After another exhausting night with Harry sleeping for only a couple of hours at a time between fearing the Dark Lord would attack again and waking up to vomit, Severus was ready to down a sleeping potion and sleep the day away, but he couldn't. Harry needed him for day two of the week-long chemo cycle. So instead of seeking his bed once Harry fell back asleep at daybreak, Severus summoned a pepper-up potion from the kitchen where he was brewing a strong pot of coffee. He downed the potion the second it flew into his hands, following it up with a pain potion.

Harry's first real Occlumency lesson had gone well. The boy had achieved a meditative state, which had kept him calm enough to sleep for four hours afterwards, two hours more than any other period throughout the night. The respite had given Severus time to finally get the salve for his Dark Mark, but by then the searing pain was gone leaving behind a constant low-grade burning. No doubt the lingering pain was a gift from the Dark Lord for aiding Harry during the mental attack.

Sighing, the Potions Master unbuttoned his shirt sleeve and rolled it up to reveal the hated tattoo. An uncomfortable heat radiated off the angry red mark. He needed to apply more salve, but once his coffee was finished, Severus planned to shower, making another application pointless until afterwards. For now a cold compress from the charmed freezer cabinet would have to do. He pressed the cold compress to his Mark, relaxing as the compress helped to ease the burning.

Severus walked over to the table to pick up a scrap piece of parchment and never-out quill to start on the grocery list. He returned to the kitchen with his supplies, setting down the parchment on top of the island only to find the long forgotten envelope from WCS sitting in front of him.

How had he forgotten about that letter? He prided himself on remembering the littlest details even through suffering the Cruciatus curse from the Dark Lord. Yet in his worry over the mental attack and what it could possibly mean, Severus had forgotten about the letter that he remained puzzled over.

Summoning his glasses, Severus broke the seal and pulled out the letter inside the envelope. It was written in a neat script, so neat and precise that he knew could only come from a charmed dictation quill. With his rimless frames in place, he held up the letter, more than curious as to what WCS had to say to Severus Prince.

Mr. Prince,

It has come to Wizarding Child Services notice that there has been an attempted breach of your parental rights concerning the minor wizard, Hadrian Pax Alexander Prince. On June 19th 1996, WCS received forms requesting Severus Tobias Snape be assigned medical proxy rights for said minor child. Approval of the medical proxy rights has been denied. However, we strongly encourage you to talk to your child and Severus Snape in regards to the matter.

Sincerely,

Althea Kingston, Head of Wizarding Child Services

Please do not respond to this automated message. All concerns must be dealt with in person at the Ministry of Magic. Proper identification is required, and all wizards and witches may be subject to magical signature scans to prove his or her identity.

Severus dropped the parchment, backing away from the island. His eyes were wide in astonishment, and his hands trembled worse than after suffering the Cruciatus curse. The letter had to be fake or tempered with. Its claim was preposterous. He had never been with Lily like that. Never. They simply couldn't have a child together, much less the boy known as Harry Potter.

But then why was WCS claiming he had a son? WCS records couldn't be tampered with. It was the only department where files were exclusively created and updated with magic to prevent false claims against a child meaning there had to be a Hadrian Prince as long as the letter was legit.

Severus paced in front of the menacing letter. There were two possibilities. The letter could actually be from WCS in which case Severus didn't know what to think. The likely, more probable possibility was the letter was some kind of joke courtesy of the Weasley twins or some other miscreant. Yet, the letter and seal looked too authentic to be a mere fake.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Severus took a deep breath before turning towards the island. Perhaps he was more tired than he thought and hallucinated the contents of the letter. It wouldn't surprise him if he had drifted off for a few seconds. The Potions Master cracked open his left eye. The blasted letter still sat on the island unfolded and intimidating, like it was waiting to jump up and hex him.

He could do this. He was Severus Snape, the professor known to make first year Hufflepuffs burst into tears with a single glance. Slowly, Severus stepped up to the island, grasping the edge with his trembling hands. On the count of three he would look down and read the letter. One...two...three, his eyes scanned the letter again. The words were exactly the same as they had been minutes before. 

