Severus woke feeling both nauseous and happy when he remembered why he might be nauseous. His hand hadn’t left his stomach all night, and he was still curled around it. He sat up though, his thumb running along it gently as he summoned a pregnancy safe anti-nausea potion and swallowed it down, sighing in relief when the sickness cleared.

He looked at his flat stomach in awe.

He was pregnant.

He was going to be a mother.

Merlin, was that something he had longed for since he was sixteen and he found out he was a bearer.

For someone to love him unconditionally.

For a family.

For a child.

Why was he so foolish as to do something to push this hope away?

But alas, here he was. With the one thing he had wished for most in his life.

A child.

He was the happiest he had ever felt.

And yet, he was terrified.

Terrified that he would be a terrible parent.

He didn’t exactly have shining examples himself.

But he would do his best to not be like them.

He wouldn’t hit Harry.

He wouldn’t.

Harry.

His son.

Harry Potter was his son.

His baby.

Harry Potter was his son.

Potter.

James Potter was still his father.

His heart ached.

“Mum, are you okay?” Harry’s little voice said, concerned.

His heart fluttered at the words.

It didn’t matter.

James Potter didn’t matter.

No matter how much pain Potter had caused Severus in his school years, it didn’t matter, because the only thing that mattered was Harry.

His son.

His son was the only being that mattered.

His son.

He loved his son.

And he always would.

No matter what.

“Yes, Harry, I am fine. How are you?” he couldn’t deny that he was nervous.

“I’m great! I don’t have to go back to the Dursleys again. I have a mum now. A parent. I… are you okay with this? Are you okay with me calling you mum? Do you want me to call you something else? I… how can we talk to each other? Can all magical babies talk to their mothers when they are inside the womb?” Harry sounded excited, nervous, scared, and curious throughout his speech.

“I am okay with this,” and he really was, “I am more than okay with you calling me mum. You can call me whatever you want to call me, though. I don’t know how we can talk to each other, but I will do some research to try and figure it out for you, and me. I don’t believe it is something that all magical babies can do with their mothers, but again, I will be researching it all for us,”

“Okay, good. Erm… this might be a bit weird, and intrusive, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, and you can tell me to shut up or whatever, I don’t mind,” though to Severus thought it sounded like he did mind, he just was too used to it to not expect it, “Erm… do you have a partner? Do you have other children? It’s just that I don’t want to intrude on your family if you already have one and if they aren’t okay with you keeping me then that is alright, too-”

“Harry, I don’t have a partner, and I don’t have other children,” he had to cut Harry off, he couldn’t let him think those things, that he would get rid of him just because he might have had a family already and didn’t need him in his life also, “And even if I did already have a family before this, it wouldn’t make you even less important to me. I would still have wanted you, and I would still have kept you, even if they wouldn’t have wanted it. You aren’t less important than anyone else. Even if you have been raised to believe that you are. You are my child. No matter how you came to be mine, you are mine. And I just couldn’t carry a child for any period of time and not want them. I couldn’t carry a child and just get rid of them. It isn’t in me to do that. I have wanted this for too long to want to do that. I just haven’t been given the opportunity before now,”

Maybe he shouldn’t have said that much, but he needed Harry to understand that he was important. That he mattered. That he wouldn’t be gotten rid of just because of what anyone else might say. That he isn’t something that could be discarded like that. At least, not to Severus.

He could practically feel the relief pulsing from the little ball of magic in his belly.

He felt the wards on his floo announce someone and stiffened slightly, “Severus, I expect you in my office in half an hour,” Albus called, he sounded… well, not pleased.

Severus took a shaky breath as Albus left the floo and stood from the bed to ready himself for the long day ahead.

Part of him just wanted to stay there and hide from the world, and those who would dare to hurt his child, or him and therefore his child.

He floo’d to Albus’ office and as soon as he saw the man his magic felt threatened, used, unsafe. He also felt anger at the man for lying to him and he couldn’t help but snap, “You left him with Petunia!”

Albus looked caught off guard.

“Severus, my boy, you knew I left him with his last living relatives,”

“No, you told me, very specifically, I might add, that you left him with Lily’s parents. Therefore, when you also told me he was spoiled, I believed you because they adored the ground he walked on. You know what Petunia is like, what she was like as a child, and yet you thought placing Harry with her was a good idea? Why? What happened to Lily’s parents?” Severus tried to remain calm, but it was hard the more his magic told him he wasn’t safe and the more he looked at the man who dared to leave Harry with someone he knew would not be in the least bit suitable to raise a magical child.

“Severus, I don’t see how young Harry’s placement concerns you,” Albus said, his eyes clouding with a hint of anger.

