All You Can Never Know

Winter.

It felt like he was dying. 

He laid still on the cold stone floor, his thin body rigid within the circle of runes and symbols drawn around him. The faint scent of incense and herbs mixed with the sharp tang of blood in the air, but all he could focus on was the icy touch of his mother’s hands as she bustled around the tiny room, preparing him. 

Ma’s hair hung around her face but through those strands, he could see Ma’s dark, hard eyes.  

There was no comfort in her gaze, only purpose.

More shadows had come in through the door, crept around him in a circle, a low guttural chanting filled the room. 

The flickering light from the candles casted long, wavering shadows across the lair, their glow illuminating the chalked symbols drawn carefully around him. He could feel the soft but sharp grip of his Ma’s, steady and deliberate, her touch colder than the stone beneath him, and those onyx orbs hollowed out made no connection to his. 

“Maman,” he tried, “Maman, please.”

“No fear, Severus. N’aie pas peur. You must be cleansed.”

Ma traced across his left forearm, a long soft touch as she whispered a soft incantation. 

“Sectumsempra.” 

Severus awoke with a start, head spinning, breaths heavy. 

The bed was hot and his night shirt sticky. He sat up, wiping his forehead before unbuttoning and peeling his shirt off leaving on his white undershirt as he shivered in the cool breeze that seemed to linger in the dungeons this time of the year despite the fire from the hearth. From his window, the moon shone through the wispy ripples of the lake just beyond it. 

The lump was laying at the very foot of his bed, a patch of unruly tuft of hair sticking out from underneath a handmade patchwork blanket that had been a gift from the Weasley matriarch to the child on his birthday. 

Severus drew his legs towards his chest, wrapping both arms around his knees as he watched the small mass rise and fall with each breath, steadying his breaths with it. Then, he leaned forward, pulling the blanket just enough to reveal a sleeping child’s face, dark lashes stark against his pale eyelids, cheeks plump and rosy. He traced his fingers across the child’s eyebrows, down his button nose which scrunched up underneath the cool touch.

Eyelids started to flutter and Severus pulled back abruptly, his arm lingering. 

“Papa?” the young voice was thick with slumber. 

“Mmm,” Severus hummed, reaching for the child again, sweeping the fringe away from one peridot eye visible underneath all that hair that now stared sleepily at him. He tugged at the child’s arm, urging him nearer before picking him up under his underarms. The child was like a deadweight in his arms as he manoeuvred his child into the crescent space hollowed out by his body.

It was only against the coolness of the child’s skin that he became aware of how sticky and hot he was, sweat soaking through his shirt around his pits, how undecidedly grimy he must be. Despite everything, Harry’s face burrowed into his chest, tiny hands bunching up the fabric of his undershirt around his abdomen. 

He drew in a shaky breath and lightly pressed his lips across the child’s milky forehead. 

“Sleep, Harry, I’m sorry to wake you.”

The child nodded into him and squirmed until he was comfortable. 

“Papa?”

“Mm?” Severus said, hands tangling into the back of the child’s hair to draw him nearer. 

Harry had lifted a hand to press against his lightning scar.

“My scar, sometimes it hurts.” 

“Does it hurt now?” Severus asked, suddenly awake and alarmed.  

Harry shook his head. “He comes back? The bad man,” he said equally drowsy as before but voice tentative, curious, “Is he scary? Is he like…?”

“No.”  

“But you are scared if he comes back, Papa?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why are there so many bad mans in my life?”

“Men. Plural. And yes, I wonder too.” 

“Did you have bad men in your life too?”

“Too many.” 

“When you were small like me?”

“Smaller and then even when I was older.” 

“But you’re here now.”

“I’m here now.” 

“I’m not scared if you’re here,” the boy in his arms admitted. 

“That’s good, Harry.” 

“Tell me that story about Suisse again?” 

Two breaths. 

“Alright, just once through. Then you must sleep.”

“Okay, Papa.”

____

Winter descended upon them with an almost oppressive finality, wrapping the castle and its grounds in a suffocating chill. The week before Christmas, snow finally began to fall relentlessly, blanketing every stone, tree, and pathway in unbroken white, muting the world until even the sounds of footsteps seemed distant and muffled. 

