"I cannot believe you did not seek medical attention," said Severus. He and Anna had flooed to the Potter cottage after lunch on Monday, the day after the Potters had returned from their seaside holiday, and the four children had been sent off to Zonko's and Honeydukes with Teddy who had popped in for a surprise visit right before lunch.

"I did—sort of," answered Harry as he limped from the kitchen to the sitting room. "Molly is really good with healing spells and home first aid."

"Molly Weasley can provide adequate first aid but not legitimate medical attention," said Severus.

"Hermione looked at it too," replied Harry, soundly guardedly hopeful.

"Sit down, take that sock off and put your foot up on the ottoman," ordered Severus, following Harry into the room and standing in front of him as Harry plopped down on the sofa.

"I'm getting there," said Harry, gingerly removing his white athletic sock and tossing it on the sofa beside him. It caught a bit as he pulled it off and he winced. He lifted his foot up as directed and settled it on the middle of the rectangular leather ottoman.

"Wow," he said. His foot and ankle were swollen and discolored. He tried to wiggle his toes but found it impossible. His toes were so swollen there was absolutely no wiggle room left.

"You're likely to end up with gangrene," muttered Severus, sitting down facing Harry on a straight-back chair. He grasped Harry's heel, rolled it to one side then the other then pressed softly against the flesh of the foot in several places.

"Tell me when it hurts," he said, prodding at the ankle now.

"Hurts!" cried Harry immediately, wincing and adding "That hurts too" when Severus pressed at the angry red area around the anemone sting. Severus didn't comment but Harry watched as his face tightened.

"What is it?" asked Harry, beginning to look worried.

"The sprain will heal on its own," answered Severus, adding "if you stay off of it for a day or two. But this," he prodded again at the wound and Harry winced, "this will need to be lanced, drained and packed. It is severely infected and abscessed." He creased his brows, looking upward, obviously thinking. Finally he gave a small smile. "My first inclination is to take you to a hospital and have this treated. However, they would likely admit you and put you on intravenous antibiotics…"

"Intraven…?" Harry looked puzzled. He was not an idiot when it came to Muggle life but he'd been away from Muggle medical care for nearly thirty years.

Severus rolled his eyes. "Insert a needle in your arm connected to a bag of fluids containing antibiotics to fight the infection."

"Oh. We don't do that in the wiz…"

"I am aware of that, Mr. Potter," answered Severus. "I am simply having…issues…accessing knowledge on cue. I have to cross-reference nearly every memory I access. IV treatment is the Muggle way of treating wounds such as this. As carting you off to a Muggle hospital is likely not an option…" He looked at Harry for confirmation and Harry vigorously shook his head in agreement. "…we will need to employ a magical solution." He frowned, once again pushing against the edge of the wound. Harry bit his lip and tried not to yelp like a baby.

Severus stood up.

"Do not move from that spot. I will floo to Hogwarts and get what is needed from Poppy."

What was needed from Poppy appeared to be a variety of potion bottles, a box of standard looking first aid supplies and unfortunately, a small rather lethal looking narrow silver knife.

Severus stepped out of the fireplace, immediately pulled another straight-backed chair up to the sofa and began laying out items on the ottoman from the box in his hands with surprising surgical precision.

"Poppy is away from the castle today," he reported as he surveyed his supplies. "Minerva offered to come and hold your hand but I told her you were a big boy and I'd give you a sucker when it was all over."

Harry shook his head. "Just give me a knut to bite on," he said. "Or something strong to drink."

Severus was busy taking Harry's pulse. "Slightly elevated," he said. "Are you nervous?"

"I wasn't until I saw that dagger," answered Harry.

"Dagger?" Severus smirked. "You mean this little knife? I wouldn't have had to use it if you'd have gotten medical attention right away."

"Hermione said I'd have to wait out the sprain," he answered. "And Molly used her heal-all salve on the sting. It seemed to work and I assumed the pain and swelling were from the sprain."

Severus shook his head again in mock disbelief and pointed his wand at Harry's foot. "Infection seems contained in the foot," he said at last after palpitating the flesh on his foot, ankle and calf so much that Harry felt like a melon at the market. He then picked up the silver dagger and studied it a moment. The knife seemed to meld with his hand, feeling like an extension of it rather than a separate instrument. Harry stared at him as he in turn stared at the dagger.

"Do you know what you're doing?" asked Harry a bit anxiously. After all, it was his foot that was about to go under the knife.

Severus seemed to snap out of his reverie. "Of course," he answered. He wiped the dagger on the soft cloth in which it had been wrapped.

"Wait…" protested Harry.

