The next morning, Severus peeled open his eyes to find that he was rather stiff and sore. He thought about the night before and how he had had a Death Eater meeting; he’d been tortured… again. It was not the first time he had needed medical treatment after a Death Eater meeting, but it certainly was the first time he had to worry about an infant when he was being treated.

Sitting up stiffly, the Potions Master looked about the room to find it empty of everyone save Harry, who was happily snoozing away in his crib, unaware of how much pain his father was in. Getting up, Severus found that the action made him nauseous, but he fought to keep the contents of his stomach in his stomach. But when he was sure that he would be all right and would not get ill, he walked, slowly, over to where the baby was sleeping. Looking down, the stern Death Eater’s heart was melted when he beheld the angelic face of who he was told was his son.

The Potions Master’s heart grew three sizes that day.

Lifting the baby out of the crib ever so carefully, Severus cradled his son in his arms as he sat back down on his bed. Little guy had not given him any trouble last night. In fact, he could not really remember anything about last night after he got away Malfoy Manner. Strange, Severus usually remembered everything...

Looking over at the clock, the wizard realized that it was only four in the morning, much too early for sane people to be awake, but here he was. Sighing, Severus realized that he was going to have to get up soon anyway and start brewing for the Dark Lord. The lunatic was never considerate when it came to personal lives or physically possible tasks. Spoiled brat, the professor snorted to himself.

Setting Harry back down in the crib, Severus decided that he should get a jump on that potion. But as soon as he thought about it, he began to snicker insanely at the thought of actually jumping in a potion. No one could do that…unless they wanted to die or something. But then realizing where his thoughts had gone to, he was disgusted with himself and vowed to never have such utterly idiotic, frivolous thoughts again! Well…if he could help it. Lately his sanity had been slipping…a lot…

Turning around to place a monitoring charm over Harry, the Potions Master went to work, knowing that if he did not get done on time, there’d be hell to pay, and this time, he could not bear it himself, as the Dark Lord would surely go after Harry now too.

*******

At the breakfast table, Severus scowled at anyone that happened to look his way, be it man, woman, or child. He was always grumpy after a night of Death Eater meetings and after being tortured. Can’t imagine why, he thought moodily as he sent a wicked glare over to a Hufflepuff girl that had pink ribbons in her hair.

She dissolved into tears.

Snape smiled.

“Severus,” Minerva’s voice grated on the Potions Master’s ear and he found it was quite annoying.

“What?” he snapped, but the effect was lost as he was bouncing Harry on his knee, sending the child into a giggle fit.

Raising an eyebrow to the behavior, Minerva tried hard to ignore her Gryffindor student, but found that she was smiling none the less. No one could resist the power of Harry’s cute apparently. The baby was manipulative. Severus couldn’t be prouder.

“Severus,” Minerva tried again to force a straight face. “I have been wonder, as well as Poppy, how Harry’s physical development is coming along.”

Sneering, Snape turned away from his co-worker in resentment. “Obviously he’s fine or he wouldn’t be a live... or giggling, would he?”

Although it had been over a week, it was still strange to hear the dark Head of Slytherin commonly use words like “giggling” or “nursing” or “nappies”. It had been assumed that the Potions Master did not know the definitions of such words. To hear that deep, sinister baritone casually (more or less) use such words really did shock everyone who heard, no matter how many times they had heard him say it before.

“I did not mean like that,” the Transfiguration professor frowned, knowing that she had in some manner offended the younger man. “I meant how has his motor skills been developing? How much does he crawl? Has he even tried to walk yet?”

“Crawl?” Severus blinked. Awe yes, baby’s were known for their crawling, or so he had read. He had quite forgotten about that aspect of raising a child. The whole process of learning to walk had escaped the wizard as he was use to getting children that could at least walk when they came to school. He had forgotten about having to teach someone to walk. Although he believed he would be an excellent teacher as he himself had been walking for almost thirty –four years.

“Yes, Severus, how does H-Evan, crawl,” Minerva rolled her eyes.

The Potions Master scowled at the witch’s almost slip. “I do not know that he does crawl,” he did admit though. “I have never seen him do so.”

“What?” McGonagall looked as though she had swallowed a bug…only different. “Not seen him crawl? I thought you kept him by you all day?”

“I do,” Snape hissed defensively, noticing that the Toad was looking over at him now too.

“And you have never once seen him crawl? Not even when you set him on the floor at night while you work?” the Gryffindor woman was relentless.

Becoming somewhat embarrassed, Severus sat up straighter and stiffer than he usually did, giving off the sense of angry pride. “I don’t put him on the floor,” he scoffed at the woman. “Do you know how many germs are on the floor? He could find something unsuitable to eat, or get sick from something. I would never put him on the floor. Besides, the floor is stone and it would hurt him to crawl all over it even with the carpet on top.”

