Damned dunderheads. Severus opened the door to his quarters and headed for his armchair, sinking down into it with a heavy sigh. He hated Wednesdays. He'd initially been pleased to see that his teaching hours were concentrated on Wednesdays, giving him two half days a week to work on his more complicated potions, but that didn't make the heavy day any easier. To make matters worse, one of his seventh years had still not managed an even minimally acceptable version of his culminating project and it had taken the entirety of Severus' lunch hour to sort him out. He hadn't been back to his quarters or eaten anything since breakfast, and he now needed to work on his sanguis puris potion within the next three hours if he wasn't to ruin several days' worth of work.

He hadn't checked on Harry, either, he realized a moment later with a groan. Not for hours. He really couldn't just sit here for the rest of the afternoon.

Food first, he decided. He wasn't going to be any good for Harry or his potions if he handled either of them as hungry as he was now. And maybe he'd take a pepper-up, while he was at it. Yes. Definitely.

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Well fed, and feeling slightly less murderous for it, Severus finally got to his desk at five forty-five. He'd check on Harry and then settle in to finish his potions while it was still early enough for him to read a bit before bed. His old Master from his apprenticeship period had published a column in a lesser-known trade rag, and he hadn't managed to get to it yet.

First though, Harry. For all he knew the boy had gotten himself stuck hanging by his feet from the ceiling, or something, and his relatives certainly wouldn't help him out if that were the case.

Tapping out a complicated rhythm on his desk top with his fingers, Severus disengaged the locks and wards on the secret panel in his desk, and slid it open to remove his scrying mirror. Ostensibly, it was there so that he could spy on those of his colleagues whose houses he'd managed to bug or whose wards were inadequate. But the Dark Lord was long gone, and while Severus did keep tabs on those Death Eaters who had managed to avoid Azkaban, his mirror was now much more often employed to follow his son in his various wanderings. If Severus knew where to look – and the boy was in one of the areas that Severus had bugged – Severus could watch for him.

This time – the boy wasn't in his bedroom, nor in the kitchen, but... Severus frowned in concern as he watched the family gathered around the kitchen table. The Dursleys were eating, and Harry was not there. Not a good sign. He watched for a moment to make sure the boy hadn't just stepped out to the bathroom or something, but all he saw was the older Mr. Dursley waving food around on the end of his fork, apparently dominating the conversation. He had food in his mouth, too. Severus grimaced and thought of the next location to look.

He'd already checked the boy's bedroom, and he wouldn't be in the living room or the other public areas of the house if he hadn't been allowed in the kitchen. Outside, then. The garden? But no, Severus shifted his view among several surveillance points but saw nothing. The boy wasn't in the garden, and it was too late for Harry to be in school.

The playground. And yes, there he was, and Severus breathed a sigh of relief before stiffening as he realized what he was seeing. Harry. Standing bold as brass on top of the monkey bars and walking back and forth over the rungs, not even a week after he'd scolded the boy and made it very clear what he was and was not permitted to do on these same monkey bars.

Severus closed his eyes, but when he opened them again the view hadn't improved. As Severus watched, the boy wavered, then recovered. Nothing for it. He could either ignore the boy's disobedience – and the risk to his safety – or he could slip out of Hogwarts for the second time in a week to go punish his son. And all he wanted to do was perform the next step on his damned potions and go to bed. Damn it. Why today?

Nothing for it, and while he wasn't looking forward to it, he'd been called out of Hogwarts at the end of a long day for worse things. He only hoped Albus wouldn't notice. Fortunately the man was used to Severus keeping to his quarters on Wednesday evenings. He wouldn't think it odd that he missed dinner in the Great Hall. He'd use the floo in his office and do his best to explain his departure later if Albus was still monitoring its use.

Not that it mattered, he realized grimly. Albus had made it clear that he'd noticed Severus' deception and was going to allow it. Not that he knew how long that would last.

