The last thing Petunia Dursley expected to see on a Saturday morning in early July was her nephew assisting a tall man in bloodstained black robes who was bleeding all over her brand new suede couch. "Professor, you've got to get up, you can't stay here. If my aunt or, Merlin forbid, my uncle should see you . . ." Harry was saying quickly, trying his best to help the heavier man rise and remove himself from the sofa.

"What have you dragged home now, Harry James Potter?" Petunia demanded softly, for she too did not want to wake her husband. Vernon was grouchy as a bear when woken abruptly, and he would go bonkers if he saw one of those "freaky people" in his house. Petunia walked over to them, her soft fuzzy pink slippers making no noise on the beige carpet. Her housecoat with its rose print wrapped snugly about her, she looked like she had just stepped out of the pages of Good Housekeeping. Her blue eyes widened in shocked disbelief.

"Severus Snape? But-but that's impossible!" A hand went to her heart and she looked as if she were about to pass out. "She told me you were dead!"

Harry stared in alarm from one adult to the other and wondered if he were still asleep and this were all some kind of insane nightmare. "Aunt Petunia? Maybe you'd better sit down. You look kind of . . .umm . . .pale."

He reached out a hand to help her, but she shook off his assistance and squinted sharply at the man she had presumed dead for thirteen years. The man who was sitting blearily on her brand-new sofa looking like death warmed over. "I'm fine. Now go and fetch me some clean towels and some bandages. Hurry, boy, I can't have Vernon seeing a half-dead wizard on the living room couch."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry scurried away to do as he'd been told.

Severus eyed Petunia irritably. "Well, you haven't changed much, have you?" he asked softly, propping himself up on his good arm. "Still as bossy as ever."

"Humph! And you, still as shabby as ever, I see. What happened Snape? Get yourself beaten up for vagrancy? Or was it drunkenness, like your sorry excuse for a father?"

Severus drew in a breath, he really was not up to sparring with Petunia yet. But he wasn't about to let those comments slide, either. "Bridle that wasp's tongue of yours, Tuney. You forget, I'm not your sister, and I'll hex your mouth shut if I have to."

She gasped, affronted. "You'd not dare magic me in my own house!"

"Try me," he bared his teeth at her in a feral smile, and she stepped back. "I've never had much patience for your airs, Petunia and what little I have is fast evaporating. So if I were you, I'd not push me."

He fixed her with one of his intimidating scowls. It was all bluff of course, he didn't have the strength enough to heal himself, let alone hex Petunia with the shape he was in. But he would rather be hung, drawn, and quartered than admit to weakness in front of prissy, prim and proper Petunia Dursley. Prissy Pinch-faced Petunia, Lily and I used to call her, back in the days when we were small and we lived to annoy her. Back when he had been innocent and Lily Evans had been his best friend, the witch next door.

Just then Harry returned with the bandages and towels. "Here, Aunt Petunia." He handed her the clean towels and the bandages. "Professor, what happened to you?"

Snape sneered at him. "I would think that was obvious, Potter. However, if you need it spelled out, I was in a duel."

"And came out the worst for it," sniffed Petunia. "Take that robe or whatever you wizards call it off, Severus, and let me see to that wound."

Severus glared. "I can tend to it myself," he said stiffly.

"Don't be ridiculous, Snape! You're half-dead on your feet, the only thing keeping you vertical is your blasted male pride. Now quit playing the Spartan and let me help you, because if you die, I'm not shelling out good money for a funeral."

Severus snorted. "You'd prefer it if I died in the road, wouldn't you?"

"I'd prefer it if you didn't die at all, you damned stubborn jackass!" snapped Petunia. "Now be still and let me help you. Men! If I hadn't promised Lily, all those years ago . . ." she trailed off as Severus unbuttoned his robe and managed to slip it down his shoulders, revealing the nasty three inch wide gash in his upper bicep. "Good Lord, Snape! That needs stitches, what did that, a knife?"

"Just bind it up, Petunia. I'll heal it later." Severus ordered wearily. "And no, it wasn't a knife, it was a curse."

"A curse!" Harry repeated, staring at the wound with something akin to horrified fascination. From the way they were acting, it appeared his aunt and Snape knew each other. But how? "Err . . .what kind of curse does that?"

"One that you should never learn, Potter," snapped Severus, wincing slightly as Petunia unbound the blood-soaked rags about his arm and then applied pressure to the wound with the fresh towels.

"Figures. It's like you to get mixed up in trouble like that. You and my sister, magnets for trouble when you were kids and looks like nothing has changed since." Petunia huffed, but her hands were gentle as she removed the bloodstained towel and applied a fresh one. "Humph! Looks like the bleeding is stopping."

"Uh, did you two know each other, Aunt Petunia?" Harry asked, feeling utterly bewildered.

