Chapter five

"Oh my god." James croaked out, falling to his knees in front of the unmoving death eater.

He reached out, his hand wavering as it latched on the silver mask on the body's face. James tugged it off.

"Merlin's soggy left sock!" he squeaked, covering his mouth with one hand and grasping the mask tighter. Severus Snape's slack face greeted him. His eyes were closed and there was a long bleeding gash running from his left cheek to his jaw. The man looked pale, but not dead.

Neither did his magical aura.

He leaned close; bringing his ear to Snape's parted lips to see if he was breathing. His eyes widened. He was breathing. Faintly, but still there. Severus Snape was alive.

With a hand still covering his mouth, James quickly fished out his own wand, his knees digging into the harsh ground. He ran it over Snape.

"Ennverate." He muttered, his thoughts racing as the man twitched but did not open his eyes. James repeated the spell. Suddenly, Severus jolted forward as if he was struck by lightning, James cried out, flying back.

He cursed as his head hit the ground, watching with wide blown eyes as Snape trained his wand on him, his face strained with pain.
"Snape?" he asked, bringing his hands up in surrender.

Snape's eyes narrowed. "What. The. Hell. Are you doing here, you moron?!" he hissed, his wand digging into the other man's cheek.

"You're alive." 'After being dead to the world for five years'. The unsaid bit hung in the air between them.

He quickly collected himself off the ground, wincing in sympathy as Snape struggled to do the same. As James reached down to help Snape, the man tackled him, sending them both stumbling down on the ground again.

"You idiot Potter!" Snape sneered, supporting his bleeding shoulder. "You're supposed to be taking care of my son! What on earth are you doing here,

you good for nothing- gah!" James steadied the swaying man that was almost falling over his chest by grabbing the man's bad abruptly clamped his lips together.

/My/ son. For a second there, maybe even less, he was going to correct Snape, having caught himself just in time. Still not my son, he thought morosely. Even after all these years, it was /his/ son.

James's unwillingness to look for a missing man did naught to prevent him from coming back, Severus Snape, unlike that heap of dust, wasn't something he could just brush under a rug. Only if he had realized that slightly sooner, he wouldn't have felt the wind knocked out of him now that forty pounds of pure guilt and hatred was sitting on his chest, pointing a wand to his head.

"I'm on a mission." He bit out, looking around the field, as if expecting one of the bodies to eavesdrop on them. "What the hell are /you/ doing here

Snape?! Where were you?!" his heart sank, why /was/ Snape here? Has he been operating undercover for all those years and if yes, then has his cover blown?

Would he take Harry away?

Snape was in too much pain for an interrogation, and James was not feeling generous, not with his son on the line. He roughly pushed Severus off his body and stood. He had half a mind to just leave Severus Snape bleeding with thirty other dead bodies and pretend none of this had ever happened, then he wouldn't have to answer unnecessary questions or jeopardize Harry.

The man would surely die out here in this cold on his own. Although he knew that leaving Snape, here for dead was not a bright idea either, in case the man was found out as a spy. If not, then taking him to order members would be a grave mistake.

"Snape?" he cautiously called out. The chilly breeze shifted their hair-the potion master's matted with blood- and ran between the leaves, beating

against their freezing faces. Severus was crouched on his knees, his left hand gripping his right shoulder, his right hand clenched around the wand. He was wheezing for breath and James could see the dark bloodstain expand across the man's chest. He knew he had little time to decide.

"Snape can you hear me?" he looked around the field of bodies with dread, feeling Snape's grey aura put a damp on the overwhelming sense of bleakness that hung around them.

Snape didn't answer him for a while but James already knew what he should do. He sighed with closed eyes.

"Come on Snape, it's not safe to stay here anymore. I'm taking you." Snape looked up; sweat coating his pale face, James realized that un-stunning Severus must have put a strain on his chest wound and cringed guiltily.

"Where?" Snape sneered.

Rolling his eyes, James roughly seized the man's good arm and started walking. "Somewhere away from here or we're both dead."

