Chapter Text
Severus woke with a thundering pulse at half-past three in the morning. It took him a couple of heartbeats to get his bearings and remember there was a two-year-old under the same roof, sleeping in his childhood bedroom. He groaned.
Out of habit, his limbs got him to his feet, knowing there would be alcohol in a few moments. He stopped himself with a hand on the doorframe of his room. He hung his head and groaned again, recalling there would be no fortifying whiskey-in-a-mug anytime soon because he’d finished his stash on that pitiful day Petunia had contacted him, and he could not bring himself to buy more whilst a child, even the Potter Spawn, existed anywhere in his proximity.
He blinked up at the ceiling in the semi-darkness and tried mustering enough strength of will to go make himself a chamomile. Potions where useless since he'd long become inured to all existing variations of Sleeping Draughts and until he managed to develop that Dreamless Sleep he'd been tinkering with, he was stuck with pathetic Muggle remedies.
He did not believe going all the way downstairs to put water to boil was worth the effort, but he was awake now, and the thought of lying back down made him nauseous.
His feet walked him the short distance between the master bedroom and the room where the child slept. He mentally insulted himself at the illogical urge Potter Junior’s presence inspired in him and vehemently refused to label what he was doing as ‘checking on him’.
He pushed the door enough to fit his head in, expecting to see the toddler asleep on the narrow bed.
The child was most assuredly not sleeping nor was he in a horizontal position at all. Severus swung the door open, at a loss on how to deal with a little creature sitting up on the bed, covers thrown half over his head, his cheeks glistening with tear-tracks in the dimness of the night and sniffles breaking the dead quiet.
The instant Severus took a single step into the room, the child began weeping.
“Shit, what- I mean- wait-” Severus might have been panicking. His brains-to-mouth filter was still in storage at that hour of the night and he rocked from one foot to the other in uncertainty. His gut, something he made a point of pride to never ever listen to, yanked him to the bed and made him pick the boy up and hold him against his chest.
Severus’ body moved oddly, little sways from side to side, his right hand rubbing slow circles on the small back. His mind suggested he start making soothing noises, but Severus abruptly put a stop to the surge of instincts that had momentarily overcome him. Rationally, he pondered that suggestion. What noises would the child even find soothing? He didn’t know what he was familiar with, if ‘shushing’ or ‘humming’ or a string of nonsensical words would work best. Merlin forbid, what if Petunia sang bloody lullabies? And wouldn’t he look outrageously ridiculous, soothing a child with any of those verbal cues? He felt awkward enough as he was, stiffly rocking the over-warm bundle in his arms. No need to overachieve.
The body in his arms held itself as stiffly as Severus felt.
“Did you have a bad dream?” He asked. He changed the rubbing pattern to a soft patting in case that helped. The child shook his head against where it was pressed into Severus’ shoulder, but he finally seemed to be calming down. He relaxed, the crying becoming sniffles again.
Not a bad dream? Why else would a child be up and sobbing in the middle of the night?
He bit his tongue before he snapped and demanded what in the bloody world was wrong. That would probably earn him more squawking.
Bloody Merlin was he a vicious sociopath. Harry had not nagged nearly as much as he feared. On the contrary, he'd made Severus fearful for how much he wasn’t fussing, and here Severus was, abusing the child in his head.
“What is the matter, then?” He murmured. The child shook his head again. Helpful. Could Severus even be sure that he’d understood his first question? Were two-year-olds aware they dreamt while sleeping? More importantly, what the ever loving fuck was he going to do now? Jesus and Merlin, but he needed a drink.
“Alright, let’s try this again.” Severus made to put him into bed but the child let out an ear-piercing screech and latched onto Severus’ night-robe, which forced him to back up, little leech still in his arms.
Severus scowled but in the darkness the boy couldn’t see his expression.
Darkness? Perhaps he was afraid of the dark?
“Do you want a light to sleep?” He tried. The boy gave no other reaction but to cling more tightly.
Well. No more sleeping tonight, then. Could he get away with dosing him? Truth be told, Severus had no idea if it was safe for toddlers to ingest Sleeping Draughts. Chamomile though? Was that safe? Could he risk fucking up the Saviour of the Wizarding World? What else could he give him to sleep?
“Right, then. A walk.” Severus carried him downstairs, still occasionally rocking him with the vain hope that he’d simply doze off.
They ended up in Severus’ least-hated armchair. He pondered what he could use to entertain the child. He possessed no TV nor radio, and precious little child-approved magicks came to mind at the moment. In the several minutes it took for him to scrap option after option, the boy hadn't fussed. He'd simply nestled against Severus, and once he became aware of it, it did bad things to his heart.