By the end of his speech, Severus instantly knew that he had done something wrong by the expressions on the other professors’ faces. He did not know what they were thinking, but Dumbledore, at least, was thinking of how protective the younger wizard had become over his charge. Was Severus acting like this because he had the knowledge that Harry was his true son? Would it have been different if Dumbledore had not told the other of his hidden child? Would Severus still be acting like this even if he still thought Harry was a Potter? The Headmaster did not know, but he was almost certain now that it was going to be extremely difficult to keep his Potions Master away from the Gryffindor boy once things got back to normal.

“So…what do you do with him all the time?” Filius asked after a moment. “Do you…you know…just hold him all the time? Carry him around?”

Feeling like a schoolboy again, his face even getting hot, Severus glared at them all and was satisfied that the majority quickly turned away from him in fear. “I do,” he nodded once, trying to act as though he did not see anything wrong with it, which was true. “He’s just a baby, after all.”

The image of Severus Snape, Potions Master, Head of Slytherin, dotting mother was not something that the others could grasp at the moment, but there were a few that could not help but smile into their serviettes or hands at the image. Who knew Snape had a heart after all? Had not all the students complained that the man was too harsh, not understanding? Who knew that it would only take a baby to change such a sour attitude?

Almost running out of the door once breakfast was over, Severus stormed down to the dungeons in a rage, little Harry sleeping in his arms. How dare they try to critique his parenting! What did they know about children anyway? Everyone else here either had never had children of their own or they were too ancient to remember what it was like to raise a child, especially such a young child like Harry. Who were they to judge him? He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Harry was still alive, wasn’t he? He was giggling, eating, pooping, slobbering just like any other baby, and by Severus’s standards, he was doing a pretty damn good job! He didn’t even have time to get use to the fact of fatherhood; it had been thrusted upon him. I’d like to see them do any better, he thought angrily.

Potions class was not fun for anyone that day. Snape was in such a horrid mood after the night before and breakfast, that he ended up failing just about every student on the spot when he walked around to check on their potions. He would hurl vicious insults, such as, “What do you keep in the place where your brain is supposed to be?” or “Are there any limits to your ineptitude?”

One little Gryffindor first year was having a particularly difficult day and Snape smelled the fear like a hungry jackal. “What is this?” he barked after silently gliding up behind the boy.

The child jumped so badly that he nearly knocked over his cauldron. Snape smiled on the inside. “P-please, sir, I’m trying!” he looked up with watery brown eyes.

“Do you know what ‘try’ starts with?” the Potions Master glared down at the child, who was shaking by this time.

“A ‘t-t’, sir?” the boy whimpered slightly.

“That’s right,” the master wizard sneered. “And do you know what else starts with ‘t’?” his voice dropped into a menacing whisper.

“I-I don’t k-know, sir,” the child admitted dejectedly.

“You’re grade!” the Potions Master hissed, before waving his wand to banish the ruined concoction of…mess… out of the child’s cauldron before stalking away. As he walked away, he said over his shoulder, “‘Tears’ also begin with ‘t’, Mr. Creedy, and I do not want them in my class, so get out.”

 Little John Creedy grabbed his things and ran out of the class so fast that he just seemed a blur as he went out the door. The rest of the class did little better under the hateful attention of the Potions Master, but then again, Severus did so enjoy their terror, their wide-eyed expressions when he glided past them. And, of course, it meant that if anyone of these little nose pickers had a problem, they wouldn’t come crying to him about it in the future. He couldn’t give the first years a bad impression, now could he? He did not want them to think he had gone soft now that he had a baby. If he lost control, Snape knew that he would have to work very hard to get it back, and frankly, he did not have the energy to fight at this time. For a moment, a picture of Stalin ran through his head, but he shook it off. He, at least, wasn’t killing anyone…yet…Dumbledore would probably be the first if such an event were to happen. .. but that was just imagining. Severus would never kill the old man...

That day at lunch, Severus shunned the Great Hall and instead went into his chambers. Harry gurgled and talked nonsense words all the way down cheerily, happy to be in his dada’s arms. He liked being in his daddy’s arms, for the view was so much better from up there. Harry could see everything. His dada was so great because he protected Harry from all of the other scary people that he had seen. His daddy always came to his rescue when he was scared and there were mean people about. His daddy was perfect.

If Severus had known his son’s thoughts he probably would have been in a better mood. But as it was, he was not in a very fine mood, and instead mumbled under his breath, too low for Harry to have ever distinguished one word from an other, so the baby was soothed by the baritone rumbling of his father. How could they all expect him to know a baby Harry’s age was supposed to be crawling?

