Sirius sat in the ruins of his godson's nursery, going back and forth in the rocking chair he had persuaded Severus to buy. His heart was beating in tandem with the motion of the chair and he closed his eyes as he tried to get his breathing under control.
Another childish display, Padfoot? He could almost hear Prongs ask. He imagined the other man standing in front of him, straightening his glasses and running a hair through his untidy hair.
It wasn't the first time he'd made a wreck of a room, a few rooms at Grimmauld place were the focus of his more terrible tantrums, and every time he felt a little more dejected.
With a hopeless wave of his wand, he picked up the lamp on dressing table, set the pensieve right, patched a hole in the wall and fixed the broken cot in the corner.
He had once had such expectations. He had carefully picked out everything in the room that he thought the baby would need, taken whatever was salvageable from the wreck of the Potter home, and made the nursery a fit place to raise his godson. There was a Gryffindor banner on the wall the cot was up against, put there with the same permanent sticking charm he had used on his own posters in his room at Grimmauld place. At night, there was a spell on the ceiling that made the stars twinkle like the night sky. The cot was nearly filled to the brim with as much stuffed toys he and Severus could find, especially the one lion that they were able to save from Harry's other nursery.
He tried to offer this all to Dumbledore to give to Petunia and Vernon, but the Headmaster had said that perhaps the Dursley's would prefer to provide Harry with new things. Sirius snorted, yeah right. After all this is over and Harry was safe with Severus and him, he'd have a nice long chat with Mr. and Mrs. V. Dursely.
He imagined somewhere up there; Prongs and Lily were probably looking down at him with sad expressions and shaking their heads. Why in the world did they ever make someone like him Harry's godfather? Wherever they were, Heaven probably because that's what James and Lily deserved, they were either cursing his name or laughing at his attempt to be as normal as possible while he bided his time waiting for Harry.
"I'm sorry, mate," he said to the room hoping that James wherever he was Heaven, elsewhere, or standing around following him on the ethereal plane, he could hear him, "I promise that I won't screw up any longer, alright? I'll be there in any way I can and when it comes time for Harry to find out about me and-" he rolled his eyes for good measure knowing that Prongs would appreciate it, "-Severus that he'll have my total support and love and a lot that. Yeah? We good?"
He felt like an arse and a half for sitting there like that but it made him feel a little better. He was just going along wherever this all had taken him. And he would continue to do that, just go with the flow. Severus would, as he always had, call him a lackadaisical prat but he really only had a few temperaments. When he was Padfoot, he was likeable unless he or his pack was threatened and he was pretty much the same as Sirius as well, if not for a little obnoxious at times but that was something he'd never admit to good old Sev.
So he just sat rocking, waiting until Dumbledore sent notice that the ceremony and feast were over. He just had to keep himself feeling less depressed and try not to trash any more rooms.
"Oh and a first year will fall in the lake on the way in. Poor dear. I predict many accidents ahead," Sybill Trewalany said to no one in particular as she fixed her glasses and fidgeted in her seat as if she was a student herself and not a professor. Severus swallowed the urge to make a comment and carefully listened to Quirrell stutter his way through what he did over the summer. Something with a study on boggarts.
He wouldn't have been able to focus on his colleagues talk even if he had been interested. In less than ten minutes he would see his son for the first time. He would not have to rely on what Albus, Arabella or Black said about his wellbeing. He wondered if what he felt was not unlike what parents endured when their children had been away for some months, like when they attended Hogwarts. Of this he would never be certain because he was a professor at a school where his son went. In that aspect he was lucky. Once Harry knew about him and had become acquainted with the situation they would be the first parent and child pair that Hogwarts had seen in a few generations. It was definitely going to prove to be interesting, providing that they even got to that point if everything went well.
And everything would go well. He would do everything, as the Geminus heriditas oath said, in his power to see to it that Harry knew he had support and protection and even love. It just might take a while.
Before he could further ruminate with that train of thought the huge doors to the Great Hall opened and Professor McGonagall stepped forward, trailing behind her the first years and somewhere among them, Harry.
"I don't believe I see any wet students, Sybill," Charity said with raised eyebrows but nothing else was said as the first years were brought in to stand before the hat. Severus tried not to show it but he peered around, sorting through children with blond, black, blond and the few distinct red heads. He finally noticed a child standing closed to a red haired boy who seemed to be muttering something to him. It took a second but the boy looked up and Severus inhaled quickly.
