Chapter 3: Lost at Sea

Parallel World

AU Snape

Snape woke with Lily's elbow in his ear. He sat up and rubbed the side of his face. Yellow cotton sheets tangled around Lily's knees, legs akimbo. Somehow, throughout the course of each night, his side of the bed became hers. Last night he'd lost so much ground that he'd woken, dangling over the edge of the mattress. He stood, and his mouth quirked as Lily mumbled in her sleep and flopped onto her stomach, claiming the entire bed. He'd once told Harry—

Everything lurched as it all came back. Harry, gone. He had been standing right there and he hadn't even noticed. All the defensive spells he'd insisted Harry practice, all the strategies he'd planned. A thick gravel rose in his throat, crushing him. He silently cast his spell, the one he'd developed years ago. The one he'd cast over and over the night before, when no one was watching. Pulsatio. The result was the same: vivit, spelled out in smoky letters. Alive. His son was alive, somewhere. He erased the word and wiped his hand over his mouth.

That boy in the next room. So much like their son. And yet not. He didn't know what he was going to tell her. A small voice in the back of his mind pointed out that it wouldn't matter what he told her, but he stamped it out. It always mattered what he said to her. Always.

When he stood before Harry's bedroom door, he hesitated. Wished his own son would spring from behind it, tell him the whole mess had been sorted. That was the problem with magic. Too easy to believe problems would evaporate with whisper and a wish.

With a tap of his wand, the heavy door opened. He took one step and froze. Books and papers lay strewn across the floor. The shards of a shattered lamp crunched under his boot. A wind-up monkey lay on its side, chattering in a staccato rhythm.

Harry sat near the door, his head drooping. He jerked awake and climbed unsteadily to his feet, glaring at Snape with bloodshot eyes.

"Sleep well?" Snape asked.

Harry's arms were stiff at his sides. "You used a silencing charm on my room."

"An effective one, apparently." Snape directed his wand at the snow globe. "Reparo. Accio." The snow globe floated into his hand. A replica of their house on Spinner's End, garnished in holiday lights. Exactly as it looked Christmas Day the year Harry turned eight. Harry had held onto it all Christmas morning, turning it and laughing with delight at each snowfall.

And this boy had smashed it on the floor. Snape took a deep breath, then another. "Just what did you hope to accomplish?"

"To stop you. What did you expect?"

"I expected you to behave as though you were a human being and not a rabid animal. Clearly I was mistaken."

"You were in there. With her."

Snape paused in the middle of another Reparo and forced himself to really look at the boy. The loss hit him like a splash of cold water. The shade of his hair, the curve of his chin were exactly the same. But there was something else, something indefinable behind the eyes. A light only he could see when he looked at Harry, and it was gone. He didn't know this boy.

"Wash up," he said, stepping away from the door. "We'll see Dumbledore immediately about this situation." Surely Dumbledore would agree that the boy should remain in Gryffindor tower for the duration of his stay.

Silent, Harry turned, his gait broken by a limp. He moved slowly, turning his favored side away from Snape.

So the boy had injured himself in his bout of destructiveness. The long walk to Dumbledore's office would be uncomfortable indeed. But perhaps a little pain would teach him...

Snape flashed to his father's face, and the rank stench of sweat and gin. A little pain'll teach tha somethin.

When Harry returned, lingering at Lily's closed bedroom door, Snape laid a hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the living room. "Sit."

"Why?"

Because I raight well told tha. He'd heard that well enough growing up. And he needn't say it to his Harry.

But this one. His one moment of inattention, and this imitator had dropped into his life. Like a fly falling into a potion, spoiling the brew. All his efforts disintegrating. Snape stared the boy down. "If this is all too much effort for you, I could use a Levitation Spell."

Harry scowled and limped to the sofa. Snape pulled a leather case from a nearby shelf and sat down next to him.

Harry edged away and eyed the case. "What is that?"

"First aid kit." Grooves carved into the wooden interior neatly held several jars and vials. He set the case on a small table and grasped Harry's ankle.

Harry jerked and twisted, like a bear in a trap. "What are you doing?" He kicked, narrowly missing Snape.

Snape kept a firm hold and pulled Harry's foot onto his lap. "A simple examination." The toes were swollen and bruised.

"I can go to Madam Pomfrey for that."

"That's hardly necessary. If you went to Madam Pomfrey for every injury…" But that was his Harry. His little monkey, climbing every surface and falling far more than his nerves could stand. Including from the Whomping Willow, which had required Madam Pomfrey.

He was never going to get through the day if he kept thinking like this. He focused on the task at hand. "It only requires a salve to bring the swelling down."

"Can't you use magic?"

"This is magic." He unscrewed the lid of a salve, applying it to the foot. "Not all potions are meant to be drunk."

Harry squirmed, clenching his hands. His knuckles were scabbed and swollen.

Snape released Harry's foot and pulled an inflamed hand towards him. "You got all this from throwing things?"

"No. I was…punching and kicking the walls."

The image of a trapped bear came back to him. He started on the other hand and attempted a faint smile. "The walls shall rue the day they met such a formidable opponent."

Harry grunted, and then sat up straighter, his eyes widening. "My foot feels better."

Snape returned the first aid kit to the shelf. Harry sat with his foot propped against the table, wiggling his toes. He looked so young. Even at thirteen, the lines of his body had the echo of rounded cheeks, tiny toes and fingers. That was how Harry had been when he'd first met him: tiny, round, and with lungs that could blow the roof off a house. He had been terrifying.

Lily stepped out of the bedroom, yawning and tugging at her rumpled Muggle shirt. She looked with surprise at Snape and Harry, and then smiled. Leaning on the sofa near Harry, she ruffled his hair.

Harry spun around, wrapping his arms around her and knocking her a step backwards. Lily's eyes widened but she gave him a tender squeeze.

Snape felt like he was the keeper of a terrible secret. That once he said the words, the illusion would shatter and the truth would ooze out, settle in, make itself at home. Our son is gone. He'd put off her questions last night. But he couldn't stall any longer. "Lily," he said quietly. "I need to talk to you about Harry."

He worked his way through it, keeping to what they knew. He had enough practice telling her the ugly truth, but it was always painful to watch. Her face falling, her hand rising to her head, blocking the attack.

"He isn't our son?" She stepped back, pulling away from Harry.

"It's not like that," Harry said. "I'm still Harry. Don't look at me like that, Mum, please."

Lily looked away from Harry and fixed her gaze on Snape, waiting for an answer.

But what was the answer? That there were millions of Harrys out there, and only one in that sea was the son they'd raised? He looked at the boy on the sofa. "He is Harry. Just not...our Harry. But there is a connection between him and our son." That was the thread of hope he held onto. There must be some pathway through the boy that would lead him to his son. "I'll do everything I can to bring him home."

Lily nodded, her fingers twisting into her collar, dragging lines across her throat.

Snape tried to think of anything else he could say. Of spells and other worlds, an endless maze of possibilities that somehow held a solution.

But before he could speak, Lily rushed to him, her hands gripping the nape of his neck. Her breath was hot against his ear as she whispered, "We'll find him."

Harry clung to the sofa, wide-eyed, gulping as though suffering from a great thirst.

The key to getting their son back. He held a hand towards Harry, but the boy jerked away and bolted from the sofa. Snape sighed and dropped his hand as the door to Harry's room slammed shut.