Snape kept up with his quick pace, both men ended up stepping over the gore and dismantled bodies with more ease than James was expecting. Snape's expression turned completely stoic by the time they were approaching the hill.

He worried little about finishing his mission; he had all he could get from the scene, knew the casualties and he had a living informant trailing after him now, Snape should be more than happy to fill in what James had missed in order to save his ass.

James took out the juice box and held it to Snape, his eyes hooded. "This takes us to an unknown location," he explained. "A go-between, all members use it to deter detection."

The potion master didn't nod; he extended a steady hand and grasped the end of the juice box with ease. James silently took a moment to marvel Snape's ability to shut out pain, using Occlumency. The only kind of magic James never could see or detect, it slipped past his senses like a taunting ghost story every single time.

"The password?" Severus grunted.

James smirked. "Royal blue." The world whirled around them in a spiral of blurred colors, a harsh pull behind his navel reminded James of how famished he was (he had skipped dinner that night in favor of telling Harry two stories instead of one and then didn't feel like eating afterwards. He realized that he should have.)

He crashed onto the ground as Snape gracefully halted to a stop, managing to stick the landing even though he was injured and at a disadvantage. James grumbled obscenities under his breath.

Lucky bastard.

Before Snape could look around and remember the old, abandoned house and all it stood for, James surged forward, hurriedly closing up on the man.

"Hold onto your guts." He told Snape as he grasped onto his shoulder and apparated without a respite. Snape was crouching on the ground and heaving into the grass in front of their house as soon as they landed. Wincing, the messy haired man fixed his glasses, thinking that maybe instant apparating after a portkey wasn't too healthy for an injured man.

He patiently waited for Snape to ride it out, and gazed at their house with longing; oh, what he would give to curl up under their warm blankets with Sirius next to him right now, or somehow get rid of Snape so the man would not be tempted to take Harry away (not that he could, because he couldn't. Harry was theirs… he really was.)

Snape came to his senses and followed his gaze with a bewildered expression coloring his pallid demeanor. "Potter, don't tell me that you brought me to your house." He muttered dangerously, his eyes flickering in the early pre-sunrise light.

"I won't." James shrugged.

"Potter!"

James snapped. "I couldn't take you to Poppy, alright?! And as much as I wanted to, I couldn't just leave you for dead… it would have been wrong."
The potion master sneered. "So instead you bring me here where my son could easily be endangered?"

James fumbled with his hands, looking back and forth between the fuming man and his house.

"Yes…I meant no! This is the safest place he could possibly be at, and for you too, until you're well enough to get lost."

"Potter-"

"It's your call Snape. Either bleed out by our porch or just get in."

"I know…it can be a little difficult. You won't have to meet him if you don't want to, I could ask Sirius to take him on a playdate today, you could stay a night over…we'll work it out."

"I'm leaving as soon as they're patched up, Potter, I don't have time for playing house."

"Whatever." He ushered Snape to the backdoor and into their small kitchen, Harry's drawings and their financial papers was still scattered across their dining table. Severus limped to the nearest chair and deftly lowered himself, his expression betraying nothing.

"Seat still." James threw their curtains open and unlocked the windows, pushing them up as far as they went; feeling as if he needed to get some air into the suffocating room. He summoned the first aid kit they kept in the second cupboard near the stove (Harry was a clumsy kid, much to James's absolute horror) and waved a hand at Snape.

"Take the robe off Snape." The cold morning breeze that picked up pace and pushed its way into the kitchen was not helping the icy atmosphere; James could feel it in his bones. Snape's dark eyes lingered on Harry's drawings as he slowly unbuttoned his robe.

Shivering from the cold, but refusing to yield, James left the windows wide open and busied himself as he sorted through their potions; they had a pepper-up and half a vial of dreamless sleep potion left from that /one/ time, two full vials of pain relievers and a disinfectant.

He could make-do with these and a few healing spells, there wasn't any dark goo clinging to Snape so the curses used on him weren't necessarily harmful or foul.

