"I remember the first time I met the two of you." Albus declared joyously, popping a lemon drop in his mouth. The circular office was lit by an intense sunbeam shining through the cracks of the window behind Albus's desk, engulfing him in a pleasant glow. Severus, haggard in appearances and agitated from getting almost no sleep in three days, rolled his eyes.

"Harry was such a tiny little thing, just a crop of unruly hair and giant glasses; he never quite detached himself from you that day, Severus." the headmaster continued, gesturing to a chair for the potion master to settle in.

Severus blatantly refused the offer.

"Yes, I wouldn't have either." He jeered. "You had a scary taste in fashion." The old man raised his eyebrows, shuffling his bright orange robes to pick another lemon drop from the jar. "I'm not here for pleasantries Albus. You know why I'm here." Severus resumed.

The old man titled his head. "No." he answered. "I knew why you didn't come to seek my help, you do too. Why are you here now?"

The man grounded his jaw, tensely crossing his arms to restrain the shaking of his hands. He couldn't tell if it was from the anger or exhaustion. "This doesn't involve the ministry anymore, this is personal. James Potter overstepped his boundaries; he bribed forty officials and a well-known judge." He said gravely. "You must step in now."

The thought of overthrowing the corrupted minister was all he had in his mind, to see each and every one of those bumbling fools suffer and writhe in misery after what they had done to his son for money. Years in Azkaban with the dementors suckling on their souls wouldn't be enough to teach them a lesson, Severus believed Albus could make that happen.

The headmaster, however, merely shook his head. "You know why I cannot." He said, almost in a scolding tone. Severus unfortunately, did know. He knew that the headmaster's involvement in the ministry would most definitely cost the man his job here in Hogwarts. As unfair and as selfish this notion was in Severus's head, he couldn't help but hope that Albus would do it anyway.

Albus smiled sadly, almost as if he had read his mind. "That's why you didn't come for help Severus. I already did more than enough, saving you from the inventible charges of assault."

"And I'm thankful Albus." The younger man growled, his hands balling into fists. "But my son is trapped in a middle of nowhere with a pair of lunatics, both of whom are powerful enough to get away, I couldn't help him, not legally anyway, any other solution would take months to follow through. You know that."

"What do you want me to do? I can't just up and throw a revolution." the grey eyed man required bluntly, his eyes devoid of any twinkle behind his half-moon spectacles.

"Assist me in killing him then," Severus answered without missing a beat, just as bluntly. "Or at least permanently maiming them. They cannot hurt my son if they're dead."

"Is that your rage speaking my boy? Or are you truly contemplating the idea?" something in the man's voice suggested that he wasn't that disagreeable to the idea, but Severus was on the defensive mode. He couldn't back down, this needed to end. Once and for all.

"I'm a potion master," he rebuked tartly. "Well enough to brew an undetectable poison. Good enough to kill them without leaving a trace. The idea doesn't need months to harbor and plan through; it could be done in less than an hour." He said challengingly, as if he was expecting Albus to deny the claims.

"And then?" the headmaster wondered out loud, his face neither passive nor harboring a particular expression.

The potion master frowned, his arms going slack by his side. "Then Harry will get out of their care." He said, with a resigned expression. "If they cannot trace their deaths back to me, we would live happily ever after and if they will... Harry would be safe either way."

"I was thinking about the day I first met the two of you. The day of your first interview with me... followed by nearly three years of courting you for the job." The man chuckled briefly before his face was serious again. "I met a lost young man out of his depths with the burden of parenting a troubled child, I thought to myself; it must be a pain, to raise the child of his mortal enemy and former friend, more or less in the same condition that he, himself was prisoned in as a child." He admitted. His face lined with age and experience.

Severus huffed, shuffling his wrinkled robes in frustration. He hadn't changed his robes in two days, following their failure, and hadn't even thought about washing up.

He had spent the two days cooped up in his labs, thinking up and studying various forms of undetectable poisons he could use on the despicable man who had stolen his child, he had been so focused on brewing the poison that he nearly hadn't thought about Harry's welfare in a day.

"Then, I saw Harry, a little boy attached to your neck as if it was his life line. Trustful, yet utterly terrified of everyone around him, you grounded him Severus, in more ways than one. I must confess... with your history, I wouldn't have thought that parenting would be the most suitable choice, and you proved me wrong."

"Is there a point to your story?" Severus gritted out, feverishly glaring into his mentor's eyes.

