Severus dreamed of someone that he had not seen in a great while.

Lily.

She was sitting in the chair next to his bed, a delicate smile playing across her lips.

"Do you enjoy the company of my son?" She asked him from within his dream.

"Your son?" He asked in confusion, looking down at the small lump of boy still clinging tightly to his side, even while asleep.

"I did not die just to allow him to be killed by my reprehensible sister only these few years later," she said, a fire burning momentarily in her eyes.

"His 'auntie' is Petunia?" He was aghast at the memory of the little girl he had once known turning into such a vile entity.

"Will you care for him Severus?" Her hand was cold on his arm.

"Are you certain that I am the best option?" He asked, trying to stall for time.

"Will you raise him as your son?" She continued on as though he had not spoken.

He looked back down on the child clasped so tightly against his side.

"You brought him to me tonight," his eyes shined in sudden realization.

"He's my little one—my child. Tonight, I intervened when Death was calling for him. I told him that I would take him somewhere safe. You are safe," she looked at him calmly, her green eyes piercing him deeply.

"Dumbledore will not agree," he warned, swallowing hard around the lump that had appeared in his throat.

"Dumbledore can go to hell," was her fiery response. He was briefly taken aback by the ferociousness of her reaction. It had been a long time since he had seen her temper, and Merlin help him, but he had missed even that.

"Severus," her image was less clear and he found himself focusing in just that much more to the words she was saying.

"You once asked me to give you a way to redeem yourself."

Her words struck him hard. He had asked such a thing, but it had been after her death, during his first visit to her grave.

Tears pricked his eyes and he blinked hard, not wanting to miss anything.

"Raise him as your own, love him and protect him like your own blood and you will be forgiven," she said softly, barely more than a whisper now across the side of his face.

"I—," he looked down again at the thin face still sleeping against him.

"I promise," he whispered.

Light as a feather, phantom lips brushed across his cheek, and then he was left alone in his darkness.

. . .

Little Harry dreamed that his angel had come to visit him again. She had first visited him outside his relative's house and had been the one responsible for bringing him to the tall man.

"Are you happier now, little one?" She asked him in her soft voice.

He nodded his head from where he was cocooned in next to his tall man.

"You will not be going back to your relatives."

"Where will I go?" He asked somewhat fearfully. What if no one wanted him?

"You shall live with your 'tall man,'" his angel said with a small smile from where she floated in front of him. She had red hair. He had never known that angels could have red hair.

Maybe only mine does, he thought to himself with a happy giggle.

Soft hands touched his face and he forced himself to pay attention to his angel.

"Will you promise to listen to him and do as he says?" She asked him in a quiet voice.

He nodded again earnestly.

She was fading more and he had to strain to hear what she was saying.

"I love you child. Remember, I am always with you," the words sunk into his mind, even as she disappeared from his eyes. Suddenly feeling very alone, he pushed himself farther into the tall man's embrace and was encouraged when he felt the arms tighten their hold around him.

Safe, he smiled to himself before falling deeper into sleep.

. . .

Albus Dumbledore rubbed his eyes tiredly. There was a rumour that he never slept, and as rumours go, at least this one was based somewhat in truth. Between his job, and the insomnia that accompanied it, the little sleep that he did manage was typically interrupted by horrific nightmares of what had happened in the past, in addition to what might happen in the future.

He looked around his desk and blinked again. He could have sworn that he had already gone to bed that night, but perhaps that had just been wishful thinking. He bit back a yawn and looked up across his office.

And abruptly found himself staring in the cold green eyes of the late Lily Potter nee Evans.

"Lily?" He said, barely speaking above a whisper.

"I should not have trusted you," were her damning words.

"I—," really though, what could he say to that? He had often accused himself of much the same thing over the years.

"You left him and never checked on him," she said accusingly, moving closer to him with an ethereal ease of motion.

His mind really whirling now, Albus sought to find an answer to her condemnation.

But he had none.

"Who are you talking about?" He tried gently.

"My SON, old man," she shrieked, turning ugly for a split second before flipping back into her schoolgirl image.

