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Harry Potter was screaming, and Sirius Black was going to murder Severus Snape.
Not literally — probably — but Snape had promised that he could get the toddler to sleep in under three minutes, which Sirius should’ve known was a filthy lie. The floor beneath them almost trembled with Harry’s wailing, Kreacher muttered death threats from the bannister, and Snape stood in the middle of the bedroom looking like he’d rather duel Voldemort wandless than hold an infant.
Voldemort. James. Lily.
The names twisted like a knife in the heart every time.
It hadn’t even been a year. Sirius could still smell the smoke from Godric’s Hollow if he let himself remember. He could still see James lying there, glasses knocked askew, those molten-gold eyes — eyes Sirius used to chase across a Quidditch pitch, eyes that lit up whenever Sirius walked into a room, eyes that had always been warm, alive, irrevocably him — staring up at nothing.
Sirius had shaken him hard enough to bruise his own palms, begging him to say something. Something stupid, something brilliant, something James. But he had stayed cold.
When Hagrid pried Harry out of his arms, Sirius’ fingers numb and locked, it was cold.
When the Ministry snapped his wand and dragged him screaming into a cell, it was cold.
When his throat went raw from shouting the truth, and no one listened — colder still.
And when the truth had finally surfaced — when the rat caught in the trap and the world finally realised Sirius Black would rather die than betray his best friend — it was already too late. Too late for James, too late for Lily. Too late for the life they all should’ve had.
For another Christmas at Godric’s Hollow, with Lily humming over the stove, Peter — or the man he had believed him to be — helping in the kitchen while James charmed tinsel to chase Padfoot around the living room, Harry gurgling from his jumper seat. All of them laughing so hard Sirius had thought: this is it. This is what forever feels like.
They should’ve had another one. And another. A lifetime of them.
But on this Christmas Eve, Harry’s wails yanked him back into the small, dim bedroom of Grimmauld Place; into a year too quiet and far too cold, where the fire downstairs crackled without James’ terrible singing, where Lily’s cinnamon biscuits existed only in memory, and where the only other person awake with him at midnight was Severus bloody Snape.
Sirius scrubbed a hand over his face. “Brilliant. Fantastic. Truly excellent job, Snivellus.”
“Your commentary,” said Snape tightly, “is not improving the situation.”
“And your face isn’t improving anything either, but here we are!”
The man stood stiffly in the centre of the room, holding Harry at arm’s length like the child might explode. Their arrangement had settled in for months now: trading off nights, splitting chores after heated arguments, navigating tantrums and teething and the thousand tiny crises that came with raising a needy godson.
Lily had named Snape that, after all. Harry’s godfather, just as James had named Sirius. She’d always been capable of seeing more than what anyone deserved, and Sirius used to wonder what exactly she saw in him. Sometimes, even now, he found himself wondering whether the two of them would have found their way back to each other, if not for the incident back then.
He had to admit, distantly, that he might not even be a free man if not for it.
Sirius had tried not to care that Snape was there at all. Pretended the very sight of him didn’t squeeze his chest in ways he would rather hide. Pretended he didn’t notice the way Snape always rose first when Harry cried, or how he checked the wards twice before bed, or how he never once complained about the sleepless nights.
But that was impossible when Harry suddenly clung to Snape’s robes, hiccuping, trying to bury his small face into his chest. And Snape… softened. Not much, but enough to make Sirius catch his breath and hate himself for noticing.
In the end, he supposed he’d underestimated her. She’d known exactly what she was doing when she’d nodded in approval that night, offering a tender smile of reconciliation as Snape rocked the little boy in his arms.
Because the last time Severus Snape had held a baby like that — the last time Sirius had seen that half-annoyed, half-tender flush on his face — it hadn’t been Harry.
It had been James.
“Well, gentlemen,” Dumbledore’s voice rang through the chaos of the Potions classroom, warm and entirely too cheerful for what had just occurred. “It appears we have an… unusual development.”
Severus froze mid-breath, wand still hovering over the ruined cauldron, narrowing his eyes. None of this had been his fault in the first place — damn Potter had been up to another one of his abhorrent tricks, and Severus had barely dodged in time — yet somehow, he already hated whatever was coming.
