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After sending his Patronus to Lily with a message about Pettigrew, he doesn’t stick around. He’s seen what happens to traitors of the Dark Lord; he has no desire to grace the man’s dungeons or be given to Bellatrix. He flees to the most forbidding magical forest in Europe, makes a bargain with the locals centaur herd and carves out a home near a river to grow his herbs and avoid any wizards or witches searching for him.
The nixies seem to like him; they bring him moss and sea-flowers that only grow deep in aquatic soil, and in return he gives them items he’s enchanted or fixed for them, or potions that keep their skin smooth or their wounds uninfected. He’s surprised how good it feels, having someone be genuinely pleased with something he’s done, without judging him harshly for the Darker bits or actively, aggressively encouraging the use of those bits. Here he is prized for what he can do, what he is doing, not what he could do.
--
The dryads like to come and sit in the sun on his clay windowsills, preening their leaves or brushing their hair with combs and shells he leaves out just for them. They leave berries for him to use, or a type of bark he’s mentioned might help him make a breakthrough, and he’s always grateful, because they did it because they like him and not because he’s threatened them or asked for it.
Soon, the word has spread through the forest that there’s a kind, judicious wizard living by Glorag’s river who will help with anything he can do, and that it’s encouraged to bring him gifts to thank him. Brownies help him clean his hut, and in exchange he brings them fresh cow’s milk, just enough to fill a saucer each, and leaves it where they can find it. Nymphs spell his mirror to tell him jokes every morning to cheer him up, and the will-’o’-the-wisps lead the village children to his hut for healing draughts or magical toys or even just to talk. They all bring two gifts, one to placate their guides, and one to thank him.
--
He sections off a bit of earth to grow his plants. He warns any who might be adversely affected by the presence of the Angili Snapdragon, for example, the one vine in the world that seems to have a true consciousness. He’s seen no record of it having been grown in a magic forest, but he’s hoping the sheer power in the air will guide it towards creating its own physical body like the dryads do. He sits and talks to it for hours, reading it children’s stories and introducing it to the others of the forest. Some of the younger children like to lay beside it and nap, sharing their dreams for the perfectly donut-shaped bush to see.
He names it Lily.
--
He’s long known that someone from his old life would come to search him out.
He’d hoped it wouldn’t be this fool.
--
“Severus, my boy,” says Dumbledore, handing off a wrapped package to a gremlin. Centaurs stand watch at the edges of Severus’s designated living area, powerful arms ready to reach for their bows. The little creature snaps at his fingers, misses, and toddles over to Severus so he can open it. Severus tugs off the tape and lets the gremlin retreat to his front door to open it. It’s almost a cute image, watching the little beastling sitting on the floor unwrapping his gift with dozens of other oddly-shaped creatures peering curiously over his shoulder, but then Dumbledore clears his throat. “Severus,” he says again, managing the ‘ I’m very disappointed in you ’ tone. “I thought we had a deal?”
“We did, in fact, agree to a deal, Albus, one that you broke the night you refused to tell Lily of Voldemort’s plans.” Severus says coolly, turning to stride towards the river. Glorag’s always willing to help him with rude visitors. After all, the man had brought no gift for him, and that was, to a river spirit, the height of rudeness, second only to demanding something that never belonged to you or stealing. He could see them now, curious head tilting at him through the trees. Dumbledore is keeping pace behind him, still trying to chatter at him.
“Now, Severus, I told you to trust me, didn’t I? Lily is safe, I assure you, as is her husband and son.” Severus pauses; the man’s voice had lilted oddly at the word ‘son’, the way it had always lilted when the man had done something he knew you weren’t going to like, but was still ‘for the greater good’. Severus got an awful feeling in his stomach.
“Albus.” He said, feeling his chest compress with the weight of this awful feeling. “Where is Lily’s son?”
--
The boy was stored in a tiny building in the village nearby, only five years old and crying softly through a charmed gag. Severus’s stomach rolled violently, and he dropped to his knees before the boy, cradling Lily’s son’s face in his palms and making quiet calming noises. There was fire blazing behind his eyelids.
Dumbledore was mad.
“Voldemort is not gone , Severus, but that boy is the key to saving us all, I know he is!” The man ranted, waving his hands and pointing at the boy every few seconds.
Severus’s wand was in his inner sleeve, warming his wrist with its angry vibrations. When Dumbledore’s back was turned, he slipped the boy’s exhausted eyes closed and whispered a sleeping charm. Then he stood and turned around, wand arm extending in an efficient, deadly arc.
--
He didn’t bother cleaning up the old fool’s corpse. The man deserved to feed every hungry animal from here to Lily’s house. He deserved an army of aurors on his trail.
Severus carried the little boy home, to his hut by the river. Glorag helped him wash the boy in their waters before calling for several naiads to guard the edge of the forest from intruders. He’s seen their angry faces, with mouths that unhinge like a snake’s and teeth that file themselves magically into daggers full of venom. The nixies pull themselves onto the bank, all night-black mares and pixie-like things with long, webbed fingers and needle-nails. They don’t speak any language Severus knows, just something like a cross between a high-pitched shrieking wail and a low, moaning wind. Glorag stirs them into a frenzy for this human child and they rage into the forest to tell the others and hunt the fringes of the woods for Dumbledore’s loyal followers.
Severus carries the boy to his hut and transfigures a block of wood, freely given, into an extra blanket. They share his small mattress that night, and he holds the boy close and tries not to dream of Lily.
--
In the morning, the boy wakes and proceeds to have a short, terrified cry in the corner while Severus makes breakfast. Once that’s done, he sinks to his knees in front of the boy and silently offers him a leaf from the salad. The boy doesn’t take it.