Must have been an order member who put him in his place then. James didn't know how to feel about it. He took out the bandages and two vials of pain relievers. Mulling his lips skeptically, he regarded both vials, silently trying to determine which was which.

Sometime ago, when Sirius broke his kneepad during a hunt, the two dosages of their pain relievers got switched up, and James hadn't had the time to figure out which was which since. Well, he guessed it really didn't matter if their job was the same.

He made his way to Snape, watching as the man struggled to get his shirt off. He put his kit on the table and helped him out, carefully tugging the black shirt off his archenemy's head as early, shy sunbeams shined through the open curtains.

He cringed at the sight. "They sure got you." He muttered, his eyes taking in the mangled flesh of the man's shoulder and the large open gap in his chest, still oozing blood.

Snape didn't reply. He just reached for the vials lying on the table with half-lidded eyes.

Panicking for a second, James's hand instinctively shot out in front of the man's face.

His voice was louder than he intended it to. "Those are…." He lowered his voice, his gaze darting upward.

He continued quietly. "One of those is the lowest dosage and the other is the highest we have around," he explained. "They got all switched up, so I think you need to take both potions for it to really have an effect? I don't know which is which."

Severus dryly raised his eyebrows. "You do realize that I am a potion master… I could tell the difference already."

James's own eyebrows raised in surprise. "You did? I couldn't tell them apart."

"The higher dose is richer in color, and for your information, you can't just take a bit from both dosages and hope for the best, that leads to blood poisoning…This is third year material Potter." James flushed at the jab.

"Just drink it."

He summoned a water bowl and methodically set on washing off the blood, his eyes nervously shifting from Severus to Harry's 's eyes were closed, but not from the pain. James was under the impression that the man was processing some form of information.

"What happened out there? Thirty bodies is a few too many."

Severus didn't bother opening his eyes. "It was an unplanned point ambush. There were only four of them at first, on patrol duty, but they saw about ten order members up ahead in the plain, also patrolling and securing the area, and called for reinforcement. Things got ugly." He hissed the last bit as

James applied the disinfectant with his wand, his brow furrowed.

They sat tensely as James wrapped Snape's chest wound with gauze. "How did you end up there?" his voice was tense as he finally asked this, his eye twitching.

Snape opened his eyes, blankly staring at him. "I was leading the reinforcement group. Obviously." Bitterness dripped from his every word, and Potter was not impressed in the slightest, he roughly tightened the bandage, causing Snape to flinch.

"I meant…" the messy haired man took a deep breath. "How did you get back? Where were you?"

Severus brought his hand up and batted James's hands away from his bandaged chest. He sneered at him. "If I were allowed to drop off classified information like lemon drops I would have ended up dead long ago Potter." He glared at James as he continued.

"Alright, fine. Be that way. But I still have to make a detailed report so you have to give me more information than that…I don't imagine the bodies would still be there when I return."

"That's because you're an imbecile Potter." Severus deadpanned. "You shouldn't have abandoned your mission for me, or better yet, you shouldn't have left my son to fend for himself in the middle of the night to come look at corpses in the first place."

James fumed, his nostrils flaring. "I did not leave Harry to… /fend/ for himself! How dare you suggest that?" he hung his head. "He is asleep in his room now; Sirius is barely two rooms away. We take good care of him."

"Was your cover blown Snape?" will you take Harry from me?

Snape rolled his eyes. "No you moron. I was relocated. Lucius wanted me back for some reason, and so I returned. This was my first ambush here in England."

James wasn't stupid enough to ask for location again.

"Was there a blast of some kind? Like an explosion? I noticed dark radiations surrendering the woods, at a much larger scale than they should have been and the bodies were mutilated..."

"Boyle thought it was a good idea to use 'imprecation' in a restricted area."

He mulled his lips skeptically. "And you survived the blast?"

The man shrugged. "I was petrified from behind, I don't remember much beyond that. I should have been dead."

"You still would have been if I hadn't rescued you. Those wounds didn't look nice."

