Severus had sat in the living room for a little while, attempting to make some progress on grading his papers. Minerva was covering his classes but he didn't like her method of grading so every evening a stack of papers arrived at his home like clockwork. He found himself hopelessly distracted, however, and went into his small home office. Although when he went in there he didn't have any conscious intention, he found himself looking for the card they had brought up during their session with Rebecca. It took about fifteen minutes, but he finally found it in his small metal filing cabinet.

The glitter had mostly fallen off but Severus smiled at the cauldron stickers. He flipped it open. In Lily's writing it said 'Happy Birthday!' and below it, Harry had written in block letters 'love Harry and Spice.' He'd misspelled both 'love' and 'Spice.' Severus was beginning to realize that he hadn't really tried to be the boy's father because he had known it would ultimately end in failure and he would be embarrassed for even trying. He could recognize that this was cowardly and lazy; he felt a bit hypocritical because he did not tolerate any signs of laziness in his students. He always told them that if they didn't do it right now, they would make even more work for themselves down the road. That certainly had proven the case in this situation.

His main excuse had always been that he hadn't had much of an example of how to be a father. Severus' childhood had been horrendous. Tobias Snape had been afraid of magic and he had been the type of man who had lashed out when he was afraid. Eileen Snape had been hopelessly weak and effectively cowed by the abuse she endured. Severus had been pretty young when he'd given up hope that his mother would stand up for herself. He'd essentially abandoned her and begun trying to spend as much time away from home as possible. When he was young, this had meant a lot of time with the Evans family. Lily's parents had been pretty good about him being there so often but he couldn't be there all the time. He'd gotten quite skilled at knowing when he had worn out his welcome.

So, there were times when he did have to return to the Snape household, and Tobias was always inevitably in a rage when he did return home. When Severus had gotten older, he'd learned how to make the man more hesitant in his beatings by playing on his fear of magic, but when he was young it had been pretty bad. There had been a couple of times that Mrs. Evans had actually called children's services, much to Severus' horror. Unfortunately, Eileen would always side with Tobias in order to save herself and tell the social worker that Severus was a very difficult child, and he was picked on a lot by the neighborhood children, and she didn't know why he would make up such a story. And - in part, Severus was sure, because he had been a particularly homely child and quite bitter even at that age - they believed her.

This all wasn't really an excuse though. It wasn't Harry's fault that Severus himself had grown up in a loveless and abusive household. He didn't deserve to suffer for it; and Severus was starting to see that the child had indeed suffered. Severus heard the front door open and shut, "Sev? Harry?"

"I'm in the office, Lily," he called.

She appeared a few moments later in her healer uniform. Severus was struck again by how lucky he was to have her. For the first few months of their marriage he had woke expecting to find her gone and all of it a dream but she was always there in the morning. Lily, his Lily. The Lily he had loved since he was little more than a child. It occurred to him sometimes that he had benefited from the misfortune of James Potter and wondered if things would finally come to a bad end because of the way they had been brought together. He would say that most of the time, he didn't feel good enough for her and felt like their marriage must be a bit of a sham. It didn't seem possible to him that she could love him in return. Apparently she felt something, however, because she'd certainly put up with a lot to be with him.

"What are you doing on the floor?" She asked, walking over to him.

"I was just looking through some papers." He said and then gestured for her to come closer. He grasped her wrist and pulled her down to the floor with him. She giggled and protested half-heartedly. He kissed her and said, "You know I love you, right?"

"I know, Sev," she said, and he supposed she had always known, "I love you, too."

There was a pause and then she said, "Sev, you want me to be happy, right?"

"Mm-hm," he said, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Well, I went to talk to my boss at work today again about cutting my hours. You would have been proud of me; I calmly presented my argument for why I should be allowed to move to part-time and pointed out my seniority."

"And what happened?"

"She told me that if I couldn't work the hours that I'd been initially hired on for then maybe I wasn't right for St. Mungo's."

"And you said?"

"That I had to discuss it with my wonderful husband, of course."

"Right. What did you really say?"

"I told her to shove her job." Severus looked exasperated and she rushed on, "They'd probably take me back if I apologized because they're desperate for healers, but I'm really hoping you'll say 'Lily, I completely understand why you want to be home with your son who you almost lost for the second time in his young life and I support you one hundred percent'. Besides, we have quite a bit in savings and maybe when things blow over with Harry, I could even open my own practice like I've always wanted."

It was true that they had quite a bit put away in savings as Severus was a naturally frugal person. Lily was technically a fairly rich woman but she and Severus had both agreed early on that her inheritance from James should be left for when Harry entered adulthood to help him get a head start. Severus sighed, "I do understand, Lily. We'll manage."

She smiled at him and stretched, saying, "How did the appointment with Rebecca go?"

Severus groaned, "The woman is a quack."

"I thought she was a genius when she helped you right after the war," Lily said, "A miracle worker. Sent straight from heaven."

"Shush. You've made your point," Severus said. "I just don't think what we did was very helpful. She had us reveal a bad and good memory in a pensieve and then describe why it was bad or good."

Lily said, "Well, I suppose it could help the two of you put yourselves in the other's shoes a little bit. What was your good memory?"

"The sessions are private," Severus said.

"Oh, come on, tell me."

Severus paused and then said, "Don't laugh."

"I won't." She promised.

