Harry wasn't sure how he hadn't been discovered, but he showed up at the boathouse just in time to hear what Voldemort was saying to Snape, as the teenager concealed himself from both nearby.

A year ago Harry would not have trusted Snape to be on their side. Yet even when he'd never admitted it aloud...Toby had convinced Harry that deep down, Snape was good, and remained loyal to Dumbledore.

'It was foolish to attack the castle while Dumbledore remains as the Headmaster.' Voldemort was saying while Nagini slithered nearby.

Harry silently agreed, yet was pleased when Voldemort did not appear to realise how useless Dumbledore actually was right now. Unless the Gryffindor was missing something else entirely, because surely Dumbledore was fighting or helping, and others simply couldn't find the Headmaster?

'My Lord?' Severus asked as he kept his tone and expression masked, though he felt sickened inside.

'No matter, no matter...' Voldemort sighed. 'Things have changed. Are you familiar with Mildred Merrengold, Severus?'

'Yes, my Lord.' Severus nodded. 'Despised by those of pure descendant, Mildred is said to be a vile witch in which collects heirlooms from purebloods through thieving and trickery.' He frowned and remembered that Granger had one sought details of the repulsive witch as well.

He kept that aspect of information safely concealed within his mind.

'When unable to procure an object, she instead burns the location to ashes, deluded to believe that if she cannot obtain the items, than no one shall own them.'

'Yes.' Voldemort said in an interested tone that raised alarm bells to Severus.

What had he missed? Surely the Dark Lord would not be so interested in a few heirlooms?

'Her niece, Grace Pandorus, has been...useful, in extracting her location.' Voldemort sounded smug yet careless all the same. 'I no longer require the elder wand.'

'Mr Lord?' Severus wasn't sure what to say but felt that something should be said.

He could not understand why the Dark Lord had summoned him here only to mention this particular subject while the war was going on.

'Mildred lives no more. A foolish thief she was.' Voldemort frowned as he paced the boathouse and kept his gaze on Severus while Harry was hidden only close enough to overhear what was being said.

Harry remembered the Ravenclaw girl, Grace, who he had spoken to once or twice earlier in the school year.

He hoped she was alright.

'They will never learn. Pity.' Voldemort glanced towards the damaged castle which was seen through the glass windows. 'They have chosen to fight and protect their...saviour.' He uttered the last word with disgust.

'And so they have chosen their own fate. I shall attend to the boy in person. There have been too many mistakes where Harry Potter is concerned. Some of them have been my own. That Potter lives is due more to my errors, than to his triumphs...I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best laid plans.' Voldemort said.

Severus merely stood nearby and kept his hands behind his back to fight his urge to curse the tyrant.

'But I know better now.' Voldemort added. 'I understand those things that I did not understand before. I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be.'

'Pardon my curiosity, but how, my Lord? Dumbledore is quite insistent on preventing the boy from fighting his own battles.' Severus tried to sound as subservient as possible and not at all curious, merely in awe of such planning.

His stomach gave an ill twist once again as he despised the very being he was supposed to be loyal to. This is what he gave up lily's friendship for?

How could he have been so blind?

'You sound like Lucius. Neither of you understands Potter as I do. He does not need finding. Potter will come to me.' Voldemort looked sharply at Severus, who almost extracted his wand out of pure instinct alone, but caught himself just in time.

'I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it any cost. He will come.'

Harry and Severus did not like to admit it but the Dark Lord had a point, in a way. The only real flaw was that Harry now knew of this plan and Severus remained truly loyal to Dumbledore.

'Mildred revealed an additional piece of knowledge.' Voldemort said in a strange tone...a dangerously calm tone. 'That she had set fire to a muggle orphanage almost a year ago. She had intended for a small boy inside to die. It seems she had moved on to living heirs as well as objects of value and inherit power.'

'My Lord?' Severus was confused.

Harry, however, had to bite back his suppressed gasp as his ears picked up on this startling new information.

'The boy was young and a link to the Prince family line.' Voldemort said, now looking away from Severus and therefore missed the man's honest surprise. 'He was said to have been saved by family. Tell me, Severus...why was I not informed?'

Harry wanted to jump out and defend Snape, who would not know that the boy was his son and who had indeed gone to family (Harry was confused by that but assumed Voldemort meant Toby's grandmother), yet he could not move.

He felt horribly guilty as Snape tried to convince the Dark Lord that he had no idea of such things and the woman must have been lying. But Voldemort was angered already, and the other two noticed far too late that it had only been a scheme.

Voldemort didn't care about what he had spoken of and merely needed enough reasoning to do what he had intended.

Harry's yelp was concealed by the sounds of Snape falling when Voldemort gave a speech about not being convinced of Snape's loyalty and ordered his snake to attack him.

