Aglio e olio by Hopeless Wanderer
Summary: Ronald is on a highly dangerous mission to go after the Hufflepuff's cup against Harry's adamant wishes. Harry is devastated and Severus shares a secret recipe.
Categories: Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Other, Ron
Snape Flavour: Snape Comforts, Snape is Controlling, Snape is Desperate, Snape is Kind, Snape is Loving, Out of Character Snape, Overly-protective Snape, Snape is Stern
Genres: Angst, Drama, Family, Fluff, General, Hurt/Comfort
Media Type: None
Tags: Adoption
Takes Place: 6th Year, 7th summer
Warnings: Abusive Dursleys, Out of Character, Panic attack, Profanity, Romance/Slash
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes Word count: 3501 Read: 782 Published: 28 Nov 2022 Updated: 28 Nov 2022
Story Notes:
Is this just an excuse to boast about my Aglio e olio recipe? Maybe~
Lasagna Sheets by Hopeless Wanderer
Author's Notes:
There is barely a hint of Ron/Harry in this (pre-slash)
When Harry dares to stretch a limb from underneath his blanket, at last, Severus counts it as a fucking blessing.

It's been close almost to a week, and Severus was honestly desperate enough to think about getting Pomfrey and Albus involved. Even Molly at that point. But Harry moved from the bundle under his blanket for something other than the bathroom on the sixth morning.

The sixth morning after the… Severus doesn't like to be dramatic by calling it the separation, but it is in fact encapsulating the essence of the situation. The separation of his sixteen-year-old son from his best friend who had to go undercover for the order.

Severus applies the labels in this predicament very carefully. His adopted son's best friend, namely the ginger menace Weasley, the penultimate child of the Weasley family had been chosen for an undercover mission in Devon.

There has been an uproar about it, from Harry specifically. The boy had raged and cried and thrown himself at walls to get Ronald off the mission in the boy's presence and behind his back. They were sixteen, he'd said, they should have chosen someone else, he'd screamed.

Severus tried supporting him through it, backing his son up, but they both knew that Weasley was the perfect fit for the job. No one had such intimate talent and knowledge of chess and strategy, and their target was a chess master. It was almost too perfect of a job for Ronald.

It doesn't change the fact that he is a child. But it went through, and his son has been bedridden since.

Harry's face is blotchy when he emerges, he huddles, the blanket still around him, steps out of his room with uneven steps and Severus is already chucking his potions journal away to get up and help him.

"It's okay." He tries comforting Harry as he gently grabs his forearm to steady his steps. He's been keeping Harry fed, forced him into the shower and scrubbed him himself twice, and kept him hydrated against the boy's better wishes. But Harry is still weak, Severus can feel it. Severus is fucking concerned beyond measure.

"Has there been any news? Has he sent me anything?" Harry croaks as Severus settles him on the couch.

"I will tell you if such a thing happens." Severus looks at the clock as he says this. It's almost noon, but still technically morning. He should call an elf, get Harry something to eat, "Are you well? Queasy? You don't have a fever anymore."

"How could he do this to me?" Harry asks instead, "how could he leave without me "

At least he's talking.

Severus stifles a sigh and settles down beside his son. Six months, since he accepted the boy into his home, and he still feels unprepared for parenthood, every single day. He always had difficulty with certain emotions, he was always inept in offering comfort and empathy. And with Harry, it is seldom needed.

He can't comprehend why Harry is so worked up and emotional over this. Well, he can. But he doesn't know what to do about it.

"It was a rational decision that Ronald made—"

"No, it wasn't rational!" Harry snaps, ducks his face into the blanket, and Severus can hear him actually sniffing, "I want him back. I don't want him alone. What if he dies?"

Severus sighs. He can't understand why. Albus has spared Harry's involvement in things related to the Order since the debacle at the ministry. Harry himself has shown little interest in his own safety and well-being, driving Severus to further put his foot down on Harry's hand in the ongoing war.

The same can't be said about Ron Weasley. Granger has tried talking sense into them both, Harry and Ronald. From what little Severus knows it didn't work.

"He chose this, Harry." He says at last, a dialogue he must have repeated about a hundred times in these six days, "The risks of death in such a mission are extremely low."

"It's not a zero." Harry glares up at him, "it's not a fucking—"

"Language."

"They can find out he's after the goblet. They can kill him. They can torture him—"

Severus circles the boy's shaking shoulders with one arm and pulls him to his side. The grief is fresh in his voice, Severus hates it. Hates that Black's death has turned Harry into a shell of the person he used to be. It's heartbreaking.

