Chapter 9 – Christmas Eve

 “I hope you appreciate the ironies of this situation, Albus,” a rather familiar voice said by way of greeting as he strode into his office that following morning. 

He looked up in surprise at the unexpected visitor and found himself openly staring at who was sitting behind his desk. 

“You—how?”  He tried, losing his ability to form a sentence for the first time in over two decades. 

The image of James Potter leaned back and threw his heavy boots up on Albus’s desk with a nasty sneer. 

“Let’s think about this logically, old boy,” the sneer got darker on the face of the man who would be forever young.  “First,” he held up a shimmery looking finger, “My wife and I die in order to protect our son from the wrath of Voldemort.  In turn, my son repels the killing curse onto the man who tried to kill him in the first place, and more or less,” the ghostly image focused his eyes back on him for a short heart stopping moment, “frees the wizarding world from his ‘dark reign.’” 

“What—,” Albus tried to ask, only to be cut off with another harsh glare. 

“Do feel free NOT to interrupt, old boy,” James said, raising another finger as he prepared to continue on his rant.   “Next, you put my best man and my son’s godfather in Azkaban without giving him even the pretense of a trial.”  James turned his hand around so that his palm was facing inwards, while displaying the backs of both his index and middle fingers to Albus. 

Albus swallowed, but did not say anything about the lewd sign that was staring at him from across the room. 

“In turn, that left you with the option of giving our child to the worst possible choice of all time; his magic hating relatives,” James said, unblinking. 

“Ultimately resulting in the need,” James put his feet down and slowly stood up, “for my wife to have to save him and then choose to give him to that git,” the man said, moving closer to him, “Severus Snape.” 

James Potter was standing directly in front of him; a look of pure malevolence on his face as he stared Albus down. 

“You screwed up, old boy,” the angry ghost said in a low voice that rumbled through the office.  “And now, I have to watch my Severus raise my child.  Not only that, but I have to defend Severus to you; you bloody double-crossing bastard.” 

James’s ethereal hands pushed forwards at his chest, causing a stark chill to go through his heart.  This was followed by a loud booming crash somewhere in front of him, and then he could only watch helplessly as his vision went black. 

. . .

The next morning, Severus woke up to find a small inquisitive face staring thoughtfully at him.  The child had slept for the rest of the day after having his arm reset by Poppy; only waking up briefly to tiredly eat dinner, and then promptly go back to sleep.  

“Are you awake now?”  He asked, after lighting the lamps next to his bed with a small flick of his wand; easily pulling them up into more of an upright position. 

The boy nodded at him, green eyes shining back at him solemnly.

“What are you thinking about?”  Severus asked, curious as to the reasons behind the lad’s unusually quiet mood. 

“Are you my daddy now?”  Was the child’s tremulously spoken question from within his arms. 

Severus was very aware of how important the boy’s question was, but that didn’t mean it made it any easier to answer. 

“Would you want me to be?”  He asked, voicing some of his own insecurity.  No one had ever thought of him as a ‘daddy.’  No one had ever wanted to. 

The child’s arms visibly tightened around his bear and unconsciously he found himself holding his breath. 

“What if, what if you end up not liking me?”  The lad asked instead. 

“You mean, what if I get angry at you?”  He probed. 

“Dat too,” little Harry whispered nervously, wide green eyes staring intently at him. 

Severus ran a hand through his hair, wondering for the hundredth time how he had managed to get himself into this improbable situation. 

“I will never intentionally hurt you,” he answered after some silence, earnestness showing through his dark eyes.  

“What if I’m bad?”  The lad asked shakily. 

“Then likely you will be sent to bed early and without dessert,” he said before lapsing back into thought.  “Perhaps it will also mean that you will be sent to the corner to think quietly about what you did wrong,” he added a minute later. 

“That’s all?”  Shock was evident in the child’s face and once more, Severus’s fury for his previous caretakers began welling up again in his chest.

Lily’s child, this is Lily’s child, he chanted silently to himself; focusing on the mantra until he had calmed himself down again. 

She had asked him to take the boy, and damn it, he had agreed.  And although it had only been a few days, the small child’s presence had already begun to grow on him.

It amused him that the lad tended to trot after him whenever he moved within his rooms; moving like a small silent shadow, and soaking up every utterance he made.  It was with little trouble that he had learned to keep his more violent words to himself, lest the child pick up on those as well. 

He was getting used to having a small someone around to show things to, and he had enjoyed being the one to cause reactions of amazement and happiness within those bright green orbs.  Furthermore, after their time out and about the previous day, it had become just that much clearer to him how much the small boy trusted only him. 

He cocked his head to the side and looked back at the boy still staring at him patiently.

“Would you like to be my son?”  He asked suddenly, speaking the question quickly before he lost his nerve. 

“And you won’t let Auntie get me?”  The child asked; his eyes bright with sudden hopefulness. 

“Never ever again,” he promised fiercely, pulling the boy into a secure hug against his chest.  “Never ever,” he repeated, speaking against the trembling head of the child whom he had decided to claim. 

“Never,” he added once more for the benefit of the pale ghostly figure that had appeared briefly in his peripheral vision. 

“And you’ll always be my Tall Man?”  Little Harry’s voice asked softly into his ear. 

“If that’s what you want,” he said, chuckling a bit in the seclusion of his—or rather, their—quarters. 

. . .

Albus Dumbledore was no longer in his office.  He wasn’t in the dungeons or in the Great Hall.  He wasn’t in the castle or the Forbidden Forest.

