By the time the train had stopped at Hogsmeade station Harry had given up on trying to talk to him, and instead was alternating between glaring at him and glaring out the window. The glaring had intensified when the boy wanted to buy sweets off the trolly, and Snape had silently refused to open the compartment door. Severus had more important things on his mind, however, than the hurt feelings of a sugar-addicted eleven-year-old child.
Like how to make sure said boy did not bolt the second he unlocked the compartment door. He stood glaring down at the Potter boy.
Potter glared back up at him.
Without a sound, he reached down and once again grabbed the collar of the boy’s shirt pulling him up off the seat. He kept a firm grip as he unlocked the compartment door and made his way off the train dragging the child with him.
“I can walk without you dragging me, you know.”
He ignored the boy’s words and continued along the path to the castle.
It seemed an exceptionally long walk up the path and through the gates on the warm summer afternoon.
Especially, with the boy tripping over himself.
Eventually, they made it up to the Headmaster’s office. Where he shoved the boy inside.
“Hey!” Harry stumbled indignantly as he barely regained his balance before falling on the floor.
“You will stay here until the Headmaster gets back to sort this out. He shouldn’t be gone much longer.” Snape turned, slammed the door behind him, thought better of it, opened the door again, and commanded in his most forbidding tone, “Touch nothing!”
He slammed the door closed again, and hurriedly made his way down to the safety of his office. Once there he picked up his lesson plans for the fifth years, as well as, that year's O.W.L.S. exam, and began the process of updating his syllabus.
The distraction lasted for exactly seven minutes.
Kicking the corner of his desk with a frustrated growl he got up and stormed through the halls to his private chambers a few corridors down from his office. The door flew open for him before he could even touch the door handle. Apparently, even the doors wanted to get out of his way. A pity that blasted Petunia didn’t have the sense the castle’s furnishings did. Honestly, how dare she speak to him that way? He was a grown man. They were not children. He should have hexed her right there in the station. A few months in Azkaban couldn’t be too horrible, right?
It might have been fucking worth it.
Once in his private quarters he went to his bedroom and found an old muggle shoe box on the top shelf of his wardrobe. Taking it down, he removed the lid and carefully shifted through the letters and pictures he’d stored in the box. Finding the one he was looking for he read it again.
And again.
And again.
He was a bloody idiot.
How had he not questioned it further? He could have asked Lily for a blood test once the brat was born. He could have insisted on it. But he never imagined she would lie to him about something like this. She knew he would have done anything for her, didn’t she? If she had told him… And if she’d been with him instead of James then maybe she would have lived.
Why hadn’t he gone to Dumbledore sooner?
It had been some time since he’d asked himself that question. He’d stopped asking because it was one he didn’t like the answer to. It was a question that hurt to think about because the answer was so simple: pride.
His pride cost him the one person he cared about.
His pride had cost him his chance at a life with Lily and their child.
His hands trembled just slightly, as he duplicated the letter, and tucked the copy away in his robes before placing the original back in its box.
His hands continued their trembling on the walk back to his office, and every breath he inhaled seemed to get stuck in his lungs. He returned to his desk and stared down at the fifth-year syllabus. He needed a distraction. He needed to work on the syllabus. He needed to stop thinking about how Lily had begged him to go to Dumbledore two weeks before she’d told him she was pregnant. He needed to stop thinking about how she refused to look at him when she told him the baby belonged to James.
He picked up his quill and tried to focus on the syllabus.
He was still working on that syllabus when his office door opened to reveal Professor McGonagall holding a too small Gryffindor boy by the collar of his shirt.
That damn shirt had to be stretched out by now. He’d be surprised if it didn’t fall off the child before the end of the day.
“Severus,” Minerva said, giving the Potter boy a small shove into his office. “I believe you left something in the Headmaster’s office unsupervised. I found him wandering the halls. I suggest you keep him with you until the Headmaster returns.”
Minerva closed the door behind her with a thud that was not a slam but that left no room for argument.
Potter must have told her only some of what had transpired at King’s Cross or she’d have come in and demanded more answers.
Blasted boy.
Snape looked at the child who was trying to glare at him. The boy’s youth made it look more like a pout. A voice filled with greed and vindictiveness echoed in his mind. He’d certainly gotten the upper hand on James Potter. James Potter had been cuckolded and Lily had given birth to Snape’s child. And raised the brat for over a year thinking it was his.