Yes, that was definitely Harry. Untidy black hair, scar beneath the fringe, and Lily's deep green eyes. Of course, subtly he noticed a few things that any one not looking for might find. A hook to his small nose, a certain set to his jaw that Severus had seen in his own family. There was no doubting that there were the subtlest traces of Snape in Harry Potter and the idea added a smirk to his features.
"When I read your name you will come up to place the hat on your head to be sorted into your house. Abbot, Hannah," Minerva read and so started the sorting.
There had always been a sort of game for the professors who were around the few days before term had started. They would sit at dinner and amicably chat over the incoming students, betting who might get into what houses, who were toss-ups, and the like. Students like Ronald Weasley were bound to Gryffindor before they were even born but someone like Neville Longbottom was a toss up. Hufflepuff perhaps? Perhaps Gryffindor. "His parents were," Minerva had said at dinner the night before. He had noticed with some interest that Harry's name was not mentioned.
Everyone thinks my son will most definitely be in Gryffindor, he thought. And there was nothing wrong with it. He had, just earlier in the day, thought about how that would better suit them. No doubt it would drive Sirius up a wall to have his godson in Slytherin.
He golf clapped with the rest of the teachers and the Headmaster as they went down the list. Pansy Parkinson had just been called up so that meant.
"Harry Potter," McGonagall's voice rang out and if it were possible the whole hall went quiet all at the same moment. The silence, compared to the deafening roar of voices, was intimidating.
He raised his eyebrows and looked sidelong at the Headmaster, who sat forward a bit. Ah yes, the part we all have been waiting for.
He noticed the boy walk slowly up to the chair, not as stiffly as he had done all those years before, but as cockily as James nor as gentle as Lily. He seemed almost apprehensive and why should he be? It wasn't as if the hat would bite him nor would it declare him un-sortable. If anyone in the whole hall deserved to be there, it was his son. So why did he look, as he sat down on the stool, as if this was a dream he was afraid he'd wake up from if he wasn't careful.
The hall was still quiet except for maybe a cough or mutter but it seemed like everyone leaned in forward as the hat deliberated on top of Harry's head. It took time with people, he knew. Some students the hat didn't even get on their head before calling out their house.
He narrowed his eyes just as the house called out, "GRYFFINDOR!"
When Albus clapped him on the back he tried not to look relieved.
Harry was to busy listening to his new housemates talk around him to notice the slow build up of pressure in his head around his scar. It was not a new sensation, he had had headaches that started like that before but as he looked up in one direction at the staff table, the pain coalesced to a sharp sting.
Many feelings and thoughts ran through his mind at that second. He felt dread, anger, sadness, and anxiety. He swallowed in relief when it vanished. He found himself staring at the table at the front, his eyes roaming from Professor Dumbledore to Quirrel, who was turned away from the table. The man next to Quirrell, with eyes as dark as his robes, had on a quite unreadable expression; it wasn't really anger, Harry knew that all to well from years spent with Uncle Vernon, but it wasn't anything light either.
"Percy?" he asked the Gryffindor Prefect, who was helping himself to more Treacle tart. "Who's that next to Professor Quirrell?"
Percy looked up at the table and frowned, "Oh, that would be Professor Snape. He teaches Potions. Would rather teach defense against the dark arts, though."
He looked like someone who would teach Defense. Harry reckoned Potions weren't going to be a pleasant experience.
Harry and the rest of the school filed out of the Great hall later on, and to the common room the echoes of the Hogwarts school song behind them. He was just happy that for the first time, somewhere might feel like home.
Albus's office was dark save for a few candles that provided a very dim light. It was also quiet compared to the rumbling of energy focused on the outside. It was a welcome change. Severus had come directly to the Headmaster's office after the feast, knowing that Dumbledore would meet him soon after.
Fawkes was poised elegantly on his perch, blinking at different times and stretching his wings as if to disturb the quiet. Severus himself sat in his usual chair feeling more tired than he should have. He felt as if the past few days and the build up to Harry's sorting had been one long event that cost him more than sleep.
