“Harry? Where are you? Come on out!”

The tablecloth rustled, and Sev heard a muffled giggly. “I’m coming to get you!”

“I’m gonna steal your nose, and gobble it all up with ketchup! Now if only I could find you, you little brat!”

“No!” the loud exclamation was followed by a breathless giggle, muffled into Harry’s hands, undoubtedly. Severus played along, a playful smirk on his face as he encircled their kitchen, half crouching and pointedly ignoring their table.

“Oh who’s that squeaky noise?” he drawled as the giggling went on. “Maybe a little mouse is hiding under the sink.”

“No!”

‘My son is terrible at hide and seek,’ Severus thought with a roll of his eyes. Typical Gryffindor-ish behavior, he supposed. No sense of tact or self-preservation in that boy at all, Severus might as well ‘win’ the game now by asking where the four-year-old was hiding.

“No?” he asked instead. “Maybe it’s a tiny bird then?” Harry squealed in delight, and Severus couldn’t help but smile. “Well, I’ll just have to keep looking for my little brat.” He huffed and straightened his back with narrowed eyes. “Maybe the little birdie will help me find him.”

Harry paused in his hiding place for a beat, and then did something that melted Severus’s heart right on the spot-Not that he’d ever admit that aloud. He poorly imitated a bird’s chirp, his voice shrill, but small at the same time. “You cannot find him Daddy,” Harry continued in his high childish voice, posing as the bird…Severus supposed.

His son…was something else. Of course, it was very cruel of Severus to expect a four year old toddler to be good at playing a game, and not forget the rules on the spot, but still…Harry was truly something else. Sev could vividly imagine James Potter being this laughable at his son’s age, riding a toy broom into a wall.

Severus mocked a deep sigh. “Oh well,” he edged closer to the table. “I guess we will just have to give up then,” he grasped the tablecloth with a smirk, “After I’ll LOOK under the table!”

Harry jumped back with a shriek. “Not my nose!” he cried and tried scrambling away, but Severus was faster. He dove in and scooped the little child in his arms, dropping him on his lap and attacking his nose.

“Hmm Delicious!” he hummed, slightly horrified at himself by the childish display before he diminished such thoughts. It wasn’t as if the dark lord was about to see his most loyal servant playing with a child. No one judged him but Harry, and the boy was thoroughly enjoying himself at the moment, laughing himself silly. Severus rubbed his nose against Harry’s with a growl. “If only I had some salt or ketchup now!”

Harry screeched, brought his hands up to cover his face. “Don’t eat my nose!”

Severus smirked. “I’m a hungry snake.” He said. “What will you have me do besides eating little boy’s noses? Huh?”

Harry drew away with a grin. “You can eat my Daddy’s nose,” he said and then cackled, imitating an evil laugh. Severus had no idea that children laughed this much, prior to raising Harry. He couldn’t even begin to understand how could the boy store this much amusement in that tiny body.

“Oh really?” he played along. “Is his more delicious than yours?”

Fervently nodding, Harry leaned in to Severus’s ear. “And bigger too!” he whispered loudly, covering his mouth.

Severus felt his eyebrows ascend above his hairline. He reached and softly pinched Harry’s nose. The boy yelped and then draped himself over Severus in another fit of laughter.

“You nosy little rascal!” Severus found himself exclaim. “Did you just sell out your father to a hungry snake?”

Harry was red in the face, breathless and heaving against Severus. “But you’re the hungry snake Daddy!” he yelled, squeaking when Sev tickled him.
“Well you leave me no choice Harry,” Severus said with a shake of his head. “Your nose simply has to go.”

Harry leapt off his lap with a shriek of laughter. Severus was surprised to find that he wasn’t annoyed by it at all. “No!” he cried and started running.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Severus got to his feet and started chasing him. “Yes!”

**

Harry was in his room. Their windows were rattling against the hinges. Dad was standing before the locked door, his arms crossed against his chest. “I didn’t raise a hooligan,” he said. “I expect better of you.”

The lamp above Sev’s head dangerously flickered, another one down stairs burst. Harry raged back, facing his closed door, as if he was glaring back at Severus through the wood. “You’re the one who started this!” the boy yelled, and windows shook harder.

Severus kept his calm. He has had fourteen years of experience, dealing with Harry. He knew how to handle a tantrum. “Let’s not forget who’s in trouble here shall we?” the man drawled, calmly. “You were the one who sneaked out, mingled with some muggle girl,” his lips curled on their own accord. “Seduced her-”

Another lamp burst. From the kitchen by the sounds of it. “I didn’t seduce her!”

Severus couldn’t help but sneer. He was enraged, and it was getting progressively harder to remain stoic in the face of Harry’s foolishness. “Well then I suppose that makes Obliviating her a lot easier for me,” he jeered, not flinching as a shattering sound came from his right. Just a vase, easily repairable.

“You don’t understand!” his son sounded on the verge of tears. Tears of frustration. Severus had seldom seen his child this angry. Not after the incident, this was a first.

“If I were you I would choose my next words very carefully Harry,”

The door slammed open, and there Harry stood, with his fists clenched by his sides and his chin held high. “Well you’re not me are you?” the boy spat.

“You just want me to be like you! And I don’t want to be you!” he roughly rubbed at his eyes with his sleeves, and Severus had to stifle the urge to hold out his arms for a hug. Harry didn’t need coddling right now, on the contrary he needed a firm scolding, topped with a smack upside his head to get him back to his senses.

