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Recollection
By Taleya
Chapter Nineteen
It was with the pained dignity of a man facing his own execution that Harry
got to his feet. He had run the full gamut of emotions in such a short time,
perhaps there was nothing left to feel. His face was blank, expressionless as he
made his way after the mediwitch. How long had it been since all this had
started? Too long, not long enough, time fractured around his reality and
shredding like a rotten tapestry in his hands.
No emotion escaped past the mask he'd fitted over his face, a black hole had
opened up deep inside, swallowing anything in his soul. Over. Ending. Darkness.
That was all that seemed to be inside him as he made his way along the halls,
footsteps echoing hollowly in their wake. The walls seemed distorted, looming,
harkening back to darker days, a timeslip to when the school wasn't a school, it
was something else, something darker, changing to his moods.
And it was a completely different scene that met his eyes as he stepped
nervously into the infirmary. Snape was seated up in bed, clad once more in the
customary black robes, arms folded neatly around the toddler sharing his bed.
The room was warm, lit with that queer late-day light that preceded the glorious
tones of a dying sun.
He hesitated, feeling bereft and alone as Poppy left his side, then crept
towards the bed. Snape was watching him. Watching him with eyes that made him
feel uncomfortable. Words were his distraction, and he scrabbled to find
purchase on them. "You look a lot better…" it was a rather mindless banality,
but at least it was something to say.
A raised eyebrow was his only answer.
He tried again. "You wanted to speak to me?
"Yes." And Snape said no more, letting the silence fall between them. Stark,
imposing, a seemingly solid rock of silent condemnation when in reality he was
trying to work out what the hell he was going to say.
As expected, after a while Harry rushed to fill the quiet. "It's a nice name,
Araminta," he said hesitantly, pulling a chair closer and fumbling his way into
it, nodding to the toddler snoozing in the other man's lap. "Why did you call
her that?"
"I named her after my father," absently his hand stroked gently over the black
curls.
Harry's brow wrinkled. "Septerian?"
"Not him, my other father you simpering idiot," the familiar classroom derision
was back in Snape's voice. "Aramanthus."
"Oh." Harry was at a loss, feeling for the next topic. "She looks happy," he
ventured.
"She is. She's being given the childhood I suspect neither you nor I had." A
rare smile was caressing the edges of Snape's lips as he looked down at the
angel sleeping against him. "Her only worries in life are how best to steal
those abominably sticky lollies from the headmaster's desk, and what new torture
to inflict upon the staff. Last month she managed to get her hands on Flitwick's
wand and turned that damnable cat of Filch's fluorescent pink." A small smile
tweaked Harry's lips at that, and he reached out gently, hesitantly to stroke
his daughter's
hair.
"She's a little terror, isn't she?" he said with brittle brightness. "Just like
her daddy, hey little one…?" he reached out to touch a smooth cheek as she awoke
and Araminta pulled back a little, a wary expression on her face. Little hands
clung to tiny portions of Severus' cloak, a little unnerved at the attention and
smiles from this strange man.
Reaching down, Snape squeezed her hand gently, but his eyes and mind were
elsewhere. He was observing the other man, watching his eyes. And there was a
subtle wrongness to them. The wrong kind of love. Desperate,
hungry, almost as if…
And he suddenly realised why Remus had spoken out against Harry.
This wasn't the Harry he knew. Not the Harry he had spoken to initially. This
was a different Harry, less certain, more fragile, confused and scared and he
knew he would have to tread very, very carefully with the conversation. It would
be so easy to destroy the other man. Too easy, and they'd already destroyed far
too much between them.
And looking about the room, he realised this was far too public a place for the
kind of discussion they needed to have.
Gently shifting Araminta off his lap and into the bundled covers, he reached for
the cane resting beside his bed, hand closing arthritically around the silver
head of entwined snakes. Poppy stilled in her furious bustling, hands looking
for something to cover her worry and shot him a glance. She was about to speak
when a single look silenced her. Remonstration turned to worry, then a helpless
concerned fury and she turned her back again, bustling away.
Open mouthed astonishment was Harry's lot as the potions master eased himself
out of his sickbed and onto his feet. Completely befuddled, he could only stare
at the other man. He'd been injured. Horribly injured. Yet here he was, on his
feet, tall, composed, as if he'd just stalked in from terrorising a class of
first years.
