The Question, part 5

SS/HP, angst, adventure

All the usual disclaimers apply. I own nothing but the plot. Please review. I need to know how I'm faring on this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------

It was just his sheer luck, or lack thereof, as it were. As soon as he'd eased himself into bed, his wards screeched forcing him up much faster than his body would have liked. It let its displeasure be known with a viscous muscle spasm, which left him in a huddled heap, by his bed. That's exactly how a rather dishevelled looking Draco Malfoy found him.

"I suppose pain potions are above you now?" said Malfoy and without further preamble headed to the cluttered nightstand. His hand easily found the large blue-green bottle and turned back to Severus.

"And I suppose knocking so people don't get startled out of taking their potions is above you. Give it here, "gasped the downed man right through the ineffective sneer. Once the scorching burn of the potion eased his chest and he could breathe again, Severus lowered himself to an actual sitting position against his bed frame.

"What's got you in such a tizzy anyway?"

"You". When the reply appeared to limit itself to a raise eyebrow, Draco explained further. "Whatever you said to Potter has him looking paler than death. May I also point out that he's paced a groove in the floor and his eyes are wider than Dobby's on a bad day? Considering that he's our 'saner' alternative to Dumbledore, I'd say the situation is bad."

"And you've deduced my involvement how?"

"Your name was the only thing I could discern in his mumbling. What did you say?" Severus looked up from his seat on the floor. His eyes reflected honest confusion. The look didn't fit well on the irascible Potions Master's face.

"Either sit down, or help me up. I've no desire to shout sit feet up on a subject I seem to have no idea about." Once Draco sat, opting not to heave the man up himself, Snape continued his thought.

"I've said nothing to deliberately irritate the man, if that's what you're asking. In fact our last conversation was purely business, or as business as it could be with his son around. Did you know the fuzzy menace flooed into my rooms? They may not be related by blood, but he certainly is his father's son."

"You're going off topic."

"Sorry. As I was saying, Potter and I talked plans, which you and that peacock father of yours will find out tomorrow. I mentioned that your position was compromised and that you should be off the field, for Granger's sake mind you..."

"The hell I should! If I go off field, so do you! You, if anything, are more compromised than I am!"

"Exactly the position Potter attempted to make a case for. However, both of you are missing one major point."

"That being?"

"I'm expendable, and you aren't"

"Pardon?"

"Come Malfoy, there ought to be a brain in the pretty head of yours, if not hereditary, then at least via osmosis. You have a dependent, I don't."

"Come again?"

"Osmosis didn't work then. You have a family in the persons of peacock the senior and Granger. They need you. I on the other hand affect no one, and should I expire in the course of this conflict, no one else's emotional state and thus productivity will be compromised." In the momentarily total silence, Severus looked over to Draco again, and found him gaping like a fish.

"You told Potter THAT!"

"Of course. The imbecile wouldn't have gotten it on his own."

Draco looked at him again and his eyes got even wider, and a sliver of something suspiciously like pity swam to the surface. He then got up, shook his head and headed for the door. Once there, he turned around to take in his former professor. Snape sprawled on the floor in a near boneless heap and was looking up to him with an even more confused expression on his face. "Severus, when will you ever learn that we are all responsible for those we tame?" It took him a double dose of the Dreamless Sleep potion to finally fall into the much desired oblivion, though Malfoy's words kept on annoyingly echoing through his head.

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Next afternoon, just past lunchtime, one Harry Potter was furiously chasing a small black speck in the sky. The said speck wove precariously through the turrets and parapets of the castle, narrowly missing corners and windows. Having had been at it for more than a half hour Harry was visibly exhausted. The specks status as his son served to only compound his exhaustion. Suddenly, the dot lurched to a stop and started falling to the ground without any semblance of control. Without any thought Harry followed, accelerating his own descent and setting himself right under Killian in an attempt to redirect the fall. He managed to slow the boy's momentum, but it was not nearly enough. They fell, with Harry bearing the brunt of the impact. That was why he couldn't hold on to the boy who followed the trajectory and rolled, landing on the ground with a sickening crunch. His arm was broken.
Out of his mind with fear, Harry got up and disregarding his worn bruised scooped the small body off the ground and all but ran to the infirmary. The crunch was too wet to have been just bone. They say one sees their whole life, as they're about to die. As Harry rushed his son to the infirmary, every memory of Killian he had danced right under his eyelids. He first met the by when he was twenty and interning in a Muggle orphanage. For all the horrors of the war he'd seen, nothing could have emotionally prepared him for the sheer plight of these abandoned children. Not one was over five and none of the fifty had any biological relations. It made him grateful for the Dursleys and his cupboard. It may have been small, but it was his. He tried very hard not to play favourites, but the silent boy of five, who would not play with anyone, aroused his interest. The child looked relatively healthy compared to the rest of the group home's inhabitants and always sat by himself, reading. In a five year old, that was rare. He thought that the child may have been a new arrival, but the other staff told him Killian had been there since birth. They also told him that not being entertaining and vivacious lowered his chances of ever being adopted. One day he asked the boy why he always sat by himself. The boy looked into his eyes for one long moment and gave a very prolonged sigh.

"I start fires sir, when I'm angry.." When Harry's internship ended three months later, Killian left with him. He grown to genuinely love the boy within the week of knowing him and now his heart painfully constricted with the thought of his son's injuries. Madame Occasia met him at the door, and the young Mediwitch immediately got to work on the small body. Harry was left to catch his own breath and mend his bruised back. Finally twenty minutes later, the Woman stepped out from behind the screen and motioned for him to come closer.

"He's got a broken shoulder and a torn muscle. Altogether lucky considering the fall the two of you took. He'll be sleeping until tomorrow morning. I trust you've taken care of your own injuries?"

At Harry's nod she ran her wand over him and satisfied ushered him from the infirmary. Poppy Pomfrey she was not, she was efficient. Harry glanced at his watch, realised it was almost two in the afternoon and hastily made his way to the apparition point. If he was to defeat Voldemort within three months, he had to know his intelligence reports, sans Albus induced sugar coating.