"YOU'RE A TERRIBLE FATHER!"

Severus sighed. This much was true, he thought to himself. A good father would have been keeping better tabs on his son... would have seen this problem in its earliest stages and headed it off at the pass. This situation would at the very least force him to keep better eyes on Harry, because the addiction would likely be lifelong, and Severus didn't want that kind of life for his son.

"I HATE YOU!"

Severus tried to ignore the screams coming from behind the closed door as he sat on the cold stone floor in the hallway with his back against the wall, but he couldn't. He hated knowing that Harry was suffering but he couldn't do anything about it. ‘It's for your own good,' he'd told him an hour and a half ago, and he tried to remind himself that it was true as Harry continued screaming. Over the last 12 hours Harry had gone back and forth between anger, despair, pleading, and deception, trying to convince Severus that he was all better and could go back to his dorm. Even if Harry were all better Severus wouldn't let him go looking as he did. It was no good trying to keep the boy's reputation clean if he went back with bags under his eyes, scratches on his arms, hair soaked and matted down with sweat, and face pale as a ghost.

At this very moment, Severus would have liked nothing more than to give Harry a calming draught or sleeping potion, but with traces of the asphodel in his system it just wasn't possible. Yet another reason why the substance was illegal, was that if you took any sort of potion while you were on it, you would become addicted to that substance as well. The asphodel essentially enhanced any sort of addictive personality one already had, and if they didn't have one, it gave it to them. One taste was all it took, but judging by the fact that Harry was already taking the caffeine pills before that, Severus knew it wasn't just the asphodel.

About an hour ago Albus had come back with news that Mr. Weasley had pointed the finger at a seventh year Ravenclaw, and that they were looking into it. He had also dropped off the papers describing a new school policy stating that any and all substances being sold in the school or brought into the castle would need to be approved by a head of house or the Headmaster, and that nothing edible was to be sold without being tested first. Severus couldn't help but feeling that some of this was his fault for letting the boys make the caffeine pills in the first place. If Harry hadn't had something to trade for the Asphodel, they wouldn't have this problem. They also wouldn't have the problem of several hundred caffeine pills being traded and sold around the school. Dumbledore had mentioned briefly that Flitwick had turned up 22 students in Ravenclaw alone who had been taking more than the allowed amount despite rumors that it made bodily hair fall off.

"DAAAAAAAD! YOU'RE A GREASY SLIMY BASTERD! I HATE YOU!" Harry's screams continued to cut through the air as well as Severus' heart. He knew Harry probably didn't mean those things in his heart, but at this moment, he surely did. Severus had already put up extra silencing charms around his quarters so that any passing Slytherins wouldn't hear Harry and think he was being murdered, or wonder why he was in Severus' quarters at all. It wasn't widespread yet that Harry was his son, and the only other staff that knew aside from Albus was Hagrid and Minerva.

"PLEASE! PLEASE YOU'RE KILLING ME! HELP HELP HELP! SOMEBODY HELP MEEEEE!"

Suddenly the screaming stopped and Severus turned his head to look at the closed door beside him. He listened intently to see if there was any movement or sound from inside, and suddenly feared that the boy may have done himself some sort of harm. Wand out, Severus pushed himself off the floor and inched the door open. There was a Harry sized lump under the blanket that wasn't moving. As he inched past the threshold however, something heavy hit him in the back of the head, and he fell to the floor, turning just in time to see Harry holding a heavy book from where he stood on top of the dresser behind the door.

Harry stared down at him, looking both shocked and crazed by what he'd done, and then in the space of three seconds dropped the book, leapt off the dresser, and bolted out the door, leaving Severus on the floor.

Feeling disoriented Severus got to his feet and stumbled out into the hallway, one hand still gripping his wand and the other holding the back of his head. Harry was yanking at the door out of his quarters frantically, jiggling the handle and kicking the wood. Severus had triple locked it and the only way in and out was by the floo directly to the Hospital Wing or the Headmaster's office.

Harry turned and his eyes darted from Severus to the fireplace twice, and then he bolted for the canister of floo powder just as his father raised his wand and hit him with a jinx that made his legs tangle. Harry went sprawling. Severus couldn't use much magic on him either for fear he would intensify any effect the asphodel was still having on him, or else he'd just stupefy Harry.

