Chapter 2 – Break a Leg

“What has the Headmaster told you?” Snape asked abruptly, slamming the door behind Harry as soon as he entered.

“Only that you needed help with a family matter and needed someone to pretend to be your son for Christmas,” Harry dutifully answered.

Snape’s nostrils flared at the brief explanation. He pointed at the chair in front of his desk, waving his wand for various locking and privacy charms as he walked to the other side before sitting down and facing Harry with a steely look.

Harry was much more relaxed now that he knew he wouldn’t be expelled, but there was still the threat of detentions and various restrictions hanging over him until the end of the school year. Including a ban from the Quidditch team. Dumbledore might not hiss and spit like Snape, but he still had a horribly gentle way of pointing out Harry’s mistakes that made him feel tiny and selfish.

So, he had been given a choice: he could either serve detentions until Easter break and be restricted from the Quidditch team for the next match against Slytherin, or he could help Snape in a personal matter.

Harry had to think carefully but quickly about this decision. He had forced himself to think about it logically and weigh it all up in his mind as Dumbledore had watched him after Snape had flounced out of the Headmaster’s office yesterday.

Harry’s choices were simple when he broke them down. He could be on the Hogwarts Express tomorrow, on his way to Privet Drive for a miserable, and painful, Christmas with the Dursleys, and come back to Hogwarts to an equally tragic term leading up to Easter, where he couldn’t even lose himself in Quidditch training (especially without a broom) and serve whatever painful detention Snape could come up with. Or, he could follow the Potions Master to the muggle world and spend Christmas with Ebenezer Snape and his family, a Christmas that was most likely to be as equally as wretched as with the Dursleys.

At least if he spent a couple of weeks with Snape and his family, he could return to school with a blank slate, no detentions and no Quidditch ban. Oliver would have his head if Harry couldn’t play next term! He was already harassing Harry to replace his broom and constantly accosting him to discuss the latest brooms on the market according to Which Broomstick?

So, it had been a simple choice when Harry broke it down to whether he genuinely wanted to go back to the Dursleys or not. The answer was a resounding not. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.

“What I am about to tell you is to stay between you and me, Potter,” Snape said, leaning forward, staring at Harry hatefully. “No one must know. Not even your two tails.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry agreed blandly, assuming the two-tails comment was aimed at Ron and Hermione.

“As the Headmaster has told you, I am in need of a boy to pretend to be my son,” Snape began stiffly. “My- father’s side of the family are muggles. Both my parents died when I was sixteen, and until I reached the age of majority, my grandmother, my father’s mother, took me in.”

Harry didn’t bother expressing his condolences about Snape’s parents, knowing his words wouldn’t be welcomed. He kept his expression as blank as possible. He gave a nod to show he was following.

“For reasons that are none of your business, I had to tell my grandmother that I have a child,” Snape continued, his voice dry. “She has insisted on meeting him for years, and I have always managed to put her off. However, this year I fear I have no other choice. My cousin has kept me apprised of my grandmother’s health, which has recently failed her. This might be her last Christmas, and she has asked to meet my son.”

Harry listened to Snape in silence, wanting to offer his commiserations but at the same knowing they wouldn’t be appreciated. It was hard to believe that Snape had a heart.

“So, er, what’s the plan?”

Snape gave Harry a stern look before seeming to decide this might be a reasonable question and answered it.

“You shall get on the Hogwarts Express with the rest of the students and let them believe you are returning to your muggle family. You are to stay on the train until everyone else has left and wait for me there. Together we will travel first to my home, where we shall stay for two days before travelling to my cousin’s farm, where the family get-together will be held this year.”

It didn’t escape Harry’s notice that Snape neglected to mention the actual locations of either place but decided not to push. It made no difference to him as long as it was far from the Dursleys.

“What’s my name?” he asked instead.

Snape gives him a derisive look.

“You must have told them a name,” Harry quicked tacked on before Snape could say something insulting. “What’s my name supposed to be?”

Snape’s teeth click as he snaps his mouth shut. He stares into the distance, seemingly thinking hard with his brows furrowed.

“I haven’t told them one,” he said abruptly. “I always say my son.”

“So I can keep my name?” He had to bite his tongue from asking if Snape could say his first name without sneering. It didn’t seem to have occurred to Snape yet, and Harry refrained from pointing it out. Surely, it would occur to Snape at some point. “How old am I supposed to be?”

“Thirteen,” Snape says in a clipped voice.

“Am I – that is – how much have you told “your son” about your muggle family?”

Snape huffed as if Harry was asking unreasonable questions but answered nonetheless.

