Replay

Replay

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Chapter Twenty-One

Our New Celebrity

Harry sat at the high table, glancing around nervously. Everyone was staring at him. He whispered to Ginny, "What in Merlin's name is going on?" Ginny neither looked at him nor answered; she had a half-eaten pork chop that she resumed cutting into miniscule pieces. The rasp of her knife and fork echoed through the otherwise silent hall.

"Ginny?" Harry whispered.

"Just eat," she mumbled, continuing to dissect her pork chop, not appearing to be interested in eating it. He looked around the hall; anyone who wasn't looking at him seemed to be looking at the Gryffindor table, but all Harry could see were the tallest, oldest students' backs when he looked there himself, and he didn't want to make himself even more conspicuous by standing and craning his neck, so he told himself--although he didn't really believe it--that it was nothing. As he reached for some chicken he turned and caught Professor McGonagall's eye; she gave him a very arch sort of glare and turned away from him. The chattering conversation eventually started up again, but there was a palpable tension in the hall that made Harry very nervous. He still had no idea why he was being stared at, nor the Gryffindor table. (Perhaps it was because he was the head of Gryffindor? But that still wasn't a reason...)

And Ginny still would not look at him.

Finally, Professor McGonagall stood to remind the students of more forbidden objects added to Filch's interminable list, they sang the new school song that they'd started using after the defeat of Voldemort, written by the Sorting Hat itself (it actually had one tune), and then the prefects led the youngest students from the hall first, followed by the rest.

Amidst the bustle of the students departing, Harry turned to Ginny again, saying, "Care to tell me now what was going on before?"

"Not here," she said tersely as she stood and turned toward a tapestry concealing a door leading to their tower. She seemed angry. No, not just angry, but livid. He followed her, hesitating for a moment. They went up flight after flight of curving stone stairs with torches flickering in brackets on the walls, casting wild shadows on her back, which was straight and stiff. He felt like he really was going to a detention with Professor Weasley, but he doubted that it would be as enjoyable as the one from the morning.

No moon shone through the oculus topping the stairs; huge drops of rain battered the glass dome. Ginny turned to glance at him for a moment, her hand on the doorknob to the sitting room; a bolt of lightning crackled through the dark sky, throwing her features into high relief, revealing that she had been crying. This surprised him; she'd looked angry in the Great Hall. Was she cross with him or distraught? And why?

Dobby had left the candles burning in the sconces high on the walls and a friendly fire crackled in the grate. The Daily Prophet had been left on his armchair and his slippers and Ginny's were warming on the hearthrug. More than anything else, he wanted a long bath and a good night's sleep, but he suspected that he would have neither.

Ginny mumbled, "I'll tell Dobby he can go when I check on the girls," and slipped from the room. Harry settled into his armchair, idly slapping his thighs with the unread newspaper. Eventually he looked at his watch and found that her checking on Ruby and Rory had stretched into half an hour, so he decided to go looking for her.

The door to the girls' room was still slightly ajar. To his surprise, when he opened the door a little more, Ginny was nowhere to be found. Ruby and Rory were fast asleep in their beds, Hades curled into a small circle on Ruby's. Then, above the steady breathing of the two girls and the sleeping Crup, Harry heard a soft sobbing. He glanced around the door; Ginny was in an armchair near the small stove in the corner that provided heat to the draughty room.

"Ginny?" he whispered tentatively. She jerked her head up suddenly, abruptly wiping the tears from her cheeks, her eyes narrowing again. "What are you--?"

"Ssssh!" she hissed, going to Rory's bed, leaning over to kiss her gently; she moved to Ruby's bed and kissed her as well, even patting the Crup on the head. He left, returning to the sitting room ahead of Ginny, hearing her light footsteps following him. When he turned to face her his stomach was in knots and he wondered again what was going on.

"Ginny," he said suddenly, "are you pregnant again? Did you just find out? You were fine this morning. I know you said after the twins you didn't want to have any more--"

"Ha!" Ginny burst out, wiping a tear from her cheek again. "How funny that the first thing you think of is that maybe I'm upset because you got someone pregnant!"

But her tone of voice said that she didn't think this was funny at all. "What are you talking about? What do you mean someone? You're the only someone I ever--"

Ginny tried to laugh but it ended on a choked sob. "Until tonight, that's what I thought as well. I thought you'd been honest with me. You weren't even my boyfriend--"

"What are you on about, Ginny?" he said as evenly as he could. She had a wild look in her eye; he didn't know whether she'd soon be making things in the room explode.

"What am I talking about? You didn't see him, did you?" He could see that she was trying to be fierce, but her voice was also shaking.

"See who, Ginny?" he said softly.

"Stop saying my name over and over!" she growled at him. "I don't have bloody amnesia. I know who I am. The question is—who are you?"

Harry didn't know what to say; maintaining his composure was growing more difficult by the moment. "Wh-what? I'm--I'm just Harry. And who didn't I see?"

"Oh, just Harry?" she said archly. "And which Harry would that be, exactly? The Harry who spends a fortnight falling for a woman twice his age and then shows up in London with a tale about unrequited love? Or the Harry who fathered a child with his former teacher and pretended that he was still a virgin when he was nearly nineteen?"

Harry couldn‘t believe what she'd said. Was she mad? "Fathered a--what ?"

She was crying again and looking annoyed about this. "Your son walked into the Great Hall tonight and was Sorted into Gryffindor. His name is Theodore Harrison."