Every minute he was spending here, his son was suffering. He wasn't obligated to stay here and listen to the old man ramble on.

"It's a memory, Severus, not a story. You know what I'm getting to. Killing or maiming the Potters is not an option." Albus gently reproached, standing to pace around his desk.

"Our plan failed." The potion master admitted quietly, his head was hung down in shame. "Harry was supposed to escape the house on his first night, and he didn't even send the stress signal via the coins we gave him. Either they know and prevented him or they... they rendered him in a condition that disallowed him from coming in the first place." He finished with a pallid face. Even the thought of them laying a hand on his son sent electricity jolts up his spine and pumped anger in his vein as if it was blood.

If they had even dared to lay a mark on his child, he would torture them to insanity without question, the thought of killing them wasn't enough to sooth his indignation. Severus needed proper revenge after he had made sure that Harry was safe.

"Harry cannot get out, by himself, and he certainly cannot wait long enough for the right legal procedure to go through. He might /die/ Albus. He's already injured, and James Potter wasn't exactly known for his forbearance." He sneered at the name, his eyes narrowed.

"Let's say that you were about to kill or poison them, how would you even get in the manor? How would you make sure that Harry isn't hurt in the process? What of the other boy, Aiden? Are you willing to orphan a child by killing his parents?"

"I would be doing him a favor." The potion master brushed him off. "No offence Albus, but Harry comes first, he always had."

Harry comes first was always his motto, whilst dealing with the child. Harry came before money, Harry came before jobs, and Harry came before Severus's own health and safety. Every parent's rule ever; the child is always the first priority.

"Is he going to be in the future?" Albus asked pointedly. "Severus, you're not fathering Harry anymore, you have a child on the way as well."
Severus's heart skipped a traitorous beat, and he sank down in his seat. "The baby will be fine;" he said slowly but sure of himself. "Janet and I talked about the matter," he continued honestly. He had discussed the alternative plans with his fiancé, if things didn't go according to the plan. The potion made sure that both the baby and his fiancé were fully supported if needs be, and he knew that Janet was strong enough to handle both Harry and the baby all by herself.

He tried to ignore the painful clench in his chest; this whole pregnancy had been a nightmare, from the disastrous announcement, to the day that his son was scorched in a tree bark, the pregnancy had been saddled with a heavy tense air worthy of a breath holding contest. That was probably the reason why Severus never dared to sentimentally get attached to the idea.

It didn't mean that he didn't love their baby, but thinking too much about the baby and his new life with Janet triggered guilt over choosing them over Harry, as irrational as it seemed.

"Both Harry and the baby will be supported if the need arises." He repeated.

Albus nodded tiredly. "How are you planning to kill them?"

"Lucius has a plan in mind already." The older aristocrat man had the idea in mind since the very first day Severus dared to seek assistance from the man. He told Severus- even insisted- that killing the family off and then hushing the incident up to foreign causes was the easiest way to get rid of them. Severus was horrified by the words back then-now he didn't even know what caused the indignation the first time.

"And are you absolutely certain that this is the only solution?"

The potion master titled his chin down, gazing at his boots. "Lucius told me that I couldn't beat them by playing fair," he said, reminiscing the words. "I didn't believe him at first but now I am more amenable to the suggestion."

The headmaster leaned back in his seat "You used to look up to him, his opinion must matter to you, but then again, you're here in my office, delicately confessing to a crime you have yet to commit." The man let out an uncharacteristic sigh in irritation. "We both know you're not here for help Severus, you're here to change your mind."

"I'm here for your view. I am following through with the plan either way." Whatever that /plan/ may be that involves poisons, the man thinks. Anything to get his wounded child back in his arms. The guilt swallowed him whole like a phantom, hunting his soul and making his throat clench. James Potter deserved death, in its cruelest form.

"As I've already said in the beginning, my view on you has long changed Severus; from the resentful young man who made many wrong choices," he swiped a hand around the room, his gaze intently on the younger man. "To a doting single parent, taking care of... a Gryffindor child no less." Albus said, smiling. "It's true that they say Parenting changes a person."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Harry changed you, the way you healed him." Albus stated. "That's why you couldn't bear the thought of killing the Potters at first and why you're dubious now... being a Slytherin is your nature," Severus looked away. "But so is being a parent."

"There is no other solution now; Harry must get out of there." He didn't know when but he was pacing, back and forth across the sturdy tiles of stone under his feet. Pacing and pondering his options. Lucius was right, James and Lily Potter /deserved/ nothing more than death.

