Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and can't get money for this, but I can make him into a Mafia Prince.

Warning: Some chapters (the ones including pranks) might not be appropriate to read at work. Laughter may ensue leading your co-workers to see you as even more insane than they previously thought.

Chapter 22: Opening Up

The chill of late November brought a new excitement to the air as the Quidditch season had officially started. Only a few people seemed immune. Severus himself showed no outward love of the sport even though he made sure to rub it in Minerva's face about how the Gryffindor team could never win without a decent seeker. Yet that wasn't what was bothering him. It was two of his students, two of his Slytherins. Something seemed to be very wrong and yet they hadn't come to him for help. True, in the beginning he hadn't been making any effort to give them a reason to trust him but he had been trying lately.

He was also ashamed that he hadn't notice the signs right away, he was supposed to protect his Slytherins and help them when they were in need. With these two he seemed to have failed miserably. Harry and Blaise usually held themselves slightly aloof from others, something that wasn't all that unusual among the Slytherins, but gradually he had noticed that they were becoming even more reclusive. It had really hit home that something was wrong with them as he watched over them during the Quidditch game. It had to have been the first time they had ever watched the amazing and fast paced sport, but they hadn't seemed to take any of it in. Instead that had sat with their heads bowed close together, occasionally exchanging a few words and making discreet gestures that would have went unnoticed by most.

Thinking back on it Severus realized that the signs had been adding up ever since the beginning of the month. Their quality of class work had remained the same but it was as if they were doing things absently. Watching them train had also been different. Their sparring matches had almost seemed—fiercer somehow, as if they were trying to fight to forget or ignore something. Their jogs had also grown longer as they tried to push themselves to limits even he could tell were beyond their reach. If he hadn't been watching over them and made it a priority to try and understand them he would have never noticed anything that went beyond their well-cultivated masks. It was time for him to act like the head of house the rest of the Slytherins knew him to be and get himself involved in the affairs of his two most enigmatic students.

… … … … …

The Quidditch match was over and Slytherin had won but neither Harry nor Blaise really cared at this moment. They were too worried about their fathers and both were ready to come up with some half-cocked scheme and go find them, consequences be damned. The two weeks had passed and no mail had come from Trevor or Manuel, but they hadn't panicked right away. They knew that things didn't always go according to plan and had given it a few more days, but still no mail had arrived from their dads. Now three—almost four—weeks had passed and there still was no word, a thing that was worrying the two to no end. When their fathers said they would contact them in two weeks they did, give or take a few days. The worse thing for Harry and Blaise was that they had no way of contacting anyone back home and the guards had no way of contacting them. None of the other guards knew anything of the wizarding world to their knowledge and there were no telephones in Hogwarts, no electricity whatsoever. Suddenly Blaise spoke up voicing a thought that Harry hadn't wanted to acknowledge that he had also been dwelling on.

"What if there is no one left? What if we have no home and no fathers left to go home to?"

"Stop it!" Harry whirled on Blaise, fear and anger lending a harsh edge to his tone as he tried to suppress his own vivid imagination, "don't even think that! Don't say it! Nothing has happened to them, they're better than that, they just lost track of time or Trevor can't find his owl so he can't send mail since Ciara is here with us…"

Harry couldn't go on and gazed downcast at the ground while pulling Blaise into a comforting hug, ashamed of his fearful outburst that had only succeeded in scaring both of them even more.

"I'm sorry Blaise, I just feel so helpless here. Any other time we would be with them, we would know what is going on."

That was how Severus found them after the match and it only confirmed that fact that he knew something was really wrong with Harry and Blaise. Even though they were away from most of the other students it was an uncharacteristic display of emotion he saw in the two. Sure they laughed and smiled, and their feelings of friendship for each other were apparent most of the time, but those were only surface emotion. Yet here they were, out in the open, desperately holding onto each other for comfort.

"Mr. Potter, Ms. Zabini," he said in soft tones that drew the two apart and regretfully brought their masks back up, "may I have a word in my office, please."

Nodding the two followed him back into the castle and through the labyrinth of the dungeons until they reached his personal office.

Inside the surprisingly comfortable office their head of house started a fire in the fireplace and motioned them into two soft leather chairs around a table while he called to a house-elf for tea before taking the third chair. Both Harry and Blaise had a feeling they knew what this was about and with a shared glance decided to confide to an extent in their head of house as they knew they should be able to. Both of them were out of ideas on what they could do in their situation, but perhaps Professor Snape could help them.

Severus had caught the glance and took the initiative, "I can tell that there is something wrong and would like to ask if there is anyway I can help? As I said in the beginning of the year my door is always open to a Slytherin in need."

Blaise began, "we're worried about our fathers. We haven't heard anything from them for weeks."

Harry took over then as Blaise seemed unable or unwilling to continue, "we received a letter from them Halloween night telling us that they would be out of contact for two weeks. We haven't heard from them since and when they say two weeks it means two weeks, this isn't like them to not get in touch with us. Something's wrong, we know it, and yet there is nothing we can do."

Severus looked at Harry and Blaise with growing compassion. He now knew he could no longer cling to even the smallest thread of thought that Harry was in any way like James Potter. James Potter wouldn't have cared about such things, only how it ruined his fun. He now also had a name for the hooded emotion he could see in the children's eyes: helplessness. It was the same emotion he had felt during Death Eater meetings when he had watched innocents get tortured or had been unable to prevent an attack.

