Irritated at the urgency of the link between them, Severus had stalked up to the fourth floor in order to find out what the son he wished he'd never had was up to. He had convinced himself somehow that the teen had probably been sneaking around and had gotten caught unawares by a trick step in the staircases or had even been put into detention with Filch. Three times in the boy's first year, he had felt an urgent need to be where the boy was through their mental connection, and found him scrubbing toilets or floors in detention. Irritating whelp.

As he neared Professor Umbridge's office, his suspicions seemed to have been confirmed as her door opened and the boy backed out slowly. Little brat, calling for help when he had only been in detention. He deserved to serve detention all night for- Severus stopped dead as the boy bumped into him, and then turned around to reveal a severely mangled and bloody hand.

"You are out after hours," Severus said then before he knew what he was doing, "Detention for the rest of the night," or at least that's what he supposed he had said. It was the only thing at the forefront of his mind because he'd recently thought about it, and he was so shocked that he couldn't think of a decent response.

The boy gave a tiny choked sob as he staggered into the wall.

"Go and find Filch and tell him to report to me what chores you have done in the morning."

Sneer fixed securely in place, Severus strode off towards the Hospital Wing, where he could inform Madam Pomfrey of the latest atrocity committed by Dolores Toad Umbridge (as the staff had taken to calling her behind her back). His snakes had been careful not to get too many detentions with her after Draco had come back with the words, ‘I will not curse at teachers,' scratched into the back of his hand. It appeared that the other houses, especially Potter, hadn't been so lucky.

Did I really just give an injured student detention? Yes, well, at least Poppy will know where to find him. Loath as he was to admit it, the brat always did what he told him to do, down to the letter, and he had no doubt that she would find him with Filch.

Duty done once he had informed Poppy, he began his descent back down through the castle. Something nagged at him at the back of his mind though, something that said he needed to check on the boy, but he pushed it down. He is not my son, he told himself. It was his mantra. The day that Lily had betrayed him and taken the baby to James, changing his last name and status in the wizarding world, was the day that Severus considered his first born dead. He had mourned for the loss of his son for an entire year, until the day that his wife and her new husband had been killed by the dark lord and their son placed with her relatives, and then he stopped. He could not spend his life regretting the loss of his son. This was the day that Harry Severus Snape ceased to exist, and Harry Severus Potter became no one to him.

"Severus!"

He stopped, and turned to find Poppy hurrying towards him. "He's not with Argus. Are you sure that's where you sent him?"

"I was not mistaken." He rarely made mistakes, although if he were truthful, he told himself that he never made them. The look Poppy gave him said she begged to differ.

"Well he's not there, and I sent a patronus to Minerva and she sent one back saying he's not in Gryffindor tower either."

He gave an irritated sigh. "I am not expected to know where he is once he leaves my sight." With this, he hurried off, back down through the castle, the nagging at the back of his mind returning with full force. He attributed it to the boy being in pain as he hid out somewhere, too stubborn to go to detention as he had been told.

Finally back in the Entrance Hall, Severus was delayed once more by his anxious looking son standing by the front door, wringing his hands together. Kenai was not normally one to look anxious, or to drop the shield hiding his true emotions out in public like this, yet there he was.

"Dad!" He ran to Severus and looked worriedly over to the oak front doors. "He ran out there dad! He didn't even have a coat on! And it's snowing hard."

Brows furrowed, Severus crossed his arms and waited for his son to calm down enough to explain the situation to him properly. In private Kenai often rambled on if he was excited or nervous, forgetting to give key details.

"Whom is it that you are referring to?" Probably one of his younger Slytherins by the anxious look on his son's face.

"Harry Potter! He ran right out the door crying! He didn't even see me."

By instinct Severus looked down at the floor for confirmation, and found droplets of blood, as well as a bloody handprint on the metal door handle.

Striding forward as he recognized the need to stop ignoring that feeling in his mind that something really was wrong, he heaved open the door, Harry's blood dry now, and gazed out into the darkness as snow swirled around him with the howling wind. Kenai came to stand by his side and said, "He'll be dead by now."

Severus didn't acknowledge the uncertain comment, but he feared it was true, and out of nowhere, some of that mourning that he had given up so long ago worked it's way back into his heart. She has taken my Harry to the grave with her.

* * *

The first thing that he was aware of, was that he was covered in a blanket. That had to be it, he thought. Umbridge killed his hand, and then somebody found him and took him to the Hospital Wing, where he was now in a bed under a blanket recovering.

Harry opened his eyes. Nope. Damn. It was dark and he was surrounded by gray. The weight over him that he had assumed was a blanket, was actually cold snow, and he worried suddenly that he felt fairly warm in spite of the snow all around him.

Struggling to move, and feeling weak, Harry began to dig with his good hand, not sure which way was up until he dug a little and some snow fell to hit him in the face. Inspired with the thought that his little snow cave might not have much air left, he dug frantically, feeling confined, and sucked in deep gulps of fresh air when he broke through the surface a minute later.

Grunting, Harry made the hole bigger and pulled himself up to look around in the darkness, sorry that he had left the cave when cold air tore at his skin through his school robes as soon as he was outside.

