Dumbledore's office was totally silent. Albus, Severus, and Minerva just looked at each other. Suddenly Severus shoved his sleeve up to see if the ugly mark was really gone or if he had imagined the whole thing, but no, the mark was really gone. He looked at Dumbledore and said "Albus, what have I agreed to do? I can't adopt Harry Potter! Merlin must be suffering from dementia! And exactly what did he mean when he said Lily would be around to help me? You know that is impossible."

Seeing that Severus was beginning to get hysterical Dumbledore waved his wand and a pot of tea appeared along with a plate of biscuits. He looked at Snape and with a twinkle in his blue eyes he said, "I would imagine that he meant that Lily will be around to help you. I don't know how, but I believe that Merlin and this council he was talking about have the situation all planned out and under control." He turned to Minerva and smiled when he saw that she still looked confounded. "Minnie, wake up!" he laughed. "We have a lot of work to do before we go to collect young Mr. Potter." Minerva sent him a withering glare, but she collected her wits and nodded. "Yes," she said, "I will pop over to Diagon Alley to buy the things Severus is going to need for the baby while you two get his accommodations taken care of."

Severus walked into his quarters in the dungeons with Albus right behind him. The apartment was spacious with light walls and a plush, dark green carpet throughout. Of course the apartment was underground but there were large magical windows that were spelled with the same sort of charm that was used on the ceiling in the great hall. The windows had views of both the black lake and the forbidden forest. The two wizards spoke an incantation in Latin and a new door appeared in the wall right beside Snape's bedroom door. When they walked into the room Albus looked around and waved his want. The walls became a light blue with white trim and with second wave of his wand another window appeared. Snape, in the meantime, had been looking around thinking about decorations that a one-year-old boy would like. When he got through waving his wand around there were pictures of Disney characters on the walls and a dark blue carpet on the floor. He waved his wand again and another door appeared in one of the walls. "I'm going to fix a room for the house elf that Merlin said would be coming to take care of Harry," he said. The room was small and had a small bed, a small rocking chair, and a small dresser with a mirror. They were admiring their handiwork when they heard a pop. Hurrying back into Harry's room they saw a small house elf. Albus smiled and said "hello there. I am Headmaster Dumbledore and this is Professor Snape and you must be the one Merlin said would be coming to join us." "Yes sir," said the small creature. "I is Daisy Headmaster Dumblydore. I is being Master Harry Potter's nanny."

Snape wasn't really listening to this exchange. He was still having a hard time comprehending all of this. He had never considered getting married, not since Lily had married that insufferable Potter. He certainly had no wish to be a father, certainly not to Potter's child. And now his private space was going to be shared with a one-year-old Potter and a house elf, and a female at that. He turned to the little one and said "I expect you to take care of the child and keep him out of my way. I'm not going to coddle the child and neither are you. Is that understood?" When Daisy looked at him with her ears flat against her head and squeaked out a yes sir Master Professor sir he opened the door to the small room and told her that this was her room. Daisy walked into the room and promptly burst into tears. She turned around and wrapped her arms around his knees and looked up at him as if he were the most wonderful person in the world. "Oh Master! This cannot be for Daisy. Daisy is just an unworthy house elf, she doesn't deserve this beautiful room sir!" Snape looked down his nose and said, "kindly let go of me. I provided this room for you so that you will be close to the baby at all times. As I told you, I have no desire to be bothered by a child screaming in the middle of the night."

While all of this was going on Minerva was having the time of her life. She was all over Diagon Alley with a huge smile of her face. She had begged to be allowed to raise Harry instead of sending him to live with the muggles and had been very upset when she couldn't. Now she knew she would be a part of the child's life. She had loved Lily beyond reason. She loved James too, but he was constantly aggravating her and everyone else with the pranks he and his friends played all of the time. Many of the pranks had been directed at her and sometimes she was tempted to just smack all four of them. Fortunately for the Marauders smacking a student was something she just was not capable of. She had already found a crib, and a dresser for the baby along with all of the sheets and blankets that would be needed. The blankets were soft, fluffy, and in a rainbow of pastel colors. At Madam Malkin's she had found all of the baby clothes that the baby would need. She bought diapers, sleepers, and onesies, and little gowns, sweaters, crawlers, socks, shoes, diaper shirts, some t-shirts, small trousers and even a few robes. Saving the best for last Minerva entered the toy store. Knowing that the toys Harry's parents had given him were lost or destroyed she proceeded to have a ball buying toys for a little boy. She bought balls, and stuffed dragons, and tigers, and lions. She bought an armful of magical books, the characters told the stories aloud so the child could learn what the words looked like in addition to looking at the pictures. Her favorite purchase was a gold & silver mobile for the crib. It played a wizard lullaby and had small magical creatures flying around the crib. She was tired, but what a wonderful day!