He remembered, when he was Harry's age, feeling so energized at night. There was a sense of excitement and nerves at being in a new place for the first time. He remembered getting little sleep the first night as he stayed up in the comfortable four poster bed in awe at this new experience. He was also thinking of Lily but that was something else all together.
"Hello. Can I walk through?" Sirius Black's head appeared in the floo.
"You do not need to walk through to have a conversation. The Headmaster and I can speak to you fine this way." Severus said, turning back around to face Dumbledore's desk.
"Yeah but where would the fun in that be?" Black answered and walked through anyway, dusting off his clothes when he stepped in and stood by the second chair in front of the large desk.
"So?" he asked after a moment, an expression on his face not unlike a child's face when excited about something.
"So what?"
"What house was he sorted into?"
Sirius' face was so eager and Severus felt his mouth rise in a sinister smile, "Ravenclaw."
The look of horror crossed over the man's face was quickly replaced by seriousness. "Oh, well, I always knew he was going to be intelligent." Sirius sniffed and shook his head, "I'm just shocked that's all. Quite unexpected."
This time Snape did smile, "You are as gullible as you look, aren't you Black?"
"So he was sorted into Gryffindor!" Sirius grinned and sat down in the chair.
"I will neither confirm nor deny until the Headmaster gets here." Severus said, looking straightforward and avoiding the other man.
"Prat." Sirius muttered.
Fawkes stirred and trilled moments before Albus walked in the door, "Evening, gentlemen."
Sirius raised his hand and Severus nodded sharply in greeting.
"Have you heard the good news Sirius? Congratulations are in order."
Sirius sat up in his chair and threw a look at the Severus, "He neglected to tell me."
"Ah," Dumbledore said, pulling out his favorite candies and popping a few in his mouth, "Harry has been sorted into Gryffindor."
"I knew it!" Sirius said proudly and Severus shook his head.
"Unless, of course you have any objections Severus?" Albus said, fixing him with a look over his half moon glasses, his blue eyes twinkling as they always did.
"What do you mean?" Severus looked quickly at Sirius who looked just as confused as he felt.
"Well, we haven't had a parent at the school in years but usually a professor who is also a parent has the right to contest the sorting if it does not match their own house. Harry could very well be an honorary Slytherin." Dumbledore told them to which Sirius made a choking noise and Severus only smirked.
"I believe his sorting was fine, Albus but thank you for the consideration." Severus said.
"How was he? Did he look happy? Did he meet anyone on the train?" Sirius fired off questions while fidgeting, as he always did the man could hardly stay still for a second.
"He looked happy, yes. I noticed that he was sitting with the youngest Weasley boy but anyone else he might have met on the train and befriended we will not know until classes start. As for that we should probably call it a night. Severus has his first first years to start tomorrow-"
"Harry?" Sirius interrupted the Headmaster.
"No, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs," Severus shuddered at the dreaded combination of first years.
"Very well then. We will meet next Friday evening? Around the same time, perhaps a little earlier?" Albus asked.
Severus nodded and Sirius stood up. "Good night everyone," Sirius said cheerfully and disappeared through the floo.
"Goodnight Professor," Dumbledore said with a smile as Severus also exited trying not to project to what a disaster tomorrow would probably be.
After a walk around the dungeons to confirm that there was no wandering curious first years or older students out after curfew Severus returned to his own quarters. He found that sleep even with a dreamless sleep potion would be unattainable and found a journal of a Potion's Master from the early 1800s to bide his time.
It wasn't able to hold his attention more than a few entries though and he kept staring off into space, finding himself imagining bright green eyes. First, Lily's and then Harry.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and tried to wonder how difficult he would make everything if he waltzed up to the Gryffindor tower and told Harry everything right then and now. What could Dumbledore really do? He knew this was the attitude that Sirius had and maintained. What was the worst that could happen?
He grimaced as his own mind supplied the answer to that question in horrifying detail from scores of memories. There were plenty of things that could happen. It was just best to let it play out.
The journal forgotten, he sat comfortably in the chair and let his mind wander. As rudimentary as that sounded and common it was something he tried to limit. Even though he was not called to meetings with the dark lord at random intervals he did feel the need to keep his thoughts guarded. The war had taught him to think only in focused tasks and stay on point. It was key to survival and after the Geminus heriditas was performed, it was important for his son and Lily as well.