There was the distinct noise of some part of Harry's body cracking as it hit the table, and Severus realized that Harry had hit his head and was laying there in a daze.

"Foolish child," Severus spat, angry now. This far he believed he had been supremely patient, knowing that Harry didn't have much control over what he was doing at the moment, but his patience was finally starting to wear thin as blood trickled out of the gash in the back of his head. He reached a hand up to his head and felt the sticky blood and cursed under his breath.

Hurrying to the fireplace Severus flooed for Madam Pomfrey. Dignity be damned, he thought. If Harry was going to injure him then he wasn't going to try to protect his secret from Poppy.

"Yes Severus?" the voice came through the floo. He knew she hated to stick her head in and get ash in her hair.

"You're needed in my quarters. There's two head injuries down here, and one teenager who I'd like to bury."

Harry seemed to realize what had been said and looked up from his spot on the floor, vision swimming.

"You're gonna kill me." It wasn't a question.

"You are going to kill you carrying on in the manner you have been," Severus scowled, and he noticed that Harry actually shrank back from the tone of his voice, something he hadn't done in nearly two months now. Severus thought he should have felt bad about it, but reached up to hold the back of his head again and decided he didn't.

Moments later Poppy stepped through the floo with a bag full of potions and her wand.

"My word. What's happened here?"

"He hit me in the back of the head with a heavy book and then tried to escape. When I hit him with a jelly legs he went flying and hit his head on the end table."

Poppy shook her head. "Mr. Potter. She knelt down to see to Harry first, who was quiet for the first time in the last 12 hours."

While she was working on Harry, she glanced up at Severus and asked, "Asphodel Severus? There's two more up in the Hospital Wing and three Ravenclaw seventh years who had Keyroot in their systems."

"Keyroot?" Severus raised his brows. That was almost as bad as asphodel if mixed with any number of day to day substances. If the girls had taken keyroot and then eaten oranges at breakfast... he shuddered to think what the Hospital wing looked like right now if she was dealing with five like Harry.

"We've had to call their parents in to help calm them down. There was a fourth on Keyroot but his parents took him to St. Mungos to deal with it more privately."

Severus sighed. He felt like this was a pattern today. "Any word on who was selling all of this?"

"Yes. They've taken him to the Headmaster's office and they're filing expulsion paperwork now. The Headmaster said that if it had just been one student he'd sold to, he could have kept him in school, but with this many it showed a pattern of misconduct. Minerva said they've even called the ministry to consider filing charges."

"He's 17 now, that won't be pretty."

"No it won't," Poppy said, kindness in her eyes as she looked down at Harry and tended to him.

"He wasn't taking anything himself, only selling it. He made himself 45 galleons since the start of the school year. 45 galleons in one month Severus, just imagine what else he's sold and to whom."

"We will have to sweep the castle and do tests on everybody to be sure no one else is in danger," Severus said then. He hoped to God that none of his Slytherins were using anything.

After she'd finished cleaning and bandaging the back of Harry's head, unable to give him any potions or use any healing spells on him, she left him on the floor and stood to tend to Severus who was now sitting on a kitchen stool.

"He's very quiet," she commented then in a low voice.

"He's embarrassed," Severus said, and Harry scowled up at him. "He's done almost nothing but scream obscenities at me for 12 hours."

"Perhaps he's tired himself out. You removed the asphodel in water?"

"Yes."

"I suspect this is why he's having so much trouble just at the moment. The others are coming down off of it slowly."

"I emptied the tub three times before we were done," Severus said, and Poppy tutted.

"That's ten times more than any of the others. Luckily we'd gotten to one of the boys up in the Hospital Wing after he'd just taken it for the first time, and the other two only had small amounts in their system.

"He was taking it without water," Severus said dryly, feeling very tired from his long night and morning. "The Headmaster and I would appreciate it if no one else knew about this."

"Of course."

"There you are Severus. It's healed nicely. You may have a headache for the rest of the day, but I assume you have a pain potion here? Good."