Nagini lunged, again and again, while Snape yelled in pain.

Harry remained still, his eyes filled with tears, until he heard Voldemort and the horrible snake leave. The moment they were gone, he hurried into the boathouse and halted for a second by the doorway.

-- 

Moments later Harry had pocketed the vial of memories given to him by the desperate, agonised Snape, yet as the teenager reached into his robes for the antidote...a cold panic spread through him.

Harry didn't have it.

He had made a detour on the way here to check that Toby was okay. In doing so, Harry had left his two vials there on a table in the concealed living quarters...he must have, since he didn't have them with him yet Harry could not be sure.

How could he be so foolish?

Looking down at Snape, he noticed that the man was on the verge of death. He snatched a bezoar from his robes and shoved it into Snape's mouth, though he knew it would do nothing more than spare a little time.

Harry he had to get to the castle quickly to stop the snake and the war. Yet as he made to leave, he could not just do so. Swallowing, he kneeled beside Snape who seemed hardly aware of his presence. Lowering closer, Harry whispered to the man with carefully chosen words of plea.

'Please don't die.' Harry sniffled. 'Please, sir. You're not alone. You have a son. I've been looking after him for you. His name is Toby and he's six years old. He loves Potions and has a cat named Felix, after the liquid luck. Please...please, Snape. Don't die for my mother...live for your son.'

Harry inched back and then he was gone.

Snape's eyes trailed towards the windows where he could see the castle, his entire body aching with pain and dread. His mind still active, Harry's words got through to him, though they seemed so far away...

'Katty!' Toby looked up from the floor when the silvery lion leaped into the room and delivered a message to Irma.

The young boy's face turned pale when he heard Harry's voice talk about what happened at the boathouse. Fear gripped Toby and tears slid down his face as he stared ahead blankly.

Harry was going to face Voldemort's snake, and Snape...his father, was dying alone in the boathouse.

The six-year-old, who hoped to be seven in two months, turned towards his grandmother's horrified expression. She sank into a nearby armchair and seemed lost to him. Her face whiter than his, Toby waved a hand in front of her eyes but she appeared to have gone into shock.

Gulping, the little boy looked around the room for something to make him feel better or that would tell him what he was supposed to do and how he could help.

His obsidian gaze fell to a nearby table. The two vials that Harry had left there seemed more visible under the nearby candlelight.

Toby, seized with determination and denying the fading life of his father and danger all around him outside the room, grabbed the two vials and gulped down the last of the one he had named his cat after: the liquid luck.

Feeling a calmer sensation flowing through him, the boy gripped the protected vial containing the antidote and glanced at his nana.

Swallowing his fears as what he was about to do was the only action Toby could perform to keep himself from breaking entirely. Toby rushed to the door and thrust it open. He skidded into the library and glanced around.

Exhaling, he just ran where he felt he should go, confident that the lucky potion would guide him.

I walk a lonely road

The only one that I have ever known

Don't know where it goes

But it's home to me and I walk alone

Toby ran through corridors and down staircases, his lungs gasping for air as he didn't waste a single second. Portraits and walls passed by in a blur; Toby doubted that he had ever run this fast before in his life, which was saying something since he could out-run Harry.

He was counting on that now.

Pausing on the verge between indoors and the exteriors of the castle, Toby's eyes broke their concentration as he halted and leaned to a nearby wall to catch his breath. He was stunned by what he saw and tears sprung to his eyes again, obscuring his vision of the horror around him.

Spells were flying and people screaming, others laughing while children and adults alike fell, bloody or still. The young boy could not move. He was terrified and though he had seen tragedy when his orphanage had begun to burn all around him while Toby had been trapped and abandoned...this was worse. He almost wished he was back in the fire...anything not to be seeing his friends and those he liked being hurt or struggling with those scary Death Eaters.

I walk this empty street

On the Boulevard of broken dreams

Where the city sleeps

And I'm the only one and I walk alone

There were giants, and large spiders, as well as battling suits or armour, centaurs and so much more than just witches and wizards trying to stop each other. With the antidote clutched in his hand, Toby knew he had to cross the courtyard...the battlefield, in order to make his way to the boathouse.

But how?

Just how lucky would the lucky potion make him? Could he really risk it? His fear told him he couldn't, yet as his heart pounded in his chest and his breath caught in his throat, Toby knew he had to.

His father was dying.

I walk alone

'Ahh!' Toby squealed, though the fighting around him drowned it out, when someone grabbed his shoulders from behind.

If he had not been so frightened and on edge to begin with, the boy might have dropped the protected yet fragile antidote.

