Harry was right in that Severus was looking forward to the picnic, but he also didn't anticipate the amount of anxiety the poor lad was going to feel waiting for the red-headed relatives to show up. Even though the time had been short that Severus had been shuffled between George and Grandma Molly – a few weeks really – he missed it in his new routine of having a nanny and then a governess. It had felt so much more like – well, like family. Like what he had longed for all his life. And now he would get to see them all at once and for no other purpose than all eating together. It seemed strange to him.

"This is the place, for sure," Harry laughed when Severus again asked him if it was the right location. "The Weasleys aren't always on time, that's all. Don't worry, they won't be too late. And Grandma Molly is bringing a feast, George assured me. She's been a little put out at not having you around as much, so she wanted to make today special."

"It's been hard for me too, a bit," Severus admitted, looking away. "I mean, she always fed me and everything. And she was teaching me how to cook."

"Very practical reasons for wanting to be there," Harry agreed, smiling a bit at how Severus didn't want to admit feelings. "Maybe we can figure out a way for you to get some cooking lessons on weekends. You know, practical."

"That might be a wise thing to do," Severus agreed, nodding. "I probably won't always live with a house elf."

"And women like a bloke who can cook," Harry told him with a grin, choosing to ignore the implication that he wouldn't live with Harry. "It's a great strategy there."

"Where is this anyway?" Severus asked.

"Just a lonesome lake in the middle of nowhere," Harry shrugged. "I don't know the real name. We found it on the year we were travelling, and I don't know, we just really liked it here. We've come back for picnics ever since. We call it the travelling lake."

"That's an absurd name," Severus told him.

"Maybe," Harry shrugged with a smile. "Oh look, I think they're here."

And the Weasleys were indeed there, jostling and laughing with a flurry of brooms and dishes.

"Let me set up the table first!" Mr. Weasley announced with a laugh, and quickly transformed something in his pocket into a large, roughly hewn picnic table large enough to seat everyone. "There! Now there's enough room to put the food down at least."

And food there certainly was! Molly placed platters of sandwiches, chicken, fruit, and biscuits all on large, mish-matched platters on a brightly checked tablecloth. Severus smiled when he saw his favorite biscuits just waiting for him.

Then, just as they were settling down to eat, their house elf appeared right beside Harry.

"What is it, Grettie?" Harry asked, worried.

"An owl just cames," she answered. "From Mistress Andromeda, most distressed. Here's the message, it is. I knews I could get it here fasters than she could."

"Thank you, Grettie," Harry thanked her. "It's marked urgent."

Harry opened the tiny scroll, reading it with alarm on his face. He looked up at Ginny, and then Molly, his face worried. "Andromeda is in St. Mungo's," he said. "Some sort of illness. They want me to come and fetch Teddy right away."

"Go," Ginny told him. "Bring him back here. That's no place for a young boy."

Harry then looked at Severus, and saw the confusion in his young eyes. He also kicked himself for not telling Severus about Teddy sooner. Harry really hadn't meant to introduce the topic of his Godson yet to Severus, he had hoped to have more time before Teddy came into the picture. It had been easy to visit the boy on his lunches from work and at times Severus hadn't known he was gone, and Teddy was far too young to realize that he wasn't visiting his Godfather's house as much as he'd been used to doing. Harry had instinctively known that Severus would view Teddy as competition – Teddy, who was an adorable, loving three-year-old?

"I know you don't know what's going on," Harry told him. "I'll explain more when I get back. But for right now, know that Teddy is my three-year-old Godson, and Andromeda is his Grandmother who is raising him. We're probably going to be watching him for a few days. I'll know more when I speak to her healers, okay?"

"Okay," Severus answered, clearly suspicious.

"My relationship with him in no way changes how I feel about you," Harry told him, preparing himself to apparate.

"Then why didn't you tell me about him sooner?" Severus asked, his eyes narrowing.

"That's why," Harry told him. "I wanted you to get to know me more before you felt jealous. We'll talk more when I'm back. I need to talk to people, so it might take a little time. Eat without me, but save me some biscuits."

And with that, Harry was gone. Everyone blinked for a minute after Harry had apparated, and then slowly the eyes turned towards Severus. Feeling uncomfortably like the center of attention, Severus threw down the napkin in his hand and got up from the table – walking quickly away from the party.

Grandma Molly started to get up, but George stopped her.

