Rating:
PG-13
House:
The Dark Arts
Ships:
Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter
Characters:
Harry Potter
Genres:
Mystery
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Order of the Phoenix Quidditch Through the Ages Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Stats:
Published: 02/19/2004
Updated: 07/29/2007
Words: 410,658
Chapters: 40
Hits: 159,304

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Barb

Story Summary:
Aunt Marge's arrival causes Harry to flee to avoid performing accidental magic again. But when number four, Privet Drive is attacked, he becomes the chief suspect and a fugitive from both the Muggle police and the Ministry. He tries going to Mrs Figg's but finds unfamiliar wizards there. With an Invisibility Cloak and nowhere to turn he hides in the house next door, to keep watch on Mrs Figg's. He has no idea that this will irrevocably alter the rest of his life....
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Chapter 22 - Accidental Magic

Chapter Summary:
Harry spies on his son during detention and ends up getting him another detention, this time with Snape. The next morning he is determined to make a fresh start with his son but is immediately confronted with a Daily Prophet headline that will make this a challenge. What Harry doesn't know is that an old schoolmate is interested in the headline for a rather sinister reason...
Posted:
12/14/2004
Hits:
3,740

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Twenty-Two

Accidental Magic


Harry stood in the doorway of the Trophy Room staring at the first year Gryffindors. Staring at his son. The boy had just thrown down the award that had been given to Harry and Ron for "Special Services" after they'd brought Ginny back from the Chamber of Secrets. Harry still remembered the enormous relief he'd felt upon learning that she wouldn't be expelled, which hadn't seemed significant to him at the time, only in retrospect...

The look of disgust on the familiar face floored him, made his stomach writhe uncomfortably. He hates me, Harry thought, not having felt so miserable, he was sure, since Sirius had died. Or perhaps Hagrid. Or--no. He'd never felt this miserable ever. His own son hated the very sight of his name.

Harry was very glad that the boy couldn't see his face; the Invisibility Cloak swirled around his legs as he backed away from the open doorway, unable to take any more. He heard what the blonde girl had said that Carlisle had said and bristled on Harrison's (and Tilda's) behalf. He no longer wondered why it was that none of the first year Gryffindors had had the nerve to tell him what had started the fight. Tilda was a good person. Is. She didn't want to sleep with me, he thought, and if it weren't for Voldemort she never would have...

He had no doubts that Tilda had not been acting of her own free will when their son was conceived and the idea galled him, for it meant that he was the agent for Tilda either being violated or having to sleep with him while under Imperius--which amounted to the same thing as far as he was concerned. Either way, he felt deeply ashamed and remorseful and wondered when Tilda had worked out that it wasn't really him looking back at her through his eyes. He hoped that it was well afterward; he hated to think of her realising while they were still--

Harry leaned against the cold stone wall in the corridor, his eyes closed as he gulped painfully, swallowing the bile that had risen in his throat. He wondered briefly whether this was how Viktor Krum had felt when he'd been under Imperius and had put the Cruciatus curse on Cedric Diggory. Krum had probably never been taught to resist Imperius, though, he thought. I was supposed to be learning Occlumency. I was supposed to be able to stop Voldemort from using me to hurt others. To hurt Tilda.

Harry's head jerked up when a shout emerged from the Trophy Room. He strode back to the doorway; Carlisle and Harrison faced each other with wands drawn, a clear hatred in both of their expressions. (That didn't take long, thought Harry, unsurprised, having far too much experience of the Carlisle family.) The rest of the children--Harry still couldn't get over how small first years looked to him now that he was nearly thirty--stood around the two boys, shouting encouragement or taunts, creating a great din in the echoing chamber.

"It's not my fault we have this detention, Carlisle! You're the one who was shooting your mouth off!" Harrison declared, giving Harry an idea. (An idea he would never have acted upon if Dumbledore had still been the headmaster.) Under his Cloak he pointed his wand at Carlisle, thinking, Here's an advantage to being my son, Harrison... I may not have done anything for you in the last eleven years, but I can help you now. Before the boy could frame a response to Harrison, his mouth had leapt from his face and was careering around the room, making a sound like a bullet as it ricocheted off the glass and stone surfaces around them, bouncing from one dark, tarnished plaque to another, from trophy case to trophy case.

The others stared in wonder at the airborne mouth, occasionally ducking or dodging it, except for the blonde girl with the thick glasses, who began to laugh so hard that she was doubled over, clutching her stomach. A boy with reddish-brown hair soon followed her example, until the only ones not laughing uncontrollably were Carlisle (since his mouth was busily bouncing off a large indignant-looking bust of a goblin mounted over the door) and Harrison himself.

Harry was finding it very difficult not to laugh too, but a moment later he did not feel like laughing at all; he heard footsteps approaching the corridor, a regular clipped rhythm that he recognised easily after seventeen years. He quickly restored Carlisle's mouth and slipped further down the corridor so that he might elude the newcomer by hiding in a niche. He also instinctively set up the mental barriers that would preclude his being detected in another manner, glad that he had eventually mastered Occlumency.

Snape looked, if possible, more irked than usual as he swept into the corridor; Harry concentrated harder on his mental barriers, relieved when Snape turned and stood in the doorway to the Trophy Room, surveying the first year Gryffindors with a critical eye.

"It is my understanding that you are serving detention; tell me, then, why I heard laughter ringing through the corridors, evidently originating here?" he said icily, his black eyes sweeping from right to left. Harry was glad that he had restored Carlisle's mouth; he moved closer, so that he could see past Snape into the Trophy Room.

"He made my mouth fly around the room," Carlisle whinged, wasting no time in grassing on Harrison, pointing his finger accusingly. Harrison's eyebrows flew up in surprise.

"I didn't!" he said immediately. "Or--at least--I don't think I did. I didn't mean to..."

