“Can’t we go to Hogwarts for a couple minutes?” Harry asked. “I just want to see the decorations and say hi to—”

               “No, Potter, and for the last time, stop asking,” Severus snapped before he returned to reading his journal.

               “This is the worst Christmas Eve ever,” Harry muttered as he collapsed on the sofa, hiding his face in one of the sofa pillows.

               “And it will get considerably worst if you do not stop whining and complaining,” Severus threatened. “You have plenty here to do to occupy your time.”

               Harry sighed loudly, a noise that aggravated on Severus’s nerves, but he bit his inner cheek and ignored Harry in favor of turning a page of his journal to begin analyzing the next portion of the decade long research on the effects of sneezeweed petals neutralizing poisons and venoms in as quickly as seconds when boiled with bezoars for thirty minutes. It was a fascinating study, and attempting to read it with a bored child was proving very distracting.

               “I want a Christmas tree,” Harry said.

               “Not in this house,” Severus said.

               “Why not?”

               “I do not need needles all over the place nor do I want some filthy tree in my living room. Besides, what on earth do you want a tree for?”

               “Because it’s Christmas. Even Aunt Petunia would put up a tree. It was a fake one, usually, with lights already on it, but she still put one up. And Hogwarts had a hundred trees. We should have a tree, too.”      

               “Poor reasoning for the presence of a tree,” Severus couldn’t help but say. “I am not taking you anywhere to go tree shopping, so I suggest you get that ridiculous notion out of your head.”

               Harry crossed his arms and pouted, glaring at Severus for a minute before grumbling under his breath. He shot off the sofa and stomped out of the room.

               “Fine,” he said, slipping his boots on before grabbing his winter cloak and throwing it on. “I’ll get one myself.”

               Severus watched Harry walk out the door into the chilly air, shutting the door firmly enough without slamming it. Severus rolled his eyes and returned to his journal, trying to reengage with the study that he had found so fascinating, but now, his brain was preoccupied with what Harry could possibly be up to. Ten uneasy minutes passed, and with a heavy sigh, Severus set the journal down and stood up, summoning a cloak himself and walking to the mudroom, slipping his own boots on, and stepping outside.

               He stepped down the deck, glancing over to the pond Harry liked to frequent, but he did not see Harry there, so he scanned the rest of the yard. In the far back near the start of the wooded area surrounding the property, just on the edges of the wards, Harry was attempting to swing an axe at a young larch tree standing nearly six and a half feet tall. Severus narrowed his eyes and hastened his steps over to Harry.

               “I did not say you could take any of my tools out of the shed,” Severus scolded.

               “This is going to be the best Christmas tree ever,” Harry said with conviction as he tried to swing the axe again, nearly dropping it on his own toes, but managing to cut a root on the ground instead.

               “You are going to get yourself killed. Give that to me.” Severus reached to take the axe away from Harry, but the child pulled it away, backing up more and nearly colliding with the wards around the boundary.

               “No,” Harry said. “Not unless you cut the tree down.”

               “For what, firewood?”

               “No, to be my Christmas tree.”

               “You realize how childish that sounds.”

               “I don’t care.”

               Severus growled under his breath, then moved forward and grabbed Harry’s arm, pulling the child away from the wards so he didn’t accidentally breach them. Then, he positioned himself behind Harry and grabbed Harry’s wrists, correcting Harry on how he was holding the axe, moving Harry’s hands down the handle to a more appropriate position. He used a foot to gently kick Harry’s feet further apart, widening his stance.  

               “Bend your knees slightly,” Severus instructed, then rolled his eyes as he said, “Not that much, you’re not skiing.”    

               Harry relaxed slightly and looked up at Severus, who nodded, then guided Harry’s swing slowly, speaking as he did so.

               “Don’t focus on the axe as much as on where you want to strike the tree,” Severus said, leading Harry into a more forceful swing that left a decent notch, rocking the small tree slightly. “This is a small tree with a thin trunk, so you shouldn’t need to bother with where it will fall too much. A couple more swings, and it’ll be down.”

               After moving through the motions of swinging the axe with Harry, Severus stepped back and allowed Harry to attempt a swing on his own. Harry attempted to strike where it was already notched, but his aim was off, and he struck a lower portion of the tree. However, he quickly tried again, taking a minute to eye where he needed to strike, then hit another lower section of the tree, still inches away from where the notch was, and obviously not hitting in the same place twice. Harry looked back at Severus.

               “I hardly expected you to chop it down correctly the first time,” Severus said. “Something like this takes practice. Besides, that axe weighs as much as you do.”

