Professor Snape didn’t sleep. Ever.
Or at least that’s how it seemed to him. Draco had been living with the man for only a few days and during the entirety of that time, he had seen the man go into his bedroom maybe twice, but for only minutes at a time. Even at school, it was well known that Professor Snape would take the night shift of guarding the halls, only to teach the next day for the entire day while simultaneously brewing any potions required for the hospital wing. As a Slytherin, he appreciated the fact he could come to his head of house for anything at any time, but outside of school he thought the man would sleep for a few hours at least.
Apparently, however, this was not the case.
Since coming back from the muggle hospital, the man had been working furiously on something wildly more advanced than anything Draco had ever done for school. Diagrams of various ingredient interactions littered the man’s work space whenever they weren’t brewing. Long strings of arithmancy calculations covered reams of parchment, runic symbols and the calculations attributed to them flowed across the pages. Ingredients, spells, and even a long forgotten anatomy book could be found lying on the desk.
‘This truly must be what a potions master looks like in his element,’ Draco thought as he took a break from preparing ingredients and looked at his mentor’s furrowed brow as he scribbled yet another calculation onto a sheet of parchment.
Suddenly, Professor Snape sat back and stared at his work in a way he hadn’t done in the last few days. His nostrils flared in anger he normally reserved for Potter and his cronies. Draco immediately felt a wave of pity come over him for whoever or whatever would receive the man’s wrath. Surely they deserved it, but what had sparked it?
Suddenly, without so much as a word, Professor Snape stood from his work station and strode towards the stairs leading from the basement to the rest of the house. A few moments later, the tell-tale crack of apparation was heard as the man left. Where he was going, Draco had no idea, but whoever it was he was going to see would not be happy at his arrival.
Slinking over to his mentor’s workstation to try and find what had set off the man’s ire, his heart sunk as the few words and equations he could understand stood out. Cruciatus. Nerve damage. Seizures. Whoever it was that Professor Snape was working on this project for must have been in a bad way and the results of all the hard work, judging by his professor’s reaction, weren’t great.
Going back to his ingredient preparation list, Draco allowed his mind to wander as he began thinly slicing shrivel figs. Who was the person Professor Snape would risk attracting the Dark Lord’s ire by prioritizing solving something as complex as what he had been working on? Was this at all related to the call from the muggle hospital? Who did Professor Snape know who would be in a muggle hospital? Were they even magical?
Why would someone magical go to a muggle hospital anyways?
Throughout all of his research, Professor Snape had only had a look of determination on his face, as though he knew he could solve this. However, if he looked at the man’s eyes, Draco couldn’t help but feel the emotion he saw there was not the same as what the man put on. There was an underlying sadness hidden within his mentor’s eyes. Whoever it was that was so important to the man, whatever was wrong with them, was affecting him in ways he was not as adept at hiding.
Perhaps one day Draco would get to meet him. In the meantime, however, the ingredients for the upcoming brewing marathons they would be doing needed prepared.
Harry sat quietly in his hospital room, staring almost mournfully out the sixth story window. He had finally been allowed to be transferred out of the ICU yesterday once all of his vital signs were deemed stable and his head wasn’t quite so fuzzy. It was strange, as soon as the wires from the EEG were removed from his head, he started feeling like he could think more clearly. Moving out of the ICU and not being hooked up to the big monitor made it even better.
Now that he could focus, he almost wanted to go back to that bleary state of mind. He hadn’t had a nightmare about Voldemort, Cedric, or the Third Task the entire time he had been on all of those machines. Now, however, he was free to think about it. Free to remember the horrors of that night. Free to remember the torture, both mental and physical. Free to remember his mother and father coming out of Voldemort’s wand and speaking to him, their words of encouragement strengthening his resolve and giving him the strength to return with Cedric’s body.
That wasn’t his father though; it never had been.
No, his father was the great dungeon bat. The greasy git himself who lived to make Harry’s life a living hell. The man who routinely gave him detentions for things outside of his control, like blowing up a cauldron when Malfoy threw something into it. Any error, no matter how minute, was a punishable offense. That was his father.
‘At least he’s consistent,’ a small voice in his head said. ‘He either takes points or gives detention and even then his detentions aren’t painful or have the potential of death. They’re just gross.’