But did they /have/ to be dead? Would their deaths bring more chaos and misery into their lives instead of healing it?

The headmaster looked as If he completely agreed with Severus's mental musings. "I didn't say you should leave him in their care."

"Then what should I do?"

Albus actually chuckled. "You are the one who wanted me to intervene into the ministry's corrupt system. You're also the head of the Slytherin house Severus, if eliminating the foe isn't a choice what would you do?" he asked slyly. "Aside from maiming them."

"Psychological measures." Snape countered at once, frowning. "It wouldn't work; he bought the court in less than ten minutes, what's to say he won't buy the media the same way?"

"What's to say he would be as quick this time?"

Severus scowled skeptically. "It could risk Harry's health Albus. We cannot just rely on the wizarding community to handle this. Killing them is much easier."

"But you can pursue the crowd to prod the ministry for a fair trial. It would take less time than the legal procedure, and it would leave no permanent consequences. As we know, our dear minister cares a great deal about his reputation."

"Harry might get hurt if Potter found out." He barked out, turning his back to the headmaster.

"Harry is already hurting," Albus replied honestly. "I don't believe that he-in good conscious- would be terribly enraged by the fact that you're fighting for him. Have some faith in your child."

Striking blue eyes burned into his face with a stern gleam. "Killing them is too easy for a skilled spy and a potion prodigy, we both know that Severus. What isn't easy, is being a parent while also being a skilled spy and potion master. There is a difference between what is right and easy."

"I just want him back." He sounded like a petulant child even to his own ears, but he didn't care. Albus was denying him his help, with the subtlety and mildness of a chess master, in favor of following through with a plan that would most likely fail.

They couldn't afford to lose anymore, any second that they wasted was like another blow to his head, another disappointment. Another second proved just how useless Severus was both as a parent and former death eater. He was a killer for god's sake! A /trained/ one that at. He had worked as a double agent for years...why couldn't he beat Potter?

"Fight for him the way you know he wants you to do. Harry is a very strong young man, wholly different from the small child I met all those years ago. He can handle this." The potion master shook his head. Could he? Could he really expect an abused fourteen year old to handle such a thing? By choice?

Emotional attachment, he finally growled in his head as an answer to his previous ruminating. He couldn't beat Potter because they had his Harry as a hostage. His /Harry/. No poison could act quick enough to prevent him getting grievously hurt, psychological poisoning on the other hand...

"Scandalizing the Potters..." he mused, crossing his arms. "There's a slim chance that we fail." He drawled sarcastically.

"But a greater chance of finishing this matter once and for all." His mentor countered. "If this plan failed as well, then by all means, you are allowed to kill them." Severus's eyes widened and the man winked at him, subtly adjuring their meeting.

Slightly out of sorts the younger man turned, shuffling his robes, his mind racing and his hands shaking from exhaustion.

"Oh and Severus?" the older man grinned over his shoulder. "You may use my office for your gathering."

**

Harry couldn't quite pinpoint the precise moment he managed to 'sleep' for the first time. He could have been three, definitely no younger than two and no older than five.

It might have started the night he first wet his cot in the cupboard, the night Mommy and Daddy were arguing and Harry had to go to the bathroom but ended up soiling himself in distress.

The memory stuck out like a sore sizzling wound, vividly taking place before his eyes, the harsh blows and scratches on his frail body and the shrill screaming in his ears, a rare pounding in his head that only amplified his abhorrent smell and the strawberry shaped scar on mommy's chest.

Harry had never zoned out during a beating before, not that he could remember, but he recalled letting his mind go numb when everything just got too much. He could elicit the impassive movement of his limbs as he did the chores, or scrubbed the floors or sat by Mommy when Janet came by to 'visit', while his mind simply 'went away'.

That first night, a few minutes into Mommy's vicious beating, Harry went away for the first time by his own will.

As he got older, going away got a bit harder, and required his sole attention as the world and his parent's fists collapsed down on him. He had to lie down in his cot, stare at the roof or at the cobwebs and then will himself to detach, to get away from the pain, to just /run/.

So he kept all his negative feelings and bottled up emotions for when he had to leave and stay with the Dursleys for the summers-they just locked him up in a small room and shouted abuse at him. 'Going away' then, was almost effortless to the small child, there was even a bed and everything.

