Prequel

Nagini was running a little behind. The mouse had been too good to pass it up. Her master was already in the house and had thoughtfully left the door open for her. There was a dead body in the very first room. Male. Not the one her master’s most loyal follower begged to save, then.

She followed her master’s scent to another room that tasted like a baby. Only he wasn’t there. There was a pile of ash, and the woman that was going to be left for the potion maker was lying on the floor with wide unseeing eyes.

A wail pulled Naigini’s gaze up to the crib in the room and saw a little inky haired child crying. The son of the dead woman then. Well, it wouldn’t be a complete waste. She could take the little child to make up for the dead woman the potion maker desired. He could take care of it.
She slithered up to the cradle and pulled the child out. He giggled, tears forgotten.

original

Curses poured out of Snape’s mouth like a fountain when he opened his door in the morning. Lily was dead. The Dark Lord was vanquished. And his snake familiar was on his porch holding the boy-who lived and looking at him expectantly. He half wished he could speak parseltongue so he could ask her what in bloody Merlin’s name was she doing on his porch with bloody Harry Potter and actually understand the response. At the same time, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Nagini slithered past him into the house, setting off another long string of curses. He was going to have to call Albus bloody Dumbledore to take care of the creature and put Potter wherever he was supposed to be. Then the snake met his eyes and actually spoke in his mind. “I brought compensation for your lost woman.”
Apparently she knew leginemicy. He needed fire whiskey to deal with this.

Sequel Feeding and other Necessities

She gets food for the kid when he fusses, poking Severus with her tail and looking at him pointedly.

The child cooed at him, reaching for his leg. Severus stepped back, regarding the child with distaste. He jumped at a sharp poke at his back and turned to see Naigni giving him a pointed look before slithering away. The nucance didn’t stop making that retched sound and trying to grab Severus’s leg.

He nudged the child with his foot, and the creature giggled. Floo call Albus now. He turned to leave and suddenly he felt his leg grabbed from behind him. The creature had managed to grab ahold of his leg.

Naigini slithered back into the room in the middle of the silent standoff. There was a rat in her mouth and she dropped it in front of the infant.

“I don’t think babies eat rats,” Severus said as the new savior reached for the dead rat.

He lifted the child away from the dead animal, keeping the creature far from his chest. “I’ll feed the brat. When he’s actually wanting food.”

The little savior reached his chubby little hands toward Severus. Naigini looked pleased as much as a snake could.

Sequel Nightmares

The little kid, Harry, was thrashing in his bed and whimpering. Nagini didn’t know what to do, but she knew the big man would. She prodded the child until he stirred with a startled cry. He sat up, looking around with a wrinkled face Nagini wasn’t familiar with. Human expressions were hard to understand.

His green eyes landed on her, and he scrambled out of bed toward her. She wasn’t quite fast enough to dodge his little arms wrapping around her body. It could work in bringing the little one to his care provider. He would only need poked a couple times before he reluctantly took the child.

She slithered out of the room, down the hall and into the distinctive smelling potion master’s room. He was snoring when she slid up next to the bed. A glance at the rest of her body, she sees Harry looking up at the bed, hesitant it seemed. She wrapped her tail around the child and lifted him up to the bed. He scrambled up onto the bed toward the lump on the bed.

A curse escaped the bundle, but the potion maker adjusted the blankets and let the child crawl close without anything more than a grumble. Job down, she slithered out to sleep by the fire place.

Sequel Breakfast and Pareseltongue

Severus woke up in the morning to a little bundle moving around his bed and kicking his legs. He rolled the other one with a little groan. A little cry came from the other presence, and Severus sat up and looked at the bundle. There hadn’t been anything in his bed last night, he suddenly remembered.

Harry Potter was kicking around in his bed, eyes closed and hands reaching for him. He growled out a sigh, remembering how Albus had refused to take the child. Apparently, there had been doubts about putting the child with Lily’s sister, and the child had taken to him.

The child kicked him again, before his hands latched on to Severus’s arms, and he pulled his whole body to wrap around Severus’s arms. Severus rolled his eyes and picked the child up and reluctantly got out of bed. He was up. His stomach was going to start grumbling at him soon. He might as well make breakfast.

He dropped the child on Naigini napping by the fireplace. She wouldn’t eat the kid. Probably. Severus was too tired to really care. As he moved to the kitchen he heard a hissing sound. He glanced over his shoulder expecting to see Naigini looking upset with him. Instead Harry was sleepily hissing at Naigini, and Naigini hissed back. The savior spoke parseltongue.

Severus needed more coffee than he originally thought.

Sequel Job and Babysitting

Severus leaned back with the cup of tea, as Minerva took a seat across the desk. The students hadn’t started arriving yet, but Severus had already found an adequate potions professor to shove in his place with the ready excuse that he couldn’t teach a class and raise the beloved boy-he-lived. Harry clinging to him the entire time and refusing to let go, probably helped in that assessment.

“So where’s Harry? He seemed very attached to you earlier?”

