Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR, of course. Just puttering about in her world.

Harry's wand was on the blond in a heartbeat, even though he was reasonably certain the time he needed to be so wary of the other man was long past. But with Luna and the baby under his care, he was leaving nothing to chance.

It seemed he was right about Draco's intentions, because the blond backed up until he met solid wall. He threw his hands out in a gesture of supplication, giving Harry time to notice the tear tracks on his face. "I just wanted to see him one last time," Draco managed, and his voice held much of the same sort of pain Harry had heard from the Weasleys in regard to poor lost Fred.

"Snape was important to you," Harry stated, although his tone was more questioning than certain.

Draco nodded. "Of course he was. He was my godfather, after all." His voice cracked as he slid to the dirty floor, back still against the wall. He stared at the immense bloodstain, too thick and viscous to bleed into the wood's grain completely. When he spoke again, his voice sounded more like a lost, broken child than a teenager. "Do you know what happened to his body?"

Glancing to where he knew Luna hovered under his Cloak, he wished he could see her and get her input on what to do now. The more people who knew the secret of what happened to Severus Snape, the more dangerous it would be. But of all the people in the world, Draco Malfoy was the one most likely to be utterly devoted to Snape. After all, the man had killed his own mentor to avoid that blood staining his godson's hands.

"If I tell you what we've done with him, would you take an Unbreakable Vow about it?" he asked at last. He expected the blond to refuse, as he knew all too well the dangers of such a Vow, but instead, Draco nodded in agreement.

"I'll do anything, just to know for sure. Otherwise I'll dream that Death Eaters found him and desecrated his body. He doesn't deserve that!"

"I agree." Apparently, so did Luna, because she'd swept back the Cloak to reveal both herself and her precious bundle before Harry had time to ask her to do so.

"Hello, Draco." She gave him one of the dreamy smiles that Harry liked so much. "It seems you've accepted your part in our little family too. I'd dreamed you would, but it doesn't always come true on everything."

"Will you be our bonder?" Harry asked Luna, crossing the room to offer his hand to help Draco up from the floor.

She shook her head. "There is no need for such dangerous promises amongst family, Harry, and our Draco has the same devotion we do for the baby."

Regardless of Luna's confidence, Harry kept a hand on Draco's forearm as the bewildered blond looked from him to Luna. "Family? What does that have to do with Severus, and why is Lovegood carrying a baby around a filthy place like this?"

Harry waited for Luna to explain, but she only smiled, leaving it to him. He signed and led Draco closer to the baby in her arms. "Take a look at him. Does he look familiar?"

He knew when realization hit from the gasp from the other man as he studied the pale skin, dark hair, and impossibly dark eyes of the baby as the infant blinked awake to watch him. "Is that Severus? But how?"

"Magic, of course." Luna absorbed the exasperated look Harry shot her with ease of habit. "I could not heal the damage the snake left, but since he was still alive despite all the odds, I used a bit of my family's magic to give him a second chance at life."

Draco's hand shook as he reached out to touch the baby's cheek. "Can it revert?"

Luna shook her head. "It is a permanent condition, which is why such magic is only used in the direst of circumstances. To the world, he is my son now."

"Ritual blood magic?"

Harry was impressed at how easily Draco made the leaps of logic that would have taken him a few more moments to sort out. Then again, he supposed that was one difference between being raised in the wizarding world and discovering it at age eleven.

"Mmm hmm." She let the baby wrap tiny fingers around her finger. "Much like the blood adoption rituals pureblood families used to use to cover up an infidelity or two so their family tapestries didn't display their true bloodlines to the world."

"Those are outlawed," Draco said weakly, glancing to Harry as if wanting to know how the Chosen One could be standing there calmly listening to one of his closest friends discuss illegal magic.

"There are a lot of old family magics that aren't strictly legal anymore, Draco. It doesn't mean they aren't used, or that there are times where they are justified. I was willing to take the risk to give Severus the life he deserved, and if that can't be in England, then I've always wanted to explore places like Australia and Brazil."

"What's your part in this, Potter?"

Harry shrugged. "To support Luna's choice. If I'd had the same resources, I'd have done the same thing. Snape took worse risks for me, so I owe him a few in return." He turned to Luna. "You said he's your son now. Is there any way to use that same sort of ritual to ensure he has a father in more than name as well?"

"Of course." She smiled at both men. "You already offered, but Draco should have the option as well. I can do it for either of you, but not both."

Conceding to her choice, Harry glanced to Draco, who swallowed heavily before answering. "I'd give anything to do that, Lovegood, to be a father for him. But the odds are too high on me going to Azkaban for me to take that risk. Even if I don't go, he'd have to grow up with the tarnish of me as a father." His grey eyes left the baby to study the floor as his voice fell. "The Malfoy name doesn't deserve him." When he looked back up, his expression was fiercely protective toward the baby. "Potter can protect him now in ways I could never dream of doing."

