Summary: At seven, Harry still reached for Severus’s hand in crowds.
At eight, he stopped.
At nine, he apologized when he did it by mistake.
In the summer of 1987, Severus rescued him from the Dursleys and brought him to Cokeworth—a small, dying town outside Liverpool. While Harry comes of age during a brewing war, he struggles to become—and understand what it means to be—a man. As the world tries to make him a saviour, Severus fights to hold on to the seven year old boy who afforded him a second chance at life.
Told in alternating perspectives, this is a story of growing up and of grieving the person someone used to be.
There is a very ordinary love that holds you together as the world falls apart. Salvation is a person.
Categories: Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Hermione, Remus, Ron, Sirius
Snape Flavour: Canon Snape, Overly-protective Snape, Snape Comforts, Snape is Desperate, Snape is Kind, Snape is Loving, Snape is Secretive, Snape is Stern
Genres: Angst, Canon, Drama, Family, Poetry
Media Type: Story
Tags: Adoption, Child fic
Takes Place: 0 - Pre Hogwarts (before Harry is 11), 1st summer before Hogwarts, 1st Year, 2nd summer, 2nd Year, 3rd summer, 3rd Year, 4th summer, 4th Year, 5th summer, 5th Year, 6th summer, 6th Year, 7th summer, 7th Year, 8 - Post Hogwarts (young adult Harry)
Warnings: Alcohol Use, Character Death, Drug use, Emotional Abuse, Neglect, Violence
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 3 Completed: No
Word count: 2634 Read: 650
Published: 19 Aug 2025 Updated: 04 Oct 2025
1. PROLOGUE : Chicago Bears by AryaRowanthorn
At seven, Harry still reached for Severus’s hand in crowds.
At eight, he stopped.
At nine, he apologized when he did it by mistake.
----
When Harry first saw his house
at age seven,
gripping his few
belongings as Severus
finished unloading
the shopping
from the old hatchback,
he loved it.
17 Spinner’s End, L78 4DR was two
houses down from the corner.
Harry always knew he was home from
the peek of the neighbors dilapidated
wooden back garden fence
as he turned the corner onto Chancery Lane.
From the power lines he could follow
from their house all the way
to the bus stop.
----
When Severus was 15 he still
went into town with his mum.
Between the boarded up shops,
they made for the charity shop that,
when this street was full,
used to be a tailor.
A brand new Oxfam where Severus found
the navy blue Chicago Bears jumper that
his mother purchased for him for a quid with
the money she had
earned
from babysitting that week.
He didn’t know the team,
but he liked that is was orange
and that it had a bear.
Sometimes,
he liked to imagine who would have owned
it before him and why
they didn’t want it anymore.
Harry took to wearing it when he moved in.
One particularly cold winter when he was seven, Severus
placed it on the heater for an hour before giving it to Harry. It was worn now,
with holes in the sleeves. He swam in it; hem hitting just below his knees and the sleeves constantly needing to be bunched up.
The jumper moved more than any item in the house. Migrating from Severus’ room to Harry’s, from couch to laundry pile and back again. On warmer mornings, it was draped over the back of the couch, covered in small stains it had acquired over the past week. In the chilly northern English spring, it reeked of outside.
And then, one winter evening, Severus looked up from his book.
Harry was standing in the doorway — taller than he remembered. Hair damp from a shower. Sleeves no longer too long. Hem sitting just below the waist.
It fit.
And something in Severus' chest clenched. And the boy who once clung to his hand at every crossing now walked half a step ahead. Still close. Still his.
But already becoming someone else.
To be continued...