Cross-Pollination

Warning: Minor Spoilers for TDKWWS below.

When Harry casually scopes the street (a habit picked up from the war and reinforced by his profession) he spots him. Harry does a double take and wonders if he's finally lost his mind. He stops. Stares at the man. James, who's all of ten and beautifully oblivious to so much, still manages to notice something is up.

"Dad?" he asks between licks of his sugar quill.

Harry does not answer, focusing instead on the frightfully familiar figure.

James cranes his head to look around him. "Do you know him?"

He glances at his mop-haired son. So he's not gone mad then. Small mercies, Harry supposes. "No," he lies.

When Harry looks back to where he spotted the man, he's gone.

-o-O-o-

A few years later, Harry sees him again. This time, he's with Albus. Not wanting to spook the man, Harry tries to not let on he sees him at all after he spies him through a gap in the passing shoppers of Diagon Alley. Albus, who's always been far too perceptive, notices he's distracted when Harry's approving murmurs in response to his prattle about an experiment he and Scorpius are doing lessens.

"Dad?" he asks. "What's wrong?"

As he did with James, Harry lies. "Nothing," he says.

Never one to just let things go, his younger son digs his heels into the cobbled-street and forces Harry to look at him with a tug on the sleeve of his robe. "Come on, Dad. I'm not dumb. What's wrong?"

He glares at his son, despite wanting nothing more than to continue to stare at the man out of the corner of his eye. Harry scowls. "Nothing's wrong," he insists.

Albus crosses his arms and turns sulky.

Harry shoots a look back at where he spied the man. Like before, he's vanished. And now he has to deal with a cross preteen on top of everything else. If he ever sees him again, Harry is going to pretend he doesn't exist.

-o-O-o-

Just as he promised himself last year, when he's out with Lily and sees the man through the front window of Rosa Lee's, Harry turns his gaze away and pretends he never saw him at all.

If Lily picks up on his downturn in mood, she says nothing about it.

(Though her increasingly chipper comments about this and that tell him that she notices all the same).

-o-O-o-

It's just over a decade before Harry sees him again. This time, however, it's not from afar. While shopping for a Christmas gift for Ginny, he runs right into the man's back while not watching where he's going.

"Sorry," Harry says instinctively as he jumps back.

The man stares back at him with surprised black eyes.

Harry doesn't think he meant for them to bump into each other. Perhaps the Christmas Eve crowds got the better of him and he lost sight of Harry, which led to this very encounter. Now that they are so close, Harry notices much more than he did on any of the previous occasions. He'd thought it the distance, his poor eyesight, maybe the lighting, but he knows now that's not the case.

He looks young. About James age, if he has to make a guess.

It's confusing and strange and wrong and so many other things, but instead of asking about it, he says, "Sir?"

Snape's young face morphs into something between loathing and amusement. "No one's called me that in fifteen years."

"Give it another decade," Harry replies unthinkingly, acting as if he is talking to one of his kids' mates instead of him.

Shockingly, he takes it well. He snorts and rolls his eyes.

Feeling a little emboldened, Harry asks, "How? Why are you here?"

"How? A spell. Why am I here…" he trails off. Frowning harshly at something behind Harry, he gives a sharp shrug of his shoulders. "To just know one way or another if life went on. This world was truly in shambles when I died."

Harry shifts uncomfortably. Snape's not wrong. Far from it, even. That day, during of the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry had not been sure if he (or anyone, really) would ever see another dawn. "You're young," he finally says.

Snape rolls his eyes again. "Not by choice, I assure you."

"I've seen you more than once. You've looked the same every time."

"It's the spell," Snape answers. "It takes me to the place and time of my choosing. What's been nearly two decades for you has been but a handful of hours for me."

He nods. Things still don't make much sense, but Harry thinks it's intentional on Snape's part. Harry wonders if it's because he's still a git or if it's a requirement for him to be vague. "Why have you come back so many times?"

"To get a fuller picture of the future," he answers. Snape's lips upturn briefly. "I've not been disappointed by what I see."

