Harry knew people were watching, but he didn't care because they always did. A few times in the last few years, Professors McGonagall, and Dumbledore, and even Madam Hooch had told Harry he should consider being more respectful to Professor Snape to head off trouble before he got into it and lessen the amount of detentions he received. He never seemed to take them up on their advice. At least three times a year they were found in the halls arguing, ending with Harry losing points or Snape promising him a week of gruelling detention. Harry was seen as stubborn by the staff though, and brave to his peers for refusing to take sound advice. It was no surprise to anyone then when they found he and Snape having a shouting match in the Entrance Hall near curfew. Even Umbridge had stopped to listen, amused at the trouble Harry was getting himself into and looking forward to hearing Snape mete out a harsh punishment to him.

"Do not take that tone with me!" Snape said, voice raised as high as it could go before he could be considered yelling.

"Why?!" Harry spat. At fifteen he was nearly as tall as his father now, and no longer felt as cowed against him when they got into a row (and this was a row, though there was no way for those watching to tell the difference between one they'd staged and something real and emotional for the two of them). "Who do you think you are bossing me around?" Harry shouted. His face was red and his chest was puffed out, and he was trying to resist the urge to stand on his toes in the face of his father to make himself taller and more intimidating. Harry knew he couldn't intimidate the man, but he wanted to in that moment. They'd never had a row this bad before, and Harry was angry and scared and confused at the same time. He couldn't back down now.

"I am your professor and your better and you will give me respect!" Severus said, finally raising his voice to a shout. Severus moved up so he was toe to toe with his son, and while he didn't tower over him he was just tall enough to look down into his eyes.

"YEAH!?" Harry shouted. "YOU THINK YOU'RE MY FATHER OR SOMETHING! WELL I DON'T NEED YOU!"

Harry knew it was the wrong thing to say. He knew how his father felt about him and about not being able to claim publicly that he was Harry's father and that he loved him. But it had been said, and there was no taking it back now. Apparently Severus knew that too. Harry was startled as the man reached out and gripped his wrist tightly, and wondered fleetingly if his father had finally snapped... wondered if his father would strike him and leave him there on the corridor floor crying in front of his peers.

His father let go of his wrist then and gave him a look of frustration and anger, and behind that hurt. Harry could read it in his eyes under everything else. Then the man turned and stalked away without even giving him detention, or dragging him away to be punished. Blood was rushing in Harry's ears and he didn't hear Ron talking to him. Ron touched his shoulder but Harry shrugged it off and turned to find his friend giving him a concerned look.

"C'mon, people are watching."

Harry turned to follow him but Umbridge stepped out from the twelve students that had been watching it all unfold. "I believe you're lucky Mr. Potter," she told him. "He turned and walked away so he wouldn't kill you right here. I however have yet to lose my temper and am fully capable of issuing you a punishment for yelling at staff and causing a scene."

Harry couldn't argue with her there. He had yelled and caused a scene. The difference was his father wasn't there to give him detention, real or otherwise, so now he was stuck with whatever Umbridge came up with.

What the nasty Defense teacher had come up with was a blood quill, and while appalled at what he was being told to do, Harry didn't see that he had any choice. He'd already told his father he didn't need him. He'd already used what he knew against his father to cut him to the quick. He couldn't run from the classroom now and seek out his father's help to stop this mad woman from mutilating his hand. So Harry did the detention and went back to his common room, hand mangled with the words, ‘I will not yell at staff.'

Hermione tutted at him and chastised him softly for always getting into it with Snape, and promised to look up something to put on his hand to keep it from scarring, but she couldn't find anything, and again, Harry couldn't go to his father.

That remained the worst fight they'd ever had. They didn't speak for a month because Harry was too embarrassed about what he'd said to his father to seek him out, and his father believed Harry really wanted nothing to do with him. It was only by chance that his father had seen the scars on his hand and snatched his hand in the hallway to look at as they passed in an empty corridor one evening.

"What have you done to yourself?" he breathed quietly.

"Nothing."

Harry tried to pull his hand back to himself, but couldn't because his father wouldn't let go. He was reading the words carved into the flesh. The scar was still raised and angry.

