Recollection

By Taleya

Chapter Twenty-One

It was hard sometimes, watching Remus and Severus together. He supposed he'd never been able to fully close that chapter of his life.  He never knew if he'd be able to. But he persevered, taking it one day at a time, one step at a time.

"ASHIO!"

And avoiding blocks thrown at his head.

"Accio" Snape remarked absently from the couch.  The potions master was comfortably ensconced in its overstuffed depths with a periodical while Harry played with his daughter. "A hard ‘ch'. Like cheese."

"Acheeo!" This time the block hit Harry in the back of the head.

"Good girl." Snape turned another page.

Harry rubbed the growing lump and winced, resigned. He was still unsure enough of his place with his daughter to discipline or refuse her anything, afraid on some subconscious level that all it would take would be one scowl and accusing finger and he would lose it all.

Which of course, left Remus to the part of Disciplinarian.  Snape was completely and utterly unwilling to even make an attempt. The only discipline he ever saw as important was that of the mind. Sirius had smirked something about being a Slytherin, and Snape breeding for chaos and panic, a remark that drew merely a raised eyebrow and comments about breeding and puppies that Harry didn't really understand, but had the Animagus chuckling.  It was odd, seeing his godfather more readily at ease with the potions master than Harry himself.

Remus had whistled innocently and sang something about fingers and wrapping under his breath. Not that it was really true. Wrapped, yes. But the only person Araminta really took the word "no" for an answer from was Snape.  The only mandates she wouldn't try to circumvent were his.  Then again, the words ‘eat your food', ‘sit up straight' or a thousand other stereotypical parental remonstrations never passed his lips in rebuke. Instead, they were conspiracies against hoi polloi, encouragements.  Araminta was a lady of the house of Snape, and she knew it.

In fact, most times she could be the perfect lady. The epitome of dignity when the occasion warranted it, and very much like her birthing father.  Behind the scenes, however, she was very much like her other father would have been, if not for the Dursleys, poking about and running...the word was ‘rampant', in all its glory and connotations.

"Araminta Snape, if you even attempt to throw that block at me, I will feed you to the snakes." Severus wasn't even looking up from his book, one long, pale hand reaching up to turn a page, the other gesturing idly at the tank under the Slytherin standard dominating one wall of the sitting room.

"Ssssssnakes!" Dropping her hefted block and running across the room, the toddler plastered her face up against the glass wall of the tank, blowing blubbery kisses and hissing happily. "Hissy hissy! Hissy hissy!"  Marks on the glass were evident of earlier displays of affection.

Severus snorted, but there was a kiss of affection to it. "Children. So easily distracted."

Still rubbing his head, Harry rocked forward a little, sitting comfortably on the rug, hands dangling between his knees. "She's got a fair amount of wandless magic there," he remarked.

Snape scratched idly at his nose and turned another page, more leafing idly through the potions journal than really reading it. "All children do. It's much like flexibility – they only lose it when they start depending on a wand as a crutch." He snorted dismissively.

"Foolish wand-waving?" he couldn't resist it.

"Oh shut up Potter before I feed you to the snakes."

Harry bit his lip and looked away before the snigger broke out openly.  Their daughter was pressing pursed lips up against the glass of the tank, blowfishing her way across the surface, watched by two very bedraggled and put-upon serpents.  Somewhere in the hall a clock chimed the hour. Remus would be back from teaching his classes in an hour or so.

"They won't hurt her will they?" the thought suddenly struck him.

"They're defanged. Completely harmless." Another idle turn of a page. "Besides, they know better than to hurt her, and she knows better than to stick her hand in a snake tank. Unlike a certain student I recall."

"Papa! Papa! Snakies wants more mice!"  The potions journal was finally put down as the toddler trotted back to them and Severus reached out to wipe a smudge off her nose.

"The snakes were fed shortly before Harry arrived. You know that, Araminta," he remonstrated gently. "You can't feed snakes too much, otherwise they explode. And then we would have a rather large mess to clean up."

Araminta pouted. "But papa, they said they're hungry."

"They can wait until supper like the rest of us. Care to explain that to them?" He picked up his journal again as his daughter darted back to the tank, hissing away.

