Someone (and due to the finesse of the magic used, he guessed it had been Lily Evans-Potter as few could equal her touch with Charms), had tampered with his memories. Since the previous summer, Severus had been slowly regaining snippets of memories, memories that he believed he had no right to; memories that had revealed startling information; memories that, once they began to return full force, pushed him into despair.

They had started out fairly innocuously with extra memories of Lily and himself, revealing a far deeper relationship than even the close friendship they had shared in their pre and early teens. The memories told him they had indeed made up after the ‘mudblood’ incident rather than parting ways forever, as he had believed. They had stayed firm friends even into young adulthood – even after she married Potter. Though the friendship had been secret, of a necessity.

Throughout the past year, he had utilised Albus’ and his own Pensieves, in an attempt to sort his way through the confusion, looking for clues as to why these memories had been locked away. His rage at young Potter’s intrusion had been grossly exaggerated by his internal reactions to his confusion, his shock at the invasion of his privacy, his horror at the boy perhaps having seen evidence of the returning memories or his attachment to Lily. He had overreacted, to be sure, but only regretted it when the boy lost what little trust they had between them and Black fell to his doom behind the veil. It was a needless death, and a bitter loss. Mostly because he would have liked to have dealt the mutt his own revenge, but had now lost that chance.

His returning memories had begun to reveal even stranger things towards the end of the school year. James Potter and he hadn’t hated each other, by the time Lily wed the man. In fact, if the memories were correct – and he could find no evidence that they were not – he and Potter had had a friendship nearly as close as the one he shared with Lily.

“The common Witch or Wizard fails to appreciate that the Dark Art’s do not consist solely of negative or destructive spells!” Severus lightly slapped the surface of the table between them. It was an old argument that he and James had indulged in more than once, and almost always over a glass of wine in the cramped front room at Spinners End.

“I appreciate that, but without the current categorisation, there would be far more accidents – perhaps far more deliberate destructive actions - than we currently deal with.” James shook his head with an amused smile, “As it stands, I prefer the current ease, it makes an Auror’s life far less difficult.”

Severus snorted, “Ah yes. Less paper-work. Far be it for me to tell the Ministry that ‘less paper-work’ is a less than viable means of categorisation.”

“You know what I mean, Severus. I understand that the Dark Art’s are made of shades of grey, but when it comes to magic that uses blood or souls or harm in any fashion, the Ministry is immovable.”

Severus could only thank Lily for the way in which these memories were revealed – because they were slow and gradual, he had had time to come to terms with them, rather than lose his mind as it tried to integrate and reconcile the lost information to his current mindset. Since the beginning of summer, after the little hellions had disappeared for the next two months, Severus had given himself time to think and reflect.

This meant he spent the first three days of summer in his private lab, working on re-stocking the Medi-ward’s Potion Supplies for Poppy. The work was tedious and he had done it so often he could do it with his eyes closed if he so chose. While his body worked on muscle memory, his mind was allowed to drift – which was precisely why he did it.

It helped that he was a superb Occlumens. As each new memory was unlocked, he carefully filed it away in the correct place, allowing his mind to absorb it before inspecting it in any detail. Now, after almost a year of carefully filing, sorting and inspecting the memories, he took time to reflect on the whole. He could now look on these memories without the pangs of rage or guilt that had troubled him at first; he could now think about his friendship with James Potter without feeling the lingering hatred he had held within himself for nearly sixteen years, and without the confusion the memories had first evoked.

He could no longer think of his hatred for the Potter Boy without misgivings. Though he could at least assuage the guilt of his treatment of the Boy for the past five years, with the thought that Potter was as arrogant and spoiled as he had always believed him. That, at least, would not change. Despite his now remembered close friendship with the parents, the child still deserved to be put in his place and he did not regret too many of his past actions.

Occasionally, however, the things he had seen in the Potter boy’s memories during Occlumency training niggled at him. He hadn’t seen much, but what he had seen had been tinged with fear and loneliness. He didn’t dwell on it, though, preferring to continue with his dislike of the boy, and maintain his silent and distant protection, rather than seeking a more open role in the boy’s life.

