Remembrance and Renewal by Nigel Tatsuya and Avatar Arkmage
Chapter Ten: Perchance to Disclosure
For a moment that seemed to last an eon, Harry could say nothing, even though the words churned and welled behind the causeway of his larynx like an impending flood. There was so much he longed to disclose to his father, so much he needed to say, but danger loomed threateningly close.
It was not Snape's voice, but his stomach that eventually broke the silence. It had not rumbled particularly loudly, but Harry's close proximity to Snape's abdominal region made it salient in the otherwise quiet ward.
"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, happy for the diversion, and realising that he too was hungry. Both of them had only ingested broth for dinner, with muggle sweets for dessert. Harry motioned to the pile of confections on his tray table. "Accio Chocolate and peanut butter covered biscuit and nougat bar."
Snape looked as though he were about to chide Harry for doing magic in his weakened state; and wandless magic at that. When he opened his mouth however, Harry shoved a huge chunk of the sweet inside.
"Well sorry sir, but you are hungry aren't you?" Harry responded to Snape's frown, taking a bite of the bar himself.
As he chewed on the crispy sweet, Severus glared at Harry with a look that said: "thank you" and "bloody cheek!" simultaneously. Harry saw that the "bloody cheek" expression was slowly gaining ground, so when Severus swallowed the chocolate, and looked as though he were about to launch into a diatribe, Harry stuffed the bar into Snape's mouth again, forcing his father to either choke, or take another bite. In enough discomfort as it was, Severus opted for the latter.
Harry felt as though he were in the midst of a life that belonged to some one else. There seemed to be few things more pleasurable than sharing a sweet confection with a parent, except for maybe sharing that confection whilst being held in said parent's arms. The sweet flavour on his tongue, and the warmth he felt at being held, was enough to make Harry temporarily forget how unhappy he had been over the years; how lonely he had been whilst staying at the Dursleys; how much pressure he felt to live up to the seemingly insurmountable expectations of the wizarding world; how frightening it was to see so much death in his relatively short life; how badly he had failed at his first attempt at romance with a young woman; and how he had so often nearly failed at being a friend to Ron and Hermione. All of those unpleasant memories seemed to dissipate like a cold mist in the presence of intense sunlight, to evanesce like a bad dream banished by the presence, grounding, and security of a parent.
Severus closed his eyes, and it was then that Harry noticed how wretched the older man appeared. His normally pale skin was ashen now, and his cheeks were flushed. Instinctively, Harry reached up to palpate the side of his father's face, inadvertently smudging chocolate on it. As Harry feared, the man's face was very hot to the touch. Indeed, Harry had been sweating in the places where his body came in contact with his father's. "Sir...you're burning up. You have a fever!"
"And you've got an ample amount of cheek!" Snape retorted. "What of it?"
"Can't you take a fever reducing potion? You can always brew more for Madam Pomfrey later, after all." Harry motioned to a cabinet at the end of the rows of beds. "Accio-"
Almost too fervently, Snape grabbed Harry around the wrist, and pushed his hand back at his side. "Keep to your own affairs, Potter! I neither want, nor need a fever reducing potion."
"Why not?" Harry was appalled at Snape's recalcitrant actions. "Are you in some sort of competition for surviving the highest fever without permanent brain damage? Fine! Judging from how hot you are, you've probably won, now..."
"Is the good sirs be wanting anything tonight?" asked a female house elf, who had popped into the room to change the linens.
"Call Madam Pomfrey, please." Harry replied before Snape could say anything.
The house elf immediately put the stack of linens she was holding on a nearby bed, and popped out of the room. Madam Pomfrey tottered in moments later with her hair hanging in loose tendrils about her shoulders. Her eyes were heavily lidded with disturbed sleep, and her gait was fatigued as well. Neither Harry nor Snape could blame her, the harried matron had not slept undisturbed for at least a few days.
"Oh My!" she said upon seeing Snape seated on the floor, with Harry cradled in his arms like a particularly macrosomic baby. "What's this then?"
If Madam Pomfrey hadn't been so tired, she would have noticed the smudges of chocolate on both of their faces. If she hadn't been so grouchy from the lack of sleep, she might have found the humour in that.
