Fathers and Sons

Chapter 18 – Fathers and Sons

The last thing he remembered was looking into the eyes of his son. He had given him the memories he could, and he had collapsed. He woke and thought he had died. He saw red hair and a soft voice calling to him. Lily.

It was Miss Weasley.

"Professor Snape, I'm so glad you are awake! We all have been taking turns waiting and hoping!" She began to weep.

"Miss Weasley, please!" he snapped. He could not bear to see her crying.

She sniffed and forced herself to stop crying.

"Harry will be so happy to see you. He has a lot of questions. Your memories were...incomplete."

"What do you mean, incomplete?" he rasped as he struggled to rise.

She gently pushed him flat on his bed. "No, sir, don't exert yourself," she pleaded. "There were enough memories for Harry to understand everything you had to do for the Order...even Dumbledore," she whispered.

"What was confusing was a memory. It was one memory that was mixed in with the others. It was a memory of you holding Harry and talking to him in your dungeons. You were telling him what a powerful wizard he was going to be, and you were talking to him about potions, kissing him, calling him your boy," she said confusedly.

Snape's eyes narrowed. "You mean to tell me that Potter is alive?" he whispered softly.

"Yes, it was so terrible. Hagrid was carrying him and Voldemort said he was dead! We thought he was dead, but then he wasn't, and he killed Voldemort!" she said heatedly.

Snape clenched the sheet covering him and squeezed his eyes shut. He let out a sob of relief as the tears slid out of his eyes. Ginny lightly rubbed his arm.

"It's okay, Professor, it's all over now. Harry's fine and Tom is dead."

"He's gone?" he whispered as he opened his eyes.

"Gone, Professor, look at your arm. Your Dark Mark is significantly faded."

Snape looked at his arm in amazement.

"Harry's scar is faded as well, although it's still there. He's doing well, considering the losses," she said sadly.

"Who?" he asked fearfully.

"My brother, Fred," she choked. She calmed herself and went on. "We lost Moody, Trelawney, and Dobby. Then there were so many students...Cho Chang, Colin Creevy, Dean Thomas, and Seamus Finnegan. Tonks lost her Dad...oh, she and Remus have a son! Teddy Lupin," she said happily.

Great, the werewolf named his son after a bear, he thought snarkily.

"Where is Harry?" he asked fearfully.

"He's right outside, talking with Hermione. I'll get him if you want," she asked nervously.

"Yes," he whispered.

He was so tired, he could feel sleep coming to take him away. He forced himself to stay awake; he wanted to see his son.

Harry walked in and sat next to Snape.

"Professor, how are you feeling?" he asked respectfully.

Snape lifted a pale hand and slowly brought it to Harry's face. His fingers touched his cheek.

"You're alive," he choked. The tears welled up in his eyes. He remembered the night Cedric Diggory died. He had watched on as Amos was nearly killed by the severity of his grief. He stood stonily as others had cried for another man's son. It so easily could have been Harry, so easily. He had been called unfeeling and cold. It had hurt. He had been anything but! He had cried with relief and latent fear of what the Dark Lord might have done to Harry that night in the privacy of his room. Then he cried over what might still happen to him. He had not been able to allow himself to emote in public. If he had let himself go and comforted Amos, he would have never stopped crying, and he would have lost his mind. So, he had thanked God for letting the Diggory boy die and sparing his boy. Then, he had hated himself for it. God help him, he felt the same today. He didn't care who died as long as Harry was alive. Let other men's sons die, but not his. He thought about Arthur, and he decided he'd hate himself for that later.

Harry took Snape's hand in his own, and Snape closed his eyes, overcome with emotion. He turned his face from him, ashamed of his tears...afraid of being rejected by him.

But he let his boy hold his hand.

"Sir, the memories I have...I had...I returned, but I remember seeing something that was confusing. I was with you. I was just a baby. Was that real?"

Snape controlled his emotions and turned his face back to Harry's. "Yes, you lived with me. You and your mother after...your father died."

"What happened to my mum, sir?"

"She died. She wrote me a letter one evening when I was out spying, and she told me not to hate her, but she had to do it. She asked me to care for you. She poisoned herself," he whispered softly.

Harry was pale and his hand tightened around Snape's. "The memory was so...so strange. I don't understand. It looked like you liked me."

Snape looked into Harry's green eyes and whispered, "I have always loved you, Harry. You are my son. Not by blood, but by love. I loved your mother, and I loved you from the first moment I held you. I read to you, bathed you, held you on my knee when I graded papers...I even took you into my lab and told you all about potion-making. Your mother and I had great dreams for you. You and your mother were my life," he confessed.