The memories that began coming through after the students left, were a little more disturbing. He had remembered Lily and James coming to him for help with their desire for a child. He began to remember making potion after potion for the both of them to take, in repeated and futile attempts to allow them to conceive.  He repeatedly saw Lily’s green eyes, watching him, pleading with him, full of longing, sorrow and despair.

Six weeks into the holiday, Severus joined the few staff still residing at Hogwarts over the holidays for breakfast. He went unwillingly, of course, but he was under strict – yet kindly meant – orders from Albus to attend at least one meal with the staff a day, during the summer. The memories, while enlightening, had done little to affect his personality, or his mood.

The table was smaller since it had to accommodate fewer people, and the only chair currently left was situated next to Rubeus Hagrid. Severus scowled, but sat down. In an attempt to alleviate the migraine threatening to set in, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Further memories had assaulted him almost every twenty minutes since waking. It was beginning to wear him down, and he could find no explanation for the sudden increase.

Grunting in response to the chorus of greetings, Severus poured himself a strong black coffee, hoping to wake himself up. In lieu of actually talking to anyone, he busied himself sipping the coffee and buttering some toast.

Halfway through the mug, the conversation around him finally penetrated.

“Aye, she’s an intelligent bird. No doubt about that.” Severus rolled his eyes, Minerva was feeding titbits to a snowy owl that looked suspiciously like Potter’s. “Have you wrapped the present yet, Hagrid?”

“Yeh! Got it righ’ ‘ere! ‘Arry’ll love it!” Hagrid handed the roughly wrapped parcel over to the Scotswoman and she attached it to the owl’s leg. Albus gave him a twinkling glance as he sneered at the display. Teachers sending presents to students! Even if it was The Brat Who Lived To Annoy Him, it stilled grated against his ideals as a teacher.

Pomona and Poppy both cooed at the bird, further disgusting him. He poured himself another mug of coffee; maybe he would die of caffeine overdose before they started praising the Brat himself?

Too late.  He closed his eyes in consternation as the table erupted in conversation about Harry Bloody Potter. Before he could get dragged into it with them, Severus abruptly stood up and left the room with all due haste, taking his coffee with him.

In the blessed silence of his own quarters, another memory assaulted him. He faltered and clutched the wall in support, as the visual and audio overwhelmed his senses for a moment. Well. At least now he knew something he had done resulted in Lily’s pregnancy. Her grinning face and dancing eyes swam before his own for a split second.

“We did it, Severus! We’re pregnant!” Lily fairly danced across his hearth rug, throwing her arms around his neck. He was so astonished at her sudden appearance through his Floo, it took him a second to respond. With a small smile of his own, he wrapped his arms around the smaller figure, hugging her tightly.

“I’m glad for you, Lily.” The young woman took a step back, her small hands still clutching his upper arms, a smile of delight lighting her whole face. He gently stroked her hair out of her eyes and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. “Truly.”

“Severus, you know we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank-you. So much.”

With a shuddering breath, Severus chucked back the last of his coffee and slowly sank into his favourite arm-chair. The migraine set in and he closed his eyes.

***

Harry stared silently at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Other than the bags under his eyes and the yellowing bruise covering most of the left side of his face, he looked much the same as always.  Slowly, gently, he ran his fingertips over his nose again. He couldn’t see it, but there it was – a slight kink to his nose that he’d never felt before. Closing his eyes, he continued the investigation, hesitantly caressing his face, cataloguing the differences he found.

A slightly sharper jaw-line, somewhat higher cheeks, thinner eyebrows and thinner lips all joined the slight kink in his nose. But when he opened his eyes, he could see none of it. Something damned weird was going on. Staring at himself, he realised he had, indeed, continued growing. He was nearly as tall as Ron now despite the lack of nutrition. His shoulders were a little broader and if he didn’t know better, he would say his hands felt more delicate, his fingers longer and more slender. Which was, of course, impossible.