Harry stared at him, eyebrow raised in the obvious question.  Snape gave him much the same put-upon expression as the snakes. "She claims she can talk to the snakes, and that the snakes talk back." The two men watched their daughter for a while, hissing back and forth.  "I don't know if she's a parselmouth, or just indulging in a toddler's fantasy. Personally I think it's the latter. "

"She could be though.." Harry knew he had a bit of a stupid smile on his face at the evidence that there was some part of him in there after all.  "I mean, I am."

"There's always the possibility." Snape pulled his periodical up and raised an eyebrow at Harry over the cover, before nodding at the happily hissing toddler.  "But those are Audno snakes. They're deaf."

"Oh..."

Eventually the potions journal began to droop in tired hands, black eyes beginning to lid with exhaustion.  Harry caught the journal before it could hit the floor, the sudden motion jerking the other man awake.

"mm?"

 "You ok?" Old habit twitched his fingers to brush aside a wayward lock of hair. Harry resisted the urge, then gave in to it. "You look tired."

"I am tired." Severus rubbed a hand across his face, stained fingertips working at a crease between his eyebrows. "Poppy said it would be a while until I was fully healed." Brief irritation flashed across his features in a way Harry knew well. They may not have been lovers any more, but he could almost mouth along with the other man's thoughts. *if I'm going to sleep I will not do it like some decrepit grandmother napping over her knitting in front of the fire and therefore –*

"I'm going to bed." Those long, pale hands shook a little as he pushed himself to his feet, and Harry got to his own to help him, steadying the older man as he swayed.  To his surprise, Severus didn't shake off the support, leaning gratefully into it as they made their way across the room. "Thank you, Harry. Araminta, please get out from under my feet, you are not a cat." 

"Meeow!" the toddler giggled and scampered back to her blocks. 

Severus' hands were trembling so badly with fatigue he could barely unfasten the soft loose shirt he wore.  Harry watched him, feeling an awful pity, then reached forward, gently batting away those slim, usually strong hands and doing it for him. No argument, nothing but the angry chuff of a man chafing at his own frailty.   There was no sensuality in the touch, no sex to it, it was the simple, impersonal feel of helping the infirm.  Which was good, it meant he could fight the slight zing through his fingertips every time they skimmed across that pale skin, still his tongue against words that weren't wanted as he lifted that dark mane of hair over the neck of the nightshirt.

Was he still in love with Snape, or was he in love with a memory?  Was the love of a lover or the love of an ex-lover? The love of a parent, the love of a child? Or was it simply just the love of a friend?  There were thousands of different types of love, and he was just beginning to discover them. 

His hands stilled as he helped Snape pull the blankets over himself, gaining his first proper look at the room. 

It hadn't really changed. 

Oh there were a few touches here and there – just enough to remind him that another man slept here now.  He found himself staring at the side of the bed that so long ago was marked as ‘his', knowing it wasn't anymore.   It felt....unreal.  A well-known place suddenly turned unfamiliar.  Not his glass on the smooth dark surface of the bedside table.  Not his scent on the sheets. 

He resisted the sudden urge to beat the pillow away from the smooth plump rectangle it was into his own bunched ball of preference. 

"Harry?"  he realised Snape was watching him, wary, and he let go of the blanket.

 "I'll be in the sitting room, if you need anything." And he left the room, fled before it overwhelmed him.

Time. He just needed time. And he had it, he should take it. Learn over again.  Set himself to rights.

His hands jumbled over a pile of blocks on the floor, forming odd geometric shapes, then destroying them again. Time. All he needed. Time.

"Daddy-Harry…."  Araminta sidled into his view, face bearing that coy expression all little children get when they’re about to zero in on an easy mark and ask something they know they shouldn’t. “Can you take me broom-riding?”

His grip on the blocks eased a little, pushing a stray strand of hair from his eyes. “Not tonight, it’s too dark, ‘minta.  Tomorrow, ok?”

Tiny features turned into a scowl that most of Hogwarts had learned to fear. “I want to go ride my broom now.”

“It’s too dark, Araminta.” Was that his voice? Some part of him wondered crazily. “I will take you riding tomorrow. If you behave.”  She started to whine, but somehow he managed to stay firm. “Tomorrow.”

"Congratulations. You've just learned how to say ‘no.' " He looked up, a little startled.  The werewolf was standing in the doorway, watching them.

"Remus..." he still felt a little stilted around the other man, the feeling hammered harder by the squeal of delight Araminta gave, launching herself at him, thoughts of brooms and whines forgotten. Her preference was more than evident.

"How was class?" it was stiff, artificial, and he knew it.

