No, Harry wouldn't take this well at all, but if he was sensible then he would get over it. It was this mindset that Severus had set himself into as Harry walked through his office door and plopped down into a visitor's chair.

"You said earlier you wanted me to come down. Guess what? Draco says that I'm a direct descendant of Gryffindor! He found my mum's name at a bottom of a list in the Library in some old book... he seemed disgusted but I think it's great!"

"Harry, I wanted to talk to you about something," Severus interjected in a brief pause where Harry seemed to think for a moment.

"Yeah?"

Severus came around to the front of his desk and said, "It is my wish that you no longer play Quidditch."

Harry looked at him for a moment and seemed to be thinking about it, and then he burst out laughing. "You had me going there for a minute. Quit Quidditch! I'm team Captain, I can't just quit even if I wanted to, which I don't," he added in for clarification at his father's serious look.

"This is not a joking matter. After what happened to you during the last game I feel it an unnecessary risk. It is foolish to play with your life in such a way."

Harry didn't feel like laughing anymore. He looked straight into his fathers eyes and said, "I'm not quitting. It's not foolish and it's not that big of a risk. I'm good at it and I haven't been too seriously hurt yet."

"Yet being the key word. You weren't breathing when we got to you and you had a broken leg, two broken ribs, and a broken wrist. You could have broken your neck or back, things that are not easily fixable and which often lead to death."

"Yeah, well it's not going to happen." Harry said it as fact. "I've a worse chance of getting kidnapped by Voldemort himself than dying of Quidditch. My team is counting on me. Or do you not want me to play anymore because we've only got one more game against Slytherin for the championship in the spring?" Harry didn't want to believe that he was more loyal to the Slytherins than to his own son, but the thought had crossed his mind.

"That is not the reason. I do not wish to see you hurt or dead. You will quit Quidditch. I have already talked to Minerva about it."

"Oh, and she just agreed did she? I am 17 you know. You're not even my legal guardian!" Harry was suddenly angry and almost shouting. Why was he trying to just but into his life again and tell him what to do?

"She said that you yourself must resign because you are 17." Why couldn't the stubborn boy just see that it was for his own good that he wanted this? Did he have no consideration at all for his father's feelings?

"Yeah, well like I said, it's not going to happen. You can't just come into my life after all these years and try to protect me! I'm an adult now and you can't force me to do anything!" Even as he said it he felt as a child, insisting that he was old enough to have things his own way. He almost felt like stomping his foot in frustration but resisted the urge to do so.

"Harry," Severus tried to soften his voice, to not let the agitation seep through, but it was anyway. "You can either quit Quidditch, or..." he trailed away, unsure if he wanted to tread into this territory and risk what little relationship they had.

"Or what? Going to stop being my father?"

When Severus didn't answer, Harry's suspicions were confirmed, and he was terrified for a moment before anger overtook him and he stood up.

"I hate you!" He shouted it, pointing his finger angrily at the man who seemed intent on making his life a living hell. "And if you don't want to be my father then you can just get the hell out of my life and stay there!" He turned and stormed off, slamming the door to the Potion Master's office hard.

Severus stood there mutely, angry and sad and relieved all at once. The fact that he felt relieved of some burden sickened him and he sat down in the chair that Harry had just occupied. What was wrong with him? He had reveled in the fact that he had a son earlier, and now he was relieved? Confused in his feelings, and wanting Harry to come back and talk about it some more, he ran a hand through his hair and laid his head back against the chair. He supposed he'd have a long time to think about it before Harry ever spoke to him again, if he did at all.

* * *

Harry punched a wall in the boy's dormitory and then punched it again and again until Ron walked in a moment later and stared at him.

"What is it?"

Hand aching Harry gave the wall a good kick and then fell back onto his bed.

"I hate him," Harry said. "He told me I had to quit Quidditch."

Ron gave a short laugh and said, "We'll you're not going to, are you?"

Harry didn't say anything and Ron came over to where he lay on top of the maroon covers. "Harry? You're not are you?"

"He said he wouldn't be my father if I didn't."

"What? That's ridiculous!"

Nodding, hand over his eyes Harry said, "Yeah, that's my life. Ridiculous. I finally get a... parent. Somebody who cares for me, and it turns out they don't care at all. Your mum and dad would never tell you they'd stop being your parents if they were angry, would they?"

Ron thought on it. "They came close with Percy when he told them that they were disgusting hanging around Muggleborns, but they never did say it. I don't think they would. If Percy came back I'm pretty sure they would want him to come home."

Harry sighed. This wasn't making him feel any better to know that his father wasn't like other parents... that he didn't want Harry bad enough to just give in and let him play Quidditch.

"He doesn't mean that much to you to quit playing, does he?"

There was silence for a short while before Harry said, "I guess I don't even want him to be my dad if he doesn't care all that much about me. Story of my life... nobody cares." Harry rolled over onto his side and after nothing more was forthcoming, Ron stood up and left. Harry spent the weekend in bed and wouldn't even get up for Ginny.

* * *

Monday morning Ginny and Hermione dragged Harry out of bed and insisted that he eat something and go to class. He didn't eat but he did go to Charms, deciding that he would skip Potions. He didn't think he could stand to go back to calling Snape ‘professor' without thinking about him secretly as ‘dad' in his head, and he didn't want to think of somebody who didn't care about him as dad.

