Poppy was sitting stroking the boy’s cheek when Severus returned from Hogsmeade, a few tears evident in her eyes.

“What happened?” Severus said, trying to see if the boy was still breathing.

“The poor child woke up for a minute while you were gone,” Poppy said, wiping her eyes and sniffling. “He asked if you had ever come to visit him or if you were just pretending.”

Severus closed his eyes briefly and sighed. He had never wanted to be a father. He had never thought about having a child. He had never planned to be any form of caregiver. But he also couldn’t let Lily’s child be left alone in the situation he was in. And he refused to be like his own father.

“I told him you had come to check on him but he was always asleep. He has so much hope, Severus. I can’t even imagine what his family put him through,” Poppy continued. “Where did you go, by the way. That was quite a long meeting with your prefects.”

Severus conjured a chair and sat next to the head of the bed opposite where Poppy was.

“I had a thought and I ended up discussing it with Hagrid,” Severus said. “He needs something to provide him with energy that he isn’t getting from food. If we give him the tube feedings we were given, he will continue to feel ill because they are designed for humans. Once he gets some form of energy his body can use to function, he can stop drawing from his magical core.”

Poppy nodded, “This is true, but his stomach is mostly paralyzed. We could give him blood, but even through the tube it won’t move very well and we’d risk the blood congealing in his intestines because he needs to feed on whole blood.”

“Exactly, but glucose can be absorbed orally. And Hagrid mentioned that magical creatures greatly prefer to be around other magical creatures when ill so they can draw magic from those around them.”

Poppy’s eyes widened in understanding as Severus pulled out the bag of candy.

“Severus, I hope you are right. His magic levels are already almost back to where they were when he was first brought in.”

“Is it safe to wake him, or should we let him wake naturally?” Severus asked, looking at the sickly child. His sickly child. He needed to accept he was now the father of this child or he risked breaking his promise to keep him safe.

“You can try waking him up,” Poppy said. “He may not stay awake for long though.”

Severus nodded and held the boy’s hand, shocked at how easy it was to feel all of the bones under the skin.

“Harry?” He called softly before switching to the boy’s new name. “Julian, can you wake up for me?”

Harry’s eyes flickered slightly as he struggled to pull himself awake. He didn’t feel quite as foggy as he had, but he felt so weak.

“Come on, that’s it. Wake up,” Severus continued, rubbing the back of the hand he held.

Harry blinked his eyes a couple of times before registering who it was standing in front of him. The man in black! Sev-something? What was his name? He had come back! He hadn’t just told him he wanted to adopt him just to get the headmaster to leave him alone! He actually came back!

“Hello, sir,” he said hoarsely, his throat still hurt from the vomiting earlier.

“How are you feeling, Julian?” Severus asked.

“Tired,” Harry said, eyes starting to droop again. He was tired, hurt, and struggling to put two and two together. Was the vampire thing a dream? Was he Julian? He was Julian, right?

“Julian, don’t fall asleep just yet. I need you to try something,” Severus said, pulling out a blood pop.

“Hmm?” Harry mumbled sleepily. “Whazzit?”

“Suck on this please,” Severus pulled off the wrapper and held it to the boy’s mouth.

Harry barely opened his mouth and something sweet was shoved in. It tasted kind of strange, almost metallic, but good. Slowly he sucked on it, trying to stay awake long enough to finish it. He almost nodded off a few times at first, but as he maneuvered it around his mouth more with his tongue he woke up a bit more.

“What is this?” Harry asked the man next to him.

“Do you like it?” Severus asked, handing the boy his glasses. “I have more if you want them.”

Harry nodded faintly. “It’s good. But what is it?”

“It’s called a blood pop. Don’t make that face, I thought you said you liked it,” Severus said, smirking slightly at the disgusted look on Julian’s face.

“Is… is it made with real blood?” Harry said, continuing to suck on the lolly regardless of what the answer would be.

“Unfortunately for you, no. It is just flavoured to taste like blood. But what you need right now is some sort of energy in your system so you don’t keep burning through your magic. Or in your case right now, the magic of mine you got through the blood transfusion.”

“Oh, so like my glucose jellies. I always feel less tired for a while after I use them, but Aunt Petunia doesn’t like buying me many. Says it’s too expensive for the likes of me,” Harry said quietly, hanging his head and pulling out the now empty lolly stick. “Could I have another?”

Severus gave him another and felt rather ill. His aunt had been denying him something that could legitimately help him? Severus had seen their house, he knew there was no way they were short on funds. Besides, they had been receiving a small amount of money to care for him since he was a baby. There was no way they couldn’t have afforded to get the boy the best medical care available.

“Poppy,” Severus asked, turning to the matron. “Could a room be set up here in the infirmary for us? I know you don’t want to come down to the dungeons every time you would need to check on him.”

Poppy smiled and nodded. “Of course I can do that. I take it you are not planning on going back to Spinner’s End this summer? The ward resets itself at the end of the school year if I don’t tell its wards to allow certain changes to remain.”

Severus scoffed. Of course he had planned on returning there, but now that was not going to happen. Maybe if Julian was stronger they would go visit the house and they could visit the house his mother had grown up in, but that would not be happening for a while. Possibly not this summer. Besides, there was nothing worthwhile to do there. It was such a dreary mill town, always had been.