With a snort of confusion, Harry stepped away from the mirror and picked up his cleaning supplies, getting back to the work his aunt had set him. Nothing out of the ordinary, he cleaned the bathroom every day – often having to scrape off any mess Dudley had deliberately left for him. Except that today, it was a little harder to move. Due to his extreme tiredness this morning, Harry had slightly over-cooked Vernon’s breakfast. Vernon had responded by knocking him to the ground and applying his foot to Harry’s torso for a moment or three.

He should have expected it, really, and tried harder to concentrate on what he was doing. But the beating hadn’t been too bad – he had suffered worse – so, once Vernon had left for work, Harry had simply climbed silently to his feet and cleared up, Petunia’s gimlet gaze on him all the while.

After Dudley had come down and eaten the Full English Breakfast Harry had cooked for him, Petunia had order him upstairs to clean the bathroom and once done, he would have to hoover the floors of every room in the house.  

He worked slowly, the pain, tiredness and general lethargy preventing him from working any faster. He also avoided the mirror, attempting to put the confusion to the back of his mind. It took him far longer than usual to get even close to finishing the small room, so long in fact, that Petunia shouted up at him to get a move on before banging the door open herself.

“Stop dawdling, Boy! Get this room finished in the next five minutes, or you will have no dinner!”

Harry sighed as she left, stomping down the stairs.

At least tonight, if she didn’t feed him, he would have something from his friends to look forward to. It was a third night tonight, so he would be allowed to await Hedwig before being locked in the cupboard, and she would undoubtedly provide food of some sort. Simple fear kept Petunia from touching anything Hedwig delivered, and Vernon and Dudley were always in bed long before his owl arrived, so his letters were always delivered. Petunia allowed him to respond, so long as she read the letters first. He couldn’t have sent word to his friends even if he had wanted to.

He finished the bathroom and trudged downstairs to put the cleaning products away and retrieve the hoover. He had considered sending word a few times early on in the holidays, but the lack of sleep and food had dulled his senses somewhat, leaving him unable to slip in hints that Petunia would miss. One of the things she was good at was noticing things no-one wanted her to. Since then, he had resigned himself to his situation.

Harry was finished most of his chores by the time Vernon returned from work, but he received a clout anyway. Dudley was still out with his friends, so Harry had only to cook for his aunt and uncle, though in his current state, even that simple chore was taxing. The scents of pasta and sauce made his mouth water and his stomach grumbled alarmingly. Yet, with Petunia hovering, he couldn’t steal anything.

He sat at the tiny kitchen table as Vernon and Petunia ate in the dining room, with a small bowl of plain pasta from the left-overs; he had managed to slip a little more pasta in than was needed and Petunia had relented, allowing him to eat it. He ate slowly, hoping his stomach wouldn’t rebel at the unaccustomed food and force him to throw it all back up again.  It was a possibility, though; he’d learned how the body reacted to starvation at an early age.

Taking a napkin, he put his own leftovers in a carefully folded parcel and stashed it in the cupboard for later, managing to do it before the Dursleys finished their own meal. Thankfully, when they finished, he was left to his own devices in the kitchen. Petunia only quietly ordered him to tidy up and then get on with his chores. Then she and Vernon disappeared into the living-room where he could hear Vernon pouring himself a glass of whisky.

He was sitting in the cupboard, with the door propped slightly open for light, when the phone-call came. Petunia stepped into the hall and answered; Harry pulled the door a bit more closed and watched.

“Speaking. How may I help you?”

Harry watched as her eyes widened almost comically.

“Dudders? Are you certain? Absolutely certain?”

She gasped slightly, one bony hand rising and resting against her chest.

“O-of course! Thank-you for informing me, Officer.”

Officer? Harry’s eyebrows rose in shock as Petunia put the phone down and stood silently for a moment.  A second later, she took a deep breath and strode back into the living-room. In a fit of self preservation, Harry pulled the door completely closed, hoping they would forget about him.