"Oh, the usual. Boggarts and Grindylows and Kappas, oh my!" the werewolf  bounced Araminta up in the air as she squealed in delight, then sat himself down on a chair, the toddler perched in his lap.

"Snakies want food, but papa said they can wait until dinner," Araminta informed him importantly.

"Ahh," Remus nodded sagely. "So I better not go near the tank or they'll gobble me up!"

"Heee, silly Remuu." Araminta giggled and patted his knee. "Daddy-Harry put Papa to bed, he's sleeping, want me to go wake him up?"

"No, let him sleep. You know how grumpy he gets if you wake him up." Remus affected a look of mock-horror. "I'm not that brave!"  Setting the little girl down on the floor, with a hug, he patted her backside gently, pushing her towards her toys.   "Why don't you play with your blocks for a little while, while Harry and I have a talk?"

"mmmokay."

Harry felt his back stiffen, fingers clenching around the blocks in his hands. Remus was looking at him, the gaze making his cheeks flush and gut clench without any conscious intervention from the mind.

"Harry..."

He forced himself to look up, to meet the other man's eyes, and almost physically jerked in startlement at the look in them. Not condemning, not imperious, hesitant, worried, even. Sorrowful...

Remus' voice was soft. "I realised I never apologised to you."

Harry's brow wrinkled. "Yes you did..." it was the olive branch that had allowed stilted conversation rather than attempting to kill each other for the sake of ego.

 "Not specifically, not for what I said outside the infirmary. I'd like to do that now. I'm sorry." He said it without preamble or pride.  "I'm sorry for what I said, about the cup- for what I said. I shouldn't have said it that way. Not to anyone. Especially not to you."

The Auror didn't look up, head bowed, hands idly shifting the blocks around as his daughter waved some sort of figurine on a broom under his nose. 

"Harry?"

"I'm sorry, Remus. I'm just not that good at accepting apologies, you know?"

Remus sagged a little sadly at this. "You can't forgive me?"

"I can! I can, I do, I mean. Merlin knows we both said a lot of things. I don't think either of us was that sane at the time. I just...." He blew a bang out of his face with an embarrassed grin. "I just never know what to say in situations like this."

Remus smiled back. "I've never learned quite how to take apologies either."

They sat there in silence for a moment, both of them watching the toddler zooming the little toy broom through the air.

Once again it was the werewolf who broke it. "Sirius tells me you've been finding out about Severus' pregnancy," it was more an icebreaker than any real conversation.

"Yeah..." a smile quirked the edge of Harry's mouth. "Did he really get thrown out into Hogsmeade?"

Remus laughed. "Flat on his backside in the middle of the square.  Which is probably a good thing, I think Sev was ready to make good on his promise to punt him off the astronomy tower."

Harry laughed with him, but it was mostly mechanical, mind working and steeling itself to the next question.

"Remus...You were there. Can you tell me what happened next?  Please?"

Instantly the laughter died, an odd evasiveness taking its place. "I don't think it's right..."

"It's not right for me to know how my daughter was born?" Harry gestured to the toddler, now sprawled on her back and pushing the broom around with her feet. "I've missed so much of her life, Remus. All I have are other people's memories." Bitterness tinged his tone. "That's all I have.  Don't keep that from me too."

Torn, Lupin chewed the inside of his cheek, hand fidgeting with his sleeve. "Harry." He decided to be blunt. "It won't be what you want to hear. It might upset you - "

The Auror met his eyes evenly, and Remus realised once more that it was a man he was speaking to. Not a child. A man.

"You're right. It might. But I still want to know."

***

Old friends or no, some private, secret part of Remus was glad that Sirius had tripped the wards.  He had been panicking too much - and like everything else the animagus displayed, it had the tendency to be overwhelming and infectious.

 Remus himself was cool, calm and collected. Of course he was. Not panicking in the slightest. And his hands were most definitely not shaking a little, and that feeling twisting deep inside his stomach had nothing to do with fear.

He clasped his hands over each other and rubbed them together a little, ostensibly to ward away the chill, despite the warmth of the air.  Nothing to worry about. Happened all the time, well with women. Millions of humans had been born without a concern.  He was just overreacting, that was all.  And his hands were cold.