Snape caught his look and raised another eyebrow. "I heal fast." The words were
sharp, cryptic and brooked no argument. "Follow me."
Harry looked bewilderedly around the room. Poppy wouldn't look at him, nor
Severus, she had turned her back, busying herself with bottles and papers.
"B-but what about our daughter?"
"Minerva will be along shortly. She's already agreed to take care of Araminta
for a little while." Straightbacked, proud, if not for the bruises it would be
hard to believe the potions master had been injured at all. "Come."
And Harry went.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pull the potions master into
conversation as he stalked along the halls, hurrying his feet a little to keep
up with those long strides. He was a man now, not a child, true, but Snape's
legs and stride were still longer, forcing him to hurry his steps and making him
feel absurdidly like a child being dragged to detention once more.
A door a little down the corridor creaked open at the touch of a hand, revealing
a long-disused room, perhaps once a sitting room, a simple stone bench the only
furniture, the torches on the wall bursting into life at their entrance, flames
flaring a little as the dust motes and cob-webs formed from long-disuse were
immolated. Snape entered first, turning to face him in that same supple gesture
he remembered so well. A touch of drama in every motion. Not for the first time
Harry found himself idly wondering what Severus Snape would have been like on
stage.
"Potter. Harry." Snape began, then paused, eyeballing the portrait of a
long-dead predecessor hanging on the wall, the sole decoration in the sparse
little room. "Do you mind?"
The portrait beamed back at him. "Don't mind me, dear fellow, I won't tell a
soul…." The smile petered out as Severus' gaze razed the collection of other
portraits crowded into his frame.
"Family reunion?" he tried.
"OUT!" the snarl left nothing but the rustling sound of old parchment and the
stale scent of dust in the air as the paintings fled, the stained mahogany frame
rocking a little in their wake. Reaching out, Severus flipped the frame over so
it was facing the wall, just to be sure.
His hand shook a little, weakness coursing through his arm and ended the motion
in a flourish, hoping Harry hadn't noticed. Dammit, he'd thought he had more
time than this.
Turning back, he saw Harry seated on the bench, smiling softly at him. "I love
you."
Severus regarded him for a long moment, steadily. Once, not too long ago in
fact, he would have considered it to be a truth of sorts. No matter how
misguided the emotion. But something had shifted between them. And those words
felt wrong.
He didn't accuse. Didn't deny. Instead, he asked a single question. A simple
one. One that had far more impact on the odd construction Harry had built for
himself than all the screamed curses in the world.
"Why?"
Harry's smile faltered. He'd never reasoned the why in the reality he'd formed.
"H-how could I not?" he stuttered, wrong footed. "You bore my child…we're a
family now. We love each other. Isn't that what families do?"
And Snape knew instantly he had hit on the crux of the problem.
Eyes closing for the sheer weight of his own thoughts, he carefully took a
seat on the bench, at what he judged a safe distance away. He steepled his
hands, studying the tips of his fingers thoughtfully for a moment.
"Harry," he said carefully. "Our relationship ended three years ago."
"I know, I know," Harry leaned forwards, horribly eager and Severus had to fight
the urge to lean away from him. "I was an idiot. I never would have left if I'd
know, Severus, I never would have said those things, I was upset, it just went
wrong, I'm sorry, I never would have said those things. I never would have…I
never would have hit you.." the words strangled and died in his throat. "I was
so wrong to do that. I know that now. I was so wrong…"
Snape fought down the snort of pure disgust that threatened to rise out of him
at the revolting display of grovelling. This wasn't Harry. Not the Harry he
knew. It didn't even remotely resemble the proud strong man he'd known and loved
three years ago. Something had happened in those years, Something had happened
in the short time since he'd seen him last. Something had broken him. And he had
to know what. "You know now." His own bitterness spilled from thin lips despite
himself. "Why didn't you know then? I would have forgiven you. I would have
loved you then."
"And you don't now." It wasn't a question.
Snape didn't answer and Harry didn't push the issue.
"Arguments happen, Harry. No relationship is perfect." His hands were shaking
again, and he let the steeple collapse into interlaced fingers to hide it once
more. "Our relationship did not end with harsh words or physical blows. It ended
in silence."
***
Silence.
It was Snape's companion this night. Now heavily pregnant, approaching the end
of term, everything seemed to ache and he'd learned to take a comfortable
position wherever he could find it. Unable to sleep, he'd settled himself
quietly at his desk, fingers tracing absent patterns on the blotter beneath
them. No sound except the muted ticking of the clock on the mantle, barely heard
under a skilful silencing spell. The noise kept Remus awake at night.