The night James Potter made him gut and then hollow out his childhood stuffed animal Harry slipped away the moment his head told him that he was relatively safe. His body and conscious alike were both in shock, his heart was like a trapped animal, painfully thrashing in his ribs. His head was shredded into ribbons, his thoughts could only linger for a moment before dissipating and leaving him confused and hurt and /alone/.

Rabbity. Where was Rabbity? Did he really do that? Did he take a knife in his hands and slaughtered a living-no, Harry shook his head in confusion- moving... Rabbity was just moving and making sounds. It was struggling, writhing under the knife, it wasn't alive...was it alive?

Did it even matter anymore? James had what he wanted...whatever that was. Harry didn't know, he didn't want to know why the man was doing this to him. All of this effort, money, time the man solely dedicated to him. It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense.

That night was the shortest period Harry had ever dedicated to slipping away from his mind. The physical sores and pain in his body was just too irritating to bear.

Sometime, the next day, he was retrieved by one of the house elves he barely saw around the manor. He looked around in wonder, his side of the wing looked exceptionally cleaner than the last time Harry remembered it to be, all by James's orders-no doubt as a new ploy to mess with his head.

The house elf did not look fazed by Harry's state in the slightest, and didn't take note of his blotched face, red, irritated skin, nor his shaking hands and directed him to the library. A room the teenager had barely seen as a child.

"Good morning." James called pleasantly as the elf ushered him into the vast library, nearly filled with high end shelves and expensive wood work, and decorated with posh looking furniture. Every inch of the room dripped money and Harry hated it.

He wondered if he could grab one of the green table lamps and smash it in the man's head, it would cost a pretty lamp and probably cause more works for house elves, but still.

There was a low annoying string of classical music wheezing from James's right, as Harry got closer he got sight of the antic phonograph choking out the familiar, yet annoying tune. He scoffed.

James followed his eyes with a questioning grin. Harry ducked his head, wringing his hands and looking down at the worn, yet another expensive rug under his feet. "I thought you would like it. Moonlight Sonata Mvt.1." his biological father silently said, knocking his fingers on the desk to the rhythm of the music.

The boy looked over the neat stack of parchment with dread chilling his bones. "You sent the report." He stated, feeling nausea build up in a bulge in his throat. They could imprison his dad, Harry recalled in horror. Oh merlin, please let his dad be alright. He didn't care about what was going to happen to him, but he needed to know that his father was safe.

"Just this morning as a matter of fact."

"What happens now?" he asked no one in particular, his tone subdued.

James made a long humming sound, finally sitting behind his desk in one deft, smooth move. "That depends." He said, gesturing at a steaming plate set in front of him. "Eggs?" he asked the younger boy, shoving the plate gently to Harry's side.

"You're feeding me."

His father raised an eyebrow. "Of course I am. You're going to need all the help you can get," he nodded at a leather chair set next to Harry and his eyes narrowed. Harry sat without a protest.

Green emerald eyes bore into suspicious looking plate of fluffy scrambled eggs. "A healer might come by this afternoon."

Harry's head snapped up in alarm. "For your face," James said. "Which looks nasty by the way."

"I don't want your healers." The younger teen spewed out. "I want to go home."

James looked unimpressed at the display, even a little more than amused. "Not possible, I'm afraid, you're already here." He put his chin on folded hands. "How about an ice cream? Would that make you feel better?"

Harry ignored the mocking tone. "I want to go home."

"So we're going to be like that today." The man was not asking. "Alright then, have it your way."

"What you're gonna do to me?"

The older man tutted, absentmindedly playing with a quill as he pretended to be deep in thought. "I want you looked over by a healer who can get rid of the sheer ugliness, get you some food, new clothes, and then in my office by the evening in time for you to meet the psychiatrist."

Harry's heart flipped, al color draining from his blotchy red face. "Psych- psychiatrist." He repeated, worried that he might have heard the man wrong. Sighing in irritation, James held up his bored demeanor.

"Nothing fancy." He said indifferently. "Just an evaluation, you did attempt to kill yourself after all."

The leather chair squeaked indignantly as Harry surged to his feet with a furious cry. "No I didn't!!" his nostrils flared in anger at the man's blatant lies and his stomach churned. Committing suicide? Oh god, no. Never. He wouldn't do that to his father, he would never dare to even let his mind go far with the idea...not even once... his mind went black and his body sagged back.