After a brief examination, Severus had emerged from the infirmary, much to the werewolf's surprise.   The old witch didn't see a reason to break out the boiling water and clean sheets yet - in fact, she knew from old experiences that time limited in the infirmary being poked and prodded would be less stressful to the wizard, and suggested he found somewhere comfortable to relax.  The real drama wouldn't start for a while by her reckoning, and there was no reason to start mother henning and ‘harassing' the man.

Severus chose the rose garden.  Rather quixotic for the potion master's tastes, but it was quiet, and above all nice and private.  Remus shepherded him carefully out there, nervous hands reaching perhaps a little too much to help, finally twitching and closing over one another as Snape gingerly settled himself on a bench, air hissing a little from his teeth as his currently most tender parts met the hard surface, then again as he got up from the rapidly unbearable position.

Severus paced about for a few minutes, finally settling down in a completely undignified, but at least marginally comfortable half-kneel, half-squat right there on the grass. Bugger dignity.  His face twitched a little as various pains made themselves felt, his belly cramping and little curlicues twinged up his spine and along his legs.

Remus fussed and fluffed, finally crouching down beside him. "Are you all right?"

"I'm in labour, Lupin. What do you expect?" Pain made his words sharp, and with a muffled groan of defeat the potions master gracelessly toppled forwards until his nose hit the grass, backside in the air, legs half curled underneath him.  Ridiculous, but at least it worked at easing some incipient pressure deep inside.  Arms wrapped around his midriff, he rubbed his cheek a little against the cool grass, letting out some sort of completely humiliating fluffy sound as Remus' hands got to work on the small of his back.

The werewolf hesitated for a moment, then gently pressed his lips to the back of the other man's neck. Severus wasn't a very tactile man and he was never quite sure how his gestures would be accepted.  His heart ached as the muscles under his hands tightened again with the pain of another contraction and he wished there was something, anything he could do to take it away.

Poppy had laughed, but not-laughed at concerns of any pain-relieving potions would affect the baby during delivery.  Women  had been giving birth aided by potions and charms for centuries, and in that respect Severus really wasn't any different….if not for Voldemort.

The dark lord had had a penchant for tormenting his followers. The Cruiciatus was a favourite, and while an extended time under the curse could cause insanity, long term exposure worked away at the nerves and pain receptors of the body. Any potion strong enough to work at the pain of giving birth *would* be strong enough to harm the baby as well.

Crouching behind the other man, gently stretching his body along the length of curved back, Remus let his hands slip under and tangle with those long fingered hands curled around the other man's belly.  "I'm here," he said simply.

Severus arched up a little into his embrace, the fingers tangled with his squeezing a little tighter. "I know."

Time seemed to slow and freeze as they curled together, then gradually melt again, seconds slipping past them, minutes, hours, who knew, who cared.  No further words were said between the two - they rarely seemed to need them.

The werewolf felt another contraction lift and harden the belly under their interlaced fingers and gently returned the grip against his fingers, murmuring soothing, nonsensical words into the other man's ear, feeling his lover's breath hitch unevenly under his cheek as they rode it out together.

It peaked, tightened, then slowly ebbed away, leaving the potions master almost boneless with relief in his embrace.

"I have something…to give you…" control was fought for and won with each word, normal tones somehow vaguely sacrilegious in the soft rose-scented air. "Let me up."

Remus leaned back, gently pulling his lover with him, taking his weight, supporting it, until the other man was seated between his splayed legs.  Hands resting on the swollen belly, he watched as stained fingers reached inside the sleeve of a robe, carefully controlled so that only the barest tremor showed, and withdrew a carefully bound collection of paper.

Pressing the parchments into his hands, Severus slowly leaned forward again, taking any comfortable position he could find as the werewolf undid the knot binding the bundle of papers.

They were blank.

He shot a confused look at his lover, then shuffled them a little in his hands. Official seals flickered past his eyes, then gradually words began to emerge on a single sheet.  Spelled only to be readable by his eyes. A listing of documents.

Parchment spilled across the grass from his shaking grasp as he realised the magnitude of what he held in his hands.  Last will and testament. Personal papers, all written in truth-telling ink, and spelled only to be readable on his lovers death. Papers naming his daughter's father, if the other man could even be bothered to acknowledge the fact. And another, binding in soul's blood with the strongest charms in existence naming Remus as her guardian, in perpetuity, with all the power of the House of Snape and most ancient spells of binding behind it.  It was a decree that couldn't be broken. Not even by the ministry itself.

Remus was staggered.  He knew his lover was careful to and beyond the point of abject paranoia, but this….