Harry scrubs a hand through his hair. He feels torn between pride and incredulity. Over the years, Harry's wondered what those who died might think of the world today. It's nice, knowing one of them – even if it's Snape – thinks it's an alright place. Still, he doesn't know why it's him Snape decided to use as his litmus test for the future. Snape never liked him. If he wanted to know if the light had won or not, surely he could have picked another. Any Gryffindor who went to Hogwarts with Harry would have done. Like Dean, who went on the run, and would only be able to walk the streets of Diagon Alley freely if Voldemort was defeated.

"That's a relief," he finally says. Then, after an awkward moment of silence, he asks, "So, uh, should I expect to see you some more after this?"

Snape shakes his head. "I've seen enough." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a photo. He hands it over to Harry. "It's time I focus on my and my home's future now."

Harry stares at the picture. There are four little kids standing in front of a slide. Two are girls; one blonde, one brunette. They appear to be about four or five and there's something about them that looks very familiar. He thinks it's in their smiles, which are identical. They remind him of Albus somehow. An older, stocky boy stands behind them, grinning. On his hip is a toddler with eyes as black as new cauldrons. He pouts at whoever is taking the picture. It's a little more difficult than it was with the girls, but Harry can see the baby and boy are related. Cousins, maybe?

"Are they yours?" Harry asks once he hands back the photo.

Snape gives a slight nod. "The boys are," he answers.

"They look happy."

This draws a satisfied, proud smirk to the other man's face. "Their mother and I do our best."

"Are… Are things good where you're at?" Harry asks hesitantly. He thinks it must be, for Snape to be here, checking in on him; but he's learned better over the years than to assume.

He dips his chin in an answer. "It's very different than here." An odd expression crosses his countenance. It's a bit like what Harry might call pride on another's face, but feels is more like superiority on Snape's. He's not surprised by this. He always was a git to Harry. "Better, you could argue. There was never as much suffering."

Casually, Harry takes his glasses off and cleans them with the edge of his scarf. "Why's that?" he asks, curious, but also annoyed. He's becoming tired of this vagueness – even if it might be a necessity.

"We came from here," he replies, gesturing with an arm at the street and people around them. "We knew enough to improve things."

Harry's brow furrows. "We?"

"Myself and Lily."

His jaw drops open. "Lily? My mum, Lily?"

Snape smirks. "Yes."

Harry scrambles for his wallet. Finding it, he opens it and flips to the slot that holds a picture of all of his children; Lily, James, Albus, and Teddy. It's a few years old now, from the Christmas before Lily graduated Hogwarts. They're all wearing their Weasley sweaters and grinning happily at Ginny, who'd been the one to take the photo of them.

"You give this to her," Harry insists. "I want… Please, tell her I've never forgotten her. Her granddaughter is named for her." Then, quieter, he adds, "My younger son was named after you, you know. I tell him you were one of the bravest men I ever knew."

He averts his gaze, out of embarrassment, Harry thinks, but takes the photo nonetheless. "The others?" Snape asks.

"What?"

He flashes him an irritated frown. "What are the other boys' names?"

"Ah, on the right, that's my oldest son. His name is James and the other young man, with the turquoise hair, that's Teddy. Good as mine these days, but his parents are Remus and Tonks. You might have heard about him, he was born shortly before the Final Battle."

Nodding, he pockets the picture. Then, hesitantly, Snape pulls out his photo from earlier. "You might as well keep this. Lily would want your kindness returned. The girls, they're your sisters."

"Sisters?" Harry repeats in little more than a whisper. That explains why they reminded him of Albus. He squints and brings the picture a little closer to his nose. "They don't look anything like my dad."

Snape sighs. "In an effort to create a better world, some things did not happen. Your father and mother falling in love being one of them."

Harry looks away from the twin smiles of the girls and at the man. Harry wants to say that it's fine. But, really, he's disappointed. Harry always sort of imagined they were happy in the afterlife together. To know that they are in a different world where they don't love each other as husband and wife and his mother has children with another man… Well, Harry's ashamed to say he's not happy for his mother. He's not upset, but he wishes things were different.

