"What the hell are these?" Harry asked, snarling into the room to point at the sides of his head while glaring down at Moody.

"Eh, those would be called 'ears' last I checked, lad."

"Why the hell do they look like Spock's then!?"

"Spock?" Moody asked in bemusement.

"A muggle television show," Severus answered, gliding into the room and causing the other two occupants to stop and stare.

Harry blinked in surprise and then stepped forward to touch his father's hair with his fingertips.

"It's really soft," he murmured, watching as Severus smiled at his compliment.

"Given that I inherited my father's oily hair, I had hoped that my own would change after the ceremony, and happily it did."

"It's lighter too," Moody observed, after stepping into Harry's line of vision. "The colour looks a bit like me ol' mum's did, back in her heyday."

Narrowing his eyes thoughtfully, Severus asked, "Noticeably lighter?"

"Not really," Harry interjected, stepping back to look at him with a wider angle. "I think your skin tone got a little darker too. You're not so pale now. If anybody asks," he grinned suddenly, "you can tell them you were out hunting for potion ingredients and got some sun. Course, you could mean 'son' like S-O-N, but they wouldn't have to know that."

Severus snorted and Moody cracked a grin, twisting his face into something more human like. Suddenly Moody's attention moved toward Harry and he instinctively stepped backward.

"What?"

"Severus' was not the only one to change in appearance."

"Yeah, don't remind me," Harry groused, touching the tips of his surprisingly sensitive ears.

"No, it's your hair. It's got a bit of wave to it, more like me own and Olivia's."

"Olivia?"

"My niece," the old man answered, smiling more gently than Harry or Severus had ever seen.

"I wasn't aware you had any siblings," Severus retorted.

"My sister-in-law's child," Moody said. Harry couldn't hear how it changed tone, but Severus obviously could, as his expression softened at the other man's words almost immediately.

"You have a wife?" Severus' face was curiously blank. "Does she still live?"

"She—they were killed."

Moody shook his head and grimaced, his previous smile gone from his face.

"Olivia lives with her brother now. My wife was visiting her sister's family when Death Eaters struck. Olivia and her brother David were wit' me at the time." He pursed his lips and blinked hard before going on. "It was just a few months before your parents were killed," He added with a nod in Harry's direction.

"Sorry," Harry said, looking away.

Moody nodded and then walked over to where Harry was standing. Dropping into a painful kneel, the older man caught Harry's eye and put a hand on his shoulder.

"They stayed with me for a bit until David was old enough to get his own place. Olivia lived with him until she graduated. They took real good care of each other, " Moody said slowly, both of his eyes locked up on Harry's face.

Briefly biting his lip, Harry answered, "That's good."

Moody nodded and then slowly got to his feet. Harry decided to break the awkward silence that followed by bringing back up the topic of their changes.

"So," he cleared his throat, "Where'd these ears come from?"

"Not me, lad," Moody said with a twisted grin. "Heard there mighta been some centaur-human breeding in me past, but nothing with ears like that."

Harry glanced at Severus, whose face was unusually thoughtful. "Actually," Severus began slowly once he realised that he had Harry's attention, "According to legend, there are high elves in the Prince ancestral line. However, since my mother was the last of the line, I never was able to properly research the idea."

Harry gently touched the tips of his ears again. The ear that previously had been damaged by the accident felt strange to him; its surface no longer marred by the scar tissue that had become such a familiar part of his face.

Great, if I was vain, this'd be wonderful, he thought sourly.

"Isn't there anything that having ears like this can do to actually help me?" Harry asked, gesturing at his ears angrily.

"High elves are historically known for having better than average hearing," Severus answered pensively, his eyebrows drawn together as he pondered the implications of what Harry had asked. "But it is possible that there are certain spells—or potions—that can only be applied to someone with high elf blood ties. I know that such things exist for the goblins, as well as for werewolves," he added with a distasteful sneer.

Harry frowned. That was somewhat promising—sort of.

"Is there somewhere you can look specifically for that kind of information?"

Surprisingly, he saw Severus eyes shift in Moody's direction at his question.

Crossing his arms, Moody answered both questioning looks with, "I got some connections I could try." Suddenly the older man smiled. "Since it's for family, can't say I mind all that much."

Family, Harry felt a grin appear on his face.

. . .

The rest of Harry and Severus' changes didn't fully manifest themselves until the next day when they returned to their respective classes.

Harry was standing in the hallway outside of Potions when he noticed something different about his surroundings. The ground underneath him seemed to be unusually receptive to the movements of the others around him; almost as if he were standing in his old worn out shoes, but more noticeable than that. He watched in silence as Weasley and a few of his friends ran down the hall toward him, feeling the stone under his feet rumble deeply. He looked away from the Gryffindors, but he could still feel their movements.

Later, during class, he was nearly overwhelmed by the surplus of scents that surrounded him. It was as though he could smell each of his classmates individually, but not necessarily in a negative way. Hermione smelled a bit like old books and peaches; Teddy like crisp air and lemon, which wasn't all that surprising, since that's how he took his tea; Neville smelled like fresh dirt and clean hair; while Weasley smelled like old socks and chocolate. It was a confusing mix of scents that seemed to be made worse by his classmates close proximity to him, not to mention the smell of many ingredients that normally permeated the air.

