Wonders Never Cease by Hopeless Wanderer

“You weren’t the first people to discover us,” Harry was saying. “Dad was so careful about these things, all the time. Right under my nose too,” he shook his head. “For nearly half of my childhood, I had no idea that we were the ones running away,”

“It wasn’t that Dad was particularly good at hiding it,” the desk was clattered with numerous pieces of artwork, whereas once it looked blank and threateningly interrogative. “He was just too good at running away. He was an expert at it. I wasn’t allowed to talk to others or interact with them in any way, I was more than glad not to, after killing off a bunch of them. That certainly made things easier. If I didn’t talk then I couldn’t screw things up. He got us new identities every time, a new life, he even changed the cars we pretended to own as we ran away.”

“Methodical,” Harry ignored the man’s dry, sardonic tone. He was good at ignoring other people.

“The person who found us…was not human. I don’t think that he was. Dad almost never mentioned him, I’ve only seen him twice, heard him speak once. I know that he isn’t a big fan of you guys either,”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Yes, he introduced himself to me a while after our first meeting. He had a deal…going on with Dad. I saw Dad throwing out his deliveries every Christmas, all the time. He told me they were from ‘Santa’s only enemy’,” Harry rolled his eyes.

Kingsley cocked an eyebrow as well. “Did he introduce himself to you as Santa’s only enemy?”

“No, just a surname. Lupin. That was his name. Lupin.”

“Remus Lupin?” Kingsley looked far more flabbergasted than Harry was expecting. So much so, that Harry suspected that the man personally knew Lupin himself.

“Yes, him,” Harry said. “I’ve only met him twice.” And the last time ended up with him and Dad being found out, so Harry wasn’t exactly fond of Santa’s sole nemesis.

“Did you get to speak with him?”

“No,” Harry lied, quite easily. The word just rolled off his tongue. “Dad handled both interactions. He’s good at intimidating people.”
An innate talent that Harry had hoped that he had inherited but was greatly disappointed when he found out that Dad wasn’t his biological father and more like the man who had abducted him.

“Well, he was a Death Eater,”

“He was more than that,” Harry snapped back. He hated how Shacklebolt kept circling back to the fact that his father had a tattoo on his forearm. It was ages ago, Dad almost didn’t remember its presence half the time. They had a whole other life apart from this madness. The most he had to worry about were origami papers and his potions, and occasionally about running away. his death eaters days were all a blur. Or so, Harry was told.

“There was no room for mistake, not a single incident to get out of his grasp. The kindergarten was obviously a mistake so he Obliviated the whole place, leaving the muggles’ bodies behind was a mistake, but he mutilated them beyond recognition. He was a death eater for a reason.”

“Are you proud that he is a Death Eater?”

“He’s not proud of it,” Harry took a deep breath. ‘Don’t you snap now, not now’ he told himself and opened his eyes. “I’m not spouting about good and bad,” he said in a chiding tone. “I’m talking about survival. That man saved my life,”

“From what? That’s what we don’t understand.” Kingsley set his quill down. “There is absolutely no threats to your life Mr. Potter,”

Harry raised an eyebrow at the pitying look in the man’s eyes. He knew exactly what he must have been thinking. ‘Poor little orphan boy lied to and traumatized beyond help,’

“I’m being held in an interrogation cell as a minor while my father is in prison,” he snapped. “Don’t let my calm demeanor assuage you, sir, I feel very unsafe in this environment.”

“My father,” he swallowed. “My biological father begged the man he could barely tolerate to take me and run for our lives with his last dying breath. I never questioned their motives because they were right. You don’t understand this,” he nodded to himself with his chin, his eyes bearing a hint of desperation. “You haven’t seen what I can do, but I have. My dad, he wasn’t entirely worried about you hurting me, he was worried about you taking advantage of this thing that I have. He was worried, that once you saw what I could do, you would…”

“Do what?”

Harry scowled. “Let my Dad go if you want to find out.”

“He’s a convict Death eater.”

These bloody people, with their bloody names and titles. Harry gritted his teeth and wondered at the utter stupidity of a man twice the size of him. “He’s a spy caught in crossfire,” Harry growled. “Every single crime committed after Voldemort’s fall had been on my account. Every child you think he’s killed, I have, every harm inflicted on muggles you’ve thought he’s responsible for has been on my account. Every. Single. One of them.”