Harry gave Poppy a full account of what had transpired since she had retired for the night, as she examined the boy for further injuries. Snape was predictably silent, but was watching the proceedings with what appeared to be a mixture of anger and...was it concern?
"You'll feel much better in the morning, Harry." Poppy said, waving her wand over the cuts on Harry's scalp. "You'll need to stay in the hospital wing for a few days more, but you're coming along nicely."
"You're the best healer I've ever met, Madam Pomfrey." Harry said, searching the tender area on his scalp for any trace of the cut that had been there just moments before. "Ehm, so why not heal Professor Snape a bit more? He's got a terrible fever, and a lot of his wounds could do with some closing up."
"Because..." Poppy began.
"It is not your concern, Potter!" Snape interjected.
"It was also no concern of yours that I was hammered soundly and nearly drowned, but you rescued me anyhow." Harry snapped. "Why can't anyone want the same for you?"
"Potter, unlike you, whilst you were immersed in the overfilled bath, I am fully conscious. I can say what interventions Madam Pomfrey may, or may not employ. Had you been conscious then, and told me of your desire to drown, and/or be hammered further by your family, I would have granted your request. Now leave Madam Pomfrey to it, infernal boy!"
Madam Pomfrey pouted inwardly. Without a doubt, Harry Potter and Severus Snape were the most unyielding individuals she had ever met. If either of them survived long enough to die of natural causes, she would be very surprised indeed.
Having been informed thoroughly by Harry about Snape's attempt to escape from the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey employed drastic, non-magical measures. After assessing his injuries, she manacled one of Severus's wrists, and one of his ankles to the metal frame of the bed; much to Harry's great relief, and to Snape's chagrin.
Harry watched Severus tug, and pull at the sturdy chains, as though he were trying to determine a way to free himself from them. Harry was sure that Poppy would have placed anti-breakage charms on them, so he watched for a while more before closing his eyes, and falling asleep.
"Poppy!" Severus growled. "What am I to do when I have to...errr uhmm...relieve myself?"
"That is what the foley catheter is for. Ingenious muggle invention, I must say." Poppy replied. After making sure Harry was sleeping, Madam Pomfrey returned to Severus and lifted his covers. She then explained the foley catheter's function further.
"Really?" Severus sneered. "I thought it was meant to be employed as a torture device! Or an internal leash of sorts."
Poppy ignored the barb. As much as she admired the man's intelligence, as well as all the work he did for the order, he was still a difficult patient "Now Professor Snape, you know better." Poppy glanced over her shoulder at Harry, who appeared to have been sleeping. "You have to refrain from moving about too much for at least another day or two. Your stitches are still draining, and the tubing could injure you further."
Severus made no further protests as Poppy replaced the blankets over him. "I only wonder how sick and wounded muggles make due without magic and potions." Severus spoke softly so as not to disturb Harry in the adjacent bed. "Because they must heal primarily on their own, it is curious that they engage in as many wars as they do."
"Indeed!" Madam Pomfrey concurred. "I find it exceedingly odd that muggle leaders would provoke such enmity amoungst themselves. How can they stand to watch their citizens killed, knowing that those who survive are destined for long periods of painful convalescence?" At Snape's silence, Poppy attempted to answer her own question. "Must be because we're all the same species, and one need only look at Voldemort's followers to see just how territorial and violent humans can be. They don't think of the consequences any more than some equally warlike muggles might. All they can focus on is their cause, regardless of what price they force others to pay." Poppy looked strangely at Severus as she spoke."So, He-who-must-not-be-named summoned you tonight?"
Snape nodded, the only sound in the room was the faint clinking of the chains connecting the manacles to the bedframe. Severus shifted beneath the blankets, and continued to fidget until he apparently found a position that was comfortable.
"Cruel whoreson!" Poppy muttered under her breath. "After he did this to you, he expects you to be well enough to hobble to his side just because he wishes it?
Snape's eyes widened at Pomfrey's unexpected profanity. He could not recall her swearing very often before, and it sounded as foreign as hearing an unoccupied suit of armour spout poetry.
