Chapter Two

Harry went into the dining room the next morning for breakfast, his eyes on the parchment in his hands that told what he would need for his second year at Hogwarts.

"Dad, Is Gilderoy Lockhart our DADA teacher this year?" he questioned as he sat down at the table, setting the parchment next to his plate. "Our books are mostly by him."

Harry's brow furrowed in a frown when Severus didn't reply. Harry looked up to see Severus frozen—not literally, however—in his chair. The teacup was halfway to his lips, but as the Potions master continued to stare at Harry wordlessly, the teacup slowly lowered until it reached the table again.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, worry clearly evident in his voice. "W—what's the matter?"

"Y—you—."

Harry's frown remained on his face as he studied Severus. The man, for all the time that Harry has known him, had never once stuttered. Harry wondered if he was even capable of stuttering—yet here he was.

Severus cleared his throat, regaining his voice. "Harry, what did you just call me?"

"Huh? I called you—" Harry felt embarrassment creep onto his cheeks. "I'm sorry, you don't mind, do you? It's OK if you want me to keep calling you Severus, I will, it just came out …"

Harry stopped babbling and exhaled, wondering what Severus would do … or say.

"No, no, it just took me by surprise," Severus said as he lifted the cup back up to his lips and took a sip. He still looked rather taken aback. "I don't mind if you call me … dad."

The word sounded rusty as it slipped off Severus's tongue, and he wasn't quite sure how to react to the fact that Harry thought of him as his father, but he knew in time he'd come to get used to it. He was actually already starting to like the fact that he had a son; adopted or not.

A slow grin started to slip onto Harry's face. "O—OK. Er—so, is Gilderoy Lockhart teaching DADA?"

"Yes, he is," Severus replied, not looking too thrilled about that fact. Under his breath he muttered, "Unfortunately."

When Harry caught what Severus had added, he grinned. "I've never read any of his books. D'you think he'll be a good DADA Professor?"

Severus snorted, which surprised Harry. "I highly doubt that, son. Lockhart'll probably be too busy checking his image every two seconds that he'll completely forget about his class."

Harry gave Severus a strange look, and when he spoke, his voice was thick with disbelief. "You called me 'Son'."

Severus smirked. "Well, you're starting to call me 'Dad', correct? I thought it would be even by calling you 'Son'."

Harry grinned. "OK … sure."

As their breakfast appeared on their plates, Harry couldn't get rid of the warm feeling inside of his stomach that he felt when Severus had called him 'son'. Harry wondered if, when he had called the Potions Master 'dad', if he had the same warm feeling inside his stomach, too.

-

A few days later, Harry and Severus were heading towards Flourish and Blotts for Harry's schoolbooks. Nicholas had tagged along with them after his parents had taken his little sister to get her school supplies, since she was starting Hogwarts this year.

"I never knew you had a sister," Harry said as they neared their destination. "You said you had a brother."

"I had good reason for leaving out my sister!" Nicholas replied firmly. He lowered his gaze and he said, "She's a bug."

Harry just smiled. Then he noticed a large banner that said that Gilderoy Lockhart was signing his autobiography, Magical Me.

"Fantastic," Severus muttered sarcastically as he read the sign.

They went into Flourish and Blotts, where as they neared, they saw Gilderoy Lockhart at the front with dozens of large pictures of his face, all smiling and winking.

"Look at him," Nicholas said, throwing a dirty glare towards Lockhart. "So full of himself. I bet, if he could, he'd marry himself."

Nicholas then let out an 'Oomph' as a photographer pushed roughly past him, and instead of Nicholas giving the photographer a glare, the photographer gave Nicholas a glare.

"Hey, watch it, kid," he snapped. "This one's for the Daily Prophet!"

Nicholas glared back at him, his lip curling in disgust. "So? What's the big deal? I could care less."

Several people turned their heads to look, and glower, at Nicholas, since he had said this rather loudly. Even Gilderoy Lockhart looked up to see who said that, but after a quick look at Nicholas, his eyes landed on Harry, who was trying his best not to start laughing at the dirty look on his friends face.

"Dear Merlin," Gilderoy Lockhart said, staring at Harry in amazement. Harry started to become uncomfortable under the gaze. "Is it really Harry Potter?"

Harry didn't say anything, since he had absolutely no idea what to say, but started to inch backwards. Maybe if he was slow at first, Lockhart wouldn't notice him heading towards the door, then he and Nicholas could bolt out of there.

"Come, come!" Lockhart said excitedly, stepping forward. Harry didn't move. He wanted to ask Nicholas if Lockhart knew that Harry was in Slytherin, because for some reason, people thought that all people in Slytherin went bad. But, he wasn't bad; Nicholas wasn't bad. Still, as Lockhart tried to get Harry to go forward, Harry didn't move a muscle.