It took him a single beat to notice that the bookshelves were shaking, and the curtains rustling with a breeze that couldn’t possibly be occurring indoors. He sat back, gulped and wrung his hands. He promised himself. This wasn’t going to be easy, but Harry knew better. Dad had taught him better than getting mad at trivial stuff like this.

“March the Third.” He nodded to himself. That was what he wanted to talk about in the first place. Just state the facts and then hope for the best and if the best wasn’t enough…well, Harry would think of something then. “Dad…he took us, to Norway, every year, since I was six. He said…uh, he said that all of this pent up magic is doing more harm than good, and I wasn’t exactly a saint…he had to find a way to deal with my temper tantrums without destroying and killing anyone.”

Which didn’t end nicely for those muggle boys he’s killed, not at all. Harry had insisted the visits to be more frequent after that incident, in fact, at one point, he was begging his father to take him there and leave him behind. He couldn’t hurt anyone in utter isolation. Dad, of course, flat out refused even to consider Harry’s offer.

“Every March, we packed our bags and went ‘camping’” Dad loved his code names. “I don’t know where beyond the fact that we were in Norway. It was a lovely plain, surrounded by endless rows of mountains, and not a single soul would have known about us.”

“What was so significant about March the third?”

“There wasn’t a shred of significance about that day.it was just the day that I had been pushed too far. I don’t even remember why, but I had a temper tantrum of some sort…And Dad just scooped me up and went to the first unhabituated place he could think of.”

‘Let go?’ Harry had squeaked. His face red and tracked with dried tears. This would help, Dad had said. They were alone now. Harry could be mad. He already had a headache thinking about the damage he was going to cause, and he was absolutely terrified of hurting his dad. He was standing too close, almost in reach. Harry held on to the imaginary leash in his head and yanked it further back.

‘Yes, Harry just let go,’ Said Dad.

Little Harry hugged himself and looked around the wide plain. ‘But you said…’

‘I know what I said,’ Dad was trying his best not to look irritated. ‘But I’m also saying that you are allowed to let go now, let the monster out.’

Harry couldn’t understand the phrase, or what monster his father was talking about. Harry and his magic were the same, at least, Harry thought that they were the same. He gently prodded the volatile waves and screwed his eyes shut as it rippled in response, wild and thrashing.

‘Daddy I’m scared!’ there was a strong wind blowing, running through his hair and drowning out Dad’s voice in the distance. Harry shrank away from it, away from himself. This was wrong. He knew it was wrong. He could hurt people. Burn Dad again. He didn’t want Dad to get hurt.

‘Harry! Harry! It’s alright.’

“It was alright,” Harry shrugged almost in sync with his father’s voice in his head. “He said that doing it was the healthiest approach we could have taken. He said that…restricting my powers would make the monst-.” Harry caught himself just on time, cleared his throat and continued. “Me, more dangerous, something about an Obsucurus?”

Kingsley hummed. “And you released your magic every year on that date?”

“Yes,” Harry ignored the cruel twist in his stomach. “With a single exception.” He hated remembering that day. He abhorred himself the most when he thought of how he almost killed Dad because of that stupid, stupid mistake.

‘I hate you!’ he had cried. Naïvely, stupidly, shouted those words at his dad, hurled them at him with every bit of hatred in him.

Dad had barely flinched. He knew Harry enough to know that Harry mustn’t have meant those words. But he did. Harry meant every single word. He believed in them then, in the heat of the moment.

‘Harry wait,’ he was swiftly trailing Harry as the boy hopped from place to place in sudden bursts of uncontrolled apparation. This could gravely injure Harry, he could splinch himself, or worse. In Harry’s eyes, Dad was like a shadow, something swimming in his vision as Harry appeared from place to place. Something unreal, just like the monster Severus always insisted that resided in Harry’s soul.

‘YOU LIED!’ he was irrational with rage. ‘You ALWAYS lie!’ another sharp snap and Harry was panting on the other side of the plain, at the very edge of the valley that led to the rock bottom. He couldn’t bear the thought of his father getting close to him. He hated that man. He hated him.