               Severus took the axe from Harry and swung it twice, which was enough to fell the small tree that had already taken a beating. Severus summoned his saw from the shed and sawed another inch off the base, forming a smooth bit clean bottom to sit in a tree stand. He sent both tools flying back to his shed.

               “Thank you for showing me how to use the axe. How did you learn to cut trees?” Harry asked.

               “Years of living on my own in these woods, I suppose,” Severus answered. “I take it you’ll want help getting it inside?”

               “Yes, please,” Harry said.

               Severus used a levitating charm to bring the tree to the house, and it followed behind the two as they walked back to the cottage.

               “Why can’t you just use magic to cut it down?” Harry asked.

               “I could,” Severus answered. “But magic uses up energy that is best saved for other tasks. It does not ask much to chop kindle for the fireplace or cut down a tree for a child’s juvenile wish.”

               “Hey, it’s not!” Harry argued. “Just because you’re a scrooge doesn’t mean I have to skip out on Christmas.”

               “Calling me names after all I’ve done to help you?” Severus quirked a brow at Harry, hiding a smirk. “I should drop this tree and watch you struggle to bring it up the deck and into the house. Where do you plan on putting it anyway?”

               Harry led the way into the house, kicking off his boots at Severus’s command, then pointed at a spot near the bookshelf, a small corner in the house across from the fireplace. Severus summoned a large cauldron and filled it with water with a spell from his wand before carefully lowering the tree into the cauldron, adjusting the tree and cauldron so it fit in the corner, its branches stretching into the living room space. He used stabilizing charms to keep the tree upright before shoving his wand back in its holster on his arm and looking down at Harry.

               Harry was beaming at the tree and Severus had to resist smiling himself.

               “I do not have decorations for this,” Severus said.

               Harry swung his head up, a disappointed look on his face.

               “Not any?”

               “No.”

               Harry frowned as he looked back at the tree, then said, “I’ll make my own.”

               With that proclamation, Harry walked back to the mudroom, slipping his boots on and walking back outside. While Severus was curious again, he forced himself to pick up his journal and read up on the study, trying to find the same fascination for it he had had earlier that morning, but after twenty minutes, he heard Harry return, and he quickly barked out, “Boots off.”

               He heard Harry kick them off, then headed for the kitchen.

               Afraid of the disaster that might ensue, Severus jumped to his feet and headed to the kitchen in time to see Harry pull down a bag of flour. He leaned against the frame as he watched Harry jump off the stepstool and run back to the dining table, where he dumped some flour in a bowl. Then, Harry poured a cup of water into the bowl of flour and mixed it with his fingers before he started slabbing globs of the mixture along the pinecones rolling all over the kitchen table, giving them a snowy look. After several pinecones were decorated, Harry glanced over at Severus and lifted a pinecone up toward the man, as if waiting for his approval.

               Severus quirked a brow at Harry, then stepped into the kitchen and pulled down the salt, unscrewing the cap and dumping the contents on a plate. He set the plate down next to Harry before he picked up one of the sticky pinecones and rolled it in the salt. After a couple rolls, he set it down in front of Harry, whose confused look turned into one of excitement as he saw how the pinecone shimmered now, and he took over rolling the pinecones in the salt while Severus spelled small string loops in each pinecone.

               Harry hung all the pinecones on the tree in a random pattern, taking care to make sure they were spread out evenly over the tree.

               Then, Harry was searching through the kitchen again, and then he heard the old microwave humming as well as the sound of popcorn popping, and the smell of it filled the house. Severus smiled in his seat as he realized what Harry was up to next.

               And Harry returned to the kitchen with three bags of popcorn and fishing line he must have found in the shed. He had also found a needle, most likely in the junk drawer in the kitchen, and he picked up a popcorn and tried to push the needle through it, only for the popcorn to crumble. Severus watched as Harry determinedly tried to thread the popcorn, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he carefully managed to get the needle through the popcorn, but the motion of the fishing line was too much for the popcorn, and it crumbled away.

               Severus stood from his chair and walked over to Harry, who watched him expectantly as if hoping for instructions. Instead, Severus waved his hand over the popcorn, casting an aging spell over the kernels, and the popcorn aged and staled before their eyes. Severus retreated to his chair, not showing the slightest interest in what Harry was doing as he returned to his book, but he was secretly glad that Harry was finding it easier to string the popcorn.