Snape sneered at him. "I am forever thankful for your graciousness Potter."

They sat in silence.

Suddenly, Snape reached out for Harry's drawing, and James bolted out of his chair, crouched over to-what? Take it from him? He deflated, his eyes round as the injured man blankly examined the painting.

"I want to talk about-"

Gulping loudly, James shook his head. "I should go and prepare my report first," he blurted out. "Then make some breakfast." He pointed at Severus.

"You could use a shower."

He forced Snape out of their kitchen, and hurried ahead to snatch some clothes and close Harry's bedroom door before he let the man up.
Snape dutifully followed him and headed straight for the bathroom, leaving James stranded and frantic in their hallway, trying not to have a panic attack.

He headed downstairs, cleared their table and wrote one of the messiest and most hurried reports of his life. There wasn't much to write, he just mentioned the casualties, cause of death, which turned out to be an explosion caused by Boyle (Although he didn't mention him by name.) and no survivors.

By the time, he was finished and Snape was fresh out of shower, it was already six thirty in the morning. He lent Severus some of Sirius's old clothes, it hung off the scarred man a little, but James's was too small for him so they had to make do.

They both retreated to the kitchen again, sitting in silence as James made the final changes on his unreadable report parchment. He pitied the poor member who had to figure /that/ out.

Snape settled across him in Sirius's chair, cradling his tea with great care.

After another fifteen minutes, James could not bear the silence anymore. "Are you going to take him away?"

"Take him where Potter?" the man asked. "The hell I just crawled out of? I'm not insane."

It was like a giant weight had been lifted from his chest and James could breathe again. "Oh." He said lamely and they sunk into another bout of silence. Eventually, the potion master seemed to be dosing off in his seat before snapping himself awake at the last moment. It was annoying James.

Two hours passed and James couldn't delay waking Harry anymore, his son usually was up by eight as it was. Now /that/ was something he and Sirius hadn't seen coming.

"Oh come on, how early could he wake up in the morning?" Sirius made the mistake to ask that question. "He's just a baby."

At the crack of dawn, that's when. Eight thirty was just the result of five years of negotiations and compromise. It was either eight in the morning a nap, or waking up at noon and sleeping at five in the morning. James took his chances with the nap.

As he headed for the child's room, he had half a mind to wake Sirius and tell him about Snape first, but changed his mind and made his way into Harry's room.

The door was closed as he had left it, and shy beams of sunshine shone through the blue curtains, some of Harry's crayons were strewn around the floor and his toy broom was haphazardly positioned as a tripping point.

James threw a fond smile at the curled up child. Harry only neglected cleaning his room if he was exhausted beyond caring. James could scold the boy and hold off his broom all he wanted, but Harry's cute petulance was unwavering.

He sat by Harry's head, his hand smoothing down Harry's messy hair.

"Harry," he called quietly, his hand cold against Harry's head. "Come on buddy it's eight forty already."

Harry shifted under the blankets, his eyes heavy. James hesitated; maybe he should let Harry sleep in. He could cross off his nap and let Harry sleep in until Snape was out of their home. He quickly perished the thought; A Harry without an afternoon nap was a nightmare.

"Daddy nooo..."

"I know, I know," he brushed some of Harry's hair away from his forehead. "But if you don't get up now, you won't be tired for a nap, sorry Bambi, but we both don't want you to be cranky all day."

James remembered the day Harry called him Dada for the first time, clear as a day.

He was in the kitchen, washing some vegetables Sirius had picked up from the market that day, and Harry was in his charmed highchair at the table, watching him work. The kid was quietly talking with himself.

"Dada up!" the baby suddenly demanded. Out of nowhere. James paled, not daring to turn. It must have been a mistake, he told himself, as he ran his wand over a purple cabbage. Harry babbled all the time; the chances of /that/ actually being directed at him were slime.

He heard the chair rattling as Harry struggled, and called out again. "Dada! Up!"

James dropped the cabbage at once, not even flinching when water splashed all over his face.

Holy shit.