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The trick was to keep moving, Harry discovered. If he attempted to balance on the bars one at a time, he wavered, and eventually had to put his hands down quickly to avoid falling. If he stepped and kept moving, though, he could quite easily walk along the bars in a sort of rolling rhythm that only got really scary when he got to the end and had to stop.

Or alternatively, when he got most of the way across and slammed to a halt as his father's head came into view over the end of the rail. The expression in the man's eyes could have cut glass. Harry nearly fell backwards in his startlement and scrambled for balance for a moment before he felt the sudden odd weightlessness that he'd encountered once before when he'd fallen from the tree. His father had caught him again.

And the man had spanked him the last time, Harry remembered belatedly. His father did not like it when he had to come to Harry's rescue. And this time Harry had disobeyed him, too. Harry winced, but there was nothing for it. As before, the magic lifted him into the air and dropped him unceremoniously at his father's feet. At least this time he was right side up, but he landed on his butt anyway, and looked up from the ground to see his father positively fuming.

Well, that was fine, Harry told himself, willing his anxiety away as he stood up to face the man. Harry was mad, too. Father had promised. He was supposed to keep his promises! He was the only one that kept his promises! Harry stood up straight – just a little bit out of his father's reach - and matched the man glare for glare.

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Well that was...new. Glaring like that, his son looked just like him, with somewhat messier hair and Lily's expressive green eyes. Very angry green eyes. What right did the boy have to be angry with him?

But Harry had never defied him quite this explicitly, and now that Severus was here he found himself wondering why. How had the boy gotten this angry with him when he wasn't even here?

And how that anger translated into the boy risking his neck on top of the playground equipment was another question. He positively itched to spank the boy, but Harry's behavior really was odd. Usually, his son wanted to please him.

“Explain,” he commanded the boy coldly.

Harry flinched at the word, but his anger didn't waver. “Y-you're a liar!” his son declared angrily. “You promised and you LIED.”

Severus frowned. He lied? The accusation that he was a liar was absolutely accurate, but he used it to very specific aims. He had never, to his knowledge, lied to his son. “I lied,” Severus repeated blankly.

Harry's glare intensified at Severus' confusion, but the boy didn't answer him.

But Severus had had a long enough day without Harry being difficult. “I said explain, Harry,” he told the boy sharply. “This is your chance. If you only wish to glare at me then I will simply spank you for your disobedience and have done with it.”

His son's eyes widened a little at the words, and a slight tremble in his lip became more visible. The boy was clearly angry, but he was also apparently on the edge of tears. Not an unusual combination, actually. Severus had seen it a lot in his years as Head-of-House.

After another moment of mute staring – which Severus allowed, as Harry seemed to be trying to get himself under control - the boy finally answered, his voice coming out broken and surprisingly quiet. “You s-said they couldn't take my p-plane,” Harry told him. “You said. But they did! They t-took it! You said they couldn't!” The last words were louder, as the boy's upset started to spill over.

Oh. That explained it. But – how? He'd been quite sure that none of the Dursleys would be even able to touch the plane, let alone take it. “Harry,” he said, the name coming out sharper than he'd intended. “They couldn't even touch your plane, and you tell me they took it from you?”

“But they did!” Harry protested. “A-aunt Petunia made me throw it in the rubbish bin!”

Oh. He hadn't accounted for that. Of course. Petunia couldn't touch the plane, but Harry could, and she could make Harry do whatever she wanted. Severus' temper, already wavering at the boy's obvious upset, finally fell completely. Oh, Harry. The boy's one toy. Severus knew exactly how that felt.

And they'd had a deal. Severus had broken it, or at least he had as far as Harry was concerned. And he hadn't given the boy another way to contact him than to do something so wildly stupid that Severus was guaranteed to come tell him off. Which he'd get to, in a moment. For now – he was relieved that all the boy had done was disobey him, and hadn't run away, or something.

“I am sorry, Harry,” he told the boy quietly. “I didn't think of that.”