“You seem sleepy enough.” He groaned his way to his feet and trudged up the stairs again. He put the child in bed, re-arranged the askew covers, not tucking him in, but as soon as he reached the door, whimpers called him back.
“Why won’t you just say what the matter is?” He demanded peevishly, his hands on his waist.
“Big.” Severus almost jumped out of his skin at the unexpected noise. The high-pitched voice was wobbly, Harry’s eyes reflecting some mysterious source of light in the dim room.
“The bed is too big?” The child shook his head slowly, then nodded, still looking at him.
Severus had been a spy. Not for very long, admittedly, but it has been a very intense learn-on-the-job sort of thing. A ride-or-die experience, some American films would theme it. So. He ought to be capable of assembling pieces of information well enough.
The boy had shown up with pitiful rags of clothes, several marks of progressively fresher bruises on his arms. Petunia had abandoned him in an unknown place, with an unknown man, and Harry hadn’t batted an eye. Deductive reasoning would suggest the boy had not been spoiled and showered in affection, as Severus had naturally expected for the spawn of James Potter and Saviour of the Wizarding World. That said, complaining about maybe-the-bed being ‘too big’ was nonsensical.
“I don’t understand,” he admitted, unable to hide his frustration. The boy flinched, retracting into himself like a little tortoise.
“What is too big?” He tried making his tone less threatening. Jury was still out on the result.
“Big,” the child insisted, this time sounding as frustrated as Severus felt.
“I don’t know what you’re saying.” Severus sighed. “But does that mean you won’t be falling asleep here?”
Harry only blinked at him. Severus was too exhausted for this.
“Right, then.” He scooped him up and they went back downstairs. He settled him on the sofa, Cushioned the floor in case he rolled off, and sank in his own armchair, head lolling back with another sigh. “Let’s try this. Go to sleep now.”
When bloody doves began cooing outside at dawn, Severus woke up with a splitting neck pain and cursed his armchair, Potter Senior for siring children, Petunia for dumbing the result on him, and then all the subspecies of dove, because there were no potions ingredients that would justify him killing a bird or three. He ought to invent one.
Scowling, he left the child asleep on his sofa and got ready for the day, waiting until actual morning to come around before waking him.
He found Harry was already up, sitting crosslegged among the quilt folds and seemingly entertaining himself with his hands and the tartan pattern of the coverlet. Severus did not expect the child to cry or call for his aunt anymore, yet the way those round green eyes turned to shine at him still made his step falter.
“Come. Breakfast,” he called, waving his wand to get coffee and food to prepare itself.
He plopped the boy down in his designated chair and set a bowl of plain porridge in front of him. In the time it took Severus to turn back around, pour his coffee and slump in his own chair, the child was scraping the bottom clean.
Severus did not hurry through his own much-needed caffeine ritual. He studied the little creature sitting quietly at the table, stumpy legs swinging. He looked bored, but did not clamour for attention or entertainment to be provided.
What in Merlin’s bloody name was he going to do with him?
Severus was getting tired of asking himself that question.
Briskly, he set his empty cup of coffee in the sink, added Harry’s breakfast bowl and spelled everything to wash itself. Then, he picked the boy up and carried him to the loo to brush his teeth and get in that nappy change. He should arrange a schedule for that.
“Right,” he spoke aloud, mostly to himself. That was supposed to be a prime sign of madness, was it not? Delightful. “I have business to attend to. I expect you to entertain yourself.”
The child followed him to the sitting room, to the threadbare rug spread out between the sofa and the low table. Severus crouched down to be eye-level with those bright green orbs that bore into him like knives.
He fingered his wand, thinking. Toys… he ought to conjure toys to keep the brat occupied. His mind blanked.
“Bugger,” escaped his lips. He lifted the tip of his wand in two aborted tries before committing to conjuring wooden blocks. Ten cubes the size of the child’s whole chubby hand popped into existence around him. Harry turned his attention to them, appearing mildly surprised by the magic. Severus spelled one of the six faces of each cube to be some bright colour, and one other to have big letters. There.
He left the child to it whilst he tried to contact Dumbledore again.
The vase holding Floo powder on the top of the fireplace mantel was empty. Muttering to himself, he went to rifle through the kitchen drawer. He was sure he’d bought some at the beginning of summer… his hand brushed against coarse fabric. He triumphantly pulled out a sachet and strode back to the sitting room, where he hurled a handful of the green powder into the fireplace and called out for the Headmaster’s office.
Much like the day before, the circular room was empty, its snoring portraits and utter stillness gave it the air of a place long abandoned to its own devices
Foolish him for attempting the same action and expecting a different result. That was also a sign of madness, was it not? Severus felt unhinged at the sudden, physical impulse to scream out his frustration. And his fear. Severus could confess to that here, while he was technically in a room that had already seen him at his worst, blessedly away from the child for the first time in twenty-two hours. He was able to think instead of following gut-reactions, and could admitted to himself that he was hopelessly out of his depth. He was shitting himself.