Harry stared. "What are you talking about? That's impossible! I told you everything that happened between me and Tilda! And everything that didn't happen, as well. Are you telling me that just because a kid walks into this castle with dark hair and glasses and the incredibly common name of Harrison that you automatically assume he has to be my and Tilda's son? Are we going to assume next that everyone in Britain who's named Evans is my cousin?" he spat. "Or that every Potter is my long-lost uncle?"

"You didn't see him," she said, less stridently. "He looks exactly like you."

Harry frowned. "So what? They say everyone has their double somewhere."

"Your double just happens to be the right age to have been born in the year after your sixteenth birthday? And he happens to have the name Harrison?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know when he was born, and neither do you! We'll ask Minerva tomorrow, all right? I told you the truth when I got back from Surrey. I swear I did. You weren't even my girlfriend yet; I had no reason to lie to you--"

"Oh!" she exclaimed, suddenly going red again. "You didn't have a reason to lie to me yet. So--did the 'Falsehood Fest' begin after I became your girlfriend?"

"N-no!" Harry sputtered. "Ginny--this is mad. I've only ever slept with one woman, and that's you. I'll swear to it if you like. Tomorrow we can get Snape to give me some Veritaserum. I mean, don't you think I'd remem--" He froze, staring in horror at her as a terrible realisation swept over him.

Ginny still looked sceptical. "What? You just remembered, 'Oh, I did shag my old teacher after all'?"

Harry shook his head, staring past her into space, trying to gather his thoughts. "No," he said vaguely as a theory took form in his mind. "No, I stopped because--Snape."

"What about Snape?"

"After the battle. Dumbledore told me that Snape was going to modify Tilda's memory. But what if that's not all he modified?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Nate looked around the Gryffindor common room, nodding. "Not bad. Not bad at all."

A tall, thin girl with lanky blonde hair, rather thick glasses and some painful-looking red spots on her brow sniffed disdainfully. "If you don't mind dark and draughty, like the rest of this place. And where's the telly? And the computers?"

Nate looked at her as though she was barmy. "Did you read any of your books before you came? There's no television. No computers, either." He rolled his eyes and Teddy fought the urge to snigger; it became very easy to suppress his laughter, however, once he caught the eye of the strange girl who'd just spoken.

"Well, we can't all be the sort of wanker who spends his summer holiday reading," she sneered with an eye-roll of her own. "And some of us are used to civilisation, not this backwards way of doing everything," she added, nodding at the candles on the walls.

Teddy and Nate both stared at her, open-mouthed. Nate breathed, "You are an idiot."

"Oh, that's charming. There are other people in the world who don't do everything like you do, and who have different opinions. Are they all idiots?" she demanded.

"Only the ones who are you," Nate retorted promptly. "And I've been living as a Muggle as well, so I know what you're used to and what you're missing. I won't be able to watch television or use my computer until the Christmas holiday, but you don't hear me complaining. Wouldn't you rather be learning magic instead of doing that stuff?"

She sniffed. "Learning magic! Why do we need to go to a ruddy school for it? So I'm magical. Tell me something I don't know. I've been doing weird things since I was six. But if I'd gone to my sister's school with a magic wand, I could really have had some fun. I'd skive off lessons whenever I wanted and make other kids do my homework..."

Nate made a face. "I'd say you should be in Slytherin, rather than Gryffindor, but I like someone who's a Slytherin and don't want to lump him in with you. I can tell why you're not in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, though," he added, laughing.

She looked at him balefully. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"You really don't pay attention to anything, do you?" Nate said disgustedly.

"I know that the house names are some of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Hufflepuff? And ours--Gryffindor?"

When they first entered the common room in a throng of first and second years just a few people had stared at Teddy and whispered behind their hands. Now that more older students had entered people were craning their necks and whispering loudly while examining him, making him feel very uncomfortable; he squirmed, not joining the conversation.

"They aren't stupid names," Nate shot back. "You're the one with a stupid name, Madonna. I heard it during the Sorting!" he guffawed.

"It's Donna," she said, suddenly sheepish about this. "My mum likes her music and wanted me to be a singer, but I can't--" she mumbled, trailing off.

"You can't sing?" Nate laughed. "Yeah, I'm so shocked..."

"Talking of names, what about yours?" she shot back.

"What about it? I'm called Nate. What's wrong with that?"

"No, you git, your full name. I heard yours during the Sorting as well."

Nate had put his face very close to hers. "Well? You have something to say about it?"

Donna backed away nervously. "Erm, well, I don't remember what it was, but I remember that it was stupid."

Teddy shuffled his feet, thinking that he wouldn't tease Nate about his name after all. He also wished that Nate would stop rowing with her so they could go up to their dormitory--although that would mean going through the throng of older Gryffindors starting to press on them, gawping and whispering (although some of the 'whispers' were rather loud).

"Oi!" said a tall boy wearing a prefect's badge on his long black robes. "Is it true? You're Harry Potter's kid?"

Teddy froze; he had no idea what to say. He'd heard some of the other Gryffindors whispering the name Harry Potter during the feast, and he'd eventually worked out that this was the name of the wizard who had arrived late. He looked desperately at Nate, but to his surprise it was Donna who stepped between him and the prefect.

"Clear off! Isn't it bad enough that we've all been as good as kidnapped and taken off to some medieval nightmare of a school without a body being gawped at by idiots?"

The prefect was very tall, with sandy hair and a coarse stubble on his heavy jaw; his robes positively seemed to bulge with muscles and although Teddy had thought Donna was tall she didn't even come up to the prefect's badge. Beside him she looked as insubstantial as the handle of a broomstick; in fact, with her unruly straw-coloured hair she appeared to be a broomstick standing on end and wearing a Hogwarts robe.

