James and Lily anxiously looked at the long haired man who was trying his best to enjoy a bagel, however it was very difficult to enjoy his meal while the two continued staring at him, clearly having something on their mind. “Are you two going to continue observing me like a bird forever?” Severus asked after finishing the small bread. James was the one to close in on Severus first, rubbing his neck for a while before mumbling something that Severus couldn’t quite make out. “Uh…I didn’t quite catch that, sorry.”

The man with oval glasses muttered it this time but once again Severus couldn’t understand what was going on. “Honestly…stop acting like a child and just ask him!” Lily eventually nagged from behind James.

“Ask me…what?”

Mr. Potter adjusted his glasses before finally, clearly speaking what he’d asked twice already. “Could you take care of Harry for the evening while Lily and I go out?”

Severus’ made a befuddled noise, eyes darting from side to side. “Excuse me?” He ultimately responded with. “Are you…asking me to babysit while you two go out on a date? Did I get that right?”

James shrugged his shoulders. “You don’t have to, it was Lily’s idea. Personally I don’t really-” Lily fake coughed into her hand while directly focusing her sight on James’ back. “...There’s gonna be a pretty neat sounding fireworks show in town. It’ll last until midnight and we don’t want to take Harry out for that long.”

The two men stared at each other for quite a good while, Severus looking less than impressed with James’ ask. Snape took a look over his shoulder and saw Lily looking at him with puppy dog eyes, at which he softened his thoughts.

“Again, you don’t have to do this, we’re just asking since Harry seems to feel comfortable around you and…” James bit at his lip, averting his eyes. “And…And you have a lot of freetime due to being still unemployed, right?”

Harry and him have grown closer and he doesn’t feel nearly as scared or panicked taking care of a child. Of course this would be his first time being left completely alone with him, but Severus knows how to take food out of the fridge and Harry could use the bathroom on his own. It would just be for a few hours and Severus can’t imagine anything too large happening.

A robber comes by? Just use a discreet spell to push him back out. Harry starts missing his parents? They could use the telly fone or whatever it’s name was to call Lily on her “mobile fone”. Harry gets into some sort of accident again? Severus could always take a few medicine potions from home or perform a simple pain relief spell on the boy.

Severus rubbed his stubbly chin for a while. “Ok, I don’t see why not.”

James’ eyes went wide, his glasses slightly fogging up. “Wh- Really?” The man asked with surprise, “You’ll do it?”

The long haired man shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve finished rereading my entire home library and there haven’t been many job openings near Spinner’s end yet for me to start searching.” He nonchalantly grabbed another bagel and chewed a small piece off of it. “On which day exactly is the show?”

Lily got closer, laying her head against James’ left shoulder. “This Sunday, We’ll leave around 7PM and will come back around 12:30 PM.” She explained.

Severus nodded. “Harry’s usual bedtime is at nine, right? I can handle taking care of him for two hours and then putting him to bed.” It’ll be a bit dangerous going home after midnight, but perhaps he could rent a room in a “motel”, which he’s learned is a sort of muggle Inn.

He still isn’t used to the muggle world yet, but he’s become accustomed to everyday aspects. Just recently he even found time to buy muggle fashion items, which were a lot cheaper compared to the wear in the magic world. Granted it might be because he went to a rather “cheap” store, but he is neither interested nor in the right financial state to get anything from a “brand”.

James still seemed sort of shaken up after Severus’ response. He gripped at the top rail of one of the chairs while seeming lost in thought. “Is something wrong, Potter?” Severus asked. James shook his head and without sparing another glance at Severus he walked upstairs. “...Lily, could I ask something?”

“...Y- Yes.” Lily responded with a somewhat shaken voice.

“How come he’s so…worried whenever I get close to Harry?” Severus asked. 

Even after all these months James seems strangely overprotective with the young boy. It isn’t just with Severus, one time there was some sort of salesman stopping by and when Harry was close to the door James made sure to shield him, glaring at the salesman whenever he seemed to show any sort of interest in the child.

Lily had also told Severus about James holding Harry close whenever the three went grocery shopping, even when Harry would try to slightly pull away from his father’s hand James would just hold on tighter. They had an argument over it because he ended up bruising Harry’s hand.

Stranger danger is understandable, but James was taking it a bit too far from Severus’ viewpoint.

Perhaps due to James’ work hours he still hadn’t gotten used to him. The former Gryffindor and Slytherin used to absolutely despise each other after all, so perhaps it was left over bitterness from the past…but, then why was he so much more aggressive when it came to random strangers?

“...Sev, have you ever trusted someone…?” Lily began, “Someone who you thought of as completely harmless only for them to do something so…just so horrible?”

Snape shook his head, the only person he’s ever trusted had been the redheaded woman in front of him. The one to do something horrible had been him many years ago, Lily had never done anything close to as hurtful. She had called him that annoying nickname James and his friends would call him one time, but not with the same amount of malice as those boys.

There was his mother but…these days he barely remembers anything about her.

He vaguely recalls moments where she was sweet when still around…but he couldn’t recollect what exactly she did or what she even looked like.

“I don’t…I can’t tell you everything right now, but just know it’s not anything that you did.” Lily assured Severus. She closed her eyes and wore a vague smile on her face. “Thank you again for helping us, I think it’ll be good for James if we have one day to ourselves.”

Severus wasn’t sure why, but Lily’s voice had sounded so foreign to him when she spoke those words. She sounded so…fake.