He hadn’t gotten a chance to actually read the letters until after they had transferred him out of the ICU. Even with his mind more clear, it was still a struggle to get through the letters as he found the shakes which ravaged his arms and legs also affected the muscles in his eyes, making them jump from one part of the letter to another. He had tried putting on his glasses to see if they helped, only to find the prescription was now so off they actually made things worse and he had to lay down and rest for nearly an hour to try and stave off the headache the glasses brought on. When he finally did manage to read the letters, he almost wished he hadn’t.
Snape was his father.
His mother had insisted the man had been her good friend at one point, even his.... James…. had insisted that Snape wasn’t all bad, but Harry couldn’t see it. The Snape they knew was from years ago and not nearly as bitter of a man (if their descriptions of him were anything to go by). It was certainly any interesting read, but Harry doubted very much that the Snape he knew would ever want anything to do with him, let alone be his father.
His chest ached fiercely at the idea that there was someone who could be his father, someone who was alive, but who didn’t want him any more than the Dursley’s did.
“Dinner’s here, Harry,” the nurse’s aid said as she laid a tray on his bedside table. “Are you hungry?”
Was he hungry? Sort of, but the idea of eating seemed foreign to him. That, and eating and drinking was a labor intensive struggle as the twitches in his arms routinely made it difficult for him to hold the cutlery or drink without spilling some of it on himself. His arms felt longer than they had been and his depth perception was off, leading to him knocking over items on the meal tray even more than if he just had the random muscle spasms.
Worse still was the fact that the muscle spasms weren’t limited to just his arms, legs, and eyes, but his throat as well. Swallowing was terrifying as he was never quite sure if the food would go down the correct way or not. The nurse who noticed this immediately took his food away and made him wait to do a ‘swallow study’ before she would allow him to eat anymore. They needed him to eat more food, but the food they allowed him to eat now was extremely unappetizing. Even drinking felt more like trying to chug down a particularly thick potion as the decision had been made to thicken the liquids he drank to a more nectar like consistency.
“Not really,” Harry said, removing the plastic cloche from over the dinner and stirring it around a bit, trying to mix the sauce in with the food.
“Eat as much as you can,” the aid said before turning to leave the room. “I’ll come back in a few minutes to get your tray.”
Harry nodded and slowly picked through the food, trying to find the most appetizing bits. At least he was getting food here, even if it looked like the stuff you’d get as a potions ingredient.
He stirred it around for a few more minutes, taking a few bites here and there and trying his hardest not to make a massive mess all over the bed. He had to pause several times when the twitching would get particularly bad and even hanging onto his fork was a struggle, but he was managing to make his way through the meal well enough.
A sharp rapping on the door broke him from his thoughts, causing his arm to twitch, very nearly sending his spoon flying across the room. It hadn’t been that long since he started eating, had it? Surely the aid wasn’t back for his tray yet.
Looking at the door, he was shocked to see his potions’ professor standing there in muggle clothing and watching him eat with only mildly guarded curiosity. Harry immediately turned his attention back to picking at his food, noticing his hands were shaking slightly more now than previously.
“Good evening,” Severus said, stepping into the room and sitting stiffly in the small chair at Harry’s bedside. “How are you feeling today?”
Harry frowned in confusion before shakily setting his fork on his tray. “W-well enough, s-sir. Why are y-you here?”
Severus looked at the boy in front of him and was pleasantly surprised at the changes he could see. While the twitching caused by the Cruciatus was still very apparent and the stutter remained, it was significantly better than what it had been the last time he had come to visit. Very little had changed in the way of physical appearance, though he could see the boy’s hair had lightened ever so slightly from black to a more extremely dark brown. His eyes had also darkened somewhat from their previous emerald green to a more murky green which better suited his complexion and stood out much less.
“Have you read your letters?” Severus asked quietly, hiding his nervousness under years of experience as a spy.
Harry nodded shakily before pulling his knees to his chest protectively. What did he want from him? Snape had never been nice to him before, why start now?
“Do you have any … questions?” Severus said, trying to read the boy’s expression without the years of preconceived notions about him. What previously he would have seen as anger or spite now seemed like confusion and distrust. Distrust which was absolutely valid.
“Wh-what d-do you want?” Harry asked, picking at a hangnail and wincing when his hand twitched and the hangnail was forcibly ripped away.
“I want to know that you are safe and healthy. Should your parents have survived, I would have wanted nothing more than that,” Severus said, having thought about that question for a long time when he returned home the first time from the hospital. “As it is currently, you are neither safe nor do you appear to be healthy. The social worker spoke with me while you were in ICU about some of the things you said and I…”
“NO!” Harry yelled, clapping his hands over his ears. “N-no, y-y-you c-can’t! I-i-i-i’m cl-clumsy a-a-a-and I f-fall a-a lot-t. A-a-and I d-don’t l-l-l-like to eat-t. Th-that’s it.”
