Title:Uncle by blood, family by choice.
Author:Jaylynn (Aim: Jaylynwolf)
Pairing: None currently but will probably change in the future since my muse keeps flipfloping between two.
Disclaimer: Buffy stuff belongs to Joss, Harry Potter stuff belongs to J.K. Rowling.
A.N. Just wanted to thank everyone who followed this story or reviewed. Just a reminder Buffy came a year early and everthing that happened in season 1 was set in Xander's freshman year now. As for when this is set, it's the beginning of his sophomore year right now.
Chapter 3
Severus Snape was not a kind person and he never claimed to be. He couldn't stand most people and disliked having to deal with the ignorant masses he had to teach the art of potions to. There were, however, exceptions and his nephew was one of them. He had always tried to take care of his younger squib sister and to protect her from their abusive father. At first he had been glad she had married and gotten away from their father but that was until he realised Harris was just like Tobias Snape. Severus never knew what Jessica saw in the man but no matter what he said she refused to leave the man. When his nephew had been born he had doubled his efforts to get her to leave and come move in with him, only stopping when he was threatened with never being allowed to see the boy again. So he bit his tongue, and timed his visits so he had the least amount of exposure to Harris as he could get. Being sent to Azkaban for murder wasn't on his list of things he wanted to do and spending time with that disgrace of a human being was a sure way to make it happen.
He knew his nephew hadn't believed him when he had given him the pendant, telling him how to activate the emergency portkey but he had hoped that if he was ever in a desperate enough situation he would have at least attempt it. Thank Merlin he did, because if he hadn't Severus doubted his nephew would have been long for the world otherwise. Not to mention he now owed the girl-Wesley for taking control like she had. You would think so many years as a spy would have made him a little quicker on the uptake. He blamed his less than stellar reactions on the fact that it wasn't some stranger or persons he barely cared about lying on the ground but in fact one of the few people he cared more about than himself. To see his nephew, the boy he thought of as a son, lying bloody and beaten on the ground had shocked him.
Taking a calming breath, Severus pushed open the door leading to the medical wing, the potions he knew were safe for muggles to consume clutched tightly in his fists. He stopped short when he saw several empty bottles of potions he new were poisonous if you were not magical laying on a tray table next to his nephew and Pomphrey force feeding him another. Rushing forward, Severus grabbed the bottle from her, preventing her from poisoning his nephew any more.
"Damn it Woman! What the hell are you thinking! He's not magical, that's why I said to wait until I went to get a few potions and not to give him anything until I got back! NOW YOU BLOODY WELL POISONED HIM!"
Poppy Pomphrey got a pinched look to her face and you could tell she was angry but then again so was the potions master so maybe it was only fair, "Severus Snape! Do you take me for a fool? I know very well what I can and can not give a muggle. Good thing this boy is as much of a muggle as you or any other pureblood around this school is. Now if you don't mind, I need to get back to my job to insure the poor boy will live." Poppy said as she snatched the potion back from Severus and went back to caring for her patient.
'He's not a squib? Why wasn't he going to one of the magical schools?' Severus' thoughts were swirling fast in his mind as he leaned against a wall to support himself. He had been very disappointed when Alexander hadn't received an invitation to one of the magical schools. It hadn't changed how much he cared for him but a little part of him always wished things could have been different. Having no children of his own, he had sort of put his hopes in his nephew to follow in his footsteps and become a potions master. It wasn't like the boy didn't know the steps and ingredients. Severus had made sure he did, writing books for his age that would teach him about potions but still keep his interest. Not to mention making them fit under the statue of secrecy and having them read as fictional children's books.
Severus snorted as he thought, Merlin help him but his nephew was not the studious type, but he never complained when he'd received a new book from him and was always so eager to show off what he had learned from the last one. It was times like that, when his nephew was so eager to get just a scrap of affection from an uncle he only saw a few times a year that made it hard for him to not grab him up and take him away with him. If it hadn't been for the dark mark on his arm and the threat of Voldimort returning, Severus had a feeling he would have done it any way consequences be damned.
Looking toward the bed with his nephew in it, he sighed in relief when he saw his nephew was stable. He still looked like he went a few rounds with an angry hippogriff but by the look on Poppy's face, he would live. Eyes narrowing on a particular hand shaped bruise on his nephews arm that had yet to fade even with the amount of Bruise-be-gone he had been given, Severus straitened up from where he had been leaning on the wall and nodded towards Poppy.
"If you are no longer in need of my services," he ignored the healers snort and continued on, "I think it's time to look into what exactly happened to my nephew"
Poppy noticed where Severus eyes had focused on and she was almost sorry for the person that would soon come to his attention. Looking down at the poor boy in her hospital bed that should be worried about classes and not surviving a beating, the 'almost' never turned into actually being sorry for them, since in her mind hurting a child was one of the worst things you could do.
Seeing the Potions master about to walk out, "Severus, if you ever do something like that again while I'm working on a patient, the next time you come though those doors for some treatment or care, you better be prepared for some of the most disgusting and painful preventive care I know, and believe me sir, I know a lot of things that will make you very healthy even if the treatment makes you think it's going to kill you first. Oh and Severus, do make sure my patient will have no additional relapses that will bring him back to me or worse. I don't like to have my work wasted."
Severus had been walking to the doors about to leave when Poppy had spoken, he had stilled at the threat, for being such a caring witch, he had no doubt she would go though with it. It also didn't surprise him she figured out what he would do to the person who had hurt his nephew so badly, nor the fact she was so protective of one of her patients that she wanted that threat removed. Nodding his understanding, Severus continued his departure, only stopping to grab a few things from his room and sending a letter to the Albus explaining where he was going and needing to cancel classes for the day before leaving the castle grounds and activating a portkey that would take him to just outside of Sunnydale, where he had a few things to look into and take care of.