“I like Emily!” the boy snapped, “She likes me too, I’m sure if we tell her, warn her about me then we can work something out-”

“That is the most absurd thing I’ve heard coming out of your mouth.” This behavior was highly unusual, coming from Harry. Severus couldn’t quite understand the motive behind his son’s words. “Why cannot you see sense?”

“Because you’re not listening to me!”

It wasn’t Severus’s job to listen to him, the man seethed. “I am your father.” He said. “You listen to me.”

“I love her.”

Severus threw his head back with a menacing snort. “Oh spare me the theatrics,” he scoffed, “You’re fourteen! How could you possibly know ANYTHING about love?”

Something seemed to have snapped in Harry. His eyes took on an expression that Severus had never seen on the child’s face before. Something dark, and brooding. Something murderous. “Do you?!” he shouted.

“Because I don’t see you mourning over mom,” he scoffed at himself and then continued. “In fact you’ve never even mentioned her!” his words were striking Severus, carelessly rooting him to the ground, and he stood, doing nothing, but stare at Harry as the boy ranted. “I don’t even know her name or where she is now! Clearly you’re not too torn up over the loss of the woman who loved you!”

“Oh for the love of Merlin. This isn’t about me.”

“It’s about me!” Harry cried. The door cringed in its place in sympathy. “If you really loved my mom then you wouldn’t stop me from seeing Emily.”

“Who are we really arguing about, your mother or that muggle tart?”

“Don’t you dare call her that!” Harry’s door finally gave in and broke, sending wooden plasters flying inward to Harry’s room. The rest of the door hung off by one single hinge. Severus knew that he should calm Harry down, deescalate the situation, and be the adult he was pretending to be, but something was stuck in his throat, some nameless emotion that drove him further down the argument.

He was frightened. Frightened of the power this muggle girl held over Harry’s head. Scared that he might have to mutilate another body, take the blow and wait another year, possibly more for his son to gather all of the broken pieces.

“I dare call her anything I want, you indolent whelp!” he asserted an authoritative tone in his voice. He was Harry’s father and he had every right to prevent Harry from making a mistake. “You were bedridden for half a year after butchering two muggle boys! Boys you didn’t even know! The mere idea of touching me sickened you! Now you’re out there shoving your tongue down some girl’s throat and you dare ask me about love and sacrifice?”

“This isn’t fair,”

“Life isn’t fair, the sooner you learn that, the better.”

“You just don’t understand.”

Severus had had enough of this behavior. “Then I think your cognition abilities will have to be more than enough for the two of us.” He snapped and turned away, taking his wand out with a sneer, before he remembered that it was useless to him. They needed to pack by hand. “Pack your bags,” he called over his shoulders as he slid his wand back into his pocket. “We’re leaving tonight.”

Harry gasped behind him. “No!” he roared, and Severus swore that he could feel Harry’s magic…derived from Severus himself wrap around his throat, squeezing and constricting his breathing. Severus bared his teeth and stilled, swallowing with severe difficulty but otherwise indicating nothing wrong with the way he was breathing.

He didn’t want to frighten Harry.

“You will calm yourself this instant,” he bit out, trying to use the lack of air to his advantage. The invisible hands somehow slackened around his throat as Harry’s eyes blazed. Severus glowered back. “Or I will shove a calming draught down your throat.” He snapped. “I will not have you damaging the property or hurting-”

“You?” Harry cut off with a sneer of his own.

Severus stubbornly refused his heart to skip a beat.

“Yourself,” he said. “In the process. Go and pack.”

His son shook his head, eerily similar to his biological father, as he crossed his arms and glared. Severus couldn’t help but see the ghost of James Potter hovering behind his son’s shoulder, glaring at Severus with the same ferocity that Harry was trying to imitate. “I cannot leave without Emily.” Harry gritted out, and Severus’s eyes narrowed, still staring at the phantom over the boy’s shoulder.

“Oh really?” he sneered at the invisible figure. “Well then, I suppose you can live with the guilt of killing her better than the thought of leaving her behind.” He didn’t even have time to be horrified at himself as he waved his hand at Harry in dismissal. “By all means, leave now.”

Harry’s eyes widened, losing James Potter’s hateful glared behind them, being replaced by a look of utter betrayal and fret. “You said I’m not a killer.” Harry whispered, staggering where he stood.

“I’m not saying that you are one now. I’m asking you to see common sense without giving in to this bout of teenage rebellion. This girl is just one amongst the many. You will forget her in a week.”

“Just like you forgot all about mom?”

Harry just wasn’t letting this go, was he? Severus was not ready for this.

“This isn’t about your parentage.” He said. He could not have this conversation. “This is about you acting like the responsible boy I raised you to be.” This mess was big on itself already, he didn’t need Harry to inquire after Lily and James at the same time.

It would break him.

Severus didn’t even know when Harry had started thinking of his mother, it was only logical of him, especially after Sev gave him ‘the talk’ a few weeks ago, to their shared mortification, but he wasn’t expecting the boy to inquire after his mother so quickly.

He was an idiot in assuming that, of course the boy would have wanted to know about his mother at some point. Severus had naively assumed that day was too far in the future to ponder about.

Harry didn’t take the bait at all, instead he glared down at Severus with narrowed eyes. “I bet you hated her,” he muttered, “And I bet she hated you too.”

