Chapter 2
“I’m so sorry.”
Severus glowered at him before turning, throwing the door to his office open, and sweeping inside. Harry stood in the doorway, trying to think of what to say.
“Your mother...” he blurted.
“Don’t, she’s gone,” came Severus’s dispassionate response. Harry looked at Severus’s face and saw the pain and disappointment that was usually so carefully hidden beneath the mask.
“You were playing in the garden,” Harry whispered. “I went inside to check on Eileen, and I must have crossed the time barrier. It pulled me back through, Sev, I’m so sorry. I never meant...” Harry closed his eyes and drew in a shuddering breath. “I loved... no, I love you and your mother so much, Severus. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you growing up. I should have been. There’s no excuse. I should have been more careful. I was naïve and arrogant, just like you always said. I thought the time barrier was a one-time thing and there wasn’t a way back. I had looked, extensively, when I was thrown back the first time… I was wrong.”
Harry passed a hand over his face and leaned against the doorway. Severus was silent for a moment, then spoke.
“There are so many years you missed, Potter. I don’t know how... I don’t know what you want.”
Harry looked up. “I’m so proud of you, Severus. I want you to know that.”
For a moment, Severus just stared at him. Then, all at once, the mask splintered entirely as fury filled his features.
“Proud, Potter?” he spat, one hand flinging out to the desk as if to keep himself tethered in a raging sea of grief and self-loathing. “You’re proud of me, your son, who enabled the death of the girl who was not only my best friend but also my grandmother? Who orphaned my father and set him on a path that would, in turn, orphan myself? Where is the pride in that?”
Slowly, Harry leaned forward, catching Severus’s raging gaze. “You are not an orphan anymore.”
Severus stared at him as the words fell like acid rain to scorched earth. “It is a bit late for that.”
Slowly, the mask fell back into place as Severus straightened and fixed his gaze on a point above Harry’s head. “Right now, I am 20 years your senior, Potter.” His gaze drifted down to Harry’s face. “I have no need of you.”
Harry studied him quietly and saw the child he once was —His child, Eileen’s child—in the flashing dark eyes. “I think you do.”