Two days later, Harry still couldn't shake the fatigue. All he had to do was make it 3 more days and he would be back at the Dursleys, not that he would get any more rest there, but at least he wouldn't have Ron and Hermione breathing down his throat all the time. He hated people worrying and fussing about him.

"Mr. Potter," he heard as he was shaken awake by Hermione during Transfiguration class.

Raising his head up so quickly he suddenly felt light-headed, Professor McGonagall was wearing a frown on her face as she looked at him.

She continued, "Mr. Potter, might I suggest setting an earlier bedtime for yourself if you can't make it through the day without falling asleep in my class!"

Harry felt his face flushing red as he was reprimanded in class, trying to ignore the snickering around him. While he was used to public humiliation from Snape, it was different coming from Professor McGonagall especially for something like sleeping in class.

"Harry!" Hermione hissed at him with wide eyes.

Harry gave her a confused look as Professor McGonagall said, "Oh my! Mr. Potter please follow me to my office." She gave him a look of concern and waved him towards the door on the side of the classroom.

For a split second, Harry was confused, still in the process of waking up from his impromptu nap, when he felt warm liquid on his upper lip. Putting his hand to his face, he drew it back and saw blood on his hand. He stood up tasting copper as he walked into Professor McGonagall's office.

She handed him a handkerchief and asked, "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about professor," not a complete lie Harry rationalized, as he had no idea what was going on. "I'm fine," he conceded after looking at her no-nonsense look.

"Oh Harry," Professor McGonagall said sympathetically. "I know it's been a rough year for you, especially this past week, it may just be a reaction to it all, but either way, I'd like you to visit the hospital wing. I'll give you a note dismissing you from the rest of classes today."

Harry grudgingly took the note and the second handkerchief from Professor McGonagall, since his nose was still actively bleeding, and left her office for the hospital wing. He debated going back to the tower instead to finish his nap and even starting walking that direction, but after about a minute when the nosebleed still didn't stop, he turned around towards the hospital wing.

If he had been paying more attention he would have heard the voices coming from the hospital wing before he entered. He would have been able to continue avoiding the one person he absolutely didn't want to see.

"Harry," he was brought back to reality by the shock of hearing Snape call him by his given name.

Looking over his bloody nose, he noticed Snape walking away from the bed of a second year Hufflepuff and towards him.

"Um, sir. Where's Madam Pomfrey?" He asked trying his hardest not to make eye contact. There was no way he was going to risk Snape using Legilimency on him.

"She's been called away. I'm filling in while she's gone." He held Harry's chin up to get a better look at his nose. "Care to tell me what happened Mr. Potter?"

"I wasn't in a fight, if that's what you mean!" Harry immediately defended himself. "Are you even qualified to treat students?"

"I highly doubt Madam Pomfrey nor the Headmaster would allow me to fill in if I wasn't qualified," he shot back while leading Harry to a bed. Taking a calming breath he added, "As part of my Potions Mastery, I'm required to be sufficient in many aspects of medi-wizardry."

Harry was deeply confused by what was going on, if he didn't already know Snape he would accuse the man of being civil to him. Since that absolutely couldn't happen, Harry decided he must be fishing for things to tell his Slytherins.

"It was nothing," Harry said randomly. "Erm...I mean I didn't do anything to cause the nosebleed... Sir," the last word added as an afterthought. By the look in Snape's eyes, he seemed to believe Harry. "It seems to have stopped, so I'll just be going."

He went to stand up, but Snape immediately pushed his shoulder down. "You walked into this hospital wing, Mr. Potter, I have to at least have a look at it."

Harry felt the distinct tickle of a diagnostic charm running over his body. Snape's eyebrows lowered in confusion. "Are you injured anywhere else?"