Poppy gathered up her supplies and went back to the fireplace. "Call me if you need anything else, and try to get him to eat something, it will help. Do you have any candy Severus?"

He shot her a glare. She knew he didn't. The only sweet thing he cared for were brownies and the houselves almost never made them.

"I'll tell Albus to bring some down. The sugar will help."

He nodded his appreciation and with a last look at Harry there on the floor pretending to be asleep, she left in a burst of green flame.

"I hate you," Harry said from the floor quietly.

"Good," Severus said. "Are you going to sleep there or go back to your bed?"

"I hate that room," Harry said, arms crossed. Severus put his stool away and went into the kitchen to see if he had any sugar cubes to force down the boy's throat. He hoped Poppy was right that Harry had finally tired himself out and would get some sleep. He would love to have a nap himself, but couldn't so long as Harry was awake.

Failing to find anything full of sugar in the kitchen, Severus returned to the living room at the sound of the floo, and found a plate full of lemon drops, caramel chews, and a single brownie sitting on the floor.

"Do I get those?" Harry asked, skeptical that anyone would give him candy, because no one but Ron, Ginny and the twins ever had.

"The brownie is mine," Severus said, sure that Poppy made sure one was on the plate just for him. He did deserve it after all.

Severus picked up the brownie and set the plate on the floor by Harry, who seemed content to stay there on the floor next to the end of the couch, or possibly he was unable to move. Without a word the two of them ate their sweets, Severus leaning against the fireplace enjoying the first thing he'd had to eat that day, and Harry neglecting the lemon drops in favor of the caramels. Severus went into the kitchen to get himself some coffee to wash the brownie down with, and when he returned Harry was asleep there on the floor. Severus scoffed at the boy's stubbornness, but was glad that he was asleep.

Abandoning his coffee on the kitchen table, Severus retrieved the blanket and pillow from the guest room and tried to make Harry comfortable where he was, before he cast a movement charm on the room to alert him when Harry woke up, and then laid down on the couch. He was asleep in minutes.

* * *

His father had been wrong. When Madam Pomfrey came he hadn't been embarrassed, he was ashamed at what he'd done to his father and to himself. He thought he'd been a bad person before, but now he'd be able to add drug addict to the list. Boy, aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would have a field day with that if they ever found out. Just another thing to add to their long list of things they told the neighbors about Harry to make them distrustful. He supposed they didn't want to be the only ones in the area that hated or feared him. If the neighbors hated him too, then they wouldn't look down their noses at the Dursleys when they caught them ‘punishing' Harry for some imaginary wrongdoing.

Harry hurt too much to get up off the cold hard floor. He liked the coolness of the stone against his back, because he'd felt nothing but sweaty since he'd woken up in his dorm room last night. Was that just last night, or had it been the night before? Harry wasn't sure because he'd been so disoriented through all of this. He wished it would just be over already.

The candy had helped almost immediately with the craving he had for more red dust, but when he'd woken in the dark room on the floor, the craving had come back in full force. Nothing had stopped his body from aching and his limbs from feeling like lead however, and how his head hurt something awful on top of that, pounding where he'd smacked it on the table. Yes, this feeling he had was deep shame. Someday when he got married he'd have to tell his wife the kind of man she was marrying... the kind who had once been a drug addict. He felt his face burning red just thinking about telling Ginny that. He'd never be able to ask her out now, not now that he'd been a jerk to all of his friends, lied to them all, and fallen into this... this... he hated to even think the word addiction.

Knowing that others had also been taking the dirt and whatever that other drug was didn't make Harry feel any better, because he knew they would be feeling the same thing he was right now. At least his father had kept him down here away from everybody else, though it was obvious to Harry now that he'd told Dumbledore, or else they wouldn't have investigated around the school and found the others like Harry.

He felt like growling then, because he wanted to find Devon and get more of the Asphodel from him, but the doors were locked and he could barely move as it was. He could hear someone snoring lightly in the close vicinity and assumed his father was sleeping on the couch where Harry couldn't see him. He was sure there'd be hell to pay when he was finally free again for what he'd done. It seemed so right at the time, so sensible to beat his captor into submission to secure his freedom.