Severus cursed as his hands' grip on the edge of the ebony granite countertop tightened. He was so sure it had been some kind of delusion his mind conjured during a slip into dreams. Since he knew he had never been intimate with Lily, there was one last possibility. The letter was a fake, and there would be hell to pay for whoever sent it.

But how exactly was Severus going to catch the culprit? He didn't even know what the owl that delivered the letter looked like. His bets were on the Weasley twins. The two redheads had caused more trouble for him than even Harry had, occurrence wise anyway. But without proof how could Severus be sure? He wouldn't retaliate unless he was positive he knew whom the culprit or culprits were. After all, Severus didn't want the little prank to spread to others' ears. For now, he'd have to wait for clues.

Content with waiting for the prankster or pranksters to make their next move, Severus poured himself a cup of steaming coffee. He took the cup with him to the entrance chamber to retrieve the day's post. His morning wouldn't be complete without scanning The Daily Prophet over his cup of coffee, sneering at the ridiculous claims of the so-called journalists.

Instead of his post, Severus found Minerva washing her hands at the sink. "Minerva?" The Potions Master wondered what his colleague was doing at his quarters so early in the morning and wondered why he hadn't heard her floo in.

"Good morning, Severus," Minerva greeted him as she dried her hands off. "I had hoped to slip in without waking Harry. I'm sorry to just drop in, but I thought that perhaps you'd like a bit of a break for a few hours."

"Do I look like I need help?" Severus sneered. He couldn't help it. Between his sleepless night and the prank letter, his patience had all but run out. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of one teenager."

"Yes, I know and I do not mean to imply otherwise," Minerva said, her eyes scanning his body from head to toe much like a mother would. Severus crossed his arms across his chest, mindful to keep his coffee from spilling. "Are you sure you wouldn't like a few hours to sleep? You look like you haven't slept in days."

"I assure you I am fine," he snapped. Severus had keyed Minerva into the wards set on his floo in case of an emergency, not so she could drop by anytime she felt like it. He hated the invasion of privacy. It was bad enough Miss Adamson dropped by every few hours. Severus wouldn't have Minerva doing the same.

"I shall come by later when Harry is awake to give him his quills then if that is agreeable to you," Minerva said, walking back towards the floo.

"That will be fine," Severus nodded, taking a sip of his coffee to avoid the smile that threatened to creep onto his face for getting rid of Minerva.

"Oh, and Severus," the Deputy Headmistress turned back to him as she remembered. "A Ministry owl arrived with a letter for you yesterday. I sent it down with the rest of your post. I wanted to make sure you got it. It looked important."

A Ministry owl? Severus froze, his hands beginning to tremble again.

"On second thought Minerva, I'll take you up on your offer. I could do with a break. I forgot I need to floo the Specialist a blood sample, and then I should brew the wolf's potion," he said, his voice calm and steady though inside he was reeling.

"Of course. I'll be glad to sit with Harry for as long as you need. I can just as easily tend to my paperwork here as I can in my office," Minerva stated with a forced smile.

Severus knew he hadn't fooled his colleague, but at the moment he didn't care. He had answers to seek, and a potion to brew. One rather simple potion would tell him all he needed to know, to prove the prank was just that, a prank.

"Come in," Severus ushered Minerva into his quarters and to Harry's room after casting several charms on her paperwork to ensure that it didn't introduce any germs into his quarters. "He's been asleep for about an hour now. If you're lucky he'll sleep for an hour longer," he whispered as Minerva sat down in the chair beside the child's bed.

Harry lay curled up in a ball on his side, his skin soaked with perspiration despite Severus casting a freshening charm on the boy an hour earlier. The prednisone caused nasty night sweats and while freshening charms helped temporarily, it was a losing battle. Still, Severus cast another freshening charm over Harry, determined the child be as comfortable as possible as he slept.

"Is he alright?" Minerva said, her eyes following the tubes from where they snaked out from under the child's duvet up to the infusion pump.

"He will be," he sighed walking towards the bathroom to wash his hands. It was hard to see the child suffering through the intensive chemotherapy regimen. The second anti-emetic hadn't helped and Miss Adamson had disconnected him from it during the night. They were going to try the last one this morning once she obtained it from the hospital pharmacy along with bringing the necessary equipment to give Harry a PCA pump.