When he got to the door of his chamber, Severus paused as a thought struck him. He had seen Harry crawl before, the very first day he had found the boy as a baby. The little trouble maker had crawled onto his robes and had proceeded to tug on them.

Opening the door, Severus found himself very much relieved with remembering that information. Without really knowing it, he had thought he had failed the child by not helping him crawl, and therefore had put Harry a step back in his development. Minerva was such a nose prod, he thought angrily. He did know what was best for his own son, for Merlin’s sake!

Walking into his lab, Severus shifted Harry onto his hip as he went in to see how his potion was doing thus far. It would have to simmer for at least another five hours before he would have to add in some other ingredients as well, but so far it looked pretty good. He would have to check over the instructions again even though he knew he was right. After all, it would not do to make a mistake for the Dark Lord!

As Snape looked over his potion, Harry began to fuss. Looking down at the little wiggle-worm in his arms, Severus frowned. Harry had never been unwilling to sit still with him before, and it frustrated the father more than he would have liked. So the child was showing that he too thought that Snape was not doing a good job raising? But before his offense could solidify, Severus realized the child was simply wanting to touch one of the beakers that was sitting on the table.

“No, Harry,” Snape said sternly. “That is not for touching.” The child looked up at him and blinked before smiling widely.

“You think that’s funny?” the Potions Master asked sternly, sitting the baby down on a table to look him in his beautiful green eyes. “Well, I’d wager you won’t when you break it and cut yourself all up and you’re bleeding everywhere and your cuts sting and then you get them infected and can’t find anything to put on them and then, since the cut will be so bad, you’ll die of infection!” By the end of his morbid rambled, Severus found himself near panic, while the baby simply smiled on.

Sighing, the Potions Master took several deep breaths. “Well, I suppose I was being a little dramatic, wasn’t I?” Harry laughed and clapped his chubby hands. Snorting, but unable to keep that grin off his face, the Slytherin shook his head. “At least I was entertaining to you,” he rolled his eyes.  Again, Harry grinned.

Picking up the baby, Severus realized that the little guy had put on some weight since coming to him. When he had first held the baby, Snape was certain that the little bundle of terror had not weighed as much as he did at the moment. An evil smirk appeared on the man’s face as he looked down at his son. “Careful now Harry, or you’ll be getting too heavy for your broom to carry you, let alone me carrying you.” Predictably, little Harry laughed.

Chuckling as well, Severus went and sat down on the couch, his son resting in his lap comfortably. Although taking care of a baby was just about the most stressful, aggravating, inconvenient job Severus had ever had, including spying, he found it becoming more and more- dare he say it- enjoyable. Getting into the swing of things, he felt like Harry was getting less and less annoying as time went on. Perhaps Harry had not been such a bad kid after all, perhaps he just needed to stop acting like a Potter and be left alone to act like a Snape. Looking down at the cooing baby in nothing less than affection, Severus smiled softly as he thought he could see some Snape features presenting themselves in the boy’s face.

Indeed, for besides the green eyes, Harry did seem to have inherited his own black hair. The baby’s skin was still pale, but Severus could tell that it was not going to end up as pale as his. From the looks of it, the Potions Master would not be surprised if it turned out to be a mix of his and Lily’s skin tones. Studying the little features more intently, Severus could also tell that Harry was going to end up looking a lot like... him. It was slightly unnerving thinking that James Potter’s clone was going to turn into his clone instead…and yet it was oh so satisfying.

“Well,” he sighed after his pleasing inspection. “I suppose I should feed you before…” but he trailed off when he noticed something on Harry’s forehead…Or rather, something that was missing from Harry’s forehead.

Sitting up straighter, sitting Harry’s up as well, Severus pushed back the baby’s soft black hair, even as Harry leaned into the touch. Ignoring the sentimental feelings that sprung in his chest, like normal, Severus studied the baby’s forehead and as if for the first time, noticed that the infamous Potter scar was gone! The curse scar was simply… simply… gone!

Taken aback, Snape stared down at the baby in his lap as though seeing him for the first time. What had happened to the scar? Even de-aged, the scar should have remained as Harry had just been turned into a baby for the time being. Unless…

Unless Harry had not simply turned into a baby, but had reverted back into the baby he had been! Back into the little child he had been before Lily and James had died, before the time that fateful Halloween night. There truly was no Harry Potter anymore…there was no chosen one.

Staring down at his son in the utmost shock, the baby simply giggled up at his father’s face, as though he were taking his revenge out on the world for having laid all their hopes on him in the first place.