Chapter 1: Alone

True misery was this: loneliness. Remaining completely and utterly isolated in a sea of strangers, knowing that you could never dare approach any one of them to appeal for help and instead being forced to suffer with the knowledge that the only way to extricate yourself from your current predicament was to wait, survive and hope for rescue.

Harry shifted uncomfortably against the cold metal bench on Platform 9b at King’s Cross Station and carefully used his feet to nudge his battered trunk closer towards his knees. He had been waiting for some time now; perhaps four or five interminable, uninterrupted hours of boredom that slowly transfigured into concern and from there to panic.

Uncle Vernon had been late before, certainly, but he had never completely failed to show up at all. Harry’s brow furrowed as he wondered if perhaps the Dursleys might have been involved in some terrible accident. Images of the family station wagon, twisted into a wreckage by the side of a busy motorway, assaulted his imagination.

There might be no love lost between Harry and his resentful guardians, but still he wished them no ill. Not that kind of bad luck, in any case.
Shaking his head to rid his mind of this latest foray into catastrophic thinking (this had been happening with increasing regularity since the terrible moment at the Ministry when he had watched Sirius slip through The Veil), Harry turned his dark thoughts instead to his memory of the conversation between himself, Ron and Hermione as they bade each other farewell outside the entryway to Platform 9 ¾ .

“Remember, Harry, it’s just three weeks – Christmas break will be over before you know it and you will be back on the Hogwarts Express in no time, alright?” Hermione had been desperately trying to reassure herself as much as Harry since they had departed Hogwarts that he would not suffer too much at the hands of the Dursley family during this unexpected trip home for Christmas.

“I just don’t get why Dumbledore wouldn’t let you stay at school,” Ron frowned as he shoved a half-empty box of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans into Harry’s jacket pocket and fell into step beside his two friends. “It’s never been an issue any other Christmas, even when there was a ruddy great Basilisk roaming the pipes in the walls!”

“Ron,” Hermione sighed distractedly. She stopped suddenly, pulling the boys to a halt alongside her and leaned forward until her forehead was almost touching Harry’s tousled dark head and Ron’s ginger hair. She spoke in a low voice. “You know as well as I do that with Umbridge and the Ministry on the warpath, Hogwarts is not really safe for Harry when school is not in session. Obviously, Dumbledore thinks it too much of a risk to leave him there with so few staff and students roaming about the place. Umbridge and Fudge are looking for any excuse to remove Harry from the Headmaster’s influence. The holiday season would be the perfect opportunity to do that with as little fuss and interference as possible.”

Harry shrugged in frustration and stepped slightly away from the extreme proximity of his friends. “Yeah, Professor Dumbledore said as much to me,” he paused and gave a lopsided grin that was not reflected in the flat expression in his green eyes. “It doesn’t matter anyway. As you said, Hermione, it’s only three weeks, not an entire summer. It’ll pass by in no time.”

The truth, as Harry saw it, was that three weeks could feel like a very long time indeed when one spent that time locked in isolation in a cold bedroom with limited food and absolutely nothing to distract from the desolate truth that one is utterly unwelcome in the family home. This was especially true at Christmas.

He had begged Dumbledore to allow him to remain at Hogwarts over the break. When the elderly wizard had smiled sadly and then gazed slightly over Harry’s left shoulder as he resolutely refused his appeal for reasons of safety in numbers, or lack thereof, Harry had shifted his pleas to request a stay at The Burrow. It was a last resort option – after the tragic events at the Ministry and the danger that Harry had inadvertently brought upon his closest friends, he was very reluctant to involve the Weasley family in any situation that may endanger them. Housing Harry and allowing him to spend Christmas with their large family remained firmly, in his mind, under the heading of ‘Extremely Dangerous Things that No-one Should Face Simply Because a Homicidal Maniac Wants to Locate and Kill Harry Potter and Anyone Who Might Possibly Get in the Way’.

Harry thought it selfish, really, to have even asked such a thing. In any case, the headmaster had remained firm. Whilst continuing to avoid any direct eye contact with his student, Dumbledore issued a clear command: for the entire duration of the holidays, Harry would remain at 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging.

***

Albus Dumbledore was a careful man. He prided himself on his keen sense of logic and knew that he was able to stay many steps ahead of others in most situations. Dumbledore knew that Cornelius Fudge, the current Minister for Magic, was not a careful man. In contrast to the Headmaster’s considered strategising as he viewed a possible problem from all angles, Fudge was far more likely to blunder his way through, making bumbling decisions that merely served to delay a problem rather than truly solve it.

Dumbledore liked to make meticulous plans. He liked to be ready for all possible eventualities. He did not like unexpected surprises. It was for this reason that the very same day that the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry arranged to depart the school for their holidays, the elderly wizard was making some rather secret arrangements of his own. He had sought and attained some new private accommodations. He did not anticipate that he would need to make use of such a potential bolthole over the yuletide season; however, at some point during the year, he was certain that circumstances would conspire to see him temporarily displaced as the headmaster of the school. Dumbledore intended to ensure that he was ready for this event.

Having completed making his arrangements for his carefully warded new home within 24 hours of departing the Headmaster’s office via Apparition (being Albus Dumbledore did allow him the rather convenient privilege of being the only person who could Apparate from within the castle wards), he was quite happy to arrive back in the Headmaster’s Quarters and settle in front of the fire with a lovely cup of lemon verbena tea and a slice of honey-sweet baklava.

As he enjoyed his morning tea, he continued to think through the problem at hand. It was no secret that the Ministry’s attempts to discredit himself and Harry Potter had been quite successful. Demoted from his position as Chief Warlock for the Wizengamot and vilified on a regular basis through increasingly ruthless articles in the Daily Prophet, Dumbledore knew that his eventual ousting as Headmaster would happen sooner rather than later.

As a man of considerable age, experience and intellect, these articles rarely bothered him. In fact, he felt that some of the claims bordered on downright entertaining, if not amusing. No, what concerned the Headmaster most was that Harry had also become a central figure in the Ministry’s smear campaign. The boy had suffered enough loss and heartbreak over the course of recent events after the unfortunate death of his godfather and Dumbledore was quite aware that Harry blamed himself for Sirius’s demise. It therefore greatly pained the elderly wizard that he was forced to maintain a distance between himself and Harry. Consequently, he was unable to offer any real emotional support to a desperate and hurting boy who sorely needed it.

As his thoughts remained fixed on Harry Potter’s current predicament, Dumbledore realised that he had yet to check the status of the locator spell that he had affixed to the property at 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. A rather useful little bit of magic, the spell allowed him to check the identity and location of the current inhabitants of the dwelling.

Having observed with concern Harry’s summertime proclivities for wandering aimlessly around the neighbourhood, the Headmaster had found it necessary to keep an eye out that the grieving boy was at least returning to his relatives’ home each evening.

The locator spell was attached to one of the spindly instruments in his office, and whilst it did not allow him to actually see the physical presence of the occupants of 4 Privet Drive, it was very accurate in precisely recording the comings and goings of any residents or visitors to the property.

Carefully placing his teacup on the saucer on the arm of his comfortable fireside chair, the wizard departed down the winding stone staircase which led into his study. He paused before a rather delicate whirring instrument that vaguely resembled a carriage clock with a small rotating orb at its base, housed within a glass cloche. It was this unusual gadget that allowed Dumbledore to view the results of his locator spell and so he touched his wand to the crystalline orb seated at the base of the machine and leaned closer to the reflective surface of the bell jar.

A silvery blue fog obscured the formerly clear orb for a moment and he observed the clock face within as a list appeared of arrivals and departures at 4 Privet Drive that had taken place over the past 24 hours. A moment later, a deep frown settled on Dumbledore’s previously calm visage as he straightened. Despite his careful plans and forward thinking, something unforeseen had taken place whilst he had been distracted with his own private arrangements. Something that concerned him deeply.

***

Harry pulled the woefully thin fabric of his hooded sweatshirt closer to his chest and fisted his hands in the ends of his sleeves. He shuddered involuntarily in the frosty December morning air. Harry had been forced to depart the shelter of King’s Cross Station during the early hours of the morning when a decidedly unfriendly security guard had moved him on with a stern warning of “No loitering!”.

Having no Muggle money in his possession and not wanting to disappoint Dumbledore by hailing the Knight Bus when the elderly wizard had very firmly and expressly instructed Harry that he was to return to Privet Drive and nowhere else in the Wizarding or Muggle worlds, Harry had been forced to spend the earliest hours of the morning wandering in small circles on the dirty concourse in front of the station. His Muggle clothing had been woefully inadequate for the London winter chill, so the limited exercise had helped somewhat to keep Harry a little warm as he waited for an appropriate time to re-enter the station and return to his vigil at Platform 9b.

A muted grey dawn had finally dressed the concourse in its drab vestments when Harry decided that he had endured enough of the freezing temperatures outside. His panic over the non-arrival of the Dursleys had dissipated over the course of the long and lonely hours of the previous night. Instead, a quiet indignation had settled in Harry’s heart. He had admitted to himself at some stage during his lengthy vigil that he had not, in fact, been forgotten. The most likely scenario that had presented itself to him was that the Dursleys had simply decided to neglect to retrieve him from the station. He could imagine Vernon Dursley’s rapidly purpling face as he read the missive from Dumbledore that commanded that Harry spend the first Christmas in Little Whinging since his attendance at Hogwarts.

Smirking to himself, Harry had idly wondered if any communication from the headmaster might, perhaps, have arrived by owl-post. That in and of itself would have thrown Uncle Vernon into an apoplectic rage over ‘those ruddy freaks and their ruddy owls’. Sadly, it was all too easy to then imagine the conversation between his aunt and uncle about Harry’s punishment for bringing such ‘freakishness’ into the Dursley household.

Undoubtedly, part of Harry’s sentence had already been commuted – spending an uncomfortable night alone at the train station to think on his transgressions. It was unfortunate that Harry had not anticipated this. If he had at least had the opportunity to gather together a small amount of Muggle currency, he could have spent the night in much more comfortable circumstances at a nearby hotel and then returned to the station to await the eventual reluctant arrival of his relatives. It was with these grim thoughts that Harry slouched his damp and shivering way through the thin crowd of early morning commuters and returned to the same bench that he had inhabited for most of yesterday.

His eyes itching with fatigue, Harry observed the surge of passengers who bustled forward as a train arrived on the platform in front of him. As weary as he felt after the restless pacing and endless wait through the long night hours, he knew it was not safe to rest easy. Dumbledore had impressed upon him the fact that Harry’s safety relied upon his return to the Blood Wards at Privet Drive. Although Voldemort appeared to be keeping a low profile, Harry was not foolish enough to presume that he was not at risk from attacks from his followers. It would also appear that the Ministry now had it in for him. The tone of the articles that initially had scathingly mocked Harry while doubting Dumbledore’s sanity now held more sinister undertones. Questions had been raised concerning a ‘darkness within’ the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry sighed and shook his head. It seemed that he could never be free of attention from the wizarding world, positive or otherwise. Rita Skeeter had somehow wrangled her way into interviewing several of Harry’s fellow students, who had conveniently mentioned just about every possible example of his behaving in strange and disturbing ways during his time as a student at Hogwarts. These anecdotes had been quoted with relish by the malicious journalist and her poison quill. Her articles included stories about Harry speaking Parseltongue during his second year at Hogwarts and vivid recounts of him clutching at his scar and moaning while collapsing from his chair during lessons.

No, it would not do at all to let his guard down while he was so exposed, even if he was alone in the supposed safety of the Muggle world.

***

“Severus, I would have a word with you now if you are able,” the Headmaster’s voice issued its firm command from the Potions Master’s Floo connection in his private residence.

Severus sighed irritably. It was the very first day of his winter leave and as it was, he was incredibly rushed to finalise arrangements for his departure for the Scandinavian Peninsula. It had been quite a number of years since Severus had deigned to return to the family bosom and he was more than a little apprehensive about his decision to spend the holiday season with his aunt and her family. It was due to the Headmaster’s meddlesome ways that Severus had been forced into the untenable position where he must now spend ‘quality time’ with his family and here was the infernal man commanding a private audience with him mere hours before he was due to depart.

Severus knelt in front of the fireplace and scowled deeply at the wizened visage of the Headmaster that currently bobbed sedately in the green flames. “I have very little time, but of course, Headmaster, I will make myself available, as ever.”

“Thank you, Severus. I assure you that I will endeavour not to waste your valuable time. The matter is, however, of the utmost importance,” Dumbledore’s expression was grave and his tone clipped enough that the younger wizard tilted his head in acquiescence.

“Would you prefer to step through?” he inquired, matching the gravity of the Headmaster’s tone of voice. The issue at hand was clearly no trifling matter. The older wizard was usually one for expressing all manner of irritating trivialities and well-wishes before finally meandering to his eventual point.

“Yes, I think it best that we speak in person, Severus, thank you.”

Severus stood aside and watched as the lean form of Albus Dumbledore emerged from the Floo. Without even bothering to dust himself off or properly greet his employee, he placed his hand on Severus’s shoulder and allowed his faded blue eyes to meet the depth-less black gaze before he spoke.

“Harry Potter is missing.”

Chapter 2

Twenty-eight hours is a very long time to remain without sleep. This was particularly true for a teenage boy who, filled with anxiety about his return to his miserable home life, had slept little for the past week and had eaten even less. Apparently, no matter how dire the circumstances, there does come a time when the human body simply decides that it is time to shut down and recuperate. Thus, despite the inhospitable surrounds of Platform 9b at King's Cross Station, Harry slept.

“You brainless little twit!” The irate hiss penetrated Harry’s subconscious simultaneous to a piercing, joint-wrenching grasp which closed heavily on his right shoulder. The unidentified assailant hauled Harry roughly into a seated position against the metal bench from where he had a moment ago lain slumped forward in boneless sleep against his school trunk.

Dazed and groggy with the remainders of his deep slumber, Harry blinked at the dark blur that loomed menacingly above him, heart pounding in his throat as he realised his vulnerability in this situation. Slowly, he repositioned his glasses, which had apparently twisted askew on his face when Harry had finally succumbed to his fatigue some 45 minutes earlier, resting his head on his forearms for what he had intended to be a very brief respite from his sheer exhaustion.

“Exactly what, in Merlin’s name, do you think you are playing at?”

The low and silky tone threatened violence in a way that no shout could ever hope to emulate.

Harry gaped in astonishment as his stumbling brain finally caught up with what his eyes had registered. Towering above him, with an expression of murderous fury on the drawn and sallow face, stood Professor Snape.

“Have you been transfigured into some species of codfish, Potter?” the irate professor sneered. “Or perhaps your thrill at yet again stepping beyond the bounds of decent and considerate behaviour has rendered you entirely mute?”

Harry felt the heat of a blush slowly travel its way from neck to hairline as a combination of embarrassment, rage and, curiously, incredible relief, overcame him at the sight of the furious professor. At the same time, he felt strangely disconnected from the situation and more than a little confused about why he was waking from a doze to be greeted with the sight of the overbearingly strict Potions Master.

“Erm…I – “ unsure of exactly how to respond, Harry lapsed into a fretful silence as he continued to stare up at Snape’s furious countenance.

There was a moment’s pause as some unidentified emotion flickered briefly in the black-eyed gaze. Snape then sighed impatiently and muttered something under his breath that sounded as though Harry’s intelligence quotient might be being compared somewhat unflatteringly to that of a flobberworm.

“Wh- what?” Harry stuttered stupidly.

“Shut up, Potter.”

The same iron grip that had continued to clench Harry’s shoulder throughout this conversation, if one could call it that, now hoisted him to his feet as if he weighed no more than a rag doll.

“But – “

“Shut. Up.”

Snape readjusted his brutal grip as he seized the handle of Harry’s school trunk with his free hand. Suddenly the pair were moving forcefully through the crowd on the platform. Stumbling awkwardly to keep pace with the long strides of his professor, Harry’s muscles protested at the unanticipated movement and he again felt a sensation of watching the scene from a great distance, as if he were not fully present in the moment. Before Harry could further process what was happening, Snape had manoeuvered them both into an inset archway in the brickwork of the station wall where they were hidden from direct view.

With a sickening feeling of claustrophobia, Harry realised that he was now trapped between the solid brick wall and the equally hard and unyielding surface of Professor Snape’s chest. So close was his contact, that Harry could clearly see the crisscrossing warp and weft of the weave of fabric in Snape’s black woollen pea coat. He had a dazed moment to wonder that he had never once seen his professor garbed in anything other than flowing black wizards’ robes before an intensely uncomfortable sensation overwhelmed every last one of his senses.

The world folded in on itself and Harry could no longer tell hand from foot nor head from knee as his entire body was squeezed, twisted, folded over and then stretched out into a tautly held narrowness of being. He was vaguely aware that, somehow, he seemed to have once again reformed into his usual physical state when an uncomfortably high-pitched whine overrode all else. Harry’s vision narrowed alarmingly until he could perceive only the smallest pinprick of light as the droning in his ears became impossibly louder and more intense. His shaky legs buckled under his weight as he lurched sideways, colliding with something warm and solid.

As darkness claimed him, Harry knew no more.

***

Severus could think of few times in his teaching career when he had been so angry to see one of his students as the moment when he had rounded the corner from Platform 9 ¾ to Platform 9b and had stumbled upon the sleeping form of Harry Potter. What could possibly have possessed the little imbecile to curl up for a nap in the middle of a Muggle tube station? The reason utterly escaped him. Surely even Potter could not be so stupid, so completely oblivious, as to believe that he would be safe in such an exposed and defenseless state?

For one terrible moment, Severus had thought the boy unconscious or…worse…but as he had neared Potter’s inert form, he had heard an unmistakeable snore emanating from the brat’s drooling mouth and it had confirmed the truth. For reasons unfathomable, Potter had chosen to fall asleep in the middle of a busy train station in Muggle London, leaving himself completely open to attack.

He had been quite proud of his self-possession in dealing with the little fool. The Headmaster had been clear in his instructions that he was to locate Potter and then transport him immediately to Severus’s own home, without engaging in any form of reprimand or recrimination.

There was so much that could have been said or done in that moment. Severus was sorely tempted to hex the boy into oblivion for his reprehensible disregard for his own safety and the Potions Master felt that he had shown considerable restraint when he had roused the idiot from his semi-comatose state. If he was honest with himself, Severus would readily admit that he was somewhat surprised when Potter had shown genuine relief at his stern professor’s arrival. What had that been about? Merlin only knew why the stupid boy had chosen to run away from his relatives and head back to the train station. Obviously, Potter had not counted on the fact that the Hogwarts Express would not be running over the Christmas break and had then found himself stranded…but then why had he not summoned the Knight Bus?

It was when Severus had side-along Apparated the boy back to Spinner’s End that events had conspired to reveal that there was perhaps more to this story than he had originally considered. No sooner had they arrived at their destination, when Potter had pitched some kind of bizarre fit and collapsed into him, nearly knocking Severus completely off his feet and onto the pavement. Reflexively, he had grabbed hold of the boy’s upper arms, even as he had grunted at the unexpected dead weight of an unconscious teenager slumping against him. Casting a surreptitious Featherweight Charm, he had then proceeded to carefully hoist Potter into his arms and carry him over the threshold of his home like some hideous parody of a pair of newlyweds arriving at their honeymoon destination.

Now the boy lay unresponsive on the threadbare settee in front of the sitting room fireplace, as Severus contemplated his next move. Obviously, his first priority was to contact Dumbledore and reassure him that his Precious Potter was alive. Without further thought, Severus cast his Patronus, murmuring the message that he wished to be delivered to the Headmaster confirming his rescue of the boy. This task completed, he then turned back to the unconscious form currently taking up space in his home.

It was curious that Apparition had affected Potter in this way. Severus knew from personal experience that the first few times a wizard Apparated could induce nausea and vomiting, perhaps even dizziness, but he had not previously encountered a complete loss of consciousness.

Sighing, he crouched beside Potter’s prone form and placed his fingers to the pulse point at the boy’s throat. A slow but steady beat reassured him that there was no immediate risk to life, but Merlin, the skin under his fingers was ice cold!

A quick Summoning Spell brought a feather duvet flying through the hidden doorway to the upstairs bedrooms of his home and an Incendio was the work of an instant to get the hearth lit. Severus frowned with distaste as he placed his arm around the shoulders of the unconscious boy, resting Potter’s upper body momentarily against his chest as he wrapped him carefully in the warm duvet.

Potter’s head lolled in an alarming way as Severus lowered him back onto the seat cushions and for the second time that day, he felt a sense of unease at the apparent condition of the boy. He considered casting an Ennervate to rouse his charge, but decided the silence afforded by a comatose house guest was infinitely preferable to the inane prattle of a cognisant Boy-Who-Lived. Instead, Severus waved his wand in a complicated pattern over Potter’s prone figure and murmured the incantation of a Diagnostic Charm. Moments later, his suspicions were confirmed. Potter was suffering from the early stages of hypothermia.

Had the insufferable moron spent the entire night wandering the streets before heading to the train station? Nothing else made any sense; it was clear that the boy had been exposed to cold temperatures for an extended period.

Dumbledore hadn’t had the time to explain exactly how or why the little fool had gone missing from his home when he had brought Severus into this rescue mission. Was it possible that Potter hadn’t returned home at all prior to his little foray into the streets of London? Had he spent the entire night at the station? Surely not.

Severus’s musings were suddenly interrupted by a crack of Apparation from the street outside.

The Headmaster had arrived.

***

Harry was warm. He felt so incredibly comfortable that he could simply lie where he was forever and never move again. He was aware of muted sounds from nearby, rising and falling in an almost musical cadence. It occurred to him that he should probably open his eyes to identify the source of these sounds, but his eyelids felt so heavy that there was no possibility of him prising them open. Instead, he allowed himself to float on a wave of fatigue, washing in and out of his semi-conscious state. After a time, he had the impression that the echoing noises had moved closer. Slowly, they resolved into voices and he realised that what he could actually hear was a conversation.

Harry tried to make sense of the voices, but it was all so difficult. They drifted to him in muffled tones that brought to mind the sensation of being underwater. Someone was touching his shoulder and moving his arm – long fingers were warm and gentle on his wrist, but he could also feel the chill of a draught across his torso that now pulled him closer to consciousness and he groaned with displeasure. The hands pulled away from his arm and the chill air disappeared after a moment, but he was not left in peace. Instead, a firm hand carefully cupped the back of his head, tilting his chin as the cold rim of a glass pressed against his lower lip.

“Drink up now, that’s it,” a deep voice drifted to him.

Obediently, Harry parted his lips and a wonderful warmth filled his mouth and throat, spreading out across his chest as whatever fluid Harry had just swallowed made its way down to his stomach. He felt a strange tingling in his extremities and a sudden feeling of wellbeing overcame him. The gentle hand lowered his head back onto the softness where he lay, and Harry regretted the absence of that simple touch. It had been so nice to be held like that, however briefly.

The same deep voice now floated directly above him, no longer so close to his ear. “…cannot allow you to…not fully aware of what is happening…” The tone held a different emotion now. Previously it had sounded encouraging and concerned while convincing Harry to drink and now there was irritation.

Drifting peacefully in a soft cocoon of heat, the voices continued to ebb and flow around him.

“…no longer an option…permission…irrelevant at this point.” This voice was slower…older and far more controlled. Perhaps Harry could lift one eyelid to see who was speaking, if he really concentrated.

“You know why I feel this is wrong…manipulations…expense of personal freedoms…won’t participate…your ridiculous schemes and plots, old man!” The deep voice was frustrated.

There – cracking his eyes open, Harry could see a little! The light in the room was dim and hazy. He tried to make his lips move to form a word, to let the voices know he was there and could hear them.

“Nnngh,” was all he could manage. Harry’s eyelids were slitted open, but everything was so hopelessly blurry and dreamlike that he had no hope of communicating clearly with the voices or identifying to whom they might belong.

“Harry?” One of the voices acknowledged him, the calm one, and a different hand, softer and cooler, was cupping his cheek. “Harry, I know you are probably feeling very tired right now, but we need you to take one more potion.”

“Headmaster, I implore you…as I previously expressed, I will not be a participant in this ridiculous venture without the boy’s full consent.” The deep voice was cold and filled with hostility. Harry thought it sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where he had heard those vocal tones before.

“Very well, my boy.” The older voice shifted slightly, but the hand remained on Harry’s cheek. He had the urge to turn his head away. The hand was too cool against his skin. He wanted the warm and gentle hands to come back instead. “Harry?” the controlled voice continued. “Would it be alright with you if we gave you another potion to help you feel better?”

Feel better? He already felt okay. Harry was sure he didn’t need any more potions, although it was beginning to frustrate him that he just could not properly open his eyes or focus on what was really happening around him. Everything felt so distant and fuzzy. Maybe another potion would help with that?

“Potter is insensible right now, Albus. He is clearly still suffering the after-effects of exposure and not five minutes ago I drugged him to the eyeballs with a strong sedative – at your request!”

“Mmph,” Harry muttered in a non-committal way. He didn’t really mind taking more potions. The last one had made him feel so warm. He slowly shifted his unfocused gaze to take in the glinting of firelight on glass nearby. A pair of half-moon spectacles resolved themselves and twinkling blue eyes blinked at him. Harry knew those eyes! But they hadn’t truly looked at him like that in such a long time. He realised that he was likely dreaming and felt a little disappointed about that. Still, if this was a dream, then that meant that he could probably force himself to communicate more clearly with the man.

“ ’fessor Dummledore?” his lips clumsily formed the slurred words.

“That’s right, Harry,” the eyes twinkled more brightly than ever. “Now why don’t you just drink this final dose and then you can rest until morning?”

As Harry opened his mouth to answer, he felt a vial press suddenly to his lips, its contents sliding into his mouth. Ugh! This was not like the warm and tingly potion the deep-voiced man had urged him to drink. A viscous fluid slid over his tongue and down his throat in a deeply unpleasant rush of bile-bitter flavour.

For a moment, Harry thought that it was all over, but then a sudden point of knife-hot pain lanced through his stomach. Every muscle in his body tensed in a rictus of agony, his very bones on fire even as he was dimly aware of warm, gentle, long-fingered hands holding him again, preventing him from falling down, down, the deep voice muttering meaningless words of comfort. There was the chanting of a spell as a prickly wash of magic numbed his pain, allowing him to drift away into nothingness.

***


Guilt and remorse were both emotions that the leader of the Light could ill-afford in these troubled times. As Dumbledore stepped out of the Floo and terminated the connection between Spinner’s End and the Headmaster’s Office, he squared his shoulders and straightened his posture in defiance of his true feelings.

It was bad enough to have Severus Snape glaring down his over-large nose at him with such recrimination in his eyes. Dumbledore sighed as he moved to sit at his desk. He regretted that the Potions Master had shown such displeasure at the Headmaster’s handling of Harry Potter’s present situation, but it simply could not be helped. In time, Dumbledore was sure, Severus would come to understand and perhaps even thank him for this latest ‘ridiculous scheme’. Hopefully, Harry would too.

Yes, he had indeed acted for the best. The execution of this latest plan was perhaps a little unorthodox, but circumstances had dictated the course.

His gaze rested momentarily upon the bell jar on his desk, reminding him that, just hours ago, Dumbledore had every confidence that this device would confirm that all was well at Privet Drive. He shook his head sadly. It was difficult to avoid feeling betrayed on Harry’s behalf by the unfeeling actions of the Dursley household. He cast his mind back to the events that had transpired only hours earlier, after he had discovered that Harry had never returned to Surrey after his departure from school.

Having sent Severus immediately to begin a tracking spell at Harry’s last known location – the Weasley family confirming that the boy had, at least, arrived safely at King’s Cross Station – Dumbledore had himself made haste to the Dursley residence to ascertain why their nephew was not at home. The conversation that the Hogwarts Headmaster had planned between himself and Vernon Dursley quickly became redundant when, upon his arrival at Privet Drive, Dumbledore immediately ascertained that the Blood Wards that he himself had invoked some fifteen years previously were no longer in evidence.
He was perplexed and deeply troubled by this latest development. As long as Harry could continue to call Privet Drive his home, the wards should have held. It seemed that something of great significance had changed.

Dumbledore had cast a quick look at his richly decorated wizarding robes and tutted in dismay before transfiguring the garment into a plum-coloured velvet suit that he felt more suitable for his pending interactions with a Muggle family. He briskly stepped along the pathway of 4 Privet Drive, noting the exceptionally ordered flower beds which bordered the facade of the house as he reached the door. Lifting his hand to the doorbell, the wizard noted a twitch of the salmon-pink curtain at one of the windows.

Ah, so his presence had, perhaps, been expected? No sooner had this thought entered his mind, when the front door was abruptly opened. The black-moustached figure of Vernon Dursley loomed large on the threshold, a grimace of extreme distaste on his florid face.

“The boy’s not here,” Dursley huffed. “And if you had bothered to read my reply to your…letter, you barmy old coot, you would know that the little freak is not welcome in this house any longer.”

“I am afraid that I must confess my ignorance concerning your response, Mr Dursley,” Dumbledore answered in a calm and measured tone. “I do believe that I have yet to receive correspondence from you regarding any aspect of Harry’s home life.”

The Headmaster tilted his head and pinned the large man with a piercing look. Both knew that the older man was referring to circumstances beyond Harry’s living arrangements for the Christmas holidays.

“Now, listen here,” Dursley’s cheeks darkened to a deep purple. “You, of all people, know that we never, ever wanted that boy! It was only on Petunia’s insistence that I took him in! All those years of funny business were hard enough on our family, but now we find out that the boy is a threat to our safety!”

Dumbledore frowned. He was wrong-footed here to say the very least, having no idea why the Dursleys should suddenly view Harry’s presence in their home as a danger of some kind.

“Harry is no threat to you,” the older man shook his head in disbelief. “He has lived here, in this house, with your family for nearly 15 years. In what way is a 16-year-old boy living in your home, especially one as mild-mannered as Harry Potter, something that could be considered a risk to your wellbeing?” the Headmaster’s tone remained light, but there was a steely undertone in his question.

“Don’t try to deny what you know,” Dursley spat the words through clenched teeth, a vein in his temple throbbing with his barely-suppressed rage. “It was that woman from one of your government departments who contacted us. Dorothy Umbirch? She…well, so far, she seems to be the only one of you people who understands anything of what we have had to put up with while looking after that boy. She told me all about the ruddy fits he’s been having at your school and the mental…instability. I always knew there was something wrong with that boy. Screaming blue murder at all hours of the night, wandering about the place like some kind of zombie all summer long!”

“Ah…I see you have had the misfortune to become acquainted with Dolores Umbridge,” Dumbledore touched his fingers lightly to the bridge of his crooked nose. “How, may I ask, did you come to meet the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic here in Surrey?”

Dursley’s face blanched.

“Don’t say that word! Don’t you dare say that word in my presence!”

Suddenly, the enormous man stepped back into the hallway of his house and gestured impatiently towards the Headmaster. “I won’t have this conversation standing on the doorstep where any Tom, Dick or Ha-Harry - ” here, he sputtered slightly at his own nephew’s name on his lips, before regaining his train of thought. “ - might hear you! Get in!”

“How kind of you to invite me,” came Dumbledore’s dry rejoinder. He did, however, step past Dursley’s paunch and, following a rude gesture towards the sitting room, moved to sit on one of the peach-toned leatherette armchairs as Vernon Dursley eased his bulk into the other with a grunt.

Gazing about the room with quiet interest, the old wizard observed the series of family photographs that graced the floral wallpapered walls of the room. Harry was nowhere to be seen in any of them. He shifted uncomfortably as he acknowledged the harsh prison sentence he had placed upon the toddler that he had left in the care of this family so many years ago. He had suspected at the time that Harry’s life would not be easy as a member of the Dursley family, but he had hoped that perhaps the child might find some form of sanctuary here, away from the prying eyes and judgement of the wizarding world. It seemed that the young boy had instead suffered the worse fate of neglect and disdain in this household.

“I never met her.”

“I beg your pardon?” Dumbledore had allowed his attention to wander too far and had lost the thread of the conversation.

“I never met that Underbritch woman,” Dursley snorted. “She wrote me. In the normal way – through the post.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Sent me all sorts of reports on the boy, notes on his behaviour at that school of yours, eyewitness accounts... Offered to take the boy off our hands altogether – said with all the abnormalities, even for one of your kind, he needed specialist care and that Minister you mentioned before was willing to pay for the inconvenience.”

“I see,” a subtle shift in Dumbledore’s countenance warned of his underlying anger. “And did you take Ms Umbridge up on her offer of ‘specialist care’ for Harry?”

Dursley cleared his throat uncomfortably and fidgeted for a moment. “I – er – that is to say, we…Petunia and I discussed it. Don’t really hold with all that head shrinking mumbo jumbo anyway, and we certainly don’t want any more dealings with your lot, so – erm – no…we decided not to accept the offer.”

“So instead, you both decided that the best course of action was to cast the boy out to fend for himself?”

Dumbledore could read between the lines. He realised that Vernon and Petunia Dursley were well aware of their failure to provide a nurturing and loving environment for Harry. Together, they must have decided that the risk of accusations landing at their feet regarding Harry’s ‘abnormalities’ was too great. In doing so, their decision to revoke sanctuary for the young wizard had broken the powerful magical protection that the Headmaster had cast on 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. Harry could no longer call this place home. The Headmaster could barely stand to look at the disappointment of a man who sat before him. He paused for a moment before speaking.

“Harry is just a boy, Mr Dursley. A very lost and lonely boy, who has suffered far too much for one his age. He is the very same age as your own son, Dudley, I believe.”

Dursley gulped back whatever it was that he had been about to say in defence of his actions and simply stared at the tired and angry wizard.

“Remember that – if some day you should grow a conscience and regret your actions in abandoning him – Harry is, after all, just a boy.”

Having said all there was to say on the matter, Dumbledore rose from his seat and moved to the entryway. His time here at Number 4, Privet Drive was over, just as it was for Harry.

Harry woke slowly. He felt surprisingly well-rested and quite comfortable and was idly considering lying where he was for a little while to see if he could drift back to sleep. It was at this point that he realised that he didn’t exactly know where he was. Blinking uncertainly, he peered out from underneath the thick comforter that he was snuggled into.

His immediate surroundings were entirely unfamiliar. He was lying on a sofa in someone’s sitting room, this much was clear. He tried to recall his last waking memory and could only remember sitting in a carriage on the Hogwarts Express with his friends, on his way back to Surrey for Christmas. But this was not Privet Drive. The room was small, dark and appeared at first glance to be somewhat neglected. Straight in front of him, a large fireplace (currently unlit) was flanked on either side by floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases that were filled to bursting with books. A tatty Axminster carpet in faded browns and creams covered the floor and a spindly-legged side table overflowed with a stack of books and spare pieces of parchment. Between the side table and a small, grime-covered window sat a squat, dark brown leather armchair which, Harry noted in alarm, was currently occupied.

Professor Severus Snape’s angular form was stretched out in the chair, legs askew and arms draped limply over the worn armrests. In this tranquil posture, the man appeared completely unintimidating. His head was thrown back against the headrest and his dark, oily hair flopped back from his cheeks so that the hook-nosed profile was clearly on display. Snape’s jaw hung down, his mouth slightly open and relaxed in sleep and it suddenly occurred to Harry that the stern professor was quite a bit younger than he normally appeared when he was stalking about the dungeons with a deadly scowl on his face.

At that moment, the events of yesterday afternoon came rushing back with an awful clarity: Snape coming across Harry asleep on a bench at the train station; the man’s rage at his apparent carelessness and the cruel grasp of a long-fingered hand on Harry’s shoulder; and then the awful feeling when the professor had pulled them both out of sight and Apparated with him to…somewhere. Delusion fought with reality as Harry tried to recall the events that followed. His memory was quite hazy. He shrugged in dismissal of the lost time. The important thing was that he was now lying on a couch, wrapped in an orange floral duvet that looked as if it had come straight from 1974, staring at the unexpected and disconcerting sight of a lightly snoring Professor Snape.
Harry was filled with horror and squirmed a little when he realised the extent of his predicament. A sudden, pressing need to visit the bathroom meant that he could not simply sink down into his bedclothes and attempt to disappear. He had to get up, soon, or face an altogether too embarrassing accident.

There was something else strange about the situation, if things could get any stranger than waking up in his Potions professor’s sitting room. Harry realised that he wasn’t wearing his glasses, yet he could see perfectly clearly. His default action upon waking was always to fumble for his glasses in an attempt to bring the world back into sharper focus, but that hadn’t been necessary on this occasion. Harry lifted his right hand to his face to double-check that the round frames were not there and was met with an even greater shock. The hand that moved towards his eyes was…well…not his hand. That is to say, it was attached to his arm, and when he thought about wriggling his fingers, the digits responded as they should, but everything else about it was completely wrong.

Harry sat completely still and stared at his hand in shock. The unfamiliar appendage was small, really small, the fingers long and slender in comparison to his usually broad and slightly stubby ones and the skin several shades paler than his usual skin tone. In a panic, he sat up with a gasp and swung his legs out from under his covers and realised in horror that it wasn’t just his hands that were significantly altered in both size and appearance. With his legs stretched completely out in front of him, Harry’s bony ankles barely jutted out past the edge of the seat cushion.

Scrabbling to free himself from the duvet, he scooted to the edge of the sofa and landed with an “oof”, his hands and knees braced against the grubby carpet. Unfortunately, his panicked exit from the sofa and his less-than-graceful landing on the floor had also disturbed the only other occupant of the room.

“Hmm, you are finally awake, I see.”

Wincing, Harry looked up at where his professor now sat observing him as if he were a rather interesting specimen to be dissected and added to a potion. He felt that he was breathing too loudly in the otherwise silent room.

“Ah…” was the only sound that emerged from Harry’s trembling lips and tight throat as he remained on all fours, still staring up at Snape with an expression of abject terror on his face.

“Articulate as ever, Potter,” was the older man’s sardonic greeting.

“Pr- Profess…I – ahm…er…something’s not right!” Harry voice sounded tremulous and high-pitched, even to his own ears. He shifted his weight back onto his haunches and waved his hands urgently in Snape’s general direction, as if this explained what he could not put into actual words in his flustered state.

“Control yourself, or I shall be forced to dose you with a Calming Draught,” the professor smirked nastily as he adjusted himself into a more dignified sitting position. “I am aware of your – little – predicament, Mr. Potter,” he drawled. “Let me reassure you that there is nothing accidental about your current physical condition. In fact, the Headmaster himself insisted that it was quite necessary.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to make of this new information, however, he realised that he needed to take a few deep breaths and get his emotions under control. He did not want to give this man any ammunition that he might use against Harry back at Hogwarts, especially in front of the Slytherins. Gulping in air and then slowly exhaling, he looked straight into Snape’s narrowed gaze. The black irises continued to scrutinise him as they had done ever since Harry had inadvertently woken the man. There was something different to the usual cold contempt that Harry was used to seeing expressed in the dark gaze of his most hated professor, but before he could really pin down the unidentified emotion, the impassive mask was back in place and Harry was sure that he had imagined any perceived difference.

“As the Headmaster has deemed fit to leave me to clean up his mess,” the dark-haired wizard sighed impatiently and folded his arms across his chest, assuming a posture similar to the one he might hold whilst lecturing a NEWT Potions class. “I had best explain your circumstances in terms that even a cretin such as yourself can understand,” he sneered at Harry’s crouching form. “You have been dosed with a rare and highly legislated potion, the result of which is…well…you seem to have already noted certain key differences in your appearance.”

