An interesting phenomenon was occurring all through Hogwarts. 

The magic involved was very old and very powerful.  It had to be, considering what it was managing to make happen. 

At first, the changes wrought within the castle were very simple, rather unnoticeable in their own right. 

For one, the gargoyle in front of the stairs to Dumbledore’s office abruptly stopped accepting the headmaster’s password.  The only ones allowed in or out then were house elves and portraits.  When asked, they reported that there was nothing out of the ordinary to be found in his office, save the absence of the man himself. 

Within forty-eight hours, the magic had changed again, and people were no longer trying to access his office.  Rather, if someone had been able to check the wards within that vicinity, they would have discovered that some very interesting changes had been made to the old protections in place there. 

In particular, the most noticeable change would have likely been the repelling charm that surrounded the entire area.  It was a very complex piece of magic, because it only applied to those people who were actively thinking about finding Dumbledore.  Much like the muggle repelling charm used on large wizarding events like the Quidditch World Cup, this one had the effect of causing said affected person or persons to suddenly remember one or more pressing engagements that they simply had to get off to deal with at that particular minute. 

However, the extent of this magic didn’t cease there, but continued creeping out into every corner and crack of the entire castle itself, until the only way one could think of the headmaster was purely accidental. 

Everyone in Hogwarts knew that the headmaster was there—somewhere—but if asked to think about it, no one would have been able to say exactly where he was just then.

. . .

Little Harry trotted diligently beside his Tall Man as they moved through the corridors of Hogwarts.  One small hand was wrapped securely around two of his Daddy’s much larger fingers as they went, while Captain was tucked carefully against his other side. 

They were going up to the Great Hall to have dinner with the other teachers and students that evening.  His Daddy had explained to him that there would be far fewer students there tonight as compared with later in the week, which was the end of the winter holidays. 

His Daddy wanted him to have a chance to inter—inter—interact with some of the other students while the numbers were still so low.  This he explained to Captain on their way, in hopes that his bear would better understand the opposition that they were now facing. 

Just before entering the Great Hall from what his Tall Man explained was a secret entrance that the teacher’s sometimes used, his Daddy leant over and picked him (and Captain) up.  Then, with Harry securely propped on his hip—and Captain held in the space between them—they went in. 

Unconsciously, the small boy held his breath, unsure of what he feared; only knowing that the unknown had never been good to him. 

“Breathe, little one,” his Tall man said quietly in his ear, causing him to let out a breath in surprise.

“Daddy,” he whispered with a wide eyed look as they went to take their seats.  “Why are dey all staring at me?” 

“Are they staring?”  Was his daddy’s casual response. 

Little Harry chanced a look back out at the tables where the students were sitting and confirmed his daddy’s question with a shaky nod. 

“How do you know that they are staring at you?”  His daddy asked him calmly, putting food onto a plate as he did so. 

“’Cause I can feel their eyes,” the small boy whispered urgently as he began to shake in his Tall Man’s normally comforting embrace. 

His reaction caused his daddy to turn his complete attention onto him, and for a moment, he was distracted from his fear by the sight of his Tall Man’s calm dark eyes. 

“Perhaps they are only staring at Captain,” was his daddy’s mildly spoken suggestion after the severity of his shakes had lessened. 

“Why would they stare at him?”  Harry asked him, forgetting about the frightening students for a moment as he tried to reason out what Severus had said. 

“Perhaps they have never seen a bear as well dressed as he,” his Tall Man answered demurely. 

“He’s only dressed like you and me, daddy,” the little boy said with a questioning look on his face. 

“And we are quite well dressed,” was his father’s smooth answer. 

“We are?” 

“Yes,” his daddy said, turning him around to look at the bountiful selection of food that he had placed on their plate.  It was tantalizingly close and the small boy suddenly realized that he was rather hungry. 

It was little wonder that the presence of the students soon slid from his mind as they began the very important process of feeding themselves. 

. . .

After eating enough to meet their stomachs’ needs, Severus looked down to find his son once again conversing with Captain.   Stifling the urge to grin broadly at the boy’s antics—considering their current location—Severus instead reached for a cup of tea. 

“He is quite adorable,” Minerva interjected from her position to his left. 

“What’s dat?”  His small boy chirped, looking up at him with a confused look. 

“It is another way of saying that she thinks you are sickeningly cute,” he said with a smirk. 

“Ew,” the black haired child atop his lap said, scrunching up his tiny face as the perceived slight. 

“Severus,” Minerva hissed in annoyance, slapping his arm lightly to further demonstrate her displeasure. 

“Hey!”  Harry said in an affronted voice.  He reached over with his small hands and pulled Severus’s arm away from Minerva’s reach.  “You no hurt my daddy, my Tall Man,” the child said adamantly. 

Severus opened his mouth to protest, but seeing the mystified look on his colleague’s face made him change his mind. 

“Are you okay daddy?”  Small hands were patting his shoulder and arm gently, while the lad glared up at Minerva with a very Snape-like scowl. 

