DISCLAIMERS: I don't own anthing other than the plot. J.K. owns the characters and I just borrowed them to play with.

A/n: Re-posted 08/17/2013

italics = Thoughts

Chapter 3 – Information... What to do With It?

Weeks passed and Severus didn't act on the new facts he had. He, and he alone had those facts right, and he didn't know what to do with them. So instead, the potion master spent those days observing. Observing his son. Observing Po... Harry. Observing his son, Harry.

During those weeks, Severus found a lot of things about the boy. Much more then he knew before, even if Snape had been observing the boy since the boy's first day at Hogwarts. This time, tough, Snape wasn't searching for anything specific. If before, every time he looked at the boy he was searching for bits and pieces of James Potter, now he was just looking, observing Harry and trying to let everything he thought he knew about the child behind.

What he found out wasn't what he had expected. Truly. Harry Potter was far from what Severus Snape thought him to be. And, unfortunately, it took an illness for Severus to be able to look and see more than what he wanted to see. Who am I trying to fool… thought the professor while he went over what he had observed that day I had to find out that Harry is my son to see more then James Potter's face, that he doen't even have!

And it was true. The only thing Harry had actually inherited from James Potter was the wild hair in his head and the need for glasses. His face was a mixture of Lily and Severus. The nose was obviously Lily's, but the shin was like Severus'. And his attitude... his stubbornness didn't even come close to Snape's own.

Searching more closely, Severus found out that, differently than what he had expected, Harry wasn't a trouble maker like James or even the Weasley twins. He acted like he was more comfortable in the shadows, letting only Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger get close to him.

When he isn't up in the air on a broom. Remembered Severus, he still couldn't take out of his mind the spectacular victory – even if it hurt to say it – over Slytherin, the one that granted Griffindor the quidditch cup. But then again... he really is good at that game, and deserves the attention he gets. Attention he doesn't want... his mind went back to the other things he had observed in the boy. He seemed to hate his fame, something Severus had always accused him of loving. How could he be so blind to think that the boy loved his fame when he clearly was embarassed every time someone talked to him because of his boy-who-lived status.

The more Severus looked, the more he realized that he didn't knew Harry. And the more he started to see the true Harry, more proud he became that Harry Potter was his son, even if he didn't have a great part in the upbringing of the boy. But that is going to change. He told himself I don't care if Harry likes to live with his relatives. He has a father to take care of him, and that is exactly what I'm going to do for now on. Take care of MY son.

The Dursleys were one of the things he needed to take in account. During his observations, Severus never saw any communication between Harry and his relatives, so he didn't know what to think about them. Harry never talked about them, either, which he found strange, but couldn't do anything about.

The year was coming to an end, the exams arrived, and Severus hadn't told anyone about his discovery. He just watched Harry and his habits. That is how he found out about Hagrid's hippogriff condemnation, and he knew that Harry would want to console his friend. At first, he thought about doing something about it, but in the end he just let Harry go.

But, when he went to take the werewolf's potion and found that the mutt wasn't where he was supposed to be, and even worse, that he had gone after Harry into that damned tunnel, Severus saw red. The only thing in his mind was to go and take Harry to somewhere safe, and far, far away from the werewolf. That's how he ended up going to the whopping willow, and on the trip there, found the invisibility cloak he knew belonged to Harry. He decided that it would help him investigate what had made his son go in that tunnel to begin with.

Finding Sirius Black at the end of the tunnel made him fear for Harry's life. Hearing the werewolf and the mutt tell that dramatic story about the past almost made him sick. And when they came to the fact that he, Severus, was at Hogwarts, he couldn't stand still anymore, and the hate and anger, fear and anguish consumed him.

"So that's why Snape doesn't like you," said Harry slowly, "because he thought you were in on the joke?"

"That's right," sneered with a cold voice from the wall behind Lupin.

Severus Snape was pulling off the Invisibility Cloak, his wand pointing directly at Lupin.

From then on, everything went from bad to worse. Severus never imagined that three of his students, two that seemed to fear him to death and the other who seemed to love all kinds of authority, would attack him, especially when they were in the presence of a werewolf and a fugitive. Harry's words hurt. And he did the only thing he knew in a dangerous situation like that, he was sarcastic and cruel. The result: he was hit by three expeliarmus spells, was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall, knocked out.

When he came back to himself, a group of dementors were going back to the gates, and he could see three bodies by the lake. The moon reflecting in glasses, told him that Harry was one of them. He went there, afraid of what he would find.

"No, please, be all right, be alive, whole!" he asked in a desperate voice.

He signed when he could feel Harry's pulse and breathing, even weak as it was. Then, he turned to the girl, and seeing that she, too, was alive, he chained Black, and charmed them to fluctuate behind him. He found the Weasley boy, also knocked out, and made him float with the others. The explanations would come later, he wanted to be there when Black received the kiss. No one put his son's life in danger and came out unscathed.

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