Snape cursed as he stood alone in his potions lab. He knew that he needed to be out there trying to get to know Harry but he wasn't quite sure how to start. It seemed that whenever they had these conversations they turned incredibly serious, and while he felt he did need to know that information, he didn't want Harry to start associating painful memories with talking with his father. If he did then he would likely start trying to avoid talking to him. What on earth could he discuss that wouldn't start a "serious" conversation while still getting to know his son?
He sighed and stood up. He'd just have to figure it out while he worked on finding Harry. Who knows where he could be in a house this size?
After twenty minutes of searching in what seemed to be the likely places he finally gave up and called Mindy. She immediately popped into the hall in front oh him. "Have you seen my son?"
"Yes Master Severus. He is in the library."
"Thank you Mindy. Do you know what he has done all day today?"
"He looked through a few rooms but quickly found the library. He went in to look around and hasn't come back out yet. He must have found something interesting."
Snape almost snorted but then quickly remembered his son's tattoos. If that didn't take an enormous amount of research then he didn't know what did. There was no way Granger did all of the research if his son worked on his own for two years. Perhaps that was why his homework was always barely adequate. He spent too much time reading everything else.
Clearly, his son's aversion to books was completely imagined on his part and not at all a reality of the real Harry Potter. Hmm…Harry Potter. He would have to see if his son would mind changing that. That name wasn't at all befitting the heir of the Snape family.
He turned to the library, a place where, up to now, he hadn't thought to check and quietly opened the door. Harry looked up from the chair he was curled up on and started to sit up straight. "No, no, relax. Sorry to disturb you but I wanted to talk about a few things."
Harry looked at him warily and slowly put his book on the table next to him. Snape looked at the title as he walked past, noticing that it was a defense book that he had recently bought for the manor library, Curses and Hexes Aurors Wish You Didn't Know. He smirked again. Clearly, his son enjoyed the same reading that he did.
As the silence drew out Harry finally pulled him back to focus. "You wanted to talk, sir?"
"Yes. There are a number of things that we need to think about for your future. The first problem is that you no longer look like Harry Potter."
Harry nodded his head slowly. "I assume that the charms cannot be replaced?"
"I sincerely doubt it. You mother was a master in her field. Not just anyone would have been able to create such a charm. Not to mention she probably used some of James Potter's blood or hair to do the charm. And with the charm having been applied the day you were born, it has had time to change and mutate a bit. You were no longer a carbon copy of your…James, as I am sure you are aware. In all, I do not believe it would be possible to safely recreate such a glamour again."
"I see. And anything less strong would stand the risk of being accidentally canceled by a stray incantation…I couldn't risk that. People would panic, thinking I had done something to the "real" Harry Potter and replaced him somehow" Harry said dryly. "What do you propose we do?"
"I think that Harry Potter should either go away to train or die."
Harry looked confused for a moment but then smirked in a manner eerily similar to his father. "That would work out well. No more media attention, no more ministry harassment. I assume you meant that I would re-enroll at Hogwarts as your son?"
"That was my thought. You could resume your education if you desire it and stay in a safe place while we are focusing on the war."
"What about you? What about your spying duties?"
"There was a reason I was at Hogwarts this summer instead of one of my country estates. I was discovered as a spy within days of school letting out for the summer. It is no longer safe for me to leave school grounds or anywhere not under the fideilas or heavy wards."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not. I've been a spy for longer than you have been alive, Harry. It was exhausting and stressful work. Being at Hogwarts so close to so many children of death eaters in all houses and years forced me to act a part nearly twenty-four hours a day. I was glad to set the part aside."
"It is exhausting being what people expect of you for so long. It will be nice to be rid of my Harry Potter persona." Snape wanted to delve into this statement but decided to try to keep the conversation relatively light for now. They had been talking—actually having a real conversation—for ten minutes now. It looked like his hastily made plan was working.
"We can take this one of two ways. We can either claim that I have kept you hidden away here at the manor since you were born to keep you safe or we can pretend that your mother recently died and you just found me. I'm not quite sure which one would be better. They both have serious drawbacks."