They had said that Devon had been expelled. That bothered Harry. He didn't know what red asphodel looked like in its plant form, and he also didn't fancy going out during a full moon to find it, though he knew he would if it were a full moon and he had a way to get out of these stupid quarters. It wasn't even about the way the asphodel made him feel, or not feel anymore. He just wanted it because he wanted it. It made perfect sense. So he'd made a mistake and taken too much. He could be careful if they'd given him another chance with it. He wasn't doing anyone else harm by taking it.

Thoughts circling viciously around his head between shame, desire, and an instinct to flee, Harry reached over to the plate and grabbed a lemon drop, the only type of candy left there, and put one in his mouth. He'd eat these until he was free, he thought, stuffing the rest of them into his pants pocket. He'd make Snape think he was well again and then go to the library to look up asphodel. He thought he knew where Devon's secret stash was too, because he'd followed him one night and seen him disappear up in the attic on the East side of the castle. He could probably find enough there to hold him over until the full moon. After Harry had finished his piece of candy, and the craving for dirt had subsided, he allowed himself to fall asleep, a plan finally in place in his mind.

* * *

It was Monday, and Harry had gone through his stock of candy and then some since three more plates of it had come through the floo. He'd asked his father to let him go to class, but the answer had been no. Somehow he'd gotten a substitute to cover for him for the day, though Harry didn't know who unless it was Dumbledore. Harry thought he rather would have liked to have gone to a class taught by Dumbledore.

It was fortunate for Harry that several students had come down with the wizarding flu over the weekend and were out sick today, so that he could have an excuse. Ron had come to the door asking about him at lunch and so had Draco, but Severus had turned them both away telling them that Harry was contagious. He was no longer sweating or ranting and raving, and to be honest he felt better aside from the cravings and his aching head, but his father refused to let him go.

"When can I go?" Harry asked.

"When you're better."

"Are the others out of the Hospital Wing?"

"Most of them."

"Then why can't I go too?"

Severus gave Harry a hard look, calculating. He was silent for a moment as if he were actually considering Harry's request, and then he said, "They had a variety of reasons for taking the drugs. Their parents have spoken to them and deemed them ready to return to school. That along with the fact that they hadn't taken nearly as much as you, or for as long."

"So talk to me and let me go," Harry said. "I mean, not that I don't like spending time with you, but I want to be back with my friends." It was true. He wanted to put this behind him, or at least he told himself that. In the back of his mind he was still considering his plan to find Devon's stash if it hadn't already been located. He felt like part of him was right there with his father, trying to get better, and the other part of him was off somewhere else scheming to not get better. There was a dark side to himself he felt and he was ashamed of it and didn't want anyone else to see it. The sooner he could get back to his life, forget about all of this, the better. He hoped that if he tried to forget about it and get back on track trying to be who everybody else wanted him to be again, then the dark part of him would just disappear.

"You wish to talk about why you took the drugs?" Severus' curious voice brought Harry out of his reverie, and Harry looked into his eyes.

"No, but if it gets me out of here."

"Do you want to get better Harry?"

"Yes," Harry said slowly. It was true, but it also wasn't.

"Why?"

Harry swallowed hard and then looked down at the floor. "Because I don't want to be that person."

"What person?"

"The person that does drugs and is a jerk to his friends. The one that hit his father. The bad person."

"Do you think you're a bad person?"

Harry shrugged in response. He was quiet for a minute before he said, "I mean, I have to be, right? If I was good then people wouldn't keep treating me so bad."

"Harry, you didn't deserve what was done to you."

"I used to think that when it was just the Dursleys, but what about you, and Sirius, Draco, the Slytherins... it's like half of everybody I meet."

"And you still don't deserve it. Harry, nobody deserves to be treated that way. I am very sorry that I could not look past my own petty grudges to treat you as you deserved. As Lupin said..." here he paused, he hated to admit that the wolf was right, "Black seemed to have the same issue."

"Hermione never got treated like that. Ron and Draco never got treated like that... or at least not before Sirius."

"It is not for me to say what Draco has been treated like, but I believe you should ask him before you make the assumption."

