Due to popular request I'm reposting the old version of this fic for your enjoyment. I'll start posting a new version/complete rewrite late 2022.

Chapter 5: Will The Real Harry Potter Please Stand Up?

"Severus, I am so glad you could find time in your busy schedule to meet with me." Albus, had long mastered the mannerisms of a harmless grandfatherly figure. The stars on his midnight robes twinkled as merrily as his faded blue eyes.

Severus was never sure if the man meant to be sarcastic, or it only came across that way to him. Who was he to know? Tonal nuances were beyond him most of the time. "You summoned me."

"Yes, yes I did, my dear Severus. Tea? Crumpet?" the offered amenities appeared, as if wandlessly conjured. Incredibly impressive, if you didn't know they were being summoned from the kitchens by a hyperattentive house elf.

His face a neutral mask, Severus resigned himself to a wasted hour of tea, crumpets and chess until finally, Albus got to the bloody point.

"And what do you think of young Harry, Severus? Minerva mentioned you saw him over the Christmas break." Kindly eyes twinkled behind half moon spectacles. Snape placed down his teacup and drew his occlumency shields around him.

Minerva was a traitor. "Mister Potter is very intelligent, bordering on genius. His aptitude for potions is remarkable. I have agreed to take him on as apprentice next year." He did not elaborate. Albus understood on a basic level how things were between Slytherins.

"I am amazed at your ability to put aside your animosity towards the boy's father."

Severus, privately, was also amazed. Given, he hated Sirius Black so much more. "He is also Lily's son," he said, but inwardly he knew that Harry Potter was nothing like either of his parents. Despite appearances it was evident the child had never known his parents, had only known his guardian, his rapist and his lonely childhood.

"I am so proud of you, my dear boy."

Severus scowled as he watched Albus well and truly checkmate him, then set up the board anew. He ignored the faint swelling of joy bubbling unwanted in his chest. He did not want Albus' opinion to mean so much to him. Helping himself to a yellow sweet on the desk, he crunched down aggressively sourness spilling into his mouth.

Albus continued to pry as he opened their next game, "and how is he faring in Slytherin house? Your snakes are not known for their acceptance."

"He is a first generation pureblood, and his guardian bestowed upon him a firm grasp of politics. He is doing well, considering." It wasn't a lie, per se. Potter was still alive and physically unharmed despite doubtlessly countless attempts to maim or injure him. Severus decided to count it as a win, and absolutely count it as something not to elaborate on to the Headmaster.

"Tell me about this guardian. I placed Harry with his muggle relatives after his parents' deaths, and yet Petunia did not even learn of Lily's murder until we realised the boy was missing and began our search five years ago. Harry to disappeared and could not be located by magical and muggle means nearly ten years. Only to mysteriously reappear on the platform with his fellow first years. It is concerning.

Severus merely hummed as he pretended to contemplate his next move. "This is a school, Albus. I do believe it is none of our business what our students' home lives are like."

"From you of all people that is the height of hypocrisy, Severus." He felt the pressure against his occlumency shields, felt the static charge in the office raise the hairs on the back of his neck. The reminder of just who he was and his positions relative to Albus.

Severus had one man's word standing between himself and Azkaban. Heel, bug. He swallowed, trying to pretend he wasn't cowed. "I believe the guardian to be a wealthy, paranoid international fixer with contacts to warding masters and a penchant for doing business overseas. Mister Potter is safe with him."

The magic settled and they went back to playing at being harmless colleagues; schoolteachers rather than veterans of war. "Yes, yes. Safe. And the whole business does not strike you as suspicious?"

Severus wanted this game to end. He toppled his own king in forfeit at the next check, not bothering to continue the farce of letting Albus defeat him. "Potter is a good boy. His guardian raised him well. He is safe at home and barring further trolls, safe here. Is that all?"

Albus waved him off, packing the reassembled pieces away with a flick of his wand, "alas, is that the time! Yes, Severus, thank you for agreeing to meet with an old man, answer his odd questions. Run along, then. I am sure your Slytherins await you with bated breath."

Once again Severus wondered about Albus' capacity for sarcasm. He took the offered retreat and not-quite-but-almost fled back to his dungeons, his safe haven from the portraits, the other teachers, the realities of his situation.

Giving two canoodling Hufflepuffs detention brightened his mood considerably, and by the time he was back in his rooms he was feeling much better about everything. He had given nothing away Albus couldn't have learnt by other means, and that in itself was a win.

The fact he had known nothing more himself was irrelevant to the mental scoreboard.

xoxox

"Professor?"

Severus looked up at Potter, unsurprised he had once again stayed behind after class. Generally students tended to rush from his classroom as quickly as possible. He raised an eyebrow, prompting the child to speak.