"You said I'd shot off my mouth and then it was shooting, all over the place!" Carlisle retorted, causing a number of students to start sniggering into their hands or otherwise attempting to stifle their laughter. When they caught Snape's eye, however, the soft tittering petered out.

Harry worried for a moment that he'd made matters worse by performing a spell for which Harrison was now going to be blamed. I didn't mean for you to get into trouble, he thought. The boy with the reddish-brown hair stepped forward, his snub childish nose somehow looking familiar to Harry. He bit his lip nervously and said, "It was me, sir. I did it. Ted's my friend and I didn't like to see him bullied. If anyone's going to be punished, it should be me."

"Really?" Snape said, one eyebrow raised sceptically. He looked back and forth between the two boys for a moment before saying, "Both of you. In my office, now. I will deal with you in a few minutes. Go." Harrison and his friend did not wait for further instructions but immediately bolted down the corridor. Snape watched them go, after which he crossed his arms and glared at the other first year Gryffindors.

"I would take more points from Gryffindor for inappropriate conduct while in detention, but I hear that Professor Potter has already deducted quite a number of points from his own house today, so count yourselves lucky that you are not losing even more. I will alert Mr Filch to the fact that you need closer supervision, as you are evidently incapable of executing a simple cleaning job without erupting into civil war. I should add, however, a small ‘thank you,' as it will clearly be quite easy to eliminate Gryffindor as any sort of threat in the House Cup competition this year," he sneered, making Harry clench his hands under the Cloak. "Get to work. You don't want Mr Filch to find you idle when he arrives," he added threateningly.

Harry struggled to keep his emotions under control as Snape turned and strode down the corridor away from him. It will clearly be quite easy to eliminate Gryffindor as any sort of threat in the House Cup competition... He hadn't changed a bit; Harry seethed, watching him, thinking of the previous year's Quidditch Final. Oh, you think Gryffindor's no threat this year? he thought furiously. We'll just see about that.

He wondered what Snape was going to do to Harrison and the other boy but he didn't dare go down to the dungeons to find out; he knew that was too keyed up to maintain his mental barriers against intrusion for much longer; Snape would soon detect his presence. Frustrated all out of proportion to what had occurred, he strode down the corridor in the opposite direction, toward the tower where Ginny was tucking the girls into their beds...

I've never done that with Harrison, he thought suddenly. No, he corrected himself, his friend called him ‘Ted.' Tilda was the only parent the boy had ever known. Even though he was remorseful over the way the boy had come to be--he still didn't know how he could face Tilda to talk about it, although he knew that eventually he must--Harry also felt a sudden acute sense of loss, of having lost eleven years with the boy, with his son, with a son he hadn't even known existed. And now, when he tried to help him with a bully, it backfired...

Feeling terrifically incompetent as a father (and somewhat chagrined, as a teacher, that he'd put a spell on a student), he took off his glasses and the Invisibility Cloak, angrily wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Replacing his glasses on his nose and slinging the Cloak over his shoulder, he walked wearily up the curving stairs to their tower flat. The nearly full moon sailed high above the oculus at the top of the staircase like a hopeful beacon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Nate and Teddy quickly reached the marble stairs leading to the entrance hall, slowing down and catching their breaths.

"You--shouldn't--have--done--that," Teddy managed to say to Nate, still panting a little. He couldn't work out why Nate had taken it upon himself to claim responsibility for Carlisle's mouth ricocheting around the Trophy Room. He was uncertain about how to articulate a simple thank you, having never had a friend near his age who wasn't related to him. He was good friends with his Uncle Jack, who was a bit like a large child able to move around the country at will, but the closest thing he'd ever had to a best mate was his cousin Jimmy, who was twelve.

Unfortunately, his Aunt Audrey and Aunt Nick didn't visit more than a few times a year, so he didn't get to see Jimmy as often as he would have liked. And even though it suddenly was like he finally had a best mate whenever Jimmy did visit, his cousin talked incessantly about his friends at home, his real mates, which he had, unlike Teddy. Most of Jimmy's friends also had parents who were not the usual husband-wife combination, which was how he'd met them, but when he and his friends got together the last thing they wanted to discuss was their parents. They talked about football or video games or films or music, just like other kids.

Teddy envied Jimmy and his relatively normal life and had even asked his cousin how he'd got away without being teased all of the time. Jimmy had shrugged. "Dunno," he'd said; "I reckon my mums are just--careful."

Careful. He knew his mum had tried to be careful, but although she knew her efforts often failed, she had no idea just how spectacularly they had failed at times; Teddy had protected her from the worst of what he'd experienced.

Nate shrugged and his walk turned into something of a swagger; he smirked and said, "Don't worry about me. It's not your fault you performed accidental magic, after all. And Sev--erm, Professor Snape told me the same thing, although he also told me that I need to learn to control myself."

"Yeah, but you said you did it on purpose. You must love detentions..."

As they began descending the stairs to the dungeons, Nate's smirk only grew more pronounced. "I doubt I'll be getting detention from Professor Snape."

Teddy bored his eyes into the back of Nate's head as they walked downstairs; he wasn't used to having a friend who was always around, but he didn't think he was supposed to take I doubt I'll be getting detention from Professor Snape for an answer without trying to find out what was behind it. It seemed that Nate wanted him to ask.

"All right, I give up. Why won't you be getting detention from Snape?" Teddy finally asked, flexing his tired right arm and hoping he wasn't going to be doing more cleaning.

Nate turned around when they reached the potions classroom and grinned at him. "Remember when I said I almost had a stepfather?"

Teddy shrugged. "Yeah, what about--?" Nate was grinning even more broadly now and Teddy stared at him with his mouth open. "No. You're kidding. Your mum and Snape? I thought you said you were living like Muggles and you didn't know you were a wizard. You didn't even know your own mum was a witch."