“I can’t accept this!” the words blurted out of his mouth without any conscious intervention from his brain. Everything Severus owned was placed in his hands.   He jerked to his feet, like a marionette in the hands of a madman, pacing the rose garden. "I can't take this Severus!"

"You can, and you will." The words were muffled, but distinct.  "If I should die during childbirth – " 

"Don't say that! You're not going to die!" panic pushed his words, the unspoken fear between them finally vocalised. "You're not!"

"- If I die, I ask for you to bring up my daughter." His tone gentled. " I trust you, Remus. You love her already, and she isn't even born yet. You won't coddle her, or hide her from things she needs to know.  Nor will you push her to things she should not know. You will protect her, and support her in whatever her life may bring…" his voice scattered a little at that last, the possibility of never even seeing his own child etching its own pain, then firmed once more with resolve.  "If I do die, then I know that at least my daughter will be cared for and loved."

"Don’t - "

Turning his head a little to the side, Severus fixed the other man with a slant-eyed look.  "Don't what, precisely? Don’t tell the truth? Remus, I am about to give birth. Bring forth offspring of dubious parentage. Pop, as one student so delicately put it.   It’s a talent I inherited from my father, Aramanthus Snape who died giving birth to me.” There was no point prettying it up. “There is a very real chance that I may follow in his footsteps and I will be damned to hell before I –“ The words were cut off as Snape yelped. Not the usual wince, or hiss of pain that Remus had come to expect here and there from contractions, but a yelp that sounded almost comical.

"Severus?" Remus got down beside him on all fours, peering into the other man’s face, feeling fear begin an urgent flutter at the base of his ribs. “Severus?”

The other man reached up and gripped his forearm, the bottom of his robes already beginning to darken with newly broken waters. "Poppy. Now."

***

"We got to the infirmary pretty fast – Dumbledore had modified the wards somehow for us, allowing limited apparition within the grounds themselves, and – Harry?"

The Auror's face had gone a horrible grey colour. "I-I have to go."  He pushed himself to his feet, the old, hatefully familiar feeling creeping back – had it ever really left? "I have to –"

"Harry, no."  Remus' hands were on his arms, but they didn't pin him to the seat half as much as those worried golden eyes. "*Listen* to me Harry. Please. That was then, this is now. You weren't there then, Severus asked *me.* He knew there was a chance he could die, and he wanted his child to be taken care of. And not just me, those papers marked Sirius as well. He asked Sirius, do you have any idea how much it cost his pride back then to ask Sirius Black to raise his only child? Sirius was the only link we had to your family, to you and Severus wanted his daughter to have that. Your daughter."  His voice softened. "Your daughter. Not mine. Yours."

The hands on his arms started to tremble a little, and as he looked into the other man's eyes, Harry saw the same shadowed fear he knew haunted his own, even now.  The fear of losing his daughter, his family, if not by blood, then by love.

Their hands shifted, turned, and suddenly Remus' hands weren't holding him down anymore, their fingers were interlaced, gripping tight and now it was Harry who was comforting the other man.

"You were scared, weren’t you?” he asked wonderingly.  “That’s why you said what you did. You were scared.”

“Terrified.” Remus’ voice was dry, throat making an audible click as he swallowed.  “More even than you. You’re her father. And I…I’m nothing. No one. I have no claim, no right, nothing."

"Don't say that!" He said it with an intensity that frightened himself. "Don't say that, don't even think that, Remus. You were there for Severus when I wasn't. You were there when she was born. You heard her first word, you saw her take her first step. You are her family.  All I did was father her.  I have nothing. Nothing here but a fact of happy accident that I happened to be the one that donated sperm. You have her. You have Severus, then I came back and you didn’t have to accept me into your family. But you did. How can you expect me to do any less?

“How could I not??” Remus jerked and tried to pull away. “You’re her father!”

Harry didn’t let go, tightening the grip on the fingers interlaced with his own, pulling their palms closer together. “And you’re her Remuu.  I’m her Daddy, but what does that mean to her? It’s just a word, and I don’t think she even understands the meaning of it. The meaning, the feelings tied up with the word ‘daddy’ are already in her heart.  And she calls them Remuu.”

“Do so know what daddy means.” A little ball of toddler squirmed her way between them. “Daddy-Harry is daddy because he helped Papa make me in his tummy. And Remuu is my Remuu because me and papa love him.  So Remuu is my daddy and Harry is my daddy, and Papa is my Papa.”  And she sat back in Harry's lap, issue resolved, smug with her plethora of parents while the laughter of her family rained around her.