               It took Harry the rest of the morning and after lunch, which Severus had to drag Harry to the dining table for, for Harry to finish stringing all the popcorn he had. Once he was done, Harry wrapped it along the tree like garland, and he smiled at his work.

               After a few minutes of staring at the tree, Harry seemed to have come up with another idea as he ran toward Severus’s potions lab this time.

               “Potter, do not play with my supplies,” Severus said, standing up from the dining table where he had been grading essays.

               “Just a couple things, sir,” Harry said, running out with a couple hippogriff feathers, and he stuck them into the tree.

               Then, he ran back into the lab, then back out with a couple dragon claws that he tied with the fishing line and hung on the tree.

               He ran back in for a few different flowers that he allowed to rest along the branches.

               And back in for a jobberknoll feather that he tied to a higher branch, using the step stool to reach, and then a peacock feather, which he tied to a lower branch.

               And then he carefully grabbed a few flitterby moths preserved in a glass containment, and he carefully positioned them on the branches.

               Finally, he grabbed a handful of unicorn horn dust, which was much like glitter, so he blew his handful at the tree, covering it in a lovely sparkle.

               Severus kept his temper in check as he watched his potion ingredients adorn a Christmas tree. Harry had been careful with everything, so he had not been concerned about losing any of his items. And then Harry had blown unicorn horn duct over everything, and while it may not have seemed like a large deal, it certainly limited how he could use the ingredients on the tree now. He bit his inner cheek to keep from yelling at the brat as he had allowed everything else thus far, so really, it was his own fault. He stepped closer to the tree Harry was admiring, feeling slightly impressed with Harry’s hard work.

               “Not bad,” Severus said.

               “You really think so?” Harry asked, smiling at Severus. He looked up at the tree. “Too bad we don’t have a star to put on top.”

               “You mean like this?” Severus waved his hand and a star tree topper appeared in his hand.

               It was a silver, five-point, glittery star, and Harry gaped at him then frowned.

               “I thought you didn’t have any Christmas decorations.”

               “I do not. Except this. It was a gift from a close friend of mine.”

               Closer than you will ever know, Severus thought in his head as he recalled the redheaded teenager who had given the star topper to him during their third year at Hogwarts. Harry carefully took the topper from Severus and stepped up on the stool, and he pushed the star down on the crown of the tree, and when he was sure it would stay, he climbed down and pulled the stepstool away. Harry stood next to Severus to stare at the tree.

               “This is the best Christmas tree ever,” Harry said.

               “From the eyes of a potions master,” Severus said, “I agree. I never though a tree covered in potions ingredients would look so . . .”

               Severus could not think of the right word as he tilted his head at the tree, lost in long ago Christmases at Hogwarts with friends he once knew. Harry didn’t need any words though, and he nodded his head in agreement with his professor.

               “How did you know all those nice touches to some of the decorations I made?” Harry asked Severus.

               “I learned most of them from my mother. We would often make our own Christmas decorations. I’d say she would like this tree very much. Where did you learn to make the decorations?”

               Harry shrugged.

               “I guess I just saw other Christmas trees with decorations like that and figured it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how to do myself.”

               “You never decorated with your relatives.”

               “Oh no, I wasn’t allowed to breathe near the Christmas tree, forget helping to decorate. That was a family only thing.”

               “Last I knew, you were apart of their family.”

               “Immediate family. Excluding freaky nephews.”

               “Your relatives were the freaks.” Severus frowned at Harry. “No child should have been excluded from traditions like that.”  

               “It’s okay. Christmas at Hogwarts made up for years of Christmases at my relatives.” Harry looked back at the tree. “This is turning into a nice one, too.”

               Severus snorted at that as he glanced back at the tree.  

               “I wish it would snow,” Harry said, glancing out a window. “That would make this perfect.”

               “Snow does not usually stick around here,” Severus said. “But miracles have been known to happen.”

               Severus felt a strange feeling in his chest as he watched Harry throughout the afternoon as the child alternated between playing outside on the broom, checking out the pond, and staring up at the tree in awe once more. He recalled many Christmases where he felt the same admiration for the holiday, but as he entered his teen years, it had become so meaningless. What was the point of the holiday anyway? A reason to waste money on frivolous gifts and eat an absurd amount of food? And for what? He never had anyone to spend it with anyway.

               And that was just it, wasn’t it? Severus questioned in his head as Harry set up another chess game that evening, setting himself up with the black pieces this time. Severus sat across from him at the dining table, a place he deemed a better fit for a proper, long game of chess. Severus studied Harry as the child carefully set up each piece, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated.

               “Professor, you first,” Harry said when he was all set.

