Neither of them had classes the following day since it was Saturday so when Snape woke first he figured that they would have some things that they needed to discuss, but that could all be done once the boy woke up in his own time and they had breakfast together. It was almost an hour later when Harry woke up so Snape was thankful he had brought his wand during the night as he was able to summon a book to read while he waited for his son to wake up.
When Harry finally woke up he stretched backwards, arching his back, until he felt himself slap something causing him to snap his eyes open to look at what he hit. Upon seeing his new-found father smirking down at him, Harry shot up so he was sat on the sofa and spun so he was looking at the man wide-eyed.
"Umm, good morning Sev. I'm sorry about the- you know- falling asleep in your lap, and the hitting you."
"Good morning Harry. I trust you slept well?"
"I did but I said that I'm sorry for falling asleep on you."
"It's fine child. As long as you got some sleep it was worth it, as for hitting me, it was an accident and you barely got me anyway." These words marked the end of that conversation as Harry once again stretched but this time was careful to avoid hitting anyone or anything. "What say you to having some breakfast Harry?"
"I say that sounds good to me. Let's go."
"I thought we might have had some breakfast down here in my chambers so we can talk."
"Well, we can do that instead." Severus lead the way into his private kitchen and dining room and worked together to cook up a full English breakfast for the both of them. Harry doing the majority of it since he was no stranger to having to cook for people while Severus made the most of his potion making skills by cutting all of the ingredients up.
It didn't take long with their teamwork before they were both sat down eating their hot food in companionable silence. A silence that was broken when they had both finished eating.
"Harry, we have some things to talk about."
"Yeah, I figured that you'd want to talk at some point."
"Let me know if there are things that you don't want to talk about right now, all of my questions have to be answered at some point though, agreed."
"Well if I don't have a choice about not telling you I may as well tell you everything now, then it will hurt less when you leave."
"I am not going to leave you Harry, I promise you that I am here to stay."
"Yeah, you say that now, it'll change. Don't worry, just start with the questions."
"I will prove to you that I won't leave you Harry. You said that you lived in a cupboard?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Why did you have to sleep under the stairs? Why didn't you have a proper bedroom?"
"Because I was a freak. They didn't like magic, any mention of anything out of the ordinary. I was both of those things. There was to be no mention of me what so ever. I would go to school, just enough for them to get away with, other than that no one was to know that I existed at all. If there were any guests around, other than Aunt Marge, I was to make absolutely no noise and pretend that I didn't exist."
"Did they ever hit you?"
"Petunia wouldn't touch me, like she was afraid she would get some sort of disease, she would use more psychological warfare, hurt me with words, which felt far worse, or lock me in my cupboard or bedroom without any food. Dudley and his gang would chase me and fight with me at school and around the neighbourhood. They made sure that no one would dare to come near to me, or even say a word to me, because they were all too scared of him and his gang. Their favourite game was 'Harry Hunting' and no one would dare to interfere when they started on that game."
"What about your uncle Harry, did he ever hit you?"
"Yes."
"What would he do Harry?" The boy began nervously chewing on his lip, an action that was not missed by Snape as he watched the boy. Moving to sit on the chair next to Harry, Severus shifted his chair closer so that he could wrap his arm around the boy's shoulders and pull him to his side. "You do not have to say now if you don't want to."
"No, I meant it when I said that I might as well tell you today, it just might take me a while to get it out, sorry."
"You don't need to apologise child, take as long as you need to, we have all of today if you need, as well as tomorrow. We will talk for as long as it takes."
"Thank you. Can we move to the couch if we are going to keep talking though please?"
"Of course we can Harry." The two men walked back into the living room and once Snape had sat down, Harry resumed his previous position by curling into the side of the potion master and revelling when the arm was wrapped back around his shoulders.
"He- he would hit me if I didn't finish my daily chores which was most days as I rarely got any food so I was always weak, and the list was more than I could ever do without using my magic. If by- if by any miracle I did finish my chores before he came back from work the punishment would be... worse, as he would think that I'd used magic to do them."
"How would they be worse?"
"He wouldn't just hit me." Snape waited to see if the boy would elaborate but upon hearing nothing from the boy he decided that he would move on to the next question and come back to it.
"Were you treated better once you started Hogwarts then? You said that you were in your cupboard until you got your first letter and then again this Summer."
"I had a bedroom during that time but it was just a slightly bigger prison. Ron, Fred and George came to rescue me in our second year in the flying car, the one that we crashed into the Whomping Willow, much to your disgust. They had to pull bars off of my bedroom window before they could get me out of there. I had multiple locks on my door and was fed through a cat flap in my door. Then when Sirius died they knew that they were safe from anyone who might care enough to protect me so I got thrown back in my cupboard."
"Were you ever allowed out other than to do your chores?"
"I got to go and use the bathroom twice a day."
"No, I mean, were you not allowed to go out to see friends or to go and have fun?"
"What friends? I already told you that Dudley and his gang made sure that no one would even speak to me so who exactly is it that you think would be hanging out with me?"
"So you really had no one? No one who would ignore the bullies and befriend the victim?"
"And you did?"
"Yes, I had your mother."
"Oh. Yeah, I suppose that you did. No, I had no one, I got to go away to the school for the 'criminally insane', they all had to spend the rest of the year with my cousin, why help someone for 2 months when they get to leave while you are stuck with the bullies for all 12 months?"
"I'm sorry child. I failed you Harry. I made your life a living hell at this school when it was your only chance of being apart from the bullies. Instead I became the bully."
"Hey, quit apologising to me, Hogwarts was more my home than Privet Drive ever was, even with the constant fights with the dungeon bat of a teacher."
"How about Athánatos, Athan or Ethan for short?"
"What?"
"Your new name as my son."
"What does it mean?"
"It's Greek for immortal."
"I like it."
"I like it too."
"Athánatos Snape. It has a good ring to it, dad."
"We should come up with a middle name for you as well, but it is a start. I personally like the sound of 'dad'."
"Me too, it suits you well."