Breathing heavily and feeling exhausted, Harry tried to orient himself to where he had ended up when he'd fallen with the curse the Death Eaters had sent at his back. Here he reached around to feel the damage to his back and was dismayed to find that it burned to the touch, as if he'd been thrown into a fire. Perhaps the snow had numbed the pain for him as he slept.

Hopelessness overtaking him, Harry tried to fight back with a plan of how to get back to the warm castle, but when he could not see the castle in any direction, he panicked again.

"No castle," he said, voice cracking. "Where-" he looked around him again and saw a few trees in the distance, but it was too dark to see anything else.

Maybe I apparated, he thought, although he was forcefully reminded that he did not yet know how to do that. Or the curse could have sent me here, he argued with his mind. Whatever way he had traveled, he was no longer within sight of Hogwarts, and the snowy, featureless landscape gave him no hope of ever finding his way back, especially injured as he was and without a coat or any inclination of which direction to travel in.

Having no better alternatives, Harry remembered how warm he felt inside the small snow cave, and slid feet first back inside of it. Using his wand and his good hand, he heated the snow inside to make a larger space and pulled a quill out of his pocket, hoping he could properly transform it into something useful. After much frustration and twenty minutes, he had turned it into a large rock, which he set next to him and used his wand to heat up until it glowed red. Finally feeling some semblance of warm, Harry ripped a piece of his robes off down near his shoes and wrapped it around his bloody hand, wishing he had the knowledge of a healer to heal himself, or more schooling in transfiguration so he could transform pieces of his robe into a coat or other useful things.

Worried that he would die there in the cold wilderness, Harry curled up next to the rock, and fell into a fretful sleep full of nightmares. He shouted out to his father for help continually in his dream as he roamed the corridors of Hogwarts, but instead found his father in a secluded, dark corner, calling out for help himself.

‘Dear dad, what's wrong with you?' dream Harry wrote in his journal.

* * *

He had almost panicked when the connection disappeared. If the boy was alive then the connection gnawed at him, signaling the child was in trouble. But if it had suddenly gone blank...

"Dad?"

Severus opened his eyes and looked at Kenai.

"You're doing it again... you look worried. Why?"

He turned away and continued to make his anxious son some tea to calm his nerves. He had never spoken to Kenai about the mental connection. He had not spoken to Kenai about the Potter boy much at all since they had gone for their first year of Hogwarts and Kenai had asked why he had another son with a different woman and why they were the same age.

‘I was married to his mother. When she left I married your mother and she had you.' That was all he'd told him. The rest Kenai knew... how his mother had taken ill when he was still but a baby and had died shortly after, leaving Severus to raise him on his own.

"Are you yourself not worried that a Hogwarts student is in need of help?"

Kenai frowned. Of course he was worried. Isn't that why his dad was making him tea in the middle of the night? He wanted to say, ‘he is my brother you know,' but stopped short before the words left his mouth. He knew his father didn't want to hear it... didn't want to acknowledge it. But for all the taunting and bullying, Kenai couldn't help but admire Harry in some ways. His skill on a broom for instance, or the way he stood up for a brother that for all appearances hated him. The way he didn't even complain about the punishment he took in Kenai's place. He sighed and wondered yet again if he would ever be able to tell his father about the potion he'd secretly sent via house-elf to Harry's room as a thank you for sticking up for him. The answer was probably no.

"Are you gonna be mad at me if I'm worried about him?"

"No."

"Are you worried about him?"

Silence surrounded the question, until, "My job is on the line. I saw him injured and did not take him directly to Madam Pomfrey." It was the truth, in a contorted sort of way. He might lose his job, but he was worried instead that the connection in his mind had abruptly ceased.

"Drink your tea and go to bed."

"But I want to help search for him."

"The other staff are out in the elements looking for him. It is none of your concern."

"But-"

"Go!" He slammed his open hand down on the kitchen counter, startling Kenai, and he hurried off to the room he kept in his father's quarters, despite the fact that for most of the year he lived in the Slytherin dorms. Severus watched him go, and wished that Kenai had the obedience that the other boy usually did... Harry. Somehow the boy he had not raised had become an obedient, popular Quidditch superstar with respectable grades and courage enough to take whatever came his way without even a complaint. And Kenai, the son he had raised, sometimes came up sub-par if Severus admitted that he sometimes compared the two. While Kenai's grades were very near the Granger girl's, he was often in trouble for bullying, and was hard to control on good days. He was obviously doing something wrong. Perhaps Lily did know what she was doing when she ran off with that bloody Gryffindor two months after giving birth to their son.

Sitting on the couch in the darkness, hand massaging his temples, Severus startled some hours later when the connection reappeared, and tried to sense with his mind just how much trouble Harry had gotten himself into. He had a brief flash of white light and searing pain before a glimpse of a hooded figure near a broken down old house in the Forbidden Forrest, and then nothing again.

"Help me find you," he said urgently to himself, willing the message to cross the barrier between them. "Help. Help." Nothing was forthcoming however, and he hurried to find the Headmaster, to tell where in the forest to search.