The werewolf himself was quite happily drooling over the pillows in the bedroom.
A born and bred Gryffindor wrapped up in Slytherin bedsheets. There was probably
some giant cosmic punchline in there somewhere.
Remus had taking to sleeping over of late. Not out of any sexual means - health
concerns aside they were still slowly feeling their way through the
relationship. Companionship. Simple companionship. Comfort. Something Severus
was rapidly getting used to, an addiction to which he found it deliciously easy
to fall prey.
But still, there was unpleasantness to deal with. With a sigh he pulled quill
and parchment towards him. He had no idea why, but there was a letter he had to
write. Call it vengeance. Call it petty spite, thumbing his nose, call it
catharsis, call it closure, call it forewarning - as far as he was concerned you
could call it anything you liked.
He called it a letter.
He'd never invested in a journal. What some might have seen as a way of
recording their ideals, perceptions, recording the poison in their soul down
like a wound to drain he had seen simply as the means of his own execution. Even
his own pensieve had been carefully tended and pruned. Unpleasant memories,
clutter of the mind, all of them stored away. The worst memories were the ones
he had to keep to himself, forever living in his brain.
Instead he wrote letters. The inevitable end of his writings was usually the
flame of the fireplace, but this one actually had a recipient.
He wasn't sure how to start it, as usual, so he simply jumped into the meat of
the letter. He still wasn't quite sure why he was writing it. Courtesy? Was
there a decorum that applied to situations such as these? Probably. Not that he
cared.
Like the others he had sent, he didn't know why he was writing it, watching the
quill scratch across parchment as if guided by another hand. It was hardly as if
Harry had become his confessional. Their breakup had been far from amiable.
Maybe he wrote them because he knew they would never be read.
He'd fallen in love again. As trite as it sounded. What that had to do with
Harry or why he should have to know, he had no clue, but it felt right to put it
down, it felt right to get the words out. Assuage the other man's guilt? Was
there any guilt to feel?
He snorted and tossed his quill back on the table, re-reading his efforts. It
seemed the pregnancy had turned him into the waxing philosopher.
As if in response to the thought, his child moved sleepily inside him and he
reached down to touch the motion. It was eerie. Disconnected in the middle of a
quiet spring night, the warmth of the fire driving away the brisk moon-chilled
air. There was a child inside him. A living life, growing, inside his own. The
theory was easy to state, the physical proof pushing his nightgown out to almost
buffoonish proportions, but the comprehension…..ahh that wasn't so easy. To say
was one thing, to comprehend, to fully believe was another. His child. Living,
moving inside him. His and Harry's.
Fascinated, he followed the movement with his hand, feeling the slight motion
from within and without as a foot pushed lazily against his belly. He remembered
the first time that Pomfrey had cast a scan on his child. The way that rapid,
tiny pulse had echoed through the room, the sound of a heart barely the size of
reel of cotton hammering inside a ribcage as fragile as a baby bird. Inside him.
Living, moving, the sounds of life beating deep inside him, a twin to his own,
never still. Never silent.
The flickering flames of the fireplace cast strange shadows across the words of
his letter, almost invitingly and when he picked it up he was a hair's breadth
from casting it into the greedy blaze to join its brethren.
But he didn't. Instead it was strapped to the foot of an owl and sent winging on
its way.
Cornelius Fudge, head of the minister of Magic was also awake. But not to
silence, to the ring of battle as he stroked his chin, staring into the portal
displaying the training of Unspeakable recruits.
Leaning back in his chair, he let the sounds wash over him, lost in thought.
Potter was winning. Again.
It was frightening, that much power in one single man. And worse, Potter himself
never knew just what it was he had in his possession. The love of a mother saved
him from the killing curse? Romantic, soft-hearted and utterly impossible. How
many other mothers had loved and lost? No, Lily Potter had been far, far
cleverer than anyone had ever accredited her. An incredible witch, it had been a
bad blow to lose her.
He turned his attention back to the portal, watching the smooth cut and parry of
the battle taking place in the bowels of the ministry. More than a training
ground, it harkened back to the dark days of wizardry, the days they stood
against. Know thy enemy, training as an elite of the Ministry was a lesson in
survival. And if you didn't learn in time, you died. Curses flew thick and fast
through the air. Curses that no wizard should ever know.