"Are you having dreams?" He asks with a trepidation that he hopes is muffled in his voice.

"Not visions, I can't tell anyways. It's stupid, if they find out… they will kill him."

Severus pushes his son's hair away from his forehead with his other hand, and subtly feels the inflamed scar, "does it hurt?"

Harry turns his head away, "I'm hungry."

It must hurt then. Severus nods slowly and pushes Harry's hair away from his forehead.

Harry's face is damp, and he turns again to bury his face in Severus' shoulder, "Why can't you tell me he'll be fine? Hermione told me he would be, even Mrs. Weasley…" a shaky exhale, "I miss him. He shouldn't be there, he should be here with me."

Severus doesn't know why. Well, he knows. Weasley could be fine, but he could also be dead already. If he was Albus he would've never allowed such a thing. But Albus Dumbledore loves his young soldiers. Loves potential. Loves unwavering faith. Ronald is sixteen, almost seventeen. He was technically an adult when he accepted the mission.

Even his parents couldn't stand in his way.

"I have been undercover before." He tells the boy, lowers his lips on the boy's temple before dropping his chin on his head to keep him steady, "it's not easy. We can't know for sure if he's fine."

The truth would suit Harry better. It would break his heart too, but Severus would never lie to his son.

"We all have a responsibility in this world. Ronald chose to have a responsibility too. That is a big decision."

Harry's hands clench on Severus' robe. His shoulders are soundlessly shaking again, "You're lying. You… not everyone needs to die in this war. He did this for me, and I hate him for it, I hate him."

Severus closes his eyes. He doesn't have an answer to this. Because his son is smart, and he has a point. Ronald didn't do this because he particularly loved Albus Dumbledore or was keen on being an undercover agent. He wanted the goblet because he wanted to help Harry. In his vision, the only person who could swiftly help Harry—and the war effort as a whole— was himself.

The adults in the picture didn't have much argument against this. The Horcruxes needed to be found at a much faster rate than the new ones being made. They need to take every chance, every shot, and opportunity. Harry had gotten rid of the diary and the ring. Harry himself…

Severus doesn't think about it. He hugs his son close and lets him cry again.

"You need to breathe." He admonishes the boy whose wet gasping rattles his chest.

"It should've been me. I should've gone with him, it's my responsibility. It's my war."

"Don't be ridiculous. It's not your war." Severus shakes his head, though Harry can't see him. He hates this too. It shouldn't have been Harry, or Ronald, or their underage friends. This isn't theirs to deal with. This is leftover mayhem from Severus' generation. If only they had enough people to leave the children out of this. Though the truth is… Harry was always going to be involved. He was always going to be a target.

"He—he can't die. I just lost Sirius and almost… Almost lost him too and—"

"Breathe." Severus orders and rubs Harry's back through the blanket, "Do you need a calming draught?"

Harry draws away with wide eyes and wet cheeks, his mouth opens and closes and Severus lets him find his words, "I never told him. What if I can never tell him,"

"Tell him what?" Severus asks though he has his suspicions already.

It's as though a dam breaks. Harry covers his face with both hands and sinks down in his seat, "I love him. I… I love him. I can't take it if he died, I know he doesn't love me but I loved him."

Finally, the admission. Severus closes his eyes in relief and pain. After six days, Harry finally admitted to what Severus had been suspecting since this entire mess started. Harry loved the boy. Best friend, my ass, Severus thinks to himself.

It's a bit astonishing that Severus didn't deduce it before. They always spent their time together, from morning to noon and from noon to late in the evening. They were always tangled together like yarn, always laughing, giggling, or bantering.

The lack of such a person, or rather feeling, for Severus has dimmed his sensitivity to it.

But it doesn't help anything. There's nothing he can say to Harry. No actual advice because the truth is no one has ever loved Severus like that. He's never had experience and advice to dish out. Especially to his very emotionally compromised son.

He squeezes Harry's shoulder. "It's okay."

"It's not. I should be the hero, I should be out there, and he's out there on my behalf and he could be dead—"

Severus needs to put an end to this.

He stands, snapping Harry out of his rambling. The boy looks at him with red-rimmed eyes and chewed-up nails still gripping the blanket. "Get up." He orders his son.

"I can't."

"You can, come on." He gently tugs the blanket off Harry's frame and helps him stand. Harry weakly opposes this but Severus is not having any of it anymore.