"All true. And I didn't know Severus--erm, Professor Snape--was a wizard until this summer, when I got my letter. I found out a lot of things when my letter came." He paused. "I was hacked off at my mum for about a week after. Imagine being able to do magic and--and just not, all these years?" He shook his head.

"She must really have loved your dad," Teddy said softly, thinking of his own mother and trying to imagine her--her and Potter--no. He couldn't. He simply couldn't. And while part of it was that he didn't want to, even once he'd got past that...

"I reckon. Not that it kept her from dating or anything."

"So how did Professor Snape and your mum--?"

"They were just friends at first. She brought him home one night when she had one of her book club things and the sitter had called to say that she was sick. She said Severus--oh, bother, I can't remember not to call him that--was an old friend who'd come into her office that day. She asked him if he could stay with me for a little while so she could go to the book club and he said he could."

"How old were you?"

Nate looked thoughtful. "About four. I was in my Muppet stage. Don't know why; can't stand them now. I was spending a lot of time watching videos of The Muppets Take Manhattan and the one where they go to London, and I remember Severus sitting on the couch with me, watching one of them with me while Mum was out, no expression on his face at all. And then I saw it." The edge of his mouth turned up. "He was trying not to laugh, but it wasn't all the time. Just sometimes. And before Mum came home I finally worked it out: it was whenever Miss Piggy hit someone." He laughed loudly, then clapped his hand onto his own mouth when the noise sounded quite loud in the stone corridor. Teddy put his hand over his own mouth to quiet his laughter. He tried to picture the dour man who'd shown up at his house to take him shopping in Diagon Alley sitting with a four year old, watching the Muppets, but he could not. It was too strange.

"So how did he go from babysitting you to dating your mum?"

"No idea, but it was a while after that first time that I saw him again. I think. It's hard to remember now; I was only four. Mum said he was babysitting me again because Abby--my usual babysitter--couldn't do it. Her mum was sick this time. I didn't really know the bloke who was taking her out--it was a date, not the book club. Cyril-something. And the next morning, when I heard a man's voice in the kitchen, I think I was too sleepy at first to realise that it was Severus; but then I walked into the room and saw him sitting there instead of Cyril. Or whatever his name was. And I didn't even get right away that they were sort of dating until the next time Abby came to babysit me and he was the one who picked up my mum. He wasn't so bad, either. One or two of the blokes she'd dated really hated kids but tried to pretend they didn't. He never looked thrilled about spending time with me, but he didn't try to make me miserable, either. I swear one git was trying to poison me..."

"So why didn't he become your stepfather? Why did they break up?"

"Mum got pregnant."

Teddy dropped his jaw. "And he broke up with her? That's not very--"

"No, he asked her to marry him. But she said no. So that was it. After Julian was born Severus only came round to see him." Nate's mouth twisted. "I don't think I realised I missed him at first, and then I blurted out something stupid and selfish, because, well, I was only about six; he seemed to feel guilty about leaving me behind when he took Julian out for the day, probably because I said something about not having a dad, and ever since then he's taken me along, too. Which probably also works better for Mum, since that means she gets time to herself when we're both gone."

"Why'd she say no when he asked her to marry him?"

Nate shrugged. "Dunno. He's nothing to look at, but that didn't stop her from dating him. He's a lot older than her. Maybe that had something to do with it."

Yeah, but was he twice her age, like my mum was when she and Potter...? Teddy stopped that train of thought before it could go any further and said, "In a way he has become your stepdad. Without actually marrying your mum. And now you have a little brother, too. That must be nice."

Nate considered this. "Yeah, in a way. You're right, I reckon. I still wish she'd married him... He's not a bad bloke. She could do worse. After I got my Hogwarts letter I wondered if she didn't marry him because she was worried about having to tell me about being a wizard sooner than she'd planned. I mean, unless she was willing to live apart from her husband for ten months a year we probably would have come here to live and I think I would have worked out that he was a wizard and my mum was a witch..."

Teddy snorted. "You think?" Just as he said this they heard clipped, regular footsteps descending the stairs; soon Professor Snape was striding down the corridor toward where they were leaning against the classroom door, waiting. He looked very stern.

"Both of you. This way." Teddy couldn't tell whether he was angry, or how angry he might be; he was terse and his face was impassive, giving nothing away. They followed him along the corridor and into his office, looking uncertainly at each other. For a moment it occurred to Teddy to wonder whether Nate had made up the story about Snape and his mum; after all, he didn't know Nate very well and he'd met a number of kids at his village school who'd told elaborate lies to him and then laughed when Teddy believed them. He had often wished that he wasn't so trusting and had started to be a little more sceptical during the previous year, but there were times when this had backfired and he'd disbelieved the truth, making it even less likely the other kids would like him...

Teddy sighed deeply as he followed Nate, wishing he were better at making friends and hoping that he wouldn't regret believing Nate--even though he wasn't certain that he did. He wouldn't question Nate's honesty but he wouldn't treat the story as fact until he had other evidence. As far as he could tell Snape was not behaving as though he knew Nate and was in the habit of taking him and his little brother (if he existed) on holidays.

Professor Snape sat behind the large desk, bell jars on the shelves behind him reflecting the candlelight and firelight that had sprung into life when they'd entered the room, giving the subterranean space an eerie green underwater glow. He put his fingertips together and raised one eyebrow, the edge of his mouth turned up as he inspected them. "I think that for your misbehaviour during detention an appropriate punishment will be another detention tomorrow afternoon, with me, in the potions dungeon. If you enjoyed cleaning trophies using Muggle methods you should revel in this," he added, his mouth twisting some more.