Harry looked so surprised at the words that Severus was almost amused. Almost. He would've been, if it weren't for the sudden realization of what it would take to get Harry to throw out that one cheap little airplane.

“Harry,” he asked seriously. “How did your Aunt make you to throw out your plane?”

The boy gave him a wide-eyed look before looking away to stare resolutely at the ground, his shame and misery obvious and immediate in the rounding of his shoulders and the small, mute shrug that was Severus' only reply.

“Harry,” Severus said warningly. “I do not like shrugs. Answer me, please.”

The boy gave him an anxious look, then looked away again. “N-”

Severus cut him off before he could get any further. “Don't you dare.”

Harry stopped the lie at the warning, but glared sullenly at the ground, once again refusing to speak. Damn.

Severus stepped forward to close the distance to his son, and gently took his arm, turning him. Harry evidently knew what was about to happen, and this time he protested, his tone coming out whiny. “N-no! Father!” He was resisting Severus' pull, too, but not strongly enough to really make a difference. Ignoring the protest, Severus turned him, and gave him two swats in quick succession on his clothed behind. That done, he turned the boy back to look at him.

“I asked you a question,” he told the boy. It came out quiet, almost gentle – and Harry's expression in response showed such upset that he felt bad for the swats. He knew the boy had had a hard day, but then they were going to have this conversation, and he would not allow Harry to disobey him, no matter what else was going on. But he still didn't like punishing the boy. What was he going to do about the boy's idiotic playground antics?

Harry hesitated just a moment longer before finally answering him. “It's your fault,” he accused. “Y-you did it! You made it shock Dudley! I didn't do anything and- and-”

The boy was becoming distraught, his words coming out louder and faster as his eyes filled with tears, and finally his words failed. Still Severus waited, hoping Harry would finish the sentence. The boy wouldn't be struggling that much if it wasn't new information. But then Harry paused too long. “And what, Harry?” he asked him.

“I was holding it,” Harry told him finally. There was a sort of - pained bewilderment – in his voice that set a slow fire in Severus' chest. “I was holding onto it and I – I knew she wouldn't give it back and I didn't want to let it go so she- Aunt Petunia hurt me. S-she grabbed my hand and it hurt. I- I knew she didn't like me but-”

His voice failed, and he clearly fought for control but it was no time at all before his eyes filled with tears again.

Numbly, Severus reached for the boy's right hand, gently insistent even when Harry initially pulled it away from him. Very carefully, he checked him, looking at the chafed, reddened skin and slight swelling on the boy's wrist before watching his son's face as he manipulated the joint and pressed gently on the bones. He was reassured when the only point of soreness was the initial small contusion he'd found, and nothing worse. Still, he couldn't help running a very gentle finger over the mark, fighting back a sense of mindless fury that threatened to send him back ten years into the past. He did not hurt and kill his enemies, anymore. No matter whom they themselves had hurt.

But the boy's aunt had hurt him. Gripped that thin wrist hard enough to chafe the skin and bruise when the boy pulled. Harry was standing in front of him in tears, submitting meekly when Severus knew that his examination, however gentle, must have hurt.

And Harry was watching him now, with a vulnerability in his eyes that Severus had seen a couple of times before, when Harry had begged him – begged him – to take him away. To be his father for real. Harry was absolutely correct that this was Severus' fault.

For the first time, it felt as natural to Severus to pull the boy into his arms as it had to swat him when he fell out of the tree – he just reached out and the boy's head was in his chest, his hands gripping Severus' robes as his tears wet the fabric.

“Good boy,” Severus told him, holding his head. “Good boy. My good boy. I'm so sorry.”

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My good boy. Good boy. I'm sorry. His father continued to speak, mostly just those three things over and over again. But Harry had never heard any of the three before in his life, and between that and the warmth of his father's body through his clothing and the feel of his father's hand in his hair, Harry found that while his tears continued, he'd never been so...not exactly happy, but comforted – in his life.