"This may sting a bit," said Severus as he lifted Harry's foot and put several towels under it before repositioning it on the ottoman.

"How long has it been since you've…?" Harry did not finish the question as Severus poured half of a vial of a clear liquid over the sole of his foot and he let out a very unmanly yell.

"You might remember from a couple weeks ago that I'm not the best patient in the world," said Harry as Severus cast a quick immobilization spell over Harry's legs.

"You could have warned me!" he protested, glaring at Severus. "What is that stuff?"

"Cleaning and sterilization agent," responded Severus, watching the bottom of Harry's foot froth and foam. He waited a moment then muttered "Brace youself" and poured the other half of the potion out.

A numbing agent was next—thankfully. Harry pressed himself back into the couch and took deep breaths while Severus sterilized the knife.

"You're working like a bloody surgeon," said Harry he watched Severus.

"I had many responsibilities as Headmaster," he responded cryptically. His voice was tense as he lifted the knife. "It was a difficult year."

Harry stared at his former professor. He knew that the year Snape had spent as Headmaster had been horrible for all of his friends who had remained at Hogwarts. They didn't ever speak in detail of the punishments that had been meted out, just as Harry, Ron and Hermione didn't discuss the details of the torture at Malfoy Manor of the death of Dobby the house elf or any of the other sordid elements of the months spent hunting horcruxes.

"What do you mean?" he asked carefully, eyes moving from the knife to Severus.

Severus narrowed his eyes as he looked at Harry. "I am not saying that I used knives as torture devices, if that is what you are wondering," he answered. "I am instead conveying to you that I honed my triage and healing skills during that year…out of necessity."

Harry held his gaze a moment longer, than nodded fractionally.

"Get on with it, then," he said.

Severus, for his part, was approaching this operation quite mechanically. He had removed any number of splinters from Anna's hands and feet over the past years but had certainly not lanced infected wounds or deftly selected and administered potions. He tried not to think about how he seemed to know what to do without thinking, how he was able to make a cut of exactly the right size and depth, to drain the abscess then irrigate and pack it with potion-soaked gauze strips. He hoped he was not the one that had created that repulsive curse the Carrows favored, the one that literally mimicked spider bites, creating painful abscesses in its victims. Finally finished, and with Harry white as a sheet yet stoically submitting to his ministrations, Severus wrapped up the foot.

"You are to stay off of that foot," he said. "Get up only to go to use the loo, and put no weight on it when you do. Return to this sofa immediately and elevate the foot again."

Harry looked like he had no intention of moving for a month. He nodded weakly.

"Sit down, Severus," he indicated the more comfortable leather chair at the end of the sofa. He waited as Severus repacked the medical supplies and gamely swallowed the pain potion he was handed. Finally, Severus settled down into the chair and Harry launched into the topic he'd been wanting to take up with Severus.

"Have you thought of what you plan to do during your sabbatical?"

"Concentrate on getting the rest of my memories back, I suppose," answered Severus without much thought.

"They seem to be falling into place rather quickly," commented Harry, indicating the box of supplies Severus had just repacked. "Are you sure you'll need all six months?"

"Let me restate that, then," clarified Severus. "Concentrate on making sense of my restored memories and understanding my strengths and weaknesses in light of what I know now and what I once knew."

Harry considered Severus' answer. "You show an amazing skill at the healing arts." He paused a moment, searching Severus' face, then continued. "I'm not just talking about this"—he waved a hand at his foot—"but also with Ginny, talking with her, understanding the brain and human behavior. Asking the right questions. Exploring different ways for her to communicate. Not beating around the bush…"

"Much of it is basic human psychology, Harry," said Severus dismissively.

"No, it's more than that. It's basic human psychology paired with a deep understanding of the brain's physiology. Basic human psychology and physiology that much of the wizarding world doesn't understand," replied Harry with conviction. He'd never have used the word 'physiology' before Ginny's accident, but it slid out without conscious thought now. "Do you understand how unique your position is, Severus? Sure, we have a lot of Muggle-born witches and wizards. A few go on to University—like Hermione did. But for most of them, their Muggle education ends when their magical one begins. But you…you spent nearly 40 years in the magical world and then started life all over again as a Muggle. And now you have two separate bodies of knowledge you're trying to reconcile. Your brain is going to be able to integrate the best of both worlds, Severus. I could see it in what you just did to my foot—the magical potions paired with the efficient surgical techniques."

Severus listened as Harry expounded, wondering where he was going with this particular line of conversation.

"What is it you've always wanted to do, Severus?" asked Harry. "Something you never thought you could accomplish before—at least not in your Muggle life?"