That greedy little voice sounded far too proud of that.
He never should have placed that bet with Minerva. If he hadn’t placed that bet, he never would have been on that train. Petunia wouldn’t have recognized him, and he could have gone the rest of his life believing the words Lily wrote in one of the last letters she ever sent to him.
Severus went back to his fifth year’s syllabus.
The boy loudly scraped a chair across the floor before sitting down with a huff.
Snape ground his teeth.
“Will you, please, tell me what you and my Aunt were talking about.”
Severus remained silent.
“Figures. No one ever tells me anything.”
Snape did his best to concentrate on the syllabus and corresponding lesson plans.
The boy started kicking his desk absentmindedly with his foot.
After a solid minute of rhythmic kicking Snape stood up, came around his desk, grabbed the boy by the back of his shirt (again), and began marching him outside ignoring the boy’s demands to know where they were going.
Severus found his way to the storage shed where the school brooms and quidditch supplies were kept. And where Madame Hootch was currently inventorying. He didn’t make it to the door before her head popped out followed by the rest of her shortly thereafter.
He stopped, and had just opened his mouth to speak when she crossed her arms and stated firmly, “Oh, no, you don’t! I need all the equipment in here and accounted for. I’m leaving early this year, and I’ll not have anyone messing about in my equipment shed. And, no, Severus, I don’t care how bored the boy is you’re the one that’s stuck with him until the Headmaster returns. Now, go away.”
Madame Hootch returned to her shed, and Severus – who did have a few functioning brain cells, thank you very much – turned, still holding the boy (who’d given up trying to squirm free), and walked him passed the Quidditch pitch and towards Hagrid’s hut. Minerva must have alerted the staff to Harry’s presence in the castle. And the entire faculty was aware of who’d been saddled with going on the train this year.
Rather, they knew who’d lost the bet with McGonagall.
He spent six minutes pounding on the half-giant’s door before the insolent brat next to him informed him of what McGonagall had told him.
“McGonagall said—”
“Professor McGonagall.” Snape reminded him with a snap.
The boy sighed, “Professor McGonagall said that the Headmaster sent Hagrid off on an errand before leaving.” The boy pouted (or was it meant to be a glare?), “I asked to stay with him instead of you.”
Snape turned sharply, hand still firmly grasping Harry’s shirt, “How convenient that the only person who can tolerate your company has left the castle.”
Snape began walking towards Professor Sprout’s greenhouse but thought better of it. The last time he’d left a student unattended in her greenhouse had been his second year teaching. He repressed a shudder at the memory. When she’d finished with him the soft-spoken witch had left him practically in tears from the talking-to she’d given him. Not unlike a first year being told off by his favorite professor. And she’d never once so much as raised her voice or used an ounce of sternness! Yet, he’d spent months working in the greenhouse to repair the damage done by an unsupervised student all in an attempt to make it up to her.
He doubted even the Dark Lord could withstand Pomona’s disappointment.
He could take the boy to Sybill. It would probably take two days for the flighty witch to realize she wasn’t having some sort of vision, and that the child begging for food was, in fact, real. That wouldn’t do. He wanted rid of the boy, yes, but didn’t want him starved to death.
As though the child knew what he was thinking Harry spoke up from beside him. “Are meals at the same time as during the school year? Have we missed lunch?”
Snape changed his direction and walked the boy to the kitchens where they were both immediately set upon by overly excited house-elves. He watched the boy eat a bit of everything the elves placed in front of him while Severus checked his pocket watch frequently. Once Harry had finished eating Snape grabbed the back collar of his shirt, hauled him up from the table, and dragged him all the way to the Headmaster’s office.
He knocked on the door this time and nearly sighed in relief at hearing the Headmaster’s voice invite them inside. Instead of stepping inside the office and calmly explaining to the Headmaster what had transpired at Kings Cross he opened the door, shoved the child inside, and left without a word. Albus would know how to fix this.
After all, this revelation didn’t fit in with the prophecy or the Headmaster’s grand scheme. And Severus wasn’t foolish enough to think that he was indispensable to the Headmaster’s plans. He knew better than most that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one.
He’d watched Star Trek with Lily when they were children, after all. He knew how the story would play out. Even the most sympathetic of anti-heroes never makes it to the end.