Severus refused to think about the possibility that the sick child was his son. It was impossible. Harry was a Potter through and through. However, despite his refusal to think about the possibility, Severus' hands shook worse than after suffering from the Dark Lord's Cruciatus curse.

After thoroughly washing his hands, Severus grabbed a pair of gloves before returning to Harry's room where he pulled out the necessary items to draw blood from the boy's Hickman. He brought the items over to the rolling tray beside the boy's bed. Carefully, the Potions Master peeled back the duvet and fished the unused lumen out from Harry's tank top with trembling hands.

"Professor?" Harry mumbled, his eyes cracking open.

"Go back to sleep," Severus whispered as he put on the gloves and assembled the little mechanism that allowed him to draw blood from the catheter before moving to Harry's Hickman to remove the positive pressure adapter. "I'm just drawing blood for some tests."

He tried as hard as he could to keep his hands steady, but they were failing him. His hands continued to shake throughout the tedious, but necessary process. The Potions Master cleaned the catheter hub with two alcohol pads, and then connected the mechanism to the line.

"You're shaking," Harry pointed out as he pushed the first phial into the mechanism and filled it, removing it to replace it with another empty phial. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong," Severus assured the boy. "I'm just tired," he lied, inwardly cursing his hands for refusing to stay steady. After the phial was filled, he clamped the lumen and removed the mechanism before once again cleaning the hub with two alcohol pads.

"Are you sure?" Harry asked as Severus attached a new positive pressure adapter.

"Positive," he nodded, unclamping the lumen and flushing the line with first saline and then heparin before finally clamping the lumen again.

"You're wearing your glasses," the boy stated, his eyes blinking rapidly.

"Headache," Severus said in reference to his glasses. He did have a headache, but he had forgotten about them after seeing Minerva in his entrance chamber. Always self-deprecating when it came to his appearance, Severus didn't wish to give people another reason to comment on his looks, and never wore his reading glasses in front of people.

"They look good," Harry nodded his approval. Severus rolled his eyes. The boy didn't even have his own glasses on and his eyesight was horrible without them. How could the boy tell if his glasses looked good or not? "Can you put some more eye drops into my eyes for me? They're starting to itch again."

Another side effect that had started overnight was Harry's dry and itchy eyes.  Severus had let Harry try to put the drops in himself, but it proved to be an interesting experiment with most of the drops ending up outside of Harry's eyes. It seemed that without his glasses Harry's depth perception was a little off, and they both agreed it was easier and safer if Severus applied the eye drops after the boy nearly poked his own eye out.

"Let me get the bottle," the Potions Master nodded, stepping away from Harry's bedside to dispose of his gloves and supplies. Severus retrieved the small bottle of eye drops and returned to Harry where the boy already had his head tilted up, waiting for him to put a drop into each eye for him. He couldn't hide his shaking hands from Harry since the boy could see them, but he could make sure the drops went into Harry's eyes by being extra careful. Severus squeezed a drop into Harry's left eye first and let the boy blink his eyes a few time before moving to his right eye.

"Thanks," Harry said, rolling back onto his side and pulling the duvet over his shoulder.

"Do you need anything else?"

"No," the child answered his eyes starting to droop shut.

"Let me get your morning meds before you go back to sleep. Professor McGonagall is here and is going to sit with you for a little bit while I brew a potion," Severus said, almost forgetting the stern professor had been in Harry's room the entire time. He hadn't heard a sound come from her since Harry woke.

"She is?" Harry looked around.

"I'm right here, Mr. Potter," Minerva said, stepping out from behind him and squeezing Harry's hand.

"Oh, hi Professor," the boy yawned.

Severus trekked to the warded cabinet in the dining nook to retrieve Harry's morning medications while the boy was busy with greeting Minerva. He put the pills into a little plastic cup and brought them into the bedroom for the boy to take along with a fresh glass of water.

"Here," he handed over the medications and water to Harry.

With a sigh, Harry began the process of swallowing the multitude of pills, two at a time. Once finished, the child handed the empty cup and glass back to him and slid back down to catch a few more hours of sleep. The Potions Master banished both items to the kitchen.

