Oh, God. Once I started spilling my guts I couldn't stop. The semi-dark made it difficult to see his face and thus easy to let go of my deepest secrets. I told him everything. There were tears, and I'll be honest, a few 'I don't want to die's. To my utmost shock Severus did not freak out, go wild, or anything even remotely in that line. In fact he made me move back to his bed to be hugged.
"Did Poppy give you a happy potion? Is that why you're not shouting at me?" I cried against his chest.
"Why would I shout at you when you're finally telling the truth, it seems an odd way to reward you."
"Reward me?" What?
"Reward the behaviour you want your child to keep," Snape said. "You've read the manual Poppy gave me, I know you did. Chapter five."
"It's not a manual, it's just a childcare book!" There's thousands and they all contradict each other! "I can't believe you're raising me out of a book!"
"Books are from the tools that we use to educate our next generation, you know this Albus, you were a teacher—ah, yes, you weren't one, right? What did you do in your other life?"
Well okay, I had not told him everything. "Nothing." Oh, that won't work, we're trying the truth out. Which had been going surprisingly well and I might just keep it up after this. "I mean, I did things but I don't want to tell you and I don't want to tell you my name. Have you at least read other books also? Or are you just going on one person's opinion."
"The author is a renowned children's psycholo—"
"I don't want to know!"
"Don't shout," he said mildly. "And you don't have to tell me your name or anything else that you don't want to. As far as I am concerned you are still Albus Snape, my son. I don't need to know more."
This was too good to be true. There must be a catch. Perhaps a test was in order. "I was a girl," I told him, crossing my arms and glaring at him, just in case.
"Yes?" He laughed. The bastard actually laughed. "Well, that makes sense."
"How does it make sense!" I asked, twisting away, and he hissed when the movement jarred his leg. "Sorry!"
"It's fine. To answer your question it makes perfect sense considering the way I found you after the feast."
Oh, God. Inspecting myself in the mirror. Where to stick my head in?! I tried slipping off the bed, but only Snape's leg was out of action, he plucked me back by my shirt and asked if he needed to cast a sticking charm on my butt.
"No!"
"Then sit quietly, you're not going anywhere. Do you want to be a girl? If so we can get you dresses and—"
"I don't!" I didn't. I hadn't thought about it more than oh my god how will I pee, but after a year I was used to this body, and truth be told, I actually considered myself a boy.
"That's fine then. If you change your mind later you only need to say."
Oh, God, this was so embarrassing. I tried to pull away again. It seems while I was in the Forbidden Forest, Snape here had been bodysnatched. Where's the man that would lob me out of the nearest window or at least ground me until I was fifty? I scooted to the edge of the bed. I need to go call Poppy, this could still be from Lockhart's spell. "I'll be back, I just need to—"
"Stay where you are, Albus. Once the Unspeakables have done their job you can go run around as much as you please but until then you will stay in my sight."
He had told me now twice over that the spell to get rid of the soul fragment was a simple one and reassured me each time very patiently that I wouldn't die. Still, the mere mention had me forget his current weirdness to burst into renewed tears. "I don't want to die!"
While he patted my back and soothed yet again, a thought sprung forward. They knew! That's why he wasn't currently going nuts on me! "You knew!" I cried. "Since the feast!?"
"Yes," Snape said, continuing to pat my back. "Did you take us for idiots?"
Yes, I did. To an extent. Well, not really, it was more that I WANTED to believe I was getting away with it. Better not to answer, it was much safer to cry some more into his already damp pajama shirt and hopefully he would not repeat his question.
He explained to me while I sobbed away. Their theory up to now had been that I was a child that fooled around with something I shouldn't have, ending up in me switching bodies with Albus, Freaky Friday style. They've all seen the films, it's a prank often played on the Muggles. Not wanting to harm a child, they observed me long enough to realise it wouldn't have been on purpose—it took less than a week—then had Aberforth visit for tea to confirm. I sealed my fate by not recognising the wizard at all, though he in turn did recognise his older brother's childlike iteration.
It never occurred to them that I came from a different world. I certainly knew too much about them and everything else, though not enough about magic to teach a plimpy how to walk so they figured I was Muggleborn. Every last searching charm for their Dumbledore pointed straight at me. Their Albus was gone. Certainly if he was around he would have found a way to contact them. Albus would not have wanted them to take their grief out on a child, though, and after long discussion with Aberforth they decided to wait me out.
It all seemed so ridiculous, so I picked out the only part that made sense. "I'm not a child."
"Yes? How old were you before the switch?"