Severus easily changed his course and started approaching him, his face a perfect mask of serenity mostly for Harry’s sake. ‘Calm down, let’s talk-.’
‘Talk!?’ Harry screamed, out of pure frustration. Dad wasn’t getting it. He didn’t understand how unbelievably ANGRY Harry was at that moment, how easily he could shove Dad off the cliff with a single nudge of his hand. He didn’t understand. “No! I don’t want to talk! You lied to me!” Harry was an idiot.

Dad stood, and just stared at him, and Harry didn’t see the look in his eyes. Not really.

He just took the silence as confirmation. ‘You’re not even denying it!” he yelled. “You’re not even my real DAD!’

‘Harry, NO!’

“The last time we went there…” Harry winced at himself. “I almost killed him.”

**

A hand shoved at his side. “Daddy?” the little voice whispered, and Severus groaned. He rolled away, yanking on his sheets. It was too early for this.
The little body followed the blankets and hastily crawled to the other side of the bed to face the sleeping man once again. He gently poked Severus in the eye. Sev expertly reached out and grabbed the hand before he could be poked again.

“Hm?” he grunted with closed eyes. If he was tired enough that he couldn’t bear opening his eyes, then surely it was too early for him to be dealing with Harry.

Ten more minutes, he groggily promised himself. If the boy hadn’t tired himself out in ten minutes, then Severus would get up.

Harry’s other hand wriggled in Severus’s hand and patted him on the cheek twice. “Wake up.” the boy murmured, his hand radiating heat where it was pressed against Sev’s cheek. He snuggled deeper in his covers. The bedroom was unusually cold, now that he really thought about it.

Another pat came and Sev knew that Harry’s face was inches from his. He could actually feel Harry’s eyes burning through his closed lids. Oh, for the love of God, he thought and sighed.

“Harry?” he croaked.

The child hummed. “Daddy wake up.” his small fingers poked Sev’s face all the way to his mouth until his fingers pulled the sides of Severus’s mouth upwards. Sev batted the hand away and finally willed his eyes to peel open.

He pushed the small boy off his chest. Harry willingly cuddled Sev’s shirt. “Don’t put your hand in my mouth Har-.” Severus paused at Harry’s loud snort. He pruned his nose and closed his eyes. “Merlin, did you just wipe your nose on my shirt?”

Harry meaningfully paused with a loud sniffle, then looked up at Severus with wide eyes. “…No.”

“You did,” Severus rolled his eyes and grimaced at his damp shirt. Children were gross. He let the apathetic voice whisper in his head and he rolled his eyes at it. Gross or not, he wanted to sleep.

He pulled Harry back down with him. “Come on, go to sleep again.” it wasn’t even light out, and Harry was already up and about. He usually didn’t exercise early rising habits with the child, in fact, Harry was worse than Severus himself when it came to getting out of bed in the morning. This morning was an oddity.

Harry wriggled in his arms with a pout. “No Daddy!” he sounded shrill with indignation. “We have so many things to do!” his body was much warmer than Severus’s himself, and that made him pause. Had he left a window open or something? He was unreasonably cold compared to his son. Harry reached his arm to wipe his nose as if to confirm his thoughts.

“No we don’t have anything other than sleep.” he pulled the covers over them. “Sleep. And stop wiping your nose with your arm-.” he frowned. “Wait, why do you have a runny nose?”

Maybe he wasn’t cold, and Harry was unusually warm. Suddenly, Severus was much more awake and sitting up. He pulled Harry up on his lap and stared at him.

His hand pushed the boy’s fringe out of his eyes and settled on his forehead. “Are you sick?” he muttered and then swore. Sick was a nice way of putting it. Harry was burning up. He pushed himself off the bed in an instant and scooped Harry by his elbows.
“No!” the child miserably complained.

“Yes you are,” Severus held him to his hip. He needed a fever-reducing potion immediately. He did have a few vials left from his last order lying around in his lab. And then maybe a Pepper-up too, or a dreamless sleeping potion so Harry could sleep this off. Harold didn’t get sick often, rarely at all. Severus could count the times he had been sick on one hand, and none where it came close to Harry having a fever.