“Nagini’s watching him. Harry’s almost closer to her than me.” He took a casual drink from the tea, half afraid it might be a little too hot the way Minerva liked it.

She almost dropped her cup. “You have a snake watching a two year old?”

“She does a surprisingly good job at it when she’s not trying to feed him rats, but she hasn’t done that in several months,” Severus told her casually, hiding his smile behind his cup when the head of Gryffindor looked like she might faint. The serpent did seem like an unorthodox care provider, but she did carry the child unharmed straight to him after his parents had been killed. Of course, he doubted Minerva would believe half the stories of Nagini caring for the child and prodding him into doing what she couldn’t.

Minerva swallowed, still looking pale as she raised her tea cup. “Well, maybe we should invest in a babysitter for you while you working on your potions and visiting.”

Severus made a noncommittal sound. There probably weren’t many who would be able to handle working with a big snake as well as a rather mischievous toddler

Epilogue

Severus dropped Harry in the middle of Nagini’s coils. “I’ve got to go to work.”

Nagini poked him, and Harry got a hold of his leg with a cry. He picked the child up. “I’ve got to go Harry. Nagini’s watching you, okay.”

“Daddy,” Harry cried, latching his arms around Severus’s neck. He could almost swear the snake was laughing at him. It wasn’t like he knew why the kid had latched onto calling him dad, but Nagini seemed to sense he was embarrassed by the name and encouraged Harry, or so the toddler told him. He’d gotten chatty in the past month.

Bonus: Voldemort’s Back

“So… while you were sleeping… I sort of rose Voldemort from the dead.”

Severus choked on his breakfast even though it was almost past noon.

“What.”

Naigini slithered up to them and hissed something. Harry hissed back. Severus patiently waited for them to finish, tightly clenching his spoon. Harry turned back to him, cheeks pink and gaze in his lap. They sat in silence for a moment, before finally Harry looked up at him, biting his lip.

“Well, Naigini’s happy. She says that he can be… an elder? I’m not sure how to translate that.”

Severus looked at the snake. “Really? And was Naigni partly responsible for a newly risen Dark Lord?”

“Uh-huh.”

Bonus: Dark Lord Meeting 1

Summary: The Dark Lord summons his followers at 3 AM. Severus blindly searches for coffee, nods off and half responds “Yes my lord your minions could use a lounge room.” “Yes my lord, a nap couch sounds wonderful.” Lucius is worried about his beauty sleep. Another Death Eater can’t sit still, and Lord Voldemort apparently has insomnia because he doesn’t realize what time it is.

Voldemort waited a surprising amount of time for his followers to show up. When they finally showed up, it wasn’t the way he expected. Severus was blindly searching the room for something. Barty couldn’t sit still, and Bellatrix was practically clinging to his robes, and crying? Even Lucius was whining something about “beauty sleep.”

What was wrong with his followers? He turned to his normally put together potion master. “Severus explain what are you doing!”

“Where in Merlin’s beard did you put the coffee?” He muttered, still groping around the countertop for… coffee?

Lucius put a gentle hand on his friends back. “There is no coffee.”

Voldemort frowned. “Do you realize how long it took you to get here?”

“Yes my lord, your minions could use a lounge room. With coffee. At a reasonable time,” Severus answered, eyes closed as he leaned against Lucius.

He looked around for his familiar. Naigini slithered up to him. “You do realize it’s only three in the morning, right? I’ve found that the potion master doesn’t function well in the morning.”

Voldemort jolted and cast a tempus charm. 3:03. “Right. Meeting dismissed. We’ll deal with it later.”

He had to pry Bellatrix off his robes while her husband was hysterically giggling. Freedom from Azkaban apparently didn’t mix very well with a lack of sleep. Well, he should probably find something to do for the next several hours. Sleeping wasn’t possible.

Bonus: Dark Lord Meeting 2

Half an hour into the Death Eater meeting, Severus showed up with a cup of coffee. Everyone stared at him. He shrugged, taking a seat in the circle of chairs that Naigini had no doubt pressed the Dark Lord to take on. There was a table in the middle of the circle with snacks and… coffee.

“I remember there being no coffee last time.”

“It gave me something to do.” Voldemort shrugged. “How is Harry? Planning to join the Death Eaters anytime soon?”

“You tried to kill him,” Severus kindly reminded him.

Bonus: Dark Lord Teenager

“What’s going on?!” The Dark Lord cried. “I’m still short!”

“You’re taller than you were, master,” Wormwood offered, timidly.

Naigni looked Voldemort up and down. Severus leaned back, eyeing the Dark Lord, unimpressed. “I’m not raising him.”

Voldemort looked offended, and Naigini intervened. “You appear to be a teenager, my lord.”

“What?”

“I’ll get right on fixing it, my lord,” Severus assured him with a small boy. “Lucius? You have a teenager, right? Why don’t you take care of him in the meantime?”

“I’m not a teenager!” The Dark Lord cried. He paused at the looks from his followers and sulkily muttered, “Even if I, might, currently look like one.”

“Sounds like a teenager to me,” Severus said before flooing back home.