Oh, God. No, I didn't want to say. "Idon'twanttosay and you said I didn't have to."
"Four, then. And it is time you got some sleep. In the morning we will tell Minerva and Poppy your story, you might like to apologize to them for lying all this time and we can all leave it at that."
Just like that. Everything was fine, Albus, we'll continue as before—wizards were weird. I expected some shouting at least. Tomorrow I'll ask Poppy to check if Snape was who he said he was. "I'm not going to apologise anything to Minerva, she didn't believe me about Lockhart."
"That again? You do realise that if you had confessed the truth earlier we might have trusted your insider's knowledge about our… books? It's disappointing that you haven't read more than four books, we'd all be very interested in knowing the rest."
War. Everyone died. "It's not going to happen anyway, we've stopped Vol—the diary!" I jumped up. "Severus! Lucius was going to plant a diary on Ginny, it was a Horcrux—"
"For the Dark Lord, yes. The Aurors got them all, Albus. We discussed it in a meeting, you were there."
What? "We had a meeting with the Aurors? I think I would have remembered that."
"No, over tea with Minerva and Poppy. Poppy had to go play you—the real Albus—when Lucius stood trial for harbouring Dark Artifacts. Ah yes, I know why you weren't paying attention. There was cake."
Cake did not make me mindless, contrary to what they said. Their conversations were boring ninety percent of the time, I wasn't going to strain myself to listen in case there was something interesting between all the talk about schedules and parchment shortages. There was always some kind of shortage of something. "But he's still here, why is he not in jail?"
"If we jailed everyone that harboured Dark Artifacts we would all be having tea in Azkaban. He received a fine, that was enough."
"But he was going to give it to Ginny!"
"In your book. Not here. Arthur raided his house here, we can't jail him for something that happened in a book or that he might have thought to do. Will there be more surprises like this? Diaries, basilisks, bookworlds—"
"No, I think we're done."
"Excellent. Sleep."
"You're all weird," I said while he made me blow my nose properly—I'm a kid, I'm allowed to use sleeves, or so I would have thought, but apparently not—and told me yet again to lie down and sleep. "You should be shouting, you're acting very strange," I repeated when he was finally done with all the wiping at my face.
"Not stranger than a child from another world, running about causing havoc." He pulled and tugged me until I lay down next to him. "Did you want me to shout?"
"No!"
"Good. Now, how many more times do I have to say sleep before you will actually listen?"
"I'm trying!"
"Try harder."
The benefit of having had such a late night confession was that I did not wake up until after Snape had explained everything to Minerva and Poppy. Their main reaction was 'finally'. They wanted to know more about the idea that they were characters in a book in my world—"Preposterous!" said Minerva—but they decided to wait until it was a better time. One where I was not acting like a moody brat from having been kept up the whole night. Which, thankfully, they blamed on Severus.
All three of them conceded to my fears that I would be examined as an alien, and ran through a gauntlet of tests which could harm a small defenseless child, and agreed to keep my secrets from the Unspeakables. Another small, defenseless child, not me. At this Severus had a long coughing fit that did not fool me at all.
He did make me apologise to the two women for lying to them all this time.
"It was out of self preservation," I insisted.
"It was out of habit," Snape said. "One that we will be working on to eradicate," he continued, and gave an impromptu lecture on the value of telling the truth. Which was funny coming from a spy. Very funny. I tried to laugh.
"Albus."
"I can write them a letter," I offered, meek under his glare, hoping to skip that funfest.
"No," Snape said. And that was that.
Face boiling, I apologised to Poppy and received a hug, got called dear, was told she had forgiven me months ago and was kissed yet again. Only Severus's most dire look prevented me from wiping it off there and then. To Minerva I apologised and immediately stuck my fingers in my ears so as not to hear her answer.
Removing Dumbledore took one spell cast simultaneously by the two Unspeakables. I felt a pinch that tugged right behind my left ear, the magic buzzing through my head, and when I opened my eyes to find myself still in our sitting room and not in a train station, I collapsed into a relieved heap, bawling my eyes out.
I had a good cry.
A proper one.
I took my time with it. I deserved some emotional release. And no, last night's cry didn't count, it was peanuts to this one. This one had been building the whole year.
"I thought I'd cry less when I was five!" I wailed inanely at one point during the bawl to Severus who was patiently walking me up and down our sitting room, Minerva and Poppy having shown themselves and the two Unspeakables out.
"You might still," Snape said. "Your birthday isn't until tomorrow. Shhh…" he soothed. "There's no need for all these tears, think happy thoughts. Aren't you excited for your cake?"
"I don't want it!"