Severus sat back and waited for the boy to calm down, knowing that riling the boy up would only cause more harm than good, especially for the hospital. It wouldn’t do for more electrical equipment to begin going haywire yet again. In all likelihood, he had been through similar questioning before though not resulting in his removal from his relatives. It was more likely that he had been punished in one way or another for arousing suspicion.
“I signed the paperwork to have you permanently removed from their care,” Severus said, folding his hands on his lap. “In the eyes of the muggle courts, you are no longer their ward.”
Harry looked dejectedly at his plate before turning away from it and facing away from his professor. Dumbledore would force him back or he would have to go to an orphanage then. Those were his options. But knowing Dumbledore, he would just force Harry back into the Dursley’s house whether or not he wanted to go there, then leave him there with some stern words about ‘Blood Wards’ or some other bullocks. And if Harry couldn’t work or was feeling too ill, he wouldn’t be allowed to eat but Dumbledore didn’t care about that. He didn’t have to see him outside of when he came to the school.
“You are no longer their ward, you are mine,” Severus said, making no move to touch the boy in the bed.
“D-dumbled-dore won’t l-like that,” Harry said, tucking his head in his arms. “H-he’ll send-d me b-b-back once I’m out-t of h-here.”
Severus snorted. Dumbledore had sent him no less than twelve notifications stating they had yet to find the boy and asking if the Dark Lord knew anything. Voldemort had summoned him twice asking the same thing. There had never been a more opportune time for the boy to go into hiding than this. And if Dumbledore was insisting on sending the boy back despite abuse allegations, then it was even more important for the boy to disappear.
“Neither Professor Dumbledore nor the Dark Lord know where you are. Did your letters mention the potion your mother had been taking?” Severus said, watching as the boy’s head whipped around in shock.
“Y-yeah, s-sort of,” Harry said, eyes wide. “Wh-what of it-t?”
“The potion your mother chose to take would mask your magical signature, preventing anyone who may have checked your paternity from finding who your true father was. Just as it masked your appearance, the way you appear to any magical tracers also was altered,” Severus said, trying to keep the explanation of how the potion worked to the level a soon-to-be fifth year would understand. “As the potion has begun to fail, your magical signature has begun to change as well. Unless either of us tell the Headmaster, there are very few ways he could tell who you are, short of a maternity test. A test which he would have difficulty in procuring without the use of a potions master. As of a few days ago, the decision is well and truly yours.”
Harry laid back against the raised head of the bed in shock, his hands tucked in his lap in an effort to stop them from quivering. The entire situation was insane, but a part of him couldn’t help but hold onto that small bit of hope he had had since he was a young child. The hope that a mysterious relative would come one day and pick him up and take him away. As he had grown older, that hope had been squashed but never truly died. This was his chance for the life he didn’t think was possible.
He had never wanted to be famous. He had never wanted to be given attention or recognition for something he really had no part in. He hadn’t wanted to be entered into the Triwizard Tournament. He hadn’t wanted to have a murderer after him, even if that murderer ended up being innocent. He hadn’t wanted to be the person to find their way into the Chamber of Secrets. He hadn’t wanted to be thrust into a series of riddles to get to a stone which should never have been stored at a school full of children.
Even with Quidditch, he would have preferred to have gotten his position on the team following try-outs, not as a result of breaking the rules and being rewarded.
He would give anything to slide into the shadows and not be in the spotlight all the time. Be able to go about his life and worry only about the possibility of not getting his dream job. Even his dream job wouldn’t have to center around being the Boy-Who-Lived. Every door he could ever want to be opened for him had cracked itself just wide enough for him to get a glimpse of the possibilities and it was almost overwhelming to think of.
“Harry?” Snape’s voice said, shaking him from his thoughts.
“I-i d-d-don’t w-want to b-b-b-be an Aur-ror,” Harry blurted out suddenly.
Severus raised an eyebrow in confusion before it finally sunk in what the boy had really said. He wanted a way out, a way to not be the Harry Potter everyone wanted him to be. He saw the opportunity he was presented with and wanted to take it.
“Are you sure?” Severus said, continuing to look rather skeptical.