Turning quickly, he looked up at Draco whose blonde hair was a mess and clothes a little torn. His face was smudged and the Slytherin did not look like himself, or at least not like the person Toby was so used to avoiding and despising.

'Toby.' Draco looked down at him. 'You have to get that potion to the boathouse, do you understand?'

With his shock and fear, Toby could only gasp as he tried to talk, finally choking a little on his withheld sobs as he nodded.

'H-how do you know my name?' Toby asked.

'I've known about you for a while.' Draco replied. 'When I give you the signal, you have to run.' He said seriously with his wand in hand and an expression on his face that showed Toby that he was not alone in his fear.

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me

My shallow hearts the only thing that's beating

Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me

'Til then I walk alone

'Now!' Draco fired a curse across the courtyard and shoved Toby in the back at the same time.

Stumbling, Toby assumed that was the signal and took off running again. He jumped rubble and avoided spiders that were much scarier than the dead Aragog had ever been, since they were alive and unpredictable.

He never really liked spiders, much.

As he ran, Toby saw brief blurs of colour and mixed sounds, until his foot caught on a stone and he fell.

'Ow!' Toby cried out when he placed his left wrist to protect himself and kept the right one out of the way, since that hand gripped to the vial securely.

The impact of the fall with one one hand to stop himself caused a pain to spread through his fingertips and wrist, though nothing seemed broken. Not that he'd know, since Toby had never broken a bone before that he could remember.

I'm walking down the line

That divides me somewhere in my mind

On the border line of the edge

And where I walk alone

Crouched on the ground, Toby decided to roll over and then get up...an action that saved him from being crushed by a large falling piece of stone.

He supposed the lucky potion was still working, then.

Sniffling, Toby stood and found himself in the middle of the battle, though spells hit rocks instead of him and giant dead spiders blocked him from the sight of the more evil fighters, which he was thankful for.

In amidst of it all, Toby turned to face the way in which he would run to be free from the scene.

Yet he felt the urge to look around and he did, turning in time to see Fred Weasley backed against a wall. Gasping, as he quite liked the Weasleys, Toby grabbed a rock and threw it without even thinking of a target or why he had done that. The rock hit the back of a Death Eater's head, who turned to see who had thrown the object. At just the right time, Toby slipped against a stone and was concealed from sight.

It gave Fred exactly the distraction he had needed.

Read between the lines of what's

Messed up and everything's all right

Check my vital signs to know I'm still alive

And I walk alone

Panting, Toby peered over the stone boulder and turned towards his freedom. He had to go, his father's life depended on it.

Rising to his feet, Toby shoved someone out of the way as he bolted for the end of the courtyard. His push, though he didn't know it at the time, had been aimed at Remus, who looked over and noticed a wand aimed his way.

Disarming the Death Eater, Remus wondered if it had been Toby he'd seen yet had other problems as he finally spotted Tonks, who had been looking his way until he had disarmed his opponent.

Realising he was safe, she turned around and rejoined the fight, not noticing how this had just saved her life.

I walk alone

Toby reached the end of the courtyard and stepped into a pathway that went around it. He glanced towards the main bridge and then the entrance to the stairs nearby that led all the way to the boathouse. With urgency, he stared down them and then glanced back to the fighting.

He felt compelled to help, yet Toby knew he had no wand and knew no magic beyond three spells Harry had taught him.

Turning, as his father was the one who needed him now, Toby started to descend the first of hundreds of steps, hoping and fearing that he wasn't too late...that his father could still hang on. Where was Harry? Why had his brother just left his dad? Where was the great Albus Dumbledore or awful Lord Voldemort?

How long did a lucky potion last?

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me

My shallow hearts the only thing that's beating

Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me

'Til then I'll walk alone....

Toby almost slipped and lost the vial multiple times, and each occasion he was convinced that his potion was wearing off. He felt less confident and more scared as the steps blurred by him at his feet. His lungs ached, his feet felt sore, and his heart felt to want to escape his chest.

Despite his pain, Toby only thought of the things he had learned from Harry about what it meant to do the right thing.

'The only way evil wins is if good people do nothing.' Toby reminded himself in between gasped breaths.

It was his only motivation to keep running, to keep going despite his pain and terror.

I walk alone

The steps seemed to stretch and curve forever.

At times Toby felt dizzy as though he was going to pass out, but his sheer stubbornness would not let him. Toby imagined that if he was dying alone in the boathouse then he'd want someone to keep fighting for him...for someone to save him. He wondered if his dad was scared. He wondered a lot of things. Would Snape had been a good dad if he had known about him from the start? What was his dad's favourite potion? Or book? Why did he wear black all the time? Did he get cold in the dungeons?

There were so many things Toby wanted to know and he, more than anything, hoped that he could ask his father just one thing if the man lived...