"Want a detention, do yer?" the prefect asked her, glowering. Donna took another step forward and poked him in the chest. She had to hold her hand at eye-level to do this.

"Want me to tell the headmistress that you're abusing your position?" She turned to Teddy. "See you tomorrow. You'd better go up to your dormitory now."

Teddy nodded and went to the stairs labelled BOYS, Nate trailing behind him, grunting at the crowd, "Oi! Move out of the way! Can't a bloke go to bed?"

When they reached the door labelled FIRST YEARS they entered a large round room with seven four-poster beds hung with red velvet curtains, a fire crackling in the stove in the centre of the room. A candle on each boy's bedside table sent flickering shadows over everything. Trunks were in place before each bed; two other boys were already taking their pyjamas from theirs and Teddy did the same. When they started staring at Teddy, Nate yelled, "Sod off!" and they turned away, making disgruntled noises.

"You all right?" Nate asked him uncertainly when they were about to get into their beds.

Teddy shrugged. "I reckon. And maybe it isn't such a mystery that Donna's in Gryffindor after all," he said, remembering what the Sorting Hat had sung about earlier.

Nate grimaced. "Maybe," he said grudgingly.

The door opened again and three more boys entered; Teddy immediately pulled his curtains closed, saying through the red velvet, "G'night, Nate. See you in the morning."

"Night, Ted."

Teddy settled down to sleep, curled in a ball with his fists under his pillow. After receiving his Hogwarts letter, he'd dreamt of coming to magic school. Now he wondered whether he was in for seven years of trouble. At least when he'd been in primary school he had a respite at the end of every day and on the weekends, returning to his comfortably shabby home, with his mother and Beatrice and Dorothy, riding his horse Minnie and sleeping at night in his own familiar bed that looked out over the sheep-manicured fields of Latere Farm. Now at the end of the day he was trapped in a dormitory with six other boys he barely knew, including Nate. He had an unsettled feeling in his middle that made him think he should have eaten a little less in the Great Hall. Perhaps he would always feel that way now. He certainly didn't feel like it was going away any time soon.

Listening to Nate's peaceful snores, he tried to ignore the whispers of the other boys, but their words echoed in his head even as he slept, permeating his dreams.

Harry Potter...Harry Potter...Harry Potter...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ginny sat on the edge of the armchair by the fire, rocking back and forth with her arms hugging her legs as though she was cold. "What are you suggesting?"

Harry was glad to hear a hopeful note in her voice. He paced the hearthrug nervously, massaging his temples. "I'm trying to think... I remember feeling that it was very queer that Dumbledore didn't want me to contact Tilda at all, not even to ask after her..."

"So you think he shagged her too?" Ginny sneered; the sceptical tone had returned.

Harry decided not to let this bother him. "No, no... I'm just wondering... There's Snape, about to modify her memory. She's probably still unconscious... he can look into her mind and see what nearly happened between us. The next thing you know...."

"You mean--Harry. You can't be serious."

He grimaced, thinking about Snape some more. "You're right. If he did that he wouldn't be able to convince himself that he'd done nothing wrong. Imperius, then..."

"That wasn't what I meant--"

"...so he could labour under the delusion that she really wanted him..."

"So you're saying that that boy is Snape's son, not yours? Well, I hate to break it to you, Harry, but he walked into the Great Hall wearing your face, not Snape's."

A sudden epiphany lit up his brain. "Polyjuice! Ginny--remember when we found out what those cauldrons were in the twins' shop? They kept batches of Polyjuice going all the time so there would always be enough for the Order. Bill was using it to look like Rodolphus Lestrange, and Dung was Lucius Malfoy himself, that night. I'll bet they had extra with them. Snape could have nicked it. Or maybe he carried the extra. It wouldn't have been hard for him to find a hair of mine on Tilda's couch--easy to tell it from hers..."

"But still, Harry, would a child conceived while the father was using Polyjuice Potion look like the real father or the person he was pretending to be?"

"That's what we don't know, isn't it? Or didn't, until now. I think that boy is proof that when you become the other person, you are that person, physically, down to the last atom, if you know what I mean..."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know what you mean. All right, just suppose that he did what you're suggesting. Why would Tilda agree to sleep with someone she thought was you when you told me she'd already decided it was a dreadful idea? He would still have looked like a sixteen-year-old Harry Potter, and she'd already rejected him. Erm, you."

"That's where I think Imperius comes into it. He'd love it, Snape would, knowing I'd wanted her and that it hadn't happened between us but he did manage to have her..."

"Harry!" Ginny snapped. "Stop talking that way! She's still a human being."

Harry reddened. "Sorry. I just meant--he'd enjoy knowing that. The great git never got past his resentment of my dad and always liked knowing he was thwarting me in some way, when he could, and when he couldn't it drove him mad. I think he hated having to be on the same side as me, especially knowing that I was supposed to be the one to get rid of Voldemort, unless he got rid of me first, which would have made Snape pretty happy if it didn't mean Voldemort actually being unstoppable after that. Doing this gave him a way to really get me without jeopardising the fight against Voldemort."

Ginny made a face. "It sounds like you're the one who can't let go of a grudge, and the Quidditch Final last term is only a part of that," she added. Harry turned away, ashamed of his behaviour during the match Gryffindor had played against Slytherin five months earlier. "I mean," she went on, "it's just so far-fetched! Snape sleeping with her while looking like you, producing a son who also looks like you?"

"Ask Hermione! She'd know. She's so obsessed with the conception of babies..."

"Which is why I dread her finding out you've got another kid you weren't trying for..."

"Ginny, I haven't got--"

"Harry, even if Snape ‘borrowed' your appearance and that's why that boy exists, that still means that he's your son, biologically. Although," she added, snorting, "I still think it is quite far-fetched, the idea that he could have done that..."