Snape seemed to be truly enjoying this and Teddy turned to Nate, blurting out, "You said he wouldn't give you detention!" He decided that he didn't believe Nate's story and wasn't even certain he wanted to be his friend anymore. Oh, well. That was fast...

Snape looked at Nate very pointedly, however, and said in a soft voice, "What, exactly, have you been telling Harrison?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ginny sank down into the bath so that her chin just brushed the surface of the water. She closed her eyes and tried to stop it, she tried with all her might, but it was too hard; soon the tears were coming of their own accord again, even as she thought, Oh, bugger. Now I'll have to do a spell to deal with the blotchiness so Harry won't know....

Since she'd already decided to deal with it after the fact she gave up on stopping the flow of tears and simply allowed it to happen; the salt water dripped from her chin and combined with the soapy bath water, which was cooling. She didn't feel like reaching for her wand, however, in order to maintain the warmth, so she simply sat in the chilly water, shivering. In an attempt to be a little warmer she wrapped her arms around her legs and put her head on her knees, allowing herself, for once, to cry in earnest.

Unfortunately, her mood was making her magic go a little haywire; a chill wind swept across the floor of the bathroom and made the towels flutter on the rack. She held her legs more tightly, trying to get her emotions under control...

"Ginny?"

She jerked her head up, then closed her eyes and held her breath, plunging her face into the water for a moment before bringing it up again, wiping the water from her eyes. Her face was dripping wet and it was harder to tell that she'd been crying. She hoped.

"What, Harry?" she said as brightly as she could. He had said her name from the hall and she felt like her heart was thumping quite painfully in her chest.

"Are you all right? Can I come in?" She looked around quickly; there was no longer a breeze moving the towels about. She'd managed to calm herself enough.

"Of course you can," she said quickly, running her hand down her face as he opened the door. He entered slowly, as though deep in thought, and perched on the edge of the clawfoot tub, staring into space. She decided that she needn't have worried about his noticing her tears; he didn't look at her.

"Can I ask you something, Ginny?" he said softly, reaching behind him to brush his hand idly through the cooling water. He shivered and pulled his hand back, turning to look at her at last. "Aren't you cold? Want me to warm it up for you?"

She shook her head, turning away from him as she stood, reaching for a towel. "I should get out anyway. I need to adjust my lesson plans if I'm going to be teaching the first year Gryffindors on my own and you're taking Slytherin..."

"That wasn't what I wanted to ask you," he said needlessly as she wrapped the towel around her shivering body, her damp hair feeling like it was laced with ice where it clung heavily to her upper back.

She breathed in deeply through her nose, thinking, No, I didn't think so. She grasped his shoulder to steady herself as she stepped out of the tub and onto the towel she'd lain on the cold stone floor earlier; she tried to ignored the hard shards of ice that had frozen themselves into the fabric when she'd inadvertently sent the cold wind howling across the floor. "What did you want to ask me?" she said simply, her feet feeling like ice themselves.

"Never mind that now. We can get to it. You look upset. What are you upset about?"

"It's stupid, Harry," she said, turning away from him. "I just want to--"

"Ginny, look at me," he said quietly, gently putting his hand on her damp shoulder, turning her to face him. She hoped he wouldn't notice her red-rimmed eyes and dark pink nose (she'd seen herself in the mirror hanging over the lavatory), but when she saw his expression she knew that he knew.

"Why have you been crying, Ginny?" he whispered, taking out his wand and drawing it gently over her hair, drying it, stroking it slowly as he worked and combing his fingers through it, making her shiver from the feel of his touch on her scalp.

"I said that it's stupid," she repeated, wishing that she didn't feel the way she did, that she wasn't such a small, petty person. She couldn't look at him.

"Ginny," he said slowly, "you don't like to cry around me. You never have. Why?" he asked, sinking his fingers into her now-dry hair. Somehow his question made her want to start crying again. She had to open her eyes very wide to avoid it; she almost succeeded.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said, turning away from him again, tugging her hair away from his hand. "I know--I know you don't like people crying around you, so I try never to--"

"What?" he said, his voice going up. "Where'd you get that idea?"

"Well," she whispered, wiping her cheeks with her back to him. "You know. You told me how Cho got on your nerves, crying all over the place. You called her a hosepipe..."

"And you thought that meant that you couldn't cry around me? That was Cho, Ginny. She didn't even need to be crying to get on my nerves, when all was said and done... And look at why she was crying: she wasn't over her old boyfriend, Cedric. Yes, that's why I wanted to go out with her, so I could spend all of my time talking about the bloke she really wanted to be alive, the bloke whose death was my fault. ‘Cheers, Harry. How'd you like to come to Hogsmeade on Valentine's Day for a guilt-fest?'"

"Oh," Ginny said softly. "That makes sense," she conceded. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He shrugged. "I reckon that after we broke up I didn't want to dwell on it. Felt I was well shot of her, though. Couldn't even work out why I fancied her in the first place..."

"You thought she was pretty and didn't notice any other girls when she was around," Ginny said promptly. Harry put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.

"I was thirteen when I first noticed her. I didn't even know her. I noticed you even before you were my girlfriend. I didn't think about why I was noticing, but I did." He smiled and brushed her hair from her brow. "With that hair you're a bit hard to miss."

Ginny wanted to smile back at him, but somehow she couldn't. "And then there was the summer after Sirius died, and Tilda," she said softly. "I think she rather made other girls fall out of your brain, and now we know why..." She looked up at Harry, who had opened his mouth as though to speak but closed it again with a snap, turning red. "All right, Harry. You want to know why I was crying? Because I'm stupid, that's why. Because I sat there this morning, after you left, and watched him, your son, and I felt such hatred and jealousy of his mother--" Her voice caught and she couldn't speak for a moment. "And it wasn't because she had slept with you," she was finally able to go on. "I mean--yes, a part of me does want to dwell on that at times. But you don't remember it and if you were possessed by Tom then it could have been quite horrible for her. I don't envy her that at all.... But him..." She put her hand to her brow, closing her eyes. "All I could think was that he could have been my son, our son, yours and mine, but he wasn't. He's hers. And it's all my own fault..."

