March 1996

"Severus?"

There was a knock on his Potion's classroom office door that drew his attention up a split second before he heard her call his name. The look on Minerva's face was not one of amusement or relief; instead he could instantly tell she was nervous about the topic she needed to discuss with him at almost half past eleven on a Friday night.

"Is everything alright, Minerva?" He asked, already thinking through what could possibly be wrong. It could be one of his Slytherins, though she would likely take more enjoyment in lecturing him over whatever it was that they had done. This left Harry as the only other option, and if it fell from her to him - requiring a parent's involvement - it had to be something serious. "Please take a seat."

She sat down confidently, though a little nervously, in the chair across from him. Even with no windows in his dungeon office, somehow it always seemed darker and drearier at night. The fact that it was winter - Ron's sixteenth birthday to be exact - made the air feel colder than usual, which didn't help the atmosphere. Now if only he could ascertain what it was that his fifteen year old son had done, he might feel a little better.

"It's Harry," Minerva said, sympathetically. "There's no good way to say this, so I'm just going to get straight to the point on it-"

"I wish you would," he interrupted her, hoping to move this forward at a faster pace so he could find out exactly how much trouble his son was in.

"He was found outside of the dorms after curfew," she paused and he knew there had to be more; being out after curfew was something his Head of House could handle. "He was in an empty classroom, with Miss Chang. They were-"

He held his hand up to stop her, "How bad?"

"It appeared innocent," his colleague pointedly said, "but I don't know where things would have ended up had it not been interrupted."

Living at a boarding school during a time when teenagers were doing their most hormonal growing, both professors - especially being a Head of House - had unfortunately needed to have plenty of these conversations with their students throughout the years. Typically it would involve a letter home to each students' parents and, depending on how "innocent" or not it was, a visit with Madam Pomfrey. So far, Severus had not had to get involved to the level which required the medi-witch with his own students, but he had a suspicion it was more because his Slytherins were too cunning to get caught than the fact that they weren't engaging in that activity. He had a feeling Minerva had not been so lucky throughout the years with her more daring lions; case in point, Harry.

Thinking further of the situation, he had not been aware of Harry and the sixth year Ravenclaw restarting their relationship since they'd broken up - if one could even say that for the small amount of time they dated post Yule Ball - almost a year ago, and then Miss Chang started dating Cedric Diggory right after he'd won the Triwizard Tournament. Apparently, something had to have happened recently for the Gryffindor to end up in this position and he wasn't sure if he really wanted to know at this point. They'd had the "Wands and the Cauldrons" talk back when Harry was thirteen. It was as awkward as one would imagine and he did not look forward to some variation of the conversation now that things seemed a bit more relevant to the teen.

"Where is he?" The Potion's Master asked.

"I walked him down to your quarters," she explained, "I assumed you'd be down there given the hour, but when it was empty I told him to stay there while I came to find you."

"Thank you, Minerva," he collected the papers he was marking and stood. "Is there anything else you need from him? There's a high probability that he'll be grounded through the weekend."

"No, Severus. Gryffindor had Quidditch practice yesterday," she mirrored his stance and gave him a small smile. "Go easy on him though."

He gave an exhausted hmph and left his office to go and find out what was going on with his son.

The walk to his quarters was a short distance from the Potion's office, but he'd gone slowly to help give him time to collect his thoughts. How was he going to approach this?

Upon entering, the lanterns in the sitting room were dimmed, suggesting that Harry had already gone to his bedroom. He gave a half a knock and then opened the door, figuring an infraction like this did not yield the need to respect the young wizard's privacy.

As expected, Harry was already dressed in a pair of his red pyjamas - making the correct assumption he'd be sleeping there that night - to which Severus noticed they were now about an inch too short. They'd need replacing and he made a mental note to ask the Gryffindor if any of his other non-school clothing was getting too small.

"Hi," Harry said and his face immediately turned bright red. "I'm guessing Professor McGonagall found you? And told you everything?"

"Yes," he confirmed, taking a seat on the edge of the bed, "however she did not 'tell me everything'. I was hoping you could fill in the important blanks."

He waited for Harry to start talking, knowing from his previous spying days that if he could be patient the other person usually started talking as they tried to fill in the awkward silence. He was rewarded almost instantly.

"It wasn't how it looked!" His son immediately started with.

"Then do please explain to me how it should have looked when your Head of House finds you in an empty classroom with a female student?"

"Well, when you put it like that," the Gryffindor flushed some more. "We were all celebrating Ron's birthday and Seamus suggested we play Spin the Bottle, did you know that's a game in the wizarding world too?"

Not validating that with a response, he simply stared at his son letting the uncomfortable silence fall over them again.

"And..." Harry continued, "at the end, Cho and I ended up… did you know her and Cedric broke up over the holiday?"

Again, Severus said nothing. This was not appearing any better than when he thought maybe he had missed the fact that Harry and Cho had gotten back into a relationship. Instead it appeared they were playing a teen aged game, which was so much worse.

"So..." The Gryffindor nervously ran his hands over the top of his green bedspread, "after the party I was walking her back to the Ravenclaw dorms and well, we ended up in a classroom and…"

Harry trailed off and at this point, Severus knew the young wizard's embarrassment wouldn't allow him to continue.

"Harry," he said calmly, much more calmly than he felt inside. Inside he was a stormy mess. "Above all else, I need you to be honest with me, had Professor McGonagall not found you, would things have gone much further than they had?"

Harry looked down at his hands with his fingers twisting around one another. He didn't lift his head when he mumbled "I don't think so, but I'm not really sure."

It was far more honest of an answer then he would expect from a fifteen year old; a fifteen year old far too young to be engaging in those types of activities. But he held his tongue against his rising disappointment and chose to focus on Harry's honesty and what that meant for them - that Harry trusted Severus enough to talk about things like this hopefully before anything got too far the next time.

It was well after midnight and so he told Harry to go to sleep and that they'd discuss it in the morning. It was then that Severus had the very real conversation - one he'd never had with his own father and therefore had no idea if he'd done it correctly - about love and what it meant to be with a woman in "that way" and how Harry should wait until he was much older to make those kinds of decisions. That someday he would find a woman who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with and if he waited until that time, it would be special. And then, because Severus was a realist and preferred to cover all the bases just in case, he went through all the ways Harry could stay safe - both the muggle and wizarding methods - much to the young wizard's complete embarrassment with the hope that his son wouldn't need to use them for a very long time.