               Severus quirked a brow at Harry, then a pawn.

               For some reason, he did not find Harry’s presence as annoying and inconvenient as he had previously.

               After beating Harry twice in two short chess games (that were at least more than two moves a piece), Severus sent Harry to bed, and when he felt ready to retire himself, he paused outside Harry’s bedroom, noticing that Harry was still tossing and turning under the blankets.

               “Settle down,” Severus said as he entered the bedroom, pausing next to Harry’s bed, casting a dim lumos on his wand to brighten the room some.

               “I’m trying,” Harry said. “But I can feel . . . him.”

               Severus inclined his head the slightest, knowing exactly who “him” was.

               “Explain,” Severus said.

               “Every time I close my eyes, I feel like he’s here,” Harry continued, fiddling with a loose thread on the blanket. “And I feel like I’m wherever he is. It’s weird I know, but I keep getting flashes of places I’ve never been before, people I’ve never seen before. It’s . . . kind of scary. Do you think he’s figuring out the connection?”

               “I do not know, but we need to keep him as unaware of it as possible, and that means you need to close off the connection yourself.”

               “But I don’t know how. And you said I had to age up again before I could learn Occlumency.”

               “Yes, but that does not mean you cannot learn to close your mind. The first step to that is simply clearing your mind.”

               “So . . . think of nothing?”

               Severus sighed, realizing the idea of clearing one’s mind could be harder to grasp for some people than for others. He reached into his robe pocket and pulled out an old, silver pocket watch. He held it out above Harry, pulled the watch back and let it swing above Harry’s head, allowing it to create a small arc back and forth.

               “Follow the watch with your eyes, Harry,” Severus said.

               Harry began to do so, then frowned and looked up at Severus.

               “I’ve seen this muggle trick before,” he said.

               “Just . . .” Severus closed his eyes in exasperation. “Follow the watch.”

               Harry hesitated, then returned to watching the watch once more, leaning back in his pillow and staring up at it, his eyes moving with it. Severus waited a moment as he made sure Harry was following his instruction.

               “That’s it,” Severus said in a low tone. “Just follow the watch with your eyes and listen to the sound of my voice. Breathe in slowly. Hold. Now breathe out. Breathe in. Hold. And out. Keep breathing. And follow the watch.”

               Harry visibly relaxed as he kept taking slow breaths, his eyes never leaving the steady rhythm of the watch circling above him.

               “Keep breathing,” Severus continued, “and follow the watch. There is nothing else right now but the watch. Any thoughts you have now, let them go. Any visions you see, let them go, and focus on nothing but the watch. Your eyes are getting tired.”

               Harry nodded in agreement, though he did not stop watching the watch sway.

               “Have you let go of all your thoughts?” Severus asked.

               Harry nodded again.

               “Your mind is clear. This is how your mind should be when we start Occlumency lessons. Relaxed, but clear of all thoughts. Focused, and following nothing but the watch. Your eyes grow heavy, wishing to take you away into a deeper relaxed state. Let go of your eyes. Let them close and transport you away into pleasant dreams. Go on, now, close your eyes. Sleep now, Harry. Sleep.”

               And like that, Harry nodded off, instantly asleep.

               Severus yanked the watch up into his hand and smirked at Harry. Muggle trick or not, it always worked like a sleeping charm would. Severus stared down at the sleeping child for a moment, wondering how the wizarding world came to rely on such a small savior, who seemed too vulnerable and innocent to be defeating any Dark Lord. Severus let out a sigh before retreating to his own bedroom.

               The next morning, Severus listened outside Harry’s bedroom door as the child opened the small gifts from his friends that the elf, Frilly, had delivered. Severus had received small gifts from the other professors at Hogwarts and Albus felt it necessary that he was given a box of muggle candy, but otherwise, all the same as every year. He wondered what trivial items Harry received had him full of laughter and joy, but he could not bring himself to interrupt Harry’s gift opening, nor would he ask.

               When it sounded like Harry had settled down some, Severus knocked on the door firmly.

               “Potter, time for breakfast.”

               After a few minutes, Harry left the bedroom dressed in a pair of Severus’s muggle clothes that had been shrunk to fit him. He joined Severus at the table for a simple breakfast of eggs, mushrooms, spinach, and avocado, but despite having eaten the same breakfast several times the last couple days, Harry dug in as if it were the best thing on earth, while Severus slowly ate his as he read the Daily Prophet. When Harry was finished, he glanced over at Severus.

               “Err, Happy Christmas, sir,” Harry said.

