"Severus! What's going on here?"

Harry shot his father the dirtiest look he could muster as he struggled against the grip he had on his arm and the back of his shirt collar.

"Family business Minerva," he tried to say with a calm voice, amazed at the strength his son had as he then nearly tipped the two of them over pulling against his grasp.

"Well stop it this instant!"

Harry tried to rip himself free one last time before he gave up and stopped struggling. Severus did not let go, just in case Harry had intended to trick him and run.

"Severus, this is no way to-"

"Minerva," he said, now a little agitated at her butting in. "This is not your affair. Rest assured no harm will come to him, and please leave it be."

"Hmpf." She crossed her arms and stormed off in the other direction, no doubt to see the Headmaster, Severus thought.

"Get off," Harry demanded once she was out of sight, trying to shrug his grip off of him.

"Only if you promise not to run." Severus had approached Harry several times over the past week trying to talk to him and Harry had taken off each time, ignoring him completely. When he had done it this night, Severus was quicker than he was and grabbed hold of his shirtsleeve, thus instigating their struggle all the way down towards the dungeons.

"No. I told you to stay away from me!"

"Unfortunately I am the parent, and children do not tell their parents what to do. Now please," here he forced the irritation in his voice away, "come quietly or the both of us will struggle the rest of the way to the dungeons."

Harry glared and crossed his arms, his father finally relinquishing his grip on Harry's arm and shirt. "Fine," Harry said crossly. Severus lead off and glanced back every once in a while to be sure that his angry son still followed.

Finally in the dungeons, Severus and Harry entered his office, and Harry refused to sit, not intending to stay.

"I merely wished to speak with you," Severus said calmly, also not sitting down. "I did not intend-"

"I don't want to hear it." Harry said flatly.

"No? Well you're going to anyway. I did not intend-"

Harry turned on him. "Stop talking!" he shouted. He couldn't handle an apology... or whatever his father was going to say. It had taken weeks for him to feel even a little less depressed, and he didn't want to get dragged back in to feeling anything nice for his father, because he couldn't take being hurt again by him like that.

Patience wearing thin Severus glared and said, "Fine. You don't wish to talk? Spring holiday starts Monday and you can just sit in here until you wish to talk without missing any classes."

"Yeah right," Harry said. "Are you grounding me?"

Severus felt the uncertainty coming off of Harry.

"Yes," he said, "if that's what you want to think of it as. Until you hear me out, you are grounded to my office." He didn't know why but he felt some satisfaction in grounding him for having made him struggle just to get him down there to talk. He was so stubborn!

"Great, just like before then... detention in the dungeons. Well let me just barf all over your office again while I'm at it, seeing as how there's no toilet."

Severus waved his wand and a door appeared, just as it had done in their house. He had had it installed (as most professors had) so that they could use the bathroom without having to leave students unattended for long periods of time in their office around their valuables.

"Great," Harry muttered, "and how do you intend to keep me here? Lock me in?"

Severus waved his wand again and stepped out of his office door, now open. "I can come and go, but you cannot. You are making things harder on yourself and everybody else."

"Yeah, well maybe you're the one making things hard on everybody, ever think of that?" Harry sounded defeated, standing there in front of the doorway, wondering if the threat that he couldn't leave was a bluff, but afraid to test it.

"I've thought on a lot of things," Severus said, and then he disappeared down the hallway. Harry tried to follow, forgetting that he couldn't leave, and was stopped by an invisible barrier.

Angry he punched the wall and felt his stomach churn. He had felt the ulcer coming back for the last week now... so much agonizing over what had happened and over the fact that his father didn't want him anymore... or maybe never had. But he hadn't wanted to ask for more potion, and he wouldn't now either. He wouldn't take anything from that man ever again.

* * *

Draco had faithfully delivered a message to Ginny that Harry was stuck in Snape's office, and she appeared the next day with a change of clothes for Harry and Ron's chess set. Harry was so happy to see her that he forgot about the invisible barrier and was knocked backwards by it when he tried to move out.

"Draco wasn't sure if the barrier would allow items through or not, so I thought we'd test it."

Harry nodded, eager for a change of clothes. First Ginny tried to step through herself and found herself unable. Then she successfully tossed Harry's clothes through. Without shutting the door he changed right there, surprising her a little bit.