“You would not be expected to know their names, Potter. My family believe they have not met my son previously because of an acrimonious break-up with my ex,” he glared at Harry, daring him to comment. Harry bit his lip. “I have led them to believe my estrangement with my son is due to a vicious custody battle.”

ooOoo

Potter left an hour later with a suspiciously blank face. The boy had done well, Severus grudgingly admitted, to keep his questions relevant and to what was required of him rather than delving into his personal business. If only the boy demonstrated such intelligence in his Potions class.

Severus didn’t always understand how Dumbledore manipulated him into doing the exact opposite of what the Potions Master wanted. He cursed Hardy and his Ravenclaw boyfriend, who invited his Slytherin student to spend Christmas with his family. Hardy would have been his choice if the boy had been available. He didn’t trust Potter at all, but as with Severus, Dumbledore must have manipulated the boy and dangled enough incentives with threats of many detentions, though Severus had not been privy to that conversation.

Dumbledore was a wily wizard, and Severus wasn’t sure whether the Ministry should be relieved or disappointed at not having the man play politics more often. Indeed, if the wizard was more unscrupulous, he would have been a worse Dark Lord than He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Severus believed fobbing Potter onto him for Christmas was a devious attempt to get him to put aside their differences and see Potter as his own person or some such rot. Possibly the senile old coot even believed Christmas was the season of goodwill, and the Christmas spirit would overcome Severus, and he and Potter would get along. Bah, humbug, as the muggle saying went.

That would never happen. Potter was too much like his father, arrogant, spoiled and pampered. He would get the shock of his life when they arrived at his cousin’s farm, the only Snape whose home was big enough to accommodate them. Severus would insist that Potter be given the same chores as their children. A week or so mucking out the stables would have Potter change his attitude in no time.

Maybe his ego would be less inflated as a result.

Snape snorted at the ridiculous thought. He had been chipping away at the boy’s ego since Potter dared to cheek him since the first class. Nothing made a blind bit of difference. He did wonder how Dumbledore managed to persuade his muggle relatives to loan him to Severus for the holidays. He knew Potter spent every term break over the last two years at the castle instead of going home. Rather ungrateful of Potter to refuse to go home to the muggles who raised him after his parents’ death. 

Even Severus had made an effort to visit Nana Bea during Christmas in his final year at Hogwarts and every Christmas since. Usually, he only turned up on Christmas Eve and left hours after Christmas  Day, though he accepted the invitation to stay the whole two weeks this year because he had to bring his son. That meant they would be staying until New Year. If not for that, he could have returned earlier (and Potter would have been with his muggle family), even whilst the Ministry was working on the new wards.

If not for the fact that Draco would draw more attention due to his lack of familiarity with the muggle world, Severus would even have preferred to take his godson. At least he could tolerate one more person's company, apart from Nana Bea. He only put up with the rest of the family for her sake.

ooOoo

It was decidedly bizarre to see Snape without his robes or frock, which he had exchanged for formal muggle wear. However, he looked no less imposing for his lack of billowing robes. Perhaps because they were no longer in the dungeons, Snape didn’t sport the usual sallow look, and even his hair looked less greasy. Maybe there was something to be said about Hermione’s potions fume theory wreaking havoc on his hair. Hermione claimed her hair always frizzed more after a Potions lesson. Harry would never say this aloud to his friend, but he could never tell the difference.

Harry needed new clothes, but Snape would never take him to a shop to buy any. So Harry didn’t bother asking. After running away from the Dursleys during the summer, because he blew up Aunt Marge, Harry had learned his lesson to keep muggle and wizard currency on him. So he had sufficient funds to buy himself some extra clothes if needed. As it was, he had to make do with wearing Dudley’s cast-offs. Luckily, he had mastered the Shrinking Charm last year, so he re-sized his hand-me-downs, though he had to remember to reverse the Charm before getting on the train at the end of the year. Otherwise, the Dursleys would punish him for using magic on Dudley’s old clothes.

The good thing about wearing Dudley’s cast-offs, at the rate his cousin outgrew his clothes, was that they came to Harry in reasonable condition. Some were more ripped and torn than others, but for the most part, they were decent, if a little faded once Harry shrunk them to fit him.

Still, his clothes were Harry’s problem, not Snape’s. He would have to wait until summer and see what he could do to fix the issue. He decided to see if Snape might take him to buy new shoes. He only had dress shoes he wore with his uniform, and he didn’t want to wear those out before he had to. He could do with some new trainers. A cheap pair would do. By the end of the year, they would be so battered anyway that the Dursleys wouldn’t look at them.

“Ready, Potter?”