Harry looked up at that, and Severus said, "Needless to say, I believe his grandfather was the only one in his family whom he enjoyed spending time with."

"'s not right."

"What isn't."

"That they treated Draco like dirt."

"And what about you? Is that why you took the drugs? You feel like dirt? You feel like you must have deserved all of what happened to you?"

"I just didn't want to feel like that anymore. I was so tired of feeling like that. When I took the caffeine pills I felt awake and chipper."

"And the asphodel?"

"Devon gave it to me to try and I felt pretty good with that too. Like everything was clear to me."

"It is used in clarity potions, in minute amounts. Generally one speck of it is used in a batch of four or five phials."

"Guess I wasn't thinking so clearly then," Harry admitted, looking at his shoes again.

"Harry."

He looked up.

"You didn't come to me when you had a problem you needed to work through. I understand that the trust isn't there yet because of the way I've treated you in the past, and because our, relationship, is new. You haven't had parents to go to in the past to talk to. I am here now though. How do I know you'll come to me the next time you have a problem instead of trying to work it out your own way?"

"Is it so wrong to want to figure things out myself?"

"Not always, but when you're struggling this much with something, and you turn to what you think is the easy way out, then yes. You only do yourself more harm than good if you take the easy way out."

"I thought I could handle it. The more I took the more I thought I knew what I was doing."

"I believe that is true of all who try things like asphodel." They were quiet for long moments, both in thought, before Severus added, "Harry, most people who take asphodel have a craving for it for life. Even if they haven't craved it in years, a sight, or a sound, a memory reminds them of it and they'll begin to crave it again. This isn't true for everybody, but for many it is. This may be an issue you have for the rest of your life."

"What, the whole year or two I'll get before I go up against Voldemort?"

Severus frowned in consternation at him. "That is an issue we will be discussing in great detail, but not at this moment.

"For the people who don't have the cravings forever, how soon do they go away?" Harry asked then. He secretly hoped he wouldn't be one of those people, because if they went away then he could throw his plan out the window for finding his own.

"Days, weeks, sometimes months. Are you still having them?" Harry had told Severus he was fine so many times over the last few days, that his trust had gone out the window knowing the boy was addicted. He was surprised then when Harry said, "Yes."

"Does the candy help?"

"Mostly. The hard candy is the best because it lasts for a while."

"I want you to be able to go back to school and your friends," Severus said then. "I also want you to be able to come to me no matter what you think you've done wrong or who you think you are, do you understand?"

"Yes," Harry said.

"I know things have been unfair for you, and difficult, and they are likely to continue to be so because of the prophecy. You cannot continue to take the easy route Harry. It will make you weak in every way. It's by taking the hard route, the one everybody else had to take that we become strong. Don't shy away from your battles, take them head on and I can guarantee you'll come out stronger, and wiser in the end." This was something he knew as a fact. If he hadn't tried to take the easy way out by joining Voldemort then his life would have been a lot better at this point. Though he couldn't say that having a son was making things bad for him, even if they had already been through such a struggle.

"If you feel you are ready to return to classes, then you may go," Severus finally said. He didn't know if it was a mistake or not, but he knew he couldn't pull Harry out of school indefinitely.

"You trust me to do that?" Harry asked in awe.

"Trust has to start somewhere. You know what I expect of you now, and I believe you can live up to that."

Harry stood up from the stool he'd been sitting on then and walked to the door, not certain if this was a trick or not. He turned the handle and it opened however. Pausing on the threshold, he turned to face his father's back and said, "I'm sorry I hit you... dad," and then he was gone before his opportunity left him.

After being locked up for three days, Harry just wanted to get out of the castle. He made a beeline straight for the front doors where he practically bounded out onto the grounds. When the cool evening air hit his face he felt refreshed, but he also suddenly remembered that there was asphodel somewhere out here on the grounds, and the urge to go search for it was strong. His father's words filled his thoughts though, about not taking the easy way out, and about expecting something more from him, and trusting him to live up to it. Suddenly Harry was filled with a desire not to let him down, and instead of going off to look for the asphodel, he forced himself to take a seat on the top step leading away from the castle. He forced himself to sit there until it was dark, and then he forced himself to sit there some more.