"Come on," Lockhart said again, this time diving into the crowd and taking Harry's elbow and pulling him forward. The flashes from the camera made Harry temporarily blind, and he was more focused on getting his vision back than listening to Lockhart's speech.

As soon as Lockhart let go and had put his entire works into Harry's arms, Harry couldn't be any more happier than to go back to Severus and Nicholas.

"Here," Severus said, taking the books from Harry. Rather quickly, he added, "Let's go."

Just as they were at the door, Harry heard someone say from behind him, "The famous Harry Potter, can't even go into a bookstore without making the front page."

It was Draco, standing behind them with a smirk on his face. "Honestly, Harry," he continued, "was it as fun as it looked?"

Harry grinned at Draco's sarcasm. "Hardly," he replied.

"So—" Draco stopped as the Weasley's passed by them. "Weasley! I must say I'm surprised to see you in a bookshop. I suppose you're parents are going to be hungry for a month to pay for all those."

Ron had opened his mouth to say something, but Harry beat him to it.

"Come off it, Draco," he said. "Can't you leave them alone just once?"

Draco gave Harry a look. Ron kept opening his mouth and closing it before he finally said, "I can fight my own fights, thank you!" and left.

"Can't you not stand up for them just once?" Draco said to Harry with a frown.

Harry sighed. If this kept up all year at Hogwarts, well … Harry didn't want to think about it at that moment.

-

Harry had managed to go to Hogwarts without any complications by using the Floo Powder. He had been worried that Dobby may have done something to it to prevent him from landing at Hogwarts, but the house-elf didn't.

He hadn't told Nicholas, Draco (definitely not Draco, considering that Dobby was Draco's house-elf), Severus, Syther or even … Nathaniel.

Harry was still a little mad that Dobby forgot to give him his letters, but he didn't know what he could do about that.

It turned out, at the Sorting, that the Weasley's had a sister that was sorted into Gryffindor, along with the rest of them.

Nicholas barely watched as his own sister went up to the sorting hat. His sister, Isabelle, looked almost exactly like him: dark hair and matching dark eyes.

She was sorted into Slytherin as well, but Nicholas didn't even say hi to her as she walked by down to the end of the table where a few girls she must've befriended sat at.

"You really don't like her, do you?" Harry whispered to Nicholas, who shook his head.

"No, I don't."

But Harry didn't see why Nicholas didn't like his own sister that much.

-

Harry wasn't that excited about Gilderoy Lockhart teaching DADA this year, but he was actually eager to go there to see how Lockhart taught.

It seemed that DADA came too quickly, much to Nicholas's annoyance.

"Why does Lockhart have to teach DADA?" Nicholas muttered as he, Harry and Draco made their way to the class. "I bet he didn't even do the things he claims to have done in his books. You know what? I bet that Lockhart is a complete fraud!" Nicholas scowled deeply. "But I bet I shouldn't let my sister hear me say that, huh? She's obsessed with Gilderoy Lockhart."

"Every girl probably is," Harry added. "A lot of girls at Flourish and Blotts were, so there's probably a lot more."

As it turned out, Lockhart started the class with a quiz to test the knowledge of the students to see if they 'really took in what they were reading' when they read his books.

Harry glanced down at the first question. "1. What is Gildeory Lockhart's favourite color?"

He exchanged glances with Nicholas, who then started to scribble away at the answers. Harry couldn't help but be surprised that Nicholas could go through it so quickly.

After they did the quiz, he spent the rest of the class going through every question and each answer, then at some questions he went into a very long speech.

"That was an odd class," Nicholas said to Harry and Draco as they stepped out of the classroom. "But I suppose why he spent the rest of the class going through the quiz was because when he had class with the Gryffindors he had let out Cornish Pixies, but couldn't capture them again."

"I found that quiz rubbish," Draco said, scowling at the thought of it. "'What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?'" he glanced at Nicholas. "You seemed to go through it pretty well."

Nicholas snorted. "I wrote down the first thing that came to mind for each question. The first one, what was Lockhart's favourite color, I put: Puke green. Really, who would've known except for someone who actually reads those lame books that his favourite color is actually lilac?"

Nicholas shook his head, and Harry laughed.

"What did you put, Harry?" Draco questioned.

"Orange. You?"

"Red. I just guessed on the questions, too."

Harry inwardly sighed, wondering if all Lockhart's classes would be like the one they had just had today. If it was, he didn't know how he'd survive this year at Hogwarts.

-

A/N: OK, so here's the thing: I am going away to PEI this weekend, so I might not have the next chapter posted until sometime late next week. Um … I actually didn't know if Lockhart had classes with the Gryffindors and Slytherins, so I put it on this story that the Gryffindors had DADA first and then the Slytherins.