Startled out of his thoughts, Harry quickly nodded and reached for his trunk. He had left Hedwig’s cage in his dorms, and Hedwig would stay at Hogwarts.

Snape, Harry discovered, lived in a small house somewhere just outside Liverpool's city centre. Though it looked completely muggle from the outside, Harry could tell from a faint buzzing that it was a wizarding residence as they approached.

They would only be staying there for two days before leaving for Marple, the farm where the rest of the Snapes would gather for the family get-together.

Though Snape had an extra bedroom, it seemed the Professor was using it as a library as it was overflowing with books. There was only one bathroom in the house, which was expected given the small size. He did have a basement, his Potion’s Lab, which Harry was not allowed to step foot in no matter what. Snape transfigured a small sofa for him out of a chair in the second bedroom and handed him some bedding.

Thus, Harry spent the next two days staying out of sight and pretending he didn’t exist. It was a system that worked with the Dursleys until they needed him for something, so there was no reason why it wouldn’t work with Snape. With nothing else to do, Harry had even completed two of the four homework assignments over the Holidays; Potions and Transfiguration. He still had to do his Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts work, but those were the easiest. He put the same effort as he always did into his Potions homework but didn’t expect Snape to mark fairly. Not that he ever did.

Snape kept himself locked in his Potion’s Lab the whole time, from ridiculous o’clock in the morning to what time does the bat actually sleep? The good thing was that, as long as Harry didn’t make a mess and cleaned up after himself, he had free rein in the kitchen. Harry was surprised to find the house stocked up with muggle cleaning products rather than wizarding ones. The house was mostly clean, if a little dusty, so Harry carefully and cautiously cleaned the kitchen and sitting area. Though fascinating as it was cleaning using magic, having witnessed it at the Burrow, Harry surprised himself by enjoying cleaning the muggle way. There was something just a little bit more satisfying about it than using magic. Not that Harry was allowed to use magic anyway. Well, he could. Dumbledore had told him he could only use it to defend himself, but winking at him, he had told Harry that no one would be able to tell with the dispensation in place what spells he was using. Harry didn’t want to push his luck with the Ministry, though. They seemed a fickle bunch. And Harry had people turn against him for no reason he could control.

He hoped the update on the wards meant he could return to Hogwarts without worry about the Dementors, though he still resolved to continue learning the Patronus. He wondered, not for the first time, if Dumbledore would return the Marauders Map to him. He hadn’t told Ron and Hermione he’d given it to Dumbledore in a fit of conscience. Hermione would have approved. She had wanted him to give it to the Headmaster in the first place. If Sirius Black was around the school, perhaps Dumbledore could use the Map to set a trap for him. Then again, Black would have no reason to stick around with the school empty for the holidays. Perhaps even now, he was scouring the country looking for Harry.

Turning his thoughts back to Snape, the other wizard seemed to have no hobbies other than collecting books. Some were new, and others looked like they were held together by magic. Again, he was surprised that some seemed to be muggle, but then discovering that Snape was half-blood like Harry, maybe he shouldn’t have been.

It was better than being back at the Dursleys, where Harry would have been locked in Dudley’s second bedroom, only allowed out to use the bathroom, do chores and being the punching bag in general. He might still be stuck inside the house, but Snape secluding himself in his lab made him feel alone rather than unwelcome. At least the bat wasn’t looming over his shoulder all the time as he did in the classroom.

Lying on the sofa the night before they were due to leave for Marple, various storylines churned around Harry’s head. Snape told him very little about what was expected of him when he was supposed to meet his muggle family. Snape’s supposed split with his ex was acrimonious, but he seemed to have quiet about his relationship with his supposed son was supposed to be liked. Was Harry supposed to be sullen and resentful of Snape because he was an absentee father? Was he supposed to be eager to please? Harry couldn’t imagine playing a son with a good relationship with Snape. The man barely looked at him. Harry reckoned he could weave a story of a neglected son who had nothing in common with his father.

A smile made its way to his face as he made himself more comfortable on the sofa, pulling the blanket higher. This could actually be fun. He would treat it like a drama class. He loved those in Primary school. He was picked for the best parts in the school Nativity play for three years running. Maybe in the New Year, he would speak to Flitwick about joining the school drama club. He did miss stuff like that.

Harry was just an actor playing a role. He knew Snape would have preferred anyone but him. The greasy git only had himself to blame for not directing him appropriately. Ha! He couldn’t wait until he called Snape dad for the first time. Not for the first time, he wondered what Snape’s muggle family were like. Were they as surly as him? Would they welcome Harry for being Snape’s son, for all their eagerness to finally meet him?

Harry eventually fell asleep to those questions swirling around his head.