"With the first it would be everyone's first question of why you locked your own son away for seventeen years and I would be faced with irritating questions about why you had finally let me out. And with the second I would get a slew of potentially more irritating questions about my "mother" and how I am coping with her supposed death. I'm not quite sure which is worse. Could we try to create false credentials from Durmstrang or Beauxbatons claiming that I was educated there? Then I wouldn't have a fake mother's death to deal with or face explaining why you locked me in the manor for seventeen years."
"It would be relatively easy to create the credentials but if anyone went to check them it would be just as easily exposed. Even if we duplicated everything to keep in their office it would only take a few questions to the professors or students to know that you never went there."
Harry swung his leg absently over the arm of the chair. "Are there any really small private schools we could attempt something at?"
Snape sat back in his chair, contemplating this new idea. While generations of Snapes had been educated at either Hogwarts or Durmstrang it would not be entirely out of the question for him to have sent his son to a smaller school, especially if he wanted to keep his existence secret. "Let me think about that for a bit and get back with you. You would have to take your OWLs again in order to have new records."
"Could I just test for the NEWTs early instead?"
"Did you do that well on your OWLs? I thought your grades were average."
"I held back quite a bit. I didn't want to attract attention. The only one I didn't hold back on much was the DADA test since I knew that no matter how I did on that one the public would know. I didn't want to cause a mass panic attack if I only scored an EE." Snape snorted. The scary thing was, his son's test scores actually could cause a panic attack in many people.
"How very Slytherin of you."
"Yes, well, the hat wanted me in Slytherin. I convinced it otherwise."
"But that is impossible!"
"I did it anyway."
"My gods. All this time I was convinced that you were the perfect Gryffindor."
"I'm truthfully a terrible Gryffindor. Ron and Hermione help me keep an eye on my behavior and they tell me when I am deviating from the Gryffindor norm too much. It is getting harder and harder to pretend though. I don't know if I am changing more or if I am simply finding it more distasteful to act like that as I get older."
"It is likely a combination of the two. But you still haven't answered my question. Could you really pass your NEWTs this summer?"
"I'm sure I could. I probably could have passed them last year."
"How did you get so advanced? I wasn't aware that anyone was offering you any additional training."
"They aren't. You forget that I have spent nearly every waking moment reading highly advanced texts since the moment I entered the wizarding world. I have read every single book in the Restricted Section at least once and I have read the majority of the regular library. I also seem to be able to just read about a charm or curse or hex and be able to do it on my first try. There are a few that didn't work like that but not many."
Snape gaped at his son, speechless once again. His son had read the entire Restricted Section? Not even he had done that! And he could work spells perfectly on the first try? He had never heard of anyone who was able to consistently do such a thing. Perhaps the occasional spell in a specific field of specialization but all of them?
"Sir? Sir? Did I say something wrong?" Harry was getting nervous. He probably shouldn't have told his father that he had spent so much time in the Restricted Section, all of it unsupervised and without permission. He didn't sleep much so he had instead occupied his time with reading. He hadn't meant to let it slip that he had read all of those books.
Snape snapped back to attention. "No, of course not. You just surprised me. Do you have any idea how…unusual it is to be able to work spells perfectly on your first try?"
"Well Hermione and Ron can't do it but surely there are others out there who can." Harry was relieved that his father's inattention was caused by his abilities and not his extracurricular reading habits.
"No. That's just the thing. No one can. Have you ever tested your magical strength?"
"How do you do that?"
"We need a focus stone. I have one in my Gringott's vault. We'll get it and try to test it when you sit your NEWTs."
"I can go ahead and take them then?"
"Yes, either at a small school or else at Hogwarts. Dumbledore owes us a few big favors right now. He can start paying up with this."
"What will I do then? I can't live at Hogwarts if I'm not a student."
"Perhaps you could enroll as an apprentice."
"What would that require?"
"You are essentially a post-degree student who focuses on one or two subjects alone. What do you wish to do when you graduate?"
Harry's look turned dark for a moment and he looked away. "I never really thought about it."
"Why not?"
"I never really thought I would live long enough to graduate."
