Lost and Found

Chapter 1: Needing Help

Harry stood outside the door to Professor Snape's office, internally debating for what felt like the millionth time whether this was the right thing to do or not.

No. He needed to do it.

He needed out of the Dursleys.

He couldn't go back.

Not anymore.

Not with…

His hand rested on the small bump of his stomach.

He needed to do this. Snape was the only one who could and would help him, according to those students he heard talking last year, and everything he had managed to figure out about the Professor.

He sighed deeply, trying to drag up some Gryffindor courage, and some Slytherin cunning. He needed to do this. And he needed to do it well.

He knocked on the door.

"Enter," Professor Snape said, his voice silky and rough.

Harry hesitated for a second before opening the door and closing it gently behind him.

The professor was at his desk, marking some essays. The older man looked up at him briefly and Harry saw a brief flicker of shock alight his face before he set down his quill and pulled forward the blank mask he usually wore. The one Harry thought he had been able to see through a number of times now that he had spent a year trying to figure the man out.

"How can I help you, Mr Potter?" Snape said calmly.

"I…" he trailed off, not sure how to say what needed to be said. He'd had somewhat of a plan, but now that he was here his mind was blank.

"Well? If you're not going to say anything, then I have work to get back to,"

"No, I… I need help,"

"What do you need help with? And why have you come to me?"

"Well, I have tried speaking to Headmaster Dumbledore about it and he does nothing. And Professor McGonagall, too. And I heard a conversation between some students last year about how you would help a student in need, if they…"

"If they what?" Snape said, raising an eyebrow.

"If they had a bad home life,"

Snape stared at him, "Professor Dumbledore has told me all about how loved and spoiled you are by your grandparents, Mr Potter,"

Harry looked at him in genuine confusion, "I don't… I don't live with my grandparents sir, on either side of the family. As far as I am aware they are all dead,"

Snape looked at him in shock again, but didn't hide it like he usually would.

"I live with my aunt Petunia, uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley. They hate magic-"

"What? You live with Petunia?" Snape snapped, clearly angry, though he didn't feel that Snape was angry with him.

"Yes, sir. Do you know her?"

"Yes, I do. How long have you been living there?"

"Since the night my parents died, sir. The Headmaster, Hagrid, and Professor McGonagall left me on their doorstep in the middle of the night with nothing but a thin blanket and a letter saying what happened and that they have to raise me now," Harry grumbled.

"They left you on the doorstep? All night? That late in the year?" Snape growled.

Harry nodded.

Snape sighed and took some calming breaths before gesturing to the chair opposite his desk. Harry sat in it gratefully.

"Right, so you live with Petunia and her husband. What do you need help with? I can't imagine they were pleasant, but how have you been treated?" Snape asked, clearly trying to remain calm.

"Erm, well they hate me. They hate magic. I, erm… do you need to know everything?"

"If you need my help, then yes. The more you tell me the more I can do to help you. I understand that talks like this can be difficult, but know that no one can hear us, or enter this room now," Snape waved his wand and Harry felt a protective barrier of magic settle around the room, "Take your time,"

"I can't go back. Not ever. Not now. They'll kill me. I can't," Harry was shaking.

He couldn't go back.

"Okay, and I will help you to not go back. But you need to tell me what is happening or I won't be able to help you," Snape said gently.

"I… They made me sleep in the cupboard under the stairs until my Hogwarts letter came. Then I was given my cousin's second bedroom. It was a four bedroom house. I did all the chores as soon as my aunt was able to teach me them. I was essentially a house elf. They call me a freak, and other things, and I didn't know my name until a week before I started primary school. Uncle Vernon would… he would whip me with his belt, and punch, and kick, and throw me into things. My aunt would burn me whenever I would accidentally burn the food. I never got any of the food I made, unless they were feeling generous. Even then though it was just the scraps, the bare minimum," Harry breathed shakily.

Snape nodded in understanding, "Is there anything else?"

"My… my cousin would be encouraged to beat me up, all the time. With his friends, too," Harry said, he was quiet.

Now it was really just the big thing, the major thing.

The thing he was terrified of.