Save, of course, the Unspeakables.
…Saguina, curare, emptos, glaskar…
"Minister.." his night aide knocked shortly on the door, then entered, parchment
in his hands. "An owl arrived. For Potter. Marked high priority from Hogwarts."
….dalos, shinma, siestana, fabrate….
"Burn it." He said shortly.
"Sir?" startled, the young Auror stared at the head of ministry.
"Burn it and send the owl back." Fudge took the letter from his hands. "Potter
is in training. He's an Unspeakable now, and quite possibly one of the most
powerful ones we will ever have. No owls, no visits, no leave. He knows that. We
can't afford any distractions." A brief gesture and all that was left were
ashes. "If it's important, the sender knows the proper channels to contact."
Of course, the proper channels would no more pass the message on than Fudge
himself. But due course had to be observed.
Back at Hogwarts, Severus Snape absently offered his returned owl a treat before
easing himself out of his chair and padding softly to bed, to where Remus was
waiting.
He hadn't really expected an answer.
***
Severus brushed the crumbs of his memory aside. "More than once I attempted to
contact you. Many, many times, again and again with no reply. And by the fourth
month of my pregnancy, I resigned myself to the fact that I was dead to you."
"You weren't!" the words blurted from his lips without any conscious thought.
"Wasn't I?" there was no accusation in the other man's tone, none in his eyes.
"Stop thinking the thoughts others want you to think, Harry. You thought our
relationship was over. It was over. Are you in love with me, or are you
in love with an ideal? You feel pain at the sight of what you perceive as your
own failure. You wonder what might have been. Just echoes, that is all they are.
Echoes. The same echoes every human being, Muggle and Wizard has felt since time
began." Reaching forwards he touched a single finger to the other man's chin.
"Take off that mask, Harry. We've never seen the need for them before."
Emotions fought for a place on Harry's face. Pride, love, desperation, until
finally they all sagged away, leaving a tired, confused man, aged far beyond
what he should be. "Help me, Severus," he whispered. "I don't know what to do. I
want to….I want to….But there's no place for me…" his voice was lost, alone.
Like a small child abandoned in the cold.
"You are Araminta's father. That is a place that no one can take from you. It's
not a position provided to you on conditions. It simply is." The words should
have been cold. Should have been damaging, at the best simply indifferent. But
they were warm, encouraging, settling over Harry's soul like a comforting
blanket, the effects almost visible. One fear chased away. Snape took a breath,
trying to ignore the way his still-healing ribs stabbed at his lungs. Now was
for the hard part.
"But you claim to love her. On a bare acquaintance. It may hold true for
hormonal crushes, but I have never pandered to the notion of parental love
simply existing for the sake of itself. My own father was a prime example of
that. I don't accept that you love her. Not the way a parent entails." Harry
made some noise of protest but he rode over the other man's voice.
"I can see that in your eyes. As did Remus. Which is why he spoke to you as he
did. His words were unforgivable but his intent was true. How can you love her?
You barely know her. She can be a brat, the worst qualities of our houses
combined. Spoiled, noisy, like all children more often than not a detestable
sack of screaming vocal chords and insatiable curiosity. But I love her. Because
I know her. Not because someone assumed that I would. And through that knowledge
and that love, she is my child."
The conversation was turning somewhere he didn't want it. Harry had the horrid
feeling he was superfluous, inconsequential, and worse, dangerously close to
agreeing with the other man. He'd forgotten the skill that Snape had of
listening to his words, reading his emotions, seeing thoughts he didn't dare see
for himself and feeding them back to him, making him face them. No. He loved his
daughter. It didn't matter that he didn't know her, he loved her, loved her
deeply, he had to, he was her father, and Snape was too, and , and and he loved
Snape too. He did. He did!
His voice was desperate. "Severus, I love you!"
"And I don't love you." Snape said coldly, the words a slap to the face of an
hysteric. "Once again you're mouthing the words that others are supplying you.
What is expected, the noble, Gryffindor way. All your life you danced to
the tunes that others have played for you. And I despised you for it. The man I
grew to love was one that learned to miss the steps. The man I loved learned to
look beyond what was expected of him, to speak his own words. The father of my
child was the man I grew to love because he was a man, a man in his own right in
a time when he shouldn't have been forced to be. A man who rose beyond simple
expectations of him and became himself."