“Yeah - I’ve shrunk!” Harry squeaked indignantly.

“Mr. Potter,” Snape drawled in an irritated fashion, rolling his eyes. “The potion has merely reversed the progression of aging in your body at a cellular level. You have not shrunk, as you so ineloquently phrase it. Although, I suppose it is true that you are certainly somewhat reduced in stature; it is an expected consequence of the fact that your current physical age is approximately one decade less than it was this time yesterday. The result is that you are currently physically aged around 5 years old.”

Harry could do nothing but tremble as he realised the extent of his predicament. Somehow, for some unknown reason, and with absolutely no consultation, Professor Dumbledore had apparently made a decision that had extreme repercussions for Harry. He was now 5 years old.

Slowly, on legs that were so shaky that they could barely support him, Harry stood and looked down at himself in absolute dismay. He really was just a small child! He stood barely taller than the arm of Snape’s chair. Strangely, the unfamiliar pyjamas he wore seemed to fit him well, despite his considerably smaller frame. As he inspected his appearance more closely, Harry could clearly see and feel that the body that he now inhabited was significantly different to that of his teenaged self. His stomach churned, and he could feel a burning sensation building in his throat.

“The Aetate Mutatio Elixir is a powerful decoction that is generally not available to the wizarding public,” Snape continued his lecture, apparently oblivious to the emotional and physical distress that Harry was currently experiencing. “Of course, as a highly qualified and experienced Potions Master, I found little difficulty in brewing the potion myself, once we were able to locate the correct ingredients – “

“You brewed it?” Harry snapped out of his nauseated self-inspection to stare at his teacher in disbelief.

“Yes, Potter, I brewed it! Who else do you think Professor Dumbledore would entrust with such a delicate –“

Harry’s horror at the situation was quickly transforming into rage. “So I have you to…to thank for turning me into a…a baby?”

Snape snorted.

“You are not a baby,” he frowned and leaned closer towards Harry in order to give him closer inspection. “You are, however, quite small for a five-year-old.” He paused thoughtfully and seemed to forget Harry was in the room. “Perhaps an unexpected interaction between the dragonfly thorax and the Nux Myristica…”

Harry barely knew how to respond to this and opened his mouth to say something that he would certainly later regret, when his earlier need to visit the bathroom became more urgent.

“Erm, Professor Snape,” he muttered. “I really need to use the lavatory, right now.”

Snape raised an eyebrow and sneered at Harry. “Through that door,” his professor gestured to the hallway behind Harry’s settee, “and it is the first door on your left.”

Rushing to escape the awkwardness of the entire situation and increasingly aware of his full bladder, Harry hastened to follow the directions and was soon feeling a great deal more comfortable. Moving to wash his hands at the bathroom sink, he was again reminded of his sudden physical limitations when he found himself unable to reach the tap. Sighing in frustration and anger, he whirled around and stalked back to Snape’s sitting room to call for the man’s assistance.

“I can’t reach the tap,” he muttered, all bravery and bluster having deserted him as he entered the room.

“Indeed?” Came the uncharacteristically absent-minded response. Snape had not moved at all from his armchair and was hastily scribbling something onto one of the crumpled pieces of parchment laying on top of the side table. Harry had little doubt that the Potions Master was noting down unexpected interactions between ingredients in the potion that had effectively de-aged the Boy-Who-Lived, shrinking him down to what felt to be roughly the size of a knut.

Harry scowled at the thought that he had apparently become one of Snape’s research experiments. When Snape simply continued with his notations, Harry sighed in frustration and fidgeted with his pyjama top. “Snape, I’m too small to reach it.”

The man looked up distractedly and now allowed his gaze to travel slowly up and down Harry’s altered form with a hint of amusement evident in his expression. “I believe that somewhere in that redundant statement, a more respectful form of address for your teacher was quite absent…”

“Sorry, Sir. If you could please, I don’t know, conjure a footstool or something, I would really appreciate your help!”

Harry scowled at the floor, humiliated. “And then,” he looked up at the professor, took a deep breath and spoke firmly. “Then, I want some more information about exactly what it is that you and Professor Dumbledore have done to me.”

***

Severus had to admire the determination, the sheer gall of the boy. That he dared to speak to a Hogwarts Professor in such a disrespectful way should not be a surprise – the Chosen One seemed to swan through his interactions with everyone in an unbelievably arrogant manner, from common House Elf to powerful Dark Lord.

Sweeping past the diminutive form of Potter, Severus entered the bathroom and wordlessly transfigured a hair comb from the medicine cabinet into a blue plastic footstool. He placed it in front of the sink and bowed mockingly to the moody little child who had trailed into the room behind him.

“Prince Potter, your footstool awaits.”

The boy scowled heavily and stepped up to clumsily fumble with the tap and wash his hands under a thin stream of water that leaked reluctantly into the worn sink. Looking up at the mirror as Potter finished this chore, Severus observed the boy’s reaction to his own reflection with a detached interest as the child suddenly froze and gasped, staring at himself in disbelief. A small hand reached up to touch a rounded cheek, sweeping over curved, narrow lips that still hung slightly open in shock. The other hand joined the investigation, brushing past the sweeping shell of the exposed ear and smoothing over soft the jet-black fuzz that lay close to his scalp in a buzz cut. The now dark-brown eyes were wide with wonder, one narrow eyebrow raised quizzically as Potter turned slowly to face his professor.

“What happened to me?” There was no demand evident this time, and the quiet tone betrayed very little emotion other than simple wonderment.

Severus waved his hand imperiously, as if he could barely be bothered responding to the question. “It is merely a disguise. A glamour, in addition to the de-aging effects of the Aetate Mutatio Elixir. Neither are permanent.”

The boy had already turned back to consider his reflection more critically. “It’s a pretty damn effective disguise.”

“Language, Mr. Potter.”

The pointed chin tilted up as the inspection continued. “I look a bit like you. Like I could be your son,” the boy said slowly, realisation finally flooding through the childish face.

“Oh, no way…no bloody way!”

***

Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, was feeling slightly miffed. She smoothed the lapel of her pink cashmere frock coat to rid it of any stray soot from the Ministry Floo Network and sniffed dismissively at the other witches and wizards on their morning commute who were bustling through the Atrium around her.

Despite her irritation, it was good to be back at the Ministry after her unexpected…absence. Dolores closed her eyes for the briefest of moments and shuddered as the clacking of boot heels echoing against the tiled floors assailed her senses. A sense memory of the damp scent of mouldering leaf litter surrounded her.

‘No,’ Dolores thought emphatically. ‘This is not real. There are no centaurs here!’

She nervously cleared her throat as she straightened her posture and opening her eyes again, continued her passage towards the lifts. She carefully averted her eyes from the recently repaired Fountain of Magical Brethren and resolved once again to have words with the Minister over replacing it with something altogether more suitable.

Dolores turned her mind back to more pressing issues. She had plans to see to. Clever plans that she intended to engineer through to their triumphant completion. Unfortunately, that tinkering twit of a Headmaster had yet again managed to interfere. It was…vexing. Feeling her jaw clench in anger, Dolores slowed her steps for a moment and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly to the count of ten.

‘There now,’ she thought to herself, forcing her small mouth to turn upwards in a parody of a sweet little smile. ‘Keep calm! No need to get worked up over problems that can be easily eliminated…sooner or later.’

She thought back to her careful manipulations that had so far failed to bear fruit. She had forced herself to carry on a civil communication with those loathsome Muggle relatives of Harry Potter, fully intending that her efforts would result in full Ministry custody of the Boy-Who-Lived-to Cause-Chaos. In fact, she had been successful in bringing the Muggles around to her way of thinking. It had been ridiculously easy. By the time she had finished furnishing Vernon Dursley with a vivid description of Mr. Potter’s many character flaws and described the unfortunate mental afflictions that plagued the boy, the man had seemed quite happy to be rid of any responsibility for him.

But then Albus Dumbledore had stuck his abnormally long and crooked nose in where it, quite frankly, was not wanted or desired and had whisked the boy away at the eleventh hour to Merlin only knew where.
Dolores was nothing if not persistent. She intended to make good use of young Mr. Potter in her rise to the top at the Ministry. That meddlesome boy owed her dearly for her recent fall from grace. If it also meant besting Albus Dumbledore, well, so be it. It would give her a great deal of pleasure, in fact, to do so, given that the man had humiliated her at the unfortunate end of her tenure as Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Oh yes, Dolores Umbridge had ways and means of getting what she wanted. And right now, more than anything else, she wanted Harry Potter under her control and safely contained. She nodded to herself in satisfaction as she reached one of the lifts. It was time to call in a few favours.

She allowed herself a contented giggle as she thought of her one of her old Slytherin cohorts, Bertram Blundersby, current Head of the Admissions Department at St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. She had always known that connection would come in handy one day.

As the lift doors opened onto the corridor to her office, Dolores was already penning her missive to Blundersby in her head, a smug smirk on her lips.

***

Harry squirmed restlessly on a worn vinyl chair in Snape’s grotty kitchen and frowned. He was alone in the room; earlier that afternoon, Snape had grasped him firmly by the wrist and tugged him through the passageway before depositing him unceremoniously at the dining table, commanding that he ‘stay here and do not move until my return’.

The man had then stalked from the room and slammed the door shut behind him. In such a small house, sound travelled easily and Harry had not had to strain his ears very hard to hear Snape muttering something under his breath shortly prior to the whoosh of a Floo. Silence had followed.

That had been some time ago. Hours ago, in fact.

That series of events had been the completion to an absolutely blazing row between himself and Snape when the full extent of Harry’s predicament had become evident. Admittedly, having now had some time to think on his actions, Harry felt a little ashamed of his tantrum. It was just that seeing himself in the mirror like that, transformed into someone else, the cold and impassive reflection of Snape sneering at him from above his now practically bald head…well, it was all a bit of a shock to say the very least.

Harry had felt shaken to his very core. Not only because he now vaguely resembled a very youthful version of the man that he both feared and despised in equal measure, but because he felt so betrayed by the Headmaster. He expected Snape to behave in sneaky, sly, snarky Slytherin ways. But Dumbledore? Why had he given permission for the Potions master to experiment on Harry with some horrible potion that had such terrible consequences? No, ‘given permission’ was the wrong wording altogether. As Snape had coldly informed him, he had been ordered by the Headmaster to carry out the act. It was a betrayal of the worst kind.

Harry now turned his attention back to the room he currently occupied. Despite the somewhat pedestrian and Muggle appearance of the grim little kitchen, something about the room reminded Harry uncomfortably of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Perhaps, he pondered, the memories of an unhappy family life had imbued themselves into the very walls of both residences. And wasn’t the kitchen supposed to be the heart of the home?

Harry rolled his eyes at his own maudlin and clichéd thinking. If anyone knew of an unhappy home life, it was Harry, but the kitchen at 4 Privet Drive had always just felt, well, like a kitchen. A particularly sterile and orderly one, true, but there was nothing inherently dark and brooding about that space. Not like here. Or Grimmauld Place.

It had occurred to Harry over the course of the preceding hours that he was entirely free to get up and move about the house while Snape was absent. He sincerely doubted that the professor had set up nanny cams to monitor the interior of his home. Harry snorted at the thought of the dark wizard fiddling to fit a set of ‘Double A’ batteries into the rear-end of some innocuous looking teddy bear before setting it upon his mantel.

Refocusing his thoughts, Harry chewed on his lip as he thought of the many complex and advanced monitoring spells that Snape very likely had cast prior to his abrupt departure through the Floo. He remembered all too well the blind rage that had emanated from his professor after Harry had viewed the man’s pensieved memories of Snape’s complete humiliation at the merciless hands of Sirius and Harry’s own father. He shuddered slightly at the memory.

No, best to stay right where he was. No point in getting any further in Snape’s bad books. Harry needed him to understand that he absolutely could not remain in his current condition. To begin with, Harry felt horribly vulnerable. For Merlin’s sake, he couldn’t even reach the ruddy taps at the sink to get himself a drink of water, let alone reach one of the mismatched mugs from the open shelf that sat tauntingly high up on the wall above the scratched laminate counter. The other issue that Harry had with what had been done to him was that clearly Dumbledore had something in mind when he had cast a glamour to make him resemble a child version of Severus Snape. He shuddered as he thought over the implications of that particular transgression. It had been Harry’s strongly worded objection to this very fact that had led to the row between the professor and Harry.

The words ‘greasy’, ‘big-nosed’ and ‘git’ that had passed Harry’s indignant lips might have further exacerbated things.

In any case, the fact remained that Snape had, after swiftly depositing an unapologetic Harry in the kitchen, stormed off in a huff, leaving him to dwell on the events of the day. He wondered, not for the first time, exactly where the Potions master had gone. It was his fervent hope that Snape had gone to Hogwarts to complain to the Headmaster that he could not spend one more minute in Harry’s ‘insufferable presence’.

Yes, that had to be where he had gone. And he was taking such a long time, because everyone knew that Dumbledore was not a man to be argued with. Harry had confidence, however, that if anyone could stand up to the wily old wizard, it had to be Snape. The man had, after all, refused to tutor Harry in Occlumency after the pensieve incident. Yes, Snape would prevail. He had to.

Lost in these thoughts, it was therefore quite a shock when the door to the kitchen suddenly opened with a protesting creak, revealing the taciturn face of Snape, curtained by somewhat windswept lengths of greasy black hair. Narrowing his eyes as he glared at Harry, the man took a step into the room and unburdened himself of the load he was carrying.

Harry’s heart skipped a beat and his shoulders sank with dismay as he noticed exactly what it was that Snape had placed on the worn and scuffed linoleum floor.

Suitcases. And there were two of them.

Severus carefully decanted the contents of a copper cauldron into the glass phials lined up on his kitchen table and sighed wearily. He had occupied himself by brewing a variety of standard healing potions since early afternoon and it was now just gone three o’clock in the morning. It was a necessary use of his time. Travelling to Sweden with Potter was going to be a trial. Merlin knew, the boy was accident prone even when inhabiting his normal teenaged body. It was no great leap to assume that a series of scraped knees, head injuries and various other childhood mishaps awaited Potter now that he had to grow accustomed to his smaller de-aged stature.

Severus stoppered the potions phials with an expert hand and swiftly deposited them into the wizard space that he had earlier created in the smaller of the two suitcases. His shoulders stiffened in irritation as he recalled the conversation with Dumbledore from earlier that day about this very overnight case. The Headmaster had ‘just popped in for a visit’ just after Severus had returned home from a most unwelcome visit to that hodgepodge of a dwelling that the Weasleys called ‘The Burrow’.

Prior to Dumbledore’s arrival, Potter was already in a panic about the fact that Severus had arrived in the kitchen of Spinner’s End with two suitcases. In fact, the obnoxious child had grabbed the smaller of the two cases and had trailed after him into the sitting room, demanding to know what it was for. The boy’s state of mind had not been improved by Dumbledore’s enthusiastic greeting as the elderly wizard had exited the Floo.

“Ah! Severus, Harry,” Dumbledore had eyed the luggage that Potter was clutching. “Already packed for your little holiday together?”

Needless to say, the conversation had degenerated somewhat from that point forward.

Despite not being known for his tact or forbearance, Severus had been hoping to ease Potter into the idea that he was to spend the remainder of the Christmas break in the company of his reviled Potions Master. The last thing Severus wanted, or needed, was another paroxysm of rage like the one the boy had demonstrated that very morning.

He had to admit now that perhaps he not behaved like the adult in the situation when he had lost his own tenuous grip on his patience at that point.

What had followed was a very lengthy and circuitous explanation by the Headmaster that had informed Potter of very little as to why he was now de-aged and set to travel to Sweden upon the morrow. Dumbledore had instead concocted some ridiculously convoluted story that involved the absolute necessity of Potter acting for the duration as Serverus’s long-lost son. The worst of it all, apart from having to treat the loathsome Potter boy as if he were his own child, was that Severus was required, as part of the duplicity, to lie to his family. This did not sit well with him.

Shaking his head in resignation as his thoughts returned to the present, Severus zippered the case and set it near the door in readiness for their departure in the morning. He slipped quietly through the sitting room and began his weary ascent of the stairs to his bedroom, carefully avoiding the riser that always squeaked and groaned the moment any weight was placed upon it. If he fell asleep immediately, Severus thought to himself, he would have three hours of rest.

The entire time, Severus remained very careful to not even so much as glance at the settee and its diminutive sleeping occupant. Any interaction with the boy could most decidedly wait until morning.

***

Five-year-old boys do not have very long legs. They are also somewhat short on stamina. And patience. Greasy git, double-agent Potions Masters who are travelling incognito have an incredibly lengthy gait. They have inexhaustible supplies of energy for stalking angrily through queuing crowds of Muggles. Interestingly, they, too, appear to be somewhat short on patience. Harry had quickly discovered these things about his recently transformed body and his new pseudo-guardian upon their arrival at the international terminal of the Birmingham Airport.

The past 24 hours had been an overwhelming combination of emotions for both Severus Snape and Harry Potter. Following Dumbledore's revelation about Harry’s transformation into the 5-year-old alter ego of Henrik Marcus Snape, son of Severus Tobias Snape and Yasmin Helena Jansen (Muggle-born, deceased), Harry was informed by a twinkle-eyed Headmaster and a darkly-glowering Potions Professor that he would be spending Christmas at a property near Stockholm, belonging to Snape’s Aunt. Neither Harry, nor Snape, was impressed with this change of plans for the holiday. To add insult to injury, it was decided (by Professor Dumbledore, of course), that in order to avoid the potential tracking of Harry’s magical signature by the equally sinister forces of either Lord Voldemort or Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, the duo would need to travel to their destination using Muggle methods.

And so it was that Harry found himself toting a small suitcase and trotting hurriedly after the incongruously unexceptional figure of Severus Snape. The professor was dressed casually in a pair of charcoal woollen trousers, pale grey crew-neck sweater and black woollen pea coat (the same one that he had worn when ‘rescuing’ Harry from Kings Cross) whilst clutching the handle of a wheeled black suitcase in his white-knuckled grip. Snape looked quintessentially Muggle and was seemingly quite at home in their surroundings. Harry did not feel quite so comfortable. To begin with, he had never actually been to an airport before, having never earned the privilege of travelling anywhere with the Dursleys when they departed on any sort of holiday – whether that be a day trip or an overseas vacation. Instead, he had always been deposited at Mrs. Figg’s for the duration, forced to sit on her overstuffed chintz sofa eating suspiciously soft and tasteless Garibaldi biscuits of indeterminate age whilst flipping through photo albums chronicling the lives of her exceedingly dull cats. The bustle and noise of the airport therefore felt at once exciting and surprisingly intimidating.

The second reason for Harry’s discomfort in his present surroundings was due to the fact that he and Snape had already been embroiled that morning in a spectacular argument about the clothing that had been arranged for Harry to wear over the course of the holiday. Admittedly, his professor had not been responsible for the acquisition of said clothing, however, that did not change the fact that Harry was dismayed by the childish winter wear that currently lay folded away in his suitcase.

Given Harry’s new pintsize stature and therefore entirely unsuitable current wardrobe, Dumbledore had appealed to Molly Weasley for a collection of children’s outfits suitable for a cold climate and she had very obligingly delivered. Harry liked to think that she might have made more thoughtful selections if she had known who the wearer of the clothing would be. As it was, Harry’s disguise was top secret – not even the Order knew of recent events.

With his free hand, Harry tugged self-consciously at the bottom of his coat. Much of the outerwear Mrs Weasley had supplied was handmade knitwear in the typical ‘Weasley Jumper’ style. Consequently, Harry was presently garbed in a pair of tan corduroy trousers topped by an outlandish orange and green knitted turtleneck that sported a dancing snowman motif across the chest. Upon his (nearly bald) head sat a black-and-white striped bobble hat topped with a puffy lime-green pom-pom. Tied to the tabs on the sleeves of his pale-green waterproof parka jacket were matching black-and-white striped mittens.

Harry looked, in his opinion, an absolute prat. Snape told him that he would be thankful for the warm clothing when they arrived in Sweden. Harry didn’t think he would ever be grateful to be wearing an outfit such as this. Perhaps his prophesied ‘power to vanquish the Dark Lord’ would be to turn up dressed as he was and to hope that Lord Voldemort would take one look at Harry and die laughing.

Lost in these resentful thoughts, he failed to notice that Snape had come to a sudden stop ahead of him and Harry found his forward momentum immediately halted when he crashed heavily into the back of the man’s long legs. A strong hand grabbing hold of the front lapel of his parka was the only thing stopping Harry from collapsing in a heap on the tiled floor in front of the check-in counter.

“Do be careful to watch where you are going, Henrik,” a deceptively silky voice warned.

Nodding absent-mindedly in reply, Harry looked up at the smiling face of the blonde-haired desk attendant.

“Sorry, erm...Pappa.”

Harry ducked his head in embarrassment and smiled shyly at the blonde woman, giving Snape a sidelong glance and dropping the smaller overnight case with a soft thud.

“Just you and your son travelling today, Sir?” the attendant winked at Harry and turned her attention to Snape, her smile faltering momentarily at the stern countenance before her.

“Obviously,” Snape drawled as he glared down his nose at the small boy who had moved to stand beside him. He placed his long-fingered hand atop Harry’s bobble hat. The grasp was not gentle, and Harry shrank slightly under its weight. Maintaining his firm grip with one hand, the professor removed a bundle of documents from his coat pocket with the other and slid them across the counter to the cheerful woman. Moments later, divested of their luggage, apart from the overnight bag, the pair moved away from the counter, Snape with their plane tickets in hand. This procedure was then followed by a seemingly endless series of queues as they worked their way through security checks and customs and Harry found his initial childlike excitement about travelling in an aeroplane had long since deserted him.

Dumbledore had explained to Harry in a meeting the previous day about the change of plans for the holidays that the elixir that he had been dosed with was quite different to other potions that affect the physiology of a wizard. Unlike Polyjuice Potion, Aetate Mutatio did not require additional doses to maintain its transformative effect. Harry would therefore remain in his current state until he consumed the antidote. Although the potion would principally alter his physical appearance, both Snape and the Headmaster had warned Harry that he would likely experience some associated side-effects. Most significantly, whilst his cognitive capacity would remain unaffected, his emotional behaviour, sleep requirements and physical co-ordination would exhibit some changes that were likely to become more pronounced the longer he remained under the effects of the potion.

Harry had already experienced these symptoms to some degree, even though he had only been administered the potion two days ago. He found himself tiring easily, becoming quick to anger and experiencing wild mood swings that he knew were out of character for him, no matter how much Snape seemed to feel that the ‘Chosen One’ always behaved like a person with dissociative personality disorder (the man’s very words during their argument that morning).

When Harry had discovered that the trip to Sweden would involve flying in a Muggle plane, he had been filled with a secret thrill that he would finally get to experience air travel and he had barely been able to contain his shivers of excitement when the taxi had dropped them at the airport. That was at least two hours ago and now both Harry and Snape were feeling cranky and out-of-sorts at the rigmarole that Muggles had to go through simply to travel from A to B.

Following his Potions professor into a small coffee shop in the terminal, Harry found himself rubbing wearily at his eyes. He had promised himself that he would do his best to view this trip as an adventure and was determined to play the role of Snape’s son to the best of his ability, despite the antipathy between himself and the stern man. His hope was that Dumbledore would be so impressed with Harry’s skill under pressure that he would finally induct him as a full member of the Order of the Phoenix. He figured that information would no longer be withheld from him once he became an Order member.

Snape now guided Harry firmly to a booth against the wall and pushed him into the seat, moving off to the counter to purchase their meals. Surreptitiously waving his wand and casting a Silencing Charm, Snape returned to the table with a plastic container of sandwiches, a small bottle of juice and a steaming paper cup of hot tea. Harry stared with envy at Snape’s tea as he sullenly fidgeted with the orange plastic lid of his juice.

“I hope you realise what a difficult position this places me in.”

“Sir?”

“This,” Snape waved his arm in an all-encompassing gesture that included Harry, the coffee shop and other unidentified issues about which Harry was certain Snape would soon see fit to enlighten him.

“You. My family. Dumbledore. My life has suddenly become infinitely more complicated than it was just two days ago and yet again, you, Potter, seem to be at the centre of the problem.”

Harry scowled and looked down at his lap. He knew that once his professor started into one of these rants there was very little to do but wait it out. After all, it wasn’t like Harry had the power to change any of their current circumstances. He was just as much at Dumbledore’s mercy as Snape. In fact, things were even more dire for Harry because he was now trapped in the body of a child and utterly helpless to act independently of an adult in either the wizarding or Muggle worlds. He had no choice but to traipse after Snape like a little lost boy. He no longer had possession of his wand (Snape had it) and, worst of all, in this younger physical form, he no longer had the capacity to perform directed, intentional magic. Harry felt exceptionally vulnerable, not to mention frustrated by the fact that nobody wanted to explain to him why it was that the Dursleys had abandoned him at King’s Cross in the first instance.

“I am sure you regard all of this as another great adventure for the Boy-Who-Lived,” Snape continued bitterly. “Chasing after Basilisks, battling dragons and rescuing escaped convicts from the Dementor’s Kiss is not enough of a challenge for you anymore, is it, Potter? Now you have to attempt to destroy my peace of mind.”

Freezing at the indirect mention of his early interactions with Sirius, Harry could only continue to stare at his own hands clenching under the table. If Sirius had still been alive, Harry was certain that he would be enjoying his Christmas holiday at Number 12 Grimmauld Place right now, instead of sitting in a depressingly sterile airport café, listening to Severus Snape complain bitterly about Harry’s failings…both real and imagined.

“Let me fill you in on how things are going to be from this point forward,” with an ugly sneer, Snape leaned forward and aggressively tapped the table in front of Harry with his index finger. Harry looked up abruptly from his perusal of his own clasped fingers to stare sulkily at the man. “You will not speak unless spoken to. You will follow my directions without question. You will not go anywhere or do anything without my express permission. You will not deviate from the story that the Headmaster prepared for you yesterday…that is, assuming you have bothered to commit the details to memory.”

“I have!” Harry suddenly interrupted, hating the small and petulant tone of his own voice.

“Very well, repeat it to me now.”

“My name is Henrik Marcus Snape. My mother, Jasmin – er, I mean, Yasmin,” Harry gulped at Snape’s steely-eyed glare. “Yasmin Helena Jansen, usually just called me Henry. I’m five, nearly six years old. My mum died just recently of respiratory failure after a short illness. I never knew anything about my father; Mum told me that he had left her before I was born.”

At Snape’s raised eyebrow and impatient expression, Harry gathered that the man expected to hear the full version of the concocted personal history of his alter ego. He sighed and then hurriedly continued when Snape leaned towards him menacingly.

“We lived in a flat in London and I did not know anything about the magical world until after her death, when my father – that’s you - came to find me. In her will, she named you as my guardian should anything happen to her. The will was charmed by her so that when she died, you were immediately informed of my existence. You had ended your relationship with her when she was only three months pregnant with me. She had kept her pregnancy a secret from you and you didn’t know that you had a child with her. You have agreed to look after me until a more suitable guardian can be found.”

“Hmm. While the facts are essentially correct, you will need to simplify your language, should anyone question you directly about this. Remember, you are a mere child. In this, it should not be a challenge for you to behave and communicate in a more infantile manner," Snape smirked at his own insulting turn of phrase. "Now, eat,” he pushed the container of sandwiches impatiently towards Harry and sipped from his cup of tea.

Harry looked up at Snape from beneath his lowered brows, fighting to keep a hold on his temper. He wanted to take this opportunity to get some things of his own sorted. The discussion with Professor Dumbledore yesterday had, as usual, failed to provide Harry with all of the necessary information he needed. Ignoring Snape’s directive to eat, Harry took a deep breath and continued the conversation. “What is going to happen to me? I mean, after we get back from Sweden.”

“You will be returned to your previous big-headed, idiotic teenage self and I shall, thankfully, be rid of you,” came the sharp rejoinder.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then by all means enlighten me, Potter, as I am not sure I can follow the meandering stumble that passes for your thought process.”

Taking a calming breath, Harry looked away for a moment, before facing the expressionless mask that was Snape’s face. “I mean, Professor Dumbledore said that I couldn’t stay at the Dursley's anymore. He said it isn’t safe for me. So, I just wondered, well…That is, I would like to know…” he suddenly found himself unable to continue as an uncomfortable lump in the back of his throat forced him to swallow.

Harry shook his head in frustration and disbelief that he felt anything at all about losing the Dursleys as family. He knew there was more to the story than the Headmaster had revealed; he could see it in the vaguely dissatisfied expression that Dumbledore had worn yesterday as he had skirted around the edges of his explanation. The fact was, Harry was now alone in the world as far as family was concerned. Petunia Dursley had been his last tenuous link with his mother and now that relationship was severed, for reasons yet to be fully explained. He knew that he shouldn’t care – it wasn’t as if the Dursleys had ever treated him as anything other than an inconvenience at best and a terrible burden at the worst of times.

Telling himself that this sudden swell of emotion was more to do with the side-effects of the Aetate Mutatio potion than any deeper hidden feeling for his aunt, Harry glanced up at Snape and was surprised to see an unidentifiable shift of something in the man’s black gaze. As quickly as it had appeared, however, it was gone, and Snape was once again wearing his customary blank face.

“The Headmaster will make some alternative arrangements for your…care,” the sallow-faced man stated slowly. “In the interim, I, regretfully, am responsible for ensuring that you do not meet an untimely end, either at the hand of the Dark Lord or through your own carelessness and incompetence.”

Although the words were the usual vitriol, there was no real malice in Snape’s tone. Harry had a moment to wonder at that before jumping as the flat of a long-fingered hand smacked the table in front of him.

“Eat,” Snape snapped, looking pointedly at the untouched sandwiches that still sat before him.

Harry ate.

MEMORANDUM:
TO: Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic
FROM: Bertram Blundersby, Head of Admissions (St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries)
DATE: 20th December, 1996
RE: Correspondence dated 18th December, 1996

Senior Undersecretary,

Pursuant to Ministerial Decree Number 436, Paragraph B (Subsection J), medical sectioning of a minor child is not permitted without the express consent of a carer / guardian. Healer advice as to the nature of the medical complaint/s is additionally required. Your request (dated 18th December, 1996) is therefore denied at this time.

Official documentation from the Department of Wizarding Child Services, outlining the minor child’s specific medical condition/s of concern, in addition to permission from a carer / guardian or from the Ministry itself (in loco parentis) will be required prior to any further action on the part of St Mungo’s staff.

Ever in your service,

Bertram Blundersby
Head of Admissions, St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

***

Having never made the journey between the UK and Sweden via Muggle methods, Severus Snape found himself quite astonished at how tiring and complicated the travel arrangements had been thus far. His eyelids drooped a little and he passed an impatient hand across his face, as if to wipe away the exhaustion he felt. Thankfully, they were now on the last leg of the journey. They had already flown from Birmingham to Copenhagen, where they stopped over for two hours before continuing on the final flight to Arlanda Airport in Stockholm.

Severus shifted crankily in the cramped confines of his economy seat as he brooded. The very thought of being denied the ease and convenience of Apparating (even if travelling to Sweden did necessitate several international Apparation hops) grated on his frayed nerves. In the window-seat beside him, Potter’s small form was curled against the armrest nearest the window. The boy had been fighting sleep since their layover in Copenhagen and he had now, apparently, lost the battle, pointed chin drooping towards his chest as he reclined gracelessly in the kind of sudden deep slumber reserved for small children and the elderly.

Severus wondered, not for the first time in the past 24 hours, how in Merlin’s name he had somehow agreed with Dumbledore to take on temporary guardianship of the little idiot. It was going to be awkward enough reuniting with his estranged family without having to add the complication of lies about an erstwhile relationship with a witch that had resulted in his suddenly changed status from confirmed bachelor to single parent. Aunt Agatha, his mother Eileen’s sister and the matriarch of the Prince family, was not a witch to be trifled with. Asking for forgiveness had never come easily to Severus. He was too proud to suffer the potential rejection. In the intervening years since he had chosen to distance himself from Eileen Prince’s wealthy family, he had convinced himself that he would not be welcomed back. The only family member that he maintained any sort of contact with was his cousin, Hilde. Even then, their correspondence had been somewhat strained and dealt only with matters pertaining to her oldest child, who was currently a student at Hogwarts.

And now, Dumbledore had asked him to lie about Potter to his entire family. The idea of betraying Aunt Aggie’s trust through deception so soon after her grudging acceptance of his apology was causing him stirrings of guilt. However, at this point, Severus knew he had few other options. To tell the truth simply could not be borne. It was far too dangerous for both Potter and himself if he were to come clean with the real reason for the boy’s presence in Stockholm.

The noise in the cabin increased as the plane started its descent and Severus swallowed, feeling his ears pop as they equalised with the change in air pressure. The coming days were, without doubt, going to be difficult to bear.

***

Harry jerked awake, completely disoriented as he found himself inexplicably strapped into the rear seat of a large sedan that hummed quietly as it drove through the narrow streets of what had to be Stockholm. He felt almost uncomfortably warm with embarrassment as he slowly regained his senses. Harry realised that his last memory was of drifting into sleep on the plane and he therefore must have been carried, unconscious, to his current location and buckled into the seatbelt by Snape, of all people. How humiliating. He wriggled a little and moved out of his slumped position, shrugging off his feelings of shame. It wasn’t his fault that he felt so tired. The last few days had been wearing, not to mention the fact that that stupid potion he had been forced to take was making him feel a bit…odd. Harry flushed again as he thought back to that moment in the airport café when he had nearly lost control and almost cried in front of Snape, over the Dursleys of all things! To take his mind off of things, he regarded his surroundings with no small degree of curiosity.

The professor sat rigidly beside Harry on the right-hand side of the rear bench seat, resolutely staring out of the foggy window at a vista washed in monochromatic tones of white and shadowy greys. In the driver’s seat, a large blonde man manoeuvred their vehicle carefully through ice-slick streets. Harry turned his attention out of his own window at the streetscape beyond.

His view contrasted sharply with Snape’s vista of snow-laden playgrounds. Instead, he was afforded a scene of neat rows of multi-storeyed terrace houses. The buildings sat squeezed together at the very edge of the cobbled street, lumps of greying snow piled against their apricot-hued facades like clotted cream. He shifted in his seat and sat up a little higher to take in the completely unfamiliar landscape, revelling in the fact that he was now clearly in a foreign country.

Snape shifted his gaze and raised a sardonic eyebrow in acknowledgement of the fact that Harry was finally awake but said nothing. The professor’s displeasure, either at being in a taxi, or perhaps in Stockholm itself, was evident in his posture. Harry knew that the man was probably not delighted about the upcoming meeting with his relatives. Professor Dumbledore had hinted to Harry that Snape had not been on good terms with his Aunt’s family for many years and was only now attempting to repair the relationship. Swallowing with nervousness, Harry wondered if the aloof man beside him had inherited his unpleasant demeanour from the Snape or Prince side of the family.

Outside, the density of buildings was thinning, slowly giving way to tracts of farmland, the icy landscape dotted with the shadowy forms of skeletal trees and the occasional lumpy evergreen. It was already dark; the slice of sky framed overhead by the car window was a dull grey, heavy with a promise of snow.

After another half hour of driving, the car turned into a narrow laneway and slowed to a stop. The driver turned in his seat to address Snape.

“Är du säker på att detta är platsen?”

The dark-haired wizard gave a short nod. “Ja, det här är det tack.”

Harry stared open-mouthed at his professor’s unexpectedly fluent Swedish. The man smirked back at him and continued in English.

“Henrik, from here, we walk,” Snape unclipped his own seatbelt and then sighed in irritation, leaning over to release Harry’s as his small fingers fumbled clumsily with the mechanism.

“Put those on,” Snape indicated the small bobble hat, parka and mittens sitting beside him on the car seat as he handed something to the driver.

Harry grabbed the clothing and opened the car door. The frigid air hit him like a slap as he slid from the seat to land on his booted feet in the snow. He hurried to pull on his jacket and yanked the knitted hat firmly onto his shaven head. The matching mittens that were tied to the cuffs of his sleeves were likewise pulled hastily over rapidly numbing fingers. He watched silently as Snape pulled their luggage from the car boot and then lurched forward himself to grab the overnight bag from Snape’s hand, nearly tumbling over as he attempted to navigate the uneven surface of the snow-covered laneway. A large, gloved hand closed over his wrist and did not relinquish it as the taxi reversed out of the laneway and quickly receded into the distance back down the highway towards Stockholm.

Snape tugged at Harry’s arm and together they continued down the laneway for a short distance. The atmosphere was tense and the silence of the white terrain that surrounded them was absolute, save for the swish and crunch of their footfalls. As they neared a dense stand of conifers, Harry felt an intense tingle slide from the top of his hatted head, down the back of his neck and along the length of his arms to his fingertips.

“Magic,” he muttered to himself, shuddering slightly with the familiar and tantalising sensation.

“You feel it?” Snape stopped walking and looked down at Harry with an expression of surprise.

Harry shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, it’s kind of what arriving at Hogwarts feels like to me when I first come back from the summer.”

“Hmm,” Snape regarded him carefully for a moment and then continued walking. “It is the magic signature of the wards that you are experiencing. This property is protected by strong familial magic. Only those with Prince ancestry can cross the boundary, unless they are escorted by a family member.”

At that comment, Harry felt the tingle of the magic slide away and Snape immediately released his grip on Harry’s wrist. “You will not be able to leave without my assistance, so do not get any dunderheaded ideas about wandering past the protection of the wards.”

Harry grunted in an irritated manner. He already knew that he was forced to endure Snape’s company for the next few weeks. Being reminded now that he was effectively under house arrest did not help to quell his displeasure at the situation.

Momentarily distracted from his depressing thoughts, Harry peered through the trees to where he could see the warm glow of lit windows ahead of them. They continued along the laneway and passed through a set of heavy iron gates that were held open against vast stone pillars. The grandeur of the building in front of them could now be viewed in all its splendour. The central part of the manor house was two storeys and looked Georgian in appearance with its symmetrical façade and vast rectangular windows. Two single-storey wings flanked the midsection of the grand house. A circular drive, now covered with snow, swept around an enormous pine tree centred in front of the entrance, while off to one side, slightly hidden behind a stand of winter-bare trees, stood a much more modest cottage constructed of dark red timber. Having seen a number of similar cottages dotting the landscape on their drive to the Prince family property, Harry recognised that this style of building was a traditional Swedish farmhouse. Located as it was to one side of the overstated opulence of the manor house, the squat cottage sat in the icy grounds like a small dog crouched beside its mistress.

Harry shuddered as they drew closer to the front entrance of the grander of the two buildings. There was something about the forced perfection and mirror-precise symmetry of the manor house that reminded Harry uncomfortably of Privet Drive. He thought of The Burrow with a pang of regret. Ron was probably sitting snug at the dining table in front of the large kitchen fireplace right now, enjoying Molly Weasley’s excellent cooking and arguing with Fred and George about Quidditch.

Reluctantly, Harry dragged his thoughts back to his own reality. He and Snape had now reached the entrance to the house. A heavy black door was ornamented by a pair of stone statues that Harry could see on closer inspection were black marble Thestrals, carved to rear for eternity on skeletal hindquarters, their leathery wings unfurled as if about to take off in flight.