"Tell me," his father said, and Harry looked away, cheeks red with embarrassment. He supposed he deserved the scars as a reminder to keep his head on him when upset. He never wanted to get in a real row with his father like that again, and would be lucky if he deemed to speak to him at all.

"I got detention with Umbridge for fighting with you that night."

"And?"

"I had to write lines with a quill."

"A blood quill?"

Harry shrugged.

"Why did you not come to me?" Severus whispered harshly.

Harry looked up and met his eyes then. "I didn't think you'd want me anymore after what I said to you."

"Was that your intention?" Severus looked taken aback.

"No I-" Harry cleared his throat because there was a lump there he felt like he couldn't speak around. "I used what I knew against you. I'm a bad son."

"Foolish boy," he said. He motioned for Harry to follow him down to the Dungeons, and once in the privacy of his quarters he applied something that would lessen the scarring, but would never take it away fully since it was from a dark object. Harry apologized, but his father didn't want to hear it.

"I will never not want you as my son," Severus said quietly as he sat beside Harry on the couch, who was slumped back with a defeated posture. "Do you hear me? Never."

Harry looked up and met his eyes and leaned against him. They never spoke about the fight again after that, and any time Harry felt too frustrated with his father to know what to do with himself, he had only to look at the scars on the back of his hand to remind him to hold his tongue.

* * *

Harry's friends didn't know. Dumbledore didn't know. Voldemort didn't know either. Harry and his father had kept their secret well for seven years, played their parts so well in fact, that no one could understand why Severus Snape had thrown himself in front of Harry Potter, The-Boy-He-Hated, on the battlefield and saved his life.

Voldemort had attacked the castle as had been expected. He'd gotten past all the wards, fought past the aurors and Order members who had come to defend it, and had Harry in his sights and a wicked curse upon his lips. Then Severus Snape, his most loyal follower, had thrown himself in front of Potter and saved the brat. Something had happened that surprised Tom Riddle even more however. He cast a second curse at Potter once Snape had fallen to the ground, and this curse, much as the one he'd cast against the boy as a baby, rebounded off the boy and flew back at him. Voldemort barely had time to register surprise in his eyes before he too fell, dead in front of the towering castle.

"Is he dead?" someone asked of Voldemort, but Harry wasn't answering. He was kneeling next to the Hogwarts Potions Master holding his hand, tears in his eyes. Snape wasn't dead yet, but he was clearly dying.

Dumbledore came over and knelt down next to Severus as well, looking deeply troubled to see his friend there on the ground laboring to breathe.

"I have a secret," Severus said, wet eyes coming up to meet the Headmaster's.

"Don't we all my dear boy," Dumbledore said, blue eyes shining sadly as they stared into Severus' dark ones.

"I am Harry's father." That was all he could say before the light left his eyes and he was gone. Not, ‘I love you Harry', or anything else that might be construed as sentimental, but Harry had known he was deeply loved and didn't need to hear it to understand it.

"And I suppose you have a secret as well Harry?" Dumbledore asked, having difficulty with the words.

Harry didn't look up. He continued to stare down at his father's lifeless hand as he held it. It was still warm. "It was no secret that I loved my father," Harry said after long moments, finally looking up. "He knew it, and that was good enough for me." Then he laid his father's hand gently across his chest, closed his eyes, and stood up. Forty students and staff stood silently in awe of the battle, and the sacrifice that had just taken place.

"Voldemort is dead," Harry said, suddenly feeling very old and tired. "And I'm alive because Severus Snape put my life before his... because I'm his son. We fooled you all." Then Harry walked away, leaving the stunned crowd behind him and Albus Dumbledore crying over Severus Snape's body.

"We fooled them all dad," Harry said to himself.

To all the world, the Potion's Master of the Dungeons had hated Harry, and Harry had hated him in return, but they had had the last laugh. Because of their secret, for seven years Harry had had a father, a real parent who loved him and protected him and provided for him. A parent who had raised him and taken him by the hand to lead him to safety and security, despite any rows they had had. Harry would not be sad about the time he had with him. It would be disrespectful to think only on his death and not on his life. Harry had no regrets, because he knew his father would always remain with him, in everything he did, in every lesson he would use in the future, with every breath he took. It would be Harry's greatest and most powerful secret.