"Erm... No sir," Harry answered questioningly wondering what the potions professor was up to and not trusting him one bit.

~~~~SS~~~~

Severus spent the last two days piecing together the past 5 years worth of memories. It seemed that both sets of memories we're co-existing in his head, which was more than a little confusing. In his new reality, he and Harry still shared a mutual hatred for each other. The events leading to their reconciliation, guardianship, and beyond never happened. It felt like losing his son all over again.

Even worse, because of their lack of trust from 1st year forward, the Dark Lord had the opportunity to return. After pulling up some key memories, it seemed in his original reality, being a trusted adult for Harry to rely on stopped all the efforts made by the Dark Lord. In this reality, everything played out so much worse leading up to him becoming a spy again and the events of last week at the Department of Mysteries where Sirius was inevitably killed.

While trying to figure out if there was a way to reconcile his relationship with Harry in this reality, he made it a point to observe Harry from a distance and not try to have any one-on-one encounters.

That all changed when Harry walked into the hospital wing with a severe bloody nose while he was covering a shift for Madam Pomfrey. Looking at the amount of blood, he immediately had a flashback to the bloody noses his Harry used to get as they are a very common sign of Leukemia and was one of his Harry's first symptoms.

He couldn't contain his surprise, causing him to slip up and call out, "Harry".

The surprised look on the teenager's face showed just how much he screwed up with that simple word. The Severus of this reality would never dare call the boy in front of him by his given name.

After attempting to rectify the situation and clearly failing, he decided to just run a full diagnostic charm and see what turns up. In his reality, only the symptoms of the Leukemia were spotted by magical scans, but it was worth a try.

Severus's eyebrows lowered in confusion as he saw something wrong with Harry's lower arm. He asked "Are you injured anywhere else?"

"Erm... No sir," Harry answered questioningly. Severus could hear the distrust in Harry's voice and it hurt.

Severus instinctively grabbed Harry's arm and Harry quickly pulled it away, almost falling off the bed in the process.

Letting go quickly and holding up his hands to show he meant no harm, Severus explained, "I need to see your arm. The diagnostic charm showed some damage on the underside of your left arm."

Harry gave a very skeptical look as he held his left arm with his right. "Uh, thank you sir but I'll just be going now."

Severus looked at Harry sternly. "I'll be right back Mr. Potter and when I return, please have your left arm available to examine" he explained and turned around closing the curtains around the bed as he left.

Once in Poppy's office, he leaned over her desk, holding the edges with his hands for support. This was not going to be easy to do. He pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill to write Poppy a note. He needed to find a way to tell her to send Harry to St. Mungo's for the necessary muggle testing needed to check for Leukemia. It had already been a month later than the diagnosis in his reality, and Severus remembered how early detection was directly linked to the survival rate.

He also needed to make sure that she was none the wiser that he knew about it. Not knowing who to trust with his alternate reality memories, he was trying to blend in as much as possible to the new reality.

Covering face with his hand, he tried to think ahead on how he was going to pull this off while being the greasy dungeon bat plus Death Eater spy. For the first time, he questioned if he made the right decision to drink the red potion.

Heading back to Harry's bed, he pulled back the curtain half preparing himself for Harry to be gone. He was pleasantly surprised to see that not only was Harry still here, he had removed his robes and had his left arm ready. The look on his face confirmed what Severus had feared. Harry had no idea about the large bruise on the underside of his arm.

"Ok Potter, let me have a look," he said as clinically as possible. "Are you sure you weren't in a fight recently?"

"I already told you I wasn't," Harry frustratingly replied.

"Then how do you explain this bruise?" Severus asked with a puzzling tone. If he led Harry to the right questions to ask it would make this whole process easier.

"You know what?" Harry half-screamed. "I don't need this. I'll come back when Madam Pomfrey's back." He stood up, pulled his sleeve down, grabbed his robe and ran from the hospital wing.

That did not go as Severus had hoped, but at the same time he was not at all surprised by the reaction. When Madam Pomfrey returned, he'd recommend she send Harry to St. Mungo's for additional testing. There's no way he'll let me be involved though.

He started cleaning up the hospital wing and inventorying the supplies so he could get a head start on replenishing the potions this summer when Madam Pomfrey entered about an hour later.