Harry dropped Snape's hand and jumped up. "Why? Why have you been such a bastard to me? Why did you throw me away? Do you have any idea how horrible it was for me to live with the Dursleys? If you loved me, why didn't you keep me?"

Snape's anger boiled up inside him. "I fought to keep you. It wasn't my choice!" he wheezed. He started to cough and Harry gave him water to drink. He raised the head of the man he had sworn to kill one day, the man he had hated for as long as he could remember, and cradled his head to help him drink.

He lowered the wizard's head back onto his pillow and waited as Snape collected his thoughts.

"The Headmaster and Professor McGonagall came to my quarters after your mother's body was removed, and I honestly don't have a clear recollection of everything, just that Lily was dead, you were screaming, and then I was holding you in my arms, trying to comfort you. They told me you had to leave immediately, that you would not be safe unless you were under the protection of your mother's blood."

Harry nodded in understanding.

Snape continued. "I hated Petunia! I told the Headmaster she would ruin you. He told me it wouldn't be a goodbye forever, that you'd be back one day. I laughed in his face, the fool!" he spat bitterly.

Harry grew angry again. "Why were you such a nasty prick to me if you cared for me so much?" he yelled.

"The world loved you, Potter! You were adored, admired, kept safe, ensconced at Hogwarts. Yet, I KNEW you were going to have to face the Dark Lord! You needed to be tough! You needed to be strong! I did what I had to initially out of desperation to keep you alive...and if that meant you hating me, well, so be it!"

Harry's hardened face twitched. Snape narrowed his eyes and tried to scrutinize the meaning. He did not dare attempt to dive into his mind. Harry had proved himself to be a powerful wizard. He would not disrespect him by trespassing into his mind.

Harry spoke and this time his tone was calm. "You said 'initially.' What happened and when?" he demanded.

Snape continued without emotion. "Just before the confrontation between he and Wormtail, Black had stormed into my quarters and scared your mother, questioned my honor, and finally, called your mother's feelings for your father's memory into question. He broke his relationship with her and then, it was over. He went to Azkaban never having been reconciled to Lily. When Black came out of Azkaban and escaped, I knew you had a hand in it.

"When I saw how you were with him, the closeness between you, I acted out of spite. Black, who knew that you, Lily, and I had been a family, hated me for reminding him of the fact he had been so cruel to her. Our relationship, already not a good one, became even more vindictive and hateful because our feelings for you acerbated the situation.

"Black was angry he had lost so many years away from you because he had been falsely imprisoned. He saw me as a usurper back then and, after his escape from Azkaban, saw me as an irritant which to tear down and make you disrespect. He thought I wanted to disparage him so you would never accept him as a godfather."

Harry interrupted. "Which wasn't far off the mark, eh, Professor?" he said darkly.

Snape could feel the vein in his temple pulsate. "What do you want me to say, Potter? That I was jealous of your relationship with Black? That I fell for his goading because it was the only sore spot that he could touch?" he rasped.

He coughed again, and Harry exhaled impatiently while getting Snape more water to drink.

"YES!" he yelled. That's exactly what I want you to fucking say! I want you to show me a little of this caring and love you claim you felt for me all these years. From where I stand, I am having a right hard time believing it!"

Snape took a breath and began again. "In my quarters, there is a rocking chair and a stupid, little, stuffed duck that was one of your favorite toys. I kept the rooms Minerva transfigured for you and your mother even after you'd both gone, and I would sit in your empty room and rock and hold that blasted duck. I was very aware, H-Harry. I knew about your first love with Miss Chang, and my heart broke with yours as I saw you suffer with that. I rejoiced when I heard you had found love with Miss Weasley. The night she and Longbottom went to serve their detention with Hagrid for breaking into my office, I lowered my defenses for a short time and spoke with them. Miss Weasley hugged me, and I walked away happy because I knew she was the one you would marry. I thought how wonderful it would be if I could have grandchildren."

His eyes welled up again and he grew angry at his weakness. "You were mine! My son! I toilet trained you, I fed you, I held you when you cried and fell! My family was stolen from me, and I never recovered from it!"

Harry was in total, utter shock. It was obvious that he had been truly loved, that this man had placed him above his own needs. He hadn't been perfect, no, he was teaming with faults and failures, but he had loved him. There was just one question.

"Sir, why did my mum kill herself?"

There was no answer from the sick and battered man in his bed. Just the sound of the burst of an emotional dam and gut wrenching sobs and shrieks from a wizard who had always prided himself on never being vulnerable.