He sighs, settles onto the dusty floor of his hut with his back against the wall, and places the bowl of greenery between them.
He picks a stem out of it and shows it to the boy, who’s not crying so hard now and is studying him in the same fascination he is studying the boy with. “This is celery. You might not like it; the flavor is a little acidic, and it is neither sweet nor sour.” He pops it into his mouth and grimaces as the taste seeps into his tongue. He chews for a bit, watching the boy to make sure he isn’t about to cry again, before plucking up another piece and offering it to the boy. “Here, you try it.”
The boy tentatively snatches it from him and pops it in his mouth, grimacing from the sharp bite of the stem. Severus waits until he’s done with it before continuing on to tomatoes and slices of apple, eating one piece himself before offering another to Lily’s child.
--
“What’s your name?” He asks when the bowl is empty. So far the boy hasn’t said a word, but Severus isn’t holding that against him. He’s just been kidnapped by a madman and dragged across the land before being left confined in a tiny, dark space without any way to free himself. He then woke up in a strange, unfamiliar place with a man he’d last seen at Dumbledore’s side. His original panic wasn’t unforgivable, seen in that light.
“Harry Potter,” says the boy, licking bits of nectarine off his fingers, and Severus nods to show he’s heard him before heading outside.
--
They spend a year together in Severus’s hut, eating salads and berries and brewing potions and playing with the nixies and the naiads in the river, paying tribute to Glorag and sitting for a meal with the centaurs to renew Severus’s bargain for another year.
Harry charms the brownies, the gremlins and the pixies with his wild little boy grin and quick wit. He spends afternoons when Severus doesn’t need him to gather herbs laying beside Lily and telling it stories about the outside, how people can be nice and happy, like his mother and father and Uncles Moony and Padfoot ( how curious he doesn’t mention Wormtail, have they even told him the man existed? ), and calm and kind like Uncle Sev.
Severus doesn’t sit with the boy; it feels too much like intruding in something private.
--
The nixies know not to trick Harry onto their backs or into their arms, so when Severus receives word that Harry has been injured by the riverbank he drops everything to rush there. Luckily he’s not brewing anything at that moment, or working with volatile materials, so nothing explodes as he leaves the hut.
Someone has been attacking the forest near the river, scorching the trees and trying to get past the wards that have protected this place for centuries. You must be seeking sanctuary to enter, not seeking one who has sought sanctuary.
Harry’s ankle is a little bruised from a fall but it’s nothing one of Severus’s potions won’t fix. He’s standing with the boy in his arms, ready to take him back to the hut to heal, when there’s a gruff, rumbling rrowr from behind him. Harry squeals in delight and wriggles in his arms.
“Uncle Padfoot!” The boy shrieks in joy, and Severus carries him over to the wispy, silvery bobcat crouching on a large riverstone nearby. He sighs as he sets the boy down and decides to simply accio the potion for Harry’s ankle; it’s not that complex a potion, so using a spell on it shouldn’t hurt it too much. Besides, bruise cream is a simple enough cream , not a potion anymore, so it shouldn’t be affected at all. He frowns as he thinks about it.
“Uncle Sev?” Harry’s little fist is tugging at his sleeve, and he glances up.
“What is it, boy?” He asks absently, one hand raising to catch the potion hurtling towards them.
“Can I learn how to make that?” Harry asks, pointing at Black’s bobcat with an excited air about him. The cat is grooming now, snuffling through its fur as though they’re not there.
“Yes, I could teach you to make a Patronus,” Severus says. He smears the bruise cream on Harry’s ankle and pats his leg. “You could use it to send messages, or to fend off Dementors.” Harry shudders, his expression souring. He’s seen the entries in Severus’s books, with illustrations and explanations of the Dementor’s powers. Severus has been trying to perfect a potion that will have a similar effect to that of the Patronus. He hands Harry his wand, flipping it and correcting the boy’s grip. The Trace shouldn’t work on his wand; the spell deactivated when the wand’s owner turned eighteen, and he was almost a decade older than that.
“Now,” he says to Harry, ignoring the bobcat’s interested eyes, “focus on the happiest thing you remember. What is it?”
“Um,” says Harry, mouth puckering in thought, “When we were brewing the forgetting potion and I said something funny and you laughed.” Harry smiles.
Severus pauses for a moment, mind already storing that away, before nodding. “Picture putting that memory into this wand right here, in your hand. All of the happy feelings are inside you, but the memory is here. Now, the spell for the Patronus is ‘ Expecto Patronum ’, understand?” He demonstrates the specific wand movements, gripping Harry’s tiny hand in his. Harry nods.
“ Expecto Patronum! ” He says, and gasps when a feathery strand of white shoots out of the wand and weaves itself into a large, lovely horse.
No, it’s not quite a horse - it’s a nixie. From Glorag’s river.
Severus beams in pride. “Excellent, Harry, that was very quick, and you did it beautifully for your first attempt.” Harry glows, and his boy’s nixie canters over, nibbling at Harry’s hair and straightening until it’s almost a human height, thinning out and becoming a younger Severus, hooked nose and straight hair and everything, and Severus almost sneezes he’s laughing so hard. “Why don’t you give it a message to give…” he snorts, and Harry giggles without quite knowing why they’re laughing. “To give to your father! ” James Potter , who believes Severus Snape his scourge, is going to have to face the man in his own son’s Patronus!
He seizes, unable to get any air through the rapid movements of his diaphragm, and collapses back onto the grass.
The irony of it all is almost tangible.