Severus Snape was quite a stoic man, keeping to himself and frequently avoiding all social interactions with his fellow teachers unless absolutely necessary. Not that that was a difficult task as his office, lab, and quarters were housed in the dungeons of Hogwarts as opposed to on the main floors of the castle as the other professor’s quarters were.

This stoicism and introversion had played well into the current situation he found himself in. It was easy to hide information from others when you didn’t interact with them on a regular basis to begin with. However, it wasn’t just information he was hiding this time; it was a whole person.

Today, however, he was required by Hogwarts policy to disclose health and safety information about the person he had spent the better part of the summer trying to hide. Hide and heal.

Albus Dumbledore cleared his throat as he stood at the head of the long table which appeared in the staff room. It was time.

“Good morning all!” the headmaster began, smiling and opening his arms wide. “Welcome back to another year at Hogwarts! Thank you all for your diligence in getting your lesson plans completed in a timely manner. The members of the board were most impressed with the changes made to the Arithmancy and Muggle Studies curriculums for the upcoming year. Thank you very much Septima and Charity for your hard work in incorporating muggle mathematics into your classes!”

A small round of applause was heard around the room as the two mentioned professors nodded their heads in thanks to the headmaster. The muggleborn students and alumni had been complaining for years that they were struggling with transitioning back into the muggle world due to a lack of matching core education. The pure-blood members of the board had initially been against the idea, however as more and more alumni approached them about their struggles post-graduation, the board finally relented. The eventual goal was to find ways to incorporate basic muggle subjects into all classes, though this would be more difficult in some classes than others. Arithmancy and Muggle Studies seemed like a logical place to start.

“It is also my pleasure to welcome back to our teaching staff Professor Quirinus Quirrell. For those few of you who do not know, Quirinus has just recently returned from a year long sabbatical in which he completed a Grand Tour through Europe and North Africa.”

Again, another small round of applause occurred, during which the man in question looked around wildly and smiled in a way that made it look as though he were on the verge of vomiting.

“A few last announcements before I let you all go and finish your last minute preparations. Due to some rather unfortunate unforeseen circumstances, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is to be out of bounds for all students and faculty for the foreseeable future. My hope is that the artifact which has been stored there will find a new, more safe, home soon. Defenses have been put in place to deter would-be thieves from attempting to steal said artifact, however I am asking all staff members to add a defense within their own field of expertise to add to the difficulty in obtaining this object. If you have any ideas for adding additional layers of security, please let me know.

“Minerva, you have some announcements?” Albus finished, handing the floor to the Deputy Headmistress.

“Thank you Albus. We sent out a total of 54 invitations to new potential new students this year per the registrar of magical usage. Of these, we received 39 acceptance letters with an additional 5 acceptances from muggle-born students’ families following a visit from a representative. Thank you, again, Charity, Bathsheda, and Pomona for volunteering to be our representatives this year. For those of you not keeping track, we are preparing to have 44 new first years in our midst in just a few short hours.”

“Forty-three,” Albus interrupted suddenly. “Harry Potter and his relatives have agreed to have private tutoring as opposed to attending regular classes.”

Minerva sighed heavily as a few gasps were heard around the room. She removed her master list of names from her pocket and crossed off Potter’s name. She wished he had told her this sooner. It would be odd to not have the Potter heir in Hogwarts; she had been hoping to meet him and tell him the stories of his father’s antics and his mother’s innate skill.

“Forty-three then. Of those, only one notification of medical accommodation and one notification of creature accommodation were sent. Poppy, was there anything on their medical disclosures which is pertinent for the staff to know?”

The matron of the Hospital Wing, briefly made eye contact with the potion’s master and raised an eyebrow at him. Severus nodded his head subtly and sighed. There was no time like the present. Time to get this over with.

“They were sent to the same student. As for the disclosure, I believe the boy’s father would be the best to give this information,” Poppy said, nodding to Severus, who immediately felt rather self conscious but hid it well.

Gasps were heard around the room. Few of the professors had not seen Julian at the beginning of the summer, however it was easy to see how they assumed he was much younger than he actually was. At that time, Julian hadn’t been out of bed in over a month and could barely stand without assistance. He was still well below the average size and weight of the average first-year, but that would come.

“Yes, thank you Poppy,” Severus started, clearing his throat and gathering his thoughts. Closing his eyes briefly, he brought the memory of the story he had told Lucius Malfoy when he had first met Julian to the forefront of his mind. It wouldn’t do to change major details, especially when trying to keep Julian’s true identity secret.

“As many of you know, I have been working on a project for the past four years. Four years ago, I was contacted by the family of a former relationship I had briefly had years previous. They stated I had a son and that he was ill. I initially doubted this relation, however the paternity potion came back positive. When I first met Julian, he was still relatively healthy. Enough so that I didn’t suspect anything.

“As the years went on, his condition continued to deteriorate. Potions were not working for him, spells were able to provide some stability to his condition briefly, but he was losing the battle. Last May, the relatives he had been staying with reached out stating they could no longer take care of him. While I had been providing them with potions sporadically, I had never actually laid eyes on him, a fact I now greatly regret.

“Once he was under my care, it became evident that his relations had not been the saintly figures they made themselves out to be. Rather the opposite, actually. They had sought treatment for him in the muggle world, but did not complete any follow-up appointments until Julian was too ill to do anything. They used him to garner pity and support from their community, even going so far as to use him to get additional money from the government. It wasn’t until he was on his deathbed they truly reached out for help, and even then it was to get rid of him as he would no longer benefit them.”