James's caring eyes was like a stab in the guts as he nodded his head apologetically. "I'm sorry, I must have gotten things wrong then; so you're saying you didn't run away from home and didn't deliberately hide in a tree bark to either burn or freeze to death?"

He shook his head. /that/ was different, he thought. That night was different, he was trapped and no one was coming to his rescue. He ran away because he had to...he had to.

As he remained silent, James's grin expanded across his face. "The evidence is all over your face, ugly duckling."

"What are you gonna do to me?" Harry wasn't messing around with the man. He could tell that James had a plan, something up his sleeve tucked away just for Harry.

"I'm not doing anything to you." The man replied honestly. "Harry, I really wanted things to be good between us." He defended sadly, his eyes gleaming behind his round gold rimmed glasses. Harry found himself hating those glasses with a new force of energy, he had a pair of round glasses back home too, and now he knew why his dad never approved of it.

James continued his rambling as if he hadn't noticed his son zoning out. "Then, you went and /attacked/ a stuffed animal with a knife last night." The man winced." Such a disturbing image. I knew then, that evaluation was a must with your case, as much as I loath to have it done."

"I didn't-you!! You were- you told me to." His voice broke.

James /made/ him do it. Harry knew that, he remembered the vile, and repulsive imagery, he could still feel the warmth of the other man's hands on his as he did it. It was that or selling out his dad.

And the man was blaming it all on him.

"You made me do it." Harry repeated himself with more force.

"I didn't make you do anything." James pointed out, as he nodded at the stacked parchments, Harry's eyes widened. He remembered James's words, of how he was making him decide between the report and the knife.

Was there really a choice? He wondered grimly. Of course there wasn't...but this supposed psychiatrist wouldn't know that. He wouldn't believe Harry's word over James's and with evidence.

That was the whole point. He realized in horror. James was throwing him under the bus, scratching him away, for whatever mad reason, and what's more insane than gutting a stuffed animal? Oh merlin.

"I really tried Harry. But things are just far worse than I thought they would be." The older man's voice washed over him but he couldn't understand a word. The heavy pulse of his rushing blood was all he could hear over moonlight sonata.

"Oh god."

"There's nothing to be frightened of," the man assured him quickly. "We're going to help you Harry. Mommy and I both want you to come back to us."
"Why do you keep doing this to me?"

"We're getting you help."

"Why?" he had to know, he had every right to know why this was all happening to him. Why the man had come back to his life out of nowhere. Just waiting around for an opportunity to snatch him away and then have him looked over by a psychiatrist who would assume he was insane.

Why?

James stood, making Harry flinch back in his seat. The man raised and went around his desk, he was facing Harry, with both hands extended back against the cherry wood desk to support his weight. He looked intimidating, Harry couldn't deny that fact. He drew in a deep breath and sat still until James finally opened his mouth.

"Because you're my favorite son. My /key/ to success." He extended the hand to Harry's flinching face. "You're our first born. Our incredibly powerful first born son, who is unfortunately, mentally disturbed." He patted the boy's cheek. "Such a waste."

"First born? What-what are you talking about?" he gathered up his courage and batted his father's hand away, leaning back in the leather chair as far as he could.

James fisted his batted hand and smiled as if he was looking down at a naïve child. "The answer is in your name, and the mistake was ours."
"You know, it's funny, thinking that a squib wouldn't have gotten a knot out of our family's inheritance even by chance. We couldn't have been more wrong." The man turned back, picking up his wand with a twirl.

"One wouldn't have looked twice as we dumped you in the streets." He waved the wand at the wall length curtained window dispassionately.

"No one cares about a squib. Basically the ghosts in the family. No one saw them and they weren't heard, it was just the way things were." Harry's breathing accelerated in anger. It felt as if the man was /explaining/ and /justifying/ his abuse. As if it was something that came about naturally.
Harry would have believed him less than a year ago.

"Too bad I didn't turn out to be one." He gritted out. James laughed in response, his voice light and teasing.

"Technicalities." He waved his hand about his face. Harry frowned in disgust.

"But what you say is true. Aiden was of lower standing due to being the second child and his striking similarity to your mother...but he would have gotten it nonetheless."

He set his eyes on the spinning phonograph, staring as it turned and turned and turned. He did his best to tune the other man out.

"But then...you just had to be 'The One'," James's calm, gentle voice changed into a sneer. "All that repressed magic had to be let out somehow, what's better than fighting a Basilisk, am I right?"