"The Headmaster has summoned me," Potter said. Severus smoothed over an instinctive scowl. "Tomorrow night after dinner, sir. As my Head of House, I'd like you to come with me, please."

He had just talked with Albus a fortnight ago. Apparently, the man's suspicions had not been assuaged. "I will collect you from the kitchens and accompany you to your meeting," he agreed. It was not as if he needed to deliberate. The meeting with Miss Moon he could easily postpone, but protecting his snake from Albus was paramount.

Potter beamed his usual radiant smile, the ones he apparently saved up in all his other classes only to heap them on Severus' bemused head. "Thank you, sir!" he bowed quickly and ran for his next class.

When exactly had Severus memorised Potter's schedule? This was obscene. Potter was just one of his Slytherins, undeserving of favouritism.

He found the child in the kitchens after dinner, drinking hot cocoa and chatting with two house elves by their floo fireplace.

"Hello Professor Snape." He waved eagerly, almost upsetting his beverage on robes.

The muscles around Severus' eyes softened minutely despite himself. Potter had grown on him like a limpet: stubbornly and without regard to his own thoughts on the matter. And it was unbecoming to go around prying students off him with a utility knife, so now this was the way things were.

He did not need to tell Potter that the Headmaster had finished dinner, that they should now head for the gargoyle guarding Albus' rooms, that the password was 'peppermint humbug.' With a mere nod to acknowledge the child's small bow they made their way briskly and silently to the Headmaster's office.

"Do you know what Professor Dumbledore wants from me, sir?" Potter interrupted their silence once they reached the fifth floor.

"I suspect he wants to know why you went missing for ten years."

"That'll do it, I suppose. Am I in trouble for my guardian's choices, then?"

'Cheeky little snot,' Severus thought. Somehow he pulled off being charming while being sarcastic and rude, a trick his father had never managed. "We will find out now. Peppermint humbug."

He allowed Albus his mind games with the rotating staircase—a rotating spiral should not move someone up but around in one place, it was a physical impossibility designed by Albus' insane magic—and the call of 'enter' just before they could knock.

He thoroughly enjoyed Albus' quickly masked surprise at the sight of Severus on his student's heels. "Welcome, welcome. I must say I wasn't expecting you to bring Professor Snape with you, my dear boy, but now that you're both here, sit," he twirled his wand to conjure another garish chintz.

Severus transfigured both into sombre hard-backed wood for them before they sat. He declined the offered tea as a direct slight and as a signal. 'No delaying the topic.'

Albus nodded his understanding and for once in his life, complied to another's wishes. "Harry, my boy, were you aware that you were considered missing for the past ten years before September? Even the enchanted quill addressing your Hogwarts letter knew nothing more than your name, it even hesitated at that. We were all most surprised, most happily so of course, that you made it to the Hogsmeade platform unscathed."

"My guardian is rather paranoid, sir. Our wards are insanely protective. I didn't know I was missing but I'm not surprised you couldn't find me. I don't see how any of this is my fault, or why I'm in trouble for it now when it was months and months ago."

He had never heard Potter sound so petulant, in fact he hadn't even known him capable of such an insolent, whiny, childish tone. If it was an act, which it most certainly had to be, then Potter was playing his role well.

"You aren't in trouble, my dear Harry. Not in the slightest. We were just all very worried, and I wanted to assure myself you will be safe. There are still some who might wish harm upon you considering your parents' roles in the last war. You might have noticed this from some of your house-mates?" Albus probed.

"Slytherin is very tight-knit, sir."

"And you wouldn't rather try another house? Exceptions could be made, if you feel you might make friends better in other houses. The Gryffindors, perhaps—"

"I'm happy in Slytherin, sir," Potter interrupted, "surely you aren't suggesting the Sorting Hat made a mistake?" The outrage was palpable. Severus wanted to applaud.

"No, no, of course not. Well as long as you're happy, child."

"Quite," the scowl bordered on adorable, accentuated by crossed arms. It was a very adult pose on a very young face.

"Now there's only one more thing, there have been concerns about your health."

Severus knew there hadn't, and he wasn't happy with this line of questioning. "Why did these concerns not come to me directly as Mister Potter's Head of House?"

Potter's small grateful smile perfectly balanced out Albus' annoyed grimace. The old man adopted a saintly tone, "I won't go pointing fingers now."

"My guardian has a healer appointed to me, I'm sure she can send files over or whatever."

"I'm afraid that won't do, Harry. A quick visit with Madame Pomfrey, a few diagnostic spells. It will all be over before you know it."

"No," the scowl was back in full force.

Albus' twinkling eyes hardened. "I insist."

"I refuse."

Severus decided to interrupt, "Mister Potter has a right to private medical council. Is there anything else? Otherwise we will be leaving now."