He can't just idly sit by and watch his son destroy himself.

"Dad, please, please I can't—"

"Hush, come on." He holds the boy's forearms and shepherds him into the kitchen. Harry's feet drag on the floor but Severus isn't giving in.

He settles Harry on the kitchen chair and turns to survey the cupboards. It's been a while since he broke out the pots and pans, but it should be easy enough. The stove he knows works adequately since he brews the tea himself.

"Dad."

"You said you were hungry." Severus crouches to get the cutting board from a drawer, "we can talk over food."

"Talk about what?" Harry seems momentarily distracted. That's good, it means Severus' plan worked.

Severus sets the cutting board down in front of Harry on the dining table, then turns to fetch a knife, "talk about your crush, and get you food."

It's been ages since he's thought about a love interest, his own or otherwise. He's not quite adept at such conversations. He much rather Molly or Minerva or even Albus handle such things. But Harry is his son, and Harry is his responsibility and Severus would rather die than let the boy down.

The knife shakes a bit in Harry's hand, and he hastily sets it down on the cutting board, "what are we doing—"

Severus is glad beyond all hell that the kitchen in his quarters is well-equipped. They usually eat in the Great Hall or have the elves bring them something, but he keeps ingredients here. The basics anyways.

"I was not born into an affluent family," Severus cuts him off, "My mother was disowned and my father...well. we didn't have much money to spare on good food."

He breaks a few cloves of garlic and gently rolls them on the cutting board in front of Harry, "On each birthday though, my mother would make this dish."

"Dad…"

Severus bends down to rummage in the cabinet under their sink, "peel the garlic and mince it please."

Harry grunts in displeasure but Severus can hear him working, he pushes the pots aside and drags out the half-opened package of lasagna sheets along with a pan.

"Is that a muggle product?" Harry voices in mild surprise.

Severus settles the package on the table and turns to fill up the pot with water. He could use his wand, but when it comes to cooking this particular dish…he also needs to keep Harry busy. "Yes. A guilty pleasure of mine. I used to make the dish—"

"Never for me." Harry pauses his hands on the garlic clove. They look at each other in silence before Severus sighs. He settles the pot on the stove and then joins his son at the table with a grimace.

"It's not...a part of my childhood I am proud of,” he stares at Harry’s dexterous hands. He knew that the boy has experience with cooking, “Come to think of it, this is probably expired. Let me check the expiry date—"

He reaches for the package but Harry clicks his tongue, "Dry lasagna sheets can last for years, Dad."

Severus didn’t know that. Every time they could afford to buy a package, it was used immediately. When he made it himself, it was also used immediately, "They can? How did you—"

Harry shrugs as he crushes the garlic chunks with the side of the knife, "The Dursleys used to stock up their pantry every year or so." the blanket falls off him a little, and Severus sighs. They sit in silence some more.

“What else are we preparing? So far it’s just garlic.” Harry asks finally, his voice is shaky and Severus knows that he’s thinking about Weasley still. Of course, he is, Severus imagines that Harry has not stopped thinking about the boy since the moment they parted.

“It’s just garlic.” Severus informs him dryly and Harry’s head snaps up in surprise, the knife stills and Severus shrugs out of his seat to put a pan on the stove near the simmering pot, “As I said, my family was very poor back in the day. The recipe is only garlic, the lasgna sheets and olive oil. They used to sell olive oil in very small amounts for medical use, they barely used it for food, that’s why it was way cheaper.”

He opens up a nearby cabinet to take out the oil bottle.

Harry sniffs and pushes the cutting board aside, garlic and all. “I’m sorry.”

Severus frowns, “Sorry? What are you sorry about?”

Harry squirms in the chair, wringing his hands and generally looking miserable, “That you… that this food—”

“It’s a delicious meal.” Severus cuts him off with a stern nod, “Don’t be fooled by its frugal recipe. Stand up now, you will help me with the stirring.”

Harry shuffles with the blanket still. They stand by the stove again in silence, Severus gestures at Harry to drop the lasagna sheets into the boiling pot and shuffled the sizzling garlic in its bed of oil. The smell is already taking Severus to distant places that he seldom visits of his own volition. His grim childhood, his mother’s delicate hands, often covered in burns and wrapped. His father, he remembers with a foul taste in his mouth. He looks at his son, the boy he’s managed to adopt, and rear and hopefully raise into a brilliant young man. He thinks about their tragedies, the ones already faced, and the ones his son has to encounter as well.