               “It is indeed,” Severus said. “You might want to look outside.”

               Harry frowned at that but got out of his seat and walked over to the back door. His eyes widened and he shoved his boots on and his cloak and ran out the mudroom door, not caring that he was still in his pajamas, though Severus sure did.  

               “You imbecilic child,” Severus growled as he stood and followed after Harry. “This is no reason to try and catch your death.”

               He paused when he saw Harry lying on the thinly snow-covered ground creating a snow angel, a big grin on the child’s face. He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, fighting against a smile. He was sure the snow would melt by the afternoon, but the landscape the snow had created around the cottage left a sparkling wonderland.

               The next day, Severus got right to work on Harry’s potion while he had Harry perform some required reading material for school. While he still didn’t trust Harry’s penmanship quite yet, there was no reason Harry could not read up on his homework assignments and be more prepared to write his essays when he was older after his next dose. Harry didn’t seem thrilled with the new task but diligently did as he was told, sitting in the armchair next to the Christmas tree.

               The Age Up Potion did not take long to put together once again, seeing as this was Severus’s third time brewing it for Harry. Once it was ready to simmer for the next several hours, Severus stepped out of his small lab to start a salad for lunch. As he threw fresh greens together, he felt an overwhelming urge to check on Harry, so he set a stasis charm on the vegetables and headed for his living room.

               As he stepped past the open door to his lab, he nearly did a doubletake as he backed up and froze in the doorway.

               Harry was reaching as high as he could to put a hand over the boiling cauldron.

               Then, he let go of a small green bay leaf.

               “No!” Severus shouted, jutting out a hand to wandlessly cast a quick protection shield over Harry from where he stood in the doorway just as the cauldron fizzed angrily and spluttered thick black smoke into the air.

               Instead of an explosion, the potion seemed to eat itself alive, boiling down to no a thin paste that coated the inside of the cauldron. The black smoke aired out through the door way, revealing Harry enclosed in the shield Severus had cast, safe from all harm the potion could have caused.

               Relief turned to anger, and Severus stormed into his lab, canceled the protection shield, grabbed Harry’s upper arm, and swatted him five times, earning yelps from the small child.

               “What in Merlin’s name were you thinking?” Severus yelled. “How dare you come in here and ruin my work to turn you back to normal again! Do you have any idea how much worse this mess could have been? The danger you put yourself in? Do you want to stay a little brat of a child forever?”

               “Maybe I do!” Harry managed to yell back through his tears, weakly pulling against Severus’s grip on his arm. “Maybe I don’t want to go back to Hogwarts.”

               “What are you talking about? Why would you not want to go back to Hogwarts?”

               “So I can go back to being a liar? A murderer? Someone You-Know-Who wants to kill? Seeing all those visions—I can’t do it! I can’t face everyone’s disappointment again and their accusations that the Dark lord didn’t come back and how I killed Cedric.”

               Harry leaned onto the table, hiding his face in his free arm and sobbing, most likely due to a mixture of the sting in his back side and the emotional release of his traumas. Severus relaxed his hold on Harry’s arm and sighed sadly. So this is what Harry was hiding behind all those cheeky remarks and rebellious nature.

               “No one thinks you killed Mr. Diggory,” Severus said softly. “I believe that is a guilt you carry alone. And you did nothing wrong that night, Potter. You were set up. And you did not cast the killing curse on Mr. Diggory that ended his life. You hold no blame to that.”

               “Still . . .” Harry muttered but said nothing more.

               “Still what? It was not your fault. Say that, Potter. It was not your fault.”

               “It was not my fault,” Harry whispered.

               “You will come to believe those words with time. As far as being called a liar, as long as you know the truth, what does it matter what anyone else thinks?”

               “It’s not fair.”

               “No, it isn’t. Very little in your life has been fair, but you haven’t let that stop you before.”

               “I’m just tired of it all,” Harry confessed, looking up at Severus with watery eyes. “I don’t want to go back to normal and face Voldemort or anyone. I had fun here, and I . . . like it here. I can grow up again and start over and be someone else that isn’t the Boy-Who-Lived and I can hide here at the Escape Cottage forever.”

               “You know that cannot happen,” Severus said with a shake of his head. “I cannot allow it. You cannot run from your problems, Potter. No matter where you go, how far away you try to run, how old you try to be, your troubles will catch up with you and you will have to face them sooner or later.”

               Severus sighed and squatted slightly so he wasn’t towering over Harry, becoming less of an intimidating figure. He released Harry’s arm and gave Harry a serious look.