"Maybe his Mum should go," he suggested.

"You're right," Molly agreed, smiling at Ginny. "This could be a Mum thing."

"I'm not really a Mum yet," Ginny argued a bit, glancing at where Severus had left nervously.

"Close enough," Arthur encouraged her. "And you're about to be in the Dad role."

"The Dad role?" Ginny asked.

"Whenever your Mum had a new little nipper, it was my job to take on the last one," Arthur explained. "When you came home, Ginny, Ron really missed that special time with his Mum. But you needed her, so Ron and I did all sorts of fun adventures together. Any time one kid was sick and needed Mum, well, I was always in charge of making the others happy and entertained. When you have more than one kid you need to tag-team a bit. And Teddy is going to need Harry right now, he's probably really scared."

"So Severus will need me," Ginny surmised, looking even more nervous. "But what if he doesn't want me? He likes George or Grandma better."

"Of course he does," George answered. "We're the fun ones. But you're his Mum – and now you need to act like it. We might be fun, but you need to actually parent him. Go to it, old girl."

Ginny, suspecting her brother was right but still feeling wholly unequal to the task of actually parenting Severus, left in the direction that the child had gone. It wasn't hard to find him, he had only gone a few hundred meters away and was scowling, throwing stones in the lake.

"So, I guess Teddy is a pretty big shock, then, yeah?" Ginny asked him.

"Yeah," Severus growled, throwing a rock with all his strength.

Ginny watched him chucking rocks and sighed. She was no good at this. She tried to think of what her own Mum would do and came up blank. What would her father do? What would Charlie do? If she were feeling this upset at Severus' age, she couldn't think of one thing someone could say that would make her feel better. So, she picked up a smooth rock and, without thinking, sent it skipping across the lake surface.

"How did you do that?" Severus asked in surprise. "Magic?"

"No magic," she told him with a smile. "Just the right angle really, and the right stone. Here, you pick a rock like this that is smooth and flat. Then you chuck it like this . . ." and she demonstrated the age-old method of skipping stones across the water.

"Let me try!" Severus told her, and began hunting for an appropriate stone to skip. The next several moments were consumed with finding stones, practicing, and Ginny demonstrating the angle over and over.

Finally, Severus was able to get a stone to skip once before it sank into the lake.

"Yeah!" Ginny cheered. "You did it!"

Severus smiled in satisfaction, but then the joy on his face turned to the seriousness he had before. Without looking at her, Severus asked, "Okay, who is Teddy?"

"You know Harry's father had a group of friends in school called the Marauders?" Ginny asked.

"I remember," Snape nodded.

"Remus Lupin was one of those number," Ginny told him. "He was, well, I'm not sure if Harry told you this yet . . ."

"Was he the traitor or the werewolf?" Severus sighed.

"How did you know that?" she asked, shocked.

"I keep my ears open," Severus answered, rolling his eyes. "And I've heard of Sirius Black, Harry's Godfather. That leaves the traitor and the werewolf."

"Remus was the werewolf," Ginny confirmed. "He married an Auror named Tonks who was a metamorphmagus and they had a baby named Teddy just before the battle of Hogwarts, where they were both killed. Tonks' mother raises Teddy, but Harry is the Godfather."

"Has Harry been ignoring the boy this whole time that I've been here?" Severus asked incredulously, not knowing if he should feel pleased or upset.

"I believe he visits often," Ginny told him. "I believe that he's tried to be . . . discreet until he felt it was a good time to tell you."

"He was trying to spare my feelings?" Severus snorted.

"I believe he was," Ginny said truthfully. "He worried that you might feel . . . competition. He wanted you to believe he cared for you before introducing that competition."

"Is the boy a werewolf?"

"No, he's a metamorphmagus," she replied. "That means that he can change his appearance at will."

"And he's three?" Severus asked. "And adorable, I assume?"

"Completely," Ginny admitted, not wanting to lie.

"Harry loves him, doesn't he?"

"He does," Ginny agreed. "Very much."

Severus sighed.

"Harry can love more than one child," Ginny told him. "My mother and father have seven children, and they love all of us."

"But you are all very lovable," Severus told her. "It's not like any of you were in danger of being shipped off to a boarding school."

"You never knew the twins as children," Ginny told him honestly. "I think if my parents could have afforded it they might have."