She did hate Severus, as it happened. Both of them did, one of them was his former enemy, and the other his best friend, there was no surprise that they bonded over their shared hatred of him as they married. Lily was not one to hate carelessly or strongly, but Sev’s shortcomings were beyond unforgivable.

“You know nothing,” he told Harry and couldn’t help but wonder whether he was the reason for Harry’s blindness regarding his parents.
‘Tell him that I love him,’ James had said. Well Severus did tell Harry that his father loved him, daily, actually. But he never got around to telling Harry that his father and Severus weren’t the same person, not by blood anyway.

“And neither do you.” Harry said. “I like Emily, I love her.”

It was astonishing, how Harry had seemed to inherit Lily’s resolution and James’s stubbornness without even being raised by the due. Nature versus Nurture, as it seemed, had played its hand well.

Severus inhaled deeply, glad that the suffocating hands were gone, and stared Harry in the eyes.

“If I let you go down that path you will see nothing but utter despair,” he said. “And misery and pain. I’m trying to spare you the heartbreak!” he needed Harry to understand this. There was no such a thing as a happy ending when it came to love. Even for true lovers like Potter and Lily. Death is the worst inevitability when it comes to love.

He didn’t want Harry to go down that path with his eyes closed and his heart bleeding and torn apart in his hands. “Why cannot you see that she’s using you?”

Severus was vaguely aware that he was deflecting his words, making sure they sting, making sure that Harry understood. “You’re just a summer fling to her!”

“That’s not true!”

“It is, because she’s just like you!” the idea that Harry had anything beyond infatuation for that girl, was simply laughable to Severus. Just as his own crush on Lily had been back then. “A hormone-ridden teenager, who has no idea what it’s like to be in love. Fourteen years cannot possibly be enough to understand the devastation that love brings along with itself!” he straightened his sleeves with a nod. “A simple fling isn’t worth another weight burdening your conscious.” There was a stifling moment of silence and then Severus blinked. “Go, and pack.”

“Dad-”

“We will be leaving tonight.” he started to walk away. “I’m asking you to stay put and not sneak out.” Deep down, he knew that he shouldn’t have. “I’m trusting you not to do that.”

Harry should have stayed.

**

“Auror Shacklebolt?” a rather young, confused trainee toned the Auror’s name. his face scrunched and his eyes squinting as if he couldn’t believe the senior Auror standing before him that late into the night.

The older man nodded slowly, his wand loosely gripped in his left hand.

“I’m to take the boy to another holding cell for the night,” he said quite smoothly. The trainee shared an uneasy glance with his partner and she shrugged. Kingsley frowned at them. “It’s procedure.” He said.

Michaels fidgeted in his post, and shared another glance with his friend. “But sir,” he said, his voice oddly on edge. They had explicit orders from Auror Tonks and Wilson, not to let anyone visit the boy until tomorrow morning during the interrogation. “Auror Tonks already-”

“I know what she did,” Shacklebolt interjected with a quirk of his brow. “Under my orders.” He reminded them. “Now I’m issuing different ones.” The blonde head reluctantly bobbed, acknowledging the Auror’s authority. “Stand aside Michaels,” said Kingsley gently.

“Yes sir,” Lance Michaels hung his head and dropped his wand, standing aside to let the larger man open the locks and enter the barricaded room.
Kingsley entered the dimmed office-makeshift interrogation room- and cast a muted ‘Lumos’ and noted a transfigured bed pushed up against one of the empty bookcases. The boy was lying prone on the bed, his breathing slowed, and his hands tucked under his head, Kingsley could see the back of his head, unmoving upon the pillow. Silently he strode to the bed.

“Potter?” he said, subtly waving his lit wand over the boy’s head. Potter didn’t stir.

“Potter wake up,” Kingsley muttered again, this time edging his wand into Potter’s face. The man almost jumped out of his skin as he noticed that Potter’s eyes were open wide, intently staring ahead. The boy didn’t even react to the harsh light of Kingsley’s wand.

Shacklebolt waved the wand into the boy’s eyes, “Are-Are you sleeping?” he asked, concerned that there was something severely wrong with the boy. He seemed to be breathing right, and his face was relaxed. Kingsley, hesitantly, poked him in the shoulder, and Potter, as if stung, blanched away from his touch, nearly smacking his head into the bookcase.

Kingsley fell back in surprise.

“Are you alright?” he asked and Potter sat up, rubbing his forehead with a bewildered look on his face.

“You startled me!” he snapped. “Is it already morning?” he looked around in the dark, his brows furrowed before he stared at Kingsley again, his lip curling.

“Were you sleeping?” Shacklebolt asked, somewhat breathlessly.

Potter shook his head slowly. “No, I was…focusing.” He paused. “Is it morning?”

“No, actually.” Shacklebolt straightened his back. He looked slightly uncomfortable as he scratched the back of his neck. “You made me think a lot,” Harry narrowed his eyes. “I thought that maybe we needed to talk, somewhere…safer.”

“You’re doing this against their orders.”

Shacklebolt nodded. “No one has to know Potter, as you are adamant to repeat.”

Potter just stared at him, looking as if he didn’t believe a word coming out of the man’s mouth. “Alright,” he said slowly, and Kingsley nodded again, to himself this time. Potter stood, tapping his wrist twice before running a hand through his hair. Shacklebolt extended a hand to the boy’s shoulder.