She looked up; Harry was eyeing her curiously. "What are you talking about, Ginny?"

"Oh, I don't mean that I wanted to have a baby when I was in school. Don't be ridiculous. I meant--we could have had more kids if I hadn't been so--well, it was my first time, and all I could think was that I never wanted to experience that again and once I'd said that, I didn't think--"

"--you didn't think you could take it back," Harry finished for her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to him. "Oh, Ginny, why didn't you say something before? We're still quite young, the girls would adore having a little brother or sister--"

"And that's another reason that I'm a fool and a hypocrite and a--well, if you can think of more terrible names to call someone you can just jump in any time..."

"Ginny! What are you on about?"

"A son. I was specifically talking about the fact that I was supposed to be teaching and all I could think about was that I wanted a son. Your son. Even after everything I went through when I was growing up, all of the times my mother was a great and terrible stick-in-the-mud who thought the boys should never be asked to do anything around the house--although the garden was all right, they could be bothered to throw gnomes over the hedge--and moving furniture was all right, that wasn't girlish. Do you know why I had to sneak into the broom shed when no one else was looking? Mum didn't think it ladylike to ride. She drove me mad favouring the boys when I was growing up and I hated it. And now you'd think I didn't have two beautiful daughters, you'd think I had no kids at all, like Hermione. All I could think of was a son." She sighed. "Not that it was the first time. Whenever Ron and Luna have another boy I find myself thinking it again and hating myself more each time..."

"Ah," he said, sitting on the edge of the tub and drawing her to him; he pulled her onto his lap and held her against his chest, his arms around her waist, her cheek on his shoulder.

"That's all you have to say?" she whispered, allowing him to manipulate her; she felt very small and insignificant in his arms.

"Not entirely," he said throatily. Looking down at her he said slowly, "Ginny, you could have said that you'd changed your mind about not having more kids at any time. I thought it was what you wanted. I never pushed because--well, it just didn't seem like my place. I saw what you went through to give birth to Rory and I wish I'd been there for Ruby as well. I was actually pretty relieved when you said you didn't want more kids, since it meant I wouldn't ever need to see you like that again..."

She ducked her head under his chin. "But it's stupid to want to have more kids just because she's given you a son..."

"Well, maybe. A little," he agreed, grinning at her and putting his hand under her chin. "But you've thought it before, so that's okay," he assured her with a loving smile. "And if you like--we could get started on a larger family tonight," he said softly, leaning down to kiss her on the tip of her nose.

She was suddenly very aware of being wrapped in the towel only; she looked up at her husband, still uncertain about how this man had become her partner in life, wondering where the little boy had gone who couldn't get onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters...

Ginny felt like her tears had fallen hours and not minutes earlier; Harry's gentle touch and suggestive words sent everything else out of her mind. She stood, lacing his fingers through hers and leading him to their bedroom. Grinning at him, she said, "You do have good ideas sometimes, Potter," as she dropped the towel and walked to the bed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Severus Snape remained in his office long after he sent the boys back to Gryffindor Tower, sitting at his desk, staring into the fire and thinking. There was nothing to be done for it; he didn't dare modify Harrison's memory so that he wouldn't remember what he'd heard. That was useless; Nate would only tell him again, very likely. Severus's experience with the boy had taught him that threats would have no effect on Nate's loose lips. Harrison knew everything, it seemed, about his new friend's family life, including the fact that he was a regular part of it and had almost been Nate's stepfather.

Almost.

If she had accepted his proposal, which she hadn't...

Not that he blamed her. There had not been a great deal of romance in their relationship. He would not have called it "convenient," either, as it was anything but for him. A part of him knew that she was taking him for granted, somewhat, but he didn't care. It had been so long since anyone had sought him out for any reason that he simply took what company she wanted to offer him and did not question the rest of it.

He still thought frequently of the first time he had walked into her office; Dumbledore had told him her name, but until he saw her he had not really remembered who she was. He was not yet the Deputy Headmaster, so he was not in the habit of visiting the new Muggle-born students during the summer. However, Dumbledore had told him that Minerva was quite concerned about a new girl whose wizard father had neither acknowledged her existence nor paid anything toward her support. After Minerva and the Ministry had "convinced" him of the justice of paying for his daughter's school fees and supplies there was the issue of the additional support he had finally decided to pay the mother, a great deal of money, to make up for the years of neglect. (Severus reluctantly admired Minerva's remarkable knack for inducing guilt.)

The large sum of money had to be converted to pounds first and then paid to the mother in some way that wouldn't cause the Muggle government to think she'd stolen it. In the past the usual way was to invent a long-lost relative who'd left the money in a will, but the mother had grown up in an orphanage, had never been adopted, and no one knew anything about her family, so it was agreed that that would cause more problems than it would solve, plus future payments would need to be explained away in some fashion. Minerva was the one who'd come up with the idea of using a Muggle charity; she knew, in fact, of a witch who was living as a Muggle and working for the perfect organisation, a charity that provided grants to single mothers with incomes below a certain level. Anonymous donations could always be made to private charities with no problem, so all they had to do was see to it that the charity funnelled the money to the mother in question, who would then have a legitimate source to cite for the income.

Minerva was far too busy visiting other Muggle-born students to see the witch who worked at the charity so Dumbledore asked Severus to do this one favour for him and Severus could think of no plausible excuse for avoiding it, which was how he found himself striding through the streets of Fulham in Muggle clothes on his way to the Queen Alexandra Women's Aid Society.