Arriving back at the castle she headed straight for Snape's quarters. After she showed off all of her purchases and put everything away Albus announced that it was time to go bring Harry home. They went to the fireplace in Snape's living room and flooed directly to Arabella Figg's house on Privet Drive in Little Whinging. After explaining to Arabella that Harry was going to be adopted by Snape, who shuddered when Albus announced this, they left and walked to Number 4.

The trio stood in front of the door and, not knowing about doorbells, knocked on it. A large fat man opened the door with an unpleasant scowl on his face. "What are you people doing here? We don't want your kind her, get off of my doorstep," he thundered. Dumbledore flicked his wand and the man flew back against the wall. He led Snape and Minerva into the house saying, "Mr. Dursley, surely you don't want your neighbors to see us talking to you? Let us go into the parlor and talk for a few minutes." Speechless, Vernon led them into the parlor where his wife, Petunia was watching television and a large unattractive baby was stuffing cookies into his mouth as fast as he could. They could see pictures of the child, Dudley all around the room, but not a one of Harry. There was a large pile of toys in the playpen with him but he was too busy eating to worry about toys.

Albus looked around the room and asked the whereabouts of Harry Potter. Vernon snarled, "The brat is in his room, that's where. He hit our precious Duddikins with a toy truck so I punished him and put him to bed."

The old wizard looked at him, with no twinkle in his blue eyes and said "Harry will be going back to Hogwarts with us tonight. Professor Snape here is going to adopt. Would you be so kind to get his toys and clothes together while we go get the child?"

Vernon looked surprised, "Toys? The freak doesn't have any toys, and he has the pajamas he was wearing when he arrived on our doorstep. It's bad enough that we were saddled with him, but we're certainly not going to spend our hard earned money on one of his kind!"

Before Minerva could hex the arrogant idiot Albus thundered, "your hard earned money? You have been given an extremely generous stipend to provide for the child's needs with plenty added for your trouble. What do you mean your hard earned money? Take us to the child immediately or you will find out exactly what our kind can do when we are angry!!"

Looking fearful Petunia stood up and said, "I will take you. Harry sleeps right here in the cupboard under the stairs." She nervously opened the door and stood back. Dumbledore and Snape had to bend over to look into the small, dark space.

There on a small cot laid a beautiful baby boy. He had unruly black hair but his most striking feature was the brilliant green of his eyes. The scar on his forehead, left by the killing curse that Voldemort, the dark wizard who had killed the child's parents had not started fading yet, and therefore was very noticeable. The baby was filthy and his little face was tear streaked. Minerva bent down to look when the two wizards stood up and sobbed out loud.

"How could you treat your own nephew like this" she asked Petunia. "His mother was your sister, how could you do this?"

Petunia was intelligent enough to know that she was on very dangerous ground. She didn't answer; she just looked down at the floor.

Minerva conjured a baby blanket and wrapped the baby then picked him up and drew him close to herself. "You will never get a chance to hurt or neglect this boy again you despicable woman" she promised the wretched woman.

 Albus produced a document and containing his anger instructed both of the Dursleys to sign it. "You have just signed away all rights to Harry James Potter" he said "and you have also given Severus Snape permission to adopt him. You are very lucky that we are not calling the authorities about the way you have neglected this child, as a matter of fact the Ministry may decide to contact them anyway. Since you have been so unloving towards Harry, and because you have been so greedy with the money that was provided for his care I take great pleasure to inform you that Harry is the heir to one of the largest inheritances in the Wizarding world. I am sure that had you loved him, as you should have he would have shared all of it with you. I'm very glad that I decided not to inform you of this before I found out how you have treated him. I promise you that if you try to do anything to interrupt this adoption you will regret it. Whatever efforts you made would be not only unsuccessful, but would be enough for me to call the children services about his treatment myself."

The three wizards, with the small wizard, turned around and left the house, leaving Vernon and Petunia Dursley with their mouths hanging open.

A short time later three people, one carrying a small boy appeared in front of the gates of Hogwarts. Harry Potter had come home.