"Perhaps." Luna looked back and forth between the two young men and finally nodded. "It's decided then. Harry will be his father, but Draco, you'll be his godfather. It's oddly appropriate, I think."

Harry surprised himself by nodding even as Draco tried to shake his head. "She's right. I can't think of anyone I'd trust more as his godfather, and even if you did go to Azkaban, I didn't turn out so bad for having a godfather who'd spent time there." The blond's gaze on him was almost too intense in its gratitude, and he wasn't certain whether it was for insisting on him as godfather or for stating having an ex-convict godfather hadn't done him harm. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

"Besides, something tells me that's not your fate," Luna added. She reached out to pat Draco's cheek gently, and the Slytherin surprised Harry by not flinching away or rejecting her touch. If anything, he seemed to welcome the contact. It spurred him to speak up.

"You saved my life, at the Manor that day. I'll speak to the Minister and the Wizengamot both," he offered. He realized he'd have done that anyway, but now it was even more important that he speak up not just on Narcissa's behalf. He wasn't sure he had the stomach for Lucius, but the broken man in the Great Hall was not the Malfoy who'd followed Voldemort, so he suspected he would.

"You shouldn't waste your political pull on me," the blond said, his voice softening and taking on that lost little boy quality Harry had seen in his expression earlier. He was leaning into Luna's touch, meeting her eyes instead of Harry's.

"Your heart was never in all of this." Harry reached for Draco's left forearm and shoved the sleeve back easily, since the cuff button on his shirt was missing. He tapped the Dark Mark. "He threatened your mother. I'd have taken it myself if I'd had the choice between that or my mum dying."

"Me too."

Harry wasn't sure which declaration of joining Voldemort shocked the blond most, his or Luna's. They'd both lost their mothers far too young. It didn't shock him a bit to realize they both understood making the choice to save a mother's life.

"Enough discussion. You're godfather and not going to prison if I can do anything about it," Harry said. Realizing they'd delayed far too long when anyone could come down the tunnel if they recalled Snape's body needed recovering, he decided to take charge. "Kreacher!"

The house-elf popped into instance with far more grace than he'd attended summonings prior to Harry finishing Regulus' final task. "Yes, Master Harry?"

"I need you to take Miss Lovegood and the baby to Grimmauld Place," he instructed. "Is it safe for the baby to travel with you?" The old house-elf nodded. "Good. Then take them there and don't let anyone in except me until I tell you otherwise."

Kreacher took Luna's wrist when she offered her hand to him, and with a soft pop, the trio disappeared.

Taking a deep breath, Harry turned to Draco, realizing they had one possibly crucial task left to them. "Will normal magical fire remove all trace of whether or not a body was here?" he asked. He seemed to have a vague memory of Dudley watching telly and some crime drama stating it was almost impossible for a normal fire to burn hot enough to erase traces of an adult human's body.

The blond shook his head. "Auror spells are too complex."

Sighing that the easiest route was out, the black-haired youth studied the old house for a moment. "What about fiendfyre?"

"Nothing survives that."

The grief in his voice made Harry flinch. Crabbe had been his friend after all. "Hermione said it was too dangerous for her to try, but I think we have to."

"It had better by you, Potter. I don't think I'd have the control to keep it contained."

"What's important to containing it?" Remembering the living inferno unleashed in the Room of Requirement, Harry had no wish to accidentally unleash such a force outside such magical confinement.

"Complete focus and determination. Failing that, a magically imbued stone room."

"Well, no magical stone rooms around here, so we'd best hope my luck holds out." He motioned at the door. "Best if we're outside if I'm burning the whole building down."

Draco followed him out, seeming to need distance between him and the place where the man known as Severus Snape had met his end. Harry couldn't blame him. Despite what they were doing to give the baby new life, the man he became would not be Snape.

"If this goes wrong, Malfoy, get the hell out of here and figure out a way to get a message to Luna. Get them out of the country any way you can. Your mother too."

"Draco."

Startled, Harry glanced to the other man. "What?"

"If we're doing this, being family like Lovegood... Luna… said, then I'm Draco, not Malfoy."

Harry stuck out his hand. "Hello, Draco. I'm Harry."

With hope in his eyes for the first time since Harry had seen him enter the Shrieking Shack, Draco took Harry's hand and shook it.

A/N:

Pamela3265, asyuraniel, & fyrehardt: Thanks! Hopefully the update lives up to expectations.

L: I was hoping that amidst the popularity of various deaging fics this particular one hadn't been covered. Those always seem to be temporary anyway, but from the time the idea of deaging Snape to save him occurred to me, it seemed in my mind he had to stay that way.