"Far-fetched? Would you have thought it far-fetched if, the first time Mad-Eye Moody walked into the Great Hall someone had said, ‘You're an impostor! You're a Death Eater who tortured the Longbottoms! You were supposed to have died in Azkaban!'"

"Someone mention my name?"

"No!" Harry and Ginny said simultaneously to the greyish-white ghost who had just drifted through the stone wall beside the fireplace.

The ghost of Alastor Moody grunted sceptically. "I could have sworn--"

"Moody, this really isn't the time," Harry ground out between his teeth.

"Yes, Alastor, do you think you could give us some privacy?" Ginny asked him gently.

"Of course. I'll check on the wee bairns. Not so wee anymore, though, yeah?"

He winked his ghostly eye at them--the non-magic one--and drifted through the wall. Harry wished Moody would leave them alone for once. They could barely talk at St Clare's without a contribution from him and he followed them to Hogwarts each September. Harry had not told Hermione that Moody's interference was yet another reason why he and Ginny had had so much trouble being alone during his seventh year.

When Moody was gone Ginny looked at Harry. "It's true that an impostor was teaching us that year and that if anyone had suggested that they would have sounded ludicrous. But I think your theory about Snape is far-fetched because he simply would not do that. He's not the monster you think he is, or even the monster I used to think he was. He treats me civilly, like a respected colleague, and I'm a baby compared to the others on the staff! Honestly, Harry, you don't give him enough credit."

"You give him too much!" he growled. "I wouldn't put anything past him. I don't care if Snape pretending to be me when that boy was conceived means some people would call him my biological son. He's not. He's Snape's son. He has nothing to do with me!"

Ginny shook her head in disgust. "I'm going to bed. I'm tired and I can't keep going round and round with you on this anymore just now. Are you coming?"

Her voice didn't sound very welcoming so Harry mumbled to the fire, "I'll be in." She was in the habit of kissing him on the brow when she went to bed before him, but this night she did not do it; she left the room silently, without looking back.

Harry felt a horrid emptiness in his chest. Snape, he thought furiously. You'll pay for what you've done.

He dozed off before the fire and dreamt that Moody found him and said to him, "Potter, you are that boy's father and no mistake. If you weren't, I would not be a ghost..."

Jerking his head up in irritation, Harry glanced around the room, but Alastor Moody's ghost was nowhere to be seen. He dragged himself to bed, finding Ginny asleep, breathing softly. He wished he'd handled things better than he had, that he'd found the words to explain to her, I would never have lied if I had slept with Tilda, Ginny. You're the one person I always felt I could talk to, even when you were just my friend... He had never told Ron and Hermione all about Tilda, nor Neville, although he had opened up to Luna once, explaining to her why he'd tried to ask her out that once. He knew she'd never tell Ron if he asked her not to, and she'd kept her word.

He climbed into bed, wishing he dared to take her sleeping form in his arms. Instead he stared at the back of her head, thinking of waking up in their bed together that morning and hoping that when he opened his eyes again he would discover that this entire day had been a nightmare and they hadn't yet come to Hogwarts for the new term....

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Where is he?" Nate whispered to Teddy as he spooned porridge into his mouth.

"Who?" Teddy reached for a slice of toast and looked around for a jam pot. His stomach not only felt fine this morning, much to his surprise, but when he reached the Great Hall and smelled the good food on the house tables, he found that he was absolutely ravenous.

"He means the bloke everyone thinks is your dad," Donna informed him airily, sitting across from them, calmly eating eggs and bacon.

"Oh," Teddy said, reddening. He looked at the head table; Potter's chair was empty this morning. Others were empty as well, but for some reason it seemed significant that Potter was not there. "Dunno," he mumbled, spreading jam on his toast. He nodded at Donna, wanting to change the subject. "So--have you had trouble with your name? You know, because of her?"

Donna chewed and swallowed. "Sometimes. I get tired of being asked to sing, or bless people. Joke. What's stupid is my mum isn't even religious. Well, except about celebrities. She didn't even know there was another 'Madonna.'"

"Bloody hell," Nate breathed. He seemed slightly less hostile toward her this morning.

"I know! Luckily, Mum ignored the phase she went through a few years back, when she decided to rename herself Esther. Thank goodness Mum didn't change my name to Esther as well; come to that, Madonna's not so bad after all…."

Teddy laughed but then stifled it. "Sorry. I'm not laughing at your name, really. Or your mum. Actually--I'm not even sure my mum would know a single song by Madonna. She only likes things from the sixties and seventies. Sometimes I feel like I'm going spare trying to get her to listen to something more recent..."

"How old is your mum?" Donna asked, putting a forkful of fried egg in her mouth.

"Forty-four. Which isn't really old for a mum, I know, but somehow she just seems older, since she's always harking back to when she was young..."

"That's not old," Donna agreed. "My mum's almost forty. But she wouldn't dream of listening to anything from earlier than ten years ago, except for Madonna's stuff. She thinks that's what should be meant when anyone talks about 'classical' music..."

Nate shook his head. "Forty and forty-four sound old to me. My mum's thirty-two."

Teddy raised his eyebrows. "Thirty-two! That's how old my mum was when she had me. She was almost thirty-three, actually. Crikey. Thirty-two?"

Nate shrugged. "She had me when she was pretty young. And I'll be twelve on Halloween, too. It's not bad having a young mum. The blokes still notice her and all. I nearly had a step-dad about five years ago, but then the whole thing fell through..."