"Just try to get some sleep." Nurse Pomfrey regained her composure. "This house elf has been instructed to keep watch here whilst I sleep..."
Severus silently observed the tiny figure, as it fastidiously stuffed a pillow into a fresh case.
"She normally works in the kitchens or the laundry, but since you and Harry seem to need so much supervision, she'll mind you for a while." Poppy went on, checking once more on Harry.
"House elf?" Severus called, startling the elf so much that she dropped the pile of soiled linens she was toting in her scrawny arms. "Tell me, what is your name, that I may address you properly?"
"Yumi, sir. " The elf with chartreuse eyes replied, bowing reverently. "Yumi the house elf."
Harry had just enough presence of mind not to vociferate when he nearly fell out of bed. For perhaps the third or fourth time that night, Harry had been roused by Lord Voldemort. Not by the dark wizard himself, but by equally, or perhaps more horrifying visions from him. It was as though Harry were in Voldemort's body; taking pleasure in disembowelling a man splayed over what Harry assumed to be the man's own billiards table; brutally casting the cruciatus curse on a pair of muggle teenagers; and raping a young man's mother while the young man was forced to watch.
Harry felt very uncomfortable by that, for he would never dream of engaging in sexual acts with any party not directly involved watching; much less force himself upon an unwilling partner. Yet Voldemort pinned the middle aged woman against the wall by the wrists and thrust into her as the Death Eaters and the horrified son looked on . Judging from sensations in his own body, Harry assumed that Voldemort's ultimate goal was to shock and horrify the woman's son. His own release and pleasure seemed mere perks, just extra gratification to go along the violent act itself.
Harry woke with a start, just as Voldemort climaxed, and barely clung to the bed rail in an effort not to fall to the floor. The feeling of nausea rising within him was almost too much to tolerate. This was what Harry had seen almost happen to his grandmother seventeen years back in time, but the Dark Lord had opted to use an equally detrimental means to force Severus to do his bidding. Although the prolonged cruciatus curse had not killed Mervidith Snape, it had cost her both her sanity and her family. Harry could not help but wonder how many other families had been broken in this manner. How many other children and grandchildren had to live with the aftermath of the Dark Lord's wrath?
"Is the good sir be needing something?"the house elf with the giant chartreuse eyes inquired.
"What?" Harry turned to the elf who he did not recognize. The conversation he had had with his parents whilst freed from his body came back to him. "Oh no, I don't need anything right now. Thank you for asking...uh..uh..what is your name?"
The elf curtseyed whilst replying. "Yumi, sir. I am Yumi the house elf..."
Heedless of the aches still prevalent throughout his body, Harry leapt out of bed, startling the poor elf in the process. "Yumi?"
"Yes good sir." the elf replied, frightened tears welling in her large chartreuse eyes.
"Awww... hey, hey don't cry." Harry said, putting both hands on her slight shoulders. "I'm really glad to meet you, Yumi."
"The great Harry Potter is glad to meet Yumi?" the elf whimpered, disbelief heavy in her voice. At seeing Harry's enthusiastic nod, Yumi began wailing in very much the same manner as he had seen Dobby do many times in the past.
"Shh! It's okay...it's okay,Yumi. No need to carry on so, you might wake up Professor Snape!" Harry wrapped his arms around the tiny elf and patted her on the back until the worst of her mewling had subsided.
"I am already awake, Potter! The only individuals who would have even a remote chance of acquiring adequate rest with you about, would be corpses seven years deceased!" came a sleepy, though irate, voice from the bed next to his. "You had better go back to sleep Potter, it is not very clever of you to carry on this way. You ought to rest so as to optimize your chances at healing quickly."
"Okay. I'm sorry, Professor Snape." Harry boldly reached over and patted his father reassuringly on the shoulder before returning to his own bed.
'Harry Potter, actually responding politely?' Professor Snape could not entirely believe it, and concluded that his escalating fever was interfering with his perception of events. His chains clanked softly as he rolled over and closed his eyes once more. He dozed off, deciding that perhaps Potter's near drowning had waterlogged the boy's brains. Or else he had been hit on the head one time too many. Why else would Potter even seem to even care for him now?
