Severus just seemed to keep finding excuses to return to The Burrow.
His weekly visits there to bring Harry his nutritional potions had made sense, but stopping by for a chat with Molly Weasley was far from the typical behavior expected of Severus Snape.
But, he had discovered that Molly made a very good cup of tea.
So what if they happened to sit in the kitchen to drink it, where there happened to be a window facing the backyard, which was where the children happened to spend the days of their summer holiday playing Quidditch.
It’s not as though he planned it that way.
Of course Molly realized what he was doing, probably knew even more than he did about it. Of course she did. Not much got by that woman.
There were still, however, some things that escaped her notice. Like the idiotic heights that the children would go to on their brooms at idiotic speeds.
To be fair, Severus hadn’t noticed it either, until it was too late.
He felt quite foolish now, as he had been practically glaring at the boy in the sky, yet somehow not registering how he had reached such a height in such a short amount of time.
Or rather, how fast he was departing from that height.
No time to reflect on his stupidity now, as the children who had been laughing moments ago were now all shrieking their red heads off.
Severus and Molly quickly rose from the table and rushed outside. Harry was on the ground, looking dazed as blood gushed from his forehead. Ron was holding the hem of his red t-shirt against it, or maybe it had been a white t-shirt that was becoming red.
Well, that certainly wasn’t a nice thought.
Severus sank down on the ground next to Harry, conjuring gauze from his wand and holding it against the wound. His eyes scanned over the rest of the boy’s body, looking for other injuries. His skin was covered with little cuts and scrapes but his bleeding forehead seemed to be the only imminent danger.
He sifted through his robes and brought out a blood replenishing potion. Harry was still looking dazed as Severus massaged his throat in an attempt to get him to swallow the potion.
He looked back to where he was still holding the gauze over the wound. It was still bleeding, but it was slowing down. He held his wand over it to heal it before lifting the gauze. The gash still looked bad, and he would have to apply a balm to it soon to avoid scaring, unless Harry wanted to have yet another mark on his forehead.
“Harry,” Severus said, looking into his face closely. “Can you understand me?”
The glassy green eyes just blinked at him for a moment before narrowing in thought. “P’rfe’ss’er?” he mumbled.
Severus nodded while waving his wand to check his vitals. “Good. Are you aware of what is going on right now?”
Harry blinked a few more times before nodding slowly. Severus didn’t know if he was truly aware of his surroundings, but at least he had recognized him. He looked up at the Weasley children. “What happened?” he asked.
The youngest boy, who was still wearing the t-shirt with the bottom half soaked in blood, answered him. “H-he went straight for the ground, I think he meant to swerve back up but he was just flying too fast.”
Severus resisted the urge to growl at the stupidity of his son. Gryffindors.
“P-professor?” a shaky voice said, snapping Severus’ attention back to the boy sitting on the ground. Even after taking the blood replenishing potion, he was still looking sickly pale. And a bit green as well.
“I don’t feel so good,” the boy muttered, leaning his head against Severus’ chest. Oddly, his first thought about the situation he currently found himself in was that the parental instinct he had always heard people talk about likely didn’t include the desire to get their nauseous child away from them.
Shamefully tucking that thought away, he gently placed his hand on the boy’s head. Just to check it for bumps, of course. The boy tucked his head further into Severus’ chest, responding to the touch like a lost puppy who had just found its way back home.
Severus looked over to Molly in near horror, having absolutely no idea what to do with this thing that had attached itself to him. She was the one who was supposed to be comforting the child, not him. He wasn’t designed for things like this.
Rather than coming to his rescue, she just smiled at him and rounded up her children to take inside of the house, leaving him alone with his own.
“You’re soft,” Harry stated quietly, his voice muffled against Severus’ robes. Severus rolled his eyes. The child was obviously still quite out of it if he were saying something like that to him.
“Why must you do such foolish things, child?” he murmured, not expecting a response. He received one, anyway.
“No reason not to,” came the soft reply.