“I suppose I am,” he said with a dramatic sigh. 

Concerned green eyes looked back up at him in response. 

“Severus—,” Minerva began to say from beside him, but Harry cut her off with another glare.  To Severus, the entire situation was quickly becoming entirely too hilarious. 

“We should go home now, daddy,” his son said, pulling insistently at his other arm—the one that had not been cruelly mishandled by Minerva, Severus thought with a resounding mental snort. 

Severus shrugged back at Minerva, who was looking at them with her own scowl, and then leaned over to pick up his son and Captain. 

In order to further the charade, he was careful to pick them up with the “uninjured” arm. 

“Until we meet again, Minerva,” he sighed again, flashing an evil smirk back at her when the boy’s head was turned. 

Hearing the older woman harrumph from behind them further added to the delight of his evening, and there was an addition bounce in his step as they left.

. . .

A small hand gripped his much older one gently and he followed the child without question to edge of the forest.  

“What are we doing here Ariana?”  Albus voiced softly, his eyes barely able to focus on anything save the image of his much younger sister. 

“Papa’s about to leave,” she said simply, as though that were reason enough. 

“Shouldn’t you want to say goodbye?”

She shook her head in the negative. 

“Why?”  He asked, crouched in front of her. 

“I don’t like goodbyes,” she said, her much too old eyes staring solemnly back at him. 

Albus’s throat closed up a bit over that and he could only nod. 

Pulling more insistently on his arm, Ariana slowly began to lead him into the forest. 

As a result, they weren’t there to witness their father’s angry exit from their home, but with the help of James, they did manage to make it back before Ariana was missed. 

. . .

Severus had exited the Great Hall with Harry and Captain clasped tightly against his chest when three older Gryffindor students happened to stroll into their path. It was likely, knowing Gryffindors—as Severus had the misfortune of doing—that their chance involvement in his life was nothing more than pure arrogance on their parts, for believing that they had a right in knowing his personal life. 

“Is that your kid, Professor?”  One of them asked a touch snottily, while the other two continued to stare on disrespectfully. 

Severus could feel his small boy tensing up in his arms, and that, combined with their attitudes resulted in his reaction. 

“You miserable miscreants would do well to leave your suspicions at home and your eyes in your head,” he sneered angrily at them, causing them to back off rather significantly. 

He turned on his heel smartly and started to stalk back down to the safety of their quarters, when suddenly he realized that his small boy was making a sound quite similar to a growling noise from within his arms. 

Turning back to the boys that they had just left, Severus realized that they must have said something behind his back that he had inadvertently ignored, but that his son must have picked up on. 

“Can’t believe he of all people reproduced,” one of the boys said to his laughing cohorts.  “That kid looks more like a drowned rat than anything else.  It figures that any kid of Snape would be a freak too.” 

Severus saw red, but before he could blast them to tiny smithereens, his son had managed to squirm out of his arms and was running full tilt straight back at them.  Severus watched in amazement as the small boy changed forms mid-run, and by the time he had reached the poor excuses for potions slop, his son was fully in the form of a small black—angry—bear cub. 

He followed quickly after his son, not wanting the boy to come to harm at the hands of these future Azkaban detainees, but more than a little aware that no one—except perhaps him—would be happy if these boys found permanent damage at the sharp little paws of a four year old still unregistered animagi. 

By the time that the potions master had gotten the fight broken up, all three boys were suffering deep scratches from his son’s sharp claws, and one was even nursing a broken arm from where his son had bitten him. 

Once the cub was back in his arms with Captain, he calmed and then quickly turned back into Severus’s scruffy haired little boy. 

Minerva and Poppy were on the scene by this point and although Poppy was busy with the boys, Minerva was tightlipped with fury as she stared him down. 

“Severus, what did you do?!?”  Was her scathing response. 

He quickly related the story, but then was interrupted as his son added in his two bits as well. 

“They said I was a freak,” his little boy said tearfully from around the thumb fixed tightly within his mouth. 

“They what?”  Minerva asked, caught off balance.

“They said I was a freak,” the boy answered with more than a little anger.  “But daddy says I’m not, right daddy?” 

Severus nodded swiftly and brought the upset child up higher against his chest. 

“They was being mean to my daddy,” his son said, his breath hitching on a sob.  “They shouldn’t be mean to my daddy, never no!”  The boy managed to get out before bursting into quiet tears. 

“And they shouldn’t be mean to my son,” Severus growled in agreement as began rubbing soothing fingers through his son’s wild mop of hair. 

Minerva looked at them both for a minute more, her face twisted in what seemed to be a cross between anger and sadness.  Finally she spoke, “And you did nothing more than break up the fight, Severus?” 

“They are lucky I didn’t get a chance to react,” he said in a low voice, cradling his son’s exhausted body carefully against his own. 

“I should say so, Severus,” Minerva said with a new look of respect in her eyes.  “Put him to bed and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

Then she shooed them off back down to their quarters—to their home.