"Do you still have the letter from your fathers," Severus couldn't help but ask.

Harry shook his head, he had burned it not long after reading it and even if he still had it he didn't think he would show it to Snape; there were still some secrets to be protected after all, and their childhood was one of them.

Severus sat back with a sigh, "there's not much we can do unless you know of someone you can contact though I suspect you would have done so already if there was. If you haven't heard anything from them by the time Christmas holidays are here than I will leave the school with you to help. Until then all our hands are tied unless you wish to involve the Headmaster?"

Naturally Harry and Blaise declined going to the Headmaster with their troubles, but accepted the help of their head of house. They finished their tea in silence and the duo stood to leave, Harry holding out his hand to their head of house. It seemed to Severus as if the boy had found an inner well of strength to draw from now that they had a vague course of action to fall back on should their fathers not show up before the holidays.

"Thank you professor," Harry said gravely as they shook hands, "we'll see you tomorrow morning during training, but right now I think there is a party in the common room that we should get to."

… … … … …

Severus did join Harry and Blaise the next morning during their training session, taking the comment the night before as a hinted invitation. In all his morning runs he had yet to enter the secluded grove where the two practiced and was surprise when he got there a little after dawn to see them already warmed up and hard at training. Blaise was at one end of the grove using a stout stick as a staff and working her way through a series of moves, occasionally using a tree as an opponent for blocks. Harry on the other hand was using a tree as a target and throwing knives at it. He watched in surprise as Harry cursed when he missed the spot he was aiming for yet again and after gathering his knives turned and noticed him standing there. He had never thought they would be doing such things in training and had also never seen the boy swear as a result of frustration; usually Harry kept up a blank façade and went on as if nothing was wrong.

Casually Harry walked over to Blaise and tapped her on the shoulder even as he instinctively ducked the swing she made at him with her makeshift staff.

"We have company," he whispered before moving to greet Snape.

"Good morning professor," both students chimed together before Harry took over, "we saw you practicing the martial arts a while back and though you seemed a bit rusty we can tell that when you have practiced a bit you will be a lot better than us. Quite frankly we need someone to help us train more and push us to our limits without allowing us to overdo it. So if we help you get back in shape, will you help us further our training while we are here at school?"

Severus looked hard at the two in front of him. The offer was decidedly Slytherin, but all three of them knew that he could get them in trouble if he desired to. Yet they also knew that he was trying to gain their trust. And if he took the offer none of them lost anything but they did all gain something in return.

Slowly he extended his hand as Harry had done to him the night before, "we have ourselves an arrangement."

They spent the next half hour or so limbering up before Harry engaged Severus in a brief sparring round. Severus had the advantage of height, weight, strength, and experience on Harry but he was out of practice. Harry on the other hand was in top form and had been taught how to use an opponent's strengths against them, he was also light and fast on his feet. So it was during a tricky move that had Severus thinking he had managed to pin the younger Slytherin that Harry brought an end to the sparring match. He quite literally swept his head of house off of his feet. Severus accepted the offered hands up and shook his head at being beaten by an eleven year old before the trio fell into an easy jog that took them about the lake. Breakfast would be starting soon and they would all have to shower after their workouts but no of them wanted to end their training session without a jog to help stretch tense muscles.

… … … … …

Days passed and soon an early snowfall was covering the grounds of Hogwarts, forcing Harry and Blaise to do their training indoors once again except this time they were using a room in the dungeons that Snape had set up specifically for this reason. They had fallen into an easy routine and a simple trust had built between the three Slytherins. Severus didn't ask Harry and Blaise questions that didn't concern him and if they needed someone to talk to they came to him. Yet for all their training together Harry and Blaise still walked the Path alone. Harry had tried to follow the magic of Hogwarts to the outside world as he had unwittingly done a few times before in search of his father, but the more he tried the more elusive the magic was until he finally stopped trying and did the routine in a light trance as he had done when at home.

But the increasing snowfalls also brought miracles and hope as during the morning mail a weather battered owl flew crazily in with the rest and crash landed in front of Harry and Blaise. One look at the writing on the letter and they threw Slytherin decorum out the window and grabbed up the message, leaving the owl to recuperate, as they raced out of the Great Hall. The Slytherin table was buzzing with speculation over the letter that had caused such a reaction in two of their most stoic housemates; Dumbledore was frowning slightly and thinking that this might be a chance for him to try and find out more about Harry when Snape swept from the hall after the two. If Severus had looked back he would have seen Dumbledore lean back in his chair, eyes twinkling in satisfaction. He would also know that the wily manipulator would be planning to try and exploit any information he could gain from the growing trust being forged between Harry, Blaise, and himself. But Severus didn't look back as he made his way to the training room where he knew the two Slytherins had headed with their letter.

And Severus did indeed find them in the training room, hugging each other happily with big smiles on their faces. It was the freest he had ever seen them be with their emotions except for the one time after the Quidditch game, and at his questioning look Harry handed him the letter.

Harry and Blaise, we are home and safe now. Sorry if you were worried. We will see you soon when you come home for the Christmas Holidays and we'll explain then. Love your dads, Manuel and Trevor

It was a short and to the point note, much like Severus imagined the first one to be, but he understood how to Harry and Blaise this simple missive was worth more than a three page letter explaining everything. They knew their fathers were alive and they would see them soon, and to them that was the only thing that mattered at this moment in time.