"Don't you want some privacy?"

"I don't need it in front of you. I intend to marry you after you graduate, so why do I need privacy now?" They had been talking about marriage since after Christmas and had finally decided that they couldn't live without each other and had set the date as the day after she would graduate.

"Well, I understand that, but anybody could walk by..."

Harry grinned. "You're my lookout."

Rolling her eyes she sat down on the floor in the hallway and started setting up the chess set. Since all you had to do was tell the pieces where to move, there was no issue with Harry not being able to reach through to play.

"Maybe I'll fetch some cards later and you can toss the ones you don't need through the barrier."

"Or maybe you could ask Hermione to come down and get rid of this spell."

Ginny raised her eyebrows, knowing that Snape had now stealthily walked up beside her where Harry couldn't see.

"Or maybe you could just talk to your father," Snape said as he continued walking past, down the corridor towards his quarters.

Harry made a face. "Not likely. He'll have to let me out when the term starts or McGonagall will throw another fit."

"Dumbledore already told her that it was Professor Snape's prerogative to discipline you as he pleased provided there was no pain or injury involved. I heard them talking in her office."

"Great."

Ginny's voice softened, "Besides, I was going to stay for spring holiday. We could have a whole week... to ourselves." She had hesitated before the end, and Harry had looked up, wondering what she had in mind. An empty castle was what he had thought when she'd said it... an empty castle with nobody to care where they went or what they did.

"Don't tempt me," Harry said. "You know why I won't talk to him."

"You're making this important to yourself by not talking to him. Don't give him the satisfaction of being more important than your fiancé if that's what you're aiming not to do."

Harry thought on it for a while, and then saw the way Ginny looked so beautiful out there in the hall, trying to stay by him and lend him comfort by being there when she didn't have to be. He'd give it a few days and see if Snape would cave in, and then he'd free himself to be with Ginny.

* * *

Draco had gone home with Goyle Sunday night along with most of the other students, including Ron and Hermione, eager to get out of the castle. Ginny stayed however and sat on the floor all day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, sad that they were spending their free time together like this.

"I'm sorry," Harry said Wednesday afternoon. "We could be out enjoying the sun."

"Why don't you just talk to him?"

Harry sighed. "I can't bring myself to do it. I can't let myself feel anything... good for him again. I can't take it if he just tears me up inside again. This is two ulcers from him now... two. I've never had any before this. I can't stand knowing that... you know."

Ginny's eyes softened as she sat there across from him, agonizing herself over how bad she knew he felt. "He does love you..."

"He doesn't. He told me he wouldn't be my father any more."

"He does Harry. Look how he's got you all locked up in here so that you'll listen to him tell you that."

"You haven't talked to him have you?"

"No Harry, I haven't. But I've seen him sulking just like you. And I think he cares about you more than you know. Only a concerned parent would give up his office to a scheme like this, trying to get you to just listen for five minutes to what he has to say."

"Or a crazy potions professor who's been around one too many spilled potions!"

She gave him that soft look again and he felt himself caving. "Fine, go get him. But I'm only doing this so we can have a few days together."

With a last warm smile from Ginny she packed up the chess set and disappeared from sight.

* * *

Severus had allowed Ginny to sit on the floor talking to his son while he was "grounded" because he didn't want to talk to a hostile teenager when the boy finally caved. Allowing him things he wanted was his way of telling Harry, ‘see, I bend, now you bend too.'

It had taken all Severus had to wait patiently and not just march into his office and put a silence charm on Harry and then speak to him as he pleased without any resistance, but Albus had told him that it probably wasn't a wise idea if he intended to regain any kind of relationship with Harry.

A gentle knock on the door to his quarters bade him to rise and see who found it necessary to disturb him like this. But when he saw Ginny on the other side, he let his irritation drop and stared down at her.

"He's ready to talk," she told him. "He doesn't want to but he wants to be free of the office."

"To be with you?"

She nodded. He hadn't thought of this being a benefit to him allowing her to stay there with him.

"Thank you." He stepped out and closed the door, and left her there by herself.

Harry was in the bathroom when he entered the office, and for a moment he thought that maybe the boy had escaped after all, until he heard the toilet flush and the water in the sink running. Trying to calm himself, he sat down behind his desk and waited as Harry came out, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

When he sat down in the visitors chair Severus took in his pale face. "You have given yourself an ulcer again?" he asked.