Severus stared at Harry a long moment then let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "I've had precisely that thought in my head this last week, Harry. I have spent the better part of ten years in the Muggle world researching dementia and memory loss. To be able to slow or reverse the affects of Alzheimer's disease…to be able to help patients with amnesia not only build new lives but recover their pasts…" He paused and shook his head. "I am not boasting in saying that I am recognized in my field for the research I have published. But I know….I know….that in the next six months I could make more progress than I did these past ten years."

"What after that?" asked Harry. The pain potion was beginning to work and the dull throbbing in his foot was beginning to ebb like a metronome winding down.

Severus looked puzzled. "After that? What do you mean?"

"After you find a cure for Alzheimer's disease," clarified Harry. "What after that?"

Severus simply stared at Harry, flabbergasted. Harry grinned.

"You're thinking like a Muggle still, Severus. Wizards aren't prone to many of the diseases that afflict Muggles—most likely because our magic works to prevent the onset of the disease in the first place. So wizards don't generally concern themselves with curing Muggle diseases. We couldn't provide magical cures anyway—the logistics are impossible and there's that pesky Statute of Secrecy to deal with too. But take a wizard who loves a good challenge—like yourself—and who's already committed to finding a solution to that challenge and they'll be no stopping him. Two years—maybe as many as five—and you'll have it, Severus. That cure for Alzheimer's…or a way to prevent it. Then what?"

Severus was staring at Harry, his mouth slightly open. Speechless. Harry Potter had rendered Severus Snape speechless. Surely the world was ending.

"Marge Dursley died of pancreatic cancer. Uncle Vernon has Parkinson's Disease. Hermione's mother has rheumatoid arthritis. There are countless people who are confined to wheelchairs with spinal cord injuries." Harry sighed and continued. "And those are just a few examples in the medical arena. What about increasing the yield of farm crops to combat world hunger? Or figuring out how to get water to drought-plagued areas?"

"For a wizard who appears to have only tenuous ties to the Muggle world, you know a lot about Muggle issues," said Snape, watching Harry closely. He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to fit this Harry into the mold he had formed of him over the past two weeks.

Harry looked vaguely uncomfortable, as if he had unwittingly shown his hand before the last card was dealt. He smiled, a bit tersely, and fiddled with the wrapping on his foot while he answered.

"I had…dealings…with the Muggle world while I was an Auror," he said. "There were…are…a number of Wizards who don't consider Muggles to be quite…human." His voice was almost apologetic. "MLE has a special division just to deal with crimes against Muggles. That was my first leadership post—I headed up that division for nearly ten years."

Severus understood that there was more that Harry wasn't saying. An undercurrent of memory, not quite accessible but there nonetheless, like a prickle beneath his skin, teased him. Something he should know about Harry's childhood… He knew Harry had been raised by Petunia Dursley and her husband. Lily's sister—a crass, envious girl turned into a spiteful cur of a woman—could hardly have endeared Harry to Muggles. He let the memory elude him, knowing it would plague him again and perhaps later he could grasp it wholly.

"I have never thought much beyond contributing to the eventual eradication of senile dementia," said Severus. "The thought that my contribution could go further than just building on the years of research already in place is difficult to grasp. The idea that I would ever need something else to pursue—some other problem to solve—is mind-boggling."

"You don't always have to find more problems to solve, Severus," said Harry, his voice dropping a level. "I wasn't trying to goad you into solving all those problems I mentioned. I was hoping to show you that you'll never fix all that's broken in the world. Make your contribution. Hell, do more than contribute. Find that cure and publish your results. It will help countless people, and will probably push Muggle medicine ahead a generation. By that time, you'll be what—65?"

"Don't remind me," said Severus, looking slightly ill.

"And ready to enjoy the next 60 years of your life," said Harry. "Note I said 'enjoy.'" He stressed the final word. Severus stared at him a long moment.

"What's this all about, Harry?" he asked, his gaze unwavering.

Harry met the gaze with his own steady stare. He broke his eyes away after a long moment and looked at his foot, wriggling his toes fractionally. When he spoke, he didn't meet Severus' eyes.

"I like you, Severus. I like your daughter. She's a wonderful kid—and I think she's finding her place in our world now."

"Are you implying that she didn't have a place in…in…?" Severus hesitated.

"In the Muggle world?" finished Harry. "Am I?" He looked up at Severus then but it was Lily Severus saw in those green eyes.

"Don't…" he began. But he didn't finish the protest.