Ted made a face. "I hate it when my mum dates. Slimy gits! They all--they only have one thing on their minds," he added, feeling his face turn red as he took a bite of toast. Donna smiled knowingly at him. "What?" he asked her, feeling testy.

"Nothing," she said innocently, widening her eyes behind her thick glasses.

A boy from his dormitory sat next to her, smirking and nudging the large prefect from the previous evening; the boy resembled the prefect and Teddy realised that they were brothers. He tried to ignore them, but it was difficult; they kept smirking, glancing at him, whispering behind their hands and smirking some more. He wished the bell for the end of breakfast would ring now. He glanced up at the head table again: no Potter.

The whispering and smirking persisted. He finished his toast. And still the bell did not ring.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"I need to speak to you."

Harry was blocking Snape's access to the stairs leading to the Great Hall. "That may be, Potter, but what I need is to enjoy my breakfast before the first lesson of the day."

Harry couldn't remember Snape appearing to ‘enjoy' any meal, so he felt no guilt about saying, "I'm afraid not, Snape. You can eat in your office while we're talking."

Snape raised one eyebrow. "Or--what?"

"Or I shall pay Rita Skeeter a little visit and explain to her that that boy who walked into the Great Hall looking like me is really your son."

Snape did not change expression but turned on his heel and strode down the corridor to the Potions dungeon, his words echoing in the stark, stone space: "Very well, Potter. I haven't heard a good tall tale in a long time. Whatever ludicrous explanation you have for what you just said should at any rate prove somewhat diverting."

When Harry had awoken that morning, after a fitful night with dreams he wanted very much to forget, he had decided that the first thing he needed to do was to confront Snape. He left Ginny in their bed, snoring softly, while he dressed and went down to the entrance hall and then to the foot of the stairs leading to the entrance hall from the dungeons so that he could waylay Snape on his way to breakfast. He followed Snape to his office now, slamming the door behind him.

"It isn't a tall tale, Snape. You want to know what is a tall tale? That boy being my son when the only woman I've ever been with is my wife"

Snape stood behind his desk while Harry paced the floor on the other side of it. "Potter, speaking of your wife, I should remind you that I am not she. There is no need for you to insist here that she is the only woman you ever--"

"But she is!" Harry cried in frustration. "And you know it. Erm, or at least you know that I didn't sleep with Tilda Harrison when I was sixteen."

Snape sat and put his fingertips together. "Oh, I know this, do I?"

"Yes! You used Legilimency to find out that we--that we almost--but we didn't--"

"Almost?" Snape said softly, the corner his mouth turning up ever so slightly.

"You know this!" Harry spat hotly. "You took enormous pleasure in knowing that you'd be doing what I'd wanted to do and hadn't."

"I see," Snape said slowly, leaning forward so that his face was in shadow. "Perhaps you'd care to tell me exactly what I did, Potter. What, precisely, did I take 'enormous pleasure' in doing?" His mouth was twisting; he lifted his face to Harry's, his black eyes glittering, making Harry want to hex the smug expression from his face.

So Harry told him his theory, still pacing furiously, too full of pent-up rage to sit, and certainly too infuriated to look at Snape while he spoke, although he was vaguely aware of the bemused expression on the Potions master's face, glimpsed sometimes when Harry's pacing changed direction. When he had finished speaking he turned to face Snape head-on again; he looked more 'diverted' than Harry had ever seen him.

"So, Potter, I ascertained that you and Miss Harrison, erm, almost; I used Polyjuice Potion to take on your likeness; placed the Imperius Curse on her and then fathered a child who would appear, to all intents and purposes, to be yours?"

Harry's hand was in his pocket, his fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of his wand. Give me a reason, you slimy git... "You heard what I said," Harry growled. "You've been caught, Snape. Now would be a good time to confess."

To his surprise Snape produced a sound Harry had never heard come out of his mouth: uproarious laughter. It was very brief, however; Snape was once again regarding him with just the edge of his mouth slightly turned up, his perennially bemused expression back in place. "I have nothing to confess, Potter. Of course I did not do what you are suggesting. I am not a monster, contrary to what you obviously believe."

Harry snorted. "Yeah, that's what Ginny said."

"Perhaps you should listen to your wife. I can assure you that even had I the opportunity to have physical relations with a Muggle woman I would not have done so. I seldom pursue women at all, due to my job, but when I do it is witches only. And before you accuse me of being anti-Muggle, that is because I do not wish to enmesh myself in a web of lies to hide the magical world or the nature of my job. It is very simple."

Harry snorted. "Yeah, life can be so simple, can't it, when you pretend to be someone else to shag a woman, don't take precautions, and ignore your son for eleven years."

To his surprise Snape's face turned red with fury and he stood, fists planted on the desk. "I'll have you know that I do everything in my power to find wizards who father children with Muggle women; I see to it that the Ministry forces them to pay for the upkeep of their children. I would not only never have relations with someone under the influence of Imperius and under the impression that I was someone else but I take care of my son. He wants for nothing and when he comes to Hogwarts I shall pay for everything he needs. I take him on excursions during my holidays, in which we also include his older brother, whose father is dead. Don't you dare tell me that I am a negligent father, Potter, because you know absolutely nothing about it," he growled, still red-faced.

Harry had never been more shocked in his life. "You're damn right I know nothing about it. You--you're a dad?" Harry couldn't process this information.

Snape gave a very small nod as he sat. "And now you know far more than I ever intended anyone to know about my private life. But it is all you are going to know. If you ever tell anyone about this you will be very, very sorry. And I won't go to Rita Skeeter to give you your comeuppance," he added, the threat very clear in his voice.