“Welcome to Kall Hus,” Snape intoned gravely, his eyes fixed firmly on the imposing entry.

“Kall Hus?” Harry muttered.

Snape glanced down at Harry and frowned. “It means ‘Cold House’.”

Harry shuddered as he took in his surroundings. It seemed a fitting name for the imposing building, and not just because of the icy conditions.

“Wait here and do not move,” Snape snapped, placing the duffle bag he was carrying onto the drive next to Harry. The slender-framed wizard swept up to the front door, lifting and dropping a heavy brass door knocker that was disconcertingly shaped to resemble a fine-boned hand grasping an apple between thumb and fingertips. As if waiting for this action to be completed, the door immediately opened to reveal a wide hallway and a clearly ecstatic house elf.

“Oooh, Master Severus, you is coming back to Kall Hus!” The tiny figure hopped from one bare foot to another, gazing with adoring eyes at Snape’s expressionless face. “Kora is being so happy to see Young Master again.”

“Thank you, Kora,” Snape nodded once at the spritely elf, who was clearly working hard to keep from throwing its arms around Snape’s legs. “It is likewise a pleasure to see you again after all these years.”

Harry’s eyes widened in shock at his professor’s respectful address. His only real experience of how adult wizards treated house elves was confined to Lucius Malfoy’s complete disdain for Dobby. He grimaced at the memory of the elder Malfoy’s cruel treatment of the little elf before turning his attention back to Kora. He was surprised to note that she was just as bald as Dobby, despite clearly being female. She was dressed simply, but warmly, in what looked to be a finely-knitted hot water bottle cover with the bottom cut open. The overall effect was that Kora looked to be wearing a knit turtle-neck sleeveless dress that hung to just below her knees.

“Mistress is telling Kora that Master Severus is to take supper in the drawing room on his arrival,” the elf nodded emphatically, gazing with curiosity past Snape’s legs at Harry standing in the drive with the luggage.

“Kora, I would like to introduce you to Henrik. He is…my son,” Snape gestured with a lazy hand at Harry, but did not turn to look at him. “Henrik, come and meet Kora. She has been the head house-elf at Kall Hus for longer than I have been alive, serving the Prince family faithfully for many generations now.”

Harry came forward to stand beside Snape, holding out a mittened hand in greeting. He was slightly ashamed to note that he was roughly the same height as Kora.

“Er…hallo,” he smiled. “You can just call me Henry if you like.”

“Young Master Henry!” Kora enthused, blushing as she shook Harry’s hand vigorously. Snape frowned at Harry’s shortened version of his assumed name, no doubt feeling it sounded altogether too much like ‘Harry’.

“Kora is so pleased to meet the son of Master Severus,” she snapped her fingers and the small pile of luggage disappeared from the drive.

“Please, Master Severus and Young Master Henry, allow me to take your coats,” Kora waited for them to cross the threshold and closed the door softly behind them. Snape nodded once more and with a click of her fingers, both he and Harry were divested of their bulky outer layers.

“You is both to be coming with me to the drawing room for suppers,” Kora trotted away down the vast tiled hallway of the manor house, clearly expecting them to follow.

Harry looked up at Snape’s stern countenance and swallowed hard. It was time to meet the family.

***q95;

Severus was filled with both nostalgia and trepidation in equal parts as he swept down the elegantly appointed hallway of Kall Hus, tugging a nervous Potter alongside him by the wrist. His last visit here had ended in a spectacularly ugly fashion in the spring of 1979, at the tender age of just 19. It had been the last time that Severus had seen his aunt. He could still vividly recall the vicious sneer on her face as she had cast him out of the family home. Of course, Severus knew now, as he had then, that he had deserved all her rage, spite and more. Joining the ranks of the Dark Lord was reason enough for Aunt Agatha’s renouncement of him, but the sudden disappearance of both Eileen and Tobias Snape coinciding with Severus’s defection to the Dark was suspiciously disturbing enough to make him a complete pariah on the Prince side.

Ahead of them, Kora had already disappeared through a set of mullioned French doors which, Severus knew, led to the drawing room. He found himself suddenly shortening the length of his stride, filled with apprehension at finally facing his formidable aunt after all these years of estrangement. A small shifting in his right hand reminded Severus that he still maintained a firm grip on Harry Potter’s wrist and he glanced down at the boy for a moment, coming to a complete stop just outside the grand room at the end of the hall.

“Do not speak unless you are spoken to,” he reminded the boy in a soft voice, relinquishing his grasp. Potter rubbed at his wrist for a moment and looked up at Severus quizzically.

“Is everything alright, Sir?”

Severus frowned. He must be showing his discomfit. Was he that easy to read?

“There may be some…complications,” he cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “I did not part from my family on the best of terms,” Severus scowled dismissively. “This reunion may be somewhat unpleasant.”

“That’s okay, Professor. My aunt can be pretty awful, too, when she wants to be.” Potter shrugged and offered a humourless smile.

Severus grunted in reply and, steeling himself, stepped through the doorway and into the room. Sighing with relief, he noted that his aunt was not yet present. A momentary reprieve, then. He turned and crooked his finger at Potter, indicating that the boy should enter. Gazing about in wonder, the irritating child allowed his jaw to fall open in amazement at the tastefully appointed décor.

Severus closed his eyes for a brief moment and then allowed himself to take in the contents of the room. Overhead, a crystal chandelier glinted with the soft glow of the beeswax candles it displayed in elegant gold sconces. The entire space, which was vast, was lit with a combination of candlelight and the soft glow from the enormous fireplace at the end of the room. Red velvet lounge chairs were artfully arranged around the black marble hearth, placed so that the occupants could engage in conversation while viewing either the fireplace or the graceful curves of an antique grand piano finished in a polished walnut veneer. Several portraits of significant proportions graced the flocked wallpapered walls, the occupants of which had turned as one to inspect the newcomers. Severus could hear the muted gasps and mutters of the painted likenesses of his ancestors and smirked to himself as he realised that it was his return that had heralded their outrage. At least he could still make an entrance.

Nearer to the door, a more formal arrangement of bergère armchairs was placed around a low coffee table. The table was laden with a tea service and an assortment of finger foods. Kora stood expectantly beside the coffee table and smiled nervously at Severus.

“Your supper, Sirs.”

“Will Aunt Aggie be joining us?” Severus raised an eyebrow at her conspicuous absence from the room.

“Mistress will be down momentarily. She has already eaten and insists that Master Severus and the Young Master not be waiting for her.” At this, Kora popped away from sight, leaving the pair alone.

Severus moved to seat himself in one of the chairs and gestured for Potter to do the same. He snorted in amusement as the little imbecile was forced to face the seat of the armchair he had chosen and then crawl up onto the upholstered seat by hoisting himself up on hands and knees. The small boy then swung his body around to face forward, his feet barely dangling over the edge of the seat as he leaned against the backrest of the chair. Realising that Potter was now unable to reach any of the food, Severus sighed and poured a cup of tea for himself, placed sandwiches and pastries on a plate and handed it over to him. His reward was a stunned expression, followed by an incoherent grunt of thanks.

A twinge of irritation bit at Severus as he watched the boy pick at his meal. He had returned to the family seat, at Albus Dumbledore’s request and to add insult to injury, Potter was here with him to witness what was sure to be a humiliating display of bowing and scraping at the feet of the family matriarch. A usually intelligent and cautious man, Severus found himself woefully underprepared for this meeting. How did one apologise for turning his back on his loved ones and choosing instead to kiss the hem of the robes of the most evil wizard known in the magical world?

In his youth, he had given himself over so entirely to the Dark Lord’s service that he was Marked as belonging to him for the rest of his days. Severus restlessly tugged at the left-hand cuff of his Muggle-made sweater. He allowed the fingers of his right hand to slip into his sleeve, as was his habit these past many years, lightly running them over the place where he knew Dark Magic dwelt under his very skin. The symbol of his betrayal, his foolish devotion to a terrible cause, burned into his conscience and his skin.

As if called into being by this self-conscious action, a door near the fireplace opened quietly. Aunt Agatha’s commanding presence immediately filled the room.

***

Harry looked up at the slight creaking of a hinge to see an imposing woman entering the room. She was slim but quite tall, with silver-streaked black hair pulled back into a knot at the base of her neck. Her resemblance to Snape was undeniable, but there was something much more appealing in her expression. A certain warmth and softness were evident in her lined face. Harry thought she looked to be in her sixties, although she carried herself with the grace and assurance of a much younger woman.

“Severus,” she greeted the Potions Master quietly, a small smile about her lips which was not quite reflected in her eyes. Her voice was deep and melodious, with a strangely flat accent that Harry could not quite place.

“Aunt Aggie,” Snape returned as he stood somewhat awkwardly, clearly not sure whether to move to greet her, or remain standing beside Harry’s chair. Agatha took the decision from him, stepping forward and gripping both of the man’s upper arms as she looked up at him with an unreadable expression. Standing so close together, the pair were still for a long moment before Snape seemed to come to a decision, leaning down and swiftly kissing his aunt on each cheek. As he went to step away, she raised a hand to his face and held his chin so that he could not move without tearing himself from her grasp.

“It is so very wonderful to see you again, my dear,” she intoned, her face now completely earnest, yet devoid of the slightest hint of a smile. “And who is this?” She turned swiftly from Snape, the intense moment suddenly broken, one eyebrow raised at Harry in a very Snape-ish manner.

Snape cleared his throat nervously. “My son.”

“Hello,” Harry immediately slid from his seat and smiled shyly at the striking woman.

Aunt Aggie stepped away, sat in one of the grouped chairs and offered her hand to Harry, who moved hesitantly to take it, slightly perplexed.

“He is very like you at this same age, Severus,” she stated as she pulled Harry closer to her in order to inspect him more closely. She held onto Harry’s narrow shoulders and smiled warmly. It seemed very odd to Harry to see a smile grace features so similar to those of the formidable Potions Professor.

“I am afraid the resemblance is a physical one only,” Snape grimaced. “The boy is altogether too impetuous and without a great deal of sense.”

“Hmm,” Aunt Aggie moved her gaze from Harry’s face to glance up at Snape mischievously. “Perhaps not only just a physical resemblance then…”

Snape looked greatly chastened, two spots of colour appearing on his otherwise sallow cheekbones.

“And does your son have a name?”

“Henrik,” the man choked out. “Henrik Marcus Snape.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Henrik Marcus Snape,” she cupped Harry’s chin in a warm hand and leaned forward, kissing him on both cheeks and then lightly on his forehead. “Welcome to our family.”

Harry blushed hotly, not sure quite how to react to such a warm and maternal greeting. It was very rare for any adult to touch him with such kindness, apart from Mrs Weasley. He could not think of his Aunt Petunia having ever kissed him. The only time she had ever touched his cheek was to offer a sharp slap of rebuke for wrongdoings on his part. He was completely wrongfooted, very flustered and altogether surprised and dismayed to feel the heat of tears prickling in his eyes.

Blinking away the moisture, Harry looked to the floor. “Thank you very much, Ma’am.”

Feeling Snape's eyes on him, Harry glanced up and then away again, studiously avoiding the openly curious stare of his Potions professor.

“You must call me Aunt Aggie, or just Aggie if you prefer, Henrik.”

“Okay…Aunt Aggie,” Harry whispered. He glanced up again in time to see the woman pinning Snape with a hard look. It was quickly replaced with a smile when she noticed Harry’s attention.

“Much better,” she patted Harry’s cheek and released him. “You must both feel quite exhausted after your journey. Please, sit and continue with your supper. I must admit that I was quite surprised, Severus, by your note informing me that you would be travelling in the Muggle way.”

Snape nodded, reclaiming his tea cup and pouring another cup for Agatha as he sat. “Henrik is quite new to the magical world. I thought it…prudent…to save his first Apparation experience for something a little less taxing than international travel.”

“Ah, of course,” Agatha nodded in understanding, placing her hand on the upholstered arm of Harry’s chair. “Your father wrote me that your mother had not revealed to you that she was a witch whilst she was alive. It must have been very exciting for you to discover your magical heritage, Henrik?”

Harry thought back to when he was just eleven years old and Hagrid revealed to him that he was a wizard for the very first time. “It was!” he enthused in a genuine manner, drawing on his memories to add veracity to his response, unaware that he very much appeared to be experiencing the wonder and excitement of a much younger child. “I love magic.”

Aunt Aggie laughed lightly as she sipped at her tea. She appeared completely at ease and quite relaxed when speaking with Harry, but he noticed that there was a great deal of unspoken communication happening between her and Snape, exchanged in glances and subtle changes in facial expression and body language. This was coupled with a level of tension emanating from his professor. Harry had never seen Snape so humble or…cowed…as he was in the presence of this woman. Clearly, a more intense conversation between the pair was to be had when Harry was not in the room.

“Well, Henrik, you have the good fortune of being born into a family with a long history of witches and wizards with great magical power at their disposal.”

Harry did not doubt her assessment of the Prince family heritage. As much as he disliked the man, there could be no denying that Severus Snape was a powerful and talented wizard. There was a reason that Albus Dumbledore placed so much faith in Snape’s abilities as both a spy and a Potions Master. He nodded mutely, surreptitiously observing his teacher from beneath his lowered lashes. Snape was clutching at the handle of his teacup with a white-knuckled grip, his face now ashen, causing Harry to wonder at the subtext in Aunt Aggie’s comment.

“The Prince line is an ancient one, with a proud and noble heritage. I hope that when you are older you will uphold the values for which we Princes stand in both your choices and deeds.”

Snape made a small sound in the back of his throat and carefully placed his teacup back on its saucer. His hand trembled slightly. Harry thought the man looked quite unwell.

“It is our choices that define us, after all. Is that not true, Severus?” Aunt Aggie continued lightly, but with steel in her gaze.

“Indeed,” Snape responded quietly, unable to look at the woman as she continued to regard him with a carefully blank expression. “And yet, some of us can never hope to live up to the aspirations of the Prince name.”

“Nonsense,” Aunt Aggie dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “It is through the struggle for recognition that we are proven.”

“- Or broken.” Snape said bitterly.

Here, Agatha straightened, schooling her expression and smiling once again at Harry. “Your boy is quite weary, I fear, as in fact are you, Severus. Perhaps we could save this intriguing conversation for a more pertinent time?”

“As you wish,” Snape replied, passing a tired hand over his face. He had the resigned look of one who had just lost an argument.

Harry shifted in his chair. As curious as he was about this strange exchange of words between Snape and his aunt, he was finding it increasingly difficult to focus. His eyes itched with weariness and his limbs were heavy. He was feeling very tired, despite having slept for those few hours on the plane and in the car. It was quite late in the evening and Harry’s now younger body was giving him clear signs that rest was needed.

“I thought you might like to stay with Henrik in the Gatehouse Cottage,” Aunt Aggie tilted her head at Snape in a conciliatory manner. “I know how much you loved to stay there as a child. It will also afford you both some privacy when the rest of the family arrive.”

Snape sat up slightly at this offer and looked genuinely pleased and a little bemused. “Thank you, that would suit us very well. I would like that very much indeed.”

Agatha rose immediately and clicked her fingers. “Kora!”

With a soft Pop, the elf appeared before her.

“Please escort our guests to the Cottage. I believe everything has already been prepared for their arrival?”

“Yes, Mistress, Kora is making sure all the rooms are ready!”

Agatha nodded briskly at the House Elf and turned once again to Snape. “Then I shall bid you goodnight, Severus,” the woman then inclined her head gracefully toward Harry with a genuine smile. “Sleep well, Henrik.”

Gatehouse Cottage was everything that Kall Hus was not: cosy, with a warm and inviting atmosphere, it looked lived-in and loved. It was therefore a surprise to Harry when Kora informed them that the little house had not been used at all since the last time that Snape had visited his aunt almost twenty years ago.

The man in question had not said a word after leaving the manor house. Instead, he had summarily retreated behind the door of one of the downstairs rooms as soon as they had entered the cottage, leaving Kora in charge of getting Harry settled.

Harry shrugged at Snape’s abrupt departure and took in the white-washed walls of a small but comfortably appointed room that clearly served as the main living space of the house. The floors were of waxed pine, mostly covered by an assortment of mismatched rugs. The largest rug, a woven flat-weave cotton in an oatmeal shade, lay invitingly before a very unusual fireplace. The oversized mantel boasted organic, rounded edges with a low bench that swept around its base, the entire piece coated in an off-white plaster render. It reminded Harry of the photographs that he had seen of adobe fireplaces in Aunt Petunia’s posh coffee-table book on Spain. The chimney-breast was almost as broad as the mantel and tapered only slightly where it met the timber-beamed ceiling of the room. The effect was of warmth and comfort, further emphasised by a large, squashy sofa with rolled arms, upholstered in a green and white check fabric. A variety of cushions and throw rugs were haphazardly arranged along the back of the sofa, tempting Harry to climb up and nestle in for a cosy nap in front of the gently crackling fire.

Kora smiled at Harry’s obvious appreciation of the homey space and tugged gently on his hand to lead him around the corner. He noted an open kitchen-diner that housed a scrubbed pine table, behind which sat a wall that housed floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled to overflowing with an assortment of books. Harry was instantly reminded of Snape’s own extensive collection of books in the house at Spinner’s End. He moved as if to inspect the shelves, but his attention was drawn away by a burst of intense colour in his peripheral vision. A narrow staircase, the treads painted a glossy postbox red, curved invitingly up to the first floor. Kora was already heading in that direction, so Harry followed her, promising himself that he would get to have a closer inspection of the ground floor of the cottage later on.

“Young Master Henry’s rooms is the only ones up on this level,” Kora informed him as they stood in the small hallway at the top of the stairwell.

If Harry had been enchanted by the snug and restful atmosphere of the ground floor of the cottage, he was now positively delighted with the bedroom the house elf showed him. Upstairs, tucked away under the slanted attic roof, the honeyed tones of the pine floors were complemented by an oval rag rug in beiges and pale blues that dominated most of the floor space. In the corner, beside a dormer window, sat a single cast iron frame bed in white. He had immediately tested it and was thrilled to note that it was soft and comfortable; layered in a down comforter and a simple blue and white patchwork quilt, it was nothing like the grim bed with its stained sheets and threadbare blanket that Harry was used to at the Dursleys.

The room also held an ornate oak armoire opposite the bed. A battered roll-top desk and simple wooden chair in the far corner completed the furniture. His bedroom in Gatehouse Cottage was small, but perfectly formed, and Harry loved it. It was easily the nicest bedroom that he had ever stayed in. His dormitory in Gryffindor Tower was wonderful, and still felt like Harry’s true home, but it was sometimes a challenge sharing a bedroom with four other boys.

Curiously, Harry approached a timber door in the corner of the room with a slanted top, which was angled to match the sloped ceiling. The door was eerily reminiscent of the door to his cupboard under the stairs at Privet Drive. To Harry’s great relief, however, behind the door lay an adjoining ensuite bathroom, rather than the stark confines of the storage cupboard he had half expected to find. He grinned as he realised that the little bathroom would allow him privacy and also ensured that he would be able to stay up in the attic for a great deal of the time, should he so choose, therefore giving him the possibility of avoiding any unnecessary interactions with the surly Snape.

“Kora will leave Young Master Henry to prepare for bed, unless he is wishing for assistance?” Kora bobbed her head and gazed at Harry expectantly.

Harry immediately flushed and shook his head quickly, realising that the elf was offering to help him wash and change into his pyjamas. In his wonder at the unexpected loveliness of this house that Snape had apparently frequented in his childhood, Harry had forgotten his own childish appearance.

“Erm…no, thank you, Kora,” he muttered. “I can manage everything myself.”

After hurriedly bathing and changing into his pyjamas (powder blue and covered with garish yellow snitches – Mrs Weasley had really outdone herself with these), Harry retired to bed. He lay curled on his side, staring unseeing at the whorls of snow just visible outside the window. So far, his time spent in the company of Severus Snape had been unexpectedly bearable.

Harry was surprised to find that the man, although as taciturn and disagreeable as ever, did seem to be taking his role as Harry’s guardian quite seriously. There had been food provided when he was hungry (and even forced upon him when he wasn’t), warm clothing, a soft bed; all things that were not necessarily afforded him under the dubious care of the Dursleys.

Harry blushed to think that Snape had even apparently carried him from the airport to the taxi when he had fallen asleep on the plane. Of course, in other ways, the professor was just as much a git as he ever was. He thought back to Snape’s earlier comments that evening about Harry being ‘impetuous’ and ‘without a great deal of sense’ when he had introduced Harry to Aunt Agatha as his son. He had been further reminded of Snape’s unpredictable nature when the man had so abruptly disappeared when they had arrived at the cottage. He supposed that his professor had simply spent enough time with the hated Harry Potter for one day and needed to go off on his own and do Snape things…whatever that may be…before he threatened Harry with bodily harm, or worse.

To be honest, Harry was quite proud of his own restraint so far. There had been several instances over the past day where he had wanted to tell Snape exactly what he thought of his stupid rules requiring Harry to act like some kind of robot that only spoke when asked a question and behaved perfectly at all times.

He shifted restlessly in under his covers and scowled at the ceiling. Harry wondered at how their father and son act would fare under the intense scrutiny of the Prince family over the coming days and grimaced slightly. Snape’s Aunt Aggie was just as keenly intelligent as the man himself. It didn’t seem like this game of pretence would be the easy task that Dumbledore had planned.

As if Harry’s thoughts had summoned the Potions Master, the bedroom door suddenly opened to reveal Snape’s tall form, backlit menacingly by the glow of the hallway lamp. Harry sat up abruptly, feeling ill at ease as he took in the way the figure loomed in the doorway. It reminded him a little too vividly of Uncle Vernon coming to Harry’s door repeatedly during the previous summer when he would lurch in and threaten Harry to ‘stop making such a ruddy racket’ after another Sirius-related nightmare. Harry swallowed hard and straightened his shoulders, refusing to allow Snape to see that he felt at all cowed by the man’s presence. He just wished that he wasn’t in such a vulnerable position, but it seemed stupid to leap out from under his covers and stand there beside the bed for no real reason. In any case, Snape took the decision away from Harry, stooping slightly under the eaves of the ceiling to twirl his wand and conjure a stout leather armchair beside the bed.

“There’s really no need to read me a bedtime story, Professor,” Harry said sarcastically, crossing his arms over his chest and thrusting his chin out.

Snape narrowed his eyes at Harry as he lowered himself into the chair, his movements slow and deliberate.

“You would do well to hold your tongue, you arrogant boy,” Snape spoke in a low tone. “I have not come to read you a story, nor am I here to tuck you in, as I am sure you must realise. Rather, I thought it pertinent that we take this opportunity for a little…chat.”

“Oh, so I am to be allowed to speak now?” Harry raised his eyebrow in what he hoped was a sardonic manner.

“What in Merlin’s name are you blathering on about now?”

“You told me before that I couldn’t speak unless spoken to and that I had to obey you. Well, sorry, Sir, if you think that I can carry on like that while being treated like a little kid for three whole weeks – but it’s a lot to ask!”

“This entire situation is a lot to ask – of both of us – but here we are.”

Harry stared at Snape in shock. He hadn’t expected that the man would actually agree with him. He began to wonder what exactly it was that Snape wanted to talk with him about. He had assumed that he was in for another lecture on how to behave as the perfect little five-year-old, but now he wasn’t sure what to expect. Harry sagged back against his pillow and sighed.

“I guess the Headmaster really has it in for both of us,” he forced out grudgingly, glancing up to see what Snape’s reaction would be.

Snape eyed Harry suspiciously for a moment.

“I do believe that in this instance, Professor Dumbledore has perhaps underestimated the demands he has placed upon us,” the man replied. “However, it must be said that you are doing well thus far.”

“Wh-what did you say?” Harry was incredulous.

“You have, shall we say, exceeded my expectations in your ability to play your part in this farce. You did –“ Snape paused and looked uncomfortable, “very well - in your interactions with my Aunt earlier this evening.”

Harry did not know what to do with this strange version of Severus Snape. The man was complimenting him. He had just told him that he had done well – that he had exceeded his expectations! Harry struggled with a swelling feeling in his chest for a moment and deliberately pushed the emotion away. He refused to feel pleased that Snape, of all people, might be proud of him for something.

“I like her,” Harry said softly, trying to distract himself from his own confusing emotions.

“Aunt Agatha is a very fine woman,” Snape replied solemnly. “I have a – difficult – history with her. It is important to me that –“ he broke off and looked away with a fleeting expression of deep unhappiness before shaking his head and glaring impatiently at Harry. “I wish to speak with you about other matters. You will have a far greater challenge to face in the coming days as you continue to play your role.”

Harry looked up at Snape curiously, wondering what the man had been about to say moments earlier.

“The rest of the family will be here for Christmas,” Snape continued, tapping a finger against his lower lip in a show of deep thought. “My cousin, and her children. It will not be so easy to fool the children that you are only five.”

Harry nodded. He could see why Snape was worried. It was one thing to act as if he were a young child around adults. He would have far more interaction with the children and it would be all too easy to slip up in some way, or simply overplay his part.

“I think it best if you come across as quiet and a little shy. It will not be out of character with your behaviour earlier this evening.”

“I will try my best, Professor,” Harry said firmly, nodding to himself. He found himself wanting to earn more praise from the irascible Potions Master, despite his own misgivings.

“Yes,” Snape said thoughtfully, giving Harry a searching look. “I do believe you will.”

***

Shifting uneasily in the utilitarian blue-grey plastic chair in which she reluctantly waited, Dolores Umbridge glared at the unshaven Muggle youth who occupied the seat beside her. The Guildford Police Headquarters was one of the most distressingly mundane and non-magical places that Dolores had ever had the misfortune to encounter. To add insult to injury, the waiting room where she was currently forced to sit was teeming with the absolute dregs of Muggle society. Fidgeting with the slippery paper docket in her hand, Dolores once again checked her queue number against the garish, Killing Curse green number that constantly changed on the screen mounted in the far-left corner of the room. Her docket number was ‘24’ and the screen had resolutely refused to shift from number ‘21’ for the past 15 minutes. The interminable wait to speak with a police officer had already taken a little over an hour and her patience, fragile to begin with, had now completely deserted her.

Dolores was most disgruntled that she was forced to debase herself by interacting with the Muggle police in Surrey after the snub of that odious and officious little Slytherin, Bertram Blundersby. It was disheartening to think of the damage that her reputation had taken since the fiasco that the Potter boy had made of her regrettably brief tenure as Headmistress of Hogwarts.

Still, she thought imperiously as she straightened her posture and leaned further away from the unkempt man beside her, if you wanted something done properly, it was usually best to see to it yourself. Point in case, that buffoon Vernon Dursley had proven himself entirely useless in handling the release of Harry Potter over into her hands. She had thought it would be easy – a few carefully worded letters, with the insinuation that the boy’s mental instability could cause a danger to a poor, defenceless family of Muggles such as the Dursleys – and the boy would be delivered to her post-haste. But no; whether it was through Albus Dumbledore’s cursed interference, or a sudden attack of familial guilt on the part of Potter’s relatives, Dolores was still unsure of precisely what had gone wrong. The results were the same, whichever way she looked at things. Potter remained out of her reach.

She had thought that her ‘Plan B’ appeal to Blundersby to be foolproof. She had written to him with a request that Harry Potter be sectioned and placed under medical supervision, where he would be evaluated and then hopefully placed in long term care in the Janus Thickey ward at St Mungo’s. The man owed Dolores much after she had used her considerable influence as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic to secure him that promotion. She had never imagined that the man might, instead of assisting her, place obstacles in her way. She cleared her throat with a small ‘ahem’, the feminine and high-pitched sound at odds with the absolute rage Dolores was feeling at Blundersby’s betrayal.

Never trust a Slytherin. Even though she was one herself, or perhaps because of that fact, Dolores knew all too well that if there was a way to wiggle the best out of a deal without giving too much of yourself, a Slytherin would always find it.

‘Plan B’ had seemed quite straightforward. No rational wizard could doubt that the Boy-Who-Lived was unwell, especially in the light of all the negative press he had received in the Daily Prophet. Of course, Dolores may have had a hand in some of that unfortunate media coverage, but the fact that she had chosen to involve herself in Potter’s smear campaign just proved her willingness to defend the Wizarding World against vile little trouble makers who threatened the very peace of their society. The same actions had to be taken against bumbling old wizards who ought to have retired years ago, leaving the leadership of impressionable and malleable young minds of the future generation of witches and wizards in more capable hands.

What Dolores hadn’t counted on was that her name no longer commanded the same level of respect and deference that it once had. But all that was soon to change.

“Ahem,” Dolores once again cleared her throat with a girlish little inflection, drawing a scowl from the detestable young thug who still slouched too close on her right-hand side. She was starting to lose control of her emotions again, and that just wouldn’t do. Not here, in this den of Muggle reprobates. No, Dolores needed to keep her composure. A clear head and a calm demeanour was, after all, vital when one was plotting their latest act of revenge. Young Mr Potter was still clearly in her sights and with the boy’s unwitting help, she would soon reinstate her reputation as a formidable witch of some considerable influence.

“Number 24,” drawled the voice of the acne-cheeked constable at the reception desk, jolting Dolores out of her vengeful contemplation.

She primly stood and swiftly approached the constable with a smug expression oddly reminiscent of a toad that had just swallowed a particularly juicy fly. Handing over her docket, she leant forward to speak with the young police officer in a conspiratorial manner.

“I wish to report a case of child neglect,” Dolores simpered softly, her voice dripping with tones of false concern.

***

Harry slowly emerged from a deep sleep to the gentle scratching of a quill on parchment. For a moment, he was not exactly certain where he was. The room was filled with warm dappled sunlight which danced in joyful patterns on the timber floor. Something felt odd about the quality of the light and it took him a moment to realise the problem. When he had fallen asleep, a gentle snow fall was fluttering outside the dormer window. Now, Harry could see robust green leaves shifting in a light breeze against a pocket of blue sky. The view from his bed gave every indication that it was a perfect summer’s day.

Entranced by the sight, it occurred to Harry that the window must be charmed. He threw aside his blankets and padded on bare feet to inspect the view more closely.

It was then that he noticed the boy.

Hunched over an open book at the desk beside the doorway, the dark-haired stranger was so intent on his work that Harry’s presence went unnoticed. Harry moved until he was standing behind him, a vantage point from which he could now see that the boy, who looked on closer inspection to be perhaps seven years old, was carefully drawing an ink sketch in a leather-bound journal.

“Um, hi,” Harry said, completely nonplussed about who this boy was, and why he had chosen to use an already occupied room to work on his art.

The boy started dramatically, knocking over the inkwell beside his hand and splattering ink all over the desk and the wall behind it. He leapt from his chair and stared wide-eyed at Harry with an expression of absolute horror as he backed towards the door.

“Wh-Who are you?” he demanded a moment later, his fear slowly turning to puzzlement as he continued to stare at Harry.

“I’m Ha-Henrik,” Harry stuttered in reply, almost giving his real name in his confusion. “Sorry about that,” he gestured to the spilled ink. “I guess I startled you, huh?”

The other boy looked back at the mess on the desk and glared angrily at Harry. “Yes, you did! What are you doing here?”

Harry felt confused. Was there another family staying in the Gatehouse? Kora hadn’t mentioned anything the night before and Snape had said that his other relatives would be arriving in a few days' time. “I slept here. Last night – Sn- I mean, my father and I, we’re staying at the Cottage. For Christmas-“

The boy furrowed his brows, at first in annoyance, and then in complete bewilderment as Harry spoke. He looked towards the bed and Harry followed his gaze, gasping when he could see the bed was neatly made with unfamiliar bed linens, clearly not yet slept in. There was absolutely no evidence that Harry had exited the warm confines of that bed just moments ago.

Turning back to the boy, he watched as dark eyes peered more closely at Harry’s appearance. The pale face slowly lost what little colour it had. “You’re a ghost!”

Harry began to snort with laughter. It was then that he felt a very strange sensation. His hands and feet started tingling with pins and needles. An overwhelming impression of vertigo made the world tilt and sway around him. He felt almost as if he were lying down, at the same time as he was still standing, looking blankly at the boy in front of him. He tried to take a step forward so that he could grab hold of the desk chair to steady himself but found himself completely frozen to the spot. As if from a great distance, he could hear someone calling his name. His real name.

A moment later, the sensation disappeared, and Harry stumbled forward, grabbing the back of the chair to halt his momentum. He took a deep breath.

“I’m not a ghost,” he said, somewhat shakily, his previous feeling of amusement having entirely abandoned him.

“Yes, you are!” the boy insisted in a somewhat snarky tone, moving further away from Harry and slouching in the corner of the room. “I just saw you go all see-through. It was like you were fading away. Only ghosts can do that!”

“If I’m a ghost, how come I can touch this chair?” Harry queried more firmly.

The boy scratched his head. He seemed to forget his wariness and slowly approached the place where Harry still stood, uncertainly gripping onto the desk chair. “Maybe you’re a poltergeist?” he offered. “You said you were staying here for Christmas…”

“Well, I am!” Harry insisted.

“But it’s August. Christmas isn’t for months yet.”

Harry blinked at the boy.

“It’s not August - -“ he was about to continue when, once again, he experienced that same feeling of inertia, accompanied by the inability to speak or even move. He could hear the voice calling him again. There was a panicky edge to the tone that Harry could not ignore.

“-rry? Can you hear me?”

The room, the boy, the light, everything slowly receded from Harry’s view. The world felt like it swayed and turned on its side. His eyes were hooded, partially open, but he was unable to make sense of the vague shadowy figure that loomed above him. He again felt tingling in his fingers and toes, but this time he could also feel large hands squeezing his own firmly.

“Potter – Harry…if you can hear me, try to squeeze my hand.” The voice was louder now and more insistent.

Harry was suddenly desperately afraid. He felt that he was dying. He was unable to move. He was completely paralysed. What was wrong with him? Where was he? He tried to squeeze the warm hand that wrapped around his smaller one and managed only a brief twinge of his fingers.

“Better. Try again,” the owner of the voice spoke more calmly now.

Harry managed once again to shift his fingers, curling them weakly in response to the instruction. Abruptly, the hands let go and Harry felt a thumb slide his right eyelid fully open. Bright light flooded his vision, blinding him momentarily.

Trying to turn his head away while protesting his discomfort, Harry could only make a guttural groan. Awareness was slowly returning to him. His extremities still felt unnaturally heavy and as sensation slowly began to flood his body, he could feel his own pulse pounding in his ears.

“He is breathing more normally now,” the deep voice still held concern. “Kora, please go to my room and locate my potions kit. I think it best you just bring the entire bag up here.”

“Yes, Master Severus,” the squeaky voice of the elf trembled slightly.
Harry realised with a sense of complete confusion that the hands that just moments ago had ministered so gently to him were Snape’s. He remembered now that he was staying in the Gatehouse Cottage. He had seen that boy, had spoken to him and then the world had turned on its head. Harry still could not make sense of what was happening to him. Had he fainted?

Long fingers grasped at his chin and Harry could feel the cold dribble of a potion sliding against the inside of his cheek. He realised that his jaw was clenched shut and he attempted to part his teeth so that he could swallow the foul-tasting substance more quickly. Sluggishly, his body obeyed. Above him, he could hear Snape sigh.

“The larger green vial next, Kora,” he said quietly. “Here, Potter, let us see if you can manage this one.”

Harry found he could now open his eyes more fully and took the opportunity to look up at his teacher. He was frightened by the intense concern written on Snape’s face. Whatever had happened to him, it must have been quite serious for the professor to look at him with such open worry. Obediently, he swallowed the oddly tasteless substance that was tilted into his mouth.

“Now, try to squeeze my hands again,” the Potions Master carefully lifted Harry’s hands and held them with a light grip.

Harry was relieved to find that he was now able to more firmly grasp the hands with his own. He took a deep, shaky breath and attempted to speak again.

“What happened…to me?” it was hard to force the words out through his reluctant lips.

Snape released Harry’s hands and sat back on his heels. Turning his head to the side, Harry could see the foot of his bed and realised that he was lying on the floor in the attic bedroom.

“You had an episode – a seizure of sorts. Kora found you here ten minutes ago and called me straight away. After your tremors, you became…completely unresponsive.” Snape looked even paler than his usual sallow complexion.

“There was a boy,” Harry said quietly, slowly sitting up as his ability to speak and move freely finally returned to him. “Where is he?”

“A boy?” Snape looked confused.

“He was over there,” Harry pointed at the desk and shook his head as he took in the fact that the lid of the desk was closed. There was no sign of ink on the floor, or walls.

“There is no boy here, Potter, other than you yourself. Perhaps you were hallucinating.”

“He seemed so real,” Harry shook his head. If the boy’s presence had been a dream, then it had been a particularly vivid one.

“The mind can play strange tricks on us when we are in pain or distress,” Snape replied, scooting forward and then effortlessly pulling Harry’s small form into his arms.

Harry squeaked in protest, but before he could even begin to struggle, he was lifted and swiftly deposited in the soft bed. Kora trotted up to the bedside and pulled up the blankets around Harry’s shoulders. In sudden realisation, Harry gasped and turned to Snape. “You used my real name.”

“Indeed,” Snape replied gravely. “I may have forgotten myself in the urgency of the moment. However, Kora will not betray us, Potter. You can be sure of her loyalty.”

“It is being okay, Young Master Henry,” the elf grinned as she placed a slight emphasis on his pseudonym. “Kora is understanding how to keep secrets very well,” she gently patted the patchwork quilt that now covered Harry and busied herself collecting the empty potions vials that lay haphazardly on the rug.

Snape sat on the edge of the bed frowning in thought. “I believe that this seizure of yours may indicate a reaction to the de-aging potion you have consumed. Have you ever experienced any similar symptoms in the past?”

“I don’t think so,” Harry said slowly as he leaned back into his pillow. He felt fine now, but he was reminded unpleasantly of the visions that had plagued him in his fifth year. One of those visions had ultimately resulted in the death of his godfather. “Only…”

Snape raised an eyebrow.

“Well, the visions from Vol –“ he rolled his eyes as Snape flinched. “Sorry, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…I guess they were a little bit similar. But I was never paralysed like that before,” Harry shuddered at the remembered sensation.

“Hmm. I do not think that this incident is necessarily an indication of the Dark Lord’s interference,” the professor looked pensive for a moment. “I do believe, however, that you will remain in bed for the remainder of the morning. I will have Kora bring you some breakfast and then you will rest.”

At that, Snape stood and swept abruptly from the room. Harry was left to stare at the empty doorway.

In the back of his mind, it came to him that not only had Snape used his real name, but he had called him ‘Harry’.

Severus sat stiffly at the breakfast table in the informal dining room at Kall Hus. An array of extravagant breakfast foods was laid out on platters before him. Well-versed with the excesses of dining at Hogwarts and the consequences of over-indulging, he chose to fill his plate with a selection of fruit and two pieces of toast.

At the head of the table, Aunt Aggie sniffed her disapproval at what she clearly viewed to be paltry choices and pointedly dished herself an omelette.

“Kora tells me that young Henrik is feeling poorly this morning.”

Severus nodded, not taking his eyes from the rim of his teacup.

“Indeed,” he returned. “The boy is most likely suffering a little jetlag.” He paused significantly before casting a sideways glance at his aunt. “He is also still grieving his mother.”