"Yumi," Harry whispered once the Professor began snoring softly again. "Will you come by and visit me every now and again?"
"Not to question you sir, never that..."the house elf begged for pardon before asking the question. "...but why do you want to see Yumi the house elf, sir?"
"Yumi, before you came to Hogwarts, you used to serve the Potter family, right?" Harry said, his own eyelids drooping with drowsiness.
"Yes sir. Harry Potter was being such a good baby." Yumi's eyes appeared to be reminiscing on a happier time.
"You helped my parents care for me as a baby?"
"Oh yes, good sir." Yumi said, grasping the blankets and tucking them around Harry's shoulders. "Harry Potter were always a good baby."
Harry wanted to ask the elf about her time with the Potters, and of her years working at Hogwarts. He wondered if Yumi would be forever indentured to Hogwarts since she had been orphaned, or would she be transferred back to him when he was old enough to own an elf, as he was heir to the Potter clan. He also wanted to ask about Yumi's skills at painting, and if she would do him the honour of capturing the likenesses of his parents, as well as that of Sirius black.
"Mr. Potter should be sleeping. " Yumi stated gently, before scuttling to the far end of the room and conjuring a mop and bucket. She then started mopping the floor so vigorously, that it appeared as though she were trying to scrape an unseen substance from it. "Sleep well, good sir."
"Goodnight, Yumi." Harry replied, closing his eyes and finding sleep almost instantaneously.
Harry groaned when he saw a dark stone wall materialise before him, with only a single torch protruding from it; the only source of illumination. He felt sure that this was one of the same visions that so often disturbed his sleep. He was once again seeing through Voldemort's eyes. He braced himself against the tortured muggle, or murdered half-blood he was sure to see.
Strangely though, Harry did not feel malicious, nor did he feel vengeful or lustful. Looking around the room, he recognised the entrance towards the potions classroom, and remembered seeing the bottles on shelves along the wall, each containing ingredients which ran the whole gamut from the fascinating to the grotesque. Harry remembered Snape's office all too well, an unfortunate side effect of the fiasco that had been his Occlumency lessons.
Why was he seeing this place again? Surely Voldemort hadn't managed to gain entry into Hogwarts? And why would Voldemort take the trouble of coming here when he could have easily summoned Snape to his side? How had he passed through the wards? Surely some of the wards had been made to keep him, Voldemort, out specifically?
Or was he seeing through Voldemort's eyes at all?
After much introspection, Harry realized that he was not experiencing Voldemort's activities, but was indeed having a dream of his very own. At the same time, it seemed strange and surreal to be aware of the very fact that he was dreaming. He wondered also how much control he would have over his dreams, if he was aware that he was dreaming?
Harry had heard the term 'lucid dreaming' before, in which the dreamer attempted to control the mood and course of the dream, and could interact with objects and living things within. Harry picked up a quill on Professor Snape's desk and twirled it in his fingers. It felt solid enough, yet he had no memory of how he had come to be in the dungeons in the first place. And where was his father? Could he interact with him as well? Could he finally talk to the dream image of him? Could they spend some quality time together at last?
Harry was determined to take full control of this dream.
And there he was! Professor Snape briefly entered the room, retrieved one of the vials, and walked out through the door to his laboratory nearby. Harry eagerly followed, not caring about the possible consequences of his actions. This was, after all, only a dream.
Professor Snape set to work immediately. He was soon adding chopped ingredients to a cauldron simmering over bright white flames, stirring gently all the while. He then pulled out his wand and whispered a series of incantations, causing the liquid in the caldron to change in both appearance and consistency. Harry watched him work, marveling at the man's incredible proficiency at his tasks. Once again reminding himself that he was only dreaming, Harry boldly approached the professor, his father. He moved to within centimetres of him, and noticed that Professor Snape had applied liberal amounts of pomade to his hair. Harry sniffed it quietly, and noted that it smelled faintly of fruit, and the oils of nuts and legumes he could not readily identify .
Deciding that he had nothing to lose, other than sleep, he boldly moved even closer. He cared not whether the dream professor turned him into a frog, or summat, for he would still wake as a human. He wrapped his arms around Professor Snape's torso and yelled: "Hello, father!"