His tone gentled, a single hand resting on the other man's shoulder. "You are
losing that, Harry," he said softly. "I am not here to break you. That is never
my intention. But you are losing that. You are losing yourself. You are losing
to guilt, to preconceptions of what you should do. To fear of stepping wrong.
And you will step wrong, Harry. As I have. As we all have. But one wrong step is
not irrevocable. It's the beginning of a lesson. One that will last your whole
life, and hiding from it accomplishes nothing."
He pushed himself shakily to his feet, gripping the head of his cane for
support. The potion was starting to wear off, and he had to leave, now,
before he did something horrendously dramatic like collapsing at the other man's
feet and completely destroying the whole structure and impact of their
conversation.
"I wish for Araminta to know her father, not that fear. And those words
you whisper so passionately aren't the truth. There is a place for you. But only
as Harry Potter. As a father. Not a blind robot attaching his emotions to
the coat-tails of others."
He forced himself to keep walking as Harry crumpled behind him, his own mouth
twisted around a feeling he couldn't define. Memory had become pain, and Harry
wasn't the only one who still bore the scars. His mind was starting to cloud,
vision blurring in and out. He hoped he'd accomplished something, some measure
of peace, some lancing of an old infected wound between them. To rebuild was one
thing - but not on lies or misconceptions. Never that.
He paused at the door at the sound, back to the other man, hiding the pain on
his own face. "Harry," he said softly. "You have faced dementors. You have faced
death eaters. Enemies bearing the faces of friends. You have faced Voldemort
himself. Innumerable forces of darkness. And you have defeated them all. Don't
allow something as stupid as the opinions of others to destroy you now." There
was a pause, and the potions master reached out briefly to grasp the door frame,
voice gentle, gentler than the Auror had ever heard him before. "Love me, love
your daughter, it doesn't matter. Do not love us, walk away, learn to love, it
doesn't matter. Decisions made here are not ever lasting. Nor do they even
have to be made. Love is not a condition you are honour-bound to feel on the
words of others. It never is."
Then he was gone.
Severus wasn't sure how he made his way back to the infirmary. He clutched his
cane with white knuckles in his good hand, his broken, splinted fingers
scrabbling desperately at the stone walls as he fought to stay upright. It was
only a short walk, but it was an eternity to him, closing his eyes against waves
of dizziness and relying on whispered encouragement and directions from the
portraits on the walls. Concerned hands of wizards and witches long gone reached
out uselessly to catch him as he almost fell, thudding against the flat surface
of their canvas medium, a sigh of relief surging up and down the hall as he
finally staggered through the infirmary door.
Swaying in the doorway, gripping the frame for support, Severus found his lover
waiting for him, golden eyes huge with worry. He shook his head a little,
thinking he hadn't seen the werewolf look so bad in a long time. Since he'd
first taken up the position of defence against the dark arts, as a matter of
fact.
"Remus." He straightened reflexively, and couldn't deny the hiss of pain that
escaped through gritted teeth. He didn't refuse Poppy's support as she hurried
to his side, nor the werewolf's, leaning heavily on the pair as they helped him
fumble his way to the bed. Reaching up as Poppy fussed about and scurried for
wand and potions, he held the other man's eyes, forcing words out past heaves of
air as he clutched at a worn sleeve. "You." He tugged harder, almost pulling
Lupin down on top of him. "You and I have to have a talk."
Harry sat alone on one of the Quidditch stands, staring vacantly out across the
field. He wasn't really sure why he'd come here. It had been his place to think
when younger, to look out across the field and just let his mind sort itself out
without any conscious effort on his part. The sun was setting, shading the air
in soft blues and mauve, the taste of summer in the air. Not that he saw it.
"Ain't worth jumpin', if that's what yeh thinkin'" the creak of wood heralding
Hagrid's arrival, the gameskeeper moving with surprising quiet for someone so
large. Turning to stare absently at the other man, Harry never looked so young
as he did right then and the half-giant was irreversibly reminded of that
bewildered little boy he'd rescued from the muggles on his eleventh birthday.
He'd been on his way back to his hut after rolling the grass of the pitch one
last time before summer growth and had spotted the other man perched high in the
Gryffindor stands.
"Beautiful up here, ain't it?" he settled himself on the bench beside the Auror,
looking out across the field with an air of pleasure. But Harry looked like he
had other fish to fry.