"Listen, Severus. I was a Muggle-raised wizard who had no idea I was a wizard or that magic was real. Just like your daughter. And once I found out what I was…who I was…there was no going back. I found myself at Hogwarts. You're going to find, I think, that your daughter is a witch through and through. It's hard to straddle the two worlds and I think you're going to have to make a choice sooner than you might think. Anna is going to come to Hogwarts and learn all about your previous life. You're in the History of Magic textbook, Severus. You're on the Chocolate Frog cards. Your portrait hangs in the Headmistresses' office. You aren't an ordinary wizard, just like you're not an ordinary Muggle."

Severus stood, his expression inscrutable. He walked over to the window in the small room, the window that overlooked the cobbled street on the edge of Hogsmeade. There were no cars on the street, no parking meters, no high rises, no litter, no buses. He gazed outward for several minutes while Harry observed him quietly.

"I need a purpose," said Severus at last, turning to face Harry. "I have always had a purpose."

Harry smiled. He didn't say anything.

"Ahh," said Severus, understanding. "You too, then. I had forgotten."

"I left Hogwarts to go after Voldemort. I joined the Aurors to keep the Wizarding world safe. I left the Aurors to take care of Ginny. But I went back to Hogwarts to take care of me."

The cottage's front door banged open at that moment and the excited voices of the four children filled the air. They tumbled into the room followed by a grinning Teddy Lupin, Harry's three surrounding him to exclaim over his wrapped, elevated foot and Severus' daughter virtually launching herself at him. "We visited the owl post office, Papa! And Hagrid was there, getting Hogwarts' mail from London. He came down in a thestral-drawn carriage but I couldn't see the thestral—none of us could, you know—but it was there all the same. He let us pet it a bit and he fed it some strips of jerkey and guess what! The first years ride in boats up to Hogwarts across the lake but the rest of the years take the carriages. Have you ever seen a thestral, Papa? Lily says that both her mum and her dad can see them now, and they rode them all the way to London once! Can you believe that? Thestrals fly, Papa! Well, have you?"

Teddy was ushering the Potter children out of the room.

"Come on, Anna!" called out Lily. "Teddy's going to take us to the park to fly. He said you can ride on his broom with him!" She hopped eagerly up and down as was her custom, and Anna squealed.

"Can I, Papa?" she asked. "I'll be careful—I promise I will. I'll hold on to Teddy with both hands!"

Severus nodded. "Be careful and behave yourself!" he called out as she ran out of the room after Lily, laughing and forgetting the question he had not wanted to answer.

"Dodged the bullet, eh?" asked Harry from his spot on the sofa. He'd heard Anna ask if Severus could see the thestrals.

"For the moment," answered Severus. "Though if I am in the history books as you claim, she'll soon discover her father's unsavory past."

"Best tell her before she reads it then," said Harry.

"Would you want your children knowing that you killed…?" He stopped short, looking chagrinned.

"Knut dropped, eh?" joked Harry. "You know, a few minutes ago we were talking about purpose." He nodded his head toward the doorway where Anna had just disappeared. They could still hear the children laughing and talking on the side porch as they dug through the broom closet. "Isn't she purpose enough?"

/

On Tuesday, Anna stayed with the Potters while Severus met with Draco Malfoy. It was supposed to be a social visit—an opportunity to reconnect, initiated by Draco himself, with a visit to Malfoy Manor to have tea with Narcissa. Anna and Lily paged through Lily's textbooks for the upcoming school year and Anna discovered that her father could see thestrals. Harry sat on the sofa, throbbing foot appropriately elevated, one little girl cuddled up on each side, and told them the story of the bravest man he ever knew. Lily knew the much-loved story by heart already, but Anna listened oh so quietly and at the end had tears running down her pale cheeks.

On Wednesday, Severus and Draco visited the Gregory Goyle Research Institute at St. Mungo's. Anna accompanied her father and met Scorpius Malfoy for the first time. She found him to be quiet and polite, and only a little bit haughty. While Severus and Draco toured the laboratories and Severus got first-hand proof that the sense of smell is the most evocative for memory, the children talked about Hogwarts and Quidditch and Scorpius' mastiff puppy named Lucy. She also discovered that Scorpius played the piano and didn't think Albus and James Potter were all that bad—for Gryffindors. Scorpius could not see thestrals, but his dad could.