Harry could barely keep from laughing at the sight of Professor Snape going the proverbial equivalent of nutters. After exclaiming rather loudly in shock, Severus dropped the phial he was holding, spilling the potion all over the counter. The container then rolled off the table, and broke with a resounding crash against the stone floor.
The dark haired man turned around slowly. The expression that crossed his face next was a mixture of abject consternation, and...what was that expression? Harry had never seen the professor's face like this, even many years on the past.
Harry once again reminded himself that he was only dreaming. "Father!" he said boldly.
To Harry's incredulity, Professor Snape's customary sneer tried to make an appearance, but dissipated completely when his black eyes filled with tears, and widened in complete astonishment. "You...you...?"
"Yes Father." Harry felt tears threaten him as well, but pressed onward. He might never have such an opportunity to confront his father in a dream again.
"But how?" Severus grabbed both of Harry's hands and felt along his fingers, his wrists and up until he reached his elbows. "How are you here?" Both of Snape's quivering hands found Harry's shoulders and squeezed firmly before moving down his chest and finally coming to rest on the boy's sides. "You're alive! You're really here! You're flesh?"
"Yes, father, I am." Harry could not help it. Although he knew it was only a dream, he pulled his father into his arms and kissed him on the cheek. Not caring if his hands felt greasy for a week, he gently stroked the man's silky hair, just wanting to fully take in the experience of having a parent. A living parent who was as close as his touch. Whose alien, yet deep love could be felt in Harry's very blood coursing through his veins.
"Oh Merlin!" Severus said in a strange baritone that Harry wouldn't normally associate with his dour potions master. This was the voice of the man he had met on his journey outside of time. Now time collapsed upon itself. Time, which had so hardened his father's voice, weathered his expressive features into a mere ghost of its former self, and rendered his heart into an unfeeling organ which served no other purpose than to circulate blood, released its firm hold. Harry had his father back. The man who had wanted him all those years before, who grieved for him when he thought him lost, and who still appeared to love him even now.
To Harry's elation, Severus returned the embrace, more vehemently; holding onto Harry as though he were more precious to him than his own life. The embrace held an urgency, an inherent neediness to it. "How is it that you're here? Why haven't I seen you for nearly seventeen years? Have I died?"
"No father, you're still alive. And..." It was strange to address his potions professor as 'father', yet at the same time, it was the sweetest word Harry had ever heard or spoken. "I'm truly alive."
"But you were never born." Professor Snape remonstrated, attempting to put his emotionless expression back into its rightful place. "You don't exist."
"No," Harry brushed away his father's drying tears on his sleeve, then dashed his own tears away, "that night in 1979, the very night you were forced to take the Dark Mark, mum was already pregnant with me. If I'm right, I was conceived only a few days before."
"Lils.." Professor Snape's eyes widened as he mouthed: "Why didn't you tell me? "
"Maybe mother didn't know for sure yet?" Harry offered. "Don't women need to miss a period to even suspect they might be pregnant?"
"But that's impossible..!" anger darkened the Professor's features as his voice shook with both sadness and anger. "She had a child with James Potter in July of the following year."
"James was not the father of that child." Harry went on, thinking this dream sequence was good practice for the day he would finally tell his father the truth. "You are. Harry Potter is not James Potter's son, but the son of Severus Snape."
"POTTER? You? But Potter is..." If Snape had opened his mouth any wider, Harry was sure he would have needed his jaw reset, for it would have become unhinged. "But he- I mean you... Harry Potter looks just like James Potter! But then you claim to be Harry, but you look a little like... Oh!"
'What had changed?' Harry wondered to himself. Why did Snape see him as the preborn angel, and not Harry Potter in this dream sequence? Was it his own wishful thinking that was causing Professor Severus Snape to react this way? Harry bolted from the lab, and ran into the boy's lavatory several doors down the hall. He dared not use the toilets, for fear that he would end up wetting the bed, but that was not his purpose there anyway. Harry turned his attention toward the large mirrors lining the walls over the basins, and gazed upon the unfamiliar person staring back at him.
