“He saved your life.” Hermione pointed out. “That's not nothing Harry. He cared for you.”

Harry grumbled. “Lot of good that does me now. He's dead Hermione! I don't know why everyone else refuses to see it!” He wiped away the tears that were gathering in his eyes. “First Cedric, then Sirius, now him. A friend, my godfather and my real father! Hermione, I swear it seems like I have got a limit on time I can spend with my parents.”

Hermione choked down a sob and ran her fingers through her best friend's hair. “Don't talk like that Harry. It's not your fault.”

“I know!” Harry jumped up and stalked to the other side of the room. “I'm not the one that jumped in front of the spell! I'm not the one who decided to die! He chose to die, to leave me. It's his fault!”

Hermione waited as Harry began to cry. It was hard, fighting in the war. She never knew who was going to survive the night and still be there the next morning. Ron, Remus, Sirius, all of them dead. Harry's biological father discovered and killed, all within eight months.

The room of requirement didn't seem to be able to offer as much empathy as before. There had been too many funerals, too many people needing to relax and take a break. Hermione attended a funeral every weekend it seemed. Dumbledore wanted to honour the people that gave their lives. Make it known that the muggles murdered had families and lives too.

And this weekend, the funeral had been larger than most. In truth, it shouldn't have been called a funeral since Severus Snape wasn't truly dead. And in his suspended state he would never truly die. But he wouldn't live either.

The memorial service had been stuffed with students, former students, his colleagues and order members. Most people had something to say about him. Some of it bad, plenty of it good. Potion Masters who'd learned everything in his classes. One young woman that had decided to get a NEWT in potions just to prove she wasn't as stupid as he thought.

It had touched Hermione, even if Snape and his son didn't notice. Harry was a Snape now, in appearance, name, everything that the Ministry could possibly imagine. And now it meant that he'd just lost a third parent. A parent he'd barely known, since they'd just discovered their relationship recently.

The experience still amused Hermione. She'd shared it at the memorial service.

****

It was a Friday afternoon, the last class of the day. Even Hermione was having a hard time concentrating on the potion, one to reveal relations between two parties. There were many steps and the high temperatures made the classroom hot and steamy. It was an almost pleasant atmosphere.

“No Harry. Not the pixie scales. Those aren't even in this potion!” Hermione knocked Harry's hand away from his cauldron. Snape had threatened to test a few of the potions and Hermione had been keeping an eye on Ron, Harry, Neville, and her own boiling cauldron. It was giving her a headache.

Snape was stalking through the class, terrifying Neville out of his wits and making other Gryffindors screw up their potions.

“Time!” The smoke cleared as Snape charmed the cauldrons cold and the hot air began to settle. Only a few had actually managed to complete the difficult potion and most who had were starring nervously at the sample in their vials.

Harry glanced at his samples once again. He'd taken five, just in case Malfoy did something to one of them. He wasn't going to miss out on marks again. The potion inside the glass looked like Hermione's and Malfoy's, that tended to be a good sign. Harry almost wanted Snape to test his potion and let everyone know that it worked.

“Mr. Potter!”

Harry jerked his head up, broken out of his thoughts by Snape's angry voice. “Sir?” He looked nervously at the man, gripping one of the potion phials.

“I said Potter, to get up here and bring two samples of your potion!”

Harry hurried to comply. He took two of the samples, remembering at the last moment to bring his silver knife with him. Blood was the only component needed to test the potion. And he couldn't imagine Snape removing his blood magically. Knives were much more painful.

Snape was all business at the front of the classroom. He kept the number of scathing remarks rather low and concentrated on the potion, bricking first his own finger, then Harry's.

The sample shook for a moment as it processed the blood. It flashed through several different colours, finally coming to rest on a deep royal blue. There was a sharp intake of breath from Hermione, she was the only person who'd memorised what each and every colour meant.

A shocked silence fell on the classroom as pages were turned and the colour in the potion matched to those in the textbook. Only Harry was ignorant.

“This cannot be.” Snape's voice was barely above a whisper, but he was heard easily over the quiet in the classroom. “Granger, Malfoy,” he snapped back to normal within an instant, “bring a sample of your potion to the front of the classroom. Potter's brew is flawed.”

Harry couldn't see a difference between his potion and Hermione's. But judging from everyone else's reactions he didn't want his potion to be right. The first time I've actually gotten a potion perfect, I don't want to! The thought was almost laughable.

The next two samples gave the same deep royal blue colour as Harry's. He let himself breathe a sigh of relief, for once his potion wasn't wrong! Now if only Snape would let him return to his seat and check his potion textbook for the colour meanings. . . That would make his day perfect.

Snape glanced at the clock. “Dismissed! No Potter, not you. Miss Granger, Mr Weasley. Stay behind.” He cleaned out the sample vials and took a different potion from his personal storeroom.

“Sir.” Hermione's eyes widened in awe at the potion he held up to the light for a moment. “That's a birthright potion! They take a Mastery level degree to even get the supplies, let alone brew!”

“He's a Potion Master Hermione!” Ron said, almost in an annoyed tone. “Even I knew that!”

Snape ignored both of them and asked Harry to roll up his sleeve. “This potion needs more blood to be effective. I need to draw some from your elbow.”

Harry gulped nervously. There was a scar on his arm from where Wormtail had drawn his blood in the Dark Lord's rebirth ceremony. He rolled up his sleeve nervously, baring the pale skin on the inside of his elbow. The skin was thin enough that he could see the blue lines of his own veins. The blood that would soon be added to the birthright potion.

Snape's blood was already in the birthright potion, it had to be added during brewing. The only thing to add was the blood of a supposed son or daughter of the brewer. But none of the students knew that. “Relax Potter. It will hurt more if you're tense.” Snape warned before pressing the clean knife blade into the crook of Harry's arm.

A steady stream of blood flowed into the potion a moment before Snape healed the cut with a touch of his wand and returned his concentration to the potion, anxiously awaiting the result.

Slowly the colour in the potion began to clear. It grew faster and faster as the blood spun around in the centre of the potion until all the colour disappeared, even the red tint from the blood wasn't visible. Severus Snape was, in fact, Harry Potter's father.

******

Hermione thought that Snape's expression was the most comical she'd even seen. It was as if he didn't want to believe it was true but at the same time was seeing signs and remembering details he hadn't known before. It was as if she was watching his thoughts run across his face.

And as the year passed, she'd watched him and Harry grow closer together. They'd developed a relationship of respect and kindness. It was too cruel for words, the fact that another parent had been taken from Harry.

But Severus wasn't really gone. In his haste to push Harry aside and take the curse himself, he hadn't had time to finish drinking the only antidote known for the spell. There had been enough of the life saving potion in his blood to prevent his death. However, there is a point where life is not much different from death.

A preserved body, not living, not dead, was all that remained. He hadn't been buried. Dumbledore had turned one of the many empty classrooms at Hogwarts into a sort of shrine that his body would remain in. There was a box for his body, and it was closed. To avoid causing more pain to students and staff.

“He isn't truly dead Harry.” Hermione pulled him into a hug. “Remember him, it's all that we can do. Until a cure is found.”

For once Harry didn't disagree and point out that a cure was believed impossible. Severus himself had worked on it for a few years. He retuned her hug and cast a long, last look over his father's body.