He wasn’t in Scotland. 

He wasn’t anywhere to be found in the now, let alone the here. 

He was in the then; in the what-had-been; the place referred to when one says, “Been there, done that.”

Some people would have us believe that the past was a very dark place to experience.  Black and white photographs only reemphasize this perception—regardless of whether they are enchanted moving pictures or not. 

The place where Albus now found himself in was bright and filled with life.  He was standing in a clearing, next to which sat a sturdy looking house.  He knew what he’d find if he went inside.  He knew that he’d see three happy children playing together while their parents looked on in shared amusement. 

He knew this house.  He knew the clearing and he knew that there was a well at the back of the house that was filled with the coolest and clearest water he had ever seen in all of his days. 

He knew that there was a hidden gnome population that lived in the trees around the house.  He knew that just over the next hill, there was a small village of both wizards and muggles called, “Mould-on-the-Wold.” 

He knew all of this.  He knew that it was a wonderful place filled with many enjoyable things. 

And yet, for all of his knowledge on what the place and the then was like, he still could not deny the intense fury and hatred that welled up inside of his heart at seeing his old childhood home. 

. . .

“Nice place, don’t you think?”  James Potter’s voice interrupted his silent brooding. 

He turned and looked at the man beside him.  It was somewhat reassuring to see that James was still a ghost.  He refused to look down at himself.  He didn’t care to know what he might see. 

“She’s a pretty little thing,” James remarked after two children emerged from the house.  The boy was a younger—a much younger—Albus, while the girl—.

“Ariana,” he breathed in a pained voice. 

As much as he wanted to look away and not torture himself with the image of seeing her whole and happy, he simply could not make himself do it.  It had been so very long since he had looked on her with anything more than just the eyes of his memories. 

A small girl with long white blond hair, his younger sister had been the family’s pride and joy until the fateful summer of her sixth year, when she had been attacked by those wretched muggle boys. There world had changed after that, and not for the better. 

Tearing his eyes away from the little girl who would never grow old, he turned his attention onto the ghost still floating beside him.  He was surrounded by his mistakes.  Did James think that he didn’t know that?

“In case you haven’t kept up, time travel is still outlawed,” he said dryly. 

James turned to look at him, quirking an eyebrow of his own. 

“Is that so?  We’ll just have to keep our hands to ourselves then,” the dead man said with a wink. 

“What if they see us?”  He asked with a piercing gaze. 

“They won’t be able to.  Being a ghost does have some advantages, you know.  It’s not just all Death Day parties and severed head hunts.”  James looked seriously at him and then added, “Besides, I’m a special case; always have been.” 

“That I believe even Severus would agree on,” Albus answered with a chuckle, ignoring the angry look that his companion shot at him. 

. . .

Severus made sure to add a warming charm to their cloaks before leaving the castle with his small boy that evening.  It was the first time that the child had seen the outside world that surrounded Hogwarts, and he wanted to make sure that the lad enjoyed the experience. 

He carried Harry (and Captain) in his arms through the thigh high snow drifts, pointing out various features of the landscape as they went. 

“What’s dat?”  His son asked with a nod forwards to the small house in the distance.

“That’s where one of my friends lives.  His name is Hagrid and he’s very nice,” Severus answered.

He didn’t bother to add that the half-giant was also very big.  To Harry, everyone was very big. 

“Are we going there?”  The lad asked perceptively. 

“Yes,” he answered with a small smile. 

He was glad that he had not been put in charge of yet another dunderheaded child.  Merlin knew he had enough of those to contend with already.

The rest of their journey passed quickly enough and soon they were standing outside of Hagrid’s massive oaken door. 

“What if he don’t like me?”  The tiny boy’s soft voice caught his attention right as he began knocking on the door.  He could only spare the child a short reassuring look as Hagrid’s voice called out to them from the other side.

“Comin’!” 

The large door swung open moments later, and for the briefest of heartbeats, the two parties merely stared at one another in silence. 

“Sev’rus, tha’ cannot be little ‘Arry, can it?”  The half-giant choked out in an unusually gruff voice. 

“It is,” Severus confirmed as the wild haired man quickly ushered them in. 

He sat down and placed his small boy—and Captain—on his lap for Hagrid to see.  The other man sat down with a thump at the seat across the table to them, his shocked eyes never leaving them. 

Severus, for his part, noted with much interest that Harry did not seem to be reacting in the same terrified way as he had with the other new people that they had encountered thus far. 

“I ‘aven’t seen you since you were jus’ a babe, ‘Arry,” Hagrid said with shock still etched clearly across his face. 

His small boy shook his head slowly, a distant expression on his face as he listened to the other man.  Then, without warning, the child pulled free of Severus’s arms (and lap) and hesitantly made his way around the roughly hewn table. 

Both men watched in silence as the tiny boy walked almost directly up to Hagrid’s side; stopping barely a foot away.  The lad closed his eyes behind his tiny glasses and wrinkled up his brow in concentration as he began smelling the air around the half-giant’s form. 

When the child opened his eyes again, there was both a smile on his face and tears in his eyes. 

“You saved me.  You held me in your arms,” little Harry said confidently, his words amazing both men. 

And then he did something that truly shocked his new daddy. 

“Will you hold me again?”  The small abused and permanently wary child asked the monstrous man who—although seated—still towered over him. 

Although Severus’s arms would carry the boy back to the castle, it would be Hagrid’s arms that he eventually fell asleep in.