"And at a certain age? The powerful basilisk slayer would be the bearer of our family's name and fortune. Just so it could be soiled by Snape's taint."
"Is this about money?" Harry couldn't stop the incredulous exclamation from escaping his mouth.

A nasty scowl formed on James's face as he turned to face his older son. "Of course not, don't be obtuse. Your role is to be crazy, not obtuse. Of course this isn't about /money/. Money was never an issue."

"Then why...?"

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt for you to know." His father mused, setting his wand next to a fluffy quill. "People rather believe a rock, over your word in a few days anyways." The man's words sounded like a promise. Harry's heart skipped a beat.

"You're sending me away." He realized faintly, his mind boggling and scrambling to glue the pieces. Why? He asked himself. What was his bloody incentive?! If it wasn't money...

"Of course I'm not /babyboy/." Harry shuddered at the familiar, jarring nickname. "I'm just a concerned parent, getting you the help you need. Right where we are now"

He shoved the utter terror and breathlessness away and leaned close to the edge of his seat. "Why then? If not for money."

James returned to his seat, relishing in the way the sun engulfed his back whole. "Well there are several reasons," he said. "I actually had a list of them here somewhere, but since you're so fond of counting, let's do it your way."

"I heard you, you know. The first night, in the cupboard. It's a funny technic, I'm curious as to how it works. You never told me."

"You're sick." Harry kicked the desk with his left foot, clenching his hands into fists.

"You're the one who wanted to see my list. Go on then, count and I tell you each reason without leaving anything out. It's a Dad promise."

I'm forced to go along with this, Harry thought with disgust. He didn't care, he could keep everything for later. He would 'go away' when he was safe enough. He needed the answers now. Swallowing the vile bile in his throat, Harry grounded his jaw.

"One."

"Snape would get to it." James opened his clasped hands. "Don't get me wrong though, I would've still done the same with anyone else, but Snivellus? That was just insulting."

"You said this isn't about money." Harry felt nauseated by himself. Repulsed that he was actually willing to listen and believe this man's empty words.

"It's not. It's about legacy." James straightened his glasses. "Do you know what that means? Keeping the family matters, /in the family/. I cannot just let an oily filth like Snape get his hands all on our dynasty." wide hazel orbs racked him from head to toe, James smirked. "Although, I was afraid that he already had."

"He's a better man that you ever will be." Harry shot back fiercely. His mind still stuck somewhere between absolute horror and rage.

"No need to get your wand in a twist," James admonished his child softly. "I'm not being prejudiced...but some things aren't just for the common dirt on the ground. You're a Potter. You should know better."

"Is this all you wanted?" Harry breathed out. "You can have it, whatever vault or money or shit that you want. I don't want it, no one does. Please, just let me go home." He could pull this off, Harry thought, he just needed to change a stupid name. Something he should have done /years/ ago.

It could all be over. But before relief had any chance to lift the heavy weight on his shoulders, James smiled. Harry knew that smile. That was the smile before the trial. The smile that basically screamed that James had something up his sleeve.

"I'm glad we agree on that matter. But things aren't that easy sweet pea." James laid back against his chair with an easygoing grin. The sudden, yet diverse circle of expressions that James's face could go through in less than a second was fascinating. If Harry weren't so terrified, he might have wondered if he could do it too. So many smiles, grins, the gleam in the eyes and each had a different meaning. Ferocious. His mind provided the word, the man was absolutely ferocious.

*"Where magic is concerned, the rules are-unfortunately for you- palpably concrete. 'The chair' irrecoverably belongs to the pure first born son of the family in each generation, now seeing as you're still most likely 'pure' and our first born. That means you." He pointed at Harry with his index fingers.
"I don't want it." If all this the mess was about some title and a stupid chair, then Harry was more than glad to give it all up. He and Dad didn't' need any of these, Harry just wanted to go back. Back home in his dad's arms. Safe. He didn't want to be evaluated and put away.

"You still have our name." his father explained. "On the authority of magic; that inheritance, vault, the title, is all yours." James confirmed the nauseating news. "You didn't turn out to be a squib, which was a shame, and you aren't about to turn into one any time soon."

"The name. It's all about- the name. I don't want it! I'll change my name."

"Why are you ignoring me?! Why are you-" then he realized and mulled his lips in a jeer.

"Two..." he mumbled, growling as James glared at him. "Two! Now tell me!"