The thick haired, skinny child was running ahead of them along the edge of the gravel where the path met the frozen lake. 

His tiny weathered boots had made a line in the thin snow, packing them so close to the ground where he stepped that one could make out the darkness of the stones that laid underneath. 

The lake, once rippling with life and reflecting the bright colours of autumn, was now only an expanse of dark, glassy ice, its surface smooth and unbroken except for where cracks formed like jagged veins beneath the surface.

Orange, the giant squid as Harry had so aptly named it, was nowhere to be seen. 

Lupin walked beside him. 

Quiet, always so quiet in moments like these.  

His breath came up in soft, misty clouds, and his hazel eyes– though tired from the moon two nights ago, where not distant as they had carefully fixed themselves on the child ahead of them, cautious not to let him out of sight; watchful, protective. 

Severus caught himself looking then stole another glance and chided himself not to linger before turning his gaze back ahead at the child who had stopped to bend by a tree, picking up a cluster of leaping toad caps. He waved them at Severus, then put them into his basket and went back to his make believe ‘foraging’. Severus would have no use for those leaping toad caps but he smiled at the child nonetheless. 

“Cold, isn’t it?” Lupin’s voice broke the silence, low and even, the words carried on a breath that fogged the air. He didn’t look at Severus but his tone was warm. 

Severus didn’t answer immediately, his eyes fixed on the frozen lake. 

“I hadn’t noticed,” he replied, lips tight.

Lupin chortled.

The silence was comforting as they watched Harry skip a stone out onto the frozen lake. It made an ominous hollow sound as it came into contact with the solid ice underneath it. 

Harry turned around to look at Severus who nodded in his direction.

“Alright but not beyond the rock, Harry.”

“Okay!” The child’s voice was muffled under his scarf. He watched as Harry gingerly stepped onto the ice, kicking his basket along which skidded five feet ahead of him. At around the halfway point, Harry got down onto his knees and hands, knocking on the ice. “Orange!” He shouted and then giggled as he shuffled on his fours. He went around in a circle, shimmying on his knees and knocking occasionally. “Orange!”

“What’s he doing?” Lupin asked as he sidled up towards Severus.

“Harry’s got it in him that the squid is stuck underneath the ice.”

“Oh,” Lupin looked thoughtful for a moment, “Is it?”

“It is, possible.” 

“And… has he found it yet?”

“No. Why would I spend my only Sunday afternoon each week looking for it in this dreadful weather if Harry could see it from the window in my quarters?”

Lupin’s grin looked silly on his face as he turned back to gaze at Harry, the sunlight beam cutting across his hazel fringe, the dust and cold air swirling above him. 

“He’s always liked the squid.”

“Yes,” Severus nodded, staring back into the distance.

“I should get him that.”

“What?” 

“For Christmas.” 

“For Christmas. Why yes, how marvellous. Quite the Christmas miracle for Harry indeed. And pray tell, Lupin, where would Harry keep this squid that weighs no less than one tonne? Shall it be in my home office? Or shall I clear out your room for it instead?” 

Lupin chuckled and pushed him playfully, causing him to stick out his hand to steady himself. He threw a dirty look at the werewolf who was still belly laughing. 

“Don’t be a dunce. Maybe I’ll get him a trinket that resembles it.” 

“I see.”

“You think Harry would like that?”

“I certainly did not raise that brat to be ungrateful.”

“Well, that settles it then.” 

Harry by then, had grown tired of the knocking and was now sliding across the ice back towards them with the grace of an elephant. 

“Didn’t you use to ice skate with Lily?” Lupin asked as he rose steadily from the ground.

“Mmm,” Severus hummed in non-commitment, mind far away as he too, rose to his feet.

Before Lupin could say anything else, Harry came bounding back towards his outstretched arms shivering but gleeful. 

____

A Tengmalm's Owl sat at the ledge of his window. 

It carried an envelope made of heavy parchment paper, the kind that the Malfoys used but he knew those were not from them. 

They were back in the unforgiving cold of Spinner’s End for Christmas break. The child had expressed some discomfort by the spectacles of decor leading up to the holiday season and it only seemed right to return back to where Harry had always known to Christmas to be celebrated, this dingy hell hole with nothing but a hand me down Christmas Tree that was too grand and too festive for the living space it now was forced to reside in. Dobby, the Malfoy’s elf, had set it up for them this year, as he had since he received the Tree he day he moved back into this insufferable two up two down after he had passed his potion’s mastery. 