"The basin," Severus pointed to the ceramic object sitting on the nightstand, "is for when he vomits. Be sure to scourfigy it after use even though it's self-cleaning. If you happen to get any on you or if Harry does, you'll need to clean it up as soon as possible and clean the area thoroughly. His bodily fluids contain chemo residue, and chemotherapy is harmful to skin. Let me know if it happens when I return."

Minerva nodded, her eyes unsure and worried.

"He's fine," he reassured her, surprised by Minerva's reaction. "Miss Adamson will be stopping by in a couple hours, but I should be done by then. If Harry's hungry, there's freeze pops in the kitchen or there's bread for toast. And if you or Harry need anything, I'll be in my lab and don't hesitate to send for me."

"I'm sure I can manage," Minerva smiled a thin smile as she pulled out her paperwork.

"Of course," Severus felt torn. He didn't want to leave Harry, but he had to know. He wouldn't be able to think of anything else until the paternity potion was brewed, and he had his answers.

"I'll be right down the hall if you need me," Severus whispered to the child, the too-thin fragile child that could be his child, his own flesh and blood. Tucking the duvet around the boy's shoulders, Severus ran his hand through the thick mop of hair before forcing himself down the hall and into his private lab, the phials of bloods that could potentially change everything tucked safely into his pants pocket.

Once inside his lab, Severus took a few deep, calming breaths. He had to calm down if he was going to brew the potion correctly. The Potions Master retrieved a worn text from a shelf near the door where he kept the texts he referenced most often. It wouldn't be the first time Severus had brewed the paternity potion, but he hadn't brewed it in years, and it was not one that he had memorized because it only had one use and Severus had never needed its use for himself. He flipped through the pages until he came to the correct page. The potion took up both sides of the book, ingredients on the left side and procedure on the right. Only eight ingredients were used in the potion, and the whole process took under an hour.

Severus gathered the ingredients from the shelves that lined the room where each ingredient was alphabetized and labeled. As he started crushing up daisy petals, he waved the flame on beneath the cauldron set on his workbench. The chopping, crushing, and dicing soothed him, and Severus found himself immersed into making his potion perfect, until it came time for the final steps anyway.

After stirring the pink potion clockwise twenty times, the Potions Master pulled out his stirring rod to wait for the potion to lose its pink color and turn completely clear. All he had left to do was add Harry's blood first, stir counter-clockwise three times then five times right, before adding his own blood and waiting for the potion to turn color. Red indicated a parent-child relationship while black indicated a negative result.

The potion became clear and with shakier hands than he had ever brewed with, Severus uncorked the phial of Harry's blood and added three drops into the potion before resealing the phial and stirring the potion. One last step remained, one last chance to back out of finishing the potion and remaining oblivious to the answers that lay before him.

Picking up the sterilized knife from the workbench, Severus pressed the blade to his left index finger and made a tiny cut. He squeezed three drops of blood from his finger into the cauldron, holding his breath the entire time. He spun away from the cauldron as the last drop hit the surface of the potion. Severus couldn't endure standing there and watching the potion turn color. Exhaling, the Potions Master whispered a healing charm over his finger.

The potion would've changed by now. It only took a few seconds for results, but Severus couldn't bring himself to turn back around quite yet. If it were red, Severus didn't know what to do. He didn't even know how it could be possible or where he'd need to look for answers. More importantly, what would it do to the tentative trust he had developed with the boy? Would Harry hate him for having to grow up with those horrible Muggles? He didn't know the first thing in how to be a father, and yet there was a possibility he was the father of a very sick child, one that could very well die from cancer. But before Severus could even start to seek answers, he needed the most important answer, the one that the potion sitting behind him was holding.

With his eyes closed, Severus turned around. He could do this. It was only a matter of opening his eyes and determining if the color before him was red or black. Any four-year-old could read the results. There was no mistaking the two colors, and he knew he had brewed the potion perfectly. Mustering up courage, enough to confuse the Sorting Hat to put him into Gryffindor, Severus opened his eyes, unprepared for the results before him.

Red.