“You,” the headmaster continued, fixing him with a twinkling gaze, “will be responsible for the care and… supervision of this young boy until a means of reversal is available.” He gestured to the tiny, wailing infant sprawled awkwardly on the wet floor.
What?
He — he — was being assigned custody of James Potter. The very idea that he was now expected to nurture, feed, and otherwise manage that insufferable creature was preposterous. And dangerous. And profoundly unfair.
Unfair, like watching Lily’s eyes slide past him in the corridors as though he were a translucent ghost. Like seeing Potter laugh, effortless and untouchable, while professors ruffled his hair and forgave every transgression. Like losing his best — his only, really — friend, while Potter had very nearly swayed her feelings without ever having to change. Potter, who had never once been made to carry the consequences of his own cruelty.
Black, of course, saw it differently. He had already thrown himself onto the floor, coddling the infant and covering his eyes protectively, while Potter’s tiny fists tugged happily at curls of his hair.
“What d’you mean, his responsibility?!” he yelled, glaring at Severus as if the very idea were a personal insult. “He’s my best mate! My James! You can’t expect me to trust him to —”
Severus glowered back as Sirius cooed ridiculously at the infant, flailing one arm and sending a stack of enchanted parchment fluttering like startled birds across the floor.
“Professor, if anyone must oversee this child,” he said slowly, turning back to Dumbledore with sharp and deliberate eyes, “it should be the one who is actually willing to be a parent.” He gestured at Sirius, who froze mid-coo, his jaw dropping in scandalised disbelief.
“I’m not! I — I can’t be a parent! I’m only seventeen!”
Dumbledore’s half-moon spectacles gleamed as his lips curved into that infuriatingly calm, knowing smile. “Ah, but fortunately for all parties involved,” he said, smooth as silk, “there is no need to choose either of you. You may simply share custody.”
Hell.
The house had finally stilled. By some miracle — and thanks, Sirius decided, to his whispered promise of smuggling Harry an extra treacle tart in the morning — the boy’s cries had softened, fading into gentle, even breaths. Snape carefully eased him into the crib, his spindly fingers moving as though the slightest slip might shatter the little one.
Sirius slumped onto the floor beside him, rubbing at his eyes as he let his weight settle with a weary groan.
“Well,” he said hoarsely. “That went about as well as I expected.”
Snape shot him a withering look. “Indeed. Though I would prefer if you kept your dramatics to a minimum in the presence of a child.”
The taller man let his gaze drift over Harry’s sleeping face, and for a moment the world narrowed. That wild mop of untamable hair, the small upturned nose, the stubborn little chin — every inch of him was James. So much of James, it was almost painful. He could see the tilt of his head when he was thinking, the curl of his mouth when he felt playful, the way his tiny fists flexed even in sleep.
With James, though, Sirius had never been so careful. Too reckless, too impatient, too wrapped up in his own frustration, he hadn’t truly stepped up until the very end. But with Harry, every twitch and shuffle and sigh had drawn his attention; he watched, adjusted, and protected him like the last thing left in the world.
He swallowed hard. “I… can’t believe how much he looks like him,” he murmured, almost to himself.
The sharp intake of breath beside him went unnoticed. Sirius didn’t dare meet his eyes yet, not while the memory was so achingly alive in Harry’s crooked little grin.
Honestly, Severus should have expected this. Even stripped of speech, wand and basic dignity, Potter somehow remained an unrelenting menace to his peace.
The infant sat in the centre of Severus’ dormitory floor like a smug little king surveying conquered territory. A toppled stack of essays lay in ruins, red ink dragged into sticky footprints across the carpet, and James — the baby, not the usual tormentor, as it hardly felt fitting to call a baby by his surname — was chewing triumphantly on Severus’ best quill as if he had personally won the war.
Severus sat rigidly beside the newly installed crib, looking personally victimised. “He is doing it deliberately,” he declared, voice flat with the kind of exhaustion that sunk into bone marrow.
From the bed, Black — who had invited himself into the room two hours ago and refused to leave, yet offered precisely zero assistance — only laughed, sprawled on his stomach like he owned the place. That insufferable bastard.
“He’s just exploring, Sniv.”
“He’s destroying,” corrected Severus, snatching the quill from the baby’s mouth. “Which, I might add, is entirely consistent with his behaviour in every stage of life.”