“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps because you made me take a vow to protect him, which is something I would have done without the vow by the way, but then you lied to me. Perhaps because you knew that the vow and my knowledge of Petunia and her hatred of all things magical would have forced me to remove him, to protect him from her and her brute of a husband,”

“If I recall correctly, the vow only required you to protect him from the Dark Lord and Death Eaters,” Dumbledore said, though Severus thought it was just a trick or something because that was certainly not the vow he made.

“No. The vow I took requires me to protect him from anything and anyone who could and would hurt him,”

“And I fail to see how Petunia and her husband would be people who could or would hurt him,” Dumbledore beamed.

“How many times does an abused child have to come to you for help before you realise that family can in fact hurt family? Not that you help any of them, of course. You send them right back home to continue being hurt. At least until I help them. I don’t know how you manipulated me into missing the signs of abuse on Harry but I can see it clearly now. Why did you leave him there? And why did you keep sending him back home? And how did Poppy miss it whenever he was in the hospital wing?”

“I don’t see why you care, Severus. You hate him,”

“I don’t hate him. I never have hated him. Just like I don’t hate any of the children in this school. I can’t hate them. I protect them all because I fucking care about them. Unlike everyone else in this fucking school apparently. And yet I can’t fucking show that I care because you rub me being a spy in my face every fucking day. I’m done. I’m done being a spy. I’m done not showing the children of this school that someone gives a shit. And I am done letting you manipulate me into things I don’t want to do. Why did you leave him there?”

He really was trying to remain calm, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help his need to protect these children. Someone had to. Dumbledore certainly didn’t. And though some of the other teachers tried, in some circumstances, they still turned a blind eye to bullying, abuse, and everything else.

He didn’t feel safe.

“Harry has a task to do, just like you, Severus. You need to spy. And he needs to defeat Voldemort. He needs to do what he is meant to do, Severus. What he is prophesied to do,”

“And he needs to be abused to do that does he?”

He could feel pain emitting from the ball in his stomach and he knew that Harry was hearing every word. He was sorry to cause his son so much pain. To have to take this person away from him.

“It’s not your fault, mum,”

His heart twanged.

“This is not what I called you up here to discuss, Severus,”

“Oh, I’m sure it isn’t. But it is something that needs discussing anyway,”

“I think not. Now, what happened in your potions class yesterday?”

Severus glared at the older man who just glared right back at him.

He didn’t feel safe.

He tried to remain calm. To take some calming breaths, but he felt less and less safe the longer he spent in the room.

“What do you know already?”

“I know there was an accident involving Harry and the de-aging potion, and that he has since gone missing, and that you were in the hospital wing for a large part of yesterday afternoon. But I would like to know exactly what happened, from you, and where Harry is,”

“I doubt it was an accident first of all, I told the class not to throw anything into anyone’s cauldron before they started brewing because of the consequences, and someone threw something into his cauldron anyway. I will find out who, and I will punish them accordingly,” Severus said fiercely, and he would punish them. As much as he is not angry with what the end result was, he was angry it happened in the first place, it could have been worse, and probably would have been had he not been a bearer.

“The potion exploded and Harry was quick enough to push Longbottom out of the way, but he wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way himself. It landed on him and he started de-aging rapidly. He was clearly in pain. I tried to stop it, to clear the potion out of his system, and off his skin. But nothing I did stopped it. He de-aged to a foetus,” he left it hanging, embracing the pain and anger in the older man’s eyes for a minute.

“He’s dead,” Dumbledore breathed, looking like everything was about to collapse around him.

And Severus supposed that it was, and will continue to with the rest of the information. He wouldn’t have the weapon he had been grooming for the last twelve years. All would be lost. He would have to fight the Dark Lord himself instead of getting children to do it for him.

“No,” Severus said.

Albus breathed a sigh of relief, “Where is he then? Did you re-age him?” he almost pleaded.

“I didn’t re-age him. My magic and body absorbed him. He is now an eight week foetus, in my womb,”

He relished the shock on the old man’s face.

“You… You’re a bearer?”

“I am pretty sure you already knew that,” Severus scowled at the man.

“Right. I just thought it was a rumour,” he said, passing it off as if it was nothing.

“A rumour, from the school’s medi-witch?” Severus said, his eyebrow raised.

“Right… well, I hope you know that you will have to continue with the pregnancy. We need Harry. Then when he is born we will have to send him to his aunt’s,” he was cut off by a surge of angry, powerful magic coming from Severus and he looked at the younger man in shock, “Severus,”

“No. He will not be going back to Petunia. Ever,”

“The blood wards,”

“Are useless,”

“They protect him,”

“So long as he is related to the person they are bound to, and he is loved by that person, neither of which he is,”

“Lily,”

“Is no longer his mother,”

“Just because you are now carrying her child, it does not make you his mother,”

“No, but my magic changing his DNA and magic so that I am now his biological mother, does in fact make me his mother,”

The shock on Dumbledore’s face made Severus feel rather smug, although the hint of anger in his eyes made him feel even less safe.