“WHAT?” Vernon’s voice resounded through the house. Harry moved quietly further into the cupboard, tucking his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. Sounded like Dudley had done something stupid, from the way Vernon’s voice carried.

He jumped as heavy footsteps made their way into the hall, moved to the front door and paused. A moment later the front door slammed and Harry relaxed slightly. He heard nothing else for a long time.

***

Severus sat, a glass of wine in his hand, watching the clock over his hearth. The object was muggle in nature, one of the few muggle objects he had actually kept from his childhood, ostensibly because it told the actual time. In about fifteen minutes, Potter would officially have turned sixteen and, as far as he knew, would be removed from his relatives and taken to The Burrow for the remainder of the summer.

Further memories had been assaulting him all day, effectively rendering him unable to work or to even relax. In a fit of pique, he had completely given up, poured himself some wine and spent the entire afternoon sitting in his favourite armchair, watching the flames or the clock in an increasingly foul mood. He had a fair idea, now, that the last of the memories would arrive by midnight. He wasn’t looking forward to them and felt more than a little trepidation at the prospect, which did nothing to lift his spirits.

Knowing Lily, and after reviewing the memories that had so far been returned to him, he knew the last would be at the very least, shocking. Hence the wine.

Severus was not a great drinker, much preferring to be in control of his mental faculties at all times, but occasionally, if he was becoming too maudlin, or the nightmares struck harder than usual, he would sip at a glass of red in an attempt to calm down and thus aid his sleep.

So he was sitting, staring at the clock, awaiting the end to his months of mental torture.  

The clock struck 11:50 and another memory seeped into his conscious mind.

“Severus?” Lily’s eyes searched his face, “Severus, we’ve tried everything else. Please?”

Severus swept the hair from his eyes and let his face fall into his palms. He didn’t want to do this. It was too dangerous, for all of them, not to mention ethically ambiguous. Even if James consented, he knew he would be unable to look the man in the eye for a long time afterward, if ever again.

Gentle fingers pried his hands away and he found his gaze caught by the sad, green gaze of the only woman he had ever loved.

“I won’t force you into this, Severus. I can only ask.” Her eyes dropped. “All I can do is ask...”

For a long, silent moment, he studied his friend. He watched the firelight dance in her hair as she turned to look at him. Eventually, he took her hands in his own and with a gentle sigh, he consented.

Damn! Severus rubbed his temples, eyes closed against the light of the room. Merlin! Just what had the three of them done, to get Lily pregnant?

With a growl at himself and the memory block Lily had performed, Severus threw himself back into the chair. After a moment, he opened his eyes and began once again glaring at the clock. With a sip of his wine, he mentally assessed the various potions that worked on fertility. There were more than a hundred, each working in different situations. He discounted two thirds of the list with a snort, since most of them were for certain illnesses or for homosexual couples, and began to assess the last third.

As the clock began to strike midnight, he had whittled the list down to a dozen, perhaps less, but it no longer mattered. As the 31st of July began, as Harry officially became sixteen years old, the last of Lily Evans-Potter’s blocks dissolved and he remembered everything.

“Merlin... Lily, what did we do?” Severus rubbed at his eyes. “My son. He is my son. Oh, Merlin.”

He felt drained, his eyes itched and he simply wanted to sleep. He needed to figure out how to deal with this revelation. He needed to figure out how he would keep it from the Dark Lord. He needed to talk to Albus.

Failing that, he needed to talk with Minerva.

Carefully, deliberately, he placed his half filled glass on the table and stood. He went immediately to his personal store and quaffed a simple, yet foul tasting, sobriety potion. Things became much clearer, far more quickly than he would have liked.

With a sudden, cathartic motion, he spun and the potion vial smashed into the fireplace with a resounding crash. “Damn it all, Lily!”

***

Harry jerked awake as the front door slammed shut.

“Vernon?” Petunia’s voice wobbled alarmingly. Harry shifted slightly, hoping, still, that they would continue to ignore him. What time was it? There was no way he could know – he only hoped Hedwig didn’t arrive while Vernon was still up.