“Not anymore. If we are to make it seem we are father and son, we need to get to know each other better. We cannot ever hope to achieve that if I am there and he is here.”

Poppy rolled her eyes at the rather snide comment and looked at Julian who was watching the adults talk. The hope in his eyes was almost palpable and it broke her heart. Prior to Julian coming into the hospital wing, she had been planning on having a rather bland summer holiday in the Hebrides then spending the last week before school with her daughter. While it was still a few weeks before the end of school, she was hopeful Julian would be stable enough by the end of summer for her to at least do the last portion of her holiday plans.

“I’ll put one off of my office so the door won't be visible to everyone who comes in here.”

“Thank you, Poppy,” Severus said, bowing his head in thanks.

“Thank you, Madam Pomfrey,” Harry echoed, pulling his blankets around him and shivering slightly.

Poppy smiled at the two and went to her office to notify the headmaster she would be modifying the wards to the infirmary.

Severus and Harry sat in silence for a few minutes, the only sound being Harry sucking on his blood pop. Neither one looked at the other for several long minutes before Harry finally broke the silence.

“What’re potions?” he asked.

---

Poppy stood in the door to her office listening to Severus gently explaining the basics of potion making to the child mostly hidden under the blankets. She had never seen Severus act this way in all the years she had been taking care of him. He was actually trying to be gentle with this child. It helped that the boy seemed to be equally interested in the topic and was asking decently thought out questions, but Severus being this caring was unusual.

Finally sensing a break in the conversation, Poppy stepped out of the door way and made her presence known.

“Alright, your room is all set up. It’s a bit cramped, but I had to work within the original wards of the Hospital Wing. Albus will be coming shortly to get it connected to the internal floo network,” Poppy said, walking over and grabbing the bag of supplies which still sat at the head of Julian’s bed.

Severus looked at the small boy he had been speaking to. There was so much he had to learn about the wizarding world, but if he approached every topic with the same drive he had just been questioning Snape on potions with, he would do extremely well.

“Do I have to walk?” Harry asked quietly as Poppy walked into her office.

“No,” Severus said. “But it would be easier for me to carry you without the blanket. It’s just a short ways into the other room.”

Harry nodded and pushed the blankets off of him. Immediately he felt as though he had been dropped in a bucket of ice. He was so cold! How was no one else freezing?

Severus bent down and lifted the small boy into his arms, instinctively cradling Julian’s head. Holding him for the first time without the blankets was disheartening. He could feel every bone in the child’s back: shoulder blades sticking out like wings, ribs so prominent they felt like a washboard, and down the middle of the back were all the lumps of his spinal cord standing out. It felt more like lifting a replica of a skeleton than lifting a child. Severus cut his musing short, however, when Julian began shaking as his body desperately tried to create heat to compensate for the lack of fat insulation.

Severus quickly strode to the new room off the office of the healer and stopped when he entered the room.

Cramped was a bit of an understatement, but it would do. The walls were a warm cream color with dark wood molding and the floor was a dark wood of the same color. There were no windows in the room, which Severus was fine with. On one side of the room was a rather small fireplace with a fire already glowing in it. On the other side were two beds, one was placed in a corner and the other placed so there was room to walk all the way around it. Between the beds was a bookcase full of books. There was an additional door on the other side of the room which led to a small bathroom, in which Severus could make out a toilet, sink, and very small shower.

Severus pulled back the covers on the free standing bed as best he could and placed Julian in it. He then spelled the head of the bed up slightly so the boy wasn’t laying flat and cast a warming spell on the sheets and blanket that were already on the bed. He then summoned the other blanket off the bed in the infirmary and tucked it around Julian as well.

“Thank you sir,” Harry said, looking around the room in awe, blood pop stick hanging from his mouth which was now blood red. “Are you really going to stay here too? It’s ok if you don’t want to.”

Severus could tell how hopeful the boy was that he would say he would be staying there and how much it hurt to say it was ok for him not to.

“I will be staying here most of the time when I am off. I still have my classes to teach and my duties of Head of House to attend to. However, I have already informed my prefects and the Head Boy and Head Girl that I may be called away at a moment’s notice and they should speak with the headmaster if I am unavailable.”

Harry nodded in understanding. He didn’t know what a prefect was, but it seemed like they were students who could help handle problems.

“What is a house?” he asked, removing the blood pop stick from his mouth and dropping it into the bin by his bed.

“There are four houses here at Hogwarts. Slytherin, which I am the head of. Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor. At the beginning of every student’s time here, they are sorted into a house which best suits them and their personality. Slytherins tend to be resourceful, cunning, and ambitious. Ravenclaws value intelligence, wit, and wisdom. Hufflepuffs: diligence, tolerance, and fairness. Gryffindors are considered to be brave, determined, and daring.”

“What’s a head of house?” Harry asked, yawning. This was the longest he had been awake in a long time.

“My job as a head of house is to look out for the students placed in my house and make sure they are behaving themselves, doing their homework, and not slacking off.”

“Do you like it?” Harry took off his glasses, placed them on the bookshelf next to him, and rubbed his eyes.

“Not in the slightest. All of them are dunderheads.”

Harry chuckled and yawned again. He wasn’t completely sure, but he had a sneaking suspicion he enjoyed calling people that.