Harry was still speechless. Snape a dad. When he thought it, it sounded just as barmy. "I thought you just said that you considered Muggle women to be off-limits," he finally managed to say, still reeling.

Snape gave him an exasperated look. "My son's mother is a witch, Potter," he said as though speaking to a complete idiot. Harry felt like one; he'd lost his train of thought, but Snape wasn't done yet. "I find it fascinating that when a child turns up looking like you, I am the first person of whom you think. May I remind you that you did not master Occlumency--finally--until more than eighteen months after your sixteenth birthday?" he said archly, bringing back some painful memories for Harry. "The Dark Lord," Snape continued, "possessed you not two months earlier at the Ministry of Magic. Yet the first suspect you think of who might be responsible is--"

"I get it, I get it!" Harry snarled, feeling like his stupidity was increasing by the second.

"So, Potter--I believe that you have a lesson to teach in a few minutes, as do I. I hope we have laid to rest this ludicrous idea. Excuse me while I prepare to do my job."

Harry pulled open the office door as the first bell rang. He had nothing to say to Snape; Harry hated it when he was right. He should have thought of Voldemort! Which meant that he had lied to Ginny, in a way. He was responsible for the boy existing, not Snape in disguise. He had been under Voldemort's control and didn't even remember. As he took the stairs two at a time--using a secret spiral staircase that allowed him to avoid the entrance hall--he thought about what must have happened….

He reached the Defence against the Dark Arts classroom after the second bell had rung; the students were already seated, scribbling down notes that Ginny had magically caused to appear on the blackboard. When she saw him appear in the doorway she rushed into the corridor, very tight-lipped, and closed the classroom door, glancing through the glass for a moment at the heads bent over their parchments, quills scratching away.

Pulling Harry away from the door, she hissed at him, "Where have you been? It was your turn to get the girls up and ready for school! I thought that was what you were doing when I woke up and you weren't there. Then my mum showed up to take them to Hogsmeade to catch the bus and we discovered that they were still asleep in their beds! And I found that on the first day of the term Ruby had already brought home a letter from the headmistress, which I had to sign and return even though I didn't have enough time to read it properly. One of us is supposed to go to the school to speak with the headmistress later this week. Do you think you could manage to do that for me?"

He swallowed and nodded. "Of course. I'm sorry I was late getting up here, Ginny, and that I forgot about waking the girls up. I went to the dungeons to talk to Snape."

"Did he kick you out of his office? Or hex you? Because if he didn't he should have." Her eyes were very hard and he could not look at her so he glanced at the door to the classroom.

"Well, he denied that he'd pretended to be me to sleep with Tilda and he pointed out that--that at the time Voldemort was still able to possess me..."

Ginny covered her mouth in horror, no longer looking like she wanted to hex him on him Snape's behalf. "Oh, Harry, that means--"

"--that Harrison probably really is my kid. But I was being controlled by--by--"

Harry froze; Ginny searched his face. "What?"

"Well, what if there's some Voldemort in him? When Voldemort tried to kill me I got some of his magical abilities. Oh!" he exclaimed. "What if--what if the boy is a Parselmouth?"

"What if he is?" Ginny responded with a sniff. "You say that like it's a bad thing. You saved my life by being a Parselmouth, Harry." Although she said the words, it sounded like a reluctant admission. He did not yet feel like he had got back her good graces.

Smiling affectionately at her, he took her hand. "I'm glad. But--it's still hard not to feel like this was all my fault. If I hadn't hidden in Tilda's house, if I--"

"--if I hadn't written in an evil diary," Ginny said, exasperated, pulling her hand from his. "We were possessed, Harry. And people could have died because of me--"

"Someone did die because of me, Ginny." He mouthed Moody at her, looking around furtively, hoping old Mad-Eye was off drifting through walls and listening to Nearly Headless Nick complain about the Headless Hunt.

"Well, speaking of Harrison," she said briskly, clearly not in the mood to offer him any comfort or reassurance, "he and the other first year Gryffindors are waiting, so--"

"What? The first year Gryffindors? I can't go in there, Ginny!"

She looked at him with one eyebrow raised. "Erm, you're the head of Gryffindor, Harry. Remember what that's all about? Bravery, courage, and all that rot?"

He grimaced and sighed. "I know, but--" He looked at the door with trepidation. Sighing again, he whispered, "All right. I can do this..."

Ginny was standing at the door, hand on the knob. "Come on, slowcoach! They're waiting."

How bad could it be? He took a deep breath and followed her into the classroom.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The first words Harry heard when he entered the room were, "You take that back!"

Theodore Harrison had his hands around the neck of a beefy boy at least six inches taller than he was whom Harry suspected was yet another Carlisle brother. (The other two--peas in a pod except for their heights--were prefects in fifth and seventh years and were the Beaters on the Gryffindor house team.) A boy with curly reddish-brown hair and a face crowded with freckles tugged ineffectually on Harrison's left arm while a scrawny blonde girl with thick glasses and spots on her brow pulled on the back of his robes. Another boy and girl tried to pull the boy off Harrison's arm; a slight girl with a short cap of shining black hair tugged on Harrison's right arm, fighting off two even smaller girls who didn't want her doing this; and three boys were trying to remove the skinny blonde girl from Harrison's robes. Three other girls who seemed more concerned with their appearance than anything else stood off to the side, sniffing disdainfully.

"Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus!" Harry and Ginny both cried, waving their wands, causing the students to lose their grips on each other and fall backwards in a ring around the central pair. The bystander girls stepped back with disgusted expressions on their faces, smoothing down their robes; the others groaned and tried to get to their feet without stepping on each other, but there were many cries of pain anyway.