"Okay, I am going to need to collect evidence from you, if that is okay, the more we have, the better,"

"I… How?"

"Memories, for one. The more memories of these things that you are able and willing to give me, the better. And if you have any scars, pictures of those will be good. Is there anything else?" he saw that the Professor knew he was struggling to say something.

"I… I'm p-pregnant,"

The professor looked at him in shock, and confusion.

Harry performed the spell he had cast multiple times since coming back to school, to prove to himself that it was real, and watched as the professor blanched at the words that hovered in front of his stomach;

Baby Potter

12 weeks in gestation

Due 25th March 1995

Mother: Harry James Potter

Father: Vernon Dursley

…

Severus stared at those words in shock, and horror, and confusion, and pain. It wasn't possible. It just wasn't.

Harry Potter couldn't be a bearer.

There was no physical way for it to occur.

The only way to be a male bearer, is for you to be born from one. Not that all males born to a male bearer were bearers themselves, some were just regular wizards, but the only way for it to be possible to be one is if you are born to one. And everyone knew that Lily Potter was a woman, the woman who birthed him.

There was a niggling thought in the back of his mind that he tried desperately to push away, but he couldn't. Pain spread through him as he remembered, again, the son he had birthed on the same day that Harry entered the world. The son who died a few hours after his birth despite being perfectly healthy when he was born. The thought had always niggled at him, because how could his baby die when he was healthy a few hours previous?

He had blamed himself, of course. For the past fourteen years he had blamed himself.

Merlin, it hurt.

But now, here Harry Potter was, the child of his childhood best friend, showing him that he was pregnant with a child created from rape, and there was no way for it to be possible. No way that Severus could conceive of, or wanted to.

Because the only way for it to be possible is for Harry Potter to have been born from a male bearer, and not Lily.

And he didn't want to think of the implications of that statement.

He didn't want to tell Harry that because his whole world was turning upside down at the age of fourteen already, without finding out that his parents might not be his parents. And, therefore, that he had been abused for nothing really, because the blood wards would be useless if he wasn't actually related to Petunia.

But why?

How?

How was this possible?

"Sir, are you okay?" the boy said nervously, looking terrified that Severus didn't believe him, "Do you believe me?"

"I believe you," Severus muttered, it was hard not to with those words still staring him in the face like they were meant to be there.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, "Then, are you okay? You look paler than usual,"

"Harry, how did you find out about male pregnancy?" Severus asked, he needed to know.

"I…" Harry looked for all the world like he was going to cry, "I lost a baby,"

Those words twisted the knife deeper into Severus' heart, "When?"

"T-two years ago. Over Christmas holidays. According to the book I was twenty one weeks, I think, but I didn't know until… I was in the shower and it hurt, and there was so much blood, and no one was there," the boy started crying and he didn't blame him.

He was twelve for Merlin's sake, and he had a miscarriage, a late one, too. On his own.

"I've been reading the book, but keeping it secret ever since, because I… I didn't know if it was normal,"

Severus closed his eyes and took a deep shaky breath, he was really losing his restraint on his emotions.

Why?

Why?

Why?

"It's not normal is it?" Harry asked and it broke Severus' heart.

"Harry, I…" he didn't know what to say.

What was he supposed to say?

He didn't want to hurt the boy more than he already was.

"Harry, it's normal. Some wizards have the ability to carry and birth children. They are called male bearers. Did your book not mention that?"

"No, it is just a pregnancy book. It was the only one I could find, I needed to know because,"

Because he had just given birth to a dead baby. At the age of twelve. On his own.

"Why? Why are you..? What are you not telling me, sir? You can tell me,"

Severus should tell him. But he rather thought the boy had been through enough already, without having to find out that there was no way he could be a male bearer if his parents were who the whole country thought they were.

"Harry, I'm a male bearer, okay, so I… I know… Only male bearers really know everything about male bearers. There aren't really any books about it, though the books on pregnancy are okay because a male and a female's pregnancy is pretty much the same, as is the birth, there are just a few differences. But…" he took a shaky breath, "Harry, I'm so sorry, but the only way to be a male bearer, is to be born from one," he said quietly, but Harry heard him if the hitch in his shaky breaths were anything to go by.