"Just bring the homework to me after," Harry insisted when Hermione tried to drag him down the hall towards the dungeons by his hand and he resisted.

"No, NEWTS are coming and we start NEWT preparation today! You're going to miss it!"

"Just bring me the notes."

"Skipping?" Draco walked up on the scene as Harry hunkered down, holding onto a stair railing so that Hermione could drag him no further.

"Tell him he has to go Draco," Hermione half ordered him.

Draco frowned. "What happened now? It's not like he's told you to quit Quidditch or something..." Harry shot him a look and he finished with, "oh."

"I'll take it from here," Draco said as Hermione gave one last tug and failed. She stood up straight, huffed, and walked off, muttering about boys and games and homework.

"Did he really?"

Harry stood up straight and nodded. "Said he wouldn't be my dad if I didn't."

"He actually said that? Out loud?"

Harry thought on it. "In not so many words, but yes."

"I didn't think he was like that," Draco said. "I always thought he was different than my dad. I used to lay in my room after my dad got me or something and wish uncle Sev. Was my dad instead. Guess that wouldn't have mattered huh."

"At least your dad never told you he'd disown you," Harry pointed out as he leaned against the wall and let his head fall back to it.

"You don't think so huh? When I refused to spy on you for him in fourth year he told me he'd chuck me out on the street if I didn't. And last year when I hinted that I didn't want to join with... him, and his friends, he nearly killed me. You don't even want to know about this last summer."

"He really did those things?"

Draco shrugged. "I'd rather not think about it, and truth be known, I'd still rather have your dad than mine..." he held up two hands and pretended like he was weighing something. "No Quidditch, or join the Dark Lord... seems he's the better of the two choices of dad to me."

"Yeah, well you take him then because I can't handle knowing he doesn't really want me. If I go crawling back there he'll do it again and again whenever he wants his way, and I'll know every time that he doesn't really care at all."

Sighing Draco said, "I guess I'll bring your work to you then... don't imagine you want to be down there."

"I just can't be. Hermione doesn't understand."

"Nope. Girls never do." He gave Harry a last look and headed off to Potion's.

* * *

It agitated him somewhat that Harry was being so stubborn. He'd skipped three days of Potions now and his homework had turned up half done each time in the hands of Draco or Hermione. The boy who lived to irritate was trying to get his own way by trying to work his way back to being a thorn in his side.

Severus sat grading in his office with one hand holding his head up, steaming over Harry and finding himself unable to concentrate on his work. It didn't help that he was grading Harry's paper and it had just stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence as the last two papers had. Was it so impossible to see how much Severus cared for him? Was it such an impossible request to stop playing a dangerous game with his life? The thought that Harry would be sensible about all of this had long since vanished, and Severus grew even more angry remembering that his son was so spoiled that he always just expected to get his way.

There was a knock at his office door and he told whoever was on the other side to enter, hoping it was Harry. It wasn't.

Severus looked up and was surprised to find Ronald Weasley standing at his office door. What was he doing there? He had stopped taking Potions after he had passed his Owls in fifth year.

"Don't just stand there Weasley, come in and sit down."

"I don't intend to stay," Ron told him flatly. He stepped inside and shut the door for privacy, and then he turned and stared the Potion's Master down.

"You can throw me out or give me as many detentions as you want for what I'm about to say, but you'd better listen good because I'm tired of you hurting my friend. Harry deserves better than you, but you're all he's got."

Severus stared at him and tried not to jump up and wallop the red head in front of him for telling him what to do. Before he could think more on it, Ron continued.

"I don't think you're a good influence on him, and I think that he's got rotten luck being stuck with a lousy father, but Harry's tried to convince me that's not true over and over. Just when I think that he might be right, you go and prove him wrong. What kind of father tells his son he's got a choice between something he loves, and losing his father? Not a father at all. Harry's been laying around in bed depressed, skipping classes, and hardly talking to anybody, hardly eating anything because of you.

"Don't you know what he's gone through? Every adult he ever loved died or abandoned him or just didn't care at all about him! And he went and agonized over finding out he was your son and then you went and got all his hopes up that he might be a regular kid with a dad and then you smashed them into the floor. It's like you just abandoned him just like everybody else, or just went and told him you didn't care a whit about him."

"Weasley, stop making a fool out of yourself. You don't know what you speak of. I asked him to quit Quidditch for his own safety."

"You asked him to quit for your own comfort!" Ron shouted it now and then calmed himself, fists clenching at his sides as he stood there. "It doesn't matter what you asked him to do, it matters that you gave him the choice of obeying you or losing you, and that told him and everybody else who knows just how much you really care about him... not at all."

Ron turned to leave but then turned back again and said in a low voice, "You just stay away from my friend if you're going to pound nails through his heart like that. He's had enough of that from other adults." And then he was gone, leaving Snape's office door open like the hole that had just been torn in Snape's heart. Had Harry really taken it that way? He hadn't intended for it to be that way. It was just that he couldn't stand knowing that his son might be hurt or dead... that would leave him emptier than when Lily had died.