Chapter Ten

It was nighttime in their little corner of the world. They were in hiding, and it was impossible for anyone but Peter, Remus, or Sirius to find them.

Lily was asleep. It had been a hard day, and it was late. Harry was getting bigger, and more like James every day. More likely to cause trouble.

James was blearily laying down beside his wife. His day had been hard too, and Harry had only just consented to be left in his crib. It was only on the other side of the room, as they couldn't bear to have him farther away in these uncertain times, but he still wanted them closer.

"Sev…" Lily murmured in her sleep when James put his arms around her unconsciously. He squeezed his eyes closed and bit his lip, and seemed grateful when Harry started fussing again.

Harry didn't know what his mommy had said, and he didn't understand the shadow that crossed his daddy's face when he heard it. But he wanted his daddy, because he was sure something was wrong, and he was worried.

He didn't understand why his daddy's heart felt funny when he lifted him out of his crib, or why he cradled him to his chest. He did understand why his face was getting wet, though. It happened sometimes when he felt sick or was hungry and his mommy and daddy just didn't understand. Now the wetness was coming from his daddy's eyes, and he wondered if his daddy was hungry or sick.

"Oh Harry…" He was startled when his daddy started talking to him, since they usually just held him and murmured songs into his ear when he cried at night. "I don't understand. Why Severus? Why not…" His daddy stopped, and Harry's face got wetter.

"But it doesn't matter," James said quietly. "I have you now, and for however long it lasts, I plan to cherish you. And Lily…as long as she's happy, I can just…" He stopped.

Baby Harry wrapped his tiny arms around his daddy's neck, holding tight to try to make his daddy feel better. He didn't understand that he helped all he could just by being there, and that by being there he made his daddy hurt almost as bad as if he weren't.

James shook with a silent sob only his son felt, and held his baby closer.

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Harry woke to feel a tear on his cheek, and for a moment he wasn't sure whether it was his or James'. The moment passed, and he remembered James would never shed a tear again.

Harry added another fact to his mental checklist of confusing things about his parents. James had been in love with his mother. And probably always was.

Harry wondered what would have happened if Severus had died in the war and his mom and James had survived. Would he have siblings who didn't look very much like him? Would he have an adoptive father? Would the fake marriage have turned into a real one, with romantic love on both sides?

What if they had all survived? Would he have siblings with dark hair and eyes, and the same long hands he now had? Would he have known his father before he came to school? What would James have done?

What would anyone do?

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Severus woke with a tear as well, but it was a different kind of crying. He wasn't thinking of James. He was thinking of Lily. She'd…still wanted him…even when she had James.

He'd been partly hurt that she chose James in the first place. He hated James, and Lily got along with the wolf just fine. He didn't really want the wolf raising his child, but it was better than Potter or Black.

He'd also been partly worried that she'd been won over by James after the marriage, whatever she wrote. She could have just told him that. Lily was remarkably Slytherin for a lion. But no. She'd still associated the touch of the most sought after boy in school with his. Potter's hurt or no, that felt good.

Severus went back to sleep with a smile on his face for the second night in sixteen years.

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The next day, Harry returned to Linette's room. It took some persuading of Madame Pomfrey, and some searching, but eventually he found her, staring into space.

She must have heard him come in, because when he sat down, she turned to look in his general direction. "Hello, Harry."

"Hi, Linette. What were you just doing?" Harry asked.

She smiled softly. "Just remembering. There are things worth remembering, though they are few."

Harry watched her, wondering what she meant.

"You said your Uncle broke your leg? Tell me what happened?" she said quietly.

Harry coughed, "Um, well, ok. But only if you'll tell me how your dad broke your arm."

"Alright."

"He…just broke it. Snap. One day when he felt…everything else wasn't enough. It…just cracked. That was near the beginning of the summer."

"Everything else?" She said it like it was a foreign word she was trying out.

"The stick. And his fists. The stick was worse. Bruises…I've had worse, though less of them and they didn't last as long, but the sting and cutting of my flesh…it hurt." He looked away.

Linette patted his arm. He flinched. She sat back grimly. "I know. My dad used to do that too. But his favorite was the bat. We were Muggles," she murmured, never wavering, eyes expressionless.

Harry listened, understanding more than he wanted too.

"But I do not think about it much any more," Linette said. "It was long ago, and my bruises and bones have healed. I've had time, and my mind has healed as well, as much as it can." She shrugged. "It was horrible, but it is over."

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Severus spent the day thinking, something he did every once in a while, just to clear his head. Think though all the thoughts that'd been building up.

Today, most of those thoughts were about Harry, Lily, or himself. One or two were about James.

He would have to open up a bit if he wanted to reassure Harry that he was safe and wanted. He knew these would be fears the boy would have, after all, he'd had them himself when he was a child. Still did.

He might have to tell him about James. And Lily, for sure. Probably even the mutt and the wolf. At least he was unlikely to ask questions about the rat, but that was a small comfort.

Severus sat in his lab all day, occasionally working a bit on a new potion he was developing for Harry, to set the broken bones to healing faster, bust mostly just mulling everything over. He knew he'd have to have a talk with Harry as soon as possible, and it was not going to be fun.