At one point, Severus caught his eye and he looked up to see his father looking at him in veiled concern.

I'll be okay, he tried to think at him, not at all sure if the man would be able to understand. He was still learning about occlumency, and wasn't entirely sure yet of what was possible and what was not.

However, his silent message was met with a very discreet nod, and he turned his attention back to his cauldron, content for the moment.

It was little surprise that his father called for him to stay after class.

. . .

Teddy was waiting patiently in the hallway for Harry to finish meeting with Severus when he heard a familiar voice call out his name.

"Waiting for your pet Potter?" Weasley taunted, sauntering right up to him.

Teddy levelled a glare on him that would have sent a sensible person scrambling. Unfortunately, Weasley was anything but.

"Haven't you got something better to do? Like studying? Trust me when I tell you the professors aren't going to pass you on your looks alone," Teddy retorted with a disdainful twist of his lips, his eyes travelling over the other boy's worn and food splattered robes in disgust.

"You should be more careful, Notty boy," Weasley spat, shoving Teddy hard in the centre of his chest.

"And what if he isn't?" Another voice—a much deeper voice—interjected itself from behind Weasley.

Teddy found some satisfaction in watching Weasley spin around, his overly tall body off balance from the sudden movement as he turned to see who had spoken.

A glaring Alastor Moody stood behind him, his wand already in hand as he began stomping toward them. Weasley gulped loudly and tried to back up against him, but Teddy sidestepped him easily and circled back around to stand next to Moody.

"You and me are gonna have a chat, and then we're flooing to your home and talkin' wit' your mum and dad," Moody growled, grabbing Weasley by his neck and pulling him down the corridor.

"For what!?" Teddy heard Weasley whinge.

"Pickin' fights, acting like a right arse," Moody responded, turning the corner with his red haired charge, and leaving Teddy's sight.

A moment later, the door to Snape's classroom creaked open and Harry found the unusual sight of a grinning Teddy waiting for him.

"What'd I miss?" Harry asked, looking at him curiously.

A dark shadow appeared behind him, and Teddy nodded up at Severus as he came to stand beside them.

"Weasley tried to start something and Moody showed him otherwise," he explained, his smile not diminishing one iota.

The corner of Harry's mouth quirked upwards at his words and Severus gave a soft snort.

"Wouldn't mind bein' a fly on that wall," Harry murmured, flashing a short grin up at his father.

"Being a Gryffindor," Severus slowly theorized, "It is likely that the entire story will be all over the castle by suppertime."

Teddy and Harry smiled at each other.

. . .

Harry isn't the only one experiencing changes, Severus mused as he stalked down the hallway toward the staff room.

The witches in the castle—and some of the wizards as well!—kept giving him double looks as they passed him in the hallways, almost as if they couldn't really believe what they were seeing. His hair, although less greasy than it had been in the past, had also become slightly wavy, and slightly lighter, as Harry had pointed out.

"You look nice today, Severus," Minerva greeted him stiffly as he stepped into the staff room at long last.

With a small smile, he nodded back at her.

"You do look different, Severus," Filius quipped from where he was seated on a stool by his left elbow. "Have you changed your—," rather abruptly the little man cut off and blushed. "I mean, that is—forget I asked, Severus. It really was none of my business."

"No, there isn't a need to apologize, Filius," Severus answered good naturedly.

Who knew that gaining a son—and a father—could make me feel such contentment?

It was peculiar, and he hoped that such overwhelming feelings subsided soon, preferably before he made a fool of himself.

"As a matter of fact, I have developed a new means of protecting my hair against the destructive fumes of my Potions."

Well, that wasn't exactly a lie, now was it? It was true—at least at a certain level.

"Then may I compliment you on your success!" Filius squeaked, raising an imaginary cup in his direction.

"Thank you," he answered demurely, before heading toward the coffee machine.

Once he had a full cup, he found a dark corner of the room and sat down, breathing deeply of the rich aroma that was before him. It was strange, but he was beginning to understand what Moody had meant about being able to read others' emotions. As a Slytherin—and a spy—he had developed the skill on his own to a fine level, but this was something else altogether.

He looked around and saw that like the rich smelling steam coming from his coffee cup, there also seemed to be similar visual elements trailing behind each of his co-workers. Each of his co-workers was surrounded in various vibrant coloured mists that seemingly represented some facet of their personality to his casually wandering eyes.

Unsurprisingly, Minerva had a great deal of red in hers—I suppose they must be auras of some kind, he mused. Even without any study in the topic, he instinctively understood that Minerva's colour meant she was guided very strongly by her emotions and her heart. In contrast then, Filius' aura was distinctly cooler, the silvers and bluish greens in it mixing together to provide a very pleasant aesthetic presentation.

In the midst of his musings, the door to the staff room opened again, and Severus nearly choked on his coffee. There in the doorway stood Quirrell, and despite the shy and stuttering persona the man tried to present to the rest of the world, Severus could now see that something was very very wrong with him.