Talking about nesting instincts, the sharp looking owl made itself known again, skittering loudly against the metal ledge and pressing up against Lupin’s owl who was blocking the small gap that Severus had wedged open for it. Hoo-dini, as Lupin had so aptly named in his teens, was triple in size and looked confused at all the ongoings of it’s life remained unbadged until Severus gave up and wrenched the window fully to allow it entrance. It swooped down to the breakfast table, left the envelope which was not even tied around his foot and proceeded to leave without so much as a bite from the bacon he had just fried up for the household, mainly relieved of it’s cross country duty and eager to restart it’s journey home.

“Small owl,” Lupin said as he caught a fleeting glimpse of the retreating creature and came over to pet his obnoxiously stupid looking one, throwing it three of the five freshly fried bacons on the table, “Fast, too. I don’t think I’ve seen that breed before.”

Of the three strips thrown in succession, two landed square on the owl’s face who squawked with annoyance and finally snatched the last one out of the air. Lupin picked up the rest and left them by the ledge. 

“They are common in the alps,” Severus replied, picking up the envelope and slotting it into his pocket, and going back to the frying pan, “And you’ve just given your ration of Christmas morning bacon to that owl so do not be expecting any more.” 

He could feel Lupin pouting behind him and heard Harry bounding down the steps two at a time. “Harry–!” He bellowed from the kitchen and the tiny steps halted before being resumed, one at a time until he could hear them round into the sitting room. 

He heard the wolf conspiring with his child about fixing the pathetic rations of Christmas bacon and rolled his eyes as Harry came up beside him. 

“Papa,” the child offered in his sweetest voice, “Can I have ten bacons please?” 

“Ten?” Severus raised his brow as he turned to look at the child. 

“Yes, ten,” the child stuck out both his hands. His loose sleeve had bunched at his elbow and the bandages wrapped lightly round his left arm were enough to keep any more scathing comments to himself.

He sighed, flipped the rest of the bacon, fifteen more in total onto a plate and banished the frying pan to the sink. 

He stalked over to the highest cabinet where he kept muggle first aid in an old yellowing Tupperware: antiseptic washes, gauze and some bandages. When he turned around, Harry’s head was disappearing round the corner to his makeshift office squashed by the window where he found the child unwrapping the bandage slowly, resting his left arm across the table. Severus pulled the chair nearer then pulled apart the gauze, the child looking away as he assessed the two pieces of gauze and the yellowish, pinkish fluids that stained it. It was one large gash running parallel to his arm and would leave a scar. 

Adept at magical healing, Severus could’ve healed this in the wave of his wand but along the journey of understanding Harry’s needs these past few months, they had come to consensus that the muggle way of healing kept the recommitting rates to its lowest. The skin around the gash had grown slightly red and raised as it healed and Harry, who had turned back around when Severus swabbed the antiseptic solution onto it, traced his stubby index finger along the peri-wound, feeling the hotness of the flesh under his finger pads. 

“No infections so far,” Severus reported. He studied the child’s face, body stiff and eyebrows drawn that typically suggested slight discomfort. He replaced the gauze and bandages and watched as the child’s expression relaxed slightly. 

“I’m proud of you, Harry,” he said as he stood and patted the top of the child’s head who nodded solemnly in understanding. 

The idea of muggle healing had been an idea of Narcissa’s estranged sister, Andromeda, who happened to be a mind healer and been more than willing to take on Harry as a client despite being fully booked through the next six months. “Allowing Harry to see the process of healing rather than robbing that experience with magic might be beneficial,” she had indicated in her letter to Severus days after she had spoken to Harry herself. Severus had floo called her to question the logic, asked her in a pique of anger to elaborate on how it might ever be in the child’s benefit to leave something open to infection, to leave something so raw, to leave the child in pain when he could do something, anything. 

She had calmly and plainly explained to him then. 

“It tells Harry that some wounds cannot be vanished away by magic. Some wounds hurt when they are made and continue to hurt long after they arre placed there but even then, the body heals. The wounds on his arm healing are tangible testaments to that truth. The body heals. Time, heals.” 