“Of course,” she nodded in understanding and sipped at her tea pensively. “He is only very young. It must be challenging for him to lose a parent, only to be immediately thrown into a relationship with a mysterious father that he never knew existed.”

“Yes,” Severus pressed his answer out between clenched teeth. He had thought that by mentioning the fictitious and supposedly deceased Yasmin Jansen, he would discourage further conversation relating to the boy. Internally, he sighed. It seemed he had only encouraged Aggie’s opinion on the matter.

“Of course, things will be even more difficult for the boy when he is placed in yet another family in the new year,” Aunt Aggie said with a note of genuine sadness in her voice. “Perhaps, after the time spent with him over this Christmas period, you might find a place for the boy in your heart after all, Severus.”

“The boy will do better in a home with those who have the time, patience and inclination to care for a child,” Severus said quietly.

He took a moment to examine the tight fist of the foreign emotion in his stomach. With some sense of disbelief, it registered with him that he felt sorry about the reality of Potter’s unfortunate family situation. He shook his head impatiently, partly to clear away the intrusive thoughts about Potter and partly in response to Aggie’s comment. He needed to focus on the story that Dumbledore had concocted, lest he confuse fact with fiction and give the game away altogether. The trick to successful artifice was to be utterly confident in one’s duplicity.

“The truth remains that I already must uphold too many responsibilities. To add a dependent child to that mix would upset an already delicate balance,” Severus smirked in satisfaction at his little potions reference and sipped at his tea.

“This concept of balance is one that I don’t really believe you have ever truly understood, Severus.”

Raising an eyebrow, Severus chose to remain silent rather than rise to Aggie’s bait.

“For instance, a person who is completely au fait with the concept of balance might also be aware of that little Muggle idiom: ‘for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction’. Whereas you, my dear nephew, have ever been one for making decisions based on stubborn and sometimes foolish ideals, with little thought for the consequences,” her tone was light, but Severus noted the hint of steel in her eyes. “This was true even when you were a child as young as Henrik is now.”

Severus slowly lowered his teacup into its saucer, fighting to hide the tremor in his hands. “I am sorry that you feel that is the case, Aunt Agatha.”

“Are you sorry, Severus?” Agatha bit into a forkful of her omelette and chewed thoughtfully, dabbing her napkin daintily against her pursed lips. “Forgive me if I feel your apology might be somewhat lacking in sincerity.”

Severus sighed and pushed his plate away, his minimal appetite dwindling as the conversation continued. “I can understand why you may feel that way. Again, I can only offer my apologies – both for the fact that you find me so apparently lacking and additionally for my past actions and the hurt they may have caused you.”

The words sounded trite and scornful, even to him.

Severus swallowed back his anger and disappointment at hearing his Aunt’s analysis of his past behaviour. He thought back to the circumstances surrounding his estrangement from the family. His fall to the Dark was not something that he was proud of, even though he turned the memories over and over in his mind like a shiny galleon on a near daily basis. A misfit in the Muggle world and then later at Hogwarts, Severus had never felt truly wanted anywhere. His holidays at Kall Hus, spent with his mother’s family and away from the overbearing presence of his Muggle father, were the only times that he had felt able to relax and just be himself.

No-one had wanted to be friends with the untidy boy who had worn ragged hand-me-down clothing and a constant scowl on his face. He had excelled at school, his keen intelligence and delight in learning enabling him to grasp concepts well before most of his peers. Socially, however, he was a complete disaster. His sharp wit meant a quick tongue and Severus had learned the value of self-protection early on, getting in first with cruel jibes and cutting remarks, before others could hurt him first. He was consequently not well liked in Slytherin House and was eventually universally despised by his classmates from the other Houses.

To be plucked from obscurity and groomed as a potential Death Eater by Lucius Malfoy, a prefect at the time, had seemed a gift beyond imagining to the naïve boy Severus had been at 15. He had watched the older Slytherin boy gain even more power and popularity as a new recruit of the Dark Lord and Severus had wanted something of that for himself.

Eventually accepting an opportunity to meet in secret with a group of older boys who were part of Malfoy’s inner circle, he was praised for his skill in potion-making and spell-crafting. What a fool he had been to fall for such empty praise and false flattery! He had played right into their hands. Later, Severus discovered that he had been exactly the ‘type’ to be targeted as a potential Death Eater recruit. Highly intelligent, with a special skill that could be of use to the Dark Lord, Severus was one of a handful of Hogwarts students selected for recruitment, despite a lack of Pureblood status. As a desperate, lonely outsider with an abusive home life, Severus had been ripe for the picking.

From the moment that Lucius had begun courting him for the Dark Lord, Severus was lost to his friends and family. It had made him feel special, valued in a way that he had never before experienced. Severus had been so quick to turn his back on a world so cold and unfeeling towards his ugly, awkward teenaged self. And then, the final ingredient in the cauldron had been the disappearance of his parents.

Severus had not tried to hide his interest in the Dark Arts from his family as he had reached his majority. He had been proud of his association with the Death Eaters and those who knew him well suspected that he had given himself over to Darkness even before he had been Marked. It came as no surprise to him or anyone else that he was questioned repeatedly by the Aurors and Muggle authorities when Tobias and Eileen Snape vanished from Spinner’s End, never to be seen again. But it had hurt him deeply that Aunt Aggie, his beloved godmother, the one person that he felt he could still trust in the world, had turned on him. She had cast him out, disowned him, suspicious of his involvement in the incident.

She was right to do so. Severus had been involved, but not in the way that his Aunt assumed. It was a secret that he had carried with him for nearly twenty years.

“I am sorry,” he whispered now, not entirely certain as to which failing he was apologising for.

“Do not apologise to me, Severus,” Aunt Aggie replied shortly, quietly. “Prove me wrong.”

***

Severus moved soundlessly up the staircase to the attic bedroom. He knew by muscle memory which creaking treads to avoid as he neared the landing. Once upon a time, the room Potter now occupied had been Severus’s own bedroom during his stays at Gatehouse Cottage. He and his mother had always felt more at home in the cosy cottage than residing in the opulence of the main house. The pair chose to spend their peaceful, Tobias-free evenings in Sweden relaxing by the fire in the snug living room of the Gatehouse, eventually retiring to simple bedrooms that more suited their modest tastes.

Opening the door to the room, Severus noted immediately that the small child was still sleeping soundly. He moved stealthily to his bedside, thinking back on the scene of that morning with a shudder. When Kora had frantically summoned him to the room and Severus had seen the unmoving form of the Boy-Who-Lived sprawled on the floor, he had initially thought that the boy had died. There was no evidence that Potter's heart still beat, and the stillness of the fragile chest seemed to confirm his suspicions. It was only after casting a panicked diagnostic spell that Severus was able to ascertain that Potter’s heartrate had slowed to only a few beats per minute. Likewise, the boy’s breathing was shallow, and each inhalation and exhalation had long moments of stillness between them. Thank Merlin, Potter had eventually come around on his own. Severus was loath to admit it, but the fact remained that he had not known how to revive the child.

It was a medical anomaly and it puzzled Severus deeply. Even now, curled on his side in slumber, the boy looked unnaturally pale. Dark circles under his eyes stood out like bruises. The seizure had to be a delayed allergic reaction to an ingredient in the Aetate Mutatio, Severus surmised, or perhaps an extreme side-effect. Potter would have to be closely monitored.

He sighed in annoyance. Potter seemed to live to be a proverbial thorn in his side. ‘Little imbecile,’ Severus thought with no real malice. So far, the child had been surprisingly tolerable. No doubt he was biding his time, waiting for the most inconvenient moment to draw on that infamous Potter idiocy to cause a maximum amount of trouble.

As if cognisant of these thoughts, Potter stirred, his eyelids fluttering open. It still seemed strange to Severus to look upon eyes nearly as black as his own when he expected to see verdant green in their place. For an unguarded moment, the pair stared at each other.

Potter reached up with a small hand and rubbed at his face, breaking the spell.

“Hello, Sir.”

“Potter,” Severus kept his voice clipped and business-like. “How do you feel?”

“’M fine, really,” he shrugged, pulling himself into a sitting position and yawning widely. “I feel a bit tired.”

Severus leaned down and placed his fingers on the pulse point at the boy’s neck. Satisfied that it now beat with a strong and regular rhythm, he waved his wand and muttered an incantation.

“I had suspected that there was an issue with the interaction of ingredients in the Elixir after first observing your altered physical appearance.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are far smaller than I would have expected a five-year-old child to be.”

“I think this is about the size that I was when I was five,” Potter shrugged and ducked his head a little. “I’ve never really been all that tall.”

“Hmm. You are also quite pale and drawn. You do not look well.”

“Well, you did put that spell on me to make me look like you…“ Potter’s cheeks pinked as he realised the implication behind his words.

Severus scowled at him. Choosing to ignore the slight on his own physical appearance, he continued his examination in a brusque manner, placing his hand against Potter’s forehead and then making the boy squeeze his hands once again, trying to determine if there was any residual neurological damage. All was as it should be.

Severus removed a notebook from the pocket of his outer robe and thumbed through the pages containing his untidy scrawl, looking for his initial entry on the Aetate Mutatio Elixir. Lost in his musings, it was not until he heard a small sigh that he returned his attention to the boy still reclining in the bed.

Potter was quiet and thoughtful, biting absent-mindedly at his bottom lip as he stared unseeingly at the pattern on his quilt.

“Erm, Sir? May I ask you a question?” the boy flicked his eyes up at Severus and quickly looked away again.

“You may.”

“Do you think that, well, that is…the seizure thing…Could it happen to me again, do you think?” he shifted restlessly under his blanket.

Severus drew up the straight-backed desk chair and eased his tall form into it, slipping his notebook away. He contemplated Potter for a moment and then completed another diagnostic spell before responding.

He considered what he should tell the boy. Whether this morning’s event was a side-effect or an allergic reaction, it was inevitable that there would be further complications. Even more possible was that the symptoms could escalate in their severity.

“I believe it is…quite likely…that you may experience another episode,” he watched for Potter’s reaction, expecting fear. Instead, the thin lips, now shaped so much like his own mouth, tightened in suppressed anger.

“Undo it, then,” the boy said sharply, throwing back his covers and clambering angrily out of the bed so that he was standing facing his teacher. Severus smirked at the realisation that even from his seated position, he was still a good foot taller than the small child.

“The de-aging potion,” Potter continued. “Undo it and let me just be myself again.”

Severus looked down at Potter thoughtfully. “I cannot do that.”

“Yes, you can!” Potter’s dark eyes narrowed, and his features tightened with anger. “You might not want to, but I know you can. Dumbledore told me that you have the antidote.”

“Very well, let me rephrase my response for you, Potter. I will not be administering the antidote to you until you are safely back in the loving embrace of the Headmaster,” Severus felt his own anger stirring. He had been forced into this ridiculous babysitting arrangement by Albus, and here was the Chosen One, back to his arrogant self, throwing about his orders and stamping his feet like the petulant child that he was.

“I can’t believe this,” the boy retorted hotly. “I don’t have any choices here at all, do I?”

Before Severus could reply, Potter barrelled on with his tantrum.

“The truth of it is that I am your prisoner here, Sir, aren’t I? Sure, Professor Dumbledore arranged it all, and you’re just going along with what he tells you to do, but I bet you think it’s all really hilarious. I’m stuck in this little kid’s body. I can’t do magic, unless it’s accidental,” here, he waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “And now, Dumbledore’s brilliant little plan is literally making me sick! I saw things that that weren’t there. I spoke to some hallucination and thought that it was all real. I felt like I was dying! I couldn’t move. I tried to blink, or to speak and I couldn’t do either!”

The boy sat shakily on his bed, trembling so badly that his breathing was uneven.

Severus stared at him as if he had never seen him before. Could it be that Potter was actually afraid after all? He could hardly credit it – the Gryffindor was generally rash and courageous to the point of stupidity. The greatest shock in all of that little speech was Potter’s absolute disdain for the Headmaster. There had always been an unfailing sense of trust evident in the way the boy would defer to Albus, even as he defied almost every other adult in his life.

“Believe me,” Severus sneered in disgust. “This ‘little plan’ of the Headmaster’s is as much a prison sentence for me as it is for you.”

“No, it’s not!” the boy’s face flushed with his increasing anger. “You’re not the one who has lost his magic. How am I supposed to protect myself without my wand? You’re not the one who has been forced to leave the country and trail along, holding the hand of his teacher! I don’t want to be a little kid version of you! I don’t want to pretend that you’re my dad!”

“You truly believe that I want to be here with you?” Severus hissed, his voice dangerously quiet. “That I enjoy playing this game of subterfuge? It is difficult enough for me to be here with my family at all, let alone with you here polluting the mix,” here he stopped, unable to credit that he had just revealed even that much to the arrogant little brat.

Potter glared, his eyes suddenly suspiciously bright. Severus cleared his throat uncomfortably. The clearly emotional boy turned his face away and looked instead at the bed covers that he was clutching in clenched fists.

“No-one wants to be with me, Professor," he said softly. "But you already know that. The reason I was forced into this situation in the first place is because my family finally decided to be rid of me. They couldn’t even be bothered to tell me not to come back for the holidays and they knew I was coming – they just left me there…” he swallowed convulsively and blinked rapidly.

Severus was still and silent in his discomfiture. He did not know how to deal with this sudden display of Potter’s apparent despair. Wrongfooted, and aware that a known side-effect of the Elixir was a propensity for the drinker to take on the emotional responses of their current physical age, Severus decided that this must be the cause of the outburst.

“You are behaving like the immature brat that you are, Potter,” Severus sighed and shook his head in feigned disgust as he worked to sort out his own conflicting emotions. He could not help but find himself feeling a little sorry for the wretched child. And where, in Merlin’s name, had that thought come from?

“We all have to do things that we do not want to do in this war,” Severus paused for a moment, finding that place of implacable calm within him and raising it up like a shield against Potter’s miserable expression.

“This is the safest place for you right now. In your current disguise, you are unrecognisable to those who might wish you harm. You have a part to play, and so do I. Therefore, until I deem otherwise, you will remain in the guise of a five-year-old child and you will behave like the very best version of one whenever we are in company. In private, you will treat me with the respect that my position as your professor dictates,” straightening his posture in an attempt to regain his usual impassive demeanour, Severus scowled at the miserable wretch hunched on the bed before him.

“Now, I suggest that you stop feeling sorry for yourself, and trust that I know what is best for you in this situation. I will be monitoring you closely for any further signs of illness. You will do your part and inform me if, at any time, you feel any unusual symptoms. Do I make myself clear?”

Potter clenched his teeth, took a deep breath and stared straight ahead, refusing to engage in eye contact of any sort.

“Crystal,” the boy muttered, sliding from the bed and stomping to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

***

Feeling a little better after washing his face and changing out of his pyjamas, Harry was now decidedly sheepish about his snappish little self-pity party. He had dealt with far worse situations in his life. Living with Snape and throwing weird fits? Well, that was just another thing in a very long list of things that he had to get used to. It wasn’t as though there were many other options available to him right now.

Besides, Harry thought, Sweden was quite a beautiful place. Aunt Aggie had been really quite kind to him and Snape...well, he would think more on that later. He sighed in irritation; he supposed that he owed his professor an apology and his guilt would not allow him to shrug it off.

As Harry passed the little attic window, he was surprised to note that it was now completely dark outside. Apparently, Harry had slept the entire day away. He shrugged and then rubbed his face. He felt a great deal more human now than he had after his little episode that morning. Obviously, his body had desperately needed the rest.

After slipping his feet into a pair of thick woollen socks, Harry moved slowly to exit the room. He reached for the door latch, pausing when he realised that he could hear the faint sounds of Snape’s voice floating up to him from the open stairwell.

“- - frightened him and to be honest, his state was cause for alarm. If you could have seen for yourself, then you would not - -“ the disembodied voice sounded strained and almost pleading. Harry raised his eyebrows in disbelief. He had never imagined that his Potions professor could ever sound so…defeated.

“Please, Severus. We have now discussed this matter at length and my position has not changed. I understand your concerns, however, and I must admit, I am touched by your desire to keep Harry from further harm.”

Harry could almost hear Dumbledore’s eyes twinkling, if such a thing were possible. He snorted to himself.

“Albus, the boy is unwell!” Snape’s harsh retort indicated that the man had apparently abandoned any attempts to keep a leash on his frustration. “He is clearly experiencing a reaction to the potion. Not to mention the fact that he is hardly himself at the moment. He is altogether far too emotionally fragile. Apart from a brief foray back into his usual obnoxiousness this morning, Potter has generally been ridiculously eager to please and compliant – which, I assure you, is quite out of character! Frankly, I find your dismissal of my concerns to be an insult!”

Harry frowned. Emotionally fragile? Compliant? Ridiculously eager to please? His first instinct was to immediately stomp down the stairs and show Snape exactly how non-compliant he could be! Harry could feel the blood rushing to his head and his clenched hands shook as he fought to stay right where he was, determined not to give away the fact that he had just been shamelessly eavesdropping. As he took a few deep breaths and struggled to regain self-control, Harry thought back to some of his recent interactions with Snape. While it was true that there had been a few moments when he had felt himself dangerously close to tears, Harry felt that he had otherwise behaved much as he would have done, regardless of the effects of his altered age.

He shook his head. Snape just didn’t really know Harry that well. The man had always treated him with absolute contempt, right from their very first meeting, projecting his feelings of hatred and resentment for James Potter onto Harry and clutching at any possible flaw as proof that as was the father, so was the son.

“You know of the boy’s circumstances, Severus. There simply is no other way to keep Harry safe at the present time. His family have expressed a firm desire to have no further contact. They have relinquished their custody to the school. The situation does, of course, make this unfortunate business with the Muggle authorities all the more complicated.”

Harry felt the impact of the words hit him as though they were a physical entity. The Dursleys had given him up? He knew that the Headmaster felt it wasn’t safe for him at Privet Drive any longer, and the abandonment of him at King’s Cross Station still smarted, but Harry had hoped that perhaps all of this was due to circumstances beyond his aunt and uncle’s control. Now, the terrible truth of the matter was laid out for him in all its painful glory. Harry had really been disowned; cast out by the very people who had raised him since infancy, however grudgingly they might have undertaken the task. And what was it Dumbledore had just said about the Muggle authorities?

Quiet strains of the elderly wizard’s voice jolted Harry back to the present moment.

“ – difficult, but you must trust that this is the most effective way forward for the time being. I will contact you when I have the dates for Harry’s hearing. In the meantime, stay safe, dear boy.”

The rushing sound of a Floo call terminating was followed by Snape softly swearing. Harry had been so caught up in his own thoughts that he had missed the remainder of the conversation. He paused for a moment, struggling with his strangely conflicting feelings for Snape. After their argument earlier that evening, it appeared that the man had appealed to the Headmaster on Harry’s behalf. Not only that, Snape had very clearly confessed to being worried about Harry!

All was now silent on the lower floor now and Harry wondered for a moment if Snape had actually used the fireplace to follow after Dumbledore in order to continue their argument. Common sense told him that this could not be the case – wizards could not use the Floo for international travel. Continuing to hover at his bedroom door, Harry was quite startled by a sudden pronouncement from the professor.

“I think you have waited up there long enough in order to appear convincing in your ruse, Mr Potter.”

Snape was standing at the foot of the stairs, his narrowed eyes focused piercingly on Harry’s still form, arms folded tightly against his chest.

“You may now descend the stairs, not forgetting, of course, to maintain an air of innocent nonchalance that will add credence to your act that you were, in fact, not eavesdropping on. My. Private. Conversation.”

Harry swallowed nervously, his thoughts flashing back to the Pensieve incident and a certain flying jar of cockroaches. He hunched in on himself, ashamed at the memory.

“Um, sorry, Sir. I really didn’t mean to – “

“You will come down here immediately. Sit at the table,” Snape turned sharply away and disappeared from Harry’s line of sight towards the kitchen.

Harry slowly descended the staircase, reflecting glumly that the cheerful red-painted treads and white-washed walls he had so admired earlier now seemed to close in on him as he moved towards the dining room and his certain doom.

He shuffled over to the scrubbed pine table and carefully pulled out one of the dining chairs, flashing a quick look into the kitchen where Snape lurked menacingly over something on the counter, his back angled frostily towards the dining alcove.

Harry anxiously cleared his throat and propped himself on the very edge of his chair, swinging his legs twitchily as he waited for the inevitable attack. He clasped his hands together on the table and noted that his fingers were trembling slightly. Although Snape had yet to approach him, Harry felt a sudden overwhelming sense that something terrible was about to happen to him. His knowledge that he was in trouble swirled in his mind, colliding with vivid memories of Uncle Vernon’s purpling face inches from his own, spittle flying from a mouth contorted with rage.

Harry’s breath hitched, and he began desperately casting his gaze about the room, looking for potential hiding places where he could huddle until the violent eruption of Snape’s ire had passed.

Involuntarily, Harry let out a small sound that was almost a desperate sob. What was wrong with him? One minute he was shouting at Snape and the next, he was a snivelling wreck.

Turning abruptly, Snape stalked over to where Harry sat and lowered a pot of something steaming onto the table. Harry looked at the vessel in alarm, visions of punishment by potion flashing through his mind’s eye. He flinched visibly, hunching down in his seat, only to relax in the next instant as he inhaled the soothing scent of rosemary, tomatoes and lamb.

A warm blush suffused Harry’s cheeks as Snape tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as he silently observed his cowering student with one eyebrow lifted in question. Unsure of what to do next, Harry pulled his shaking hands away from the table and instead sat on them, serving the double purpose of hiding them from view and preventing any further tremors. He forced himself to sit up straight, taking a deep breath as he did so.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said again, looking anywhere but at the man who loomed over him, unnaturally still and, for the moment, curiously regarding him.

“You have slept all day and consumed only the potions I fed you this morning,” Snape spoke blandly, continuing to peer at Harry with interest, as though he were a particularly fascinating species of beetle destined for chopping, dicing and adding to a cauldron.

“You will eat.”

Harry felt his shoulders drop as his tension eased.

“And then,” Snape continued with an arch of his brow. “We will discuss the dangers inherent in lurking in shadowy corners, listening in on conversations that are not meant for prying ears.”

Biting his lip, Harry nodded unhappily as he accepted the bowl of stew that Snape handed to him. He watched as Snape served himself a similar portion and then pulled out a chair and sat in one smooth motion. The Potions Master began to eat, giving Harry a jerky little nod to do the same when he noticed that he had not yet started.

As good as it smelled, the food tasted even more delicious and despite his previous feelings of apprehension, Harry found himself eagerly polishing off his stew, sopping up the remaining sauce with a wedge of bread that Snape silently passed to him with a knowing smirk.

Replete at last, Harry leaned back in his chair and studiously avoided eye contact with his teacher.

“Thank you for the meal, Sir,” Harry said quietly. He frowned now at his previous behaviour, unable to account for exactly why he had experienced such strong feelings of fear when confronted with Snape’s anger.

Snape, who had continued to stare at Harry with a great deal of interest throughout the entirety of the meal, leaned forward, tapping his forefinger on the table to draw Harry’s attention.

“What, precisely, Mr Potter, in my conversation with Professor Dumbledore, did you overhear to cause you such unease?”

Harry squirmed under the close attention and thought about what he should reveal. Eventually deciding that honesty was required, he recounted verbatim all that he had heard. At the last moment, he decided to leave out any references to the mysterious hearing that Dumbledore had mentioned at the conclusion of the Floo call. He wasn't really sure why, but he was filled with a cold sort of feeling at the thought of any official dealings with the Muggle authorities. He especially didn't want to discuss the issue with Snape.

“Hmm,” Snape stroked his own chin with a tapered finger, again giving Harry one of those long and searching looks. “So you do understand that it is on Dumbledore’s orders that we are going to continue on with this charade?”

“Yes,” Harry said, sullenly chewing on his bottom lip.

“And so you were quaking in your seat just now because…?” Snape’s inspection of Harry intensified, watching him carefully for any tell.

Harry twitched and shrugged. The truth was, he didn’t really know himself why he had acted that way. He felt a little embarrassed about it now. “I’m not really sure. I just felt…nervous.”

“I see,” Snape clearly did not see. Leaning back in his own chair, he passed a hand distractedly across his face, his mind seemingly elsewhere.

“Eavesdropping, Mr Potter, is a serious breach of trust and privacy,” Snape suddenly launched into his lecture, as though he had not been a million miles away only moments earlier. “It is both craven and invasive. Too, there are many potential risks, of which I am not sure you are entirely cognisant.”

Harry remained silent, but kept his eyes firmly fixed on his professor as he continued.

“Imagine, if you will, that you overhear information that is meant to be kept entirely secret, for reasons that are beyond your understanding and, yet, you decide to share what you have heard with another person.”
Snape paused and looked at Harry to ensure he was following. Harry nodded slowly and waited, wondering where Snape was going with his hypothetical situation.

“Perhaps you feel glee at sharing some malicious gossip with a friend, or perhaps your moral compass has urged you to reveal this secret because you believe that to keep your silence might cause more harm than good.”

Harry shrugged. He couldn’t really see what Snape’s little anecdote had to do with what he had just overheard. After all, the Headmaster and his professor had been talking about Harry. If anyone deserved to know about what they had been talking about, surely it was the very person they had been discussing!

“Imagine then,” Snape continued, leaning closer and speaking quieter still. “How you might feel to later discover that it was this very action - your revelation of private and confidential information - that eventually caused terrible, irrevocable harm to another, or perhaps harmed a great many people.”

Snape closed his eyes and tilted his head back. His complexion appeared waxy and pallid, cast in relief by the candlelight of the small room.

“How would you feel, Potter, knowing that it was because you chose to listen in to a private conversation and consequently chose to share those intimacies, that a life was destroyed? A life, or perhaps many lives ruined, just because you had to know. Had to tell.”

Harry knew now that Snape was talking of personal experience. He could tell by the devastation on the man’s face, even as the professor refused to look at him.

His question was, who was Snape talking about? What secret had been overheard and whose life had been ruined by the person who had chosen to reveal it?

***

It was not until the next afternoon that Professor Snape’s cousin, Hilde, and her family arrived at the manor. Both Severus and Harry were instructed by Aunt Aggie to join them for dinner.

That evening, as Harry toed at the edge of a Persian rug and looked around the room nervously, Hilde’s two children gazed at the smaller boy with open curiosity from their spot beside the fire. They both looked comfortable and at home seated on the floor around the coffee table in the huge drawing room where Harry and Professor Snape had taken tea with Aunt Agatha on the night of their own arrival. In between the children rested some kind of wizarding board game that Harry did not recognise. When he and Snape first entered the room, the two siblings had been laughing quite loudly as they watched a small player piece dance its way across the board and slide to a square near the bottom corner. Their laughter had ended abruptly as the pair noticed the new arrivals, and both now jumped up and, in a move that shocked Harry to the core, raced to greet Snape in excitement.

Harry stared in horror at the effusive greeting they offered the usually cold professor. He then turned his incredulous gaze on Snape, as the tall man reached down to cordially shake the hand of a familiar-looking boy of around 12. He then gently placed his hand on the shoulder of the boy’s younger, stockier sister, who looked about eight or nine years old. And then, Snape did the absolutely unthinkable. He smiled.

“Uncle Severus!” the girl cried excitedly. “You came!”

“I came, Bonita,” Snape agreed. The smile still lingered on his face. It was an actual, genuine smile. Not a sneer, not a smirk, nor a grimace. Harry could not believe what he was seeing.

“I could not allow Lucas to be the only one to enjoy my company outside of the summer.”

The professor turned to Lucas and nodded his head at the boy.

“Hello, Uncle Severus,” Lucas said formally, before allowing a cheeky grin to cross his face.

Harry looked at the boy curiously. He felt strongly that he had seen him somewhere before but was not able to place him.

Neither of the children resembled Snape in any way. They were both fair-haired and hazel-eyed. Lucas was slightly built, with a round face and rosy cheeks. Suddenly, Harry knew exactly where he had seen him before. He was a Hufflepuff, in his second year at Hogwarts, the new seeker for their Quidditch team. Harry had seen him at games, but had not played against him, given his still current lifetime ban, in place since Umbridge’s reign of terror the previous year. Harry had begged both McGonagall and Dumbledore to lift the restriction, but they had both been resolute; the Ministry had decreed that Harry Potter was not to play Quidditch and they were powerless to override the decision.

Harry had not made the connection that Lucas was related to Snape and he was sure that no other student at the school realised the relationship, either. Snape was related to a Hufflepuff? Ron would have an absolute field day with this revelation, Harry thought with barely suppressed humour.

Bonita slipped her hand into Severus’s and swung their joined hands for a moment as she smiled down at Harry. “Hi, I’m Bonnie.”

“Hi, Bonnie,” Harry replied hesitantly. “I’m Henrik.”

The girl looked up at Snape curiously, clearly waiting for him to explain Harry’s presence.

“Henrik is my son,” the professor said in a flat voice that discouraged questions. He gently pulled his hand from Bonnie’s grasp and placed it instead on Harry’s shorn head. Harry suppressed the unexpected feeling of warmth that suddenly bloomed in his chest and squirmed a little at the close contact.

“He will be staying here with us for Christmas,” Snape continued. “Before he returns to a new family in London in the new year.”

“I’m Lucas,” the boy said with a smile. He looked at Harry with open curiosity and nudged him gently on the shoulder in a friendly way. “It’s nice to meet you, Henrik.”

Harry bristled as Lucas patted him in what seemed to be a condescending manner, but then he quickly realised that Snape’s second cousin thought him far younger than his actual age. “Um, you can just call me Henry,” he replied quietly.

He realised suddenly that he was going to have to be very careful indeed that he did not give himself away by acting like a teenager, especially around the other kids. Harry decided that the best course of action was to follow Snape’s advice and pretend to be quiet and reserved. As overwhelmed as he was by being in the presence of Snape’s family, and with the Potions Master behaving so out of character, this was not too much of a stretch, in any case.

Harry, deciding that there was no time like the present, began his act. He shuffled a little closer to Snape’s side and ducked his head. Snape, whose hand was still resting lightly on Harry’s hair, looked down at him with initial surprise and then seemed to recover his wits when he realised what was happening.

“Now, Henrik, there is no need to be shy,” he steered him away from his side. “Why don’t you run along and play with Lucas and Bonnie? It will do you good to spend some time with other children.” He gave Harry a little nudge forward. Bonnie grabbed Harry’s hand, smiling at him as she led him towards the coffee table. Lucas followed them both a little reluctantly, clearly annoyed at Snape referring to him as one of the ‘children’.

Harry sat quietly beside Bonnie and listened as she explained the rules of the board game they had been playing. ‘Floos and Broomsticks’ seemed to be the wizarding equivalent of ‘Snakes and Ladders’. Each of the player pieces were miniature representations of various magical creatures.

They decided to begin a new round of the game and Harry chose a piece for himself from the box, drawing out a tiny green Merman. He laughed in genuine surprise as the tiny figure brandished a rather realistic and vicious looking spear at him, baring pointed teeth in a grimace. Bonnie’s piece was a yellow Pixie that fluttered iridescent wings and preened as she sat on the palm of the girl’s hand. Lucas had chosen a black Centaur for himself, ignoring the figurine’s kicking hindquarters as he set it down on the board.

The pieces were clearly animated through some sort of charm similar to the ones used on Wizard’s Chess pieces and Harry, after rolling the dice and scoring a six, was greatly amused to watch his Merman pulling himself across the squares of the board by his arms, using his powerful tail to counterbalance his weight.

As the game progressed and Harry relaxed in the company of the easy-going children, he found himself distracted by his covert observation of Snape.

His professor was sitting beside his cousin Hilde and her husband, whom Harry overheard being referred to as ‘Cad’, which he thought a rather unusual name. The conversation was somewhat stilted, and Snape appeared distinctly ill at ease. It was difficult to hear what the adults were saying without openly staring in their direction, but Harry had the impression that however well Snape seemed to get on with the children, the same could not be said for his relationship with their parents. The subject matter of their discussion centred around Lucas’s progress in Potions. From what Harry could overhear, Snape was satisfied with the boy’s practical, but unimpressed with his written work.

As he turned back to their game, Harry noticed that Lucas had been watching his careful observation of Snape. The older boy rolled his eyes as he picked up the dice.

“Your dad has been tutoring me and Bonnie in Potions for the past couple of years,” he explained. “Ever since just before I started at Hogwarts, he has been visiting our house over the summers and teaching us.”

“Is he a good teacher?” Harry asked, fascinated with the idea that anyone would willingly subject their child to classes with Snape outside of the Hogwarts dungeons.

Bonnie nodded enthusiastically while Lucas snorted. Harry looked from one to the other, wondering at their contradictory responses.

“Potions are really fun to make!” Bonnie enthused.

“You think that now,” Lucas groaned. “Just wait till you start at Hogwarts, then you’ll see just how strict Uncle Severus can really be!”

Harry, thinking of his many detentions with the stern professor, was about to enthusiastically agree, stopping himself only just in time. Instead, he looked curiously at Lucas. “How come you call him ‘Uncle Severus’? Isn’t he your cousin?”

Lucas shrugged. “Yeah, I guess he is. ‘Uncle’ is what Mum said to call him. We met him for the first time when he started tutoring us.” He leaned forward and spoke in a quiet voice, jerking his head in the direction of the adults. “I don’t think he gets on too well with our dad.”

“He’s very serious,” Harry said, not sure how much he should offer about Snape.

“He’s never mentioned you before,” Bonnie looked at Harry expectantly.

“I didn’t know he was my dad until a few weeks ago,” Harry looked down at the game board, suddenly uncomfortable with the lie. “My mum died and…and he sort of just turned up.”

“Sorry,” Lucas said, glaring at his little sister. “We didn’t know about any of that.”

“It’s okay,” Harry shrugged. “I’m still just getting to know him.”

Lucas peered at Harry for a moment. “You know, you’re pretty serious too, for a little kid. Maybe you’re more like him than you know.”

Harry blushed and then realised that he was really going to have to work on his five-year-old act.

***

The evening meal passed by awkwardly with forced conversation between the adults. Harry was pleased when the children were finally excused from the table and allowed himself to be roped into a game of Hide and Go Seek, pretending to be far more enthusiastic about the prospect of playing the game than he actually was.

The many rooms of the main house provided a wealth of hiding spots, however, Harry found himself at a bit of a disadvantage, given that his playmates knew the very best locations to hide. Lucas was particularly skilled at the game, with both Bonnie and Harry failing to find him at all when it was their turn to ‘seek’.

Feeling his competitive streak getting the better of him, when it was Lucas’s turn to seek, Harry had already decided on an optimal hiding spot.

He had noticed a rather nondescript cabinet in one of the hallways that he had passed multiple times during his own turns searching out the hiding siblings. He hadn't really considered it to be a potential hiding spot, given its small size. Now, he smiled at his own cleverness. It was the perfect place for him to secrete himself away for that round.

In the distance, he could hear Lucas still counting to 100. He turned the circular handle of the latch and opened the heavy timber door just far enough to squeeze himself inside, allowing it to swing closed behind him. The interior of the cabinet was devoid of any light, but Harry did not allow this to concern him. His childhood experiences of hours spent alone in the cupboard under the stairs had made him immune to dark confined spaces. He settled himself, tightly curled in a foetal position to avoid bumping his head on the shelf above him and tried to quiet his breathing, which seemed unnaturally loud in the otherwise silent space.

At one point, he thought he could hear Lucas padding quietly past in the hallway, no doubt listening carefully for giveaway snickers or shifting feet.

He remained undiscovered. Eventually, Harry realised that enough time must have passed for that round to have ended. He felt strangely triumphant, given that he had not really wanted to play the game in the first place, and moved to open the door, ready to announce his win. It was then that he realised his error. There was no door latch on the inside of the cabinet.

He was trapped.

In the dark and close confines of the hallway cupboard in Kall Hus, Harry wriggled awkwardly as he desperately tried to free himself. The problem with his current predicament, he realised, was that he had foolishly chosen to hide himself curled up on the bottom shelf of the antique cabinet, placing him in a sideways position in relation to the door. This meant that it was particularly difficult for Harry to gain any sort of purchase to push against the interior of the locked cabinet. Instead, he was forced to use his right elbow and knee to lean against the closed door. This was proving to be a rather ineffective method of escape.

Just when he was about to give up his feeble attempts out of sheer frustration, Harry realised that he could hear the soft but unmistakable sounds of someone breathing right outside of his self-made prison.

Jerking his head towards the sound, Harry was about to thump the side of his leg against the door when he unexpectedly tumbled out into air and light and freedom. Still reeling with shock at his sudden release from the confined space, Harry squinted as he looked to see who had liberated him.

“Riddikulus!”

Standing in front of him, eyes clenched shut and wand extended, was a boy of about Lucas’s age. His hair was chin length, fine and dark. He was wearing a black woollen cardigan over a graying smock that must once have been white, teamed with a faded pair of too-short dark brown trousers and a pair of grubby tennis shoes.

Harry was so surprised to see the strange boy that he found himself unable to speak for a moment. As for the boy, very slowly, his wand arm trembling, he peeled open one eye in order to observe the effect of his spell. He appeared to instantly recognise his error and huffed, lowering his wand to his side as his pallid cheeks flooded with colour in a blush of embarrassment.

“You’re not a Boggart.”

“Erm…no, not a Boggart.”

“I thought you were a Boggart.”

Harry, feeling that they had now both clearly ascertained that he was not, in fact, a Boggart, shrugged and using his elbows, pushed himself off his back and into a seated position on the floor. He took the opportunity to openly stare at the boy standing in front of him and noted two things. The first was that the boy did not seem all that surprised to see him. The second, was that this boy, with his beetle black eyes and hawkish nose, looked an awful lot like a prepubescent Severus Snape.

“So you’re back again, then,” the boy sighed in a resigned fashion, sliding ungracefully down the wall opposite where Harry sat and crossing his lanky legs in front of him.

Harry was confused. Back? What did he mean? He opened his mouth, about to verbalise his confusion, when the boy continued.

“You weren’t gone long this time, though. Just a couple of days.”

“A – a couple of days?” Harry was utterly bemused. The boy did seem a little familiar to him, but he assumed that this was because of his strong resemblance to Snape.

“Well, at least this time you had the good sense not to appear in the middle of a frozen lake. That was a really dumb thing to do. You’re lucky we both didn’t drown! You know, I really think that I am getting a bit too old to hang around with imaginary friends anymore,” the boy added conversationally, quirking an eyebrow and grinning a little at Harry.

Harry shook his head. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Of course you don’t,” the boy said mysteriously. “You never seem to know what’s going on whenever you appear. You know, Henrik, you can be a bit of a dunderhead that way.”

Harry’s jaw dropped, and he sat and stared at the boy in open-mouthed wonder.

“Snape?”

“Yeah?”

Eyes wide, Harry simply shook his head again. This could not be happening. Could it? Somehow, Harry was sitting in the hallway of Kall Hus, conversing with an eleven-year-old Severus Snape. It was beyond the realms of possibility and yet, here they both were.

Boy-Snape rolled his eyes at Harry’s apparent inability to communicate and stood up. He held out a hand to Harry, clearly waiting to help him up. Hesitantly, Harry reached out with a shaky hand and allowed Snape to pull him into a standing position.

“Alright?” Snape asked, noting Harry’s slight tremor with some concern.

“Uh huh,” Harry nodded, unable to offer anything more articulate than that.