Severus looked around the room briefly. He could see many of the women in the room had paled. Several of them were holding a hand to their mouth. Even Quirrell looked slightly more pale than his usual pallor.

“By the time I got him, his body had completely ceased to function in several major regards, most notably his body was no longer producing blood on its own, nor were his stomach or intestines working properly. His magical core was nearly completely depleted as it tried in vain to keep him alive. It took us an honestly embarrassingly long time to figure out what was wrong with him. Everything we were seeing, every problem Julian had, could be traced back to one particular event.

“His relatives had locked him out of the house one night while they had gone to a party of some sort and he was attacked by a vampire while they were away. All of the symptoms he was having were the end stages of vampiric starvation.”

Gasps were heard around the room. Even Minerva, who had been still standing, sat down suddenly, hand on her chest.

Severus gave them a few moments to digest what he had just said. It was a lot of information to take in, especially in such a short period of time.

“As of right now, he is still unable to feed on blood as his stomach simply cannot pass anything. He ends up extremely nauseated when he tries, however the instinct and urge is still there. We have discovered a variety of substitutes which help to quench the thirst he feels, however he requires much more care than even a healthy vampire would due to the damage prolonged starvation and magical depletion has done to him.

“Albus, Poppy, and I have discussed a modified schedule for him as any magical use right now exhausts him and can send him into a blood rage if his magic becomes too depleted. He will not be able to stay in the dorms, but there is no reason he should be prevented from socializing with other students.”

The other professors mulled this around in their heads. Some of the older professors remembered what it was like teaching Remus Lupin and the difficulties he had, though he was able to function quite well outside of the week of the full moon. Julian, on the other hand, was always in his creature state. This would be a first for all of them.

“Severus, question?” Pomona Sprout asked suddenly. “Are there classes he won’t be able to attend?”

“Anything outside during the day. He is extremely light sensitive and sun exposure drains his magic quite quickly. Would it be possible for me to discuss how he will learn herbology with this limitation with you later?”

“Absolutely!” Pomona said, conjuring a piece of parchment and quill and beginning to make some notes.

“Any other questions?” Severus asked, opening the floor for questions. He tried to keep his tone neutral, but some of his normal snide tone made its way out.

There was a moment of silence as the staff mulled all that he had told them over in their head. They had seen him stressing over something for the last few years, yet none of them had even thought that there was a possibility that he could have a son. And now to find out that his son was a vampire? It was actually rather on brand for the man, but still greatly unexpected.

“Does he have any other difficulties we need to be aware of?” Professor Flitwick piped up from his chair. “I know there are some standard vampiric traits that are commonly known, but I don’t want to rush to assumptions that ‘common knowledge’ is fact.”

“Of course,” Severus said with a small smirk. Naturally, it would be the Ravenclaw Head of House to pick up on the possibility of misinformation. “Sunlight is not immediately deadly to him, however it does have the potential to completely drain his magical core which would lead to his death shortly after. He is not sensitive to garlic per se, but rather finds the scent to be quite nauseating. The biggest difficulty that he has is the difference in the way he senses things. As I said before, he is very light sensitive. If a room is too brightly lit, it makes it very difficult for him to see. If he is struggling with seeing the board or reading from a text, please offer to copy the notes to a piece of parchment or allow him to leave the room to go somewhere darker so he may read. He may also need to sit closer to the front for demonstrations so he can view finer details of wand movements. His hearing is also quite sensitive, so he may jump at noises you may not consider loud.”

There was a scratching of quills as the professors who were taking notes quickly scribbled this information down.

“What are you planning to do to keep his thirst under control?” Professor Babbage, the Ancient Runes professor asked. A small frown graced her face. She wanted the best for all the students, but was unsure if she liked the idea of having a dangerous creature attending classes or wandering around the grounds unattended.

“He is on a strict regimen of muggle medication, nutrient potions, and partial blood products. We have been seeing some increase in activity in his stomach and have been working to transition him to drinking whole animal blood. So long as he is receiving the current regimen, he is able to control any urge to feed. Even when he is feeling the desire to feed, he is not immediately dangerous and does have the ability to control himself and not attack for long periods of time.”

Poppy piped in to add clarity to the statement. “One of the treatments he received from the muggles was a tube placed directly into his intestines which allows us to bypass the stomach and give him the blood products without him sicking up. We can also use this to run potions while he is asleep so he does not wake up thirsty.”

More quill scratching was heard as notes were made. Surely there would be more professors in the library at once at the beginning of this term than there had been in likely the whole history of Hogwarts.

“H-h-h-has h-h-he tried-d-d-d to use b-b-b-blood m-m-m-magic?” Quirrell stuttered out, face ashen.

“No, he has not made any attempt to use blood magic of any kind,” Severus said, feeling rather relieved and proud that that was the case. “He only recently began having enough magic in his reserves to be able to perform even basic accidental magic, but even then, none of what he has done can even remotely be considered dark.”

Sighs of relief were heard throughout the room. Severus’s mood immediately soured. Of course they were afraid, but they had never met the boy! Besides, they should know by now that not all ‘dark creatures’ were truly dark, nor were the light truly light. Everyone and everything fell in a shade of grey.

Once it was determined there were no more questions, Severus sat back in his chair with relief. Despite the looks of pity he was receiving from the other staff members, he was still in a rather good mood.

There were only a few more hours until the train arrived, then Julian Snape would officially be a Hogwarts student and the year could officially commence.

He only hoped the sticking spell he had placed on the boy’s fringe held when he removed his (now traditional) knit cap and replaced it with his Hogwarts pointed cap.