A memory latched onto his thinking then and he smiled. "A crying day?" he heard himself ask as if he were viewing the memory in the penseive. He wondered if he brought it up to Sirius if the other man would remember. Probably. The ex-auror had an almost frightening ability to remember things, especially around that time. It was as if he was his own pensieve. Severus knew it had something to do with the guilt. It made Black more aware of everything so he could relieve every crucial detail and go over where he might have been able to change something.
The memory Severus was focused on now was just a normal ordinary day. It wasn't something he would have thought to but in the pensieve to show his son but he would if the boy ever wanted stories of when he was a baby. Well, in this Harry wasn't a baby. It was a few weeks before he was born actually.
Snape could remember a few weeks after D-day as James liked to call it, or when Sirius found out about the Geminus heriditas, Lily firecalled him at his house in Spinner's end requesting if he'd like to have lunch with her and the boys. The boys being Potter and Black, he assumed and even though the idea delighted him as much as sticking his hand in a jar of blast ended skrewts, he agreed anyway.
He came to the cottage and walked up the steps, noticing that Lily's lovely garden looked livelier than ever.
The door opened before he could knock and he stood looking at a frazzled, if it were more possible, looking James. His hair was up in even more positions than usual and his glasses were actually on straight being the man had probably being fixing them compulsively as he did when he was nervous.
"Beware," he said in a voice not just above a whisper. "It's a crying day."
His face, usual impassive around Potter to keep from betraying emotion, screwed up. "What?"
"A crying day," Sirius Black said behind him as if this was obvious. He looked imperceptivity more calm, his maroon colored sweater rolled up at the sleeves and his face in an expression that one has when trying very hard not to laugh. He tossed a golden snitch in the air and caught it and if not for the pact he had made between the four of them there was no denying that he might have hexed Black for being an cocky arse right than and there.
"What is a crying-" He stopped mid sentence as he saw Lily down in the kitchen at the stove. She paused and used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes.
"Go now, save yourself. This is only for better men and the brave at heart," Sirius whispered furiously and stepped closer to James to block the path inside.
Potter gave Sirius a look but before he could say anything to his best friend, Lily looked up from the stove.
"Too late," Sirius sighed and Severus pushed the door open and past Sirius.
"Sev?" Lily's voice carried from the kitchen. "You came?" her voice hitched on came and then she buried her face in her hands.
"Aw, Lil. It's okay, Sna- I mean, Severus just came for lunch. Don't cry," James said and moved away from Sirius and Snape into the kitchen to hold Lily.
"I know," Lily said, against James' shoulder.
"That's a crying day. I said hi to her and she dissolved into sobs. The woman is very hormonal. Best to just smile and nod, okay?" Sirius said and then followed his fellow Gryffindor into the other room.
He took a deep breath and followed as well.
The Lunch spread that decorated the table was nothing short of what the Hogwarts House elves could produce. Severus was impressed and watched as Lily pulled herself together, wiping her eyes with the sides of her thumbs and then waving her wand a few more times to move the plates around to make room for them to sit. She turned around and noticed Sirius, Severus and James hovering in the small kitchen and gestured, "Well?" she said. "I didn't make all this so you could stare at it!"
"Her moods tend to fluctuate," Sirius stage whispered to Severus as he moved around him to sit.
Lily, happy where everything was positioned, finally sat as well and they began eating.
A small strangling noise escaped Lily's mouth as she picked up a plate of assorted meats and cheeses. "Are you alright?" Severus asked going to grab for his wand for fear that she was choking.
When she looked up at him he could see that she was tearing up. "Cheese," she said miserably. "Cheese is making me cry right now. How horrible is that? I feel like I've been hit by a terrible curse. Everything and I mean everything is making me emotional." She gave Potter a fierce glare. "You did this to me, you know."
"Me?" James looked affronted and Sirius stifled a laugh.
"Yes," Lily choked and then looked down at her belly. "I'm sorry Harry, love, I didn't mean you. You can make Mummy cry, it's fine."
Sirius gave Severus a look then that clearly said, well mate; you missed your chance of escape.
A few minutes later they were treated to the reason as to why Harry might be better suited at playing football rather than quidditch. "Sorry, Sirius. It's just this boy has one hell of a kick."