He had one little nothing of a bruise, something no one in their right mind would be the least bit concerned with. It didn't even hurt all that much. And yet somehow Harry couldn't bear to look at it, his very soul shying away from the memory of how he'd gotten it. It felt – huge, that bruise. Unimaginably, intolerably awful.

Which was just pathetic. It was a bruise. A tiny thing that a big boy of nine had no business worrying over. But his father...his father had somehow seemed to know. He'd touched it, brushed gentle fingers over it – fussed over it – like somehow he, too, thought it was important. And now – now he held Harry, too, like he was important. Like he truly was sorry about Harry's one tiny hurt. And that felt enormous, too.

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Harry cried in his arms, and Severus just held him, unsure what to do or say other than to praise the boy for talking to him and apologize to him for his failure, knowing without a doubt that he was the worst kind of coward the world had ever seen. Send him against the Dark Lord, sure, he'd do what he needed to. He didn't fear death. Evidently, what he feared was Albus. And he'd failed to protect his son because his mentor would be angry with him. He'd procrastinated and procrastinated until the woman had actually hurt the boy.

And...that was it. No more of this. Severus didn't exactly know what he was going to do, but Petunia Dursley would never touch his son again.

But first – Harry was clinging to him, and Severus couldn't bring himself to pull free or otherwise make the boy stop before he was ready. He let the boy cry, and then let the boy cling to him as the crying quieted and eventually died altogether, and then stayed until Harry himself finally pulled back a little, giving him a quizzical look.

“Father?” he asked.

Severus stared down at him. What was he going to do with the boy?

But nothing for it. He'd delayed long enough, and he could not stomach leaving his son in that house one more night. The fact that he had not prepared in the slightest for this eventuality was his problem, and not Harry's. He'd grovel for Albus and the man would fix it, no matter how angry he was with Severus for springing this on him...and for lying to him for nine years before that...and for having had that night with Lily in the first place... Severus winced, but his cowardice had already cost Harry enough. He could not let it go further, and he needed to act before thought too hard and chickened out again.

“Come, Harry,” he told the boy quietly. He would come back for the boy's belongings later. Hogwarts would supply enough for the one night.

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Severus led Harry away from the playground and past the Dursley's house, headed for another house a little further down from it and across the street. He'd brought his copy of the key, and used it to let himself and Harry in through a back door.

As usual, the place was deserted. Evidence would suggest that the older man who owned the place did actually live there, at least some of the time, but Severus had only even met him once, when he'd explained this arrangement. Since then, the man had done a very good job disappearing from the house when Severus was in it. Severus in turn was careful to leave no evidence of his passage other than the agreed-on fee. Well, that and a private, locked floo passage, but the muggle would have no way to detect that other than the ashes left in his fireplace.

Harry looked around the house in curiosity, but didn't ask questions. He'd been utterly silent for the entire walk here and for the time that he'd stood waiting while Severus unlocked the front door. He thought he probably should encourage the boy to talk, but he found that he simply didn't want to. He was in no mood for answering questions and the boy would figure it out himself soon enough.

Kneeling on the hearth, Severus placed a fragment of wood on the grate and lit it with his wand, then removed the small bag of floo powder from a pocket of his robes. He opened it and pulled out a small handful of the gritty material.

“The flames will not harm you,” he told Harry, reaching for him. “But the room will spin.”

He threw the silvery powder into the flickering flame and they flared into a two-foot tall green bonfire. “Private floo number 2-5-3-2,” he commanded.

Evidently, he needn't have worried about his son. Once the boy figured out that his father was going to hold him, that was pretty much all Harry cared about. He didn't fight at all as Severus backed him straight into the flames.

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Harry held onto his father for a moment after the wild ride through the chimney, catching his breath and savoring the fact that the man was permitting it. His stomach had tightened painfully through the entire walk to his neighbors house, as his father had stalked ahead of him and not spoken a word.