"Death visited the Dursleys this night," she said, speaking in a sing-songy voice.

Albus felt his blood run cold at her words and a thousand images flashed in front of his eyes at the possible implications of what that could mean for their world.

"Luckily for you, I got in His way," the light was back in her eyes in such a way that she almost seemed alive.

"Death eaters?" He croaked in relief at what she was telling him.

"No Albus," she leaned in close enough for him to see straight through her body.

"Muggles."

. . .

When little Harry woke, the room was dark. He realized that there didn't seem to be any windows in the tall man's bedroom, since even at nighttime's darkest point, it was never as inky black as it was at that point. His bladder was making urgent sounds, so he tried to extricate himself from the warm comfort of the man holding him. However, he had only moved one arm before he found the man shifting under him and soon he found himself blinking into the sudden light that had somehow appeared in the room.

"Toilet? Please?" He begged, still quite fearful that the man would turn out to be like his auntie by denying him his needs.

"Certainly," the man said, gazing oddly at him for a moment before moving them both into the bathroom.

After Harry completed his business, the man propped him on the black marble countertop beside the sink and then made similar use of the facilities. They washed their hands together, little Harry kneeling on the countertop with the tall man standing beside him. Harry repeatedly found his eyes drawn to the man's stained fingers and he wondered why the soap was not affecting the strange colors imprinted on his skin.

When the tall man made to turn off the water, little Harry reached out with the soap and tried to squirt it on the larger fingers of the man.

"What are you doing?" The man asked softly, stopping his action with a gentle hand.

"Still dirty," he said, pointing to the off-color spots with a tiny index finger. "Have to get all clean," he said, staring up at the dark haired face above him.

"Or what?"

"Or no eat. Auntie gets mad," he said, dropping his voice into a whisper.

"Well, guess what," the man also whispered, leaning over and putting his hands under little Harry's arms.

"What?" He whispered back.

"Auntie's not here," the man said, swinging him up into the air and causing a surprised giggle to escape little Harry's mouth.

Oh.

I forgot, he thought with a burst of excitement. The man had propped him on a hip and was carrying him back into the sitting room that they had been in the night before. He looked around the room and saw with interest that there was more to look at than he had seen at first glance.

The back of the couch was against the wall that formed the barrier between the sitting room and the tall man's bedroom. The couch itself sat facing the sitting room—which little Harry quickly realized shared the same space as the dining area. An old wooden table with four mismatched, but sturdy looking chairs sat in the farthest back corner of the room. It was to this table that the tall man took little Harry.

The walls that were free of both couch and table were remarkable only in that they were all adorned with bookcases of varying shapes and colors, upon which sat the most amazing array of books that he had ever laid his eyes on.

Harry's eyes drank in the details of the room, automatically memorizing as much about the living area as he could without being overly obvious about it. He knew that it was something he had always done, at least as far back as he could remember.

The tall man stopped beside the table and put one large hand down on the table itself.

Little Harry peered at him with interest as he began to speak.

"Oatmeal—enough for one adult and one child—fruit, coffee and milk," the man finished, looking at Harry with an upturned eyebrow and a smirk.

"What—?" Little Harry started to say, only to be shocked into silence as the requested food items abruptly appeared on the table before them.

The tall man sat down, moving Harry's body around so that he was now sitting on his lap facing the table and carefully began to feed him small bites of the porridge.

. . .

Severus's mind was reeling as he sought to reconcile between the images of the tiny abused child in his lap against the nightmarish memories of the boy's cruel and bullying father.

This was a little Potter? The boy was waiflike, beaten down and shy; he was nothing like James bloody Potter—nothing at all.

No, this boy reminded Severus far more of his younger self; ragged black hair hanging around a far too thin face; the rest of his body covered more or less in baggy clothing that only partially served to hide the latest batch of bruises.

Except for the bright green eyes that stared so incessantly at every move he took and the messiness of the black hair, the lad could have been a clone of the younger Severus.

And you will be forgiven, the words from his dream played back through his mind.

Could he really raise Potter's child?