Harry found it very, very difficult to look at Harrison; it was too strange, reminding him of the time he'd seen his dad in a memory of Snape's in a Pensieve, although he had the advantage there, since his dad had only been a memory and couldn't see him. Instead he concentrated on the tall boy, still fully aware of Harrison out of the corner of his eye.

"Carlisle! You are another Carlisle, I assume?" he said to the boy, who nodded vigorously, eyes wide. "All right, then. Carlisle: What did you say that Harrison wanted you to ‘take back'?" He could see that the boy was shaking; his older brothers were full of bluster as well, he'd discovered, until confronted with an authority figure. Carlisle said nothing but looked at his feet. "Anyone else?" he said, looking around at the others but carefully avoiding Harrison's eyes. "Can anyone tell me what started all of this?"

The silence in the room was punctuated by the nervous rustling of robes, shuffling of feet and the occasional soft cough, carefully stifled to avoid drawing Harry's attention. Except for Harrison, at whom he finally looked in case he wanted to reveal what had happened, they all looked back at him blankly. Harrison gazed at the floor now.

"Very well!" Harry finally said, walking to the front, where Ginny stood before the blackboard, her wand still in her hand. "Fifty points from Gryffindor. You are all to report to Mr Filch in the Trophy Room at eight o'clock for detention." He didn't look at them now but could hear their indignant gasps.

"But sir," a blonde bystander girl said, raising her hand; she was utterly unlike the girl with the glasses, looking as though she had just stepped out of a beauty salon. "We weren't doing anything," she said, pointing at her friends, equally poised and well-coifed.

Harry nodded at her. "Exactly, Miss--"

"Gibson. We were just standing here, and--"

"Yes, Miss Gibson. As you will learn in Defence against the Dark Arts," he said, tapping Ginny's notes on the blackboard, "there are no innocent bystanders in a situation like this. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Were you part of the solution?"

"Erm, no?" she said uncertainly.

"Then you were part of the problem," Harry pronounced briskly. "Would you care to tell me what Carlisle said to Harrison?"

But Miss Gibson turned white as a ghost and shook her head quickly, her mouth clamped shut. Harry nodded, expecting as much. "I shall inform the headmistress that Mr Filch is to expect all of you at eight o'clock. You shall polish every single award given since the beginning of the school until they shine like new." He said in an undertone to Ginny, "I need to discuss something else with Minerva as well. Can you take the lesson?"

She nodded, still looking very grim. "Yes, of course."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After Harry strode from the room Ginny turned to the students, who had still not moved. "Back in your seats!" She clapped her hands. "Have you copied the notes?"

They shook their heads. Harrison sat, pulling his parchment toward him again; ink had spilled all over it and he grimaced. Ginny pulled out her wand and waved it, causing the inkpot to right itself and jump backward; the spilled ink disappeared from the parchment. Harrison looked up at her in surprise but it was she who had the surprise of her life when she felt something move within her at the sight of his familiar face. As she sat at her desk, waiting for them to finish their copying, she looked down at her notes with unseeing eyes, feeling like she suddenly understood Hermione in a way she never had....

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lunch at the Gryffindor table was highly uncomfortable for Teddy; word had got round that the first years had cost their house fifty points during their first lesson. The general consensus was that it was Teddy's fault. Most of the first years, apart from Nate and Donna, seemed to share this view, plus the view that it was Teddy's fault that they had detention. Teddy felt very cross; no one seemed to blame Carlisle for any of it.

After lunch, when he was walking down the stairs to the dungeons, Carlisle stuck out his foot in front of Teddy; he stumbled on the last stair and went sprawling, his books and parchments flying out of his bag. The others laughed and walked past him without offering any assistance while Nate and Donna scrambled about, picking up his things.

As they stood outside the dungeon, waiting to be admitted, Carlisle pushed him, saying, "Oi, can't even walk downstairs without falling, eh, Harrison? You know what they say about bad blood; it's probably because your mum's a--"

"Don't say it!" Donna warned him with a growl in her voice. "You're so brave now but you couldn't tell Potter what you said about Ted's mum, could you?"

"If it weren't for you," Carlisle said to Teddy, "we'd still have Potter for our professor! Thanks to you we shan't be taught by the most famous wizard in the world!"

Teddy frowned at him. "What are you on about?"

"Didn't hear? He and Weasley made a deal. She'll teach us--alone--and he'll teach the first year Slytherins--alone. Everyone in the school has him for their Defence professor except for us. He doesn't want to be in the same room with his bast--"

"No!" Donna and Nate cried, grunting as they pulled on Teddy's arms with all his might while he struggled to reach Carlisle again.

"Shut up!" Teddy cried. "Shut up!" He was shaking with rage.

The Slytherins had arrived, watching the tableau before them with interest. "Need help here?" a tall dark-haired boy asked. He had a very horsy jaw and horsy teeth as well.

"Yeah, actually," Nate said between gritted teeth, continuing to hold Teddy back.

"I meant him," the boy said, pointing at Carlisle. "I'd like a shot at Harrison myself," he added, glaring at Teddy, who finally stopped trying to leap at Carlisle's face.

"Why? What did I do to you?" Teddy demanded of the boy.

"You lot are going to have Professor Weasley for Defence and we're not going to get her at all, we're stuck with Potter," he snarled. The other Slytherins shivered or made faces in response to what he'd said. Carlisle laughed.