They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Harry stirred. "Hagrid…was I
wrong? When I decided to stay? Everything seemed so happy, everyone's moved on,
it's not my Hogwarts any more." His eyes stayed locked on the view from the
stand, drifting across the landscape. "I don't know what to do…" a bark of
laughter welled up from his chest and was gone in an instant. "I…I don't even
know what I feel. Would it have been better if I'd never found out about I had a
da- about Araminta?"
Hagrid rocked back in his seat. Surprise burst across his face, and with a face
so large it was impossible to miss. "You didn't know? I thought yeh knew. Only
reason I blurted so loud in the first place." Guilt chased the surprise away as
he remembered his little 'talk' with Remus. "ah, shite…" his fingers twitched in
contrition and he scratched at his massive furry beard. "Thought yeh'd known and
left him…"
Betrayal larged Harry's eyes and stiffened his limbs. "You thought - you thought
I'd - "
"Hey hey hey now, don't mark me wrong." Hagrid held up a placating hand. "I'm
not laying no blame on you Harry. I didn't think you had, but I did, if yeh know
what I mean. Not laying any blame on you. I thought you knew, and you and Snape
had worked out an agreement or somesuch, when you left him. Thought I was doing
you a favour by keeping it like you two wanted. Not that I blamed yeh, no, not
at all. Some people just don't have it in them to love as parents. Me mum was
one of them. Maybe it's kinder that way, just up and leaving. Leastways I could
pretend she loved me, and she was just real far away. Better than livin' with
her day to day an' knowing she didn't. But I'm sorry. I shouldna thought that of
you."
It was odd. Harry didn't know if he wanted to feel betrayed by the fact Hagrid
thought him capable of walking from something like that, or proud that Hagrid
respected his character enough to create a reasoning for it. Shaking his head a
little, he turned his gaze away, staring back out along the pitch.
"What do I do now?" it was more to himself than anything else.
Hagrid rubbed a finger across the bridge of his giant nose. "I ain't tole no-one
this, Harry," he said quietly. "So I'd appreciate if you could keep this all
quite like for me, right?" He waited patiently for the Auror's nod.
"I met me mum for the first time a few years back. You know when Dumbledore
asked me an' Madame Maxine to speak with the giants? Ran into a woman who looked
real familiar. Well, turned out that's 'cause she was my mum. Was right weird,
I'll tell you that."
He paused for a moment, turning the memory over in his mind. "So there was me
mum. Right there. Face to face. Didn't know what I expected, right out of the
blue but…she didn't love me. Well," he rocked back a little in his seat, the
wooden bench creaking with the movement "How could she? Never knew me growing
up, all of a sudden there I am on her doorstep…" His shoulders moved in a shrug
that belied his own pain, eyes fixed on the middle distance. "Best we could
manage after a while was a bit of a friendship. Like I said, from what I'd heard
from me da' she wasn't that much of a loving type in the first place, not
really, and there was just too much years between us."
Reaching out, he gently laid a hand the size of a ham on the Auror's shoulder.
"She couldn't love me, Harry. She didn't know me. Not as a kid, the best she
could do was get ta know the man I am now. But you have those years. Those young
ones, the important ones. You and 'minta. And don't you let none take them from
you. Not Perfessor Remus, not anyone. You're her father. And you've got the
chance to still be one while she really needs you."
Reaching into a pocket of his giant hairy coat, he fished out a handkerchief and
dabbed with an odd delicacy at his eyes. "Gah. Look at me. Blubberin' like a
babe." He hefted his bulk off the seat. "I've got to get the Horizanal's fed and
bedded down before the sun sets or they'll be in a right mood for class
tomorrow." He cocked his head down at the other man. "Want to join me? Bit o'
work is great for clearing the mind, and we can talk more if you like…"
The offer touched Harry and a genuine smile caressed his face for the first time
in a while. "no…I'm all right. I think I'll just sit up here…" he waved absently
at the pitch, the sunset, the castle in general. "Just sit here and think for a
bit."
The half-giant picked him up in a huge hug and he almost disappeared into the
folds of the other man's coat. "You come see me, Harry, all right?" the tones
were muffled. "You sit up here and you do your thinking and when you're right to
talk, you come down and see me, ok? Ain't going to have to do this alone, you've
got your friends here, you've got Ron and Hermione, and Neville and me. And
more. And we're all here for you, all right?" He let the Auror down slowly,
hesitated, then patted his head before making his way down the stairs.