If only others had been so easy to convince.

“Watch me Daddy-Harry! I’m flying! I’m flying!”

“I’m watching sweetheart.”  Like a hawk.  It was a child’s broom, and spelled so that it wouldn’t rise any higher than two feet, but he still fussed. He couldn’t imagine what Severus would say if their daughter repeated Neville’s first time airborne.

The potions master and Remus had elected to stay indoors, leaving the pair alone. It was ‘Harry time’ – they’d all agreed that the Auror would spend some time alone with his daughter, letting them get to know each other without the presence of others interfering.  And it had the added bonus of allowing the other two men some private time of their own.

Araminta wobbled a little on the broom, then tightened her grip a little, rising it a little higher.  Delighted laughter rippled across the air as she pushed it forward, then back, a light breeze stirring her hair as she turned a laborious corner. “I’m flying, Daddy-Harry!”

"I'm watching!" for the first time he believed that adage about having kids made you feel like one. He remembered his first time on a broom, the feel of the wind in his hair the ultimate, crazy completely unmuggle realisation that he was flying, really flying, not sitting in a plane staring remotely at the clouds but flying among them, close enough to touch.

Maybe that memory was what distracted him.

 “Look daddy-Harry! Owllllll!!”  And indeed, a mail owl was making its way across the field, wings sagging a little under the weight of a gigantic parcel. With a wild laugh the toddler chased it as it flew over them, pushing her little broom as fast as it would go (and not very fast at that to tell the truth)

She wasn’t that very far away from her father – a bare ten metres at most, but it felt like a thousand miles when the owl finally drooped and dropped under the weight of the parcel, plummeting towards the laughing toddler.

With a scream, laughter turned to blind panic as the little girl threw her hands up to protect her face.  The broom spun crazily around for a moment, both at the loss of guidance and sudden pummelling by owl, then finally dumped her onto the grass with a soft thud.

It happened in a blink of an eye and Harry swore his heart stopped beating.

"ARAMINTA!"

She wasn't hurt. She couldn't be hurt. It was just a little fall, just a little fall she wasn't hurt she couldn't be hurt…

But the body he turned over in frantic hands was terrifyingly silent and still, and for an instant he had the horrific thought that she was dead…

Then the chest under his hand dragged in a deep breath…and let it out in an ear-splitting wail of tears.

It was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

"Shh baby, shh sweetheart, daddy's here, it's ok, it's all right, you're not hurt, it's ok…" even as the words tumbled from his lips his hands were gently touching, examining, reassuring himself of their truth.  Comforted, he wrapped both arms around his daughter and held her tight to his chest, rocking back and forth on his knees. "Shh, it's ok, it's ok…."

But like all small children when they were hurt or injured, she would not be consoled by him. She wanted her

"PAPA!!!" She was screaming now, tiny hands clinging to him even as she wailed for another, utterly beside herself with fear that only one thing was on her mind – to get to her Papa, to wrap herself up in his arms and know that he could keep the world away from her and never let it hurt her.

Holding tightly, Harry pushed himself to his feet, a little frightened by the intensity of her tears.  Leaving broom and battered owl behind, he made his way to the castle, muttering endless reassurances, hands ghosting from stroking his daughter's back, to her hair, then back again, feeling something undefinable gnaw at his chest.  Fear, he finally realised.  Abating fear from the fall, rising fear of what Severus would say, a crazy mental image of walking through the castle doors and finding the potion's master standing there, arms folded, foot tapping, voice the echoing boom of some giant figure.  "What have you done to my daughter??"

But when he shouldered his way though the doors, crying child nestled to his chest there was nothing there but portraits.

Pressing his lips to his daughter's forehead, Harry made his way across the entrance hall and jumped, a little scream of his own nearly breaking loose from frazzled nerves as a voice screeched at him across the room.

"HARRY POTTER WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THAT CHILD??"

Araminta jumped in his arms, wails gaining even more volume as he turned to see Professor Sinistra stalking across the flagstones towards him from the Great Hall.  Not now, please not now… he hurried down the stairs leading to Severus' rooms and safety, hoping to get away from the witch before she started in on him.  There were those in the castle who avoided him, and there were those that he avoided.  And Sinestra was one of the worst. In her eyes he had no place here, no place with his daughter, no place anywhere Severus, or indeed within a hundred kilometres of the school itself. As she went to great pains to tell him at every given opportunity.