"Thank you Severus," she exclaimed as she huffed into the room. "I hope everything was calm while I was gone. The end of the year can be hit or miss."

"It was fine Poppy," Severus said, putting the last couple phials of pain potion back on the shelf. "Just a Hufflepuff that somehow managed to miss a vanishing stair," he paused to clear his mind from that image, "and Mr. Potter was in with a bloody nose and a deep bruise on his left arm"

Poppy looked at him expecting an acerbic response. Getting nothing she continued, "Please don't tell me he was muggle fighting."

"He claims not," Severus treaded lightly. "The bruise was in an odd location and he didn't remember receiving it plus there was no bruising or anything really around his nose."

A comfortable silence fell across the two adults while Poppy assisted Severus with potion inventory.

"I can tell you're deep in thought Severus," Poppy turned to him with a maternal look in her eyes. "I know your dislike for the boy, but you have a duty to help if help is needed.

You have absolutely no idea Poppy

Having played directly into his Slytherin plan, he said "The diagnostic charm showed nothing abnormal, but I'd recommend sending him to St. Mungo's for further evaluation." After a quick internal debate about how much detail it was safe to provide he added, "It might not be a bad idea to do some muggle testing. He has no real medical records outside of his plentiful visits here."

"If you think so, I'll review your notes and the diagnostic charm results before writing up the referral for Professor McGonagall to give him," she was writing down the inventory results as she spoke. "Here's the list of what's needed this summer. I take it this is all you need to get started."

Taking the list and looking it over, he questioned why he wasn't in a position that challenged his skill more. He could make standard student-level potions in his sleep.

"This will do," he said walking out the door back to his dungeon.

The end of term came at an excruciatingly slow pace. Severus was having a difficult time trying to play the part in his new reality. On the one hand he liked that he could maintain plenty of space from the students and professors but it came at a cost of never getting to be around Harry. Through his subtle spying techniques, he was able to deduce that the new Harry was quieter, more isolated, and at times bolder than his Harry. His observations concerned him deeply, but without causing any suspicion he couldn't act upon anything yet.

It was with these thoughts that he found himself a week later having dinner with the rest of the staff. Lost in his thoughts, his ears caught the tail end of the conversation between Poppy and Minerva when he heard them discussing Harry.

"... Mr. Potter never showed up," Poppy looked concerned. Severus correctly assumed this was in reference to the St. Mungo's visit.

"Oh dear, part of that is my fault," Minerva said. She didn't look as concerned as Severus thought she ought to. "I gave him the St. Mungo's referral, but since a guardian needs to accompany him I asked if he wanted me to go explain the situation to his relatives. They're muggles and I wasn't sure how much they would understand."

Severus's blood went cold. It sounded like Harry had gone back to this aunt and uncle's house. He had assumed that he would be at Grimmauld Place with Sirius, or now, one of the other order members. Why would Albus send him back to his relatives? I may have been the first adult to notice the abuse but I couldn't have been the only adult?

"He assured me that they'll take him when he gets back over the summer," she had a sad look on her face. "He didn't make it sound like it was a big deal, but I was going to stop by there this week if he hadn't been yet - which it looks like he hasn't."

Not being able to keep quiet any longer Severus said, "Well of course he said that and then had absolutely no intention of following through." If he played his Slytherin cards right again, this could end up in his favor.

"Severus," Minerva warningly said, placing her fork down a touch too forcefully, "Harry is a responsible young man, not that you would have noticed at all. I don't need you to get involved in matters that don't concern you."

"If I may Minerva," he lectured, "I was the first one to examine Mr. Potter and it was originally my recommendation to send him to a healer. So unfortunately, I'm already involved"

"By all means, if you think you could handle this matter more appropriately, maybe you should just be the one to go and take him?" Minerva said, highly offended. "I don't know how you handle your Slytherins, but I like to think that 16 years old is old enough to have some control over his own choices."

Severus rolled his eyes. Of course she would think that. In fact, from what he knew in the other reality Minerva has a very "hands off" approach to her Gryffindors.

"I will not be wasting my time in muggle Surrey simply because you failed to see that your Golden Boy has zero sense of self-preservation," Severus exclaimed.