Harry hastily slipped past Kingsley’s hand. “No, you shouldn’t…you shouldn’t touch me.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” the Auror said, as softly as before. Somehow, he seemed to forget that he was dealing with a child as he interacted with Potter. There was just something about him, the look on his face, bore an expression suited for a weathered solider and not a teen.

Potter looked faintly amused on his behalf. “I might hurt you,” he said. “Just…don’t touch me. Lead the way.”

**

“Do the guards know you smuggled in a wand Albus, or are you being naughty? They didn’t even check for contraption, did they?”

Albus flashed him a quick smile. “Being who I am has certain advantages, I’m afraid.”

It appalled Severus, how easy it was for the man to evade him. He has softened more than he had realized in the years, a transgression that solely fell on Harry’s shoulders, but one that he couldn’t really blame him for, even in his mind. “It’s considered a minor felony,” he sneered. “As I’m sure you’re aware, it would be a shame to see you chained up here Headmaster.”

The wand trembled slightly in the man’s hand as he shifted in his seat, crossing one leg over the other. “I’m sure what they won’t know wouldn’t hurt them Severus.” He said and Severus grabbed onto the reckless bit of trust with hungry claws. The headmaster thought him incapable of disobeying him, well if he really thought that then Severus had startling news for him.

“Except that I’m about to start screaming right now,” he said, fully expecting to see Albus’s frown. He had only seen it once before, when he was sixteen and shaking, trying to control himself in the man’s office, his breathing was haggard and his eyes begged the old man to believe the words stumbling out of his mouth. ‘I almost died tonight, sir, I was right! Lupin is a werewolf and he almost did it! He was going to kill me. Black, he-he was the one-he told me- he baited me!’

James Potter was there too then, standing behind Severus’s chair, strangely quiet, not defending his friends, not saying anything, Sev couldn’t even see the expression on his face. Albus was staring at James though, and he was frowning, as if he couldn’t hear Severus at all.

Instead of that peculiar frown, what Severus got is a small nod. “And prove me right.”

“I don’t have anything to prove,”

Albus extended the wand again, this time his eyes challenging, daring Severus to decline him. “Then it wouldn’t be much to ask you to cast a simple charm, as I mentioned the levitating charm would do.”

If he wanted to play dirty, then Severus was only compelled to join in. “Or I could stun you,” Severus drawled, deliberately letting his voice drop in a soft whisper. Intimidation wasn’t always about loud exclamations and thrashing. “Kill the guards, free as many prisoners as I can to cause havoc and then flee.” He smirked as he leaned back in his chair. “My oh my, Albus, you are getting old and barmy.”

Albus surprised him again, the man leaned back and flicked his sleeve away to reveal the end of the wand, encircled by a red band. Severus actually snarled, and Albus’s grin expanded across his face. “It would be entertaining to watch you accomplish that much with a trainer’s wand Severus.”
A trainer’s wand. Trust Albus bloody Dumbledore to humiliate Severus with a trainer’s wand.

“You bastard,”

“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” Albus smiled jovially and sat back. The wand barely warmed in Severus’s hand. “I cannot wait to be disappointed.”
Severus dismissed the pang of hurt that came upon seeing how he couldn’t even command a trainer’s wand and glowered at the headmaster. “Whatever you think that you can accomplish by doing this, you’re mistaken.”

Albus’s jovial smile gave in to a thoughtful frown. “Do you want to know what I think Severus?” he didn’t wait for him to respond. “I think, that you are physically unable to cast any sort of charms in the state you are, without straining your core, or burning it off completely. I think the dramatic decline in your magical powers has only one source, one that you have sworn to protect with your life, and have done splendidly.”

**

When Harry got back, it was already dark, too silent. Emily had insisted on walking him home, to try and talk to Harry’s father, unaware that the problem wasn’t her in the first place. Harry firmly stood his ground, quickly kissed her on the cheek and said that he would talk to his father. He didn’t tell her that he might never see her again.

As he approached their house, he saw no light flickering from the windows. Pitch darkness engulfed the entirety of their home, and the silence amplified the stillness hanging around their yard. Their house almost looked darker than the sky. Harry had an irrational voice, uncontrollably shouting in his head, telling him that his father had already left.

Instead, the man was sitting in their living room on the couch, his arms crossed and his face stoic, his eyes intent on burning through the mug he had placed on their coffee table. Harry lingered by the couch, his head hung and his eyes stinging. “Dad,” he muttered, standing in front of his father.
Severus looked up. “Have you eaten?” he asked, his voice perfectly blank. Harry didn’t like it when Dad was like this. He gazed at the lukewarm mug of tea that his father was trying to will out of existence and then tore his gaze back to his Dad’s face.

“Dad I can explain,” he said. “I know that you said-.”

“Have you eaten?” Dad cut him off, uncrossing his arms as he stood. Harry stepped back, unconsciously. He wasn’t scared of his father. Dad never got angry with him. Harry regarded the question and tried to find the hidden meaning behind his father’s question.

“Um, no.” he and Emily shared a cupcake she had stolen from the bakery. She said she did the frosting herself.

Dad nodded. “There’s a plate in the oven waiting for you,” he said then paused. “Shepard’s pie.”