It had been eight whole days since Harry had showed him this one so there was perhaps a modicum of truth to what Andromeda had preached.

As Harry left the table, Severus pulled out the envelope from his breast poke and tore at the family crest with his thumb. 

In curlicued script and familiar French lost to the memories and dreams, it called to him in a singing voice: Severus. Darkness stirs in Britain. Come home. 

He looked out through the window, regarding the dreary overcast sky that was relentless even on a day like Christmas. 

But from right here, he could just make out Lupin making the child belly-laugh about something, anything. And for a moment, a short blissful moment, a smile threatened to dance across his lips at the unexpected sweetness of Harry’s laugh that now came more frequent and unbidden. For those seconds, Severus was determined to make a life out of what they had. He closed his eyes, savouring the sound of giggles as the smile formed at the very curve of his lips until all of a sudden, an inexplicable ache grasped at his left forearm and travelled straight to his heart. The initial warmth, relief, happiness, abruptly replaced in a beat by a slow moving coldness that freezes even time. 

He opened his eyes, staring wide at the scene before him. 

Lupin stood there, both of Harry’s bare feet on his, arms held high in the air as they waddled towards him. “We’re penguins, Papa!” The child had been shouting triumphantly as he approached when he suddenly keeled over onto his knees, clutching his lightning scar with both hands. 

“Harry!” They both shouted at the same time. 

It was then Lupin caught sight of the first inklings of fear etched onto his face. 

“Severus, what’s happened?” 

Severus ripped Harry’s arms from his forehead, pulling them away to reveal a trail of blood leaking from it. 

“Stay with him,” Severus whispered to Lupin as he staunched the dry heave about to push past his throat, “Keep him safe, please.” 

“Papa,” Harry whimpers growing into high pitched shrieks, breaking free from Lupin’s grasp with disproportionate strength only to be held back again by strong arms. 

“Papa, don’t go!”

“Papa!”

“Papa!”

But Severus had already rushed past them and into the floo. 

____

The beginnings of the year came to pass and with it brought blizzards of ungodly proportions. 

Andromeda’s office was a refurbished cottage by the sea. A place of co-operative medicine, which included her husband’s, Ted’s, muggle medical practice. 

The waiting room was wide and inviting, painted in bright blue and off-white panels. Nothing like the stifling rooms he’d been in as a child waiting for medication that would help breakthrough his fever that would not subside despite potions his mother made with their substituted ingredients. He had sat, for years until his mother’s departure and long after he had to fend for himself, in those rooms, surrounded by sick muggles, dull walls and the dreadful stench of medical sterility, a waft so ingrained he could just make it out of the limited people sitting in this airy space. 

Despite the backdrop of harsh waves crashing steadily into the cliffside right by the window, people here were calm, almost happy. A soft melodic tune of the piano was infusing the room along with a light, barely there scent of burning sage and bergamot. No screaming or crying like the muggle ER. Nobody close to the state of death. 

It was different, Severus reminded himself, as he tightened his grip around the arm chair. 

The door that held Harry and Andromeda opened and he stood up almost instinctively as Harry made an equally instinctive beeline for him, as though they had been separated for years, not mere minutes. 

Severus pursed his lips politely at Andromeda and then looked down at Harry’s red rimmed puffy eyes and ruffled his already tussled hair. 

“How was the session with Miss Andy?”

“Okay,” Harry mumbled, hugging onto Severus tightly. Something about the sessions often made Harry inexplicably clingy in the hours directly after and then caused him to withdraw for a week following. He pressed a kiss onto his child’s forehead, wishing for a pause in the unrelenting storm, wishing this moment would last. 

Andromeda had made her way towards them by then, a crinkle in her eyes as she scrutinised their interaction. “Harry, love, is it okay if I talk to dad for a bit?” Harry nodded then detached himself slowly, padding towards the two children whom Severus had spotted by the window earlier. They were breathing on the glass and drawing on them with their grimy little hands. He sighed and hoped Harry would be emotionally mature enough to know how absolutely disgusting that was.