He asked for her at the receptionist's desk and was given directions to her office. When he reached it she was sitting in a rather lumpy-looking old fashioned desk chair, poking at a computer keyboard as though she was afraid it would explode if she did something wrong, her face screwed up in a grimace as she swore under her breath.

She had the same long, dark curling hair he remembered, although he'd been accustomed to seeing her in Hogwarts robes, not in the Muggle clothes she wore now. Severus had not seen her, he realised, since she had left school at the end of her seventh year. He idly wondered why she was working here, instead of in the wizarding world, but he remembered that she was a Muggle-born and decided that he would never really understand the appeal the Muggle world had for them once they'd had a taste of the magical life. During the Dark Lord's second reign of terror more than a few Muggle-born witches and wizards had abandoned the wizarding world, many not bothering to return after the danger was past. She seemed to be one of these, as it had been three years since the war had ended and she was clearly firmly ensconced in her job.

"Miss--Miss Clearwater? I believe you can help me with a most delicate matter," he said in a low voice, lest her coworkers overhear them; the "offices" were in an old townhouse whose rooms were divided into work spaces by rude-looking low panels that defined small cubicles. Hers seemed to be in what had been the drawing room; the elaborate plaster work on the high ceiling, coated with too many layers of aqua paint, was a strange counterpoint to the melamine desks and flickering computer screens.

She looked up and saw him, dropping her jaw. "P-professor Snape? What are you doing here?" She could not have looked more surprised if he had come to see her with a dragon in tow. He was very businesslike and straightforward, all the while wanting to shake her for giving up the world in which she should have been living. But he had to put aside his feelings about her job and way of life and focus on their common ground. Lecturing her would be counterproductive and could cause her to refuse to do what he was asking. Dumbledore had given him a very simple task; it was time to get to it.

"As I said, I need your help..."

And she had given her help, eagerly, impressed that he wanted to assist the woman in question, as though it had been his idea and not Minerva's. He found himself reluctant to correct this view; she was treating him strangely; it took him only a little while to determine what was different--they were equals now, both adults. He remembered that she had been somewhat reserved as a girl; she was a good Ravenclaw who had executed her work conscientiously, but she never stood out in any way in his mind until she and Hermione Granger had been Petrified. When he had arrived in the hospital wing bearing the Mandrake draught for reviving the Petrifaction victims he had found Percy Weasley there already, sitting by her bedside holding her stony hand, telling her it would be all right...

When he was rising to leave her cubicle, having done what he'd come for, her telephone rang. She nodded at him and waved a cheerful goodbye as she picked it up, saying, "Penelope Clearwater." As he was walking down the makeshift corridor past the other cubicles he heard her say clearly, "Oh no, Abby. No no no. You cannot do this to me. I'm the one who chose the book! I'm supposed to be leading the discussion..."

He paused for only a moment, wondering what on earth she was talking about, but a moment later he shook himself and continued moving toward the exit; when he heard footsteps behind him it never occurred to him that she had followed him; she had to call his name before he turned around.

"Professor Snape! Erm, Severus!" she said both urgently and uncertainly. She strode toward him, red-faced and somewhat nervous. When she reached him she bit her lip, then looked like she had decided to just take a chance. "What are you doing tonight?"

That he was not expecting. "I am, er, nothing in particular..."

"You see, I'm in this book club and I chose the book we're discussing tonight and my sitter just called and said she's sick in bed and can't come and there's no one else I can ask because everyone else I know is either coming to the book club or has kids themselves and I've tried sending Nate to someone else's house for the evening, but..." She paused in the middle of this rapid-fire verbal assault to look around nervously and put her face very close to his, whispering, "That's when he tends to do accidental magic. He gets upset, you see, when he has to go to a strange place..." She straightened up again and cleared her throat. "You're my only hope," she added with a catch in her voice that he knew was meant to be quite affecting.

It was. He was utterly affected by her, which both surprised and appalled him. She was a student only seven years ago. She is sixteen years my junior...

"Of course. I--I did not know you had a son..."

After that night he did not hear from her for weeks, other than a thank-you note for the night he had watched her son. Then suddenly, on a Friday afternoon, he received an owl from her, asking him to come to her flat that evening. He left a note for Dumbledore to inform him of his plans and left the castle immediately after his last lesson, walking to Hogsmeade, then Apparating to London, arriving in an alleyway outside her building, hidden behind a large rubbish tip.

She answered her door promptly and he almost fell over in shock; when he'd seen her at work she was dressed in a nondescript skirt and blouse, along with some odd purple wellies that she'd also worn to attend her book club meeting. This evening her hair was piled on top of her head instead of hanging loose and she wore a black dress of some sort of slightly shiny material that clung rather closely to her body; below the hem of her dress he could very clearly see her legs without the interference of the wellies.

"Good evening," he said stiffly, trying to keep his tone of voice even; he did not wish to reveal how affected he was by her appearance. She smiled in greeting and stepped back to admit him; to his surprise another voice--a male voice--spoke from the living room at the end of the entrance hallway.

"Who's there, Penny?"

"The babysitter," she called back.

Severus felt a jolt in his stomach. The babysitter. He thought back again to the tone of her note and realised that he should have caught on to the reason for her asking him to come to London, though it lent itself to another interpretation as well, which was how he had taken it...

Before they entered the living room she put her head very close to his; there was a mischievous light in her eye as she whispered to him, "Do you think I should tell him that I also do money-laundering for you?" She gave him a wicked conspiratorial smile; he stared at her, bewildered, and more than a little disconcerted by her perfume.

"What? Oh..." It took him a moment to understand. Before he knew what was happening she was walking ahead of him into the light of the living room, where her date was waiting, waiting for the babysitter to arrive so that they could go out...