He started his journey to the kitchen, but Harry’s feet were still stitched to their floor. “Dad,”

Dad looked over his shoulder. “Why don’t we take this to the kitchen?” he didn’t wait for Harry’s response as he made his way to the kitchen. Harry meekly followed, from the corner of his eyes he could see two suitcases leaned against the staircase.

“I’m sorry,”

Dad crouched down to take his plate out of the oven, still pleasantly warm. The aroma soon wafted around their kitchen, tantalizing Harry and torturing him at once. He knew the significance behind this meal. Dad had made him Shepard’s pie, thinking that Harry was upset after their fight, brooding and packing his things. Probably spent two hours making the food from scratch, then went to Harry’s room and saw it deserted.

Harry was a terrible person.

Dad set the plate on the table, then nodded at him. “Never apologize when you don’t mean it. Seat,”

Harry sat.

“Eat.” He turned to open their fridge, without attempting to turn the lights on. ‘Oh right, I destroyed the kitchen lamps too’ he realized with a jolt and squirmed in his seat.

“Orange juice or milk?” father asked.

“Water.” The fridge closed with a sharp snap and Severus took out his wand, carelessly accio’ing a glass out of the cabinet to hold it under the tap.

“Did you have fun?” something in Harry’s chest tightened, and he pursed his lips. He wasn’t going to cry. He was fourteen. He couldn’t tell if Dad was pissed at him, not from his tone, or his face. That was a first.

“Are you angry?” he asked.

“How many times have I told you not to answer a question with another one?” it was an exhausted chiding. No force behind those words at all. “It’s impolite.”

“Sorry father,” It was the first time Harry had called Severus ‘father’, “Yes. I…we had fun.”

Severus hummed noncommittally. “And you were safe?” the words were carried out with utter nonchalance, and Harry actually choked on his food, flushing vermilion.

“No…” he muttered, still flushing. “Not that kind of fun.”

Sev firmly set the rimming glass next to Harry’s plate, letting some of the water haggardly slosh out of the glass. He sat across Harry, his chin settled on the back of his entwined hands.

“Did you know,” he idly began, “That Emily is derived from its Latin root Aemilia which was also derived from a Romanian root, meaning ‘eager’?” Harry’s head dropped in response, the boy swallowed, but Severus continued. “She’s the baker’s daughter, isn’t she?”

His son nodded. “Yes.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry for sneaking out.”

Severus leaned back against his seat. “No you’re not.”

Harry took a small sip from his water. “I can still pack, if we’re in a hurry,”

Dad raised his eyebrows in response. “You don’t want to leave.” He said and Harry stiffened. Dad usually didn’t do that; stating the obvious. He actually hated doing so, with a passion.

“No, I don’t.” Harry finally said, his leg bouncing under the table. He and Severus gazed at each other for a beat, “But please, I cannot bear it when you’re cross with me.”

“I’m not cross with you.”

Harry’s head snapped up. “You’re not?”

He was expecting another round of argument and broken furniture around the house, maybe with his father finally yelling at him for the first time. He was expecting blood and tears and raised voices, not his father looking down at the table with hooded eyes.

“No.” the man said, and something in Harry’s chest tightened. “Merely confused. Do you really like this girl that much?”

Harry wanted to say no. No he didn’t, they could pack and leave now, and Harry was sorry for being ungrateful, he was sorry that he was causing his father this much pain. He knew how much dad was sacrificing for him and he was sorry. He really was sorry.

But he knew how his dad despised half-truths, even ones out of pity.

“She’s really nice,” he said instead, his voice wobbling. “And she understands me…she’s trying Dad. She can…well someone can put up with me,” he chuckled very briefly. “And she’s the first one who’s ever…”

He trailed off, his fork scratched against his plate and Dad looked up to stare at him.

“Who has ever what?” he asked softly, slowly. Harry hated himself.

“Who has ever treated me like I matter.” He replied meekly, his fingers tightened around the fork. Then he realized what he had said, and dropped the fork altogether. “Aside from you that is.” He scrambled to say. “I swear I still love you more.”

“Harry, there is no competition regarding the people you’re allowed to love.” Dad said and reached for his pocket as Harry sat in a mild confusion.

“But you said-.”

“I know what I said.” Dad cut him off, and brought something out of his pocket, hidden inside the crook of his palm. “I still believe in what I said, I think you’re making a mistake, I think she’s not worth the trouble, she’s going to hurt you, drain you of what little happiness you have inside of you and then leave you stranded…” he trailed off, and pushed the hidden object towards Harry with a shrug. “But you like her.”

It was a paper flower.

“You’re not guilt tripping me into this,” Harry realized, numbly reaching for the small pink paper flower.

“I’m not.” Severus confirmed. “I know what’s going on inside your head, and there too,” he nodded to Harry’s chest. “I raised you, I made an oath, and I’m keeping it to this day, and I think…you should be happy. Do what makes you happy. If snogging the baker’s daughter can do that, then I cannot really stop you.”

The bulge in Harry’s throat expanded and he cleared his throat. He really didn’t want to cry. “I’m still sorry.” He said, and gulped down some more water to give his hands something to do.

Dad smiled, in that special way he did, that was more of a smirk than a smile, but it conveyed so many emotions. “I know, and Harry?”

“Yes Dad?”

Dad paused. “I love you,” he said. “You need to remember that,”

“How could I forget?”