"I would like confirmation this is Harry James Potter, descended from Lily and James Potter. There are extenuating circumstances, Harry did not receive his letter. One might argue he is here without invitation."

Potter jumped to his feet, head red and eyes furious. "My name's been down since birth and my fees are paid. Through the Lily Potter foundation I'm paying twenty times over. This is outrageous!"

With a minute sigh Severus got to his feet, placing a calming hand on the boy's shoulder. "Come, Mister Potter. I will accompany you back to your dorm."

"I am afraid I must insist—"

"Mister Potter does not want to confirm his identity."

"Well," Potter said then, ducking his head sheepishly, "I didn't say that, really. I just got upset when you said I don't belong here." He sat down again, so Severus moved to stand behind him, hands resting on the chair's back.

"A small blood sample will suffice, good lad. I have a charmed dagger here, it will not hurt."

Did Albus take them for fools? Even if Potter did not know, Severus would prevent ambiguous blood-letting.

"What will you do with the blood?" the boy had a good head on his shoulders.

"This potions-soaked parchment will display a house crest if you belong to one of eighty-two houses by direct bloodline. It only takes eleven drops." Albus' eyes were back to the encouraging grandfatherly twinkle, fooling precisely nobody.

Potter snatched the parchment and failed to cast a cutting spell on his left hand, giving up and trying again with a small dagger. Potter had a dagger up his sleeve? He pressed it into his finger until he broke skin. They watched the blood drip, counting silently.

Murmured charms saw the hand as good as new while the blood inside the blank crest on the parchment moved along invisible lines, spreading quickly into a crimson-and-creme rendering of the Potter antlered helm with three stars.

Albus almost looked disappointed that Harry Potter was indeed a Potter. Severus wasn't sure what he had been expecting, really. For Potter to be an imposter? Some adult pretending to be the lost child?

Ridiculous. For Severus adulthood had been a long anticipated boon at the end of an exhausting, traumatic childhood. To voluntarily put himself back into that situation would be unimaginable agony. Only an idiot would choose to do so, and Potter was no idiot.

"I also have the key to my trust vault, which Gringotts provided me with for an outrageous fee," Potter fished at a chain around his neck to produce the key, "oddly my magical guardian never contacted."

Severus openly smirked at that, knowing only Albus could see him.

"I see." Albus stood on weary bones, prompting Potter to jump up. "Now that this has been settled, I believe Professor Snape offered to escort you to your dorm. Thank you for indulging an old man's rambling thoughts, my dear boy."

Potter bowed appropriately but failed to follow to the door. "Might I have the crest, sir? I don't have anything of my parents', you see."

"Certainly. And consider asking your professors about James and Lily, I know Professors McGonnagal, Flitwick and—" seeing Severus' livid glare, he quickly changed tack, "—also the groundskeeper Hagrid knew them well."

"Thank you sir, good night sir," he clutched his bloody parchment to his chest, every ounce the happy, grateful child.

His demeanor switched immediately to exhausted the second they passed the last inhabited portrait en route to the dungeons. Severus was inwardly pleased at this amount of trust, for Potter to drop his masks before him so completely. He decided to head for his office rather than the dorms.

"The parchment is imbued with charms and imbibed in two potions. The magic will last less than a month." Severus was comfortable teaching. Or at least, he was more comfortable teaching than engaging in any other social interaction; a degree of discomfort was normal enough to have faded into the background.

The child lit the parchment on fire. "I know, sir. But I was taught never to leave bodily fluids in others' hands."

Once again Severus marvelled at the unknown guardian's parenting skills. To have such maturity and cleverness in an eleven year old, not to mention the ability to recall and follow instructions! "I am sure Hagrid could acquire pictures of your parents for you."

"I know, sir, it's alright. My guardian got me pictures years ago. Though I don't have any muggle ones of my mum?" And then he looked at Severus, expectant and wide-eyed. Full of hope and innocent fondness for the man who had caused him to become an orphan.

Severus turned away, so Harry wouldn't see the expression on his face. He hadn't been expecting this. That described everything about Harry Potter, actually. "I will see what I can find," he conceded lowly.

Potter beamed. "Thank you, and thanks for coming with me to see the Headmaster. May I go to bed now please, sir? I'm kind of tired."

"Yes, go on. I will see you Tuesday." He would let Potter try to brew Albus' weekly Sugar Purging Potion and see if connected the dots.

Potter had proven himself unusually adept at understanding Severus' sense of humour, and it made their time together not only bearable but surprisingly enjoyable. In terms of potions skills his current limpet and apprentice-to-be was developing well, and hopefully this meeting had eased Albus' suspicions for now.

Gods willingly the ever-meddling Headmaster would leave them alone for the foreseeable future. He was hoping it would last until the end of year meetings, but in all likelihood Albus' newest plot was already in motion. Time would tell.