Baby James blinked up at him, round hazel eyes gleaming with cherubic malice, and let out a squeal so piercing Severus winced. Then he slapped his tiny palms onto Severus’ robes with an unmistakably gleeful thwap, proud to have landed a hit.
“See?” Severus hissed, detangling the sticky fingers from his robes. “Aggressive tendencies. Already present and targeted.”
Black rolled off the bed like a dog flinging itself into snow and scooped the baby into his arms. “Maybe he just likes you,” he said, almost light. But there was something strained beneath it. Envy, if Severus was cruel enough to name it.
He had seen it, after all. Seen the way Black’s gaze lingered a heartbeat too long on Potter’s face after a Quidditch dive. Heard the way his laughter changed — deeper, warmer — whenever the idiot sauntered into a room. Noticed the unconscious orbit Sirius kept around him, protective and territorial, as though proximity alone could ward off the rest of the world.
Countless times, he’d wondered what would happen if he cornered Black in some narrow corridor, leaned in close enough that the mutt would never be able to dodge or bark or bluster, and softly whispered that question: “Tell me, Black, why do you look at Potter like that? You’re not a poof, are you?”
He imagined the stammering denials, the flush blooming like a wildfire up his neck, the way his bravado would splinter the moment someone finally named what he was so desperately trying not to show. Sometimes the fantasy sank deeper, twisting into darker visions he had no intention of ever naming. Having him trapped between outrage and yearning, watching him fold under the truth. And if Severus ever admitted that they shared such a weakness —
No, that was too far. He shouldn’t dare to think of it.
And for Black to be jealous of him, of all people. That would be unthinkable. Severus, who had always been treated as nothing to Potter, Black or the rest of them — a threat?
He almost choked on the thought. “Likes me? Potter has never —”
But James had stopped fussing the moment Black lifted him… and was now reaching determinedly for Severus again, chubby hands grasping at his sleeve, his hair, anything he could latch onto.
It was humiliating. Not the spit on his robes, not the wreckage of the carpet, not even the fact that he had just been slapped across the chest by a creature who couldn’t yet walk. The true humiliation was that the spoiled little spawn was now reaching for him.
“Absolutely not,” said Severus, recoiling jerkily. “Take him. He’s your problem.”
Black snorted. Snorted, like Severus was being ridiculous instead of besieged by a pint-sized tyrant. “Told you, Snape. Probably bonding with you.”
Severus actually let out a sound — a horrible, strangled kettle-whistle of disgust.
“Bonding?” he repeated, aghast. “With me? The boy who will grow up to hex my eyebrows off at least twice a year? Don’t be idiotic.”
“Oi!” barked Black, bristling immediately. “James is not going to hex your eyebrows off.”
“He is currently attempting to pull my hair out, Black!”
A high, delighted giggle burst from baby James. Then, with terrifying precision for someone who still could not crawl in a straight line, the child latched onto a fistful of Severus’ bangs and yanked. Black tried — disastrously — to smother his newfound grin as James abandoned his arms entirely, wobbling forwards and pawing determinedly at Severus’ chest like a kitten scaling a tree.
A horrifying realisation slid into Severus’ mind, sending a cold shiver down his spine. His scalp throbbed where baby James tugged. His robe was damp with drool. His dormitory resembled the aftermath of a poorly supervised duel. And yet, James Potter was reaching for him. Reaching, clinging… trusting.
Which could only mean one thing: the child saw Severus as safe. Familiar. Even god forbid comforting.
Somewhere, the universe was mocking him. Acting though anyone could like Severus in the first place.
He tore the thought out by the roots before it could fully take shape, and scowled instead. “Get him off.”
“You get him off.”
“Black, I swear on every cauldron in this wretched castle —”
“Don’t threaten the baby, Snape!”
“I am threatening him!”
Black’s jaw dropped. “You — you greasy bat! You don’t threaten James!”
“He started it!”
“He’s SIX MONTHS OLD!”
“He’s entirely capable of premeditated malice!”
Black stomped forwards, shoving Severus in the shoulder. “Alright, enough. Give him here, you miserable —”
Severus shoved back before he could think. Hard.
Black stumbled. Then his face lit up with the sort of wicked delight that meant terrible things.
“Oh,” he breathed. “You wanna do this?”
“No.”
“You do.”
“I do not —”
He lunged.