Hands gripping his own arms, Harry returned to his vigil of the mind. He blinked
slowly, staring off into the distance as the memory of Hagrid's words washed
over him. The same words everyone had said. The same thoughts everyone else had.
And if everyone had them, didn't that mean they were right?
The sun caught the edge of a quaffle hoop, reflecting into his face and he
squinted his eyes against it. Then again, Everyone had said that Sirius Black
had betrayed his parents. Everyone had said that werewolves were dangerous.
Everyone said that giants and half-giants were evil. Everyone said that Snape
was a cold, unfeeling bastard, a death eater, a murderer of the worst kind.
Everyone…
Everyone…
Everyone said that he should love his daughter without knowing her, without
caring for her, simply because he had fathered her.
The sun was slipping away, deep blue shading to black slowly encroaching on the
dim gleam of the day. Delicate painted clouds pattered about the sky, the flight
of an owl dancing across the darkening heavens, a scene painted by nature on a
canvas no artist could possibly hope to achieve or emulate but he saw none of
it, mind exploding with a sudden realisation.
Everyone was full of shit!
And somewhere, deep inside, the real Harry Potter finally stood up.
The castle was warm against the growing chill of night as he made his way
inside. A few questions to awed students had him on his way to McGonagall's
chambers, mind still churning and a little stunned at his newfound freedom. He
felt like grinning stupidly, or doing something loud and obnoxious but
first….first he had a little girl to see.
The door opened at his approach and he leaned against the doorframe, just
watching, peeking into a tiny, private life. And what he saw, made him indeed,
grin stupidly.
The toddler was chasing a cat around the room, giggling madly, every so often
catching the feline and cooing as she stroked the soft fur. Stopping
mid-pursuit, she blinked up at him in the doorway, then waved a greeting.
The cat turned, saw him, and he swore it blushed. Then in the blink of an eye,
Professor McGonagall stood where the cat had been. "Mister Potter!" she
hurriedly smoothed her robes a little, touching loose wisps of hair into place
and generally trying to pretend she hadn't spent the past half hour playing
gleefully with a rampant two year old. Araminta scowled at the loss of her
plaything, features twisting into an expression usually found on her other
father's face.
Harry choked down his laughter and made his way into the room. Oh, what he would
have given to have had that image in his head any one of hundreds of times his
old head-of-house had pulled him across the coals as a child. The
transfigurations professor had a slightly panic-stricken look on her face, but
she didn't interfere as the Auror bent down and picked up his daughter. She'd
been there for the fight between Harry and Remus, but she'd also decided
privately that the ultimate onus was on Snape himself, no matter what she'd
seen, and Severus hadn't forbidden the other man from seeing his daughter. Then
again, if he had she probably would have disregarded him anyway.
Araminta shifted herself comfortably in her father's arms, staring up at
him. "I've got something to tell you," he told her seriously and she stilled.
She knew that tone of voice, it was one her papa used when he told her important
things, or great secrets. It was the tone he'd used when telling her about how
her Remuu turned into a giant wolf on some nights, and how he had a special
medicine so he wouldn't hurt her, and that he would never hurt her, no matter
what other stupid people said. It was that tone of voice, and she listened
attentively to the sad little man who had brought her home to her papa.
Harry paused for a moment, moving to look away , then turning his eyes back. He
was suddenly afraid. Would it be so easy? So simple as a single realisation
shake off the expectations, to take this path to learn how to love? Could he
even love, the way a parent did? Did he even have it in him?
/ You will step wrong, Harry. As I have. As we all have. But one wrong step
is not irrevocable. It's the beginning of a lesson. /
Severus' words floated through his mind, bolstered him and he let out a slow
breath, the fear easing. It didn't completely vanish. Maybe it never would. And
maybe he never would love her as a parent.
But he was going to find out.
He held his daughter in his arms for a moment, green eyes staring into green.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I don't love you." The truth set him free. Remus had
been right after all. He heard McGonagall make some choked noise behind him, and
he drew Araminta closer, wrapping both arms around her in a tentative hug. "I
don't love you….I don't even know you yet. Give me a little time?" this last was
soft, plaintive.
Araminta stared up at him, green eyes penetrating green. Then she reached
forwards and pressed his nose. " 'kay."
To be continued...
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