"You can say nice things," he told her. "You can say that Harry loves me and blah blah blah. But I know the real truth. He didn't tell me because he knew I would see the truth too. Why would he love the freaky ugly kid when he has an adorable child of a man he really cared about to help raise?"

"Severus . . ."

"Don't 'Severus' me!" he growled. "Don't you dare contradict me and tell me I'm not ugly and that Harry really loves me! I know the truth!"

Ginny sat there in silence, not knowing what to say. In truth, she had wanted to contradict him – to tell him that he wasn't ugly, to tell him that he was loved – but in Severus' anger she saw how futile that would be. He wouldn't believe her, and anything she said to him would feel like false platitudes. She looked at his face critically; thinking how people would objectively think that his thin, sallow face and stark, stringy black hair would be considered ugly. But she found that she didn't think about it being ugly at all, but rather it was just how he was. If his nose was a charming little button it simply wouldn't be Severus. Thinking of his nose gave her some inspiration – Harry always told him stories, would he want to hear one of hers? Had she ever felt this way?

"Have you ever heard of the bat bogey hex?" she asked him after a few moments of silence.

"What?" he asked her incredulously.

"The bat bogey hex," she told him patiently. "It was sort of, well, my signature hex in school. My brothers lived in fear of it, and I practiced it judiciously and only used it for the worst offences."

"What does it do?" Severus asked, intrigued.

"It turns your bogeys into bats," she answered with somewhat of a mischievous grin. "They fly out of your nose. Most people find the experience somewhat . . . disconcerting."

"I could see that," Severus smirked.

"My father taught it to me when I was young," Ginny told him. "I was the youngest in the house, and my brothers went off to school without me. But do you know what the worst was?"

"What?"

"The worst was how the boys treated me. They weren't mean to me at all; they were in fact overly – I don't know, honestly, they were overly nice. I mean, it didn't help that I was the only girl and that mum thought I was a bit, I don't know, precious. All growing up she lectured them about not hurting me. And then she wrung her hands and was all worried about her precious girl sad about her brothers gone away. So my dad filched a family wand, took me out to his workshop, and told me the story of Miranda Goshank. He said she was the youngest in her family too, and she had eight big sisters. She invented this spell to have a chance to speak and get attention, so he was going to teach it to me. It took years for me to truly master it, but the next time I saw my brothers things were . . . different. I wasn't the ickle little baby sister anymore, and I demanded that they let me fly on brooms with them and everything. Any protests got them a dose of my bat bogey hex, such as it was."

"You think I should hex a three-year-old?" Severus asked incredulously.

"Of course not!" Ginny laughed. "Although Teddy might think it was fun. No, I was more thinking that you get to set the script, just like I did for my brothers."

"What script is that?"

"Well, you can be hurt, 'freaky ugly kid' and try to compete with a three-year-old desperately clinging to his Godfather because he is probably terrified that the only mother he remembers is in the hospital desperately ill," she explained to him. "I'm not sure that's going to go so well."

"I see your point," he grimaced.

"Or you can recognize that Harry can use your help," she told him. "Harry definitely owes you an apology, but for right now he's going to have his hands full worrying about what's going on with Andromeda and trying to look after a three-year-old. It's likely we're going to have the little guy for at least a few days."

Severus was quiet for a few minutes, looking out onto the lake and calculating. "How does he need help?" he asked quietly.

"He needs to know you're okay," she answered. "And he's going to need some help keeping Teddy entertained; that child is certainly a handful. But the biggest thing Harry needs from you is to know that you're okay and that he doesn't need to worry that you're needing him right this minute, that he can come talk to you when he has time."

"I can do that," Severus nodded slowly.

"It's okay if you don't believe that he cares about you," Ginny told him. "But it doesn't make it any less true."

"Let's stay reasonable," he snorted, though he did seem a bit less angry than before.

"Harry is going to be holding Teddy," Ginny warned him. "I just to let you know that, Teddy is a very touchy child."

"It doesn't bother me what that other child does," Severus sniffed. "You say that like I might be jealous."

"Just a warning," Ginny told him. "Let's go get something to eat before George eats it all. I happen to know that Grandma has fixed some of your favorites."

They started walking back, and then Severus shyly asked, still avoiding calling her "Ginny" or "Miss Weasley" and said, "Can you teach me the bat bogey hex?"

"After you finish your punishment tomorrow," she promised him. "I'm sure Grandma has a family wand we can borrow."