'Could you ever love me?' Toby asked the wind in case it could carry his question to his father, who was lying bleeding and alone in the boathouse the boy was desperately trying to reach in time.

I walk this empty street

On the Boulevard of broken dreams

Where the city sleeps

And I'm the only one and I walk alone...

'No!' Toby yelled out when he slid on the second-last step, his stomach falling towards the ground and his wrist too sore to defend himself again.

The vial left his hand as the boy hit his palms against the stone and crouched there, heaving for breath and an end to his pain as well as fears.

'No.' He whispered again and looked around in the darkness, lit only by the flamed torches above and fire around near the castle, for the life-saving vial.

It was nowhere, though he couldn't tell if it had broken because it was still loud outside, even this far from the castle.

Toby looked towards the boathouse which loomed over him. He had never been here before and the dark water scared him as he remembered books about sea monsters and the boathouse was where his father was...possibly dead.

Toby felt hopeless.

It was over.

His dad would be dead by now, surely.

Maybe that's why Harry had left? Swallowing, the boy hung his head so his black hair curtained his face to shield his view. He sniffled and wiped his nose with the sleeve of his jacket. Raising his head a little, Toby remembered that Harry would never give up. Snape would never give up.Toby wanted to be just like them, and therefore he couldn't give up either.

Gulping as a coldness spread over him and froze the water, Toby looked to the sky and yelped at the sight of dark, hooded figures that headed for the castle. He heard fire, whispers, and cries...but they felt far away and his mind went foggy.

A bright spell lit up the area to repel them, and in that moment of light, Toby spotted something reflecting it nearby. The vial of antidote. Snatching it, Toby rushed forward until he reached the space just near the door of the boathouse.

What lay inside?

Was his father alive or...gone forever?

My shadows the only one that walks beside me

My shallow hearts the only thing that's beating

Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me

'Til then I'll walk alone

'H-hello?' Toby's voice was barely audible even to his own ears as he hunched his shoulders and peered into the boathouse. 

He half-expected a scary beast to jump out and kill him. Nothing happened. Though he heard a soft sound nearby.

Eyes wide, Toby stepped backwards when he spotted his father's fallen form, bloody and motionless. Too distraught to make a sound, he literally crawled to the man. Gripping the front of his robes, a small spot without blood, with his small and shaking hands, Toby could hardly see through his own tears.

'No, daddy...please don't be dead!' Toby wailed. 'Please, please come back!' The boy froze when he felt the material beneath his hands move in the form of the one wearing them gasping for air.

Looking properly, now that he could see better, Toby realised that his father was alive! The man winced and sought his face, but Toby had moved too fast as he reached for the previously discarded vial.

'Here. This will make you all better again, I promise!' Toby held it out. 'It's an anti-dot...antidote.' He swallowed nervously. 'Please drink it, daddy. I don't want you to die. Harry doesn't either.'

Severus met eyes with Toby; obsidian reflecting obsidian, though one with desperation and the other physical pain.

Slowly, yet weakly, he tried to reach for the vial. Strength sapped, Severus' hand began to fall yet never landed at his side. The vial was placed in his grip and two hands much smaller than his own gripped his hand to steady the potion and prevent it being dropped.

Once the liquid touched his lips, Severus almost passed out from the pain and knew death was close. He'd have died, even with the bezoar, moments after Harry had left him there if it hadn't been for the departing words the teenager had spared him.

Opening his eyes again, Severus looked at the anxious little boy beside him with a smudged face and tearful eyes. This child looked so much like his younger self, that Severus wondered if he was hallucinating or if Potter had been right all along. For those seconds that felt like days, Severus forced the last of his strength into his hand that tilted the vial with the aide of the child who had called him “daddy”.

'You're not alone.' Toby said. 'I'll protect you.'

He rose to his feet once the entire vial was emptied and looked around the boathouse, searching for something to defend them with in case someone bad came back. Spotting a familiar item next to his father, Toby carefully picked up the man's black wand.

It felt so warm and tingling in his hands, unlike Harry's had when his brother had let him hold his once.

'Lumos!' Toby commanded as he gripped it in his hand.

Nothing happened.

Sighing, he looked over at his father and noticed that the wounds had stopped leaking new blood and were looking more stable than they had when he'd arrived. Hoping that this meant the antidote was working, Toby sat next to the man and sighed. He was too exhausted in every way to bother moving now.

Yawning from his aching muscles and emotionally over-whelmed form, Toby inched closer to his father in fear of falling asleep and leaving them unprotected. His eyes closed a little, though the boy tried to fight it, yet failed.

As his head dropped to land on his father's shoulder, the wand still gripped firmly in his hand lit brightly at the tip before the spell faded again.