𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇

Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen: Elpis, Greek Goddess of Hope

My papa was so lonely when Dad died. Sometimes, he had his good days. Other days were horrible.

On his good days, he'd smile. That was the only real time we could tell if it was a good day or a bad day. Seeing him smile was very rare, but it was always the brightest on the good days.

The bad days nearly killed me. He'd lie in bed all day, sleeping or crying. All too often, he was crying. Losing his husband and his daughter took a huge chunk out of him and he couldn't deal with it.

I lost my sister and my dad that day, but I hadn't seen any of it. Sometimes, I'd have my own bad days. Whenever I dreamt of them, it'd be a bad day for me. I wouldn't cry as much as Papa did, but I'd still refuse to get out of bed.

I hated the bad days. When I was too young to take care of him, Uncle Remus would come by and sort it all out. He'd cook Papa breakfast, get him showered and at least drag him out into the lounge room so that Papa didn't wallow in bed all day. I could never do that. Not even when I got older. I could get him food, but I could never convince him to be out in the sunlight like Uncle Remus did.

But when Uncle Remus died, Papa nearly came out of his shell. He saw how much Uncle Sev was hurting and helped him out as much as he possibly could. He knew what Uncle Sev was going through. Seeing another suffering like that helped him more than I'd like to say. It doesn't sound that good when you think about it. Someone else had to be in as much pain as he was before he could do anything.

I think for Uncle Sev's sake more than anything, Papa's bad days started to become fewer and fewer.

It kinda hurt that he'd do that for a man he hated for most of his life, but couldn't do it for his son.

Harry sighed deeply, his mind completely boggled by the information before him. Sure, he had heard Draco mention it before, but he had never once imagined it could have been as true as this.

His mind was possibly scared.

He had walked in on their alone time.

And had run out of the room as quickly as his knobby knees had allowed him.

Severus Snape and Remus Lupin were definitely in a relationship together and he had a very sudden urge to burn his eyes out.

"I warned you," came the smug voice of Scorpius. He was hiding under his Invisibility Cloak, as was expected of him. His parents nearly shared heart attacks when he was caught without it by Theo that day on the lake. The other teen had walked up on them and had started to yell at the three of them for allowing the blonde kid to be so open to the students. It didn't seem to faze Scorpius at all, but the other two had insisted that he started to wear the Cloak everywhere again.

Scorpius let out a loud yawn from next to Harry and Harry could hear the material moving as the boy stretched. "I think that's bedtime for me. Maybe you should come back tomorrow. You can probably get your answer then."

Harry sighed again before he agreed with his son. "Yeah, sure. I'll walk you down to your room."

Although it hadn't been confirmed yet, Harry was certain Scorpius was his child. Oddly enough, it made sense to him. He knew that because of that, he was also the future husband of Draco Malfoy. That caused all sorts of havoc on his system, but he was fine with that. At the age of seventeen, he had found the one person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

He hadn't admitted to himself that he was in love with the feisty blonde. No. He was dangerously attracted to him, but not in love with him. Not yet, at least. Just thinking those thoughts had his face burning. Thinking about loving anyone was enough to make you blush, but knowing these things was pretty damn frightening, yet exciting.