“You disappeared kind of quickly the other day. I wasn’t sure if you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” Harry wiped his clammy hands on his trousers and tried to gather his wits. “You called me Henrik,” he added stupidly.

Snape stared at Harry for a moment.

“Well, yes. That is your name, isn’t it?” he spoke slowly and deliberately, as though concerned Harry might be recovering from a head injury. “Just like I’m Severus…although you seem to have this really weird habit of calling me ‘Snape’ all the time. You know, I only really get called by my surname when I'm at school.”

Still caught up in the unlikelihood of his current scenario, Harry observed distantly that Snape was a great deal chattier and more even-tempered as a boy than his adult incarnation.

“Me too,” Harry said vaguely, providing a delayed response to Snape's previous comment. A moment later, he stiffened as he waited for the inevitable question about his own surname. What could he tell the boy? He didn’t want to reveal that he was a Potter – clearly this Snape was already old enough to attend Hogwarts, so it stood to reason that he would be acquainted with James Potter. Harry didn’t think that the young version of Severus Snape would be very receptive to hearing that he was currently assisting the time-travelling manifestation of James Potter’s son, no matter how mild-mannered the boy appeared to be in contrast with the stern professor that Harry was familiar with in his own time frame.

Time travel. Harry realised that he had finally come to terms with what was happening to him. He now knew that the boy he had seen in his room the other morning also had to have been Snape, albeit a younger version still than the one stood next to him now. How this was possible, he had no idea and yet it seemed the logical explanation, however illogical the concept of unintentional time travel might be.

“So,” Snape said slowly, a little uncertain. “I have something to show you. That is, if you’re interested?”

Harry ran his hand over his bristly hair, not sure how to take this eager, almost shy version of his Potions Master.

“Sure,” he said, nodding and smiling encouragingly at Snape.

Without further conversation, the older boy grabbed Harry’s wrist and tugged him down the hallway, breaking into a trot. “C’mon then, it’s this way!”

The pair rushed to the end of the corridor and Snape pushed against a large tapestry that covered the wall at the end of the hall from floor to ceiling. With a faint grinding noise, the tapestry and the wall behind it slid upwards, revealing a dimly-lit stairwell. There was no obvious source of light that Harry could see and he wrinkled his nose at the faintly musty scent of the air that wafted up from the cool recesses.

Snape started down the stairs with no hesitation, leaving Harry standing at the top for a moment. Noticing that his companion had stalled, Snape looked back up towards the landing where Harry waited, his eyes glinting with excitement.

“Well?” the boy blurted impatiently. “Are you coming down?”

“Okay,” Harry murmured.

Carefully, he lifted his foot to step down onto the first tread of the stairs and then abruptly felt all of the breath leave his body as he plummeted into a darkness so solid and complete that it was a physical presence.

***

Severus would kill the boy. That is, if there weren’t the possibility that he might already be dead. Or held captive somewhere, alone and injured…and utterly helpless. He cursed Dumbledore and then himself for listening to the manipulative old coot. What a ridiculous idea it had been to de-age Potter – to reduce him to such a state of complete vulnerability. A wizarding child so young was downright fragile, without the ability to manipulate magic in a directed and purposeful manner. Defenceless.

The entire family was now enlisted in the search for Harr – Henry. They had roamed the mazelike corridors and endless rooms of Kall Hus, calling that name over and over again. There was no reply.

When Lucas and Bonnie had first alerted Severus that they had ‘lost’ Henrik during an innocent game of Hide and Go Seek, he had not been particularly bothered (although he had pretended some mild concern for the sake of appearances). Knowing Harry Potter as he did, the idiotic Gryffindor had a knack for sneaking about and getting himself into trouble, usually helped along by that damnable Invisibility Cloak that had once belonged to the equally irritating elder Potter. He was therefore likely huddled away somewhere in an easily-overlooked spot, waiting for an appropriate amount of time to elapse before bursting out and declaring himself king of the castle.

Severus had been confident that a quick stroll through the manor house, with some judicious casting of Homenum Revelio would reveal the boy’s hiding place quickly enough. That had been almost an hour ago.

The false mild concern that Severus had earlier demonstrated was now a full-blown case of true panic and confusion. Potter could not be located anywhere in the house. And yet, the wards had not been breached. There was no evidence that anyone had Disapparated from the property in the past 24 hours, let alone the last hour. It was time to consider that for some reason, the reckless little fool had left the warm, safe confines of the house and wandered out into the freezing night. As much of an imbecile as Potter could often be, even Severus found it difficult to credit that the boy would do something that stupid in order to win a childish game.

It was when Severus had rushed to the entry hall and spied the now-familiar child-sized green parka and ubiquitous striped mittens and bobble hat still hanging limply on a hook next to his own overcoat on the coat rack that he had begun cursing both the Headmaster’s foolhardy plan and his own involvement in it. Clearly, if Potter had left the house, he had done so without thinking to dress appropriately for the cold temperature.

A Pop! beside him alerted him to the presence of one of the Manor’s many house-elves.

“Master Severus, we is finding Young Master Henry for you!” the wizened creature exclaimed, tugging on the leg of his trousers to gain his full attention. “The Young Master is safe with Mistress Agatha in the Drawing Room now.”

Severus sagged against the wall, flooded with relief for a moment. Another moment later and his relief had turned to rage. He stalked back down the hallway and burst through the French doors, taking in the scene before him with disbelief.

Aunt Aggie was seated on one of the red velvet settees by the fire, holding the small boy on her lap and talking quietly to him while rubbing her hand gently up and down the length of his arm. Severus could not believe the audacity of the spoiled brat – causing the entire household to go out of their minds with worry and then sitting there like a little prince and lapping up affection and attention as if it were his due!

Severus was unaware of how he made it across the room from the doorway to the fireside, but he had already grasped the boy by his upper arms, dragged him from Agatha’s lap and had proceeded to shake him roughly before anyone could so much as glance in his direction.

“You arrogant little cretin!” he shouted, all control lost in the face of the boy’s return. “Don’t you ever…do…that…again! Do…you…understand…me?” Each word was punctuated with a rigorous jolt of Potter’s upper body.

“Stop! Stop it! Severus – enough!” Aunt Aggie cried, finally pointing her wand at Severus and performing a nonverbal spell that forced the motion of his arms to still.

The boy remained held upright in Severus’s unyielding grip, staring with unseeing eyes straight through where the professor crouched before him, the small body trembling with distress. Severus regarded him properly for the first time since entering the room, shrugging off the confines of Aggie's spell. Potter's clammy skin was that same unhealthy pallor that Severus had observed the previous morning, his breathing laboured, coming in short, sharp gasps.

“He is ill, Severus,” Aunt Aggie said, clearly shocked at her nephew’s violent outburst. “He hasn’t said a word since Cadmus found him.”

Severus looked over the back of the settee to where Cadmus stood beside Hilde and their shaken children. The man was watching the scene with an expression of extreme distaste written on his face.

“The poor boy was so scared when the elf found him huddled behind that tapestry that he couldn’t even move, Snape,” Cad shook his head at Severus in disgust. “I had to lift him off the floor myself and he stayed all curled up, as if he had been petrified. I doubt that your little display of temper is likely to help him calm down.”

Couldn’t even move? Severus turned impatiently away from Cadmus’s disapproval to examine Harry more closely. Was it possible that the boy had experienced another episode like yesterday’s sudden illness? He surmised with a sinking feeling that given the child’s current condition, this was the most likely scenario and was immediately ashamed by his actions of moments ago.

“Henry?” he now whispered in a gentle tone far removed from his previous bellowing rage. “Henry, can you hear me?”

Potter’s eyes remained unfocused.

“Perhaps we should contact a Healer, Severus?” Aunt Aggie was still staring at Severus as if he was a particularly unwelcome Blast-Ended Skrewt that had wandered into her home.

“No,” Severus shook his head and thought quickly. “I recently became aware that Henrik is prone to these little episodes. I believe it is related to the grief he is experiencing after the loss of his mother – a form of shock.”

He could not allow a Healer to examine Harry. Even though the de-aging Elixir was not traceable, the glamour that the boy wore would be immediately detected once the Healer cast any form of diagnostic spell.

“Kora!” Severus snapped his fingers and addressed the little elf upon her arrival. “Please bring me my Potions kit.” Kora Popped away with a nod.

“Will he be okay?” Lucas asked in a scared voice.

Severus lifted the small child and laid him carefully on the settee, passing a hand gently over the glazed eyes and closing the boy’s eyelids.

“The symptoms should pass soon,” he muttered, hoping that he was correct in his assertion.

Agatha Summoned a fuzzy knitted throw and gently draped it over Potter’s trembling body. She moved to sit on the couch beside him, placing a hand on his leg and gently patting it in a motherly gesture of comfort. Kora returned, arms full of a black leather bag almost the same size as she was. The next few moments passed by, tense and silent as Snape carefully dosed the boy with several different potions.

“I apologise for my outburst,” Severus said once he had completed his ministrations, genuinely regretting his earlier behaviour. “I allowed my fear to override my rationality and I should not have behaved so poorly.”

“It is not us that you need apologise to,” Hilde spoke up, looking pointedly at Harry’s prone form. “When Henrik is feeling better, you will need to make things right.”

Agatha nodded briskly. “Hilde is correct, Severus. You have a child to care for now. It is time that you learned to temper your reactions to situations that are not in your control.”

Severus nodded tiredly. Even thought they didn’t know the full story, they were right. He did need to try harder to modify his behaviour around Potter. He could scarcely admit to himself that this latest outburst had been caused by his own fear that the boy had been harmed in some way, but that was no excuse for his physical assault on a child.

Hilde smiled a little shakily and placed one hand on her husband’s arm and the other on Bonnie’s blonde hair. “I think we should go get ourselves settled for the evening and give Severus and Henrik some privacy.”

“Of course,” Cad agreed, giving Severus one last warning look. “Please let us know if you need any help.”

“Goodnight, my dears,” Aunt Aggie looked up somewhat distractedly from her worried examination of Harry. “Please call on Kora if you need any assistance in getting yourselves settled.”

“One question before you go, Cadmus,” Severus interjected, as the rest of the family moved quietly out of the room.

“Yes?” the man hung back.

“You said a House Elf found him hidden in behind a tapestry?”

Cadmus passed his hand through his hair. “That’s right. Funny thing, that was. I think all of us must have walked down that hallway and passed that same tapestry multiple times tonight, and none of us ever noticed he was there. Couldn’t even find him with a Revelio.”

“Hmm,” mused Severus. “Funny thing…”

***

On the fringes of consciousness, Harry was able to hear the wash of quiet conversation between Snape and Aunt Aggie for quite some time before the words made themselves clear enough to be understood. He tried repeatedly to open his eyes, but he felt as though someone had cast a permanent sticking charm on his eyelids. Likewise, his mouth did not want to obey his desire to ask them what had happened to him. His hands and feet tingled unpleasantly, just as they had the previous morning.

Despite being unable to move from his current position, Harry felt no anxiety. Additionally, in his current state, he was unable to prevent himself from eavesdropping on what was clearly a private conversation not intended for his ears.

“-want you to think about this as an opportunity to turn things around in your life, Severus!”

A long moment of silence followed.

“You cannot begin to understand how impossible it is to undertake what you have asked of me.”

“Why, because of your work?” Agatha let out a humourless chuckle. “There are more important things than Potions, Severus. More important than Hogwarts! In any case, if I know Albus Dumbledore, he would twinkle his way through the remainder of his days to think that the cold and aloof Severus Snape had decided to break down one of his self-imposed barriers and truly learn to care for someone.”

“It is not that straightforward. I have many commitments and have not the time, the patience, the capacity nor the inclination to care for a child. It would not be a happy family arrangement for anyone.”

“It would be what you make of it.”

“What I make of it?” Snape sounded incredulous. “I am incapable of doing what you ask of me! I long ago gave up any rights I might have had to living the life that you wanted for me, Aunt Aggie. I set myself down the wrong path, made terrible choices and now all I can do is make the best of the mess I have made for myself.”

“Perhaps this is the best of that mess, Severus.” Harry felt Aggie’s warm hand stroke his hair away from his forehead. “You have a chance to redeem yourself in Henrik. But not only that – you have been given a wonderful gift. Cherish him. Let him know who you truly are and teach him by example how to be the very best of men. Please, Severus, take this one chance to do something good.”

Harry could hear Snape sigh once again. It sounded terribly full of regret. Somewhere within him, a memory stirred. He was sure that he had heard the voices of these same two people earlier that evening having an equally intense conversation in one of the hallways of Kall Hus. At the time, Harry had been curled up in darkness, perhaps still locked in the cabinet, or trapped behind the tapestry, or simply elsewhere, caught momentarily between this reality and another.

He remembered that he had remained deliberately silent then, fearing that his accidental eavesdropping would be discovered. As much as he had wanted to call out, to tell someone that he was there (wherever there was). As desperately as he had felt that he needed to cry out for help, Harry had remained mute. Recalling Snape’s earlier lecture about the dangers of listening in on private conversations, Harry had been loath to reveal himself in that moment.

During this overheard conversation between Snape and Aunt Aggie, Harry recalled hearing a similarly deep sigh of regret, but it in that instance, it had not come from his Potions professor. Rather, it was Aunt Aggie who had seemed distressed. He tried to focus on remembering what he had overheard.

Right now, he felt incredibly warm and drowsy and was consequently finding it difficult to recall the context of the exchange. He remembered that Aunt Aggie had been pleading, begging with Snape to change his mind about something. Snape had sounded distant and aloof. He had told her that it was too late, he had already taken ‘it’ (whatever ‘it’ was), and there was no going back. Besides, Snape’s voice had drawled spitefully, he was clearly no longer welcome amongst his own family.

There had been shouting then – angry words from Snape and a sense of terrible grief and disappointment from Aggie – followed by a sudden silence so complete that Harry had realised that he was somehow wholly isolated once again in that unending place of darkness.

He had drifted for a while, neither awake nor asleep, but aware that he was completely alone and surrounded by nothing. He tried to focus on getting back to the young version of Severus on the staircase behind the tapestry. He hoped that thinking of the boy might provide an anchor that Harry could latch onto, and somehow pull himself back out of the dark place. When that didn’t work, he thought of Professor Snape, and the expression on his face as he had observed Harry so carefully at the dinner table at Gatehouse Cottage the previous evening, the man’s features etched with lines that spoke of concern and, maybe, just maybe, a little bit of care. He remembered Snape’s desperately worried tone when he had conversed with the Headmaster over the Floo, coming to Harry’s defense as he tried to convince Dumbledore that Harry was in danger. It was at that very moment, right when Harry had been filled with the warm realisation that Snape was worried about him - Harry - that the silence that currently surrounded him had receded. He had heard the squeaky voice of a House Elf calling to him. The darkness still surrounded him, but it was the dim interior of the hallway, not the thick, black nothingness of wherever he had been drifting. As the world had once more begun to resolve itself, Harry felt that familiar paralysis that he had experienced just the day before. As terrifying as it was, Harry now recognised that the sensation heralded his return to the present time and he had gratefully allowed hands to touch him, arms to lift him, even as he remained trapped inside his own body.

Harry now returned his attention back to the here and now, shelving the previously overheard conversation away for later consideration.

“I think it best that we return to the Cottage,” Snape was saying, from his position at Harry’s side. “I can keep him more comfortable in his own bed and monitor him from there.”

“Severus, please don’t run away from this.”

“I am not running away. The child is unwell, and I do not think it best that he remain lying on a couch under a throw rug while he recovers.”

Harry felt a strong, warm arm slide behind his shoulders, lifting his upper body as the soft comfort of the blanket was carefully wrapped around him.

“At least use the Floo,” Aunt Aggie conceded. “It is freezing outside.”

“Of course,” Snape’s voice was suddenly close to Harry’s ear. He felt his limp body cradled in firm arms, his heavy head resting against a solid chest. Despite the bizarre circumstance of being carried like an infant by his snarky Potions professor, Harry felt incredibly safe. He would think later about the two conversations he had overheard tonight, when his faculties returned to him. For now, he allowed himself to slip away into sleep.

***

Severus sat at Harry’s bedside, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of blankets over the boy’s chest. The initial seizure had been cause enough for concern. A second, more severe episode not 24 hours later required action. He had sent off an owl immediately after settling the boy into bed. Dumbledore needed to be informed that there were now further ‘complications’ with their plan.

Frankly, he was tempted to administer the antidote and be done with the entire business. It was true, however, that he could not be certain that Potter’s symptoms were necessarily connected to his de-aging.

Unwilling to wait for communication from the Headmaster, Severus had already extracted a vial of blood from the boy’s arm and even now he had a cauldron brewing downstairs. He was hopeful that he would be able to ascertain from its contents whether the seizures were related in any way to the potion that currently worked its magic on Potter’s very cells.

He slipped his fingers around the frail wrist that lay atop the patchwork quilt and felt for the pulse. It remained sluggish and slightly irregular. The symptoms had seemed to be more extreme during the first seizure, but, then, they had only lasted a short time. This time, he had not yet been able to rouse Harry back to full consciousness, even though the episode had occurred almost three hours ago.

Severus hated feeling so powerless and ignorant. There was something deeper than a simple allergic reaction at play here. He felt instinctively that there was some interaction with Potter’s magic that was causing all of this. When Cadmus had mentioned that the boy was untraceable, even though he had been right there in the house, Severus had wondered at what that might mean. Was the boy somehow using accidental magic to unsuccessfully Apparate away from his current location, for whatever reason, not fully able to complete the transition? It would explain why they had been unable to locate him with magic. But he would more likely end up Splinched than in this strange semi-comatose state. Unless he was draining his magical core in the process…

Beside him, Potter stirred and muttered something incoherently.

“Harry? What are you saying?” Severus leaned towards him and squeezed the boy’s limp hand in his own, hoping to rouse him back into consciousness.

“C’n I ‘ave s’me water?” the child slurred, blearily opening his eyes.

“Here,” Severus released the small hand and took the cup of water that he had earlier placed on the nightstand and held it to Harry’s lips, allowing him to take a few sips before pulling it away. “Just a little. You don’t want to make yourself sick.”

“It ‘appen’d ‘gain di’n it?” he sighed.

“Yes,” Severus replied, quietly relieved that the boy had finally come around. “Unfortunately for you, it ‘happened’ right when you had chosen to hide yourself away, far from adult assistance.”

“Mmm,” Potter blinked slowly as he apparently tried to recall the details.

“How are you feeling?”

The boy stretched and flexed his arms and legs experimentally.

“Better, now I c’n move again,” he appeared more alert than he had just moments ago.

“What do you mean, ‘now you can move again’?”

“I felt like I was stuck in limbo. I could hear people talking, and I could feel stuff, but I couldn’t speak or move. It was like that yesterday too, but it felt much scarier the first time,” he shrugged. “I guess this time I knew that I would be okay.”

Severus shook his head at this misplaced logic. He was about to point out how flawed Potter’s line of thinking really was but decided that it would not be the wisest course of action. After all, he did not want to cause undue panic in the boy. He felt somewhat responsible for causing his condition in the first place.

“Thanks for taking care of me, Sir,” this was said quietly, but Potter looked up at Severus and he could see at once the genuine appreciation in the boy’s eyes.

***

Harry slept for almost fourteen hours straight after initially coming round after his ordeal at Kall Hus. He was now feeling himself again, as much as he could in his current de-aged form, in any case. He was confused about what was happening to him and wanted to question Professor Snape about it, but the man seemed reluctant to enter into any further conversations with him.

After briefly checking Harry over that morning, and making sure that he was provided with a light meal for lunch, Snape had disappeared into his rooms. Harry felt slightly awkward around the man and was unsure how to go about explaining to Snape that he now suspected that his odd seizures were actually episodes of time travel. He left the professor to his solitude and curled up amongst the cushions on the overstuffed settee, where he gazed listlessly into the fire and thought of Snape spending his time in this very room as the boy Harry had met the day before.

It was very strange, Harry thought, that he had apparently travelled back in time and met his Potions professor in at least two different time periods, but Snape seemed to have no recollection of these meetings now. Surely at least the name Henrik should mean something to the man, even if Harry’s altered physical appearance hadn’t prompted old memories to surface? It was one mystery among several that Harry felt the need to unravel.

He still felt a bit lost here in Sweden, even without the unsettling events of the past couple of days added to the mix. It was disconcerting to be forced into a situation where most of his time was spent in close contact with his hated Potions professor. Harry knew there were few other options for him, now that the Dursleys were seemingly out of his life for good. He did not want to impose himself upon the Weasley family, for fear of putting their lives at risk and Dumbledore appeared to want nothing to do with him.

At lunch, Harry had seen dismay on Snape’s face upon reading the Headmaster’s response to the owl his teacher had evidently sent the day before. Harry glimpsed the three-word missive to “CONTINUE AS PLANNED” just before Snape had crumpled it into a ball, tossed it into the kitchen fireplace and stalked angrily from the room.

Scrubbing now at his shaven head in frustration, Harry sat at the window seat in his bedroom, staring unseeingly out at the wintery landscape of the manor grounds. He felt uncomfortable about the situation with Snape’s family. Clearly there was a difficult history there. Snape had said as much to him just before they had arrived, but Harry hadn’t really thought about how great an impact it would have on the man. He seemed…deeply unhappy. Well, he supposed that Snape was generally always unhappy, but that was his usual snarky, ‘I’m a greasy git’ personality. This was different. Snape seemed guilty and remorseful about something.

Harry knew those feelings well – he had lived with them for the past almost seven months since the death of his godfather – and recognised them in Snape’s dark-eyed gaze whenever the man looked at his aunt.

He shivered in the draught coming from the window. The young Snape he had encountered was so far removed from the cold and aloof man Harry knew in this time. ‘Severus’, Harry thought to himself with a small smile, remembering the boy’s eager dark eyes looking up at him from the depths of the hidden staircase. He felt a twinge of remorse that he had been forced to leave before Severus had shown him whatever was waiting to be unveiled in that secret room.

In the next moment, Harry was sitting bolt upright, excited at the thought that he could still find out exactly what was concealed at the bottom of those stairs. Even though last night, he had been abruptly torn from that time, the room would surely still be there now!

Harry warmed to the thought of an adventure, putting thoughts of both Severus and Snape aside for a moment, as he eagerly planned his return to the tapestry at the end of the hallway at Kall Hus.

Severus sat pensively before the gently shifting flames of the living room fire of Gatehouse Cottage, his attention only loosely focused upon the dry research paper he was reading on the contraindications of Runespoor eggs and Re’em blood. Frowning, he flicked his eyes once again to a small mound of restless energy currently huddled under a throw rug and tucked snugly into the corner of the settee.

From the slight twitchy movements of the boy’s hands on the pages of the Muggle novel he had clutched in his hands, to the fidgety shifting under the blanket, Potter’s body language screamed that some sort of hare-brained Gryffindor scheme was undoubtedly afoot. Not to mention the fact that the infernal child had not turned a page of his book in the past half an hour. Potter was plotting something.

Severus huffed and, giving up his reading as a lost cause for the present time, gathered the parchment in his hands, tossing it down onto a side table with a loud thump. He indulged in a slightly evil grin as Potter gave a startled jerk at the sudden noise. The two regarded each other carefully for a long moment, until the younger wizard allowed his gaze to slip away from the intensity of Severus’s stare.

“Spill, Potter.”

“Wh-Huh?” the boy fidgeted with the frayed edge of the soft green angora throw rug that covered his legs.

Potter closed his book carefully, choosing not to look up at his teacher and it was this seemingly insignificant movement that convinced Severus that the little fool was most definitely hiding something. Severus had noted that the child seemed to have formed some sort of undue fondness for that particular blanket over the past day or two. It was the very one that Aunt Aggie had carefully tucked around the boy after his little episode at Kall Hus, just as Severus had done later that same evening when he had carried him back through the Floo and settled him into his bed in the attic room at the top of the stairs.

Severus felt a strange twinge of some unfamiliar emotion mixed with amusement at the thought that the famed Chosen One appeared to have developed a firm attachment to a security blanket. It seemed that the de-aging potion continued to reveal further vulnerabilities in the boy’s psyche.

“I wish for you to explain to me what it is that has you so distracted this evening,” Severus eventually returned evenly, his gaze never wavering from his inspection of the boy. “And, for that matter, all day today.”

Potter sighed and turned his body slightly so that he was facing toward his teacher, bringing his knees up so that he could hug his legs close to his chest. Severus observed the self-protective posture with feigned disinterest and waited silently for the boy to answer.

“Well, Sir,” the boy began hesitantly. “I was actually wondering about how much time you spent here at Kall Hus when you were my age. Er…I mean, when you were a boy, you know?”

Surprised at this response, Severus did not answer immediately. He lifted his chin a little and regarded the small boy with undisguised suspicion.

“Erm…you don’t have to say. I mean, if you don’t want to. I just – I wondered if you liked it here?”

“Yes,” came the simple response, stated with absolutely no inflection.
“Oh,” Potter seemed to rethink his line of questioning. “So…you must have good memories of those times?”

“Good memories,” Severus repeated the boy’s words slowly, allowing himself time to puzzle out where exactly Potter intended the conversation to go.

“Yeah, I bet you had lots of fun here,” Potter shrugged in a deliberately careless manner and waved his hand at their surroundings as he warmed to his subject. “It’s such a cool place. The house is really old and interesting, and there’s heaps of space in the grounds. Did you come here in the summer?”

The boy leaned forward in anticipation of his professor’s response. His glamoured dark eyes were wide open with undisguised curiosity as he waited. Severus leaned back into his seat and folded his arms.

“Why the sudden interest in my childhood, Potter?”

Shrugging, Harry affected nonchalance. “No reason really. I guess I was just thinking about what the house must have been like back then.”

“Hmm,” Severus returned, still suspicious of the boy’s true motives. “I suppose it was very much as it is today. A little lonely at times, perhaps.”

“Lonely?” the small face creased in consternation.

“Yes, Potter, lonely,” Severus snapped. “I was an only child, surrounded by adults in a huge house. Do you think your Potions Master incapable of such base human experiences as loneliness or isolation?”

“Oh, um. No, Sir,” Potter shook his head and looked away, distant for a moment. Seemingly without any thought, his next sentence slipped easily from his frowning mouth. “I know what it’s like to be lonely, even when there are people all around –“

Clapping a hand to his traitorous lips, the child halted mid-sentence. The surprised moue as he lowered his hand was almost comical to observe. The quiet dragged on as Severus waited patiently for the next question that he was sure could not be too far away. In his de-aged state, Potter’s facial expressions and body language were so unguarded that he could read the boy like a book. It was almost disappointingly easy.
“There weren’t ever any other kids here for you to play with?”

“Cousin Hilde is a good few years younger than I; however, she was an occasional playmate.”

“No other little boys though?” the casual tone was forced.

“Other boys?” Severus frowned bemusedly and then suddenly realised precisely where this was headed. “You saw that boy again, didn’t you?”

Leaning forward, he caught the small chin in his hand and forced Potter to meet his eyes. “The hallucination in your bedroom? The child appeared to you again?”

Potter closed his eyes, his pointed chin firmly caught in the large hand of his professor, and jerkily nodded.

“Why did you not inform me of this detail the moment that your faculties returned?”

Potter shrugged and then warily opened his eyes. “It’s complicated.”

“Indeed?” Severus stared at the boy, the hot feeling of his displeasure building rapidly in his gut. “Honestly, Potter, your behaviour confounds me at times. Do you not realise that I am currently attempting to follow all possibilities in order to unravel the complete mystery that is your current reaction to the Aetate Mutatio? I instructed you to inform me of any unusual symptoms! Do you not think that your tiny little brain fabricating the existence of another human being might qualify under that heading?”

Abruptly, Severus released Potter from his grasp and stood to his full height, pacing angrily to the notebook that he had earlier left lying open on the dining table.

“Hours of my time painstakingly reviewing every step of the brewing process! Thorough diagrams mapping your body chemistry and key markers of your immune system! Records of every minute observation of your condition following a seizure!” He whirled and waved the notes in the boy’s pale face, punctuating his speech with a small thrust of the notebook and drawing ever closer to Potter in the process.

“These are my notes on your condition. Look carefully at them, Mr Potter,” he tossed the notebook into the boy’s lap with a disgusted grimace and resumed his irate pacing.

Severus often found that a little physical activity was useful in regaining control during a fit of pique. It was a habit formed through Aunt Aggie’s intervention during his childhood. The woman had never had much patience for his anger-induced tantrums and had always insisted that he ‘work it off and cool down that temper’ through engaging in some sort of physical activity. This had usually involved a quick swim in the lake during the summer months. Severus snorted to himself. He was well past the age of slogging through his angst in a lake swim. Additionally, the depths of winter were not the best time to go for a quick dip.

“He wasn’t fabricated.”

Severus abruptly paused in his travels across the living room at hesitant note of the soft voice.

“At least, I know that he isn’t an imaginary person.”

“What in Merlin’s name are you babbling about now, Mr Potter?”

“The boy,” Potter looked up at him with an odd expression of both fear and wonder. The notebook Severus had tossed at him remained unopened on his lap.

“Of course he was fabricated! Do you see any other little boys living here at the cottage?”

“Well, no. But that boy is…was a real person.”

“And how precisely do you know this to be fact?”

Potter gripped the notebook tightly in both hands and drew it defensively to his chest. “Because, Sir, that boy…he was you.”

***
Samuel Pritchard was the sort of man who lived for his work. A social worker for the Surrey branch of the Children and Family Court for the past 12 years, it was Samuel’s role to check the facts of any case of potential abuse that was to be brought before the magistrate. He took a great deal of pride in his meticulous attention to detail; after all, it was on his advice that the final ruling was made, and Samuel preferred to think that he always did his very best to ensure that justice prevailed.
His latest case had him scratching his head. The family he was currently investigating just seemed so…ordinary. There was no evidence of substance abuse - a decent regular income apparently kept them all in middle-class comfort - and the house was immaculately kept.

Admittedly, the teenage son was unhealthily overweight, but there was a health-plan in place for the boy to lose weight and the boy’s parents seemed to genuinely dote on their roly-poly son. All of this was in order. The one missing piece in the puzzle was the nephew.

On the surface, his absence from the family home over the Christmas holiday break seemed legitimate. The lad was away at an exclusive boarding school in Scotland and, according to the neighbours Samuel had interviewed in the course of his investigation, it was apparently usual for him to spend the holiday at the school. Samuel had been in contact with the Headmaster and it was confirmed that the Potter boy was currently in Sweden undertaking private tuition in Chemistry with a renowned professor in the field. An extra-curricular tour of this nature must have cost a great deal of money and Samuel found it impressive that the school was willing to extend such opportunities to its outstanding students. Clearly the Dursleys spared no expense on the education of their young ward.

The Headmaster of the school in question had waxed lyrical about the boy’s potential and had described Harry Potter as an exceptional student who held a great deal of promise in both athletic and academic pursuits. Understandably, Headmaster Dumbledore had expressed genuine concern over the reasons for Samuel’s phone call. Well-versed in dealing discreetly with such matters, Samuel had reassured the man that it was all a routine affair and had gently dissuaded him from arranging the face-to-face meeting that Mr Dumbledore had so clearly desired.

The call had ended amiably enough, with Samuel promising a follow-up call in the new year and the Headmaster agreeing to contact Samuel’s office upon the Potter boy’s return to Scotland from his accelerated Chemistry course in Sweden.

It was this information that seemed decidedly at odds with the description of the boy that he had been given by various residents in Privet Drive, Little Whinging. In fact, most seemed to be of the understanding that young Potter attended St Brutus’s Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys. It was most perplexing, given that this institution did not, according to Samuel’s extensive and rigorous research, exist.

Another glaring anomaly in the Harry Potter case file was the fact that there was little evidence in the Dursley home that the boy had ever even resided within its walls. There were no photographs of the child on the walls, his bedroom was freshly painted and clean, but bland and impersonal to the point of looking like a staged room. The cupboards in the room contained no personal effects at all, not even an old pair of trainers or a discarded toy.

No, something was most definitely not right in this case, and Samuel intended to find out exactly what it was.

Harry perched on the very edge of the sofa cushion. In one sense, he deeply regretted the fact that he had just blurted out to his Potions professor the story of his time-hopping interactions with a juvenile Severus Snape. His slip up would inevitably lead to a whole host of questions that Harry did not feel equipped to answer. On the other hand, however, Harry’s mind was spinning with the indisputable fact that in the last 24 hours, he had somehow travelled back in time, inexplicably met with the 12-year-old version of his Potions Master, who was somehow familiar enough with Harry’s presence that he had addressed him as ‘Henrik’ and had excitedly invited him to see who-knew-what in a hidden room of Kall Hus.

He peered up now at the still form of the more familiar (and far more intimidating) adult version of Severus Snape. The man had not moved, nor had he spoken, since Harry’s revelation that the mystery boy that he had interacted with on two separate occasions was, in fact, this very same person.

Slowly, Snape lowered his gaze, locking eyes with Harry. The emotion behind the dark irises was unreadable. Harry was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the man’s continued silence. He expected ranting, or a vehement denial of the facts presented. Instead, Snape seemed beyond any kind of vocalisation. If he were to try to put a name to his teacher’s current state of mind, he would have to say that Snape seemed…fearful.

“It was you,” Harry swallowed nervously. “Not you now, but you when you were a boy. You – he – even told me that his name was Severus. He seemed a little put out about being called Snape. Said that he only got called by that name at school-“

Snape’s alarm seemed to intensify for a moment before, just as suddenly, his expression transformed into a cool mask of indifference.

“Am I to understand, Mr Potter, from the content of your ramblings, that you actually conversed with this hallucination?”

One eyebrow raised in incredulity, the Potions Master sank into the wing-back chair nearest the fire. Harry could almost have believed Snape’s display of indifference, had it not been for the white-knuckled grip of the man’s hands as they tightly clenched the rolled arms of the chair.

“Well, you – he – talked to me first, really,” Harry explained. “I fell out of the cupboard and he thought I was a Boggart.”

“You fell out of the cupboard?” Snape sneered, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it.

“Yeah, that last time I had a seizure, when I was at Kall Hus, I was hiding in a cupboard,” he felt his cheeks warm a little as he gave his professor a sheepish sideways glance. “The kids – well, anyway, we were playing a game. I thought the cupboard would be a great hiding spot, and it was, because nobody came for me. At one point, I could hear some voices in the hallway, and I was in there for a while longer before I realised that I was stuck in there. There was no handle on the inside of the door and the latch was closed.”

He closed his eyes, remembering the panic that had blossomed inside him in the moment when he believed himself to be trapped.

“Just then, I heard someone standing right outside. I guessed it was probably Lucas.”

Harry paused, thinking of his decidedly ungraceful tumble onto the hallway rug when the cupboard door had suddenly released. “The door opened, but when I fell out, it was not now. Except, well, you were there, but I didn’t realise it was you at first because you weren’t you now, you were you then,” he tossed his head in frustration in his own clumsy attempt to describe the leap back in time. “I mean, when I saw you, it must have been years ago, because you were just a kid. Even so,” here, he spoke slowly and deliberately. “You knew me.”

Snape continued to stare at Harry as if he had gone completely mad.

“I knew you?” he queried softly, never shifting his intense gaze for a moment.

“Um, yeah,” mumbled Harry. “You called me Henrik, and – oh! – I remember that you said something about me appearing in the middle of the lake the last time you saw me!”

He felt a sudden rush of triumph at remembering this small detail, followed by apprehension.

“Erm – maybe that’s actually not such a good thing, really…” Harry trailed off in concern, wondering about the context of appearing unexpectedly in the middle of a deep expanse of water in one of his time travelling adventures.

There was a momentary flash of recognition in Snape’s face, but it was there and gone so quickly that Harry could scarcely credit that he had witnessed it. His teacher frowned and shook his head in bemusement.

“Potter,” he began. “Surely you must know how completely absurd this all sounds.” The man shook his head again, more slowly this time. If Harry didn’t know better, he would have said that his professor looked concerned for him.

As if to prove the point, Snape leaned forward and peered intently at Harry’s face, his dark eyes shifting from side to side as he looked him over. Harry felt a slight tingle of magic and the faintest brush of another consciousness meeting his own before the intruding presence slid abruptly away.

Snape slumped back into his chair in an uncharacteristically despondent manner. He sighed and rubbed at his brow in seeming frustration. “I cannot.”

“Beg pardon?” Harry stared at him.

“I cannot, Mr Potter, validate whether you truly believe this preposterous story, or if this is all some attention-grabbing fabrication of your infantile mind,” Snape replied wearily. “I cannot Legilimise you at present. It is too dangerous for both of us.”

“That never stopped you before,” Harry replied hotly. “Last year, you never worried at all about mucking about in my mind!” A recollection of those terrible Occlumency lessons came rushing back, and the ghost of the fearsome headaches he had suffered afterwards seemed to take up residence behind Harry’s eyes as he thought about Snape’s cruel intrusion into his private thoughts and memories.

Snape closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clearly working to control his temper.

“You were old enough at that time that your synaptic connections were more concrete and thus less vulnerable to any permanent damage that mind magic can cause. That is certainly not the case at the present time. If I were to enter your mind now, I could cause irreversible harm to your temporal lobe.”

“My temporal lobe?” Harry fidgeted with his left ear absent-mindedly.

“Not your ear lobe, you imbecile!” Snape snapped at him. “Your temporal lobe; it is the part of your brain responsible for auditory processing, speech, long and short-term memory and a whole host of other vital brain functions. Were I to perform Legilimency on you at this physiological age, I could render you a deaf-mute amnesiac for the remainder of your natural born days! I could inadvertently destroy your ability to process emotion, leaving you in a state of unendurable terror from which you would never recover, or, conversely, render you completely devoid of any emotional capacity at all. I am speaking of brain damage, Potter!”

The man was breathing heavily at the end of his impassioned lecture, his cheeks flushed, and his brow creased in exasperation.

Harry felt a little shaky at hearing exactly what might have happened to him just moments ago, had Snape actually followed through with his first instinct to seek confirmation of the truth through breaching Harry’s mental defences.

“There is a different danger inherent in performing mind magic on a developing brain,” Snape continued in a softer tone. “As the caster, I would likely have become trapped in your mind, unable to extricate myself from the depths of still-forming memory and emotion. Eventually, after several hours or days of disorientation and a gradual complete loss of self, I would have died.”

There was silence in the room, as both wizards contemplated the near-miss they had just experienced.

“Huh,” Harry huffed, breaking the heavy atmosphere. “Lucky you managed to stop yourself in time, then…”

Snape snorted with what sounded suspiciously like amusement and seemed to gather his wits.

“Although somewhat simply phrased, that is a fair and accurate assessment. Unfortunately, this does leave us at somewhat of an impasse,” he spread his long-fingered hands in a gesture of futility.
“I shall, instead, have to assume that this rather bizarre story is either a desperate attempt on your behalf to return to your real age, or yet another side-effect of the de-aging potion.”

Harry felt a rush of anger that Snape simply wouldn’t believe him.

“I know you think me a liar and a sneak and most definitely a spoilt little attention-seeker,” Harry sneered in his best Snape impression. “But, Sir, I swear to you, I am telling the truth! I saw you! I spoke to you!”

Snape sighed again.

“Mr Potter, as much as I may believe that you are all of those things, and more, it pains me to admit that in this instance…I do believe you,” he frowned at Harry.

Harry gaped back at him.

“I believe that you believe that you saw some youthful version of myself in the corridor of Kall Hus.”

