"What are we doing tomorrow?" Harry was sitting at the kitchen table while Severus sat at his desk working on his lesson plans for the upcoming year. "Can I go flying again?"

Snape ground his teeth together. It had taken almost half an hour after returning from supper to get the brat to work on his schoolwork. Not that he cared if the child did the work or not. But he needed to finish his lesson plans, and he was already behind thanks to Tuney.

However, to catch up he needed some peace and quiet. The damn child hadn't stopped talking for over an hour.

"Potter-"

"Harry."

Snape turned in his chair to look at the boy, "excuse me?"

"McGonagall said you should call me Harry."

"And how many times must I remind you that you will show your professors the proper respect and refer to them by their title."

The damn boy actually rolled his eyes at him before speaking! "Professor McGonagall said you should call me Harry."

Snape considered correcting the boy as Minerva had not told him to call the child ‘Harry,' only reminded him that the boy's name was Harry. He also considered dangling the boy from the ceiling by his ankles for rolling his eyes at him. Both options sounded like quite the hassle, however, and he needed to get some work done.

"How did you know I left to walk around the castle last night?" He could hear the boy's heels tapping against the legs of his chair.

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. He could tell that he had a headache coming on. "There are alarms on the door to alert me if you leave after I've locked the door."

"Oh."

There was a full minute of silence before the prepubescent voice broke his concentration, again. "You didn't answer my question. About what we're doing tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Snape felt his temple throb from how hard he was clenching his jaw, "I am going to try and catch up from the two days of work I missed, and you are going to work on your school work."

"Oh."

"Indeed," Severus attempted to return to his lesson plans.

"Why do you have to work during the summer? I thought teachers got summer holidays off?"

"Do you plan on bothering me all night with questions?"

Severus didn't hear a response but waited a full minute before trying to go back to his lesson plans.

The quiet lasted for three minutes before he was interrupted again. However, the question was so quiet that he thought he might have imagined it. When he turned around in his chair again, emerald green eyes were studying him too closely for the words to have been imagined.

"Do you want me?"

Snape looked into the eyes of his best friend's child. A child that was also, apparently, his. Or so the annoyingly greedy voice in his head kept reminding him. He decided to answer honestly, "I don't know."

The boy looked down, crestfallen, and started to put his things away in his book bag.

Severus felt an odd ache in his chest, and from some recess in his mind a voice struggled to be heard. He blamed that voice on the need to explain himself. "I don't know... because I still can't quite believe it. I can't believe that Lily lied to me even though I understand her reasons for doing so. I can't believe that Petunia knew and didn't bother trying to tell me." He paused for a few moments watching as the boy looked at him expectantly, "It's barely been two days, Harry. And it's a lot to think about."

The boy resumed putting his things away and didn't look up at him.

"Many parents have about nine months - almost a year - to consider their new circumstances. I haven't even had 48 hours yet." He paused, and wasn't completely sure why his voice suddenly sounded pleading, "Give me just a little while longer to answer that question."

The boy had finished packing his school things back into his bookbag and now held the bag on his lap with his arms wrapped tightly around it. "Where will I go? If you decided that... that you don't want me?"

Severus didn't answer, he glanced down at his lesson plans and decided that he'd already put them off this long. They could wait until tomorrow. He stood up slowly and made his way to the table acutely aware of how the boy's arms tightened even more around his bag. He sat across from the child.

"Bloody hell, boy, you're determined to only ask questions I don't have answers to tonight, aren't you?"

The arms tightened around the bag again.

"What brought this on?"

Harry shrugged.

Snape tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling and mumbled a quiet, "Fuck me." Judging by the look on the boy's face when he looked back down, he hadn't been as quiet as he thought. "Just this afternoon, Harry, I told you how horrible of a person I am. You've spent an entire school year in classes with me, so you've seen how cruel I can be. Why do you even care whether or not I want you? Why would you want me?"

Harry shrugged, again, his voice lacked emotional attachment as he stated matter-of-factly "Because you're my dad."

Severus had never run out of his quarters so quickly before. Not even when one of his Slytherins had accidentally set all the furnishings on fire by exploding a large number of fireworks in the common room. He hoped he'd had the sense to tell the child to stay in his quarters, but he honestly couldn't remember.