On Thursday, Molly Weasley threw a party. It was a Weasley tradition to send off the Hogwarts-bound students with an end-of-the-summer celebration at the Burrow two days before the Hogwarts Express took them back to school on September 1st. Nearly a hundred people packed the Burrow that night, and Severus, drunk on the joy of seeing Anna so happy and, could it be?—social—and on the nearly palpable magic in the air around him, agreed to referee the adult Quidditch match. He didn't let the fact that he hadn't ridden a broom in twenty years deter him, but it was, as Harry insisted, just like riding a bike. Of course Harry was grounded, confined to a lounge chair and nursing a still slightly sore foot and Severus had never actually ridden a bike. Severus had a very interesting conversation with Angelina's aunt when a bludger hit him on the head and she was enlisted to keep him awake and talking until they were able to fetch the healer.

On Friday, Harry collected 37 letters for Severus from the owls on his front porch. One of them was from Angelina's Aunt Sophie, but he didn't know it, as it wasn't in the least bit scented. Aunt Sophie was a very no-nonsense woman, after all. Severus didn't remember asking her to dinner but her letter contained her acceptance and directions to her home just outside of York.

Saturday was September 1st. Severus Snape, dressed in Muggle clothing, approached the barrier between platforms 9 and 10 at King's Cross Station in London at 10:30 a.m. and hardly faltering, pushed Anna's cart through. Anna was skipping beside the cart, clutching Severus' hand tightly, eyes closed as they went through the barrier then open wide in delight when they reached the magical platform.

"Wow!" she exclaimed, looking around at the magical people crowding the platform. "This is better than seeing thestrals!"

Severus held her hand tightly as they made their way toward a cluster of redheads midway down the platform.

"Professor Snape?"

"Severus!"

"Snape?"

"Headmaster!"

"My daughter, Minnie. She'll be starting next year…"

"My wife, Antonia. You might remember her—in Ravenclaw, a year behind me."

"What you did…so thankful…"

"….looking fantastic. Are you planning to regrow your hair?"

"Congratulations on your appointment to the…"

"What a beautiful child! What's your name, honey?"

"Daphne Greengrass. I was in Draco's class. Have you met my nephew Scorpius…?"

The crowd around them parted to allow someone through. His former students—he recognized very few of them but they all seemed to know him nonetheless—who had been shaking his hand, patting his back, hugging him even, seemed now to have grown quiet. Anna saw him first.

"It's Harry, Papa!" she exclaimed, pointing.

"Hey Anna," Harry said. "Severus." He had a bouncing Lily by the hand. He smiled fondly as Lily pulled her hand away and ran over to Anna. "Today's the day, eh? Sending our little girls off to Hogwarts…"

Severus eyed him. "I'm counting on you to watch out for her, you know."

Their easy banter was being followed by a good number of people in the crowd around them.

"I've got her back, Severus," promised Harry. The promise was in his eyes.

Severus nodded. He could somehow hear the unspoken words Just like you had mine.

"Why don't you come along on the train?" asked Harry suddenly. "You can apparate back from Hogsmeade Station. There's room in the faculty compartment—just me and Neville this year."

Severus gave a smirk that left no doubt in anyone's mind that this was the same Severus Snape that had single-handedly deducted more than 15,000 points from Gryffindor in the years he spent at Hogwarts.

"I have a lunch date," he said. "But I'll be there with the Board of Governors for the sorting."

"A lunch date?" asked Harry. "Or a lunch date?" His smirk was uncannily similar to Severus.'

"Oh, it's a date!" exclaimed Anna. A dozen heads swiveled toward her. "He was fussing over what to wear all day yesterday. Honestly!" She put her hands on her hips and shook her head. "I told him a tie was much too severe for a lunch date. And he started brewing! In a cauldron! He found a recipe in some old book for a salve to reduce scar tissue. You should have smelled that stuff. It set off the smoke alarm and everything." She took a deep breath and turned toward Lily, adding conspiratorially, "I'm not sure it's such a good idea me going off to Hogwarts and leaving him alone but really, he's going to have to learn to do without me one of these days."

Severus' face had never been so red. Harry had never had such a hard time holding in the laughter. Around them, mouths were either open in disbelief or turning upward in obvious mirth.

"Come now, Anna." Severus' voice, authoritative and cool, rose above the rest. "It's time to board the train. You wouldn't want to miss your ride to school."

"And you wouldn't want to miss your date, Papa," replied Anna, letting him lead her toward a nearby car, Lily close behind her.

Fifteen minutes later, Severus was simply one of several hundred parents standing on the platform waving as the train began to move forward.

"Be sure to compliment her on her hair. Ladies like that!" called out a voice from a window as the train began to ease forward.

"She's making this a lot easier for me, you know," muttered Severus to no one in particular but Draco Malfoy, standing right in front of him, gave a very unMalfoylike snort.

Severus shook his head. Harry could be wrong. That child might just go straight into Slytherin.