"I don't exist where you're from, do I?"

"…No. Not really. Your father does have a son that was born about the same time as you, but his mother insisted the lad be named Henry, rather than Harry. She thought it was more regal."

Harry cracks a grin. "Don't suppose you have a picture of the lad, do you?"

He scoffs. "It'll be a cold day in Hell when I start to carry around a photo of James Potter's progeny in my pocket."

"Yeah, should have expected that," says Harry after a laugh. "You didn't like me, why would you like his other son either?"

Snape doesn't reply. Instead, he just stares back at Harry with a blank face. Even so, the silence is admission enough for Harry. Snape doesn't like this little Henry. All Harry can do is hope that Henry has a support system that will protect him from Snape's nastiness.

"What are the girls' names?" questions Harry.

His gaze snaps back to Harry. "The blonde is Francine, named for her paternal grandmother. The brunette is Ivy. Lily wanted to keep up the plant tradition her mother started."

"That's lovely," he murmurs, stroking Francine's cheek with the tip of his thumb. "What about your sons? What are they named?"

"The oldest is named Lewis. The baby, Basil."

Harry puts away the photo. After, he puts out his hand. Snape stares at it, a look of bewilderment on his face. "Come on," Harry chides, "you have shaken hands before, haven't you?"

Snape shoots him a mean little glare before he places his hand in Harry's. "Yes," he grits. "I just don't see why we are now."

"To thank you," Harry answers easily, "for what you did here. My kids wouldn't exist if it weren't for you."

He looks away again. Harry thinks he sees guilt lurking in his gaze. "They nearly didn't because of me as well."

"You did what was right in the end," Harry tells him. "That's all that matters to me."

Snape seems marginally less unhappy after Harry's assurance. Letting go of Harry's hand, he says, "Thank you. It's really time I leave. Returning to where I belong will become tricky if I linger much longer."

"Of course."

Harry watches him retreat into an alleyway not far off. Silently, he counts to ten and then approaches the dead-end. He peers in only to sigh. Harry doesn't quite know what he was hoping for, but he thinks – knows – a small part of him was praying Snape would still be there, that, perhaps, he could take Harry with him back to this "better" world of his.

He'd have loved to see his parents, meet his little brother and sisters (even if they would all be young enough to be his children and grandchildren). Reaching into his pocket, Harry pulls out the photo Snape gave him. Studying each and every bit of his siblings' faces, then, the faces of Snape's boys, Harry whispers, "I hope you never know the suffering of war like I and your parents do."

Harry then tucks the photo in his breast pocket and goes on with his day.

-o-O-o-

Many, many years later, when Teddy Lupin is helping his god-siblings clean out their parents' home after his Aunt Ginny's passing, he finds an odd photo of four little children tucked in the drawer of what used to his godfather's bedside-table. He turns it over, looking for dates, locations, or names. He finds none. Turning it right-side up once more, Teddy studies the picture.

There's something just this side of familiar about the girls. They remind him a bit of Albus's daughter, Eve, when she was little. Getting up from cleaning out the drawer, Teddy calls to his godbrother, "James?"

The younger pops his head in from the hallway. "Yeah?" he asks.

He walks over to James and hands him the picture. "I found this in Uncle Harry's drawer. D'you know who any of these kids are?"

James studies the picture for a moment, only to shake his head. "No," he answers. "The girls look a bit familiar, though, don't y'think?"

"A bit," Teddy replies. "Why do you think your dad had this in his bedside-table?"

The other man shrugs. "Dunno. Maybe someone sent it to him. Dad was holding onto some weird stuff towards the end there."

Reluctantly, he agrees. "Yes, you're probably right."

Even so, Teddy doesn't throw it out with the rest of the rubbish he finds in his godparents' room. Instead, he slips it into the pocket of his slacks and lets it stay there, a mystery burning into his thigh.

