Harry was glad to hear it, but he still wanted to know one thing. "Did you tell him that you love him?"
Snape's eyebrows drew together, a storm gathering in the dark tunnels of his eyes, but he mastered his anger enough to speak in level tones. "It's best if you don't lecture me on how to treat my other son."
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I wasn't lecturing, I was just asking."
The Potions Master challenged him with a stare to rethink that claim.
"All right, I was lecturing some," Harry slowly admitted. "I didn't mean to but... it's just that you didn't see him last night. He kept watching the Floo, waiting for you. He had something to say, I could tell."
"More likely he wondered what I would have to say about the fact that he's written a grand total of three lines. I told him we'd be discussing the matter later."
"I guess that would trouble him." Worried, Harry slumped a bit in his chair. "Making him write that he's not a Gryffindor is... um, pretty harsh, I think. What if he won't do it?"
"Oh, he'll do it," Snape said, his eyes glinting with determination.
"Otherwise, what? Cauldron duty? You won't let him go to Devon to go flying?" Harry stopped talking when he realised he might be giving the man good ideas. His breakfast finished by then, he pushed back his chair. "So... today's the big day. Funny, I thought I'd be more excited. Well, I am but it's sort of overshadowed by this whole mess. I wonder if I should even bother packing all my stuff. Well, at least I can pack it all now. Did I mention Draco had spelled some wizardspace into my trunk?"
Snape rose fluidly to his feet, his features far from pleased. "I told him to leave your packing problem to me."
"Why?"
Snape glared. "I thought you needed one of those father-son talks you're so inordinately fond of. The topic being, why you felt compelled in the first place to gather up every trace of your life here and transport it all to the Tower."
Harry blinked. "Well, because it's my stuff, I guess. I mean, I always take everything along when I go back to school..." It suddenly felt like the floor did a smooth roll beneath him; Harry actually grew dizzy for an instant. Paradigm shift. Again. "Oh," he softly said, feeling ten times a fool. His father had told him ages ago that that room was his room and would remain so even after he returned to the Tower, but when the time came close, what had Harry done but moan and groan about how all his stuff wouldn't fit in his trunk!
"I get it," he finally said, the room steadying around him as he took a calming breath. "Will it help if I apologize?"
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm hardly angry; I merely want you to understand that when I say you're welcome here, it's not some theoretical construct. You're my son, for Merlin's sake--"
"I get it, I do," Harry assured him, but Snape didn't seem able to stop his stream of thought.
"I don't want you knocking, I don't want you acting like a guest when you visit, and I certainly don't want you erasing all indications that you ever lived here," the Potions Master went right on. "I know that home is an abstraction at best for you, but it's time you understood--"
"I understand!" Harry shouted, then could have groaned at the tone it had come out in. At least Snape had stopped talking, though. He went on in a more normal voice, "I just didn't think about it, I swear. I never had a place where I could leave anything; I'm used to shoving it all in my trunk. It's habit, that's all. I know this is my home."
"Good." Snape nodded as though satisfied.
"I'll go figure out what to leave behind then," Harry said. "I guess I don't need some of my books from previous years. Though I don't have anywhere to put them except in my trunk. I feel sort of bad to leave them cluttering up the room. I mean, won't they just remind Draco that I've gone back to classes while he's stuck here? Hmm, that'll be moot if we all have to leave the country--"
"I have absolutely no intention of brushing up my Spanish."
"Well, Brazil, then. Oh wait, do they speak Spanish in Brazil?"
Snape gave him a derisive glance. "I'll tell Albus we ought to offer a geography course."
"Portuguese, all right. I just forgot for a second, no need to pile more classes on us. Well, let me go figure out what to leave here and where to stow it." At that, Snape got an odd look in his eyes. Uncertainty? Whatever it was, it didn't much suit him. "Is something wrong?" Harry asked.
"No." The word and tone were short. "I told Draco to stay out of your luggage angst because I already had a solution--"
"Luggage angst!" Harry narrowed his eyes.
"I should have known that teenagers would believe they had to solve it all themselves," Snape drawled, his posture a little tense. "As I was aware that Draco would not care to be tripping over your belongings, I thought I would offer you the use of my old school trunk so that you could have one here as well as one in the Tower."
"Oh!" Harry felt a grin threatening to break. "Thanks, Dad. That's really sweet."
"Sweet." Snape looked a bit as though he might bite his own tongue in two.
"Considerate, I meant," Harry quickly said. He couldn't believe he'd just called Snape that. "Um, is your trunk is inscribed with your initials?"
The man still looked sour. "It is."
"I'll take yours with me to the Tower, then. I'd like to be able to casually toss out that you lent it to me. You know, it'd go a long way towards showing some of the more stubborn Gryffindors that you really are my dad."
Snape huffed slightly at that. "Just do not tell them that you consider me sweet."
"I'm trying to avoid a reputation as a nutter, remember?" Harry laughed. "Besides, Fred and George thought it was loads of fun to do strange things to other people's stuff. Before I left Gryffindor all those months ago, it looked like a few people were trying to carry on the legacy. But nobody would dare lay a finger on your trunk, sir. I mean, they'd expect it to be hexed in about a thousand different ways. No offence."
The Potions Master's eyes took on a mirthful gleam. Devilish, Harry thought. "Well, there's a time and place for fear. As it happens, your friends would be right. I believe you've even encountered this particular hex. It's the same one I utilized to ward my liquor cabinet."
Harry felt his face heating, but decided the Slytherin thing would be to brazen it out. "Oh, you warded it? I never knew."
"Just like you never stole my Boomslang skin and Gillyweed?"
"I didn't!" Harry drew in a deep breath, the old accusation bothering him more than it probably should. "You really should believe me."
"It hardly matters now." And then, at Harry's crestfallen look, "Very well then, if you must know, I do believe you about that, but not about the liquor. Enough of such matters. The question now is what to do with the hex on my trunk. We can either alter it to recognize you as well as me, or dispense with the warding altogether."
Harry thought about that. "Well, it's not like I live in Slytherin, you know. I can see why you needed to hex your own trunk, but--" He stopped talking when Snape actually snorted. "What?"
"I didn't hex it to fend off fellow Slytherins, you idiot child. I was tired of a certain Gryffindor using his invisibility cloak to sneak about in the dungeons. Your father used to target my belongings for his pranks, but that put an end to it."
His stomach twisting a bit, Harry frowned. "You're my father."
The Potions Master's eyebrows drew together. "Sit," he directed, pointing, his tone of voice almost harsh.
Confused by the lightning shift of mood, Harry sank into a chair. "What's wrong? I've been calling you that for a while. You said it was all right."
Snape took a place on the sofa and leaned forward intently, his black eyes steady on Harry's face. "It is not all right for you to distance yourself from James, Harry. I am your father, yes. But so was he. Don't deny it again."