He wasn't even sure where he was going until he got near the entrance to the kitchens.

One look at the portrait with the ticklish pear, and he realized that he needed a sandwich.

He tickled the pear while forcing himself to take deep breaths, and when the painting swung open he clambered inside with none of his usual grace. He couldn't get enough air into his lungs. It was like his chest was being squeezed by a troll. The blasted elves weren't helping either as they tripped over themselves to help him.

He was going to pass out. Pass out, hit his head, and die. In the kitchens of Hogwarts.

Fuck his life.

His back found a wall and he slid down it slowly, sitting on the kitchen floor. The elves were giving him a bit more space now. They watched him with concern. Which was not what he needed. He needed a sandwich. He noticed a few were whispering to each other and felt some small relief when one of them nodded their head vigorously before popping out of the kitchens.

He continued focusing on his breathing until he heard soft footsteps approaching, and an even softer voice thanking the elves for looking after him before shooing them away. He had his head buried in his arms that were resting on top of his knees. Despite not being able to see the person pulling a chair closer to him, he knew exactly whose hand rested on top of his head for a moment. He followed the instructions he was given regarding deep breaths.

After several minutes he lifted his head slightly, and Pomona Sprout removed her hand, "Shall I make you a sandwich, dear? You look a bit peckish, at the moment."

Severus nodded not caring to eat, but this was part of the ritual. The same thing they did every time he ended up in the kitchens surrounded by elves, and having a...difficult time dealing with things. It hadn't happened in a couple of years, but apparently, neither she nor the elves had completely forgotten. The first time, he'd only been working at Hogwarts for a month when a nightmare had sent him stalking the halls looking for students up after curfew. It had seemed like the perfect distraction at the time. Thinking he'd seen some enter the kitchens he'd followed. Instead, he'd found his former Herbology professor who saw something off about him.

After that, a pattern emerged. When he needed a sandwich he went to the kitchens. And the house elves would call Pomona.

"Come sit at the table, Severus," Pomona called softly, and his legs obediently complied.

He watched her hands work rhythmically, as she sliced a banana. He'd be having peanut butter and banana this time, it seemed. He liked that. He hadn't had one since the last time she'd made one for him. After a few minutes, she pushed a plate in front of him with two neatly sliced halves of a sandwich. A pumpkin juice appeared a moment later.

"I was expecting you'd be needing a sandwich, dearie, with everything that happened yesterday." Pomona smiled kindly and waited for him to take a bite of his sandwich before she continued. "I hope you told Harry where you were going before you left. Or at least instructed him to stay put?"

Severus's eyes fell, he couldn't remember. How could he tell her that? A voice in his mind screamed at him for his carelessness.

She patted his hand gently, "I'll have an elf keep an eye on him for you."

As she called an elf and asked her to check on Harry and make sure he stayed in his quarters, Severus felt something in his chest relax. The voice quieted.

Harry would be safe in his quarters.

Why was that thought such a relief?

He ate half the sandwich while she talked about a new plant she wanted for her greenhouse. They both knew he wasn't really listening. They also knew that the sound of her voice made it easier for him to breathe and not think.

After a few sips of pumpkin juice he interrupted her, "He said I was his dad."

She smiled softly, "Severus, love, the entire castle knew that within fifteen minutes of Madam Pomfrey doing the blood tests." 

Snape's mouth dropped down at the corners and to hide the fact his bottom lip was starting to stick out slightly (he was not pouting!) he took a bite of sandwich.

"Did he call you "dad" or simply state it?"

Snape thought back for a second. The boy had said the sentence with a shrug and some confusion in his voice. But he always sounded slightly confused, so perhaps he couldn't rely on that. "More of a statement of fact."

Pomona made a low noise of acknowledgment, "he's very young, Severus. In his mind, there is a certain way the world is supposed to work. Parents, in his mind, are supposed to love their children unconditionally. He's old enough to know that isn't always true, but at the same time, he wants it to be true. He's just as conflicted as you are."