Harry looked away, and Severus rose to unlock his potion's cabinet and pull out one of the last phials of ulcer-b-gone. Silently he handed it to Harry, who took it and swallowed it gratefully, relaxing after he did so as the burn in his stomach dissipated.

Back in his chair again, Severus said, "I did not intend to hurt you." Harry didn't look up at him.

"Your friend... Mr. Weasley, came in here and gave me a piece of his mind, and along with it a piece of yours." Here Harry frowned, but did not look up. "I did not realize that I had hurt you so by the ultimatum that I gave you. I sometimes forget that every adult in your life has abandoned you or treated you harshly, and I did not intend to be one of those figures in your life.

"I asked you to quit Quidditch because when I saw you lying there on the grass, not breathing, I thought I had lost you. I could not stand the thought of being without you again. I went through hell on earth losing your mother, twice, and it left a void in me that I did not think could be filled. When you shared with me the revelation that you were my son, that void filled itself up and then some, and to see you lying there as if dead, I felt a sudden emptiness that I could not handle. I was not trying to take something from you that you love... as your friend pointed out, I was trying to keep myself from losing something that I love."

Harry looked up. "Ron said that?"

"In harsher terms, yes."

He bit his lip. He didn't think that Ron understood him that well. As far as he knew, only Draco and Ginny understood any semblance of what his life had been. And now here he found himself surprised twice in one day. He desperately wanted his father back, but he couldn't take being hurt yet again by him. It seemed as if his whole year had revolved around some kind of hurt his father had inflicted: ulcers, depression, anger, a bruised jaw...

"If you will have me, I will try my hardest to be a father that does not injure his son."

And now it was like he was reading his mind. Harry remembered that Draco had told him that Snape had lived a life similar to Harry's when he was in school, and suddenly his statement meant more than he could know.

"Can we just... take it slow?"

Severus nodded. "Whatever you want Harry."

Harry bit his lip again. "I just want a dad."

* * *

A weight Harry hadn't known he'd been carrying had lifted from his shoulders as Harry left his father's office and went looking for Ginny. She was waiting in the Entrance Hall for him, sitting on the steps leading up to the second floor.

Without a word she rose and Harry wrapped her in his arms, never wanting to let go.

"Well?"

"He promised to not leave me like all the others... and he told me how Ron went in there and yelled at him."

"Ron did what?"

Harry laughed and took her hand as they headed out onto the grounds, telling him about his conversation with his father, and asking her to remind him to thank Ron when he got back on Sunday.

* * *

Harry and Ginny spent their days together, and feeling uncomfortable being alone all of a sudden, Harry asked her to stay with him in the nights too. Gryffindor tower was empty except for the two of them and so nobody noticed when Ginny climbed into bed with Harry each night.

"Tonight's our last night alone together," Harry said as he held Ginny close, her pink flower pajamas soft against his hands.

"Maybe we could spend the summer together too? Although mum and dad have put a charm on my room so no boys can enter at all... they put one on Ron's room too so that Hermione can't go in there... they did it last summer."

"Just like the charm on the office door?"

"Guess so."

"Well maybe you can stay with me at our house... I think my dad has to do work at the castle for a while during the summer."

"He wouldn't mind? I don't think mum and dad will let me."

"You turn 17 this summer though... so they can't stop you can they?"

"They can if I want to go back home when I'm done staying with you."

"Oh." Harry forgot how Mrs. Weasley could be sometimes.

"Dad always says: ‘if you want to live under our roof, you follow our rules.' That's why Fred and George moved out last summer and got their own place."

"Maybe we should get our own place."

Ginny rolled over to look at him. "Where? I don't have any money."

"I have a vault full at Gringotts. Maybe we can get a flat in London somewhere... I always wanted to try living in the city. Or build something out in the woods like my dad's house."

"Something with a stream for any kids we might have," Ginny added, fantasizing now about their future home.

"And a big field for them to run in."

"Better have room for a Quidditch pitch too."

"Only enough room for me to chase you around on a broom."

They both laughed and then their eyes met and Harry felt himself melting inside.

"I love you," he told her.

"Love you more."

He squeezed her tight, and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead.

"Mrs. Ginny Potter," he said.

"I like that," she whispered.