With Harry out of earshot, Andromeda waved him closer towards her office. She gestured him towards the seat and he reluctantly sat rigidly in a high-backed armchair, his black robes pooling around him like a shadow. His expression was blank, carved into something cold and unyielding, but his fingers drummed faintly against the armrest, betraying the tension beneath the surface. Across from him, Andromeda sat on the edge of the worn sofa, her hands resting loosely in her lap. The silence between them was taut, the kind that preceded a storm.

“Severus,” Andromeda began, her voice measured, careful. It was the kind of tone she used with difficult patients who hadn’t yet accepted that they needed help. “Narcissa says you’ve resigned from your job as Potion’s Master.”

“Indeed.” 

“And Harry says, the past couple of weeks at home have been rough, difficult.” 

“That depends.” Severus’s lip curled slightly, his dark eyes narrowing into slits. “I have not forbade the child from relating our impending move to you so if that is what you wish to get at, do get to it. By the end of the century, preferably.” 

“Yes, Harry revealed to me today that he would be moving away. He says he does not wish to move. He relays that he does not understand the reason for the move. If you uproot him again, without an explanation, without any sense of grounding, you risk pushing him further into chaos.”

“I am well aware of Harry’s fragility,” he replied, his tone clipped and precise, like a scalpel. “But this move is not a matter of preference. It is a necessity.”

“And yet,” Andromeda countered, her gaze steady, “there are ways to make it less damaging. Severus, children, especially ones like Harry, need consistency. They need something stable, something familiar to hold onto. If you refuse to tell him where you’re going, if you refuse to involve him at all, it will only make things worse.”

Severus exhaled sharply, his fingers ceasing their tapping. “The less he knows, the safer he will be,” he replied cooly. “This is no longer about his comfort. It is about his survival.”

Andromeda’s lips pressed into a firm line, but she didn’t back down. “You think his survival begins and ends with physical safety?” she asked, her voice soft but firm, “You think this won’t push the child to–”

“You think I want this?!” Severus spat, slamming down his palm against the arm rest as he stood up. His dark eyes, usually pools of icy disdain, burned with an intensity that was almost feral, like black fire set alight. His lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line, but the faint tremor in his jaw betrayed the storm beneath. “You think this is what I dreamt up for Harry the day I fetched him from that wretched muggle house? That I’d have to rip him from the place he’s learnt to associate safety with, that I’d have to– cart him across the country on God knows which day to come– you think I enjoy this constant upheaval of our lives, misery, after misery, tragedy after tragedy, oh, Andy, you–”

“He’s spiralling–”

“You think I don’t know that? When I am strapped into the front row seat to this horror show daily, using chemical restraints to subdue his accidental magic? You think my heart doesn’t ache when I wake up and the child has come into my bedroom again and has not dared to wake me but instead sleeps by the foot of my bed? You think I don’t know the terrors that have returned to haunt Harry every night? You think I don’t know that he’s started to wet his mattress again? You know nothing of the horror that plague us. You have no right, Andromeda! Absolutely none!” His hands were clenched at his sides, fingers trembling faintly as though they ached to seize something, to unleash the fury roiling within him. 

The room fell silent again, the tension thick and heavy. 

Andromeda said slowly and carefully then, “I understand, Severus. I understand everything. I understand the immense difficultly of an inevitability, the secrecy surrounding it and most of all, I understand that at this moment, it feels like none of the progress you’ve made with him have meant anything at all but I assure you, Severus, that it does. It will. This is a step backwards, perhaps can even be regarded as many steps backwards. But it doesn’t disregard the path you’ve painstakingly paved with Harry. You’ve made progress.” 

“It doesn’t feel like it,” Severus confessed softly, realising only as Andromeda offered him a tissue that tears had fallen down his cheeks and gathered at the base of his chin. “I’m sorry,” he said and felt silly, like a chastised child after a tantrum.

“There is nothing to be sorry about.” 

“You’ve said that before. Years ago.” 

“It does ring a bell,” she winked at him. “You must involve him Severus, with this more than ever. Trust is a two way street. Harry needs to know as much as you can share with him or the chasm between the both of you will simply grow wider and become more difficult to bridge as time passes.”

Severus hung his head. “I shall… consider your words.” 

“I also understand that you and Harry will not be able to come in for more sessions until the move. So when you settle, you may consider international house calls,” she grabbed a pamphlet from the magazine stand just behind her door. Severus took it into his hands and flipped through it, landing on the last page with a table of prices which grew more exorbitant as the list went. 