He sighed and pulled the card out from the pile where he had stuffed it when he had heard her arrive home. She took it and grinned, "I had almost forgotten about this! Sev, I didn't know you were sentimental."

"I'm not," he said, "It's just that every time I was going to throw it away, it didn't feel like the right thing to do."

She flipped open the card and commented, "Love Harry."

"Yes, well, he was five."

"I think a five-year-old is quite capable of understanding love if not all the strings that are sometimes attached." She looked at him sadly. Then, thankfully, she changed the subject, "What was his?"

"Something from back when I was teaching him his math."
Lily nodded, "The two of you always worked well when you were teaching him. That was part of the reason that I thought things might improve when he went to school."

"We didn't really get much of a chance to see if your theory would hold true." He said; he tried to remember why he had ever stopped tutoring Harry. He supposed he had just gotten busy and started just giving the child workbooks to do that he would check after he went to bed.
Lily sighed and said, "Have you two eaten yet?"

Oh, right. He probably should have made dinner. He'd gotten too distracted and forgotten altogether about eating. Severus told her, "No. Not yet. He's been up in his room."

"Well, that has to be a good sign. At least he's getting better about being alone."

"I think he just really didn't want to be around me," Severus said dully.

Lily went on as if he hadn't spoken, "Maybe we can all have a late dinner. Do you want to go get something started while I get in the shower?"

Severus agreed and Lily disappeared out of the room to get in the shower. He stood up from the floor and went into the kitchen. He pulled some noodles and marinara sauce out of the cupboards as well as some fresh vegetable and ground beef for meatballs. He started the knives on chopping the vegetables and with a wave of his wand formed several meatballs. Soon, everything was cooking, and Severus was glad he'd gotten it done before Lily came back down. They did not work well together in the kitchen; Severus went about it rather like he would brew a potion, methodically. Meanwhile, Lily tended to do things all out of order, which drove Severus crazy.

The smell of food had apparently drawn Harry out of his sleep because he appeared a few moments later with his hair even messier than usual and still blinking away the sleep. It was only then that Severus realized he had made the boy's favorite without even really thinking about it. Harry asked, "Can I help?"

"Everything is pretty much on its way," Severus said, "But you can set the table if you want."

Harry fetched some plates and glasses from the cupboard as well as some silverware. He was done in a few moments, having done a sloppy job though Severus held his tongue, and reappeared in the kitchen. Severus felt the child watching him and turned around and raised his eyebrows inquisitively, "Yes?"

The boy looked away quickly and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. Severus turned back toward the stove, assuming that Harry had changed his mind about speaking to him. Harry walked over and stood beside him, looking at the food cooking on the stove, "So, I was just wondering if that's really a good memory for you. The thing you said when we were with Rebecca."

Severus glanced at him but he was steadfastly examining the boiling pasta. He was too tired to be evasive, "Yes."

Harry wrung his hands and Severus could tell he was having a hard time saying something. He began to tell him that they didn't have to talk about it, but Harry plunged on, "So, I don't really understand why it couldn't be like that all the time. I mean, apparently you were capable of being nice to me or whatever. So was it just too much work to pretend or what?"

He could hear the anger beginning to edge into the boy's voice. Severus sighed and ran a hand over his face, "I don't know, Harry. I made some mistakes, clearly, and I'm not denying that. I am sorry and if we had it to do over again, I think there are things I would have done differently. But unfortunately we only get one chance. And if you hate me for it, I think most people would find that understandable."

Harry paused, lifting the lid off one of the pots to look at the marinara sauce, before saying quietly, "I don't hate you. I just wish . . ."

He stopped as he heard footsteps on the stairs. Lily came into the kitchen in her pajamas with wet hair sticking to her face. Both Harry and Severus turned to look at her. She glanced between the two and said, "What?"

The three were soon eating dinner. Severus happened to look over and saw that Harry had a sizeable smear of tomato sauce on his cheek. He laughed causing Lily to glance at him. Severus explained, "He still can't eat spaghetti."

Harry looked up and protested, "There's nothing wrong with how I eat spaghetti."

Lily grinned and said, "I know when you were younger, Sev tried to convince me to forbid you from eating spaghetti."

"Why?" Harry licked at the spot of tomato sauce on his face causing Severus to toss a napkin at him. The boy picked it up sheepishly.

"Because you needed a bath every single time you ate it," Severus said, "And we found splotches of sauce in the dining room weeks afterward even after spelling it clean."

Harry actually smiled a little bit at him, albeit shyly, but the moment was broken by a rapping on the window. Severus stood up to let the owl it; it was a showy bird that dropped the letter on the counter before taking off again. He recognized it as one of the Malfoys' owls. He took the letter and opened it.

"What is it, Sev?" Lily asked.

"Narcissa wants to pay a visit tomorrow," Severus was bemused by the letter. The woman had a way that wasn't quite demanding to be seen but wasn't quite asking either. He noticed that Harry was frowning a little bit, his eyes having become a bit unfocused. "What's wrong, Harry?"

"Um, nothing." He pushed his chair away from the table. "Can I be excused?"

"You're finished already?" The boy usually had to be stopped from taking a third serving of his favorite food.

"Yes. I just don't feel good."

"Okay," Severus said and watched him disappear into the living room. He picked up the boy's plate and he and his wife exchanged a look.