**

“I think your sacrifice runs deeper than most realize.” Said Albus, utterly oblivious to how wrong he was, in his regard towards Sev. “How many other wizards would risk losing their magic by raising a ‘Devoratrix’ for more than fourteen years?” he waited for Sev to sneer. “I happen to know none.”

Severus recalled that particular memory, of his loathsome neglect with something akin to disgust. He wasn’t some saint, a willing sacrifice. He had wronged Harry beyond measure. He was atoning. He would rather die than treat Harry like that again.

This punishment was only fair. “I have no idea what you’re rambling on about Albus,” he said to the man. “I think you need to leave now.” Harry’s cries were ringing in his ears, eerily tangling themselves with his son’s desperate calls just a few days ago as Severus abandoned him to distract the Aurors.

“I suspect that no one else knows,” Albus said. “James and Lily must have, Harry needed a steady magical source until his own core formed to sustain the child…except it never did, did it?”

It never did, no. Severus suspected that Harry had been feeding on Potter’s magic before they were murdered. Maybe Lily and Potter were both feeders, they had to sustain the child somehow in those months. “I’m calling the guards,”

Albus had no way of knowing all this. Sev was certain of it. James Potter wouldn’t have told Dumbledore that his son was the way he was, or else he wouldn’t have begged Severus to run away from Dumbledore as well. Moreover, Lily and Potter were smart enough to realize that this information wasn’t common knowledge. They would have hidden it well.

“Voldemort’s attack was quite a shock, the curse never rebounded as originally thought…Harry ate it up, damaging his own unformed core in the process…corrupting it in a way, and Tom’s core must have been devoured too, to a certain extent. All of that magic, inside a tiny body…it doesn’t seem possible at all.”

“You had no way of knowing this,”

“It held him up for a few years. You mustn’t have noticed it right away. When was it Severus? When did you find out that he was feeding on your magic?”

**

Severus remembered well, he remembered the anguish, the dull tug of war as his magic diluted and waned into thin strips, steadily detaching itself from Severus, he remembered the whine of his magic against the chain, resisting Harry’s pull, holding out for as long as it could before finally resonating back into Severus and then back to Harry again.

It didn’t physically hurt, not in a way that Severus could explain, but he could feel it somewhere deeper, as if his magic was wedged in a hole between what held his soul and body together. He felt it lessen.

At first, when he found out, he hated the child for it, because of course James Potter’s child would be that way, a ‘Devoratix’ of all things, and of course Severus would have to be the one victim in order for the child to survive, it was the way of the world and the world was cruel.

In his hatred, and pettiness, and the unwillingness to share what was most dearest to him, Severus, for the first time in two years since he’d had Harry, thought about abandoning the boy. He could handle a lot of things, he could handle any sort of torture thrown his way, any smidgen of misery written in his fate, but his magic? It was just too much of a price to pay.

He remembered, shamefully now, how he had plopped the child down in his crib, and locked the door on his way out, casting the strongest wards he knew around the room.

‘Just for a few hours,’ he had thought. ‘Just to have some time to myself. Only a few hours’

He recalled how he did his best to ignore Harry’s inconsolable cries and ventured down in his labs, relishing in the abundance of his magic, and the potion fumes surrounding his core, crowding his instincts.

He remembered how he had forgotten to feed the child in his excitement to finish a potion he couldn’t even properly pronounce, as he reveled in the fact that yes, ‘my magic is mine, no one has the right to take it, I was born with it, I earned it, and it will have to stay that way’.

Only that those few hours turned to something more. He had left a two-year-old child in his crib all day, forgotten, with no food, and attention, locked him in his nursery and let the child cry himself to sleep, wake and repeat the cycle again for hours and hours as he selfishly, grudgingly used what was supposed to be inherently his.

He had vialled the gleaming blue potion with great care, his breathe held tightly in his chest as he filled vial after vial and set them to cool on his desk. The potion was highly exotic. He could make a good fortune out of them. He had been so occupied with raising a child that he hadn’t had brewed anything in months. This was exhilarating to him, it made his heart race and his mind whirl with instructions, stirring and chopping up ingredients.

He reveled in it, he ignored a two year old sobbing in his crib upstairs, the crying was so muffled in his labs that Severus honestly couldn’t hear it at all over the sound of his own thoughts, instructing him how to advance, how to stir just right, how many crushed salamander eyes should he add.

It was almost midnight, by the time he was finished putting away the last batch, his arms hurt from exertion, his legs wobbled a bit and his magic was thoroughly satisfied, Harry was the furthest thing from his thoughts, as though the child didn’t even exist in the first place. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know what had come over him that day, all he knew was that, he needed this break, he needed his magic to be his, and he was tired of sacrifices.

Then he got out of his labs, then he heard Harry still crying his crib, heartbroken and alone after hours of wailing, and then he heard the child calling for his ‘Daddy’.

He dropped the batches nestled in his arms, didn’t hear them shattering against the steps at all, and raced up to the living room, his mind annoyingly blank as he ran to Harry’s nursery and crashed the door down. His magic was whirling around him like a whip as he approached the child who was holding onto the bars of the crib, extremely red in the face, crying and calling for ‘Daddy’ over and over again.

Severus gasped. He couldn’t help himself. He stifled the self-loathing that threatened to tear itself out of his throat and ran to the child, gently scooping him in his arms, wincing from the way Harry’s small hands clung to his shirt as he buried his face into Sev’s neck, ignoring the soiled clothes clinging from the child and the tear-jerking odor of urine and misery. He held the child close and stepped out of the cursed room, bouncing him and gently hushing him as he took him to the bathroom.