But it was Snape who answered. "Unfortunately, yes. I was the Evans's neighbor growing up, but only Lily ever condescended to play with me. Your aunt was too busy being a snooty know-it-all."

"You and my little sister were the most annoying brats on the planet, Severus, and well you know it. With all of your talk of magic this and Hogwarts that, and casting your stupid spells that turned my hair green for a week."

"Lily never meant to do that. It was an accident," Severus defended.

"You knew my mum, sir?" gaped Harry. Severus had known his mother all this time and had never said anything?

"He certainly did. He was engaged to marry Lily once upon a time, right after they graduated that school of theirs."

Harry felt his jaw come unhinged. Snape and his mother, engaged?

"But then he broke it off, said he had important work to do for some secret Order and he couldn't marry Lily, it was too dangerous. So he left one night and Lily was heartbroken. Then a week later, she received some kind of letter saying you were dead, and for a while I thought she might follow you into the damn grave herself. She was so depressed she didn't eat, didn't sleep, cried all the time, my parents were at their wits end. They were going to check her into a psychiatric asylum when I told her she could come and live with me for a few months. She agreed, and she moved in with me and Vernon. I had just learned I was in the family way, you see, and thought it might cheer her up some knowing she was to be an aunt. And that was when she told me."

She had finished bandaging Snape's shoulder and he carefully eased his sleeve back up, though he didn't bother redoing the button. "Told you what? That she was suddenly madly in love with James Potter? Didn't he start courting her around then?" asked Severus with a bitter smile. The nature of his undercover work had forced him to fake his own death for a time, and he had always regretted never telling Lily the truth, but Dumbledore had insisted no one was to know save himself. After Voldemort had been killed, it was revealed that Severus had always been a spy for the Light.

"Yes, but even he never knew the truth." Petunia's hands suddenly stilled, then they twisted upon the bloody towel. "Lily made me swear, upon my unborn child and my immortal soul, to never tell. Because I couldn't avoid noticing, not when we were in the same house . . ."

"Noticing what, Aunt Petunia?"

The older woman bit her lip, and her blue eyes were strangely unfocused. Then she looked away. Both wizards looked at her in puzzlement. What secret did Lily carry that required her to demand such a promise from her older sister? At last, Petunia looked back at them, and gathering all of her courage, she said, "I suppose it doesn't matter now, now that Lily's dead and so is James. Now that you're alive, Snape. I only kept it out of respect for my sister's memory, had I known you were still on the earth, Snape, I would've contacted you years ago, so you could take responsibility for your own brat and I would've gotten stuck all these years."

"What are you babbling about, Petunia?"

"You want to know what kept Lily from killing herself when she learned you were dead, Severus?" Petunia hissed. "Shall I tell you a little secret? Only one thing. The fact that she carried your child." She lifted a finger and pointed at Harry. "He's your son, Snape! Not James's, yours!"

"You're out of your mind, woman! He looks nothing like me."

"Appearances can be deceiving. Lily cast a spell on him as soon as he was born, making him look like her new husband, James. But I always knew the truth. Lily had no choice but to confide in me, but she never wanted Potter to know, figured he'd never consent to raise another man's bastard, particularly yours. Said you two hated each other."

"We did. Potter was an arrogant, bullying, toe rag." Severus replied, still dazed by the sudden revelation. My son. I have a son? Oh Merlin, how is this possible? Potter is mine, not James's? I must be dreaming or delirious from blood loss. The truth was so unexpected, so amazing, that he almost could not make sense of it, and his thoughts were running in crazed circles, so the only thing he managed to say was, "Now what spell did she cast?"

Harry's mind reeled. He kept hearing Petunia's voice, repeating over and over, "He's your son, Snape! Not James's, but yours!" This could not be happening. The last wizard on earth he would want to claim as a relation was now his father.

But before he could say or do anything else, they heard the faint thud of someone upstairs moving about and then the sound of a shower running.

"Quick, boy! Help me get him upstairs in your bedroom!" ordered Petunia. "We can hide him there until your uncle goes out for his morning round of golf with Mr. Mason."

Together, they managed to get the weakened Potions Master up the stairs and into Harry's bedroom. They got him settled in the bed and then Petunia and Harry departed to start breakfast as usual, leaving their unexpected visitor to ponder the sudden fact that he was now the parent of a thirteen-year-old boy whom he had always regarded as an annoyance, an arrogant stuck-up version of his father, James. Except that James's blood did not run through Harry's veins at all. Severus Snape's did.

Overwhelmed both by the news and blood loss, Severus sank down on to the pillows and fell asleep. His body craved rest and without sleep he would not be able to think properly. So he allowed himself to slip into slumber, and his dreams were all of Lily holding a newborn infant with dark hair and saying, "Look at your son, Sev! He's the spitting image of his father."