“Bailed him out. Little scoundrel. To bed with you, Dudley.”

There was a strain to Vernon’s voice that Harry didn’t like the sound of.

Dudley moved noisily up the staircase and slammed his bedroom door as Vernon and Petunia retreated to the kitchen. Harry listened quietly to the sound of their voices. Vernon sounded very, very angry, though he couldn’t make out any actual words. He tensed as Vernon’s voice rose, and he made out some words. “Burglary!” “Breaking!” “Arrested!” “Court!”

He couldn’t help the smile that claimed his lips. Obviously, Dudley and his mates had been caught red handed by the Cops. Couldn’t have happened to a better gang, he thought ruefully.

Suddenly, the Grandmother clock in the hall began to strike. He counted along with it. Crap. Midnight. Vernon was still up and Hedwig would arrive at any moment. As the last strike rang out, Harry blinked. Something...weird had just happened. His body felt lighter, somehow, like some weight had been lifted from his shoulders – a weight he had never known was there.

He sat straighter, trying to see his hands in the gloom. Too dark. Yet he could see a faint glow, netting his skin – when he looked up, he could see a similar net over the entire interior of the cupboard. He blinked and it was all gone, not even leaving after images.

Weird.

Not good. Obviously, something magical had just happened to him, and he had no idea what it was or what it would do. He didn’t even know if it had been something Dumbledore had set up, or something Voldemort had done. The former confused him, the latter worried him. He sat back and stopped thinking about it. Whatever it was, there wasn’t anything he could do about it right now anyway.

The voices in the kitchen were raised again. Sounded like Petunia, this time. Harry tuned out for the next few minutes, allowing his world to go grey. A squawk roused him and Vernon’s voice startled him, “BOY!”

A mere second later and the door was thrown open and a large, beefy hand grabbed him by the left wrist, twisting it so viciously that Harry yelped as the bones were squeezed together. Vernon pulled him forcefully out of the cupboard and dragged him into the kitchen, throwing him to the floor. Harry was so weak, tired and startled, that he failed to stop his fall and cracked his head on the tiled floor. His vision went briefly white, but he flinched when he caught Vernon’s bulk leaning over him.

“That bloody bird of yours! Control it or I will kill it!”

Harry looked around and up, spotting Hedwig sitting on the top of one of the highest cupboards, her feathers ruffled. Favouring his aching wrist, he climbed slowly to his feet, finally realising that Petunia was sitting in one of the small chairs watching him. Her eyes were red rimmed and she was clutching the front of her blouse.

Harry flinched as Vernon continued to stare at him, but he moved forward and coaxed Hedwig down to his arm. She clicked her beak at him, ruffling her feathers, but stayed calm. “I have to reply.” Harry didn’t look Vernon in the eye, but kept his head lowered.

Vernon grumped, but motioned him to sit at the table. Harry pulled the letter to himself and Hedwig sat on his shoulder – he glanced around and noticed a lumpy package sitting on the side, near the sink. He quickly opened and scanned the letter.

There was a short, sharp clout to the back of his head; Harry was knocked forward over the table, but he caught himself. Vernon growled at him, “Hurry up, Boy.”

Hands shaking, Harry smoothed out the parchment. It was a simple missive from the Weasley’s, wishing him a happy birthday and letting him know that Hermione and her parents were staying at The Burrow for the rest of the summer. It sounded nice, he wished he was there. With his relatives both staring at him, Harry quickly penned a reply, trying to sound as natural as he could.

Once done, he handed the letter to Hedwig, “Please take this to The Burrow, to Ron? Thanks, Hedwig. Stay there tomorrow, get some sleep.” He stroked her feathers gently as he carried her to the window. He lifted her out and with a chirrup, she began her flight.

Harry picked up the package and turned. Petunia had her head resting on her hand, face hidden, free hand still clutching at her chest; Vernon took another swipe at him. Harry dodged and edged out of the room and into his cupboard.

It was a long time before the Dursleys went to bed and once again, Harry didn’t sleep.