He didn’t let himself think at all, as he went through the process of cleaning the toddler, taking care of the painful red rashes on his thighs, muttering apologies in an endless cycle. He stroke Harry’s hair, on the verge of tears himself as he sat the child on his lap to feed him an apple, whilst he was preparing him a hasty meal. Harry clung back to him, his face still half buried in Severus’s chest as Sev shakily fed him the apple slices.

“I’m so sorry,” he kept telling the child, gently bouncing his knees and reaching for the next slice. “It won’t happen again, I promise, shh. Daddy’s so sorry, shh. I’m so sorry.”

This was the price of holding onto his magic, neglecting a child for a whole day, letting him wail in hunger and fear, letting him seat in his own filth. This was the reason why Severus didn’t deserve what he already had, the reason why he had thought locking an innocent child away would fix his problems.

This is what happened when he had abandoned the child for a day, out of foolishness, out of literal thoughtlessness. Severus hated himself with a vengeance. He cursed himself in his head with the same ferocity that Harry called out to him, still softly crying as he munched on the mushed apples.
Even as he felt the strong, desperate tug of magic, he refused to let the child go, he held Harry close, shushing him, feeling his magic wane into thin strings and latch onto Harry’s core, in a steady endless stream. He didn’t care. He hated himself too much in that moment to care. He let it happen, and he held his son close, and vowed never to let something like this happen again.


**

“I want to try that Daddy!” Harry quickly heaved himself up the wooden stool and leaned over the cauldron. “Can I? Can I? Please! Can I?”

Severus dropped his knife and gently pulled Harry away from the fumes. “You need to be careful!” he said and sat Harry down on the stool with a pat on the head. He wasn’t making anything toxic, just finishing up the last batch of his fever reducing order, but he never took any chances with his child.

Harry scrambled to his knees again. “But it looks pretty!” he exclaimed, his hand holding onto Sev’s robes to steady himself. Well, Severus supposed that the colors might be fascinating to Harry. His son liked staring at things, transfixed by them, drowned in the details, so of course the potion’s rich colors would draw him in.

“And it’s steaming,” said Severus gently. “Stand back Harry,”

The four year old pouted and tried to cross his arms in a poor imitation of Severus. Sev smirked at the display. “I want to help you,” Harry said.
Severus barely felt it anymore, that subtle tug that gently pulled his magic away from him and tangled itself in Harry’s core, of course, it would have made sense to feel as such after two years, and he suspected that it would continue to do so as the years went on.

The loss of his magic was painstakingly gradual, and Sev barely even thought of it on a daily basis, he could still do most charms, and ones that he couldn’t he would either stow away for their annual Slogen day, or just when Harry’s presence wasn’t dangerous.

He wasn’t sure how it worked between them, when Harry was near, but he could occasionally draw some of his magic back through the open channel, accomplish a seemingly difficult task and then feel the magic snap back to Harry again like an elastic band.

That feeling only intensified every March, when he took Harry to Slogen and taught him how to unleash the overwhelming waves of magic he had consumed from Severus or his surrounding throughout the year. He felt his magic lapping up to him in the vacant field, apologetic but taunting too and grieved it only for a moment, resigned to the fact that it belonged to Harry now, and even if it was released, it was bound to get back to the boy following their departure from their hiding place.

“Alright,” Severus picked Harry up and lowered him near his workshop. He dropped a few beans in Harry’s palm. “You can drop the crushed beans.” He said, and picked up his own knife again.

Harry’s eyes darted over to the stirring rod. “And stir it?” his legs bounced and he was grinning. Severus regretting giving Harry applesauce for breakfast already. Too much sugar.

He resumed chopping the leek roots. “We’ll see about stirring if you’re really good at dropping the beans.” He offered and Harry, eager and still grinning from ear to ear nodded. He held onto the beans as he watched Severus work, his legs tangling from the edge of the table and his eyes serenely staring at Sev’s hands.

Sev added the last beat of salamander’s tail and then waved his hand at Harry.

“Alright,” he said, holding Harry above the cauldron. “Don’t lean in too far,” Harry’s eyes were narrowed, an expression took upon his face that was years beyond his age, as he gently opened his palm.

“That’s right,” Sev muttered, ready to yank his son back in case anything went wrong. “Just over the edge. Drop them one at a time,”

“I know that!”

“I know you know little fawn, there’s nothing wrong with reminding. Wait a little before dropping a new one.”

“I’m a big boy now! I’m helping you make juice!”

Severus scoffed. “Juice?” he asked. “This is a potion I’ll have you know. A very delicate one too.”

Harry stared at him as if he was insane. “Potions are juice.” He said slowly, pronouncing each word carefully and patiently. He tapped Sev’s hand twice in sympathy and the man narrowed his eyes.

“No they’re not,” he said.

“Na-huh! They’re juice!”

“They’re both liquid, that’s what they have in common. Potions taste differently and actually accomplish things. Juice just tastes good.”

“They’re ‘likid’?” Harry flung that word into the wind, wincing as he realized that it didn’t sound right in his mouth.

Severus smiled. “No, liquid.” He corrected. “It means they’re runny, like water, and milk, and they take the shape of whatever they’re in,” he pointed at the boiling cauldron. “This potion is inside a cauldron now, so it…somewhat looks like a cauldron too.”