“I regret that without my regular income as a professor, we cannot even begin to afford–” shame swam at the very edge of his admission. 

Andromeda huffed out what seemed like a small laugh. Severus looked up, startled. “Disregard the charges. I am happy to do it pro bono, after hours, if that arrangement is workable for the both of you.” 

Severus stared at her. 

She continued, unbothered. “Wednesdays or Thursdays are best for me. But floo me early enough and I might be able to do other evenings–” 

“No–”

“No?” Andromeda shook her head, mouth curling into a slight smile. The corners of her eyes wrinkle in genuine affection, “You have grown since Suisse, you’ve–” 

“Why?” He interrupted.

“Why?” Andromeda asked, a tilt in her head.

“Why are you doing this for me again? For us?”

“Harry deserves some consistency.” You both do, is left unsaid. 

“That cannot be all there is to it.” 

“My younger sister. In the years both living together and apart, she has never asked me for anything. But for you, she had pleaded, all those years ago.”

Her gaze pierced right into his soul. 

“And for family, anything.” 

____

Darkness stirs. 

In Albania it grows, to Britain it returns. 

Shadows surround. 

The Centaurs leave their home. 

Sacred blood spills in the forbidding forest.

Albus’ words from a decade ago echo in his mind.

The Dark Lord will return.

And Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does.

For the child’s safety, he shall face even his worst fears. 

For Harry, everything. 

____

Maman,

I am coming home.

Sev. 

____

That day comes sooner than either of them expect, somewhere in the turn of Winter to Spring.

The past and the present are like mirrors into one another. It passes by in a dreamlike fugue, memories bleeding into moments yet to come. A heavy fog settles on his mind, of the yellow vignettes pasts and misty haze-filled futures. 

(“Ma?”)

“Harry. Harry, wake up, it’s time.”

(She moves around him like a hurricane, tendrils of pale magic packing his limited articles of clothing into her trunk. He looks at her through bleary eyes still puffy from early evening. Ma has a tremble in her lips that cannot be quelled by biting onto it.) 

Severus finds his hands are trembling. They rarely tremble. He attempts to quell the tremor in them but when he looks up again, it’s not him that stares up into Ma’s eyes. It’s Harry who looks at him, sitting up against his bed. Even in his youth, he understands that something has happened, something bad, something ugly. 

(“Severus, darling. Come, we need to go,” she reaches out to brush his hair out of his face.)

“Harry, we need to go,” he beckons the child. Doors are opening and slamming in the background. Lupin is doing his rounds. He’s been briefed months ago when the first signs began. 

“Okay,” Harry replies, childish voice thick with slumber. He swings his legs over the edge of the thin mattress. The bed winces underneath his movements. He stands, looking around for day clothes to change into.

(“No time,” she stops his hand on the hem of his nighties and instead hands him a cloak of hers she has shrunk. It is a warm, black cloak with a green lining and on the left chest, a house crest is embroidered in greens and silvers. A snake. Sly-the-rin, he reads.) 

“No time,” he tells Harry and hands him his cloak. His old school cloak, his mother’s and pulls the invisibility cloak around his shoulders and presses a vial to his lips. “Drink, Harry. There is no time.” The smooth blue concoction rolls sweetly down Harry’s throat and he collects the vial, placing it back into his pocket. 

(She picks him up as though he weighs nothing and settles him into her arms, his chin hooked over her shoulder, legs instinctively curled around her waist. She has not held him like this since he can remember.)

He picks Harry up urgently, presses his head to his shoulders where it quickly settles. Harry sucks on his thumb, as he always done in moments like these. 

(She turns on her heels as the rest of his belongings are shut into the black trunk and puts her wand on it and shrinks it, fitting it into a pocket in her dress. No, Ma is wearing her robes, Severus realises. He’s only seen her wear them in pictures. They are raven black with ornate lace running all along the sleeves, travelling to the high mandarin collar. The fabric feels scratchy against his cheeks and he rubs his eyes absentmindedly and his mother starts to move.)

Lupin is right behind them, packing what little they have into suitcases, shrinking them, doing a last lap around the house. The dark mark hangs ominously in the sky above them. 