Severus dodged, narrowly avoiding being tackled into the crib before swiftly — skillfully, if he could say so himself — placing the baby safely onto the blankets. James giggled again, delighted by the violent spectacle put on by his servants. Black made another grab for his sleeve; Severus batted his hand away and retaliated by flicking his wand at a stack of textbooks, sending them cascading towards Black’s face. Black yelped, swatted wildly as the books bounced harmlessly off a hastily conjured shield.
“You — dirty — cheater!” snapped Black, stalking forwards again.
“You attacked me first!”
“I was taking back my baby!”
“Technically, he is temporarily our baby.”
Both of them froze.
The baby babbled contentedly in the temporary silence, gnawing on the sleeve of Severus’ robe as if agreeing with the assessment.
Severus felt heat rise up the back of his neck. “I simply meant — in the logistical — not emotional — that is to say —”
Black drew a loud exhale, throwing up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. Keep him for a bit. I’ll just… supervise from here.” He settled back on the bed, watching, but not touching, and Severus knew he wouldn’t move unless the child cried again.
“Supervise how, exactly?”
“By not dying from cuteness overload or — oh, I don’t know — doing anything stupid, Sniv.” Black’s voice carried a hint of amusement that eased the tension just enough to stop Severus from frowning again.
“Very well,” sighed Severus, pinching his nose. “Make yourself useful, then. Fetch the formula, mix it precisely according to instructions, and hold your tongue while doing so.”
Black sat up a little straighter, mock-saluting. “Yes, ma’am. Formula mixing, shushing, no insults. Got it.”
“Don’t mock me, Black. Focus.” Severus’ tone was dangerously calm as Black moved with exaggerated care, juggling the powder, water, and bottle while Severus adjusted the baby in his arms.
Severus could only follow the instructions precisely, knowing mostly what not to do. He knew to avoid shouting like his father; to keep his hands steady — don’t drink, first of all — and not to frighten the child. What he couldn’t be sure of was what came after.
With one diligent hand, he guided the bottle to James’ mouth, cradling him as if he weighed nothing, as if he were both the most precious and most infuriating thing in the world at once. James sucked contentedly, tiny fingers curling around Severus’ sleeve, and at last, a soft, satisfied gurgle replaced the earlier squeals.
Black lingered nearby, arms crossed, but he wasn’t complaining anymore. He watched the gentle, meticulous way Severus soothed the baby, whispered soft shushing sounds, and kept careful track of stray drool, rogue quills, and flailing toes.
“Not bad,” he mumbled quietly, crossing his arms against his chest.
Severus’ ears twitched at the sound, hanging onto the words with almost rabbit-like perception. He didn’t reply; he didn’t need to. Black’s grudging compliment spoke volumes, and for the first time that day, Severus allowed himself the smallest moment of relaxation. Baby James cooed happily, completely oblivious to the battle of egos — and perhaps, secret affections — brewing above him.
“Harry has been easier to handle, though, hasn’t he?”
It had apparently taken two cups of tea to ease Snape enough to test the waters. He had chosen the type they shared on calmer evenings in the kitchen: chamomile with a hint of mint, steamed until the soothing aroma curled into the air. Sirius always noticed the precision in Severus’ pouring. This time, there was a tiny, almost imperceptible tremor in his fingers when he set the cups down on the bedside table.
He supposed it had been difficult for Snape, too, to breach a topic they hadn’t touched since that one ludicrous week. After James had turned back, he’d been adamant on pretending the incident had never happened, sweeping the memory under the rug as a mistake too “small” — or too painful, Sirius had always thought — to acknowledge.
How embarrassing must it have been, knowing his biggest crush had seen him in such a state?
On the days they’d spent in the Gryffindor common room, Lily had witnessed the tiny boy wailing, squirming, and even stark-naked at one point, limbs flailing and hair sticking up in every direction. Sirius could almost picture Lily rushing in with a mix of horror and amusement on her face, while James wiggled and twisted, pink creeping up his cheeks as he desperately tried to cover himself before the redhead could really take it in. Pleading for a rescue, or perhaps, even a hint of dignity.
It was difficult to imagine anything more mortifying for someone who spent so much effort cultivating a particular image. But fortunately for him, Lily had taken it all in good humour and still given him a chance later on. Sirius wasn’t sure he would’ve been so forgiving.