Harry steadied himself against Severus’s shoulders with a hum. “So milk is like a glass?” he peered into the cauldron before Sev drew them both away. He still didn’t like the fumes anywhere near Harry.

“No, not all the time” he replied, half regretting this conversation as he toed the toddler back to the door.

“Maybe I’ll explain this again when you’re older.” He said, and gently pushed Harry out of the door, trying to persuade him to a game of hide and seek.

The ruby red potion was left simmering on his worktop, unattended.

**

“They look identical.”

“I know,” was Remus’s dry reply.

Sirius was too enamored with the boy to detect the dryness in his friend’s tone. “That hair, and his frame…he has glasses Remus!”

“I know,” said Remus once again.

Sirius grabbed his arm in a death grip as he turned to him. Something wild shone in his eyes. “He should be fourteen by now,” he said, with a grin that nearly threatened to split his face in two. “Fourteen years old and about five months.” Then he bit his lip and stole another glance at the oblivious boy, splitting a cupcake with an unknown girl. “Isn’t he too small?”

Remus raised his eyebrows. “You kept count?” he had a feeling that if he asked Harry’s age more specifically, Sirius would provide the answer down to the exact day and hour, even minutes. It was somewhat disconcerting, but Remus wasn’t too worried about it.
Sirius had always been this…way. He was himself in the most ridiculous manner, and twelve years in Azkaban rarely did anything to beat that eccentric part out of him.

“You didn’t?” Sirius asked, in a way that implied that Remus was the weird one.

The other man shrugged with a small smile. “Not really,”

“Things like this are the reason why James chose me as Prongslet’s Godfather you know.” Sirius said airily, “You couldn’t handle the responsibilities.”

“You’re right,” Remus replied, in spite of the fact that he was the one who had found Harry again, on Dumbledore’s insistence and tagged Sirius along. “I’m a terrible godfather,”

Padfoot winced. “Well I wouldn’t go as far as call you terrible,” he patted Remus’s arm as if comforting him. “Just not dogmatic,”

“Sirius stop, he cannot see us.” They weren’t supposed to be seen, just keeping an eye on Harry from afar, checking in on him, was what Dumbledore had said. It was to be kept undercover. Sirius didn’t even know that Severus Snape was the one in charge of Harry. Not that he was supposed to be aware of that, even Dumbledore didn’t know.

He had tried asking of course, and Remus had a feeling that the old man already had guessed, but the werewolf never outright admitted as such when he visited Albus. He cherished Harry’s safety above all else, even his animosity with Snivellus didn’t matter as much as Harry did.

Sirius tugged him a bit closer, his neck craning and his eyes narrowed. “Just a little closer,” he muttered and tried to move, but Lupin held him back. Sirius glared at him over his shoulder, “Moony I need to see him,” he calmly explained, but didn’t try to move again. “Do you think he sounds the same too?” he asked with newfound excitement.

“The same as he did when he was a year old?” Remus grinned. He shook his head exasperatedly at his best friend. “I think you might scare him if you approach him like this, Padfoot.”

“Like what?” Sirius hummed absently.

“Like a creep.” Remus deadpanned. “You’re a stranger to him, he doesn’t know you, or me for that matter,”

Sirius frowned at him. “I thought you sent him letters,”

“Christmas gifts only,” Remus corrected him with a frown of his own. “The others are sent back unopened.” Which infuriated him to no end. He understood the logic behind it, how his owls could compromise Harry’s safety, but monthly Wolfsbane and a dry note essentially saying that ‘He’s alive and well’ wasn’t simply enough to sustain him over the years. He constantly felt as if a part of him had been torn and kept inches away from his reach.

“That’s not even the point…” he said, trying to convince himself, mostly, “Just, don’t startle him.”

However, to his disappointment, Sirius wasn’t even paying attention anymore. His eyes were stitched back to Harry chuckling with the girl. Not a shocker, that. Remus thought.

“And look at that girl hanging off his arm!” The shaggy haired man exclaimed. “He’s a player, you can tell,”

“Sirius!”

“What?” the man sputtered indignantly. “It’s true. That’s Jamie thorough and thorough.” A Cheshire cat smile expanded across his face. “Remember Mia?” he drawled.

Remus stifled a grimace. “I don’t think I could forget Mia if I tried.” Through an unfortunate chain of unluckiness, Remus had somehow walked in on Mia, the fifth year Ravenclaw, every time she and James were trying to get some action…once he even walked in on her with Sirius whilst they were getting…acquainted with each other. He wished he could purge all incidents from memory.

“I set them up you know,” Sirius snorted. “Lovely bird, Mia…she and I were well acquainted before she ran off to James…if you know what I mean,”
Yeah, Remus still remembered. Quite vividly. “I do, unfortunately.” He said and they both turned to look at Harry and the muggle girl, lingering by the bakery’s door before they started walking towards the markets.

Remus saw Sirius’s eyes dim and his cheek dimple with a mischievous smirk. He tugged on Moony’s arm. “Let’s get closer.” He said, already on the move, and dragging Remus with him. “I can go as Padfoot. We could pass by them…I need to hear his voice Moony,”

“I don’t think that’s a good-“And the other man was already gone, trotting in the street as a dog.

“Sirius!” Remus hissed and ran after him. This could not end well.