“You are his mother?”

“Yes,”

“The prophecy,”

“Doesn’t matter,”

“Severus,”

“I’m not letting you use my son in your war. It is an adult’s fight, not one for children. I couldn’t do anything to stop you before now, but I can now,”

“Severus, think about this,”

“I am. I am done being your spy. I am done being horrible to the children. I am done caring about them, protecting them, and not being able to show it. I am done letting you use children in your games. I am done letting you send children back to their abusers. I am done letting you allow bullies to not be punished. I am done with your game of chess. You can’t use Harry anymore. You can’t use me anymore. You may not care about anything other than your plan, your ‘greater good’, but the people you use, the people you hurt, they have feelings, they have brains, they have thoughts, they have dreams. You can’t just keep using people, especially if those people are children,”

“Severus, we need Harry to fight,”

“Harry will be a baby!”

“We can re-age him,”

“Despite your infinite wisdom,” he couldn’t stop the sarcasm from leaking into his voice, “you know nothing about potions. He will be a baby, then he will be a toddler, then he will be a child, then he will be a teenager, at the same rate that all children age,”

Dumbledore looked like the whole world had been pulled out from under him and Severus relished in it.

“Surely there is something you can do,”

“Unless you want a teenager who has the brain of a baby, then no,”

“Might be easier to mould,” he caught Dumbledore’s mutter to himself and his anger burst out again.

“Oh yes, because grooming him and every other child in this school to do what you want them to do is so very important to you. However, even if you were able to somehow manipulate his mind in such a way, he still wouldn’t be able to do the basic things that any teenager can do for themselves. So no, he will remain a baby, and grow up like he was meant to, except he will be with me this time,”

“Severus, is this really the best course for things? You don’t even have a father figure for him. Who will be his guiding influence? Who will protect him? Who will teach him what he needs to know? I mean, you aren’t even a proper bearer, you were in love with Lily,”

“I was never in love with Lily, she was like a sister to me,” the surprise on his face was laughable really, “I’m gay. Don’t worry, old man, I am a full on bearer. Otherwise as soon as I absorbed him into me, he probably would have died. And who is to say I can’t do all those things myself? Also, since I am no longer your bloody spy, maybe I will feel safe enough to put myself out there,” he doubted it mostly but he never knew what would happen. He wasn’t a seer.

He didn’t feel safe.

“Severus, we need Harry,”

“No, you don’t. You need to be the Headmaster of this school, you need to look after the children, protect them. But instead you do everything you can to drag them into a war which they shouldn’t be involved in. They don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve the pain you cause them. Your duty to the students of this school should be much more important than this bloody game you are playing with them. It needs to stop. You need to stop,”

“Severus,”

“No. I am done with this meeting. You are not using my baby. You are not using the children anymore. You are not using me. You know what power a mother’s love has now, maybe that will stop you from doing whatever it is you will surely plan,” he said, then he left, storming out of the room, down the stairs, and towards the dungeons.

He needed to get away, but he needed time to breathe.

“Mum, are you okay?” Harry asked, despite his obvious pain.

“I’ll be fine, Harry. How are you?”

“He was just using me?”

“He uses everyone. But yes, he needed his weapon,”

“Why?”

“Because he always drags people into his own wars, to get them to fight for him. He doesn’t want to do it himself until he has no choice but to, then he saves the day and is famous again. But I won’t let him use you this time. There wasn’t anything I could really do before, apart from protect you as much as possible, but I can protect you more now. You are mine, and I won’t let you be hurt by him anymore. Or anyone else,”

“Thank you,”

The amount of love he felt pouring from Harry in that moment shocked him so much that he had to stop walking and stare at his stomach in awe. He was glad no one else was around to see his moment of weakness.

That was until he felt someone stop nervously in front of him anyway and he looked up to see Neville Longbottom standing there, looking at him with red eyes and scared eyes that tore through his heart whenever he saw it.

“S-sir. You are out of the hospital wing? Are you okay?” Neville mumbled.

“I am fine, Mr Longbottom. Thank you for asking,” Neville looked shocked at his gentle answer. But Severus had to start somewhere when it came to becoming his true self, and not what he had had to pretend to be, “How are you?”

“I… Harry… he was my best friend, my only friend, and I don’t know where he is, I… Is he dead?”

“No, he’s not dead Mr Longbottom. Would you like to come with me to my office and we can discuss what happened, and where Harry is?”