“You’re a bit hot.” He explained to the sniffing child. Would his sickness have magical ramifications? Severus honestly didn’t know. It hadn’t happened before, but then again, Harry had never had a fever before. Maybe he should get his son out of the house, get him somewhere isolated enough that a magical outburst wouldn’t cause any harm.

“No I’m not!” even as he whined, Harry coddled his warm face against the crook of Severus’ neck and whimpered.

“Yes you are,” Severus muttered, and opened his bedroom door. “Let’s get you back in bed.”

He flicked his wand at the fireplace and it was gently set ablaze, creaking and crackling upon the cooled logs. Severus needed to restock those this afternoon.

“But no!”

“Harry stop it.” his chiding went almost unheard under Harry’s uncharacteristic fussing. He has a fever, Severus told himself. Of course, he was going to be difficult. “You’re just a little sick,” he soothed a hand over Harry’s hair. “You’ll be fine with a bit of rest. I just don’t understand how you caught this… We haven’t left the house in weeks.”

Harry pushed himself off Sev’s chest and stared at him. “If I go to sleep, we cannot play anymore!”

Rolling his eyes, Sev reached for Harry’s door. “We’ll play later.”

“It won’t snow later Daddy!”

Sev’s mind went completely blank. “Snow?”

Harry nodded and Severus, with a deep sinking in his stomach, threw Harry’s door open.

Oh.

Snow.

It was covering every inch of his son’s room, a thick firm layer that must have started piling since the night before while Harry was sleeping. That’s how he’s sick, Sev thought, stifling the urge to facepalm, he made it snow, and then slept in it, waited and counted off the minutes until he could crawl into Sev’s bed to wake him so they could ‘play’.

“Oh bollocks.” He rubbed a hand down his face. He was too old for this.

“Bollocks!” Harry cheerfully chirped, startling the frustrated man who stared down at him with a soft scowl.

“What, no,” he snapped, unintentionally harsh. “Don’t say that again.”

“Why not?”

Severus huffed and drew out his wand. He needed to deal with all this snow. “It’s a bad word. Daddy shouldn’t have used it either, I’m sorry.”

“Bollocks,” Harry muttered the word under his breath in awe, completely unheeding to Severus’s withering glare. Great, he thought, now he had to find a way to drop that word off Harry’s mouth.

“Oh delightful,” Severus rolled his eyes, then he just stood there and glanced around the child’s room in dismay. “How did you-“He cut himself off. “No, wait, wrong question, why did you make it snow Harry?”

“Because-,” the boy loudly sniffed. “You were sad last night when the bad man came.”

“You were supposed to be asleep Harry,” Severus, in no uncertain terms wanted his son to remember the brief interaction with Lupin. The visit had taken many hours after midnight, had taken less than half an hour, Harry couldn’t have possibly been awake.

“But I wasn’t,” Harry insisted and Severus carried him to his bed, banished the pile of glittering snow and cast a warming charm. “He knocked on our door and then I got up,”

He laid the boy down in his bed. “Well, you should have been sleeping,” Severus insisted, checking Harry’s temperature, this time with his wand.
“But he was making you sad!”

“And you decided to make it snow?”

Harry shrugged with a snuffle. “You like snow Daddy.”

Sev’s face softened and he leaned back against the bed’s small headboard. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “Did you hear the bad man and Daddy talk?” he couldn’t have, Severus had a silencing charm up the entirety of last night, but with Harry, one simply couldn’t know. The boy could’ve easily thrown the charm off without Severus being the wiser.

“No Daddy, but his mouth moved a lot.”

Severus shook his head. “Well, he’s gone now.”

“But you cannot eavesdrop on Daddy again, alright?”

He reached for the box of tissues on the child’s nightstand and shook the snow off before offering it to the boy.

“I didn’t like him, Daddy,” Harry said. “Is he coming again?”

“No, never again,” Severus muttered. “Don’t think about him, or we’ll lose the game, alright?”

Those were the magic words for Harry. As soon as Severus mentioned ‘We might lose the game’, his son’s eyes would go wide, and then he would nod as he was doing now, then he would snuggle into Severus’s arms and say;

“Alright, Daddy.”