James had always cared what Lily thought of him; more than anyone, more than reason itself. For years, Sirius had watched him fret over her stupid opinions, spending an extra second fixing his hair whenever he turned, his grin faltering whenever she arched an eyebrow, a careless remark sending him spiralling. All Sirius could do was endure his rambling, tossing out jokes or reassurances while his nails dug crescents into his palms.
No matter how often he shoved the thought away, it surfaced all the same. If he’d been in Lily’s place — born a girl, or lived in a world that tilted just slightly differently — he wouldn’t have turned up his nose and scoffed until James polished himself up. He would have taken him exactly as he was, loud and messy and utterly hopeless.
But somehow, after the whole absurdity of seeing James in a new, humbling light and watching Snape handle the bratty version with more patience than Sirius knew he possessed — the sting had dulled. The grown-up James still complained more than ever, and Sirius listened like he always had. Only this time, the familiar ache never quite found its mark.
It had surprised him, how little it hurt then.
Sirius looked up from the steaming mug in his hands, startled into a small grin. “Easier?” he echoed, eyebrows rising. “You mean he hasn’t torn the place apart completely every night?”
The corner of Snape’s mouth twitched into a smirk. “Marginally less catastrophic. And he does sleep through longer now, thanks to your spectacular singing,” he added sarcastically.
A snort escaped Sirius. He raised the mug and took a cautious sip. The tea was still too hot, but tasted grounding, like being nudged back into himself. He let the heat linger on his tongue, breathing in the faint steam wafting between them.
At first, he’d chased a very different burn. It came sharp and poisonous, swallowed too fast and too often, leaving his stomach heaving and hands shaking worse than before. He remembered waking up on cold floors, mouth sour, head splitting, the world pitching violently whenever he tried to stand. Bottles had littered every surface — evidence of nights he barely remembered and mornings he wished he didn’t have to face. It had been easier to drown the noise than sit with it. Easier to drink until his body gave out than to think about why sleep never came cleanly anymore.
They’d circled each other more viciously then, snapping and retreating in equal measure. Sharp remarks landed like flung glass, tempers brittle enough to shatter at the slightest provocation. It hadn’t taken much for words to give way to shoves, for shoves to turn into split lips and bruised knuckles — once, even a broken nose on Sirius’ part.
At some point, Snape had started leaving these mugs within reach at night. Always the same. Always waiting when the hour ran too late and Sirius felt like an abandoned dog pacing the edges of the room, trying not to think about the numbness in his fingers from clutching his best friend’s corpse, or the way his mother’s screams still seemed to echo from the walls. Trying not to touch Reg’s empty bed, in a room still littered with newspaper clippings of that horrid murderer.
Across from him, Snape said nothing. He just watched the kettle, adjusted the steeping time and turned away at precisely the moment Sirius might’ve looked too closely. Sirius never thanked him either. He simply drank, and the cold seeped out of the house inch by inch.
Maybe it was the scent of the spiced tea tonight, a small comfort in an otherwise nightmare-riddled place. Maybe it was the soft flicker of firelight catching the walls, or the hush of Christmas Eve settling over the room. Or maybe he was just feeling irrationally sentimental.
He set the mug down, still warm against his palms, and let his voice drop low. “Sometimes I forget he’s not… James.”
Snape’s hand stilled on the kettle. After a measured pause, he finally muttered, almost too quietly to hear, “It’s hard not to.”
He didn’t elaborate, didn’t offer comfort or explanation. He simply stepped back, letting Sirius wrestle with the silence. But a sense of peace rose from that small admission, if only for a moment.
Thank god, Slughorn had announced that it would only take another day to complete the restoration potion. One more day of this circus, and the infant might finally be returned to something approaching normalcy.
Severus had already learned, though, that normalcy was a fluid concept when it came to Black and Potter.
He still remembered a flash of sun-hot stone and jeering laughter, his robes fallen loose, a wand ripped from his hand before he could stop it. The air had tasted like dust and humiliation when his pale legs had been exposed, heat rushing to his face so violently it made him dizzy. His eyes had burned as he stared at the grass beneath his feet, refusing to give them the satisfaction of tears.
And then Potter had —
No. The memory always stopped there, jagged and unfinished, because if he let it go any further he could still feel the certainty that the world had decided he deserved it. That no one would ever step in again. Not after he called Lily —
A sharp pinch snapped him back to the present.