Lily's face was alight with pleasure than and she pushed back from the table quickly and was up so fast that the other three men startled and got up just as quickly. "Do you want to feel him?" she asked suddenly, a huge grin on her face that spread all the way to her green eyes.
It took Severus a moment to realize that she was talking to him. "What?" he asked.
"Your son. Would you like to feel him kick?"
Severus swallowed hard at the use of your son. Especially from Lily's mouth and especially in front of Sirius and James.
"I'm sure James and Sirius would like to-"
"Sev, really, they've felt it so many times they're probably bored." She moved around the table and smiled encouragingly at him. "Go ahead."
He slowly, as if he was afraid she might break if he touched her, moved his hand to her belly. The moment he laid it there he felt a quick thwap.
He looked up at her quickly and she giggled, as if they were in the park at Spinner's End and she had done some bit of accidental magic.
He closed his eyes for a moment, briefly, aware that he did not deserve this.
Lily, though, as she always did, knew just what he was thinking and what to say. "He needs us. He deserves it and so do you."
Even eleven years later, miles away in his Dungeon Hogwarts Quarters he could hear her voice and see her content face. A face that was there, if not partly, on his son. Their son. He just didn't know how to go about meeting him.
He woke up a few hours later realizing that he'd fallen asleep in his chair. He got up slowly and stretched before returning to his own bed, knowing that facing classes tomorrow would be even more loathsome and exhausting if he did not try to get at least two or three hours of good rest.
"Should I even ask what you are doing?"
Sirius had a quill in his mouth, his hands were spread on two corners of a massive piece of parchment and his head was bowed down studying it with an intensity he might have looked at Quidditch statistics as a teenager. He stood up though, when he heard Remus' voice and let the parchment curl up and took the quill out of his mouth.
"I'm plotting." He said seriously and moved around the table, scratching his hand and scowling as he tried to focus on the task at hand.
"Plotting. Plotting what?" Remus sounded amused and a tad bit concerned, like he would when he came in the common room to find he and James talking rapidly about a new prank in the making.
"I've decided I'm not waiting for everything to just happen. I'm going to find Peter and I'm going to get to know my godson, raise him before I'm as old as Dumbledore."
Remus let out a sigh. "And how do you plan on doing that?'
"I'm making a map." He said and traded the quill with the wand that was stashed in his back pocket.
"A map?" Remus sounded incredulous and Sirius took a turn to look at his face, which was a mixture of disbelief and confusion.
"Yes. A map. Une carte. And I plan on mapping specific people not places. I'll choose Harry, Severus, Dumbledore, you, me. " Sirius narrowed his eyes. "The map isn't really a map at all. It's more of a compass, I suppose. It will tell us where someone is relative to us." He gestured to the map. "If I was looking for you, an arrow would point toward the north because relative to me that's where you are."
Remus folded his arms. "Why don't you just use a point me spell?"
"Because maps are better? And because I was planning on sort of copying our own Marauders Map on this map. And perhaps then expanding to Diagon Alley and the like. With the added bonus of the people mapping feature."
"Well what if Peter is up North or somewhere we didn't map?"
"It's still here to keep an eye on Harry." Sirius muttered, smoothing out the corners again.
"Is that what this is all about?" Remus asked softly, moving closer into the room and taking a seat at one of the chairs Sirius had discarded.
"What's all about?"
"Severus and Dumbledore get to see Harry and actually speak to him. You don't. You want to feel like you're having some control in helping him."
Sirius shrugged. "Well, yeah."
"Don't you think this might be tedious? Harry's well protected Sirius. And you'll only get more paranoid. As for Peter, there's a mate I know who is gathering information about animagi trying to catch refuge. We can go talk to him once he contacts me."
Sirius let out a huge sigh and nodded, flicking his wand and folding up the parchment. "I'm not completely abandoning the idea though."
Sirius brought out the firewhisky and poured two shots for the both of them. "To Harry being in Gryffindor," they toasted happily. "May I continue to say I told you so to Snape many times in the future."
Remus snorted but downed the shot also. It might have been the burn of the whisky down his throat but he knew that once Remus left he'd start trying to figure out some way to at least see his godson. Maybe if he suggested going on around full moons in the shrieking shack or in the Dark Forest? He let the train of thought hang and pushed it away, knowing there had to be some way and he wouldn't be a Marauder if he didn't try to work it out.