**

“This looks unbelievable.” A plump purple-clad wizard gasped at Kingsley, his eyes almost bulging in their sockets as he stared at the two way charmed mirror that Potter didn’t know existed in the interrogation office. Harry could only see the bookshelves from his side, whilst Ministry officials stood in the other office, peering through the charmed mirror.

“Tell me about it, Warren.” Said Kingsley as he rubbed a hand over his face. Potter was left by himself in the office, making odd shapes out of file parchments and making a few float around his head. “I had him analyzed by the mind healers, and he’s not wrong in the head,” he scratched his chin. “Or traumatized by his time with the guy, he’s not under any influential spells, no Unforgiveable curses-”

Warren cut him off with a snort. “He doesn’t look fine to me, Shacklebolt. The boy had transformed that entire office into a kids’ birthday party.”
Shacklebolt exhaled through his nose. “Yes, he seems to have…certain quirks.”

Warren raised an eyebrow as he waited for his colleague to elaborate. “He acts as if his name isn’t Harry Potter,” Kingsley started. “He claims his birthday is March the third, and not July 31th, he seems to have trouble looking at me while speaking-.”

“Did he seem timid?” Michael interjected. “Signs of abuse?”

“No, oddly enough.” They both turned to stare at Harry. “He looked as if he was doing me a favor by ‘containing’ himself. He seems very prone to anger, or I’m just frustrating him.”

“That’s messed up, but were you expecting anything less than a boy raised by that scum Snape?”

Shacklebolt hesitated, looking at Warren as awkwardness coiled in his stomach. Potter’s depiction of Snape wasn’t one that was widely known about the notorious man, in fact, Potter had genuinely seemed to believe that Snape was a model father, while Shacklebolt knew well that most victims of long-term abuse made such suggestions out of sympathy all the time.

And the murders? Merlin, the murders. The Auror winced. He was still waiting on the head of Magical child Care and Family support to stamp the approval for the usage of Veritaserum on Potter to confirm his confession. Deep down, Kingsley knew that he didn’t even need the Veritaserum, hadn’t it been for a formal procedure.

The haunted look in Potter’s eyes as he confessed was enough to make him believe that the child had done it.

It wasn’t as if it was the first time a magical child had severely harmed muggle children with accidental magic. Albus Dumbledore’s younger sister was a similiar case after her own harassment before she had died. In fact, the incident was so jarring that the Auror responsible for the case had outright quit and the poor girl had never been the same before her death. Kingsley had heard the stories, about unstable magical outbursts, regressed mental capacity, how her mother had died in an explosion caused by one of those outbursts. It was heartbreaking really, and to think, that Snape had supposedly lived with that for fifteen years and survived. Potter didn’t seem regressed, or unstable, but Kingsley would not really go as far as comparing him to a healthy magical child.

Something about this case, about how vividly Potter depicted the muggle boys harassing him bothered him.

And Snape’s actions afterward proved that the man wasn’t all that he had been cracked up to be. Kingsley seldom knew of any parent who would mutilate dead bodies to stave off suspicion from their ward. Not many people, Arthur and Molly Weasley, maybe one of the very few, but not many people that Shacklebolt knew would do such a thing, even for their own child. Much less a child they have abducted for revenge.

“You alright there mate?”

“Yeah,” Kingsley rubbed his neck. “Just a bit tired.”

“We can switch places,” the other man offered with a bit of curiosity bleeding into his voice. “I could take a go at cracking the boy who lived.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” He had promised Potter that he would stay and listen until the end. “Just ask a fellow to bring us some food when I go back in, the boy looks famished.” Although he doubted that Potter would trust anything enough to consume it while he was under arrest. He pointedly hadn’t touched his tea and then exploded the blasted thing into smithereens.

“Make sure it’s wrapped, unopened. He thinks the food is contaminated.”

“He does realize that we could easily charm any potions directly into his food without him knowing, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t think he knows, no.” Potter seemed not to know that much about the magical world at all. Kingsley couldn’t tell if it was a deliberate move on Snape’s side, or merely a coincidence.

“Do you think it’s true? His ranting about Snape’s treatment of him? Because I’ll be honest mate, it all sounds like obsessive dragon dung to me. You should have him checked by the healers again.”