To be sure, it was still him. His eyes were the same hue, but the shape was distinctly more almond like, and were accentuated by long, dense and dark lashes. His black brows were slightly more narrow, as were his nose, lips and cheekbones, giving Harry an altogether more intense and aquiline appearance. His hair was no longer dishevelled and unruly, but sleek and glossy, and cascaded just past his shoulders in nearly straight locks. The colour of his hair, he noted, was black upon first observation, but shone red where the light struck it, giving his hair the appearance of glowing embers. Harry wondered if his hair's strange, though beautiful colouration was due to Lily's and Severus's genes each striving for dominance, or if it was directly inherited from his grandmother, Mervidith Snape, who had similarly coloured hair.
Harry gazed deeply at his own reflection for a while longer. There was something so foreign, yet profound in doing so, for Harry simultaneously could see both his parents in his own reflection. Severus Snape and Lily Potter each stared back in him, their features harmonized in a single face.
Harry became aware of a someone else reflected in the mirror, just behind, and to the side. It was his Severus. The man had followed him.
"Will you be staying..?" The man's verbalisation was broken nearly into individual syllables, as his lower lip began quivering. Tears were now freely spilling down the older man's face, and this time, he did nothing to prevent them.
"Yes father." Harry said, looking at his father's reflection in the mirror. "I will never leave you again. You don't have to walk this Earth alone anymore, as you thought you would. Do you remember that I promised to return to you seventeen years in your future? Well so I have..."
Professor Snape's eyes widened. His preborn angel had indeed made that promise to him, as he lay on the cold tiles after his brutal assault at the mercy of Death Eaters influenced by the Animalia potion. Severus looked as though he wanted to say something, but his sobs rendered his efforts at coherent speech futile.
Feeling his father needed this more than he needed air at the moment, Harry wrapped his arms around the man once more. "You've given up so much to do what you believed was right. You gave up your own happiness with mother because you were worried that bearing the dark mark would cause you to become violent towards her, you didn't want to risk it."
"You knew?" Severus sobbed, looking nothing like Harry's potion master, and everything like the young nineteen year old who had sired him. "You saw many of the things I've done?"
Harry knew he had too much control over this dream, for Severus was stunningly out of character at the moment. The present day Professor Severus Snape, in all likelihood, never wept or showed emotion of any kind. Surely Harry's own desire to have his parent back influenced the dream image of Severus even now. "And you risk your very life to keep as many innocents in the wizarding world safe. Surely you understand that each mission could be your last, but you do it because you feel it is right. You want to avoid families having to suffer...as your family did...Well, our family now." Harry spoke into his father's ear as he continued to hold him. To Harry's contentment, his father clung to him as well. "There is no one I am more proud of at this moment than you, father. Giving up your own happiness, so that you could give it to others. Risking your own life, so that others may live. Doing a job you hate, so that you can help guide future Death Eaters away from the path you were forced to take."
"But I've been so heartless, so cruel to Harry Potter. To you, my own son." Severus lamented.
"Because you thought I was the son that you would never have." Harry speculated. "You saw James Potter as the person who received the happiness that was rightfully yours..."
Snape was too moved to speak.
"Harry Potter and I, we are one in the same. As to why my physical self looks different from your angel'...charms maybe? In my spiritual form, maybe you see me how I was meant to appear, but my body was changed, transfigured,charmed, but altered with somehow to avoid raising suspicions of my paternity."
"Or to keep you safe from the Dark Lord?" Snape hid is face in his hands when Harry finally released him. Professor Snape appeared to have a headache, perhaps due in part to his crying after so many years of keeping his stoic mask in place. Evidently, his body was no longer accustomed to displays of emotion. "The Dark Lord would have surely hurt you because you were my son."
"Voldemort came after me, mum and dad anyway when he learnt of the prophecy." Harry sighed.
"Oh, Merlin! Is there no end to my errors?"
"What do you mean?"
"I overheard the seer, Sybill Trelawney reciting the prophecy to Professor Dumbledore," Severus stated, sounding as though his very guilt were asphyxiating him. "At the time, I considered her to be nothing more than a fraud, so when The Dark Lord demanded that I tell him of the latest matters of Professor Albus Dumbledore and Hogwarts, I recited what I overheard at The Three Broomsticks that day."
