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A/N: Chapter REVISED.

Fathers and Sons

Chapter 2:

Childless Fathers

A soft hoot broke the silence. The two men sitting on a couch glanced up at the slightly glowing owl behind the window. Severus Snape waved his wand, opening the window to the owl to get inside. The bluish white bird flew in, perching on his knee.

"The message from Remus Lupin has been delivered as instructed," a cool female voice informed them. "Thank you for using the Time Owls." Then the owl flew away without a sound.

"Time Owls?" Severus asked curiously. "To whom would you send a Time Owl? And why, exactly?" He turned his head to look at the werewolf sitting next to him. To his surprise, he noticed that his companion was unusually pale -- and, considering the werewolf's usual paleness, that was something. The Gryffindor's skin was now getting near to the colour of the Potions Master's own skin. "Remus?"

"Oh, Merlin," Remus whispered, and covered his eyes with a slightly trembling hand. No, this was definitely not normal. It had to be very bad for Remus to appear to be breaking down.

"What is it now?" Severus asked warily, placing his hand comfortingly on Remus's shoulder in a very uncharacteristic gesture. Something told him that it was needed now.

"I -- I sent Harry a Time Owl on his first birthday," Remus explained with a voice that was about to break at any moment. "It was about his parents."

"Eh?" Severus was, for once, getting confused. Whatever would Remus tell about James and Lily Potter to their son that the boy didn't know? Especially back when they were still alive? And why use Time Owls?

"It was not about James and Lily, but his true parents," Remus said sharply, apparently aware of his thoughts. "Severus... When we broke up back then... A couple of weeks later, I got some surprising news."

"You don't mean --" Severus' eyes flew wide. This was getting plain absurd.

"I do mean it," Remus murmured. "Harry is your son -- our son. James and Lily adopted him because the Ministry wouldn't let me keep a non-lycanthropic child and I wanted to at least stay close to him."

There was a stunned silence for a moment. Then, very slowly, Severus said, the emotions in his usually cool voice now unidentifiable, "You never told me."

"No, I didn't," the werewolf replied, his eyes lowcast, avoiding the other man's gaze. He simply couldn't face his lover at the moment. "At first I really didn't think you needed to know, as you had left me and probably wouldn't have even cared if I'd told you that I had your child. And after we finally made up, I was sure you would hate me for keeping him a secret -- after all, you did want an heir, at least when the war was over." Never lifting his eyes from the floor, he continued, "It wasn't easy, knowing it, believe me. At first, I was just 'Uncle Moony,' since the Ministry wouldn't allow them to name me even Harry's godfather. Really, what's it of their business? Then, when he was given to the Dursleys after James' and Lily's deaths, I couldn't do anything, either. If I had told them that the Boy Who Lived was mine, at the best they'd probably put him there nevertheless to give him the blood's protection, and I'd been arrested for not telling about him. As a werewolf and a Death Eater's child, he'd have been seen as a potential danger to everyone. In the worst case, they'd just put him into an orphanage, and made sure that I would never see him again. I couldn't allow that to happen... I just wanted my child to be safe."

Severus was very quiet. Then, still without a word, he wrapped his arms around his lover. Remus hid his face against the Slytherin's shoulder and cried, the tension of years finally making him break down.

Severus held the weeping man, one thought flying aroud in his mind. 'Potter is my son,' he thought. 'All these years I've tortured him, made him hate me, and he is my son!' Then he petted gently Remus's hair -- again, very uncharacteristic of him -- and corrected himself, 'No, he's our son. And, unless he tries to deny the whole thing, I will be a real father to him -- for Remus's sake, if not for anything else.'

And when he thought about how everything had happened -- Remus had gone through pregnancy alone, thinking that he was a Death Eater; he'd kept the secret all these years and not been able to tell anyone in fear of losing his son forever; their son had lived with Muggles, neglected and learning to hate his father -- Severus Snape, who hadn't cried in the last thirty years, felt a tear rolling down his cheek.

"I hope you won't get mad at me for not telling your earlier. But believe me, my son, I did it only to keep you safe, and near to me.

I love you, Michael, my son.

I love you.

Your father,

Remus"

Harry stared at the letter. He couldn't believe what he had just read. But his sight, which was now almost perfect even without his glasses, was doing a pretty good job at proving him wrong. This shouldn't have been happening, not really. Hadn't Lupin said that the charm would stay on him for the time being? Surely only reading the letter couldn't trigger any change in him! This just wasn't fair.

In addition to wondering this sudden change, Harry was getting more horrified at every passing second. Being Lupin's son, that he could cope with, but... Snape? And Lupin and Snape had been together?

It couldn't be true. It just couldn't.

Harry glanced absent-mindedly at his birthday presents. He hadn't opened a single one yet. And, to be honest, he didn't want to, not at the moment. All those things had been sent to Harry -- to Harry Potter. Not to Michael Snape. And, no matter what his name was or what he looked like, that was who he was.

What would his friends say if they found out? Ron most certainly wouldn't be happy to learn that his best friend was actually Snape's son. Merlin, he did hope that the character-altering parts of the charm weren't removed -- would his friends even try to be friends with somebody who had inherited Snape's character?

More importantly, would he want to be friends with them? From one of their Charms lessons he remembered something about the Adoption charm. If it was completely removed, his character would turn into the one it'd been if he'd grown up with his true parents. And would Snape's son want to be friends with a Weasley? Would everybody hate him just for who his father was -- or would he hate everybody?

His gaze wandered around the room and stopped at his trunk. While he was watched the initials marking the trunk as his, they slowly changed from "HJP" to "MSS."

As he saw this, he tossed the presents aside and fell onto his bed, face first.

Next chapter: Another Letter

It is Severus' turn to contact his son.