"You lot don't want the Boy Who Lived but you're stuck with him! That almost makes up for us not having him." Carlisle caught Teddy's eye and snarled, "I said almost. My brothers have been telling me about Potter for years! Thanks to you--"

He stopped speaking abruptly as Professor Snape appeared in the doorway of the Potions dungeon. "Is there a reason for all of you to be out here instead of in your seats?" he asked calmly, his dark eyes taking in the scene before him. "Carlisle?" he asked the tall sandy-haired boy. "Flint?" he said to the horsy-faced Slytherin boy.

"No, sir," Flint said quickly.

Carlisle didn't respond; after Snape swept into the room he muttered, "Greasy git."

"I'll tell him you said that if you don't leave me alone," Teddy said to Carlisle as they entered. Carlisle curled his lip with disdain.

"And I'll deny it, Harry's Son," he hissed as he sat down.

"Don't call me that," Teddy whispered vehemently, sitting in front of Carlisle.

"I'll call you whatever I like," Carlisle said smugly, and Teddy believed him. He had a sinking feeling that everyone would call him whatever they liked, and that this would probably include something to do with his ‘real' father. He could only vaguely remember having wanted, for years, to learn the identity of this person.

Now he wished he'd never heard the name Harry Potter.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The first Potions lesson went well; Snape asked Carlisle a number of questions to which he did not know the answer, but Teddy and Nate did. Nate had convinced him of the wisdom of poring over the Potions text while eating lunch; in retrospect, this was probably why Teddy had not heard the gossip about the Defence teachers. But he liked being able to raise his hand and answer when Professor Snape asked a question (especially one Carlisle had been unable to answer). Both he and Nate had received nods of approval, which Teddy quickly discovered was high praise indeed from Snape.

His mood would have been improved by the double Potions lesson were it not for the fact that he could not do his homework in the common room before or after dinner without being bothered by Gryffindors who were upset about his having lost fifty house points (as though he'd done this alone), or by first years who felt the detention was his fault as well.

He finally ended up sitting at the foot of the stairs leading down to the dungeons, scribbling an essay for Professor Weasley on a long piece of parchment, which is where Professor Snape discovered him when it was close to eight o'clock.

"Harrison! What are you doing here?"

"Homework," he said, looking up at the tall professor. He explained the problem, and the reason for the Slytherins being upset with him as well. Professor Snape nodded. "I am afraid there are still many in my house whose parents sympathise with the Dark Lord. If you do not know of what I speak I suggest that you read this chapter of your text," he said, picking up Teddy's Defence book and turning to a page near the end of the book.

"But you don't, right?" Teddy asked uncertainly.

"No, I don't. I fought against the Dark Lord."

Harrison gave him a grin. "Thought so. I knew you couldn't be like those others."

Snape was surprised, but he was finding it easier to look at the boy without thinking of Harry Potter. Doing so without thinking of James Potter was more of a challenge than he had anticipated, although he knew he had acquitted himself well during the lesson; whenever he felt like snapping at Harrison, seeing, in his mind's eye, the boy's grandfather sitting in the same seat thirty-six years earlier, he took it out on Carlisle instead. Carlisle can take it, he'd thought. And Harrison actually seemed to have done some revision before coming to the lesson; he knew far more than Snape would have thought, certainly more than his father had known during his first Potions lesson.

Snape looked at his watch. "You will be late to your detention if you do not leave." He told Teddy how to find the Trophy Room and Teddy thanked him with another disarming grin. After he left, Snape needed to sit on the step himself, kneading his temples and wondering how he was to survive this term with a dead ringer for James Potter sitting before him who evidently thought he was a hero and that Harry Potter was a slimy git.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Oof. My arm's falling off," Nate whinged, swinging his aching arm in a circle; the silver award he'd been polishing was still dark with tarnish at the edges.

"You'd think wizards could come up with a sort of silver that doesn't tarnish," Donna sniffed, scrubbing furiously at a tall cup with double handles.

"They probably wouldn't use it here," Teddy said miserably. "This way they can give the job of polishing the stuff to students in detention. Couldn't you have told Potter?"

Donna's eyes grew larger behind her thick lenses. "Are you mad? I certainly wasn't going to be the one to tell him that Carlisle called your mum a slag for shagging Potter when he was sixteen and she was thirty-two. I don't have a death wish, you know. And Carlisle wouldn't have known how old your mum was if he hadn't been eavesdropping on us at breakfast, the tosser."

Teddy grimaced. "Carlisle's name should be carbuncle. He's a pustule, a boil, a--" Donna and Nate were grinning at him. "What?" he said suddenly.

"Nothing," Nate said, slapping Teddy on the shoulder and then groaning with pain, holding his arm with his other hand. "I won't be able to write tomorrow..."

"You should have been cleaning with your left hand, like me," Donna informed him airily. "It's slower going, but my good arm won't ache tomorrow."

Nate frowned. "Didn't think of that."

"I used to do it all the time, when I had to write lines in detention. Takes longer, but usually there's a time limit on the detention anyway and no one's the wiser, even though the writing is nearly illegible and there isn't as much of it."

"I wish Potter had just made us write lines," Teddy said, grunting with effort as he scrubbed at the tarnished plaque he'd been trying to clean for the better part of an hour.

"I said the same thing to Fitzroy," Donna said, "but he said his older sister told him that Potter never has students write lines in detention. It's against his personal philosophy or something."

"Right," Teddy groaned, continuing to scrub. "His personal philosophy means we have to clean our arms off our bodies, all so--" He really looked at the award he was cleaning now, a horrid queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Bloody hell," he mumbled, throwing it down on the stone flags and going to look for something else to clean.

"What?" Donna and Nate asked together; he didn't answer them. The plaque had been given for 'Special Services to the School.' There were two names on it, but it was at the first half-polished name that they stared in horror:

Harry Potter.

---