Harry was nearly overcome with anger, but he quickly pushed it aside, for fear that the intense emotion would wake him.
"I thought he would have dismissed the seer's words as rubbish. The great-great-granddaughter of Cassandra, though Sybill was, people gave little credence to her, for all of her previous predictions were balderdash. But the Dark Lord did take the prophecy seriously, and attacked James Potter, your mother...and..and...you! " Severus was now crying in earnest, and Harry could discern that the guilt that Severus himself had inadvertently set in motion the chain of events that led to the death of his lover, and their son had torn a deep chasm into the potion master's heart.
'Why had the dream Severus told him this?' Harry wondered. 'Was Harry trying to assign blame to his father?' That must be it. Harry seldom took ownership of his own actions, for blaming others was the easier course.
"No father, don't blame yourself for this. If The Dark Lord hadn't forced you into his service in the first place, none of this would have happened." Harry said, draping an arm over his father's shoulders once more. "If you withheld that information, and Voldemort found out about it later, you'd have been killed for sure."
"Voldemort will kill me someday anyhow," Severus muttered as he led Harry back out of the lavatory. "But not until he's gained supreme power over the whole of the wizarding world. He needs his potions master to achieve that end, after all."
"Well I need my father." Harry proclaimed. "And since you've given up so much of your own happiness for the wizarding world, I, as your son, vow to give it back to you, no matter what it takes."
"Before you save the world, or try to reduce the magnitude of my foibles," Snape said in his former authoritative voice. "Let us return to my chambers. We can talk further, it would not do for others to overhear us, or even see us together like this. Are you hungry.., my son?"
By this time, Harry did not care that he was dreaming, and probably would be unable to eat. He just wanted to spend time with his father, so he replied: "Famished."
Severus did something Harry did not anticipate. He smiled. Not a sneer, not a smirk, but an honest smile of the purest variety.
"About my appearance," Harry continued as Severus led him into the dining room in his dark chambers. He then summoned a house elf, who brought them trays of roast beef, yorkshire puddings, and cooked vegetables, "maybe my parents traveled into the future and had the eugenics people integrate some of James's DNA into me? You could travel into the future with a time turner right?" Harry speculated.
"With the right modifications..."Snape said, studying the boy before him and obviously making connections. He laid out the food on the table, and poured two glasses of pumpkin juice. "If James and Lily had done that, then you've got three parents."
To his dismay, Harry began to feel himself fading from his father's chambers. He was waking up. Harry struggled against it. Dream, or no dream, he was enjoying the experience of spending time with a parent thoroughly, and was not ready to leave.
"NO!" Severus yelled, upsetting platters of mashed swede, turnips, boiled cabbage, roast parsnips, and peas onto the dungeon floor as he lunged across the table at Harry's receding form. "You said you'd not leave! "
Relentlessly, the scene brightened, and his father's pale face faded into the garish light. "Nooooo!" Harry mouthed as he soon found himself staring at the ceiling of the infirmary. He had never been less happy to have a dream end.
Hoping he had not made too much noise, Harry surveyed his surroundings. Yumi was busily polishing the handles on the cabinet doors, seemingly unaware that anything in the room had changed. Harry was glad for that, surely even a wheeze from him would have brought that dutiful elf to his side.
Harry then looked over at his father, and was relieved that he hadn't disturbed him. The man had a lot more healing to do, and needed his every moment of rest. Severus was still laying on his side, facing away from Harry, with his long black hair spilling over the pillow. His breathing was slow and even. Content with the situation, Harry closed his eyes and willed himself back to sleep, hoping for the opportunity to continue the dream, preferably from the moment it left off. There was so much Harry wanted to practice saying to the dream-Severus before he dared approach the real one.
What Harry didn't know, was that Severus had not been asleep at that moment at all. He had been roused from his slumber at precisely the same moment Harry was. What Harry also did not know, was that the man's black eyes were wide with shock, and that tears slowly tracked over the man's sallow nose, and fell onto the pillow his head rested upon.
End Part Ten
