at his mother, emerald green eyes widening in surprise; Snape had never struck him as a musical guy. He was too reserved, for one thing, and Snape's voice was sharp, brittle, more suited to slinging spiteful insults than soothing songs.

Though, there had been less spurs this last week and, today, Snape had been practically civil.

“The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tinúviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering”

Harry listened, enthralled, as Severus’s soft baritone wove the words of Tolkien into the melody of Greensleeves. Harry realised that, since his first period of Potions, he had never really listened to Snape. Not really. Harry’d just used the time Snape was talking to think of his next retort.

This morning, Harry would have struggled to come up with one positive attribute for the man and it definitely wouldn’t be his voice.

While love, once created, self-perpetuates, it is not a product of self-generation: love must have something to grow upon, be it esteem, gratitude, empathy or desire. Similarly, one cannot truly forgive without, first, finding some extenuation for the offence: when pity takes root, absolution is often the fruit.

As Harry listened to the tale of lonely Beren, who had deeply loved and tragically lost his Luthien, only to find her again after years of sorrow, he pitied Snape. Yes, the man had been an arsehole, yes, Snape was old enough to know better, yes, his past wasn’t justification for how he’d treated Harry.

But, no, Snape hadn’t deserved what Sirius, James and Dumbledore had done to him.

oOoOo

Therefore, when Harry sat down at the adjoining side of the picnic rug to Snape, it was with gentler feelings towards the man than he had previously inspired; the sharpness of resentment had blunted, slightly, and civility was not as herculean a feat as it had seemed this morning.

Tom, who had been attaching Godric’s lead to a stake, sat down gracefully on Harry’s other side and started un-shrinking the plates, whilst Lily unwrapped packages of steaming hot frittata and crispy roast potatoes while Snape poured vinaigrette over the salad. Harry, whose apatite had been sharpened by the exercise, found his mouth watering “This has to be the best picnic ever” he said to his mum, grinning.

“I have too many memories of soggy sandwiches eaten on windy beaches by gloomy children to enjoy standard picnic food.” said Tom, handing out the knives and forks

Harry nodded; on primary-school trips, limp bread with the thinnest scraping of jam had been his usual fare.

“Tom does make the best picnic food” Lily said brightly, trying to dispel the sudden gloom “In the cold months its stuff like hot soup, pasties and half-shell potatoes and, in summer, its light, fresh-tasting things like pizza, paella, frittata, etc”

“Half-shell potatoes?” asked Harry, taking a glass of pumpkinade from Snape “Thank you, Sir.” Severus smiled tightly, averting his eyes.

“You take a baked potato, cut off the very top, like you would a boiled egg, scoop out the insides, mash them with butter, salt and pepper and re-stuff the potato” said Lily, casually putting her hand over Snape's.

“It’s rather like taxidermy” smirked Tom.

“Father! We are about to eat!” growled Severus.

“If you eat meat, a conversation about taxidermy shouldn’t put you off your food” sniffed Tom.

“Are you vegetarian?” asked Harry

“In the Youkai court, one learns to do without.” Tom smiled “They tend to prefer serving vegetarian dishes, it avoids diplomatic incidents. Just as most humans eschew eating monkeys, a bovine youkai would not eat cow, an avian youki would not devour fowl, etc. There’s a youkai evolved from practically every genus and the Court have not eaten humans for quite a few millennia.”

“They ate humans?” Harry gasped, dropping his fork onto his plate with a clang.

“Humans eat pigs.” Replied Tom, matter-of-factly.

“Please don’t start him off” groaned Snape.

“B…but that’s different!”

“How so?”

“Well, we’re intelligent”

“Here we go” sighed Lily.

“The differential between the average human and the average Taiyoukai is the same as the average human and the average pig.”

“But pigs are animals!” spluttered Harry.

“So are we!”

It was probably best that Severus chose that moment to banish a couple of large chunks of frittata into Harry and Tom’s mouths.

oOoOo

Harry lay on the picnic rug, munching salty potatoes and watching Tom half-chase, half-duel Severus around the clearing, whilst Lily, sitting beside Harry, cat-called in the support of one or the other, depending on who was doing the funniest, cleverest or most sneaky spell at the current moment.

Perhaps this family thing was worth a try after all.