Although that evening had turned out differently than he might have expected based on that beginning, he felt sometimes that her announcing that he was the babysitter was prescient in some way; now that he only saw her to take Julian and his brother to the zoo, or to a puppet show, or whatever Severus had chosen to occupy the boys on a given day. He truly felt as though he was the babysitter again, and would be forevermore.

He stood and swore, then flicked his wand at the fire to extinguish it before leaving the office for his solitary rooms.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"I saw him in detention. I went downstairs to spy on him. Pathetic, eh?"

"Oh, Harry," she said helplessly, pressing her hand to his bare chest as they lay in bed after their first attempt to enlarge their family.

"Seeing him is so amazing. I just stood there at first, watching him. My son was all I could think. He's my son. It was so--weird. Sort of like looking in a mirror but not. I mean, I know I don't look like that anymore. Not completely, anyway. But it's still how I see myself, I reckon. Like a kid. It was a bit like the time I saw my dad in the Pensieve. He's like me--but a little off. Actually, he looks more like my dad than me..."

"Still, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree..." she mused, tracing circles on his chest.

"I'll say it doesn't. You know what caused that fight this morning?"

"What?"

"Carlisle insulted his mum. Tilda." Harry told her what he'd overheard, making Ginny sit up straight.

"He--he said that?" She shook her head. "Would you have said anything like that when you were that age?" she asked, aghast.

Harry shook his head also. "Well, no, not me. But I heard Dudley and his gang say worse things, actually, to other kids at our school. Come to that, the Carlisle boys do remind me a bit of Dudley and Piers and the others..."

"Speaking of whom, you'll have to tell your relatives that you have a son," she said. To her surprise Harry laughed out loud.

"Are you joking? I can't do that. If Aunt Petunia knew that I became a father before my seventeenth birthday and that Tilda was the mother she'd have it all over Surrey in about five minutes flat. And she'd make what Carlisle said sound like a compliment. No, Ginny. I know we sent them an announcement when the girls were born but there is no way I'm telling them about this. Thank goodness the last time I had to see them was at our wedding, and you remember how well that went..."

Ginny did indeed remember. She hadn't even known that her mother had taken it upon herself to invite the Dursleys. They had evidently shown up thinking that St Clare's Chapel was the church in which the ceremony was being held, but soon discovered, upon entering, that it had been turned into a home.

"Who the hell lives in a church?" she'd heard Vernon Dursley say from her vantage point at the top of one of the staircases in the drawing room. Vernon didn't see her, not being in the habit of looking up at people, only down.

"Whoever it is," Petunia Dursley opined, running her hand over some of the furniture, "they don't lack for money..."

At the reception Harry had obligingly introduced her to them, his jaw clenched; neither revealed that they hadn't actually intended to invite them. When his aunt asked him whose house they were using for the ceremony, he looked her squarely in the eye and said, "This is my place. I bought it last year when I finished school. Like it?"

Ginny could tell that Harry was enjoying watching the expression of surprise blossom on her face as she looked around. "Your place! And how did you afford something like--"

"Don't, Petunia," her husband warned her. "I don't want to hear about whatever he does for a living now..."

"Oh, I bought the house before I had a job, actually. For that matter, I still don't have a job. I've been training to be an Auror." Ginny smiled feebly at him, thinking of the news she had to give Harry later that evening, about being late. This certainly didn't seem to be the time...

"No job! Then what did you do, use your unnatural skills to steal the money?" his aunt accused, her mouth twisting in distaste.

Ginny had to try very, very hard not to pull out her wand and hex her on Harry's behalf; she thought these Dursleys were quite awful enough and was glad that they hadn't also brought Vernon's sister Marge, who, in addition to always setting off Harry's anger, was not to know about the wizarding world. Ginny thought it rather amazing that her wedding album wasn't full of photos of her throttling or hexing Dursleys--although the one shot that the photographer did get of all five of them together--a candid--showed Harry and Ginny making faces at his three relatives and trying to creep away...

"Well, you see, Aunt Petunia, it turns out that my parents left me rather a lot of money. Wizarding gold. Buying this house didn't really make much of a dent in it, either..." Harry was looking very smug and Ginny had to try very, very hard not to laugh.

"Gold!" Vernon bellowed suddenly. "What do you mean gold?"

"I mean as in gold Galleons. A Galleon is worth about five pounds."

Vernon was glaring at him through very narrow, angry eyes. "And just how many of these--these Galleons did your parents leave you?"

Harry smirked, making Ginny think he was gloating just a little too much. "Not sure. Whenever I take money out of my vault it never really seems to--what word am I looking for?" he asked Ginny, who raised her eyebrows.

"Diminish?" she suggested.

"Yes. It never seems to diminish," he said, smiling broadly at his uncle. "And I've not bothered counting it, so I couldn't really tell you," he added. His smile seemed rather fixed on his face, stiff, and Ginny wondered just how long he'd wanted to say these words to his uncle and watch his face go from beet red to deep purple. She was torn between enjoying his performance and feeling somehow that what he was doing was wrong, but then, the way they'd treated Harry since the age of one was wrong as well, so she reckoned he had a right to get some small revenge that didn't include actually casting spells on them. (She thought he looked quite tempted, and she'd felt the temptation to start throwing hexes around herself, so she quite sympathised with his plight.)

"All right," she said to him as they lay in bed, "we won't tell your Muggle relatives. But we really should tell Ron and Hermione and everyone else. And I think you should come back to teach the first year Gryffindors with me, so you can get to know him. You shouldn't have asked Minerva to let you drop that--"

"I didn't!" he said defensively, sitting up. "It was her idea. She felt I was being a ‘disruptive influence' on the students," he grumbled, followed by a sigh. "I did find out his birthday, though. The first of May, nineteen ninety-seven. Almost exactly--"

"Right," Ginny said quickly. "Almost exactly."

