“Is it time to go?” Evan asked as his Papa helped him stand.

His Papa looked down, a smile twitching about his lips. “Yes. And you and I need to have a talk when we get back to the infirmary.”

A talk. Evan bit on his lower lip, looking up at his Papa through his red fringe. How could his Papa make such a little word sound so scary? He swallowed, his gaze falling to his feet, which were stumbling over each other in his haste to keep up with his Papa’s long strides.

Evan could feel his nose beginning to run. He frowned, reaching a hand up and swiping it across his snotty nose. He glanced up real quick at his Papa and decided, gratefully, that his Papa hadn’t noticed anything. He felt as though his Papa knowing he was sick would be a Really Bad Thing. He wasn’t sure where the feeling came from, except that it seemed to be the same part of his body that had told him to sleep in the cupboard last night.

Did that mean that he shouldn’t listen to it?

He sniffed and swiped a hand across his nose again. This time his Papa looked down, eyes narrowing perceptibly. Evan swallowed. Hard. He should have listened to the voice in his head. His Papa looked mad.

***

Severus wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t figure out what had possessed Evan to run off in the middle of the night. Had Potter been a night-time wanderer so early in his life? Severus had thought that Potter’s nighttime wanderings were simply because he was a rebellious teenager. It had never crossed his mind that Potter might have been restless as a child.

Was he restless as a child? Severus glanced down at Evan… His son. Already Evan seemed, in many ways, to be different from Harry, and not just in appearance. Evan was much more quiet that Harry had ever been, almost meek. Cowed. Even with his misconceptions of the boy set aside, there was no denying the fact that Harry had a very Potter-like stature, a certain way of holding his jaw that was automatically defiant and bold. Evan seemed much softer, somehow. Subtler.

So the question remained; were these particular nighttime wanderings specific to Evan, or were they a byproduct of Harry’s first four years of life? Unfortunately, it would not be an easy question to decipher. Harry’s life affected Evan’s life. The two possibilities intermingled confusingly.

How much more confusing must it be for Evan? Evan had no idea what was going on. He didn’t know anything. Severus tried to imagine what it would be like to be born a four year old boy, but he simply couldn’t. He should have made the potion more potent, somehow. He wished he had known how to do so, but he had been too afraid to ruin the potion to change it in the least bit.

He almost walked past the hospital wing, so engrossed was he in his thoughts. Only a slight sniffle from the boy latched to his arm alerted him to his whereabouts. He frowned thoughtfully down at his son. Was the boy developing a cold? Probably. Out wandering the corridors without any proper attire… Severus felt a twang of guilt that he hadn’t been paying better attention to his son. Evan shouldn’t have had the opportunity to get so far away. He was too little to be waking up all alone in Hogwarts, for Merlin’s sakes!

Evan was pulling on his hand. When Severus looked down, the boy was frowning a little. “Why don’t you let go of my hand?”

Severus smiled weakly. “Let’s get you up into bed,” Severus said, lifting the boy up by the armpits and setting him on the bed. He wrapped a quilt around Evan’s shoulders, afraid that the boy would get some terrible sickness if he was out in the cold any longer.

Severus watched his son for a moment, trying to come up with something to say. He didn’t want to upset the boy, but neither could he have Evan wandering around all the time, thinking it was an alright thing to do. Huffing in frustration, Severus ran a hand through his long black hair.

“I was worried when I came in this morning and you weren’t here,” Severus said at last.

Evan ducked his head, one long finger tracing a pattern in his pale kneecap. “’m sorry, Papa.”

“Look at me,” Severus put a finger beneath Evan’s chin and gently tilted the boy’s face upward. “I know you’re sorry, Evan. What I don’t know is why you left.”

At Evan’s confused shrug, Severus tapped the boy lightly on the nose. “None of that. What were you thinking? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

Sniffling miserably, Evan wrenched his head away from Severus and buried his head in his knees. “I dunno! I was scared!”

“What were you scared of.”

Evan shrugged again, and Severus barely resisted the urge to rip his hair out. He was not patient enough for this. “Where’d you go?”

“A closet,” Evan whispered.

“A closet.” Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. “You ran away to a closet.”

“It felt safe.” Evan looked up, those big black eyes latching onto Severus’s. He looked so small and scared. “Papa? Are you mad at me?”

Severus’s face cleared. He pulled Evan into his arms. “No, I’m not mad, Evan. Shh, it’s okay.”

Evan sobbed into his Papa’s chest. He felt so lost, so confused. He didn’t know. “I never felt so bad in all my life.”

“It’s okay, Evan,” Severus whispered.

Evan sniffed weakly and rested his head against his Papa’s chest. He was so tired, so confused. “What do you expect from me?”

Severus closed his eyes. He didn’t have an answer to that question. He placed a kiss lightly on the top of Evan’s head. “We’ll get through this, Evan. I’m not gonna let you down.”

He whispered the last words. Evan had fallen asleep.