“So you still think I hallucinated, then?” Harry clenched his fists so tightly that he could feel the skin straining against his knuckles.

“A dream, perhaps, if not some fantastical delusion brought on by a lack of oxygen during your fit. It must have appeared completely real to you in every way,” Snape looked at Harry with an expression of sympathy that was at odds with his impatient demeanour. “You were in a semi-conscious state for some time. Near three hours had passed before I was able to fully rouse you from your stupor. It stands to reason that your mind was still attempting to process information during that time, providing you with a complex vision-“

“No!” Harry thumped his small fists against the sofa cushion in frustration. He hated the ineffectually high-pitched tone of his own exclamation. “I told you before – but you weren’t listening! I was awake during that time, but I just couldn’t move. I knew everything that was happening, well, mostly. I fell asleep after you put me in my bed. All that stuff happened after I time travelled! I met you, the younger you, before all of that!”

“You were aware?” Snape queried sharply. “You knew what was happening around you that night?”

“Yes, alright?” he fidgeted and avoided meeting his professor’s eyes. “When I came to, I was still in the hallway. I felt Cadmus pick me up and carry me into the Drawing Room. Aunt Aggie was holding me and trying to get me to talk to her, but as much as I tried, I just couldn’t move my lips. You came in and shouted at me, shook me hard, and I still couldn’t wake up. Aunt Aggie yelled at you, everyone was worried and then you – “ Harry paused in his account and looked up at him in both curiosity and confusion.

Snape’s complexion had paled so much that in the dim light of the room, his skin took on the pallor of bleached parchment. He looked decidedly uncomfortable with this latest revelation, perhaps even more so than when Harry had earlier revealed his unintentional time-travel.

“You were worried, too. You tried to talk to me,” the memory filled Harry with an unexpected feeling of desolation. “I tried to answer you, tell you I could hear your voice, because you sounded so… Um, you sounded – but-but my mouth wouldn’t move, and the words wouldn’t come. And th-then, when everyone left,” he swallowed hard against the tightening of his throat. What was wrong with him?

“I remember,” Harry continued haltingly. “Aunt Aggie talking to you. About me. Sh-she wanted…something good for you and she wanted y-you to be-“ he stumbled over his words, his voice a little rough. He tried to shrug, but it felt more like a shudder. “You know what she said…and y-you were trying to tell her that it will never happen. Because, you said, you couldn’t c-care a-about…because you didn’t want-”

Embarrassed by an unexpected hot prickling of tears in his eyes, and unable to continue looking at his professor or to even stay in the same room with him, Harry launched himself clumsily from the settee and stumbled away from the man.

“Potter, I-“

“Don’t,” Harry managed to force out. “Just – don’t.”

He rushed up the stairs, leaving his bewildered teacher staring at the empty stairwell in shock.

***

“I believe that his is a very sad situation indeed, Mr Pritchard,” Dolores granted the Muggle social worker a smile that attempted to express both sympathy and sadness but, as her lips twisted, she knew that she failed to achieve either. She had been sitting primly upon a wheeled office chair in the miserable little cubicle that served as Samuel Pritchard’s office space for the past five minutes, taking tiny sips from her tea, (served in a cardboard cup, of all abominations!) and exuding an air of deep concern and regret. The entire ordeal had already become tiresome in the extreme.

“Perhaps you could provide me with a little background, Ms Umbridge?” the sandy-haired man asked in a neutral tone. He did not appear at all affected by Dolores’s demeanour, instead slowly turning a red pencil over between his finger tips and gazing at her with intense blue eyes. Those eyes reminded her unsettlingly of Dumbledore and she tittered nervously at him as she nodded.

“Of course, of course. Well, I suppose you should know that I was the person who reported the boy’s abuse to the police in the first instance.”

“Indeed, I was already aware of that fact, Ma’am,” his smile verged on condescending and Dolores bristled.

“Yes, well, someone simply had to intervene. I first realised that there was an issue, you see, when I was in the employ of his school in Scotland.”

“Ah,” Pritchard leant back further in his chair and nodded. “Yes, I spoke to the Headmaster just yesterday at length.”

Curse Albus Dumbledore to the darkest cells of Azkaban! Of course, she had realised that the Muggle authorities would investigate all areas of the Potter boy’s life when she lodged the complaint, but Dolores had hoped to be able to set the scene in her favour before Dumbledore waded into the picture, twisting things to suit his own purposes.

“Well, then,” she simpered. “You must know that the boy shows some academic promise.” It was not hard to guess that the scheming old wizard would have painted an exaggerated picture of the boy’s intelligence.

“I am afraid that for legal reasons, I cannot reveal any details of that conversation,” Pritchard demurred politely.

Dolores clenched her teeth but nodded her understanding. The Muggle was clearly going to play this game by the rules. Being a stickler for regulations herself, (well, apart from a few moments of discretionary law-breaking – needs must) she changed tack.

“Oh Mr Pritchard, I do understand. In fact, it is so very important to me that this entire matter is dealt with in a professional and discreet manner.”

“Well then, why don’t we start with you telling me about your interactions with young Harry at his school?” Pritchard leafed through a file on his desk and fingered a little square piece of yellow paper that was stuck to an official-looking form. “Hogwarts School, isn’t it? A rather good public school, I am given to understand. Were you teaching there?”

“Among other higher duties, yes,” seeing her chance, Dolores leapt at the opportunity. She had very carefully prepared her story and now was the time to secure the trust of the Muggle authorities. For as much as it galled her to think it, it would eventually be on this social worker’s say-so that Dolores might gain full legal custody of Potter.

And then there wouldn’t be a single thing that Albus Dumbledore could do to stop her.

***

The slight figure curled in a tight ball in the corner of the window seat. At first glance, the boy was so still and quiet that Severus thought he might have been asleep. On closer inspection, however, the puffy-lidded eyes were clearly open, glistening wetly in the light from the window. Harry’s posture stiffened slightly as Severus shifted his weight on the creaking floorboards, but the boy did not turn around. Instead, he resolutely stared into the darkness beyond the window, blinking slowly on occasion.

Severus moved further into the room, lowering himself uncomfortably onto to the low single bed whist remaining tight-lipped. Despite the tense situation, the normally taciturn man found himself needing to fight back a tiny smirk at the sight of Potter clutching that accursed throw rug so desperately against his chest.

Taking his time to formulate a sentence, Severus openly inspected the boy. He was dressed in a pair of ridiculous footed onesie pyjamas; the ends of his hair still damp from a recent bath. He looked every bit a miserable little child hunched there under the blanket, apparently seeking the simple comfort that simply holding a familiar and cherished possession can sometimes bring.

The urge to smile slid away, as Severus was reminded of Potter’s emotional display earlier that evening in the living room. He had thought that allowing the boy some space and time alone up here in his room would be enough to soothe his anguish. However, judging by the current state of the vulnerable boy seated at the window, Potter had not yet recovered from his outburst.

Severus eventually chose to say nothing at all, instead waiting patiently. He knew that he would never be anybody’s first choice to offer comforting platitudes in times of distress. He cursed himself, really, for even thinking of making the attempt, knowing as he did that he could only make things worse. The silence between them grew weighty with unsaid things, but still Severus’s regret remained unvoiced.

Truly, he did not know what to say. He scarcely understood what had happened between himself and Potter earlier that evening in the sitting room, apart from the fact that the child had appeared genuinely hurt at overhearing his teacher’s apparent refusal to take on the burden of playing father to ‘Henrik’ at Aggie’s request. Surely the boy remembered that this entire situation was an elaborate ruse? For Merlin’s sake, the real Henrik was Harry Bloody Potter; a 16-year-old boy who hated Severus Snape with a passion borne of years of enmity and distrust!

He turned his attention once more to the miserable figure perched on the window seat and cleared his throat softly.

“You are upset.”

Potter jerked a little at the unexpected sound of his teacher’s voice in the heavy quiet. With a slight rustle of fabric, he rolled himself away from the window to face Severus. The boy’s expression was the very picture of desolation as he raised his head slowly and heavily to look at him. Eyes red-rimmed and swollen, Potter blinked but remained silent, waiting expectantly for Severus to continue.

“Come here, please.”

Severus patted the bed awkwardly and then gestured to the boy with a crooked finger. Very slowly, Potter unfolded himself from his seated position and slid from the alcove with a light thump as his feet met the floor. There he remained, clutching his blanket, which now trailed to the floor, and staring at his teacher with a look in his eyes that lingered somewhere between apprehension and dismay.

“I promise you, Mr Potter, that had I the slightest desire to do you any physical harm at all, you would most definitely have known about it within minutes of our initial meeting back in your first year at Hogwarts,” Severus sighed in irritation. “Now come here – you will catch your death sitting there in that draughty alcove.”

“I’m not scared you’ll hurt me,” Potter snorted, tossing his head in a show of bravado and then contradicting his defiant attitude by inching carefully over to the bed, stopping at arm’s length from the Potions Master.

Severus watched the boy closely as he continued to stand uncertainly near the head of the bed, not making any attempt to sit.

“You were upset earlier this evening, Mr Potter,” he tried again.

“It’s fine…I’m fine,” Potter tried for a carefree shrug and achieved a jerky little spasm instead. “It’s just being in this stupid little kid’s body. Sometimes I just can’t seem to control my – emotions.” A flush gradually spread its way over the rounded cheeks as Potter’s dark gaze drifted to the floor. He was clearly just as uncomfortable with their conversation as Severus.

Sighing softly, he leaned toward the boy. “I suppose, in this instance, you were unable to help the fact that you were once again eavesdropping on a private conversation, given your condition at the time. It remains, however, that you have clearly failed to grasp the finer nuances of what you overheard. My aunt has particularly firm opinions about some of my less-than-savoury life choices and seeks to re-make me into a better man-“

He stopped abruptly, wondering at why in Merlin’s name he was sharing this deeply private information with the child.

“What I am saying, Mr Potter, is that Aunt Aggie has been quite taken in by our concocted cover story and would quite like to see little Henrik become a permanent member of the family. She believes that fatherhood might soften my rather…frosty disposition,” he sneered disdainfully at his own statement and straightened up, preparing to stand. They were veering painfully close to matters that Severus had no intention discussing further with the boy.

“You know,” came the quiet rejoinder. “You probably should stop calling me ‘Mr Potter’ while we are here. What if you were to slip up in front of Aunt Aggie?”

Severus stilled, recognising the attempt at deflection for what it was, but let it slide as he noted the boy appeared to relax a little.

“Hmm…you clearly forget my position as a spy within the Dark Lord’s ranks, Mr Potter. I very much doubt that I would reveal your identity in such a clumsy manner.”

Potter rolled his eyes, grunted and turned away. For a moment, Severus thought that the boy was about to return to the window seat, but instead he continued to twist his torso until he was facing the bed, throwing himself against the edge of the mattress and allowing his forward momentum to propel him so that his chest and arms sprawled across the pillow. With an ungainly wriggle, the boy completed his complicated manoeuvre, pulling himself fully up onto the bed and tucking his feet up underneath him as he settled himself against the bedhead.

“Well, I just think it would be easier for me, if you called me Henrik,” Potter tried again, distractedly tugging the throw rug so that it lay across his lap. “It would help me get used to people calling me by that name.”

The comment prompted something in Severus and he considered the small boy carefully, thinking of their earlier conversation. Potter had, at that time, referred to the fact that Severus’s younger self had addressed Henrik by name.

“There was something you mentioned downstairs that I have been puzzling over,” Severus stated slowly. “You mentioned an incident – one that the younger version of myself alluded to – a moment where you appeared suddenly in the middle of the lake?”

Potter, who had blanched at his initial comment, now nodded, peering at him through the gloom with sudden interest.

“There was – is – a memory of mine,” he stopped and shook his head as though trying to clear it. “More a remembered dream, but I do have some recollection of seeing a boy on the ice.”

Severus brought a hand up to his neck and rubbed at his shoulder in a distracted motion. “It wasn’t something that actually happened. But I do recall a dream, a nightmare, in fact.”

“A nightmare, Sir?” Potter seemed to have forgotten his misery in the face of this new information.

“I am not sure,” Severus released his breath in a frustrated exhalation. The details of his dream-memory were muddled and too slippery for him to grasp firmly in his mind, but he knew that when Potter had mentioned appearing in the middle of the lake, it had sparked some long-forgotten terror that now eluded him once more.

In his mind, he could picture with stark clarity a small boy, standing at some distance from the lakeshore. Mixed with this fragmented memory was a terrible fear at seeing the child standing barefoot in the snowdrifts that blew across the hardened icy surface of the lake. There was a sound associated with this image; a harsh Crack! of apparation that reverberated in the snow-deadened landscape…and then nothing more. Yet the fear, it still clenched tightly in his breast as he fought to bring the rest of that moment to mind. He felt his breathing quicken and his heart race, but Severus could not understand why this half-remembered dream affected him so.

“Professor?” Potter’s voice was soft and uncertain. “Are you alright?”

Severus looked at the small face which was peering up at him. He felt a strange little twist of something deep within as he noted Potter’s open concern.

“No, I don’t believe I am,” he replied, widening his eyes at the boy in sudden horrified realisation.

“Sir?”

“I do believe, Mr Potter,” Severus stated with forced calm, even as a terrible chill filled his heart. “That someone has been meddling with my memories.”

Severus Snape lay in the living room of Gatehouse Cottage, his lifeless body supported by the transfigured wing-back chair, which now resembled something more like a heavily-padded dentist’s chair. The man was as still and silent as death. As Harry watched proceedings from his position on the settee, he stared resolutely at his professor’s chest, waiting with bated breath for any reassuring sign of movement.

Albus Dumbledore, grasping his wand firmly, shifted his weight back and stood creakily from his kneeling position beside Snape’s right arm, which presently hung limply from the edge of the reclined chair. Carefully, almost tenderly, the elderly wizard swept his aged hand along Snape’s sharp jawline and held his fingers firmly against the side of the lifeless man’s throat, feeling for a pulse. Harry slid from his spot and sidled over to take the Headmaster’s place at his teacher’s side, exhaling slowly as he finally noted the gentle rise and fall of the black-clad chest.

“He will be fine, Harry,” Dumbledore reassured him, noticing the boy’s fearful countenance for the first time since he had uttered the incantation that had placed Severus Snape into a bewitched sleep. Harry swallowed hard; his mouth and throat felt terribly dry and he realised that he was trembling slightly. He felt a warm and steady hand squeeze his shoulder.

“Are you sure, Professor?” he asked in a small voice. “He doesn’t look very good.” Tentatively, he reached out and lightly touched the back of Snape’s right hand, needing some physical reassurance that the skin was indeed still warm.

“I have spelled him into a healing sleep for now. I will awaken him in a few hours, and I have every confidence that he will arise feeling very much refreshed and bearing no sign of any difficulties.” The pair stood together at Snape’ side, silently observing the unconscious wizard.

“Wh-what happened?” Harry finally stuttered, not shifting his gaze away from Snape’s face, which looked oddly peaceful in repose. The soft light from the fireplace seemed to warm his ashen skin, softening the usually harsh lines into something altogether more youthful. Still, Snape looked a little ill. There were shadows deepening under his closed eyes, and Harry noticed that his facial muscles gave a little tic every so often, as if the man were in pain.

“I thought that you were just going to check for any missing memories?” Harry continued. “Why was he screaming like that? He wouldn’t stop and it just kept getting worse and worse and I thought he... It sounded – he sounded like – like someone was torturing him.”

Aware that he was babbling, Harry bit his bottom lip to stop himself from losing complete control. He was still shaking badly and could feel his heartbeat in his throat, the after-effects of the adrenaline that had flooded his body moments before working its way through his system.
He noticed that Dumbledore, too, was pale and a little unsteady on his feet.

“Things did not go precisely to plan, I am afraid,” the elderly wizard moved slowly away and sank onto the far end of the settee, stroking his beard distractedly. “It would appear that whomever modified Professor Snape’s memories also took great pains to ensure that they would not be easily retrieved.”

Harry nodded in agreement. “I thought you were going to kill him.”

“For a moment, Harry, I feared that very same eventuality myself.”

Harry once again touched the back of his professor’s hand, this time giving it a gentle squeeze. The gesture was more for himself than anything else. Only minutes earlier, this same hand, now slack and immobile, had clenched in agony while Dumbledore had performed the specialised form of Legimency required to identify traces of Obliviation. Having watched his professor succumb to the spell with such unexpectedly violent results, Harry now realised with sudden clarity that he was very much dependent on his teacher here in Sweden. More surprisingly, he found that it didn’t bother him at all to feel so reliant on Snape, for the man had proven himself completely reliable and steadfast over the days that they had spent acting as father and son at Kall Hus. Of course, Snape was as irascible as ever, quick to anger at some of Harry’s more foolish behaviour (like the eavesdropping and the hiding in cupboards). But he had also been concerned for Harry. Having an adult care for him when he was ill, or someone to reassure him when he was feeling upset was an oddly comforting experience. Harry never thought that he would have used the word ‘comforting’ to describe his interactions with Professor Snape, but it was the truth and he was not about to lie to himself right now. Not when he had come so close to losing the man.

Still feeling shaky, Harry released Snape’s hand and clambered up onto the settee beside Dumbledore, unaware that the Headmaster had just now been observing his interaction with the Potions Master with a great deal of interest.

They both sat in silence, contemplating what could have been, the only sounds in the room those of the gently crackling fire in the grate and the deep and regular breathing of the Potions Master.

Events had unfolded quickly over the past several hours. Snape, apoplectic at the very idea that an unknown wizard had performed a complex Obliviation on him at some unspecified time in the past, had immediately swept from Harry’s bedroom and Fire-called the Headmaster. He had wasted no time in explaining the situation, giving no indication that he had noticed that Harry had followed him down the stairs and was listening to every word spoken between the two wizards.
It had rapidly become apparent to Harry that Snape was worried that his mental defences had been breached and his mind compromised in some way that might prove a danger not just to the man himself, but also to Harry, Dumbledore and the Order at large. His professor had spoken in a quietly urgent voice through the Floo connection, and what he had said made Harry realise just how great the risk might be.

“I do not understand the nature of this violation as of yet, Albus,” Snape had hissed into the green flames of the fireplace. “I cannot, therefore, rule out that Imperio may have been cast against me.” The man had turned his head, to look straight into Harry’s eyes, revealing that he had certainly been aware the entire time that the boy stood just behind him.

“Potter is no longer safe in my care,” he paused, never shifting his gaze away from Harry’s. “He is not safe, Albus. Not until we can ascertain the extent of the mind magic that has been performed.”

Harry had stepped tentatively towards his teacher, only to feel an invisible force preventing him from moving any closer.

“Harry, listen to me,” Snape intoned urgently. “You are to go immediately to your room and lock the door. Kora!”

The tiny figure of the house elf Popped into existence beside Snape, looking curiously between her master, the still-active Floo, and the small child being held at bay with a defensive ward.

“Kora, remain with Harry in his room. Ward the door against me. You are not, under any circumstances, to permit me entry, even if I order you to comply, is that understood?”

“Yes, Master Severus, Kora is understanding these instructions,” with wide eyes, she nodded her acquiescence.

“You are only to open the door once Albus Dumbledore instructs you that it is safe to do so,” Snape whirled about to face the fire once more.

“Albus, come at once,” the Potions Master’s attention was now entirely focused on the Floo. “We haven’t any time to waste. I will meet you at the Apparation point and escort you across the boundaries of the wards.”

“I will be there as soon as I can complete the Apparation hops, Severus. It may take a little time.”

Snape nodded and brushed his lank hair away from his forehead impatiently as the Floo call ended in a lick of green flames. Harry stood staring at his teacher in confusion. The orders had come so thick and fast that he was still reeling at the fact that Snape had employed a shield spell that was clearly designed to protect Harry from his own professor.

“Well? Why you still standing there?” Snape roared, his previous quiet determination now giving way to rage. “Get away from me! NOW!”

After that, it had only been a matter of a half an hour or so that Harry had been forced to wait in his attic bedroom. He had paced the length and breadth of the small space as he waited for assistance to materialise. Kora was still standing guard when Dumbledore’s kindly voice had announced his presence on the other side of the elf-warded door. Still, that short stretch of time felt like an eternity to Harry as he remembered the terrible expression on his professor’s usually impassive face.

It seemed impossible to him that someone, anyone, could have Obliviated a gifted wizard like Severus Snape, without the man’s knowledge. Still, Snape was very clearly convinced that something was amiss. It was frightening to Harry. Merlin, it was also frightening to Snape! The sense of urgency in the professor’s voice had bordered on panic and Severus Snape never panicked.

Despite his obvious alarm, Snape had apparently swiftly considered the implications of the mind magic performed without his knowledge and had not thought of the risks to himself, but rather had focused his concern on Harry.

The professor had taken immediate steps to protect Harry, calling in both the Headmaster and Kora and making sure that he was safely locked away in the bedroom. Recalling the moment when Snape had looked Harry straight in the eyes, during his Floo-call with Dumbledore, he could not help but wonder at the emotion evident in that piercing stare. Harry had never seen Snape look like that before. There was fear there, but something more, too. Something softer.

***

Despite his previous anger at the Headmaster for his devious machinations in de-aging Harry and placing him in the care of Severus Snape for the duration of the winter break, Harry was hugely relieved to sit quietly in the older man’s reassuring presence. They had waited together in companionable silence now for a couple of hours, Harry steadfastly refusing to leave Snape’s side until he could be sure that the professor was alright. It was now heading towards the early hours of the morning and Harry’s eyes felt itchy with fatigue, his head leaning heavily against the sofa cushions.

“I must ask you, Harry, how you are coping with your current circumstances – here in Sweden?” Dumbledore smiled warmly as he spoke, but his gaze was direct and questioning. "After all, Christmas is but a few days away and I would hate to think you were unhappy here."

“Well, actually,” Harry hesitated. He sat up straighter and stared at his hands. Somehow, sharing the details of his interactions with a much younger Severus Snape felt like a betrayal. He was reasonably certain that Snape had yet to share those details with Professor Dumbledore and something was stopping him from explaining it all himself.

“I have enjoyed meeting Professor Snape’s family, Sir. And I have gotten to know – a different side – of Professor Snape.” There, that was an honest answer that was also about as Slytherin as they come. Snape would be proud. And perhaps a little shocked that Harry was capable of such duplicity.

The Headmaster beamed, his eyes flashing with undisguised relief. “You cannot possibly know how pleased I am to hear that,” he replied. “I know that this time spent together must be challenging for both of you.”

“Yeah, but it’s been okay. And, well, Professor Snape has been…erm…considerate of my needs.”

“That sounds very diplomatic, Harry,” Dumbledore chuckled.

Harry blinked at him. “Oh, no, I don’t mean to sound like that. He – Professor Snape really has been very…kind to me.”

The blue eyes twinkled. “Kind, Harry? I would recommend you avoid describing Professor Snape in such terms when in his presence,” the elderly wizard turned slightly away to look over the sleeping Potions Master and Harry could tell that he was holding in his amusement.

Harry sighed and rubbed a small hand across his face.

How could he explain to Dumbledore that Professor Snape made him feel protected? The man had cared for him when he had been unwell. He worried for Harry’s safety. He had shared his theories with him about the side-effects of the Aetate Mutatio potion and had tried to convince the Headmaster to allow Harry to return to his true age in order to avoid further harm. No adult had ever before looked after him in such a way.

Sure, Dumbledore had previously expressed his regret about what had happened to Sirius, sharing that he cared for Harry. He believed this to be true. In his own way, Albus Dumbledore had shown over the years that he wanted Harry to be safe. The fact remained, however, that every summer, Harry had been forced to return to the indifferent Dursley household. Sirius himself had wanted to provide a home for Harry, but he, too, had allowed that his godson return to 4 Privet Drive for those punishing weeks over the holidays. Molly and Arthur Weasley were gentle and caring in all their interactions with him, but he had always felt the stinging knowledge that he was not their son. The Weasleys would never have allowed for one of their own children to be locked away in a bedroom with bars on the windows and locks on the doors and then to return to that same environment once they learned of the situation. And that was exactly what had happened in second year, when Fred, George and Ron had arrived so triumphantly to rescue him in the flying Ford Anglia. The twins had told Molly Weasley exactly why the rescue had been necessary and yet, their mother had done nothing. At the end of that year, after slaying the Basilisk, after saving Ginny from the clutches of the shade of Tom Riddle, Harry had simply returned to Dudley’s second bedroom for the summer. Nothing had changed.

The worst of it all was that Harry now knew that he had no family. The Dursleys had dumped him and turned their backs, going on with their lives as if they had never once grudgingly housed a small boy in the cupboard under their stairs. Sirius, in the blink of an eye, had passed through that insubstantial veil, forever lost. And Severus Snape had told Aunt Aggie that he had no interest in taking on the burden of the guardianship of a child. Admittedly, he had been responding to Aunt Aggie’s misplaced understanding that Harry was Snape’s natural-born son; a five-year-old boy named Henrik. Still, Harry knew that the rejection would have been even more vehement, had they both been speaking about the care and custody of Harry Potter, rather than Henrik Snape.

Distracted by a small movement in his peripheral vision, Harry turned his head toward the kitchen and realised, with a strange thrill of excitement, that he must once again have slipped backwards in time.

There, sat on a stool beside the kitchen range, was Severus Snape. He had his head bowed as he carefully tied off the shoelaces of his worn leather boots and consequently had not yet noticed his companion. Harry quickly took in the fact that both Dumbledore and the adult version of Snape were now missing from the empty living room, which otherwise boasted identical furniture laid out in a slightly different arrangement, minus the transfigured wing chair that Dumbledore had earlier spelled for Professor Snape to recline upon. A soft light filtered through the curtained window near the front door of the cottage, suggesting that it was either very early in the morning or perhaps heading towards dusk. Harry guessed the former. He returned his attention to Severus, who was humming softly to himself and looked, to Harry, to be of a similar age to the first time they had met.

Not wanting to startle the boy, Harry softly cleared his throat, causing Severus to glance up at him. He tried not to laugh outright at the boy’s double-take.

“It’s you again!” he whispered intently.

“Hi,” Harry replied, smiling a little at the young boy.

“Shh,” Severus hushed, frowning with a scowl reminiscent of his adult self. “Mum’s up there asleep. I’m not supposed to be out of bed yet.”

“Oh,” whispered Harry in a modulated tone. “Sorry, I didn’t realise it was so early.”

“Never mind about that, now! Come outside. We can talk properly there,” the dark-haired boy stood as he hissed, marching over to Harry and grabbing his wrist. He looked momentarily surprised that he was able to physically grasp Harry’s arm, but then simply tightened his grip and pulled Harry toward the door.

As the pair stepped outside, Harry could not help his sharp intake of breath at the shock of seeing the gardens of Gatehouse Cottage in their full summer bloom. Wildflowers riotously tumbled out of borderless garden beds that led straight to the front door, interrupted only by the crushed gravel pathway that met up with the main drive of Kall Hus. Lush grass surrounded the single pine tree that stood sentinel in the centre of the driveway. The stand of trees that Harry had looked out at each day from his attic window, ordinarily reaching their skeletal limbs out against a stark winter skyline, now rustled with the fullness of verdant green leaves against a sky washed with the fading pinks and oranges of the dawn. In the distance, behind the manor house, the lake glistened. The entire effect softened a landscape that Harry had felt was so stark and unforgiving when he had first arrived at the Prince property. It was soothing to the eye and he immediately wanted to run out into the garden and explore. Something was holding him back, however.

Severus still clutched at his arm, peering at him fixedly. He yanked Harry around the side of the cottage and silently headed away from the main driveway towards a heavily treed area at the back of the garden, not stopping until they reached the cover of the pines. A light breeze stirred a susurration through the dark green needles here, providing a soothing counterpoint to Severus Snape’s burning stare.

“Where did you go?”

“Huh?” nonplussed, Harry tilted his head and slowly pulled his arm back out of the tight grip. He rubbed a little at the reddened mark that Severus had left on his wrist.

“You were just there in my bedroom yesterday, and then you weren’t anymore. Where did you go?”

“Oh,” realisation dawned that Harry was back where he had started his time travel adventures, albeit apparently one day later in the timeline. “Um, I had to go. Someone was calling me.”

He wasn’t sure exactly how much of the truth he should share with this boy. It sounded ridiculous to say that he had been yanked back through time and space to his own dimension and he wasn’t exactly sure how else to phrase it.

“Right,” Severus narrowed his eyes. “So, someone was calling you and then you just disappeared into thin air?”

“Erm…something like that, yeah.”

Severus glared at him.

“You didn’t Apparate. There was no sound and you kind of just faded away,” he inspected Harry with a dubious look. “You’re far too young to be able to Apparate, anyway. Although you aren’t a Muggle, so I guess it might have been accidental magic. It was weird, though. You are weird.”

Harry felt uncomfortable under Severus’s intense scrutiny. Even aged seven, the future Potions Master already knew how to pin someone with just a look. He wanted to ask how the boy seemed to simply know that he was a wizard, but he supposed that having the ability to appear and disappear at will might have given the game away.

“Sorry, I know I must have scared you-“

“You did not scare me!”

“Okay, I didn’t scare you. I’m sorry I just appeared like that and then disappeared again. I’m sorry I am here today. Well, actually, I’m not exactly sorry ‘cos I kind of wanted to see you again,” Harry blushed a little at his own unexpected confession. Where had that come from? “Look, I don’t exactly know why this keeps happening, but it does.”

“And you’re not a ghost,” Severus nodded, more to himself than to Harry. “I can touch you.” He proved his point by prodding at Harry’s chest with a sharp finger.

“Ouch,” Harry rubbed at his sternum and frowned.

“Sorry,” Severus shrugged, not appearing at all bothered by Harry’s discomfort. “I’m Severus, by the way. Severus Snape. You’re Henrik, right?”

Harry nodded, feeling at once the surreality of the situation. “Yeah, I’m Henrik.”

He rubbed self-consciously at his neck, unsure of what to say now that the introductions were complete. Severus, however, felt no such awkwardness, or if he did, he hid it well.

“I wonder if I’m the only one who can see you?” he mused, glancing back up at the cottage with a pensive look. “We’d better go back. I’m not supposed to leave the cottage without Mum knowing. It’ll be breakfast soon anyway.”

Harry shrugged. He, too, was a little curious about whether he could interact with anyone else in this time apart from Severus Snape. It also occurred to him, however, that things could get decidedly awkward should any adults question where Harry had come from. It wasn’t exactly usual for five-year-old boys to wander about without the company of a parent, even in the wizarding world.

Severus had started to move back towards the cottage but stopped suddenly and turned to Harry.

“My mum will want to know where you came from,” the thought had clearly only just occurred to the boy and Harry felt a moment of absolute triumph that he had already considered that problem before the quick-minded Severus Snape. He nodded.

“It’s a problem,” Severus continued. “Because only members of the Prince family line can cross the wards unassisted.”

In the back of his mind, Harry recalled that he already knew this. Professor Snape had informed him about the wards when they had first arrived, holding Harry’s wrist as they had crossed over onto the property. Harry had felt the power of the ward magic at the time as a welcoming tingle over his skin.

“So how did you get through the wards, Henrik?” the question was a simple one, yet it was stated slowly and with such suspicion that Harry could not help but tense at the wary look on the boy’s sharp-featured face. He did not know how to answer that question.

Severus raised one eyebrow, folded his arms over his chest and stepped back from Harry. He very clearly expected an answer. Right now.

“I know you want to know. I know that you are worried that I’m not who I say I am. I don’t think I can tell you yet who let me through the wards. But, please, you have to believe me when I tell you that I am not here to hurt you. Please, trust me,” Harry said quietly and utterly sincerely.

He knew that the words were too worldly for a child of five. He knew that everything about him screamed that here was a wizard pretending to be something that he wasn’t. And it was all true. For Harry wasn’t Henrik. He was a teenager, pretending to be a small child. He was an orphaned boy, pretending to be at peace with his place in the world as the Chosen One, the Saviour of the Wizarding World. He was an interloper in this time and place. But he was not pretending to be Severus’s friend. He knew this boy. He was this boy.

Harry knew loneliness. From what he had seen of the young Severus Snape, here was a boy who spent a great deal of time in his own company. Professor Snape had said as much when Harry had questioned what his visits to Kall Hus had been like as a child: ”A little lonely at times, perhaps…I was an only child, surrounded by adults in a huge house”.

Harry knew what it was to be completely alone in a house filled with people. He had watched from the ventilation slats in his cupboard as the Dursley family had gone about their daily lives. Had stood in the kitchen, preparing elaborate meals, while the rest of the family had gathered about the dining table, sharing stories of their day. Sat to the side, forgotten, while they celebrated important milestones; birthdays, Christmases, promotions and other such personal milestones. He wanted Severus to understand that he was not a foe, but instead, a friend.

Severus stood there for a moment, eyes narrowed, and arms still folded. And then he smiled. It was an expression so genuine, so absolutely real and true and honest that Harry was absolutely floored.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” the dark-eyed boy grinned at him. “Let’s go get some breakfast!”

A dull throbbing in the very back of his skull was the first sensation to hit Severus upon his return to consciousness. The second was the painful grasp of a hand on his shoulder, shaking him roughly. He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again as light swept through his senses like a spear to the head. The hand continued its brutal assault, now accompanied by a desperate-sounding voice.

“-erus! Please, you must wake up!”

Severus groaned and moved his head away from the offending voice. He lifted a heavy arm and tried to clumsily bat away the cruel hand that clutched at his shoulder and found, to his dismay, that a second hand had grabbed his flailing limb, effectively pinning him in place. He had no choice but to open his eyes, so that he might give his assailant the full weight of his stare. Slowly, he peeled one weighty lid back and allowed his pupil time to adjust to the invasive light. A face resolved into being before him. Blue eyes, surrounded by folds of crinkled and crepey skin. A white beard. Half-moon glasses. Albus Dumbledore.

With a jolt, Severus remembered where he was and what had happened to him. Legilimency was responsible for his painful head. But why was Albus rousing him so roughly? Had something gone wrong? He lurched upright, giving the Headmaster a tremendous start, as he clutched a hand to his traitorous head. He felt a terrible throb in his skull at the sudden movement.

“What did you find, Albus?” he rasped, surprised to find his voice so croaky and his throat so wretchedly sore. "Was there any evidence of mind magic?"

“Never mind that now, Severus!” Dumbledore spoke in a low tone. “Please, it’s Harry-“

“Harry?” Severus swept his gaze around the confines of the living room, and, seeing no sign of the boy, stood on legs that barely wanted to support him as he headed clumsily for the staircase. “What has happened?”

“Stop, Severus, please!” Dumbledore grasped at his arm. “That’s just it – I don’t know what happened. I suppose I must have dozed off, it was very late. But it could only have been a matter of minutes. When I opened my eyes…Harry was gone.”

“Gone?” A terrible dread oozed its way through his solar plexus and down into his gut. Not now. This cannot happen now.

The older man gestured to the settee with a shaking hand. “He was right there. Sitting beside me right there on that cushion. And then he wasn’t – Severus, the place where he had been was still warm. I thought perhaps he had sneaked away upstairs, but there is no sign of the boy. Harry – he is gone.”

Severus muttered a soft curse and called Kora.

***

Harry was not unaware, as he followed the skinny black-haired boy back to the Gatehouse Cottage, that this was probably the longest amount of time that he had managed to remain in the past. He felt both trepidation and excitement at the idea of meeting Severus Snape’s mother. To be honest, the idea that Snape even had a mother seemed entirely unlikely. He and the other boys in the Gryffindor dormitory had occasionally joked with one another that Professor Snape had one day simply materialised in the Hogwarts dungeons and had haunted the place ever since; rather like the ghoul in Ron’s attic at the Burrow. That scenario felt much more likely than the idea that Snape had been born and raised by actual people.

This younger version of Severus Snape seemed to have little in common with his adult counterpart and, yet, he was undeniably Snape. He moved like Snape, spoke like Snape and right at that moment held the same superior attitude as Snape as he marched determinedly through the gardens with Harry in tow. The boy in question suddenly halted as they reached the cottage and he turned to Harry, a worried look upon his face.

“We will have to be quiet when we go back inside. Hopefully Mum isn’t up yet,” he paused and scratched at his arm absentmindedly as he gave Harry a frankly curious look. “Where’s your mum, Henrik? I mean, you are awfully young to be running around on your own – especially since it’s so early and all.”

Harry nearly fell flat on his face, so shocked was he by the question that Severus had just broached. What could he say? The truth seemed so…brutal. He had no parents. He was alone in the world and nobody particularly cared that he was here right now with no adult supervision.

But was that the truth? Deep in his heart, Harry knew that there was one person who did care. Snape would be apoplectic to discover that his charge had once again managed to slip away from him, wandering aimlessly in a time where – when? - he did not belong. Did he offer Severus the bald truth? Or was it better to completely adopt the persona of Henrik while he was visiting the past? After all, unlike Harry, Henrik was not alone. He had a parent, a father, who cared for his wellbeing, and a great-aunt who dearly wanted him to become a permanent part of the family.

“Well,” Harry offered hesitantly. “My mum died.”

It was true, even if the finer details required a little more massaging.

“Oh,” Severus offered, uncomfortable with this new information. “That must be horrible.”

“Yeah. It is. I really miss her,” Harry cleared his throat, aware that he was moments away from real tears. At this age, somehow, the loss of his parents could be felt all the more keenly.

“So, it’s just you and your dad, then?”

What could he say? For Henrik, this was the truth. For Harry, it was as big a lie as he could manage to tell himself, but he clung to the idea of it all the same.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Just me and my dad.”

Severus knit his brow and gave Harry a look of deep concern. “Is he alright then, your dad?”

“Alright?”

“Yeah, is he, you know…nice to you?”

A sudden realisation struck Harry that Severus was asking him this question because he was genuinely worried for Henrik, being left alone in the world with only a father to care for him. It made him wonder what Severus’ father might be like.

“My dad is-” he replied slowly, pausing for a moment before continuing with firm conviction. “He is strong, and smart, and brave and a really talented wizard. He looks after me and cares about me and he’s probably worried about where I am right now-“

Severus offered a hesitant smile and nodded. “Okay, Henrik. I believe you.”

Harry stalled and blushed a little. He had not intended to ramble on like that. The fact remained, however, that if Snape returned to consciousness only to discover Harry was missing, he would be worried about him. The thought made him feel warm inside. There were few occasions that Harry could think of when someone had actually felt troubled over his personal wellbeing. That was one of the surprising and unexpected parts of living with Severus Snape. The man, despite his snark, seemed to truly care.

Harry was still wrapped up in his introspection when he felt a slightly larger and warmer hand on his forearm. Severus stood quietly beside him, gently wrapping his fingers around Harry’s wrist and still smiling.

“I don’t like my dad much,” the boy spoke quietly. “But I really would like you to meet Mum.”

Harry looked into the boy’s bright dark eyes and drank in the unfamiliar smile and offered one of his own.

“I’d really like that.”

***

“It’s been almost an hour now, Severus,” Albus scrubbed at his tired eyes and sank helplessly back into one of the hard-backed dining chairs.

“I am aware, Headmaster,” Severus snapped. He winced as soon as the words left his lips. Dumbledore, in response, wore the look of a man who knew he had done wrong, and was now answering to the consequences of his actions. “Kora has confirmed that he is not to be located anywhere on the property.”

“So, we simply sit here and wait?”