"Why in the name of merlin would I do that? When I can just have two birds with one stone. The name /and/ you... well your assets, but still. You know, I always thought throwing you away was a mistake, if I weren't fearing something worse I wouldn't have done it in the first place."

"Something worse?" Harry voiced his first thought.

"Remus and Sirius of course, my mates." James smiled, reminiscing his former best friends.

"Now as you might remember, the pressure got a bit too much around the time Aiden's birthday, eight years ago. You just made me so angry /all/ the time, I had no other choice... if Sirius knew, my neck would have been on the line. Believe it or not, abandoning squib children was actually legal, not even frowned upon back then so he..."

"He couldn't-" Harry interrupted impatiently.

James agreed, nodding vigorously. "He couldn't sell me out even if he knew about you."

"I loved them both dearly," he confessed. "But friends, they just come and go Harry. You cannot base your whole life around your best friends. That's why you let them go and stick to your family."

He clapped his hands, standing, flashing another loving grin at Harry as he did.

"Moving on now, let me tell you the exciting news! There will be no more cupboard from today on. I've already prepared your room here for you." The man rocked on the heels of his feet like a small child would. "It's lovely," he promised. "A great view, attached bathroom, medical necessities at hand. /No/ particular reason for you to ever leave."

Harry was feeling sick, this was truly happening, he realized, his heart seizing in his throat. The evaluation, the bloody psychiatrist, it was all actually happening.

Medical necessities. That's why they threatened to /sedate/ him the first night. No one would have questioned it if it was done in order to 'contain' him. Harry was /helping/ James all along.

"I'm not crazy, I-I'm n-n-not crazy." He blurted out with difficultly, berating himself for being an idiot. He had to convince the person who was going to talk to him, he decided. He just /had/ to tell them about what was happening here.

Maybe the psychiatrist would even help him escape. They certainly should after Harry told them what a psycho James was.

"Take a look at this." He was handed a thin brown folder with an official sign etched at the left side. His hospital records? Harry titled his head at the sign. How did the man get these?

"This is your medical file, I've received it just this morning." James's face went through another fast contortion before fading into a smile. "According to this beauty here...you have a few, /unfortunate/ side-effect from your suicide attempt" he nodded sheepishly. "Aside from the obvious.

"Surviving the lightning doesn't come without consequences." He stated, scrutinizing his son's expression closely.

"Not a suicide att-"

He shot Harry down with a meaningful stare. "Hush, we don't want to disturb your fragile heart, do we now?" he cracked up, and Harry had the feeling that the man wanted to use this particular /joke/ for a while now.

Harry's mouth slackened. 'What?' He returned his father's stare with a bemused frown. The file scrunched in his hands.
"What are you saying?"

"All I'm saying is that, if, by some miracle, the evaluation, comes clean." The man shrugs smugly. "There's always a chance that a small accident occurs one day and your heart just," James paused for effect.

He whispered. "Stops." The older man leaned over and snatched the file from Harry's numb hands.

James grinned, leaping up from his own chair and circling the cherry wood desk again in a flash. "Eat your eggs now, before they get cold. The new clothes are by the fireplace." He waved a vague hand at the clothes thrown over a chair by the fireplace and then at the eggs.

"I won't be of age in three years... why now?" His voice sounded barely audible to his own ears, strained to the extreme and whizzing. He needed to /breathe/, his mind screamed, he needed to breath.

"The timing was just too good." James shrugged. "Besides, three years flies by faster than you think." The older man winked impishly, a smile playing on his lips. "For once, I'm glad Janet decided to shag Snivellus when she did. And Remus's best efforts in raising Sirius still didn't pay off after all these years." The man chuckled good-heartedly, his hands dragging across Harry's bare head.

"Trust me son," he promised quietly. "You will enjoy your stay here."

He left Harry speechless in the library, whistling and hands in his pockets as he went. The teenage boy sagged back against his seat, his chest heaving and his palms sweaty.

He couldn't escape, there was no way that he could get away now. It wouldn't have mattered if he and dad had switched places after all. James would have known, he would have known that Dad wasn't him the moment this matter was brought up.

He should've known, Harry numbly slated himself. Of course it was about the title and that stupid inheritance. It always was, Janet's /visits/ became frequent for this sole reason. And seeing as he wasn't properly disowned, and he never changed his name...