Severus hissed as something small and surprisingly strong twisted a fistful of his robes, nails digging into his skin beneath the fabric. James had lunged forward with delighted determination, shrieking as though this were a game, his grip tightening painfully on Severus’ wrist.
“Oi — no, no, Jamie,” Sirius said at once. He crossed the space in two strides, firmly prying James’ fingers free. “We don’t grab like that,” he scolded, voice stern in a way Severus hadn’t heard directed at the child — or anyone — before. “That hurts.”
The baby protested immediately, face crumpling in tears of outrage, but Black merely shifted James to his other hip, angling his body away from Severus entirely. “Hands to yourself, mate.”
It was nothing. The sting at Severus’ wrist had already faded, but the echo of it lingered confusingly, lodged somewhere between expectation and relief. God, it was such a small thing, so why did his chest lurch so painfully? He hadn’t expected anyone to intervene so casually.
Least of all Potter’s right-hand man and his almost-murderer.
The Gryffindor common room — a strategic concession from Black, claiming the space often under the guise of “social stimulation” — smelled faintly of burnt toast and charmed cocoa. The enchanted fireplace flickered brighter than usual, embers leaping and casting playful shadows across the walls. James was soon perched in the center of the red carpet, squealing with unrestrained delight as Lupin dangled a rattling deer above his head. Pettigrew sat cross-legged nearby, poring earnestly over a baby-care manual, occasionally glancing up to nod in approval.
“Careful with the quills,” muttered Severus, snatching one from under James’ questing fingertips. “If you impale someone, I will not be responsible for the consequences.”
“Oh, he’s fine,” said Black breezily, scooping James into his arms. “Look at that face! Who could resist?”
Severus resisted the urge to bare his teeth.
That face was a lie. A grotesque act of false advertising. It was obscene, frankly, how those ridiculous hazel eyes widened, bright and guileless. His face was too round and too soft for someone destined to grow into James Potter. His mouth curved into a gummy grin that had nothing to do with merit and everything to do with biological manipulation. If there were any justice in the world, the child would have inherited at least some unfortunate feature to warn others in advance.
He scoffed, redirecting James’ hands back towards the toy with more force than strictly necessary. Potter had terrorised his adolescence, humiliated him publicly, carved himself into Severus’ life like a scar — and here he was, reduced to a drooling menace who smelled faintly of milk and refused to be hated properly.
That was the worst part.
Severus could catalogue every reason he should despise this creature. And yet, when the baby looked up at him, solemn and trusting, fingers curling clumsily around Severus’ thumb, he couldn’t help the warmth creeping traitorously into his chest.
Perhaps it was the routine they had built over the week — the unspoken understanding of who soothed, who fed and who watched, or the way the boy seemed to rely on all of them — that made the madness tolerable. Even… manageable.
Disgusting.
As Severus shifted his position, angling himself for optimal supervision and minimal drool exposure — and absolutely not because the child had leaned towards him again — the portrait hole swung open.
Lily Evans stepped into the room. She paused just inside, green eyes flicking instinctively to the centre of the chaos. She had clearly seen this scene enough times to know the routine of it now, though she’d never once addressed Severus directly since the change.
Then, briefly, her gaze landed on him.
On his hand, still caught in James’ grasp.
Something shifted in her expression as she took a step forwards — surprise, perhaps, tempered by thoughtfulness.
“I thought I heard… commotion,” said Lily, faintly amused, her voice carrying over the clatter of toys.
James gasped at the sound of her voice, twisting eagerly in Black’s arms. Severus withdrew his hand at once, tucking it beneath the fall of his sleeve as if it had never been there at all.
Black regarded her with a breathless grin. “Why hello there, Evans.”
She lingered around, quietly observing even as the room gradually emptied. Lupin and Pettigrew had long since gathered their things, murmuring goodnights as the common room settled into the soft hush of late evening. Black, never known to be the practical one but somehow rising to the occasion tonight, placed James into Severus’ rigid arms and rose to fetch the baby’s formula with a casual, almost reluctant glance, leaving the two former friends alone in the glow of firelight.
“You’ve… been taking care of him.”
Severus stiffened further, but could not look away. “It’s… necessary,” he replied, deliberately neutral.
