Chapter Text
Severus Snape had no fucking clue what he was doing.
Shit was fucked but that was nothing new.
He always slogged through shin deep in shit but being blind but all seeing was a new wrinkle.
He knew where he came from - a shack on the edges of Spinner's End that was held together by a drunkard, a witch and her terrified son.
He knew where he went - breaking the only good relationship for a cult of personality that was headed by a halfblood who descended from lofty scholastic heights to genocidal hellmouth.
He knew where he could go - repair his friendship to lily, become a Hogwarts professor, work at St Mungo's, get another mastery, join the potions guild full time.
With movement verbs fully conjugated he was still stuck because he was not sure what to do.
Because he was a complete ninny when others were not making demands of his freedom, time, intellect, body....
So all he did now was watch Harry, the eldritch horror in the body of a 3 year old.
Unlike his other godson - and isn't that a fly in the pie, Lily made him a godfather of little Harry - Harry was a relatively easy child to care for. Talk to him, teach him things like magic and letters, feed him and make sure he goes to the potty.
Basics.
Easy.
Simple.
Except when it isn't.
Like when Harry looks up, eyes glowing and the shadows convulse to wrap around him and the child just fucking vanishes.
If he was a muggle he would have died from sheer cardiac arrest. Before he could even work up the energy to Patronus Lily that her baby fucking disappeared, the child was back, exactly where he left, playing with the Lego blocks to build whatever the fuck.
Lily smiled and brushed back his new lock of white hair that was no different to her own.
Congratulations on joining 'This child is too fucking creepy' club.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Like when Harry toddles off to the woods behind Potter Manor and returns with a albino snake, then a raven and finally a full fucking thestral heard following silently behind him like a morbid call back to the Pied Piper.
Like when those fucking shadows drag in a dead rabbit or mouse and Harry coos at it happily and pats the shadow and then brings the thing back to life and plays with the reanimated animal like hes a demented version of Snow White that only lived in the fevered nightmares of Walt Disney.
Like when sometimes Harry opens his mouth and the voice that contains everything and nothing at all whispers and screams at him for souls and blood and retribution and then Harry closes his mouth and asks for apple juice like Severus will not have night terrors for years after that kind of shite.
Severus Snape was tired.
Severus Snape needed a fucking drink.
Tom Riddle was a lot of things. Dark Lord. Master of the Dark Arts. Powerful.
Patient, he was not.
Kind, he was not.
Death, he was not.
He could learn 2 of those traits but the last... It was not his path. It was not in his blood. He was far too late to become.
Because death already had a master.
A small 7 year old.
Harry Potter.
His cousin, however distant. A child who did not regard him with fear but grave judgment and solemn curiosity.
He found himself abandoning his duties - whittled down from a warmonger to a very conniving politician - to visit his living family.
James.
Lily.
Harry.
He thinks he may know how the scholars felt in Jesus' day, listening to a child who had unfathomable wisdom and thirst to learn in return.
He taught Harry small magics: charms to make light from nothing with a single breath in cupped hands and calling forth fairies in soap bubbles and promises of pure cane sugar and protection spells made from ash and salt and apple cores.
Harry in return taught him how to summon the old gods, how to breathe life into those gone on for spare moments, how to enchant bone to sing its stories.
Equivalent exchanges.
He found he liked the small quiet being that wore the skin of a child and as Christmas and his birthday proved, the child liked him well enough in return.
He felt at peace.
A needle in his eye and bubble of air in his veins heading for his heart.
But at peace.
What even is that to a child raised in war?
Was it waking up to his mind finally clear of the madness that plagued him from creating multiple Horcruxes? Was it having a dedicated office in the Ministry and passing Fudge in the halls and a smirk of his lips making the newly elected Minister sweat? How about Wizengamot meetings where he stared down old purebloods that sneered at his blood but sat back dizzy as he pushed forward law after law that reduced their power, wealth and reach with their unknowing agreement?
Perhaps.
He never tried for peace but he found he was quite liking it now.
Albus Dumbledore was once again at a loss.
It looked like all was right in the world - no more wizarding war. Tom was ensconced in being the most Slytherin politician he can manage to be - not ideal but better than the genocide of muggleborns - while also giving his former pureblood allies a run for their immense money.
Hogwarts no longer had a curse on the DADA position so it was being taught by a competent, if a bit...furry teacher once more.
Albus got socks last year for Christmas.
Things were going smoothly.
Too smoothly.
And as things are wont to do when things were Smooth, they swiftly turned Rough.
For this was the year Harry Potter was to start Hogwarts.
It took all of Albus' pride as a headmaster to not outright beg James and Lily to just send the boy to Durmstrang or hell, Ilvermony. Let the Americans deal with him.
But Albus knew better. He knew that only Britain could educate the future Master of Death. Barely future as it is.
It was with small consolation that the Weasleys met the young Potter. Even smaller than their youngest boy, Ronald, has become friends with Harry.
Because the twisting has already begun.
He dare not call it corruption since Ron, according to his mother, still acts much of the same: loud, rambunctious and a lover of chess and other strategy games.
But, and Molly had paused here with a small frown, he was different.
His quiet moments were quieter.
He no longer feared spiders.
He read more books and talked to more of his Prewett relatives, sending letters off and having them come to teach him family magic.
Sure he still tagged after his brothers and occasionally took care of his sister but he seemed....
different.
Not bad different. Strange. Quiet. Waiting.
On what, Albus could not fathom.
Much of the same has been observed of other children Harry has interacted with.
Longbottom.
Goldstein.
Malfoy.
Nott.
They seem to be waiting.
Anticipating.
Eager for something to step out of the shadows. To pick them off the shelf and polish them to high shine.
Albus was too bloody old to deal with a third Dark Lord.
Especially one that was the Master of Death.
With a sigh, he sent off Fawkes with Harry's school letter since the phoenix was beyond eager to play owl for this.
Harry was one of if not his most favorite human aside from Albus. Albus already knew he had become a distant second favorite to the bird and was likely to lose his familiar once Harry finished Hogwarts.
But for now, there was nothing for it.