He shook his head, his heart thundering in his chest. Merlin, he had been an idiot. Evidently James had thought this through. Every action, every move on the man's part, ever since the moment he got here was to somehow torture him one way or another. Not for shits and giggles, as Harry originally thought, but to unsettle him, knock him off his feet... the cupboard, the spiders...Rabbity. They all were deliberate moves in order to shift the evaluation along.

His hands gripped the leather chair and he leant his head back with a churning stomach. James threatened him, told him that he would kill Harry if the evaluation came out clean. What did that mean?! Would the older man dare to actually murder him?

/Accidently/ cause an accident to trigger a heart attack and then blame it on Harry himself? What were the chances of that actually happening? Of him suddenly dropping dead out of nowhere?

He groaned, promptly lunging forward and burying his head in his lap, feeling the brutal sunbeams whip on the back of his head. He had been outsmarted by the man, there was no point in denying it. Harry knew, he only had two options now-both given by James-; stay for the evaluation, be deemed unstable and insane enough to be locked up in a room here, or die.

Dad would be devastated, Harry thought miserably, his heart clenching in agony. He would surely blame himself, tear himself apart with guilt, but Harry knew he was wrong; this was all his own fault. All of this pain and misery he had inflicted on everyone else.

Harry sat up, looking over the rasping phonograph still playing in a loop with disdain. He extended his hands, grabbed the steaming plate of scrambled eggs and shakily walked over to the piece of antic.

"Fuck off." He muttered to the thing and dumped the eggs all over the disk. He carelessly dropped the china plate to the floor and then turned, walking out of the library with his ragged clothes still on. The disrupted somber tone of Moonlight sonata with scrambled eggs following him.

He made a sharp turn and raced to the staircase, praying to merlin that his trunk had been left in his first room. His hand gripped the rails and his legs throbbed and cramped with each hurried leap. His breath whizzed as he dashed down the hall, he turned to the familiar door and wrenched the doorknob, slamming the battered door against the opposite wall and ran into the room.

It was left more or less in the dismal state that he had left it in a few days ago. With mattresses strewn on the floor, remains of shattered glass under his feet and his trunk subtly peeking out from under the bed. The only difference his mind instantaneously detected was the blue Hippogriff innocently set on the bed.

His mind reeled and his eyes narrowed, momentarily forgetting his initial purpose. He strode to the bed and picked the small, squishy stuffed animal in his hands, his lips curled in a sneer that would've made Dad proud.

He threw it back on the bed and kneeled in front of his trunk, knowing he didn't have much time, he rummaged through the possessions he knew James had gone through the night before and tried to hide his disgust.

He threw the clothes around, his chest slightly settling when his hand closed around the familiar texture of a parchment roll and a quill, with some further digging, he quickly extracted the small ink bottle and uncapped it with his mouth.

This was his only chance to have a real goodbye with his father, and Harry sure as hell wasn't allowing James and Lily to take that away from him. He somehow doubted he would ever get the chance after being declared as unstable and locked away for eternity.

He kept it brief, heartfelt and a tear-free as he could manage, mostly to spare his dad the heartbreak rather keep himself from pathetically curling into himself and sobbing on the ground.

He scrawled on the parchment in a spidery, barely recognizable handwriting.

-Dad

I'm sorry that things had to be this way, and I'm sorry if I wasn't quick or smart enough to get away. I'm sorry that this all happened and about all of the things that you have gone through for me. Thank you Dad, truly. Take care of yourself...and Janet. Please don't forget me.

I love you

Without letting himself to have a moment to cry in despair, he quickly folded the torn piece of parchment and looked around the room, then thought better of it and slipped it in his Jeans' pockets. He would make sure to hide it somewhere that his father could find it.

He picked up the relatively sharp quill and mulled his lips, glancing at the blue hippogriff on the bed. Don't over think it, he scolded himself and made up his mind before picking the plushy right back up.

He made a quick job of it, the Hippogriff was fairly smaller than Rabbity, and considerably newer, thus, profoundly easier to slaughter. He stabbed the sharp quill into the hippogriff and slashed it from head to...well to his fake plushy claws.

He hollowed it out with quick expert fingers and then turned it over, stuffed it again, and stabbed the sharp quill through its unmarred back and attaching it to the messy bed.

Harry nodded to himself once, crouched once again to grab his small tin of balm and then hastened out of the room.

Harry dared himself to breath, glad to be leaving a slaughtered, slightly ink stained stuffed animal on display for James. He knew the man would check 'his surprise' to see how Harry enjoyed it. Well, the boy mused, he enjoyed it very much.