“M-m-mum trusted y-you,” Harry said, gnawing once more on his hangnail. “C-can’t b-b-be worse than the D-dursleys.”
Severus snorted. “Be that as it may, there are many details which need to be sorted out in order for your new identity to be complete, such as who your tutor has been and who it will be this year.”
“I-i can’t g-go to Hog-gwarts?” Harry asked, brow furrowed in confusion. “Wh-why n-n-not?”
“You had a seizure which landed you in the hospital, albeit a muggle one,” Severus said, leaning back in the chair. This was something he had hoped the boy wouldn’t pick up on quite this quickly, but attending Hogwarts as a student would not be possible in his current state. “Hogwarts is not set up to manage children with disabilities very easily, no matter how little they affect their life or ability to communicate. Accommodations have been made in the past, however it would be a significant struggle for you. None of the professors would know what to do to manage you, and to be quite honest, classwork would be rather dangerous for you as each spell, particularly curses, produce a burst of light. Twenty five students all attempting a spell could trigger a seizure if those pulses of light were close enough together. And that’s not even taking into account the fact you have been struggling with short term memory loss and an extremely bad stutter. ”
Harry felt as though the floor had just dropped out from under him. He couldn’t attend school because of whatever was wrong with him. True, he wouldn’t have to put up with Binns’ boring lectures on Goblin wars or being told he was going to die soon by Trelawney, but the idea of not being able to attend Hogwarts this year felt like a stab to the gut. Would he be able to see his friends at least? Or make new ones? How would that work?
“Wh-why?” Harry asked mournfully.
“It is a safety concern, not just for you, but for other students and the faculty as well,” Severus said, misunderstanding the question. “You likely would have been told this had you had a seizure before starting school.”
“Why d-d-did I hav-ve a seizure?” Harry clarified, wrapping his arms around his much too thin torso. “I-i took the p-p-p-p-potion!”
Severus swallowed and closed his eyes. He had his theory, and thus far it was all lining up well, though not for the best. The damage was done and reversing it would be difficult, if not impossible. The Cruciatus was an unforgivable for a reason, and what it had done to his son was devastating. Devastating in ways he didn’t want to verbalize.
“I-i’ll g-get b-b-better, won’t I?” Harry whispered, hope dripping from his voice.
“I have a theory on what happened,” Severus said, his voice low and surprisingly unsure. “Unfortunately, I don’t believe you’ll enjoy what I am about to say.”
Harry nodded before resting his head on his knees. He could take it, he had to take it. This wasn’t the worst news he would receive. It couldn’t be. He would just fight through this the same way he did everything else.
“I believe that the Falsum Paternis potion was already beginning to degrade when you were whisked away to the graveyard that night. If my calculations are accurate, your brain and nervous system were already in the process of ‘rewiring’ themselves so to speak when you were cursed,” Severus said solemnly, watching as Harry absorbed the information he was being given. “Your brain may have improperly rewired itself in the process, leading ultimately to the seizure.”
Harry blinked several times as he tried to prevent the tears which were building up in his eyes from running down his face. He finally had his way out, the escape he had wanted for so long, only to have it marred by something so life changing as seizures. He wouldn’t be able to attend Hogwarts; what else would he not be allowed to do? Would he be allowed to fly, or use the floo system? Would he be allowed to learn how to apparate? Would he be able to live the free life he wished, or would he have to constantly be worried about the potential of having another seizure?
The muggle doctors had been prescribing him medications to take to prevent the seizures, but would he be able to get those medications in the wizarding world, or would he constantly have to be going back to the muggle world for treatment?
“I-i’m w-w-w-wired wrong,” he finally whispered.
“In a way, though there is also the possibility that you were born this way but the potion masked it,” Severus admitted bluntly. “There really is no way to know for certain one way or another. But what is done is done. We will transition you to anti-epileptic potions, which may help alleviate some of the spasms which the Cruciatus caused.”
Harry nodded before picking up his fork and returning to stirring the food around his plate. He needed to eat, but the entire thing was so unappetizing. Just globs of goop which were supposed to be various vegetables or meat. He didn’t want this to be his life, but he had to trust Snape’s potions abilities enough to get him more functional than he was currently.
“Do you have any questions for me right now?” Severus asked, giving the boy plenty of time to mull over whatever it was he was thinking about.
Harry bit his lip for a moment before finally nodding.
“I-if I’m n-not Harry P-p-p-p-potter, then wh-who a-am I?”
Chapter 8