He was not having a moment. Nope, not at all having a significant moment when another human being called him 'Dada'.

"Oh my god, this is so exhilarating." His awed voice was barely above a whisper. He deiced to give it one more chance and see if Harry really was speaking to him. He turned around so fast that his neck cricked.

Harry was clearly ordering him, the baby's hands were raised high to be picked up, and he was petulantly glaring at James, urging his hands higher to prove his point. "Dada up! Up!"

"It's James, Harry," James half-heartedly corrected the boy. He was too shocked to move.

Harry gave him the stink eye, his legs kicked at the chair and he squirmed in his seat. "Up."

The messy haired man gave in and warily leaned in to scoop the frustrated child in his arms.

"Just James." He breathed out.

Harry's body was like a raging inferno as the boy sleepily snuggled himself in James's arms and continued his lazy slumber on the man's chest. Sighing, James bundled up Harry and his blanket and rolled his eyes as he made his way to their room.

On days like this, Harry much preferred the 'Fun Dad' to James, so he would coddle up with a half-asleep Sirius for a couple more hours, and then they would both demand pancakes for breakfast. They would be thick as thieves all day until Harry's missed nap made its appearance…then it was all on James.

Sirius had a trail of drool lining on his pillow, he was sleeping on his stomach and more than half his hair was in his half opened mouth. James quietly lowered Harry next to the man and rolled his eyes at the stark similarity.

"You'early." Sirius mumbled, his hand blindly gathering Harry closer to his side.

James cringed. "Yeah about that…"

Sirius's eyes snapped open and he shot up in a sitting position. "Oh Merlin's socks! Are you injured?! Did something happen that-." Harry interrupted his partner's mad rambling with an annoyed grumble.

"God no Sirius! I'm fine!"

"Moody?"

"Yeah, he sent the letter, gave me a portkey to the location. There was a blast of some sort, the causalities were high."

Sirius collapsed back into the mattress. "O'thankmerlin'." he groaned in his pillow.

James narrowed his eyes into a glare.

"-Actually I think we need to talk about why you asked for /certain favors/ from Moody and why you would think that I'm a damn damsel in-."
A loud thud cut him off, Padfoot raised an inquiring eyebrow at James.

"…And that too." The messy haired man finished lamely. Sirius looked down at the floor, as if trying to see through the ground and then back at James again.

Sirius gave him a suspicious look. "James, baby, what did you do?" he hissed in a harsh whisper.

They both leaned over the sleeping child's head. James guiltily wrung his hands as he started whispering. "He was at the scene and he was bleeding all over, and he was going to die, but I couldn't just turn him into The Order, they would have killed him on sight Sirius."

"Who did you bring over?"

"He promised he'd be gone before the sun sets."

Before the other man could open his mouth, James' hand shot out and clamped over his lips.

"No swearing in front of the baby, no shouting, and no you don't have the permission to kill the person I brought over. Please Padfoot."
Sirius glared at him over his hand and then nodded, James slowly let go of his partner's face and sat back.

"Who in the name of /broccoli/ did you bring over?! In our house, with Harry?! Are you out of your fudging mind?!" Sirius whispered-yelled.

"He was dying, okay? I had no other choice. I had to sneak him out and no one saw him anyways, we were all alone."

"Haven't you learned a thing from me? Your Auror husband? Honestly we talked about this…Wait a second, you were /alone/? They sent you there /alone/?!"

James scowled. "Yes dear /husband/, I sent your hired cronies back with Moody. Honestly, how old do you think I am that you felt the need to /beg/

Moody of all people to assign me /guards/ to babysit me?!"Sirius gaped at him, seething. "You brought a fugitive stranger in our /home/! Doesn't that answer the question?"

"Heavens to Fu…Betsy Sirius! He's not going to hurt Harry!"

"How could you possibly know that?" James squirmed under his partner's harsh gaze. "Who did you bring over? Please at least tell me he's restrained."

"Snape is in the kitchen." James mumbled.

"WHAT?!"