“Necessary, yes,” said Lily, scooting a little closer, keeping her attention on the baby. “But… you do it well, considering everything. Patient, careful. It’s… admirable.”
His chest tightened, a mix of shame and reluctant pride twisting inside him. He didn’t respond immediately; the softness of her words contrasted painfully with the misunderstandings, resentments and distance that had stretched between them over the past year.
“I… I shouldn’t have —” Severus began roughly, wincing as he tried to backtrack and almost reconsidered backing out entirely. “I shouldn’t have let things… deteriorate between us. I shouldn’t have called you a — I’ll never again…”
Hours spent pacing the stone corridor outside the common room last year, hands clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white, his voice cracking as he begged for her understanding, for any sign that she would listen. He had no way of knowing if she’d been on the other side of the closed door at all. And still, he had humiliated himself to the lowest of lows just to hear one more word from her.
Because she had been the first one to ever see him as Severus, not Snivellus.
Lily’s hand rested lightly on James’ tiny shoulder, her stare unwavering. “Look, Severus… stop it,” she sighed. “I don’t need to hear all of that again. I just need to know what matters now. Are you really… going to be a Death Eater? Do you really believe in all of that?”
Severus froze at the question. The weight of it pressed into him, but the homely environment and her calm scrutiny gave him a strange sort of courage. “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I just know that I regret it. That day. I don’t want to… stay like this.”
“Nor do I.”
The words settled between them, gentle but heavy, like ash drifting down after a fire had burned itself out. The crackle of the hearth filled the silence, embers shifting slowly as James shifted in Severus’ arms — warm and solid, for once grounding him even as his thoughts threatened to run ahead of themselves.
Severus stared at the baby’s crown, at the absurd sprout of jet-black hair, and forced himself not to hope for too much. Hope had always been a dangerous thing: rising too quickly, only to be torn away and leave him hollowed out in its wake.
Lily eventually spoke again. “And… I should apologise too. For what I said that day. For… leaving it all like that.”
He shook his head at once, too quickly. “No,” he blurted out. “You shouldn’t. You didn’t —”
“I want to.”
“Don’t.”
Heat rushed up his throat, his eyes stinging with something perilously close to tears. God, he couldn’t bear it — her warm voice, the risk of being seen again, exposed and pleading like he had been then. If she went on, he was certain his chest would crack wide open, embarrassing and irreversible.
And then —
“So,” said Black, breezing back into the circle with the bottle in hand, as if he hadn’t just interrupted something fragile. “You two friends again, then?”
Irrationally, relief flooded him.
Severus sucked in a breath. Black stood loose-limbed and warm in the firelight, long hair falling into his eyes, grin uncertain but sincere — and for one disorienting moment, Severus thought: handsome. Worse, good. Solid, dependable in a way he had never once afforded to admit.
Saved from himself.
Lily glanced at him with a small, playful smile tugging at her lips. “What do you say, Sev?”
Severus hesitated only a heartbeat before meeting her gaze, a faint flush creeping up his cheeks. “I’m — yes,” he replied softly. “Only — only if you’d want to, of course.”
Merlin, even with the dark circles bruising the skin beneath his black eyes and his hair hanging limp and unwashed around his face, Snape looked impossibly alive tonight.
He had no idea just how much Sirius wanted to lean over and close the distance between them. Tilt his head just so, to see whether Snape would stiffen as always… or finally give in. The wanting shocked him with its intensity, with how long it had clearly been there, waiting for him to catch up.
Oh, how he’d wanted to do that back then, too. The feeling had crept in quietly, uninvited, that time he’d opened the dormitory door at three in the morning and found Snape pacing the room in socked feet, hair loose and uncombed, bouncing a red-faced infant tucked awkwardly against his chest.
Even when the baby cried and spat up on his robes, Snape had remained a rock, unflinching under the weight of the world. The set of his jaw, the way his shoulders curved instinctively to shield the child — just thinking about it made Sirius’ stomach flip. Amid all their chaotic arguments, pushing and scrambling like feral animals, he had discovered the boy he’d always mistaken for brittle and weak was, in fact, unmovable.
And perhaps it hadn’t even started there.