Snape sighed heavily. "Harry…the more I talk to you the more convinced I am that you can vanquish the Dark Lord. I believe that we should start planning your future. Can you think of any career that appeals to you?"
Harry thought for a few minutes. Suddenly his face lit up. "Midiwizardry. I would like to be a healer."
"A respectable career. For that you would need to apprentice under Poppy, who I am certain would be delighted to have you. It would also behoove you to have a potions apprenticeship. Potions are incredibly important in the healing process. Although it would be rare that you would brew your own potions you need an immense working knowledge of them. You need to know what is in them to predict reactions and how strong they are to prescribe doses. Without potions knowledge you would struggle as a healer."
"That sounds fine. I'm not terrible at potions." Snape hid a grimace. An apprenticeship with his son? "I'm really not as bad as you think I am at potions. I've done a lot of independent research when we realized that we needed to create the ink used in the tattoos."
"The ink itself is a potion?"
"Yes. It is essentially a liquid form of the curse."
"Fascinating." Snape reached out a hand as if to touch the edge of the tattoo on his son's wrist but drew his hand back before he touched it. "May I look it more closely?"
Harry looked at him for a moment then silently rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm. Severus bent over the small wrist and looked closely at the tattoo, careful not to touch his son. The ink that appeared to be solid black in fact contained swirls of deep silver and flecks of bronze. "Fascinating" Snape repeated. "How did you invent this?"
"During my second year I came across a recipe in Skin Deep: A Potions Manual. It was for a potion used to torture victims by flashes of what felt like electricity. The potion was applied to the victim and then the brewer could control the amount of electricity that pulsed into the victim for the entirety of the victim's life regardless of their distance from the victim. A rather creative torturing device, if I do say so. I worked on altering the potion alone for a year then turned to Hermione and Ron. Or rather, Hermione. Ron really is as bad at potions as you think he is."
Snape nodded. No surprise there. "And so you twisted the potion to shock an outside entity rather than the person covered in the potion and set yourself as the controller of the shock rather than the brewer?"
"Well I was the brewer so I didn't really need to change that aspect of it. We also needed to alter it to recognize certain auras as 'safe' so to speak. That way I wouldn't walk around shocking literally everyone."
"Yes, of course, your safe list and your warning list. How do you make the potion recognize an aura?"
"Well, by halving the gypsum root and doubling the crushed aniseed and then stirring counterclockwise two and a quarter turns instead of clockwise for four turns it became open to suggestion, so to speak. Now if I place someone's blood on one of the runes and speak the incantation I can add them to my warning or safe list."
"Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Why have you never shown this knowledge in class?"
"Because everyone knows that Harry Potter is terrible at potions."
"Expectations?"
Harry nodded. "On my first day of class I didn't know anything because I had just learned about the wizarding world. I had gotten my course books a few weeks earlier but the Dursleys locked them away so I couldn't prepare. So I truly was terrible at potions then…or at least ignorant of them. After I had been established as an incompetent potions student it just seemed easier to continue on in that manner."
"I'm sorry." Snape felt a pang of regret. He was solely responsible for his son's potions struggles…or at least what appeared to be struggles.
"Don't be. That was actually what gave me the idea to present myself as a merely adequate student. It has saved me quite a few headaches over the year plus it pulled me out of the limelight at least some. Can you imagine what people would say if Harry Potter was not only the Boy Who Lived and winner of the Triwizard Tournament but was also top of his class in every subject? Please." Harry snorted.
Snape smirked. "I will look into an appropriate school for your credentials and schedule your tests with them. We can speak with Poppy about a double apprenticeship for you later this evening."
"Thank you" Harry said gratefully. What a relief to finally be done with those terrible classes. It was wretched sitting in a classroom day after day having full knowledge of all of the material but pretending interest anyway. And it was even worse having to pretend incompetence alongside that. Hopefully his…father could work it all out.
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A/N: Yes, Harry is very powerful. He is able to easily learn new spells. He will though, struggle a bit with healing magic (I'll explain why in the next chapter). Although Harry is extremely powerful he is in no way invincible or all-powerful. Just wanted to set a few minds at rest. Please review!