Four months. Four months it had been since Harry Potter had last been brought in. No one had heard anything from the boy and a few brief calls confirmed he had never shown up to his follow up appointments. Dietician, haemotologist, gastroenterologist: none of them had seen the boy.

Dr. Hardeep Singh was concerned. Extremely concerned.

He had last seen the boy in March when he had come in for yet another blood transfusion. It had been apparent at that time that the life of the child was beginning to come to an end. He wasn’t maintaining his body weight, had extreme muscle wasting, and most concerningly had completely ceased to be making any blood cells. Immunocompromised was an understatement: without a bone marrow transplant, survival was impossible.

If he was honest, the fact the child hadn’t gotten ill from an opportunistic infection or bled out from a simple cut was a miracle. An absolute miracle.

But that aunt of his. Something was seriously wrong with that lady. It didn’t matter how ill the boy was, she refused to take him in until the last moment. Sure, she played the part of doting aunt, but something about her really put him off. Maybe it was the way she held her jaw, or how she would grab the boy’s shoulder just a bit too tight. He couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but something was wrong.

The problem was, there was hardly any evidence of any wrongdoing. The boy had bruises, sure, but so did the vast majority of the children with blood disorders. The child was shy when he was well enough to hold a conversation, but he wasn’t overtly fearful of adults. He never had broken bones, he never had any burn marks, and it was explained to Dr. Singh that he preferred to wear his cousins handoffs because they were softer and didn’t pinch.

But now they were well and truly into dangerous territory. Without functioning bone marrow, his blood cells would have all died by now. Dr. Singh was a religious man, but a rational one as well. He believed in miracles, but felt science was the biggest miracle of all. And four months with no blood to replace what the child had lost to normal cell death was a death sentence. Miraculous would be the only description for if the child was still alive. But he would have to find the boy first, dead or alive.

He had attempted to call the Dursley house several times, but was only met with an answering machine.

It was time. He had to do something. He could feel it in his bones, something had happened to the child and he didn’t think he would like the outcome.

Picking up the phone, he sighed and closed his eyes before ringing up the police.

“Hello, yes, I would like to have a wellness check performed. … Yes, Number 4 Privet Drive, Surrey. … Harry Potter.”

---

“That’s it, just breath child.”

Today had been a bad day. A really bad day. Julian had hoped he was past these, but apparently not.

His stomach was finally starting to wake up, and, as happy as that made everyone, it had some major drawbacks. Namely the acid reflux.

Madam Pomfrey had explained it as the valves to his stomach being weakened by everything and he could believe it. But it was horrible. And the more it burned, the more he wanted to drink something. Or eat something. Anything to keep the fire contained in his stomach and not lancing up his throat and making him cough.

Because coughing would make him vomit and then the cycle would start again.

They had tried an anti-nausea potion, but that had to go directly into his stomach. And it didn’t stay down long before his stomach revolted. Unfortunately, no one had remembered there was a small amount of garlic in the potion which, while not deadly to vampires, certainly made the nausea significantly worse. They had tried a cold compress on his neck, they had tried having him sit in front of a window, they had even tried using his tube to remove some of the bile from his stomach to see if that would help. Severus had even gone to the nearest muggle shops and picked up a small can of ginger beer.

None of it had worked.

He now found himself sitting on his bed shivering despite no longer having the cold compress on, belching ginger flavored burps, and retching violently into a bucket.

There was one thing that he was glad of though he found very surprising through the entire ordeal. With the exception of leaving to get the ginger beer, Severus hadn’t left his side. When he was feeling too weak to sit on his own, Severus would help hold him up. If his hair fell into his face, Severus was there to hold it back. Poppy had come and gone and given the potions master breaks in his vigil from time to time, but it didn’t feel the same and he found he was missing the man being around.

The man hadn’t left when he was on his deathbed. He had donated his own blood. He had gotten him clothing that fit, or at least reached out to a friend to help him get it. He had taken him to see the carriages off even though it wasn’t a necessarily easy task to do. He had held his hair while vomiting and even rubbed his back to make him feel better.

Was this what having a father was like?

Julian clung onto the bucket a bit tighter as another wave of nausea overtook him. No vomit this time, but the burning was still there.

“Just breath child, it will pass.”

Julian panted, open mouthed over the bucket, drool dripping from his mouth and snot covering his upper lip. He knew he looked terrible. He knew he wasn’t what someone wanted as a child. But for some reason Severus hadn’t left him. All of this, and he hadn’t left.

Maybe, just maybe, he would keep his word and not leave. Maybe he wasn’t scared of having a vampire for a son?

Try as he might to squash the hope that flared in his chest, Julian couldn’t do it. Harry Potter could remain the orphan, unwanted by his family and hated by his teachers. Harry Potter could keep his fame and fortune. Harry Potter could keep all of that.

Julian Snape had something Harry Potter had always dreamed of but could never have: a father.