Sprout's words and voice calmed him, slightly, but also made him feel like a horrible human being. More horrible than he already was. Tuney's words rang in his head, ‘a pathetic, worthless, spineless little ragamuffin who grew into an even more pathetic man who thinks he can pretend to be something he isn't.'

He felt the truth in that sentence in every fiber of his being from his bones to his soul.

"Whatever you're thinking," Pomona interrupted, "it's not true."

"You don't know what I'm thinking," Snape argued with her although the affront in his voice sounded more like petulance.

"I know that whatever you're thinking is filled with self-loathing and overly harsh criticisms. You're a good man Severus. Whether you like it or not. And no amount of posturing will make those who know you say otherwise."

"There's no need to be insulting," he responded. The cruel words being shouted at him in his mind seemed to quiet down at her words.

She shook her head slightly and gave him a knowing look. "Have you finished your sandwich?"

He looked down at the nearly-eaten sandwich and sighed. "I have to go back to my quarters, don't I?"

"If for no other reason than to keep that boy of yours from terrorizing the poor house elf."

He made a slight face at how she'd referred to Harry - it simply didn't sound right to his ears - but he didn't correct her. "He's incorrigible."

Sprout nodded her head, "Yes, just like his father, as you're so fond of saying."

He glared at her.

She smiled kindly back at him.

"I was nothing like that," he argued weakly.

"Of course, not," Pomona agreed. "You always trusted the adults around you to know more than you. And at age eleven you had the astounding ability to actually think before you acted."

Severus forced a smirk, "I was rather brilliant..."

Sprout laughed.

Snape smiled.

When he returned to his quarters the child was sitting in one of the chairs by the fire reading one of his textbooks. The boy looked up when he entered and the ever-present look of confusion was on his face.

"Are you okay, Professor?" There was hesitation in the child's voice as he asked the question. As though he wasn't sure if he should ask or not. "You ran out awfully fast. Did you forget something?"

Snape cleared his throat, "nothing for you to worry about."

The boy stared at him expectantly.

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose and took several deep breaths. He was going to need a lot of sandwiches before the summer was over.

"What will we do tomorrow?"

Snape sat in the chair opposite the boy. The child would continue to ask that question every night until he had a schedule. Children needed structure. Routine. He didn't need to be a teacher to know that, and he supposed that their... whatever this was... would go far more smoothly if the child had an idea as to what to expect most days.

"I do have work to complete for the next school year," Snape informed him. "So, while I am in my office working, you shall remain here in my quarters working on your assignments. I'm usually done with next year's lesson plans in less than two weeks. That should give you plenty of time to finish your summer assignments."

There. That counted as a schedule, right? Not as detailed as a class schedule during the school year, but a schedule. That should satisfy the boy.

"All day? I can't go flying?"

Snape considered; the boy would need to burn off energy. "We'll have breakfast here. At lunchtime, I'll collect you and we'll go to the Great Hall. Then I'll bring you back here for a few more hours. About an hour and a half before supper, I'll collect you again... to go flying."

"Really?" Harry's smile was so large that Snape wondered how his face didn't hurt.

"I'm not in the habit of saying things I don't mean."

Harry continued to smile as though Severus had given him a million galleons.

"After supper, we'll return here where you will get cleaned up and," Snape paused unsure of himself, "amuse yourself however you please as long as it is not disruptive or life-threatening. And you will be in bed at ten."

Harry made a face, but it disappeared quickly before he raised his hand.

Snape sighed, "Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"Harry," the boy reminded him.

Snape swallowed, "yes, Harry?"

The boy lowered his arm, "can I go to the library to get some more books?"

Snape glanced at the clock on the wall. "We can go now if you'd like. That way you'll have what you need for tomorrow."

Harry grinned and went to put his shoes on.

"And you're taking a bath when we get back. You smell like the quidditch pitch," Snape stood from his chair walking over to the door to wait on the boy.

"I like how the quidditch pitch smells." Harry was sitting on the floor pulling on his trainers still.

"Nevertheless," Snape replied, "you'll go to bed clean."

The boy barely had his second shoe on before he jumped up off the floor. He waited patiently for Snape.

"Let's go." Snape held the door open for the boy before closing it behind them.