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Harry went back to the Hospital Wing, mind whirring. Linette had been right, in a way, but his mind hadn't had time to heal. Did he need it? He thought back to how he'd flinched from Linette even though he knew she wouldn't hurt him, and how much he'd hated being touched while being treated, but not having any choice but to endure it.

Yes. He probably did need time to heal.

As Harry passed the dungeons on his way back from Linette's room, he never noticed the shadow following him.

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Severus was working in the lab when he felt someone pass through his domain. This way of being able to tell when someone was in the dungeons did little good during the school year, but served as an early warning system during the summer whenever Dumbledore wanted to have 'tea' and a 'chat'. Meddling fool.

A furtive peek out of the room showed him a tallish black haired boy on crutches slowly moving down the corridor.

Severus quickly checked the potion, which needed to stew for a day and a half anyway, and carefully slipped out of his lab to follow his son.

He tailed the boy back to the Hospital Wing, ready to help if he started to collapse, bust mostly just waiting until he was back in his bed so he could answer the questions he was sure the child would have and he wouldn't want to answer.

Harry slid under the covers with a grateful sigh. He didn't want to seem weak, but that's how he felt just then. Everything hurt. And he was tired.

Severus watched the boy settle down, wondering if perhaps this should wait a day or two, until he was better rested. And until Severus himself was better prepared. But then Harry pulled 'Quidditch Through the Ages' out from under his pillow, and Severus decided there were far better things he could do with the time.

"Harry."

The black haired boy dropped the book in surprise, whirling to face Snape as he stepped from the shadows. "What?"

Severus swept over to the bed and sat gracefully and stiffly on the chair beside it. "I believe you had questions to ask me?"

Harry gulped. Of course he had questions. His Potions professor was now his father, and becoming so had actually involved his mom. Of course he had questions. But were they questions he could ask without failing Potions or being poisoned?

He decided he might as well take a chance, since he didn't have an awful lot to lose, whether Snape murdered him or not.

"Yeah, um, I was wondering…well, could you tell me…about my mom-"

Severus sighed and cut the boy off. He didn't really need to hear the question, because he knew what the boy wanted to know, but spewing his memories when asked was somewhat more dignified than doing so out of the blue.

"You want to know how I tricked her into loving me." Severus' voice was dull and flat, emotionless.

"What? No, I just, well, sort of-"

"I did not trick her in any way. She…" he paused. "She had many chances to back out."

"So…how did you two, um, you know, fall in-" Harry seemed to choke on the word 'love', so Severus just started talking.

"We grew up together."

Harry frowned. "But…she was a muggleborn, wasn't she? And you're a Slytherin."

Severus sighed. "Alright, first, being a Slytherin does not automatically make me evil, or against muggles, or muggleborns, or anything of the sort. It just makes me hate Gryffindors."

Harry gulped.

"Second, amazingly, you're right. She was a muggleborn. And I was a half-blood, as are you. Regardless, we grew up together."

Harry said nothing.

"We both lived within easy walking distance of a park," Severus began, feeling himself slipping into better times. "We were, well, not exactly friends. But she was always…kind to me, even if her sister wasn't. And it was I who told her about magic.

"Her first magic was at age eight. She flew off a swing, far higher than any normal person would have been able to. And I…told her about our world. At first she didn't believe me, but when she made flowers open and close, flying around her head when there was no breeze, she asked me to explain it again.

"We spent a lot of time together after that. As far as either of us knew, we were the only wizards for miles around. We played at the playground, and I told her about Hogwarts, and smuggled books from my mother's library for us to read. When we got our Hogwarts' letters, she was the first I told."

Harry wondered what a childhood spent reading and talking and playing with a friend was like.

"Then we arrived on the train, and things changed." Harry could have sworn Snape's voice faltered for a minute, but said nothing. "She became a Gryffindor, and I a Slytherin. Things were never the same again, even after we got over the house rivalries to become friends again."

Severus sighed. "By then we were too different. Too grown up. We'd lost the simplicity of having someone to just trust with everything. I don't know if either of us ever trusted that way again, though Lily put up a better show than I did."

Harry sat back against his pillows, wondering if Snape had forgotten he was there. He couldn't imagine the man saying things like this when someone was listening.

"We grew. We learned. I loved her. Later, she loved me too. No need to describe anything more there. We were engaged, and she started acting strange. I thought…well, not at the time, but after…I thought that was when she was seeing James.

"She left. You were born. And then she died."

Severus had been staring off into the distance, but then he focused on Harry. "She visited me once. And brought you." He looked away. "I hated you. Almost as much as I hated James."

"Why did you hate me?" Harry whispered.

Severus seemed to go back in time again. "You should have been mine." Then he shook his head, coughed, and stood up. "I think that's enough for one day. Sleep well."

Harry stared after the man he'd hated for so long for a few minutes. He realized he didn't really hate him much any more.

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Severus walked back to his dungeons briskly. He had to force tears away, bend them to his will as he'd been doing for years. He slowly readied himself for bed, and settled in the king sized four poster. One glance over at where he'd always thought Lily would sleep softened his will, and they escaped.

Severus said a bad word, but then put his head in his hands and let himself cry himself to sleep.

A/N- Well...I'm really sorry it took so long to update. School and all...but no detentions! And I can now introduce myself and sing the ABCs in French! Anyway, A tout a l'heure!