What if the Headmaster did not get word back to him before September? What if Severus was left with the child, alone, for months? What if he fucked up somehow, and the child smashed his head, got terminally sick, started crying and never stopped? What would Severus do?
Fucking bloody buggering hell.
The Saviour of the Wizarding World was in his sitting room! James Potter’s offspring.
Severus might be having a panic attack whilst on all fours, his head magically floating in a Hogwarts fireplace.
He scooted back, cutting off the fire-call. He knelt where he was, his nails biting into his knees. He steadied his breathing, carefully constructing an Occlumency wall in his mind.
Meditating carefully behind this wall, he came to terms with the fact that he was all alone, with a barely sentient creature entirely dependent upon him. A part of him despised that child. He could also admit that, in the newfound, and frankly eerie, calm state of mind he’d suddenly acquired after hours of fumbling chaos.
Of course he loathed him. The brat was Potter’s son, the product of Lily’s love for another. And not just any other. Lily had chosen to accept the courtship of a person who’d tormented Severus daily. Potter and his gang had made his Hogwarts years hell, he’d almost died because of their so-called pranks. Marrying Potter was possibly the cruelest snub she could have dealt their friendship. Sometimes, he thought she must have done it on purpose to spite him. But of course, Severus had hardly warranted such space in her thoughts by then.
Severus stood back up, turning to survey the object of his musings.
The boy sat among his conjured bricks, face intent upon them, yet had made no move to touch them.
Severus sighed, stepping over to squat in front of him.
“I know you can speak, child. What’s wrong with them? Do conjured toys not meet your approved standard?”
The two-year-old regarded him with a serious expression.
“What do you usually play with, then?” It irked him that he’d stooped to asking a child what it wanted, like an empty-brained mollycoddling mother. On the other hand, the truth was he did not know better than a two-year-old on that front. Depressing. He really should get on that library order.
When he wasn’t thinking about the child, or the concept of him, and instead confronted the tangible flesh-and-blood being in front of him… his feelings on the matter got harder to discern. The boy was silent and chubby and warm, hardly the devilish creature out to prematurely inflict the torments of hell on Severus, deserved as they may be.
It was the not-knowing that made him lash out, he reckoned. His ignorance on how to handle toddlers, and the complete darkness he found himself in with regard to what he, Severus Snape, recent exonerated Death Eater, was expected to do with this toddler specifically, the Saviour of the Wizarding World.
Whom else could he get in contact with? Narcissa would certainly know what to do with him, she probably wouldn’t even mind fobbing off a second brat on her House-elves, and Severus was certain the Malfoys would treat the boy well. He winced at the public scandal and political machinations Harry Potter’s new foster parents would provoke, but could he truly hold himself responsible for that?
“How about drawing?” He Transfigured the cubes into Muggle paper and Accio’d quills to turn into coloured felt-tips.
Perhaps he needed someone with a lower profile. Professor McGonagall? Whatever did she get up to in the summer?
He supposed his pride couldn’t be wounded any more thoroughly anyways.
“Keep to the paper," he told him, as he watched the toddler study the felt-tips without touching them. "Do not make a mess,” he hastened to add. The child blinked at him. Was he slow?
“Here. Like this.” Severus uncapped a random colour, the blue one, and squiggled on a piece of paper. Then handed it to the child.
Hesitantly, his little fist clasped the marker and the tip got smashed and dragged around on the paper a handful of times. He looked up at Severus expectantly.
“Yes. Carry on.” Severus uncapped the green one and handed it over. The blue felt-tip was abandoned, rolling on the carpet, and the new colour was added as more jagged lines on the paper. Severus opened the pink one and handed it over, resigned at colour markings appearing all over his carpet. He reckoned he could simply Vanish them. Or burn the carpet. It smelled awful, when was the last time someone had cleaned it? Was it hygienic for the child to sprawl there? He was past the age where he’d put everything into his mouth, right?
Shaking his head, Severus left the boy and hunted down parchment and quill to write a letter to Minerva McGonagall. Annoyingly, he hadn’t the faintest on how to get in contact with her through Floo.
The child seemed enamoured with his activity, which left Severus precious minutes to prepare lunch and read the day’s Prophet, his neck straining every few paragraphs to check the boy hadn’t decide to eat the markers or paint his sofa as well as his carpet.
At noon, he set the sandwich on the table and opened his mouth to call the boy to lunch.
His brain short-circuited as ‘boy’ and ‘Potter’ warred to become the official out-loud addresser. Neither felt appropriate.
Severus closed his eyes in a defeated sigh. “Harry. Lunch.”