Neville looked at him with confusion at the gentleness of his words, but the boy nodded and followed him to his office where he set some strong wards and led the boy to the small sofa he had against the right wall of the room, sitting next to him and summoning a house elf to get them both a hot chocolate and some biscuits. Neville looked more confused but didn’t say anything, if anything he looked a tad… like he felt safe despite their past.

“Harry isn’t dead, Neville, I need to assure you of that first,” Neville looked shocked again at the mention of his first name, then the confusion came.

“Then where is he? He just disappeared then you were unconscious. And you were both in pain,”

Severus smiled at him slightly, “He… he was de-aged to a foetus,”

Neville gasped, “A foetus… but, how is he not dead?”

“I’m a bearer. My magic and body absorbed him into my womb. He is currently eight weeks along. My magic also changed his DNA and magic so that he is my son biologically and magically,”

Neville’s jaw dropped, and Severus noticed a hint of pain, happiness, and confusion in his eyes that he didn’t get many good feelings from.

“Are… are you okay with that, sir? It is just that…” he trailed off, obviously not wanting to finish what he was saying.

“What do you know about bearers, Mr Longbottom?” Severus asked gently.

“Not much, really, sir. My uncle doesn’t really like them much so he just belittles them, he thinks they are unnatural, and my nan doesn’t talk of them either,”

“Hm, there are some that are of the opinion that they are unnatural, yes. Not many though, thankfully. But it is still best to keep it mostly secret in case people think to use them for their abilities, especially since the children born from them tend to be more powerful than most. But not all children born from them are more powerful than the average witch or wizard, I must say,

“A bearer is a wizard who is born with a womb, birth canals also form at the beginning of the eighth month of a pregnancy, ready for birth, then when the baby is born it will close. The children are formed from magic and semen during anal sex. You have to be rather powerful yourself to be a bearer, but not all powerful wizards are bearers, there are a number of factors, but Lady Magic tends to be the one deciding who is or isn’t one. But the main thing that determines it is whether or not Lady Magic deems you good enough to be a magical mother. You can’t hate children. You care for them, protect them, look after them. I have never once hated a student in this school since I started teaching, I can’t. My magic, my mind, it won’t allow me to do so, not that I even want to try,”

“Then why..?”

“I have had to pretend that I hate you all because I am, or was, a spy. I spied on the Dark Lord for Professor Dumbledore during the war, and I have been spying on the Death Eaters who escaped Azkaban since. As a result, I was cruel to the students so that when the Dark Lord returns his followers won’t snitch on me and I could resume my place in his ranks to spy some more. Believe me, it pains me more than anything that I wasn’t able to overtly protect you all, that I had to say and do the things I did. But I had to, so that I could protect you more when the time came,

“And Professor Dumbledore forced me to. I tried to make him put it in my teaching contract that I had to be fair to the students, that I had to be kind to them. But he said the Dark Lord wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t care, and would kill me for it should he catch wind of things. And his need for a spy was more important than looking after the students,”

“Are… are you still going to spy?”

“No. I can’t. I mean, spying with Harry Potter as my son is going to make things rather difficult. And I don’t want to. I didn’t want to even then, but I was… forced. No. I am going to be myself now. I am going to protect you students, and show that I care besides helping the abused students to get out of their situations behind the Headmaster’s back. The ones I can anyway,”

There was another flash of pain in Neville’s eyes that worried Severus. He really needed to look into this boy.

“Are you going to keep Harry and raise him?”

“Yes. He is my son now, I can protect him better. And I want to,”

“Good. That’s good. He deserves a family, a proper one. One who loves him,” Neville was looking down at his lap and Severus saw a tear that fell from the tip of his nose.

“You deserve it, too, Neville,”

Neville looked up at him, eyes wide with fear and it clenched something in Severus’ heart. He had thought a few times that maybe Neville had a hard home life but he couldn’t look at him. As the other child the prophecy could have been about Dumbledore kept a lot about him shut away and halted any thoughts or concerns Severus may have had.

What if Dumbledore moved onto Neville now that Harry was out of the picture?

That thought stilled Severus’ heart for more than a moment.

He felt a deep need to protect the boy in front of him from the man who would dare to turn him into weapon number two.

And from his family.

“Neville, I need you to be honest with me, okay?” Neville nodded, though the fear never left his eyes, “I know, from experience, that this is incredibly hard to talk about. Believe me, I do. But I need to know, okay? Neville, is anyone in your family abusing you? In any way. Physically, verbally, mentally, emotionally, sexually?” he dreaded the answer.

“Yes, he is, mum. He is. We bonded over it. That is how we became friends,”

“I…” Neville said, and Severus hated the pain, confusion, fear and worry in his eyes.

“I can’t do anything to help you unless you tell me the truth, Neville. I am sorry. I know it hurts. I really do. But I can help you, and I will help you, if you tell me just a yes or a no,”

“Yes,”