"We'll see about that," Minerva looked down right pleased with herself and Severus almost smiled because she was none the wiser.

"Absolutely not," Severus yelled at Albus later that night. Could it really have been that easy?

Albus had predictably firecalled Severus and asked to speak to him about an important matter for the Order. So he sat down on the unfamiliar sofa across from Albus, who was wearing his ridiculously bright purple and silver robes, expecting the Headmaster to get his opinion about Harry's health. He never expected Albus to immediately ask him to take over for Minerva instead.

"Did you really think I would just come out and volunteer for this?" Severus did his best to raise his occlumency shields making sure to hide his true intentions just in case. "Have you finally lost it and gone mad?"

"No Severus, after speaking with Minerva about the conversation you had with her over dinner, I think I finally have my mind fully aware of what is actually going on here," he said calmly with a twinkle in his eye. "I'd like to speak freely if it's agreeable to you?"

"Of course!" the Potion Master spat back, standing up and pacing across the floor threshold. This can't get any better.

"We both know why you need to be the one to go," he said cautiously. "Why you want to be the one to go."

Severus stopped in his tracks. No, he can't... Looking up slowly, he met Albus's eyes with his own. An entire conversation seemed to silently pass between them.

Finally, Severus said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then please allow me to explain it. Let me walk you through what I know," Albus said, not breaking eye contact. "I know that the phial of a very rare and magical potion I had sitting on my desk since before you were born went missing the same day my normally extremely reliable Potions Professor showed up late to breakfast and cancelled classes for the first time ever; and that he's been acting out of sorts since. I know that your current circumstances have something to do with Harry, though I must admit, my mind has not been able to come up with any logical reason why.

"What I don't know is the details of your circumstances prior to coming here. So now I ask you Severus, please fill me in so we can have an honest conversation about Harry and the situation we all find ourselves in," Albus casually said as he picked up his cup of tea and took a slow sip.

Severus stood still feeling like he couldn't move or else the delicate life he's been living would start to unravel. Trying to look anywhere but at Albus's face he took in the sight around him. The furniture that wasn't quite his, the books in the bookcases lining the sitting room reminding him of all the extra studying he and Harry had done throughout the years, but what hit him most was the missing pictures all of which he still carried the memories for every day. Feeling the intense grief coming back to settle into his chest, he turned around and sat back onto the sofa.

"I don't know where to start," Severus finally said, which was probably the most honest he'd been since waking up in this confusing reality.

"If I may, the beginning is usually a good place to start. Clearly something is different between you and Harry," Albus said sympathetically, almost like he already knew why Severus was struggling.

Staring at a small stone in the stone on the dungeon wall in front of him, Severus started, "You're right. Where I'm from, Harry is my son." Severus let go of the breath he hadn't realized he was holding

Albus looked shocked at hearing this, "You mean? You and Lily-"

"No," the younger man cut in. "I adopted him when he was 12, it was March 5th, 1993 and while I'd probably never openly admit it, it was one of the happiest days of my life. Definitely the most happy since losing Lily."

Severus placed his head in his hands feeling the weight of the boulder on chest start to lighten.

He continued, "I finally realized during the Christmas holiday break in his first year how alike we were. I promised myself the moment I moved away from my parents, I'd never let another child go through what I did." Meeting the Headmaster's eyes said sadly, "You were going to send him back there for the summer; I couldn't allow it and I didn't care what you said. If I'm honest, you probably wanted that to happen because you always seemed overly happy after that."

Albus nodded his head slowly. "So then what brought you here? What about Voldemort?"

Severus flinched as he lightly touched his left forearm. "In my other reality the Dark Lord hasn't come back yet. From what I've managed to piece together, the events occurred a little differently mostly due to Harry having a trusted adult to rely on. I'm guessing that's about change back there though... If back there still exists that is."

Albus's face lit up as he stood and started pacing. "Very, very interesting. Not how I would have expected it to go, but clearly it was working. Which leads us back to my other question - why are you here?"