               “You need to follow through with everything you’ve left behind because there is a brighter future waiting for you at the end of it all. You deserve so much more than what you’ve been given thus far, and if you can get through a few more hoops, you will see it was all worth it in the end.”

               “I can’t do it.”

               “You can,” Severus argued. “I’ve seen you do it, from the chamber of secrets to the Triwizard Tournament to that atrocious tree in my living room.”

               “Hey,” Harry complained with a small smile. “You liked my tree.”

               “So I did. And only because you put so much effort into getting a tree in the first place, then decorating it, and convincing me not to burn it to ash. When you set your heart on something, you follow through. I know that right now, the future is terrifying, but I will help you through it and you will get through this alive. Think about your friends—you’d be leaving them behind, and they’d wonder and worry about you for the rest of their lives. You can’t give up, Potter. No matter what, you will have to play the hero again. And one day, hopefully very soon, you can just be you. But to get there, you have to age up.”

               “Okay,” Harry agreed reluctantly. “I’m sorry I ruined the potion. I was just . . .”

               “Scared,” Severus supplied. “Impulsive. Acting rashly.”

               “Yeah, yeah, all that.” Harry grumbled as he shuffled his feet, reaching a hand back to rub his bottom. “I knew it was wishful thinking anyway.”

               “Well,” Severus said, standing back up. “As punishment for destroying the Age Up and nearly getting yourself killed, you will clean the cauldron while I remake the potion. Then, you are grounded to your room for the rest of today.”

               “Yes, sir.”

               Severus fitted Harry with dragon hide gloves to protect his hands while he scrubbed away at the cauldron. While Harry spent nearly an hour cleaning the cauldron, Severus redid the potion and allowed it to simmer, glancing at the time and realizing how late it was going to be when it was finished. Oh well, he could wake Harry up to take the potion that night.

               After lunch, Harry was sent to his room to spend the rest of the day, where he worked on his reading and managed to complete at least that aspect of his homework. When Severus brought his dinner to the room, he found Harry lying back on the bed fiddling with Fangs. Harry sat up and set the plush down, watching Severus set the tray of food on a dinner table he transfigured from a muggle pencil.

               “I really am sorry about what I did,” Harry apologized. “It was stupid. I should have known better.”

               “You had a moment of weakness,” Severus said. “After everything you have been through, I do not blame you for looking for a way out of it all. These traumas will be something to work on during our Occlumency lessons though. It does not do anyone any good to hold in all that pain and trauma. You need to find release and free yourself of the misplaced guilt you are carrying.”

               “I know,” Harry said. He paused for a moment, scraping the fork against the plate. “I meant what I said earlier. I like it here. It’s a lot better than my relatives. Thank you for helping me age up again.”

               Severus inclined his head at Harry’s gratitude, but said, “I was wrong about you, Potter. I was wrong to treat you the way I have in the past over something you knew little about. You are a remarkable child, and if your relatives could not see that, then they did not deserve you.”

               Harry smiled softly up at Severus. Severus grew uncomfortable with the warm feelings emitting from Harry, so he cleared his throat and nodded pointedly at the plate of food.

               “Eat. You are still grounded, so no dessert or hot chocolate tonight. Once you have finished eating, dress for bed, and go to bed.”

               “Yes, sir.”

               Severus stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him. He was feeling rather conflicted with himself. Harry had tried to stop himself from aging up again to avoid Hogwarts and facing the Dark Lord, but also, to regrow up at the Escape Cottage—with Severus. He had wanted to stay with and be raised again by his most hated professor. Severus just wasn’t sure what to think about that. Perhaps he could chart it up to Harry’s lack of thinking that plan through enough, for teenager Harry would have never considered it an option period. Wishful thinking, indeed.

               Late that night, Severus brought Harry’s Age Up potion dose into the boy’s bedroom. He turned a lamp on and gently shook Harry awake, helped him sit up, then handed him the vial. Harry carefully drank the dose of the potion, grimacing at the taste.

               “Remember, you most likely won’t age more than a few years again, but one more dose after this and you might be back to your correct age.”

               “Yippie,” Harry said dryly as he handed the vial back to Severus. Harry rolled over and curled back up in his blanket, closing his eyes.

               Without thinking how much his actions might impact the child, Severus carded a hand through Harry’s hair and said, “It’ll all be worth it in the end, Harry. I promise you that.”

               Severus turned off the light, lingering near Harry’s bed for another second before he walked out of the room, feeling that strange sensation in his chest once more as he retired for the night himself.