"But…" Harry trailed off, looking at the Professor painfully, in a way that twisted the knife even more.

"I'm sorry, Harry," the Professor said, again.

"No… You don't need to apologise. But if… my mum isn't my mum?"

"I… I can test you. I can make a basic inheritance test potion which will tell you everything you need to know,"

Harry nodded desperately, "Okay. How long will it take?"

"Two hours,"

"Can I… Can I wait here? Or in your lab?" Harry asked painfully.

"Of course, come with me,"

Severus stood and led the shaking boy into his private lab. He sat the boy on the armchair in the corner and pulled a blanket over the back of it to lay it on him.

"Do you need anything?" Severus asked, his voice gently as he tried to get his own emotions under control.

It was rather hard to do that, though, when his mind kept supplying images of his baby boy.

His precious baby boy.

"Erm, can I have a hot chocolate please?" the boy said nervously.

Severus nodded and called a house elf to make the boy one as he went to the large table in the centre of the room and started on the potion that would change the boy's life even more.

…

Harry watched the Professor make the potion, holding the warm mug in his hands, with sad eyes. He knew there was more burdening the man, he could see and feel the pain the man was in. It was pulsing through the room in waves of sadness.

He had to admit to himself that he was shocked how the whole meeting went. He knew the man was actually one of the few that actually cared about the students. But the fact that he believed him straight away, that he listened, despite everything… Harry wasn't expecting that. He was almost expecting to have to fight for it. But then, the man was a bearer. Like Harry. Maybe that had something to do with it.

Harry didn't know, and he would ask, eventually.

When he knew everything. When he knew…

It hurts that Lily Potter might not be his mother. That he had been lied to his entire life. Did his mother not want him? What happened? Why?

Why did his life have to be one big screw up?

What did he do to deserve the pain?

Why was he put with the Dursleys if he wasn't related to them?

Did anyone know he wasn't a Potter?

If he wasn't a Potter.

It was a long two hours of his mind replaying… everything.

The conversation.

The abuse.

His baby.

Everything.

But also just him watching the man brew the potion, his movements both delicate and precise, even though Harry could tell he was still in pain.

When he had finished his hot chocolate he set the mug down on the small table next to the armchair and pulled his legs to his chest, holding them close under the blanket the Professor had placed so gently on him.

And then the man stopped, and stared at the potion for a few minutes before taking a shaky breath and turning to Harry.

"It is done, I just need to add a few drops of your blood if that is okay?" the man said gently.

Harry stood and walked over to the man, he held out his hand, needing desperately to know the truth.

The Professor took his hand gently in his and Harry could feel it trembling slightly, though he didn't know why. He used a small knife to gently press into Harry's index finger and moved his hand over the potion, letting three drops fall in before moving his hand back and healing it with a simple spell.

He then took a big-ish glass pipette looking thing and drew enough potion into it to fill it. He then let the potion flow onto the piece of parchment which sat next to the cauldron.

The two of them watched with bated breaths as the potion seeped into the parchment and words started to perform.

Words which caused a choked sob filled with pain to escape his Professor as Harry stared at the words in shock.

Harry James Potter

D.O.B: 31st July 1980 at 20:39

Mother: Severus Tobias Snape

Father: Regulus Arcturus Black

Adopted by Lily and James Potter (Illegal)

Hiya, how are you all?

So, yes, another new story but I really can't help myself. I have too many ideas and not enough room for them in my mind, haha. But I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I am hoping it is different enough from the original amazing story that people will enjoy it. This idea has been floating around in me for a while and I thought it was about time to release it. I love a story where Severus is Harry's actual parent, and all this added drama regarding the situation just... well, yeah.

I have a Facebook group called Maraudering_Paige which you are all welcome to join if you want to and are able to. It is where we can talk about Harry Potter, fanfics, life, share memes, and more. It is also where I have an update schedule and will be keeping you all up to date on what I am working on, both fanfics and original works. If you would like to join then I am more than happy to accept you all into it.

I hope you are all having an amazing day!

Kind regards,

Paige xx