“Maybe.”

Warren didn’t seem to detect Shacklebolt’s distracted tone. “Snape and storytimes I mean really, are we talking about the same man who tortured a woman into insanity with a manic potion? A Potion of his own creation? Please…he’s delusional, crazy even, if you’re asking me.”

“Well I’m not Warren,” Kingsley suddenly growled. “Mind your own damn division.”

“Hey! It’s not my fault Potter’s gone coo-coo in the head! You should watch out for your own neck while you’re alone in a room with him, remember Ariana Dumbledore? Poor Smith, he was never the same after her.”

“They’re not similar.”

“Yes, they are. Magical disturbance at a young age, both assaulted as children, unsteady magical levels, unstable emotional state.., you don’t have to tell me these Kingsley, I’m head of the Magical Disturbance Department for a reason you know.”

“Yes, you did your homework, well done Warren.”

“I think you should let me have a go at him.”

“Pardon me?”

“Aside from the mind healers,” the man shrugged. “I’ve studied this nearly half my life, and I’d admit, he seems fascinating, from a psychological standpoint. We don’t get cases like his often.”

“No thanks,” Kingsley was hating this conversation more by the minute. “I’ll stick to it myself.” It wasn’t even that he found Warren particularly irritating, but he felt as if there was a toothpick lodged into his head, tingling at an amiss piece. Either Potter wasn’t giving all of the information out front, or he was and Kingsley was absolutely missing it.

The nagging feeling only sank deeper when Potter’s tale got more gruesome, it probed at his head as the boy intently avoided his gaze, glared at his wand, or asked for more parchment. Shacklebolt was missing something, something that Potter clearly wasn’t capable of saying out loud. Especially with the recording charm in place, Kingsley thought.

“Whatever stirs your potion Shacklebolt.” Warren was saying. His voice was loud enough to snap Kingsley out of his stupor. “He’s gonna end up in our department after Snape’s prosecution anyway.”

“Wait, isn’t he going to the Magical child care and family support? He would be considered an orphan, eligible for adoption…as any other magical child.” As far as he knew anyway. He didn’t get to handle cases involving children often. Potter’s case was obviously different, more sensitive. It was sensitive enough that the Minister himself didn’t see it fit to let it pass from the Auror’s department.

Warren shrugged his shoulders, annoyingly chipper. “Problem is, he is not any other magical child.” He pointed out. “Who’s gonna adopt the boy who lived?” Kingsley frowned at the man as he continued. Warren caught his frown and narrowed his eyes, leaning closer to whisper as if afraid others would eavesdrop on the conversation. Even though they were standing in an empty hallway.

“I’ve heard from the big boys up in Fudge’s arse that they’re going to keep him in the ministry’s custody for a while.” He said. His voice was hushed.
“It is what Potter had agreed to after all.” Warren snorted. “‘His father’s freedom, in exchange for his ‘services’” he made air quotes with his chubby fingers. “Merlin,” he blew a breath with raised eyebrows.

“Now that’s some messed up shit.”

“Whatever,”

The door opened behind them and a young woman almost went headfirst to the ground. Tonks caught herself by the door’s handle and then grinned at him.
“Shacklebolt!” she carelessly waved with a gleaming vial in her hand as she peeled herself from the door.

Kingsley’s mouth twitched. “Auror Tonks,”

Tonks flushed, and the tips of her hair sprang into a deep red in shame, she cleared her throat. “Oh yeah, Auror Shacklebolt,” she corrected herself. “Your approval letter and the Veritaserum dosage.” She passed the clear vial along. “They also requested a pensive memory of the administration and the interrogation that follows.” Shacklebolt nodded, a normal procedure so far, he knew those things already.

“And a witness, I presume?” hence the two-way mirror charm installed by Warren.

“Yup!” she flopped down on a chair near the men. “That’s why they sent me.”

“Nymphadora,” Warren tipped a head in greeting and Tonks’ mouth curled in revulsion.

“Warren.”

His eyes narrowed, raking across her flaming hair color and the haphazard state of her robes. “Still trying to fit into adulthood, I see.”

The young woman rolled her eyes. “Still failing at normal social interactions I see.”

“Touché.”