“He will return,” Severus assured his employer, attempting to ignore the gnawing fear that chewed at his own stomach. “This is not the first time that the child has mysteriously disappeared. I told you of this the very first time it occurred. Did you not feel my concerns were justified at the time?”

The Headmaster sighed and shook his head. “No, I knew that there was something strange at play. I had merely hoped that…” Trailing off, the elderly wizard gave Severus a piercing look.

“You have grown to care for the boy.”

Severus snorted and turned away. “He is more trouble than he is worth. I have scarcely had a moment’s rest since we arrived.”

The tall wizard slowly lowered his lanky frame into the chair facing Albus. He kept his gaze averted and scratched absent-mindedly at a knot in the timber of the scrubbed pine table.

“Harry is not – what I expected,” Severus ventured, still avoiding those vivid blue eyes that saw too much. “He is deeply unhappy, Albus.”

“Yes,” the Headmaster nodded sadly. “Harry has had a difficult time of it. Far more so than I could ever have anticipated. And his trials are not yet at an end.”

“He is just a boy.”

“Yes.”

A lingering silence hung between them.

“’Yes'? That is all you have to say?” Severus fixed Dumbledore with an angry stare. “What would you have him do, Albus? Continue on as he has been? Commit some more foolish acts of bravery and heroism, and risk his life for the good of the Wizarding world, with no thought for his own needs? Already the boy’s actions have indirectly led to the death of one Order member, not to mention injuries to his closest friends and allies. I fear that he will disappoint you. Harry is, after all, just a child.”

“Harry is not just a child, Severus. Yes, he is a boy. But he has been marked by a powerful wizard as an adversary. And Harry has taken up that mantle. In every way, he is growing to be the hero that it is prophesied he will become.”

Severus snorted. He had spent the past several years looking out for the boy and the past several days learning exactly who Harry Potter was.

The boy he had grown to know was no hero. He was a child, worn down by the circumstances of his life and desperate for attention, love and affection. He recognised all those things in Harry because he knew them in himself.

***

Of course, it stood to reason that when Severus opened the door, his mother would, indeed, be awake, as some time had passed since he had first discovered Harry standing in the living room of Gatehouse Cottage. It also followed that she was incredibly angry at her son for disobeying her explicit instructions about never leaving the house without her permission.

Eileen Snape was a thin and sour-looking woman. Harry could see many similarities between her and her adult son. The way she folded her arms to project her displeasure was slightly softened by the fact that she was wearing a faded lilac housecoat rather than a set of flowing black robes, but otherwise her bearing resembled the Potions Master in every way.

She had been sitting at the dining table when Severus and Harry had entered the room. In her bony hands, she had clutched a mug of tea. The air of the room was heavy with the cloying smell of some astringent herb and Harry assumed that whatever she was drinking was responsible for the strong odour. The moment Severus had seen her, he had stopped dead in his tracks and hung his head, scowling and looking every bit a recalcitrant child caught in the act.

Harry had felt an unbearable urge to laugh at his companion, but he had bitten down on his bottom lip upon seeing the expression on Mrs Snape’s sharp face. Her skin was pale, her colouring even fairer than her son’s, but the pallor of her cheeks was interrupted by the flush of two bright red spots on her high cheekbones. Harry watched with fascination as the blush continued to spread down her cheeks towards her narrow lips. She was enraged. And perhaps, Harry thought, looking at the set of her furrowed brow, a little frightened.

Shaking his head now, he returned his attention to the lecture that the woman was delivering to her son. She had still not acknowledged Harry’s presence, and he stared at both Severus and the boy’s mother openly, wondering how long she would continue to rant and rave before running out of steam.

“Have you anything at all to say for yourself?” she sneered at her son. “Any reason at all to give for why you would leave the cottage while I was still fast asleep upstairs, incorrectly under the assumption that my son was safely tucked up in his own bed?”

“Well…” Severus slowly lifted his head and glanced at Harry. He paused, seemingly waiting for his mother to shift her attention towards Harry.

“Well?” she frowned deeply and shifted impatiently towards Severus. “Is that all you have to say? Perhaps some alone time in your room will help you to think about it, hmm?”

Severus swallowed and widened his eyes as he looked between his mother and his new friend. Harry’s dawning comprehension caused his eyes to widen also. Clearly, Snape had already realised what Harry was just coming to terms with himself: Eileen Snape couldn’t see him! To test the theory, Harry stepped forward and held out a small hand, as if to introduce himself. The angry woman continued to ignore him and drilled into Severus with her furious black-eyed glare. Harry took a deep breath to settle himself before opening his mouth to speak. He was beaten to the chase by Severus, who was looking bemusedly at his mother.

“You can’t-“

“Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot do, Severus! I am your mother. What I say goes, and you would do well to remember that!” With that, Mrs Snape grasped Severus firmly by his upper arm and frog-marched him to the staircase, which was painted a glorious post box red, just as it was in Harry’s timeframe. It looked perhaps even more red than Harry recalled. Almost as red as Snape’s mum’s face, he reflected with a snort.

Severus turned towards Harry with a deep scowl on his face.

“Don’t laugh at me!” he shouted.

“Laugh at you? Oh, I can assure you, Severus, I see no humour in this situation!” Eileen Snape’s nostrils flared as she attempted to pull her son closer to her side.

Severus gave Harry one last narrow-eyed glare and looked up at his mother, who was still clutching at his arm, and nodded. “Sorry, Mum.”
He jerked his head a little towards the staircase and Harry realised that Snape wanted him to slip up the stairs ahead of them. Presumably, Mrs Snape was going to lock the boy into his room. At least, Harry knew from his experiences from the Dursleys that generally that was what happened when one was sent to one’s room for any form of misdeed. He assumed that Severus wanted to continue their conversation and as much as Harry could apparently not be seen by anyone other than Severus Snape, it was also true that he could not walk through walls or locked doors. He would have to enter the room first and hope that he could remain undetected until such time as Snape was locked in.

Holding his breath, just in case Mrs Snape could hear him, even if she couldn’t see him (better safe than sorry), Harry dodged past the pair and softly crept up the stairs. Any noises he might have made during his ascent were drowned out by the heavy stomping of slippered feet as Severus was hauled unceremoniously up to the attic landing by his mother. Harry eased himself through the open door of Snape’s bedroom – which was also his bedroom in Harry’s own timeline – and swiftly headed to the window alcove, where he could be sure to avoid accidentally bumping into Eileen Snape.

He needn’t have concerned himself on that score, however, as the wiry woman pushed Severus into the room without a word and promptly slammed the door shut. Harry heard the familiar sound of a key turning in a lock and then listened to the retreating sound of Snape’s mother as she descended the stairs.

Harry looked around the room and noticed at once how much brighter and more open the small space felt in the summer. In his own timeline, the bedroom was warm, cosy and snug, washed for only a few hours a day with muted winter light. Now, the walls were painted with dappled sunlight. He would never have guessed how something as simple as the quality of the light could make a difference to how a room could feel. It was still a warm and homey place to be, but there was a cheerful ambience that was distinctly at odds with the current mood of his grim host.

“I wasn’t laughing at you when we were downstairs,” Harry felt the need to reassure Severus, given that the boy looked positively livid at his forced imprisonment in the bedroom with Harry. “I was just laughing at your mum.” He immediately realised the error of his wording, but it was too late.

“In exactly what way is my mother amusing to you, Henrik?” the boy stepped slowly towards the alcove where Harry huddled, watching every contained movement that Severus made in his barely-suppressed fury.

“I – erm. No, I meant, well, her face went all red and she was standing near the steps and they were red too and I don’t know what I was thinking, I just-“ Harry babbled desperately and clutched at the window seat, wanting to appease the irate boy and feeling strangely like he had just been caught out of Gryffindor Tower by Snape after curfew, based on the raised eyebrow and the twisted smirk that the man’s younger counterpart now sported.

Severus gave a snort of his own and relaxed.

“Hm, Mum has a pretty quick temper. It’s okay, though. She’ll calm down soon enough and then she’ll let us out,” he bit his lip.

“I think she gets too angry sometimes and that’s why she locks me in my room. So that she can calm down. She doesn’t want to be like my d-“

Harry waited for Severus to continue, but the boy turned away from him with a resigned expression. He wandered over to the desk and perched on the edge of the straight-backed chair, studiously avoiding eye-contact with Harry.

“Anyway, Henrik,” he said pensively. “I guess you are a product of my imagination, after all.”

“What?” Harry stared incredulously, feeling a little bit of his own anger start to build deep in his gut.

“Well, I am the only one who can see you. I think I must have just-“ Severus twirled his finger in a circular gesture at his temple in the universal sign for ‘crazy’. “-dreamed you up.”

“I am as real as you are!” Harry protested. “Look, I don’t know why your mum can’t see me, but I am a real person.”

He wrung his hands in frustration and walked hesitantly towards Severus. He knew that the time had come for him to reveal to the boy that he was from the future and that he knew Severus as an adult. The thought of sharing that information filled Harry with a deep sense of foreboding, but at this stage there were few other options.

“I don’t know,” Severus looked at him doubtfully. “You do seem real to me. But I just can’t understand why Mum couldn’t see you if you are actually here. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m not from here,“ Harry stepped forward again, determined to convince his friend once and for all that he was not a product of his imagination.

He gave a strangled little chuckle. “Well, actually, I am from here - exactly from here - because, you see, this is my bedroom, too. At the moment, I am living at Gatehouse Cottage.”

“What do you mean, you are living here? How can this be your bedroom, too?” Severus was staring at him as if he had just grown a second head.

Harry opened his mouth and felt that terrible twist of his very being that meant his time with Severus was over. His entire body tingled and hummed with nerve endings set on fire. Desperately, he tried to hold on long enough to talk to his friend, to explain what was happening. Blearily, he was able to make out the faintest details of Severus, who was jumping from the chair and extending a hand to him. The scene looked like a projection, or an afterimage imprinted on his retinas following flash photography. He could feel a strange slippery effect on his skin that he had never noticed on any of the previous occasions when he had been returned to his own timeline. It was almost as if he was pressing against some kind of filmy barrier that rushed and slid against his skin like water. He tried to gain some sort of purchase against it, to press through and grab the hand that Severus held out to him, but it was futile. The last thing Harry knew was a garbled rushing of sound like static and the sensation of falling. It was too late.

***

A slight thump from the ceiling snapped Dumbledore from his thoughts and had Severus Snape jumping to his feet.

“He’s back,” he announced abruptly, not knowing how he knew that, but aware that it was fact all the same. The Headmaster stood also, his face creased in a determined frown.

Both men hurried up the stairs, Dumbledore only slightly behind Severus, who ignored his own shaking hand as he reached for the door latch.

The opening door revealed a small body, lying motionless in the middle of the room, face down with one arm outstretched as if reaching towards the desk in supplication. Severus hurried to Harry’s side and gently turned the child onto his back, pushing two fingers against the boy’s pale throat.

Dumbledore crouched down and felt for a pulse on the narrow wrist, moving his hand up to the child’s chest when he was unable to ascertain any sign of life. Severus desperately shifted his fingers, clearly feeling no reassuring thud of a pulse as he had the last time he had discovered Harry in a similar state. Harry’s skin was cool to the touch and slightly clammy. Leaning over the tiny form and placing his cheek close to the slightly open mouth, Severus allowed his gaze to travel down to rest on Harry’s upper torso, where Dumbledore’s gnarled hand lay, completely still.

“Severus,” Dumbledore said softly. “He’s not breathing.” The elderly wizard, who knelt on Harry’s other side, brushed his left hand over the soft bristles of the boy’s hair. He then used the same hand to gently but firmly push against his colleague’s shoulder, forcing Severus to sit up as the Headmaster pointed his wand at the unmoving chest and murmured a string of Latin under his breath.

Severus could feel his own heart thumping harshly against his breastbone, and heard his own panicked breathing; it was a crazed counterpoint to the immobile and silent boy who lay on the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Dumbledore continued to chant, and a warm hum of magic gradually surrounded the three of them.

What felt like an eternity, but must only have been a matter of seconds later, the most wonderful sound broke through the stillness of the moment. Harry’s chest lifted and he took in a huge gasp of air in one involuntary movement. He filled his lungs and then exhaled. There was a pause and then Harry took another, slightly shallower breath, and another, and another.

Severus sagged with relief for an instant and pushed away the confusing emotions that pulled at his attention, focusing instead on his unconscious ward. He lifted the boy once again into his arms and for the briefest of moments, clutched the child more fiercely to his chest, as if reassuring himself that the living body he held was truly there. Harry lay completely limp in his hold, his head lolling, legs akimbo and one arm bonelessly dangling as Severus readjusted the weight of the child in his arms and carefully stood, never taking his eyes from Harry’s pallid face, watching to ensure that he continued to breathe.

“It’s okay, Harry,” he murmured in a deep voice. “You are alright. You are safe now. We are just going to make you more comfortable. Everything is okay.”

Severus could hear the shuffle of robes as Dumbledore moved from his kneeling position on the floor, but he ignored the man’s presence in the room as he lowered Harry onto the waiting bed. He gently pulled the patchwork quilt out from under the boy’s legs and laid it atop him, tucking it in so that he would stay warm. He knew that shock was a distinct danger after Harry’s close brush with death. The entire time he worked, Severus did not stop speaking to the boy, so it gave Dumbledore quite a start when he realised that the man was now speaking to him in that same soothing tone of voice.

“My potions kit,” Severus continued quietly. “Is in my bedroom downstairs, Albus. I require it and also a bowl and some flannels. Once you have brought me these items, you will return to Hogwarts – the wards here will allow you to apparate directly out of the grounds - and you will then escort Poppy Pomfrey back to Gatehouse Cottage.”

"It is only days away from Christmas, Severus. Poppy has most likely already departed Hogwarts to spend time with her family."

"Then find her and bring her here!" he hissed in reply.

“Severus-“ Dumbledore began.

“Don’t,” the Potions Master whispered sharply, jerking around to stare at the Headmaster, his face a mask of rage. “Do not argue with me. This has gone far enough. It is almost dawn now. You will bring Poppy here by the end of this day and she will tend to Harry. She has the Healing skill to determine if there has been any permanent damage caused. We will speak of all else after Harry’s needs have been attended to. Is that clear?”

“Of course, Severus,” Dumbledore’s voice seemed weighted down with both age and weariness. “Of course, you are right, my dear boy.”

The Headmaster turned to go, pausing at the door briefly to take in the sight of Severus Snape, seated on the edge of the single bed, one hand resting lightly on Harry’s chest and the other on the boy’s forehead.

“Potions kit,” Severus said again, not even glancing up from his perusal of Harry’s prone form.

Dumbledore nodded, and disappeared into the shadows of the attic landing.

A light tapping roused Severus from his drowsy stupor, slouched as he was in the uncomfortable desk chair that he had pulled to Potter’s bedside some hours earlier.

“Albus?” he asked stupidly, before realising that the Headmaster could not re-enter the property without his own assistance. It had assuredly been too short a time for Poppy Pomfrey to have been located and for the witch to have packed the necessities, let alone for the pair to have completed the requisite Apparation hops necessary for her impromptu trip to Sweden.

The door opened slightly and Severus wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his wand as he leaned forward, prepared to hex the intruder and ask questions later.

“Severus, really,” Aunt Aggie admonished, as she stepped into the room with a stern glare, although her tone was light. “About to draw a wand on your aging aunt in her own home?”

“Aunt Aggie,” Severus sighed and rubbed at his tired eyes. His head still ached vaguely from the bout of Legilimency that he had endured at the Headmaster’s wand-tip only a matter of hours ago. It occurred to him that he still did not know the outcome of that unpleasantness, eclipsed as it had been by Harry’s sudden disappearance and subsequent collapse.

“I apologise, I was not thinking clearly. Ha-Henry has taken ill, and I was not prepared for receiving any visitors.”

“You mean other than Albus Dumbledore?”

His posture stiffening immediately at the mention of the Headmaster, Severus scrutinised his aunt’s impassive face. She gave nothing away and simply met his eyes as his search found her own. In the next instant, she looked away, her expression softening as she took in Harry’s sleeping form.

Severus watched as she bent down and smoothed a hand across the boy’s pale forehead and then moved to sit on the edge of the mattress. Harry did not stir at all, lying as still as he had been since Severus had placed him in the bed several hours ago. He closed his eyes, the mention of Albus Dumbledore conjuring an unwelcome image of the boy lying completely motionless on this very floor. That moment had been unexpectedly devastating for Severus to witness. What the outcome could have been…did not bear thinking on. Ever since Severus had lifted the child into his arms, he had been unable to truly regain control of his emotions and he felt shaken to the core. What if Potter - Harry - did not fully recover from his injuries? The boy’s heart had stopped beating, he had not been breathing. Brain damage was one possibility that had to be considered. It would be Severus’ fault. It was he who had known that something was affecting the child’s magic, most likely that damnable potion, and yet, he had blindly followed Dumbledore’s instructions and continued to keep up this farcical arrangement. Was it truly worth risking the boy’s life, simply in order to win back the favour of his aunt, for whatever reason the Headmaster had failed to share with him thus far?

He felt a sudden surge of blind anger. Whether his fury was aimed at Albus Dumbledore or at himself remained unclear. The intensity of his rage, nonetheless, made his hands shake and he clenched them into fists, trying to hide his emotional state from his aunt as she continued to stroke Harry’s brow with a gentle touch. She tutted softly and a fleeting expression of disquiet caused her brows to draw together for a moment, only to be replaced by exasperation. Still looking at Harry, she continued to address her nephew in a curt tone.

“The wards are attuned to my magic, Severus. Albus Dumbledore is an old colleague of mine, of course I was able to recognise his magical signature the moment he stepped onto the property.”

“I didn’t think-“

“Didn’t think that I might want to catch up with my very dear old friend during his visit here?” Aunt Aggie pinned Severus with a hard stare, her tone sardonic. He wondered at the implication that she was perhaps no longer quite so friendly with Dumbledore. “Or perhaps you didn’t think I would know that he was here at all? What exactly is going on, Severus? Your son is clearly unwell – he has been ailing since you first arrived – so you cloister yourself away here in the Gatehouse and do not ask for any assistance from the main house. And then the Headmaster of Hogwarts happens to show up unannounced, only to promptly disappear again. And then there is the matter of Kora, who was most unwilling to share with me the details of your activities over the past 24 hours, despite the fact that as mistress of this household, she is bound to me. It is all very mysterious, wouldn’t you agree?”

Severus shook his head. He was just so damned tired. It certainly had not been his intention to hide anything from his aunt, well, apart from the true identity of his ‘son’, but everything had become so complicated just recently.

He opened his mouth to say as much, but Aggie waved at him in a dismissive gesture.

“You need to learn to ask for help from your family when you require it, Severus,” she was suddenly earnest in her posture. “Why is it that you implicitly trust that meddlesome old man with your very life, and yet you refuse to share with me - your own flesh and blood - the most insignificant detail? I will be the first to admit that our relationship has not been one of trust these many years. But…I would like that to change.”

He blinked at her. Of all the things he expected her to say, it was not that. He had been operating under the assumption all this time that he would never be able to ask his family for anything but their forgiveness. That she believed the Headmaster to be ‘meddlesome’ was also interesting to hear. He allowed his curiosity about the matter to show as he openly regarded her proud face.

“Trust works both ways,” he spoke quietly.

Something shuttered behind Aunt Aggie’s eyes and she looked away from him. “Well, let us agree to build that trust between us. Now, you can start by telling me the truth. What is wrong with Henrik?” she turned her attention back to the small boy, watching his hitching breaths intently.

Severus observed Potter just as closely. The child had been breathing in that strange staccato pattern since Dumbledore had managed to revive him. Something was terribly wrong with Harry, and Severus was utterly powerless to help him. The anxiety was an unbearable well of emptiness that he did not want to admit was consuming his every waking thought. Merlin’s beard, if he were truly honest with himself, even his earlier restless dozing was interrupted by unwelcome thoughts that the Boy Who Lived may not come out of this mess altogether unscathed. He weighed up what to share with his aunt and decided to be as honest as he possibly could, without revealing too much.

“I nearly lost Henrik earlier this evening,” he murmured, hardly noticing that he had wrapped his arms tightly around his front. Aunt Aggie inhaled sharply and took one of Harry’s lifeless hands and folded it into her own.

“What happened?” her voice was subdued.

“I cannot say for certain,” Severus replied in an equally quiet voice. “Dumbledore was visiting with me for another reason, one that I am afraid I am not ready, or able to reveal to you just yet.”

Aunt Aggie’s lips drew together in a thin line, but she remained silent, waiting for Severus to continue.

“While the Headmaster was here, Henry had another episode. He stopped breathing and had no pulse. He was,” here, he stopped to swallow around the tightness that built in his throat. “He was unresponsive for a few minutes, but Albus managed to revive him with a spell I am not familiar with.”

“Merlin,” Aggie breathed, still caressing Harry’s hand and now staring intently at Severus, the pinched look of disapproval fading as her eyes filled with a terrible sadness. “Severus, I am so sorry that you had to experience that. It must have been so frightening.”

Severus merely nodded, finding himself inexplicably unable to continue. Was he starting to believe his own lies? The feeling that he had nearly lost something vitally important to him once again overwhelmed him.

One of Aggie’s hands released Harry and instead sought Severus’ knee. She squeezed lightly and then patted him. “Where is Albus now?”
“He has gone to seek the services of a trusted Healer, at my request.”

“So, he will return then?”

Severus nodded. “As soon as he is able. We need to heal whatever damage was caused as quickly as we can and get to the bottom of Henrik’s seizures once and for all.”

Aunt Aggie gave Severus a searching look and then nodded, seemingly satisfied with what she saw. “You and Henrik, and of course your guests, when they arrive, must stay in Kall Hus.”

“Oh,” Severus was surprised by her offer. “No, really that won’t be necessary, Aunt Aggie. We are perfectly comfor-“

“Trust me,” Aggie smiled at Severus. She gazed back down at Harry with a gentle smile. “It is nearly Christmas, and I am sure that Henry could benefit from a little festive cheer as he recovers. Apart from that, I cannot, in all good conscience, allow you to cope with this alone.”

“I will not be alone. Albus will –“

“Accept my help, Severus.”

Severus shifted awkwardly, not able to come up with a suitable reason for them not to accept the hospitality offered by his aunt. His greatest concern was now for Harry and it did make sense for them to stay up at the big house, where both Poppy and Albus could be accommodated close by.

Of course, there was still the larger issue that it was imperative that Harry must be administered the antidote to the Aetate Mutatio, as soon as possible. Severus still believed that it was the root cause of all of Harry’s problems. How that would be accomplished without revealing the boy’s identity was another question altogether. He would simply have to deal with that once he had discussed the matter with Albus. After all, it was the Headmaster’s fool idea that he enter into this deception in the first place.

“Very well,” he nodded, expression grim. “We will come.”

“Perfect,” said Aggie, with the pleased nod of a person who has just won an argument. “You can have the North Wing. There is a suite of interconnecting rooms that will work perfectly for Henrik’s needs. I will send Cadmus to assist you with moving your belongings while you take care of your son and we will see you settled in your new quarters within the hour.”

***

Harry turned onto his side, curled into a ball and slowly exhaled through a dull throb in his chest. It felt as though his heart was literally aching. His body was stiff and sore, as though he had been out in the yard for hours, perhaps completing a long list of chores for Uncle Vernon. Maybe that was why he was so uncomfortable? He couldn’t really remember the day before with any clarity, but it seemed strange to him that whatever he was lying on should feel so warm and soft against his tired muscles. The cot in his cupboard usually felt lumpier than this.

He prised open one weary eye and ignored the gritty feeling as his eyelid slid slowly open. Harry vaguely realised that he was not in his cupboard; the sheer size of the bed he was lying in indicating that he was…elsewhere. He started a little when a strangely-dressed woman approached him, holding a cup of something out to him with a strained smile on her face. In her other hand, she held a slim stick of wood, which she tucked smoothly away into her apron.

“Harry,” she sighed with relief. “You’re awake. Here, have a little sip of this.”

No sooner were the words spoken, then Harry realised that he was incredibly thirsty. He gave the woman a long look and decided that she was no threat, despite the oddness of his current situation. She had a pleasant face and kind eyes and it wasn’t often that he experienced people looking at him with such a lack of open hostility. She also knew his name, even though he had no idea who she was.

Sitting up, Harry rubbed at his tired eyes and then took the cup in his shaky hand. It was water. He drank thirstily and passed the cup back to the stranger.

“Thanks, Missus,” he whispered shyly, surprised at how raw his voice sounded, given that his throat didn’t feel sore at all.

The woman paused in her reach to take the cup back and looked sharply at him. “Missus? You don’t know my name?”

Scratching at his head absently, Harry wondered at why this person would assume that he would know who she was. In the next instant, he suddenly groped desperately over his own scalp.

“Where’s my hair?” he cried out in an alarmed voice. “Why is my hair so short? What happened to it?”

His panic set him instantly on the verge of tears, as he remembered a day not so long ago when Aunt Petunia had decided to give him that awful haircut. Uncle Vernon had been so very angry at him the next day when all of his hair had grown back in overnight. Had they shaved his head again as some kind of punishment? He couldn’t remember doing anything bad, but things did seem a little hazy and his memories were hard to call up just now.

“Shh,” she soothed, wrapping her soft hand around Harry’s wrist and pulling his hand down so she could hold it in her own. She smiled at him a little ruefully. “Your hair is short like that because, apparently, Professor Snape decided that it would be an amusing way to further disguise your appearance during your stay here,” she paused, peering at him closely. “I think you might be a little bit confused right now. Don’t you remember me?”

Remember? No, he didn’t remember. And why would he need a disguise? Harry had no idea where he was and this whole situation just seemed strange and scary. He blinked and felt a hot tear slide down his cheek, closely followed by another. Where was he?

He bit his lip to try to contain the tears. Aunt Petunia hated crying, at least, she hated Harry’s crying. It was okay if Dudders did it. In fact, his cousin was usually rewarded with some kind of sweet treat and hugs whenever he cried. Harry’s reward was generally either the cupboard, a sharp slap or more chores. Sometimes it would be a combination of all three. The thing was, Harry thought, as he looked around the unfamiliar room, Aunt Petunia didn’t seem to be here right now. In fact, from all appearances this place definitely wasn’t Privet Drive. For starters, he was lying on a bed that had some kind of fabric canopy hanging overhead and there was an actual fireplace (with a real fire!) set into the wall opposite. Beside his bed, an odd-shaped lantern spilled warm light into what would otherwise have been a shadowy corner, where a large and expensive-looking antique chair sat squatly, a fuzzy green rug folded carefully on its seat. Harry felt a little tug somewhere in his tummy when he looked at that rug. Somehow, he knew exactly how comforting it would feel to rub the soft fabric in between his fingers, even though he was sure that he had never seen it before. Despite the darkness of the room, he could see a bleak grey sky outside the window, indicating that it was not yet evening, and – was that snow?

He blinked in confusion and looked back at the woman at his bedside curiously. Everything about this room looked like it belonged to another time and place and she was no exception. She was wearing a funny hat that made her look a little bit like a nun and her starched apron was neatly pinned onto a pale blue dress that covered her entirely from neck, to wrist, to ankle. Swallowing back his tears, Harry felt a little bit sick and still slightly sleepy and now he also felt afraid. Everything about this was wrong.

“Harry,” the woman continued in a softer tone, still holding his hand. Harry thought it felt quite nice, so he didn’t try to pull away from her, even if he didn’t know who she was, or where he was. Her firm grip was a steady and reassuring anchor to his distress. “It’s alright if you don’t remember. I’m going to ask you a few questions, just to check some things, okay?”

“I don’t know who you are,” he murmured, but he nodded at her all the same, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Well, that’s perfectly fine,” she smiled at him reassuringly, but the crease in between her eyebrows communicated something different. “My name is Madam Poppy Pomfrey. I am the matron at Hogwarts. Do you know where you are right now?”

“In bed,” he replied, staring at her. He didn’t know what a matron was, nor what Hogwarts might be. Was it a hospital? Had he been ill?

The woman chuckled and patted his hand. “Perhaps I need to consider my questions a little more carefully. You are in bed, yes. Do you know to whom this house belongs?”

Not a hospital then. He simply shook his head at the kindly Madam Pomfrey and impatiently wiped away another traitorous tear that coursed slowly towards the corner of his mouth. It was at that moment that the door to the room suddenly opened, revealing an incredibly tall and fierce-looking man, who was wearing a funny black robe that covered him from neck to ankle. He looked down his long, hooked nose at Harry with a very intent expression on his face. Was he a judge? A vampire? Harry’s eyes widened as he took in the sight of the newcomer and he clutched instinctively at Madam Pomfrey’s hand. There was something incredibly intimidating about the man in the doorway.

“Mr Potter,” he said silkily, in a deep voice that was quiet, yet carried an air of complete authority. Although the man’s expression was quite serious, there was something of an air of relief about him as he glanced at Madam Pomfrey and then moved gracefully to close the door behind him. The man opened his mouth to speak, before being swiftly interrupted by the matron.

“Severus,” she said firmly, squeezing Harry’s hand reassuringly as she spoke. “Harry is a little confused. Tread carefully.”

Harry glanced at her and then quickly snapped his gaze back to the spectre in the doorway. It was true that he felt - muddled. He wasn’t keen to speak to this man, but it seemed that this was not going to be an option. A sharp, dark-eyed gaze swept over Harry’s tear-stained face and alit on the clasped hands of Harry and the matron. Still staring at their joined hands, the man glided more than he walked over to the bed, perching on the end of it near Harry’s feet. He appeared no less threatening than when he was standing.

“How do you feel, Harry?” the man continued in that smooth, almost threatening baritone, one that seemed completely at odds with the expression of concern in his eyes. He reached a long-fingered hand towards Harry’s face, but quickly let it drop when Harry flinched back away from his touch. “The matron says you are confused – elaborate.”

Harry blinked at the man and tore his attention back to Madam Pomfrey. He had no idea what ‘elaborate’ meant, but he was frightened of the consequences of not answering the first question.

“Um. I – I –“ any courage Harry might have gathered in the face of this bewildering experience now completely deserted him. The tears that had only briefly emerged earlier now began to flow freely and a sob tore from his throat, followed by another. The man widened his eyes in surprise and appeared at a loss as to what to do, turning almost desperately towards Madam Pomfrey. Harry could feel himself shaking with the effort to keep his emotions contained. He quickly realised that he was not the only thing in the room shaking.

The air was filled with a crackling kind of energy and a wooden chair rattled ominously against the timber floorboards of the room, even as the window panes shook as though a strong wind pushed against them. Oh no! He was making freaky things happen!

Madam Pomfrey tutted softly and put her other arm around Harry, drawing him against her side and murmuring softly to him while she rubbed his arm. “Deep breaths, Harry. Just focus on my voice for now. Take a nice big breath in for me. That’s right. Now, Professor Snape is here to help. He certainly doesn’t mean you any harm. You are perfectly safe.”

Harry, surprised to find himself being held, complied with her instructions. He couldn’t remember Aunt Petunia ever holding him close like this, and even though he didn’t know this woman at all, there was something very comforting and almost familiar about her warm, no-nonsense reassurance. As he leant into her and focused on evening out his breathing, he felt the electric charge in the room slowly fade away. The man – Severus? Professor Snape? – continued to stare at Harry with utter confusion. Harry realised that he was probably wondering how he had managed to make all the furniture in the room shake, although he didn’t look angry or frightened like his aunt and uncle sometimes did when those sorts of things happened.

“’m sorry,” he whispered and sniffled. This time hadn’t even been too bad. The last time he had done something like that, he had blown up the TV, shattered the light globes in the living room and made Dudley shriek for his mother after the remote control burnt his hand when the battery exploded. Of course, Harry realised belatedly, there didn’t seem to be any electrical items in this room, which perhaps accounted for the overall lack of damage.

Madam Pomfrey just kept rubbing his arm. “That’s the way. No harm done. Just a little bit of accidental magic.”

Magic? Harry was unable to hide his horrified expression as he pulled away, staring first up at the matron and then at the now scowling man who sat rigidly at his feet.

“Really, Poppy,” the man raised an eyebrow, seemingly misconstruing Harry’s reaction to Madam Pomfrey’s words. “He may look small, but there is no need to coddle the boy.”

She simply raised her own eyebrow in response and smiled down at Harry, helping him settle back against the pillow now that he had stopped making the room shake.

“If my suspicions are correct, Severus,” she said firmly. “Harry is probably feeling quite – adrift - right now.”

Both Harry and the grim-faced man gave her a bemused look.

“Well, just to be sure…tell me, how old are you, Harry?” she asked lightly as she smoothed a blue and white patchwork quilt over his lap. It was a nice quilt and Harry stroked it carefully, playing with the edges of the pieced fabric that made up a star-shaped pattern. He didn’t have anything quite so nice as this in his cupboard.

“I’m five,” he replied honestly, turning to face the man abruptly as something occurred to him. “And I’m not small, neither!”

The man made a choking sound and turned even whiter than his already pale complexion, while Madam Pomfrey frowned at him before turning back to Harry, who had sunk down into the bed, his moment of bravery having deserted him in the face of the dark-eyed stranger who was staring at him incredulously.

“You certainly are not small for a five-year-old,” she said pleasantly. “You look the perfect size to me. Never mind about Professor Snape, Harry. He sometimes allows his tongue to run away with him without thinking of the consequences.”

Harry looked at the man seriously and with wide eyes, suddenly keen to impart some of his wisdom. “Be careful, mister. Aunt Petunia sometimes washes my mouth out with soap if I say things without thinking first.”

“What is the meaning of this?” the professor rasped, looking from Harry to Madam Pomfrey in horror.

“Don’t panic, Severus,” Madam Pomfrey replied in that same, light tone. “Albus warned you earlier that there may be some residual side-effects from the magic that he was forced to use on Harry when he revived him. This reaction, although a little unusual, is not entirely unexpected and most likely only temporary.”

“Most likely?” the man had turned a most unpleasant shade of puce. “Most likely? Poppy, this is the Boy Who Lived!” he gestured wildly at Harry and stood abruptly from his position on the end of the bed. “We are all of us lost if he spends the rest of his life believing he is but a five-year-old!”

Harry hunched down into his covers. The man was practically roaring in his rage and although Harry was well-versed in making himself small and unnoticed around furious adults, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from reacting in fear this time. He didn’t understand what had made the professor so angry, but he knew for certain that it was something that Harry had apparently done. And what did he mean, calling Harry ‘the Boy Who Lived’?

“Goodness, Severus, you do need to curb that temper of yours! I daresay the House Elves can hear you in the kitchen.”

Harry scrunched further down into the bed as yet a third stranger slipped into the room, closing the door and waving a wizened hand at the aged oak with a briefly intent look. Although he couldn’t see anything different, Harry instinctively knew that the door was now locked and that the old man standing imposingly at the end of Harry’s bed had somehow erected a barrier of some kind. Harry could feel the edges of the invisible wall as it closed about them. He was aware of the tiny hairs on the back of his neck standing up, but it was not fear that caused this reaction, rather an innate connection to whatever power the bearded stranger had used to perform this action. It had that same thrumming, static-electricity feel that Harry could sense just before he usually made strange things happen. He stared at the new arrival with wide eyes, not daring to say anything to him, but filled with wonderment all the same that the old man was perhaps a little bit like Harry.

“Ah, Harry, my dear boy,” the elderly man winked in Professor Snape’s direction and seated himself carefully on the edge of the bed, smiling kindly at Harry. Professor Snape pinned the man with a furious glare, but said nothing, choosing instead to flick his dark eyes in Harry’s direction. He stiffened for a moment when he met Harry’s wide-eyed stare and then all of the fight seemed to go out of him. He slumped down into the armchair in the corner of the room and smoothed a lock of greasy dark hair back from his face in an automatic fashion. Harry noticed that the man’s fingers were trembling slightly.

“I apologise for my outburst, Headmaster,” Professor Snape spoke quietly, not looking at anyone. “Forgive me, I could have given us away with my reckless shouting.”

“No harm done, Severus,” the old man twinkled. “Agatha and the rest of the family are out in the grounds at present. I believe they are selecting a Christmas tree, in fact.” He smiled knowingly and winked again, this time at Harry, who could not help but offer a tentative smile back at the man. It was Christmas? Why couldn’t he remember that?

The professor snorted and shook his head dismissively. “Of course, Aunt Aggie always did like her tradition of giving everyone in the family chilblains at Yuletide.”

“Albus,” Madam Pomfrey turned towards the older man. “I am afraid that Harry is not quite himself at the moment. It appears –“

“Do not trouble yourself, Poppy, it so happens that I could not help but overhear your conversation as I approached these rooms. I take it that my necessary interference has caused a little difficulty for young Mr Potter here.”

“He thinks he is five,” Professor Snape hissed darkly, avoiding looking at Harry altogether, but scowling at the older man fiercely.

“I am five!” Harry said hotly.

“You see the problem?” the professor rose from the armchair and waved an impatient hand in Harry’s direction, his black glare still fixated on the twinkling blue eyes.

“Well, Harry, this is quite the little predicament that we find ourselves in, isn’t it?” the elderly man asked him softly.

“I don’t know,” Harry whispered. “What’s a pre-pred…what’s that word mean, Mister?”

“Mister? Oh, come now, Harry, we can’t have that! My name is Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,” he chuckled softly. “Rather a mouthful isn’t it? Professor Dumbledore will do just fine. And a predicament, young Harry, is a problem or difficult situation.”

Harry merely swallowed and nodded.

“Headmaster, I wonder if we might speak privately for a moment?”

Professor Dumbledore nodded contemplatively at the professor’s terse question and patted Harry’s quilt-covered knee. “I agree that would be for the best, Severus.” He turned to Madam Pomfrey. “Has the child eaten?”

“Not yet, Headmaster,” she shook her head. “He has only just now awoken. I will go and make arrangements for a meal to be brought up.” With that, the matron smoothed her apron and departed.

“Well, Harry,” the old man smiled down at him benevolently. “There’s nothing like a good hot meal to help solve a problem. I am sure that Madam Pomfrey will order you up something filling from the kitchens and then I suggest you get some more rest. Meanwhile,” he paused and placed a hand on Professor Snape’s shoulder, guiding the taller man towards the open door. “I am going to have a little chat with your father.”

His father?

Harry stared at the clenched jaw of the dark-eyed man in complete bewilderment. The man in question bore a sudden flush on his cheeks that made him look as if he had just been slapped. Before Harry could open his mouth to express his own shock, however, the Headmaster had whisked the man away, the snick of the closing doorlatch the only sound in the otherwise silent room.

“What, in Merlin’s name, was that?” Severus Snape whirled abruptly to face Albus as the door clicked shut behind him, his face a picture of blind fury. The younger wizard clenched his fists, clearly working to avoid any physical expression of the rage that he felt at his employer’s reckless words.

“His father, Albus? What could you possibly hope to accomplish with such deceit?”

They were standing toe-to-toe in the dim candlelight of a small but elegantly appointed hallway. Faced with the calm visage of the elderly wizard in front of him, Severus found that he could no longer contain his anger. It presented itself in a burst of pure adrenalin that surged through his veins, causing an uncontainable tremble in his hands.

Taking a moment to securely ward the door with a series of privacy spells, Albus Dumbledore simply nodded calmly as he waved his hand over Severus’s shoulder in a careless display of wandless and wordless magic.