“Why ever not?” he asked, this time expecting a response but Harry kept his lips sealed, opening his mouth once only to let out a quiet yawn.
The boy was drifting off, apparently perfectly content with being in the close presence of his most hated professor. Severus wanted to tell him that he could have a concussion and that he shouldn’t fall asleep, but he had already checked for that and Harry would be fine. There was no need to lie.
Why was he fighting this so much, anyway? If the boy wanted to fall asleep in his arms, then so be it.
***
Harry sluggishly came to, wondering why he was once again on the Weasley’s sofa. Hadn’t he been sleeping on a cot in Ron’s room since after the first night?
He sat up and immediately felt dizzy. He placed one of his hands on his forehead, wincing at the soreness he felt there. ‘Oh yeah,’ he thought absently, ‘I fell off my broom. Again.’
He couldn’t remember much of what happened after he had hit the ground. Had Snape been there? He thought that the professor only came by with his potions on Mondays, today was Wednesday, wasn’t it?
His head felt foggy, some things made sense and others didn’t, but he wasn’t sure if that was really anything out of the ordinary. His thoughts had been all over the place as of late.
He lifted himself off the couch slowly, looking out the window. It was pitch black outside. Obviously, a lot of time had passed since he had taken the long dive off of his broom. The question was had it been hours or days?
Hopefully just hours, Harry hated losing days in his sleep when he was injured. It seemed to happen an awful lot.
He shuffled towards the doorway, wondering if anyone else was up. He wanted to ask someone what time it was, he couldn’t seem to find his glasses and without them had no hope of seeing where the hands of the clock were positioned, with the moonlight shining in from the window being the only source of light to assist him. He really was quite nearsighted.
He knew the house layout well enough to get around even while being nearly blind but he still kept a firm hand on the wall as he traveled through the hallway. He could hear faint snippets of conversation coming from the kitchen and so he felt his way over to it.
The door was closed, which didn’t happen often. Weird. He was just about to push it open when another wave of dizziness hit him. He sank down to the ground against the wall, resting his head on his knees. It must have been one hell of a fall to cause him to feel this disoriented.
Hadn’t Ron been wearing a white t-shirt? Why did he transfigure it red? No, no, they weren’t allowed to use magic outside of school. Ron was pants at transfiguration, anyways.
Harry could hear the voices that were coming from the kitchen a bit clearer now. His thoughts were becoming more and more jumbled and he couldn’t quite remember what he was doing here, sitting on the floor in the hallway, but his head felt funny and he thought that he might just stay there for a while.
Eavesdropping was one of his favorite pastimes, anyway, wasn’t it? He wondered about this absently as he allowed the sound of the conversation to drift into his ears.
“I think that you should tell him,” a male voice stated. “He deserves a chance to get to know you, at least.”
A snort. “I simply do not understand how you could possibly believe that it would do him any good at all to have me play an active role in his life.”
“I saw you with him today, Severus, don’t forget. Not to mention the fact that you have been stopping by here nearly every day to check up on him. You are perfectly capable of giving him what he needs.”
The sound of a chair being pushed back. Pacing.
“He needs a home, with people who care about him. I cannot simply just waltz into his life after thirteen years and expect him to be glad of it. Especially considering that there has been two years of animosity between us already.”
“You clearly care for him and he seemed perfectly capable of forgiving and forgetting the past as he was falling asleep in your arms this afternoon.”
“Oh yes, perfectly capable of developing a proper train of thought in his disoriented state. In fact, I think that I may have missed out on the perfect opportunity to tell him that I am his father!”
By now Harry had recognized the voices in the kitchen as being that of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and Snape. He could not, however, seem to make any sense of what the latter name had just said.
Harry stood quickly, his mind going fuzzy again and he knocked into a table, sending a vase crashing to the floor. He immediately dropped back down to the ground and attempted to gather up the pieces.
The kitchen door burst open and then there was Snape, staring at him with his wand drawn.
Snape. His father, apparently.
Tumult
Chapter End Notes:
thank you for reading :)