In the old days he supposed he would have met the confrontation, stood up for himself.  But now it was easier just to run. Besides, there was no way he could even pretend to lay claim to any semblance of innocence with what she accused him of.

"POTTER!" her voice followed him like a Beansidhe wail as he bolted down the remainder of the stairs, her feet following fast behind him. Insanely, he felt a bubble of laughter well up inside him. A fully grown man with a wailing toddler fleeing an elderly woman  – it felt like some demented plot from The Brittas Empire,  or Mister Bean or any of the other muggle comedy shows he used to peer through the crack in the kitchen door and watch as a child, drawn by Dudley's uproarious laughter.

Haring along the short corridor he took a turn rapidly, feeling his daughter press her face into his collarbone, tiny hands gripping at the nape of his neck, catching hold of the short hairs there and pulling them painfully.  And Sinistra was still hounding him!

And then he saw one of the most beautiful things he'd seen all day.  Severus Snape himself, limping rapidly along the long corridor to meet them, drawn by some parental instinct to his daughter's cries.

Araminta wailed even louder, if that was possible, leaning out of his grasp, into her papa's, twining her arms around his neck and clutching tight enough to strangle.

"What happened?" Severus was already clutching his daughter tightly, heart thudding in his chest, hands sliding over her, checking for injury.  He had faced some of the most horrific things of his generation, but the one thing that terrified him beyond compare was a scream from his own child.  Snuggled safely in his arms, her wails slowly eased to damp sniffles.

"An owl knocked her off her broom – "

"An OWL?" Sinistra broke in, pinched features painted with fury. "A likely story. And pray tell Mister Potter how did an owl get close enough to Araminta to knock her off her broom?  I thought that even you would know better than to take a two year old on a fully functional broom! She's barely old enough for a training broom! Such an stupid, irresponsible – "

"Was she hurt?" Much to the witch's disappointment, Severus didn't seem interested in laying the blame.  He was far more concerned with his daughter's well-being, and the rantings of his fellow professor had been resigned to little more than background noise.

"She only fell a little way," Harry gabbled hastily. "I think she's more scared than anything else – "

"Only by pure blind chance!" Sinistra broke in again. "Severus I don't know why you let this…this…" she sputtered furiously "anywhere near your daughter! He can't even take care of her properly! He abandoned you, and all rights to be father when you were pregnant, and now – "

Severus paused in his examination of his daughter and stared at the woman with frosty eyes. "Shut up, Sinistra."

The astronomy mistress turned a bright, beet-red that didn’t suit her at all. "Severus! I was merely – "

"I will repeat myself since you seem incapable of comprehending simple instructions. Shut up."

"Well!" she seemed on the verge of saying more, but wisely decided against it, gathering her robes around her with indignant motions. "Well!"   Much to her chagrin, Snape ignored her completely, turning his attention back to his daughter. She turned her fury back to Harry instead.

"You may have Severus fooled, Mister Potter" venom dripped from every word. "But there are a great many of us, staff and students alike that will not stand by and idly let you take advantage of an injured man. If we had our way – "

"Sinistra -" for once in his life, Severus Snape was completely lost for further words – not at the display of vitriol, for he had seen plenty of that in his life – but at the fact that it was directed in defence of him.

"Severus." A sharp biting nod of her head, then Sinistra was gone, the potion master's face crafting an oddly contemplative look as he watched the woman stalk down the hall, heeled boots clipping the stone floors angrily.  Then it snarled into an anger of his own. One hand tightened a little around his daughter's waist, the other gripping his cane hard as he took a step after the retreating witch.

Harry caught his shoulder. "Don't." The Auror said quietly. "It's not worth it."

Once again, Severus could only gape.  Harry Potter, backing down from a confrontation? Unthinkable. Impossible. It was an innate bullish Gryffindor trait the other man had in spades.

Harry looked away, but the other man was too damn intuitive.  "This isn't the first time this has happened, is it?"

He didn’t answer.

"How long has this been going on?" Severus' eyes narrowed as he saw the other man begin to fidget.

"It's nothing, really...I mean, they're right, in a way. Remus has said a lot worse - "

"Remus had his reasons, knew the entire story and was directly involved." Snape cut him off.