Severus looked devastated and Albus gave him all the time he needed to compose himself. Taking another deep breath, the best he could say was, "I couldn't save him. I tried, I really did, but by the time we realized the potions weren't working it was too late and I was told by my Albus that drinking that potion would allow me the chance to fix my mistakes."

The confused expression across Albus's face let Severus know he wasn't making sense to the man.

"He has Leukemia," Severus finally said. "It's cancer, a muggle disease, in his blood and rare for a wizard to get. I didn't spend a lot of energy trying to find out why he got it, I just wanted to cure him from it.

"Based on what I've seen from this Harry, he has it too. We found out after a Quidditch match when the bruises wouldn't heal. He also had a couple bad nosebleeds that had no apparent cause."

Albus took a deep breath, the wheels in his head clearly thinking through this new information. "So what went wrong? What do you believe you can do differently here?" He sat back down so both men were face to face.

"We were given two options for treatment - muggle or magical medications. I wanted muggle, but Harry flat out refused," he paused to gather his thoughts. "Neither was without risks, of course. The magic we tried is highly untested because wizards generally don't get cancer.

"Before we decided this route, I did a lot of research and discussed with other Potions Masters until, I thought, we found something that should have worked. We made it about 12 weeks before tests showed it wasn't effective, so we made some adjustments. It wasn't without its own set of side effects, but he was managing through them. That regimen was working for another 6 months with only minor changes needed, but one day after a status tested, that was it. Things spiraled out of control and about a month later he was gone."

Severus felt his hands start to shake. This needed to be discussed and he was happy to finally have someone who could help.

"The other option is what muggles use. It's called Chemotherapy and has a good success rate for this type of cancer when caught early enough, but it basically acts like a poison to kill off the cancer cells.

"The way it was explained to me, by the healers, was that it can't differentiate between the good and bad cells so in the process of killing the bad cells, the good ones are also attacked. In both a muggle and a wizard, that means some bad side effects, but a wizard also runs the risk of losing some or all of his magical signature. Harry's magic would essentially spend the entire time trying to heal him from the chemotherapy effects, which would then burn through his magical core from the constant use. Depending on how long the treatment took, worse case scenario he could end up without any magic left," Severus felt the last bit of the weight lift up from his chest.

Albus stared at the flames in the fireplace contemplating what this meant for their new world. "You're a brave man Severus, but of course I've always thought that of you in this world. Now I can see that it's a virtue you possess deep in your soul.

"You were left with an impossible choice to make and I fear one that won't be much easier here. Not only are we dealing with our Harry, who has very little trust in any adults, but we have Voldemort very much alive here and Harry is unfortunately a necessary participant in the war against him," Albus tried to make it sound as neutral as possible knowing Severus would clearly see the meaning behind those words.

"No you don't," Severus said angrily. "We already know this will kill him if we choose the Potions. Yes, I have a head start on the research, but at this point so does the cancer. I won't risk it."

"Unfortunately Severus," Albus didn't want to bring this up, but it couldn't be ignored, "you don't get a say in this. Harry's aunt and uncle are his legal guardians."

Angry with this realization Severus argued, "He at least needs a medical proxy which shouldn't be difficult seeing as his relatives despise anything magical including Harry. They would probably let him die before taking him for treatment, which should be reason enough to grant a proxy." Still angry with Albus for leaving Harry with his abusive relatives, he hoped that soon it would be a moot point.

"How do you suggest we move forward?" It surprised Severus that the Headmaster would seek his opinion.

"He needs to go to St. Mungo's. Minerva should go discuss it with his relatives and then take him."

It hurt Severus to admit he shouldn't be involved, but Harry wouldn't trust a single thing he said right now and they wouldn't get anywhere. He picked up his cold tea, casting a quick non-verbal wandless warming charm, and took a sip. He could really use some firewhiskey after the conversation tonight.

"No Severus, I think you're quite incorrect on at least half of that assessment. I think you need to go get the boy. If my memory serves me correctly, you have history with his aunt which can be advantageous to us in this endeavor," Albus's eyes twinkled as he made eye contact with Severus's dark, sad ones. This should be very interesting.