Harry had known that the man wasn't angry. His father had let Harry cry on him. Harry had gotten snot on the man's clothes and still his father hadn't made him stop. Instead he'd apologized and told Harry he was good. He couldn't possibly be angry.

And yet- Harry had disobeyed, today, and the man hadn't spoken to him at all since Harry had let go of him.

After a moment of silent clinging, though, Harry felt a large, gentle hand on his head, the fingers carding through his hair in a way Harry was just starting to get used to. Not that getting used to it made him love it any less.

He really ought to let go now. Surely, his father had brought him...wherever they were...for a reason. But he couldn't bear the idea that maybe his father really was upset with him. The hand in his hair was enormously reassuring.

Finally, though, his father spoke up, that unusual gentleness still in his voice. “I need you to let go now, Harry.”

Harry didn't want to, but he also knew he was clinging and he really, really didn't want his father to get mad again. He let go immediately and backed up, looking at the floor and feeling the beginnings of a blush.

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Severus frowned, noticing for the first time how wary Harry looked. I haven't scolded him, he realized, and I haven't talked to him, either. He was just preoccupied, but Harry needed to know where he stood.

“I am not angry with you, Harry,” he told the boy. “We are going to talk about your behavior on the playground but I understand why you did it. I simply have a lot to think about, right now.”

And a lot to do, but this was the first time Harry had ever been in his quarters, and he didn't even yet know that that was where Severus had brought him.

“This is my home, Harry,” he told the boy. Harry looked up in surprise, and Severus met his eyes. “You are not going back to the Dursleys,” he told him. “You will stay with me. But I have a lot that I need to do to make that happen.”

The boy's eyes were as big as saucers, but he didn't speak, and once again Severus understood. The boy wouldn't know what to think, just yet. Severus had felt the same when he'd started going home with Albus for the summer. The fear had so far overwhelmed him that he couldn't even really be happy about it. Harry was probably a little better off than that, but nonetheless, the boy was most likely feeling very insecure.

And now he needed to leave Harry alone in order to talk with Albus. Not ideal, but not horrible, either. Harry probably had a lot to think about, too.

“Stay here,” he told the boy. “You may move around through the room as you wish, but don't touch the books – some of them could hurt you.”

Come to think of it – he couldn't imagine Harry just sitting or playing quietly for the amount of time this conversation was likely to take. And he had absolutely nothing he could offer the boy to do.

“Tilly,” he called sharply.

Harry frowned, evidently confused, but a moment later Severus' house-elf popped into the room. “Master Snape is calling for Tilly, sir?” she said.

Harry squeaked when he saw her, and Severus smiled, remembering his own first experience with the creatures. He was lucky that Tilly was so very short, even for a house elf. Harry might've been more frightened of a larger one.

“Tilly,” he told her, oddly nervous. “This is my son, Harry. He is coming to live with me, but I need to go speak to the headmaster. I need you to please watch over him for an hour or so.”

Harry's eyes were wide, and Severus found himself tempted, for a moment, to tell the boy some sort of scary tale about her to get him to behave. But he really wouldn't lie to his son. Not even just for a joke.

“Harry, this is Tilly,” he told the boy instead. “She is a house-elf. You are to obey her. I will be back as soon as I can be.” Then he turned to the elf. “Come find me if he gives you trouble, but I don't think he will.” Then he realized something. “Oh,” he told the elf. “And feed him dinner. He really likes cookies.”

He was going to leave, then, but the elf frowned at him. “Just cookies, sir?”

Severus winced, embarrassed. “Oh,” he told her quickly. “No. Just...” His embarrassment increased further at the realization that he specifically wanted to be sure his son got dessert. He was a terrible parent already, it seemed. “Give him whatever the students are getting, but please look to see if there are cookies left over from yesterday. He may have two.”

Harry was giving him big eyes, and once again Severus found himself terribly uncomfortable under the hero worship he saw in his gaze. “Be good,” he told the boy. “I'll be back as soon as I can be.”

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