"And I don't know how I can teach him, anyway! Or even talk to him about being his dad." He bit his lip. "He hates me, Ginny. He really hates me. Not sure I blame him..."

"Nonsense, Harry. Just tell Minerva you'll behave yourself," she said, her eyes merry, prompting him to hit her playfully with a pillow, "and come back to teach with me."

"You'll see," he said ominously. "And even once I start talking to him--I have to explain to him how he exists. Somehow."

"And then there are the girls," she said, leaning back against her pillows.

"Which girls? Oh, the twins!" he said, hitting his brow with the heel of his hand. "Sorry." He groaned. "I don't have any idea how to tell them, either. Bloody hell."

"We have to tell them sometime, Harry. They just might notice if a boy who looks like you comes home with us for the holidays."

He groaned again. "Tilda."

"What about her?"

"Well don't you think that if we took him home for the holidays she'd want to have a say in that? Or tell us that we couldn't take him for the holidays? He might not want to come anyway, since he probably misses his mum and currently hates the very sight of my name. And even if he decides he doesn't hate me after all, how do I face her, after--after what he did to her through me--"

Ginny sighed and linked her arm in his, putting her head on his shoulder. "I have no idea, Harry. But I think it's like talking to your son or talking to our daughters; you just need to do it quickly, before you lose your nerve."

He nodded, closing his eyes. "I reckon you're right, but for some reason I feel right now that I'd rather be facing a Hungarian Horntail instead of an eleven year old boy, his mother, or a pair of eight year old girls. And I doubt that I'm going to feel any differently in the morning."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the morning, however, Harry awoke with a feeling of great anticipation and optimism. I can do this. He's just a boy. Surely he's wanted to know about me, about his dad...

He woke the girls while Ginny was still in bed, acutely aware of his fatherly duties this morning, laughing with good humour when they both tried to snuggle down into their beds for "just five more minutes." With a wave of his hand the blankets flew into the air and he was met with a chorus of, "Oh, Dad, come on..."

He soon had them dressed and ready to leave the castle with their grandmother; he took them down the winding stairs to the door that led directly onto the grounds, where Molly Weasley and the Thestral-drawn carriage were waiting. Molly looked surprised that she did not have to go up to their tower today but did not question Harry about this, clearly noticing his cheerful spirits.

"Did you always think it was cool how the carriage goes without anything drawing it?" Rory said to Harry as she was climbing in. Harry met Molly's eye for a moment.

"Of course, that's what I thought the first time I saw one," Harry said truthfully. Or he might have thought it strange, he couldn't properly remember. The first time he remembered really taking notice of the carriages was when he was finally aware of their not moving under their own power, magical or otherwise. He hoped that his daughters would never develop the ability to see Thestrals...

"Yeah, it's sooo cool it can do what a car can," Ruby sneered, climbing in after Rory.

"Ruby," Harry said, trying to make it sound like a warning but being too cheerful this morning to succeed. "Be nice to your sister."

"But Dad, why can't we get a car? Why haven't we?"

"It wouldn't make sense. We don't need one here at Hogwarts. When we're at home during the summer the weather is nearly always fine and we can ride our bikes into the village. When we go on holiday we sometimes rent a car, so it's not as though we never have one. We just don't own one. Someday we might. But now there's no need."

"What about the weekends? We could use a car on the weekends."

"Leave your dad alone, Ruby," Molly said, sounding impatient. "After I drop you off I still need to do my shopping..."

"What's this sudden interest in our owning a car?" Harry shook his head. "You'll be late for school if you don't leave now and you'll make your grandmother late for her shopping. Have a good day, the pair of you," he said, leaning forward to kiss them. He waved after backing away from the carriage; even after all these years Thestrals still gave him a bad feeling. "Thanks, Molly. Enjoy your shopping. See you this afternoon."

The carriage moved off around the tower and Harry breathed in the smell of the autumn morning, enjoying the feel of the warm sun on his face. Rather than going back into the tower he decided to have a little walk around the castle, and when he reached the front door he entered the massive entrance hall just as the first students were coming down the marble stairs. He smiled and nodded at them, noting that some were still whispering behind their hands when they saw him; he decided to ignore this. He was not going to let it bother him. He had a son. It wasn't as though he'd killed anybody.

Mad-Eye Moody drifted through a wall just ahead of him and wafted into the Great Hall; Harry bit his lip and tried to change his train of thought.

I have a son but I've done nothing to be ashamed of...

"Hahaha!" Peeves cried the moment he saw Harry in the entrance hall. "Been a busy boy, eh, Potty-wee-Potty?" Peeves cackled with glee and threw up his arms; suddenly everyone in the entrance hall was showered by newspapers. All was chaos for several minutes as students and teachers had to remove the papers from their heads so that they could see where they were walking. One fell down right into Harry's hands and he saw immediately that it was the morning's Daily Prophet.

As he read the large front-page headline he had one thought only:

Oh, bloody hell.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"The morning paper, Master, sir," said the house-elf with a practised obsequiousness that somehow did not ring as true as it had before the Ministry had liberated elves from the jinxes and conditioning that had previously caused them to be utterly obedient to their masters and to punish themselves severely if, by some miracle, they temporarily overcame the effect of the jinxes and disobeyed in any way.

"Thank you," Blaise Zabini said grudgingly; he'd learned the hard way that to omit such banal niceties from his exchanges with the elf was a guarantee that he'd find salt in the sugar bowl, if not worse. He tried not to think about how much he missed the old days as he spread the paper on the table beside his toast and coffee; the front-page headline immediately caught his attention.

"Well, now," he whispered to himself; "isn't this interesting..."



Author notes: Thanks to Cattatra, Rena, Nick and Lea for the beta reading and Britpicking.
More information on my HP fanfiction and essays can also be found HERE. Please be a considerate reader and review.