Was he even fit to raise a child? He wouldn't even be twenty five until January 9th, nearly a month away. What did he know about raising children?

Absentmindedly, he wiped the oatmeal off of the boy's face with a napkin and then began to feed them both some fruit.

The child was abnormally quiet, something even the typically taciturn Severus Snape had noticed.

And overly grateful for the things that most children take for granted—like food and clothing, he thought to himself with a mild shake of his head.

Should he say something? Did not most—well, most guardians speak with their charges during mealtimes?

"Are you enjoying your breakfast?" He asked, feeling out of place.

The small boy on his lap turned and flashed a short but blinding smile at him.

"It's the best," the lad affirmed quietly.

Severus couldn't help himself. At hearing—and seeing—the child's exuberant reaction to his dull question, he couldn't help but lean over and place a kiss on the boy's now clean and soft hair. Simple wonder had filled his chest, leaving him with only a slight feeling of embarrassment at his own display of affection.

"I'm glad," he admitted quietly over the black headed child sitting calmly in his lap.

. . .

After breakfast had been cleared away magically, something that had received another look of wonder from the small child once again perched securely on his hip; they had gone back into his bedroom in hopes of getting dressed for the day.

Severus dressed himself in black trousers and a gray pullover, and then pulled on a set of lightweight black robes, foregoing the heavier teaching robes in honor of the holiday break.

The boy sat on his bed, curled up in a small ball under his covers, bright green eyes watching him as he dressed quickly and silently.

After he finished buttoning the last button on his robes, Severus looked back in his dresser, his eyes seeking out the object that had caught his attention briefly before.

Ah! There it is.

Triumphantly, he pulled out a small pair of trousers and a kelly green pullover, along with a bright blue set of child size robes. He dressed the boy easily, the child not giving him any resistance as he put the clothes on him.

Well, at least not any resistance until the end.

He finished getting the robes on the boy and noticed that the child's facial expression had changed from rapt wonder to one of slight unease. Secretly happy to see some fight in the lad's demeanor, he tackled the problem straight on.

"Something the matter?" He asked mildly to the boy once again in his arms.

He watched with interest as the child drew one finger from his own blue robes over to Severus's own black ones and then back again to repeat the action.

"Why mine not like yours?" Was the fearfully whispered question.

Severus blinked in surprise.

"You mean, why are your robes blue and not black like mine?" He wondered if the boy was even familiar with the names of all the colors.

He got a nod.

"No reason at all. Would you like for yours to be black too?" It didn't even occur to him to ask the question around the other way.

Another nod, but this one was a bit quicker than the last.

"That's easy enough," he smirked, pulling his wand out slowly in an effort not to frighten the boy. He tapped the lad's robes and muttered a phrase that quickly switched the blue to black.

Impossibly bright green eyes stared back at him.

"It's called magic," he said, laughing good naturedly at the innocent amazement that was staring back at him.

"You're a freak too!" The boy proclaimed, before clapping his hands over his mouth and flinching backwards, his eyes wide with fear.

Something hot dropped into the pit of his stomach at seeing the child's automatic reaction and he forced himself to remain calm for the lad's sake.

"Because I can do magic?" He didn't wait for a response, but continued on. "Some people think so. I would wager a guess that your Auntie is one of them?" He asked, looking intently into the thin white face of the boy.

A tiny nod was his answer.

"I want you to listen carefully to me, understand?"

Nod.

Severus looked directly in the boy's face.

"Your auntie lied to you. Having magic doesn't make you a freak. It makes you special. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Green eyes stared at him.

"Tell me if you understand me. It's okay if you don't believe me yet," he said gently, touching the lad's hair carefully with the tips of his fingers.

A nod.

"There's a good lad," he smiled and kissed the boy on his forehead just beside his distinctive scar. He found it a bit strange that until that moment, he hadn't even noticed it.

He felt a warm surge through his heart as the child smiled shyly back at him. The previous thought disappeared from his mind to be replaced with a much more important one.

Could he do this?

Maybe—just maybe he could.

. . .

Beyond the edges of consciousness, Lily smiled to herself in approval.