Teeth clenched, Severus leaned threateningly towards Dumbledore, drawing himself up to his full height as he inhaled deeply. “What, in Merlin’s name, were you thinking? What conceivable good could possibly come of further confusing that already addled boy?“ Severus turned slightly and stabbed a long forefinger at the closed and warded door behind them.

“Ah, I am so pleased that you asked,” interrupted Dumbledore brightly, apparently completely unaffected by his colleague’s demonstration of ire. It occurred to Severus that perhaps he needed to temper his frequent displays of rage for moments that were truly worthy. It was apparent that they no longer had the desired impact on the very man he wished to target.

In this moment, however, he felt entirely warranted in expressing his displeasure.

“Please, Severus, understand that there is some method in this old man’s madness,” the Headmaster held out a placatory hand, grasping the younger man’s shoulder as he carefully steered Severus down the heavily oak-panelled hallway towards the bedroom where Aunt Aggie had graciously, albeit somewhat frostily, led him earlier that day.

Stalking beside Dumbledore to the next doorway down the hall, the Potions Master paused at the entry to the room, gesturing impatiently for his employer to enter ahead of him when the older man paused at the threshold. Severus decided that he might as well hear whatever patently ridiculous scheme the old man had dreamed up before continuing his well-justified rant.

Albus avoided meeting his flinty stare and instead moved away to seat himself on the chesterfield at the fireplace, admiring the ornate marble surround as he did so. It had been quite some years since the elderly wizard had been a guest at Kall Hus, and he had forgotten the cold, yet elegant beauty of the Prince family seat. He allowed his gaze to wander about the room, taking in the dark green damask wallpaper that graced the walls, perfectly matched with the fine Persian rug that carpeted the room. Sighing softly, Albus raised his eyes at last to meet with those of his employee. He could not help but chuckle. Already, Severus had assumed his customary impassive mask.

“You are fooling nobody, Severus,” Albus allowed his amusement to warm the delivery of his statement. “I am well aware of how you feel, and I daresay I deserve to be the recipient of your anger.”

Moving stiffly, Severus stalked over to join him, his slender white fingers clutching the dark brown leather the only telling sign of the restrained ire beneath his expressionless facade.

“Come, sit with me, my friend,” Albus patted the cushion beside him. “We have much to discuss and I truly do not know how you remain upright after the trying circumstances you have had to cope with in the past 24 hours.”

Severus snorted and continued to stand stubbornly for a few moments, his eyes narrowed as he glared down his nose at his employer. The fight, however, seemed to drain out of him as he stood there, his shoulders slowly slumping in resignation. Grudgingly, the severe man moved to take a seat at the other end of the sofa, shifting his own gaze to the fire and leaning his head back as he took a deep breath.

“It is my fervent hope that Harry will regain a true sense of himself within a relatively short period of time,” Albus began softly. “I am sure that you understand, however, that his current condition puts both you and the boy at considerable risk.”

Severus jerked his head in an impatient nod, rolling his eyes at this statement of obvious fact. If the boy were to announce to Aunt Aggie that he was, in fact, Harry Potter, and not Henrik Snape as they had been pretending…it did not bear thinking on too hard. Suffice to say that the inroads Severus had made with Agatha would be dashed to pieces and his tenuous place in the Prince family instantly made forfeit. They were by now too far entangled in the lie for the truth to be revealed.

“Unfortunately, it is not possible to know how long it might take for young Harry to recover his faculties. It may only be a matter of hours….it might be days or weeks-“

“Weeks?” the whispered word fell from the thin lips involuntarily, Snape’s black eyes widened in horror.

“Calm yourself, dear boy, I am merely considering all possibilities. I think it unlikely that Harry is – injured – to that extent. The magic I performed in order to revive him was complex and not widely known or used. It was a rather desperate move on my part, I confess, but I do not regret my actions.”

“Too worried about losing hold of your greatest weapon against the Dark Lord to consider the consequences, Headmaster?” He watched the wizened face blanch and then sag in defeat.

“Do you truly think so little of me, Severus?” the Headmaster asked in a defeated tone.

“Forgive me, Albus,” Severus passed a weary hand across his eyes.

“I suppose you have every right to question my motives where that child is concerned.”

Severus shook his head. “No, it was ill-said of me.”

Albus leaned forward and looked intently at the younger wizard whose face was currently lined with fatigue.

“You have every right,” the older wizard was emphatic in his statement. “I have made many mistakes in my dealings with Harry,” he reached out and placed a slightly shaking hand on Severus’s arm. “And he is not the only lost and orphaned boy in my care that I have wronged.”

Snape visibly flinched and shifted uncomfortably under the Headmaster’s touch.

“Please, Severus, I am asking you to put your trust in me yet again. I know I do not deserve it,” he removed his hand from the younger man’s forearm with one last affectionate pat and settled back into his chair.

“But let me explain. Harry needs to believe that his current circumstances pose no danger to him. That child – and yes, at this very moment, he is a child, only five years of age – is frightened and alone. If we could convince him that this living situation involves a new guardianship and, along with it, a change of name… Well, it might be possible to keep things in hand.”

“You are proposing that we simply tell the boy that his name is now Henrik Snape and that I am his new father?” Severus allowed his incredulity to show in the furrow of his brow. “Albus, Harry has a family! He has already made mention of his aunt in the brief time that we conversed just now. He is not going to simply accept that he somehow went to sleep and woke up in a different country, bearing the appearance of a completely different child, and is now apparently a member of a new family that is unfamiliar to him in every way! The idea is preposterous!”

“We have very little choice. And I believe that there is a way we can assist Harry to accept this version of events…”

Slouching back into his own chair, Severus allowed himself a moment to close his eyes and take another a few deep breaths. The headache resulting from the botched Legilimency session of the early hours of that morning still lingered behind his closed eyelids, reminding him of Dumbledore’s recent intrusion into his mind.

At least the Headmaster had been able to reassure him that while his memories had indeed been tampered with, the event in question had taken place quite some years ago and was therefore not likely a threat to either Potter or his position as a spy in the Dark Lord’s ranks. It didn’t make Severus any less leery of the fact that someone had accessed his mind and apparently removed very specific memories of his childhood. He was deeply concerned about who was responsible and their motives for doing so, but at least, in this moment, Severus Snape was not a danger to those around him.

No, now the risk was Potter himself. The repercussions would be terrible indeed if the boy did not fully recover from the magical backlash of Dumbledore’s revival spell. What good was a Chosen One who was convinced that he was five years old and therefore could not even perform intentional magic? Not only was the boy now a liability in the fight against Lord Voldemort, but he posed a very real and present danger to the success of their current mission. With one careless sentence, Harry could expose them as frauds to the entire Prince household.

Severus had a personal stake in ensuring that this visit to Kall Hus went smoothly, but so, too, did the Order. Although Severus did not yet know the reason for it, Albus had impressed upon him the importance of ensuring that Aunt Aggie, as matriarch of the Prince family line, welcomed Severus back into the fold.

The Potions Master felt the unwelcome weight of guilt settle in his stomach at the sudden realisation that in his concern for his own situation, he had overlooked the fact that there was a larger tragedy still in all of this. If the boy did not recover, the stark reality was that it would be as if the 16 year-old version of Harry Potter had died. After all, who was a person but the unique sum of their memories and experiences? In losing his teenaged awareness of the world and all the attendant recollections of his life up to this point in time, Harry would also lose much of who he was. Severus felt a pang of grief and fear for the infuriating, stubborn, determined, courageous boy that he, albeit grudgingly, had protected these past years.

In recent days, Snape had developed a greater understanding of Harry. At times, he could see echoes of his own adolescent darkness reflected in him. He could no longer simply think of Potter as an arrogant trouble-maker. Rather, there was a particular fragility to the child that he had never thought possible.

“Severus?” Dumbledore’s faded blue gaze regarded him curiously.

Severus focused himself once again on the old man before him.

“Why must you always interfere, Albus?” he asked in a voice completely devoid of any emotion.

“I do apologise for the necessary deception-“

“Ha!” Severus followed this with an incredulous huff. “You are apologising to me? What of the boy? Where does he fit in this latest abominable manipulation of yours?”

“Please, Severus, allow me to finish,” the Headmaster implored, feeling every one of his 106 years at that moment. The matter of Harry’s guardianship had been weighing heavily on his mind since the moment he had stepped away from 4 Privet Drive only a little over a week ago. Had it been so short a time? It seemed impossible, given how much Dolores Umbridge had been able to accomplish in her posturing with the Muggle authorities.

Albus leaned back slightly and steepled his hands in his lap, considering the impact that this conversation would have on the fragile truce that Severus seemed to have forged with Harry. The two had always maintained such an antagonistic relationship in the past that he was loath to do anything that might cause further conflict. However, the truth was that Albus’s hand had been forced. His meddling this time was with a compassionate purpose, rather than a considered move for the greater good.

“I mentioned to you some days ago that there will be a hearing to determine Harry’s new custody arrangement in the Muggle world.”

“You did,” Severus inclined his head jerkily, refusing to look at the Headmaster. He recalled the Floo conversation with Dumbledore from several days previous that had earned Harry a lecture on the perils of eavesdropping. It was fortunate that the boy had not been privy to the initial few minutes of the call. In all that had taken place over the past few days, Severus had given little thought to the matter of the Muggle court hearing. After all, they would both be returned to Hogwarts and he had assumed that Harry would no longer be his responsibility at that time.

“Well, the situation has become a great deal more complicated and, indeed, more perilous than I had originally anticipated,” Albus sighed.

He was somewhat gratified to note that he now had Severus’s full and undivided attention. The black eyes bore into his own, subconsciously seeking beyond the older wizard’s mental shields. Albus did not shift his gaze, but gently pushed back against the intrusion, reminding his protégé that both were equally matched when it came to mind magic. To his credit, Severus immediately withdrew, a slight wince indicating his non-verbal apology.

“Please, Severus, allow me to explain.”

He waited for Severus’ terse nod before continuing. “When the Dursleys chose to abandon their obligation to care for Harry, they nullified their legal guardianship in both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. While the repercussions were severe in terms of the breach of a magical contract, leading to the destruction of the Blood Wards on Privet Drive, in Muggle terms, it should have been a simple matter to have the boy transferred into what they would term a ‘foster care’ arrangement. It was my intention to guide the selection of a new, more suitable, wizarding family to take Harry on as a ward until his 18th birthday. This would have been possible, with a little magical interference. Kingsley had, in fact, agreed to assist me with this endeavour.”

Severus nodded slowly, although he frowned pensively as he did so, obviously recalling their Firecall from a few days earlier. Albus had wondered if the younger man had momentarily forgotten that conversation in all that had followed since. “I had thought to wait until your mission here in Sweden was at an end, thus allowing Harry to be a part of that process upon your return to Scotland.”

“You would allow the boy to choose his new guardians? Surely the Weasley family-”

Albus spread his hands in a gesture of humility. “I am…aware…that there have been a number of decisions in the past - my decisions - made with little regard for Harry’s input or agreement. I wanted to right that wrong. Unfortunately, there has been an unexpected development.”

“Which is?”

“Dolores Umbridge.”

“Umbridge? How is that reprehensible woman tied up in any of Potter’s custody arrangements?” the Potions Master tensed, his sneer expressing his dislike for the Senior Undersecretary more openly than the venomous delivery of his words.

“It appears that she has been holding a rather bitter vendetta against young Harry after her suspension from the Ministry. She has appealed to the Muggle authorities on Harry’s behalf, as a ‘concerned’ adult and has accused the Dursley family of abusive actions against Harry.”

“And is there any truth to her claims?” Severus gave the Headmaster a piercing look that held clear recognition that perhaps Harry’s upbringing had been less than satisfactory.

“There may well be, however, that is by-the-by. Most disturbingly, Dolores has also put forward a petition that she be granted custody of Potter as his new guardian in the eyes of Muggle law, until he comes of age and turns 18.”

“That cannot be allowed to happen,” his voice barely audible, but nonetheless terrible in its underlying menace, the Potions Master’s jaw clenched, his expression tightening in resolve.

“I agree. Which is why my hand has been somewhat forced,” Albus responded in just as deadly a tone.

“In what way?”

The older man suddenly rose from his seated position, slowly making his way towards the window and briefly taking in the snow-laden landscape before turning back to face Severus.

“I am trusting you with this, Severus, above all others. Most especially where the protection of Harry Potter is concerned. You have taken a vow to protect the boy and the time has come, Severus, to come good on your word-“

“Haven’t I always-“

“Yes,” Albus paced to stand in front of the younger man, whose face appeared almost waxen in his affront. Lowering himself so that he sat directly beside the Potions Master, Albus placed a hand on his shoulder and tightened his grip, turning Severus towards him in what was clearly a fatherly gesture. “This is precisely why I wish for you to become the boy’s legal guardian in the Muggle world. No, hear me out, Severus. Your identity would be hidden and your position as a spy for the Order not compromised in any way. It is my plan that you will come forward in the Muggle world as Harry’s estranged biological father. It will take some careful arranging and some significant use of concealment magic on Kingsley’s end, but I am assured that it can be accomplished. It is the only way to protect Harry from Dolores Umbridge and from Tom Riddle himself.”

Aware that the Headmaster was awaiting his response, Severus inhaled deeply and then chose his next words carefully. “It is not possible to perform mind magic on the boy, so there can be no implanted suggestion. I will not perform it and I will not permit you to endanger yourself or Potter in that manner. Harry will need to believe that I am his new guardian based on some form of evidence.”

Albus nodded gravely. “I have the necessary paperwork. In fact, I have had it in my possession for some time.”

“Paperwork?” Snape tilted his head curiously.

“Due to the allegations of Dolores Umbridge, the Muggle authorities have begun an investigation into the care that Harry received whilst under the guardianship of Petunia and Vernon Dursley,” the Headmaster sighed.

“A hearing at the Children and Family Court has been called for the new year. Both Harry and I have been called as witnesses. A case of child abuse and willful neglect had been brought against the Dursleys. In retaliation, the family have effectively renounced all custody of Harry. They have signed documents to that effect,” Dumbledore hesitated for a moment to clear his throat. “These documents would serve as proof to Harry that they are no longer his guardians.”

“Surely you cannot mean to show them to the child?” Severus was utterly aghast at Albus’s matter-of-fact pronouncement. “He does not understand what is happening to him right now and is already in distress. This will only serve to cause further grief!”

The Headmaster smiled sadly. “I do believe your heart is showing.”

“Do not attempt to deflect from the matter at hand, Albus,” Severus huffed in dismissal and looked away.

“I think we shall find that Harry may not be as dismayed at the situation as you imagine. There is much that you do not know about his life at Privet Drive. Suffice to say that Harry’s childhood experiences are perhaps not dissimilar to your own.”

Severus felt his cheeks flush.

“It may take a little time, but I believe that Harry will come to accept you as his new guardian, and the Prince family as his own.”

“Very well, we shall proceed with your plan. But, Albus?”

“Yes?”

“Do not presume to know how that child will react to the discovery that he is no longer wanted by his own flesh and blood, no matter the circumstances.”

The older wizard nodded slowly, his expression resigned. "I believe Harry will have a difficult time ahead of him, Severus. But you will be there to see him safely through it."

Turning away from the Headmaster, Snape indicated his agreement with the slightest incline of his chin, paused for a moment, and then swept from the room.

Harry gazed in sheer wonderment at the sight of the partially decorated Christmas tree standing centre-stage in the vast drawing room of the grand manor house. The tree stood at least 10 feet tall, still well short of the voluminous ceiling height of the room, filling the air with a heady scent of pine. A group of people were gathered at its base, smiling and tilting their heads back to admire a series of multi-coloured orbs that floated gently about the tree, nestling into place amongst the branches and brightly glowing from within. He wondered at how the orbs were being manipulated into place, as he could see no strings or wires to guide them.

Moving away from the doorway so that he could more closely inspect the illuminated orbs, he was halted by a large hand wrapping itself gently around his shoulder.

“Henrik,” a deep voice murmured from above. “A moment, if you will.”

Harry turned and looked up at the dark-eyed and serious face of his new father. He still could not quite reconcile in his mind that this was where he belonged now. Just that morning, Madam Pomfrey had informed him that this vast residence where he had awoken to a new life only yesterday was known as ‘Kall Hus’. It was apparently the family home of this strange and very serious man who wanted Harry to call him ‘Pappa’.

He still felt a hollow emptiness in his tummy when he thought about the Dursleys. He took a shaky breath and clenched his fists. The old man - Professor Dumbledore - he reminded himself, had shown him the signatures on the piece of paper. They weren’t his family anymore. They didn’t want him.

“Henry?” Professor Snape, his new father – Pappa - was kneeling in front of him, so that they were now at eye level. “Do you remember what I told you about our family?”

Harry nodded. He looked steadily at the professor before glancing at each of them and whispering their names to himself.

Cousin Hilde and Cadmus. He watched as Hilde pulled her long dark hair away from her shoulders for a moment and then settled one of her hands lightly against her husband’s back. Where Hilde was tall and lean, Cadmus was slightly shorter and broad-shouldered. His hair was blonde, slightly wavy and cut in a style that allowed it to be pulled back into a ponytail at the base of the man’s neck. Harry thought it rather odd that all of the men in this grand house seemed to wear their hair shoulder-length or longer, even (and perhaps especially), the elderly Professor Dumbledore.

Uncle Vernon would have most certainly have frowned at them if he had seen them in the street. He would have hurried the family past them, muttering about ‘freaks’ and ‘weirdos’. Harry knew this because there had been a couple of occasions when people had previously approached Harry in public who were dressed strangely, or who wore their hair in old-fashioned styles, or sported a fanciful-looking hat perched upon their head. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had seemed kind of scared whenever that happened. Harry always felt shy, and also worried, when he was greeted by these random strangers. Sometimes he would get in trouble for attracting the unwanted notice, even when he hadn’t done anything at all to gain the attention of these people.

Aunt Aggie. She was kind, but also a little bit scary. Harry thought that his new father rather resembled his aunt, not only in looks, but also in attitude. They both spoke sharply, using words that Harry sometimes found difficult to understand. They also moved with a particular grace and confident bearing. But where Professor Snape was very serious and strict, Aunt Aggie was smiles and soft touches, especially where Harry was concerned. She seemed to reserve all her sharp edges for her conversations with old Professor Dumbledore and sometimes for her nephew, too.

Over the past day or so that Harry had been confined to his bedroom to ‘recover’, as Madam Pomfrey had called it, Aunt Aggie had visited him twice. Both times she had brought Harry a story to read and on the second visit, she had hugged him goodbye and even kissed the top of his head. The best part was that the story books from which she read fantastical adventures had moving pictures, like tiny television frames inside each page! When Harry had stroked the pictures in wonder and asked Aunt Aggie how they moved, she had arched her brow, smiled down at him and replied ‘Why, magic, of course!’.

Harry had stiffened his shoulders and clenched his eyes shut when she said the ‘M’ word. It had taken him a few moments to realise that Uncle Vernon was not there give Harry a smack, nor to bellow that there was no such thing as magic. Aunt Aggie had looked at him quite closely for a bit and then over at Professor Snape, who had looked worried and maybe a little bit angry, too.

Harry returned to considering his new relatives and focused on the younger members of the family: Lucas and Bonita. They were the only children present, older than him, but friendly. Bonita had sent a card along with Aunt Aggie when she had visited him. In it, she had written ‘Get Well Soon, Henry!’. Underneath this message, Bonita had drawn a picture that looked a bit like a mermaid, only it was a man with a long beard and frighteningly pointed teeth, instead of a lady with long hair and a tail. It wasn’t a particularly good drawing, but Harry thought it was kind of her to send a card along to a boy that she didn’t know very well.

Right now, Lucas was the member of the family who drew his attention the most. The older boy was holding an ornately carved timber box. The orbs that had so entranced Harry earlier were gently drifting out of the box and floating through the air. Lucas carefully walked in circles around the tree so that the decorations would evenly distribute themselves on the branches. The contents of the box glowed so brightly that the older boy’s pale face was washed in delicate pinks and greens and purples that shone as each orb floated by him. It was a magnificent sight.

Another gentle squeeze of Harry’s shoulder reminded him that his new father had asked him a question and was clearly awaiting his response.
“Do you remember when we spoke about my family?” he asked again.

“Yes, Prof-Pappa,” Harry corrected himself softly. “I remember. They are ma-magical. Like you.”

“And just like you, Henrik,” his father looked at him solemnly. “You have magic, too, and it is nothing to be afraid of.”

Harry nodded and let his gaze drift to the floor. They had been through this conversation quite a few times now, but he still found it hard to understand. Everything about the past 24 hours had been difficult for Harry to come to terms with – no more Dursleys; a grand manor house in Sweden; sleeping in a proper bed in a real bedroom instead of in a cot in the cupboard under the stairs; his new, slightly terrifying father; Kora, the House Elf; pictures in storybooks that moved; the existence of magic. It all seemed like a fairy tale.

He hadn’t believed any of it at first. In fact, when Professor Dumbledore had explained some of these things to him at his bedside, Harry had become very angry. He didn’t know why, and even now, he couldn’t understand what had happened to cause him to push the old man away from him and jump down from his bed. He had moved as quickly as he could manage through a door near the fireplace and had found himself in a small, old-fashioned bathroom. There, he had experienced another shock. Intent on splashing some water on his hot face, in an attempt to calm himself, Harry had glimpsed his reflection in the ornate mirror and, to his complete horror, saw the face of a stranger staring back at him through dark brown eyes.

Confronted with this undeniable proof of magic at work, and feeling like he was trapped in a nightmare, Harry had turned, thrown open the bathroom door and tried to run, but his heart had bounced and jolted in his chest in an alarming fashion and his legs had gone all wobbly. A moment later, Madam Pomfrey was holding him in her lap and Professor Snape was shouting at Professor Dumbledore. Harry had started crying then, which he was ashamed to remember, because he never cried if he could help it and that was the second lot of tears he had shed that same morning.

Everyone had gone a bit quiet after that and then Professor Snape had given him a cup of what he had thought was water but turned out to be something thick and unpleasantly sweet that he tried to spit back out. The professor had made Harry swallow the awful drink, which he did, and then he didn’t really remember much about what had happened for a while after that. He supposed that he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, he was back in bed, wrapped securely in the fuzzy green blanket from the chair in his bedroom. Professor Snape was sitting quietly beside his bed in that very same chair and both Madam Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore had gone.

It had been the conversation that followed with Professor Snape that had finally helped Harry to accept that at least some of what Professor Dumbledore had told him was the truth. He had asked to see the papers with the signatures again and the professor had looked at him with sad eyes but had let him hold them and look at them closely.

Harry had tried to read what the papers said, but he wasn’t very good at reading anyway, and the words were long and complicated and hard to sound out. He knew in his heart that what both professors had told him was true. The Dursleys had given him up.

What he didn’t understand, and still could not really wrap his mind around, was how he had come to be living in Sweden, with a completely altered appearance and in the care of a strange, dark-haired man who called himself a wizard. This same man - his new father - had explained to him, patiently at first, that Harry had been ill and that was the reason that his chest hurt sometimes and why his legs were all shaky. Professor Snape then told him that Professor Dumbledore had known Harry’s parents when they were young, and that it was his responsibility to find a new guardian for Harry.

The old man had, according to Professor Snape, chosen him above all others because he knew that the younger man would protect Harry. Professor Dumbledore trusted Severus Snape better than anyone else, even though some people might not have liked the idea of Harry Potter being placed in the care of the professor. Dumbledore, Professor Snape had explained with a resigned expression, believed that the situation called for extreme measures.

Not entirely sure what ‘the situation’ was, apart from the fact that he had awoken confused and disoriented in a foreign country with not even the familiar sight of his own face to look back at him in the reflection of the mirror, Harry had bitten his lip and remained silent.

He didn’t understand why anyone in the world would care what happened to him or who his new parent might become. Nobody had ever cared or come to check up on him before. He knew this, because it had been his greatest wish at times, late at night, when he remained locked away in the cupboard under the stairs with only Aunt Petunia’s many bottles of cleaning fluid for company.

At those moments, Harry had wanted nothing more than for a saviour to appear. He would fantasize about a mystery relative of his parents, who had discovered that Harry was alive and living in Surrey. In his mind’s eye, the saviour would arrive on a giant motorbike that throbbed and rumbled as it pulled into the neatly paved driveway on Privet Drive.

When dreaming about his rescue, Harry could almost see the bottles of bleach trembling on the shelves, jiggled by the vibrations of the bike’s enormous engine. In his imaginings, he heard the snick of a key turning in the locked cupboard door and watched in awe as the door pulled open and the light from the living room came streaming in to reveal the silhouetted figure of his redeemer, come to take him away forever. This person would really want Harry to come and live with them forever, because they cared what happened to him and wanted him to be safe and happy.

Of course, none of that had ever happened. In reality, Harry would remain in his cupboard for however long his aunt and uncle chose to keep him locked away, eventually allowing him out to attend to basic needs like going to the bathroom and cooking Dudley’s breakfast bacon.

But then, there he was, tucked up in the most comfortable bed he had ever lain in. And there beside him was someone who claimed to want to be Harry’s saviour. Although his appearance was stern and intimidating, it was also true that Professor Snape had treated him well. He had given him medicine to help him feel better, had spent long hours sitting by his side while he slept and then he was explaining the reason why Harry was here in this house, feeling frightened and confused. And he was doing so precisely so that Harry would feel safe. Perhaps he was also doing it so that Harry would feel not just safe, but happy, too.

The professor had continued on with his explanation, including the detail that Harry’s new father’s family, the Princes, lived in Sweden. The Prince family had been told that Harry was Professor Snape’s real son, named Henrik (Henry for short), and he was visiting Kall Hus with his father for the holidays. This false identity was the reason for Harry’s new appearance; his odd dark eyes, thin cheeks and pointed chin. It was a magical disguise, designed to make him resemble the professor and was not permanent. Harry wasn’t really satisfied about this part of the story and didn’t fully understand why Professor Snape hadn’t explained the truth to his family about who Harry really was. Perhaps the Princes were those people that Dumbledore had thought would not be happy to know that Harry Potter was being cared for by Professor Snape? But they were supposed to be family, so that didn’t really make much sense at all.

When Harry had become unexpectedly ill, his father told him, he also had lost some memories. According to Professor Snape, Harry had already known that he was magic (a wizard!) and had been very happy about it. He was still getting used to his new name, and to calling Professor Snape ‘Pappa’, which was Swedish for ‘Dad’, but he had apparently been settling well into his new family life when he had become ill. His sudden illness had been quite severe and Harry’s heart had stopped for a little while. Because Professor Dumbledore was magic and a very powerful wizard, he had done a spell to start Harry’s heart beating again, but something had happened to Harry’s brain and now he was having trouble remembering things.

All of this, Professor Snape – Pappa – had told him while Harry reclined in bed, clutching his blanket, and staring at his new father. The man had only become cranky when Harry had wondered aloud why Professor Dumbledore had also come to Sweden to visit the Princes.

That was the part of the story that still remained unexplained, as the professor had by that stage become impatient with him and snapped that he didn’t need to know everything about everyone. Furthermore, his Pappa had continued, he could see that Harry was just as stubborn and strong-willed as he ever was and it would serve him well to not to pry into matters that did not concern him.

Harry had felt very much like he had wanted to cry again then, because he really was trying to understand and the professor had been fairly kind in explaining everything up to that point. The man’s dark eyes had then flashed at him in anger and his lips twisted into a scowl that was worse than the one Aunt Petunia wore whenever Harry did something to disappoint her, which was more often than not.

Now wrenching his attention back to the present and to the festive scene in the drawing room of Kall Hus, Harry slowly lifted his eyes to meet the dark stare of his father. While the man’s gaze could not exactly be described as kind, at least it was not currently filled with anger. Harry took in the room before him and the celebratory atmosphere. He attempted a smile and it came more easily than expected.

Christmas at the Dursleys had never been like this.

Bonita and Lucas seemed genuinely happy to be helping to decorate the tree and there were no tantrums to be seen. The feeling of magic seemed to permeate the very walls of Kall Hus. Aunt Aggie had just noticed Harry’s presence and smiled warmly at him, waving him over to join the rest of the family. Everyone seemed so genuinely content and happy.
Harry focused on the man who still knelt before him, clearly wanting him to understand that magic was something not to be feared, but rather something that was fundamentally part of him, just like it was a part of this house and all the people who lived there.

Still uncertain, but willing to trust that something that felt as wonderful and as right as magic must be good, Harry slowly allowed his smile to broaden.

Professor Snape regarded him a moment longer and then stood and surveyed the room in the commanding way that he had. Harry took a huge risk and stepped forward, standing beside his new father. Without any fanfare, he slipped his hand into the man’s larger, warmer one.

Harry held his breath, staring straight ahead and waiting for the rejection that he was certain to be met with. There was a pause and then he felt the warm fingers gently squeeze his own. It felt just like magic.
Together, they both joined the rest of the family around the tree, warmed both by the fire in the hearth and by the small measure of trust that each had just shown the other through one simple action.

***

Feeling more than a little like an intruder on the family scene taking place around the now lavishly decorated Christmas tree, Albus Dumbledore sat quietly in a rather ornate red velvet chair. Aggie had conveniently positioned him a little distance away from the centre of the festivities when she had graciously escorted him into the room. Not sure whether this was out of deference for Albus, or more a product of her own seemingly frosty attitude towards him, he was nevertheless grateful for the opportunity for a moment of quiet contemplation.

The headmaster felt a small twinge of concern as he observed Harry’s still-too-pale complexion. Despite the warm glow of the fire that the boy was perched in front of, Dumbledore noted the almost bruise-like shadows under the child’s eyes and the pallor of his cheeks. There could be no argument that the elderly wizard was nervous about Poppy’s departure from the snow-laden grounds of the manor earlier that morning. While he and Severus both had some skill in the healing arts, their abilities paled in comparison to Poppy Pomfrey’s knowledge and abilities. Still, the matron had assured him that Harry just needed rest and quiet in order to make a full recovery from his ordeal.

That was, of course, all contingent on the boy taking no more unexpected and accidental journeys backwards through time itself.
Stroking his beard in thought, he considered the strange circumstances that had initially brought him to Kall Hus to investigate his potion master’s missing memories.

Whomever had removed Snape’s memories had known a significant deal of mind magic. The careful weaving of the Obliviate charm had been expertly managed; only focused on very specific key memories and periods of time. Other memories that were tangential to those removed had been painstakingly threaded together to form a seamless continuum. The magic was so skilfully and subtly wrought that the charm would have left Severus completely unaware that there were any holes in his recollection, were it not for that one significant memory of the lake that had lain somehow dormant, but still present in the recesses of the younger wizard’s mind.

Despite his painstaking efforts with Legilimency, Dumbledore had been unable to retrieve any useful recollections to prove the veracity of Harry’s claims of traveling back in time to the period of Severus’s own childhood. It was frustrating in the extreme, but there was nothing to be done at this stage about the mystery of the potions master’s missing memories. The conundrum of the time travel itself was a different matter altogether. Now, there could be no doubt that something magical had latched onto Harry and was somehow pulling him backwards through time, albeit for very short periods.

The real proof of this phenomenon rested with the child’s sudden and complete disappearance from the cottage, right in front of the headmaster’s weary eyes. He had thought at the time that he had dozed off, but now he knew that Harry had disappeared in the instant it had taken for him to blink, only to reappear some hours later, in a completely different part of the small house. While this in and of itself was troubling enough, even more so was the fact that Harry’s brief excursion into the past on that occasion had such terrible consequences. Nearly devastating ones.

Dumbledore had a keen an interest in the tantalising possibility of moving through the fabric of time, long before the events leading up to the escape of Sirius Black in Harry’s third year at Hogwarts. In his younger years, he had conducted many hours of personal research devoted to the potential of travelling into the past, far beyond the five-hour ministry-imposed restrictions of a Time-Turner. He had his own very powerful reasons to desire the opportunity to go back and right some tragic wrongs in his own life and in fact, his almost obsessive interest in the notion of time travel had led him to develop an eventual friendship with Agatha Prince, through several meetings with her father, Hans.

Hans Prince had a brief career as an Unspeakable within the Ministry of Magic. He had been a youthful contemporary of Madam Eloise Mintumble; a witch of considerable talent whose posthumous fame was linked to her notoriously tragic journey backwards in time from 1899 to 1402. Having successfully made the leap backwards by nearly 500 years, Madam Mintumble was trapped in the past for five full days before she was able to return.

The consequences of her experiment were dire. While she had successfully made the reverse journey, her travel forward in time to the present resulted in her body’s catastrophic aging at a cellular level by the exact number of years that she had travelled. Consequently, she quickly succumbed to her extreme old age and died. But the ripple in time caused by her return to the present extended beyond the effects on Mintumble herself, causing a series of temporal anomalies that ultimately resulted in a series of ‘un-births’.

A number of witches and wizards simply ceased to exist the moment that Eloise Mintumble arrived back in 1899. Likewise, the fabric of time that week was distorted and failed to follow the known and expected patterns of minutes, hours and days.

All of this, Dumbledore had learned during countless fascinating discussions with Hans Prince, who quickly became something of a mentor to the younger Albus. He developed a firm and long-standing friendship with the intelligent, highly principled man. He remembered speaking with Hans about the case of Eloise Mintumble with particular clarity, as it had been this event that had drawn his mentor’s career as an Unspeakable to an abrupt end.

“Be very careful in your dealings with the Ministry, Albus,” Hans had stated resolutely during one intense conversation. They had arranged on that occasion to meet in London at The Leaky Cauldron for a quiet drink after a particularly challenging school term for Dumbledore, which had recently involved several rather hostile meetings with the Ministry of Magic. The year was 1943; a student had died from petrification and Headmaster Dippet had just that week expelled Rubeus Hagrid.

Dumbledore had been simultaneously furious and devastated at the way the events had unfolded.

“It is because of the Ministry’s interference at Hogwarts that the true perpetrator of young Miss Warren’s death will never be brought to justice,” the professor baldly stated. "Hagrid had nothing to do with Myrtle's petrification. The poor lad is just a scapegoat!"

He threw back the last of his Firewhiskey and observed the grave expression that Hans wore, imagining that it matched his own grim countenance that evening.

“It has been my experience these many years that when a tragedy occurs in the wizarding world that cannot be readily explained, the Ministry of Magic will tie it up in a bow of endless red-tape and bureaucracy, hiding it away forever,” Hans spoke slowly and reluctantly. “You will need to watch your step in this situation, Albus.”

Grunting in agreement, Dumbledore signalled to the barkeep for another round.

“Do you remember our conversation about my dear friend, Eloise?” the older wizard lowered his voice and surreptitiously cast a privacy ward around their booth to avoid being overheard.

“Madam Mintumble? Of course,” the younger professor frowned. “I looked into her case quite extensively, in fact. She is the single-most compelling reason that I have not yet made my own attempt at long-range time travel.”

Hans regarded Dumbledore for a long time with fiercely intelligent eyes. His heavy, drawn brows gave an appearance of ill humour that belied his true nature.

“I hope that you continue to heed that consideration, Albus. Temporal magic is the most unstable of all magics. Eloise’s death and the events that unfolded at that time are proof of the inherent risks. When she arrived back at the Ministry, aged beyond any recognition, it was a devastating blow to our team both personally and professionally.”

Dumbledore nodded and the pair paused to accept tumblers of rich amber liquid from their server, a rather portly wizard who regarded them both with minimal interest, apart from collecting their sickles and knuts. They remained circumspect and waited for the man to leave before continuing their conversation.

“It must truly have been an horrendous experience,” Dumbledore finally said quietly. “To lose a colleague like that.”

“Her death was an undeniable tragedy,” Hans agreed. He circled the rim of his glass with his finger and looked past his companion with unseeing eyes as he remembered the circumstances surrounding his co-worker’s death.

“But there was more to it than just that. Rather than allowing us to continue our work to uncover the reasons for her death, and perhaps prevent similar instances in the future, the Ministry simply placed untold restrictions on the ownership of Time-Turners and then tried to pretend that the fault in this situation was all Eloise’s.”

“I thought that she had taken her experimentation too far? She pushed the boundaries of the experiment by trying to travel back further than anyone had done before,” Dumbledore tilted his head in confusion. “She wasn’t to blame?”

“Do not misunderstand me, Albus,” Hans leaned forward intently. “She made a mistake. Eloise Mintumble was a formidable witch of keen intellect, and she knew that there were risks involved. But the reason that she was in the Department of Mysteries working on temporal exploration, ‘pushing the boundaries’, as you say, was because the Ministry of Magic put her there.”

“Not unlike yourself,” the younger wizard nodded in understanding.

“It was the same for all of us,” he sighed. “The Ministry wanted us to advance the frontiers of temporal magic, to uncover and break the laws of time itself. And then when we accomplished that, albeit under tragic circumstances, our project was brought to a swift close. All of our research notes, artefacts that we had invented…Everything we had worked for was taken from us. It was just unfortunate that Eloise happened to be the witch who was working as the traveller that day. It could have been any one of us in her position.”

“You stopped working for the Ministry not long after that, didn’t you? I had assumed that it was your choice.”

“Oh, I could have continued on with the Ministry,” Hans made a dismissive gesture. “They placed all of us on new, considerably less ground-breaking research in different areas. My point, Albus, is that the Ministry is a political entity that fears backlash from the wizarding public. Even when it acts in the best interests of the people in terms of ground-breaking magical advancement, the very moment there is a perceived failure, the Ministry is at risk.”

Dumbledore nodded slowly. He considered his mentor’s words and applied them to his own situation. “Myrtle’s death is a failure, and therefore too great a risk,” he grimaced. “I’m never going to win this fight, am I?”

“Sadly not, my dear friend,” Hans looked at him intently. “You have already lost this battle. But there are always other ways to win the war.”

Albus Dumbledore returned his attention to the here and now. This problem with Harry was a battle that he could not afford to lose. He had argued long and hard with both Severus and Poppy about whether the Aetate Mutatio potion could possibly be causing the temporal anomaly that seemed to be affecting Harry.

It seemed so unlikely that the potion could be the cause. Granted, the de-aging potion was strongly regulated and not widely available to the wizarding population, but that was not because it was known to cause incidental time travel! Rather, the concern of the Ministry was that it would pose issues in the wizarding population with both addiction and criminal misuse. In this matter, as much as Dumbledore had disdain for the controlling hand of the Ministry, he did agree with the dangers inherent in a widely available de-aging potion.

The fact remained that at this point in time, dosing Harry with the antidote and returning to England was not even an option. In Harry’s current state of confusion, returning him to a 16-year-old body was fraught with trauma. The boy believed himself to be five years old. It would be inhumane to inflict further distress on the young wizard by suddenly aging up his body, while leaving him with the mentality of a small child. Additionally, it could do dangerous things to Harry’s magic.

He watched the boy now with undisguised interest, noting how closely Harry had positioned himself next to Severus as they sat with the rest of the family by the Christmas tree. The headmaster had been surprised and quite touched to see the boy grasping his professor's hand as they had moved into the room together, looking truly like father and son in that moment.

If nothing else, at least while Harry retained this more child-like persona, it would seem that the long-standing barriers that had existed between the stubborn Hogwarts teacher and the impetuous student were being stripped away.

And the scheming side of the older wizard felt that while he still had yet to win the war, this particular battle might be near an end, and with more than just one victor.