"Where is Remus anyway?" he tried desperately to change the subject.

"Asleep. Don't avoid the issue." Damn.

"They're just words, Sev." Harry said softly. "Just stupid words from stupid people. Remember? You told me once that the only people who can turn on you are the ones that never really knew you in the first place."

At that, Snape had to look away. He had done his own share of turning. As had they all.  He stared for a long time at the toddler sitting in his lap, leaning against his chest, quietly sucking her thumb.   He had dared to think he'd known enough of Harry to bear his child – yet at the same time had known little enough to think he would abandon that child.

But that was his fault. His mistake, and he had the right to make that. The idea of others doing the same infuriated him. Infuriated was the word, it sent a simmering fury deep in his belly. How dare they? Their golden boy, their hero, their saviour, what they were feeling wasn’t anything on Snape's behalf, it was a way to lash out at an icon tarnished, a hero who had turned out to be human.  And given the fact that Harry was trying, really trying - that was intolerable.

"Severus?" A hand was waving back and forth in front of his face.  Abruptly he snapped back to himself and with a little help, got to his feet.

"Come inside and have a shower," he said softly. "You smell. And Araminta needs a bath."

Dinner in the great hall. Always a grand affair.  But this time, as Albus Dumbledore rose to give his nightly speech, a certain potions master rose and took his place.

A few titters rose up in the hall at the look of sheer befuddlement on the Headmaster's face, the matching looks on other staff members, a babble of voices rising and falling in the curious mutter of over a thousand students.  Severus merely stood there throughout it, waiting, watching.

After a while he began to gradually tap his cane against the stone floor.

Silence fell, faces of staff and students alike staring at him. Even Araminta was silent, baby-fork dangling forgotten from her hand, the half-scooped portion of mashed potato she had been about to fling at Hooch slowly sliding off the surface to drip back onto her plate.

Snape let the silence rest a little longer, then straightened, no longer looking the frail, injured man they'd come to see him as of late, but once more the tall, dark, forbidding alchemist that made students tremble in fear.

"It has come to my attention of late," his voice rang clear across the hall, "that there are those among you who do not approve of Harry Potter's relationship with my daughter."

Now the silence was broken as Harry dropped his fork and resisted burying his face in his hands.

"Your approval is not required.  Nor is it even wanted. This is our family. Our life, not yours." The anger was building inside him again at the faces before him, and he rode it, using it to fuel his words.

"Concern itself is an emotion I am willing to concede. But I will not tolerate those who wear false faces to excuse their anger at their own inability to judge human nature!

"We are not perfect, we are not godly - that is something I have been attempting to tell you about Mister Potter for years. And now you find that it is true, you seem all too eager to leap to the defence of the poor, misjudged professor in order to pander to your sick little fantasies." His grip tightened on the head of his cane, and he stomped the tip down on the flagstones of the hall with a crack that made the entire school jump.

"I will not be the engine for your witch hunt!" He was furious, truly furious, more furious than anyone could ever recall him being. Almost a heartbeat away from screaming obscenities at the collection of vapid, gossiping little toads. Poking, prying, he was an intensely private man, and the endless meddling in his affairs by brainless 'well meaning' idiots had finally pushed him over the edge.

"Mister Potter, despite what your malicious, addled little brains would love to assume did not 'knock me up' then abandon me." His voice was a whip, and he lashed out at the assembly with it. "He was not aware of my condition. Neither was I, until my second month, by which time Potter was deep in his training and completely unreachable, so I took the path I best saw fit. Our relationship may have ended, but I will not tolerate any further attempts to isolate him or drive him away from his daughter!"

There. He'd said it. And the gasp from the school almost pushed him from his feet.  Beside him, Harry rocked with the words. Saying he was a father was one thing. Openly admitting to everyone in earshot that Araminta was his daughter was somehow so much more. Intimated so much more than a clinical relationship by blood...he couldn't describe it. The words the phrasing, just.... His eyes closed against happy tears and he almost missed what Severus said next.

" - assure you I have 'tolerated' your spiteful little demonstrations only out of sheer ignorance of the fact. That ignorance no longer exists and I will not stand for your meddling in affairs that DO NOT CONCERN YOU!" the last was a bellow that rocked the very stones.

It also made damn sure that everyone knew Severus Snape was back.

Part Twenty-Two -->

All Content Copyright © 2001 Taleya Joinson
Last modified: November 12, 2010