Shacklebolt glared them down. “Let’s hurry this up Tonks, the boy is getting tired.”

She hummed with a frown. “Where are we keeping him for the night?” the men turned to look at her in confusion. “One of the holding cells?”

“No,” at least, Kingsley didn’t think so. “He’s an underage child, of course, we’re not holding him in a cell, he’s already wary as it is.”

“Most abuse survivors are, as you know Tonks,” Warren drawled. “Although I wouldn’t expect a rookie like you to understand delicate complex cases such as this one.”

Nymphadora looked as if she wanted to throttle the man with the depth of her glare. “Oh screw you Warren,” she finally snapped and flipped her file open.

“Ladies,” the third Auror growled, “keep it down.”

**

“You’ve done something to the room,” Harry said as soon as Kingsley stepped back in.

“I brought you more paper,” said Shacklebolt who had been fully prepared for the boy’s accusing tone of voice. Of course, he knew that the room had been saddled with an extra charm. Shacklebolt tenderly shifted the vial on the stack of paper and then sat down.

“Do you know how to make paper cranes Potter?”

Potter eyed him and then the vial in quick succession, and then leaned back against his seat with narrowed eyes.

“That’s Veritaserum,” he said, quite blankly. Just stating a fact.

“Don’t worry about that now,” the Auror promised and then pushed the stack across the desk.

He leaned across the desk, his head tilted to the side. “You know what they say about paper cranes, don’t you?”

“A thousand grants you a wish,” Harry automatically replied and then reached for the first paper, his eyes darkening as if he had just heard a morbid joke. “This is clearly less than a thousand,”

Kingsley shrugged.

“It’s enough to get you started.” He said. He grabbed the vial and then slid it across, next to the neat stack. “First, I need you to repeat your confession about the murders again under Vertiaserum. The questions will only be regarding the incident while you’re under the influence, this is a ministry approved and I’m entitled to assure you that we are being recorded and then the memory will later be used in a pensive.”

Harry, perhaps for the first time since sitting in that chair, hesitated. “Will it help my Dad?” he asked, biting his lip.

Kingsley was fully expecting the boy’s question. “I believe it will.” He said, honestly. Potter’s confession would certainly lighten Snape’s load. Not by much, but four murders were a start if any.

“I’ll do it.”

**

“Do you know what they say, about paper cranes Harry?” his father had asked, seemingly a lifetime ago. They were sitting cross-legged on Harry’s bed, both occupied with a small paper in their hands. Harry refused to leave his bed, had been doing so for the past few months, ever since…the accident.

Harry was under the impression that if he never left his bed then his magic could do no harm. Severus didn’t correct the misguided belief but didn’t encourage it either. His son just had to accept and forget the incident on his own time, and since this wasn’t hurting anyone, not even Harry, then Sev saw no harm in permitting it.

“They have sayings about Origami?” Harry asked quietly, meekly. It was heartbreaking, to watch a nine-year-old boy sound like an old weathered man who had been through hell.

“I heard someone saying it at the market today, a gossiping lady with a child on her tail,” Severus shrugged.

“You eavesdropped on them?”

Severus ignored the salty tone. “A Japanese legend claims,” he said. “That if you build a thousand paper cranes…then the old gods grant you a wish.”
Harry paused to stare at him, hesitantly. Severus ached to reach out and pat him on the shoulder, hug him and tell him that everything will be alright, that it didn’t matter that those blasted children were dead, to snap him out of this haze already. He was a child, he shouldn’t have been through something so horrific and then feel guilty about it. He shouldn’t be bedridden and miserable.

But he couldn’t, Harry hadn’t allowed Severus any physical contact since he had exiled himself to his room. He even refused to get out of that blasted bed for meals, couldn’t even stomach the idea of food for nearly two painful weeks.

Slow progress, Severus told himself. Small baby steps.

“A thousand paper cranes?” Harry repeated and then looked at the one in his hands.

Severus hummed, trying to act unimpressed. “Yes, apparently the price of eternal happiness is one thousand paper cranes and an old muggle lady away.”

Harry shrugged. “Well, I guess I have the time.” he dropped his eyes and turned back to his parchment.

They had all the time in the world for eternal happiness.

Right.