(There is no time.)

There is no time.

(The room comes better into focus as he stares at it, his mother walking away from it. His bed, his tiny cupboard, his single desk. She steps and steps and steps away from– “Prince!” he exclaims when he sees the obsidian teddy peeking from between his sheets. “Ma, Prince! Please!”)

Severus trips at the third last step and swears loudly as he tumbles down the rest of it, child flung out of his hand. Harry’s head makes a loud thud against the hardwood floor. Lupin comes flying out of the kitchen at the sound of the boy’s shrieks. 

Severus bends and quickly collects the crying child. “Shhhhh,” he tells Harry, shushing the now wailing child in his arms, shaking his body up and down to appease him. “It’s okay, Papa’s here. It’s okay. I slipped. It won’t happen again. It’s okay. I’m sorry, Harry. I’m sorry.” He is so close to tears himself. Lupin surrounds him, whispering into Harry’s ears, their voices drowned out by Harry’s miserable chokes. 

(His mother whips around at the sound of his distress. “Shhh,” she consoles, an impending breakdown threatening to rise out of Severus. Quickly she sifts through the sheets with a single hand to find Prince. He presses himself away from where his face is previously buried amongst her hair only for a moment to  try to clutch onto the teddy bear, suddenly yearning for the safety of holding something close to his chest. His heart beats wildly. Ma casts a warming charm on Prince and presses it to his heart. Her hand holds his cheek back against her shoulder once again. “We’ve got to be quiet. Silent, still as a mouse.” They start moving again, carefully down the rickety steps of his childhood home. There is only silence, save from a ginger footsteps running down the stairs. Ma is graceful, careful. She does not drop Severus.)

Despite the cocktail of sleeping and calming draughts, he finds the boy breaking down in his arms, asking for Orange, the squid plush he got from Lupin at Christmas that he has since become inseparable with. Some traumas are too strong, too memorable. “Remus’ got Orange in the bags, Harry. It’s alright. It’s going to be okay,” he hushes. “We’ve got to be quiet, okay? Silent, still as a mouse. That’s it. Big breaths. It’s okay. Papa’s here.” 

(“Ma, where are we going?” Severus asks softly when she does not offer.)

He paces around, massaging the bruise on Harry’s head where it made contact with the hardwood floor. Finally, the potion kicks in, and the wails break into spluttering breaths like a fish on dry land. Severus pulls the hood, obscuring his face. Harry is quiet under it, burying his face deep into Severus’ wool clad shoulder as he breathes heavily to calm himself. 

“Good boy, Harry. Good job. Big breaths for Papa, that’s it.” 

“I’m scared,” he cries. 

(“I’m scared,” Severus whispers into his Ma’s ears.)

“I know, Harry, I know.” He rocks the child in his arms, stroking a comforting circle on his back. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

(Ma does not speak. She does not speak for a long time, even as they exit the warmth of the house. The sun is bleeding from the horizon turning dark into dawn. It is early. She walks to the end of the row of smokey houses. She walks across the river to Spinner’s Park. She walks past Lily’s house. She walks past the wooden playground. His Ma walks and walks and walks, as though in a hurry to run away from something but cannot quite bring herself to leave. Severus cannot see her face but she is shaking, walking without purpose, weeping quietly to herself and hoping Severus will be too young to remember this.)

He hums a soft song to Harry and hopes he will be too young to remember this but he knows his prayers are futile. He remembers and he had been younger, smaller than Harry even then. 

These kinds of wounds, even time cannot heal.

(Severus presses Prince harder into his chest. He prays to the God his Pa prays to. Dear God, please– “Close your mind,” Ma says without looking at him.) 

Lupin is ahead of them now, when he holds onto Severus’ arm, it’s to apparate all of them to King’s Cross where Kingsley awaits them with train tickets and fake identities. Before they board, they go into a washroom and he produces two steaming vials of Polyjuice potions. They down it, morphing into strangers. Lupin never lets go of Severus’ hands after, navigating through the wakings of a city coming awake. 

(Ma, I am scared.)

(Ma, I am scared.)

He holds onto Harry tighter. 