-O-

Some months later, when Teddy is walking through Hogsmeade after a visit with his middle-son and his new wife, a couple approach him. They're a bit younger than he is. Not quite middle-aged, in the case of the blonde woman, but damn near. The two are glancing between him and what looks to be a small piece of paper in the stocky man's hand.

"Excuse me," the woman says.

He stops. "Yes?" he asks. Maybe they're looking for someone. Hogsmeade is pretty busy on the weekends and it can be difficult to locate friends and family if you don't pick a place to meet up in advance.

"We found this picture in my mother's things, I was looking to return it," the woman tells him, holding out a picture of Teddy and his god siblings.

He just stares at it. There's no doubt, that's a picture of Teddy. Merlin, do they look young. He reckons it must be from around the time Lily graduated from Hogwarts. Instead of the crop she's been wearing since she was twenty, in the photo, Lily's hair is pin-straight and to her waist.

When he fails to take it, the woman asks in a fretful tone, "Oh no, is that not you? The hair–"

"–No, that's me," Teddy cuts in. To assure her, he takes the picture and points at the other faces. "Those are my god siblings, James, Albus, and Lily." Now that he's looking right at the woman and her partner, Teddy realizes he recognizes them. Or, rather, he recognizes the man. The cleft-chin is quite the giveaway. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out the photo he found in his godfather's bedside-table all those months ago.

"I found this picture in my Uncle Harry's room a while back," he says. Handing the man the picture, he asks, "This is you, isn't it?"

The pair blink owlishly at the photo. "Would you look at that?" the man murmurs. "Basil's as charming as ever."

The woman snorts.

Curiously, Teddy asks, "Which one is Basil? The brunette?"

"No," the blonde replies with a short shake of her head. "It's my husband's little brother, the baby."

Since they haven't taken it from him, he turns it around to look at the picture. "Tyke looks like he could do with a kip," he remarks.

The couple chuckle. "He still looks like he could do with a kip," the man says with a grin.

Teddy returns the grin by changing his hair to a shocking yellow, which startles the two. "Oh, Merlin!" the woman yelps.

"Sorry," he apologizes. "I'm a metamorphmagus. Sometimes emotions get the better of me."

Clutching her husband's arm, the woman whispers, "That's quite alright."

"So, do either of you know how my godfather ended up with a picture of you as kids?"

They share a look. "My father, I reckon," the man finally says. "Can't be too sure, though. Aunt Lily never said in the letter she left behind how she got a photo of you and your siblings."

"Lily, huh? She wouldn't have happened to be named after Lily Potter, would she?" Teddy inquired curiously. He'd met a number of Harrys over the years who were just a few years younger than his godfather. A James once or twice too. Never a Lily, though. But it wouldn't be all that surprising if the man's aunt had been named after Uncle Harry's mother.

"No," the woman answers. "Her parents were Muggles."

He nods. "Ah." Then, after a not quite moment of awkward silence, he says, "I guess I'll let you two go then…"

The blonde bites her lip and shares a look with her husband. "Yes," she agrees, "I don't want to keep you if you have someplace to be."

"Thank you," Teddy says. "It was nice meeting you…?"

"Francine," the woman replies, taking Teddy's hand to shake it. "And this is Lewis."

Teddy smiles. "Francine, Lewis," he repeats.

Just as he's to set off, however, the woman, calls, "Wait!"

He turns his head, curiously staring at her. Francine's expression is a mixture of uncertainty, yearning, and fear. "Your godfather… Was he happy?"

Teddy furrows his brows in confusion. He doesn't understand. Why would this woman want to know if Uncle Harry had been a happy person? They'd likely never met – or at least only once or twice. Not enough for his godfather to ever mention her or the others. Even so, he doesn't see the harm in answering.

"At the end? Absolutely. So happy, in fact, Uncle Harry died with a smile on his face."

Thoughts? I debated a long while on if I wanted to upload this now or later. I picked now since it really gives almost nothing away about what TDKWWS will hold. And also because I'm one of those people who likes to read the end of a book before I start a story to know if there's a happy ending. I figure there's got to be others like me who'll appreciate this sequel ;)

Thanks for reading!