Perhaps it had begun earlier, in Potions class, when Snape was razor-focused, sleeves shoved up his forearms, bony fingers coated in herb residue. The snap of his voice when his partner made the wrong move, the intense darkening of his eyes, the dangerous grace of him leaning over a cauldron, heat curling around his face. Sirius had caught himself tracking the line of his throat when he swallowed, the curve of his mouth when he sneered, that pale stretch of skin at his neck as he moved his hair aside —
Ridiculous, Sirius told himself. He was tired, sentimental, swayed by the holiday, and by the fact that Snape was the only one left standing beside him. And yet his gaze kept finding him, again and again, drawn like a moth to something warm and steady in the dark.
Snape, for his part, seemed oblivious to all of this, absorbed in the photograph on the mantle. James and Lily, smiling, arms looped around each other with Harry between them, the baby’s tiny fists reaching up as if determined to pull them closer.
He used to wonder if Snape hated that photo because James’ face was in the picture. Because he had stolen Lily’s heart and taken her away from him. Or, more likely, because he’d made his life a living hell from the start. Sirius had been there too, and he had no excuse.
But then again… the bullying had stopped for years.
Freshly transformed back to his usual charming self, James had paced their dormitory pink-faced and furious with his hands fisted in his hair. Sirius remembered chuckling at first, ready to make a joke of it — until the colour had climbed all the way to James’ ears and he had snapped, “Don’t. Don’t say it.”
After that, it had been small things. James opening his mouth when Snape passed, then closing it again. His gaze sliding away. The hexes that never came. At first, Sirius had thought it was a fluke. But over time, he’d understood.
He couldn’t laugh at someone who had changed his diapers.
He couldn’t sneer at someone who had wiped vomit from his chin.
He couldn’t torment someone who had held him steady when he was helpless.
And Sirius, for some reason, had no objection to that at all. Not if it meant James would finally earn a smile from Lily and prance through the dormitory, beaming brighter than ever. Not if it meant Snape and Lily would finally laugh together again, the way they used to in Potions. And most of all, not if it meant Snape would meet his gaze more often across the hall, glare with less venom, stop flinching whenever he got close.
He let the memory drift away, resting his hands on the mantle as he took in the ease in James and Lily’s smiles, the life they’d carved out despite everything. Against all odds, they had grown up, found each other, and built something lasting.
“They were happy,” Sirius said at last, rougher than he intended as he fixated on the picture.
A quiet inclination of Snape’s head, his doe eyes never leaving the photograph. “Yes.”
Something loosened in Sirius then — something that had been knotted tight for years. He stepped closer before he could overthink it, until his own reflection ghosted in the glass of the frame. “We did right by them,” he said, softer now. “By Harry.”
Snape’s fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the photograph before he set it down with care. When he turned, meeting Sirius’ gaze for the first time in what felt like years, his gaze remained guarded — but open, in the way Sirius had come to recognise as begrudging trust.
The first time had been nothing like this.
It had been clumsy and ill-timed, muttered in the shadowed corridor after Snape had just coaxed Harry to sleep, and the house had been freezing with the kind of silence that followed nightmares — of mocking laughter, of distant howls, and the weeping wind that still crawled under the skin. Sirius had drifted in from the dark like a ghoul himself, hands quivering uselessly at his sides, and finally. Finally.
“‘M sorry, Snape.”
Said too late and offered half-asleep without a proper explanation, without the will to plead for forgiveness, nor the courage to remain. And yet…
“We did what we could,” replied Snape. The words were plain, unadorned. But they carried acceptance rather than dismissal, easing open a tightly clenched jar.
Severus had always given what he could, even when it cost him.
The space between them suddenly felt fragile. Sirius reached out slowly, giving him time to retreat. Severus didn’t. Their hands brushed, then stilled, as if both of them were waiting for the other to decide. Sirius leaned in, resting his forehead lightly against Severus’, and felt him breathe out, warm and steady against his skin.
When they kissed, it was slow and unhurried. For once, nothing stolen or desperate. It was a simple press of lips, a promise made, without words, for more to come. Behind them, the photograph watched on, replaying a moment of joy that no longer hurt quite so sharply.
And when they parted, Sirius huffed out a faint, incredulous breath.
Perhaps he didn’t want to murder Severus Snape after all. Forever could wait, too. This would be enough: the two of them, and Harry nestled safely between them, sharing their first Christmas in a little makeshift family.
“Happy Christmas, Severus.”