(Ma hears him in her mind and the admission stops her dead in her tracks. She sucks in a deep, brittle breath and then all at once, the tears and haunting stop. She spins them around, frantic, checking and double checking.  She stops in the direction of a familiar tree. His Lily tree. He can see it just at the end of the park where the swing set is.) 

“This is us,” Lupin gestures to two seats just as the train departs from the station. Severus settles into the one nearest to the window and peels the cloak off just enough to peer at the child. In all the commotion and movement, nestled comfortably in his arms, the potion has done its work– the boy sleeps. 

(“We’re going home, Severus,” Ma says in a bare whisper.)

“We’re going home, Harry,” he whispers to the sleeping child, tucking him closer before leaning his head against Lupin has settled into a calm but alert state in his seat next to him. 

(He stretches out his right arm behind his mother.) 

(Goodbye, goodbye.)

The train buckles as it pulls out of the station, then it’s speeding past countryside after countryside, melting into one another, the soft hum of its engine blending with the faint vibrations of the tracks. Outside the window, the land sprawls in muted tones—browns and greys, remnants of winter clinging stubbornly to the earth. But here and there, daffodils bloom, their bright yellow a sudden shock of colour, defiant against the barren fields and bare trees.

The land begins to change, almost imperceptibly at first. The flat fields rise and fall, gentle hills rolling into one another before swelling into jagged slopes. The disembark and board the next train which crosses a threshold at some point. Mountains now loom in the distance, their peaks faintly dusted with snow that glimmers under a soft grey sky. The air feels sharper here, even through the glass, and the landscape grows wilder, less restrained by human hands. Hours pass, folding into one another like the shadows stretching across the valley. 

Harry is still sleeping when the last train finally pulls into a station, a modest place nestled in the heart of the valley. The air outside is crisp and biting, sharp enough to steal the breath for a moment. Lupin politely offers to carry the child, when he sees arms shaking from strain but Severus declines. He needs Harry to be close, now more than ever. 

Lupin drives instead. 

He sets off quickly, the headlights cutting through the growing darkness as dusk falls and the road climbs higher into the mountains. The snow thickens here, clinging to the edges of the road and dusting the evergreens that line the winding path. Yet even in this frozen landscape, there are signs of spring. Green shoots peek timidly through patches of melting snow, stubborn and brave, much like the daffodils earlier. Winter hasn’t quite let go, but spring is pressing in, persistent and patient.

The car hugs the sharp curves of the mountain road as Lupin drives, his hands steady on the wheel despite the narrow, treacherous path. The stillness here is profound, broken only by the hum of the engine and the occasional whistle of the wind. The higher he climbs, the more the world feels suspended between two seasons. Snow coats the peaks and valleys, but the land beneath it stirs, restless and eager to breathe again. When he is not looking at the child in the backseat, half obscured by the cloak, Severus steals glances across at the werewolf, the Polyjuice wearing off hours ago now. 

There must be safe distance now, a relief, almost. 

Finally, when the stars have begun to appear, faint at first, but growing brighter against the deepening indigo sky, the small muggle engine whines to a stop as they pull over at a small clearing. They exit the vehicle and step out into the harsh night. The air up here bites at his skin, but he doesn’t mind. It is as familiar as childhood. He pulls open the back door, casts a warming charm at the child and rouses him slowly, pushing another vial to his lips. 

The boy stretches in his seat and pleads to be carried. 

“Harry, come, we must travel by foot now,” he murmurs and when the boy continues to be difficult, he settles the child on his back this time, legs coming to tangle around his midriff. Harry settles his head on his shoulder, sighing contently but tired as the draught makes his way out of his system. The snow beneath his boots crunches as he walks to the edge of the overlook, the valley below stretching out in soft shades of white and green, illuminated by the last traces of twilight.

For a moment, they simply stand there, the stillness wrapping around them like the cold. The mountains rise tall and unyielding around him, their peaks shrouded in mist, their slopes dotted with trees, lighted cabins that seemed too far away. 

“Papa,” Harry says softly, resting his chin on Severus’ shoulder.

“Yes, Harry?” 

“Tell me the story again. The story about Suisse.” 

He nods tersely and shifts the boy higher onto his hips. Behind him, he can hear Lupin’s footfall gravitate into synchrony as they begin their quiet trek uphill. 

There was once a boy…

A new kind of future beholds them now.