“Do you think he’s dead?” Harry asks him quietly, the silence now is their companion.

Severus breathes, “I don’t know. Do you think he’s dead?”

He adds some salt and pepper to the garlic, the olive oil and the garlic itself have strong flavors. His mother never had much money left to buy spices anyways. This is the most flavourful meal Severus remembers having before coming to Hogwarts.

Harry shifts the blank on his shoulders, watching Severus with restless eyes, “I just know that if he is, then it’s my fault.”

Severus turns to the boy with the spatula in his hand. Harry turns the knob on the stove and stares at the pot, a bit cluelessly, “Do I drain it?”

“No,” Severus says, reaching for a small glass set there near the stove, and taking a little bit of the pasta water. Well, lasagna water, he doesn’t care about the labeling, this is what his mother used to do. “Take them out one by one and get them on the cutting board.”

“The lasagna sheets?”

“Yes, we have to cut them into stripes.”

His mother used to do it with her sewing scissors; cleaned them rigorously in the sink, and then set about cutting the sheets into long stripes to make it seem like it was more than it was, as though it was a mouthful. It worked on Severus. And when he grew old, the habit just stuck.

“It’s not your fault,” Severus mentions as Harry goes at the stripes with the knife, “Even if he dies.”

“Dad…”

“Do not take responsibility for other people, especially those that you love. Don’t strip them bare of their independence. If he did this for you, which he didn’t, then that is his decision.” he’s learned that the hard way. He’s tried taking the blame for other people, protecting them, giving them room to take advantage of him, or worse, giving them the opportunity to die. Harry’s mother is not exempt from this mistake.

“I’m just scared,” Harry admits, he takes the cutting board in two hands and walks to the sizzling pan. Severus lets him pass, and the boy sighs again, pushing the long, thin stripes of lasagna with the tip of the knife, “I don’t want him to do anything for me.”

“Will you tell him? When he comes back.”

Harry’s head whips to his, his eyes are wide and the cutting board slack in his hold, “Dad, no! No, there’s no way.”

“Pining from afar then?” Severus slowly adds the water to the pan and stirs the mix, “Do you enjoy being in pain?”

“What if he says no? What if he fancies someone else or…”

Severus takes the cutting board from his hands, sets it aside, and grabs the boy’s shoulders, “Harry, look at me. Do you like this boy?”

“He’s my best friend,” Harry mumbles, “I don’t want to ruin anything.”

Severus turns off the stove, “Go get two bowls.”

Harry shuffles around the kitchen and Severus opens a drawer to look for some forks. Harry trudges his way back to the stove and Severus dishes the play-act pasta with care. He remembers that sometimes, his mother used to ‘bless’ his bowl by muttering a wandless encantation over it for ‘good measure’. He was pretty sure she was barmy when he was old enough to understand that magic wasn’t real. And when he was old enough to understand it was, it was just pathetic.
He hands Harry his bowl without a blessing and they settle back at the table.

“Aren’t you going to tell me off?” Harry sullenly twists his fork in the bowl.

“For what?”

“For not telling him.”

Severus chews slowly, relishing the burst of flavour in his mouth as he surveys his son picking at his own food, “I will be honest with you, if he doesn’t know already, he is an idiot.”

“Dad!”

“But… I also didn’t know, prior to his mission.” He leans over and takes Harry’s fork from his hand, twists it to form a mouthful of pasta on the fork, and hands it back to the boy, “That means if you want to, you can hide it from him. But do you want to? Or are you just scared?”

He sees the boy mulling over the words as he lowers the empty fork back into the bowl. Harry sighs with closed eyes, “This is delicious.” he whispers, “It’s so delicious.”

“You should make it for him. He loves food, as far as I can recall.”

Harr sniffs and swipes at his eyes with his lips pulled down, “He does, he really does.”

“And he loves you.” at least Severus thinks so anyways.

And even if he doesn’t, then that wouldn’t change anything. Severus would still be by Harry’s side. If he can help the boy survive a war, then he can also help him survive a broken hurt, and injured pride.

He grabs Harry’s hand and nods approvingly as the boy chews around the fork in his mouth with a small smile.

“Thank you, Dad,” he says with his mouth full and Severus rolls his eyes.

“I still have to teach you basic manners, I swear to god, Harry—”

“Thank you.” Harry smiles again, for the first time in six days.

Severus smiles back.
The End.
End Notes:
Do tell me if you tried out the recipe!


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